CMTKeith Urban was the big winner at the 2017 CMT Music Awards, airing live from Nashvilles Music City Center on Wednesday. He picked up four trophies, including Video of the Year for Blue Aint Your Color -- which also earned him Male Vocalist honors. Keith also won for Collaborative Video of the Year, along with Carrie Underwood for their duet, The Fighter, as well as the Social Superstar award.

Carrie also took home Female Video honors for Church Bells. She now has 17 belt buckles, making her the most-awarded act in the history of the CMT Music Awards.

Little Big Town won for Group Video of the Year for "Better Man and Florida Georgia Line nabbed Duo Video of the Year honors for H.O.L.Y.

The evening also featured several one-of-a-kind musical performances that teamed top country artists with some of todays biggest pop artists.

The telecast opened with a tribute to legendary Allman Brothers Band leader Gregg Allman, who died on May 27. Jason Aldean, Darius Rucker and Lady Antebellums Charles Kelley were joined by guitarist Derek Trucks for a version of The Allmans classic Midnight Rider. Trucks is the nephew of Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks.

Brothers Osborne were joined on the outdoor stage by legendary rocker Peter Frampton, who traded guitar licks with the duos John Osborne on their hit, It Aint My Fault.

Florida Georgia Line paired with The Chainsmokers for the electro-pop song Last Day Alive, which appears on the latters debut album, Memories...Do Not Open.

Luke Bryan and Jason Derulo fired up the audience with an encore version of this years CMT Performance of the Year winner, the Derulo hit Want to Want Me.

The show ended with a funky finale featuring Lady Antebellum and Earth, Wind & Fire as they joined forces on a medley of Lady As  You Look Good and EW&Fs 1978 hit September.

Other performers included Thomas Rhett, Urban and Underwood, Blake Shelton, Brett Eldridge and Little Big Town.

Here's a list of the winners at Wednesday nights 2017 CMT Music Awards in Nashville:

VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban  Blue Aint Your Color

MALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban  Blue Aint Your Color

FEMALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Carrie Underwood  Church Bells

DUO VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Florida Georgia Line  H.O.L.Y.

GROUP VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Little Big Town  Better Man

BREAKTHROUGH VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Lauren Alaina  Road Less Traveled

COLLABORATION VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban feat. Carrie Underwood  The Fighter

CMT PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

Jason Derulo and Luke Bryan  Want to Want Me (From CMT Crossroads)

SOCIAL SUPERSTAR OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Sydney's 2000 postcode has the worst childhood vaccination rate in the country, national data reveals.

A deep dive into vaccination rates by suburb shows vast disparities between neighbouring communities and some markedly vaccination rates in Sydney and NSW.

Just 70.5 per cent of five-year-old children were fully vaccinated in the area encompassing the Sydney CBD, Millers Point, Haymarket, Dawes Point and The Rocks, showed 2015-2016 immunisation data released Thursday.

More than one in four children (122) in this age group living in this area have not received all the vaccinations listed on the National Immunisation Program Schedule, found the Healthy Communities report.
Technicians failed to effectively respond to an escalating IT meltdown at the Tax Office for nearly four hours last year, adding to chaos caused by warning and back up systems that were not fully operational.

The ATO has blamed multinational Hewlett Packard and stressed fibre optic cables for the unprecedented crash of internal storage networks on December 11 and 12, 2016 and February 2 this year, causing much of the agency's work to slow to a halt and scores of staff to be sent home.

Damage control: Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan. Credit:Wayne Taylor

Nearly a petabyte of data - a million gigabytes - had to be recovered from the outages, with much of the chaos repeated in early February when a cable replacement exercise went wrong and data cards were dislodged, prompting another system shutdown.

Described by Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan as the organisation's "worst unplanned system outage in recent memory", the report released on Thursday found performance of the IT systems had been favoured over stability, resilience and cost, with no planning for the series of events which interrupted thousands of businesses and individuals in dealing with the ATO and even risked this year's tax return season.
Catholic schools have been ordered to stop hearing childrens' confessions behind closed doors, as Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart responds to new child safety rules.

In a directive issued in November last year, Archbishop Hart asked Catholic school principals and parish priests to conduct confessions "in an open setting in the full view of all participants, who are supervised by staff".

All religious organisations have a statutory exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act.

The parish priest must ensure there is a "direct line of sight" to the penitent.

But there is debate about what constitutes an "open setting" and how much privacy students and priests should be given during confession.
Airbnb operators could be hit with extra building fees to repair the wear and tear inflicted by holidaymakers on Melbourne's apartment buildings.

A parliamentary committee has recommended a major overhaul of the Andrews government's planned short-stay reforms, saying the proposed laws do not give owners corporations enough power.

Airbnb: is hosting more trouble than it's worth? Credit:iStock

A key issue is guests causing excessive damage to common areas, including from dragging suitcases through lobbies and lifts.

The committee, chaired by the opposition's planning spokesman David Davis, recommended the government consider giving owners corporations the power to bill short-stay hosts with extra fees to cover maintenance and repair damage caused by their guests.
The inquest heard Perry missed a supervision meeting with his parole officer on July 9, 2013, but that instead of the meeting being scheduled for two days later it was set for the following week. Perry claimed he missed the meeting through illness.

"Mrs O'Toole expressed the view that, had Mr Perry been required to attend a parole supervision meeting on 11 July 2913, it may have changed the course of events which led to Mr O'Toole's death the following day," Judge Hinchey wrote in her findings.

Perry also missed a supervision meeting a month earlier, but despite that, the frequency of his meetings was changed from weekly to fortnightly.

Mr O'Toole's inquest heard the parole system was operating much better following the Callinan review of its inadequacies in light of Adrian Bayley's murder of Jill Meagher in 2012, while Bayley was on parole.

Last year, then state coroner Ian Gray called for parolees to be monitored the same way sex offenders are, after an inquest into the death of Sarah Cafferkey, who in 2012 was murdered by Steven Hunter, 11 days after he came off parole. Judge Gray found Hunter, who had served a term for murder before he killed again, "played" the parole system.
The West Australian government has been likened to the Bible-loving housewife of Simpson's character Ned Flanders after the premier revealed he only wants mid-strength beer served at the new Perth Stadium.

Mid-strength beer is currently sold at Domain Stadium but full-strength beer is only served within corporate and functions areas.

Maude Flanders in The Simpsons.

Sports Minister Mick Murray previously said he wanted full-strength beer available during the day and mid-strength at night, but Premier Mark McGowan said on Wednesday that he wanted full-strength beer banned at Perth Stadium when it opens next year.

WA's first Liberal Democrat MP, Aaron Stonehouse, oddly compared the McGowan government to Simpsons character Maude Flanders, a devout Christian who died after she was knocked off a grandstand in a T-shirt cannon accident.
Beijing: China's billionaires have been so busy making money that they haven't had time to spend it - and universities are winning from a resulting boom in charity.

China's 2017 top 100 philanthropist list shows the trend for the country's wealthiest property developers, finance and technology tycoons to make big charitable donations is gathering pace.

Jack Ma at the launch of Alibaba's office in Melbourne in February. Credit:Stefan Postles

Almost half (44 per cent) of donations in 2017 were made to universities, up from a third (27 per cent) three years ago, according to the Hurun Philanthropy List 2017.

China's richest man, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, ranked 18th on the list, for his $26 million donation to the University of Newcastle in Australia.
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NOTICE OF LIEN SALE Extra Space Storage will hold a public auction to sell personal property described below belonging to those individuals listed below at the location indicated: Store # ...

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Martell launches VS Single Distillery cognac

Pernod Ricard has unveiled Martell VS Single Distillery Cognac featuring design work from Nude Brand Creation.

The packaging design highlights elements of the product story to provide differentiation within the category.

Martell has a history spanning more than 300 years and claims it now it is planning to disrupt the VS category by launching a single distillation expression.

The shape of the traditional montre cognac bottle is the inspiration for the new bottle shape.

A restructured cap is sealed with a beige paper ribbon, revealing a cork, while a single label runs down the neck.

An offset VS disrupts the usual Martell label arrangement and two lines of copy explain the story behind the single distillation source, to draw consumers attention. Warmth injected into the label reflects the liquid colour and fruity notes of the cognac.

Mike Parsonson, partner at Nude Brand Creation, says: Within the Cognac category, there were very few brands talking about their product story.

Todays consumers are interested in brands with a compelling back story so we knew dialling up this aspect of the story would resonate with them.

We took some inspiration from the craft drinks sector, but gave it a modern twist by adding drama and vibrancy into the design. At the same time we communicated the single distillation process in an easy to understand way.

An embossed swift in the glass is claimed to dramatise the brands strong iconography and reinforces the brands origins in the 18th Century when Jean Martell first set off from Jersey.

Craft elements introduced to the bottle will disrupt the sector, but the design still maintains consistency with the Martell portfolio.

Martell VS Single Distillery will launch into the UK market this month.

Nude Brand Creation has worked with Martell on its portfolio since 2012.

8 June 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
The Texas A&M School of Public Health announced Wednesday a new partnership with the Houston Methodist Research Institute and the Center for Outcomes Research to work toward addressing health outcomes for patients in acute-care settings.

Officials said the joint program will consist of a collaboration between Texas A&M faculty and clinician-scientists from Houston Methodist. It will be led by School of Public Health associate professor Bita Kash, who also heads up a five-university National Science Foundation cooperative research center between industry and university anchored at A&M.

"With support and direction from the rich clinical environment that characterizes Houston Methodist working with Texas A&M faculty, our goal is to conduct research in the fields of health services, health economics and health operations that will provide national leadership and fundamental improvements in patient outcomes in the US and throughout the world," Kash said. "Research findings will be translated into actionable strategy for health system leaders to implement rapidly."
For years, genome sequencing has been a practice that's largely isolated to large research groups with the resources to bear the lofty cost of the necessary equipment. Today, however, rapid advances in the technology behind the science is quickly finding its way out of the laboratory and into the lives of everyday people.

The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Genomics and Bioinformatics Service is hosting a training this week where 38 Texas A&M students and other researchers from around North America are getting hands-on experience with the Oxford Nanopore Technology MinION -- a genome sequencing system not much larger than a USB flashdrive, which officials said is rapidly expanding accessibility and possibilities of the field.

Charles Johnson, director of genomics and bioinformatics and executive director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Genomic Systems Engineering at the service, said the five-day training workshop -- part of the PoreCamp series that began in 2015 -- features five scientists considered leading experts in the field. The workshop is notable as the first of its kind in the U.S.

Johnson said the workshop is specifically designed to replicate previous courses that the scientists have conducted in the United Kingdom by giving participants the chance to learn more about several facets of the technology, its uses and the process behind it through a combination of lectures, lab demonstrations and hands-on testing.

Johnson also noted Texas A&M has some ties to the history behind the MinION in the form of Oxford Nanopore Technology founder and professor of chemical biology at the University of Oxford Hagan Bayley. Between 1997 and 2003, Bayley was a faculty member at A&M, leaving just two years before he founded the nanopore science company.

Where previous iterations of the technology required large, washing machine-sized equipment connected to supercomputers, Johnson said the pocket-sized MinION has opened up a world of new opportunities to researchers by offering quality performance in a miniature package.

John Tyson, research associate at the University of British Columbia and one of the scientists leading the workshop, said one of the most exciting things about both the training and the technology itself is how it is helping to "democratize the sequencing field."

"They're trying to let everybody have a go, even if they're not producing anything that's really fantastic," Tyson said.

At a starting price of $1,000, Tyson said the MinION puts the technology and testing capabilities within reach of researchers -- and even private citizens -- who may have previously been excluded by the high cost. In the coming years, Tyson said he expects to see the cost for the technology continue to decline as it is further refined and developed for a spectrum of specific purposes, such as diagnostic tests conducted in clinic.

Among the most exciting -- and occasionally frustrating -- aspects of the technology, Tyson said, is the rate of rapid evolution it is currently undergoing. He said often significant changes in coding or method can occur from week to week.

"You've got to have a certain amount of willingness to try it and willingness for it to go wrong," Tyson said.

Two of the other featured scientists leading the workshop -- Nick Loman of Birmingham University and Mick Watson of the University of Edinburgh -- said the MinION technology has made it into the field, with members of their team using it to test and detect for the Ebola virus in Guinea and the Zika virus in Brazil.

Loman said the portable size and ability to connect the MinION to a computer via a USB cable have opened up a broad range of new possibilities to researchers, including the ability to travel closer to the source of the subject they are studying and analyzing the data in real-time on site.

"At the moment, we kind of react to these outbreaks and we want to get out of this reactive mode," Loman said. "We want to be able to spot problems when they're small and addressable rather than when they get out of control, which is what happened with Zika."

In addition to the study of pathogens, Loman and Watson pointed out the technology has numerous other potential applications ranging from the study of the often symbiotic microbiome organisms living inside humans and animals or diagnosing illnesses to examining the food on your plate.

"The important thing that makes this different from a normal piece of lab equipment is that most equipment doesn't ever leave the lab," Loman said. "...This is a potential technology that will come out of the lab and into food manufacturing, into clinics and hospitals and potentially into environmental monitoring."

As for the workshop itself, Watson described it as "an intense experience" with a lot of work but ultimately rewarding. Specifically, he said it is "interesting to see" the projects participants bring with them to work on with examples, including everything from manatees to fleas.

"It's a really cool technology which allows you to go all the way from the beginning of designing an experiment all the way through to the results by the end of the week," Watson said. "You don't know what's going to happen. Some things fail, some things work better than expected... It's really exciting."

Johnson said participants will be capping off the workshop with a trip to Austin, where they will be using the MinION technology for real-time testing in the field at Jester King Brewery.

For more information about the training workshop, visit txgen.tamu.edu/porecamp_usa.
A separate DeSmog report says that Exxon corporate documents from the late 1970s unequivocally declare "there is no doubt" that carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels was a growing problem well understood within the company.

Inside Climate News reports that Exxon confirmed the science on global warming by the early 1980s while publicly mocking those models for decades beyond.

Tobacco is good for you and so is a warming planet

Such denialism is alive and well. A leading global warming denialist lobbying outfit, the Heartland Institute, had this to say about the withdrawal from the Paris Accord:

"Angela Merkel and what is left of the E.U. are not happy (itself a victory), but fake science and globalism would take a big hit with this move."

So childish it could have been written by Donald Trump himself! Lavishly funded by Exxon, the Heartland Institute originally was a propaganda outfit for the tobacco industry, going so far as to deny the health effects of second-hand smoke.

Then there is NERA Consulting, which the Trump administration cited in its announcement of the Paris withdrawal. The White House statement claimed that "meeting the Obama Administration's requirements in the Paris Accord would cost the U.S. economy nearly $3 trillion over the next several decades" and has already cost six million industrial jobs.

Among other problems with this phantasmagoria is that none of the commitments of the Paris Accord have actually been implemented. Thus it is difficult to determine how those jobs supposedly disappeared.

What is NERA Consulting? It describes itself as "firm of experts" that provides economic analysis to corporate clients. DeSmog reports that NERA has repeatedly, sometimes anonymously, issued reports on behalf of coal, liquified natural gas and other energy corporations that claim wildly inflated job and/or economic costs.

Media Matters for America reports that a NERA report attacking the US Environmental Protection Agency's carbon pollution standards "has been thoroughly debunked by multiple experts" on multiple grounds, including failure to acknowledge any economic benefits. The NERA report was explicitly prepared for several energy-industry lobbying groups.

Earlier, NERA was involved in lobbying for the tobacco industry; a vice president said the tobacco industry should aim to explain the health "benefits" of smoking.

The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are also active funders of global warming denialism, and the two stand to profit enormously from the Alberta tar sands. The Koch brothers own close to two million acres that, should that land be fully exploited, would throw another 19 billion tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

The International Forum on Globalization estimates that the Kochs stand to make more than one million times more than the average Keystone XL pipeline worker over the life of the pipeline, based on potential profits of $100 billion.

Polar warming outpaces warming elsewhere

It is not a long distance from the Alberta tar sands to the Arctic, where global warming is particularly pronounced. Consistent with predictions that the polar regions would experience the sharpest rise in temperatures, the Arctic is 3.5C warmer than it was at the beginning of the 20th century with the region's sea surface temperatures up to 5C higher than the 1982 to 2010 average.

Much worse could be on the way, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns in its 2016 Arctic Report Card:

"Warming air temperatures in the Arctic are causing normally frozen ground (permafrost) to thaw. The permafrost is carbon rich and, when it thaws, is a source of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane. Northern permafrost zone soils contain 1330-1580 billion tons [of] organic carbon, about twice as much as currently contained in the atmosphere.

"Tundra ecosystems are taking up increasingly more carbon during the growing season over the past several decades, but this has been offset by increasing carbon loss during the winter. Overall, tundra appears to be releasing net carbon to the atmosphere."

Long before the release of such quantities of carbon throw the climate out of control, permafrost melting has begun to alter the Canadian Arctic's environment in worrisome ways. In an article for Inside Climate News, Bob Berwyn writes:

"Huge slabs of Arctic permafrost in northwest Canada are slumping and disintegrating, sending large amounts of carbon-rich mud and silt into streams and rivers. A new study that analyzed nearly a half-million square miles in northwest Canada found that this permafrost decay is affecting 52,000 square miles of that vast stretch of earth - an expanse the size of Alabama.

"According to researchers with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey, the permafrost collapse is intensifying and causing landslides into rivers and lakes that can choke off life downstream, all the way to where the rivers discharge into the Arctic Ocean."

At the other end of the Earth, Antarctic temperatures are up to 3C higher since the 1950s and they could increase an additional 5C by the end of the century.

So what happens if the increase in greenhouse gases continues indefinitely? Possibly, global warming unprecedented for more than 400 million years.

A study by researchers at Britain's University of Southampton and University of Bristol, and Wesleyan University in the US reports that if all readily available fossil fuel is burned, by the mid-23rd century atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations would be around 2,000 parts per million - levels not seen since 200 million years ago. Lead author Gavin Foster said:

"However, because the Sun was dimmer back then, the net climate forcing 200 million years ago was lower than we would experience in such a high CO2 future. So not only will the resultant climate change be faster than anything Earth has seen for millions of years, the climate that will exist is likely to have no natural counterpart, as far as we can tell, in at least the last 420 million years."

If all the Earth's ices melted (which they would at such levels of warming and carbon dioxide release), sea level would rise more than 60 meters (more than 200 feet).

Paris commitments well short of Paris goals

At the conclusion of the Paris Climate Summit, the world's governments say they agreed to hold the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but in actuality committed to nearly double that.

Nor is there any enforcement mechanism; all goals are voluntary. The summit, officially known as the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP 21, anticipates peer pressure will encourage signatories "to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible" and then "undertake rapid reductions thereafter."

The Paris goals are based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued in 2014, which foresees a rise in greenhouse-gas emissions for years to come, to above 450 parts per million, before falling to 450 ppm by 2100, which the report says is necessary to hold the global temperature rise to 2 degrees.

Unfortunately, the IPCC report relies on several technological breakthroughs, including capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide, which are not yet close to being feasible.

The now discarded US goal had been to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 26% to 28% in 2025, relative to 2005 levels. The European Union, Brazil, Canada, Japan, India and Australia have committed to cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions by anywhere from 26% (Japan) to 40% (EU) by 2030. China didn't commit to a specific cut but said it would reach a peak in its greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030.

The EU goals have an additional barrier, however - the British government under Theresa May has been working hard to significantly weaken draft EU climate and energy rules, including efficiency standards, even though the rules wouldn't take effect until after Brexit.

The doomed paradigm of infinite economic growth

A critical weakness of the assumptions underlying these goals is that the IPCC panel is asserting is that the cost of bringing global warming under control will be negligible, less than 0.1% annually during the course of the 21st century. No more than a blip noticed only by statisticians. There need be no fundamental change to the world's economic structures - we can remain on the path of endless growth.

The Earth, alas, does not possess infinite resources. Certainly there should be a continued push toward the use of renewable energy sources in place of fossil fuels. But the idea that 'green capitalism' will magically solve the problems of capitalism is a chimera. There is no way around the need to consume less and align production to human need rather than private profit.

Capitalism won't offer people displaced from dirty industries new jobs, and if the only option someone has to feed their family is take a job in the oil sands or in a coal mine, it is pointless to blame those workers. Then there is the 'grow or die' dynamic imposed on capitalists through relentless competitive pressures.

As Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, in their book What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism, write:

" 'Green capitalism', even if products are produced using the utmost environmental care and designed for easy reuse, offers no way out of a system that must expand exponentially and thus continue to ratchet up its use of natural resources, its chemical pollution, its contaminated sewage sludge, its garbage, and its many other toxic substances. Some of these 'fixes' will probably slow down the rate of environmental destruction, but the magnitude of the needed changes dwarfs these approaches." [Page 120.]

There are no free lunches. Doing what is necessary to keep the climate from going out of control, with catastrophic consequences, will require more economic disruption than the IPCC acknowledges. But the price of continuing business as usual will be much higher.

Our descendants are not likely to see short-term corporate profits a fair exchange for a less livable world.

Pete Dolack is an activist, writer, poet and photographer, and writes on Systemic Disorder. His book 'It's Not Over: Lessons from the Socialist Experiment', a study of attempts to create societies on a basis other than capitalism, was recently published by Zero Books.

This article was originally published on Systemic Disorder.
Making a return to our two favourite summer locations, Mount Maunganui and Nelson in early January 2023, we've got whiff of the first release lineup and me oh my, yes boy
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
WACO gets a crack at the first state championship game in school history
A recent action by a Court of Federal Claims has effectively stopped the collection of defaulted student loans  but for those affected, this is cause for concern, not celebration. To understand why, it's important to look at the fate of defaulted loans and how those attempting to recover from the situation are being harmed by this gridlock.

You have several options when you are struggling to keep up with student loan repayments, but once you have reached the point of default, the options are few and grim. One of the preferable options is entering a federal loan rehabilitation agreement with the Department of Education. You establish a repayment program that falls within their guidelines, and while missed payments stay on your credit report, the record of the default is removed. You can check your credit score and read your credit report for free within minutes using Credit Manager by MoneyTips. The Department of Education uses contract collection agencies to oversee collection of these repayments.

In 2015, five of these collection agencies had their contracts cancelled by the Obama administration after an audit concluded that the agencies were giving incorrect information to debtors trying to escape default. Four of those agencies took legal action against the Department of Education, thus setting in motion the actions that led to the recent court ruling.

Fast forward to February 2017, where the Trump administration attempted to settle the ongoing litigation by reconsidering assigning accounts to the agencies and disregarding the audit results  but without suitable compensation for the lost business to date. Two companies accepted the deal while two rejected the deal.

Meanwhile, a second dispute arose over the contract opened for bids in December 2015. Continental Services Group (ConServe) filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in December 2016, along with other rejected bidders. The GAO filing is supposed to trigger an automatic stay on work done within that contract. The restraining order was issued on March 29 after ConServe charged that the Department of Education was finding ways around the stay.

On April 21, the government mandated that all of the debt collectors involved in the legal action must stop working on any activity related to defaulted accounts, including answering questions regarding defaulted loans and accepting withdrawals from student accounts.

Unfortunately, those affected by the halt in collections are stuck in limbo. The loan rehabilitation programs generally require consecutive payments, and there's no guidance on what happens when borrowers are willing and able to make those payments but the collection agency is prevented from receiving them.

The Department of Education and the affected collection agencies are already swamped with calls that they cannot or will not address  but if you are in this situation, your best bet is to keep trying to contact both the collection agency and the Department of Education to make sure that you do not fall through the cracks. Make sure that you keep records of your attempts to contact the collection agency and evidence of the ability to pay (such as rejected auto-payments to the collection agency).

Keep in touch with current news on the topic (besides reading MoneyTips, that may require boring Google searches through legal sites). Unless the Department of Education is able to grant some form of temporary amnesty or suspension of the rules, borrowers run the risk of a secondary default or being kicked out of the loan rehabilitation program  an outcome that is not in anyone's best interests but could easily come to pass.

In that worst case, you may have to look at loan consolidation options that can still allow you to set up reasonable repayment plans, although you will not be able to remove the default from your credit history. Further information may be found at the Federal Student Aid website.

Consider contacting your representatives in Congress and apprise them of the situation. They may have trouble getting major issues passed, but the opportunity to help a number of their constituents caught in a bureaucratic nightmare is likely to draw their attention.

If you are still paying off student loans but are not in default, you are not affected by this action. Consider yourself lucky, but also consider yourself wise because you avoided potential default in the first place. You took the advice of Millennial Money Expert Stefanie O'Connell regarding student loans: "Paying it back is not a passive practice. The best thing you can do about tackling your student loan debt is to be proactive."

Find out quickly at what rate you can refinance your student loan.

June 6 is National Higher Education Day. In observance of the day and graduation season, MoneyTips has prepared an exclusive five-part series to highlight how student loans are affecting current and potential student borrowers. Read the first article in the series to learn how the shutdown of an important government tool has caused issues for those applying for student loans. Check out the third article in our Student Loan Crisis series, which reveals that many borrowers defaulting on their student loans surprisingly are not making use of affordable repayment plans.
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The Connecticut Office of Tourism is inviting residents to explore attractions across the state during its upcoming Open House Day.

Now in its 13th year, the event involves more than 200 participating organizations from historical societies and museums to theaters and local businesses. The state-wide celebration on June 10, 2017, will feature free admissions and tours, as well as special offers and giveaways.

"Connecticut Open House Day encourages residents to become tourists in their own state," a release said. "Residents will be exploring the state's fascinating world of history, art and culture."

The state's tourism office said the event also benefits state-wide tourism businesses.

"Last year, many participating businesses reported two, three and four times as many visitors on Open House Day than a typical Saturday," according to the release.

More Information For a full list of participating organizations on Connecticut Open House Day, click here. See More Collapse

More than 20 locations in southwestern Connecticut will be taking part in Open House Day.

The Connecticut Audubon Society at Fairfield said it has been a participant for many years. Visitors will receive a free program on birds, a guided walk through its sanctuary, as well as a discount at its Nature Store.

"We have over 150 acres here (and) seven miles of hiking trails," said Jane Guenther, store manager at the Center at Fairfield. "The guided bird walk will get people a little familiar with our sanctuary ... and there's no charge that day."

In Norwalk, Lockwood-Matthews Mansion Museum is offering reduced admissions prices, and electric bike store Pedego SoNo will be giving customers a free hour when they purchase a one hour rental.

Among Bridgeport's participants are the Beardsley Zoo, where the first 100 guests will be given half-priced admission, and the Bijou Theater, which is offering a free performance by the New England Ballet Company.

"(The state's) compact size makes it easy for for residents to explore a variety of attractions in one day," Randy Fiveash, director of the Connecticut Office of Tourism, said in the release. "We always encourage them to plan a full day of fun."

Click through the slideshow above to see more local attractions participating in Connecticut Open House Day.
Just one third of Americans approve of the job President Trump is doing, his lowest-yet approval rating with signs of an eroding Trump "base," according to a national Quinnipiac University Poll released on Wednesday.

The survey, taken May 31 to June 6, found 34 percent of those surveyed giving Trump a thumbs-up while 57 percent disapprove of the job being done by America's 45th president.

"There is zero good news for President Trump in this survey, just a continued slide into the chasm of doubt about his policies and his very fitness to serve," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of polling at Quinnipiac.

The president's announcement last week, withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, did not go down well with the American people.

The Quinnipiac poll found that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's Paris pullout: Only 32 percent approve.

In a wider finding, Quinnipiac reported that three quarters of Americans are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" with human-caused climate change. More than two-thirds of those surveyed felt that the United States should be doing more -- not less -- to address the problem.

The poll revealed deep suspicions about alleged Trump connections to Russia: 31 percent feel he did something illegal in his relationship with Russia, while 29 percent believe Trump behaved unethically but not illegally. Just 32 percent feel he did nothing wrong.

A majority of Americans, 54 percent, believe that Trump is too friendly toward the Russian government, the poll found.

Nor is the president reassuring. Overall, 68 percent of those surveyed -- including 32 percent of Republicans -- agreed that Trump is "not level-headed." Only 29 percent believe he is level-headed.

"With a third of the members of his own party questioning his level headedness, this is clearly the moment the president needs to stead the ship," said Malloy.

The distrust extends to other features of Trump's leadership. By a 59-36 percent margin, those surveyed do not feel Trump is honest. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed do not feel the 45th president has good leadership skills: 39 percent believe that he has.

The Quinnipiac survey included 1,361 voters and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.2 percent.
NORWALK  South Norwalk residents hammered anew at a Pennsylvania-based halfway house operator Wednesday evening over its efforts to open a facility in the heart of their neighborhood.

Donna Smirniotopoulos rejected Firetree Ltd.s assertion the halfway house at 17 Quintard Ave. would be similar to the drug rehabilitation facility run by Pivot Ministries on the property.

A federal residential re-entry center funded by the Bureau of Prisons, said Smirniotopoulos, who lives on Quintard Avenue. Its clearly not the same use. People on lockdown are not people in a sober-living environment. Its not a faith-based program. Those people were free to come and go.

Curt Watrouse, who lives on nearby Lowndes Avenue, labeled the Firetree facility a jail house that would draw persons from near and far to Norwalk.

Theyre going to bring people in and were going to get these prisoners put through out system, put through South Norwalk, Watrouse said. Theres no reason they should be there.

Watrouse and Smirniotopoulos were among roughly 60 people  most wearing Vote no stickers  voicing their opposition to the halfway house as the citys Zoning Board of Appeals resumed its public hearing on the controversial plan.

The two-part hearing, which opened May 4, comes after the citys zoning enforcement officer in February denied Firetree a tenant occupancy permit and certificate of zoning compliance for the newly renovated halfway house. Firetree purchased the property from Bridgeport-based Pivot Ministries in July 2015 for $429,000 and appealed to the ZBA after being denied the permits.

The public hearing continued into late Wednesday evening in the Common Council chambers, with a rebuttal from representatives of Firetree.

The hearing got off to a contentious start when ZBA Chairman Andrew T. Conroy called to go into executive session with Assistant Corporation Counsel Brian L. McCann for the purpose of discussing the counsel rules and procedures and his recommendations for this evening.

McCann said the purpose of the closed-door discussion would be to pass out an attorney-client communication.

Thomas P. Cody, an attorney representing Firetree, first objected to the call to go behind closed doors.

We do not believe that the reasons that have been stated for it satisfy the statutory criteria for executive sessions, Cody said.

Johnny Flynn, a resident, voiced objections.

Can we object to the executive session because we are in the dark? Flynn said. Youve got people on the board, now theyre in conflict. People got removed for conflict of interest. We have the interest. This is our block.

ZBA members went into executive session for about 15 minutes.

Afterward, Cody asked Conroy to recuse himself over the handling of email correspondence from board member Keith Lyon, who was not at the meeting. Conroy rejected the attorneys assertion that he, as chairman, had already made up his mind on the appeal.

I agreed with Keith when he said he had erred in pre-judging and I think we dont want to do that, Conroy said. But I dont have an interest in the case. I dont know anything really about Firetree other than what they presented here tonight.
As with most business strategies, interactive marketing can be done very well -- or very poorly. Regrettably, Burger King recently made just such a major interactive gaffe.

Related: Burger King Gets Burned in Twitter Duel With Wendy's

The company's motivation was solid: Get an artificial intelligence platform to be its sales partner. How? Burger King ended a commercial not with a call to action but an odd challenge: "Okay, Google. What's in a Whopper?"

The point was to make Google's AI device, the Google Home, respond, and it did, as did Android phones. As expected, these devices linked to the Whopper's entry on Wikipedia, which Burger King had carefully pre-edited to define its burger combo in yummy terms.

The problem? Viewers with a mischievous streak quickly redited that entry, replacing, for instance, "meat" with "child" and one of the ingredients with "cyanide."

The ad garnered attention all right, but not the right kind; and critics called Burger King out for being gimmicky and invasive.

Of course, the fast food chain wasn't the only behemoth to dance with interactive marketing. McDonald's did, too -- but brilliantly. Its ad featured actress Mindy Kaling requesting viewers to ask Google "where Coca-Cola tastes so good," prompting all those millennials to do just that. McDonald's name was not even mentioned -- but was obvious. This strategy produced kudos, not thumbs down, from the marketing world.

These examples illustrate just how slight the difference can be between pulling off excellent interactive marketing or bombing on a global stage.

No wonder executives everywhere are engaging in serious due diligence before giving the green light to any interactive marketing campaign. They realize that with the immediacy of a social-driven population, wiggle room is virtually nonexistent; still, they can't afford to ignore this emerging trend.

Interactive: Heating up marketing departments

Interactive marketing comes in numerous forms: content marketing, trigger-based marketing, event marketing -- the list goes on. But what really matters is that all interactive marketing has a stickiness that binds the user to the marketed product or service. It's symbiosis, a give-and-take relationship.

You can foster successful relationships using interactive marketing, but only if both parties get something out of the deal. In the case of Burger King, that didn't happen because its approach was off-putting. For McDonald's, a win-win scenario was established because its approach felt less like a hard sell to the consumer. Instead, it was all about the experience.

Just ask Danielle Narveson, director of strategy at inbound digital marketing firm LIFT Agency, who's passionate about interactive marketing. She understands that people are willing to pay more for brand experience -- especially when the experience meets the client need for relevant, high-quality service.

Related: 4 Secrets to Better Interactive Social-Media Content

In some cases, consumers are willing to pay as much as 10 percent more for a brand with an associated experience than for the same product without. This is the case with grocery home-delivery service Instacart. With 55 percent of shoppers in a 2015 survey having said they were open to a online grocery service, the success of this kind of experiential brand is much more likely in today's market than than it was just five to 10 years ago, Narveson told me.

Narveson's observation explained why leading media-buying companies like Coegi are recommending practicality over pure quirkiness when it comes to well-targeted interactivity and audience participation.

Coegi President Sean Cotton noted to me the power of coordinated advertising that reaches the consumer at multiple touchpoints simultaneously, and that audience's increased likelihood of consumer response to the brand -- the ultimate goal.

Burger King's bungle illustrated how painful an effort at interactive marketing with the wrong approach can be. In contrast, a well-thought-out campaign has big benefits, so it's worth considering what tactics will make sense in this evolving world of one-to-one selling. Here are several to consider:

Use live video-streaming.

If a giraffe's live birth can attract more than 232 million viewers, it's time to sit up and take notice. When Oliver, the spindly-legged baby, came into the world in April 2017 at a Connecticut zoo, he was long-awaited, thanks to a continuous live video stream from the zoo's facility housing Oliver's mother and father.

The zoo used the experience to drive donations and impart animal education. Similarly, your business may be able to make use of live streams as well. Start small by streaming a talk, event, chat, product demo, etc.; then, evaluate, experiment and repeat.

Make the audience part of the marketing.

Stay on social media long enough, and you're bound to see tons of calculators, quizzes and infographics come your way. What makes those vehicles so effective? They grab your attention and draw you into the story.

Your input is what makes these marketing experiences feel a little unique, a little different and a lot more customized.

Grab attention with powerful content in unexpected places.

When was the last time you abandoned an online shopping cart? Chances are good it wasn't long ago; stats say the abandonment rate is inching toward 70 percent. If you're in the ecommerce space, you can use abandoned carts as catalysts for innovative interactive marketing touchpoints.

"Come back and reclaim your cart" emails can be straightforward, funny, touching or rewarding -- whatever you choose. The goal is to make patrons finish the checkout process with a great feeling about the company.

Hyperpersonalize the experience.

The 2013-2014 "Share a Coke" campaign may have been one of the most widely seen interactive marketing campaigns ever. Around the planet, beverage buyers were tempted to buy more Coke than they might normally have because of common first names adorning the bottles.

And they didn't stop with the cash register: They tweeted, added hashtags and blew up the internet with fun. The movement drove revenue and gave everyone a reason to buy two Cokes: one for themselves and one for a friend who shared a name with a bottle.

Related: Top 10 Customer-Centric Marketing Trends for 2016

Like it or not, people are getting accustomed to interactive marketing. So, invest in appropriate strategies relevant to your industry to see how it can transform your relationship with your customers.

Related:

25 Ways to Market Your New Business on Little or No Money

How Recruitment Dynamics Will Change in Fast Growing Economy Like India

Influencer Marketing for B2B: 4 Examples That Prove It Can Work



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Frank Lloyd Wright's Cooke House in Virginia is unique for a number of reasons, one being that it wasn't built until two weeks after Wright's death in 1959.

According to toptenrealestatedeals.com, Andrew and Maude Cooke had been asking Wright to design their dream home since 1951. Finally in 1957, Wright sent them completed plans that would be put in motion two years later.
Special Events

Friday, June 9  Wilton Librarys Branchville SoHo Gallery Estate Art Exhibition Reception, 6-7:30 p.m. Paula Reens was the owner of the Branchville SoHo Gallery of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, CT which thrived through the 1980s and 90s. Wilton Library is honored to have the gallerys artworks by noted American artists such as Ben Benn (1884-1983), Jack Youngerman (b. 1926), Marvin Hayes (b. 1939; lived in Wilton 1965-1991) and Robert Heindel (1938-2005), among others. The exhibition features fifty works of these and other contemporary artists. Through the generosity of Paula and Lou Reens, all proceeds from sales of the paintings will benefit Wilton Library. The works are priced to be enjoyed in peoples homes and offices. The reception is open to the public. The exhibition runs through July 6.

Saturday, June 10  New Perspectives Film Series  Life, Animated, 7:30-9:30 p.m. LIFE, ANIMATED is the inspirational story of Owen Suskind, a young man who was unable to speak as a child until he and his family discovered a unique way to communicate by immersing themselves in the world of classic Disney animated films. From Academy Award winning director Roger Ross Williams, the film received the Sundance Directing Award for U.S. Documentary, Audience Awards from Full Frame Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, Telluride Mountainfilm, and more. Suggested donation: $5. Refreshments served. The New Perspectives Documentary series is programmed and moderated by filmmaker Megan Smith-Harris. A Q&A will follow the film. Registration highly recommended. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Sunday, June 11  Wilton Library Associations 122nd Annual Friends of the Library Meeting, 4:30-6 p.m. A brief business meeting will include the election of our new trustees and officers, a celebration of those who are retiring from our Board of Trustees and the presentation of awards for Wilton Librarys outstanding volunteer and staff person of the year. Guest speaker will be Carlos Eire, T. L. Riggs Professor of History & Religious Studies, Yale University and past president of the Society for Reformation Research. He is the author of several scholarly books, including the recently published, Reformations: The Early Modern World 1450-1650. He is also author of two memoirs, Waiting for Snow in Havana about the Cuban revolution for which he received the National Book Award, and Learning to Die in Miami exploring the exile experience. Open to the public. Registration encouraged. Register online or call 203-762-6321.

Calendar

Tuesday, June 13  Breast Cancer Survivors' Support Group, 6-8 p.m. Post-treatment breast cancer survivors are invited to join in this monthly support group led by Nina Marino, LCSW. Nina was the Clinical Director for 15 years of the former Breast Cancer Survival Center and is a breast cancer survivor. Please email Nina at Cancersurvival2@aol.com with any questions. No charge. Registration highly encouraged. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

More Information 137 Old Ridgefield Road 203-762-3950 www.wiltonlibrary.org See More Collapse

Wednesday, June 14  Wilton Library Readers  Commonwealth, 12-1:30 p.m. Professional book discussion leader Susan Boyar discusses Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. Bring lunch; beverages will be provided. Advance registration suggested. Last session for Wilton Library Readers. Watch for next months New Yorker Short Stories. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Wednesday, June 14  Free Downloads  Magazines, 1-2:30 p.m. Bring your own device and learn how to download free popular magazines to your mobile device or computer which are available 24/7. There is something for everyone and hours of enjoyment for patrons with Wilton Library cards. Presented by Wilton Library for seniors at the Senior Center, Comstock Community Center, 180 School Road, Wilton. Registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Wednesday, June 14  Ambler Farm Reads, 2:15-3 p.m. Children ages 2-4 and their caregivers will meet at Ambler Farm to enjoy theme based stories as well as a nature walk. Children may check books out at the farm, so make sure to bring your library card! The focus in on chickens. Registration required; no fee. Children must be accompanied by caregivers. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Wednesday, June 14  Let's Make Ice Cream!, 4-5 p.m. Summer is coming and what better way to celebrate than with ice cream! First we'll hear a story or two about ice cream and then we will make our own. Join us for a fun hour! This program is designed for ages 6-12. Registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Thursday, June 15  Father's Day Crafts, 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Come to Wilton Library and make your Dad an awesome Father's Day gift. Easy to create cards and other crafts to show your Dad how much you love him. Drop in, no registration required. Caregivers must stay with children under 8; ages 8 to 12, caregivers must remain in the building.

Saturday, June 17  Create a Paperweight for Father's Day, 1-2:30 p.m. Join one of our favorite crafters, Tree Hanson, to make a unique paperweight for Father's Day. Get creative using acrylics, brushes and Q-tips on smooth rocks to create mosaic-ombre and other fun designs! For 7th graders through adults and 6th grade students accompanied by adults who are willing to learn too. Space limited and registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6342.

Classes in Innovation Station this week  Sunday, June 11: Embroider a BBQ Chefs Apron, 2-3:30 p.m.; Monday, June 12: Embroider a BBQ Chefs Apron, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, June 12, 19 & 26: Stitch Time for Knitters and Crocheters, 1-2:30 p.m.; Tuesday, June 13: Experience 3D Printing, 6-7:30 p.m.; Wednesday, June 14: Create Fathers Day Cards, Gift Tags & More, 6-7:30 p.m.; Thursday, June 15: Make Fun Buttons for Dads or Grads, 2-4 p.m.
Loup City will celebrate the 25th Polish Days with loads of activities and music this weekend.

Polish Days will be from Friday through Sunday.

Fridays events include a carnival from 1 to 11 p.m., with the evening events beginning with a craft show from 5 to 9, a melodrama at 7 at the Loup City High School Theatre, a PTO Color Run at 8 and music by Tim Zach and Whiskey Bent from 9 to 12:30 a.m., among others.

Some of Saturdays events include a quilt and craft show, knockerball, a kiddie tractor pull, a parade at 10:30 a.m. with the theme My Favorite Polka and music from the Sherman County Stringband and Traveling Musicians Polka Band from 7 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. The carnival is open from noon to 11 Saturday.

Sundays events include a polka mass at 8 a.m. at St. Josaphats Catholic Church, a Polish breakfast buffet from 8 to 11 at the Loup City Diner, a blacksmith demonstration, cemetery tours at the Evergreen Cemetery and music from the Three Guys Polka Band from 2 to 5 p.m. The carnival is open from 1 to 6 on Sunday.

For more information and a full list of activities and events, visit the Loup City Polish Days Facebook page or call Jennifer at (402) 644-1441.

Cairo will host its annual CornStalk Festival on Friday and Saturday. This years theme is Dear Ole Nebraska.

Events begin Friday at 5 p.m., with free hot dogs and hamburgers provided by SonLight Bible Fellowship Church at Hulett Park. The Missoula Childrens Theater will perform Rapunzel at 7 at the Cairo Community Center, with $5 adult admission and $2 for senior citizens and students. A second performance is set for 1 p.m. Saturday.

Saturdays full day of events includes a pancake feed at the Fire Hall from 7 to 11 a.m., a Corn Queen Contest at 9 at the front of City Hall, turtle races at 11 at Hulett Park and firefighter water fights from 3 to 5 p.m. on Main Street. The community parade will begin at 10 a.m. on Main Street. Also on Saturday will be music by Timmery & Hillary from 7:30 to 9 p.m. and a street dance with the Dylan Bloom Band from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.

For questions or more information on the CornStalk Festival, visit www.cairocommunity.com or call Christy at (308) 383-5506.
Former Shelton School superintendent Brian Redinger was sentenced today to 18 months probation and fined $500, but only after prosecutor Sarah Hinrichs criticized Redingers behavior and relationship with his wife.

Redinger, 46, was arrested after a dispute with wife, Kelleene, on April 10, 2016. Under a plea agreement, Redinger pleaded no contest April 12 to third-degree domestic assault and reckless driving in Hall County District Court. Those crimes are both misdemeanors.

Today, Hall County District Court Judge John Marsh sentenced Redinger to 18 months for domestic assault and fined him $500 for reckless driving. Marsh also sentenced Redinger to five days in jail with credit for five days already served.

Defense attorney Richard Alexander said he didnt believe his client intended to hurt his wife. Redinger, he said, was a great candidate for probation.

My client feels great remorse about the whole situation and probably should have acted differently, Alexander said.

Hinrichs, a deputy Hall County attorney, said she could probably live with probation for Redinger. But she said Redinger has never adequately accepted responsibility for the crime. Instead, he has blamed his wife, saying she is sometimes guilty of foolish behavior and creates things in her mind.

After the crime, police observed an injury to her forehead, redness on her neck and bruises under her arms, Hinrichs said.

In a brief comment to the judge, Redinger said he regrets that he didnt emotionally support his wife that day in the way a husband should. A report about the incident were not accurate, he said.

The Redingers have nine children, seven of whom are still at home. They are aged 5 to 18.

The Redingers are still married. They are not yet living together, but Alexander assumes they will be living together soon, he said.
Abdihafid (Moe) Mohamed Farah was found guilty of making terroristic threats and possession of a controlled substance Tuesday by a Hall County District Court jury.

In the charge of terroristic threats, the jury found that Farah threatened to commit a crime of violence against Michael Furgison on April 29, 2016.

The controlled substance involved was methamphetamine, also on April 29, 2016.

Farah, 36, is described as homeless in some court documents. In other documents, his address is listed as 720 E. Ninth, No. 1.

District Judge Teresa Luther ordered a presentence investigation and scheduled sentencing for 8:30 a.m. Aug. 9.

Farah was defended by Thomas Wagoner. The case was prosecuted by Sarah Hinrichs.

Terroristic threats is a Class 3A felony. Possession of a controlled substance is a Class 4 felony.
Dear Annie: I am a 21-year-old soon-to-be senior in college applying to law school. I have almost a 4.0 and quite the resume, so I am sure I will be admitted into a decent school. I was planning on attending an in-state school here in Nebraska, but as I continue to search, I am starting to think it might not be a bad idea to check out a few schools in other states.

My parents are supportive of my going to law school, but when I bring up the topic of visiting out-of-state schools, they completely shut down the idea of my ever leaving Nebraska. I understand where they are coming from. My brother chose to go out of state for law school, and it was an expensive, challenging experience for my whole family. However, he got a great education and matured and learned a lot through the process.

I really do consider myself to be a pretty practical young person. I chose an affordable, close-to-home college to appease my parents, and Ive never insisted on studying abroad or going on any lavish spring break trips, unlike many of my peers. I am aware that I would probably be offered a better scholarship if I were to stay in Nebraska, and I know it would be much easier to stay in the state, as opposed to moving across the country. Still, I dont think it would be such a horrible idea to explore my options, as choosing a law school is a major decision.

This has been a recurring issue in my household. Last summer, I was chosen for an internship with Congress in Washington, and just as I predicted, my parents made abundantly clear how expensive it would be to move for the summer and how difficult it would be for me if I accepted the offer. So, of course, I had to turn down the opportunity, working instead at a minimum wage job in my hometown.

I know money is important, but I really feel that they focus too much on money and practicality and would much rather crush my dreams than help support my career goals. Also, we are not poor, so it seems as if the bigger issue is their reluctance to realize that I am an adult now and I can make my own decisions.

My parents have probably babied me a little too much because I am the youngest in my family. How do I prove to them that I am becoming a mature, responsible soon-to-be college graduate who can make her own decisions?

 Babied Pre-Law Student

Dear Babied: If you were to stick around and attend law school in Nebraska, your parents would have you close by physically, but mentally and emotionally youd be more distant than ever. Thats because a mountain of resentment would separate you. You would always regret not pursuing the law school (and life) of your choice.

Cherish your home, but follow your dreams. Ive a feeling your parents will come around in time.

Annie Lane, a graduate of New York Law School and New York University, writes this column for Creators Syndicate. Email questions to dearannie@creators.com.
Hall County is looking at completing nine projects this year as part of its one- and six-year road plan.

Hall County Engineer Steve Riehle presented the details of the projects in the plan to the Regional Planning Commission Wednesday night. The commission subsequently voted 7-0 to approve the plan.

Riehle said one priority on the one- and six-year road plan is a project on Engleman Road, south of Highway 2.

We are working with the Natural Resources District (NRD) to replace that existing bridge because it is weight restricted with a box hold, he said. The project is going to do a number of things. One of the things is it is going to eliminate that post structure. It is going to raise the road, and in conjunction with the NRD project, it is going to raise the levee on the south side of the creek there.

According to a document provided in the meeting agenda, the existing steel girder bridge will be replaced with a 48-foot-long concrete box culvert with a 10-foot rise. Riehle said the new box culvert will be built west of the existing bridge.

The total cost of the project is estimated to be $150,000, with the county covering $100,000 of the costs.

Riehle said that by replacing the existing bridge, traffic will be improved as well and will be safer.

Right now, if youre westbound at Highway 2 and you want to go west on Airport Road, you just dodged in front of that car, he said, referencing a picture of the intersection of Engleman Road, Airport Road and Highway 2. It is not always safe for westbound traffic and it is definitely not safe for eastbound traffic.

Another project discussed by Riehle is a plan to replace a steel girder bridge on 60th Road between Barrows Road and Rosedale Road. Both the existing and new bridge to be built are 30 feet long with a 30-foot roadway width.

Youll notice there isnt much room under this bridge to walk, Riehle said. So we are having to replace the bridge and the existing walk.

The estimated cost of the project is $85,000, with the county covering all of the costs.

Hall County Public Works Director Casey Sherlock said the plan will go before the county board and a public hearing will be held on it at the June 27 county board meeting.

In other action, the commission:

 Heard a presentation from Regional Planning Director Chad Nabity on the proposed Complete Streets Policy.

 Held a public hearing on and voted 7-0 to approve a redevelopment plan for Robinson Estates Subdivision in Cairo. The plan calls for duplexes to be built on four lots on the subdivision.

 Held a public hearing on and voted 7-0 to approve an amendment to a redevelopment plan for the Hedde Building at 201-205 W. Third St. The plan calls for commercial space in the basement and main floor and 16 one-bedroom apartments on the second and third floors.
ONEILL  After a parade of his neighbors and a sister-in-law criticized the proposed Keystone XL pipeline as unneeded and environmentally risky, James Crumly rose at a public meeting Wednesday to defend it.

The Page, Nebraska, area landowner said that he has invested in ethanol plants, leased land for wind turbines and supports shipping crude oil from Canada across his property as part of his desire to free the U.S. from reliance on the Middle East or other faraway countries for fuel.

The people of Holt County, the people of Nebraska and the people of the United States of America will benefit from energy independence, Crumly said.

But many more people rejected Crumlys hopes, saying that the current worldwide glut of oil has made the U.S. an exporter of oil, leaving no need for shipping expensive tar sands in a 36-inch pipe across Nebraska to refineries on the American Gulf Coast.

The country would be wiser to shift to other, renewable forms of energy, many opponents said.

This is a 20th century solution to a 21st century problem, said Jeanne Crumly of Page, James Crumlys sister-in-law.

And so it went during almost seven hours of testimony at the second public comment meeting conducted by the Nebraska Public Service Commission.

A lot of eyes nationally are on the low-profile, five-member elect

ed commission. The panel is charged with deciding if the route across Nebraska proposed by Canadian pipeline developer TransCanada is in the public interest and should be approved.

The PSCs approval is the last regulatory hurdle for the Keystone XL, though court challenges are likely regardless of how the commission rules.

On Thursday, 90 people testified for and against the project, which was revived by President Donald Trump after he took office in January, overturning President Barack Obama rejection of the Keystone XL.

Opponents outnumbered supporters by more than a 3-to-1 margin in testimony. By the applause for comments critical of the pipeline, it was easy to tell how most of the about 200 people attending felt.

Supporters of the pipeline, like the president, said it would boost the economy  creating up to 4,500 construction jobs and 35 permanent jobs and generating $11 million in new taxes in its first year of operation.

Most of those testifying in favor of the pipeline were pipeline workers, union representatives or employees of TransCanada, who said the Keystone XL would be the most advanced and safest pipeline ever built.

Some day we might be able to live off alternative energy, but were not there yet, said Phillip Wallace, a Tulsa, Oklahoma-based representative of the Pipeliners Union 798.

Opponents of the project said that the route chosen is sandy and highly erodible and prone to landslides along the Keya Paha and Niobrara rivers, and that the benefits will be temporary. Like the Obama Administration, foes said the Keystone XL would exacerbate climate change.

The pipeline will eventually leak, they added, and that could contaminate groundwater and streams needed for livestock, crops and drinking water with toxic chemicals like benzene.

It seems senseless to me to risk our water, said Cindy Myers of Stuart, Nebraska.

Former State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, who helped negotiate a shift in the proposed route of the Keystone XL in 2011, testified in favor of the project, as he did at a hearing in York a month ago.

Flood said that the construction of the first Keystone pipeline, which crosses eastern Nebraska, brought an economic boom to Norfolk during the recession years, and that the Keystone XL would do the same.

He said hed rather get oil from a friendly ally like Canada than from Saudi Arabia or Russia, and that the federal Department of Transportation has estimated that pipelines are 451 times safer than railroads when shipping oil.

Thats a number that tells a story Nebraskans need to hear, Flood said, to a couple of muffled boos from the audience.

Later, a leading opponent of the Keystone XL, Jane Kleeb, now the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, rose to refute some of Floods testimony.

Nebraska will not see a deluge of oil trains, and a spill from a rail car would be far less oil than from a high-pressure pipeline, she said.

Kleeb said that Flood should join the pipeline fighters if he doesnt want to do business with Russia and Saudi Arabia, because some of the pipe for the Keystone XL comes from Russia and the Saudis recently assumed 100-percent ownership of Americas largest refinery, Motiva Enterprises in Port Arthur, Texas, which she said would refine oil from the Keystone XL.

The fight over the pipeline will be expensive, she said, pledging that it will continue all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We are not going to allow a foreign corporation to use eminent domain for private gain, Kleeb said.

Several landowners, including Jeanne Crumly, complained that TransCanada has used hard-ball tactics in attempting to obtain easements across their land. Several critics, but not all, recommended that the commission order the Keystone XL to be rerouted to parallel the path of the existing Keystone pipeline, arguing that landowners there seem to be OK with it. Along that route, they said, it would cross heavier, less porous soils.

But another person noted that 83 percent of landowners on the Keystone XL route have reached easement agreements with TransCanada. The company did not testify at the public meeting, but had public relations people there early in the meeting watching the event.

The Public Service Commission is scheduled to hold a formal, legal hearing on the pipeline from Aug. 7 to 11 in Lincoln. It will rule later whether to approve or reject the proposed route across Nebraska.

Before then, another public meeting session will be held, according to commissioner Tim Schram, though the time and location have not yet been determined.
President Trumps withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is not just a disaster for addressing climate change, it is also detrimental to world peace. The Pentagon long ago determined climate change and its effects (famine, drought, refugee crises) help drive armed conflict, and are major factors in current wars.

Similarly, the president claims to be making progress on Middle East peace, yet is proposing a $110 billion weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, which uses U.S. armaments in the horrific war in Yemen; the conflict there has the country on the brink of famine.

Congress can, and should, vote to reject the weapons transfer. Nebraska Senators Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse should speak up for peace before profits and vote to stop the arms deal.

Moreover, the country is overdue for a discussion on real security for our communities. Trumps budget goes the wrong way. In proposing a $52 billion increase (larger than Russias entire annual military budget) to the already bloated Pentagon, while slashing investments in human needs and environmental programs for Nebraskans and all Americans.

As president of Peace Action, the countrys largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization, Im privileged to travel to help explore these issues, and will do so at a forum sponsored by Central Nebraska Peace Workers and Nebraskans for Peace Monday, June 12, at 7 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church, 511 N. Elm St., Grand Island. Please join us!
Bucks Democrats expect to have majority in state House

Democrats expect to gain one more seat in state Senate, but still be in minority there.
The Dana-Thomas House State Historic Site in Springfield will celebrate architect Frank Lloyd Wrights 150th birthday next month with a concert and special tours of the stunning home he designed.

One new tour explains the amazing restoration of the house. It will be offered June 10 and 24. Another, family-friendly tour looks at the animals that inspired Wright and takes place June 25.

A concert June 10 at 6 p.m. by musicians David Cain and Larry Gray will explore Wrights legacy through words and music. Expect an innovative jazz presentation as adventurous as Wrights designs.

Wright was born June 8, 1867. When he died in 1959, he was the most famous architect in the world. The Dana-Thomas House is perhaps the best-preserved of Wrights Prairie Style homes, with more than 400 pieces of specially made art glass and original furnishings.

The state of Illinois purchased the home in 1981 and then launched a painstaking restoration of the homes 1910 appearance, when it was the glittering showplace of socialite Susan Lawrence Dana.

Mike Jackson will lead Restoration of the Dana-Thomas House tours at 1:15 on both June 10 and 24. As chief architect for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency at the time of the restoration, Jackson played a major role in ensuring the work met exacting specifications.

The new Animals and Architects tour will be offered twice on June 25  at 11:15 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. The half-hour tour designed for children begins with an activity in the courtyard and explores representations of animals inside the house.

All events are free, but reservations are required and donations are suggested. Call 217-782-6776 for concert and tour reservations. Visit State Historic Sites at Springfield on Facebook for a listing of additional summer events.

The Dana-Thomas House, located at 301 E. Lawrence Street (Fourth and Lawrence) in Springfield, is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

The home is operated by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (www.IllinoisHistory.gov). IHPA protects the states historic resources, which contribute to education, culture and the economy. IHPA sites include ancient burial mounds, forts and buildings erected by settlers, and homes connected to famous Illinoisans.

The full tour schedule for June:

June 9, 10:15 a.m. and 1:15 p.m., Wright Concepts

Join longtime volunteer Larry Betz for an extended tour and discussion of the design principles behind Wrights Prairie School architecture, which emphasized horizontal lines to blend in with the natural surroundings of the Midwest. The tour promises visitors a new perspective on Wrights architectural vision, even if theyve visited the site before.

June 10, 1:15 p.m., Restoration of the Dana-Thomas House

The state restoration of the Dana-Thomas House was a five-year project that returned the house to its appearance in 1910. This hour-long guided tour includes a visit to the "restoration room" to showcase the restoration process. Mike Jackson, architect for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency at the time of the restoration, will lead the tour.

June 25, 11:15 a.m. and 1:15 p.m., Animals and Architects

Join site interpreter Jennifer Caldwell on a specialty tour that has been designed for families. Animals and Architects is a 30-minute tour that will begin with an activity in the courtyard and explore representations of animals inside the house. Learn which animals inspired Wright to bring the outside indoors in this fun and new approach to learning at the Dana-Thomas House.

June 24, 1:15 p.m., Restoration of the Dana-Thomas House

The state restoration of the Dana-Thomas House was a five-year project that returned the house to its appearance in 1910. This hour-long guided tour includes a visit to the "restoration room" to showcase the restoration process. Mike Jackson, architect for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency at the time of the restoration, will lead the tour.
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 08:06 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a44a2df 4 Editorial #Editorial,Taxpayer,taxation,tax-avoidance,tax-revenue,tax-reform,directorate-general-of-taxation Free

Taxpayers who have consistently filed properly filled-out annual income tax return forms to the tax office need not worry about the enforcement of Presidential Regulation in Lieu of Law (Perppu) No. 1/2017 on access to financial information and bank accounts for tax purposes.

After thoroughly perusing the Finance Ministrys directive on the technical details and procedures on how data on financial accounts of taxpayers can and should be submitted to the tax authority, and what criminal charges are liable for tax officials who abuse the information, we find there are actually not many new rules with regard to tax officials access to taxpayers financial accounts.

Current tax laws already require all individual and institutional taxpayers to stipulate all their financial and fixed assets in their annual income tax returns. They need not worry about any changes in their annual income tax returns and asset value, as long as they can account for changes in their income profiles. After all, unusually big changes in their bank accounts will be detected by the Financial Transactions Report and Analysis Center (PPATK), which monitors suspicious financial transactions in lorder to prevent money laundering.

The most fundamentally new rules in the Finance Ministrys directive that implements Perppu No.1/2017 are related to the obligation of all financial service companies (banks, and insurance and securities firms) to regularly report to the tax authority the financial accounts of their clients for monitoring and examination starting next year.

Financial service companies are currently not obliged to regularly file data on their clients accounts to the tax authority. Hence, if taxpayers are not honest in stipulating all their financial accounts in their annual income tax returns, tax officials cannot automatically access the data from financial companies even for tax audits. They should obtain prior approval from the Finance Ministry. But Perppu No. 1/2017 authorizes tax officials to look into taxpayers financial accounts at any time in light of a tax examination.

However, the financial accounts of individual taxpayers subject to mandatory reporting are limited to those with a minimum balance of Rp 200 million (US$15,036) for domestic transactions and $250,000 for international transactions in light of the global Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) portal between tax authorities. No such limitations are imposed on institutional taxpayers.

The government mandates a broader access to taxpayers financial accounts to prevent tax evasion and to fulfill the compulsory reporting standards within the AEOI, which Indonesia and over 105 other countries have committed to enforcing next year to fight tax avoidance and evasion. These countries signed the multilateral instrument to prevent tax avoidance practices through baseerosion and profit shifting (BEPS) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) headquarters in Paris on Wednesday.

BEPS is a term used to describe multinational companies tax planning strategies that rely on mismatches and gaps existing between the tax rules of different jurisdictions to minimize corporation tax.
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Linkedin Devina Heriyanto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 15:29 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a4689bc 1 Opinion MUI-edict,social-media,Internet,hate-speech,hoax,Facebook-fake-news,intimidation,persecution,FPI,Rizieq-Shihab,#PostScript Free

The 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election was the most decisive so far, with the biggest rift occurring on social media. Not only did people fortify their echo chambers by unfriending or unfollowing people with different ideologies or choices of governor, hoaxes and slanderous accusations spread freely on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp groups.

Even after the winner was formally announced and Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama, whose controversial remarks triggered a series of rallies in the capital, was put behind bars, the gap did not close. Even worse, some groups have brought the rift on social media to the offline world with the use of force.

When the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) on Monday issued a guide for Muslims in the country on how to responsibly use social media, it was seen as too little too late.

What is the real-life impact of the rift on social media?

Some vigilante groups have taken action to intimidate those deemed as spreading insults against Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Rizieq Shihab. FPI and Rizieq spearheaded the series of rallies demanding the arrest of Ahok for blasphemy against Islam, the two biggest being the rallies on Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, 2016.

However, Rizieq is now a fugitive for failing to show up to police questioning over an alleged pornographic text conversation with treason suspect, Firza Husein. Jakarta Police raised his status from witness to suspect on May 29 and issued an arrest warrant on May 30. Rizieqs lawyer, Kapitra Ampera, said Rizieq departed for Saudi Arabia on umrah (minor haj) with his family on April 27 and had not returned to Indonesia.

Last month, a viral video showing a 15-year-old boy being intimidated and harassed by a group of people claiming to be FPI members for allegedly insulting Rizieq Shihab, sparked concerns amid the ongoing online persecution of the clerics critics. One FPI member specifically warned the boy to tell [his] friend of his [Chinese] ethnicity not to do it anymore, so this will not happen again, implying future threats.

Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network regional coordinator Damar Juniarto said the incident was clearly part of a growing trend of persecution of social media users by the hard-line Islamist group.

The persecution does not only target people of Chinese descent, as there was also the case of Fiera Lovita, a physician at Solok Regional Hospital, who was intimidated by FPI members who accused her of defaming Rizieq on her Facebook account. The FPI members confronted Fiera at her workplace on May 23, pressuring her to delete her comments and write an official letter expressing regret for her actions.

Two men involved in harassment of the 15-year-old boy were named suspects and National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian replaced Solok Police chief over her inability to prevent the persecution of Fiera.

What is the content of MUIs edict on social media?

In the 20-page guide available on the MUI website, which takes the form of a fatwa (edict), the MUI forbids Muslims from spreading hate speech, slanderous statements, hoaxes, pornographic material and racial slurs, which it deemed haram (forbidden under Islamic law).

As a consequence, it is forbidden to make money from being a buzzer on social media or producing such content for websites. Since the campaign period, many social media accounts and website have made millions by producing and spreading sensational news reports, many of which were hoaxes discrediting Ahok and Chinese-descents in the country.

There are five main activities deemed as haram in the MUIs edict:

 Spreading hate speech and slander

 Bullying and discrimination based on race and religion

 Spreading hoaxes even with good intentions

 Spreading pornographic material

 Spreading factual content but during inappropriate times

The edict does not contain any statement against persecution and intimidation by vigilante groups. Although MUI chairman Maruf Amin also said that the institution decided to take action following reports of a surge in cases of vigilantism.

Is this another restriction of free speech in the country?

Not really, although supported by the Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara MUIs edict is not legally binding. Nevertheless, MUI chairman Maruf expects that Muslims in Indonesia will abide by it.

What is the response to the edict?

Rudiantara said that the fatwa could encourage the ministry to step up its monitoring of incendiary rhetoric on social media. The fatwa will be used as a reference for our team, which also has a representative at the MUI, to determine whether to block something on the Internet, Rudiantara said.

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto was reported by Kompas.com as saying he appreciated the edict. Nahdlatul Ulama executive council (PBNU) chairman Said Aqil Siradj also supported the MUIs edict, according to Kompas.com.

Elected vice governor Sandiaga Uno has also responded positively, as reported by detik.com. He admits that he often receives hoaxes and becomes target of bullying on social media. Sandiaga called on Muslims to abide by MUIs edict, arguing that social media should be used to strengthen brotherhood among Muslims.

Tempo.co reported House of Representatives (DPR) Information Commission deputy chairman Hanafi Rais as saying the edict will strengthen the existing Information and Electronic (ITE) Law, which was regarded by many as posing a threat to the countrys democracy and freedom of speech. (dmr)
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Linkedin Inforial (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta, Indonesia  Thu, June 8, 2017

PT Telkom Indonesia once again won a Grand Stevie award for Organization of the Year at the recent Asia Pacific Stevie Awards. The companys director of enterprise and business service, Dian Rachmawan, accepted the award at the June 2 event in Tokyo, Japan.

This award marks the third year in a row that the company has won a prestigious Grand Stevie award.

This award was given to Telkom after it won 31 different awards, consisting of eight gold prizes, five silver prizes and 18 bronze prizes for innovations in different aspects of business. These innovations include New Product Innovation, Technology Innovation, Marketing, Customer Service and Corporate Communication.

The eight gold awards Telkom won comprises the categories of Innovation in Business Information Apps (for its Smart Airport 3.0); Innovation in Education or Training Websites (for its E-Learning Website); Innovation in Technology Development (for its Cellular Service on Satellite on the Move for Remote Area); Excellence in Innovation in Technology Industries (for Telkomtelstra); Innovation in Shopping or E-commerce Apps (for GBILL); and Innovation in General Information and General Utility Apps (for AdMobile).

Its iMOTA: Sea Port Traffic Solution also won two awards in the categories of Innovation in Business Utility Apps and Innovation in Transportation & Logistics.

The Asia Pacific Stevie Awards, hosted by The Stevie Awards, is a competition where international-scale businesses in 22 countries across the Asia-Pacific region compete to win recognition for their innovations. More than 600 businesses have been nominated during these awards.

The Stevie Awards Committee, in the deliberation process for picking the winners, take into account factors such as the innovation concepts delivered by the nominated companies and the impact these innovations have had on both the company and the public. As such, any innovation taken into consideration for an award is one that has been proven to have had a good and significant impact on business and has been well-implemented.

"We are proud, as Telkom has successfully defended its Grand Stevie award of being Organization of the Year for three years in a row. This demonstrates Telkom's commitment to constantly developing its digital innovations in different industries," Dian said, after receiving the award at the Hilton Hotel Tokyo Japan. "This award gives benefits to all Telkom stakeholders. It especially motivates employees to innovate even more, increase the company's credibility, and certianly improve the image of the company to gain confidence levels from shareholders."
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Mexico City, Mexico  Thu, June 8, 2017 12:09 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a45970e 2 Environment Leonardo-DiCaprio,enrique-pena-nieto,vaquita-marina-porpoise,Mexico Free

Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto agreed Wednesday to increase efforts to save the vaquita marina porpoise, burying the hatchet in a Twitter feud over the endangered species.

In May, DiCaprio asked his millions of Twitter and Instagram followers to sign a petition calling on Pena Nieto to do more to protect the world's smallest porpoise, which is on the verge of extinction.

The Mexican president responded with what was, for him, an unprecedented flurry of seven tweets in English defending his government's efforts to save the estimated 30 vaquitas that remain.

The two were all smiles, however, as they shook hands and signed a deal in which Mexico promised to protect the marine ecosystems of the Gulf of California and in particular the vaquita, which is found only there.

Handout image released by the Mexican Presidency's press office showing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (L) and US actor Leonardo Di Caprio (R) shaking hands in front of Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim during a meeting about the danger of extinction of the vaquita porpoise (Phocoena sinus) in Mexico City on June 7, 2017. (AFP/HO / presidencia )

The plan is backed by DiCaprio's foundation and that of Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim.

Slim -- the world's sixth-richest person, according to Forbes magazine -- also signed the deal.

"Now more than ever, the world is looking for bold leadership at every level to tackle climate change and environmental conservation issues," DiCaprio said in a statement.

"This action is a critical step towards ensuring that the Gulf of California continues to be both vibrant and productive, especially for species like the critically endangered vaquita."

Read also: Protected areas in ocean are key tool against climate change

The Gulf of California, which was officially listed as a World Heritage site in 2005, is a source for half of Mexico's fisheries production.

Pena Nieto said Mexico "understands its responsibility as one of the most biodiverse countries in the world" and would make a "historic effort" to protect the vaquita.

Under the deal, Mexico will impose a permanent ban on gillnets in the vaquita's habitat. The nets -- used to catch another species, the totoaba fish -- have contributed to wiping out the vaquita.

This handout photo released by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and taken on February 1992 in Santa Clara Gulf, Sonora,Mexico shows a comparison between "Vaquita Marina" (bottom) (Phocoena sinus) and Totoaba fish (top) (Totoaba macdonaldi) apparently dead after having been caught by fishermen in their nets. Environmentalists of WWF warned that Mexico's vaquita marina, the world's smallest porpoise, was close to extinction as the government reported that only 60 were now left. The vaquita's fate has been linked to another critically endangered sea creature, the totoaba, a fish that has been illegally caught for its swim bladder, which is dried and sold on the black market in China.(AFP/WWF Omar Fidal)

Mexico also pledged to develop new fishing gear and techniques for local communities.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) praised the "landmark agreement."

The environmental group has warned the vaquita risks going extinct in 2018.

The threat is fueled by demand for totoaba swim bladders in China, where they are considered a delicacy and can fetch $20,000 per kilogram.

WWF called on Mexico to go further by launching coordinated efforts with China and the United States to end the illegal totoaba trade.
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Linkedin Laurence Coustal (Agence France-Presse) Paris  Thu, June 8, 2017 13:05 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a45c5f8 2 Science & Tech homo-sapiens,human,evolution,Science,#science,#humans Free

Homo sapiens -- aka the human species -- walked the African continent at least 300,000 years ago, according to two studies published Wednesday which show that humans' forebears existed earlier and were more far-flung than suspected.

As a result, the origin story for humans may be more fragmented than previous evidence suggested, involving stiff competition from other hominins, or early humans, and a fair measure of luck, says Antoine Balzeau, an anthropologist at France's Musee de l'Homme.

Read also: T. rex was not feathery, study says

- Who are Homo sapiens? -

The Homo sapiens is modern man, our own species. Two traits in particular distinguish us from other early human species. One is our chin, the bony bump protruding from the lower jaw that is absent in other hominins. The other is our "house shaped" skull: widest towards the top with nearly vertical sides.

Also unique are a pair of bones held together by a fibrous joint that form a kind of skull cap, called the parietal bones. They are much higher than in other early humans, though the skull of our cousins the Neanderthals is wider.

We know now that homo sapiens have been around for at least 300,000 years. Neanderthals, who died out about 30,000 years ago, had a run that lasted about that long. Homo erectus, another early human, walked the Earth for about 1.5 million years.

Our species shared the planet at one time or another with about half a dozen different human species. Besides the Neanderthals and Homo erectus, there were also the Denisovans, an enigmatic species that left few traces; the diminutive Homo floresiensis, or Flores Man, thought to have evolved on one or more Indonesian islands; and perhaps the recently discovered Homo naledi, found in South Africa. And all the ones we have yet to find.

Homo sapiens mated with some of these species, but they left only a weak genetic fingerprint in our genome.

Read also: Czech scientists see growing risk of asteroid hitting Earth

- What is the origin of Homo sapiens? -

For a long time, we thought that Australopithecus (an ape-like hominin that emerged some four million years ago) gave rise to Homo habilis, which in turn gave rise to Homo erectus, and that Homo sapiens came from there. But now we know that our evolution is far from linear.

Among all these co-existing species, a small group emerged with different characteristics. Because this new group remained fairly isolated, these defining traits rapidly became more pronounced until they resulted in a new species -- Homo sapiens. Bear in mind that the main motor of evolution is chance.

The likelihood that we will one day stumble on bones that reveal our precise origin is very slight. In some sense, one can never find the 'true first' -- such a thing doesn't really exist.

Read also: Myth busted: People smell as well as dogs

- Why are Homo sapiens the only human species still on Earth? -

We have a tendency to think that if we are the last human species standing, we must have been superior. We are very proud, for example, of our big brain capacity. That's a fine bit of anthropocentrism!

Recent studies, for example, have shown that there wasn't that big a difference in behaviour and complexity between Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals before they disappeared.

Both species expressed themselves through colours, the fashioning of objects with shells and carvings, and the ritual burial of their dead.

And Homo sapiens was not invincible. We have not found any trace of modern human populations that might have grown outside of Africa earlier than 60,000 years ago -- there is no trace in our genome.

It may be frustrating, but the truth is that we simply don't know why we are still here and the others died out. It may come down to luck. Bacteria and chimpanzees also survived, but we don't ascribe any particular intelligence to them as a consequence.

We need to be careful: thinking that we are superior because our human species outlived all the others is the same as thinking that we don't need to take care of the planet because Homo sapiens will always be around.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 15:34 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a4693a2 1 Environment Way-Kambas-National-Park,Lampung,Lampung-elephant,elephant,#elephant,national-park,#NationalPark,wildlife Free

East Lampung Regent Chusnunia Chalim eagerly welcomed the birth of an elephant calf at Way Kambas National Parks (TNWK) Elephant Conservation Center (PKG) on May 27, by naming the baby, "Nunik."

I asked [TNWK head] Subakir for permission to name one [of the baby] elephants, said Chusnunia as quoted by Antara news agency.

Chusnunia came up with several names, but later chose Nunik as it is similar to her own nickname.

Read also: Hungry elephants in Sumatra destroy local plantations

Since 2016, the park has welcomed six baby elephants. However, Nunik is the only calf named by the regent.

"It is a good sign that there were many elephants born within these two years and we should be grateful," Chusnunia said.

Meanwhile, Subakir says three Sumatran cows, namely Pleno, Riska and Dona, gave birth to three calves in the parks forest between March and May. (jes/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 14:49 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a461dae 1 Lifestyle Twitter,freedom-of-expression,#DonaldTrump,Donald-Trump,#Twitter,social-media,netizens Free

Twitter users have called out United States President Donald Trump for suppressing free speech after blocking accounts who have interacted with him online.

Attorneys have sent Trump a letter from the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, arguing that blocking users suppresses speech by limiting interaction, as reported by mashable.com.

"This Twitter account operates as a 'designated public forum' for First Amendment purposes, and accordingly the viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional," the letter read, representing several Twitter users.

In addition to Trump, the letter was also sent to Press Secretary Sean Spicer, the White House counsel and Dan Scavino, who heads social media for Trump. The letter criticizes the President and argues that the government "may not exclude people simply because it disagrees with them."

Read also: Outrage as Trump targets London mayor after attacks

Holly O'Reilly, a client in the case, was reportedly blocked after tweeting Trump a GIF of his meeting with Pope Francis.

Another client, Joseph Papp claims to have been blocked after tweeting Trump a post related to the President's speech about the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, which included the hashtag #fakeleader.

a @POTUS so mentally weak & intolerant of dissent he blocks US citizens critical of his policies from even reading his latest pronouncements pic.twitter.com/MjLuMUPqBD  Joe Papp (@joepabike) June 4, 2017

"Each of them was blocked soon after having disagreed with or ridiculed you," the letter reads.

While Trump faced strong criticism for his actions, no lawsuit has been filed. The letter, however, saw lawyers ask for the accounts to be unblocked, while legal actions are currently under consideration. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 18:03 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a46fc51 1 Art & Culture Pesantren,East-Java,#university,#students,students,multiculturalism,university,united-states Free

Eleven students from Miami Dade College in Florida, United States recently visited Tabuireng Islamic Boarding School in Jombang, East Java to learn about Indonesian multiculturalism.

Meeting on Saturday with representatives from the Islamic boarding school, locally known as pesantren, the visiting students posed questions on relevant issues, such as diversity and gender equality, as reported by Antara news agency.

Enrique Sapulvedas, a student majoring in Politics, asked about the openness of the institution toward non-Muslims.

"Do you implement an open door policy for those with different religions?" Sapulvedas asked.

Fellow visiting student Joshua Elias, an International Relations major, asked about any existing national aspirations for the enforcement of Islamic sharia law in Indonesia.

Read also: French tourists explore spiritualism on Java

Meanwhile, on observing the all-male representatives from the pesantren, Anthropology student Marie Geraldine Georges questioned whether women were able to hold an official role in the school.

To answer, Pesantren Tebuireng director Lukman Hakim began by noting that the school is open for cooperation with different ethnic and religious groups.

Among the staff at Hasyim Asyari University (Unhasy), he said, were a Hindhu official at the Quality Assurance Unit, as well as a Catholic lecturer in the Information Technology faculty.

Former Pesantren Tebuireng Social Foundation director Mohammad Asad meanwhile added that the school founder KH Hasyim Asyari was a figure who played an important role in integrating Islam and nationalism, which was apparent through his works in the spreading of the doctrine "Cinta Tanah Air adalah bagian dari iman" (Love of the Homeland is part of faith), as well as the Jihad Resolution fatwa on fighting against colonialism in 1945.

"If today there are still people who insist on imposing Islamic sharia law as the basis of the state, or insist on the establishment of a caliphate, then the person is inviting a reversion back 30 years," Asad said.

Read also: Hundreds of pesantren to form alliance to promote moderate Islam

Deputy Unhasy Rector Muhsin Kasmin contributed by adding that women have the same opportunities at the institution, as long as they have the required capabilities.

"One of the schools in Pesantren Tebuireng had previously been headed by a woman. The same opportunities are also available at Unhasy," Muhsin said.

The group of students, led by professor Michael Leneghan, following the dialogue went on to visit the grave site of former Indonesian president KH Abdurrahman Wahid, popularly known as Gus Dur, which is located in the pesantren complex.

Previously, the pesantren also received visiting students from the King's College in New York, where the group learned about the education system in Islam and the Islamic boarding schools system. (liz/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 11:21 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a457645 1 City #AhokTrial,appeal,AttorneyGeneral,withdrawal Free

Prosecutors are set to withdraw the appeal against North Jakarta District Courts decision which sentenced non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama to two years in prison for blasphemy.

Attorney General HM Prasetyo said that the prosecutors would withdraw the appeal because Ahok had decided to not undergo further legal process to challenge the court's ruling.

"Ahok has accepted the verdict. Let's not only focus on one case. There are a lot of cases that we need to pay attention to," Prasetyo said as quoted by tribunnews.com on Wednesday.

He said he hoped that all parties would stop making a fuss over the case as it had been finished.

The appeal too should only aim to bring benefits, he said.

The prosecutors have yet to disclose the date for withdrawing the appeal.

The Jakarta High Court has formed a five-judge panel to examine the case, comprising Imam Sungudi as the presiding judge, Elang Prakoso Wibowo, Daniel D Pairunan, I Nyoman Sutama and Achmad Yusak. (cal)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 07:30 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a446fe4 4 City Depok,Ahmadiyah-Mosque,Ahmadiyah Free

The constantly persecuted Ahmadiyah religious sects followers in Depok, West Java, are planning to file a lawsuit against the city administration for sealing their Al-Hidayah Mosque.



We do not violate any bylaws. We believe that the shutdown is illegitimate because it was taken without seeking a court decision, congregation lawyer Fitri Sumarni said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

She added that they were also fighting to pursue justice for their members, who had been accused of damaging the seal and sign erected by the administration in front of the mosque that declared all the activities were illegal.

The mosque was shuttered on Sunday, the seventh time since 2011.

(Read also: Ahmadis expect dialogue with Jokowi)

Depok National and Political Unity Agency head Dadang Wihana argued that the closure was aimed at maintaining a peaceful situation and to protect the Ahmadis themselves, saying that the locals had felt disturbed by their presence and they might incite conflicts. (fac)
123RF.com

Kolkata, June 8 (IBNS): Two years into their marriage, Debolina (29) and her husband Indranil (32) (names changed) decided to start a family. After six months of trying, the couple failed to conceive and were left dejected. They then turned to fertility specialists, who evaluated both of them and found that Debolinaas reports were normal. However, Indranil was found to have poor sperm parameters that caused infertility.

A common misconception about infertility is that it is often considered a female problem. However, the truth is that infertility affects both men and women equally. Due to advancements in medical sciences, several sperm parameters that cause infertility are now identified, leading to an increase in the diagnosis and thereby the incidence of male infertility in Kolkata. Male infertility is particularly rampant in cities where people are prone to a stressful lifestyle.



Dr. Arindam Rath, Fertility Consultant at Nova IVI Fertility, Kolkata said, Infertility today is a rising concern among men in Kolkata, with 20-30% of all infertility cases being male related. The causes of male infertility can be genetic or caused by an infection, testicular or pelvic injury or a severe medical condition. Changing lifestyles, stressful work and personal environment, increased consumption of alcohol, tobacco and rising levels of obesity, diabetes, among other factors, may also lead to infertility. Many male fertility problems go undiagnosed and untreated, either because the attention focuses on their partner or because men are reluctant to get help or unable to find it when they seek.



Known causes of male infertility



 About 10-15% of male infertility is because of Azoospermia (absence of viable sperms in the semen).

 Sometimes men are able to produce sperms in sufficient quantity but the quality is poor, causing difficulty in conception. For fertilisation to take place, sperm must be able to reach the egg and then penetrate its outer layer. Sperms that don't move well or are abnormally shaped may be unable to do this.

 Male infertility is also caused by acute infections such as smallpox, mumps, other viral infections, and chronic infections like TB, leprosy, prostatitis, etc.

 Varicocele: An enlargement of the veins that wraps around the testicles and affects sperm development. It occurs in about 15 to 20 percent of infertile men.

 Other medical causes such as cryptorchidism (undescended testes), aplasia (congenital obstructions), vasectomy, post-infective ejaculatory disturbances and sexual dysfunctions are also common.



How male fertility check-ups are done



During any fertility check-up, it is mandatory to investigate both partners. A male fertility assessment usually starts with a thorough medical history and a semen analysis that examines the count, motility and morphology of sperm in the ejaculate. Further testing is based on the results of the analysis. Men with low sperm counts, for example, might require hormonal or genetic testing. If no sperm is found in the ejaculate, a testicular biopsy may be necessary. Hormone profile, DNA fragmentation and scrotal scan with Doppler are done if abnormalities are found. Semen analysis is repeated after three months if the patient has been put on treatment.



When male infertility is caused by poor quality sperms, modern technology allows us to look for and select the best and the most healthy sperm for ICSI (intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection), thereby increasing the chances of pregnancy. Advanced ART technique MACS (Magnetic Activated Cell Sorting) is known to improve the success rates of IVF by 8-10%. MACS is a semen preparation technique that involves the magnetic separation of healthy sperms from those which have less fertility potential. This helps achieve better fertilisation rate, early embryo cleavage, implantation rate and pregnancy rate, Dr. Rath added.



Couples struggling with infertility should make every effort to find the right help for both partners. While ob-gyns deal with women's reproductive problems, comprehensive infertility care units are the best options for men to seek help at. There are many treatment options starting from tablets to IUI (injecting sperms directly into the uterus) and IVF-ICSI depending on the cause and severity of the condition.


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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 16:40 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a46cb8b 1 City ahok,birthday,detention-cell,celebration Free

Non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama turns 51 on June 29 and his supporters plan to flood the Mobile Brigade Command detention center (Mako Brimob) in Kelapa Dua, Depok, West Java where he is being detained, with birthday cards.

Instagram account @basuki_btp_lovers, which is dedicated to Ahoks fans and supporters, encouraged its followers to send him postcards. The account wrote, To those who love Pak @basukibtp on Thursday, June 29 Pak Ahok will celebrate his 51st birthday.

The account encouraged Ahoks supporters to mail the cards via the postal service and urged people to refrain from including messages that contained provocative statements against ethnicity, religion and race (SARA).

Ahok is being detained at the Mako Brimob after being sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy. While being detained, Ahok has been reading the Bible, replying to letters from supporters and practicing Chinese martial arts. (wnd/dmr)
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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 10:45 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a451997 1 National islamic-schools,clerics,politics Free

Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) across the country are being told to stay away from politics.

"It's better for the kyai [Muslim clerics] not to be involved in politics. If they are, the pesantren could be neglected and the government could interfere with them, which is not good for the essence of pesantren itself," Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra of Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic State University (UIN) Jakarta said on Wednesday.

His statement comes in response to the growing conservative religious sentiment that marked the divisive Jakarta gubernatorial elections and which has seen many mosques become politicized. Many fear the same trend may shape the upcoming 2018 regional elections, which will be held simultaneously.

Three country's most-populous provinces  West Java, Central Java and East Java  are among 171 regions that will partake in the regional elections.

Data from 2012 from the Religious Affairs Ministry showed that of the approximately 27,000 pesantren across the country, 78 percent were located in these three provinces.

(Read also: Anies celebrates victory with conservatives at Istiqlal Mosque)

Muhammad Hosnan of Annuqayah Sumenep Islamic boarding school in Madura said that ahead of the 2018 East Java election, many political actors had been trying to approach numerous pesantren.

"This worries us. As pesantren, we are close with the local people. But politics is involved, the essence of our relationship with the public becomes ambiguous," Hosnan said.

Abdul Mu'ti, secretary-general of country's second-largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, said the phenomenon had become a new challenge for the pesantren.

"What is most important is that the kyais and students understand that having different political stances is normal," Abdul said. (dmr)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 08:00 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a449725 1 City ramadhan,Depok,market Free

The Depok administration in West Java has failed to set up low-priced markets at 22 locations in 11 districts of the city during the Ramadhan fasting month.

The head of the trade division of the Depok Trade and Industry Agency, Anim Mulyana, said on Wednesday that the Rp 396 million (US$29,779) program failed because the auction earlier this week for the program was not successful.

We hope we can undertake the operation next year, Anim said as quoted by kompas.com.

(Read also: Transjakarta to sell meat at some stops during Ramadhan)

Initially Depok administration planned to provide 226 staple-food packages in the intended locations. Each package would cost only Rp 35,000 and consist of 1 liter of cooking oil, 1 kilogram of sugar, 1 kg of flour, 1 bottle of syrup and 500 grams of peeled nuts.

Although the operation could not be done this year, Anim said Depok residents could still buy low-priced staple food sold by the West Java administration.

During Ramadhan the West Java province has provided staple-food packages that cost Rp 49,500 and contained 5 kg of rice, 3 kg of sugar and 1 liter of cooking oil. (hol)

Topics : ramadhan Depok market
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Linkedin N. Adri (The Jakarta Post) Balikpapan, East Kalimantan  Thu, June 8, 2017 21:06 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a47301e 1 National orangutan,East-Kalimantan,BOSF,Samboja-Lestari,Kutai-Kartanegara,conservation,EndangeredSpecies,endangered-species,endangered-animal Free

A 30-year-old East Kalimantan orangutan has been released into his natural habitat as part of the effort to sustain the population of the critically endangered species.

For 24 years, Romeo has been considered unable to return to his natural habitat.

We used the World Environment Day celebration on June 5 as the moment of his release. We have moved Romeo to a cage on Island 5. Its a preparation process. We want to first see his basic survival ability, said Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) director Jamartin Sihite in Samboja Lestari, Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan.

Island 5 is one of seven islands in Samboja Lestari where BOSF releases orangutans after rehabilitating them.

Sihite said if Romeo still has survival abilities, or if he learns to survive in the wild, he would be soon included on the list of orangutans that would be returned to the open forest.

Romeo is one of the first generation of orangutans rehabilitated by BOSF. He was returned to East Kalimantan in 1993 after living in a zoo in Taiwan for six years. When he first arrived in Indonesia, Romeo was diagnosed with Hepatitis B.

We didnt know how to treat Hepatitis B in an orangutan at that time. To prevent him from infecting other orangutans, we put Romeo in an isolation cage, said Sihite.

Infected with Hepatitis, Romeo was once categorized as unreleasable. His aggressive behavior both toward other orangutans and humans worsened the situation. Romeo was finally declared "in full recovery" from Hepatitis. On Island 5, Romeos survival abilities will be tested. (ebf)

All set: Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF) workers prepare the release of Romeo, a 30-year-old East Kalimantan orangutan, into his natural habitat in Samboja Lestari, Kutai Kartanegara, on June 5. (JP/N. Adri)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 23:34 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a474ac2 2 Business cellphone,retailer,drones,middle-class Free

Indonesias major cell phone retailer PT Erajaya Swasembada aims to tap into the growing domestic demand for aerial photography by distributing the newest version of drones made by China-based producer DJI.

Erajaya CEO Hasan Aula said Wednesday that his company was trying to popularize drones as a consumer item that could play a complementary role in people's lifestyles.

"To make people familiar with drones, we can do several things, such as giving information about their functions, educating consumers on how to operate them and providing networks of distribution," he said.

Middle-class consumers are Erajayas target market, Hasan added.

(Read also: Erajaya banking on mid-range phones to keep profitability)

DJIs lattest product, Spark, fits into this segment, with a price tag of Rp 7.9 million (US$601), cheaper than the latest smartphones.

DJI communication director Kevin On said his company saw Indonesia, a big country with expanding tourism, as a potential market for its products. The firm chose Erajaya as its distributor because of its vast sales network across the country. (rdi/lnd)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 16:15 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a46b975 1 National Siti-Fadilah-Supari,health,KPK,corruption Free

Former health minister Siti Fadillah Supari has handed over a Rp 1.35 billion (US$ 101,381) gratuity she received from several private companies to the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), a court heard on Wednesday.

Siti has returned Rp 1.35 billion as instructed by judge in the Rustam Pakayas verdict, prosecutor Ali Fikri told the Jakarta Corruption Court, as quoted by antaranews.com .

Rustam is a former health ministry crisis center chief who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2012 for his role in a corruption case that has implicated Siti.

Ali added that Siti was waiting for the courts verdict on her case before returning another Rp 550 million.

According to prosecutors, Siti has been found guilty of abusing her authority in the procurement of medical equipment for the Center for Health Problems (PPMK) in anticipation of a health emergency (KLB) in 2005, causing more than Rp 6 billion in state losses.

Siti is also said to have accepted bribes amounting to Rp 1.9 billion and Rp 1.3 billion from the finance director of PT Graha Ismaya Sri Wahyuningsih and PT Graha Ismaya president director Masrizal Achmad Syarif, respectively, in the form of travelers checks.

Siti has denied the accusations leveled against her. Id like to emphasize I never did anything the prosecutors indicted me with. (kuk/ary)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 23:54 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a476334 2 Business palm-oil-bill,deforestation,forest,sustainability,leeway,palm-oil-production Free

Several experts have urged the government to revise the draft of the palm oil bill as they consider it too lenient to companies producing the commodity and fear it could in turn threaten forest sustainability.

Gadjah Mada University researcher and lecturer Rimawan Pradiptyo said during a media briefing on Wednesday that the bills drawbacks included the provision of fiscal leeway and too many incentives for palm oil investors.

According to a study carried out by Rimawan in cooperation with Kemitraan, an organization that lobbies for clean government and business, the leeway covers the reduction of income tax, land and building tax and import duties for capital goods. In addition, the bill will allow oil palm plantation owners to demand compensation if their crops are attacked by pests.

Such excessive incentives will trigger the expansion of oil palm plantations, which will affect the sustainability and diversity of our forests, said Rimawan, adding that with such incentives, taxpayers would be burdened by having to shoulder part of the cost of oil palm plantations activities.

(Read also: House urged to immediately pass election bill into law)

Indonesia is the worlds largest palm oil producer with 31.5 million tons of crude palm oil produced in 2016. However, the country has been widely criticized because its massive expansion of oil palm plantations has caused deforestation.

The bill is also seen as a setback to the governments current moratorium on oil palm plantations as the proposed law permits oil palm cultivation on peatland. The moratorium strictly limits the use of peatland and natural forests for oil palm plantations.

The bill should be revised or withdrawn completely as it is no better than the existing regulations, Rimawan said.

The government has submitted the bill to the House of Representatives for approval. According to the current schedule, the bill will be deliberated by the House this year. (dea/lnd)
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Linkedin Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Batam, Riau Islands  Thu, June 8, 2017 22:16 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a473dc3 1 National Luxembourg,hang-nadim,Hang-Nadim-airport,Singapore,airport-expansion,Batam,RiauIslands,Riau-Islands,Changi,Changi-airport Free

The management of Hang Nadim International Airport in Batam, Riau Islands, has plans to make its cargo warehouse four times larger as part of its preparations for the transfer of Luxembourgs cargo handling from Singapore to that airport.

Hang Nadim Airport operational general manager Suwarso said the management had heard about the plan by Luxembourg authorities to transfer the handling of that country's cargo from Singapore Changi Airport to Batam because of several business considerations.

We have got information on the plan, which has been discussed just at the ministerial level. We hope the partnership can run they way it has been planned, said Suwarso.

Currently, Hang Nadims cargo warehouse measures 1,680 square meters and has a storage capacity of 44,000 tons. It will be expanded to 5,000 square meters with a storage capacity of 600,000 tons.

In an earlier statement, Suwarso said Hang Nadims expansion would start in 2019, with the US$448 million work budget posted in 2018.

The government will cover the airports expansion costs. The management [of the expanded airport] will be offered to private parties both from Indonesia and abroad, said Suwarso.

He said Japanese company Mitsui, which managed Haneda Airport in Japan, had shown a seriousness to take part in the tender process for the management of Hang Nadim.

South Korean company Incheon had made three visits to discuss the project with Hang Nadim management. State airport operater Angkasa Pura II has also conveyed a proposal to participate in the tender process, said Suwarso. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 12:32 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a45bb1e 1 Business finance-minister,tax-office,small-and-medium-enterprises,tax-avoidance Free

The Indonesian government has decided to revise its plan to examine financial data on the back of major outcry from micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). The government, through the Tax Office, only requires those with bank accounts with a minimum balance of Rp 1 billion (US$75,148.50) to be subjected to the scheme, higher than the initial plan of Rp 200 million.

The Finance Ministry said in a statement that the revision was made after heeding feedback from related stakeholders so the policy would be more reflective of the principle of fairness.

This policy shows preferential a option for MSME while taking into account easier administrative work for financial institutions to implement the policy, the statement said.

With the new ruling, the number of bank accounts subject to tax examination will stand at around 496,000, or 0.25 percent of total accounts, far lower than the initial target of around 2.3 million bank accounts with a minimum balance of Rp 200 million.

The ministry also asserted that the tax examination is aimed at collecting more comprehensive information in accordance with international standards so that Indonesia could take part in financial information exchanges with other countries. Indonesia along with 105 other countries have committed to enforcing broader access to taxpayers financial accounts to fulfill the compulsory reporting standards within the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) portal between tax authorities next year, as part of efforts to fight tax avoidance and evasion.

The ministry promised to hand legal sanctions to tax officers who are found to use or leak taxpayer information for purposes other than tax compliance, the statement added. (dmr)
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Linkedin Arif Gunawan Sulistiyono (The Jakarta Post) New York  Thu, June 8, 2017 18:26 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a4716e8 1 National Luhut-Binsar-Pandjaitan,Ocean-Conference,ASEAN,marine-plastic-debris Free

Indonesia has invited archipelagic and island states to forge a closer cooperation to deal with climate change issues, under a new multinational assembly called the Archipelagic and Island States Forum.

As the biggest archipelagic state, Indonesia shares the same burden and challenges with other island states in terms of climate change, regardless of the level of development or the size of the country, Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said.

I would like to invite island countries and archipelagic states, big and small islands, developing or developed, large population or few thousands, to get together on regular basis to exchange views and experiences as well as conduct mutual trainings and exercises in managing our oceans together, he said in his remarks to the United Nations (UN) members in the plenary meeting of the Ocean Conference on Tuesday.

Such a gathering, he further said, could be coined as the Archipelagic and Island States Forum, where government officials, scientists, the private sector and civil societies were part of the conversation and solution to the shared-common problems such as rising sea level and natural disasters.

Luhut explained that such a multilateral coordination was urgent to achieve the SDG 14, on ocean-related targets, in line with the deadline. Five of those deadlines are in 2020, just three years away; and several others in 2025. They are all due within the next eight years, he said.

Thus, Indonesia proposed the establishment of an office in the UN headed by a dedicated under secretary-general.
Image: YouTube Grab

New Delhi, June 08 (IBNS) A top executive of cab hailing company Uber who had obtained medical records of a woman who had been raped during a ride in New Delhi in 2014 has been fired, according to media reports.

A report in recode.net quoting Uber spokesperson said "he is no longer with the company."

According to the website, the fired executive Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, had then showed the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael. In addition, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group, the report said.

"Alexanders handling of the delicate situation was among 215 claims reported to two law firms  Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling  doing deep investigations into both specific and widespread mismanagement issues at the company, including around allegations of pervasive sexism and sexual harassment at Uber," the report said.

The report said "as part of the Coie investigation, 20 employees were fired for a range of infractions, from sexual harassment to unprofessional behavior to retaliation. About 100 others are either still being investigated or saw some type of action  such as warnings or mandatory employee trainings."

The 26-year-old Delhi woman was allegedly raped by an Uber driver in 2014 during a ride in the capital. She had filed a lawsuit against the company, saying that Uber's "hollow" safety and driver screening practices was the cause for her unsafe situation."

The woman had said that despite the San Francisco-based companys claimed that it maintained high safety standards, there was no practice of adequate screening of its drivers which puts at risk the safety of commuters.

She had filed a suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A professional, the woman was returning home in the cab.

The accused allegedly preyed on her when she dozed off. Uber was banned in Delhi after the incident which led to the arrest of its driver Shiv Kumar Yadav.

However, it began operating in the capital later again. Police said Yadav had criminal records of committing crimes against women in the past.




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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 16:12 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a46b169 1 National military,Philippines,ISIS,IslamicStateMilitants,border Free

Indonesia will build more military bases on some of its most outer islands, including Morotai Island in North Maluku, which shares a border with the Philippine island of Mindanao where Islamic militants have attempted to control a city.

Indonesian Military Commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo said on Thursday that plans to build a military base in Morotai Island were aimed at preventing militant groups from entering Indonesia.

Gatot said once the new military facility was built, military equipment would be brought there. He said the government would start building the Morotai Island military base as soon as the one on Natuna Island, another of Indonesias outer islands in Riau Island Province, was completed.

So, as President Jokowi has said, Morotai is an island where a military base will be built. But the construction process will be done step by step. Our priority is [the one] in Natuna, which is still under construction. After this, then Morotai, Gatot said as quoted by Antaranews.com.

The Indonesian military and the National Police have tightened security along areas that share a border with Mindanao to prevent militant groups from entering Indonesia.

Gatot said the military would deploy surveillance planes and add more ships to patrol the sea around North Maluku. (saf/ary)

Topics : military Philippines ISIS IslamicStateMilitants border
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 14:20 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a45f822 1 National #BLBICase,#AGO,#KPK Free

Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo has recommended the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) request the help of interpol to bring home anyone implicated in the alleged corruption case surrounding the disbursement of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Support (BLBI), including businessman Sjamsul Nursalim.

Anything that can help find [the people] should be done. We have Interpol and other [international] law enforcement agencies, Prasetyo told reporters on Wednesday as quoted by Kompas.com.

The anti-graft body has planned to question Sjamsul as a witness in the case, however the plan has not materialized because Sjamsul is reportedly in Singapore.

Sjamsul, who is the owner of Bank Dagang Nasional Indonesia (BDNI), will be questioned over Rp 3.7 trillion (US$277 million) of debt owed to the state, which he allegedly failed to return despite receiving a settlement letter from Syafruddin Arsyad Temenggung, a former chairman of the now-defunct Indonesian Restructuring Agency (IBRA), freeing him from paying the debt.

Syafruddin has also been named as a suspect in the case.

(Read also: KPK goes all in on BLBI case)

The Attorney Generals Office (AGO) initially launched a probe into Sjamsul for allegedly misusing the fund, but decided to drop the case in 2008. In 2013, AGO successfully brought home former Bank Surya general director Adrian Kiki Ariawan from Australia, another suspect in the BLBI case. He was brought back via an extradition agreement with the Australian government.

But we do not have an extradition agreement with Singapore. So the only possible way is by using Interpol's network, Prasetyo said. (Saf)
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Linkedin Hla-Hla Htay and Athens Zaw Zaw (AFP) Yangon, Myanmar  Thu, June 8, 2017 11:00 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a454bf5 2 World #Myanmar,#PlaneCrash Free

Myanmar's military said Thursday it has found the wreckage of a plane in the Andaman Sea that went missing with around 120 people on board, along with several bodies.

A navy search ship scouring the waves found the bodies of a man, woman and child, as well as pieces of luggage, safety jackets and a tyre presumed to be from the aircraft's wheel.

"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 am (0155 GMT)," a spokesman from the military's information team told AFP.

The commander in chief's office confirmed wreckage had been found off the coast of Launglon, in southern Myanmar, on Thursday morning.

Nine navy ships and three air force planes had been dispatched in a desperate search for the aircraft, which disappeared on Wednesday afternoon as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon, Myanmar's commercial heart.

There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief's office said in a statement.

Some were travelling for medical check-ups or to attend school in Yangon.

Search and rescue efforts continued Thursday morning as relatives of the passengers braced for the worst.

Wai Lin Aung said his mother had been on the plane after visiting his sister, who is married to a soldier based in Myeik.

"The whole family is very sad and we are waiting for news," he told AFP.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.

The commander-in-chief's office said the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 pm (07:05 GMT) on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

The Myanmar military named the captain of the Shaanxi Y8 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

The debris was found in the Andaman Sea, north of the last known location of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

The plane went missing in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, but no wreckage has ever been found.

Myanmar's military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 15:33 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a46929a 1 City #AhokTrial,appeal,withdraw,Attorney-General-Office Free

Prosecutors have officially withdrawn the appeal against North Jakarta District Courts two years prison sentence handed to non-active Jakarta governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy.

North Jakarta District Court spokesman Hasoloan Sianturi said that the court had received the prosecutors' withdrawal request on June 6.

"We're now processing the document regarding the withdrawal. We will also pass the information about the withdrawal to the suspect's lawyers," Hasoloan said on Thursday.

The court will pass the information about the withdrawal to Ahok's lawyers through Central Jakarta District Court, in accordance with the domicile of one of the lawyers

The document was submitted to the Central Jakarta District Court on Thursday morning, he said.

After giving the notice to Ahok's team, the court will submit the withdrawal request to the High Court, he said.

Meanwhile, a source from Ahok's legal team said that the lawyers had received a written notice about the withdrawal from prosecutors on Thursday morning.

Previously, Attorney General HM Prasetyo said that the prosecutors would withdraw the appeal because Ahok had decided not to take further legal processes to challenge the court's ruling.

"Ahok has accepted the verdict. Let's not only focus on one case. There are a lot of cases that we need to pay attention to," Prasetyo said as quoted by tribunnews.com on Wednesday.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 15:08 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a466bbf 1 National TNI,TNI-commander-Gatot-Nurmantyo,North-Maluku,terrorism,alutsista,terrorists,morotai,#TNI,#Terrorism Free

The Indonesian Military (TNI) is set to dispatch a reconnaissance aircraft to North Maluku to anticipate terrorism threats in the province.

We will deploy a Boeing aircraft to monitor surreptitious radical movements in North Maluku, said TNI commander Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo as quoted by Antara during his visit to Ternate, on Thursday.

He said the deployment of the reconnaissance aircraft would be accompanied by additional sea vessels, which would carry out sea patrols in several locations considered prone to terrorist infiltration, especially the outermost areas, such as Morotai Island regency.

Gatot said the TNI also planned to build military bases on several of Indonesia's outermost islands, including Morotai Island.

Once construction of the military base on Morotai Island is complete, the TNI will install a primary weaponry defense system specially designed for border area security.

Gatot said the program, which was initiated by President Joko Jokowi Widodo, would be realized after the construction of a military base on Natuna Island in northwestern Kalimantan was completed.

Based on the program initiated by President Jokowi, Morotai is one of the islands where we will build a military base supported by primary weaponry defense systems. This will be conducted in stages. Once the construction of the military base on Natuna is completed, we will move to Morotai, he said. (saf/ebf)


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Linkedin News Desk (AFP) Washington  Thu, June 8, 2017 07:06 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a446c2c 2 World #DonaldTrump,#Iran Free

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed sympathy for the victims of a terror attack in Iran that killed 13 people, but issued a barbed warning that the country was reaping what it sowed.

Gunmen and suicide bombers, acting almost simultaneously, attacked Iran's parliament and a shrine to the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini in the first attacks in the country claimed by the so-called Islamic State group.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," Trump said in a brief statement.

"We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Earlier, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that "the depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world."

"We express our condolences to the victims and their families, and send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Iran," she added.

Trump has long accused Iran of backing terrorism. During last year's presidential campaign, he suggested that one of his top priorities was to dismantle the "disastrous" 2015 deal aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

As president, he has maintained his criticism of Iran -- during a visit to Israel last month Trump said Tehran now feels "emboldened" by the nuclear accord -- but has not tampered with the agreement.

A United Nations watchdog group confirmed in June that Iran was adhering to the deal.

Even as Washington expressed its condolences over the terror strike, the US Senate advanced legislation Wednesday that would impose new sanctions on Iran, partly for what the bill described as the Iranian regime's "support for acts of international terrorism."

Lawmakers voted 92 to 7 to clear a procedural hurdle, setting up a later vote on final passage.

But Republicans and Democrats alike said they are eager to add an amendment that would slap fresh sanctions on Russia in response to US intelligence conclusions that the Kremlin conducted or approved cyberattacks on US targets in an effort to sway the presidential election.

"In the last eight months, what price has Russia paid for attacking American democracy? Hardly any at all," Republican Senator John McCain said.

"We need a strong Russia sanctions amendment. We need it now."
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 23:42 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a475a16 2 Business zakat-fitrah-alms,jobs,pro-business-policies Free

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has called on businesspeople to pay zakat fitrah alms, saying that sharing their wealth with the less fortunate is a way to help develop the country.

In addition to fasting, there is also the act of zakat. Businesspeople must remember to give zakat during the holy month of Ramadhan in order to bring hope for the future, he said at a breaking-of-the-fast event with the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin) on Wednesday evening.

Only businesspeople can give enough zakat to create jobs for the people and to build this country.

(Read also: IDB praises Indonesia's initiative on zakat framework)

Kalla also vowed that President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration would continue supporting businesspeople as many of those in the Cabinet had business backgrounds.

The president is a businessman; his deputy is also a businessman and many of his ministers are businesspeople, Kalla said. So, if the government issues pro-business policies, its because we know how it feels and how important it is to create policies that will encourage more [business] activities and create more jobs. (lnd)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 12:22 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a4598ac 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,bali,Conference,#Bali,tourism,#tourism Free

The Bali Tourism Institute is set to host the upcoming World Conference on Business and Management (WCBM) slated to run from July 5 to 8.

The third international conference will invite scientists to discuss the theories and practices of new ideas and perspectives on interdisciplinary global business prosperity.

No less than 300 delegates from 30 countries will participate at the conference. They will have the opportunity to listen and discuss new business ideas and paradigms, to share new knowledge and study the business outlook of the future. Were proud to be the host, said Bali Tourism Institute head Dewa Gede Ngurah Byomantara.

Read also: Tabanan to host mobile cinema at Bali Arts Festival 2017

Apart from the conference, the institute will also host the Great Global Debate 2017 themed Peace and prosperity for mankind based upon humanistic global business and management study. During the debate, each participant will present and discuss new paradigms of management.

International speakers scheduled to participate at the event include Dr. Martin Lusticky of the University of Prague in the Czech Republic, Dr. Pat Obi of Northwest University in United States, Dr. Sourav Ray of McMaster University in Canada and Dr. Sen Sendjaya Of Monash University in Australia. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Grenoble, France  Thu, June 8, 2017 14:28 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a460619 2 News Mont-Blanc,cable-car,travel,traveling,tourism,#tourism Free

A cable car whose dramatic breakdown last September forced 33 tourists to spend the night stranded -- suspended high over the French Alps -- is to reopen on Thursday, local officials announced.

The cars which offer visitors stunning views in the shadows of Mont Blanc will be put back in service after an extensive overhaul, nine months after the incident which made headlines across the world.

The sightseers were trapped in the cars at an altitude of 3,800 metres (12,500 feet) for 18 hours after the cables got crossed last September 8.

Nightfall and deteriorating weather had forced emergency workers to suspend their rescue operation.

Read also: Eiffel Tower turns into thrill-seeking ride at 90km an hour

New safety features have been added to the overhauled system, said a statement from the regional authority of Haute-Savoie.

They include a smoother movement out of the station to guard against the cables crossing, and improvements to the back-up engine for the system.

The cabins have also been supplied with emergency kits containing warm clothing and food in case of any future breakdown.

The five-kilometre (three-mile) system connects the Aiguille du Midi on the French side of the mountains with Pointe Helbronner on the Italian border, offering panoramic views of Mont Blanc.

It has been operating since 1950.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, June 8, 2017 11:21 1981 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97a45687f 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,public-works-housing-ministry,World-Bank,tourism Free

Public Works and Public Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono recently met with the World Bank director for Indonesia Rodrigo A. Chavez to discuss partnership programs for housing and tourist destination development.

At the meeting they discussed two new programs. The first focuses on improving access to affordable housing for low-income households, the second on "infrastructure development in three priority tourist destinations: Lake Toba, Borobudur and Mandalika, said Hadimuljono.

Read also: Recommended Airbnb rentals in Indonesia's surfing spots

Within the housing sector, the World Bank will give a loan to the National Affordable Housing Project. The loan is worth US$450 million, with US$225 million transferred through the Independent Housing Stimulus Assistance Program (BSPS).

The remaining US$225 million will be allocated for housing loans (KPR), which will target people who have never received mortgage liquidity facility for low-income people (FLPP), interest margin subsidies (SSB) and down payment assistance subsidies (SBUM).

The program will be implemented from July, 2017 until 2020 with locations spread across the nation, targeting 1.2 million householders who work in formal and informal sectors, Hadimuljono added.

The second partnership program focuses on basic infrastructure development in three national tourism strategic locations (KSPN), Lake Toba, Borobudur and Mandalika. The program will begin in August this year starting with the development of an integrated master plan for the development of priority tourist destinations that is expected to take 12 months to finish. (asw)

Read also: Borobudur among National Geographics 15 iconic adventures

The budget for the development of the master plan for the aforementioned three locations is US$6 million with $US4 million coming in the form of a loan and the remaining $US2 million as a grant. The implementation of the plan will be conducted over 60 months, for which the World Bank agreed to lend US$200 million.

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya explained that the US$200 million loan from the World Bank had been disbursed, with the loan contract signed in June 2017. The money will be divided for two phases, preparation and execution. In order to develop all 10 priority destinations into new Balis, the ministry requires around US$20 billion. (asw)
New Delhi, Jun 8 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Thursday, left New Delhi for Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit to be held over June 8 and 9, according to media reports.

At this summit, India will gain entry into the six nation group, media reported, where Pakistan. China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are full members.

The PM, on his official Facebook page wrote, "I will travel to Astana, Kazakhstan for two days on 8-9 June for the Summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full Member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40% of humanity and nearly 20% of global GDP.

We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting of the SCO last year. I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things.

We have long-standing relations with SCO members and look forward to progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people.

Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realizing our full potential.

On evening of June 9, I will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of Future Energy."

Image: PIB
London, June 08 (IBNS) Khuram Shazad Butt, the Pakistani origin attacker who is now believed to be the mastermind behind the London attack, had imbibed the extremist Sunni ideology of his country of origin despite growing up in the liberal environment of Britain.

The London Metropolitan Police has been gradually releasing more and more information on the three London attackers. As of now, we have a fair bit of information on Khuram Shazad Butt, the Pakistani origin attacker who is now believed to be the mastermind behind the attack.

So who was Khruam Butt? Our investigation and inputs received from the London police authorities reveal that Butt was born in Jhelum, Pakistan.

He came to Britain as a child when his parents sought asylum. He grew up in East London and spoke with a very distinct East London accent.

A trained weightlifter, he was known in the neighbourhood and to his friends as Abz". However, he preferred to be known as Abu Zeitoun and also used the alias Rachid Elkhdar.

With a National Vocational Qualification in business administration and a diploma in teaching English to adults, it may appear strange to many of us as to why he took to this path.

Despite growing up in London, as most Pakistani origin youngsters he had an arranged marriage. The day he drove the van on London bridge with the intention of mowing down people, he had left at home his wife, a son aged about three and a recently born baby.

There were enough signs to show that Butt was a potential terrorist. He is known to have been a one time a supporter of the banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun. Subsequently, he became part of a radical group in East London who ideologically supported ISIS.

In 2015, Butt was accused of trying to indoctrinate children to convert to Islam. It was around this time that the police opened their investigation into Butt. In May 2017, he was noticed campaigning in the streets of East London urging Muslims not to participate in the upcoming general election.

Among the close friends and associates of Butt include the fundamentalist cleric Anjem Chaudhry, who is currently serving a jail sentence and extremist preacher Abu Haleema.

Butt is a classic case of extremist Muslim youth who are becoming radicalised from a young age, worldwide, say observers.

Irrespective of the environment that they grow up in, they imbibe the extremist Sunni ideology of their country of origin, in this case Pakistan.

As a result, while democratic institutions are seen as retrograde, the call for jihad against supporters of democratic credentials is viewed by such youth as a natural course of action.

"We need to realise that this dangerous trend cannot be tackled only in the West. The root of this extremist ideology, whether in Pakistan or Syria needs to be attacked and in a sustained manner these jihad manufacturing units shut down. Butt is only the symptom, we need to root out the disease," says an UK-based expert on Islamic terrorism.
Its not every day you come face-to-face with a prime minister, especially not one who appears on your doorstep in a kayak.

The Robinson family from Ontario were treated to a surprise visit from Canadian PM Justin Trudeau after he paddled up to their home along the Niagara River.

Justin Trudeau just kayaked up to my house and talked to my parents? classic pic.twitter.com/gktVekiTMZ  carrie robinson (@carrierobinson_) June 5, 2017

To mark World Environment Day and Canadas commitment to tackling climate change, Trudeau spent part of his day on the river, stopping to chat with neighbours along the way.

The Robinsons have lived by the river for five years and mum Anne told the BBC: It was certainly a surprise when he turned and kayaked right over to us for a chat. Prime Minister Trudeau is very engaging and easy to talk with.

Canada is all in. This morning, we paddled to celebrate #WorldEnvironmentDay & our commitment to protect the planet for future generations. pic.twitter.com/fTByQNK8wd  Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 5, 2017

The prime minister uploaded photos of his Niagara River adventure on Twitter after posting a statement which said Canada has taken strong steps to protect the environment and promote clean economic growth and is committed to fighting climate change.

statement Theread: World Environment Day reminds us that we have a global responsibility to safeguard our environment  and that each of us has a role to play to preserve and protect it.

More than ever, Canada is committed to provide international leadership to fight climate change and support clean economic growth. We will continue to work with our domestic and international partners to drive progress on the environmental challenges we face as a global community.
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities face more barriers than most when it comes to voting in a general election.

From the practicalities of registering to vote with no fixed address to issues of illiteracy and apathy, there are a host of hurdles that need to be overcome before making it to the polls on Thursday.

You've got until Monday to register to vote. If you want a say you've got to vote! #OperationTravellerVote https://t.co/XCFOslnmi5 pic.twitter.com/q9gb74505A  Traveller Movement (@GypsyTravellerM) May 19, 2017

As you would expect with all disadvantaged groups, there is a real sense of disenfranchisement within the GRT communities, says Yvonne MacNamara, chief executive of the Traveller Movement charity, who lives in London.

You hear the same arguments against getting involved in politics as you do on the news when they interview any other group: whats the point, no one will listen to me anyway.

These concerns have led the Traveller Movement to launch a campaign aimed at getting GRT communities out to the polls, called Operation Traveller Vote.

The 2011 census  the first to include an ethnicity option for Gypsies and Travellers  revealed the community is the countrys smallest ethnic minority at 58,000 people. Add in the Roma population and the figure expands to between 80,000 and 300,000.

Although there are few figures tracking democratic participation in these communities, the Traveller Movement says turnout is lower for them than for other minority groups.

We are trying to make politics more accessible and demonstrate that their voices do matter and they can influence decisions, said MacNamara.

We have published easy-to-read guides on the manifestos, explaining how the main parties policies can and will affect their daily lives.

The organisation has also asked members of the community which issues matter to them and produced a list of questions for members of the GRT community to ask campaigners. Topics include site provision, services and health for the community.

Cassie Marie McDonagh, 28, from Watford, is an Irish traveller who will be voting for the first time on June 8. She says she feels ignored, and that some politicians pander to the settled communities fears by closing designated sites for roadside travellers.

But she added: We cant keep sitting back thinking oh whats the point. We need to start showing politicians they have to help us too and the best way to do that is to go out and vote.

Cassie Marie McDonagh with her children (Cassie Marie McDonagh/PA)

She says education is at the top of her agenda, particularly the government dropping support for Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month.

My brother, who is in high school, wouldnt feel like he could go to school and talk about us and our way of life Its not right that he has to feel ashamed of our culture and who he is, she said.

She believes Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month gives our kids a way to speak about their culture and show the other children about how we truly are and not the myths they get told all the time. Stopping racism and prejudice starts in schools.

As well as making the communities aware of the policies out there, the movement is also working to make the process of voting itself easier for GRT people.

This includes working with the Electoral Commission to cater to the specific needs of the GRT community.

Today is the last day you can register to vote. Make sure your voice is heard and register #OperationTravellerVote https://t.co/XCFOsl5Lqx pic.twitter.com/CJrcdHHduV  Traveller Movement (@GypsyTravellerM) May 22, 2017

For roadside Travellers, its about explaining that they can still vote even if they dont have a fixed address, said MacNamara. There is something called a declaration of local connection, which allows people with no fixed address but a local connection to vote.

Another barrier is literacy. According to the Traveller Movement, around 80% of Travellers are illiterate. This raises obvious issues when it comes to registering to vote, reading campaign literature and the act of voting itself.

Those with difficulty reading or writing can either ask the presiding officer at the polling station or can take along someone over 18 who is eligible to vote to help.

Its not just the Traveller Movement working to get the vote out.

McDonagh says shell be trying to persuade as many friends and family members in the GRT community as possible to vote on Thursday.

She said: Once you explain to them what the parties stand for and what it means for our way of life then they start to think it might be worth it.

McDonagh said she has been posting about the election on her Facebook page, and a particular video from Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has had a positive impact.

She said: My cousin saw it and then he called me to ask what it was about  after he watched the video he called me back and said he wanted to vote so I sent him the link to register.

I talked him through the process and he also registered his mammy. So thats at least three more votes for Labour!
Students were evacuated from college accommodation over a bomb scare in Cambridge earlier this week.

Police evacuated several buildings and cordoned off a large area in Cambridge city centre on Monday evening due to concern over an unattended briefcase.

A bomb disposal unit was dispatched to Kings Parade at around 7.30pm.

At 10pm Cambridgeshire police tweeted: We have been called about a suspicious device in Cambridge. The area around Kings Parade has been evacuated as a precaution.

Two controlled explosions were heard as the squad detonated the package. Kings College students in nearby accommodation were told to stay away from windows and remain indoors.

At 10.30pm police confirmed via Twitter that the briefcase destroyed was not suspicious and that the controlled explosion was a precautionary measure.

A later statement from Cambridgeshire police confirmed that the briefcase spotted behind a bin opposite Great St Mary's church had contained books.

Varsity Customers at the Cambridge Chop House were also evacuated. One diner told student newspaperthat a police man came down and demanded that everybody got out the restaurant, so I grabbed my creme brulee and ran.

Gonville and Caius college tweeted its thanks to staff and students for remaining calm throughout the incident. The administration reassured its follwers that we remained calm and did not break into the wine cellar.
In America, as someone once said, the Democrats are the party of common sense, whereas the Republicans are the party of the gut instinct. Settling down to hurtle through this new series in the space of a few short nights, I assumed President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) was a Republican. He may have a lot of common sense, but everything he has ever done has been undergirded by the fierce, primal instinct of his gastrointestinal tract. However, the Republic is in fact his opponent at the presidential election, the event around which this batch of thirteen chapters is based.Governor Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman) has neither common sense nor good instincts, being instead filled with an unappealing mix of arrogance and whining self-pity. Remind you of anyone? Kinnamans performance is nonetheless one of the most impressive of this season, as we watch him sail triumphantly into the election before slowly coming to terms with how determined the Underwoods are at holding onto power. Many commentators have talked of how life has seemed to imitate art with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016. As a result, this fifth season of House of Cards sometimes feels as if it is actively trying to compete with the insanity of real American politics. You can decide for yourself whether it oversteps the mark, although I certainly think that the final two episodes occasionally pushed the boundaries of plausibility to an extent that the quality of the drama was undermined. Although what else can you expect in the the Underwoods' America, which with its rigged elections, bought-off opponents and wars started as distractions, has essentially become a rogue state. More worryingly, its most senior leaders are rapidly losing control of their own criminality, as they struggle desperately to save Franks presidency from going under. It can be no coincidence that as her husband struggles to survive, Claire (Robin Wright) continues to rise in prominence, and smart observers will soon be able to guess where the show is taking her. Once the driver of the sub-plots that played second fiddle to Franks antics, she has since become the most interesting character in the show, indulging in a strange love affair with the flawed but likeable novelist Tom Yates (Paul Sparks), who is slowly learning of how the couple with which he is involved poison everything they touch. As a sign of the shift of focus from Frank to his wife, Claire addresses the audience for the first time this series. Shes always known were there, she tells us with her monstrous glare, but has always felt ambivalent about our presence. Whose side, she rightly asks, are we on? The great achievement of House of Cards is still its ability to make the audience simultaneously ally with opposing forces. We want Frank to succeed as much as we want the pesky journalist Tom Hammerschmidt (Boris McGiver), digging into the deaths of Zoe Barnes and Rachel Posner, to uncover the truth. Towards the end of this excellent run of episodes, Hammerschmidt identifies the most fascinating and frightening aspect about the Underwoods. Unlike someone such as Donald Trump, with his obsession with Mexican walls, the First Couple here have no ideology, no driving vision, no north star. Rather than wanting to implement a grand policy, Frank and Claire are after power for its own sake. Its consolidation and expansion is their only aim. Winning power, says Frank at one point, is mans most basic instinct  it is, you could say, what his gut tells him to do. And the journalist is right  that makes the Underwoods more dangerous than anything.
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Guwahati, June 8 (IBNS) : Suspected militants released kidnapped Superintendent Manager of Maijonga tea estate in Assam's Kokrajhar district on Wednesday night, according to police reports.

Manager Navin Joshi, 50, was abducted by an armed militant group from a palce near the Mornoi tea estate under Grahampur area on June 2 evening.

A top police official said that suspected adivasi militants had released him on Wednesday night.

The police official said that investigation is going on into the abduction incident and Joshi is under medical treatment.

Meanwhile, a reliable source said that adivasi militants, who had earlier surrendered, are likely behind the abduction incident and allegedly freed the manager after receiving ransom money.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)

Image: Assam Tourism
Darjeeling, Jun 8 (IBNS): Police had to resort to lathi-charge to disperse Gorkha Janmukti Morcha protesters in Darjeeling on Thursday when protesters allegedly set fire to three police vehicles, according to media reports.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is in Darjeeling to chair a state cabinet meeting.

A cabinet meeting is being held in Darjeeling after a gap for 45 years, media reported.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) is protesting against a number of issues, one of which is to do with the introduction of Bengali as a subject in schools, media reports said.

The GJM protesters had gathered in front of the Raj Bhavan, the West Bengal governor's summer residence and the venue of the cabinet meeting.




New Delhi, Jun 8 (IBNS): Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was arrested on Thursday after being taken in preventive custody by the police when he attempted to visit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, according to media reports.

Media reported that he is being held in a guest house and has refused to take bail.

The Congress vice president was on his way to visit Mandsaur where during a farmers' protest, five people were killed in police firing two days ago, triggering tension and prompting imposition of curfew.

Flying to Udaipur from New Delhi, Rahul Gandhi travelled by road towards Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan.

According to local reports, he rode a bike for a part of the way and even walked across a field to avoid the police who were trying to stop him from entering MP.

Rahul Gandhi was allegedly first detained when he was almost a kilometre inside MP and taken into preventive custody, media reported.

Prior to that, Section 144 had been declared in the region.

Talking to NDTV, veteran Congress leader said only three of them were trying to enter the region which did not break the provisions of Section 144.

Senior Congress leader and former MP chief minister Digvijay Singh that they were not trying to feed the fire but trying to assuage it.

MP Home Minister said that Rahul Gandhi was riding a bike without helmet.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, MP Home Minister said that the farmers had died in police firing. A day earlier, he had said that they did not die in police firing, according to media reports.

Earlier in the day, tweets from the handle Office of RG read "Raj & MP Govts are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP & meeting the families of the #farmers killed in #Mandsaur."

Office of RG also tweeted, "What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?"

The Congress tweeted, "Congress VP #RahulGandhi taken into preventive custody by the Madhyapradesh police."

The BJP has also verbally attacked Rahul Gandhi and the Congress party.

The BJP said that the UPA during its rule did not do anything for the farmers whereas MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a friend of the farmers, media reports said.

BJP said that Congress is politicising the farmers' protest for their own gains, according to media reports.

Image: INC India
New Delhi, Jun 8 (IBNS): The leader of Bhim Army, a Dalit-rights group, was arrested from Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, according to media reports.

The 30-year old lawyer, Chandrashekhar Azad alias Ravan was named as one of the main accused in the caste-related clashes that occurred in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in early May, media reported.

On Monday, the media had reported that the Saharanpur police announced a reward for information about the Bhim Army's chief Chandrashekhar and other absconding leaders, in connection with their alleged role in the recent Saharanpur violence
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Darjeeling/Kolkata, June 08 (IBNS) Amid violent protest and arson in the hills of Darjeeling by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was chairing a state cabinet meeting, the state government has sought Army help to control the situation.

While the GJM, which set on fire police vehicles, called a shutdown on Friday, the state government has sought help from Indian Army to restore peace in violence hit Darjeeling.

Chief Secretary of the state has requested the Centre to deploy army in Darjeeling at the earliest.

A senior official of Indian Army's Eastern Command told IBNS: "We have not received any direction regarding army deployment from our headquarters in Delhi so far."

"Troops would be deployed in Darjeeling from our camp in Sukma if we get order from the Centre," he added.

Almost all ministers of West Bengal, including CM Mamata Banerjee, and over 10,000 tourists have been stranded in hills due to the protest.

Local administration is requesting the tourists to stay inside their hotels and not to move outside.

GJM leader Bimal Gurung has called for a 12-hour-long general strike in Darjeeling hills tomorrow (Friday). Gorkhas, who are ethnic Nepalese, led by parties like GJM have been demanding a separate state of Darjeeling for several decades.

A police official told IBNS: "At least 50 policemen, including 3 officers and few female cops, were injured in the sudden attack of GJM."

"They threw bricks, stones and glass bottles aiming at cops. Police restored to lathicharge and lobbed tear gas shells. Over 12 vehicles, including a state bus and few police jeeps, a police kiosk and a local police outpost at Mall were set on fire by protesters. We have detained few protesters."

CM Mamata Banerjee condemned of the incident and has directed local administration to take all adequate steps. She said tourists will be evacuated safely.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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New Delhi, Jun 8 (IBNS): The Madhya Pradesh government allowed Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, on Thursday, to meet family members of the farmers who had died in police firing recently in Mandsaur, media reported.

A tweet on the official Congress party handle read "#RahulGandhi released. On his way to meet the families who have been taken to the Rajasthan border to prevent them from meeting him in MP."

Office of RG tweeted later in the day, "Spoke to families of deceased farmers on phone&conveyed my condolences.I'm here to meet them&will not be deterred frm voicing their concerns."

The meeting took place at the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border, reports later said.

The police earlier released the Congress vice president on bail from his makeshift jail in a guest house where he was taken first under preventive custody and then arrested, according to media reports.

On Thursday morning, the MP government had said that it will not allow Rahul Gandhi to enter the state and meet the protesting farmers. A section 144 was also declared in the area.

Rahul Gandhi and other veteran Congress leaders had marched to the state border but were prevented from entering by the state police, media reports said.

The BJP has called the Congress' attempt to meet the farmers and their families as 'bankrupt p;otics'.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh and head of the BJP-led government in the state, said, "Won't spare anyone breaking the law."

Along with Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra is also facing farmers' agitation.

However, the media has pointed out that while the Madhya Pradesh-Rahul Gandhi tug of war was going on, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh was seen performing yoga with yoga expert Ramdev in Bihars Motihari,

Image: INC India Twitter
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Darjeeling, June 8 (IBNS): Army was called out in Darjeeling at the request of the West Bengal government to control the situation arising out of a violent protest by the Gorkha Jamukti Morcha on Thursday, media reports.

Two army columns have been deployed to the affected areas. Since late evening, army trucks are being seen patrolling at violence-hit areas of Darjeeling.

"Requisition from state Govt received. Two army columns based in Darjeeling have been moved out. Each column about 80 men," PRO of Indian Army's Eastern Command, S.S. Birdi, said.

According to local media, no more violence has been reported since evening while situation remains tense there as Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has called for a 12-hour-long general strike in the hills on Friday.

The hills in the North Bengal witnessed a violent protest by GJM, where several police vehicles were set on fire.

Amid violent protest and arson in the hills of Darjeeling by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee chaired a state cabinet meeting.

Banerjee is still in Darjeeling and said that she will be there until peace is restored in the hills.

The state government earlier in the day sought help from Indian Army to restore peace in violence hit Darjeeling.

Almost all ministers of West Bengal, including CM Mamata Banerjee, and over 10,000 tourists have been stranded in hills due to the protest.

Local administration is requesting the tourists to stay inside their hotels and not to move outside.

GJM leader Bimal Gurung has called for a 12-hour-long general strike in Darjeeling hills on Friday.

A police official told IBNS: "At least 50 policemen, including 3 officers and few female cops, were injured in the sudden attack of GJM."

"They threw bricks, stones and glass bottles aiming at cops. Police restored to lathicharge and lobbed tear gas shells. Over 12 vehicles, including a state bus and few police jeeps, a police kiosk and a local police outpost at Mall were set on fire by protesters. We have detained few protesters."

CM Mamata Banerjee condemned of the incident and has directed local administration to take all adequate steps. She said tourists will be evacuated safely.
Guwahati, June 8 (IBNS): Assam police headquarter has directed all districts police to collect information about the missing youths of the state, who went to South India and gulf nations for working purpose.

Assam police has directed it following an Intelligence Bureau (IB) input stating that some youths of the state are in touch with ISIS and other jihadi organizations.

IB also warned Assam police that, some youths of the state are trying to contact with Jihadi organizations.

We have directed all districts police, specially the lower and middle Assam districts to collect information about the missing youths. Every year, over thousand youths of the state go to South India and gulf nations for working purpose. But the families of over 100 youths are not able to contact with their sons in past two years. It is a very concerning matter and we have taken it very seriously, Assam police ADGP (SB) Pallav Bhattacharya said.

The top Assam cops further said that, Assam police has already contacted with the counterpart of Kerala.

Meanwhile, a recent report of IB submitted to the Union Home ministry revealed that, ISIS related searches through internet from Assam has gradually increased and several youths from the north eastern Indian state are trying to contact with the leaders of Jihadi organizations.

A top IB official said that ISIS has been trying to establish its base in India by creating sleeper cells.

The Union Home ministry also expressed worry about uprising jihadi activities in north eastern part and West Bengal.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, June 8 (IBNS): A day of gloom set over Shillong as Major David Manlun, 164 Infantry Battalion (Territorial Army) (PU-2 Naga Regt), who got martyred while battling the dreaded ULFA (I) and NSCN (K) insurgents at Mon District (Nagaland) on Wednesday, was laid to rest on Thursday.

The funeral of Major David was carried out by Assam Regimental Centre at Regimental Cemetery.

The martyred officer was laid to rest with full military honour.

Kohima based Defence PRO Colonel Chiranjeet Konwer said that Meghalaya governor Banwari Lal Purohit laid the wreath at the residence of Major David at Happy Valley in Shillong.

The final journey from his house till the burial ground was witnessed by thousands of civilians who thronged the streets to bid final adieu to their favourite son.

The National Flag which was draped over the martyred officer was handed over by Brigadier Sudhir Kumar Jha, YSM, Commandant ARC to Subedar Major (Retired) Khan Zhalan (Ex 5 ASSAM), father of the martyred officer.

The funeral was attended by various dignitaries that included Major General SK Dutta, Officiating General Officer Commanding 101 Area Brigadier Amrit Lal, Station Commander and Brigadier RS Thakur, Commandant 58 Gorkha Training Centre.

Major David Manlun was martyred during gun battle with a militant group of ULFA (I) and NSCN (K) at Lapa Lempong hilltop in Oting village near Tizit in Nagalands Mon district, about 25 kms from Indo-Myanmar border.

Three ULFA (I) militants and a civilian were killed during the gun fight with 12 Para Commandos of the Army and Naga Territorial Army.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Stressed assets of Indian banks will increase through 2019 and capitalisation will remain a key credit weakness for state-owned lenders which will need up to Rs.95,000 crore additional capital over the next two years, Moody's said on Thursday.

Public sector banks (PSBs) have limited ability to raise external capital and hence infusion by the government remains the only viable source for shoring up capital base, Moody's Investors Service said in a report-'Indian banks' capitalisation profiles worsen; asset quality outlook remains weak'.

Moody's Indian affiliate, ICRA said the asset quality outlook for the banking sector will remain weak. Gross Non Performing Assets (NPAs) or bad loans will increase to Rs.8.2 -Rs.8.5 lakh crore (9.9-10.3 per cent of total advances) by the end of 2017-18 as against Rs.7.65 lakh crore (9.5 per cent) at the end of March 2017.

"In our central scenario, we estimate that the 11 Moody's rated public sector banks will require external equity capital of about Rs.70,000-95,000 crore, or about $10.6- 14.6 billion," Moody's VP and Senior Analyst Alka Anbarasu said.

"The stock of impaired loans will increase during the horizon of this outlook, but at a slower pace versus the last two years," Moody's said

The capital requirement is much higher than Rs.20,000 crore budgeted by the government towards capital infusion until March 2019.

Under the Indradhanush plan for bank recapitalisation, government is to infuse Rs.70,000 crore in PSU banks beginning 2015. Of this, the government has already infused Rs.50,000 crore in the past two fiscals and the remaining will be pumped in by the end of 2018-19.

As per the plan, PSBs need to raise Rs.1.10 lakh crore from markets, including follow-on public offers, to meet Basel III capital adequacy norms, which kick in from March 2019.

While it expects credit costs to stay broadly in line with the levels during the last fiscal, Moody's does not expect any material improvements in the banks' profitability profiles over the next two years.

"Capital infusions from the government remain the only viable source of external equity capital, because of the public sector banks' low capital market valuations, which would likely continue to deny them the option of raising fresh equity from the capital markets," the US-based agency said.

Because the pace of NPA resolutions is sluggish, ICRA's outlook on the banks' asset quality remains weak, even as the pace of fresh NPA generation slows.

"We estimate the fresh NPA generation at 5.5 per cent for FY'17 as compared to 6 per cent for FY'16 while the overall stressed assets for the banking system stood at estimated around 16-17 per cent as on March 2017," ICRA Group Head, Financial sector ratings, Karthik Srinivasan said.

It said the recent Ordinance issued by the Government of India for amendment in the Banking Regulation Act of 1949 is a positive for the banks, because it highlights the urgency and the willingness of the government to resolve the stressed asset challenges of the banking system.

Moody's further said that its stable outlook for non- financial corporates in India over the next 12-18 months reflects in large part the country's sustained economic growth.

It believes that its high GDP growth forecast for India of 7.5 per cent for current fiscal and 7.7 per cent for next fiscal, capacity additions and stabilising commodity prices, will support EBITDA growth of 6-12 per cent for corporates over the next 12-18 months.

ICRA said a revival in consumption demand, lower input costs and structural reforms will support a gradual recovery in the corporate sector.

The agencies further said that a well-distributed and timely monsoon would be pivotal for the continued recovery in the performance of a range of retail loans impacted by demonetisation.

A normal monsoon, coupled with thrust from the government policies such as minimum support price (MSP) and welfare schemes like NREGA would help improve rural household incomes and consequently repayment ability on loan obligations.
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday gave ex-post facto approval to an agreement on merchant shipping with Cyprus signed in April during the visit of Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades.

"The agreement on merchant shipping will pave the way for cooperation in eliminating any hindrances which may hamper the development of sea trade between the two nations," said an official statement.

The MoU will encourage participation in the transport of goods between the countries, and also from third countries, the statement said, adding that it also seeks cooperation for employment, improvement of conditions of work and for the welfare of seafarers employed on each other's vessels.
The Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has seen a huge jump from $34,487 billion to $61,724 billion since 2013, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Giving an overview of his three-year-old government, he said on 7 June India is seen as a bright spot in the global economy, doing business here has been made easier and the tax regime is more predictable and stable.

The GST is also going to have long standing benefits for the nation, he said in a write-up on Linkedin.

"When we assumed office in May 2014, the country was going through a challenging phase. To begin with, the element of trust in government, in institutions- had disappeared.

"There was little potential and no incentive to invest in India. Corruption, nepotism and high handedness of authorities had demoralised industry," Modi said.

"One of our immediate priorities was to change this atmosphere, which we have done over the last three years," he added.

He said "positive results" of his government are visible.

"Today, I am proud to share that India is getting record foreign investment," the prime minister said, giving the figures of 2016 in comparison to 2013.

Noting that the guiding tenet of his government is reform to transform', Modi said the reform agenda is "comprehensive and inclusive, covering all sections of society, all regions of India and all aspects needing attention."

He said it was a matter of "immense happiness" that a friendly spirit of competition has developed among the states for accelerating reforms and getting more investment.

"I want to appreciate the various states for these proactive measures. The nation stands to gain from these initiatives," the prime minister added.

He said his government was giving the added push to infrastructure projects with a special emphasis on timely completion.

Along with the write-up, he posted a number of graphics depicting to performance of various sectors.

"Our goal is a new India, powered by the skills and talent of our youth. Substantial ground has been covered in the last three years and we are poised to scale newer heights of progress," Modi concluded.
India on signed the OECD multilateral convention that aims to check cross-border tax evasion by multinational companies.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley signed the multilateral convention in Paris to implement tax treaty- related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting.

More than 65 countries, including India, signed the convention. More countries are expected to sign the convention in coming days, a finance ministry statement said.

"The Convention will modify India's treaties in order to curb revenue loss through treaty abuse and base erosion and profit shifting strategies by ensuring that profits are taxed where substantive economic activities generating the profits are carried out and where value is created," finance ministry added.

The Multilateral Convention is an outcome of the OECD/G20 Project to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) which is resorted to by MNCs through tax planning strategies by exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules.

It helps them artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations, resulting in little or no overall corporate tax being paid. The BEPS Project identified 15 actions to address BEPS in a comprehensive manner, the statement said.

India was part of the Ad Hoc Group of more than 100 countries and jurisdictions from G20, OECD, BEPS associates and other interested countries, which worked on an equal footing on the finalisation of the text of the Multilateral Convention, starting May, 2015.

The Convention enables all signatories to meet treaty- related minimum standards that were agreed as part of the final BEPS package, including the minimum standard for the prevention of treaty abuse under Action 6.

The Convention will operate to modify tax treaties between two or more parties to the Convention.

The Convention will not function in the same way as an amending protocol to a single existing treaty, which would directly amend the text of the tax agreement.

Instead, it will be applied alongside existing tax treaties, modifying their application in order to implement the BEPS measures.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday sought support from members of Parliament and state legislatures to create mass awareness about the Goods and Services Tax that is scheduled to be rolled out from July 1.

In a letter to the presidents of various political parties, Jaitley thanked them for their cooperation and contribution in making the GST a reality.

He underscored the role Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) can play in creating mass awareness about the new tax law.

"It is important for them to understand the finer points of the new tax regime in order to explain the same to the people. If trade and industry face any difficulty during the implementation phase, the representatives of the people should be better equipped to handle the same if properly trained in this regard," Jaitley said.

Stating that GST is the most important tax reform since independence, he said it is going to make doing business substantially easy and promote new investment and contribute to the overall GDP growth.

"GST will also help in removing the cascading effect of taxation and give relief to the common man by leading to reduction in prices, especially of essential consumer goods," Jaitley said.

He said that with the cooperation of all the political parties, the Constitutional Amendment Act for GST was passed by Parliament. Besides, three laws  CGST, IGST and UTGST  have already been passed by Parliament while the SGST law has been passed by the 25 state legislatures.

The GST Council, chaired by Jaitley and having state representatives as members, met 15 times since September 2016 and have approved all the draft laws and rules and GST rates for all the commodities.

In his letter, Jaitley also requested the different political parties to consider organising workshops and training sessions for all the MPs/MLAs of their respective party for which the Union Government can provide expert resource personnel.

He asked them to contact his office or the office of the Revenue Secretary, Hasmukh Adhia, for further assistance.

GST will unify 16 different taxes, including excise, service tax and VAT, and make India a common market for seamless movement of goods and services.
In a bid to address the GST concerns of all the traders of Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will address them through a Facebook Live event on Friday.

The deputy CM will go live on Delhi government's social media page on Friday in an hour-long session during which he will take questions from traders as well as consumers.

The Delhi government's Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) had refused to organise the event as the social media campaign for its publicity required an open tender.

Two days ago, Sisodia had written to Chief Secretary M M Kutty seeking action against DIP Director Jayadev Sarangi for not arranging the Facebook Live event earlier this month on 'technical' grounds.

"In a bid to address the GST concerns of all the traders of Delhi, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia will address them live using the Facebook platform tomorrow evening from 6 to 7 PM," a statement from the DIP said here today.

This initiative is primarily aimed at about three lakh traders' fraternity of Delhi, it said.

In his letter to Kutty, Sisodia had asked him to initiate proceedings against Sarangi for 'dereliction of duty', and replace him with an 'officer who can perform'.

Sisodia, who heads the DIP, said the officer didn't know that such an event does not require an open tender and instead, needed only an internet connection and a camera.

The sources said the refusal was intended to avoid any probe in the future as the CBI had launched an investigation in connection with TalktoAK (Talk to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal) on the complaint of the Vigilance Department.

The DIP statement further said the response has been tremendous and people from all over the state have been calling in to get details about the Facebook Live on GST.

The questions can be posted at [email protected] before the event and at the Facebook page  www.facebook.com/DelhiGovernment during the FB Live event, an official said.
The one-day special Kerala Assembly session began on Thursday with a quick beef fry breakfast as lawmakers were set to discuss the Centre's new cattle trade and slaughter rules.

The Kerala legislators started their day at the assembly canteen here before heading to debate on the new central rule that they say infringes upon the states' rights.

An employee of the canteen said on normal working days when the assembly is in session generally beef is served only after 11 a.m.

"But today, with the session wholly devoted to discussing the beef issue, we brought 10 kg of beef early in the morning. By now a good number of MLAs have already had beef fry before heading to the assembly floor," said the employee on condition of anonymity.

"Devikulam CPI-M legislator S. Rajendran was the first to be served steaming hot beef fry," the canteen attendant said.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan began the daylong session by moving a resolution against the manner in which the Centre has gone ahead floating the new rule in May.

"This new rule is nothing but a blatant violation on the rights of individuals to eat what they wish and want. This new rule will hugely affect the agrarian society of our state and also our country," Vijayan said.

"To take care of a cow that has stopped giving milk, a farmer has to spend Rs 40,000. A huge majority of our society are non-vegetarians and this new law is in no way acceptable to us," the Chief Minister added.

Former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (BJP-RSS) combine for the "senseless" new law on beef.

"This is nothing but a fraud. It has been supported by fraud Swami's for various reasons best known to them. The BJP has an agenda to castrate certain rules," Achuthanandan said.

"The need of the hour is we should encourage people to produce value added beef, through which we can earn precious export earnings. The BJP is trying to bring in corporate houses to engage in this business and in no way can we allow our people to suffer," Achuthanandan said.

"This law should be circumvented by our own new law on this," added Achuthanandan.

Former Kerala Minister and senior Congress leader Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said what many fails to realise was that the BJP-RSS combine have vested agenda in bringing this new law.

"What has come to light is that major beef exporting companies in our country are based in north India and some of them are lawmakers of the BJP. This new rule is helping them to continue to increase their business. This cannot be accepted in any manner," said Radhakrishnan.

Former Kerala Minister and senior CPI leader Mulakara Ratnakaran pointed out that the BJP-RSS combine have a huge support from around thousands of "godmen", who will instantly support any such move by the BJP government.

"They support this government and their strange new radical laws because the BJP government is supporting such godmen in various ways. So it's a give and take strategy being adopted to push this specific agenda," said Ratnakaran.

There are 140 members in the Kerala assembly, however, an unanimous resolution against the new central law will not be possible as lone BJP MLA O.Rajagopal will approve the new cattle trade rule.


West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that a new state Secretariat will be set up in Darjeeling district and the new building named after Mount Everest summitteer Tenzing Norgay.

"The government will build a new Secretariat for the development of the hill people. We will name it Tenzing Norgay Bhaban in memory of the famous mountaineer," Banerjee said here at the end of her government's first ever Cabinet meeting in the north Bengal hills.

"The new Secretariat will be functional within six months. Whenever any of my ministers or I visit the hills, we will work from there. I will hold the next Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling in the new building," she added.

Declaring a bouquet of developmental projects for the state's hills, the Chief Minister said a new skill development centre will be built in Mirik subdivision of Darjeeling district.

Around 3,500 youths will be given professional training to enable them a chance to appear for campus interviews in various sectors.

She also announced eight new state buses will be run from the picturesque hill town of Darjeeling to Mirik for the facility of tourists.

a new police commissionerate will be set up in Hooghly district's Chandanagar.

"Our government earlier set up police commissionerates in Durgapur, Siliguri, Howrah, Bidhannagar, and Barrackpore for better administration. Now, we are forming a new commissionerate in Chandannagar to manage the area separately from the Hooghly rural police," she said.

Claiming that the state government has undertaken several major "administrative reforms", Banerjee announced a new "West Bengal Higher Civil Service" that would enable West Bengal Civil Service officers to become promotee Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers within 8 to 10 years.

"There is a shortage of IAS officers in the state. We have told the Centre to send more IAS officers, because the number of districts have increased," she said.
Senior TMC leader and MLA Iqbal Ahmed was on Thursday summoned by CBI for questioning in the Narada case, CBI officials said.

Ahmed, who is also the younger brother of TMC MP Sultan Ahmed, has been summoned for questioning on June 10.

This is the first time that CBI has summoned a TMC leader in the Narada case.

"Yes we have summoned Iqbal Ahmed for questioning, as his name has come up in numerous clippings of the Narada sting operation," a senior CBI official said.

Iqbal Ahmed could not be contacted for a reaction.

Calcutta High Court in March ordered a preliminary inquiry by CBI into the Narada sting operation in which several TMC leaders, including state ministers, were purportedly caught on camera taking bribes.

The sting tapes were released to various media organisations ahead of the 2016 West Bengal Assembly polls.

A division bench of the high court noted that a report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh had said the tapes were not tampered with.
Guwahati, June 8 (IBNS): The crime branch of Guwahati city police on Thursday arrested the general secretary of Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samanvay Samiti (NIBBUSS) in the capital city of Assam in connection with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) office attack incident in Dhemaji district on March 6.

Police arrested Ambika Ray, NIBBUSS general secretary and advocate of Supreme Court, while he was trying to get interim bail from a local court in the city.

A top police official said that, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) earlier summoned the NIBBUSS general secretary to appear before the investigating team.

CID summoned to Ambika Ray after arrested SSP of CID providing information of investigation report of the AASU office attack incident to the NIBBUSS leader through RTI, the top Assam cops said.

Earlier, the Guwahati city police crime branch had arrested IPS officer Dr N Rajamarthandan after proving of leakage of investigation process information through RTI.

The top police official said that, the IPS official was violating the government notification while the Assam government had already notified that, CID organization is exempted from providing information under RTI Act as per government notification no PLA.384/2005/54 dated March 8, 2006 and no details of investigation can be divulged to anyone without the permission of the competent court.

Assam police had already arrested NIBBUSS president Subodh Biswas and 54 others in connection with the ransacking AASU office incident.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is indeed a masterpiece, but how much do we really know about the making of the film that we call the classic movie to watch after a Sunday brunch?

Blake Edwardss paragon production, that we loved and would continue to love after its release on 5 October, 1961 in New York Citys radio city music hall, narrates the story of a beautiful girl Holly Golightly played by Audrey Hepburn gradually falling for her next door neighbour Paul Vajrak (George Peppard).

Hepburn delivered a splendid performance that still continues to charm people all over the world. The Oscar-nominated screenplay, adapted from Truman Capotes book of the same name, is more or less known to the most.

What went on during the shooting or how exactly this film evolved as an example of excellence is not known to many. It had gone through several phases to be triumphant.

The little black dress worn by Hepburn in the opening scene arouses the thought among millions of girls that there should be a black dress in their wardrobe.

Specially made by Hubert de Givenchy, this Italian satin gown had probably been the most iconic fashion pieces of all time.

There is also an interesting story behind this dress. On 5 December, 2006 this dress was sold at an auction at Christies in London and the money raised went towards helping build a school for the poor people of Kolkata.

Casting

Everyone would agree that no one could have played the role of a 19-year-old Holly Golightly better than the 31-year-old Hepburn.

But Capote who had penned down Hollys character wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the role. He felt that her temperament matched a lot with the character.

Though Monroe had been the primary choice for the role but on being advised by Lee Strasberg that playing such a character might affect her image, she turned down the offer and opted for John Hustons The Misfits.

Actresses like Shirley Maclaine and Kim Novak also opposed to play the role. It was after so many turn downs that the producers brought in Audrey for the role.

The casting for the male lead was also not an easy task either. Although George Peppard was finalised, actors like Tony Curtis and Steve Mcqueen were also been suggested. Peppard was disliked by rest of the cast and crew. Infact, Hepburn went as far as calling him pompous.

Director

Initially, John Frankenheimer was chosen to direct the film but it was Hepburns request that Edwards was brought on board since she wanted a bigger name for the direction. It is true that Blake Edwards who took this film from a novella to a vision and finally produced an immortal masterpiece.

The party scene

The extravagant party scene where Audrey is fashionably pulling off a towel wrapped around like a sari apparently took six days to shoot.

The scene was nothing less than a real-life party with cameras poking in all directions. It was shot on a paramount soundstage that worked as Hollys apartments for almost all the interior shots. Real champagne, 120 gallons of soft drinks, 60 cartons of cigarettes, hot dogs, chips and dips and sandwiches were brought in exclusively for this scene. Holly Golightlys apartment

The location used as the exterior of this apartment, 169 east 71st street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan recently went for $7.4 million in an auction. All these prove that a film is lot more than a celluloid story unravelling on a curtain. Thus, a series of work goes into a films production.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a rare classic production. Inspired by the character in a novel and then casting one of the finest actresses is nothing but sheer excellence of the director.

Coordinator, Class XI, St Thomas' Boys' School, Hooghly
These days health issues have become a common phenomenon with youngsters, unlike in the past. Common diseases like allergies, and liver problems will soon be epidemic in future if not abated through lifestyle modifications and exercise.

Yoga can be a solution for these. But the simple question that arises is: Why Yoga? With the availability of arenas to shed weight easily, the option of taking to yoga as a practice seems tedious and long though now incumbent.

Emphasis on such practices is not because of the historical value attached to them but for the physical and psychological benefits behind them.

The art of yoga which transcends through a phase of more than 1000 years is beneficial to modern times too.

The difficult but relaxing postures proposed by yogis, years ago are quite effective than any other branch of medicine. It teaches the art of living an upright life, giving a psychological edge to it.

Sitting down in the posture of Padmasana and chanting the spiritual word om at a stretch, for few minutes cleanses the mind, unburdens one of tension and pressure and even enhances concentration. Medical reports too bear a testimony to the fact that such rituals activate different parts of the brain and neuron ends. Asanas helps in getting rid of severe problems.

Vajrasana helps to keep the spinal cord in an upright position and also cure problems of gastritis. Doing Vajrasana for 30 minutes after lunch and dinner helps in the proper digestion of food.

Kapalbhati helps to control respiratory problems like asthma to a great extent. Other asanas like Ardha-chandrasana and Sirsasana maintain physical fitness. The sole aim of developing a sound body can get fulfilled by practising yoga.

The fundamental factor differentiating it from others is the mental relaxation which comes along with it. It is said and experienced too that a daily practise of 30 minutes of yoga can cure ailments and provide mental fitness. People who are quite busy with their daily, monotonous schedule, regular practise of 14 postures of Suryapranam everyday, is the best fitness regime.

The speciality of such asanas is that it doesnt make one feel worn-out or exhausted rather it rejuvenates the mind and senses.

Looking at such benefits of yoga, the Indian Government is striving towards making it a national practice. It has been introduced in schools as mandatory sessions.

To sum it up, it is a way of life that promises sound health and mind.

Coordinator, Class XI, St Thomas' Boys' School
In every walk with nature, one receives far more than what one seeks. This too happened when two young brothers, Ajay and Vijay Bedi, set on a journey with their camera and various lenses to find and present the images of the creatures, whose voices always echoed and reverberated from the unexplored jungles of India and the world.

Keeping the sole purpose of serving nature through filmmaking in their minds, the Bedi brothers try not to fail the ideals set up by their father, Naresh Bedi, who has worked with director Mira Nair for her acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding.

Following the footsteps of their father, Ajay and Vijay Bedi went on to become the only Indians to have won a nomination at the television industry's highest Emmy awards.

Celebrating the World Environment Week at a 360 degree workshop organised by Canon India, the Bedi brothers discussed and informed young film makers about the new technologies, which are continuously being developed, that have made wildlife film making easier and more convenient.

On the larger size of the picture, the duo showcased how through their work they have tried to serve nature and to make citizens aware of the problems of climate change.

In the eyes of the world, India's rapidly growing economy will be responsible for increased greenhouse gas emissions in the future. While India may not necessarily have created the problem, it aims to be part of the solution.

Around the country, through government and civil society initiatives, a number of efforts are being made to switch to clean, green renewable sources of energy. In a film that travels from the villages of Rajasthan to Bihar and the millennium city of Gurgaon, the Bedi brothers have shown how the sun, the wind and all natural elements can be harnessed to generate energy.

The film,Clean and green energy takes a critical look at why green energy solutions have not occupied mainstream policy and how to popularise these methods for economies of scale.

One more documentary project carried out by the duo revolves around a disease that struck the core habitat of the Chambal Sanctuary in India, wiping out hundreds of Gharials ~ more than 50 per cent of the adult and semi-adult population ~ in the entire area. Anticipating the catastrophic epidemic, which could have further led to a danger that might crash the population of this critically-endangered species to a level that it may never fully recover, the film Gharial Crisis perfectly tells why it is important to give the reptiles the rightful priority they deserve.

The film is an endeavour to ascertain the cause of deaths by carrying out field investigations, involving Indian and international experts, for the protection and conservation of Gharials.

Lonely battle Speaking about their most important and serious project on the Red Pandas, the Bedi brothers informed that due to the forbidding terrain of its mountain habitat, there hardly exists any significant film or photographic record of the natural history of the Red Panda species in the wild.

Cherub of Mist, made over two years, is the first Indian film that unravelled the secretive life of the mysterious and little known Red Pandas. This movie is the first ever documentation, with never-seen footage, of the full life-cycle of the highly endangered species of India. The film also showcases the courting and mating, nest building and rearing of the newly-born. Ajay Bedi informs, "The most challenging sequence was the courtship behaviour of the Red Panda, which happens on one single day in a year. Vijay was lucky to capture this for our film, although we had to wait years to get the perfect shot.

Their population is low as 1,000 only. Less than even great cats like tiger and snow leopards. Before this film was made, many Indians thought pandas were not found in India but only in China. Our film could convince Indian officials that Red Panda exists in small pockets of Singalila National Park and has been fighting its lonely battle for survival in the eastern Himalayas. These helpless animals are killed for their fur.

A landmark move, with full support of Bengal Chief Minister, the species is now wellprotected under the Indian law." Glacier melt Taking one beyond the battle zone and exploring Jammu and Kashmir's rich water sources, which are now battling a new threat, namely, climate change, the film Melting Paradise throws light on the impact of climatic changes on the Himalayan glaciers, which are also known as the "Water Towers of Asia".

The film informs how a shrinking glacier will have serious effects on the livelihood of tens of thousands of people downstream, who depend on its life-giving waters. Saffron, which is as costly as gold, has suffered the most damage because of the melting of glaciers. One cannot imagine how much loss the cultivators have to endure because of overflooded rivers and canals, they noted.

The young Bedi brothers believe one must not only shoot nature but also respect it.

Though they have received many accolades for their projects based on wildlife conservation but the idea of achieving a stable and safe environment is still not visible at the offing.

As Albert Einstein has perfectly said, "Look deep into nature, and then you'll understand everything better." The problem of climate change deserves a more focused look to understand its drastic impacts better.
A video displaying a man tied to the bonnet of an Army jeep as a human shield during the Srinagar Lok Sabha by-election, had generated a public uproar.

The incident on the one hand impelled the army to institute a probe but on the other hand it received a lot of praise and led to the officer receiving a chiefs commendation.

Defence Minister Arun Jaitley too vindicated his act by saying that in such war zones, the soldier must be allowed to act as he sees fit. International Legal Regime International laws interpret human shields as using the presence (or movements) of civilians or other protected persons to render certain points or areas (or military forces) immune from military operations.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, Additional Protocol I and the Rome Statute directly or indirectly prohibit use of human shields in armed conflicts, and consider their use a war crime.

Specifically, in the context of international armed conflicts, this rule is incorporated in the Third Geneva Convention (with respect to prisoners of war), the Fourth Geneva Convention (with respect to protected civilians) and Additional Protocol I with respect to civilians in general.

Over time this definition has been extended to also include civilians in non-international armed conflicts. Additional Protocol II with respect to non-international armed conflicts does not overtly mention the use of human shields; however, such practice as it is claimed goes against the requirement that the civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against the dangers arising from military operations.

Besides, the use of human shields has often been equated with the taking of hostages, which is prohibited by Additional Protocol II, and by Customary International Law (Rule 96).

Additionally, intentionally using civilians to shield military operations is contrary to the principle of distinction and violates the obligation to take feasible precautions to separate civilians and military objectives (Rules 2324). Several military manuals which apply in non-international armed conflicts prohibit the use of human shields.

Many States have criminalised the use of human shields in non-international armed conflicts. The use of human shields in non-international armed conflicts has been condemned by the United Nations with respect to the conflicts in Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tajikistan and the former Yugoslavia.

The Majors dilemma

Within a deontological framework, the answer, it appears, is simple. If the prohibition of using a human being as shield is a deontological prohibition, it is always erroneous to use it. But we cannot discard the act of Major Gogoi ex-parte. In the prevailing perilous circumstances, the Major had the other option of opening fire on the incensed mob but that would have caused huge collateral damage.

This would have endangered the lives of civilians, Election Commission officials, stone-pelters resulting in more carnage in the Valley. Under these unique set of circumstances, would Major Gogoi's action be classified by any stretch of imagination as a "war crime" or "violation of human rights"? Then what shall one do when the only way to prevent mishap involves doing what is otherwise clearly and essentially wrong? To resolve this dilemma, we have on one side a deontological justification which advocates that we ought not to torture or kill innocent individuals even if this is likely to save lives.

These prohibitions in some sense are grounded in the inviolability of life (or lifes intrinsic value) which entails that the life of a person ought not to be sacrificed even for the sake of saving the lives of others. On other side, there is an equally commanding persuasion that when the danger is severe, and consequences might be calamitous, lives may have to be sacrificed and rights may have to be infringed upon.

This perception is often stirred by invoking extreme situations such as bomb planting in an urban centres and stubborn culprits.

Deontological Justification

The case of the rogue plane brought before a German court raised the same dilemma. Killing innocent civilians by the state seems morally and constitutionally intolerable.

Yet, at the same time, allowing a plane to crash into a densely populated area is clearly an unacceptable alternative. In its verdict on legislation authorising such action, the German Constitutional Court expressed this thought: Under the Aviation Security Act they [the claimants rights] become the mere objects of governmental actions.

The value of their lives is judged on a quantity basis and according to how long they can still be expected to live with regards to the circumstances of the particular case. The State may not protect a majority of its citizens by intentionally killing a minority, in this case the flight crew and the passengers on the airplane.

Balancing life against life on the basis of how many people might possibly die on the one side and how many on the other, is inadmissible. The state may not kill human beings based on the assumption that it will save more lives than it will destroy by killing these people.

Necessity knows no law

These two propositions reject the dilemma by demonstrating the outer limits of the problem. The second justification discards the deontological intuition and claims that consequences and consequences alone are to determine what ought to be done in all cases including, extreme cases. Thomas Aquinas addresses the case of necessity by focusing on the limits of legislation: The lawgiver cannot have in view every single case, he shapes the law according to what happens more frequently by directing his attention to the common good. Wherefore, if a case arises wherein the observance of that law would be hurtful to the general welfare, it should not be observed.

Also, Aquinas recognizes that cases falling into this category are not legislatable and adds that: He who in a case of necessity acts besides the letter of the law does not judge of the law but of a particular case in which he sees that the letter of the law is not to be observed. Aquinas argued that an agent functioning under an exceptional situation is not answerable to the law as he is in ordinary times.

The sheer necessity brings with it a dispensation because necessity knows no law. Aquinas proposed explanation is apparently founded on the inherent limits of law. As a result of the inherent limitations of laws, as Aquinas suggests, or because upholding the spirit of the law sometimes requires violating its letter, as the Jewish Talmud maintains, laws are sometimes bankrupt.

When such extreme circumstances present themselves, the laws are overshadowed by the moral necessity of the case and the agent must act directly in response to the circumstance. Since law is not an end in itself and is a means to realise the common good, the normative power of law applies only when the law is conducive to the realisation of the common good. Law governs what happens more frequently.

The statistical rarity of the circumstances of necessity and the difficulty or even impossibility of designing a law that takes account of these rare circumstances gives rise to the need to deviate from the law in cases of necessity. Aquinas provides two reasons why rules cannot govern cases of necessity.

First is that the lawmaker cannot design the law in a way which can accommodate these cases and the second is that the person who acts in these cases does not judge of the law but of a particular case. One way to understand this is that the person who acts in these cases in discordance with the law does not convey in his action a rejection of the law as such in the same way as a person who violates the law under normal circumstances. This thought is echoed in some arguments advanced by Kant too.

Conclusion

Extreme cases institute a distinctive category, categorised by circumstances which command actions that are normally impermissible. In extreme cases, therefore, legal directives should not impact the agents reasoning. An agent capable of acting to prevent a calamity must do so regardless of legal direction and authorisation.

And when no such threat exists or cannot be reasonably avoided, the agent must refrain from the action regardless of legislation and authorisation. Such acts can only be warranted as acts of absolute necessity. They may never be done as part of a rulegoverned institutional practice. Circumstances are dominated by the obligation to save lives, compelling one to take the necessary means.

In performing such an action no weighing is involved, neither of consequences nor of competing values and clashing rules.

Thus, downing a passenger plane, or torturing people to obtain life-saving information or tying a Kashmiri man to a jeep as human shield against stone-pelters cannot be guided by general moral rules and for the same reasons ought not to be codified in legal directives, but can only be performed as necessary response to extreme circumstances.

The writer is Associate Professor of Law at the NLU, Odisha. The views expressed are personal.
World Blood Donors Day observed every year on 14 June, serves to raise awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products, and to thank donors for their voluntary, lifesaving gifts of blood.

This year, the host country for recognising this international day is Vietnam. The event will be held at Hanoi National Institute of Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Vietnam.

The day looks forward to increase awareness regarding the need for safe blood and also to recognise the generosity of the blood donors.

The necessity of it can only be met by the humanitarian qualities of humans.

A person proves to possess these qualities when he donates blood selflessly to save anothers life.

This years campaign aims to encourage donating blood and to engage authorities in prompt response regarding increasing blood supplies during emergencies.

Public awareness is also to be promoted regarding the cause and donors are to be acknowledged and encouraged. The catchphrase of this years event What can you do? Give blood. Give now. Give often, provides with the perfect answer to overcome the dilemma of people during blood crises.

Till now many countries face a lot of challenges in making sufficient blood available to people. Adequate supplies during emergency situations require a well-organised service.

This can be ensured by engaging the entire community to donate blood by setting up voluntary blood donation camps throughout the year.

The government must consider giving special benefits to the donors to encourage them in the activity. Also it must be kept in mind that the blood donated must be free from contamination of malaria, Hepatitis B or C, AIDS or other such infectious diseases.

Sufficient availability of blood helps patients suffering from life-threatening conditions like Thalassaemia to live longer, support complex medical and surgical procedures during emergencies such as natural disasters, accidents or wars. It also emerges as a significant factor in perinatal care.

It should be noted that more than 250 million people are being affected by such emergencies every year. According to history, in 1665, an English physician Richard Lower first made blood transfusion from one dog to another. However, the process was stopped after the Pope of Vatican ordered in 1678.

Later in 1818, physician James Blundell, an English obstetrician, performed the first successful transfusion of human blood to a patient for treatment of a haemorrhage.

In 1900, physician and Nobel laureate Karl Landsteiner of Vienna, Austria discovered the three blood groups- -A, B and O (which he labelled as C). With the assistance of Alexander S. Wiener of Russia, Landsteiner discovered Rhesus factor in 1937 which advanced the life span of human race.

Coordinator, Class X, Kalyani University Experimental High School
Indian soldiers fought with distinction in World War II. Their participation included action within South Asia, and defending India, which was controlled by the British; Indian troops also assisted fighting the Japanese in Burma. Over 87,000 Indian soldiers died in World War II.

Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, Commander in Chief of the Indian Army from 1942, asserted that the British could never have come through World War I and II, if they did not have the Indian Army.

The British Indian Army earned 17 Victoria Crosses during World War II. It was a war that literally affected the entire world and every nation had its own narrative with its own heroes.

Soldiers in the midst of grave danger, individually, returned triumphant. Some of them earned accolades because of a rare level of participation.

Let us view one exceptional naval personality, who was decorated in battle, all the way back in 1942. Was there something unusual about the decorations he earned?

Yes, there was, because Seaman Calvin Graham was only 13 years old when he was awarded medals for bravery. Grahams story began when battleship USS South Dakota, equipped with powerful engines, rolled out of Philadelphia in August 1942.

The crew comprised boys who were enlisted after the Japanese bombing of a US naval base, Pearl Harbour; this action of the Japanese precipitated the US entry into World War II.

These new recruits had no inklings of the danger they would experience. The ships Captain, Thomas Gatch was determined to show Americas supremacy on the high seas. No ship more eager to fight ever entered the Pacific, wrote ahistorian.

The South Dakota would plod back to New Yorks port for repairs, since the ship endured the most violent battles at sea. However, she was destined to be one of the most decorated warships in the US Navys history. The Japanese did everything possible to erase every tangible identity of the ship and even avoided mentioning the name, USS South Dakota, in their communications.

However, the vessel was not at the bottom of the Pacific, which they hoped it to be. The ship continued with its crews tenacity, which included a Texas-born gunner who was ordained to be one of Americas youngest war heroes. Seaman Calvin Graham set out for battle in the summer of 1942 at the age of 12.

He took this bold step because he was enduring an abusive stepfather and with an elder brother left home for another rooming centre.

Graham supported himself by delivering newspapers after school. He was close to the news of the times and the newspapers carried many reports of Hitler whom Graham began to dislike. He lost his cousin in the same war and decided to fight in the battle. But enlisting into the Army had many challenges, the first of which was his mothers signature to testify his age.

This was difficult, so with the help of someone else he forged his mothers signature. Graham had to look older so began to shave and taught himself to speak with a deeper voice. The entire sequence of him preparing himself to join the navy gradually developed like a classic tale.

The dentist insisted that Graham was nowhere near the age of 17 but the fact of the matter was that the US desperately needed more recruits for battle, so Graham was enlisted. He told his mother he was off to visit relatives but instead sailed to San Diego for basic training.

Subsequently, Graham was selected to take on duties on the USS South Dakota and action began from day one on the ship. In the midst of the war, the South Dakota had earned a reputation that it would shoot anything that came near it. In the Battle of Guadalcanal, this ship encountered eight Japanese destroyers  the South Dakota set fire to three of them.

The Japanese retaliated and the South Dakota took 42 enemy hits. Graham who was manning a gun was hit by shrapnel that tore through his jaw. Despite this setback he got onto his feet to help others who were injured and encouraged them to think of life not death.

That was a long night and it aged me, he said. His jaw was treated with salves and stitches. Half the crew lost their lives. Captain Gatch wrote in his journal, Not one of the ships company flinched from his post.

For the Japanese the South Dakota had become a haunting legend. Seaman Calvin Graham received a Bronze Star for distinguishing himself in combat and also received a Purple Heart for the injuries he suffered. Unfortunately, due to him submitting false details of his age and date of birth, Graham was jailed by the army, for three months, and the Army took back his medals.

When Jimmy Carter was elected as President in 1976, he approved that the Bronze Star be returned.

That was in 1978. After Grahams death, in 1992, the Military returned the Purple Heart to his family.
The sequel of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them will feature a much younger version of some key film characters like Albus Dumbledore, Newt Scamander and Gellert Grindelwald.

The production hose Warner Bros is currently looking for young actors to portray the teenage version of Albus Dumbledore, Newt Scamander, Gellert Grindelwald, Leta Lestrange and a new character in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2", reports aceshowbiz.com.

The studio is also looking for a young actor to play a new character named Sebastian.

"An open casting call has gone out for three actors between the ages of 13 and 16 to play young versions of Newt, Leta, and another character called Sebastian," read an announcement, shared by author J.K. Rowling's Pottermore.

"They are also looking for actors between 16 and 18 to portray both Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore as teenagers. So, if you know any young acting hopefuls who know their Elder Wand-lore, or have a penchant for Sherbert Lemons, now is the time to let them know," the announcement read.

The adult versions of Newt, Grindelwald and Leta are portrayed by Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Depp and Zoe Kravitz respectively in the franchise.

Dumbledore will be portrayed by Jude Law.

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2" is currently in pre-production, with its story reportedly being set in London and Paris.

Rowling will again write the script and the movie is set to be released in 2018.

The first "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" followed the adventure of Newt in 1920s America.
Two militants and a jawan were killed as the Army foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naugam sector in north Kashmir's Kupwara district on Thursday.

This is the second successful anti-infiltration operation by the Army in the last 24 hours and the fourth such along the LoC in less than a fortnight in north Kashmir.

Alert troops foil another infiltration bid in Naugam sector. Two terrorists have been killed, while one soldier has been martyred," an Army official said.

He said the operation was on and further details are awaited.

On Wednesday, three heavily-armed militants were killed in a gunbattle in the district as Army foiled a major infiltration bid along the LoC.

On May 26, the Army killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate into Uri sector in Baramulla district to carry out an attack on the soldiers.

Six more militants were killed in the same sector next day when they attempted to sneak into the Valley from across the border.
Original artworks by the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Baburao Painter and M F Husain, publicity material of leading banner-hoarding artists and designers and vintage photographs since the 1950s are some of the major items to feature at an auction here later this month.

Osian's "The Greatest Indian Show on Earth 2: Vintage Film Memorabilia, Publicity Materials & Arts Auction" on June 22 is structured across eight major sections.

It will also have original artworks by Satyajit Ray, Mani Kaul and Deepti Naval, among others, to a focus on film legend Dilip Kumar; from a focus on the cinematic epic Mughal-E- Azam to the unique jubilee trophies of Bobby, Deewar and others; from original publicity-material art for Andaz (1949), Anari (1959), Guide (1965), Deewar (1973) and others to rare vintage 12 and 6-sheeter posters of Kranti (1981), Kal Aaj Aur Kal (1971) and others.

There will be a focus on the Kapoors  the first family of Indian cinema besides rare posters, showcards, lobby cards, photographic stills from the golden 1950s period to the era of Amitabh Bachchan to the Khans trio  Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir.

An opening preview of the auction will be held on June 16 at Osian's.

According to the organisers, the market for India's film memorabilia has evolved, though there is still a very long way to go before united action towards preservation within the film fraternity emerges or the understanding that these items can play a major role in the education of many subjects beyond film and media studies.

Having spent nearly 20 years putting together the foremost archive, library and collection on India's cinematic heritage, Osian's chairman, Neville Tuli, highlights the role of auctions in this preservation process.

"If we had not placed credible financial value on these related objects of our film culture, that desire to preserve, love and respect would have been much more difficult to emerge. Today centres of research, museums, archives, collections, related to not just Indian film but all cinemas will emerge deeper and faster with India as a potential hub.

"The auctions have facilitated this journey just like film festivals facilitate a film appreciation culture. One has to only see the growth of the Hollywood memorabilia market to understand the vast energies that get energized when the film fraternity, media and the public work in unity to respect one's history, and hence one's current creativity," he says.
The raging farmers' unrest in Madhya Pradesh has continued to roil national politics with the ruling BJP and the principal Opposition Congress continuing to cross swords over the 6 June incident in Mandsaur in the BJP-ruled MP in which at least five agitating farmers were killed allegedly in police firing.

The Congress has described the Mandsaur incident as "cold-blooded killings of farmers", questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence over it, and demanded MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's resignation.

It has also accused the BJP dispensations of allegedly being callous and apathetic towards farmers reeling under distress and crisis in various parts of the country.

Farmers in western MP and the adjoining Maharashtra have been protesting since 1 June to demand waiver of their loans and higher minimum support prices (MSPs) for their produce.

Hitting back at the Congress and blaming it for allegedly "instigating and politicising" the ongoing MP farmers' agitation, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu described the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's bid to visit the strife-torn Mandsaur on Thursday as "another photo opportunity".

Hitting out at the Congress leaders, Naidu accused them of playing politics over farmers' campaign. "The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there, Naidu told reporters here. "The Congress vice president now wants to visit the place as part of his photo opportunity yatra which he undertakes on a regular basis."

Rejecting the Congress's demand for CM Chouhan's dismissal over the Mandsaur killings, Naidu said on 12 January 1998, when the Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh was the MP CM, 24 farmers had died allegedly in police firing in Betul district there.

Naidu asked why Digvijay had then not resigned over the killings of farmers who were seeking compensation for their crop losses caused by hailstorm. "Did the Congress president visit the victim farmers then?" he asked.

He hailed Chouhan as the "most farmer-friendly Chief Minister".

As regards the farmers' demands for loans waiver, Naidu said it depended upon financial condition of the state governments concerned. "The UP government has done it, so have Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments. Now the Maharashtra government said that there will be a biggest loan waiver in the state. But still the Congress and the other opposition want to instigate people," he said.

The Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, however, alleged that "PM Modi and CM Chouhan had failed to ensure adequate crop prices or compensation or debt waiver for farmers who only received bullets".

Meanwhile, the MP government Thursday reportedly conveyed to the Centre that five farmers were killed in Mandsaur in police firing, thereby putting an end to the "confusion" as to who had fired at the protesting farmers there. The MP Home Minister Bhupendra Singh, who had earlier denied that the police did not fire at farmers, also conceded the deaths of five farmers in police firing there.

In a report submitted to the Union Home Ministry, the MP government said the police were forced to resort to firing at agitating farmers when they carried on with massive violence and arson despite their lathicharge and tear gas shelling to control them.
California, June 8 (IBNS): A Telangana man who stays in California was shot at a departmental store four days back over an argument, which had again raised the question of security of Indians on foreign soil, media reports.

Mubeen Ahmed (26), who recently finished his masters degree in the US, is working at a departmental store where he was attacked by few men demanding certain amount of money and his mobile phone.

His uncle Mufti Aslam Osman told Hindustan Times that one of the attackers opened fire at him when the argument was going on.

Mubeen had been immediately taken to Eden Medical Centre in Castro Vallley. His present health condition is critical as he received bullets in his liver and stomach.

He completed his B-Tech in electronic and communication engineering from the state of Telangana and then went to the US to complete his master's degree.

The victim's father Mujeeb Ahmed, who works in a military institution of Secunderabad will be going to the US to visit his son, in few days time.

The incident of California is a continuation of the attacks brought against Indians of late on the foreign soil in recent times, starting from the Kansas shooting.

Apart from the US, several Indians were also attacked in other parts of the world as well. Latest is the incident which took place against a cab driver in Tasmania.

An Indian origin cab driver was attacked in an island state of South coast of Australia, Tasmania, by a couple after warning the latter for ruining the cab.

He was also verbally abused and said: "You f*****g Indian, you deserve it."

In late March, an Indian man was assaulted by a group of teenagers in Melbourne who had also hurled racial attacks on him.


The Congress on Thursday condemned the detention of party vice president Rahul Gandhi while he was on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and said it reveals the cowardice of the Modi government.

"The arrest of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi by Madhya Pradesh police on his way to visit the victims of police violence at Mandasaur is highly condemnable.

"The arrest of Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders reveals the political cowardliness of the Modi government," AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said.

He said the Congress vice president was supposed to visit the relatives of farmers who lost their lives in police firing, to register his moral support to the farmers' agitation and ensure justice to the deceased.

Instead of meeting the demands of agitating farmers, the state government with the full support of central government is even trying to silence the voices of opposition leaders who stood for the farmers, he said.

"The arrest of Rahul Gandhi reveals the inability of the ruling dispensation to face tough questions on the farmers' distress across the country," he said, adding that ever since the government came in to power, farmers are agitating against the policies of the Modi government.

Venugopal said the government uncompromisingly upholds the interests of corporate sector and lends a deaf ear to the plight of farmers.

He said Gandhi has been raising his voice inside and outside Parliament against the anti-people and anti-farmer policies of the government.

The Congress vice president and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests, as the farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear.

The police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch in Rajasthan, about 400 kms from state capital Bhopal.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is known for responding promptly on Twitter. Most of the time she is responding to people in distress who approach her for help. However, this time, she paid in the same coin to a tongue-in-cheek tweet from a user who had tagged her.

On Thursday, a Twitter user, Karan Saini, wrote: I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro. Saini had tagged the minister.

Swaraj was quick to respond: Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. Swaraj was praised by many Twitter users for the pun.

Swarajs external affairs ministry recently launched a Twitter Seva to ensure timely, transparent and large-scale response to citizens tweets in real time.

The Twitter Seva service is being supported by 198 Twitter accounts of Indian missions abroad and 29 regional passport offices.

Swaraj was named in the Global Thinkers of 2016 list compiled by the Foreign Policy magazine. The magazine recalled how, when around 10,000 Indian workers in Saudi Arabia faced a food crisis earlier this year due to job losses, Swaraj tweeted about the issue to six million followers on the social media website.
India is expected to have a greater say in pushing for effective action in combating terrorism and on issues relating to security when it becomes a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at the annual summit of the grouping, seen as a counterweight to NATO.

India, one of the largest energy consuming countries in the world, is also likely to get greater access to major gas and oil exploration projects in Central Asia once it becomes part of the SCO. Many of the current members of the six-nation grouping have huge reserves of oil and natural gas.

The SCO summit is taking place here in the Kazak capital in the backdrop of a series of major terror attacks in a number of countries including Iran, Britain and Afghanistan and ways to combat terrorism effectively are likely to be deliberated upon extensively by the grouping.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the summit tomorrow and he is likely to flag the issue of terrorism and the need for concerted efforts to combat it.

India and Pakistan will formally be admitted as members of the SCO, capping a three-year-long process.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in Russia in July 2015 when the administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June, 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for expansion of the grouping.

India feels as SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said in a statement yesterday.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, he said.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia has been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for the induction of Pakistan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif here on Thursday ahead of Friday's Shanghai Cooperation Organisatipn (SCO) Summit.

According to a source here, Modi enquired about Sharif's health after an open heart surgery in London in May last year.

"Both leaders greeted each other at the Leaders' Lounge at the Astana Opera on Thursday evening before the SCO concert," the source said.

India and Pakistan are expected to be granted full membership of the SCO at the summit in the Kazakhstan capital, making them the seventh and eighth members of the Eurasian bloc that includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

This is the first time that the Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers have met since Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore on December 25, 2015, on his way back to India from Kabul because of Sharif's birthday.

This happened after India and Pakistan decided to start a comprehensive bilateral dialogue during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's visit to Islamabad earlier that month.

However, ties between the two countries collapsed after a cross-border terror attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot on January 2, 2016.

India has blamed the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad for the attack.

According to the source here, Modi, while exchanging pleasantries with Sharif, also enquired about the latter's mother and family.

Sharif was among the South Asian leaders who attended the swearing-in ceremony of the NDA government led by Modi in May 2014.
Within a couple of hours, alert troops of the Indian Army on Thursday killed two terrorists and foiled another infiltration bid in the Naugam sector of Kashmir.

One soldier was martyred in the encounter.

Terrorists infiltrated through the Line of Control (LOC) but were intercepted by the troops leafing to an encounter.

According to a spokesman of the army, the operation was continuing.

The Army had killed four terrorists on Wednesday when they tries to infiltrate from the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (POK).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday arrived in Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. There were murmurs that he may meet Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on the sidelines of the summit, but there was no official confirmation.

At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries.

Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement yesterday.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy".
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was on Thursday detained by police in Madhya Pradesh and was taken into preventive custody at Neemuch border as he tried to enter the violence-hit Mandsaur to meet protesting farmers.

"I just want to meet the farmers. If your ideology is not that of the RSS, you are not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh," Rahul Gandhi said after being detained by police.

"The didn't give any reason, just said they are arresting me. The same was done in Uttar Pradesh also," he added.

"Rajasthan and MP government are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP and meeting families of farmers killed in Mandsaur," he tweeted earlier in the day.

The Congress vice president sent his security personnel into a tizzy after he took a bike ride to reach Mandsaur. He entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan in a cavalcade of Congress leaders and activists.

As he entered Neemuch district, he saw a group of policemen near a toll plaza deployed to stop him. Gandhi immediately switched over to a motorcycle and gave them  as well as his own NSG personnel  the slip.

Earlier, the Madhya Pradesh government had denied permission to Rahul to visit Mandsaur.

Farmers in Madhya Pradesh have been on strike since June 1 demanding that their loans be scrapped and their produce be bought at a fair price.

(With inputs from agencies)
The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear on Thursday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.

Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like "Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad".

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. "He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonus, can't give compensation He can only give them bullets."

Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district.

"Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres," IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.

"Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border," he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will meet the Chief Ministers of four northeastern states bordering Myanmar here on Monday to review the security situation and will also visit the border areas by chopper, an official said.

"Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh would hold a meeting of Chief Ministers of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram here on Monday to review the security situation along India-Myanmar borders," a Mizoram home department official said here.

The meeting will be attended by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and top officials of the Ministry.

"The Union Home Minister would be visiting Myanmar border areas by helicopter on Tuesday. The Minister would also interact with senior Assam Rifles officers on the prevailing situation along the India-Myanmar frontier," he added.

Last month, around 280 people from Myanmar's Ralie village in Arakan took shelter at Lungpuk and Khalkhy mountainous villages in Saiha district of southern Mizoram.

Assam Rifles troopers posted along the Myanmar border areas and the Saiha district administration provided necessary aid and support, including food, to the refugees. They were subsequently repatriated.

"The India-Myanmar unfenced borders along Mizoram are being frequently used by smugglers to smuggle drugs, arms and contraband from Myanmar," the official added.

Mizoram shares an unfenced 510-km border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh, providing infiltrators, terrorists and smugglers an opportunity to illegally move across the border.

There is a 16-km-wide free zone (8 km on either side of the frontier) along the 1,643-km unfenced India-Myanmar border.

Four northeastern states  Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Mizoram (510 km)  share the 1,643-km mountainous border with Myanmar.
The Supreme Court on Thursday modified its earlier order and allowed liquor manufacturers from Bihar to export their old stocks of alcoholic beverages worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state till July 31.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta passed the order on the application in which the manufacturers had contended that the apex court's May 29 order spoke about time to destroy the stock but it did not indicate anything about its "export" outside the state.

The manufacturers had told the bench that there were two issues  destruction of old stocks and export  in the plea filed earlier and the apex court's May 29 order mention only about time to destroy the stock.

After the brief hearing today, the bench said "sufficient grounds have been made out to allow the application" in terms of the prayer seeking clarification of the earlier order.

In the May 29 order, the court had said, "Time to destroy /drain the stocks is extended up to July 31, 2017. It is made clear that no further extension will be granted in future."

Earlier, the court had extended till May 31 the deadline of April 30 for disposing of old stocks, including raw material, fixed by the Nitish Kumar government which had imposed a ban on liquor in the state from April 1 last year.

The apex court had on March 31 granted time till May 31 to dispose of the old stocks and directed them to follow the resolution passed by the Bihar government on disposal of stocks following the imposition of prohibition in the state.

The Bihar government, which has prohibited consumption, stocking and sale of liquor in the state had on March 30, had passed a resolution by which it has allowed the companies to export their old stocks to other states.

The state government had granted time to export excisable and non-excisable articles till April 30, after which they will not be able to do so.

On October 7, 2016, the apex court had stayed the operation of Patna High Court judgement quashing the state's law banning sale and consumption of all types of liquor, saying liquor and fundamental rights "do not go together".

Bihar government has challenged the high court verdict of September 30, 2016, which had quashed the notification banning consumption and sale of liquor in the state.

However, after the law was set aside, Bihar government had come out with a new law banning sale and consumption of liquor which was notified on October 2, 2016.

It had notified the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 to ensure that the ban on sale and consumption of alcohol including Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well spiced and domestic liquor, continued in the state.
New York, June 8(Just Earth News): Noting positive changes in the situation on the ground in Libya as a result of the Libyan Political Agreement, the United Nations envoy for the country highlighted that despite challenges, the desire for peace, security and a better future remain strong among the people and urged sustained international support for national efforts.

We must move forward in supporting Libyan-led effort to find a durable solution, Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, told the Security Council on Wednesday.

Without progress in politics, the symptoms of conflict will only worsen, he warned.

He also underscored the need to ensure respect for human rights and humanitarian principles, particularly given the precarious situation of migrants as well as attacks on civilians.

We cannot compromise the basic principles that unite us, that make us human, nor can we afford to abandon our hopes and our desire for a better, more united Libya, he underscored.

In his briefing, Kobler, who is also the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) also updated the 15-member Security Council on the priority issues in the country, including the Political Agreement, efforts towards national reconciliation, the larger economic situation as well as the security situation.

In particular he underscored the urgent need to unify the country's security apparatus and that the fact that united Libyan security apparatus is vital for peace and prosperity was well understood by the stakeholders.

He also informed the meeting of efforts by Libya's neighbours as well as the African Union to help find a solution there. Speaking of the importance of cooperation, he said: [The] collaborative approach where all initiatives work in a complementary manner to advance the UN-facilitated political process is very much needed.

Also at on Wednesday's meeting, in his capacity as the Chair of the Committee established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1976 (2011), Ambassador Olof Skoog, the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations, briefed the Council on the work of the Committee from 20 April to 7 June.

In particular, he spoke of the information it received from the Panel of Experts on its final report under Council resolution 2278 (2016) on issues including the arms embargo, assets freeze, travel ban and illicit trade in petroleum products, imposed upon certain actors in Libya.

The Committee is in the process of concluding its consideration of the recommendations, the Ambassador added.

UN Photo/Kim Haughton

Source: www.justearthnews.com
The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its verdict on the petitions challenging constitutional validity of newly-inserted section in the Income Tax Act that makes linking of Aadhaar number with PAN mandatory.

The bench of Justice A.K. Sikri and Justice Ashok Bhushan had on May 4 reserved the order on the pleas by senior Communist Party of India (CPI) leader Binoy Visman, former Major General of Indian Army S.G. Vombatkere and Convenor of Safai Karamchari Andolan Bezwada Wilson, who had challenged the validity of Section 139AA.

The petitioners had told the court that the provision mandating linking of Aadhaar number with the Permanent Account Number (PAN) would have "extremely far-reaching consequences not only for individuals but small businesses too".

The petitioners had told the court that the government had an agenda to push Aadhaar and pointed to the dichotomy between Aadhaar Act, 2016 that makes possessing Aadhaar optional and the Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act that makes its linking with PAN compulsory.

"A right that is voluntary under Aadhaar Act can't be made a penal provision under the Income Tax Act," petitioner CPI leader Visman had told the court.

The court was told that "slowly, step by step the government is making it compulsory by linking it with various things". "Is it not a contempt of court?"

The top court by its earlier orders had said that the government could insist upon Aadhaar only for distribution of food grains, LPG and other schemes including MNREGA, old-age pension scheme, provident fund and Prime Minister's Jan-Dhan Yojana.
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said the situation in Kashmir will improve soon and the country's armed forces are fully prepared to thwart any threat to India's sovereignty.

''India is fully ready for two and a half front war with China, Pakistan and elements posing threat to the internal security," Rawat said, adding, "The condition in Kashmir will be normal soon."

The Army chief said social media is an important tool being used by Pakistan to create unrest in Kashmir.

''Pakistan generated social media propaganda is spreading disinformation among youth of Kashmir. However, it will not succeed,'' he said.

Talking about Army's military preparedness, Rawat said, ''We keep raising our modernisation issues with the Government of India and have got positive responses.''

This statement of the Army Chief comes at a time when the situation in Kashmir remains volatile with protesters carrying out violent demonstrations against the Army.

General Rawat had visited Jammu and Kashmir last week to review the security and also met state Governor NN Vohra to discuss the security situation.

According to reports, two jawans were injured in an encounter along LoC in Uri after 5-6 terrorists tried to infiltrate.

(With inputs from agencies)
Undeterred by criticism from politicians and commentators, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat says use of human shield by the India Army is not a norm but individual officers are entitled to decide the tactic depending on circumstances.

He also dismisses criticism that the Army is trigger-happy, but says the level of violence in Jammu and Kashmir needs to be brought down for any meaningful dialogue with stakeholders. "Dialogue and violence cannot go together," General Rawat said in an interaction here at his office.

The Army Chief maintains that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media and dismisses a perception that people of the state are against the Army.

"It (human shield) is not a general norm. As a practice it is not supported. But situations would dictate. Under the circumstances he (Major Leetul Gogoi) took a decision independently. He can't look back at that stage and wait for orders. I think in his own wisdom he took the action," General Rawat said.

"If somebody has any other ideas as to how to tackle such a situation, then he can pass it on to us. We will take a look at it," he said.

General Rawat was asked to comment on a string of criticisms about his earlier remarks defending Major Gogoi's action of tying a civilian to the bonnet of an Army jeep when facing a crowd of stone pelters in the valley.

He was then criticised for justifying the Major's action that was described as unprofessional and damaging to the reputation of the Indian Army and being violative of the Geneva Convention that lays down rules of warfare.

Replying to a question on the comments by CPI-M leader Prakash Karat over his reported remarks that stone pelters should rather use guns as amounting to instigating them to take to guns, General Rawat maintained that he was misquoted on the issue.

"In a proxy war situation like this the enemy cannot be identified. He is not wearing a band or a uniform that can identify him as a terrorist. Only when he fires then you know what to do in such a situation. The Army cannot throw stones, that is not my pattern. I can't throw stones."

Asked about the absence of any dialogue with stakeholders in Jammu and Kashmir and whether there can be a military solution that can be lasting, General Rawat said it should be an "integrated" solution.

"Military has to bring the violence level down. We have to bring peace for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After all, it is the poor people like daily wagers, pony walas, shikaras, and others who depend on tourism like hotels. Students are also affected as schools and colleges are shut.

"They have already seen one bad (tourism) season, another bad year will affect them worse. Why are we doing, what we are doing? We are doing it to bring peace in the valley," he said.

He rejected reports of local people in the Kashmir valley being "angry" with the Army, saying it is not as bad as projected in the media. At the same time he asserted that there was nothing wrong with the killing of militants like Burhan Wani.

"I don't think there is that kind of resentment. Of course people are angry about issues like unemployment. That is an issue even in the rest of the country, but for that you do not take to guns. Look at the way the youth are coming to join Army in large numbers," he said.

The General said Kashmir with its rich resources could be a leader in so many fields, but economic development was not taking place because of violence.

"Violence had come down after 2011-12. What have the Army or security forces done (to evoke anger)? Army cannot be faulted for the killing of Burhan Wani. Something is happening behind the scene, someone is instigating people," he said.

Asked about absence of dialogue at present in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the violence level has to come down.

"You say I am not going to indulge in violence, then we will talk. If people want to have a dialogue, then dialogue and violence cannot go together. You can't say Army and civilians will be involved in a gun battle and say let's have talks. A semblance of peace and tranquility is essential, then we can talk."

Asked about the criticism that the Army Chief's view was reflecting the government's views, General Rawat said in a democracy the Army has to work under a democratically elected government.

"We take directions from the government Are we supposed to work away from the government? Directions are always given by the government," he said.

He said the government gave the Army a free hand in executing its directions. Similarly the Army gave freedom to units to execute its directions.
The Central Bureau of Investigations raid on the owners of NDTV for an alleged concealment of share transactions from the SEBI that allegedly caused a loss of Rs.48 crore to a private bank has been termed by the channel as a witchhunt based on a false accusation.

I tend to agree with the channel. I think it is a trumped up charge. Radhika and her husband, Pronnoy Roy, are self-made people.

They may have committed some technical errors. But the CBI has registered a case against RRPR Holding Private Limited, Pranoy Roy, his wife Radhika and unidentified officials of ICICI Bank of criminal conspiracy, cheating and corruption.

Radhika and I had worked together at The Indian Express and I cannot imagine that she could have indulged in the activities attributed to her.

According to the charges, RRPR Holdings had taken a loan of Rs.500 crore from India Bulls Private Limited to purchase 20 per cent shares of NDTV from the public.

The CBI has alleged that RRPR Holdings took a loan of Rs.375 crore at the rate of 19 per cent per annum from ICICI Bank to repay the borrowing from India Bulls.

The promoters of NDTV pledged their entire shareholding in NDTV as collateral to ICICI for this loan, it is stated. According to the investigating agency, this pledging of shares was not reported to the SEBI, stock exchanges and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

Such concealment was allegedly done as a creation of more than 61 per cent voting capital which was in violation of section 19 (2) of the Banking Regulation Act.

It should not be more than 30 per cent, the agency said. An interest waiver of 10 per cent was also given by ICICI Bank at the time of repayment.

The network has said that the loans have been repaid and it produced a document that appeared to confirm its claim. NDTV and its promoters have never defaulted on any loan to ICICI or any other bank. read a statement posted on NDTV's website.

We adhere to the highest levels of integrity and independence. It is clearly the independence and fearlessness of NDTV's team that the ruling party's politicians cannot stomach and the CBI raid is merely another attempt at silencing the media.

The Narendra Modi government has been after NDTV for quite some time because this is one of the very few channels which has not surrendered to the whims of the government. And this is not the first time that it has been targeted by the Modi government.

Last year, NDTV had to challenge the government's one-day ban of its Hindi channel in the Supreme Court when it was ordered off the air for broadcasting sensitive details of terror attack on the air force base in Pathankot in January 2016. In November 2016, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had ordered an unprecedented 24-hour blackout against the network, saying its coverage on terrorist attacks at Pathankot had revealed strategically-sensitive information.

NDTV argued that its coverage was based on official news briefings and that other broadcasters that had made the same revelations were not being penalized.

Subsequently, the representatives of NDTV met with the Information and Broadcasting Minister and pleaded that the channel had not been given a fair chance to offer evidence that it did not share any information that was different from what other channels and newspapers presented at the same time.

Understandably, the ban was widely condemned by journalists and editors with all press bodies drawing parallels to the Emergency of the 1970s when basic constitutional rights including the freedom of the press were blatantly violated.

At the last minute, the government lifted the ban. The Editors' Guild of India then said that the one-day ban by the government was unprecedented and that the Centre appeared to have given itself the power to intervene in the functioning of the media and take arbitrary punitive action as and when it does not agree with the coverage.

Defending the ban, Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu said that it was in the interest of the country's security and that the barrage of criticism faced by the government appeared to be politically inspired.

Even on the recent raids by CBI, Naidus reaction is, more or less, the same. Denying that there was political interference in the raids, Naidu has said: If somebody does something wrong, simply because they belong to media, you cannot expect the government to keep quiet. He said that the law was taking its course. I am not against the law taking its own course.

But I, like other journalists, would want to know what the channel has done to invite the wrath of the government or, for that matter, Prime Minister Modi. It is obvious that this action could not have been taken without consent from the top. The Information and Broadcasting Minister is only the hatchet person. After all, he would have to carry out the orders coming from above.

The government has been using sedition laws to silence dissenting voices. NDTV's news coverage has riled up members of Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP, many of whom accuse the network of being anti-BJP. Days before the raid, an NDTV news anchor had sparred with the BJP's national spokesman Sambit Patra on air and asked him to leave her show for his accusation that NDTV had an agenda.

On the one hand, Modi talks of strengthening democracy. But on the other hand, he is doing everything to weaken it. In his favourite Mann Ki Baat, Modi said the other day that for a lively democracy, healthy criticisms are immensely important. However, every action emanating from his government, particularly the attacks on the media, smacks of authoritarianism. The magic he casts on the people is gradually vanishing.

The sooner he realises this, the better it would be for him and his supporters.

The writer is a noted journalist columnist and commentator.
As many as 26 CRPF personnel from the 74th battalion, deployed to oversee an under-construction road project at Sukma in Chhattisgarh, died recently in an ambush by some 300-400 Maoists.

While the failure of Intelligence is palpable, an explosive situation prevails in several areas of the state, notably Bastar, Bijapur, Sukma and Dantewada.

There is an inherent danger in the ubiquitous presence of central forces. Which is one major reason why police and paramilitary forces are targeted in Kashmir.

The Maoist commander, who allegedly masterminded the massacre in Sukma, operated a network of dedicated informers across the region and was perhaps privy to the movement of the forces. In Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, or any other volatile region, it is the security forces who are the victims despite their training in the use of sophisticated weapons and guerrilla warfare.

In an interesting book titled The New Face of War: How War Will Be Fought in the 21st Century Bruce Berkowitz has argued that the ability to gather, process and protect information is the most important factor defining military power ~ Stealth trumps armour, precision trumps explosive force, and being able to react faster than your opponent trumps speed. Berkowitzs prescription is simple ~ If you want to defeat your opponent, you must first win the information war. Prakash Singh, former Director-General, BSF and an expert in tackling Left-wing extremism, mentioned multiple factors ~ from leadership failure to loopholes in the functioning of the security forces, thus leading to the recent Sukma ambush.

The most unfortunate part is that despite repeated incidents, no lessons are being learned, he was quoted as saying. A decade ago, Moloy Krishna Dhar, a former Joint Director, Intelligence Bureau, pointed out that the governments cutting edge internal security tool is not prepared to combat the aggressive operations of Pakistans ISI or Islamist tanzeems.

There is a lack of trained manpower at the operative level, lacunae in training to combat acts of terrorism and insurgency, and lack of electronic and technical intelligence equipment.

Even if the problem of poor technology can be addressed, intelligence failure is difficult to be condoned as it involves the loss of precious lives, be it in Mumbai, Uri, Pathankot, Pampore or Sukma. Intelligence reform is direly imperative. But the government responds only after an offensive.

For instance, the Directorate-General of Security (DGS) was set up only after the war with China in 1962. R&AW was entrusted with the responsibility to collect external intelligence ~ formerly a remit of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) ~ following the IndoPak war of 1965 and the Mizo revolt in 1966.

In the aftermath of the Kargil operations in 1999, an enquiry by Kargil Review Committee led to the setting up of the GC Saxena Special Task Force which recommended the creation of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the nodal point for processing all militaryrelated intelligence.

A Group of Ministers (GoM) was formed on 17 April 2000 to re-examine the issues of security and intelligence. Accordingly Task Forces were set up for intelligence, internal security, border management and defence. Though the GoM forwarded its recommendations to the Prime Minister on 19 February 2001, it is now evident that followthrough action was not taken either by the NDA or the UPA dispensations till the Mumbai outrage on 26 November 2008 jolted the nation to its foundations.

There was talk of a National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). Within the bureaucracy, there was little or coordination. According to a paper crafted by the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), near-total ignorance about Chinese intentions and capabilities in Tibet and their designs against India in the 1950s led to serial disasters.

Notably, the alienation of Kashmiris through repeated changes in state governments since the early 1950s and, more specifically, during 1986-87; Pakistani subversion plans in the name of religion in the 70s, and the proselytising activities of the Deobandi/Wahabi sect in the Valley in the mid-80s, recruitment of Kashmiri youth for arms training in Pakistan and their infiltration into the Valley to launch the Kashmiri jihad in the late 80s, and terrorist attacks within India either directly by Pakistani players or their Indian proxies, especially the Mumbai attack of 26/11. Intelligence failures continue to rattle India.

The Henderson Brooks report on the massive intelligence failures in 1962 underlines the lack of coordination among the agencies concerned, fragile credibility of sources, and inconsistent feedback. All this resulted in Indias humiliating defeat against China.

There appears to be a distressing continuity in Indias track record. Take the instance of the Kargil misadventure. Experts have pointed out how India was clueless about briefings and authorisations made in Islamabad and Rawalpindi months in advance, about field officers recruited to train the force in the Baltistan heights of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), about equipment and supplies being stocked in Pakistan army garrisons at Skardu and Astor before being sent to camps close to the Line of Control (LoC). The government failed to foresee the scale of intrusion because of several factors, most importantly the fact that the Pakistan Army made excellent use of stealth and deception in the run-up to the operation.

The Uri attack is believed to have been facilitated by one of the various agents who the Indian forces had been using to collect information on the Pakistan Armys logistics.

Apart from the need for international cooperation, crossborder intelligence cooperation guided by persuasive diplomacy with friendly neighbours is essential in the fight against international terrorism.

At least five states ~ West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram ~ and five ministries, namely External Affairs, Home, Water Resources, Commerce and Development of Northeast Region; and four security and intelligence organizations ~ Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW ), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Border Security Force (BSF) ~ are pivotal in dealings with Bangladesh.

Nepal is an important centre for intelligence and subversive operations by foreign powers as well as nonstate actors against India.

The writer is a Kolkatabased commentator on politics, development and cultural issues.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have a very important role to play in any democracy, more so in developing economies. NGOs are supposedly the custodians of propriety in public life and watchdogs of public interest at large.

The important qualification for any NGO and the people behind it is therefore the highest degree of integrity and character. The day these basic ingredients are compromised, that NGO forfeits its moral right to function.

Unfortunately in recent years, overall degeneration in value system across sections of society has been frighteningly fast and NGOs are no exception. Many NGOs today are playing in the hands of one vested interest or the other. Initially, vested interests used the NGOs by feeding them with information against rival interests and achieved their motives.

However now many NGOs have acquired financial muscle and have now started extorting moneys. An unfortunate methodology of some NGOs is to watch developments until a project promoter has invested time and money. After the promoter gets necessary government clearances/permits and starts the project with a large investment, the NGO starts objecting. At the same time, it quietly meets the promoter and negotiates a deal to extort money.

If the NGO fails to extort desired amounts, it goes to courts of law including Green tribunals. As a matter of fact and in the interest of equity, if promoters have obtained necessary clearances before going ahead with their project, they should not be disturbed.

If the matter comes before adjudicating authorities, they should penalise government agencies that gave clearances for wrongdoing rather than promoters as long as they have adhered to terms of clearances. If the promoters violate any conditions, they should not be spared.

Promoters often face unnecessary litigation after obtaining all clearances and suffer time and cost overruns that make a project unviable. If at the end of the litigation it is found that the promoter has not committed any wrong, the complaining NGO and governments should be directed to make good the loss.

Without such directions, developmental work will suffer on the one hand and on the other entrepreneurs will keep away from projects of national importance.

While in some cases the concerns raised by NGOs are valid, a detailed scrutiny will show that in many cases, the NGOs produce no substantial evidence nor possess expertise in the field. An analysis of the past 25 years is necessary to determine if NGOs have caused more harm than good to people, the economy and the environment.

Another dangerous facet of these NGOs is that many serve the cause of international agencies or multinational corporations by spreading gross lies through expensive media campaigns to influence institutions granting sanctions and those adjudicating issues.

Many major projects, including greenfield projects have been victims of unchecked blackmail by so-called NGOs. India has lost big opportunities in the international market amounting to billions of dollars to rival international players. Lop sided activism has harmed society irreparably.

There are instances of public sector companies engaged in mining activity that had planted millions of trees in the vicinity and provided a green cover being ordered to stop work at the behest of so-called green activists who were proved to be batting for international players.

While highlighting this unfortunate state of affairs in the NGO sector, I do not wish to undermine the importance of NGOs in society. I only want to draw the attention of governments to device a mechanism through which genuine NGOs flourish but those engaging in malpractices are checked.

Similarly, adjudicating authorities should exercise caution before entertaining petitions from any and every NGO.

There is very little accountability of NGOs today.

The need of the hour is to make them accountable. Transparency with regard to their activities and funding must be made public; and NGOs should be asked to put their balance sheets and projects in public domain. NGOs found to be making grossly incorrect allegations twice or thrice should be black listed for at least three years to ensure that the status of an NGO is not misused.

A judicious balance is required to be struck between green activism and development in the interests of the public at large.

Wrongdoings of business and industry are responsible for growth of NGOs, good and unscrupulous; similarly, wrongdoings on the part of NGOs will give an opportunity to trade and industry to play victim.

Under the circumstances, the role of governments and the judiciary becomes more important.

The writer is a distinguished scientist and can be reached at [email protected]
Indian PM Narendra Modi congratulated SB Deuba on being elected as the Prime Minster of Nepal. He assumes power today (8 June) for the fourth time after a gap of 12 years.

Modi confirmed his telephonic call to Deuba in his tweet as well. Likewise, Chinese ambassador Yu Hong congratulated him personally reaching his residence yesterday evening.

Modi had also congratulated his then Nepalese counterpart Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda on 25 May for his success in holding the first phase of local level elections for 283 units in 34 districts on 14 May and hoped for Nepals steady move on the path of political stability and prosperity.

After a majority of results of the first phase elections were published, Prachanda had resigned on 24 May from the post paving the way for Deuba, the leader of the largest party in the House, the Nepali Congress, to succeed him as per agreement reached between them while forming coalition.

It is usual to congratulate someone on any victory. However, it seems unusual to congratulate a PM who has just completed the first phase of elections leaving behind more units to be elected. In phase two, elections are to be held for the remaining 461 units in 41 districts.

They were to be conducted on 14 June, were rescheduled to 24 June and have once again been extended to June 28 on account of the month of Ramadan.

It must be asked whether PM Modis thanks-giving formality to Prachanda was the execution of his governments Neighbour first policy; just a formal goodbye or an appreciation to his government for taking crucial decisions like award of contract for the 1200- megawatt Budhigandaki storage project to China Gezhouba Group Corporation without any competitive international bidding, sanctioning Tarai fast track to the Nepal army, which was previously given to an Indian company and permitting China to study feasibility of a railway track from Kerung (the Tibetan border point) to Kathmandu and to Lumbini finally.

These decisions do confirm that Nepal is asserting its independence, sovereignty and self-respect. It has tried to move away from being an India-dependent economy to Chinadependent prosperity under the Belt and Road Initiative, the flagship of Chinas robust economy.

All these decisions prove that the independence of Nepal is guaranteed under the mastership of China like some ASEAN nations.

Modi's thanks also seemed to have been given to Prachanda for not completing election of second phase and not meeting the demands of Madhesi outfits for having proportional representation in restructuring of the local level units that have been made the backbone of national administration and development.

The present pragmatic foreign policy of Nepal, which oscillated between south and north previously, seems to have set to the north, being a departure from its traditional stand of being a yam between two boulders set by the founder of modern Nepal, the Gorkha king Prithibi Narayan Shah who captured Kathmandu in 1768 and made it the unified country that exists today.

Since the late 1940s people struggled to acquire state power including through the peoples movements of 1990 and 2006. Ultimately, Nepal was declared a secular federal democratic republic through the new constitution on 20 September 2015.

But sadly, instead of implementing the constitution, all major parties concentrated on sharing power. In this course, the KP Sharma Oli led government constituted a Local level Restructuring Commission (LLRC), which suggested 744 local units.

However, the recommendations were not acceptable to the Madhesi outfits, who claimed 50 per cent share against the 35 per cent recommendation of the Commission.

Since, the outgoing government led by Maoist Centre, accepted the recommendations and decided to hold elections for these units, some Madhesi parties rejected the decision and are agitating. Interestingly, local elections are taking place after a gap of 20 years.

Originally, they were scheduled for one day polling on May 14. Elections in the first phase were peaceful as there were no Madhesi demands for increasing the number of local units.

The second phase was scheduled after a month with a view to buying time to negotiate the demands of the Madhes-based parties, which include amendment to the constitution and also negotiate the number of local level units in proportion to the population of 20 districts of Madhes/Tarai falling in these provinces.

However, the governments recent decision to increase the number by 22 was stayed by the apex court. Had the government been serious, the same could have been done long ago through the LLRC itself, which had based population upto 13,000, 22,000 and 40,000 respectively for the regions of High Mountain, Hill and Madhes for village councils, and 17,000, 31,000 and 60,000 for respective regions for Municipalities.

It will be difficult for Mr Deuba to meet the demand in the limited time to have peaceful elections. Ironically, the varying population bases to decide the number of local units cannot be justified as every citizen has equal right to choose equal number of his or her representatives in any democracy, whether he resides in Tarai or in Hills or in high mountains.

It is not known whether PM Modi forgot the rightful claim of Madhesis while congratulating Prachanda and Deuba.

The writer is a former Election Commissioner of Nepal and presently associated with the Nepal Transition to Peace Institute, Kathmandu.
The notorious intolerance of the present political leadership has had an infectious, trickle-down effect.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has run whining to the cops against a WhatsApp group of pilots of private airlines who had the temerity to use filthy and abusive language ~ as if that can be easily quantified ~ against its officials.

And though the Delhi Police did not immediately convert the complaint into a First Information Report, some of the offenders were summoned to a police station, their smart-phones seized for further investigation.

If only the police displayed similar diligence to the complaints of the common folk, but this is an age of increasing big government and old-timers will recall how during the Emergency a local tongawallah was at the receiving end of the cops batons for whipping a troublesome mare that happened to be named Indira.

It can be nobodys case that social media be used to hit out at individuals, but reality presents a different picture and the police would be swamped if they took cognisance of every complaint against being trolled. But then, in this case the complainants were government officials, the new breed of touch me nots.

Persons holding regulatory authority must be capable of withstanding criticism; if they find the job too hot they should get out of the kitchen.

The DGCA has displayed double-standards: it pressured Air-India staffers into lifting their informal ban against an MP who took pride in saying he had slippered an airline worker, but has taken serious exception to pilots slamming one of its own.

Reluctant to discuss the issue with the media, the DGCA used vague terms to describe what the pilots said ~ not did. And if the messages were shared among members of a group they were not publicly defamatory ~ worse was likely to have been said had the pilots met in a hotel lounge or lobby.

It was not as if filthy language had been used at an organised protest meeting. Boys will be boys and airline pilots have never been hailed as perfect gentlemen; certainly those flying for private carriers would not hold in awe some official from a ministry.

And in any case there is the old saying that sticks and stones may break my bones but the words dont hurt me. The pilots are irked by revised regulations requiring them to give long periods of notice before seeking fresh employment ~ unlike officials they are not government servants for life.

The minister of state for civil aviation has done well not to make an issue of the matter. He would do better if he directs his staff to dismount from its sarkari high horse.

Surely the DGCA has more pressing matters to deal with rather than give vent to pricked pique?
Two galaxy clusters are banging into each other at supersonic speeds and merging together to create a larger galaxy cluster and in the process have created a turbulent cloud of gas that is ten times hotter than the Sun.

It has been termed as one of the biggest bangs in the universe since the 'Big Bang', scientists say.

The two clusters, which are located some 2.4 billion light years away, would create a larger galaxy cluster dubbed by scientists as Abell 115.

"Energetically speaking, galaxy cluster merging events are the biggest bangs in the universe since the Big Bang. These are massive, very dynamic systems that continue to evolve to this day," said Jack Burns, Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, US.

The turbulent area of hot gas between the two clusters is about 300 million degrees Fahrenheit or 149 million degrees Celsius, the scientists said.

"That is roughly three times as hot as the two smaller cluster cores and 10 times hotter than the core of the Sun We did not expect to see such very hot gas between the cluster components," Burns said.

"We think the turbulence is like a big spoon stirring up gases, converting the energy of motion from the merging clusters into thermal energy. It is a manifestation of them banging together like two giant pots, something we haven't really seen before," he added.

The findings were presented at the 230th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society being held in Texas, US.

The two merging galaxy clusters individually consist of hundreds of galaxies, each as large or larger than our own Milky Way galaxy, Burns said.

The team's computer simulations show regions of relatively cool gas near the cores of each merging cluster, indicating the two objects have encountered each other before  perhaps circling a few times and stripping gas from one another before merging.
New York, June 8(Just Earth News): Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres and the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday separately offered their condolences to the Iranian Government and families of the people killed in the attacks in the country's capital, Tehran.

In a statement this morning, his spokesperson said that the Secretary-General strongly condemns the terrorist attacks.

At least 50 people were killed or injured in the attacks on the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Parliament (Majlis) building.

Guterres called for those responsible for this unjustifiable violence to be brought to justice.

All countries must work together in fighting terrorism while upholding the universal rights and values that bind the global community, the spokesperson said.

In a separate statement, the UN Security Council, which called the attacks barbaric and cowardly, stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists.

Credit: UN Information Centre Tehran

Source: www.justearthnews.com
An international team of astronomers has used the Hubble space telescope to measure the mass of a star by employing Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Researchers with NASA'a Space Telescope Science Institute (STSCI) in Baltimore, Maryland, measured the mass of a white dwarf star by analysing how much it bent the light of a more distant star, just as Einstein asserted could be done more than a century ago, Efe news reported.

The study was presented on Wednesday in Austin, Texas, at the 230th American Astronomical Society conference, where scientists from research centres and universities are discussing their latest discoveries.

Specifically, the team observed a white dwart star known as Stein 2051B located about 17 light years from the Earth just as it passed in front of a more distant star.

During the alignment, the gravity of the white dwarf bent the light from the farther star, thus making the latter appear to shift approximately two thousandths of an arc-second from its original position, a movement so small that it's equivalent to the size of an ant spotted from more than 2,400 km away.

By measuring the deflection of the more distant star's light, the astronomers calculated that the white dwarf star has about 68 percent of the Sun's mass, a result that coincides with theoretical predictions.

The method was proposed in 1915 when Einstein made public his General Theory of Relativity, which  among other things  described how objects deform space according to their mass.

The theory was verified experimentally four years later when a team headed by British astronomer Arthur Eddington measured how the Sun's gravity shifted the image of a distant star whose light just grazed the solar surface on its way to the Earth during a solar eclipse, thus proving that Einstein's microlensing idea was valid.

Astronomers nowadays use this effect to magnify images of distant galaxies and to measure small changes in the apparent positioning of nearby stars in the sky.

However, researchers had to wait for a century to build a telescope that was powerful enough to detect the gravitational lensing phenomenon caused by a single star outside the solar system.

The amount of deflection is so small that only the ultra-sharply focused Hubble telescope could detect it and the team had to wait for about two years before the two stars came into the proper alignment.
The world's oldest fossil mushroom  dating back to about 115 million years  has been discovered in Brazil, according to researchers who hailed the finding as a "scientific wonder."

The mushroom has been named Gondwanagaricites magnificus and belongs to the Agaricales order, researchers said.

About five centimetres tall, the mushroom had gills under its cap, rather than pores or teeth, structures that release spores and that can aid in identifying species, they said.

"Most mushrooms grow and are gone within a few days," said Sam Heads, from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign in the US.

"The fact that this mushroom was preserved at all is just astonishing," said Heads, who discovered the mushroom when digitising a collection of fossils from the Crato Formation of Brazil.

Around 115 million years ago, when the ancient super- continent Gondwana was breaking apart, the mushroom fell into a river and began an improbable journey, researchers said.

Its ultimate fate as a mineralised fossil preserved in limestone in northeast Brazil makes it a scientific wonder, they said.

The mushroom somehow made its way into a highly saline lagoon, sank through the stratified layers of salty water and was covered in layer upon layer of fine sediments.

In time, the mushroom was mineralised, its tissues replaced by mineral pyrite, which later transformed into the mineral goethite, the researchers said.

"When you think about it, the chances of this thing being here  the hurdles it had to overcome to get from where it was growing into the lagoon, be mineralised and preserved for 115 million years  have to be minuscule," he said.

Before this discovery, the oldest fossil mushrooms found had been preserved in amber, said Andrew Miller, a co-author of the report published in the journal PLOS ONE.

The next oldest mushroom fossils, found in amber in Southeast Asia, date to about 99 million years ago, he said.

"They were enveloped by a sticky tree resin and preserved as the resin fossilised, forming amber," Heads said.

"This is a much more likely scenario for the preservation of a mushroom, since resin falling from a tree directly onto the forest floor could readily preserve specimens. This certainly seems to have been the case, given the mushroom fossil record to date," Heads said.

Fungi evolved before land plants and are responsible for the transition of plants from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment, Miller added.
Megastar Chiranjeevi, who has been out of the country for over a week, bonded with colleagues from yesteryear on a trip to China.

Actress Radikaa Sarath Kumar, who was also part of the trip tweeted the pictures on Thursday.

"Unforgettable, memorable trip with friends to China. Memories for life," she wrote, and also shared a few pictures from the trip.

Going by the pictures, Chiranjeevi was accompanied by his wife.

Also present on the trip were Khushbu, Lissy, Bhagyaraj and Poornima Bhagyaraj among a few others.

"Chiranjeevi sir left to China on May 30th. He returns to Hyderabad tonight. It was a week-long trip to China," a source close to the star told.

Basking in the success of "Khaidi No 150", Chiranjeevi will commence shooting for his next yet-untitled Telugu project from August.
Actress Krystle D'Souza, who is rumoured to be dating Karan Tacker, says she is single till the time she has a sparkler on her ring finger, and also a wedding date.

Asked how she reacts to all the rumours related to her love life, Krystle told: "It's lovely that people are so interested in my life. No matter how much you make the world a part of your life through social media, it's never enough.

"They all want more and I truly understand why. It's their never-ending love for me that wants to know every detail of my life possible. About my love life, I would like to say I am single till I have a ring on the right finger and a wedding date."

The actress, who is known for her roles in TV series like "Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai", "Ek Nayi Pehchaan" and "Brahmarakshas", is currently taking social media by storm with her glamorous posts.

Asked about this fashionable side, Krystle, who is also Pond's Brand Ambassador, said: "I have always loved fashion, trends, style, make-up and hair, but yes some sort of a transformation truly happens when I play a 'bahu'. That's when I have to wear brown lenses to cover my green eyes, colour my hair dark, wear saris and surprise myself that I can pull this off too.

"It's as they say 'Best of both worlds'. I love all my characters and love being the simple 'bahu'. It teaches me so much that I take some great values back into real life too," she said.

So what is keeping her busy nowadays?

"Travelling, travelling and some more travelling. When I work, I work non-stop and so hard that I barely get time to see anything but the set and home. So whenever I am done with one show, I go into my globetrotter mode and just pick a place and disappear for a while.

"I went to Amsterdam and Paris this time. And also my usual Goa. Planning as many more places I can fit in before I get back to doing a new project," she said.

She also said she will think about Bollywood if something big comes up.

She said: "I have never specifically planned these things, by the grace of God they have all just fallen in place at the right time. So I'm going with the flow of things I'm sure if something on the big screen comes my way I'll take the leap. Till then I'm waiting. As they say 'Go Big or Go Home'"
Actress Nehha Pendse fulfilled the wish of a unique fan whose mother had asked her to secure A' grade in Class 10 if she wants to meet her favourite actress.

Nehha, who is seen as Sanjana in popular Life OK comedy show May I Come in Madam?, got to know about the young fan through social media.

"Whatever I am today it's because of my fans and I have always been overwhelmed by the love and affection that has been showered on me by my fans. It was pleasure meeting my sweet little fan who secured first class result in board exams and came all the way from Pune to meet me (in Mumbai)," Nehha said in a statement.

"She gifted me a cute kitty photo frame too. I think I am lucky enough that people are watching me and appreciating my work. I was really moved and humbled to meet my youngest fan," she added.
Three bodies were recovered on Thursday from the wreckage of a Myanmar military plane that crashed into the sea with 104 people on board, defence officials said.

The bodies of a man, woman and a child, as well as plane wheels, several life jackets and clothing were found about 22 km west of Kyauk Nimak, Efe news reported.

The Chinese-made Y-8F-200 aircraft left from Tanintharyi region's Myeik city on Wednesday for Yangon and disappeared from the radar near the city of Dawei after travelling for about 100 km.

The 104 on board included 90 members of soldiers' families and 14 crew.

The Y-8F-200 was delivered to the Armed Forces in March 2016 and had clocked up 809 flying hours.

At least six navy boats and three planes are carrying out a search and rescue mission to find potential survivors.

The military said the tragedy may have occurred due to bad weather but this could be confirmed only after the black box was found.
Hundreds of houses in Kabul are receiving a fresh coat of paint as part of a beautification drive to brighten up the war-torn Afghan capital.

Three weeks ago, Kabul authorities launched a project to paint around 2,000 hilltop houses.

"The aim of the project is to beautify Kabul city and offer some mental relaxation to its citizens," Jalil Sultani, spokesperson for the Kabul Municipality, who came up with the plan in cooperation with the Capital Region Independent Development Authority, told Efe news on Thursday.

Hundreds of mud houses stretching over the Koh-e-Asmayee, a mountain located in the heart of the city, a few metres from the Presidential Palace, are a living proof of the massive internal migration that has occurred as a result of the ongoing conflict, according to Sultani.

These houses, lights from which in the evenings create an illusion of skyscrapers, lack drainage or sewer systems and during monsoon months garbage and debris from these houses flow out onto the streets.

The new coats of paint will transform the gray mud and stone houses into a spectacular sight, with splashes of orange, yellow, red and white, Sultani said.

"Most people like blue and yellow," Abdul Razaq, a painter, told Efe. "Nobody likes red."

Red is a much-hated colour in Kabul, as it is reminiscent of the constant bloodshed in a city that has been living under the shadow of terror throughout the past decade.

Between 2016-17, more than 500 deaths have been recorded, including the 150 who died on Wednesday in a car bomb blast.

Once the current beautification project is completed, Sultani said it will be extended to other areas of Kabul.

The beautification plan is part of a bigger project that was approved by President Ashraf Ghani to develop Kabul, and includes several other programmes like advancing communications infrastructure, creating parks and basic services for the population.
At least 13 people are dead after Boko Haram launched the deadliest attack in months on the northeast Nigeria city that is the birthplace of the extremist group, police said on Thursday.

The attack came just hours before a visit by the country's acting president.

Nigeria late last year declared that Boko Haram had been crushed but attacks continue, often with young women strapped into explosives for suicide attacks.

The jihadists attacked late on Wednesday in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, as evening prayers were ending, targeting four locations around the city. Thirteen people were killed, including four attackers, Police Commissioner Damian Chukwu said.

Extremists also clashed with soldiers outside the city in Alidawari village and Jiddari Polo suburb, where homes were set on fire, Chukwu said. Nigerian forces killed three Boko Haram insurgents in that fighting, he said, and one attacker was captured alive.

Acting president Yemi Osinbajo arrived in Maiduguri today to launch a food relief program for hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes in the wake of Boko Haram attacks in the region. The eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000, kidnapped thousands and spilled into neighboring countries, creating a vast humanitarian crisis with thousands said to be near starvation.

The attacks late yesterday in Maiduguri took place in various locations around the Chad Basin Development Authority headquarters just before 9 pm, resident Alhaji Bashir said.

The targets included a mosque, he said.

Young members of a civilian defense group, who have come together to combat the Islamic extremists, saw one suicide bomber at the headquarters. "One of the youth vigilantes rushed to hold him, and the bomb went off and killed the suicide bomber and three other persons," Bashir said.

In another attack, a female suicide bomber entered a crowd of worshippers leaving prayers and detonated her explosives, he said.

Dozens of injured people filled the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital today, said Abba Shehu, a private security worker.

"It is a horrible sight we have here," he said. "I could not count the number of injured casualties at the accident and emergency ward, most of them sitting on the floor as the place is crowded and no beds to properly admit them."
China has dismissed a Pentagon report about Beijing's military development, saying the country is justified in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the media reported on Thursday.

"The report, regardless of facts, made irresponsible remarks on China's national defence construction, as well as justifiable activities to maintain territorial sovereignty and security. China is resolutely opposed to it, "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday.

The US Department of Defence released its annual report to Congress regarding developments in the Chinese military in 2016, reports the People's Daily.

Hua said China firmly adheres to peaceful development while resolutely pursuing a defensive military policy, and is a staunch force in safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"China's national defence configuration aims to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the justifiable right of a sovereign country."

"We hope that the US will abandon its Cold War mentality and take an objective and rational look at China's military development," she said.

The 97-page report predicted that China is likely to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has long-standing friendly relationships, such as Pakistan, the People's Daily reported.

The spokeswoman refused to specifically comment on such speculation, but said China and Pakistan are traditionally friendly neighbours and have benefited from long-term cooperation in every sector.


At least 13 people died in the twin attacks by militants against Iran's parliament and Imam Khomeini Shrine in capital Tehran on Wednesday, the security deputy of Iran's Interior Ministry was quoted as saying by state IRIB TV.

Also, 43 people were injured in the terrorist attacks, Hossein Zolfeghari said.

In the meantime, all four assailants against the parliament and two against the Khomeini Shrine were killed.

On Wednesday, the twin attacks were simultaneously carried out in Tehran at around 10.30 a.m.

According to the reports, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks.


New York, June 8(Just Earth News): The world is now adding more green energy capacity each year than it adds in new capacity from all fossil fuels combined, a United Nations-backed report revealed on Wednesday, showing that the arenewables train has already left the stationa and those who ignore this will be left behind.

Last year, renewable power installments increased by nine per cent over 2015 to nearly 2,017 gigawatts. Solar photovoltaic accounted for around 47 per cent of the total additions, followed by wind power at 34 per cent and hydropower at 15.5 per cent, according to the report.

We all want a healthy environment and healthy people, and clean energy is central to the solution, said Erik Solheim, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), responding to the REN21 report launch.

As the shift to clean power continues, renewables are becoming the least costly option as recent examples in Denmark, Egypt, India, Mexico, Peru and the United Arab Emirates show that energy has been delivered well below the equivalent costs for fossil fuel and nuclear energy in each of these countries.

The world is adding more renewable power capacity each year than it adds in new capacity from all fossil fuels combined, said Arthouros Zervos, Chair of the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).

The UNEP-hosted multi-stakeholder network reported that for the fifth consecutive year, investment in new renewables (including all hydropower) was roughly double the investment in fossil fuel generating capacity, reaching about $250 billion dollars.

As the share of renewables grows we will need investment in infrastructure as well as a comprehensive set of tools, Zervos pointed out. To enable further growth he calls for integrated and interconnected transmission and distribution networks, measures to balance supply and demand, sector coupling (for example the integration of power and transport networks) as well as the deployment of a wide range of enabling technologies.

A slowdown in investment in renewables

A world that does not run on fossil fuels is no longer a far distant dream with the recorded exponential growth in solar and wind  although investments in renewables are diametrically different.

The UN agency warned that the energy transition is not happening fast enough to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

When it comes to the bottlenecks to ensure modern energy for all, projections show that global energy access progresses too slowly. A global transition to renewable energy technologies like solar and wind are key ingredients of delivering on the Paris Agreement, keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and avoiding catastrophic climate change, said Sondheim, pointing out that this new report shows where we are on this journey, and the data is clear: we need to move faster.

The global cost for the newly added renewable energy capacity is set at about $242 billion. Compared to the previous year, it is actually a 23 per cent reduction in investment, with the biggest falls among developing and emerging market countries.

At the same time, nuclear and fossil fuel subsidies continue to dramatically exceed those for renewable technologies. These subsidies continue to impede progress, said UNEP.

By the end of 2016, more than 50 countries had committed to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and some reforms have occurred, but not enough. In 2014 the ratio of fossil fuel subsidies to renewable energy subsidies was 4:1. For every dollar spent on renewables, governments spent four dollars on perpetuating the dependence on fossil fuels.

The world is in a race against time, says Christine Lins, Executive Secretary of REN21. The single most important thing we could do to reduce CO2 emissions quickly and cost-effectively, is phase-out coal and speed up investments in energy efficiency and renewables. [The] withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement is unfortunate. But the renewables train has already left the station and those who ignore renewables' central role in climate mitigation risk being left behind.

Energy is crucial for achieving almost all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), from its role in the eradication of poverty through advancements in health, education, water supply and industrialization, to combating climate change.

Photo: World Bank/Dana Smillie

Source: www.justearthnews.com
The five men who carried out twin attacks in Tehran were Iranians who joined the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria before returning last summer, the intelligence ministry said on Thursday.

"The five known terrorists after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the ministry said in a statement.

The statement indicates only five people carried out Wednesday's twin attacks, rather than six originally reported.


Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday began his highly-anticipated testimony before the US Senate Intelligence Committee that is investigating possible ties between Russia and the 2016 election campaign of US President Donald Trump.

He used his opening remarks to say that the administration had defamed him and told "lies, plain and simple" when explaining the reasons he was fired, CNN reported.

Comey indicated that he was angry that Trump trashed his reputation after firing him.

The former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the Senate around 10 a.m and sat, expressionless, in his chair while the committee leaders made their own statements.


French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday launched a website aimed at attracting researchers, entrepreneurs and others to France to pursue efforts to combat climate change.

The 39-year-old, who said last week that US President Donald Trump had made an historic error by abandoning the Paris climate accord, used a cheeky twist of Trump's campaign slogan for the site's name: www.makeourplanetgreatagain.fr.

"The planet needs your innovative skills. So, are you IN to change (literally!) our daily lives and make our planet great again?" it asked, under the video clip Macron made last week, in English, in response to Trump's withdrawal from the Paris deal.

Clicking through, users are asked to choose if they are researchers, business people, teachers, students or others, and which country they come from, and are able to fill in their details with a promise they will be contacted within three days.

"You are the new actors of this fight. Your commitment can inspire many others," it said, asking them to share their stories on Twitter.

"This is the only way we can spread the word: Something is happening. Our planet is about to be great again."

World leaders mostly reacted with anger and defiance after Trump announced that the United States, the world's second biggest carbon emitter, was quitting the deal hammered out in 2015 in the French capital.

Led by Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel, they branded Trump's decision as misguided and vowed to defend an accord they portrayed as crucial for the future of the planet.

Leading greenhouse gas emitter China promised to uphold the pact while European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said there could be "no backsliding" on the deal.
Indian American Raja Chari, a Lieutenant Colonel with the US Air Force, has been selected by space agency NASA among 12 astronaut candidates who will conduct research off the Earth for deep space missions.

Chari, who will report for duty in August this year, is from the state of Iowa who graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1999 with bachelor's degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science.

He continued on to earn a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.

Currently, he is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

After receiving a record-breaking number of applications  18,000  to join an exciting future of space exploration, NASA on Wednesday picked 12  its largest astronaut class since 2000.

Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders as they introduced the members of the 2017 astronaut class during an event at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery and who I know will inspire our children and our grandchildren every bit as much as your forebears have done so in this storied American programme," said Pence.

"And to this newest class of astronauts, it's my honour to bring the sincere congratulations of the 45th President of the US, Donald Trump. Your President is proud of you, and so am I," the Vice President added.

The astronaut candidates will return to Johnson in August to begin two years of training.

Then they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including: performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and departing for deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

"We look forward to the energy and talent of these astronauts fueling our exciting future of discovery," said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot in a statement.

"Between expanding the crew on board the space station to conduct more research than ever before, and making preparations to send humans farther into space than we've ever been, we are going to keep them busy," he said.

With the addition of these 12 members, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959.

"These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations," said astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.
Indians in Qatar have been advised by the Indian Embassy here to stay alert and contact their travel agents for modifications in travel plans. The advisory came in the wake of several Gulf nations cutting off diplomatic ties with Qatar earlier this week.

In its advisory issued on Wednesday, the embassy said that airlines concerned have reportedly offered refunds for cancelled flights following disruptions in air operations.

"Indian travellers are, therefore, requested to contact their travel providers for advice on modifications to their travel arrangements and also remain alert to further developments," the advisory stated.

"The Embassy of India is monitoring the situation closely and is in touch with Qatari authorities to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals in Qatar," it said.

"There is nothing happening in the region that suggests threats to the physical safety and security of residents in Qatar," it stated.

"Please update yourself of the latest news and do not believe in rumours without cross-checking facts."

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt said on Monday they cut their diplomatic relations with Qatar after a week of tit-for-tat and accusations on "terrorism support".

The announcement by the Saudi-led coalition to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar marks the culmination of a year-long dispute between some Gulf Arab states and Qatar.

The Maldives, Yemen, Mauritius, Mauritania and Jordan also took similar steps.

According to the Indian Embassy advisory, the Qatari authorities have conveyed that they would take all necessary steps to ensure that normal life, including supplies of food items, would not be affected.

There are around 630,000 expatriate Indians in Qatar, which is also the largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to India.


Over 195 people were injured in a protest here against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's bid to elect a Constituent Assembly to reform the Constitution, the opposition alliance Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) announced.

According to the mayor of El Hatillo municipality, David Smolansky, "several atrocities were committed" on Wednesday by police officers who were deployed throughout the capital city to "repress" the people who were protesting peacefully, Efe news reported.

Smolansky said that, in addition to a 17 year-old who died during Wednesday's clashes, 196 people were wounded, with one in intensive care.

An MUD spokesperson called for a demonstration to be held on Thursday night, in which participants will gather at a meeting point in eastern Caracas to walk along Francisco de Miranda Avenue.

Wednesday's protest marks the 66th day of a wave of demonstrations for and against Maduro that has swept through Venezuela.

Some of the demonstrations have ended in violence, leading to at least 66 deaths and thousands of injuries, according to figures from the Prosecutor's office.
Pakistan Army on Thursday said it has dismantled Islamic State's infrastructure in the troubled Balochistan province and killed 12 hardcore terrorists, including two suicide bombers, in an operation last week.

The security forces conducted an operation in Mastung area of the province from June 1 to 3 on actionable intelligence, said an army statement, releasing details of the three-day long operation.

"The successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect ISIS organized infrastructure in Balochistan (province of) Pakistan, also foiled terrorist incidents in Pakistan," it said.

It said that there were reports of 10-15 terrorists of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangivi Al-Aalmi (LeJA) hiding in caves near Isplingi mountains, 36 kms south east of Mastung.

"The said organisation was reportedly making efforts for communication with ISIS (Daesh) and intended to facilitate establishment of ISIS foothold in Balochistan," it said.

Operation for physical clearance of target area, spread over 10 kilometres, started early morning on June 1 and it continued for three days as terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance.
New York, June 8(Just Earth News): Human rights experts from the United Nations and an inter-American organization have denounced attacks on indigenous and environmental rights in Brazil, expressing concern over a Congressional report that accuses the UN of being aa confederation of non-governmental organizations influencing Brazilian policy.a

The rights of indigenous peoples and environmental rights are under attack in Brazil, said the UN Special Rapporteurs on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli Corpuz, on human rights defenders, Michel Forst, and on the environment, John Knox, in a press release from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR).

Francisco Jose Eguiguren Praeli, Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, also joined the condemnation.

The experts noted that Brazil has seen the highest number of killings of environmental and land defenders of any country over the last 15 years, up to an average of about one every week. Indigenous peoples are especially at risk.

Against this backdrop, Brazil should be strengthening institutional and legal protection for indigenous peoples, as well as people of African heritage and other communities who depend on their ancestral territory for their material and cultural existence, the experts stated. It is highly troubling that instead, Brazil is considering weakening those protections.

More specifically, the Congressional Investigative Commission's report calls for stripping the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI), the body supporting indigenous peoples in the protection of their rights, of responsibility for the legal titling and demarcation of indigenous lands, after having already had its funding severely reduced.

In addition, the report accuses the United Nations of being a confederation of non-governmental organizations influencing Brazilian policy through its agencies, the ILO Convention 169, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the experts, the report states that the UN Declaration presents a grave threat to Brazil's sovereignty, and encourages the Brazilian government to denounce ILO Convention 169, claiming it manipulates the establishment of non-existent indigenous peoples in order to expand indigenous lands in Brazil.

It's really unfortunate that instead of exemplifying the principles enshrined in the Declaration, the Congressional Investigative Commission questions the motives behind it and those of the UN itself, and waters down any progress made so far, they said.

Weakening such protections would be contrary to the general obligation of States not to regress in the level of their protections of human rights, including those dependent on a healthy environment, they stressed.

Special Rapporteurs and independent experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

UN Photo/Mark Garten

Source: www.justearthnews.com
UK polls on Thursday opened with about 46 million eligible voters expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the country.

The odds seem to be in favour of May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister who called for snap polls 52 days ago.

Polls close at 10 pm UK time (2.30 am IST), with results expected to begin rolling in within an hour or so after voting finishes.

May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britain's exit from the 28- member-bloc.

More than 46 million people are eligible to vote in what is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

The UK was recently rocked by two terror attacks.

Seven people were killed on Saturday when three men aboard a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and went on a stabbing spree before being shot by police.

The second attack took place on May 22 when 22 people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.
The assailants who carried out the two deadly attacks in Tehran resulting in the deaths of 13 people were Iranians who were recruited by the Islamic State (IS) terror group, a top security official said on Thursday.

In an interview on state TV, Reza Seifollahi, deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the attackers "had joined the IS from a number of regions inside Iran", reports the BBC.

"These people were cooperating with the IS in Syria and Iraq, and following the recent losses of the IS in both countries, they returned," Xinhua news agency quoted Seifollahi as saying.

The IS, a hardline Sunni jihadi group, claimed the attacks and threatened further assaults on Iranian Shia Muslims.

Suicide bombers attacked parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini on Wednesday.

The twin attacks were simultaneously carried out at around 10.30 a.m.

All the attackers were killed. Five people believed to be planning a third attack were arrested, officials said.

Forty-three people were also injured.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards had earlier accused Saudi Arabia and the US of being behind the attacks.

The violence comes amid heightened tension in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states cutting ties with Qatar over alleged support for Islamist militants and closer ties with Iran.


US President Donald Trump offered to help Qatar and the other Gulf nations resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary, the White House said on Wednesday.

In a telephone conversation with Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Trump reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability, Xinhua reported.

He also emphasized the importance of all countries in the region to work together to prevent the financing of terrorist organisations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology, according to a White House statement.

The telephone talk came after a diplomatic row erupted between Qatar and the other Gulf nations. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. But Qatar has rejected the accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless".

On Tuesday, Trump seemed to claim credit for Gulf nations' decision to isolate Qatar, saying his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was "already paying off".

"They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" Trump said on Twitter.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the US wants to see the diplomatic row between Qatar and the other Gulf nations "deescalated and resolved immediately."
US President Donald Trump has presented a plan to improve the country's infrastructure and once again make the US a nation of "builders", giving authorities more freedom of action, fewer environmental regulations and private support.

"It's time to recapture our legacy as a nation of builders," Trump said on Wednesday in Cincinnati on the bank of the Ohio River to business and union leaders, as well as workers in the mining and steel-making sectors.

We will "create new lanes of travel, commerce, and discovery, and we're going to see all the way into the future, which is going to be beautiful, and  bright," he said.

According to Trump, during his election campaign he saw infrastructure all over the country was "crumbling" and he found communities were "desperate" for new highways and bridges, Efe news reported.

Saying that the American public deserves the best infrastructure in the world, the President, who made his own fortune in the construction industry, said that the federal government in recent years has spent "billions and billions" of dollars abroad while leaving such projects at home by the wayside.

"We will not be content to allow our nation to become a museum for former glories," Trump said.

"We will construct incredible new monuments to American grit and inspire wonder for generations and generations. We will build because our prosperity demands it and above all we will build because that is how we make America great again."

According to the White House, the US infrastructure system has fallen to 12th place in the world ranking.

Trump's proposal includes $200 billion in federal spending for infrastructure within the trillion dollars he intends to see invested in such projects with the help of the private sector.

The President also said that he wants to drastically reduce the wait time for approval of infrastructure projects, which were slowed down due to environmental regulations that have raised costs and pushed back completion dates, according to the White House.

Trump called upon Republicans and Democrats in Congress to join together to approve the investments needed in infrastructure, but his proposal has already been questioned by some lawmakers.
Turkey's Grand National Assembly on Wednesday approved draft bill allowing the deployment of troop to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

According to Xinhua, the bill includes two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military officer training cooperation.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday expressed disapproval of the sanctions imposed on Qatar by several Arab countries.

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AKP Party and nationalist opposition MHP.

The new move appears to support Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, claiming it of "terrorism support."
Millions of people across the UK are set to vote in the general election on Thursday where the ruling Conservatives are predicted to secure an overall majority despite an energetic bid for power by the opposition Labour Party, the media reported.

Voting will begin at 7 am (local time) in over 40,000 polling stations across the country, the BBC reported.

Counting will start once the voting ends at 10 pm.

A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote. Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting.

A handful of seats will be declared by Thursday midnight, with the final results expected on Friday afternoon.

To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats.

On Wednesday, the last day of election campaigning, Prime Minister Theresa May said she was "feeling good" and used her final push to pitch for what she termed as "fiercely patriotic" voters across Labour Party strongholds  the West Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east, reports the Guardian.

During a 48-hour tour of places in marginal constituencies such as Fleetwood, Bradford, Stoke, Southampton and Nottingham, she also made clear that she wanted people to vote in defiance of the terror attacks.

May also stressed to voters that there were only 11 days until the Brexit negotiations start, saying the "final" choice was between her or Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn, attended six rallies, starting at Glasgow, Scotland at 8 a.m. and ending in Islington, London with a speech at 9 p.m., where he claimed that Labour's anti-austerity message was the "new centre ground" of British politics.

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron urged supporters to "send a message" to May on issues such as Brexit and social care by supporting his party.

Campaigning in Edinburgh, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said re-electing Scottish National Party (SNP) MPs would ensure Scotland retained a "strong voice" in Westminster and deny the Conservatives a "crushing majority", reports the BBC.

At their final election rally, the Green Party called on people to "vote with their hearts".

Visiting Great Yarmouth, UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Paul Nuttall said only his party could keep the pressure on the next government to deliver a "real Brexit"  with lower immigration, exclusive fishing rights for British trawlers within UK territorial waters and no "divorce bill".


UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday strongly condemned the terrorist attacks on the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Parliament (Majlis) building in Tehran, capital of Iran.

"He extends his sincere condolences to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the families of the victims and wishes a speedy recovery to those injured," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for Guterres, was quoted by Xinhua.

The Secretary-General hopes those responsible for this unjustifiable violence will be swiftly brought to justice. All countries must work together in fighting terrorism while upholding the universal rights and values that bind the global community, the statement said.

On Wednesday, Two simultaneous terrorist attacks struck Iran's parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, the late supreme leader of the country who passed away in June 1989, killing 13 people and wounding 42 others, according to media reports.

The twin assaults were claimed by the Islamic State, which would be the first known to have been carried out by the radical Sunni group in mostly Shiite Iran.
Diplomats at the United Nations denounced as a provocation today's cruise missile launches by North Korea, though no immediate meeting has been planned for the Security Council.

Bolivian Ambassador Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz, noting that no country has called for a council meeting "so far," stressed that only Pyongyang's ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests are banned by the UN and could trigger sanctions.

His British counterpart Matthew Rycroft pointed out that  unlike ballistic missile launches  the cruise missile tests, while "irresponsible" and "destabilizing," probably do not violate UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from engaging in ballistic missile activity.

The volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles North Korea launched off its east coast earlier Thursday were "much slower" than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti- aircraft guns, Korea Defense Network analyst Lee Il-Woo said.

"We condemn the latest provocations from DPRK and we look forward to working with our council colleagues about the best way to respond to them," Rycroft said, using the acronymm for the North's formal name.

"It's irresponsible and it is destabilizing what is already a very sensitive situation."

But the diplomat added: "We are looking at the details now, but it is possible I think that they come underneath a threshold to count as a violation" of UN resolutions.

French envoy Francois Delattre highlighted the need to be on the "tough side" on the issue.

"We remain determined to move ahead with our partners at the Security Council," he added.

On Friday, the council unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, a move Pyongyang said was "mean."

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States  something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen."
Following last month's successful test, the US now has the ability to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) targeting the homeland, according to the Pentagon.

The new evaluation represents an upgrade, as the Pentagon had previously said in a 2012 report that Washington only possessed a "limited ability" to protect the continental US from an enemy missile.

The remarks were made in a memo issued on Wednesday from the acting director of operational test and evaluation, David Duma, to Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, CNN reported.

The new assessment no longer describes the capability as "limited", according to the memo.

The operational test and evaluation office has changed its assessment of the system saying, "(Ground-based Midcourse Defence) has demonstrated capability to defend the US homeland from a small number of intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats with simple countermeasures."

The memo attributes the upgrade to "initial data analysis" from last month's test, including "fixes" made to the "Kill Vehicle", which is the component that actually destroys the enemy missile, and the "sensors/command and control architecture".

The Pentagon successfully shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile using its upgraded long-range interceptor missile last month in what was widely seen as a test of the US' ability to counter a North Korean missile launch, reports CNN.

The Missile Defence Agency launched a ground-based interceptor from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to intercept a US-launched mock ICBM target over the Pacific Ocean.

The test ICBM, which was equipped with decoys and flew thousands of miles per hour, was destroyed "thousands of miles off the coast" of the US mainland, with the intercept taking place northeast of Hawaii.


A team of international scientists has found the world's oldest human species' fossil near the southern Moroccan city of Youssoufia, the Moroccan national Institute of Sciences of Archaeology and Heritage announced in a statement on Wednesday.

The institute said the remains of the Homo sapiens, which were found in a remote village called Jbel Irhoud, date back to over 300,000 years ago, Xinhua reported.

The remains push back human species' origins by 100,000 years, and suggest humans didn't evolve only in East Africa, it added.

According to Nature magazine, the finds do not mean that Homo sapiens originated in North Africa. Instead, they suggest that the species' earliest members evolved all across the continent, scientists say.

In the 1960s, fossils dating back to the Middle Stone Age were discovered.
New York, June 8(Just Earth News): The future of the planetas oceans is burdened by threats such as climate change, pollution and destructive fishing practices a and the lack of capacities to address these threats a United Nations Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres has said, calling for joint global action to ensure athat our oceans are peaceful, safe and bountiful, and remain healthy as our blue home.a

On this World Oceans Day, we look to the future. Caring for, and using, our oceans in sustainable ways is critical to achieve ecological and economic goals for communities everywhere, said Guterres in a message on the Day.

This year, World Oceans Day is being celebrated alongside the first-ever The Ocean Conference, which has been under way in New York since Monday and wraps up tomorrow, aiming to strengthen commitments to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 14  to conserve and viably use the ocean.

Guterres said the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is an ambitious framework which, together, the international community will use to address these threats and improve peoples lives. World Oceans Day provides an important opportunity to advocate for a sustainable future, he said, adding that governments, intergovernmental organizations, and civil society in New York are ready to launch a call for action to support implementation of SDG 14.

Looking forward, the conservation and sustainable use of oceans can be achieved only if we manage to address effectively the threats that oceans face, the Secretary-General said, stressing that our future will thus be determined by our collective resolve to share information and find solutions to common problems.

Unite for the ocean we need, for the future we want  UNECSO chief

A healthy ocean requires robust global knowledge of ocean science, the head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has said, marking the Day with a strong call to mobilize and harness the best scientific knowledge to protect our planets vital oceans.

We cannot manage what we cannot measure, and no single country is able to measure the myriad changes taking place in the ocean. From Fiji to Sweden, from Namibia to the Arctic, all Governments and partners must share knowledge to craft common science-based policies, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in her message commemorating the Day.

According to UNESCO, oceans give humankind the keys to its survival, from oxygen to a well-functioning climate, to key elements of our natural and human heritage. For this, we must nurture, mobilize and harness the best scientific knowledge, she stressed.

Pointing to the Global Ocean Science Report, which UNESCO launched at The Ocean Conference, she said [It] records for the first time where and how existing ocean science capacities are empowering society, sustaining the environment and generating knowledge to conserve ocean resources for all. Our message is clear  much has been done to promote and finance ocean science, but much more is required to fill the capacity gaps, she explained.

With this in mid, she said that UNESCO and partners are calling for 2021-2030 to become the International Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development to provide Governments, the scientific community, civil society and all other actors with a framework for coordinating and consolidating the observations and research needed to achieve SDG14.

'We can ride the waves of change to a more positive outcome for the oceans'

Cristiana Pasca Palmer, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) said: The future of the world's oceans is our future. Yet the present state of the oceans is troubling. Indeed, people she has met this week at The Ocean Conference, from places as far flung as Sweden, Fiji, and Costa Rica, told stories of how the ocean they see on Thursday is a shadow of its former self.

Populations of fish, corals and other living creatures have suffered, and there is a great deal more plastic in our oceans. Ocean acidification, marine pollution, and damaging fisheries practices  they are all the result of human activities, she said, but added: Humans can also make a difference. And they are.

Noting that earlier this week, she had reported that as far as marine protected areas coverage is concerned, the world is on track to achieve the global Aichi Biodiversity Target of 10 per cent conservation of coastal and marine areas by 2020. The world can now take the steps to ensure that these areas are effectively managed, representative, and support equitable and inclusive sustainable development.

Pasca Palmer said that here in New York, she sensed the same enthusiasm, energy and political will that was seen during the negotiations for the Paris Agreement on climate change.

We are at a point where we can change the tide on the oceans. The discussions this week are about working rowing together, connecting our actions, and learning from each other. We can ride the waves of change to a more positive outcome for the oceans, and the future we want, she stated.

Photo: UNEP GRID Arendal/Glenn Edney

Source: www.justearthnews.com
More than 70 years ago, a US Army cargo plane dubbed "Hot as Hell" was headed for India on a supply mission.

It never arrived, and no one went looking for the doomed aircraft or the eight men on board because military officials had no way of pinpointing where it went down.

All signs of the mission were lost until 2006, when a hiker in northeast India spotted a wing and panel sign with the plane's name inscribed, "Hot as Hell."

It wasn't until 2015 that the US Defense Department investigated the crash site and found the remains of 1st Lt. Robert Eugene Oxford.

Today, Oxford will finally be returned home and then laid to rest this weekend with full military honours in his tiny hometown of Concord, Georgia. Photos of his seven fellow crewmen, none of whom was ever found, will lay beside the coffin and then be placed inside it for burial.

"We were ecstatic that Eugene was found, but we feel guilty there are seven other men on that mountain top," said Merrill Roan, the wife of Oxford's nephew. "So we are honouring the other seven.  We have to honour them as well, because they may never get any closure."

Oxford's plane departed Kumming, China, on January 25, 1944, said Staff Sgt Kristen Duus at the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Agency. Oxford was declared dead two years later.

Oxford's family didn't know the wreckage had been found until 2007 when Merrill Roan saw a message on a genealogy website from a relative of another service member on the aircraft. That relative wanted help persuading military officials to investigate the crash site.

Duus' agency confirmed the crash site correlated with the missing aircraft in 2008. But harmful weather coupled with access issues and security delayed recovery operation efforts until late 2015, Duus said.

Officials say a DNA analysis of Oxford's remains matched his niece and nephew.

Roan said the family was "shocked and excited" when they heard the news.

Duus said Oxford is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. She said all service members have been returned to the US for identification before the family is notified and the service member is provided a funeral with honours.

Eighty service members were identified in 2015, and that number more than doubled with 164 the following year, Duus said.

The Missing in Action Agency website says there are more than 86,000 Americans still missing abroad from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Advancements in DNA testing technology and partnerships with other nations has helped find and identify more missing service members than ever, Duus said.

Oxford's parents, siblings and any other relatives who saw him leave for World War II have all died since he went missing, said Terrell Moody of Moody-Daniel Funeral Home, which is handling burial arrangements. Still, the long-overdue homecoming of his remains won't go unnoticed.

A State Patrol escort will guide a hearse carrying Oxford's casket 50 miles south on Interstate 75 from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to the funeral home. A funeral will be held Saturday in a school auditorium, the biggest venue in town, Moody said.

"It's just a huge historical event for our little town," Moody said. "The phone constantly rings from people wanting information."

Oxford will be buried in the same plot with his parents, Charles and Bessie Oxford, who had placed a memorial marker for their lost son at the gravesite after his plane went missing seven decades ago.


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Yangon, Myanmar, June 8 (IBNS) : Wreckage and bodies from a Myanmar military plane that went missing on Wednesday afternoon have been found in the Andaman Sea, CNN reported quoting military sources.

Aircraft parts and the remains of two adults and a child, along with life jackets and luggage were discovered on Thursday morning, 14 miles west of Kyauk Ni Maw in Rakhine state.

The report said search operation is ongoing.

The plane, with 122 people on board, lost contact 29 minutes after taking off from the coastal town of Myeik. It was headed toward the capital of Yangon and part of a regularly scheduled military flight, a military spokesman told CNN on Wednesday.

Of the 122 people on board, 108 were passengers and 14 were crew. Myanmar state media reported that 15 children and 58 civilian adults were among the missing. The other passengers were military personnel.
Organization: Watoto Child

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About US:

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Develops,

documents and implements teaching programs that are consistent with the

ethos of the school, in line with appropriate curriculum guidelines and suitable

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responsibility for duty of care over children at all times including

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assesses and reports on student standards

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evaluates classroom programs and procedures



Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The applicants for the Watoto Child Care

Ministries Commerce/Entrepreneurship teacher jobs should hold

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commitment to work within a team environment Showcommitment to work within a team environment



attention to detail Keenattention to detail



communication skills Excellentcommunication skills



time management skills Goodtime management skills



to solve problems creatively Abilityto solve problems creatively

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2017 Deadline: 12June2017
Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
Come June 16, get ready to pay different prices for petrol and diesel everyday. State-run oil company Indian Oil Corporation today said oil prices will be revised daily across the country beginning June 16.

All public sector oil companies, including IOC, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum, will implement daily revision of petrol and diesel at their stations.

Currently, petrol and diesel prices in India are usually revised every fortnight, when oil companies pass on the impact of global crude fluctuations to consumers.

In the current cycle of fortnightly revision, oil companies are susceptible to fluctuations in crude prices and currency movements. The shift in pricing practice will help them in more accurate price-to-cost linking, besides allowing analysts to predict earnings for these companies with greater uncertainty.

The shift to dynamic revision of prices was suggested by experts and not the government, oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan had said in April.

Instead of using fortnightly average, pump rates will reflect daily movement in international oil prices and rupee-dollar fluctuations.

The move will increase transparency in the system and will enable smoother flow of petrol and diesel from refinery/depots to pumps. Many developed countries are already revising the prices of petrol and diesel on a daily basis, IOC stated.

IOC, HPCL and BPCL will adopt a variety of mediums to convey the day's petrol and diesel prices, the statement said.

This includes daily publishing of prices in newspapers, prominently displaying daily rates at petrol pumps and sending information on the latest prices via text messages and smartphone applications.

The information is also likely to be available on social media. For example, when dynamic fuel pricing was launched last month in Puducherry, Visakhapatnam, Udaipur, Jamshedpur and Chandigarh on a pilot basis, the Indian Oil Corporation had pinned a new tweet to its Twitter feed every day displaying information on the latest petrol price.
In the last 48-hours, the army has foiled multiple infiltration bids on the Line of Control (LoC) in which seven militants were killed while a soldier also lost his life.

Army said the infiltrators were backed by the Pakistan army in Uri, Nowgam, Gurez and Machil sectors.

The latest of the four bids was thwarted in Naugam sector in Kupwara in which three militants were killed after they were sneaked in under the cover of darkness last night.

Militants opened fire when they were challenged by the army. In the ensuing encounter, three militants were killed. The army said it recovered warlike stores from the militants.

On Tuesday night, a major infiltration attempt was foiled in Machil sector in Kupwara in which four militants were killed.

Army spokesman Colonel N.N. Joshi said army units deployed along the LoC have foiled multiple attempts by Pakistan army to push armed infiltrators into Kashmir.

Operations are in progress at Machhil, Naugam, and Uri sectors, said Colonel Joshi. The armed intruder groups were being provided active support including covering fire (heavy caliber artillery) by Pakistan army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Kashmir Valley.

This year 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled in which 34 armed intruders have been killed along the LoC.

Relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramzan,'' Joshi said.

Sources said the Pakistan army is exploiting gaps on the LoC created by the melting of snow. Army Chief Bipin Rawat recently warned that Pakistan will try to push militants into Kashmir in summers.

Rawat recently visited the LoC and interacted with the officers and soldiers guarding the dangerous border.

Army sources said the spurt in infiltration has happened after the killing of several top militants in Kashmir including Hizbul Mujahideen commander Sabzar Ahmed Bhat on May 27 at Rathsuana in Tral.

Army sources also believe the urgency on part of Pakistan to sneak in more militant could be to reinforce the militant cadres under pressure from security forces.

The ongoing unrest in Kashmir is being seen as another motivation for Pakistan to send more militants into Kashmir.

What has alarmed the security forces is the infiltration from routes like Gurez in Baramulla.

In the last week of May, army had foiled attempts by border action teams to target soldiers guarding the border.
Despite the post-Nirbhaya pledges to not let atrocities against our daughters, mothers, sisters and wives hurt our national conscience, women continue to cry hopelessly. The news we heard the other day was one of extreme cruelty. Near New Delhi, a woman was gang-raped by three persons while travelling in an auto after her nine-month-old baby was thrown out of the vehicle. This incident has shocked the entire country. The fact that the infant later succumbed to the head injuries it suffered makes India hang its head in sadness.

The incident, which occurred in the night of May 29, 2017, near Gurugram, came to light only the other day. The woman, aged 23, was going to her parents house in Khanda village with her baby following a tiff with her husband. It is reported that the police took no action though the woman had lodged a complaint with the police on May 30, the next day. The ghastly incident came to light only after the woman lodged another complaint with the police the other day. Despite suffering from the severe physical and mental trauma of the gang-rape, the mother rushed her infant to hospital as soon as her tormentors discarded her after their heinous act. Though the hospital authorities pronounced the infant dead, the mother, who refused to believe it, ran along the metro rail with the dead infant held close to her chest.

Similar incidents have been recurring in this region. In one incident, a 23-year-old woman was gang-raped and murdered. In another, a woman was raped in a running car and later dumped on the wayside in an unconscious state. No one has been arrested in any of these cases.

It was near the national capital that the three devils threw the infant to death and then gang-raped the mother. That Delhi which should be an example for the entire democratic India and project the nations noble culture before the whole world.

We heard about the appalling incident in which two bus drivers and a conductor gang-raped a 15-year-old girl near Salem. It happened at Narayanapalayam village, near Salem, in Tamil Nadu. The girl had run away from home after having quarrelled with her parents. The two drivers and the conductor gang-raped her after halting the bus at night.

What did we give back to the girl who died after she was most cruelly tortured and gang-raped in a running bus on December 16, 2012, right in the middle of Delhi? Even if the court of law punished the guilty, even if the 132 crore people of India collectively begged her pardon, it does not compensate for the way the girl's life was diabolically nipped in the bud. Instead, we should have paid homage to her by making sure that something similar will not happen again. Unfortunately, we have been unable to give this assurance of safety and security to the women who are now living and those are yet to be born in the country.

It is also unfortunate that the governments sincerity and capability in ensuring safety of women in the country is being repeatedly questioned. The women of this country, who are continuously being threatened by the recurring incidents of injustice, humiliation and cruelty, are demanding conditions where they can live with dignity and honour in this country. Shouldnt those in power, who are eager to give all possible considerations to animals, care about the safety and security of humans, too?
After the government decided to deploy five more battalions in Mandsaur, where five people were killed in firing to curb violence, Superintendent of Police (SP) O.P. Tripathi on Thursday stated that continuous patrolling was on and violence was curbed.

"We have managed the situation well; currently, the violence has been curbed. My team and I are trying our best to control the situation. Also, extra forces would be deployed in violence-hit Ujjain, Dewas, Mandsaur, Neemuch and Sehore areas. We were initially roughed up when we reached Barkheda Pant as we had gone there to talks and silently wanted to solve the matter. We are continuously patrolling and hoping that the situation does not worsen more," Tripathi told the reporters here.

A police station in Neemuch on Wednesday had been vandalised, while protesters also attacked a private bank trying to burn down an ATM in Mandsaur's Kayampur.

Famers and police clashed in Haatpiplya, Dewas as the protesters pelted stones and torched vehicles.

Demanding the presence of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, protesting farmers on Wednesday got into a scuffle with the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district.

Mandsaur Collector Swantra Singh told ANI that there was no order to open fire on the farmers.

"There was no order to open fire; I have assured them (farmers) of strict action in the matter," Singh added.

Madhya Pradesh farmers have hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Tuesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

The protesters alleged that the police fired at them. A judicial probe has been ordered in the matter.

Internet services in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Ujjain were also suspended following the farmers' protests, and a curfew was reportedly imposed.

Apart from the loan waiver, the farmers are also demanding that they should be given Rs 50 per litre of milk bought from them as they spend Rs 37 per litre.

Reacting to the incident, Chief Minister Chouhan earlier in the day apprised BJP president Amit Shah of the situation in Mandsaur over the phone.

Chouhan on Tuesday announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore each to the victims' families. The injured will get Rs 5 lakh in compensation, he added.

In a video message, Chouhan also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

Judicial enquiry taken up, says Centre

Expressing concern over the farmers' agitation, Union Minister of Steel, Mines and Employment Narendra Singh Tomar stated that judicial enquiry into this matter has been taken up and violence would be curbed soon.

"This is an unfortunate incident which happened in Mandsaur and we all are saddened by it. Violence has never been accepted in Madhya Pradesh; whenever the farmers demanded, their issues were solved. The chief minister has also set up a judicial enquiry into this matter...Appealing for peace to the agitating farmers in the state, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore to the kin of those killed in the violence, while the injured would get Rs 5 lakh each. This shows his sensitivity towards the situation," Tomar told ANI.

Taking a jibe at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's upcoming visit to Mandsaur, Tomar asserted that the grand old party should not mix politics over death.

"My advice to the Congress is that don't mix politics over death. Earlier, when the Congress ruled there have been countless decisions made for the welfare of farmers. The various demands of the farmers have never been fulfilled that is why this violence has occurred. It will be advisable for them not to interfere in such matters," said BJP leader Tomar.

Rahul Gandhi is expected to meet with grieving families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing. However, the Centre has hit back at the Congress scion for publicising the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt.

Meanwhile, the Congress has rebuffed reports of Rahul Gandhi participating in the ongoing farmers protest in Mandsaur, saying such a plan was never on the card for the party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Thursday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit and held his first bilateral meeting with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

On Friday, India and Pakistan are expected to be granted full membership of the SCO which also includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India has been a observer to the SCO since 2005.

Soon after his arrival here, Modi called on Nazarbayev and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Summit.

However, there is no word yet on any such meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is also here to attend the Summit.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

Stating that once India becomes a full member of the SCO, the bloc "will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GD", Modi said in a pre-departure statement: " I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things."

He said India launched the process of full membership of the SCO in the Tashkent meeting last year.

Modi said that India has long-standing relations with SCO members and he looked forward to "progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our peopl".

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," the Prime Minister said.

According to G.V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs, India has signed 38 documents of accession to become a member of the bloc.

"There are broadly two legs of collaboration which are being pursued in the SCO platform," Srinivas said.

"One is trade, economy, connectivity, energy, transport, banking, that set of issues," he said. "The second thing is, of course, the fight against terrorism."

Srinivas said that while the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing, there is a sub-body called Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that has its office in Tashkent.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Ramesh Arora, a BJP MLA in Jammu and Kashmir, has demanded a ban on momos. He alleged that momos were more dangerous than narcotic drugs and can even cause cancer. Said Arora to THE WEEK, Momos are filled with ajinomoto, which is banned in more than 8 to 9 countries. We should educate the masses on the damage that momos can cause to the human body. Several life-threatening diseases are caused by frequent in-take of momos. I am getting good response from people in Jammu and Kashmir. Even doctors have supported me on this matter.

Arora said that he is hopeful that the Union government would look into his allegations and that there would be a pan-India ban on momos. Junk food has already taken a toll on our children. We need to educate them and tell them not to have food like momos. Ajinomoto causes imbalance in the body and triggers hunger. Without ajinomoto, momos wont taste good. Momos are killers. We cannot let it grow in a civilised society, said Arora.

Ajinomoto or monosodium glutamate was declared unsafe by the World Health Organisation in 2004. The Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Cancer Research Institute, Kolkata, in 2007, said that ajinomoto can cause stomach cancer.

A kind of steamed dumpling filled with meat and vegetables, momos originated in Nepal. Today, it is one of the most popular fast foods in India, Nepal, the UK and the US. There are different kinds of momos available in the market.

Arora, recently, had organised a conference in Jammu on health issues caused by momos. It was attended by doctors, teachers and officials of the drug and food control departments in the state.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was today detained by police when he tried to enter Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh to meet the families of farmers, who were killed in police firing two days ago.

Rahul was at his offensive best when his convoy was stopped and he escaped the security cover by riding a motorcycle to reach the nearest point of Madhya Pradesh border. He later walked for a few kilometres to reach Nayagaon near Mandsaur. While walking through the fields, Gandhi and his Congress supporters braved an attack of bees that got disturbed due to the crowd.

Rahul was accompanied by senior leaders of the party including Digvijaya Singh, Kamalnath, MPCC chief Arun Yadav, leader of opposition Ajay Singh, Rajasthan state Congress leaders and JDU leader Sharad Yadav.

At Nayagaon check post, Rahul was detained by the Madhya Pradesh police, who said that he cannot go further as section 144 has been imposed. He, at this point, wanted to go alone, but was not allowed. He, along with other leaders, was bundled in a riot control van and take to the nearest police station.

While being detained, Rahul told media that he was not allowed to visit the houses of farmers of Uttar Pradesh, and now, again the government is stopping him.

Which law of land prevents people to meet other countrymen? he asked. Rahul attacked the RSS and its ideology saying that it does not believe in democracy and that is why they are stopping him.

It is surprising that two state governments are bent on not allowing me to meet the families of the deceased farmers, he said. Is it illegal to stand in solidarity with the farmers, who were killed, simply for demanding what is their right?

He told media that he is unaware as to why he has been arrested or not being allowed to go meet farmers.

Rahul landed in Udaipur this morning in a chartered aircraft with senior leaders and started his journey towards Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, PCC chief Arun Yadav and leader of opposition Ajay Singh were arrested by Rajasthan police when they were going to Udaipur to receive Rahul Gandhi.

Earlier today, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh admitted that the death of five farmers was because of police firing.
Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar, main accused in the Saharanpur violence, was today arrested from Himachal Pradesh.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured on May 9.

Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

The Uttar Pradesh police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrasekhar had shot to limelight after holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur.

He had earlier said he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had told PTI.

"Instead of arresting the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence, the police has arrested innocent people and put them behind bars. This has resulted in growing anger among the dalits," he had said.

The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village.

The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly.

On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur.

BSP leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the district's border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area.

The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region.

Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan', a young Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression.

Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

Though the mission of the Bhim Army was to educate the community's children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpur's Bhado village, it came into limelight in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs.

Chandrashekhar's strength became visible when thousands of Dalits staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against police action and atrocities by the upper castes and emerged as the new champion of Dalit cause.

The sudden rise of the Bhim Army under the leadership of Chandrashekhar has unnerved BSP supremo Mayawati, making her all the more worried after he succeeded in mobilising Dalits in western UP.
Fired FBI director James Comey has created a fresh political storm over his statement against President Donald Trump who allegedly asked him to drop a probe against his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and sought "loyalty" from him.

The statement which was meant as an opening statement of Comey during his Congressional hearing later today was released ahead by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The seven-page written testimony gives details of the interaction that Comey had with Trump.

Comey's opening statement was publicly released intentionally by the Senate intelligence committee at Comey's request, a Senate intelligence committee source said.

Comey, 56, who was fired by Trump last month, dropped the bombshell by his statement which many experts say could be seen as obstruction to justice.

According to Comey, Trump also made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information.

Comey recounted a January 27 private dinner in the White House Green Room with the president.

"'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,'" Comey quoted Trump as saying.

Political pundits in the US said this could be the most watched Congressional testimony in recent decades.

It could even be the most tweeted Congressional hearing as several US news channels are planning to carry the hearing live from the US Capitol.

Comey's statement describes the "behaviour" by Trump that was at best "inappropriate", and at worst "illegal" said Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

"Trump, on numerous occasions, sought fealty from the FBI Director, attempted to interfere with an historic federal investigation, and then fired Comey after both requests were spurned," he said.

"By repeatedly and improperly asking Comey to 'lift the cloud' that was darkening his administration, asking him to 'let it go' in reference to the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and then summarily firing the FBI Director, Donald Trump appears to have obstructed justice. Comeys testimony details a pattern of disturbing behaviour and a disdain for the rule of law by Trump," Markey said.

House Minority Whip Steny H Hoyer demanded that the Congress should launch an independent, bipartisan commission to get to the bottom of Russia's attempts to undermine our democracy and to what extent they had contact with the Trump campaign as they did so.

Congresswoman Jacky Rosen said the prepared remarks offered by the former FBI Director are deeply worrying.

"I am especially concerned by the Presidents attempts to interfere in the FBI's work by asking about dropping investigations into Michael Flynn and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. It disturbs me to know that the President would ask our chief law enforcement officer for his loyalty in exchange for job security, and then fire him in the middle of an ongoing investigation," he said.

Congressman Jim Himes said Comey's statement for paints a detailed and disturbing picture of a President obsessed with loyalty, secrecy, and exerting inappropriate pressure to achieve his goals.

"At the very least, President Trump's actions should instill a sense of profound worry in the American people about a leader with no sense of propriety or an understanding of the need for independence of law enforcement within the executive branch, an independence that has been respected by Presidents for generations," he said.

According to The Hill, while the testimony mostly confirms what has been reported since Comeys firing in May, it nonetheless paints an extraordinary picture of the president's interactions with one of the nation's top law enforcement officials.

According to media reports, Democrats are split on the question of impeachment proceedings till date, with some readily suggesting the possibility but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi impatiently dismissing that as premature.

"Legal analysts said the testimony adds detail that would beef up an obstruction of justice case," the daily reported.

"Comey has to answer some hard questions about why didnt he do more" to raise concerns about Trumps comments, said Senator Lindsey O. Graham.

"If you really believe that the man was trying to obstruct justice and youre the head of the FBI, more than writing a note to yourself, you probably ought to do something about it," he said.

Reports said the White House is on defensive after Comeys testimony was released.

"The impression painted by Comey is one of the president seeking to exert control over him and his agency, and a vexed FBI director pushing backa narrative the White House rejects," wrote The Wall Street Journal.
Pakistan will recommend three names to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case filed by India for stay of the death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, a media report said.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan, Ashtar Ausaf will present the names to the court.

A meeting of "agents" from India and Pakistan is to be held with the ICJ's President Ronny Abraham today to discuss future proceedings in the case.

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and former Attorney General Makhdoom Ali have been recommended to as ad-hoc appointees at the UN court, according to the report.

The Pakistani team that will meet the ICJ President includes the Attorney General and Director General (DG) of South Asia Affairs, Dr Faisal.

Pakistan's counsel, Barrister Khawar Qureshi along with two senior lawyers is also part of the Pakistani delegation at the ICJ, the daily said.

India approached the UN court last month seeking stay on the execution of Jadhav, which the court granted.

Counsel for Pakistan Khawar Qureshi maintained that responsibility to punish terrorists lies with all the countries. Qureshi had told the court that the issue revolved around national stability of Pakistan and the ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to rule over such case.

Pakistan will not be deterred in the fight against terrorism and those sponsoring terror can not shake its resolve, the counsel said.

Qureshi said India has acknowledged Jadhav as its national.

Jadhav was tried by a military court in Pakistan in April and awarded death sentence on charges of spying and posing a threat to national security.

Pakistan has said that Jadhav will not be executed till he "exhausts all his mercy appeals", which includes one with the President of Pakistan.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on May 8. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.
Former FBI director James Comey said on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."

The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year's election.

Some legal experts said Comeys testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but US markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures.

To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with "corrupt" intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation.

While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment.

Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president.

'Awkward silence'

Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November's election in Trump's favor, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion.

Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe, on May 9.

Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony.

Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on January 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

"I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence," Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create "some sort of patronage relationship."

On February 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counter-terrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door.

"When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, 'I want to talk about Mike Flynn,'" Comey said in his testimony.

Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Comey quoted Trump as telling him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what "we could do to lift the cloud" of the FBI's Russia investigation.

"He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," said Comey, who had briefed Trump on "salacious material" that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation.

Legal fallout?

Some legal experts said Comeys written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.

It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation, said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School.

Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn's character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said.

Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe.

"It's certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It's certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation," the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump's request for loyalty from Comey, said it was "very, very critical" that FBI directors remain "independent."

But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump's request.

"I don't think it's wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration," Burr said.

Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt "completely and totally vindicated" by Comey's account.

"The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe," Marc Kasowitz, Trump's attorney, said in a statement.
Almost 26,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel in 2016, including 57% of the immigrants arriving from the Former Soviet Union, statistics released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) reveal. Jerusalem is the city which has attracted the most new immigrants is Jerusalem and the oldest new immigrants come from Morocco.

25,977 new immigrants arrived in 2016, representing a 7% decline from 2015. According to the CBS data released on Tuesday, 12 Sivan, since the establishment of the state, 3.2 million immigrants arrived in Israel with the largest immigration being from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, accounting for 43% of new immigration.

Today, this remains the source of most new immigration; with 27% coming from Russia and 22% the Ukraine, 17% from France and 11% the USA.

12.5% of immigrants settle in Yerushalayim, 11% Tel Aviv, 9% Netanya, 8% Haifa and 5% each in Ashdod and Bat Yam.

The average age of immigrants is 32.7 with the youngest being Ethiopia (20.8) and oldest Morocco (65.9).

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A Dan region police spokesman reports that an arrest was made in a case involving damage to a police vehicle in Bnei Brak on May 27, 2017.

The act was captured on an area surveillance camera. Police on Tuesday, 12 Sivan, arrested the suspect, a 10-year-old boy who is being remanded in the Tel Aviv Magistrate Court.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: Police spokesman unit)
Earlier in the week, Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau Shlita expressed harsh criticism against the Chief Rabbi of Shoham and head of Tzohar Rabbonim, Rabbi David Stav. Rav Lau accused Rabbi Stav of criticizing ongoing kashrus reforms without being familiar with the plan or his ongoing efforts.

Firing back, Rabbi Stav explains Slanderous words are not a substantive criticism and the harsh words said about my remarks regarding the conclusions of the Chief Rabbinates Kashrus Committee did not relate to the merits of anything other than being unfounded.

As he sees it, The real problem is not in the form of an inappropriate statement, but in the decisions of the committee which probed the kashrus. No defamation will succeed in covering up the fact that most of the members of the committee also wanted to break the corrupt monopoly that exists today in the system and under pressure from rabbonim and politicians, the decision was not carried out. The committee recommendation to adopt a model for kashrus mashgichim in which they are employed by the religious councils buries the possibility for bringing about a significant change in the kashrus system in Israel.

Rav Stav does not stop here, but cites the recently-released State Comptrollers report which documents nepotism in over 20 religious councils, the hiring of family members and we have seen how Chief Rabbis take part in discussions surrounding the hiring of their relatives as well.

Rav Stav feels The decision by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to give absolute authority to religious councils in the hiring of mashgichim promises there will be additional years of corruption, promising he and his colleagues in Tzohar Rabbonim will continue working towards improving kashrus in line with Halacha in the Jewish State based on the principles of yosher, truth and darchei noam.

And Rav Stav concludes We have accomplished this in the area of chasenahs despite the criticism of activists who feared for their hold [monopoly], we did it with proving ones Jewishness, and thousands of Jews managed to preserve their identity and remained a part of the chain of generations. We did this will bar/bas mitzvos, as well as with assisting mourning families, and we will do it with kashrus too.

This rotting system must be uprooted by courageous decisions and not covered with hollow words.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Upon reaching his 80th birthday, Tel Aviv/Yaffo Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau Shlita stepped down. However, he remains at City Hall as an advisor to the mayor for the coming six months as well as continuing to be responsible for the citys kashrus.

According to a Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) report, while Rabbi Lau is no longer serving in the capital as the citys Chief Rabbi, he is remaining in the religious council in a special capacity to fill the void until a new Chief Rabbis is appointed.

It is highlighted that this is a one-time arrangement and will not be the case every time a Chief Rabbi steps down or retires.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Police on Tuesday 12 Sivan arrested a Haifa couple in their 40s for allegedly steaking hundreds of thousands of shekels in diamonds.

Police began probing the case a number of weeks ago amid allegations, the wife who is employed in the diamond polishing firm, was taking some home for her husband to sell in his jewelry store. Police searched the home of the couple, finding diamonds worth hundreds of thousands of shekels.

They will likely face charges of money laundering and tax evasion too as they used profits to buy property and vehicles. They were scheduled for arraignment on Wednesday.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
As Manhattans top federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara cultivated an image as a lawman above politics. No more.

In the three months since he was fired by President Donald Trump, the former U.S. attorney has lashed out at the Republican administration in speeches and on Twitter. Hes also jabbed at the president of Turkey, called one GOP congressman a fool, and said if another were an immigrant, hed face deportation.

With the constraints of a law enforcement job gone, Bharara has found a more political voice for himself, especially online.

He has already been approached by Democrats who want him to run for elected office as soon as next year.

People close to Bharara say hes eager to maintain an active voice in the political debate  particularly anything to do with the president who forced him from the job he loved. It remains unclear, however, if the 48-year-old India-born attorney will continue to speak out as a private citizen or as a political candidate.

Some friends want him to enjoy his new post as a distinguished scholar at New York University, where he is contemplating writing a book or contributing to his brothers media site. Others want him to join a private law firm, where his experience battling public corruption could be put to practical use.

A lot of people want a lot of things from Preet. Im not sure Preet wants any of that for himself, said former Justice Department attorney Viet Dinh, a close friend of Bhararas since college. Right now, what he wants to do is spend time with his family, enjoy a quasi-academic perch and take a breath.

Bharara declined to be interviewed for this story, but friends and colleagues paint the picture of a man who has no plans to disappear from the spotlight after being forced out after seven years leading the U.S. attorneys office in Manhattan  a region that covers Trump Tower.

The conditions are already in place for a transition from federal prosecutor to political prospect.

Already, a captivated New York media is quick to promote Bhararas Twitter feed, which is packed with slaps at Trump and other Republicans.

He tweeted Wednesday that people  including presidents  reap what they sow. Last week, he went after California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher: One benefit of being a private citizen is that I can now publicly say that Rep. Rohrabacher is a fool.

And in March, he threw shade at New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whose administration was plagued by the so-called Bridgegate controversy: Yes, we all know that Chris Christie is great at spotting & screening out problematic staff, he wrote.

At the same time, Bharara wears his dismissal as a badge of honor, even if hes not quite over the hangover of losing the job Trump once told him he could keep. The president fired Bharara in March as part of a broader effort to replace U.S. attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama.

I loved that place like people love their family, Bharara said during an April speech at Manhattans Cooper Union. I was asked to resign. I refused. I insisted on being fired, so I was.

The dismissal may have helped Bhararas political career, should he want one.

A Siena College poll released after his March dismissal found that 37 percent of New Yorkers had a favorable opinion compared with 13 percent who view him unfavorably; 50 percent didnt know enough about him to have an opinion.

Prior to being fired by Donald Trump, he was an incredible talent. Being fired by Donald Trump took him to another level, said veteran Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf. The only thing blocking his future, Id say, is that he wasnt born in the United States so he cant run for president. Hes as qualified as anyone.

Others have made similar leaps from federal prosecutor to high-profile elected office, including Rudy Giuliani, who held the same U.S. attorney post as Bharara in the 1980s and became New York Citys mayor, and Christie, who went straight from being the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey to governor.

Yet there are significant hurdles as Bharara considers a future in politics.

Enamored Democratic strategists have encouraged him to run for office, but New Yorks political landscape is crowded and hostile.

Ambitious Democrats are already entrenched in the most logical landing spots for the coming years at least. Gov. Andrew Cuomo is preparing for re-election in 2018 and may seek the presidency in 2020. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is already eyeing the governors mansion in the coming years. And New York Citys mayoral election is just five months away.

And while his Twitter feed gets a lot of attention, his friends point to the Cooper Union speech as a guide for how he plans to stay relevant, at least in the short-term.

As a private citizen, I am surrendering neither my voice, nor my law degree, nor my citizenship, Bharara said. And I really do hope that those remain potent tools to effect change in America, because God help us  because God help us  if we have to count only on people in public office to make a difference.

And by the way, I dont have any plans to enter politics, he added. Just like I have no plans to join the circus.

(AP)
President Donald Trump is offering to mediate the Qatar diplomatic crisis by hosting the feuding countries for a White House meeting.

Trump spoke by phone on Wednesday with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani. The White House says that Trump told the emir that all countries in the region need to cooperate to prevent terrorist financing and stop the spread of extremist ideology.

Trump also says that unity among Gulf Cooperation Council countries and strong partnerships with the U.S. are crucial for defeating terrorism.

The U.S. is one of several countries offering to help. Kuwait has been mediating among the countries and Turkey has offered to as well.

The call comes the day after Trump spoke by phone about the crisis with Saudi Arabias King Salman.

(AP)
Former FBI Director James Comey will say in his opening statement at a congressional hearing that President Donald Trump told him, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty during an awkward conversation at a January dinner at the White House, according to documents released a day ahead of his highly anticipated testimony.

Comey is set to testify Thursday before the Senate intelligence committee.

His prepared statement, released Wednesday afternoon, details a series of interactions with Trump that Comey said made him uneasy and appeared to disregard the FBIs traditional independence from the White House. He plans to say that though he did assure Trump that he was not personally under investigation, he was taken aback by specific requests, including one from February in which he said the president encouraged him to bring to an end a probe into one of his advisers.

In the statement, Comey plans to say that he and Trump dined together privately in January. During the meal, he said Trump asked him if he wanted to remain as FBI director. Comey said he replied that he wanted to serve out his 10-year term and was not on anybodys side politically.

Comey said Trump then made his statement about loyalty. Comey replied that he could offer his honesty, and that when Trump said he wanted honest loyalty, Comey paused and said, You will get that from me.

Comey also plans to say that Trump urged him in a private Oval Office meeting in February to end a probe into National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a request Comey said he found very concerning. The following month, after Comey had publicly revealed the existence of a federal counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump complained that the probe had left a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country.

He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia, Comeys prepared statement says. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud.

Trump abruptly fired Comey last month. The White House initially said it had acted on a recommendation from the Justice Department, citing as justification a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that criticized Comeys handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Trump later said he was thinking of this Russia thing when he fired Comey and would have dismissed him without the Justice Departments input.

READ COMEYS PREPARED OPENING REMARKS HERE

(AP)
Several Baltimore police officers charged with racketeering met in the detention center where theyre being held and discussed how to beat some of their charges, according to federal prosecutors.

The Baltimore Sun reports that the allegations were made in a recent filing in the case against Detective Marcus Taylor, one of seven officers accused of robbing people, filing false court paperwork and making fraudulent overtime claims. They have pleaded not guilty and trials are tentatively scheduled for next year.

The indictments led prosecutors to drop criminal charges against dozens of defendants whose cases hinged on the word of the officers who were members of the Gun Trace Task Force. A review of the task forces cases is ongoing and prosecutors allege in the filing that more people have come forward to allege robberies by the task force since the indictment was announced in March.

The filing, an attempt to keep Taylor behind bars, alleges that he discussed the case with co-defendants while being held at a Howard County detention center, but doesnt name other officers.

The filing alleges that Taylor and three other officers took large amounts of cash from a city resident, including $200,000 from a safe, then went to Taylors home to divide it. Later, prosecutors allege that the officers submitted as evidence a fake re-enactment video that showed officers finding $100,000 in the safe and they kept the rest of the cash from the safe.

At the detention center, prosecutors allege, Taylor discussed with his co-defendants that they could beat the  charges against them if they all maintained that the fabricated video was legitimate, and thereby further concealed the robbery.

Prosecutors did not say how the discussion was uncovered.

Taylors attorney, Mirriam Seddiq, said prosecutors are using unproven allegations to keep her client behind bars until trial even though he isnt a flight risk or a danger to the community.

They can say whatever they want, she said. If they want this guy behind bars, they will find a way to keep him there.

The Howard County Department of Corrections housed the officers on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service and separated them from the general jail population, department Director Jack Kavanagh said. The jail wasnt asked to keep the officers apart and the Marshals Service was aware that they were housed together, he said.

Kavanagh said he had no knowledge of the cited statements and how they were obtained.

(AP)
Election officials have long contended that the highly decentralized, often ramshackle U.S. voting system is its own best defense against vote-rigging and sabotage . New evidence from a leaked intelligence report indicates that hasnt deterred foreign adversaries from exploring ways to attack it anyway.

The document, attributed to the U.S. National Security Agency, describes alleged attempts by Russian military intelligence to hack into local election systems  the latest evidence of a broad and sophisticated foreign attack on the integrity of U.S. elections. It does not indicate whether actual vote-tampering occurred.

The NSA report adds significant new detail to previous U.S. intelligence assessments that alleged Russia-backed hackers had compromised elements of Americas electoral machinery. It also suggests that attackers may also have been laying groundwork for future subversive activity.

The U.S. elections system is a patchwork of more than 3,000 jurisdictions overseen by the states with almost no federal oversight or standards. The attack sketched out in the NSA document appears designed specifically to cope with that sprawl.

ELECTORAL RISK

The operation described in the document could have given attackers a foothold into the IT systems of elections offices around the country that they could use to infect machines and launch a vote-stealing attack, said J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan computer scientist. We dont have evidence that that happened, he said, but thats a very real possibility.

Computer scientists have proven in the lab that once inside an election network, skillful attackers could manipulate pre-election programming of its systems and alter results without leaving a trace.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said Tuesday that hacking into state voting systems ahead of the Nov. 8 vote was more widespread than has been disclosed.

Attempts by Russia to break into a number of our state voting processes was broad-based, he said, without offering details. In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman categorically denied Tuesday that Moscow had tried to hack the U.S. elections.

Warner did not directly address the classified intelligence report published Monday by The Intercept, an online news outlet. The Associated Press has not independently verified the authenticity of the report, although its apparent leaker, an NSA contract worker, was arrested last weekend in Georgia.

GOING LOCAL

The NSA document says Russian military intelligence first targeted employees of a Florida voting systems supplier in August. Apparently exploiting technical data obtained in that operation, the cyber spies later sent phishing emails to 122 local U.S. election officials just days ahead of the Nov. 8 vote, intent on stealing their login credentials and breaking into the their systems, the document says.

The emails packed malware into Microsoft Word documents and were forged to give the appearance of being sent by the system vendor, VR Systems of Tallahassee, Florida.

The Department of Homeland Security knew in September that hackers believed to be Russian agents had targeted voter registration systems in more than 20 states. To date, no evidence of tampering with vote tallies or registration rolls has emerged.

The NSA document did not name any of the states where local officials were targeted by the emails masquerading as being from VR Systems. The Miami Herald reported Wednesday that officials in at least five Florida counties received the malicious emails described in the NSA report.

In September, the FBI held a conference call with all 67 county elections supervisors in that battleground state to inform them of infiltration of VR Systems without naming the company. Ion Sancho, who retired as Leon County supervisor in December, said he later learned from industry contacts that it was VR Systems.

LOCAL PROBLEMS

VR Systems officials did not respond directly to questions emailed by the AP. In a statement, the company said it only knows of a handful of customers who received the fraudulent email, adding that it had no indication that anyone had clicked on the malware. The NSA document says at least one account was likely compromised.

The company makes software for on-site voter registration at polling stations and backend systems for voting management, according to its website, which says it has customers in California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.

VR Systems electronic poll books  electronic systems used to verify registered voters at polling places  experienced problems on Nov. 8 in Durham County, North Carolina. The issue forced officials to abandon the system, issue paper ballots and extend voting hours.

North Carolinas state elections director said Tuesday that officials would investigate to see if officials in Durham County were targeted and possibly compromised

Iowa Universitys Douglas Jones is among computer scientists who say voter registration systems are particularly vulnerable to tampering, in part because they are on the internet.

Someone trying to cause chaos and discredit an election could delete names from registration rolls prior to voting  or request absentee ballots en masse. In the latter case, a voter showing up at the polls on Election Day would be recorded as having already cast their ballot. That could force voters to file provisional ballots, and provoke long lines.

There is no evidence any of that happened last Election Day.

(AP)
In a hugely anticipated hearing, fired FBI director James Comey will recount a series of conversations with President Donald Trump that he says made him deeply uneasy and concerned about the blurring of boundaries between the White House and a law enforcement agency that prides itself on independence.

The testimony , Comeys first public statements since his May 9 dismissal, is likely to bring hours of uncomfortable attention to an administration shadowed for months by an investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Comeys account of demands for loyalty from the president, and of requests to end an investigation into an embattled Trump adviser, are likely to sharpen allegations that Trump improperly sought to influence the FBI-led probe.

Comeys detailed and vivid recollections of his one-on-one conversations with Trump were revealed in seven pages of prepared testimony released Wednesday, the day before his appearance before the Senate intelligence committee.

Hell testify under oath that Trump repeatedly pressed him for his loyalty and directly pushed him to lift the cloud of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaigns Russia ties.

The remarks paint a picture of an FBI director so disconcerted by his interactions with the president that he began keeping written memos of their private discussions, including one he hastened to type out in an FBI vehicle immediately after a Trump Tower meeting.

Hell tell lawmakers he believed the president was trying to create a patronage relationship with him and describe in detail an Oval Office meeting in which Trump urged him not to investigate ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynns contacts with Russian officials.

But the ex-FBI director also will validate Trumps assertion that he was not personally a target of the federal counterintelligence investigation into possible campaign collusion with Russia. Comey says he did offer the president that assurance, but resisted Trumps appeals to make that information public.

The FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change, Comey says in the prepared remarks.

Trumps personal lawyer said Trump was cheered by the testimony.

The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe, attorney Mark Kasowitz said in a statement. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.

Comey has not spoken publicly since he was abruptly fired by Trump on May 9. His dismissal, four years into a 10-year term, fueled claims Trumps ultimate aim was to quash the investigation and obstruct justice, potentially a federal crime or an impeachable offense. Some legal experts said Comeys account could bolster such a case.

Ryan Goodman, a professor at New York University School of Law, said Trumps efforts to protect Flynn provide strong evidence of obstruction of justice. However, Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said that while Trumps dealings with Comey were inappropriate, We do not indict people for being boorish or clueless.

The ex-FBI directors testimony recounts his conversations with the apparent precision of a veteran lawman. Comey notes he had nine one-on-one interactions with Trump over a four-month stretch, compared to two private conversations with President Barack Obama between September 2013 and the end of 2016. He also says he did not keep written memos of his interactions with Obama.

The first meeting with Trump after the inauguration occurred on Jan. 27, during a private dinner at the White House that Comey came to view as an attempt by the president to create some sort of patronage relationship.

According to Comey, Trump asked if he wanted to remain as FBI director and declared: I need loyalty. I expect loyalty. Comey says he replied that he could offer his honesty, and that when Trump said he wanted honest loyalty, Comey paused and said, You will get that from me.

Comey also describes at length a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office in which he believed Trump asked him to back off an investigation into Flynn.

He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,' Comey says, according to the prepared remarks. He says he believed the president was talking only about Flynn, not about the broader Russia probe.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was unsure if the president read Comeys testimony after its release. Asked whether the president stood by earlier assertions that he had neither sought Comeys loyalty nor asked for the Flynn investigation to be dropped, she said: I cant imagine the president not standing by his own statement.

Sen Mark Warner of Virginia, senior Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said in prepared testimony released early Thursday: I do want to emphasize what is happening here  the president of the United States is asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation into the presidents former National security advisor.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that he planned to nominate Christopher Wray, a former Justice Department official, as Comeys successor.

Trump allies have raised questions about Comeys credibility ahead of his testimony, noting that the FBI had to correct some of his remarks from his last appearance on Capitol Hill. Theyve also questioned why Comey did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign.

Comeys prepared testimony does not full answer that question, though he does say he asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to help prevent him having any direct communication with the president in the future.

Trump has repeatedly cast the Russia investigation as a hoax and denied having any improper ties to Moscow. According to Comey, Trump was acutely aware of the political toll of the investigation, complaining that the probe had left a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country.

In a phone call on March 30, Comey says, the president asked him what could be done to lift the cloud. He says Trump also volunteered that he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia  referencing an unverified intelligence dossier detailing compromising information Moscow had allegedly collected on Trump.

(AP)
North Korea fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles Thursday, South Koreas military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.

The projectiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) while reaching a maximum altitude of about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles), South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

The Norths missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the Norths weapons activities.

Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seouls military, said the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its precision strike capabilities on ships in response to the joint drills.

North Koreas weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile program that can stand up to what it sees as U.S. and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. Analysts say the latest test appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Moon, who convened a National Security Council meeting in Seoul over the launch.

The launches Thursday were North Koreas fourth missile test in as many weeks as the country continues to speed up its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Seouls Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the projectiles, which showed longer range than North Koreas previously known KN-01 anti-ship cruise missiles that can travel up to 160 kilometers (99 miles), were likely from a new cruise missile system North Korea displayed during a massive April 15 military parade. The improved range indicates the North is pursuing weapons capable of reaching U.S. aircraft carriers that operate from deeper positions, he said.

Japans Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after Thursdays launch that Tokyo has not detected any flying objects that headed toward Japan or landed inside the countrys maritime economic zone.

North Korea on May 14 premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new precision-guided missile, which experts say is designed with a maneuverable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defense systems like the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense that is being deployed in South Korea.

(AP)
(PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE)

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley flew by helicopter from Jerusalem to the border with Gaza and received a briefing from Israels Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon and IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Major-General Aviv Kochavi. During the flight, Ambassador Danon described the security challenges emanating from Gaza and detailed the situation on the ground in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Hamas pours its resources into arms and digging murderous terror tunnels instead of investing in a better future for the residents of Gaza. They educate their youth to hate Israel instead of providing them with the opportunity to grow and flourish, Ambassador Danon said.

Ambassador Danon noted that Ambassador Haley had recently met the family of Hadar Goldin and said that Hamas is displaying appalling cruelty by holding the bodies of Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul hostage in Gaza. We greatly appreciate Americas assistance with our efforts to ensure that they are returned home for a proper burial.

During her visit, Ambassador Haley is set to tour the Kerem Shalom border crossing, inspect a terror tunnel opening and meet with residents of Kibbutz Nachal Oz. The American Ambassador will then fly north for security briefings along the borders with Lebanon and Syria.

Photo: Ambassador Haley, Ambassador Danon & IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem/Photo Credit: Shlomi Amsalem)
Ongoing construction on the Ayalon Highway project will lead to Chilul Shabbos this coming Shabbos.

Earlier this week, Transportation Minister (Likud) Yisrael Katz addressed the coalition crisis surrounding Shabbos work on the same highway months ago, referring to it as a very artificial crisis.

Katz responded to questions from MK (Shas) Malchieli about Chilul Shabbos on pirate bus routes and why the ministry turns a blind eye. Katz responded harshly, telling the Shas MK I imagine you are well connected to the Interior Ministry and you can direct this to them, referring to the fact Shas party leader Aryeh Deri is the Interior Minister.

Katz explained he is serving in the post for some eight years and the mater of observing the religious status quo works in both directions, not just from the secular. He also spoke of the status quo and the High Court of Justice and Reform Movement, with both of the latter significantly complicating things. He spoke of ongoing dialogue with the State Prosecutor and Attorney General, all towards safeguarding the status quo.

Katz surprised some with his response regarding Israel Railways work and Chilul Shabbos on the Ayalon, citing the work is essential and it cannot be carried out during the week, hence the dispute is an artificial crisis.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
President Reuven Rivlin on Thursday, 14 Nissan 5777, decided to cut the prison term of Meir Rabin, who was convicted in the Holyland real estate scandal and sentenced to four years in prison.

According to the recommendation of the Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked and the Ministry of Justice, the request for clemency submitted by Meir Rabin, according to which claims that led to the leniency of other defendants in the case, were not discussed in the case and were not expressed in the sentence.

It should be noted that in addition, personal and family circumstances that cannot be specified for reasons of privacy, which occurred after the sentence was handed down.

Rabin was convicted of paying bribes to then Deputy Jerusalem Mayor (Shas) Simchayof, who was already released from prison, as well as receiving bribes from Danny Dankner to give to relative Yaakov Efrati, a senior Israel Lands Administration official. Efrati was found not guilty in the case.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Chareidi lawmakers are angry over the appointment of a non-chareidi woman to head the Ministry of Housing Chareidi Division. The appointment was given to Mrs. Ilanit Alafi, a religious, but non-chareidi woman. The chareidi MKs opine the post should obviously been given to a chareidi as it would have been given to an Arab if it was the head of the Arab Division.

MK (Yahadut Hatorah) spoke with Kol Chai Radio host Betzalel Kahan, with the latter stating the appointment is absurd amid the realization that among one million chareidim in Israel, why appoint a woman who is not chareidi. Isnt there a single qualified chareidi person for the post he asked.

Maklev agreed, stating if it was an Arab sector division, one would expect to see a qualified Arab appointed. He asked how it is possible that among all of the chareidim working in the Housing Ministry there is not one qualified for the post. Maklev added Dont think we do not wish her well. We do, but that is not the point.

The chareidi lawmakers explain the point is that the chareidim asked to create a chareidi division in the ministry, which was created, but then a non-chareidi individual is appointed to head it  questioning the wisdom of the decision.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
The following has been cleared for publication: In a joint Shin Bet-Israel Police operation, seven residents of Jaljulia have been arrested in weeks on suspicion of trafficking in illegal war materiel.

One of the principal suspects is Mahmoud Muhammad Abdul Karim Daoud, born in 1996. During the investigation, it became clear that as a result of his involvement in weapons trafficking he had become aware of a terrorist attack being planned by two brothers from Jaljulia who were then arrested:

Adam Ismail Muhammad Faki, 25, was known to the Israel Police against the background of his involvement in criminal matters. Faras Ismail Muhammad Faki, 27, was known as a supporter of Islamic State and against the background of his involvement in security criminal matters.

It was learned that Adam Faki visited Gaza in December 2014 in order to attend a family wedding. During his visit, he was recruited to Hamas by his half-brother Muhammad  a Hamas member who resides in Gaza  and another Gaza-based Hamas member, Hassan Amatzi, and underwent military training including shooting. Also participating in this training was senior Hamas member Hassan Jabari, the brother of Ahmed Jabari, the head of the Hamas military wing, who was killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2012.

In April of this year, Adam Faki was asked by his half-brother Muhammad to advance an attack on an Israeli officer in revenge for the March 2017 death of senior Gaza-based Hamas member Mazan Fakha.

To this end, Adam Faki was asked by his half-brother to purchase weapons, select a target and recruit someone else to assist him in carrying out the attack. Adam Faki then contacted Jaljulia resident Yassin Maari and attempted to buy from him two pistols and a silencer for use in the projected attack. An additional brother, Faras Faki, was arrested on suspicion of being aware of the planning and aiding Muhammad Faki in creating a secret channel of communications to Adam via his cellphone.

The foregoing underscores the risk reflected in the link between the criminal and security offense worlds, especially the transfer of war materiel from criminals to terrorists. This link constitutes a tangible danger.

The above also underscores how Hamas exploits Israels humanitarian policy vis-a-vis Gaza, including the exploitation of family visits, medical treatment and commerce for terrorist purposes.

The State Attorneys Office filed four indictments against the suspects under anti-terrorism statutes.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Israel announced that it is going to grant temporary residency status to 200 Darfur refugees out of the group of 8,000 waiting for a response for their request for political asylum in Israel. This new status will permit them to work as well as traveling in and out of the country.

This refers to the group of the refugees who fled Africa, and in many cases, only to come and terrorize residents of southern Tel Aviv. Since the arrival of the refugees, southern Tel Aviv has become off limits in the eyes of many who fear visiting the area in light of the crime attributed to the African refugees, which includes muggings and break-ins. In addition, they work illegally in many areas, taking jobs from citizens.

Proponents applaud the humanistic move, crying for the same for thousands of others living in a detention center. Opponents decry the move and fear the decision will set a dangerous precedent.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Two suspects with ties to the terrorist group Hezbollah are in federal custody after scoping out potential targets for an attack in New York City and Panama.

WNBC broke the story: The two men allegedly received weapons and bomb-making training in Lebanaon. Ali Kourani, of the Bronx, was arrested last week on the terror-related charges. Samer El Debek was arrested in Livonia, Michigan, and sent to New York last week for trial.

Kourani attended Hezbollah-sponsored weapons training program starting at age 16, and lied on his immigration application, stating he had no ties to any foreign terrorist organization, the FBI said. He became a naturalized citizen in 2009.

U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said the men received military-style training, including in the use of weapons like rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns for use in the support of the groups terrorist mission. and conducted surveillance of potential targets in America, including military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.

Read the full report HERE.
(COMMUNICATED CONTENT)

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In a visit by a delegation from Dirshu to Paris and its environs to mark the siyum of the second part of Mishnah Berurah in the Daf Yomi BHalachah program, they met the Sarcelles mayor who issued a call to the Jews of France: Dont be afraid; come to Sarcelles. * It turns out that the mounting anti-Semitism in France is contributing to the connection of the Jewish nation to its roots * The heads of Dirshu meet 30 maggidei shiur in Paris: Ahead of the beginning of the study of the third section of Mishnah Berurah Hilchos Shabbos, we will increase the investment in France by opening dozens of new shiurim, they said.

XXX

We are waiting for you and want to see as many Jews as possible settling in the city. This call was issued by Mayor of Sarcelles Mr. Francois Pupponi, during a meeting with a delegation of Dirshu that was visiting France on a special trip to mark the occasion of the siyum of the second section of Mishnah Berurah in the Daf Yomi BHalachah program. The mayor, who is an ardent oheiv Yisrael, did not hesitate to make the following declaration: France without Jews is not France.

The Dirshu delegation visited several communities and cities throughout France. It was comprised of several Rabbanim, headed by the nasi of Dirshu, Rav Dovid Hofstedter, shlita. The objective was to visit the many dedicated maggidei shiur who deliver the Daf Yomi BHalachah shiurim and have now completed the second section of Mishnah Berurah and are about to start the third.

The trip had many emotional moments, but one of the surprises that awaited the delegation was when they arrived in Sarcelles, a city outside Paris, and discovered very active shiurim in Daf Yomi BHalachah that draw multitudes of participants from all strata of the community, from bnei Torah to those taking their first steps in the Torah world.

The members of the community and its leaders initiated a meeting between the delegation and the mayor. Joining the delegation was Harav Shalom Bruss, the Rav of Sarcelles, who is also the maggid shiur of the central Daf Yomi BHalachah shiur, and Rabbi Avraham Elchaddad, one of the citys Rabbanim. Also present was Dr. Uzan, the deputy mayor and president of the Jewish community in the city. Mayor Pupponi went out of his way during the visit by the Dirshu delegation to urge them to spread the call to the Jews of France to come to Sarcelles. Dirshu is the largest Torah organization in the world, with some 130,000 learners in 26 countries.

The knowledge that there are Jews who are afraid to live in France and want to go to Israel because of the rising anti-Semitism, arouses concern in the hearts of the French nation, said Pupponi. He noted that if a Jew wants to go to Israel because he loves the land, we cannot stand in his way. But those who are doing so out of fear  on the contrary, we call for them to come to Sarcelles, where we will welcome them with open arms. He even revealed that he is working to build a new neighborhood with 500 housing units that the municipality wants to designate for Jews settling in the city.

At the end of the moving visit, the mayor awarded the citys medal of honor to the nasi of Dirshu, Rav Hofstedter. The mayor noted that it was an honor for the city to give its medal of honor to the nasi of the largest Torah organization in the world. Rav Hofstedter gave the mayor in return a copy of his sefer Darash Dovid al HaTorah in a version translated to French.

From there, the delegation continued to Paris, where the nasi of Dirshu delivered a shiur in the 19 th Arrondissement to the members of the Torateinu community, headed by Harav Yitzchak Shama, shlita. At the end of the shiur, there was a meeting of the maggidei shiur of the Daf Yomi BHalachah shiurim in Paris, and they reported the effects of the shiurim and how they are generating a kiruv revolution in the City of Lights.

Some 30 maggidei shiur attended and related that many Jews who had, until recently, been disconnected from Yiddishkeit, now participated each morning or evening in a Daf Yomi BHalachah shiur and learn to live like Jews in the full sense of the world.

Learning halachah is effectively returning Jews who have grown distant to their Jewish roots, the maggidei shiur marveled. They related that there is a thirst for learning, and that Rabbanim receive phone calls late at night from women asking if its true that I have to act like this or make a brachah like that. Entire families are taking steps toward Yiddishkeit, only in the merit of the daily shiur in halachah.

What is keeping up the Jews who are coping with a wave of anti-Semitism, alongside the constant fear of terror attacks, is the connection to Judaism, the maggidei shiur said. This was the theme of what the nasi of Dirshu said as well, and he noted that the connection to Yiddishkeit is felt today more and more, specifically in light of the anti-Semitic attacks. The more Jews are harmed because of their Jewish identity, the more it brings them to cleave to their Judaism and return to it, not the opposite.

At a meeting with Mr. Meir Chaviv, a member of the French parliament, Chaviv also pointed to a revolution taking place in France, and said that today we are seeing a process of connection to heritage and a return to roots, and there is no doubt that these shiurim play a great role in this. These shiurim strengthen the Jewish identity of the French people, and that is exactly what we lack today.

The exciting trip left a deep impression on the Jewish communities in France. It concluded with a visit to the yeshivah ketanah headed by Harav Mordechai Rottenberg, shlita, Av Beis Din of Kehillas Hachareidim of Paris. The yeshivah has dozens of young students learning Torah diligently, and their pure learning radiates to the entire community. In a drashah delivered by the nasi of Dirshu he told them that it is heartwarming to see that in the heart of the secular city of Paris, bachurim are growing in this wonderful hothouse of Torah and good middos.

The nasi also focused on the importance of learning halachah, in addition to learning all other parts of Torah. He blessed them that I am confident that you will become Gedolim bYisrael.

In another month, the Jewish world will mark the siyum of the second part of the Mishnah Berurah under the Daf Yomi BHalachah program by Dirshu. The visit to France also put the spotlight on the revolution spreading throughout the Jewish world due to the regular study of halachah  something that has become widely accepted since Dirshu established the organized study of halachah.
Today Britain goes to the polls to vote for a new government, and for the first time since the credit crunch political debate has not been dominated by politicians banging on about the economy.

For the past ten years, the economy as an abstract concept took centre stage, with politicians of every hue shifting most discussions back to the deficit, debt, and growth.

This time it has been different.

Instead when economic matters have been discussed its been in terms of how they affect people  taxes, public services, inequality and more.

Jeremy Corbyn has promised more spending but higher taxes in his bid to be elected

In a way this has been refreshing. After all, the economy is not an abstract, detached from our own lives, but rather a jumble of all of our actions and decisions about how we spend, where we work, how we trade, and so on.

We still need to tackle the tough task of balancing Britains books that were sunk into the red by past mistakes.

But by shifting this discussion from the intangible to the everyday, we have been forced to ask difficult questions about what changes we are willing to make in our own lives to do this and how we want to pay for the things we use in the future.

This election has shone a light on how we cannot simply solve our spending problems with a combination of some cuts, a recovery, and some stealthy tax tricks.

As a result, weve paid far more attention than we have for a long time to where the money will come from to pay for what we want and need from the NHS, social care, education, police and other vital services.

And whatever you think of Jeremy Corbyn, his presence has been a catalyst.

From scrapping student fees to keeping the state pension triple lock, his spending announcements have been met with many an indignant but how will we pay for all this?!  the exact question we need to be asking of all government policy and social spending.

The Tories and Lib Dems have also tackled difficult questions on similar matters in a way they probably would not have felt free to, were a centre-ground Labour leader in place.

Theresa May's Tory party has also tackled difficult questions on social care and pension locks

This more tangible look at the economy has also prompted more people on the comfortable side of the fence to ask themselves, Would I be willing to pay more tax to fix Britains problems?

Theres no right or wrong answer to that question  you may believe in tax and spend, or lower taxes for overall prosperity - but it is one that we do need to weigh up.

And as for what this election could mean for your finances, make sure you read our round-up of the parties policies here, and join us tomorrow morning when well be picking through the result.
Fashion retailer French Connection is facing renewed shareholder calls to put itself up for sale as bosses are accused of showing 'blatant disregard' for corporate governance rules.

A London-based hedge fund that has built an 8 per cent stake, Gatemore Capital Management, is putting pressure on French Connection founder and billionaire Stephen Marks to launch a 'transparent' sale process after years of share losses.

French Connection came to prominence in the 1990s with its notorious FCUK brand, which became a popular slogan. But in recent years the firm has struggled to compete with high street rivals Mango, Zara and Urban Outfitters.

French Connection founder and billionaire Stephen Marks.

The investor said the call follows French Connection's recent move to wave through a contentious board reappointment on a 'show of hands' at its AGM.

French Connection failed to count proxy votes, which showed a 24 per cent vote against the pay plans for top executives and a 23 per cent vote against the re-election of Marks and director Sean Murray.

Around 53 per cent of independent shareholders who voted via proxy were against the reappointment of both Marks and the non-executive director Dean Murray, according to Gatemore.

It comes after investor advisory groups recently criticised French Connection for allowing Marks to be both chairman and chief executive, while also having few independent directors on the board.

The pressure on Marks, who founded French Connection in 1969, follows a near-60 per cent plunge in the fashion chain's share price since 2013.

Struggle: The pressure on French Connection follows a near 60% plunge in the fashion chain's share price since 2013.

Chief investment officer and managing partner at Gatemore, Liad Meidar said: 'This is the poster child for poor corporate governance.

'It's a company with a solid brand and could be performing much better, but is governed poorly.'

He added Marks has 'demonstrated a blatant disregard for the UK Corporate Governance Code and French Connection's inherent value'.

'He is running the company as a closed process and at his leisure, but the time has come for him to sell the company to the highest bidder,' he said.

French Connection revealed in March that annual pre-tax losses widened from 3.5 million to 5.3 million, while revenue slumped 6.7 per cent to 153.2 million.

It also announced plans to close another six stores after already shutting nine under-performing outlets last year and a further two since February.

A French Connection spokesman said: 'We are well aware of the views of a small group of shareholders.'

'Our position has not changed. We are in the process of delivering a turnaround plan which is designed to streamline the business and return it to profitability.'

'Management's focus is on achieving this and delivering value to all shareholders.'
Linen provider Berendsen jumped to a seven-month high yesterday after a French rival bought it for 2.2 billion.

Berendsen, which provides linen and tablecloths to hotels and restaurants, saw 210.6 million added to its value after finally accepting an offer from Elis.

It was Eliss third attempt to buy Berendsen, and comes despite the latter previously saying there was no basis for any further discussion of a deal.

Linen provider Berendsen jumped to a seven-month high yesterday after a French rival bought it for 2.2 billion

The agreed bid values Berendsens shares at 1250p each, ahead of previous offers of 1173p and 1100p, and an attractive 45 per cent premium to their value when it was first approached.

Shares yesterday rose 11 per cent, or 122p, to 1229p, sending Berendsen to the top of the FTSE 250 by a comfortable margin.

Beleaguered oil and gas producer Petrofac was also among the indexs winners, enjoying a rare day in the black after securing a key partnership in Oman. The firm rose 4.1 per cent, or 14.4p, to 363.4p after signing a ten-year contract with Petroleum Development Oman to work on projects in the country.

Petrofac is already working on two developments worth around 1.6 billion as part of the deal, which was described by managing director Craig Muir as a landmark agreement.

Another mid-cap winner was property investor Workspace Group , which rents out affordable office space in London to new and growing firms (stock image)

Petrofac has been in decline since last month, when its chief executive and chief operating officer were questioned under caution by the Serious Fraud Office as part of an investigation into Monaco-based Unaoil, which has been accused of bribery and corruption around the globe.

Another mid-cap winner was property investor Workspace Group, which rents out affordable office space in London to new and growing firms.

STOCK WATCH: Nektan Investors in mobile gambling firm Nektan were down on their luck yesterday after its chief executive announced his departure. Leigh Nissim will remain with the Gibraltar-headquartered business until August before taking up a new, unspecified role. Nektan has begun its search for his replacement. In the meantime, former chief executive Gary Shaw, who founded Nektan in 2011 and holds a 14.8 per cent stake, will take over as boss. Shares fell 15.3 per cent, or 5.5p, to 30.5p.

The company rallied after confirming it is in discussions to buy Salisbury House in Finsbury Circus, in the City, for around 158 million from private equity group Lone Star.

If it goes through, the deal would bring the total number of properties owned by Workspace to 69. Yesterday, its shares rose 3.8 per cent, or 33p, to 909.5p.

Despite a relatively quiet session for company results, the FTSE 100 fell slightly as Britain headed to the polls. It finished down 0.4 per cent, or 28.64 points, at 7449.98, hit by a strengthening of the pound as traders increasingly bet on a Tory majority government.

The index also shed around 12 points as a number of firms began to trade without entitlement to their latest dividend. These included Johnson Matthey, down 1.1 per cent, or 32p, to 2947p, and WPP, down 2.7 per cent, or 45p, to 1631p.

But mobile phone network Vodafone was the worst hit by the dividend changes, falling 4.8 per cent, or 11p, to 218p.

Broker Jefferies took an unexpectedly severe disliking to the mining sector in a note released yesterday, arguing that a recent recovery in commodity prices will soon come to an end.

The miners greatly benefited from Chinese stimulus-driven demand in 2016 following a near hard landing in the second half of 2015, it said. While balance sheets are no longer a serious concern, the end to Chinese stimulus is.

This led it to downgrade BHP Billiton to hold from buy and cut Vedanta Resources to underweight from hold, as well as reducing its target price for a number of other miners.

Although BHP Billiton shrugged off the downgrade, rising 1.1 per cent, or 12.5p, to 1183p, Vedanta took the news harder, falling 2.2 per cent, or 13p, to 582p.
Online fashion retailer Boohoo has raised 50 million to fund its new 150 million warehouse

FAST FUNDS Online fashion retailer Boohoo has raised 50 million to fund its new 150 million warehouse  less than 24 hours after announcing the placing.

It placed 22.7 million new shares after markets closed yesterday at 220p per share, just below the closing price of 220.8p.

Co-founder Mahmud Kamani and his siblings Rabia Kamani and Nurez Kamani also cashed out 80.5 million after selling 36.6 million of their shares.

BETS OFF Profits at spread better CMC Markets dropped 9 per cent to 48.5 million in the year to March 31 after a crackdown by the City watchdog and relative calm on the markets.

However, the business said that it would keep its total annual dividend at 8.9p per share.

PENSION HOLE Roadside recovery group the AA has agreed a nine-year plan to plug the 366 million funding gap in its company pension scheme. In addition, the firm  which also provides car insurance and driving lessons  has agreed changes to its defined benefit pension scheme to stabilise service charges and enhance the companys competitiveness.

NEW FACES Outsourcing firm Mears has appointed two new members to its board. The firm, which provides housing and care services, said Jason Burt, a former senior partner at Plexus Law, and Rory Irwin, the former chief inspector of housing for the Audit Commission, will serve as non-executive directors.

PAY DEAL Marketing group Porta Communications has agreed a five-year 3.3 million revolving credit facility to enable it to hire more senior staff.

TOP TABLE Secure payments firm Eckoh has chosen Christopher Humphrey as its chairman. The 60-year-old is currently a non-executive director at Aveva Group, and was formerly chief executive of Anite.

ITALIAN JOB Oil and gas company Rockhopper Exploration is paying Northern Petroleum 1.2 million to take gas assets in Italy off its hands. Northern Petroleum will take on the decommissioning costs involved, which Rockhopper believes could top 6m.

SHIP SWAP The ban on Qatari vessels entering ports in the United Arab Emirates has seen Shell send a cargo of liquefied natural gas from the US to Dubai instead.

GOING UP Credit rating agency Moodys has upgraded BP to A1, saying it had performed well despite oil price volatility. The change was helped by the greater certainty around BPs finances following settlements over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

HOMES WORK Estate agents network GPEA has merged with easyProperty in a 60m deal.

NET GAIN Shareholders in Yahoo have approved the 3.5 billion sale of its web business to Verizon, clearing the last major hurdle for the deal.

JOB CUTS Beleaguered bank Credit Suisse is set to slash 1,500 jobs in London by the end of next year, which will take its City workforce to about 5,000.
Peter Dolan, 61, who has been chairman of Allied Minds for two years

Both the chairman and chief executive of Allied Minds have snapped up shares in their company.

The US venture capital firm, which is listed in London, funds and builds technology companies out of ideas formed in university laboratories.

Peter Dolan, 61, who has been chairman for two years, bought 83,800 shares for 139.9p each  an outlay of 117,236.

Jill Smith, 59, who was appointed chief executive this year, spent 100,450.

Allieds shares reached a high of 725p in 2015. They closed at 135.5p last night.
Atom Bank has revealed that it might not launch its current account until 2019 with its boss blaming the looming threat of new regulation.

Earlier in the year, Mark Mullen, chief executive of Atom, told This is Money that its current account would be open for business by the start of 2018.

At the time, he said it had been running the current account in a quiet mode since last year, making sure it worked properly and operated well.

Atom Bank: It is unlikely to offer current accounts until 2019. Pictured, chief executive Mark Mullen

Back then he added that it was a complex process but that by July, a beta version would be available to customers by invite only.

However, it now appears these plans have hit the skids.

The delays to current accounts emerged as Mr Mullen  who previously headed First Direct - told the FT that the launch would be 'certainly not in 2017, and maybe not even in 2018.'

And Atom told This is Money that current accounts would not arrive until at least 2018.

The app-only bank, which has put a number of savings accounts and mortgages on offer, has dished out around 500million in loans and raked in almost the same amount of deposits since being given a banking licence in April 2016.

Among these have been some high rate but flash in the pan savings deals. This is Money was critical of a wave of savings accounts that Atom offered considerably above the typical rates available in our best buy tables in February, only to struggle with demand for its app and pull the accounts shortly after.

It also launched a best buy mortgage rate which disappeared after a week.

Atom raised 83million of capital in March with fund manager Neil Woodford a big backer, while popstar Will.I.Am also joined the board in a highly publicised move.

Since then, the US popstar has posted one Atom-based Tweet on his social media account, which has 13.7million followers:

Our lives are faster than ever & only one bank is staying ahead of the curve. Excited to be on board with @atom_bank to create epic #tech pic.twitter.com/avj1f1ydR7  will.i.am.BUTTONS (@iamwill) 25 April 2017

Fan: Will.I.Am has teamed up with Atom Bank and it will be hoping he can help grow the brand

Atom also has the experienced Anthony Thomson as co-founder  he is the former chairman of Metro Bank, which recently surpassed the millionth customer mark.

An Atom spokesman told This is Money: 'We've taken the tough decision to postpone our current account launch until 2018, at the earliest.

'The possibility of further regulatory restrictions on current account providers create ambiguity and uncertainty for us.

'We know the current account is a product our customers want to see, and rest assured that we continue to invest in the technology, payments and operational capabilities needed to make it possible  current account is firmly on our agenda, but we want to get it right and avoid wasting money.'

The Financial Conduct Authority has launched a review of current accounts with findings not out until next year.

This could result in further restrictions for current account providers, including needing more capital, just a year after the Competition and Markets Authority finished its own two-year review.

Atom also pointed to new global data protection rules that come into force next May and a payment services directive in late 2018 as further factors for the delay.

Between 2012 and 2016 just five new banks launched current accounts in Britain, with 150 different options available, according to a study by financial product research firm Defaqto.
Gautam Rode and Pankhuri Awasthy have worked together in Suryaputra Karn.

Gautam Rode is all set to get married to Panhkuir Awasthy. Picture courtesy: Instagram/pankhuri313/rodegautam

By India Today Web Desk: Saraswatichandra actor Gautam Rode might soon tie the knot with Kya Qusoor Hai Amala Ka actress Pankhuri Awasthy. As per reports, the TV hottie has been dating his Suryaputra Karna co-star for quite some time now.

Gautam met Pankhuri on the sets of Suryaputra Karn, the mythological show where he played Karna and she Draupadi.

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Also read: Kya Qusoor Hai Amla Ka actress Pankhuri Awasthy gets electrocuted on the sets

Gautam Rode and Pankhuri Awasthy have worked together in Suryaputra Karn. Picture courtesy: Instagram/pankhuriawasthy

As per a report published in SpotboyE, the 40-year-old actor has proposed marriage to the pretty actress, who is in her mid 20s. The couple has always been hush-hush about their relationship.

Recently, Pankhuri met Gautam's mother for her blessings and she has also shifted to a new house which is closer to Gautam's house in Charkop, Mumbai.

This is not the first time Gautam has been linked to his co-star. Earlier, he was linked to his Saraswatichandra co-star Jennifer Winget and post that to Mahakumbh co-star Shraddha Arya.

Currently, Gautma Rode is shooting for his film Aksar 2.

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 7 (PTI) The Supreme Court today cleared the decks for admission in PG medical courses through 50 per cent institutional reservation in Aligarh Muslim University and Banaras Hindu University and extended the time to fill up the vacant seats till June 12.

The apex court set aside the May 29 order of the Allahabad High Court, saying it "overstepped" its jurisdiction and termed the verdict as as "erroneous" as both the AMU and the BHU, the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the Union of India were not parties before it.

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"The high court did not take into consideration the fact that the state (Uttar Pradesh) had no power to control admission to these universities.

"Therefore, we are clearly of the view that the high court overstepped its jurisdiction and the order of the high court is erroneous and is liable to be set aside," a bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta said.

It said that the 50 per cent institutional reservation in the AMU and the BHU, which had been reflected in their prospectus, was not challenged by anybody before the high court.

"As stated, the AMU and the BHU were not parties before the high court. The MCI and the Union of India were also not parties before the high court," it said, adding that earlier judgements of the apex court, which upheld institutional preferences in central universities, were also not taken into account by the high court.

The apex court said that in central universities 100 per cent admissions for MBBS course are based on all India examination and there is no state quota for seats in central universities like the AMU and the BHU or other central institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

It is, therefore, apparent that the state can have no control over the seats in those medical colleges which are part of the central universities/institutions, it said.

"These seats have to be filled up on the basis of merit and institutional preference could be given to the extent permissible i.e. 50 per cent, as has been held by a catena of decisions including the Constitution Bench judgment of this court in the case of Saurabh Chaudri," it said.

The apex court also set aside the direction of the high court which denied the benefit of service rendered in remote/ difficult areas to those doctors, who have cleared MBBS examination from a college outside Uttar Pradesh.

It said that Rule 9(iv) of THE MCI regulations clearly provides that an incentive at the rate of 10 per cent of the marks for each year can be given to those in service candidates, who have served in remote or difficult areas subject to the condition that the highest incentive will be of 30 per cent marks.

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The bench said that the power to notify the remote and difficult areas is vested with the state government which has been upheld by the apex court as Rule 9 (iv) is a complete code in itself.

In fact, Rule 9 (iv) itself only provides for weightage being given for each year of service rendered in remote and difficult areas, it said.

The purpose behind this rule is that those doctors who willingly served in remote and difficult areas should be given some preference while considering them for admission to post- graduate courses, the court said.

"The intention is to benefit those who left the comforts of towns and cities and are willing to work in difficult conditions in remote and difficult areas," it said.

The bench said that the high court erred in deciding that those in-service doctors, who had cleared their MBBS examination from within the state of UP, were only entitled to the benefit of Regulation 9(iv) of the 2000 Regulations.

Not only the did the high court transgress its jurisdiction and went beyond the scope of the writ petition, it also set at naught the entire selection process only two days before the last date of admissions making it virtually impossible to comply with the direction of the high court within the short period of two days, it said while setting aside the May 29 HC order.

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The apex court also set aside all consequential action taken by Uttar Pradesh or any authority or institute in pursuance of the order and rejected the prayer of state government for extending the time limit for admission, saying there is no need to re-draw the merit list.

While considering the prayer of AMU and the state government to extend the time to fill up the vacant seats on account of confusion due to the high court order, the bench said due to peculiar facts and circumstances, fresh counselling will have to be taken up.

"It is clarified that those who were counselled and granted admission prior to the impugned judgement of the high court shall be permitted to continue in their respective courses," it said.

The time for filling up the vacant seats, if any, in AMU, BHU and Government run medical colleges/institutions in the state of UP is extended up to June 12, 2017, in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, it said. PTI MNL ABA RKS SC RT

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LOBAMBA  The landscape of Elangeni will no longer be the same as government has plans to build a referral hospital of nearly E900million.

This means that Swazi patients will no longer be transferred to South Africa for medical attention as the referral hospital will be of world class standards to treat all kinds of ailments.

This was revealed by Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumallo when MPs passed the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (The National Referral Hospital) Loan Bill No.10 of 2017.

The loan is for the first stage of the hospital and will cost about E190.5million (KD4 500 000).

The MPs were informed that before the completion of the first phase, the Ministry of Finance would engage in negotiations for Phase 2 funding, which will be US$52 million or E676 million.

MP Khumalo said initially, two locations had been earmarked for the project one being Elangeni and the other along Yithabantu Highway, near Ngwane Park.

He said, however, due to the terrain of the road to Nhlangano, the contractors had decided that it was best to use the Elangeni site.

The hospital will, however, not be run by government, but instead a private operator would manage the whole facility.

Khumalo said they would look for an operator within the region. He said the ministry had, however, not as yet identified one, but such would be advertised to make the service more competitive.

He said government would continue to pay for patients that would be referred to that hospital under Phalala Fund and they believed that this would save a lot of money for government as compared to always transferring patients to South Africa.

The MPs wanted to know that with the private operator running the facility, would government still be in control of the fees charged and it was reported that government would monitor and regulate the private operator, meaning that it would be in control of the fees.

Lobamba MP Michael Masilela said it was good news that locals would now be taken to a hospital in the country instead of the high fees such as E250 000, which were involved in taking them to SA.

Matsanjeni North MP Phila Buthelezi wanted to know who had been engaged for the construction of the hospital and whether the operator would rent it out from government. Mntfongwaneni MP Mjuluko Dlamini said such a facility was long overdue, especially because it would have world class equipment.
LOBAMBA  Parliament heard that five people have died due to shortage of medicinal drugs in the countrys hospitals.

Senator Prince Kekela revealed that the drug shortage that was about to come to an end affected him in a very personal manner, as all the people who died were related to him.

He disclosed this information in his bid to oppose the passing of the Kuwait Fund for the National Referral Hospital, where government seeks to apply for a loan of about E20.1 million.

The loan will fund the construction of the hospital, staff houses and a university, and also to procure specialised equipment and hire expertise in various medical fields.

The princes observation was that Swaziland was not ready for the construction of a referral hospital but instead it should be using the loan on stocking medication, which reached crisis state a couple of months ago.

He said the Ministry of Health already had enough problems to create another one by building a referral hospital.

The fact that a task committee has been set up to solve issues of the ministry alone is a sign that all is not right at the ministry, whether with the head of the ministry or the administration, he said.

Health Minister Sibongile Simelane did not take kindly to the statement of the death of five people and moved that the prince withdraws his statement. However, Deputy President Senator Ngomuyayona Gamedze did not rule on the matter but instead afforded the minister the floor, so that she could state her case and probably clarify where there were grey areas with regards to the loan.

The minister argued that the referral hospital could save the country of millions of Emalangeni spent on 70 referral patients per week.

She said these patients normally travel with relatives at the expense of government, which did not only cater for their medical bills but also for the accommodation and transport.

She said all that Swaziland needs at this stage was a national referral hospital to replace the Mbabane Government National Referral Hospital which also serves as a regional referral, a health centre and a clinic.

The minister said this hospital, which was built in 1921, was too old to accommodate high-tech equipment and experts, and it also had a lot of burden in the self-referred patients who go there on their own and not as per doctors recommendation as the case should be.

The bills were passed yesterday. Essentially, the passing of the bills translates to an increase in public debt of GDP from 16.43 per cent to over per cent.
MBABANE  Government says the Smart School System for tracking teacher and learner attendance is also meant to monitor ghost teachers and overstaffing in schools.

This was disclosed by the Under Secretary (US) in the Ministry of Education and Training, Nompumelelo Dlamini.

She also claimed that this would also help the ministry with the number of teachers who were on sick leave because of their ill-health and to make necessary arrangements for their timeous replacements by relief teachers

This tool will also assist the ministry to know the number of OVCs in school attendance and monitor overstaffing in schools and the so-called ghost teachers, contended the US.

Government is opposing the application filed by the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) to stop the implementation of this system in schools.

In her answering affidavit, Dlamini contended that the tool, which SNAT was complaining about, was not something new. She instead claimed that it was a new version of an old Monitoring and Evaluation tool; namely an Attendance Register. She informed the court that it was an Attendance Register for both teachers and learners which would now be electronic instead of the old Register, which was manual.

The US argued that it was evidently clear that SNAT did not view the issue of attendance in schools by both teachers and learners as crucial.

Dlamini submitted that their (teachers) complaint would have been a valid one if they were complaining as to why it was introduced in selected schools only. She said government viewed this tool as necessary because it would assist the ministry in gathering data for planning and decision-making purposes. SNAT recently obtained an interim order stopping the implementation of this system in schools after its lawyer Sipho Madzinane moved an urgent application in the Industrial Court.

The new system was to be implemented from May 16, 2017.

The interim order stopping the implementation of the Smart School System (Mobile application for tracking teacher and learner attendance) was issued by Industrial Court Judge Dumisani Mazibuko.

SNAT Secretary General Zwelithini Mndzebele stated that on or about April 12, 2017, they heard on national radio that on April 11, 2017, the Ministry of Education and Training was launching a smart school and learner attendance system (mobile application for tracking teacher and learner attendance).

He said according to the ministry, the system was meant to monitor the learners and teachers school attendance.

Mndzebele pointed out that in terms of the radio programme, the association was also supposed to have been present during the launch as it was allegedly invited.
MALIYADUMA  Two minors died tragically when they were caught in a jealousy wrangle of their parents.

The first incident is that of a two-year-old girl, Sakhile Gina, who died painfully after she was severely beaten and strangled, allegedly by his jealous stepfather.

The baby had already been placed in her bed when the incident occurred on the night of Saturday May 27, 2017 at Maliyaduma.

A source close to the matter said the mother of the child had parted ways with the father and was now dating another man from the area whom she already has a one-month-old baby.

The source said on the day, the father of Sakhile was passing by the womans home and he decided to greet his daughter, but he found his ex-lover with her new boyfriend, resulting in his stay being brief.

Apparently, the womans new lover was now staying at her home.

The source said as usual, the two went to bed together and slept in the same room with Sakhile and the womans five-year-old child.

He said by that time, there was nothing suspicious in their mood that could have made them engage in an argument.

Thulisile Ndzinisa, the grandmother of the deceased minor, said they were shocked when her daughter woke them up towards 7am on Sunday, saying she did not know what was happening with her child as she was not responsive.

Without wasting time, the grandmother, in the company of some family members, rushed to her daughters house and found the two-year-old lying unconsciously on the floor while the five-year-old child was sitting in a corner inside the house.

Ndzinisa said Sakhile had assault bruises all over her body, including thighs, legs and head. She said her clothes were wet around the neck, which had visible marks that she had been strangled.

Questions on what happened to the child were raised by the distressed grandmother but for some moments, there were no convincing responses from either the mother or the five- year-old child.

She said later on, the mother told her that her stepfather allegedly assaulted the minor with a stick but failed to provide further details.

It was then that the five-year-old child started talking and said her mother had an argument with the suspect before taking lujujo and assaulted the minor, who was sleeping, all over the body until it broke into pieces.

Thereafter, the suspect is alleged to have taken ingcwembe and continued to assault Sakhile until it broke too.

The grandmother mentioned that indeed pieces of the ingcwembe were found in the house.

She said before she was buried the past weekend, a post-mortem was conducted and the results confirmed the story told by the five- year-old child.

The report said the deceased had internal bleeding in most parts of her body, mainly on the neck, head and sides of the body.

Police were called and they rushed the child to the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital where she was certified dead upon arrival.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba said the police were investigating a case of a two-year-old child who was discovered dead inside a house in the morning of May 28, 2017 at Maliyaduma.
By Press Trust of India: Lucknow, Jun 8 (PTI) The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government must address the basic problems of farmers at the earliest or prepare to face a "Mandsaur-like situation" in the state, a farmer leader said today.

Taking a dig at the crop loan waiver scheme announced by Yogi Adityanath at his first cabinet meeting, Shekhar Dixit, national president of the Rashtriya Kisaan Manch, said the basic issue is of minimum support price that most farmers are unable to get.

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"If the Uttar Pradesh government is really serious about addressing the problems and plight of the farmers, then it must start resolving their problems lest a Mandsaur-like situation grip the state and unrest fans out," Dixit told PTI, referring to the violence in Madhya Pradesh where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

Loan waiver was no solution to the problems, which plague the farming community in the state or in the country, he added.

"The basic issue is of minimum support price, which a large section of farmers are unable to get. This virtually pushes them into the vicious cycle of poverty, and it takes several years for them to break this vicious cycle and embark on the path of prosperity."

Dixit, 33, was also of the view that farmers would not benefit till decisions pertaining to their welfare are taken from the confines of air-conditioned cabins.

"The clarion call of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan (Hail Soldier, Hail Farmer), which was given by former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, has been reduced to a mere slogan. Time has come for us to redress the grievances of the farmers of the farmers at the earliest in order to thwart an impending disaster," Dixit said.

In August 2016, the farmer leader had demanded a separate commission for farmers with constitutional powers and representation of farmers in it.

"Like Nirvachan Aayog (Election Commission), the Kisaan Aayog would have constitutional powers with representation of farmers in it."

Dixit had also highlighted the need for construction of more cold storage facilities across the state.

The Rashtriya Kisaan Manch was founded by former prime minister V P Singh in 1989.

Reacting to the forums criticism, the state BJP said the Yogi Adityanath government was responsive to farmer needs.

"Unlike the previous governments, the Yogi Adityanath government is sensitive to the feelings of the farmers. The work done for the farmers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has not been done by any government (either at the Centre or at the state) in the last 70 years," said state BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla.

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"This could be best exemplified by the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and waiver of crop loans by the Yogi government. There has been record wheat purchase after the Yogi government came to power. The Mandsaur incident is unfortunate, and soon the faces of the culprits will be unveiled," he added. PTI NAV MIN

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By Tom Allon

It is one of the best-read parts of The New York Times each day, but few admit they read it.

It sounds depressing, but it is actually the most uplifting and inspirational parts of the newspaper.

The weddings section? Nope. Its the obituaries, the place where the entire lives of important people  some as long as 95 years  are summed up in 800 words or less.

Each morning, a team of editors and reporters at the Times decides which three to five people who died in the last 24 hours merit the obituary treatment. It must be someone who had an impact in their lives  from the obvious pop music star like Michael Jackson to the inventor of the Slinkee to the television image consultant who helped JFK defeat Richard Nixon in 1960.

A new documentary movie, Obit, playing in some small movie theaters around the city, is the fascinating tale of the incredibly thoughtful and talented people who make up the Times obit team.

But the film is even more than a well-told tale of a unique journalism operation  it is a meditation on what constitutes a worthwhile life and the criteria we should all consider when we measure the impending shadow of our ultimate demise.

What is an impactful life? How can we measure who is worthy of a graceful write-up of 500 words or even a front page obit of more than 1,400 words?

The movie, a must see, points out that Pope John Paul had a 14,000-word obituary and rock stars Michael Jackson and David Bowie had their obits splashed across the front page. Then there is the obit just a notch below the front page ones: the reefers, important people who dont quite merit top billing on Page 1, but are referred to in the bottom of the front page teasers.

There are many quiet stars of this film, but two stood out in my mind.

The first is the gentleman who runs the Times morgue (a library of all the old printed clippings and photographs stretching back to the early 20th century), an idiosyncratic and animated man who knows where all old files are buried in a vast room full of overstuffed file cabinets. In a paperless age of gigabytes and cloud storage, he seems like a quaint vestige of an anachronistic era that has ended. But ask any Times reporter and theyll tell you that he is one of their most valuable colleagues because he can access information that cannot be found on Google or any internet database because it happened before the age of information went up on the worldwide web.

The other subtle star of Obit is Bruce Weber, a soft-spoken reporter whose observations and work is the centerpiece of the movie. We watch and hear his graceful phone calls with the relatives of the recently deceased, as he hits just the right note of sympathy while he goes about the task of cataloging vital information about the deceased. He fills out a form to start  where was the person born, what was the cause of death, what were the parents professions, and so on, until a clear picture begins to emerge of a life that left an indelible imprint in our society.

We watch Weber as he agonizes over how to report and write an 800-word obituary of the man who helped elect a president in 1960, Mr. Wilson, who was John F. Kennedys television image consultant, a very new career in the early days of mass media. Rather than run a dry opening paragraph that sums up the mans life and includes his age at death and the cause, Weber decides to do an anecdotal lead, an opening that talks about the Kennedy-Nixon debate and its importance in the history of our country. Webers prose draws the reader in while also making a larger point about the dramatic change in how we elected presidents in 1960 based on looks and telegenic appeal.

It is such a rare treat to leave a movie theater better informed and inspired by the people in the documentary and their clear explication of why their work truly matters.

Run, dont walk, to see Obit this weekend  youll look at your life very differently afterwards.
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By Naeisha Rose

Last year, a student from PS 50 on 101st Street in Jamaica was hit by a car. Hes doing fine now, but rather than let that incident become a reccurring nightmare for parents and students, officials at the school decided to act.

In cooperation with the city Department of Transportations Office of Safety Education & Outreach, Groundswell Community Mural Project and the Sutphin Boulevard. BID, fifth-graders from PS 50 participated in an art installation project called the Traffic Safety Banner Residency Program.

The school is located at 143-26 101st StSutphin Boulevard. was chosen because it is a high-crash corridor and one that thre DOT has focused on in the Pedestrian Safety Action Plan for Queens, so we want to focus messaging on slower, safer driving, said Alana Morales, a DOT spokeswoman.

Not only did the students design a safety banner, but they also were a part of a safety issue seminar where they had to learn about their neighborhoods surrounding.

Dolores Orr, PS 50s secretary, helped to initiate the program, acting as a liaison between the school and different agencies like the DOT.

They really became educated, Orr said. They actually took them out to walk around the neighborhood and look around at the different signs, [and the kids would say] I didnt realize the signs were here, because they walk around blindly to what is around them.

One of the students in the mural project was Renita Gobin, 11.

I felt happy because we were able to expand our creativity, Gobin said. We learned what the different signs were. We learned what yellow, brown and green meant. Yellow meant caution.

Gobins teacher, Monique Holmes, was excited to see how well the students worked on the banner as a team.

The students were able to work collaboratively on the sign, Holmes said. They started off with sketches and now they cant wait to see the finished product.

While Mayor Bill de Blasios Vision Zero initiative to reduce safety accidents and fatalities has not taken hold in the area, Orr hopes the banner installation will make an impact.

I dont think there is a change as yet [in terms of car accidents], but that is why they are excited about the banner bringing attention that there is a school there and that we should always be safe, Orr said.

The unveiling of the students safety banner is set for Friday at 9:30 a.m. at 95-14 Sutphin Blvd. at Jamaica near City Councilman Ruben Wills (D-Jamaica) office. Wills was expected to attend the event.
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By Benjamin M. Haber

The United States, with its love of big cars and blasting air conditioners, has contributed more than most other countries to atmospheric carbon dioxide that is scorching the planet. Despite that, and the overwhelming majority of the scientific community that believes in humanitys connection with climate change, along with the many CEOs of large corporations who supported the Paris agreement, Donald Trump  presumably on the basis of the advice of his loyal aides who share his ignorance  has chosen to withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement.

Were that not enough to recognize his incompetence to serve as president, Trump is also considering reinstating limits on travel and commerce with Cuba, citing human rights abuses.

One of the foremost countries where democracy and human rights do not exist is Saudi Arabia, a country that Trump had no trouble visiting, supporting and extolling.

Donald Trump President? BAH HUMBUG!

Benjamin M. Haber

Flushing
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and several other countries severed relations with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran - charges Qatar says are baseless.

By Reuters: Bahrain's foreign minister, keeping up the pressure on Qatar in a deepening Arab row, reiterated on Thursday a demand that Doha distance itself from Iran and stop support for "terrorist organisations".

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and several other countries severed relations with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran - charges Qatar says are baseless. In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said conditions posed by the four countries for a resolution of the crisis were "crystal clear".

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"Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy, Iran," he said.

"It has to realise its interests are with us, not with another country that conspires against us, wants to dominate and divide us. It has to stop supporting terrorist organisations, Sunni or Shi'ite, and its policy has to be for the benefit of its people."

In an earlier interview with the Saudi newspaper Makkah on Wednesday, Sheikh Khalid said he appreciated Kuwaiti mediation to resolve the dispute but that all options were open for his country to protect itself from Doha.

In some of the strongest comments related to those efforts by a senior Gulf Arab official, Sheikh Khalid told the newspaper he doubted whether Qatar would change its behaviour.

Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah, travelled from the UAE to Qatar on Wednesday after visiting Saudi Arabia the day before to try to resolve the crisis.

Also Read:

How Saudi Arabia and allies strong-armed Qatar, blindsided US

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By Bill Parry

The de Blasio administration is hoping to expand an internship program which is already popular with high school and college students in Queens. The public-private partnership, called Ladders For Leaders, placed 1,538 high-performing students at 475 job sites last summer with paid internships.

More than 8,000 students filed applications this year for the program that requires at least a 3.0 grade point average. More than one-third are eventually offered jobs at the companies where they interned.

There is plenty of interest among students, but what were focused on right now is bringing more employers into the program, said Darren Bloch, executive director of the Mayors Fund to Advance NYC. Its a real collaboration with the private sector, while the city invests in pre-placement training and recruitment the government cant do it alone. Thats why we ask the private sector to put up the salary for interns in the six-week internship program, normally at minimum wage, but some companies go over that.

Part of the pre-placement training includes 30 hours of training in job skills and interviewing techniques. Astoria resident Allison Hayhurst runs the internship program at AppNexus, a Manhattan-based internet technologies company.

Its a great opportunity for both the student and our company, she said. Ive been so impressed with all of their preparation and interview skills. They are more polished than many of the adults Ive interviewed. I actually wish I had access to a program like this.

Aileen Gemma Smith, the founder and CEO of Vizalytics, another Manhattan-based tech company, also endorsed Ladders for Leaders.

I am happy to champion this program, she said. By going through that 30 hours of pre-interview training, its more than just a scrub in where they tell you how to dress and how to shake a hand. They really prepare the students with real world skills and that kind of training makes a real difference.

More than 39 percent of the interns participating in the Ladders for Leaders program come from Queens.

Our partners in Queens, including Central Queens Y and many of the schools, have been very supportive, Bloch said. The schools in particular are big fans of the program.

Sandra Deng, 18, of Jackson Heights will graduate from the High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College before attending Binghamton University in the fall. She interned at AppNexus last summer.

It was a wonderful experience and I would recommend Ladders for Leaders program for any curious high school student that wishes to familiarize themselves with the professional setting, Deng said. AppNexus also allowed me to learn more about different career options. I went in hoping to major in the STEM field, but left with an interest in the humanities. This would not have been possible without the diverse setting and supportive staff at AppNexus.

Kimberley Dao, 19, of Forest Hills is currently finishing her freshman year at Yale University. As a student at the Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, Dao participated in Ladders for Leaders interning at AOL and then Vizalytics last summer.

Before I moved to Queens 11 years ago, I never even imagined going to an Ivy League school, but the Leaders for Ladders program gave me the confidence to consider it, she said. Now Im mentoring two students through the application process at Yale. Low-income, high-achieving people like myself dont realize they belong at these colleges whose sticker prices seem too high, but you learn there are ways to make it happen.
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By Mark Hallum

Queens Pride kicked off in Jackson Heights Sunday with a turnout far exceeding the year before, honoring members of the LGBT community who lost their lives to hate crimes over the decades.

Leaders in the fight for equal rights walked the parade route on the 25th anniversary of the event along with many organizations and elected officials.

Onlookers were treated to the unexpected sight of an elderly man in a World War II veterans hat dancing while waving the flag as he unofficially led the procession starting at 37th Avenue and 89th Street. The man, who did not give his name, said he was from a liberal church just east of the parade.

This is my first [Pride Parade], and probably my last, he said. I may not live that long.

City Councilmen Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) and Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), openly gay lawmakers, were at the forefront of the procession as marshals. Also with them were Councilmen Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park), Carlos Menchaca (D-Brooklyn), Public Advocate Letitia James, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who was a grand marshal.

The elected officials all took a pause from the march to pay tribute to Julio Rivera, a gay man who was murdered in 1990 by two assailants whom Dromm described as white supremacist skinheads. Riveras family was there, cradling the cremated remains of their loved one in their arms.

I miss my brother. Its hard even now to speak of my brother over 25 years from when he was killed, said Riveras brother, Ted, his voice trembling with emotion. But Im happy so much good came out of it. Were very grateful to [Dromm] and the gay community.

DiNapoli took the microphone to urge attendees not to be discouraged with the current political climate, but to keep fighting for LGBTQ rights through legislation such as GENDA, a bill designed to add people with different gender identities as a protected class under the states human rights laws as well as provide nondiscrimination protections in terms of housing, employment and credit among other things.

This parade and the activity that Queens Pride does throughout the year has really been transformative, DiNapoli said. We are a better community because of your efforts and we know were living in a very strange time with a lot of challenges out there. It means we need to keep the work going.

James encouraged people to use all the resources at their disposal to keep fighting for the values of the LGBT movement.

At a time when our democracy is under attack and our values are under attack, Julios death must not be in vain, James said. All of us must rise up and use our voice to stand up for freedom for who we love. This is really all about love.

The importance of Queens Pride is more than just LGBTQ rights, however, according to Van Bramer. There are men and women from Queens communities who would not be alive without support from such events as Queens Pride to make them feel safe to be themselves, he said.

All of us who remember those dark times remember Julio Rivera every time we march, Van Bramer said. We would have none of what we have it werent for the pioneers. For so many LGBTQ folks who dared to be who they are and live their full truths, and Julio Rivera was one of those gay men. So everything we have, everything we celebrate today, we owe to Julio Rivera and to all of those who came before us.

Dromm, a founder of the parade, then led the crowd in a moment of silence for members of the LGBTQ community who have died.

The parade was followed by a street fair with food and many Latin American vendors from the surrounding neighborhoods.
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By Merle Exit

Astorias Museum of the Moving Image is dedicating a day to the King of Zing, and will be airing films featuring the late, Queens-born comedian Don Rickles on Sunday.

In addition to the films, MOMI will be treating audience members to some surprise guest appearances, according to organizer Gabriele Caroti.

It will be an event, not just two movies, said Caroti, a filmmaker and fan of the late, great insult comic. In other words, you may get special appearances.

The museums homage, entitled The King of Zing, from Queens: A Don Rickles Tribute, begins with a screening of the 2007 John Landis documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project.

The museum will follow up Landiss documentary with a 35mm screening of the 1970 war comedy Kellys Heroes, in which Clint Eastwood leads a troupe of American soldiers  including Rickles as Staff Sgt. Crapgame  off on a mission to rob a bank in France.

Rickles appeared on TV and in films throughout his decades-spanning career, but is best known for his outrageous insult comedy, which earned him numerous monikers, but none he appreciated more than that bestowed on him by Johnny Carson, who saw into the heart of the kid from Queens.

Milton Berle called me the Sultan of Insult, and I was called the King of Insult, said Rickles in the film. But the guy that gave me the best title  and I use it to this day  was Johnny Carson. He called me Mr. Warmth.

Rickles was born in Queens in 1926 and raised by Jewish parents in Jackson Heights. He described his parents in his irascible style: My father was born in Russia and came here when he was 3 with a gun, a grenade and a picture of Stalin in his pants and my mother was a very strong womana Jew Patton.

Surprisingly, for someone who would go on to a career as an insult comic, Rickles was popular at Newport High School in Elmhurst, where he was elected president of his class and the schools drama society.

Rickles enlisted with the Navy during World War II and served on a torpedo boat in the Philippines before enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he studied alongside silver-screen greats, including Anne Bancroft and Grace Kelly.

But Rickles early attempts to break into dramatic acting devolved into a stand-up career touring comedy clubs throughout the country, and while many of his jokes fell flat, audience members delighted in the on-stage banter that arose between the comedian and his hecklers

But it wasnt until the funny man from Queens performed before Frank Sinatra in a Miami nightclub, and dared to roast Ol Blue Eyes for his performance in The Pride and the Passion that Rickles cemented his reputation as one of the countrys preeminent insult comics.

Rickles would go on to become the star of his own TV program, The Don Rickles Show, and would appear in dozens of roles on both television and the silver screen throughout his decades spanning career, which ended in April at the age of 90 after he succumbed to kidney failure at his Beverly Hills home.

Landiss ode to the late comedian originally premiered on HBO, and won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music, or Comedy Special in 2008.

The biopic glimpses into Rickles work and features clips spanning the late comedians monumental career interspersed with interviews from celebrity acquaintances, including Bob Newhardt, Clint Eastwood, Sarah Silverman, Joan Rivers, Debbie Reynolds, Robin Williams, Martin Scorsese, and Whoopie Goldberg.
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By Naeisha Rose

More than a hundred tenants, advocates and community organizers from all over Queens marched from Presentation Church at Parsons Boulevard to the Jamaica Performing Arts Center at 153rd Street a few blocks away in Jamaica, to have their voices heard during a rent guidelines board meeting Monday.

They were fighting to preserve their rent-stabilized apartments out of fear of becoming homeless, or as Angelica Bohorquezs sign read choose between having food or a home.

Every year they try to raise the rent on the apartment 3 percent on us, said Bohorquez, who lives with her elderly mother. Our rent is $1,500, but with our utilities that is more than $2,000. I want a better salary, but because Im a woman I get paid less than a man, said the 51-year-old telephone assistant who makes $18 an hour.

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board meets every year to set rents on stabilized apartments throughout the city. As part of the process of negotiations between landords and tenants, the board holds hearings in the five boroughs to track New Yorkers reaction to the proposed rent increases. In May the board decided on a hike of between 1 percent and 3 percent for a one-year lease and a 2 percent to 4 percent increase on a two-year lease, effective Oct.1. This followed two years of rent freezes. The board will vote on the increases June 27.

Members of the Guidelines Board, which is made up of nine mayoral appointees, listened to testimony from 59 tenants around the borough and took notes.

Carlos Ortiz, 32, a tenant organizer for Catholic Migration Services, was representing and rallying in solidarity with the residents who came from Ridgewood.

We are here in our capacity supporting the community as advocates in their plea for rent rollbacks or a rent freeze in the face of the decision of the Rent Guideline Board that they will be increasing the rent most likely this year, Ortiz said. They already chosen a preliminary range, which may vary between 1 percent and 4 percent. For most communities of color, that is a sentence for displacement, evictions, or people having to sacrifice money for food, healthcare or childcare.

Emily Waelder, an after-school teacher and resident of Ridgewood was there to stand up for her neighbors in solidarity.

My concerns are that the people who kept our communities thriving for as long as they have are now being pushed out because somebody else expressed interest in them, Waelder said. People that have been calling our communities up-and-coming, when our communities have been striving for a long time, come in and reap the benefits and all the shiny stuff that was put in for a different group of people.

One of her students is even on the brink of homelessness, when he should be focused on going to high school in the fall.

Hes just trying to finish up the school year and hes got to worry about a place to sleep at night. Its frustrating to see that the city is choosing to turn its back on the people that make our city this great diverse place, Waelder said.

Caitlin Shann, is from Ridgewood and is an advocate for tenants. She volunteers as a hot line operator at the Metropolitan Council on Housing in Manhattan.

The Met Council is part of the Rent Justice Coalition, a coalition of 21 organizations working to make sure that we get the lowest possible increase in rent and ideally we should have had a rollback in rent this year, Shann said.

In Ridgewood, developer AB Capstone is in the process of creating a 17-story building, and they are courting people to pay $3,000 monthly, according to Shann.

This is going to push up all the rents and landlords who have rent stabilize apartments will be able to increase the rent so high that they are destabilized even legally, Shann said. There is no recourse for tenants to fight back and no one telling them they cant do it.

There are also developers in the southeast Queens region that are contributing to the problems for renters that want rent stabilized apartments.

Developers are now all of a sudden interested in Jamaica, St. Albans and Cambria Heights, said Raquel Namuche an assistant coordinator for Housing Court Answers. They use predatory tactics like deregulate rent stabilized apartments, harass tenants and they offer tenants buyout offers.

(fixing name to Caitlin Shann and clarifying relationship between Met Council and Rent Justice Coalition)
Bridgewater looks to become a regional nightlife hub in western PA

Bridgewater bars offer patrons a nightlife experience that is unique from any other in western Pennsylvania
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with latest development)

Darjeeling (WB), Jun 8 (PTI) The Army was deployed in the restive Darjeeling town today after Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters indulged in violence and arson while attempting to march to the venue of a cabinet meeting presided by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee here.

The troops were brought in after the protesters damaged police vehicles and set some of them ablaze, prompting the police to fire teargas and lathicharge the violent GJM supporters who are opposing "imposition" of Bengali language in schools in the hills.

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The hill town, which is at present full of tourists, had remained peaceful for several months as the GJM-spearheaded agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland had taken a backseat.

Fresh violence erupted this afternoon with the Bimal Gurung-led party calling a protest march towards the Raj Bhavan, where the cabinet meeting was taking place.

The GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled bricks at them. They also damaged a number of police vehicles and set some of them on fire, police sources said, adding that some security personnel were injured.

An Army spokesperson said, "A requisition from the state government was received. Two Army columns (each consisting of around 80 personnel) based in Darjeeling have moved out."

The GJM supporters were protesting among other issues alleged "imposition of Bengali language in the schools in the hills".

This is the first time that the chief minister is holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling. Banerjee said the state government would set up a new secretariat here.

The GJM supporters staged a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister.

Shopkeepers at some places, including the Mall, downed shutters while the traffic came to a halt, causing inconvenience to tourists.

The GJM has accused the TMC government of trying to disrupt peace in Darjeeling by its "divide and rule policy" and called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills tomorrow.

"The TMC is systematically trying to use police and its goons to disrupt peace in the hills. Today the police resorted to unprovoked baton charge and firing of tear gas shells," GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told PTI.

"We condemn the state-sponsored violence. We have decided to call a 12-hour shutdown in the hills tomorrow. If the situation deteriorates further, then we may go for an indefinite shutdown," he said.

Giri said the GJM would never compromise on the fight for the identity of the people of the hills.

Asked about the GJMs agitation programme, the chief minister said, "They have the democratic right. Let them do it. They have no issue. Let there be competition for development."

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On the GJMs opposition to the alleged "imposition of Bengali language" in schools in the hills, she said that Bengali was not made a compulsory subject.

"Rather, we gave recognition to Nepali language," she said.

"The people in the hill areas have been demanding development. Nothing had happened during the Left rule of 34 years, but things have changed after our government took over.

"We have done so many development works here. I am proud to say that I am the first chief minister to visit the hills for more than 100 times," she said.

CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra said, "The condition in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Darjeeling policy of our chief minister is just a replica of the Kashmir policy adopted by our prime minister."

The Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Adbul Mannan, accused Banerjee of betraying the people of the hills through false promise.

"What the chief minister has been doing in the hills for the last two years is nothing but a political gimmick. The Gorkhas are our brothers, they fight for the nation and sacrifice their life. The CM is using a divide and rule policy in the hills," he alleged. PTI AMR SUN PNT MD SMN SC AKK

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BALLSTON SPA -- Charles "Chip" Locke was, for many years, an involved parent and exemplary school volunteer in the Greenfield community just outside of Saratoga Springs in the city school district, according to parent volunteer and Greenfield Home School Association President Samantha Jacksland.

Locke is a former president of the association, which serves the students of Greenfield Elementary School, and later was its treasurer while simultaneously serving as city school board president. He was at every event, every field trip, every meeting, Jacksland said.

"He was our friend, he was welcomed into our homes for parties and gatherings. He was the most respected and trusted parent volunteer at the school," she said.

"You need to understand the extent of his dedication and involvement in order to appreciate the extent of our shock and horror at his actions," she said.

On Thursday, Locke was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay back the $15,071 he stole from the home school association while treasurer from September 2014 to September 2015.

Jacksland said the association could only prove theft of around $15,000, but suspected the actual amount to be much more.

Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen's office said the exact amount of his thefts was "extremely difficult to calculate" because so much of the money came to the association as cash from fundraisers.

Locke pleaded guilty to grand larceny in April. After he gets out of county jail, he will serve five years of probation.

He used the money he stole to pay for his car, his household bills and his wife's credit card bills.

This came to light after an accounting by the school and the association realized a pattern of Locke taking cash payments for himself and writing checks to himself for bills that did not exist, authorities said.

"Many valid bills did not get paid during this time such as yearbooks for many children and many vendors," according to the district attorney's office.

Locke was arrested on Sept. 22, 2015. He resigned as school board president shortly afterwards.

At the time, schools Superintendent Michael Piccirrillo described Locke as "an asset" to the board whose leadership would be missed.

The Greenfield Home School Association serves 380 children in a community where 40 percent of residents live below the poverty line, Jacksland said. The all-volunteer parent group raises funds for assistance and enrichment programs, hosts visiting authors and stocks the nurses closet with clothes for children who have an accident and boots for those who can't afford winter attire.

In the three years before the arrest, parents were raising money for a new playground at the school and received donations from local families and businesses. The thefts damaged the group's reputation and jeopardize its ability to raise money going forward, Jacksland said in a victim impact statement in County Court Thursday.

"We have learned a lot from this difficult experience," she said. "But we are re-committed to doing our best for our children. Hopefully Mr. Locke has realized the harm he has inflicted on his community but more importantly to his own family."

Click here to read the full news release and victim impact statement.

bbump@timesunion.com  518-454-5387  @bethanybump
Saratoga Springs

Don't forget what - and who - got you here.

That is what Charles Wessner, a professor of innovation policy at Georgetown University, told the crowd Thursday at the Center for Economic Growth's 87/90 Semiconductor Summit.

Wessner, who has been studying the reasons behind the mercurial rise of the Capital Region's computer chip industry, said that strong leadership and vision - combined with billions of dollars in state funding - was critical to the success that led to the construction of GlobalFoundries' Fab 8 campus in Malta.

And if neither continued - especially in the wake of the bid-rigging scandal that ousted SUNY Polytechnic Institute founder Alain Kaloyeros - the region could lose its edge over the competition.

"One of the challenges that you have now is, where is Sen. Bruno? You don't have Sen. Bruno anymore," Wessner said. "And for better or for worse, the incredible entrepreneur you had at (SUNY Poly) is absent at present. That institution absolutely has to get preserved."

Wessner was referring to former state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, who helped to negotiate the original $1.2 billion incentive package back in 2006 that led to the construction of Fab 8 in Saratoga County instead of the two other places that were under consideration, Dresden, Germany and Austin, Texas.

The other reference was to Kaloyeros, who resigned as president of SUNY Poly back in October after being charged in the scandal.

Wessner was cautioning that the Capital Region shouldn't rest on its laurels, even now after GlobalFoundries has expanded the campus way beyond its original plans by investing more than $12 billion on the site, with billions of dollars more in spending expected over the next two years as it moves to ramp up next-generation, 7 nanometer chip production.

Wessner, a former National Academies Scholar who founded the National Academy of Sciences Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Program, even quoted John Kelly, who as IBM's director of research convinced several New York governors, from George Pataki to Andrew Cuomo, to allocate hundreds of millions of dollars in state funds for IBM's East Fishkill chip factory and its research operations at SUNY Poly.

"The trouble with the semiconductor industry is it doesn't stop. There isn't a plateau. You're either going up or you're going down," Wessner said. "And as John Kelly remarked at IBM once, 'My challenge is to explain to each governor that if he doesn't invest again in three years, he doesn't have a superb facility, he's got a junk yard.'"

Wessner said he was encouraged by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's creation of a $208 million fund created as part of the most recent state budget that has been set aside to shore up SUNY Poly programs in the wake of the bid-rigging scandal.

Empire State Development, the state agency that is currently overseeing SUNY Poly's development projects across the state, has already started approving grants out of that fund that support projects from Rochester to Utica and Albany that had been initiated under Kaloyeros.

Howard Zemsky, the CEO of Empire State Development, also spoke at the 87/90 conference Thursday. He reaffirmed Cuomo's commitment to SUNY Poly development across the state, including efforts to attract a semiconductor manufacturer to the Marcy Nanocenter, a 400-acre site next to SUNY Poly's Utica campus. ESD recent approved another $5 million in infrastructure spending for a new gas line at Marcy Nanocenter, part of roughly $80 million in state funding that has already been approved.

"In Utica we are going to succeed in planting seeds for the semiconductor industry," Zemsky said. "We continue to build out infrastructure for a fab that will be in Utica in the coming years. The governor is doubling down on his commitment to this industry, and you should know that."

Zemsky and ESD also recently approved a $7.5 million grant that will go to GlobalFoundries to help pay for a $210 million piece of equipment that will be installed at Fab 8 as part of its move to 7 nanometer chips.

Wessner, the Georgetown professor, said more spending will be needed in the future if New York wants to keep the chip industry growing.

"You don't fool around," Wessner said. "Despite all the criticism of the GlobalFoundries package of $1.2 billion, there are things to remember about that. It was $100 million more than Dresden (offered). Otherwise, it would be in Dresden, not to mention Austin."
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COLONIE -- Fears of deportation for a Jamaican immigrant who lives in Herkimer County were realized when 40-year-old Dominic Ricardo Morgan was separated from his family Monday, and now faces deportation.

Morgan, a Dolgeville resident, was at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Colonie for a routine check-in when he was detained for deportation back to Jamaica, according to the ICE-Free Capital District organization, which rallies in support of immigrants during visits with federal agents.

His meetings with federal agents were recently changed from yearly to monthly, a shift that raised fears of deportation. ICE officials said multiple misdemeanors on Morgans record made him an enforcement priority," and were monitoring his case until "removal arrangements" were finalized.

President Donald Trump has vowed to ramp up deportations, especially targeting immigrants with criminal backgrounds.

Morgans attorney Nicholas Tishler has said the two misdemeanor convictions stem from nonviolent charges in the 1990s. He declined to describe the charges.

The Rev. Joe Cleveland of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Saratoga Springs, said people of moral conscience should be outraged by the deportations.

"No one is safer, no one is better off, if Ricky is deported and ripped from his family, Cleveland said. This deportation regime is an immoral, unjust, racist attack on our values as a society, and I, along with the congregation I serve, will not stand idly by.

Morgan was a crew member on a cruise ship when he legally came to the U.S. decades ago but he overstayed his visa. He is married to U.S. citizen Melissa Morgan and is the father of three children and five stepchildren, all of whom are U.S. citizens.

Morgan was issued a deportation order in February 1999 and was arrested by ICE agents in 2012, spending six months in the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility. He was released from the detention center after Jamaican authorities failed to provide travel documents, and has met with immigration agents ever since.

Morgan now has a work permit and is employed by Walmart, his wife has said.

We need to start telling the truth. Immigration enforcement has nothing to do with criminality, and its regular people like Ricky  people with families, communities, workplaces, neighbors  that are having their lives torn apart, for no reason other than the racist scapegoating of a pathological liar, Joe Paparone, an organizer with ICE-Free Capital District, said in a news release.

Paparone added theyll continue to fight deportation.
ALBANY  The state's lobbying and ethics watchdog agency has reached a $98,000 settlement with the ride-hailing company Uber over unreported lobbying. It's the largest sum to be paid out in relation to the the Joint Commission on Public Ethics' compliance efforts.

The settlement states that Uber failed to report approximately $6.3 million in lobbying compensation and expenses on its reports filed with the state entity.

The unreported lobbying spending mainly came during a highly public 2015 battle between Uber and the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio over a bill in the New York City Council to rein in the ride-hailing company's growth. The legislation was ultimately put aside after a television advertising blitz by Uber that the company at the time acknowledged was "substantial."

Uber had retained the services of a lobbying filing firm, which failed to report many of the expenses, according to the settlement. The settlement states that that Uber provided the majority of the underreported amount to the filing firm  which is unnamed in the settlement  but due to an oversight those figures were not included in Uber's lobbying report. Uber itself also did not disclose a smaller portion of its lobbying due to an oversight, the settlement states.

"We updated our reports because there were unintentional omissions from our initial disclosures," said Uber spokeswoman Alix Anfang in a statement. "Uber NY has revised its processes and no longer uses the third party filing firm who prepared these disclosure statements."

Uber won a major victory in this year's state budget, as the Legislature finally agreed to allow ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate upstate and on Long Island. The companies may begin operating in those parts of New York, including in the Capital Region, on June 29.

At the same time, Uber has continued to be the subject of controversy. The New York Times recently reported that although company officials maintained they only recently noticed an accounting error depriving Uber drivers of tens of millions of dollars, evidence suggests that company and state regulators were aware of the issue as early as 2015.
Here's a selection of events across the region and the state commemorating the 200th birthday of the Erie Canal (for more, see eriecanalway.org):

"SPOTLIGHT: ERIE CANAL"

ALBANY INSTITUTE OF HISTORY & ART

When: Through Sunday, Aug. 20.

Admission: $10 for adults; $8 for students and seniors; $6 for children 6-12; free for under 6.

Info: 463-4478; albanyinstitute.org

"WATER MUSIC" CONCERTS,

ALBANY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Where and when: Concerts are 8 p.m. at the following locations:

Sunday, July 2: Jennings Landing, Corning Preserve, Albany

Monday, July 3: Mabee Farm Historic Site, 1100 Main St., Rotterdam

Tuesday, July 4: Riverlink Park, 2 Front St., Amsterdam

Wednesday, July 5: Canal Harbor and Rotary Park, 125 Southern Ave., Little Falls

Thursday, July 6: Paper Mill Island Amphitheatre, 136 Spensieri Ave., Baldwinsville

Friday, July 7: Brockport Welcome Center, 11 Water St., Brockport

Saturday, July 8: Historic Flight of Five, Lockport

Admission: Free

Info: 694-3300; albanysymphony.com

CANALFEST AT MABEE FARM

Where: Mabee Farm, Rotterdam Junction

When: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, July 15

Admission: Free

Info: 887-5073; schenectadyhistorical.org

"THE LEGACY OF THE ERIE CANAL,"

WATERCOLORS BY TOM LEYTHAM

Where: Arkell Museum, 2 Erie Boulevard, Canajoharie

When: Through Wednesday, Aug. 16.

Admission: $9 for adults; $6.50 for students and seniors; free for 11 and under.

Info: 673 2314; arkellmuseum.org

John Carl D'Annibale

WATERFORD TUGBOAT ROUNDUP

Where: Waterford harbor

When: Friday, Sept. 8, through Sunday, Sept. 10

Admission: Free

Info: tugboatroundup.com

"NEW YORK'S ERIE CANAL: GATEWAY TO A NATION"

Where: State Museum, 222 Madison Ave., Albany

When: Opens this fall

Admission: Free

Info: 474-5877; nysm.nysed.gov

"LOIS MCCLURE LEGACY TOUR,"

FEATURING REPLICA CANAL SCHOONER

When and where: Various. Local stops include July 8-9 and Oct. 8 in Waterford; July 13 in Amsterdam; July 14 in Canajoharie; Oct. 5 in Halfmoon; and Oct. 9 in Mechanicville.

WORLD CANALS CONFERENCE

Where: Marriott Syracuse Downtown, Syracuse

When: Sunday, Sept. 24, through Thursday, Sept. 28.

"ERIE: THE CANAL THAT MADE AMERICA,"

NEW DOCUMENTARY PRODUCED BY WCNY PUBLIC MEDIA

When: Airs nationally in September on PBS stations.

Info: wcny.org/television

ERIE CANAL BICENTENNIAL CONCERT,

BROCKPORT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

When: 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7

Where: Clark Auditorium, Empire State Plaza, Albany

Admission: Free; donations accepted

Info: 585-402-8126; brockportsymphony.org

THE GREAT LOOP

A broad, tall circuit taking up the eastern third of the country, the Great Loop consists of both man-made and natural waterways. A complete loop is roughly 6,000 miles  more or less, hinging on the precise route and potential inland side trips  and is generally piloted counter-clockwise, following the currents.

Boaters often begin at the southern end of Florida and wind north along the coast up to the Hudson, either swinging west on the Erie and proceeding along the Great Lakes to Michigan or heading north to Montreal and riding the top of the lakes through Quebec and Ontario. Either way, they then head south along the Illinois, Mississippi and other rivers (there are multiple options) to the Gulf of Mexico, then turn back east toward Florida.

Depending on speed, determination and detours, "Loopers" can devote an entire boating season or several years to finish, and they're a devoted bunch. "America's Great Loop is longer than the Nile and more amazing than anything you will ever experience in your lifetime," declares a Looper on his website devoted to the course, captainjohn.org. The site includes routes, links and tips. Additional information can be found at greatloop.org.
Albany

Critics of a state Health Department study that found no evidence of increased cancer rates in Hoosick Falls' residents said Wednesday that the analysis was misleading and too limited to accurately show any link between rare forms of the disease in residents who drank contaminated water.

Multiple people with expertise in health fields or the methodology of cancer studies said the state's analysis, which compared a cancer data registry with residents of Hoosick Falls during a 20-year period ending in 2014, say it does not account for an unknown number of residents who moved out of the small village in the past several decades.

Those who left were not included in the data even if they were later diagnosed with cancer or other serious diseases that have been linked to long-term exposure to the chemical PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid. The study examined the rate of cancer among the village's roughly 3,400 residents.

"I don't think the study is badly done, but I think it's a little deceitful in the sense they imply there isn't any elevation in cancer," said Dr. David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany. "But the reality is the numbers are so small you wouldn't be able to see it in a population that size, even over 20 years."

State health officials responded that the study, released late Tuesday, was conducted to narrowly determine "whether village residents who consumed contaminated water had increased rates of cancer relative to the rest of the state." They also said their report acknowledges the relationship between PFOA exposure and certain adverse health effects, and does not try to refute earlier studies that confirmed that connection.

"This is a community that definitely has increased risk for cancer," said Brad Hutton, the agency's deputy commissioner for public health. "However, in the 20-year period we looked at we haven't yet observed elevated rates of cancer associated with PFOA."

Robert A. Bilott, an Ohio attorney who spearheaded a class action lawsuit against DuPont, one of the manufacturers of PFOA, said the Health Department report does not break new ground or refute any cause-and-effect relationship between PFOA exposure and certain health problems. He added it also does not disprove a benchmark study conducted in the Ohio Valley a decade ago that delved into the health histories of about 70,000 people and concluded that PFOA exposure is linked to kidney and testicular cancers, as well as several other serious health conditions.

"The study is simply reporting nothing more than raw data about how many cancer reports were filed for people in this particular community," Bilott said. "It's not the type of report that somehow contradicts or undermines the prior health studies that have already linked the chemical to cancer. It should be understood the limited scope of what was actually done here."

In February, DuPont/Chemours agreed to a $670 million settlement in the federal class-action lawsuit in Columbus, Ohio, that was filed on behalf of approximately 3,550 people who said they were afflicted with diseases as a result of PFOA contamination of their drinking water.

A research group known as the C8 Science Panel  C8 is another term for PFOA  conducted years of research as part of an earlier settlement paid out by DuPont. The study closely examined people in Ohio and West Virginia who were exposed to PFOA in their drinking water. The panel's work included examining the levels of PFOA in the blood of those who consumed the contaminated water or were exposed to PFOA in other ways, and also researching their health issues in connection with how much tainted water they may have consumed over time.

In the litigation, which dragged on for years until being settled four months ago, DuPont agreed not to contest that PFOA exposure among those people contaminated with the chemical is linked to certain forms of cancer  testicular and kidney  and other adverse health effects.

Dr. Howard A. Freed, who was director of the Health Department's Center for Environmental Health for four years until 2012, examined the study Wednesday and said it has "some significant limitations."

Michael P. Farrell

For instance, the DOH study did not examine health effects linked to PFOA exposure that include thyroid disease, colitis or pregnancy-induced  and potentially lethal  high blood pressure. Freed said the report also did not examine all of the people who drank PFOA-contaminated water in Hoosick Falls, including those who consumed it when visiting or working in the village but lived elsewhere.

"There are some significant limitations to their work," Freed said. "DOH found no problems, which is good, but it appears that when they looked for all of the adverse effects on the people of Hoosick Falls, DOH had blinders on."

Health Department officials said they did not study those conditions in Hoosick Falls' population because there is not a state registry that tracks those diseases.

Dr. Marcus Martinez, who runs a bustling family medical practice in Hoosick Falls, also raised concerns about the study's limitations and noted that many people who were raised in the village have moved away. (Martinez said most his former classmates from the 1990 graduating class of Hoosick Falls High School live elsewhere.)

PAUL BUCKOWSKI

The state's cancer registry, which was used in the DOH report, records the address of someone diagnosed with cancer at the time of the diagnosis, and does not list where they lived previously.

"We're missing a good percentage of the people who were actually exposed to the water," said Martinez, who is battling atypical carcinoid, an aggressive and rare form of cancer that afflicts only about one in 100,000 people. "That's the problem here: We have had whole populations of people who have left and they were exposed at the most vulnerable time  when they were kids."

Martinez also noted that the study found higher than normal rates of four types of major cancers that are tracked by the state: prostate, colon, breast and lung.

"We seem to have a lot of cancer here, however you want to put it," he said.

Hutton and other agency officials said they believe the village's population, which is about 3,400 people, has remained steady and that the number of residents who moved away during the 20-year study period would not render their findings inaccurate.

"There definitely are appropriate and valid concerns in this community," Hutton said. "We reached a point where we needed to report our findings, and we understand the limitations that are out there."

Elevated levels of PFOA were found in the village's public water system in 2014. The state Health Department and village officials were widely criticized because they waited roughly 16 months  and faced pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  before they warned the public to stop drinking the water.

Wednesday meeting

The Health Department on Wednesday held the first of a number of public meetings aimed at easing residents' concerns.

At the Wednesday meeting, which drew a handful of residents, Hoosick Falls Mayor Robert Allen said he understands many of the frustrations expressed by residents about the study and its methodology, both of which he agreed had limitations.

"This is a community who I think really wants to see that they're being represented and they're being looked into on a personal level," he said, citing complaints about the study's timeline and scope.

He urged residents to stay proactive, but to remember that this is "just a preliminary first step."

"This is a tight community," he said. "So many people are related to others, so the fact that people can list out on probably two hands and more the amount of cases that they know of that weren't covered in this study, for whatever reason, is a concern. But I think that's something DOH is going to look into as they progress further."

blyons@timesunion.com  518-454-5547  @brendan_lyonstu
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North Hudson

It's more than 1,800 miles east of the Rocky Mountains, but the long-closed Frontier Town theme park brings to mind the popular image of a Western ghost town, complete with crumbling buildings and a colorful past.

But rather than letting this 288-acre spot north of Schroon Lake fade into history, the Cuomo Administration wants to turn it into an "Adirondack Gateway" where travelers could come right off the Northway and be greeted with a visitors' center, campgrounds and other facilities that would convince them to stay for a while.

It also could help divert traffic from the heavily used High Peaks section of the Adirondacks about an hour to the north and west.

On Wednesday, officials from Empire State Development and the Department of Environmental Conservation offered a tour of the closed theme park to prospective developers and members of the media.

Interest by potential developers, at least at this point, was sparse, if Wednesday was an indication. While there were about a dozen state and local economic development officials, there was one potential investor, a local community group, a member of a hiking club, an outdoor guide and the owner of a gas station/convenience store across the street.

"On the one hand, you are pioneering a bit,'' Voorheesville investor Jeff Hyman said following the approximately two-hour tour of the area. "On the other hand, you've got to flip that into a perspective that it's an opportunity.''

"We're open to ideas,'' said Tom Conoscenti, ESD's vice president for real estate.

While the request for proposals encompasses a wide range of activities including horseback riding, fishing and even "glamping," or luxury camping, those who attended Wednesday's walk-through spoke of fairly modest ideas, although they could add up if they were all combined.

"We always meet down here,'' said Mark Simpson of the ADK 46ers, who explained that hikers frequently park their vehicles here and carpool to the numerous hiking spots within an hour or so. "We are going to build a retirement home here,'' he joked. Forty sixers are hikers who have ascended all 46 Adirondack peaks above 4,000 feet elevation.

His group views the spot as ideal for a more formal staging area for hiking or camping trips or even for a place where members can hold their periodic meetings.

Jim Bowen, who lives in nearby Severance, recently got his degree in outdoor recreation. After a stint in Wyoming, he said he'd like to launch a local guide or outdoor adventure company that could be based here.

Greg and Joan Cunningham of ADK Community Works believes the spot could host an "artisan center'' where restoration experts ply their trade, starting with some of the old structures that are here. They believe that many of them are restorable. They are working to create jobs for young people in the area  which have grown sparse since Frontier Town closed in 1998. The park used to employe more than 300 people in summer.

Restoration would probably have to start soon, however, as saplings have sprouted throughout much of the park since its closure.

Frontier Town was the kind of theme park that existed across upstate and throughout much of the nation before the advent of Disneyworld, high-tech amusements and the internet.

Wednesday's visitors saw what is left of the mock "prairie village,'' with storefronts and a spot where simulated wagon train robberies were staged two times a day.

The grist mill, sawmill and ice house  all of which were in use when the park was open  are still standing.

The main theme buildings are weather-beaten, with some of the storage structures clearly beyond repair, but the area is free of the kind of trash and detritus that often characterizes abandoned businesses. The most prevalent graffiti is a statement proclaiming, "The Earth is Flat'' on several of the buildings.

Still, there are obvious challenges. The spot where the visitors center is supposed to go is already deep in the trees.

And Frontier Town's most visible building and sign, which is right on the Northway exit, is still privately owned and not a part of this scheme. The developable land is owned by the town of North Hudson and Essex County.

State officials stressed that the DEC is committed to building a campground and other amenities that would serve as a nucleus for other ideas, big or small. Conoscenti said they had received additional inquiries about the site.

"At this point I don't see why it wouldn't happen,'' said Conoscenti.

rkarlin@timesunion.com  518-454-5758  @RickKarlinTU
In a repeat of past instances, an Army jawan was detained at the Srinagar airport after live ammunition was found in his luggage.

By Ashraf Wani: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Thursday detained an Indian Army soldier at the Srinagar airport after live ammunition was discovered in his luggage.

Sources said the jawan - identified as Ravindra Kumar - was carrying live AK-47 ammunition in his luggage and has been handed over to Army authorities.

Kumar, who was scheduled to board a flight to New Delhi, said he had forgotten to take the bullets out of his bag before coming to the airport. The bullets were discovered during routine pre-flight X-ray scanning at the airport.

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The soldier is posted in Sopore in north Kashmir and is part of the 22 Rashtriya Rifles unit of the Indian Army.

There have been several such instances of Army soldiers getting apprehended with live ammunition and grenades at the Srinagar International Airport.

In April this year, a soldier Raj Pandiya, posted at 319 FD Hospital AMC Pattan in north Kashmir, was arrested while carrying a live cartridge of an INSAS rifle in his luggage.

In the same month, Bhopal Mukhia of 17 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles was arrested with two grenades and four rounds of live ammunition at the Srinagar airport.

ALSO READ | Day after Army man was held carrying grenades, another jawan arrested with live bullets at Srinagar airport

--- ENDS ---
WILTON -- The State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Wilton seeks the public's assistance to help identify three "persons of interest" in a suspicious incident.

The incident occurred in the early morning hours of May 2 behind an auto dealership in the town of Wilton and involved the placement of two homemade "bottle bombs," one of which detonated.
Washington

Former FBI Director James Comey will testify that President Donald Trump sought his "loyalty" and asked what could be done to "lift the cloud" of investigation shadowing his White House, according to prepared remarks released ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Comey will also tell lawmakers that he informed Trump that he was not personally under investigation, validating the president's previous claims that he was not the target of the probe into his campaign's possible ties to Russia. Comey will say that the FBI and Justice Department were reluctant to state that publicly "because it would create a duty to correct, should that change."

Comey's testimony will be his first public comments since Trump abruptly fired him on May 9. The seven-page remarks released Wednesday reveal in dramatic detail, and with a writer's flair, Comey's uneasiness with Trump, who he believed was disregarding the FBI's traditional independence from the White House.

Until his firing, Comey oversaw the federal investigation into possible collusion between Trump's associates and Russia. Trump's abrupt firing of Comey outraged Democrats, who believe he was improperly trying to halt a probe that has hung over his presidency since his first day in office.

The former director's testimony is based on written memos of his interactions with Trump, some of which he says he shared with senior FBI leadership. Comey describes at length a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office in which he believed Trump asked him to drop any investigation of fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

"He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,'" Comey says, according to the prepared remarks. "I replied only that 'he is a good guy.'"

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was unsure if the president had reviewed Comey's testimony. Asked whether the president stood by earlier assertions that he had neither sought Comey's loyalty nor asked for the Flynn investigation to be dropped, she said: "I can't imagine the president not standing by his own statement."

Sanders referred specific questions to Trump's outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz, who did not immediately respond to inquiries.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump announced that he planned to nominate Christopher Wray, a former Justice Department official, as Comey's successor. FBI directors are nominated for 10-year terms.

Comey's testimony was released by the Senate intelligence committee hours after lawmakers sparred with top intelligence chiefs who refused to answer the panel's questions about conversations they had with Trump regarding the Russia probe. Intelligence committee members wanted to know about news reports claiming Trump had asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly state that there was no evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Trump allies have sought to undermine Comey's credibility ahead of his testimony, noting that the FBI had to correct some of his remarks from his last appearance on Capitol Hill. They've also questioned why Comey did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign.

Among the encounters Comey describes is a Jan. 27 dinner at the White House that he viewed as an attempt by the president to "create some sort of patronage relationship."

According to Comey, Trump asked if he wanted to remain as FBI director and declared: "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty." Comey says he replied that he could offer his honesty, and that when Trump said he wanted "honest loyalty," Comey paused and said, "You will get that from me."

In March, after Comey had publicly revealed the existence of a federal counterintelligence investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Trump complained that the probe had left a "cloud" that was "impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country."

It was during that conversation that Comey said the president asked him what could be done to "lift the cloud" of investigation that was damaging his administration. Comey said Trump also said "he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia"  referencing an unverified intelligence dossier detailing compromising information Moscow allegedly had collected on the president.

Comey said his practice of keeping written meeting records began after his encounter with Trump before the inauguration.

Comey describes nine one-on-one conversations with Trump in four months.
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QUEENSBURY -- The family of slain 8-year-old Lake George boat crash victim Charlotte McCue is suing her convicted killer, Alexander West, his parents and three of his four boat passengers for $3 million in state Supreme Court.

The McCue family, including the child's grandfather and his wife, served notice on West, 25, of Lake George, and his parents, Martin and Cassandra West, in a June 2 notice of summons obtained by the Times Union.

The suit, filed by high-profile Troy defense attorney E. Stewart Jones, also targets West's boat passengers Matthew Marry and Kristine Tiger, both of Saratoga Springs, and Morland Keyes of Glens Falls. Another passenger, Cara Mia Canale of Albany, who testified for prosecutors at West's three-plus-week trial in Warren County Court, is not being sued.

"The nature of this action is one for catastrophic and permanent personal, psychological, emotional and zone of danger injuries, harm, losses, expenses and damages, " the notice of summons stated.

The suit arose "out of the reckless, grossly negligent, active and affirmative acts, conduct and omissions of the defendants, individually and collectively, in crashing into and running over the boat of the plaintiffs," the summons said, noting "grossly negligent acts, omissions, conduct and behavior continuing after the crash, thereby exacerbating and enlarging the afore-described harms to the plaintiffs."

On May 8, a jury found West recklessly killed Charlotte McCue, of Carlsbad, Calif. and severely injured her mother, Courtney, last July 25 about 9: 22 p.m near Cramer Point.

On Monday, Warren County Judge John Hall sentenced Alexander West to 5 to 15 years in prison based on his May 8 jury conviction for charges of second-degree manslaughter, felony assault, criminally negligent homicide, boating while ability impaired by alcohol and leaving the scene of a crash.

West's attorney, Cheryl Coleman, said her client's parents were served Tuesday, the day after the sentencing. Throughout the trial and during victim impact statements, she said, the McCue family took issue with West's lack of personal responsibility.

"I think it's messed up," Coleman said. "If it's about the principle, you sue Alex. When you sue his parents, you want the money ... they had nothing to do with it."

If the lawsuit was planned before trial, Coleman said, it should have been disclosed to the defense because it could impact the credibility of witnesses.

At the time of the crash, Charlotte McCue was lying on her mother's lap as they rode in her grandfather's 28-foot antique Gar Wood boat, which was cruising on the lake after a family dinner. Also on board were the grandfather, Robert Knarr, who was steering the boat; his wife, Christine Knarr; the girl's father, Eric McCue; Charlotte's sister, Madison, now 11; and her younger brother, Cooper, 4.

West was speeding on the lake in a 21-foot Larson motorboat after partying for several hours at Log Bay Day, an annual booze fest on the east side of the lake. West had consumed beers, mixed drinks and smoked hashish oil (concentrated marijuana) at the event, then drank two Moscow Mules, a vodka mixed drink, at a restaurant in Bolton Landing. He crashed into Knarr's boat, then left the scene without reporting the incident.

West was arrested along with the four passengers, who were charged with either hindering prosecution or giving false statements. Canale resolved her case with her deal to cooperate. Marry and Tiger, who live together, were recently charged in an unrelated drug case in Saratoga Springs.

Their cases in the crash and that of Keyes remain open.

At West's sentencing, Courtney McCue told of her devastation emotionally and physically at the loss of her child.

"She was asleep on my lap and then, out of nowhere, she was cut to shreds in a matter of seconds by Alexander West's boat," she told the judge. The mother said she wanted her daughter back "but since that's not possible, the man who stole her life should be punished forever."

Charlotte's father did not attend the sentencing, in part, because he "just can't bear to be in the same room" as West, Robert Knarr told the judge, reading a letter from his son-in-law.

"He killed my daughter. He maimed my wife. He scarred my children and he's emotionally crippled countless members of my extended family," the father wrote. "These are choices he made."

West, when given a chance to speak, told the judge he wanted him and the McCue family to know he regrets "being involved" in the child's death and that he is haunted every day knowing he was "part of something" that killed the girl.

.
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Jury selection began Thursday at the retrial of Matthew Slocum, the Washington County man whose conviction for a July 2011 triple homicide was overturned by an appeals court two years ago.

Slocum's conviction was thrown out in 2015 after the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled that a statement have gave to police should not have been shared with the jury that convicted him of murder in 2012.

As a result of that decision  which was upheld earlier this year by the state Court of Appeals  the jury in the current proceeding won't hear his statement to investigators such as, "I just shotgunned my mother, dude."

Slocum, now 29, made the statement when he was interviewed in New Hampshire, where he had been arrested. The White Creek man had fled to New Hampshire with his girlfriend, Loretta Colegrove, after a grisly scene unfolded at the home of his mother and stepfather.

The Albany County District Attorney's office is the special prosecutor in the case because Washington County District Attorney Tony Jordan's office had a conflict of interest.

In 2012, Slocum was convicted by a jury after two hours of deliberation for killing his mother, Lisa Coon Harrington, 44; her husband, Dan Harrington, 41; and Harrington's son, Joshua O'Brien, 24, inside the home at 118 Turnpike Road in White Creek, and then setting the house on fire.

Slocum was sentenced to 88 years to life in prison for three counts of second-degree murder, arson, weapon possession, tampering with evidence and petit larceny. He had a prior criminal record and had gone to prison for a previous grand larceny conviction in Washington County.

The 2012 conviction was tossed by the Appellate Division when it ruled that Slocum had legal counsel and should not have been interrogated in New Hampshire. Washington County Public Defender Michael Mercure had told police not to question Slocum.

The Court of Appeals heard legal arguments in February by Mercure and Special District Attorney Jason Weinstein about Slocum's clarity in asking for an attorney and Mercure's pre-existing status as his lawyer.

The court affirmed that the young man invoked his right to counsel, and that his statements should have been suppressed.

Mercure and Jordan's office did not respond Thursday to requests for comment.

Slocum was returned to the Washington County Jail from state prison when the mid-level appeals court overturned his 2012 triple homicide convictions.

Opening arguments are expected to begin Monday.
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BRUNSWICK - A man who tried to rescue his dog from a burning home on Lake Hills Road was critically injured Thursday as the flames that swept through the house, officials said.

Gregory Tworek, a 33-year-old who shared the home with his dog, was severely burned, authorities said. He was flown to the burn unit at Westchester Medical Center Hospital where officials said he was listed in critical but stable condition.

The Center Brunswick Fire Department was called to his home at about 1:40 a.m.

Neighbors and officials said the man escaped the home and went for help before running back inside to save the dog. The man was driven back by the smoke and flames. The dog died.

The garage at one end of the house was nothing but charred rubble. Next to it, the home's chimney was still intact but the roof beside it caved in. Glass windows were blown out and the front and back doors were gone. The neatly trimmed front and back yards seemed unharmed. The wooden back deck and green plants around it looked untouched by the flames.

But the roof of the house next to the deck was shredded. And against the wall next to the deck sat a propane tank that the blaze never reached.

Next-door neighbor Rune Dalfelt did not hear an explosion at any time before or during the fire. He was worried about the fire reaching the propane tank and wondered whether to wake his two small children and move them from the house.

"By that time, my neighbor woke me up by knocking on my door, there was already a fire truck on the scene," Dalfelt said.

The Rensselaer County Fire Investigations Unit and the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Office are investigating for origin and cause of the fire.

The Center Brunswick Fire Department was assisted by Brunswick #1, Eagle Mills, Speigletown, Mountain View, Wynantskill and Melrose fire departments.
ALBANY  The self-proclaimed "taxi king" of New York City suddenly has a far bigger problem than competition from Uber.

Evgeny "Gene" Freidman took an unexpected ride Wednesday to Albany County Court to face felony charges alleging he ripped off more than $5 million from the state and evaded taxes.

Freidman,the chief executive officer of Taxi Club Management and manager of more than 800 medallion taxicabs through four companies, is accused of theft and and failure to pay the state $5 million between 2012 and 2015, according to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's office, which brought the case.

Almost every taxicab ride in New York City is charged a 50-cent tax, which helps fund the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Prosecutors allege Freidman and his chief financial officer, Andreea Dumitru, 41, of Queens, orchestrated an illegal scheme to withhold the funds by improperly filing or failing to file returns, failing to pay the tax on filed returns and by filing false returns which under-reported the actual number of taxable rides.

The case was taken to Albany because state tax returns are filed in the capital city.

"The 'Taxi King' built his empire by stealing from New Yorkers  pocketing money that should have instead been invested in our transportation system," Schneiderman said in a statement. "No one is above the law, and my office will use every tool available to hold accountable those who cheat the system."

The indictment "exposes a blatant scheme to shortchange the ... transportation infrastructure relied on by millions of New Yorkers," said Nonie Manion, the state's acting tax commissioner, in a statement.

Freidman, 45 of Manhattan, was ordered held on $500,000 bail following an arraignment before Albany County Judge Peter Lynch on a five-count indictment charging him and Dumitru of first-degree criminal tax fraud and first-degree grand larceny, which carry 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. Friedman later made bail.

Assistant Attorney General John Healy had asked Lynch to hold Freidman without bail or, if not, on "no less than $5 million" given that Freidman has repeatedly boasted of assets exceeding $130 million.

Freidman, a dual citizen of the United States and his native Russia, owns two homes in the south of France where he often travels, Healy said.

"This defendant is the self-annointed taxi king of the city of New York," the prosecutor told the judge.

Healy noted the "serious and egregious nature of the charges," Friedman's exposure to possibly lengthy prison time and ties outside New York. In 2015, he said, Freidman put more than $60 million of his assets into offshore trusts with a trustee in Moscow.

Healy noted Freidman has a recent conviction for harassment and pending charges he made threats to an adversary in a civil suit.

Freidman's attorney, Albany's Lee Kindlon, scoffed at the mention of his client's ties to Russia. He noted that Friedman has made every court appearance in his various legal cases.

Dumitru, arraigned later Wednesday, was held on $400,000 bail, as requested by Healy. The prosecutor said Dumitru was a flight risk and recently traveled overseas. Dumitru balked when asked to give the judge her address, then provided it through her attorney, Kurt Haas.

The attorney general's office noted in a news release that its labor bureau previously investigated Freidman's failure to properly pay drivers. The release said that probe resulted in a $1.2 million settlement in 2013 and a 2016 consent order in state Supreme Court in Manhattan requiring Freidman and four of his taxi medallion management agencies to pay more than $275,000 in damages and fines, and to hire an independent monitor to examine compliance with New York City's taxi regulations.
Saratoga Springs was named the Most Beautiful Town in New York by Culture Trip,

The city is on the list of "The Most Beautiful Towns to Visit in Each US State" released Thursday by Culture Trip, which describes itself as a global media company and travel authority.
Washington

President Donald Trump surprised Washington on Wednesday with his choice to replace James Comey a day ahead of the ousted FBI director's congressional testimony, tapping a white-collar defense lawyer with a strong law enforcement background. Senate Republicans and some Democrats praised the nomination.

In an early-morning two-sentence tweet, Trump said he intended to nominate Christopher Wray, a high-ranking official in George W. Bush's Justice Department who represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Bridgegate scandal.

Trump, in a statement Wednesday, called Wray "an impeccably qualified individual."

While the choice captured headlines early in the day, it was quickly overwhelmed by the advance release of Comey's testimony.

The White House and its allies have been looking for ways to offset that potentially damaging testimony.

Wray said he was honored to be selected.

"I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country," he said.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Judiciary panel, said he was encouraged that Trump's pick is a veteran of law enforcement "rather than a career in partisan politics."
By Press Trust of India: Jaipur, Jun 8 (PTI) A Lt Col of the Indian Army has been arrested by Rajasthans anti-terrorist squad for allegedly extorting money from candidates of Army recruitment rallies to issue fitness certificates.

The ATS had unearthed a gang involved in extorting money from candidates appearing in army recruitment rallies by arresting four persons last month.

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"During interrogation of the four middlemen, the involvement of medical officer Lt Col Dr Jagdish Puri came to light.

"Posted in Jodhpur, the officer was responsible for issuing medical fitness certificate for the candidates and this was the last process of the recruitment,? Umesh Mishra, ADG-ATS and SOG, told PTI today.

He in connivance with the four accused allegedly issued medical fitness certificates to more than 2 dozen candidates in the last one and a half year.He used to take Rs 35-40,000 per candidate for issuing the certificate.

"His job was to issue the medical fitness certificate, which is the last stage of the recruitment,? Mishra said.

"The officer was questioned in Jaipur and was placed under arrest yesterday with the permission of the Army authorities," he said, adding, that the Army authorities gave full cooperation in the investigation.

Puri, who has been booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy, will be produced before a local court today.

Commissioned in the Army in 2006, Puri has been posted in Delhi and Bairelly before Jodhpur.

He was a member in most of the medical boards constituted for Army rallies for recruitment of soldiers held in Jodhpur, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Sawaimadhopur, Alwar and Jaipur.

Following inputs from Military Intelligence, the ATS had arrested ArjunSingh, Nand Singh Rathore, Sunil Vyas and Mahendra Singh on May 23.

A sum of Rs 1.79 crore in cash and documents of four candidates attending a recruitment rally in Udaipur were also recovered from the house of Nand Singh in Jaipur.

"How many candidates in all were benefited by them is the part of ongoing investigation.Initially, the doctor has confessed to have benefited around two dozen candidates in one and a half year,? he said.

The Army officer was produced before a local court in Jaipur where the magistrate remanded him to ten days of police custody.

"He will now be interrogated in detail," Mishra said.PTI SDA DV

--- ENDS ---
STAGE

"Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" was a remake of a movie that became a Broadway show. And it's set to be remade again  this time with female actors playing the lead roles. The 1988 film, starring Michael Caine and Steve Martin, focuses on a bet the pair make to swindle a woman out of her money. That movie was a remake of 1964's "Bedtime Story," with David Niven and Marlon Brando. "Scoundrels" the musical hit Broadway in 2005 and ran for a year. In March, Variety reported on a "Scoundrels" remake starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson. The Mac-Haydn opens its version of "Scoundrels" this week, starring Gabe Belyeu, Colin Pritchard and Madison Stratton. 2 & 8 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday. $15-36. Mac-Haydn Theatre, 1925 Route 203, Chatham. 392-9292; http://www.machaydntheatre.org

MUSIC

Caffe Lena is bringing folk gospel, jazz and bluegrass music to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center this summer. The Caffe Lena @ SPAC Concert Series features three free performances, on Sundays in June, July and August. Each concert will feature local and national touring acts. The series kicks off Sunday with gospel/rock act Birds of Chicago, folk act Fuzz & Carrie, and country/bluegrass/jam band Ramblers Home. The other shows are set for July 9 and Aug. 27. 1 p.m. Sunday. Free. Gazebo Stage, Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Spa State Park, Saratoga Springs. 583-0022; http://www.caffelena.org

MUSIC

The Saratoga Chamber Players concludes their spring season with a visit to the Hyde Collection and a concert weighted toward Beethoven. The program features the master's String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, No. 2, and the String Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 74 ("Harp"). If that sounds a bit abstract or heavy, the opener is "The Bullfigher's Prayer (La Oracion del terero)," Op. 34, by the early 20th century Spanish composer Joaquin Turina. 3 p.m. Sunday, Hyde Collection, 161 Warren St, Glens Falls. $15-$20. Tickets available at the door, or visit: http://www.saratogachamberplayers.org.
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Troy

Some neighbors are hailing the decision to scrap a plan for affordable housing at the old Leonard Hospital as a big victory for Lansingburgh and even the city.

Nope.

Community Builders, a nonprofit housing developer, was proposing to raze a dangerous eyesore at no cost to Troy and replace it with an apartment complex that would pay property taxes.

Now, because the City Council caved to ugly forces of misinformation and rejected that plan last week, the broke city could be forced to borrow $2.5 million to demolish the building on New Turnpike Road  without a redevelopment plan in sight.

Related: Former Catholic Church in historic neighborhood faces uncertainty

That's no win for battered taxpayers. That's the city taking on debt it could have avoided. That's a potential tax hike.

And oh, by the way, $2.5 million is about the amount needed to repair the city's swimming pools, which will be closed this summer after years of neglect.

Sorry, kids. Maybe we can get you next time.

As I wrote before the council vote, the Community Builders proposal was victimized by Facebook misinformation claiming it was a low-income housing project that would fuel higher crime and taxes. The falsehoods fired up a groundswell of furious opposition that was wildly out of proportion with the reality of the plan.

More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse

Here's the truth: About a third of the 90 to 120 apartments in the mixed-income complex were to be set aside as "supportive housing" for seniors, the disabled and victims of domestic violence. Many of its other residents would have been employed with incomes well above the Troy average. City police officers and firefighters could have rented units.

"All of the people who were complaining about the project qualified to live there," said one observer who was stunned by the irrational anger. "That's your neighborhood, guys. That's our city."

Heck, my own mother lives in a similar project in Massachusetts, so I know what this kind of housing can mean for seniors who need a safe and affordable home. Those who can't imagine living in such a place might want to acquaint themselves with this proverb: There but for the grace of God go I.

The proposal died when a vote to sell the city-owned land to Community Builders resulted in a surprise 4-4 tie. The gutless no votes all came from members running for office this year. None will be receiving a Profile in Courage Award.

In coming weeks, the council will likely be asked by Mayor Patrick Madden to consider borrowing the millions needed for the demolition and, separately, spending money to fence off and secure the abandoned, blighted building where at least two trespassers have been seriously injured in recent years.

Congrats taxpayers! Hell of a victory!

Dean Bodnar, a Republican council member who supported the Community Builders' plan, called the entire saga a fiasco and a lesson in the evils of social media. Mark McGrath, another Republican who backed the proposal, called the fierceness of the opposition one of the most disillusioning things he has witnessed in city politics. In Troy, that's saying a lot.

"I have never seen a council meeting with that many angry people," McGrath said.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter.

Bodnar said: "There were some undertones there that I'm not going to get into."

Oddly, there were no angry people a few months back, when the council voted to sell that very same Leonard Hospital site to a developer proposing 80 studio apartments. News flash: Rich people don't rent studios in North Troy.

That developer failed to close on the sale, leading Community Builders to step forward with its reasonable proposal.

When the anger has faded and clear-eyed people look back on why the plan crashed and burned, two people will be especially worthy of blame and shame.

One is Council President Carmella Mantello, who at first seemed to support the proposal and tried to counter Facebook lies with the truth. Alas, she caved to the anger and voted no. She's up for re-election, after all.

The other is Lansingburgh schools Superintendent Cynthia DeDominick, who opposed the project and fueled neighborhood fury by claiming, in a bit of wild speculation, that the complex would boost district enrollment by 123 students and result in a seven-percent tax increase.

"The district's motives were questionable," Bodnar said. "They just threw numbers out there based on a bunch of assumptions that, when challenged, they couldn't justify."

I've never seen a superintendent weigh in on a similar controversy. I mean, DeDominick left the impression that she wants to shut the district's doors to growth and new children.

She might be succeeding. There were 3,084 students in Lansingburgh schools in 2010-11 school year, according to state statistics. Today, there are 2,398.

Hell of a victory.
Vijaynagar was discovered by the Assam Rifles paramilitary force during an expedition named Srijit II in 1961 under Major General AS Guraya, IG of Assam Rifles.

By Manogya Loiwal : Believe it or not, there is a valley in India where retired soldiers and their families pay Rs 200 for a kilogram of sugar and Rs 150 for an equal amount of salt, that too if it is available.

This desolated and isolated region is Vijaynagar, nestled in the Himalayas on the India-Myanmar Border in Arunachal Pradesh, which takes around seven to 10 days to reach on foot through dense forests.

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Spread across 8,000 square kilometres, Vijaynagar is unique for many reasons. It was discovered by the Assam Rifles paramilitary force during an expedition named Srijit II in 1961 under Major General AS Guraya, IG of Assam Rifles. The virgin valley was named by him after his son.

DISCOVERY OF VIJAYNAGAR

Since it was an unexplored valley without India-Myanmar border demarcation at the time, around 200 families of ex-servicemen of Assam Rifles were induced and inducted in this area on the line of duty through a settlement scheme, which was both special and exceptional in nature. The border demarcation was carried out in 1972 after the completion of settlement of Assam Rifles families in various batches.

The strategy was to settle the ex-servicemen who would retire by 1971 and remain in the valley for years to come. So, the ultimate aim of colonising the area was to ensure security and stability in the remotest border part in national interest.

They were taken in good health and assurance to a place that had no roads, communication channels, electricity or school and instead had dense forests. Years later, the situation has not changed.

Z Ralte, an octogenarian Assam Rifles ex-serviceman in Vijaynagar since the 1970s, said, "I was serving in the Assam Rifles when the Indian government located us here in 1964, promising to give us 50 acres, but instead gave 11 acres. Since then, we have been working in farming activities here. Salt is a big problem in this area, we have to pay 150 rupees to purchase salt. Therefore we request the government to give supplies of salt, oil and other food products. It is difficult for old people to travel on foot any more. My family's expenses are met by the pension I get. Conditions have deteriorated since 1986."

AGONY OF 300 FAMILIES

But this is the agony of just one of 300 families settled over the years in the valley. They were promised of good health and wealth, but have lost both and are living in pain. The women in the family have no option left but to live with the limited resources and double expenses.

It is not just about the prices of essentials like salt and sugar but even when they have to make calls from local PCOs, it charges them Rs 5 per minute. Their per day income is Rs 200 and they buy goods at Rs 150 per kg. The medical facilities are even worse. The nearest hospital is 200km away and the patients can reach there only via airways.

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Utsav said, "I would like to thank India Today and the team of Aaj Tak for reaching out to us, since past 70 years, this is the first channel that has reached out to us and we are grateful to you. Poor transport, medical and food facilities are our major problems. Salt and other goods are very expensive. We are thankful to Assam rifles for their constant help. Pregnant or ill patients have to either wait or meet death. Education is a huge problem, my wife and i have started a school as an effort to overcome this problem by educating children."

There is just one primary school which charges Rs 500 per student and sometimes even teaches for free only to serve for a social cause to the society.

Also Read:

Former BSF soldier Tej Bahadur Yadav's new avatar: Anti-corruption crusader

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'Face the heat,' army tells its 'chocolate soldiers'

--- ENDS ---
[June 08, 2017] European Microsoft Dynamics User Conference to be held 24-26 April 2018 in Dublin, Ireland

TAMPA, Florida, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dynamic Communities, the supporting organization behind the User Group for Dynamics 365 & AX (D365UG/AXUG), User Group for Dynamics 365 & CRM (D365UG/CRMUG), Dynamics GP User Group (GPUG), and the Dynamics NAV User Group (NAVUG), announces their Summit EMEA conference will be held 24-26 April in Dublin, Ireland at The Convention Centre Dublin. Logo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521020/Summit_EMEA_2018_Logo.jpg



Microsoft Dynamics users rely on user group peers to keep their businesses moving with frequent exchanges that boost knowledge. In the spring of 2018, Microsoft Dynamics users can take advantage of the opportunity to step away from the world of net-centered chat and power real-life growth alongside Dynamics peers in a lively, engaged environment. The 2017 Summit EMEA conference was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands with over 1,100 attendees from multiple European countries.

My expectations were to see and understand what are the near future developments for AX and Dynamics 365. I was able to understand some really important things. I also wanted to understand a little bit better what AXUG is and that was the case. It gave me the motivation to get more involved. And finally, that was a good occasion to meet people (users and partners). Great experience.  AXUG Summit EMEA 2017 attendee My objectives were to learn more and have the opportunity to network and meet fantastic people - all three of these were achieved with the fantastic, well-structured agenda, the time given to network and interact with subject matter experts and to talk and get to know liked minded people within the industry and the CRM Community.  D365UG/CRMUG Summit EMEA 2017 Attendee Those interested in attending Summit EMEA can opt into informational emails found at: www.summitemea.com. About Dynamic Communities: Dynamic Communities, Inc. is the business management organization that supports technology-centric user groups and associations  providing necessary resources and business operations such as staff, systems and event production. Dynamic Communities is independent from Microsoft; however, the two organizations maintain an intentional close working relationship so that our members can provide a collective voice to Microsoft on user concerns, needs, and requests.

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[June 08, 2017] Inaugural Survey of Canada's Research Software Developers Highlights Opportunities for Collaboration and Innovation

Most research software in Canada is developed by researchers themselves, rather than software developers KINGSTON, ON, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - CANARIE, a vital component of Canada's digital infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, today announced the results of its inaugural survey of Canadians who are employed to develop software to support scientific research. The study was undertaken in collaboration with the UK Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) to better understand the needs of Canada's research community. The results will help evolve CANARIE's Research Software Program, ensuring Canadian researchers have access to world-class software tools to accelerate their research. Significant Research Funds Are Used to Develop Software One of the most unexpected results of the survey was that developers of research software are not primarily students or early-career researchers. Of all respondents to the survey: 77% are employed full-time

52% have more than 15 years software development experience

44% hold at least one doctorate Seasoned researchers are often spending nearly half of their time developing their own software. This suggests that research funds are often being used to fund software development, and researchers are often diverting their expertise away from scientific research to develop software. Software is Crucial to Disciplines Beyond Computer Science The survey illustrates that software touches research in a wide range of scientific areas, with respondents repoting software development to support 30 different disciplines. The backgrounds of respondents are equally varied, with 52 different areas of academic expertise listed by participants, only 16 of which were related to computer science or software development. Despite this wide range of areas of expertise, 67% of respondents have been acknowledged for the contribution of their software in published research papers and more than half have presented some aspect of their software work at a conference.



Software developers supporting such diverse disciplines can only benefit Canadian research. CANARIE's Research Software Program strongly advocates for software re-use, and evidence from Program participants has shown that cross-discipline software collaborations can and do lead to innovative research collaborations. Low Adoption of Best Practices in Software Development

Over the years, the private sector has developed processes and procedures to make software development extremely efficient and robust. In contrast, 66% of survey respondents indicated that their last project followed no formal software development methodology and only 11% of respondents indicated that their project teams included dedicated testers. CANARIE sees an opportunity to facilitate the adoption of software development best practices to Canada's community of research software developers. High Demand for Collaboration The collaborative nature of scientific research extends to software as well, with 67% of respondents indicating that their software was used by researchers at multiple institutions. Despite this, the survey identified a need to assemble those who develop software for different institutions and on different projects to share software and ideas, with 75% of respondents indicating an interest in the creation of a Canadian association of research software developers. CANARIE and SSI will continue to study the results of this survey and lessons learned in the UK to plan the evolution of the Research Software Program. All raw data from this survey is available for further analysis and research. (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.595816) About CANARIE CANARIE strengthens Canadian leadership in science and technology by delivering digital infrastructure to support world-class research that directly benefits all Canadians. Twelve provincial and territorial network partners, together with CANARIE, collectively form Canada's National Research and Education Network (NREN). Canadians at universities, colleges, research institutes, hospitals, and government laboratories rely on this ultra high-speed network to collaborate in data-intensive, cutting-edge research and innovation within Canada and with colleagues in over 100 countries. Beyond the network, CANARIE funds and promotes reusable research software tools to accelerate scientific discovery. CANARIE also supports Research Data Canada as it leads national research data management initiatives, and through the Canadian Access Federation, provides identity management services that enable secure, ubiquitous connectivity and content access to the academic community. To boost commercialization in Canada's technology sector, CANARIE offers cloud resources to startups through its DAIR service, and links a powerful community of public and private sector partners in the Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN). Established in 1993, CANARIE is a non-profit corporation, with the majority of its funding provided by the Government of Canada. For more information, please visit: www.canarie.ca. SOURCE CANARIE Inc.

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[June 07, 2017] QSI Facilities Acquires Emcon Associates, a Leader in Facilities Maintenance and Management Services

COLWICH, Kan., June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- QSI Facilities, a leading provider of facilities maintenance and construction services nationwide, has acquired Emcon Associates Inc., a facilities maintenance and management company serving clients in the retail, banking, restaurant and hospitality, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. Both companies share a long history of providing high-performance solutions to help facilities managers improve service levels and reduce the total cost of operations. "We are proud to welcome Emcon's founders Mike Cocuzza and Mike Michowski along with Emcon employees, customers and field partners to the QSI Facilities family," said Joe Kirmser, CEO of QSI Facilities. "Both companies share remarkably similar cultures, values, services and market segment experience. We look forward to leveraging our combined strengths to create even greater value for our customers and field partners." "Joining forces with QSI will enable us to expand our services for customers and offer growth potential for all key stakeholders along the value chain," said Cocuzza, CEO of Emcon. Headquartered in Brick, N.J., Emcon will operate as a division of QSI Facilities. Cocuzza and Michowski will continue to be active participants in the company. <>For more information, visit www.emconfm.com or www.qsifacilities.com.



About QSI Facilities Located in the nation's heartland and just outside of Wichita, Kan., QSI Facilities has grown over the past two decades to become the nation's top-performing provider of facilities maintenance and construction services. QSI clients include premier brands in retail, food service and commercial/industrial real estate. In 2016, QSI completed more than 250,000 work orders for 75 skilled trades at over 110,000 client locations in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The company's Six Sigmatrained project teams take a data-driven approach to working with clients and with QSI's network of high-performance field service partners to measure, manage and improve facilities' performance and cost control. For more information, www.qsifacilities.com.

About Emcon Founded in 1987, Emcon Associates, Inc. brings outstanding experience, knowledge and cost savings to the facilities management services industry, serving 200,000 locations across the U.S. and Canada. With an emphasis on exceptional service, value and reliability, Emcon partners with its customers to help them achieve their business and financial goals. Boasting a licensed and insured network of more than 30,000 contractors across 50-plus trades as well as sophisticated web- and phone-based apps, Emcon is a one-stop shop for all facilities management services and project needs. For more information, visit www.emconfm.com. Related Links www.qsifacilities.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qsi-facilities-acquires-emcon-associates-a-leader-in-facilities-maintenance-and-management-services-300470697.html SOURCE QSI Facilities, Emcon Associates

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[June 08, 2017] Additional Growth Capital for Fastned

AMSTERDAM, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- - Investment fund acquires 1 mln euro worth of certificates of shares, with an option to increase to 2,5 million euro Fastned, that is rolling out a European network of fast charging stations where all electric cars can charge, has raised 1 million euro of additional capital through the issue of certificates of shares to investment fund Ballotta B.V.. Both parties have signed an agreement that could see the investment increase to 2,5 million euro by the end of 2018. The newly raised capital will be used to finance further growth of the Fastned network. The investment is in addition to the 7,7 million euro bond issue that Fastned closed just two days ago. Ballota B.V. is an Amsterdam based investment fund that invests in real estate, stocks and bonds. For her investment of 1 million euro Ballotta receives 100.000 depository receipts of shares of Fastned. The depository receipts of shares of Fastned are listed on the Nx'change stock exchange. Ballotta: "Fastned caught our eye some time ago. Ballotta believes that Fastned deserves support because they are investing in sustainable infrastructure, are ahead of their market and have a clear vision of where to go. Ballotta is confident that the growth of the numbe of electric cars will accelerate further. This forms the basis of this investment."



Bart Lubbers, co-founder of Fastned: "I am very happy to welcome Ballotta to our growing group of investors. The market is accelerating and this is reflected in growing interest of investors to invest in our company. This provides us with the funds to expand our network of fast charging stations to countries across Europe." Background information Ballotta:

Ballota B.V. is an Amsterdam based investment fund that invests in real estate, stocks and bonds. Background information Fastned: Fastned is building a European network of fast-charging stations where all electric cars can charge. We are building stations at high traffic locations along the highway and in cities, where electric cars can charge in 20 minutes. This will provide freedom for electric cars to drive everywhere throughout Europe. As of today, Fastned has 63 stations operational in The Netherlands and is working on expanding its fast charging network to the rest of Europe. Fastned is preparing the construction of fast charging stations in Germany, The United Kingdom and Belgium. Fastned is listed on the Nxchange stock exchange. Fastned is rolling out its network of fast charging stations in response to the rapidly increasing numbers of EV's in Europe. Car manufacturers such as Tesla, Audi, Volvo, Aston Martin, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Volkswagen, Mercedes, Ford, General Motors, Renault and other car manufacturers are investing billions of Euro's in the development of, and production capacity for EV's. More and more EV's are hitting our roads which drives the need for charging infrastructure. Fastned is responding to this development by building the service stations of the future. Co-founder and CEO Michiel Langezaal: "We are the Shell of the future, only our energy comes from the sun and the wind. For more information go to http://www.fastned.nl/en. Note for the editor (not for publication): For more information go to http://www.fastnedcharging.com. Or check out our pressroom, in the presskit you will find logo's, pictures and graphics.

PRN NLD

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[June 08, 2017] Panopto Named a Leader in the 2017 Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video

SEATTLE, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Panopto, a leading enterprise video platform provider, today announced that it has been named a Leader by Aragon Research in its 2017 Research Globe for Enterprise Video. Panopto was recognized for its significant business growth and expanded product capabilities. "Panopto's ability to capture video from nearly any source, index it automatically, and manage it is an increasingly important use case," said Jim Lundy, Aragon founder, CEO and author of the report. "Panopto also supports live video streaming with Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) ingest and recording, and focuses on ease of publishing after a live event. The video platform offers robust inside-video search for spoken and on-screen words, as well as analytics on viewer interaction. We were impressed by the pace of development of Panopto's video platform, and by the completeness of the solution it provides." Aragon attributes Panopto's leadership position to the following strengths: Overall ease of use

Analytics capabilities

Robust video search

Integrations with LMSs and CMSs

Cloud and on-premises deployment options "Video is the future of employee communication and knowledge sharing," said Eric Burns, co-founder and CEO of Panopto. "Video content mangement systems are quickly becoming the hub for virtual training content and internal communications. We're seeing unprecedented demand for this technology across all vertical industries, and we're honored to be named among the leaders in the market."



Panopto is the easiest-to-use video platform for businesses and universities. It provides an integrated solution for managing, recording, live streaming, and searching video content. Fortune 1000 companies use Panopto to deliver online training, broadcast corporate events, improve employee onboarding, and create secure "Corporate YouTubes" of their video assets. Within universities, Panopto is the leading solution for centralizing and managing video content, recording lectures, flipping the classroom, streaming campus events, and integrating video with learning management systems. A complimentary copy of the 2017 Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Video can be found at http://panop.to/globe-leader.

About the Aragon Research Globe

The Aragon Research Globe is a market evaluation tool that graphically depicts Aragon Research's evaluation of a specific market and its component vendors. Aragon Research does not endorse vendors, or their products or services that are referenced in its research publications, and does not advise users to select those vendors that are rated the highest. Aragon Research publications consist of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. About Panopto

Panopto helps businesses and universities create searchable video libraries of their institutional knowledge. Since 2007, the company has been a pioneer in video capture software, video content management systems, and inside-video search technology. Today, Panopto's video platform is the largest repository of expert learning videos in the world. Headquartered in Seattle, with offices in Pittsburgh, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Sydney, Panopto has received industry recognition for its innovation, rapid growth, and company culture. For more information, visit www.panopto.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/panopto-named-a-leader-in-the-2017-aragon-research-globe-for-enterprise-video-300470719.html SOURCE Panopto

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[June 08, 2017] Cireson Expands their Portal for Microsoft Configuration Manager with New Free Community Edition for Viewing Key User, Device, and Software Data Anytime, Anywhere

SAN DIEGO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cireson, world leaders in Microsoft Cloud and System Center, today announce a new free community edition of the recently released Cireson Portal for Microsoft Configuration Manager. Powered by Microsoft Configuration Manager, the Community Portal is an easy to use, web-based experience for viewing key user, device, and software information anywhere, anytime. Whether an Administrator, Help Desk Analyst, Desktop Support, or part of another IT team, the Portal increases productivity and helps deliver instant gratification to end users. Provide your Support teams with direct access to key information to more quickly resolve users' problems

No Configuration Manager Console installation required

Wizard-based installer to setup in minutes

Minimize risk with role-based security for controlled access

Dashboards to view relevant organizational data at your fingertips

Free-up administrative time to focus on business-critical IT functions

Reduce human error by standardizing processes

Beautiful and intuitive interface with no training required

Built by System Center experts with over 1,200 happy global customers The latest in a suite of productivity-boosting community tools for Microsoft System Center Service Manager and Configuration Manager, the community Portal puts key informtion at your teams' fingertips:



Quickly and easily know user details by viewing software and hardware information

View a detailed inventory summary of any selected computer in the Computers view

Understand deployment status for individual users and computers, along with other relevant organizational information with our dashboard engine

Ability to integrate the Cireson Analyst Portal for Service Manager with the Portal for Configuration Manager to better align the support experience Alongside this new community release, Cireson also unveiled enhancements to the full Configuration Manager Portal, including new dashboards for quick access to summary information about your environment, as well as Commence integration, providing templates for easy computer provisioning. Paul Sutton, Co-Founder, says, "This addition to our portfolio of community apps showcases our continued commitment and investment in the Microsoft System Center community and into the world's leading Systems Management platform, Configuration Manager."

The Cireson Portal for Configuration Manager complements the existing Cireson Portal for Service Manager, which includes the Cireson Analyst Portal and Cireson Self-Service Portal. To learn more about increasing productivity and efficiency with the Cireson Portal for Configuration Manager, join one of the upcoming webinars this month. About Cireson Born in 2012, Cireson was founded on a simple, powerful idea: to be the forward thinkers on all things Microsoft Cloud and System Center. Today, our values from the beginning remain the same; keep it genuine, do the right thing, and listen to customers. As a world leader in Microsoft Cloud and System Center, our mission is to make your working life ridiculously more productive by bringing service and asset management together - that's the Cireson Platform. Taking pride in our expertise, we proudly boast some of the brightest and most fanatical IT professionals in the industry. From the Cireson Platform to Consulting Services and community engagements  everything we do is designed to push technical brilliance forward.

Our headquarters are located in sunny San Diego with offices throughout North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cireson-expands-their-portal-for-microsoft-configuration-manager-with-new-free-community-edition-for-viewing-key-user-device-and-software-data-anytime-anywhere-300469806.html SOURCE Cireson

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A10 Networks Awarded Interop Tokyo Best of Show Grand Prize for SSL Encryption Processing and Performance Optimization

A10 Networks (NYSE:ATEN (News - Alert)), a Secure Application Services company, announced today it has been awarded the Interop Tokyo Best of Show Grand Prize in the Performance Optimization category for the A10 Thunder 4440S ADC. A10 Networks (News - Alert) was also awarded Second Prize for A10 Thunder 14045 CGN in the Carrier/ISP Networking category.

Both awards validate the performance of A10's third-generation SSL/TLS solutions, which were announced globally earlier this week and spotlighted heavily at Interop (News - Alert) Tokyo. The new SSL/TLS solutions are included in the new A10 Thunder models, which deliver nearly twice the performance of comparable products from competitors for advanced encryption, dramatically reducing the cost per connection. These third-generation SSL/TLS products outperform competitors in connections per second (CPS), bulk throughput, and other key areas. They also support modern ciphers and technologies, including Elliptical Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS), which are used by 85 percent of encrypted traffic.

Interop Tokyo Best of Show Awards recognize the excellence of participating companies' products that have been released in 2017. Awards are given to the most outstanding products and services on display at Interop Tokyo, following the judging process by influential members of the IT industry.

A1 Networks Thunder 4440S Awarded Best of Show Grand Prize for Performance Optimization







According to the judges, the A10 Thunder 4440S ADC improves performance and meets the increasing demands of PFS. The judges added that the new Thunder 4440S ADC performed 1.5 times faster than competitors' products in the same price range.

In a live demonstration that ran for more than nine continuous hours, the A10 Thunder 4440S ADC showed unwavering stability with no recorded failures - unsuccessful connections were zero. In the demo, A10 was the only vendor that showed it can offer high-performance SSL acceleration using PFS, which requires three times the computing resources than RSA (News - Alert). A10 was able to demonstrate 42,000 SSL connections per second using the cipher TLS1_ECDHE_ECDSA_AES_128_SHA256.

A10 Networks Thunder 14045 Wins Second Prize for Carrier/ISP Networking

According to the Interop Tokyo judges, the live demo of the A10 Thunder 14045 CGN showed impressive performance scalability of 307 Gbps, which is better than the product's listed 300 Gbps.

Additionally, the judges said the Thunder 14045 CGN's IPv4 preservation and IPv6 migration capabilities make it timely for service providers and mobile carriers looking to deliver IPv6 services to subscribers. The Thunder 14045 CGN also reduces CapEx by combining support for IPv6 full cone session control to provide tight security and CGNAT in a single box, the judges said.

A10 Thunder CGN (Carrier Grade Networking) gateways help service providers preserving IPv4 addresses and provide seamless migration to IPv6, and are included with integrated DDoS protection for performance and session scalability that can deliver up to 60 percent savings in just four years.

Interop ShowNet Sponsor and Interop Tokyo Demos

A10 Networks is also a sponsor of the Interop Tokyo ShowNet, a comprehensive Internet technology demonstration at Interop Tokyo that features a wide range of equipment and services from Interop Tokyo's exhibitors, and also serves as the network backbone for the event. A10 contributed engineering support to assist with the network, as well as a list of products that includes:

A10 Thunder 6435 CFW provides CGN and Gi/SGi FW for all exhibitors' booths

A10 Thunder 6435 TPS provides DDoS mitigation in the security functional pools in the backbone network, and DDoS mitigation service in the data center network

A10 vThunder CFW provides GSLB service for ShowNet wireless captive portal services

Along with these two award-winning solutions, A10 is demoing more solutions throughout Interop Tokyo, which runs through Friday, June 9. A10 is also showcasing its A10 Harmony Controller bridging cloud and on-premise environments using AWS with A10 vThunder and A10 Lightning Application Delivery Controller on Microsoft (News - Alert) Azure; A10 Thunder TPS flow detection and mitigation; A10 Thunder CGN to scale out technology using vThunder; and an A10 Thunder SSLi with Cylance security demo.

Read today's A10 blog: A10's New Advanced SSL Encryption Processing Takes Grand Prize at Interop Tokyo

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks (NYSE:ATEN) is a Secure Application Services company, providing a range of high-performance application networking solutions that help organizations ensure that their data center applications and networks remain highly available, accelerated and secure. Founded in 2004, A10 Networks is based in San Jose, Calif., and serves customers globally with offices worldwide. For more information, visit: www.a10networks.com and @A10Networks.

The A10 logo, A10 Networks, A10 Harmony, Thunder and A10 Lightning and Secure Application Services are trademarks or registered trademarks of A10 Networks, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005454/en/
[June 08, 2017] Turkcell Prepares Network for 5G

Turkcell (News - Alert), bringing one of the strongest 4.5G infrastructures in the world with the investments they have made, continues to work towards the technology of the future 5G as the first operator to test the "Massive MIMO" technique, which is one of the major solution from the way of 4.5G evolution towards to 5G, in Europe and Central Asia on a real network. With the cooperation of Huawei (News - Alert), Turkcell completed the first live FDD Massive MIMO product set-up using the 1800 MHz frequency band in Antalya, Turkey. Test results show that 480Mbps Cell Throughput could be achieved by using 8 commercial test terminals on the 20MHz spectrum with live network traffic. Cell Throughput increased more than 5 times compared to practical monitored Throughput level in the same live network test area by serving traditional LTE (News - Alert) 4x4 MIMO configuration. This collaboration is another innovative practice based in the TechCity project with Huawei. Turkcell has also strengthened its experience with the TDD Massive MIMO test, which was previously demonstrated in Ankara with a 6-fold increase in cell throughput, with the FDD Massive MIMO test. "Massive MIMO" technology, developed in preparation for 5G, allows for a large number of people to connect to high speed internet at the same time in dense areas (shoppig centers, hotels, concert halls etc.). Massive MIMO adopts large-scale antenna arrays and allows precise control of both horizontal and vertical beam widths and angles to realize user-specific 3D beamforming, channel estimation, and a user algorithm to multiplex time-frequency resources for different users. These collective activities help to maximize spectral efficiency, further enhance network capacity and improve overall user experience. Turkcell will have significant advantage with Massive MIMO in addition to having the widest spectrum in Turkey.



Sezgin: "In oder to provide the best experience for our customers, we are using tomorrow's technology, today" Gediz Sezgin, Chief Network Officer responsible for Turkcell Network Technologies, providing information about the first test carried out in Europe and Central Asia, said;

"We continue to work intensively on our network in order to offer our customers the technology of the future. Thus, we aim to provide the best quality experience to our customers by offering the most innovative solutions. Again with the 'Massive MIMO' test we carried out in Turkey for the very first time, we are already preparing our network for 5G technology. "Massive MIMO", which will be an indispensable application when 5G comes into our lives, will allow customers using the internet at the same time in crowded environments to experience high speed internet without feeling this density. We are taking an active role in the development of 5G technologies in order to maintain our leadership in 4.5G with 5G and to maintain our leading role. With the national and international collaborations, we are playing a leading role in the development of 5G technologies in the world. As the mobile operator performing the first speed test with real 5G equipment in Turkey, the know-how and experience gained through the collaborations we have entered into, we wish to bring our country to the highest level by becoming one of the few countries developing 5G technologies. Our aim is to develop local technology in 5G while also being one of the first countries in the world to use 5G." View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005519/en/

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[June 08, 2017] CSOFT Supports World's First Bike-Sharing Unicorn

CSOFT International, a leading localization and global communications provider, recently helped localize China's two largest transportation startups, Didi Chuxing and Ofo, in their international ambitions. These innovative companies have revolutionized everyday life, are dominating the local transportation economy, and have firmly placed China on the map for innovative transportation services. America is no longer the only player in the world of transportation startups. Ofo is the world's first bike-sharing unicorn, a true innovator in the realm of transportation innovation, and in the world of "non-docking" bike platforms." In just two years' time, companies like Didi and Ofo have made a huge impact on the industry. It took Uber nearly six years from its founding in 2009 to reach its 1 billionth ride. Didi tallied 1.43 billion rides across all its services in 2015. In early May 2016, through CSOFT's localization services, Didi released its first English version in China's megacities, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou - a feat that was desperately needed for millions of expats and international travelers. According to Wang Huiyao, President of the Center for China & Globalization, foreign residents increased by more than 50% between 2000 and 2013 and currently account for 50% of the total population in Beijing alone. Along with he English interface, English-speakers now have access to real-time translation and the ability to add international credit cards as a payment option. These features help travelers better communicate with their drivers and easily pay for their rides. With the support of investors, including Alibaba and Apple (News - Alert), the ride-hailing giant is now valued at US$50 billion.



On yesterday's "Bloomberg Markets: Asia", interviewed by Rish Salamat and Haidi Lun, Shunee Yee (Founder and CEO of CSOFT International) described CSOFT as the "Uber of language services" and explained how more than 50% of the world's population speaks more than two languages. By utilizing technology and these skill assets, people around the world now have instant access to live-translation services. She emphasized the importance of "translating" brands, products, and operations to reflect local perspectives, a process that will help companies compete effectively across global markets. According to Yee, China's companies going global face different challenges than when Fortune 500 companies from mature markets internationalized their products in the 80s and 90s. In addition to overcoming technical, linguistic, and cultural barriers, "Chinese companies are facing a more complex political and geo-economic environment today. The digital revolution demands that today's products reach global audiences instantaneously."

About CSOFT CSOFT International Ltd. is a world leader in localization and global communication consulting services, providing turnkey solutions for companies facing the challenges of engaging customers and markets across linguistic and cultural barriers. Recognized as one of the Top Innovative Companies in 2011 by IDC (News - Alert) we have an award-winning international team. In 2012, the company's CEO was named one of Fortune Magazine's 10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs and a Tech Disruptor by CNN Money. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005531/en/

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[June 08, 2017] Commercial Bank Revolutionizes its Customer Relationship with Duo World's Communication and Collaboration Application, "FaceTone"

HENDERSON, Nev., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Duo World Inc. (OTC Pink:DUUO), a provider of Communication and Collaboration Solutions via its FaceTone application, recently signed up with Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC, the largest private Bank in Sri Lanka. FaceTone will help provide Commercial Bank with an efficient and high performance customer support center solution, which will provide heightened customer experiences with increased customer satisfactions, keeping in line with their reputation for being a trendsetter.

From Left: Commercial Bank Head of Operations Priyanthi Perera, Manager  Procurement Department Rangika Rodrigo, Manager  Digital Banking Sonali Gunasekara, Head of Card Center Thusitha Suraweera, AGM  Services Chinthaka Dharmasena, AGM - Operations S Prabagar, Manager  IT Operations Thilan Jayathilake, AGM  IT Krishan Gamage, Duo World Inc. CFO/ Director Jennifer Samuel Perera, COO Anjana Chandrathilaka, Head of Product and Market Development Ajeewan Aru, Senior Project Manager Chandana Wijesuriya, Legal Officer Nilakshini Goonawardena



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d4798678-0ee4-4c68-8693-e1d8a16933d8



FaceTone will empower Commercial Banks customer support center to operate on a new level of functionality, fueling up the inbound and outbound customer interactions across an Omni-channel platform. Omni-channel platform provides the capability of communicating via multiple channels such as voice, voicemail, Email, SMS, social media, Skype, and web chat. Building on Duo Worlds heritage of providing easy and transparent management of all customer support center functionalities, FaceTone provides the ability to supervise the clients agents using tools including agent monitoring, real-time reporting and quality assurance. We are extremely delighted to work with Commercial Bank, one of the most technologically advanced and innovative financial service providers in Sri Lanka to deliver a heightened customer experience that will nurture customer relationships and increase customer satisfaction, while pushing the boundaries of traditional Communication and Collaboration solutions with a wide array of features, says Anjana Chandrathilaka, Chief Operations Officer Duo World Inc.

With the highly automated self-service IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system integrated to FaceTone, Commercial Bank will be able to provide 24/7 tele-banking services including verifying account/credit card balance, card activation/blocking, loan requests and cheque book requests. Cutting-edge technology enables FaceTone to provide an intelligent request routing algorithm to route any calls, SMS, chats or even social media interactions directly to call center agents based on the pre-allocated skills such as language fluency, knowledge, expertise, etc. Innovative call routing techniques used in FaceTone swiftly matches the caller in the queue to the relevant call center agent in order to assist them. By providing the personal information and the previous interactions of the customers from the in-built CRM feature, agents can interact with customers swiftly and provide a superior service. The comprehensive Help Desk Module built into the FaceTone CRM provides the capability of creating tickets and assigning to relevant parties, ensuring the service levels are maintained per the standards and building a strong relationship with the customers. Duo World believes that the unique approach towards transforming Commercial Banks customer experience will enhance their competitive advantage and create a satisfied customer base, assisting them in achieving their business goals. About Duo World Inc. Duo World Inc., having its headquarters in Nevada, United States, and its development center in Colombo, Sri Lanka, has been catering to the companies in the space of Customer Life Cycle Management, Billing, Business Intelligence, Workflow Designing and Contact Center & Task Management solutions across the globe, targeting different market domains. Driven by innovation Duo World Inc. has favored the enterprises in many ways, including efficiency, cost reduction, revenue optimization and continuous value addition to their product or service offerings. Learn more about Duo World at www.duoworld.com Contact: Investor Relations Stanley Wunderlich Consulting for Strategic Growth 1 Ltd. Tel: 800-625-2236 Email: [email protected] www.launchpadir.net Duo World Inc. 170 S Green Valley Parkway Suite 300 Henderson, Nevada 89012 Tel: 870-505-6540 Email: [email protected] Website: www.duoworld.com

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Rakesh Roy, a district unit leader was arrested after Fujayel Ahmed, a leader of Chhatra Jamiat, filed the case against Roy under section 57(2) of the ICT act.

By Sahidul Hasan Khokon: Bangladesh Police arrested a leader of Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mohajote, in a case filed under the ICT Act for posting derogatory comment about Prophet Hazrat Muhammad on social media site Facebook.

Rakesh Roy, a district unit leader was arrested after Fujayel Ahmed, a leader of Chhatra Jamiat, filed the case against Roy on Monday afternoon under section 57(2) of the act.

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Roy had posted a comment on Facebook degrading Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (pubh) a few days back.

Sylhet's Additional Superintendent of Police, Suggayan Chakma said at a press conference that Rakesh was arrested from Lalakhal in Jaintiapur upazila on Wednesday.

He said that a screenshot of the 'objectionable' post about the prophet Muhammad (S), from Rakesh's Facebook account was spread across the social media platform. This lead to protests and processions in Jakiganj demanding the arrest of Roy.

Suggayan Chakma said Rakesh was produced in the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate Khairul Amin of Jakiganj seeking seven-day remand appeal for interrogation. The court granted four-day remand after the hearing.

--- ENDS ---
Global Bladder Cancer Therapeutics Market to Grow at a CAGR of 4.7% by 2021 - Key Vendors are Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, F. Hoffman-La Roche & Pfizer - Research and Markets

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Bladder Cancer Therapeutics Market 2017-2021" report to their offering.

The global bladder cancer therapeutics market to grow at a CAGR of 4.77% during the period 2017-2021.

The report, Global Bladder Cancer Therapeutics 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.

One trend in the market is advent of novel pipeline. The global bladder cancer therapeutics market is expected to grow due to the presence of novel therapies in the early stages of the pipeline. For instance, the adoptive cell therapy utilizes the immunotherapy approach for the treatment of bladder cancer.







Key vendors

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Eli Lilly

F. Hoffman (News - Alert)-La Roche

Pfizer



Other prominent vendors

Accord Healthcare

AstraZeneca

Bedford Lab

Merck

Sanofi



Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: Executive summary

PART 02: Scope of the report

PART 03: Research Methodology

PART 04: Introduction

PART 05: Key clinical trials

PART 06: Market landscape

PART 07: Market segmentation by therapy

PART 08: Geographical segmentation

PART 09: Decision framework

PART 10: Drivers and challenges

PART 11: Market trends

PART 12: Vendor landscape

PART 13: Key vendor analysis

PART 14: Appendix

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/3xp5xx/global_bladder

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005658/en/
[June 08, 2017] Bourns Names Arrow Electronics 2016 North America Broadline Distributor of the Year

Arrow Electronics (News - Alert), Inc. (NYSE: ARW) was honored with Bourns, Inc.'s "2016 North America Broadline Distributor of the Year" and "35 Years of Service" awards last month at the 2017 EDS (News - Alert) Summit in Las Vegas. "We are pleased to award Arrow as Bourns' Distributor of the Year," said Jim Harrington, vice president of sales, Americas Electronic Components at Bourns. "Their overall performance in 2016 was outstanding. Together, Bourns and Arrow have built a successful relationship that truly supports the needs of our mutual customers." Bourns is a leading manufacturer and supplier of position and speed sensors, circuit protection solutions, magnetic components, microelectronic module, panel controls and resistive products. Headquartered in Riverside, Calif., Bourns serves a broad range of markets, including automotive, industrial, consumer, communications, non-critical life support medical, audio and various other market segments.



"Arrow is extremely honored to be recognized as Bourns' North America Broadline Distributor of the Year and receive the 35 Years of Service awards," said Alan Bird, president of Arrow's components business in the Americas. "We take great pride in our longstanding relationship with Bourns and these two awards are testaments to our mutual commitment to providing innovative products and service to our customers. We look forward to our continued collaboration and success together." About Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics is a global provider of products, services and solutions to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and enterprise computing solutions. Arrow serves as a supply channel partner for more than 125,000 original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers and commercial customers through a global network of more than 465 locations serving over 90 countries. Learn more at www.fiveyearsout.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005895/en/

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[June 08, 2017] joimax Elevates Its Presence across Europe and Asia

Over the last few weeks, joimax participated in numerous scientific meetings, held across Europe and Asia. During these meetings, the German-based company reiterated its position as market leader for endoscopic minimally invasive spine surgery. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005919/en/ Meet-the-Expert Session at the joimax booth at GSC in Milan, Italy (Photo: Business Wire) Starting in early May, joimax exhibited at this year's Global Spine Congress (GSC, http://www.gsc2017.org) in Milan, Italy, including a Meet-the-Expert Session at its booth and at the Intermediate Meeting of the World Congress of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery and Techniques (WCMISST) in Paris, France. Numerous joimax faculty members presented the latest results in endoscopic spine surgery. From May 11 to 14, joimax participated in the 10th Conference of the Chinese Association of Orthopedic Surgeons, held in cooperation with the North American Spine Society (CAOS/NASS) in Guangzhou, China. The conference was combined with a highly attended workshop on principles and techniques of complex spine surgery. This session was video transmitted to 20,000 hubs. During the anual meeting of the German Society of Neurosurgery (DGNC) in Magdeburg, Germany, from May 14 to 17, joimax exhibited its complete product range. The lunch symposium, covering the treatment options in endoscopic decompression and pain therapy, was presented by the well-recognized joimax faculty members Drs. Erik Traupe, Guntram Krzok and Ralf Wagner.



From May 18 to 20, joimax participated in the first International Spine Conference at the KCM clinic in Jelenia Gora, Poland, highlighting the achievements of modern endoscopic minimally invasive spine surgery. In live surgeries various endoscopic techniques in cervical and lumbar cases were performed. The session was coupled with a simultaneous discussion between surgeons and participants. "The International Spine Conference in Poland marks the successful kick-off for the cooperation with our new partner to start extensive market activities in this country," says Wolfgang Ries, Founder and CEO of joimax. "Both, training and education, which also started in Poland, now are the key to success to further deepen the endoscopic knowledge of spine surgeons."

In early June, the annual meeting of the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS) took place in Athens, Greece, followed by the annual congress of the French Society of Spinal Surgery (Societe Francaise de Chirurgie Rachidienne, SFCR) in Lille, France. Both meetings attracted many spine specialists and generated good traffic at the joimax booths. Since its inception, joimax participates in the European Course for Minimally Invasive Spinal Surgery (EUCMISS, http://www.eucmiss.com). This year's 5th Course in Madrid, Spain, was held on June 1 and 2. It was a special course of globally leading experts in minimally invasive spine, exchanging the practical and scientific experience in presentation and multidisciplinary cadaver courses. joimax will continue its activities by exhibiting at the NSpine Main Conference in London, UK, from June 12 to 15 and then they head back to Asia to attend the 6th Asian Conference of Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery Techniques (ACMISST) in Bangkok, Thailand between June 29 and July 2 with a faculty presentation and a booth presence. About joimax Founded in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2001, joimax is the leading developer and marketer of complete systems for endoscopic minimally invasive spinal surgery. With TESSYS (transforaminal), iLESSYS (interlaminar) and CESSYS (cervical) for decompression procedures, MultiZYTE RT (e.g. for rhizotomy) and with MultiZYTE SI for SI-Joint therapy or with EndoLIF and Percusys for endoscopic minimally invasive assisted stabilizations, proven endoscopic systems are provided that, together, cover a whole variety of indications. In procedures for herniated disc, stenosis, pain therapy or spinal stabilization treatment, surgeons utilize joimax technologies to operate through small incisions - under local or full anesthetic - via tissue and muscle-sparing corridors through natural openings into the spinal canal (e.g. intervertebral foramen, the "Kambin triangle"). View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005919/en/

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[June 08, 2017] Communications Industry Experts Discuss New Opportunities, Era of Innovation in PR at Cision World Tour London Event

Industry leaders from Cision, CIPR, Mischief, Telefonica UK and The Future Laboratory outline the future of PR LONDON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Communicators finally have the opportunity to prove to company executives how great they are, and how important their work is, communications experts told a packed audience at the Cision's World Tour London event on Tuesday (June 6). A range of speakers, including Nicola Green, Director of Corporate Affairs at Telefonica UK; Chris Sanderson, co-founder, The Future Laboratory; and Lucy Hart, Head of Influence, Mischief, talked about the future of PR and a new era of modern communications with PRs and communicators at the prestigious Ham Yard Hotel in Central London. Cision CEO Kevin Akeroyd kicked off the event by discussing how the time is right for earned media  including PR and media relations  to take its rightful place in the marketing mix and get its rightful share of marketing budgets. "Consumers love trusted third parties, so that recognition that businesses have under-invested in earned media is happening now. We've got a great opportunity right now, but we can't keep doing the same thing. We've got to invest in data, tech and measurement." During the event's panel Q&A session, which is part of a series exploring the future of communications with leaders and influencers in the industry, Telefonica UK's Green said the development of new industry innovations means PR professionals now have the opportunity to demonstrate the impact their work has on a company's business objectives. "When we can deliver against our business objectives then I can guarantee, that's the one time a board sits up and listens," Green explained.



Mischief's Hart said she was seeing how clients were increasingly coming to Mischief with bigger PR spend available as support for influencer marketing continued to rise. Hart added that innovation will help the communications industry grow. "We have to loosen up a little bit and be willing to be more innovative and pushier and take our slice of the pie, Hart added. "Because what we do a brilliant job of is creating dialogue, conversations and creating content that people actually sit back and watch!"

CIPR President Jack MacKenzie agreed, saying, "We need to stop being hung up on what we call what we do. You can call it influencer relations, you can call it PR, you can call it strategic communications. The client, or your boss, doesn't care. They want results." The Future Laboratory co-founder Chris Sanderson made a series of bold predictions about the challenges consumer brands are facing and how technology will continue to shape the future of communications, arguing that the way consumers engage with content is continually changing. Many people now prefer to consume content in silence, Sanderson said. The majority of videos in Facebook newsfeeds are viewed with the sound off and communicators must be aware of trends like this to create effective PR campaigns. Cision CMO Chris Lynch explained how brands, including big-name corporations, are finding that combining great storytelling with data science is uncovering the right influencers to share their stories, craft content that gets read, and, ultimately, link coverage with customer behaviour. The 2017 Cision World Tour is a series of events exploring the future of communications with industry leaders and influencers. After the U.S. leg of the tour launched in April, with?events in Chicago, San Francisco and New York, London marked the first European event?on June 6, 2017.?Next stop on the tour is Paris on?June 8.?For more details on the next event nearest you, visit worldtour.cision.com and be sure to join the conversation on Twitter @Cision using the hashtag #CisionWorldTour. About Cision:

Cision is a leading media communication technology and analytics company that enables marketers and communicators to effectively manage their earned media programs in coordination with paid and owned channels to drive business impact. As the creator of the Cision Communications Cloud, the first-of-its-kind earned media cloud-based platform, Cision has combined cutting-edge data, analytics, technology and services into a unified communication ecosystem that brands can use to build consistent, meaningful and enduring relationships with influencers and buyers in order to amplify their marketplace influence. For more information, visit?www.cision.com or follow @Cision on Twitter. Contact:?

[email protected] Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521432/Cision_CEO_Kevin_Akeroyd.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521433/Cision_World_Tour_London.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467136/cision_logo.jpg

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[June 08, 2017] Kroll Bond Rating Agency Releases NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference Briefing

Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA) today released its briefing on the 2017 NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, which was held on June 5th and 6th in New York City. In the report, KBRA highlights key takeaways from the conference, which include the following: The U.S. lodging industry continues to perform well, enjoying 86 months of RevPAR growth as of April 2017. Record demand levels driven by growth in the middle class and increased international travel, coupled with limited additions to supply in most major markets, have resulted in continued performance improvements, albeit at slowing growth rates.

Currently, lodging industry leaders remain cautiously optimistic as the industry continues to face a number of headwinds.

Political turmoil and the anti-immigration rhetoric of the current administration is a significant cocern for the travel industry.

Capital markets have come back strong in the last 45 days with CMBS, insurance companies and balance sheet lenders competing for business. Although loan proceeds are down, with spreads narrowing and interest-only periods elongating, industry leaders noted that CMBS debt markets are wide open and terms are "phenomenal", even as lenders remain disciplined.



here to access the report. Follow us on Twitter (News - Alert)!

@KrollBondRating

About Kroll Bond Rating Agency KBRA is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization (NRSRO). In addition, KBRA is recognized by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) as a Credit Rating Provider (CRP). View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608006109/en/

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[June 08, 2017]

Gryphon Technologies Wins $49 Million Single Award Task Order Contract for Underway Replenishment (UNREP) Engineering Development & Support of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme, CA Division (NSWC PHD).

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Gryphon Technologies, LC was awarded a competitively bid single award Task Order contract to provide engineering development & support for the Navy's new E-Stream and existing Underway Replenishment Systems.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division is a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) supporting the timely meeting of key program milestones for the TAO-X program, the next generation fleet oiler, while managing the lifecycle of the UNREP systems. The first new UNREP (E-Stream) system in forty years will be developed, tested, and deployed through the work performed under this contract. Gryphon will support the current UNREP program while providing esign, prototyping, testing, documentation, software development and sustainment of the new E-Stream program. If all options are exercised, the contract will be completed in June 2022.







"It is a privilege to be selected to provide engineering and technical support to the Navy's Underway Replenishment Program," said P.J. Braden, founder of Gryphon Technologies. "Gryphon's team of professionals is committed to do everything we can to ensure the success of this program which is crucial to the mission of the U.S. Navy."

Gryphon Technologies is a premier engineering and professional services firm headquartered in Washington DC and specializing in warfare systems and integration, naval architecture and marine engineering, program management, test and evaluation, and logistics.

Media Contact:

Arlene Dillon

[email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gryphon-technologies-wins-49-million-single-award-task-order-contract-for-underway-replenishment-unrep-engineering-development--support-of-the-naval-surface-warfare-center-port-hueneme-ca-division-nswc-phd-300471319.html

SOURCE Gryphon Technologies
[June 08, 2017]

Raytheon releases 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report

WALTHAM, Mass., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company released its (NYSE: RTN) 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report, which details the company's efforts to address environmental impact, create stimulating career opportunities, and support the communities in which we live and work.

Highlights of the 2016 Corporate Responsibility Report include:

Sustainability  In 2016, Raytheon set 14 new sustainability goals for the company to achieve by 2020. Thisyear yielded solid results in waste minimization, water and energy reduction, and travel/supplier greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In 2016, Raytheon received its tenth consecutive Energy Star Sustained Excellence award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.







Workforce Diversity  Raytheon's diverse workforce help us collaborate on innovative solutions that meet the needs of our customers. In 2016, 95 percent of Raytheon leaders completed diversity and inclusion learning to support an environment where our people can contribute to their fullest potential.

Commitment to Community  Raytheon is focused on empowering today's veterans and military families through continuing education and inspiring tomorrow's professionals to develop and sustain an interest in science, technology, engineering and math. The company's five-year $10 million partnership commitment with Student Veterans of America and the Boys & Girls Club of America supports this initiative.

This year's report provides an expansive review of the company's corporate responsibility initiatives and allows stakeholders to generate a tailored report for download at www.raytheon.com/responsibility.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. Follow us on Twitter.

This document does not contain technology or Technical Data controlled under either the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations or the U.S. Export Administration Regulations.

www.raytheon.com

Media Contact

Brandie Gerrish

+.781.522.5193

[email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-releases-2016-corporate-responsibility-report-300471273.html

SOURCE Raytheon Company
[June 08, 2017] TARGOVAX ASA - SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED PRIVATE PLACEMENT

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA OR JAPAN, OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OF ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN. Oslo, 8 June 2017: Reference is made to the stock exchange announcement release by Targovax ASA ("Targovax" or the "Company") earlier today regarding the contemplated private placement of new shares in the Company. The Board of Directors of Targovax is pleased to announce that the private placement has been successfully completed, raising NOK 200 million in gross proceeds through the allocation of 10,000,000 new shares (the "New Shares") at a price of NOK 20 per share (the "Private Placement"). The Private Placement took place through an accelerated bookbuilding process after close of market on 8 June 2017. The Private Placement attracted strong interest from both existing shareholders as well as new high quality investors. The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to finance five additional data read-outs from clinical trials through 2018, in addition to the three planned data-read outs in H2 2017, and selective CMC development in preparation for future pivotal clinical studies. Completion of the Private Placement is subject to (i) the resolution by the extraordinary general meeting of the Company to be held on or around 30 June 2017 (the "EGM") to issue the new shares in the Private Placement and the subsequent repair offering, (ii) the registration of the share capital increase pertaining to the issuance of the New Shares in the Norwegian Register of Business Enterprises, and (iii) the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority approving a combined prospectus for the listing of the New Shares and the subsequent repair offering. Following registration of the share capital increase pertaining to the Private Placement, the Company will have a share capital of NOK 5,219,971.90, divided into 52,199,719 shares, each with a nominal value of NOK 0.10. Payment date for the Private Placement is expected to be on or about 3 July 2017 and the New Shares are expected to be delivered to the applicant's VPS account on or about 6 July 2017 and tradeable on the Oslo Stock Exchange from that date. The share issuance is carried out as a private placement in order to complete the transaction in today's market conditions in an efficient manner and to allow for participation from new investors. As a consequence of the private placement structure, the shareholders' preferential rights were deviated from. In the Board of Directors' assessment on whether the pre-emption rights should be deviated from, the following factors were amongst others taken into consideration: The Company will carry out a subsequent repair offering to ensure that existing shareholders who were not allocated shares in the Private Placement are given the opportunity to subscribe for shares on the same terms as the investors in the Private Placement.

The Private Placement constitutes less than 24% of the issued and outstanding shares in the Company.

The Private Placement was completed after a pre-sounding with potential investors on a confidential basis and publicly announced bookbuilding process managed by two investment banks. The achieved share price does express the market price for relevant amount of shares in the Company.

The shares in the Company are also frequently taded on the Oslo Stock Exchange, so shares will be available in the market for shareholders whose ownership percentage are diluted by the Private Placement and who do not wish to be diluted.

The number of institutional and specialist investors in the Company will be increased through the Private Placement and the Company will thus achieve a strengthened shareholder base.



The following shareholders that are represented on the Board of Directors of the Company have been allocated New Shares in the Private Placement at the subscription price of NOK 20 per New Share:

HealthCap VL.P., represented on the Board of Directors by Per Samuelsson and Johan Christenson: 1,250,000 New Shares. After the transaction, HealthCap will own 12,405,584 shares.

Norwegian Radium Hospital Research Foundation, represented on the Board of Directors by Jonas Einarsson and Bente-Lill Romren: 350,000 New Shares. After the transaction, Norwegian Radium Hospital Research Foundation will own 4,427,255 shares. For further information, please contact: Erik Digman Wiklund, CFO

Phone: +47 413 33 536

Email: [email protected] About Targovax

Arming the patient's immune system to fight cancer. Targovax is a clinical stage company focused on developing and commercializing novel immuno-oncology therapies to target, primarily, treatment-resistant solid tumors. Immuno-oncology is currently one of the fastest growing therapeutic fields in medicine. The Company's development pipeline is based on two novel proprietary platforms: The first platform, ONCOS, uses oncolytic viruses, an emerging class of biological therapy. ONCOS exclusively uses an adenovirus that has been engineered to be an immune activator that selectively target cancer cells. In phase I it has shown to immune activate at lesional level which was associated with clinical benefit. We expect proof of concept data for this platform in 2017 from a clinical trial of lead product ONCOS-102 in patients with refractory malignant melanoma. The second platform, TG peptides (TG), solely targets tumors that express mutated forms of the RAS protein. Mutations to this protein are common in many cancers and are known to drive aggressive disease progression and treatment resistance. There is a high unmet medical need for therapies that are effective against tumors that express these mutations. The TG platform's therapeutic potential stems from its ability to enable a patient's immune system to identify and then destroy tumors bearing any RAS mutations. In early 2017, key proof of concept data for the TG platform from a clinical trial of TG01 in resected pancreatic cancer patients showed encouraging overall survival and will give guidance for the future clinical development of this platform. Targovax's development pipeline has three novel therapeutic candidates in clinical development covering six indications. Both platforms are protected by an extensive portfolio of IP and know-how and have the potential to yield multiple product candidates in a cost-effective manner. Additionally, we have other products in early stages of development. In July 2016, the Company listed its shares on Oslo Axess. In March 2017, the shares were upgraded to Oslo Brs, the main Oslo Stock Exchange. IMPORTANT NOTICE: This announcement is not and does not form a part of any offer for sale of securities. Copies of this announcement are not being made and may not be distributed or sent into the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful or would require registration or other measures. The securities referred to in this announcement have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and accordingly may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and in accordance with applicable U.S. state securities laws. The Company does not intend to register any part of the offering in the United States or to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States. Any offering of the securities referred to in this announcement will be made by means of a prospectus. This announcement is not a prospectus for the purposes of Directive 2003/71/EC (together with any applicable implementing measures in any Member State, the "Prospectus Directive"). Investors should not subscribe for any securities referred to in this announcement except on the basis of information contained in the aforementioned prospectus. In any EEA Member State other than Norway that has implemented the Prospectus Directive, this communication is only addressed to and is only directed at qualified investors in that Member State within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive, i.e., only to investors who can receive the offer without an approved prospectus in such EEA Member State. This communication is only being distributed to and is only directed at persons in the United Kingdom that are (i) investment professionals falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Order") or (ii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom this announcement may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). This communication must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. Any investment or investment activity to which this communication relates is available only to relevant persons and will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Persons distributing this communication must satisfy themselves that it is lawful to do so. The information, opinions and forward-looking statements contained in this announcement speak only as at its date, and are subject to change without notice.

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.



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[June 08, 2017] Indonesia - Telecoms, Mobile, Broadband and Digital Media - Statistics and Analyses

NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- There has been considerable energy and turmoil in Indonesia's telecom sector over the last decade or so. Growth, both in subscriber numbers and in revenues, has been strong and, more importantly, there are signs that the changes in the regulatory regime and operator restructuring are starting to have a positive effect on the industry. The mobile market has been especially positive. There was a good response to the recent launch of 4G/LTE services.





Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03623806/Indonesia-Telecoms-Mobile-Broadband-and-Digital-Media-Statistics-and-Analyses.html





Continued progress in the development of the telecom sector will need further government action on restructuring the industry. A stumbling start to building the country's fixed-line network was followed by a solid fresh start, aided by the embracing of fixed-wireless technology, which became the dominant component within that market segment. However, the fixed market is now a minor segment and in decline. This is even more the situation with internet which is still in a relatively early stage of development.



Invigorated by the highly successful mobile segment on the back of increased competition in the marketplace, the country's telecom industry has found a new dynamic. The all-important national backbone network is taking shape and on the service side the rapid increase in mobile broadband subscriptions and smartphone take up has been remarkable. However, there had been some signs that the government was hesitating in its efforts to restructure the industry.



The fixed broadband internet market in Indonesia is still in the relatively early stages of its development. With Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) as the dominant fixed broadband technology in the country, the penetration of fixed broadband subscriptions was sitting at under 4%. The take up of high speed services based on fixed access platforms has only been modest.Fixed broadband penetrations stood at only 1.7% in 2016 and is predicted to increase to between only 2.7% and 3.3% by 2021.



This level of internet penetration remains low by world standards, but has been relatively consistent with its economic status and the availability of infrastructure, especially fixed-line services.





Indonesia and penetration rates now stands at 50% of the overall population.



The country's mobile market was characterised for many years by the large number of players licensed by the local regulator. Seven mobile operators are competing for revenues in the Indonesian market: Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata, 3 Indonesia, SmartFren, Bakrie Telecom an dInternux (Bolt). Market leader Telkomsel continues to maintain a huge presence but is under increased threat from the competition.





All the major mobile operators in Indonesia are well advanced in the deployment of their 4G LTE networks. The two largest providers, XL Axiata and Telkomsel both have networks that covered over 70% of the country by 2017.



Over the last decade Indonesia's mobile market has displayed solid growth over the last five years with penetration increasing from 103% in 2011 to 148% in 2016. This strong growth has been driven by an increase in subscribers from the market leader Telkomsel, supported by increases from Indosat, and 3 Indonesia. Growing use of mobile broadband has been a major driver. Mobile broadband subscribers have grown significantly over the past few years in Indonesia and penetration rates now stands at 50% of the overall population. Growth is predicted to taper off over the next five years to 2021 as the market has now reached a higher state of maturity.



Industry consolidation is possible towards 2018 as intense data competition may force smaller and unprofitable mobile operators to be pushed out of the market. Industry consolidation is more likely to have a positive impact on the local telco sector as it will reduce the overcapacity in the market and bring more stability to data tariffs.



Key developments:



The mobile market in Indonesia has been growing strongly, but at a more modest rate than previously.

The fixed line market (wireless and wireline) continues to suffer setbacks with a rapidly declining subscriber base.

Broadband services were finally starting to grow, boosted by surging mobile broadband.

Government initiative on national infrastructure to push fibre and 4G coverage nationwide.

PT Telkom constructed more fibre-optic backbone networks, terrestrial and submarine

Investment in data centres has started to take off;

There are early signs of adoption of cloud computing by local industry;

Both Telkom and Indosat have been expanding the number of WiFi hotspots around the country;

Google has been actively involved in an Indonesian startup incubation program.

XL Axiata has rolled out 4G LTE services to around 100 towns and cities in Indonesia .

Telkomsel's strategy in 2017 is to focus on its Digital Business including an aggressive 3G/4G base transceiver station deployment.

Telkomsel, working with Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE, launched 4.5G services in nine cities

PT Indosat Ooredoo was preparing to launch 4.5G (presumed LTE-A Pro)



Key companies mentioned in this report:

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p03623806/Indonesia-Telecoms-Mobile-Broadband-and-Digital-Media-Statistics-and-Analyses.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com





__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/indonesia---telecoms-mobile-broadband-and-digital-media---statistics-and-analyses-300471386.html SOURCE Reportlinker

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[June 08, 2017] MetLife Statement on House Passage of Financial CHOICE Act

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET) Chairman, President and CEO Steven A. Kandarian issued the following statement today on passage of the Financial CHOICE Act by the U.S. House of Representatives: "The Financial CHOICE Act is an important step toward the permanent removal of the authority of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to designate non-bank insurance companies as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs). "Singling out a few large insurance companies for redundant regulation harms competition, leads to higher prices and less financial protection for consumers, and fails to make the financial system safer. The life insurance industry is already subject to a strong and proven state regulatory system with capital rules designed to address risks associated with the insurance business model. "Last year, a federal court rescinded MetLife's SIF designation, ruling that FSOC's designation process was 'fatally flawed.' While MetLife is no longer a SIFI, only the repeal of FSOC's designation authority will provide the permanent fix that is needed.



"If insurance companies engage in activities that pose a risk to the financial system, primary regulators should target those activities directly. An activities-based approach is a better way to address systemic risk. Regulating companies appropriately - not excessively - is critical to fueling robust economic growth and creating jobs." About MetLife

MetLife, Inc. (NYSE: MET), through its subsidiaries and affiliates ("MetLife"), is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. Founded in 1868, MetLife is a global provider of life insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management. Serving approximately 100 million customers, MetLife has operations in nearly 50 countries and holds leading market positions in the United States, Japan, Latin America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. For more information, visit www.metlife.com. # # # View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608006341/en/

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BJP MLA O Rajagopal said that people should be given the freedom to consume whatever they want.

BJP MLA in Kerala said there is an ambiguity in the rule. Photo for representation: PTI.

By Rohini Swamy: On a day when many Kerala MLAs had beef fry at the Assembly canteen and then debated the Centre's order on cattle slaughter in a special session, the sole BJP MLA in the House, O Rajagopal, said the Narendra Modi government is ready to correct the shortcomings in the notification.

"There may be some shortcomings, some problems, we are ready to correct it," said the BJP legislator from Nemom Assembly constituency.

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Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan has openly asked for suggestions, O Rajagopal said.

CONGRESS FINDING FAULTS

"The Congress banned cow slaughter in 17 states, here they are finding fault and saying that we are denying people their fundamental right to eat," the BJP MLA said.

He said the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court has observed that there is no ban on cow slaughter, referring to the high court's refusal to put a stay on the government order.

"There is no ban on consuming (beef) and (cattle) slaughter and you can consume what you want. If there are any misrepresentations or misunderstandings, it can be corrected," the BJP legislator said.

"So far as the right to consume food (is concerned), people should be given the freedom to consume whatever they want," he said.

AMBIGUITY NEEDS TO BE CLEARED

He said the Centre has welcomed suggestions from states even when there was no need for the latter to be consulted as the government was acting on the directions of the Supreme Court.

"You can bring cattle but you have to prove it to the authority that it is not for wholesale export to other countries (sic)," said O Rajagopal.

"There is an ambiguity in the rules. How the ambiguity can be corrected is the issue," the BJP MLA said, and added that the objective of the Centre's notification "is to prevent large-scale export of cattle to other countries".

ALSO READ:

Kerala: Beef fry for breakfast before MLAs debate new cattle slaughter rules

Beef ban: Plea challenges Centre order in SC, says it would lead to increase in cow vigilantism

Beef row: Sri Sri defends right to choice of food, condemns slaughter in public

ALSO WATCH: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan writes to states, seeks unity in opposing beef curb

--- ENDS ---
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Chandrashekhar, 30, had been evading arrest since last month's caste-violence in Saharanpur between the upper caste Thakurs and the Dalits on May 5 in which one person was killed and 16 others injured.

By India Today Web Desk: Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar, the main accused in Saharanpur violence, was arrested today by Uttar Pradesh's Special Task Force (STF) from Himachal Pradesh's hill town of Dalhousie.

Chandrashekhar, 30, had been evading arrest since last month's caste-violence in Saharanpur between the upper caste Thakurs and the Dalits on May 5 in which one person was killed and 16 others injured.

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In violence that followed following the killing, a police chowki and 20 vehicles were set on fire by protesting Dalits on May 9.

Earlier this week, the young chief of BHim Army had spoken to news agency PTI, saying he was willing to surrender if 37 Dalits, who he claimed were innocent, were released on bail.

Speaking to PTI-Bhasha from a hideout 50 kms from Jalandhar in Punjab, the 30-year-old Dalit leader had alleged that the Uttar Pradesh police was not arresting the real culprits, but was going after "innocent people".

Chadrashekhar had also alleged that cases of atrocities against the Dalit community were on the rise after BJP hardliner Yogi Adityanath took over as Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister earlier this year.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he said.

The Bhim Army shot to the limelight after the May 5 clashes between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur.

ALSO READ

Saharanpur: Day after fresh clashes kill one, Yogi government says nobody will be spared

Chandrashekhar: How Saharanpur lawyer became Dalit leader staging protest at Jantar Mantar

Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan new general for Dalit army Bhim Sena?

Saharanpur: Internet shut, Section 144 imposed as Yogi administration battles to bring back normalcy

WATCH VIDEO

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Kolkata, Jun 8 (PTI) The Trinamool Congress has accused the BJP of making a concerted attempt to browbeat opposition political parties, saying the Mamata Banerjee-led party could not be intimidated in this manner.

The BJP had yesterday accused the Trinamool Congress of not accounting for over Rs 24 crore "it spent on political campaigns" in 2013-14.

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Union minister Piyush Goyal had asked TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee to "come clean" on the source of the money and took a dig at her, saying it was now clear why she was opposed to demonetisation "aimed at curbing black money".

"It is part of a concerted attempt to browbeat political parties in the opposition, independent sections of the media and critics of the current regime in Delhi," TMC chief national secretary Derek OBrien said in a statement.

He said these wild allegations will only strengthen the TMCs resolve.

"The BJP cannot scare us. In time, the people will show this government what they think of it and its theatrics," he said in the statement last night.

Accusing the Union minister of playing "dirty games", he said that the All India Trinamool Congress has submitted all its accounts to the Election Commission.

"It has replied to communication from the Income Tax Department. What gives the Minister the authority to say all this?" he asked.

"Instead, why doesn?t he check if his own house, his own party, is in order? Please don?t give us lessons on regulatory and financial compliance. Our party has fulfilled all criteria and that is why we have been recognised as a national party recently," OBrien said.

"When its government fires bullets at farmers and desperately wants to change the narrative, the BJP cooks up a diversion," he alleged.

Goyal had also asked the opposition parties not to "politicise" every investigation "under the garb of secularism and freedom of press". PTI SUN MD SMJ

--- ENDS ---
Samsung's next big smartphone release could come with some desired features -- but lack another many had hoped for.

(Image credit: The Galaxy Note is expected to sport a 6.3-inch screen. Credit: Concept Creator/YouTube)

First up, the good news. According to reports from South Korean media outlet Newsis, Samsung is planning to bundle a dual-lens camera in the Galaxy Note 8, making it the first high-end handset from the company to offer the feature. According to the report, Samsung will also keep the same 18.5:9 aspect ratio that it has in the Galaxy S8 line. However, the Galaxy Note 8 will come with a 6.3-inch display rather than the 6.2-inch screen offered by the Galaxy S8+, the report says.

While the report, which was earlier reported on by ZDNet, didn't say what the Galaxy Note 8 might look like, the site's sources said that Samsung has removed the physical home button from the handset. That decision, coupled with the other feature rumors, suggest Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 will look strikingly similar to the Galaxy S8+. However, unlike the big handset Samsung released earlier this year, the Galaxy Note 8 would support the S Pen stylus.

MORE: Galaxy Note 8 Will Have Galaxy S8's Big Missing Feature

There has been some hope that Samsung's decision to remove the physical home button in the Galaxy Note 8 would prompt the company to offer a fingerprint sensor baked into the screen. Samsung had reportedly considered the feature in the Galaxy S8, but it wasn't working well enough at the time of production, prompting the company to move the fingerprint sensor to an inconvenient spot next to the rear-facing camera.

A separate report from Naver, which was earlier discovered by SamMobile, cited a Samsung official, who said that the company "made every effort" to offer a screen-based fingerprint sensor. However, the company discovered that security concerns, among other technical problems, ultimately forced it to decide on a physical sensor.

The Samsung official didn't say where the fingerprint sensor might be located on the Galaxy Note 8, but given the rash of complaints about its location in the Galaxy S8, Samsung might be wise to find a more central location on the rear of its upcoming handset.

Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy Note 8 towards the end of August, or as late as early September.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 is a very good value because of its captivating infinity display, strong performance and long battery life for under $500.

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

The Galaxy S8 has been around for a couple of years, but it's still a strong choice for those looking for flagship-level design and solid performance for under $500. The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ boast 5.8- and 6.2-inch infinity displays, which go from edge to edge, and these handsets feature Qualcomms relatively zippy Snapdragon 835 processor for speedy performance.

Were still not fans of the fingerprint sensors location. But when you add in excellent battery life and improvements to a camera that was already very good, you have two winning handsets with the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

See our best phones list for all of our top picks.

Galaxy S8 price and release date

The Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ were released in April of 2017. You can now get the Galaxy S8 starting at $499 with 64GB of storage. The larger Galaxy S8+ isn't as readily available, but it retails for about $589. However, we've seen this phone for as low as $364 on Amazon (opens in new tab).

You may want to keep an eye out for Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals to see if these phones get discounted during the holiday season.



Design: It feels like the future

The Galaxy S8 exemplifies a nearly bezel-free phone done right. Samsung didnt just take away the bezels on this phone; it crafted a space-age work of art with a new infinity display that stretches from edge to edge. The Galaxy S8 not only has a slightly bigger screen-to-body ratio than LGs phone but also looks sleeker because of the way the Gorilla Glass curves toward the edges on the front and back. Other Android phones look like blah, flat slabs by comparison. The S8 is also thinner and narrower than the G6.

The screen on the S8 is 5.8 inches, versus 6.2 inches on the S8+. But other than the difference in display size, the S8 and S8+ have the same design. Overall, we prefer the bigger screen on the S8+, but if you have small hands, youll likely find yourself repositioning the phone in your hand to reach certain buttons, including the home button, which is now a virtual button instead of a physical key. The button worked well in our testing, providing solid haptic feedback. Its flanked by the Recent Apps and Back buttons.

Whats remarkable about the Galaxy S8 is how much more screen real estate it gives you compared with the S7, while still offering a compact and lightweight design. The S8s 5.8-inch screen is housed in a 5.5-ounce, 2.7-inch-wide chassis, whereas the 5.1-inch S7 weighed 5.4 ounces and had the same width. The S8 is taller, but its still easy to use with one hand.

With its 6.2-inch screen, the 6.1-ounce S8+ is heftier than the 5.5-ounce, 5.5-inch S7 Edge. But the S8+ makes the iPhone 8 Plus (6.2 x 3.1 x 0.29 inches, 7.13 ounces) look positively bloated. Plus, unlike the latest iPhones, the S8 and S8+ have headphone jacks.

No matter which size you choose, it wont be long before you see fingerprint smudges on the back of the phone. The smudges were especially prominent on the midnight black version of the S8 and S8+, but you can also choose the lighter orchid gray or arctic silver, which dont show smudges as easily.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Galaxy S8 Galaxy S8+ Price

From $499

From $589

Display (Pixels) 5.8 inches (2960 x 1440) Super AMOLED 6.2 inches (2960 x 1440) Super AMOLED Camera (Back) 12 MP, f /1.7 aperture 12 MP, f /1.7 aperture Camera (Front) 8 MP, f/ 1.7 aperture 8 MP, f/1.7 aperture Biometric Scanning Facial recognition, iris scanner, fingerprint reader Facial recognition, iris scanner, fingerprint reader CPU Snapdragon 835 Snapdragon 835 RAM

4GB 4GB Storage 64GB 64GB microSD

up to 256GB up to 256GB Battery

3,000 mAh 3,500 mAh Battery Life (4G) 10:39 11:04 Size

5.9 x 2.7 x 0.3 inches 6.3 x 2.9 x 0.3 inches Weight

5.5 ounces 6.1 ounces Colors

Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver Midnight Black, Orchid Gray, Arctic Silver Android Version 7.0 Nougat 7.0 Nougat Charging USB Type-C USB Type-C Wireless Charging WPC and PMA WPC and PMA

About that fingerprint sensor

We were worried that the fingerprint sensors placement right next to the camera on the back of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ might be a problem. And it was, initially. Because the sensor is fairly narrow, its difficult to target it without looking. We got used to it after a couple of days, but we still wish it were below the lens.

If you dont want to reach around the S8 to unlock your phone, you can choose from a couple of other biometric options that Samsung gives you. Theres facial recognition, as well as iris scanning. Iris scanning unlocks your phone faster and even works in the dark, but it doesnt work in direct sunlight; your eyes need to be fully open, so squinting isnt an option. The facial recognition is not only slower but also had trouble in direct sunlight and doesnt work in the dark.

Our advice? Use the iris scanning everywhere except in the sun, and when there is bright light, just use the fingerprint scanner.

Display: The perfect screen is here

Apple is bringing an OLED screen to the iPhone X, but you have to pay a grand for the privilege. Sporting a resolution of 2960 x 1440 pixels, both the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+ turned in nearly perfect scores on our tests, offering a very bright picture, amazingly vivid colors and near-perfect color accuracy.

The extra-wide 18.5:9 aspect ratio doesnt work well with some apps, but overall, we like how immersive the experience is when watching video and playing games.

When watching the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer, we could make out every wrinkle in Reys hands as she seemed to levitate the rocks around her with the Force, as well as every rising ring of smoke around Kylo Rens smoldering mask. As the camera panned around to the island where Luke was training Rey, it was hard not to be impressed by the golden sunshine that reflected off the water, as well as the lush, green foliage dotting the mountains.

The S8 backed up our experience by reproducing a superb 183 percent of the sRGB color gamut. That blows away the LG G6s 134 percent, but the AMOLED screen on the Google Pixel scored an even higher 191 percent. (However, when you turn on Adaptive Display mode on the Galaxy S8, it can reach as high as 255 percent.)

If youre looking for accurate color, the S8 can deliver that, too. In its AMOLED photo mode, the display notched a Delta-E score of 0.28 (0 is perfect). The LG G6 was closest, at 1.01, but the Pixel XL was way behind, with 5.88. Like the LG G6, the Galaxy S8s screen is HDR certified, which means you can enjoy a wider range of colors and better contrast on videos that support the standard. Amazon, Netflix and YouTube offer a growing variety of HDR-ready movies and shows.

The 18.5:9 aspect ratio doesnt work well with every app. For instance, in Super Mario Run, we noticed unsightly bars above and below the game. But Samsungs own apps are optimized, and you can fill the screen by pushing a button while watching YouTube and Netflix, even if the video looks a bit stretched out.

Since our initial review, some users complained about a red tint appearing on their S8 screens, but Samsung has released a fix.



Audio: Poppin

For a small speaker, the Galaxy S8 pumps out pretty sweet sound. When we listened to Justin Timberlakes Cant Stop the Feeling, on this phone, the lyrics were clearer, and the volume was louder, than the same track on the LG G6.



The latter handset sounded slightly muffled by comparison. However, you dont get stereo sound from the Galaxy S8 as you do from the HTC U Ultra.



The S8's Snapdragon 835 muscle blitzes every other Android phone on the market.

Performance: A handheld powerhouse

The Galaxy S8 goes boldly forward into a new era of speed, thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 system on a chip (at least in the U.S.; in other regions, the S8 will have Samsung's Exynos 8895 chip). The S8 also comes with a healthy 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage (twice the amount you get from base models of the LG G6 and the Google Pixel) and microSD card expansion for people who need even more space.

When you put it all together, the S8's muscle blitzes every other Android phone on the market, but it falls short of the iPhone 8's A11 Bionic chip. The S8 almost always feels exceedingly snappy, no matter if you're vaulting over Goombas in Super Mario Run or mowing down aliens in N.O.V.A. Legacy. We didnt experience any lag when using multiwindow mode for chatting with friends while streaming video on YouTube. If you pay close attention, you may notice that some of the transitions when switching between apps aren't 100 percent smooth, but that seems mostly cosmetic.

In terms of benchmark performance, the Galaxy S8s multicore score of 6,295 in the Geekbench 4 overall performance test was more than 50 percent higher than that of its closest Android competitor, the Snapdragon 821-powered Google Pixel XL (4,146). However, the iPhone 8 scored above 10,000 on this test.



The Galaxy S8's graphics power was also quite impressive, as it hit 36,508 on 3DMark's Ice Storm Unlimited test. Other Android adversaries, like the LG G6 (29,611) and the Google Pixel XL (28,182), were farther behind. But the iPhone 8 scored a much higher 64,532.



New for the S8 is Samsung's Device Management tab, which is best accessed by swiping in from the Edge tab. It offers a quick look at the status of your device, including battery status, power mode (optimized, performance, game or entertainment), available storage and your current memory usage. There's even an optimization button that cleans up any lingering apps and clears your cache, which is a handy tool for people who go weeks or months without actually turning off their devices.

Cameras: Better on both the front and back

When we first found out that the S8's 12-megapixel rear camera is ostensibly the same as the one on last year's S7, we were a bit disappointed. But that rush of emotion was a bit premature, because under the hood, Samsung made some important software enhancements. And then you toss in a new, higher-resolution, 8-MP front cam, and you get a phone that produces noticeably better pictures no matter which shooter you're using.

The most important tweak comes in the form of Samsung's new multi-image photo processing, which mimics the operation of the Google Pixel's HDR+ mode by taking multiple pictures when you press the shutter, selecting the best one, and enhancing that image with extra details and info from the remaining two pics.

When we took both the S8+ and a Pixel XL out for some side-by-side testing, it was clear that Samsung's adjustments have had a pretty positive effect. At a nearby farmer's market, the S8 captured a crate full of apples with better contrast, richer colors and better details than the Pixel XL.



And when I continued down the street, the S8+ topped the Pixel XL again when I snapped a pic of some flowers, this time offering better white balance than Google's phone, as evidenced by the greenish hue on the white flower's petals.



But it wasn't a clean sweep for the S8+. When I really tried to push both cameras to the limit by shooting a backlit scene pointing straight at the sun, the Pixel XL stunned us with a shot featuring big, bold colors and sharp details, even though there was some serious lens flare going on.



Inside, in pretty much ideal conditions, the S8+ and the Pixel XL were again neck and neck. The one difference is that the Pixel's cool color tone brought out the green in the pistachio macaroon, while the pic from the S8 sported a more neutral white balance, which led to a more pleasing overall photo.



Finally, at a local bar with even less light to work with, both the Pixel XL and the Galaxy S8 impressed us with photos that were brighter than the scenes in real life. Small differences included less blown-out highlights in the S8's pic, which was countered by more detail in the darker areas of the scene in the Pixel's photo.

When it comes to tweaking your photos or changing modes, Samsung has added new Snapchat-like filters that let you decorate faces with various animal masks, hats and other silly emojis. But if that doesn't strike your fancy, the camera also comes with modes for shooting panoramas, food, slow-mo and more. And as with all good camera apps, there's also a Pro mode that lets you adjust settings manually.

As for selfies, the S8 and S8+ sport new 8-MP cams with a wide-angle lens, which makes it easy to snap you and all your besties at once. However, compared with the Pixel XL's 8-MP camera, the S8's selfies can sometimes be a little lacking.



We compared photos shot by the S8 and the Pixel XL outside on a sunny day. The Pixel XL's photo had an extra level of sharpness and detail we didn't get from the S8+. Our face looked a little too smooth and perfect on the Samsung, to the point where we were wondering whether Beauty Mode was kicking in even when we had it set to 0.

The Galaxy S8s camera can shoot 4K video at 30 frames per second and slow-mo video at up to 240 frames per second at 720p. (In comparison, the LG G6 shoots at just 60 fps in slow-mo.)

To test the Galaxy S8s video quality, we shot some footage of a pond with fish swimming about in 4K. The S8s footage looked crisper and more vibrant than what the iPhone 7 Plus captured, even if the colors looked a bit oversaturated. However, when we put both phones on a mount to test image stabilization, the iPhone 7s video looked smoother; we saw a bit of stuttering in the S8s footage as we walked up a grassy hill.

For a hallmark feature on a flagship phone, Bixby feels pretty half-baked right now.

Bixby: Still a work in progress



The Galaxy S8 introduces a new personal assistant, Bixby, to take on the likes of Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana. And for a hallmark feature on Samsung's flagship phone, Bixby feels pretty half-baked right now, even after Samsung has rolled out voice controls to its virtual assistant.

The main difference between Bixby and other digital assistants is that it lets you use voice commands to control your phone in lieu of tapping the screen, which can save you time and energy. You can also use Bixby to tell you the weather or look up the definition of quixotic, but its real purpose is giving you a whole new way to control your phone. For instance, you can ask Bixby to show you emails from a specific person by name, and it will slickly pull up all your conversations in just a couple seconds. That's way faster than tapping to open the email app, hitting search and then typing in that person's name.

Bixby can also understand complex commands with contextual language, so you can do things like ask Bixby to post the last photo you took to Instagram and add a caption, all with one command. You can also change almost any setting on the S8 using your voice, which is often much faster than trying to dig through a modern phone's increasingly complex array of menus and tabs.

Or at least, that's how things should work. The big problem is that Bixby's voice-command functionality, while now available, was pretty erratic when we tested it.

Sometimes Bixby will fail to understand your language at all, while other times, Bixby will get confused and try to open the wrong app or adjust incorrect settings. But every once in a while Bixby will get everything right and you won't even be able to tell that its voice commands are still a work in progress. Currently, simple commands have the best success rate.

MORE: 11 Coolest Things Bixby Voice Can Do on the Galaxy S8

As of August 22, Samsung announced that the Bixby voice command feature is now available in more than 200 countries and territories, though you'll still need to use either English or Korean to make it work. Support for additional languages, as well as more third party apps, is in the works.



Then there's Bixby Vision, which leverages the S8's camera along with object recognition to identify items in the world. We found this worked pretty well when we pointed the S8 at various household items, such as shampoos, snacks and aluminum foil. It also works for books. After pointing the Galaxy S8's camera at any object, we could check prices online on Amazon.

Say you're at the liquor store and want to know the rating of that wine or what food to pair it with. Bixby has also partnered with Vivino to identify that bottle and spit back information. However, at a wine store in New York, the feature was more miss than hit, as it seemed to have trouble with the bright lights. At home, however, Bixby identified three wines correctly, though we were greeted with a home server error.

Bixby's other talents include the ability to set reminders and a Bixby Home tool with a card-based interface that shows you your schedule, what's trending on Facebook, the weather, news and other info.

All told, Bixby is a frustrating mix of success and failures, though there is a lot of potential should Samsung work out all the kinks. Thankfully, though, you can turn to the Google Assistant, which also comes preloaded on the S8.

Software: Feature-rich but accessible

Running Android 7.0 Nougat, the Galaxy S8 still has a skin on top of Android, but its fairly intuitive, and Samsungs minimalist, line-drawn icons are easy to understand. We like that you dont have to tap a button to see all of your apps from the home screen; just swipe down from the middle of the screen, and then swipe left to see more apps.

If you swipe down from the very top of the screen from wherever you are, youll see your notifications and Samsungs quick-settings shortcuts. Finally, swiping in from the left provides access to Edge screen shortcuts, such as a customizable list of apps, a device maintenance screen (for battery, choosing performance mode, etc.) and a Smart Select tool for selecting an area of the screen and sharing it or pinning it to the top of your display.

Youll also find a ton of advanced features. The ones at the top of our list include a one-handed mode that you can activate by tapping the home button three times to shrink the screen, as well as the ability to quickly launch the camera by pressing the power key twice.

At least on the T-Mobile S8 we tested, there was minimal bloatware. T-Mobile included just five of its own apps: Device Unlock, T-Mobile, T-Mobile Name ID, T-Mobile TV and Visual Voicemail.

Accessories: Way beyond Gear VR

The Galaxy S8 works with the new Gear VR for those who want to experience virtual-reality games and content, but thats not the only interesting accessory. The new DeX ($149) is a dock that lets you use the S8 and S8+ as a mini PC. The dock can connect to a full-size monitor via its HDMI port, as well as a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth. It also has an Ethernet jack and a USB port.

Out of the box, the Samsung Connect app will let you access and control various Samsung-branded smart home gear. For instance, you can start your Samsung robot vacuum ($549) or peek inside your Samsung Family Hub fridge (about $2,900) to see what you need from the store while youre out. But youll get a lot more possibilities if you buy Samsung's $169 Samsung Connect Home  a combination mesh Wi-Fi router and SmartThings hub that will let you control other items, such as Philips Hue lights and Netgears Arlo security camera.

Samsung offers a slew of other accessories, including an LED View cover for always having the time in view, a wireless charging stand and more. Check out our roundup of the Best Galaxy S8 accessories and Galaxy S8 cases.

Battery Life

One concern about a phone with this much screen is how that extra real estate might impact battery life. The Galaxy S8+ has a slightly smaller battery than last years S7 Edge (3,500 mAh versus 3,600 mAh), and yet the S8+ improved almost 1 hour, to 11 hours and 4 minutes, on the Tom's Guide Battery Test (continuous web surfing on 4G LTE using T-Mobile's network). The standard Galaxy S8s 3,000-mAh battery endured for 10:39 on the same test, improving on the Galaxy S7's (8:47) time by nearly 2 hours.

We obtained these results with the phones resolutions set to their max 2960 x 1440 pixels. They come with the less demanding 2220 x 1080 setting on by default.

MORE: Smartphones with the Longest Battery Life

Compared to the Galaxy S8+, the Pixel XL's battery life was just a bit longer, at 11:11. The iPhone 8 Plus hit 11:16, while the smaller iPhone 8 lasted 9:54. LG G6 finished way behind, with a time of just 8:39.

On top of that, the S8 has battery smarts that let it learn about your usage patterns to help extend its longevity even further. And when you need to juice the phone back up, you can take advantage of the S8s fast-charging capabilities via its included USB Type-C cable or use one of Samsung's slick wireless chargers (available separately).

Bottom Line

Its clear that, with the Galaxy S8 and S8+, Samsung set out to create more than a phone. Its trying to build a more Apple-like ecosystem, with devices ranging from the Gear VR and the DeX dock to the new Samsung Connect app for controlling smart home gear and the Bixby assistant. Its also evident that Samsung hasnt yet reached that goal, as Bixbys voice features can be hit or miss.

But even with that shortcoming, the Galaxy S8 still beats the Android competition while surpassing the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in terms of design, display quality and features. The iPhones are better, though, when it comes to sheer speed and their cameras.



Some shoppers will prefer a newer Android phone in the same price range, like the $479 Pixel 3a XL, but overall the Galaxy S8 and S8+ remain good values for those who prefer Samsung handsets.

Credit: Jeremy Lips/Tom's Guide; Comparisons: Samuel Rutherford/Tom's Guide.
The Moto G Power (2021) is a worthy successor to previous G Power models, as it still offers long battery life in an affordable, attractive package.

Why you can trust Tom's Guide Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test .

With the Moto G Power, Motorola has latched onto a winning formula for budget phones. Since it's impossible for a phone that costs less than $300 to be all things to all people, the key is to find a feature or two that truly matters to people and absolutely nail it. In the case of the Moto G Power, that feature is battery life.

The past two iterations of this phone  the Moto G7 Power and last year's Moto G Power  delivered on the promise of a long-lasting phone. And this year's version is just as impressive.

Moto G Power (2021) specs Price: $199, $249

Screen size: 6.6 inches (1600 x 720)

CPU: Snapdragon 662

RAM: 3GB, 4GB

Storage: 32GB, 64GB

Rear cameras: 48MP (f/1.7) main; 2MP (f/2.4) macro; 2MP (f/2.4) depth

Front cameras: 8MP (f/2.0)

Battery size: 5,000 mAh

Battery life (Hrs:Mins): 14:04

Size: 6.5 x 3 x 0.37 inches

Weight: 7.3 ounces

Our Moto G Power (2021) review finds a phone that continues to go a long-time on a charge and took home top honors in the Tom's Guide Awards 2021 for best phone battery life. Along the way, this attractively priced phone has picked up a few other tricks that will appeal to bargain hunters.

Editor's note: We crowned our picks in the Tom's Guide Awards 2021 for phones. The Moto G Power (2021) won the award for best phone battery life.

Moto G Power (2021) review: Price and availability

The 64GB Moto G Power (2021) costs $249 and is now on sale unlocked at Motorola.com (opens in new tab); it's one of the best unlocked Android phones you can buy. Carriers offering the phone include Boost Mobile (opens in new tab), Cricket (opens in new tab), Consumer Cellular (opens in new tab), Google Fi (opens in new tab), Republic Wireless (opens in new tab), US Cellular (opens in new tab) and Xfinity Mobile (opens in new tab).

In addition to that $249 version, which comes with 4GB of RAM, you'll be able to buy a 32GB Moto G Power (2021) with 3GB RAM for $199 at Best Buy (opens in new tab). You can expand the storage on both new Moto G Power models via a microSD slot on the phones.

Moto G Power (2021) review: The best features

Having spent some time testing the latest version of the Moto G Power, there are several things I like about the phone, including a couple of key areas where this version is a definite improvement over its predecessor. Here's why the Moto G Power (2021) is the phone to get if you're looking for the best a budget handset can offer.

Moto G Power (2021) top feature: The price

Phone prices have a tendency to creep upward, so it's good to see Motorola continue to hold the line on the Moto G Power's price. The 2021 costs the same as last year's model, which was one of the best cheap phones we reviewed. We can say the same for the Moto G Power (2021).

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Even better, Motorola has found a way to cut the price of the G Power even lower, though you will have to settle for less memory and storage. Still, a phone that promises multi-day battery life for less than $200 is well worth those compromises, particularly if you're watching your budget.

Moto G Power (2021) top feature: Long battery life

Let's not beat around the bush. You turn to the Moto G Power (2021) because you want a phone that goes a long time on a charge, and with a 5,000 mAh battery, this is a phone that can deliver on that promise.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

How long does the Moto G Power (2021) last on a charge? So long that when we originally published our Moto G Power (2021) review, the phone was still plugging away on our battery tests, in which we have a fully charged phone surf the web continuously over cellular until it runs out of power.

We run that demanding test several times and average out the result to see just what kind of battery life you can expect, and the Moto G Power (2021) doesn't disappoint. It lasted an average of 14 hours and 4 minutes, which means you can get through the day  and probably longer  without having to charge your phone.

Fans of last year's Moto G Power will remember that phone lasted a record-setting 16-plus hours. But the new Moto G Power outlasted all but one other phone we've looked at in the last year and a half, and it deserves a place on our list of the longest phone battery life.

Don't expect a fast recharge time with the Moto G Power. After 30 minutes of recharging a drained phone, we were back to 22% of the battery's capacity. The iPhone SE, which is not exactly a recharging speed demon thanks to its 5W charger, got back to 29% in that time.

Moto G Power (2021) top feature: The phone's design

You don't expect a $249 phone to look like a million bucks, but while the 7.3-ounce Moto G Power feels, a little chunky, Motorola clearly put some effort into giving this phone a look that transcends its budget roots. The flash gray model I tested has a lovely spiral pattern on its back, and I like the centered placement of the rear camera array just above the subtle Motorola batwing logo. (Retail versions of the phone will come in Polar Silver and Glowing Blue options.)

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

Bezels on the front of the phone are minimal thanks to a circular camera cutout on the upper left corner of the display and the lack of a fingerprint sensor. Instead, the power button on the new Moto phone does double duty, with a built-in fingerprint reader that I found responsive in my testing. Motorola also added a Moto Action that lets you launch apps by tapping the power button twice. (You will need to enable this feature first, though in the Moto G Power's Settings app.)

The Moto G Power (2021) also retains a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top of the phone, so you won't be forced to pick up a pair of wireless earbuds in addition to your new device.

Moto G Power (2021) top feature: Camera performance

The $349 Pixel 4a proves that you don't have to spend big bucks to get a phone that produces outstanding photos, which puts pressure on lower-cost devices like the Moto G series to up their camera game. Motorola responded by turning to a more powerful lens with this year's version of the Moto G Power  you've got a 48MP camera compared to the 16GB main shooter on last year's phone. A 2MP macro lens and 2MP depth sensor join that main camera.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The results are a mixed bag, with the Moto G Power (2021) producing very good shots in some areas, while falling short in others. The Pixel 4a produces much better shots, but it also costs $100 more than the Moto G Power. For what you're paying for Motorola's, the resulting photos are more than adequate.

In some cases, the Moto G Power really shines, particularly when it comes to those extra rear lenses. I'm no fan of macro lenses  I'd prefer that budget phone makers scrap them entirely, actually  but if every macro lens performed as well as the Moto G Power's did, I'd rethink my position. This close-up of a camellia produces bright colors I find lacking from the OnePlus Nord N10 5G's much darker effort.

Similarly, the Moto G Power's depth sensor produces some nice portrait shots for a sub-$300 phone. The Moto G Power did an excellent job making my daughter stand out from the orange tree behind her, making sure not to lose her hair in the background. The Nord N10 loses some detail just over her left shoulder, though I think the OnePlus camera better captures her gray beret. Overall, though, the Moto G Power has the more effective background blur.

Things are less impressive when you rely on the Moto G Power's main lens, which produced an accurate shot of this plate of lasagna, but one that pales next to the warmer colors that the Nord N10 5G reproduces. The table in the Moto shot is more washed out, and the glass of wine in the background lacks any hint of red. I know which photo I'd be more likely to share, and it's not the one the Moto G Power took.

Even lower cost phones offer low-light photo features now, and the Moto G Power is no exception with its Night Vision mode. The results will do in a pinch, though it falls well short of the standard set by Google's Night Sight. (In this comparison, I used a Pixel 4a 5G, as it was the least expensive Google phone I had on hand.) You can see the pink stuffed animal and the bowl of citrus fruit that might otherwise be lost in the shadow of this shot, but the focus of the photo isn't exactly sharp. The over-processing on the photo also washes out some of the detail of the back wall, which is not a problem in the Pixel photo.

Up front, you get an 8MP selfie cam on the Moto G Power (2021). It takes decent self-portraits  I like the more colorful cast to the Moto shot  but Motorola gets overly aggressive with the face-smoothing. As a result, my face has an unnatural cast to it in the Moto G Power selfie, while the OnePlus Nord N10 provides a more accurate view of my mug, flaws and all.

Moto G Power (2021) top feature: Moto's My UX Software

Motorola's well-deserved reputation for producing a clean version of Android for its phones continues with this year's Moto G series. And Motorola's gesture-based shortcuts are back, letting you do things like turn on the phone's flashlight with a chopping motion.

A new Moto gesture is bound to impress some Moto G Power users  dragging your finger back and forth across the phone's display triggers a split-screen effect so you can run two apps at once. It should come in handy if you want to watch a video while texting a friend, or tap out some notes while reading a web page.

Moto G Power (2021) review: Features that come up short

As impressive as Motorola's new phone is in all those areas, I did encounter a few flaws in testing for my Moto G Power (2021) review. The biggest areas of concern are the phone's display  it's a bit dim and the picture isn't always the most colorful  and a processor that doesn't deliver the best performance compared to other low-cost phones.

Moto G Power (2021) flaw: A dim display

The 6.6-inch LCD panel that Motorola uses for the G Power's display is certainly big enough, but don't expect bold colors or a bright view. In our tests, the Moto G Power reproduced 96% of the sRGB color spectrum, and that was in saturated mode. The OnePlus N10 5G, in contrast, has the more colorful screen with 124.8% of the same spectrum. OnePlus' display was more accurate, too, with a Delta-E rating of 0.22. The Moto G Power (2021) turned in a 0.37 rating in saturated mode, which improved to 0.25 when we switched to natural mode. (Numbers closer to zero are better.)

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The raw numbers were reflected by my viewing experience with the Moto G Power. The darker scenes in the No Time to Die trailer looked especially dark, with Daniel Craig and Lashana Lynch nearly lost in shadow at times. Things were brighter when streaming The Simpsons on Disney Plus, thanks to that animated show's more cartoony color scheme  the Simpsons themselves were a recognizable shade of yellow while Krusty the Clown's hair was its usual shade of bluish-green.

I've seen brighter displays than what the Moto G Power offers, as it topped out at 438 nits when we measured with a light meter. Last year's Moto G Power hit 500 nits, so this is a step back, especially when you compare it to phones like the iPhone SE (653 nits) and Pixel 4a (638 nits). At least the Moto G Power outshines the OnePlus Nord N10 5G (405.7) and TCL 10 5G UW (385 nits), and maxing out the display brightness helped me see the screen outdoors.

Moto G Power (2021) flaw: Overall performance

You're not going to pick up the Moto G Power if you want the latest and greatest processor, and the Snapdragon 662 chipset powering the phone is certainly adequate for most tasks. I never had a problem jumping between apps, streaming videos and even playing demanding games, though I've seen sharper graphics in PUBG Mobile sessions on other phones.

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

That said, the Moto G Power's benchmark scores are a little anemic when compared to phones that are only slightly more expensive. On Geekbench 5, the Moto G Power's multicore score of 1,437 trailed the Nord N10's result of 1,843. In graphics testing with 3DMark's Wild Life benchmark, the Moto G Power recorded 367 frames, or 2.2 frames per second. The OnePlus Nord N10 managed to more than double that result.

Moto G Power (2021) flaw: No 5G

The Snapdragon 662 chipset in the Moto G Power also means that the phone tops out with LTE connectivity  there's no 5G to be found here. I don't think this is a show-stopping omission by any means, given that 5G is still an emerging technology and not yet ubiquitous. But prices of 5G phones are falling  the OnePlus Nord N10 5G is just $50 more than the Moto G Power  so the "you have to pay up for 5G" excuse doesn't hold as much water as it did a year ago.

You're probably safe on skipping 5G compatibility if you're upgrading phones this year. But networks are going to continue evolving, and if you're the sort who holds onto a device for two years or longer, you'll be giving up that improving performance. (That said, LTE speeds are likely to improve as 5G becomes widespread, as the faster network will help ease congested 4G traffic.)

Moto G Power (2021) flaw: Limited upgrades

One trade-off you make by buying a lower cost Android is that the phone maker will only offer a limited number of software updates. That's also the case with the Moto G Power (2021), as Motorola is committing to supporting just one Android update, along with two years of security patches.

From left to right: Moto G Stylus, Moto G Play and Moto G Power (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The lone Android update stings a lot more than it normally would, as the Moto G Power ships with Android 10 installed, and not Android 11, which came out in September. That means once your phone gets the Android 11 update, that's it  even with Android 12 coming down the pike later this year.

Moto G Power (2021) review: Verdict

Any sub-$300 phone is going to involve some compromises, and fortunately, the ones that the latest version of the Moto G Power makes aren't going to put many budget shoppers off. Yes, there are more powerful phones with better displays that don't cost that much more than the Moto G Power (2021). But the long-battery life of Motorola's phone continues to carry the day, especially for a phone that you can find for $250 or less.

The cameras on the Moto G Power aren't world-beaters, but it'll produce good shots. And I actually like the look and feel of this phone  a surprise given the G Power's budget roots. Still, the reason to consider past Moto G Power models was its epic battery life, and I'm happy to report that continues with the 2021 edition of this popular budget phone.
Starting next academic year, students in fifth or eighth standards of CISCE-affiliated schools will sit for assessment tests to understand what they have an aptitude for.

By Manogya Loiwal : Starting next academic year, students in the fifth or eighth standard of schools affiliated with the Council For Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) will have to sit for assessment tests, which will be conducted to assess their basic faculties and aptitude.

Gerry Arathoon, Chief Executive of Council for Indian School Certificate Examination, said, "We are conducting these new assessments exams for classes five and eight. Such exercises are aimed at gauging the students' intelligence, understanding and skills. Their aptitude for subjects such as Mathematics, English, Social Studies and Science will also be checked. And this format will be introduced from 2018-2019. This is being done to test the children's skills, their intelligence and their ability to understand the subjects. These exams will be conducted by the council."

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The curriculum in pre-schools to that in class eight also will also be revised.

INTRODUCTION OF NEWER COURSES

Performing arts is being introduced in classes one to eight, Sanskrit is being introduced in class five to eight, physical education and yoga are being introduced in classes one to eight and mass communication is being introduced for classes nine to twelve.

Gerry added, "These are all optional subjects. Students, who opt for these subjects, will have to sit for exams on the same although there will be no marks given for them. They will not be graded as passed or failed for their performance. Mass Communication is a board subject, so it will have 100 marks. The Council is introducing a digital subject selection tool to help students to know their skills, their personality, their preference of subjects and finally to know what career they would like to choose in the future. This is not mandatory. It is optional. It is going to start from 2017. This is for class 10 and class 12."

However, if the state government wants detention, it will be good for students. Conducting exams is necessary. Otherwise, students will only get promoted from one class to another without their ability being assessed. And assessment exams are a must in school. It depends on the states, whether they want detention or not. But it is better if there is detention. Students are welcome to learn Bengali if they want to, but board examinations should not make that compulsory. Learning Bengali is compulsory till class eight, but it should not be compulsory for those appearing for the boards.

PARENTS FEEL MOVE WILL OVERBURDEN STUDENTS

But not all are on the same page with the Council. Parents feel that this will also overburden children with pressure of studies at an earlier age than usual.

Rajeshwari Pandit, a doctor by profession, explained, "As a parent and as a professional, children should feel relaxed in their childhood, they should be able to enjoy extracurricular activities, which are important to enhance their skills as future professionals. They should not feel burdened with exams already or feel the pressure to do well. They should be given some freedom to be what they are and eventually decide for themselves what they want to be."

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However, those who have just taken the stress of appearing and qualifying the boards have different views.

STUDENTS EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS

Prithviraj Tankha, a student said, "I do not think that the decision to conduct assessment tests in classes 5 and 8 is right. I do not see any sense in it at all. Students are already under pressure to perform well in Class 10 and Class 12 board exams. If put under greater pressure to perform in class 5 and class 8, student might lose the drive to study and work hard and feel totally exhausted by the time class 12 exams begin. Let's not forget that they have to perform well in college exams too after their boards. I feel it is a little too much."

Another student Urvi Lahoti said, "The CISCE is holding these exams to assess young students. So this will not put pressure on students because these marks will not matter. In fact, it will help them get used to exams and take the same seriously by the time they appear for Classes 10 and 12 exams, which actually matter."

But students studying abroad have evoked mixed responses.

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Aditya Pandit, who is studying in the 11th standard in the United States in a Cambridge Board school commented, "I personally don't give ICSE. I belong to the Cambridge Board. According to me, these exams in the 8th grade is fine. Such exams in the 5th grade are not necessary, but having the same in the 8th grade is fine."Also read | Success secrets of CBSE toppers: Regular self-study and no social media

Also read | CBSE class 12 results: Delhi govt schools outperform private schools for second year in a row

WATCH VIDEO

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There is danger on Kansas City trails and a former local news dude contributes to the local level of discontent with his angry partisan politics.It has been awhile since we've heard from KC pundit Yael Abouhalkah . . . To be fair,. . . While the social media love doesn't pay anything, it's still an achievement that is enviable for those of uswho don't want to have to pay Indonesian click farms to "accomplish" the same feat.Accordingly, and because we should link if we're gonna mention him . . .Here's the latest from the Raytown pundit who seems to think Kansas is on the cusp of turning into a Democratic stronghold after a veto override of an unpopular GOP leader:You decide . . .
Craig Glazer: Will Trump Say I've Had It I Quit!

Former FBI Director James Comey took the stand for the U.S. Senate investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and more. The Democrats said, "This is not a witch hunt." Truth, yes it is a witch hunt. Did Trump go into grey areas, YES. Is he a traitor or did he do anything criminal, Comey says NO. Asking to back off General Flynn who was not under arrest, is not a crime. Getting the Russians to unload Hillary email cyber information is off beat but not a crime, she did it. Comey says T. If there is nothing else no case.Maybe there is something, who knows. Clearly Trumps enemies won't stop. In the end and maybe soon Trump will sit with his top advisors and family to decide if he should just step down. He could declare victory, he did win the election, Comey said, "No the Russians didn't change any votes." End of that story. Trump maybe sees he can't do his job with constant attacks and investigations which may never end.It makes sense for him to just say, " I wanted to do great things for America, You won't let me. Have it your way, I quit let the vice president take over. Thank you." I'm sure he'd get a written memo saying the government would leave him alone for good if he stepped down. That's the goal isn't it.Comey came down on the Clintons much because of Bill Clinton's attempt to stop the government from continuing the email attacks just weeks before the election. Comey felt that was wrong. It was. These people act this way on many things today. Nobody is innocent. Remember 'Behind every great fortune is a crime." True, unless you inherit the fortune.Will Trump quit? I say nope. He believes in Trump and he thinks he's right. So I think he will stay. We will see.###########
Three of four men charged with a home invasion that led to the shooting of an Independence Police Officer entered a plea in court Wednesday. Donald Nussbaum, Joseph Wyatt, and James McChan all pleaded not guilty to charges of robbery, armed criminal action, burglary and kidnapping.
A dog fight at city hall - a Kansas City animal rescue group is criticizing Animal Control for not protecting pets. If you see animal abuse - city leaders say you should call 311. Animal Control says they respond to every abuse call.
Kansas City's homicide rate is on the rise. Police were concerned about the murder rate last year, but this year, the rate is on pace to be even worse. The latest string of murders is part of a troubling trend. At this time last year, the homicide rate was only 45, and 2016 was considered a tough year.
Neighbors stunned by triple murder at Gregory & Monroe KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Multiple gunshots awakened neighbors on a quiet east side block early Wednesday. Police say when they arrived at a home near Gregory Boulevard and Monroe Avenue, they found three men shot to death inside a car. The shootings happened just before 1 a.m.

Gun blasts echoed through this community and now they attempt to make sense of a slaughter. Read more:
Kansas City Lady & Doggie Escape

Fire crews respond to apartment fire near 101st Terrace and Belleview KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Fire crews are on the scene of a fire at an apartment complex in south Kansas City. The fire broke out sometime before 3:30 p.m. at Three Fountains Apartments. There are no reported injuries at this time. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Toy Train No Vote Expansion

KC Streetcar group endorses route north to Berkley Riverfront Park The Kansas City Streetcar Authority on Wednesday endorsed a proposed route extension north to Berkley Riverfront Park along the Grand Street Viaduct. A feasibility study found extension was the most practical and affordable route. "This is a really unique opportunity," Streetcar Authority executive director Tom Gerend told the board, adding that an extension would knit the riverfront to the streetcar's current end point in River Market.

Friday Night Car Threat Aftermath

Upset about car repossession, KC man accused of threatening auto loan employees KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jackson County Prosecutors charged a 30-year-old Kansas City man with harassment and making terroristic threats after police say he threatened employees and their families at Auto Bank KC, 6901 E. Front Street, when the business informed him they would have to repossess his vehicle if he didn't catch up on payments.

Show-Me Missouri Crackdown

Loss of federal funding for DWI checkpoints in Missouri draws mixed reviews Law enforcement agencies across Missouri that use DWI checkpoints to catch drunk drivers won't be able to use federal money to pay for them starting July 1. That's when the new fiscal year gets underway. The Missouri Dept.

Happy Rock Allegations

Suspects charged after Gladstone teen robbed at gunpoint KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Gladstone teenager said he was shocked at how quickly he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun after he thought he was just letting a group of strangers bum a cigarette. Authorities on Wednesday said they have charged Marcellus Anderson, 20; Khadeem Lamar Fisher, 21; Antonio Hernandez with 1st degree robbery.

And this is thefor right now . . .
KCMO Long Walk Home Life Lesson

Fear Party District Destruction

Gun Crime Allegation Redux

Felon indicted for carrying gun into Kansas City federal courthouse A Kansas City man has been indicted for illegally possessing a firearm he carried into a federal courthouse while allegedly high on PCP. According to a Justice Department news release, 42-year-old Joshua D. Hughes, a convicted felon, carried a Sig Sauer .40-caliber semi-automatic handgun into the federal courthouse on May 26, 2017.

Crook Steals Kansas City Classic

1969 Pontiac Trans AM given as wedding gift stolen from Kansas City garage KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A Kansas City couple is searching for clues after their prized possession-- a blue and white striped 1969 Pontiac Trans Am -- was stolen from their locked garage early Tuesday morning.

KCK Witness Allegation

KC man accused of tampering with a witness in shooting A KCK man, charged in connection with a shooting, will now also face charges of assaulting and tampering with a witness. Marcus Barrett, 34, has been charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Rock Chalk Indecision

Kansas schools wait for governor's decision on school funding bill KANSAS CITY, Kan. - School leaders in the state of Kansas are being advised not to make any financial decisions about the upcoming school year because Governor Sam Brownback has yet to make a decision about Senate Bill 19. Tuesday night the Kansas Senate and House overrode the Brownback's veto of the tax bill, making it law.

Home Team Hangs On

Royals slip past Astros 7-5 KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Jason Vargas tossed five solid innings for his eighth victory, Cheslor Cuthbert drove in three runs and the Kansas City Royals defeated the Houston Astros 7-5 on Wednesday night. The anticipated pitching duel between Vargas (8-3) and Dallas Keuchel, who have the two best ERAs in the majors, never materialized.

and her classic pin-up pose inspires this early morning Kansas City link collection. Checkit:For #TBTis the song of the day and this is the OPEN THREAD for right now . . .
KANSAS CITY TAX FIGHTERS REPORT THAT FINANCING FOR THE HOTEL IS STILL SKETCHY AS CITY HALL REMAINS THE LARGEST INVESTOR DISCLOSED TO THE PUBLIC AT THIS POINT!!!

Ordinance 170394... Let's Vote on the Hotel!

Citizens for Responsible Government

Here's the latest from the local hotel debacle . . .Remember that we were promised a Spring groundbreaking, then June . . . Update:. Maybe.Check the perspective . . .In our quest to get the voting taxpayers a say how $167,000,000 of taxpayer funds will be spent, we continue to try and get the downtown convention hotel on the ballot.Ordinance #170394 the developers asked the council committee to approve today is nothing more than an attempt to stop the referendum petition we have circulated. Next week the election board will certify the proper number of signatures to get this Hotel on the ballot. We needed 3417 legitimate signatures and by tomorrow we will have turned in over 10,000 signatures on petitions asking for a vote on this project. Thats 10,000 registered voters the council should be listening to.By placing an accelerated effective date" on the ordinance, the developers will eliminate anyone from challenging it like CFRG has in the past. We asked the council to not grant this ordinance as written with the accelerated clause but were denied. This is a misuse of the Charter's intention. Developers say because they have added a walkway which is in the publics best interest, the project is now a public project and the ordinance can carry the accelerated effective date. We tried to explain the the walkway was in the original MOU and has been part of the plan from the beginning. They also say they are adding land but the land is also in the original MOU, Exhibit B. The accelerated effective date should not be applicable for this ordinance.Today council members Taylor, Shields, Lucas and Barnes once again heard testimony from the Downtown Convention Developer Mike Burke and his entourage. They heard for the third or fourth time that the developers have the financing in place (if you remember they heard the same thing several times from early on in this process and on December 22, 2016 when Troy Schulte stood up at a council joint session and stated he had seen the financing sheet (term sheet) and everything was in order and the financing was in place. This stopped the council from investigating the hotel further at that time. Nobody could get the term sheet?? Still havent today??Here it is almost 6 months later and they now again the developer says they have the financing or will have by September or October. What happened to the financing they had in place in December or earlier today? Did it go away?Supposedly here are the facts we heard today: I would take them with a grain of salt.- JE Dunn gave Burke a firm price two weeks ago for the project. This has been one of the key pieces missing for the last two years. It is funny that they have had the price for two weeks and not told anyone? No one on the council seemed to think that was suspicious. I thought it was also suspicious that nobody asked what the price was. This is a taxpayer funded project, we should know what they price is. Remember, this is anotherusing your money.-First (Developer Mike) Burke said they would have the financing in place soon. They had just said they had the financing in place. Roxsen Koch, Burkes attorney stated all the financing would come at the same time? I thought they had all the financing now?? This whole thing turned into a circus. Now it appears they will have the financing in September or October (I got confused) and break ground. I wonder if the Bond Company is watching this?City Hall is pledging $167,000,000 of taxpayers money to a company which does not have a balance sheet. They have not produced one cent in assets. If this thing goes South, the City will have another Power and Light District on its hands. To allow this type ofto go on is unconscionable. It could all be stopped tomorrow if the council would say present your term sheet before we do anything additional on this project.################
Dr. Ernest Evans: The Crime Crisis in Kansas City

In the twelve month period June 1, 2016-May 31, 2017 there were 142 homicides in Kansas City, Missouri. In the five month period Jan. 1, 2017-May 31, 2017 there were 52 homicides in KCMO--compared to 40 in the same time period in 2016. The significance of these statistics is that in the history of KCMO the city's highest number of homicides was in calendar year 1993 when there were 153 homicides in the city. Calendar year 1993 was at the height of the national "crack wars" in the nation's cities--the highest year for total number of homicides in the US was 1993. So, we are facing a major crime crisis in KCMO as the city approaches homicide levels not seen in nearly 25 years.The crime crisis in KCMO is part of a national surge in violent crime. In the first six months of 2014 homicides in the US declined 6%--but in the last six months of 2014 they rose 5%. In calendar year 2015 there was an 11% increase in homicides in the US. We do not yet have the final figures for 2016, but preliminary statistics indicate that in that year there was an increase in homicides as large as in 2015.The key reason for this national crime surge since the summer of 2014 is what is often called "The Ferguson Effect." On August 9, 2014 Michael Brown, a young black man, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. This incident led to increased public and press scrutiny of cases of police shootings of black suspects. Now, I hasten to note that there are more than ample grounds for public concern about the relations between police and the black community, but in the aftermath of the Ferguson tragedy all too often the media coverage was excessively sensationalistic and basic Constitutional rights of Due Process were ignored.The "Ferguson Effect" is actually two separate effects. The first one is what I call "de-policing." When there is very high public controversy over issues of police-black community relations, cops on the beat start to assume that if charged with racist misconduct they will get neither fair media coverage nor due process by city authorities frantic to avoid civil disorder. So, out of sheer self-survival they stop doing their duties in black neighborhoods. Nature abhors a vacuum, so the gangs and the criminal elements take over these neighborhoods and crime explodes.The second "Ferguson Effect" takes place over time. With so much negative publicity about the police in the US in the past three years a number of veteran cops have told me: "No one wants to be a cop anymore." On the eve of the Ferguson tragedy about 80% of the nation's police forces were below their authorized strengths. Now that figure is close to 100%.KCMO has witnessed both types of the "Ferguson Effect." In earlier columns I have documented how the crime surge in the city since the summer of 2014 has been particularly serious in the black neighborhoods of the city. And, the KCPD has been losing officers faster than they can be replaced: In calendar year 2013, the last year before the Ferguson tragedy, there were 1427 sworn officers in the KCPD--as of March 31, 2017 there are 1294.Since this is a national crime problem there is only a limited amount that local authorities can do to stop it. In this connection, I would salute outgoing Chief of Police Darryl Forte for his leadership in the years since the Ferguson tragedy. Chief Forte has had to walk the same fine line that every police chief in the country has had to walk in the last three years: On the one hand he has to reassure the black community that racist misconduct by his officers will not be tolerated; but on the other hand he has to reassure the men and women under his command that he will defend them against unfair charges of racism. The Chief has done a good job in walking this fine line and for that reason I feel that, bad as the city's crime problems are, he has kept them from getting a lot worse--and for that all of us in the KC-area should be appreciative of his time as Chief of Police.The real burden of relieving the nation's crime problems lie with the national political class. Let me say that as a lifelong political scientist I am well aware that in contemporary US politics the ultimate "dirty word", on both sides of the aisle, is "compromise." But, if we are to stop the ongoing surge of violence in America we are going to have to agree to compromise. Specifically, we as a nation must agree that while black lives do indeed matter and that therefore racist misconduct by police officers cannot be tolerated, our Constitution contains explicit promises of Due Process and thus all cases in which police officers are accused of misconduct must be adjudicated with fairness and also that media coverage of such cases must be as fair and as non-sensationalistic as possible.#############
Speaking on the cattle slaughter ban row, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said Centre had no power under the Constitution to issue such a notification and that it was 'encroaching upon the rights of individuals'.

By Nolan Pinto: Taking part in an Iftar party along with his cabinet colleagues, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah weighed in on the controversy regarding the ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter by saying that the Centre has no power under the Constitution to issue such a notification and that it was 'encroaching upon the rights of individuals'.

Surrounded by members of the Muslim community, Siddaramaiah said that this ban not only affected them but also the farming community.

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"There is an Act passed by the state government in 1964 and we are following the same", he said. The chief minister added that since this was a state subject, he had opposed the central notification.

BAN AGAINST INTERESTS OF FARMERS

Talking to India Today, MLC and spokesperson Rizwan Arshad said that the state government was very clear that the ban was against the interest of farmers and also against those who worked in the leather industry, dalit community, backward community and minorities.

Arshad said, "Farmers are already struggling. They are in deep distress being burdened by debt and drought. Hence CM Siddaramaiah has announced that Karnataka will not follow these rules."

Asked what further steps would be taken in this matter, Arshad said that the state government would definitely explore all legal remedies available.

Also read | Beef fry breakfast effect? Kerala's sole BJP MLA says Modi govt ready to revise cattle slaughter order

Also read | Cattle slaughter rules no prestige issue, open to suggestions, govt says

ALSO WATCH VIDEO

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A replica of the Parthenon in Athens made from 100,000 banned books has risen at the Friedrichsplatz in Kassel Germany as part of the initiative of Documenta. The piece is set to open on June 10, 2017, and stay up for a hundred days.

The Parthenon of books which were once banned is located at the same location where on May 19, 1933 banned books were set ablaze by the Nazis.

The project aims to recreate a similar project by Argentine artist Marta Munujin who created the Acropolis in Buenos Aires in 1983 using some 20,000 banned books as a symbolic statement following the fall of Argentinas dictatorship.

Adam Szymczyk, Documentas director, says: Censorship, the persecution of writers and the prohibition of their texts motivated by political interests and attempting to influence our thoughts, our ideas, and our bodies are once again widespread today. The Parthenon of Books sets an example against violence, discrimination and intolerance.

In all, the Parthenon in Kassel is made up of 100,000 copies of 170 titles that cover the metal columns and each book has been individually wrapped in a plastic bag to shield it from the unpredictable German weather.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report
The Russian newspaper pointed out that the number of foreign visitors visiting Kos, including the Russians, is increasing this year

An article in Russian newspaper Izvestia describes the positive tourist prospects of Kos island and the plans for attracting Russian tourists. Izvestia made special reference to Kos, where, as the reporter noted, the local tourist industry expects an increase in Russian tourists by 20 pct.

The Russian newspaper pointed out that the number of foreign visitors visiting Kos, including the Russians, is increasing this year, the Press Office of the Greek Embassy in Moscow said based on data from the Association of Russian Tourist Agents (ATOR).

The reporter of the Russian newspaper visited Kos at the end of April in a press trip organized by the Press Office of the Greek Embassy in Moscow in cooperation with the South Aegean Region, the Municipality and the Kos Hotel Owners Association on the occasion of the launch of regular direct flights of the Russian airline S7.

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

Source: ANA-MPA
S&P Global, the international ratings agency, reduced Qatars credit rating to AA- from AA on Wednesday in the latest fallout from the decision by a group of Middle Eastern countries to cut diplomatic and trade ties, media reports said.

The downgrade came as Qatar's currency fell to an 11-year low and its stock market tumbled, a BBC report said.

"We believe this will exacerbate Qatar's external vulnerabilities and could put pressure on its economic growth and fiscal metrics," S&P said.



S&P said it expects Qatar's economic growth to slow, as regional trade falls and corporate profitability declines in the face of reduced confidence.



It said there had been big non-resident deposits in Qatar's banks, and an increase in their lending to the government to fund infrastructure projects.



"In our opinion recent events have the potential to destabilise these no-resident deposits and provoke an outflow," said S&P.



It said Qatar may need to use Qatar Investment Authority and sovereign wealth fund money, as well as central bank reserves to tackle any big outflow of funds.



The rating agency said Qatar's economy would suffer from the decision on Monday of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain to cut diplomatic and transport ties with Doha. They accused it of supporting terrorism, a charge that Qatar denies.



"We expect that economic growth will slow, not just through reduced regional trade, but as corporate profitability is damaged because regional demand is cut off, investment is hampered, and investment confidence wanes," S&P Global said.

S&P put the rating on CreditWatch with negative implications, meaning there was a significant chance of a further downgrade, Reuters reported.



Another major rating agency, Moody's Investors Service, assesses Qatar at Aa3, which is equal to S&P's new rating. Fitch Ratings puts Qatar at AA.
APM Terminals Bahrain recently marked a milestone with the arrival of the largest container ship ever to call the Khalifa Bin Salman Port (KBSP).



OOCL (Orient Overseas Container Line) Singapore has an overall length of 366.469 meters and a capacity of 13208 TEUs (twenty feet equivalent unit).



The introduction of the Ocean Alliance MEA3 service, offers Bahrain customers with a direct main line call to China and the Far East, thus helping to boost business opportunities. This will also coincide with APM Terminals ongoing efforts to make KBSP the transshipment hub for the upper Gulf region with an overall increase in container throughput.  TradeArabia News Service
Omans Rural Areas Electricity Company (Raeco) is planning to build a gas-fired independent power project (IPP) with a generation capacity of 78 MW in the Musandam governorate of the sultanate, a report said.

A private developer selected through a competitive tender will build the project and sell electricity to Raeco, reported Times of Oman.



The current plan is to bring these units online once total demand (in Musandam) increases beyond 100 MW which, as per Raecos forecast, is expected to be in 2019, stated the report, citing the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP).



The peak annual growth in demand for electricity in the Musandam governorate in a low-case scenario for another seven years is estimated at seven per cent, up from 74 MW in 2016 to 116 MW in 2023, the company said in its seven-year outlook.
Coffee Planet, the Middle Easts leading specialty Arabica coffee roaster from Dubai, has just signed a franchise agreement with HB Brands, one of the largest F&B providers, for 70 outlets across Saudi Arabia.



The 10-year agreement will enable customers in the kingdom to enjoy freshly-roasted, 100 per cent Arabica speciality coffee with wholesome food, delivered in a welcoming and relaxing environment.



The agreement was signed in Dubai in the presence of Robert Jones, managing director of Coffee Planet and Martin Venter, chief operating officer of HB Brands.

With franchise outlets in the UAE, Qatar, Pakistan and Malaysia, the new concept is aligned with Coffee Planets strategic aim to increase its global presence with passionate franchise partners who are dedicated to the brands commitment to help as many people experience the worlds finest Arabica coffee.



We are delighted to partner with HB Brands in Saudi Arabia said Robert Jones. we are convinced that their F&B expertise, combined with our coffee know-how, will deliver a winning proposition for customers.



Martin Venter added: We are extremely impressed with Coffee Planets quality and the brand that they have created. We are thrilled to lend our franchising expertise to their proposition to help Saudi residents enjoy what we consider to be the finest coffee we have ever tasted. Over its 26-year history, HB Brands has rolled-out Canton, TakoHut, RomaWay, Cinnabon, Wingstop, Sizzler House and Shawirmarito outlets. Its portfolio is already projected to reach 320 outlets by the end of August 2017.



The new Coffee Planet outlet designs will merge modern Dubai with traditional Arabia. Other inspiration has been taken from their crop-to-cup ethos with warm, earthy tones, exposed brick, brass, black tiling and wood finishes. The UAE has been at the forefront of speciality coffee development within the GCC and Saudi Arabia is projected to be the next big growth market. Both companies are looking to collaborate to provide a branded specialty-coffee offering to compete with the coffee chains already operating in the kingdom. - TradeArabia News Service
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The number of travelers has increased these days, be it for personal or work related reasons. This is because travel has become more affordable over time. An efficient flier should keep in mind their mental and physical health before they travel.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle while traveling can help travelers get the most out of their trips. Generally, travelers compromise on food and sleep in order to enjoy the trip. Doing this on every travel can cause serious trouble for frequent fliers.

Here are few secrets that can give an overall better experience and health for frequent travelers:

Stay hydrated and rest well before any trip. The best preparation for any trip should be getting as much sleep as possible, says Nicole William, founder of career advice website and a frequent traveler. She also recommends water over caffeine during journeys, as they make jet lag worse.

Take early morning flights. Taking the first flight of the day is always advantageous. It pays to wake up early and take a morning flight than later in the day, according to Inc.com. Efficient fliers generally opt for flights between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. because they are most often on-time, and just in case the flight may end up being canceled, you can catch another flight within the day.

Always have an airplane kit. An airplane kit always comes handy while traveling. Few efficient travelers carry eye masks, earplugs, a scarf or wrap to keep you warm, and a smartphone loaded with soothing music.

Dress right and nice. Paying a little attention to the choice of clothes might as well make the journey better. Efficient travelers are often noted to be treated better because they are dressed well unlike others who generally prefer to wear clothes that are comfortable for them. If there is any vacant seat, chances of getting an upgrade are more for a person that's well-dressed thatn one in sweatpants and flip-flops.

Choose hotels wisely. Spending more money and choosing a good hotel is always a wise decision. Sleep is essential for the human body. In order to have a relaxing experience, one should take advantage of any special points and upgrade his/her room or services whenever possible. Efficient fliers say that it helps to decompress in between meetings or seminars.

Eat healthy. Travelers are usually enthusiastic to try out every city's signature dish like deep dish pizza of Chicago, tonkatsu of Tokyo, rosette lyonnaise of Lyon, croquettes of Spain. But efficient fliers recommend eating healthy food, too, and suggest carrying a TSA Approved blender, protein powder and stopping at a grocery store immediately after leaving the airport, as per USA Today.

Get adequate sleep. Putting away the laptop an hour before sleeping and limiting alcohol intake is essential for any efficient traveler. Instead of shutting the blinds, let them be open so that early morning sunlight enters the room, preventing you from oversleeping.

Before travel, plan your work. Monica Ferguson, founder of Solemates -- a well-known brand for shoe and shoe related products, advises that efficient travelers should plan their work and put important files on the cloud or hard drive to make them accessible as there's no assurance that you'll have access to the internet throughout your trip.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
By Press Trust of India: By Lalit K Jha

Washington, Jun 8 (PTI) Fired FBI director James Comey has created a fresh political storm over his statement against President Donald Trump who allegedly asked him to drop a probe against his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and sought "loyalty" from him.

The statement which was meant as an opening statement of Comey during his Congressional hearing later today was released ahead by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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The seven-page written testimony that gives details the interaction that Comey had with Trump.

Comeys opening statement was publicly released intentionally by the Senate intelligence committee at Comeys request, a Senate intelligence committee source said.

Comey, 56, who was fired by Trump last month, dropped the bombshell by his statement which many experts say could be seen as obstruction to justice.

According to Comey, Trump also made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information.

Comey recounted a January 27 private dinner in the White House Green Room with the president.

"I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," Comey quoted Trump as saying.

Political pundits in the US said this could be the most watched Congressional testimony in recent decades.

It could even be the most tweeted Congressional hearing as several US news channels are planning to carry the hearing live from the US Capitol.

Comeys statement describes the "behaviour" by Trump that was at best "inappropriate", and at worst "illegal" said Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

"Trump, on numerous occasions, sought fealty from the FBI Director, attempted to interfere with an historic federal investigation, and then fired Comey after both requests were spurned," he said.

"By repeatedly and improperly asking Comey to lift the cloud that was darkening his administration, asking him to let it go in reference to the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and then summarily firing the FBI Director, Donald Trump appears to have obstructed justice. Comey?s testimony details a pattern of disturbing behaviour and a disdain for the rule of law by Trump," Markey said.

House Minority Whip Steny H Hoyer demanded that the Congress should launch an independent, bipartisan commission to get to the bottom of Russias attempts to undermine our democracy and to what extent they had contact with the Trump campaign as they did so.

Congresswoman Jacky Rosen said the prepared remarks offered by the former FBI Director are deeply worrying.

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"I am especially concerned by the President?s attempts to interfere in the FBIs work by asking about dropping investigations into Michael Flynn and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. It disturbs me to know that the President would ask our chief law enforcement officer for his loyalty in exchange for job security, and then fire him in the middle of an ongoing investigation," he said.

Congressman Jim Himes said Comeys statement for paints a detailed and disturbing picture of a President obsessed with loyalty, secrecy, and exerting inappropriate pressure to achieve his goals.

"At the very least, President Trumps actions should instill a sense of profound worry in the American people about a leader with no sense of propriety or an understanding of the need for independence of law enforcement within the executive branch, an independence that has been respected by Presidents for generations," he said.

According to The Hill, while the testimony mostly confirms what has been reported since Comey?s firing in May, it nonetheless paints an extraordinary picture of the presidents interactions with one of the nations top law enforcement officials.

The Washington Post said to date, Democrats are split on the question of impeachment proceedings, with some readily suggesting the possibility but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi impatiently dismissing that as premature.

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"Legal analysts said the testimony adds detail that would beef up an obstruction of justice case," the daily reported.

"Comey has to answer some hard questions about why didn?t he do more" to raise concerns about Trump?s comments, said Senator Lindsey O Graham.

"If you really believe that the man was trying to obstruct justice and you?re the head of the FBI, more than writing a note to yourself, you probably ought to do something about it," he said.

The New York Times said the White House is on defensive after Comey?s testimony was released.

"The impression painted by Comey is one of the president seeking to exert control over him and his agency, and a vexed FBI director pushing back?a narrative the White House rejects," wrote The Wall Street Journal. PTI LKJ UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
Creta Maris Beach Resort organized a event in order to clean Kastri.



(TRAVPR.COM) GREECE - June 8th, 2017 - On Tuesday 6th of June, at 10:30 am., Creta Maris Beach Resort organized a unique event/ activity during which, the resorts employees and guests proceeded for the first time with the cleaning ofthe archaeological site of Kastri, in the port of Hersonissos.

Creta Maris Beach Resort had the honor to be part of the important work of taking care for antiquities of Greece, in the context of its courteous sponsorship, by contributing to the cleaning of the archaeological site of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Heraklion.

The coordination and execution of the activity was carried out by the Heraklion Ephorate of Antiquities, with the presence of the permanent guardian of antiquities, and the participation of the Creta Maris Green Team and the guests of Creta Maris Beach Resort. The goal of the activity was to protect the archaeological site, thereby contributing to the promotion of the cultural heritage of Greece.

Creta Maris Green Team, strives to spread environmental awareness and encourage the residents of Crete to contribute in order to maintain a clean environment. The Green Teams mission is to support the Region of Crete, and Heraklion Regional Municipalities by contributing towards activities related to environmental protection, such as cleaning public areas, beaches, planting trees etc.

About Creta Maris Beach Resort

Creta Maris Beach Resort belongs to Metaxas Group of Companies and has been operating since 1975. It has a capacity of 680 rooms, suites and bungalows, 6 restaurants, 7 bars, 7 swimming pools, gym, Hammam spa, Asterias Childrens Club, and a great space for outdoor and indoor activities.

About the archaeological site of Kastri:

The peninsula of Kastri, to which the city owes its name, was inhabited from the early-Minoan period (2.800-2.100 B.C.) to the end of the Proto-Byzantine (8th c. A.D). During the Hellenistic period at the top of the rocky hill a large temple of the goddess Venus-Vritomartis was built. The building collapsed by the earthquake of 365 A.D. and was succeeded by a large rectangular building. Destroyed by the earthquake of 448 A.D., it was succeeded by an early Christian basilica went under restoration during the reign of Heraclius (616-641). At that time a cemetery was developed on the lower terrace, south of the basilica, with cist and barrel-vaulted graves. Pottery and minor objects point to a period of use until the end of the 8th c. The devastation of the earthquake of 795 and the Arabic threat forced the inhabitants to move towards the northern slope of the Charakas hill.

Please find pictures of the event on high resolution on the below link:

https://we.tl/aDZ9vpjKGU

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Sydney based firm Micro-Cruising, that wholesales the worlds largest collection of truly small ship cruises of around 100 passengers or fewer, has developed Onsail - a booking software platform that is specifically designed for small ship cruise operators making bookings smooth sailing.



(TRAVPR.COM) AUSTRALIA - June 8th, 2017 - Sydney based firm Micro-Cruising, that wholesales the worlds largest collection of truly small ship cruises of around 100 passengers or fewer, has developed Onsail - a booking software platform that is specifically designed for small ship cruise operators making bookings smooth sailing.

The idea was developed when we contacted our suppliers to build a bridge between our site and their online product. We saw a gap in the market for online booking platform designed for the exacting needs of our suppliers stated Nicola Caygill Micro-Cruising Managing Director. Some suppliers had to make do with shoehorned hotel booking software or even use old fashioned spreadsheets

The real-time, web based platform, Onsail was born. It allows operators to make fast bookings on the go with a clean interface and is agent compliant. It offers multiple price tables for low, shoulder and high seasons as well as discounts and payments for all types of fares (including single cabin fares) and booking such as single, group and charter bookings.

Once the suppliers start using the booking platform in-house, Micro-Cruising plans to offer to distribute the data to its travel trade channel.

Small ship cruise operators are welcome to contact Micro-Cruising at info@micro-cruising.com.au for a free 30 day trial. No contracts. No surprises. Full steam ahead. For more information click www.onsail.io

END

About Micro-Cruising:

Heralding the Slow Cruise movement since 2013, small ships means that your arrival wont create ripples on the destination since small ships are able to navigate shallow waters, most can anchor easily at smaller ports, or even anchor at Sea with no infrastructure in sight. Dont transform the very place youve come to see. Take only photographs leave only footprints, get lost and be found.



With over 600 worldwide vessels holding only 100 passengers or fewer Micro-Cruising offers:



Sea Gypsies of the Mergui Archipelago

Grace Kellys Honeymoon Yacht in the Galapagos

100 year old converted solid Teak Rice Barges in Thailand

Agathas Christies Death on the Nile River boat

Homely Tug Boats in Alaska

A tall ship that was so beautiful that she was pardoned from WWII duties by Roosevelt

One cabin Phinisis in Indonesia with 7 staff including a full time Masseuse

Micro-Cruisings Managing Director is Nicola Caygill. Nicola has been involved in tourism since 1998. Form a pedigree of Business Development roles in Orion Expeditions and Quark Expeditions her academic experience has seen her achieve a MSc Tourism: Environment and Development - Oxford Brookes University, UK.

For more information please contact:

Nicola Caygill, Managing Director

info@micro-cruising.com.au or nicola@micro-cruising.com.au

www.micro-cruising.com.au

PO Box 446, Castle Hill, NSW 1765

Phone (02) 9703 0314 or 0459 203333

Opening Hours are Monday  Friday 9am  5pm

www.linkedin.com/in/ncaygill

www.linkedin.com/groups/MicroCruising-Travel-Agents-Network-4333054/about

nicola@micro-cruising.com.au

www.twitter.com/microcruising

www.facebook.com/MicroCruising

www.youtube.com/micro-cruising

www.pinterest.com/microcruising

www.themidgame.com/profile/update/id/498

www.klout.com/#/microcruising

www.instagram.com/microcruising

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In Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Theis family is celebrating seven decades of European hospitality at its beautiful Bavarian-inspired Hofsas House Hotel, which is as charming as the town itself.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - June 8th, 2017 - Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA, June 08, 2017 - In Carmel-by-the-Sea, the Theis family is celebrating seven decades of European hospitality at its beautiful Bavarian-inspired Hofsas House Hotel, which is as charming as the town itself. With firm roots in the past, the family is looking toward the future by keeping abreast of guests every need.

The Hofsas House Hotel Announces Its New Summer Package Available June  August 2017.



Celebrate Family at the Hofsas House:

Family, heritage and relative connections are of utmost importance to all of us. At the Hofsas House Hotel our family understands this only too well, and our team is now pleased to offer a special Celebrate Family package. With it, you can now bring your relatives together for a living family tree.



Celebrating family is easy at the Hofsas House! The Theis family has been running the Hofsas House for 70 years! Offering affordable lodging options, close proximity to Monterey Airport and year-round activities, there is something to keep everyone happy. The Celebrate Family package provides groups rates for rooms (with 5 or more rooms booked with a two night minimum), complimentary continental breakfast, wine and cheese upon arrival, and much more.



Families can enjoy our poolside meeting facility and share an evening of laughter, games and shared memories. The meeting facility offers a comfortable setting for up to 40 people depending on the configuration of the room.



By utilizing the six round tables, a sit down dinner for 30 can be accomplished very easily by either having it catered by a local restaurant or preparing it in the complete kitchen that contains an oven, stove, microwave and refrigerator. Share your memories around the wood burning fireplace. Make memories to last a lifetime.



Let the Hofsas House Celebrate Family package help you celebrate your very special bonds with those you care about most. Call us today and let the Hofsas House family help plan the perfect getaway at a price that will make everyone happy.



Hofsas House Family Reunion Package includes

 Group Rates on Guests Rooms (starting at $ 145 .00 per night, excluding tax when 5 or more rooms are booked for a two night minimum)

 Welcome wine with cheese and cracker tray upon arrival

 Complimentary Continental Breakfast

 Discounted Price On Use of Poolside Meeting Facility ($100.00)



Offer does not apply to existing groups and are subject to availability. Offer is subject to change without notice and some blackout dates may apply. Minimum night stay required.

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

http://www.hofsashouse.com/

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By Press Trust of India: Lanba

New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Comparing Army chief Bipin Rawat to General Dyer, who had earned notoriety for ordering the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, is a "sad comparison", his naval counterpart Admiral Sunil Lanba said today.

Academician Partha Chatterjee, in a piece published on a news website, had drawn comparison between Rawat and Dyer after the former commended Major Leetul Gogois action of using a civilian as a human shield in Kashmir.

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"It is a sad comparison and is uncalled for," Lanba said.

On April 13, 1919, Dyer had ordered firing on unarmed people gathered at the Jallianwala Baug in Amritsar.

The Navy chief was speaking on the sidelines of an flag- in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.

In an interview, Rawat had also said that the Indian Army is fully ready for a "two-and-a-half front (China, Pakistan and internal security requirements simultaneously) war".

Lanba sought to buttress the point, saying that "the Indian armed forces are always ready for any contingency".

The Navy chief will visit Israel soon and meet chiefs of the three services of the Jewish nation. His visit comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Israel.

"We have an in-depth defence relationship. We will exchange notes," Lanba said, but did not elaborate further on his scheduled visit.

Reacting to a report by US Department of Defence (DoD) that China is likely to establish additional military bases in Pakistan and other countries with which it has longstanding friendly ties and similar strategic interests, he said the Navy was monitoring the development.

"It is an assessment which is there in the report. We have our own assessment and we will see what happens in the future," Lanba said.

In its annual report to the Congress on Chinas military build-up, the DoD said Chinas construction of military base in the strategic location of Djibouti is just the first of what will likely be an ongoing expansion in friendly foreign ports around the world.

"They are making their first overseas base in Djibouti. The report is an assessment of what may happen in the future.

"There is this huge CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) project which is happening. There is a port of Gwadar which is being built with Chinese assistance. Time will tell what happens in the future on whether it will be converted into a military base," Lanba said.

On China providing submarines to Indias neighbours such as Bangladesh, he said it is the capability that these nations wish to aspire and the Navy is prepared in its plan to counter this.

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Downplaying Chinese concerns over Singapore India Maritime Bilateral Exercise (SIMBEX) in the disputed South China Sea, he said the annual exercise takes place in the Indian waters and the South China Sea every alternate year.

"We are going to continue to follow this process," he said.

After the drill, China had said such activities should not hurt the "interests of other countries". PTI PR SMN

--- ENDS ---
Special cell team along with four arrested international drug cartel members, including Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi (in black T-shirt). Police recovered five kilo 'ice' worth Rs 40 crore.

By Chayyanika Nigam: The nephew of a legislator is among the people cops have arrested while blowing the lid off an international drug syndicate with underworld connections.

Authorities also seized five kilogram of party drug MDMA, popularly known as "ice", worth about Rs 40 crore in the international market.

Delhi Police special cell officers arrested Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi (43) - who says his uncle is Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Asim Azmi- along with a business tycoon and courier company employees.

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Ice is the purest and most potent form of methamphetamine. The user is likely to manifest euphoria, excitement and a sense of well-being that can last from an hour to a full day, and they will seem alert and confident. It comes as a powder or crystals that are usually snorted, injected or smoked.

LINKS WITH THE UNDERWORLD

Sources say Aslam was dancing to the tunes of Kailash Rajput- mastermind of the international syndicate-who is hiding in Dubai. Initial probe also indicates Rajput has links with the underworld. On his directions, Aslam supplied the drugs through couriers to France, Germany, the UK, Spain and the US.

The role of an inspector-rank customs officer, who went missing in mid-2016, is also suspected. The officer's name cropped up after 1 kg of another party drug "meow meow" was recovered and eight people were arrested in August last year. He is suspected to be the source of that consignment as well.

Ice is commonly being used by youngsters, especially in rave parties in Mumbai, Delhi and other metropolitan cities. It is also in demand in the UAE, UK, US and West Asia.

ICE EFFECTS

But use of ice brings with it paranoia, hallucinations and violent behaviour. In addition, people smoking it are likely to neglect caring for their children, and they may abuse them or endanger them.

Aslam, who was staying in the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Santacruz in Mumbai, lured 40-year-old Amit Aggarwal, who operates a Chandigarh-based logistics business. Two other accused, Avdesh Kumar (26) and Chandan Rai (31), worked at his Prefer Logistics Pvt Ltd office in Delhi's Mahipalpur.

Aggarwal would procure the drug consignment and then pack it in the courier parcels, often between layers of garments, to be sent abroad.

Following a tip, cops laid a trap at Mahipalpur. Avdesh was apprehended while he was opening the door to his office, and was questioned. Around five kg of the drug was recovered from his possession. He gave up the details about Aggarwal and Chandan.

WHAT ASLAM TOLD THE COPS

Aslam's name cropped up during the investigation. A team was sent to Mumbai and he was arrested on Tuesday. He was brought to Delhi the next day.

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Aslam told cops that he is the nephew of lawmaker Abu Azmi. He also disclosed that he is the right-hand man of Kailash Rajput.

"He has revealed that he earlier worked in a cargo company in Dubai. He left the job and moved to Mumbai. Some of his friends were also close to Kailash Rajput. Abu Aslam and Kailash Rajput became friends.

HOW ABU ASLAM GOT INTO DRUG TRAFFICKING

Abu Aslam then opened a restaurant in Goa and came in contact with drug traffickers of Goa. Kailash Rajput used to supply drugs to them. He and Abu Aslam then decided to work together and joined hands in the drug trafficking business," said Sanjeev Yadav, DCP of special cell.

Aslam set up base in Mumbai and received and distributed the drugs according to Rajput's directions. He managed to carve out a large network of drug traffickers in metropolitan cities.

About three years ago when Kailash Rajput was arrested by Mumbai Police, Aslam helped him during his trial and hence became a close aide.

Also Read:

Delhi: 21-year-old stabbed to death after his mother asked 3 men not to take drugs inside public toilet

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Chemists found selling habit-forming drugs illegally to face the axe

Also Watch:

Punjab: Drugs worth Rs 38 lakh seized

--- ENDS ---
Delhi BJP today held protest against Arvind Kejriwal government alleging that it had mismanaged the water and power supply in the city. Police used water cannon to disperse the protesters.

By Abhishek Anand: Hundreds of Bharatiya Janata Party workers today staged a protest outside Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence over power and water crisis in the city.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly Vijender Gupta and many senior party leaders joined the protest march from Chandgi Ram Akhada to the residence of Arvind Kejriwal.

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The protesters carrying placards shouted slogans against Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party government of Delhi.

The protest continued for about an hour during which the police had to use water cannon to disperse the agitators.

BJP'S CHARGE AGAINST AAP GOVERNMENT

"There is no shortage of power and water in the city. It is only the mismanagement of the city government," said Manoj Tiwari.

He also accused the AAP government for avenging its debacle in MCD elections by not providing adequate water and power to the residents.

"Before the MCD polls, the AAP government had warned the residents of Delhi to bear the consequences if BJP wins in the polls. Now as BJP has won, the party is avenging its defeat," said Tiwari.

'KEJRIWAL BACKED-OFF'

Manoj Tiwari also accused CM Kejriwal for running away from his responsibilities and alleged that despite giving an appointment, Kejriwal didn't meet him.

"He gave us time to meet. We were here since morning but he didn't show up. When we went to his residence, he was not found. People of Delhi will show him the way," said Tiwari.

Vijender Gupta said, "This government has an expertise of making false promises. They promised to slash the power and water bills. Now there is no power and water in many areas."

ALSO READ |

Delhi BJP Tiwari slams Kejriwal over power outage in Delhi

As heat trolls Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal asks discoms to inform citizens of unscheduled power cuts

Manoj Tiwari skips Vijay Goel's function for MCD victors. Is he wary of Union minister's interest in Delhi?

ALSO WATCH: North India simmers, no respite in heat wave

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi, June 8

Pre-empting any further delays and more ifs and buts about the rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has thanked all political parties for their cooperation and contribution in making the launch of GST possible with effect from July 1.

While the government has been categorically saying that July 1 will be the rollout date for GST, some states like West Bengal have been complaining that there are serious flaws in the GST rate structure and it would not be possible for them to implement it.

In a letter addressed to presidents of various political parties, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is on an overseas tour, said that with the cooperation of all political parties, the 101st Constitutional Amendment Act for Goods and Services Tax (GST) was passed by Parliament and the same was notified on September 8, 2016.  TNS
Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 8

Senior Congress leader Devinder Singh Babla today admitted before the Municipal Corporation House that it was the mistake of the House then ruled by the Congress and former Member of Parliament (MP) Pawan Kumar Bansal to give the contract to Jaypee.

As the matter came in the House, Babla got up and said the company which had been blackmailing the MC, why it should not be closed and why the Mayor was giving it a chance again. The court did not say to enter into an agreement with them, the firm should be shown the door, he addressed Mayor Asha Kumari Jaswal.

BJP councillor Arun Sood then got up and reminded Babla that it was ex-Congress MP Bansal who had set aside all norms, including the tendering process, to give contract to Jaypee ignoring 16 companies. At that time the decision was right, today it is wrong, how come?, Sood questioned Babla.

On this Babla replied, The decision taken at that time was wrong. It does not mean that we should take wrong decision today also.

Sood then further said, Who produced this problem, the machines which were to be brought from Germany, were brought from Ludhiana and installed at the Dadu Majra garbage plant. I congratulate Babla ji for accepting who gave birth to this cancer. The Mayor also quipped at that time a special meeting was held with the company in a hotel to finalise things but today the meeting is held before the House. On this Babla, replied why did the BJP councillors not protest at that time.

CBI inquiry sought

Saying there are many discrepancies and scam in the dealing with Jaypee, councillors dared Babla to support them for an independent probe by the CBI. On this Babla, said then a CBI inquiry should also be done in the case of the company which had been given the work of sanitation by the present Municipal Corporation as the city has fallen to rank 11in the cleanliness survey.

Meanwhile, when contacted plant in-charge Col KJS Sandhu (retd), said, The management will take all decisions relating to the plant.

Agreement signed in 2005

An agreement to sign the deal with Jaypee for setting up a municipal garbage processing plant in Dadu Majra was signed at the time of Congress Mayor Anu Chatrath in 2007. The plant was inaugurated in 2008. The plant was set up on 10 acres in the Dadu Majra area and the land was given by the Chandigarh Administration to the company for setting up the plant.

It was agreed that the firm would pay Rs 1 per sq meter to the civic body for 30 year period of the contract.

Solid waste

Chandigarh generates about 350 to 400 tonnes of solid waste daily. The waste is managed by the civic body and the only one garbage processing plant at Dadu Majra, which processes approximately 75 per cent of the garbage while the remaining is dumped at a dumping ground without processing. This has become a worrying point for residents as the garbage dumped outside produces a foul smell in Dadu Majra and neighbouring areas of the city. The matter has also reached the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over the firm not taking complete garbage and even demanding tipping fee contending it was facing huge loss.
Rajindar Sachar

UNION Home Minister Rajnath Singh, speaking of the achievements of the three years of the Modi government, proudly proclaimed: We have by and large provided security to the country. India is the second largest country in the world as far as the Muslim population is concerned, and I can say with full responsibility that despite such a large population (of Muslims), the IS has not been able to set foot.

Frankly, it is not clear whether he meant it to be a compliment for the patriotism and nationalism of Indian Muslims or he was only praising his security agencies  that notwithstanding such a large population of Muslims, his intelligence agencies have been able to control it. I hope it was not the latter, because it would be uncalled for and unjustly maligning the Muslim community.

Rajnath Singh should openly say that the patriotism and nationalism of Indian Muslims is no less than any other community, including Hindus. And that anyone even remotely suggesting otherwise is talking treason, as some of the sickening communal Hindu bodies are doing.

Muslims do not have to carry their patriotism on the sleeve; to suggest that would be calumny. In fact, notwithstanding the provocation from RSS fanatics, the equanimity shown by Muslims is praiseworthy. If the Home Minister is really keen to keep peace in the country, he needs to persuade Modi to immediately withdraw the deliberately provocative animal slaughter legislation, which is being opposed by many states apart from being challenged in high courts.

The legislation purporting to be for the prevention of cruelty to animals is a ploy to snatch jurisdiction by the Centre on the subject of cattle trade, which is squarely the purview of the states. Even the BJP accepts this, as is clear from the Arunachal Pradesh state party president openly announcing that the Centres ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter could not be binding on the states. The entire North-East is on the boil on this matter.

Minister of Environment Harsh Vardhan says diplomatically that the government is open to suggestions. This sounds hollow given that half the states are opposed to this legislation, which in reality is an attempt at pleasing the gau rakshak gang and to allow them to spread terror. This legislation has been deliberately brought up by the BJP to further communalise the situation and also financially ruin the poor Muslims who earn their livelihood through cattle sales.

The atmosphere was earlier vitiated by RSS Nagpur bosses installing Yogi Adityanath as Chief Minister of UP, who has already spread fear among Muslims in the state by praying at the makeshift Ram Temple near the Babri Masjid demolition site. This is blatant communalisation of the situation in India, which is the strategy of the BJP for 2019 elections.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to be reminded of how he addressed cow vigilantes in August 2016 saying: It makes me angry that people are running shops in the name of cow protection.... Some people indulge in anti-social activities at night and in the day masquerade as cow protectors.

The Modi government is not even attempting a sham of making suggestions to counter the perception that its actions are weakening the morale of minorities. In that regard, the way Modi has handled the naming of National Commission for Minorities members shows he only wants to retain the shell of it. The present members were appointed after the positions remained vacant for months. Of the five persons appointed, only one is a Muslim (Chairperson) and the remaining are one each from other minorities. This too was done after a high court asked the government for a response to a writ petition.

According to the 2011 Census, the Hindu population is 79.8 per cent and Muslim 14.2 per cent. The rest 6 per cent is constituted of Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.7%), Buddhists (0.7%), Jains (0.4%), and Parsis. It cant be denied that the object of the minorities panel is to create a mechanism that would give them confidence. To make the minorities feel that they have an equal stake in the running of the State and are equal beneficiaries of its programmes. It is hoped that the two more members yet to be appointed would be Muslims, either well-recognised academicians or public figures from the community, to give some reassurance to the community.

The report of the UN Human Rights Council Forum on Minority Issues, 2010, had made some significant recommendations on minorities and their effective participation in economic life, which each country is mandated to follow:

...the right of minorities to participate effectively in economic life must be fully taken into account by governments seeking to promote equality at every level. From implementing non-discrimination in employment and enforcing protection laws in the private sector to developing national economic development and international development assistance schemes.

It is unfortunate that the Opposition has not come up with a concrete/specific programme on which it intends to fight the 2019 election. In fact, the Opposition has been reduced to a debating/TV phenomenon. It has no specific programme for action. The way the Congress and other political parties are letting wither away the opportunity that arose from the Dalit assertion in Saharanpur speaks ill of their commitment.

There is already a competition between the Chief Minister of UP and Prime Minister Modi as to who would be a greater favourite of the Sangh Parivar after the 2019 parliamentary elections, assuming the BJP wins the majority. Yogi Adityanath has given encouragement to the cow vigilante brigade, as indicated in the UP Director-General of Police issuing instructions to all police officers that those involved in cow slaughter or smuggling should be booked under the National Security Act  a legislation designed to handle terrorists. Has the BJP lost all sense of balance and proportion?

The writer is a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
Delhi University colleges have some of the best societies in India to develop and showcase your co-curricular talents. If you are serious about an offbeat career, you should pick your college carefully!

By India Today Web Desk: It's June, and it's time for Board results -- the month you see lots of students travelling with their parents and friends to different colleges for admissions, and when we talk about colleges, Delhi University is everybody's first choice.

Some wait for the cut offs, while others attend career counselling in order to clear their doubts regarding what to opt for and how to go about it. Once you get admission, you want to know how to look your best, how to have fun in college, and most importantly which society to join! Similar to the co-curricular activities in school, colleges have different cultural societies that help us groom our talent in different fields apart from studies and showcase them in exhibitions, competitions and other events.

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Each cultural society conducts proper auditions to select the freshers, because the new joiners would be competing not only in their own college but also in inter-college competitions. So, if you have plans to join any of the DU societies, you should be ready to give your best to secure a good and reputed position. Societies get full support from their colleges, so you do not have to worry about balancing your academics and extra-curricular activities.

Today, we will talk about the different types of cultural societies of Delhi University that you can be a part of to make your college life more happening!

1Dance societies shares



Dance is something you do even if you do not know how to do it! The beats of the music can make you move and sway and get you down on the dance floor even if you absolutely no idea how to dance. Your body responds to music naturally, if you let it. This is one cultural society that almost every Delhi University college has--whether we talk about 'Sparx' of Gargi College, 'Mudra' of Jesus and Mary College, 'Oorja' of Hansraj college, 'Sensation' of Kirori Mal College or 'Misba' of Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce. The dance societies are often classified into those for folk dances and those for western styles. Each college society is remarkable in their own way for their dance forms. If you love to dance, this is something that will surely make your college life memorable. 2Music societies shares



Most people find music to be the only way they can get out of a low period of mental disturbance and put on their headphone whenever they want to get rid of some stress. There is no one who hates music. All music lovers, whether you sing or play, are welcome to DU's music societies. 'Swaranjali' of Hansraj College is a very famous society with its band named 'Hansarj Projekt'. Lady Shri Ram College's 'LSR WMS's' is a western choir which implements a fusion of jazz and R&B. 'Geetanjali' from Miranda house is yet another famous music society of Delhi University. 3Dramatics societies shares



You will find maximum of students being a part of this acting thing nowadays, whatever the reason could be, but it is great to watch such a real and amazing talents in fests. So yes if you are interested in this acting genre, then please have a look at these societies. 'Verve' of Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, 'The Players' of Kirori Mal College, 'Ibtida' of Hindu College, 'Sangharsh' of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (evening), and 'Shunya' of Ramjas College are some of the top dramatics societies of Delhi University. Verve also conducts 'Manthan', India's largest street play festival annually. Check out Manthan 2017 photos. 4Fashion societies shares



Almost every girl has an interest in fashion and especially in the Delhi University, where the new trends first hit the country, fashion societies are very popular. If you follow trendy outfits and style, then there is nothing to be shy about; it is good to go with the latest fashion and walk together with new and creative things. If you want to be a part of the fashion industry and want a career in this field, you should definitely give this society a chance. 'Galore' of Maitreyi College, 'Glitz' of Kamla Nehru College, and 'Rampage' of Ramjas College are some of the best societies that can groom your fashion sense and knowledge. 5Photography societies shares



Many students are nowadays aspiring towards a future in photography and so, DU's photography societies are in great demand. Photography is not an easy talent and owning a DSLR does not issue you a license to be a photographer. You need to have skills and knowledge about photography-both the technical aspects of the camera and the artistic eye required to find good frames. And yes, passion is the only key to success. Photographers are required everywhere-- to cover events such as fests, functions, weddings, and of course in the media and for the digital presence of almost every company in this digital age. 'Pixels' of Hansraj College, 'Snapshots' of Miranda House and 'Vivre' of Hindu College Are some of teh best photography societies of Delhi University. 6Literature societies shares



Students who are interested in language, literature, debating and putting up their voices or opinions will find a welcoming place in DU's literature societies. You can learn more and be trained here for your future should you want to pursue a career in such a field. 'Bazm-e-adab' is the Urdu society of St. Stephens College which organizes events and finely explores Urdu literature. 'Wordcraft' of Ramjas College, 'Quilluminati' of Gargi College, and 'Grubstreet' of Kirori Mal College are some of the top literature societies among Delhi University colleges.

The DU Fest is the place to look out for, where all of these societies perform against different colleges, and where you get a chance to explore and experience the audience -- something you might never get a chance to face later. In the future, you might just become a banker or a doctor or an entrepreneur with little to no free time to explore your other talents. This is your chance to showcase your skills in front of others and know where you stand in comparison. Go grab it and be a part of any cultural society because you all are the one who run them.

Read: These 7 challenges are easier than getting an admission in DU

Read: DU admissions first cut-off 2016: Here is how Twitteratti reacted

Read: Mission Admission: Why are these students saying no to DU?

--- ENDS ---
WITH the election schedule for the next President out, the country waits with baited breath for the BJP to name its nominee. Even though real power in our democracy lies with the Prime Minister and the President acts chiefly on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, on certain occasions the President can exercise discretionary powers with far-reaching consequences. For instance, when no political party has a clear majority, the President decides which party to invite to form a government. Also, when a PM loses the confidence of the Lok Sabha, the Presidents discretion comes into play. Occasions arise when a President can guide, counsel or embarrass a government. The return of a Cabinet recommendation to impose Presidents rule in a state can be an embarrassment for a government, as also a presidential refusal to sign an ordinance if the President feels uncomfortable about its constitutional ethics.

The BJP nominee will obviously be decided by Prime Minister Modi. He would not like to have in Rashtrapati Bhavan an independent-minded individual who could question the PMs authority or hesitate to lend a helping hand when needed. The BJPs track record of high-level appointments  the latest being of Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh  is not very inspiring. Therefore, chances of an outstanding intellectual or anyone possessing scientific temper entering Rashtriya Bhavan appear remote. Besides, the RSS has a declared agenda of saffronising education and it would not like a President who, as the Visitor to Central universities, does not approve of its sponsored appointments.

In the circumstances the country appears to be heading towards a spirited contest because the Opposition is equally determined to give the ruling party a run for its money. The country needs a President who does not hesitate to speak out and also respects constitutional constraints. As Parliament disruptions have become the norm, a President exercising moral authority over parliamentarians would be helpful. The BJP owes it to the nation to act judiciously and in a non-partisan manner. More importantly, the next President has to be someone who has the gravitas and the stature to be Indias ceremonial head of the republic.
Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, June 8

The mother and the father of an 18-year-old girl, who was abducted on May 9 and allegedly gang raped before being killed, today demanded death penalty for the accused. The girls body was later found at an empty plot in Rohtak on May 11.

They made this demand during a public hearing programme on atrocities against Dalits in Haryana named fearless Dalit women and men speak out against violence organised by the All-India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch (AIDMAM), and the National Dalit Movement for Justice (NDMJ) at Panchayat Bhawan here. Both NGOs have been working for the last several years under the banner of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights to assists Dalit victims.

Rajinder Prasad, a retired judge, Bhasha Singh, a journalist, Paul Diwakar, chairman of Asia Dalit Rights Forum (ADRF), New Delhi, and Devika Prasad, coordinator (police reform), Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, New Delhi, along with several advocates listened to the cases related to atrocities against Dalits and guided them to adopt a proper procedure to get justice.

We are still waiting for justice as only two accused are behind bars for the gang rape and murder of my daughter, while one has got bail, said the mother of the Sonepat gang rape victim with a heavy heart.

She said she came here to get help from the NGOs in her case and she wants nothing less than the death penalty for the accused of such a heinous crime.

The father of the victim said his daughter had left home for work on May 9 but did not return. They filed a complaint with the police and later got information that her body was found in Rohtak. The accused had crossed all limits of cruelty while brutally murdering his daughter. I also want death penalty for the accused, he demanded.

As many as 18 cases were heard in the programme. Victims from across the state came to get assistance from the NGOs and raise their voice for justice, said Rajesh Kumar, one of the coordinators of the programme.

Retired judge Prasad admitted that atrocities against Dalits were on the rise in Haryana. They were here to listen to the cases of atrocities against Dalits related to police inaction, delay in disposal of cases and others.

They would write to the government for the implementation of the proper procedure for justice to victims of atrocities against Dalits, he added.
Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, June 8

The Municipal Corporation's June 16 elections will be a triangular contest with as many as 126 candidates from the Congress, the BJP and the CPM remaining in the fray for the 34 seats.

However, the CPM has sprung a surprise by naming its mayoral candidate  Sonia, who is contesting from the Krishna Nagar (SC reserved) seat, which has nine candidates in the fray. The CPM has named its mayoral candidate despite the fact that the elections are being held indirectly this time in which the elected councillors would elect the mayor, a post which is reserved for the Scheduled Caste (SC) woman candidate.

On the other hand, the Congress and the BJP have not named the mayoral candidate. Both parties are pleading that they will weigh options when the elected councillors join the MC House after the election results on June 17.

But the CPM termed the Congress and the BJP as two sides the same coin. When they can name the chief ministerial candidate in advance, what holds them from naming the mayoral candidate, who is capable of running the countrys oldest civic body, said Tikender Panwar, former Deputy Mayor.

The ruling Congress and the BJP have come out with the list of candidates in 34 wards even as the candidates are contesting the polls on non-party symbols. There were more than 15 wards which face rebels, revealed insiders.

Out of the 154 candidates who had filed their nominations, 28 withdrew their nominations leaving 126 in field to contest the polls. Local BJP and Congress leaders, who are ticket-seekers for the Shimla (Urban), Shimla (Rural) and Kusumpati, face a difficult situation as to whom to support as they may face opposition in the state Assembly polls if they annoy the rebels, said workers from both parties. District election officer-cum-DC, Shimla, Rohan Chand Thakur said 28 candidates out of 154, who had filed nominations, withdrew their nominations today.
Jammu, June 8

A major in the Army on Thursday died en route to the cave shrine of Mata Vaishnodevi after falling from a pony in Trikuta hills of Jammu and Kashmirs Reasi district.

Major Pardeep Singh was on his way to cave shrine when he fell down from a pony near Indarprasth on Adhkuwari stretch in the district on Thursday, SSP Reasi Tahir Bhat said.

He was shifted to a dispensary at Adhkuwari where doctors declared him brought dead, he said.

Pardeep (36) was posted at 87th Brigade in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir and he was the son of Brig Kamal Singh Chauhan. He hails from Uttar Pradeshs Kanpur. PTI
Anantnag, June 8

Aiming to detect terrorists who might be hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings, the Army will now use through-the-wall radar imaging during counter-insurgency operations in the Valley.

A few such radar systems have already been imported by the Army, official sources said, explaining that the technology would help in more precise and effective anti-military operations. It would enable security forces to get the pinpointed location of terrorists hiding inside homes in congested areas and also avoid civilian casualties. On more than one occasion, the Army and the Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir Police have had to return without engaging with militants despite specific intelligence inputs.

Local informers later conveyed that the terrorists were hiding in a specially created false ceiling or an underground cavity in the same house that had been raided, said a senior officer involved in one such anti-militancy drive. This happened on July 8 last year as well when the security forces gunned down Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. The first time they tried to get him, they couldnt locate any terrorist in the house in a village in south Kashmirs Kokernag area despite precise intelligence inputs.

The Commanding Officer and his men, it is learnt, entered the house twice but were unable to find any terrorists who were hiding in a false ceiling. During the third round of searches, the hiding militants gave themselves away when they fired at Army men. It was only after that that the three men, including Burhan Wani, were killed, leading to unrest in the Valley. Often, troops face hostile crowds when they are unable to locate a terrorist at a house notified by human and technically generated intelligence. Though the Army has imported only a few such radars, officials are hopeful that the number will go up once their utility is put to test.  PTI
Majid Jahangir



Tribune News Service



Srinagar, June 8

An Army jawan and three militants were killed in a gunfight as the Army foiled an infiltration bid in North Kashmir's frontier Kupwara district.

The bid was foiled close to the Line on Control in Nowgam sector, 130 kms from here, when a group of militants was intercepted during the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday by the Army.

"As terrorists were challenged, they opened fire triggering a gunfight. In the gunfight, three terrorists were killed and one soldier was martyred," an Army spokesman said.

The operation in the dense forests is still underway.

The identity of the slain soldier and militants could not be ascertained immediately.
Sumit Hakhoo

Tribune News Service

Jammu, June 8

Feeling cheated by the ruling PDP-BJP governments failure to ensure electricity supply during summer, residents of Jammu have sent a petition to the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) to prevail upon the state government to help people in Jammu and Kashmir.

The petition, being sent through an online forum Change.com, has called upon the Centre to take note of the failure of Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh in ensuring uninterrupted power supply to the state.

In just one hour, the petition was signed by 300 people seeking intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to end the plight of people who were facing power cuts of 14 to 16 hours.

The BJP and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh who is the Power Minister, have failed to provide us electricity. This has damaged the image of the state government led by the PDP-BJP alliance, says the petition initiated by Arjun Gupta, a social activist.

Jammu region is facing huge electricity problems as the Power Development Department (PDD) has failed to ensure proper supply of electricity. Unscheduled cuts are making life of people miserable. A majority of BJP ministers and MLAs who were elected from Jammu region have shifted to the Valley.

My parents are old and frail. They are suffering due to lack of electricity in this hot weather. Such long durations of power cuts are just inhuman, said Dr Dipali Raina, who also signed the petition.

Though the PDD blames it on the excessive burden on the grid stations caused by the unregistered load, residents say the department should take steps to act against illegal connections and power theft.
An 11-year-old Australian girl diagnosed with cerebral palsy climbed the Great Wall of China, accompanied by family members and volunteers. After scaling Australias highest peak, Mount Kosciuszko, in 2015, Taylor Walker-Lears next challenge was to visit the Great Wall. Inspired by her willpower, a Chinese entrepreneur sponsored the familys trip to Beijing.

Walker-Lear was born with cerebral palsy spastic diplegia although the condition was not diagnosed until she had trouble standing and walking by herself when she was two. Last September, she underwent a multi-level surgery involving four separate procedures, followed by months of physiotherapy.

On Tuesday morning, she arrived at the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall just outside Beijing.

Using a walker and with help from her parents, Walker-Lear first walked on a flat section of the wall, then went up and down some steps and through watch towers. The climb lasted over an hour.

The Great Wall administration presented Walker-Lear a certificate containing a quote from a poem by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong  One who fails to reach the Great Wall is not a hero, meaning one must overcome difficulties to reach their goal. Im really tired, but Im proud, she said, adding that the Great Wall was more impressive than she had imagined it would be.  IANS
Ranbir Singh

THE name-changing spree of the present Haryana Government began with its decision to change Gurgaon to Gurugram. This change was justified because its ancient name, indeed, was Gurugram. It is believed to be the place where Dronacharya had trained the Pandavas in warfare. It is also claimed that there is historical evidence in the form of a pond at Gurgaon village, popularly called Panch Chhokra (five boys). But name changing has reached a new level, with the state government deciding to rename the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) as the Haryana Sehari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP). The reason: HUDA sounded similar to the last name of former Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

When in power, Hooda would claim that HUDA was Haryana Urban Development Authority, HARDA was Haryana Rural Development Authority and he was HOADA  Haryana Overall Development Authority.

The acronym HUDA takes me back to the 1980s and the nineties when I used to teach at the department of political science in Kurukshetra University. The then HoD, Prof VS Budhraj, had once told me that HUDA had not returned his money. I misunderstood him, thinking that Dr Ram Phal Hooda, the then Registrar of the university, had not returned the money that he had borrowed from him. I asked Prof Budhraj when he had lent the money to Dr Hooda. He cleared the misunderstanding, saying it was HUDA which had not returned the earnest money that he had deposited with it while applying for a residential plot in the Urban Estate of HUDA at Kurukshetra.

The governments decision also reminded me of another story. Dr Tarsem Lal, the then Chief Administrator of HUDA, was on a visit to Kaithal to get first-hand information about peoples problems and complaints against HUDA. He desired that public representatives should be invited for this purpose. One of the invitees was told that HUDAs saheb wanted to interact with him. The gentleman thought he was going to talk to some Hooda saheb. Therefore, he repeatedly used the word Hooda saheb in his conversation with Dr Lal. This annoyed the Chief Administrator and he snubbed the local leader, saying he was not Hooda!

This change of acronym to HSVP also transported me to 1962, to the political thought class in the department of political science, Panjab University, where that doyen of teachers, Prof JC Anand, had told us: The ghost of Rome haunted the Middle Ages.

It also reminded me of a popular saying about the Jat clans of Haryana  Malik bhai ka (Malik stands by Maliks), Dahiya ashnai ka (Dahiya stands for his friends) and Hooda jamai ka (Hooda stands for his son-in-law)!
Kolkata, June 8

The Army has been called in after thousands of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters held violent protests outside the Raj Bhavan in the hill town where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a Cabinet meeting today.

Kolkata-based Ministry of Defence PRO Wing Commander SS Birdi said two columns of the Army based in Darjeeling moved out from their barracks for deployment in the troubled areas following requests made by the state government. Each column has about 80 men, Birdi said.

This is the first time the Army has been called in to tackle a law and order situation in Darjeeling since Mamata took over as CM in 2011. Earlier, angry GJM protesters set fire to several police vehicles, a government bus and attacked the police with stones and bottles. The police retaliated by resorting to cane charge and firing tear gas shells.

A number of GJM?supporters and policemen were injured in the clashes.

The GJM had vowed to organise an agitation against state governments move to make Bengali compulsory in schools in the state.

The Chief Minister, however, clarified at a meeting in Mirik near Darjeeling on Monday that Bengali would be an optional subject in the hills. Following todays meeting, Banerjee once again reiterated Bengali would not be made a compulsory subject.

However, an unrelenting Bimal Gurung, leader of the GJM, which is spearheading the movement for a separate Gorkhaland state carved out of West Bengal, has given call for dawn-to-dusk bandh tomorrow at Darjeeling on the language issue.

The fresh unrest is set to hit tourism, with tourists already starting to leave the hill town. The North Bengal State Transport Corporation, an outfit of the West Bengal transport department, has announced special service to help tourists reach Kolkata from Siligurim located on the foothills of Darjeeling. TNS
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) The commerce and industry ministry will soon come out with the standard operating procedure (SOP) for clearance of foreign investments proposals as the government has abolished the FIPB.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has prepared a draft SOP and is circulating it to different departments including the economic affairs for their views.

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"Within seven to ten days, we will release the procedure. Now the FIPB portal would be linked with the e-biz portal. We have set timelines for all the steps such as number of days for sending comments and giving security clearance," a senior ministry official said.

Last month, India scrapped the 25-year old Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) as it looks to attract more FDI by providing quick approvals under a single-window clearance system.

The finance ministry had recently stated that the DIPP, in consultation with the administrative ministry, would come out with detailed guidelines for processing of the FDI proposals and ensuring a consistency of treatment and uniformity of approach.

It also said that FDI proposals would be cleared within 60 days of the application.

While FDI approval decisions in majority of the sectors have been relegated to concerned ministries, those relating to private security agencies would be decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) will clear proposals of financial services which are not regulated by a regulator or where there is more than one regulator or there is a doubt about the regulator. Any proposal in banks will be looked by the Department of Financial Services.

A joint quarterly review meeting will be undertaken by a committee co-chaired by the DEA and DIPP Secretary on pendency of proposals with the government.

Currently, about 91-95 per cent of FDI is coming through the automatic route and only 11 sectors, including defence and retail trading, require the government approval for FDI.

Inflow of foreign direct investment into India increased by 9 per cent to USD 43.48 billion in 2016-17. PTI RR MKJ

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Mandsaur (MP), June 8

Anti-riot police personnel today moved into violence-hit areas of Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur district, two days after the police shot dead five protesting farmers, even as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhis attempt to meet the families of the deceased raised political temperature in the state.

The government, struggling to restore peace in the trouble-hit areas, shunted out Mandsaur Collector Swatantra Singh and Superintendent of Police OP Tripathi. Shifting stand, state Home Minister Bhupendra Singh today admitted that five farmers had died in police firing.

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Outgoing SP Tripathi said Piplya Mandi Inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who had allegedly fired at the farmers, had been removed from field duty.

Rahul travelled by air, car, motorcyle and by foot from Delhi to Neemuch district via Rajasthan before he was stopped at Naya Gaon, 70 km from Mandsaur. He was arrested along with 29 other leaders, including Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal (United). They were released four hours later, each on a personal bond. Subsequently, curfew in Mandsaur district was relaxed for two hours. Rahul then met farmers. He accused the Modi government of favouring the rich.

Modi waived loans worth Rs 1,50,000 crore of Indias richest people. But they cant pay the right price to farmers for their produce, they cant give compensation either. They can give only bullets, he said.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, meanwhile, blamed certain forces for instigating the stir.  Agencies
Astana, June 8

India and Kazakhstan on Thursday discussed ways to expand their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev here.

Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties, the Prime Ministers Office tweeted.

Modi arrived here earlier in the day to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit on Friday, during which India is expected to be granted full membership of the group. India has an observer status at present.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the SCO Summit here, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the organisation after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.

However, according to External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, there has been no request from either side for a bilateral meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is also here for the summit.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.  IANS
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 8

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif exchanged greetings in Kazakhstan capital Astana today.

The two leaders, who travelled to Astana to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meet that opened today, met in the leaders lounge at the Astana Opera in the evening before the SCO concert.

According to sources, they exchanged greetings. Since it was the first time they were meeting after Sharifs operation, PM Modi enquired about his health, mother and family.

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The meeting can be described as a quick pull-aside between the two leaders. But both sides reiterated that neither has sought a meeting with the other side.

The interaction between the two leaders is significant given the backdrop of deteriorating relations between India and Pakistan. While both sides denied any formal meeting was scheduled in Astana, the possibility of the two leaders exchanging greetings and an informal talk was speculated.

The exchange today could be an indication that the two leaders are willing to finally take the plunge to having some sort of dialogue to lower the bilateral tensions. From the Uri attacks to the Kulbhushan Jadhav case, both India and Pakistan have been involved in a war of words. Todays exchange of greetings is the first positive development after more than a year.

India to be full SCO member

India, along with Pakistan, will be formally inducted as full members at the summit tomorrow which will also see the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif.

For India, being inducted into the SCO will help it integrate more closely with the central Asian countries.

India, along with Pakistan and Iran, joined the SCO as Observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. While Russia pushed for Indias full membership, China took a similar stand for its ally Pakistan.

PM Modi will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is likely to have bilateral talks with Xi on the sidelines of the summit. India skipped the recently One Belt, One Road Summit in Beijing citing sovereignty concerns. Simran Sodhi

Delhi-Astana flight

India and Kazakhstan on Thursday decided to boost cooperation in a range of areas, including trade. During the talks between PM Narendra Modi and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, it was also decided to start a direct New Delhi-Astana flight. PTI
Islamabad, June 8

Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated news agency News Network International (NNI).

Former Chief Justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees.

Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation.

India had approached the world court last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

The 15-member Bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.  PTI
Nimbaheda (Rajasthan), June 8

Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met the families of farmers killed in police firing on Tuesday during agitation in Madhya Pradesh, and vowed to press for farm loan waiver across the country.

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The kin of four of the five deceased farmers were brought to Rajathans Chittorgarh district by Congress workers to meet Gandhi after he was released along with 250 supporters on border by Madhya Pradesh police, which had kept them in preventive arrest for four hours after they tried to enter Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violent farmers agitation.

Read: 5 killed in firing during farmers' protest in MP's Mandsaur

Violence, arson in western MP; anti-riots police rushed to Mandsaur

Collector, SP of Mandsaur transferred

The Congress vice-president lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the police action during the stir for loan waiver, and MSP rise among other demands.

I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief... . Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP-ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS? he told reporters after consoling the bereaved families.

Rahul Gandhi travels by road to Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

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Visuals of Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch before he was detained by police

#WATCH: Earlier visuals of Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch on his way to #Mandsaur. He was later detained by Police. pic.twitter.com/DaLeS5K83A  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of 50 richest people of the country.

The farmers in the county are desperately crying for help but the government is not ready to hear them, he said.

He supported the farmers demand for loan waiver and said that they were not getting their due.

Gandhi said that the loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh had come as he had mounted pressure on the BJP government on the issue.

I will continue to press every government across the country to waive farmers loans. I will keep raising the issue in Parliament, he said.

He accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of lying on the issue of farmers death in police firing.

Action should be taken against the security personnel involved in the firing incident. The farmers were not warned and were shot in the chest in violation of all standing operation procedures, he alleged

This is barbaric. Those who have died should get martyr status.

He also slammed the BJP for saying that he had gone for a photo-op there.

I only wanted meet the farmers. What was the need for controversy? Gandhi said.

He added that government can waive loans of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 50 rich people in the country, then why the loans of those farmers who feed the nation cannot be waived.

Earlier, Gandhi defied elaborate security arrangements and crossed Rajasthan border to enter Naya Gaon in Neemuch district of MP, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal. Mandsaur district borders Neemuch.

Raj & MP Govts are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP & meeting the families of the #farmers killed in #Mandsaur  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 8, 2017

But he was detained and later arrested. Gandhi was taken to a guesthouse of a cement company, where he was kept for four hours.

Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders, was taken under preventive arrest under CrPC Section 151. We had informed them that there is curfew in four police station areas and they should not go there. But despite this, they tried to move towards the area, SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said.

They were later released on the border, he said.

Meanwhile, the BJP accused the Congress of instigating the violence and said Gandhis conduct was irresponsible.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the Modi government would not do anything that breaks the faith of farmers and the common man.

There is information that some people were involved in instigating violence, he said.

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu described Gandhis visit as another photo opportunity.

Meanwhile, Youth Congress workers organised a Rail Roko protest at Mumbais Ghatkopar railway station over the farmers protest.

The farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh entered the eighth day on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the police fired at farmers after they reportedly resorted to violence in Mandsaur district. The Madhya Pradesh government says five farmers were killed in police firing but the leaders of farmer groups claim eight died.

The farmers want their loans to be written off and their produce to be bought at a fair price by the government. Agencies
Tribune News Service

Dharamsala/Lucknow, June 8

The main accused in the Saharanpur caste violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar, alias Ravan, was today arrested from Dalhousie in Chamba district in a joint operation of the UP Special Task Force and the Himachal Pradesh Police.

Chandrashekhar, a 30-year-old Dalit rights activist, who had been absconding since clashes broke out in Saharanpur last month, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

Himachal DGP Sanjay Kumar said the police tracked his vehicle and arrested him from Subhash Chowk in Dalhouise in the morning. However, the Chamba police did not disclose details about Chandrashekhars stay. Sources here said the Dalit leader was arrested by a UP Police team at 10.30 am.

In Lucknow, UP ADG (law and order) Aditya Mishra said Chandrashekhar was facing cases for misusing social media and instigating violence in Ramnagar on May 9 in which several police vehicles had been set ablaze and a dozen policemen injured. The ADG said he would be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand and presented in a court tomorrow.

Chandrashekhar had shot to limelight after holding a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur. More than 50,000 Dalits and other activists attended the protest held to highlight the UP Governments atrocities against Dalits in Saharanpur and the rising caste-based crime in the state.

He had also demanded the dropping of criminal cases against Dalits and had said he would surrender if 37 innocent Dalits were released. The Bhim Army founder had charged the Yogi government with sparing the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence and targeting the Dalits.

The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 60 homes set ablaze in clashes between Thakurs and Dalits during a procession to mark Rana Prataps birth anniversary in Shabbirpur village. The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly.

InterNet snapped

As a precautionary measure, the Saharanpur administration has blocked Internet services in the district for two days to restrict the Bhim Army's social media outreach.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Jun 8 (PTI) GM Diptayan Ghosh, seeded second, was today held to a draw for the second successive match but managed to stay in the lead bunch after round six in the 10th Mumbai Mayors Cup International Open Chess Tournament here.

Indias Ghosh (ELO 2569), who had a fine start in the tournament by recording four straight wins in the opening rounds, slipped a bit after failing to score a win in the last two rounds.

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After drawing with Bangladesh GM Murshed Niaz (2423) in the earlier round, Ghosh was held to yet another draw by Tajikistans IM Muhammad Khusenkhojaev (2424) in the sixth round.

However, with five points to his credit, he remained with the lead bunch which was joined by top seed Farrukh Amonatov (2635) of Tajikistan, who scored a timely win.

The Tajikistan Grand Master, who had a poor fifth round as he was held to a draw by Indias Saravana Krishnan P (2353), played at a completely different level to register a comfortable win against Indian IM Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari (2410) to snatch the full point.

This was the fourth win for Amonatov and he will have to maintain the tempo in the remaining four rounds to clinch the top honours.

Results (Round 6 - top 10 boards): GM D Ghosh (2569, IND) 5 points drew with IM Khusenkhojaev Muhammad (2424, TJK) 5; GM Babujian Levon (2438, ARM) 5 drew with GM Tukhaev Adam (2567, UKR) 5; IM Sayantan Das (2401, IND) 5 drew with GM Mollah Abdullah Al Rakib (2484, BAN) 5; GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J (2480, IND) 5 drew with GM Murshed Niaz (2423, BAN) 5; IM Raghunandan Kaumandur Srihari (2410, IND) 4 lost to GM Amonatov Farrukh (2635, TJK) 5; GM Rahman Ziaur (2526, BAN) 5 beat IM Rathnakaran K (2378, IND) 4; Saravana Krishnan P (2353, IND) 4.5 drew with IM Karthikeyan P (2502, IND) 4.5; GM Grover Sahaj (2485, IND) 5 beat FM Karthik Venkataraman (2317, IND) 4; GM Deviatkin Andrei (2481, RUS) 5 beat Raahul V S (2282, IND) 4; Dileep Kumar R (2094, IND) 4 lost to GM Hossain Enamul (2464, BAN) 5. PTI SSR NRB BAS

--- ENDS ---
Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, June 8

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday arrested the alleged mastermind of the Saharanpur caste clashes and violence from Dalhousie in Chamba district of Himachal.

Bhim Sena chief Chandrasekhar, had been absconding after he was accused of being mastermind of Saharanpur violence by the UP Police.

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The 30-year-old Dalit leader, known as Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan, had been absconding after he was accused of being mastermind of Saharanpur violence by the UP police.

Today he was arrested from Dalhousie in Chamba district of Himachal by a Special Task Force team of UP Police.

DGP Himachal Sanjay Kumar said that UP Police had informed them in advance about their raid to arrest Chandrasekhar.

He said the accused was arrested from Subhash Chownk in Dalhouise.

The police had tracked his vehicle and waited for him to return. Chandrasekhar was arrested as soon as he came near his vehicle today morning, the DGP said.

He is accused of promoting caste clashes that rocked the district on May 9. Based on a tip-off, UP Police arrived in Himachal Pradesh in civil clothes and traced Chandrasekhar.

The UP Police had declared a reward of Rs 12,000 for any information leading to Chandrashekar and his aides' arrest.

The Bhim Sena chief had offered to surrender in court if 37 Dalits who had been arrested were released when he emerged on stage at a massive rally in New Delhi's Jantar Mantar.

On May 5, members of Thakur and Dalit communities clashed in Sharanpur district's Shabirpur village.

Clashes had broken out after members of Bhim Sena had objected to a procession of Rajput king Maharana Pratap to pass through Dalit-dominated areas.

The Dalits had asked those heading the procession to turn off the loudspeakers as they passed by a Ravidas temple.

After the Rajputs declined, clashes broke out. As many as 20 Dalit houses were torched and many vehicles were set on fire. A man named Sumit Rajput was killed in the clashes and 16 people were injured.

On May 9, Chandrasekhar had called for a Dalit mahapanchayat but the police denied permission for the same.

Despite permission being denied, Dalits started congregating at the venue which led to the arrest of several Dalit leaders.

A police chowki was burnt down and over 20 vehicles were torched while several instances of stone pelting and clashes were reported.
Tribune News Service

Lucknow, June 8

The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was on Thursday arrested from Himachal Pradesh.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured on May 9.

Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district, which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrasekhar had shot to limelight after holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur.

He had earlier said that he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had told PTI.

"Instead of arresting the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence, the police has arrested innocent people and put them behind bars. This has resulted in growing anger among the dalits," he had said.

The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village.

The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly.

On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur.

BSP leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the district's border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area.

The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region.

Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan', a young Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression.

Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

Though the mission of the Bhim Army was to educate the community's children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpur's Bhado village, it came into limelight in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs.

Chandrashekhar's strength became visible when thousands of Dalits staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against police action and atrocities by the upper castes and emerged as the new champion of Dalit cause.

The sudden rise of the Bhim Army under the leadership of Chandrashekhar has unnerved BSP supremo Mayawati, making her all the more worried after he succeeded in mobilising Dalits in western UP. With PTI inputs
Atlanta, June 8

More than 70 years ago, a US Army cargo plane dubbed Hot as Hell was headed for India on a supply mission.

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It never arrived, and no one went looking for the doomed aircraft or the eight men on board because military officials had no way of pinpointing where it went down.

All signs of the mission were lost until 2006, when a hiker in northeast India spotted a wing and panel sign with the planes name inscribed, Hot as Hell. It wasnt until 2015 that the US Defence Department investigated the crash site and found the remains of 1st Lt. Robert Eugene Oxford.

Today, Oxford will finally be returned home and then laid to rest this weekend with full military honours in his tiny hometown of Concord, Georgia. Photos of his seven fellow crewmen, none of whom was ever found, will lay beside the coffin and then be placed inside it for burial.

We were ecstatic that Eugene was found, but we feel guilty there are seven other men on that mountain top, said Merrill Roan, the wife of Oxfords nephew. So we are honouring the other seven. ... We have to honour them as well, because they may never get any closure.

Oxfords plane departed Kumming, China, on January 25, 1944, said Staff Sgt Kristen Duus at the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Agency. Oxford was declared dead two years later.

Oxfords family didnt know the wreckage had been found until 2007 when Merrill Roan saw a message on a genealogy website from a relative of another service member on the aircraft. That relative wanted help persuading military officials to investigate the crash site.

Duus agency confirmed the crash site correlated with the missing aircraft in 2008. But harmful weather coupled with access issues and security delayed recovery operation efforts until late 2015, Duus said.

Officials say a DNA analysis of Oxfords remains matched his niece and nephew.

Roan said the family was shocked and excited when they heard the news.

Duus said Oxford is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. She said all service members have been returned to the US for identification before the family is notified and the service member is provided a funeral with honours.

Eighty service members were identified in 2015, and that number more than doubled with 164 the following year, Duus said.

The Missing in Action Agency website says there are more than 86,000 Americans still missing abroad from World War-II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Advancements in DNA testing technology and partnerships with other nations has helped find and identify more missing service members than ever, Duus said.

Oxfords parents, siblings and any other relatives who saw him leave for World War II have all died since he went missing, said Terrell Moody of Moody-Daniel Funeral Home, which is handling burial arrangements. Still, the long-overdue homecoming of his remains wont go unnoticed.

A State Patrol escort will guide a hearse carrying Oxfords casket 50 miles south on Interstate 75 from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to the funeral home. A funeral will be held Saturday in a school auditorium, the biggest venue in town, Moody said.

Its just a huge historical event for our little town, Moody said. The phone constantly rings from people wanting information.

Oxford will be buried in the same plot with his parents, Charles and Bessie Oxford, who had placed a memorial marker for their lost son at the gravesite after his plane went missing seven decades ago.  AP
Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 8

A 45-year-old iron trader allegedly committed suicide after shooting his wife and son dead and injuring a 15-year-old daughter at Model Town Extension here today.

People close to the family said Jagmeet Pal Singh Khurana was in depression due to heavy losses in business and was also facing some family issues.

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A well-off trader, Khurana owned a furnace mill at Focal Point and an iron store in Millerganj. He reportedly used his licensed weapon to first kill wife Jaspreet Kaur alias Neetu (40), son Jashandeep Singh (19) and daughter Bishman Khurana (15) before shooting himself in the temple. Bishman survived the attack and was battling for life at DMC hospital.

Police Commissioner RN Dhoke said: Prima facie it seems that Jagmeet first shot his family and then committed suicide. We are registering a murder case against an unidentified person. All angles are being probed.

The family lived on the first floor while Jagmeets mother Mohinder Kaur occupied the ground floor. Mohinder said her son was a partner in a prominent steel company, which was under a Rs 25-crore debt. He was being mentally harassed by other partners of the firm due to which he was depressed and took the extreme step, she said.

DCP Dhruman Nimbale said: The police will question all partners of the steel company and necessary legal action will be taken against the guilty.

The incident came to fore at around 9 am when a car cleaner asked Jagmeets mother for the car keys. When I did not get any reply despite constant knocking at the door, I peeped in and was stunned to see Bishman lying in a poll of blood. People of the locality broke open the door. Then we found Jagmeet, his wife and son lying dead. Bishman was still alive and we rushed her to a hospital, he said.

DCP (crime) Gagan Ajit Singh said: Bishman was found in the first room, Jaspreet and her son in another room and Jagmeet in a third room. We have recovered the weapon and empty cartridges.
Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 8

Families of 39 persons, who went missing in Iraq three years ago, got a fresh ray of hope today with the government saying it knows the location of their relatives and is working to bring them back.

Meeting the relatives of Indians who had gone missing in Iraq after being held captive by the ISIS in June 2014, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj assured them the safety of their kin.

Today was the first time when the minister said the government knew the location of our missing wards. We have been clinging to hope for three years. The government is our only savior. Our hope was rekindled when Swaraj said the ministry was in touch with our missing kin through its sources and was working to rescue them. The minister also read out a letter from the source which said our family members were alive, said Manish Kumar, whose brother Harish Kumar went missing.

He said family representatives of all missing persons, who hail from Punjab, Himachal and Bihar, came for the meeting in which Food Processing Minister and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal was also present.

Amritsars Seema Devi, whose husband Sonu Masih is missing, said the families were more enthused today because the government had itself called them for the meeting.

In the past, we used to seek meetings, but today the government called us, she said.

The government reportedly told the families that their wards were safe and were being used for local work by their captors.

The minister, however, said she could not share evidence regarding them or make their families speak to them.

She said it was not possible yet because even the government was engaging with them through sources.

She added that the government would do its best to share evidence with the families as soon as possible.
Sanjiv Kumar Bakshi

Hoshiarpur, June 8

A youth of Monarawali village in Garhshankar has reportedly gone went missing from his ship in Malaysia.

The family has not been able to contact him since June 2. Later, his co-workers called his family here and they came to know that their son Palvinder Singh had suddenly disappeared from the ship. The family has now requested the External Affairs Ministry to make efforts to find him.

Palvinder's brother Gurvinder Singh and uncle Pargat Ram said Palvinder had last called them on June 2. They said on May 18, he had left for Malaysia on a Merchant Navy ship.

They said they got a call from his co-workers that while working on the ship, Palvinder was tying a heavy rope when he slipped off the ship and fell in sea. They told him that the ship management and Malaysian navy were searching for him. After that there was no trace of Palvinder. The company officials have gone incommunicado, they alleged.
London: A large diamond ring bought for just 10 at a car boot sale has been auctioned for 6,56,750, almost double its estimate. The owner believed the exceptionally sized ring was a piece of fake jewellery when she bought it in the 1980s and would wear it daily. PTI

Facebook to move WhatsApp data

New York: Facebook has decided to move the massive WhatsApp data from IBM Cloud to its own data centres. CNBC reported that Facebook-owned WhatsApp, used by 1.2 billion people, has been one of IBMs top five public cloud customers in terms of revenue. IANS

Climber banned over illegal Everest traverse

Kathmandu: A Polish man has been banned from climbing any mountain in Nepal for 10 years after he made a rare traverse of Mt Everest without the correct permit. Janusz A Adamski, 49, climbed the highest peak on May 21 from the Chinese route and descended on the Nepalese side. Reuters
Washington, June 8

Former FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday he was disturbed by President Donald Trump's bid to get him to drop a probe into the former national security adviser, but he would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.

Comey told US lawmakers in one of the most widely anticipated US congressional hearing in years that the Trump administration had told lies and defamed him and the FBI when the president fired him on May 9.

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In a written testimony released on Wednesday, Comey said Trump had asked him in February to drop an FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning," Comey told lawmakers.

The hearing could have significant repercussions for Trump's presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees investigate alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump's campaign colluded with this.

Russia has denied such interference and the White House has denied any collusion.

Trump triggered a political firestorm when he dismissed Comey.

The former FBI head said Trump's administration had defamed him in comments made after his firing.

"Although the law required no reason at all to fire the FBI Director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organisation was in disarray, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader," Comey said.

"Those were lies, plain and simple," he said.

The Russia issue has dogged Trump's first months in office, with critics saying that any efforts by him to hinder the FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice.

Some legal experts said Comey's testimony could strengthen any impeachment case in Congress to remove Trump from office built on an allegation of obstruction of justice.

Comey testified that he kept notes after meeting with Trump because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document."

The White House has given shifting explanations on why Trump fired Comey. Trump has called Comey a "showboat" and a "grandstander" and said he was thinking of "this Russia thing" in dismissing him.  Reuters
Tehran, June 8

The five men who carried out twin attacks in Tehran were Iranians who joined the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria before returning last summer, the intelligence ministry said on Thursday.

The five known terrorists... after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa, the ministry said in a statement.

The statement indicates only five people carried out yesterdays twin attacks, rather than six originally reported.

The ministry released images and the first names of the dead attackers, who killed 17 people and wounded dozens in gun and bomb assaults on Tehrans parliamentary complex and the shrine of revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini yesterday.

It said the five men were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of high-ranking Daesh commander Abu Aisha and that intended to carry out terrorist operations in religious cities.

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee the country, the statement said.

It was not clear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of yesterdays attacks.  AFP
Los Angeles: A 46-year-old Indian-American lawyer has been killed in the US after being hit by a train at a crossing in California. Kirtee Kapoor, who was born in Bangalore, was a partner in the law firm Davis Polk, The Mercury News reported. Kapoor, who lived in Menlo Park city, was killed by a southbound Caltrain on Monday at the Watkins Avenue crossing in Atherton town. He is survived by his wife and daughter, the report said. PTI

Four killed in US murder-suicide

Tunkhannock (US): State Police say four people are dead in a murder-suicide in a northeast Pennsylvania supermarket. Troopers responded to a report of someone shooting people inside Weis Market in Eaton Township, about 25 miles northwest of Scranton, just before 1 am today. Troopers found the bodies of two males and two females inside, along with one witness. Authorities believe one of the males opened fire on the others before turning the gun on himself. Authorities believe it is a contained incident. No names have been released. AP

Blast at US embassy in Kiev; no casualties

Kiev: A small blast hit the premises of the US embassy in Kiev overnight causing no casualties after an unknown assailant lobbed an explosive device, Ukrainian police said today. "Investigators found that an unknown person threw an explosive device onto the territory of the diplomatic mission," the police said in a statement. The US embassy - located in central Kiev - confirmed that an "incident involving a small incendiary device" happened just after midnight but said diplomats were working "as normal" after no damage was caused. AFP

5 Iranian attackers had visited Mosul

Tehran: The five men who carried out twin attacks in Tehran were Iranians who joined the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria before returning last summer, the intelligence ministry said today. "The five known terrorists... after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the ministry said in a statement. The statement indicates only five people carried out yesterday's twin attacks, rather than six originally reported.  Agencies
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said the US is sending thoughts and prayers to the Iranian people following the attacks.

By AP: President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered solace to the victims of the twin terrorist attacks in Iran while suggesting Tehran bears some culpability, saying "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Hours after conciliatory comments from his State Department, the president said in a one-paragraph statement that the United States grieves and prays for the innocent victims of the assault against Iran's Parliament and the shrine of Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that killed at least 12 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

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Trump added his broadside against Iran, which the US has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984.

"We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote," he said.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said the US is sending thoughts and prayers to the Iranian people following the attacks.

"The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world," said Nauert, who said the US is expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

DEEP DISTRUST BETWEEN US AND IRAN

The US statement of solidarity with the attack's victims is notable because of the deep distrust between the US and Iran. The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations, and the Trump administration has emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence.

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in Congress acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions on Iran, including on its elite Revolutionary Guards. The strong bipartisan vote was 92-7.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week of the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

The bill is a "carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said.

Last month, the Foreign Relations Committee backed the measure despite concerns from former Secretary of State John Kerry and several Democrats that it could nonetheless lead to the unraveling of the nuclear accord negotiated by the Obama administration.

'TREAD CAREFULLY' WITH NEW SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAN

Kerry cautioned lawmakers to "tread carefully" in pushing ahead with new sanctions against Iran in the wake of President Hassan Rouhani's re-election to another four-year term. Rouhani is a political moderate who scored a resounding victory over a hard-line opponent.

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Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the committee's Republican chairman and one of the bill's sponsors, said he recently reviewed top-secret intelligence that detailed Tehran's support for terrorism and other destabilizing actions.

"It is astounding what Iran continues to do around the world," said Corker, urging his colleagues to confront the threat Tehran poses.

AGREEMENT BETWEEN US AND IRAN

In exchange for Iran rolling back its nuclear program, the US and other world powers agreed to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy. As part of the July 2015 multinational accord, Iran also regained access to frozen assets held abroad.

Israel and congressional Republicans have long assailed the agreement as a windfall to Iran. They've argued the deal only delayed Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and failed to allow the kind of inspections of its atomic sites that would guarantee Tehran was not cheating. Lifting economic sanctions saved Iran's economy, GOP lawmakers added, and allowed the country to funnel more money to terrorist groups.

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Yet the nuclear deal remains in place despite Trump's pledge during the presidential campaign to discard or renegotiate the pact. Instead, the State Department took a key step last week toward preserving the pact by issuing a waiver to keep the sanctions from snapping back into place. And the Trump administration notified Congress last month that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that as the Iran legislation moves forward, lawmakers will have an opportunity to offer amendments that would authorize new sanctions on Russia.

Also Read:

Donald Trump takes sides in Arab rift, claims credit for isolation of Qatar

Iran attacks: Islamic State releases video of raid on parliament, Khomeini shrine that killed 12

Also Watch:

Terror attacks at Iran parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini mausoleum

--- ENDS ---
Ashis Ray

London, June 7

Seven weeks ago when British Prime Minister, Theresa May summoned a surprise mid-term election, pundits believed a victory for her Conservative Party was a foregone conclusion with the main Opposition Labour Party under far left Jeremy Corbyn perceived as unelectable. The opinion polls gave the Tories a lead of 16 percentage points. On the eve of voting, that has shrunk to 6 per cent.

The latest betting odds from Coral  never to be ignored in a nation of bookmakers  suggest May is most likely to continue as Prime Minister (bets placed for the Conservatives 1/10, Labour 13/2). The campaign began on the issue of Brexit. On the final day of canvassing  after the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London in the course of electioneering  the agenda switched to who is better suited to tackle Islamist violence.

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May persisted: I mean longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences. I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terror suspects to their countries. And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and movements of terror suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court. And if human right laws stop us from doing it, we will change those laws so we can do it.

Corbyn countered: The right response to the recent attacks is to halt the Conservative cuts and invest in our police and security services and protect our democratic values, including the Human Rights Act. One of the London terrorists, 27-year-old Khuram Butt of Pakistani origin, was reported to the anti-terror hotline in 2015 and had featured as an Islamic State activist in a television documentary. But he was not questioned. May said she expected the intelligence agencies to examine if there had been lapses.

But with hours to go before voting, the two leaders returned to their core themes. May promised Brexit would bring more jobs, homes and better transport links. Corbyn warned there were only 24 hours left to save the National Health Service. The Conservative manifesto was harsh on economically weaker sections and the elderly. Labour, in contrast, made populist pledges to scrap university tuition fee and raise the minimum wage of 10 an hour.

On Brexit too, May was constrained  because of the right-wing, nationalist rump in her party  to promise a soft landing, which is what a majority of the electorate want.

Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University, a respected BBC analyst, asked about May: Will it have been worth it? She was expecting a sweep, which would have reduced the potential of her 40-50 hard right MPs to tie her hands in negotiations with the EU. Curtice felt the latest polls might give her a slightly bigger majority than the 12 seat one that David Cameron (her predecessor) achieved two years ago but it will not produce a landslide.

If the Conservatives obtain only a slender majority, her authority as PM would be undermined, whereas any increase in Labour seats would embolden Corbyn to resist his removal as party leader. A Labour-Liberal Democrat-Scottish National Party (SNP) coalition in the event of the Conservatives falling short of an absolute majority would be unprecedented in British politics. It would also be at cross-purposes, for the Liberal Democrats and the SNP want at least a second referendum on Brexit, if not a rejection of it.

May is not as passionate as Cameron about a special relationship with India. But Labour under its current leadership would  as its manifesto underlines  be unhelpful to India on Kashmir and Khalistan. The number of MPs of Indian descent though is slated to rise above the current figure of 10, as per the research conducted by RayMedia.
Washington, June 8

Pakistans top diplomat in the US was laughed at by a Washington audience when he repeatedly insisted that there are no safe sanctuaries for terrorists in Pakistan and that the Taliban leader, who reportedly died in a hospital in Karachi, never left Afghanistan.

What is there funny about, a visibly irritated Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the Pakistan Ambassador to the US, told a Washington think-tank audience which burst into laughter when he repeatedly argued that there are no terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and that Mullah Omar never left Afghanistan to visit Pakistan.

The reality is, however, different, argued former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as his countrys ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN.

We have very firm evidence of his (Mullah Omar) presence in Pakistan, where he went, lived,...hospital, he said, adding that for a long time there was the idea that bin Laden never left Afghanistan.

There is ample evidence that while the operation was going on the Haqqani network was being evacuated to safer location, the former US Ambassador to Pakistan said during a panel discussion on Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan, at the Atlantic Councils South Asia Center.

Chaudhry appeared to be isolated as two other panelistthe former Indian minister Manish Tewari and top American think-tank expert Ashley Tellisjoined Khalilzad to say that terrorist safe havens continued to exist in Pakistan and there is level of support from the Pakistani establishment.

What sanctuaries you are talking about? If you want to live in the past, you cannot solve the present. Haqqani and the Taliban are not our friends. They are not our proxies. What Quetta Shura you are talking about? What Peshawar Shura? the Pak Ambassador questioned to an amused Washington audience, who was witness to a sharp debate between him and Khalilzad. The panel discussion had an abrupt end as the two exchanged words.

Tellis said while the safe havens continued to exist in Pakistan, a great deal of financial and personnel supply did come from Afghanistan. But there is no denying that the Taliban leadership were based in Pakistan, he said.

Tewari said it is time that Pakistan should introspect as to why the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who went to Rawalpindi to meet the Pakistan Army Chief had turned against Pakistan. Ghani is actually constrained to say Pakistan is having an undeclared war with Afghanistan.

Those are extremely strong statements coming from the head of state, he said.

During the question and answer session, an Afghan diplomat, Muhammad Asad, and an Afghan woman journalist Nazira Karimi of Ariana television joined the three other panellists to challenge Chaudhrys assertion about terrorist safe haven.

Our allegation is evidence-based, Asad said, adding that while the carrot formula had not worked, it is time for the US to look the other way around. Karimi referred to the allegations of US lawmakers about continued terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which he dismissed.

The Pakistan Ambassador said his country wanted a peaceful, stable, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan.

Afghan soil should not be used against Pakistan. Other than that, we want to facilitate reconciliation...Just blaming Pakistan all the time will not help. What will help is to recognise what Pakistan has done for Afghanistan, he said.

Chaudhry also accused India of being a part of a double squeeze strategy.

Asserting that India has a strategic interest in Afghanistan, he alleged that this is part of the double squeeze strategy of New Delhi against Islamabad.

India does have strategic interest in Afghanistan. It could be part of the double squeeze strategy against Pakistan. To that end an Afghanistan that is not stable would serve Indias purpose and thats why India is opposing reconciliation with Taliban of any kind, Chaudhry told a Washington audience.

Participating in a panel discussion on Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan, at the Atlantic Councils South Asia Center, Chaudhry accused India of trying to be a hegemonic power in the region. PTI
London, June 8

UK polls on Thursday opened with about 46 million eligible voters expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the country.

The odds seem to be in favour of May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister who called for snap polls 52 days ago.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Polls close at 10 pm UK time (2.30 am IST), with results expected to begin rolling in within an hour or so after voting finishes.

May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britains exit from the 28-member bloc.

More than 46 million people, including an estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters, are eligible to vote in what is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

It remains to be seen if the Conservative party leaders decision to call a snap general election follows the forecast patterns of the latest opinion polls and betting odds or the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party is able to make a dent into her slim majority in the House of Commons.

Corbyn, 68, has focused on his partys promise to spend more on health and education.

Never before has there been a clearer choice between the parties...a choice quite simply between hope and fear, he said.

The final pre-poll survey done by Comres for the Independent newspaper gives the Tories a 10-point lead over the Labour party.

Mays ruling Conservatives are on 44 per cent, Labour at 34 per cent, the Liberal Democrats at 9 per cent, with far-right UKIP at 5 per cent, the Scottish National Party (SNP) at 4 per cent and the Green Party at 2 per cent.

This forecast is echoed in the nearly 100 million pounds expected to be bet on the outcome of the polls.

Generally, on average, the polls tend to point towards a fairly small Tory majority, whereas the betting is more optimistic of the prime minister landing a majority of around 70 seats, said a betting expert at Ladbrokes, one of the UKs leading bookmakers.

Betfair, another leading bookmaker, also views the Tories as the odds-on favourite to win the general election, with odds of 1/12. However, there are some pundits who point out that the pre-poll patterns are following similar trends as for the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016, the outcome of which had taken most pollsters by surprise.

The betting odds being offering for a hung Parliament have also narrowed after some recent opinion polls had indicated the possibility of such an outcome.

Officially, it takes 326 seats for an overall majority in the House of Commons. In the 2015 general election, then Prime Minister David Cameron-led Conservatives had won 331 seats, giving the Tories a small but significant majority, and the Labour party won 232 seats.

The official exit poll at the close of voting at 10 pm local time on election night is traditionally expected to give an indication of which way the vote is likely to go.

The constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South in north-east England has a history of being the first to declare the results, with the complete results expected to be clear by early on Friday morning.

Sunderland is a traditional Labour party stronghold and the vote-share with which the party holds on to the seat in the region is often seen as a sign of things to come.

Brexit is expected to be the central factor behind voting patterns.

All the major parties wrapped up their campaigning on Thursday with a last-ditch effort to swing undecided voters.

May focused on her central message of the strong and stable leadership that she can provide for Britains exit negotiations from the European Union (EU).

Brexit is the basis of everything. We need to secure our economy for the future, we need to ensure we are getting more jobs, better paid jobs, more opportunities for young people in this country. We can do that if we get the Brexit negotiations right, she said in one of her final speeches.

The Liberal Democrats have been focused on their Remain-voting target seats, while the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) has stuck to its central message of ensuring there is no back-tracking on Brexit.

The UK was recently rocked by two terror attacks.

Seven people were killed on Saturday when three men aboard a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and went on a stabbing spree before being shot by police.

The second attack took place on May 22 when 22 people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena. PTI
Photo: Deborah Lockridge

Trucking companies that use independent contractors could be breathing a sigh of relief after the Department of Labor Wednesday withdrew an Obama-era guidance that some viewed as an attack on the owner-operator model used in trucking.

The 2015 Obama administration guidance on independent contractors expanded the definition of employees as part of a crackdown on so-called misclassification of employees as contractors.

That guidance said the department would consider most workers to be employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. It told employers to use an economic realities test in determining whether workers are employees.

At the time, the American Trucking Associations called it "an aggressive departure from prevailing classification standards," saying it "no doubt signals an attack on industries like trucking that rely significantly on contractors."

The economic realities test has been used by several courts and regulatory agencies for years and includes factors such as:

The extent to which the work performed is an integral part of the employers business;

The workers opportunity for profit or loss depending on his or her managerial skill;

The extent of the relative investments of the employer and the worker;

Whether the work performed requires special skills and initiative;

The permanency of the relationship; and

The degree of control exercised or retained by the employer.

At the time that guidance originally was issued, Rob Moseley, transportation attorney with Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP, called it problematic for the industry, noting, A trucking company is not going to be able to say having truckers move your freight isn't an integral part of your business.

Wednesdays brief announcement on the DOL website said removal of the administrator interpretations does not change the legal responsibilities of employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act  The department will continue to fully and fairly enforce all laws within its jurisdiction.

As the National Law Review noted, while todays announcement is welcome news for employers and may signal less extreme positions by the Department of Labor, employers should still be mindful of potential liability associated with joint employment and independent-contractor classifications. In addition to DOL enforcement (which the agency made clear will continue), a number of states have been active in their efforts to curb employee misclassification, and employees also have a private right of action under the FLSA and various state laws.

The Labor Department deleted the Obama-era guidance from its website.
UPS is among the companies that are committed to exploring alternative fuels and drivetrains. Photo: UPS

Black smoke was once the inky signature of diesel engines everywhere. Now it has all but disappeared. A 1998 model year truck actually belched 35 times more smog-producing NOx and 60 times more particulate matter than equipment built to meet 2010 emissions standards, and thats before regulators turned their attention to greenhouse gases.

The trucking industrys environmental gains have not been limited to diesel, of course. Clean-burning fuels from natural gas to propane autogas, and even battery power, are now viable options, especially where medium-duty trucks and predictable operating ranges are involved. Nikola Motors has taken a further leap, pledging to produce electric Class 8 trucks as early as 2020, and Tesla says it will unveil one come September.

Still, there is no mistaking a change in the underlying business climate. Steep diesel prices helped to make the business case for alternative-fueled equipment, which tends to come with premium price tags. Now diesel is relatively cheap. A new administration in the White House, meanwhile, wants to slash funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which largely sets the emissions rules.

But dont prepare to burn coal dust just yet. The push for cleaner air continues, even if it originates from a source other than the federal government. California, for example, remains committed to reducing greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. In California we are not debating climate science, said Jack Kitowski, chief of the California Air Resources Boards mobile source division, in a presentation during the Green Truck Summit in Indianapolis earlier this year. The facts will end up speaking for themselves.

Then theres the fact that increasingly, truck makers are designing for a global audience, and while President Trump may have just pulled out of the Paris climate accord, all but two other countries are still involved. And close to home, Canadas federal government remains committed to aggressive targets of its own.

Wells to Wheels

Wilfried Achenbach, Daimler Trucks North Americas senior vice president  engineering and technology, just wants options to be compared fairly. Commitments to reduce greenhouse gases will require the trucking industry to put on the brakes when it comes to its thirst for diesel, he agrees. But a focus on well to wheels also considers emissions that emerge when producing different energy sources capable of moving a vehicle.

Electricity is not for free environmentally."

Electricity is not for free environmentally, he explains. In the U.S., 39% of that power comes from burning coal, and 28% is from burning natural gas, which means diesel and electric powertrains are equally as clean. Each generates about 1.7 pounds of carbon dioxide to create a kilowatt-hour of energy. Currently with our energy mix, it doesnt make any sense to go electric, he says. A shift in the equation would require more of the electricity to be produced through renewable sources like wind turbines or solar panels. That would require political will. And money.

Even when an electric option is possible, its not necessarily practical. Battery packs capable of the type of range needed for long-haul routes are expected to be heavy and expensive.

That helps explain why electric rollouts have so far focused on lighter commercial equipment. But a business case for these zero-emission vehicles is clearly emerging. Several major cities around the world have announced goals to restrict access to internal combustion engines.

This is the future of the industry, said Jecka Glasman, Fusos president and CEO, as her company unveiled a Class 4 electric truck known as the eCanter. Its going to be busy, its going to be crowded, but goods are still going to need to be delivered.

Its going to be busy, its going to be crowded, but goods are still going to need to be delivered.

Ford, meanwhile, has just expanded its Qualified Vehicle Modifier program to include companies such as XL Hybrids, Lightning Hybrids and Motiv Power Systems that develop and install electrified and hydraulic hybrid powertrains. Options already include the Ford F-650 and F-750 medium-duty trucks, Transit and E-series vans and chassis.

Such clean-running vehicles deserve to be seen as more than experiments. As recently as three years ago, most of CARBs financial incentives focused on early research and development. Now the money is more likely to be invested in ways to commercialize the equipment that emerged.

Were past the teething issues of reliability, says Reuben Sarkar, the U.S. Department of Energys deputy assistant secretary for transportation, referring to 30 makes and models of zero-emissions vehicles now on the market. Youre going to be getting falling technology costs in the future. The battery power that cost US $1,000 per kilowatt hour in 2008 is expected to cost $125 by 2022. Once it reaches $80 per kilowatt hour, the battery costs align with diesel and gasoline prices.

Alternative Fuels

Environmentally friendly options are not limited to batteries, of course. Available fuels include renewable forms of propane, natural gas, and even diesel. Dimethyl Ether (DME) can be produced from organic waste. More readily available alternative fuels include propane and compressed or liquefied natural gas.

Heavy trucks that replace diesel with natural gas reduce their [greenhouse gas] emissions up to 25%, says Stephanie Trudeau, senior vice president  regulatory framework, customers and communities at Quebec-based Gaz Metro, which distributes the fuel. Generate the natural gas from organic waste, something that is already fueling select waste management fleets, and the truck will save even more.

Theres a certain amount of demand thats going to be there even in a low-diesel-price environment because customers have a duty cycle thats just perfect for natural gas, says Cummins Westport president Rob Neitzke. Think of medium-duty fleets that can be refueled overnight with slow-fill compressed natural gas connections in a shop, or operations with gross vehicle weights under 80,000 pounds that can be pulled with available 12L engines.

Theres a certain amount of demand thats going to be there even in a low-diesel-price environment because customers have a duty cycle thats just perfect for natural gas."

Besides that, natural gas is still cheaper than diesel, he notes.

Even with diesel prices being lower, propane prices are pretty cheap as well, adds Todd Mouw of Roush CleanTech, which makes and installs related fuel systems. And where diesel engines can now produce as little as 0.2 grams of NOx per horsepower hour, propane models hover around 0.05.

Displays at this year's Work Truck Show included a Ford F-650 that runs on propane, and an F-750 medium-duty box truck that was being tested by a local bakery. Not only that, there is no need for a DPF and the related regen cycles, says Tucker Perkins, chief development officer with the Propane Education and Research Council. Other advantages when compared to diesel include longer oil drain intervals and quicker starts. Each tank stores about 85% of the content found in gasoline.

Jim Castelaz, CEO of Motiv, notes that electric powertrains were once relegated to special sections of the Work Truck Show. Now they are displayed front and center along with their gasoline diesel counterparts. The future is bright for electric trucks, he says. There is really a general interest across the industry.

Sure, diesel is cheap today, but for how long? Many buyers are exploring equipment that will be in service for eight to 12 years, Castelaz adds. Thats a long time to lock yourself into a very volatile resource ... tomorrows prices will not be what they are today.

John G. Smith is the editor of the award-winning Canadian publication Today's Trucking. This article was used under a cooperative editorial sharing agreement between HDT and its Canadian counterpart.
Earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mumbai had registered a case against SVLL, Rupchand Baid and others for criminal conspiracy, cheating the Bank of Maharashtra to the tune of Rs 836.29 crore.

By Virendrasingh Ghunawat: In a major offensive action against the defaulter of bank loan, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 19.62 crore of Surat based Siddhi Vinayak Logistic Limited (SVLL) and others for defrauding Bank of Maharashtra (BoM).

Details of attached properties are:

Hotel Oyster in Surat worth Rs 2.24 crore

Shares of M/s Acumen Infrastructure Pvt Ltd worth Rs 15 lakh

Offices (at Surat, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Bharuch), flats (at Surat, Udaipur, Dadar Nagar Haveli, Thane) Bungalows in Pune and Agriculture land at Nagpur of M/s SVLL worth Rs 8.39 crore

Flat at Surat of M/s Rajkamal Logistic Pvt Ltd worth Rs 9.98 lakh

Flat at Surat of M/s Yashkirti Tours And Travels (P) Ltd worth Rs 6.53 lakh

Land at Nagpur of M/s Siddhi Vinayak Farm Fresh Pvt Ltd worth Rs 75.6 lakh

Flats, Shop, Land at Surat of Rupchand Baid worth Rs 1.92 crore

Hotel Pawan at Bharuch and shop at Surat of Rajkumar Baid worth Rs 54.28 lakh

Flat and shop at Surat Smt Laxmidevi Baid worth Rs 43.08 lakh

Luxury cars viz. Audi Q7, Audi A4, Jaguar and BMW worth Rs 2.05 crore

Bank balances of M/s SVLL worth Rs 2.96 crore

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Earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Mumbai had registered a case against SVLL, Rupchand Baid and others for criminal conspiracy, cheating the Bank of Maharashtra to the tune of Rs 836.29 crore.

Since 2013 onwards, Baid - promoter and mentor of SVLL had taken various types of loan facilities in the name of 2804 drivers/employees under a scheme "Chalak Se Malak" (Driver to owner) devised by him by submitting forged and fabricated documents.

Subsequent of registration of FIR, the ED has registered a case in the month of November 2016 and commenced investigation under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

During investigation, it was revealed that under the instructions of Rupchand Baid and BoM had disbursed loan amount of Rs 117.6 crore to a shell company namely Advance Metal Corporation Pvt Ltd operating from Kalbadevi, Mumbai by representing them before banks as Body Builder of Trucks. "They were eventually was found to be involved into practice of cheque discounting", the official said.

The bank had also disbursed loan amounting to Rs 130.6 crore to one of the company namely M/s Addplus Distributors Pvt Ltd by disguising it as Authorized Dealer of M/s Ashok Leyland Ltd. This was also controlled by Rupchand Baid.

The money was routed in a series of transactions among the companies of Rupchand Baid and its family members and ultimately utilised by M/s SVLL, its group of companies and its directors for unintended purposes.

In addition, Baid had also used the interesting modus-operandi of money laundering by parking the loan amount with the genuine authorised dealers of Eicher Motors and Tata Motors and retransferred it into the accounts of SVLL by unilaterally canceling the purchase orders with them.

"Baid had also purchased a hotel in Surat by laundering the loan amount taken from Bank of Maharashtra which has now been attached by ED," the official said.

Baid was the mastermind behind the entire criminal act of money laundering by embezzlement of bank loans and was arrested on April 2017 and is presently in judicial custody.

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Tom Cruise battles a mummy, Joel Edgerton battles an unknown enemy and Megan Leavey goes into battle with her dog by her side in this weeks new movies.

The Mummy

Tom Cruise helps Universal reboot its famous monster franchises, beginning with a new Mummy movie that the studio promises will be full of adventure, terror and action. Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll? Interesting.

It Comes at Night

Joel Edgerton, looking as disturbed as his character in The Gift, stars in this thriller about a world under siege and a family holed up in a house, alone, until they have to share.

Megan Leavey

A young Marine corporal forges a special bond with her military combat dog, allowing them to save many lives in Iraq. Based on a true story and produced by Oklahoma filmmaker Mickey Liddell (Jackie).
Fighting back against accusations of creating an epidemic of prescription opioid drug abuse, Wal-Mart and five other major corporations went to federal court Thursday in an effort to keep the Cherokee Nation from suing them in tribal court.

The companies, including Walgreens, CVS and other major drug distributors, asked a U.S. District Court in Tulsa to declare that Cherokee courts have no jurisdiction over them, tossing out a case that Cherokee officials filed in tribal court in April.

None of plaintiffs here are tribal members or tribal corporations, the companies told the federal court. Moreover, none of plaintiffs conduct at issue occurred in Indian country.

Filing the original case in Cherokee tribal court made it a potential test-case for tribal sovereignty, but the lawsuit itself involves the rising use of prescription pain killers among Cherokee citizens. Pharmacies and distributors are to blame, the original lawsuit alleges, for consciously oversupplying the market in and around Cherokee Nation with highly addictive prescription opioids and failing to provide effective controls and procedures to keep the drugs off the black market.

Written with help from out-of-state law firms, the original case pits Cherokee Attorney General Todd Hembree against some of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical industry, including the McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen. Combined, the three companies account for nearly 90 percent of all revenues from drug distribution in the United States, according to the original lawsuit.

The original lawsuit devotes several pages to arguing that the case belongs in tribal court, insisting federal and Cherokee law gives tribal judges jurisdiction over non-Indians when they are threatening the political integrity, economic security or health and welfare of the tribe.

Ahead of a June 12 deadline to respond in tribal court, however, the drug distributors went to federal court.

Tribal courts are not courts of general jurisdiction, according to the drug companies written argument Thursday. As domestic dependent quasi-sovereign nations, the jurisdiction of Indian tribes over non-Indians is strictly limited.

Hembree hit back at the drug companies with a statement to the Tulsa World.

The defendants' filing today is not just the usual attempt to delay and avoid justice," he said. "It's an attack on the very sovereignty of our nation and our ability to protect our families from the illegal activities of these companies that are causing extraordinary harm and suffering to our people."

The national opioid crisis has hit Native Americans especially hard, according to the original tribal lawsuit. More than 350 Cherokee citizens died from opioid abuse between 2003 and 2014, and death-by-overdose is now more common than traffic fatalities, the tribe says.
An attacker threw the device over the embassy's fence just after midnight, police added, calling it a terrorist act.

By Reuters: A device exploded in the US embassy compound in Ukraine's capital Kiev in the early hours today, injuring no one, police said.

An attacker threw the device over the embassy's fence just after midnight, police added, calling it a terrorist act.

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While a man who was filming outside the Tulsa Police Departments eastside division headquarters on Monday wasnt breaking any laws by shooting video of the building, police contend that he could have posed a threat.

Kyle Hogan, 32, said he was driving by the Mingo Valley Division headquarters, 10122 E. 11th St., when he noticed the flags blowing in the breeze outside the building and stopped to record the scene.

After about 10 minutes, officers came outside to investigate  something Hogan said he understands.

The video begins with Tulsa Police Sgt. Robert Rohloff pulling up in a police vehicle. He gets out and tells Hogan they know hes been filming them and that because of the current threat environment, they need Hogans information because he is being perceived as a potential threat. When Hogan doesnt comply, Rohloff says Hogan could be arrested for obstruction of justice. Rohloff also tells Hogan he believes he has mental problems.

Sgt. Shane Tuell said that while Tulsa police support citizens right to record officers, police officers also have a right to peace and privacy.

In the last two weeks, Tuell said, the department has received a death threat against officers. That, coupled with recent instances nationally of police being ambushed and killed, has Tulsa officers looking out for their safety.

These are real times and real things that we are having to deal with nowadays that we didnt have to deal with years ago, and it doesnt help when our citizenry tries to push those boundaries, Tuell said.

Hogan, who has filmed the building before in an audit, said he understands why officers wanted to speak with him. He doesnt understand why they responded with the level of force they did, he said.

I dont have a problem with them coming out to investigate the situation. The problem I have is them coming out saying that Im a stalker, that Im part of the Irish Mob and that Im out there with ill intent when Im not, Hogan said.
Police arrested a Tulsa man on allegations he fled from an officer during an attempted traffic stop.

Tulsa police arrested Lawrence Mitchell, 21, on complaints of eluding, hit-and-run car accident and traffic violations, according to jail records.

Tulsa Police Sgt. Brandon Smith attempted to stop Mitchell for a broken tail light about 3:45 a.m. Thursday near East 15th Street and South Memorial Drive, he said. Mitchell allegedly fled, attempting to elude the traffic stop.

Mitchell allegedly led police through multiple thoroughfares and neighborhood streets before crashing through a fence and onto a residential yard near the intersection of East King Street and North 77th East Avenue, Smith said.

He allegedly fled from the accident. Police located Mitchell about a block from the crash. Mitchell was allegedly hiding in an abandoned car.

Police arrested Mitchell and booked him into Tulsa Jail. He is being held in lieu of a $829 bond, according to jail records.

Mitchell's passenger was questioned and released, Smith said.
A day after the Tulsa Fire Department announced it would remove thin blue lines from its vehicles, the Tulsa County Sheriffs Office announced blue and black lines would be central to the departments new paint job for patrol vehicles.

Sheriff Vic Regalado unveiled the new design Thursday afternoon at the Faulkner Building downtown. Instead of white patrol cars with badges on doors, the agencys new vehicles will feature Sheriff in gold letters and thin blue and black lines down the vehicles sides.

The thin blue line, bordered by black accents above and below, is a common symbol among law enforcement and its supporters. Regalado said the thin blue line has different meanings, including solidarity with first responders and a line between chaos and order. But he said the decal on TCSOs patrol cars is a commitment to residents, and to remember those who died in the line of duty.

Its a reminder of the sacred oath we took to protect the citizens of Tulsa County, Regalado said. It also serves as a memorial to those first responders everywhere who gave the ultimate sacrifice in that service.

The announcement came one day after city Fire Chief Ray Driskell said the thin blue line decal would be removed from firetrucks. Driskell said the decal, which was added after the Dallas police shooting in July, may have been perceived as showing favor to the Betty Shelby trial verdict.

Regalado said the timing of TCSOs announcement was coincidental and not intended as a slight to the fire department. He also said the office chose the design weeks before the fire departments decision to remove the decal, and that he didnt think the thin blue line should be politicized in any way.

Driskell said he spoke with Regalado and Police Chief Chuck Jordan on Thursday morning before TCSOs announcement, and that the fire department will announce a new decal in a press release Friday to reaffirm its support for police and first responders.

Well be putting different stickers on our apparatus that not only show support for police, but also 911, EMS and, of course, the military, Driskell said. So Im hoping that will rectify everything to let people understand that we do support all of those.

Residents will first see the new design on the TCSOs newest Ford Explorers on order, and Regalado said all department patrol vehicles will be repainted over the next few months.

Regalado also said the thin blue line also will be incorporated into other aspects of the departments branding, such as signage at TCSO facilities.
The farmer's suicide note said that his body should not be cremated until Chief Minister Devendra Fadnasvis visits his place and announces a farm loan waiver.

By Press Trust of India: Amid the ongoing agitation by farmers in Maharashtra, a cultivator allegedly committed suicide at a village in Solapur district, leaving behind a note purportedly stating that he should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and meets their demands.

Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil on Wednesday night, Solapur Collector Rajendra Bhosale said.

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According to Karmala police, Jadhav's suicide note, addressed to his friends and relatives, said, "I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to village and do not cremate me till Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis comes here".

Bhosale also confirmed that the farmer's suicide note stated his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and announces a loan waiver for farmers.

A DEBT OF Rs 60,000

Solapur's Guardian Minister Vijay Deshmukh paid a visit to the deceased farmer's village today.

The farmer, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son in his family. He possessed 2.5 acres of cultivable land.

He had a debt of around Rs 60,000 and had also taken loans from some private lenders, police said.

CM UNDER ATTACK

After the incident, the farmers organisations resorted to a rasta-roko (road blockade) and called for a bandh in Karmala tehsil.

The Solapur collector said he was on his way to the village. Police teams have also been rushed to the spot to prevent the situation from spiralling into a law and order issue, he said.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and the BJP's ally Shiv Sena over sustained protests by farmers across Maharashtra for the last one week, resulting in a sharp rise in agricultural commodity prices.

Fadnavis' recent statement promising a loan waiver by October 31 has failed to pacify the agitating farmers, who have continued with their stir.

ALSO READ:

Mandsaur: Here's what led to Madhya Pradesh farmers protest

Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

Farmers' protests: Shiv Sena ministers boycott Maharashtra Cabinet meet

Beyond Madhya Pradesh protest: Why loan waivers are not good for farmers, India

ALSO WATCH: Why Yogi Adityanath's loan waiver for farmers is not a good move

--- ENDS ---
The rebooted 24: Legacy with Corey Hawkins has been cancelled by FOX in the US -but producers are already looking at continuing the franchise with an anthology.

Despite launching with 17.6m viewers following Super Bowl the series wrapped with 6.3m total viewers with seven days of PVR. It also struggled in Australia on TEN.

FOX is already talking with producers, including Howard Gordon and Brian Grazer, for a new anthological take with new storylines and characters built around the real-time storytelling device.

Original star Kiefer Sutherland is busy with Designated Survivor which was renewed for a second season.

Source: Hollywood Reporter
Nine is to replay the UK documentary Jihadis Next Door which includes two militants who reportedly responsible for terrorist attacks in London.

Khuram Shazad Butt, who died in a hail of police bullets, appears briefly in the documentary. Abu Rumaysah, one of the films central characters, suspected of being an ISIS executioner.

Abu Rumaysah is suspected of being the British jihadi in the latest Isis execution video. This documentary films with and challenges the behaviour and motivations of extremists, including Rumaysah.

This screens 10pm Sunday on Nine.

Those waiting for Challenger Disaster: The Lost Tapes are in for bad news, it has been delayed a third time, previously due to Schapelle Corby & London attacks.
SKY News coverage of the UK Election begins tonight at 9:30pm with SKY News Business screening rolling coverage from SKY News UK.

On SKY News Live Channel 601 coverage begins at 5:00am with First Edition, including Live to London at 7:00am as the polls close and the first of the Exit Polls are released.

Chief Political Reporter Kieran Gilbert hosts a special edition of AM Agenda before we take viewers back to London Live for coverage as the votes are counted and the winners and losers emerge.

From 4pm Janine Perrett hosts UK Votes with analysis on what the result means for Australia before Samantha Maiden wraps the day with The Latest at 6pm.

Live coverage from 9:30pm AEST Thursday June 8 SKY News Business

Live coverage from 5:00am AEST Friday June 9 SKY News
| By Mary T. Phelan

Leaders in nursing education from throughout Maryland gathered at the University of Maryland School of Nursing (UMSON) on May 22 for the 2017 Maryland Action Coalition (MDAC) summit.

The summit drew nearly 100 attendees from a variety of health professions, educational institutions, and health care entities. (See video below.)

The coalition strives to improve health care by implementing recommendations set forth in the landmark report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health, released in 2010 by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The report addressed the challenges facing the nursing profession, in particular the need to prepare the nursing workforce to meet the demands of providing excellent care to an increasingly diverse and aging population, within a rapidly changing health care system. MDAC was formed in 2010 shortly after the reports release.

Even though the report came out in 2010, you know we are still undergoing a transformation in this country, said keynote speaker Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in her address The Nurses Role in Building a Culture of Health.

Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, senior adviser for nursing for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, addresses the role nurses will play in building a culture of health in her keynote address at the Maryland Action Coalition's 2017 Retreat and Leadership Summit.

If you dont remember any of the details of my presentation today, I hope you will at least feel the importance that I am placing on nurses being part, leaders in this transformation. That is key and central, said Hassmiller, who was the study director on the 2010 Future of Nursing report at a time when she said nurses lacked influence and representation on boards and committees. A committee, led by former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, looked at best practices in health care and how nurses might be part of the transformation.

This report is about the health of the nation, Hassmiller said. As a means to an end, we think nurses are going to be really great leaders in helping to transform this countrys health and health care system.

Among the reports recommended goals was to increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degree from 50 to 80 percent by 2020, and to double the number of nurses with doctorate degrees by 2020.

In the first time in the history of forever, we now have more baccalaureate nurses in this country than associate degree nurses, she said. That jump is enormous. Everyone has been working on these issues for a very long time, but it took the IOM to present a blueprint to bring it all together.

Another recommendation was to increase opportunities for interprofessional education, something in which the state of Maryland has excelled, she said.

Maryland has it going on. They really have activities going on in leadership, diversity, interprofessional, workforce development, Hassmiller said, noting 40 people enroll in UMSON's Leadership Development Program each year.

The IOM report also recommended that nurses should reflect the population in terms of race, gender, and ethnicity. In terms of diversifying the workforce, we are making progress, Hassmiller said. We are the health professional that is making the most progress with diversity. We still dont look like the people we serve, so we have a lot of work to do.

Hassmiller directs the foundation's Future of Nursing; Campaign for Action, which seeks to build a culture of health, broadly defined as a culture in which good health and well-being flourish across geographic, demographic, and social sectors. The Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action is a partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and AARP.

In Maryland, health disparities exist throughout the state, caused by gaps in services, Hassmiller said.

Residents in every county in Maryland should have the same opportunity, she said. Instead, data indicates if residents of all counties in Maryland had the same opportunities for health, there would be 197,000 fewer adult smokers, 118,000 fewer adults who are obese, and 73,000 fewer children living in poverty.

In building a culture of health, I hope you will begin to see that we need to go way beyond the bounds of just medicine, nursing, social work, and pharmacy and dentistry, she said. Business, housing, and recreation and parks all need to get involved, she said.

UMSON Dean Jane M. Kirschling, PhD, RN, FAAN, co-chair of MDAC, thanked attendees for coming and said Maryland is making good progress on implementing recommendations from the IOM report.

We are continuing to do well in academic progression, and nurse residency progression and advanced practice registered nurses progression, she said.

Representatives participating on various panels during the summit from UMSON also included Pat McLaine, DrPH, MPH, RN; Gina Rowe, PhD, DNP, MPH, FNP-BC, PHCNS-BC, CNE; Rebecca Wiseman, PhD, RN; Jeffrey Ash, EdD; Susan Bindon, DNP, RN-BC CNE, Mary Etta Mills, ScD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN; Linda Hickman, PhD, RN, FACHE; Louise Jenkins, PhD, RN, FAHA, ANEF; Joan I. Warren, PhD, RN-BC, NEA-BC, FAAN; and Kathleen Martin, DNP, RN, CNE. Heather Congdon, PharmD, BCPS, CDE, from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy also presented.

Kelly Connor, MSN, RN-BC coordinator for nursing practice at Johns Hopkins Hospital said she enjoyed the summit, which she attended in place of a co-worker who could not attend at the last minute. The public health information was a true eye-opener, she said. I definitely want to come back next year.
Gandhi travelled by air, by car, by motorcyle and by foot from Delhi to Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan before he was detained and arrested in Naya Gaon.

By Press Trust of India: Farmer protests today spilled over to new areas of Madhya Pradesh even as the epicentre of the agitation, Mandsaur, remained relatively peaceful, on a day when Congress leader made an attempt to reach here which was scuttled as he was detained before entering the district.

While curfew continued in Mandsaur, except for a two-hour relaxation, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of the state on the eighth day of the agitation for loan waiver and better crop price.

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While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers unrest for the first time.

Police fired teargas and lathicharged a stone-pelting mob near the local market in Shajapur. Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC.

The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

In Mandsaur district where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday, Rapid Action Force (RAF), the anti- riot paramilitary force rushed by the Centre, was deployed this morning.

The Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of the RAF to the violence-hit state yesterday.

While two companies of the RAF, each comprising 100 personnel, were deployed in Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where the five farmers were killed, another two were posted in Garoth.

Two RAF companies were deployed along the highway.

Contingents of the CRPF have also been deployed.

At least 56 people have been arrested and over 100 detained in connection with violence during the farmers agitation here, police said.

A two-hour relaxation in curfew from 4 pm in four police station areas of Mandsaur city and Pipliamandi in the district passed off peacefully, Collector O P Srivastava said, adding it can be eased further tomorrow.

The authorities also prevented Rahul Gandhi and a number of other Congress leaders from entering Mandsaur.

Gandhi travelled by air, by car, by motorcyle and by foot from Delhi to Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan before he was detained and arrested in Naya Gaon, about 70 kms from Mandsaur.

He slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the problems being faced by the farmers, evoking a sharp response from the BJP which termed his visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity".

Amid the increasing political slugfest, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, which is facing a major crisis, shunted out the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district, two days after five farmers were killed in police firing during a violent protest.

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A police inspector, who had allegedly fired at the protestors on Tuesday, was also removed from field duty and sent to police lines.

The states Home Minister Bhupendra Singh told PTI that the five farmers had been killed in police firing, a remark that assumes significance as the authorities had earlier claimed the police did not fire during the protests.

He said Pipliamandi Town Inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who had allegedly fired at the farmers causing casualties, had been removed from field duty and sent to the Mandsaur police lines.

To bring back normalcy, the Chief Minister made a fresh attempt to reach out to the agitating farmers, saying the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.

Appealing to the farmers to maintain calm, he said, "Only talks can end the differences."

He said, "The state government is of farmers and public. I will continue to work for them."

His fresh attempt to reach out to the farmers came on a day Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by few senior leaders of the state and JD(U)s Sharad Yadav, tried to make their way to Mandsaur through the Rajasthan border.

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There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Gandhi was released after over four hours of detention in the guest house of a cement company.

"Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders, were under preventive arrest under under Section 151 of CrPC. We had informed them that there is curfew in four police station areas and they should not go there. Despite this, they tried to move towards the area," SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said.

They were later released on the border, he said.

Just before his detention, the Congress vice president said Prime Minister Narendra Modi "cant give the right rates for farmers agriculture produce, cant give them bonus, cant give them compensation... He can only give them bullets."

The BJP termed Gandhis visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity" and accused the Congress of "fuelling violence" in the farmers protests.

Later in the evening, Gandhi met the kin of four of the five deceased farmers who were brought to Rajathans Chittorgarh district by Congress workers.

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He lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the "barbaric" police action.

Talking to reporters, he said, "I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief....Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS?"

He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of "50 richest people" of the country.

"The farmers in the county are desperately crying for help but the government is not ready to hear them," he said.

He supported the farmers demand for loan waiver and said that they were not getting their due.

Gandhi said that the loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh had come as he had mounted pressure on the BJP government on the issue.

"I will continue to press every government across the country to waive farmers loans. I will keep raising the issue in Parliament," he said.

He accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of lying on the issue of farmers death in police firing.

Action should be taken against the security personnel involved in the firing incident. The farmers were not warned and were shot in the chest in violation of all standing operation procedures, he alleged

He also slammed the BJP for saying that he had gone for a photo-op there, arguing, "I only wanted meet the farmers. What was the need for controversy?"

He added that government can waive loans of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 50 rich people in the country, then why the loans of those farmers who feed the nation cannot be waived.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh government today conveyed to the Centre that five farmers were killed in Mandsaur in police firing, ending the confusion on who had fired at the protesters.

In a report submitted to the home ministry, the state government said the protesting farmers, demanding loan waiver, had allegedly set ablaze 25 trucks and two police vans along the Mhow-Neemuch highway on Tuesday. PTI HWP/AG ADU LAL AKK AKK

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In Beijing, UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grande presents a certificate of renewal to UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Yao Chen to extend her GWA for 2 years, till June 2019.  UNHCR/Wang Wei

In a nod to her untiring support for refugees, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today renewed Chinese actress Yao Chens tenure as UNHCRs Goodwill Ambassador for an additional two years.

Grandi met Yao Chen on Wednesday as part of his inaugural visit to China to explore how Beijing can play a greater role in addressing global displacement through approaches such as South-South Cooperation and the One Belt One Road initiative.

Appointed as UNHCRs Goodwill Ambassador in June 2013, Yao Chen was honoured at the Crystal Awards in Davos last year for her work to raise awareness of the global refugee crisis on behalf of UNHCR. With 80 million followers on Weibo  the Chinese equivalent of Twitter  she has ranked among Forbes Worlds Most Powerful Women and Times 30 Most Influential People.

Thanks to Yao Chen, refugees have entered the consciousness of millions of Chinese people, said Grandi. Her unique voice has helped them to look beyond the numbers and see refugees as real people seeking to find some normalcy when their lives have fallen apart.

During her time with UNHCR, Yao Chen has met refugees in some of the worlds largest host countries, including Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Afghan refugees in Pakistan, Somali refugees in Ethiopia and Myanmar refugees in Thailand.

Refugees can often feel like a distant issue, far removed from our daily lives, said Yao Chen. But their plight is a symptom of the world we live in. In this global village, we are all connected and inter-dependent in one way or another.

She added that she will continue to work closely with UNHCR to bring the publics attention to both refugee emergencies and protracted situations of displacement.

For more information:

Please Contact: Liu Shujun | Communications and Public Information, UNHCR Beijing.

Mobile: +86 139 1031 0407, Email: [email protected]
China can play a key role in steering development efforts to help resolve refugee crises, said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, as he concluded his first official visit to Beijing today.

Grandi was here for a two-day visit to deepen UNHCRs global partnership with China. He met with top officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Commerce, Public Security and Civil Affairs, and gave a talk to future diplomats at the China Foreign Affairs University.

UNHCR and China have been cooperating for 40 years. During that time China has become a major actor on the global stage, said the High Commissioner. The global refugee issue has also grown bigger and more complicated as factors causing people to flee are increasingly mixed.

More than 65 million people are forcibly displaced as a result of conflict, human rights violations, under-development and the effects of climate change, among other factors. UNHCR works with governments and partners in 128 countries to protect, assist and seek solutions for these refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people.

Beijings contribution to refugee programs has increased significantly in recent years  from $2.8 million last year to $12.5 million so far in 2017, much of it on the sidelines of the recent Belt and Road Forum.

Led by China, the Belt and Road initiative envisions shared growth around the world through five major priority areas  policy coordination, connectivity, trade, financial integration and people-to-people exchanges. It spans more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa  some of which are producing or hosting refugees.

The Belt and Road initiative is about international cooperation for peace, prosperity and inclusion, said Grandi. We hope that China can invest some of those resources directly in countries hosting large numbers of refugees and displaced people. In doing so, it can empower refugees and their host communities in a win-win situation for all.

This new and expanded Silk Road also has the potential to pave the way for refugee solutions. Through its many development projects, China can help to stabilize areas in conflict and address the root causes of displacement, said the High Commissioner.

He noted that soft power was equally important in changing attitudes towards refugees, as UNHCRs Goodwill Ambassador Yao Chen has done. Through her 80-million-strong social media following in China, the actress has been a strong voice for refugees in the Chinese-speaking world for the last seven years.

During their meeting on Wednesday, High Commissioner Grandi thanked her for advocating on behalf of refugees and renewed her tenure as Goodwill Ambassador for an additional two years.

For more information:

Please Contact: Liu Shujun | Communications and Public Information, UNHCR Beijing.

Mobile: +86 139 1031 0407, Email: [email protected]
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi addresses future diplomats at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. His talk focused on challenges in global forced displacement.  UNHCR/Wang Wei

BEIJING, China,  UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi today highlighted Chinas potential to address the root causes of displacement and resolve refugee crises globally through wide-ranging development initiatives.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees is in Beijing this week on his first official visit to China. In the last two days he has met with top government officials, UNHCRs Goodwill Ambassador Yao Chen, and addressed future diplomats at the China Foreign Affairs University.

UNHCR and China have been cooperating for 40 years. During that time China has become a major actor on the international stage, said Grandi. The global refugee issue has also grown bigger and more complicated as factors causing people to flee are increasingly mixed.

We hope that China can invest ... resources directly in countries hosting large numbers of refugees."

Reflecting these needs, Chinas contribution to refugee programmes has increased significantly  from US$2.8 million in 2016 to US$12.5 million so far this year, much of it on the sidelines of the recent Belt and Road forum held in Beijing.

Led by China, the Belt and Road initiative is a far-reaching platform for international cooperation in multiple sectors including trade, investment, infrastructure, connectivity and people-to-people exchanges. It spans more than 60 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa  some of which are producing or hosting refugees.

The Belt and Road initiative is about peace, prosperity and inclusion, said Grandi. We hope that China can invest some of those resources directly in countries hosting large numbers of refugees and displaced people. In doing so, it can empower refugees and their host communities in a win-win situation for all.

The initiative also has the potential to pave the way for refugee solutions, the High Commissioner noted. Through its many development projects, China can help to stabilize areas in conflict and address the root causes of displacement.

"China can help to stabilize areas in conflict and address the root causes of displacement."

Grandi noted that soft power was equally important in changing attitudes towards refugees, as Chinese actress Yao Chen has done. Through her 80 million-strong social media following in China, she has been a strong voice for refugees in the last seven years.

During their meeting on Wednesday, Grandi thanked her for advocating on behalf of refugees, and presented her with a certificate renewing her tenure as Goodwill Ambassador for two more years.

I remain committed to the refugee cause for as long as Im needed, said Yao Chen. But I long for the day I become unemployed when there are no longer refugees in the world.
Motorola recently confirmed that its two-year-old Moto X Play Android smartphone will soon receive the Android 7.0 Nougat update. Meanwhile, T-Mobile is also set to push out the Android 7.0 Nougat update for the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge this week.

Motorola made it known that the Android 7.0 Nougat will soon roll out to the Moto X Play smartphone. Although the Moto X Play received an Android 6.0 Marshmallow update about a year ago, some Moto X Play users expected Motorola to offer another major operating system upgrade.

Several users of the Moto X Play smartphone have been asking Motorola about the Android 7.0 Nougat update for quite a while, but the tech giant avoided to communicate on the matter. Nonetheless, Motorola India confirmed that Moto X Play's update for the Android 7.0 Nougat is in the works and will roll out soon. Unfortunately, there is no estimated time of arrival (ETA) for the release of the Android 7.0 Nougat update, Phone Arena reported.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile is set to push out the Android 7.0 Nougat update for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Samsung Galaxy S6 edge. T-Mobile's Product Manager Des Smith revealed the arrival of the software update through Twitter. Smith shared that the Android 7.0 Nougat update should be up for grabs in Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge this week, Droid Life reported.

The Android 7.0 Nougat update is not visible on the support page of T-Mobile yet, but some Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge users claimed that they started receiving the update. In spite of that, users are rarely reached by the software updates at once, and its launch is usually in phases. Thus, the update could take some time to roll out to all Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge T-Mobile subscribers.

Further details regarding the Android 7.0 Nougat update remain hazy for now. But, the software update comes along with various bug fixes as well as stability improvements.

Watch The Video Here:
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla has blamed rival Reliance Jio for causing "unprecedented disruption" in the telecom industry by offering free voice and data but hoped the sector would return to growth in 2017-18.

Without naming Jio, Birla in a letter to shareholders of Idea Cellular said flourishing telecom industry witnessed a 2 per cent decline in annual revenues in 2016-17 fiscal.

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The industry honchos commentary in the latest annual report of Idea Cellular comes at a time when the telecom industry is facing a squeeze on revenue and profitability on account of competition intensified by the entry of Reliance Jio, which is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani.

"It has been a Period of Telecom Discontinuity, permanently changing mobility business parameters," Birla said adding that financial parameters for all mobile operators have sharply declined.

However, Birla said that the recovery is expected in 2017-18 with the new entrant starting to charge for its services, "albeit very slowly".

In spite of short term challenges, the Aditya Birla Group telecom company remains committed to the process of building world-class broadband services, Birla asserted.

On the mega merger of Vodafones India unit with Idea, he said a joint merger notification has been filed with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Scheme of Arrangement has been filed with SEBI and stock exchanges for their approvals.

The two companies will combine their operations in India (excluding Vodafone?s 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) to create India?s largest telecom operator.

"The combined company would become the leading communication provider in India with about 400 million customers, 35 per cent customer market share and 41 per cent Revenue Market Share...," he said in Chairmans letter to shareholders.

Birla exuded confidence that Idea will capitalise on the emerging opportunities in mobile voice, digital content, mobile banking and wireless data business as telecom market invariably moves towards consolidation with five major providers. PTI MBI MR

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By Press Trust of India: Greater Noida, Jun 8 (PTI) An Angola national was killed after his car overturned and hit a divider near a crossing here, police said today.

Carlos Fernandis was killed in the accident that occurred last night under the Kasna Police Station area, Greater Noida DSP Arun Kumar Singh said.

He was studying electronics and communication at the Sharda University, he said, adding that the body has been sent for post-mortem.

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The embassy concerned has been asked to inform his family, Singh said.

In Dadri, a woman allegedly committed suicide last night by jumping from the 10th floor of a building at the Omex Palm Green Society.

Police claimed that the victim in a suicide note said she was mentally upset and her family should not be harassed for her act.

The note was found from a room in her apartment, they said.

In Harola village in Noida, a woman allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself yesterday, police said.

Reportedly, on Monday, she had an altercation with her husband about she visiting her parents on June 7, they said.

The victims family members have registered a complaint and the matter is being investigated, police said. PTI CORR ANB

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UW Grad Student from Star Valley Earns Quantum Mechanics Fellowship

UW graduate student Josh Heiner, here with wife Debra Lynne and son Pierre, is in New Zealand this summer as part of a National Science Foundation fellowship studying a new approach to quantum mechanics. (Josh Heiner Photo)

A University of Wyoming graduate student has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowship that is taking him to New Zealand this summer to study quantum mechanics.

Josh Heiner, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in UWs Department of Physics and Astronomy, received funding for the research under NSFs East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, in conjunction with the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Heiner will work with Joshua Bodyfelt, a research officer with the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study, who earned his bachelors degree in physics from UW in 2003.

I was able to make this contact because (Bodyfelt) is an alumnus who has kept in contact with our department at UW, Heiner says. Basically, he has the expertise and skill set needed to help model an innovative way to understand the interaction of subatomic particles, also known as quantum mechanics.

Heiner works under UW physics Professor David Thayer, who was the first to suggest the innovative nonlinear dynamic modeling of quantum particles.

Heiner will work under Bodyfelts supervision to seek further insights into the new approach, preliminary results of which were published last month by Heiner and Thayer in the International Journal of Advanced Research in Physical Science. Heiner will have access to a supercomputer at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, for the highly complicated nonlinear computational modeling involved in the research.

Heiner, who is originally from Star Valley, received his bachelors degree from Brigham Young University-Idaho in 2014 and then came to UW to pursue graduate studies.
By Seema Gupta: A six-member Qatari delegation reached Islamabad late on Wednesday night to meet high-level officials at the Prime Minister House, sources said. The delegation is expected to discuss the recent situation in the Gulf, among other things. The officials had landed in Lahore before, where they met Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. They conveyed to him the Qatar ameer's message that demanded Pakistan play its role regarding the diplomatic crisis in Gulf - issue of bans imposed by fellow countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The delegation is headed by the Qatar ameer's secretary, Abdul Hadi Mana Al Hajri. On June 5, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain announced they were cutting diplomatic ties and closing air, sea and land links with Qatar, giving Qataris within their borders two weeks to leave. The four countries have suspended all flights to and from Qatar, pulled their ambassadors from Doha and ordered Qatari diplomats to leave.

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Hrithik Roshan's latest photo on Instagram suggest that he was tricked by his sons, Hrehaan and Hridhaan.

By India Today Web Desk: Whenever Hrithik Roshan is not working, he makes it a point to spend some quality time with his family. The actor's sons, Hrehaan (11) and Hridhaan (9), have become smart enough to trick their father, if a post shared by him on Instagram is anything to go by. Hrithik shared a photo of himself with his sons, with a hilarious caption.

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Hrithik has a puzzled expression on his face, as one of his sons reassures his brother that the actor has agreed to something that he seems to be unaware of. The caption reads, "Him: '....and don't worry dad's totally cool with it. He said so.' Me: What. #deerinheadlights #becarefulwhatyouagreeto."

Him: '....and don't worry dad's totally cool with it. He said so.' Me: What. #deerinheadlights #becarefulwhatyouagreeto A post shared by Hrithik Roshan (@hrithikroshan) on Jun 7, 2017 at 8:43am PDT

On the work front, Hrithik will be seen next in a cameo in Vikram Phadnis's Marathi film, Hrudayantar. According to reports, the Kaabil actor has also signed his first film in the biopic genre, tentatively titled Super 30. It is being said that he will play Patna-based mathematician Anand Kumar in the film.

ALSO READ: Has Hrithik Roshan bought an apartment for ex-wife Sussanne Khan?

ALSO WATCH: Fine with both the truth and lies, says Hrithik Roshan on questions about personal life

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This image is known as the "Fort Worth Five Photograph." Front row left to right: Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy; Standing: Will Carver & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry; Fort Worth, Texas, 1900.

The childhood home of Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, outside of Circleville, Utah. (Photo: Steven Law)

A marker near San Vicente, Bolivia, which claims to be the final resting place of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) and Etta Place, just before they sailed for South America.

Wyoming State Penitentiary mugshot of Robert LeRoy Parker, AKA Butch Cassidy, 1894. (Photo: Wyoming State Archives)

The special car of the Union Pacific Railroad for the mounted rangers organized by UP Special Agent Timothy Keliher to stop the Wild Bunch Gang led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, late 1890s.

Loading the horses into one of the special cars of the Union Pacific Railroad for the mounted rangers organized by UP Special Agent Timothy Keliher to stop the Wild Bunch Gang led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, late 1890s.

Butch Cassidy waited along the trail, hidden in the bushes. He knew the banker, with a thousand dollars in his pocket, would be coming his way shortly. He didnt have to wait long. The banker approached in a buggy, and, as luck would have it, stopped right in front of Cassidys hiding place to count his money. Cassidy stepped out of the bushes, six-shooter in hand, and said, Ill take those.Theres nothing unusual about Butch Cassidy robbing a banker. What makes this story unusual is that it allegedly happened several years after he and the Sundance Kid were supposed to have died in a famous gunfight in Bolivia.According to Lula Betenson, Cassidys youngest sister, Cassidy and the Sundance Kid didnt die in Bolivia. Betenson is the author of "Butch Cassidy, My Brother." She wrote the book in 1975. The information in her book came from a meeting she said she had with her brother in 1925, when Betenson was 41 and Cassidy was 59. Betenson died in 1980.Cassidy was the leader of the Wild Bunch gang, a group of 10 outlaws famous for their train and bank robberies throughout the West. According to the legend, Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh (better known as the Sundance Kid) escaped to Bolivia in 1901 to escape the increasing pressures of being pursued by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.In 1908, two outlaws were killed during a gunfight with Bolivian police. The two bodies were identified as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.So if Cassidy and Sundance didnt die in a Bolivian gunfight, how did that rumor get started? Betenson says in her book, quoting from Cassidy, that the rumor was started by a man named Percy Seibert. Seibert was a native Bolivian living in Bolivia in 1908 and a friend of Cassidy and Sundance. Its true that in 1908 two armed bandits died in a gunfight with Bolivian police. It was Seibert who identified the bodies as Cassidy and Sundance, even though he knew it wasnt them.He knew this was the only way we could go straight, Cassidy says in Betensons book. Cassidy had saved the lives of Seibert and his wife on a previous occasion. Seibert saw this  the false identification of the two bodies  as a way to pay Cassidy back. And with that, word was out that Cassidy and Sundance were dead, and the heat was off.They could come out of hiding. They were free to travel. They could finally go home. They could live out the rest of their days in relative peace if they did it under the radar and under an alias. And, Betenson writes, thats exactly what they did.Cassidy was born in Beaver, Utah, in April 1866 and grew up in Circleville. His real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. Sit down in a cafe in just about any town in Garfield, Piute or Iron county and ask about Butch Cassidy and it isnt hard to find someone who has a Butch Cassidy story. Cassidy stories drift about here like cotton from the cottonwood trees. But verifying the truth of any of these stories is difficult to do this far after the fact. Anyone who knew Cassidy is long-since dead. Like the respectable outlaw that he was, hes still a hard man to track down.One starts to feel like theyve entered the realm of Sasquatch, Elvis and the Loch Ness Monster. A Butch Cassidy story often starts like this, I heard this story from my dad/grandpa/grandma who heard it from his dad, who used to hang out with Butch Cassidy. Its folk hero meets conspiracy theory meets six degrees of Kevin Bacon.Dale Hollingshead, a resident of Beaver and owner of Arshels Cafe, admits this is true. So much of it is conjecture and mystery, but that adds to the intrigue of it all.The most reliable source for what truly happened to Cassidy is Betenson, who says she heard the stories and information straight from her brother.The story of Cassidy robbing the banker on the side of the road is recorded in Betensons book, and the story is a favorite of residents of Butch Cassidy country. The rest of the story goes like this: Cassidy walked into a store (Betenson didn't give its location) to pick up some supplies. It was run by a widow, and Cassidy saw that she was looking glum. He asked her what was the matter. She told Cassidy that the mortgage on the store was due, she didnt have the money and the banker was coming to take her store.A thousand dollars, she said. I just cant make ends meet with my husband dead and gone.Cassidy told her to stop worrying and that hed help her. Cassidy left the store and a short time later returned with ten $100 bills and told her to make sure she got a signed receipt for it, marked paid in full.Thats when Cassidy went a ways out of town, hid in the bushes and waited for the banker to come along. And when the banker passed by, Cassidy robbed him and took his money back. Betenson quotes Cassidy as saying, This was so successful that I paid off more than one mortgage in the same way.According to Betensons book, Cassidy spent very little time in southern Utah after he returned from South America, likely less than a few months. She wrote that he spent most of his remaining years in Wyoming, Oregon and California, moving often to maintain his cover, and always under an assumed name.After word got around that Betenson was writing a book about Cassidy not dying in Bolivia, friends and acquaintances of Cassidy started sending her letters telling of times they had seen or worked with her brother. In her book she records more than a dozen of these letters coming from all over the West.So the big question is: where is Cassidys grave? And where are the letters that people sent Betenson claiming to have seen Cassidy? Cassidy is rumored to be buried in California, in Oregon, in a Salt Lake City cemetery and somewhere on a hillside outside of Circleville.But Betenson writes in her book that Robert Leroy Parker died in the Northwest in the fall of 1937. Where he is buried and under what name is still our secret. All his life he was chased. Now he has a chance to rest in peace and thats the way it must be.Lula claimed to know where Cassidy was buried, said Bill Betenson, Lulas great-grandson, but if she did, she took that information with her to the grave.Like Cassidy himself, she was good at covering her tracks.(via KSL.com
7-Eleven has about 38,000 stores in Japan

Since November 2016, 7-Eleven has been recruiting senior staff for its subsidiary in Vietnam. On May 31, 2017, the convenience store chain was still looking for service staff as well as store managers, assistants for the purchasing department, and product development assistants.

Thus, 7-Eleven has joined the Vietnamese market sooner than Nikkei had expected. At the middle of 2015, after the announcement of cooperation between 7-Eleven and Seven System Vietnam, the Japanese financial newspaper forecasted that the first 7-Eleven store in Vietnam will open in February 2018.

According to the newly-released information from parent company Seven & I, Seven System Vietnam JSC will develop its business by contributing to the modernisation of retail trade, enhancing the shopping experience for customers in Vietnam and introducing franchised stores in the future. During the initial phase, a market-concentration strategy will be implemented to expand the business first in Ho Chi Minh City, then take on other areas later.

The product assortment will focus on products in high demand in the local market and differentiated private brand products that suit local customers preferences. Additionally, by implementing the product development methodologies of Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd., the product assortment will also focus on popular rice products and original fresh food products.

Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings Co., Ltd.) in cooperation with 7-Eleven Inc. (the master franchisor of 7-Eleven globally, with a network of more than 62,000 stores in 17 countries and regions) has been supporting the existing area licensees. The two companies have been supporting the master franchisee in Vietnam as a joint international expansion team since the preparation phase of the first store opening.

The two companies support included the implementation of 7-Elevens unique business methodologies and processes, such as the market concentration strategy, team merchandising, and item-by-item management. Seven-Eleven and 7-Eleven will continue to work together to further strengthen and promote business in both existing markets and new market entries as a global strategy.

7-Eleven will step up to the ten existing convenience stores brands in Vietnam, including Vinmart+, Circle K, Shop & Go, Bs mart, FamilyMart, and Ministop. Of them, Vinmart+ and Circle K are considered the two biggest rivals of 7-Eleven.

The emergence of 7-Eleven will intensify competition in the Vietnamese market. In May 2017, Reuters reported that a chain of convenience stores from Japan, called FamilyMart, planned to withdraw from Vietnam.

We cannot continue to pour in resources, Koji Takayanagi, representative director and president of FamilyMart UNY Holdings Co., told Reuters in an interview about the future of the company. While FamilyMart is profitable in Taiwan and China, it is reviewing its loss-making businesses in Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.

Japanese retail giant Seven & I Holding Group generated a revenue of over $53 billion in 2016. According to the companys annual report, in the fiscal year ending on February 29, 2016, its convenience store segment recorded a 1.9 per cent decline in revenues, falling to 2,675.8 billion ($24.5 billion), while operating income rose 9.9 per cent, to 304.1 billion ($2.8 billion).

2017 is expected to witness intense competition among different convenience store brands, as Vinmart+ plans to open more than 1,000 stores, while Ministop, another convenience store chain rapidly expanding in Vietnam, targets to open 800 stores, hoping to double this in the next year.
Some legal experts said Comey's testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but US markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures.

By Reuters: Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."

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The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year's election.

Some legal experts said Comey's testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but US markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures.

To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with "corrupt" intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation.

While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment.

Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president.

Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters' shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt "completely and totally vindicated" by Comey's account.

"The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe," Marc Kasowitz, Trump's attorney, said in a statement.

AWKWARD SILENCE

Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November's election in Trump's favor, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion.

Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe, on May 9.

Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony.

Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on January 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

"I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence," Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create "some sort of patronage relationship."

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On February 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counter-terrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door.

"When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, 'I want to talk about Mike Flynn'," Comey said in his testimony.

Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Comey quoted Trump as telling him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what "we could do to lift the cloud" of the FBI's Russia investigation.

"He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," said Comey, who had briefed Trump on "salacious material" that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation.

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Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the uncorroborated dossier of compromising material that Russian operatives allegedly collected on Trump has been "debunked."

"Comey's statement released today needs to be carefully scrutinized as his testimony claims the president was concerned about the dossier," said Cohen.

Cohen, along with Flynn, has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a Russia probe.

LEGAL FALLOUT?

Some legal experts said Comey's written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.

"It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation," said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School.

Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn's character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said.

Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe.

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"It's certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It's certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation," the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump's request for loyalty from Comey, said it was "very, very critical" that FBI directors remain "independent."

But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump's request.

"I don't think it's wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration," Burr said.

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Qatar hosts the largest US airbase in the region, which is crucial to the fight against Islamic State group militants. (Photo: AFP/Stringer)

Speaking to AFP in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates' state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash accused Qatar of being "the main champion of extremism and terrorism in the region".

But he also said measures taken against Qatar this week by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab nations were not aimed at seeking new leadership in Doha.

"This is not about regime change - this is about change of policy, change of approach," Gargash said.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain announced on Monday they were cutting diplomatic ties and closing air, sea and land links with Qatar, giving Qataris within their borders two weeks to leave.

The four countries have suspended all flights to and from Qatar, pulled their ambassadors from Doha and ordered Qatari diplomats to leave.

Riyadh and its allies accuse Qatar of supporting extremist groups and of serving the interests of regional arch-rival Iran, claims Doha has strongly rejected.

The dispute has sparked the worst diplomatic crisis in the Arab world in years and raised fears it will cause further instability in an already-volatile region.

Kuwait is leading efforts to find a mediated solution. Its Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah held talks with Saudi King Salman on Tuesday but there were no immediate signs of progress. He travelled on Wednesday to the United Arab Emirates.

DANGEROUS 'TRUMPIFICATION'

The Kuwaiti ruler played a pivotal role in mediating a compromise in a 2014 diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states.

The United States, France and Russia have called for dialogue while Turkey has defended Qatar and said it would further "develop" ties with Doha.

In an apparent sign of support, Turkey's parliament will debate on Wednesday a bill that would allow deploying troops to a Turkish base in Qatar.

US President Donald Trump waded into the dispute on Tuesday, but seemed to only muddy the waters. After first appearing to back the Saudi-led measures against Qatar on Twitter, he shifted gears and called for unity among Gulf Arab states.

Trump's Tuesday tweet - in which he said "all reference was pointing to Qatar" as a financer of extremism - was especially surprising given Qatar's role as host of the largest US airbase in the Middle East.

Al-Udeid, located in the Qatari desert, is home to some 10,000 US troops and is a crucial hub in the fight against Islamic State group extremists in Syria and Iraq.

US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, in the Saudi capital Riyadh on May 21, 2017. (Photo: AFP/Mandel Ngan)

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused the US president of fanning conflict in the Middle East and risking a "new spiral in arms sales" with his remarks.

"Such a 'Trumpification' of relations in a region already susceptible to crises is particularly dangerous," Gabriel said in an interview scheduled to appear on Wednesday.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told German reporters on Wednesday that Gulf countries still see Qatar as a "brother state".

"But you have to be able to tell your friend or your brother when they are doing the right thing and when they are doing the wrong thing," Jubeir said in a joint press conference with Gabriel.

Qatar has said it is open to talks to end the crisis but has also accused its neighbours of impinging on its sovereignty.

UAE WARNS QATAR SYMPATHISERS

The UAE meanwhile warned that anyone showing sympathy with Qatar could face jail time or fines.

The UAE attorney general said Wednesday that "any participation in conversation or social media or any other means that demonstrates sympathy to Qatar ... may face a prison sentence of three to 15 years and a fine of no less than 500,000 dirhams (US$136,000)."

The measures taken against Qatar have seen dozens of flights cancelled and huge problems for Qatar Airways, which has been banned from the airspace of Saudi Arabia and other countries.

The measures taken by Gulf countries against Qatar have seen dozens of flights cancelled and huge problems for Qatar Airways. (Photo: AFP/Fayez Nureldine)

The severing of land and maritime links have also sparked fears of food shortages in Qatar, which relies heavily on imports.

Qatar has an independent streak that has often angered its neighbours, attracting criticism for hosting the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and supporting Islamist rebels in Syria.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies may have felt emboldened to move against Qatar by Trump's visit last month to Riyadh, which saw the president clearly align US interests with the kingdom and lash out at Iran.

Riyadh has itself faced accusations of tolerating or even supporting extremists, in particular after the Sep 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Of the 19 hijackers of planes used in the attacks, 15 came from Saudi Arabia, also the birthplace of Al-Qaeda founder and attack mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The decree will make sure less buyers get their fingers burnt

Among the big projects to be launched is An Khanh New City Developments sale of its first phase this quarter. The mega $2 billion project is developed by South Koreas Posco E&C and Vietnams Vinaconex, located in Hanois Hoai Duc district, along the Thang Long Boulevard.

Scheduled for completion in 2013, the city is expected to supply 6,440 apartments, equivalent to 392,319 square metres of accommodation, enough for 30,000 people.

Even though Hoa Phat Group, the investor in a more than 1,000 apartment Mandarin Garden in Cau Giay districts Tran Duy Hung road, refused to release its launching time, real estate experts predicted the project would be soon launched.

At the beginning of this month the CT7D, located in Le Van Luong street and invested by Nam Cuong Group and the FLC Landmark Tower of FLC Group will also be launched, with a total of 200 units and prices ranging from VND23 million ($1,200) to VND28 million ($1,470) per square metre.

In Gia Lam district, over the Red River, the second lot of Rung Co Residentials belonging to the Eco Park is also being launched, with around 1,500 apartment units.

In addition, Victoria Van Phu, Star City, Diamond Tower and Song Da City View will also add apartments to the mix.

Real estate consultant CBRE Vietnam expected that there would be 3,000 units in Hanoi launched this quarter, compared to 1,950 units in the third quarter. There were more than 4,600 units launched in the second quarter.

This decline, according to CBRE Vietnam, could be due to the Decree 71, effective on August 8, 2010 providing guidance on the Housing Law, which caps the proportion of units sold via capital contribution contracts at 20 per cent with the remaining 80 per cent sold on transaction floors.

This decree, CBRE Vietnam said, had put a pressure on developers with low financial capabilities and enhanced market transparency.

However, CBRE Vietnam executive director Richard Leech said new project launches would continue trending towards more affordable options.

With the opening and improvement of major infrastructure routes, the capitals western and southern districts are attracting new residents with easier access for commuting into the core urban districts, Leech said.

He said that the Decree 71 was expected to benefit the market by enhancing transparency, placing pressures on developers with low financial capabilities, lessening the threat of price bubbles and limiting speculative forces.

Tran Nhu Trung, Savills Vietnam associate director, said the Decree 71 had showed off its advantages to clearly regulate five types of mobilising capital investment. However, Trung said the procedures to implement Decree 71 were still complicated and wasted customers time and energy.

The more simple it [decree] regulates, the more it is practical in the real life, Trung said.
Only after having seen it firsthand did I believe that it was the prettiest house in Chau Doc.

The house was built from 1909 to 1912. The rickshaw men named it the Big House, because at that time it was the biggest house in town, Mr Le Cong Thoi, born in 1944, an elder of the 7th generation of Le Cong clan told me.

From the outside, its a French-style house, quite imposing with its robust window panes, tile roofs and sophisticated ornamental designs.

The house was not built with concrete but with shell powder, sand, treacle, and lindera myrrha resin.

Although over a century has passed, it still stands strong. Inside are western decoration items, such as lustres and floor tiles. These blend in very smoothly with oriental interior design.

All the furniture and wooden utensils are made with nacre, another name for mother-of-pearl.

According to Mr Thoi, the wood was bought from Laos and Cambodia and transported on the Mekong.

Live snails were bought from the North for nacre. Nacre masters were also hired from the North, because at that time there was no such trade in the South.

In the centre is the altar of the seventh ancestor of the Le Cong clan. On both sides are those of the subsequent ones.

There are poems written in Chinese letters, inlayed with nacre on all the pillars and wall panels. Each of these means to preach the way of being humane, Mr Thoi said.

The Le Cong residence has three invaluable relics saved for posterity.

First is the Decree of Conferment of Sainthood on Nguyen Huu Canh (the pioneer who expanded the Southern borders).

Such a title is normally only conferred upon those who had great merit, and the decree would be enshrined.

Otherwise, the decree text may also be given to someone else for outstanding service.

The Le Cong residence was honoured with two such decrees of sainthood that were conferred on Nguyen Huu Canh, one by King Tu Duc and one by King Minh Mang.

According to Mr Thoi, his ancestor, Lord Le Cong Thoan from Thanh Hoa Province, came here and decided to plant his roots in Chau Doc. He began to clear the land. Gradually, his land was large enough for birds to tire as they flew over it. He gave money to the desperate, and land to the homeless. He built communes and schools.

Once, the land was ravaged by flood, and people suffered a great famine. Mrs Huynh Thi Phu, Le Cong Thoans second wife, borrowed rice from the government to save the people. For that kindness, the King bestowed upon him the Decree of Super Sainthood Conferment of Nguyen Huu Canh as a token of esteem.

Since then, the Sainthood Conferment has always been solemnly honoured on the central altar of the clan. The 10th of fifth lunar month every year (Nguyen Huu Canhs death anniversary), Le Cong descendants bring it in a procession to the Chau Phu Saint temple of Chau Doc and organize a ceremony for people to worship him.

The second relic is the precious, century-old Golden branch with gemstone leaves inlayed picture, depicting gold branches and emerald leaves. The picture is secured in the clans secret safe and is retrieved only for very big events.

Third is the genealogy book of the family. According to Mr Thoi, it records names and relationships of all of the members of the Le Cong family from the first generation until now.

The book helps the descendents remember and celebrate their glorious ancestors. So its spiritual value is enormous, incomparable!

Chau Doc currently has about 10 century-old houses. But only the Le Cong clans and Mr Phu Dis house remain intact and retain their original value, Mr Le Hong Linh, Deputy Head of Culture Dept of Chau Doc City told us.
TV actor Karanvir Bohra, who recently became father to twin daughters, has been roped in as a host.

Karanvir Bohra with wife Teejay Sidhu with their little ones. Picture courtesy: Instagram/Karanvir Bohra

By India Today Web Desk: If you have a twin sibling and some hidden talent, maybe it's time for you to take the reality TV route. A new talent reality show for twins across the country is in pipeline, titled India's Best Judwa. Varun Dhawan's Judwaa sequel has now some competition.

According to reports, twins Raghu Ram and Rajiv Laxman of Roadies fame, will be joining the show as mentors. Ram and his brother have also acted in a few Bollywood films including Tees Maar Khan.

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Also read: Karanvir Bohra visits his favourite on-screen mother Shweta Tiwari with his twins!

Also, Naagin 2 actor Karanvir Bohra, who recently became father to twins, has been roped in to host the show. The actor will soon be wrapping up the shoot of the Colors' supernatural show Naagin 2.

Set to be aired on Zee TV, the reality TV show will celebrate the special bond shared by identical twins, read a statement on behalf of the channel.

Raghu and Rajiv will produce the show under their banner Monozygotic Solutions Pvt Ltd.

The show puts the spotlight on India's identical twins, showcasing their connection, their fondness for each other, their striking similarities and fascinating aspects of their lives together, the statement read.

(With inputs from IANS)

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The way in which the Syrian Arab Army (which is the Syrian Republics army, and sometimes referred to as AAS) and the Syrian Defense forces (which consists of the Kurds supported by Washington, also referred to as FDS) have deployed their forces to liberate Raqqa from Daesh shows that their efforts are clearly coordinated.

Technically speaking, it would be very dangerous if the air forces of both the Coalition and the Syrian Arab Republic bomb Raqqa at the same time without coordinating their efforts.

It is strange that the Western Press only makes reference to the FDS while the AAS is intervening through the West.

For three years, a debate is stirring chancelleries to know what will happed to Raqqa once the city has been liberated from Daesh: will it be a part of the Republic or a force propped up by Washington.

At the same time, the US army has bombed for the second time in less than two months, the Syrian forces situated close to the Syrian-Iraqi border. The Pentagon has justified this attack on the grounds that the Syrians Forces were threatening the security of the United States, despite the fact that under international law, the latter had no right to be there. What is even more surprising is that the Pentagon alluded to the deconfliction zones established under the Astana agreements whilst the United States does not officially recognize them.
On 7 June 2017, Berlin announced that it was withdrawing its troops from Turkey. The 260 soldiers of the Bundeswehr who are participating in Anti Daesh International Coalition operations from bases at Incilik, are currently being transferred to bases at Azraq, Jordan.

It will take around three weeks to transport the 10,000 tonnes of material distributed among around 200 containers, and about three months for Germany to resume its participation in the Coalitions missions.

It has not been made clear if the officers liaising with Nato, who are present at Izmir, would also be leaving Turkey.
On June 7, 2017, the Turkish National Grand Assembly voted to authorize the deployment of its troops in Qatar.

By virtue of an agreement signed in 2014, Turkey has built a military base which can host 3,000 men in Qatar. However, it has never been explained why Turkey envisaged deploying such troops in the Gulf, an area which is beyond Turkeys current zone of influence.

Furthermore, Qatar is host to the most important US military base in the enlarged Middle East, the base at Udeid, which accommodates 10,000 men and the CentCom headquarters. It forms the pillar of the Carter Doctrine under which the United States views its hydrocarbon supply from the Persian Gulf as a matter of national security. However, for many years, the United States has stopped needing oil and gas from the Gulf because it has increased its own production and has seized the reserves of the Gulf of Mexico.

From the start of the week, 10 States have broken diplomatic relations with Qatar.

On 1 June 2017 (that is, after Donald Trump delivered his speech at Riyadh but before the diplomatic crisis), Dennis Ross (the former special envoy to Middle East of both President Bush and President Clinton), assured on Sky News that he would not be surprised if the Trump administration signalled to Qatar that it was getting ready to leave the Al-Udeid base. When questioned by Al-Jazeera, the Pentagon commented that from a military point of view, such a withdrawal has not been envisaged.

A total shake up of alliances in the Middle East is under way.
The Ministry for Heritage has announced that three new interpretation panels have been placed within our Old Town in order to provide information on our Medieval History, namely our Islamic and Spanish Periods.
The Care Agency and the RGP Sign MoU on Missing Vulnerable Children

The Gibraltar Care Agency and the Royal Gibraltar Police have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the joint protection of children who go missing from residential and foster care. The aim of the initiative is to further strengthen the close working cooperation between the two entities and ensure there are direct and effective lines of communication whenever there is an episode of vulnerable children absconding from care.

It will also enshrine the supporting role of the RGP within a formal protocol.

The signing took place today, Wednesday 7th June 2017, at the Offices of the Minister for Health, Care and Justice, the Honourable Neil F. Costa, MP.

The Care Agency is the responsible authority for children in residential and foster care. Children and young persons under 18 who are looked after by the Care Agency are often extremely vulnerable when they have gone missing. Even short stays from their carers can lead to a child or young person being at risk of significant harm.

The RGP is the responsible authority for the welfare and safety of the community and have a primary role in searching for and returning to safety vulnerable children who have absconded or been reported missing. Both agencies have an ongoing commitment of collaborative work in order to safeguard children and young people in Gibraltar.

Care Agency CEO Natalie Tavares said: The memorandum of understanding sets out very clear guidelines, including the role and responsibilities of each agency and also of carers and foster parents. The joint protocol will undoubtedly help the RGP and Care Agency respond to incidents of children missing from care in a consistent and professional manner. It includes the levels of risks which need to be assessed by the professionals and the required responses from each department. The public should note that these are not frequent occurrences but we must be well prepared to react to any contingencies.

Minister for Health, Care and Justice, the Hon Neil F Costa MP, said he was very pleased with the introduction of this joint protocol. Mr Costa said: The Ministry is always looking at ways in which to enhance the protection mechanisms that the Care Agency affords to vulnerable children and young persons in the community. This memorandum will provide a consistent framework to ensure good practice and is in addition to the RGPs standard operating procedures as reflected in the Missing Persons Policy, which applies in all other cases.

It is doubly satisfying that two key agencies within my ministerial responsibilities have teamed up to design, and now implement, this memorandum, which updates professional procedures. The agreement paves the way for closer working ties and collaboration that will ultimately serve to enhance the quality of a vital service for the benefit of the community.

For his part, Royal Gibraltar Police Commissioner Eddie Yome said: It is right and proper that local institutions should seek to work together for the betterment of our community. More so when, as in this case, it applies to those young persons whose safety and wellbeing is entrusted to us.
Katherine Langford as Hannah Baker. Photo: Beth Dubber/Netflix/Beth Dubber/Netflix

A 23-year-old man in Peru committed suicide last night, and it appears that he might have been inspired by the deceased heroine of 13 Reasons Why. Franco Alonso Lazo Medrano jumped from the fourth floor of his apartment building and People reports that he yelled I cant stand a heartbreak, as his mother looked on. After surviving the fall initially, he was declared dead at the hospital. The police reportedly later found two suicide notes in his home, one of which was a farewell to a person named Claudia, and the other directing a series of tapes to be distributed to a list of people Medrano had written down. The content of the tapes has not been shared, so it is not confirmed whether or not Medrano created his recordings for people he believes contributed to his decision to kill himself, just as Hannah Baker did on the Netflix hit show, nor is it confirmed that Medrano saw or was inspired by the show.

Still, the news is concerning in light of the controversy that has surrounded 13 Reasons depiction of suicide. Netflix has attached disclaimers and warnings to the program, but 13 Reasons has still made enough people uncomfortable about the possibility that it glamorizes suicide for the series to be banned in certain schools. Several in Canada have even asked students not to talk about 13 Reasons while on campus, and sent messages to parents encouraging them to have discussions with their children about the content of the show.
Several Kerala legislators headed to the assembly canteen for a quick breakfast, that comprised beef fry, before attending the special session in the Assembly.

By Rohini Swamy: Before the Kerala Assembly convened for a special one-day session to discuss the Centre's notification on sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter, the MLAs enjoyed beef fry in their breakfast.

Several Kerala legislators headed to the assembly canteen for a quick breakfast, that comprised beef fry, before attending the special session in the Assembly.

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Beef fry is a regular item in the Kerala Assembly canteen menu for breakfast. "We ate beef to register our protest. We want to tell the Centre that nobody can tell us what we should eat," said CPI(M) MLA Pratibha Hari.

Usually, beef is served in the canteen after 11 am but today anticipating the high attendance of MLAs ahead of the special session, the canteen started serving beef since early morning.

"With the session entirely devoted to discussing the beef issue, we brought 10 kg of beef early in the morning. A good number of MLAs have already had beef fry before heading to the Assembly floor," a canteen employee was quoted by IANS.

The canteen started serving beef early today. Photo: Rohini Swamy

IN THE ASSEMBLY

Kerala Chief Minister Pinayari Vijayan moved a resolution against the manner in which the Centre went ahead with enforcing the new rule regulating cattle trade last month.

"This new rule is nothing but a blatant violation on the rights of individuals to eat what they wish and want. This new rule will hugely affect the agrarian society of our state and also our country," Pinayari Vijayan said, who recently wrote to the Centre slamming the notification.

"To take care of a cow that has stopped giving milk, a farmer has to spend Rs 40,000. A huge majority of our society are non-vegetarians and this new law is in no way acceptable to us," the Chief Minister said.

Former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (BJP-RSS) combine for the "senseless" new law on beef.

"The need of the hour is we should encourage people to produce value-added beef, through which we can earn precious export earnings. The BJP is trying to bring in corporate houses to engage in this business and in no way can we allow our people to suffer," Achuthanandan said.

"This law should be circumvented by our own new law on this," he said.

The Kerala Assembly, with a strength of 140 members, may not be able to pass a unanimous resolution against the Centre's notification as the lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal is unlikely to vote against the new rule.

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(Inputs from IANS)

ALSO READ:

Beef ban: Another Meghalaya BJP leader quits, says non-secular ideology unacceptable

Beef row: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar defends right to choice of food but condemns cattle slaughter in public

Beef ban: How BJP plans to milk the cow in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu

ALSO WATCH: Kerala Congress MLA beefs up, breaks 19 years of vegetarianism

--- ENDS ---
After a two-week hiatus on her Dangerous Woman tour following the bombing at her Manchester Arena show, Ariana Grande returned to the stage once again in Paris on Wednesday night to resume her tour. While performing One Last Time the song that has become a rallying cry for her fans, which she rereleased after the attack to benefit the victims  Grande appeared to get choked up, handing over the chorus to her fans to sing. This ones for my 22 angels, she reportedly said before the song, dedicating it to the 22 people who were killed during the concert in Manchester. Grande also closed out the Paris show with her cover of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which she performed at her One Love Manchester benefit on Sunday and released for charity, in front of a fan-made peace symbol with her signature rabbit ears.


Tonight: Stephen read through James Comey's pre-written testimony, and found some pretty weird stuff. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/XUWcabcyul  The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) June 8, 2017

Following the release of James Comeys written testimony about his interactions with President Trump, late-night had fun pulling out the best details from the former FBI directors meticulous notes. While theres no doubt that the surprise one-on-one dinner Trump had with Comey was straight out of the playbook of a creepy dude in a Lifetime original movie, Late Show host Stephen Colbert focused on what happened immediately after the commander-in-chief demanded Comeys personal loyalty. Comey wrote that following the exchange, I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in anyway during the awkward silence that followed. Or, as Colbert describes it, Basically Comey treated Trump like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. The comedian added, It makes sense: They both have the same size hands.
Big winners Carrie Underwood & Keith Urban Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CMT

On Wednesday night, Country Music celebrated its best music videos with the annual CMT Music Awards in (where else?) Nashville, Tennessee. Many of countrys most popular acts took home top honors, including Florida Georgia Line, Little Big Town, Jason Derulo, and Luke Bryan. The big winners, however, were Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban, who both took home wins for their solo work as well as for their video together The Fighter. The fan-voted award show also featured special performances, including a tribute to late Southern rock legend Gregg Allman. Heres a complete list of the winners:

VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban  Blue Aint Your Color

Artists of Then, Now & Forever  Forever Country

Brad Paisley  Today

Brett Eldredge  Wanna Be That Song

Carrie Underwood  Church Bells

Cole Swindell  Middle of a Memory

Dierks Bentley and Elle King  Different For Girls

Florida Georgia Line  H.O.L.Y.

Jon Pardi  Dirt on My Boots

Kelsea Ballerini  Peter Pan

Little Big Town  Better Man

Luke Bryan  Huntin, Fishin and Lovin Every Day

Miranda Lambert  Vice

Thomas Rhett  Star of the Show

FEMALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Carrie Underwood  Church Bells

Kelsea Ballerini  Peter Pan

Lauren Alaina  Road Less Traveled

Maren Morris  80s Mercedes

Miranda Lambert  Vice

Reba McEntire  Back to God

MALE VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban  Blue Aint Your Color

Blake Shelton  Came Here to Forget

Eric Church  Record Year

Jason Aldean  Lights Come On

Luke Bryan  Huntin, Fishin and Lovin Every Day

Thomas Rhett  Star of the Show

DUO VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Florida Georgia Line  H.O.L.Y.

Big & Rich feat. Tim McGraw  Lovin Lately

Brothers Osborne  21 Summer Dan + Shay  How Not To

LoCash  I Know Somebody

GROUP VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Little Big Town  Better Man

Eli Young Band  Saltwater Gospel

Lady Antebellum  You Look Good

Midland  Drinkin Problem

Old Dominion  Song For Another Time

COLLABORATIVE VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban feat. Carrie Underwood  The Fighter

Artists of Then, Now & Forever  Forever Country

Chris Young feat. Vince Gill  Sober Saturday Night

Dierks Bentley feat. Elle King - Different for Girls

Florida Georgia Line feat. Tim McGraw  May We All

Kenny Chesney with P!nk  Setting the World on Fire

BREAKTHROUGH VIDEO OF THE YEAR

Lauren Alaina  Road Less Traveled

Brett Young  In Case You Didnt Know

Jon Pardi  Dirt on My Boots

Kane Brown  Used to Love You Sober

Luke Combs  Hurricane

RaeLynn  Love Triangle

CMT PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR

Jason Derulo and Luke Bryan  Want to Want Me (From CMT Crossroads)

Jason Aldean  Hicktown (From CMT Concert of the Summer)

John Mellencamp and Darius Rucker  Pink Houses (From CMT Crossroads)

Alicia Keys and Maren Morris  80s Mercedes (From CMT Crossroads)

Meghan Trainor, Jill Scott and Kelsea Ballerini  Youre Still The One/Any Man of Mine/Man I Feel Like a Woman (from CMT Artists of the Year)

Nick Jonas and Thomas Rhett - Close (From CMT Crossroads)

SOCIAL SUPERSTAR OF THE YEAR

Keith Urban

Brett Eldredge

Jake Owen

Kelsea Ballerini

Lauren Alaina

Thomas Rhett
Ice Cube. Photo: Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images

Many condemned Bill Maher after the Real Time host used the N-word in conversation with Senator Ben Sasse on the show last Friday. But while scheduled guest Al Franken decided to cancel his upcoming appearance, Ice Cube, who was scheduled to appear on Real Time this Friday before Mahers comments, has decided to remain on the show. Youll see me there Friday, Ice Cube told Rolling Stone, and Ill say what I gotta say.

Its just not funny to diss at least the ones who got it fucked up, he said of Mahers use of the slur. And its like rich, white guys are the reason why black people are in the position theyre in. Youre supposed to be a champion, or youre supposed to be a liberal, but racism lives in both parties. Real Time airs tomorrow at 10 p.m. Expect a lively discussion.
If you caught the trailer for The Gong Show reboot and were left wondering, Why is this legendary dude Ive never heard of stealing work from game-show king Steve Harvey? then you, too, were fooled by Tommy Maitland. This tuxedo-wearing cheeky monkey is, if were to believe reports, actually Mike Myers going full Method as his latest cocky British character. Though it might be hard to believe, if you ignore the prosthetics on his face and focus on the characters dance moves, those motions do seem familiar. Maitland is taking over the hosting duties made famous by the late, great Chuck Barris, who created the talent contest in the 1970s. Like the original, terrible acts can be stopped by the clash of a gigantic gong. This iteration premieres June 22 on ABC.
Each month, Boris Kachka offers nonfiction and fiction book recommendations. You should read as many of them as possible.

The Answers, by Catherine Lacey (FSG, June 6)

A novel about a woman paying for a bizarre medical treatment by submitting to a Girlfriend Experiment  joining a stable of women fulfilling one mans needs (shes Emotional Girlfriend)  sounds like a sharp dystopian turn from Laceys realist debut, No One Is Ever Missing. It is certainly that, but Laceys deft play with ideas instead feels like a more colloquial and essayistic answer to late DeLillo. As Marys narrative gives way to other points of view, Lacey explores not just the tragedies of exploitation but also the unknowability of others, and maybe the uselessness of love.

Black Moses, by Alain Mabanckou, trans. Helen Stevenson (New Press, June 6)

Born in the Republic of the Congo, Mabanckou left for Paris as a young man to write in French; he returned many years later, wrote a memoir, and then drew on interviews with people in his coastal hometown for this wild picaresque of a novel. The orphan with the titular nickname becomes a petty criminal, a self-styled Robin Hood, and the middle-aged inmate of a mental asylum. Longlisted for a Booker, this isnt a happy story  the would-be prophet cant even deliver himself from captivity  but its vivid, funny, and pointed on Africas political horrors.

The Weight of Lies, by Emily Carpenter (Lake Union, June 6)

An early entry in the beach-thriller sweepstakes, Carpenters story is much more layered and nuanced than most. Contracted to write a memoir of life with her mother, the famous thriller author Frances Ashley, daughter Megan takes the opportunity to explore the facts behind Francess best-known novel, Kitten, which pins a murder on an 8-year-old girl and is based on a real case with a muddled outcome. Complications accrue  along with subtle commentary on online fandom  when Megan travels to a Georgia island to interview the grown murderer, whose life unraveled in the wake of fan harassment.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy (Knopf, June 6)

Twenty years after plumbing an intricate Kerala village tragedy in her acclaimed first novel, The God of Small Things, the writer finally returns to fiction with a bigger and bolder palate. Politics intrude more frequently and deeply, but the internal lives of unfortunates are still Roys principal concern. Mainly there is Anjum, a transgender woman living in a Delhi graveyard, and Tilo, a woman in love with a Kashmiri separatist. Their stories, which converge around a mysterious foundling infant, show how mutable identity and affiliation can be, even in a culture rooted in caste.

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying, by Nina Riggs (S&S, June 6)

Memoirs of serious illness are haunted by the twin specters of death and self-help; whether ending in remission or posthumous sainthood, they suffer from the soft bigotry of the critic-proof. Riggs, who died at 39, a month after finishing this book, emulated entirely different writers, from Cheryl Strayed to essayists like Michel de Montaigne and her ancestor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her story was driven not just by her dark pursuer, breast cancer, but also by lives lived and books read. Read it for its insights, not its subject.

Lincoln and the Abolitionists, by Fred Kaplan (Harper, June 13)

While the current occupant of the Oval spins the fantasy that Andrew Jackson would have prevented the Civil War, Kaplan successfully unearths another president, John Quincy Adams, as the real force behind the movement that would end in Northern victory. Abraham Lincoln never committed to racial equality; this we already knew. (He wanted freed slaves sent to Africa.) But by contrasting the Great Emancipator with his fervent abolitionist predecessor, Kaplan shows Lincoln for what he was: complicated, calculating, accommodationist.

A House Among the Trees, by Julia Glass (Pantheon, June 13)

Though the award-winning novelist based her childrens-author protagonist very loosely on Maurice Sendak, the fictional Mort Lear lives and breathes on his own  even if the plot only gets going once he dies, leaving his literary estate to his longtime assistant (sister of the man who once inspired his blockbusters boy hero) and a secret in the hands of an actor playing him in a biopic. These well-meaning contestants over his legacy, along with the director of a museum shafted in Lears will, show off Glasss signature talent for rendering characters as full as any youd meet.
The decision will bring cheers in the state's 700-plus bars that were shut by the UDF government.

By Jeemon Jacob: The Left government in Kerala today announced a new liquor policy which overturns the earlier decision taken by the previous UDF government and allows three-star and above hotels to serve liquor.

The bars earlier shut down will also be allowed to serve liquor.

"LDF leaders met today and discussed the liquor policy in Kerala and recommended that bar hotels having 3-star status may be opened and licenses may be issued. LDF is committed to follow a liquor policy to minimise the liquor consumption and lead a people's campaign to discourage celebrating alcoholism," Vaikom Viswan, Left Democratic Front Coordination Committee Convener told media.

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The decision will bring cheers in the state's 700-plus bars that were shut by the UDF government, effectively making them beer and wine parlours.

According to him, it's not practical and good for the state to ban liquor.

"Everybody knows why the Chandy government had closed bars in 2014. We are also going to amend the Abkari act to open toddy bars in 3-star and above hotels to popularise the local drink," Viswan told India Today.

The LDF government has taken the decision since the coffers of the state, especially related to tourism, had been severely affected.

Viswan explained that after banning the liquor in Kerala, consumption of narcotics had increased three fold.

"Liquor ban has a direct impact on society and Left government didn't want to push a generation in peril," he told India Today.

Tourism industry cheered the decision of the government.

Jose Dominic, Chief Executive Officer of CGH Earth, the leading tour operators in Kerala welcomed the decision to lift the liquor ban.

"We have been demanding it for long. Tourism industry suffered a lot due to the liquor ban. Our loss was gain of other states including Rajasthan. We lost several destination weddings and events," he pointed out.

According to him, a comprehensive liquor policy would discourage consumption of liquor in the state.

But Catholic Church and anti-liquor lobby have come up to oppose the new liquor policy. Latin Archbishop Maria Calist Soosapakiam today announced that they would resist the move to make 'Kerala a liquor den'.

Government is assessing the views of all including anti-liquor lobby.

"What's the harm if bars are reopened. After the ban, family bars have come up. The bishops and anti-liquor lobby must realise that no bars solicit your presence in their premises. If you want to enjoy an evening drink, where can he go - Bishop's House," K.N Shaji, a writer and an activist demands an answer from the anti-liquor lobby.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has directed all departments to provide data on the impact of liquor ban in the state. He was convinced that liquor ban does more harm to the state.

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Also read:

Kerala: Liquor shops won't reopen, will honour court order, says excise minister

Beef fry breakfast effect? Kerala's sole BJP MLA says Modi govt ready to revise cattle slaughter order

Beef row: Sri Sri defends right to choice of food, condemns slaughter in public

Udta Bihar: Huge spike in substance abuse, alcohol bootlegging year after ban

--- ENDS ---
The Kerala government today junked its liquor policy to allow bars at all hotels with rating of three or more stars. With this, the LDF government hopes to get much-needed revenue and to arrest the dip in the growth of tourism.

Kerala will allow bars in hotels rated three stars or above (Reuters photo for representation)

By Rohini Swamy: Kerala once again has a new liquor policy. And this time, it's good news for all those who enjoy their drink. The Left Democratic Front government in the state reversed the previous Congress-led United Democratic Front regime's policy that had shut down all bars except for those in five star hotels.

The new policy by the state government, which will come into place from July 1, 2017, will allow all bars to serve liquor in hotels that have a rating of three stars or more.

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With this the cash-strapped state hopes to bring in additional revenue by way of sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) through the Kerala State Beverages Corporation, also known as Bevco.

KERALA GETS A NEW LIQUOR POLICY: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW Among the major announcement made on Thursday is the decision to change the timings of bars. Bars will now be open from 11 am to 11 pm, while those in tourist destinations will be allowed to open an hour earlier in the morning, at 10 am. The drinking age in Kerala has been increased from 21 to 23. Also, in a first, toddy will be allowed to be served at the bars of three-star and higher hotels. Under the new Kerala liquor policy, a total of 133 bars will be reopened at three- and four-star hotels. While announcing the new liquor policy, Chief Minister Pinrayi Vijayan said that while he respects all those who have been campaigning against alcoholism, prohibition is not a practical or feasible solution. LDF convenor Vaikom Viswan has called the UDF government's liquor policy a "complete failure." Viswan also reiterated that beer and and wine parlours should be allowed to operate as long as they are 500 metres away from highways, as ordered by the apex court. Former Chief Minister Oomen Chandy, who in his previous stint had brought about prohibition in Kerala, said the new policy is a 'conspiracy by the liquor lobby and the LDF to win elections.' When in power, the UDF government had refused to issue fresh licenses to 418 bars and further announced that they were shutting down 312 non-five star bars. The Kerala High Court had upheld the Congress-led government's liquor policy, leading to the shut-down of all non-five star bars in the state. The LDF said recent studies have shown that there has been a sharp decline in tourism after prohibition was rolled out by the previous UDF government. The Trade Research 2016, which has compiled available data, found that tourism growth rate has fallen from 8.1 per cent in 2013 to 7.6 per cent in 2014 and 5.9 per cent in 2015. This was the time the previous liquor policy was in place. The previous liquor policy implemented by the UDF gave wrong signals to the tourists - many felt that Kerala was a 'dry' state, the LDF further stated. Interestingly, the excise department's sales figures indicate that there was no big dip in the sales of IMFL in the last three years despite bars being shut down. 220.58 lakh cases of liquor were sold in 2014-15 and this dropped only to 201.75 lakh cases in 2015-16. The tourism department of the state also requested the government to announce a new liquor policy as the growth of foreign tourist arrivals in the state had dipped. The growth rate of foreign exchange earnings, which was 15 per cent in 2014, also reduced to 11.5 per cent in 2016. Tourism accounts for almost 10 per cent of Kerala's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the state tourism department claimed to have found in its survey that 32 per cent of hotel and resort owners and 19 per cent of tour operators blamed the state's liquor policy as the biggest reason for the dip in tourists visiting the state. There are 71 four-star and 62 three-star hotels that have beer and wine licenses in Kerala. Four five star-hotels were allowed to serve Indian Made Foreign Liquor. With the new liquor policy, the state is expecting to Rs 31.51 crore outright by way of license fees.

ALSO READ | Kerala changes liquor policy, 3-star and above hotels can now serve booze

ALSO READ | SC liquor ban: Kerala bar builds maze to increase distance from nearest highway

ALSO WATCH | Highways turn dryways after liquor ban: Rs 65,000 crore at stake, 1 million jobs may be on the line

--- ENDS ---
Robinson city officials announced the three finalists for consideration of the next Robinson police chief Thursday, with anticipation to name the next chief by early July.

Former Bexar County Sheriffs Office Deputy Chief Tammy L. Burr, current Fort Worth Police Capt. Kathryn D. Rowell and Glenn Heights Police Chief Phillip M. Prasifka were all named as the three finalists for Robinson police chief.

Robinson City Manager Craig Lemin said the three finalists stood well above the other 49 candidates who applied for the position by mid-May. Eight semifinalists were interviewed within the past two weeks before Lemin announced the finalists Thursday.

When we went through the original batch of applications, we felt like we had a pretty good mix of qualified people, Lemin said. Everyone we interviewed, we felt like could be a chief in the future, or could be getting close, but in the end, we felt like these three rose above the others, clearly.

Former Robinson Police Chief Rusty Smith announced his retirement in March before stepping down on May 31. He served a total of 42 years in law enforcement, including almost 11 as Robinson police chief.

City officials accepted applications from 52 candidates before the group was narrowed down to eight semi-finalists, who underwent a management-style assessment.

Lemin said city administrators hope to announce the next police chief in early July.

The three finalists, in alphabetical order, are:

Tammy L. Burr

Burr served 10 years with the United States Air Force before beginning her law enforcement career with the Bexar County Sheriffs Office in San Antonio in October 1996. She has served as a patrol officer, detective, sergeant, lieutenant captain and deputy chief and holds a master peace officer certificate.

Burr was terminated from the Bexar County Sheriffs Office in December 2016 after the appointment of a new sheriff, according to KSAT-TV.

Burr has a bachelor of science degree in occupational education and master of public administration degree, both from Wayland Baptist University. She graduated from several professional development programs including the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas Leadership and Command College and the FBI National Academy .

Phillip M. Prasifka

Prasifka serves as Glenn Heights police chief and has more than 31 years experience in law enforcement and public safety. He has served as master officer with the College Station Police Department, Electra police chief in 1997 and has been Glenn Heights police chief since 1999.

He has also served as Glenn Heights interim city manager and assistant emergency management coordinator and holds a Texas master peace officer certificate.

Prasifka has a bachelor of science from Texas A&M University and has completed the Blinn College Supervisory Academy. He is scheduled to graduate later this month from the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas Leadership and Command College.

Kathryn D. Rowell

Rowell has served with the Fort Worth Police Department since 1986, working as an officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant and holds the rank of captain. She has worked as an overnight commander of one or more patrol divisions and currently oversees the community programs division.

Holding a master peace officers certificate, Rowell also has worked as a third-shift public information officer for Fort Worth police.

Rowell has associate of science and bachelor of science degrees from Midwestern State University and is working toward completion of a master of management and leadership degree from Tarleton State University. She expects to graduate in May 2018.
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BEIRUT  Lebanese authorities banned the new Wonder Woman movie Wednesday hours before it was due to premiere in the capital and following a campaign against its lead actress, Gal Gadot, who served in the Israeli army, a security official and activists said.

Cinemas in Beirut began removing the movie posters, and cinema executives said the movie will not be shown because of the ban.

Lebanon is officially at war with Israel, and the two countries have been through a number of wars.

The ban is in accordance with a decades-old law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling to Israel or having contacts with Israelis.

A premiere later Wednesday in Beirut was canceled.

The security official said violators of the ban will have to face legal consequences, but he didnt specify.

A campaigner against the movie, Rania Masri, hailed the decision to ban Wonder Woman, saying it signaled respect for the law.

Still, it was a joyous moment the minute the law was implemented, Masri, of the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel.

A similar campaign against another movie where Gadot played the role of Wonder Woman last year, Batman v Superman, never turned into an outright ban.

On its front page Wednesday, the leading al-Akhbar newspaper had a column titled: The Israeli soldier. She has no place in Lebanon.

Warner Bros., which has released the film, declined comment.

Economy Ministry official Alia Abbas told the AP that her department, which is responsible for enforcing the boycott of Israel, had delivered a request to ban Batman v Superman last year. But the ban didnt come together

Some in Lebanon criticized the call for the ban, but their voices were faint compared to the boycott campaign that featured in primetime television in Lebanon.

We sold many tickets and we had to cancel now, said Isaac Fahed, sales manager for Grand Cinemas

Fahed said previous movies with Gadot were shown in Lebanese theaters and her new film will be viewed online and sold on DVD.

The end result will only . . . affect the cinemas, Fahed said.
WAHOO  Greg Hohl is looking to the future.

The end of an old era  a great era  and the beginning of a new era at Wahoo State Bank.

Those were the words from the Wahoo State Bank president April 6, as demolition of the bank at the corner of Fifth and Linden streets in Wahoo was expedited.

Hohl and other longtime Wahoo State Bank employees spirits remain optimistic about the independent, family-owned banks future after the main bank was destroyed in a Nov. 18 fire.

Proceeding without the building, which has stood at the corner since it was built in 1882, may seem odd, but the banks history will serve as the foundation for the next era.

Wahoo State Bank opened for business on Jan. 2, 1932, with John G. Hohl serving as its first president.

Greg Hohl is the fourth generation of Hohls to serve as bank president.

He had a lot of mentors through the years. His great-great-grandfather John G. Hohl, who was involved in the start-up, served as bank president from 1932 to 1949. Then came his sons Clarence G. Hohl (1949-1961) and Ray W. Hohl (1961-1972). Clarences son Robert served from 1972-1994 before passing the legacy on to his son Greg.

Ray Hohls son, John R. Hohl, served as the executive vice president and secretary of the board. His son, David, was a cashier until 1997, when the family sold their interest in the bank.

Greg Hohl and his sister, Cindy Hohl, who is the current executive vice president, were first introduced to the world of banking as kids. They would go to the bank after school for money.

We wanted to get money from dad, Greg Hohl said. I used to sit at his desk and play with the calcula

tor and phone. By todays standard its very low technology, but to us  as a kid  looking at this behind the scenes was kind of fun.

Cindy Hohls recollection of the bank growing up was not as pleasant as her younger brothers.

The only thing I really remember is being terrified of the buffalo head and eagle, Cindy Hohl said.

The buffalo head, eagle and elk head were used as decor in the bank lobby until 1968, when they were put into storage.

The eagle was destroyed in last falls fire, but the buffalo head may be making his reappearance in the new bank, Cindy Hohl said.

He was drenched, but we sent him off to be cleaned, she said.

The elk head remains in storage.

The Hohls arent the only ones watching the banks future.

Nov. 18 was a sad day for Bev Specht and Wilma Kirchman.

The duo that began their first day at Wahoo State Bank together each spent their entire careers at the bank. Specht retired after 50 years and Kirchman retired shortly before that.

I couldnt believe it, Kirchman said of the fire. All the memories that go  its just gone.

The two made plenty of memories.

We jabbered for eight hours a day, Specht laughed.

When the two started in 1966 they were working closely together on bookkeeping. Eventually, the bookkeeping position turned into information technology after the rise of computers. Specht ended her career as a loan officer.

Specht and Kirchman said they stayed at Wahoo State Bank their entire careers because it was a good job to have and they felt respected.

It wasnt a big effort to go to work, Specht said. (The Hohls) were always so good to us.

Ethel Hohl said being respectful and helping people were two top priorities of Hohl leadership.

While she never worked in the bank herself while her husband, Bob, was president, she was excited to be part of Wahoo State Bank.

Im proud to be part of the Hohl family, she said. I feel very blessed to be part of this legacy.

Greg Hohl said his father never expected him

to be his successor. But because it was in his blood, he had a desire to continue the legacy.

When you grow up with it, its a strong pull to come back and keep it going, he said.

Greg Hohl said he is proud of his familys longtime commitment to Wahoo and its customers, and particularly admires his great-great grandfather who started it all.

John G. Hohl immigrated to the United States with his aunt from Moravia around the age of 14. He worked as a lamplighter in Omaha before working as a depot agent.

He got his start in banking when he worked at the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Prague.

According to Saunders County Museum Curator Erin Hauser, John G. Hohl and other Wahoo businessmen began discussing opening Wahoo State Bank when other banks across the nation were in turmoil. Banks were experiencing closures, defeated by the Great Depression, the greatest economic downfall of the 20th century.

Wahoo State Bank occupied the former Saunders County National Bank, which had its doors shut in 1930. The closure left First National Bank (which still remains today as FirstBank of Nebraska) the only operating bank in Saunders Countys largest city.

Saunders County National Bank did not close because of the struggling economy. Hauser said it was one of eight banks across the county that closed after fraudulent practices by its owners were uncovered. Six of those eight were Kirchman-owned, led by Frank J. Kirchman.

M.A. Phelps purchased the vacant bank building in October 1931 for $20,000. Phelps, Hohl and three other Wahoo businessmen opened the bank three months later with an initial capital of $50,000.

The men involved in the start-up were meticulous and strategic in their efforts to gain patronage to the new bank during a period of great distrust in the American banking system. The men purchased full page advertisements in the Wahoo Wasp for several weeks leading up to its grand opening. They addressed the lack of confidence in the banking system and pledged to do and be better.

They and their predecessors fulfilled that promise, providing banking services 85 years and counting.

Those 85 years plus all happened from the same corner at Fifth and Linden streets. The original structure, built in 1882, received extensive remodeling and was enlarged in 1922. Under Wahoo State Bank ownership, the bank underwent a complete remodel of its interior and exterior in 1968.

An additional 2,500 square feet was acquired in 1989 when the bank purchased the Minnegasco building.

The banks drive-up location on Chestnut Street was built in 1994.

The main bank would be remodeled once more before for its 75th anniversary in 2006, when its bank lobby got an upgrade.

The most extensive construction project for Wahoo State Bank is yet to come.

Greg Hohl said the goal is to break ground this fall on constructing a new bank building on the downtown corner. He anticipates a completion in late 2018 or early 2019.

The verdict is still out how long the legacy will continue.

Greg Hohl said he has two children that could possibly come back to the bank, but just like his father, he is not placing that expectation upon them.
The RJD chief said that Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh was busy in a yoga camp of Baba Ramdev, instead of controlling the situation in Mandsaur.

By Rohit Kumar Singh: Pressure on RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav was evident on Thursday as he left for Ranchi to appear in a special CBI court tomorrow in connection with fodder scam case. It was this pressure probably that he indulged in a faux pas and slammed Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh instead of Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh for not taking steps to contain the volatile situation in Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh where five farmers were killed by the local police on Tuesday.

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Speaking to reporters before departing for Ranchi, the RJD chief said that Raman Singh was busy in a yoga camp of Baba Ramdev, instead of controlling the situation in Mandsaur. Notably, it is not Raman Singh but Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh who was busy attending the yoga guru's camp in Motihari today. He also came in support of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who tried to meet the victims of Mandsaur incident but was stopped midway in Nimach.

BLAMED RAMAN SINGH FOR MANDSAUR

"BJP has cheated the farmers. Opposition leaders who are going to meet victims farmers' family in Mandsaur are being arrested. There is massive trouble in Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh is in Motihari to attend the Yoga camp of Baba Ramdev. This governent is anti-farmers and we condemn the killing of farmers," said Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Lalu also attacked the media for purportedly running a false story on his daughter Misa and son-in-law Shailesh having being imposed monetary fine of Rs 10,000 for failing to appear before the Enforcement Directorate and IT officials on June 6 and 7, respectively.

"The media ran a false story that Rs 10,000 penalty was imposed on my daughter Misa Bharti and son-in-law Shailesh for not appearing before the IT and the ED. Fresh notice has been issued to them and Misa and Shailesh will be appearing before them soon," said Lalu.

He added that the Centre was trying to crush the voice of the Opposition in the country.

Also read: Enforcement Directorate to probe rail deals in Lalu Yadav's term

Also read: All's not well in Bihar grand alliance, Lalu sons Tejashwi, Tej Pratap skip Nitish Kumar's Cabinet meeting

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Thiruvananthapuram, Jun 8 (PTI) The Kerala government today unveiled its new liquor policy by deciding to open closed bar outlets in three star and above classified hotels besides allowing serving of toddy in these hotels from July one.

The government has also decided to increase the age limit for consumption of liquor from the present 21 to 23.

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Talking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the policy was redrafted considering the fall in state revenue and increase in the consumption of intoxicant substances.

This, he said, was the fallout of the previous Congress- led UDF governments liquor policy.

The UDF policy had resulted in the closure of 712 bars below the five-star category as part of its aim to ensure total prohibition in 10 years time. A majority of these closed bars were later converted to beer and wine parlours.

On the criticism that the new policy will result in reopening of several closed bars, Vijayan said the LDF had clarified in its election manifesto itself that it was not for total prohibition, but for abstinence.

Pointing out that the UDFs liquor policy was a "total failure," Vijayan said the states experience shows that it was "impractical" also.

There was a steep rise in the consumption of drugs after the closure of bars, he said.

The government has also decided to increase the age limit for consumption of liquor from the present 21 to 23.

With regard to the Supreme Court order banning sale of liquor within 500 metres of state and national highways, he said the state will abide by it.

"Presently in Kerala only five-star hotels have bar facilities. A change is being made by the government now. We have decided to issue bar licenses to three star and above classified hotels. Some restaurants will be allowed to serve liquor at their banquet hall after levying fees," he said.

In a path breaking decision, the LDF government also decided to allow three star category and above hotels in tourism sector to serve toddy.

A toddy board will also be constituted to help workers in this sector, the chief minister said.

The cabinet also decided to bring in timely changes in the present Abkari rules.

Vijayan said that due to the closure of bars, there has been a steep fall in revenue in tourism sector as several international conferences and conventions had been shifted from the state.

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About the Catholic churchs charge that the LDF government had cheated the state by deciding to reopen closed bars, he said "with all due respect to them we are unable to implement what they say. During elections we had made it clear that the LDFs policy will not be the same as that of the UDF."

On the demand of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC) for increase in their production of wine quota for religious mass, the chief minister said the government will give it due consideration.

Kerala presently has 30 five-star hotels, 815 beer and wine parlours and 922 toddy shops.

Asked how many closed bars would be reopened following todays decision, Vijayan said it was difficult to give the exact number at present.

Excise Minister T P Ramakrishnan was present when Vijayan addressed reporters.

Earlier, the LDF had recommended the government to redraft the policy with the same suggestions.

The policy has already come under attack from the opposition Congress and the BJP.

While the Congress has said that it would launch agitations, the BJP said the new policy was the result of a secret pact between the ruling front and bar owners before the 2016 assembly elections.

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Kerala PCC president M M Hassan alleged that corruption was behind the governments decision and said it was the result of an "illicit relation" with the liquor lobby.

BJP president Kummannam Rajasekharan said the Left government, which came to power promising to reduce liquor consumption, has "cheated" the people through the new policy.

Earlier today, KCBC and anti-liquor campaigners had staged a march to the state assembly against the move to reopen closed bars.

On June 2, the government had liberalised its liquor policy by taking away the powers of local bodies to regulate setting up of liquor outlets.

Protest erupted over the government decision with a delegation of religious leaders, including the KCBC and anti- liquor activists, meeting the governor and expressing their opposition. PTI LGK/UD JRK BN IKA

--- ENDS ---
The pound slumped 1.5 per cent against the greenback, and 1 per cent against the Australian dollar, immediately after an BBC exit poll projected that the ruling Conservative Party would fall short of an overall majority in the U.K. snap election.

Sterling fell to the lowest since April after Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party was projected to win 314 seats, short of the 326 required for a majority. Labour was projected to take 266 seats, according to an exit poll.

Opinion polls and betting markets in recent weeks had suggested a narrow but clear Tory victory, which took sterling to a two-week high early on voting day.

The pound initially gained as much as 4 per cent after May called the snap election seven weeks ago, which polls initially suggested would be a landslide win for May's Conservatives, giving the prime minister a stronger hand in Britain's looming negotiations on leaving the European Union.
We're sorry. But you sort of deserved it.

That's the takeout from the White House's response to the Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's capital yesterday, in which at least 12 people were murdered at the Parliament building and the Ayatollah Khomeini mausoleum.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the White House statement reads. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."
Police are searching for a man who grabbed a 12-year-old school girl on a Ridgewood footpath on Wednesday morning.

At around 8.45am the Butler College student was walking north on Hinchinbrook Avenue near Ballymote Park when she was approached by a man walking in the opposite direction.

Ballymote Park in Ridgewood is near where the incident happened. Credit:Google Maps

Police said the man grabbed the girl by the wrist and she immediately started struggling.

She was able to break from his grip and fled.
The owner of one of Perth's only dance studios dedicated to people with disabilities will again have to battle bureaucratic red tape after a nearby resident complained about laughter and talking coming from the building.

The Kelete Theatre and Performing Arts Company is nestled in amongst 13 commercial units in a light industrial area on Rockingham Road in Hamilton Hill.

Kelete Dance studio owner Kelly Buckle with some of the students. Credit:Kelly Buckle.

The dance studio runs Monday to Saturday from 9am to 9pm, with the occasional birthday party on a Sunday.

Kelete Theatre owner Kelly Buckle opened the dance studio in February last year, but was forced to spend $120,000 to sound proof the building shortly after because a resident complained about the noise.
Searchers have found bodies and debris in the water after a Myanmar military transport plane with 122 people on board crashed after taking off from an airbase in the southern part of the country.

The military said on its Facebook page the bodies of two adults and a child were found by navy ship 35 kilometres from the southern coastal town of Launglon, in the Andaman Sea.

A plane wheel was also found.

The Chinese-made Shaanxi Y-8 plane disappeared while flying over sea from the town of Myeik, a city on an island in the Andaman Sea, to Yangon on Wednesday afternoon.
The rival would-be prime ministers returned to their core messages on the frantic final day of campaigning. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn at an open air rally in Birmingham. Credit:Getty Images "No-one can say there wasn't a choice," Labour's Jeremy Corbyn said, warning that a Conservative victory would mean five more years of Tory cuts, longer waiting lists and underfunded schools, compared with "hope under Labour". At his 90th and final campaign rally in his home constituency of Islington he said Labour had "changed the debate and given people hope" and presented "the policies that people actually want". "Inequality can and will be tackled," he said. "Austerity can be ended, we can stand up to the elites and the cynics."

"This is the new mainstream." Brexit matters, Brexit is the basis of everything else. Theresa May Meanwhile, Theresa May toured marginal Labour seats that her Conservative Party hopes to pick up by promising the best Brexit deal for Britain. The Tories have aggressively courted former Labour voters who left for the UK Independence Party, and even the Labour faithful who voted for Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum. "Brexit matters, Brexit is the basis of everything else," Mrs May said on Wednesday, repeating her campaign mantra of "strong and stable leadership".

"Give me your backing and I will deliver for Britain," she said. Polls this week have ranged from predicting a minority Labour government, through to a big majority for the Conservatives. In the final polls, the Conservatives' lead ranged from just one point (Survation), through seven points (Opinium), 10 points (ComRes) up to 12 points (ICM). YouGov, which last week projected a Labour minority government, found a last-minute Tory surge in its final poll and gave them a seven-point lead and an increased majority. Even if Labour gets a lower vote share than the Conservatives, if it picks up enough seats it might still form a government with the backing of the Scottish National Party and the Liberal Democrats.

But Labour insiders are privately predicting a net loss of seats, and devoted the last days of the campaign to shoring up Labour-held seats rather than pushing into Conservative territory. Mr Corbyn has drawn huge crowds to rallies around the country, in an energetic last push for votes  while May has settled for smaller, more contained events in front of core supporters and TV cameras. Writer Robert Harris recalled covering the 1983 election when Margaret Thatcher ran "a new kind of election, an American-style copied from Reagan where you didn't do the monster rally, you just got good pictures for the evening news". Meanwhile, Michael Foot fronted huge rallies around the country  and lost. The nation's leading tabloids have come out strongly in favour of May  as expected  with the Daily Mail devoting the first 13 pages of its Wednesday paper to attacking Mr Corbyn and his colleagues who they called "apologists for terror". The Sun led with 'Jezza's jihadi comrades", referring to a 2002 speech he gave at Trafalgar Square that was attended by followers of hate preachers linked to the London Bridge attackers.

On Thursday The Sun's front page pleaded "Don't chuck Britain in the Cor-bin", describing Corbyn as "terrorists' friends, useless on Brexit, destroyer of jobs  Marxist extremist". Corbyn supporters responded to the barrage on Wednesday with a humorous series of tweets on the topic of "last minute Corbyn smears", warning that the Labour leader would give dogs a vote, and had used steroids to grow an enormous marrow on his allotment. The Financial Times said a Tory vote was a "safer bet" and the Times said the campaign had exposed May's flaws but a cabinet led by Mr Corbyn would be "a catastrophe". Of the daily newspapers only three came out for Mr Corbyn. The Mirror said Labour would deliver a "fairer, decent, prosperous, better land" and The Guardian that Mr Corbyn's party "might be the start of something big rather than the last gasp of something small". The avowedly communist Morning Star said approvingly that Mr Corbyn "has put socialism back on the political agenda".

Late in the campaign attention turned to Scotland, where the Conservatives are a good chance to pick up a handful of seats from the Scottish National Party (SNP) which won almost the entire country in 2015. SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said Mrs May would be regretting calling this "unnecessary election", and had thought she could cruise to victory just by repeating "strong and stable". Ms Sturgeon used the final day of campaigning to issue a plea for Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters to lend the SNP their votes. A vote for Labour or the Lib Dems risked "allowing the Tories in the back door", she said. Britain has a first-past-the-post voting system.

She said they might disagree over SNP policies  such as their push for another Scottish independence referendum  but "if you do not want to wake up tomorrow morning with a Tory government with a bigger majority, vote SNP". The last week of the campaign has been overshadowed by security issues, following the attack in London Bridge  and Manchester before that. But Brexit has been the most popular policy issue in Britain's general election on Twitter, eclipsing even the NHS, according to new research from the University of Edinburgh's Professor Laura Cram. Wednesday saw a lighter moment on the election trail, as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson asked a gypsy fortune teller in Plymouth in the south-west for her election prediction, and she refused. Loading
London: Exit polls in Britain are predicting a hung parliament, in a shock result that will turn British politics on its head and have big ramifications for upcoming Brexit negotiations.

The polls predict the Conservatives with 314 seats, short of the required 326 seats needed for a majority.Labour is tipped to get 266 seats, the Scottish National Party 34 and Liberal Democrats 14.

Exit polls have historically been accurate within 20 seats for the major parties. In 2015 they were within 15 seats of the Conservative total, and within 7 seats of the Labour result.
By Press Trust of India: Panaji, Jun 8 (PTI) Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM), floated by a former RSS functionary, has asked the BJP-led government to lift the ban on Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik from entering the state.

The Goa government banned Muthaliks entry in 2015 after the state Home department submitted a report stating that his entry may create law and order problems.

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The ban was imposed after Muthalik announced that he would stop pub culture in the tourist state.

"Dont assume that there would be law and order problems with the entry of Muthalik in Goa. The ban imposed on him should be lifted. He is a citizen of India and free to travel to any part of the country," GSM president Anand Shirodkar told a press conference here yesterday.

GSM, the party formed by RSS rebel leader and regional language crusader Subhash Velingkar after the previous BJP government refused to withdraw grants to English medium schools, had contested the state polls held earlier this year in six seats in alliance with the MGP and Shiv Sena.

However, the party failed to make a mark at the hustings by securing only 1.2 per cent of the total votes.

To a question on the aggressive stand of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on the issue of cow slaughter, Shirodkar said it is not a "terror outfit."

"VHP is not a terror organisation. It is an outfit preaching good things and one should not forget that BJP is in power because of RSS and VHP," Shirodkar said.

The Goa Forward Party (GFP), an alliance partner of the ruling BJP, had earlier hit out at the VHPs claims on beef ban saying those who try to create communal disharmony will be dealt with strongly. PTI RPS ARS GK NM NM RYS

--- ENDS ---
The farmers agitation followed by the police firing leading to death of five protesters has put the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in MP on the mat.

By Kumar Shakti Shekhar: Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh is burning, literally. Five farmers were killed in police firing after their protest to demand loan waiver and higher prices for their produce turned violent on June 6. The incident comes barely 18 months before the Assembly elections in the state.

The farmers agitation followed by the police firing leading to death of five protesters has put the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in MP on the mat. The government finds itself on the defensive. The ruling BJP government's handling of the situation is being widely condemned.

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Farmers constitute a majority of population in an agrarian state like MP. This is the reason why all political parties woo them. Shivraj Singh Chouhan calls himself a farmer and a farmer's son so that this section of the voters identifies itself with him.

BJP and Congress have already started gearing themselves for the November 2018 Assembly elections. BJP is in power in the state since December 2003. Shivraj Singh Chouhan is on the CM's chair since November 2005.

Chouhan has led BJP to win Assembly elections in 2008 and 2013. He is looking to return to power in the next year's polls. However, the Mandsaur incident threatens to put paid to his efforts.

However, despite these adverse situations, Shivraj Singh Chouhan may win the 2018 elections.

These are the reasons why:

1998 POLICE FIRING IN MULTAI

Madhya Pradesh is witnessing a repeat of police firing in Multai tehsil of Betul district on January 12, 1998. In the Multai incident, the farmers protested to press for 11 demands, the most significant being Rs 5,000 compensation for each hectare of crops damaged in severe rain and hailstorms, and farm loan waiver.

The agitating farmers had issued an ultimatum to the then chief minister Digvijaya Singh for meeting their demands by January 11 or face protests. On January 12, the farmers surrounded the tehsil office in Multai. Allegedly armed with dangerous weapons, they turned violent. They locked up the tehsil office and pelted stones at the government employees. The farmers torched two police vehicles and stoned the then Betul superintendent of police GP Singh.

When the protesters went on rampage, the police received orders to open fire killing 18 protesting farmers. A driver of the fire brigade also died in the incident.

Assembly elections were held after 10 months. BJP was sure of victory and exit polls had also predicted the same. The death of farmers in police farmers was on the main issues raised by BJP in the run-up to the polls. However, Digvijaya Singh returned to power defeating BJP by a huge margin of seats.

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Shivraj may not have much to worry. Digvijaya had faced polls just 10 months after the police firing which killed 18 farmers. On the other hand, Shivraj will face elections after 17 months of the disturbance in which lesser number of farmers (five) have died in police firing.

Public memory being short, Mandsaur may be forgotten by November 2018. Shivraj may also lose but the Mandsaur incident would not be a major factor.

RAHUL GANDHI'S BHATTA PARSAUL MOMENT

Having been denied entry, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi today sought to sneak into Mandsaur via Rajasthan to meet members of the families of the farmers who lost life in the police firing. Riding on a motorcycle, he tried to enter MP. However, he and other party leaders were arrested at Neemuch on Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border.

This seemed to be a replay of the Bhatta Parsaul incident of May 2011. Four protesters and two policemen had died in a pitched battle between the security forces and agitating farmers. Rahul wished to show solidarity with the farmers who were agitating for higher compensation for land acquired for the 156-km Yamuna Expressway, linking New Delhi with Agra.

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As politicians and outsiders were barred from entering by the Mayawati regime, Rahul slipped into the village early morning, riding on a motorbike. He spent nearly 18 hours with the villagers before his arrest.

However, this 'drama' did not bear fruit as Congress could not put up a decent show in the 2013 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Samajwadi Party won the polls defeating BSP.

MP GOVERNMENT'S SWIFT DAMAGE CONTROL EXERCISE

Soon after the death of farmers in Mandsaur, the Madhya Pradesh government swung into action to control the damage done to its image. Shivraj Singh Chouhan made a slew of announcements to placate the farmers which included a judicial inquiry to probe the Mandsaur incident, Rs 1-crore compensation each to the victims' families and Rs 5 lakh to the injured besides their treatment on government cost. He also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

In the course of time, Shivraj Singh Chouhan may announce more measures to smoothen the ruffled feathers of the farmers. This may forgiven and forgotten by the farmers.

Also read: Madhya Pradesh farmers protest LIVE: Rahul Gandhi arrested outside Mandsaur, confirms Neemuch top cop

Also read: Madhya Pradesh: Fire at cracker factory kills 25 in Balaghat

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WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders were arrested at Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border as they tried to enter Mandsaur despite the local administration denying permission to do so.

By India Today Web Desk: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders were arrested at Neemuch on Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border today as they tried to reach Mandsaur where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

"I just want to meet the farmers. If your ideology is not that of the RSS, you are not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh," Rahul Gandhi told reporters after his detention. "Modiji has waived loans of big corporate houses but he can give only goli (bullets) to farmers of the country," the Congress leader said.

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Earlier, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government admitted that the farmers were killed in police firing after initially denying any police action against the protesting farmers.

INDIA TODAY MAGAZINE SPECIAL: No country for farmers - In rush towards development, Indian farmers fall through the cracks

"It was investigated and proved that the death of farmers happened because of police firing. Initially, the details provided to me were that police firing did not cause the death of farmers. However, I later amended my statement as soon as I received the right information," Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said.

LATEST UPDATES:

State government has allowed Rahul Gandhi to meet farmers at MP-Rajasthan border.

Rahul Gandhi has agreed for bail after arrest.

Curfew to be relaxed in Mandsaur from 4pm to 6pm. Only women and kids of age up to 10 years would be allowed to venture out on streets.

"My government is a government for farmers. I will continue to serve farmers till my last breath. Strict action will be taken against those inciting in the state," says Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan in video message.

Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders arrested for breach of peace, says Neemuch Superintendent of Police.

I just want to meet the farmers. If your ideology is not that of the RSS, you are not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh: Rahul Gandhi to reporters after his arrest. Rahul Gandhi arguing with a policeman when he was stopped from entering Mandsaur. Rahul Gandhi arguing with a policeman when he was stopped from entering Mandsaur.

Rahul Gandhi arrested by Madhya Pradesh police at Neemuch border on way to violence-hit Mandsaur.

Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments are doing their best to prevent me from entering Madhya Pradesh and meeting the families of the farmers killed in Mandsaur: Rahul Gandhi tweets.

Rahul Gandhi rides pillion on a motorbike to Mandsaur evading Madhya Pradesh cops.

Rahul Gandhi stopped by police from entering Madhya Pradesh at Udaipur-Neemuch border. Scuffle between cops and Rahul Gandhi at Madhya Pradesh border. #WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS- ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

62 farmers have been arrested from different places. Situation in under control now: SP Mandsaur OP Tripathi

Toll plaza vandalised in Mandsaur. Reports say agitators loot Rs 8-10 lakh.

Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh admits police fired on protesting farmers which triggered violence.

Government transfers Mandsaur Collector Swatantra Singh and SP as violence continued in the town for the third consecutive day today.

Rahul Gandhi arrives in Udaipur on his way to Mandsaur.

Madhya Pradesh Farmers' Protest: Toll plaza vandalised in #Mandsaur, Rs. 8-10 lakhs looted. pic.twitter.com/LW15R0k8QO- ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradesh's #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS- ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

The Congress accused the BJP for "acting as a curse of death for Indian farmers" and slammed it for disallowing party Rahul Gandhi from meeting the families of the victims.

"The BJP has almost been acting like a curse of death for Indian farmers, literally - not figuratively. Distressed farmers are viewed by heartless BJP virtually as fodder for opening fire upon," senior party leader Abhishek Singhvi said.

Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh are protesting since June 1 over various demands.

The protesters demanding better crop prices, among other things, heckled Mandsaur collector Swatantra Singh on Wednesday who denied that police opened fire on protesting farmers.

CENTRE RUSHES FOR MORE FORCE TO MADHYA PRADESH

The Centre rushed 1,100 personnel of anti-riot Rapid Action Force (RAF) as violence spread to other parts of Madhya Pradesh. Despite curfew in Mandsaur, large scale arsoning and incidents of vehicle burining were reported. Violence was reported in Dewas.

Rattled by the protests, the Shivraj Chouhan government sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6000 crore, according to government.

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The Madhya Pradesh government also announced setting up of a commission for agricultural costs and marketing to ensure that farmers get benefited by market price for their produce.

ALSO READ:

Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

Mandsaur: Here's what led to Madhya Pradesh farmers protest

Madhya Pradesh farmers protest: How Mandsaur is a repeat of Multai 19 years later

We plan to replicate MP model of agricultural growth: Radha Mohan Singh

WATCH | Madhya Pradesh farmers' protest: Rahul Gandhi detained on way to Mandsaur

--- ENDS ---
The Second Regional Conference of Donors in the WCO West and Central Africa (WCA) region was held in Lome, Togo on 1 and 2 June 2017. It was attended by representatives of 20 Customs administrations from the region and by various development partners.

The event was hosted by the Commissioner General of the Togo Revenue Authority, Mr. Kodjo Adedze, and chaired by the Director General of Cote d'Ivoire Customs, Mr. Pierre Da, in his capacity as Vice-Chair for the WCA region, with sponsorship from the Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF)/China.

In his opening speech, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya emphasized the crucial role played by Customs in facilitating and securing international trade in Africa and the ensuing importance of building Customs capability to develop and manage reliable projects for securing funding from development partners. The Conference was officially opened by the Minister of Economy and Finance of Togo, Mr. Adji Oteth Ayassor.

The Conference reviewed the positive impact of the First Regional Conference of Donors, and participants learned about the activities and priorities of donors active in the region. Representatives of Customs administrations presented their regional and national priority projects. Turning to regional projects, they placed particular focus on transit interconnectivity, Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) status, intelligence sharing via CEN/nCEN, security, and leadership and management development.

Donors expressed their appreciation for the presentations, suggesting ways forward and sharing their contact details to ensure follow-up. These projects will made available on the regional website (www.omdaoc.org) in order to publicize them among a wider range of development partners.

Secretary General Mikuriya valued the incubator function of the Conference and commended the growth in quality of the projects presented, some of which already enjoy good prospects for funding. The warm hospitality extended by Togo was also welcomed by all the participants.
Rahul Gandhi was arrested outside Mandsaur where he was supposed to meet the kin of the five farmers who were killed in the police firing on Tuesday. The Madhya Pradesh government had earlier denied that cops opened fire on protesting farmers.

Rahul Gandhi pushes cop when he tried to enter Madhya Pradesh.

By India Today Web Desk: A furious Rahul Gandhi stormed out of his jeep, pushed a policeman as he tried to stop him and other Congress leaders from entering Madhya Pradesh today. He was later arrested at Neemuch border.

Despite the local administration denying the Congress vice-president permission to visit violence-hit Mandsaur, where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday, Rahul Gandhi rode pillion on a bike to dodge the cops.

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"Aap kaise rok sakte ho (How can you stop me)," an angry Rahul Gandhi was seen lashing out at a policeman as he tried to stop his vehicle at the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border.

Rahul Gandhi arguing with a cop.

"Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments are doing their best to prevent me from entering Madhya Pradesh and meeting the families of the farmers killed in Mandsaur," Rahul Gandhi tweeted moments after the incident.

"What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?" he added.

INDIA TODAY MAGAZINE SPECIAL: No country for farmers - In rush towards development, Indian farmers fall through the cracks

Rahul Gandhi left Delhi for Udaipur on a chartered flight in the morning. From Udaipur, the Congress leader took the road to Madhya Pradesh.

Gandhi is accompanied by PCC Rajasthan chief Sachin Pilot and other party leaders, including Digvijaya Singh, Girija Vyas, Kamalnath.

Five persons were killed on Tuesday as the farmers' agitation turned violent in Mandsaur, prompting the authorities to clamp curfew in the trouble-hit area.

Mandsaur has been on the boil since the farmers' agitation in the district turned violent.

Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh are protesting since June 1 over various demands.

ALSO READ:

Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

Madhya Pradesh farmers protest: How Mandsaur is a repeat of Multai 19 years later

We plan to replicate MP model of agricultural growth: Radha Mohan Singh

WATCH | How can you stop me? Rahul Gandhi dares cops as he tries to enter violence-hit Mandsaur

--- ENDS ---
Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had accepted all the demands of the farmers. He alleged that Congress leaders instigated violence in Mandsaur.

By Anand Patel: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh has alleged that Congress leaders were involved in instigating violence in the trouble torn districts.

Talking to India Today, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister claimed that the state government had proof against Congress leaders, who were behind the incidents of arson and violence.

"We know some Congress leaders circulated WhatsApp messages, pamphlets and addressed mobs to instigate them. Law will take its course (in this case)," Bhupendra Singh said.

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He alleged Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was doing politics on the issue. "Where was Rahul Gandhi for six days when farmers were sitting on dharna? He is trying to gain political mileage on this issue by coming here," said Bhupendra Singh.

"We have left it to the district administration to decide whether to permit him entry into troubled zone or not," he added.

ACTION AGAINST OFFICIALS

The Madhya Pradesh Home Ministry has transferred the district magistrate and the superintendent of police of Mandsaur following Tuesday's firing and the violence which ensued.

Senior officials from Bhopal have also been rushed to the troubled districts of Mandsaur, Dewas, Ujjain, Neemach, Dhar and Sihore. "The state government has ordered judicial probe into the firing incident by the cops in which five farmer were killed," the Madhya Pradesh Home Ministry said.

Bhupendra Singh said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had accepted all demands of farmers. Violence took place due to a local feud among farmers and traders. He also claimed that those who indulged in arson and violence were not farmers but anti-social elements.

SITUATION TENSE IN MANDSAUR

Meanwhile, the trouble-torn district of Mandsaur remains under curfew. Tensions ran high in the Pipalia area where firing took place on Tuesday with shops, markets remaining closed.

Angry farmers have refused to cremate bodies of farmers killed saying that "last rites will not be performed unless Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan himself pays a visit to them."

The Neemach-Mhow highway remained blocked today with farmers sitting on dharna with the body of deceased farmers. District administration was in the process to persuade farmers to clear the highway, but to no avail.

ALSO READ |

Madhya Pradesh farmers protest LIVE: Rahul Gandhi, Congress leaders detained on way to Mandsaur

Mandsaur protest: Why loan waivers are not good for farmers, India Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

ALSO WATCH | Mandsaur violence: Politics overshadows farmers' concerns, who's to blame?

--- ENDS ---

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Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Mandsaur today, but all eyes are set on former CM Digvijaya Singh, former Union Ministers Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, who were only keeping a close watch from Delhi.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Mandsaur today, where five farmers were killed in firing on agitating protesters on Tuesday. (File photo for representation)

By Supriya Bhardwaj: The moment news broke about the sordid Mandsaur violence, Congress immediately rushed its PCC chief Arun Yadav, Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Assembly Ajay Singh and former MP Meenakshi Natrajan to the city.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is expected to visit Mandsaur today, where five farmers were killed in firing on agitating protesters on Tuesday. He will head to the villages of the deceased farmers.

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However, the three big guns - former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, former Union Ministers Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia were keeping a close watch on the developments from Delhi.

Though the trio took to Twitter to slam the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government in Madhya Pradesh, their absence from the state gave arsenal to critics to question the grand old party as to why its stalwarts were missing.

Kamal Nath had to cut short his Kedarnath and Badrinath Yatra and return to Delhi on Wednesday afternoon, as he will be accompanying Rahul Gandhi to Mandsaur today.

Sources close to Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh said that he will be heading to Madhya Pradesh in a day or two. However, it was the absence of Congress' young firebrand turk Scindia - one of the key General in Rahul's brigade - that provided material to rumour mills in Delhi's durbar.

According to sources, Scindia was in Delhi on June 5 and left for abroad on Tuesday night.

Many party insiders said that the MP from Guna should have headed to Madhya Pradesh and monitored the situation up, close and personal the way he usually does whenever Gandhi scion visits Madhya Pradesh. Others pointed out that he is miffed with the upcoming changes in Congress's MP unit.

However, a senior Congress leader tried to defend Scindia saying that all the official stakeholders - Madhya Pradesh's general secretary in-charge, PCC chief, Leader of Opposition, former MP and MLAs - are all going to be present during Rahul Gandhi's visit.

However, it seems that there is more than what meets the eyes as far the curious case of Missing Maharaja is concerned.

ALSO READ | Mandsaur: Here's what led to Madhya Pradesh farmers protest

ALSO READ | Madhya Pradesh farmers protest: Violence spreads in Mandsaur, PM Modi consults top ministers

ALSO READ | Madhya Pradesh farmers protest: How Mandsaur is a repeat of Multai 19 years later

ALSO WATCH | Mandsaur violence: Politics overshadows farmers' concerns, who's to blame?

--- ENDS ---
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 08, 2017 | 01:06 AM | MCCRACKEN COUNTY, KY

A two vehicle crash in McCracken County Wednesday afternoon left the driver injured and facing charges.According to the McCracken County Sheriff's Department, the collision happened at approximately 3 pm on Clarks River Road. Deputies said 31-year-old Heather Morrow of Paducah was traveling west, nearing the intersection of Tharp Lane, when she failed to stop at the red light.According to police, Morrow's vehicle struck another vehicle, driven by 55-year-old Phillip Arnett of Mayfield. Morrow was transported to a local hospital by Mercy Regional EMS for treatment of her injuries. Deputies said alcohol is believed to be a factor in the crash.

Morrow was cited to court for operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs 2nd offense, failure to produce an insurance card, failure to notify address change to the Department of Transportation, no registration receipt and possession of an open alcoholic beverage in a motor vehicle.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 08, 2017 | ULLIN, IL

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 08, 2017 | 11:50 AM | ULLIN, IL

Dr. Peggy F. Bradford has been named as the new president of Shawnee Community College.



The Shawnee Community College Board of Trustees selected Bradford Monday at its regular monthly meeting. Bradford succeeds Dr. Tim Bellamey who retired at the end of April.



Steve Heisner, Board Chair, said that the Board was pleased with the search process, which involved members of the college faculty, staff, administration, community members and Board.



Dr. Bradford brings a fresh perspective to our college community and district and we are very excited about her vision to provide strong leadership while engaging the college and its constituency in a joint effort to stimulate an environment that prepares our students for success, provides a catalyst for industry, engages in cooperative relationships with our local high schools and creates a culture that makes people proud to be a part of Shawnee Community College," Heisner said.



Bradford is a southern Illinois native and attended Shawnee Community College earning her Associate of Arts degree. She previously served as the Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at State University of New York (SUNY) Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York.



Bradford earned her Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration from Northern Illinois University, Juris Doctorate in Corporate and Business Planning Law from The University of Iowa-College of Law, Master of Science in Administration and Community Development from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and Bachelor of Science in Counseling and Administration from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 07, 2017 | 08:25 PM | FULTON COUNTY, KY

Five men, including two from western Kentucky, have pleaded guilty in Fulton District Court after joint investigations by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Special Investigations Unit officers and conservation officers looking into illegal waterfowl hunting guides.

Forty-two-year-old James Jimmy Rowland, of Hickman, pleaded guilty to one count of resident commercial license violation and one count of illegally taking migratory birds. He paid $5,000 in restitution to the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources and lost his hunting privileges under the Wildlife Violators Compact for four years.

Forty-four-year-old Rhodney Speed, and 49-year-old Jeff Boyd, both of Union City, TN, also pleaded guilty. Speed pleaded guilty to facilitation of non-resident commercial license violations. Through a plea agreement, he paid $1,153, forfeited a 2011 Polaris Ranger Crew vehicle and lost his hunting privileges for one year.

Boyd pleaded guilty to two counts of non-resident commercial license violations and to illegally taking migratory birds. Boyd paid $2,500 in restitution, forfeited two shotguns and lost his hunting privileges for five years. He was further ordered not to hunt in Kentucky for eight years.

Sixty-one-year-old Bill Jackson, of Woodland Mills, TN, pleaded guilty to facilitation of resident commercial license violations, non-resident hunting without a Kentucky hunting license and non-resident hunting without a Kentucky Waterfowl Permit. He paid $1,000 in restitution and lost hunting privileges for three years.

Forty-six-year-old Rob Hitesman, of Hickman, received a $453 pre-payable summons for three counts of entry on land to hunt/fish without permission.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jun. 08, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 08, 2017 | 05:42 PM | PADUCAH, KY

Another business owner and contractor who plead guilty to wire fraud charges related to work done at the Fulton County Detention Center has been sentenced.



According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Kentucky, 60-year-old Ronald D. Armstrong was sentenced Thursday to serve 35 months in prison and pay $100,000 in restitution.



Armstrong plead guilty in February to four counts of wire fraud related to his role in a conspiracy to defraud Fulton County citizens during the 2015-2016 expansion of their detention center.



Court records show that Armstrong, the owner of Armstrong Construction in Dresden, Tennessee, conspired with former Fulton County Jailer Ricky Parnell to get his business awarded the construction project for the jail, and agreed to pay Parnell $100,000 of his fees as a kickback. To date, he had paid $80,000.



Armstrong had been doing business with the Parnell and Fulton County for about 20 years.



Armstrong was indicted in November 2016 with co-defendants Parnell, Michael Homra, Jimmy Boyd, and Daniel Larcom. Parnell, Homra, and Larcom also entered guilty pleas, and Homra has already been sentenced.



Larcom will be sentenced on June 15th and Parnell will be sentenced on July 24th. Charges against Boyd were dismissed on a motion of the United States Attorney's Office.
By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 08, 2017 | 06:32 AM | MAYFIELD, KY

Police in Mayfield are searching for a man found driving a stolen car.

According to the Mayfield Police Department, officers on Wednesday spotted a car that had been reported stolen from Paducah. The vehicle was occupied by two men.

Police stopped the vehicle at North 15th Street and West Broadway and the driver fled on foot. The passenger stayed in the vehicle and was detained by officers.

Police say the identity of the driver is known and charges are pending. They didn't release his name.



Anyone with information is asked to contact the Mayfield Police Department.
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By The Associated Press

Jun. 08, 2017 | NASHVILLE, TN

By The Associated Press Jun. 08, 2017 | 03:42 PM | NASHVILLE, TN

A Tennessee prisoner says he shouldn't have to serve a life sentence for a crime committed when he was 14  a slaying that garnered international attention in 1997 because prosecutors said it was part of a satanic ritual.



In legal filings, Jason Bryant points to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings saying juveniles should not be sentenced to life in prison except in the most extreme cases. Those involved in the slayings deny that it was part of any sort of ritual.



At 15, Bryant and five other young people from Kentucky pleaded guilty to kidnapping a family at a rest area in Greene County near the Tennessee border and killing a couple and their 6-year-old daughter and gravely injuring their 2-year-old son. All six were sentenced to life without parole.
Farmers getting benefit under loan waiver scheme turn out to be a victim of it as banks treat them as loan defaulters. Banks deny such farmers any future loans forcing them to approach illegal moneylenders, who charge higher rates of interest.

By Prabhash K Dutta: Farmers are on street, violence in the district, five protesters killed, police and administrative chiefs of the city transferred, mobile internet connectivity suspended, Centre rushes 1,100 jawans of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's plan to enter the troubled area. This is what defines Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh today.

The farmers have two principal demands: waiver of their loans and increase in minimum support price for all their produce.

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An India Today report shows how farming is not a profitable vocation in India. Farmers in the county are under stress. Only a handful makes profit out it and enjoys the 'luxury' institutional help from the government. Those dependent on it have no other vocation. Agriculture in India is overburdened. Farmers see loan waiver as panacea but history has a different take on it.

FIRST LOAN WAIVER

The Janata Dal government of VP Singh announced the first ever nation-wide farm loan waiver of Rs 10,000 crore in 1990.

A working paper by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) - Credit Policy for Agriculture in India - An Evaluation - says that the loan waiver scheme of VP Singh proved a costly affair for the banks and economy.

A large number of borrowers stopped repayment hoping for another loan waiver for them. The ICRIER paper mentions about a study by Shylendra and Singh in 1994 to show that after the announcement of farm bailout package, the loan recovery of Primary Agriculture Credit Societies in Karnataka declined by over 30 per cent - from 74.9 per cent to 41.1 per cent.

RECENT LOAN WAIVERS

In 2008, the UPA government announced a loan waiver of Rs 50,000 crore. This is now considered as one the factors that helped re-election of the Manmohan Singh government.

While the farm loan waiver provided temporary relief to less than half of the farmers. It offered full waiver for small and marginal farmers but medium and large farmers were required to pay the 75 per cent of their loans to avail the benefit.

According to the data of the National Sample Survey Organisation, the biggest loan waiver scheme announced till date could have benefit only about of the farmers who were in debt. The NSSO data showed that less than 60 per cent of the loans to farmers were sourced from banks and other structured institutions.

On the other hand, the Reserve Bank of India data shows that scheduled commercial banks' non-performing assets in agriculture jumped after loan waiver programme from Rs 10,353 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 30,200 crore in 2012-13.

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Recently, the Uttar Pradesh government announced a loan waiver of Rs 36,000 crore. The RBI expressed its concerns over the move of the UP government.

BENEFITING FARMERS GET TRAPPED

The loan waiver is short-term gain for long-term pain for farmers. The benefiting farmers' credit history gets distorted. They become defaulters in the eyes of the banks. The banks deny them any future loan on account of their inability to payback the debt.

A World Bank paper shows that a loan waiver scheme is followed by a decline of about 4-6 per cent in new loans for the benefiting group.

Incidentally, this study was done just after the then Finance Minister announced Rs 50,000 crore loan waiver for farmers in 2008. It also pointed out that after the bailout banks reduced loan disbursement under agriculture category in the districts, which had higher instances of write-offs.

Another research paper - Borrowing Culture and Debt Relief: Evidence from a Policy Experiment - said that the loan waiver adversely impacts both those who benefitted and those who did not.

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It says that beneficiaries are denied loans while non-beneficiaries tend to default hoping that the next loan waiver would be announced for them and become loan defaulters. Both are denied future loans by banks. Ultimately, both fall in the trap of illegal money lenders, who charge higher rate of interest.

This India Today video representation explains the loan waiver trap for farmers.

ANDHRA, TELANGANA EXPERIENCE

In the run up to 2014 Assembly elections, Telugu Desham Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu and Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrashekar Rao promised loan waivers to farmers. The two parties were voted to power in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana respectively.

In Andhra Pradesh, loan waiver of Rs 40,000 crore was announced and in Telangana about Rs 20,000 crore scheme was floated. But, the cases of farmers suicides went up in both the states.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that while 160 farmers were reported to commit suicide in 2014 in Andhra Pradesh, the number went up to 516 in 2015. Similarly, in Telangana, farmers' suicide recorded an increase of 50 per cent in 2015 compared to 2014.

LOAN WAIVERS BAD FOR ECONOMY

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The loan waiver scheme announced by the UP government has led to similar demands from many states. The Tamil Nadu farmers led rather dramatic protests in New Delhi for 40 days in March only to come back a month later after suspending it temporarily.

A Madras High Court bench even directed the government to waive all loans to farmers. The farmers of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are leading a forceful agitation in their respective states.

Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian recently said that the recent trend of waiving farmers' loan might cost two per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.

"We have had a spate of announcements recently about agricultural loans being waived off. You know these could cost, if it were to spread, these could cost something like 2 per cent of GDP, adding to the deficit," Arvind Subramanian said.

Arvind Subramanian's warning seems to be based on a note by the analysts of the Bank of America Merill Lynch, which said, "Farm loan waivers of up to 2 per cent of GDP in the run up to the 2019 hustings pose fiscal/rate risk and impacts credit culture."

RBI governor Urjit Patel has warned that loan waivers may create a moral hazard by inducing many other farmers for stopping repayment of their loans. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has also raised concern on the issue.

ALSO READ |

Madhya Pradesh farmers protest LIVE: Rahul Gandhi detained as he tries to enter Mandsaur

Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

ALSO WATCH: Waiving off farmer loans could lead to fiscal slippages, warns RBI chief

--- ENDS ---
 The 12 Rules of Lawyer Client Service. | Main | At Disqus: When is it okay for men to cry? 

September 22, 2017

Mountain Grove, Mo. goes to Washington, DC: J. Dan Hull, Jr.

My grandfather was born in 1900. He died in 1988. I still miss him. He grew up in the Ozarks in a town called Mountain Grove and, at a very young age, started taking degrees at the University of Missouri, Chicago and Yale. In my family in the 1920s, going to college would have been a very big deal, and granddad was the first in his branch to do that. He was of the sixth American generation of a family of German farmers who arrived in Philadelphia in the early 1700s and started out life Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They later moved to Middlebrook, Virginia where they would stay for 100 years. In the 1850s, they oved to southern Missouri where, 50 years later, grandad would be born and grow up. My grandfather was at heart a schoolteacher. He was principal of Shortridge High School in Indianapolis during the mid-1940s. He also managed people, authored books and eventually became a government official in the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. He traveled globally and extensively in his HEW position. "J. Dan" Hull wrote a standard text on high school administration that was used for decades. In the 1950s, he was elected to Cosmos Club in Washington. He taught me things no one else in my family could teach. And he gave me the Great Books. This giving started after he had finished his career in Washington, D.C., and had returned to Springfield, Missouri. Most were written centuries ago, and lived in his library long before I was born. He seemed to love Cicero's known works as much as any of his books. Now, I have all those volumes. They are, to me, like parts of him--and like very old friends of his in my care who've finally agreed to live with me indefinitely.

*from past posts



J. Dan Hull II in 1933

Posted by JD Hull at September 22, 2017 11:50 PM

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By Press Trust of India: tomorrow

Mumbai, Jun 8 (PTI) "Raabta" will release without a hitch tomorrow after the producers of "Magadheera" withdrew their case of copyright infringement against the Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon-starrer reincarnation drama.

Allu Aravind, the producer of "Magadheera" had gone to court seeking an injunction against the release of the film alleging that its plot was similar to their 2009 film.

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The S S Rajamouli-directed film, based on the theme of reincarnation, featured Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal in the lead.

"Raabta", a romantic thriller directed by Dinesh Vijan, also revolves around the theme of reincarnation and is co- produced by Homi Adajania and Bhushan Kumar.

"There is no out of court settlement. They were misguided. Day before yesterday they presented their case and yesterday we presented our case and our counsel argued that both the films are not similar. This morning they withdrew the case," Dinesh Vijan, director of "Raabta", told PTI.

A statement from "Magadheera" producer Allu Arvind confirmed that they had withdrawn the case.

"...both the parties representing Magadheera and Raabta have settled the ongoing legal dispute amicabally outside the court. Hence, Geetha Arts has officially withdrawn the case," the statement from Aravind read.

"Raabta" filmmakers claimed that the similarities, if any, were generic to every film made on reincarnation of two lovers such as Prem, Hamesha, Om Shanti Om and Kudrat.

Dinesh had earlier said that he was a huge fan of Rajamouli and would never copy his film. PTI KKP CORR BK

--- ENDS ---
A group of farmers from Maharashtra's Nashik district have petitioned the Bombay High Court, saying that the state government should be asked not to acquire land for the much-touted Nagpur-Mumbai super expressway.

By Vidya : In another jolt to the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Maharashtra, farmers from the Shivade Gram Panchayat in Sinnar Taluka of Nashik district have filed a writ petition before the Bombay High Court asking it to direct the Devendra Fadnavis administration to stop the land acquisition of the petitioner's villagers for the much-touted Samruddhi expressway corridor.

The farmers - Kiran Nivrutti Harak, Bhaskar Keru Wagh and Somnath Pandit Wagh - have also prayed that the court direct the state government, which is at the moment acquiring land, to develop the Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi expressway over the existing Ghoti-Sinnar highway which runs parallel to the project.

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The farmers have also requested that while the matter is in the court the state government and the collector of Nashik be asked not to carry out any land acquisition.

The petitioning farmers' biggest contention is that the proposed land acquisition would take away agricultural areas that is very fertile and suitable for growing cereals and pulses. The petition states that the soil on the land of the farmers is of various shades of grey, black, red and pink.

Along with the petition, the farmers submitted a copy of a gram panchayat resolution passed by a village through which the proposed super expressway passes through. The resolution, passed by a majority of villagers, opposes any land acquisition for the Samruddhi highway.

2/3RD OF LAND ALREADY ACQUIRED FOR OTHER PROJECTS

Acquisition of land for the Samruddhi expressway project would leave the Igatpuri district, through which the highway passes, with just 26,118 hectors of land, the petition claims. According to the farmers, of the district's 82,812 hectors of the land, 54,894 hectors is already with the government for various projects and purposes relating to forestry, dam construction, military needs, railways lines, highway building, petrol pipe line projects and industrial needs.

The petition says that if 1800 hectors is also acquired for the Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway, the district would be left with 26,118 hectors.

Lawyer Rameshwar Gite, who represents the farmers, said, "Already for various projects 2/3 rd of (the farmers') land (has) been acquired by the government. As per the census of 2011, the population of the Igatpuri Taluka is 2,53,582 and the remaining cultivable agricultural area is only...1 or 2 guntha (approximately 1085 square feet) per person."

Gite added that the government can develop the proposed Nagpur-Mumbai expressway over the 37-km highway that already passes through Igatpuri. This will also be in the interest of the Maharashtra state, the farmers' petition says, as the government will not need to acquire large tracts of land and multi-crop agricultural lands will not be destroyed.

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According to the petition if the Ghoti-Sinnar highway is used for the proposed Nagpur-Mumbai expressway, the government will only need to acquire an extra 111 hectors.

If the land acquisition is done as proposed by the Maharashtra government, the farmers will be deprived of their lands, livelihood and shelter. The acquisitions would also restrict the farmers' access to their traditional resource base and uproot them from their socio-cultural environment, the petition also claims.

The farmers also told the court that a few more petitions opposing the land acquisition are likely to be filed at the Bombay High Court soon.

ALSO READ | Tinderbox Mandsaur: Will loan waivers help plight of angry farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra?

ALSO WATCH | Farmers protest in Maharashtra, MP: Loan waivers only solution to their problems?

--- ENDS ---
The committee of farmers decided to give an ultimatum to the government and also discussed how to intensify this agitation across the state.

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: A crucial meeting of various farmer organisations and farmers, who are protesting, took place on Thursday in Nasik, where they unanimously decided to normalise the supply of vegetables and fruits. But they warned the government and gave a deadline of June 11 to come with positive solutions for their demands or else the farmers will protest outside ZP and collector's office across the state on June 12 and 13 June. If the demands are not met, farmers will also stage a rail-roko.

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A new core committee of members from 21 different organisations today met, which after discussion decided to give an ultimatum to the government again and also discussed how to intensify this agitation across the state. From the last 8 days, farmers are protesting against the government for not giving them a loan waiver, minimum support price for crop, implementation of Swaminathan Commission report and pension for farmers.

FARMER AGITATION NOT POLITICALLY MOTIVATED

The meeting was attended by more than 1000 farmers. A committee, which met for the first time today, consists of MP Raju Shetty, MLA Bacchu Kadu, Judge (rtd) BG Kolse Patil, Raghunathdada Patil, Ajit Navle and Ashok Dhavale.

Speaking to India Today, core committee senior member BG Kolse Patil said, "This is a farmer agitation which is not politically motivated. Fadnavis is a cheater and he has made fake promises to farmers, that is why they are angry and protesting."

Now markets in cities like Mumbai and Pune are expecting the rates of vegetables and fruits to come down from tomorrow as farmers will start sending their produce to them. With the deadline of June 11, the ball is in the government's court.

Also read: Rahul Gandhi released after bail, meets kin of farmers killed by police at MP-Rajasthan border

Also read: Farmers' protests: Shiv Sena ministers boycott Maharashtra Cabinet meet

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Sarkar

By K J M Varma

Beijing, Jun 8 (PTI) Chinas iconic leader Mao Zedongs famous quote of "let a hundred flowers bloom" could also be applied to the media in a democracy where it could act as a countervailing power, Vice Chairman and Editor Emeritus of the ABP Group Aveek Sarkar said today.

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"Nobody explained about fake news better than former Chairman Mao Zedong of China, who said let a hundred flowers bloom. The idea of media in a democracy is that hundred ideas bloom," Sarkar said speaking at the BRICS Media Forum being hosted by Chinas state-run Xinhua news agency.

About fake news, he said, "It is possible to make a professional mistake but fake news is something somebody consciously does for ulterior purposes."

"What does Maos message mean. In India, as elsewhere, the media belongs to the civil society. By civil society we mean something which has nothing to do with the government," said Sarkar, who is also the Director of PTI.

"It is not news which is omnipotent. It is the state which is omnipotent. The media in a society like India is a counterfoil to the state. As the state becomes more powerful and assumes more and more authority, the media is the countervailing power and the judiciary is another countervailing power.

"These are the countervailing powers to the society. So each institution assumes power to countervail each other," he said.

"When one wing gets stronger, the other wing also gets stronger. When we speak about cooperation, we have a problem," Sarkar said.

He also said that the problem of providing a counterbalance to international media is difficult because people trust New York Times (NYT) more.

People trust an NYT report rather than a report in the Indian media, Sarkar said.

"I am sure this is true for everybody else. NYT has earned the reputation by trying to wield countervailing power," he said.

Today it is the effective voice against Donald Trump. NYT also was effective in opposing the Americas involvement in the Vietnam war. So, it positioned itself away from the state and positioned itself as a correction to the state, Sarkar said.

This being the case, while media is state-owned in some countries and part of the civil society in countries like India, "there could be a theoretical difference in cost purpose at least the way we look at things, he said.

Editor of The Hindu Mukund Padmanabhan, who took part in the BRICS Media Forum, highlighted the theme of a BRICS-driven alternative media, saying that the international system which is undergoing a profound transformation, presented BRICS countries a serious opportunity for making a contribution to writing the rules for a more representative and a more inclusive global order.

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He said the BRICS media should evolve a new revenue model in tune with the explosion of the digital media without compromising the basic values of quality journalism.

Media has a "duty and social responsibility" to ensure that "traditional values such as accuracy, fairness, truth, are not forsaken in the interests of speed, sensationalism, and more eyeballs", he said.

BRICS media must innovate, across multimedia platforms, in order "to remain unique and relevant so that people are willing to pay for what is produced rather than let some platform such as Google, Facebook or Twitter exploit its commercial value", Padmanabhan said.

"The BRICS, and the emerging economies could well be at the forefront of a new wave of industrialisation driven by the concept of sustainable globalisation, which is being currently abandoned by many, especially in the West," he said.

Despite diversity, the media in BRICS countries can cooperate, specially the media of India and China. There is information and perception deficit between the two countries, Padmanabhan said.

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Media in the two countries has a role to promote people to people understanding by dramatically increasing the flow of news and information between the two countries from non- western media sources, he said.

Mahesh Daga, Director and CEO of news agency IANS, said despite the massive size of the media in India and China, there is a need for more correspondents in both the countries.

Leading writers of both the countries need to be invited to write for each others media organisations for people to have a balanced and authentic news compatible with mutual sensibilities, he said. PTI KJV ASK AKJ ASK

--- ENDS ---
India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today arrived in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital, where he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

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Ahead of his departure, Modi on Wednesday said, on completion of the process India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GDP.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Modi said ahead of his visit.

WHAT TO EXPECT: Modi is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev later today. Full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc. Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO. Modi will address the SCO Summit on Friday and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid. After participating in the Summit, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India. He will attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy". There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours. The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population. India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region. India is keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

Also read:

All you need to know about Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

SCO won't back Pakistan's attempts to internationalise Kashmir: China's media

Will PM Modi meet Nawaz Sharif at SCO summit? Sushma Swaraj says nothing fixed

Kabul blast: China defends ally Pakistan as SCO considers terror treatyWatch Video: China's media says SOC won't back Pakistan's attempts to internationalise Kashmir

--- ENDS ---
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its the curious and catchy name of the place that suggests its not just another corner coffee shop.

Fools & Horses.

And when one sips their lattes  or looks at their co-op business model that is socially and environmentally responsible  something becomes obvious about the five business partners, all in their early 30s or late 20s.

JUSTIN SAMANSKI-LANGILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS James Magnus-Johnston (from left), Lauren Kroeker-Lee and Kendra Magnus-Johnston stand behind the counter of Fools & Horses second location, at The Forks Commons, which opens Monday.

They may be workhorses, but theyre no fools.

The five partners, who each hold 20 per cent interest, are James Magnus-Johnston; his wife, Kendra Magnus-Johnston; Ben Gillies; and two women who co-manage the Broadway location and are about to take on the operation of a second shop at The Forks Common. The women are Lauren Kroeker-Lee and Amy Bortoluzzi, friends with a choral music connection.

The driving force behind what is much more than a coffee shop  and not just because they also serve craft beer from the tap but will have different alcohol options at The Forks  are pals Ben and James. Ben is just back from graduate studies at Harvard and MIT, and James, the oldest of the five at 35, has a masters in economics from Cambridge University.

As I was saying, theyre no fools.

None of that has much to do with how they came to select the name. Its origins go back to James time studying in England, and a British sitcom he saw called Only Fools and Horses.

Well get back to that.

But theres something more important first; their business model saw them open the shop by investing $10,000 each and carrying the rest collectively as debt.

We couldnt have done it without each other, James said as we sat in the Broadway and Edmonton location, a well-windowed room with a diverse collection of suits and toques, which is how they all imagined it two years earlier when Fools & Horses opened. They also imagined it sourcing local produce and buying everything they could from local suppliers. Its one local business helping other small local businesses.

But the bigger, foundational concept came from what James teaches and preaches.

He lectures in political studies and social entrepreneurship at Canadian Mennonite University, where hes also the director of the schools Centre for Ecological and Economic Resilience.

Hes a proponent of a concept known as triple bottom line economics, the three being social, financial and ecological.

So you try to manage all three bottom lines.

And do it with that co-op twist.

Since James teaches the concept, he saw an opportunity to do more than talk about it.

And test it.

If its such a good idea, lets give it a shot, he recalled thinking.

I like to blame Ben for why this started, James added. Hes so enthusiastic.

That is how it really did start, when they chose the downtown corner for a coffee shop.

I used to work across the street in an office and there was never a good coffee place, James recalled.

Then, three or four years back, James and Ben were driving past a former Money Mart location at the corner. The building had for lease sign.

I said, Ben, this would be a really good spot for a coffee shop. He said, Yes, of course. We have to do that. 

James calls Ben a serial entrepreneur whos driven by optimism. Ben operates the Winnipeg Trolley Company with another partner.

He pushes us, James said. He pushes us forward.

But how did they choose the name Fools & Horses?

James said it went back to his time at Cambridge watching Only Fools and Horses. They riffed off that title, partly because it was a fun name meant to invite a wide and diverse group of customers to join them.

But the other thing is the sitcom was about people living in public housing who start businesses to get out of public housing, James explained. And keep failing. So I thought, thats kind of a cute reference to what we were trying to do. We dont earn a lot of money. But were going to use it to try to start this foolish thing and who knows whats going to happen?

As I mentioned earlier, whats going to happen next  starting Monday  is Fools & Horses will open a second location in The Forks Common, the high-traffic, reimagined food court, which, by a happy coincidence, celebrates its first anniversary Friday.

One of the central reasons the team of five horses can do that is because they have pulled together, plowing the profits back into the business, even as they pay their staff what James calls living, sustainable wages.

Were nearing the finish line, managing operations partner Lauren said on Thursday, as she did final preparation for opening day at The Forks.

Actually, as a business and as a business model, Fools & Horses is far from the finish line.

Its just at the starting gate.

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local craft brewery has come up with an alternative to donning a hard hat and lifting a hammer while still helping build homes for those in need.

Torque Brewing has partnered with Habitat for Humanity, creating the Foundation American pale ale and directing a portion of the beers proceeds toward the organizations efforts.

The brewery will direct four dollars to Habitat for Humanity for every 12 pack of cans sold, as well as one dollar from every pint of the ale sold in its King Edward Street tap room. Cans are available at Manitoba Liquor Marts and select beer vendors.

BEN MACPHEE-SIGURDSON / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS John Heim, president of Torque Brewing, pours a pint of the Foundation American pale ale at a media event to launch the beer on Wednesday morning.

Torque president John Heim anticipates donating a total of around $10,000 from the sales of Foundation to Habitat for Humanity.

We thought it was a great way to give back locally, sell local beer to Manitobans to help build homes in Manitoba, Heim said at a press event on Wednesday morning at the brewery. Heim describes the beer as an easy-drinking, aromatic summer beer that would taste good after swinging a hammer all day.

Every Habitat home that is built is a result of the partnership of hundreds of individuals and dozens of organizations. What John has done here exemplifies that, said Sandy Hopkins, chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity Manitoba.

He also noted the organization plans to build 25 homes in Manitoba this year and that the money raised from sales of the Torque beer will go directly to help build those homes.

Its great to see a young company like Torque understand the importance of being involved in the community, of giving back to the community, Hopkins said.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Grieving family and community members have given up on trying to send the body of a woman who died trying to cross from the U.S. into Canada back to her home in Ghana.

Instead, theyre hoping to raise the money to have Mavis Otuteyes body shipped to Maryland  where she lived  and to bring her husband from Ghana to her funeral.

Its not going to be easy, said Augustina Otuteye, her niece in Charlotte, N.C. Her 57-year-old aunt was trying to cross into Canada at Emerson, to see her daughter and newborn granddaughter in Toronto.

Facebook Mavis Otuteye was living in Maryland prior to her attempt to cross the Canadian border.

Otuteyes American visa had expired in 2006, so she was trying to cross the Emerson border undetected. If she was caught by U.S. officials, theyd have put her in immigration detention and sent her back to Ghana. Otuteye made it to Minneapolis and was driven close to Noyes, Minn. She was walking through farmers fields when she died.

Her body was found May 26 in a ditch west of Highway 75 and less than a kilometre from the Canadian border. Authorities said it appeared she died of hypothermia and they sent her body to the medical examiner in North Dakota for an autopsy.

In Winnipeg, the Ghanaian Union of Manitoba was in contact with Otuteyes daughter in Toronto, who initially wanted her moms body sent back home to Ghana where her father lives.

On Wednesday, Otuteyes niece in North Carolina said that the family has decided to send her body back to Maryland, where theyre planning funeral to be held on June 24. They expect the cost of shipping her body from North Dakota will be close to $12,000. They want to help Otuteyes husband in Ghana get a visa and travel to the service, said Augustina Otuteye. After working out both travel and funeral costs, theyve set up a GoFundMe page with a $30,000 fundraising goal.

Right now we dont have any funds, she said. The crowd-sourced fund had raised $380 by Wednesday afternoon. The funeral home wants a $5,000 deposit before theyll do anything.

She hadnt expected to be planning a funeral for her aunt and close friend, whom she spoke to daily by phone.

I am just so shocked, Augustina said. I dont want to believe it.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba defence lawyers have come out swinging  possibly against one of their own  for questioning the integrity and ethics of the provinces top judges over a controversial plan to eliminate preliminary hearings.

Jody Ostapiw, president of the provincial Criminal Defence Lawyers Association, said its no secret her organization has concerns about proposed amendments to the Criminal Code. Theyve spoken out against the four-year pilot project that was pitched earlier this year by Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier, Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal and provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe.

But Ostapiw said they were shocked that someone identifying themselves as a practising lawyer filed a formal complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council, accusing Chartier, Joyal and Wiebe of improper conduct and backroom political lobbying with provincial Justice Minister Heather Stefanson. As the Free Press reported exclusively Thursday, that triggered a lengthy investigation by the CJC, which resulted in a finding of no wrongdoing.

JUSTIN SAMANSKI-LANGILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jody Ostapiw, president of the Manitoba Criminal Defence Lawyers Association: I struggle to understand the criticism of the lack of transparency, and then remaining anonymous.'

I find that hypocritical and cowardly, frankly, Ostapiw said Thursday. I struggle to understand the criticism of the lack of transparency, and then remaining anonymous. To attack somebodys ethics and do it in that way If you felt that strongly about your position, why would you not openly discuss it?

The anonymous complainant used a generic email address and told the CJC they feared judicial reprisal if their identity got out. Ostapiw said many will assume a defence lawyer was behind it, given that theyve been the most vocal about not being consulted over the preliminary hearing idea and have the most to lose.

The complaint

I dont agree with what (the top judges) did, I dont like what they did, but I dont think its unethical what they did. Theres a big difference, she said. This was not an ethical issue. It was a disagreement certainly on the way things went down. I dont think it deserved to be raised to that level of an ethics complaint. (The person who filed the complaint) doesnt speak for me and they dont speak for this organization.

After receiving the complaint, the CJC assigned the matter to Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald for review. MacDonald ruled this week the top judges did not fail to uphold the principle of judicial independence by entering into private talks with Stefanson and requesting an audience with federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, who is considering their proposal.

In disposing of the complaint, Chief Justice MacDonald notes that ongoing dialogue between the judiciary and the executive is necessary to improve the administration of justice, CJC executive director Norman Sabourin said in a statement. While the idea of eliminating preliminary inquiries is not universally supported, it is worthy of debate by all participants in the justice system. Chief Justices Chartier and Joyal can be commended for their efforts at encouraging such a debate.

Chartier and Joyal spoke with the Free Press Wednesday, saying they were taken aback by the complaint and see it as an attempt to put a chill on their ability to lead. Both vowed to continue pushing for judicial reform in the wake of last years Supreme Court decision setting new time limits for criminal matters to make their way through the justice system. Provincial court matters must be completed within 18 months after charges are laid. Superior court cases  in Manitoba, the Court of Queens Bench  have a 30-month limit.

Cases that take longer are presumed to have violated the accuseds right to a trial in a reasonable amount of time unless the Crown can prove exceptional circumstances. Several legal challenges have followed, including multiple criminal cases being thrown out of court as a result of judicial delay.

Our government respects the process undertaken by the Canadian Judicial Council and (its) ruling. We believe strongly in collaboration with all stakeholders in order to improve the timeliness of the court process, that includes the judiciary. The judiciary (has) a unique perspective on the administration of justice that has always been appropriately included in policy or legislative work undertaken by government, a provincial spokesman said Thursday in response to a request for comment from Stefanson.

Ostapiws organization was critical of the plan when it was made public in February. The Canadian Bar Association sent a letter to Wilson-Raybould, urging her to reject the idea. They proposed suggestions to reduce delays, including appointing more judges, providing more legal aid, eliminating mandatory sentencing and using alternatives to court to deal with minor charges. They cite value in preliminary hearings, including reducing the potential of wrongful convictions.

Ostapiw said Thursday that much has been learned over the past four months, which has led to a softening of the associations position.

Weve had great dialogue (with the judges) since this happened. What we were striving for was an open dialogue, and weve gotten that from the bench, said Ostapiw. They also learned that Crown attorneys werent consulted, contrary to their initial concerns.

It wasnt about us, which is kind of how it initially felt  like we were left out. There were a lot of things that we learned after the fact, she said. It wasnt the shady thing that people thought it was in the beginning. I feel theyve really bent over backwards to meet with us, and to make it clear our voice matters.

Chartier and Joyal said there were no initial consultations with stakeholders because they knew they wouldnt get immediate consensus. Instead, they chose to make the appeal to Ottawa  after first approaching Stefanson  with the idea of eventually doubling back to work together with all parties should they get approval.

Out of this, rising out of the ashes, has been an enhanced relationship between us and the court. I like to focus on the positive thats come out of it, said Ostapiw. I think that were making strides and certainly dont want to see those go away because people think we had something to do with the CJC.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Theyve come under attack from several directions and been the subject of a federal investigation questioning their ethics. But Manitobas top judges say they wont let that stop them from pushing for judicial reform going forward.

Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier and Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal told the Free Press they will soldier on now that theyve been cleared of any wrongdoing by the Canadian Judicial Council.

We dont take this personally. Were turning the page. All the people who speak out against the preliminary inquiry (proposal), we accept that and were going to continue to work with them. We dont see this as an issue of us against them, Joyal said Wednesday.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier

However, at least one member of the legal community did make it somewhat personal with the anonymous complaint to the CJC. There were even rumours the complaint may have come from another judge, although Chartier and Joyal were quick to dismiss that.

Both men made no apologies Wednesday for consulting with provincial Justice Minister Heather Stefanson and then sending their proposal to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould about looking for solutions in what they call an increasingly complex system.

This is about judicial leadership, and about the chief justices capacity to continue to participate in a meaningful way to affect systemic change, said Joyal.

This is also about judicial independence. Everyone recognizes the judiciary has to be kept separate and distinct from the other branches of government. But that doesnt mean the judicial branch isnt part of the justice system. We are, added Chartier. The status quo is unacceptable. There are parts of the justice system that arent meeting the needs of the stakeholders involved. Were going to continue doing what were doing in collaboration with everyone.

Joyal said he knows their idea isnt for everyone  the Canadian Bar Association sent a letter to Wilson-Raybould in March, urging her to reject the idea to eliminate preliminary hearings. They propose alternative suggestions to reduce delays, including appointing additional judges, providing more legal aid, eliminating mandatory sentencing and using alternatives to court to deal with minor charges. They cite value in preliminary hearings, including reducing the potential of wrongful convictions.

Reasonable people can disagree. It was always our intention, if we received the green light on our proposal, to always go back and refine it with the stakeholders, said Joyal.

All of this comes in the wake of last years Supreme Court of Canada decision that set new time limits for criminal matters to make their way through justice systems across the country. Provincial court matters must now be completed within 18 months after charges are laid. Superior court cases  Court of Queens Bench in Manitoba  have a 30-month limit.

Cases that take longer are now presumed to have violated an accused persons right to a trial in reasonable time unless the Crown can prove exceptional circumstances. Several legal challenges follow, which includes multiple criminal cases being thrown out of court as a result of judicial delay.

Joyal said they are anxiously awaiting to hear back from Ottawa.

The minister of justice is working in good faith with her provincial counterparts. This is one of the things on the table. We have every confidence its going to get full consideration, he said.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Canadian Judicial Council has spent the past several months investigating Manitobas top judges over their controversial proposal to speed up the justice system by eliminating preliminary hearings, the Free Press has learned.

An anonymous complaint sent by a self-proclaimed practising lawyer in late February accused Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier, Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal and provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe of improper conduct by formulating a plan in conjunction with provincial Justice Minister Heather Stefanson, which seeks to improve efficiency in order to comply with tough new Supreme Court timelines that puts cases in peril if they take too long.

Ultimately, no wrongdoing was found against the justices named.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS files Provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe and Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier were accused of improper conduct by an anonymous lawyer.

However, the proposal was made without any notice to, or consultation with, other stakeholders including members of the defence bar and the public. The idea for a four-year pilot project was then forwarded to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and remains under consideration.

This causes these judges to at least appear to have become involved in backroom political lobbying, the initial five-page complaint to the CJC reads. A copy was obtained Wednesday by the Free Press. The author cites anonymity out of concern for the professional impact of attaching my name to a complaint about three eminent members of the Manitoba judiciary. The complaint was sent through a generic email account.

I believe there are still important ethical limits to chief judges ability to advocate for changes to the Criminal Code, particularly when they do so in secret or in conjunction with another level of government such as the provincial Crown, the lawyer wrote, noting the prosecutions department falls under the watch of Manitobas attorney general. This proposal would have far-reaching consequences for the administration of criminal justice in Canada, and could eliminate an important and longstanding procedural protection for individuals accused of serious crimes. To this extent, it seems obvious that the proposal would favour the interests of the provincial Crown over the interests of the accused.

Full text: The Complaint

The CJC governs the conduct of all federal judges in Canada and has the mandate to impose sanctions, from a reprimand all the way to removal from the bench. It immediately launched a probe of both Chartier and Joyal, assigning the matter to Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald for review. The complaint against Wiebe doesnt fall under the CJCs jurisdiction and was assigned to Manitoba Court of Queens Bench Associate Chief Justice Shane Perlmutter. Normally, Joyal would be the one to handle it, but he recused himself for obvious reasons.

The Free Press has obtained copies of both MacDonalds and Perlmutters decisions, which are set to be released today. In both cases, no wrongdoing has been found against Chartier, Joyal and Wiebe and the files will be closed with no further action.

This really represents, for us, a potential chill on our capacity. A chill, quite frankly, on any chief justice to be able to do his or her job, Joyal told the Free Press Wednesday in an exclusive interview. Its regrettable somebody, somewhere, felt it necessary to conflate disagreement, which is fair, with an ethical issue. Thats not fair. We wouldnt do that to anybody and wouldnt expect anybody to do that to us.

MacDonald found Chartier and Joyal did not fail to uphold the principle of judicial independence by entering into talks with Stefanson and requesting an audience with Wilson-Raybould. Perlmutters decision was much shorter, saying he adopts fully and wholeheartedly the findings of MacDonald and applies them in his decision.

The issue you raise concerns a proposal, which is by definition eventually meant to be discussed and considered by others, rather than a definitive draft, MacDonald wrote, adding Chartier and Joyal had been publicly discussing their views on eliminating preliminary hearings as far back as 2014.

Complaint dismissed

There was nothing hidden about what our views were with respect to this matter, Chartier told the Free Press. Weve been very very public with respect to our views on this matter. Theres no merit at all to that.

The lawyer who filed the complaint was also concerned Chartier and Joyal could one day be in a position of having to appoint judges to oversee constitutional challenges of the very proposal they came up with, which would put them in a conflict-of-interest.

This hypothetical issue could readily be addressed by way of a recusal if necessary, MacDonald concluded.

The lawyer who filed the complaint also took issue with comments made by Joyal earlier this year, to the Globe and Mail newspaper, in which he stated defence lawyers werent consulted because doing so would inevitably result in failure to achieve consensus.

In his complaint, the lawyer called Joyals comments frankly rather disdainful while also questioning the perception of impartiality they create.

Chief Justice MacDonald finds that Chief Justice Joyals comments were not disdainful as you allege, but rather reflect the controversial nature of the issue addressed in the proposal and explain why it was addressed the way it was, with all stakeholders input being considered later in the process to eventually obtain as close to a general agreement as possible, the CJC decision reads.

The CJC says it also took an additional step of obtaining outside counsel  Toronto lawyer Gavin MacKenzie  to review the file and MacDonalds findings. MacKenzie was in complete agreement with the findings, according to the CJC.

In disposing of the complaint, Chief Justice MacDonald notes that ongoing dialogue between the judiciary and the executive is necessary to improve the administration of justice, CJC executive director Norman Sabourin said in a statement. While the idea of eliminating preliminary inquiries is not universally supported, it is worthy of debate by all participants in the justice system. Chief Justices Chartier and Joyal can be commended for their efforts at encouraging such a debate.

Full text: Letter to Anonymous

Timeline

Summer 2016  The Supreme Court of Canada sets new time limits for criminal matters to make their way through the justice systems across the country. Provincial court matters must now be completed within 18 months after charges are laid. Superior court cases  Court of Queens Bench in Manitoba  have a 30-month limit. Cases that take longer are now presumed to have violated an accused persons right to a trial in reasonable time unless the Crown can prove exceptional circumstances. Several legal challenges follow, which includes multiple criminal cases being thrown out of court as a result of judicial delay.

February 23-24, 2017  Several media outlets, including the Winnipeg Free Press, pick up the story about a call to eliminate preliminary hearings as part of a four-year pilot project mean to speed up the justice system and comply with the Supreme Courts timelines. Manitobas three top judges  Court of Appeal Chief Justice Richard Chartier, Court of Queens Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal and provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe  reveal they have consulted with provincial Justice Minister Heather Stefanson on the issue. Together, they forwarded a proposal to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.

February 25  The anonymous practicing lawyer files an email complaint to the Canadian Judicial Council against Chartier, Joyal and Wiebe, alleging judicial impropriety.

March 17  The Canadian Bar Associations criminal justice section sends a letter to Wilson-Raybould, urging her to reject the call from the Manitoba top judges to eliminate preliminary hearings. They propose alternative suggestions to reduce delays, including appointing additional judges, providing more legal aid, eliminating mandatory sentencing and using alternatives to court to deal with minor charges. They cite value in preliminary hearings, including reducing the potential of wrongful convictions.

June 1  The Canadian Judicial Council sends an email response to the anonymous practicing lawyer, stating the findings of their investigation and that the file will be closed.

June 8  Details of the complaint, investigation and findings appear exclusively in the Winnipeg Free Press and are set to be released publicly later in the day.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The federal government is poised to give Manitoba more than $46 million during the next three years to create more child-care spaces.

The agreement is expected to be signed on Monday by provincial Families Minister Scott Fielding and his provincial and territorial counterparts. Its part of the federal governments previously announced $400-million package, to be divvied up this year between the provinces and territories for child care and early learning spaces. A total of $7 billion will be given over a decade, starting in 2018.

Fielding was not available to comment because of the blackout restrictions in place due to the Point Douglas byelection.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

Pat Wege, executive director of the Manitoba Child Care Association, said that with more than 16,000 children on the waiting list for child-care spaces, the money is needed.

But delivering quality child care isnt cheap  it is expensive, Wege said.

How many new spaces $15 million per year is going to create, I dont know, but it is great the federal government is back at the table for child care and (its) great Manitoba is going to Ottawa.

Information contained in a Manitoba Order in Council, dated May 31, shows the provinces share of the federal investment will be $15.59 million in 2017-18, and $15.58 million in both 2018-19 and 2019-20. By signing, the provinces and territories agree that the money will be used to create more spaces for children under the age of six.

The provinces and territories also agree to create spaces which affect families more in need including lower-income families, indigenous families, single-parent families, families in underserved communities, children of families who parents work non-standard hours, and families with children of varying abilities.

Wege said more child-care spaces are needed because only six years ago, in 2011, the number of children on the waiting list was around 8,000.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
By Press Trust of India: By Manash Pratim Bhuyan

Astana, Jun 8 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif tonight exchanged pleasantries at a cultural gala here, amid frosty bilateral ties, deadlocked talks and escalation of hostilities along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first encounter between Modi and Sharif after their last meeting in Lahore on December 25, 2015, when the Indian prime minister made a surprise stopover at the historic city.

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Modi and Sharif are here to attend the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc tomorrow.

Official sources said Modi and Sharif were in the Leaders? Lounge at the Astana Opera tonight before the SCO concert where they exchanged greetings.

?Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharifs operation, PM Modi enquired about his health. He also enquired about Sharifs mother and family,? a top source said. Sharif had undergone an open-heart surgery in June last year.

The brief exchange of words between the two prime ministers came at a time when bilateral ties have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and death sentence given to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying.

The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav?s execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed rising tension.

In December 2015, Modi had made a surprise stopover at Lahore on his way back home after a day-long trip to Afghanistan which was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years.

However, positivity from Modi?s visit was shortlived as Pakistan-based terror groups carried out an attack on Pathankot base of Indian Air Force base on January 2, 2016.

Earlier, asked whether there is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between Modi and Sharif, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said neither Pakistani side has requested for it nor India has any proposal for such a meeting.

He said there were couple of moments when leaders were at the same place, adding he was not aware whether they met.

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

At the cultural evening, both Modi and Sharif were sitting apart.

The cultural event had a Kathak dance performance by an Indian team. It was the only performance from a country which is not yet member of the SCO. Both India and Pakistan will be admited as full member of the bloc tomorrow.

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Earlier in the day, when asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons, which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull-aside between the two leaders. PTI MPB PMS

--- ENDS ---
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 07/06/2017 (1982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Its expected to cost the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority more than $5 million in severance payments to slash 132 management positions at the behest of the Pallister government.

In keeping with a government order to cut 15 per cent of its management staff, the WRHA said Tuesday it would eliminate 132 positions.

On Wednesday, in response to questions posed by the Free Press, the health authority revealed it could pay as much as $5.3 million in severance to staff being laid off.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Emergency at the Seven Oaks General Hospital.

A spokeswoman said in an email that the final figure wont be known until the region receives signed letters of acceptance from employees being offered severance packages. She did not say how many employees that would involve.

The 132 positions cost the WRHA $15 million a year. However, the actual savings from the cuts will be closer to $10 million, in part, because a number of the positions being eliminated were already vacant, spokeswoman Anne Bennett said.

As well, 18 staff in deleted positions are being offered other employment within the health region.

Were not providing a list of positions (being eliminated) to protect the individuals privacy, Bennett said.

She promised to provide a breakdown this week between administrative and corporate positions being cut and those relating to patient care.

The Free Press had asked for a complete list of the 132 positions being dissolved.

Meanwhile, Manitobas NDP Opposition said it has identified three of the positions being cut.

At a time when the government has caused so much disruption and confusion in the system by shutting down emergency rooms, the WRHA has confirmed that it is also firing people who support patient care, said interim NDP leader Flor Marcelino in a statement to the Free Press.

Among the cuts, she said, are a manager of geriatric mental health, a manager of patient safety and a patient flow manager.

The government is firing the very people who are supposed to manage the massive disruption Pallister himself has caused, Marcelino said, referring to a controversial city hospital reorganization plan announced in April.

Health authorities operating outside the Manitoba capital are also required to reduce the number of management positions by 15 per cent.

The Northern Health Authority is eliminating seven jobs, while Prairie Mountain Health in western Manitoba will axe 24 positions and Southern Health will cut 19. The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority has yet to announce the number of positions it will eliminate.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, I attended the annual two-day defence and security tradeshow in Ottawa known as CANSEC.

While this exhibition is a great opportunity for the defence industry to showcase its latest technology to military personnel, it is also a rare venue for media to have casual access to a wide variety of serving soldiers.

During one encounter with a veteran of the 1992 mission to Somalia, this ex-paratrooper lamented the controversial decision to disband the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1995. The Liberal government of the day, under then-prime-minister Jean Chretien, had taken the decision to disband this heretofore elite unit following revelations of violent atrocities in Somalia and the release of a videotape displaying a vulgar hazing ritual at the Airborne Regiments home base in Petawawa.

SGT NORM MCLEAN / DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES A Canadian military helmet, C7 rifle, identification tags, military boots and a row of poppies are placed as the monument for the final Remembrance Day held by Canadian soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2013.

The ex-paratrooper did not downplay the seriousness of those incidents, which were dubbed the Somalia scandal in the press, but he felt that by the time Chretien ordered the regiment disbanded in disgrace, the unit had redeemed itself. He went on to say that because of the focus on the two violent incidents  one involved the execution of a wounded looter and the other a beating death of an unarmed teenage prisoner  the people have forgotten that the mission was otherwise quite a success. This of course was the standard solitary response at the time.

While the press concerned themselves with these barbaric and shockingly un-Canadian acts of violence and the subsequent top-level attempts to cover them both up, all the good-news stories were left untold. Yes, it is true that during the Canadian deployment to Somalia as part of a U.S.-led coalition, there were some schoolhouses built, some food got delivered and some wells were dug.

However, one cannot lose sight of the bigger picture. The international community abandoned Somalis to their own fate. Not surprisingly, that war-torn country plunged back into a failed state awash in violent anarchy.

Despite whatever good our soldiers may have achieved during their brief deployment, we cannot deceive ourselves into believing that the Somali mission was in any way successful. It was a huge fiasco that failed miserably.

Which brings us to Canadas more recent military intervention in Afghanistan as part of another U.S.-led coalition. Many soldiers at CANSEC spoke proudly of their deployment to Kandahar. Despite the sacrifice of 158 of their comrades killed in action, another 2,000 suffering physical wounds and an untold legion of veterans coping with PTSD, they spoke of the difference they had made in the lives of the Afghan people.

Like the Somali veteran, they reflected on the schoolhouses built and the irrigation systems that were dredged in the Kandahar valley. However, Canada ceased combat operations in Afghanistan in 2011 and shut down the subsequent training mission in 2014.

Since our militarys withdrawal, the Afghan insurgency has continued unabated. As witnessed by last Wednesdays massive bomb attack in the centre of Kabuls heavily protected diplomatic zone  which left more than 100 people dead and 400 people wounded  the Taliban can strike anywhere in Afghanistan. Afghan security forces trained and equipped by NATO are no match for the insurgents, who currently control more than 40 per cent of Afghanistans territory. The military power vacuum has allowed the dastardly Islamic State group to establish a foothold in Afghanistans eastern provinces.

It is only a matter of time before the Americans will grow weary of putting fresh lipstick on the corpse of their Afghanistan democracy experiment. Once the U.S. troops withdraw, Afghanistan will plunge back into an impoverished failed state awash in violent anarchy.

In other words, despite any temporary progress made during our soldiers decade-long deployment and sacrifice, Afghanistan is a huge fiasco that is failing miserably. We need to admit these failures rather than proclaim them to be unrecognized successes in order that we do not repeat such mistakes on future commitments into foreign conflicts.

Scott Taylor is the founder and publisher of Esprit de Corps magazine. He is a bestselling author and award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Another week. Another investigation into allegations that a sexual assault victim has been treated like a criminal. No doubt this one too will result in solemn mea culpas and a pledge to do better.

I cant be the only one who is fed up with these empty promises.

The latest case involves an indigenous woman in Alberta who was both sexually and physically assaulted. In 2015, the woman (who cannot be identified) was held in Edmonton Remand for five days while she testified during the preliminary hearing. She was detained under Section 545(1)(b) of the Criminal Code, which applies to witnesses who refuse to answer questions. After returning to court following a weekend in custody, the victim begged to be released and the judge refused.

ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Racial and sexual discrimination are important factors in the way female victims of violent crime are treated in the Canadian justice system.

Now, Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley is forming a special committee to investigate the behaviour and has personally apologized to the womans mother. Sadly, the woman herself will never hear that apology. She was killed seven months after the preliminary hearing in an unrelated shooting.

Cue the indignity. Cue the tearing of shirts, the promises to make it right, the assertion from Ganley that shes never heard of such a thing happening, like this is somehow some sort of bloody one-off.

Its not.

In 1990, Kitty Nowdlok-Reynolds was violently sexually assaulted while living in Iqaluit. She moved to Vancouver with her partner, but the police failed to get a statement from her prior to her move. The Crown prosecutor in Yellowknife issued a warrant for her arrest to compel her to testify in the trial in Iqaluit. She was arrested and put in handcuffs, dragged through the airports in Edmonton and Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto, in part because the security guard responsible for her travel had slept in and missed one of her flights north.

She ended up riding in the same prison van to court as her assailant. He pleaded guilty, which meant there was no need for a trial. No reason for her to be shackled and dragged through airports on display as if she were the criminal. Nowdlok-Reynolds said it was if she had been raped twice.

The RCMP Public Complaints Commission heard Nowdlok-Reynolds grievance and she was eventually compensated. Of course, there was some talk about cross-cultural police training, but the commission failed to see that Nowdlok-Reynoldss treatment by the Crown and the RCMP as racist or sexist. Hard to think how that was even possible.

Almost 30 years later, it seems nothing has changed.

In both cases, the indigenous women were viewed as being capricious and untrustworthy. In both cases, steps were taken to ensure they would be forced to testify at trial. Incarcerating them in the same prison system as their attackers was seen as a justifiable response. In both cases, the Crown, the police and the prison officials were all culpable in failing to display any type of common sense.

Surely someone in the maze of bureaucracy looked up from their desk and said, What?

Underlying this rhetoric is the belief that women cannot be trusted, particularly not in cases that involve sexual violence.

Women are subtly and not-so-subtly told they are liars when reporting sexual assaults. It begins with the first interview with police and it culminates if and when the case finally makes it to trial.

But in both these cases there is an additional layer  and that is that both women are indigenous. In the Alberta instance, the victim was Cree. Nowdlok-Reynolds is Inuk. Indigenous women in Canada are not only more likely victimized by sexual violence, they are also more likely to not be believed.

In a submission to the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry in Winnipeg in 1990, indigenous scholar Emma Larouque said:

The portrayal of the squaw is one of the most degraded, most despised and most dehumanized anywhere in the world. The squaw is the female counterpart to the Indian male savage and as such she has no human face; she is lustful, immoral, unfeeling and dirty. Such grotesque dehumanization has rendered all Native women and girls vulnerable to gross physical, psychological and sexual violence I believe that there is a direct relationship between these horrible racist/sexist stereotypes and violence against Native women and girls.

The violence against indigenous women and girls should not be at the hands of the justice system. And it seems that far too often it is.

Shannon Sampert is the former perspectives and politics editor at the Winnipeg Free Press. She is the editor-in-chief of EvidenceNetwork.ca and an associate professor in the department of political science at the University of Winnipeg.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 08/06/2017 (1981 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I recently attended an impromptu event organized by supporters of the North Point Douglas Womens Centre. The event was held to show support for the centre, which was reeling from news it would not receive an expected $120,000 grant required for its operations. This represents one-third of its budget and the loss means the centre will be forced to cut important programs that are serving the community well. It got me thinking about reconciliation.

Indigenous women spoke passionately about the important role the centre plays in their lives. They spoke about the culturally based programs that are helping them heal from intergenerational trauma caused by government policies and programs such as residential schools. As I listened to these women, it became clear the provincial governments decision to cut funding for this and other community-based programs serving high numbers of indigenous peoples is inconsistent with the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions 94 Calls to Action and Manitobas Path to Reconciliation Act.

The Path to Reconciliation Act defines reconciliation as the ongoing process of establishing and maintaining mutually respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in order to build trust, affirm historical agreements, address healing and create a more equitable and inclusive society. Among other things, it requires the minister responsible to develop a strategy for reconciliation that builds upon meaningful engagement with Indigenous nations and Indigenous peoples

I wondered, what is the strategy? Did the minister consult indigenous women in North Point Douglas before cutting funding to their centre? Did the minister consult with the many indigenous women who use the services of the North End Womens Centre, which has also been informed it will receive less funding this year? And what about the many other services that have lost funding, or are waiting to hear of their fate, but are too nervous to talk about it? Most  if not all  of these organizations employ and serve indigenous people.

The Path to Reconciliation Act was introduced by the former NDP government; it was given royal assent on March 15, 2016. On June 2, 2016, Eileen Clarke, the minister of Indigenous and Municipal Relations, addressed the House of Commons to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canadas executive summary and 94 Calls to Action. Clarke also reported to the House that the Pallister government, through the Department of Indigenous and Municipal Relations, would proceed with work to implement the Path to Reconciliation Act.

The act requires the government to appoint a minister responsible for developing a strategy that builds upon meaningful engagement with Indigenous nations and Indigenous peoples creates a framework to advance reconciliation; establishes immediate and long-term actions that are responsive to the priorities and needs of indigenous nations and peoples, including those set out in the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission; fosters the involvement of all sectors of society in the reconciliation process; and establishes transparent mechanisms to monitor and evaluate measures.

Although light on detail, a report on the governments action to date was tabled in July, 2016. The minister stated she looks forward to continued engagement of all stakeholders to promote initiatives to advance reconciliation across all sectors of our society and continue to recognize the contributions of indigenous peoples to the founding of Manitoba.

As the minister responsible for indigenous relations and the Path to Reconciliation Act, Clarke will know that a critical component of reconciliation is to close the gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous communities. The TRC Commission Report outlines clearly what needs to be done.

In urban centres, the gaps between indigenous and non-indigenous people is most notable in inner-city and North End neighbourhoods, where high numbers of indigenous people live. For example, upward of 40 per cent of North Point Douglas residents identified as aboriginal in the 2011 census  almost four times that of the full city of Winnipeg. Fully 20 per cent of inner-city residents are indigenous and a high proportion live in poverty.

While addressing the 94 Calls to Action will require a far grander response than funding small organizations, these non-profits can and do provide one means by which non-indigenous people can support reconciliation through our tax dollars.

The Pallister government keeps telling us we need to balance our books so he can fulfil his promise to cut the PST. We need all hands on deck, he tells us.

At a time when we are beginning to recognize the damages we have done, it is simply not OK to cut funding to organizations doing the important work that needs to be done, work needed because of deeply damaging government policies. This is not a path to reconciliation.

Where to from here?

It is hard to know how the Pallister government plans to address the requirements of the Path to Reconciliation Act. Among other things, the act requires the minister responsible to make recommendations to the government on financial priorities and resource allocation across the government in relation to reconciliation. In doing so, she/he must remember the high number of indigenous people who continue to live in poverty in urban centres. In the spirit of reconciliation  in respect of the act  they should be consulted.

This month, the premier plans to ride his bike to Peguis First Nation to honour 200 years of the Selkirk Treaty as a gesture of reconciliation. This gesture will remain hollow, even insulting, when stacked next to the funding cuts. The premier needs to move beyond gestures and take action to fulfil his governments obligations as outlined in the Path to Reconciliation Act.

Shauna MacKinnon is an associate professor at the University of Winnipeg in the department of urban and inner city studies.
Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 07/06/2017 (1982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The discovery of the remains of a young indigenous woman in a field east of Winnipeg reminds us, once again, of the critical importance of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which began public hearings last week in Whitehorse.

As we watch the inquiry do its work  which between now and 2018 will involve examining potentially thousands of individual cases  its important to remember that in each instance, the victims are more than just statistics.

Christine Wood was loved by family and friends in her home in Oxford House and, at 21 years old, should have had a long future to follow her ambitions. Instead, she went missing on Aug. 19 in Winnipeg, where she had gone to visit relatives. A 33-year-old man has been criminally charged in connection with her death.

JONATHAN HAYWARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS Files Cecilia Gobeil testifies at the MMIW inquiry.

As Woods case unfolds, we are reminded of how sensitive and complicated these matters are, both for the families of the victims and for Canadian society.

The inquiry that started public hearings in the Yukon heard testimonies from several family members who lost loved ones, and now will take the summer off before resuming hearings that will continue across the country until the end of 2018.

Even before its work started, the inquiry was criticized by indigenous leaders and the families of the missing and murdered women, who say its still not clear when they will get a chance to share their testimony.

They are deeply concerned about a lack of communication and that the inquirys time frame may be too short.

The criticisms should be heeded. Clear communication with the families should be a priority as the inquiry strives to build relationships of trust, and the inquiry should be given adequate funding to continue as long as it needs to fulfil its mandate.

It is essential that the inquiry answer, on behalf of all Canadians, some fundamental questions. Why are indigenous women and girls so victimized by violence? Why are they so often the subjects of unsolved crimes? Why are they missing and murdered in numbers disproportionate to other Canadians?

The inquiry doesnt have authority to award financial compensation to families, but it has the potential to educate the public and restore public confidence in institutions, such as police forces, whose credibility has been seriously damaged in the eyes of many Canadians.

Part of the inquirys mandate is to make recommendations for action and policy reform aimed at effecting real changes to make Indigenous women and girls safe, sacred, honored and empowered.

It is important that, at some point in the future, indigenous women and girls in Canada feel genuinely safe, honoured and empowered. The inquiry, which will cross the country to speak to the people most affected by this epidemic of violence, could be the start of a process that leads us all to that outcome.

Until that day comes, Christine Wood reminds us that the inquiry is a matter of life and death.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 07/06/2017 (1982 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Vincent Massey Collegiate student leading the charge against mental illness stigma has been recognized for her work in the community with a $70,000 scholarship.

Loizza Aquino, 17, was awarded the 2017 TD Scholarship for Community Leadership earlier this month.

The Whyte Ridge resident is founder of Peace of Mind 204, a youth-led organization promoting conversation about mental health and suicide prevention among students.

Danielle Da Silva - Sou'wester Loizza Aquino, a Grade 12 student at Vincent Massey Collegiate, is one of 20 graduating high school students across the country to receive the $70,000 TD Scholarship for Community Leadership.

Aquino began Peace of Mind 204 in 2015, following the loss of her close friend, Miguel Labossiere, and three other students in the city to suicide within a months time. Aquino and Labossiere, who was 18 at the time of his death, had grown up together and attended the same church.

Suicide is preventable and I think that the stigma surrounding mental health is stopping people from getting the help that they need, and the help that they deserve to become better, Aquino said.

For a while, I was sitting there looking for answers: why did this person do this? Then I realized I had it wrong and youre not supposed to be looking for answers; youre supposed to be creating solutions.

Peace of Mind 204 has been hosting events in schools across the city called Youth Against Mental Illness Stigma (YAMIS). The event is a chance for students to gather, take in presentations and performances from local speakers and artists, and share their own stories about mental health.

Aquino said the conversations have made a difference in the lives of her peers whove come forward to express their gratitude and explain that theyve been free from self-harm, are finding help, and now know theyre not alone.

I think the most important part is having that conversation, opening those doors and giving people that platform to start that mental health conversation and create awareness, Aquino said. Until people are fully talking about it and fully open about it, I dont feel like my job is complete.

Labossieres parents are on Peace of Mind 204s board of directors and have provided overwhelming support for the initiative since its inception, Aquino said.

We all loved Miguel I think that the fact that we have (his parents) on our side and the fact that were doing something in their sons honour and doing something to make sure hes never forgotten, has brought us closer together as a community.

According to a release, the TD Scholarship for Community Leadership is given to students who are driving social change in their communities. The scholarship covers tuition and living expenses up to $70,000 and includes employment and mentorship opportunities.

Aquino said she will be attending the University of Toronto in the fall and plans to study either cyber law or family law and will continue to promote the Peace of Mind 204 platform across the country.

The great part about the TD Scholarship for Community Leadership and the thing that made me want to apply, is that they really reinforce the fact that education is important, but so is being a leader within your community, Aquino said. I feel like that was something that I wanted ever since I heard of it, and it was my goal to earn it.

Facebook.com/TheSouwesterWPG

Twitter: @SouwesterWPG
Sentenced

Derrick K. Williams, 37, of Fountain City, pleaded guilty to child neglect and third offense operating with restricted controlled substance. Williams was sentenced to 45 days in county jail and fined $1,744. His drivers license was revoked for 24 months and vehicles must be outfitted with ignition interlock devices for 12 months. Williams was referred for alcohol or other substance abuse assessment and must complete a driver safety instruction program. A deferred sentencing agreement was entered on the child neglect offense. Charges of possessing THC and operating while license revoked were dismissed.

Leann E. Meyer, 44, of Mondovi, pleaded no contest and was found guilty of drug possession of amphetamine. She pleaded guilty to possession of THC. Meyer was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 18 months of probation. Jail time will be stayed if Meyer complies with probation conditions that included counseling, sobriety and no-contact orders involving three people named in the sentencing agreement. A charge of manufacturing or delivering THC was read into the court record and dismissed.

Madison B. Larson, 19, of Alma, pleaded guilty to domestic abuse battery of a 17-year-old girl in the Town of Modena. She was ordered to serve 10 days in jail and two years of probation. Conditions included child contact restrictions, counseling and payment of $443 in court costs. A charge of disorderly conduct was dismissed.

Michael J. Christner, 34, of Eau Claire, pleaded guilty to drug charges of possessing methamphetamine and paraphernalia. He was sentenced to a year of probation, counseling and $443 in court costs. A deferred sentencing agreement was entered on the meth charge. A charge of driving with a revoked license was dismissed.

Brian K. MacPhetridge, 41, of Trempealeau, pleaded guilty to felony 2nd possession of THC. He was sentenced to two years of probation, counseling and $518 in court cost assessments.

Accused

Michael L. Brantner, 35, of Mondovi, court hearing adjourned to June 22 on a felony charge accusing him of repeated sexual assault of a child. Brantner is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl in 2015, according to court records filed in circuit court at Alma by the Mondovi Police Department and district attorneys office.

Tod C. Krogstad, 53, of Maiden Rock, pleaded not guilty to a felony charge accusing him of fifth offense operating while intoxicated. A case motion hearing was set for Aug. 3. Krogstad has an initial court hearing scheduled June 13 on a traffic citation accusing him of operating with restricted controlled substance.

Charles D. Smith, 46, of Winona, plea hearing scheduled June 16 on charges accusing him of possessing methamphetamine, fourth offense operating with restricted controlled substance and driving without a valid license. Smith pleaded not guilty to charges in October.

Tyler L. Green, 22, of Grand Meadow, Minn., plea hearing re-scheduled to June 16 on a felony drug charge accusing him of possession with intent to deliver up to 10 grams of amphetamines in Buffalo County. Green pleaded not guilty in February.

Eric J. Clark, 42, of Chippewa Falls, sentencing hearing scheduled Sept. 28 on a felony charge accusing him of fifth offense operating while intoxicated. A charge of driving without insurance was dismissed.

Becky L. Wood, 35, of Durand, plea and sentencing hearing adjourned to June 8 on charges accusing her of third offense operating with restricted controlled substance and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Daniel R. McCrae, 53, of River Falls, plea hearing adjourned to June 23 on charges accusing him of third offense operating while intoxicated and possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

James W. White, 49, of Arcadia, plea hearing scheduled June 23 on charges accusing him of third offense operating while intoxicated and driving with a revoked license. White pleaded not guilty in October.

Mitchell L. Seifert, 34, of Cochrane, court hearing adjourned to June 16 on a felony drug charge accusing him of possessing methamphetamine.

Nico Jme Fulsom, 25, of Laona, Wis., case status hearing scheduled July 26 on a felony drug charge accusing him of second offense possession of THC.

Kelly Terry, 40, of Alma, case motion hearing scheduled June 15 on a charge accusing her of possessing THC. Terry has pleaded not guilty.
Winonas Human Rights Commission plans to address a national issue at a local level by taking a look at how government in the Winona area responds to illegal immigration, especially as it relates to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement  or ICE  which has recently been making national headlines for detaining and removing illegal immigrants.

In the past, the commission has taken on national issues they feel relate to Winona, including organizing events discussing the confederate flag being flown in town and, more recently, recommending the city divest from Wells Fargo Bank due to its support of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In Wednesdays preliminary discussions, the group noted that while there are county guidelines for how the Winona County Sheriffs department works with the immigration officials, the city lacks a specific policy.

Commission chair Chuck Ripley said thats a good opportunity to address concerns about the potential for civil rights violations, as well as the effects on families in the community that such interactions could have.

We want to be able to address those from a human rights perspective, Ripley said.

A letter from Winona Police Chief Paul Bostrack said the city would respond to a request for assistance from ICE as they would for another agency, but he couldnt remember an instance of immigration officials being in Winona.

Winona Countys policy allows the sheriffs department to detain someone suspected of violating federal criminal law, but not in civil immigration matters like an overstayed visa. And the reasonable suspicion cannot be based on race, color, national origin or any other generalization that would constitute a civil rights issue.

Members of the commission said that clarifying the rules for the city and county was important because of the effects arrests and deportation can have on families, children and enforcement of other laws.

Commission member Jocylyn Poehler expressed concern that families or victims of other crimes may be reluctant to go to law enforcement due to their immigration status.

Poehler said the commission should help develop policies that can make people more comfortable with law enforcement regardless of their immigration statuses.

Were really concerned about the chilling effect this might have on people, Poehler said.

City manager Steve Sarvi said Winona is currently in the process of making sure its police and fire department policies are up to date.

The commission also continued its discussion of divestment from Wells Fargo by the city.

At the May 2 City Council meeting the Human Rights Commissions recommendation that the city no longer do business with Wells Fargo due to the banks involvement with the Dakota Access Pipeline project was unanimously voted down by the council.

Wells Fargo Bank has been the subject of protests across the country for its participation, along with other large banking institutions, in a $2.5 billion loan that would help fund completion of the project.

The pipeline project was the subject to prolonged protests last year. Protesters claim a leak would threaten the Missouri River and that its construction infringes upon sacred Native American sites and artifacts.

We still think thats an important issue, especially given our relationship with the Dakota people, Ripley said.

Ripley said that looking at national issues is appropriate for the commission according to its charter as spelled out in the city code.

The stated purpose of the commission is to secure for all citizens equal opportunity in employment, housing public accommodations, public services and education and full participation in the affairs of this community by implementing the Minnesota Human Rights Act and working with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
By Press Trust of India: Bhopal, Jun 8 (PTI) While curfew-bound Mandsaur district was relatively peaceful, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of Madhya Pradesh as protests spilled over to new places on the eighth day of the farmers stir.

While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers unrest for the first time.

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District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting.

She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements.

Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur.

Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC.

In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district.

Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added.

A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district.

The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls. According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators.

In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans effigy to a tree near Sanodha village.

The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful.

In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterdays violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area.

Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans.

In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains.

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Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today.

In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the partys state headquarters.

Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district.

In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said.

Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent. PTI CORS ADU LAL NSK SMN

--- ENDS ---
Winona business leaders agree: There just arent enough qualified workers to meet the needs of local manufacturing companies.

Were still struggling to find warm bodies to fill our positions, said Fern Beneke, senior accountant for LaX Fabricating in Spring Grove. Weve sent out feeds to tech schools, put up posters, made announcements. Nothing. Weve heard absolutely nothing. We dont understand what were missing.

Speaking to staff members from the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Beneke and roughly a dozen others voiced concerns Wednesday about a growing divide between the skills needed to perform various trade jobs and the skills that most young people actually have.

We have baby boomers who grew up with carpentry and welding, and were passing out of the workforce, said Jim Vrchota, vice president of Merchants Bank in Winona. The people who are following us never had that training, and theyre not able to fill our shoes.

The meeting took place in a classroom at Minnesota State College Southeast, and much of the conversation centered on how the college is trying to reach local high-schoolers before they decide on a different career path.

One example is the REACH program at Winona Senior High School, which offers students a tech-focused curriculum and a chance to build relationships with local business and colleges before they graduate.

Were trying to reach students while theyre still sophomores, said Travis Thul, dean of trade and technology at Southeast. Were trying to set them up for success before life gets in the way.

When REACH students graduate, added Della Schmidt, executive director of the Winona Area Chamber of Commerce, theyll know where theyre going to work the Monday after graduation  or theyll know where theyll be going to school in the fall.

But Winona companies are limited by more than the skill of their workforce.

Gerry Krage of the Winona City Council said the lack of child care in the area has a crippling effect on businesses. Simply finding a daycare can be a challenge, he said  let alone affording one  so parents often have no choice but to pass up job opportunities.

Business leaders say thats especially true for evening and night positions, which can be difficult to fill in the first place.

Then theres the housing needed to accommodate those workers.

City Council member George Borzyskowski said that, whenever rumors swirl about a new apartment or housing complex, residents in the affected neighborhood strongly oppose the project.

Then its built, he said, and they realize its not so bad.

According to Vrchota, whose bank often meets with prospective homeowners, building a house is equally tough these days.

Theres people right now who would love to have a house, but they cant find a builder, he said. There arent enough local carpenters to keep up with demand.

Garrison McMurtrey, Klobuchars outreach director, said he sees the same issues across the state and around the country.

Thats why Klobuchars staff is on a two-day tour of cities in southern Minnesota, he said  so they can remove barriers that keep young people from going into manufacturing, and so they can help dispel myths that hang over these industries.

Manufacturing is completely different from what it used to be, McMurtrey said. Its not dark. Its not dingy. Its not hard labor.

Were trying to reach students while theyre still sophomores. Were trying to set them up for success before life gets in the way. Travis Thul, dean of trade and technology at

Minnesota State College Southeast
On behalf of the business community, we want to thank Rep. Greg Davids for his leadership in passing one of the largest tax relief bills in more than 15 years. This legislation will provide real tax relief for families, businesses and farmers.

The business property tax relief is particularly important as it benefits every single business in Minnesota, and makes a step towards reducing some of the highest business property taxes in the country. Businesses in our region, and the entire state, are grateful for Representative Davids commitment to providing tax relief and growing our economy.
Business leaders are luring visitors with one of states signature products  cheese  and pairing it with Wisconsin-made wine.

The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has awarded a grant to the Sip & Savor Driftless Wisconsin Wine and Cheese Trail, an effort to generate agri-tourism that involves several Sauk County producers. The Wine and Cheese Trail was among eight recipients culled from a field of 33 applicants.

Two local wineries  Baraboo Bluff Winery in Baraboo and Wollersheim Winery in Prairie du Sac  are part of the program, as are three area cheesemakers: Arena Cheese of Arena, Carr Valley Cheese of La Valle and Cedar Grove Cheese of Plain.

The Sip & Savor Driftless Wisconsin trail marks an exciting collaboration between Wisconsins renowned dairy industry and its growing wine industry, Baraboo Bluff Winery owner Fred Quandt said. Our goal is to attract consumers from major metropolitan areas to visit these 14 local food growers-producers in the scenic Driftless region.

The state matching grant will support the creation, promotion and administration of the trail. Sip & Savor will be marketed as a yearlong opportunity for consumers to visit local businesses, with three special event weekends scheduled for fall 2017, and spring and fall 2018. Sip & Savor events for this fall will be announced in mid-summer.

Participating business owners said the program is timely because it highlights the growing appreciation of  and demand for  local food. It also gives two complementary partners  the dairy and wine industries  an opportunity to bring new customers to rural production facilities. Visitors will be able to sample products, learn where and how they are grown and made, and meet the people whose jobs they support with their purchases.

Were excited to be part of the wine trail, and to be working with other wineries to create new opportunities for guests to become familiar with local wines and local family businesses, said Julie Coquard, co-owner of Wollersheim Winery & Distillery.

Participants hope on-site purchases of local products will build brand loyalty and increase demand for ongoing sales through wholesale channels such as grocery stores and restaurants.

Many businesses will enjoy the economic impact of this agri-tourism trail, including hotels, attractions, shops and restaurants, said trail director Therese Bergholz of Branches Winery in Westby.

The trail will present an easy-to-navigate, scenic tour through the Driftless areas dramatic bluffs, vast pastures and lush vineyards. With stops to taste and purchase locally grown, award-winning wine and cheese, we hope the Sip & Savor Driftless Wisconsin Wine and Cheese Trail will inspire many daylong road trips and Wisconsin stay-cations in the years to come, Berhgholz said.
When John McNabb began collecting postcards, he didnt anticipate his collection would someday help tell the story of his town.

The Baraboo resident used to work a summer job at the former Taylors Bookstore downtown when he was a teenager in the late 1950s. McNabb said he would occasionally fetch items from the stores stock room upstairs, and one day a box of outdated postcards caught his eye.

I saw they were old ones, so I went downstairs and asked my boss if I could buy a few of them, and he said, Shucks, John, take anything you want, McNabb said. I was fairly generous  I only took one apiece of each.

More than a half-century later, McNabbs collection of over 700 postcards, along with the collections of Ralph Pierce and the Sauk County Historical Society, make up the subject matter of a new book that conveys the history of Baraboo. Written by the Sauk County Historical Society, Baraboo is the latest installment of Arcadia Publishings Postcard History Series, which tells the history of American cities through postcard images.

Like many small Midwestern cities, Baraboo has had the usual share of postcards printed featuring its buildings and landscapes, a spokesperson for Arcadia Publishing wrote in a press release. However, Baraboos unique place in Wisconsin history provided for a much richer array of subject matter.

Sauk County Historical Society Executive Director Paul Wolter said the nine-chapter book covers Baraboo history through postcards from the turn of the century to the 1960s, with some images dating as far back as the 1860s. It features historical photos of downtown, the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, famous circus acts, Devils Lake and other prominent Baraboo locations.

With the help of several volunteers, Wolter conducted research and writing for Baraboo over several months after Arcadia Publishing approved the book deal last year. He said he believes the book is unique because it combines the one-of-a-kind collections of McNabb, Pierce and the Historical Society.

The neatest thing to me about the book is that we were able to use John McNabb and Ralph Pierces private collections, he said. In no other place do those images all come together.

Wolter said there were some common images, but each collection featured postcards that cant be found anywhere else  like Pierces postcard depicting elephants being loaded onto a boxcar at the rail yard, or McNabbs pictures of a former school building that burned down in 1906.

Wolter said the book will give readers a better understanding of what past Baraboo residents valued.

Its a fun way to look at the city and see what people in the past thought was important and lucrative enough to sell on a postcard, he said.

Baraboo published Monday and is now available for purchase. Copies can be found at the Sauk County History Center, online or at local retailers.
The high school graduating class of 2017 is forgettable. But then again, all of the classes are forgettable.

Claire Endres struck this somber chord during her commencement speech at last weeks Sauk Prairie High School commencement ceremony. She reminded her classmates, We will be forgotten. Her intention wasnt to be a Debbie Downer as much as she took that moment to remind her classmates that when it comes to success, most of us dont make the evening news.

Endres reminded the audience that not everyone gets recognized and not everyone becomes famous. Success is more dependent on what you do to serve your community. Endres not only spoke these words, shes living them. She was a distinguished finalist in the Prudential Spirit of Community honoree for her work with the National Honor Society by raising more than $4,000 for the Badger Honor Flight, among other activities.

Service to community comes in all forms. Most volunteers get exposure to community service through their local churches or community service clubs. Organizations like the Jaycees, Kiwanis, Lions, and Optimists have rich histories serving in their communities.

A lot of these organizations are greatly diminished in their community roles due to a lack of participation. The heydays of community service in the late 1900s have been hurt by the change in not just demographics, but through the advancement of technology and government intervention.

Lets face it. Its a lot easier to stay home and let the government handle it  even if it doesnt handle it well. There used to be a time when disaster struck, the Red Cross showed up to support the vast amount of neighbors helping in the cleanup. Today, those Red Cross trucks are joined by Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers and fewer neighbors. Its simply easier to log on to the internet and make a donation.

Fellow Sauk Prairie classmate and salutatorian Brooke Schoepp took a slightly different approach as she reminded their classmates to make their marks. She regaled the crowd with a story of the thousands of marks they had made in the previous 13 years of their lives while taking standardized tests like the former Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination. Her conclusion: those marks were meaningless.

Schoepp was right but her point wasnt about the fact that the current state of affairs in educational testing needs to be revisited. Our students are spending hours of their education reciting information taught to them for the sole purpose of proving some teacher in a classroom is doing their job. Its a sad reality that successful students are groomed to pass an exam rather than developing a desire to become lifelong learners.

Schoepps remarks were to make a more poignant statement by telling her classmates to go out and make your mark. Life isnt about making marks on a piece of paper; it is about making a mark in their world that wont be forgotten. That mark, as Endres reminds us, isnt always the mark that makes someone famous, its simply making a mark that makes a difference.

That difference rarely comes with fame and it shouldnt. Each of us walks a journey in life that is impactful in a number of ways. Success is measured by personal self-worth, not the headline that recognizes accomplishment for helping our fellow man or making hit records. It is measured by ones ability to make a life that is meaningful to those who mean the most to us.

Volunteers in our community come to the cause for a variety of reasons. It could be the mom who volunteers in a classroom, the church worker who helps set up the altar for Sunday services, or the local resident who leads an effort to pack dinners for thousands of people in an effort to prevent hunger.

These two Sauk Prairie class of 2017 leaders had it right. The world is a big place. The next greatest thing is not likely to involve one of these young people. The next Ariana Grande or speaker of the house is not very likely to come from Sauk County, but that doesnt mean any one of them cannot do great things. Its just a matter of keeping great in perspective.

The mark these young people eventually will make on this world will be indelible. It should become their mission to not just make their mark, but to know that whatever their mark is, it is a mark of personal greatness. Even if it means that someday their mark will be forgotten.
JUNEAU  A 36-year-old Beaver Dam man has entered a not guilty plea after being accused of his seventh offense of drunken driving.

Rene Gomez has been previously charged for drunken driving in Illinois and Texas.

According to the criminal complaint, a Beaver Dam police officer was in the 100 block of Lakecrest Drive on May 13 at 10:30 p.m. when he heard a noise that sounded like a piece of metal was being dragged or pulled across the pavement. The officer also talked to a witness who said that he had seen a truck travel over the curb and onto the sidewalk and tree border area.

The officer found a sign in the parking lot of Pops Eatery on the corner of Lakecrest Drive and Madison Street. He also located the Silver Ford F150 that was damaged in a parking lot in the 100 block of Lakecrest Drive.

Police spoke to Gomez, who told them that he was coming from Kwik Trip when he went over the curb and hit the sign in the lot. Gomez told the officer that he had drank a 12 pack of Budweiser. Gomez refused a breathalyzer test at the scene, but agreed to take one at Dodge County Jail which resulted in a reading of .171.

A telephone scheduling conference is scheduled July 19.
JUNEAU  A 27-year-old Menominee, Michigan, woman made her initial appearance in Dodge County Court Wednesday after being charged with her third offense of drunken driving while having her 9-year-old son in the car.

Audrey R. Graves is charged with felony operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, third offense, with a minor child in the vehicle. If found guilty, she could face up to two years in prison and a $4,000 fine.

Graves appeared before Dodge County Court Commissioner Steven Seim placed Graves on a $5,000 cash bond with conditions she must maintain absolute sobriety and shall not go upon the premise of any establishment whose primary business activity involves the sale or distribution of alcoholic beverages. She shall not operate a motor vehicle without permission from the court.

According to the criminal complaint, police were notified about a PT Cruiser traveling north on U.S. Highway 41 in Washington County that was weaving between lanes and driving around 35 mph around 5 a.m. Tuesday.

The car stopped and parked between two semi-trucks in the wayside parking lot off of U.S. Highway 41. A small boy was in the vehicle along with the woman driving. According to the criminal complaint, police noticed a bottle of Captain Morgan on the floor of the passenger side of the vehicle and a Miller Lite beer behind the drivers seat. Both Graves and the boy said they were trying to get to the airport, but Graves was driving in the wrong direction.

Graves told the deputy that she wasnt from the area and did not know. According to the criminal complaint, she told the deputy that she had a couple of beers and started drinking at 3 p.m. the day before. Graves submitted to a breathalyzer test which resulted in a reading of .317.

The boy talked with a deputy who told them that the car went on the gravel at times and that he had to grab the steering wheel to help control the vehicle. According to the criminal complaint, the deputy made arrangements to transport the boy to his grandmother.

Graves was previously convicted of OWI in Colorado in 2015 and Michigan in 2016.

A preliminary hearing in the case is scheduled for June 15.
Assistant and deputy district attorneys across Wisconsin deserve a raise, and their offices need more staff.

The Legislature should approve the governors request for $4.8 million in salary increases over the next two years to help keep and attract talented crime fighters.

The Legislature also should look for ways to add positions, while at the same time providing greater incentives for public defenders to stay on the job.

Rapidly growing Dane County has 28 prosecutors  about the same as it had in 1985. And relatively low pay combined with large workloads and increasingly complicated cases have led to high turnover. The Dane County District Attorneys office lost more than a third of its prosecutors in little more than a year.

Elsewhere, in Marinette County, District Attorney Allen Brey just announced hes resigning because of an unmanageable workload and lack of resources.

District attorneys across Wisconsin had sought $7.9 million for pay raises and an additional $16.2 million to create 113 more prosecutor positions. The governor failed to add more positions in his state budget proposal, but he did include funding for raises of 6.2 percent in each of the next two years.

The jump in pay is justified because starting pay for entry-level prosecutors is just $49,254  a lot less than lawyers can earn in the private sector. Moreover, many law school graduates still owe tens of thousands of dollars in student debt.

The higher pay would be distributed at least in part on merit, allowing local district attorneys to keep more of their most promising people. The pay scale now for assistant and deputy attorney generals tops out around $120,000, with average pay of $67,800, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Critics of investing more state money in prosecutors worry the result will be more people heading to jails and prisons, some of which are already crowded. Thats possible. But failing to hold dangerous people accountable for their crimes is worse.

And the more likely result is that local district attorneys will do a better job of handling cases expeditiously and professionally. That could actually save some money if fewer people are sitting in jail for long periods of time waiting for their cases to advance.

Brey, Marinette Countys exiting DA, warned that innocent crime victims suffer from stalled cases.

If youre a crime victim in this county, you can expect if your case is not immediately filed you will have to wait about two years before it will be, he said.

Thats unacceptable.

The governors proposal on DA pay deserves bipartisan support.
Update: Exact Sciences said Wednesday it is pricing its secondary stock offering at $35 a share, meaning it would have gross proceeds of $245 million to $281.75 million. It is expected to close by about June 12.

Exact Sciences Corp. plans to sell another 7 million to 8 million shares of common stock to expand its operations and finance product development.

No target price is listed in the prospectus filed with federal regulators Tuesday, so its not clear how much money could be raised.

The Madison companys non-invasive Cologuard test to screen for colorectal cancer has been on the market nearly three years and Exact said it plans to use the proceeds of the stock sale to increase its laboratory, manufacturing and customer service capacity and to fund product development.

The companys town of Madison lab can process about 1 million tests a year; Exact is looking into the possibility of doubling capacity there, the prospectus says. It also says Exact is evaluating options for a second lab facility to add capacity in excess of 2 million tests per year. Exact said in April it expects to complete 470,000 tests this year.

The prospectus also mentions additional screening tests Exact is working on with the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. We have successfully performed validation studies on tissue samples for seven major cancers, including lung cancer, and on blood samples for four major cancers, the company says.

Exact Sciences had nearly 111.2 million shares of common stock outstanding as of April 29. The secondary offering, to be underwritten by Jefferies, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Robert W. Baird & Co., would sell 7 million shares, or as many as 8.05 million if there is enough demand.

Exact stock  which recently hit a record $38.92 a share  closed Tuesday at $36.59, down 48 cents, or 1.3 percent, from Mondays close.
Tollywood's happening couple Naga Chaitanya and Samantha have locked their wedding date. The actors will tie the knot on October 6.

By India Today Web Desk: Ever since Tollywood's favourite couple, Naga Chaitanya and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, got engaged earlier this year, fans have been waiting with bated breath for them to tie the knot. Well, now, we have a date for the big day.

"We will announce the full details once everything is finalised. But the marriage will take place in October as per our traditions and her family traditions," said Naga Chaitanya.

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According to reports, Naga Chaitanya and Samantha will enter the wedlock on October 6 this year.

Trade analyst Ramesh Bala took to Twitter to share the news.

. @chay_akkineni and @Samanthaprabhu2 r getting married on Oct 6th of this year.. Advanced Congratulations ???? pic.twitter.com/PQvj1v7HSX- Ramesh Bala (@rameshlaus) June 8, 2017

Earlier this year, Naga Chaitanya and Samantha got engaged after years of courtship. The engagement ceremony saw the presence of superstar Nagarjuna, Amala Akkineni, Akhil Akkineni and Shiya Bhupal.

Basking in the success of Rarandoi Veduka Chudham, Naga Chaitanya and Samantha were supposed to work together in a Telugu film, which was to be directed by Trivikram Srinivas.

However, the project shelved due to date clashes. Chai-Sam have worked in films like Autonagar Surya, Manam and Ye Maya Chesave. On the work front, Samantha will be seen alongside her future father-in-law for the upcoming horror thriller Raju Gari Gadhi 2.

SEE PICS: Thalaivar Rajni spotted shooting for Kaala in Mumbai

SEE PICS: Chiranjeevi snapped with co-stars Radhika, Suhasini in China

ALSO READ: Saaho: After Baahubali, Prabhas and Anushka Shetty team up once again

ALSO WATCH: Prabhas, Rana talk about the ultimate Baahubali face-off

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Gov. Scott Walker on Wednesday backed a resolution up for an Assembly vote next week that would move Wisconsin closer to joining 29 other states in calling for an unprecedented constitutional convention.

Proponents of the measure want to invoke a provision under Article V of the U.S. Constitution that allows two-thirds of state Legislatures (34) to call for a convention, in this case to require the federal government to pass a balanced budget. Opponents fear a constitutional convention could lead to further revisions of the countrys founding document.

Congress has historically drafted constitutional amendments. Three-quarters of the states would have to ratify an amendment for it to be adopted under either scenario.

Walker focused on the high threshold for ratifying amendments  38 states  in saying holding a convention makes sense.

I dont think its wrong, particularly when you look at things like a balanced budget or even things as simple as term limits for federal office, Walker said. Those things arent going to happen by virtue of the Congress. I think it makes sense for the people of this country to say we want to have a say.

Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, wrote in a column distributed Wednesday that the Assembly should scrap the idea, saying its ironic that Republicans are pressing for the convention when they also control Congress and could draft amendments the conventional way.

She said a balanced-budget amendment, which fell short of the two-thirds support needed to pass the House in 1992, would make it harder for the federal government to counter economic recessions.

Assembly lawmakers who take their responsibility of governing seriously should reject these foolhardy proposals, which would endanger our citizen rights and our nations ability to respond to emergencies, Kaminski said.
The seven men and five women comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades.

By Press Trust of India: NASA has chosen 12 new astronauts, including an Indian-American, from a record number of over 18,000 applicants, who will be trained for missions into Earth orbit and to deep space.

The seven men and five women comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades. It was selected from a record 18,300 applicants more than NASA has ever had during an open astronaut call.

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To get picked, people had to meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria, such as having a bachelor's degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets. But it's clear that this new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills that NASA requires.

After completing two years of training, the new astronaut candidates could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

NASA'S MISSION IN SPACE

US Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly, in Houston, Texas to announce the new astronaut candidates, or "ascans".

The event was set inside the Johnson Space Center's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which the new astronauts might fly in the coming years on missions beyond low Earth orbit.

Pence said that President Donald Trump is "firmly committed" to NASA's mission in space and that "America will lead the way in space once again".

He said that NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to "make history" even though the president's budget request cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency.

He also mentioned that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.

While delivering the speech, Pence touted the merits of the new astronaut class. "The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day," he said.

THE NEW CANDIDATES

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.

Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School. His father is from India.

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Lt Kayla "Sax" Barron, 29, is a US Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the US Navy's first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old is a geobiologist who had done research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Her research was focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old department is the head for the US Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot is based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines hails from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. He attended the Air Force Test Pilot School for his Master's degree in flight test engineering. He has served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

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Warren "Woody" Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley.

Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old Navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, is a quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps' Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral O'Hara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home.

Francisco Rubio, is a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. He earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

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Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. She has worked at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California.

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On May 31, the Ministry of Home Affairs in an RTI response had stated that Subhash Chandra Bose had died in the plane crash at Taiwan in 1945.

Handout portrait of the leader of the Indian National Army Subhash Chandra Bose that is on display at the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta. (Reuters)

By Indrajit Kundu: The row over Centre's RTI response on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's disappearance has brought the fissures within the Bengal BJP out in the open. Netaji's grand nephew and party state vice president Chandra Kumar Bose has been publicly slammed by a section of BJP leaders for airing the Bose family's displeasure with the Centre's recent RTI reply.

On May 31, the Ministry of Home Affairs in an RTI response had stated that Subhash Chandra Bose had died in the plane crash at Taiwan in 1945. Criticisng Centre's move as "irresponsible", Chandra Kumar Bose had demanded an apology from the government.

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Talking to India Today, Bose said, "How can the MHA come to such a conclusion without a fair probe? We demand an apology from the Centre. I am a Bose family member first and a BJP leader later. Our first priority is to solve the Netaji mystery."

DIFFERENCES WITHIN BJP

But his open criticism of the Centre has earned him the ire of the BJP state unit. State BJP vice-president Jayprakash Majumdar publicly admonished Bose on Twitter resulting in a public spat. "Chandra Bose, do you think Narendra Modi is insincere in unearthing the Netaji death? Please do not overstep your limit and eligibility," Majumdar warned. In response, Chandra Bose tweeted back saying, "Nation feels Narendra Modi ji is committed to solve Netaji mystery, but concerted effort is lacking. I am just voicing opinion of the people."

Trouble began this week after Chandra Bose tweeted an online petition to Russian President Vladimir Putin seeking release of classified Netaji files in the country. This at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Putin on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum meeting last week.

INDIANS YEARNING FOR TRUTH

The petition, which has been started on an online portal states, "Unfortunately neither the Indian government nor the authorities of other countries, which somehow can be linked to Bose's disappearance, have shown any interest in conducting a detailed investigation of this case so far."

"People are convinced that governments of India, Russia and other countries are withholding information that upon release in the public domain can lift the veil of mystery. Indians are yearning for the truth and the demand for declassification of all documents related to Bose has been growing stronger every day. Sensing the mood of the masses, the West Bengal state ghas recently released many secret files. Good sense seems to have prevailed over the Central government as it has decided to follow suit and started declassifying secret Netaji files from January 23 2016 onward," the petition further states.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too had demanded a clarification from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue last week. "I am shocked to see this unilateral decision of the central government without evidence," Banerjee had written on Facebook.

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Also read: Did Subhash Chandra Bose die in 1945 plane crash? Modi govt says yes in RTI reply; Netaji's kin see red

Also read: This thrilling story is about the spy who helped Subhas Bose escape

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

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Transportation authority in New York put a ban on people taking dogs in trains. After the ban, people started packing their dogs in bags and the result is downright hilarious.

By India Today Web Desk: Before boarding a train, apart from the usual stuff, what do you pack? A dog perhaps?

Well, New Yorkers are doing exactly that before they em-bark on their subway journey.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York issued a ban preventing subway riders from bringing dogs on the train... unless you can fit a dog in a "container".

the New York City Subway banned dogs unless they fit in a bag and the people of New York did not disappoint. pic.twitter.com/vluNcZHBmW- C (@meanboysclub) June 6, 2017

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According to a media report, it is also required that the dog you're bringing in a container must be carried "in a manner which would not annoy passengers".

And soon the New Yorkers were up with different plans to put their dogs in different bags, all kinds of bags:

That's a dog. In a bag. On the subway. pic.twitter.com/4hfqXuMCml- Steven Christoforou (@scchristoforou) November 3, 2016

My favorite picture EVER of someone bringing a dog "in a bag" on the subway ?????? pic.twitter.com/4PTUNofv68- Pamela (@PamelasRageLove) June 7, 2017

here's my dog-in-bag on subway photo pic.twitter.com/yXPfPPk6iu- Hanksy (@HanksyNYC) June 7, 2017

LOOK AT THIS SUBWAY DOG@ pic.twitter.com/QjyfkGLTBs- Rachel Pedinoff (@Rachellll24) March 21, 2017

FYI || Lapse of reason: Dog sentenced to death in Pakistan for biting a child ||

FYI || Firefighter performs CPR on lifeless dog, brings him back to life ||

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The missiles were launched Thursday morning from the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan and flew about 200 km (124 miles).

By Reuters: North Korea fired what appeared to be several land-to-ship missiles off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's military said, the latest in a fast-paced series of missile tests defying world pressure to rein in its weapons programme.

The launches come less than a week after the United Nations Security Council passed fresh sanctions on the reclusive state, which said it would continued to pursue its nuclear and missile programme without delay.

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The missiles were launched Thursday morning from the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan and flew about 200 km (124 miles), South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in has been briefed on the latest launch, the military said, declining to give further details.

"North Korea launched multiple projectiles that appear to be short-range land-to-ship cruise missiles today morning off east coast from the region of Wonsan," the office said in a statement, adding that Seoul and Washington were analysing the launches for further information.

Thursday's launch is the fourth missile test by North Korea since Moon took office on May 10 pledging to engage in dialogue with Pyongyang, saying sanctions and pressure alone have failed to resolve the growing threat from the North's advancing nuclear and missile programme.

South Korea said on Wednesday it will hold off on installing remaining components of a controversial U.S. anti-missile defense system until it completes an assessment of the system's impact on the environment.

Under third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented pace in an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the mainland United States.

In the three earlier launches, North Korea tested different kinds of ballistic missiles, two medium-to-long range missiles as well as a short-range Scud class weapon.

The launches of the apparent anti-ship missiles on Thursday follow Kim's order to develop North Korea's own ballistic missile that precisely strikes targets such as enemy vessels, reported in its state media late last month.

The isolated country, which has conducted dozens of missile tests and tested two nuclear bombs since the beginning of 2016 in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, says the programme is necessary to counter US aggression.

Also Read:

Fearing North Korea's missile attack, Japan conducts evacuation drills

North Korea test-fires ballistic missile in defiance of world pressure

Also Watch:

India expresses concern over H-bomb testing in N Korea

--- ENDS ---
Korea, UAE to share APR1400 operating experience

08 June 2017

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Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and the UAE's Nawah Energy Company have agreed to cooperate in the sharing of experience in the operation of Korean-designed APR1400 nuclear power reactors. South Korea's first APR1400 unit entered commercial operation in December 2015, while four such reactors are due to start up in the UAE by 2020.

The agreement was signed today in Seoul by KHNP president Kwan-Sup Lee and Nawah acting CEO Mohammed Sahoo Al Suwaidi (Image: JHNP)

Through the agreement, the two companies will share APR1400 operational experience at nuclear power plants in their respective countries. KHNP said the scope of the cooperation will gradually be expanded to include maintenance experience, the sharing of "urgent materials", and the joint purchase of spare components.

In a statement, a KHNP spokesperson said, "The signing of the agreement has created a foundation for APR1400 power plants [in both countries] to improve safety, reliability, efficiency and joint issues."

The first AP1400 reactor, unit 3 at KHNP's Shin Kori site in South Korea, reached first criticality in December 2015, was connected to the grid in January 2016 and entered commercial operation in December. A second unit, Shin Kori 4, is expected to start operating later this year, and two further AP1400s are under construction at Shin Hanul. South Korean regulators have approved the construction of two more AP1400 units at Shin Kori, while another two are also planned at Shin Hanul.

Construction of four APR1400 reactors at the UAE's Barakah site began in 2012. The plant is being built for Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (Enec) by a consortium led by the Korean Electric Power Company (Kepco). The first unit is scheduled to start up this year, with the other units following at yearly intervals until the plant is completed in 2020.

Enec established Nawah Energy Company last year as a joint venture with Kepco to operate and maintain Barakah units 1-4. The company is 82% owned by Enec and 18% owned by Kepco.

In July 2016, KHNP and Enec signed an Operating Support Services Agreement (OSSA) under which 400 nuclear experts from KHNP - including main control room operators and local operators - will support operations at the UAE site until 2030.

South Korea's APR1400 advanced pressurised water reactor design has evolved from the US System 80+ with enhanced safety and seismic robustness and was earlier known as the Korean Next-Generation Reactor. Design certification by the Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety was awarded in May 2003. Kepco and KHNP began the process of seeking US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval for the design in 2013, submitting a revised version of its application in December 2014. The NRC accepted the application in March 2015.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News
Battle Creek Falls was a pleasing 50ft plunging waterfall near the base of the west side of Mt Timpanogos.

It was a short but sweet excursion where the whole family was able to partake and enjoy the experience without much drama.

In addition to the waterfall itself, we were also able to get nice views towards Utah Lake and Pleasant Grove while also checking out the attractive cliffs and protrusions seen throughout the hike.

There was more to the Battle Creek Trail further upstream beyond the falls, but we were just content to enjoy the waterfalls cool spray on a day that turned out to be quite warm for the Salt Lake City area.

Obviously with its accessibility, we saw firsthand that it was quite the popular excursion, especially for those families bringing their kids along.

Perhaps my only regret with making our visit to this falls was that we were looking against the sun when we showed up in the morning.

Since the falls faced west, it would definitely get better lighting much later in the day.

Battle Creek Falls Trail Description  from the trailhead to the sudden appearance of Battle Creek

The trail began from a spacious (albeit rocky) unpaved parking area in front of Kiwanis Park (see directions below).

There were quite a few walking paths to choose from, but the correct trail ascended to the right of the Kiwanis Park path (i.e. dont go into the park).

From there, we pretty much followed an obvious trail that meandered alongside a dry Battle Creek.

At roughly 0.4 miles from the trailhead, we reached some kind of diversion structure where Battle Creek fell into what could be underground pipes just downstream from an intermediate cascade.

This contraption was the very reason why Battle Creek was dry up to this point.

From this point forward, the trail climbed alongside the music of rushing water from Battle Creek.

Battle Creek Falls Trail Description  descending to the base of the waterfall

Shortly after crossing a footbridge over Battle Creek, the trail then narrowed and climbed some more.

However, the terrain in this stretch was loose shale so we had to keep an eye out on our daughter to ensure she didnt have a misstep.

In this stretch, there was a little alcove or cave, which was pretty small and acted merely as a photo opportunity.

Just a few minutes beyond that cave, the ascending trail then had some rubber mat to help with maintaining traction on the trail in the presence of all that loose dirt and shale.

At the same time, there was a trail descending to the right that led directly to the base of the shady and cool confines of Battle Creek Falls.

While it was a nice spot to relax and enjoy the falls, the embankments here were steep so it was not easy to get all the way up to the falls base nor get too high up the embankments.

Battle Creek Falls Trail Description  ascending to the top of the waterfall

Continuing on the main trail (and taking advantage of the rubber mats for traction), I was able to get a nice full profile view down towards Battle Creek Falls.

The trail then bent to the right leading right up to the top of the falls.

From this vantage point, I was able to get even more satisfying views back towards Utah Lake and Pleasant Grove.

As stated earlier, even though the trail continued further upstream, this was my turning point.

Overall, this trail was about 1.2 miles round trip gaining about 400ft in elevation, and it took us less than an hour away from the car.

With so little exertion and time investment, no wonder why it was so popular with families!

Authorities

Battle Creek Falls resides in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest near Pleasant Grove in Utah County, Utah. It is administered by the USDA Forest Service. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
The Need To Evacuate Children

Many children, as well as their parents and their families, certainly went through difficult times when enemy forces descended on German cities with heavy aerial bombings. Although the bombings targeted factories, misguided bombs would often hit homes and schools endangering the lives of children. Fearing that the war would result in mass civilian deaths and affect its future generations, the German government under the leadership of Adolf Hitler ordered that children and mothers with infants be evacuated to rural locations and other parts of the country which were considered safer. The objective was to save children and infants from the enemy fire. The evacuation exercise happened in numerous phases. It is estimated that the first phase of children evacuation, that happened over a three day period, saw more than 800,000 children evacuees relocated by special trains and boats to the locations considered to be safe such as Saxony, Bavaria, and Prussia. As the war grew, the government ran out of space. Consequently, some children were moved beyond German borders to Austria, Hungary, Czech, and Holland. Initially, the evacuation exercise was voluntary and parents would decide whether they wanted their children relocated or not. Later when the war became more intense, the government made evacuation of children compulsory.

Children Given Priority During The Evacuation

Initially, children up to 3 years of age were given priority during the evacuation. This age limit was later reviewed by the government and extended to include children up to 6 years old. As the war raged on, the government resolved to extend the age of the evacuation priority group to include children up to 10 years of age.

In addition to the age factors, priority was also given to children who were considered natives of Germany. Children with one Jewish grandparent, referred to as Mischling, were initially excluded from evacuation but this condition was later subverted in late 1943. The health of the children was also another factor. Children who were suffering from infectious diseases such as epilepsy and chronic neuresis were side-lined during the selection process even if they were native Germans. Additionally, children covered by the Nuremberg Laws were not evacuated.

Arrangement Of Accommodation For The Evacuated Children

Children and parents with infants who were evacuated had three alternatives when it came to accommodation. The first alternative was accommodation was to be housed by relatives. This arrangement was popular among evacuees who either did not fancy the idea of being evacuated or did not like staying with host family or staying in camps. For those who did not have relatives in the safer locations, the option was to be housed with host families. Children aged between 6 and 10 were accommodated by foster families. The third option was to stay in camps. The government established around 9,000 camps in hotels, hostels, and remote schools across the regions considered safer. Life in these camps was considered routine and boring by the children. This is because they did not have much freedom and once in a while they would clash with their guardians.

A Challenging Time For All

Children and their parents suffered emotionally due to the separation from their families. The children also suffered physically due to the long treacherous journey to different parts of the country. The government of Germany also suffered economic and manpower losses associated with evacuating the children while at the same time fighting the opposition forces.
More often, nations endowed with non-renewable natural resources find themselves at a crossroad of opportunities and challenges. This implies that the presence of the natural resource presents numerous opportunities to be exploited but at the same time challenges arise. When used well and responsibly, these resources can have great positive impact on the economies of such countries as well as the quality and standard of lives of the citizens of the countries. However, more often than not, the existence of these resources, mostly in less developed nations, normally leave these nations in poor and sorry state instead of prosperity. A situation termed as resource curse. By definition, resource curse, also called the paradox of plenty, refers to a situation where countries endowed with a natural resource curse tend to record slow economic growth as compared to countries with fewer natural resources. Instead of benefiting and prospering the country and its citizen, the extraction of the natural resource causes significant and serious problems.Global history is full of illustrations of countries like Sudan, Nigeria, Angola and Netherlands whose natural-resource wealth resource curse in form of conflict, corruption, and poverty.

Causes Of The Resource Curse

Corruption: Corruption is one of the key causes of a resource curse. the process of mining and extraction of the natural resources is bedeviled with corruption right from the point of discovery of the resources to extraction and sale of the products. Officials of the mining companies bribe government officials in order to get protected from competitors. Additionally, revenue gained from the extraction of minerals is embezzled by governments, leaders of governments and sometimes even by individuals and corporations from foreign nations.

Poor governance: In countries where the paradox of plenty was experienced, poor governance was a major contributing factor. Governments of such countries were accused of poorly managing the wealth that emanated from the exploitation of the resources. Such governments relied heavily on revenue raised from such natural resources instead of investing and concentrating on in other sectors of their economies.

Lack of transparency: Conspiracy between governments and the resource mining companies to hide details of contracts signed between the parties has also been established as a promoter of the resource curse. When the details of contractual agreements are made secrets and hidden from other critical stakeholders like the general public, it provides opportunities for corruption and embezzlement of funds. Moreover, it becomes difficult to hold the government accountable.

Effects Of The Resource Curse

There are numerous effects of the resource curse. These include; Dutch disease and civil war.

Dutch disease: This is a phrase used to refer to the challenges and adversities that Netherlands went through when it discovered North Sea gas. The result was stronger Dutch currency, poor performance of other sectors and industries, and volatility of commodity prices.

Civil war: Resource curse can lead to civil war. This is what has been experienced in countries like Sudan and South Sudan. This could be due to scramble for the resources and poor distribution of resources.

Preventing/Reversing Resource Curse

There are measures that governments and international communities can take to prevent or reverse the negative effects of the resource curse. Diversification of the countries economies, transparency: disclosure, accountable government institutions, tackling corruption, and equitable distribution could help reverse the resource curse.
Introduction

The United Fruit Company was formed in the United States in 1899. It dealt with a variety of tropical fruits, primarily bananas, in Latin America that were being sold to the United States and Europe for consumption. The company is well known for having meddled in Latin America's development - a fact that is not historically seen in a positive light. Reasons for this include a question of whether or not a corporation as powerful as the United Fruit Company should have been able to influence something so essential to human existence as fresh fruit production. The company ceased to be in 1970 and has operated under "Chiquita Brands International" since 1984. In between 1970 to 1984 it was called the United Brands Company.

Significance

The United Fruit Company had operated under the pretence of helping to develop areas in Central and South America. These nations later became known as the Banana Republics and included Costa Rica and Guatemala. The United Fruit Company was responsible for building a great amount of infrastructure that was said to improve quality of life and generate job opportunities. However, due to fears that it would detract away from their profitable rail system, the company tried to actively discourage the construction of government roads. This is an example of the ways in which the United Fruit Company operated as a "monopoly". There are reports of at least one railroad being destroyed under the guise of the UFC.

Nonetheless, the company owned a large amount of property in the Caribbean lowlands and had a great degree of control over transportation networks such as the railway as well as steam ships. The United Fruit Company also helped create the "Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company". Largely thanks to beneficial laws such as tax breaks, the company was able to expand throughout the region. This resulted in the company's profits highly benefiting their employees and overseas investors instead of local recipients.

Drawbacks

The United Fruit Company was responsible for a large degree of environmental degradation when it was at its thriving stage. During this time, forests were cleared, low swampy areas were filled in, and water systems were destroyed. Previously, the ecosystem had high biodiversity. Farming techniques also led to the loss of biodiversity and caused harm to the land. There were many strikes by the workers which hindered the company. The company was due to suffer under the Arbenz government's Agrarian reform legislation and was also accused of communism.

Massacre at Santa Marta

Although exact numbers are disputed, it is estimated that at least 47 workers of the United Fruit Company were murdered after being shot by members of the Colombian army in 1928. The strikers were seen as a communist threat, an idea that was backed by the United States government. This was one of the major catalysts for a period of time in Colombia that is none for having been very violent.
Government Of Cameroon

The government of Cameroon is organized and administered as a unitary presidential republic. Under this political framework, the President serves as both the Head of State and the Head of Government. This presidential power was established after the political reforms of 1996, which amended the Constitution of 1975. The government of Cameroon is separated into 3 branches in order to ensure separation of power. This article takes a closer look at the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of this country.

Executive Branch Of The Government Of Cameroon

The executive branch is made up of the President and the Cabinet of Ministers.

The President of Cameroon is elected by the general population to serve a 7-year term. The presidency is limited to two terms. The responsibilities of the President include: appointing the Cabinet of Ministers, signing bills into law, acting as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, and determining the national policies. The President also appoint a Prime Minister to oversee the Cabinet of Ministers.

The Prime Minister works closely with the Ministers of the country to make sure that the government runs according to the legislation passed. The executive power of this position is relatively limited, however. The President may remove the Prime Minister from office at any time. Some of the various ministries that make up the government of this country include: Social Affairs, Defense, Superior State Audit, Culture, Urban Development, and Education.

Legislative Branch Of The Government Of Cameroon

The legislative branch consists of a bicameral Parliament, which is divided into the Senate and the National Assembly. The members of Parliament convene on 3 ordinary occasions every year: March and April, June and July, and November and December. During these sessions, Parliament rules on legislation, most of which is introduced by the executive branch. Once a bill is passed by Parliament, it goes on for presidential approval.

The Senate is the upper parliamentary house and has 100 members. Of these members, the general population elects 70 and the President appoints 30. Each region of Cameroon is represented by 10 senators.

The National Assembly is the lower parliamentary house and has 180 members. Each member is elected by the general population to serve a 5-year term. These members represent 49 constituencies, or electoral districts.

Judicial Branch Of The Government Of Cameroon

The judicial branch of government consists of the courts of the country. It has been developed based on British law, French civil code, and local customs. The tribunals serve as the courts of first instance and any cases heard here may be appealed to the next level of the judiciary, the courts of appeals.

The highest court in Cameroon is the Supreme Court, which acts as the final court of appeals. The President appoints the justices to this court and the Higher Judicial Council is responsible for overseeing their work. The Supreme Court is further divided into 3 divisions: judicial, administrative, and audit. The judicial division hears cases that have been appealed from the lower courts. The administrative division may receive cases on first instance, rather than appeal, if the issue involves election disagreements, government actions, or government representatives. Finally, the audit division is responsible for cases that involve public accounts or semi-private organizations.
A young man wanted to make a point about racism in the United States, but his plan backfired when he was exposed for a liar by police. 20-year-old Khalil Cavil of Texas was working at the Saltgrass Steak House in Odessa when he claimed he was discriminated against because of his Muslim name. Cavil took
Academician Partha Chatterjee compared him with General Dyer, who ordered firing at a crowd of protesters at Jallianwala Bagh of Amritsar on April 13, 1919, in which 379 people were killed.

By India Today Web Desk: Army chief Bipin Rawat today looked unfazed by his comparison to General Dyer of the infamous Jallianwala Bagh incident. He said, "See, I am an Army officer, just anything cannot affect me. You have to be prepared to face such. People can misinterpret (comments made by him)."

He was asked about academician Partha Chatterjee comparing him with General Dyer, who ordered firing at a crowd of protesters at Jallianwala Bagh of Amritsar on April 13, 1919, in which 379 people were killed.

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"There is no need to react. He (Chatterjee) was trying to draw a reaction from somewhere else. It should not bother me," the General said.

Asked if he was not hurt by the comparison, he said: "Not at all".

Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat said that the Indian army is well prepared to face external, as well as internal threats to the country. General Bipin Rawat said, "Indian Army is fully ready for a two and a half front war".

'INDIA IS READY FOR A MULTI-FRONT WAR'

The Army Chief added that even though India is ready for a multi front war there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation. "Even the PM has stated that for the last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-China border," said General Rawat.

General Rawat also informed that a new strike corps, 17 Strike Corps, is being raised specifically for mountain warfare. On asking about the delay in its raising Army Chief said a process as complex as this takes time. He said, "It is being raised from scratch. The recruitments are on. As it is, to prepare an army soldier it takes about three years from recruitment process to training and then orienting and finally their deployment."

General Rawat went on to discuss modernisation plans of the army Army, saying that the Government is aware of our all needs and is supporting us in every manner. "Make in India is a good initiative, it will give results in two to three years," said General Rawat.

General Rawat added that all armies across the world maintain an inventory in the ratio of the 30:40:30. Here 30 percent equipment is state of the art technology, 40 percent is undergoing modernization and the rest 30 percent is obsolete, which requires an upgrade.

General Bipin Rawat said that the Indian Army's preparations are not against any specific country.

With inputs from ANI and IANS

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Two men have been accused of cutting down and selling walnut trees from a western Iowa state park.

The Iowa Natural Resources Department said Tuesday that 38-year-old Bradley Hagerman, of Pisgah, and 30-year-old Eric Freihage, of Council Bluffs, took the nine trees from Loess Hills State Forest in January. The department says they sold the logs in Council Bluffs for more than $4,700.

Both men are charged with theft and two timber buyer violations. Online court records don't list an attorney who could comment for Hagerman. Freihage's attorney didn't immediately return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press. The two men are due back in court July 17 for arraignment.

The forest is situated in Harrison and Monona counties.
A Washington-based think tank audience burst into laughter when Pakistan's top diplomat to the US reiterated that there were no havens for terrorists in Pakistan.

By India Today Web Desk: A Washington-based think tank audience burst into laughter when Pakistan's top diplomat to the United States reiterated that there were no havens for terrorists in Pakistan.

Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry's another claim that Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who reportedly died in a hospital in Karachi, never left Afghanistan to visit Pakistan also left the audience laughing at the comment's sheer incredulity.

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Miffed at being mocked, Chaudhry said, "What is so funny about it."

Former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as his country's ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, however, argued that the reality was different.

ALL THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW "We have very firm evidence of his (Mullah Omar's) presence in Pakistan, where he went, lived, ..hospital," he said, adding that for a long time there was the idea that bin Laden never left Afghanistan. "There is ample evidence that while the operation was going on, the Haqqani network was being evacuated to safer location", the former US Ambassador to Pakistan said during a panel discussion on Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan, at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center. Chaudhry appeared to be isolated after two other panelists - former Indian minister Manish Tewari and top American think-tank expert Ashley Tellis - joined Khalilzad to say that terrorist sanctuaries continued to exist in Pakistan and there was a level of strong, but tacit level of support from the Pakistani establishment. "What sanctuaries you are talking about? If you want to live in the past, you cannot solve the present. Haqqani and the Taliban are not our friends. They are not our proxies. What Quetta Shura you are talking about? What Peshawar Shura?" the Pakistan Ambassador questioned an amused Washington audience, which witnessed a sharp debate between him and Khalilzad. The panel discussion had an abrupt end as the two exchanged words. Tellis said while terrorist sanctuaries continued to exist in Pakistan, a great deal of financial and personnel supply came from Afghanistan. "But there is no denying that the Taliban leadership are based in Pakistan", he said. Tewari said that it was time Pakistan introspected as to why Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who went to Rawalpindi to meet the Pakistan Army Chief, had turned against Pakistan. Ghani is actually constrained to say Pakistan is having an undeclared war with Afghanistan. "Those are extremely strong statements coming from the head of state", he said. During the question-and-answer session, Afghan diplomat Muhammad Asad and an Afghan woman journalist Nazira Karimi joined the three other panelists to challenge Chaudhry's assertion about terrorist havens in Pakistan. "Our allegation is evidence-based," Asad said, adding that while the carrot formula has not worked, it is time for the US to look the other way around. Karimi referred to the allegations of US lawmakers about continued terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan, which he dismissed. The Pakistan Ambassador said that his country wanted a peaceful, stable, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan. "Afghan soil should not be used against Pakistan. Other than that, we want to facilitate reconciliation. Just blaming Pakistan all the time will not help. What will help is recognising what Pakistan has done for Afghanistan," he said. Chaudhry also accused India of being a part of a "double squeeze strategy". Asserting that India had a "strategic" interest in Afghanistan, he alleged that this was part of the "double squeeze strategy" of New Delhi against Islamabad. "India does have strategic interest in Afghanistan. It could be part of the double squeeze strategy against Pakistan. To that end, an Afghanistan that is not stable would serve India's purpose and that's why India is opposing reconciliation with the Taliban of any kind," Chaudhry told a Washington audience. Participating in a panel discussion on "Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan" at the Atlantic Councils South Asia Center, Chaudhry accused India of trying to be a "hegemonic" power in the region.

(WITH INPUTS FROM PTI)

Also read | India raises Balochistan issue at UN, says Pakistan violating human rights

Also read | SCO won't back Pakistan's attempts to internationalise Kashmir: China's media

Also read | Pakistan more a threat than an ally, could face sanctions: US think tank

ALSO WATCH VIDEO

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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP)  A Douglas Island homeowner shot a brown bear after feeling threatened by the animal, Alaska wildlife officials said.

The 725-pound brown bear was shot on May 25, said Ryan Scott, Alaska Department of Fish & Game wildlife regional supervisor. It is the first documented, or legal, killing of a brown bear in Douglas Island reported to the department since 1974, the Juneau Empire reported.

Its a rare event to have them on Douglas or really in Juneau, Scott said. Over the years weve had reports of bear swimming adjacent to the island. Even thats very,...
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP)  A Ketchikan hospital has announced it will not have a general surgeon on staff for a week.

The PeaceHealth Ketchikan Medical Centers only general surgeon will be out from 8 a.m. Monday through 8 a.m.

June 12, the Ketchikan Daily News reported. The hospital is alerting other health care providers, cruise lines and outside

facilities that typically recommend people to the hospital of the situation.

Patients in need of a general surgical procedure such as appendectomy or perforated colon during that time period will be transported to another facility, medical di...
Thierry Neuville was the early leader of Rally Italia Sardegna after winning Thursday evenings opening speed test.

Stage info: SS1 Ittiri Arena Show, 2.00km

Sardinias opener is identical to the stage used in 2016, held at a former motocross track just outside the village of the same name. Two cars at a time compete head-to-head around two laps of the track on wide roads which include a jump and a watersplash.

The Belgian, driving a Hyundai i20 Coupe, defeated arch-rival Sebastien Ogier in the headline heat at Ittiri motocross arena to grab a 0.2sec lead.

I enjoyed that quite a lot, he said. The car was working well but the stage was abrasive and the tyres suffered a bit, but I dont care! A good crowd and a great atmosphere, said Neuville.

Ott Tanak was second after beating Jari-Matti Latvala, despite a scare in the watersplash when the windscreen wipers on his Ford Fiesta jammed. We were lucky! said the Estonian.

Dani Sordo reported a similar problem in his i20 en route to third, after edging Elfyn Evans by a tenth of a second in their heat. The Welshman was fourth with Hayden Paddon and Ogier tying for fifth.

Several drivers clipped straw bales lining the course. The worst affected was Juho Hanninen who picked up minor damage to his Toyota Yaris rear left spoiler.

After an overnight halt in the east coast town of Olbia, the rally continues early on Friday with the first of two loops of four gravel stages. After lunchtime service in Alghero, the quartet is repeated, making a total of 125.46km of competition.

Head to WRC+ to see the latest onboard and video reports from Rally Italia Sardegna.

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18,000 Of You Probably Wont Vote In Tight Election  More Votes Than The Winner Will Probably Get

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Jun 7th, 2017

Voters across Wrexham will take to the polls tomorrow to have their say in one of the most tightly fought elections in decades. However if previous elections are a guide, 35% of you will not bother to vote.

With the final day of the election campaign now entering its final few hours, the vast majority of people will be turning their thoughts to how they will vote, and what the outcome of tomorrows vote will be.

Using historic data we predict around 18,000 of you will not bother voting, despite many predictions saying the result could be very very tight.

When Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap election way back on April 18th, the intent appeared to secure an improved majority for the Conservative Party. An early ITV Wales poll suggested this could be aided by improvements in Wales, with the party making gains across the country.

All that has changed in the past few weeks, with the final ITV Wales poll showing today that Labour have a 12 point lead over the Conservatives.

An unscientific carried out by Wrexham.com last week also indicated that Labour were favourites to win the seat, with the party topping the poll with 51%.

The Conservatives trailed behind with 36%, followed by Plaid Cymru and undecided voters with 6%. Liberal Democrats polled with just 1%.

How things will look in the early hours of Friday morning depends on who you speak to  with increased / decreased majoritys and hung Parliaments being predicted by voters and polls. Speaking locally to many people over the last week the common prediction appears to be the election will likely be a two horse race, and the result could be quite tight  with talk even of possible recounts.

This election has seen Wrexham gain national attention, with the constituency seen as a swing seat between Labour and Conservatives.

Traditionally seen as a safe Labour seat, the constituency has been represented by Ian Lucas since 2001.

However the 2015 General Election saw Mr Lucas retain his seat by 1831 votes, with Conservatives Andrew Atkinson giving the party their best result in Wrexham since 1992.

A swing of 3.65% could see the seat change from Labour to the Conservatives.

Both Mr Lucas and Mr Atkinson are contesting the Wrexham seat again in this election  along with Plaid Cymrus Carrie Harper and Welsh Liberal Democrat, Carole OToole.

In the 2015 election Plaid Cymru got 2,501 votes and the Liberal Democrats 1,735, the latter down over 20% on the 2010 election. Plaid Cymru in comparison saw their voter share increase 1.5%  with the party also seeing a double digit increase in votes in the recent local council elections.

One factor to keep in mind for the Wrexham vote this time around is the lack of a UKIP candidate; with the party getting 5,072 votes back in 2015. This time the party are not fielding a candidate in Wrexham due to issues with nomination papers expected from Cardiff as we revealed last week.

Wrexhams new swing seat status has meant there have been visits from party leaders during this General Election. Last month Prime Minister Theresa May came to Gresford to launch the Welsh Conservative manifesto, in a trip that has been widely panned.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond also went door knocking around Caia Park and visited the Wrexham Industrial Estate during a visit with Mr Atkinson last week.

Earlier this week Leader of the Welsh Labour Party and First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones visited Wrexham Lager with Mr Lucas as part of his tour across North Wales. Mr Lucas also received some celebrity backing, with comedian and star of Alan Partridge, Steve Coogan making a surprise and very popular visit to the town last week.

Clwyd South is also seen as a key seat for the Conservatives in Wales, with Theresa May popping to Bangor on Dee in another low-key / didnt tell the media visit.

The constituency has been held by a Labour MP since its creation in 1997. Susan Elan Jones has represented Clwyd South since 2010, and in the 2015 General Election she retained the seat with a majority of 2,402.

Conservative Simon Baynes, who also ran for the Clwyd South seat in last years Welsh Assembly Election, and was defeated as a candidate in the recent local council elections.

In the 2015 election UKIP gained the third most votes in the constituency, with 5,480 crossing their ballot paper in favour of the party. The party are fielding a candidate in the election again, however this time round it will be Jeanette Bassford- Barton fighting for the seat.

Christopher Allen is representing Plaid Cymru this time round, with the party increasing their vote in the constituency by 1.5% in 2015. Liberal Democrat Bruce Roberts will be contesting the seat again, having received 1,349 votes in the last General Election.

We have checked the numbers with Wrexham Council who are running the election in both seats and in Wrexham 50,423 people are registered to vote and 54,352 in Clwyd South for 2017.

Turnout across the two constituencies has been in the 60%  65% region in recent elections elections. In 2015 Clwyd South saw an overall turnout of 63.8%. Wrexham was slightly higher at 64.2%.

The bookies are another guide used to predict winners, however as we documented on the evening of the EU Referendum the money moves as the results come in. At the time of writing (8pm) the following is the state of play via OddsChecker, with a Conservative win being the favourite, however not much money is being traded on Wrexham with not much depth of market on Betfair  and only 850 matched so far.

Of course we will be at the count with live updates and the usual live video stream  so tune in tomorrow evening to watch the count and result as it emerges.

Polling stations across both constituencies open at 7am tomorrow and as usual will close at 10pm  so make sure you and everyone you know turns out to vote!
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Jun 8 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today left for Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

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Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries.

Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries.

"I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement yesterday.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy". PTI AKK AAR

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The speech delivered by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland in the House of Commons Tuesday marks a major escalation in the Liberal governments efforts to aggressively assert Canadian imperialist interests on the world stage. Rhetorical flourishes about democratic values and human rights were aimed at diverting attention away from the core message: Canada must resort to hard power, i.e. war, to defend its interests, maintain its strategic partnership with US imperialism, and vastly expand military spending.

Freelands speech set the stage for Defence Minister Harjit Sajjans presentation of Canadas new defence policy yesterday. Titled Strong, Secure, Engaged, the policy calls for a $64 billion increase in military spending over the next 20 years, including $6 billion more in the next five years. Canadas armed forces are to gain 5,000 new troops and to be equipped with 88 new fighter jets, rather than the 67 the previous Conservative government had proposed.

Freeland began her remarks by acknowledging the growing crisis of the US-led global liberal order, due to threats, including Russian expansionism and a rising China, protectionism and the threat of all-out trade war, and tensions between the US and Europe, including over NATO.

Less than two weeks prior to her remarks, US President Donald Trump had clashed with European heads of government at the G7 summit in Italy and NATO meeting in Brussels over issues including trade, climate change, and NATO members commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defence.

The European powers, led by Germany, have responded to Trumps America First economic nationalism and bellicose militarism by seizing the opportunity to advance their own imperialist interests. Leading German politicians and daily newspapers have called for Berlin to assert its economic and geopolitical ambitions independently of, and if necessary in opposition to, Washington, including by creating a European military force capable of acting on its own on the global stage.

These developments represent a dilemma for the Canadian bourgeoisie. It has relied on its strategic partnership with the US to exert global influence. At the same time, Canada, as a lesser imperialist power, has used multilateral institutions such as NATO, the G7 and UNinstitutions which are now breaking apartto offset the imbalance of power between Ottawa and Washington, and to advance Canadian imperialist ambitions around the globe.

Freeland sought to resolve this conundrum by pledging Canadas firm allegiance to the United States, while also giving a commitment to work to uphold and revive post-war Transatlantic and multilateral institutions. In effect, she proposed Canada serve as a bridge between the US and Europe.

In contrast to the sharp criticisms German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have made of Trump in recent days, Freeland did not mention the US president by name. Instead, she paid gushing tribute to US imperialisms role in establishing the post-war order, declaring at one point, [I]n blood, in treasure, in strategic vision, in leadership, America has paid the lion's share. The United States has truly been the indispensable nation. Underscoring her point, her speech referred proudly to Canadas involvement in a series of brutal US-led wars stretching back seven decades: from the Korean War to the Gulf War, the NATO war against Yugoslavia, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, and the current war in Iraq.

Freelands enthusiasm for Canadas engagement in military aggression was not limited to the past. As she bluntly declared in one of the speechs most striking passages, Canadian diplomacy and development sometimes require the backing of hard power. Force is of course always a last resort. But the principled use of force, together with our allies and governed by international law, is part of our history and must be part of our future.

The Foreign Ministers audience did not have long to wait to discover which countries the Trudeau Liberal government considers as candidates for potential military action. The dictatorship in North Korea, crimes against humanity in Syria, the monstrous extremists of Daesh, and Russian military adventurism and expansionism  all pose clear strategic threats to the liberal democratic world, including Canada, proclaimed Freeland.

Canada has aligned itself closely with the US in the deliberate escalation of tensions with Russia since 2014, when the Western powers orchestrated a coup in Kiev so as to install a far-right, anti-Russian regime on Moscows doorstep. Canada continues to deploy 200 military personnel to train Ukrainian Army and National Guard units in the country, and is sending 450 troops to Latvia to lead one of the four forward deployed battalions NATO is placing on Russias borders. Freeland lauded both initiatives.

However, the reference to Russian adventurism and expansionism in a speech that also called for Canada to employ hard power when necessary marks a further escalation of tensions.

The Trudeau government, while doing everything it can to establish a cooperative relationship with the new Trump administration, has repeatedly signaled its full-throated support for the virulently anti-Russia campaign that the Democratic Party and Republicans like John McCain have mounted in league with the US military and intelligence services. Using unsubstantiated allegations of Russian interference in the US elections, the goal of this propaganda offensive is to force Trump to continue the military-strategic offensive against Moscow mounted by the Obama administration.

Beyond Eastern Europe, Freelands reference to Syria shows that Canada is determined to challenge Russia further afield. Canadian troops and reconnaissance aircraft are already engaged in the Mideast war in close collaboration with US forces. Waged in the name of combatting terrorism, the latest US Mideast war is aimed at imposing regime change in Syria, Russias closest ally in the region. This was underscored by Freelands reference to crimes against humanity in Syriaclaims that have repeatedly been made by the western media to provide a pretext for US military action directly targeting the Syrian government.

With the Syrian conflict evolving ever more openly into a direct clash between US imperialism and Russia and Iran, Freelands remarks demonstrate that Canada is ready to commit blood and treasure to ensure its share of influence in the worlds most important oil-producing region.

Freelands speech was laden with the rhetoric about defending human rights and democratic values that the Liberals, since their October 2015 election victory, have used to try to overcome overwhelming popular opposition to war and military aggression.

She placed great emphasis on the need to support the rules-based international order and all its institutions. This meant backing multilateral forums like NATO, the G7, UN, and the Francophonie.

Freeland lamented that our friend and ally (i.e. the US) has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, by which she means its turning away from these international institutions in favor of a more unilateralist and aggressive course. She stressed that Canada would continue to seek to persuade our (American) friends that their continued international leadership is very much in their national interestas well as that of the rest of the free world.

But she went on to argue that even as Canada seeks to deepen its partnership with the US, the crisis in the liberal order requires that Canada play a larger role in global affairs. It must set its own clear and sovereign course and this requires expanding its military capacities to play a major role in global conflicts.

In a pointed comment directed at Trumps refusal to reaffirm US support for NATOs Article 5 (which stipulates that all members come to the defence of any NATO state under attack), Freeland insisted that the Article 5 is at the very heart of Canadas national security policy.

Freeland sought to combine this pledge to uphold the worlds most powerful military alliance with rhetoric about Canadas commitment to altruism and human rights, including womens rightsthe bogus humanitarian claims that have become standard justifications for imperialist war over the past quarter century.

Under this humanitarian cover and amid fatuous claims about the need to uphold peace and stability, Freeland outlined the Liberals plans for a vast expansion of the Canadian military. Canada would make the necessary investments in our military, she declared, to not only redress years of neglect and underfunding, but also to place the Canadian Armed Forces on a new footingwith the equipment, training, resources and consistent, predictable financing they need to do their difficult, dangerous and important work.

In additions to their differences over NATO, Canadas Liberal government and the Trump administration dont see eye-to-eye on China. While Trump has attacked Beijing as a currency manipulator and continued the economic and military offensive Obama initiated against China through his Pivot to Asia policy, the Liberal government in Ottawa holds out hope of reaching a free trade agreement with China and making it a major market for Canadian oil and energy exports.

Notwithstanding Freelands more conciliatory tone towards Beijing, her speech made clear that if forced to choose, Ottawa will side with the US in confronting China. Chinas increasing economic power was identified by Freeland as one of the two most important threats to global stability and she denounced North Korea, which is being targeted by the US as a way to step up pressure on China. In April, Defence Minister Sajjan indicated that Canada could be drawn into war with Pyongyang in alliance with the US.

Having pointed to Canadas main geopolitical adversaries and advocated a program of militarism and war in response, Freeland was compelled to mention the chief obstacle to this reactionary agenda: popular opposition driven by deepening social inequality.

A great challenge said Freeland, is exhaustion in the West of the belief among working people, the middle class, that the globalized system can help them better their lives. This is an enormous crisis of confidence. It has the potential, if we let it, to undermine global prosperity itself. Here Canadas Foreign Minister is not speaking of the prosperity of working people, which has been ravaged by three decades of capitalist restructuring and the assault on public services and worker rights; but rather the wealth, power, and global interests of the Canadian bourgeoisie.
The statement issued Wednesday by former FBI Director James Comey detailing repeated efforts by President Trump to interfere with the FBI investigation into alleged connections between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russian government has touched off a new and more explosive stage in the political crisis of the Trump administration and the US ruling elite as a whole.

This follows press reports Tuesday that Trump had asked both Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers to intervene with Comey against the Russia probe. Coats and Rogers refused to discuss these claims Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, despite repeated questioning by Democratic senators.

Comey is to testify before the same Senate panel this morning. He prepared the statement for delivery to the hearing, but at his request it was made public Wednesday afternoon, in time to dominate the evening television news broadcasts. The timing was deliberate, aimed at inciting a media firestorm directed against the Trump White House.

The statement details five of the nine one-on-one conversations Comey claims to have had with Trump during the first four months of 2017in contrast to only two such conversations with President Obama during the three years following Obamas appointment of Comey to the top job at the FBI.

These include three face-to-face meetings, on January 6, January 27 and February 14, and two phone conversations, on March 30 and April 11, the last direct contact before Trump fired Comey as FBI director on May 9. It is not clear what transpired in the other four Trump-Comey conversations, but that is likely to be one of the questions to Comey when he appears before the Senate panel.

The January 27 meeting, a one-on-one dinner initiated by Trump, had been widely reported before, based on a leak to the media of Comeys memorandum of the discussion written soon afterward. This was the occasion for Trumps sounding out of the FBI director over whether he wished to remain in office, even though Comey had already told Trump he would like to finish out his 10-year term, which would end in 2023.

The implied quid pro quo, by Comeys account, was that Trump expected loyalty if he retained him as FBI director. According to Comey, he offered honesty as the duty owed to the president, before eventually agreeing on honest loyalty as an ambiguous compromise.

The February 14 meeting came one day after the firing of retired Gen. Michael Flynn as Trumps national security adviser, allegedly for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about discussions with the Russian ambassador to Washington. By Comeys account, Trump asked him to drop any further investigation into Flynn. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, he quotes Trump as saying. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comey claims that he never communicated this request to the FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers involved in the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the US elections, which included an examination of Flynns activities and contacts.

The former FBI director also claims that after that meeting, he approached Attorney General Jeff Sessions with an extraordinary request: I took the opportunity to implore the attorney general to prevent any future direct communication between the president and me. I told the AG that what had just happenedhim being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behindwas inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply.

On March 20, Comey made his much-publicized public statement before the House Intelligence Committee, confirming the existence of the FBI investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, which had been an open secret in Washington for months.

Ten days later, Trump telephoned Comey directly, complaining that the Russia probe was a cloud hanging over his administration and asking what could be done to lift the cloud. He tried several gambits, suggesting to Comey that some satellite aides to his campaign might have done something wrong, but that he, Trump, had not. He also questioned the role of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Virginia state legislature in 2015.

On April 11 came the final Trump call to Comey, in which he again complained about the cloud from the Russia investigation. Comey reassured Trump, for the third time, that he was not personally a target of the investigation, and Trump repeated a request that the FBI director make that known publicly. Comey informed the Justice Department of this request but took no other action.

The attention of the media has been largely focused on these four interactions, after Trump took office, because they substantiate a pattern of direct interference by the president into an investigation of his own campaign, arguably constituting obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense.

But it is the January 6 meeting that is actually the most revealing of the political warfare within the American capitalist state. This meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City. The top leaders of the intelligence apparatus trekked to Manhattan to give a briefing to the president-elect on the Russia investigation. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were among those in attendance.

The meeting was carefully prepared by the intelligence chiefs, who were all opposed to Trumps professed desire to seek better relations with Russia and to pull back from efforts to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the lone Arab ally of Moscow. The unsubstantiated allegations of Russian intervention in the US elections were disseminated by the intelligence agencies, using the New York Times and Washington Post as their main mouthpieces, in order to block such a shift in US foreign policy.

Comey was delegated to brief Trump on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment of the alleged Russian intervention in the US elections, including a 36-page report, compiled by a former British intelligence officer, making uncorroborated claims that Trump had consorted with prostitutes during a Moscow business trip and was vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

According to Comey, the intelligence agencies thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. In other words, they sought to hold it over Trumps head like a club.

Comey was chosen to deliver the message because he was not leaving office on January 20, unlike the other top officials, because he had a fixed 10-year term. The FBI director would therefore still be around to wield the club after Trump became president.

This is stated more bureaucratically in Comeys testimony, but that was essentially the position. Along with the implied threat came the implied benefit: Comey told Trump that the FBI was not targeting him personally in the investigation.

Then comes the most extraordinary passage in the Comey statement, where he writes: I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the president-elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.

In other words, two weeks before Trumps inauguration, one of the leading figures in the intelligence apparatus was already documenting their interactions for the purpose of making a case against his incoming boss, preparing a written record to be used as a weapon in the escalating political warfare within the state.
The incident happened when the youth was attacked at a gas station in Fremont where he was working part-time.

By India Today Web Desk: In what could be another instance of violent racial attack on Indians in USA, a 26-year-old youth who was working at a gas station near California was shot at an unidentified assailant.

According to reports, the incident which happened on Sunday left the victim Mubeen Ahmed lying in a critical condition at a hospital.

The gruesome incident happened when the youth was attacked in the gas station at Fremont where he was working part-time after finishing his masters' degree recently.

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Ahmed hails from Sangareddy district of Telangana.

I have received the report from our Consulate in San Francisco. https://t.co/k7C1MS18Ft /1; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

The victim Mubeen Ahmed works at a gas station. A gunman demanded money from Mubeen and then fired at him. /2; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

He is admitted in the Eden Medical Centre CA. Fortunately Mubeen is now out of danger. We are following up the case with the police./3; Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

Although External Affairs Minister tweeted saying a gunman had demanded money from him but speculations are rife that it could be a case of racial attack.

Ahmed's family members have approached the state government seeking their help in visiting USA to meet him.

Instances of racial attacks in USA have been on the rise in the last few months. In March, engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was at a bar in Kansas in the US when he was shot dead by a former Navy serviceman who yelled "get out of my country". He was also from Telangana.

A series of hate crimes against Indians have come to the fore, incidentally after Donald Trump took over as US President.

Also read:

Third attack on an Indian in 10 days in US: All you need to know about 'climate of hate'

An Indian died because of racism in US. Still, President Trump is an honourable man

--- ENDS ---
The most significant comment of the UK general election was made by Prime Minister Theresa May Tuesday. Declaring her four-point plan to clamp down on terrorism, she promised, If our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change the laws so we can do it.

This threat goes beyond even the reactionary implications of the anti-terror agenda she outlined. These measures include ending safe spaces on the Internet by censorship and forcing ISPs to facilitate mass state surveillance by abandoning end-to-end encryption. They also target what May called the real worldespecially the public sector, where teachers, doctors and other professionals will be transformed into a network of informers to police both extremist thought and any movement designated as such by the state.

Martha Spurrier, the director of Liberty, said of Mays statement, What she means is this: If the right to liberty or to a fair trial or not to be tortured gets in the way, shell just scrap themcasually disposing with values set down to stop tyranny after the horrors of the second world war.

Most significant of all is the fact identified by the Guardian that tearing up human rights laws would involve declaring a state of emergency.

Mays Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Damian Green has said changes to human rights laws would involve a derogation from the European Convention on Human Rights. A European Court of Human Rights fact sheet stresses that the right to derogate can be invoked only in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation. The fact that the Tories plan to call a state of emergency was confirmed by Green, who cited Frances declaration following the November 2015 Paris terror attacks. These involved suicide bombings and mass shootings of 130 people at the Bataclan theatre.

The exceptional measure in France banning public assemblies or individuals from protests has since been renewed five times and overwhelmingly employed against the working class. A report by Amnesty International notes that between November 2015 and May 5, 2017, there were 155 decrees issued under the state of emergency prohibiting public assemblies and 639 preventing individuals from taking part in public assemblies. The vast majority targeted protests against reactionary labour law reforms and affected hundreds of activists, environmentalists, and labour rights campaigners. The report cited unnecessary or excessive force used against peaceful protesters who did not appear to threaten public order.

Massive numbers of armed police are a routine sight on the streets of Paris. Only this week, thousands were mobilised after a lone individual attacked police officers with a hammer and was shot. As a result of the attack, newly elected President Emmanuel Macron is able to employ law and order rhetoric to the full in the campaign for the legislative elections on June 11 and 18.

The parallels with Britain are both obvious and ominous.

The Tories have used the terrorist outrages in Manchester and London to shift the general election narrative onto charges that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a friend of terrorism, an enemy of Britain and a threat to national security.

The hysterical tone was set by the government, with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson declaring, For 30 years he has been soft and muddle-headed on terror. He has been soft and muddle-headed on defence, he has taken the side of just about every adversary this countrys had in my lifetime.

This message was amplified by hysterical press coverage. The Daily Mail devotes 13 pages to attacks on Corbyn, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell as [a]pologists for terror... cosying up to those who hate our country, while pouring scorn on the police and security services and opposing anti-terror legislation over and over and over again.

The Sun editorialised, Your vote would be to install Britains first Marxist government... It would be the gravest mistake this country has ever made. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have posed as calm and respectable to get elected. It is a gigantic fraud. They are bad men who have spent their lives in the company of truly evil people.

Corbyn has responded to a barrage of attacks on him by forfeiting every position he once declared to be a principle, without a murmur. He has pledged support for NATO, Trident nuclear weapons and additional funding for the army, MI5 and MI6. He said this week, We will protect the people of this country from any threat that they face anywhere in the world. We will invest properly in our police service, we will invest properly in our armed servicesthe numbers in the armed services have gone down, the navy are crying out for more ships, the air force are crying out for more surveillance aircraft. We would fund them properly to achieve all of that.

Crucially Corbyn has focused all his attention since the Manchester suicide bombing on denunciations of May for cutting 20,000 police and pledging that Labour will provide 10,000 additional police. This is under conditions where his earlier statementlinking the terror threat to Britains wars for regime change in Iraq, Libya and Syriahas been confirmed in a way that should have sealed the fate of the Tory government.

It has been proved beyond doubt that MI5 and the police had such intimate knowledge of and connections to Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi that he could have only acted as he did because he was a protected asset. In the past several days, it has now emerged that the police and secret services were similarly aware of the three terrorists who killed eight people in London.

The ringleader, Khuram Butt, had been reported to the authorities on numerous occasions and was, last year, even the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, The Jihadis Next Door. Police said Monday that Butt had been under intense investigation in 2015, but this had been dropped. Yesterday, however, UK counter-terrorism sources told CNN he was still a figure in one of just 500 active counter-terrorism investigations...

In March 2016, the 22-year-old Youssef Zaghba, 22, was arrested as he tried to travel to Syria from Italy and told the police, Im going to be a terrorist. His name was put on the Schengen Information System, which automatically warns other European nations if criminals are trying to enter the country. But when Zaghba arrived at Stansted airport in Britain this year, he was allowed through.

According to Irish security sources, Rachid Redouane was also known to police in the UK and was once being observed. He was arrested in 2009 in Scotland, after trying to travel to Northern Ireland by ferry on a fake passport. He was refused asylum in Britain that year, but was granted a residence card following his marriage to an English woman in Ireland in 2012.

It is only thanks to Corbyns self-censorship that May, who was home secretary and then prime minister throughout this period, can hope to pose as a defender of the publics safety. But the implications go beyond possibly gifting the Tories victory today.

Corbyn cannot and will not raise these issues because he is intent on heading a government that is acceptable to Britains ruling class and trusted to protect its interests. But the net effect of his retreats and evasions is to miseducate, disarm and demobilise the millions of workers and youth who looked to him for leadership and to pave the way for a steeper descent into savage austerity, authoritarian forms of rule, militarism and war.
A Michigan official who oversaw foreclosed properties in Genesee County, Michigan, which includes the city of Flint, resigned Monday after the publication of a digital recording in which he can be heard venting his hostility toward Flint and Detroit workers. In the recording, he denounces them for not paying their water bills. The remarks are laced with vulgar, offensive language, directed against working people, including the use of a racial epithet.

Phil Stair, sales manager for the Genesee County Land Bank, resigned his post after two female activists with Truth Against the Machine, a protest group oriented to the Democratic Party, released a recording of a conversation with Stair held at a local bar. The women made the recording surreptitiously.

The release of the recording and the resignation of Stair come as state and local officials are seeking to put an end to ongoing protests in Flint over the lead poisoning of the citys water supply. After the passage of more than a year and a half since the revelation that Flint residents had been subjected to dangerous levels of lead in their drinking water, little has been done to repair the citys antiquated lead piping system, let alone compensate residents whose children are suffering severe learning disabilities and whose property values have plummeted.

To add insult to injury, city officials are pressing residents to resume paying their water bills, in effect insisting that residents pay for poison.

The Genesee County Land Bank is the largest landowner in Flint and handles property acquired from tax foreclosures, including demolitions, rehabilitations and sales. Unpaid water bills can be added as a lien on property taxes. In May, the Flint City Council passed a one-year moratorium on foreclosures for tax liens following protests by city residents. Local activists have accused the land bank of seeking to drive out poorer residents to open the way for upscale development.

In the audio recording, Stair rants at length against working class residents of Flint, black and white, whom he calls f**kin deadbeats. He continues: when they tear the houses down, they gotta go somewhere, they go on the south side. It just shifts, it just shifts the s**t. The people are still the people, they f**ked the houses up, then they leave and when we tear em down, they just go somewhere else and just f**k those houses up...

The Truth Against the Machine reporter then interjects So, like, did this used to be, like, a white neighborhood?

Stair replies, Its still white. Well, this street isnt so much, but overall, its still pretty white.

Earlier in the recording Stairs can be heard using a vulgar racial epithet to describe residents of Flint and Detroit who are not able to pay their water bills.

State officials and media outlets such as the New York Times and Washington Pos t expressed shock and outrage over Stairs remarks, with especial focus on his use of the n word. However, little was said about his extensive rant expressing contempt for poor people and working people, black and white. This is in line with the focus on race by the Democratic Party, which is seeking to bury the class issues raised by the Flint water crisis.

Since the inception of the Flint water crisis, political groups around the Democratic Party have attempted to inject the question of race front and center in the discussion. This is in no small part aimed at covering up the central role of the Democratic Party, which presided over the disaster in Flint along with the Republican administration of Governor Rick Snyder and has been involved in the ongoing attempts at damage control.

The poisoning of some 100,000 residents of Flint, Michigan through the lead contamination of the citys water supply was a crime of capitalism. It originated in the 2008 economic meltdown and the ensuing bankruptcy of Detroit, which supplied Flint its water. Subsequently, the state of Michigan put pressure on Flint to join the ill-conceived, but financially lucrative, Karegnondi Water Authority and disconnect from the Detroit water system. The plan involved switching temporarily to highly corrosive water from the Flint River, a reckless action that set in motion the crisis.

While racial prejudice and backwardness of all kinds is undoubtedly widespread among the states political and financial elite, that is not the central issue raised by the Flint water crisis. Indeed, many of the officials involved in the poisoning of Flint residents and the subsequent attempt at cover-up were African American. It should be recalled that President Obama traveled to Flint last year to urge residents to resume drinking the citys lead-tainted water.

The contempt for working people expressed by the remarks of Stair reflects the general outlook of the entire political and corporate apparatus. They view the population of Flint as enemies whose resistance to polluted water, utility shutoffs and home foreclosures is nothing short of criminal.

This was expressed in the e-mail remarks of one official from the US Environmental Protection Agency who said, I am not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for, in response to the pleas of Flint residents for help with their lead poisoned water.

Access to safe drinking water, like access to education and health care, is a social right that must be fought for by the united struggle of the working class, black, white and immigrant. All attempts to divide the working class along racial, ethnic or gender lines are reactionary and must be opposed, whether it takes a crude and open form as espoused by individuals like Stair or is advanced in the form of identity politics as promoted by Democratic Party.
The Sri Lankan cabinet this week approved a proposal by President Maithripala Sirisena to call a conference of donors to appeal for international aid to rebuild basic infrastructure and thousands of homes destroyed by recent floods and landslides.

According to the governments initial estimate, the flood and damage bill is around 30 billion rupees ($US200 million) in economic losses and 15 billion rupees in housing damage. This is only about a quarter of the governments huge 184 billion-rupee military expenditure for 2017.

The governments appeal for funds is an indication it will not take responsibility for rebuilding the homes and facilities of workers and the poor, many of whom have lost everything.

The government expects the final death toll will be about 300. On Tuesday, the Disaster Management Centre reported that 212 people were killed and 78 are still missing. Nearly 700,000 people have been affected, with more than 3,000 homes destroyed, 19,500 partially damaged and about 58,000 people relocated to some 300 camps.

Fearful of rising social discontent, Sirisena is visiting different districts in a desperate attempt to show that the government is concerned about the victims. At the same time, the authorities are making plans to remove survivors from their neighbourhoods, claiming their dwellings were illegal structures and caused the floods. The governments aim is to free up these locations, mainly in Colombo and its suburbs, and transform the city into a commercial and financial hub.

Survivors who spoke this week with WSWS reporters said they had not received adequate emergency food supplies and fear destitution. Residents of Pimbura in Kalutara District have refused to leave their homes, despite the danger of landslides. On Tuesday they held a protest demanding that government authorities tell them where they could relocate and what protection they would have.

In other areas, residents denounced the government and its face-saving statements about the disaster. Gamini Nishshanka, a 50-year-old welder from Tibbotuwawa, told the WSWS his family had no place to go. He explained they moved there in 1990, after the then United National Party government offered cheap land to low-income families. Nishshanka purchased a plot of land for 25,000 rupees and spent more than 3 million rupees building a home. His family members are currently sleeping at friends or relatives homes.

I have two sons but they could not go to school until today because of the floods and landslides, Nishshanka said. On television theres talk about hundreds of thousands getting aid but we dont know anyone whos received it.

A young girl said families had received letters from authorities telling them to leave the area. These warning letters, she said, are just eye wash because they dont provide us with any place to go. If something happens, the government can say it issued warnings and claim we didnt listen.

Tibbotuwawa resident, Dilan Sanjeewa Jayasuriya, 34, explained that his five-year-old child had been killed in a landslide. He said villagers were given no official warnings. His sister-in-laws 20-day-old daughter was also killed. Both children died when a section of Pahiyangala Mountain collapsed into the nearby river.

Another villager said: The only people that helped us were the neighbouring villagers. The government didnt do anything. Many people were killed in the recent collapse of the Meethotamulla garbage dump but they are yet to get any compensation. The government has promised 250,000 rupees but no one will get anything.

There was a protest today in Pimbura. People have been ordered to leave the area because of the threat of landslides. But where are they supposed to go? Thats why they are demonstrating. Over 20 people are still buried in the landslide there but the government is not interested in getting the bodies out. Why? Because then it would have to pay compensation.

In the Galle district, Mapalagama residents were hit by severe flooding and are now attempting to rebuild their lives. Although floods regularly affect the area, the problem has worsened every year. The government has refused to take any remedial measures.

P. L. Karunaratne, a postal worker, told the WSWS his home was completely submerged and its external kitchen badly damaged. In the 11 days since the disaster, his seven-member family had received only one 1,500-rupee bag of dry rations. No officials had even bothered to inquire about the damage or offer any suggestion about what the family should do.

Shyama Shalika, Karunaratnes 26-year-old daughter, said the family moved to higher ground as soon as water levels rose. We told the disaster centre as water began rising, and they falsely blamed us for not heeding warnings and going to a safer place, she explained. But if they had warned us we wouldnt face this level of damage.

At Panangala, 58 houses were submerged and one house completely destroyed by an earth slip. One woman detailed her familys plight. Her husband, who worked for the indigenous medicine department, had obtained a 500,000-rupee bank loan to renovate the house. Their home has now been destroyed but there is no indication when or if the authorities will inspect the damage or provide any compensation. Officials have asked us to remove the earth, she said, I cant imagine how well be able to do it.

In Hiniduma, the damage is extensive. All the towns shops were submerged. Shehan, who owns an old building, said people had to run to higher ground. No one has come to assess the losses, he said. I saw on the media that aid is being distributed in some areas but this does not seem to be happening in any reasonable way.

Kalum Eranda, who sells plastic goods and footwear, estimates his losses at about 500,000 rupees. My house has been submerged and everything destroyed. How am I going to face the future? he asked.

M. Aruana, 43, who has three acres of tea, said her land had been inundated and that although the floodwaters had receded, the tea bushes were covered in mud. Similar flooding occurred in 2003, destroying many of his tea plants.

Landslides killed 32 people in Baduraliya, Athvalthota, Diganna and Bellana. Five homes were completely buried and 13 people killed at Vevallandura, near the Kalwana tea estate. A young Tamil man from the estate saved his children from the landslide, but his wife and sister were killed. No one is trying to find their bodies.

A Kalutara District official told the WSWS that his office was attempting to look after 6,300 families or about 25,000 survivors. Twenty-three people from the area had been killed and 10 remain missing. Many areas still faced the danger of big landslides and residents had been evacuated.

The government has made no decision about how these people will be resettled. The dry rations distributed are barely enough for two weeks and there are no adequate gas burners or water tanks.

A resident now living in an emergency camp denounced the government. They asked us to leave our area and so we came here, he said. But who is going to help us? Ultimately we will have to go back to the same place. At least we were able to earn something by plucking tea from our own land.

We cant stay long here because they will not provide us with a home in a safe place. At the most, they will only give us a pittance in compensation.

The authors also recommend:

Floods in Sri Lanka: Government responsible for another social disaster

[5 June 2017]
The latest in a long series of bloody terrorist attacks attributed to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) unfolded in Iran early Wednesday with coordinated armed assaults on the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) and the mausoleum of the late supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, Imam Khomeini. At least 12 people were killed and 43 wounded.

The reactions of the US government and the Western media to the attacks in Tehran stand in stark contrast to their response to the May 22 bombing that killed 22 people at the Manchester Arena and the London Bridge attacks that claimed nine lives last Saturday.

The Trump White House released a vicious statement that effectively justified the killings in Iran, declaring, We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote, an attitude that found its reflection in the relative indifference of the media to the loss of Iranian lives. It is clearly understood that terrorism against Iran serves definite political aims that are in sync with those of US imperialism and its regional allies.

For its part, Tehrans reaction to the attacks was unambiguous. It laid the responsibility at the door of the US and its principal regional ally, Saudi Arabia. This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US president (Donald Trump) and the (Saudi) backward leaders who support terrorists, Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement, published by Iranian media. The attack was understood in Tehran as a political act carried out in conjunction with identifiable state actors and aimed at furthering definite geostrategic objectives.

The same can be said of the earlier acts of terrorism carried out in Manchester and London, as well as those in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere before them.

The Western media routinely treats each of these atrocities as isolated manifestations of evil or religious hatred, irrational acts carried out by madmen. In reality, they are part of an internationally coordinated campaign in pursuit of definite political objectives.

Underlying the violence on the streets of Europe is the far greater violence inflicted upon the Middle East by US, British and French imperialism, working in conjunction with right-wing bourgeois regimes and the Islamist forces they promote, finance and arm.

ISIS is itself the direct product of a series of imperialist wars, emerging as a split-off from Al Qaeda, which got its start in the CIA-orchestrated war by Islamist fundamentalists against the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. It was forged in the US war of aggression against Iraq that killed close to a million Iraqis, and then utilized in the 2011 war to topple Libyas leader Muammar Gaddafi. Fighters and arms were then funneled with the aid of the CIA into the war for regime change in Syria.

The latest round of terror has its source in growing dissatisfaction among Washingtons Middle Eastern allies and its Islamist proxy forces over the slow pace of the US intervention in Syria and Washingtons failure to bring the six-year war for regime change to a victorious conclusion.

The people giving the orders for these attacks live in upper-class neighborhoods in London, Paris and elsewhere, enjoying close connections with intelligence agencies and government officials. Far from being unknown, they will be found among the top ministers and government officials in Damascus if the US-backed war in Syria achieves its objectives.

Those who carry out the terrorist atrocities are expendable assets, foot soldiers who are easily replaced from among the broad layers enraged by the slaughter carried out by imperialism in the Middle East.

The mass media always presents the failure to prevent these attacks as a matter of the security forces failing to connect the dots, a phrase that should by now be permanently banned. In virtually every case, those involved are well known to the authorities.

In the latest attacks in the UK, the connections are astonishing, even given the similar facts that have emerged in previous terrorist actions. One of the attackers in the London Bridge killings, Yousseff Zaghba, was stopped at an Italian airport while attempting to travel to Syria, freely admitting that he wanted to be a terrorist and carrying ISIS literature. Another was featured in a British television documentary that chronicled his confrontation with and detention by police after he unfurled an ISIS flag in Regents Park.

The Manchester suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was likewise well known to British authorities. His parents were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), who were allowed to return to Libya in 2011 to participate in the US-NATO regime-change operation against Muammar Gaddafi. He himself met with Libyan Islamic State operatives in Libya, veterans of the Syrian civil war, and maintained close connections with them while in Manchester.

What has become clear after 16 years of the so-called war on terrorismgoing all the way back to the hijackers of 9/11is that these elements move in and out of the Middle East, Europe and the US itself not only without hindrance, but under what amounts to state protection.

When they arrive at passport control, their names come up with definite instructions that they are not to be stopped. Welcome home, sir, enjoy your vacation in Libya? Bit of tourism in Syria?

Why have they enjoyed this carte blanche? Because they are auxiliaries of US and European intelligence, necessary proxies in wars for regime change from Libya to Syria and beyond that are being waged to further imperialist interests.

If from time to time these elements turn against their sponsors, with innocent civilians paying with their lives, that is part of the price of doing business.

In the aftermath of terrorist actions, governments respond with stepped-up measures of repression and surveillance. Troops are deployed in the streets, democratic rights are suspended, and, as in France, a state of emergency is made the overriding law of the land. All of these measures are useless in terms of preventing future attacks, but serve very well to control the domestic population and suppress social unrest.

If the mass media refuses to state what has become obvious after more than a decade and a half of these incidents, it is a measure of how fully the linkage between terrorism, the Western intelligence agencies and the unending wars in the Middle East has become institutionalized.

Innocent men, women and children, whether in London, Manchester, Paris, Tehran, Baghdad or Kabul, are paying the terrible price for these imperialist operations, which leave a trail of blood and destruction everywhere.

Putting a stop to terrorist attacks begins with a fight to put an end to the so-called war on terrorism, the fraudulent pretext for predatory wars in which Al Qaeda and its offshoots are employed as proxy ground forces, operating in intimate collaboration with imperialist intelligence services and military commands.
Bernie Sanders, the former candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, has toured Britain promoting his book Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.

The Vermont Senator presented himself as an alternative ambassador from the US to Europe in opposition to the Trump administration. Prior to his arrival in the UK, on May 31, he spoke at Berlins Free University. In Britain, he spoke at events in Brighton, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Powys, and Brixton, London.

Sanders visit coincided with the run-up to polling day in the June 8 general election and he gave his endorsement to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. At the Brighton Festival, he said of Corbyn, What has impressed meand there is a real similarity between what he [Corbyn] has done and what I didis he has taken on the establishment of the Labour Party, he has gone to the grassroots and he has tried to transform that party and that is exactly what I am trying to do.

Members of Sanders team have been heavily involved in Labours election campaign, working with Momentum, the activist network supporting Corbyn.

At the Brixton event, Labour MP David Lammy said during the Q&A session he had just received a text from Corbyn inviting Sanders to return to Britain after he formed a government. Sanders replied he would be absolutely delighted.

There is indeed a real similarity between Sanders and Corbyn.

Sanders played a vital political role in safeguarding the American political establishment last year, driving a leftward movement of millions, particularly young people, into the dead-end of the Democratic Party. He won 13 million votes across 23 states in the primary elections to select the Democratic Presidential candidate, on the basis of his claim that he was a democratic socialist opposed to the billionaire class. Losing narrowly, he then called on his supporters to back Hillary Clinton, the favoured candidate of Wall Street.

This paved the way for a presidential contest between her and Donald Trump, the two most reviled candidates in American history. So despised were Clinton and the Democrats in significant layers of the working population that the fascistic billionaire Trump was able to emerge the victor.

Sanders book Our Revolution shares its title with the organisation set up by his team following their defeat in the Democratic primaries. As the World Socialist Web Site explained, There is nothing revolutionary about Our Revolution, the task of which was to divert opposition to the American political system and capitalism into the cesspool of the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Corbyn plays the same role in the UK, seeking to prevent the collapse of a despised right-wing, pro-war, pro-capitalist Labour Party. Since he became leader in 2015, Corbyn has made repeated concessions to the right-wing Blairites in the leadershipensuring it is they who determine party policywhile claiming that a progressive transformation of Labour is underway. If he had not done so, then Labour would have faced collapse.

Sanders constant references to the working class during his promotional tour were made necessary by deep socialist traditions in the British working class. But they were purely rhetorical. Explaining in Brixton how the average American worker earned less today than 40 years ago, despite an explosion of technology, Sanders had no answer as to why this was the case beyond the greed of the billionaire class or oligarchy.

The content of Sanders political revolution and radical transformation of the Democratic Party is based on a thin gruel of minimal reforms and maximum moralising.

In Brixton, he reiterated his call for the breakup of the big banks and a crackdown on tax evasion. The first of these policies is counterposed to bringing the USs finance institutions into public ownership for the provision of social needs, as part of a socialist programme for a workers government. Sanders policy preserves private ownership of the banks and the continued accumulation of vast profit. The policy is, in fact, supported by sections of the US ruling elite concerned by the destabilizing impact of too big to fail banking. His call for a crackdown on tax evasion advocates only that the super-rich pay their fair share of taxes, dont get too greedy and discredit the system that serves them very well.

This acceptance of capitalist rule while asking the super-rich to scale back their avarice mirrors the For the many, not the few slogan of Corbyns election manifesto.

The fundamental programme uniting Sanders and Corbyn is economic nationalism. This week, Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey outlined the partys programme for industrial patriotism, based on the greatness of the British people and our history and aimed at ensuring that the products and services we create are manufactured and delivered here in Britain. Labours plans to recreate a British industrial base centre on proposals for an alliance of working people with their big business exploiters, mediated through the trade unions, in opposition to the UKs global rivals.

Labours manifesto also confirms that free movement will end after Britain exits the European Union, with Corbyn stating that managed migration will be imposed. Such immigration as is allowed to continue will be that which is most profitable to British corporations.

Sanders likewise champions class-collaborationist policies for American industry against its international competitors. He places the blame for falling incomes on low-wage competition, rather than on the capitalist drive for the highest rate of exploitation. Within 24 hours of Trump winning the election, he said, If he is serious about creating jobs in America and not in China, I will work with him.

Sanders made clear in Brixton that his main concern about Trump was the damage he might do to the perceived legitimacy of the American state, its media and that of capitalist democracy itself. Trumps recklessness and the staggering growth of US and global inequality are considered by Sanders a dangerous source of social tensions.

All Republicans cut taxes and social spending, he said. The key difference with Trump was his attack on the US media and judiciaryboth referenced uncriticallyand his association with dictators across the world. This category referenced particularly Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Sanders claimedechoing the Democrats nationalist, anti-Russian crusadehad been involved in cyber-attacks on European and US elections.

In Brixton, he said a central reason for Trumps victory was that millions of working people had been left behind and that the Democrats had lost the election, as opposed to Trump winning it. But aside from this correct statement, the Obama administrations attacks on workers living standards for eight years were passed over in silence along with its warmongering. Instead, Obama was praised for supposedly turning around the American economy.

Sanders was keen to conceal his role in supporting Clinton and allowing Trump to win. In the Brixton Q&A, he said in answer to a question that it wasnt a worthwhile exercise to go back and discuss the election. This was even as he was forced to acknowledge, almost all the polls that were done when I was still a candidate had me beating Trump by a larger margin than Clinton.

At the Cambridge Union, Sanders went out of his way to praise Clinton, stating, Ive known Hillary Clinton for now 25 years. We served in the Senate together. In the campaign we had our differences of opinion but I have a lot of respect for Secretary Clinton, did then and do now.

The author also recommends:

Nothing revolutionary about Sanders Our Revolution

[29 August 2016]

Bernie Sanders declares willingness to work with Trump

[11 November 2016]
It was reported last week that the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture is being retrieved from executive agencies in the Trump administration. Congressional Republicans have demanded the confiscation of all copies of the report in order to cover up and, if possible, erase entirely the record of the investigation into the agencys torture program.

A heavily redacted executive summary of the report was released to the public in December of 2014, but the full 6,700-page Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agencys Detention and Interrogation Program remains secret. Only a limited number of copies were made, which were distributed to a handful of federal executive agencies. Since 2015, when the US Senate passed into the hands of the Republican Party, the new committee Chairman Richard Burr has led efforts to suppress the report, declaring that the report should become a footnote to history.

In a statement released June 2, Burr declared, I have directed my staff to retrieve copies of the congressional study that remain with the executive branch agencies and, as the committee does with all classified and compartmented information, will enact the necessary measures to protect the sensitive sources and methods contained within the report.

The 525-page executive summary documents the secret rendition and torture program launched during the Bush administration, as well as subsequent efforts to cover up the agencys crimes. Even with its extensive redactions, the summary paints a picture of the CIA as a globe-spanning criminal conspiracy, deceiving, kidnapping, torturing and murdering its way around the world with impunity. In a network of secret dungeons in various countries, its agents gave free reign to their violent and porno-sadistic impulses.

Among the facts presented in the executive summary are the following:

 The report introduced the broader public to the sadistic practice of rectal feeding, in which pureed food is pumped into the victims rectum without evidence of medical necessity. One medical officer described the brutal technique: you get a tube up as far as you can, then open the IV wide. No need to squeeze the baglet gravity do the work. In one case, a torture victim was diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse. In other words, his large intestine was protruding from his body.

 Around 22 percent of the individuals kidnapped and tortured by the CIA did not meet the standard for detention. In other words, even according to the CIAs own policies, many of the victims were entirely innocent and the CIA knew it.

 In November 2002, Gul Rahman, a blameless victim who was apparently mistaken for someone else, was murdered at the secret COBALT torture camp in Afghanistan. Rahman was shackled to the wall of his cell in a position that required the detainee to rest on the bare concrete floor, and the warden had ordered that Rahmans clothing be removed when he had been judged to be uncooperative during an earlier interrogation. He died of hypothermia. The CIA subsequently presented the warden with a cash award of $2,500, praising him for his consistently superior work.

 The regime of torture, degradation and humiliation took its toll on the victims physically as well as mentally. The victims developed psychological and behavioral issues, including hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempts at self-harm and self-mutilation. One victim, as a result of repeated waterboarding, became hysterical and distressed to the level that he was unable to effectively communicate.

The committees report characterizes the CIA as a collection of bumbling incompetents when it comes to actually gathering intelligence, tangled up in their own deceptions, preoccupied with petty intrigues and turf wars, and constantly misleading the rest of the state as to their activities.

During the committees investigation into its torture program, the CIA was combative and belligerent throughout, resentful of any semblance of democratic oversight, destroying evidence, lying shamelessly, provoking and threatening its would-be overseers. At one point it hacked into Senate computers in an effort to delete incriminating files.

The Trump administration apparently intends to comply with the requests to return copies of the report. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has returned the report. The CIA and its inspector generals office have also returned the report. Additional copies are believed to be held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, the Justice Department and the Department of Defense.

President Trump, for his part, boasted during his election campaign that he would encourage torture, which is defined as a war crime under international law. Would I approve waterboarding? You bet your ass Id approve it, in a heartbeat, he declared at one rally. And I would approve more than that. The day after his inauguration, Trump visited CIA headquarters to pledge his love and 1,000 percent support for the agency.

Instead of prosecuting the criminals exposed by the report, the American government is doing the oppositetracking down and confiscating the evidence. Indeed, Burrs reference to the need to protect the sensitive methods contained within the report suggests that torture, murder and war crimes are methods that the US intelligence agencies plan to continue to employ in the futureand in secret.

In their efforts to suppress the report, Burr and his co-conspirators have been emboldened by the positions taken by the Obama administration, which opposed the investigation throughout. From the moment Obama took office, under the mantra of looking forwards not backwards, he refused to investigate or prosecute CIA torturers. The Obama administration took no action when the CIA destroyed evidence or hacked into Senate computers in an effort to destroy evidence.

Once the report was prepared, the Obama administration tried to delay its publication until 2015, in hopes that the new Republican leadership in Congress would abandon or bury the project. During his last two years in office, his administration litigated against any effort to secure the reports release under the Freedom of Information Act, including by vigorously opposing a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Obama administration rested on close ties with the CIA, employing the agency for its campaign of terror and mass murder using drones in the Middle East. During the 2016 elections, none of the Democratic Partys presidential contenders, including Bernie Sanders, called for the prosecution of torturers. Hillary Clinton bragged of her support in the intelligence community, relying on the support of the intelligence agencies to attack Trump as being insufficiently belligerent with respect to Russia.

Only one copy of the report appears likely to survive the attempt to erase the history of the torture program. In December of last year, federal district Judge Royce Lamberth, sensing which way the winds were blowing, ordered a complete copy to be preserved.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is one of the most powerful institutions in the legislative branch. The formal title of the committee is United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reflecting the fact that eight of its 15 members consist of two members (one from each party) of the Senate Appropriations, Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees. The fact that such a prominent body in the government issued such a damning report on the CIA, only to have it essentially overruled by the CIA and its allies, demonstrates how illusory and threadbare the forms of democratic rule are in America.

It goes without saying that if a working class youth in any number of Americas poverty-stricken cities is caught shoplifting or possessing illicit drugs, the state prosecution is swift and merciless. If that youth is suspected of committing a particularly heinous crime, sections of the corporate media squeal for the death penalty. But 6,700 pages of evidence of CIA criminality of the most cold-blooded and bestial character results in the prosecution of exactly nobody. The only person convicted and jailed to date in connection with CIA torture is former agent John Kiriakou, who was prosecuted for publicly acknowledging that torture had occurred.

The fact that the CIA criminals who perpetrated these atrocities have walked around free for years after their crimes were exposed, with scarcely a word about it breathed in the media, and without any political figure calling for their arrest and prosecution, is one of the greatest scandals in American history. Instead, the CIA and its political allies are browbeating their critics while they confiscate the evidence in broad daylight. One torturer, James E. Mitchell, contributed an article to the Wall Street Journal in December 2016 in which he bragged that waterboarding works and characterized himself as a patriot.

The fate of the Senate Intelligence Committees report is a historical milestone in the collapse of the rule of law and the emergence of a police state in America. Words like rot, decay, erosion in connection with Americas democratic institutions no longer seem adequate. The American government functions ever more openly as a crude instrument of plunder, money-making, war and repression in the hands of the military/intelligence/corporate-financial elite.
The German cabinet has decided to transfer some 260 German soldiers, along with Tornado reconnaissance aircraft and a tanker aircraft, to Jordan from the Turkish air base at Incirlik.

In view of the fact that Turkey is currently unable to allow German parliamentarians visits to Incirlik, the cabinet has today agreed that we will move the Bundeswehr [Armed Forces] from Incirlik to Jordan, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU, Christian Democratic Union) said following the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

A parliamentary vote on the continuation of the operation against the Islamic State (IS), in which the Bundeswehr has been involved since the end of 2015, and which is also directed against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad, was not necessary, she said. The unanimous opinion was that there is no need for a new mandate, because the [existing] mandate itself does not specify Incirlik as a base, but the area of deploymentand that concerns Syria and Iraq and the neighbouring states. Von der Leyen said the German military deployment in Syria and Iraq would continue from Jordan.

The withdrawl of German troops from Turkey is a foreign policy watershed. It is the first time that a NATO member has withdrawn its forces from a support base in another member state due to political conflicts.

The US-led military alliance was critical about the planned withdrawal of the Bundeswehr. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was in regular contact with the Turkish and German governments regarding this issue, and it was regrettable that this matter could not be resolved otherwise, a NATO spokesman told German daily Die Welt .

The official reason for the German withdrawal is a ban on visits to Incirlik by Bundestag (federal parliament) deputies imposed by the Turkish government, which was not lifted even following the visit of German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD, Social Democratic Party) to Turkey on Monday.

The Turkish government justified this policy attitude by citing Germany granting asylum to Turkish officers who were involved in the failed coup in July 2016. A total of 414 Turkish soldiers, diplomats, judges, and government employees, who are suspected by the Turkish government as being part of the coup, have filed asylum applications in Germany. For Ankara, the Die Welt correspondent Deniz Yucel being detained in Turkey, whose release the German government has called for, is also a matter of terrorism and espionage.

German-Turkish relations were in a deep crisis even before the failed coup attempt against Erdogan, which enjoyed at least the tacit support of some in ruling circles in America and Germany.

In June 2016, the Bundestag passed a resolution describing the mass murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. Erdogan warned at the time that the initiative could lead to damage to the diplomatic, economic, political, and military relations between the two countries, and prohibited Bundestag members from visiting German soldiers stationed at Incirlik.

In recent months, political conflicts between Germany and Turkey have intensified. In the runup to the Turkish constitutional referendum, the German authorities imposed bans on Turkish government members from visiting several cities, and German politicians and the media organized a veritable hate campaign against Turks. In addition to the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Greens and the Left Party were also particularly prominent in the campaign.

Even now, the supposed opposition parties are supporting the decision of the government. In the Left Party newspaper Junge Welt, the Left Party representative in the Bundestag Defence Committee, Alexander Neu, described the announcement by the government as a long overdue step. He wrote, After an eternal back and forth, the government now also seems to have concluded that there is no alternative in the conflict about visitation rights for Bundestag deputies to German soldiers in Incirlik than to withdraw the Bundeswehr from there.

Speaking to broadcaster ARD, Green leader Cem Ozdemir demanded arms supplies to Turkey also be stopped: The only possible answer must now be to make it clear that we are withdrawing the soldiers. I will only believe this government when they are gone. No more support for Incirlik, and an immediate stop to arms supplies to Turkey.

Far-reaching geopolitical questions lie behind the withdrawal of the Bundeswehr from Turkey. In the context of the collapse of the postwar order and growing conflicts between the great powers, German imperialism is feverishly trying to develop as an independent great power and to reorient its strategy for the Middle East.

In particular, representatives of the Greens and the Left Party have long believed that a too close cooperation with Ankara places limits on the operations of German imperialism. They argue for more open cooperation with Kurdish militia such as the PYD, linked with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is banned in Germany, but which plays an important role as a proxy force in the war for regime change in Syria.

In this regard, Left Party spokesperson Katja Kipping warned: Even if the Tornadoes are launched from Jordan, no one can rule out the results of their reconnaissance being passed on to the Turkish army within the framework of NATO, and being used to attack Kurdish units in Syria, which are a real bulwark against the terror of IS.

At the same time, Kipping demanded that thought be given to the exclusion of Turkey from NATO, which was in a deep political crisis. We should seriously discuss whether Turkey can remain a member of NATO. Erdogan posed a blatant security risk and was destroying not only the rule of law and freedom in Turkey, but he is also bolstering the military crisis in Syria and Iraq with his expansionist plans.

The attempt by the Left Party to market German imperialism and NATO as a pacifist alternative to Erdogan is a mockery. Germany has repeatedly participated in NATO and the USAs wars of aggression over the past 25 years and is now increasingly prepared to act against its American ally, further increasing the danger of war.

During his last visit to Washington, Gabriel had threatened that Germany would not only withdraw the Tornado reconnaissance aircraft stationed in Incirlik, but also German crews on the NATO Awacs reconnaissance aircraft at Konya in Turkey. For him, the conflict was far more than a bilateral problem. The Americans were clear what serious consequences it would have for the fight against IS if the Bundeswehr had to be withdrawn there.

Yesterday, Gabriel delivered a vehement denuncation of the Saudi offensive against Qatar, which is supported by President Trump, and which is ultimately aimed at Iran. Gabriel supported the emirate and warned against Trump-ising the Middle East. The recent massive armaments deal of American President Trump with the Gulf monarchies would exacerbate the risk of a new arms race. This was a completely wrong policy, and certainly not Germanys policy.

While Trump and the Saudis are heading towards a confrontation with Tehran, the German government is banking on opening up the country to develop new energy sources and markets for German exports in the Middle East. To impose its interests, Berlin is increasingly ready to forge its own military alliances in the region.
Rahul, along with other Congress leaders, was arrested at Neemuch on Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh when they tried to force their way to reach Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.

By India Today Web Desk: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, who was arrested today on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur, was released on bail later on in the day. He agreed to take bail after the administration allowed him to meet the agitating farmers at the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border.

Along with around 250 Congress leaders, Rahul Gandhi was released and went at the MP-Rajasthan border to meet kin of farmers who died in police firing during clashes.

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While speaking to farmers, he promised to raise the issue in the Parliament saying, "I am with you. Will stand by you. Call me whenever you want, I will come to help you....will raise this issue".

Earlier, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh admitted that the farmers were killed in police firing after initially denying any police action against the protesting farmers. The families want the victims to be declared martyrs.

#RahulGandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders released: SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh. pic.twitter.com/cJlEcNYZu1; Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 8, 2017

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN MANDSAUR After his arrest for "breach of peace" under Section 151, Rahul initially had remained defiant and said he will not seek bail till he is allowed to meet the protesting farmers. Families of the farmers who were killed by the Madhya Pradesh police in firing two days ago were waiting at the gate to meet Rahul but the police refused to allow them meet. Later on an agreement was reached for the two parties to meet near the inter-state border. "Narendra Modi waived loans worth Rs.1,50,000 crore for the richest people in India...," Gandhi said shortly before he was detained by Madhya Pradesh police in Mandasur where five protesting farmers had been shot dead on Tuesday. "But they can't give right rates to the farmers, they cannot give compensation, or bonus, they can give only bullets to the farmers," he said. "Spoke to families of deceased farmers on phone and conveyed my condolences. I am here to meet them and will not be deterred from voicing their concerns," Rahul said. Rahul Gandhi was arrested when he was trying to go to Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmer protests, from Rajasthan. Along with him were other Congress leaders including former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath, and Sachin Pilot. Prevented by the administration from entering violence-hit Mandsaur, Rahul had accused the Narendra Modi government of favouring the rich and giving farmers "only bullets". Asked who was responsible for the killing of farmers, Rahul Gandhi said: "Narendra Modi and Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chauhan)". In a tweet, the Congress leader said: "I just wanted to meet the farmers' families. They did not give any reason, just arrested me." As the situation after farmers' protest improved, curfew was relaxed in Mandsaur from 4 pm to 6 pm today. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh sought to put the blame of the situation in Mandsaur on the Congress saying that the Congress should not forget that they are primarily responsible for the situation of farmers in the country. Madhya Pradesh government open for dialogue with agitating farmers, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar accused the Congress of conspiring to instigate violence in Mandsaur. He dubbed Rahul Gandhi's decision to visit the state as part of his "irresponsible behaviour".

Also watch:

Modi can waive off rich people's debt worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore, but cant waive off farmers' loans: Rahul GandhiAlso read:

Madhya Pradesh farmers protest: How Mandsaur is a repeat of Multai 19 years later

Mandsaur: Here's what led to Madhya Pradesh farmers protest

--- ENDS ---
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Lawmakers are planning to pick up where they left off on the medical marijuana discussion and consider a bill on how it will be distributed.

The medical marijuana issue was not included in Governor Rick Scott's initial call for a special legislative session.

One of the key sticking points between the house and senate has involved how many retail outlets the state's licensed medical-marijuana operators could run.

The senate favored a limit of 15 storefronts for each vendor, while the house backed a proposal that would have permitted up to 100.

The new deal would allow each marijuana operator to run up to 25 dispensaries throughout the state. State Senator Rob Bradley is sponsoring the medical marijuana legislation.

Today's proposal also would do away with a 90-day waiting period for patients before doctors can order the treatment, something backers of the constitutional amendment have demanded.

Without legislative action, the Florida Department of Gealth would be in charge of medical-marijuana regulations.
(WTVM) - The Georgia Department of Insurance is investigating an insurance fraud ring that spans across three cities in West Georgia.

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens is calling this one of the largest auto insurance fraud rings in the state of Georgia.

More than 26 people are under investigation throughout in Columbus, Lumpkin, and Richland. A total of 10 people has been arrested for filing false auto insurance claims.

All 26 people will be prosecuted by the Muscogee County district attorney's office. All 26 suspects are facing a total of 326 charges, ranging from insurance fraud, racketeering and identity fraud.

The suspects reportedly purchased liability insurance and backed out of driveways into other cars. The allegedly reported the false accidents to insurance companies. The payout was $155,925 from 12 different insurance companies. Insurance companies victimized by the scam included GEICO, State Farm, Nationwide, Safe Auto, Allstate, Progressive, USAA, Georgia Farm Bureau, Safeway, Everest National, Direct Auto, and General Insurance.

Warrants have been issued for the following suspects:

Devonta Waddy, 24  Lumpkin, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

23 Counts of Insurance Fraud

15 Counts of Theft By Deception

13 Counts of Identity Fraud

7 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Rodney R. Lockett, 25  Columbus, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

19 Counts of Insurance Fraud

14 Counts of Theft By Deception

11 Counts of Identity Fraud

5 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Maurice Young, 34  Americus, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

20 Counts of Insurance Fraud

10 Counts of Theft By Deception

11 Counts of Identity Fraud

3 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Kamesha Lockett, 23  Lumpkin, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

10 Counts of Insurance Fraud

8 Counts of Theft By Deception

6 Counts of Identity Fraud

5 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

(List continues below)

Nekito Jones, 40  Richland, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

3 Counts of Insurance Fraud

1 Counts of Theft By Deception

2 Counts of Identity Fraud

Terry Lyn Jones Johnson, 45  Richland, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

11 Counts of Insurance Fraud

10 Counts of Theft By Deception

6 Counts of Identity Fraud

3 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Jasmine D. Pollard, 24  Richland, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

7 Counts of Insurance Fraud

6 Counts of Theft By Deception

6 Counts of Identity Fraud

Jason D. Martain, 23  Columbus, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

4 Counts of Insurance Fraud

4 Counts of Theft By Deception

3 Counts of Identity Fraud

1 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Safia A Streetman, 40  Columbus, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

3 Counts of Insurance Fraud

2 Counts of Theft By Deception

Leroy L. Johnson, 49  Richland, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

3 Counts of Insurance Fraud

2 Counts of Theft By Deception

2 Counts of Identity Fraud

2 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

KeShawn Pollard, 23  Richland, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

2 Counts of Insurance Fraud

2 Counts of Theft By Deception

2 Counts of Identity Fraud

2 Counts of Exploitation of an Elder Person

Kenya N. Daniels, 24  Albany, GA

3 Counts of Insurance Fraud

3 Counts of Theft By Deception

1 Counts of Identity Fraud

(List continues below)

Brittany C. Green, 28 - St. Marys, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

4 Counts of Insurance Fraud

2 Counts of Theft By Deception

Deidra S. Holmes, 35  Cuthbert, GA

1 Count of Racketeering

2 Counts of Insurance Fraud

2 Counts of Theft By Deception

1 Counts of Identity Fraud

Devonta D. Josey, 23  Richland, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

Deandre R. Nelson, 26 - Buena Vista, GA

2 Counts of Insurance Fraud

Shalawn L. Williams, 42 - East Point, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

1 Count of Identity Fraud

Timothy M. Lewis, 25  Columbus, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

Emory C. Stevens, Jr., 27  Columbus, GA

2 Counts of Insurance Fraud

Mackery A. Strong, 28  Columbus, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

Corderro D. Thomas, 24  Lumpkin, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

1 Count of Identity Fraud

Moses Jackson, 32  Lumpkin, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

Tremaine J. Johnson, 34 - Phoenix City, AL

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

Angelia E. Jones, 49  Columbus, GA

2 Counts of Insurance Fraud

1 Counts of Theft By Deception

Chandra Michelle Jones, 44  Richland, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

1 Count of Identity Fraud

Annie P. Wright, 56  Lumpkin, GA

1 Count of Insurance Fraud

1 Count of Theft By Deception

(Story continues below)

The director of Fraud Investigations for the state says this was a 16-month investigation and they aren't stopping until all 26 are in custody.

MOBILE USERS: Download our WTXL news app on your Apple and Android devices for the latest from South Georgia and North Florida. Also, download our WTXL Weather Now app for Apple and Android devices to get the latest local weather wherever you go.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - The Tallahassee Police Department says that a home invasion turned into a homicide at College Club Townhomes on Tuesday.

They said that an investigation revealed the suspects arrived an apartment with the intent to commit an armed robbery.

The residents inside used a gun to protect themselves from the suspects.

One of the armed robbers, Laron Fryson, was shot and later pronounced deceased at the hospital. Another suspect, Alvin Green, sustained non-life threatening injuries and was hospitalized.

A third suspect, Tony Hill, sustained no injuries.

As a result of an investigation, TPD has charged Alvin Green and Tony Hill with homicide and home invasion robbery.

The Violent Crimes Unit is also investigating another home invasion robbery on Stone Road on June 6 at 8:15 p.m. to determine if it is related to the homicide on South Adams Street.

Tallahassee Police Violent Crimes Unit Investigators are continuing the investigation of the Homicide and are asking community members with information about the case to please call them at (850) 891-4200 or to remain anonymous, please call CrimeStoppers at (850) 556-1726.
TIFT COUNTY, Ga (WTXL) - Tift County Deputies have identified the driver killed in an car crash.

Authorities say 43 year-old Jeremy Jones, of Waynesboro, Georgia, hit a tractor-trailer with his pickup truck.

Officials say, it happened on U.S. 319 and Old Omega Road on the night of Tuesday, June 6.

Jones died on scene, his passenger was flown to the hospital.

Georgia State Patrol are handling the investigation.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Authorities say that roads have been closed at the 3400 block of North Meridian Road at John Hancock Drive.

The Florida Department of Emergency Management says that the road has been closed due to flooding.

The Tallahassee Police Department also reported that southbound on Old Bainbridge Road has been closed between Setting Sun Boulevard and San Damian Road.

The road has been closed due to traffic issues and downed power lines.

The northbound lane is open.

We will continue to update road closures here.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A group with a mission similar to the Ku Klux Klan has been operating in Tallahassee, actively looking for more members.

The "Republic of Florida" hails itself as a white nationalist group that encourages militia training.

The Leon County Sheriff's Office says it knows about the group and its members, but it's not considered to be actively monitoring.

The group, based in Tallahassee, is asking residents to fight the government, push for secession and return to a white "ethno-state" - encouraging armed combat training for potential battle as part of 10 codes members must follow. Others include allegiance to European lineage and forbidding interracial and same-sex relationships.

The Southern Poverty Law Center listed the group as part of its "Hatewatch" in 2015, but now, there seems to be a resurgence.

"I really feel like they're not any different from a terrorist group in the Middle East or anywhere else -- or even just like a gang," said Tallahassee resident Jay Godin in a phone interview with WTXL Tuesday.

About a month ago, Godin said members of the group started attacking his friends on social media. When he stepped in to try and educate the group, he said members threatened him.

"[They] told me to come out to Apalachee Parkway at the Walmart where they distribute their propaganda, and 'we could settle it then,'" Godin said.

On its website, the Republic of Florida vows to "fight to the death" for their rights and that the federal government will "never look out for their best interests."

Godin says it's this type of mentality that could turn into something very dangerous.

"We're in a time where we should all be trying to work together," he said. "These people try to push a stake even further into a divide that already exists."

WTXL reached out to the "Republic of Florida" for comment, but the group was unavailable at the time the report was aired.
Rajasthan police said they will examine whether any traffic rules were violated by Rahul Gandhi.

By India Today Web Desk: As Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was about to enter into Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan in a large convoy of Congress leaders and under NSG security cover, a team of cops were all geared up to stop his entry at a toll plaza.

Seeing this, Rahul came with a plan B. He left his car and took a bike to cross the interstate border and successfully gave security personnel a slip to enter MP's Neemuch district nearing Mandsaur where five protesting farmers have been killed in a police firing.

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Rajasthan police said they will examine whether any traffic rules were violated by the Congress leader.

Chittorgarh SP Prasanna Khamesra said Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillion rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda till the Madhya Pradesh border.

At the border, Rahul had alighted from the bike and walked into Madhya Pradesh, he said.

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS; ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

TRIPLE-RIDING AND HELMET MISSING

The police official told PTI that there were reports that at one point of time, there were three passengers including Gandhi on the motorcycle. The pillion rider also needs to wear a helmet, he said.

A party activist was seen driving the bike. Congress leader Sachin Pilot also took a motorcycle to accompany his leader.

"We will look into whether any traffic violation was committed," he said.

DSP Gopi Chand also said that the matter will be looked into.

Rahul Gandhi had reached Udaipur by a chartered plane in the morning and from there left for Chittorgarh from where he entered Madhya Pradesh to meet the families of farmers who had died during recent protests in Mandsaur.

Also read:

Rahul Gandhi released after bail, meets kin of farmers killed by police at MP-Rajasthan border

Rahul Gandhi likely to take over as Congress chief in October

Also watch:

Out on bail, Rahul Gandhi meets farmers, assures them of full support

--- ENDS ---
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By Pramod Madhav: Reiterating the Congress' stance from 2013, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said the BJP and RSS follow Hitler's "one nation, one fuhrer" ideology and hence, don't "understand India," while speaking to party workers in Chennai.

"The varying thousands of cultures of India is the strength of the land, but BJP and RSS think of it as its weakness. Hitler used to say 'One Nation, One Fuhrer', same way they want one rule. This is why I fight BJP and RSS as they don't understand India," said Rahul while meeting his party men at Congress headquarters in Sathyamoorthy Bhavan.

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Rahul was visiting Chennai for DMK chief Karunanidhi's birthday, but he stayed for a night and met his party men on Sunday. "People reflect their pain in their own mother tongue. Every single part of India has its own culture and feelings. My opposition to Narendra Modi and RSS is based on that," he said at the event.

Rahul also accused the BJP of "believing the entire universe's knowledge comes out of Narendra Modi's head." "When Modi speaks they feel like God is speaking," he said.

Rahul said he's begun to read Upanishads to help his verbal battles with RSS ideologues. "Nowadays because I'm fighting them, I'm reading Upanishads and Gita. When I go to Parliament, RSS people come there sometimes and I ask them, 'my friend you opressing people but in the Upanishads it is written that all the people are the same. How come you're contradicting what you're own religion is saying?'"

Rahul claimed that if RSS ideologues don't have an answer, they simply avoid his question by saying "he will not understand." "I'm fighting for the basic space for every citizen to excercise his culture," Rahul said.

To the surprise of many, however, Rahul's speech was considered to have come a bit late, with all the political tension simmering in Tamil Nadu. Rahul was also not keen on annnouncing any alliance with DMK, except for stating, "secular forces would come together to fight."

--- ENDS ---
It was a simple act of kindness by a complete stranger, but it left a lasting impression on a young Polish boy escaping the horrors of Nazi death camps.

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Steve Ross searched for decades for the US soldier that had comforted and fed him as Dachau concentration camp was being liberated by Allied forces in 1945. As Ross carved out a new life in America, he retold the story countless times, carrying with him the American flag handkerchief the soldier left him.

Photo: AP

"My father was absolutely transformed by that small act," said Michael Ross, a former Boston City Council president and onetime mayoral candidate. "It helped him regain his faith in humanity. It shows that these things we do in life have profound consequences; that how we treat each other matters."

Ross' search for the benevolent soldier and his life after the war is recounted in a new documentary screened in the Boston suburb of West Newton on Wednesday evening.

"Etched in Glass: The Legacy of Steve Ross" focuses on the five years Ross spent in concentration camps to his life as a war orphan in America, his career helping at-risk youths in Boston and his successful efforts to erect the striking glass New England Holocaust Memorial in downtown Boston.

Boston Holocaust memorial (Photo: AP)

Boston Holocaust memorial (Photo: AP)

Ross, now 90 and his speech limited by a stroke, attended Wednesday's screening with his family, the filmmakers and members of the soldier's family.

"It's not your typical Holocaust film," said Roger Lyons, the director of the nearly hour-long film. "Steve is a unique person. He took his second life and he really ran with it."

After serving in the US Army during the Korean War, Ross became a social worker helping youths in some of Boston's toughest housing projects.

Holocaust survivor Steve Ross, right, is helped with his jacket by his son Mike Ross, behind, as they prepare to depart Steven Ross' home in Newton, Mass., to attend the premier of the film "Etched in Glass: The Legacy of Steve Ross." (Photo: AP)

In his later years, he would talk to high school students about his Holocaust experience and address swearing in-ceremonies for new US citizens. Dressed in garb similar to what prisoners wore in the death camps, he would faithfully recount the story of the kind soldier and carefully unfurl the American flag handkerchief.

"Most survivors don't want to talk about their experience," Lyons said. "Steve was the opposite. He was an open faucet."

As the documentary details, Ross' search for the soldier was featured on the popular television show "Unsolved Mysteries" in 1989. But it wasn't until decades later that the family of Lt. Steve Sattler, who died in 1986, connected the dots.

Holocaust survivors Israel Arbeiter, left, and Steve Ross, right, greet one another at a theater before the premier of the film "Etched in Glass: The Legacy of Steve Ross," in West Newton, Mass. (Photo: AP)

The film captures the emotional moment when the two families met at a Veterans Day ceremony at the Massachusetts State House in 2012.

Sattler's granddaughter, Brenda Sattler, who played a key role in making the connection, says the bond forged between the two families has been surreal.

"The biggest impact to me is being proud of grandpa for being that soldier," said Sattler, who flew in from Anchorage, Alaska, to attend Wednesday's screening.

In this undated World War II-era photograph provided by Many Hats Productions, Holocaust survivor Steve Ross wears a Nazi prison camp uniform. (Photo: AP)

"It's a lesson to just be kind," added Sattler's daughter, Gwen Sattler Allanson, who traveled from San Diego, California. "You have no idea what people are going through. Take a moment and reach out and maybe you can turn that person's world around."
Iran is not the only country in the world which supports terror, but it is undoubtedly in the first place, way above everyone else. It doesnt settle for Shiite terror and Hezbollah funding. Its vision is much wider. For years, it served as Hamas oxygen pipeline, together with Qatar. In recent months, it has been renewing its relations with the strips leadership.

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The jihad terror creates paradoxes. After all, the common assumption is that terror targets heretics, in a bid to impose Sharia laws as part of the global caliphate. This assumption is wrong. Because the more Muslim a certain place is, the more religious it is, the more burkas and mosques it has and the more obedience to religious lawsthe more it is hit by terror and destruction, produced by jihad.

Sunni terror mostly strikes northern Nigeria, in areas dominated by Sharia laws. It also strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the victims are usually Muslims who identify more with the jihadists who are massacring them than with the opponents of jihad. And terror strikes Turkey as well, although it is becoming more and more Islamic.

Police forces outside Iranian parliament building. Iran is helping those who help a branch of the organization that attacked Tehran on Wednesday (Photo: Reuters)

Now, terror has also reached the ayatollah regimes government centers. This time, it appears to make sense: Sunnis versus Shiites. After all, they are engaged in a bloody war in Syria and Iraq. There is a paradox, however, in this case too. Because Iran, the same Iran, is an ally of bodies like the IHH, the Turkish organization which led the Mavi Marmara ship to Gaza, and of Hamas of course. These two bodies are linked both to Iran and to the Islamic State and/or al-Qaeda and/or satellite organizations of these bodies. Hamas is connected to Ansar al-Maqdis, the terror organization which is active in northern Sinai, which has also pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIS leader. The IHH is also connected to the jihad bodies. So Iran is helping those who help a branch of the organization that attacked Tehran on Wednesday.

Wheres the logic? Its slightly difficult to find it when it comes to these bodies. Its a quagmire, and whoever enters it is asking for trouble. We didnt have to wait for terror to reach Tehran to know that the absolute majority of the victims of terror are Muslims.

Nevertheless, there is an innovation in what happened on Wednesday, because ISIS scored a prestigious achievement. It managed to enter the sanctuary of the Shiite capital and execute a combined and sophisticated terror attack. The fact that Iran is blaming Saudi Arabia, and promising revenge, points both to helplessness and to an attempt to make excuses for the failure. There is a certain change here too, because the accusing finger is usually pointed at Israel. In any event, it just guarantees a new and growing round of violence. Muslims will keep massacring Muslims. It has been happening in the past decade, and its likely exactly what will happen in the coming years.
Palestinians have been outraged over the past two day by reports of a new Israeli outpost being built near the village of Deir Istiya in the Samaria region of the West Bank, only to learn the "outpost" was actually a movie set.

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Nazmi Salman, a known Palestinian activist in Deir Istiya, was behind the false reports. He claimed a group of settlers, which he believed were from the nearby Nofim settlement, hastily built an outpost on lands near Khirbet Shihada.

The movie set mistaken for an outpost (Photo: Roee Hadi)

Salman said the "settlers" also started work on a road connecting Nofim to the new "outpost."

Farmers from Deir Istiya said any attempt to come near the site was stopped by armed guards.

Salman's photo of the new 'outpost' (Photo: Nazmi Salman)

Salman's report spread quickly and was even featured in several major news outlets in the Palestinian Authority, including the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

But it later transpired that the "outpost" was actually a temporary set of a movie featuring children's star Yuval Shemtov, known as Yuval HaMebulbal (Yuval the Confused), scheduled for release in the summer of 2018.

Yuval HaMebulbal (in the center wearing a red hat) with Samaria Regional Council head Dagan and children on the set of the movie (Photo: Roee Hadi)





Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, who is working to bring Israeli productions to the area, said, "We made it our goal to bring Samaria into the heart of Israeli consensus. Part of that is bringing Israeli cinema to Samaria. I believe that after this movie, more movies will be filmed here. There are a lot of open spaces here with a variety of breathtaking views and a welcoming population that is happy to help and take part. I believe we can make the Samaria Israel's cultural capital."
A rabbi who heads an ulpana (religious girls' high school) has been arrested after sending a threatening text message to the head of the IDF Manpower Directorate, advising him to "Remember what befell Pharaoh."

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The message was not sent from a blocked number, making it easier on police to track the rabbi.

The rabbi sent the threatening message to Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz several weeks ago, when the Chardal sector (ultra-Orthodox Zionists) was waging war against the IDF and Almoz for drafting religious girls into the army and even placing some in combat roles.

Head of the IDF's Manpower Directorate Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Police asked the Tiberias Magistrate's Court to extend the rabbi's remand by five days, explaining they wanted to investigate whether he was also behind threats made against Almoz in his home town last month, when ultra-Orthodox men handed out leaflets inciting to violence over the drafting of Haredim to the IDF.

Among other things, the leaflets threatened Almoz that "Your end will be as bitter as that of Hitler and his friends."

Leaflet inciting to violence against Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz

An ultra-Orthodox man was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of being involved in the printing and distribution of these leaflets.

"The head of the Manpower Directorate is not a regular person, he's a senior officer in the IDF. If he made a certain decision, others should not try to influence him with threatening messages," a police representative said in court during the rabbi's remand extension hearing.

The rabbi's lawyer, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said his client, who served in the IDF, occasionally gives lectures to senior military officers.

Ben-Gvir asserted that "The police's conduct demonstrates how much they need a refresher course about the freedom of expression, and how they need to learn to get to know the different parts of Israeli society. The Northern District Police doesn't understand the difference between a rabbi who heads an ulpana and fought in Israel's wars and Neturei Karta (an extremist anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox faction)."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is willing to temporarily shelve his demand to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank as a precondition for peace talks with Israel, his financial advisor Mohammad Mustafa told Bloomberg in an interview published on Thursday.

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Abbas, Mustafa said, will also tone down his international campaign to take Israelis to The Hague for war crimes and promote resolutions at the UN condemning Israel.

"We have not made the settlements an up-front issue this time," Mustafa said. "We think its better for all of us right now to focus on giving this new (American) administration a chance to deliver."

Trump meets with Abbas in Bethlehem (Photo: EPA)

Mohammad Shtayyeh, another senior Abbas aide and a member of the policy making Central Committee in the Fatah party, told Bloomberg that US President Donald Trump gained the Palestinians' trust when he, like his predecessors, signed a temporary waiver to keep the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

"There is a new dynamic. The embassy issue is behind us," Shtayyeh said.

He claimed that "With this administration, the White House is engaged and that's a huge difference," but stressed, "That doesn't mean I'm optimistic."

After being encouraged by Trump's decision not to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, Abbas has reportedly expressed to the Americans willingness to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without preconditions and has shown willingness to restart peace talks.

Nevertheless, Palestinian officials have expressed concern in private conversations that the Americans are pushing too hard to resume negotiations without first studying the issue properly.
Just a few days ago, Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, said that the alliance between Iran, Russia, the Syrian regime, Iraq and Hezbollah is not temporary.

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"ISIS will change the geography of its operations from Syria and Iraq, and will move to other places," said Shamkhani, who added that the nature of the threat of ISIS will transition from the conquest of territory to terrorism.

ISIS attack outside Iranian parliament

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The twin terror attacks in Tehran on Wednesdaywhich killed 13 people and wounded 43is a realization of Shamkhani's prophecy. As long as ISIS continues to lose territory, it becomes less of a state entity and more a terrorist organization that puts emphasis on "quality" terrorist attacks against enemies.

US President Donald Trump used the attack as an opportunity to rebuke Iran, two weeks after signing one of the largest arms deals in history with Iran's bitter enemy, Saudi Arabia.

"Burn the land from over their feet" ISIS threatens Iran

Trump said he prayed for the victims of Wednesday's attacks, but added, "States that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Iran, which blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack and vowed revenge, is considered one of the Sunni terror group's most bitter enemies. The reason for that is Iran represents Shiite hegemony in the region, which in ISIS' view, succeeded in taking control of Syria and Iraq and marginalized the Sunni community.

Iranian military parade (Photo: AP)

ISIS' focus on Shiites did not just manifest itself in one day. During the days of al-Qaeda, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi carried out serious attacks against Shiites in Iraq and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi regularly makes speeches denouncing the branch of Islam and Iran.

'Persia from yesterday to tomorrow'

In a video published by ISIS entitled "Persia from Yesterday to Tomorrow," the group threatened to attack Iran and accused the Shiite country of persecuting Sunnis living within its borders. The video goes on to accuse Iran of executing no less than 18,000 Sunnis in Iran since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

In an interesting twist, ISIS also claims in the film that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not an Islamic theocracy, but is in actuality a copy of democratic institutions from the West.

Photo: Reuters

One of the speakers in the video calls to "burn the soil from under their feet" and carry out attacks in mosques in the cities of Tehran and Isfahan.

There are those that claim Iran played both sides and maintained contacts with groups like al-Qaeda and helped plant the seed that would eventually become ISIS.

However, Iran and its "axis of resistance"the Syrian regime, Russia, Iraq and Hezbollahoffer a different version of events.

They accuse Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel for creating ISIS in order to disrupt the region. In contrast, that same axis portrays itself as those who paid with their own blood the cost of succeeding in stopping ISIS from taking over the whole region.

ISIS films Iranian terror attack

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Iran and its allies claim that ISIS is educated in the Saudi Wahabi ideology. As such, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were quick to blame Saudi Arabia for the attack.

As far as Iran is concerned, Wednesday morning's attack on parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini will only strengthen the perception of Tehran and the "axis of resistance" concerning its legitimacy to fight to the end. If the "axis" withdraws from the fronts of the fighting, attacks such as those Wednesday may become more common in Tehran.
I have been sitting by the radio since Wednesday morning. Waiting, switching stations. Waiting with eager anticipation for the calming voice of an Israeli security experta determined and firm person, self-confident like only Israelis can bewho would explain where the Iranians went wrong.

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After all, these commentators and critics rush to radio and TV studios every time a terror attack takes place in the West and explain where the Germans/Americans/Brits/French went wrong. They, unlike the security establishments in those countries, know how to deal with terrorism, and if it's up to them to explain how to do ittheres absolutely no problem.

But that didnt happen. There was no security expert available to explain that the Iranians are granting too many civil rights, that their legal system is too weak, that they are not strict enough. In general, it was hard to find anyone offering the Iranians advice. After all, an attack on the parliament building indicates a problem in dealing with terror infrastructure. The question is why were we spared the regular interview explaining how naive Tehran is.

Police forces at the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, Wednesday. In spite of its oppressing regime, Iran was hit by an ISIS offensive (Photo: Reuters)

The answer is, of course, that Iran is not naive and that civil rights are not its guiding principles. And in spite of its oppressing regime, it was hit by an Islamic State terror offensive, just like London last week. The answer is that its very hard to deal with terrorism and its infrastructure. And the answer is that there are no simple answers, neither on the radio nor in general.

The desire for simple and firm statements is part of human nature, but in the era of globalization there are hardly any binary situations. If were looking for something to focus on in a bid to understand, we should start with the global hegemon.

Indeed, the United States and its last three presidents are at the root of the current unrest. The first one, George W. Bush, meddled in the Middle East blatantly, set aggressive democratization processes in motion (including funding the training of Egyptian revolutionists against former President Hosni Mubarak), invaded Iraq, executed Saddam Hussein and gave the impression that America had started managing an empire here. The second one, Barack Obama, received a bankrupt country and decidedblatantly tooto pull out of the Middle East and bury his hand in the sand when it came to the reality in the region. To make the pullout possible, Obama struck a deal with Iran at all costs (including abandoning Syria) and managed to do two dangerous things: Withdraw, and bolster Tehran.

The regional players didnt understand what was going on. These are regimes that are incapable of understanding such a sharp switch in ideologies every eight years. As a result, each of the Middle Eastern elements began doing as they pleased, without asking Washington. The Saudis sank into the Yemeni swamp. The Qataris moved closer to Iran, while funding radical Islamists. Everyone stirred things up in Bahrain. The Iranians meddled everywhere, mainly in Syria. An entire party of schemes, violence and death, and such a party can have only one guest of honor: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And then came Donald Trump, who didnt realize what he was getting himself into. His backing of the Saudi stance on Qatar is slightly peculiar considering the fact the biggest American base in the region is located in that country, and that the Saudis arent any more innocent than the Qataris, when measuring support for radicalism. To add to the instability, it now turns out that the old understanding between Tehran and the Sunni radicals (al-Qaeda at the time)that Iran itself is immune to attacksno longer exists.

What we do see, in a nutshell, is American amateurism by three administrations, from Bush to Trump. Some people here believe that what is happening in the region serves Israel, and in the short run we do shine like a beacon of normal stability in a crazy Middle East. In the long run, however, its impossible to isolate the nations in the region from the expanding hurricane, whose heart is in Syria. It is slowly encompassing the entire region, from Syria to Iraq, then onto the Persian Gulf, and back to the parliament in Tehran. For the sake of caution, Israel should not assume that it is immune.
SRINAGAR -- The Indian army says six suspected militants and an army soldiers have been killed in a pair of gunbattles along the highly militarized de facto border that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia says three insurgents and a soldier were killed Thursday in a gunbattle that erupted after the militants crossed from the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir into Indian-held portion in Nowgam sector.

Kalia says three other rebels were killed Wednesday in Machil sector.
The Congress today condemned the detention of party vice president Rahul Gandhi while he was on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and said it reveals the cowardice of the Modi government.

By Praveen Shekhar: Plane, four wheeler, two wheeler and on foot -- Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi did it all today as he strove to get from Delhi to Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh where five farmers were killed earlier this week. Gandhi, detained and later released by the state police, went the extra mile to meet the families of those killed in Tuesday's police firing.

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He took a chartered plane from Delhi to Udaipur in Rajasthan and then left for Madhya Pradesh by road "in a four wheeler".

Farmers are on protest to demand better prices for crop, loan waiver.

BJP accused Gandhi of exploiting protest for political gain. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said, "He (Rahul Gandhi) has been detained. What was the emergency to go there now? He only wants to do politics."

Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar also criticised Rahul Gandhi's visit saying, "Rahul shouldn't go to Mandsaur till the situation stabilises, adding that Congress leader was only doing it because he is publicity hungry".

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

A look at Rahul Gandhi's visit to places of violence and protests:

May 11, 2011: Rahul Gandhi visited Bhatta and Parsaul, the twin villages in Greater Noida where four people were killed when farmers were protesting against land acquisition. Gandhi was even arrested for violating prohibitory orders clamped by the district administration. He had accused the Uttar Pradesh Police of carrying out atrocities on the villagers.

July 5, 2011: Rahul Gandhi visits Bhatta Parsaul again. Ahead of the 2012 Assembly elections, Rahul Gandhi has been trying to drum up anti-Mayawati sentiments against the BSP government's land acquisition policy

October 3, 2015: Rahul Gandhi visits Dadri where a man was killed over beef rumours. He paid condolences to the family of Md Iqlakh.

October 21, 2015: Rahul Gandhi was prompt enough to pay a visit to the village in Haryana, a day after two Dalit children were reportedly burnt alive in Faridbad. His visit was criticised as photo-op.March 31, 2017: Rahul Gandhi meet protesting Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar.

May 27, 2017: Rahul Gandhi visits Saharanpur despite having no permission.

June 8, 2017: Rahul Gandhi visits violence-hit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh, gets arrested.

Also read:

Rahul Gandhi's bike stunt at MP-Rajasthan border can land him in trouble

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Rahul Gandhi released after bail, meets kin of farmers killed by police at MP-Rajasthan border

Rahul Gandhi likely to take over as Congress chief in October

Also watch:Out on bail, Rahul Gandhi meets farmers, assures them of full support

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Israel will grant temporary resident status to 200 out of 8,000 refugees from Darfur who have been waiting years for a decision to be made on their request for asylum.

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Temporary resident status is the same as the status given to refugees recognized by the state. The status will allow the asylum seekers to work and grant them social rights in Israel. The new temporary residents will also be able to receive a laissez-passer travel document allowing them to leave Israel and return. While this status is not limited by time, the state can revoke it.

The asylum seekers, who fled the ethnic cleansing in Sudan's Darfur region, petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court citing extremely long waiting periodssometimes reaching three yearsfor an answer from the Population and Immigration Authority on their asylum request.

Sudanese refugees fleeing Darfur (File photo: AFP)

Israel has been dragging its feet for years on responding to asylum requests filed by some 8,000 refugees from western Sudan, despite the fact that the department dealing with asylum seekers in the Population and Immigration Authority determined they should be granted refugee status.

Several hundred refugees initially petitioned the appellate court, which ordered the Population and Immigration Authority to grant the petitioners temporary work permits for as long as a decision on their request is still pending.

The asylum seekers then petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court, demanding to be given a temporary resident visa, which is customarily given to refugees.

In its response to the petition, the state decided to grant 200 of the Darfur refugees the temporary resident status "out of humanitarian concerns."

The state said this was only a first step, adding that it was waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on a plan to deport asylum seekers to Uganda and Rwanda , after which "the policy will be examined in its broader sense and further steps will be decided upon."

This is the first time in a decade the State of Israel grants a temporary resident status to such a large group of asylum seekers. Ehud Olmert's government granted refugee status to the first 600 Drafur residents to flee to Israel. In the interim period, only one Sudanese refugee was recognized Mutasim Ali

The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants welcomed the decision to "grant 200 Darfur refugees a status that would allow them to live a fuller and better life in Israel," noting, however, that it is "regretful that even though the government is making a step in the right direction, it is too small a step, which is in practice both discriminating and arbitrary, because it is unclear what criteria was used to select one refugee over another."
The Shin Bet, in cooperation with the Israel Police, have arrested three residents of Jaljulia on suspicion they were planning to assassinate an IDF officer. Seven additional suspects were arrested on charges of weapons trafficking in connection with the investigation.

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Security forces had originally detained Mahmoud Muhammad Abd al-Karim Daoud on suspicion of weapons trafficking, but during questioning, investigators learned Daoud had knowledge of a terror attack being planned by two brothers.

The three suspects (Photo: Shin Bet)

Adam Ismail Muhammad Faqi and Fares Ismail Muhammad Faqi were both detained shortly thereafter. Adam had a police record for criminal activity, while Fares had been on the radar of security forces for nonmaterial support for ISIS.

During the ensuing investigation, security forces pieced together a timeline in which Adam Faqi had been recruited by another brother, Muhammad, into Hamas in 2014 while attending a family wedding in the Gaza Strip.

Adam underwent small arms training with a Hamas operative named Hassan Jabari, who is the brother of Ahmad Jabari, the former head of Hamas' armed wing who has assassinated in 2012 during Operation Pillar of Defense.

Mazan Fukha

In April 2017, Adam was requested to carry out an assassination of an IDF officer in retaliation for the killing of Mazan Fukha in March. In preparation for the attack, Adam was requested to acquire weapons and recruit another member for the attack.

As such, both Adam and Fares Faqi approached another Jaljulia resident and attempted to acquire two pistolscomplete with silencerswith which to carry out the assassination, before they were both detained.

In a statement, the Shin Bet emphasized the link and danger posed by weapons floating from criminal elements to terrorist elements. Additionally, the nature of the planning demonstrates how Israeli humanitarian policy vis-a-vis the Gaza Stripallowing Palestinians to transition between the two territories for medical care or family visitsis used by Hamas for acts of terror.
Five of the terrorists who carried out the twin terror attacks in Tehran on Wednesday fought for ISIS while all of them were Iranian nationals, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOI) said Thursday.

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The MOI released photos of the bodies of the terrorists after they had been killed by local security forces.

While the names of the terrorists have not yet been released, officials said the men had been linked to Wahhabiyathe conservative, Sunni Islamist movement practiced in Saudi Arabia.

Terrorists in the Iranian parliament

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According to the MOI, the terrorists were Iranian citizens who left the country to fight for ISIS in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syriathe two ISIS strongholds in the region.

One of the gunmen in parliament

Last August, the men returned to Iran on the orders of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to perpetrate attacks.

While officials have not yet commented on how the men succeeded in avoiding authorities, MOI officials acknowledged that a woman was detained in connection with the attack and is suspected of helping shelter the men and being involved in the planning of the attacks.

In light of the attacks in the heart of Iran, security in Tehran has been increased and residents of the city reported police on motorcycles are on nearly every street corner.

The reports seem to be in line with statements made by Iranian Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari, who announced on state TV that "law enforcement activities will increase" and "we are focused on intelligence gathering."

While the attack shocked many Iranians who aren't used to such incidents, it seems to be a natural outgrowth of the fact that Iran is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war in support of Syrian President Bashar Assad. That support, and support for Shiite militias in Iraq, appears to have spilled into Iranian soil.
The Southern District Attorney's Office on Wednesday appealed the lenient punishment given to MK Oren Hazan (Likud), who was caught driving 142km/h (88 mph) in a 90km/h (55 mph) zone and was ordered to pay a NIS 1,500 ($424) fine

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"The punishment imposed of only a fine is far too lenient and does not befit the severe punishment that ought to be given for this type of offense," the District Attorney's Office noted.

The appeal noted MK Hazan's past record of traffic offenses. Among other things, Hazan has five speeding convictions, one conviction for using his mobile phone while driving, four convictions of driving without a seatbelt, one conviction for not allowing pedestrians to cross the road at a street crossing, two convictions for parking in a no-parking zone, two convictions for failing to produce license and registration, two convictions for double parking, and one conviction for driving off road.

MK Oren Hazan (Photo: Gil Yohanan)

In December, Hazan was caught speeding on Highway 90, the longest road in Israel, and his license was suspended for 30 days.

Last month, he was convicted in traffic court in Eilat, but the judge criticized the District Attorney's Office for taking the case to court instead of reaching a plea with Hazan.

The judge asserted that despite the fact Hazan is a member of Knesset and his offense therefore of public interest, the case should not have been brought to court because the offense is minor.

The District Attorney's Office came out against this claim, noting, "Just as the court believed the defendant should not be discriminated against for being a member of Knesset, this fact should not have been used to mitigate his punishment."

The District Attorney's Office called for a deterring punishment, citing the fact Hazan is a repeat offender.

Hazan's lawyer, Itay Itzhak, claimed his client was being persecuted. "The state makes hundreds of plea deals every day with defendants in similar cases who get lesser punishments than what MK Oren Hazan got."
Avraham Binyamin, 32, and Yehoshua Hess, 44, two senior activists from Yitzhar in the Jewish Voice group, were convicted on Thursday of numerous offenses of incitement to violence and racism.

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The two were convicted at the Petah Tikva Magistrates' Court. The indictment had been approved by the attorney general, as required by law for the relevant offenses, due to the potential freedom of expression consequences.

The Jewish Voice website

The court found that in their various publications, the defendants systematically included content relating to incitement to violence. Among other things, the two posted praise, about for acts of physical violence against Arabs.

In addition, the publications included content related to incitement to racism, such as statements that all Arabs are "murderers," "violent," "savages," "terrorists," "abusers," and "cruel." They also published supportive and sympathetic statements about harm to the bodies, property and freedom of Arabs wherever they may be.

Judge Eliana Danieli was presented with a plea agreement for Benjamin's sentence: a half-year of community service if found suitable, as well as a suspended sentence and a fine. There is no agreement for Hess's sentence, which will be decided in court.
The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley continued her trip to Israel on Thursday and visited the Gaza border region. She met with residents of the area and even visited a Hamas tunnel while accompanied by her Israeli counterpart Danny Danon and IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi. Thereafter, Haley took off for a tour of the northern border.

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Nikki Haley in Israel (:  )

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The US ambassador to the United Nations met with residents of Kibbutz Nahal Oz in the Gaza vicinity. She asked them about life during Operation Protective Edge and they shared their community's fears and determination. When asked whether they thought of leaving the kibbutz during the operation, one resident said, "This is our home, and we cannot see ourselves living elsewhere."

Nikki Haley visiting a Hamas tunnel (Photo: IDF)

Haley visited the kibbutz's war room and met with the residents and children who told her about the security situation in the face of the threat from Gaza. The residents gave her a book with pictures made by kindergarten children who thanked her for her support of Israel.

(Photo: Shlomi Amsalem)

"She was lovely," said Oshrit, a resident of Nahal Oz. "The children told her a bit about the situation on the kibbutz and she was attentive and very pleasant."

During her visit to the Gaza border region, the US ambassador also visited the Kerem Shalom Crossing, through which goods enter the Gaza Strip. From there she took off for a tour of the northern border.

Haley visiting Kibbutz Nahal Oz (Photo: US Embassy in Israel)

Haley recently met with the Goldin family. Thursday, Danon told her that "Hamas is acting with unthinkable cruelty by holding on to the bodies of our soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul. We appreciate the American assistance in the efforts to bring them back and we will not rest until they are returned."

(Photo: US Embassy in Israel)

Her visit to Israel began with meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin. Haley, who slammed the Human Rights Council's actions against Israel, told Netanyahu: "All I did was tell the truth, and I am quite overwhelmed by the reactions. It was a custom at the UN, something they were used to doing, and if there is one thing I have zero tolerance for, it's bullyingand the UN behaved like that towards Israel simply because it could."

Haley at the Western Wall (Photo: AFP)

Later Haley visited the Western Wall. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation said that Hailey received an explanation from the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, about the place and its importance to the Jewish people. But when special room was made for her at the Wall, she insisted praying with the other women who were on site saying, "I want to be here like every other person."

Haley added that she "is very moved by the warmth of the Israeli public towards me. I don't deserve it, I'm just telling the truth. It hurts that only now, after many years, the truth is being openly spoken."

Earlier in the day, Haley visited the Davidson Center, where she was presented with archeological findings from the Second Temple period and an exhibition depicting the unification of Jerusalem.
WASHINGTONThe United States shot down a pro-Syrian government drone that fired toward US-led coalition forces in Syria on Thursday, a US military spokesman said, in a major escalation of tensions between Washington and troops supporting Damascus.

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The armed drone "hit dirt" and there were no injuries or damage done to the coalition patrol in southern Syria. But US Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS, told reporters the drone meant to attack them and dismissed the possibility it had fired a warning shot.

"This clearly showed a threat even if it were a warning shot; it was something that showed a hostile intent, a hostile action and posed a threat to our forces because this drone still had munitions that were still on it," Dillon said.

A group of rebels attack Assad forces

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He added that it was the first known time that pro-Syrian government forces had fired at coalition forces in that region.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the munition landed a few hundred yards from coalition forces and it failed to explode.

Dillon said the United States had earlier in the day carried out a strike against two pro-Syrian government pick-up trucks with weapons that had moved against US-backed fighters near the southern town of At Tanf.

A group of rebels fire at Assad forces

It was the third such strike in as many weeks, and the second this week, by the Pentagon, which has sought to stay out of Syria's civil war to focus firepower instead on ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

The concern is that such strikes could take away attention from the fight against ISIS militants.

"Unfortunately, there have been (these) incidents that have taken our focus away from fighting ISIS," Dillon said.

American forces in Syria (File photo: AP)

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched their assault to capture Raqqa, ISIS's de facto Syrian capital.

For months, air strikes and special forces from the US-led coalition have helped them encircle Raqqa, which Islamic State seized in 2014 and has used as a base to plan attacks abroad.

On Tuesday, the United States launched an air strike against Iranian-backed fighters who it said posed a threat to US and US-backed forces in southern Syria.

A military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad threatened on Wednesday to hit US positions in Syria, warning its "self-restraint" over US air strikes would end if Washington crossed "red lines".

In recent days, the US military has repeatedly warned massing forces to stay away from a 'deconfliction zone' near a garrison used by American special forces and US-backed fighters around At Tanf.

The zone was agreed with Russia, Syrian President Bashar Assad's ally. Assad is also backed by Iran and Shiite militias.

Tanf is part of a region known as the Badia, a vast, sparsely populated desert territory that stretches to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders and was declared a military priority by Syria's foreign minister in May.
Sonia, who has been at the helm for 18 years, leading the party to electoral highs continues to enjoy a strong following, particularly by party veterans.

By Mail Today: Four years ago, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was elevated to the number two position on a nippy January afternoon following the twoday Chintan Shivir in Jaipur in 2013. Now that the prospect of the Gandhi family scion taking up the top job appears 'inevitable', there is a dominant silent resignation among the old guard.

As the party prepares to wrap up internal polls by mid-October, in what is set to be a handover of charge from Congress president Sonia Gandhi to her son, senior party leaders insist that the 2019 parliamentary polls be contested under the 'guidance' of the outgoing president.

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Sonia, who has been at the helm for 18 years, leading the party to electoral highs continues to enjoy a strong following, particularly by party veterans.

'OVERSEE PARTY TILL NEXT PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS'

Even as the change of guard is imminent, the sitting party president's loyalists not hopeful of winning favour with the new leadership, push for her to continue to oversee the party at least till the next parliamentary elections.

"It is a foregone conclusion that the party is in election mode. This is the best time for organisational changes as the new guard will have the guidance of Sonia Gandhi in the 2019 elections," AICC general secretary CP Joshi told Mail Today.

Asked if the onus of performance in the upcoming polls in several states will cloud Rahul's stint, Joshi said, "How do the results of the upcoming polls say anything about the leadership. Did Atal Behari Vajpayee or LK Advani never lose an election? Between Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Narendra Modi, the former had better electoral performances in his state but Modi was chosen for the Prime Ministership. Why are questions always raised only for Congress and Rahul Gandhi? Changes will happen only following internal elections and it is the party's prerogative to decide who will lead it."

CHANGE OF GUARD

The silence of a section of the veterans pointed to a resignation to inevitable change. Several senior leaders approached by Mail Today refused to comment on what the change of guard meant to them or for the party. Though Rahul's eligibility for the top job has been hotly debated within and outside party forums, senior leaders sceptical of the change seem to have made peace with the eventuality of his takeover.

"The schedule of the elections has been finalised and therefore the elections will happen. That is all I can say. Nothing more, nothing less," said Congress national treasurer Motilal Vora.

TIMING OF LEADERSHIP CHANGE OPPORTUNE?

Asked if the timing of the change of leadership is opportune, especially after the party has been decimated in the Lok Sabha and wiped out in several state assemblies, AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said, "It is in the nature of things to change. That is natural progression. And the results will be in accordance to the changes. There have been speculations over the past several years. Nothing much to say on this."

Speculations of Rahul taking over as party president have been rife since his elevation in January 2013, gathering strength around big ticket polls or when Sonia reported health issues.

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However, he proposal to handover the reins of the party to Rahul has been repeatedly postponed.

Also Read:

Rahul Gandhi likely to take over as Congress chief in October

Speculation of Vaghela leaving Congress as he skips meeting with Rahul

Also Watch:

RaGa's self goal: Congress scion questions dynastic politics in Telangana

--- ENDS ---
By Kiran Tare, Kamlesh Damodar Sutar: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said that the government will soon come up with an integrated permanent solution on the issue of Kashmir. He, however, refused to elaborate on the issue saying such things could not be disclosed in public.

Singh was speaking to reporters in Mumbai at a press conference organised to highlight the achievements of the Narendra Modi government in the last three years. Singh also claimed that the situation in Kashmir Valley is improving. "Unrest is being created in Kashmir at the behest of Pakistan. Talks can resolve any difficult issue. We will talk to everyone who wants to talk," Singh said.

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When asked whether removing Article 370 is part of the integrated permanent solution on Kashmir, Singh smilingly said, "Have patience". He then added, "Aapki kaamna puri hogi (your wish will be fulfilled).

The home minister added that the government will ensure that no one creates obstacles in the path of Kashmiri youths.

GST TO END TAX TERRORISM

During the press conference, Singh highlighted various achievements of the Modi government in the last 3 years. He said that the Goods and Service Tax is the biggest economic reform since independence and that it will be a game changer. He added that the GST will also end tax terrorism.

In the backdrop of the Mandsaur violence in which five farmers were killed, Singh alleged that the protesting farmers were instigated and the state government has already ordered a probe into the matter. "I am personally of the opinion that force should not be used. I am a farmer's son and have been agriculture minister as well. Our government is sympathetic towards farmers' issues. Our government will never do anything that will break the hopes of farmers," the home minister said.

FARMERS WERE INSTIGATED

He added, "We have some inputs on (Mandsaur) violence. Some people have tried to instigate the farmers. We have ordered a probe and let's wait for its outcome."

Reacting to Rahul Gandhi's arrest on way to violence-hit Mandsaur, Singh said, "The Congress should remember that is their party which is primarily responsible for the present situation of farmers in the country."

Also read: Narendra Modi government will find a permanent solution to Kashmir issue, Rajnath Singh tells India Today

Also read: Kashmir: Army foils twin infiltration bids, kills three terrorists in Nowgam, Uri

--- ENDS ---
Somalia: Al Shabaab militants captured a town in Somalia`s semi-autonomous Puntland region on Thursday, a senior official said, and the group said it had killed at least 61 soldiers in the fighting.

"Al Shabaab attacked Af Urur town this morning. There were few soldiers there and thus al Shabaab captured the town. It is difficult to know the casualties because the telecommunications were cut off," Bari region governor Yusuf Mohamed told Reuters.



The al Qaeda-linked group said it had also killed 61 soldiers after over-running a military base in the town.

"The number could rise since the operation is still underway," Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab`s military spokesman said in a statement.

Musab said their fighters had also seized weapons and vehicles from the base.

Al Shabaab`s insurgency aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple Somalia`s Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.
New Delhi: NetApp has announced the launch of the NetApp Excellerator program, the company`s first startup accelerator in Bangalore.

NetApp is the leader in data insight, access, and control for hybrid cloud environments.

Through the NetApp Excellerator program, the company wants to share its unique perspective and experience around data with startups, and invest in solutions that will help enterprises through this era of digital transformation.

The program was launched today at the new 15-acre NetApp campus at Bangalore in the presence of Mohandas Pai, guest of honour and keynote speaker, partners, venture capitalists, startups, and customers.

With the launch of this program, applications for the four-month-long program are now open for startups.

Selected startups will receive technology and business mentorship as well as access to markets and investors to realize the full potential of their ideas and products in the global market place.

Applications are invited from startups working in the areas related to IOT, cloud, big data and analytics, machine learning, virtualization, data security, storage and data management, and other adjacent areas.

"The tech industry is going through a transformational shift with data right at the center.

Given NetApp`s rich legacy of innovation in the data management space, and the fact that we were once a startup ourselves, we recognize that some of the most creative, breakthrough ideas will happen within India`s thriving startup ecosystem.

Through the NetApp Excellerator program, we would like to encourage and support these start-ups and provide them with an opportunity to graduate to their next phase of growth," said senior vice president and MD, NetApp India, Deepak Visweswaraiah.

The NetApp Excellerator program will provide startups with access to collaboration and productivity tools, co-working space out of the company`s global center of excellence in Bangalore as well as networking opportunities with potential investors, partners, and customers.

Selected startups will have access to NetApp platforms and technologies, tools, co-working space, HR, marketing, legal and tech support.

NetApp will provide an equity free grant of USD 15,000 to these startups upon completion of the program.

What is more is that the startups can own their IP (Intellectual Property) and NetApp would not seek a stake in the same.

"Through the NetApp Excellerator program, we seek to engage with promising entrepreneurs contributing to diverse set of tech areas.

We will assist these startups with guidance on building business relevance, exposure to our technology, partners and customers, as well as venture capitalists, and explore opportunities where we can take them to market.

Our goal is to simply foster innovation and push these brilliant ideas forward," said Director NetApp India, Ajeya Motaganahalli.

Established in the technology neighborhood of Bengaluru at close quarters with the best industry ecosystem, the NetApp Excellerator program will be hosted at the company`s center of excellence in Bangalore.

Working in close proximity with one of NetApp`s largest R&D teams and best engineering talent will also help the startups draw inspiration and realise their full potential.
New Delhi: The Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Thursday resolved the visa issues of shuttlers N Siki Reddy, H S Prannoy and Summeth Reddy, thus clearing their participation in the Canada Open Grand Prix to be held from July 11 to 16.

BAI's intervention came a day after the trio sought External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's intervention in getting their passports and visas from the Canadian High Commission.

"BAI hereby states that the issue relating to delay in acquiring visa of shuttlers N Siki Reddy, H S Prannoy and Summeth Reddy has been resolved. The players can now travel for the Canadian Open to be held in Calgary from July 11," the BAI said in a statement.

"BAI got into action the moment it was brought to their notice and Anand Khare, senior official of the association, acted upon the matter. He got in touch with the Canadian High Commission and ensured that the visas of the players are granted in shortest possible time.

"The players have been informed about the development and BAI wishes them best for the upcoming tournament," the statement added.

The shuttlers will leave for Jakarta tomorrow to take part in the Indonesia Open from June 12 to 18.
New Delhi: Bank Chor has passed the censor test with a U/A certificate, with minor audio dubs and without any visual cuts.

With actors Riteish Deshmukh and Vivek Anand Oberoi in lead roles, it is the story of three men who choose the worst day possible to rob a bank. The three 'chors' -- Champak, Genda and Gulab -- are simpletons and their banter has no adult humour, read a statement from Y-Films.

The team wanted the film to appeal to family audiences.

"Throughout the making of the film, we kept family audiences in mind and we are so glad that the film has got a rating that will attract all kinds of people to the theatres on June 16," said Riteish.

Vivek said: "Even though my character plays a badass cop in the film, we refrained from showing him smoking or using any cuss words as we didn't want to alienate younger audiences and families from the film. So 'Bank Chor' now earns the accolade of being one of the cleanest comic thrillers ever."

The film, directed by Bumpy and produced by Ashish Patil, also features Rhea Chakraborty, Sahil Vaid, Bhuvan Arora, Vikram Thapa and Baba Sehgal.
Raipur: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah arrived in Chahhttisgarh on a three-day visit eyeing the crucial SC/ST votes ahead of next year's assembly elections.

Shah will hold talks with MPs, MLAs, BJP office-bearers and workers to guide about how to strengthen the party ahead of next year's Assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

A road-map for the coming Assembly and parliamentary elections will be drafted under the guidance of the BJP national president.

He will visit the birth place of Satnami saint Guru Ghasi Das ji in Giroudhpuri, 130 km from the state capital Raipur.

Shah will be concentrating more towards augmentation of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste vote banks.

Scheduled Castes constitute about 12 percent of Chhattisgarh's population of 2.5 crore.

These communities, once considered a Congress vote-bank, sided with the BJP in the 2013 Assembly elections.

The ruling party won nine out of 10 seats reserved for the SCs then.

However, it is being maintained that Shah's visit to Giroudhpuri is apolitical.

The Congress said it would stage protests against alleged 'commission-khori' (bribery culture) in the BJP-ruled state during Shah's visit.

During his stay, Shah will be attending 16 meetings apart from inaugurating Modi Fest.

With ANI inputs
Bhubaneswar: Senior Odisha BJP leader and Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan has requested Union Water Resources minister Uma Bharti to advice Chattisgarh government to ensure free flow of water in Mahanandi river.

"I will request you to advice the government of Chhattisgarh for immediate opening of the gates of Kalma barrage to ensure free flow of water in Mahanadi river to mitigate the suffering of the people of Odisha," Pradhan wrote to Uma Bharati yesterday.

Pradhan said: "It is stated that non-monsoon flow into Hirakud reservoir received from the upper catchment of Mahanadi basin is showing a significant downward trend."

"The percentage reduction has alarmingly gone upto 78 per cent in the month of May, 2017. This stop of flow has caused severe anguish situation in the downstream areas, thus affecting the water needs in peak summer month," Pradhan mentioned in the letter.

This is contrary to the interest of the people of Odisha, Pradhan said adding that it is apprehended that if this trend is allowed to continue, there will be near stoppage of flow of water into Hirakud reservoir and in all likelihood will cause great loss to the reservoir and the downward catchment areas of Odisha.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on June 6 in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi had sought his intervention for immediate constitution of the tribunal to resolve the Mahanadi water dispute.

"I also urge for your goodself, being head of the federal system, to intervene by instructing the upstream state of Chhattisgarh to stop the construction of barrages on Mahanadi river and to open the gates of Kalma and other barrages to maintain the free flow of water downstream which is rightful claim of my state of Odisha and its inhabitants," Patnaik had said.
New Delhi: US retail giant Amazon's proposed USD 500 million investment in retail of food products in India would soon get official nod, an official said.

The proposal was pending before the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) which has been abolished now. Hence, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will soon give green signal to the Amazon's investment plan.

"With the abolition of Foreign Investment Promotion Board, the DIPP would soon announce the approval of this proposal," a senior official in the commerce and industry ministry said.

Earlier, the DIPP under the commerce and industry ministry had cleared the investment and the proposal was sent to the FIPB for the final nod.

The government had received investment proposals from three companies - Amazon, Grofers and Big Basket - worth USD 695 million for retail of food products.

While US-based retail giant Amazon is one of the major e-commerce players in India, Grofers and Big Basket are into online grocery space. Amazon has proposed to invest around USD 500 million in retail of food products.

The government last year allowed 100 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) through approval route for trading, including through e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured and produced in India.

In 2016-17 (April-December), the food processing sector in the country received FDI of USD 663.23 million.

FDI inflows help bring new technologies, products, processes and markets, Food Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal had said earlier.

Foreign investments in backward and farm-gate infrastructure in the supply chain would benefit farmers and processors, and create employment, she had said.

The Union Cabinet last month decided to wind up the 25- year-old FIPB, which had been vetting FDI proposals requiring government approval, to expedite the clearance process.

Under the new mechanism, the proposals will be approved by the ministries concerned as per the standard operating procedure approved by the Union Cabinet.
By Press Trust of India: Motihari(Bihar), Jun 8 (PTI) A three-day yoga-cum- meditation camp was inaugurated by Yoga guru Baba Ramdev here today as part of Champaran Satyagrah centenary celebrations.

Baba Ramdev said that apart from giving people various tips and techniques of yoga, he would also consider the possibility of setting up industries and academic institutions in Bihar.

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The three-day yoga camp is being organised by Baba Ramdevs Patanjali where people would be given tips, technique and art of doing Yoga exercise free of cost.

On the first day itself, Ramdev gave different tips of doing various forms of yoga to thousands of people including elders, youths, women and children at Gandhi Maidan here.

Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Radha Mohan Singh, on whose invitation Ramdev organised the camp, also learnt the lessons of yoga from him.

While giving yoga tips to the people, he emphasised the importance of yoga exercise in ones life and asked people to adopt yoga to be mentally and physically strong. It helps in fighting disease like obesity, cancer, gas, constipation, he added.

There is a glaze on Prime Minister Narendra Modis face despite putting in 18 hours a day, Ramdev said adding that it is because of yoga which the PM has been doing since his childhood.

Not only this, even BJP president Amit Shah has also shed 20 kg due to yoga, he added.

On the demand made by local people to set up sugar mill and litchi processing unit in the district, the yoga guru said that he would consider the possibility of setting up industries and academic institutions in Bihar.

"I have a deep attachment with Bihar and I become Bihari when I visit Bihar. There are a plenty of opportunities and talents in the state. There will be Yoga and Udyog in Bihar," Ramdev said.

Ramdev will be visiting places related to Mahatma Gandhis Champaran satyagraha and other places in the district during his three-day yoga programme.

Ramdev had yesterday praised the decision of total prohibition by the Nitish Kumar government in Bihar.

"It is a good step," Ramdev had said while emphasising popularisation of yoga will help people shun the habit of alcohol consumption.

Speaking on the occasion, the Union Agriculture minister said that it was Baba Ramdev who popularised Yoga but it did not have recognition in 193 member UN body but due to the Prime Minister Narendra Modis efforts, International Yoga day is being observed across the world on June 21. PTI CORR AR RG

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New Delhi: iPhone maker Apple has sought modifications in the government's phased manufacturing programme (PMP) as it plans to set up a manufacturing unit in the country.

The objective of Electronics and IT ministry's PMP is to boost indigenous production of mobile phones by providing tax relief and other incentives on components and accessories used for the devices. The programme will be rolled out over a period of time.

"The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) is looking at this. They want alignment of duty structures on the mobile components which it proposes to make here. In the current PMP, Apple's plan is not fitting," an official said.

The official added that DeitY is discussing the matter component-wise with the Cupertino-based technology major.

Under the PMP, benefits are extended to parts and sub- parts as the manufacturing ecosystem evolves. It also aims at increasing the domestic value addition for setting up a robust manufacturing ecosystem in India.

An e-mail query to Apple went unanswered.

Earlier this month, Apple Inc has indicated to the government that it is ready with a blueprint to begin manufacturing iPhones in India, but wants fiscal concessions, including Customs duty waiver on import of components.

Apple executives had made a detailed presentation on its road map for setting up a manufacturing unit in India to an inter-ministerial group headed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Ramesh Abhishek.

With sales tapering off in the US and China, Apple is eyeing India -- the fastest growing smartphone market in the world -- and looking to set up a local manufacturing unit to cut costs.

It, however, does not manufacture devices on its own and rather does it through contract manufacturers. Besides exemption from the Customs duty on imports of components and equipment for 15 years, Apple wants relaxation in the mandated 30 per cent local sourcing of components.

The company sells its products through Apple-owned retail stores in countries like China, Germany, the US, the UK and France, among others. It has no wholly-owned store in India and sells its products through distributors such as Redington and Ingram Micro.
New Delhi: Stressed assets of Indian banks will increase through 2019 and capitalisation will remain a key credit weakness for state-owned lenders which will need up to Rs 95,000 crore additional capital over the next two years, Moody's said on Thursday.

Public sector banks (PSBs) have limited ability to raise external capital and hence infusion by the government remains the only viable source for shoring up capital base, Moody's Investors Service said in a report -- 'Indian banks' capitalisation profiles worsen; asset quality outlook remains weak'.

Moody's Indian affiliate, ICRA said the asset quality outlook for the banking sector will remain weak. Gross Non Performing Assets (NPAs) or bad loans will increase to Rs 8.2 -Rs 8.5 lakh crore (9.9-10.3 percent of total advances) by the end of 2017-18 as against Rs 7.65 lakh crore (9.5 percent) at the end of March 2017.

"In our central scenario, we estimate that the 11 Moody?s -rated public sector banks will require external equity capital of about Rs 70,000-95,000 crore, or about USD 10.6- 14.6 billion," Moody's VP and Senior Analyst Alka Anbarasu said.

"The stock of impaired loans will increase during the horizon of this outlook, but at a slower pace versus the last two years," Moody's said

The capital requirement is much higher than Rs 20,000 crore budgeted by the government towards capital infusion until March 2019.

Under the Indradhanush plan for bank recapitalisation, government is to infuse Rs 70,000 crore in PSU banks beginning 2015. Of this, the government has already infused Rs 50,000 crore in the past two fiscals and the remaining will be pumped in by the end of 2018-19.

As per the plan, PSBs need to raise Rs 1.10 lakh crore from markets, including follow-on public offers, to meet Basel III capital adequacy norms, which kick in from March 2019.

While it expects credit costs to stay broadly in line with the levels during the last fiscal, Moody's does not expect any material improvements in the banks' profitability profiles over the next two years.

"Capital infusions from the government remain the only viable source of external equity capital, because of the public sector banks' low capital market valuations, which would likely continue to deny them the option of raising fresh equity from the capital markets," the US-based agency said.

Because the pace of NPA resolutions is sluggish, ICRA's outlook on the banks' asset quality remains weak, even as the pace of fresh NPA generation slows.

"We estimate the fresh NPA generation at 5.5 percent for FY'17 as compared to 6 percent for FY'16 while the overall stressed assets for the banking system stood at estimated around 16-17 percent as on March 2017," ICRA Group Head, Financial sector ratings, Karthik Srinivasan said.

It said the recent Ordinance issued by the Government of India for amendment in the Banking Regulation Act of 1949 is a positive for the banks, because it highlights the urgency and the willingness of the government to resolve the stressed asset challenges of the banking system.

Moody's further said that its stable outlook for non- financial corporates in India over the next 12-18 months reflects in large part the country's sustained economic growth.

It believes that its high GDP growth forecast for India of 7.5 percent for current fiscal and 7.7 percent for next fiscal, capacity additions and stabilising commodity prices, will support EBITDA growth of 6-12 percent for corporates over the next 12-18 months.

ICRA said a revival in consumption demand, lower input costs and structural reforms will support a gradual recovery in the corporate sector.

The agencies further said that a well-distributed and timely monsoon would be pivotal for the continued recovery in the performance of a range of retail loans impacted by demonetisation.

A normal monsoon, coupled with thrust from the government policies such as minimum support price (MSP) and welfare schemes like NREGA would help improve rural household incomes and consequently repayment ability on loan obligations.
Mumbai: Air India's tangible and intangible assets can well match its over Rs 52,000 crore debt burden and the government should resist a "distress sale" of the carrier, according to sources at the airline.

As calls for divestment, including privatisation, of the loss-making Air India get louder, the civil aviation ministry is looking at all possible options for the airline's revival.

Staying afloat on taxpayers' money, the carrier is estimated to have debt of over Rs 52,000 crore -- a key factor behind the clamour for sale.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said last week that the ministry has to explore all possibilities "as to how the privatisation of Air India can be done". The comments came against the backdrop of NITI Aayog submitting its suggestions on the future course for the airline.

Airline sources said that when the government is talking about Air India's debt, it should also consider the assets side.

"No other airline in the country has so much of assets on its balance sheet as much as Air India. In fact, there are corresponding assets against the total debt of about Rs 52,000 crore," the sources said.

On the basis of a valuation carried out in 2007, the airline's gross value, including aircraft and other assets, was pegged at around Rs 40,000 crore.

In 2007, Indian Airlines was merged with Air India -- a deal that is mainly blamed for the financial woes of the carrier.

According to the sources, the airline's current market value could be much higher than Rs 40,000 crore. However, providing for depreciation of assets, the value could be at least around Rs 27,000 crore.

This estimated figure excludes the subsidiaries and other business activities, sources noted.

Air India has four subsidiaries -- Air India Express Ltd (AIEL)), Air India Engineering Services Limited (AIESL), Air India Transport Services Limited (AITSL) and Alliance Air.

"While AIEL is valued at around Rs 8,000 crore, the value of AIESL, which has 31 hangers across airports, is pegged at Rs 3,000 crore and that of AITSL at around Rs 2,000 crore. Besides, Alliance Air also commands a substantial valuation," the sources said.

That apart, joint venture AISATS -- which provides ground handling at a number of domestic airports -- is estimated to be worth around Rs 1,000 crore.

"All these assets combined could be valued at Rs 54,000 crore and thus exceeds its debt of Rs 52,000 crore," the sources said.

Above all, the national carrier counts prime slots at various domestic and international airports, including at London's Heathrow, among its intangible assets.

The airline has eight pair of slots at London Heathrow (LHR), a good number of slots across the US and European airports such as Frankfurt, Milan, Rome, Vienna, Stockholm besides other international airports, the sources said.

They claimed that these slots could be worth several thousands of crores.

Citing the example of LHR, where Oman Air bought one pair of slots for USD 75 million last year, the sources said Air India's slots there would be worth Rs 4,200 crore.

"This apart, Air India brand will have huge valuation. If then six-year old Kingfisher brand was valued at Rs 3,500 crore, the valuation of the over 80-year Air India's brand could be anybody's guess," the sources said.

Further, the carrier has 1,600 pilots and 2,000 aeronautical engineers to certify the aircraft.

"Air India has made huge investment in raising these human resources skill sets, which carries a substantial market value," the sources said.

Despite having such huge assets, the sources alleged that that there are attempts to sell the airline for "cheap" and instead, the government should look at exit in a phased manner over the coming years so that investments made can be recovered.

"The government should not rush for distress sale and offload majority 51 percent stake at this stage," they added.
New Delhi: The world's oldest known human species' fossil has been discovered by a team of international scientists near the southern Moroccan city of Youssoufia.

In a statement, the Moroccan national Institute of Sciences of Archaeology and Heritage announced their finding on Wednesday.

Till date, the oldest known fossils of our species dated back just 195,000 years.

The institute said the remains of the Homo sapiens, which were found in a remote village called Jbel Irhoud, Morocco, date back to over 300,000 years ago, Xinhua reported.

The remains push back human species' origins by 100,000 years, and suggest humans didn't evolve only in East Africa, it added.

The finds do not mean that Homo sapiens originated in North Africa. Instead, they suggest that the species' earliest members evolved all across the continent, scientists say.

We did not evolve from a single cradle of mankind somewhere in East Africa, said Philipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and a co-author of two new studies on the fossils, published in the journal Nature. We evolved on the African continent.

In the 1960s, fossils dating back to the Middle Stone Age were discovered.

Interestingly, the Moroccan fossils indicate that early Homo sapiens had faces much like our own, although their brains differed in fundamental ways.

(With IANS inputs)
New Delhi: Delhi University (DU) is likely to announce the first cut-off for admissions to undergraduate courses for 2017 on June 20.

The cut-off declaration will be available on the university's official website - du.ac.in.

The university declared a total of six cut-offs to be released as of now and a span of three days will be allotted to students to undergo the admission process.

Following this, the next cut-off date will be released, the last being considered July 18.

Last year, the Ramjas College had announced the highest cut-off at 99.25 per cent for B Com honours, 98.75 for B Com and 98.5 for economics honours, according to a report by India Today.

As per The Times of India, Ashutosh Bhardwaj, the officer on special duty for admissions, said, the earlier system had several glitches. So a few changes have also been incorporated in this year's admission procedure to make it student-friendly.

The documents that the candidates need to carry during admission are (depending on the category in which they get admission):

- Class 10 mark-sheet and board examination certificate.

- Class 12 mark-sheet and provisional certificate/original certificate.

- Character certificate.

- Transfer certificate from school/college as well as migration certificate from board/university (Required for students who have passed senior secondary exam from outside Delhi).

- SC/ST certificate, in the name of the candidate issued by relevant authority.

- OBC certificate, in the name of the candidate issued by relevant authority.

- Two passport size self attested photograph.

- Scanned signature.

- Sports certificate for last three years.
London: Marred by two terror attacks during the campaign, Britain`s snap general election on Thursday will decide who shapes the United Kingdom`s future as it leaves the European Union.

Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who came to power without a national vote last year after David Cameron`s resignation, called the election three years early after just one year in charge.

The vote will determine who gets to negotiate Britain`s departure from the EU over the next two years, and the strength of mandate that the government will have in parliament for five years.

Britain`s new leader will also have to deal with the aftermath of a terror rampage in a nightlife hub in London on Saturday night, the third Islamist attack in the country in less than three months.

Britain takes a leading role in global anti-terror efforts and is a key member of the US-led coalition bombing Islamist State group positions in Iraq and Syria.

It holds veto power at the United Nations, where it is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council along with China, France, Russia and the United States.

There are 650 constituencies across the UK, meaning 326 MPs are needed for an absolute majority in parliament`s lower House of Commons.

May had a slim working majority of 17 at the dissolution of the last parliament and called the election in a bid to strengthen her position going into the Brexit talks.

Each constituency is won on a first-past-the-post basis, meaning the candidate with the most votes in that seat becomes its MP.

Despite the focus on the party leaders, voters are not directly choosing their prime minister, only their local MP.

A parliament is elected for a maximum of five years, meaning the next general election must be held by June 2022 at the latest.

The polls are open from 7:00am (0600 GMT) until 10:00pm (2100 GMT) on June 8.

There are around 47 million registered voters.

British, Irish and Commonwealth residents aged 18 and over can vote, plus British citizens living abroad who have been registered to vote in the UK within the last 15 years.

Citizens must register to vote and voting is not compulsory.

The main parties across the whole of Britain are the Conservatives (centre-right), led by May, and Labour (left), led by Jeremy Corbyn, followed by the Liberal Democrats (centre-left), the UK Independence Party (populist) and the Greens (left).

The Scottish Nationalists (left), Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru (left) and four parties from Northern Ireland also won seats at the last general election in 2015.

Polls suggest the Conservatives are on course for victory. However, Labour might be able to form a government with backing from smaller left-wing parties.

The main issues are Brexit, terrorism, the state-run National Health Service, immigration and the economy, according to polls.

The vote-counting begins immediately after the polls close and by dawn on June 9 the picture of who has won should be clear.

As soon as possible, the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, asks the person most likely to command the confidence of the Commons to become prime minister and form an administration.

This will typically be the leader of the largest party and would happen only once the likely nature of the government is clear.

Parliament meets on June 13 to elect a new speaker and swear in MPs.

The state opening of parliament by Queen Elizabeth takes place on June 19, when she will read out her government`s programme for the coming parliamentary year.

The Brexit negotiations are also due to start in the week beginning June 19.
London: Three terror suspects were arrested in London but this was not connected to the June 1 attack in the UK capital that left eight people dead, the police said on Thursday.



The Metropolitan Police said two men, aged 34 and 37, were arrested in the neighbourhood of Newham and a third, aged 22, was detained in nearby Waltham Forest, Efe news reported.



"All three were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences," the Met Police said in a statement.



The arrests were made on Wednesday night and searches were ongoing at the properties.



UK security was on high alert following the attack at London Bridge, in which eight people were killed and over 50 others injured when three assailants mowed down pedestrians on the bridge and then launched a stabbing rampage at the nearby Borough Market.



Security measures were heightened on Thursday as millions headed out to vote in the general election.
Moscow: Turkey`s parliament has approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, an apparent move to support the Gulf Arab country.

The legislation was passed with 240 votes in favour. The bill focused on allowing troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, which was set up by Ankara as part of an agreement signed in 2014.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and nationalist opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Russia Today reported.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed disapproval of the diplomatic and trade isolation of Qatar by some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers,"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

Erdogan has slammed Arab states for turning their backs on Qatar, which has vehemently denied supporting militant groups.

Several countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, the Maldives, and one of Libya`s that isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems, adding that Turkeywill do everything in its power to help end the diplomatic row.

The Turkish bill was drafted before the row between Qatar and Arab nations erupted.
Chandigarh: The Haryana government will organise various activities and events to commemorate the birth centenary year of RSS ideologue Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay.

The decision was taken today at the first meeting of state level Pt. Deendayal Upadhyay Birth Centenary Commemoration Committee, which was chaired by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Speaking on the occasion, Khattar said the government planned to disseminate the message of 'Antyodaya' (serving the last man) and ?Ekatam Manavad? (integral humanism), propagated by Upadhyay, at the grassroot level.

"The state government has decided to organise various activities and events throughout the state, and for this, a blueprint has been prepared," said Khattar.

'Khel Mahakumbh', scheduled to be held in September and October this year, would be named after Upadhyay, he said.

"A 'granth mala' based on the life of Pt. Deendayal has been published, and 2,000 copies of it have been distributed to libraries throughout the state," Khattar said.

The chief minister said the state government was following in the footsteps of the Central government, which is celebrating Upadhyay's birth centenary year as 'Garib Kalyan Varsh' and has rolled out number of pro-poor schemes.

"Haryana government too has implemented a number of schemes so as to ensure the socio-economic development of poor people," he said, and exhorted people to follow the path shown by Upadhyay, "as this would be a real tribute to him".



Haryana's Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki, who is also the the committee's patron, recalled Upadhyay's contribution to the society.

"Pt. Deendayal worked selflessly for the society and presented the message of 'Vasudev Kutumbakam', which is the basic philosophy of our country, in a new perspective," he said.

"Haryana is progressing fast in every sphere and by following the path shown by Pt. Deendayal, Haryana could emerge as a leading state in the country," he added.

Solanki and Khattar also unveiled a statue of Upadhyay, in Haryana Raj Bhawan.
Gurgaon: Irked over frequent power cuts, a former judge allegedly opened fire at Haryana electricity board workers while they were fixing the transmission line outside his house here, police said today.

No one was injured in the incident that occurred at Civil Lines area here last evening, police said.

"The accused, A K Raghav, opened fire on a group of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (DHBVN) technicians and linesmen," ACP (Crime) Manish Sehgal said.

An FIR has been lodged and the former judicial magistrate has been booked for attempt to murder, he said.

"He fired a few shots in the air and four towards the workers. The bullets hit a tractor-trolley and its tyres," the ACP said.

DHBVN Superintending Engineer, Naveen Sharma, said there were eight to 10 technicians and linesmen present at the spot, which is close to the residences of the police commissioner and the deputy commissioner.

"The retired judge opened fire when the workers were replacing the wires to improve transmission in the area," he said.

"The act is unacceptable from a person who has served such a critical post in the judiciary. A written complaint was given to the Civil Lines Police immediately after the incident," Sharma said.

The Superintending Engineer denied any power crisis in the area.
By Press Trust of India: (EDs: Updating with internet blocking, FIR details)

Lucknow, Jun 8 (PTI) The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was today arrested from Himachal Pradesh.

Chandrasekhar, who had been evading arrest since inter- caste clashes broke out in Saharanpur last month, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

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As the Bhim Army got active on the social media after the arrest, all Internet facilities in Saharanpur were blocked for two days to prevent mischief mongering.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

IG (Crime) Hariram Sharma told mediapersons here that Internet facilities have been blocked for two days by the district magistrate of Saharanpur.

He said that a total of 46 FIRs have been registered since inter-caste violence broke out in Saharanpur last month.

As many as 206 arrests have been made so far, including that of Chandrasekhar, who has been booked under three FIRs, he said.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured in subsequent violence on May 9.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrasekhar had shot to limelight after holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur.

He had earlier said that he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had told PTI. The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village. The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly. On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police. The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur. BSP leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the districts border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area. The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region. Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, a young Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression. Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles. Though the mission of the Bhim Army was to educate the communitys children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpurs Bhado village, it came into limelight in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs. Chandrashekhars strength became visible when thousands of Dalits staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against police action and atrocities by the upper castes and emerged as the new champion of Dalit cause. The sudden rise of the Bhim Army under the leadership of Chandrashekhar has unnerved BSP supremo Mayawati, making her all the more worried after he succeeded in mobilising Dalits in western UP. PTI ABN NAV SMI ZMN

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Shimla: Chandrashekhar, the chief of Bhim Army, which was allegedly behind the recent violence in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, was arrested from Dalhousie, Himachal Pradesh on Thursday.

According to ANI, Chandrashekhar  the main accused in Saharanpur violence  was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force.

The 30-year-old lawyer heads the Dalit-rights outfit which was involved in the caste-violence that broke out in the western UP district of Saharanpur on May 9.

UP Police had recently announced a reward of Rs 12,000 each for information leading to the capture of Chandrashekhar and two of his close associates.

Chandrashekhar, who is wanted in connection with violence in Saharanpur on May 9, had earlier offered to surrender before court when he emerged on stage at a massive rally in New Delhis Jantar Mantar.

The Bhim Army, in protest against alleged atrocities on Dalits, had called for a Mahapanchayat in Saharanpur on May 9. While the police denied permission for the public meeting, invitations were extended on social media.

Hundreds had started making their way to the venue of the meeting when things turned sour.

Supporters of the Bhim Army clashed with the police, following which; Chandrashekhar was booked by the police.
Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government must address the basic problems of farmers at the earliest or prepare to face a "Mandsaur-like situation" in the state, a farmer leader said today.



Taking a dig at the crop loan waiver scheme announced by Yogi Adityanath at his first cabinet meeting, Shekhar Dixit, national president of the Rashtriya Kisaan Manch, said the basic issue is of minimum support price that most farmers are unable to get.



"If the Uttar Pradesh government is really serious about addressing the problems and plight of the farmers, then it must start resolving their problems lest a Mandsaur-like situation grip the state and unrest fans out," Dixit told PTI, referring to the violence in Madhya Pradesh where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.



Loan waiver was no solution to the problems, which plague the farming community in the state or in the country, he added.



"The basic issue is of minimum support price, which a large section of farmers are unable to get. This virtually pushes them into the vicious cycle of poverty, and it takes several years for them to break this vicious cycle and embark on the path of prosperity."



Dixit, 33, was also of the view that farmers would not benefit till decisions pertaining to their welfare are taken from the confines of air-conditioned cabins.



"The clarion call of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan (Hail Soldier, Hail Farmer), which was given by former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, has been reduced to a mere slogan.



Time has come for us to redress the grievances of the farmers of the farmers at the earliest in order to thwart an impending disaster," Dixit said.



In August 2016, the farmer leader had demanded a separate commission for farmers with constitutional powers and representation of farmers in it.



"Like Nirvachan Aayog (Election Commission), the Kisaan Aayog would have constitutional powers with representation of farmers in it."



Dixit had also highlighted the need for construction of more cold storage facilities across the state.



The Rashtriya Kisaan Manch was founded by former prime minister V P Singh in 1989.



Reacting to the forum's criticism, the state BJP said the Yogi Adityanath government was responsive to farmer needs.



"Unlike the previous governments, the Yogi Adityanath government is sensitive to the feelings of the farmers. The work done for the farmers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has not been done by any government (either at the Centre or at the state) in the last 70 years," said state BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla.



"This could be best exemplified by the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and waiver of crop loans by the Yogi government. There has been record wheat purchase after the Yogi government came to power. The Mandsaur incident is unfortunate, and soon the faces of the culprits will be unveiled," he added.
Sacramento: In an another incident of racial attack on Indian, a 26-year-old youth who was working at a departmental store near California was shot at by an unidentified assailant.

The incident that took place on June 4 left the victim Mubeen Ahmed lying in a critical condition at a hospital.

The gruesome incident happened when the youth was attacked in the shop at Fremont where he was working part-time for extra cash after finishing his masters degree recently.

Ahmed hails from Sangareddy district of Telangana.

His family members have approached the state government seeking their help in visiting the USA to meet him.

Instances of racial attacks in the USA have been on the rise in the last few months. In March, engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was at a bar in Kansas in the US when he was shot dead by a former Navy serviceman who yelled: "get out of my country". He was also from Telangana.
New Delhi: Comparing Army chief Bipin Rawat to General Dyer, who had earned notoriety for ordering the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, is a "sad comparison", his naval counterpart Admiral Sunil Lanba said on Thursday.

Academician Partha Chatterjee, in a piece published on a news website, had drawn comparison between Rawat and Dyer after the former commended Major Leetul Gogoi's action of using a civilian as a human shield in Kashmir.

"It is a sad comparison and is uncalled for," Lanba said.

On April 13, 1919, Dyer had ordered firing on unarmed people gathered at the Jallianwala Baug in Amritsar.

The Navy chief was speaking on the sidelines of an flag- in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.

In an interview, Rawat had also said that the Indian Army is fully ready for a "two-and-a-half front (China, Pakistan and internal security requirements simultaneously) war".

Lanba sought to buttress the point, saying that "the Indian armed forces are always ready for any contingency".

The Navy chief will visit Israel soon and meet chiefs of the three services of the Jewish nation. His visit comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel.

"We have an in-depth defence relationship. We will exchange notes," Lanba said, but did not elaborate further on his scheduled visit.

Reacting to a report by US Department of Defence (DoD) that China is likely to establish additional military bases in Pakistan and other countries with which it has longstanding friendly ties and similar strategic interests, he said the Navy was monitoring the development.

"It is an assessment which is there in the report. We have our own assessment and we will see what happens in the future," Lanba said.

In its annual report to the Congress on China's military build-up, the DoD said China's construction of military base in the strategic location of Djibouti is just the first of what will likely be an ongoing expansion in friendly foreign ports around the world.

"They are making their first overseas base in Djibouti. The report is an assessment of what may happen in the future.

"There is this huge CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) project which is happening. There is a port of Gwadar which is being built with Chinese assistance. Time will tell what happens in the future on whether it will be converted into a military base," Lanba said.

On China providing submarines to India's neighbours such as Bangladesh, he said it is the capability that these nations wish to aspire and the Navy is prepared in its plan to counter this.

Downplaying Chinese concerns over Singapore India Maritime Bilateral Exercise (SIMBEX) in the disputed South China Sea, he said the annual exercise takes place in the Indian waters and the South China Sea every alternate year.

"We are going to continue to follow this process," he said.

After the drill, China had said such activities should not hurt the "interests of other countries".
New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday condemned the detention of party vice president Rahul Gandhi while he was on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and said it reveals the cowardice of the Modi government.

"The arrest of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi by Madhya Pradesh police on his way to visit the victims of police violence at Mandasaur is highly condemnable.

"The arrest of Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders reveals the political cowardliness of the Modi government," AICC general secretary K C Venugopal said.

He said the Congress vice president was supposed to visit the relatives of farmers who lost their lives in police firing, to register his moral support to the farmers' agitation and ensure justice to the deceased.

Instead of meeting the demands of agitating farmers, the state government with the full support of central government is even trying to silence the voices of opposition leaders who stood for the farmers, he said.

"The arrest of Rahul Gandhi reveals the inability of the ruling dispensation to face tough questions on the farmers' distress across the country," he said, adding that ever since the government came in to power, farmers are agitating against the policies of the Modi government.

Venugopal said the government uncompromisingly upholds the interests of corporate sector and lends a deaf ear to the plight of farmers.

He said Gandhi has been raising his voice inside and outside Parliament against the anti-people and anti-farmer policies of the government.

The Congress vice president and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests, as the farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear.

The police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch in Rajasthan, about 400 kms from state capital Bhopal.
New Delhi: Launching a scathing attack on Shivraj Singh Chouhan over the Mandsaur fiasco, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Thursday questioned as to why the state government announced an ex-gratia to the deceased farmers' kin when they were 'anti-social elements' according to the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister.

Taking to Twitter, the Congress leader also demanded Chouhan's resignation and said, "Shivraj ji give resignation if you have shame. You call yourself farmer's son and on the other hand you fire guns at farmers. You are a terrible son."

The Madhya Pradesh farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Tuesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in the firing by security forces in Mandsaur.

Internet services in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Ujjain were also suspended following the farmers' protests, and a curfew was reportedly imposed.

The protestors alleged that the police fired at them, however, a judicial probe has been ordered in the matter.

Apart from the loan waiver, the farmers are also demanding that they should be given Rs. 50 per litre of milk bought from them as they spend Rs. 37 per litre.

Taking cognizance of the matter, Chief Minister Chouhan on Tuesday announced a compensation of Rs. one crore each to the victims' families while Rs. five lakh to the injured.

In a video message, Chouhan also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

The Madhya Pradesh government has been facing backlash from the opposition over the violence in the state with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accusing the Centre of waging war against nation's farmers.

Taking to social media, Rahul said, "This government is at war with the farmers of our country."
Pune: Amid the ongoing agitation by farmers in Maharashtra, a cultivator allegedly committed suicide at a village in Solapur district, leaving behind a note purportedly stating that he should not be cremated till the chief minister visits his place and meets their demands.



Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil last night, Solapur Collector Rajendra Bhosale said on Thursday.



According to Karmala police, Jadhav's suicide note, addressed to his friends and relatives, said, "I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to village and do not cremate me till Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis comes here."



Bhosale also confirmed that the farmer's suicide note stated his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and announces a loan waiver for farmers.

Solapur's Guardian Minister Vijay Deshmukh paid a visit to the village on Thursday.



The deceased, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son in his family. He possessed 2.5 acres of cultivable land.



He had a debt of around Rs 60,000 and had also taken loans from some private lenders, police said.



After the incident, the farmers' organisations resorted to a 'rasta-roko' (road blockade) and called for a bandh in Karmala tehsil.



The Solapur collector said he was on his way to the village.



Police teams have also been rushed to the spot to prevent the situation from spiralling into a law and order issue, he said.



Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and BJP's ally Shiv Sena over sustained protests by farmers across Maharashtra for last one week, resulting in sharp rise in agri commodity prices.



Fadnavis' recent statement promising a loan waiver by October 31 has failed to pacify the agitating farmers, who have continued with their stir.
Mumbai: An Indian linguist and anthropologist who is globally revered for his work on dying languages, Ganesh Devy has researched and documented 780 living Indian languages. He says that offering reservation quotas alone will not solve the problem of social exclusion in the country's education system which is headed for "failure".

Devy's latest book, "The Crisis Within" (Aleph/Rs 399/130 pages), argues that it is of critical importance that the plight of educational institutions and the need to generate knowledge appropriate to India are addressed without any delay.



"Dalits and tribals are left out of higher education in a conspicuous way. We think that offering reservation quotas will solve the problem. We have never thought of making the tribal view of the world or the Dalit view of society as the core of education. Unless that happens, their inclusion will not be complete or satisfactory," Devy told IANS in interview ahead of the book's launch.

"Their exclusion affects our knowledge production as their unique 'memory traditions' do not feed into shaping our collective memory. Thus we need to look at the margins not merely as social sectors requiring justice and inclusion, but also as the substance of knowledge. This alone will make India a first rate producer of knowledge," said Devy, who led the People's Linguistic Survey of India.

The author, recipient the Sahitya Akademi Award for "After Amnesia" and the SAARC Writers' Foundation Award for his work with denotified tribals, lamented the fact that students in India are imparted skills instead of knowledge.

"I am not convinced that knowledge institutions in India today are imparting 'knowledge'. What they impart is skills. The ability to ask meaningful questions is not at the centre of educational processes, though a few exceptional institutions and individuals in the system do this. We require a major recasting of the role that school plays in the life of the children and in the life of the society," he said.

Devy said that globally we are in the bottom 30 percent in terms of expenditure on education and regretted that we belong to the tail end among the nations of the world in terms of access to high-school and higher education.

Noting that our research capacity and output are not yet seen as significant by the international community of researchers, he anticipated that if the situations continues as it is, we shall become the world's most prominent example of an "educationally failed nation".

Devy is widely known for his work on Indian languages but surprisingly he is not, in principle, against the use of English language as the mode of education in private schools.

"English is a powerful language. Yet, it is an established scientific principle that early education in the mother tongue helps in the proper development of cognitive faculties and the ability for abstraction. Besides, if education in English is economically unaffordable, the craze for sending children to those schools leads parents to adopt all means -- ethical or unethical -- for supporting the child's education. The cumulative effect of the rise of English schools in India on Indian languages is going to be negative.

"That would lead us into difficulties while conceptualising our cultural history. When a large number of such children get into positions of authority, their collective amnesia about cultural history can pave an easy way for false historical narratives and a fascist political environment," he added.

Matters related to education and knowledge in India can no longer be left entirely to the government bureaucracies to decide, he said. A lot many thinkers, educationists and citizens will have to dedicate themselves to provide experimental solutions that can be scaled up.

"We may be able to do this. But all present indications point to a probable failure," he contended.

"The Crisis Within" attempts to offer a clear picture of the mistakes that have been committed in the past, confronts the present decline of knowledge and education in the country, and offers a vision for the future.
New Delhi: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has killed two Chinese nationals it kidnapped from Quetta city of southwest Pakistan last month, the militant groups Amaq agency said on Thursday.

Armed men pretending to be policemen kidnapped the Chinese language teachers  a man and a woman  from the upmarket Jinnah Town area of Quetta on May 24.

The SITE Intelligence Group said that the ISIS, through its Amaq news agency, has claimed that its fighters in Pakistan have killed two Chinese nationals held in Mastung.

"Islamic State fighters kill two Chinese people they had been holding in Balochistan province, southwest Pakistan," Amaq said.

The Chinese nationals were being held in Mastung district, the same area where the Pakistan Army conducted an operation against the ISIS during June 1-3.

The development comes days after Pakistani forces said that they have killed a number of key commanders of the Islamic State group in an operation carried out in the mountainous Mastung district after intelligence reports said the group was holding the Chinese nationals kidnapped on May 24 from Jinnah Town of the provincial capital Quetta.

Jinnah Town is one of the affluent residential areas where Chinese NGOs teach Mandarin.

The Chinese presence in Pakistan has increased in the past few years due to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Pakistani government has deployed 15,000 military personnel to protect projects under the economic corridor.
New Delhi: Pakistan on Thursday urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to adopt an expedited timetable for an early "substantive" hearing of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case as the agents of India and Pakistan discussed procedural matters with the court's President.

A meeting took place between ICJ President Ronny Abraham and the delegations of India and Pakistan to discuss the timelines in the Jadhav case, according to a statement from the office of the Pakistan Attorney General.

"This was not a hearing and no discussion on the substance or merits of the case took place," it said.

"The purpose of the meeting was only to discuss procedural matters including the timelines for submission of written Memorials and to enable a hearing to be listed," it said.

Indian national Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage.

India on 8 May moved the ICJ against the death penalty. The next day, the global court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

During the agents' meeting at the Hague, the ICJ president sought the views of the parties as to time required for the submission of their written pleadings and supporting evidence called Memorials, the statement said.

"The Pakistani Attorney General (Ashtar Ausaf Ali) urged the Court to adopt an expedited timetable with a view for an early substantive hearing," it said, adding that the court will announce the timetable shortly.

Attorney General Ali informed the International Court of Justice of Pakistans intent to appoint a judge Ad Hoc who will sit on the bench of the Court for all proceedings in this case, including the substantive hearing.

"Pakistans arguments on jurisdiction and merits will be considered by the Court at the full hearing, the statement said.
By Press Trust of India: (EDs: Rpting after deleting a word from para 3)

Lucknow, Jun 8 (PTI) Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar, the main accused in the Saharanpur caste violence, was nabbed from Himachal Pradesh today after having evaded arrest for nearly a month.

As the Bhim Army got active on the social media after the arrest, all Internet facilities in Saharanpur were blocked for two days to prevent mischief mongering.

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Thirty-year-old Chandrashekhar, who was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head, was arrested from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over the phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

IG (Crime) Hariram Sharma told mediapersons here that a total of 46 FIRs had been registered since inter-caste violence broke out in Saharanpur last month.

As many as 206 arrests have been made so far, including that of Chandrashekhar, who has been named as accused in three FIRs, he said.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured in subsequent violence on May 9.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had recently constituted a special investigation team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 and May 23, in Saharanpur district which had seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrashekhar had recently held a rally in Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to protest against alleged violence against Dalits.

He had then said that he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits arrested in connection with the Saharanpur violence were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had told PTI. The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village. The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly. On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

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The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur.

BSP leader Mayawati had visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of the Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the districts border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area. The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region. Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, a Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long-drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression.

Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

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Though the aim of the Bhim Army was to educate the communitys children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpurs Bhado village, it came into focus in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs. PTI ABN NAV SMI ZMN SMN SC SMN GVS

--- ENDS ---
Mumbai: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh assured farmers on Thursday that the BJP-led NDA government will not do anything to betray their trust.

He also appealed for calm and asked farmers to support the government.

At the same time, the HM accused the Opposition parties of playing a cruel joke with farmers and assured that the Centre would provide all support to Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh amid the ongoing farmers' agitations there.

"I feel there is no need of security forces when it comes to farmers' protest. But as per the available information, there are some forces instigating the agitation (in MP). As the state government has ordered an enquiry into the matter, we should wait for its findings," he told reporters here.

Singh maintained said that "the NDA government would not do anything that will shatter the trust of farmers and the common man."

"One thing must be clear to the people of this country that the BJP-led government at the Centre or state are completely sensitive towards farmer issues. My appeal to the farmers would be to come forward and talk to their respective chief ministers," he said, as per PTI.

"I am the son of a farmer and I have served as Union agriculture minister as well. No prime minister in the past has assured of doubling the income of farmers by 2022, like PM Modi has," Singh added.

Singh was in the city to hold a dialogue on the completion of three years of the Narendra Modi government.

Meanwhile, the central government yesterday sent five additional battalions of paramilitary forces to Madhya Pradesh`s Mandsaur where fresh violence erupted as protesting farmers indulged in arson, a day after at least five farmers were killed in police firing.

Official sources said five more battalions of the Central Reserve Police Force and Rapid Acton Force have been sent to Mandsaur in addition to five battalions of paramilitary forces already present there, as per IANS.



They said state government had sought additional central forces.

On the other hand, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was today detained when he tried to defy ban orders enforced in Mandsaur district.

He was taken into preventive custody by the police in Neemuch district which borders Rajasthan.



Before his detention, Gandhi charged the Modi government with writing off the loans of rich industrialists to the tune of Rs 1,50,000 crore but did not waive the loans of poor farmers.



"He (Modi) can`t waive farmers` loans, he can`t give them rate. He can`t give them bonus. He can`t give them water. Kisan ko sirf goli de sakhta hai (He can only give bullets to farmers)," Gandhi said.



Asked who was responsible for the farmers` plight, Gandhi said, "Both. Narendra Modi and Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan)."



Earlier, Gandhi sent his security personnel into a tizzy after he took a bike ride to reach Mandsaur to meet the families of the dead farmers.



Gandhi entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan in a cavalcade of Congress leaders and activists.



As he entered Neemuch, he saw a group of policemen near a toll plaza deployed to stop him. He immediately switched over to a motorcycle and gave them -- as well as his own NSG personnel - the slip.



A party activist drove the bike. Congress leader Sachin Pilot also took a motorcycle and followed Gandhi.



They took a narrow lane through Chinta Khera village to reach Mandsaur.



Farmers in Madhya Pradesh have been on strike since June 1 demanding that their loans be scrapped and their produce be bought at a fair price.

(With Agency inputs)


New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is most likely to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summi which starts in Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana on Thursday.

India will be admitted as a full member of the SCO in presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Pakistan will also be admitted as a full member of the SCO along with India during the Astana summit.

PM Narendra Modi reached Kazakhstan this afternoon for the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana.

Prime Minister Modi will also hold bilateral talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev for boosting ties in the fields of trade and commerce, education, tourism and other sectors.

Briefing media in Delhi last evening, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "India will be benefited in trade and economic activity after it becomes a full member. He said that trade, connectivity, energy, banking and fight against terrorism are the main areas of cooperation."

Joint Secretary, Eurasia, G. V. Srinivas said, "India is joining SCO with an open mind for peace and stability in the region. Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness, promoting cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture and other areas are the main goals of SCO."

India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 at Tashkent, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members.

Srinivasan said at the briefing, that India has signed a memorandum which is essentially a process through which an aspirant country has to go through before becoming a member of the group.

"So that process has been completed from our side - essentially entailing to a couple of agreements as per the calendar drawn by the memorandum of obligations - something which we have relayed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation secretariat in Beijing. They have also confirmed that India has completed this process," he said

"The indications are that the last leg of the entire membership process that is the confirmation by the heads of state of existing members of the SCO, is going to happen in Astana," he added.

Kazakhstan is India's largest trading partner in Central Asia and the total trade volume between the two countries rose from 120 million US dollars to around 900 million dollars in recent years. India's imports to Kazakhstan include pharmaceuticals, tea, tobacco, telephone equipment and construction machinery.

Its imports from Kazakhstan comprise oil, uranium, titanium, steel, copper among other things.

With ANI inputs
Jaipur: Indian agencies have gathered credible evidence suggesting that Pakistan's notorious spy agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is now using donations made to religious places to fund terror activities across India.

A Times of India report said on Thursday that ISI handlers have allegedly set up donation boxes at places of worship, and are using the money donated by devotees to fund terrorist activities in the border areas.

ISI's undetectable funding network was unearthed by Rajasthan Police.

Alleged ISI spy, Deena Khan, who was arrested last week from a remote village in Barmer district, had revealed crucial information about the ISI's funding network during his interrogation by the Rajasthan Police officials.

Khan told that he was in-charge of a small Mazar in Chohtan village of Barmer district and distributed Rs 3.5 lakh of Mazar's donation to other spies like Satram Maheswari and his nephew Vinod Maheswari, the report quoted as senior officer of the Rajasthan State Intelligence and Security Wing as saying.

Deena's handlers in Pakistan would call him over phone, and ask him to distribute fund accordingly, the officer added.

On the instructions of his ISI handlers, Deena Khan disturbed the money to several spies, including Satram and Haji Khan, who were arrested by the border intelligence earlier this year.

Satram and Haji Khan were arrested for sharing confidential information about the movement of Indian troops along the international border.

Since no record books were maintained by the Mazar authorities, Deena Khan secretly used part of the religious offerings to fund anti-national activities, the officer said.

The Rajasthan Police suspects that ISI may have set up several such donation boxes at multiple locations in border areas to fund its espionage activities.

Since it is difficult to distribute money through the hawala network as it can be traced, the donation boxes are easy way to collect money and distribute it among the spies, the officer said.

In view of Deena's revelations, Indian Intelligence agencies have now begun to keep a close tab over the sudden spike in make-shift places of worship that have sprung up in border villages.
New Delhi: Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said on Thursday the country's armed forces are fully prepared to thwart any threat to India's sovereignty while also cautioning that Pakistan's malicious propaganda will not succeed in Kashmir.

Talking to ANI, the Army Chief said, ''India is fully ready for two and a half front war without naming China, Pakistan and elements posing threat to the internal security.''

While maintaining that the Indian Army is well prepared to face external, as well as internal threats to the country, Gen Rawat said, ''there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation.''

"Even the PM has stated that for the last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-China border," he said.

General Rawat also informed that a new strike corps, 17 Strike Corps, is being raised specifically for mountain warfare.

When quizzed about the delay in its formation, Army Chief said a process as complex as this takes time.

"It is being raised from scratch. The recruitments are on. As it is, to prepare an army soldier it takes about three years from recruitment process to training and then orienting and finally their deployment," he said.

Referring to rising tensions in the Kashmir Valley, General Rawat said, ''Pakistan generated social media propaganda is spreading disinformation among youth of Kashmir. However, it will not succeed.''

He also assured that ''the situation Kashmir will improve soon.''

When asked about the Indian Army's military preparedness, Rawat said, ''We keep raising our modernization issues with the Government of India and have got positive responses.''

''Government is fully aware of all our needs and is supporting us in every manner,'' Gen Rawat said.

Amid rising tension with Pakistan in view of frequent ceasefire violations and funding of terror in Jammu and Kashmir from across the border, General Bipin Rawat had earlier warned that all options are open against the belligerent neighbour.



During a recent visit to J&K, General Rawat is reported to have discussed "all options" against Pakistan's aggression along the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border.



General Rawat had visited Jammu and Kashmir last week to review the security and also met state Governor NN Vohra to discuss the security situation.

His statement came as tension continues to simmer along the India-Pakistan border, with several ceasefire violations being reported in recent months.

The Indian Army is facing a dirty war in Jammu and Kashmir, which has to be fought with innovative ways, the Army Chief had said recently, defending the use of a Kashmiri man as human shield by a young officer.

With ANI inputs
Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called on Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev here and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties.

He met Nazarbayev soon after arriving here on a two-day visit during which he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues.

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.
Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi met his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Astana on Thursday night.

PTI quoted official sources as saying that PM Modi and Sharif exchanged greetings when they were in the leaders' lounge for the reception at the Astana Opera organised to welcome the leaders who are participating in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's heart surgery, PM Modi enquired about his health, the sources said.

He also enquired about Sharif's mother and family, they said.

Earlier, asked whether PM Modi and Sharif will have a bilateral meeting, External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay had said, "Our position has not changed. There is no proposal from their side. There is no proposal either from our side."

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying.

The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.

Meanwhile, PM Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

A gala show, marked the beginning of the two-day-long SCO summit.

At the concert, Indian classical dance Kathak was the first to be featured after the host nation Kazakhstan's ensemble.

Eight dancers from Bengaluru-based NADAM put up 'Mahaganapathim' - an ode to the god of auspicious beginnings, Lord Ganesha.

India was the only observer country to perform in the concert which featured traditional and western classical music and dance performances from China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apart from the hosts.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday accused the Congress of conspiring to instigate violence in Mandsaur, where five farmers were allegedly killed in police firing, and dubbed its Vice President Rahul Gandhi`s decision to visit the state as part of his "irresponsible behaviour".

"Those forces are conspiring which don`t want to see Madhya Pradesh moving ahead. Those forces are conspiring which don`t want to see farmers being prosperous. This was proved today when we saw Rahul Gandhi trying to visit Mandsaur. Under such circumstances, he is behaving irresponsibly. This can`t be described as right conduct," Tomar told NDTV news channel.

"It can never be imagined that Congress will instigate violence by involving itself directly," the minister responded when he was asked about the events at Mandsaur.

Tomar, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, also accused the Congress party of demeaning the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.

"At least 30 farmers were killed in police firing in Betul when the Congress was in power. Neither Congress President Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi or any other leader visited the state. Today, they are going there only to disturb and demean the state government. The Congress is going to suffer huge losses in the future," he said.

The minister said the farmers were earlier convinced by the state administration to refrain from protest and they had agreed.

"But a conspiracy was hatched on June 5-6 and in the name of farmers the state was thrown into a cycle of violence," Tomar said.
Aizawl: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will meet the Chief Ministers of four northeastern states bordering Myanmar here on Monday to review the security situation and will also visit the border areas by chopper, an official said.



"Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh would hold a meeting of Chief Ministers of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram here on Monday to review the security situation along India-Myanmar borders," a Mizoram home department official said here.

The meeting will be attended by Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and top officials of the Ministry.

"The Union Home Minister would be visiting Myanmar border areas by helicopter on Tuesday. The Minister would also interact with senior Assam Rifles officers on the prevailing situation along the India-Myanmar frontier," he added.

Last month, around 280 people from Myanmar`s Ralie village in Arakan took shelter at Lungpuk and Khalkhy mountainous villages in Saiha district of southern Mizoram.

Assam Rifles troopers posted along the Myanmar border areas and the Saiha district administration provided necessary aid and support, including food, to the refugees. They were subsequently repatriated.

"The India-Myanmar unfenced borders along Mizoram are being frequently used by smugglers to smuggle drugs, arms and contraband from Myanmar," the official added.

Mizoram shares an unfenced 510-km border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh, providing infiltrators, terrorists and smugglers an opportunity to illegally move across the border.

There is a 16-km-wide free zone (8 km on either side of the frontier) along the 1,643-km unfenced India-Myanmar border.

Four northeastern states - Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Mizoram (510 km) - share the 1,643-km mountainous border with Myanmar.
Patna: Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday came under widespread criticism for taking part in a yoga camp amid the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh.



The Minister attended a yoga camp of Baba Ramdev at Motihari, his hometown in Bihar.



When journalists sought his reaction over the killing of the farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Radha Mohan Singh advised them not to bother but to practise yoga.



Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress leaders attacked the Minister.



"He has exposed the BJP's real agenda for farmers. Look at him enjoying the yoga session instead of meeting the protesting farmers and doing something for them," JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said.



RJD spokesperson Pragati Mehta added: "What kind of an agriculture minister do we have?"



Radha Mohan Singh could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts by IANS.


Allahabad: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Thursday condemned the police firing on agitating farmers in Madhya Pradesh and urged the central government to "urgently" take measures like "total waiver of loans".



VHP international working president Pravin Togadia also said "the dream of Ram Rajya can not be realised if farmers continue to be debt-ridden and driven to suicide".

"We fail to understand what could have been the provocation behind opening fire on the protesters at Mandsaur. Our security forces have been lenient enough to use rubber bullets against even separatist mobs in Kashmir.

"In Madhya Pradesh, the farmers, including the ones who were killed, were our own people", Togadia told PTI over phone.

He said that at a recent meeting at Ayodhya regarding the Ram temple, it was discussed that the vision of Ram Rajya includes not just the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir but also the welfare of farmers, who form the backbone of the country's economy and society.

"We urge the Union government to take urgent pro-farmer steps like total waiver of loans. It must also pass a law making it mandatory to provide farmers with a minimum support price that is 1.5 times the cost of production. This issue must be addressed at the national level and not shrugged off as a state subject," the firebrand VHP leader said.



Togadia demanded that the government must implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission at the earliest.

He also said that care should be taken that fertile and cultivable land was not acquired from the farmers for infrastructure projects.

"Such misplaced economic priorities would make India dangerously dependent on other countries for its food requirement", the VHP leader said.

He also demanded that free water to every farm, subsidised power, financial support for education of children of farmers and marriage of their daughters, be provided.

The government, he said, must also act against the middlemen who create a situation wherein farmers are compelled to sell their produce at lower rates but the same is made available to buyers at a much higher price.

"The VHP is doing its bit to alleviate the agrarian distress. We have launched a Samruddha Kisan (prosperous farmer) campaign as part of which thousands of farmers have been trained in what we call zero budget farming.

"We are also distributing free of cost a special, scientifically developed powder which will come in handy in the event of deficient rainfall," Togadia added.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a news conference that Qatar, host to the biggest US military base in the Middle East, wanted to maintain brotherly ties with its powerful neighbours in a region critical to world energy supplies.

A signboard of Qatar News Agency is seen in Doha, Qatar on June 5, 2017. Photo: Reuters

By Reuters: One of the first signs of the crisis in which four Arab states have cut ties with Qatar came in a phone call from an anxious government adviser to a Reuters journalist early on May 24.

In the 6.00 a.m. call, he denied Qatar's emir made comments reported by the state-run news agency criticising hostility to Iran, sympathising with three Islamist groups, accusing Saudi Arabia of adopting an extremist ideology that fosters terrorism and suggesting Donald Trump may not last long as US president.

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The adviser repeated a statement released hours earlier which said the news agency had been hacked, seeming unaware that Reuters had already reported the denial.

The unusual timing of the call and the adviser's haste to get the message across pointed to Qatar's deep concern about the impact the remarks attributed to the emir could have.

As anger mounted in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar's foreign minister tried to limit the fallout.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told a news conference that Qatar, host to the biggest US military base in the Middle East, wanted to maintain brotherly ties with its powerful neighbours in a region critical to world energy supplies.

To outside observers, it was unclear whether the Qatar News Agency had indeed been hacked or whether an editor had published remarks which the emir later regretted saying.

But to Qatar's neighbours the question was irrelevant: the comments reflected the broad lines of Qatar's independent-minded foreign policy, which critics say has destabilised the region through its alliance with Islamist armed groups and cordial ties with Iran.

Officials in the Gulf say the comments marked a turning point, prompting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to cut relations with Qatar in the biggest diplomatic shock in the region for years.

TROUBLE EVIDENT

For Riyadh, trouble was also evident elsewhere.

Some Qatari-funded anti-Saudi websites had begun reporting on what they said were calls for protests against the kingdom's rulers, stirring memories of the Arab Spring revolutions that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

"They (Qataris) hired (financed) influential Saudi preachers, religious figures, journalists and academics to incite against Saudi Arabia," one Gulf source told Reuters. "The Saudis had had it with Qatar. The Qataris keep channels open with Iran in various capitals and they campaign against the Egyptian state."

The Saudis had reached a "dead end" with Qatar and decided for the first time in 20 years to take action to damage its neighbour's interests, the source added.

Qatar denies inciting unrest in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere.

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Another factor that pushed the four Sunni states over the line, according to Gulf officials, was last month's visit to Saudi Arabia by Trump, who has reversed the policies of predecessor Barack Obama, thrown his weight behind the kingdom and its allies and expressed misgivings about Iran.

No sooner had Trump left Riyadh than the United States' partners in the region moved against Qatar and its young emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, another American ally.

A series of flashpoints across the region in the days following Trump's visit heightened tensions that had been building for months and removed any hope among Qatar's neighbours of peeling it away from Iran and the Islamist groups it has engaged with for years.

Those tensions spilled into the public arena less than 48 hours after the Qatari emir took part in the Riyadh summit attended by Trump which was meant to showcase US support for solidarity of Sunni Muslim nations.

The alleged hacking incident came days after Qatar complained it was the target of "an orchestrated barrage" of criticism by unknown parties, in the run-up to Trump's visit.

"After the Tamim speech, things went up an extra notch," a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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"The catalogue is so wide... It is an accumulation," Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs told Reuters. "It could have happened in March, it could have happened in December. But it was bound to happen. It was something that was ready to explode."

Gargash confirmed there were several major irritants that sped up the process. These included the comments attributed to the emir, UAE accusations that Qatar has undermined the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and Qatar's handling of a hostage crisis involving 24 members of the ruling elite in which it paid ransom money to Islamist groups in Iraq an Syria.

An annual phone call to mark the start of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan between Tamim and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on May 27 aggravated the situation further. Iran's Shi'ite-led government and Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers compete for influence in the region and Jean-Marc Rickli, a Geneva-based risk analyst, called that a "diplomatic mistake (which) Saudi Arabia and the UAE jumped on".

Kuwait's emir offered to mediate but when Tamim attended an iftar (fast-breaking) Ramadan meal with him on May 30, Tamim left early, apparently unwilling to discuss the row, a Kuwaiti newspaper editor regularly briefed by officials told Reuters.

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ROLLING MEETINGS

The decision to cut ties with Qatar took shape in a rolling series of meetings over several weeks, said a Gulf Arab source.

But a second source said an important moment came last Saturday when Saudi King Salman and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, met for iftar in Jeddah. It is likely that Egypt came on board two days later, during a visit to Cairo by the Saudi foreign minister.

At dawn on Monday, those governments and Bahrain made a series of rapid fire announcements, revealing the move's careful orchestration and pre-planning.

A Western diplomat in Doha said the move was "clearly tied" to Trump's visit, suggesting it had emboldened Saudi Arabia and the UAE to act.

"The opportunity presented itself with the Trump visit and Trump's presidency in general," a former US ambassador to Doha told Reuters, suggesting the move had been in the works for two or three months. "This is well choreographed. Everything came together at the same time."

US officials were blindsided by Saudi Arabia's decision to sever ties with Qatar, current and former US officials told Reuters.

A senior administration official said Washington had no indication at the Riyadh summit that the move was about to happen but on Tuesday morning Trump directly waded into the dispute by praising the Arab powers' decisions against Qatar.

FUNDING FOR TERRORISTS

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have mainly portrayed the move as a step to combat what they call Qatar's funding for terrorists.

"We want a black-and-white approach to terrorist financing," said Gargash from the UAE Foreign Ministry. "We know the ABCs of dealing with terrorism. One of these ABCs is: You never feed the crocodiles."

Trump's tweets suggested he agreed with that view: "During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!" the president wrote.

The Pentagon, however, mindful of the US military base in Qatar, renewed its praise for Doha after Trump's intervention -- showing again how US officials are walking a tightrope as Trump's tweets raise questions about existing policy and the scripted talking points used to explain it.

Reports that Qatari officials paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran-backed groups in an April deal to free 26 of its citizens kidnapped in Iraq last year has also been an irritant in relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Qatar denies trying to pay ransom money to secure the release of the hostages, although foreign minister al-Thani said it sent money "to support the authorities in the release of Qatari abductees".

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: As part of the party's Dalit outreach, BJP's top brass has asked Union ministers and senior functionaries to have a meal at a Dalit household while visiting different states as part of the Modi government's third anniversary celebrations.

"While they (Union ministers and party leaders) will talk about the achievements of the government and also ensure that they enrol as many people as they can with the party," a Union minister said.

BJP functionaries as well as ministers have been given a set of instructions as the party celebrates its three year at the Centre.

"They have been asked to pan out across the country, stay overnight in the northeast states, talk extensively about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, enroll members in the party and have at least one meal with a Dalit family," the minister said.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma shared a meal with a Dalit family today at Nuapada during his visit to Odisha.

He also registered 45 members of the household as BJP members.

Earlier, Union Power minister Piyush Goyal followed the party's diktat and paid a visit to a Dalit home at the Ambedkar Colony in Hongasandra, Bommanahalli of Karnataka, where he ate breakfast cooked by the lady of the house.

The leader later gushed about the food and the family's hospitality.



Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa has also been seen having food with Dalit families since the last fortnight.

The trend begin with the party chief Amit Shah visiting a Dalit family and sharing lunch with them in Telengana during his visit to the state between May 22-24.
New Delhi: Academician Partha Chatterjee had created an uproar when he compared Army Chief General Bipin Rawat with the notorious General Reginald Dyer of Jallianwala Bagh infamy. However, the Indian Army Chief on Thursday said he was unfazed by the description.

"See, I am an Army officer, just anything cannot affect me. You have to be prepared to face such.... People can misinterpret (comments made by him)," General Rawat told news agency IANS in an interaction.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place on April 13, 1919, when non-violent protesters, along with Baisakhi pilgrims, were subjected to unprovoked firing by the British Indian Army troops, commanded by Colonel Reginald Dyer.

More than 1,000 people were believed to have died in the action, which left the nation in a state of shock and paved the way for widespread public rebellion.

The Bengali scholar had earlier this month penned an article titled In Kashmir, India Is Witnessing Its General Dyer Moment after General Rawat extended support for Major Leetul Gogoi over the human shield controversy in Kashmir.

"There is no need to react. He (Chatterjee) was trying to draw a reaction from somewhere else. It should not bother me," the General said.

Asked if he was not hurt by the comparison, he said: "Not at all".

He added that people should be left to judge.

"People are the best judges; majority's decision will be right," he said.

In his write-up, the scholar had cited General Dyers testimony before the Hunter Commission and compared it with Army Chief Bipin Rawats justification of Major Gogois innovative way of using human shield to counter the dirty war underway in Kashmir.

"There are chilling similarities between the justifications advanced for the actions of the British Indian Army in Punjab in 1919 and those being offered today in defense of the acts of the Indian Army in Kashmir," Chatterjee had written in his article.

Despite criticism, scholar Partha Chatterjee had said that he sticks to his opinion and will not change his opinion whatsoever.
New Delhi: At least seven infiltrators have been gunned down when the Indian Army on Thursday foiled multiple infiltration attempts by armed groups in Jammu and Kashmir, Northern Command of the Army said in a statement released on Twitter.

#JKOps Multiple attempts by Paki army to infiltrate armed groups into Kashmir foiled. 7 armed infiltrators killed. Ops in progress @adgpi pic.twitter.com/jZQNcG3fti  NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) June 8, 2017

The security forces today thwarted at least four attempts by the Pakistan army to infiltrate armed groups into Kashmir.

According to the statement, at least three terrorists were killed during an encounter in Nowgam sector and four were eliminated in the Machhil sector. Infiltration bids sponsored and facilitated by the Pakistan Army were also foiled in Uri and Gurez sectors.

In Gurez, terrorists trained by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence abandonned their positions and retreated into Pakistan-occupied territory, leaving behind their weapons and supplies.

Earlier today, a jawan lost his life during an encounter with terrorists in J&K's Nowgam sector. In a separate incident in Baramulla district, two Indian Army soldiers were injured.

Indian Army troops moved into the Doba Sardar area of the Baramulla-Uri sector near the Line of Control on receiving intelligence about the movement of five to six militants who had infiltrated from across the border.

When the militants opened fire on the troops, two of the soldiers were injured.

These infiltrators were being provided active support including heavy artillery cover by the Pakistan Army. In its statement, the Indian Army said that it has foiled 22 infiltration attempts and killed 34 armed intruders in the current year.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to impose restrictions in seven areas of Srinagar following a shutdown call by Hurriyat leaders.

Confirming the report, Srinagar Deputy Commissioner told ANI that the separatist leaders have called a bandh in Srinagar on Friday. Restrictions will be imposed in Khanyar, Maharaj Gunj, Safa Kadal, Rainawari, Kral Khud, Nowhatta Maisuma areas

The separatists called for a strike and peaceful protests in Kashmir on Friday against the killing of a youth at the hands of government forces in Shopian district yesterday.

They have also called for a march to the house of the deceased student Adil Magray to express solidarity with the bereaved family.

The two factions of Hurriyat Conference and JKLF also asked people to stage protests against the "Indian electronic media" for promoting prejudice and bias against Kashmiris and the recent raids conducted by National Investigation Agency (NIA) aimed at "intimidating and defaming leadership and freedom movement" in the state.

In a joint statement, chairman of Hurriyat-G Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of Hurriyat-M Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and JKLF chief Mohammad Yasin Malik called for peaceful protests after Friday prayers against the killing of Magray.
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals - the ruling LDF and the UDF - on Thursday closed ranks in the state assembly to oppose the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

During the one-day session, convened exclusively to discuss the controversial cattle ban notification, members of the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the opposition Congress-headed United Democratic Front (UDF) condemned it as not only an "intrusion" into the rights of states but also an "infringement" on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution.

Members of both the Fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer.

It thus has to be withdrawn, they said.

The members also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

"The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political gains," he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious 'adverse' consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and meat export trade.

"The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens' choice of food," he said.

On the impact on state's meat trade, Vijayan said 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new rules would further add to their woes.

The chief minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another "surgical strike" by the Modi government "like the note ban", opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was "a sign of arrival of fascism" in the country.

"Modi has transformed himself into 'abhinava Hitler' (neo Hitler)," he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an "indirect interest" behind the notification.

CPI(M) veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Rajagopal said the coming together of LDF and UDF in the assembly was a sign of a "grand alliance" forming at the national level to take on the BJP.

He said the House has been "misused" for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre's notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

He has written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

The attack on CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury at party headquarters A K G Centre in New Delhi yesterday also had its echo in the assembly here with the party members alleging that the Sangh Parivar was trying to "silence" political rivals through "muscle power".
New Delhi: Terming the Centre`s notification banning sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter as `unconstitutional`, the special session of the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Thursday passed a resolution against the same.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed about the developments in a series of tweets."The special session of the Kerala Legislative Assembly passed a resolution against Centre`s unconstitutional usurpation of state rights. Constitution espouses federalism and defines the rights of the Centre and states. Parliament has no right to pass laws on state subjects," he tweeted.

He said that the Regulation of Livestock Market notification violates fundamental rights."Preservation and protection of the livestock belongs to the State list in the Seventh schedule of the Constitution. The Act denies the right to live, ensured by the Fundamental Rights under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution," Vijayan added.

Last week, Vijayan said the state government will challenge the Centre`s notification banning sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter at animal markets.

The decision came after Vijayan wrote to his counterparts, appealing them to stand together and oppose the "anti-federal" move.

There has been a wide opposition of the central government`s order, with many states openly denying accepting the notification.

The Karnataka, Kerala and Tripura Governments have said they will not implement the Centre`s order.
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Thursday said that the five casualties during farmers' agitation in Mandsaur occurred during police firing.

"Five persons were killed in police firing," Singh told PTI over phone.

The minister's remarks assume significance as the authorities had been claiming that the police had not fired during protests at Pipliamandi in Mandsaur district in which five farmers were killed two days ago.

Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur Collector SK Singh had told PTI that the police told him categorically that "neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire".

Asked what provoked the police to fire, the home minister said it is being probe in the magisterial inquiry.

However, he said the situation was now peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were today deployed in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the violence two days ago.

Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi, the police said.

While two companies of RAF have been posted in the district's Garoth area, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.

The situation is tense but under control, the police said.

DIG Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders yesterday , beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.

Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.

The situation in western Madhya Pradesh is posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

The Shivraj Chouhan government had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.
Mandsaur: Protests by farmers on Thursday spilled over to new areas of Madhya Pradesh with the epicentre of the agitation, Mandsaur, remaining relatively peaceful, even as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was arrested when he entered the state to meet farmers.

While curfew continued in Mandsaur, except for a two-hour relaxation, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of the state on the eighth day of the agitation for loan waiver and better crop price.

While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time.

Police fired teargas and lathicharged a stone-pelting mob near the local market in Shajapur. Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC.

The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

In Mandsaur district where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday, Rapid Action Force (RAF), the anti- riot paramilitary force rushed by the Centre, was deployed this morning.

Also Read - Mandsaur violence: Rajnath Singh says govt will not do anything to betray trust of farmers

The Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of the RAF to the violence-hit state yesterday.

While two companies of the RAF, each comprising 100 personnel, were deployed in Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where the five farmers were killed, another two were posted in Garoth.

Two RAF companies were deployed along the highway.

Contingents of the CRPF have also been deployed.

At least 56 people have been arrested and over 100 detained in connection with violence during the farmers agitation here, police said, as per PTI.

A two-hour relaxation in curfew from 4 pm in four police station areas of Mandsaur city and Pipliamandi in the district passed off peacefully, Collector OP Srivastava said, adding it can be eased further tomorrow.

Amid the simmering tension, the government transferred the District Magistrates of Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch. Mandsaur Police Superintendent was also shunted out.

Meanwhile, Gandhi's attempt to meet the families of the farmers killed raised political temperature in Madhya Pradesh and beyond.



Gandhi was not allowed to visit Mandsaur and was arrested with 29 other leaders including Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav when they entered Madhya Pradesh. All of them were released on personal bonds.



Gandhi then met some farmers and expressed solidarity with them and lashed out at the Modi government.



"PM Narendra Modi waived off loans worth Rs 150,000 crore for the richest people in India," he said. "But they can't pay the right price to farmers for their produce, they can't give compensation. They can give only bullets," he said.



Asked who was responsible for the killing of the five farmers, Gandhi said, "Prime Minister and (Madhya Pradesh) Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan)," as per IANS.

Also Read - MP farmers' stir: Govt ready for talks, says Shivraj Singh Chouhan



Gandhi entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan and switched over to a bike in a bid to reach Mandsaur after seeing police deployment. But he could not go too far.



Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh as well as Yadav were also stopped from meeting the families of the dead farmers.

Rahul's Mandsaur visit is 'photo opportunity' yatra, says BJP

On the other hand, BJP termed Gandhi's visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity" and accused the Opposition party of "fuelling violence" in the farmers' protests.

"It is unfortunate that the Congress is politicising the issue. It is instigating, fuelling violence. Its vice president now wants to visit the place as part of his photo opportunity yatra which he undertakes on a regular basis," BJP leader and Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.

The Information and Broadcasting Minister also dismissed the Congress' demand that Madhya Pradesh CM should step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Recalling that on January 12, 1998, 24 farmers had died in police firing in the state's Betul district when Congress leader Digvijay Singh was the CM, he said, "he never resigned."

Briefing reporters at the BJP headquarters, party spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao accused state Congress leaders of fanning violence after the government reached an agreement with the protesting farmers, agreeing to their demands.

Out of power in the state for 14 years, the Congress was looking at violence to resurrect its fortunes, he said.

"The Congress' hand is with anarchy and violence. The BJP will expose its evil designs to wreak violence for resurrecting its flagging fortunes. We strongly condemn the Congress for first provoking violence and then to exploit a human tragedy. All Congress leaders responsible for provoking violence have been identified. They are being charged with under various sections of the IPC and will face the wrath of the law for their unlawful actions," Rao said.

What Gandhi is doing is nothing but political drama, he said, adding that he goes wherever he sees TV cameras.

(With Agency inputs)
Doria: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met farmers and kin of those who died during protests in Mandsaur after being released on bail.

He met them at Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border.

"I condemn this incident. I only wanted to stand with farmers and want to assure them that the Congress party is standing with them. We demanded from the Centre to take strict action against the accused. We will raise this topic in parliament as well," Gandhi told media after meeting with the farmers.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi waived money for the elite but he cannot waive farmer loans," he said.

The Congress VP claimed that the Uttar Pradesh government waived off farmers loans due to his constant demand of the same and added that he will do the same in Madhya Pradesh as well.

He also assured that the Congress party will help the kin in providing the honour of "martyr` to the deceased as demanded by the families.

"Kin of farmers` families are demanding `martyr` honour and the Congress party will support them on this demand," he added, as per ANI.

The Congress VP took a chartered plane from Delhi to Udaipur in Rajasthan and then left for Madhya Pradesh by road "in a four wheeler", said IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava.

"In Nimaheda town of Chittoragarh district, he rode pillion for 5-7 km and reached close to the border. After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border," Srivastava said.

He walked for about 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district, police said.

There was high drama as he crossed into Madhya Pradesh on foot. It turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he entered a field and was detained from there.

Later, SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said, "Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders have been released."

He was released after about four hours.

Along with him were Congress leaders like Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Sachin Pilot.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters had followed him, shouting slogans like "Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad".

Widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, have been reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially in Mandsaur and Dewas districts, during the week- long farmers' agitation in the state over loan waiver and better price for their produce.

The state government, in a bid to cool tempers, has already announced certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.

Rahul's Mandsaur visit is 'photo opportunity' yatra, says BJP

Meanwhile, terming Gandhi's visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity", the BJP today accused the Opposition party of "fuelling violence" in the farmers' protests and claimed "guilty" leaders have been identified and will be punished.

"It is unfortunate that the Congress is politicising the issue. It is instigating, fuelling violence. Its vice president now wants to visit the place as part of his photo opportunity yatra which he undertakes on a regular basis," BJP leader and Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.

The Information and Broadcasting Minister also dismissed the Congress' demand that Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan should step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Recalling that on January 12, 1998, 24 farmers had died in police firing in the state's Betul district when Congress leader Digvijay Singh was the CM, he said, "he never resigned."

Briefing reporters at the BJP headquarters, party spokesperson GVL Narsimha Rao accused state Congress leaders of fanning violence after the government reached an agreement with the protesting farmers, agreeing to their demands.

Out of power in the state for 14 years, the Congress was looking at violence to resurrect its fortunes, he said.

"The Congress' hand is with anarchy and violence. The BJP will expose its evil designs to wreak violence for resurrecting its flagging fortunes. We strongly condemn the Congress for first provoking violence and then to exploit a human tragedy. All Congress leaders responsible for provoking violence have been identified. They are being charged with under various sections of the IPC and will face the wrath of the law for their unlawful actions," Rao said.

What Rahul Gandhi is doing is nothing but political drama, he said, adding that he goes wherever he sees TV cameras.

(With Agency inputs)
Bhopal: As western Madhya Pradesh reels under violent protest by farmers over loan waiver and better price for their produce, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday said the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.

"The state government is always ready for talks with farmers. I appeal to the farmers to maintain calm. Only talks can end the differences," he said in a press statement here.

"The state government is of farmers and public. I will continue to work for them," he said.

The chief minister said the state government has taken a slew of measures in farmers' interest like procuring one kg of onion for Rs 8.

"We (state government) are going to start buying Tur and Urad pulses from farmers at MSP from June 10," he said.

Chouhan said some "anti-social elements" wanted to push the state into deep trouble.

"Such people will be dealt strictly," the CM said in the statement.

He appealed to the agitating farmers to ensure the nefarious designs of the anti-social elements do not prevail.

"I appeal to the farmers to join hands to work for the state's development," Chouhan said.

Widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, have been reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially in Mandsaur and Dewas districts, during the week- long farmers' agitation in the state.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were today deployed in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the past two days.

According to police, two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where five farmers were killed.

DIG Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi, where the agitating farmers defied prohibitory orders, beat up officials and policemen, and resorted to violence and arson yesterday.

The state government, in a bid to cool tempers, has already announced certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.
By Press Trust of India: (Eds: Updating with fresh quotes from Scotland Yard)

By Aditi Khanna

London, Jun 8 (PTI) Three more persons have been arrested by Scotland Yard in connection with the London Bridge attack carried out by three men including a Pakistani-origin terrorist.

The arrests came ahead of the general election in which about 46 million eligible voters are expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the UK.

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Seventeen people have now been arrested in connection with Saturdays attack and five remain in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.

"The Mets Counter Terrorism Command, supported by firearms officers, arrested two men on a street in Ilford, east London, a third was arrested after a warrant was carried out at a residential address in Ilford," the Met Police said.

Of the two men arrested on the street, one aged 27 was arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts and the second aged 33 was arrested for on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs. The third 29-year-old man was arrested from the residential address in Ilford on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts.

All three men have been taken into custody at a south London police station under the UKs Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Met said.

Eight people were killed when three men, Pakistan-born Khurram Shazad Butt, Moroccan-origin Rachid Redouane and Moroccon-Italian Yousef Zaghba, drove into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.

Today, the Met Police made three further terror-related arrests in London, which the force said were not related to Saturdays London Bridge attack.

"All three were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They have been taken into custody at a south London police station and are detained under the Terrorism Act," the Metropolitan Police said.

Searches being conducted at the addresses where the men were arrested.

The developments came as families of the London Bridge attackers expressed their disgust at the attack in London on June 3.

The relatives of Butt and the ex-wife of Redouane distanced themselves from the extremists, saying the atrocity had left them shocked.

Charisse OLeary, who married Redoaunein Dublin in 2012, said she has "shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident".

"I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex-partner who has killed and injured so many innocent people. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.

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"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that some day I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did," she said.

Butts uncle Nasir Dar had earlier condemned his nephews actions saying: "I condemn, first of all, this incident, this brutal action. Innocent people are killed in this action".

Their condemnation came as CCTV footage emerged online appearing to show the moment armed police gunned down the three knife-wielding terrorists.

The three terror suspects can be seen rushing at a passing pedestrian near Borough Market, raining down a series of blows while police cars approach and marksmen shoot down the three attackers. PTI AK CPS AKJ CPS

--- ENDS ---
Bhopal: Bhopal: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday said that he won't return without meeting the kin of five farmers killed in police firing in Mandsaur shortly after he was arrested for trying to defy ban orders imposed by the Madhya Pradesh government.

Curfew clamped in the violence-hit Mandsaur district in the aftermath of five farmers' death in police firing was relaxed for two hours for women and children, from 4 pm to 6 pm, the authorities said today.

Earlier, Divisional Commissioner M B Ojha had said that Internet services might also be restored.

Meanwhile, MP CM Shivraj Singh took to Twitter and assured that his government will continue to work for the welfare of farmers as long as he is alive.

 , !               ,        pic.twitter.com/iICe0mNnmw  ShivrajSingh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) June 8, 2017

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

Naidu's comments came shortly after the Congress vice president was detained in Neemuch by police for defying ban orders imposed in the violence-hit Mandsaur district where he wished to go in order to meet the grieving families of farmers had who lost their lives in the police firing.

The Congress leader was taken into preventive custody by the local authorities and rushed to an undisclosed location. He has been formally arrested and charged under Section 151, according to ANI.

Senior leaders including Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath Singh, Sharad Yadav and several others were also stopped by the MP Police from entering Neemuch, while Rajasthan Congress unit chief Sachin Pilot was detained.

Speaking to reporters, Rahul said, ''Farmers have been killed, I want to go there; PM has waived off loan of 1.5 lakh for rich but can't waive off loan for farmers.''

They didn't give any reason, just said they are arresting me. The same was done in Uttar Pradesh also, Rahul Gandhi told reporters.

Rahul Gandhi, who left for Mandsaur early morning, had taken a motorbike ride to reach there in order to meet the grieving families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing.

Here is the video of Congress VP riding pillion to reach Mandsaur.

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

In a big admission earlier, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh today accepted that five farmers were killed in firing by police in the violence-hit Mandsaur district.

It has been established in probe, Bhupendra Singh was quoted as saying by ANI. The minister had earlier denied reports of farmers' deaths due to police firing.

Meanwhile, at least 62 people have been detained in connection with the recent violence in Mandsaur, according to city SP OP Tripathi.

In a related development, the MP government today transferred the Mandsaur District Collector and the Superintendent of Police in the wake of farmers' killing in police firing.

According to ANI, Om Prakash Srivastava has been appointed new District Collector of Mandsaur.

Also, a contingent of Rapid Action Force (RAF) has been deployed in Madhya Pradesh's violence-hit Mandsaur district.

As Rahul Gandhi left for Mandsaur by road, Neemuch SP Manoj Kumar Singh said that the Congress leader will not be allowed to visit farmers in the violence-hit district of MP.

Amid Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit, the agitating farmers today intensified their protest in Mandsaur with reports claiming that one toll plaza was vandaalised and Rs ten lakh were looted in stray incidents of violence in the district.

Congress VP Rahul Gandhi had confirmed his Mandsaur visit in a tweet yesterday.

Will be in #Mandsaur tomorrow to meet the families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing yesterday  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 7, 2017

The Congress leader's visit comes a day after the Centre ordered a judicial inquiry into the Mandsaur police firing incident in which five agitating farmers lost their lives.

Rahul had openly slammed the Centre over the killing of farmers in the protest on Tuesday.

However, the Centre hit back at Gandhi for publicizing the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt.

"Rahul Gandhi is going to that area where situation is very much tense. He should understand his responsibility. He should have talked about this first, but he is so fond of his publicity. That's why he is going there." Union Minister of Steel, Mines and Employment Narendra Singh Tomar was quoted as saying by ANI.

Meanwhile, the Congress has rebuffed reports of Gandhi participating in the ongoing farmers protest in Mandsaur, saying such a plan was never on the card for the party.

"People who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Rahul Gandhi, were denied permission. Instead canards and rumours were spread that he wanted to go earlier to participate in the protest. There were never any plans, never any attempt," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a press briefing here.

Appealing for peace to the agitating farmers in the state, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had earlier announced a compensation of Rs. 1 crore to the kin of those killed in the violence.

Speaking to ANI, the Chief Minister asserted that his government stands with farmers and assured that various demands have been fulfilled in the past.

"In the past 11 years, there have been countless decisions made for the welfare of farmers. The various demands of the farmers have been fulfilled," he said.

However, Chouhan came down heavily on the Congress for giving a political tinge to the violence.

The farmers' agitation in Mandsaur district further intensified with protestors setting at least eight to ten vehicles on fire today.

Demanding the presence of Chouhan, the protesting farmers, earlier in the day got into a scuffle with the Collector and Superintendent of Police of Mandsaur district over them delaying their visit to the area.

Farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn yesterday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

The protestors alleged that police fired at them.

With ANI inputs
New Delhi: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

Speaking to reporters here, Naidu also dismissed the Congress' demand that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Targetting the opposition party, he recalled an incident in the state's Betul district on January 12, 1998, where 24 farmers died allegedly in police firing ordered by then chief minister and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

"The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there," Naidu said.

He dubbed the party vice president's planned visit to Mandsaur, the hotbed of the ongoing farmers' agitation, as "yet another photo opportunity".

On Chouhan's resignation, Naidu questioned whether Singh had resigned from the post of chief minister after the farmers, who were seeking compensation after a hailstorm, were killed.

"Did they seek resignation of Singh when the 24 farmers were killed? Did the Congress vice president visit the victim farmers then?" Naidu asked.

The minister described Chouhan as the most farmer- friendly chief minister and listed welfare measures taken by the BJP-led Centre and state government.
Mumbai: Key NDA ally Shiv Sena, which had embarassed BJP in the previous two Presidential elections by backing the rival candidate, on Thursday said it may take an "independent" stand in the upcoming polls and pushed for the candidature of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.

The Sena, the oldest ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said it will continue to press for the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) for the highest office. Bhagwat, 66, has already said he is not interested in the President's post.

"We may take an independent stand on our vote in the upcoming presidential election. We have time and again reiterated that we do not find anyone other than (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat more capable of fulfilling the Hindu rashtra (nation) dream," Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut told reporters here.

The Uddhav Thackersay-headed Shiv Sena had embarrassed THE BJP in the 2012 presidential poll by backing the UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee while the saffron party supported P A Sangma for the post.

In 2007 also, the Sena ignored NDA's presidential candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and instead voted for UPA candidate and senior Congress leader Pratibha Patil, who hailed from Maharashtra.

With presidential contest, if required, scheduled to be held on July 17, the BJP is hopeful of securing the support of the Sena's contingent of 18 MPs and 63 MLAs. The BJP's oldest pro-Hindutva ally has been seen playing the hard ball over the issue so far.

Toughening its stand on the farmers' agitation in Maharashtra, Raut, also a Rajya Sabha MP, asked the BJP to relinquish power if it could not solve the grievances of the agriculturists and if it felt offended by the Sena's stand on loan waiver.

"There are lot of differences between the Sena and the government over farmers' issues. If the BJP cannot solve the problems being faced by farmers and if they find our stand to be troublesome, they should forgo power then," he said.

Yesterday, making light of the Sena ministers' absence at the cabinet meeting, state Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar of the BJP said that they did not boycott the cabinet meet but sought permission not to attend it, which the chief minister had granted.

He also said that since Thackeray was not in town, his views on farm loan waiver issue could not be sought.

Taking a dig at Mungantiwar's remarks that Thackeray's views will be sought after he returns from his foreign tour, Raut said even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a foreign tour while there is a severe agrarian crisis in the country.
New Delhi: Equity mutual funds saw an inflow of Rs 10,790 crore in May, making it the highest in nearly two years, underpinned by investor optimism and steps taken by fund houses to create awareness about MFs.

This also marks the 14th straight month of inflows into equity schemes. Prior to that, such funds had witnessed a pullout of Rs 1,370 crore in March 2016.

The strong inflows have pushed the asset base of equity mutual funds (MFs) by 2.6 percent in May from the preceding month.

"Investor awareness programme and paperless investing platform for mutual fund investing are the two major factors that have facilitated this growth in net inflows.

In addition to these, even the investors' confidence in MF has increased. Now, they are holding their investments in equity oriented schemes for a longer period of time for both lump sum as well as Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) investments," Bajaj Capital CEO Rahul Parikh said.

SIP is an investment vehicle that allows investors to invest in small amounts periodically instead of lump sums. The frequency of investment is usually weekly, monthly or quarterly.

According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi), equity funds, which also include equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS), saw net inflows of Rs 10,790 crore in May, higher than Rs 9,429 crore in the preceding month.

This was the highest net inflow since June 2015, when equity MFs racked up an inflow of Rs 12,273 crore.

In May 2016, these funds had seen a net inflow of Rs 4,721 crore.

The assets under management (AUM) of equity MFs scaled a record high of Rs 5.83 lakh crore at the end of May 2017 from Rs 5.69 lakh crore at April-end.

MFs are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a number of investors. The funds are invested in stocks, bonds and money market instruments, among others.
Islamabad: Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated news agency News Network International (NNI).

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees.

Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation.

India had approached the world court last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

The 15-member bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.
Shillong: Major David Manlun, who died in a gunfight with militants in Nagaland, was laid to rest with military honours on Thursday at the Assam Regimental Centre in Meghalaya.



Major Manlun, 32, led an Army operation on Tuesday in which three militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent and an autorickshaw driver allegedly ferrying the militants were killed in Nagaland's Mon district bordering Myanmar.



Three Army commandos were injured in the battle at Lapa Lempong hilltop in Oting village.



Commissioned into the 1st Battalion the Naga Regiment in March 2010, Major Manlun joined the battalion Naugam in Jammu and Kashmir and served there for two years and took part in a number of operations.



After a stint in Himachal Pradesh, Major Manlun was posted in Nagaland.



Hundreds of people, including Meghalaya Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Meghalaya Police chief Swaraj Bir Singh, as well as Army and Meghalaya Police officials paid their last respect to the Major at his residence.



Barring a Hill State People's Democratic Party legislator, no Meghalaya minister was present at the residence or at the Assam Regimental Centre.



The final journey from his house till the Assam Regimental Centre was witnessed by thousands of civilians who thronged the streets to bid adieu to the officer.



Major Manlun was awarded with the Chief of Army Staff Commendation Card for a number of successful operations and in recognition of his exemplary service on August 15 last year.


New Delhi: Recently Fatima Sana Shaikh of 'Dangal' fame posted pictures of her photo shoot, where she is seen posing in a black bathing suit by the beach.

The pictures were extravagant and Fatima looked gorgeous while posing for the camera. This was the kind of look that nobody saw Fatima sporting before.

The 25-year-old actress who is currently in Europe shooting for 'Thugs Of Hindostan', did this photo shoot for GQ magazine.

The pictures were uploaded by Fatima on her official Twitter handle and it took the internet by storm, sadly for very wrong reasons.

People started trolling and bashing Fatima for wearing a swimwear during this auspicious month of Ramadan. She became a victim of a lot of hate comments on her Instagram page.

There are people who called her out and saying that 'you are not a Muslim' and that people didn't 'expect' her to do this during Ramadan.

The 'Dangal' actress was harassed and told that she had no shame or respect for her culture.

Fatima however, has not given any response to the haters and has maintained her silence on the matter as of now.

Recently even Priyanka Chopra was trolled for showing legs in front of PM Narendra Modi but the former Miss World didn't waste much time to give a fitting reply to all the people trying to shame her.

This has now become a trend to troll and shame celebrities over the internet.
New Delhi: Fatima Sana Shaikh from the 'Dangal' fame is having the time of her life.

In a latest photoshoot, Fatima is seen rocking a vintage swimwear and giving us major Marilyn Monroe feels.

The 25-year-old actress is seen chilling by the beach in a black bathing suit and we can't decide if Fatima looks more enchanting or the view.

Fatima is currently in Europe shooting for her forthcoming film 'Thugs Of Hindostan' which also stars Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Katrina Kaif.

The 'Dangal' actress sure has played her cards right and has bagged two films opposite Aamir. She is on her way to make it big in the film industry.

Her latest photoshoot by the beach showcases her in an avatar that will make your jaw drop.

Check it out:

A post shared by Fatima Sana Shaikh (@fatimasanashaikh) on Jun 6, 2017 at 10:20pm PDT

A post shared by Fatima Sana Shaikh (@fatimasanashaikh) on Jun 6, 2017 at 10:20pm PDT

A post shared by Fatima Sana Shaikh (@fatimasanashaikh) on Jun 6, 2017 at 7:31am PDT

Fatima is here to give all the leading ladies a run for their money because she's got both the acting chops and the killer looks.
By Press Trust of India: Chavan

Mumbai, Jun 8 (PTI) The CBI has been used in the NDTV case in what appears to be a private dispute, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has alleged.

He also said that what was happening today was like an "undeclared emergency".

The CBI on Monday searched the residence of NDTV founder Prannoy Roy in New Delhi and three other locations for allegedly causing loss to a private bank, a move termed by the channel as a "witch-hunt" based on false accusations.

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The agency has also registered a case against Roy, his wife Radhika and RRPR Holdings for allegedly causing loss of Rs 48 crore to ICICI Bank.

"CBI has been used in what appears to be a private dispute," Chavan said at the Press Club Mumbais RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism, here last night.

"Emergency was a dark chapter in Indias democracy. What is happening today is an undeclared emergency," Chavan said.

"Not many believe it, but the CBI functions fairly independently. I can say this because I have handled the Union ministry under which the CBI operates," said Chavan, who served as the minister of state in the prime ministers office from 2004 to 2010.

"Orders are coming right from the top," the Congress leader said, speaking about an Enforcement Directorate probe against a former Cabinet colleague in Maharashtra government.

However, he described the Emergency and action against The Indian Express during the previous Congress rule as "aberrations".

During a panel discussion on credibility of the news media, NDTVs Sreenivasan Jain said there was "unanimity" among domestic and foreign media organisations that the action against the channels founder was an assault on freedom of media.

However, he added that not everything was bleak.

Journalist Bachi Karkaria decried social media trolls, describing them as the "backup army" for the government.

Veteran journalist Vinod Dua, who received the Lifetime Achievement award from Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, asked journalists to shun the "vicarious sense of power" which comes from proximity to politicians.

The Indian Express chief editor Raj Kamal Jha received the Journalist of the Year award.

"The award doesnt belong to me but to the Indian Express," he said, adding, "Our fundamental job is to tell stories."

Jain received the RedInk award for best political reporting (TV media) for his reportage on cow vigilantes. He brought along Sanjay, his cameraperson, on stage, saying the latter had got beaten up during the reportage.

Rahul Kulkarni of ABP Majha was selected for the Special Impact Award, while Govind Tupe of Marathi newspaper Sakaal got the Mumbai Star Reporter award. PTI VT GK KIS

--- ENDS ---

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Mumbai: Actor Upen Patel, who has been part of hit films like "Namastey London" and "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani", says he was not keen on appearing in movies just to be in the limelight.

Upen made his Bollywood debut with the Shahid Kapoor-Kareena Kapoor Khan starrer "36 China Town". He was then seen in Akshay Kumar's "Namastey London" and Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif's "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani" and Tamil film "I" among others.

Ask him if he is saddened with the way his film career has shaped up, Upen told PTI, "There is no dejection at all (about my film career). I never planned to be an actor, it just happened. It isn't that there is no work, but just that I don't want to do everything that is offered to me."

He says he would have been worried as an actor if he had no film offers coming his way.

"I do get offers, specially after 'I', I got several offers from South to do more projects. But you have to be very careful today with the kind of movies you choose.

I was getting offers to star in a lot of erotic-dramas. I don't have anything against the genre just that I wasn't comfortable doing them."

Upen, 36, is currently gearing up for the release of his film, "Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha". The film marks his reunion with director Suneel Darshan after their last outing in 2007 with "Shakalaka Boom Boom".

The model-actor says when Darshan approached him for the film he instantly liked the script as it gave him an opportunity to showcase his acting talent.

The upcoming romantic mystery stars Suneel's son Shiv Darshan along with actress Natasha Fernandez. It is scheduled to release on June 30.

Upen has been in news for his personal life - be it his link up with actress Amrita Arora or his split with former girlfriend, Karishma Tanna.

The actor says he does not like discussing his personal life.

"I started my career very young and achieved fame very fast as a model. I understand that because you are a public figure, certain aspects of your life garner public interest. I have been open about my relationships with the media.

"I accept it (people talking about personal life), but I also have a certain control over how much I want to say about it. I know where to draw the line," he adds.
Jaipur: In a horrific incident, a dumper carrying stones from an illegal mine ran over a Rajasthan Police constable trying to stop it, crushing him to death on Tuesday night.

Family members of 30-year-old constable Lalaram Yadav are mourning his death in Chandali village in Alwar district.

Lalaram, who had gone to a quarry to check illegal mining, was killed at Kairant Mod in Alwar district on Tuesday night, circle officer, Bhiwadi, Siddhant Sharma, said.

He tried to stop the dumper, which was carrying stones from the mine, but the driver did not stop and crushed him," he said.

The dumper owner, Tamim, and his brother, Wasim, who was driving the vehicle, have been arrested, he said.

The body of the constable, who was attached to the Chupanki police station in Alwar, was handed over to his family, he said.

Lalaram's father, meanwhile, told India Today, "We want justice to be done."

Satveer, a friend of Lalaram, said, "The dumper that crushed Lalaram to death could have been stopped earlier. The fact that it was not shows there was laxity on the part of police. Illegal mining has become rampant in Bhiwadi."
Jaipur: The RBSE Result 2017, BSER Result 2017 is expected to be declared anytime soon.

The Board of Secondary Education, Rajasthan is expected to release the RBSE 10th Result 2017, BSER 10th Result 2017, RBSE 10th Class Result 2017, BSER 10th Class Result 2017 at 4 pm.

Students can log on to rajeduboard.nic.in, rajresults.nic.in, or rajeduboard.rajasthan.gov.in to check Rajasthan Board 10th Result 2017, BSER Class 10th Result, RBSE Class 10th Result, Rajasthan Board Exam Result 2017.

Around 10,99,000 students are waiting forRBSE 10th Board Exam Result, BSE Rajasthan Class 10 Result 2017.

How to check RBSE Result 2017/BSER Class 10 Result 2017:

Log on either of the above mentioned official websites

- Click on Rajasthan Board 10th Result 2017 link

- Enter the required details

- Click on `Submit`

- Check RBSE Class 10th Result

Take a printout of RBSE 10th Board Exam Result

About the Board

The RBSE/ BSER is responsible for promoting and developing Secondary Education in Rajasthan. Some 6000 schools located across 32 districts involving 8.5 lakhs students are connected to the Rajasthan School Board which conducts Secondary and Senior Secondary Examinations every year.

The Board was set up under the Rajasthan Secondary Education Act, 1957. It was set up in Jaipur but was later shifted to Ajmer in 1961.
Mumbai: An IIT-Bombay team beat a Japanese institution to win the 25th Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition held this week in the US, an official said here on Wednesday.



The biggest unmanned ground vehicle competition in the world for university students, it was held at Oakland University in Michigan.



IIT-B's unmanned ground vehicle 'SeDriCa' took part in all the three events and topped the Autonomous Navigation Challenge, while standing second in the Design Challenge and Interoperability Profiles Challege.



It was placed overall top among 29 competing teams from five countries around the world.



Qualifying on the opening day of the competition, the IIT-B team performed exceptionally in all the three challenges with a near-flawless run in the prestigious event this time.



Scoring 88 points out of the total 96, it beat the first runner-up, a Japanese team by 32 points.



The IIT-B team was mentored by academicians S. N. Merchant from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Ramesh Singh from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at its Powai Campus.



The competing team was led by Ankit Sharma and Rishabh Choudhary with participating members Anjan Kumar Patel, Ravi Jain, Vatsal Kansara, Surya Teja, Krishna Sandeep and Rohit Bhor.



This has been billed as "the best performance till date" by any Indian team and also raises the bar for IIT-B across all similar competitions.


New Delhi: Her novel work on improving water quality has not just earned her the prestigious international science award, but made her immortal by engraving her name up in the night sky.

Sahithi Pingali, a class 12 student from Bangalurus Inventure Academy, joins an elite group of people having their names named after stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Sahithi reached the stars after she shined at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) held in Los Angeles, earlier this month.

She won the Gold Medal for her research on 'An Innovative Crowdsourcing Approach to Monitoring Freshwater Bodies' which was based on city lakes.

The Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which owns the right to name minor planets, decided to name a planet after her.

At the INTEL ISEF international finals, the 16-year-old won three special awards out of 21 awards won by the Indian contingent. She was also awarded overall second place in the Earth and Environment Sciences category.

I definitely didnt see this coming. I was expecting one special award at most. I havent yet digested the fact that I have a planet named after me, she was quoted as saying to The Hindu.

Sahithi is currently interning at the University of Michigan, working in collaboration with PhD students and professors in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

Earlier this month, her work on Varthur Lake has already earned her a Gold Medal at the International Sustainable World Engineering Energy Environment Project (ISWEEEP) Olympiad held at Houston in the US.
Washington: Astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope to find the weight of a star by employing Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Researchers at NASA'a Space Telescope Science Institute (STSCI) in Baltimore, Maryland, have measured the mass of a white dwarf star by analysing how much it bent the light of a more distant star, just as Einstein asserted could be done more than a century ago, as per Efe news report.

The study was presented on Wednesday in Austin, Texas, at the 230th American Astronomical Society conference, where scientists from research centres and universities are discussing their latest discoveries.

Specifically, the team observed a white dwarf star known as Stein 2051B located about 17 light years from the Earth just as it passed in front of a more distant star.

During the alignment, the gravity of the white dwarf bent the light from the farther star, thus making the latter appear to shift approximately two thousandths of an arc-second from its original position, a movement so small that it's equivalent to the size of an ant spotted from more than 2,400 kilometres away.

By measuring the deflection of the more distant star's light, the astronomers calculated that the white dwarf star has about 68 percent of the Sun's mass, a result that coincides with theoretical predictions.

The method was proposed in 1915 when Einstein made public his General Theory of Relativity, which  among other things  described how objects deform space according to their mass.

The theory was verified experimentally four years later when a team headed by British astronomer Arthur Eddington measured how the Sun's gravity shifted the image of a distant star whose light just grazed the solar surface on its way to the Earth during a solar eclipse, thus proving that Einstein's microlensing idea was valid.

Astronomers now use this effect to magnify images of distant galaxies and to measure small changes in the apparent positioning of nearby stars in the sky.

Researchers had to wait for a century to build a telescope that was powerful enough to detect the gravitational lensing phenomenon caused by a single star outside the solar system.

The amount of deflection is so small that only the ultra-sharply focused Hubble telescope could detect it and the team had to wait for about two years before the two stars came into the proper alignment.

(With IANS inputs)
New Delhi: After successfully launching its most powerful rocket in a textbook style, the GSLV Mk III D1, powered by cryogenic engine, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is getting ready to launch a Cartosat-series satellite by the end of this month.

The satellite, also referred to as the 'eye in the sky' due to its surveillance capabilities, along with co-passenger satellites from abroad, will be launched by the PSLV-C38 rocket into a nominal altitude of 500 km.

The PSLV-C38/Cartosat-2 Series Satellite mission is scheduled to be launched on June 23, 2017 from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.

The Cartosat-series satellite carries a state-of-the-art panchromatic (PAN) camera that takes black and white pictures of the earth in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Cartosat-2C series satellite, which has added teeth to India's military surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, is mentioned to be capable of capturing minute long video of a fixed spot as well.

As per ISRO, the Cartosat-2 Series satellite mission is a follow on mission in the Cartosat-2 Series with the primary mission objective of providing high-resolution scene specific spot imagery. This is similar in configuration to earlier satellites in the series.

Earlier this week, on June 5, 2017, ISRO's GSLV Mk III D1 dubbed 'monster rocket' by scientists, on its maiden flight, slung the 3,136 kg GSAT-19 communication satellite at its intended geostationary obrit at an altitude of 179 km.

Weighing 640 tonnes and standing 43.43 metres tall, ISRO's heavy duty GSLV-Mk III is capable launching 4 ton class of satellites to Geosynchronous Transfer orbit (GTO). It is a three-stage vehicle with two solid motor strap-ons (S200), a liquid propellant core stage (L110) and a cryogenic stage (C25).

This month are a lot of activities for ISRO, with the Indian space agency launching the GSAT-17 communication satellite on June 28.
New Delhi: After evaluating a record-breaking number of applicants, NASA has chosen 12 new astronauts, including an Indian-American, who will be trained for missions into Earth orbit and to deep space.

The 12 new astronaut candidates - seven men and five women - were chosen from more than 18,300 people who submitted applications from December 2015 to February 2016. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades - more than double the previous record of 8,000 set in 1978.

Watch as Vice President Mike Pence joined acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot, Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa, and Flight Operations Director Brian Kelly to welcome the new astronaut candidates or "ascans" during an event on June 7, 2017, at the agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The event was set inside the Johnson Space Center's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which the new astronauts might fly in the coming years on missions beyond low Earth orbit.

The newest class of 2017 astronaut candidates were announced June 7, 2017. They comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. The term astronaut candidate refers to individuals who have been selected by NASA as candidates for the NASA astronaut corps and are currently undergoing a candidacy training program at the Johnson Space Center.

To get picked, people had to meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria such as having a bachelor's degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

But it's clear that this new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills that NASA requires.

Pence said that President Donald Trump is "firmly committed" to NASA's mission in space and that "America will lead the way in space once again."

He said that NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to "make history" even though the president's budget request cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency.

He also mentioned that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.

While delivering the speech, Pence touted the merits of the new astronaut class.

"The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day," he said.

Learn more about the 2017 Astronaut Class

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.

Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, whose father is from India, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.

Lt Kayla "Sax" Barron, 29, is a US Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the US Navy's first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old is a geobiologist who had done research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Her research was focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old department is the head for the US Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot is based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines hails from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. He attended the Air Force Test Pilot School for his Master's degree in flight test engineering. He has served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

Warren "Woody" Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley.

Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old Navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, is a quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps' Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral O'Hara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home.

Francisco Rubio, is a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. He earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. She has worked at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California.

The astronaut candidates will return to Johnson in August to begin two years of training.

After completing two years of training, they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions - performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: On June 7, 2017, the US space agency NASA finally introduced its newest class of 2017 astronaut candidates comprising 12 members - seven men and five women - including an Indian-American, during an event at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Raja Chari, a Lieutenant Colonel with the US Air Force, may become the third person of Indian origin from the US after the late Kalpana Chawla and current NASA astronaut Sunita Williams to fly to space, if all goes well. He will report for duty in August this year.

Here are some important things to know about astronaut candidate Raja Chari:

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Raja Chari was raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Chari's father Srinivas Chari was an engineer and he immigrated to the US after his engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad. His mother Peggy Chari lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Raja astronautical engineering and engineering science. He later earned a Masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.

The Iowa native is married to Holly Schaffter Chari, also a Cedar Falls native, and the couple have three children.

Chari is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

He has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight time in F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18, including F-15E combat missions in 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula.

Chari has been awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defense Service Medal and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal, among other citations.

After a two-year training like other candidates, Chari will be assigned technical duties in the NASA Astronaut Office till he gets a flight assignment.

With the addition of these 12 members, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.
Aslup Khan, a police officer with the Delhi Crime Branch, is suspected to be behind organised ATM loots in Kerala and states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Aslup Khan hails from Shikarpur village and here's the story of Shikarpur.

By India Today Web Desk: A Delhi policeman who went missing six months ago reappears as the mastermind behind organised ATM loots across India.

Assistant sub-inspector Aslup Khan, 47, a diligent crime branch officer who was promoted for his contributions in solving the murder case of a policeman, went untraceable six months ago.

The Kerala Police has named Aslup Khan the main accused in the ATM robberies in the state's Alappuzha and Thiruvananthapuram districts. Khan had already taken a month off in December and was suspended from the department with his salaray withheld after he extended his leave.

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COMBINED POLICE OPERATION

A special team with police officers from Kerala, Delhi and Haryana Police departments has been formed to nab Aslup Khan and his accomplices. Other than ATM thefts, police suspect Khan and his gang have connections with terrorist organisations.

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) that includes three circle inspectors and seven inspectors from Kerala's Alappuzha, travelled to Haryana to nab Aslup Khan from his village in Haryana's Mewat - Shikarpur.

The Kerala Police had trapped Suresh, Aslup Khan's informer, who confessed to a 'gang' being involved in a series of ATM robberies in the state. Aslup Khan is now wanted for carrying out organised ATM loot in Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Suresh used to be Khan's neighbour in Delhi's Uttam Nagar.

SHIKARPUR, THE HUB OF CRIMINALS

"Don't you dare go there alone. You won't be able to come back!"

Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi quoted Haryana Superintendent of Police as saying the above to the SIT from Kerala when he learnt about their plan to visit Shikarpur village in Haryana's Mewat to nab Aslup Khan.

"Two weeks ago the villagers killed a policeman who entered Shikarpur to investigate a buffalo theft case," said the SP. The Kerala SIT could visit Shikarpur only with 80 armed commandos of the Haryana Police.

The Mathrubhumi report said that the team did not face the kind of violence they anticipated when they reached Aslup Khan's house, but when the team decided to search the village, violence erupted.

What happened next was nothing short of a scene straight out of a masala Bollywood flick. Hundreds of buffaloes came running towards the police force and the team had to flee the spot without using their arms, said the report.

Shikarpur is some 200 km from New Delhi, a village near the Haryana-Rajasthan border. The Mathrubhumi report said that at least one fellow from Shikarpur will be involved in crimes happening in north India. Shikarpur villagers, majority of who have received no formal education, were the first ones to crack the method of taking out cash from ATM machines using gas cutters without burning the notes.

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Police said Shikarpuris walk around with loaded pistols. Outsiders entering the village undergo thorough scrutiny. Police do not usually enter the village because here, even quarrels lead to murders.

--- ENDS ---
Mumbai: Salman Khan is gearing up to host the eleventh season of popular reality show Bigg Boss and simultaneously working on his upcoming films. This may leave the hunk of an actor hard pressed for time. Owing to date issues, he may be replaced by Akshay Kumar as the host of Dus Ka Dum, latest buzz suggests.

According to a report in Bollywoodlife.com, Akshay, who will soon be seen judging a laughter show, may host the brand new season of Dus Ka Dum, which was earlier presented by Salman.

The channel is apparently trying to work on various possibilities to ensure they strike the best deal. So it could well be Akshay over Salman because the latter has little dates to spare and his team has reportedly quoted an exorbitant amount!

Moreover, the makers of Bigg Boss are planning to start the eleventh season soon. So this may invite more problems for the makers of Dus Ka Dum.

Who would you want to see as the host of Dus Ka Dum- Salman or Akshay?
Mumbai: Sunil Grover made an exit from The Kapil Sharma Show after the infamous mid-flight fight with the star comedian while returning from Australia sometime in March. Grover decided not to return to the show even after Kapil apologised to him publicly. But now the man known for his adorable antics will be back as Dr Mashoor Gulati.

Yes, you read that right. Grover, who also essayed Rinku Bhabhi, will appear as the hilarious Dr. in a special episode on the channel airing Sharmas show. However, it wont be a part of The Kapil Sharma Show.

It will be a special episode hosted by Aparashakti Khurrana to promote Salman Khans upcoming film Tubelgiht.

According to a report in DNA, Ali Asgar, Sugandha Mishra and Sanket Bhosale too will join Sunil Grover in his act.

Instead of getting Salman Khan on The Kapil Sharma Show, the channel decided to have this episode, DNA quoted a source as saying.

Sunil may get a chance to host a new show in case he is able to shoulder it entirely on his own. If he does, theyll launch a comedy show with him. Discussions are on for it, the source added.

Well, this sounds interesting. So guys, are you ready to watch Dr Mashoor Gulati?
Kanpur: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday asserted that the country`s problems can and will be resolved only when farmers become part of the political agenda.

Addressing a press conference in Kanpur, Adityanath said, "Welfare of farmers is welfare of the country."

Speaking on the closure of sugar mills, Adityanath said the state government has already paid Rs 22,000 crore to cane growers during the present crushing season.

In April, the Uttar Pradesh government waived off Rs. 30, 729 crores worth of loans of small and marginal farmers of the state.

Along with this, the government also decided to forego Non-Performing Assets (NPA) worth Rs. 5,630 crore of eight lakh farmers.

The decision of waiving off loans will benefit 2 crore, 15 lakh farmers of the state.

The Cabinet, chaired by the chief minister, took up several key decisions, including a loan waiver for farmers.During the assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised to waive off agricultural loans of farmers in the first cabinet meeting after coming to power.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared at an election rally that he would ensure the BJP Government in its first Cabinet meeting takes decision to waive off the farmers` loan.
UP Board Result 2017 Class 10: Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad (UPMSP) is likely to declare UP 10th Result/UP High School Result on June 09. The UP 10th High School Result will be announced from the Board office at Allahabad.

Students can keep a tab on upmsp.edu.in to receive the result-related updates.

To check their result around noon, students can log on to upresults.nic.in or upmspresults.up.nic.in.

This year, 34,04,571 students appeared for the Uttar Pradesh Board 10th Class examination held from March 16 to April 1.

Last year, the pass percentage of UP 10th High School was 87.66%.
Lucknow: UP Board 12th Results 2017, UP Board Class 12 Results, UP Intermediate Class 12 Result 2017 will be declared on June 9 (Friday).

The Board of High School and Intermediate Education Uttar Pradesh will release the Uttar Pradesh Class 12 Results 2017, Uttar Pradesh Board Intermediate Class 12 Examination Results 2017, UP Board Inter Results 2017, UP Intermediate Result 2017 at around 12:30 pm on Friday.

Check upresults.nic.in or upmspresults.up.nic.in to access UP Board class 12th results, UP Board 12th class results 2017, UP Board class 12 Examination Result 2017, UP Intermediate exam Result 2017.

Step-by-step guide to check UP Board 12th Result:

- Open any of the official websites

- Click on 'InterMediate Result' link

- Please select year of Examination

- Enter your roll number

- Fill verification Code

- Result will be displayed on your screen

The UP Board conducted the Intermediate Exams from March 16, 2017 to April 21, 2017.

Around 26,24,681 appeared for the UP Board Class 12 Exam 2017.
Kolkata: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) on Thursday clashed with West Bengal police which used baton charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesting mob who tried to march to the venue of the state cabinet meeting in Darjeeling.

To gain control of the rioting agitator, two columns, each comprising of 80 men, were deployed in the hills after the mob turned violent and vandalised government property and causing injuries to government staff in the hills.

Earlier today, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had asked the Narendra Modi-led central government to deploy Indian Army in Darjeeling after a massive protest broke out in the state city.

The army was called in by the Mamata government after the West Bengal Police failed to control the situation as thousands of GJM supporters clashed with the police and set fire to their vehicles, government bus and attacked the police with stones and bottles.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee and her ministers were only a kilometer away after she held the first cabinet meeting in the hills after a gap of 45 years.

As many as four police vehicles have been set on fire by the protesters. The police resorted to massive lathi charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the violent mob; however, the GJM supporters did not relent and continued the violent protest.

The violence has left thousands of tourists in a lurch in the peak season.

The GJM called the violent protest after the Chief Minister announced that Bengali has to be compulsorily taught to students up to class 10 in schools in Bengal.

According to another report, the outfit has called for an indefinite strike in the hills from Friday.

On Tuesday, the GJM had organized a rally here to protest against Mamata's visit to the hills.

Bimal Gurung leads the rally. GJM supporters gathered in front of the Bhanubhakt Bhawan and shouted the slogan "Go back Mamata."

The GJM is demanding a separate state for Gorkhas, which they call Gorkhaland.
Kolkata: Senior TMC leader and MLA Iqbal Ahmed was today summoned by CBI for questioning in the Narada case, CBI officials said.

Ahmed, who is also the younger brother of TMC MP Sultan Ahmed, has been summoned for questioning on June 10.

This is the first time that CBI has summoned a TMC leader in the Narada case.

"Yes we have summoned Iqbal Ahmed for questioning, as his name has come up in numerous clippings of the Narada sting operation," a senior CBI official told PTI.Iqbal Ahmed could not be contacted for a reaction.

Calcutta High Court in March ordered a preliminary inquiry by CBI into the Narada sting operation in which several TMC leaders, including state ministers, were purportedly caught on camera taking bribes.

The sting tapes were released to various media organisations ahead of the 2016 West Bengal Assembly polls.

A division bench of the high court noted that a report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Chandigarh had said the tapes were not tampered with.
Maiduguri: An attack by Boko Haram jihadists on the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri killed 14 people and wounded 24 others, police said on Thursday, the first official toll.

Maiduguri is the epicentre of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram which has been trying to set up an Islamic State in the northeast, and has been largely free of violence for the past two years.

The fighters attacked the city`s suburbs on Wednesday night with anti-aircraft guns and several suicide bombers, said Damian Chukwu, police commissioner of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital.

"A total of 13 people were killed in the multiple explosions with 24 persons injured while one person died in the attack (shooting)," he told reporters.

Several buildings were set on fire but the military repulsed the fighters after an hour, he said.

Aid workers and Reuters witnesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thousands of civilians fled the fighting, according to Reuters witnesses.

The raid comes six months after President Muhammadu Buhari said Boko Haram had "technically" been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many jihadists deep into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram`s campaign to establish a caliphate in the Lake Chad basin. A further 2.7 million have been displaced, creating one of the world`s largest humanitarian emergencies.

Despite the military`s success in liberating cities and towns, much of Borno remains off-limits, hampering efforts to deliver food aid to nearly 1.5 million people believed to be on the brink of famine.
Maiduguri: Boko Haram insurgents launched their biggest attack on the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri in 18 months on Wednesday night, the eve of a visit by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to war refugees sheltering there.

Police said that 14 people were killed before government troops beat back the raid.

Maiduguri is the centre of the eight-year-old fight against Boko Haram, which has been trying to set up an Islamic caliphate in the northeast.

The fighters attacked the city`s suburbs with anti-aircraft guns and several suicide bombers, said Damian Chukwu, police commissioner of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital.

"A total of 13 people were killed in the multiple explosions with 24 persons injured, while one person died in the attack (shooting)," he told reporters.

Osinbajo went ahead with his visit to Maiduguri, planned prior to the attack, launching a government food aid initiative to distribute 30,000 metric tonnes of grains to people displaced by the insurgency, his spokesman Laolu Akande said.

President Muhammadu Buhari handed power to Osinbajo after going to Britain on medical leave on May 7.

Aid workers and Reuters witnesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thousands of civilians fled the fighting, according to Reuters witnesses.

The police commissioner said several buildings were set on fire but the military repulsed the fighters after an hour.

The raid took place six months after Buhari said Boko Haram had "technically" been defeated by a military campaign that had pushed many insurgents deep into the remote Sambisa forest, near the border with Cameroon.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram`s campaign to establish a caliphate in the Lake Chad basin. A further 2.7 million have been displaced, creating one of the world`s largest humanitarian emergencies.

Despite the military`s success in liberating cities and towns, much of Borno remains off-limits, hampering efforts to deliver food aid to nearly 1.5 million people believed to be on the brink of famine.

The government food programme launched by Osinbajo seeks to distribute grains to 1.8 million people delivered quarterly, his office said in an emailed statement.

The acting president, speaking in Maiduguri, said a "comprehensive livelihood and support programme" would be launched by the government within weeks.

A United Nations official on Wednesday said the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) has had to scale back plans for emergency feeding of 400,000 people in the region due to funding shortfalls.
London: Britons streamed to the polls for the third time in two years on Thursday after a campaign dominated by terror attacks and the uncertainty of Brexit.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap vote in April, when opinion poll ratings for her and her centre-right Conservative party were sky-high, presenting herself as the strong leader to steer the country through tough negotiations to leave the EU.

Although polls make her favourite to win, Islamist attacks in London and Manchester have put her under pressure, while campaign missteps have dented her reputation as a safe pair of hands.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner deemed unelectable by three-quarters of his own lawmakers, has run an energetic campaign, promising change and an end to austerity.

Security was heightened as millions cast their ballots in polling stations ranging from schools and public buildings to churches, pubs and even a windmill and a launderette.

An exit poll at 2100 GMT will give an indication of the outcome, although the final picture will not begin to emerge until early Friday.Polling experts -- many of whom failed to predict the historic referendum vote to leave the European Union last year -- are somewhat wary of calling the outcome.

But predictions of her expected margin of victory vary widely, and one shock model even predicted May could lose her working majority of 17 in the 650-seat House of Commons.

A final projection published Thursday by pollster Michael Ashcroft predicted a Conservative majority of 76 seats, gaining ground as Labour and the Scottish nationalists slip back.

A final poll by YouGov on Wednesday put the Conservatives seven points ahead of Labour, while ICM gave May`s party a 12-point lead over its rivals.

Such predictions stand in stark contrast to a Monday poll by Survation, which gave a narrow one-point gap.

While May has been touring target seats around the country, delivering slogan-heavy speeches in workplaces, Corbyn has drawn large crowds to open-air rallies.

May, 60, has presented herself as uniquely qualified for the Brexit talks starting on June 19 and said her 68-year-old rival would be "alone and naked in the negotiating chamber".

"Get those negotiations wrong and the consequences will be dire," she said on a final campaign stop on Wednesday.

Corbyn, a veteran socialist who has never held ministerial office and defied the odds to win the Labour leadership two years ago, urged supporters in Glasgow to think big on his last day of campaigning.

"Wouldn`t it be great if on Friday we woke up to... a Labour government that will be a government for all of our communities across the whole of the country," he said.

During polling hours, the London stock market and the pound slid.

The FTSE 100 index, which initially rose and then eased back, ended the day with a loss of 0.4 percent. While the pound dipped, it was still holding on to gains made after May called the election.It is the third time Britons have been called to vote since 2015, twice for a general election and once for the EU referendum, and voter fatigue appeared to be an issue for some.

In Halifax in northern England, voter Alicia Milner, 20, said: "A lot of my family aren`t voting, which I`m shocked at, just because they`re tired of, exhausted by government."

The election is May`s first since taking office after Britons voted by 52 percent to leave the EU after four decades of membership.

"I want another five years of stability, and a stronger hand in Brexit negotiations," said Dave, 29, in the London neighbourhood of Hackney.

"The main issue for me is getting along with Brexit," added Fabrizio, 42, in the wealthy London district of South Kensington.

But Labour has pounced on the Conservative government`s spending cuts to bring down the budget deficit.

The Conservatives were also damaged by a manifesto plan for elderly care that would see some pay more.

The campaign was hit by a suicide bombing at a Manchester concert on May 22, which killed 22 people, followed by Saturday`s knife and van attack in central London, which left eight dead.

Campaigning was twice suspended in the aftermath of the attacks, which May blamed on "evil" Islamist ideology.The Conservatives are traditionally strong on defence and security, and have sought to exploit Corbyn`s anti-nuclear stance and his links to Irish paramilitaries.

But May also faced uncomfortable questions over cuts to police numbers during her years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016.

May and Corbyn both cast their votes in their respective constituencies of Maidenhead, southern England, and Islington, north London.

In a frequently ill-tempered campaign, there was light relief as thousands of voters brought their pooches to the polling stations, posting their pictures on Twitter using the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations.

One voter near Reading in southeast England turned up to cast her ballot on her horse, Splash.
By Suhani Singh: Shruti Haasan is more than willing to devote time to discuss her fondness for Neil Gaiman's work even if comes at a time to promote Behen Hogi Teri, her upcoming film which releases on June 9. Haasan began following the popular and acclaimed author a few years ago and instantly received a follow back, a moment she describes as "like Diwali in July". On a recent visit to Cannes, Gaiman invited her to a special screening of How to Talk to Girls at Parties, based on his science fiction short story. Meeting your idols can be tricky, for there is always a preconceived image and tall expectations attached to them. Thankfully for Haasan, meeting Gaiman was a dream come true. "He is an incredibly nice person which makes it even better," she said.

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Here's how Haasan become a Gaiman buff. "I discovered him when I was 15. It was with a short story, I forget which one it was. I remember just thinking something [about] the way he writes, it makes my soul so happy. With your favourite writers or artists, you feel that they have expressed a part of you that you have kept quiet about or a way of thinking. It's like meeting that friend who says 'Even I like pizza'." Sandman comics only made her a bigger fan. And then there's Neverwhere. "It is my favourite story and Lady Door is an incredible character. I loved Coraline too."

When asked which Gaiman character she would love to play on the big screen, her immediate response was - Death from the Sandman series. "I have a doll of hers," pointing to a desk which also holds her prized speakers. "She is so interesting because the way she approaches life. Gaiman is amazing in how he just flips stereotypes on his head."

Another character she likes is the one she plays in the Lucknow-set romantic comedy Behen Hogi Teri. The film sees Gattu (Rajkummar Rao) heart his neighbour (Binny) who, much to his chagrin, has been designated as his sister by the neighbourhood. Binny is based on director Ajay Pannalal's sister, and her love story. Haasan never got meet the inspiration but she did get to see a few videos of hers. Furthermore Pannalal's script enabled her to see her through the brother's eyes as well as bring her own arc to it, she says.

"You can relate to her. She is one of us," said Haasan. "What tends to happen not just in Hindi but other films as well is that people feel like we have two hours so the women aren't given much importance, so they become one-dimensional or on a good day two-dimensional. This is not that. She is fun, tomboyish and naive at times. She is as romantic as she is sort of a rowdy. She is as strong as she is vulnerable."

Interestingly, Rao is a neighbour in real life, living in the same housing society as her, albeit in a different building. "He is a fantastic actor and everybody knows that," said Haasan of the National Award-winning actor. "But there are lots of fantastic actors who are not that much fun to work with, and that's the truth because they come in with a certain amount of selfishness. He is very committed to the craft. For him also he is a different character. You get to see a fun side of him. The spontaneity and openness he had was very good."

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And finally, how was How to Talk to Girls at Parties? "I'm always pissed if people ruin literary works," says Haasan. "But this was amazing."

ALSO READ: Shruti Haasan slams body-shamers, says it's nobody's business

ALSO READ: Shruti Haasan at Cannes with beau Michael Corsale and American Gods writer Neil Gaiman

ALSO WATCH: Will be forced to quit cinema: Kamal Haasan on GST rate

--- ENDS ---
Astana: Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, on Thursday pledged to boost bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative.



The two heads of state made the remarks during their meeting in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the 17th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, Xinhua news agency reported.



Hailing the good momentum of bilateral ties, Xi said that high-level interaction should play an important role in guiding China-Afghanistan relations and that exchanges on all levels should be intensified.



The Chinese President also called for closer cooperation on security and anti-terrorism, saying that China supports Afghanistan`s efforts to maintain domestic security and will continue helping the Afghan side to improve relevant capabilities.



For his part, Ghani said Afghanistan cherishes the friendship with China, and is grateful for China`s help in its peaceful reconstruction and reconciliation process.



Afghanistan is highly appreciative of the B&R Initiative and looks forward to aligning its own development with the B&R construction, Ghani said, adding that his country will actively participate in cooperation on transport connectivity.
Beijing: Chinese education authorities have gone high-tech to catch cheaters as millions of high-school students take their "gaokao", the annual university entrance exam seen as key to landing a lucrative white-collar job.

So high are the stakes and so competitive is the exam that some students resort to cheating.



Over the years, students have used wireless cheating devices disguised as erasers, belts and watches. Some also use tiny earpieces to communicate with accomplices helping them outside the exam room.

The innovations have forced authorities to step up their game in response.

Exam centres this year have deployed metal detectors, facial and fingerprint recognition technology, cellphone-signal blockers, wireless detectors and even drones in their fight to root out cheating, media reported.

Even before the exam kicked off in earnest on Tuesday, security officers had arrested 52 people nationwide. Cheaters and their accomplices face up to seven years in jail.

Universities in Shandong province have banned students from taking leave on Tuesday and Wednesday, to prevent any of them from posing as real exam takers, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.

Cheating is more common for papers that include multiple choice questions such as mathematics and English.

Some papers, however, such as essay-writing, confound the cheats.

Essay-writing is an important section of the Chinese paper, and topics vary from province to province.

In Beijing, students this year had to write about either their vision of China in 2049, the centennial of the foundation of the People`s Republic of China, or about relationships.

Students in nine provinces were told to introduce China to foreigners using key words like "Belt and Road initiative", "bike-sharing", "high-speed railway" or "mobile payment", in a test of their knowledge of economic trends.

The province of Jiangsu, notorious for tough exams, wanted students to expound on vehicles, while neighbouring Zhejiang province demanded 800-word essays on books.
Kuala Lumpur: Nine Filipinos who were part of an armed group that invaded and occupied part of Malaysian Borneo in 2013, in an episode that left scores dead, have been sentenced to hang.



The bloody incursion by some 200 Islamic militants from the southern Philippines was inspired by a self-proclaimed Filipino sultanate`s claims of historical dominion over the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island.



The assault, Malaysia`s most serious security crisis in years, led to a siege between the militants and the country`s armed forces who were sent to root them out.



At least 70 people were killed, mostly militants, over the six-week ordeal.



The episode eventually fizzled out when some of the militants fled the palm oil plantation where they had been holed up and returned to the Philippines.



The nine had initially been handed life sentences last year but prosecutors appealed for a stiffer penalty.



"With this current sentence, I am satisfied," Deputy Public Prosector Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told AFP.



"Hopefully this will deter other alien nations from intruding into Sabah and Malaysia."



He added that technically the nine Filipinos were sentenced to death for "waging war against the King of Malaysia" and jail sentences of 13 to 18 years were handed out for "being a member of a terrorist group."



The Philippines said it would ask Malaysia to reconsider the death penalty.



Government official Raul Dado said Philippine officials in Malaysia are "meeting immediately with embassy lawyers".



A total of 800,000 Filipinos live in Sabah, making up about a quarter of the population of the state, which is just a short boat ride from the southern Philippines.



The crisis at the time embarrassed both the Philippines and Malaysia, shining the spotlight on a porous border and locals` complaints of rampant illegal immigration and lawlessness.



The sentencing comes as Philippine troops continue an offensive to dislodge militants flying the Islamic State group flag who seized the southern city of Marawi more than two weeks ago.
Kuala Lumpur: Nine Filipinos who were part of an armed group that invaded and occupied part of Malaysian Borneo in 2013, in an episode that left scores dead, have been sentenced Thursday to hang.

The bloody incursion by some 200 Islamic militants from the southern Philippines was inspired by a self-proclaimed Filipino sultanate`s claims of historical dominion over the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island.

The assault, Malaysia`s most serious security crisis in years, led to a siege between the militants and the country`s armed forces who were sent to root them out.

At least 70 people were killed, mostly militants, over the six-week ordeal.

The episode eventually fizzled out when some of the militants fled the palm oil plantation where they had been holed up and returned to the Philippines.

The nine had initially been handed life sentences last year but prosecutors appealed for a stiffer penalty.

"With this current sentence, I am satisfied," Deputy Public Prosector Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told AFP.

"Hopefully this will deter other alien nations from intruding into Sabah and Malaysia."

He added that technically the nine Filipinos were sentenced to death for "waging war against the King of Malaysia" and jail sentences of 13 to 18 years were handed out for "being a member of a terrorist group".

The Philippines said it would ask Malaysia to reconsider the death penalty.

Government official Raul Dado said Philippine officials in Malaysia are "meeting immediately with embassy lawyers".

A total of 800,000 Filipinos live in Sabah, making up about a quarter of the population of the state, which is just a short boat ride from the southern Philippines.

The crisis at the time embarrassed both the Philippines and Malaysia, shining the spotlight on a porous border and locals` complaints of rampant illegal immigration and lawlessness.

The sentencing comes as Philippine troops continue an offensive to dislodge militants flying the Islamic State group flag who seized the southern city of Marawi more than two weeks ago.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law in Marawi and the rest of the southern region of Mindanao shortly after the rampage to crush what he said was a rising threat of IS in the country.
San Hlan: Hundreds of people gathered on a beach in southern Myanmar on Thursday desperately waiting for news of their loved ones as the first bodies arrived from the wreck of a military plane that crashed with more than 120 people on board.

Navy ships and air force planes have been scouring the waves since Wednesday afternoon, when the aircraft disappeared en route from the southern city of Myeik to the commercial hub of Yangon.

By mid-afternoon the commander-in-chief`s office said 29 corpses - 20 women, one man and eight children - had been retrieved from the sea after a navy vessel discovered wreckage from the plane off the coastline near Dawei town.

Hundreds of locals, relatives and NGO workers clasping umbrellas watched as a fishing boat laden with the dead pulled up to San Hlan beach, where they were unloaded by NGO workers and uniformed soliders wearing masks and gloves.

An AFP reporter counted 29 corpses of different sizes, wrapped in black and white plastic bags, being brought onshore from the boat.

"My cousin`s sister`s family was in the plane crash -- her husband, her child and herself," said Kyaw Swar Myint, 44, from Dawei.

"We heard news that the helicopter was now transporting about 20 dead bodies to the beach, so we are waiting here."

A military officer said strong currents has made it hard for boats to reach the shore, so many of the bodies may have to be airlifted to land.

The Chinese-made Shaanxi Y8 plane was carrying a total of 122 people when it disappeared on Wednesday afternoon during a routine flight, according to the army chief.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief`s office said in a statement.

Some were travelling for medical check-ups or to study in Yangon.

The office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi posted a statement expressing condolences to the victims.

India`s Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to help in recovery efforts, while the US embassy sent sympathies to the families of those lost in the "tragedy".

It is monsoon season in Myanmar, but there were no major storms reported along the aircraft`s flight path on Wednesday afternoon.The military said the plane was flying at over 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) when it lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 pm (07:05 GMT) on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

Gerry Soejatman, an independent aviation expert based in Jakarta, said the information indicated something went wrong "not long after or just before reaching cruising altitude".

The military named the captain as "seasoned" pilot Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

He was flying the Chinese-made, four-engine Y8 turboprop - a medium-range transport plane based on the Soviet Antonov An-12, which has had numerous crashes over the decades.

Myanmar`s former junta bought several Y8s during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions.

The plane`s maker, China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation, in a statement pledged to assist with investigations into the crash.

The military said the plane that crashed was delivered in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

The debris - including two tires presumed to be from the plane were brought to shore before search efforts wrapped for the day - was found in the Andaman Sea, north of the last known location of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

That plane went missing in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, but no wreckage has ever been found.

Myanmar`s military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
Washington: Former F.B.I. chief James Comey in his testimony admitted to leaking the contents of his memo documenting his meeting with Donald Trump during which the President allegedly asked him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, with the help of a `close friend`.

Comey said that he was moved to act after the President tweeted a cryptic threat about the former "better hope that there are no `tapes` of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

According to Comey, a few days after the tweet, he woke up "in the middle of the night" with the realisation that there might be a tape of his conversation with the President.

"I needed to get that out into the public square," he said.

Over Russian meddling in last year`s presidential election, Comey said he had no doubt Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election but said no one asked him to end the investigation into meddling.

Comey said that he first became aware of Russian cyber intrusions in late summer 2015.

He described the intrusion attempts as a "massive effort to target non-governmental and near-governmental targets."He said that there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of attempted intrusions.
Buenos Aires: German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Argentina on Thursday to discuss trade with President Mauricio Macri amid heavy security on a trip that will also take her to Mexico.

Her one-day visit to Argentina also aims to prepare the handover of the presidency of the G20 diplomatic grouping, which Argentina will take over from Germany next year.

Merkel was due to discuss bilateral commerce and the prospects for a free trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur grouping of South American countries.

She started the trip by leaving her hotel and heading to visit a synagogue to inaugurate a newly restored German organ.

Merkel was scheduled later to meet with Macri and attend a series of ceremonial events before flying late Thursday to Mexico.
Doha: Gulf Arab states piled pressure on Qatar on Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump and Kuwait`s emir worked to end a row and resolve what Qataris say amounts to a blockade of their country, an investment powerhouse and supplier of gas to world markets.



With Trump offering to help resolve the crisis, possibly with a meeting at the White House, the United Arab Emirates cut postal ties to Qatar, and close Saudi ally Bahrain reiterated a demand that Doha distance itself from regional foe Iran.



Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and several other countries cut their diplomatic and transport ties with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran - charges Qatar says are baseless.



Normally guarded about politics, Qataris expressed outrage.



"It is a blockade! Like that of Berlin. A declaration of war. A political, economic and social aggression," a Qatari diplomat said. "We need the world to condemn the aggressors."



With food and other supplies disrupted and worries mounting about deepening economic turbulence, banks and firms in Gulf Arab states are seeking to keep business links to Qatar open and avoid a costly firesale of assets.



Turkey has brought forward a troop deployment to Qatar and pledged to provide food and water supplies to its Arab ally, which hosts a Turkish military base. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems.



The UAE`s national postal service, Emirates Post Group, suspended all postal services to Qatar, state news agency WAM said, the latest in a series of measures narrowing commercial and communications links with Doha.



Trump initially took sides with the Saudi-led group before apparently being nudged into a more even-handed approach when U.S. defence officials renewed praise of Doha, mindful of the major U.S. military base hosted by Qatar that serves, in part, as a launchpad for strikes on Islamic State jihadists.



In his second intervention in the dispute in as many days, Trump urged action against terrorism in a call with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a White House statement said, suggesting a meeting at the White House "if necessary".



It said that Trump, in a later call with Abu Dhabi`s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, called for unity among Gulf Arabs "but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism".



Officials from Qatar and its Gulf Arab neighbours embarked on a quickening round of shuttle diplomacy, with the Qatari foreign minister due in Moscow and Brussels and Bahrain`s king visiting his ally Egypt for talks on the crisis.





Qatar called for "dialogue and diplomacy".



The Qatari ambassador to Washington, Meshal Hamad al-Thani, wrote on Twitter that a key pillar of Doha`s foreign policy was mediation. "Open channels of communication means venues for conflict resolution," he said.



But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help.



"We have not asked for mediation, we believe this issue can be dealt with among the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council," he told a news conference with his German counterpart during a visit to Berlin that was broadcast on Saudi state television.



The foreign minister of Oman met fellow GCC member Kuwait`s emir for talks. The Kuwaiti leader went to the UAE and Qatar on Wednesday for talks on the crisis and is now back in Kuwait.



Meanwhile, Qatar`s neighbours kept up a drumbeat of criticism and warnings.



In an interview with BBC radio, UAE Ambassador to Russia Omar Saif Ghobash said Qatar had to choose between supporting extremism or supporting its neighbours.



"We have all kinds of recordings taking place where they (Qatar) are coordinating with al Qaeda in Syria," he said.



"Qatar needs to decide: Do you want to be in the pocket of Turkey, Iran and Islamic extremists? They need to make a decision; they can`t have it both ways.



Saudi Arabia`s al Watan newspaper published what it said was a list of eight "extremist organizations" seen as working to destabilise the region from Qatar, including Qatar`s al Jazeera news channel, that were targeted by Gulf Arab states.



Qatar has backed Islamist movements but vehemently denies supporting terrorism. It provides a haven to anti-Western groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Palestinian Hamas and Algerias Islamic Salvation Front. Qatar says it does not accept its neighbours` view that any group with an Islamist background is terrorist. Qatar`s emir has said such a view is a big mistake.



In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al Awsat newspaper, Bahraini Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said conditions posed by the four countries for a resolution of the crisis were "crystal clear".



"Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy Iran."

Jubeir declined to confirm a list of 10 demands published by Al Jazeera, which included shutting down the widely watched, Doha-based satellite network, but added that Qatar knew what it needed to do to restore normal relations.



Turkey`s Erdogan called Sheikh Sabah late on Wednesday and discussed developments in the Gulf and ways to cement cooperation between Muslim countries, state news agency KUNA said. Turkey, like Kuwait, has offered to mediate.



In a sign of the economic damage from the dispute, Standard & Poor`s downgraded Qatar`s debt on Wednesday as the country`s riyal currency fell to an 11-year low amid signs that portfolio investment funds were flowing out because of the rift.



UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told Reuters more economic curbs would be imposed on Qatar if necessary and said Doha needed to make ironclad commitments to change what critics call a policy on funding Islamist militants.



He later told France 24 television that any further steps could take the form of "a sort of embargo on Qatar".



In a measure that cemented earlier UAE restrictions on air transport, the country`s General Civil Aviation Authority said it had closed the air space for all air traffic to and from Doha until further notice.



Regional tensions, already high following the diplomatic dispute, ratcheted up further after militants attacked targets in Tehran on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people.

Shi`ite Muslim Iran blamed Sunni arch-rival Saudi Arabia for the attack, which was claimed by the Sunni Islamic State militant group. Riyadh denied any involvement.
Juba: Gunmen ambushed a convoy of buses and other vehicles travelling on a major highway in South Sudan on Thursday, killing at least 14 passengers and wounding 35, police said.

The unknown gunmen attacked the convoy as it drove towards Juba on a highway linking the South Sudan capital with Nimule, on the country`s southern border with Uganda.

The ambush happened in an area called Moli, 140 km (85 miles) from the capital, even though the convoy was escorted by members of a joint army and police force that guard convoys travelling in the dangerous region.

"At around 11 am, the convoy of buses and other vehicles coming from Nimule heading to Juba fell into an ambush near Moli village," Brigadier-General Daniel Justin Boulogne, a South Sudan police spokesman, said.

"The shooting happened at the first car of our organised force. The attackers opened fire on them and four vehicles were burned. We have confirmed 14 people were shot and 35 others wounded," he said.

The attackers fled as the security escort returned fire.

Boulogne said authorities were still working to establish an official casualty list.

Police do not know how many people were in the convoy in all, he said.

South Sudan, the world`s youngest country, has been mired in civil war since President Salva Kiir dismissed his deputy Riek Machar, in 2013.

In April 2016 the United States and other Western nations backed a peace accord that saw Machar return to the capital and again share power with Kiir.

But the deal fell apart less than three months later and Machar and his supporters fled the capital, pursued by helicopter gunships.

The fighting has forced more than three million people from their homes and has increasingly followed ethnic lines, leading the United Nations to warn of potential genocide.
Tehran: Hours after suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian Parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, a top official said on Wednesday night that the attackers were Iranian nationals who had joined the Islamic State group (IS).

At least 13 people were killed in the unprecedented assault.

The six attackers "were Iranian and joined Daesh (IS) from some parts of Iran," said Reza Seifollahi, the deputy secretary of Iran`s Supreme National Security Council, on state TV.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had yesterday said: "These fireworks have no effect on Iran. They will soon be eliminated."

"They are too small to affect the will of the Iranian nation and its officials," state TV quoted him as saying.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran's majority Shi'ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics.

They were the first attacks claimed by the Islamic State inside the tightly controlled Shi'ite Muslim country, one of the powers leading the fight against Islamic State forces in nearby Iraq and Syria.

The IS has threatened to aggravate its campaign in the country in recent months.

Shi`ites make up roughly 90 percent of Iran`s population, but the country also has a sizeable Sunni minority, particularly around its restive borders with Iraq and Pakistan.
By Adila Matra: There was a time when summers meant a trip to Shimla or Manali; trying in vain to find quiet amid the tourists thronging every corner, restaurant and hotel with a beautiful view. But times have changed. Indians are grabbing passports and flying off to exotic, unexplored international destinations to beat the heat.

Manmeet Ahluwalia, marketing head of Expedia India, says 36 per cent of couples look at spending quality time with their partners and 34 per cent of Indian millennials are looking for a truly authentic cultural experience. "Indians are now opting for more exotic destinations like Chiyoda, Honshu Island in Japan, Jeju Island, Busan and Suncheon in South Korea and Sumba Island in Indonesia. For South America, destinations like Peru and Chile have gained popularity and European countries like Croatia. These exotic places offer a refreshing change and allow young couples and DINKS (Dual Income No Kids) segment to explore adventure and experience the local culture and flavour at these places. We have seen a rise in bookings by 22-25 per cent for these destinations. As people pre-book for their summer vacations, the cost for a 5-7 day trip to Eastern Europe for a couple is approx Rs 1.75 to Rs 2 lakh (for booking and accommodation)," he adds. Besides these, Scandinavian countries like Iceland and Norway are also being preferred for long holidays.

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Japan and South Korea have witnessed a robust growth of 30 per cent in Indian outbound travellers according to FCM, the corporate travel business of the Flight Centre Travel Group.

Busan in South Korea

Says Shravan Gupta, Executive Director, Leisure Businesses, FCM Travel Solutions. "An interesting trend that we have noticed at Flight Shop is about combined holiday packages to Japan and Korea. Offering a perfect assortment of culture, cityscapes and scenic beauty, Japan and Korea are a traveller's delight. Geographically close, Japan and Korea, when combined, offer a fantastic blend of manmade and natural splendour," he adds. Average cost may vary from Rs 1.73 lakh for Japan and South Korea (combined package) to Rs 3 lakh (per person cost on twin sharing basis, inclusive of flights and stay options) at FCM. "So far, Iceland and Scandinavia have contributed to 5-8 per cent of our bookings this year," Gupta says.

Also Read: Indian travellers might just be able to use in-flight internet by August 2017

Scandinavian countries (Norway and the Nordic Finland) have stolen the limelight for its mesmerising Aurora Borealis famously known as The Northern Lights and the spectacular Midnight sun where there are no boundaries between one day and the next. Iceland, the land of Fire and Ice, is famous for some of the most gigantic glaciers in Europe and dynamic volcanoes in the world. According to Ixigo, Italy, Jordan, Indonesia and New Zealand are also seeing a lot of interest.

Vietnam attracts unconventional travellers

Sharat Dhall, COO (B2C), Yatra.com, says this summer season confirms the trend of increasing number of Indians taking International vacations as this year too, there has been a healthy rise in these bookings. "Places like Kazakhstan, Seychelles and Vietnam are attracting the more evolved Indian travellers who wish to explore beyond the conventional destinations. Travel to these destinations appeals to all age groups and we have observed travellers taking this kind of vacations with family, friends, partners or solo. The average cost of holidaying to these destinations is upwards of Rs 50,000 per person for 4-5 nights," he says.

--- ENDS ---
Jerusalem: A Palestinian who had been released from Israeli prison after a year without trial following a two-month hunger strike was again arrested overnight for "incitement", security forces said on Thursday.

Mohammed Allan was detained for questioning "as part of the struggle against the phenomenon of Palestinian incitement in media and social media, which leads to severe attacks in Israel," Israeli domestic security service Shin Bet said.

The 32-year-old resident of Einabus in the northern West Bank was arrested for "inciting through the media while calling for acts of terror and resistance to the `Zionist enemy`," it said.

In November 2015, Allan was released from a year in jail under an Israeli measure known as administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without trial for six-month periods renewable indefinitely.

He was arrested for contacts with the Islamic Jihad with the aim of carrying out attacks.

Allan began a hunger strike in June 2015 that brought him near death and also boosted tensions in the occupied West Bank, with Israel announcing in September that it would not be extending his detention.

A lawyer by training, Allan is believed to be a member of the radical Islamic Jihad militant group.

He was previously imprisoned from 2006 to 2009 for allegedly seeking to recruit suicide bombers and aiding wanted Palestinians, Israeli security forces say.

Israel has recently focused on Palestinian "incitement" over attacks, which they believe fuelled a wave of violence that broke out in October 2015.
Jerusalem: Israeli authorities said Thursday they had foiled a plot by Arab citizens to attack an Israeli soldier in revenge for the March killing of a Hamas commander.

The Shin Bet domestic security agency said it had arrested seven people from the Israeli town of Jaljulya, about 26 kilometres (16 miles) from Tel Aviv, on suspicion of illegal arms trading and terror-related offences.

Among the Israeli suspects were brothers Adam and Faras Faki, allegedly involved in plans to attack an army officer in revenge for the shooting death of Hamas fighter Mazen Faqha next to his Gaza home.

The Islamist group, which rules the Gaza Strip, says the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and its Palestinian "collaborators" killed Faqha.

Shin Bet said Adam Faki joined the movement during a family visit to the coastal Palestinian territory in December 2014.

"During his visit he was recruited to Hamas by his half-brother Mohammed -- a Hamas member who resides in the Gaza Strip," said Shin Bet.

It also alleged that while he was in the strip Adam Faki "underwent military training" including firearms use.

The statement said that, in April, Mohammed asked Adam Faki to buy weapons, select a specific target and enlist an accomplice to avenge Faqha`s death.

"Adam Faki then contacted Jaljulya resident Yassin Ma`ari and attempted to buy from him two pistols and a silencer," it alleged.

"An additional brother, Faras Faki, was arrested on suspicion of being aware of the plan and aiding Muhammad Faki in creating a secret channel of communications to Adam via his cellphone."

Shin Bet named another Jaljulya man, Mahmud Abdul-Karim Daoud, as among those arrested.

It accused him of being involved in arms-selling and said he had "become aware of a terrorist attack being planned" by the Faki brothers.

It did not name the others detained.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars in the Gaza Strip since the group wrested power from its Fatah rival in bloody fighting a decade ago.

Israel has killed several Hamas leaders in the past.

Faqha is said to have been behind several deadly bombing attacks against Israelis during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, of 2000-2005.

Hamas says that Faqha formed units of the Islamist group's military wing in the West Bank cities of Tubas, where he was born, and Jenin.

Israel has not confirmed or denied the accusations involving Faqha`s assassination.

On May 25, Hamas executed three Palestinian men in the Gaza Strip convicted of carrying out the assassination on behalf of Israel.
Kabul: Without naming Pakistan, Hezb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, on Thursday said our neighbors must not support the war in Afghanistan and must fight terrorism.

Commenting on the ongoing war in Afghanistan, he said the reason is that people want to take power by force. Hekmatyar said "our neighbors must not support the war in Afghanistan and must fight terrorism".

The Afghan Ministry of Interior has revealed that Pakistani spy agency ISI had supplied explosives to the Haqqani network and that the material used was highly flammable.

This was found during the initial investigations into the June 1, 2017 deadly truck bombing near Kabul`s Zanbaq Square that killed more than 150 people.

"Pakistan is the key planner of this incident like in the past, but our security team is investigating it and it has not been completed," Tolo News quoted Ministry of Interior spokesman Najib Danish, as saying.Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of downtown Kabul in a bid to march on the Presidential Palace; they had been protesting against May 31 massive truck bomb blastin the Kabul city that killed over 150 people.

"Hizb-e-Islami accepts the system as it is and encouraged the nation to do the same,"Tolo News quoted Hekmatyar as saying.Hekmatyar told protesters that, "he will not allow anyone to bring down the Ashraf Ghani government as he duly supports the system".

He said, "A public demonstration was within the rights of every Afghan, but that any move to close roads or to overrun the Presidential Palace, especially by armed protestors, was not acceptable".

Addressing a press conference in Kabul, Hekmatyar said, "those who want to change the system must ask themselves what the alternative is and whether they are able to run the country.

No one can take power by force. Every Afghan has the right to make demands but not to close roads."Hekmatyar says, "some circles have started a campaign against them but he has asked his supporters not to take action against them.

"The statement by Hekmatyar assumes much significance, as he returned to Kabul after 20 years, and will be participating in the next parliamentary elections, but no decision has been made in terms of taking part in the presidential elections.

On the issue of parliamentary elections, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, head of Hizb-e-Islami said, "he hopes that this (parliamentary elections) goes ahead soon in a transparent manner and within the budget, so that the reforms can be made.He said, "If Hizb-e-Islami does nominate a candidate for presidential elections, they would prefer to have a candidate that is accepted by all the people."
Kathmandu: Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba has taken oath as the 40th Prime Minister of Nepal.President Bidya Devi Bhandari administered the oath of office and secrecy to newly elected Prime Minister Deuba amid a function at Sheetal Niwas in Kathmandu, reports the Kathmandu Post.

Deuba has formed his Cabinet by inducting seven ministers including three Deputy Prime Ministers (DPMs).

After taking the oath, Deuba administered oath to seven new ministers-three from Nepali Congress, three from CPN (Maoist Centre) and one from Nepal Loktantrik Forum.

From Nepali Congress, Gopal Man Shrestha has been appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education while Gyanendra Bahadur Karki and Farmullah Mansoor have been appointed as Minister for Finance and Minister for Labour and Employment respectively.

Meanwhile, Krishna Bahadur Mahara of CPN (Maoist Centre) has been appointed as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, CPN (MC) leader Janardan Sharma has been appointed as Minister for Home Affairs and Prabhu Sah has been appointed as minister without portfolio.

With the swearing in of the new Prime Minister the expectations among the people has grown enormously."With newly elected Prime Minister I hope for the development, reduction of dusts in the roads, and an end to corruption.

The biggest of all is the development of the nation," Rumu Neupane, a resident in Kathmandu, said.Some of the residents hope for the commencement of the three tier election on stipulated time as per the deadline fixed by the constitution.

"For the implementation of the Constitution, all the elections should be held on time. The second one is the projects of national pride: fast track, Budhi Ganadaki and others should gain completion phase," Suranjan Ghimire a resident in Kathmandu said.

Apart from fulfilling the expectations of the people, the new Prime Minister of Nepal also has numerous tasks to accomplish. Deuba, who is supported by the agitating ethnic minorities, has the mammoth task to pass the amendment bill tabled in the Parliament garnering two-third majority along with improving his image which was diluted before.In addition, Deuba has the challenge to appease all the supporting parties to stay firm on the issues.

The overwhelming support to Deuba while forming coalition government might take him down because of their vested interests."It`s all about the coalition government. The political parties are more interested to get seats and better positions, better ministries so that they can show their work as well as they can earn some money happily, if they are corrupt," analyst Prateek Pradhan warned.

"Sher Bahadur garnered almost two-third majority, 388 if he gets 393 that is the two-third majority, he has already got 388 seats but if the smaller political parties who have some kind of greed, some kind of expectations from the Prime Minister if they don`t get benefit from the ministry they might desert him soon," Pradhan warned.

Deuba at first has the challenge to hold the second phase election which is 21 days ahead from the day of his swearing- in.Though the Madhesh-based agitating parties have signalled to go for the elections, they still are seen bargaining with the government putting the issue of Constitution amendment as the term for their participation.

The Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government which came crashing down on May 24 after the commencement of first phase local election in three provinces which went quite peaceful. The second one slated for June 28 has been observed with high interest as it covers most of the southern plains of Nepal which is volatile.

The second phase election will cover 41 districts and 4 provinces which has about 9 million eligible voters. In the first phase election, 73 Percent of the total about 5 million eligible voters exercised their voting right.Deuba, who is also the President of Nepali Congress, returned to power for the fourth time on Tuesday, 12 years after he was unceremoniously removed by then king Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah, with 388 votes in his favour in the 593-strong Parliament
Seoul: North Korea launched a series of what appeared to be "surface-to-ship" cruise missiles on Thursday, South Korea's defence ministry said, in what would be the latest in a string of tests in defiance of UN sanctions.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the ministry said.

Seoul has stepped up surveillance against possible threats, it added.

This would be the fourth missile test by the nuclear-armed regime in less than five weeks, as Pyongyang continues to defy UN warnings and US threats of possible military action.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions.

However, North Korea on Sunday slammed the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and vowed to press ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP: "North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korean".

The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korea port of Busan Tuesday.

The US has stepped up its muscle-flexing in recent months in response to what it sees as aggressive shows of strength by North Korea.

Two US aircraft carriers and their escort vessels have carried out naval maneuvers in the Sea of Japan within the last two weeks in a show of force directed at Pyongyang, the US military has said.

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

The US military "successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target" in a test conducted amid concerns over the North's weapons program, it said.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of a US attack.

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks -- and not more sanctions -- is its priority.

But the US has said it is willing to enter into talks only if the North halts its missile and nuclear tests.

Many analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.

But most agree that the country has made significant progress under the young leader, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.
Islamabad: There is no evidence that the Indian intelligence is to blame for the reported abduction of a retired Pakistani Colonel in Nepal, a minister has said.



Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch informed the Senate on Wednesday that the purported kidnapping of retired Lt Colonel Mohammad Habib could not be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the UN on the basis of assumptions.



It was yet to be established that Col Habib had been picked up by the Indian intelligence agencies, he said.



"No final report suggesting that the Indian intelligence agency or the Indian government was involved is available with the Foreign Office or the government," the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.



Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asked if the statement meant that the Foreign Office was exonerating India from the alleged kidnapping.



Baloch added: "We are hundred per cent sure that Indian intelligence agency RAW is behind the kidnapping but the evidence to this effect is not final."



But he said the Habib issue appeared to be linked with the conviction of alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav in Pakistan. "But material was required to legally prove" this.



He said the Foreign Office was trying to obtain "solid evidence" and Nepal had been asked to get in touch with three Indian nationals who had received Habib at the airport when he flew into Kathmandu.



He said it was unclear if the three were Indian government employees or civilians or working for a private firm. The matter had also been taken up with the Indian government.



The minister said the incident took place two months ago, but expressed his "helplessness" about what he alleged was non-cooperation from Nepal.



Opposition leader Aitzaz Ahsan alleged that Nepal, unlike in the past, was not cooperating on the issue of Habib.



Senator Rehman Malik of the Pakistan Peoples Party urged the government to take the issue to the ICJ and the UN.



Habib`s disappearance from Nepal has been widely linked in the Pakistani media to the death sentence given by a Pakistani military court to Jadhav.
Islamabad: Pakistan Army today said it has dismantled Islamic State's infrastructure in the troubled Balochistan province and killed 12 hardcore terrorists, including two suicide bombers, in an operation last week.



The security forces conducted an operation in Mastung area of the province from June 1 to 3 on actionable intelligence, said an army statement, releasing details of the three-day long operation.



"The successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect ISIS organized infrastructure in Balochistan (province of) Pakistan, also foiled terrorist incidents in Pakistan," it said.



It said that there were reports of 10-15 terrorists of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangivi Al-Aalmi (LeJA) hiding in caves near Isplingi mountains, 36 kms south east of Mastung.



"The said organisation was reportedly making efforts for communication with ISIS (Daesh) and intended to facilitate establishment of ISIS foothold in Balochistan," it said.



Operation for physical clearance of target area, spread over 10 kilometres, started early morning on June 1 and it continued for three days as terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance.



The army said 250 meter long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging but the intelligence and security forces personnel fought valiantly to clear the hideout by June 3.



"During exchange of fire, 12 hardcore terrorists including 2 suicide bombers were killed," it said, adding that five security forces personnel including 2 officers were also injured in the operation.



The suicide bomber used against Deputy Chairman of the Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on May 12 was also sent by this group from the same hideout.

During the operation, security forces destroyed a bomb making facility inside cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kilograms of explosive, 3 suicide jackets, 18 grenades, 6 rocket launchers, 4 light machine guns, 18 small machine guns, 4 sniper rifles, 38 communication sets and huge ammunition of various types.



Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa appreciated effort of Southern Command, intelligence agencies and the troops for the successful operation.
Marawi City: The siege of Marawi City in the southern Philippines could be over soon because the logistics of the Islamist militants holed up there have been disrupted and they have been reduced to a small resistance, the military said on Wednesday (June 7).

Government troops had entered three neighbourhoods from which the pro-Islamic State fighters who seized the town on May 23 had pulled back, said Major General Carlito Galvez, head of the military command in the region.

We saw food, IEDs, mobility assets. Considering we have paralysed logistics capability, we are looking at the possibility that the end will be near, he told a news conference in Marawi City, referring to improvised explosive devices, or bombs.

The military believed more or less 100 civilians were still being held hostage by the militants, he said.

Task force head Brigadier General Rolly Bautista told reporters that a Catholic priest who was taken hostage with about a dozen of his parishioners on the first day of the siege, was still alive. He said this was information passed back through emissaries.

The battle for Marawi has raised concern that Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao that could pose a threat to neighbouring Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore too.

Officials have said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town, there were about 40 foreigners from Indonesia and Malaysia but also fighters from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The strike on Marawi City suggested to many that pro-ISIS factions wanted to establish it as a South-east Asian wilayat  or governorate  for the radical group, a view reinforced by video footage the military found last week showing the fighters plotting to cut the town off completely.
Doha: Qatar`s foreign minister on Thursday rejected attempts to interfere in the country`s foreign policy and said a "military solution" to the country`s crisis with its Gulf neighbours was not an option.



"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told AFP.



"We don`t see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, he added.
Doha: Qatari investigators have said that a cyber attack which saw the publication of explosive fake news last month that helped trigger a crisis with Gulf neighbours was prepared in April.

In a preliminary report published late on Wednesday, the investigators did not say who they held responsible for the hack but said that both Britain and the United States were helping with their inquiry.

The comments attributed to Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on incendiary issues such as Israel, Iran and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas were one of the reasons cited by Saudi Arabia and its allies on Monday for imposing a diplomatic and economic blockade on Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain gave Qatari citizens 14 days to leave and closed their airspace to all Qatari flights. Saudi Arabia also closed Qatar`s only land border.

"The investigation team confirmed that the hack was carried out using innovative technological methods by exploiting an electronic gap on the website of the Qatar News Agency," the report said.

"The team confirmed that the hacked file was installed last April, which was later exploited in the publication of the fabricated news on 24/5/2017, at 12:13 am (2113 GMT May 23)."

CNN reported on Tuesday that US officials believed Russian hackers were behind the planting of the fake news.

Moscow dismissed the allegation on Wednesday. "It`s a stale claim and, as ever, there is zero evidence," said Andrei Krutskikh, a Kremlin adviser on cyber security.

Qatar says it intends to take legal action against those responsible.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sure knows how to use wit to respond to people who try to take a dig at her.

By Santosh Chaubey: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj known for her timely response on Twitter to SOS messages from Indians abroad also knows how to come up with witty one-liners to shut those who intend to take a dig at her.

Twitter user Karan Saini, whose bio says he is a resident of Chicago, tweeted to Sushma Swaraj saying he was stuck on mars and the food sent via Mangalyaan is running out. He asked when Mangalyaan-II would be sent. He also tagged the Indian Space Research Organisation in his tweet.

@SushmaSwaraj??? I am stuck on mars, food sent via ????Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is ????Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro- karan Saini (@ksainiamd) June 8, 2017

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While India launched Mangalyan I in November 2013, Mangalyan II mission is still in planning stage and the ISRO has invited scientific proposals for it.

Sushma Swaraj replied to this tongue-in-cheek tweet with some wit and it has already gone viral. She wrote, "Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you."

Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. https://t.co/Smg1oXKZXD- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

Sushma Swaraj's fans appreciated the minister for her wit and work.

And Mam Sushma Ji will continue to bedazzle us all with her wit, passion & energy to serve Indians wherever they are. You're an inspiration- Monica Jasuja (@jasuja) June 8, 2017

There are new lessons in commitment to work, sincerity & ability to delight the served I draw from you daily.- Sushil Kedia (@sushilkedia) June 8, 2017

A hardworking dedicated woman who has a sense of humour - what's not to love! ?????- Prateeka (@PrateekaKamath) June 8, 2017

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Beirut: Syrian government warplanes struck Islamic State positions west of Raqqa city on the southern bank of the Euphrates river, state media said on Thursday.

Separately, US-backed Syrian militias have been pushing into the edges of Raqqa city in the first days of their assault to seize Islamic State`s base of operations in Syria.
Beirut: The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that entered the Islamic State group`s bastion Raqa on Wednesday was formed just 18 months ago.

It has since emerged as a key fighting force against IS in northern Syria, and the main ground partner of the US-led coalition battling the jihadist group.

The SDF has scored a series of victories in the past 18 months, including the recapture of the strategic northern city of Manbij, and has now encircled Raqa city and entered it from the east.

But the dominant role of Kurdish forces in the alliance has raised concerns with Turkey, whose military has hit SDF positions.

The SDF was formed in October 2015 as Kurds, Arab Muslims and Christians joined forces to battle IS in northern Syria.

Syria`s six-year civil war has seen it divided into a patchwork of fiefdoms but in IS the disparate members of the SDF found a common enemy.

The alliance is estimated to command about 30,000 fighters -- some 25,000 Kurds and 5,000 Arabs.

The Syrian Kurdish People`s Protection Units (YPG), which had already dealt IS several defeats including seizing the key border town of Tal Abyad, is the alliance`s backbone.

Along with the Kurdish female Women`s Protection Units, the SDF includes Arab factions, Syriac Christian fighters and Turkmen units.

The alliance has often emphasised its Arab component, despite allegations that they are effectively a junior partner in the force.

After launching the coalition air war against IS in Syria and Iraq, Washington struggled to find a reliable partner on the ground.

A much-touted $500-million programme to build a rebel army to fight IS collapsed after many candidates failed the screening process and one group surrendered equipment to an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

But since its creation the SDF has benefited from strong US backing, including weapons drops and air strikes in support of its operations.

Shortly after the SDF was formed, the White House announced the first sustained deployment of US special forces to Syria, reversing a longstanding refusal to put boots on the ground.

Some 50 special operations personnel were deployed in northern Syria, and the number has now grown to around 500 US troops, though not all are from special operations.

US officials including Washington`s envoy to the coalition Brett McGurk and the head of Central Command have met senior SDF commanders on visits to northern Syria.

And in June, Washington announced it would supply weapons directly to the YPG, over objections from ally Turkey.
Bangkok: Thailand`s junta plans to allocate more than $123 million for the monarchy in the 2018 budget, an apparent cut of more than 14 percent from this year, figures published on Thursday showed.

Thailand makes public few details of the finances for its monarchy, whose assets, estimated at more than $40 billion, rank it among the world`s richest.

Since taking the throne in December, King Maha Vajiralongkorn has set about restructuring the palace and in April, parliament agreed to transfer to him control of royal agencies managed by the prime minister and defence ministry.

A draft of the annual budget allocated 4.19 billion baht ($123 million) to the monarchy for "security fundamentals", but gave no explanation of what this comprises.

The figure compares to 4.89 billion baht for the fiscal year from October 2016 to September 2017, a decrease of more than 14 percent. Last year, the figure was given under national security as being for "upholding and preserving the monarchy".

It was not made clear whether funding on any of the other budget lines would directly or indirectly benefit the palace.

By comparison, Britains Royal Household said its sovereign grant for the year to March 2016 was around 40 million pounds ($52 million), though that does not cover costs such as security.

The new Thai figures were revealed in a 2.9-trillion-baht draft budget submitted to parliament by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. It had already been approved by the cabinet.

The king inherited the throne last year following the death of his revered father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose reign spanned seven decades.

His major staffing changes include appointments this week of 10 civil servants to new posts, as well as a fourteenth member to the Privy Council advisory body. The new addition is an armed forces officer, like most of the panel, as is the king.

The wealth of the Thai crown is rarely discussed in Thailand, where strict royal insult laws make criticism of the monarchy a crime. But two recent studies value the crown`s assets and corporate holdings at more than $40 billion.

The monarchy`s household and finances are managed by the Bureau of the Royal Household and the secretive Crown Property Bureau, a quasi-government agency.

On its website, the Crown Property Bureau says it manages properties that "do not belong to the monarch in his or her private capacity, but to the monarchy as an institution".Income generated from the Crown Property is used "firstly for expenditures for the upkeep of the royal family, and thereafter, at the monarchs discretion."

The monarch`s personal assets are managed separately.

Preserving the monarchy and maintaining the militarys role as its protector has been a key theme for Prayuths administration, which seized power from an elected government in 2014 in the name of ending months of political unrest.
United Nations: Diplomats at the United Nations denounced as a provocation today's cruise missile launches by North Korea, though no immediate meeting has been planned for the Security Council.

Bolivian Ambassador Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz, noting that no country has called for a council meeting "so far," stressed that only Pyongyang's ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests are banned by the UN and could trigger sanctions.

His British counterpart Matthew Rycroft pointed out that -- unlike ballistic missile launches -- the cruise missile tests, while "irresponsible" and "destabilizing," probably do not violate UN resolutions barring Pyongyang from engaging in ballistic missile activity.

The volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles North Korea launched off its east coast earlier Thursday were "much slower" than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti- aircraft guns, Korea Defense Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP.

"We condemn the latest provocations from DPRK and we look forward to working with our council colleagues about the best way to respond to them," Rycroft said, using the acronymm for the North's formal name.

"It's irresponsible and it is destabilizing what is already a very sensitive situation."

But the diplomat added: "We are looking at the details now, but it is possible I think that they come underneath a threshold to count as a violation" of UN resolutions.

French envoy Francois Delattre highlighted the need to be on the "tough side" on the issue.

"We remain determined to move ahead with our partners at the Security Council," he added.

On Friday, the council unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, a move Pyongyang said was "mean."

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen."
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh is offering new adventure tourism opportunities.

For those who prefer hiking, the Janaparh Trail (meaning Road Trail), which stretches along the entire territory of Artsakh, is the best option. Numerous architectural monuments are located along the trail, with a magnificent natural view all over.

Artak Grigoryan, a tourism official of Artsakhs economy ministry, told ARMENPRESS the trail has been added in different apps, to make traveling easier, because it has become a popular destination.

Grigoryan said they plan to improve the entire trail.

It is noteworthy that the trail can be hiked in all seasons, even in winter. Tourists from Russia, European countries and USA are already planning hiking tours here.

The forested mountains of Artsakh are a wonderful chance for travelers who enjoy camping. Camping can also be organized in the farms or premises of the locals, Grigoryan said.

According to Grigoryan, the government is creating favorable conditions to make tourist visits as interesting and diverse as possible.

From the mountainous trails of the north-south to the popular wine routes, or Salsa classes in the Mulkimandil case to open classes of national dances in the Shahumyan Park of the capital Stepanakert. This list can long be continued, Grigoryan said, mentioning that every year tourism opportunities are being expanded.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Fired FBI Director James Comey aimed a blow at US President Donald Trump Wednesday, saying the President had demanded his loyalty, pressed him to drop a probe into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and repeatedly pressured him to publicly declare that he was not under investigation, CNN reports.

Comey magnified the political crisis engulfing the White House by releasing his opening statement ahead of a Senate hearing appearance on Capitol Hill on Thursday. The dramatic document sketched a stunningly detailed account of Comey's intimate meetings with the US President, included direct quotes from Trump and revealed the former FBI chief's discomfort with the President's behavior.

The testimony appeared to bolster the case of Trump critics who believe that the President may have obstructed justice and abused his power in his dealings with Comey, who he later fired.

Comey said that Trump asked him to drop FBI investigations into Flynn centering on his calls with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, which eventually led to his dismissal as national security adviser after it emerged he had lied about the conversations to Vice President Mike Pence.

He wrote that Trump said: "'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

"I replied only that 'he is a good guy.'" Comey wrote, describing a private meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on February 14, then added: "I did not say I would 'let this go.'"

The exchange took place after a meeting between Trump and senior intelligence and homeland security officials, after which the President asked to speak to the FBI Director alone.

Comey said in his testimony that he understood the President to be requesting that he drop the investigation into Flynn, who had resigned the day before. But he says he did not understand Trump to be referring to the wider Russia investigation.

"Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs & Security Policy Maja Kocijancic expressed concern over the detention of Head of Amnesty International in Turkey, lawyer and human rights defender Taner Kl, Armenpress reports citing the EU official website.

We call on the Turkish authorities to clarify the charges swiftly, in line with the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. In particular, it is important to fully respect the presumption of innocence. Amnesty International is an internationally highly respected member of civil society which is a key pillar of democracy, Maja Kocijancic said, adding that the EU will monitor the on-going procedure closely.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Polls have opened in the UK, 52 days after Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap general election, BBC reports.

More than 46 million people are eligible to vote.

Polls close at 10 p.m. UK time (5 p.m. ET), with results expected to begin rolling in within an hour or so after voting finishes.

May called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britain's exit from the bloc.

Voters in all 650 constituencies across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are choosing their local member of parliament (MP) from the more than 3,300 candidates running throughout the UK.

In the UK system, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party able to form a government, meaning they need the support of the majority of the House of Commons -- where MPs sit -- or 326 seats.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. North Korea has launched several unidentified ground-based projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff announced, RT reports.

"North Korea fired several unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles, this morning in the direction of the East Sea from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the JCS statement said, according to the Yonhap news agency.

South Korea's military added that the missiles flew about 200 kilometers (124 miles).

The last time North Korea conducted a missile launch was on May 29, when it fired at least one short-range ballistic missile. The projectile, believed to be a Scud-class missile, flew around 450 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan, some 300 km off the Japanese islands.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. The session of the Parliaments extraordinary sitting, convened by the government, has kicked off with 83 lawmakers present.

Voting will be held for bills debated earlier on June 7, which included the bill on the corruption prevention committee, as well as making amendments in the law on the public services regulatory agency.

Lawmakers will continue debating the bill on the 2017-2020 privatization program of state property.

The June 8 session also includes debates on amending the law on local self-governance.
Tamil Nadu has been witnessing protests against government-run liquor shops which are entering residential areas after the Supreme Court order.

Several TASMAC shops had to be closed after the SC order. Photo: ANI.

By Akshaya Nath: Women in Rameswaram are planning to sit on a hunger strike to demand shutting down of the TASMAC shop in their neighbourhood.

This TASMAC (Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation) shop, essentially a wine and beer shop, is the only one in the island.

"Our men are not going to the sea (because of a 61-day fishing ban). This TASMAC shop is creating a nuisance for all of us. Women are not able to walk freely in the area because of drunk men," said Mary, a fisherwoman in Rameswaram.

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Tamil Nadu has been witnessing protests in several parts of the state against government-run liquor shops which are entering residential areas after the Supreme Court's order to remove liquor shops within 500 metres of state and national highways.

Following the Supreme Court order, 3,300 TASMAC outlets have been shut of the total 5,700 shops run by the Tamil Nadu government.

Due to widespread protests against opening of liquor shops near residential areas, these 3,300 shops have failed to reopen. Consequently, this has hit the state's revenue.

MONEY MATTERS

According to some reports, TASMAC's estimated revenue for 2014-15 was Rs 26,000 crore and it was projected that the figures could soon reach the Rs 30,000 crore-mark.

In the face of agitation by residents, particularly women, against liquor shops, the revenue projection could well be out of reach for the Tamil Nadu government.

The closure of 3,300 TASMAC shops has led to an estimated revenue loss of Rs 750 crore for the state exchequer.

The AIADMK had promised phased prohibition in the state if voted to power, and Jayalalithaa had ordered shut down of 500 TASMAC shops on the first day of assuming power as the chief minister last year.

E Palaniswami followed the trend and ordered closure of 500 government-run liquor shops on his first day as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister in February this year.

With protests against liquor shops spreading across the state, it remains to be seen how the government will respond.

ALSO READ:

Coimbatore: People protest opening of Tasmac shop for weeks

Liquor shops run by Tamil Nadu government defy ban; protests flare up

Tamil Nadu: 7-year-old stages sit-in protest against TASMAC liquor shop near school

ALSO WATCH: Highways turn dryways after liquor ban: Rs 65,000 crore at stake, 1 million jobs may be on the line

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YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Through the initiative of the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA), and within the framework of the first Armenian-Italian Intergovernmental Commission meeting, the Armenia-Italy Business Forum was held in the Italian capital of Rome, in order to establish and strengthen bilateral investment and business ties, the DFA told Armenpress.

The decision to establish the Commission was made during the official visit of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Paolo Jentiloni, in November 2016.

Around 26 Armenian businessmen presented their different business plans to 170 potential Italian business partners, and highlighted the investment sectors where profitable cooperation is possible. Meetings between interested companies were held to discuss investment projects and export opportunities for Armenian products. The success stories of Italian companies Renco and Sartis were also presented in the Forum.

"Now is a favorable time to invest in Armenia. The government is actively taking steps towards improving the business environment and eliminating bureaucratic obstacles. Our Foundation in particular is ready to provide practical support and consulting services to Italian businessmen at any stage of investment," stated the CEO of the Development Foundation of Armenia Armen Avak Avakian, adding that the conference and B2B meetings were organized to present the country's investment opportunities.

The agenda of the Armenia-Italy Forum included presentations on investment opportunities in the agro-processing, renewable energy, information and communication technology, footwear and textile, and tourism sectors.

During the forum, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) and the Italian Trade Promotion Agency (ICE), which will promote further bilateral trade and economic relations. According to the Memorandum, the two parties agreed to promote the cooperation between the Armenian and Italian business sectors, and share information on business visits, exhibitions and upcoming events. Both parties will do everything possible to identify and eliminate barriers against bilateral trade and increasing investment.

Statistics: The trade turnover between Armenia and Italy amounted to 160 million USD in 2016: 32 million USD in Armenian exports and 127.5 million USD in imports.

Last year Armenia mainly exported textile, clothing, aluminum foil, ethanol, liquor, plastic goods, automatic regulators and control devices to Italy. The imports from Italy mainly consisted of chocolate, confectionery, pasta, fabrics, central heating boilers and oil/petrolium products.

Italy is Armenia's 17th largest investment partner with 103.3 million AMD of investments in January-September 2016.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) welcomes a renewed Congressional effort  spearheaded by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and other Democratic members of the Armenian Caucus  to reverse harmful cuts to U.S. foreign aid to Armenia included in the Presidents Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 budget, ANCA reported.

Congressional leadership is essential in rolling back the Presidents proposed deep cuts in U.S. aid to Armenia, said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. Attempts to slash aid to Armenia need to be met with strong bipartisan opposition.

Among the specific priorities cited in that Congressional Armenian Caucus-led letter were:

 U.S. support for Armenia as a regional safe haven for Middle East refugees, in the form of a $40 million appropriation to support transitional programs, including short-term housing/rental assistance and social and economic integration initiatives.

 A renewed focus on aid to Artsakh, with an appropriation of at least $8 million for de-mining, rehabilitation programs (such as the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Center), and water supply systems.

 A focused effort to check Azerbaijani aggression, through the appropriation of at least $20 million to support implementation of the Royce-Engel peace proposals, the suspension of U.S. military aid to Baku, and the strengthening of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.

 An appropriation of at least $40 million in economic aid to Armenia, and no less than $11 million in military aid, with a focus on advancing U.S.-Armenia defense cooperation goals, promoting NATO interoperability, and supporting increased Armenias participation in global peacekeeping operations.

In a June 6th letter to Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) and Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-NY), the leaders of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, over 25 U.S. Representatives raised alarms about President Trumps call for a 67% cut to U.S. foreign aid to Armenia (reducing overall aid from $20.4 million in FY16 to $6.8 million in FY18), urging the restoration of aid levels for both Armenia and Artsakh.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Parliament unanimously adopted the bill on Corruption Prevention Commission and the package of related bills at the first reading, reports Armenpress.

87 MPs voted in favor of the legislative initiative.

Before the voting Yelk faction head Nikol Pashinyan delivered remarks stating that they will vote in favor of the bill. Of course, this bill doesnt fully reflect our desires, however, we think this is a step ahead and we will vote in favor it, he said.

Parliaments Vice-Spealer, Tsarukyan faction MP Mikayel Melkumyan stated that they have discussed the bill in-detail with Arpine Hovhannisyan, and their proposals were accepted. He said they reached a consensus and will vote in favor of the legislative initiative.

The Parliament also unanimously adopted the draft law on making changes and amendments in the law on Public Services Regulatory Agency at the first reading, with 88 votes in favor.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Qatars Gulf Times newspaper has published an article on Armenia, describing it as a perfect tourist destination.

Gulf Times touched upon the hospitable Armenian people, stable weather and the low crime rate.

The cheapest flights to Armenia provided by some leading airlines include Qatar Airways, Air Arabia, Fly Dubai, Atlasglobal and MEA. One of the reasons why tourists prefer to spend their holiday in Armenia is very affordable prices.

There is a wide range of both luxury restaurant cafes offering fast food. In fast food chains, visitors can have a full meal and pay only 1,500-2,000 AMD ($3-4), in the national restaurants the dinner will cost from 5,000 to 15,000 AMD ($10-30) or higher that depends on the prestige and selected dishes.

The cuisine reflects the history and geography where Armenians have lived as well as incorporating outside influences. In Armenia, there is a restaurant for each taste like Armenian national cuisine, Lebanese cuisine, Middle Eastern cuisine, Indian cuisine, Georgian cuisine, Special Halal menu, homemade food, European, continental and snack menu, Gulf Times writes.

The Gulf Times also mentioned the simplified visa procedures which contribute to development of tourism.

 Armenia is home to countless beautiful monasteries and they are often found in areas of truly outstanding natural beauty. Armenias capital, Yerevan, is one of the most rapidly developing cities in the whole of Europe as the nation continues to embrace tourism, the Gulf Times said.



As key attractions in Armenia, the article mentions Shikahogh State Reserve, Lake Sevan, Dilijan National Park, Noravank monastery, Tsakhkadzor resort town and Garni Temple.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Arthur Khachatryan has been appointed Governor of Armenias Shirak province by the government during todays Cabinet meeting.

Khachatryan served as deputy minister of territorial administration and development prior to the appointment.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan congratulated Khachatryan and said We wish you productive work. Having experience in the ministry of territorial administration and development and having daily interactions with the administration culture and rules which we want to have in the provinces, we hope that you will be able to quickly regulate the works there.

Earlier the Cabinet had dismissed Hovsep Simonyan as Governor of Shirak.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan is taking on another field for changes. Upon the PMs task, supervision and control will be heightened for cab drivers at the Zvartnots airport, who are the first people whom arriving tourists see. The taxi licensing procedure will be especially focused on.

Upon studying the current situation of taxi services in Zvartnots airport, we note that the quality of these services is not in line with necessary standards and normative requirements. This situation is very concerning, taking into account that tourists and citizens arriving in Armenia are the customers of these services, Karapetyan said during the Cabinet meeting.

The PM tasked minister of transportation, communication and IT to carry our preventive works in a one-week period with cab drivers in Zvartnots airport addressing licensing violations, and discuss the possibilities of modernizing the current Yerevan-Zvartnots routes.

The PM also tasked the Police Chief of the country to discover illegal taxi operators, as well as carry out preventive measures.

You all know what Im talking about: they drive their cabs all scruffy, smoking a cigarette, take people via Malatia-Sebastia and present the Yerevan Lake as Lake Sevan, and use different tariffs and so on. Do we focus on the attire and look of the driver upon granting a license and what their conduct must be with clients? he said.

The PM told Police Chief Vladimir Gasparyan that he expects a very strict approach from law enforcement.

According to the PM the situation is simply unacceptable, because the first interaction of tourists upon arrival is with cab drivers.

They drive around Malatia-Sebastia, bring people to Yerevan Lake and falsely present it as Sevan for 20-30 thousand drams, he said.

The PM told Vahan Martirosyan  minister of transportation, communication and IT  that by addressing the field they should define specific standards, rather than complicating the business activities.

It is necessary to provide transportation for Yerevan-Zvartnots and jointly work with the Yerevan City Hall. Define a specific route, provide an alternative. Introduce relevant price lists, he said.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. On 8 June, the National Defense Research University (NDRU) of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia hosted the newly-appointed Military and Air Attache of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to Armenia, Senior Colonel Zhan Fenghua, the NDRU told Armenpress.

The guest was welcomed by the Head of the NDRU, Doctor of Political Science, Professor, Lieutenant-General Hayk Kotanjian.

The meeting was also attended by the NDRU Deputy Head for Research  Head of the Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), PhD in History Benyamin Poghosyan and NDRU INSS Research Fellow, PhD in Economics Azat Davtyan.

At the beginning of the meeting, Lieutenant-General Hayk Kotanjian congratulated the Military Attache for taking up his new position, wishing him every success during his service in Armenia. Dr. Kotanjian presented the steps taken towards the establishment of cooperation between the NDRU and similar institutions of China, particularly touching upon the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the NDRU and the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS).

The basis for cooperation between the two institutions was laid in 2014 during the visit of NDRUs Head Hayk Kotanjian to the CIISS. The MOU was signed during the visit of NDRUs Deputy Head for Research Benyamin Poghosyan to Beijing in October 2016, when he participated in an international conference organized by the CIISS.

Another example of the establishment of cooperation between the NDRU and similar institutions of China is the arrangement for signing a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Xian Institute of Contemporary International Studies (XICIS), which was reached during the NDRU INSS Research Fellow Azat Davtyans visits of October 2016 to Xian and of April 2017 to Beijing.

During the meeting, Senior Colonel Zhan Fenghua highlighted the cooperation between the NDRU and the CIISS, as well as the XICIS, expressing confidence that it would further deepen the relations between the two peoples.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Amid an ongoing bribery probe, the special investigative service has charged Sevak Shoyan, a prosecutor of the Gegharkunik province.

The investigation revealed that the prosecutor had demanded 4000 dollars in cash from the parents of a man who was accused in stabbing a person. Upon receiving the bribe, the prosecutor had said he would have changed the course of the probe to an act of self defense. However, when Shoyan received the bribe, he didnt do anything at all and the stabber was imprisoned.

The prosecutor has been indicted for bribery and remanded in custody.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. The first court session of the 14 gunmen who stormed a police precinct and took hostages in Yerevan in July of 2016 was cancelled and postponed.

The session didnt even start as Judge Artyush Gabrielyan postponed it until June 21, 12:00.

A correspondent of ARMENPRESS reported from the court that the judge was forced to postpone the trial because of disorderly conduct inside the courtroom.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Democracy Today NGO on June 8 held the 5th international conference entitled Women for Peace and Stability: Peace Starts from Your Home, reports Armenpress.

Representatives of various states - Syria, Colombia, Iraq, Cyprus, Croatia, Serbia, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, US and etc, arrived in Armenia to take part in the conference.

Ambassador Piotr Switalski, head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, delivered remarks at the event, stating that the way to peace and non-violence passes through empowerment of women. The reason that we are less aggressive is that now there is much more power and strength in the hands of women. I am happy that one of the EU main priorities is equality between woman and man. We carry out active works on this path. Of course, violence is gradually yielding its positions, however, domestic violence is more difficult to retreat. This is also an important topic for us. Today an important issue is what we are going to do. There is a need of strategy, program, but more important is the mentality so that people will be able to express and call that such attitude is unacceptable. The EU can promise that this is going to be one of our continuous tasks. We need to urge women to be strong. Stand up, raise your voice, the EU Ambassador said.

French Ambassador to Armenia H.E. Jean-Francois Charpentier also attended the conference. We are happy to assist this event. I would like to welcome women who arrived here from different countries and brought with them courageous testimonies on their activities. Based on the necessity of conflict management, the UN Security Council included in its agenda the issue of womens peace and security which was unanimously adopted and was followed by adoption of 5 more resolutions, 1 of which was unique in a sense that it called on states to take all necessary measures to protect women during the conflict and after that. France is committed to implement the UN resolutions, the French Ambassador said.
By Press Trust of India: Sangareddy, Jun 8 (PTI) A 26-year-old man from Telangana was shot at by an unidentified person in California in the US on Sunday and continues to be in "very critical condition", his relative said here today.

Mubeen Ahmed, who completed a masters degree in engineering from a university in California, was fired upon in a departmental store where he was working by a man after the latters group picked up an argument with staff, said Mubeens maternal uncle Mohd Aslam Sultan Qasmi.

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He said Mubeen sustained injuries to his lungs, liver and kidney, and currently remains admitted in an ICU of a hospital at Castro Valley near California.

He has undergone emergency surgeries and his condition is stated to be very critical, Qasmi said, adding that Mubeens family members were informed about the incident on Monday by their relative in the US. He said the hospital authorities also called them up.

Mubeen went to California to pursue his masters in engineering in February this year.

His father Mohammed Mujeeb works in a defence institute in Secunderabad and is currently residing in Hyderabad.

Mujeeb and other relatives called on Telangana Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao and Medak MP Prabhakar Reddy seeking help.

Mujeeb is awaiting his visa to travel to the US, Qasmi said. PTI CORR NSK KUN

--- ENDS ---
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan says the terror attack in Iran requires cooperation of world powers against that threat, reports Armenpress.

What happened in Iran must be condemned. It is fact that this incident requires cooperation of various forces, first of all world powers. There can be various disagreements which exist and will not be eliminated, but there must be the perception that there is a common threat relating to all states and peoples, the Deputy FM said.

Commenting on the recent announcement of over 10 countries on cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, the Deputy FM said this is linked with the situation in the Middle East, the trends that exist, especially, in Saudi Arabia, in terms of anti-Iranian sentiments. The Deputy Minister stated that Qatar will not join the coalition against Iran, adding that Qatar is inclined to cooperate with Iran.

At least 13 people were killed, 43 were injured in the terror attack in Iran on June 7.

On June 5 Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Libyas east, Yemen, Maldives and Mauritius announced cutting diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing Doha on supporting terrorist groups and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East. On June 6 the Islamic Republic of Mauritania also joined the list.




YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenias minister of nature protection Artsvik Minasyan briefed President Sargsyan on the ongoing reforms and projects of the sector.

The Presidents Office said minister Minasyan briefed the President on the modern technical solutions for the complete registration system of natural resources, improvement of the nature protection expertise institution, introduction of an electronic system for facilitation of license and permit procedures.

The minister also touched upon productive management and control of forest resources.

The President tasked to launch works on creating the unified forest management system and presented the pilot program on hiring private sector contractors for the protection of three risk branches on the Dilijan national park.

The minister also reported on registration of biodiversity, efficient use of eco-tourism potential, and other issues.

President Serzh Sargsyan also touched upon preservation and restoration of eco-system of Lake Sevan. The minister presented the prospect program on transforming the Sevan national park to a biosphere reserve.

The minister noted that upon the Presidents instruction,



 980.24 million m / t water was saved in the Ararat Plain as result of water saving, but the measures are still ongoing because the usage is still above the limit.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government granted customs privileges to Arpimed LLC for importing technical devices, raw materials and components.

Suren Karayan, minister of economic development and investments said the company will use the imported materials in pharmaceuticals.

400 million drams will be invested and 12 new jobs will be created during the program  with an average monthly salary of 200,000 drams. The planned production volumes will amount 800 million drams, 500 million drams worth of production of which will be sold in Armenia, 200 million in other EEU states, and 100 million in third countries, Karayan said.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Armenias FM Edward Nalbandian, who is currently in Rome on a working visit, visited on June 7 the Italian Society for International Organization, which operates under the auspices of the Italian FM, where he delivered a comprehensive speech on Armenias foreign policy for the academic circles of the research center, diplomats accredited in Rome, analysts and journalists, the foreign ministry told ARMENPRESS.

Prior to making his speech, Nalbandian held a meeting with Franco Frattini, president of the Organization and former FM of Italy, and discussed the steps aimed at developing the Armenian-Italian relations and current regional and international issues.

Ladies and Gentlemen,



I would like to thank the Italian Society for International Organization and its president - good old friend Franco Frattini, for organizing this meeting. I value very much the opportunities of exchanges within the academic circles and expert communities, which give the possibilities not only for presenting our thoughts and views, but also to listen and comprehend. Therefore, I will start with a short introduction and then will encourage a Q&A session, in a more interactive manner.



The modern day cordial bonds between Armenia and Italy have deep historical roots that go all the way back to the Roman Empire and have especially strengthened after first Armenia and then Rome adopted Christianity as a state religion. Last year His Holiness Pope Francis visited Armenia in his words as a pilgrim to the first among the Nations to receive the Gospel of Jesus.



Armenian Italian ties flourished in the Middle Ages during active political and economic interactions between Cilician Armenian Kingdom and Genoa, Venice and Pisa. As an echo of those centuries-old close ties the title King of Armenia was held till the modern times by the Italian House of Savoy. Armenian Congregation of Mekhitarists, established in 1717 on the island of San Lazzaro in Venice, has long been regarded as one of the Armenian cultural centers. The first ever Armenian published book was printed in Italy in 1512. There are a lot of historic facts testifying to the close ties between our nations. I just mentioned few to give an overall idea. In modern times too, many Armenians have been well known and played prominent roles in the Italian society.



The Armenian Italian relations gained new momentum after the independence of Armenia. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. During the past quarter of a century we have managed to forge strong partnership in wide array of fields ranging from the high level political dialogue to the economic cooperation, partnership in cultural, academic and many other fields. We have also formed pretty comprehensive legal framework which comprises three dozen legal documents.



Armenia and Italy are jointly investing their efforts for the peace and security in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, as well as in the Resolute support mission in Afghanistan. As nations with rich cultural and historical heritage we successfully cooperate in the field of preservation of historical and cultural heritage.



Armenia is very much interested in further strengthening and deepening its ties with Italy. I am in Rome for first meeting of the Armenian-Italian Intergovernmental Commission. Last year during the visit to Armenia of His Excellency Paolo Gentiloni, in his capacity as the Foreign Minister we together agreed on the establishment of this important format to boost our economic relations. It was followed by the business forum. In the course of this visit I also had a bilateral meeting with my colleague, Minister Alfano, Secretary for Relations with States of Holy See Gallagher, as well as members of the Italian Parliament.



The cooperation between Armenia and Italy goes beyond the bilateral framework and encompasses also the multilateral track, most notably the Eastern Partnership and European Neighborhood Policies of the European Union. We are looking forward to sign this fall at the EU Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the European Union, which defines the framework for active political dialogue, cooperation in many areas, dynamic trade and economic relations, expanded sectoral cooperation. Once it is signed, Armenia as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union that encompasses 180 million strong market can further contribute as a bridge in utilizing the available opportunities, providing its services and investment tools and as a platform for trade activities between EAEU and EU member states, particularly, Italy.



We are also looking forward to Italys upcoming Chairmanship in one of the most important regional Organizations  the OSCE, which we believe should continue to play a vital role in the current turbulent international affairs.



Ladies and Gentlemen,



It is well known that geography shapes political identity. Armenias neighborhood - the South Caucasus, is situated between Russia in the North, Turkey and Iran in the West and Southeast respectively and the Middle East further South. For those who follow the international politics only this vague reference is enough to understand the whole complexity of the regional environment.



Armenia enjoys allied relations with Russia, good-neighborly relations with neighboring Georgia and Iran and has no relations with Turkey. If you wish so, I will come back to our ties with these neighbors during the Q&A. Here, I would like to concentrate more on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the prospects of its resolution, which are hampered by Azerbaijan.



Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan. I would like to refer to an interesting document sent to Italian Foreign Minister Sforza by his diplomatic envoy Mr. Gorrini in December 1920, where he clearly states that Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of the Republic of Armenia. This is only one evidence among many in this regard. However, in 1921 by the unilateral decision of Josef Stalin Nagorno-Karabakh was forcefully annexed to administrative rule of Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous region, while its population was 90% Armenian. In 1988 the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh which comprised by the time more than 75% of the population started a peaceful movement for self-determination. In 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh through referendum declared its independence. In 1999 the European Parliament through a special resolution confirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence in a same manner as other former Soviet Republics.



Azerbaijan responded with massacres, ethnic cleansing and deportation of around 400.000 Armenians. A full-scale war broke out and its hot phase ended in May 1994 when Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a trilateral cease-fire agreement without time limitations.



Azerbaijan over the years has continuously violated the ceasefire and in April 2016 unleashed a four day large-scale aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh. It was accompanied by gross violations of the international humanitarian law, including Daesh style beheadings and other atrocities, in an apparent attempt to terrorize the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. The four-day military offensive in April was the culmination of the policy pursued by Baku during recent years but was not its end. It is obvious that through escalating the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone Azerbaijan tries to shift the public attention from ongoing economic and social difficulties, gross human rights violations and public outrage in Azerbaijan.



Since 1997 the conflict resolution has been mediated by three Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe  Russia, France and the United States. Several times the settlement was close, however, Azerbaijan made steps back at the last moment, most notably in Key West (USA) in 2001 and in Kazan (Russia) in 2011.



During the last years the negotiations are held on the Basic Principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution, the so called Madrid Principles, proposed by OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries. The Presidents of the Co-Chair countries issued five statements outlining that the settlement should be based on three core principles of international law  non use of force or threat of use of force, territorial integrity, equal rights and self-determination of people. They also stated that the future legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined by legally binding free expression of will of its population.



According to its longstanding position the European Union supports the efforts of the Co-Chairs, including the statements of the Presidents of the Co-Chair countries, that was once again reiterated in the EU Eastern Partnership Summit Declaration adopted in Riga.



The Co-Chairs proposed the civilized way of solving the issue through mutual compromises. However, Azerbaijan, here again has adopted a maximalist, uncompromising stance in an either our way or no way manner and openly threatens with new hostilities taking the negotiation process as a hostage, blackmailing and continuing constant profanation of the Co-Chairs.



Azerbaijan does everything to derail the agreements reached on the level of presidents on the expansion of the team of the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, which is currently the only international presence on the ground in the conflict zone, as well as creation of the mechanism for investigation of the ceasefire violations. Apparently, Azerbaijan wants to keep its hands free from the international scrutiny over its continuous non-compliance. However, even in the absence of the strong monitoring mechanisms it is clear who stands behind the breaches and the Co-Chairs have named Azerbaijan as the initiator of the ceasefire violations.



Given the defiant attitude of Azerbaijan towards international efforts a time has come for the international community for more tangible steps in order to curb Bakus provocative and destructive policy.



There is no alternative to the negotiations and Armenia will continue its efforts together with the Co-Chairs aimed at exclusively peaceful resolution of the conflict.



Ladies and Gentlemen,



I would like to share our views on the situation in the Middle East. The recent deadly tragic attacks in London, in other European cities and elsewhere vividly demonstrate that this phenomena is not just limited to the Middle East. However, it is our conviction that eliminating this scourge first and foremost requires eradication of its breeding ground and the root causes.



Armenia is deeply concerned over the evolving situation in our immediate neighborhood in Iraq and Syria, in particular, where our nation historically has a significant presence. On numerous occasions Armenia has condemned the crimes committed by Daesh and other terrorist groups, which threaten the people of the region and beyond. The war in Syria has a devastating impact on its civilian population, national and religious, including Christian minorities who face existential threats due to identity based crimes perpetrated by terrorists and foreign fighters.



The violence has not bypassed Syrian Armenians. Many of them were obliged to abandon their places of residence. From Syria alone more than 22 thousand refugees found shelter in Armenia, making our country the third largest recipient of Syrian refugees in Europe on per capita basis. Armenia makes its utmost to address the issues of Syrian refugees. We have also tried to reach out to the people who need assistance in Syria continuously dispatching humanitarian relief that were not limited to Syrian Armenians. As we speak here today another airplane with humanitarian aid from Armenia is reaching Syrian people.



In terms of international efforts, we believe that it is not possible to reach an agreement on Syria without all-inclusive political process that will take into account the interests of all Syrian fractions, with the exception of terrorist groups. Conditions should be secured to allow the people of Syria to express their position on the future of the country in a more safe environment. The settlement should take into account the particular needs of most vulnerable groups, like ethnic and religious minorities. Efforts to protect and rehabilitate victimized communities should be supported irrespective of political and religious differences.



Ladies and Gentlemen,



Next year we will mark the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Genocide Convention. 70 years passed, unfortunately, the world is not immune from this evil. The actions of terrorists against ethnic and religious groups in the Middle East vividly indicate the relevance of the Convention. As a nation that passed through the horrors of Genocide Armenians feel moral obligation in contributing to the international efforts for prevention of crimes against humanity. In 2015, on the 100th year of the Armenian Genocide, due to the efforts of the Armenian diplomacy the Human Rights Council passed a unanimous Resolution on the Genocide Prevention while again on our initiative the UN General Assembly assigned December 9th as a commemoration day for the victims of Genocides.



In 2001 at the Memorial of the Victims of the Armenian Genocide in Yerevan His Holiness John Paul (the) II during his prayer for those who perished underlined that in 1915 His Holiness Pope Benedict XV vehemently protested against the annihilation of the Armenian nation. One hundred years later during the Armenian Genocide commemoration mass in Vatican His Holiness Pope Francis said "Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it".



Ladies and Gentlemen,



Certainly, we are not free to choose our neighborhood, but every and each state has an obligation to follow certain set of universal principles and norms. Armenia is fully committed to contribute to international peace, to the good-neighbourly relations, the world free of dividing lines, conflicts, guided by the principles of equality, partnership and cooperation.



Thank you, Nalbandian said in his speech.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government appointed the defense ministry as an authorized body for implementing the agreement on CSTO member state cooperation in the field of transporting military and other formations, their mobile property, as well as military production.

The necessity of passing the bill was associated with the fact that the abovementioned deal was signed on September 15, 2015 in Dushanbe, later ratified by the Parliament in February of 2017.

It defines the mutual operations of the sides during the abovementioned procedures, the procedure of transit through the territories of countries, as well safety procedures during joint events and drills, elimination of consequences of emergency situations  after initial agreement between authorized entities of the sides.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Amid an ongoing investigation, Armenian law enforcement agencies uncovered a drug trafficking case by an organized criminal group  the drugs were smuggled from the United States in large quantities.

The investigative committee told ARMENPRESS the drug traffickers have been identified  one of them being a resident of the United States, and the two others of Armenia.

According to evidence  a US-based ethnic Armenian man conspired with his childhood friend from Armenia, and the latters acquaintance  on selling large amounts of drugs.

According to their agreement, the man acquired a large amount of methamphetamine in the US and sent it to Armenia, hidden in a package. The package was received by his accomplice in Armenia, who tried to transport it to their other accomplice, but failed and was caught by police.

The two citizens in Armenia have been charged and remanded in custody.

An arrest warrant has been issued for the US-based man, who is currently wanted.
YEREVAN, 8 JUNE, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 8 June, USD exchange rate is up by 0.01 drams to 482.57 drams. EUR exchange rate is down by 1.88 drams to 541.97 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.05 drams to 8.47 drams. GBP exchange rate is up by 1.03 drams to 624.45 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is down by 38.38 drams to 20029.84 drams. Silver price is up by 0.62 drams to 273.06 drams. Platinum price is down by 170.36 drams to 14723.72 drams.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. By the instruction of the Armenian President, in line with the agreement reached between the Defense Ministries of Armenia and Russia, the humanitarian aid for the residents of Syria having suffered from the conflict was sent on June 8, the second batch in a week, Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Armenia.

Earlier, on June 7, an aircraft carrying another batch of humanitarian aid from Armenia to Syria arrived in Latakias "Hmeimim" military airport on June 7.

The humanitarian aid received by the representative of the Armenian Embassy in Syria were transported by vans t 4 cities  Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, and Kessab, where the aid will be distributed among the needy families.

The transportation of the aid is carried out by Russian military aircrafts.

Note, this is the 3rd phase of sending humanitarian aid to the friendly people of Syria. The first aircraft loaded with humanitarian aid departed from Yerevan to Latakia in February, 2017.
YEREVAN, JUNE 8, ARMENPRESS. Editor-in-chief of Tolishi Sado newspaper Hilal Mammadov has been arrested in Baku. Armenpress reports, citing Azerbaijani media, Hilal Mammadovs brother has told that on June 8 at about 11:30 a police officer visited Hilal and offered him to visit his office for other purposes.

Afterwards, Hilal Mammadov called home and informed that he is taken to a police department.

Hilal Mammadov had been imprisoned in 2012. He had been accused of state treason, inciting ethnic hatred and trade of drugs. He had been convicted to a 5-year prison term.

On March 17, 2017 he had been set free by Ilham ALiyevs amnesty.
DALLASStill smarting from its latest loss in its attempt to bring an Exxxotica Lifestyle Convention to the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center here, Three Expo Events attorney Roger Albright has filed a Notice of Appeal with the federal Clerk of Courts in the Northern District of Texas, advising that he and co-counsel J. Michael Murray will be appealing the decision of U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater to dismiss Three Expo's suit against the city.

The Fitzwater decision was based on the concept that since Three Expo Events was listed as the plaintiff against the city, and the entity "Exxxotica Dallas," a subsidiary of Three Expo, was the company that attempted to enter into contracts with the convention center's management, that Three Expo had no standing to sue after the Dallas City Council, at the instance of several religio-conservatives including oil magnate Roy Hunt, passed a resolution directing the center's manager not to allow the Exxxotica show to take place there.

Three Expo had attempted to amend its lawsuit shortly before the case was heard in order to correct the name of the plaintiff, but Judge Fitzwater ruled that the Motion to Amend had been filed too late, according to court rules, and also stated that Three Expo should have anticipated that the city would challenge the lawsuit on the basis of that "incorrect" name.

"They are affiliated companies," Albright told the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday. "Put it this way: One is the producer of the movie, one is the director, but Three Expo and Exotica Dallas are both affiliated with the movie and both have the right to sue to protect their First Amendment right to put on the movie."

Both Three Expo and Exxxotica Dallas are operated by Jeff Handy, so no matter which entity may be noted on contracts, Handy is the person making the decisions.

The plaintiff's appeal was filed on June 6and early next week, the Dallas City Council will meet to vote on whether to continue paying "outside counsel" Scott D. Bergthold a sum in addition to the $675,000 he has already billed in order for him to continue his defense of the council's decision to ban the expo.

Albright said he expects the Fifth Circuit to hear his appeal sometime in 2018.

(H/t to David and Susan Bradley for the info)
British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to increase her Conservative party's parliamentary majority with results expected to be announced on Friday morning.

By Reuters: Britons voted on Thursday in a snap election predicted to give Prime Minister Theresa May a larger parliamentary majority, which she hopes will strengthen her hand in looming divorce talks with the European Union.

A final survey backed other opinion polls in the last 24 hours, suggesting that the Conservatives had widened their lead following a tricky campaign in which their support appeared at times to be ebbing away.

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But as many as one in five voters was still undecided this week after a seven-week campaign overshadowed in the later stages by two Islamist attacks that killed 30 people in Manchester and London in less than two weeks.

Most polling stations had increased security as they opened at 0600 GMT, with armed police expected to reinforce regular officers at some locations.

May smiled but did not speak to media as she and her husband Philip voted in the village of Sonning on the River Thames in her Maidenhead constituency.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn grinned broadly and gave the thumbs-up to reporters and party workers as he voted in Islington, north London.

"I'm very proud of our campaign," he said.

An Ipsos MORI poll for the London Evening Standard on Thursday put the Conservatives on 44 percent and Labour on 36 percent, a wider lead than a week ago but one which would not give the landslide win foreseen when May called the election seven weeks ago.

"The Conservatives had a wobble last week, but have regained a clear lead in the last few days," said Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos MORI.

Headline rates for sterling, hit two-week highs in morning trade in London after the latest polls before later slipping back on concern the election was too close to call.

Market bets on how volatile the pound will be over the next 24 hours surged to their highest in a year.

"The market has not bet everything on having a nice clear outcome - it knows we might get a surprise," said Societe Generale chief macro strategist Kit Juckes.

"The only outcome that's got enough clarity to get short-covering is a bigger Conservative majority."

RESULTS BY FRIDAY

Voting ends at 2100 GMT and an exit poll will be issued then. The first handful of seat results are expected to be announced by 2300 GMT, with the vast majority of the 650 constituencies due to announce results between 0200 GMT and 0500 GMT on Friday morning.

Both main parties were on the defensive after Saturday's van and knife attack in the heart of London. May faced questions over cuts in the number of police officers during her six years as interior minister and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn drew criticism for, among other things, voting against some counter-terrorism legislation.

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Police investigating the London attacks said they had arrested three more suspects late on Wednesday. Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were held on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism while the third was detained over suspected drugs offences.

In the final hours of campaigning, both leaders returned to their core campaign messages.

"If we get Brexit right, we can build a Britain that is more prosperous and more secure, a Britain in which prosperity and opportunity is shared by all," May said in a last appeal to voters to trust her to "knuckle down and get the job done".

After becoming prime minister without an election in the turmoil that followed last year's EU referendum, May wants a personal mandate and a parliamentary majority bigger than the one she inherited from predecessor David Cameron.

Basing her campaign on the slogan of "strong and stable leadership", she has said she alone could face the 27 other EU leaders and clinch a deal that would give Britain control over immigration policy while ensuring favourable trading terms.

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She has portrayed Corbyn as the weak and hapless leader of a spendthrift party that would hit voters with a "tax bombshell", crash the economy and flounder in the Brexit negotiations.

Corbyn has hit back that Conservative fiscal austerity imposed since 2010 has hurt the poor and widened social inequalities.

VIEWS FROM BRUSSELS

May's campaign has not gone to plan, and as the poll leads of 20 points or more she was enjoying when she called the early election in April have shrunk, talk of a landslide victory has faded and her personal standing has taken a hit.

As a result, the extent of her control over her fractious party and of her margin for manoeuvre going into the Brexit talks will hinge on the size of her majority, and on whether it is perceived to be a significant improvement on Cameron's.

Provided she wins, she will have averted at least one risk: by pushing back the date of the following election to 2022 rather than 2020 as originally planned, she has ensured she will not face crunch time in the Brexit talks at the same time as an election.

Some in the EU are hoping May does increase her majority, on the basis that the main risk for the bloc is a collapse in talks, and that is more easily avoided with a British government that is not vulnerable at home.

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"We need a government strong enough to negotiate," a senior EU lawmaker told Reuters.

But others have sought to downplay the impact of the election regardless of the outcome, suggesting that it was little more than a domestic political sideshow.

"Will the election of more Tory (Conservative) MPs give May a greater chance of securing a better Brexit deal? For those sitting around the table in Brussels, this is an irrelevance," wrote Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator, in an opinion column in the Guardian newspaper.

"MAYBOT"

May's troubles began on May 18, when she announced a new policy on care for the elderly that quickly proved unpopular. She backtracked days later, prompting opposition critics to pour scorn on her central claim to offer strong leadership.

Opponents were quick to remind voters that May had campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU before embracing Brexit after the referendum, and that she had insisted for months an election would not be in the national interest before calling one.

May has reacted by sticking to her campaign messages, endlessly repeating the same slogans and appearing mostly at tightly controlled events - prompting many in the media to deride her as an uninspiring "Maybot".

Meanwhile, veteran left-winger Corbyn, who was written off as a no-hoper by most political analysts, surprised on the upside with a policy-rich campaign that drew large, fervent crowds to his events - although sceptics say his appeal in the broader electorate is limited.

He proposes building a fairer society through policies such as raising taxes for the richest 5 percent, scrapping university tuition fees and investing 250 billion pounds ($315 billion) in infrastructure - plans which the Conservatives say are fiscally irresponsible.

"Labour's campaign has already changed the face of British politics," Corbyn said in a final campaign rally.

"As we prepare for government, we have already changed the debate and given people hope. Hope that it doesn't have to be like this, that inequality can be tackled, that austerity can be ended, that you can stand up to the elites and the cynics."

There was only one point of agreement between May and Corbyn, which was that the strongest signal that Britons could send to show they were not cowed by the recent spate of attacks would be to go out and vote.

ALSO READ | Boris Johnson criticised after talking about alcohol at UK gurudwara

ALSO READ | Enough is enough: Full text of PM Theresa May's statement on London terror attack

ALSO WATCH | London in limbo as terror grips Westminster; 5 dead, 40 injured

--- ENDS ---
LOS ANGELESThe Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection (ASACP) has announced Gaelic WWW Conference as its newest In-Kind Media Sponsor.

The 2017 Gaelic WWW Conference is set for June 19-21 at the Glenview Hotel in Wicklow, Ireland. According to its promoters, the event offers a simple win-win situation where webmasters, media buyers and sellers, program partners, service providers and more, can carve out, in a comfortable environment, the industrys common ground for growth.

We are happy to support ASACP with our webmaster conference in Ireland, as child protection is one of the most important tasks in our days, states Roland Grotheer, founder, and CEO of Imob Traffic Ltd. and the Gaelic WWW Conference. Companies working in the adult business have a very special responsibility and we are facing this challenge.

Lets face it, we all need to work with both trust and respect together, Grotheer adds. Let us look forward together and talk about the path the journey takes and how we can best manage it jointly in a wonderful location in Ireland.

ASACPs Executive Director Tim Henning says the association is grateful for the support it is receiving from the Gaelic WWW Conference and encourages other companies to step up and take a stand against online child exploitation while working to protect children online.

The Gaelic WWW Conference provides a new opportunity for ASACP to reach out to digital media professionals on the frontline of the need for online child protection, Henning explains. By reaching this audience with our messages of corporate and social responsibility, and the importance of keeping children out of and away from adult-oriented materials, ASACP and its generous sponsors help make the internet a safer place.

ASACP uses the support it receives from its sponsors to fund initiatives such as its internationally recognized Child Exploitation Tipline, which has processed more than one million CP reports since its inception; along with ASACPs multiple award-winning Restricted To Adults (RTA) meta labeling system that helps prevent childrens access to adult-oriented web pages and apps; plus market-specific Best Practices, a Code of Ethics, and more.

To learn how your company can make a real difference in online child safety by sponsoring ASACP, email [email protected].
Even as the number of voters who identify themselves as unaffiliated rises at the expense of the Republican and (especially) Democratic shares of the electorate, partisan polarization remains a strong force in our politics.How can that be? When John Doe and Jane Smith identify as unaffiliated, that doesn't necessarily mean they are "moderate" or "swing voters." John may be so left-wing that he finds it uncomfortable to register as a Democrat, and yet votes for Democratic candidates almost all the time. Jane may be a libertarian who agrees with Republicans on economics, disagrees with them on other matters, and yet votes GOP almost all the time because, in her mind, economic issues are the most pressing - or the most likely to produce legislative action.One clear sign of partisan polarization is what scholars call a "conformity effect." When voters don't have personal experience or knowledge of a particular issue, they often adopt the position of the person who leads their party or faction at the time.Views about trade policy serve as a good example of the conformity-effect whipsaw. During the George W. Bush administration, Republican voters were more likely than Democrats to say they saw international trade as an opportunity rather than a threat, according to a series of Gallup surveys. By the end of Barack Obama's first term in office, the trendlines had switched - Democrats were far more optimistic about trade than Republicans were.Similarly, polls by the Pew Research Center found that during the Bush years, Republicans were more supportive of free-trade agreements than Democrats were. The opposite was true during the Obama years, with GOP support taking a sharp downward plunge in 2016 as Donald Trump, a longtime critic of free trade, secured the Republican nomination for president.Here in North Carolina, political disputes about trade have a rich history. During the 19th century and early 20th century, the national Democratic Party usually championed low tariffs and freer trade while the rival party, first the Whigs and later the Republicans, usually favored protectionism. But in North Carolina, where Democrats were almost always firmly in charge, there were robust pro- and anti-trade factions within the majority party.As the two parties began to realign after World War II, newly successful Republicans representing manufacturing-heavy counties often leaned towards protection. Newly successful Republicans in cities and suburbs often leaned the other way.But, again, signals from the top of the ticket mattered a lot. While Ronald Reagan's administration did sometimes resort to protectionist policies - virtually all administrations do, regrettably - Reagan's rhetoric about the virtues of voluntary exchange and free markets had a marked effect on the attitudes of GOP-leaning politicians and voters. In the past year, Trump's rhetoric has propelled them in the opposite direction.As a policy matter, I think the empirical evidence is overwhelming that free trade is superior to protectionism. While reducing trade barriers dislocates some workers in some industries in the short run, the net effect is to raise the average standard of living, by reducing the cost and increasing the quality of the goods we consume, as well as to create new jobs in other industries that either export abroad or deliver services that can't effectively be imported.According to a new study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics , the expansion of trade since 1950 had made America's economy two trillion dollars larger than it would otherwise have been, and boosted our average living standards by more than $18,000 per household.Even as conformity effects have shifted partisan allegiances back and forth, most North Carolinians recognize and value the benefits of trade. In the latest poll by Elon University , 62 percent of voters said North Carolina's involvement in the global economy waswhile only 25 percent said it wasNorth Carolina's future will be built on freer markets, not more constrained ones.
Universities have been assessing students by grading their work since the Middle Ages. Sometimes students complained that the professor wasn't fair, but nobody thought the system was fundamentally flawed.Then, about three decades ago, a new idea arose in American universities-that campus bureaucrats needed to assess student learning outcomes. This occurred as part of a legitimate effort to distinguish between the effects of only admitting top quality students (selection effect) and actually teaching students, perhaps of indifferent quality, new skills and knowledge (training effect). Mid- and lower-tier colleges that were anxious to show that they were adding value to their graduates (even if they did not carry the prestige of the top schools) were quick to embrace assessment.The "assessment" craze did little harm until the 1990s, when its advocates began to argue that while grading measured student performance, it did not measure student learning. That has led to the growth of a whole industry that purports to measure student learning.When I started teaching in the mid-1990s, I had my history students write weekly essays and take a couple of essay-based exams. From that I could determine whether they understood the content I was teaching and I could see their writing develop as the semester progressed. That gave me the information I needed to award grades but also to see if there were any consistent problems that I needed to address. I still do this and any substantive changes I make to my courses come from this type of feedback.In the assessment era, however, this is considered insufficient. For about a decade now, university assessment directors, who are often ex officio members of curriculum committees (even though few of them are faculty members), have been instructing professors to develop program- and course-level statements called Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). Typically, professors have three or more of these per program or course.These statements have to use an approved list of verbs. SLOs have to be concrete and measurable. You shouldn't use words like "understand" in formulating a SLO because that is not something a student does and it's hard to measure. Likewise one ought to avoid the term "ability" because that suggests something inherent to the student and not a demonstration of what he has learned. Worse, it suggests that some might have more ability than others.Above all "critical thinking" is not a desirable outcome because it's too vague and mushy.So we end up with goals (sorry, that's a forbidden term too, I should say "outcomes") for our courses like: "Describe the origins of the institution of slavery in the US." "Compose an essay that distinguishes between the nature of European Imperialism before and after 1850." "Distinguish between primary and secondary source material."Those are worthy skills for a student to have, but they don't capture the more important, but vague, abilities like becoming a critical reader and writer or making valid inferences from historical material that most professors would consider the real goals of their courses.Then you need to develop a mechanism for finding out whether your students have met the SLO. You will be forgiven for thinking that the students' grades in the course might answer this question. Not so. You need a separate process, usually involving the insertion into your course of some test that is easy to grade and yields a quantifiable result, reports to several committees, and some meetings to determine whether the SLOs have been met.Most universities don't require that material used for assessment be graded, but students usually don't put much effort into work that does not affect their grades, so in practice assessment material becomes part of the curriculum.That's not the end. Next you have to identify some aspect of your course that is not going as well as you would like and change something about your course or program to remedy this "problem." This is called "closing the loop" and it has to happen every year.So, each year we find that although our students have met the SLOs (and they always do), there is nonetheless some contrived problem that we respond to with an equally contrived but heavily documented and carefully reported change. Loop closed.Virtually every university in the country now has an assessment office devoted to overseeing and directing this byzantine process. Those offices have steadily been gaining staff, power, authority, and resources.Amazingly, there is no evidence that learning outcomes assessment has improved student learning or led to any improvement in what universities do.On a practical level, no one even pretends that what distinguishes good schools from bad schools is their commitment to or execution of learning outcomes assessment.Nor does anyone seriously propose that people who were educated before the age of assessment received inferior educations because bureaucrats did not assess their learning.A couple of years ago I wrote a piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education pointing out the lack of evidence that learning outcomes assessment improves student learning. In researching the article I looked high and low for a study that showed assessment has improved student learning or that a robust assessment program might make one college better than another. I found nothing. No one has bothered to assess the effects of assessment.The response to my piece from the assessment world was anecdotes and panel discussions about how to deal with assessment doubters, but no evidence to support their claims that students learn more when we follow their formula.And because assessment employs none of the basic principles of research design, there is no reason to believe that further investment in assessment (as opposed to actual scholarly research on student learning) will yield meaningful results.For example, assessors never use the control groups that are a standard feature of real research. So even if you can show that the students in a particular course do 15 percent better at something at the end of course than they did at the beginning, there is no way to say that it was something intrinsic to the course that caused the change.Worse, the entire assessment process is designed and executed by people with a strong interest in the outcome of the process.For those and other reasons, I concluded in this Inside Higher Ed essay last November that assessment is just an "empty ritual" that wastes time and money.The proximate answer is that they do so because the accreditors tell them they have to. That is, accrediting standards require schools to set learning outcomes for courses and to quantify the results.If it wants federal student aid money, a college must remain accredited. Therefore, a big component of the accreditation process is to heap quantities of data on the accreditors to show them that your students are meeting the learning outcome objectives.Ask an assessment bureaucrat whether assessment works or not and inevitably the response will be, "Do you want to lose X million in federal money?" and never, "Here is concrete evidence that assessment works."It's the quality control equivalent of the TSA's security theater. Just as taking off your shoes and not carrying liquids provides little more than the appearance of security, demanding that universities provide "evidence" that they are doing a good job of teaching their students provides the appearance of accountability.The consequences of this are far reaching. Universities have to pay directly to support a new class of assessment bureaucrats, but they also pay indirectly because faculty have to deal with assessment both in their classes and in the many committees that have grown up around the assessment imperative. All of that time and effort represent resources that are not spent on other more productive things.I contend that universities don't resist assessment because it serves a purpose. Although it has nothing to do with student learning, assessment strengthens the parts of the university administrators can most easily control-the staff and the most staff-like members of the faculty-and weakens the more independent-minded elements of the faculty by forcing them to comply with this empty ritual.Submitting to the assessment agenda is actually attractive to some faculty members. For academics who are uninterested in or unable to thrive in the traditional faculty roles of teaching and scholarship, assessment offers a place where the ability to master the ever-changing jargon of curriculum maps, to police the baroque language of Student Learning Outcomes , and to devise rubrics creates a type of expertise.Active scholars avoid assessment committees like the plague, so people who are not busy in their labs or the archives are the ones who end up on these committees.On one level, this might seem like a good allocation of human resources; it lets the researchers do their research and shifts the burden of the bureaucratic busy work to the less scholarly. Unfortunately, these committees have real power and are taking control of the curriculum in an increasingly centralized, top-down process.The result is that American public universities, once the envy of the world, are increasingly being run in the centralized and bureaucratized manner of our secondary schools, which are global laggards.
Tom Campbell

Anyone observing today's political landscape cannot escape the domination from the conservative right and the liberal left. Both are loud and active advocates for their positions, but what is missing from current public policy debates are those in the moderate middle. Where do they stand and why are they so quiet?These missing moderates are largely people with long-standing beliefs that a good citizen is one who pays taxes, votes on election day, provides for their families and neither creates nor participates in protests and disturbances. Richard Nixon dubbed them "the silent majority."Do not consider their silence as satisfaction for what we are witnessing. Many complain that today's polarized climate prevents meaningful discussion and resolution of issues. If you mistakenly believe moderates don't have strong opinions let us assure you such is not the case; moderates frequently have passionate beliefs, siding with the left on some issues and the right on others. Moderates aren't generally asked their opinions and are largely ignored when they offer them.North Carolina has historically been considered a politically moderate, perhaps slightly conservative state. Following the Civil War, Republicans dominated state elections until Democrats took over at the turn of the 20th century, holding power for about 100 years. But yesterday's political parties were much different than those today. Both have swung further to the left or right of the mainstream, often ignoring or drowning out moderates in either party.The moderate middle is no small number. Of the 6.7 million registered voters in North Carolina as of June 3rd, 39.08 percent are registered Democrats, 30.37 percent are registered Republicans and 30.05 are registered as Unaffiliated. Since January 2015, Democratic registrations have declined 2.5 percentage points, Republicans have lost one-tenth of a percent, meanwhile significant gains have come from Unaffiliated registrations, increasing more than 2.5 percent.It would be a fallacy to conclude that all unaffiliated registrants are moderates, because some percentage of them almost always votes for Republican candidates and some vote only for Democrats. But remember that all had a chance to designate their registration for one political party or the other and chose not to do so. Why? We are convinced they chose to be unaffiliated because they couldn't wholly support the positions taken by either party, qualifying them by our definition as moderates - those dissatisfied with today's highly partisan and divisive political environment.Jesus told the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount that the meek shall inherit the earth. No doubt humility and a desire for the common good is the better course, but in this era we have concluded that being silent - sometimes perceived as being absent - from public policy participation isn't working well for our state and nation.Now is the time for the missing moderates to take six essential actions. Let's call it the Moderate Manifesto. First, show up and be present. Next, be assertive. Third, demand a return to civility in public debate. Fourth, demonstrate a willingness to listen to and consider different opinions. Fifth, be willing to compromise to achieve what is best for the most. Finally, they must support and vote for candidates of either party who pledge to follow the Manifesto. If those elected don't perform accordingly, vote them out and elect others who will.
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 so called "Democracy" does exists.
The House Education Budget is Pretty Good

This week, House Republicans released their full biennial budget proposal . Budget writers included parts of the budget that were not unveiled last week, such as teacher and state employee pay plans.Overall, under the House plan, the average teacher salary increase would be approximately 3.3 percent for the coming school year and at least 9.0 percent over the biennium. The cost of those increases for taxpayers would be around $181 million and over $456 million, respectively.Because of the structure of the state salary schedule, actual teacher salary increases would vary by years of experience. In general, the House plan favors mid- to late-career teachers, that is, those who have between 15 and 20 years of experience. Some early career teachers would receive raises of around 1.5 percent for the 2017-18 school year, while others would see as much as a 6.7 percent bump in base salary. Moreover, the House would award $5,000 bonuses to teachers who have at least 27 years of experience, so long as they commit to teaching in North Carolina public schools for the next 2 to 3 years.To their credit, the House budget places a strong emphasis on career and technical education. This includes a sixth- and seventh-grade career and technical education pilot program, increases to state career and technical education staff, a coding and mobile application grant program, funding to transfer the Apprenticeship NC program to the N.C. Community College System, and several community college initiatives to enhance workforce education and training efforts. Given the demand for workers in the skilled trades, these efforts are welcomed.House budget writers proposed a $10 million funding increase for the Opportunity Scholarship Program. In 2016, Republican lawmakers announced a 10-year, $100 million commitment to the program. This is the first year of an effort to ensure that low-income families have the means to provide their children an education that better meets their needs. Unlike the Senate budget, the House budget does not include seed money to convert the state's Disabilities Grant Program to an education savings account. Moreover, members of the House included an ill-conceived plan to evaluate the Opportunity Scholarship Program, disregarding accountability measures already prescribed by state law.By far, the most exciting part of the House budget is the plan to create the Joint Legislative Task Force on Education Finance Reform. While most folks are indifferent to the creation of a task force to study education funding, the prospect of North Carolina abandoning its confusing allotment system for a student-based funding formula is the first step in ensuring that parents and other taxpayers know how many state dollars are allocated to each of our public schools. And attaching the funding to the student may accelerate the expansion of public and private school choice by making the child, not the institution or its employees, the focus of the state's education funding system.The House budget continues to support Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson in his legal dispute with the N.C. State Board of Education by providing funds for legal fees and support staff. The Senate budget also included funding to support Superintendent Johnson, as well as significant cuts to both State Board and N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) staff. The House budget eliminates a handful of vacant positions at DPI but leaves the agency comparatively unscathed.The House will complete its budget votes this week, and both chambers will appoint members to the conference committee to negotiate a final budget. Given that the Senate and House budgets have several common elements, such as the expansion of Opportunity Scholarships and support for State Superintendent Johnson, their primary task will be to formulate a teacher compensation plan that satisfies their respective caucuses. The Senate budget outlined a 9.5 percent raise for teachers over the next two years, compared to an estimated 12.3 percent raise pitched by House budget writers. Thus, their first task will be to identify a spending target for teacher salary increases over the biennium. There were also structural differences between the two plans. As such, members of the conference committee will have to formulate a revised salary schedule and determine which targeted bonuses best meet the personnel needs of our public schools.My advice to them would be to ignore the critics who complain, as they always do, that proposed increases in education spending are insufficient and assemble a budget that is consistent with conservative principles - maximizing parental choice, transparency, accountability, and taxpayers' return on investment.
Gov. Roy Cooper ordered the General Assembly to convene Thursday in a concurrent special session to redraw state electoral maps.Such a session would be rare but not unprecedented. Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed that the General Assembly used an unconstitutional racial gerrymander to create 28 legislative districts.If Republican leaders fail to reconfigure the districts by the end of the 14-day special session, Cooper said, the federal three-judge panel that originally heard the case should create new district boundaries.Republican legislative leaders did not respond immediately to Cooper's demand.Cooper excoriated Republicans during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. He accused them of passing onerous laws - from House Bill 2 and education vouchers to a law making Medicaid expansion illegal without General Assembly approval - and attempting power grabs of executive authority through a legislative majority that was not won legitimately.Republicans have presided as the majority party over four regular sessions and five special sessionsCooper said.of one man, one vote, referring to the electoral maps as a rigged system.In its decision Monday, the Supreme Court sided with the three-judge lower court panel that the legislative districts were drawn with race-based intent, which diluted black voting strength in other districts.But the justices said the lower court ruling didn't justify calling a 2017 special election, and sent the case back for the trial court to reconsider.The governor said he set the special session at 14 days because it's the length of time state law gives legislators to fix the maps before a court can intervene and draw them.Cooper said Republicans continue to drag their heels on resolving the dispute. He believes 14 days is enough time to develop the maps and receive public input.He said he did not want to wait for the trial court to act.Cooper said.He did not say whether pushing this issue so quickly after the Supreme Court decision would result in a special election this fall.Cooper said.Holding a special session while the legislature is already meeting will save taxpayer money, the governor said.He noted that in 2002 the redistricting extra session ran alongside the regular session. Votes in the special redistricting session were taken during the regular session. That special session was called to order two weeks before the beginning of the regular session and lasted for the duration of the regular session.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May had called for snap elections with a hope that a strong mandate would allow her to begin Brexit negotiations.

By AP: Polling stations have opened across Britain in an election to choose a new government.

Polls are open from 7 am to 10 pm (0600GMT to 2100GMT) Thursday as voters choose 650 lawmakers for the House of Commons.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap election in hopes of increasing the Conservative Party's slim majority in Parliament, and strengthening her hand in European Union exit talks.

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The campaign did not go to plan. May was criticized for lackluster campaigning and two deadly attacks turned the election into a debate about national security.

May says the Conservatives will build a "stronger, fairer and more prosperous Britain," while opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says he would govern "for the many, not the few."

Polls suggest Labour has narrowed the Conservatives' lead.

Also Read:

London terror attacks: 7 killed, 48 hospitalised, three suspects shot dead

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Holy cow! A calf in Uttar Pradesh, India was born with a human face, leading some people to worship it as an incarnation of the god Vishnu. Unfortunately, the animal died an hour after birth. From India.com:



Unfortunately, the deformed calf could not survive and died in an hour, but that did not stop the locals from celebrating the birth of the cow with a human face, which they believe is an incarnation of God. They believe the dead calf is the 'Gokaran', 24 incarnations of Lord Vishnu. In fact, the religious believers now plan to build a temple for him.

Raja Bhaiya Mishra, 55, the manager of the cow shelter (where the animal was born), was quoted saying, 'It's a miracle that the calf was born in this shelter. Thousands of people have been here to see it. We will be cremating him in three days, and a temple will be built for him. This avatar has most definitely created a devotion feeling amongst the people.'
china navy

China is nearing completion of a "logistical support" facility in the East African country of Djibouti, and Beijing may soon look to establish similar facilities around the world, according to a new Pentagon report.

China started building the Djibouti base in early 2016, constructing it near Camp Lemonnier, a US special-operations outpost.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the base, located near one of the world's busiest shipping channels, would allow the country's military to "better fulfill escort missions and make new contributions to regional peace and stability."

Beijing has also said the Djibouti base could help it extend its anti-piracy efforts, which it has undertaken off the coast of Somalia since 2008.

The Pentagon said the facility, likely to be completed in the next year, would allow China to further participate in UN peacekeeping operations and provide humanitarian aid. But US military officials have expressed concern about it.

"You would have to characterize it as a military base," Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, chief of US Africa Command, said in March. "It's a first for them. They've never had an overseas base."

Djibouti Camp Lemonnier East Africa US military base

"We've never had a base of, let's just say a peer competitor, as close as this one happens to be," Waldhauser said. "So there's a lot of learning going on, a lot of growing going on."

According to the Pentagon report, issued this week, the Djibouti base, "along with regular naval vessel visits to foreign ports, both reflects and amplifies Chinas growing influence, extending the reach of its armed forces," and it may be the first of many such overseas bases.

"China most likely will seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and in which there is a precedent for hosting foreign militaries," the report says.

Story continues

A member of Pakistan Navy is seen at the Gwadar port in Pakistan's Balochistan Province April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kay Johnson

China is already heavily involved in the Pakistan port of Gwadar and is building a network of roads and power plants under a project known as China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Intelligence and logistics support remains an issue for Beijing, especially in the Indian Ocean.

As such, China's People's Liberation Navy is looking to establish more hubs "to be able to operate across the greater Asia-Pacific region in high-intensity actions over a period of several months," the Pentagon report states, adding:

"Chinas leaders may judge that a mixture of military logistics models, including preferred access to overseas commercial ports and a limited number of exclusive PLAN logistic facilitiesprobably collocated with commercial portsmost closely aligns with Chinas future overseas military logistics needs."

Beijing, for its part, dismissed the report, which also said China spent $180 billion on defense in 2016  more than the $140 billion officially allotted for defense.

"We have noted the report released by the US which made irresponsible remarks about China's national defence development in disregard of the facts," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, according to AFP. Hua declined to comment on "speculation" but said the "friendly cooperation (between China and Pakistan) does not target any third party."

China Navy

Beijing has tried to sooth regional and global concerns about expansionism, saying multiple times that it is not seeking American-style "hegemony" through military bases.

A Western diplomat told Reuters in March 2016 that China was framing the Djibouti base as part of its "one road, one belt" economic initiative, seeking to help link Ethiopia to the sea and further open trade corridors for Chinese goods and services.

"China does not want to be seen as a threat," the diplomat said.

China pakistan

But around the same time, China itself suggested that more bases like the one in Djibouti could be in the offing.

"We are willing to, in accordance with objective needs, responding to the wishes of host nations and in regions where China's interests are concentrated, try out the construction of some infrastructure facilities and support abilities," Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in March 2016.

Washington is not the only power that has expressed dismay about the Djibouti base and other activity in the region.

In India, the construction of the base added to concern Beijing was extending its "string of pearls," referring to its military assets and partnerships in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region.

The Djibouti facility is seen by New Delhi as a base for Chinese naval air assets, which could facilitate surveillance activity over the Persian Gulf and Indian's western territories. (India has also objected to China's planned shipping network with Pakistan, saying it cuts through disputed parts of Kashmir.)

"If I were Indian I would be very worried about what China is up to in Djibouti," a Western diplomat briefed on Chinese plans said in March 2016.

Indian Navy

India has tracked seven Chinese submarines entering the Indian Ocean since the end of 2013, regarding them warily. "The pretext is anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden," a Indian defense source told The Times of India in May. "But what role can submarines play against pirates and their dhows?"

More recently, India declined an Australian request to take part in Indian Ocean naval exercises, reportedly out of fear of antagonizing Beijing. (Though Delhi may also have doubts about Canberra's reliability.)

Australia and India, along with countries like Vietnam and Japan, have considered informal alliances to bolster regional security in light of growing Chinese influence and doubts about US commitment under President Donald Trump.

Those moves have not escaped notice in Beijing, which called them a sign of a lingering Cold War mindset, according to Hua, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. "Some people approach and handle the country to country relations with zero sum opinion," she said.

NOW WATCH: The US's most advanced missile system is operational in South Korea  and it has China and Russia alarmed





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Strategic Directions | Feature

Self-Directed Learning: Exploring the Digital Opportunity

A Q&A with Gardner Campbell

Following up on a Q&A article published two weeks ago, about how institutions can be informed by their digital opportunities, futurist, highly regarded education thought leader, and Virginia Commonwealth University associate professor of English W. Gardner Campbell considers why we should explore our digital opportunities for self-directed learning. [Photo, below: Students examine 3D printing technologies at a Makerspace expo at VCU. Courtesy Gardner Campbell.]

"What does a learner need to pursue in any given course of study, and who determines that? The specific challenge to formal learning is finding ways to develop a richer sense of these needs within the learners themselves  this is essential for what we call self-directed learning.  Gardner Campbell

Mary Grush: Long term, will self-directed learning play an increasing role in student learning? Will self-directed learning programs eventually lessen the role of the institution, the curriculum, or the faculty in the direction of student learning?

Gardner Campbell: First, I do think that there needs to be an emphatic role for self-directed learning.

There will always be an impulse toward self-directed learning, and part of my job as a teacher is to amplify, and make even more effective, the students' disposition toward it, as well as point them toward more opportunities for self-directed learning.

But then we come to the second part of my answer, which is that while self-directed learning may establish a kind of ecosystem of its own, it's not an ecosystem in which learning will necessarily live up to its potential. And it's not an ecosystem that will necessarily bring forward considerations of what it means to be an individual in a community, who works for the common good.

So at some point, self-directed learning, which is now an absolutely vital concept in higher learning, has to be considered as part of a larger conceptual framework. The larger framework incorporates the institution, the curriculum, and the faculty that you asked about.

That larger framework should stress the role of expert-directed study and expert-facilitated encounters, especially in opportunities for self-directed learning.

Grush: How much impact might that have? Will this be significantly different from what we've been seeing for years? Or will self-directed learning and these new, expert-facilitated encounters you talk about allow us to "reinvent the university"? Will this type of framework help bring about the fundamental changes we keep hearing about in discussions of higher learning?

Campbell: Yes, at least in one sense: Students will have to be in touch with many different experts, especially those who disagree with each other. That's what will allow us to "re-invent the university". This is more radical and dramatic, I think, than it sounds on the surface  ultimately something very different from what we have today.

Grush: But is it going to be difficult for institutions to focus on that? Won't they just tend to support traditional, established teacher-learner models?

Campbell: The university, which already has become what Clark Kerr calls the "multiversity", may at first find it difficult to keep a focus on this core, essential activity of bringing learners into contact with a wide variety of experts who can offer different modes of learning experiences. You'd be right to ask: How will the institution facilitate a sense of just how big the world is and what the opportunities might be for learners to pursue?
Student Services

Inside Arizona State U's All-in-One Help Center

Arizona State University turned its help desk into a front door for a broad range of campus services  IT and otherwise. Here's how.

When an Arizona State University student calls to get help with setting up an e-mail account, he or she can also get the lowdown on financial aid, find out where a particular parking permit can be used and report a water pipe leak in the dorm restroom  all to the same help desk specialist. If the person on the receiving end of the call can't answer a specific question, he or she can dip into a knowledgebase to see if the solution is there or jump on a Slack channel for a quick chat with colleagues.

"We do not want to bounce students all over the organization," said Help Center Director Eric Dover. "We want to try and keep them as much as we can at the tier one level, because if we can resolve their issue here, it really protects the other tiers to be able to focus on their deeper things." The goal: "To become that front door for ASU services."

Help hasn't always been dished out this way to students. For a long time, starting in the 2000s, the university outsourced help to two different vendors  experiences that were less than ideal, according to Deborah Whitten, the assistant vice president for IT customer service and support at ASU.

"Neither vendor had anticipated the extremely large call volumes experienced by ASU during the startup periods before semesters began, resulting in long wait times and disgruntled callers," Whitten said. "The quality of service was not perceived as acceptable by faculty and students who called. The vendors' call centers were located in another state, and ASU faculty and students did not feel the agents were familiar enough with the higher education environment, did not have empathy for the faculty or student caller, and did not exhibit the appropriate level of professionalism or skill required to be a call center for the largest university in the nation."

By 2013, the institution was ready to bring services back in house, a move viewed as "critical to the success of ASU and it constituents," as declared in a project description for setting up a "shared service contact center."

Today, besides handling basic IT support calls, chats and tweets, the help center provides coverage on tier one questions for admissions, financial aid, student business services, parking, facilities overflow calls and application support for several academic areas  the School of Engineering, Teachers College and Design & the Arts  as well as the PLuS Alliance, which allows students from two international schools to take courses through ASU and vice versa. That's all on top of "a lot of other little services that we assist with here and there," noted Dover.

The help center, which runs seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, is part of the University Technology Office. But, insisted Dover, "the vast majority of the calls we take are not IT related. People call and ask us about all sorts of things  from 'Where's a good place to get lunch around the ASU area?' to 'Where can we donate a dead body?'"

That adds up to a large volume of contacts. During 2016, a period during which the help center took on 10 additional new support services, the group answered 452,492 calls, an increase of 17 percent over the year prior. During that same time, it also handled 64,561 chats, a 33 percent increase over 2015.

The model being iterated by ASU could be attractive to any other institutional help desk tired of being written off as just another cost center. Here's what ASU has learned in becoming a "one-stop shop" for students and their families.
Online Proctoring

New Analytics Tool Tracks Cheating Patterns for Online Testing

Online proctoring and identity verification company Examity today launched examiDATA, a data platform designed to "aggregate and analyze information on test performance and academic integrity." The tool examines information from hundreds of thousands of students at colleges and universities across the country to discern test-taking patterns, measure the rate of test-taking violations and help institutions benchmark against their peers, according to the company. Cheating information is broken down by category, such as tuition level, type of school and department of study.

In an initial pilot study of 325,000 test-takers in the 2015-2016 school year, examiDATA revealed that cheating fluctuates from semester to semester, with the percentage of students with violations coming in anywhere from 5.49 percent to 6.65 percent. "From time of year to type of institution, test violations fluctuate in ways that are critical to understand in order to ensure the continued success of online learning  but often remain invisible without the support of predictive analytics," said Michael London, president and CEO of Examity, in a statement. "Armed with insights into student performance trends, colleges and universities can use examiDATA to address specific pain points and further improve the security of their online assessments."

"The explosion of online education has allowed us to make huge strides in supporting a growing population of nontraditional students," commented Lauren Cifuentes, director of distance education and learning technologies at Texas A&M University. "However, data-driven approaches that shed light on macro trends in online test security remain nascent. The insights surfaced by examiDATA will play a critical role in validating the work of our team and students relative to other institutions."

For more information, visit the Examity site.
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New York, June 7, 2017Nigerian authorities should swiftly bring to justice all those behind the beating of journalist Charles Otu and the shooting of publisher Samuel Nweze, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Otu, the publisher and editor of biweekly The Peoples Conscience newspaper and a contributor to Nigerias daily Guardian newspaper, told CPJ that men abducted him from the street in Abakaliki, beat him in an Ebonyi state office building, and threatened to kill him unless he promised not to criticize the government of the southern Nigerian state. The attack took place on June 2, the same day that two men shot Samuel Nweze, the publisher of the Peoples Leader tabloid newspaper, in a drive-by shooting, according to news reports.

I narrowly escaped death, Nweze told the Nigerian news agency NAN. I was lucky the assailants who came on a motorcycle missed the targetI heard a bang and I felt sharp pains and blood gushing out from my back.

Otu told CPJ that his office is directly next to Nwezes office, and that he believes the gunmen shot Nweze, who did not answer CPJs phone calls, in a case of mistaken identity. Otu said that Nwezes newspaper, the Peoples Leader, was generally not critical of the state government.

Otu told CPJ that a group of young men first beat him on the street, then dragged him into a bus which took him to the Cabinet House in Abakaliki, where the men continued beating him with iron bars, canes, and stones while reading a lengthy Facebook post Otu had written arguing that Ebonyi Governor David Umahi Nweze had failed to live up to his campaign promises.

Otu said the men continued to beat him at a nearby police station in an effort to get him to sign a document saying he would leave Ebonyi and not write anything further about the state government. Otu told CPJ that he collapsed before he was able to sign, and that he was taken to the emergency ward of the Federal Teaching Hospital. He told CPJ that he expects to leave the hospital tomorrow.

Nigerian authorities should show that journalists cannot be viciously abducted, attacked, or shot with impunity, CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said from Durban, South Africa. We call on police and prosecutors to swiftly bring to justice those who abducted and badly beat Charles Otu and those who shot Samuel Nweze.

Gov. Nweze did not respond to CPJs phone calls seeking comment, but told The Guardian that the attackers should be arrested and prosecuted.

Titus Lamorde, commissioner of police for Ebonyi, told CPJ that police had opened an investigation into Otus beating. We want the intimate details of what happened, he said. Lamorde said that he was unaware that Nweze, the publisher, had been shot.
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New York, June 7, 2017The Saudi Ministry of Media should immediately reverse its order to close the office of Qatari broadcaster Al-Jazeera and allow the satellite channel and all news media to operate freely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The Saudi government on June 5 revoked the broadcasters license to operate in Saudi Arabia and ordered its office to close, according to Al-Jazeera and the official Saudi Press Agency SPA.

The move came amid a diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt on one hand, and Qatar on the other. SPA yesterday reported that the Saudi Ministry of Media accused Al-Jazeera of promoting the plans of terrorist groups, inciting separatism, and threatening the kingdoms sovereignty.

The rights to information and to free expression should not be held hostage to diplomatic wrangling between Gulf monarchs, CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said from Washington, D.C. We call on authorities in Saudi Arabia to allow journalists of all nationalities to work freely, for any news outlet, and without fear of harassment.

Muhammad Ihtisham Hibatullah, Al-Jazeeras manager of international relations, told CPJ that the networks satellite broadcasts were still available in Saudi Arabia today.
The exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats and the Labour Party 266, meaning no clear winner and a "hung parliament". May had been expected to win comfortably.

By Reuters: British Prime Minister Theresa May spectacularly lost her electoral gamble, according to an exit poll that suggested her Conservatives would fall short of a majority in parliament, throwing her Brexit plans into disarray.

The exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats in the 650-member parliament and the leftist opposition Labour Party 266 -- a "hung parliament" with no clear winner.

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UK election 2017: LIVE UPDATES

May unexpectedly called the snap election seven weeks ago to increase the slim majority she had inherited from predecessor David Cameron and strengthen her hand before launching into arduous divorce talks with the European Union, set to start in just over a week.

Instead, if the exit poll showing strong gains for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour is anywhere near accurate, she risks losing power in what would be an ignominious end to her 11 months at Number 10 Downing Street.

Even if the exit poll has underestimated the number of Conservative seats, as it did in 2015, and the party ends up with a slim majority, May will be so weakened that she may not be able to keep the job.

"BRITAIN ON A KNIFE EDGE"

"MAYHEM" screamed the headline in the tabloid Sun newspaper. "Britain on a knife edge," said the Daily Mail.

The BBC reported that 76 seats appeared too close to call. As the first results came in, it appeared that anti-EU party UKIP had lost a large chunk of its vote share, which had split evenly between the Conservatives and Labour. Pundits had expected the UKIP vote to go strongly to the Conservatives.

Until the final results become clear, it is hard to predict which party might end up leading the next government and steering Britain into the Brexit talks.

Political deadlock could derail negotiations with the other 27 EU countries ahead of Britain's exit from the bloc, due in March 2019, before they even begin in earnest.

Brexit talks were scheduled to start on June 19 but could now be delayed, a source of major uncertainty and concern for investors.

Senior Conservatives were quick to say exit polls had been wrong in the past. In 2015, the exit poll suggested they would fall short, but when the actual results came in they had a slim majority.

Sterling fell by more than two cents against the U.S. dollar as markets digested the prospect of extreme political uncertainty and even the risk of a second election this year.

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"A hung parliament is the worst outcome from a markets perspective as it creates another layer of uncertainty ahead of the Brexit negotiations and chips away at what is already a short timeline to secure a deal for Britain," said Craig Erlam, an analyst with brokerage Oanda in London.

FAILED GAMBLE

The exit poll pointed to an extraordinary failure for May, who was enjoying opinion poll leads of 20 points and more when she called the election.

By putting her fate in voters' hands, three years before an election was due, she had hoped to secure a much stronger mandate that would boost her in complex negotiations on the terms of Britain's EU departure and its future trade relationship with the bloc.

Should she be forced to step down as prime minister after this election, that would make her tenure the shortest of any British premier since the 1920s.

During the campaign, she backtracked on a major proposal on care for the elderly, opted not to debate her opponents on television and faced questions over her record on security after Britain was hit by two Islamist militant attacks that killed 30 people.

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May was widely derided for endlessly repeating her slogan of "strong and stable leadership" despite her u-turn on the care policy. She gave few policy details and appeared mostly at tightly controlled events. Some critics nicknamed her "the Maybot".

Her opinion poll lead narrowed sharply, although the consensus before the exit poll remained that she would win a majority.

"There will be a huge post-mortem about having the general election, about the manifesto ... about the style of the campaign," former Conservative finance minister George Osborne said on ITV.

"COMPLETELY CATASTROPHIC"

By contrast, Labour's Corbyn, a veteran socialist who had initially been written off as a no-hoper, was widely deemed to have run a strong, policy-rich campaign that enthused many followers.

If the exit poll is correct, Corbyn could attempt to form a government with smaller parties which, like Labour, strongly oppose most of May's policies on domestic issues such as public spending cuts.

If Labour does take power with the backing of the Scottish nationalists and the Liberal Democrats, both parties adamantly opposed to Brexit, Britain's future will be very different to the course the Conservatives were planning and could even raise the possibility of a second referendum.

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The exit poll forecast the Scottish National Party (SNP) would win 34 seats, the centre-left Liberal Democrats 14, the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru three and the Greens one. Other parties were projected to win 18 seats.

"If the poll is anything like accurate, this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May," said Osborne.

Japanese bank Nomura said that based on the exit poll and on the results in the first two constituencies to declare, its election model suggested the Conservatives would end up winning 331 seats, a slim majority. However, it said that it would be able to produce a more accurate forecast when 10 percent of results were in, which will be around 0100 GMT.

For May, who went into the campaign expecting to win a landslide, even a narrow win later in the night would leave her badly damaged.

BREXIT IN LIMBO?

May herself had said during her campaign: "It's a fact that if we lose just six seats, we will lose our majority and Jeremy Corbyn will become prime minister," predicting that the Scottish Nationalists and Liberal Democrats would back him.

Whilst this was campaign rhetoric designed to drive support for her party, it also suggested she saw little prospect of forming a coalition with other parties, almost all of whom are opposed to her Brexit strategy built around leaving the EU's single market, controlling immigration and escaping the jurisdiction of EU courts.

The centre-left, pro-EU Liberal Democrats, who were in coalition with the Conservatives between 2010 and 2015, looked unlikely to go down that route again. They were close to wiped out in the 2015 election.

Their former leader Nick Clegg, who was deputy prime minister during the coalition years, said the party would not prop up a Conservative government.

In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a natural ally of the Conservatives, said it would negotiate with the Conservatives if they fell short of a majority, as both parties had common ground.

Any delay in Brexit talks would reduce the time available for what are expected to be the most complex negotiations in post-World War Two European history.

Labour has said it would push ahead with Brexit but would scrap May's negotiating plans and make its priority maintaining the benefits of both the EU single market and its customs union, arguing no deal with the EU would be the worst possible outcome.

It also proposed raising taxes for the richest 5 percent of Britons, scrapping university tuition fees and investing 250 billion pounds ($315 billion) in infrastructure plans.

Also Read:

UK general election 2017: PM Theresa May predicted to increase majority

Enough is enough: Full text of PM Theresa May's statement on London terror attack

Also Watch:

UK: Explosion at Ariana Grande concert in Manchester claims 19 lives

--- ENDS ---
For the 2nd year in a row, the Ohio Prosecuting Attorney's Association voiced strong opposition to a bill that would keep severely mentally ill people from being executed on death row.





If passed, House Bill 81 would bar the possibility of the death penalty for people who can prove they had a serious mental illness when they committed aggravated murder. The maximum penalty would be a life sentence. The proposal also would permit for current death row inmates to apply for resentencing.





John Murphy, executive director of the organization, said the bill would allow countless criminals to avoid the death penalty by claiming mental illness at the time of the crime. He said the bill is redundant when considering current Ohio law and court precedent.





"If this were enacted, I think it would in effect repeal the death penalty," Murphy said. "Proponents argue that the process would apply to very few persons - we don't see it that way. I think every single one of the persons on death row will file for this."





Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, who sponsored the legislation, said the bill came as a result of an Ohio Supreme Court joint task force recommendation. The recommendation implores lawmakers to enact legislation that would exclude defendants from the death penalty who were afflicted by "serious mental illness" at the time of the crime.





"I guess they're fixated on executing the mentally ill," Seitz said.





Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions, said the bill does well to recognize that people with severe mental illnesses shouldn't be executed. It doesn't take anything away from prosecutors, he said, instead allowing for more options and convictions.





Currently 139 people are on death row in Ohio, according to figures from the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. Only 1 of those inmates is female. Ohio has carried out 53 executions since the state resumed them in 1999. The state has killed a total of 393 convicted murders in its history.





Early in 1999, Jay Scott, a diagnosed schizophrenic, was the 1st person executed against his will since capital punishment resumed. A contentious legal battle preceded the execution as his lawyers fought and won appeals in both state and federal courts. The Ohio Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court upheld a state law that allowed executions as long as the prisoner understands he will die as punishment for his crimes.





Seitz said his bill is an attempt to address current law, which he called inadequate. Following one of the recommendations of the task force, Seitz's bill considers the defendant's state of mind at the time of the crime. He said he worked with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to craft the bill.





Current law, according to Murphy, adequately considers mental illness and retardation during the trial and sentencing. He said House Bill 81 expands the definition beyond what's necessary, effectively making the death penalty null and shifting the burden to the state to disprove the defendant's claims.





Seitz said that without reining in the death penalty, the state will lose it. The bill is an attempt to protect a vulnerable population from being unfairly sentenced to death.





"We think this is an appropriate and needed change to Ohio's Revised Code," Werner said. "This is the direction our society is moving in."

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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: Columbus Dispatch, June 7, 2017
Four suspects in the Khon Kaen bar girl dismemberment case are looking at the death penalty after being officially charged with premeditated murder yesterday.





Apparently, authorities dont believe murder suspect Preeyanuch Nonwangchais story that the killing was accidental and that she just meant to teach her alleged victim, Warisara Klinjui, 22, a lesson.





Preeyanuch and three alleged accomplices, Kawita Rachada, 26, Apiwan Satayabundit, 28, and Wasin Namprom, 22, face premeditated murder charges.





Another suspect, Jidarat Promkun, 21, is facing lesser charges and may not have been in the car at the time of the crime.





The only punishment given for a conviction for premeditated murder is the death penalty. However, Thailand has not actually carried out an execution since 2009.





Pol. Maj. Gen. Tanasak Rittidejpaiboon said yesterday, There is evidence that the suspects made preparations for the murder, reported The Nation





Police plan to conclude their investigation in less than three months and will oppose bail. Not that any members of any of the suspects families have come forward to try and post for the alleged killers.





Kawitas sister denied the widespread rumors that her younger sister had millions of baht flowing in and out of her bank account each month. However, that, paired with the trios alleged drug use and possible drug dealing, spurred police to open an investigation into their finances that will go back to 2014.





They expect to learn if the women were involved in large-scale drug dealing from this probe.



Court hands death sentence to Lat Phrao iPhone mugger-murderers





Kittikorn Wigaha, 26, and Supatchai Chansri, 25, were sentenced for the robbery-murder of Wasin Leungjam on Jan. 4 in Sukhonthasawat Soi 27. The case angered the public and drew the attention of international media.





In the CCTV footage, Wasin was seen attacked by the two men who approached him on a motorcycle. The victim fought back against having his phone stolen, leading Kittikorn to stab him in the neck and leaving him to die. The pair then escaped on their motorcycle.





It was reported that only his iPhone was stolen while his wallet was intact.





Although both men confessed to the crime, the court did not commute the sentence, reasoning that they confessed because the case against them was too strong not to, Kapook reported.





Sarutta Leungjam, the victims sister, said that she is satisfied with the court sentence and that she believes in karma.





She added that her parents did not come to the hearing because they did not want to face the defendants, but they have forgiven the men.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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KYODO NEWS - Jun 8, 2017 - 19:30 | World, All

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean Assembly Speaker Chung Sye Kyun agreed Thursday on the need for a meeting between Abe and President Moon Jae In in the near future, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

At their meeting in Tokyo, Abe asked Chung to tell Moon that he is looking forward to holding a meeting with the president. The two leaders have so far spoken by phone on two occasions since the latter's inauguration on May 10.

Abe is seeking a face-to-face meeting with the president in early July, possibly on the sidelines of the summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Hamburg, Germany.

Abe and Chung agreed to closely cooperate in dealing with provocations by North Korea. "We want to solve peacefully...the urgent security challenge of North Korea," Abe said during the meeting, a portion of which was open to the media.

The meeting came hours after Pyongyang launched what appeared to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles that flew about 200 kilometers off its east coast, following its repeated ballistic missile launches in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Despite their security cooperation, Tokyo and Seoul are at odds over the issue of Korean "comfort women" who were forced to work in wartime Japanese military brothels.

Moon repeatedly vowed during his election campaign to renegotiate a landmark deal the two countries struck in late 2015 to "finally and irreversibly" resolve the long-standing diplomatic row. The deal was reached under his predecessor Park Geun Hye.

Chung is on a three-day trip to Japan at the invitation of Japanese House of Representatives Speaker Tadamori Oshima, whom he met earlier in the day.
Today, June 8, Tiwa Savage's son Jamil and Davido's first daughter, Imade, graduated from their class in a kindergarten school in Ikoyi, Lagos.

Proud mum Tiwa posted photos with Jam Jam on her Instagram and said: "End of year graduation today ... so proud of my little handsome man. We are so fly huh, Jam Jam?"

READ ALSO: Flight attendant bae! Meet GORGEOUS lady who is setting social media alight with her looks (photos)

"Congratulations Jam Jam. Now what are we gonna do all summer before next academic year/semester in September?"

Tiwa Savage with her son, Jamil.

READ ALSO: See more exclusive photos and video from actress Moji Olaiyas burial ceremony

Davido's first daughter Imade Adeleke also graduated and her mother Sophia Momodu was present with her.

Sophia Momodu, Davido's first baby mama, was also present at the school for their daughter's graduation, Imade Adeleke.

The teachers gave the kids a graduation certificate.

READ ALSO: Husband goals! Duncan Mighty surprises wife with brand new car for birthing their baby girl (photos)

Tiwa Savage and Imade also took a photo together and it is not the first time the two parents are coming together, they usually are present for their children's events.

Tiwa Savage with Imade.

PAY ATTENTION! Never miss a single gist! Download Legit.ng news app for android

It's great to see the mothers having fun with their children. Congrats to Jamil and Imade.

Watch the video of NAIJ.com with Iyanya:

Source: Legit.ng
Five science reporters and students from China, Cambodia, and Mongolia will attend the 10th World Conference for Science Journalists (WCSJ) in San Francisco, California this October with travel fellowships sponsored by EurekAlert!.

EurekAlert!, the science-news service operated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), designated its WCSJ sponsorship in support of travel fellowship applicants from China and the Asia-Pacific region to mark the 10th anniversary of EurekAlert! Chinese and the re-launch of the Chinese news portal.

"EurekAlert! Chinese was established in 2007 to encourage broader communication of science in and from China," said Brian Lin, director of editorial content strategy at EurekAlert!. "Since 2004, the EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters have enabled 64 early-career reporters to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting."

"By helping outstanding science reporters from Asia participate in WCSJ2017, we hope their unique perspectives will contribute to the diversity and breadth of discussions at this important international gathering of science journalists and communicators."

The five EurekAlert!-WCSJ Fellows were among the 72 professional and 22 student fellowship recipients selected independently by the WCSJ fellowship committees out of more than 700 applications from more than 100 nations. The WCSJ travel fellowships enable those who otherwise could not attend the biennial meeting, to be held 26-30 October 2017. Special consideration is given to applicants from developing countries or those historically underrepresented at World Conferences. Fellowships cover travel to San Francisco, accommodations, and complimentary registration.

Recipients of the 2017 EurekAlert!-WCSJ Fellowships are:

Peng Qian, a Beijing-based science editor and reporter for Xinhua News Agency, has written about the China Brain Project and Chinese scientists' contribution to the LIGO gravitational waves discovery. He has previously covered the 2014 MERS outbreak and the ancient kingdom of Guge from Xinhua's Seoul and Tibet bureaus, respectively.

Jane Qiu, a freelance science and environment writer who has contributed to Science, Nature, Reuters, Scientific American, and The Economist, has covered topics including climate change, glaciers, and endangered animals on the Tibetan Plateau.

Ling Xin has been a staff reporter at the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2006, covering physics, astronomy, and the environment. As a freelancer, her work has appeared in Physics World, Science, and on Chinese social media platforms, including Mr. Science and The Intellectuals.

Odom Rithy, a student in media and communication and international studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, has interned at Voice of America Khmer Service and written about energy security and climate change.

Setsen Altan-Ochir has worked as a field assistant for Al Jazeera English, reporting on the impact of climate change to endangered wildlife and air pollution in Mongolia. She founded Scientific Mongolian, an initiative aiming to make science part of discussions among Mongolians.

###

Established in 1996, EurekAlert! is a non-profit science-news service serving more than 13,000 reporter-registrants and nearly 5,000 public information officers from 2,600 research institutions and academic journal publishers worldwide. It also supports science journalism through the EurekAlert! Fellowships for International Science Reporters. Now in its 13th year, the program funds early-career science reporters from emerging regions to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting. Past Fellows have come from the Middle East, Africa, Central and South America, China, and India. For more information, visit: http://www.eurekalert.org/fellows.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meets with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during Novembers APEC Summit in Peru. Photo from The Canadian Press

A new report on wireless broadband is out, and it may not leave readers cheering USA! USA! According to OpenSignals study, Mexico, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and more than 50 other countries offer faster LTE cellular data speeds than the U.S.

Still, the latest installment of this biannual survey by the London-based research firm isnt all bad. OpenSignals findings, based on almost 20 million reports collected by its app from 558,260 users in the first quarter of the year, also show that the U.S. is making strong progress in expanding LTE availability to more users, even if its not always the fastest.

A need for speed in any language

According to OpenSignals data the average LTE download speed in the U.S. was 14.99 megabits per second (Mbps) in the first quarter of 2017. Thats not exactly bad  its an improvement from the 13.95 Mbps average it the survey reported six months earlier. But a wide variety of other countries offered much faster speeds.

A speedier wireless connection means you can download apps faster and share photos quicker, as well as stream Ultra High Definition video and transfer the sort of files that would ordinarily require a wired connection.

Singapore led OpenSignals list with an average of 45.62 Mbps, followed by South Korea with 43.46 Mbps and Hungary with 42.61 Mbps.

The next dozen countries all saw average download speeds above 30 Mbps. You can fairly object that most are in one part of Europe or another and therefore dont require local wireless carriers to cover large expanses like the American West, but Australia still manages 33.76 Mbps while Canada tops out at 30.58 Mbps.

The U.S., meanwhile, lingers in the bottom 20 with 14.99 Mbps. Thats below the worldwide average of 16.4 Mbps and behind Russia (16.64 Mbps), Hong Kong (16.01 Mbps) and Jordan (15.09 Mbps). Sixteen countries trail the States, with India (5.14 Mbps, barely faster than 3G) coming closest in terms of population and area. OpenSignal didnt post data for China.

Story continues

Another bandwidth-analysis service, Ooklas Speedtest.net, posted somewhat consistent numbers in its last round of country-specific figures. It found that LTE-capable phones that could connect to a network in the U.S. averaged 19.61 Mbps over the first six months of 2016. In Canada, LTE phones yielded 25.21 Mbps downloads on average, while in Mexico they managed speeds of 16.19 Mbps.

The other part of the equation: availability

The U.S. might not have the fastest data speeds, but it does have one of the highest availability scores  OpenSignals term for how much time users stay connected to an LTE network.

Were fourth in the world with 86.5% availability, after South Korea (96.38%), Japan (93.48%), and Norway (86.6%).

Our nearest neighbors didnt fare as well. Canada had 81.1% LTE availability and Mexico 69%.

OpenSignals data also shows considerable progress for U.S. LTE networks. In November, the companys data showed domestic LTE availability ranked tenth in the world, at 81.3% and download speeds averaged 13.95 Mbps.

Its important to note that availability doesnt equal coverage. These numbers dont show that 86.5% of Americas surface has LTE  only that phones running OpenSignals apps had LTE signals 86.5% of the time.

Beyond bragging rights

There are two lessons to take away from these data points, and looking up housing costs in Singapore or Seoul should not be either of them.

The first is that competition works. The fear of losing subscribers to rivals has kept the big four U.S. carriers working hard to deliver faster speeds in more areas. And net-neutrality rules that bar internet providers from charging sites extra for faster delivery of their data dont seem to have held that work back, despite all the forecasts of doom from opponents of open-internet regulations.

The other is that good ideas in telecom policy dont stop at the waters edge. We should be willing to look at what other countries have done to speed up broadband access, whether its blocking telecom mergers or making it easier for wireless carriers to add capacity  then steal their best ideas without bothering to send a check in return.

More from Rob:

Email Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com; follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
Closed circuit TV footage showed the attackers cornering a victim and starting to stab him before police are seen arriving and opening fire.

An image taken from video shows three men on the ground after they were shot by police in Borough Market during an attack on London Bridge and the market, in London. Photo: Reuters

By Reuters: British police investigating the deadly attacks on London Bridge on Saturday said they had arrested three more suspects, as footage of the moment officers shot the assailants dead appeared online.

Counter terrorism officers, backed up by armed colleagues, arrested two men on the street in Ilford, east London, late on Wednesday, while a third was arrested at a house nearby, police said in a statement.

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Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were held on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism while the third was detained over suspected drugs offences.

Eight people were killed and 50 injured after three Islamist militants drove into pedestrians on London Bridge late on Saturday, then attacked revellers in nearby bars and restaurants with knives.

Closed circuit TV footage, which appeared online and in British media, showed the attackers - Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba - cornering a victim and starting to stab him before police are seen arriving and opening fire.

Police have previously said eight officers who rushed to scene fired about 50 rounds, killing the three attackers.

The Times newspaper also said it had obtained footage of the men laughing and joking five days before the attack as they met outside the Ummah Fitness Centre, a gym in east London where Butt trained.

Earlier this week the gym put a note on its door which read: "While Mr Butt did occasionally train here at UFC gym we do not know him well nor did we see anything of concern."

QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT SECURITY AGENCIES

Police and the security agencies are facing questions about whether they missed chances to thwart the attack.

Butt had appeared in a television documentary called "The Jihadis Next Door", as one of a group of men who unfurled an Islamic State flag in a park and who had connections with known radical preachers.

Zaghba, an Italian-Moroccan national, was identified as a possible militant threat after he was stopped at Bologna airport in 2016 as tried to reach Syria. He was not charged, but local police monitored him carefully and said they had tipped off Britain when he subsequently moved to London.

The authorities have said Butt was known to police and the domestic security service MI5 but there was no intelligence that an attack was being planned. They said they were unaware of the other two men.

Police have made more than a dozen arrests in the wake of the London Bridge attacks, but most have now been released without charge.

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In a separate investigation not linked to the London Bridge attacks, officers backed up by armed police arrested three men in east London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing for acts of terrorism.

Also read: One of London attackers was known radical Islamist, born in Pakistan: Report

Also read: Donald Trump berates London mayor Sadiq Khan for terror attack statement that never was

WATCH THE CCTV FOOTAGE HERE

--- ENDS ---
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 7, 2017) - Jaxon Minerals Inc. (TSXV: JAX) (FSE: 0U3) (Jaxon or the Company) is pleased to announce that its field crews have commenced the first phase of the 2017 field season at the Hazelton Property in the Skeena Arch, Central BC, Canada.

The companys goal in this first phase is to establish the continuity and extent of previously identified high-grade, stratified massive sulphide beds, which have been historically mapped over an area of roughly one square kilometre.

Historical sampling at the Max Zone covers an area of roughly one square kilometre, and hosts multiple, high-grade, base-and-precious-metal-bearing exposures along a 1,200-metre long corridor, as highlighted in Table 1, below:





Historical Sampling Highlights  Max Zone

Sample ID Easting (m) Northing (m) Silver (g/t) GRM20 616562 6125984 2,171 1050812 616739 6125866 3,398 1050818 616646 6125946 1,231 GRM15 616624 6126674 938

Jaxon has compiled a comprehensive model of mineralization at surface at the Max Zone, which will augment the final interpretation of a 464 line-kilometre VTEM magnetics and resistivity survey due mid-June. This survey is expected to be later followed by a ground-based gradient induced polarization (IP) survey to test depth of mineralization and enhance drill hole targeting.

Current Sampling Program

The strata-bound VMS mineralization at the Max Zone has never been comprehensively sampled, and true extent of high-grade mineralization has, to date, remained unknown. The historical trenches at the Max Zone were excavated on a steeply-sloping hillside, exposing massive sulphides and associated alteration within a volcano-sedimentary package, over a lateral extent of 700 metres and a vertical extent of 200 metres.

The current sampling program aims to supplement the historical sampling to further expand the known strike length and thickness of the massive sulphide unit.

Story continues

Historical Sampling at the Max Zone

The initial focus is to establish whether structural continuity exists over 200 metres of vertical elevation.

Mineralization at the Max Zone occurs over a lateral extent of approximately 1,020 metres and largely consists of stratabound massive sulphide mineralization. At 1,000m elevation, the Spine showing is the highest elevation outcrop on the property. The Spine showing also returned one of the highest gold assays, at 12.7 g/t Au.

Approximately 450 metres downslope from the Spine, (representing 260 metres vertical), Trench 742, massive sulphides containing high-grade silver sulphosalts assayed 2,015 g/t Ag which, when re-assayed, graded 2,171 g/t Ag.

Approximately 100 metres further downslope (representing 45 metres vertical) at Trench 742, another high-grade semi-massive sulphide sample yielded 1,231 g/t Ag, 5.8% Pb, and 9.55% Zn.

Continuing a further 120 metres downslope (10 metres vertical), another massive sulphide bed returned values of 3,398 g/t Ag, 2.26 g/t Au, 11.87% Zn, and 15.11% Pb in Trench 685.

Finally, 350 metres downslope (135 meters vertical) at the 550 elevation, assays of up to 4.16 g/t Au, 938.5 g/t Ag, 3.83 % Pb, and 4.3 % Zn were returned from grab samples. This location is believed to represent a feeder conduit for volcanic massive sulphide mineralization. The 1.0 to 1.5-metre sulphide zone is comprised of two parts: a 0.5 to 0.75-metre thick hanging wall section comprising massive sulphides, and an underlying 0.75-metre-thick, leached package. The upper massive sulphide zone comprises up to 20% pyrite, with variable quantities of sphalerite, galena, arsenopyrite, stibnite and possibly jamesonite.

Jaxon has compiled historical results with exceptional grades over 1,220 metres of recurrent surface exposure at the Max Zone, representing more than 450 metres of elevation change. The current field program will add substantial new information to this data, as Jaxon continues to explore its Hazelton Project.

The above data is historical in nature and has not been verified by Jaxon. The results above are from select grab samples, generally hand size, that were prepared at an accredited facility (crush, grind and split of assaying pulps). The pulps were digested by Aqua Regia and then ICP-MS multi-element geochemical analysis determined gold values, with overlimit values obtained by lead collection fire assay fusion. Gravimetric finish on 30g pulps determined silver content. Aqua Regia digestion followed by ICP-ES analysis determined the percentage concentration of lead and zinc.

Historic sampling details can be found in British Columbia Assessment Report Numbers 33559, 30787, and a NI 43-101 report titled "The Geology and Mineralization at the MAX- KNOLL Zn-Pb-Ag-Au Property, Harold Price Creek north-central British Columbia for Finore Mining Inc. (Formerly Otterburn Ventures Inc.) a previous property owner.

Technical information in this news release has been complied and reviewed by Derrick Strickland, P. Geo, a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101.

About Jaxon

Jaxon is a base and precious metals exploration company with a regional focus on Western Canada. The company is currently focused on advancing its Hazelton property in north-central British Columbia and the Wishbone property in BCs Golden Triangle.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

JAXON MINERALS INC.

Jason Cubitt



Jason Cubitt, President.

For further information regarding Jaxon Minerals Inc., please contact Jason Cubitt at 604-608-0400, Toll free: 1-877-608-0007.

This news release may contain forward-looking information, which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance, prospects and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information in this news release may include, but is not limited to, the Company's objectives, goals or future plans. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR. Although the Company believes that the assumptions and factors used in preparing the forward-looking information in this news release are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on such information, which only applies as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed time frames or at all. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Neither TSX Venture exchange nor its Regulations 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




Elon Musk, with his clean energy goals and sky-high ambitions, charmed investors once again at the annual shareholder meeting.

But before that, they cleared the way by ratifying regular board proposals and voting against the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds proposal to declassify the board, which would then necessitate an annual election of all directors.

The proposer said that classified boards hampered the ability of shareholders to hold directors accountable since not all directors are elected every year. Teslas TSLA board said that a continuity factor in the board was essential to carry out long-term initiatives and create shareholder value.

Musk took the stage thereafter answering Twitter TWTR questions and in the process updating investors about Teslas cars, truck, self-driving technology, manufacturing lines, etc.

The electric cars were of course of greatest interest. In that respect, Musk said that Model 3 production was on track to start next month and that the configurator would go live about then for those who have already booked. There arent too many options at the moment though (just color and wheel size) because the idea is to keep it simple so its easier to do greater volumes. It isnt easy buying a Tesla and if you book one today, it wont be until the end of 2018 that its delivered. Clearly, that isnt an ideal situation and something the company would like to change.

As far as the crossover Model Y is concerned, Tesla did display a glimpse that was more of a tease than a revelation. The car, which will be somewhere between the Model X and the Model 3 in size, is expected to be available in 2019. Musk said it would be built on a new platform not only because the Fremont factory is running at full capacity but also because of the new architecture being employed. He admitted that it was a mistake to have built the high-end Model X on the more affordable Model S sedan design because it increased complexities and consumed more capital. The Y is expected to be twice as popular as the Model 3.

Story continues

The thus-far-unnamed heavy-duty, long-range, electric truck will be unveiled in September. Tesla has been collaborating with prospective trucking customers to make sure that its built with their needs in mind. Because of the collaborations, the company wouldnt need to go hunting for customers when the product is ready to ship, roughly two years from now. It will instead focus on the number of trucks to be shipped. Musk also hinted that there would be other announcements at the truck launch event.

Since the fallout with Mobileye over the driver who died at the wheel of its self-driving test car, the company has been working on its own Autopilot technology. Musk was optimistic that internal efforts (software and hardware) had yielded a product that was now set to eclipse the technology initially bought from Mobileye. Further development is expected to be smoother and quicker.

Conclusion

Electric car adoption will depend on things like availability and choice, but charging stations are also a factor. Tesla said it will be increasing the number of supercharging locations. There will also be improvements to the car battery that may encourage people to upgrade. Since Teslas are said to be highly resilient to accidents, a customer will probably be able to turn over an older car for a newer iteration. The company intends to deal in used cars as well, so this may be how it will be building its stock/fleet.

For now, the focus remains on chugging out the volumes.

Recommendation

Tesla shares carry a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), with the main concern about them being the high valuation. The shares have appreciated 44% in the last 3 months compared to the S&P 500s 3.0%. Peers Fox Factory Holding Corp. FOXF and PACCAR, Inc. PCAR are better buys, as both carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). FOXFs appreciation has been more reasonable at 15.0% while PCAR has dropped 6.5%.

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Mark Warner

Sen. Mark Warner  the leading Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee  will use his opening statement at Thursday's James Comey hearing to call the former FBI director's testimony "disturbing."

In excerpts of his opening statement released before the hearing, Warner responded to Comey's prepared remarks, which were released Wednesday.

Warner emphasized an early interaction Comey said he had with Trump in which the president told the then-FBI director, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." This, Warner argued, appeared to be an instance of Trump threatening Comey's job.

The Virginia senator also cited another private discussion Comey said he had with Trump in which the president pushed him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Warner described these actions, as well as others outlined in Comey's testimony, as violations "of clear guidelines put in place after Watergate to prevent any whiff of political interference by the White House into FBI investigations."

A lawyer for Trump on Wednesday said the president felt "completely and totally vindicated" by the early release of Comey's testimony, which also confirmed previous comments by Trump that Comey had told him he was not under investigation.

But from Warner's remarks, it appears that Democrats will use the Comey hearings to look broadly at the Trump presidency.

"This is not how a president of the United States behaves," Warner said. "Regardless of the outcome of our investigation into those Russia links, Directory Comey's firing and his testimony raise separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of."

NOW WATCH: WATCH: Putin reacts to Trump firing FBI Director James Comey





More From Business Insider


By India Today Web Desk: It's been a while since Kareena Kapoor Khan's next Bollywood project Veere Di Wedding has been in news. While the 36-year-old actor is busy getting into shape before she begins shooting for the film in August this year, not much has been revealed about her hero in the film.

But here's the latest scoop on that. Remember Sumeet Vyas from web series Permanent Roommates? If a report in Mumbai Mirror is to be believed, the makers of Veere Di Wedding have approached Sumeet to play Kareena's boyfriend in the film.

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A source was quoted as telling the daily, "Conversation has been going on since a long time and it's currently in the final stages. They should be able to lock the deal in a few days."

The report further suggests that Kareena will play a progressive character in the film which also stars Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania.

Since the film revolves around four friends who go on road trip, Veere Di Wedding will be shot in many locations. "Shashanka Ghosh (director) and his team have done extensive recce in Delhi where the major portion of the film is set. The first schedule will be a smaller one of a few days, after which they will mostly head to Bangkok for the second schedule," added the source.

ALSO READ: Veere Di Wedding will go on floors this August, says Rhea Kapoor

ALSO READ: It's an honour to work with Kareena in Veere Di Wedding, says Sonam Kapoor

ALSO WATCH: Saif and Kareena become proud parents to a baby boy, Taimur Ali Khan Pataudi

--- ENDS ---
English French

Solutions 30, Europe's leading provider of Solutions for New Technologies, announces it has acquired a 100% stake in Vodafone Kabel Deutschland Field Services GmbH (VKDFS). A Vodafone subsidiary located in Nuremberg, VKDFS will be consolidated in Solutions 30's accounts as of 1St July 2017. This acquisition is accompanied by the signing of a 70 million, 3-year contract with the Vodafone group in Germany.

Even stronger presence in Germany

The acquisition of VKDFS strengthens Solutions 30's position as the leading European partner for last-mile solutions. Located in Nuremberg, VKDFS will be the Solutions 30 Group's base for development in Bavaria, the second wealthiest region in Germany. Solutions 30 can now draw on a technical and sales force of 400 people in Germany, a powerful driver for boosting growth across the globe.

The first major contract in Germany

VKDFS includes Vodafone's support and assistance services, involved in the roll-out of high-speed internet in Germany. The company achieved turnover of 23 million in 2016, with a headcount of 50 people. As part of this acquisition, Solutions 30 signed a 3-year contract with Vodafone of 23 million per year, i.e. 70 million in total.

Gianbeppi Fortis, Chairman of the Solutions 30 Executive Board, commented: "Thanks to this acquisition, we are strengthening our position as the unifier of a market that is still very fragmented in Germany. This first operation in Bavaria was a strategic decision for the Group as it is a particularly fast-growing region, which borders Baden-Wurttemberg where we are already present."

Karim Rachedi, Chief Operating Officer of Solutions 30, also commented: "This geographical proximity will facilitate the integration of the VKDFS teams within the Group, in order to offer new potential for development."

External growth policy continued

The Group is looking to continue strengthening its position as European leader and is continually seeking any external growth opportunities, particularly in Germany, France and Italy. To this end, Solutions 30 decided to form a bank consortium and restructure its debt:

Establishment of a credit line of 35 million over 6 years, to support its offensive external growth policy;

Renegotiation of the medium-long term debt for an amount of 30 million over 6 years, and the short-term debt for an amount of 10 million, confirmed for 5 years.

Next key date:

25 July, 2017 Q2 2017 turnover

About SOLUTIONS30

The SOLUTIONS 30 Group (ex PC30) is Europe's leading provider of Solutions for New Technologies. Its mission is to make the technological changes that transform our daily lives accessible for everyone, individuals and businesses alike: yesterday computers and the Internet, today, digital; tomorrow, the technologies that will make the world ever more connected in real time. Since its founding, the Group has handled more than 10 million calls by drawing on a network of 3,700 regional technicians. At present, SOLUTIONS 30 covers the whole of France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain.

SOLUTIONS 30 S.E.'s capital comprises 20,440,516 shares, with an identical number of theoretical and exercisable voting rights.

SOLUTIONS 30 S.E. is listed on the Alternext market - ISIN FR0013188844 - code ALS30, eligible for the PEA-PME share savings plan, and on the Frankfurt stock exchange on the XETRA electronic system (ISIN FR0013188844 - code 3OL2)

For more information, go to www.solutions30.com

+352 2 648 19 17 +33 (0) 6 88 48 48 02 | samuel@edifice-communication.com GENESTA Finance Herve Guyot Nathalie Boumendil | Investor relations +33 (0)1 45 63 68 60 | hguyot@genesta-finance.com +33 (0) 6 85 82 41 95 | nathalie@edifice-communication.com

Contacts
WASHINGTON, DC, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), IFC (International Finance Corporation), and XacBank LLC today signed a loan agreement to support access to finance in Mongolia for women-owned small and medium sized (SME) businesses.

In Mongolia, while 64 percent of SMEs are women-owned, the majority are underserved or unserved by financial institutions. Through cooperation with XacBank, this commitment seeks to provide the financing needed by women-owned SMEs in the country and offer better financial and business advisory services to women entrepreneurs.

Women entrepreneurs are critical to economic growth and development in Mongolia. During a time when the majority of women-owned SMEs in Mongolia are underserved or unserved by financial institutions, OPIC is proud to partner with IFC and Xacbank to help these female entrepreneurs gain access to finance and new opportunities, said Acting OPIC President and CEO Dev Jagadesan.

Marcos Brujis, IFC Director of Financial Institutions Group said, Strong economic growth cannot be attained without gender equality and the empowerment of one-half of the worlds population. IFCs Banking on Women program, and partnerships like this with OPIC and XacBank, have a critical role to play in unlocking and financing the vast untapped potential of female entrepreneurs.

"SMEs constitute a vital part of the economic foundation of Mongolia. XacBank has been a front runner in providing financial solutions to small businesses and entrepreneurs. Together with OPIC and IFC, XacBank is opening new opportunities for SMEs and providing competitive financing opportunities," said Xacbanks President Amartuvshin Hanibal.

The commitment is part of OPICs target goal of providing $100 million in loans to women owned SMEs as part of the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (WEOF) by March 2022. WEOF is a Goldman Sachs Foundation and IFC partnership to increase access to capital for women entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

Launched in late 2010, IFCs Banking on Women business invests in and provides advisory services to financial institutions to scale up and improve financial and non-financial services for women and women-led SMEs globally. Through Banking on Women, IFC has US $1.36 billion in cumulative investment commitments in 43 projects in 24 countries dedicated to financing women SME customers, and has led 33 advisory services projects with financial institutions in 23 countries to scale up financial and non-financial services to women customers.

###

About OPIC

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a self-sustaining U.S. Government agency that helps American businesses invest in emerging markets. Established in 1971, OPIC provides businesses with the tools to manage the risks associated with foreign direct investment, fosters economic development in emerging market countries, and advances U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities. OPIC helps American businesses gain footholds in new markets, catalyzes new revenues and contributes to jobs and growth opportunities both at home and abroad. OPIC fulfills its mission by providing businesses with financing, political risk insurance, advocacy and by partnering with private equity investment fund managers.

OPIC services are available to new and expanding businesses planning to invest in more than 160 countries worldwide. Because OPIC charges market-based fees for its products, it operates on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to taxpayers. All OPIC projects must adhere to best international practices and cannot cause job loss in the United States.

About IFC

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. Working with 2,000 businesses worldwide, we use our six decades of experience to create opportunity where its needed most. In FY16, our long-term investments in developing countries rose to nearly $19 billion, leveraging our capital, expertise and influence to help the private sector end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.

About Xacbank

XacBank LLC, one of the largest commercial bank in Mongolia, is setting the standard for corporate governance and social responsibility, while embracing the triple bottom line mission of People, Planet, and Prosperity. With our vision to bring world class financial services to Mongolia, we operate with over 1,300 specialized staff, 86 branches across the country, and over 2,700 merchants, proudly delivering full banking products and services to our 700,000 customers through latest digital channels. For more information, visit www.xacbank.mn

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/97604686-4ad1-41bd-ac3d-83822239719d

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a40f7668-42e7-46ad-a2b3-d3f9f939d163
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bluestone Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BSR) ("Bluestone" or the "Company") today announced the appointment of Mr. Darren Klinck as President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective 1 August 2017. The Company will also complete a non-brokered private placement of 500,000 common shares at $1.50 for gross proceeds of $750,000 and issue 5,000,000 stock options to certain directors, officers and consultants.



Appointment of CEO

Mr. Klinck is a graduate of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary and is a highly regarded mining executive with a broad range of international experience.

Mr. Klinck was most recently Executive Vice President & Head of Corporate Development for OceanaGold Corporation responsible for overseeing the capital markets as well as the mergers and acquisitions strategy. Over the past ten years at OceanaGold, Mr. Klincks various responsibilities have also included oversight of project teams managing exploration, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and community engagement programs as well as extensive government relations activities.

"We are very fortunate to have Darren join our team as Bluestone transitions towards becoming Central America's next high grade gold producer," stated John Robins, Chairman and interim CEO. "During his tenure at OceanaGold, Mr. Klinck was part of the executive leadership team that successfully grew the company from a single asset producer to one of the mining industrys most respected mid-tier gold producers, operating in multiple jurisdictions with one of the lowest cost structures today. Mr. Klinck's broad experience in a development and operating environment covering areas in corporate strategy, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and corporate development will be a strong asset to Bluestone as we continue to build out our development team.

Private Placement

The Company intends to complete a non-brokered private placement of 500,000 common shares at a price of $1.50 per share for gross proceeds of $750,000. The Company intends to use the proceeds of the private placement for general working capital purposes. The private placement forms part of the Companys executive compensation plan for the new management team. All securities will be subject to a four-month hold period. No finders fees will be paid with respect to the private placement. The private placement is subject to TSXV acceptance.

Option Grants

Subject to the TSXV acceptance and the Companys stock option plan, the Company intends to grant an aggregate of 5,000,000 stock options to certain directors, officers and consultants at an exercise price of $1.50 valid for terms ranging from three to five years from the date of grant. The option grant will be effective on the date the Companys previously issued subscription receipts are converted into common shares, which is expected to be in mid-June, 2017.

The Company has also filed an amended preliminary economic assessment (PEA) and an amended and restated Annual Information Form on Sedar. The amendments address certain minor nontechnical deficiencies in the previous PEA, and do not affect the conclusions in the PEA. The Company has also filed its preliminary prospectus to qualify the issuance of common shares upon the conversion of the previously issued subscription receipts and convertible notes.

About Bluestone Resources

Bluestone owns a 100% interest in the Cerro Blanco Gold and Mita Geothermal Projects located 160 km southeast of Guatemala City in Guatemala. Cerro Blanco is one of the world's highest grade undeveloped gold projects that is fully permitted for production. The Cerro Blanco Project economics as disclosed in the Company's press release dated February 7, 2017 announcing the results of its Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) and updated mineral resource estimate for Cerro Blanco indicate a rapid pay-back, high margin, underground mining project with robust economics in the current gold price environment. At a gold price of US$1,250/oz, the Cerro Blanco base case estimate generates an after-tax net present value at a 5% discount rate of US$317 million and an internal rate of return of 43.9%. The proposed mine is expected to operate over a nine year mine-life with total gold and silver production of approximately 952,000 ounces and 3,141,000 ounces, respectively. Initial capital expenditures to fund construction and commissioning is estimated at US$170.8 million. The all-in sustaining cash costs (as defined per World Gold Council guidelines, less corporate general and administration costs) is estimated to be US$490 per ounce of gold produced.

Cautionary Language

The PEA is preliminary in nature, it includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

The scientific and technical disclosure in this news release has been reviewed by John Robins, CEO of the Company, who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

On behalf of the Board

Bluestone Resources Inc.

John Robins, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

For further information, contact:

John Robins at (604) 657-6226

Forward Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release contains "forward-looking statements", and "forward-looking information" under applicable securities laws. All statements, other than those of historical fact, which address activities, events, outcomes, results or developments that the Company anticipates or expects may, or will occur in the future (in whole or in part) should be considered forward-looking statements and can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur, be achieved or has the potential to. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release include: future performance based on current results; expected cash costs; and estimates of Cerro Blanco economics, including estimates of capital costs of constructing mine facilities and bringing a mine into production and of sustaining costs, net present value and proposed production timelines and rates. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause the Company's actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: liabilities inherent in mine development and production; geological risks; the financial markets generally; risks and uncertainties related to expected production rates, timing and amount of production and total costs of production; risks and uncertainties related to the accuracy of mineral resource estimates and of future production, future cash flows, total costs of production and diminishing quantities or grades of mineral resources; risks associated with geopolitical uncertainty and political and economic instability in Guatemala; and changes in laws and regulations, including, without limitation, the adoption of new environmental and tax laws and regulations and changes in who they are interpreted and enforced. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of assumptions, risks and uncertainties is not exhaustive. There can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which is was made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

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By Press Trust of India: Superstar Rajinikanth today said he would meet his fans again raising the expectations about the possibility of his entry into politics. The Enthiran star, who wrapped up the shoot in Mumbai, said he was very much satisfied about the work done so far.

Speaking to reporters at Chennai airport, he said the next leg of the shoot for Kaala will begin soon. Addressing his fans last month, Rajinikanth said that his entry into politics was in the hands of God and asked them to be prepared for a war.

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He said he would be meeting his fans in the coming days. In the olden days, he said, kings seldom maintained standing armies but the men turned up when duty called.

"When war comes they will come to the rescue of their motherland. I have a profession, work, duty and so do you. Go to your places, do your duty, take care of your vocation. Let us face the war when it comes," he had said.

He had said that they should not be disappointed if he did not come to politics. Rajini also said that if he were to join politics he would keep at bay those eyeing politics as an avenue for making money.

( Photos: Yogen Shah )

ALSO READ: Kaala- Dhanush to play young Rajini?

EXCLUSIVE: Not playing Rajini's daughter in Kaala, says Anjali Patil WATCH HERE: Thalaivar speaks to India Today about fan greet and meet, politics

--- ENDS ---
No meeting was scheduled between PM Modi and Nawaz Sharif at the Astana Summit but when the two came across each other they just exchanged greetings.

By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today exchanged greetings with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Kazakhstan's capital Astana to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.

Both the leaders were at the leaders' lounge at an Opera in the evening before the concert and banquet hosted by Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

According to sources, Modi and Sharif exchanged greetings. Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's operation, Modi enquired about his health.

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He also enquired about Sharif's mother and family. This was their first meeting since 2015 when PM Modi flew to Lahore on a surprise visit.

During the banquet the two leaders were not seated on the same table. Both India and Pakistan will be inducted tomorrow as full members of the SCO.

No official meeting was scheduled between Modi and Sharif at the two-day-long SCO Summit amid a thaw in bilateral relations.

India has been stressing that talks and terror cannot go hand in hand. PM Modi had earlier asserted that Islamabad "must walk away from terror if it wants to have dialogue with India".

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception today.

Next on PM Modi's agenda is a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He will also meet Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev before attending the sessions of the Summit.

INDO-PAK TENSION

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.Also read:

As PM Modi arrives in Astana, India is set for SCO entry. Here's what to expect from the Summit

Also watch:

PM Narendra Modi arrives in Astana for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit

--- ENDS ---
A heroic woman saved a child from being pinned to a wall by a speeding car by leaping in front of it. The incident was caught on tape by a CCTV camera in the area.

By India Today Web Desk: It is not often that people put their lives in danger to help a stranger. But Shanta Jordan, who's being hailed a brave-heart for her heroic deed, did just that.

Shanta Jordan dove in front of a speeding car that was sure to ram into a stone wall to save a kid's life without thinking for a split-second that the impact of the crash could seriously injure or even kill her.

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The incident occurred in the US state of Connecticut a few days ago. The horrific crash was captured by a CCTV camera installed in the area.

Noticing the speeding car and the little boy in front of it, Shanta Jordan sprinted to save the kid. The car threw both Jordan and the kid into the air after which they crashed to the wall and fell down to the ground.

Bystanders could be seen rushing to help the victims of the crash. No one was killed in the incident but the kid underwent major surgery to avoid a leg amputation, reported USA News Today.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE:

DISCLAIMER: DISTURBING VISUALS. VIEWER'S DISCRETION ADVISED

Jordan, who risked her life to save the kid, is recovering from her injuries. The USA News Today quotes police chief AJ Perez as saying, "I want to say thank you to this good person," referring to Shanta Jordan. He believes the kid would have been killed if not for Jordan's timely intervention.

The driver was arrested and charged with reckless driving. He was hospitalised too.

A special tribute honouring Shanta Jordan will be held next week.

As they say, not all superheroes wear capes.

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On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ...
This is Whats Trending Today.

A tornado can be a dangerous weather event. It is often described as violent and destructive.

Tornadoes are known for their strong, fast-moving winds. They can kill people and destroy buildings.

Sometimes the winds create what is called a funnel cloud. The cloud moves quickly along the ground, striking down and pushing away whatever it hits.

When a tornado is nearby, people are advised to go inside a building and down to the basement or hide in the strongest part of the structure.

But recently, one man thought he could still get some outdoor work done even when a tornado was nearby.

Theunis Wessels of Alberta, Canada would not get inside his home, even when his daughter asked him to.

Wessels said he had to cut the grass growing around his house because there were too many activities planned for the weekend.

So his wife, Cecilia, came outside to ask him to come in. He would not, so she took a photograph and shared it on Facebook.

Cecilia Wessels wrote my beast mowing the lawn with a breeze in his hair.

The photo captured the imagination of many people on social media.

Some added words or pictures to her photo and posted the new version online.

One person wrote: life in Canada summed up in one picture.

Another wrote: this is all of us getting through 2017.

On her own Facebook post, Cecilia Wessels described her husband as the Chuck Norris of lawn mowers.

Norris is famous for his action movies. His long career was helped in 2005 when people started writing funny Chuck Norris Facts.

The funny facts have him doing impossible things. One of them was Chuck Norris beat the sun in a staring contest.

Cecilia said she was not too worried about the tornado. She was just taking a photo to show her parents in South Africa.

That is when many people became concerned for Theunis Wessels safety.

But Theunis said he knew about the bad weather, but the photo made the tornado seem much closer than it actually was.

And thats Whats Trending Today.

Im Dan Friedell.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for VOA Learning English based on information from the Canadian Press. George Grow was the editor.

What do you think of the photo of the man mowing the lawn with a tornado nearby? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

__________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

funnel  n. a device shaped like a hollow cone with a tube extending from the point, used to pour a liquid into a narrow opening

basement  n. the part of a building that is partly or completely below the ground

beast  n. an animal

mow the lawn  v. to cut grass with a machine or a sharp edge

breeze  n. a light wind

to sum up  v. to describe or show the most important parts or qualities of someone or something in a simple way

stare  n. to look at someone or something for a long time often with your eyes wide open
The project began in 2009 when Krasnow, frustrated by the lack of a good animal model for lung disease  his area of expertise  commissioned three high school interns to search the animal world for something better. By the end of the summer, the interns had come up with the mouse lemur, which fits all the necessary criteria: Like mice, these animals are small (about twice the size of a mouse), develop quickly, reproduce rapidly, produce many offspring, and are inexpensive and easy to maintain and manage. In genetic terms, the mouse lemur is about midway between humans and mice, Krasnow said.

When I talk to scientists, their faces light up when I tell them about mouse lemurs because they are about the size of a mouse but they are primates, so that makes a huge difference, said Ezran, who was one of the high school interns. I think they really do present such great potential for biological, behavioral and medical research in general.

Early on in the project, Krasnow sought out the perspective of Stanford veterinarians, ultimately recruiting Megan Albertelli, DVM, PhD, assistant professor of comparative medicine. A geneticist and primate specialist, Albertelli said she was initially skeptical of the idea of lemurs as animal models, but soon became enthusiastic after realizing their enormous potential for contributions in understanding neurologic problems, eye disease and other conditions where mouse models have fallen short.

Trip to France

She accompanied the group on a trip to France to visit with scientists who had been studying lemurs in the laboratory for years. A French team had found that some aging lemurs develop a form of dementia and accumulate plaques in the brain that resemble those of Alzheimers patients.

I saw that they were promising models for Alzheimers disease, Albertelli said. Alzheimers is a condition that is hard to model in other animal species, so that was very exciting.

Mouse lemurs live exclusively on Madagascar, where they are found in great abundance. Tens of millions of them populate the island. While lemurs generally are endangered due to habitat destruction, mouse lemurs are not under threat and freely roam the island, said Ezran, who calls them the rodents of Madagascar.

The Stanford researchers began to develop collaborations with other scientists studying lemurs, including those at the Centre ValBio near the Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar, who have been examining lemur ecology, family structure and behavior for decades.

During periodic visits to the island, Krasnow and his colleagues learned how to catch brown mouse lemurs in the rainforest just outside the research station, using a tiny banana slice inside a trap as a lure. The scientists then tagged and photographed each animal, gave them a thorough physical examination, analyzed them for behavioral issues and abnormalities and removed a drop of blood for detailed genetic and serum studies. The animals then were released back into the wild so the researchers could follow them over time to see how their environments may influence their progress and health. In 2013, Stanford built a sophisticated molecular biology and genetics lab within the ValBio complex, where these studies could be carried out.

Distinctive personalities

Lemurs have distinctive personalities, Krasnow said, and the researchers gave each one a name, based on his or her looks or behavior. For instance, one was named Feisty for his unusually aggressive nature; most lemurs are docile.

The work has led to a whole new way of doing genetic studies, said Krasnow, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Instead of using the traditional method of introducing genetic mutations into mice to create knockout mice  or animals with customized genes  they found they were able to find naturally occurring variants among animals in the wild. Moreover, in working with lemurs in their native habitats, the researchers could better understand how the animals interact with their surroundings and the relationship between genes and the environment.

We are trying to do this in a way that is respectful and will help the lemurs and the people of Madagascar.

Instead of introducing mutations in mice or fruit flies, we are doing something much more similar to what is done in humans, he said. We are looking at all the wonderful genetic variation already existing in nature, since there are so many millions of mouse lemurs out there. We calculate that most knockout mutations are already present in nature, and all we have to do is find them. And because the cost of sequencing a genome is rapidly dropping, its now possible to sequence the genomes of thousands of mouse lemurs to see what mutations they are carrying.

In doing so, the researchers could accomplish in a few years for a tiny fraction of the cost what the International Knockout Mouse Consortium will accomplish in 10 years, at a cost of nearly $1 billion, he said.

But the project could use some additional staff, as the process of capturing the animals and screening them in the laboratory is labor-intensive, he said. He and his colleagues have come up with a multipurpose solution that will contribute to the local educational system while helping preserve the lemur populations in Madagascar, whose habitats are threatened by farming, mining and logging interests, he said.

Help from students

The group is developing a science curriculum for use in Malagasy high schools in which students learn about biology by exploring the rich environment right outside their school houses. Among the instructors is Manu Prakash, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford and a pioneer in the field of frugal science, who has brought his powerful $1 paper microscopes to Madagascar and taught students how to explore the microscopic world in which they live, including the lice in their hair, the pathogens in their water and the disease-causing parasites in their environment. The curriculum was first introduced among university students, some of whom now are screening lemurs at the Stanford lab in Madagascar.

We saw this as an opportunity because we are going over there to study the unique animals and biology and ecology of Madagascar, which is unsurpassed in the world, Krasnow said. It is the No. 1 hotspot for biodiversity, but most of the students dont realize what they have in their backyards because they are being taught from textbooks and from teachers who have learned from Europeans.

He said the researchers hope to expand scientific curricula at all levels of education, helping train the Malagasy scientists of the future and build scientific capacity in the country, all the while creating an appreciation among the local population of the need to understand and preserve lemurs and other species for the future.

We are trying to do this in a way that is respectful and will help the lemurs and the people of Madagascar, while enlightening many aspects of primate biology and human disease, he said.

The researchers plan to make the genetic sequencing and phenotyping information they obtain from the lemurs publicly available so that researchers around the world can take advantage of this trove of knowledge, Albertelli said.

Other Stanford co-authors are graduate students Maya Krasnow and Stephan Chang, former undergraduate student Jason Willick, former research assistant Alexander Sholtz and lab technician Jozeph Pendleton. (Maya Krasnow and Willick are two of the former high school interns who began work on the project in 2009.)

Researchers at the University of Antananarivo and Auburn University also co-authored the study.

The research was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Vera Moulton Wall Center of Stanford University.

Stanfords Department of Biochemistry also supported the work.
Credit: Association for Psychological Science

Governments around the world have increasingly turned to behavioral science to help address various policy problems - new research shows that some of the best-known strategies derived from behavioral science, commonly referred to as 'nudges,' may be extremely cost effective. The new study, which examined the cost-effectiveness of nudges and typical intervention strategies like financial incentives side-by-side, found that nudges often yield particularly high returns at a low cost when it comes to boosting retirement savings, college enrollment, energy conservation, and vaccination rates.

The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"The changes in behavior produced by nudges tend be quite cost effective relative to those produced by traditional policy tools - so there is a big opportunity to use nudging more widely in government in conjunction with traditional policy tools," says Professor Katherine L. Milkman of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the authors of the new study.

"Our findings show that it's important to calculate and report the cost effectiveness of available policy tools, and not simply the impact of an intervention without an adjustment for cost," adds study co-author Professor John Beshears of Harvard Business School. "This will facilitate wiser decisions by governments and other organizations regarding which policy tools to use under various circumstances."

Nudges - which are now being tested and implemented by government agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States - diverge from traditional policy tools in that they encourage certain behaviors without restricting an individual's options or exacting financial penalties.

When organizations automatically enroll employees in their company's retirement savings program but allow them to opt out, for example, they are using a nudge that takes advantage of the fact that people tend to accept the default while still protecting employees' freedom to choose whether to participate in the program.

Although many nudges have been proven to increase individuals' access to various services and programs, they may not produce large shifts in overall behavior. As such, they may be overlooked as useful policy tools despite their relatively low cost.

With this in mind, a research team including academics and practitioners inside and outside of government examined existing studies to evaluate the relative cost effectiveness of nudges and other policy interventions.

Looking at the 2015 reports from the SBST and the UK Behavioural Insights Team, the researchers developed a list of relevant policy areas and identified one behavior as the outcome of interest within each area. They then searched leading academic journals in science, economics, psychology, and medicine for original research published from 2000 to mid-2015 that directly examined interventions targeting these outcomes.

The team compared the effectiveness of nudge-type strategies with more standard policy interventions, calculating the ratio between an intervention's causal effect and its implementation cost.

The results showed a pattern: In each of the domains that the researchers examined, nudges were highly cost effective, often more so than the traditional policy interventions.

In the case of retirement savings, for example, a nudge that prompted new employees to indicate their preferred contribution rate to a workplace retirement-savings plan yielded a $100 increase in employee contributions per $1 spent on implementing the program; the next most cost-effective strategy, offering monetary incentives for employees who attended a benefits fair, yielded only a $14.58 increase in employee contributions per $1 spent on the program.

Similarly, a nudge-based mailing that prompted employees to write down when and how they planned on getting their flu shot led to about 13 additional people getting vaccinated per $100 spent on the mailing; by contrast, an education campaign on the benefits of the flu vaccine led to only about 9 additional employees at a health care facility getting vaccinated per every $100 spent on the campaign.

"We had a hunch that nudging, and especially digital nudging, would be very cost effective, but I was truly surprised to see that the cost effectiveness of nudging is often 100, and even 1,000, times greater than more traditional interventions," says co-author Shlomo Benartzi, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. "This has huge implications for governments and businesses alike."

The researchers acknowledge that their analyses do not offer an exhaustive review of the comparative effectiveness of nudges and traditional policy tools. And there are many cases in which traditional tools - such as prohibitions and mandates - are essential for achieving specific policy objectives, and nudges might not be of value.

But the new findings clearly show that nudge-type strategies based in behavioral science do offer a useful, low-cost approach to promoting behaviors tied to a variety of important outcomes. Unlike traditional interventions that are designed to influence the cost-benefit calculations that people make, nudges harness decision-making processes that operate automatically. Thus, nudges may be especially useful in guiding behavior when people are making decisions in less than ideal circumstances, such as when they are busy, tired, or otherwise not able to fully engage with the choices available to them.

The findings also underscore how critical sharing data and knowledge about the effectiveness of various interventions will be to coordinated policy efforts among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers

"Tracking failures is as important for knowledge creation as tracking successes," the researchers conclude.

More information: Shlomo Benartzi et al, Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?, Psychological Science (2017). Journal information: Psychological Science Shlomo Benartzi et al, Should Governments Invest More in Nudging?,(2017). DOI: 10.1177/0956797617702501
Scanning electron microscope image of Vibrio cholerae. Credit: Wikipedia

Cholera, which has killed 789 and infected 100,000 in war-ravaged Yemen since the end of April, is a water-borne disease which goes hand in hand with poverty.

Here are the worst outbreaks around the world in the past ten years:

Haiti: most virulent outbreak

The most virulent outbreak in modern times was in Haiti, where more than 9,500 people have died and more than 800,000 been infected since the epidemic broke out in October 2010.

The disease was introduced by infected Nepalese UN peacekeepers who were sent there after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

200,000 cases were registered in the impoverished Caribbean country in 2013.

DRCongo: an endemic problem

According to the United Nations cholera has become a major public health problem in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Thousands of cases are recorded every year in many provinces of the vast central African country, which lacks basic infrastructure and where most of the population lives in poverty.

Cholera is endemic in DR Congo, but usually only affects the east of the country. However, in 2016, when 700 people died, the infection spread west along the Congo river and reached Kinshasa for the first time in five years.

Infections peaked in 2013 at 14,000 cases.

Scourge across Africa

- Somalia: From January-April, 2017, 533 deaths out of 25,000 people infected by cholera and severe diarrhoea were recorded in the east African country, which is ravaged by drought and threatened with famine.

- Tanzania: Between August and November, 2015 a major cholera outbreak infected nearly 10,000 people and killed 150 in 19 of the east African country's regions.

- South Sudan: In 2014 at least 167 people died following a cholera epidemic, as conflict drove some 1.3 million people from their homes.

- Central and East Africa: In 2011 a wave of cholera swept for several months across the region, mainly in Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad where more than 85,000 cases were recorded, with 2,466 deaths.

- Zimbabwe: From August 2008 to June 2009 an epidemic which ravaged the southern African nation during a major economic crisis infected more than 98,000 people and killed almost 4,300.

- Angola: In 2006 at least 68,585 people were infected in the worst cholera epidemic ever recorded in the southwestern African state. More than 2,750 people died across its 18 provinces. Since then, the disease has re-emerged in the impoverished country, which has poor systems of drinking water and hygiene and limited access to health care.

 2017 AFP
An international African collaboration has turned to statistical analysis to determine the cost effectiveness of major HIV/AIDS interventions in South Africa with a view to advising policy makers on the optimal approach to managing the disease. Details are reported in the International Journal of Economics and Business Research.

Josue Mbonigaba of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa, working with Saidou Baba Oumar of The University of Bamenda, in Bambili, and the University of Buea, both in Cameroon point out that a shortage of resources in South Africa to address the high burden of HIV/AIDS requires that different strategies must be adopted in rural and urban regions. The team explains that despite major advances in coping with AIDS elsewhere in the world, South Africa continues to suffer the burden of this devastating disease with many millions living with HIV/AIDS (ca 5.51 million in 2015). The high prevalence is a consequence of an exponential increase in infections through the late 1990s and early 2000s, which the team attributes to the slow response of the government to the crisis.

The team has used Markov state transition models, the spectrum policy modeling system and sensitivity analysis to estimate the cost-effectiveness (CE) of different interventions. The interventions discussed are: prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus, use of highly active antiretroviral drugs in adults and in children.

They have found that running HIV/AIDS interventions and expecting to achieve the same cost effectiveness across both rural and urban areas is erroneous. They point out that, factors affecting cost effectiveness, such as earlier or increased access to interventions have more significant influence in rural areas than they do in urban areas. "This result is crucial for South African policymakers, who have been seeking to address the dichotomy between rural and urban areas," the team reports. "Factors linking earlier access and usage of interventions include stigmatization and other cultural factors." As such, these issues must be addressed if interventions are to have the deepest impact and bring South Africa out of this medical crisis sooner rather than later.

More information: The cost-effectiveness of major HIV/AIDS interventions in rural and urban areas in South Africa, Int. J. Economics and Business Research, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.413-434.
Credit: University College London

A dose of the drug simvastatin results in cognitive improvement in people with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS), according to research published in The Lancet Neurology.

Researchers, led by Dr Jeremy Chataway (UCL Institute of Neurology), previously reported the effect of a high dosage of simvastatin, a type of statin widely used to reduce cholesterol and already known to be safe, on brain atrophy (shrinkage) in SPMS in 2014.

Now after studying the same cohort of patients from that trial, the team have confirmed a positive effect of simvastatin on frontal lobe function and physical quality of life.

This study used simvastatin at 80mg versus a placebo in 140 people with secondary progressive MS (SPMS). A range of cognitive assessments were carried out in this substudy, including the National Adult Reading Test, the Visual Object and Space Perception battery (cube analysis) and the Frontal Assessment Battery. The Frontal Assessment Battery is a bedside assessment often used to assess some forms of frontal dementia. It encompasses features such as concepts and mental flexibility which reflect the way we interact with the world and modulate our decision-making.

Cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and health-related quality of life was assessed by neuropsychologists as well as self-reporting by the participants at 12 and 24 months.

At 24 months, the Frontal Assessment Battery score was 1.2 points higher in the simvastatin-treated group than in the placebo group. The simvastatin group also had a 2.5 points better mean physical component score of self-reports.

Dr Chataway said: "The study is clinically important because patients with MS, in particular those with progressive MS, have a significant but under-reported, cognitive burden, such as memory, processing and mental flexibility. We have shown in this early work that simvastatin can help that part of it."

There are approximately 100,000 people in the UK with MS. At about 10-15 years into the disease, at least half will become secondary progressive, characterised by greater disability, and gradual worsening of the condition. There are very few treatments that stop this worsening.

Dr Chataway said: "This study is an important small step in reinforcing the need to study cognition in MS and to continue to advance its treatment. Following on from this study we would recommended focusing the study on those aspects of cognition which are most frequently affected."

Professor Alan Thompson, Dean of the UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences, said: "It is encouraging to see the broader positive impact of simvastatin, particularly on cognitive function and quality of life  two key areas in MS  and particularly challenging in those with progressive disease. These results further underline the importance of the imminent phase III trial."

Dr Chataway was recently awarded a 6m grant to establish definitively whether simvastatin is able to slow the rate of disability progression over a three year period in MS.

Dr David Schley, from the MS Society, said: "Cognitive issues  like problems with memory and thinking  are a common and distressing symptom for people with MS, so this is encouraging news. Earlier findings from this trial also found statins could potentially slow the progression of MS and the MS Society is now co-funding the final stage of this research."

More information: Dennis Chan et al. Effect of high-dose simvastatin on cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and health-related quality-of-life measures in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis: secondary analyses from the MS-STAT randomised, placebo-controlled trial, The Lancet Neurology (2017). Journal information: Lancet Neurology Dennis Chan et al. Effect of high-dose simvastatin on cognitive, neuropsychiatric, and health-related quality-of-life measures in secondary progressive multiple sclerosis: secondary analyses from the MS-STAT randomised, placebo-controlled trial,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(17)30113-8
A study of UC3M reveals the importance of research in health. Credit: UC3M

To assess the cause and effect relationship between clinical and basic research and efficiency in public health centers, researchers used a database from the Ministry of Health that consists of results from 189 public Spanish hospitals over more than a decade (1996 to 2009). The researchers measured the impact that R&D has on the length of patient's hospital stays.

The results of the study, published in the journal Research Policy, show that both basic and clinical research have a positive effect on hospital efficiency. "Hospitals that can produce more knowledge in terms of scientific publications are also going to be better hospitals, in both diagnosis and treatment and surgery. As such, they contribute to reducing the patient's average stay in hospitals," said one the study's authors, Josep A. Tribo, full professor in the UC3M Department of Business Administration.

"Taking into account that approximately 9 percent of the population is hospitalized over the course of the year, each day of a hospital stay entails an annual cost of some 660 euros per patient in Spain," said Alvaro Escribano, full professor in the UC3M Department of Economics. "Therefore, adopting measures that reduce the duration of hospital stays will greatly reduce health costs." Tribo added, "If you reduce or penalize doctors' research activity, they will be less prepared, which will ultimately lead to an increase in health care costs." In other words, discouraging research can have a great impact on global health care costs.

The study also analyzes the impact of R&D on the sustainability of the National Health System through the cost reduction entailed by the reduction in the length of hospital stays. "If scientific production increased significantly, health costs would be reduced by around 1 percent," said another of the researchers, Antonio Garcia-Romero, professor at the IE Business School.

In the study, they also point out the most important factors that affect the efficiency of hospitals, such as human resources, diagnostic activity, investment and capacity to absorb knowledge. Their recommendation, however, is that "it is necessary to promote research, and in particular, basic research, because this would have very clear effects in the medium to long term on efficiency and a reduction in health care costs."In addition, there are other indirect benefits that are even more important. For example, if patients recover sooner, they will also return to work sooner, which in turn will increase labor production.

Furthermore, research carried out in hospitals affects other aspects such as reduction in mortality and patient safety patient. The methodology used in this article could be employed to analyze these effects.

More information: Antonio Garcia-Romero et al. The impact of health research on length of stay in Spanish public hospitals, Research Policy (2017). Antonio Garcia-Romero et al. The impact of health research on length of stay in Spanish public hospitals,(2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2017.01.006
(HealthDay)There's another alarming consequence to America's heroin and prescription painkiller epidemic: an increase in a serious heart infection called endocarditis, U.S. health officials report.

Young, white injection drug users in rural areas are increasingly being hospitalized with both drug dependence and endocarditis, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"Endocarditis, or infection of the valves of the heart, due to needle sharing has been on the rise; and the rise has been directly associated with the increase in opioid use in the United States," said Dr. Satjit Bhusri, a cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He wasn't involved in the current research, but reviewed the study's findings.

Bhusri explained that sharing unclean needles can introduce bacteria into the body. Those bacteria, he said, "have an attraction to grow on heart valves and can lead to potentially irreversible and deadly results for the heart."

The CDC study found the number of patients discharged from North Carolina hospitals with a dual diagnosis of drug dependence and endocarditis jumped 12-fold from 2010 to 2015. The biggest increase occurred since 2013.

The study also found that about one-third of the patients also had hepatitis C infection. Hepatitis C can also be transmitted through sharing needles, according to the CDC.

These findings suggest a need to focus efforts on harm-reduction strategies, the study authors said. These measures should include syringe service programs, safe injection education, and good treatment programs.

Health officials attributed the spike in endocarditis to the ongoing U.S. opioid crisis.

More than 4 million Americans misused prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Percocet (oxycodone) and Vicoprofen (hydrocodone) for nonmedical purposes in 2014, according to a national survey completed that year.

Such users are 40 times more likely than others to use heroin or other injection drugs, the report noted.

Endocarditis is a potentially fatal infection, according to the American Heart Association. And, it's expensive to treat, with half of patients racking up more than $50,000 in bills, said the researchers, led by CDC epidemiologist Aaron Fleischauer.

The report noted that 42 percent of the North Carolina patients were uninsured or covered by Medicaid. That means government funds foot most of their health bills.

Overdose deaths nearly quadrupled nationwide from 2002 to 2014, the researchers said in background notes. But the report explained that overdoses aren't the only fatalities associated with intravenous drug use.

"Although overdose contributes most to drug-associated mortality, infectious complications of intravenous drug use constitute a major cause of morbidity [illness] leading to hospitalization," the report authors said.

The new report includes information from all North Carolina hospitals using the state's hospital discharge database from 2010-2015.

More than 500 cases of endocarditis-related to drug use were diagnosed in adults 18 and older over the six-year period.

Costs for these hospitalizations in North Carolina rose 18-fold since 2010, reaching more than $22 million in 2015, the report said.

Other report highlights included:

The median per-patient hospital charge was more than $54,000.

Cases rose most sharply among 18- to 25-year olds. But half the patients were aged 26 to 40.

Nearly nine out of 10 patients were white. Almost two-thirds were from rural counties.

Almost 1 in 5 patients was uninsured and nearly a quarter (23 percent) were on Medicaid.

The findings were published June 9 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information: SOURCE: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 9, 2017, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse outlines types of Journal information: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report SOURCE: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, June 9, 2017,The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse outlines types of heroin treatment

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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The success of kidney transplant is dependent on the age and sex of both the donor and the recipient, according to research published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The study, which was a collaboration between a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), revealed that young women had poorer transplant outcomes compared to young men, whereas women of post-menopausal age had similar or slightly better outcomes than men of the same age. This finding opens the door to a new approach for organ transplantation, and could lead to personalized immunosuppression strategies based on age and sex.

"This is the first study to assess differences in graft outcomes between female and male recipients across the entire age spectrum," says the study's corresponding author Dr. Beth Foster, researcher at the RI-MUHC and pediatric nephrologist at the Montreal Children's Hospital of the MUHC. "Previous studies did not find significant differences in graft survival between the sexes, but they focused exclusively on adults, most of whom were older. We considered the possibility that sex differences in graft survival may depend on age."

The researchers evaluated the records of nearly 160,000 kidney transplant recipients recorded in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database, which includes all transplant recipients in the United States. The outcomes of graft success were evaluated in relation to the age and sex of both the recipient and the donor.

"We found that among recipients of male donors, females of all ages had significantly worse graft survival than males," explains first author Dr. Fanny Lepeytre, fellow in Nephrology at the CRCHUM for this project. "However, when the donor was female, only female recipients aged 15-24 years had worse outcomes than their male counterparts. In fact, female recipients aged 45 years or older actually had slightly better graft survival than males of the same age when the donor was female."

The role of sex hormones in graft outcomes

These findings open new questions about the possible impact of sex hormones on immune reactivity in transplant recipients. "We know from studies outside the field of transplantation that the female sex hormone estrogen tends to activate the immune system, whereas male sex hormones such as testosterone tend to suppress it," says Dr. Foster who is also an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University. "The fact that young women 15-24 years old, in whom estrogen levels are at their peak, have higher graft failure risks than males or females in any other age group suggests that estrogen may increase the risk of rejection. Women over the age of 45 have less of this hormone so it makes sense that they may have a lower risk of rejection and graft failure."

Another possible explanation for the sex differences observed in this study is that sex hormones may influence the function of anti-rejection medications, making them less effective in females than males.

This observational study sheds light on how little we know about the influence of sex, gender, and age on the immune system, transplantation, and medical care in general.

"We need to better understand which biological and social factors explain the sex differences in graft outcomes that we observed," says Dr. Foster. "Right now, we treat men, women, boys and girls with transplants in a very similar way. With better understanding we could potentially improve graft outcomes by developing age and sex specific immune-suppression strategies."

More information: Fanny Lepeytre et al, Association of Sex with Risk of Kidney Graft Failure Differs by Age, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (2017). Journal information: Journal of the American Society of Nephrology Fanny Lepeytre et al, Association of Sex with Risk of Kidney Graft Failure Differs by Age,(2017). DOI: 10.1681/ASN.2016121380
Nepal is often heralded as a model of successful implementation and rapid scale-up of safe abortion services. Yet despite the legalization of the procedure in 2002, challenges continue to exist for women who want to obtain a safe, legal abortion.

In a new perspective piece in the Health and Human Rights Journal, researchers discuss where gaps in access, equity and quality of abortion services threaten the realization of reproductive rights.

Prior to 2002, Nepal had very restrictive abortion laws that prosecuted and imprisoned women and their family members for undergoing pregnancy terminations. Up to one-fifth of incarcerated women were convicted for abortion-related crimes. Government data from 1998 indicated 54 percent of gynecologic and obstetric hospital admissions were due to unsafe abortions. Data from one hospital-based study attributed more than half of maternal deaths during the one-year study period to abortion-related complications.

Fifteen years after legalization, safe abortion services are present in all 75 districts with more than 2,000 trained providers. "While the initial roll out appeared promising there have been delays in training additional providers and expanding services, specifically for second trimester abortions that were temporarily discontinued in 2015, in part due to controversial sex selective abortion cases, and only recently resumed," explained corresponding author Sheela Maru, MD, MPH, instructor in obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). The researchers believe it is critical to recognize that while abortion access and sex selection are two separate and independent issues, they are both manifestations of systems that perpetuate gender inequality.

Other gaps identified by the researchers as limiting access include few private pharmacies that legally dispense medical abortion medications and the need to increase the number of health care facilities equipped to treat women with long-acting contraceptive methods.

In addition to the costs associated with the procedure and the perceived stigma, Nepal's diverse terrain creates geographic barriers that make equitable distribution of services difficult. These physical obstacles to access may cause women in rural and remote areas to delay seeking services and present at later gestational ages.

According to the researchers, to promote equitable access as delineated by Nepal's progressive Supreme Court decision, safe abortion services should be safeguarded as a fundamental right. "To do so, policy makers will need to begin by including it as a part of the package of basic health care services, avoid creating a silo for abortion care, and integrate safe abortion services into the continuum of reproductive health care," added Maru who also directs the Section of Global Health at Boston Medical Center.
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Hyperfunctional voice disorders (HVDs) are hard to describe but easy to hear. People with the condition produce a grab-bag of forms of unusual voice behaviors that make them more difficult to follow. Nodules on the vocal cords may trigger the condition, but it may linger after the nodules are removed by surgery. Voice exercises or other treatments sometimes work and sometimes do not.

And although HVDs are the most common class of voice disorders, afflicting about 3% of the U.S. population, their causes are not well understood. Doctors typically attribute the condition to emotional stress that affects the performance of muscles involved in speech.

A study by researchers at Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College, however, suggests that a neurological problem affecting those muscles also can be to blame.

"We show the first evidence that some HVDs may be due to a motor control disorder, in which patients improperly process what they hear," says Cara Stepp, an assistant professor of speech, language and hearing sciences at Sargent College. "This is a very small study, but it's important because no one previously showed a neurological cause for this condition."

"Calling this condition 'hyperfunctional' suggests that it is something that you should just be able to stop doing, but that's clearly not true," says Stepp, the lead author on a paper about the research in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

In some cases, she notes, people can regain their normal voices after rigorous massages or other treatments, but these successes are often followed by a relapse of the condition.

Stepp and her colleagues hypothesized that some HVD patients might have neurological difficulties in integrating audio cues into their voice control, a breakdown that occurs in many other types of communication disorders.

The team tested their theory with experiments on two groups of nine peopleone group with HVD and one group without. Participants were outfitted with headsets and microphones, and told to repeat a series of "ahs", maintaining their pitch and volume as well as possible, while listening to their own voices in the headsets. The researchers very slowly raised the pitch of the participant's voice until it was higher by one semitone (the interval between two adjoining piano keys), and then returned it to the original pitch.

As they heard their voices rise in pitch, people with normal vocal control lowered the pitch of their speech to try to compensate. "When we move the pitch up, your brain realizes that it's higher than your target, so next time you produce your pitch a tiny bit lower," says Stepp who runs the Sensorimotor Rehabilitation Engineering Lab.

Five of the people with HVD, however, instead raised the pitch of their speech, "which was extremely strange," she says. And when they heard their voices on the headsets return to the original pitch, these five participants did not go back to the baseline.

"This finding suggests that they have a problem with properly utilizing auditory feedback to control their voice," Stepp says.

The results correspond closely with some clinical observations, she adds. "It's quite common for someone with HVD to say that the condition started when they had a cold, and then it just never went away. That's an interesting match with our findingswhen the perturbation we create is done, they ramp up their pitch even further and create a voice that's even worse."

Through recent funding from the National Institutes of Health, her lab is collaborating with the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation to recruit participants for a larger five-year HVD project. The researchers will examine a larger group of participants in greater detail, adding other forms of audio-feedback tests.

"We then can make individual computational models of the vocal motor control system for each participant, which will get us much closer to understanding the mechanisms," she says.

This work will exploit a model of speech motor control called DIVA (Directions Into Velocities of Articulators) developed by Frank Guenther, a BU professor of speech, language and hearing sciences.

DIVA can help to highlight activity in specific areas of the brain, potentially allowing researchers to design brain imaging experiments that highlight the precise neurological pathways that go astray with HVDs, Stepp says.

Her group also will compare motor-control behaviors of HVD patients both before and after successful voice therapy. These analyses may demonstrate either that people who are successful at voice therapy learn to compensate for their abnormal motor-control responses, or that the rehabilitation actually fixes the neurological glitches, she says.

"By cataloguing exactly what happens during voice therapy, we hope to tease out the relationship between who resolves these responses and what kinds of therapies did they get, which is how this research could directly lead to better rehabilitation," Stepp says. "We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we'll know a lot more in five years."

More information: Cara E. Stepp et al. Evidence for Auditory-Motor Impairment in Individuals With Hyperfunctional Voice Disorders, Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research (2017). Cara E. Stepp et al. Evidence for Auditory-Motor Impairment in Individuals With Hyperfunctional Voice Disorders,(2017). DOI: 10.1044/2017_JSLHR-S-16-0282
(HealthDay)Two cases in Arizona and one in Texas highlight a little-known danger of "water births" at homeinfant infections with Legionnaire's disease.

"The risk for Legionella [bacteria] cannot be eliminated because of the need for warm tap water to fill the tub" used for these births, says a team led by Geoffrey Granseth. He's an epidemiologist with the Arizona Department of Health Services.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Legionnaires' disease is a serious lung infection that causes pneumonia. People can get it by breathing in small droplets of water containing the Legionella bacteria.

The bacteria can thrive in building water systems that are not adequately managed and where disinfectant levels are low, water is stagnant, or water temperatures are warm, the agency noted.

The new report finds that Legionella can also lurk in tubs used when mothers-to-be decide on a "water birth" at home.

Granseth's team describes two cases occurring in Arizona in 2016. In the first case, an infant arrived at a hospital ER with "severe respiratory distress" a day after a home water birth on Jan. 6. Infection with Legionella wasn't originally suspected, and the baby's case was complicated by the presence of a congenital heart disease.

The baby was transferred to a children's hospital where tests revealed Legionnaire's disease. A 10-day course of antibiotics eventually cleared up the respiratory illness, the researchers said.

In the second case, a newborn was brought to a hospital ER on April 9 with a high fever, four days after being delivered in a home water birth. By April 12, tests revealed the presence of the Legionnaire's bacterium and a 10-day course of antibiotics was begun, after which the baby recovered enough for hospital discharge on April 16.

In both Arizona cases, the home water births were supervised by a midwife. In the first case, the birth was conducted in "a newly purchased birthing tub that had been cleaned with vinegar and water before being filled with municipal tap water," using a new hose, immediately before the delivery, Granseth's team reported.

Even though the tub was filled immediately before the delivery, "tap water is not sterile," the report's authors noted, "and Legionella can grow and spread in man-made water systems, such as plumbing systems."

In the second case, the home water birth took place in a rented, jetted Jacuzzi hot tub that was filled with warm (98 degrees Fahrenheit) water that was then allowed to sit for a week prior to the delivery. Granseth's team noted that that water temperature was "within the optimum range for Legionella growth."

Follow-up research revealed a similar case had occurred in Texas in 2014, and based on that case, Texas in 2016 "developed educational resources and guidelines" on safely managing home water births, Granseth's team noted.

The bottom line, the study authors said, is that people who plan a water birth need to educate themselves beforehand about the potential dangers and "maximize the safety for women [and their babies]."

Even though the risk for Legionnaires can never be reduced to zero during a home water birth, "it can be reduced by running hot water through the hose for 3 minutes before filling the tub to clear the hose and pipes of stagnant water and sediment," the researchers said.

The study appears in the June 9 issue of the CDC journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information: You can find the full list of precautions against Legionella during a water birth at the Journal information: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report You can find the full list of precautions againstduring a water birth at the Arizona Department of Health Services

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
The quest to detect cancer before it grows deadly has taken another step forward, with new proof-of-concept data showing that a specialized blood test can spot bits of mutated DNA shed by tumors too small to be identified any other way.

The breakthrough study was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, which ends Tuesday. It found that 73 percent of genetic mutations detected in the tumors of 124 advanced cancer patients were also discovered in bits of DNA floating freely in their blood.

What's more, by also sequencing the patients' immune-system white blood cells, the researchers were able to filter out mutations arising from a person's natural aging process - mutations that aren't cancerous but resemble those originating from malignant tumors.

The discoveries came from GRAIL, a San Francisco-based spin-off of DNA sequencing giant Illumina in San Diego. They validate the "high intensity" sequencing method, which involves reading targeted regions of the genome an average of 60,000 times to boost accuracy. GRAIL intends to use this technique in a study of 10,000 Americans - people with cancer and those without the disease.

"This is our feasibility study to make sure that this approach actually works," said Dr. Pedram Razavi, a medical oncologist with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York who is working with GRAIL.

Seeing a direct correlation between known cancerous tumors and mutated strands of DNA in patients' bloodstreams is an important first step in what will be a long path toward using blood tests to determine who has cancer and who doesn't, said Dr. Mark Lee, head of clinical development for GRAIL.

"This gives us more confidence as we move into larger-scale studies across different tumor types and at much larger scale," Lee said.

As the company's name implies, developing a blood test that can detect cancer so early that it's not yet visible on the X-rays and other tests used today would be Holy Grail of cancer prevention.

The theory goes that by uncovering the cancer early enough and determining how slow-growing or aggressive it might be, doctors will be able to mount a much more effective response using an ever-expanding arsenal of tailored treatments. The latest strategies include the field of immunotherapy, where drugs customized for different genetic variations boost a person's own immune system to conquer tumors or at least keep them from spreading.

Razavi said it's only been in recent years that a convergence of two revolutions in science has enabled the pursuit of cancer detection that's truly early stage.

One revolution is the rise of DNA sequencing machines, particularly systems that can process huge volumes of data at increasingly fast speeds.

Illumina is the world's leader in this industry, and major scientists taking advance of this technology include genetics pioneer J. Craig Venter, whose institute sits across the street from the University of California, San Diego; cardiologist and customized-medicine evangelist Dr. Eric Topol of La Jolla, Calif., who works with the Scripps Health network and The Scripps Research Institute; and pediatric genomics expert Dr. Stephen Kingsmore of Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego.

The other revolution is an explosion of ever-more sophisticated supercomputers and software that help researchers make sense of the torrent of data coming from DNA sequencing systems. These data-analysis tools look for genetic patterns that indicate disease or protective benefits from among the hundreds, thousands and, conceivably one day, millions of patients' genomes that are studied.

GRAIL estimates that its extra-thorough process of cancer detection generates about 100 times more data - that's roughly 1 terabyte per patient - than traditional screening methods.

"There have been a lot of recent advances in sequencing technology and also in data computation that we just didn't have available just a few years ago," Razavi said.

Often called "liquid biopsy" tests, these diagnostics capitalize on the fact that all cells shed bits of their DNA during their life cycles. And cells from cancer tumors are no different.

The problem is that the vast majority of "cell free" DNA floating in a person's bloodstream is not from cancerous tumors. In fact, researchers estimate that only 1 in 1,000 of these DNA snippets is from a cancerous cell, meaning that liquid biopsy tests have got to be very, very good at spotting the precise genetic mutations that signal cancer.

GRAIL is far from being the only business pursuing liquid biopsies. In fact, several companies' products are already on the market.

Currently, doctors can order biopsies designed to spot blood-borne DNA fragments from cancerous tumors, a process that can help them decide which targeted cancer drugs to use and can enable them to better monitor different stages of the disease. The tests can even let them know more quickly when cancer has returned after initial treatment.

But so far, going that extra step toward diagnosing cancer based on a blood test has remained on the horizon of possibilities.

The big difference between GRAIL's undertaking and others' efforts, Lichtenfeld said, is the company's commitment to conduct the huge clinical trials necessary to learn what it means when a mutated DNA fragment linked to cancer shows up in a patient's bloodstream.

Which fragments mean a patient will develop aggressive cancer and which don't? The only way to find out is to analyze the blood of thousands upon thousands of people who have or don't have cancer, then compare the results.

"It's not enough to find the cancer early. It's just as important to find out which cancer is going to be a problem and which is not. You only find that out by doing big trials that cost a lot of money," Lichtenfeld said.

Backed with more than $100 million in investments from the likes of Google, Bill Gates and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, GRAIL has the financial heft to mount an initial clinical trial of 10,000 patients - 7,000 who have been diagnosed with cancer and 3,000 who are cancer-free. A follow-up study for breast cancer aims to enroll 120,000 participants.

Lee, the head of clinical development at GRAIL, said the first clinical trial - the one with the 124 advanced cancer patients - was meant to build up a library of knowledge on how different cancers manifest themselves in the bloodstream. The idea was to better comprehend the lay of the land, if you will.

"We're trying to understand the full range of that kind of variability and all of the ways that cancer can manifest itself. More importantly, we want to understand how that cancer landscape can be distinguished from the landscape of people who don't have cancer," Lee said.

Once that knowledge base is large enough, it can be put to use in the massive breast-cancer trial, with hopes of accurately predicting cancer incidence in women undergoing routine mammogram screenings.

The plan looks unique, Lichtenfeld said.

"That kind of scale, I'm not aware of anybody else who has made that level of commitment at this point," he added.

But he noted that simply detecting cancer earlier will not be enough. Early detection must be coupled with therapies that can take advantage of those early warnings.

"The real grail is making a difference in people's lives. Otherwise, we're going to have a bunch of people walking around who have been told they have cancer with nothing they can do about it," Lichtenfeld said.

2017 The San Diego Union-Tribune

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine researchers are taking a deep look at the models by which the brain infers correct decisions. The graphic outlines, from left, interrelated variables in a simple statistical model, a neural network model with populations of neurons that capture the same structure, and a variant of the neural network collapsed into a more realistic overlapping configuration. All three images represent populations of neurons that hold specific models of the world. The researchers are working to untangle these networks to determine how the brain infers solutions to problems without being overwhelmed by data. Credit: Rice University

The human brain naturally makes its best guess when making a decision, and studying those guesses can be very revealing about the brain's inner workings. But neuroscientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine said a full understanding of the complexity of the human brain will require new research strategies that better simulate real-world conditions.

Xaq Pitkow and Dora Angelaki, both faculty members in Baylor's Department of Neuroscience and Rice's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the brain's ability to perform "approximate probabilistic inference" cannot be truly studied with simple tasks that are "ill-suited to expose the inferential computations that make the brain special."

A new article by the researchers suggests the brain uses nonlinear message-passing between connected, redundant populations of neurons that draw upon a probabilistic model of the world. That model, coarsely passed down via evolution and refined through learning, simplifies decision-making based on general concepts and its particular biases.

The article, which lays out a broad research agenda for neuroscience, is featured this month in a special edition of Neuron, a journal published by Cell Press. The edition presents ideas that first appeared as part of a workshop at the University of Copenhagen last September titled "How Does the Brain Work?"

"Evolution has given us what we call a good model bias," Pitkow said. "It's been known for a couple of decades that very simple neural networks can compute any function, but those universal networks can be enormous, requiring extraordinary time and resources.

Xaq Pitkow. Photo by Agapito/Baylor College of Medicine. Credit: Rice University

"In contrast, if you have the right kind of modelnot a completely general model that could learn anything, but a more limited model that can learn specific things, especially the kind of things that often happen in the real worldthen you have a model that's biased. In this sense, bias can be a positive trait. We use it to be sensitive to the right things in the world that we inhabit. Of course, the flip side is that when our brain's bias is not matched to reality, it can lead to severe problems."

The researchers said simple tests of brain processes, like those in which subjects choose between two options, provide only simple results. "Before we had access to large amounts of data, neuroscience made huge strides from using simple tasks, and they'll remain very useful," Pitkow said. "But for computations that we think are most important about the brain, there are things you just can't reveal with some of those tasks." Pitkow and Angelaki wrote that tasks should incorporate more diversitylike nuisance variables and uncertaintyto better simulate real-world conditions that the brain evolved to handle.

They suggested that the brain infers solutions based on statistical crosstalk between redundant population codes. Population codes are responses by collections of neurons that are sensitive to certain inputs, like the shape or movement of an object. Pitkow and Angelaki think that to better understand the brain, it can be more useful to describe what these populations compute, rather than precisely how each individual neuron computes it. Pitkow said this means thinking "at the representational level" rather than the "mechanistic level," as described by the influential vision scientist David Marr.

The research has implications for artificial intelligence, another interest of both researchers.

"A lot of artificial intelligence has done impressive work lately, but it still fails in some spectacular ways," Pitkow said. "They can play the ancient game of Go and beat the best human player in the world, as done recently by DeepMind's AlphaGo about a decade before anybody expected. But AlphaGo doesn't know how to pick up the Go pieces. Even the best algorithms are extremely specialized. Their ability to generalize is often still pretty poor. Our brains have a much better model of the world; We can learn more from less data. Neuroscience theories suggest ways to translate experiments into smarter algorithms that could lead to a greater understanding of general intelligence."

More information: Inference in the Brain: Statistics Flowing in Redundant Population Codes. Neuron. DOI: Journal information: Neuron Inference in the Brain: Statistics Flowing in Redundant Population Codes.. DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2017.05.028
People tend to associate round names such as "Bob" and "Lou" with round-faced individuals, and they have an inherent preference for names and faces that go well together. This is according to David Barton and Jamin Halberstadt of the University of Otago in New Zealand. In the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, published by Springer, they investigated the so-called "bouba/kiki effect." It refers to people's tendency to associate rounded objects with names that require rounding of the mouth to pronounce.

In a series of studies Barton and Halberstadt tested whether people's names are judged more suitable when they are congruent in shape with the people they denote. They also investigated whether people whose names match their faces will be judged more positively than people with incongruent names.

In the first experiment, participants ranked which of six suggested names went best with twenty overly exaggerated round or angular male caricatured faces. The participants consistently matched nine of the ten round faces, and eight of the ten angular faces with so-called round (George, Lou) and angular (Pete, Kirk) names, respectively. In a second experiment, using unmanipulated photographs of real male faces, participants assigned shape-congruent names to 14 out of 16 round faces, and 15 out of 16 angular faces. Further studies revealed that participants like another person more when they learn that the person has a name that matches their face, and participants' estimations of others, in fact, diminishes if this is not the case.

To put these findings into practice, Barton and Halberstadt turned to politics. The researchers computed "matching scores" for 158 candidates for the United States Senate, based on independent ratings of the roundness of each candidate's face and name. They found that well-named candidates (those whose faces matched their names) had an advantage. Candidates earned on average 10 more percentage points in their elections when their names fit their faces very well, versus very poorly.

"Those with congruent names earned a greater proportion of votes than those with incongruent names," explains Barton. "The fact that candidates with extremely well-fitting names won their seats by a larger margin - 10 points- than is obtained in most American presidential races suggests the provocative idea that the relation between perceptual and bodily experience could be a potent source of bias in some circumstances."

"Overall, our results tell a consistent story," Halberstadt explains. "People's names, like shape names, are not entirely arbitrary labels. Face shapes produce expectations about the names that should denote them, and violations of those expectations carry affective implications, which in turn feed into more complex social judgments, including voting decisions."

More information: Barton, D.N. & Halberstadt, J. (2017). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , DOI: 10.3758/s13423-017-1304-x Journal information: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Barton, D.N. & Halberstadt, J. (2017). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces,
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YEREVAN.  Just as before, Armenia considers it is indispensable to implement the agreements that were signed in 2016, in Vienna and Saint Petersburg.

Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told the abovementioned to reporters, after Thursdays Cabinet meeting of the government of Armenia. He noted this when asked to comment on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group co-chairs forthcoming visit Armenia.

Kocharyan recalled that the meeting in Vienna had reaffirmed the approach that unless there is trust between the parties to the Karabakh conflict, it is impossible to speak about a progress in the respective peace talks.

He added that the Minsk Group co-chairs statement with respect to the latest incident, and in which Azerbaijan was noted as the provocateur, has recorded the reality.

Also, the Armenian deputy FM said military actions along the line of contact cause concern among the intermediary countries, first and foremost, since Russia, the US, and France are UN Security Council members, and therefore they are accountable for peace at each and every corner of the world.

For that reason, they take steps to prevent instability, which, I believe, nobody needs in this region, Shavarsh Kocharyan stated.
The international community needs to take more tangible steps in order to curb Bakus provocative and destructive policy.

Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian on Wednesday stated the aforesaid during his lecture on Armenias foreign policy, and which he delivered before diplomats, analysts, and journalists in Rome.

Nagorno-Karabakh [has] has never been part of independent Azerbaijan, Nalbandian stated in connection with the Karabakh conflict. I would like to refer to an interesting document sent to Italian Foreign Minister Sforza by his diplomatic envoy Mr. Gorrini in December 1920, where he clearly states that Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of the Republic of Armenia. This is only one evidence among many in this regard. However, in 1921 by the unilateral decision of Josef Stalin Nagorno-Karabakh was forcefully annexed to administrative rule of Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous region, while its population was 90% Armenian. In 1988 the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh which comprised by the time more than 75% of the population started a peaceful movement for self-determination. In 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh through referendum declared its independence. In 1999 the European Parliament through a special resolution confirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence in a same manner as other former Soviet Republics.

Azerbaijan responded with massacres, ethnic cleansing and deportation of around 400.000 Armenians. A full-scale war broke out and its hot phase ended in May 1994 when Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a trilateral cease-fire agreement without time limitations.

Azerbaijan over the years has continuously violated the ceasefire and in April 2016 unleashed a four day large-scale aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh. It was accompanied by gross violations of the international humanitarian law, including Daesh style beheadings and other atrocities, in an apparent attempt to terrorize the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. The four-day military offensive in April was the culmination of the policy pursued by Baku during recent years but was not its end. It is obvious that through escalating the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone Azerbaijan tries to shift the public attention from ongoing economic and social difficulties, gross human rights violations and public outrage in Azerbaijan.

Since 1997 the conflict resolution has been mediated by three Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe  Russia, France and the United States. Several times the settlement was close, however, Azerbaijan made steps back at the last moment, most notably in Key West (USA) in 2001 and in Kazan (Russia) in 2011.

During the last years the negotiations are held on the Basic Principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution, the so called Madrid Principles, proposed by OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries. The Presidents of the Co-Chair countries issued five statements outlining that the settlement should be based on three core principles of international law  non use of force or threat of use of force, territorial integrity, equal rights and self-determination of people. They also stated that the future legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be determined by legally binding free expression of will of its population.

According to its longstanding position the European Union supports the efforts of the Co-Chairs, including the statements of the Presidents of the Co-Chair countries, that was once again reiterated in the EU Eastern Partnership Summit Declaration adopted in Riga.

The Co-Chairs proposed the civilized way of solving the issue through mutual compromises. However, Azerbaijan, here again has adopted a maximalist, uncompromising stance in an either our way or no way manner and openly threatens with new hostilities taking the negotiation process as a hostage, blackmailing and continuing constant profanation of the Co-Chairs.

Azerbaijan does everything to derail the agreements reached on the level of presidents on the expansion of the team of the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, which is currently the only international presence on the ground in the conflict zone, as well as creation of the mechanism for investigation of the ceasefire violations. Apparently, Azerbaijan wants to keep its hands free from the international scrutiny over its continuous non-compliance. However, even in the absence of the strong monitoring mechanisms it is clear who stands behind the breaches and the Co-Chairs have named Azerbaijan as the initiator of the ceasefire violations.

Given the defiant attitude of Azerbaijan towards international efforts a time has come for the international community for more tangible steps in order to curb Bakus provocative and destructive policy.

There is no alternative to the negotiations and Armenia will continue its efforts together with the Co-Chairs aimed at exclusively peaceful resolution of the conflict.
On the sidelines of his working visit to Rome, Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian on Thursday visited the Italian Society for International Organization operating under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy.

There Edward Nalbandian delivered a comprehensive lecture on Armenias foreign policy. The event was attended by the research center fellows, diplomats accredited in Rome, analysts and journalists, the press service of the Armenian MFA informed Armenian News  NEWS.am.

Before the lecture, FM Nalbandian met with Franco Frattini, President of the Italian Society for International Organization and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy. The sides discussed steps being undertaken for the developing the Armenian-Italian relations, as well as urgent regional and international issues.



In his speech, Nalbandian noted, in particular:

I would like to thank the Italian Society for International Organization and its president, my good old friend Franco Frattini, for organizing this meeting. I greatly appreciate the opportunities of exchanges within the academic circles and expert communities, which allow to not only present our thoughts and views, but also listen and comprehend. Therefore, I will start with a short introduction and then will encourage a Q&A session, in a more interactive manner.

The current warm ties between Armenia and Italy have deep historical roots that go all the way back to the Roman Empire. They especially strengthened after Armenia and then Rome adopted Christianity as a state religion. Last year His Holiness Pope Francis visited Armenia as a pilgrim to the first among the Nations to receive the Gospel of Jesus.

The Armenian Italian ties flourished in the Middle Ages, during active political and economic interactions between Cilician Armenian Kingdom and Genoa, Venice and Pisa. As an echo of those centuries-old close ties, the Italian House of Savoy retained the title King of Armenia till the modern times. Armenian Congregation of Mekhitaristsestablished on the island of San Lazzaro in Venice in 1717has long been regarded as one of the Armenian cultural centers. The first ever Armenian published book was printed in Italy in 1512. There are a lot of historic facts testifying to the close ties between our nations. I simply mentioned a few to give an overall idea. In modern times too, there were various Armenians, who were well known and played prominent roles in the Italian society.



The Armenian Italian relations gained new momentum after the independence of Armenia. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. During the past quarter of a century we have managed to forge strong partnership in wide array of fields ranging from the high level political dialogue to the economic cooperation, partnership in cultural, academic and many other fields. We have also formed a pretty comprehensive legal framework which comprises over thirty legal documents.



Armenia and Italy are jointly investing their efforts for the peace and security in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as well as in the Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. As nations with rich cultural and historical heritage, we successfully cooperate in the field of preservation of historical and cultural heritage.

Armenia is very much interested in further strengthening and deepening its ties with Italy. I am in Rome to attend the first session of the Armenian-Italian Intergovernmental Commission. During the visit of His Excellency Paolo Gentiloni to Armenia last year in his capacity as a foreign minister, we together agreed on establishing this important format to boost our economic relations. It was followed by a business forum. In the course of this visit, I also had a bilateral meeting with my colleague, Minister Alfano, Secretary for Relations with States of Holy See Gallagher, as well as members of the Italian Parliament.

The cooperation between Armenia and Italy goes beyond the bilateral framework and encompasses also the multilateral track, most notably the Eastern Partnership and European Neighborhood Policies of the European Union. We expect to sign the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the European Union at the EU Eastern Partnership Summit to be held in Brussels this fall, which defines the framework for active political dialogue, cooperation in many areas, dynamic trade and economic relations, and expanded sectoral cooperation. Once it is signed, Armeniaas a member of the Eurasian Economic Union encompassing 180 million strong marketscan further contribute both as a bridge in utilizing the available opportunities, providing its services and investment tools and as a platform for commercial transactions between EAEU and EU member states, particularly, Italy.

We are also looking forward to Italys upcoming Chairmanship in one of the most important regional Organizations  the OSCE, which we believe should continue to play a vital role in the current turbulent international affairs.
Armenia is deeply concerned over the evolving situation in its immediate neighborhood, in particular in Iraq and Syria, where the Armenian nation has historically had a significant presence.

Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian stated the aforesaid on Wednesday, during his lecture on Armenias foreign policy, and which he delivered before diplomats, analysts, and journalists in Rome.

The recent deadly tragic attacks in London, in other European cities and elsewhere vividly demonstrate that these phenomena are not just limited to the Middle East. However, it is our conviction that eliminating this scourge first and foremost requires eradication of its breeding ground and the root causes.

Armenia is deeply concerned over the evolving situation in our immediate neighborhood in Iraq and Syria, in particular in Iraq and Syria, where the Armenian nation has historically had a significant presence. On numerous occasions Armenia has condemned the crimes committed by Daesh and other terrorist groups, the FM said, adding that the war in Syria has a devastating impact on its civilian population, as well as national and religious, including Christian minorities.

The violence has not bypassed Syrian Armenians. Many of them were obliged to abandon their places of residence. From Syria alone more than 22 thousand refugees found shelter in Armenia, making our country the third largest recipient of Syrian refugees in Europe on per capita basis, he noted, stressing that Armenia also tries to reach out to the people who need assistance in Syria, continuously dispatching humanitarian relief that were not limited to Syrian Armenians.

In terms of international efforts, we believe that it is not possible to reach an agreement on Syria without all-inclusive political process that will take into account the interests of all Syrian fractions, with the exception of terrorist groups. Conditions should be secured to allow the people of Syria to express their position on the future of the country in a safer environment. The settlement should take into account the particular needs of most vulnerable groups, like ethnic and religious minorities. Efforts to protect and rehabilitate victimized communities should be supported irrespective of political and religious differences, the FM concluded
Once Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) - Get Free Report closes the $4.48 billion purchase of Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) , the telecom's Oath digital media unit could shed a large chunk of its staff.

Recode initially reported Wednesday that the combined company could cut up to 1,000 jobs. TechCrunchreported on Thursday that according to its sources, the two could terminate 2,100 employees, or about 15% of their combined global staff.

Shareholders of Yahoo! vote on the transaction Thursday at a special meeting in Santa Clara, Calif.

Shares of Verizon were down 0.5% to $46.27 on Thursday morning, while Yahoo! shares were jumping 7.4% to $54.29, as Alibaba (BABA) - Get Free Report , in which Yahoo! still holds a significant equity stake, soared on sharply higher guidance.

Verizon and AOL did not comment specifically on potential layoffs on Wednesday, but acknowledged that changes will come.

"With access to over 1 [billion] consumers upon close, we will be positioned to drive one of the most important platforms in the consumer brand space," an AOL spokesperson said. "Consistent with what we have said since the deal was announced, we will be aligning our global organization to the strategy."

The sale has already been arduous for Yahoo!. The company tested the market after agitation from activist shareholder Starboard value LP in early 2016.

After agreeing to a $4.8 billion sale in July 2016, Yahoo! disclosed a pair of massive subscriber hacks. The parties agreed to a $350 million price cut in February, though Verizon initially asked for nearly a $1 billion discount.

Verizon will rename its digital media unit Oath. The portfolio will include Yahoo! and its properties, AOL, Huffington Post and other brands.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong aims to grow Oath's combined user base from 1.3 billion consumers to 2 billion by 2020. Armstrong also targets $10 billion to $20 billion in sales by 2020.

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This artist's concept by Robert Hurt and Tim Pyle shows what the TRAPPIST-1 planetary system may look like, based on available data about the planets' diameters, masses and distances from the host star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The moon hanging in the night sky sent Robert Hurt's mind into deep spaceto a region some 40 light years away, in fact, where seven Earth-sized planets crowded close to a dim, red sun.

Hurt, a visualization scientist at Caltech's IPAC center, was walking outside his home in Mar Vista, California, shortly after he learned of the discovery of these rocky worlds around a star called TRAPPIST-1 and got the assignment to visualize them. The planets had been revealed by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ground-based observatories.

"I just stopped dead in my tracks, and I just stared at it," Hurt said in an interview. "I was imagining that could be, not our moon, but the next planet over - what it would be like to be in a system where you could look up and see continental features on the next planet."

So began a kind of inspirational avalanche. Hurt and his colleague, multimedia producer Tim Pyle, developed a series of arresting, photorealistic images of what the new system's tightly packed planets might look likeso tightly packed that they would loom large in each other's skies. Their visions of the TRAPPIST-1 system would appear in leading news outlets around the world.

Artists like Hurt and Pyle, who render vibrant visualizations based on data from Spitzer and other missions, are hybrids of sorts, blending expertise in both science and art. From squiggles on charts and columns of numbers, they conjure red, blue and green worlds, with half-frozen oceans or bubbling lava. Or they transport us to the surface of a world with a red-orange sun fixed in place, and a sky full of planetary companions.

"For the public, the value of this is not just giving them a picture of something somebody made up," said Douglas Hudgins, a program scientist for the Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These are real, educated guesses of how something might look to human beings. An image is worth a thousand words."

Hurt says he and Pyle are building on the work of artistic pioneers.

"There's actually a long history and tradition for space art and science-based illustration," he said. "If you trace its roots back to the artist Chesley Bonestell (famous in the 1950s and '60s), he really was the artist who got this idea: Let's go and imagine what the planets in our solar system might actually look like if you were, say, on Jupiter's moon, Io. How big would Jupiter appear in the sky, and what angle would we be viewing it from?"

To begin work on their visualizations, Hurt divided up the seven TRAPPIST-1 planets with Pyle, who shares an office with him at Caltech's IPAC center in Pasadena, California.

Hurt holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and has worked at the center since he was a post-doctoral researcher in 1996 - when astronomical art was just his hobby.

"They created a job for me," he said.

Pyle, whose background is in Hollywood special effects, joined Hurt in 2004.

This artist's concept by Tim Pyle allows us to imagine what it would be like to stand on the surface of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f, located in the TRAPPIST-1 system in the constellation Aquarius. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Hurt turns to Pyle for artistic inspiration, while Pyle relies on Hurt to check his science.

"Robert and I have our desks right next to each other, so we're constantly giving each other feedback," Pyle said. "We're each upping each other's game, I think."

The TRAPPIST-1 worlds offered both of them a unique challenge. The two already had a reputation for illustrating many exoplanets - planets around stars beyond our ownbut never seven Earth-sized worlds in a single system. The planets cluster so close to their star that a "year" on each of themthe time they take to complete a single orbitcan be numbered in Earth days.

And like the overwhelming majority of the thousands of exoplants found in our galaxy so far, they were detected using indirect means. No telescope exists today that is powerful enough to photograph them.

Real science informed their artistic vision. Using data from the telescopes that reveal each planet's diameter as well as its "weight," or mass, and known stellar physics to determine the amount of light each planet would receive, the artists went to work.

Both consulted closely with the planets' discovery team as they planned for a NASA announcement to coincide with a report in the journal Nature.

This artist's concept by Tim Pyle shows what the weather might look like on cool star-like bodies known as brown dwarfs. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Western Ontario/Stony Brook University

"When we're doing these artist's concepts, we're never saying, 'This is what these planets actually look like,'" Pyle said. "We're doing plausible illustrations of what they could look like, based on what we know so far. Having this wide range of seven planets actually let us illustrate almost the whole breadth of what would be plausible. This was going to be this incredible interstellar laboratory for what could happen on an Earth-sized planet."

For TRAPPIST-1b, Pyle took Jupiter's volcanic moon, Io, as an inspiration, based on suggestions from the science team. For the outermost world, TRAPPIST-1h, he chose two other Jovian moons, the ice-encased Ganymede and Europa.

After talking to the scientists, Hurt portrayed TRAPPIST-1c as dry and rocky. But because all seven planets are probably tidally locked, forever presenting one face to their star and the other to the cosmos, he placed an ice cap on the dark side.

TRAPPIST-1d was one of three that fall inside the "habitable zone" of the star, or the right distance away from it to allow possible liquid water on the surface.

"The researchers told us they would like to see it portrayed as something they called an 'eyeball world,'" Hurt said. "You have a dry, hot side that's facing the star and an ice cap on the back side. But somewhere in between, you have (a zone) where the ice could melt and be sustained as liquid water."

At this point, Hurt said, art intervened. The scientists rejected his first version of the planet, which showed liquid water intruding far into the "dayside" of TRAPPIST-1d. They argued that the water would most likely be found well within the planet's dark half.

NASA's Kepler mission discovered a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one, called Kepler-16b. Robert Hurt did this illustration of this fascinating world. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"Then I kind of pushed back, and said, 'If it's on the dark side, no one can look at it and understand we're saying there's water there,'" Hurt said. They struck a compromise: more water toward the dayside than the science team might expect, but a better visual representation of the science.

The same push and pull between science and art extends to other forms of astronomical visualization, whether it's a Valentine's Day cartoon of a star pulsing like a heart in time with its planet, or materials for the blockbuster announcement of the first detection of gravitational waves by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in February 2016. They've also illustrated asteroids, neutron stars, pulsars and brown dwarfs.

Visualizations based on data can also inform science, leading to genuine scientific insights. The scientists' conclusions about TRAPPIST-1 at first seemed to suggest the planets would be bathed in red light, potentially obscuring features like blue-hued bodies of water.

"It makes it hard to really differentiate what is going on," Hurt said.

Hurt decided to investigate. A colleague provided him with a spectrum of a red dwarf star similar to TRAPPIST-1. He overlaid that with the "responsivity curves" of the human eye, and found that most of the scientists' "red" came from infrared light, invisible to human eyes. Subtract that, and what is left is a more reddish-orange hue that we might see standing on the surface of a TRAPPIST-1 world"kind of the same color you would expect to get from a low-wattage light bulb," Hurt said. "And the scientists looked at that and said, 'Oh, ok, great, it's orange.' When the math tells you the answer, there really isn't a lot to argue about."

For Hurt, the real goal of scientific illustration is to excite the public, engage them in the science, and provide a snapshot of scientific knowledge.

"If you look at the whole history of space art, reaching back many, many decades, you will find you have a visual record," he said. "The art is a historical record of our changing understanding of the universe. It becomes a part of the story, and a part of the research, I think."

Provided by NASA
Astronomers from the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands) explain with a model how seven earth-sized planets could have been formed in the planetary system Trappist-1 (here an artistic impression). The crux is on the line where ice changes in water. Credit: NASA/R. Hurt/T. Pyle

Astronomers from the University of Amsterdam have offered an explanation for the formation of the Trappist-1 planetary system. The system has seven planets as big as the Earth that orbit close to their star. The crux, according to the researchers from the Netherlands, is the line where ice changes in water. Near that ice line, pebbles that drifted from outer regions to the star receive an additional portion of water and clot together to form proto-planets. The article with the model has been accepted for publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

In February 2017, an international team of astronomers announced the discovery of a system of seven exoplanets around a small star, Trappist-1 (see report on eso.org). It was against the prevailing theories of planet formation that so many relatively large planets orbited so close around a small star. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam now come up with a model that explains how the planetary system could have originated.

Until now, there were two prevailing theories for the formation of planets. The first theory assumes that planets are formed more or less on the spot where they are now. With Trappist-1, that is unlikely because the disk from which the planets had originated should have been very dense. The second theory assumes that a planet forms much further out in the disk and migrates inward afterwards. This theory also causes problems with Trappist-1 because it does not explain why the planets are all about the same size as the Earth.

Now, the Amsterdam researchers come up with a model where pebbles migrate instead of complete planets. The model begins with pebbles that are floating from outside regions to the star. Such pebbles consist largely of ice. When the pebbles arrive near the so-called ice line, the point where it is warm enough for liquid water, they get an additional portion of water vapor to process. As a result, they clot together into a proto-planet. Then the proto-planet moves a little closer to the star. On its way it sweeps up more pebbles like a vacuum cleaner, until it reaches the size of the Earth. The planet then moves in a little further and makes room for the formation of the next planet.

The crux, according to the researchers, is in the clotting of pebbles near the ice line. By crossing the ice line, pebbles lose their water ice. But that water is re-used by the following load of pebbles that is drifting from the outer regions of the dust disk. At Trappist-1, this process repeated until seven planets were formed.

Research leader Chris Ormel (University of Amsterdam): "For us, Trappist-1 with its seven planets, came as a welcome surprise. We have been working on pebble aggregation and sweepup by planets for a long time and were also developing a new ice-line model. Thanks to the discovery of Trappist-1 we can compare our model with reality."

In the near future, the Amsterdam researchers want to refine their model. They will run computer simulations to see how their model withstands different initial conditions.

The researchers still expect some discussion among fellow astronomers. The model is quite revolutionary because the pebbles travel from the outer part of the disk to the ice line without much activity in between. Ormel: "I hope that our model will help answer the question about how unique our own solar system is compared to other planetary systems."

More information: "Formation of TRAPPIST-1 and other compact systems." Chris W. Ormel, Beibei Liu & Djoeke Schoonenberg. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201730826 . Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/1703.06924 Journal information: Astronomy & Astrophysics
This elephant is wearing a GPS-fitted collar, but the shockwave sensor will be added. Credit: Save the Elephants

Kenyan elephants will get more protection from poachers thanks to new Vanderbilt University technology embedded in their tracking collarsballistic shockwave sensors that send coordinates to authorities immediately after detecting gunshots.

The new system is the first use of shockwave detection technology in the intensified push to thwart illegal trafficking and save endangered African elephants. Dubbed WIPER, the project got a significant boost June 7 with awarding of a $200,000 grant from the Vodafone Americas Foundation.

The project is a joint effort between Vanderbilt computer engineering faculty and Colorado State University, which has used GPS in tracking collars for years to study and protect elephants, slaughtered by the thousands for their ivory tusks.

Elephant poachers routinely use devices to muzzle the sound from their high-powered weapons, but the blast also produces an acoustic shockwave, which cannot be suppressed. WIPER technology detects that a bullet flew by a protected elephant and sends an alarm with its location.

Vanderbilt University Professor of Computer Engineering Akos Ledeczi teamed up with George Wittemyer of Colorado State University, who is also chairman of the scientific board of Save the Elephants. The Kenya-based organization has collared more than 1,000 elephants.

The slaughter of elephants and other iconic African animals is fueled by rising demand for ivory in parts of the Far East. As demand increases, prices skyrocket and make illegal trafficking a lucrative, if risky, option. Save the Elephants estimates that 100,000 elephants were killed for their tusks between 2010 and 2012 alone as poaching efforts migrated from the Central African forests to East Africa.

Ledeczi's expertise is in acoustic shooter detection, localization and classification. He and his team have received major grants from DARPA and built multiple wireless sensor nodes to detect and locate the source of gunfire.

"Our aim is to make WIPER open-source, freely available to all collar manufacturers, so that it can become a common feature in all wildlife tracking devices," said Ledeczi, who also has received a Vanderbilt Discover Grant to support the project.

The Vodafone grant will support prototype development and field-testing for shot detection accuracy and power requirements. Next will be integrating the sensor with an existing commercial GPS collar, manufactured by partner Savannah Tracking of Kenya.

Field studies with collared elephants in Northern Kenya follow. The goal is battery power that lasts 12 months. At that point, the team envisions sensor-enabled collars on 100 elephants each year. WIPER needs only a few sensor collars per herd, because each one can cover all wildlife within a 50-meter radius.
Credit: European Commission DG ECHO / flickr, CC BY-SA

Of the 186 countries assessed in a recent survey of climate vulnerability, Chad was rated most in peril. A combination of high poverty, frequent conflicts, and the risk of both droughts and floods means the central African nation is bottom of the list, just below Bangladesh and some way behind Norway, the country least vulnerable to climate change.

So why Chad? For a start, it is one of the poorest countries in the world. Around 87% of Chadians are classified as poor, according to the Multidimentional Poverty Index, which factors in health, education and living standards. That's the fourth highest rate in the world. The percentage who are "destitute" (63%), the most extreme category of poverty, is also the fourth highest in the world.

This is exacerbated by the fact that the country has been in civil war or conflict for 35 out of the 57 years since it gained independence from France.

Any poor or conflict-prone country will always be vulnerable, but Chad's geography means climate change is a particular risk. Chad is bigger than many Westerners may realise. At 1.28m km it's larger than Nigeria and twice the size of Texas. Around 90% of its 10m people live in the southern half of the country, as most of the northern half extends well into the Sahara desert.

Most Chadians base their livelihoods on subsistence farming and livestock rearing. The semi-arid rangelands of the Sahel, in the north of the country, provide pasture for livestock during the rainy season, while the fertile agricultural fields in the south produce most of the cash and food crops. When the dry season begins, pastoralists move their herds south to feed on the leftovers of the agricultural harvest.

Chad's changing climate

Since the mid-20th century, temperatures in Chad have been increasing while rainfall is decreasing. Ninety percent of the country's largest lake, Lake Chad, has disappeared over the past 50 years due to a combination of droughts and increasing withdrawals for irrigation. Climate studies project things will get increasingly hot and arid throughout the 21st century, which means lower crop yields, worse pasture, and a harder life for anyone dependent on Lake Chad.

Rural areas are most at risk from climate change because that's where most of the population, and most of the poverty, is found. However, urban areas are not safe either, as the country's growing cities struggle to accommodate the arrival of new residents. Sanitation services like sewage, storm water drainage and waste collection are poor, according to the World Bank. In the event of floods, as happened in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the infrastructure cannot cope and untreated sewage could infect the water supply, creating a high risk of infectious diseases such as cholera.

The landlocked country stretches from the Sahara to Cameroon. Credit: TUBS / wiki, CC BY-SA

Demographic challenges

Chad's population is mostly young, and high youth unemployment has already caused unrest in the capital N'djamena. Vulnerability to climate is made worse by civil unrest or conflict because people cannot receive the help they need during climate-related disasters such as droughts or floods.

Chad also hosts some 300,000 refugees from Darfur on its eastern border with Sudan, according to UN figures, while an additional 67,000 refugees from the Central African Republic are in camps on its southern border. These refugees consume Chad's limited resources and sometimes compete with the local population. This creates resentment and sometimes violence between the refugees and their hosts.

To make matters worse, the Boko Haram crisis in northeastern Nigeria has spilled over to the Lac region of Chad, which now has more than 60,000 displaced people registered there and several thousand more that are unregistered. This is worrying as the country's unemployed youth, restless and with plenty of time on their hands, could be at risk of recruitment and radicalisation by Boko Haram.

The way forward

Despite these challenges, there are ways to mitigate the effect of climate change. For instance, farmers in Chad's semi-arid Sahelian zone have been using an indigenous rainwater harvesting technique called Zai to successfully grow crops. Zai involves the digging of small pits and sowing crops in them. The pits retain water for a long period of time and are particularly efficient when there isn't much rain.

The Zai technique was enhanced by introducing manure and compost into the pits to provide nutrients to the crops. This helped rehabilitate soils that are heavily degraded and significantly increased the yields of food crops.

Agroforestry, the combining of crops and trees in the same patch of land, can also help mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change. Tree roots stabilise soils and protect them from eroding during heavy rainfall, while also restoring fertility simply by producing litter which eventually makes its way back into the earth.

Of course, any country would be better placed to deal with climate change if it simply became much wealthier. Chad began producing petroleum in 2003, and it now accounts for 93% of all exports. However, this left the country vulnerable to declines in oil prices. So, when the price did indeed crash in late 2014, Chad suffered a significant loss of revenue. Needless to say, the impact of climate-related disasters such as droughts or floods becomes magnified if the country does not have the resources to combat them.

Chad cannot rely on oil forever. Farming is still the mainstay of its economy and, in the longer term, developing sustainable agriculture and livestock farming will be key in providing employment and maintaining food security.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation run by Apple employees selling computer and phone users' personal data.

Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation involving the sale of Apple users' personal data.

Twenty-two people have been detained on suspicion of infringing individuals' privacy and illegally obtaining their digital personal information, according to a statement Wednesday from police in southern Zhejiang province.

Of the 22 suspects, 20 were employees of an Apple "domestic direct sales company and outsourcing company".

The suspects allegedly used an internal company computer system to gather users' names, phone numbers, Apple IDs, and other data, which they sold as part of a scam worth more than 50 million yuan ($7.36 million).

The statement referred to "domestic employees of Apple" but it was unclear whether they were directly employed by the company or by Apple suppliers or vendors. It also did not specify whether the data belonged to Chinese or foreign Apple customers.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the matter. The local police did not respond to requests for comment.

Following months of investigation, the statement said, police across more than four provincesGuangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujianapprehended the suspects over the weekend, seizing their "criminal tools" and dismantling their online network.

The suspects allegedly charged between 10 yuan ($1.50) and 180 yuan ($26.50) for pieces of the illegally extracted data.

The sale of personal information is common in China, which implemented on June 1 a controversial new cybersecurity law aimed at protecting the country's networks and private user information.

In December, an investigation by the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper exposed a black market for private data gathered from police and government databases.

Reporters successfully obtained a trove of material on one colleagueincluding flight history, hotel checkouts and property holdingsin exchange for a payment of 700 yuan ($100).

 2017 AFP
A composite image of the Western hemisphere of the Earth. Credit: NASA

While climate change is expected to lead to more violence related to food scarcity, new research suggests that the strength of a country's government plays a vital role in preventing uprisings.

"A capable government is even more important to keeping the peace than good weather," said Bear Braumoeller, co-author of the study and associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

While previous studies had examined the impact of climate change-induced weather patterns on violence and the increased danger of violence in weak or failing states, this is the first study to demonstrate that the combination of the two risk factors is even more dangerous than they would be separately.

Braumoeller conducted the study with his former doctoral students Benjamin Jones, now at the University of Mississippi, and Eleonora Mattiacci, now at Amherst College.

Their results appear in the Journal of Peace Research.

"We've already started to see climate change as an issue that won't just put the coasts under water, but as something that could cause food riots in some parts of the world," Braumoeller said.

Extreme weather such as droughts and floods could hurt agricultural production in some countries, leading to violence there or elsewhere by people who are desperate for food.

"Climate-induced food scarcity is going to become an increasingly big issue and we wanted to understand which countries are most threatened by it," he said.

The researchers estimated the effects of food insecurity and state vulnerability on the occurrence of violent uprisings in Africa for the years 1991 to 2011.

The researchers used a variety of measurements for both food shocks that lead to violence and to gauge the vulnerability of countries.

For the climate-related causes of food shocks, the researchers analyzed rainfall, temperature and - importantly - the international prices of food, including sudden increases in prices.

"We recognized that countries that imported food could be impacted by climate shocks in other parts of the world that suddenly increased prices, even if they weren't experiencing any significant weather impacts themselves," Braumoeller said.

When examining countries' vulnerabilities, the researchers analyzed a host of factors including a country's dependence on agricultural production, its imports, the strength of its political institutions and its wealth.

"We found that the most vulnerable countries are those that have weak political institutions, are relatively poor and rely more on agriculture," he said.

"Less vulnerable countries can better handle the problems that droughts or food price fluctuations create."

These results suggest ways that the United States and the worldwide community can respond to these challenges.

Addressing the vulnerabilities of countries is "crucial to breaking the link between food insecurity and violence," Braumoeller said.

That means more than providing food aid to offset shortages in the short-term. More broadly, efforts should be focused on strengthening government institutions in vulnerable countries and helping them invest in "green growth" policies aimed at increasing economic growth while fostering resilience to climate shocks, he said.

"Development aid is important now and it is likely to be even more important in the future as we look for ways to increase climate resilience," Braumoeller said.

More information: Benjamin T Jones et al. Food scarcity and state vulnerability: Unpacking the link between climate variability and violent unrest, Journal of Peace Research (2017). DOI: 10.1177/0022343316684662
Credit: University of Bern

The difficult yet successful measurement of several isotopes of the noble gas xenon on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using the Bernese instrument ROSINA on the Rosetta probe shows that materials arrived on Earth due to comet impacts. As proven by further Bern measurements of silicon isotopes, in the beginning our solar system was extremely heterogeneous. The high amount of so-called "heavy" water also shows that cometary ice is older than our solar system.

Xenon is a colourless, odourless gas that makes up far less than one millionth of the volume of the entire earth's atmosphere. As a noble gas, it rarely reacts with other elements and thus has a relatively stable atomic state. It is therefore a relatively accurate representation of the conditions that existed during the formation of our solar system. Xenon can also help to answer the age-old question about comets: does material on Earth come from comet impacts and if so, to what extent?

A research team led by Kathrin Altwegg at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern was able to show that the xenon composition on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is very similar to the "indigenous xenon" first posited 40 years ago, which arrived on our planet from beyond shortly after the formation of our solar system. These measurements, which will now be published in Science, show that around one fifth of indigenous xenon originates from comets. This means that for the first time ever we can draw a quantitative link between comets and the earth's atmosphere.

Stellar fingerprint

Xenon is formed in many different stellar processes, including supernova explosions. Each of these phenomena leads to a typical distribution of xenon isotopes, a specific "fingerprint". Due to its many isotopes from various stellar processes, xenon gives an important indication of indigenous materials that make up our solar system. Xenon isotopes were measured in Earth's and Mars' atmospheres, in meteorites originating from asteroids, on Jupiter and in solar wind  the flow of charged particles from the sun. The composition of xenon in the earth's atmosphere has more heavy than light isotopes, as light isotopes can escape the earth's gravitational field into space. By correcting this effect, researchers in the 1970s calculated the original composition of this noble gas, the so-called indigenous xenon that once dominated the earth's atmosphere. This indigenous xenon contains far fewer heavy isotopes and the composition of the light isotopes is equal to that of xenon coming from asteroids and the sun. It was therefore believed that indigenous xenon in the earth's early atmosphere had a different origin compared to the at the time observed objects in the solar system. This is now confirmed by ROSINA measurements on the Rosetta probe at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, an icy "fossil" from the early solar system.

Difficult mission

"The search for xenon on comets was probably one of the most important and most difficult measurements by ROSINA", says Kathrin Altwegg, ROSINA project leader at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) of the University of Bern. "The fact that we have solved a part of a 40-year old mystery in doing so makes it all the more rewarding". Xenon is extremely rare in the already thin atmosphere of the comet. The Rosetta probe thus had to fly really close to the comet for weeks  7 to 10 km from the centre  so that ROSINA could pick up sufficient signal for a clear measurement of the seven most common isotopes. The risk with this was that the dense cloud of dust surrounding the comet could have tripped the probe's navigation system. ROSINA managed to identify seven xenon isotopes as well as various other noble gases. Analysis of the data showed that the cometary xenon that was frozen during the formation of the comet differs from the composition found in the solar system as well as from the composition found today in the earth's atmosphere. The composition of the cometary xenon is most likely equal to that of the posited indigenous xenon in Earth's early atmosphere. However, there are certain differences between both compositions which leads researchers to believe that the original xenon comes partly from comets and partly from asteroids: "For the first time we were able to establish a quantitative link between comets and our earth's atmosphere  according to which 22 percent of the earth's original, atmospheric xenon originates from comets, whilst the rest comes from asteroids" summarises Altwegg.

No contradiction to water

These findings do not contradict ROSINA's isotope measurement in the water on the comet which was significantly different to that of indigenous water. As xenon is only available in traces in the atmosphere whilst Earth contains vast quantities of water in the oceans and atmosphere, comets could have definitely contributed to the xenon found on Earth without changing the indigenous water too much. "The xenon findings also support the idea that organic material came to Earth through comets  such as phosphorous and the amino acid glycine which were both found on the comet by ROSINA  which was potentially crucial for the evolution of life on Earth" says Altwegg. Ultimately, the difference between the cometary xenon and the xenon found in the solar system indicates that the so-called protosolar nebula that lead to the formation of the sun, planets and small bodies, was a chemically rather heterogeneous place. "This supports earlier measurements by ROSINA such as the unexpected discovery of molecular oxygen (O2) or molecular sulphur (S2)" says Altwegg.

Second publication confirms findings

In another publication, a research group led by Martin Rubin (CSH) was able to show that silicon on the comet does not show the average isotope ratio of our solar system. The ROSINA data thus shows that material from the early solar system originates from various predecessor stars. As with xenon, this means that the chemical composition of the early solar system was heterogeneous, thus not "uniformly" mixed as previously believed. The second publication appears in Astronomy and Astrophysics. ROSINA had already discovered silicon atoms in the gas envelope of the comet early in the mission. These silicon atoms were sputtered off of the surface of the comet by the impacting solar wind. A precise analysis by Martin Rubin from the CSH has now shown that silicon isotopes also exhibit an anomaly when compared with solar silicon. The heavy silicon isotopes are less common in comparison to the mix found near the sun and meteorites. This suggests that comets are formed in an area of the protosolar nebula that shows a non-solar chemical composition  and thus has potentially taken on material from another star or supernova in the vicinity.

Even cometary water comes from beyond

A third publication also published recently proves definitively with the use of hydrogen isotopes that cometary water  so-called "heavy" water (D2O)  was formed before the formation of the solar system and was frozen as pre-solar ice in comets. These findings were published in a special edition of "Philosophical Transaction of the Royal Society, London".

"Our findings in all three studies have fulfilled the main aim of the Rosetta mission, namely to find quantitative indication of the formation of the earth and our solar system for the first time" says Altwegg.

More information: Marty, B., Altwegg, K., Balsiger, H., Bar-Nun, A., Bekaert, D., Berthelier, J.-J., Bieler, A., Briois, C., Calmonte, U., Combi, M., De Keyser, J., Fiethe, B., Fuselier, S. A., Gasc, S., Gombosi, T. I., Hansen, K. C., Hassig, M., Jackel, A., Kopp, E., Korth, A., Le Roy, L., Mall, U., Mousis, O., Owen, T., Reme, H., Rubin, M., Semon, T., Tzou, C.-Y., Waite, J. H., and Wurz, P.: Xenon isotopes in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko show comets contributed to Earth's atmosphere, Science, science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi  1126/science.aal3496 Rubin, M., Altwegg, K., Balsiger, H., Berthelier, J.-J., Bieler, A., Calmonte, U., Combi, M., De Keyser, J., Engrand, C., Fiethe, B., Fuselier, S. A., Gasc, S., Gombosi, T. I., Hansen, K. C., Hassig, M., Le Roy, L., Mezger, K., Tzou, C.-Y., Wampfler, S. F., and Wurz, P.: Depletion of the heavy silicon isotopes measured at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Astron. Astrophys., 17 May 2017, DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201730584. Altwegg, K., Balsiger, H., Berthelier, J.-J., Bieler, A., Calmonte, U., De Keyser, J., Fiethe, B., Fuselier, S. A., Gasc, S., Gombosi, T. I., Owen, T., Le Roy, L., Rubin, M., Semon, T., and Tzou, C.-Y.: D2O and HDS in the coma of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, [Cometary science after Rosetta, Editors: Geraint Jones, Matthew Knight, Alan Fitzsimmons and Matt Taylor, Online, May 2017], in press. Journal information: Science
Illustration of one of the two protocetid species from Togo. Credit: Drawing  M.J. Orliac, based on the reconstruction of the skull drawn by Roisin Mourlam.

Whales rely on a keen sense of hearing for their underwater existence. But whales show surprisingly vast differences in hearing ability. Baleen whales tune into infrasonic soundsat frequencies too low for humans to hearto communicate over long distances. Toothed whales do just the opposite, relying on ultrasonic frequencies too high for humans to hear.

Now researchers reporting in Current Biology on June 8 have fossil evidence from extinct early whale species to suggest that those differences in hearing arose only after whales evolved into the fully aquatic animals we know today. That's based on their findings that whales known as protocetes, which spent time both in water and on land, appear to have hearing more like their terrestrial, even-toed ungulate relatives, including pigs, hippos, and camels.

"We found that the cochlea of protocetes was distinct from that of extant whales and dolphins and that they had hearing capacities close to those of their terrestrial relatives," says Maeva Orliac of CNRS and Universite de Montpellier in France.

Protocetes' lack of hearing specialization suggests that the early whales were unable to echolocate and communicate through long-distance calls in the way that modern-day cetaceans, the group including whales and dolphins, do.

The researchers came to those conclusions based on studies of 45-million-year-old protocetid whale remains found in marine deposits from Togo in West Africa. The researchers studied the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity that would have housed the hearing organ, in two species of early whales.

A 3-D model of the virtual reconstruction of the bony labyrinth. Credit: Mourlam and Orliac

Orliac and her colleague Mickael Mourlam used micro-CT scanning to peer inside the internal structures of rocks and fossils, in much the same way that an X-ray scanner makes it possible to see bones inside a person's body. Those images allowed them to analyze the internal cavities of the petrosal bone, which shelters the organs of hearing and balance.

"Based on the scans provided by the scanner, we could extract a virtual mold of the hollow cavity that used to contain the hearing organ when the animal was alive," Orliac says. "This process was long and difficult because this cavity was filled with sediments and partly recrystallized and because the petrosal bone in cetaceans is particularly thick and dense, which lowers the quality of the images and sometimes impedes analyzing them."

Nevertheless, the scans suggest that early cetaceans had hearing closer to that of their terrestrial relatives. Specialization to infrasonic or ultrasonic hearing as seen in modern whales came only later, in whales that had already found their way back to the sea.

The findings highlight the importance of studying these early cetaceans to get an accurate picture of whales' evolutionary history. It also suggests that whales' evolutionary past is more complicated than had previously been described, the researchers say.

Orliac says they'll be back in field in Togo in December to search for additional protocetid whale specimens. They've so far described two of three species identified in Togo based on dental remains. They hope to find a specimen that will allow them to explore the ear of the third.
Facebook says it's bringing closed captioning to Facebook Live to make at least some of the videos streamed live on the social network accessible to people who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Not all Live videos will have closed captions, but if captioning settings are turned on, Facebook users will automatically see closed captions on Live broadcasts when they're available, Facebook's director of accessibility Jeffrey Wieland told USA TODAY. Facebook videos that are not live-streamed already had this capability, but only if the publishers offer captions.

The move is part of the broader push at Facebook to make more of its content accessible to more people. More than 5% of the world's population, about 360 million people, are deaf and hard of hearing. About 30 million people in the U.S. have some degree of hearing loss, a figure that's likely to increase as the population ages.

"It's absolutely an imperative for the deaf and hard of hearing community so our hope really is that we can continue to build more and more tools in the captioning space that increase the amount of videos that have captioning both real time and otherwise," Wieland said.

Too often people who are deaf and hard of hearing are unable to watch online video clips because the captioning is wildly inaccurate or because there is no captioning at all. The accuracy of captions for live television and Internet are frequently even worse.

Captions are a key accessibility tool, says Rikki Poynter, a 25-year-old deaf YouTuber who advocates for more and better closed captioning.

"We want and need to be able to understand online content especially if these videos contain information like weather announcements and forecasts, anything regarding politics, etc. Obviously, all online content being captioned is important to me, but it's extra important when it can cause an effect on our lives," Poynter said in an email. "Also, we just want to watch fun videos, too."

Closed captioning is mandated on television but not on the Internet. It was developed in the 1970s to make television accessible to deaf and hard of hearing viewers but is also widely used by people who have no hearing difficulties. In fact, Wieland says Facebook has found that people engage more with videos that have captions.

Facebook said it does not know how many of its videos have closed captions. That's because the responsibility for providing the captions falls on video publishers.

Starting in 2014, Facebook made it possible for publishers to add closed captions via a text file when uploading videos to their pages. Publishers can also use Facebook's speech recognition service to generate automatic captions for videos on their pages that can then be edited. Facebook says it's exploring technology to improve captioning on video.

With the latest updates to Facebook Live, publishers who have their own captioning technology will be able to add captions to Live videos, Wieland said. Publishers who don't create their own captions can work with vendors to insert captions into Live broadcasts, he said.

"I think it's a great idea. It's something that people have been wanting for YouTube live broadcasts, but haven't been able to get it," Poynter said. "I'm very interested in seeing how the live captions on Facebook streams will work."

Closed captions, like other accessibility features, were an afterthought for much of the Internet. But tech companies are under growing pressure to address the pervasive lack of accessibility as the world's population grows and ages and as more of everyday life takes place online. Dependent on growth, these companies cannot afford to overlook large swaths of the population.

They also could face some legal exposure. It's unclear if websites and mobile apps are legally required to provide equal access to people with disabilities under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act which became law before the Internet was as ubiquitous as it is today. But consumers and their advocates are filing lawsuits, claiming tech companies have just as much of a legal obligation to make their services accessible.

The challenge for companies like Facebook and Google's YouTube: the growing number of online video clips flooding those services. More and more, these companies are leaning on artificial intelligence to automatically generate captions or on community members to volunteer captions.

YouTube first launched closed captions in 2006. Three years later it began using automatic speech recognition to add closed captioning to YouTube videos. YouTube users watch videos with these captions many millions of times each day, but the captions are too often riddled with errors. Poynter's campaign #NoMoreCraptions called out "crappy" captions on YouTube.

Google's automatic captions have improved over the years, she says, so the words are mostly correct but the grammar still isn't. "Everything is a run-on sentence and there's no punctuation," Poynter said.

One of the worst problems, she says, are community contributed captions.

"Some of the biggest YouTubers use that method to get captions and a lot of people will write in unnecessary (and sometimes very, very rude) commentary about the YouTuber or things in general. It's not what captions are for. It's one thing when everything is written incorrectly as far as grammar and stuff goes, but to deliberately add in such content is worse," Poynter said.

RELATED:

Facebook says it's a business imperative to build close captioning tools for video. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has predicted that videos will become a primary way that people share on Facebook in coming years.

"We have always felt that our mission of connecting everybody in the world means everyone. And in order for us to include people who are deaf and hard of hearing as equal members of our platform, we have to build great captioning tools for them," Wieland said. "My hope is that we get to a point as an industry that it is simply the default experience that videos come with closed captioning. We certainly have a ways to go, but I'm optimistic."

Poynter urges Facebook and other major tech companies to accelerate their efforts.

"Any big companies that read this article (including Google, YouTube, and Facebook), please work on bettering captions," she said. "We've gotten better than what it was years ago when stuff first came out, but there's still more work to be done!"

2017 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
An aeolid nudibranch moves along coral in Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. Credit: Cat Holloway

The Government of Fiji has made a commitment to gazette two large Marine Managed Areas (MMAs) within Fiji's Vatu-i-Ra Seascapea highly diverse and productive area vital to both people and wildlife alike.

During his address at the United Nations Ocean Conference in New York City, Fiji's Minister for the Ministry of Fisheries, Mr. Semi Koroilavesau announced that Fiji is committed to scaling up MMAs in Fiji, including the Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. The Ministry is working to designate the Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs, spanning an area of 13,650 square kilometers.

The move will help protect a host of wildlife species that use the ecologically unique and bountiful Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. This includes migratory humpback whales that migrate from Antarctica to the area to breed, colorful vibrant corals, sharks, rays, more than 200 fish species and regionally significant seabird populations. A second commitment on protecting marine mammals in Fiji reinforces the commitment to gazette the Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs to, protect and sustainably manage known humpback whale migration, breeding and calving areas.

"The area boasts a remarkably biodiverse array of species, both permanent and transient," said Dr. Sangeeta Mangubhai, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Fiji Country Program. "The seascape provides for the plants and animals, and the plants and animals provide for the people in the form of food, livelihoods, coastal protection and reduction of climate change impacts."

Soft corals, crinoids and anthias fish are in the Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. Credit: Cat Holloway

Among some of the other benefits provided by Vatu-i-Ra Seascape are annual tourism dollars US $22.8M and fisheries valued at US 11.6 M. There are seamounts of cultural importance, and breeding grounds for sharks, rays, turtles and a range of coral reef and pelagic fish species.

However, unsustainable harvesting of fish, an increasing human population, growing demand for goods, and market access has led to increased pressure on the area's natural resources. Unless overfishing and land-based impacts is addressed, the seascape is projected to rise to a medium to high threat level by 2030, according to the global assessment "Reefs at Risk" by the World Resources Institute.

The Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs will contribute to an ecological network of MMAs in Fiji aimed at restoring and preserving the health, productivity, and diversity of Fiji's coastal and marine systems.

Grey Reef Shark is one of many species that breed in the Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. Credit: Cat Holloway

Said Dr. Mangubhai, "With our community partners and the government of Fiji, we celebrate this special announcement. It is critical that we decrease the pressure we are putting on our ocean, and create a sustainable balance."

"The Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs will be the first for Fiji's archipelagic waters and will contribute an additional 1.2 percent to Fiji's international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, "said the Honorable Mr Semi Koroilavesau, Minister for Fisheries. "The MMAs showcase Fiji's drive to attain key achievements on protected areas and efforts towards Sustainable Development Goal 14 to Conserve and Sustainably Use the Oceans, Seas and Marine Resources for Sustainable Development. "This is our home-our health, wealth and wellbeing is intricately connected to the health of our ocean."
Shells from muddy sediment collected on the western Palos Verdes shelf off the coast of southern California. The shells are from the scallop Chlamys hastata. Credit: Prof. Susan Kidwell

Paleontologists investigating the sea bed off the coast of southern California have discovered a lost ecosystem that for thousands of years had nurtured communities of scallops and shelled marine organisms called brachiopods.

These brachiopods and scallops had thrived along a section of coast stretching approximately 250 miles from San Diego to Santa Barbara for at least 4,000 years. But they had died off by the early 20th century, replaced by the mud-dwellling burrowing clams that inhabit this seabed today. Paleontologists Adam Tomasovych of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Susan Kidwell of the University of Chicago examine the lost ecosystem in a study published online June 7 in the Royal Society Proceedings B.

Evidence indicates that the brachiopod and scallop die-off occurred in less than a century. Because this community disappeared before biologists started sampling the seafloor, its existence was unknown and unsuspected. Only dead shells remain, permitting analysis by paleontologists.

"This loss unfolded during the 19th century, thus well before urbanization and climate warming," said Kidwell, the William Rainey Harper Professor in Geophysical Sciences. "The disappearance of these abundant filter-feeding animals coincided with the rise of lifestock and cultivation in coastal lands, which increased silt deposition on the continental shelf, far beyond the lake and nearshore settings where we would expect this stress to have an impact."

Continental shelves, the submerged shoulders of the continents, are a worldwide phenomenon. They form a distinct environment separated by a steep slope from the much deeper and vaster expanse of ocean floor beyond, and provide key habitats for biodiversity and fisheries.

Seabed studies

The seabed off southern California is one of the most thoroughly studied in the world, but in applying geologic methods to modern biological samples of the sea floor, Kidwell and Tomasovych encountered unsuspected results. Today that seabed consists of soft sediments, where creatures such as segmented worms, crustaceans, molluscs, crabs and urchins feed on organic matter.

This is a fundamentally different ecosystem than the one that preceded it not so long ago, said Tomasovych, who heads the Department of Paleoecology and Organismal Evolution at the Slovak Academy.

"The methods applied here provide crucial information on ecosystem response to natural and human pressures over otherwise inaccessible timescales," he said.

In pioneering these methods since the 2000s, Kidwell and her associates have fostered the field of conservation paleobiology. Their work has shown that misfits between live populations and the shells they leave behind on modern sea floors do not signal poor preservation. The differences instead indicate a recent ecological shiftone usually driven by human activities such as pollution or sea-floor dredging.

Tomasovych and Kidwell based their new study on the analysis of samples and data collected from multiple sources. They have conducted their own research on the sea floor off southern California, but they've also benefited from samples and monitoring data that other scientists have collected from the area since 1954.

Brachiopods and scallops, which prefer cold waters and a gravelly environment, range from the U.S.-Mexico border to the Gulf of Alaska. Tomasovych and Kidwell eliminated climate warming as a likely culprit in their ecosystem collapse, given that large populations of brachiopods persist near Catalina Island, where water temperatures are similar to those of southern California's mainland coastal waters.

The paleontologists instead pointed to the dramatic changes that southern California's watersheds have undergone since 1769, after Spanish missionaries introduced cattle, horses and sheep to the area.

Unmanaged grazing

The researchers established the age of the brachiopods using a molecular dating technique called amino acid racemization. All of the 190 shells analyzed were more than 100 years old, and most were older than 200 years, indicating that the start of the population die-off coincided with the rise of livestock and cultivation on the nearby mainland.

Brachiopods and scallops have low tolerance for high levels of suspended sediment, leaving them vulnerable to the side effects of a regional economy that focused on cattle production from 1769 to the 1860s. During this time, much of modern-day Los Angeles and Orange counties were subject to unmanaged, open-range grazing. The economy shifted to agriculture in the late 19th century, but in the absence of soil conservation methods, the side effects on the coastal ocean would have continued unabated into the early 20th century.

The researchers concluded that siltation associated with this prolonged period of unmanaged land use probably drove the collapse of the brachiopod-scallop populations.

"Extirpation was complete by the start of 21st-century urbanization, warming, bottom fishing and scientific surveys," Tomasovych and Kidwell reported, emphasizing the value of combining many lines of historical evidence, especially the application of paleobiological methods to present-day ecosystems, to gain a fuller picture of recent biotic changes.

They further concluded that siltation derived from coastal land-use practices is an under-recognized ecological factor on continental shelves around the globe.

More information: Adam Tomasovych et al. Nineteenth-century collapse of a benthic marine ecosystem on the open continental shelf, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0328 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Lythrypnus dalli, the bluebanded goby. Credit: Kory Gozjack

Sex-changing fish exhibit differences in androgen receptor (AR) expression in muscles that are highly sensitive to androgens (male sex hormones) and essential for male courtship behavior, according to a Georgia State University study.

Androgen signaling is a critical regulator of male-typical reproductive behavior in vertebrates. This study found androgen receptor expression is also important in Lythrypnus dalli or the bluebanded goby, a bi-directional hermaphroditic fish that can undergo rapid adult sex change in either direction. Given appropriate social stimuli, these fish can transform reproductive tissue function and begin to reproduce as the opposite sex in under two weeks.

Bluebanded gobies live in small harems of one dominant male and multiple subordinate females. Their reproductive behavior is sexually dimorphic, with only males courting females, defending nests and caring for offspring. Male courtship behavior is composed of rapid 'jerk swims,' during which the pelvic and dorsal fins are extended and retracted, via the activation of the supracarinalis muscle.

The researchers discovered that males express more AR in the supracarinalis muscle relative to females. Higher AR expression in this muscle was also associated with greater rates of courtship and aggressive displays. The study was published in the journal PLOS One.

The researchers collected 12 male and 36 female bluebanded gobies near the University of Southern California's Wrigley Institute of Environmental Studies in Santa Catalina Island, Calif. by scuba diving and using hand nets. Animals were placed in 12 social harems of one male and three females, and each group was placed in an aquarium at the Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies.

Male behavior (aggressive approaches and jerk swims) directed at females in the social group was observed over the course of three days. Then, sections of muscle and spinal cord from the animals were examined using antibodies specific to the androgen receptor, a high-end imaging microscope and image capture software.

"A simple process of screening for sex differences in the expression of AR allowed us to identify an important muscle group involved in the regulation of male sexual behavior," said Dr. Matthew Grober, associate professor of biology at Georgia State.

Though AR is also abundantly expressed in the spinal cord of these fish, there was no sex difference in the number of spinal motoneurons expressing AR, suggesting that female spinal circuits do not require elevated AR expression during sex change in order to generate male courtship/nesting behavior. In animals that are sexually plastic, rapid up-regulation of muscle AR may be a critical step in the initiation of male-typical behavior in a female individual.

More information: Eric R. Schuppe et al. Sex differences in neuromuscular androgen receptor expression and sociosexual behavior in a sex changing fish, PLOS ONE (2017). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0177711 Journal information: PLoS ONE
TEM images of ringwoodite and bridgmanite before and after annealing. (A) Inverted bright-field image of ringwoodite before annealing (i = 11.0/m2). (B) Inverted bright-field image of ringwoodite after annealing for 12 hours at 2000 K (f = 0.87/m2). (C) Dark-field image of bridgmanite before annealing (i = 8.43/m2). (D) Dark-field image of bridgmanite after annealing for 24 hours at 1600 K (f = 4.32/m2). Rw., ringwoodite; Brg., bridgmanite. Credit: Science Advances 07 Jun 2017: Vol. 3, no. 6, e1603024, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1603024

(Phys.org)A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Japan and Germany has found evidence that suggests the middle of Earth's mantle holds as much water as the planet's oceans. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the group describes their theory and their experiments to try to prove them correct.

Scientists are convinced that the uppermost part of the mantle and lower part closest to the core are relatively water free. This is because the materials they are made of can't to store water very well. The layer in between (at 410 to 660 kilometers below the surface), however, has been a topic of debate, with some believing it is also nearly water free and others suggesting it could harbor massive amounts of water. This is because the mid-mantle is dominated by the minerals wadsleyite and ringwoodite, which are known to be able to hold a lot of water. In this new effort, the researchers sought to settle the debate by using logic and lab experiments.

The team notes that prior research has shown that the viscosity of the middle zone of the mantle is lower than that of both the upper mantle and lower mantle. To figure out if the middle zone is holding water, the researchers used this information and conducted lab experiments meant to replicate such conditions. They created synthetic ringwoodite to represent the middle mantle and bridgmanite to represent material from the lower mantle. They then used a technique that involved measuring dislocation mobility to infer viscosity and then added water to the ringwoodite. They report that doing so reduced its viscosity and matched measurements taken of the real mantlethis suggests that the real-world middle mantle does, indeed, hold water. By adjusting the amount of water added to their synthetic mantle and calculating changes in viscosity, they were able to estimate how waterlogged the real-world minerals are. They then used that information to calculate how much water is in the entire mid-mantle. They report that it is very nearly equal to the amount of water in all of the world's oceans.

More testing will have to be done, of course, but if scientists can prove without doubt that the middle mantle is filled with water, it calls into question theories that suggest water arrived on Earth from comets.

More information: A nearly water-saturated mantle transition zone inferred from mineral viscosity, Science Advances 07 Jun 2017: Vol. 3, no. 6, e1603024, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1603024 , advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1603024.full Abstract

An open question for solid-earth scientists is the amount of water in Earth's interior. The uppermost mantle and lower mantle contain little water because their dominant minerals, olivine and bridgmanite, have limited water storage capacity. In contrast, the mantle transition zone (MTZ) at a depth of 410 to 660 km is considered to be a potential water reservoir because its dominant minerals, wadsleyite and ringwoodite, can contain large amounts of water [up to 3 weight % (wt %)]. However, the actual amount of water in the MTZ is unknown. Given that water incorporated into mantle minerals can lower their viscosity, we evaluate the water content of the MTZ by measuring dislocation mobility, a property that is inversely proportional to viscosity, as a function of temperature and water content in ringwoodite and bridgmanite. We find that dislocation mobility in bridgmanite is faster by two orders of magnitude than in anhydrous ringwoodite but 1.5 orders of magnitude slower than in water-saturated ringwoodite. To fit the observed mantle viscosity profiles, ringwoodite in the MTZ should contain 1 to 2 wt % water. The MTZ should thus be nearly water-saturated globally. Journal information: Science Advances

 2017 Phys.org
Younger capuchin monkeys turn to older animals to learn how to open Panama fruit. But even experienced monkeys will pick up a new technique that is more efficient. Credit: Brendan Barrett/UC Davis photo

Wild capuchin monkeys readily learn skills from each otherbut that social learning is driven home by the payoff of learning a useful new skill. It's the first demonstration of "payoff bias" learning in a wild animal, and could inform whether and how animals can adapt to rapidly changing conditions, for example due to climate change or reintroduction of species from captive breeding.

"When animals learn, they can learn very quickly," said Brendan Barrett, a graduate student in animal behavior at the University of California, Davis, who led the study, published June 7 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "What are the psychological mechanisms animals use to learn?"

Barrett worked with a population of capuchin monkeys in northwest Costa Rica that was part of a 27-year study by UCLA professor Susan Perry. Capuchins are interesting because they have sophisticated social behaviors, and the kin relationships and early developmental histories of these monkeys were known.

"They explore their world, harvesting food from it," Barrett said. That includes coming up with new ways to open and harvest hard-to-access fruits and seeds. Unusually for monkeys, capuchins will tolerate other monkeys watching them as they open fruit.

Among the possible hypotheses: Monkeys conform with the group majority; they follow what experienced animals do; they learn from parents or close relatives; or they learn from their own experience.

Barrett and colleagues studied learning strategies in the monkeys by observing how they learned to open the fruit of the Panama tree. The nuts inside these large fruits are well-protected by a hard shell covered in gooey exudate and lined on the inside with stinging hairs.

Typically, a group of monkeys familiar with the fruit will have worked out their own way to open them, Barrett said. That makes it hard to figure out how monkeys learned the technique. Instead, the researchers were lucky enough to find a group of monkeys that had split off from a larger group in 2003 and moved to an area that had no Panama trees. Some of the older animals had experience with different ways of opening the fruit, and some had no experience at all.

High payoff, rapid learning

The researchers found that overall, most monkeys adopted the most efficient technique for opening the fruitthe method with the highest payoff.

"We found that the most efficient technique could spread very quickly through the group, in as little as two weeks," he said. Even older monkeys that had already mastered one opening technique would pick up another that was more efficient by watching others, Barrett said.

The monkeys used a mix of learning by observation and individual experience to figure out how to open the fruit, they found. Older monkeys tended to rely on their own experience, while younger ones paid more attention to how other animals opened the fruit.

Some monkeys settled on their own technique, even if it wasn't quite as efficient, but the options they tried were still guided by watching other monkeys.

The study shows that "payoff-bias" learningguided by which technique is more efficientmay be more widespread in wild animals than previously thought, Barrett said. Understanding how animals learn skills could be important, for example, when considering how to reintroduce captive-bred animals to the wild, or moving a population into a new habitat.

More information: Brendan J. Barrett et al. Pay-off-biased social learning underlies the diffusion of novel extractive foraging traditions in a wild primate, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0358 Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Credit: Fauna & Flora International

Myanmar Department of Fisheries celebrates World Oceans Day by designating Myanmar's first Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs).

Myeik Archipelago, once a haven for biodiverse coral reefs, seagrass areas, mangroves and pristine beaches, has experienced a dramatic decline of its fisheries in the last decade due to overfishing and illegal fishing practices such as near-shore trawling and dynamite fishing that led to the destruction of coral reefs. The decline of fish stocks has had a serious impact on the livelihood of local fishing communities who are competing with large-scale industrial fishing operations.

Over the past three years, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in collaboration with the Fisheries Department has undertaken comprehensive marine ecosystem assessments to identify and prioritise the remaining intact marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs, for conservation and sustainable local fisheries management.

On World Oceans Day, the Myanmar Fisheries Department is inaugurating the country's first three Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) to protect some of the most diverse coral reefs and marine habitats in the Myeik Archipelago.

Credit: Michangelo Pignani/FFI.

This is the first time in Myanmar's history that long-term management of marine areas has been granted to local fishing communities. These communities receive exclusive fishing rights, while taking responsibility for protecting local marine habitats and biodiversity.

"The designation of LMMAs manged by the fishing communities of Thayawthadangyi Island and the Langan Island group will not only protect diverse coral reefs and important fish and crab nursery grounds, but also support local livelihoods," says Robert Howard, FFI's marine programme adviser in Myanmar.

The fishing communities will manage their local marine areas through zonation for sustainable local fisheries as well as no-take zones for the most important coral reefs, which serve as nursery grounds.

Credit: Michangelo Pignani/FFI

According Frank Momberg, FFI's Myanmar Country Director, "Experience from other countries such as Indonesia has shown that LMMAs with no-take zones for critical fish nursery grounds can lead to a recovery of fish stocks within two years and improve local fisheries through spill-over from the no-take zones into the surrounding coastal waters."

According to U Zau Lunn, FFI Myanmar's Marine Conservation Director, "Exclusive fishing rights for the local communities and collaboration with the Fisheries Department and the Myanmar Navy on law enforcement will ensure that LMMAs will be spared from destructive and unsustainable fishing practices such as near shore trawling and light boat fishing."
As neutrons (blue line) scatter off the graphene-like honeycomb material, they produce a magnetic Majorana fermion (green wave) that moves through the material disrupting or breaking apart magnetic interactions between 'spinning' electrons. Credit: ORNL/Jill Hemman

Neutron scattering has revealed in unprecedented detail new insights into the exotic magnetic behavior of a material that, with a fuller understanding, could pave the way for quantum calculations far beyond the limits of the ones and zeros of a computer's binary code.

A research team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has confirmed magnetic signatures likely related to Majorana fermionselusive particles that could be the basis for a quantum bit, or qubit, in a two-dimensional graphene-like material, alpha-ruthenium trichloride. The results, published in the journal Science, verify and extend a 2016 Nature Materials study in which the team of researchers from ORNL, University of Tennessee, Max Planck Institute and Cambridge University first proposed this unusual behavior in the material.

"This research is a promise delivered," said lead author Arnab Banerjee, a postdoctoral researcher at ORNL. "Before, we suggested that this compound, alpha-ruthenium trichloride, showed the physics of Majorana fermions, but the material we used was a powder and obscured many important details. Now, we're looking at a large single crystal that confirms that the unusual magnetic spectrum is consistent with the idea of magnetic Majorana fermions."

Majorana fermions were theorized in 1937 by physicist Ettore Majorana. They are unique in that, unlike electrons and protons whose antiparticle counterparts are the positron and the antiproton, particles with equal but opposite charges, Majorana fermions are their own antiparticle and have no charge.

In 2006, physicist Alexei Kitaev developed a solvable theoretical model describing how topologically protected quantum computations could be achieved in a material using quantum spin liquids, or QSLs. QSLs are strange states achieved in solid materials where the magnetic moments, or "spins," associated with electrons exhibit a fluidlike behavior.

"Our neutron scattering measurements are showing us clear signatures of magnetic excitations that closely resemble the model of the Kitaev QSL," said corresponding author Steve Nagler, director of the Quantum Condensed Matter Division at ORNL. "The improvements in the new measurements are like looking at Saturn through a telescope and discovering the rings for the first time."

Because neutrons are microscopic magnets that carry no charge, they can be used to interact with and excite other magnetic particles in the system without compromising the integrity of the material's atomic structure. Neutrons can measure the magnetic spectrum of excitations, revealing how particles behave. The team cooled the material to temperatures near absolute zero (about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit) to allow a direct observation of purely quantum motions.

Using the SEQUOIA instrument at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source allowed the investigators to map out an image of the crystal's magnetic motions in both space and time.

"We can see the magnetic spectrum manifesting itself in the shape of a six-pointed star and how it reflects the underlying honeycomb lattice of the material," said Banerjee. "If we can understand these magnetic excitations in detail then we will be one step closer to finding a material that would enable us to pursue the ultimate dream of quantum computations."

Banerjee and his colleagues are pursuing additional experiments with applied magnetic fields and varying pressures.

"We've applied a very powerful measurement technique to get these exquisite visualizations that are allowing us to directly see the quantum nature of the material," said coauthor Alan Tennant, chief scientist for ORNL's Neutron Sciences Directorate. "Part of the excitement of the experiments is that they're leading the theory. We're seeing these things, and we know they're real."
River Kvirila at Sachkhere, Georgia. Credit: Wikipedia

Plastic that is dumped in rivers and then ends up in the world's oceans is one of the major sources of marine pollution, a new study said this week, with Asian waterways the main culprits.

Researchers at The Ocean Cleanupa Dutch foundation developing new technologies for ridding the oceans of plasticsay rivers carry an estimated 1.15-2.41 million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year, an amount that need between 48,000 to over 100,000 dump trucks to carry it away.

Their latest study, published in Nature Communications journal Wednesday, added that two-thirds of the pollution comes from the 20 most polluting rivers, the overwhelming majority in Asia with the Yangtze River in China topping the list.

The Yangtze, the world's third-longest river, "is the largest contributing catchment", dumping some 330,000 tonnes of plastic into the East China Sea.

This is followed by the Ganges River in India and a combination of the Xi, Dong and Zhujiang Rivers in China as well as four Indonesian rivers: the Brantas, Solo, Serayu and Progo.

The rest of the world shared the remaining 14 percent of plastic pollution via rivers, The Ocean Cleanup researchers said.

"Most of this river plastic input is coming from Asia, which emphasises the need to focus on monitoring and mitigation efforts in Asian countries with rapid economic development and poor waste management," they said.

The researchers however issued a disclaimer saying "there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model."

"Yet, the relatively high concentrations of ocean plastic found at the surface of the North Pacific Ocean where buoyant plastics originating from Asia can accumulate, suggest that our assumptions are plausible," they said.

The study comes against the backdrop of the UN's first ocean conference opening in Miami on Monday, where plastic pollution was singled out as particularly harmful.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres cited a recent study that showed plastic could outweigh fish in 2050 if nothing is done.

Every year, more than eight million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean, costing at least $8 billion (7.1 billion euros) in damage to marine ecosystems and killing an estimated one million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and untold numbers of fish.

More information: Laurent C. M. Lebreton et al. River plastic emissions to the world's oceans, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15611 Journal information: Nature Communications

 2017 AFP
South Africa has halted poultry imports from Zimbabwe after a recent outbreak of highly contagious avian influenza at a farm in the neighbouring country, the government said Thursday.

The department of agriculture said although South Africa imports "very little" poultry products from Zimbabwe, it has "suspended all trade in live poultry, meat and table eggs" from its northern neighbour and has stepped up surveillance.

"We have heightened inspections of all consignments, including all private and public vehicles at all our ports of entry, especially in and out of Zimbabwe," said the department in a statement.

Zimbabwean authorities at the weekend said they had placed a privately-owned farm under quarantine after the outbreak killed 7,000 birds. Another 140,000 birds were culled to prevent the spread from the farm situated on the outskirts of Harare.

Zimbabwe identified the strain as H5N8, a highly pathogenic and lethal virus to poultry.

South African poultry producers fear that more than 140 million chickens would be at risk if the virus spreads across the border.

Mozambique and Botswana imposed poultry import bans early this week.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Botswana government said the "import of domesticated and wild birds, their products .. and poultry feed from Zimbabwe is banned with immediate effect" and cancelled all poultry import permits.

Mozambique announced the ban on Monday, according to local media.

 2017 AFP
A previously unidentified species of see-through frog has come to light in Ecuador after sitting forgotten in a jar in a laboratory for 20 years, scientists say.

The tiny red heart of the hyalinobatrachium yaku, a species of "glass frog," is visible through the translucent skin of its underbelly.

Biologist Diego Cisneros of Quito's San Francisco University told AFP he found the frog, less than an inch in size, in the Amazon in 1998.

But he didn't manage to identify it until after he saw photographs on Facebook in 2015 by other scientists who had found similar specimens.

The discovery was finally published last month, after his specimen spent nearly two decades in a jar of preserving fluid in a laboratory at the university.

There are other species of see-through frog like it, but only in very few of them can the heart be seen beating.

"Barely 0.2 percent of the species of amphibians have a visible heart," a biologist at the university, Juan Manuel Guayasamin, told AFP.

Experts say its transparency may be an means of avoiding predators.

"The other possibility is that it is more energy-efficient to have a transparent belly, since it does not need to process the elements that produce bodily opacity," said Guayasamin.

Frogs in Ecuador are particularly at risk due to deforestation, construction, oil drilling and mining.

"This frog represents the importance of conserving water as a resource," since it depends on clean rivers to survive and reproduce, Cisneros said.

The frog's delicate, breathable skin makes it particularly sensitive to environmental changes, "which causes amphibians to become extinct very easily."

 2017 AFP
Large Hadron Collider dipole magnets. Credit: CERN

The Standard Model of particle physics describes the properties and interactions of the constituents of matter. The development of this theory began in the early 1960s, and in 2012 the last piece of the puzzle was solved by the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland. Experiments have confirmed time and again the Standard Model's very accurate predictions.

Yet, researchers have reasons to believe that physics beyond the Standard Model exists and should be found. For instance, the Standard Model does not explain why matter dominates over antimatter in the universe. It also does not provide clues about the nature of dark matter  the invisible substance that is five times more prevalent than the regular matter we observe.

In this Q&A, particle physicist Vera Luth discusses scientific results that potentially hint at physics beyond the Standard Model. The professor emerita of experimental particle physics at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is co-author of a review article published today in Nature that summarizes the findings of three experiments: BABAR at SLAC, Belle in Japan and LHCb at CERN.

What are the hints of new physics that you describe in your article?

The hints originate from studies of an elementary particle, known as the B meson  an unstable particle produced in the collision of powerful particle beams. More precisely, these studies looked at decays of the B meson that involve leptons  electrically charged elementary particles and their associated neutrinos. There are three charged leptons: the electron, a critical component of atoms discovered in 1897; the muon, first observed in cosmic rays in 1937; and the much heavier tau, discovered at the SPEAR electron-positron (e+e-) storage ring at SLAC in 1975 by Martin Perl.

Due to their very different masses, the three leptons also have very different lifetimes. The electron is stable, whereas the muon and tau decay in a matter of microseconds and a fraction of a picosecond, respectively. A fundamental assumption of the Standard Model is that the interactions of the three charged leptons are the same if their different masses and lifetimes are taken into account.

Over many years, different experiments have tested this assumption  referred to as "lepton universality"  and to date no definite violation of this rule has been observed. We now have indications that the rates for B meson decays involving tau leptons are larger than expected compared to the measured rates of decays involving electrons or muons, taking into account the differences in mass. This observation would violate lepton universality, a fundamental assumption of the Standard Model.

What does a violation of the Standard Model actually mean?

It means that there is evidence for phenomena that we cannot explain in the context of the Standard Model. If such a phenomenon is firmly established, the Standard Model needs to be extended  by introducing new fundamental particles and also new interactions related to these particles.

In recent years, searches for fundamentally new phenomena have relied on high-precision measurements to detect deviations from Standard Model predictions or on searches for new particles or interactions with properties that differ from known ones.

What exactly are the BABAR, Belle and LHCb experiments?

They are three experiments that have challenged lepton universality.

Belle and BABAR were two experiments specifically designed to study B mesons with unprecedented precision  particles that are five times heavier than the proton and contain a bottom or b quark. These studies were performed at e+e- storage rings that are commonly referred to as B factories and operate at colliding-beam energies just high enough to produce a pair of B mesons, and no other particle. BABAR operated at SLAC's PEP-II from 1999 to 2008, Belle at KEKB in Japan from 1999 to 2010. The great advantage of these experiments is that the B mesons are produced pairwise, each decaying into lighter particles  on average five charged particles and a similar number of photons.

The LHCb experiment is continuing to operate at the proton-proton collider LHC with energies that exceed the ones of B factories by more than a factor of 1,000. At this higher energy, B mesons are produced at a much larger rate than at B factories. However, at each crossing of the beams, hundreds of other particles are produced in addition to B mesons. This feature tremendously complicates the identification of B meson decays.

To study lepton universality, all three experiments focus on B decays involving a charged lepton and an associated neutrino. A neutrino doesn't leave a trace in the detector, but its presence is detected as missing energy and momentum in an individual B decay.

What evidence do you have so far for a potential violation of lepton universality?

All three experiments have identified specific B meson decays and have compared the rates of decays involving an electron or muon to those involving the higher mass tau lepton. All three experiments observe higher-than-expected decay rates for the decays with a tau. The average value of the reported results, taking into account the statistical and systematic uncertainties, exceeds the Standard Model expectation by four standard deviations.

This enhancement is intriguing, but not considered sufficient to unambiguously establish a violation of lepton universality. To claim a discovery, particle physicists generally demand a significance of at least five standard deviations. However, the fact that this enhancement was detected by three experiments, operating in very different environments, deserves attention. Nevertheless, more data will be needed, and are expected in the not too distant future.

What was your role in this research?

As the technical coordinator of the BABAR collaboration during the construction of the detector, I was the liaison between the physicists and the engineering teams, supported by the BABAR project management team at SLAC. With more than 500 BABAR members from 11 countries, this was a challenging task, but with the combined expertise and dedication of the collaboration the detector was completed and ready to take data in four years.

Once data became available, I rejoined SLAC's Research Group C and took over its leadership from Jonathan Dorfan. As convener of the physics working group on B decays involving leptons, I coordinated various analyses by scientists from different external groups, among them SLAC postdocs and graduate students, and helped to develop the analysis tools needed for precision measurements.

Almost 10 years ago, we started updating an earlier analysis performed under the leadership of Jeff Richman of the University of California, Santa Barbara on B decays involving tau leptons and extended it to the complete BABAR data set. This resulted in the surprisingly large decay rate. The analysis was the topic of the PhD thesis of my last graduate student, Manuel Franco Sevilla, who over the course of four years made a number of absolutely critical contributions that significantly improved the precision of this measurement, and thereby enhanced its significance.

What keeps you excited about particle physics?

Over the past 50 years that I have been working in particle physics, I have witnessed enormous progress in theory and experiments leading to our current understanding of matter's constituents and their interactions at the most fundamental level. But there are still many unanswered questions, from very basic ones like "Why do particles have certain masses and not others?" to questions about the grand scale of things, such as "What is the origin of the universe, and is there more than one?"

Lepton universality is one of the Standard Model's fundamental assumptions. If it were violated, unexpected new physics processes must exist. This would be a major breakthrough  even more surprising than the discovery of the Higgs boson, which was predicted to exist many decades ago.

What results do you expect in the near future?

There is actually a lot going on in the field. LHCb researchers are collecting more data and will try to find out if the lepton universality is indeed violated. My guess is that we should know the answer by the end of this year. A confirmation will be a great event and will undoubtedly trigger intense experimental and theoretical research.

At present we do not understand the origin of the observed enhancement. We first assumed that it could be related to a charged partner of the Higgs boson. Although the observed features did not match the expectations, an extension of the Higgs model could do so. Another possible explanation that can neither be confirmed nor excluded is the presence of so-called lepto-quarks. These open questions will remain a very exciting topic that need to be addressed by experiments and theoretical work.

Recently, LHCb scientists have reported an interesting result indicating that certain B meson decays more often include an electron pair than a muon pair. However, the significance of this new finding is only about 2.6 standard deviations, so it's too early to draw any conclusions. BABAR and Belle have not confirmed this observation.

At the next-generation B factory, Super-KEKB in Japan, the new Belle II experiment is scheduled to begin its planned 10-year research program in 2018. The expected very large new data sets will open up many opportunities for searches for these and other indications of physics beyond the Standard Model.

More information: Gregory Ciezarek et al. A challenge to lepton universality in B-meson decays, Nature (2017). DOI: 10.1038/nature22346 Journal information: Nature
Biologist Ross Boucek (pictured) and a team of FIU researchers found common snook in deeper waters of the Florida Everglades survived the 2010 cold spell that brought temperatures down to the 30s. Credit: Ross Boucek

Restoring freshwater flow to the Florida Everglades could help snook, one of the state's prized gaming fish, survive extreme climate events.

Researchers have spent the past seven years examining the long-term effects of two unique cold spells that struck South Florida in 2010, including different species' abilities to recover in the Everglades. In the case of the common snook, known to be sensitive to temperature changes, the researchers found location was a key factor in the fish's ability to survive the cold when temperatures dipped into the 30s.

"Our findings were very surprising. If we look at the average temperatures throughout the entire ecosystem during the cold spell, no snook should've survived," said Ross Boucek,

a biologist with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust who conducted the study as a Ph.D. student in biological sciences at Florida International University. "But if you zoom in on temperatures in different habitats, you see certain features allowed a couple of habitats to stay warm enough for a few fish to make it out alive."

While further research is needed, these findings show freshwater flow could help push snook to warmer habitats in the short time they have before water turns lethal when a cold spell strikes. According to Boucek, water temperatures remain constant in deeper habitats. Yet, when freshwater flow is lacking, snook are often concentrated in locations far from these deep water habitats.

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events.

According to Jennifer Rehage, FIU ecologist and scientist with the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE LTER) Program, if researchers understand what keeps water temperatures warmer, and how and why snook seek refuge in those habitats, managers can understand their vulnerability and manage accordingly.

Snook exposure to cold anomalies and possible lethal effects is governed not only by fish behavior, but by cold water and hot water mixing due to winds, river flow, tides and water depth, according to Tom Torgersen, program director of the NSF's Water Sustainability and Climate Program, which supported the research.

"The effect on snook of any single extreme event should be viewed in terms of the physical conditions in which it happened, as well as the biological processes that affect snook distribution."

FCE LTER Program monitoring networks provided the scientists with long-term data on environmental conditions. The scientists outfitted more than 100 snook with acoustic transmitters, following their movements throughout the Everglades. Housed at FIU, the FCE LTER Program is part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) LTER Network.

"Sudden changes in water temperature due to cold snaps may have lethal effects on many economically important species of fish and other marine creatures," said John Schade, program director in the NSF's LTER Network. "The risks to these species are especially high when they are unable to move to more hospitable environments. In a world where extreme climate events are becoming more common, studies like this are critical to our ability to manage fisheries we need to feed growing human populations."

The study was published in Global Change Biology. It was funded by the National Science Foundation with support from the Everglades Foundation.

More information: Ross E. Boucek et al, Can animal habitat use patterns influence their vulnerability to extreme climate events? An estuarine sportfish case study, Global Change Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13761 Journal information: Global Change Biology
Acclaimed rapper Jay-Z fueled rumors of dropping a new album before the annoucenemnt of a star-studded film exclusive to Tidal with Oscar winners Lupita Nyong'o and Mahershala Ali

Streaming service Tidal revealed an original movie starring recent Oscar winners Thursday as telecom giant and part-owner Sprint announced a new campaign to woo customers to the underdog music platform.

Cryptic advertisements appeared Wednesday online and in New York's Times Square saying only "4:44," fueling internet rumorswith little evidence other than the evident Tidal connectionthat rap mogul Jay Z was set to drop a new album.

It turned out the banners in fact were for a film exclusive to Tidal featuring Mahershala Ali and Lupita Nyong'o, who won Oscars respectively for "Moonlight" and "12 Years a Slave," as well as "Lethal Weapon" actor Danny Glover.

A black-and-white trailer for the film showed Ali as a boxer, flinching in the light, as a soulful electronic score plays.

Tidal revealed little else about the movie other than to say it was NC-17the strictest US film rating which means it is not suitable for children.

The trailer was revealed as Sprint, which earlier this year bought a one-third stake in Tidal, announced a new bid to lure customers.

Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure tweeted that Sprint customers would have access for six months to Tidal, with more details to be revealed Friday.

Jay Z bought Tidal in 2014 from Aspiro, a Norwegian company that is listed in Sweden, and has tried to brand it as music lovers' choice through exclusives from artists, original video content and high-quality audio.

But even with the rapid growth worldwide in streaming, Tidalwhose benchmark subscription is twice as expensive as most competitors' at $19.99 a monthremains a sliver of the market dominated by Sweden's Spotify.

Sprint's purchase of the stake for an estimated $200 million surprised many industry watchers, some of whom had doubted Tidal's long-term health.

But the purchase was seen as part of a wider bid by Sprint, which is owned by Japan's Softbank Group Corp., to increase its market share in the United States.

 2017 AFP
University of Queensland researchers have partnered with global technology leader Lockheed Martin to develop next generation computers for aerospace applications.

ARC Future Fellow and project lead Professor Warwick Bowen said the partnership would develop a new approach to computer technology, with the potential for future commercial impacts in the aerospace industry.

"In contrast to today's computers, which rely on electric currents, this new approach will use mechanical vibrations inside the computer chip to perform computations," Professor Bowen said.

"This makes it much more robust to radiation exposure in near-earth orbit and deep space applications.

"An expected further project outcome is the development of nanotechnologies that could have wide uses in sensing, health and communications.

"The project could also improve heat management and energy efficiency in future computers."

Speaking on the partnership with UQ, Lockheed Martin Australia Chief Executive Vince Di Pietro said Lockheed Martin had a long history of collaborative research and innovation across the globe, including investment in the world's best research in Australia.

"By leveraging an existing contract established through our Global Supply Chain Enabled Innovation program into this ARC Linkage grant with UQ, we see a true partnership between industry, academia and government growing Australia's future defence industry capability," Mr Di Pietro said.

Chief investigator Dr Rachpon Kalra, awarded a UQ Development Fellowship to work with Lockheed Martin Australia, said the project would strengthen UQ's ties to one of the world's largest aerospace companies.

Fellow chief investigator Dr Christopher Baker said the project built upon UQ's expertise in nanotechnology and nanoengineering.

UQ made a recent multi-million dollar investment in nation-leading nanofabrication tools capable of building devices with features only a few tens of atoms in size.

The project is part of the University of Queensland Precision Sensing Initiative, a joint initiative of the Schools of Mathematics and Physics and of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering.

It will benefit from substantial Federal Government investment into the Australian Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, which aims to develop next generation quantum technologies for future Australian industries.

Federal Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham announced the funding last month, making it one of four UQ proposals that attracted $1.28 million in Australian Government funding through the Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Projects scheme.

The computers for aerospace project received $334,710 Federal Government funding, with cash and in-kind funding by the University and industry partner.

Dr Luke Uribarri from Lockheed Martin will be the fourth investigator on the project.
- The race for the 2019 general elections is in full gear

- New political parties are springing up across the country

- Nigeria now have 45 active registered political parties

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Wednesday, June 7, announced the registration of five new political parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Mr Adedeji Soyebi, INECs commissioner and chairman, information and voter education committee, made this known at the end of the commissions meeting in Kaduna.

The new political parties, according to Soyebi, are Young Progressive Party (YPP), Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA), New Generation Party of Nigeria (NGP), All Democratic Peoples Movement (ADPM) and Action Democratic Party (ADP).

This brings to 45, the number of registered political parties in the country.

At present, 95 associations have applied to the commission for registration as political parties. Two of the associations voluntarily withdrew their applications.

The commission today approved the applications of five of the associations which have fulfilled the constitutional requirements for registration, Soyebi said.

On the ongoing nationwide Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), which began on April 27, he said that no fewer than 760,989 voters had so far been registered nationwide.

He explained that the figure was made up of 59.5 per cent of males and 40.5 per cent, females.

So far, 31,808 persons have collected their PVCs while 34, 560 others applied for transfer of polling units, he added.

He said that due to budgetary constraints, INEC could not currently decentralize the voter registration to the Registration Area level, adding, however, that due consideration would be given to certain areas with peculiar challenges.

Soyebi stated that the commission had noted the challenges encountered so far, and was addressing them. (NAN)

READ ALSO: APC chieftain appeals to Northern leaders to advise youths against inflammatory statements

Legit.ng had attended the launch of one of the newly registered political parties, APDA on Monday, June 5.

At the launch, the party promised that it will constitutionally reserve 30% slot for women, 25% for youths and 5% for people living with disabilities.

In the video below, Legit.ng TV asks some Nigerians if they regret their voting choice during the 2015 election.

Source: Legit.ng
Inventory needs to be managed and managed well, or you are going to get in recurring trouble, and lose your credibility and hard-earned conversions, whether 

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The Maldives arrested one of the few vocal dissidents still in the country on Thursday, a day after facing censure at the UN Human Rights Council, the main opposition said. Police seized Adam Azim, the brother of jailed former defence minister Mohamed Nazim, in a pre-dawn swoop on his home in the capital island Male. There was no immediate word from the authorities, but local media reports said the Criminal Court had issued a warrant on the charge of inciting hatred against the judiciary. The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) condemned the arrest of Azim, a key figure in the opposition's shadow cabinet. "Adam Azims arrest, on blatantly trumped-up charges, demonstrates once again President (Abdulla) Yameens refusal to return to the path of democracy and good governance, and his obstinacy in the face of international criticism," the MDP said in a statement. The arrest came a few hours after Britain, on behalf of over 30 nations, criticised the Maldivian regime at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Legitimate opposition remains a vital component of a healthy democracy, and it is essential that the freedoms of assembly and expression are granted to all," Britain said in a statement. It also urged President Yameen to ensure justice for the stabbing to death of a liberal blogger in April and restore the credibility of the tiny nation's judiciary. Male has refused to accept a UN panel ruling that the March 2015 jailing of MDP leader and former president Mohamed Nasheed was politically motivated and that he should be paid compensation. Since coming to power, Yameen has presided over a general crackdown on political dissent in the nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims raising fears over the country's stability and dented its image as a tourism paradise. His former deputy and several former ministers are already in jail while other potential rivals are in self-imposed exile. Nasheed was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial election run off in 2013. Nasheed became the country's first democratically elected president in 2008. On Wednesday, the Maldivian foreign ministry rejected the latest criticism. "The statement (by Britain at the UNHRC) is unwarranted and unconstructive, misrepresenting the reality in the Maldives and unduly attempting to affect domestic politics in the country," the foreign ministry said.
Norway's Supreme Court said Thursday it would not hear neo-Nazi mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's case over his "inhumane" prison conditions, a case he said he will now take to the European Court of Human Rights. The ruling by Norway's highest court brings an end to Breivik's legal challenges in the Scandinavian country. An Oslo appeals court in March found the Norwegian state not guilty of violating the rights of the rightwing extremist, a ruling that now stands. "None of the elements in the Breivik appeal have any perspective of winning before the Supreme Court," the court said in a statement. But Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway in 2011, immediately said he would go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. "We're going to take the case to Strasbourg as soon as possible," Breivik's lawyer Oystein Storrvik told AFP. "We've always been prepared for the possibility that our case before the Norwegian courts may not succeed." Breivik considers that his isolation in prison, where he is kept apart from other inmates, violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits "inhumane" and "degrading" treatment. The now 38-year-old inmate -- who has three cells at his disposal in the high-security prison where he is held -- is serving a 21-year prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely. In July 2011 Breivik, disguised as a police officer, tracked and gunned down 69 people, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Party youth camp on the island of Utoya, shortly after killing eight people in a bombing outside a government building in Oslo.
Omar, the white tiger at the Singapore Zoo. Photo: Wildlife Reserves Singapore

Omar, a white tiger at the Singapore Zoo, died on Wednesday (7 June) at the age of 17, said Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS).

Despite receiving supportive care for the past few months, Omar had to be euthanised due to its deteriorating condition, said a media release by WRS.

Over the last three years, Omars keepers and veterinarians had been monitoring it closely for melanoma and degeneration of joints. Recent reassessment had seen worsening of his health and the difficult decision was made to euthanise him to prevent further deterioration of his quality of life, said WRS.

WRS also added that Omar will be greatly missed. We will miss Omar, and our thoughts and appreciation go especially to his caregivers, who for so many years took such great care of him, it said.

Born in Taman Safari, Indonesia, Omar arrived at the Singapore Zoo when it was just 19 months old. It would have turned 18 in September.

Singapore Zoo is now home to two white tigers named Pasha and Keysa, a brother-sister duo who are four years old.

Other Singapore stories:

NTU rises to 11th in global university ranking, surpassing NUS

Ex-SBS bus captain convicted for drinking vodka while on driving duty

Man arrested for leaving luggage unattended at Admiralty MRT station
The family of a Spanish man who used his skateboard to try to defend a woman from one of the assailants during the London attack confirmed Wednesday that he had died, ending an excruciating four-day wait. "Ignacio didn't survive the attacks," Ignacio Echeverria's sister Ana wrote on her Facebook page. "My brother Ignacio tried to stop terrorists and lost his life trying to save others. Igna we love you and will never forget you," his other sister Isabel wrote on Facebook. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday by three assailants who mowed down people in a van before going on a stabbing spree in the Borough market area, killing eight people. Friends of Echeverria, who lived in London, were quoted in Spanish media as saying that they were walking in the area when they saw what they thought was an ordinary fight. On closer look, it appeared that a man was beating a woman. Echeverria rushed over to help and tried to defend her with a skateboard he had with him, prompting British media to dub him the "skateboard hero." He was last seen lying on the ground and had been missing since then. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy also confirmed that Echeverria, a 39-year-old HSBC expert in the fight against money-laundering, had died in Saturday's attack. "We will always remember him for his heroic and exemplary act," he said on Twitter. Rajoy later called for Echeverria to be given the silver cross of the Order of Civil Merit, which recognises "the extraordinary services of Spanish and foreign citizens for the good of the nation." In a statement, Spain's foreign ministry said "his courage in defending a defenceless person helps remind us of the need to remain united in the face of the scourge of terrorism, faced with those who make violence and terror their only language." But Spain has been unhappy at the sluggish pace of the British victim identification process, which led to an excruciating wait for Echeverria's two sisters, two brothers and parents. Spain's Interior Minister Juan Ignacio Zoido called it "inhumane" for the family. Echeverria's sister Ana also said the family had not yet been able to see the body. "We want to see and be with Ignacio's body. It seems that we won't be able to be with his body until Friday at the earliest," she wrote on Facebook. "We would like the British government to allow us to be with him...," she added.
The Vans Shop Riot 2017 Israel Qualifiers went down the other day, with a highlights video available here alongside a photo gallery and press release. The UK leg will take place in Hull over the 29th and 30th of July, keep that one free!

For the 8th time in its 9-year history, Vans Shop Riot headed to Israel and the newly opened Ashdod skatepark, in the South of Israel. With Israels warm weather and beach view this was an ideal setting for a riot.

Overall, 6 shop teams competed with the top 3 making it onto the quarterfinals. This round showcased some of Israels most solid skate teams including; Gorila the local skate shop form Ashdod city, Wheelys from up north, Gilis Skateshop, from Jerusalem, the most dominant team in shop riot history, Lightwave the iconic skate shop from Tel Aviv, Boarderline which was joined by the exciting rider Snir Kovshi, and Noiz Skateshop from Tel Aviv.

For the first time ever as a team, the Gorila team showed great consistency, in their local park. However, the main show went down between the 3 big rivals, Lightwave, Boarderline and the most dominant team, Gilis Skateshop, who won 6 out of 7 local riots. Lightwave,headed up by the aggressive transition master Tzachi Einat, threw caution to the wind and grinded every possible spot in the park. Boarderlines super stylish rider, Bitzki, brought his endless flow to take the team to the second place. But it was the Duracell bunnies from Gilis, consisting of Jimmy, Kessler and Doron Arad who complemented each other and were practically flawless throughout the contest leading them to take the top prize. The final straw came when Doron landed a double flip over the big pyramid, ultimately leading him to winning the Nixon best trick comp! The teams variation was undeniable between tech from jimmy, rad and fast tranny tricks from Kessler and big bangers from Doron, and then when you put it all together made it look just too easy, and therefore brought Gilis 7th local shop riot win.

Results:

1. Gilis Skate Shop

2. Borderline

3. Lightwave

Nixon Best Trick Contest Winner:

Doron Arad (Gilis Skate Shop)  Double Flip over the big pyramid




Pittsburgh and Paris join over 200 cities and states rejecting Trump on climate

Posted on 8 June 2017 by dana1981

I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris

So said Donald Trump in a speech justifying his irrational, historically irresponsible decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris international climate treaty. Of course, 75% of Pittsburgh residents voted for Hillary Clinton, and many city residents have since written about the outdatedness and absurdityof Trumps invocation of Pittsburgh, which aims to be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2035. In fact, Pittsburgh joined 210 other climate citiesrepresenting 54 million Americans (17% of the national population), pledging:

we will adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, and work together to create a 21st century clean energy economy.

Yesterday, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Paris co-authored a New York Times editorial rejecting Trumps efforts to pin the two cities against each other on climate change.

Additionally, 12 states (California, New York, Washington, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia) plus Puerto Rico created the US Climate Alliance, committed to upholding the Paris accord. These states represent 97 million Americans  30% of the national population.

States joining the US Climate Alliance shown in green. Illustration: Dana Nuccitelli

More than 1,000 U.S. governors, mayors, investors, universities, and companies joined the We Are Still In campaign, pledging to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. And California Governor Jerry Brown has effectively become Americas unofficial climate change ambassador.

What will be the effect on climate change?

Trumps withdrawal from the Paris accord could have a positive or negative effect on the global climate, depending on how the rest of the world responds. Zeke Hausfather at Carbon Brief looked at the research on the subject, and found that if the whole world abandons the Paris agreement and continues with business-as-usual fossil fuel burning, well see more than 4C global warming above pre-industrial temperatures. This would be catastrophic, putting us on a path to a mass extinction event.

Fortunately it appears that we wont let that happen. Were every country to follow through with Paris pledges made to date, wed see about 3C warming, but the agreement also includes a review of countries pledges every 5 years. By steadily ratcheting down carbon pollution targets, we could potentially stay below the 2C Paris target.

Obviously the United States is no longer going to meet its initial Paris pledges. Were America to continue on a no-Paris business-as-usual path, it would add about 0.20.3C to global warming. That may not sound like a lot, but were already at 1C, so the Trump path would eliminate any realistic chance of the world staying below the 2C danger limit.

However, if the next American president were to sign back on with Paris and renew US climate policy efforts, Hausfather estimates that the lost time under Trumps reign would have a negligible impact of just 0.010.02C extra global warming. As I noted last week, the 2020 American election will be a climate referendum. Will America endorse or reject Trumps scorched Earth policy?

Its also important to note that the Trump effect on global warming will only be minimal as long as the rest of the world follows through with the Paris pledges. There are encouraging signs from major players like China, the EU, and India. However, its easy to see how other countries could be discouraged from meeting their targets when the worlds largest historical carbon polluter has announced that it will take no responsibility for its actions.

In coal, Trump picked a big loser

In trying to justify the administrations Paris withdrawal, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said:

Government regulations shouldnt be used to pick winners and losers

But of course throughout his campaign and presidency, Trump has explicitly promised to save the dying coal industry. Hes fruitlessly trying to fulfill that pledge by rolling back all regulations and policies that protect public and environmental health from coal pollution, because that pollution has costs. Failing to put a fee on carbon pollution, for example, is effectively a massive trillion dollar government subsidy to the coal and oil industries.

Pruitt also wrongly claimed that weve added 50,000 jobs in the coal sector over the past quarter, when in reality there are only 50,000 coal mining jobs in the US in total. That number has been steadily declining for decades due to increased mechanization of the industry, and because other (cleaner) energy sources have become cheaper.

Coal mining jobs in the US (19002016). Data from the US Federal Reserve and the Energy Information Administration. Illustration: Dana Nuccitelli

At the same time, renewable energy jobs have been rising, and surpassed coal industry jobs several years ago.

US jobs in the coal industry vs. the wind and solar industries (20112016). Data from the US Federal Reserve, American Wind Energy Association, and The Solar Foundation. Illustration: Dana Nuccitelli

Click here to read the rest
As a resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, I have been forced of late to spend too much time thinking about Nazis. In mid-May, a handful of white supremacists, Holocaust deniers, xenophobes, and recreational racistsamong them Richard Spencermarched through one of our parks with flaming torches in support of a Robert E. Lee statue that has been slated to be sold by the City Council. The demonstration grabbed headlines worldwide, the statues removal has been placed on a six-month hold by a judge, and the Ku Klux Klan is now seeking permission to march here in July. A few weeks after the first march, a Facebook post from a local black farmer went viral due to its suggestion that the arrival of the white supremacists was more a culmination than an inciting incident, and that the fight over the Lee monument was empty symbolism that distracted from a meaningful discussion about the systemic racism that already exists here. The post included the claim that it isnt Richard Spencer calling the cops on me for farming while Black. Its nervous White women in yoga pants with Im with Her and Coexist stickers on their German SUVs. White women in yoga pants were upset. Alt-right websites rejoiced.

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Maybe it was time for me and the First Amendment to see other people.

My little city in central Virginia has become the stuff of reality TV. The local police, who didnt see the Lee Park thing coming, are dialed up to 11. And with threats, incitement, and actual assaults perpetrated both by alt-right sympathizers and the protesters who oppose them, their job is no longer to stand back but to surge in almost as soon as the shouting begins. Now, when we come to meet in our town square, we are uncertain of whether we are suiting up for events that fete the Constitution or violent altercations for which we should park with an eye to high-speed retreats. Lee Park itself, where my babies learned to walk, has become ground zero for people expecting the worst.

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This is how I felt as I headed to a local counter-protest the morning of May 31: afraid for the first time in my 16-year residence in a town I love. I was afraid that the cycle of arrests and assaults that have followed the Richard Spencer march would lead to more arrests and assaults, afraid about where we parked the car because white supremacists in this town have followed protesters home from rallies, afraid for the first time in the small town where my kids walk everywhere alone. For the first time in a lifetime of journalism, I was also afraid to wear my press credentials because today, in this town, they might invite punching.

Last week, I had come to a place where I was thinkingif not saying aloudthat maybe it was time for me and the First Amendment to see other people. Its not me, to be sure, its the First Amendmentor at least whats become of it. I am weary of hate speech, wary of threats, and tired of the choice between punching back and acquiescing. I am sick to death of Nazis. And yet they had arrived, basically on my doorstep.

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For the Framers, the thinking went, free speech was just speech, nothing more and nothing less. The best way to deal with the most appalling speakers would be to ignore them, in the hope that they would go away or drown trying to be heard. That they wouldnt survive the marketplace of ideas. Its the same reason we tried to ignore Donald Trump for so long or at least failed to take him seriously. Or so I wrote in 2015. We tried to ignore Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos. We tried to ignore Ann Coulter and Richard Spencer. We ignored them for so long and for so hard that they now get to ignore us. And these days, people who used to feel free to shout and threaten are emboldened to punch, body-slam, and stab.

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It is a short hop, we are learning, from words can never hurt us to actual sticks and stones and the attendant breaking of bones.

These days, people who used to feel free to shout and threaten are emboldened to punch, body-slam, and stab.

That is what has become of free speech in this country. That is why I was contemplating breaking up with it. I dont think Im alone, either. There are a lot of people out there who feel that they ignored racist, xenophobic, sexist white supremacists at their own peril, for months and years, when they should have been punching back. And now, a lot of people in my town are not quite sure what to do. Some liberals cheered when Richard Spencer was confronted at his gym and cheered again when Ann Coulter didnt speak in the free speech haven of Berkeley, California. Some have decided to meet what they perceive as violence with violence of their own: A growing list of anti-fascist groups have announced they are willing to use direct action against their foes if necessary. Many progressives are sick and tired because they have found that their attempts to protect free speech have resulted in a world that is not flush with the reciprocal exchange of ideas, but one that is shimmering with the threat of imminent violence and the daily fear that comes when you live with the possibility of that violence.

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Cities that never worried about much beyond trampled flora at their Memorial Day parades now need to prepare for protests as if they are riots in the making, at tremendous cost to our collective psyche. Consider the choices available to the mayor of Portland, Oregon, after two men, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Ricky John Best, were stabbed to death as they tried to stop a white supremacist from harassing two young women on the light rail. Portland is in a state with robust constitutional speech protections. It has also suffered a long and frightening string of racial incidents in recent months. The white supremacist who killed two men in May had attended free speech rallies. And now at similar rallies everywhere, including my hometown, protesters on both sides are prepared for violence. Violence, these days, is almost expected. The only question seems to be whether cities will try to prevent bloodshed before it can happen. Its why, immediately following the stabbings, that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler tried to revoke permits for future alt-right protests altogether.

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Of course, per the U.S. Constitution, Wheeler could not revoke these permits and stop these events regardless of how good his intentions were. And they were good: My main concern is that they are coming to peddle a message of hatred and of bigotry, he had told reporters. They have a First Amendment right to speak, but my pushback on that is that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Unfortunately, he is wrong as a matter of fact and of First Amendment doctrine because if Nazis get to march in Skokie, Illinois, racists can march in Portland. (The ACLU of Oregon quickly reminded him of this on Twitter, pointing out that The government cannot revoke or deny a permit based on the viewpoint of the demonstrators. Period.) Soon, Mayor Wheelers office was walking back the claim that he was calling to suppress speech, saying he was simply trying to avoid physical violence. As an attorney friend in Portland reminded me, this is exactly why elected officials have attorneys, so they can say, I wanted to cancel the rallies, but my lawyers wouldnt let me.

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Is the First Amendment allowing us to batter and attack one another in ways that are more pernicious than the act of silencing speech?

The conundrum facing Wheeler, though, is the conundrum facing us all. Its the same one that has been plaguing me: Is the First Amendment allowing us to batter and attack one another in ways that are more pernicious than the act of silencing speech? Why is my city, roiled and bruised by the events of May, still allowing the KKK to march here next month?

So far in Charlottesville, we have kept violence at bay. But that fact has not felt like a promise. Last Wednesday morning, some of the white nationalists announced plans to gather again. The police showed up in full force, as did counter-protesters organized by local faith groups. Actually, the counter-protesters outnumbered the alleged white supremacists by about 30 to 1. Everyone I spoke to was anxious. That, not politics, was hanging in the air. The faith groups were trying to guess at who would pull a knife; the young man who had been hassled by the Richard Spencer crowd back in May for wearing a yarmulke was back, again in his yarmulke. Nobody knew which guy might be the guythe one with the knife, or even the gun.

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The scene wasnt as clear-cut as you might think a confrontation between white supremacists and anti-white supremacists would be. A local candidate for city council, Kenneth Jackson, was off to the side trying to talk. He was there with the support of Jason Kessler, one of about four white supremacists in attendance. Both wanted the Robert E. Lee statue to remain standing. Jackson is black and gay. Kessler made headlines last week after he covered the torch-march for the Daily Caller; his piece declined to mention that in addition to attending, hed been a speaker celebrating Holocaust denialism and white superiority. His article still stands, a valoric love song to white supremacy, now with an editors note appended that reads The author notified The Daily Caller after publication that he spoke at a luncheon May 14 on behalf of an effort to preserve the monument. After spending the subsequent weeks being harassed everywhere he went, he was back in the park. He carried a megaphone he did not use.

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It is ever more clear to me that the free presswhich exists, to make an obvious point, because of the First Amendmentis the enemy of the white supremacists who keep talking about free speech. Kessler blames the press for everything, including his now-terminated contract with the Daily Caller. But even Jackson posted a Facebook rant about a news account of last Wednesdays protest that he felt mischaracterized the event. When the revolution comes, it will be because someone who felt he had important things to say felt wronged by the media.

While the religious groups sang songs and prayed at the foot of the monument, Kessler held forth about Jewish nepotism and the white guilt that infected the faith leaders leading the counter-protest. Jackson, who has taken the public position that he wants to preserve the Lee statue, lectured Kessler about racism and homophobia, then turned on the people of faith for caring less about the lived experiences of the black citizens of Charlottesville than they do about symbols like the Lee statue. When Dr. King came here, said Jackson, according to an account in a local paper, he talked about peace and unity. He didnt try to make white people feel guilty about the past. He advised local civil rights activists to spend their time working on issues like affordable housing rather than showing up to protests. When a spontaneous prayer circle erupted, the Lee supporters held hands. Kessler opted out of hand-holding.

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When the revolution comes, it will be because someone who felt he had important things to say felt wronged by the media.

At this point, activist Veronica Fitzhugh approached Kessler and Jackson with a Bible in her hand. She had been one of the people shouting at Kessler to fucking go home as he ate at a restaurant on the downtown mallindeed, she was later arrested for it and charged with assault and disorderly conduct. Now she hugged Jackson, and hugged some of the Lee supporters, and said she was asking for forgiveness. Kessler was not hugging, either.

The protests ended, in the shadow of the still-standing Robert E. Lee, with Fitzhugh and Jackson engaged in an ontological debate about the constitutional scope of protected free speech. Jackson felt that screaming at Nazis in public was illegal, but Fitzhugh thought it was protected. Local police officials declined to weigh in, at least then. When Jackson and Fitzhugh called it a draw and everyone stood down, the police were dispatched to the holy work of illegal left turns. As we departed Lee Park, Kessler sat on a park bench alone, checking his phone.

The news cameras, the cellphones, and the voice recorders reported that nothing violent transpired during the sequel to the flaming torch march that tore Charlottesville apart. That was true. But last Wednesday was about more than the absence of bloodshed. A black man, running for City Council on a proRobert E. Lee statue platform, tried to explain to a black woman who will never, ever give an inch for a Nazi, that symbols are just symbols in the middle of a city that is tearing itself to bits over, well, symbols. What the fear and the calls for banning marches misseswhat I doubted before I went to see it for myselfis that an actual conversation about speech, race, fury, and pain, happened in a city park.

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I cant help but feel, in some way, that we got away with something last Wednesday. If we did, we may not be as lucky next time.

But to guarantee an escape from conflict, from violence, requires censorship. To have free speech in this moment, when the stakes are so high, is to live with fear. This is not an easy thing to confrontor to accept. If everyone had just stayed home last Wednesday in Charlottesville, there would have been no need to be afraid. There would also have been no dialogue.

What I saw on Wednesday reaffirmed my conviction that conversation might still be our best chance of getting out of this mess. Free speech is just free speech. It takes actual humans making the effort to talk to each other to transform speech into something more vital and more valuable. Conversations dont always work. They may sometimes go wronghorribly, terribly wrong. But I know someone who left that park with the phone number of someone from the opposing side. I saw people who showed up nervous, but showed up anyhow. The First Amendment will never be able to protect us from horrible words and horrific acts. It does guarantee that well keep talking.
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Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
WESCO International, Inc. provides business-to-business distribution, logistics services, and supply chain solutions in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It operates through three segments: Electrical & Electronic Solutions (EES), Communications & Security Solutions (CSS), and Utility and Broadband Solutions (UBS). The EES segment supplies products and supply chain solutions, including electrical equipment and supplies, automation and connected devices, security, lighting, wire and cable, and safety, as well as maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) products. This segment also offers contractor solutions, direct and indirect manufacturing supply chain optimization programs, lighting and renewables advisory services, and digital and automation solutions. The CSS segment operates in the network infrastructure and security markets. This segment sells products directly to end-users or through various channels, including data communications contractors, security, network, professional audio/visual, and systems integrators. It also provides safety and energy management solutions. The UBS segment offers products and services to investor-owned utilities; public power companies; and service and wireless providers, broadband operators, and contractors. This segment's products include wire and cable, transformers, transmission and distribution hardware, switches, protective devices, connectors, conduits, pole line hardware, racks, cabinets, safety and MRO products, and point-to-point wireless devices. This segment also offers various service solutions, including fiber project management, high and medium voltage project design and support, pre-wired meters and capacitor banks, meter testing and metering infrastructure installation, personal protective equipment dielectric testing, and tool repair, as well as emergency response, storage yard, materials, and logistics management. The company was founded in 1922 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Designer Debbie Millman worked for Pepsi and for Star Wars. During her visit to Slovakia  for a design conference  she commented on local designs and brands.

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At the end of May, American designer Debbie Millman visited Bratislava, giving a lecture at the By Design conference. She rose to fame with her work for commercial brands; she designed logos for Burger King, the 7up soft drink, and products with the Star Wars motif.

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Her work can be found in each US grocery store and her programme on design, the Design Matters, is also famous.

She was shown several Slovak brands by the Sme daily, and asked to comment on their quality. Her statements were as follows:

On the (soft Cola-like drink) Kofola:

"Isnt it scary? Is it a puma or a tiger? (pointing to the glowing-eyed animal on the can) I would have thought it is either a beer or an energy drink because it is that size. But it says Kofola which is Cola-like, I may have guessed. However, I do not know enough about rituals here; I am based on a very western  American or western-European  view.

A can of Urpiner beer:

"Is it a beer? This looks great. Exceptional Slovak beer. As it is a beer, ornaments, ornamental type, and swirls, varnishes, and all would be expected. It looks maybe similar to Budweiser, but perfectly OK.

US designer Debbie Millman (Source: Sme - Jozef Jakubco)

A package of salty Slovakia potato chips:

Why is the brand name Slovakia? Very patriotic. Otherwise, its OK. I would maybe have liked to see a nicer salt-shaker and a better photograph but these trappings are seen on a lot of salty snacks.

Mind you, Budweiser did change their name to American Beer  I felt a bit of an inner eye-roll induced by the experience  they didnt need to do that. But their design is wonderful; I just think they didnt need to change the name to America.

A package of peanut puffs from Nitra:

It looks very local; I wish the package would be paper and not plastic  as it has a very home-made look, except that it is in this plastic paper. If it was in non-plastic, brown paper, it would be perfect. Because it is home-spun, kind of goofy, very retro It should be a matt paper on the outside  you can still put plastic inside so that it doesnt seep through  and otherwise, everything should be exactly the way it is. If it was in light-brown, flack paper, it would be gorgeous.
The evaluation of the available workforce has worsened the most.

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Entrepreneurs in Slovakia are rather critical in their evaluation of the business environment during the first three months of 2017, though not as much as they were in the past.

The current figure of the Business Environment Index is 50.7 points, which is 1.81 percent less than the previous evaluation, according to the Business Alliance of Slovakia (PAS).

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The index was impacted mostly by the better evaluation of some items that have been perceived negatively in the long term in previous reports.

On the other hand, quality and availability of production inputs and labour force received the worst evaluation ever. It received an even worse ranking than was given for the perception of corruption and economic criminality.

It signals the serious lack of workforce which the entrepreneurs have been warning about for some time, the PAS wrote in its press release.

Read also:

Read also: Business environment in Slovakia has significantly deteriorated Read more

Law enforceability and corruption still a problem

The most negative evaluation was traditionally given to law enforceability and the judiciary. One of the reasons for this was the information that Special Prosecutor Dusan Kovacik, has not submitted a single charge in any of the 61 cases he has supervised during eight years in his post.

The entrepreneurs also mentioned the disputes between the Supreme Court President, Daniela Svecova and her predecessor Stefan Harabin and the cases linked to the controversial businessman Ladislav Basternak, suspected of tax fraud.

In annual comparison, Slovakia dropped in the ranking of corruption perception, to which Prime Minister Robert Fico responded by announcing a more intensive fight against corruption.

When taking the whole context into consideration, however, his statements dont sound trustworthy and may give the impression that the rules dont apply equally to everybody, the PAS wrote in the press release.

The distrust of citizens is only supported by the statements of former police officers who are talking about pressures marring their work, as well as Interior Minister Robert Kalinak staying in his post despite various suspicions.

As for the effectiveness of the states management and the access to state aid, the entrepreneurs criticised the fact that though the amount the state collects via taxes is increasing every year, the country still reports a deficit and the government even plans to loosen the debt brake.

Other negatively perceived areas include red tape and procrastination in offices, the functionality of the political system, economic criminality, corruption in offices, quality and availability of production input and workforce, employment legislation, as well as the clarity, usability and stability of laws.

On the other hand, they gave a positive evaluation to bankruptcy and distrainment legislation, functionality of state institutions and regulation of cross-border trade. Areas like price stability, stability and predictability of the euro exchange rate and the access to financial sources reported a more significant increase in evaluation as well, the PAS claimed.
Meciars amnesties are void. Who might end up in jail?

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The Constitutional Court ruled on May 31 that the blanket amnesties issued by former prime minister Vladimir Meciar as acting president in 1997, covering the kidnapping of the presidents son and the thwarted referendum, are void.

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Read also: Meciar amnesties scrapped Read more



As a result, several prosecution and court processes that have been on hold for almost 20 years will now be re-launched.

1. Lexa may face jail time

Former director of the intelligence service SIS, Ivan Lexa, is one of the 13 people charged with the kidnapping of Michal Kovac Jr in 1995. Many of the persons accused of the kidnapping were in high positions in SIS at that time. The Bratislava III District Court will deal with the case and decide if the case should be reopened, stopped, or whether an inquiry should be made with the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to determine if it is in line with EU rules, David Lindtner, the court chairman, told the Sme daily.

The court will also open another case, concerning the unlawful destruction of the vehicle that the SIS used to monitor Kovac Jr before the kidnapping. David Lindtner believes the scrapping of amnesties also concerns this case, he told Sme. In this case, Lexa is accused together with four other SIS agents.

Ivan Lexa in 1998 (Source: TASR)

Lexa already announced he will turn to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, with a complaint that the prosecution against him is unlawful. His attorney Marek Para told the Dennik N daily that his client was not going to avoid the process and actively defend himself.

Questions that he might possibly leave the country have arisen also because when he was first released in 2000, he left the country and remained in hiding in South Africa, despite the fact that there being criminal prosecution against him in several cases.

In 2002, Lexa was charged with the murder of Robert Remias, under the allegations that the former spy chief had ordered the killing through Bratislava mob boss Miroslav Sykora, who was in turn gunned down in front of a hotel in February 1997. In 2006, Special Prosecutor Dusan Kovacik withdrew the charges citing a lack of evidence.

The criminal prosecution in the case was re-opened last year, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the murder. Nobody has been charged yet.

Read also:

Read also: Remias murder resurfaces Read more

2. Meciars interior minister might have to answer for referendum

Gustav Krajci, interior minister in Meciars government, faced criminal charges for thwarting the 1997 referendum. His case, which was covered by the now scrapped amnesties, will now be re-opened. The criminal complaint against Krajci was filed after the vote in 1997 and the prosecutor pressed charges against him in June 1999, after the then-prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda attempted to scrap the amnesties.

Gustav Krajci. (Source: Sme - Pavol Funtal)

In June 2000, the case was suspended and archived due to the amnesties. The courts have now re-opened the case. Krajci claims all he wants is for his case to be wrapped up after so many years, and that he is ready to participate in the court process if it is launched, Sme reported.

The thwarted referendum President Michal Kovac announced the referendum with four questions for May 23, 1997. Gustav Krajci is suspected of abusing his powers in May 1997 as an interior minister in the third cabinet of former prime minister Vladimir Meciar by omitting a question on direct presidential elections from a referendum ballot and penning the three questions on NATO membership in a way which purposely cast entrance into the western military alliance in a negative light. The Constitutional Court on May 21 ruled that the question on the presidential election was not in line with the law because it contained an attachment, but did not say the referendum should not take place with four questions. Krajci, however, had the referendum tickets reprinted without the last question. After the vote, the Central Referendum Committee proclaimed the referendum marred and filed a criminal complaint against the minister.

Read also:

Read also: Government mars referendum Read more



3. Kovac Jrs case will be dealt with too

Together with Meciar amnesties, also the individual pardon for Michal Kovac Jr in the Technopol case has been scrapped. President Michal Kovac granted the pardon to his son in 1997, in connection with the charges that the prosecutor pressed against Kovac Jr in 1995. He was suspected of fraud.

As the pardon was granted, the prosecutors will decide on the case based on archive materials. The prosecutors might close the case, in line with the ruling of the court in Munich that closed the proceedings against Kovac Jr in 2000, the Sme daily reported.

Kovac is currently the head of the Slovak economic and cultural office in Taiwan. His attorney, Jan Havlat, is convinced that the case will be closed immediately.

In fact, there has never been any evidence against Kovac Jr in the Technopol case that concerns fictitious trade in clothes. He has officially never had anything to do with the company. The only link between him and the case is the former police officer Peter Krylov who claimed Kovac Jr encouraged him to organise the fraud.

The Technopol case In the first half of 1992 the Slovak state-run company Technopol paid 2.3 million dollars to the Dutch company Intercommerce for the supply of clothes that have, however, never been imported to Slovakia. Technopol filed a criminal complaint in the Netherlands in 1992. Peter Krylov was detained in Germany as a suspect in September 1992, he pointed to Kovac Jr.s links to the case. In 1994 Interpol issued an international warrant for Kovac Jr, Marian Kocner and Martin Syc-Mily. President Michal Kovac granted a presidential pardon to his son and other people in the case.

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After a failed attempt to pronounce him mentally ill and not responsible for his attack, a former mayor gets 20 years. The verdict is not in effect yet.

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In March 2014, the mayor of the village of Visnove, Jaroslav Baca (of the ruling Smer party) shot his wife several times, it was a clear cut case.

However, the prosecution was stopped after a year of investigation and Baca was released based on questionable expertise, according to which he was not criminally responsible for his deed on account of a mental disorder. Two forensic experts from Banovce nad Bebravou, Juraj Lexmann and Svetozar Droba, wrote that Baca was not criminally responsible due to an organic delusionary disorder which considerably impacted his recognitive ability and control, the Sme daily wrote. After this finding, Baca was placed on the psychiatric ward in Velke Zaluzie. After Sme broke the story and other media followed suit, the General Prosecutor's Office decided to abolish the decision to halt the prosecution and ordered new expert findings.

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Completely different findings concerning mental state

The new experts from the Pezinok mental clinic were not able to confirm the delusionary disorder and were of the opinion that there was no mental disorder at the time of the crime that could negatively impact on his ability to recognise the danger of his own acts, while also noting that only the effect of alcohol consumed influenced his later acts. They also found no reason for protective treatment and Baca was released from the Velke Zaluzie hospital soon afterwards, as there was no legal reason for renewed custody. His ex-wife asked for a second opinion when Baca was still in pre-trial custody, finding the original one biased and fearing for her life. The Prosecutor's Office in Trencin denied this. Now Baca remains at large, she again feels her life is threatened.

In March 2014, Baca had a quarrel with his then-wife at a family feast, accusing her of flirting with a member of the band. After they returned home, he shot her two times in the chest while also injuring her leg and arm. The wife, Janka Vrbova, survived only because she was able to call the rescue team.

20 years' sentence

Initially, the prosecution was to be halted and he should have been sent to a mental institution. Then, Sme published the story and the case went before the court. On June 6, the Trencin District Court sentenced him to 20 years in prison for the attempted murder of his wife. "The defendant commited acts which were directly aimed at committing the crime of killing another person deliberately, the Trencin District Court judge, Eva Tothova said, as quoted by Sme. She added that, Baca attempted an especially grave crime. He was sentenced to be incarcerated in a maximum level prison and also to after-care surveillance for two years.

The ex-mayor also has to pay damage compensation of more than 34,000 to his wife. Janka Vrbova was satisfied with the verdict but she still fears for her life.

Lawyer Jozef Simko asked for the session to take place without the presence of the defendant, and this was approved. In his final plea, Simko asked the court to acquit Baca, insisting he suffered from mental illness at the time of the crime, and thus was unable to realise how dangerous his behaviour was. The lawyer appealed the court decision but refused to comment on the verdict. Now, the Trencin Regional Court will deal with the case. Despite the grave charge, Baca remains at large.
The Slovak Statistics Office (SU) published a report on June 8 that shows fewer Slovak residents are working abroad.

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The number of Slovaks working outside the country has fallen by 2.9 percent (4,600 people) in the first quarter of 2017. The number of Slovak residents working in neighboring countries now stands at 155,000, the Sme daily wrote on June 8. This is the second consecutive quarter that the rates have fallen, leading experts to consider the recent changes part of a trend.

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Until recently, the statistics on Slovaks going to work abroad for short terms were breaking records, with the rate of increase hovering around 17 percent. Both analysts and government officials acknowledged that the flight of workers was a problem.

To ensure that their data does not account for Slovaks who have permanently moved abroad, SU only registers Slovaks who are abroad for less than one year, including those who leave to work for week or month-long shifts. Those who move to another country for work appear in the statistics only during their first year abroad.

Economic growth reason for the reversal

Experts see the strong economic growth (the economy grew by 3.1 percent in the first quarter) and increased demand for good workers as the main reasons for the change. Jobs in Slovakia are becoming more available and better paid, and, thus, the motivation to stay at home is bigger.

Slovaks, especially those from poorer regions, no longer have to choose between sitting at home (unemployed) or leaving abroad, Jana Mesarova, manager of the Wincott People HR company, told Sme. They can even find work in their region. For many, it is more attractive  even with a lower salary  to stay close to family and friends than to commute for a better-paid job abroad.

Head of the Department of Labour Statistics and Education Ivan Chrappa said that people who once commuted to work in German plants are now able to find employment in Slovakia. He points to figures showing that Slovaks are becoming less likely to leave for countries with stronger economies.

This change could be related to the fact that the competition is stronger in those countries, as is the protection of domestic markets, Chrappa said for the Sme daily. This means that Slovaks have a tougher time finding employment. About 24,000 people currently commute from Slovakia to work in Germany.

Brexit sending Slovaks home

Brexit may also be contributing to this trend, according to Vladimir Balaz, an economic forecaster with the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Currently, it is questionable which rules will apply to Slovaks after the UK leaves the European Union. Estimates show that between 60,000 and 90,000 Slovaks are currently working in the UK.

The Slovak government also plans to incentivize citizens to return home from the UK, state secretary of the Labour Ministry Branislav Ondrus said.

We will try to attract more people to the website administered by the Centre for Labour, Family and Social Affairs  and to address them directly with specific offers, he said in March. However, the ministry has not yet presented any specific plans.

Most Slovaks who commute to work abroad go to Austria, according to the statistics. At the beginning of 2017, this number was more than 52,000, comprised mostly of women who work as caretakers for seniors or children. This number may change soon, though, as Austria has announced plans to reduce the childrens allowances these workers will receive if their children live in Slovakia. Zuzana Tanzer of the AIW job-brokering agency told the Austrian state TV, ORF, that up to 50 percent of qualified caretakers will leave their work in Austria if they lose the childrens allowances.

Brain drain an issue

It is impossible to say whether people living abroad for long-term stays have started returning to Slovakia: no organisation or institution is able to specify any updated data. Until recently, it was even hard to tell how many Slovaks have actually moved abroad, since analysts have mainly provided estimates.

However, the recent analysis of the Financial Policy Institute (FPI) at the Finance Ministry has changed this. Based on health insurance data, the analysts were able to show that 300,000 Slovaks have moved abroad long-term. This figure represents something experts call brain drain, Sme wrote.
The former spinning mill will feature the facade from 1920 and will present its industrial heritage.

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The former spinning mill and the engine house, the only remainders of the iconic former Bratislava Thread Factory, better known as Cvernovka, will turn into an office building and a congress hall. The owner and developer of the premises, Finnish-Slovak company YIT Slovakia, addressed the architectural studio Bouda Masar Architekti to prepare the conversion project. Bouda Masar Architekti has already worked on several reconstructions of historical buildings, including the Bratislava Castle.

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Joining of sensitive reconstruction of one of the few technical monuments in Bratislava and the highest technological standards will result in creation of absolutely unique and creative spaces that will simultaneously become one of the dominant features of the new quarter, said Stanislava Paulikova, project manager at YIT Slovakia, as cited in the press release.

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Read also: Competition winner gives Cvernovka new look Read more

The developer wants to begin work on the former spinning mill, Pradiaren, which is a national cultural monument, next January while its conversion should be completed within one year.

The reconstruction and conversion project of the former spinning mill will highlight its historical value and uniqueness, while keeping intact all the industrial details in the interior, for example, the original cast iron pillars. The building will also get a new facade reflecting how it looked in 1920.

In total, the converted former spinning mill, to be named Pradiaren 1900, will provide 9,500 square metres and 2,800 square metres for retail and services. The engine house, called Silocentrala in Slovak, will become a cafe and a congress hall. YIT decided to keep the engine hall even thought it is not protected as Pradiaren is.

The offices with above-standard ceilings of more than four meters high, will meet the highest A standards of the class A. They will also meet BREEAM Excellent energy standards which will guarantee low operating costs for future tenants.

New Cvernovka

YIT Slovakia bought the former Bratislava Thread Factory in November 2015. Last year it selected architects from the Bratislava-based studio Compass Architekti via an international competition to design the project for these premises. The investor plans to build about 700 apartments over the next four to six years.
Had a general election been held in late May or early June, the ruling Smer party would have won  and received 44 seats in parliament.

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Smer received the support of 26.2 percent of Slovak citizens, the TASR newswire wrote, citing a June 8 poll by the Focus agency. The poll had 1,012 respondents between May 31 and June 4.

Next came the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party with 13.4 percent, or 22 seats in the parliament. The far-right LSNS party came in third with 10.9 percent of votes and 18 seats.

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Had a general election been held in late May or early June, the ruling Smer party would have won  and received 44 seats in parliament.

With 10.2 percent of votes (17 seats), the coalition partner, the Slovak National Party (SNS) finished fourth in the survey. Next came the opposition OLaNO-NOVA party with 9.6 percent (16 seats). The opposition Sme Rodina (We Are Family) and coalition Most-Hid would have each had 12, earning 7.4 percent and 6.9 percent of voters, respectively.

Non-parliamentary Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) would have been the last party to clear the 5-percent threshold, necessary to win seats in the House. It would have received 9 seats, with 5.7 percent of votes.

With support from 4 percent of voters, the ethnic-Hungarian SMK party would have been left out of parliament again.

Based on the responses, approximately 69.5 percent of the respondents would have gone to the polling stations. Around 20.6 percent of the respondents wouldn't have voted, while 9.9 percent were undecided as to who they would vote for.

The first big anti-corruption protest did not affect Smer, the Sme daily commented on the results of the poll.

However, support for LSNS seems to be growing, with the extremist party garnering almost one percentage point more support compared to a similar poll in April, Sme wrote.
The signed convention is intended to halt the practice of routing income to countries with attractive tax treaties via shell companies.

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The international fight against tax avoidance has reached another milestone. On June 7, in Paris, finance ministers and other representatives in charge of more than 60 countries signed a multilateral convention that aims to check cross-border tax evasion. The ceremonial signing was part of the OECD Ministerial Council meeting, in which ministers from the OECD and partner countries discussed issues of global relevance.

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Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir signed the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent BEPS [base erosion and profit shifting] for Slovakia.

Tax avoidance is, alas, a reality, said Kazimir as cited by the TASR newswire. I appreciate all the more the fact that were involved in bringing countries closer together and in bringing the spotlight on those who try to avoid the rules.

As a result of the convention, over 1,100 treaties concerning the prevention of double taxation will be modified.

The convention, which is part of the OECD/G20 BEPS Project, seeks to close the gaps in existing international rules that allow corporate profits to disappear or be artificially shifted to low or no tax jurisdictions, where companies have little or no economic activity. This ultimately results in corporate income tax avoidance.

The convention will become definitively effective after at least five signatory countries approve it at the national level. Afterwards it will be reflected in bilateral contractual obligations of signatory countries. Slovakia has chosen all its 64 valid and effective treaties on double taxation for adjustment via the multilateral convention.
Privacy and Security

K12 Cyber Incidents Have Been Increasing in 2017

The creator of a national K12 Cyber Incident Map warns that schools should act now, not later, to bolster their security.

Ed Tech Strategies' K12 Cyber Incident Map. Courtesy of Doug Levin.

The founder and operator of a K12 Cyber Incident Map is sharing some lessons he has learned after collecting data over the past 17 months on cyber incidents at United States schools.

Doug Levin, president of Ed Tech Strategies, a Virginia-based research and counsel consultancy, says that as K12 schools increase their use and reliance on digital tools and services, the number of cyber incidents has also been on the rise  exponentially so.

Since Jan. 1, 2016, 141 U.S. K12 schools and districts experienced one or more publicly disclosed cyber incidents. Sixty-seven incidents were reported during 2016, and 74 have been reported during the first five months of 2017. If the pace continues at the current rate, that will represent a more than 100 percent increase in 2017, compared to last year.

Incidents and disruptions have been on the rise, Levin said in an interview. We have had more incidents in 2017 than all of 2016. Weve seen more than double the number of incidents in schools.

Levin attributed this rise to a few different factors: more awareness of nefarious cyber activities; more schools using more hackable technologies; more schools going 1-to-1 and relying on digital tools; and bad actors who continue to look for soft targets, such as students and school staff.

Theyre looking for vulnerable targets, Levin said. My sense is that as schools increase reliance on technology, [cybercriminals] are finding that schools are softer targets.

Levin has been tracking the publicly disclosed K12 incidents on a color-coded map on his website, edtechstrategies.com. His sources include media reports, DataBreaches.net and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Some cyber incidents at U.S. K12 schools that Levin has tracked include phishing attacks that procure personal data; ransomware attacks; denial-of-service attacks; other unauthorized disclosures, breaches or hacks that disclose personal information; and other cyber incidents that have caused school disruptions or closures.

In many cases, theyre not very sophisticated at all, Levin said. They dont need to be successful very often. They just need one or two people out of millions to respond. Then they can get paid. They can get their money.

In a post published this week on the newly revamped Ferpa Sherpa education privacy site, Levin argues that not only have schools been experiencing an increasing number of cyber incidents, but the range of cyber threats affecting schools appears to be diverse and shifting over time.

Furthermore, students are not the only ones whose personal information is in jeopardy. Personal data about school system employees is being targeted and also is at risk, Levin states.

We have too often confounded the issues of privacy and security in policymaking about technology in schools, Levin said. We have focused more on the types of data schools and their vendors are collecting and with whom it can be shared and less on the legal, technical and practical steps we expect schools and vendors to take to ensure that these data remain only accessible to authorized parties. The former speaks to privacy issues; the latter to security issues. Both are important, but based on my research I would argue that more attention is needed on issues of IT-related security.

Levin wants to dispel the notion that intrusions and hacks are always done by external actors. Based on the statistics, a significant proportion of incidents are done by educators themselves, school staff and students.

Students are hacking their own schools to improve their grade, he said. Theyre changing info on the website, or teachers websites. Theyre sending sordid emails to everyone in the school community. In some cases, its just kids being kids.

Levin notes that a significant number of K12 student who were caught hacking into their schools were charged as criminals under state and federal law  and were likely to go to prison if convicted.

We certainly have a question as to whether the best way to sanction or penalize these students is the existing legal framework  that may be too harsh, he said.

Levin has built his K12 map based on publicly reported incidents. However, there are probably many more incidents that have not been publicized, he said. Schools may not want to share the bad publicity, or admit that there are weaknesses in their electronic security systems.

Still, there are concrete steps schools can take to improve their security, such as:

Use special software or hardware to protect data;

Create better password and authorization policies;

Use secondary authentication methods;

Train school staff, particularly about phishing and downloading of unfamiliar files; and

Hire more staff with IT security expertise.

Schools should not wait to bolster their security, Levin warned. Unless they take cybersecurity more seriously, there will be legal action, he said. Were starting to see lawsuits filed and potential legal action being brought by those who are affected by these incidents.

So the time to act is now, Levin suggested, and its important to think more broadly than just about the students.
Artwork by Autumn de Forest stolen from Ralph Minnicozzi when he stopped in Albuquerque during his cross-country move. (Courtesy of Ralph Minnicozzi) Artwork by Yaacov Agam stolen from Ralph Minnicozzi when he stopped in Albuquerque during his cross-country move. (Courtesy of Ralph Minnicozzi) Artwork by Joan Miro stolen from Ralph Minnicozzi when he stopped in Albuquerque during his cross-country move. (Courtesy of Ralph Minnicozzi) Artwork by Alfred Gockel stolen from Ralph Minnicozzi when he stopped in Albuquerque during his cross-country move. (Courtesy of Ralph Minnicozzi) Prev 1 of 4 Next

Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Ralph Minnicozzi retired from his job in New Hampshire two weeks ago, and last Friday he filled a 20-foot U-Haul truck with all his belongings and made his way across the country to join his wife in their new home in Arizona.

Minnicozzi was six hours from the journeys end when he stopped for the night in Albuquerque.

Thieves struck early Tuesday.

Someone just stole our entire life, he said. I was crying earlier, but Im past crying now. Im just angry.

Minnicozzi said the U-Haul, which he parked at the Fairfield Inn at Gibson and Yale SE, was packed with his bicycle, tools, furniture, diabetes medication, a lifetime of documents, antiques, pottery and several valuable pieces of art. He had been towing a trailer carrying his pickup truck behind the U-Haul, and that was also stolen.

Tuesday afternoon, the Sandoval County sheriffs deputies found Minnicozzis trailer and pickup truck abandoned near Rio Rancho, he said. The pickup had been damaged but was repairable. The U-Haul and all his belongings are still missing.

Although Minnicozzi said it is a pain to replace household goods, tools and electronics, it is the loss of his antiques and art that tears him apart.

He had been planning to pass down the artworks to his children and grandchildren as their inheritance. The art included works by Joan Miro, Alfred Gockel and Autumn de Forest.

Theres nothing these guys are going to be able to do with it, he said. They cant sell art; people are going to know what they are. Its stuff we had an emotional attachment to that you cant replace.

Albuquerque police didnt respond to questions about the case, including whether they have any suspects.

But Brad Merrill, general manager of the Fairfield Inn, said hotel employees have surveillance footage they believe shows the incident and have given it to police. Were working with police and with security to do what we can, Merrill said.

APD spokesman Fred Duran didnt respond to questions about how many thefts have been reported at area hotels recently or how many officers or detectives work on these cases.

It is, however, a common story around the city.

Just three weeks ago, a couple staying at a Northwest Albuquerque hotel reported their U-Haul and SUV had been stolen, according to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court. Police arrested the suspect in that case and recovered most of the couples belongings.

In late May, the Journal published a letter to the editor from a man who said he had been staying at a Northeast Albuquerque hotel with his wife when half of their belongings were stolen from their SUV.

And this week, a Bayfield, Colo., man wrote a letter saying that his vehicle was broken into on Tuesday as his family dined with his daughter in Albuquerque before she was sworn in and sent off to basic training after enlisting in the Army.

Minnicozzi said he plans to warn travelers online against staying in Albuquerque and he hopes that he never has to return here.

His wife came to pick him up Tuesday, and by Wednesday afternoon the couple had left the city, heading to a new home in Arizona that is furnished with nothing but a love seat, a couch, a bed and two pans.

I cant afford to start all over, Minnicozzi said. We have a six-hour ride in front of us, and were going home to nothing other than each other.

Tips

Anyone with information should contact Crime Stoppers at 843-STOP
Just talking to each other  and listening  can help.

Former U.S. Sens. Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi, and Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, told about 350 community leaders in New Mexico on Wednesday that good communication is a key to overcoming the bitter partisanship that divides the country.

Lott said too many senators and representatives fly in and out of Washington, D.C., without taking the time to build real relationships with their colleagues from other parts of the country.

Talk to each other, he said. Youd be amazed how little that goes on now.

Daschle put it this way: The most important way to persuade is with your ears.

The two former senators delivered their presentation in a relaxed question-and-answer session sponsored by New Mexico First, a group that promotes collaborative policymaking. The organization was founded in 1986 by two U.S. senators from New Mexico: Republican Pete Domenici and Democrat Jeff Bingaman.

Lott and Daschle said the intense partisanship in Washington is driven, in part, by the pressure both Democrats and Republicans alike face to appeal to their base and refuse to compromise with the other side.

Leaders have to show a little courage, Lott said.

They also lamented the easy spread of misinformation or lies in the modern news environment, sometimes driven by social media, talk radio and politicians themselves.

I think we owe people the truth, Daschle said.

Sam Donaldson, a retired ABC newsman and former White House correspondent, served as moderator of the event, which was held at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

Also on Wednesday, New Mexico First honored five community leaders for bipartisan work, including Sherman McCorkle, a business leader and retired executive.

Four state lawmakers won recognition for a commitment to collaborative policymaking: state Rep. James Smith, R-Sandia Park; Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque; Rep. Jim Dines, R-Albuquerque; and Rep. Stephanie Garcia Richard, D-Los Alamos.

Lott served in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2007, and Daschle from 1987 to 2004. Each was majority and minority leader at different points in their tenures.
RE MAY 24 op-ed Fund Surplus Can Be Tapped by Reps. Jim Dines and Paul Bandy:

It is rare, refreshing and encouraging to see two New Mexico legislators introducing a bill authorizing the transfer of excess funds from the Legislative Retirement Plan to the operating reserve of the state general fund. How often do you see politicians willing to sponsor such a proposal for our cash-strapped state? Even more surprising is the elaboration given by these two representatives on the very generous, cash-rich legislative retirement plan, which provides a retiring legislator with 10 years of service an immediate annual benefit of $10,824 regardless of age. Not bad at all for an annual contribution by the legislator of $600. That annual donation is immediately recouped with the first year retirement pay and goes on for the lifetime of the legislator. Since the average retirement length is 18 years, and often much longer, a 10-year legislator could expect to receive well over $200,000 for his/her $6,000 investment.

It is not surprising that this retirement fund is currently funded at 145 percent, which is more than double that of other state employee retirement plans. The fund reportedly now holds $12.5 million more than needed to meet obligations.

I sincerely hope that Reps. Dines and Bandy are successful with their initiative, but I doubt that their proposed legislation will be greeted warmly by their peers. That said, I commend them for trying to aid the states financial dilemma.

Learning more about this most generous retirement plan for legislators adds more fuel to the fire for term limits. Our state, even more than others, does not need professional long-term politicians. Two terms for senators and four for representatives should be more than enough.

DAVE COULIE

Albuquerque
The saddest part about the recent terrorist attacks in the U.K.  aside from the actual horror for the victims and their families, of course  was that there was so little new to say about it.

But that didnt stop anyone. Everyone backed into their usual rhetorical corners, filling in the blanks on the familiar post-terror conversation like it was a game of Mad Libs, only none of the answers were particularly funny.

I, for one, could easily recycle one of umpteen columns on how the lefts response is wrong and why we have to shed our dysfunctional aversion to speaking plainly about the nature of the threat and what is required to fight it. Or I could note that Presidents Trumps response to the attack was less than helpful. But to what end? Who hasnt heard the arguments a thousand times already?

Watching cable news and surveying the algae blooms of hot takes on Twitter, its hard to imagine anything will dramatically change. We are growing numb to the problem as it becomes part of the background noise of daily life. One of the attackers in London was even featured in a 2016 TV documentary titled The Jihadi Next Door.

Contrast the reactions to the London attacks and to Trumps withdrawal from the Paris accord. A writer for The Nation spoke for many when he assured readers that this is murder and a crime against humanity. No sane liberal condoned the terrorist attacks, but the condemnations seemed rote, while passion was reserved for admonishing those who made too big a deal of them or flirted with Islamophobia.

In 2014, Jeremy Corbyn, who has a remote but possible chance of being the next British prime minister, argued that supporting the Islamic State is just another political point of view and that the government shouldnt put up legal obstacles to Islamic State fighters trying to return to England. This perspective hasnt cost him much with his admirers on the left, but I have to wonder what the reaction would be if he described climate change denial as just another political point of view.

But there I go, falling into the familiar trap of scoring ideological points rather than dealing with the larger truth. And what truth is that? Simply that we are in a rut when it comes to terrorism.

The Ariana Grande concert attack in Manchester did generate more than the usual passion because lots of pundits and policymakers, never mind television viewers, have teenage daughters they could imagine attending an event like that.

But did you hear about the bombing of a popular ice cream parlor in Baghdad last week? Families taking their kids there for a post-fast treat were blown to bits by the Islamic State.

A day later in Afghanistan, the Islamic State blew up a tanker truck in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul. That got some attention because of the brazenness of the attack, the death toll among Westerners, and because the explosion was really big.

But even these attacks will be forgotten, absorbed into the gray maw of the way things are. Dont believe me? Do you remember the Paris terrorist attack that took place a month before the Manchester bombing? How about the Stockholm truck attack two weeks before that? The Saint Petersburg bombing four days prior? The Westminster Bridge attack in London in March? The machete attack at the Louvre in February? What about the horrible Christmas Market attack in Berlin? The assaults at Ohio State University; Hamburg, Germany; and Normandy, France? I think people still remember the truck attack that killed nearly 80 people in Nice last year.

Next week will be the first anniversary of the Orlando nightclub shooting. Many people will say, Wow, has it been a year already?

I suspect well stay in this rut reading from stale scripts for a good while. The hopeful scenario, I suppose, is that Islamic terrorism will eventually be ground down, after years or decades of attrition. Those who kept reminding us that more Americans die in bathtubs than from terrorism will consider this result a sort of vindication.

The alternative is that a dedicated group of attention-seeking murderers will react to the blase navel-gazing and self-absorption of the West by doing something so horrible that we will be shocked out of our torpor.

Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. E-mail goldbergcolumn@gmail.com, Twitter @JonahNRO. Copyright, Tribune Media Services Inc.
Imagine the impact on your personal finances if your monthly income fluctuated by double-digit percentages from month to month, even though you worked the same hours every week at the same rate of pay.

Thats precisely what happens to Albuquerque and other municipalities when the state collects gross receipts taxes  levied on most goods and services  and distributes them, minus the states take, each month back to the local governments. Although some fluctuation in gross receipts taxes is normal because of a communitys economic activity  receipts from December, for example, are typically higher than those in, lets say, April  huge swings are not the norm.

The proper distribution of gross receipts tax revenues is critical because they typically account for about three-fourths of the revenue used to operate city governments.

So when Albuquerque City Councilor Isaac Benton noticed inexplicable swings in month-to-month gross receipts distributions from the state, he asked state Auditor Tim Keller to look into it. Benton said the citys October revenue from the GRT shot up 19 percent compared to the same month a year earlier, and then fell 12 percent the next month.

That cant all be Halloween candy.

As youd expect, that kind of fluctuation makes financial planning a bit tricky. William Fulginiti of the New Mexico Municipal League says other cities also have concerns, with potential litigation against the state under consideration.

Keller has asked Albuquerque to provide data going back three years to help determine whether theres a problem and has pledged to do extra testing during an annual audit of the citys revenues. That should either provide a satisfactory explanation for the erratic range or pinpoint a problem. Meanwhile, Ben Cloutier, a spokesman for the state Taxation and Revenue Department, says a team is doing an internal audit and welcomes an outside audit  just not by Keller, a Democratic candidate for Albuquerque mayor. Kellers office says the GRT review will, as usual, be conducted in conjunction with an independent auditing firm.

Sure, Keller is running for office and could make political hay out of findings. And yes, Tax and Rev has been without a Cabinet secretary since Gov. Susana Martinez appointee Demesia Padilla resigned in December after the state Attorney Generals office executed a warrant at the agency for tax documents connected with Padilla and her husband. (No charges have resulted from the investigation to date.)

But answering Bentons request for a review of GRT distributions should be a nonpartisan exercise, and the folks in charge of ensuring Albuquerque meets its bottom line need that information. And sooner rather than later.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
LOS ANGELES  Los Angeles police officials are investigating how officers killed a man in Wilmington, first shooting him before their cruiser ran over and pinned him, authorities said Wednesday.

The officers had responded about 9 p.m. Tuesday to a report of a man with a handgun, according to a statement released by the Los Angeles Police Department.

A toy gun was found at the scene by investigators, police said in the statement.

When officers arrived, they saw a lone man in his mid-20s and the deadly encounter unfolded  but authorities provided a vague account of what transpired.

Believing this may be the suspect from the radio call, they directed their attention toward him; at that time there was an officer-involved shooting, the department said in the statement.

LAPD officials did not say whether officers saw the toy gun before opening fire or whether the man aimed it at police.

Police said several shots were fired and the man fell to the ground. Then the officers cruiser traveled forward and struck the man, pinning him underneath it, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene. The exact cause of his death  gunshot wounds or the weight of the cruiser  has not been determined.

Ed Winter, a deputy chief of investigations for the L.A. County coroners office, said the man has not yet been identified.

During the deadly encounter, one of the officers suffered an injury to his arm and was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. Police have not explained how the officer was injured but said he was released Wednesday after treatment.

The incident may have been caught on video as police cruisers in the LAPDs South Bureau are equipped with dash cameras.

The initial police radio call of an officer down overstated the extent of the officers injury, and a dispatcher described the officer as having been shot in the arm.

Shots fired; can you help, an out-of-breath officer is heard saying into his radio. The officer then advised where to approach the scene from on Wilmington Boulevard.

Suspect down by vehicle; possible gunfire, the officer said shortly after to a dispatcher. Another officers voice interjected, Weve got an officer down.

A dispatcher then tells officers over the radio that one of the officers at the scene was shot in the arm, and directs all units to Denni Street and Wilmington Boulevard.

Once the LAPDs specialized shooting investigators arrived, they determined that the officers were not fired at and that the item recovered at the scene was a toy gun.

Initially, a police spokesman had said another suspect was in custody. But as the investigation evolved, LAPD Communications Director Josh Rubenstein said only one suspect  the man who was fatally shot  was involved in the incident.

A multi-agency investigation is underway, which is standard procedure for all LAPD officer-involved shootings. It will be reviewed by the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, the Police Commission and its inspector general.

A white shade tent covered the police cars front end on the sidewalk into early Wednesday morning when coroners investigators entered the area to remove the mans body.

Tuesday nights shooting is two blocks away from where 17-year-old Fabian Nunez was gunned down earlier that same day.
Two incumbents and two newcomers have won election to the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board of directors.

In voting on Tuesday, incumbent Karen Dunning defeated challenger Pat McCraw in the Bernalillo County, position 3, race and incumbent Derrick J. Lente beat Orlando J. Lucero for the Sandoval County, position 7, seat.

Incumbents in Bernalillo County, position 4, and Socorro County, position 6, did not seek re-election. Joaquin Baca was unopposed in his bid for position 4 and Valerie Moore defeated James Lee Martin in a close contest for position 6.

The conservancy district serves 11,000 irrigators, delivering water to 70,000 acres of cropland along 150 miles of the Rio Grande from Cochiti Dam in the north to the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in the south. Conservancy district board members, who are unpaid and serve four-year terms, also make decisions that affect drainage, flood control, recreation and fish and wildlife.

Seven people serve on the MRGCD board, three from Bernalillo County; one each from Sandoval, Socorro and Valencia counties; and one in an at-large position.

In the races at stake this year, the complete but unofficial results are:

 Bernalillo County, Position 3: Dunning 973, McCraw 307.

 Bernalillo County, Position 4: Joaquin Baca (unopposed) 989.

 Socorro County, Position 6: Moore 213, Martin 203.

 Sandoval County, Position 7: Lente 773, Lucero 147.

As in past conservancy district elections, turnout was very low. Of 64,499 eligible voters, only 2,634 cast votes.
SANTA FE  A review of New Mexico campaign spending reports done by Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Olivers office has turned up questionable expenditures by several candidates and political committees.

In one case, the Secretary of States Office said it had referred to the Attorney Generals Office a case involving a group registered as a nonprofit that spent $47,500 in the 2016 election cycle.

That group, the New Mexico Habitat Conservation Initiative, gave money primarily to Republican state political committees and was formed by Dan Perry, a Santa Fe attorney who pushed for a 2015 law that bars the public from walking or wading in streams that run through private property without written permission.

The secretary of states report, released Wednesday, said it is possible the group operates primarily for political purposes, which would require it to register with the state as a political committee.

It also said the group had not responded to a February letter from the Secretary of States Office seeking an explanation for the potential violation.

A random audit of at least 10 percent of campaign finance reports  that have to be periodically filed by candidates and political committees  is required under state law after each general election, but the audit results had not previously been released publicly.

Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, vowed to do so after winning election last year, saying the audit results would allow New Mexicans to better scrutinize how elected officials are receiving and spending campaign funds.

Other potential violations in the random audit of the campaign reports of 106 candidates and political committees were voluntarily corrected once they were pointed out, according to the Secretary of States Office.

Such violations included the purchase of boots and compression shorts, as well as a chiropractor visit, paid for by the re-election campaign of Clint Welborn, the district attorney for the Socorro-based 7th Judicial District.

Welborn repaid the money in question  a total of $354.15  into a public election fund, the Secretary of States Office said.

Under state law, campaign funds can be used for campaign-related expenditures and expenses reasonably related to the duties of office. New rules further defining what expenditures are allowed  and which are not  are expected to be proposed by Toulouse Oliver in the coming weeks.

In a statement, Toulouse Oliver said the audit showed most elected officials are complying with state law but also revealed problematic areas that her office will try to fix via educational efforts with future candidates to ensure full disclosure and compliance regarding the use of campaign funds.
WASHINGTON  Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to tell a U.S. Senate committee today that President Donald Trump demanded his loyalty and asked him to let fired national security adviser Michael Flynn off the hook in connection with the FBIs investigations into the Russian government and Trumps presidential campaign.

The former FBI director will also tell lawmakers that he informed Trump that he was not personally under investigation.

On Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, questioned acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats about conversations they had with Comey and the president.

Comeys planned remarks are included in written testimony released Wednesday ahead of his highly anticipated appearance before the intelligence committee today. While the FBI director is a subordinate of the president, he or she is expected to be nonpartisan and not subject to political pressure.

Marc Kasowitz, an attorney representing Trump in the special counsels probe of Russias 2016 election interference, said Wednesday that Comeys statement vindicated the president. In a letter Trump wrote to Comey firing him as FBI director on May 9, he noted that Comey told him he was not under investigation. The ousted FBI chiefs testimony to be delivered today says he had, indeed, told Trump that he was not under investigation in any Russian probe.

The president feels completely and totally vindicated, Kasowitz said in a statement Wednesday. He is eager to move forward with his agenda.

Kasowitzs statement did not address Comeys comments about Trumps pressuring him to shield Flynn from any FBI investigation. Some critics of the president contend the action would amount to obstruction of justice, a federal crime.

Comeys testimony will be his first public comments since Trump abruptly fired him in early May. At the time, Comey was overseeing the federal investigation into possible ties between Trumps campaign and Russias election meddling.

The Justice Department then appointed another former FBI director, Robert Mueller, as special counsel in the investigation.

Comeys testimony is based on his written memos of interactions he had with Trump, some of which he says he shared with senior FBI leadership. Comey describes at length a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office in which he believed Trump asked him to drop any investigation of Flynns contacts with Russias ambassador to the U.S.

He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,  Comeys testimony says, according to the prepared remarks. I replied only that he is a good guy. 

Asked whether the president stood by earlier assertions that he had neither sought Comeys loyalty nor asked for the Flynn investigation to be dropped, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: I cant imagine the president not standing by his own statement.

Meanwhile on Wednesday, Democratic members of the intelligence committee asked McCabe and Coats about their interactions with Comey and the president.

Both men declined to answer the questions, leading to tense exchanges.

Heinrich asked McCabe whether Comey had told him Trump asked for his loyalty. Heinrich then asked Coats whether Trump had asked him to help blunt investigations into his campaigns relationship with Russia. Both McCabe and Coats refused to answer Heinrichs questions.

I think your unwillingness to answer a very basic question speaks volumes, Heinrich told Coats.

After the hearing, Heinrich told the Journal the non-answers were frustrating, but also revealing.

I think they paint a pretty clear picture, Heinrich said. The more they refuse to answer a question that would obviously make so many things (controversies) go away, it sort of speaks for itself. It is frustrating because they have not invoked executive privilege and they have no legal basis.

Heinrichs questioning of the government officials generated lots of chatter on social media, with CNN contributor Rebecca Berg tweeting that the typically low-key junior senator from New Mexico is the intelligence committees stealth bomber.

Asked whether Comeys testimony, in which he says Trump asked him to shield Flynn from an FBI inquiry, amounts to obstruction of justice, Heinrich noted that he isnt a lawyer and said he wasnt sure.

I think the fact that Director Comey felt that there was a loyalty test and felt like the president was trying to create, a  I believe the phrase was a patronage relationship  I think those things should be very, very concerning, Heinrich said.

Some congressional Republicans contend that Comey should have notified Congress earlier if Trump was asking him to behave inappropriately, but Heinrich said the criticism amounts to trying to change the subject.

It doesnt deal with the fundamental question of what was the relationship here between the Trump campaign and the Russians and was there interference in a law enforcement investigation, Heinrich said.
Insurance Back Adias GERBAUD will head XL Catlin's International Environmental portfolio

Adias GERBAUD was promoted to Head XL Catlin's International Environmental. She will lead a team of eleven underwriters across the UK, Western Europe and Australia. She is based in Madrid, Spain.



This investment in talent is in line with XL Catlin's drive to further strengthen its Environmental insurance capabilities across its EMEA, LatAm and APAC regions, providing a range of solutions for businesses exposed to environmental risks, including Pollution & Remediation, Legal Liability and Contractors Pollution Liability, the company's press release reads.



Daniel MAURER, Chief Underwriting Officer International Casualty - Insurance, commented: "Many multinational companies across EMEA, LatAm and APAC are increasingly aware that minimal environmental protection practices don't lead to a sustainable future. They are working with XL Catlin's risk engineers to help minimize their environmental exposures and tailoring insurance solutions to mitigate the myriad expenses associated with environmental clean-ups. I am delighted that with Adias we have promoted a strong leader and that we have further strengthened the Environmental team. With these developments, XL Catlin will be even better positioned to help multinational companies manage environmental risk while also developing new solutions for addressing these often complex exposures."



Ms. GERBAUD joined XL Catlin's Spanish operation in 2007 as a Claims Adjuster. She moved to London in 2008 to become a member of the Environmental underwriting team before returning to Spain in 2010 to lead the Environmental Insurance business in Iberia. She was appointed Underwriting Manager Environmental Southern Europe & Latin America in 2013 and Head Environmental EMEA in 2016. Ms. Gerbaud holds a Bachelor in Corporate Law from the University of Poitiers, a Bachelor in European Legal Studies from the University of Cambridge, a Master's Degree in International Law and Anglo-American Business Law from Paris I University / Pantheon-Sorbonne, as well as an Environmental Science degree from the Open University.



About XL Catlin's Insurance Operations



XL Catlin insurance companies offer property, casualty, professional, financial lines and specialty insurance products globally. Businesses that are moving the world forward choose XL Catlin as their partner. To learn more, visit xlcatlin.com.



About XL Catlin



XL Catlin is the global brand used by XL Group Ltd.'s (NYSE: XL) insurance and reinsurance companies which provide property, casualty, professional and specialty products to industrial, commercial and professional firms, insurance companies and other enterprises throughout the world. Clients look to XL Catlin for answers to their most complex risks and to help move their world forward. To learn more, visit xlcatlin.com.





Author: Daniela GHETU on 08.06.2017





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CINCINNATI  A prosecutor has told Ohio jurors that evidence will show that the 2015 police shooting of a black unarmed motorist was clearly murder, while the defense attorney says the white officer shot to stop the threat.

Attorney Stewart Mathews for Ray Tensing said in his opening statement Thursday that the former University of Cincinnati police officer charged with murder and voluntary manslaughter feared for his life as Sam DuBose tried to drive away from a traffic stop.

But Prosecutor Stacey DeGraffenreid (de-GRAF-in-reed) said evidence including body camera video will show Tensing wasnt trapped. She said he disregarded his police training during the traffic stop.

Nine white jurors and three black jurors were seated Wednesday in Tensings retrial in Hamilton County. His first trial ended in a hung jury last November.
ATLANTA  More than 70 years ago, a U.S. Army bomber plane dubbed Hot as Hell was headed for India on a supply mission. It never arrived, and no one went looking for the doomed aircraft or the eight men on board because military officials had no way of pinpointing where it went down.

All signs of the mission were lost until 2006, when a hiker in northeast India spotted a wing and panel sign inscribed with the bombers name. It wasnt until 2015 that the U.S. Defense Department investigated the crash site and found the remains of 1st Lt. Robert Eugene Oxford.

On Thursday, Oxford will finally be returned home and then laid to rest this weekend with full military honors in his tiny hometown of Concord, Georgia. Photos of his seven fellow crewmen, none of whom was ever found, will lie beside the coffin and then be placed inside it for burial.

We were ecstatic that Eugene was found, but we feel guilty there are seven other men on that mountain top, said Merrill Roan, the wife of Oxfords nephew. So we are honoring the other seven.  We have to honor them as well, because they may never get any closure.

Oxfords plane departed Kumming, China, on Jan. 25, 1944, said Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus at the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Agency. Oxford was declared dead two years later.

Oxfords family didnt know the wreckage had been found until 2007 when Merrill Roan saw a message on a genealogy website from a relative of another service member on the aircraft. That relative wanted help persuading military officials to investigate the crash site.

Duus agency confirmed the crash site correlated with the missing aircraft in 2008. But harmful weather coupled with access issues and security delayed recovery operation efforts until late 2015, Duus said.

Officials say a DNA analysis of Oxfords remains matched his niece and nephew.

Roan said the family was shocked and excited when they heard the news.

Duus said Oxford is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. She said all service members are returned to the U.S. for identification before the family is notified and the service member is provided a funeral with honors.

Eighty service members were identified in 2015, and that number more than doubled with 164 the following year, Duus said.

The Missing in Action Agency website says there are more than 86,000 Americans still missing abroad from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Advancements in DNA testing technology and partnerships with other nations have helped find and identify more missing service members than ever, Duus said.

Oxfords parents, siblings and any other relatives who saw him leave for World War II have all died since he went missing, said Terrell Moody of Moody-Daniel Funeral Home, which is handling burial arrangements. Still, the long-overdue homecoming of his remains wont go unnoticed.

A State Patrol escort will guide a hearse carrying Oxfords casket 50 miles (80 kilometers) south on Interstate 75 from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to the funeral home. A funeral will be held Sunday in a school auditorium  the biggest venue in town, Moody said.

Its just a huge historical event for our little town, Moody said. The phone constantly rings from people wanting information.

Oxford will be buried in the same plot with his parents, Charles and Bessie Oxford, who had placed a memorial marker for their lost son at the gravesite after his plane went missing seven decades ago.

___

This story corrects the day of Oxfords funeral to Sunday, not Saturday, and that remains are returning home after 73 years, not 74.

___

Associated Press writer Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, contributed to this report.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

The decision by New Mexico Public Education Department chief Hanna Skandera to leave her position after six-plus years on the job drew strong reactions Thursday, with many Democrats and teachers union leaders heralding the news and Skandera supporters rushing to her defense.

Skandera, 43, a self-described reformer who encountered persistent political headwinds during her tenure as PED chief, told the Journal earlier this week she would be resigning effective June 20 but has not yet settled on her next career move.

Gov. Susana Martinez, who appointed Skandera to lead the department in 2010, said Thursday that New Mexico public schools and students are better off now than they were when Skandera took the agencys reins.

Since day one of my administration, shes been relentlessly committed to helping us fight the status quo  like teachers unions and other entrenched special interests  to reform education and give our students, teachers, parents and schools more of what they need to succeed, Martinez said in a statement.

However, former Senate Democratic floor leader Michael Sanchez of Belen wrote on social media that Skanderas pending resignation was the best news for New Mexico children in a long time.

Sanchez and other Democratic lawmakers have long claimed Skandera, whose pre-New Mexico background included experience in education policy at the state and national levels but not as a classroom teacher, failed to meet the constitutional requirements to lead PED.

Skandera was not confirmed by the Senate as a Cabinet secretary until February 2015  more than four years after she was appointed  but she ultimately stayed on the job longer than all but four of Martinezs original Cabinet members.

Lorenzo Garcia, vice president of the Albuquerque Public Schools Board of Education, said he was surprised to hear Skandera is leaving.

She always was cordial to me, Garcia told the Journal. I didnt agree with her policies. Unfortunately, she was never open to a dialogue. Thats a sad commentary on our current state of gridlock.  Certainly we all want our schools to do better, but I think their agenda was partisan and not necessarily thoughtful.

APS did not respond to requests for comment, but its administrators have tangled with Skandera, most recently sending her a report that criticizes aspects of the states plan to meet the federal requirements laid out in the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Rep. Dennis Roch, R-Logan, who works as a school superintendent, said he thinks Skandera struggled to communicate effectively with teachers and school leaders during her early years on the job.

However, he said, she improved in that area in recent years, while adding the departments use of data has helped to better inform parents about school performance and led to improved graduation rates.

I think the paradigm has shifted and thats good for the state, Roch said Thursday.

Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, who ran for governor in 2014 and has been a frequent critic of some PED initiatives, credited Skandera for staying on the job for more than six years in the face of steady opposition.

But he said changes including a controversial teacher evaluation system and school-by-school grades  cited by Skandera as some of her successes  have had a detrimental impact on the states school system.

The status quo has become overuse of standardized testing and use of data to drive learning, Morales told the Journal. Education doesnt need to be further standardized; it needs to be individualized.

Kathy Sandoval-Snider, principal at Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science, lauded Skandera for bringing necessary policy changes to New Mexico.

We were a state that was desperately in need of those reforms, Sandoval-Snider told the Journal. I am so sick of hearing our children cant learn because theyre poor or their parents are not very good parents  a variety of reasons. You know what, that lets those kids down.  What you need to do is make sure you hold high standards for these kids because every kid can learn.

Sandoval-Snider said she instituted similar reforms at AIMS before Skandera arrived, and they work.

AIMS, an Albuquerque charter school located on the University of New Mexico campus, was recently ranked first in New Mexico and 43rd in the nation by The Washington Post.

Her leaving will not stop that reform movement, Sandoval-Snider told the Journal. I think her department, PED, is solid, and I think they will continue on and I hope they continue on because we cannot go back to what we were.

Union leaders pleased

Capping off a largely acrimonious relationship, both of the states largest teachers unions praised Skanderas departure.

National Education Association-New Mexico President Betty Patterson said Skandera was relatively open and collaborative when she started on the job in 2010, but began imposing policies administratively after she hit resistance.

During her six-plus years in office, Secretary Skandera established a new status quo for education policy and direction in New Mexico: tarnishing the enormous value of local teachers and other school employees who work tirelessly to increase student academic and life success, Patterson said.

American Federation of Teachers New Mexico President Stephanie Ly argued that Skandera and Martinez have been responsible for relentless attacks on public schools in favor of charter and private schools, and claimed a teacher evaluation system enacted administratively in 2011 after having been rejected by the Legislature was one of the nations most punitive systems.

Both unions have filed lawsuits seeking to strike down the teacher evaluations, which use student test score improvement as a major factor.

A trial on another lawsuit, filed by two different advocacy groups, that asserts New Mexico is failing to adequately fund education programs for minority and non-English speaking students is set to begin next week.

Supporters credited Skandera with improving the states educational outlook.

Hope Morales, an incoming vice principal at Mesa Middle School and former teacher at Military Heights Elementary in Roswell, also said she believes New Mexico schools are moving in a positive direction.

During the past school year, Morales was a member of the New Mexico Policy Fellows, a group of 15 educators from around the state that recommended changes to the teacher evaluation system. Skandera adopted their suggestions in May.

Under the new system, test scores will make up 35 percent of the evaluation, down from 50 percent, and teachers can take six sick days, rather than three, before their evaluations are impacted.

Before I met her, I only knew what was in the news, Morales said. I went in a little skeptical myself, but one of the things I think most people maybe dont see about her is she was really there to listen.  She really gave people the opportunity to speak. She really showed she is a person who cared and really wanted to help New Mexico and put us in a better place.

In a short statement, Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent Sue Cleveland wished Skandera well and said she looks forward to working with her successor.

Cabinet turnover

Skanderas pending resignation marks the latest Cabinet turnover for Martinez, who was re-elected in 2014 and is barred from running again for governor next year.

At least a half-dozen Cabinet secretaries have left the Martinez administration in the last year, a trend that is not uncommon for second-term governors.

Skandera, who is currently making an annual salary of $126,500, seemed headed for a top education job in President Donald Trumps administration earlier this year, but those plans were apparently scuttled because of resistance from some Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Before being appointed by Martinez, Skandera worked as an education policy adviser in Florida, California, Texas and Washington, D.C.

She told the Journal earlier this week her time as PED secretary had been the most challenging and rewarding of her career, but acknowledged the education system still faces stark challenges in a state with the nations highest jobless rate.

The Republican governor announced Thursday that Deputy Public Education Secretary Christopher Ruszkowski will serve as acting Cabinet secretary after Skanderas departure.

A former middle school social studies teacher, Ruszkowski worked for nearly six years at the Delaware Department of Education under former Democratic Gov. Jack Markell. He joined the New Mexico Public Education Department in 2016.
RIO RANCHO  The Sandoval Economic Alliance has hired an economic development official from Wisconsin as its new president and CEO.

The new president, Steve Jenkins, is a certified economic developer with more than

40 years of experience, according to a news release from the Economic Alliance. He most recently served as president of the Fond du Lac County, Wisc., Economic Development Corporation.

Jenkins replaces Jami Grindatto, who announced his resignation earlier this spring.

Jenkins also has worked in Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Colorado, Louisiana and North Carolina. He holds a business degree from the University of Tennessee  Knoxville, according to the release. He is a member of the International Economic Development Council, where he serves on the certification committee, the International Asset Management Council and the World Future Society.

Rio Rancho and Sandoval County sit in the midst of a growing metro with exceptional business assets and a focus on the future. Working with SEAs public and private partners to bring new levels of prosperity will be my top priority, Jenkins said in the release.

Jenkins will start July 17.

We are thrilled to welcome Steve to our community and to see where he takes the organization in collaboration with Rio Rancho, and Sandoval County, stated SEA Chair-elect Angela Ward.

The organization was created in 2014, with contributions from Sandoval County and the city of Rio Rancho, to promote business opportunities in the area.
A proposed settlement agreement between Public Service Co. of New Mexico and parties participating in the utilitys latest rate case will present supporting and opposing arguments in August at the Public Regulation Commission in Santa Fe.

The PRC hearing examiners in the case, Ashley Schannauer and Anthony Medeiros, have scheduled more than a week of hearings, beginning Aug. 7 with a half-day of open comments from the general public, followed by nearly two weeks of formal testimony from PNM and other parties.

Intervenors will analyze the merits of the proposed settlement agreement, supported by about a dozen organizations, plus challenges from the Santa Fe-based environmental organization New Energy Economy, which is the only party opposing the proposal.

The initial settlement, filed in early May, called for lowering PNMs original request last December for $99.2 million in new annual revenue to $62.3 million, with the increase implemented over two years to mitigate the impact on customers. If approved by the PRC, the increase would raise monthly bills for the average residential customer by 3.9 percent in 2018 and 3.4 percent in 2019.

The agreement also paved the way for PNM to close the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station near Farmington in 2022 and pull out of its 13 percent stake in the nearby Four Corners Power Plant by 2031 or earlier. To do that, supporting parties agreed to accept higher depreciation rates on the utilitys investments in the facilities so it could recover more money before exiting the plants.

But in mid-May, the hearing examiners rejected that part of the proposal because it wasnt included in PNMs initial rate request in December. The examiners also objected to a settlement proposal to split the rate case into two phases, one to set higher rates and a second to establish a new rate structure, or rate design, that outlines different percentage hikes for residential, commercial, industrial and institutional customers.

In late May, however, PNM filed a revised agreement that still lowers its rate request to $62.3 million, but drops the two-phase process and withdraws the proposed increase in depreciation rates. That paved the way for the PRC examiners to move forward.

The general public will be able to weigh in on the case at open meetings with some PRC commissioners in the next two weeks in various cities around the state. That includes a public meeting with Commissioner Cynthia Hall next Tuesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center in Albuquerque.

New Energy Economy, meanwhile, plans to rigorously oppose the settlement at the August hearings, principally because PNMs requested rate hike includes about $150 million in cost recovery for investments at the Four Corners coal plant that New Energy says the utility has yet to justify. In the new order scheduling the August hearings, Schannauer and Medeiros said PNM must address those concerns in its testimony to the commission.
The state Attorney Generals Office has filed reckless driving, ethics and misuse of office charges against 6th Judicial District Attorney Francesca Martinez-Estevez.

She was the subject of an investigation after a traffic stop in June 2016 in which she was suspected of being drunk while driving but was not given a sobriety test and instead released from the scene without charges.

The incident sparked outcry from police agencies and from politicians in the state who asked Attorney General Hector Balderas office to investigate.

His office in January raided Martinez-Estevezs office in Grant County looking for records about why she was in her official state vehicle on a Saturday in a muumuu, a loose-fitting casual dress. Using a state vehicle for personal use is prohibited.

On Thursday, the AGs Office announced it has charged her with reckless and careless driving and with ethics-related violations  all misdemeanor or petty misdemeanor charges.

Investigators also charged her with one count of prohibited political activities because, they say, she used her state vehicle for private reasons.

And they say she tried to use the power of her position to discredit a relative of a state legislator who had called for an investigation into the traffic stop incident.

According to the charging documents, Martinez-Estevez is also accused of harassing some of the officers involved in the investigation of her traffic stop.

Martinez-Estevezs attorney, Jim Foy, said Thursday afternoon that he was still reviewing the criminal complaint. He previously called the incident and subsequent investigation purely political grandstanding and said the two initial investigating agencies, the Silver City police and State Police, didnt charge his client. She has not been charged with any drunken-driving charge.

The Silver City and State Police departments disciplined their officers who were at the scene and allowed Martinez-Estevez to leave without at least conducting a field sobriety test.

Her district includes Grant, Luna and Hidalgo counties.

The AGs Offices charging documents list Francesca Martinez-Estevez as just Francesca Estevez.
NEW YORK (AP)  Two chimpanzees that were caged at a trailer lot and at a primate sanctuary don't have the legal rights of people in New York, an appeals court said Thursday.

Nonhuman Rights Project attorney Steven Wise had argued to the appeals court in March that adult male chimps Tommy and Kiko should be granted a writ of habeas corpus, which for people relates to whether someone is being unlawfully detained or imprisoned and should be taken to see a judge.

Wise argued that the chimps, which were caged in a trailer lot in Gloversville, outside Albany, and at a primate sanctuary in Niagara Falls, should be moved to a large outdoor sanctuary in Florida.

Chimpanzees, which can walk upright and use sticks and stones as tools to help gather food, are considered to be the closest living relatives of humans. Some have been taught to speak simple human sign language.

But the appeals court, in a ruling that affirmed a lower court's decision, said there was no legal precedent for chimpanzees being considered people and their cognitive capabilities didn't mean they could be held legally accountable for their actions.

Petitioner does not suggest that any chimpanzee charged with a crime in New York could be deemed fit to proceed, the court said.

The court also said that even if chimps were able to get writs of habeas corpus the writs wouldn't be applicable with these animals since petitioner does not challenge the legality of the chimpanzees' detention, but merely seeks their transfer to a different facility.

The ruling said that while Wise's avowed mission is certainly laudable, determining the legal rights of animals was better suited to legislators.

Messages seeking comment from Wise about the ruling weren't immediately returned Thursday.

The Nonhuman Rights Project, based in Coral Springs, Florida, started its litigation over the rights of chimps in 2013, when lawsuits were filed on behalf of Kiko in state Supreme Court in Niagara Falls and Tommy in Fulton County. Those cases were unsuccessful.

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Amazon revealed its ending unlimited storage for Amazon Drive customers paying $60 on an annual basis, and replacing that offer with a 1TB tier. A new tier is also being introduced; it costs $11.99 and will get you 100GB of storage for a year. All users will now also get 5GB of cloud storage for free, the company said. All Amazon Prime customers will still have access to unlimited photo storage, but the above limits apply to any other types of files. Customers who are signed up for the unlimited storage option will get it for the rest of their plan time, while those signing up at the $60 level today will get 1TB of storage. Customers who want more than 1TB of storage can pay an extra $60 per year for each additional terabyte, the Seattle, Washington-based tech giant said.

Unlimited customers on auto-renew will find their storage knocked down to 1TB whenever a new payment is sent in. Users whose storage is knocked down, who decide to downgrade their plan, or who decide to let their plan lapse will have 180 days to grab their data before Amazon starts deleting it. Deletion will begin with the newest uploads and will continue until the accounts total storage is within its limits. Buying a plan that covers all of your data will stop the deletion, but buying a plan that doesnt will not change the period after which your newest uploads start initializing deletion to get your data down to your plan allotment. That will still happen 180 days from the date that your original plan ended, regardless of when you buy a new plan.

The ending of the unlimited offer parallels similar stories from other cloud storage providers. Using an unlimited plan to get new signups and then later doing away with that plan is a fairly common practice in the cloud storage space. While many customers may never even exceed the 1TB threshold, there are likely more than enough people with tons of files to store that offering a cheap unlimited option can become unsustainable for many providers, or cloud storage providers probably wouldnt employ this tactic as often as they do.
DIRECTV NOW, AT&Ts OTT video service, has begun to warn Safari users that they will need to download Google Chrome to be able to continue streaming DIRECTV NOW in the browser. The message states that the company will no longer be supporting either Safari or Microsofts Internet Explorer. Thus it will be exclusively be supporting Google Chrome. This means that DIRECTV NOW will be able to work to optimize how their service works on Chrome and make sure that its streaming perfectly, or near perfectly.

This isnt a big deal for users on Windows or macOS, seeing as Chrome is available on both platforms, and have been for quite some time. Its not a huge surprise to see DIRECTV NOW only supporting Chrome, seeing as it is the most widely used web browser in the world. So it makes sense to pour all of your resources into on browser, rather than on multiple ones. Especially seeing as though Safari and Internet Explorer are not that popular, and very few people use either one. DIRECTV NOW is supporting both browsers through June, but after June 30th, youll need to either stop watching live TV on DIRECTV NOW through the browser, or download Google Chrome to do so.

DIRECTV NOW does support a number of apps on other platforms, including Android, iOS, Roku, Apple TV, and the Amazon Fire TV to name a few. So its not really running out of options for its customers, but more of just doubling down on the platforms to make sure everything is running fine. DIRECTV NOW is AT&Ts streaming live TV service, that launched last year, starting at just $35/month. This service has gotten somewhat popular, seeing as it has more channels available than its competitors, Sling, PlayStation Vue, and a few others. But it has also gotten some slack for not supporting common features like DVR, or even the features it had promised like the 72-hour rewind. Which appears to appear and then disappear at random. Hopefully this will allow DIRECTV NOW to work harder on their service and make it better for all.
A recent Google Pixel 2 leak is suggesting a nearly bezel-free screen. Although the image is small and its challenging to make out the smallest details in a more clear fashion, the image is clear enough to show that the design is mostly the same when compared with the Pixel and Pixel XL, both of which have the two-toned look on the back that features a matte finish for metal and Black glass on the top portion.

This particular area is what should be of interest in this image, as the top of the phone is where the rear-facing camera is housed and the leak shows the Pixel 2 will come with dual rear camera sensors that are said to be 16-megapixel, paired with an 8-megapixel front-facing camera. Aside from the design the leak alleges that the Google Pixel 2 will come powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 836 processor which was recently stated to possibly be in development. This along with the full-screen look with the slimmest possible bezels of any Google phone to date would position this as a potential design for Googles follow-ups to the Pixel and Pixel XL. It is also worth considering though that the Snapdragon 836 has not been confirmed as a real CPU that Qualcomm is working on, so this leaked image along with the rumored Snapdragon 836 CPU which is coming only two days after the rumor surfaced about the new SoC means you should probably take the leak with a grain of salt.

Another detail that needs to be considered is that the design of the Pixel 2 up above is exactly the same as the original Pixel design short of the dual camera sensors and more screen real estate, and this makes things curious as Google has never put out a phone that has carried the same design as the phones from a previous year. This leak also looks similar to a concept image of the Pixel 2 that surfaced back in April which had really slim bezels as well. That said, the Pixel is technically Googles first phone that was designed completely by Google, so theres a chance that it has decided to keep the design of the Pixel successor the same as the original.
A leaked promotional poster that surfaced on Chinese social media website Weibo earlier today has seemingly confirmed a number of internal hardware specifications of the upcoming Honor 9, including the phones dual camera setup. According to the promo that can be seen below, the Honor 9 will be powered by the Kirin 960 system-on-chip (SoC) and feature 6GB of RAM, in addition to sporting a curved rear panel made of glass. The latter feature indicates that the device will support at least some contemporary wireless charging standards, though that has yet to be confirmed by the Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in any official capacity.

The newly leaked promotional poster also indicates that the Honor 9 will sport a dual camera setup that industry insiders previously claimed will consist of a 20-megapixel sensor and a 12-megapixel one. Its currently unclear whether Huaweis subsidiary opted for a configuration that entails separate monochrome and RGB sensors or if the 12-megapixel unit is simply meant to be a wide-angle lens meant to help users capture a wider field of view (FOV) and focus on objects more quickly, though the former scenario seems more likely. While wide-angle lenses have traditionally been utilized in dual camera configurations that consist of two sensors of varying resolutions, the Honor 8 utilized a monochrome sensor and its successor is likely to do the same. Furthermore, while the newly leaked poster essentially confirms that the Honor 9 will sport 6GB of RAM, recent reports suggested that the Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer is planning to launch two variants of the handset, with the cheaper one boasting 4GB of RAM.

According to other rumors, the Honor 9 will feature a 5.15-inch display panel with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels that will likely be protected by 2.5D glass, with the phone itself featuring a microSD card slot that will support up to 128GB of additional storage. Apart from an 8-megapixel sensor embedded into its top bezel, the device is also said to ship with a 3,100mAh non-removable battery and is expected to run Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box which will almost certainly be enhanced with Huaweis proprietary mobile software suite. More details on the pricing and availability of the Honor 9 will likely follow in the coming weeks.
LeEco is now being sued by an ad agency in its homeland of China, for failing to pay advertising fees. Jinyuan Technology says that four LeEco affiliate companies have failed to pay their fees. These fees amount to over 60 million Yuan  about $8.8 million USD. This is according to a regulatory filing by its parent company, MIG Unmbi Technology, that was sent to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. More importantly, three of the five cases here, have been accepted by the Peoples Court of Chaoyang District in Beijing. The statement released by the Peoples Court states that LeSports, Leshi Holding and Leshi E-Commerce needs to make an immediate payment. Theres also a penalty interest of 0.05% per day. Which is going to make things pretty pricey for LeEco, the longer they wait.

This is just the latest in the sage of LeEco and its financial struggles. Last year, LeEco noted that its were in a cash crunch, then the company was able to raise a significant amount of money to keep things running day-to-day. Now just a few weeks ago, LeEco announced that it was laying off around 325 employees in the US, which is about 70% of their US team. The company also announced that they would be moving their niche market to target Chinese-speaking households in the US.

LeEco is a company that seemingly came out of nowhere, but it did have big success in China. In fact, it is often referred to as the Netflix of China. This is because the company does video streaming, like Netflix, but it also has its hands in a ton of other areas. It does also sell smartphones and TVs, as it wants to sell you products for you to watch more of their content. It launched in the US late last year with a slew of Android TV sets, as well as the LeEco Le Pro3 and Le S3. Neither of which were runaway hits in the US, but it did garner quite a bit of attention for its low prices and pretty stellar specs. LeEco seems to have quite a bit of financial trouble right now, and it appears to only be getting worse.
The OnePlus 5 may cost 550 in Europe if the latest contest rules are to be believed in. The company had announced the OnePlus 5 contest for Finnish users on the companys official forums, this is a contest for a yearly music festival in Finland, and thanks to the rules of the contest, we can guess the price of the OnePlus 5. These rules have been shared on Facebook, and suggest not only the price of the device in Finland, but Europe in general, as most of Europe had the same price for the OnePlus 3T, and Finland was a part of that group of countries, so were guessing the same will happen with the OnePlus 5 as well.

Now, the grand prize of this contest is the OnePlus 5 and two three-day VIP passes for the music festival. Rules of this contest state that the value of the prize is 948, so, the device and two three-day passes for the event are included in that value. Well, each of the two VIP tickets for the event is priced at 199, which means were left with 550 after we deduct 398 from the overall contest value, and this could be, at least an approximate price point for the OnePlus 5. Do keep in mind that were only taking an educated guess here, based on the info that was provided, and if this info is accurate, that means that the OnePlus 5 will be considerably more expensive than the OnePlus 3(T). The OnePlus 3 cost 399 and the OnePlus 3T was priced at 439 when they launched in Europe. This also means that the phone could cost $550 in the US, as the OnePlus 3 was priced at $399 in the US, while the OnePlus 3T cost $439.

Now, we already have plenty of info about this smartphone, OnePlus had confirmed that the device will sport a fullHD display, that it will ship with a front-facing fingerprint scanner, and that it will be fueled by the Snapdragon 835 64-bit octa-core processor. The company also confirmed that it will launch on June 20, while it also hinted that a dual camera setup will be placed on the back of the device. Amazon India mistakenly shared some more info about the device yesterday, the site hinted that the OnePlus 5 will sport 8GB of RAM, well, at least one of its variants will.

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The OnePlus 5 will start at 32,999 rupees in India, or approximately $515, according to the latest leak that surfaced online on Thursday. The aforementioned price tag is said to be attached to the model boasting 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal flash memory, while the one with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage space will be priced at 37,999 rupees, i.e. $590, according to the same source. The latter price is seemingly in line with the supposed European one that was reported earlier today, with one contest listing indicating that the OnePlus 5 will be priced at 550 on the Old Continent, which amounts to around $615. While that particular listing didnt clarify whether the said price tag pertains to the base model or the more premium variant of the handset, the newly uncovered information suggests the latter.

The BBK Electronics-owned original equipment manufacturer (OEM) just shared the first official render of the OnePlus 5, confirming that the new flagship will sport a dual camera setup with two horizontally arranged lenses and a dual LED, dual tone flash unit in the top-left corner of its back plate. According to previous teasers issued by the Chinese phone maker, the OnePlus 5 will be powered by the Snapdragon 835, Qualcomms 64-bit system-on-chip (SoC) and the companys first piece of silicon manufactured on the 10nm process. Both models of the handset are said to lack a microSD card slot, just like the OnePlus 3T, though they are also expected to be significantly thinner than their 2016 predecessor while still shipping with the same 5.5-inch display panel with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels.

The OnePlus 5 is scheduled to be unveiled on June 20, with the Indian division of Amazon stating that the device will be available for purchase in the South Asian country from June 22. Provided that the newly reported prices of the handset are accurate, it seems that the Shenzhen, Guangdong-based OEM is looking to change its product strategy that was so far focused on aggressive pricing and products that offered great value for money. While the latter may still be the case, OnePlus is likely looking to lead a more sustainable business with higher profit margins going forward and wont be dropping the prices of its flagship phones in the near future.
Samsung Electronics and Apple are set to discuss new component partnerships later today, industry insiders said on Thursday. Kwon Oh-hyun, Vice Chairman of the South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer, is said to be visiting the United States this week and has scheduled a meeting with the Cupertino, California-based tech giant over a number of partnerships related to Apples supply channels. Kwon is reportedly attending the meeting with Apple on behalf of Jay Y. Lee, Samsung Groups Vice Chairman and heir apparent that is currently in custody due to an ongoing trial related to corruption charges brought against the Korean chaebol in the aftermath of a massive political scandal that shook the entirety of the Far Eastern country.

Apart from taking over Lees duties, Kwon also oversees Samsung Display, the conglomerates display panel-making division thats also the largest manufacturer of mobile OLED screens in the world. That particular branch of the company is likely going to be one of the subjects of the upcoming meeting, with Apple reportedly looking to secure a stable supply of OLED screens for future iPhone generations and the upcoming iPhone 8 series already being equipped with OLED panels manufactured by Samsung, thus being set to become the first Apple-made phones utilizing that display technology. Its currently unclear what other components Kwon and Apple might be discussing later today, though the two are likely to come to an agreement regarding future OLED supply, industry watchers believe, noting that Samsung is already set to ship 100 million OLED panels to Apple in the second half of 2017.

While the two tech giants are collaborating on the manufacturing front, their consumer electronics divisions remain fierce rivals, with the Galaxy S series and Galaxy Note lineup being one of the few true flagship families in the world that can rival iPhones. The Seoul-based chaebol is reportedly looking to launch the upcoming Galaxy Note 8 in late August in an effort to beat the 10th anniversary iPhone models to the market and improve their commercial performance, though Apple is still expected to beat many sales records with its next flagships. An update on Samsungs product portfolio and business endeavors will likely follow in the coming weeks.
Toshiba has been shopping its chip business around to potential buyers for a few months now. With names like Western Digital and others popping up in the rumor mill. Now, according to a report out of Reuters, the company will be announcing the buyer on June 15th  next week. Currently, there are three bidders in line to purchase the company from Toshiba. theres Broadcom Ltd, Silver Lake (a US tech fund) and then Western Digital who is already a partner with Toshibas chip business. The company is going to be holding a board meeting on June 15th, where the board members will vote on the preferred bidder.

Toshiba has been looking for a buyer for its chip business because of their nuclear business being bankrupt, Westinghouse Electric Corp. So it is looking for this cash to help cover those costs. Toshiba values its chip business at about $18 billion, and its also the second-largest producer of NAND chips in the world. In fact, most of the storage found in smartphones today, was produced by Toshiba.

Now things get a bit strange when talking about Western Digital. It jointly operates a chip plant in western Japan with Toshiba, and the company is now alleging that Toshiba is in serious breach of its contract over the joint venture. Making the sale of its chip business a bit more challenging. Western Digital is arguing that the unit cannot be sold without its consent, and the company has also demanded exclusive negotiating rights for the chip business. However, Toshiba is striking back, and asking Western Digital to stop challenging Toshibas plans for its chip business.

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Western Digital would be a good fit for Toshibas chip business, since the company already sells a large amount of storage and memory products  and recently bought SanDisk as well. Broadcom is another one that would be a good fit, since they also already manufacturer chips. Its going to be a tough decision for Toshiba, selling off the worlds second-largest NAND chip company is no small task. Toshibas board has a tough task ahead of them next week, itll be interesting to see who wins the company.
A new rumor claims Samsung could be set to introduce its own next-generation GPU called the S-GPU, with the company apparently planning to launch it in 2018. Samsung has been using its own processors in its devices for many years now, with its Exynos chips gradually making their way to an increasing number of Galaxy-branded products. This approached allowed Samsung to reduce its dependency on companies such as Qualcomm, at least in terms of CPUs. When it comes to GPUs, though, the company has consistently relied on ARMs Mali lineup to compliment its own line of Exynos processors, but it appears this may about to change with the launch of the S-GPU.

Samsungs Exynos chips have grown to be included in the majority of the companys devices which, although beneficial for the firm, also increases its dependence on ARM. Taking this into account, it makes sense to look into the development of an in-house GPU and reduce dependency on other manufacturers in an effort to improve profits, as well as speed up technical advancements by having full control over development. The fact that the GPU is set to be called S-GPU is likely meant to denote the fact that the chip was made by Samsung and suggests a naming practice that the firm has been employing for a while now, releasing services and products like the Galaxy S lineup, S Pen, and S Health. It remains to be seen whether the South Korean tech giant manages to commercialize its in-house mobile GPU by next year, though reports on the companys plans to do so date back to as far as October 2015.

The new S-GPU is reportedly set to be included into next years flagship Exynos processor, so Samsung may well be developing the GPU alongside the 2018 Galaxy S9 series. Given Samsungs recent hardware strategy, the S-GPU may also end up rendering the graphics on the Galaxy Note 9 that will likely be released in the second half of next year. As the Seoul-based company often announces its technical advancements months prior to commercializing them, more details on its supposed proprietary GPU might follow shortly, provided that the chip actually exists.
Sprint is about to start expanding its stores across New England, bringing more than 450 new jobs to the region, according to a statement made by the companys regional headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts yesterday. The carrier plans to open at least 60 retail stores during the next 18 months, and some of the new stores are set to open as early as this summer in states including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, as well as Upstate New York. Anyone wishing to apply for positions in the new stores should head to the companys website at and submit an application, the wireless carrier said. Sprint currently employs around 650 people in the region so this is a significant workforce increase, with the company hoping that its new employees will help it provide a better service to customers.

As well as announcing its New England expansion, Sprint stated its intention to continue enhancing its network, as well striving to make a difference across the region by working with communities on various initiatives like the Sprint Foundations 1Million Project which was established back in January to address disadvantages of students without Internet access. Hundreds of eligible students in Massachusetts and Rhode Island have already received free smartphones, tablets, laptops, and routers as a result of Sprints initiative thats set to continue assisting disadvantaged youth until at least 2022. Wireless data usage in areas such as Providence and Boston has increased by over 800 percent in the last five years, Sprint said, noting how this trend is evidence of further network investments that are being made, with upgrades and new technology for over 630 cell sites bringing Carrier Aggregation, HD Voice, and LTE connectivity to new areas. Such improvements have already been provided across the region and to the Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park venues. Additionally, the carrier boasted about bringing 2.5 LTE to the Buffalo Bills new ERA stadium.

There has recently been a lot of talk regarding a T-Mobile and Sprint merger, with some analysts suggesting that T-Mobile is more likely to purchase Sprint rather than the other way around, though the two companies are reportedly still somewhat away from reaching a deal.
Nokia is launching a blue color variant of the Nokia 6 in China, which will be available for purchase starting June 18. The Tempered Blue Nokia 6 will hit the shelves for the price of 1,699 Chinese Yuan or the equivalent of around $250, and prospective buyers in China can pre-order the handset on JD.com starting today.

The Nokia 6 was officially unveiled in black and silver at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. However, the company also revealed that the Nokia 6 will eventually be released in a wider range of colors, including copper and blue. At launch, the smartphone was available only in black, while a silver variant was released in April. Today, Tempered Blue is finally joining the Nokia 6 color spectrum on pre-order terms; however, the new color variant will be available only in the higher-end hardware configuration including 4GB of RAM and 64GB of onboard storage. Other specifications include a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display covered with Cornings Gorilla Glass 3, featuring a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 system-on-chip (SoC) housing eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.4GHz and the Adreno 505 graphics chip. The Nokia 6 is equipped with a 16-megapixel camera with phase detection autofocus (PDAF) and a dual-LED flash, HDR, and an f/2.0 aperture, along with an 8-megapixel front facing shooter with 1080p video recording capabilities. The front-facing home button incorporates a fingerprint recognition sensor, and the device relies on a 3,000 mAhbattery wrapped in a body measuring 154 x 75.8 x 7.9mm and weighing in at 169g.

The Nokia 6 was developed by HMD Global and manufactured by Foxconns FIH Mobile, and alongside the Nokia 3 and Nokia 5, its one of the first Nokia-branded smartphones to run Android OS, excluding the 2014 budget-oriented Nokia X running a heavily modified and unrecognizable version of Android Jelly Bean. The Nokia 6 runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box but will eventually make the jump to Android O, according to the Finnish phone maker. Fans of the brand should also be aware that although the Nokia 6 is not manufactured by the same company behind the original Nokia 3310, the smartphone already earned recognition thanks to its impressive resilience and software support.
ZTEs mobile chief has stated that the company will join the top-tier of smartphone very soon. ZTE has been pushing growth recently thanks to its popular Axon series, but now it appears the company has higher ambitions, with its mobile Chief, Lixing Cheng, stating that the company is now focusing solely on innovation and providing consumers with what they want in order to increase their presence worldwide. These factors, when combined together, should provide what Cheng is calling a meaningful user experience.

Now, although the company is still quite a way behind its rivals when it comes to sales, it does seem to have a plan in order to close this gap, with it all revolving around 5G. The new technology is expected to launch into the mainstream within a few years, but Cheng believes ZTE will use this as an opportunity to grow. He goes on to say that the company will be very fast when it comes to making the transition. The company has claimed that it plans to focus on specific strategic markets in each continent in order to improve their market penetration. Recently the company saw its first quarter profits increase by 27.8 percent year-over-year so its clear the company is certainly making progress, though it still has some way to go in order to take on Apple, Samsung, and Huawei on a global level. After all, these companys ship quite a few more devices than ZTE each year. Nonetheless, the Chinese company has certainly shown initiative over the past year, with its crowdfunded device gathering a lot of attention, though it is still a long way off from becoming as big as the previously mentioned companies.

With ZTE seemingly so sure about its growth opportunity when it comes to 5G, though, itll remain to be seen if the company can actually adapt as quick as it claims it will. Showing the ability to adapt to the new technology and getting devices out early on is sure to impress not only carriers but also consumers, something that will certainly work in favor of the companys brand awareness and therefore sales numbers. Until 5G starts rolling out worldwide, though, ZTE is sure to have some products up its sleeves in order to keep profits and sales growing.
The late Marc Soulier

decision in Soulier and Doke, C-301/15 In late 2016 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued itsin, C-301/15 here and here] [commentedand





As readers will remember, this was a reference for a preliminary ruling from the French Council of State, asking the CJEU to clarify the compatibility of the the 2012 French law on the digital exploitation of out-of-print 20th century books with the InfoSoc Directive.





As I discussed more at length here the new Chapter IV in the French Code de la Propriete Intellectuelle (CPI) vested approved collecting societies with the right to authorise the reproduction and representation in digital form of out-of-print books published in France before 2001, while allowing the authors of those books (or their successors in title) to oppose or put an end to that practice subject to certain conditions.





In its 53-paragraph decision the CJEU substantially followed the Opinion here ] of Advocate General Wathelet, and stated that the system of the InfoSoc Directive is one of broad and preventative rights. Although national initiatives on out-of-commerce works are not against the directive per se , the Court clarified that nonetheless authors - not collecting societies that do not have any direct mandate from them - must consent to third-party uses of their works.





Sara Doke

post I expressed the view that the CJEU decision in Soulier and Doke would likely have far-reaching consequences. A first direct effect is the In thisI expressed the view that the CJEU decision inwould likely have far-reaching consequences. A first direct effect is the ruling of the Council of State earlier this week, which has declared the decrees implementing the provisions in Chapter IV CPI [Articles 134-1 to 134-9] invalid due to misuse of powers (exces de pouvoir).





As noted by a learned and technological Katfriend, it is unclear (in the sense that the Council of State's decision does not say) whether the invalidity thus declared has retroactive effects (invalidity ex tunc) or just effects for the future (invalidity ex nunc).





If one wished to draw a parallel with the UK copyright world, a similar problem arose when Green J quashed the short-lived private copying exception ('personal copies for private use': s28B ) here] . In its ruling, the High Court of England and Wales declined in fact to make any determination as to whether or not the Regulations adopting s28B should be void ex tunc. This was on consideration that a declaration to this effect would raise "potentially complex and far reaching issues which it is appropriate to address in the circumstances of private law litigation between a specific rightholder and an alleged infringer. It will be for a defendant in future proceedings to explore and raise this issue, including whether the effect of the fact that they relied at the time upon Section 28B creates some species of estoppel, legitimate expectation or fair use defence in private law and whether, if such exists, this goes to the cause of action or the remedy or both." [para 19]




Starting its operation in 1970s, the Azad University sent some of its graduates to study abroad on scholarships in 1975. Student admission began in 1978 on a limited basis, but was interrupted for two years under the pretext of cultural revolution following the anti-monarchy revolution and the Iranian regimes coming to power.

Two years after regimes so-called cultural revolution, Azad University was re-established by Rafsanjani in 1982, while taking the Universitys presidential seat has ever since been the subject of power struggle between regimes rival bands.

With Rafsanjani gone, regimes leader Ali Khamenei has got a good chance to fully take control of Azad University by pulling it out of Rafsanjanis family and his guys hands, thus compensating to some extent for his defeat in presidential election show, with Khameneis arm in this mission being his close advisor Ali-Akbar Velayti.

In an article titled the new wave of dismissals and appointments, state-run Arman newspaper has written on 3 June Hashemi Rafsanjanis son Yaser was sacked two days ago from chair of Azad Universitys Board of Trustees. It was also announced yesterday that directors of three media belonging to Azad University, namely Ana and Iskanews news agencies as well as Farhikhtegan newspaper, have also been dismissed, with their farewell ceremony being held on the same day.

Meanwhile, representative of Student Basij said durig his Friday Prayers speech on June 2 Mr. Velayati has infuriated the power and wealth mafia by disrupting their dominance over Azad University, while he has sacked in a quite legal move the chair of the University as well as some of officials children, thus cutting their hands off tuitions and public wealth.

Also regimes MP Alireza Salimi addressed Rafsanjani-Rouhanis band on June 3, saying that Azad University is not a family heritage belonging to a specific faction or group. Mr. Velayati intends to sack those who are sucking the juice off Azad University, and thats why theyve started complaining, he added.

It seems as if Khameneis band is not only seeking to cut Rafsanjanis family and his guys hands off Azad University, but theyre also trying to threaten their rival into remaining silent or otherwise face even worse consequences.

Mohammad Mohammading, head of Khameneis representative office in universities, has said in this regard on June 3 that Dr. Velayatis move to sack Yaser Hashemi was quite appropriate. Besides, it would still be necessary that a panel of experts begin investigating into the offices activities and expenses, and give their report to universitys Board of Trustees.

In the meantime, the reactions from Rafsanjani-Rouhani band in this regard have been a mix of sigh and cry-out on one hand and turning to Rouhani on the other, so that, as they put it, he take the train back on track.

State-run Rooz-e-No website writes in this regard on 3 June whats too strange, is Ali-Akbar Velayatis approach as the chair of Azad Universitys Board of Trustees. As a political figure that has always been close to Rafsanjani and now has even taken his seat, Velayati has revealed another aspect of his character, taking decisions totally against Rafsanjanis positions. Velayati has turned into a puzzle for statesmen today.

Also state-run Aftab newspaper writes on June 3 now more than two million students, professors, and employees of Azad University are waiting for the head of the executive branch and the guardian of constitution to take Azad Universitys train back on track of law, so that we see lawful developments, not suspected illegal changes that are going to hurt and worry the scientific, cultural community.

But it seems that in the absence of Rafsanjani, Rohani cant do anything much in this regard, though hell definitely seek to retaliate against this blow somewhere else. After all, as they say, the story goes on.
His motive was to make peace, but his assumptions about the nature of the Middle East was wrong.

In an article by Michael Tomlinson for iranlobby.net, he writes, For many decades, the Arab world was uniformly united in using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary talking point in diplomatic circles, but with the ascendance of the Iranian regime over the last few years, the Arab world and Irans neighbors have quickly re-calculated the risks of allowing Iran unfettered freedom.

The price of this has been tragic for the Syrian people, as Iran used its Revolutionary Guard Corps and Quds Force troops, alongside Hezbollah fighters, Iraqi Shiite militias and recruited Afghan mercenaries, all to fight on behalf of the Assad regime.

In Yemen, Iran has used armed Houthi rebels in a front against Saudi Arabia, which poses a significant threat to the Kingdom. Additionally, Irans efforts to control Iraq as a Shiite proxy gave birth to ISIS and other extremist groups, according to Iran Lobby, who also claim that, It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see the mullahs in Tehran behind much of the machinations taking place aimed at their Sunni rivals, which explains why the latest flare up involving the tiny Gulf state of Qatar exploded this week.

The Atlantic spelled out the problems Qatars neighbors have had over the past decade. The Atlantic reported that Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, cut ties with Qatar in 2014, and withdrew their ambassadors from the country for nine months. Now things have gone markedly further, and includes economic sanctions. Qatars only land border is with Saudi Arabia, therefore disruption to the flow of goods and people by air, land, or sea, may cause rapid economic disturbance and lead to social or political unrest.

The roots of the tensions between Qatar and its neighbors predate the Arab Spring in 2011 and Qatars subsequent high-profile support for Islamist transitions in North Africa and Syria.

Tomlinson writes, In fact, nearly every crisis in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) over the past quarter-century has, in some way, involved Qatar. The other Gulf leaders patience with Dohas sometimes-maverick regional policies may have finally snapped.

Qatars post-1995 leadership has pursued autonomous regional policies designed to free the country from Saudi involvement. Qatars support for regional Islamists, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and provision of Doha-based Al Jazeera as a platform for groups criticizing regional states, incited friction.

Amid the tension between Qatar and its neighbors, the Iranian regime sees an opportunity to extend its influence to Qatar. Iran immediately blamed President Donald Trump for setting the stage during his recent trip to Riyadh. The deputy chief of staff under Irans President Hassan Rouhani, Hamid Aboutalebi, tweeted, What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance, referring to Trumps recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

The prospect of a U.S. president forging a new Arab coalition against Iran must be freaking out the mullahs in Tehran which may explain their near hysterical response to Trump in blaming him for everything, writes Tomlinson.

Iran and Qatar share a massive gas field in the Persian Gulf, thus providing a strong incentive for them to band together. Iran may be hoping to strengthen its relationship with Qatar, and meanwhile drive a wedge into the Gulf States by offering to move food and supplies by convoy into Qatar. This is a move that Saudi Arabia is blocking. The underlying central issue between Qatar and its neighbors is about the Iranian regime.
Led Zeppelins courtroom fight over Stairway to Heaven is far from over.Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the estate of the late musician Randy Craig Wolfe, and attorney Francis Malofiy, have appealed a jurys verdict last year that found Led Zeppelin did not copy the songs iconic guitar riff from an earlier instrumental song, Taurus, by Wolfes band, Spirit. Led Zeppelins lawyer, Peter Anderson, has launched a cross-appeal that adds more complexity to the matter.Anderson, in addition to replying to the appeal and urging that the jury verdict be affirmed, is asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to grant Warner/Chappell Musics request for an award of US$800,000 in fees and costs, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Anderson also represents the publisher, which assumed most of the legal costs and fees.Skidmore and Malofiy argue in their appeal that the jury did not see the similarity between the songs because they were not allowed to hear a recording of Taurus.The most important of these errors was that the trial court refused to let the jury hear the full and complete composition of 'Taurus' embodied in the sound recordings that Jimmy Page possessed, instead limiting the comparison to an outline of the 'Taurus' composition in the deposit copy lead sheet, Malofiy wrote.They also argue that the lower court failed to adequately inform the jury of the inverse ratio rule, which lowers the bar for finding substantial similarity when a high degree of access to the work is found. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was found to have had access to the song. Furthermore, they said the allotted 10 hours for plaintiff to argue the case was not even close to an adequate amount of time to try this case.Anderson said that substantial evidence supports the jurys verdict and that the plaintiff did not prove a high degree of access, which would have triggered the inverse ratio rule. As to the costs award, which was not given due to the lawsuit being assessed as not frivolous, Anderson said that it can indeed be deemed frivolous, because it was unreasonable for Skidmore to sue due to the shared presence of five pitches of the chromatic scale even though no one owns musical scales.
Its all but certain that the rise of legal technology  fuelled by automation and artificial intelligence  will reshape the business of law. Effects are already being felt by certain types of law firms.Lachlan McKnight, co-founder and CEO of LegalVision, warns that certain law firms could bear the brunt of technological disruption unless they adapt.Top-tier law firms that only focus on highly strategic advice and projects are unlikely to be negatively affected by technological disruption, saysMcKnight. Mid-tier law firms that rely on a large volume of business and usual work to drive revenue are, in my view, going to struggle if they dont deploy sophisticated automation and machine learning tools to process work more efficiently.I think were already seeing the beginnings of a realignment of the legal services value chain, with mid-tier firms shedding staff and dealing with declining profitability, he adds.However, adapting is easier said than done, which is why law firms have their work cut out for them.A total mindset shift is required. This is why NewLaw providers are growing so rapidly. Its much easier to start from scratch with tech as a key building block to your law firm than shoehorn technology into a traditional firm, he says.Nonetheless, the rise of legaltech and firms like LegalVision presents new opportunities for law firms who are willing to risk and evolve. There are various strategic approaches law firms can take to technological disruption, he said. The appropriate approach depends on a firms value proposition in the marketplace.One such way for traditional firms is by partnering with NewLaw firms and establishing their very own technology centres or practices. McKnight doesnt see this as a threat to his company.Were the beneficiary of an investment from Gilbert + Tobin, so I obviously think this sort of approach makes a lot of sense. Forward thinking traditional law firms are investing in new business models and tech products because they understand the reality of disruption  if you dont disrupt your own business someone else will, he says. Ultimately as an industry, we should be striving to provide clients with a range of options that best suit their risk profile, industry and internal structure.
Thirty major law firms in the US are now required to consider women and minority lawyers in promotions and hiring.The law firms have adopted a policy called the Mansfield Rule, which has been launched under a one-year pilot program that began on 1 June and ends on 31 May 2018. It is named after Arabella Mansfield, the first American woman to become a lawyer after being admitted to the Iowa bar in 1869.The rule requires candidate pools for leadership positions, equity partner promotions, and lateral hires to be at least 30% women and minority lawyers, according to Bloomberg Law.The group of law firms, which includes Dentons and White & Case, are getting support from peers in the corporate world, with senior in-house lawyers from Facebook, HP, Microsoft, and Walmart, among others, all agreeing to meet privately with beneficiaries of the program.Caren Ulrich Stacy, CEO of Diversity Lab, said that her organisation originally only invited law firms that participated in last years Women in Law Hackathon at Stanford Law School. However, the program is being flooded with inquiries, she said.I will tell you, as I have talked about this, other firms have called to ask to be included. And the answer is, of course. The more firms we have touting this idea, the more information and feedback we will have about what does and doesnt work. We are including additional firms over the next couple weeks, she told Bloomberg.Senior leaders from 45 in-house law departments will all meet with lawyers promoted because of the rule, Stacy said. The meetings will take place at private events in San Francisco, New York, and Twin Cities in September 2018.Stacy said that the in-house counsel all said yes, with most saying the program was a no brainer as it gave them the opportunity to meet diverse lawyers while showing their commitment to diversity among outside counsel.

The 30 law firms that have adopted the Mansfield Rule are:

Akerman

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer

Blank Rome

Cooley

Dentons

DLA Piper

Faegre Baker Daniels

Fasken Martineau DuMoulin

Fenwick & West

Fish & Richardson

Holland & Hart

Holland & Knight

Jenner & Block

Miller Canfield

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius

Morrison & Foerster

Munger, Tolles & Olson

OMelveny & Myers

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

Paul Hastings

Reed Smith

Seyfarth Shaw

White & Case

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr

Winston & Strawn

In-house counsel who have committed to meet with beneficiaries of the program are:
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Tehran gained some cash reserves to bolster their failing economy. However, the regime used much of the money to upgrade its military, instead of investing in its people. It has continued its crackdown on human rights.

In an article by Michael Tomlinson for iranlobby.net, he writes about a revelation disclosed last year by the Associated Press, of a secret side deal that grants Iran an accelerated pathway to enriching uranium back to full capacity well before the 15-year time frame outlined in the deal.

This would explain the accelerated development of Irans ballistic missile program we have witnessed recently. According to Tomlinson, you can see the blueprint laid out by North Korea a decade earlier that enabled it to join the ranks of nuclear weaponized nations.

A senior research fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, James Phillips, outlined the key failing in the nuclear deal in a piece in the Daily Signal. The published text of the nuclear agreement was vague on the exact timing of what happens to Irans uranium enrichment program after ten years, he writes. But the new document indicates that after ten years, Iran plans to start replacing its current centrifuges with thousands of more advanced models that would be up to five times more efficient than the 5,060 centrifuges that it is allowed to operate currently under the agreement. He added, This concession could allow Tehran to enrich at more than twice the rate that it is now doing, even if the total number of operating centrifuges are reduced. This is a major concern because if the enrichment rate doubles, the time Tehran would need to stage a nuclear breakout would be reduced from the 12 months promised by the Obama administration to six months or less, much earlier than the administration had advertised when it was trying to sell the nuclear deal.

The alleged side deal was part of an add-on document that was prepared and submitted by the Iranian regime to the United Nations.

Tomlinson says that, This poses a monumental problem for the future of the world in any new nuclear negotiationsnot just with Iran, but any rogue nation

According to a Non-Resident Iran Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an FDD report points out that by appeasing the Iranian regime, the U.S. has set the precedents that intransigence can lead the international community to accept domestic enrichment and that being a Western ally does not guarantee more flexible treatment when accessing nuclear technology.

The unnamed Research Fellow continues, Key American allies that have previously limited their nuclear activitieslike South Korea or the United Arab Emirateshave already noted that Iran, which has been repeatedly sanctioned for its nuclear noncompliance, has been permitted to sign a deal allowing it to develop industrial-scale nuclear capacity.

Tomlinson says that although the agreement is lengthy (159 pages) it is not always specific. There is a condition called significant non-performance under which parties can walk away from the JCPOA. Vague language may allow the Islamic State to define violations on its own terms.

Former deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and a senior fellow of the London Center for Policy Research, Jed Babbin, noted in a piece in the Washington Times how the nuclear deal actually prevented international monitoring of Irans nuclear activities. Parts of the side deals evidently bar Americans from participating in the inspection of Iranian nuclear sites. The side deals also allow Iran to inspect some of its own sites, preventing U.N. inspectors any access. To no ones surprise, the Iranians have reported they are complying with the deal even in the uninspected sites, he said, adding, In 2003 Iraq, mistaken intelligence led to war. In 2016 Iran, the lack of intelligence is leading to a false peace.
EV

Sekino Yosuke, Honda's head of Research and Development, recently discussed the possibility of the supercar turning into an. The info was dropped while talking to autocar during a demonstration revolving around the Acura EV Concept We're talking about the 1,000 hp Pikes Peak race car that tackled the Race to the Clouds last year, grabbing third place overall.The technology used on the Pikes Peak car could be interesting, the executive explained. It's not just a competition car; I would like to make such a car in production, and there are some studies around that. We want our electric cars to be joyful to drive, and it is clear that this proposal, with around 1000bhp, is both joyful and uses technology that could one day reach production. We are evaluating what is possible now,This potential NSX path seems to fall in line with the rumors we've heard about the future of the BMW i8 , which is said to turn into a 750 hp electric devil for its next incarnation.Truth be told, both the Bavarian sportscar and the Japanese supercar are pretty far from the top performers in their classes, with the hybrid nature of their powertrains appearing to bring weight drawbacks that are greater than the performance boost they deliver.As such, turning these machines into contraptions that work based on electron juice alone might just be an intelligent move.Nevertheless, with the present NSX having only landed last year, we'll have to wait a few years after the decade change to see the next incarnation of the go-fast machine. By then, battery technology, which is the main limiting factor regarding EVs, will have evolved dramatically, with players such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz having joined the plug market.Meanwhile, performance EVs are getting more and more traction each year, as the NIO EP9's frenzy Nurburgring run has recently demonstrated.
Last time we checked, the deliveries for the 991.2 GT3 would start in mid-June for Europe, while we expected the "fall" tag associated with the American side of the deal to imply early September deliveries.Well, an Instagram post coming from a page that keeps track of GT Division matter comes to change that."Production is well underway, and European markets should start to receive their first examples later this summer. Meanwhile, U.S. dealers have just been informed that production for U.S.-spec examples is now delayed to mid-September for undisclosed reasons. As well, most will already know that production for manual examples will commence later in September," the social media post, which you can find at the bottom of the page, reads.When it comes to the six-speed stick shift units of the Gen 2 GT3 entering production in September, we learned about this earlier this year, when YouTuber Rob Ferretti talked about potentially purchasing such a Neunelfer.As for the Miami Blue 2018 Porsche 911 GT3 you can see in the said post, the photo was captured at the Zuffenhausen birthplace of the rear-wheel-drive toy.While we're at it, we'll remind any of you willing to place an order for the new GT3 that the German automotive producer is rumored to be working on a Touring Package for the model.The spyshots of a wingless GT3 test car bring hints towards this and we're expecting official news on the matter by fall.
Anyone who has ever experienced falling on concrete or asphalt understands what she felt, and it appears that her injuries were more than just a few scratches.She filed a lawsuit against the Minidoka County Joint School District, because the incident took place in the parking lot of the Minico High School.Apparently, the plaintiff injured her wrists and knees when hitting the asphalt, and all of those injuries led to the necessity of medical treatment, as well as pain, suffering, and mental anguish.She also noted a decrease in the value of her life, as well as a reduction of enjoyment, coupled with inconvenience and non-economic damages.Mrs. Duffs legal representatives claim that the local administration, who is responsible for the Minico High School parking lot, as well as the corresponding speed bumps, was aware that those elements posed a trip hazard.Apparently, the speed bump was in the same color as the paved surface, and it was at the exit of the stadium, which has intensive pedestrian traffic.The area in question is described as "poorly lit," which could be one of the reasons why that particular bump in the pavement was not visible for the plaintiff, as we understand from the report on Magic Valley The extent of the damages requested by the Duff family, along with the situation of the civil lawsuit has not been made public. Regardless, we do know that a status conference will take place on June 12, 2017, in front of Minidoka District Judge Jonathan Brody.It will be interesting to observe how this case will turn out, because it has the position of setting a precedent. Theres a chance that the plaintiff will be told that walking poses the risk of tripping and falling.However, the legal system might determine that the area was in fact poorly lit and a danger to pedestrians, which could bring the decision of paying damages to the plaintiff from Twin Falls ( Idaho ).
You can read about a thing, see a film about a thing or hear someone describe a thing but even if youve done all that, the thing itself will never be what you expect when you actually lay your own eyes on it. Thats the feeling I had today after spending most of the day in the airborne museum in St. Mere Eglise, the tiny Normandy village that improbably became the first town liberated from Hitlers grasp in World War II. The place was contested for several days, but the initial action was over in several hours.

I spent four hours shooting a video about the museum with a focus on what the museum itself highlights: the unique role of the Waco CG4A combat glider. Its curious that the glider merits such notice at St. Mere Eglise. When the museum was first established in the early 1960s, the building housing the Waco was the first one erected. Since then, two others have been added, one for the C-47 and one for a more immersive display about Operation Neptune, the overall name for the airborne operations in Normandy. (Overlord applies to the entire invasion.)

In military parlance, parachute infantry operations are considered vertical envelopment. All this firepower descends almost instantaneously from the sky; its not here one minute, its everywhere the next. That accurately describes the actions of the 82nd and 101st airborne divisions which, between them, inserted abut 13,000 troops in the space of about 90 minutes. The vast majority of those arrived by parachute. Only a small number arrived via glider for the initial assault. Because of worries about obstructed glider landing zones, Eisenhowers air officer, Trayford Leigh-Mallory, talked both divisions into using only 52 gliders each for the initial night assault in missions named Detroit and Chicago. They brought in more equipment than troops, giving the paratroopers light artillery and vehicles to support assaults and resist counterattacks. Later in the day, many more gliders arrived, landing in daylight when their odds of survivable landings were better. Some of the glider troops came ashore with the amphibious landings on nearby Utah Beach.

For as much as Ive read about the Normandy landings, grasping the scale of it almost defies comprehension. For one thing, the distances are much greater than I understood. From the easternmost beach, Sword, the westernmost Utah Beach is a distance of 50 miles. On a modern four-lane road, it takes most of an hour to drive it. And while the amphibious landings were spread out across a long section of coast, the airborne landings were intensely concentrated in a few square miles. After dawn on June 6, 1944, the countryside around St. Mere Eglise was literally draped in parachutes.

The town was strategic, by the way, because it controlled the road net coming up from Utah Beach, where the 4th division landed. The airborne troops were supposed to secure those roads against German counterattacks. They did. They also profoundly impacted the local population in ways that resonate yet today, two generations hence. St. Mere Eglise is throughly steeped in the lore of Overload and there is nothing mythical about it. Its real and feels recent enough to have happened last year, not 73 years ago this month. Everywhere you look there are tributes and commemorations to the airborne divisions. On the grounds of the museum is a whimsical metal sculpture of a paratrooper descending called The Day They Came. It even recalls Pvt. John Steeles celebrated snag on the belfry of the church just off the town square. And yes, a paratrooper mannequin and the parachute are still up there overlooking the place de leglise.

When we were touring the glider building, where a Waco CG4A is housed, Valerie heard a woman mention to her husband that the airplane on display was almost as big as the real thing. It is the real thing, he was heard to explain. And its not just the glider itself thats displayed, but all the vast range of equipment the U.S. Army thought would be necessary to support glider-borne infantry, a lot of which Id never seen before. In one of the displays in the C-47 building was an example of the Rebecca-Eureka electronic homing system the pathfinders were supposed to use to guide the main assault waves. It worked poorly because of lost bits and pieces and because the lead aircraft who were supposed to use it were either shot down, off course or out of position. Seventy percent of the paratroops landed on other than their planned drop zones.

All wars are contests of industrial production and this was especially the hallmark of World War II. Vast quantities of materiel were delivered to Europe and promptly lost or destroyed. Most of the paratroopers lost some equipment during the drops; some lost all of their equipment. Estimates vary, but some say 60 percent of equipment was lost. But they keep finding it around St. Mere Eglise. One of the displays is devoted entirely to excavated equipment lost by the 82nd and 101st; rusted bayonets, helmet liners, rifles, medical kits, corroded ration cans, ammunition. If the airborne divisions had it, they lost it. In his famous book on D-day, The Longest Day, Cornelius Ryan located Robert Murphy, a pathfinder from the 82nd. That was the scene in the film in which the old woman heading for her outhouse is shushed by a trooper who just landed. Murphy said in his excitement to get moving, he cut away and lost 300 rounds of ammunition. Hes remembered in effigy in one of the displays.

The glider itself, which is what I had come to shoot, is both well displayed and exceptionally well explained. The posters offer excellent detail on the entire glider strategy and operation and include photos Id never seen before. You can actually walk in and through the glider, a rarity in any kind of aviation museum. On display and explained are the weapons the glider troops had, the vehicles and all the associated equipment. If youve seen The Longest Day, you may recall the Ruperts, the dummy parachutists the Brits dropped as a diversion. I just saw the film again last week and now realize the filmmakers took serious license. The real ones, as displayed at St. Mere Eglise, arent the lifelike rubber dummies in the film, but a crude, half-size burlap cutout of a man with a barely discernible head.

We finished the day at the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach. We arrived just as the evening colors were being struck and taps was playing. Is there a person alive who would not be affected by this? I certainly was. I think every American should visit this site and especially every American president. All of us should have a firsthand understanding of why those crosses are there and we should contemplate what we might do to avoid putting more of them there.
Fired FBI Director James Comey appeared in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about his interactions with President Trump as they relate to the federal government's Russia probe  and there's been some significant revelations thus far.

A big thing: Comey refused to state whether he believed that President Trump's request to shut down the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn amounted to obstruction of justice  saying it was a question for the investigation's special counsel Bob Mueller  but he called it "a very disturbing thing, very concerning."

Another big thing: After his firing and this Trump tweet, Comey asked a close friend of his  Columbia law professor Daniel Richman  to leak the content of his memos to the media with the hope of triggering the appointment of a special counsel.

I took it as a directionI took it as what he wants me to do. Comey on Trump's "hope" that he'd shut down the Flynn investigation

Why Comey wanted to testify:

"The explanations, the shifting explanations [for his firing], confused me  and increasingly concerned me."

"It confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation."

"The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI."

Why Comey wrote his memos:

"I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting and I thought it important to document."

Comey wrote them in an unclassified manner to make them "easier to discuss" across government. He added, "I remember thinking, 'This is a very disturbing development, very important to our work, I need to document it.'"

Why Comey was concerned about Trump's behavior:

"My common sense told me that he's looking to get something in exchange for my request to stay in the job."

When Trump requested the Flynn shutdown: "Why would you kick everyone out of the Oval Office?"

Comey's reaction to idea Trump may have tapes:

"I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes."

"The president surely knows if he taped me. If he did, my feelings won't be hurt. Release all the tapes. I'm good with it."

The status of the investigation:

Comey confirmed that Trump himself was not under investigation while he was FBI director.

Did Trump collude with Russia? "That's a question I don't think I should answer in an open setting." Comey added that he meant nothing "nefarious" with that statement, simply that he's been out of government for a month.

Other key takeaways:

On not shutting down Trump's Flynn request: "Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in."

"Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in." On AG Sessions: Comey stated that he believed Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation eventually because the FBI was "aware of facts" that he "can't disclose in an open setting."

Comey stated that he believed Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation eventually because the FBI was "aware of facts" that he "can't disclose in an open setting." The Steele dossier: Comey refused to state in the open session whether any aspects of the Steele dossier had been verified.

Comey refused to state in the open session whether any aspects of the Steele dossier had been verified. On former AG Loretta Lynch's push to tone down the rhetoric surrounding the Clinton email investigation, Comey said, "The attorney general was looking to align campaign language with our language, which... gave me a queasy feeling."

push to tone down the rhetoric surrounding the Clinton email investigation, Comey said, "The attorney general was looking to align campaign language with our language, which... gave me a queasy feeling." Comey's message to his former colleagues at the FBI: "I am so sorry that I didn't get the opportunity to say goodbye to you properly."

For a quick recap of Comey's hearing, sign up for Axios PM, a free daily newsletter from Mike Allen. 1-click signup here.
Russian interference in the presidential election and the investigation into alleged collusion with the Trump campaign has drawn comparisons to Watergate with the appointment of an independent investigator. Here's a side-side-look at the events that led to Nixon's resignation, and to today's testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey.
A parliament deputy representing the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), President Serzh Sarkisians junior coalition partner, denounced on Wednesday a government proposal to encourage Armenians to report instances of corruption known to them.

Andranik Karapetian claimed that this kind of whistleblowing runs counter to Armenian values and traditions. European values are not always compatible with Armenian values, he said.

The proposal is part of a package of anti-corruption government bills which the recently elected National Assembly began debating on Wednesday. They call for the creation of a new body tasked with preventing and exposing corrupt practices among various state officials. The body would scrutinize their asset and income declarations with the aim of detecting their possible illegal self-enrichment.

The government also wants the anti-graft commission to put in place an online platform for anonymous corruption reports from citizens, including those employed by government, law-enforcement and judicial bodies. The five commission members to be appointed by the parliament would have to look into those allegations.

The institution of whistleblowers does not befit us, Armenians, declared Karapetian. When I was reading this bill yesterday the first thing that crossed my mind was that is an institution of, to use the popular language, ratting on others.

The 34-year-old lawmaker claimed that the practice would not only contradict his idea of Armenianness but also spread mistrust between co-workers in the country. Let us rat on each other, he said. Let us go to work and not dare to look each other in the eyes, suspecting that we could rat on each other.

The remarks were criticized by Mane Tandilian, a deputy from the opposition Yelk alliance. I believe that on the contrary it is un-Armenian to speak of people who can be whistleblowers in the fight against corruption as informers and to claim that this is un-Armenian, she said.

It was not immediately clear whether Karapetians view reflects the Dashnaktsutyun leaderships position. The party holds 7 seats in the 105-member parliament and is represented in the government by three ministers.
8 June 2017 17:05 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Armenian Armed Forces continue to deliberately set fires within occupied Azerbaijani territories over the last several days.

The arsons, which were originally set in occupied part of Azerbaijans Aghdam region, had spread to th Chiragli village located near the contact line of Armenian-Azerbaijani troops.

Although the fire was extinguished, pastures and trees around the Chiragli village burned down. A chocking haze of smoke and ash covered the village. Wild animals and snakes resorted to settlement during the fire.

The Armenians frequently commit arsons in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, particularly in summer, which also spread to frontline settlements.

Villages in Agdam, Fizuli, Jabrayil, Tartar and other Azerbaijani regions frequently face such destructive acts by Armenian soldiers.

For more than two decades Armenia and Azerbaijan are in a state of war following Yerevans aggression, ethnic cleansing policy and illegal territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenia keeps under control over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions in a brutal war in the early 1990s.

Despite a fragile ceasefire agreement signed in 1994, Armenia keeps violating armistice with Azerbaijan by regular provocations on the contact line of troops.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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8 June 2017 10:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

Azerbaijan has appointed its trade representative to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Elnur Aliyev will be Azerbaijans trade representative in the UAE, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Economy reported on June 7.

"The appointment of a trade representative to the UAE will play an important role in developing of trade and economic cooperation between the countries in terms of expanding non-oil exports, promoting the Made in Azerbaijan brand, stimulating a favorable business and investment climate and attracting investment from the Emirates," the Ministry said.

This is the third trade representative of Azerbaijan abroad, the first was appointed to Russia (Ruslan Aliyev) and the second - to China (Teymur Nadiroglu).

In January 2017, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree About appointment of trade representatives in embassies and consulates of the Republic.

Under the decree, the countrys economy minister appoints trade representatives in the Azerbaijani embassies and consulates abroad to facilitate business ties and increase the effectiveness of export promotion measures, represent and fully protect the trade and economic interests of the country and expand the delivery of Azerbaijani products to foreign markets.

Trade representatives main mission is to take measures to expand Azerbaijan`s economic and trade relations with foreign countries, protect economic interests of Azerbaijan, increase export of Azerbaijani goods and services, promote Azerbaijans business environment and investment opportunities.

Additionally, Azerbaijan opens Trade Houses in foreign countries. Azerbaijans first Trade House was opened in the Belarusian capital Minsk and the second one maybe opened in Russias Arkhangelsk region. It is also expected to open Trade Houses in Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

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8 June 2017 11:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Moore Stephens, a global accountancy and advisory network, will prepare a report on transparency in the extractive industry following the results of 2016, according to the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ).

The decision was made at a meeting of the Extractive Industries Transparency Commission (EITC) held on June 7.

The meeting considered the result of the requests for proposals on selection of the company for reconciling and analyzing the reports on payments of local and foreign extractive companies and government receipts

In accordance with the legislation of Azerbaijan, 10 internationally recognized audit companies operating in the country were invited to bid and 4 (RSM Azerbaijan, Moore Stephens Azerbaijan, BDO Azerbaijan, Baker Tilly Azerbaijan) of them sent their proposals.

The EIT Commission assessed the proposals of the bidders.



Representatives of civil society, foreign embassies, regional representatives of international financial organizations and members of local and foreign extractive companies operating in Azerbaijan participated at the meeting.

For the first time, Azerbaijan will prepare such a report outside the EITI, where the country joined in 2003. In general, during 2003-2015 Azerbaijan prepared 20 EITI reports.

The Commission on Extractive Industries Transparency was established after Azerbaijan announced about the withdrawn from Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in March 2017.

In early April, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on additional measures in connection with the increase of accountability and transparency in the extractive industry, the main point of which was creation of a special body - the Commission on Transparency in the Extractive Industry.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



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Saffiedine is one of Hezbollahs leaders and earliest members, but not much is known about him. He was born in 1964, in the village of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr, South Lebanons governorate, according to Saudi news source MzMz. He married the daughter of Sayyed Muhammad Ali al-Amin, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Lebanons High Islamic Shiite Council. He is Secretary General Hassan Nasrallahs maternal cousin, and both were taken under the wing of Imad Mughniyeh, who facilitated their tripl to the Iranian holy city of Qom for religious studies.

According to Asharq Al-Awsat, Saffiedine was studying in Qom until Nasrallah recalled him to Lebanon in 1994. In his book, Hizbullahs Identity Construction, Joseph Alagha writes that in 1995, the Shiite organization held its fourth conclave and promoted Saffiedine to its highest council, its governing Consultative Assembly (Majlis al-Shura), and he was the single new appointee that year. This conclave created the Jihadi Council (al-Majlis al-Jihadi), to control all of Hezbollahs military activities. Saffiedine was appointed as its head. Saffiedine continued his rise within the party and in 1998, during Hezbollahs fifth conclave, he was elected as the head of the partys Executive Council, according to Hezbollahs website, a position he has held since, being reelected in subsequent conclaves held in 2001, 2004 and 2009.

David Daoud writes in an article for Track Persia, a Platform run by dedicated analysts who spend much of their time researching the Middle East, that, In fact, according to a study by the National Defense Universitys Center for Complex Operations  Saffiedine is Nasrallahs heir apparent and de facto second-in-command, despite Sheikh Naim Qassem having the title of Deputy Secretary General. Asharq Al-Awsat says Saffiedine was chosen as Nasrallahs successor due to his political and military experience within Hezbollah, as well as his strong ties with Tehran established during his religious studies in Qom. The paper claims being told by a high-ranking former member of the organization that Saffiedine was chosen as Nasrallahs successor as far back as 1994.

According to Daoud, party officials\ described him to Asharq Al-Awsat as a true leader, simultaneously firm and flexible. They also described his personality as an extension of sayyed Nasrallahs, and a perfect successor to the Secretary General.

Saffiedine wields considerable power within Hezbollah as head of the influential Executive Council. As stated by Asharq Al-Awsat, he controls all daily sensitive issues, such as managing the partys organizations, its funds, and its domestic and foreign investments.
8 June 2017 12:06 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

The opening of Azerbaijan Trade House in Ukraine will increase export of non-oil products, Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said at a meeting with Ukrainian Ambassador to Baku Alexander Mishchenko.

The parties exchanged views on opportunities of expanding the Azerbaijan-Ukraine economic relations and cooperation. They noted that the ties between the two countries are at a high level and the heads of the states attach special importance to the development of cooperation.

Mustafayev noted that the country plans to open Azerbaijan Trade House in Ukraine. Azerbaijan is a transit hub of the region and is implementing big projects in this sphere. A Coordination Council on transit freight traffic operates in order to increase the efficiency of transit traffic. Ukraine can benefit from transit opportunities of Azerbaijan, including the potential of the Baku International Sea Trade Port, said the minister.

The minister went on to say that Azerbaijan carried out huge work for creating the pharmaceutical industry and Pirallahi Industrial Park. Stressing the countrys rich experience in the pharmaceutical sector, he said that there are big opportunities for cooperation with Ukraine in this area.

Noting that several Ukrainian companies show interest in Azerbaijans pharmaceutical industry and meetings were held in this regard, Mustafayev emphasized that Ukrainian companies can benefit from opportunities created for investors in Azerbaijans industrial parks.

Ambassador Mishchenko, in turn, said that Ukrainians are interested in therapeutic opportunities of Naftalan just like tourists from Azerbaijan come to Truskavets with the purpose of treatment.

The envoy noted that the relevant information about Naftalan has already been presented to Ukraines tourism companies.

Noting the expansion of trade relations between the two countries and growth of the export, the diplomat said that Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR is well- known in Ukraine and filling stations of the Azerbaijani company may be used for promotion of Azerbaijani products.

The two sides also discussed the issues of expanding trade relations, investments and other issues of mutual interest.

Azerbaijans first Trade House was opened in the Belarusian capital Minsk. Along with Ukraine, Azerbaijan plans to open Trade Houses in Kazakhstan, Russia and other countries.

Diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Azerbaijan were established on February 6, 1992.

Azerbaijan is considered one of the main trade partners of Ukraine among the CIS countries. Main goods imported from Ukraine to Azerbaijan are mainly metallurgy products, machine building products, agro-industrial products, and chemical industry products, while main goods exported from Azerbaijan to Ukraine are generally products of fuel energy industry, chemical industry products, and agro-industrial products.

The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Ukraine amounted to $334.18 million in 2016, according to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee.

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8 June 2017 17:22 (UTC+04:00)

By Sara Israfilbayova

A voluntary restructuring of external obligations of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) is the most optimal way of settling issues related to the bank's debt to foreign creditors, said Deputy Economy Minister Sahil Babayev during the EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum on June 8.

Answering the question why the state, which has free foreign exchange reserves and is able to repay debts in full, decided to go on restructuring the IBA's external obligations, thereby creating risks for the country's credit and investment ratings, Babayev noted that the use of the country's reserves is the last option, to which Azerbaijan can resort.

"Azerbaijan is working on the most optimal ways. As a result of restructuring the external liabilities of the IBA, Azerbaijan will get favorable conditions for itself," the deputy minister said.

The IBA has recently commenced a process of voluntary restructuring within the framework of its financial improvement.

The restructuring plan contemplates a restructuring process to be effected through an exchange of IBAs senior and junior foreign currency obligations for direct sovereign obligations of Azerbaijan.

Before the transfer of debts to the government is completed, the implementation of foreign creditors' foreign currency liabilities (with the exception of payment of interest on transactions for trade financing) is suspended.

The total amount of these commitments is $ 3.3 billion. Among the major foreign creditors of the IBA are the American company Cargill, Citibank, Rubrika Finance Company Limited, Credit Suisse AG.

The IBA appealed to New York and London Courts. Both courts made a positive decision regarding the IBA to prevent lawsuits from foreign creditors regarding the bank's assets.

In July 2015, President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on the measures for rehabilitation related to the preparations for privatizing the state-owned shares of the International Bank of Azerbaijan JSC.

The shortcomings in the management, investment and loan policy of the IBA, as well as financing of less efficient, risky investment projects worsened the Bank's financial state, caused increase in the share of distressed assets and reduced its liquidity.

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8 June 2017 15:30 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Richmond Club & Resort hosted fierce DJ battle on June 3.

The event was co-organized by Richmond Club & Resort and GuennolaMusic with support of Azerbaijan Youth Union (AYU), Trend Life reported.

Best DJs competed in the Richmond Club & Resort, located in one of the most picturesque corners of Azerbaijan, in the Pirkuli, 22 km from the town of Shamakhi. Here at 1,400 metres above sea level, eight of the best DJs-finalists rocked the silence of the forest, giving music lovers an unforgettable experience.

The competition passed in a tense struggle in which DJ Shadow showed his best. The second place went to DJ Stasy, while DJ Areez ranked third.

Baku`s best DJs, including DJ Twist, DJ ED, DJ RaSL judged the participants of the battle.

" All guests of the battle witnessed a hot show and fight for the first place. We are happy that we were able to contribute into this cultural direction," said Ruslan Hasanov (Dj RASL).

Media partners of the event are Trend.az, Day.az, Milli.az, Azernews.az

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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8 June 2017 14:21 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The restoration work is nearing completion in the liberated Jojug Marjanli village of Jabrayil region.

Chief Executive of the region Kamal Hasanov told Trend that more than 90 percent of the restoration work has been completed. The work will be fully completed in the near future and the resettlement of people will begin.

The village was fully liberated from the Armenian occupation in April 2016, when Azerbaijani Armed Forces prevented an Armenian provocation on the contact line. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani army launched counter attacks and as a result, the Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Leletepe hill located in the direction of Fizuli region.

Hasanov added that many people want to return to Jojug Marjanli: "We get a lot of both written and oral applications from the village's population."

The official also noted that 50 families will be settled in the village within the first stage, and other families will return to Jojug Marjanli when new houses are built.

In late January 2017, President Ilham Aliyev ordered to restore Jojug Marjanli. Under the order, 4 million manats were allocated for the construction of 50 private houses, a school building and relevant infrastructure at the first stage.

Moreover, President signed an order on additional measures to construct the road leading to the liberated Jojug Marjanli village and allocated 4.3 million manats from the state budget for the construction of 9 km long highway in the village.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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8 June 2017 10:42 (UTC+04:00)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed an order to provide funding for the repair and reconstruction of multi-storey residential buildings in the city of Lankaran on June 7, Azertac reported.

Under the presidential order, 7.5 million manats is allocated from the Presidential Contingency Fund for the repair and reconstruction of 13 multi-storey buildings in the city.

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8 June 2017 13:08 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan`s Minister of Labour and Social Security of Population Salim Muslumov has met his Afghan counterpart Faizullah Zaki as part of the 106th session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

Muslumov stated that after restoration of independence in all areas, our country has made tremendous progress in all spheres, including in the field of labor and employment in the past period. Legal normative base on the basis of civilized approaches of the world, reliable and sustainable social protection system for socially vulnerable groups, mechanisms of action on advanced technologies have been created on this field, Azertac reported.

The minister gave information about the electronic registration of labor contracts, the electronic system on application and appointment for targeted state social assistance, also the e-system for disability assessment created on the basis of the presidential instructions, in recent years.

He also brought to the attention the work carried out within the framework of self-employment program. The minister stressed that the unemployed and job seekers persons successfully implement their business plans at the expense of assets given by the state and establish family farms based on family labour.

At the same time, as one of the positive results, a team of certified trainers on self-employment program has been formed in Azerbaijan with the support of the ILO.

Muslumov emphasized that, relations with Afghanistan in the field of labor and social protection will strengthen after the establishment of the Center for Labor of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Baku.

In his turn, Zaki noted his country attaches special importance to the strengthening of relations with Azerbaijan, which is developing rapidly in all fields.

He brought to the attention that today the establishment of activities in the field of labor, employment, social protection in line with modern requirements, development of active labor market programs is one of the important issues for Afghanistan.

The exchange of views on the directions of further cooperation in the fields of labour, employment, social protection, labour market regulation, provision of self-employment and so on were held between the two countries.

The 106th session of the International Labour Conference will run until June 17.

The International Labour Conference is a high-level annual event of the International Labour Organization (ILO), which discusses policy priorities and negotiates international labour standards.

Over a four-year cycle, the Conference examines in turn Global Reports covering the four fundamental rights: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour; the effective abolition of child labour; and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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8 June 2017 15:50 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

The next round of talks on the new strategic partnership agreement between the European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan will be held in Baku June 13-14, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Malena Mard told reporters June 8 on the sidelines of the EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum.

We have talks regularly ongoing. Already next week in Baku I will have two delegations discussing the new agreement, including one delegation especially from DG Trade (Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission), added Mard.

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.

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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8 June 2017 11:01 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Turkey will provide Qatar with food, Turkish media outlets reported on June 8.

A special delegation from Qatar is expected to visit Turkey to discuss this issue soon, according to the report.

Earlier, Arab media outlets reported that the foodstuff available in Qatar will suffice for four weeks and that Qatar started talks with Turkey and Iran for the supplies of drinking water and agricultural products.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE announced about breaking their diplomatic relations with Qatar June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.

Later, the authorities of Libya, Yemen, as well as the Maldives and Mauritius also announced about severing diplomatic relations with Qatar.

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8 June 2017 15:07 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Qatar strives to secure food and water supplies in order to prevent possible shortages due to the deterioration of the diplomatic rift in the Persian Gulf as its two biggest suppliers, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, cut trade and diplomatic ties with the country.

The blockings of sea, land and air connection imposed by several Arab countries on Qatar has stopped food shipments and led to the cancellation of flights.

"We are in talks with Turkey and Iran and other countries," the governments official, who spoke to Reuters news agency on condition of anonymity, said, adding that the supplies would be brought in through Qatar Airways cargo flights.

The official said there were enough grain supplies in the market in Qatar to last four weeks and that the government also had large strategic food reserves in Doha.

Meanwhile, Turkey has declared its full support to Qatar by offering food supplies and adopting a bill in parliament on deploying Turkish troops in Qatar.

The establishment of the Turkish military base in Qatar is stipulated by the agreement on strengthening bilateral cooperation signed by the parties in 2014.

In addition, the Turkish Parliament ratified the "Protocol on Cooperation between the Government of the Turkish Republic and the Government of the State of Qatar in the Field of Education and Training of Gendarmerie Staff."

Seven Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain broke off diplomatic relations with one of the richest and most influential states of the world, accusing it of supporting ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists. They cut air, sea and land links and ordered Qatari officials and nationals stationed in their countries to return home.

Qatar denied allegations over its support to terrorism and extremism adding that the diplomatic rift was based on "baseless fabricated claims."

The country expressed its readiness for a dialogue to solve the crisis that has recently occurred in Qatars relations with a number of Arab states.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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8 June 2017 12:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Trend

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted to U.S. President Donald Trumps statement on the twin terrorist attacks in Tehran claimed by the ISIS terrorist group that killed at least 13 people.



Repugnant White House statement and Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by U.S. clients, Zarif wrote on his twitter account June 8 referring to Trumps statement and the US Congress vote on new sanctions against Tehran.



Hours after the terror attacks in Tehran Trump expressed sympathy with terror victims in Iran.



We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times, Trump said in a press release.



We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil that they promote, Trump concluded.



Reacting to the message, Zarif said that Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship.



At the same day, the United States Congress acted in a procedural vote to advance a new set of sanctions against Iran, despite calls by Democrats. The legislation under consideration mandates the imposition of sanctions on Iran's ballistic missile program and extends terrorism sanctions pertaining to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.



Key Democratic figures such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and California Senator Dianne Feinstein called for a delay in the vote out of respect for the fallen in the wake of the attacks but to no avail.



Separate attacks shattered Tehran on June 7. As reports said, several armed people tried to break their way into the Parliament building.



The attackers managed to get inside the building and engaged in a shootout with the security forces. One terrorist committed suicide by blowing himself up. The latest reports indicate that all terrorists who took part in the siege of the parliament building have been killed.



Meanwhile, another attack took place at the Imam Khomeini Shrine, which involved armed terrorists, suicide bombers. The reports said Iran's security forces neutralized one terrorist, another one committed suicide. Several pilgrims have also been injured in the attack.



A separate terrorist group in the country has been detained before it managed to carry out any terror attacks. Fars news agency issued a report, saying that ISIS claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in Tehran.

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Reza Seifollahi, an official in the countrys Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the independent Shargh daily as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.

The bloodshed shocked the country and came as emboldened Sunni Arab states  backed by U.S. President Donald Trump  are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times, the statement said. We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

In recent years, Tehran has been heavily involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State, but had remained untouched by IS violence around the world. Iran has also battled Saudi-backed Sunni groups in both countries.

Irans Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it meaningful that the attacks followed Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washingtons support for Riyadh.

The secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran issued a statement in this regard as follows:

Following the initiative launching a broad international coalition of Arab and Islamic countries and the United States against the clerical regimes warmongering and terrorism, ISIS carried out unexpected attacks in Tehran against its own godfather, at Khomeinis tomb and the regimes parliament. It is noteworthy that ISIS has never acted against the regime in past years.

The Iranian regimes President Hassan Rouhani claimed that the incident was not unexpected and Khamenei downplayed these firework displays as insignificant and ineffective.

The terrorist rivalry between the claimants of a Sunni Caliphate and the so-called Shiite Caliphate dubbed the velayat-e faqih in Iran, even if not tailor-made or staged, is the source of jubilation and elation for mullahs Caliph Khamenei.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, condemned the shedding of innocent peoples blood under any pretext. ISISs conduct clearly benefits the Iranian regimes Supreme Leader Khamenei, who wholeheartedly welcomes it as an opportunity to overcome his regimes regional and international impasse and isolation. The founder and the number one state sponsor of terror is thus trying to switch the place of murderer and the victim and portray the central banker of terrorism as a victim, Mrs. Rajavi added.

The NCRIs President-elect recalled: The Iranian Resistance has always maintained that the Iranian people and Resistance have the responsibility to overthrow the religious, dictatorship ruling Iran and to dismantle all institutions and symbols of suppression and repression. We, therefore, call for an end to the policy of appeasing the mullahs regime and recognizing the just resistance of the Iranian people.

To uproot terrorism in the region:

 The IRGC must be designated as a terrorist entity.

 The IRGC and paramilitary proxies of the Khamenei caliphate must be removed from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation must expel the mullahs regime and recognize the Iranian Resistance for ending religious fascism.

After 38 years of brutal suppression, executions and incarceration, the people of Iran will not be satisfied by anything less than freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty.
8 June 2017 16:39 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

The new round of talks on Syria in Kazakhstans capital is tentatively postponed to June 20, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told journalists on June 8, RIA Novosti reported.

"Intense work is underway on clarifying certain details, preparing some documents which are necessary for the meeting," he said.

The meeting was postponed because the delegations were not prepared, Bogdanov added without providing further details.

Earlier, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said that the planned meeting scheduled for June 12-13 was postponed.

Previously, Russia, Turkey and Iran signed a memorandum on creating four de-escalation zones at talks involving the Syrian government and opposition groups in Kazakhstans capital.

The civil war in Syria between government and opposition with various terrorist groups involved, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), began back in March 2011.

Syrian President Bashar Assad managed to turn the tide of war in his favor after Russia started an air campaign in September 2015, while Iran is an uncompromising supporter of the Syrian leader.

According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the countrys pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
8 June 2017 16:23 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

Summer is the great time to travel -- sunny weather, long days, and delicious cuisine has turned Azerbaijan into a powerful magnet for many tourists.

The tourism industry of Azerbaijan is ready for the opening of the summer season, which will begin on June 15 and last until September 15, according to Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfaz Garayev.

The minister stressed that this year more guests will come to Azerbaijan, further specifying that this summer the growth of tourist flow from the Arab countries, Russia and Iran is expected.

Garayev further mentioned that 174,000 tourists arrived in Azerbaijan last May.

This May 211,000 tourists arrived in Azerbaijan, and this is an increase of about 30 percent. If in the last five months of 2016, some 768,000 tourists arrived in the country, then this year their number reached 956,000, which means an increase of 200,000 tourists. This growth is directly related to the simplification of the visa regime, and we have opened our doors to about 90 countries, he said.

Garayev also stressed that for the period of hosting Formula 1 Grand Prix of Azerbaijan (on June 23-25), rooms in the major hotel networks of the country can be filled by 95 percent, adding that for the hotels have already received orders.

Talking about hostels, which remains an urgent topic for the country in connection with a large tourist influx and lack of budget accommodation, Garayev said that the corresponding order was issued in this regard.

The minister stressed that many people, especially young people, show interest in hostels. "People want to settle in the center of the city, in the places with normal conditions," he said, adding that the ministry is working on the issue.

Today, the country can accommodate about 40,000 tourists in its 535 hotels, which include a series of luxury hotels  Excelsior, Hilton, Four Seasons, Fairmont, JW Marriott, Kempinski  as well as several budget hotels for cost-conscious travelers.

As many as 146 hotels are located in Baku and Absheron peninsula. Baku is also home to several hostels, budget hotels designed for low-cost travel. Here, of course, tourists have to share a room with a few more people, but prices are much more affordable. So far, 25 hostels and 92 apartments for tourists operate in Baku.

Bulks of the hotels located in the country are 5-3 stars, which sometimes creates inconvenience for low-budget tourists. Here you can see the price list of some of them. Prices for accommodation in the country start from $15 and increase depending on hotel brand and amenities.

Azerbaijan is the land where all paths meet, fully refuting disproving the old saying that, "West is West and East is East, and never the twain shall meet".

Tourists see here a clash of East meets West and find a lot to enjoy. Situated on the Great Silk Road, and divided partially between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, Azerbaijan blended the best from both cultures, forming its own unique rich culture, thats why its people are neither totally Eastern, nor totally Western.

The shores of the Caspian, the Mugan, Karabakh, the Mil plains, the mountains, forests, rivers, springs, lakes, summer and winter recreation areas, historical monuments, modern museums and skyscrapers are headline tourist attractions in the country.

Those who prefer to go unbeaten path, to explore less visited places and check national charisma will undoubtedly have an interesting experience here.

The government of Azerbaijan has made developing tourism a priority, while a number of tourist facilities have been built in the regions, and cultural and historical reserves have been set up or restored.

--

Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli



Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz




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.





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At least 12 people were killed and 46 injured in the nearly simultaneous assaults on both the Iranian Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of the 1979 revolution, one of the most sacred places in Iran. The attacks lasted for hours.

According to Irans Ministry of Intelligence, a third attack was foiled. Six of the assailants, two at the mausoleum and four at the Parliament, were killed. Official news media reported that five suspects were detained.

The assailants, including some disguised as women, were armed with Kalashnikovs stormed the parliament building and opened fire.

Meanwhile, nearly 30 km away from the Parliament, the second attack occurred, and along with shooting, included a suicide bombing at Khomeinis shrine.

A third attack was apparently foiled.

According to Daeshs Amaq News Agency, fighters with the Islamic State carried out the attacks in Iran, a claim that has not been verified. as Daesh has not yet provided credible evidence that it carried out the assaults and Daesh did not mention the third attack.

Questions are being raised as to how the assailants coordinated such sophisticated attacks in highly secure locations in Tehran. The timing and locations of the attacks are significant politically and ideologically. Attacking the Parliament and Khomeinis shrine symbolically assaults the Islamic Republics political identity, revolutionary ideals, core values and principles.

The Shiite political ideology of Wilayat Al-Faqih, as expounded by Khomeini, gives the supreme leader custodianship over the people. The mausoleum is an important tourist destination, and tens of thousands of people have visited the shrine following the 15th anniversary of Khomeinis death on June 4.

Iran rarely experiences attacks of this nature, because of the presence of Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps  including the security forces, secret police, undercover informants and the Basij. In fact, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani recently declared, Iran is the safest and most stable country of the entire region.

Some Iranian leaders are downplaying the attacks. The state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani as saying, some coward terrorists infiltrated a building in the Majlis (Parliament), but they were seriously confronted This is a minor issue but reveals that the terrorists pursue troublemaking.

These attacks mark the first major assaults in Tehran since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Daesh is active in Iraq and Syria, where Iran also plays a critical role. Iran is providing military, financial, intelligence and advisory assistance to Bashar Assad and his forces in the Syrian civil war. Iran also supports various Shiite militia groups in countries including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Irans support of Assad, as well as Shiite militia groups across the region, is believed to have widened the gap between Shiite and Sunni, and empowered extremist groups such as Daesh. Several intelligence reports accuse Iran of sheltering leaders from terrorist groups, like Al-Qaeda.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella group for the Iranian Resistance, condemned the shedding of innocent blood under any pretext. ISISs conduct clearly benefits the Iranian regimes Supreme Leader Khamenei, who wholeheartedly welcomes it as an opportunity to overcome his regimes regional and international impasse and isolation. The founder and the number one state sponsor of terror is thus trying the switch the place of murderer and the victim and portray the central banker of terrorism as a victim, she stated. Mrs. Rajavi also recalled, The Iranian Resistance has always maintained that the Iranian people and Resistance have the responsibility to overthrow the religious, dictatorship ruling Iran and to dismantle all institutions and symbols of suppression and repression. We, therefore, call for an end to the policy of appeasing the mullahs regime and recognizing the just resistance of the Iranian people.

The NCRIs President-elect outlined the necessary steps to uproot terrorism in the region:

 The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) must be designated as a terrorist entity.

 The IRGC and paramilitary proxies of the Khamenei caliphate must be removed from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation must expel the mullahs regime and recognize the Iranian Resistance for ending religious fascism.

She continued, After 38 years of brutal suppression, executions and incarceration, the people of Iran will not be satisfied by anything less than freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty.

It is believed that Iranian hard-liners, particularly the senior cadre of the IRGC and Quds Force, will attempt to use the attacks bolster arguments that Iran is fighting extremism and terrorism in the region to justify their military engagements in the region, as well as to gain public support for involvements in Damascus and Baghdad, to increase the military budget, and to heighten domestic security.
VS Legionnaires Transcript

Press Briefing Transcript Tuesday, June 6, 2017 Audio recording [MP3, 5.3MB] (http://www.cdc.gov/media/audio/2017/t0608-vs-legionnaires.mp3) Please Note: This transcript is not edited and may contain errors.

OPERATOR: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. During the question and answer session, please press star one on your touchtone phone. Todays conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Now I would like to turn the meeting over to Kathy Harben.

KATHY HARBEN: Thank you Mary and thank you all for joining us today. This months vital signs is on health-care associated Legionnaires disease in 2015. Were joined by the Acting Director, Dr. Anne Schuchat and Dr. Cynthia Whitney, who is chief of CDCs respiratory diseases branch. I will turn the call over now to Dr. Schuchat.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thanks so much everyone. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. CDC works 24/7 to protect the health, safety and security of Americans. One of the ways we do this each month is by highlighting a critical public health issue in our vital signs publication and describing what can be done about the health threat. This month, were talking about Legionnaires disease, a potentially deadly pneumonia, and the extent to which people get this disease while at health-care facilities. Todays news is that people are getting Legionnaires disease from health-care facilities in most parts of the country. Three-fourths of areas studies had patients who got infected with legionella when they were hospitalized or in long-term care facilities. Most of these infections can be prevented with better water management programs in these facilities. CDC has issued tools to help facilities improve their building water management. But this study suggests that more is needed to protect patients against contracting this deadly pneumonia from the facilitys showers or other water exposures. At CDC we take patient safety very seriously. We already focus on a number of strategies such as hand hygiene and antibiotic stewardship to protect patients from health-care associated infections. But having a water management program needs to be added to that list. Legionnaires disease in health-care facilities is widespread, deadly and preventable. Its a type of serious lung infection with symptoms that include cough, shortness of breath, fever, muscle aches and headache. About 10 % of people who get this infection die from it. But in this analysis, we found in health-care facilities that the death rate is higher. Twenty-five percent of people die if they get sick with Legionnaires disease while in the hospital, long-term care or nursing home. In health-care facilities, people are most vulnerable because they are already sick. When legionella germs are present, patients can inhale them from small water droplets coming from showerheads, water therapy spas and baths, cooling towers, decorative fountains and certain medical equipment like respiratory therapy equipment. Its important to note that most healthy people do not get Legionnaires disease after being exposed to legionella. People with greater risk are 50 years of age or older, current or former smokers and those with chronic diseases like COPD or Emphysema or weakened immune systems. Each year, state or city public health agencies report to CDC basic data on Legionnaires disease cases. Some states also provide information on where someone with Legionnaires disease might have been exposed to the bacteria legionella. In todays vital signs, CDC examined the exposure data reported during 2015 from 20 states and one large city. We found that 76% of those areas had residents who definitely got Legionnaires disease from a stay at a health-care facility. Legionnaires disease cases were considered definitely health-care associated when a person stayed in the health-care setting for all ten days before developing Legionnaires disease symptoms. Or a possible health-care associated case when the person was in a health-care setting for some portion of the ten days before developing Legionnaires disease symptoms. Our study found 20 of 21 jurisdictions had possible health-care associated Legionnaires disease cases. 16 of 21 or 76% had definite health-care associated Legionnaires disease. In those 16 jurisdictions, cases occurred in 72 different facilities with a number of cases ranging from one to six per facility. 80% were associated with long-term care facilities, 18% with hospitals and 2% with both. In terms of the possible cases, the 20 jurisdictions had cases in about 415 different health-care facilities. 13% were associated with long-term care facilities, 49% with hospitals and 26% with outpatient clinics. We previously reported on outbreaks of Legionnaires disease in the U.S. which showed that effective water management could have prevented the problems leading to four out of five health-care associated outbreaks. These findings suggest that Legionnaires disease is a problem that can affect any state and that all health-care facilities can take action to protect their patients. Previous analysis showed that for one year alone, insurers paid an estimated $434 million in hospitalization claims for Legionnaires disease nationally. And total health-care costs per patient averaged about $38,000. Protecting patients safety from Legionnaires disease in health-care settings depended on keeping the water in health-care facilities safe. This means tending to the buildings water system infrastructure, especially with older facilities. The centers for Medicare and Medicaid services or CMS just announced that facilities are expected to develop and adhere to policies and procedures to reduce the risk of legionella and other pathogens in water. To describe more about how health-care facilities can prevent Legionnaires disease, Dr. Cynthia Whitney will now speak.

CYNTHIA WHITNEY: Thank you Dr. Schuchat and good afternoon, everyone. Ensuring patients, visitors and employees dont become sick because they were in a health facility is important. Leaders of health-care facilities should create a team to develop and roll out an effective water management program to limit legionella and other water-borne germs from growing and spreading. This time last year, CDC released a tool kit for building owners and managers that explained how to create and run a water management program. You can find this document on the CDC website. This water management toolkit provides a checklist to help identify first of all if a building needs a water management program. It gives examples of where legionella could grow and spread in a building and it gives ways to reduce the risk of legionella contamination in water systems. The tool kit is based on ASHRAE 188, a document designed for building engineers that outlines how to reduce risk of legionella in building water systems. Because of the vulnerable population they serve, its important for health-care facilities to have a water management program and a dedicated team that correctly executes this program. Reducing the risk of Legionnaires disease in health-care facilities requires action from people inside and outside the facility. Health-care providers are the front line. They can think legionella, which means having a high clinical suspicion for Legionnaires disease as a possible diagnosis for certain patients with health-care associated pneumonia. They can also make sure to test patients with pneumonia using the right tests that can detect Legionnaires disease. Health-care facility leaders can maintain safe water in their building by creating a team and creating a water management program to limit legionella and other water-borne germs. Facility leaders can make sure that they alert local public health authorities quickly if a Legionnaires disease case is identified and then work with them to investigate and prevent additional infections. Finally, state and local public health officials can improve surveillance of Legionnaires disease in health-care facilities, including reviewing all cases they get to look for patterns and promptly responding to any that might be associated with health-care.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thanks so much, Dr. Whitney. The bottom line here is simple. Health-care associated Legionnaires disease is widespread, deadly and preventable. People are getting Legionnaires disease from health-care facilities in most parts of the country. Three-fourths of areas studied had patients who got infected whether they were hospitalized or in long-term care facilities. Most of these infections can be prevented with better water management programs in these facilities. We urge health-care facility leaders to use the practical guide for creating safe water management programs. We can work to together to lower this risk by reducing legionella growth in health-care facilities to protect the vulnerable patients in those settings. Thank you for listening today and I would like to turn things back over to the moderator.

KATHY HARBEN: Thank you Dr. Schuchat. Mary, we are now ready for questions.

OPERATOR: All right. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. You will be prompted to record your name. One moment for the first question. Janine Interlandi, with Consumer Reports, you may go ahead with your question.

JENEEN INTERLANDI: Thanks so much. I have a couple of questions. The first being, given that the tool kit you created is about a year old now, can you speculate a bit about why more hospitals dont seem to be using it? Is it a lack of awareness? Is it cost prohibitive? What are your thoughts on that? And then my follow-up is, if you can speak to the guidelines for patient notification in the event of a Legionnaires outbreak. Thank you.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thank you for those questions. Let me start and see if Dr. Whitney wants to add anything. You know, in terms of the uptake of the tool kit, the first thing I need to say is I dont have data today about what percentage of hospitals have incorporated an effective water management plan into their work. But what I can say is this is a big culture change for infection control and hospital facilities. We have had tremendous uptake of improving our use of antibiotics and improvements in health-care associated infection prevention through handwashing and through other checklist kinds of processes. But most infection control practitioners havent even heard that Legionnaires disease can be a hospital-acquired infection. We know we have a lot of opportunity to get the word out. And we know that the infection control work force of the country is a tremendous set of champions for patient safety. So I hope in the future we will have statistics about the uptake of these  of the tool kit messages by health-care facilities. We think the CMS guidance is a very important way that that uptake will happen because when hospitals are visited, this will be one of many things thats checked consistently. So this is essentially a warning to health-care facilities if you dont have a good water management plan, this is the time to study up and develop one. Now in terms of patient notification issues, I can say that Legionnaires disease is nationally notifiable and that means that we are expecting to hear about the cases of Legionnaires disease when they occur. States have their own additional requirements for how detailed and what kind of information comes in with the reporting of cases. But we know that Legionnaires disease is underreported and that the numbers that we reported here are just the tip of the iceberg.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: I think we will see if Dr. Whitney wants to expand on that.

CYNTHIA WHITNEY: Just one thing to add. Legionnaires disease is a condition that prevents  that patients present with symptoms similar to other kinds of pneumonia. So you have fever, you have cough. So its very important that health-care providers order tests that are specific for diagnosing Legionnaires disease. If those tests arent ordered all the time, thats why we think the cases go undetected and therefore unreported.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question, please.

OPERATOR: Maggie Fox with NBC News. You may go ahead with your question.

MAGGIE FOX: Thanks. Im probably a little confused on this. But at first I misunderstood the way this report was presented to us as 76% of cases were acquired in hospitals. Once you read the report you realize 3% of the cases were reported in the hospital. Can you tell me why you are so concerned by your findings? Is it that perhaps this indicates that legionella is in a lot of hospitals even though a lot of cases arent being reported? I would like to characterize what the actual risk is to people when they go to the hospital.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Yes. Thank you, Maggie, for those good questions. We think that the 3% is the tip of the iceberg. One in five Legionnaires cases in this report might have been health-care associated. The difference between a possible case and a definite case was the requirement that the entire 10 days before illness onset be occurring in the hospital. Most hospitalizations are shorter. So many people who are considered possible Legionnaires disease health-care associated cases probably got their disease in a health-care facility. The second thing to say is that this is a deadly infection. People who get Legionnaires disease when in a hospital or nursing home are much more likely to die than other people. They have underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable. This is a really nasty pathogen. The third thing to say is we can do something about this. For many Legionnaires cases that happen one at a time in a town or city, we dont know where the person got infected. For health-care associated infections, we have a source. The critical thing is to try to prevent more cases from happening in that facility. Each single health-care associated case could be considered an outbreak waiting to happen. So we think that its very important that leaders in health-care facilities take notice of this and learn how they can protect the patients in their care. We also think for consumers its a great reminder that if someone you love is hospitalized or in a nursing home and develops pneumonia to ask about could this be Legionnaires disease, have you tested for that. Because it does take special tests. And we know those tests arent as widely used as they might be.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question.

OPERATOR: David Lewkowict, with Fox News, you may go ahead with your question.

DAVID LEWKOWICT: Dr. Schuchat, thank you so much for taking my call. I just had a quick question about regional differences. Do we see regional differences in where the cases are being diagnosed, number one? Number two, do we see differences between newer and older facilities, or is it statistically insignificant?

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thanks. Those are both great questions. Our analysis isnt the best way to get at that. But from other analysis and from our outbreak work, we know there are some areas of the country that are more frequently reporting outbreaks of Legionnaires disease. Some of the wetter New England or northeastern Mid-Atlantic States have frequently found Legionnaires outbreaks or investigated them. But we think that this can happen in any hospital or any health-care facility or any nursing home. And thats a reason why every health-care leader needs to assess their hospital or their facility, its circumstances and make sure that if it does need to have a water management plan that theres a good one in place. The other question that you asked was about the age of the building. Thats a terrific question. We have seen a 4 1/2-fold increase in Legionnaires reports since 2000. We wonder is that because our infrastructure is aging? Are some of the older buildings more at risk for overgrowth of bacteria? When you look at a typical hospital or a typical health-care facility, they have been expanded, renovated, and added on to. Their original plumping is hard to even figure out. So we know that those types of facilities lend themselves to poor circulation of water in some of the parts of the building. We think engineers who really work together with the facilities people to look at where the water is flowing and where its not flowing can help look for the vulnerabilities and help health-care facilities get a strong water management plan. I dont have data that shows that older buildings are riskier than newer buildings. There are some things going on with newer buildings that make them potentially at risk. But what I would say is, the age of Americas health-care facilities infrastructure does put us at risk for more Legionnaires disease to be picked up in the hospitals. Thats one of the reasons we want people to pay attention to this problem.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question.

OPERATOR: Stephanie Souchery, with the University of Minnesota CIDRAP, your question is next.

STEPHANIE SOUCHERY: Yes. Hi. My question, you touched on it, but Im trying to tease out what  what if any ascertainment bias might be at play. Healthy people in the community who get Legionnaires but dont get sick enough to seek help or get tested.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thanks. The second part of your question got blurry. I think you are asking whether theres some ascertainment bias in our statistics, would we be missing cases in healthy people or having selective reporting of Legionnaires disease. Theres several things to say. One thing is that people who are in long-term care facilities are likely to be there for ten days or longer. So its probably easier to confirm the source of health-care as a source of the Legionnaires disease in a person in a long-term care facility compared to a person in the hospital or whos seeking care in an outpatient clinic. A second thing that you raise is whether people who are healthy might have Legionnaires disease and not know it. Legionnaires disease is pretty serious. We think that you are sick enough to need to seek care. If you develop pneumonia, you may or may not be diagnosed with Legionnaires disease. The healthy people are probably not tested for legionella the same way that people who are more infirm are. But we also know that healthy people can develop something called Pontiac fever, which is a different manifestation of exposure to the legionella bacteria, almost anyone can get Pontiac fever in the right circumstances. I think that our main problem, our main bias is the underreporting, the under diagnosis based on collecting the appropriate laboratory tests to make this diagnosis. Pneumonia is extremely common. Many people are treated without diagnostic tests being run. Even many people who are hospitalized and sick with severe pneumonia may not get tested for legionella.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question.

OPERATOR: Gary Evans, with Hospital Infection Control, you may go ahead with your question.

GARY EVANS: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. A couple things on infection control response in hospitals. First of all, could you just clarify what  how many cases of Legionnaires disease should prompt a hospital investigation? At one point, it was going to be moved to one. Im not sure where it is right now. I would like to clarify that. The other thing is, is the CDC still relatively unfavorable or not recommending routine testing of legionella in the hospital water supply?

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Thanks for those great questions. Our current recommendations are that one case of definite healthcare-associated Legionnaires disease should prompt an investigation or two cases of probable health-care associated infection that occur within 12 months. Those are signals that there might be a bigger problem and that perhaps theres some lapses in the water management plan. In terms of whether routine testing for legionella is recommended or not, we really updated our tool kit to be in line with the ASHRAE 188 guidance document. That is somewhat agnostic on the testing. The most important thing is to have a water management plan, some plans will include testing; some dont. But most important thing is to get the team together to assess the building, to develop the management plan, to follow it and to make corrections when you have problems. So thats really where we stand on that. The very important issue to make sure that we can protect patients in these settings.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question.

OPERATOR: Mike Stobbe with the Associated Press, you may go ahead with your question.

MIKE STOBBE: Thank you for taking the question. I just need a little clarification. I got confused, kind of following up Maggie Foxs question about the 3%. The tip of the iceberg and one in five might be health-care associated. Dr. Schuchat, you talked about the ten days, but think you also said that 80% of the cases were long-term care facilities and 18% were hospitals. People in long-term care facilities would be there ten days or longer. I didnt quite understand why  how much  to what extent you think one in five might be a strong number in giving people an idea. Also, is there anything else you can say about trend? Is this problem getting worse or better? Also, a little bit more about your response to the last question, about testing of the water supply. Why not call for regular testing of the water?

ANNE SCHUCHAT: Great. Thanks Mike for those terrific questions. We think that one in five cases may be healthcare associated is a stronger number than the 3%. The reality of under diagnosis, underreporting and the complexity of pinpointing a source of Legionnaires disease given the long incubation period makes it very likely that many people who get diagnosed with Legionnaires disease, after a hospital sta,y probably got that infection while they were in the hospital. I cant prove that to you. But I think our experts feel that the one in five number is a lot closer to reality than the 3%. A second question is about trend. Thats quite difficult because we have had a few pretty big outbreaks in the past few years that have gotten a lot of attention. The single cases and two or three cases dont get so much attention. We know that our surveillance has shown an increase of  a four and a half fold increase in routinely reported cases of Legionnaires disease since 2000. And we think part of that is better diagnosis because of the urine antigen test. It makes it simpler to diagnose this. Part of that is perhaps raised awareness. Part of that is probably real increases with more vulnerable patients, the elderly, people with chronic conditions, transplants and so forth, and also with aging infrastructure. Unfortunately, we dont have perfect data to answer exactly how much of the increase is real versus better reporting and a more accurate impression of whats really going on. We know that even with the better diagnosis, that that urine antigen test only picks up one type of legionella. And theres many more types. Were probably missing a lot of Legionnaires disease with the current way that diagnostic tests are run. In terms of testing of the water supply, this has been an issue of controversy for some time. Some hospitals and health-care facilities are finding very good results from routine testing. And others are quite challenged with it. We think the most important thing right now based on the data available is to develop a plan to implement it, to monitor it and to improve it. When you do find a problem with Legionnaires disease, the testing of the water for legionella is one component. There are other things that you need to check in the water, really the controls against legionella more than just the detection of that bacteria. Legionella is not the only water-borne germ that can cause problems in health-care facilities. So we think having a comprehensive water management plan is important. Dr. Whitney will expand a little on that.

CYNTHIA WHITNEY: Yeah, just a couple thoughts to add to what you said Dr. Schuchat. As you said, its very important to monitor how well your water management program is working and there is  its very important to water  excuse me, to monitor disinfectant levels as well as temperature to make sure things are moving in the right range. We for a long time have recommended testing for legionella in water where patients are really vulnerable, for example bone marrow transplant units, places where people may be receiving chemotherapy and not have much of an immune system. For larger hospitals, testing may make more sense because their systems are just very much more complicated than in smaller places. In smaller facilities, single story, long-term care facilities, for example, monitoring the temperature and the disinfectant levels may be enough to really know that your facilitys water management program is working. I think it really depends on the facility and facility leaders should be working with technical experts to understand whats needed there.

KATHY HARBEN: Next question.

OPERATOR: Sean Hamill with Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, you may go ahead with your question.

SEAN HAMILL: Thank you. Dr. Schuchat, one of the most recent studies the CDC has done was about a health-care outbreak here in Pittsburgh in 2012 and 2013 at the Pittsburgh VA. We had a series of stories in December about e-mails exchanged between the people who were investigating that, including Dr. Whitney. There was a letter to the CDC in January from Senator Casey asking the CDC to investigate. I was wondering if you can tell us what has gone on with that investigation, where it stands now, whether you have confidence in how that investigation was carried out. It is important in understanding how these health-care facility outbreaks occur when they are investigated. In addition, I would like to ask Dr. Whitney about her comment where she said there would be poetic justice in investigating this case because the doctors had previously worked at this VA.

ANNE SCHUCHAT: You know, thanks for raising that. We will have to get back to you on that. Operator, could we get the next question, please?

OPERATOR: There are no other questions at this time.

KATHY HARBEN: Thanks, Mary. Thank you Dr. Schuchat and Dr. Whitney for joining us today. Also, thanks to all the reporters who joined us. If you have follow-up questions, we will be glad to get you connected. You can call the press office at 404-639-3286 or send an e-mail to media@cdc.gov. Thank you for joining us. This concludes our call.

OPERATOR: Thank you. This concludes the call. Please disconnect your lines

###

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESexternal icon
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.
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Occidental Petroleum Corporation is an international oil and gas giant founded in 1920 to explore for oil in California. The company made its name in the early 1960safter discovering the Lathrop Gas Field in Lathrop, California. The company expanded into chemicals manufacturing in 1968 and then in 1972 it became a pioneer in the quest to extract oil from shale. In 1993, the company made a historic move by exiting its coal operations, and then it did so again when it embraced a lower carbon future.

The company worked to realign its goals with a carbon-free future in 2021. After extensive review, new carbon emission targets were laid out along with a plan that the Transition Pathway Initiative recognized as being 1 of 3 coming from major oil companies that could realistically result in net-zero emissions by 2050. Since then the company has laid interim goals that include net zero from operations and energy by 2040 and no routine flaring by 2030.

Today, Occidental Petroleum is an integrated energy company with operations in the US, the Middle East, Africa, and Columbia along with some other smaller operations. The company operates a network of best-in-class production, delivery, and storage facilities with operations centered in the US. On a net basis, the companys US operations accounted for more than 75% of the total in 2022 with 19% from Middle East operations and the remainder from Columbia and elsewhere.

The company engages in the oil & gas business as an explorer, producer, and mid-stream infrastructure operator. The company operates through three segments that include Oil and Gas, Chemicals, and Midstream & Marketing.

The oil and gas segment explores for oil, develops new fields, and produces hydrocarbon liquids, gasses, and condensates. The chemicals segment manufactures a range of chemicals including chlorine, potassium chemicals, and vinyl. The midstream segment transports, stores, and markets hydrocarbons. It is the 6th largest oil and gas producer in the US by market cap. The company attained the position after its acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum in 2019, the 4th largest oil and gas acquisition at the time.

Berkshire Hathaway became Occidental Petroleums largest shareholder in mid-2022. The firm had purchased more than 26% of the shares as of 10/14/2022 and had regulatory approval to purchase up to 50% of the company in total.
The nearly simultaneous attacks claimed 12 lives and injured 42 people when a combination of suicide bombers and gunmen stormed Irans parliament and the shrine of the father of the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Ali Larijani, Irans Parliament Speaker, called the attacks a cowardly act and reportedly downplayed the tragedies as a minor issue. He said, Iran is an active and effective pillar in the fight against terrorists, and they want to damage it. Following his remarks, his fellow parliamentarians stood up and began shouting, Death to America, while pumping their fists in their air.

Its common for Irans clerics and hardliners to chant, Death to America, during rallies and after Friday sermons, but the chant from Irans parliamentarians implies that they believe the United States was behind the attacks.

However, the Amaq News Agency reported that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Still, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has previously stated his belief that the United States created the Islamic State, referred to as Daesh in the Middle East. Khamenei recently tweeted from his English-language Twitter account that the United States created and is supporting the Islamic State in order to defame true Islam and promote Sunni Wahhabism.

Khamenei claimed that the United States created and is promoting the Islamic State out of its hatred for Islam, as far back as 2015. The present US officials are against the principles of Islam and, unlike their statements, they are after fomenting differences among Muslims, and its example is creating terrorist groups like Daesh (the Arabic acronym for ISIS) and other groups that have been created through the funding of the US affiliates and their political aids; they (the American officials) have caused the recent tragedies in the Muslim world, Khamenei reportedly said, and added, The Shiite or Sunni does not make any difference for the Americans; they are against any Muslim who wants to live in accordance with Islamic rules and make efforts to that end.

Wednesdays attack on Tehran ended after Iranian security guards and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) killed four of the militants.

Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), who was not only instrumental in helping with the Iran nuclear deal, but has advocated for the recognition of the Iranian regimes legitimacy by the West, issued a statement demanding President Donald Trump stand alongside the Iranian regime following the attack: We urge President Trump, members of the U.S. Congress and all nations around the world to condemn the attack in solidarity with the Iranian people without delay, as European officials have already done. Terrorism respects no borders, and we remind the Trump administration that Iranians held vigils for the American victims of terrorism after the September 11th attacks.

Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Irans (NCRI) condemned the attack, stating: ISISs conduct clearly benefits the Iranian regimes Supreme Leader Khamenei, who wholeheartedly welcomes it as an opportunity to overcome his regimes regional and international impasse and isolation. The founder and the number one state sponsor of terror is thus trying the switch the place of murderer and the victim and portray the central banker of terrorism as a victim. She also outlined the ways that terrorism in the region can be uprooted:

 The IRGC must be designated as a terrorist entity.

 The IRGC and paramilitary proxies of the Khamenei caliphate must be removed from Syria, Iraq, and Yemen.

 The Organization of Islamic Cooperation must expel the mullahs regime and recognize the Iranian Resistance for ending religious fascism.
Gay marriage in Scottish Episcopal Church: GAFCON announces 'missionary bishop' as split looms

Conservative Anglicans have announced a controversial 'missionary bishop' to provide oversight for parishes unable to accept the decision of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) to accept gay marriage.

The landmark vote, passed by a two-thirds majority across all three parts of the SEC synod, sets it at odds with most Anglicans around the world.

For a full report on result, click here.

Within minutes of the vote, the conservative grouping GAFCON announced Canon Andy Lines as a 'missionary bishop' to oversee traditionalist parishes who want to defect from the official Scottish Anglican church.

Canon Lines' appointment, revealed by Christian Today on Wednesday, effectively sets up a potential split with parishes given the option to stay under the episcopal authority of the SEC or look instead to GAFCON's alternative Anglican structure.

He told Christian Today the decision was just not in reaction to the Scottish Church's move but in response to the trajectory of UK Anglican Churches including the Church of England.

'We have stuck to what Anglicans have always believed and it's others who are walking away from us,' he said.

Watch him speaking to Christian Today's Harry Farley:

Archbishop Foley Beach, a GAFCON primate, denied the move was 'provocative' and said there was 'serious disagreement' over gay marriage.

'The churches here in Europe  so many of them have left the faith, or they're not practising or they are not reaching people with the gospel,' he told Christian Today.

'We are in the midst of a new Reformation, calling people back to the teaching of the Bible and what Christianity is all about.'

Watch him speaking to Christian Today's Harry Farley:

The secretary general of the Anglican Communion, Josiah Idowu-Fearon, declined to comment on GAFCON's appointment but admitted the vote 'puts the Scottish Episcopal Church at odds with the majority stance that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman'.

'This is a departure from the faith and teaching upheld by the overwhelming majority of Anglican provinces on the doctrine of marriage,' he said.

He added the consequences for the Scottish Episcopal Church will be decided when the worldwide Anglican leaders meet in October.

A spokesperson for the Church of England responded by saying the CofE's teaching that marriage is between one man and one woman remains unchanged but admitted there was 'real and profound disagreement' on the issue.

'We are seeking to find ways forward rooted in scripture and the Christian faith as we have received it and which values everyone, without exception, not as a "problem" or an "issue", but as a person loved and made in the image of God.'

The Primus of SEC said it was a 'difficult' decision to make and admitted there would be 'consequences' for the decision.

Watch him speaking to Christian Today's Harry Farley:
How do I know if I'm really a Christian?

There are many different ideas about what makes a true Christian. Some people think you become one when you are christened as a baby. Others believe it's something you have to choose for yourself, while others think it's about how you live. There are an estimated 2.2 billion Christians and counting around the world, with different doctrines and practices  but what exactly makes a 'Christian'?

1. True Christianity is a way of life. John 13:17 says: 'If you know these things, blessed are if you do them.' Christianity is not a mood or an emoji, it's the way we live in once we dedicate our lives to Christ. A true Christian seeks God's way of life, his thoughts and most importantly his will for them. It's someone who is willing to go the extra mile in putting him first and placing their trust in him.

Understanding the foundation of Christianity itself is even more important. 1 Corinthians 15: 13-14 says: 'But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.' This scripture highlights the fundamental building block of Christianity  Jesus' resurrection. A true Christian lives by faith in his resurrection as without it, our faith is in vain.

2. To be a true Christian, a person must change. Acts 27:38-39 says: 'Repent, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call.' To be a true Christian you must 'repent' and walk a different way of life. You can't go back to a life of sin and still expect to be a Christian; that lifestyle must be left in the past as you press on to the future. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: 'Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come!'

3. Becoming a Christian is solely by faith and not through a check list of rules or good works to get you brownie points. Ephesians 2 :8-9 says : 'For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.' Once faith has been established in Jesus Christ, a true relationship can be formed because now the individual knows the foundation of their Christianity and beliefs.

Trusting God in all that you do will also help you to understand what it means to be a true Christian. Jeremiah 29:11 says: 'For I know I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.' Christians will put their calling before everything and everyone else, knowing fully in their heart that the calling over their life will always bring forth great things.

4.To be a true Christian, you must have the Holy Spirit living inside you. Paul writes in Romans 8:9: 'If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ'. A true Christian has God's Holy Spirit living within who will inspire you to be Christ-like. This verse reminds us that the Holy Spirit living within us is what connects us to God. Without it, we cannot establish our identity in Christ.

Don't let the world's definition of being a Christian control you. What matters most is that you personally understand Jesus to be your Lord and saviour and you understand his importance in your life. Don't allow the world to discourage you in your walk with Christ, keep God close to your heart and serve him wholeheartedly and genuinely. For the Bible says, 'Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart' (1 Samuel 16:7).
How Europe's refugee camps are seeing migrants persecuted for their faith

Europe's refugees face harassment and persecution even in the camps that are meant to protect them, a conference at Brussels' European Parliament heard last week.

The European Evangelical Alliance (EEA) organised the hearing titled 'Double Penalty: Refugees and freedom of religion or belief' on May 31, according to Evangelical Focus.

'This was the occasion to raise awareness on the double penalty refugees from religious minorities experience when arriving in Europe: harassment and persecution in camps after fleeing violence in their home country', the organisers said.

The hearing was attended by 50 delegates and was co-hosted by MEPs Branislav Skripek and Lars Adaktusson.

Several research reports were presented, including papers by religious freedom charities Open Doors and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. The organisers summarised the findings, saying that 'religion or belief-based intolerance and discrimination of refugees is a pan-European problem'.

Noting that religious intolerance was a factor is the refugee in crisis, the hearing also noted that religion can play an essential role in alleviating the crisis. 'Church communities have shown that they can be resources of moral support for asylum seekers', the conference heard.

Various practical suggestions were made about how to combat 'pan-European' discrimination. These included amending the 'vulnerability criteria' of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) so it better accommodates those targeted because of their religion. Research on the reality of persecution, alongside investing in interfaith dialogue, empowering minorities and organisational cooperation were recommended.

The hearing also suggested documenting and combatting the 'rise of violence during Ramadan, and more generally prevent the implementation of shari'a law within refugee camps'.

This month sees World Refugee Sunday, taking place on June 18 and 25, as an occasion to raise awareness of refugees and displaced people across the world. The EEA has encouraged churches to hold Refugee Sunday services to motivate congregations to action and prayer.
Islamic State won't win, says Iranian priest after Tehran atrocity

The fallout from Islamic State's attacks in Iran's capital Tehran has continued with revelations that gunmen and bombers were Iranian members of IS who had fought in the militants' strongholds in Syria and Iraq  deepening the regional ramifications of the assaults.

The attackers raided Iran's parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum on Wednesday morning, in a rare strike at the heart of the Islamic Republic. Authorities said the death count had risen to 17 and scores were wounded.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards have also said regional rival Saudi Arabia was involved, fuelling tensions between the two nations as they vie for influence in the Gulf.

However, for one Iranian priest it is prayer that counts now.

Rev Hormoz Aslani Babroudi, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, told the Fides news service: 'As an Iranian Assyrian Chaldean Catholic priest, I am saddened by such inhumane acts, mostly accomplished by people who present themselves as faithful to God and Islam, and therefore spread a false image of faith and religion.'

He said: 'The perpetrators of the massacres do not know that these acts will fail to spread fear among the people or weaken the state: so many have tried to do it before them, and they did not succeed, and they will not succeed this time and in the future. Because Iranian, Muslim, and Christian people will always be united in defending the principles of their faith and their country.'

He expressed his condolences to 'spiritual guide', Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  Iran's Supreme Leader  and President Hassan Rouhani, and said: 'I will pray for the souls of those who have lost their lives, for the comfort of their family members and also of all the wounded'.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was praying for the victims, but added that 'states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote'.

Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif dismissed what he called the 'repugnant White House statement'. 'Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship,' he added on Twitter.

Additional reporting by Reuters.
Jesus comes to Times Square: thousands pray and hear Bible readings at iconic New York City landmark

After the recent tragedy in Times Square where a troubled former Navy recruit mowed down 23 pedestrians, killing one young girl, Christian leaders rallied together and brought Jesus Week to the heart of New York City.

A reported 14,000 people were in attendance this past weekend in Times Square for Jesus Week. Jesus Week is an evangelistic outreach that brought the churches of New York together to celebrate and lift up the name of Jesus through prayer, the reading of scripture and live performances.

The event was held by Concerts of Prayer - Greater New York (COPGNY) which is a Christ-centered network of pastors and churches led by Pastor Dimas Salaberrios, whose sole goal is to encourage prayer across "ethnic, economic and denominational lines."

Jesus Week kicked off on May 27 with the leaders of Concerts of Prayer going into every borough in NYC to pray, help the poor, and minister in schools and troubled neighborhoods. The week concluded on June 3 with a large stage set-up in Times Square.

The Christian Post caught up with Salaberrios after the dynamic time of ministry and he explained that the weekend event featured audio Bible recordings which played throughout the day. The readings ran for an hour each time and was then followed by a minister who would pray through scripture.

"People said it was the boldest thing they've ever seen," Salaberrios told The Christian Post, describing people's reactions to the Bible being played out loud. He says the scriptures, prayers, and music were heard down four New York City blocks.

The stage was set up on 43rd street in Manhattan with banners raised, pointing people to Christ and prayer for the city. Gospel artists Papa San, Freddy Washington, and Dr. Robert Stearns all lent their talents to the main stage and thousands joined in to worship.

TBN Salsa was also in attendance and filmed the conclusion of Jesus Week for "Praise Salsa Style." Former Miss America Kirsten Haglund and TBN Salsa's Donna Clayton hosted the event, which also featured prayers from Councilman Pastor Fernando Cabrera, Pastor Adam Durso and others.

Salaberrios, president of COPGNY, took time to share his powerful testimony with those in attendance. He talked about going from a "street god" of pushing drugs as a major drug lord to now being a man of God who wants to share the love of Jesus with others.

He also took time to pray for the terror attacks happening throughout the world and even issued an altar call to which many responded. Furthermore, some there also received spiritual deliverance through prayer.

In addition to the time of ministry, Jesus Week gave the people of New York over $3 million of available resources. The materials included 120,000 Christian children's books (40,000 in Spanish), 180,000 Christian devotional books, and 100,000 Jesus Film DVD's.

For more information on Jesus Week or further initiatives, visit the website.

This article was originally published in The Christian Post.
Muslim, Christian leaders condemn desecration of Marawi cathedral in Philippines

A Catholic bishop and a top-ranking Muslim cleric have condemned the desecration of a cathedral and the destruction of its holy images by an Islamic group in Marawi, the Philippines.

Two weeks ago, a group of Maute gunmen, a radical Islamist terrorist group, laid siege to the city and sparked fear among members of the public.

Members of the Muslim Darul Ifra, the most authoritative religious group in Marawi, branded the act as 'un-islamic' on Wednesday. Regional governor Abu Huraira Udasan also denounced the attack on St Mary's Cathedral and declared it as 'haram' or forbidden. Usasan also urged people not to allow the incident to cause division between Muslims and Christians in the region.

In a public statement, members said the Quran does not order Muslims to desecrate non-Islamic worship sites or to persecute leaders of other regions and so the destruction of statues and other religious symbols was absolutely against its teachings.

Chairman of the regional peace and order council, Mujiv Hataman, also said vandalism of non-Islamic worship sites is a serious offence in Islam.

Speaking to Philstar Global on Wednesday he said: 'The destruction of the church in Marawi City was done by people who are introducing themselves as Muslims but are not adhering to the teachings of Islam.

'They are so reckless in quoting verses in the Quran in perverse manners to suit their perverse interests. They are unworthy of promises of divine graces from Allah.'

Rt Rev Edwin de la Pena, Bishop of Marawi, condemned the desecration of the cathedral, the burning of the cathedral, calling the gunmen's act 'trampling on the Catholic faith'.

In a report posted on the news website of The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), he labelled the actions as 'blasphemy' and 'unacceptable'.

'It's obvious that their actions are really out of this world. It's demonic.We are angered by what happened. Our faith has really been trampled on,' De la Pena said.

The parish priest of Marawi City, Fr Teresito Suganob, was snatched by the gunmen who attacked and vandalised St. Mary's Cathedral on May 23.

As well as Suganob, more than 10 others, three of whom were volunteer church workers, were also taken by terrorists as they fled the scene when soldiers arrived to drive them away.

The Islamist militants have been reduced to a 'small resistance' after troops crippled their logistics and some fighters have fled from the battle, military officials said on Thursday.

'In a few more days it could be over'" armed forces Chief of Staff General Eduaro Ano told ANC television on the 17th day of a siege by hundreds of militants who have sworn allegiance to the ultra-radical Islamic State group.

A video of the attack on the St Mary's Cathedral can be watched below.
Scottish Episcopal Church faces landmark vote on gay marriage

The Scottish Episcopal Church will today decide whether to legalise gay marriage in church and become the first British Anglican Church to do so.

The landmark vote at its governing general synod in Edinburgh is the final stage in changing the teaching on marriage as solely between 'one man and one woman'.

The motion, which is expected to pass, is likely to have serious consequences for its relationships with the global Anglican Communion.

A group of conservative Anglicans, deeply opposed to the change, will announce a 'missionary bishop' minutes after the vote is announced, effectively setting up a rival Anglican Church in the UK.

The move by GAFCON means traditionalist parishes can pledge allegiance to the new bishop, rather than their official local bishop.

Justifying the move, GAFCON released a statement saying: 'If this action is taken by the SEC it will further marginalise faithful Anglicans in Scotland who seek to uphold Jesus' teaching on marriage.'

Scottish church leaders have sought to stave off a split by allowing a 'conscience clause' meaning individual priests are not obliged to carry out same-sex weddings if they don't want to.

Speaking ahead of the General Synod, Most Rev David Chillingworth, Primus of the SEC, said: 'The Scottish Episcopal Church, in common with all other churches, expresses a diversity of views on this question.

'Those views are held with integrity. Our church will seek to reach a decision on the canonical question while sustaining its unity in Christ.

'To do so will require both humility and generosity on all sides.'

The change in cChurch law comes after the SEC's synod last year agreed to send the matter to the seven local diocesan synods for discussion.

The issue now comes back to the main general synod with six out of seven having voted in favour of amending the law.

If passed the SEC would remove the understanding of marriage as 'a physical, spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman'.

Rev David McArthy, a traditionalist priest in the SEC and part of the conservative Scottish Anglican Network, told Christian Today there was an 'immense sadness from many people in Scotland' about the upcoming decision.

'It is not simply a group of evangelical churches who have concerns about this but a fairly wide group,' he said.

'I pray that the leadership realise what they are about to do will have serious consequences for the Church.'

But supporters of gay marriage hope to see same-sex couples married in church by the end of year and see it as Scotland leading the way in the Church's debate.

When threatened with 'consequences' by the Archbishop of Canterbury if they went ahead, Chillingworth responded by saying we 'will not change what we do'.

He added: 'Maybe it is a price worth paying for the ultimate healing of the [Anglican] Communion.'
Scottish Episcopal Church permits gay marriage in historic vote

The Scottish Episcopal Church has forged ahead to become the first UK Anglican church to legalise gay marriage in a historic move that sets it on a collision course with other Anglican churches around the world.

A motion that changes church law was passed narrowly passed on Thursday afternoon.

The groundbreaking move means Scottish Anglican ministers will be allowed to conduct same-sex weddings, but conservatives have announced a controversial 'missionary bishop' to minister to those opposed to gay marriage.

Gay couples in Scotland can expect to wed in churches by the end of the year, with a 'conscience clause' meaning no priest will be forced to celebrate LGBT weddings if they do not want to.

Primus of the SEC, Most Rev David Chillingworth, said: 'A new chapter opens up and inclusion takes a particular form.

He told the synod: 'This new canon affirms there are different understandings of marriage in our church.

'We affirm we are a church of diversity and difference bound together by our unity in Christ.'

The motion needed to be passed by a two thirds majority across the three 'houses' of synod - the bishops, clergy and laity. Bishops voted by 4-1 (80 per cent) for it, the clergy by 42-20 (67 per cent) and the laity by 50-12 (80 per cent).

But the move will enrage conservatives in Scotland and around the world and could lead to retribution for the SEC.

Last January The Episcopal Church in America was handed 'consequences' for legalising gay marriage, going against most fellow-Anglicans around the world who are largely traditionalist.

A spokesman for the Archbishop of Canterbury declined to say whether the SEC would face the same 'consequences'.

But The Church of England responded by saying its own doctrine remained unchanged but also admitted 'this is a matter on which there is real and profound disagreement' and said it is seeking ways forward rooted in Scripture and the Christian faith.

GAFCON, a group of conservative Anglicans deeply opposed to the change, announced a 'missionary bishop' minutes after the vote, effectively setting up a rival Anglican church in the UK.

Traditionalist parishes can pledge allegiance to the new bishop, rather than their official local bishop.

The move triggers a split in the UK Anglican church and is likely to cause further rifts with other Anglican churches.

But the Bishop of Edinburgh John Armes said: 'If the Anglican Communion is to survive, it must embrace unity.'

He said clergy were already allowed to exercise 'pastoral discretion' at any wedding, including whether to remarry divorced people.

The change in law 'now extends this protection of conscience to the marriage of same-sex couples,' documents sent to synod members read.

'It permits those clergy who, on the grounds of conscience, wish to conduct the marriages of same-sex couples, to seek nomination to do so; it also allows that there will be those who, on the grounds of conscience, will not seek such nomination. We believe that the consciences of both are protected in the revised Canon.'

The change effectively means the church does not hold any official teaching on marriage with the motion removing the old understanding as 'a physical, spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman'.

Instead the teaching reads: 'In the light of the fact that there are differing understandings of the nature of marriage in this Church, no cleric of this Church shall be obliged to conduct any marriage against their conscience.'

Bishop John Armes said the approach 'models a hopeful possibility for the whole of the Communion'.

He said: 'No one is being asked to change their theology.'

But Rev Ian Ferguson told synod the move meant going against Jesus' teaching on marriage.

'This is one of the saddest and most painful days for many of us,' he said. 'Changing our doctrine of marriage is a schismatic move that will cause serious harm to our unity and future relationship' with other Anglicans.

Beth Routledge, another member of synod, said it was wrong to assume everyone in the Anglican Communion opposed it.

'The Anglican Communion is a very broad church indeed and it works in a very wide world,' she told synod.

'There are many people beyond these borders who are watching what we are doing today and cheering us on.'

A spokesperson for the Church of England said the decision was a matter for the Scottish Episcopal Church.

'The Church of England is unable by law to marry couples of the same sex and the teaching of the Church of England remains unchanged.

'However this is a matter on which there is real and profound disagreement in the Church of England.

'We are seeking to find ways forward rooted in scripture and the Christian faith as we have received it and which values everyone, without exception, not as a "problem" or an "issue", but as a person loved and made in the image of God.'

Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said the SEC is 'autonomous and free to make their own decisions on canon law but the move puts it 'at odds with the majority stance that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

'This is a departure from the faith and teaching upheld by the overwhelming majority of Anglican provinces on the doctrine of marriage,' he said, urging the churches against formal splits, and adding:

'The primates of the Communion will be meeting in Canterbury in October. I am sure today's decision will be among the topics which will be prayerfully discussed. There will be no formal response to the SEC's vote until the primates have met.'
The crucified creation: A Christian view on the climate crisis

Creation is being crucified. The American president's recent decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Agreement is the latest act of violence to be inflicted upon an already tortured creation. Creation is being tormented and degraded in a process, which can only be described theologically as 'crucifixion.' Nature, an innocent victim of human sin and greed, has been sold for silver and is being whipped, beaten and made to wear a crown of thorns.

What do we mean by the 'crucified creation'? According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, we are losing 18 million acres of forest each year. 70 per cent of Earth's coral reefs will cease to exist within the next 40 years. The world has lost half of its coastal wetlands. Ice caps are melting and colossal sheets of ice are breaking off Greenland and Antarctica.

Ecocide (the eradication of life from the earth) is occurring at an alarming an unprecedented rate. Species are dying out one thousand times faster than their natural rate of extinction, which means that, at the current rate, in the next 30 years, as many as one-fifth of all species alive today will have perished from the face of the earth.

Ecosystems everywhere are on the verge of collapse. Topsoil is being poisoned. Rivers and oceans are being contaminated with every kind or chemical, biological and nuclear waste. Human combustion activity is causing our oceans to absorb over a million tonnes of carbon dioxide every hour. As a result, our oceans are now 30 per cent more acidic than they were 200 years ago. Every year 12 million hectares are lost to desertification and the rate is increasing. The air we breathe has become contaminated with toxic gases.

Geographers have had to redraw the maps of Afghanistan because American bunker-busting bombs have wiped whole mountain ranges from the landscape. In Canada terrified seal pups are being rounded up, separated from their mothers, and then violently clubbed to death for the sake of preserving fish stocks.

In the aftermath of this slaughter, the crimson stains that smear the icy wilderness testify to the pain and bloody travail of creation. Or think of the blue whale writhing in pain under the obscene penetration of the whaler's harpoon, then cut up and turned into pulp which ends up in packages of perfume that find their way onto our supermarket shelves.

These horrors and innumerable others demonstrate a level of God-forsakenness and desolation, which can only be described as 'crucifixion'. Creation is being crucified. This crucified creation is groaning under the weight of sin and greed.

Nature is not as God intended it to be. Creation is in bondage to decay and in subjection to futility, but hoping and waiting for God's salvation to be fully accomplished. And as with the crucifixion of Christ, the crucifixion of creation is being carried out by demonic religious forces that are hostile to life and acting against an innocent victim.

The tragic irony has been that too often Christians, instead of participating with God in the redemption of the world, have in fact exacerbated the problem. Many Christians sincerely believe that the world is evil and we need to get out of it as soon as possible. Their idea of salvation is that we'll all fly away like pigeons and be raptured out of earthly existence to a heavenly realm far, far away.

Because of this false, world-denying Christianity, creation has been crucified and it's all too often been the Church that has led the chants of 'Crucify it! Crucify it!'

Salvation is creation healed

Too often, mainstream Christian teaching has belittled the body and neglected physical creation. Many Christians have understood salvation as a private experience that results in individual souls flying off to heaven.

The tragedy of this common assumption is that it has nothing to do with the biblical hope, which focuses on the cosmic and physical or material dimension of redemption. Many Christians think that salvation means going up to heaven rather than heaven coming down to earth. The Bible says nothing about immortal souls going to heaven when the body dies, but it refers throughout  from Genesis to Revelation  to the coming of God into the world. Biblical salvation doesn't mean the unceasing existence of immortal souls; it means the healing of creation.

Salvation is the healing of the whole of creation, not just the human part of it. Creation has an innate goodness and worth in God's sight. Before humans were created, God created the plants and the animals. He declared unequivocally that they were 'very good'. The incarnation of Jesus Christ, the bodily presence of God into the world, testifies to the inherent goodness of creation.

There's a creation-shaped hole in our gospel which needs to be filled with a proper understanding of salvation as a vision of the healing of creation. If salvation is creation healed, it makes sense to talk about solidarity with planet Earth as a gospel imperative, rather than merely a matter of social justice or environmental ethics.

The world is weeping from the constant assault of inhumanity and cruelty. Christ remains on the cross, as long as human beings continue to crucify God's creation; God continues to be crucified anew every day because of the greed, cruelty and selfishness of human beings. It's vain to claim to be a Christian, to follow the Suffering Servant, to be a disciple of the Crucified Messiah, while exhibiting a thoughtless indifference towards the suffering of God's creation.

The theology of the future must cultivate a new attentiveness towards the natural world and deconstruct the destructive pseudo-Christian ideologies that have contributed towards the degradation and exploitation of the environment. Christians need to start using terms such as the 'Crucified Creation' and 'Salvation as Creation Healed' to address the looming environmental catastrophe of our times.

We need to recognise that to dump toxic waste into a river, to fill the skies with acid rain, to dump carbon dioxide into the oceans, to destroy forests and entire ecosystems  these are all violent and blasphemous acts that deface God's good creation. To pollute God's creation is to blaspheme against the spirit of life.

Creation care as a gospel obligation

As Christians we need a new language that gives us the conceptual resources to rediscover a biblical Christianity that is attuned to God's good creation. The only possible resolution can come from a new spirituality in which love of God and love of human beings will at the same time mean love for all God's creation.

The world is passing through a dangerous period of dehumanisation and godforsakenness. The groaning creation in its travail still awaits the emergence of Christianity not as a religion of private salvation, but as a gospel movement of universal compassion. When this new consciousness emerges, we will begin to recognise creation care as an indispensable gospel imperative.

Dr Joshua T Searle is Tutor in Theology and Public Thought at Spurgeon's College.
'They're not even people': Eric Trump's Democrat dismissal is everything that's wrong with politics

Yesterday Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, said that his father's political enemies were to him 'not even people'. It's a new low and as Britain concludes another divisive election campaign, it betrays the current state of much modern politics.

We've learned to hate and denigrate the people we disagree with, dehumanising our opponents  and losing our own humanity on the way.

'I've never seen hatred like this,' Eric Trump told Fox News's Sean Hannity yesterday. 'To me, they're not even people. It's so, so sad. Morality's just gone, morals have flown out the window and we deserve so much better than this as a country.'

The irony is, Trump was responding to personal attacks that had been made against him and his father, such as one critic who had called his father a 'piece of s**t'. In responding as he did, Eric rendered those critics as literally sub-human, so his righteous outrage loses its bite somewhat.

It's obviously amusing that Eric laments the loss of morality and decency in politics when his father largely made his mark on the scene by constantly slandering, insulting and belittling his opponents. But that's not even the point. Trump's comment is a bare statement of how a lot of people feel about people they don't like.

Britain has been drinking the same poison too. Don't like Conservative policies? Just call the Tories 'evil'. Unconvinced by Labour's ideas? Then label them 'stupid' and 'dangerous'. Brexiteers are racist bigots, and Remainers are smug metropolitan elites.

Use whatever language you can to make distance, draw deep divides and paint yourself a villain you'd love to hate. If you've spent much time on Facebook, or just a moment on Twitter, you've probably witnessed this.

As Brian Resnik wrote for Vox, 'dehumanisation is a mental loophole that allows us to dismiss other people's feelings and experience'. It's a popular tool in the hands of oppressors, because once you've made the dismissal, it becomes so much easier to hurt that person.

In some ways, we're increasingly aware of how divided we are. Events like Brexit and the Trump's election victory showed us we were suffocated by our own echo-chambers, surrounding us with our ideological allies, and offering only skewed glimpses of our apparent arch-villains. We see this more clearly now, but the pattern of polarisation is hard to break.

But perhaps there's a glimpse of good in all this hatred. It's a passion for certain causes that prompts people's deep antagonism to those they perceive as opposing what's right. The NHS, a frequent flashpoint of British politics, provokes emotive responses  people's lives are at risk. So too with questions about immigration, the economy and fighting terror.

And it's even OK to be angry, to despair at injustice and long for peace. It's good to care about causes, but if we lose our humanity on the way, what's the point?

In Christian theology, every soul you've ever met is made in the image of God. No matter how broken and sinful they may seem to you, their lives have been made and graced by the creator of the universe. None are beyond saving. When you curse your enemy and call them 'sub-human', you curse God's creation.

Jesus understood that we wouldn't all get along, but nonetheless called his followers to love their enemies, and pray for their persecutors. He never rose to the hatred that fell upon him  he truly loved his enemies to the end.

I would wager that you can't love your enemy and hate them too. Not that Christ-like love is an easy call to follow, it's as hard as they come. When we're passionate and frustrated, it's easy to lash out with words we haven't thought through. But the world, noisy and broken as it already is, needs better.

It's a climb, but the path to peace needn't be impossible. A simple, liberating proverb comes to mind: 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.'

You can follow @JosephHartropp on Twitter
UK heads to the polls: Archbishop of Canterbury urges people to vote 'with hope, generosity and commitment to common good'

Voting is under way in the UK general election with polling stations open across Britain.

About 46.9 million people are registered to vote  an increase from 46.4 million at the 2015 election.

The Archbishop of Canterbury joined other religious groups and leaders in urging people to vote with 'hope, generosity and commitment to the common good'.

If you can, make sure you vote tomorrow. Lets do so with hope, generosity and commitment to the common good. #GE2017  Justin Welby  (@JustinWelby) June 7, 2017

Final predictions point to a Conservative victory with the first results expected shortly before midnight.

For all the latest results and religious reaction follow Christian Today's live blog through the night from 9.30pm with Harry Farley and Andy Walton.

For a majority in the House of Commons one party must reach 326 seats.

Armed police will guard many polling stations after the election campaign was stopped twice due to terrorist attacks  one in Westminster and one in Manchester.

The latest ComRes survey placed Theresa May's party 10 points ahead of Labour.

When a 'PM squeeze' is applied, reallocating 'don't know' voters on the basis of the Prime Ministerial preference, the Conservative lead rises to 12 per cent (46 per cent compared to Labour's 34 per cent).

Voters have until 10pm tonight to cast their ballots with some constituencies expected to declare within the hour.

At the last election in 2015 Houghton and Sunderland South was the first seat to declare, at 10:48pm.
Why did people in the Old Testament tear their robes?

How do you express grief when you experience something sad or painful? Customs vary around the world.

One example is when people attend funerals and choose to wear black. Or a widow might wear a dark veil after the passing of her husband to cover her face during her time of sadness.

These are expressions of grief, sadness and loss, familiar in our own culture.

In the Bible, many individuals ripped apart their clothes to express strong emotion such as shame, anger, or mourning.

Let's take Reuben, for example. Genesis 37:29 says that when Reuben found out that his brothers had sold Joseph off as a slave, he was shocked and 'ripped his garments apart'. A few days later when their father, Jacob, was tricked into believing that his son Joseph had been killed by a wild animal, he too ripped his garment apart.

'Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave." So his father wept for him' (Genesis 37:34-3)

Job also 'ripped apart his garment' when he heard that all his children had been killed (Job 1: 18-20). Before bringing the tragic news to Eli that the Israelites had been defeated in the battle and that Eli''s sons had been killed, a messenger ripped his clothes apart (1 Samuel 4:12-17). Lastly David and all the men with him ripped their clothes when Saul and Jonathan were killed  'All the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan' (2 Samuel 1:11-12).

Tearing your clothes marked tragic situations, particluarly death, shock or shame.

The exception, however, was the high priest, who was not allowed to tear his clothes. Leviticus 21:10 says: 'The high priest, the one among his brothers who has had the anointing oil poured on his head and who has been ordained to wear the priestly garments, must not... tear his clothes'. The special nature of the high priestly office gave a separation from some of the common customs for ordinary people, including that of mourning.

Tearing one's clothes was clearly a public and powerful expression of grief in ancient times. Even today, the practice is continued in the Jewish community and is called Keriah. However, it is less spontaneous and more ceremonial. One tradition says that the mourner must tear the clothing over the heart  a sign of a broken heart.

The tradition of tearing clothes began as an expression of deep grief or mental tribulation. It was also sacrificial, as clothes were relatively much more expensive than they are today, and it was a way of showing that considerations of status and respect were to be put aside because what had happened was so important.

Private grief is one thing, but garments were also torn at times of deep national significance  and this is where the practice might be relevant in some form today. In Joel 2:13 the prophet calls on the people to repent, saying: 'Rip apart your hearts, and not your garments, and return to Jehovah your God.' Are there ways in which we could show a costly, self-sacrificing and self-forgetful devotion to God, repenting for our own sins and the sins of our nation?
Walking in the main shopping street of my little town in England recently, I was accosted by a canvasser for the local Labour Party candidate in the snap election. (The Conservatives do not have to campaign in my town because they could put a woodlouse up for election and it would win hands down.)

The canvasser was a pleasant lady, and I stopped to discuss educational policy with her. Both main political parties think that more money should be allocated to schools. I said that I did not believe that the abysmally low level of education and culture in much of the country was caused by a lack of money. We spend, on average, $100,000 on a childs education and yet an uncomfortably large proportion of our children leave school with reading and math skills below those stipulated for 11-year-olds. Moreover, the proportion of such people has remained more or less constant for the last 40 years, despite vastly increased expenditure. The problem, therefore, is not lack of funds, as the canvassers party pretended that it was, but something much deeper and harder to solve.

The canvasser was a retired teacher who had taken her retirement as soon as she was able, largely because of the immense number of irrelevant, time-consuming, boring, and intellectually dishonest bureaucratic procedures imposed upon teachersprocedures funded, as it happens, by the increases in education spending.

It also so happened that her daughter was a teacher but had quit after an unpleasant incident. She had given a 14-year-old boy a punishment for bad behaviorhe was to stay in school for an extra hour. That night, the boys 19-year-old brother came to the teachers house and began to smash her car. She was frightened and called the police, who removed the perpetrator from the scene but otherwise did nothingbecause, of course, nothing would have been done higher up the criminal- justice chain had they done something: so why bother?

The canvassers daughter did not return to teaching. She had undergone what psychologists call one-trial learning. She had taken the opportunity to get a masters degree and find employment within the educational bureaucracy, into which no misbehaving child might obtrude.

I mentioned that many teachers who had been patients of mine had told me that if they complained to parents of their childrens behavior, the parents blamed the teachers and even became aggressive toward them. This was true in her experience, too, said the teacher.

We agreed, therefore, that there was a profound cultural and moral malaise in the country. The clear implication was that it had nothing whatever to do with insufficient government spending. The schools dont teach and the police dont protect, all because of a failure of nerve. We parted amicably, I to my shopping, she to canvassing on behalf of a political party that maintains that all problems arise from lack of government expenditure, problems that will somehow be solved by taxing the rich.

Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Savage terror attacks in recent years have killed thousands of people in the United States, Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The increasingly brazen acts, while violent and tragic, have been limited in scope because of the terrorists dependence on conventional weaponsfirearms, vehicles, and homemade bombs. After each incident, a familiar sequence of responses ensues: politicians call for resolve; civil authorities and residents work to clean up the damaged area; medical personnel give aid to the victims; shopkeepers and merchants reopen. And almost everyone outside those directly affected moves on, hoping that terror wont call their number in the future. Getting on with life makes sense, of course, but complacency about terrorism looms as a serious problem in free societiesespecially since future terrorist threats hold the potential to shake the foundations of our society. The overwhelming evidencefrom Osama bin Ladens hard drive to incessant ISIS tweetsis that our jihadist enemies are determined to break through conventional limitations on death-dealing and do us even more grievous harm.

Of all the types of unconventional threats we face, bioterror may be the most worrisome. The danger is especially pressing for high-visibility areas such as Washington and, especially, New York. Gothams centrality as a cultural and financial center, along with its size and symbolism, makes it a more desirable target for jihadists than any other city. According to a Heritage Foundation breakdown of 74 failed terrorist plots against the United States between 9/11 and 2015, 16, or 22 percent, targeted New York, more than any other U.S. cityone reason that New York felt the need to create its own antiterror unit. (Another reason: city officials didnt trust federal law enforcement and intelligence entities to give the NYPD actionable intelligence on a timely basis.)

Biological attacks are disease outbreaks on steroids, requiring a speed and scope of response much greater than typically needed for natural infectious-disease eventsor conventional terror. Responding to bioterror in New York would present particularly significant challenges because of the citys size, population density, and transportation issues.

Bioterror is widely seen as the stuff of movies and spy novels, but history shows that its all-too possibleand that law enforcement is ill equipped to prevent or even to prosecute it. Thus far, America has seen few genuine bioterror incidents (and none that matches the dark plots in Tom Clancy novels). Yet even these rare and not terribly sophisticated attacks have made an impact.

The Chicago Tylenol poisonings of 1982, for example, used cyanide, not a biological agent, but still killed seven people, panicked a nation, resulted in 32 million bottles of Tylenol getting pulled from the shelves, and changed product-safety packaging forever. In 1984, members of the Buddhist Rajneeshee cult spread salmonella out of plastic bags at restaurants in The Dalles, Oregon, east of Portland. The cult wanted to influence local elections and hoped that poisoning non-cult members would improve their electoral prospects. The poisonings sickened about 750 people and hospitalized 45. Fortunately, none died. The 2001 anthrax mailings killed five, injured members of the media, shut down the Capitol, threw the U.S. postal service into turmoil, and sent Americans looking for Cipro prescriptions in anticipation of the next dispersal. The Tylenol villain was never identified; the anthrax culprit was also never definitively identified, despite what Kelly McKinney, former deputy commissioner at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, called one of the largest and most complex investigations in the history of law enforcement. And in the Oregon cult example, federal officials caught the perpetrators only after they admitted what they had done. As these examples make clear, it is exceedingly hard to prevent or detect bioterror, let alone catch the perpetrator.

Another fearsome aspect to bioterror is the massive damage that it can potentially cause. Dark Winter, a 2001 simulation exercise by the federal government, gamed out what would happen in a smallpox outbreak for which the nation was unprepared. The exercise used actual U.S. vaccine stockpile figures to determine its parameters; officials had enough vaccine for only 5 percent of the U.S. population, and 1 million Americans died in just 68 days. In 2009, a National Security Council assessment put potential deaths from an anthrax attack in the hundreds of thousands, and the economic cost at more than $1 trillion.

Experts worry that such scenarios have become increasingly more plausible. As the shock of terror wanes from its awful regularity, terrorists may feel the need to intensify the fear that they generate. At some point, these methods will no longer be as novel or effective in sowing fear as they have been, Columbias Stephen Morse told me, fueling terrorists temptation to overcome the technical and perceptual barriers and move to more dramatic means. Similarly, former White House biodefense aide Robert Kadlec notes: While terrorists have not used biological agents in terrorist attacks yet, the trends indicate more terrorist groups are interested in conducting such attacks.

Terrorists development of weapons is a much scarier concern than their acquiring of weapons. When we talk about terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon, says former Navy secretary Richard Danzig, were talking about just thattheyre acquiring a weapon. With biological weapons, were talking about acquiring the ability to produce weapons. Once that ability exists, Danzig says, You really have to think about biology as potentially the subject of a campaign, where somebody keeps attacking, rather than a one-shot incident. Morse compares bioweapons knowledge to learning how to assemble improvised explosive devices (IEDs): Once a few well-connected people learn how, they can teach others.

Developing the capability is difficult but far from impossible. As former Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) director Brett Giroir told the New York Times, A person at a graduate-school level has all the tools and technologies to implement a sophisticated program to create a bioweapon. New technologies are making the terrorists job easier. According to Kelly McKinney, while the technical requirements to develop and disseminate a biological agent are high . . . certain disruptive technologies are making it easier for the bad guys. We are hearing that in the not too distant future, these agents and devices could be brought together in a suburban basement.

We cannot know the true impact of a massive bioterror event, but the evidence suggests that the United States is not yet ready for one. Former senator Joseph Lieberman and former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge cochaired a recent Blue Ribbon Panel on biodefense on which I participated. The panel concluded: The United States is underprepared for biological threats. Nation states and unaffiliated terrorists (via biological terrorism) and nature itself (via emerging and reemerging infectious diseases) threaten us. While biological events may be inevitable, their level of impact on our country is not.

According to Stanfords Lawrence Wein, a successful anthrax attack in New York could cost 100,000 lives, with full decontamination taking more than 300 years. As Judith Miller wrote in City Journal nearly a decade ago, a major anthrax incident would test New York severely. (See Bioterrorisms Deadly Math, Autumn 2008.) Miller found that New Yorks distribution, transportation, and decontamination capabilities were all inadequate for bioterror. That other cities are similarly unprepared should be of little comfort, given New Yorks prominence as a target.

Thankfully, New York has made major progress over the last decade, with heightened awareness and extensive planning and training programs in placeas well as its own biological-detection capabilities. New Yorks Countermeasures Response Unit Office has built an extensive infrastructure, including points of distribution (POD) sites, trained management and staff, materials and equipment, and supporting information-management systems, McKinney says. Team members believed that they could provide antibiotics to the entire population of New York City within 72 hours, he observes, and large-scale training exercises seem to bear out this confidence.

New York recently tested its vulnerable subways as part of its preparatory efforts. In the spring of 2016, the city worked with the Department of Homeland Security to release an innocuous gas in the subwayson the Number 4, 5, and 6 linesto measure its potential effects on airflow. Bob Ingram of the New York Fire Departments Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness said that the test was extremely beneficial. We can all think about how this behavior is going to be, but this test will hopefully have enough data to back it up with science.

And its not all tests: New York has seen its share of real-world disease outbreaks over the last decade, including inhalation anthrax in 2006, multiple hepatitis A exposures in 2008 and 2013, the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, Ebola in 2014, Legionnaires disease in 2015, and Zika virus in 2016. None of these approached the scale of a massive bio-attack, but each helped refine the Department of Health and Mental Hygienes capabilities. New York City has planned, trained, and exercised in a regular fashion that, quite frankly, other cities have not, says Kadlec, including being perhaps the only jurisdiction to conduct a no-notice exercise. With relentless focus and hard work, the city has made considerable strides in readiness.

Despite all of New Yorks good work, serious vulnerabilities remain. On the prevention front, for example, environmental screening for airborne pathogens is a key form of detectionbut particularly tough in New York, with its more than 240 skyscrapers, more than double that of any other U.S. city. (Chicago is the only other American city with more than 100.) Each one of those 240-plus skyscrapers is its own bioterror target, with vulnerable ventilation systems that could be used to spread a biological agent to thousands of inhabitants. Skyscrapers are more promising targets for bioterrorists than an outdoor environment; a closed-ventilation system avoids the vagaries of weather effects and ultraviolet degradation, maintaining full potency of the biological agent. Building managers are aware of the vulnerabilities, and most have security in place, but its easy to imagine a breach.

The sheer size of New York City is another hurdle. With five boroughs, 8.5 million people, and more than 300 square miles, even the citys large and relatively well-prepared force of first responders has a lot of ground to cover. And in contrast to 9/11, bioterror would likely be spread out across the city, with multiple points of convergence. Navigating New York City traffic to get to the affected areas would be daunting. Further, the subways, which are vital to maintaining a manageable traffic flow, are notoriously hard to protect. Tests of biological-agent detection in American subways such as the one conducted in spring 2016 are helpful, but they have high failure rates. And government testing often cannot detect pathogens unless they are at stratospheric levelswell beyond the level necessary to be fatal.

Another form of detection comes from doctors and other health professionals. If hospitals detect unusual symptoms, especially multiple occurrences of specific symptoms, they notify the Centers for Disease Control. New York has 62 hospitals, including at least two where translators communicate in 150 languages. Health professionals in such a large city with a sizable transient population and a constant influx of visitors may be slower to pick up on an unusual disease vector. New York, recognizing its potential vulnerability, has put into place more active monitoring to detect unusual disease patterns. The New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene uses whats known as a syndromic surveillance system to monitor unusual or alarming patterns that could emerge from emergency-room activity, first-responder calls, and over-the-counter medication sales. But the task remains formidable.

The federal agencies in charge are highly bureaucratized and not always nimble in response. McKinney worries about the sizable gap between the citys preparedness and that of state and federal officials, who, having done much less, will bring an enormous amount of chaos and confusion with them. New York will have to do more to bring about cooperation with entities that may be less focused on bioterror. The city must demand more cooperation and focus from the state and localities and work to ensure that its preparedness exercises include state and federal officials.

One intangible factor: civic culture and the character of residents. New Yorkers pride themselves on toughnesssometimes to the irritation of the rest of the countryand they have shown a willingness to soldier on through the most unusual circumstances, as they do through other hazards of daily life in the Big Apple. If the famous New Yorker resilience could help against a real pathogen, the city would have little to worry about.

Unlabeled, secret stockpile warehouses are strategically placed at 12 locations throughout the country.

Some of the issues regarding New Yorks size and complexity are compounded when it comes to responding to bioterror. The foundation of U.S. bioterror-combating strategy is based on the accumulation of countermeasures in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS), which would be rapidly distributed when needed.

The SNS, containing about $7 billion worth of countermeasures, costs the U.S. about half a billion annually to develop and maintain. The materials include vaccines, responsive agents such as antivirals, and tools for first responders, such as respirators, as well as agents to respond to radiation and chemical attacks. The exact nature of the products in the SNS is classified, for good reason. If everybody knows exactly what we have, then you know exactly what you can do to us that we cant fix, says SNS director Greg Burel. And we just dont want that to happen. The SNS locations themselves look like large, nondescript warehouses. If you envision, say, a Walmart Supercenter and stick two of those side by side and take out all the drop ceiling, thats about the same kind of space that we would occupy in one of these storage locations, says Burel.

For the most part, the stockpile has what experts think it needs: for example, 300 million treatment courses for smallpox, enough for every citizen, and enough anthrax vaccine to handle a three-city incident. In fact, the U.S. hired a consulting firm, Gryphon Scientific, to evaluate whether it was stockpiling the right products; Gryphon concluded that it was. According to the firms Rocco Casagrande, one thing we can say is that across the variety of threats that we examined, the Strategic National Stockpile has the adequate amount of materials in it and by and large the right type of thing.

A stockpile is useful only if it can get materials where they need to be in a crisis. The SNS is very effective at enabling government officials to send needed countermeasures anywhere in the United States on short notice, thereby reducing the danger of a bio-strike spreading out of control. Unlabeled, secret stockpile warehouses are strategically placed at 12 locations throughout the country to ensure the efficient delivery of supplies. The goal: to be capable of getting crucial countermeasures to any location in the country within 24 hours.

Then the materials have to be distributed effectively. Currently, the primary method for dispensing SNS supplies is by the Points of Distribution (POD) system. Other possible distribution methods exist, such as using the postal service or encouraging the purchase of home med kits. New Yorks planners assume, though, that postal workers would not show up for distribution in a bioterror scenario. Even if they did, the city acknowledges that it lacks the capability to keep them safe. As for home med kits, paternalistically minded public-health officials tend to be skeptical of giving individuals autonomy over the purchase of countermeasures for their own consumption. It is thus likely that a POD would be the primary distribution method.

In the POD approach, the drugs are delivered to a central location (schools and other public spaces), and people must access them on their own. This method raises significant concerns. First, it discriminates against those who lack the means to transport themselves to the pickup spot. Second, the POD method is also a blind distribution: aiming for fairness, it does not necessarily target those who need the countermeasures the most, such as members of a particularly high-risk population. The government does draw up lists of primary recipientsincluding first responders, vulnerable populations, the military, and some key government officialsbut POD-based distribution does not lend itself easily to that kind of prioritization. The danger of insufficient supplies at a distribution center during a tense period is potentially combustible and could lead to unrest. Third, some countermeasures may require a qualified health professional to administer, which complicates the question of staffing the distribution centers.

In recent years, New York has engaged in exercises to ensure that public-health officials are ready for a possible citywide distribution of emergency countermeasures. In a surprise citywide bioterror drill in August 2014, 1,500 city employees from 13 agencies set up 30 distribution sites across the city in less than eight hours. Overall, New Yorks health department has trained more than 3,000 employees in the establishment and operation of PODs. Recognizing the transportation difficulties that would emerge, city planners have wisely assigned staffers to distribution locations near their own homes. The test persuaded the CDC to take the groundbreaking step of forward-deploying assets from the SNS into New Yorks own stockpiling warehouse in order to avoid an additional step in distribution.

New Yorks relevant experience also offers some encouragement. In 2009, for example, during the H1N1 influenza, New York administered vaccines to 195,000 schoolchildren at 1,200 New York schools, as well as 50,000 additional individuals at 29 locations across the city. Going further back, in 1947, New Yorks Department of Health vaccinated more than 6 million New Yorkers during a minor smallpox outbreak. The vaccinations took place at 179 clinics and benefited from the cooperation of key groups in the city, including doctors, labor unions, and local businesses. Of course, New Yorks population has increased by 2.5 million people since thenmore than the total population of all but two other U.S. cities: Los Angeles and Chicago.

With a population the size of New Yorks, telling inhabitants what to do and where to go wont be easy. With all the progress in new communications technologies of recent years, many still fail in times of crisis. After 9/11, for example, telephone circuits were overloaded. New York has faced such obstacles before. In 1999, the city set up a hotline for residents worried about the outbreak of West Nile virus. The network responded to more than 150,000 queries over seven weeks. In the case of bioterror, officials would need to reach out to many more individuals over a much shorter period of time.

Cross-community cooperationthat is, how well people will respond, work together, and obey authoritiesis also crucial. The 1965 New York City blackout, which affected 30 million people across the Northeast, was recalled nostalgically as a pleasant hiccup by city residents. People got along splendidly (arrest totals that day were below average), the power was restored in about 13 hours, and some later tittered that the hospitals saw a slight baby boom nine months later. Just 12 years later, though, on July 13, 1977, three separate lightning bolts struck and destroyed three power lines in Westchester County, New York, leading to a very different blackout experience, with more than 1,600 stores looted or damaged, more than 1,000 fires, and more than 3,700 people arrested. The mayhem caused over $300 million in damages. Part of the reason for the contrast was a breakdown of social norms in the intervening years. New York in 1977 was a very different place from what it had been in 1965more crime-ridden, more volatile, and struggling to overcome bankruptcy.

While New York in 2017 is dramatically safer than it was in 1977, it is still a far different city from what it was in 1965or in 1947. Bioterror response plans count on the cooperation of a pliant populace to show up at PODs or vaccination clinics. Its not at all clear that New Yorkers today could be classified as pliant. The problems we have seen recently in terms of the tensions between the police and Mayor Bill de Blasio, as well as ongoing protests from groups such as Black Lives Matter, point to a worrisome level of distrust between authorities and some of the populace.

Some authorities even seem conflicted themselves, seeing emergency situations as periods in which police forces accrete dangerous powers. Less than a year after the 2001 anthrax episode, the New York Civil Liberties Unions Robert Perry testified about the Model Emergency State Health Powers Act (MESHPA), a draft bill that would give states additional powers in the case of a public-health emergency. Perry warned that government, acting in the name of public safety, has demonstrated bad judgment, and worse, using state police powers in a discriminatory manner to suspend freedoms based upon race or national origin. He saw the bills definition of a public-health emergency as overly broad and warned that it fails to clarify sufficiently the circumstances that would justify the declaration of such an emergency. On the right, Phyllis Schlaflys Eagle Forum denounced MESHPA as a Totalitarian bill on health pending in your state! MESHPA is hardly faultless legislation; but the pushback against it from the Right and the Left illustrated how government actions in a true public-health emergency could face skepticism, lawsuits, and other actions that may impede governments ability to respond.

Where does that leave us? Looking to New Yorks considerable assetsits unmatched police and counterterror forces, its centrality to Homeland Security planning, its resources, and its peoplethere are reasons to believe that the city would prove equal to bioterror, should it happen. Yet given the existential crisis that such an attack would present, New York must remain ever vigilant to keep its residents safe.

Top Photo: New Yorks more than 240 skyscrapers are particularly vulnerable to bio-attacks through their ventilation systems. (VOLKAN FURUNCU/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES)
EDWARD FRAZER/CORBIS

Climate-change science is settled, say proponents of anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming, or AGW: the earth is getting warmer, and human activities are the reason. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the United Nations in 1988, has issued five assessment reports since its founding. In its most recent, in 2013, the IPCC stated that it was now 95 to 100 percent certain that human activitiesespecially fossil-fuel emissionsare the primary drivers of planetary warming. Frequent news reportssuch as the story of the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, a process that some scientists say is irreversibleseemingly confirm these conclusions.

And yet, highly credentialed scientists, including Nobel Prizewinning physicist Ivar Giaever, reject what is often called the climate consensus. Giaever resigned from the American Physical Society in protest of the groups statement that evidence of global warming was incontrovertible and that governments needed to move immediately to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. Sixteen distinguished scientists signed a 2012 Wall Street Journal article, in which they argued that taking drastic action to decarbonize the worlds economyan effort that would have major effects on economic growth and quality of life, especially in the developing worldwas not justified by observable scientific evidence. And, like Giaever, they objected to the notion of a climate consensusand to the unscientific shutting down of inquiry and the marginalization of dissenters as heretics. Most recently, renowned climate scientist Lennart Bengtsson stepped down from his post at a climate-skeptic think tank after he received hundreds of angry e-mails from scientists. He called the pressure virtually unbearable.

Another dissenter, the American atmospheric physicist Murry Salby, has produced a serious analysis that undermines key assumptions underpinning the AGW worldview. His work and its reception illustrate just how unsettled climate science remainsand how determined AGW proponents are to enforce consensus on one of the great questions of our age.

In April 2013, concluding a European tour to present his research, Salby arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris for a flight back to Australia, where he was a professor of climate science at Macquarie University. He discovered, to his dismay, that the university had canceled the return leg of his nonrefundable ticket. With Salby stranded, Macquarie then undertook misconduct proceedings against him that swiftly culminated in his dismissal. The university claimed that it did not sack Salby for his climate views but rather because he failed to fulfill his academic obligations, including the obligation to teach and because he violated University policies in relation to travel and use of University resources.

Salby and his supporters find it hard to believe the schools claims. Salbys detractors point to reports of his investigation by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for alleged ethical improprieties, claims surrounding which surfaced on an anti-climate-skeptic blog, along with court papers relating to his divorce. Salby has indeed been embroiled in conflicts with the NSFthe organization debarred him from receiving research grants for three years, even though, teaching in Australia, he wasnt eligible, anywayand with the University of Colorado, where he taught previously and was involved in a decade-long dispute with another academic. At one point, the NSF investigated the disappearance of $100,000 in Salbys research funds, which, in the wake of the investigation, was returned to Salbys group. However, all these matters have involved bureaucratic rights and wrongs. They have no bearing on his science, just as Antoine Lavoisiers being a tax farmer had no bearing on his demolition of the phlogiston theory of combustion. And Salby had earned high marks as a scientist. He originally trained as an aerospace engineer before switching to atmospheric physics and building a distinguished career. He taught at Georgia Tech, Princeton, Hebrew, and Stockholm Universities before coming to the University of Colorado, and he was involved as a reviewer in the IPCCs first two assessment reports.

Starting in the late 1990s, Salby began a project to analyze changes in atmospheric ozone. His research found evidence of systematic recovery in ozone, validating the science behind the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which introduced specific steps for curtailing ozone-depleting gases. Preparing to write a graduate-level textbook, Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate, later published by Cambridge University Press and praised by one reviewer as unequalled in breadth, depth and lucidity, Salby then undertook a methodical examination of AGW. What he found left him absolutely surprised.

Most discussion on the science of AGW revolves around the climatic effects of increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. How it got there in the first placethe assumption being that increased carbon dioxide arises overwhelmingly from human activitiesis often taken for granted. Yet Salby believed that he had uncovered clear evidence that this was not the case, as his trip to Europe was designed to expose.

The IPCC estimates that, since the Industrial Revolution, humans have released 365 billion tons of carbon from burning fossil fuels. Annual emissions, including those from deforestation and cement production, are less than 9 billion tons. Yet natural carbon cycles involve annual exchanges of carbon between the atmosphere, the land, and the oceans many times greater than emissions from human activities. The IPCC estimates that 118.7 billion tons of carbon per year is emitted from land and 78.4 billion tons from oceans. Thus, the human contribution of 9 billion tons annually accounts for less than 5 percent of the total gross emissions. The AGW hypothesis, as well as all the climate-change policies that depend on it, assumes that the human 5 percent drives the overall change in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphereand that the other 95 percent, comprising natural emissions, is counterbalanced by absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere by natural processes. Summing it up, the IPCC declared in its fourth assessment report, in 2007: The increase in atmospheric CO2 is known to be caused by human activities.

Salby contends that the IPCCs claim isnt supported by observations. Scientists understanding of the complex climate dynamics is undeveloped, not least because the oceans heat capacity is a thousand times greater than that of the atmosphere and relevant physical observations of the oceans are so sparse. Until this is remedied, the science cannot be settled. In Salbys view, the evidence actually suggests that the causality underlying AGW should be reversed. Rather than increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere triggering global temperatures to rise, rising global temperatures come firstand account for the great majority of changes in net emissions of CO2, with changes in soil-moisture conditions explaining most of the rest. Furthermore, these two factors also explain changes in net methane emission, the second-most important human greenhouse gas. As for what causes global temperatures to rise, Salby says that one of the most important factors influencing temperature is heat exchange between the atmosphere and the ocean.

Why is the IPCC so certain that the 5 percent human contribution is responsible for annual increases in carbon dioxide levels? Without examining other possible hypotheses, the IPCC argues that the proportion of heavy to light carbon atoms in the atmosphere has changed in a way that can be attributed to addition of fossil fuel carbonwith light carbon on the rise. Fossil fuels, of course, were formed from plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago; the IPCC reasons that, since plants tend to absorb more light carbon than heavy carbon, CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels reduce the share of heavy carbon in the atmosphere. But Salby points to much larger natural processes, such as emissions from decaying vegetation, that also reduce the proportion of heavy carbon. Temperature heavily influences the rate of microbial activity inherent in these natural processes, and Salby notes that the share of heavy carbon emissions falls whenever temperatures are warm. Once again, temperature appears more likely to be the cause, rather than the effect, of observed atmospheric changes.

Further, Salby presents satellite observations showing that the highest levels of CO2 are present not over industrialized regions but over relatively uninhabited and nonindustrialized areas, such as the Amazon. And if human emissions were behind rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, he argues, then the change in CO2 each year should track the carbon dioxide released that year from burning fossil fuelswith natural emissions of CO2 being canceled out by reabsorption from land sinks and oceans. But the change of CO2 each year doesnt track the annual emission of CO2 from burning fossil fuels, as shown in Figure 1, which charts annual emissions of CO2, where an annual increase of one part per million is approximately equivalent to an annual growth rate of 0.25 percent.

While there was a 30 percent increase in CO2 fossil-fuel emissions from 1972 to 1993, there was no systematic increase in net annual CO2 emissionthat is, natural plus human emissions, less reabsorption in carbon sinks. These data, Salby observes, are inconsistent with the IPCCs claim to certainty about human causation of rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere. For the better part of two decades, the IPCC has been struggling to explain the wide interannual variability of changes in net CO2 emission (the jagged lower line in Fig. 1). Various causes have been suggested to explain the 1990s slowdown of CO2 growth, but none fully explains this unusual behavior of the carbon cycle, as the IPCC conceded in its third assessment report.

Unable to explain natural changes in CO2 emission, the IPCC falls back on its assumption of a strong natural tendency toward equilibrium: over time, natural emissions and absorption balance each other out, leaving mankind responsible for disruptions in the balance of nature. But, as Salby observes, the IPCC merely postulates this tendency without demonstrating it. The IPCCs confidence in attributing warming to human activities is thus highly questionableespecially since, for the last decade and a half, atmospheric temperatures have not risen, even as CO2 has risen steadily. Further, while observed average global temperature rose just under one degree centigrade in the last century, this didnt occur as a steady warming. Almost the entire twentieth-century rise came from four decadesa portion of the interwar years and the 1980s and 1990sless than a third of the overall temperature record.

Were it not for its implications for AGW, Salbys research on the carbon cycle might be a boon to the IPCCs troubled effort to explain interannual variability of CO2 emissions. His work offers a coherent picture of changes in net emissions, where the changes closely track a combination of temperature and soil moistureexplaining both the low net emissions of the early 1990s and their peak in 1998. Salby also contends that temperature alone can largely account for the rise in atmospheric CO2 through the earlier part of the twentieth century, when soil-moisture data are inadequate. Net methane emissions track natural surface conditions even more closely.

Another pillar of the IPCCs case has been the claim, based on ice-core records of CO2 concentrations, that present levels of carbon dioxide are unprecedented. But here, Salby maintains, accounting for the dissipation of CO2 trapped in ice corespreviously ignoredradically alters the picture of prehistoric changes in atmospheric CO2 levels. Even weak dissipation would mean that such changes have been significantly underestimated until nowand would also imply that modern changes in CO2 are not unprecedented. If Salby is right, the IPCCs unequivocal claim that modern levels of CO2 are at their highest levels in at least 800,000 years would not hold.

In fact, the IPCCs 2013 assessment tiptoes in Salbys direction. The ice-core record of atmospheric CO2 exhibits interesting variations, the report says, which can be linked to climate-induced changes in the carbon cycle. The assessment also gingerly concedes that the 15-year pause from 1940, when CO2 levels did not rise, was possibly caused by slightly decreasing land temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere.

Salby hasnt been working in a vacuum. Swedish climate scientist Pehr Bjornbom has replicated his finding that temperature drives CO2 emission. University of Oslo geosciences professor Ole Humlum published a landmark 2012 paper demonstrating that changes of CO2 follow changes of temperature, implying the same cause and effect. Richard Lindzen, an atmospheric physicist at MIT, believes that Salby is correct about the IPCCs failure to evaluate the effects of diffusion in ice cores on the proxy CO2 record and to consider sources of lighter carbon other than fossil-fuel burning. Salby is a serious scientist whose arguments deserve a hearing, Lindzen says. Fritz Vahrenholt, a former environmental official and CEO of a large renewable-energy company, as well as one of Germanys leading climate-change skeptics, found Salbys analysis of CO2 emission levels lagging temperature changes compelling. Murry Salby opened a door for more investigations and further scientific work, Vahrenholt says. Will the scientific community pursue the questions that Salby has raised? Vahrenholt is doubtful. Upholders of AGW dont take part in discussions where their orthodox view is challenged, he complains. One way they block off inquiry is to ensure that papers by dissenting climate scientists are not included in the peer-review literaturea problem that Lindzen and Bengtsson have encountered. Indeed, that is what happened to Salby. He submitted a paper on his initial findings to the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. Finding no errorsone reviewer called it absolutely amazingthe journal required minor revision. Before Salby could return the revised paper for publication, the editor of a different journal, Remote Sensing, resigned for publishing a paper that departed from the IPCC view, penning an abject confession: From a purely formal point of view, there were no errors with the review process. But, as the case presents itself now, the editorial team unintentionally selected three reviewers who probably share some climate skeptic notions of the authors. Shortly afterward, Salby received a letter rejecting his revised paper on the basis of a second reviewers claimcontradicted by the first reviewerthat his paper offered nothing new and that all of it had already been covered in the IPCCs reports.

Salbys preliminary findings led him to a wider study, in which he determined, among other things, that the observed relationship between global temperature and CO2 differed fundamentally from that described in climate models. His efforts to publish the study ended, at least for the time being, with the termination of his academic post at Macquarie. As of yet, Salbys climate analyses have appeared only in preliminary form in his peer-reviewed book published by Cambridge University Press.

Unsurprisingly, the consensus view on the carbon cycle remains that human CO2 emissions are virtually certain to be the dominant factor determining current CO2 concentrations. Updating the global-warming catechism in a joint 2014 paper, the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society declared: Continued emissions of these gases will cause further climate change, including substantial increases in global average surface temperature.

If they adhered to the standards established three centuries ago during the Scientific Revolution, the academies would not be able to make such definitive claims. Nineteenth-century astronomer and philosopher of science John Herschel demanded that the scientist assume the role of antagonist against his own theories; the merits of a theory were proved only by its ability to withstand such attacks. Einstein welcomed attempts to disprove the theory of general relativity. No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong, he is said to have declared. Because in science, the philosopher Karl Popper reasoned, we cannot be sure what is true but we can know what is false, truth is approached by discarding what is shown to be false. Popper articulated the principle of falsifiability, distinguishing scientific theory from the pseudosciences of Marx and Freud, whose followers, he noted, found corroboration wherever they looked.

The IPCC and other leading scientific bodies also appear to follow a prescientific injunction: Seek and ye shall find. The formulations consistent with and multiple lines of evidence recur throughout IPCC reports. The IPCCs fifth assessment report, published in 2013, retreated slightly from previous certainty on humans contributing the totality of increased CO2. Now, the IPCC expressed a very high level of confidence, based, it said, on several lines of evidence consistent with this claim. Consistency with a proposition is weak-form sciencethe moon orbiting the Earth is consistent with pre-Copernican astronomy, after alland a feature of the pseudosciences that Popper had seen in early-twentieth-century Vienna. In addition to seeking confirmatory evidence, AGWs upholders often adopt the scientific equivalent of Dont Ask, Dont Tell when it comes to gaps in scientific knowledgein particular, those gaps that, if filled in, might conceivably falsify their position. The 2014 National Academy / Royal Society paper ignored entirely the question of interannual variability of net CO2 emission. Rather than acting, as in Herschels formulation, as AGW antagonists, the IPCC and the national science academies have become its cheerleaders.

Climate change is one of the defining issues of our time, the National Academy / Royal Society paper insists. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earths climate. . . . However, due to the nature of science, not every single detail is ever totally settled or completely certain. With respect to the carbon cycle, this is a serious misrepresentation: it is not a detail but is fundamental to the scientific case for AGW. The implications for AGW of Salbys analysis, if it holds up, are stark: if AGW means that human CO2 emission significantly modifies global temperatures; or, stronger, that it controls the evolution of global temperatures; or, stronger still, that it forces temperatures to increase catastrophically, then AGW is falsified by the observed behavior.

Its fifth assessment report, in 2013, was the IPCCs last major chance to make proclamations before the Paris climate conference in December 2015. Despite its slight retreat on the human role in increased CO2, the IPCC raised its level of certainty about human responsibility for temperature increasefrom 90 percent in its previous report to at least 95 percent, though this boost was largely the result of a change in definition. The reports authors did not opine on why there had been little warming in recent years, saying that not enough had been published on the topic. That dearth shouldnt be surprising to anyone familiar with the state of climate science.

Genuine scientific inquiry is degraded when science becomes politicized. The standards that have prevailed since the Scientific Revolution conflict with the advocacy needs of politics, and AGW would be finished as the basis of a political program if confidence in its scientific consensus were undermined. Its advocates evasion of rigorous falsifiability tests points to AGWs current weakness as a science. As an academic critic of the science on which AGW rests, Murry Salby may have been silenced for now. The observed behavior of nature, from which he draws his analysis, cannot be dismissed so readily.
Charities should prepare for a recession in the next five years and expect lower than usual returns on investment, an audience of charity finance experts was told yesterday.

Donough Kilmurray, managing director of the Goldman Sachs Investment Strategy Group, urged voluntary organisations to rethink their investment strategies, when speaking at a forum for charity investors in London yesterday.

Kilmurray said charities that rely on returns on investment as a form of income will not be able to spend as much in the coming years.

He warned returns are likely to be well below historical averages for the next few years and urged organisations to focus on their mission and reconsider how they use their capital.

Kilmurray said: We are assuming a recession in the next five years. If you are a very cautious charity that has needs for your capital, it is very important you keep it maintained for the next few years.

Instead of spending on high yields to lose a lot of capital, spend a little bit of capital on safer assets and the whole experience will be much smoother.

See in Charity Finance

He added: A lot of charities in the UK keep their capital where it is and spend their income, which is perfectly reasonable. Unfortunately these days you cant do that and save assets.

One way he suggested for charities to maintain a social impact with lower spending could be to move their investments to organisations with a social cause, such as medical research.

Kilmurray also warned charities not to sell all their assets when the markets are low. Some people destroy the capital they have worked so hard to create by selling it, he said.

Civil Society Media will host a day of seminars on charity investment at its Charity Finance Summit on 17 October 2017. For more information, and to book, click here.
On average poorer people give more of their income to charity than the wealthiest in society. Steven Dilworth of Foresters unpicks why, and if it really matters.

The amount of money donated by the UKs richest people to charities has risen 21 per cent over the last year to a staggering 1.77bn, according to the latest Sunday Times Giving List. This sounds like cause for celebration, and rightly so; any donation to charity, no matter how small (or large) must be applauded.



Yet a recent article from across the pond has been whipping up a storm by highlighting the confounding fact that in 2011, the wealthiest Americans  those with earnings in the top 20 per cent  contributed on average 1.3 per cent of their income to charity, while in comparison the poorest (aka those in the bottom 20 per cent) donated 3.2 per cent of their wages to charitable causes.



This is by no means an American phenomenon. Research a little closer to home (Manchester, in fact) has painted a very similar picture. Speaking at the British Sociological Associations annual conference in April, Professor Li from the Manchester University affiliated Institute for Social Change revealed that in 2010/11, the poorest 20 percent gave 3.2 per cent of their gross monthly income to charity. In comparison, the richest 20 per cent gave just 0.9 per cent.



It seems the buzzword here is proportion. While those in higher income brackets often give more to charity in terms of monetary value (the same Institute for Social Change research demonstrates that in absolute amounts, the richest gave an average 31.44 while the poorest gave 6.35), it doesnt necessarily mean they are giving more in terms of their overall wealth. When it comes to charitable giving, the richest sectors of society have been shown to part with a smaller proportion of their income than the poorest.



So why is this? And if the super-rich collectively donate over 1bn to charity each year, does it matter?



It would be a massive generalisation to suggest that poorer people are intrinsically more generous than the rich; as US psychologist Paul Piff told New York magazine, having money doesnt necessarily make anyone anything. Yet at the same time, Foresters research showed that almost half (42 per cent) of low income families (earning 751 - 1,000 per month) were more likely to give to charity during the festive season, compared to 33 per cent of those earning from 2,501 - 5,000 per month. Despite the considerable income gap, Foresters also found that low earners were also twice as likely (6 per cent vs 12 per cent) to set aside money to give to charity at Christmas than high earners.



With the recent passing of former PM Margaret Thatcher, its hard not to forget the famous quote "There is no such thing as society". The aforementioned psychologist Piff stated that the rich are more likely to prioritise their own self-interests above the interests of other people". True or not, one theory might be that the influx of wealth makes some more likely to forget about other individuals and the concept of society in order to focus on their own self-preservation.



Conversely, the less fortunate members of society are more likely to bear witness to the suffering and anguish that charities are there to prevent. Those who have been brought up in a wealthy environment may well have never encountered poverty in real life and are therefore somewhat removed from the situations that many charities seek to abolish.



There are many exceptions to both of these rules, and we should be thankful to the UKs richest for giving 1.7bn to charity - a huge amount of money that will no doubt make positive changes to many peoples lives. The super-rich aside, the current economic situation means many simply cannot afford to donate to charity, and no-one would suggest doing so if it means you cannot get through the week.



But with hard times comes deeper poverty and increased suffering. Helping others doesnt necessarily have to be about money  volunteering is a brilliant (and free!) way of helping others and here at Foresters we are immensely proud of all our volunteers who continue to support their local community year after year. However, if you see a collection box for a worthy cause and wont realistically miss that 1 in your pocket  why not make a donation? After all, we cannot criticise the charitable habits of others if we dont lead by example.
When the Senate Intelligence Committee released prepared testimony by fired-FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday, it appeared to confirm much of the bombshell reporting in the scoop war roiling Washington over the past month. The planned statement, it seemed, vindicated journalists aggressive investigation of the Trump campaigns potential ties to the Kremlin and the nascent administrations subsequent bungling of the matter.

But the two-and-a-half hour hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday muddled that emerging narrative. The media-savvy Comey explicitly disputed a high-profile February New York Times report of alleged contacts between Trump aides and Russian intelligence, adding general criticisms of the medias methods and accuracy during a lengthy cross-examination by elected officials.

RELATED: A hidden message in memo justifying Comeys firing

The remarks have already become a central plotline in the right-wing media narratives emanating from Comeys high-stakes public testimony, yet another snapshot of the ideologically bifurcated realities that have come to dominate the countrys political conversation. Whats more, fairly or not, theyll fuel the anti-press line of attack emerging as a central plank of the Republican Partys 2018 midterm strategy.

The episode is a harbinger of whats to come throughout this administration and beyond, as pro-Trump voices latch onto occasional media slipups to discredit all other reporting, while offering no attempts at accountability journalism of their own. Comey, meanwhile, managed to convey both skepticism of and admiration for the mainstream press, reinforcing his image as an independent operator.

His most specific media criticism came during an exchange with Republican Senator Jim Risch, of Idaho, who inquired about the February 14 Times story alleging that Trump associates had repeatedly communicated with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign. Citing four unnamed sources, the Times reported that American officials had intercepted phone calls between the parties just as the FBI investigation into Russian meddling was heating up. White House officials tried to shoot down the story after its publication.

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On Thursday, Risch called the report not true, adding to Comey, Is that a fair statement? The former FBI director responded:

In the main, it was not true. And, again, all of you know this, maybe the American people dont. The challenge  and Im not picking on reporters about writing stories about classified information  is that people talking about it often dont really know whats going on. And those of us who actually know whats going on are not talking about it. And we dont call the press to say, Hey, you got that thing wrong about this sensitive topic.

Not yet satisfied, Republican Senator of Tom Cotton, of Arkansas, returned to the Times piece, asking, Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong? Comey again answered in the affirmative.

As we have said previously, we believe in the accuracy of our reporting, a Times spokeswoman told CJR in a statement. Our reporters are currently looking into Mr. Comeys statement about our story and we plan to report back as soon as we can. (The Times recently eliminated its public editor, an in-house critic dedicated to getting answers in such situations.)

ICYMI: Two dozen freelance journalists told CJR the best outlets to pitch

Later in Thursdays hearing, Republican Senator James Lankford, of Oklahoma, posed a broader question about media accuracy: Have there been news accounts about the Russian investigation, about collusion, about this whole eventor accusationsthat, as you read the story, you were stunned about how wrong they got the facts?

Yes, Comey responded. There have been many, many stories purportedly based on classified informationabout lots of stuff, but especially about Russiathat are just dead wrong.

Lankford didnt follow up about which supposed revelations were inaccurate, leaving the open-ended critique on the table. It was a savvy political decision from a senator whose party has made charges of fake news central to its rhetoric. Meanwhile, pointed questions established Comey as one of the leakers on whom the GOP constantly harps. In response to Republican Senator Susan Collins, of Maine, Comey admitted that he gave memos of his meetings with Trump to a friend with the express intent to share them with journalists. Not only did Comey criticize reporters on center stage, but he also did so despite conceding his friendliness toward their cause.

ICYMI: Heres what non-fake news looks like

This narrative contrasts starkly with the journalistic chest-thumping on Twitter Wednesday night, after Comeys prepared testimony dropped online. The written statement seemed to confirm many of the dueling New York Times and Washington Post reports that captivated the political world in May, from Trump leaning on Comey to drop the FBIs investigation of his former national security adviser, to Trumps demand for loyalty, Comeys plea to not be left alone with the president, and more.

None of those stories was refuted, yet the Trump camp and Trump-friendly media have already seized on the Comey hearing to delegitimize all reporting on the inquiry. In the first sentence of a statement Thursday, Trumps personal lawyer said Comeys testimony ran contrary to numerous false press accounts about the FBI investigation into Russian meddling.

Right-wing outlets have followed suit, with a headline on the Breitbart homepage calling the hearing a media bellyflop. In Fox Newss immediate analysis, Bret Baier called the media one of the days big losers. A Republican National Committee Twitter account has since circulated the video clip.

Pro-Trump outlets have struggled to retain their audiences in the Trump era, as mainstream competitors have published scoop after scoop that suggest either White House malevolence or incompetence. Still, they collectively draw a huge following, fracturing the media ecosystem amid intense political polarization. With so many of these outlets remaining in lockstep alongside a president under fire, its unclear whether any amount of good reporting can break through their iron curtain of obfuscation.

ICYMI: The New York Times politics reporter who tweets like its going out of style

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Senator Tom Cotton represents Alabama.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

David Uberti is a writer in New York. He was previously a media reporter for Gizmodo Media Group and a staff writer for CJR. Follow him on Twitter @DavidUberti.
Carnival Cruise Line has launched its 2018-2019 Program, offering Australians the largest number of cruises on the brand, according to a statement.

The cruise line's new program features more than 70 sailings from Sydney and Melbourne, including a record 19 short cruises with weekend samplers and short local itineraries.

With 43 longer cruises to the idyllic islands of the South Pacific and New Zealand included, the new program represents an increase of 13 percent over 2018.

One highlight: The Carnival Legend sails from Sydney on an eight-day cruise to the South Pacific on November 24, 2019 with calls to Mare, Isle of Pines, Lifou and Noumea

Increased demand from the southern states has put Melbourne back on the map, the company said, with Carnival offering a series of round-trip itineraries from the port city to New Zealand over 13 nights, the South Pacific over 10 and 11 nights as well as a four-night cruise south to Tasmania.

On the calendar for May 2018 is Carnival Spirit's cruise from Sydney to Singapore over 19 nights, with calls to Darwin and Bali and maiden visits to Koh Samui and Phuket in Thailand and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

On the way to Singapore, Carnival Spirit will also stay overnight in Ho Chi Minh City.

Both Carnival's Australia-based ships, Carnival Spirit and Carnival Legend, will enter drydock in May 2018.

Carnival Vice President Australia Jennifer Vandekreeke said she was excited to deliver so many fun holiday options for Australians in the 2018-19 season.

"From Hobart to Ho Chi Minh City, Carnival will be dialing up the fun in 2018-19. We've got a record number of options on offer and with cruises from Asia to New Zealand, the Pacific and more short breaks than ever before - there will be something for every fun seeker in this program," Vandekreeke said.
UnCruise Adventures has launched its 2018 schedule of small ship cruises highlighted by a new itinerary on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, plus a fresh lineup of itineraries and an expanded selection of ships in Alaska, according to a company statement.

Of note, the 88-guest S.S. Legacy heads to Alaska from April through mid-August, then sails on the Columbia and Snake Rivers from August through November.

Based in Seattle, Washington, the line operates eight adventure ships, plus a partner vessel in the Galapagos, carrying 22 to 88 guests in Alaska, coastal Washington, British Columbia, Columbia & Snake Rivers, Mexicos Sea of Cortes, Hawaii, Galapagos, Costa Rica and Panama.

The Columbia & Snake River system is an outdoor enthusiasts mecca, and extending our style of adventure there is a natural fit, said Captain Dan Blanchard, CEO. In order to make it an UnCruise, we need to slow down, take time to kayak, sightsee by skiff, and go hiking. We purposely build flexibility into our itineraries to make each day the best day possible.

The S.S. Legacy will sail eight departures between Portland, Oregon and Lewiston, Idaho (or reverse) on a new weeklong "Rivers of Adventure" itinerary from mid-August to October. An included charter flight to/from Lewiston makes it roundtrip Portland, Oregon. With a new focus on adventure, river exploration includes a jet boat ride into Hells Canyon, Deschutes River whitewater rafting, hiking, biking, yoga, paddle boarding, kayaking, skiff tours, swimming and a winery tour.

With the addition of the S.S. Legacy in Alaska, seven ships will sail 10 different cruise itineraries on 160 departures lasting one or two weeks from April through September. Homeports are Seattle, Washington; Ketchikan, Juneau, Petersburg and Sitka, Alaska. Five of 10 itineraries are new in 2018 and seven include a visit of one, two or three days in Glacier Bay National Park. Haines, Alaska is a new port of call. The Safari Endeavour and S.S. Legacy sail two alternating itineraries between Juneau and Sitka providing more two-week sailings.

The 62-guest Safari Voyager will offer 28 departures one-way between Costa Rica and Panama (or reverse) from January through April, June, August, and again from October through December.

In May, June, August and September, the Safari Voyager is scheduled for 12 "Pure Panama" cruises roundtrip Panama City. The cruises visit the Guna Yala (formerly San Blas) Islands, Chagres River, Pearl Islands and Darien Jungle. Highlights include a full transit of the Panama Canal, meeting locals in an Embera village, and a visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Fort San Lorenzo.

From January through March and December, the Safari Endeavour sails 14 departures on a weeklong Bajas Bounty itinerary roundtrip San Jose del Cabo with an included land tour to the ship in La Paz.

The La Pinta will sail five Galapagos departures on an 8-night Darwins Islands and Colonial Quito exploration with six nights on board the ship and two at Casa Gangotena Hotel.

The Safari Explorer is offering 22 departures on a Hawaiian Seascapes itinerary one-way between Molokai and The big Island of Hawaii (or reverse) from January through March and November through December. The island hopping cruise visits Maui, Lanai, Molokai and the big island of Hawaii.

n spring and fall, 10 departures on a weeklong "Explore! Olympic Wilderness and San Juan Islands" cruise sails from roundtrip Seattle exploring coastal Washington shores from South Hood Canal to the Olympic Peninsula and around the San Juan Islands. The Wilderness Discoverer will sail the itinerary in spring with the Safari Quest taking over in the fall. The Safari Quest also sails 10 departures on a weeklong British Columbias Yachters Paradise itinerary in spring and fall from Seattle.
Clontarf Energy reported on Thursday that discussions had taken place with the Ghanaian government in recent days relating to the Tano 2A onshore offshore block in Ghana.

The AIM-traded firm said the discussions were positive and constructive, and would be continued.

The Tano 2A saga has been ongoing for nine years, said company director David Horgan.

There are numerous legacy issues which are being addressed.

Progress is being made.

Horgan said the newly-elected government was pro-development, and committed to improved standards.

We are committed to helping find and develop Ghana's natural resources.

With continued goodwill and common sense we hope that any outstanding issues will be satisfactorily and promptly resolved.
Personal Group announced on Thursday that it was partnering with Neyber and SalaryFinance, which would allow Personal Group's clients to offer their employees access to financial wellbeing solutions including loans direct from salary, on-site financial education, and saving products.

The AIM-traded firm said trough the initiative, employees would have access to affordable borrowing with low APRs and manageable repayments that were taken directly from payroll.

Wellbeing in the workplace was often synonymous with physical and mental health, the board claimed, but added that financial wellbeing was becoming more and more prevalent.

According to the 2017 DNA of financial wellbeing report from Neyber, 58% of employees admitted to being mentally and physically affected by financial worries, Personal Group pointed out, with 33% of employees citing financial worries as the biggest concern, ahead of health, relationships and work life balance.

Those financial problems were not necessarily because of poor financial management, but increasingly external factors such as the rising costs of education and housing, depressed wages, rising childcare costs, and energy and food prices, were taking a toll on employees across the UK, the board said.

Offering additional support such as fairer finance schemes is a practical way employers can improve the overall wellbeing of their staff, said chief executive Mark Scanlon.

This proposition is about offering practical financial support as part of an overall benefits package.

We are enabling employers to address all aspects of their employees' wellbeing, physical, emotional and financial through a truly holistic wellbeing programme.
Britain began voting early on Thursday to decide the shape of its new government but with confidence in opinion polls shot to pieces in recent years there will be no firm idea of the result until two hours before midnight - and if it's tight this will mean every single local result counts.

Polling stations opened at 0700 BST this morning and will close at 2200, with election restrictions preventing the publishing of opinion polls on the day until after polling closes.

Just after the booths are closed, Ipsos MORI will publish the official exit poll commissioned by the BBC, ITV, and Sky, which will give a projection of the ultimate number of seats won by each party.

Unlike in 2015, Paddy Ashdown is unlikely to declare that he will "eat his hat if it is correct this time, as these forecasts continue to prove very accurate, with predictions never more than 15 seats out for the winning party. But if the exit poll projections are tight  ie within a 20 seat majority for the Tories - we will need to wait until the following morning to know whether there will be a Conservative majority, Conservative minority or Labour coalition.

The vote count begins straight after polling stations close, with the first results typically declared in Sunderland between 2300 and midnight and around 70 results by 0200 on Friday.

Then the deluge begins, with around half of the declarations arriving by around 0400, giving a firmer idea of the result, with close to nine out of 10 declaring officers having spoken by 0600.

In the case of a clear majority for the winner, the leader of the losing party will concede to allow the victor to claim victory, but in 2010's hung parliament it took another six days for a coalition to be decided. In 2015, David Cameron accepted victory just before 0600.

SEATS TO WATCH

In case of a close result, bellwether seats to watch are Carlise, Clacton, Southport, and Westminster North.

The top 'marginals' - those with the smallest majorities from the 2015 vote - are led by four Tory seats and three Labour: Bury North, Peterborough, Thurrock, Vale of Clwyd, Ynys Mon, Ealing Central and Acton, Hampstead and Kilburn, followed by Tory Telford, and LibDem East Dunbartonshire.

"In the UKs first-past-the-post constituency level system, marginal seats are crucial in defining the outcome of elections," noted Deutsche Bank, which compiled a list of potential swing seats to watch based on different criteria, ranked by the expected timing of their declarations on election night.

However, strategists suggested that with the Brexit referendum last year and leadership changes across the major national parties since the last election in 2015, "it may be that a traditional margin-based seat list is less appropriate than in the past".

For Labour, areas of big Brexit votes are led by Wrexham, Clwyd South, Hartlepool, Delyn, Alyn & Deeside and Bishop Auckland.

For May's mob, large "remoaner" areas include seats in Bristol North West, Brecon & Radnorshire, Watford, Canterbury, Gower, Croydon Central and Twickenham - where LibDem grandee Vince Cable is confident of winning his old seat back.

Scotland presents a third interesting case, where there are several SNP seats with Conservatives in second place and apparently polling reasonably well.

These SNP seats are Perth and North Perthshire, Moray, Dumfries and Galloway, West Aberdeenshire & Kincardine, Banff & Buchan, and Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk.

Some of these seats were identified by Chris Hanretty of the University of East Anglia as a means of easily identifying whether the Conservative party are winning seats off other parties in order to add to their majority. These are 25 predicted gains for the Conservatives.
Foreign demand for Chinese exports held up better than expected last month as did domestic appetite for wares from abroad, although some economists believed strength in imports was unlikely to be sustained.

Combined, those opposing forces resulted in a smaller-than-expected increase in the Asian giant's trade surplus, from 262bn yuan in April to 282bn for May.

Export growth accelerated from a 14.3% year-on-year pace in the month before to a 15.5% clip for May (consensus: 13.5%) in yuan terms.

The unexpected result was partly due to rising prices, according to Julian Evans-Pritchard at Capital Economics, with the rate of growth in export volumes accelerating by less, from a 7.0% year-on-year clip to 7.6%.

Nonetheless, while slower than the rate of growth in volumes of 9.6% observed over the first three months of the year, that was still a "strong performance relative to recent years," Evans-Pritchard said.

"In seasonally adjusted level terms, export values and volumes are both near record highs. The upshot is that foreign demand for Chinese goods remains strong," he said.

Import growth also beat forecasts, rising by 22.1% after expanding by 18.6% in April (consensus: 16.1%).

Capital Economics was "surprised" by the strength of imports, given the backdrop of falling commodity prices.

Import volumes rebounded from a 4.5% pace in April to 8.5% last month, the same economist said.

"Looking ahead, the current strength of imports is unlikely to be sustained if, as we expect, slower credit growth feeds through into weaker economic activity in the coming quarters."
Markets in Asia were mostly higher on Thursday ahead of a number of risky events through the rest of the global day, with the UK general election and the latest ECB meeting happening in Europe, and James Comey set to testify in front of a Senate committee on the Trump-Russia scandal in the US.

Japans Nikkei 225 was lower by 0.38% at 19,909.26, as the yen weakened 0.25% against the greenback to JPY 110.09.

On the economic front, the second estimate of the countrys first quarter GDP showed growth of 0.3% quarter-on-quarter, which was softer than the 0.5% initially expected.

Growth was 1% year-on-year, well off the 2.2% expected.

Technology firm Toshiba was up 5.47% after it said it was aiming to announce the winning suitor for its valuable semiconductor division next week.

The ailing conglomerate put the unit on the market in an effort to solve a cash crisis stemming from the failure of its US nuclear development acquisition Westinghouse Electric.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite added 0.34% to 3,150.93, while the Shenzhen Composite was 0.13% higher at 1,852.86.

The green finish in China came after the release of better-than-expected trade data for May, with exports improving 8.7% and imports rising 14.8% in dollar-denominated terms.

That compared to expectations for 7% and 8.5% rises respectively.

South Koreas Kospi was up 0.15% at 2,363.57, while the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong was 0.34% firmer at 26,063.06.

Hong Kong-traded furniture manufacturer Man Wah Holdings remained suspended from trade, after it fell 15% on Thursday following the announcement that Carson Block was shorting the stock.

Thursday was a day of significant risk events for the global markets, with general election polls in the UK opening as Asian markets closed.

In the US, former FBI director James Comey was due to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee over allegations President Donald Trump has asked him to drop an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn and his possible ties to Russia.

Markets have been on edge all week awaiting the coming events, noted ANZ head of research Daniel Been.

While the results of the various events could matter for individual markets, for broader markets it could once again be a case of as you were.

Nonetheless, one can't ignore the risks.

Oil prices were slightly higher during Asian trading, and maintained that trajectory in early European hours.

Brent crude was last up 0.89% at $48.49 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate was off 0.82% at $46.10.

Australias S&P/ASX 200 finished up 0.17% at 5,676.60, while New Zealands S&P/NZX 50 lost 0.1% to settle at 7,458.66.

The down under dollars were mixed, with the Kiwi last 0.13% stronger on the greenback at NZD 1.3879, while the Aussie weakened 0.01% to AUD 1.3246.
TUI Group has been left hanging after United Arab Emirates based Etihad Aviation walked away from talks about a potential joint venture between the German aviation subsidiary TUI fly and Niki.

The Anglo-German group said the talks had been looking to "form a strong European leisure airline" but the UAE group's Vienna-based Niki was "no longer available".

Sebastian Ebel, a member of TUI board in charge of central Europe said: A strong European leisure airline continues to make great strategic sense. After all, the aviation sector is characterised by overcapacity in Germany.

"However, Niki is no longer available for a joint venture. We will push the repositioning of TUI fly further ahead in order to develop long-term prospects for the airline and its employees.

TUI Group put out public feelers for any other carriers that were listening.

The FTSE 100-listed company said it was "prepared to contribute to the stabilisation of the German aviation market" and "remains open for a partnership or the formation of joint ventures" serving the strategic goal of reshaping the market.
Oil industry company Halliburton has been branded obscene for advertising unpaid UK internships, which critics say give an unfair advantage to people from privileged backgrounds. In an advert on its recruitment site, Halliburton said it was seeking people who want to innovate, achieve, grow and lead for student internships at its office in Chiswick, west London.  Guardian

Oil industry company Halliburton has been branded obscene for advertising unpaid UK internships, which critics say give an unfair advantage to people from privileged backgrounds. In an advert on its recruitment site, Halliburton said it was seeking people who want to innovate, achieve, grow and lead for student internships at its office in Chiswick, west London.  Guardian

UK households put the brakes on plans to move home in May, as uncertainty over the general election put them off making big spending decisions. Buyers and sellers opted to wait and see ahead of todays election according to estate agents surveyed by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Enquiries from new buyers fell and the number of properties placed on the market dropped for a 15th month. The number of sales agreed also fell.  Guardian

Berendsen has succumbed to a takeover proposal from French rival Elis, after the offer was raised for a second time to 2.2bn, in spite of earlier comments made by the British laundry giant's board that there had been no "basis for any further discussions". The new offer would value Berendsen at 12.50 per share excluding an interim dividend, at a premium of 45pc to its uninterrupted share price, and ahead of the previous offers of 11.73 a share and 11.00 a share tabled in late April and May.  Telegraph

WPP shareholders have sought to increase the pressure on the company to identify a successor to its 72-year-old chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell over fears his exit could destabilise the global advertising empire he has built. Standard Life, which owns a 1.5pc stake in WPP worth 322m, teamed up with Royal London, owner of 106m in shares, at the company's annual general meeting to demand more progress towards a "post-Sorrell future". - Telegraph

Sir Philip Greens retail empire suffered a sharp decline in British sales last year as the tycoon complained that clothing was becoming a less important part of household budgets. Revenue at his chains, which include Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Evans, declined to 1.7 billion in the year to August 27, down from 2.2 billion the year before, accounts for Taveta Investments, the holding company, showed.  The Times

The Greek government has rejected a compromise proposal by the International Monetary Fund to resolve the impasse over the countrys debts, raising the possibility of a sovereign default within weeks. Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, and his ruling Syriza party said that the proposal offered Greece a less than an honourable solution.  The Times
By Andy Rowell

There is a growing political scandal in Virginia regarding the ubiquitous influence of the states largest energy company, Dominion Energy, and its raising fundamental questions about the integrity of the governors office and state regulators who will decide the fate of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Dominions longstanding exercise of power and influence in Virginia is no secretthe company is the largest corporate donor to state candidates.

But a new report by the Public Accountability Initiative documents in one place the companys extensive, revolving door relationships with the very regulators charged with issuing permits for this controversial, $5 billion fracked-gas project.

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a joint venture of Dominion, Duke Energy and Southern Company, but Dominion is the leading owner and will operate the pipeline if it goes ahead.

The project, which would source fracked gas from West Virginia, plans to traverse the Allegheny Highlands bordering West Virginia and Virginia, cut a large swath through Virginia to the Hampton Roads area, and branch south into North Carolina.

The new report details how Dominions influence penetrates every level of state government, from Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) officials, through General Assembly members on both sides of the aisle, to the governors mansion.

These relationships are fundamental to the fate of the pipeline.

While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to rubber stamp the pipelines federal permit, states retain the right under the Clean Water Act to protect their water resourcesthe project will cross hundreds of water bodies in the stateand deny permits for such projects if they are deemed a threat.

The Cuomo Administration in New York State has recently denied two such permits for gas pipelines. In Virginia, Governor McAuliffes Department of Environmental Quality has the authority to do the same, but both the governor and the regulators who report to him have shown far greater interest in smoothing Dominions path through the regulatory system.

The report sheds light on possible reasons why.

Gov. McAuliffe, who stood with Dominion CEO Thomas Farrell in 2014 as he unveiled plans for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, has received tens of thousands of dollars in political funding from Dominion. He received $35,000 from Dominion PAC shortly before his election in November 2013, and Dominion Virginia Power gave $50,000 to his inaugural committee shortly afterwards. More recently in 2016, Dominion PAC gave $25,000 to McAuliffes PAC, Common Good VA, and Dominion CEO Tom Farrell gave $7,500.

LittleSis.org

The DEQ, the key agency charged with reviewing the pipelines water quality permit, is mired in conflicting interests linked to Dominion. For example, the DEQs longstanding director, David K. Paylor, received gifts from Dominion including a trip to the 2013 PGA Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and a $1,200 dinner for Paylor and nine of his associates.

In 2015, Dominions philanthropic foundation donated $45,000 to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, an organization whose Virginia chapter is headed by Nissa Dean, who sits on the Virginia DEQs seven-member Water Control Board, which must sign off on the Atlantic Coast Pipelines water permit.

DEQs Water Permitting Division Director, Melanie Davenport, appears to have previously served as an attorney for Dominion, according to the report. Davenport also sits on the board of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center with Joe Tannery, who is Dominions energy technology advisor.

Pamela Faggert, Dominions chief environmental officer and senior vice president of sustainability, served for nearly eight years as director of the air division of the Virginia DEQ in the late eighties and early nineties. The pipeline also has to receive regulatory approval from the air division. Furthermore, Faggert has donated over $10,000 to Virginia politicians, including supporters of the ACP.

Given the extensive revolving door between Dominion and DEQ, it is perhaps no surprise that DEQ recently came under fierce criticism over relinquishing partial oversight of water quality permits related to the pipeline to the Army Corps of Engineers national permitting system.

As one commentator noted last month, this means that Dominion can use the corps blanket permit, instead of having to get one for each river, stream and wetland the pipelines cross.

Greg Buppert, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Centers Virginia office, has expressed concerns: That process does not involve site-specific analyses and we have no confidence that the corps permit will be sufficient for such a complex project across the states steepest mountains.

Dominion is also used to getting its way with state legislators in Virginia. State politicians in Virginia and North Carolina who have been publicly vocal about their support for the pipeline have been some of the biggest recipients of donations from its corporate backers, argued the report.

General Assembly leaders alone have received nearly $400,000 since 2007 from the company. Some of this money is redistributed by the leadership to less powerful elected officials, ensuring compliance with Dominions agenda down the chain of command.

Five leading state representatives from Virginia, along with eleven elected officials from West Virginia and North Carolina who co-signed a letter to FERC declaring their support for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, rank among the highest recipients of donations from Dominion over the past decade.

Ultimately, when it comes to state authority over pipeline permits, the buck stops with the states chief executivecurrently McAuliffeto ensure a fair and thorough review process thats free of polluter influence.

McAuliffe was recently labelled a climate hypocrite after announcing he was moving forward on the Paris agreement principles, but at the same time being a vociferous supporter of offshore drilling and fracked gas pipelines in Virginia.

As Oil Change Internationals own analysis has shown, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline alone would cause as much greenhouse gas pollution per year as 20 coal-fired power plants.

Chesapeake Climate Action Network director Mike Tidwell, argues: It is, frankly, hypocrisy for the governor to support both Paris and violent drilling for oil and gas in and across the state. The best thing Gov. McAuliffe could do to support Paris and oppose Trump is to drop his tragic support for offshore oil drilling and for the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines for fracked gas.

If you look up the word Dominion in the dictionary you will see the word derives from the Medieval Latin word dominium or dominus which means lord or master. And true to its name, Dominion Energy certainly seems to be master of Virginia, no matter the cost to communities and the environment.
By Richard Eskow

When he withdrew from the Paris agreement last week, Donald Trump gave a speech so filled with falsehoods that it triggered detailed rebuttals by publications ranging from Politifact to Scientific American. The Washington Posts Fact Checker column, which hands out Pinocchios for false or misleading statements, was forced to note that we do not award Pinocchios in roundups of speeches. But by then Trump probably had more Pinocchios than the Disneyland gift shop.

But Trump is not the only truth-denier in the Republican Party. In a front-page story by Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton, the New York Times documented the GOPs transformation from a party with leaders like John McCain and Newt Gingrich, who accepted the scientific consensus on the climate, to one whose leader believes it is a hoax perpetrated by China.

When Trump pulled the U.S. from the Paris agreement, the Senate majority leader, the speaker of the House and every member of the elected Republican leadership were united in their praise.

And the Times laid this transformation squarely at the feet of the Koch Brothers:

Republican lawmakers were moved along by a campaign carefully crafted by fossil fuel industry players, most notably Charles D. and David H. Koch, the Kansas-based billionaires who run a chain of refineries (which can process 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day) as well as a subsidiary that owns or operates 4,000 miles of pipelines that move crude oil.

The Koch network of funders spent an estimated $1 billion over the last few election cycles telling the Republican Party what to do. It is, perhaps, the most astounding example of influence-buying in modern American political history, wrote Jane Mayer in the New Yorker.

You could call Trump, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell the men who sold the world, after the David Bowie song of the same name.

Paris Exit Was 'Victory Paid and Carried Out' by Republican Party for the Koch Brothers https://t.co/ENLbOqO62r (@EcoWatch)  Sierra Club (@SierraClub) June 3, 2017

Climate Cronies

Trump and his party have been marching in lockstep with the fossil-fuel industry for some time now. Even before Trump took office, the Washington Post reported that the fossil fuel industry is enjoying a remarkable resurgence as its executives and lobbyists shape President-elect Donald Trumps policy agenda and staff his administration.

That influence can be seen in Trumps appointments, in his deeds and now in his budget.

The head of the EPA is the person responsible for protecting our air, land, and water. Trump chose Scott Pruitt, a longtime ally of the fossil fuel industry, to lead that agency. Pruitt is known for his unusually close ties to the that industry, which are extensive even by Republican Party standards.

As Oklahomas Attorney General, Pruitt sued the agency he now runs many times. A CMD review of Pruitts emails showed that he allowed the industry to write the comments that he filed with federal agencies. The Koch Brothers network of shell advocacy groups, which CMD has analyzed at length, turned out in force to support Pruitts nomination.

Other Trump cabinet appointees are also closely allied with the fossil-fuel industry, including Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross, Transportation Sec. Elaine Chao, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and of course Rex Tillerson, who led Exxon for years.

The fossil-fuel connection runs deep in the Trump Administration. The Sabin Center analyzed lower-level appointments in agencies responsible for energy, the environment and natural resources. It found that more than half of those appointed appear(ed) to lack expertise and/or experience related to their new responsibilities, while more than one-quarter had close ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Dirty Deeds

In March, Trump signed an executive order and made a number of other moves that helped the fossil fuel industry by cutting the EPA, easing up on regulations, approving the KXL pipeline, and overturning Barack Obamas Clean Power Plan.

Trumps proposed budget, which was released in late May, would cut the EPA by nearly one-third. That budget also includes a number of deep cuts in science spending, including cuts in the kind of research that helps us understand how fossil fuels are harming our health and our planet. Those cuts would end funding for NASAs Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), which was established by Congress to track the effects of both natural and human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Other carbon research programs would be cut under the Trump budget. Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, observed that additional cuts to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) would drastically cut into the agencys climate research, shuttering a host of labs and programs. The Department of Energys climate research would also be cut significantly under the Trump budget.

Science noted that climate expert David Victor believes that Trumps proposed NASA cuts alone would be a long-lasting setback to combating climate change.

With Trumps pullout from the Paris agreement, the U.S. becomes one of only three nations that is not part of that agreement. One of the other two, Nicaragua, wants a stronger agreement. The other is Syria, which is in the middle of a catastrophic civil war.

With the help of the Koch Brothers, Trump and the Republican Party have moved in the opposite direction from virtually the rest of the world, wrote Jane Mayer.

Its time the world began to hold them to account.
Governments around the world have increasingly turned to behavioral science to help address various policy problems - new research shows that some of the best-known strategies derived from behavioral science, commonly referred to as 'nudges,' may be extremely cost effective. The new study, which examined the cost-effectiveness of nudges and typical intervention strategies like financial incentives side-by-side, found that nudges often yield particularly high returns at a low cost when it comes to boosting retirement savings, college enrollment, energy conservation, and vaccination rates.

The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

"The changes in behavior produced by nudges tend be quite cost effective relative to those produced by traditional policy tools - so there is a big opportunity to use nudging more widely in government in conjunction with traditional policy tools," says Professor Katherine L. Milkman of The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the authors of the new study.

"Our findings show that it's important to calculate and report the cost effectiveness of available policy tools, and not simply the impact of an intervention without an adjustment for cost," adds study co-author Professor John Beshears of Harvard Business School. "This will facilitate wiser decisions by governments and other organizations regarding which policy tools to use under various circumstances."

Nudges - which are now being tested and implemented by government agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States - diverge from traditional policy tools in that they encourage certain behaviors without restricting an individual's options or exacting financial penalties.

When organizations automatically enroll employees in their company's retirement savings program but allow them to opt out, for example, they are using a nudge that takes advantage of the fact that people tend to accept the default while still protecting employees' freedom to choose whether to participate in the program.

Although many nudges have been proven to increase individuals' access to various services and programs, they may not produce large shifts in overall behavior. As such, they may be overlooked as useful policy tools despite their relatively low cost.

With this in mind, a research team including academics and practitioners inside and outside of government examined existing studies to evaluate the relative cost effectiveness of nudges and other policy interventions.

Looking at the 2015 reports from the SBST and the UK Behavioural Insights Team, the researchers developed a list of relevant policy areas and identified one behavior as the outcome of interest within each area. They then searched leading academic journals in science, economics, psychology, and medicine for original research published from 2000 to mid-2015 that directly examined interventions targeting these outcomes.

The team compared the effectiveness of nudge-type strategies with more standard policy interventions, calculating the ratio between an intervention's causal effect and its implementation cost.

The results showed a pattern: In each of the domains that the researchers examined, nudges were highly cost effective, often more so than the traditional policy interventions.

In the case of retirement savings, for example, a nudge that prompted new employees to indicate their preferred contribution rate to a workplace retirement-savings plan yielded a $100 increase in employee contributions per $1 spent on implementing the program; the next most cost-effective strategy, offering monetary incentives for employees who attended a benefits fair, yielded only a $14.58 increase in employee contributions per $1 spent on the program.

Similarly, a nudge-based mailing that prompted employees to write down when and how they planned on getting their flu shot led to about 13 additional people getting vaccinated per $100 spent on the mailing; by contrast, an education campaign on the benefits of the flu vaccine led to only about 9 additional employees at a health care facility getting vaccinated per every $100 spent on the campaign.

"We had a hunch that nudging, and especially digital nudging, would be very cost effective, but I was truly surprised to see that the cost effectiveness of nudging is often 100, and even 1,000, times greater than more traditional interventions," says co-author Shlomo Benartzi, a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles. "This has huge implications for governments and businesses alike."

The researchers acknowledge that their analyses do not offer an exhaustive review of the comparative effectiveness of nudges and traditional policy tools. And there are many cases in which traditional tools - such as prohibitions and mandates - are essential for achieving specific policy objectives, and nudges might not be of value.

But the new findings clearly show that nudge-type strategies based in behavioral science do offer a useful, low-cost approach to promoting behaviors tied to a variety of important outcomes. Unlike traditional interventions that are designed to influence the cost-benefit calculations that people make, nudges harness decision-making processes that operate automatically. Thus, nudges may be especially useful in guiding behavior when people are making decisions in less than ideal circumstances, such as when they are busy, tired, or otherwise not able to fully engage with the choices available to them.

The findings also underscore how critical sharing data and knowledge about the effectiveness of various interventions will be to coordinated policy efforts among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers

"Tracking failures is as important for knowledge creation as tracking successes," the researchers conclude.

###

Additional co-authors on the paper include Cass R. Sunstein of Harvard Law School, Richard H. Thaler of the the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Maya Shankar of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Will Tucker-Ray and William J. Congdon of ideas42, and Steven Galing of the United States Department of Defense.

J. Beshears received financial support from the Pershing Square Fund for Research on the Foundations of Human Behavior. M. Shankar received financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. W. Tucker-Ray and W. J. Congdon received financial support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

All materials have been made publicly available via the Open Science Framework and the complete Open Practices Disclosure for this article is available online. This article has received the badge for Open Materials.

For more information about this study, please contact: John Beshears at jbeshears@hbs.edu or Katherine L. Milkman at kmilkman@wharton.upenn.edu.

The article abstract is available online: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617702501

The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Should Governments Invest in More Nudging?" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
San Francisco (June 8, 2017) The California Academy of Sciences' Hope for Reefs initiative continues to advance global understanding of coral reef science through a series of ambitious expeditions. The team most recently returned from the Verde Island Passage in the Philippines--a longtime regional focus of Academy research considered the "center of the center" of marine biodiversity. The Academy's science diving teams explored both deep and shallow ecosystems to document species richness, evaluate ecosystem health, and gather data to support smarter ocean conservation strategies.

Building upon nearly three decades of Academy research in the region, the team has once again discovered several new species of fish, nudibranchs, urchins, and sand dollars. Academy researchers have visited the region since 1992 and in that time have discovered over one thousand species that are new to science. Just this month, Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Dr. Terry Gosliner formally described eight new nudibranch species collected from earlier expeditions. Academy scientists also worked to promote a deeper appreciation for coral reefs through community outreach and presentations to a local school.

Dr. Rebecca Albright, Academy curator and coral biologist, assessed coral health and diversity across shallow dive sites--building upon her research on how to maximize coral recruitment in the face of environmental stressors. Her findings help leverage restoration efforts that enhance reef resilience.

In addition to discovering new marine species, the deep-diving "twilight zone" team also documented evidence of human impacts at 200-500 feet below the ocean's surface, indicating that mesophotic deep reefs are as heavily impacted as their shallow counterparts and in need of strong protections. Despite the fact that these unique ecosystems are greatly impacted by pollution and storm damage, twilight zone reefs are largely ignored by current protections. Marine protected areas (MPAs) and sanctuaries tend to favor shallow reefs better known to science and coastal communities.

Visitors to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco can meet scientists from the Hope for Reefs initiative this evening (June 8, World Oceans Day) at Coral Reef NightLife. Visitors to the Academy's Steinhart Aquarium can also take a closer look at mesophotic marine creatures from the Philippines in Twilight Zone: Deep Reefs Revealed.

Considered the "rainforests of the sea," coral reefs are some of the most beautiful, biologically diverse, and economically valuable ecosystems on Earth. They cover less than 1% of the ocean but contain more than 25% of all marine species. Coral reefs are integral to the livelihoods and well-being of billions of people worldwide, providing protection from erosion and storm damage, and generating income through ecotourism and fishing. Nearly 75% of the world's coral reefs are currently threatened by the combined impacts of overfishing, habitat destruction, water pollution, climate change, and ocean acidification. The Academy's Hope for Reefs initiative aims to reverse the potential collapse of global coral reefs by exploring little-known ecosystems, advancing coral reef science by decades, and communicating these issues to the public through innovative exhibits, media, and education programs. This work is supported by visionary donors taking action before life-supporting coral reefs are lost forever.

###

For the latest hi-res images/video and to connect with Academy scientists, please contact:

Haley Bowling, (415) 379-5123, hbowling@calacademy.org

Katie Jewett, (415) 379-5130, kjewett@calacademy.org

The Academy's Hope for Reefs initiative is made possible through the support of visionary donors. The Academy gratefully acknowledges the lead partners listed below.

William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation

Dalio Ocean Initiative

Jennifer Caldwell and John H.N. Fisher

Eva and Bill Price

Wendy and Eric Schmidt

Kingfisher Foundation

Hellman Foundation

Frances and Warren Hellman

Diana Nelson and John Atwater

About Research at the California Academy of Sciences

The Institute for Biodiversity Science and Sustainability at the California Academy of Sciences is at the forefront of efforts to understand two of the most important topics of our time: the nature and sustainability of life on Earth. Based in San Francisco, the Institute is home to more than 100 world-class scientists, state-of-the-art facilities, and nearly 46 million scientific specimens from around the world. The Institute also leverages the expertise and efforts of more than 100 international Associates and 400 distinguished Fellows. Through expeditions around the globe, investigations in the lab, and analysis of vast biological datasets, the Institute's scientists work to understand the evolution and interconnectedness of organisms and ecosystems, the threats they face around the world, and the most effective strategies for sustaining them into the future. Through innovative partnerships and public engagement initiatives, they also guide critical sustainability and conservation decisions worldwide, inspire and mentor the next generation of scientists, and foster responsible stewardship of our planet.
Whales rely on a keen sense of hearing for their underwater existence. But whales show surprisingly vast differences in hearing ability. Baleen whales tune into infrasonic sounds -- at frequencies too low for humans to hear -- to communicate over long distances. Toothed whales do just the opposite, relying on ultrasonic frequencies too high for humans to hear.

Now researchers reporting in Current Biology on June 8 have fossil evidence from extinct early whale species to suggest that those differences in hearing arose only after whales evolved into the fully aquatic animals we know today. That's based on their findings that whales known as protocetes, which spent time both in water and on land, appear to have hearing more like their terrestrial, even-toed ungulate relatives, including pigs, hippos, and camels.

"We found that the cochlea of protocetes was distinct from that of extant whales and dolphins and that they had hearing capacities close to those of their terrestrial relatives," says Maeva Orliac of CNRS and Universite de Montpellier in France.

Protocetes' lack of hearing specialization suggests that the early whales were unable to echolocate and communicate through long-distance calls in the way that modern-day cetaceans, the group including whales and dolphins, do.

The researchers came to those conclusions based on studies of 45-million-year-old protocetid whale remains found in marine deposits from Togo in West Africa. The researchers studied the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity that would have housed the hearing organ, in two species of early whales.

Orliac and her colleague Mickael Mourlam used micro-CT scanning to peer inside the internal structures of rocks and fossils, in much the same way that an X-ray scanner makes it possible to see bones inside a person's body. Those images allowed them to analyze the internal cavities of the petrosal bone, which shelters the organs of hearing and balance.

"Based on the scans provided by the scanner, we could extract a virtual mold of the hollow cavity that used to contain the hearing organ when the animal was alive," Orliac says. "This process was long and difficult because this cavity was filled with sediments and partly recrystallized and because the petrosal bone in cetaceans is particularly thick and dense, which lowers the quality of the images and sometimes impedes analyzing them."

Nevertheless, the scans suggest that early cetaceans had hearing closer to that of their terrestrial relatives. Specialization to infrasonic or ultrasonic hearing as seen in modern whales came only later, in whales that had already found their way back to the sea.

The findings highlight the importance of studying these early cetaceans to get an accurate picture of whales' evolutionary history. It also suggests that whales' evolutionary past is more complicated than had previously been described, the researchers say.

Orliac says they'll be back in field in Togo in December to search for additional protocetid whale specimens. They've so far described two of three species identified in Togo based on dental remains. They hope to find a specimen that will allow them to explore the ear of the third.

###

This work is financially supported by the ANR program SPLASH.

Current Biology, Mourlam and Orliac: "Infrasonic and Ultrasonic Hearing Evolved after the Emergence of Modern Whales" http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30506-7

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit: http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.
When the X-rays blast electrons out of one atom, stripping it from the inside out, it steals more from its neighbors - a new insight that could help advance high-resolution imaging of whole viruses, bacteria and complex materials.

With the most highly focused power of the worlds most powerful X-ray laser, scientists from a number of institutions around the world-  including the U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory -- have conducted a new experiment that takes apart molecules electron by electron.

The key to this experiment was being able to focus hard X-rays to a very tiny spot.

The results of this experiment, carried out at DOEs SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and published today in Nature, showed a surprising effect at the atomic scale. The researchers saw that a single laser pulse stripped all but a few electrons out of the molecules biggest atom, leaving a void that started pulling in electrons from the rest of the molecule, like a black hole gobbling a spiraling disk of matter. Within 30 femtoseconds  millionths of a billionth of a second  the molecule lost more than 50 electrons, far more than scientists anticipated based on earlier experiments using less intense beams or isolated atoms. Then it blew up.

The key to this experiment was being able to focus hard X-rays to a very tiny spot, said Argonne scientist Linda Young, an author of the study. By concentrating the X-rays on a single atom in a molecule, we can see and even predict -- on a very fast time scale -- the electron movement between different atoms in the molecule and track unusual behaviors.

This paper shows that we can understand and model the radiation damage in small molecules, so now we can predict what damage we will get in other systems, added Daniel Rolles of Kansas State University, another author of the study.

The experiment gives scientists fundamental insights they need to better plan and interpret experiments using intense and energetic X-ray pulses, like those created by the free-electron X-ray laser at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC. Experiments that require these ultrahigh intensities include attempts to image individual biological objects, such as viruses and bacteria, at high resolution. They are also used to study the behavior of matter under extreme conditions, and to better understand charge dynamics in complex molecules.

The work represents a follow-on to an earlier experiment carried out by Young and other collaborators in 2010. The current experiment involves a much tighter focus of the X-ray energy, producing roughly 100 times higher intensity than previously achieved.

The current study also involved a significant theoretical component. Because this experiment involves such high intensities and so many electrons, the theory is quite elaborate  you must calculate many different trajectories on the fly for multiple electronic configurations and molecular geometries. Because everything is happening on the same ultrafast time scale, its quite challenging, Young said.

Like focusing the sun onto a thumbnail

The experiment, led by Rolles and Artem Rudenko of Kansas State, took place at LCLSs Coherent X-ray Imaging (CXI) instrument. CXI delivers X-rays with the highest possible intensities achievable at LCLS and records data from samples in the instant before the laser pulse destroys them.

How intense are those X-ray pulses?

They are about a hundred times more intense than what you would get if you focused all the sunlight that hits the Earths surface onto a thumbnail, said LCLS staff scientist and co-author Sebastien Boutet.



For this study, researchers used special mirrors to focus the X-ray beam into a spot just over 100 nanometers in diameter  about a hundredth the size of the one used in most CXI experiments, and a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair. They looked at three types of samples: individual xenon atoms, which have 54 electrons each, and two types of molecules that each contain a single iodine atom, which has 53 electrons.

Heavy atoms around this size are important in biochemical reactions, and researchers sometimes add them to biological samples to enhance contrast for imaging and crystallography applications. But until now, no one had investigated how the ultra-intense CXI beam affects molecules with atoms this heavy.

X-rays trigger electron cascades

The team tuned the energy of the CXI pulses so they would selectively strip the innermost electrons from the xenon or iodine atoms, creating hollow atoms. Based on earlier studies with less energetic X-rays, they thought cascades of electrons from the outer parts of the atom would drop down to fill the vacancies, only to be kicked out themselves by subsequent X-rays. That would leave just a few of the most tightly bound electrons. And, in fact, thats what happened in both the freestanding xenon atoms and the iodine atoms in the molecules.

But in the molecules, the process didnt stop there. The iodine atom, which had a strong positive charge after losing most of its electrons, continued to suck in electrons from neighboring carbon and hydrogen atoms, and those electrons were also ejected, one by one.

Rather than losing 47 electrons, as would be the case for an isolated iodine atom, the iodine in the smaller molecule lost 54, including the ones it grabbed from its neighbors  a level of damage and disruption thats not only higher than would normally be expected, but significantly different in nature.

Results feed into theory to improve experiments

We think the effect was even more important in the larger molecule than in the smaller one, but we dont know how to quantify it yet, Rudenko said. We estimate that more than 60 electrons were kicked out, but we dont actually know where it stopped because we could not detect all the fragments that flew off as the molecule fell apart to see how many electrons were missing. This is one of the open questions we need to study.

For the data analyzed to date, the theoretical model provided excellent agreement with the observed behavior, providing confidence that more complex systems can now be studied, said LCLS director Mike Dunne. This has important benefits for scientists wishing to achieve the highest-resolution images of biological molecules to inform the development of better pharmaceuticals, for example," he said. "These experiments will also guide the development of a next-generation instrument for the LCLS-II upgrade project, which will provide a major leap in capability due to the increase in repetition rate from 120 pulses per second to 1 million.

###

The theory work for the study was led by Robin Santra of the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at DESY and the University of Hamburg in Germany. Other research institutions contributing to the study were Tohoku University in Japan; Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Hamburg Center for Ultrafast Imaging and the National Metrology Institute (PTB) in Germany; the University of Science and Technology in Beijing; Aarhus University in Denmark; Sorbonne University in France; the DOEs Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory; the University of Chicago; Kansas State University; and Northwestern University. Funding for the research came from the DOE Office of Science [Basic Energy Sciences, Chemical Sciences, Geosciences and Biosciences Division] and from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

LCLS is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

SLAC is a multi-program laboratory exploring frontier questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. Located in Menlo Park, California, SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. To learn more, please visit http://www.slac.stanford.edu.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit the Office of Science website.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 8 2017--Neutron scattering has revealed in unprecedented detail new insights into the exotic magnetic behavior of a material that, with a fuller understanding, could pave the way for quantum calculations far beyond the limits of the ones and zeros of a computer's binary code.

A research team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has confirmed magnetic signatures likely related to Majorana fermions--elusive particles that could be the basis for a quantum bit, or qubit, in a two-dimensional graphene-like material, alpha-ruthenium trichloride. The results, published in the journal Science, verify and extend a 2016 Nature Materials study in which the team of researchers from ORNL, University of Tennessee, Max Planck Institute and Cambridge University first proposed this unusual behavior in the material.

"This research is a promise delivered," said lead author Arnab Banerjee, a postdoctoral researcher at ORNL. "Before, we suggested that this compound, alpha-ruthenium trichloride, showed the physics of Majorana fermions, but the material we used was a powder and obscured many important details. Now, we're looking at a large single crystal that confirms that the unusual magnetic spectrum is consistent with the idea of magnetic Majorana fermions."

Majorana fermions were theorized in 1937 by physicist Ettore Majorana. They are unique in that, unlike electrons and protons whose antiparticle counterparts are the positron and the antiproton, particles with equal but opposite charges, Majorana fermions are their own antiparticle and have no charge.

In 2006, physicist Alexei Kitaev developed a solvable theoretical model describing how topologically protected quantum computations could be achieved in a material using quantum spin liquids, or QSLs. QSLs are strange states achieved in solid materials where the magnetic moments, or "spins," associated with electrons exhibit a fluidlike behavior.

"Our neutron scattering measurements are showing us clear signatures of magnetic excitations that closely resemble the model of the Kitaev QSL," said corresponding author Steve Nagler, director of the Quantum Condensed Matter Division at ORNL. "The improvements in the new measurements are like looking at Saturn through a telescope and discovering the rings for the first time."

Because neutrons are microscopic magnets that carry no charge, they can be used to interact with and excite other magnetic particles in the system without compromising the integrity of the material's atomic structure. Neutrons can measure the magnetic spectrum of excitations, revealing how particles behave. The team cooled the material to temperatures near absolute zero (about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit) to allow a direct observation of purely quantum motions.

Using the SEQUOIA instrument at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source allowed the investigators to map out an image of the crystal's magnetic motions in both space and time.

"We can see the magnetic spectrum manifesting itself in the shape of a six-pointed star and how it reflects the underlying honeycomb lattice of the material," said Banerjee. "If we can understand these magnetic excitations in detail then we will be one step closer to finding a material that would enable us to pursue the ultimate dream of quantum computations."

Banerjee and his colleagues are pursuing additional experiments with applied magnetic fields and varying pressures.

"We've applied a very powerful measurement technique to get these exquisite visualizations that are allowing us to directly see the quantum nature of the material," said coauthor Alan Tennant, chief scientist for ORNL's Neutron Sciences Directorate. "Part of the excitement of the experiments is that they're leading the theory. We're seeing these things, and we know they're real."

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The paper's authors also include ORNL's Jiaqiang Yan, Craig A. Bridges, Matthew B. Stone, and Mark D. Lumsden; Cambridge University's Johannes Knolle; the University of Tennessee's David G. Mandrus; and Roderich Moessner from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden.

The study was supported by DOE's Office of Science. The Spallation Neutron Source is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov/.
Two teams of astronomers have harnessed the power of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile to detect the prebiotic complex organic molecule methyl isocyanate [1] in the multiple star system IRAS 16293-2422. One team was co-led by Rafael Martin-Domenech at the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid, Spain, and Victor M. Rivilla, at the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri in Florence, Italy; and the other by Niels Ligterink at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and Audrey Coutens at University College London, United Kingdom.

"This star system seems to keep on giving! Following the discovery of sugars, we've now found methyl isocyanate. This family of organic molecules is involved in the synthesis of peptides and amino acids, which, in the form of proteins, are the biological basis for life as we know it," explain Niels Ligterink and Audrey Coutens [2].

ALMA's capabilities allowed both teams to observe the molecule at several different and characteristic wavelengths across the radio spectrum [3]. They found the unique chemical fingerprints located in the warm, dense inner regions of the cocoon of dust and gas surrounding young stars in their earliest stages of evolution. Each team identified and isolated the signatures of the complex organic molecule methyl isocyanate [4]. They then followed this up with computer chemical modelling and laboratory experiments to refine our understanding of the molecule's origin [5].

IRAS 16293-2422 is a multiple system of very young stars, around 400 light-years away in a large star-forming region called Rho Ophiuchi in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer). The new results from ALMA show that methyl isocyanate gas surrounds each of these young stars.

Earth and the other planets in our Solar System formed from the material left over after the formation of the Sun. Studying solar-type protostars can therefore open a window to the past for astronomers and allow them to observe conditions similar to those that led to the formation of our Solar System over 4.5 billion years ago.

Rafael Martin-Domenech and Victor M. Rivilla, lead authors of one of the papers, comment: "We are particularly excited about the result because these protostars are very similar to the Sun at the beginning of its lifetime, with the sort of conditions that are well suited for Earth-sized planets to form. By finding prebiotic molecules in this study, we may now have another piece of the puzzle in understanding how life came about on our planet."

Niels Ligterink is delighted with the supporting laboratory results: "Besides detecting molecules we also want to understand how they are formed. Our laboratory experiments show that methyl isocyanate can indeed be produced on icy particles under very cold conditions that are similar to those in interstellar space This implies that this molecule -- and thus the basis for peptide bonds -- is indeed likely to be present near most new young solar-type stars."

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Notes

[1] A complex organic molecule is defined in astrochemistry as consisting of six or more atoms, where at least one of the atoms is carbon. Methyl isocyanate contains carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the chemical configuration CH3NCO. This very toxic substance was the main cause of death following the tragic Bhopal industrial accident in 1984.

[2] The system was previously studied by ALMA in 2012 and found to contain molecules of the simple sugar glycolaldehyde, another ingredient for life.

[3] The team led by Rafael Martin-Domenech used new and archive data of the protostar taken across a large range of wavelengths across ALMA's receiver Bands 3, 4 and 6. Niels Ligterink and his colleagues used data from the ALMA Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS), which aims to chart the chemical complexity of IRAS 16293-2422 by imaging the full wavelength range covered by ALMA's Band 7 on very small scales, equivalent to the size of our Solar System.

[4] The teams carried out spectrographic analysis of the protostar's light to determine the chemical constituents. The amount of methyl isocyanate they detected -- the abundance -- with respect to molecular hydrogen and other tracers is comparable to previous detections around two high-mass protostars (i.e. within the massive hot molecular cores of Orion KL and Sagittarius B2.

[5] Martin-Domenech's team chemically modelled gas-grain formation of methyl isocyanate. The observed amount of the molecule could be explained by chemistry on the surface of dust grains in space, followed by chemical reactions in the gas phase. Moreover, Ligterink's team demonstrated that the molecule can be formed at extremely cold interstellar temperatures, down to 15 Kelvin (-258 degrees Celsius), using cryogenic ultra-high-vacuum experiments in their laboratory in Leiden.

More information

This research was presented in two papers: "First Detection of Methyl Isocyanate (CH3NCO) in a solar-type Protostar" by R. Martin-Domenech et al. and "The ALMA-PILS survey: Detection of CH3NCO toward the low-mass protostar IRAS 16293-2422 and laboratory constraints on its formation", by N. F. W. Ligterink et al.. Both papers will appear in the same issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

One team is composed of: R. Martin-Domenech (Centro de Astrobiologia, Spain), V. M. Rivilla (INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy), I. Jimenez-Serra (Queen Mary University of London, UK), D. Quenard (Queen Mary University of London, UK), L. Testi (INAF/Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Italy; ESO, Garching, Germany; Excellence Cluster "Universe", Germany) and J. Martin-Pintado (Centro de Astrobiologia, Spain).

The other team is composed of: N. F. W. Ligterink (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands), A. Coutens (University College London, UK), V. Kofman (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, The Netherlands), H. S. P. Muller (Universitat zu Koln, Germany), R. T. Garrod (University of Virginia, USA), H. Calcutt (Niels Bohr Institute & Natural History Museum, Denmark), S. F. Wampfler (Center for Space and Habitability, Switzerland), J. K. Jrgensen (Niels Bohr Institute & Natural History Museum, Denmark), H. Linnartz (Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, The Netherlands) and E. F. van Dishoeck (Leiden Observatory, The Netherlands; Max-Planck-Institut fur Extraterrestrische Physik, Germany).

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Links

Research paper: Martin-Domenech et al. 2017 - https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1718/eso1718a.pdf

Research paper: Ligterink et al. 2017 - https://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1718/eso1718b.pdf

Photos of ALMA - http://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/category/alma/

Contacts

Rafael Martin-Domenech

Centro de Astrobiologia

Madrid, Spain

Email: rmartin@cab.inta-csic.es

Victor Rivilla

Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri

Florence, Italy

Email: rivilla@arcetri.astro.it

Niels Ligterink

Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics

Leiden Observatory, Netherlands

Email: ligterink@strw.leidenuniv.nl

Richard Hook

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: rhook@eso.org
[June 07, 2017] Power meets Mobility with the new Samsung Galaxy Book

The Galaxy Book is a powerful 2-in-1 Windows 10 device built for professionals on-the-go. MISSISSAUGA, ON, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - Samsung Electronics Canada Inc. today announced the Canadian launch of the Samsung Galaxy Book, a sleek, lightweight Windows 10 2-in-1 built for productivity on-the-go. Available in 12-inch and 10.6-inch, its versatile form factor easily transforms from tablet to notebook and comes with a stylish metal design, fast-charging battery and included in box with an advanced S Pen and keyboard. "At Samsung, we listen to our consumers and design our technology with their needs top of mind. With the increasing shift towards mobile productivity, we are excited to launch this 2-in-1 that combines the power of a PC with the mobility of a tablet, enabling Canadian professionals to work from anywhere," said Paul Brannen, COO and Executive Vice President, Samsung Electronics Canada. About the Samsung Galaxy Book: Powerful Performance: Experience the power of a laptop without worrying about lag thanks to its powerful processor and fast-charging battery for extended usage. As a Windows 10 device with Microsoft Office compiling reports or creating presentations on the enhanced island-style keyboard is quick and easy.





Experience the power of a laptop without worrying about lag thanks to its powerful processor and fast-charging battery for extended usage. As a Windows 10 device with Microsoft Office compiling reports or creating presentations on the enhanced island-style keyboard is quick and easy. Pen with Precision: The precise, pressure responsive S Pen navigates with ease and is great for making notes and sketches. It is included in the box and never requires charging. You can also use Air Command to quickly access useful features and share your creations online with ease.





The precise, pressure responsive S Pen navigates with ease and is great for making notes and sketches. It is included in the box and never requires charging. You can also use Air Command to quickly access useful features and share your creations online with ease. Sync Seamlessly: With Samsung Flow, you can easily switch pause an activity on your smartphone and pick it right up from the same point on your Galaxy Book. You can also unlock your Galaxy Book with your smartphone and change devices as you need to.





With Samsung Flow, you can easily switch pause an activity on your smartphone and pick it right up from the same point on your Galaxy Book. You can also unlock your Galaxy Book with your smartphone and change devices as you need to. Maximum Mobility: Thanks to the detachable keyboard that comes in the box, the Galaxy Book is optimized for a seamless typing experience, enabling on-the-go professional to be productive wherever they work. Retail Availability

The Samsung Galaxy Book is available in silver starting today at all Samsung Experience Stores. The 10.6-inch device will be $899.99 CDN (MSRP) and the 12-inch device will be $1,899.99 CDN (MSRP). For more information, visit:

http://www.samsung.com/ca/tablets/galaxy-book-12-0/

http://www.samsung.com/ca/tablets/galaxy-book-10-w620/ Samsung Galaxy Book Product Specification









Samsung Galaxy Book 10.6-inch Samsung Galaxy Book 12-inch DISPLAY 10.6? TFT FHD (19201280) 12? Super AMOLED FHD (21601440) CHIPSET 7th Gen Intel Core m3 processor, Dual Core 2.6GHz 7th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, Dual Core 3.1GHz MEMORY 4GB + 64GB/128GB eMMC

microSD up to 256GB 8GB+256GB SSDmicroSD up to 256GB CAMERA 5MP FF 13MP AF + 5MP PORT USB 3.1(Type-C), Micro SD USB 3.1(Type-C) x 2ports, Micro SD SENSORS Accelerometer, Hall, Light Accelerometer, Hall, Light WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4G+5GHz, VHT80 MIMO , Bluetooth 4.1 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 2.4G+5GHz, VHT80 MIMO, Bluetooth 4.1 GPS GPS + GLONASS GPS + GLONASS DIMENSION, WEIGHT 261.2 x 179.1 x 8.9 mm,

648g 291.3199.87.4mm,

754g BATTERY CAPACITY* 30.4W / up to 9hrs, Fast Charging 39.04W / up to 11hrs, Fast Charging OS/UPGRADE Windows 10 Home Windows 10 Pro SAMSUNG SERVICES & APPLICATIONS Samsung Notes, Air Command, Samsung Flow Samsung Notes, Air Command, Samsung Flow VIDEO Recording: FHD(1920X1080) @30fps

Playback: 4K(3840X2160) @30fps Recording: UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) @30fps

Playback: 4K(3840X2160) @60fps

* Battery life may vary depending on usage and settings. Based on laboratory testing. About Samsung Electronics Canada, Inc.

Samsung Electronics Canada inspires Canadians to reach their full potential through a transformative ecosystem of products and services that deliver innovation and distinct design to every aspect of their connected lives. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, virtual reality and wearable devices, tablets and digital appliances.. Dedicated to helping make a difference in the lives of Canadians, Samsung's award-winning Hope for Children corporate giving initiatives supports public education, sustainability and health-related issues in communities across the country. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com. Follow Samsung Canada at facebook.com/SamsungCanada, or Instagram @samsungcanada or Twitter @SamsungCanada SOURCE Samsung Electronics Canada

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The volcanic islands of Hawaii represent the youngest end of a 80 million years old and roughly 6,000 kilometres long mountain chain on the ground of the Pacific Ocean. The so-called Hawaiian-Emperor chain consisting of dozens of volcanoes is well known for its peculiar 60 degrees bend. The cause for this bend has been heavily debated for decades. One explanation is an abrupt change in the motion of the Pacific tectonic plate, the opposite model states southward drift of the mantle plume that has sourced the chain since its beginning 80 million years ago. Apparently both processes play an important role, shows a new study in Nature Communications, published by a group of scientists from the University of Oslo, German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ Potsdam, and Utrecht University.

Many volcanic ocean islands are created by columnar shaped hot upwellings called mantle plumes that originate near the ~3000 km deep base of Earth's mantle. Mantle plumes are not much influenced by surface motions of the tectonic plates that slowly move over them. Hence, long linear chains of plume-sourced volcanoes that get older and older with increasing distance from active hotspots can be tracked for hundreds to thousands of kilometres. In the Hawaiian hotspot trail, the Hawaii islands are the youngest in the chain that stretches nearly 6,000 km to Detroit seamount in the northwest Pacific, where volcanism occurred about 80 million years ago. An unprecedented 60 degrees bend characterizes the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain, dividing it into the older Emperor Chain and the younger Hawaiian Chain. The bend has been dated to 47 Ma (Fig. 1).

"The ultimate cause for the formation of the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend (HEB) was a prominent change in the Pacific plate motion at 47 Ma", says the lead author of the new study, Trond Torsvik from the University of Oslo and visiting researcher at GFZ at the moment. The team affirms a hypothesis by the US-geophysicist Jason Morgan who proposed that already in the early 1970s. "But it is not that simple as it was suggested forty years ago", says Torsvik.

Jason Morgan was the first to use hotspots as a reference frame for global plate motions. In his model mantle plumes -- which are manifested by hotspots at the surface -- were considered fixed in the mantle, and the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend was attributed to a simple directional change of the Pacific plate motion (Fig. 1). But his plate model with fixed hotspots became challenged from the 1980s.

"Since the late 1990s it has become clear that hotspots are not totally fixed", says GFZs Bernhard Steinberger, one of the co-authors of the paper. That is now generally accepted, he adds, and mantle flow models predict that the Hawaiian hotspot has drifted slowly to the south. "But some recent studies have argued that rapid southward motion of the hotspot before 47 Ma can explain the formation of the bend without requiring Pacific plate motion change", he says. "Such a scenario has become attractive because the geology of the plates surrounding the Pacific shows no clear evidence for a Pacific plate motion change."

The new study shows clearly why this simply does not work. It would require an unrealistically high rate of hotspot motion of about 42 cm/year which would be much faster than the average speed of tectonic plates. Moreover, this would imply that the Emperor Chain was created in just five million years and Detroit Seamount should only be 52 million years old (Fig. 2a). This prediction is obviously falsified by the recorded Detroit Seamount island ages of about 80 Ma (Fig. 1).

"Alternatively, a slower hotspot motion towards the WSW could explain both geometry and ages of the Emperor chain", says Steinberger. However, such a direction of motion is inconsistent with mantle convection models.

"Our paper is a good example of how very simple simulations of plate and hotspot kinematics can be used to explore which geodynamic scenarios for the formation of the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend are possible, and which ones are not", says Pavel Doubrovine from the University of Oslo, another co-author on the paper. "We cannot avoid the conclusion that the 60 degrees bend is predominantly caused by a directional change in the Pacific plate motion." Yet, some southward plume motion is required (blue line in Fig. 2b), otherwise the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain would be around 800 kilometres shorter.

"Explaining the geometry, length and age progression of the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain, requires both: the change in the direction of plate motion and the movement of the hotspot", states Torsvik. "If, after more than two decades of debating the end-member scenarios of plate motion change versus hotspot drift, geophysicists will be able to agree that neither of the two is satisfactory - then we can move forward and address a more interesting question: what actually drove the Pacific plate motion to change at about 47 million years ago?" Hopefully, it will not take further 40 years to get an answer to this, he adds.

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Title of the original study: Torsvik, T.H., Doubrovine, P.V., Steinberger, B, Gaina, C., Spakman, W., Domeier, M. (2017). Pacific plate motion change caused the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend. Nat. Commun. 8, 15660 doi: 10.1038/ncomms15660.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15660

Detailed captions for the figures attached:

Fig. 1: The Hawaiian-Emperor Chain is an example of a hotspot track - a trail of volcanic islands and seamounts created on a lithospheric plate as the plate slowly shifts over a spot of localized melting sourced by a jet of hot material rising from the deep mantle (mantle plume). With the advent of the plate tectonics theory in the 1960s, it was quickly recognized that the bend at the junction between the older Emperor segment of the chain (~80 to 47 million-years-old) and the younger Hawaiian trail likely reflects a prominent change in the motion of the Pacific plate in middle Eocene time. This explanation was prevalent until the 1990s. But then new geophysical evidence came to light suggesting that the Hawaiian plume itself was drifting to the south during the formation of the Emperor seamounts. Some researchers dismissed the plate motion change, arguing that the southward hotspot drift that ceased at ~47 Ma was all that was needed to create the bend.

Fig. 2 a: Simulating the Hawaiian-Emperor Bend: A simulation that assumes that the Pacific plate moves with a constant angular velocity to the north-west (8 cm/year). To produce a 60o bend with the Pacific plate not changing its direction and velocity and purely southward hotspot drift (~19o of north-south motion) requires an extreme rate of hotspot motion (42 cm/year), which would imply that the Emperor Chain has been created in just five Myrs and Detroit Seamount is only 52 Myrs old.

Fig. 2 b: The yellow line represents the actual track of the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain (as in Fig. 1) and the red line shows a track that would be produced by the motion of the Pacific plate, that changes at 47 Ma, if the hotspot were fixed relative to the mantle. You see that the red line is displaced southward compared with the Hawaiian-Emperor Chain, and that is the effect of southward hotspot drift for the past 80 million years (blue line), which has lengthened the Emperor Chain by about 800 km.
Scientists have armed immune cells with a new surface molecule. This causes the cells to respond particularly aggressively when they encounter a protein that tumors actually use to camouflage themselves from the immune system. Researchers from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and various partners introduced the method in 'Cancer Research'.

With numerous different entities and millions of people affected, cancer continues to be one of the most prevalent diseases around the world. Scientists are working to find new treatment possibilities, and have been concentrating on the body's own immune system for some time.

"Because cancer emerges from the body's own cells, it is usually difficult for the immune system to distinguish good cells from bad ones," explains Prof. Dr. Elfriede Noner, head of the Tissue Control of Immunocytes Research Group at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen. "But there are ways to support the immune system in recognizing and combating cancer cells."

Focus on T-cell therapy

One approach is the so-called adoptive T-cell therapy, which involves removing immune cells from the body and genetically arming them. The cells are given new structures on the surface that accurately lead them to the cancer cells.

One limitation in this form of therapy is that the binding between the immune cell and the cancer cell is often somewhat weak. "Although this binding can be artificially strengthened, doing so also increases the risk of unwanted binding to healthy structures in the body," explains study leader Noner. She and her team were therefore searching for a different way to improve the defense provided by the immune cells.

Attack instead of sleep mode

In the current work, the researchers present a new surface molecule which comprises two halves. On the outside, it preferentially binds to the PD-L1 molecule, which tumor cells often form in order to thwart the attacking immune cells. On the inside of the T-cells, however, this binding does not activate a sleep mode (which the natural protein would do), and instead activates the T-cell's killer program, making it especially aggressive. Experimental models showed that T-cells armed in this way proliferate more strongly in the tumors and destroyed more tumor cells.

The next step will be to confirm the findings in clinical studies. "If that step succeeds, the approach would enlarge the arsenal of T-cells suitable for adoptive T-cell therapy," Elfriede Noner states. "This could not only make the treatment more effective but would allow it to be used in more patients in the framework of personalized medicine."

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Further Information

The work was the result of close cooperation with the team headed by Dr. Matthias Leisegang from the Institute of Immunology at the Charite Berlin Buch Campus and Prof. Dr. Dolores J. Schendel, CEO and CSO at Medigene AG. The authors Ramona Schlenker, Luis Felipe Olguin Contreras, Anja Disovic and Julia Schnappinger attend the Helmholtz Graduate School Environmental Health, or HELENA for short.

Original Publication:

Schlenker, R. et al. (2017): Chimeric PD-1:28 receptor upgrades low-avidity T cells and restores effector function of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for adoptive cell therapy. Cancer Research, DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-16-1922

The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, the German Research Center for Environmental Health, pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich and has about 2,300 staff members. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 18 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members. http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en

Contact for the media:

Department of Communication, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg - Tel. +49 89 3187 2238 - Fax: +49 89 3187 3324 - E-mail: presse@helmholtz-muenchen.de

Scientific Contact:

Prof. Dr. Elfriede Noner, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Immunoanalytics - Research Group Tissue Control of Immunocytes & Core Facility, Marchioninistr. 25, 81377 Munchen - Tel. +49 89 3187 1303 - E-mail: noessner@helmholtz-muenchen.de
Researchers have studied how light can be used to "see" the quantum nature of an electronic material. They managed to do that by capturing light in a net of carbon atoms and slowing down light it down so that it moves almost as slow as the electrons in the graphene. Then something special happens: electrons and light start to move in concert, unveiling their quantum nature at such large scale that it could observed with a special type of microscope.

The experiments were performed with ultra-high quality graphene. To excite and image the ultra-slow ripples of light in the graphene (also called plasmons), the researchers used a special antenna for light that scans over the surface at a distance of a few nanometers. With this near field nanoscope they saw that the light ripples on the graphene moved more than 300 times slower than light, and dramatically different from what is expected from classical physics laws.

The work has been published in Science by ICFO researchers Dr. Mark Lundeberg, Dr. Achim Woessner, led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Frank Koppens, in collaboration with Prof. Hillenbrand from Nanogune, Prof. Polini from IIT and Prof. Hone from Columbia University.

In reference to the accomplished experiments, Prof. Koppens comments: "Usually it is very difficult to probe the quantum world, and to do so it requires ultra-low temperatures; here we could just "see" it with light and even at room temperature".

This technique paves now the way for exploring many new types quantum materials, including superconductors where electricity can flow without energy consumption, or topological materials that allow for quantum information processing with topological qubits. In addition, Prof. Hillenbrand states that "this could just be the beginning of a new era of near field nanoscopy".

Prof. Polini adds that "This discovery may eventually lead to understanding in a truly microscopic fashion complex quantum phenomena that occur when matter is subject to ultra-low temperatures and very high magnetic fields, like the fractional quantum Hall effect"

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This research has been partially supported by the European Research Council, the European Graphene Flagship, the Government of Catalonia, Fundacio Cellex and the Severo Ochoa Excellence program of the Government of Spain.

Reference to the paper:

This paper will be published online by the journal Science on THURSDAY, 8 June 2017 after 2:00pm US EST with the title:

"Tunning quantum non-local effects in graphene plasmonics" and link: http://science.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aan2735

Link to Graphene at ICFO: http://graphene.icfo.eu/

Link to the research led by ICREA Prof. at ICFO Frank Koppens: https://www.icfo.es/research/groups-details?group_id=31 ABOUT ICFO:

ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences, member of The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, is a research center located in a specially designed, 14.000 m2-building situated in the Mediterranean Technology Park in the metropolitan area of Barcelona. It currently hosts 400 people, including research group leaders, post-doctoral researchers, PhD students, research engineers, and staff. ICFOnians are organized in 27 research groups working in 60 state-of-the-art research laboratories, equipped with the latest experimental facilities and supported by a range of cutting-edge facilities for nanofabrication, characterization, imaging and engineering.

The Severo Ochoa distinction awarded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, as well as 14 ICREA Professorships, 25 European Research Council grants and 6 Fundacio Cellex Barcelona Nest Fellowships, demonstrate the centre's dedication to research excellence, as does the institute's consistent appearance in top worldwide positions in international rankings. From an industrial standpoint, ICFO participates actively in the European Technological Platform Photonics21 and is also very proactive in fostering entrepreneurial activities and spin-off creation. The center participates in incubator activities and seeks to attract venture capital investment. ICFO hosts an active Corporate Liaison Program that aims at creating collaborations and links between industry and ICFO researchers. To date, ICFO has created 5 successful start-up companies.
An international African collaboration has turned to statistical analysis to determine the cost effectiveness of major HIV/AIDS interventions in South Africa with a view to advising policy makers on the optimal approach to managing the disease. Details are reported this month in the International Journal of Economics and Business Research.

Josue Mbonigaba of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in Durban, South Africa, working with Saidou Baba Oumar of The University of Bamenda, in Bambili, and the University of Buea, both in Cameroon point out that a shortage of resources in South Africa to address the high burden of HIV/AIDS requires that different strategies must be adopted in rural and urban regions. The team explains that despite major advances in coping with AIDS elsewhere in the world, South Africa continues to suffer the burden of this devastating disease with many millions living with HIV/AIDS (ca 5.51 million in 2015). The high prevalence is a consequence of an exponential increase in infections through the late 1990s and early 2000s, which the team attributes to the slow response of the government to the crisis.

The team has used Markov state transition models, the spectrum policy modeling system and sensitivity analysis to estimate the cost-effectiveness (CE) of different interventions. The interventions discussed are: prevention of mother-to-child transmission of the virus, use of highly active antiretroviral drugs in adults and in children.

They have found that running HIV/AIDS interventions and expecting to achieve the same cost effectiveness across both rural and urban areas is erroneous. They point out that, factors affecting cost effectiveness, such as earlier or increased access to interventions have more significant influence in rural areas than they do in urban areas. "This result is crucial for South African policymakers, who have been seeking to address the dichotomy between rural and urban areas," the team reports. "Factors linking earlier access and usage of interventions include stigmatization and other cultural factors." As such, these issues must be addressed if interventions are to have the deepest impact and bring South Africa out of this medical crisis sooner rather than later.

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Mbonigaba, J. and Oumar, S.B. (2017) 'The cost-effectiveness of major HIV/AIDS interventions in rural and urban areas in South Africa', Int. J. Economics and Business Research, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp.413-434.
Astronomers have used the sharp vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to repeat a century-old test of Einstein's general theory of relativity. The Hubble team measured the mass of a white dwarf, the burned-out remnant of a normal star, by seeing how much it deflects the light from a background star.

This observation represents the first time Hubble has witnessed this type of effect created by a star. The data provide a solid estimate of the white dwarf's mass and yield insights into theories of the structure and composition of the burned-out star.

First proposed in 1915, Einstein's general relativity theory describes how massive objects warp space, which we feel as gravity. The theory was experimentally verified four years later when a team led by British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington measured how much the sun's gravity deflected the image of a background star as its light grazed the sun during a solar eclipse, an effect called gravitational microlensing.

Astronomers can use this effect to see magnified images of distant galaxies or, at closer range, to measure tiny shifts in a star's apparent position on the sky. Researchers had to wait a century, however, to build telescopes powerful enough to detect this gravitational warping phenomenon caused by a star outside our solar system. The amount of deflection is so small only the sharpness of Hubble could measure it.

Hubble observed the nearby white dwarf star Stein 2051B as it passed in front of a background star. During the close alignment, the white dwarf's gravity bent the light from the distant star, making it appear offset by about 2 milliarcseconds from its actual position. This deviation is so small that it is equivalent to observing an ant crawl across the surface of a quarter from 1,500 miles away.

Using the deflection measurement, the Hubble astronomers calculated that the white dwarf's mass is roughly 68 percent of the sun's mass. This result matches theoretical predictions.

The technique opens a window on a new method to determine a star's mass. Normally, if a star has a companion, astronomers can determine its mass by measuring the double-star system's orbital motion. Although Stein 2051B has a companion, a bright red dwarf, astronomers cannot accurately measure its mass because the stars are too far apart. The stars are at least 5 billion miles apart - almost twice Pluto's present distance from the sun.

"This microlensing method is a very independent and direct way to determine the mass of a star," explained lead researcher Kailash Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. "It's like placing the star on a scale: the deflection is analogous to the movement of the needle on the scale."

Sahu will present his team's findings at 11:15 a.m. (EDT), June 7, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas.

The Hubble analysis also helped the astronomers to independently verify the theory of how a white dwarf's radius is determined by its mass, an idea first proposed in 1935 by Indian American astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. "Our measurement is a nice confirmation of white-dwarf theory, and it even tells us the internal composition of a white dwarf," said team member Howard Bond of Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

Sahu's team identified Stein 2051B and its background star after combing through data of more than 5,000 stars in a catalog of nearby stars that appear to move quickly across the sky. Stars with a higher apparent motion across the sky have a greater chance of passing in front of a distant background star, where the deflection of light can be measured.

After identifying Stein 2051B and mapping the background star field, the researchers used Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to observe the white dwarf seven different times over a two-year period as it moved past the selected background star.

The Hubble observations were challenging and time-consuming. The research team had to analyze the white dwarf's velocity and the direction it was moving in order to predict when it would arrive at a position to bend the starlight so the astronomers could observe the phenomenon with Hubble.

The astronomers also had to measure the tiny amount of deflected starlight. "Stein 2051B appears 400 times brighter than the distant background star," said team member Jay Anderson of STScI, who led the analysis to precisely measure the positions of stars in the Hubble images. "So measuring the extremely small deflection is like trying to see a firefly move next to a light bulb. The movement of the insect is very small, and the glow of the light bulb makes it difficult to see the insect moving." In fact, the slight movement is about 1,000 times smaller than the measurement made by Eddington in his 1919 experiment.

Stein 2051B is named for its discoverer, Dutch Roman Catholic priest and astronomer Johan Stein. It resides 17 light-years from Earth and is estimated to be about 2.7 billion years old. The background star is about 5,000 light-years away.

The researchers plan to use Hubble to conduct a similar microlensing study with Proxima Centauri, our solar system's closest stellar neighbor.

The team's result will appear in the journal Science on June 9.

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The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.

For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/hubble

Donna Weaver / Ray Villard

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

410-338-4493 / 410-338-4514

dweaver@stsci.edu / villard@stsci.edu

Kailash Sahu

Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland

410-338-4930

ksahu@stsci.edu
COLUMBUS, Ohio - While climate change is expected to lead to more violence related to food scarcity, new research suggests that the strength of a country's government plays a vital role in preventing uprisings.

"A capable government is even more important to keeping the peace than good weather," said Bear Braumoeller, co-author of the study and associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

While previous studies had examined the impact of climate change-induced weather patterns on violence and the increased danger of violence in weak or failing states, this is the first study to demonstrate that the combination of the two risk factors is even more dangerous than they would be separately.

Braumoeller conducted the study with his former doctoral students Benjamin Jones, now at the University of Mississippi, and Eleonora Mattiacci, now at Amherst College.

Their results appear in the Journal of Peace Research.

"We've already started to see climate change as an issue that won't just put the coasts under water, but as something that could cause food riots in some parts of the world," Braumoeller said.

Extreme weather such as droughts and floods could hurt agricultural production in some countries, leading to violence there or elsewhere by people who are desperate for food.

"Climate-induced food scarcity is going to become an increasingly big issue and we wanted to understand which countries are most threatened by it," he said.

The researchers estimated the effects of food insecurity and state vulnerability on the occurrence of violent uprisings in Africa for the years 1991 to 2011.

The researchers used a variety of measurements for both food shocks that lead to violence and to gauge the vulnerability of countries.

For the climate-related causes of food shocks, the researchers analyzed rainfall, temperature and - importantly - the international prices of food, including sudden increases in prices.

"We recognized that countries that imported food could be impacted by climate shocks in other parts of the world that suddenly increased prices, even if they weren't experiencing any significant weather impacts themselves," Braumoeller said.

When examining countries' vulnerabilities, the researchers analyzed a host of factors including a country's dependence on agricultural production, its imports, the strength of its political institutions and its wealth.

"We found that the most vulnerable countries are those that have weak political institutions, are relatively poor and rely more on agriculture," he said.

"Less vulnerable countries can better handle the problems that droughts or food price fluctuations create."

These results suggest ways that the United States and the worldwide community can respond to these challenges.

Addressing the vulnerabilities of countries is "crucial to breaking the link between food insecurity and violence," Braumoeller said.

That means more than providing food aid to offset shortages in the short-term. More broadly, efforts should be focused on strengthening government institutions in vulnerable countries and helping them invest in "green growth" policies aimed at increasing economic growth while fostering resilience to climate shocks, he said.

"Development aid is important now and it is likely to be even more important in the future as we look for ways to increase climate resilience," Braumoeller said.

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Contact: Bear Braumoeller, Braumoeller.1@osu.edu

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu
The human brain naturally makes its best guess when making a decision, and studying those guesses can be very revealing about the brain's inner workings. But neuroscientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine said a full understanding of the complexity of the human brain will require new research strategies that better simulate real-world conditions.

Xaq Pitkow and Dora Angelaki, both faculty members in Baylor's Department of Neuroscience and Rice's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the brain's ability to perform "approximate probabilistic inference" cannot be truly studied with simple tasks that are "ill-suited to expose the inferential computations that make the brain special."

A new article by the researchers suggests the brain uses nonlinear message-passing between connected, redundant populations of neurons that draw upon a probabilistic model of the world. That model, coarsely passed down via evolution and refined through learning, simplifies decision-making based on general concepts and its particular biases.

The article, which lays out a broad research agenda for neuroscience, is featured this month in a special edition of Neuron, a journal published by Cell Press. The edition presents ideas that first appeared as part of a workshop at the University of Copenhagen last September titled "How Does the Brain Work?"

"Evolution has given us what we call a good model bias," Pitkow said. "It's been known for a couple of decades that very simple neural networks can compute any function, but those universal networks can be enormous, requiring extraordinary time and resources.

"In contrast, if you have the right kind of model -- not a completely general model that could learn anything, but a more limited model that can learn specific things, especially the kind of things that often happen in the real world -- then you have a model that's biased. In this sense, bias can be a positive trait. We use it to be sensitive to the right things in the world that we inhabit. Of course, the flip side is that when our brain's bias is not matched to reality, it can lead to severe problems."

The researchers said simple tests of brain processes, like those in which subjects choose between two options, provide only simple results. "Before we had access to large amounts of data, neuroscience made huge strides from using simple tasks, and they'll remain very useful," Pitkow said. "But for computations that we think are most important about the brain, there are things you just can't reveal with some of those tasks." Pitkow and Angelaki wrote that tasks should incorporate more diversity -- like nuisance variables and uncertainty -- to better simulate real-world conditions that the brain evolved to handle.

They suggested that the brain infers solutions based on statistical crosstalk between redundant population codes. Population codes are responses by collections of neurons that are sensitive to certain inputs, like the shape or movement of an object. Pitkow and Angelaki think that to better understand the brain, it can be more useful to describe what these populations compute, rather than precisely how each individual neuron computes it. Pitkow said this means thinking "at the representational level" rather than the "mechanistic level," as described by the influential vision scientist David Marr.

The research has implications for artificial intelligence, another interest of both researchers.

"A lot of artificial intelligence has done impressive work lately, but it still fails in some spectacular ways," Pitkow said. "They can play the ancient game of Go and beat the best human player in the world, as done recently by DeepMind's AlphaGo about a decade before anybody expected. But AlphaGo doesn't know how to pick up the Go pieces. Even the best algorithms are extremely specialized. Their ability to generalize is often still pretty poor. Our brains have a much better model of the world; We can learn more from less data. Neuroscience theories suggest ways to translate experiments into smarter algorithms that could lead to a greater understanding of general intelligence."

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Pitkow is an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence at Baylor and is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice. Angelaki is the Wilhelmina Robertson Professor of Neurosurgery at Baylor and an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering and of psychology at Rice.

The research was supported by the McNair Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Britton Sanderford, the Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity via the Department of Interior/Interior Business Center, the Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain and the National Institutes of Health.

Read the abstract at http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(17)30466-X

This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/2017/06/07/simple-tasks-dont-test-brains-true-complexity/

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews

Related materials:

Xaq Lab: http://xaqlab.com

Angelaki Lab: https://www.bcm.edu/research/labs/dora-angelaki

Neuroscience-Inspired Networks for Artificial Intelligence (NINNI): http://www.ninai.org

Rice Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: https://www.ece.rice.edu

Baylor Department of Neuroscience: https://www.bcm.edu/departments/neuroscience
People tend to associate round names such as "Bob" and "Lou" with round-faced individuals, and they have an inherent preference for names and faces that go well together. This is according to David Barton and Jamin Halberstadt of the University of Otago in New Zealand. In the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, published by Springer, they investigated the so-called "bouba/kiki effect." It refers to people's tendency to associate rounded objects with names that require rounding of the mouth to pronounce.

In a series of studies Barton and Halberstadt tested whether people's names are judged more suitable when they are congruent in shape with the people they denote. They also investigated whether people whose names match their faces will be judged more positively than people with incongruent names.

In the first experiment, participants ranked which of six suggested names went best with twenty overly exaggerated round or angular male caricatured faces. The participants consistently matched nine of the ten round faces, and eight of the ten angular faces with so-called round (George, Lou) and angular (Pete, Kirk) names, respectively. In a second experiment, using unmanipulated photographs of real male faces, participants assigned shape-congruent names to 14 out of 16 round faces, and 15 out of 16 angular faces. Further studies revealed that participants like another person more when they learn that the person has a name that matches their face, and participants' estimations of others, in fact, diminishes if this is not the case.

To put these findings into practice, Barton and Halberstadt turned to politics. The researchers computed "matching scores" for 158 candidates for the United States Senate, based on independent ratings of the roundness of each candidate's face and name. They found that well-named candidates (those whose faces matched their names) had an advantage. Candidates earned on average 10 more percentage points in their elections when their names fit their faces very well, versus very poorly.

"Those with congruent names earned a greater proportion of votes than those with incongruent names," explains Barton. "The fact that candidates with extremely well-fitting names won their seats by a larger margin - 10 points- than is obtained in most American presidential races suggests the provocative idea that the relation between perceptual and bodily experience could be a potent source of bias in some circumstances."

"Overall, our results tell a consistent story," Halberstadt explains. "People's names, like shape names, are not entirely arbitrary labels. Face shapes produce expectations about the names that should denote them, and violations of those expectations carry affective implications, which in turn feed into more complex social judgments, including voting decisions."

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Reference: Barton, D.N. & Halberstadt, J. (2017). A social Bouba/Kiki effect: A bias for people whose names match their faces, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review DOI: 10.3758/s13423-017-1304-x
The motivation to own a handgun for self-protection is not just about fear of crime, according to the model proposed by Wolfgang Stroebe and Pontus Leander (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), and Arie W. Kruglanski (University of Maryland), it is also about a more general sense of threat emanating from "the belief that the world is an unpredictable and dangerous place and that society is at the brink of collapse." These dual layers of threat also predict beliefs that people have the right to shoot and kill in self-defense and that people should have broad 2nd Amendment rights.

The study, "Is It a Dangerous World Out There?: The Motivational Bases of American Gun Ownership" appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

In terms of human behavior, "it is not just concrete, specific threats that change our behavior, but also vague, general ideas about threat," write Stroebe and colleagues. "Even if we cannot pinpoint exactly why we feel threatened, the fact that we are threatened at all can lead us to want to own handguns for self-protection and advocate for more expansive rights to carry and use them." The authors developed a new theory based on psychological principles, to better understand how these behaviors and beliefs influence American gun owners.

The researchers' first three studies explored their model for understanding gun ownership beliefs. The authors conducted surveys of 839 men in the U.S, 404 gun owners and 435 nonowners.

In their first study, they used survey data to compare gun owners with nonowners to tap possible differences in their gun-related beliefs. In their following two studies, the researchers focused exclusively on the gun owner survey to test the predictions derived from their two-component theory.

In support of their theory they found that fear of crime alone did not explain the need for personal protection, "Different forces are making people feel threatened in different ways, and yet these different types of threat both correlate with increased handgun ownership and stronger beliefs that people have a right to kill in self-defense," according to Stroebe. Whereas fear of crime was mainly influenced by past crime victimization, the more general sense of threat about the world being a dangerous place, was "instead more strongly influenced by a person's (conservative) political beliefs than by past experience with crime victimization."

The researchers conducted their first three surveys in May and June 2016, before the Orlando Nightclub shootings. They conducted an additional survey a week after the event, replicating their earlier studies with a new group of male gun owners, to see if the mass shooting influenced their beliefs.

"We expected the Orlando mass shooting to move the needle on the belief systems of gun owners, so we were surprised that there was practically no effect," says Stroebe.

The authors note that the threat and belief system they tested mainly applies to handgun owners and not owners who only have long guns.

Based on their research, "Long guns such as bolt-action rifles, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, are linked to hunting and not really linked to a sense of threat," says Stroebe, "Although the gun owners in our sample owned an average of 4 guns each, we saw no evidence that any of our findings apply to owners of long guns only - that is, those who do not own a handgun."

The framework presumably only applies to the United States. "Guns have been part of US history since the American frontier and the right to own a gun is enshrined in the Constitution, which may change the way Americans think about guns relative to people who live in other countries and cultures," says Stroebe.

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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (PSPB), published monthly, is an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). SPSP promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. The Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world. Follow us on Twitter, @SPSPnews and find us on facebook.com/SPSP.org.
In new paper, researchers examine the diverging trajectories of the two communities, and what each could learn from the other

BUFFALO, N.Y. - The regulatory approaches to marijuana and tobacco in the United States are on decidedly different paths and, according to researchers from the U.S. and Australia, neither side appears interested in learning from the other.

"The two policy communities have shown very little interest in each other's policy debates," Wayne Hall and Lynn Kozlowski write in a new paper published in the journal Addiction.

Hall, the lead author, is a professor at the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University of Queensland, Australia, and is an expert on marijuana and other drug use issues. Kozlowski is professor of community health and health behavior in the University at Buffalo's School of Public Health and Health Professions and an expert on tobacco use and control.

Their paper takes a look at the diverging trajectories of cannabis and tobacco policies in the United States and attempts to explain some of the reasoning behind the different paths, while discussing possible implications.

For tobacco control, the push is toward what Kozlowski calls "a kind of prohibition," mandating that only very low nicotine cigarettes are sold. The cannabis policy community, however, is advocating for quite the opposite -- legal recreational use of marijuana.

Why are the approaches so different?

"One group perceives the downside of banning products and accepts an inevitability of some recreational use," Kozlowski said, referring to marijuana advocates, "and the other does not accept recreational use and seeks a kind of prohibition."

The differences can also be explained by examining who's part of each group. The tobacco control community includes tobacco researchers, public health advocates, non-governmental organizations and government officials. The cannabis community is more diverse, Hall and Kozlowski point out, noting that it comprises civil liberties lawyers, civil rights advocates and supporters of reforming drug laws.

The cannabis community has another thing going for it: the fact that the legalization of recreational marijuana was preceded by legalizing the drug for medical use. In a way, that has softened the response to legalizing marijuana for recreational use, Hall and Kozlowski say.

"If you think the product is able to cure some ills, then that can justify use. The fun of it becomes a kind of bonus," Kozlowski said.

Despite the differences, the two policy communities could learn a few lessons from each other. "For cannabis, assume that 'big cannabis' -- large legal cannabis businesses -- will behave with the same limited sense of corporate responsibility as has 'big tobacco,'" Kozlowski said. "For tobacco, give up on moving toward a prohibition of traditional cigarettes -- an endgame -- and use public health tools to minimize the use of the most dangerous tobacco products, cigarettes."

The paper also points out that the challenge for public policy makers in regulating marijuana is in applying what has worked in alcohol and tobacco control. That includes such policies as taxes based on potency to mitigate heavy use and dependence, limiting availability through trading hours and the number of outlets that sell the product, and restricting promotional activities.

"Lessons can be drawn from cannabis policy that are relevant to tobacco, and vice versa. Neither a focus on 'endgames' nor on burgeoning, legal retail markets should be approached uncritically," Kozlowski said.

In the end, Kozlowski added, "The proper regulation of recreational drug products that have some adverse effects should be to restrict youth access, promote cessation of use in those who desire to quit, promote less-harmful modes of use by providing accurate and useful information to consumers."

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[June 07, 2017] Epic, Allscripts and Cerner Signal Paradigm Shift in Population Health Management

TAMPA, Fla., June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- During the first quarter of 2017, Black Book surveyed 140 chief information officers (CIOs), 159 chief financial officers (CFOs) and 448 hospital managers involved in planning and executing population health initiatives within the next 12 months. Ninety percent of the collective respondents revealed that future population health management (PHM) systems will essentially be projected to perform as next-generation patient accounting systems. Ideally, these systems will be able to identify a plethora of patient groups and predict where, when and how to best engage them. In addition, they should have the ability to coordinate care across the entire healthcare continuum, support care team collaboration and measure the activities, outcomes and overall performance of providers within the network. "Where the industry is on its journey, however, we see that progress remains nascent, but the activity and energy is high," says Doug Brown, managing partner of Black Book Research. "Clearly, the best articulation of this energy is coming from the leading electronic medical record (EMR) suppliers, namely Epic Systems, Allscripts and Cerner, that have previously provided fee-for-service (FFS) platforms and are now fully investing in new, non-FFS tethered platforms to manage population health." The shift from quantity-based healthcare to quality-based patient-centric care is clearly the impetus for this change. "It's true that many systems were developed to track separate healthcare encounters in order to get paid in a fee-for-service reimbursement model," says Alan Hutchison, vice president of Connect & Population Health at Epic Systems. "Those systems are struggling to accommodate the need to transition to a holistic understanding of their patients, with cost and utilization tracked at every point along the care continuum. This leaves single-solution systems (SSSs) and systems built through acquisition less able to effectively understand the total cost of care and where the greatest opportunities are to reduce variation, improve outcomes and lower costs." Some EMR systems have handled managed care for years, and those that have deep experience with capitation and managed care will be better able to translate that knowledge into value-based initiatives, Brown says. "Systems like Epic that were developed from the start as a single, longitudinal patient record spanning inpatient, outpatient, post-acute and billing will have the advantage." Optum, Philips and IBM are also fast developing solutions to gain a foothold in the market. "To see the leading EMR companies building from scratch and being considered by non-EMR buyers  such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), health plans and government agencies  speaks to the progress and momentum of these vendors," Brown says. Maximizing data to improve engagement and outcomes Capturing data that spans the health continuum can seem overwhelming, but organizations need to think comprehensively and meaningfully when it comes to data, says Ryan Hamilton, senior vice president of population health at Cerner. "Healthcare stakeholders can make more informed decisions if they can assemble and react to a comprehensive health profile that reflects a person's health and care experiences across time and care settings." Hutchison agrees: "What's exciting is that we can now go further, consolidating multiple sources of data across electronic health records (EHRs), payers, pharmacies and consumers into a single view for providers, care managers, patients and affiliates." We know the majority of a patient's health is impacted by factors outside the traditional walls of hospitals and clinics. Users need an integrated social and community platform to understand the location and quality of community-based services, their associated outcomes and whether their patients are participating and benefiting from them. This will aggregate richer data sets that include environmental and socio-demographic factors to fully understand the social determinants of health impacting their patients. "Population health is shifting the focus of healthcare from managing episodic encounters to managing individuals across the continuum," Hamilton says. "Organizations are redefining their boundaries by building clinically integrated networks, and engaging and empowering consumers to manage their own health and care. They're increasingly looking to integrate the Internet of things (IoT), social care, public health, transportation, community resource and retail capabilities. Risk-holding organizations  health systems, health plans, ACOs, employers and government agencies  are looking for enterprise platforms that can span the heterogeneous nature of the emerging networks, but allow for deep integration into the provider workflow." Cerner, in particular, is one EMR that's been talking about the need for clinically driven revenue cycle mnagement (RCM) for some time, Brown says. "We now are envisioning a world where more clinical, risk-based scenarios are input upstream in the workflow versus being worked on the financial backend."



Gathering actionable data from a plethora of places

Black Book's survey reported expansion around techniques and methods available to aggregate data from a variety of sources, as consumers demand more access and higher security measures to protect their private medical information. From the consumer-focused perspective, remote patient monitoring  including Livongo, FitBit and Apple Watch  is delivering more data as an increasing number of medical centers launch home patient monitoring tools. "There is an overriding potential of the IoT to integrate wearables into patient portals, EMRs and PHM solutions," Brown says.

The continued expansion of functionality into patient portals and more secure texting and mobile engagement with the patient is evidenced by Cerner's leveraging of America Well's network, for example. "The management of chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart failure, are life-long journeys," Hamilton says. "Life occurs outside the care setting in our homes, at work, at schools and in our communities. Technology has transformed how we connect with friends and family, manage our finances, access transportation and shop. Consumers now expect a unified, personalized, mobile-optimized healthcare experience, as well. By building that sentiment into a consumer engagement strategy, providers give patients better tools to manage their conditions on a daily basis, including reminders, education and real-time access to their care teams so they can intervene early and avoid complications." For Medicaid-sponsored patients, there is tremendous potential for collaboration between public and private sectors. Medicaid enterprises control troves of data that could be paired with EMR data  such as claims, immunizations, welfare/socioeconomic data, public health records, PDMP data and more. But this world of data opportunity would require alignment between commercial health systems and state Medicaid agencies. Alabama has an interesting model to consider, with regional care organizations (RCOs), which are basically Medicaid ACOs, offering capitated payments to commercial hospitals for taking on Medicaid patients. By far the easiest and most effective solution is to leverage existing interoperability networks  such as Epic's Care Everywhere, Carequality and CommonWell  that provide real-time access to clinical information for a majority of the U.S. population. "Payers, providers and state and national agencies should look for a PHM solution that can offer an effective and sustainable way to aggregate clinical data for large patient populations across a broad network of EHRs," Hutchison says. "But equally important is the solution's ability to make that data actionable for analytics and effective care management. The system must be able to create a single longitudinal plan of care from disparate sources and encourage action across all participants, including patients." The future: Consolidation and an increase in value-based consulting "Clients are looking for enterprise-class, near real-time platforms that close the loop back into clinical and consumer workflows," Hamilton says. "They want unified platforms that can identify the various cohorts of an individual, predict where and when to engage, manage a personalized longitudinal plan for each person, match activities to the appropriate resources and empower consumers." These platforms should also measure activities, outcomes and performance of providers within the networks. "Organizations want partners that can grow with them, that are source-agnostic, and that provide open ecosystems enabling them to span the technology diversity of their networks," Hamilton says. Black Book predicts another wave of consolidation similar to what the industry saw in the early 2000s, as organizations moved from best-of-breed to integrated platforms. "Single solutions will likely continue to merge, be acquired, or be usurped by integrated technologies within comprehensive platforms that are natively integrated at the point of care (POC) and accessible by patients and community-based organizations," Brown says. "The newness of the population health market created a tendency to employ a best-of-breed approach  purchase an individual solution to solve an individual population health need," Hamilton agrees. "Over time, as more solutions are needed, each with its own data sources and user interface, it becomes almost impossible to ensure that the different data feeds remain functional, while also maintaining data consistency and integrity between multiple solutions." Black Book's Q2 2017 consultant surveys reveal a tremendous amount of energy in advisory services. Only 11% of providers report engagement intentions for consultants on PHM vendor selections, as the reality is most have already contracted for population health, electronic data warehousing (EDW), care coordination and disease management solutions. "With little to no integration, niche PHM and EDW agreements are much more easily displaced than an EMR system," Brown says. "It doesn't require a major amount of advisory assistance to get out of a PHM or EDW contract." As we head into 2018-2019, Black Book forecasts a 177% leap in healthcare advisory engagements in the use of PHM and value-based consulting (VBC) for services related to care management, analytics, business reporting, operational excellence and financial guidance. The 2017 Black Book survey of VBC strategy consultants ranked KPMG as the leader in that space. "For providers running health plans, there's also an emerging services business around health plan creation and financial administration, along with provider network management, which play directly into KPMG's advisory strengths," Brown says. Payers and providers are focusing on technology that will help bring together their knowledge of risk and utilization management and analytics with the hard work of healthcare delivery to align incentives through strategic partnerships. And, as is true in so many facets of healthcare, a one-size-fits-all solution isn't the answer. That's where VBC can help. "We're seeing increased interest among our Epic customers in VBC that helps organizations understand how to manage their transition from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement," Hutchison says. "Is 100% capitation the best model for everybody? Likely not. What is the ideal ratio between fee-for-service and value-based reimbursement for a given organization? How do they adjust care delivery based on their historical performance to reduce total cost of care while improving outcomes? The answers differ depending on the organization, their patient population and payer mix. That type of guidance is important to provide throughout the development and execution of any population health strategy." As the healthcare industry continues its metamorphosis, and providers and payers struggle with various solutions, vendors with the ability to multitask will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace. "Transformation is a combination of people, processes and tools," Hamilton says. "Payers and providers are increasingly looking for partners that can provide a combination of advisory services, solutions and operational services to guide and accelerate their transformation." About Black Book Black Book Market Research LLC provides healthcare IT users, media, investors, analysts, quality-minded vendors, venture capitalists, bankers, prospective software system buyers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and other interested sectors of the clinical technology sector with comprehensive comparison data of the industry's top respected and competitively performing vendors and consultants. The largest user opinion poll of its kind in healthcare IT and managed services, Black Book collects over 590,000 viewpoints on information technology and outsourced services vendor performance annually. Black Book, its founders, management and/or staff do not own or hold any financial interest in any of the vendors covered and encompassed in this survey including Epic, Cerner, Allscripts, KPMG, Optum, Philips or IBM mentioned in this report, and Black Book reports the results of the collected satisfaction and client experience rankings in publication and to media prior to vendor notification of rating results. Follow Black Book on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/blackbookpolls For methodology, auditing, resources, comprehensive research and ranking data, see http://blackbookmarketresearch.com Press Contact: Sara Allison, Media Relations, 800-863-7590, [email protected] Related Files 2017 Population Health Yearbook (BLACK BOOK RESEARCH) F.pdf To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/epic-allscripts-and-cerner-signal-paradigm-shift-in-population-health-management-300470686.html SOURCE Black Book Research LLC

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The first blood test that can predict the onset and progression of Huntington's disease has been identified by a UCL-led study.

The researchers say their findings, published in Lancet Neurology, should help test new treatments for the genetic brain disorder, which is fatal and currently incurable.

"This is the first time a potential blood biomarker has been identified to track Huntington's disease so strongly," said the study's senior author, Dr Edward Wild (UCL Institute of Neurology).

The test measures the neurofilament light chain (neurofilament), a protein released from damaged brain cells, which has been linked to other neurodegenerative diseases but hasn't been studied in the blood of Huntington's disease (HD) patients before.

The team, led by scientists at UCL Huntington's Disease Centre working with colleagues in Sweden, the USA, Canada, France and the Netherlands, measured neurofilament levels in blood samples from the TRACK-HD study, an international project that followed 366 volunteers for three years. They found that levels of the brain protein were increased throughout the course of HD -- even in carriers of the HD genetic mutation who were many years from showing symptoms of the disease. HD mutation carriers had neurofilament concentrations that were 2.6 times that of the control participants, and the level rose throughout the disease course from premanifest to stage 2 disease.

In the group who had no symptoms at the start of the study, the level of neurofilament predicted subsequent disease onset, as volunteers with high neurofilament levels in the blood at the start were more likely to develop symptoms in the following three years. After taking into account factors already known to predict progression -- age and a genetic marker -- the blood level of neurofilament was still able to independently predict onset, progression and the rate of brain shrinkage as measured by MRI scans.

Currently, the best biomarkers available are measured with neuroimaging or cerebrospinal fluid, which are more difficult and expensive to obtain than a blood test. The researchers say that predicting progression in mutation carriers who do not yet show symptoms has been particularly challenging.

"We have been trying to identify blood biomarkers to help track the progression of HD for well over a decade, and this is the best candidate that we have seen so far," said Dr Wild. "Neurofilament has the potential to serve as a speedometer in Huntington's disease, since a single blood test reflects how quickly the brain is changing. That could be very helpful right now as we are testing a new generation of so-called 'gene silencing' drugs that we hope will put the brakes on the condition. Measuring neurofilament levels could help us figure out whether those brakes are working."

The researchers caution that the test is not expected to be immediately helpful for individual patients. "This is the first time neurofilament has been measured in blood, so much more work is needed to understand the potential and limitations of this test," said Lauren Byrne (UCL Institute of Neurology), the study's first author. "In the future, if drugs to slow HD become available, it may well be used to guide treatment decisions. For now, this test is most promising as a much-needed tool to help us design and run clinical trials of new drugs."

Dr Robert Pacifici, chief scientific officer of CHDI Foundation, a US non-profit Huntington's disease research foundation, welcomed the development. "I can see neurofilament becoming a valuable tool to assess neuroprotection in clinical trials so that we can more quickly figure out whether new drugs are doing what we need them to. As a drug hunter, this is great news."

The study's funders included the CHDI foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, Swedish Research Council, European Research Council, Wallenberg Foundation and Wolfson Foundation.

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About Huntington's disease:

Huntington's disease is a fatal genetic neurological disease. It usually develops in adulthood and causes abnormal involuntary movements, psychiatric symptoms and dementia. Approximately 10,000 people in the UK have HD with around 25,000 at risk. It is incurable, and no effective treatments exist to slow it down. Patients usually die within 20 years of the start of symptoms. HD is caused by a single known genetic mutation, and each child of a carrier of the mutation has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease.
A groundbreaking University of Alberta invention that will impact transplant patients' outcomes--and possibly cancer outcomes in the future--is poised to become widely available now that the transplant test has been licensed by life science leader Thermo Fisher.

The diagnostic tool is a major advancement on existing biopsy approaches for transplant organs because it relies on precise gene expression measurement. Called MMDx (Molecular Microscope Diagnostic System), it was created by UAlberta's Philip Halloran and his team.

"We believe this will eventually become the standard of care of people with kidney, heart, lung and liver transplants," said Halloran, whose spin-off company Transcriptome Sciences Inc. announced an exclusive licensing agreement with One Lambda, a Thermo Fisher brand, in late May.

MMDx was more than 30 years in the making, cost $35 million to develop and is ultimately a disruptive technology, explained Halloran.

"This is a story of a team of researchers who believed in the value of something, even though it was paradigm-changing, and who worked diligently to establish scientific foundation in order to convince medical leaders in the field of its effectiveness and to get it into the hands of the public."

There are more than a million organ transplant patients in the world and roughly 150,000 of them are struggling with organ rejection.

"It's vital that clinicians are able to identify the stage of rejection and what drugs to use, and it begins with a biopsy of the organ," said Halloran.

Conventional histology is often 40 per cent incorrect in assessing causes of rejection, whereas MMDx enables much more accurate diagnoses of transplanted organs that are failing by telling doctors what's damaging the organ--whether it's an infection, a recurrent underlying disease, or toxicity to a certain drug--and determining which drugs work.

"We did not just create a test, we're changing the concept of disease and seeing it for the first time," explained Halloran. For example, years ago MMDx enabled Halloran to see that a mechanism was damaging little blood vessels in transplanted organs. After 10 years of convincing establishment, Halloran is recognized as defining antibody-mediated rejection (ABMR) as the major mechanism causing graft loss post-transplant.

Currently, a U of A lab has been processing limited numbers of biopsies sent from centres from around the world.

UAlberta experts have been assisting with the new service at Kashi Clinical Laboratories, in Portland, Ore., which will be able to handle samples worldwide by September, said Halloran.

MMDx is already being considered by other researchers in different fields of medicine. For example, a team of U of A melanoma researchers, led by Michael Smylie at the Cross Cancer Institute, are working with the Halloran team to determine whether the MMDx tool can be used to predict which patients with advanced life-threatening cancer would respond to a life-saving new drug. As well, a U of A ulcerative colitis researcher team, led by Brendan Halloran, are using MMDx to try to understand how molecular change in that disease responds to different therapies.

"MMDx is the heart of precision medicine," said Phillip Halloran, who explained that over time, a repository of individual gene expression statements will be built up in the MMDx computerized database. When a sample is taken and the computer runs comparisons, it can find other patients with nearly identical features whose outcomes have been recorded.

"It's not establishing categories of broad data sets, but measuring the features and predicting the risks of a particular patient," he added.

"This will lead to precise prediction about treatments versus strategies for the average patient that don't take into account individual variables. MMDx tries to understand you and cases exactly like you."

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Scientists and engineers from the University of Bath have developed biodegradable cellulose microbeads from a sustainable source that could potentially replace harmful plastic ones that contribute to ocean pollution.

Microbeads are little spheres of plastic less than 0.5 mm in size that are added to personal care and cleaning products including cosmetics, sunscreens and fillers to give them a smooth texture. However they are too small to be removed by sewage filtration systems and so end up in rivers and oceans, where they are ingested by birds, fish and other marine life.

It is estimated that a single shower can result in 100,000 plastic particles entering the ocean, contributing to the eight million tonnes of plastic that enters the ocean every year. It is feared that the particles could enter the food chain, harming wildlife but also potentially ending up in our food.

As a result of recent campaigning by environmental groups, the UK Government has pledged to ban plastic microbeads in 2017.

Now a research team, from the University's Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies (CSCT), has developed a way of producing a biodegradable renewable alternative to plastic microbeads in a scalable, continuous manufacturing process.

The beads are made from cellulose, which is the material that forms the tough fibres found in wood and plants. In this process our scientists dissolve the cellulose to reform it into tiny beads by forming droplets that are then "set". These microbeads are robust enough to remain stable in a bodywash, but can be broken down by organisms at the sewage treatment works, or even in the environment in a short period of time.

The researchers anticipate they could use cellulose from a range of "waste" sources, including from the paper making industry as a renewable source of raw material.

They have published their results in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

Dr Janet Scott, Reader in the Department of Chemistry and part of the CSCT, said: "Microbeads used in the cosmetics industry are often made of polyethylene or polypropylene, which are cheap and easy to make. However these polymers are derived from oil and they take hundreds of years to break down in the environment.

"We've developed a way of making microbeads from cellulose, which is not only from a renewable source, but also biodegrades into harmless sugars.

"We hope in the future these could be used as a direct replacement for plastic microbeads."

Davide Mattia, Professor of Chemical Engineering and part of the CSCT, said: "Our goal was to develop a continuous process that could be scaled for manufacturing. We achieved this by working together from the start, integrating process design and chemistry optimisation, showing the strength of the multi-disciplinary approach we have in the CSCT."

The beads are made using a solution of cellulose which is forced through tiny holes in a tubular membrane, creating spherical droplets of the solution which are washed away from the membrane using vegetable oil. The beads are then collected, set and separated from the oil before use.

The physical properties of the beads can be tweaked by changing the structure of the cellulose, for example making the beads harder. A team, led by Dr Scott and including Professor Davide Mattia (Chemical Engineering) and Professor Karen Edler (Chemistry) has also just been awarded funding of just over 1 million by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council to develop porous beads, capsules and microsponges.

They will work with industrial partners, to develop materials that could be used in cosmetics and personal care products, or impregnated with agrichemicals for use in, for example, slow release fertilisers.

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Individual pieces of a jigsaw puzzle joined together as if moved by magic - that is what material researchers of Friedrich-Alexander Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg (FAU) imagine when they apply molecules to surfaces to produce materials for new technologies such as organic solar cells. To date, researchers knew very little about how large molecules attach themselves to surfaces and how they can be arranged. This is why the FAU research group funCOS has decided to investigate this borderland where molecules and surfaces meet. The German Research Foundation (DFG) recently approved the continuation of the research group's work until 2020 and will provide 3.5 million euros to fund it.

Understanding how molecules are arranged on surfaces is hugely important for many technologies such as, for example, the production of organic solar cells. Problems can occur if these particles are arranged incorrectly or unevenly. funCOS or 'Functional Molecular Structures on Complex Oxide Surfaces' intends to better manage molecular arrangements of the kind that can be used to capture sunlight or produce inexpensive electronic devices, to name but two examples.

The DFG research group, in which a total of 14 teams are participating, is headed by Prof. Dr. Jorg Libuda, Chair of Physical Chemistry II. Researchers and theorists from the fields of chemistry, physics and materials science are collaborating in order to solve the puzzle of molecular arrangement. And to achieve this, they need to investigate the behaviour of molecules on different surfaces and compile the research results to create a catalogue of models. Ultimately, the goal is to teach molecules where to go.

During the first research period from 2014 to 2017, the researchers worked mainly on developing a fundamental understanding of hybrid boundary surfaces with the help of simple model systems. The second funding period will be used to bridge the gap between this theoretical basis and practical conditions using real materials. This research will focus on aspects such as complex nanostructures and their interaction with realistic material environments, such as reactive gases and liquids.

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Chapel Hill, NC - Globally, an estimated 71 million people are living with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV). Over decades of infection, chronic HCV infection results in progressive damage to the liver and an increased risk for end stage liver disease and liver cancer, making the virus the leading cause of liver-related deaths in the United States today.

While effective combination therapies have recently been developed, HCV can evolve to become resistant to these antiviral drugs, potentially resulting in treatment failures. Resistance is particularly important for one class of medications used in treatment, for which the mechanism by which it stops growth of the virus is poorly understood. For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified how the class of antiviral drugs known as NS5A inhibitors interacts with the virus, and their findings show a difference between strains of HCV. These results were published in PLOS Pathogens.

"When HCV infects a liver cell, it establishes replication complexes (RCs) within the cell," said David McGivern, Ph.D., lead-author and an associate professor in the UNC Division of Infectious Diseases. "These may be thought of as factories that replicate the virus genetic material. We wanted to understand how long these factories persist in an infected cell after treatment with an NS5A inhibitor."

The research team has shown previously NS5A inhibitors block the formation of new RCs, but do not affect existing RCs, which are ultimately lost from the cell during treatment. The team used NS5A inhibitors to estimate the half-life of the existing RCs and found a difference in the speed of decline depending upon the strain of HCV.

"The majority of people who undergo antiviral treatment clear their HCV infection," said McGivern. "But about 5 percent of people experience treatment failure, often associated with drug resistance. Our findings have potentially important implications for this group of people. Did the treatment fail because replication complexes turned over more slowly? Do some strains of HCV need longer treatment? A better understanding of these issues may lead to more effective therapies active against a broader range of viruses."

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The UNC team collaborated with researchers at North Carolina State University, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Istituto Nazionale di Genetica Molecolare in Italy. This study was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Office of the Director at the National Institutes of Health.

The mission of UNC's Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases is to harness the full resources of the University and its partners to solve global health problems, reduce the burden of disease, and cultivate the next generation of global health leaders. Learn more at http://www.globalhealth.unc.edu.
Not only dogs but also wolves react to inequity - similar to humans or primates. This has been confirmed in a new study by comparative psychologists of the Messerli Research Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. Wolves and dogs refused to cooperate in an experiment when only the partner got a treat or they themselves received a lower quality reward. Since this behaviour is equally strong in wolves and dogs, this sensitivity to inequity is not likely to be an effect of domestication, as has been assumed so far. It is rather a behaviour inherited from a common ancestor. The results were published in Current Biology.

Recognising inequity is an important social skill in humans. This is particularly important when we cooperate with others. Different species of primates show this sensitivity to inequity, too. It has hardly been investigated if other species also realise inequity and react to it. Several studies with dogs were at least indicative of some form of inequity aversion, for example when the dogs themselves did not get food, but their partners did for the same action. So far, this skill in dogs has been attributed to their adaption to humans - domestication.

Their closest relatives, wolves, however, exhibit the same inequity aversion. This has been confirmed in a new study by the Messerli Research Institute and the Wolf Science Center of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. When the animals pressed a buzzer after the trainer had asked them to do so, and received nothing or a lower quality reward compared to their partners for the same action, they refused to participate in the experiment earlier. The behaviour was similar in equally raised wolves and dogs that had, therefore, the same life experience. This indicates a skill inherited from a common ancestor. Thus, domestication is not the only reason why dogs react to inequity.

No or lower quality rewards: wolves and dogs realise inequity

Jennifer Essler, Friederike Range and Sarah Marshall-Pescini investigated the behaviour of both canine species in a no-reward test and a quality test in which two animals were brought to two adjacent enclosures. When asked to do so, they had to alternately press a button with their paws in order to get a reward.

"In the no-reward test, only the partner got a treat in every trial. The test animal got nothing. In the quality test, both animals got a reward, but the preferred and thus higher quality treat was again given to the partner," explained Jennifer Essler. "The ability to realise this inequity became evident when they refused to continue the experiment." But interestingly, the animals continued easily when there was no partner. "This showed that the fact that they themselves had not received a reward was not the only reason why they stopped to cooperate with the trainer," said Range. "They refuse to cooperate because the other one got something, but they themselves did not."

Also in the quality test, wolves and dogs refused to continue to cooperate with the trainer and press the buzzer. "This reaction has not been shown in experiments so far. But it confirms even more clearly that wolves and dogs really understand inequity," said Essler. Wolves, however, were considerably more sensitive than dogs, requiring more commands from the trainer to continue working.

Hierarchy is also important, but domestication seems to reduce the sense of inequity

The dogs' and wolves' rank within the pack was an additional factor for the point where the animals stopped to cooperate. "High-ranking animals become frustrated more quickly by inequity because they are not used to this situation: not receiving something at all or only of lower quality," explained Range. "Thus, the hierarchy in their pack is directly linked to their reaction to inequity."

After the experiments, the researchers also evaluated if the animals interacted with their test partners or the experimenter in a neutral enclosure. Wolves that had experienced inequity kept aloof from humans. Dogs did not. "Even if these animals do not directly live with humans, they are more amenable to us. At this point, domestication seems to influence the dogs' behaviour. Their close contact to humans as pets could, thus, rather reduce their behaviour in such situations than trigger it."

###

Service:

About the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna

The article "Domestication does not explain the presence of inequity aversion in dogs" by Jennifer Essler, Sarah Marshall-Pescini and Friederike Range will be published in Current Biology at 18:00 CET on 8th of June 2017.

The University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna in Austria is one of the leading academic and research institutions in the field of Veterinary Sciences in Europe. About 1,300 employees and 2,300 students work on the campus in the north of Vienna which also houses five university clinics and various research sites. Outside of Vienna the university operates Teaching and Research Farms. http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at

About Messerli Research Institute

The Messerli Research Institute was founded in 2010 with support from the Messerli Foundation (Sorenberg, Switzerland) under the management of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna in cooperation with the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna. The research is devoted to the interaction between humans and animals, as well as its theoretical principles in animal cognition and behavior, comparative medicine and ethics. Its work is characterized by its broad interdisciplinary approach (biology, human medicine, veterinary medicine, philosophy, psychology, law) and strong international focus. http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at/en/messerli/

Scientific Contact:

Jennifer Essler

Messerli Research Institute

University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna)

T +43 660 3705959

jennifer.essler@vetmeduni.ac.at

and

Friederike Range

Messerli Research Institute

University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna)

T +43 1 25077 2685

friederike.range@vetmeduni.ac.at

Released by:

Georg Mair

Science Communication / Corporate Communications

University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna)

T +43 1 25077-1165

georg.mair@vetmeduni.ac.at
Multinational corporations are moving income from their profitable, high-tax subsidiaries into unprofitable ones to save money on taxes, a University of Waterloo study has found.

The study's findings shed light on a tax planning strategy that is not currently focused on by governments, which tend to focus their efforts on firms who move their money from countries with higher taxes to lower tax-rate countries to save.

"Governments expend considerable effort to prevent their tax bases from being eroded by companies moving their money offshore," said Ken Klassen, the study's author and an accounting and finance professor at Waterloo. "This insight could help tax authorities better target their efforts,".

Using theoretical models, the researchers examined income shifting by multinational firms and data from nearly 60,000 subsidiaries from 2003 to 2012 in Europe.

They found that firms that are in a country with a high tax rate are saving a significant amount of money by moving income to their unprofitable subsidiaries. The unprofitable subsidiaries are taxed at a lower rate than those that have higher profit margins.

The trend, said Klassen, is not unlike what he's seeing in research focusing on Canadian and American companies.

"Analysts may not consider that a Canadian multinational would want to shift income into the U.S., where the tax rate is higher," said Klassen. "These findings show us that North American companies can actually save a significant amount of money if they move income to an unprofitable affiliate in another jurisdiction.

"Determining if foreign affiliates are experiencing losses could benefit organizations such as the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in deciding which transactions to scrutinize."

While changing income earning patterns to use the losses runs the risk of drawing attention from taxing authorities such as the CRA, said Klassen, the savings seem to outweigh the potential negatives for many.

If the subsidiary does become profitable again, however, the extra income would be taxed at a higher rate.

The study was recently published in The Accounting Review.

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The Government of Fiji has made a commitment to gazette two large Marine Managed Areas (MMAs) within Fiji's Vatu-i-Ra Seascape -- a highly diverse and productive area vital to both people and wildlife alike.

During his address at the United Nations Ocean Conference in New York City, Fiji's Minister for the Ministry of Fisheries, Mr. Semi Koroilavesau announced that Fiji is committed to scaling up MMAs in Fiji, including the Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. The Ministry is working to designate the Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs, spanning an area of 13,650 square kilometers.

The move will help protect a host of wildlife species that use the ecologically unique and bountiful Vatu-i-Ra Seascape. This includes migratory humpback whales that migrate from Antarctica to the area to breed, colorful vibrant corals, sharks, rays, more than 200 fish species and regionally significant seabird populations. A second commitment on protecting marine mammals in Fiji reinforces the commitment to gazette the Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs to, protect and sustainably manage known humpback whale migration, breeding and calving areas.

"The area boasts a remarkably biodiverse array of species, both permanent and transient," said Dr. Sangeeta Mangubhai, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Fiji Country Program. "The seascape provides for the plants and animals, and the plants and animals provide for the people in the form of food, livelihoods, coastal protection and reduction of climate change impacts."

Among some of the other benefits provided by Vatu-i-Ra Seascape are annual tourism dollars US $22.8M and fisheries valued at US 11.6 M. There are seamounts of cultural importance, and breeding grounds for sharks, rays, turtles and a range of coral reef and pelagic fish species.

However, unsustainable harvesting of fish, an increasing human population, growing demand for goods, and market access has led to increased pressure on the area's natural resources. Unless overfishing and land-based impacts is addressed, the seascape is projected to rise to a medium to high threat level by 2030, according to the global assessment "Reefs at Risk" by the World Resources Institute.

The Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs will contribute to an ecological network of MMAs in Fiji aimed at restoring and preserving the health, productivity, and diversity of Fiji's coastal and marine systems.

Said Dr. Mangubhai, "With our community partners and the government of Fiji, we celebrate this special announcement. It is critical that we decrease the pressure we are putting on our ocean, and create a sustainable balance."

"The Bligh Waters and Central Viti MMAs will be the first for Fiji's archipelagic waters and will contribute an additional 1.2 percent to Fiji's international commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, "said the Honorable Mr Semi Koroilavesau, Minister for Fisheries. "The MMAs showcase Fiji's drive to attain key achievements on protected areas and efforts towards Sustainable Development Goal 14 to Conserve and Sustainably Use the Oceans, Seas and Marine Resources for Sustainable Development. "This is our home-our health, wealth and wellbeing is intricately connected to the health of our ocean."

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About the Wildlife Conservation Society. WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature. To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world's oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually. WCS combines its expertise in the field, zoos, and aquarium to achieve its conservation mission. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org Follow: @WCSNewsroom. For more information: 347-840-1242.
June 8, 2017 - For patients undergoing shoulder joint replacement surgery (arthroplasty), higher body mass index is linked to increased complications--including the need for "revision" surgery, reports a study in the June 7 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery. The journal is published in partnership with Wolters Kluwer.

"Increasing BMI is strongly associated with increased rates of revision surgical procedures and postoperative complications after shoulder arthroplasty," write Eric R. Wagner, MD, and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Their findings suggest that, above a certain level of obesity, complication risk increases steadily along with increasing body mass index (BMI).

Complication Risks Increase Steadily with Higher BMI The study included data on 4,567 shoulder arthroplasties performed between 1970 and 2013. Various shoulder arthroplasty procedures are performed to treat shoulder pain and loss of function resulting from arthritis or other conditions.

Forty-three percent of the shoulder arthroplasty patients were obese (defined as a BMI of 30 or higher). The researchers analyzed the relationship between BMI and different types of complications. Overall, 302 patients needed revision surgery due to mechanical failure, loosening of the implant, or other causes. An additional 62 cases required a non-revision reoperation.

Obese patients were at increased risk of both types of reoperation. Among patients with a BMI of 35 or higher, each additional one-unit increase in BMI was associated with a five percent increase in the risk of reoperation for any reason.

Higher BMI was also specifically associated with revision surgery for mechanical failure. For every one-unit increase in BMI after 30, there was a five percent increased risk of revision for mechanical failure.

The BMI-related increases in complications remained significant after statistical adjustment for other factors. The strongest association was for superficial wound infection: risk increased by nine percent for each one-unit increase in BMI. In this population of shoulder-arthroplasty patients, obesity was not a risk factor for blood clot-related complications (thromboembolism), as it is for patients undergoing hip or knee replacement.

The rising prevalence of obesity--now present in more than one-third of US adults--has had a major impact on healthcare and related costs. Obese patients are at increased risk of several types of complications after total hip or knee replacement surgery. The new study is among the first to assess how BMI affects the risk of complications after shoulder arthroplasty. This study is also unique in that it analyzes BMI in one-unit increments, rather than in ranges.

The results suggest that the risk of revision surgery and most other complications of shoulder arthroplasty increases along with BMI in obese patients. "These findings support the notion that increasing BMI increases the stress on the implant, leading to higher rates of mechanical implant failure," Dr. Wagner and coauthors write. They add that the increased infection risk is likely related to immune system changes and to "dead space" created by excess fatty tissue.

Dr. Wagner and colleagues believe their findings will help patients, physicians, and surgeons to make better-informed decisions about the relative risks and benefits of shoulder arthroplasty at different levels of BMI. They discuss the implications of their findings for policy and research, including the need for further studies to modify the risks associated with increased BMI and studies helping to support the risk stratification for reimbursement, providing financial incentives for surgeons treating more complex and high-risk patients.

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Click here to read "Increasing Body Mass Index Is Associated with Worse Outcomes After Shoulder Arthroplasty."

Article: "Increasing Body Mass Index Is Associated with Worse Outcomes After Shoulder Arthroplasty" (doi: 10.2106/JBJS.15.00255)

About The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery

The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS) has been the most valued source of information for orthopaedic surgeons and researchers for over 125 years and is the gold standard in peer-reviewed scientific information in the field. A core journal and essential reading for general as well as specialist orthopaedic surgeons worldwide, The Journal publishes evidence-based research to enhance the quality of care for orthopaedic patients. Standards of excellence and high quality are maintained in everything we do, from the science of the content published to the customer service we provide. JBJS is an independent, non-profit journal.

About Wolters Kluwer

Wolters Kluwer N.V. (AEX: WKL) is a global leader in information services and solutions for professionals in the health, tax and accounting, risk and compliance, finance and legal sectors. We help our customers make critical decisions every day by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialized technology and services.

Wolters Kluwer reported 2016 annual revenues of 4.3 billion. The company, headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands, serves customers in over 180 countries, maintains operations in over 40 countries and employs 19,000 people worldwide.

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Asia is an 'incredibly important' market for the pork sector and which has many 'lucrative opportunities' for meat producers.

That was the overriding message from industry experts at Pigs 2022: The Opportunities  a two-day conference organised by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) in partnership with Pig World.

At the first day of the event, which looked at the global picture for the sector, speakers from the UK, Danish and US pig industries came together to look at what the next five years holds for the industry.

And one of the key messages was opportunities exist in the Far East and the UK pig sector must set its sights on these burgeoning markets.

Importance of China

Director of international food consultancy GIRA Richard Brown highlighted the importance of China  which currently accounts for 27% of worldwide pig trade  when he gave a talk on where the global pork market is heading.

He also highlighted a rise in meat consumption worldwide and stressed that while the big winner is chicken, largely due to price, pork is still performing well.

Producers were also told the pig sector was less vulnerable to the effects of Brexit compared to other sectors as its already trading with key regions that are seeing significant growth.

Vice President of the National Pork Producers Council in America Nicholas Giordano spoke about the expanding pig industry in the States  which currently has around 60,000 producers.

He said the US is also targeting Asia  where middle class society is set to double during the next 15 years, offering significant opportunities for the pork sector.

Brexit - biggest challenge

Other speakers included Adam Crouch, of Cranswick Country Foods, who examined the future of the British pork industry  highlighting Brexit as the biggest challenge.

There was a presentation from McDonalds Director Connor McVeigh, who told delegates bacon was one of their customers favourite products.

AHDB Pork Chairman Mike Sheldon, who welcomed more than 200 delegates to the first day, said: A priority for us all is to understand what our competitors are doing, where they are innovating, where they are investing and what technologies they are adopting.

This is about making sure that none of our competitors is successful in trying to eat our lunch; its about making sure we take advantage of the latest thinking, wherever it originates.

Having understood what is going on elsewhere, that knowledge is only useful if we act here in our industry and that action requires courage, speed and imagination.

The second day of the conference looked at how the sector can benefit from innovation in areas such as animal health and welfare, hygiene and pig buildings.

Prof Patrick Wall of University College Dublin gave a talk on the challenges of responding to consumers demands in a global market place and Richard Williamson, of Beeswax Farming, discussed how they were planning for the future in a brave new world.
[June 08, 2017] EventTracker Launches Security Center 8.3, Greatly Expanding Threat Intelligence and Ability to Hunt Ransomware

COLUMBIA, Md., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- EventTracker, a leader in security information and event management (SIEM), today announced the launch of EventTracker Security Center 8.3, the latest version of its award-winning EventTracker SIEM platform. The new version provides advanced features to combat modern ransomware and polymorphic and mutating malware, expanded threat intelligence integration and various GUI enhancements, all of which result in faster threat detection.

The comprehensive EventTracker Security Center 8.3 platform includes SIEM, intrusion detection, vulnerability scanning, threat intelligence, and honeynet deception technology, and is implemented either on-premises or in the cloud. The Security Center 8.3 platform is also at the core of EventTrackers SIEM-as-a-Service offering, SIEMphonic. The company ensures its clients success by overlaying the technology with professional services for remote administration, analysis, compliance support, and tuning for optimal results. These services are provided by security experts at the companys 24x7 intelligence-driven security operations center (SOC). A mainstay in the cybersecurity space, EventTracker has been recognized by Gartner Research in its Magic Quadrant for SIEM for nine consecutive years. Highlights of EventTracker Security Center 8.3 include: Dormant Malware Hunter  Modern malware, including ransomware, copies itself with different names and hashes to various folders, so that if the original is identified and removed, the clones remain ready to attack at a later time. Dormant Malware Hunter identifies hidden EXE and DLL files that have never executed, while exempting those found on a known safe files list. As a result, copies of malware can be removed from the network, preventing re-infection or propagation.

 Modern malware, including ransomware, copies itself with different names and hashes to various folders, so that if the original is identified and removed, the clones remain ready to attack at a later time. Dormant Malware Hunter identifies hidden EXE and DLL files that have never executed, while exempting those found on a known safe files list. As a result, copies of malware can be removed from the network, preventing re-infection or propagation. Threat Center STIX/TAXII Support  EventTrackers threat intelligence capabilities are greatly enhanced through the integration of commercial and open source threat feeds and intelligence from STIX/TAXII-compliant providers, as well as from the clients own internal honeyets. Threat Center uses the data to reduce false positives while finding and prioritizing potential and actual threats.

 EventTrackers threat intelligence capabilities are greatly enhanced through the integration of commercial and open source threat feeds and intelligence from STIX/TAXII-compliant providers, as well as from the clients own internal honeyets. Threat Center uses the data to reduce false positives while finding and prioritizing potential and actual threats. Enhanced MSP User Management  An important focus of this release is empowering IT service providers to protect their customers infrastructure with enhanced scalability and user management for managed service providers (MSPs) by handling subscription-related activities for each individual client, such as tracking the monthly usage of services. It also allows easier monitoring of usage by multiple customers and more granular management of user permissions.

 An important focus of this release is empowering IT service providers to protect their customers infrastructure with enhanced scalability and user management for managed service providers (MSPs) by handling subscription-related activities for each individual client, such as tracking the monthly usage of services. It also allows easier monitoring of usage by multiple customers and more granular management of user permissions. Improved User Interface for EventVault Explorer  The upgraded interface delivers faster data loading, more selection control, and a simpler user experience for MSPs using EventVault Explorer. The Explorer capability makes log searches easier and faster by searching for more specific data and saving search criteria for future reference.



The EventTracker Security Center platform is also available with co-managed services that allow enterprises to easily assess incidents in the infrastructure with as much or as little outside expertise as needed. Its key features extend beyond traditional SIEM and log management to enable organizations to defend their networks from the latest advanced persistent threats while also complying with multiple regulations.

In todays world of ever-increasing cyberattacks, it has become crucial for enterprises to be able to assess digital threat incidents quickly and easily for the security of their infrastructures, said A.N. Ananth, CEO of EventTracker. The new features provided by Security Center 8.3 provide unparalleled threat intelligence for an extremely elevated level of assessment, while also greatly improving threat detection and usability for MSPs. Tweet this: [email protected] Launches #EventTracker Security Center v8.3 for Better #ThreatIntelligence and #MalwareProtection http://bit.ly/2rA0VN1 Resources

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EventTracker Case Studies About EventTracker

EventTrackers advanced security solutions protect enterprises and small businesses from data breaches and insider fraud, and streamline regulatory compliance. The companys EventTracker platform comprises SIEM, vulnerability scanning, intrusion detection, behavior analytics, a honeynet deception network and other defense in-depth capabilities within a single management platform. The company complements its state-of-the-art technology with 24x7 managed services from its global security operations center (SOC) to ensure its customers achieve desired outcomessafer networks, better endpoint security, earlier detection of intrusion, and relevant and specific threat intelligence. The company serves the retail, hospitality, healthcare, legal, banking and financial services, utilities and government sectors. EventTracker is a division of Netsurion, a leader in remotely-managed IT security services that protect multi-location businesses information, payment systems and on-premise public and private Wi-Fi networks. www.eventtracker.com. Twitter: @logtalk. CONTACT: Deb Montner, Montner Tech PR (203) 226-9290 [email protected]

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Warwickshire police are appealing for information after seven cows were stolen from a farm in the Southam area.

It is thought the livestock rustlers stole the cattle in the last 9 months.

The criminals hit the Southam area in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Wawrickshire. They stole five males and two females, all of which were meat cattle and worth between 6,000 and 7,000 in total.

However, the timescale for the theft is some time between October 2016 to June 2017.

The stolen livestock were all of mixed continental breed and were in possession of yellow identification tags.

PCSO Katrina Campion from the Southam police team said: Although there is a large timescale, the team would like to ask anyone who may have information regarding this theft to contact our control room via 101.

Livestock crime

Farmers and rural communities have seen a rise in livestock crime. In particular, sheep rustling has seen a worrying increase.

In May alone, criminals stole more than 30 sheep from a field in the Isle of Skye, Scotland and stole more than 50 sheep in a raid on a north-east farm in Scotland.

And in February, rustlers stole almost 100 sheep worth just under 13,000 in a farm near Falkirk.

Anyone with details on the Warwickshire case can call 101 quoting incident 182 of May 3, 2017, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Restricting access to migrant workers once the UK leaves the EU would negatively impact more than half of rural businesses, according a new survey.

Revealing the results at the South of England Show today (8 June), rural organisation the CLA said Brexit had already caused problems for rural employers.

The CLA said restricting access to migrant labour would affect the 'profitability, efficiency and viability' of rural businesses.

44% of CLA members surveyed said they had experienced a reduction in the availability of migrant labour over the past year.

Almost 90% of respondents tried to recruit locally but the majority found it difficult to fill positions with British workers.

One in ten CLA members employ migrant workers in managerial positions, with almost a quarter of respondents saying they worked in skilled roles, such as training horses or operating complex machinery.

The survey revealed that although overseas labour peaks during harvest months, workers are employed all year round within rural businesses.

'Provide certainty'

CLA Senior Economics Adviser Dr Charles Trotman said the survey shows that rural businesses employ thousands of migrant workers who are 'vital' to the rural economy.

He said: Most CLA members employ fewer than 10 migrant workers per business although others employ many more.

The Government must provide certainty that after Brexit there will still be a flexible, skilled and secure workforce in order for rural businesses to plan for the future.

To support the already acute shortage of labour a new seasonal agricultural workers scheme must be introduced immediately, not after the UK has left the EU and the Government must also confirm the status of EU migrant workers in sectors such as food processing, horticulture and tourism already resident in the UK.

Marion Regan, Managing Director of soft fruit growers Hugh Lowe Farms in Kent said: Like all growers of fantastic fresh British produce, we rely on a sustainable seasonal workforce to grow and harvest our fruit.

I am confident that we will continue to have great people from other countries helping us with our harvest if the Government understands the importance of reintroducing a Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme.

Ability to feed the nation

Farmers and other rural businesses have received a boost from MPs who have backed a call in April to reintroduce a scheme for migrants to continue working in roles vital to the rural economy.

Feeding the nation: labour constraints, a report from an influential group of MPs in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee highlights the challenges to the food supply chain from shortages of workers.

The Committee said that labour constraints would affect the ability of farmers to feed the nation post-Brexit.

Labour and skills shortages are already starting to bite in UK sectors which employ a high number of migrants, according to research.

A survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that despite a near record number of vacancies, 748,000 according to the latest Office for National Statistics data, UK employers are struggling to fill roles.

As many as one in four employers have seen evidence to suggest that non-UK nationals from the EU were considering leaving their organisation in 2017.

Non-UK nationals from the European Union almost halved from an average of more than 60,000 per quarter in the nine months to June 2016 to just 30,000 in the three months to September 2016.
The UK has broken a green energy record - renewable sources of energy have generated more electricity than coal and gas in the UK for the first time.

National Grid reported that, on Wednesday lunchtime (7 June), power from wind, solar, hydro and wood pellet burning supplied 50.7% of UK energy.

The combination added up to 19.3 gigawatts (GW) of output, even leaving out the smaller distribution-connected bioenergy like AD plants.

(Photo: @Draxnews)

The record output of renewable energy was enough to meet more than 50% of midday power demand which reached 35.4GW.

Wednesday lunchtime was perfect for renewables - sunny and windy at the same time.

The National Grid, the body that owns and manages the power supply around the UK, said in a tweet: "For the first time ever this lunchtime wind, nuclear and solar were all generating more than both gas and coal combined."

Renewable energy is no stranger to the farming and rural community.

In February, a Shropshire farmer was awarded a green accolade for his environmental work, in which he exported enough energy to power his neighbouring 500-home village.

Data showed it was exporting enough renewable energy to the grid to power 500 homes, after supplying its own domestic and agricultural buildings and facilities.

The farm consumed 746,757kWh of electricity - much of which was low or zero carbon renewable energy  exporting a total of 2,869,141kWh to the National Grid via their solar photovoltaic panels and anaerobic digestion plant.
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Your dentist tells you that you need braces, bringing back not-so-fond memories of kids being called Metal Mouth.

Take heart. Braces have evolved over the years and new alternatives in both look and materials are available. FDA is responsible for reviewing these devices for safety and effectiveness and, as appropriate, granting marketing authorization for the devices before they can be sold.

Here are answers to some of the most common questions about braces, provided by dental experts at FDA.

Some Common Questions

Q: I thought braces were just for kids. Not so?

A: Not anymore. According to the American Association of Orthodontics, these days, one out of five orthodontic patients is over the age of 21. (Orthodontics is a branch of dentistry dealing with irregularities in the teeth by straightening them.) So while you may have foregone wearing braces as a kid, youre never really too old to do something about straightening your teeth.

Q: Why do I need to wear braces?

A: Simply put, braces will straighten your teeth. Not only will you look better, but it will also help you maintain good dental hygiene. Crooked or crowded teeth can be hard to clean, causing inflamed and infected gums and other forms of dental disease. Wearing braces now can go a long way toward helping you maintain healthy teeth and gums down the road.

Q: Do I have to have a mouth full of metal?

A: Your dentist or orthodontist will need to make that determination based on your dental exam. If metal braces will do the job the best, know that many metal braces today are smaller than they used to be, less obtrusive, and can be clear or colored to match the color of your teeth. And if youre feeling expressive, the rubber bands that connect to the brackets in place now come in different colors.

In addition, you may know there are now clear braces (called aligners), such as Invisalign, that are nearly invisible. These tend to cost a little more than metal ones do and they dont work for everyones teeth, but you can ask the orthodontist if they are an alternative for you.

Q: How do metal braces work?

A: Braces move teeth by applying pressure. The braces usually consist of small brackets cemented to your teeth, connected by a wire and held to the brackets by rubber bands. The wire is regularly tightened by the dentist or orthodontist to gradually shift your teeth and jaw. The brackets may be metal or tooth colored.

Q: How do invisible braces work?

A: Invisible braces, called aligners, are made of clear plastic material and are worn over your teeth to straighten them. Youll wear each custom-made aligner for a few weeks or maybe a month. Then you get a new set for the next stage of your treatment. This way, your teeth are gradually moved into the correct position according to your personal treatment plan.

Aligners are removable and need to be taken out before you eat, brush, and floss, making maintaining good dental hygiene much easier than with metal braces. Because they are removable, you must be sure to follow your dentist or orthodontists instructions on how long to wear them each day (typically, about 22 hours).

Q: How long will I have to wear braces?

A: That depends on how problematic the dentist or orthodontist thinks your teeth are. An average time period is two years; it may be take a little more time or a little less.

There really is no faster method of straightening teeth. Orthodontics work by applying slow pressure that affects the bone surrounding a tooth to allow it to move. If movement is too rapid, tooth loss or a breakdown of the bone can occur.

Q: Isnt it hard to clean teeth when you have metal braces?

A: Yes. Its easy for food to get stuck in metal braces, so you have to be extra careful to keep your teeth clean and free of food material. Not cleaning your teeth really carefully can cause cavities, limit the effectiveness of your braces, and prolong the amount of time youll have to wear them. You may want to check in at the dentists office every 3 or 4 months rather than the usual twice a year to ensure that your teeth are well cleaned.

Q: Now my orthodontist says I need to wear a retainer. Whats that for?

A: Retainers, worn nightly after youre done with the braces, help maintain tooth position so that the bone in the tooth can solidify in the new position.

Q: Are there certain types of food I should avoid eating when I have braces?

A: Yes. You should avoid eating anything chewy or sticky, like gummi bears, and chewing gum, and should try not to eat hard candies, as these can damage the braces, prolonging the time you have to wear them.

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For many income investors, Kinder Morgan (KMI 3.53%) doesn't stand a chance when compared to Plains All American Pipeline (PAA 1.89%). That's because Kinder Morgan's current yield of 2.6% just doesn't hold the same appeal as the eye-catching 8.4% payout of Plains All American Pipeline. That said, the reason there's such a vast gulf between the two is that Plains plans to pay out a far greater percentage of its cash flow this year. In fact, its payout ratio is so high that it puts its distribution in a high-risk territory.

That's one of two major differences between the companies, which, when taken together, make Kinder Morgan the better buy right now, especially for more risk-averse investors.

The balance sheet checkup

Before we dig into those two metrics, we'll first take a peek under the hood of the credit profiles of both companies. As the chart below shows, this is one area where Plains All American Pipeline has a slight advantage over Kinder Morgan:

Company Credit Rating Debt-to-Adjusted EBITDA Kinder Morgan BBB-/Baa3 5.3 times Plains All American Pipeline BBB/BBB-/Baa3 4.8 times

Plains' advantage stems from the fact that it has a lower leverage ratio. That said, it's worth noting that both companies are working hard to improve these numbers. Plains, for example, plans to get leverage down to between 3.5-4.0 times debt-to-adjusted EBITDA, while Kinder Morgan is working toward the goal to get debt below 5.0 times Adjusted EBITDA.

If Plains All American Pipeline hits its target, it could earn an upgrade to mid-to-high BBB/Baa credit ratings, which would not only give it one of the highest credit ratings among MLPs, but should lower its cost of capital, too. Kinder Morgan, on the other hand, just wants to maintain investment-grade credit. As a result, Plains stands to keep its slight credit advantage over Kinder Morgan, which could enable it to borrow money at lower rates in the future.

Two eye-catching metrics

The scales tilt toward Kinder Morgan when we drill down deeper into the cash flow these companies expect to generate this year and use those numbers to compare the two. Plains All American Pipeline expects to generate $1.54 billion of distributable cash flow this year, up by 9% from last year. On a per unit basis, that's about $2.03. Meanwhile, Kinder Morgan expects to produce $4.46 billion of distributable cash flow, roughly flat with last year at about $1.99 per share.

These cash-flow forecasts provide investors with valuable data to compare the two companies. For example, we can use it to measure the safety of their respective payouts and their relative valuations:

Company Projected Payout Ratio Price-to-Projected Distributable Cash Flow Per Share Kinder Morgan 25% 9.4 Times Plains All American Pipeline 108% 12.8 Times

The math behind these metrics is simple. Since Kinder Morgan expects to declare $0.50 per share in dividends this year, it will only pay out a quarter of its $1.99 per share in distributable cash flow. That leaves the company with ample cash flow to finance growth projects, which it can do with room to spare this year. Contrast that with Plains, which is on pace to pay out $2.20 per unit in distributions, or 108% of the projected $2.03 per unit in distributable cash flow it expects to produce this year. That number should send a shiver down the spines of income investors because it's not sustainable over the long term. While Plains does expect to grow into its payout ratio over time since it has several growth projects currently under construction that should boost earnings by at least 15% next year, there's always a risk that even the best-laid plans could go awry.

The other significant difference between the two is the price investors are willing to pay for this projected cash flow. At Kinder Morgan's recent share price, investors are only paying about 9.4 times projected 2017 distributable cash flow for the stock, which is well below the 12.8 times Plains trades at these days. For a stock that had traded at nearly 20 times distributable cash flow before the oil market downturn, and in the low teens for most of the last year, it's quite a value these days.

Usually, when a company trades at such a low valuation, it's because it lacks visible growth prospects. However, that's not the case at Kinder Morgan, which is in the midst of a major expansion phase. The company currently has $13 billion of projects under development that should increase its Adjusted EBITDA from $7.2 billion this year to as much as $8.7 billion -- about a 20% increase -- by 2020 once its recently sanctioned Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion enters service. While Plains All American Pipeline also has a visible growth profile, with expectations that it can increase adjusted EBITDA from $2.26 billion this year up to more than $3 billion -- roughly 30% higher -- over the next several years, investors are paying a hefty premium for that slightly higher growth rate. That's especially true when considering that Kinder Morgan is more than double the size of Plains All American Pipeline. Further, because Plains will pay out all of its cash flow, it needs to secure debt and equity capital to finance growth, which is not only dilutive to investors but might be difficult to pull off if commodity prices take another dive. Because of that, its growth projection is less of a sure bet than Kinder Morgan's fully funded capex program.

Investor takeaway

While yield-starved investors might prefer Plains All American Pipelines, they're paying a premium for a payout the company can't yet cover with internally generated cash flow. Kinder Morgan, on the other hand, can internally finance its dividend and capex requirements with room to spare. When we combine that fiscal conservatism with its growth prospects and cheap valuation, it's the better buy between the two, in my opinion.
Shareholders of Ford Motor Co. (F 6.54%) are turning their eyes overseas in search of good news after a rocky May and a leadership shakeup at its Dearborn headquarters. Unfortunately, sales in China are off to a slow start during the first half of 2017, but it appears Ford is starting to dig itself out of the hole. Here are the highlights from Ford's May sales data, and where it sits for the year so far.

By the numbers

Ford's sales in China dropped 3% last month compared to May 2016, down to 87,733 units. Of those, 59,276 units came from Changan Ford Automobile (CAF) -- the Ford joint venture that produces the mainstream vehicles we're familiar with in the U.S. market -- for a 12% year-over-year decline. Unfortunately, the EcoSport continues to drag on those results -- sales are down 47% year to date -- which is unfortunate, because it was designed to thrive as a lower-priced SUV in markets such as China. The decline in the CAF results was partially offset by Ford's Jiangling Motors Corp. (JMC) joint venture, which mostly produces commercial vans and other multipurpose vehicles. JMC vehicle sales were up 15% to 22,706 units.

"We remain on track to deliver sales growth in the second quarter. For May, Lincoln and JMC achieved their best May sales result ever," said Peter Fleet, Ford's vice president of marketing, sales, and service for the Asia-Pacific region, in a press release. "We've strengthened our marketing plan in China for the second quarter, with new and exciting customer promotions for Ford-branded vehicles."

Silver lining

Speaking of Lincoln's strong May, let's take a deeper look into that marque's results for the month. Lincoln recorded 4,112 sales in China, a significant 73% jump compared to the prior year. That's a trend that's held true all year, as well, with year-to-date sales doubling compared to 2016. Two main forces are driving Lincoln's surge in China: the MKZ and MKC. Sales of the MKC are up 76% this year to 7,536 units, making it the best-selling Lincoln vehicle in China. Right behind the MKC was the MKZ, which has recorded a 159% increase over the prior year to 5,050 units.

The Lincoln brand has made significant progress in a short time in China -- the brand's first full year on the market there was 2015. And while its progress is encouraging, its year-to-date sales of 20,376 lag well behind those of General Motors' (GM 4.41%) Cadillac brand, which has been sold in China far longer. For comparison's sake, 14,154 Cadillacs were sold in China last month alone, and the brand has recorded more than 67,000 deliveries year to date. Not only is that total impressive, Cadillac is gaining momentum, with its sales up 86% through May compared to the prior year.

Looking forward, investors should hold out hope that Ford can continue to recover from its slow start in China this year, which we'll hear more about during the second-quarter conference call in late July. But the more important factor to watch will be the fate of the company's longer-term efforts to increase sales of higher-margin vehicles, such as the Ranger, which will go on sale in China next year, and the F-150 Raptor, which is currently selling in the country, albeit in low numbers. If Lincoln continues to gain traction, and higher-margin trucks gain some momentum, investors will have reason to smile about Ford's near-term outlook in the world's largest automotive market.




Haiti - Politics : Moise opens the International Summit Haiti Tech Summit





uesday, at the Royal Decameron Hotel, President Jovenel Moise accompanied his wife Martine proceeded to the official opening of the 2-day summit on technology "Haiti Tech Summit" held until June 7 and attended by nearly 500 participants, 100 speakers, including the most popular Tech startups in the world like : Uber, AirBnB, Google etc...



Front a panel of Haitian and foreign guests, the Head of State, convinced that technology can help Haiti's development, decalred "My administration wants to get the country out of the vicious circle of the informal and the small resourcefulness for its survival. The objectives are clear. We are fighting for the modernization of the economy by giving priority to the development of 4 sectors, strategic pillars : agriculture, energy, construction: buildings and public works, and services in particular tourism," stressing the need for Haiti to become an example of transformation of the economy through digital. He believes that technology can not be the prerogative of a few but must be within the reach of all, without exclusion, by well-targeted investments.



The Head of State also announced the continuation of an initiative of the previous government, to launch the new incubator center for technological innovation https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-16527-icihaiti-politic-towards-the-establishment-of-the-technological-innovation-incubator-centre.html . Stating that this incubator will have a rapid laboratory prototype. Its mandate will be to foster an environment conducive to the creation of start-ups, which will showcase technology for commercial purposes.



After the opening of the Summit, Moise met with the organizers around various programs related to the technology and the sustainable development of Haiti.



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-21109-icihaiti-technology-haiti-tech-summit-2017.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-20908-icihaiti-flash-first-edition-of-haiti-tech-summit.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-16527-icihaiti-politic-towards-the-establishment-of-the-technological-innovation-incubator-centre.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Environment : 1,2 million euros for an innovative project





Tuesday, the Ministry of the Environment, the Office of the National Authorizing Officer and the European Union launched an innovative project in the commune of Leogane to reduce the vulnerability of the local population to the disruptions caused by climate change.



Named "Solutions to Climate Disruption in the Carrefour/Leogane Watershed", this project, financed to the tune of 1.2 million and implemented by Caritas Switzerland and the association "Concertation et Action pour le Developpement", is derived directly from the Support Program to the consideration of climate change in national development of Haiti (AP3C) and the Global Alliance initiative against climate change (AMCC), both supported by the European Union.



This project targets 10,000 urban families and 2,500 rural families. It combines several activities aimed at changing certain practices of the population which often exploit its environment in an irrational manner, becoming more vulnerable to the consequences of climate change because of this degradation.



Among the actions planned include : of activities to disseminate of energy-efficient cooking techniques based on bagasse pellets to limit the use of charcoal, reforestation of communal sections via levies for environmental services, the improvement of agricultural production techniques, the use of coal powder, also called "biochar", and the encouragement of agroforestry practices.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Legislature flips off Cooper's call for special session

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RALEIGH  Legislative Republicans wasted little time Thursday dispatching Gov. Roy Coopers call for an extra session to draw new legislative districts.

As the clerk was reading Coopers proclamation calling for the 14-day session, House Rules Committee Chairman David Lewis, R-Harnett, raised a constitutional objection to the governor's order. Lewis cited Article III, Section 5, Part 7:

The Governor may, on extraordinary occasions, by and with the advice of the Council of State, convene the General Assembly in extra session by his proclamation, stating therein the purpose or purposes for which they are thus convened.

Lewis argued no extraordinary occasion existed, a federal court order required new districts to be drawn during a regular General Assembly session, and the governor did not meaningfully consult with the Council of State.

House Minority Leader Darren Jackson, D-Wake, objected to Lewiss objection. The House voted down his objection, 44-71.

House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, then removed the extra session from the legislative calendar.

The Senate convened at noon and went through a similar process, this time led by Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell. This time, Sens. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, and Wanda Bryant, D-Halifax, repeatedly objected to the methods used by Republicans. Rules Committee Chairman Bill Rabon, R-Brunswick, approved Hises objection, and the Senate likewise canceled the special session.

Despite all his talk about separation of powers, its clear Roy Cooper wants to be North Carolinas governor, legislature, and with this latest stunt, its judiciary too, said Hise in a statement after the Senate canceled the extra session.

Ford Porter, Coopers spokesman, issued a statement slamming the General Assembly.

Now the Republican legislature is thumbing its nose at the North Carolina Constitution as well as the U.S. Supreme Court, Porter said. Its troubling that they prefer to fight about the process rather than draw the new map that North Carolina voters deserve to level the playing field of our democracy. The U.S. Supreme Court was unanimous in its decision and there is no reason to delay the drawing of new maps.
Pisgah named a 'Treasured Landscape'

The National Forest Foundation has recently designated the Nantahala-Pisgah national forests as a Treasured Landscape, making it eligible for grants from Treasured Landscapes, Unforgettable Experiences conservation program.

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"This new initiative will elevate and focus our work on these iconic forests," said Mark Shelley, the Asheville-based eastern program director for the NFF. "Western North Carolina's bountiful natural resources are the cornerstone of our identity, our economy and our quality of life. Outdoor recreation benefits North Carolina's economy, communities, and visitors, and we look forward to working with local partners and the Forest Service to ensure these benefits continue."

As the nonprofit partner of the Forest Service, the NFF works across the country to engage Americans in the restoration, stewardship and enjoyment of National Forests and Grasslands. Through this designation, which the NFF is calling the Investing in the Great Outdoors campaign, the nonprofit is working with the Forest Service and emerging community interests to address and expand much-needed restoration efforts on the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests of western North Carolina.

Formally designating the Nantahala and Pisgah as a Treasured Landscape marks the beginning of NFF's Investing in the Great Outdoors campaign, which will work to raise private contributions to supplement limited federal funding available for restoration work on the forests. Through grants and contracts to local community groups and businesses, the NFF will help restore forest resources while increasing the collective capacity of local groups to engage in hands-on stewardship and recreational improvements.

"The NFF's collaborative model brings together the community  businesses, conservation groups, stakeholder and recreational user groups and the Forest Service  around the goals of improving forest health through collaborative restoration and creating sustainable recreation opportunities that enhance the quality of life and the outdoor experience that this region is famous for," Shelley said.

"Community engagement is essential to improving recreation and forest health," said Allen Nicholas, Forest Supervisor of the National Forests of North Carolina. "We need to tap into the enormous energy and creativity of the surrounding communities who care for and value the many benefits these Forests provide."

Economically, the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests provide an important contribution to the vitality of nearby communities - through recreation and visitor spending. Unfortunately, the cost of maintaining recreation sites and forest health combined with the region's population growth and demographic changes are causing damage to heritage sites and natural resources and straining recreation facilities, trails and roads.

"One-hundred and forty-nine thousand anglers fished for trout in the mountains of North Carolina in 2014, contributing $383 million to NC's economy and supporting 3,600 jobs," said Keith Curley, Vice President for Eastern Conservation at Trout Unlimited, citing a recent report from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. "It is unlikely these recreational and economic opportunities would be available without a healthy Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests.

The national forests supply habitat, food and cold, clean water upon which a thriving trout fishery depends. Trout Unlimited and its 45 member chapters in the southern Appalachian region are excited about the NFF Treasured Landscape designation and the forest restoration and protection opportunities it will support."

The campaign will focus on iconic recreation locations on the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests. These are unique, regionally renowned sites which experience some of the highest visitation in the East. Additionally these sites play an important role in the overall health of the Forests, so they are critical opportunities for restoration and stewardship.

Proposed activities include:

Pisgah National Forest - Linville Gorge: trail maintenance and invasive species treatments

Pisgah National Forest -Wilson Creek: trail maintenance and stream restoration

Pisgah National Forest - Catawba Falls: providing safe access to the upper falls

Pisgah National Forest - Big Ivy: trail maintenance

Nantahala National Forest - Chattooga River: boating access and trail construction

Nantahala National Forest - Nantahala River: access improvements

Nantahala National Forest - Tsali: trail maintenance, invasive species treatments, and campground improvements

Nantahala National Forest - Snowbird Mountain: trail maintenance

Investing in the Great Outdoors is intended to catalyze forest-wide change as collective efforts improve recreational infrastructure, restore forest health and foster stewardship of these valuable natural resources. This comprehensive approach will supplement the Forest Service's efforts to increase sustainable recreation opportunities and the pace and scale of restoration across these premier Eastern forests.

According to the NFF's Mark Shelley: "For western North Carolinians, a strong connection to our great outdoors is part of our identity. From hikers to anglers, mountain bikers to hunters, loggers to biologists, to outfitters, guides, mountain lodge operators, and outdoor equipment producers - even breweries and cideries, all of us rely on this region's bountiful natural resources for our livelihoods and recreation. This campaign will allow all of us to come together to share in the restoration and stewardship of these critical resources."

For more information on the National Forest Foundation's Investing in the Great Outdoors campaign on the Nantahala-Pisgah National Forests, visit: nationalforests.org/nantahalapisgah.
Randi Talmage has been appointed to sales manager of the the JW Marriott Grand Rapids. Since joining AHC+Hospitality in 2006, Talmage has continued into various roles and into management due to her ambition and eagerness to grow within the hospitality industry in Grand Rapids. In her new role, Talmage will work with the hotel team to visit clients, set up calls with prospective groups and build relationships with businesses in the local area. Given the hotels diverse meeting spaces, Talmages relationship with businesses in West Michigan is imperative. She will also lend sales support to the Amway Grand Plaza, and the Downtown Courtyard by Marriott in Grand Rapids in the regional market. Noting her familiarity within the state, she plans on working with local groups who have offices in West Michigan, including the Lake Shore, Traverse City, Holland and more. Talmage has filled many roles within AHC+Hospitalty., She began her career as concierge at the Amway Grand Plaza, before moving into convention services where she served as an assistant director. In her new role, shell use her experience advantage given her previous work on the planning sector of the business as shell easily anticipate the needs of incoming groups.AHC+Hospitality owns and operates four hotel properties: the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, JW Marriott Grand Rapids and the Downtown Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Grand Rapids, MI and Peter Island Resort and Spa in the British Virgin Islands. AHC+Hospitality is a division of Amway Corporation.
BENCHMARK, a global hospitality company, has named Robert Dorr director of sales and marketing for The Chattanoogan, a Benchmark Resorts & Hotels property located in the revitalized center of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Tom Cupo, regional managing director, made the announcement. Robert Dorr was most recently director of sales & marketing for The Westin Virginia Beach Town Center, a mixed use hotel and residential property that exists within the tallest building in the state of Virginia. Mr. Dorr has previously held sales leadership positions with Westin, Hilton, Sheraton and Dolce properties. Earlier in his career he served as director of sales for Benchmark while the company restored the historic Bedford Springs Resort in Bedford, Pennsylvania. Mr. Dorr attended Paul Smith's College in New York where he majored in hotel and restaurant management. He has relocated to Chattanooga.
Jordan has spent the majority of his career with The Ritz-Carlton, a luxury brand of hotels under Marriott International, which recently added St. Regis to its upscale portfolio. Chef Jordans epicurean journey began in 2005 when he joined the opening team at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman as an entry level cook in the banquet kitchen. Within only seven years, he attained the position of chef de cuisine at the propertys luxury steakhouse, Seven Restaurant, an achievement very difficult for chefs to accomplish. During his seven-year journey to sous chef, then to restaurant chef, and again to chef de cuisine, he achieved the Four Diamond Award in 2014 and 2015 and was nominated for the Marriott International Rising Star Award of Culinary Excellence and the Cayman Islands Tourism Association Restaurant Manager of the Year Stingray Award. During his tenure, he also received the Best Food designation at the Annual Taste of Cayman in 2012 and 2013, Cayman Islands Best Burger from Flava magazine for his Bar Jacks Caribbean Burger in 2012, and The Ritz-Carltons Leader of the Quarter Award in 2013. His success led him to return home to his native Canada in 2014 as the executive sous chef at The Ritz-Carlton, Toronto. In this role, he was responsible for three venues and catering outlets, many of which became a focal point and gathering spot each year for celebrities and movie executives during the Toronto International Film Festival. Most recently, the Ritz Bar, led by Chef Jordan, was given the Peruvian trademark by the Peruvian ambassador to Canada for the authenticity and elevated presentation of the restaurants Peruvian menu and became one of only two restaurants in Canada to receive the honor. In addition to receiving The Ritz-Carltons Leader of the Quarter again in 2016, Chef Jordan was very involved in the Toronto community, where he participated in raising funds for hunger, while also spending time with less fortunate local teens, imparting his passion for food and inspiring them to pursue careers in the hospitality and culinary industry.
The School Break Report from STR shows two significant school holiday shifts for the 2017-18 academic year and a wide variance in overall U.S. school calendars.

Hoteliers continue see how holiday calendar shifts of two weeks or even one day can impact a significant period of demand, said Chris Klauda, STRs director of destination research. We will see several important shifts this year, such as a more concentrated spring break and more students on break during the first week of January. It is vital to identify and anticipate these specific patterns of the markets feeding hotel business.

Key findings from the 2017-18 School Break Report include:

The Easter calendar shift from 16 April 2017 to 1 April 2018 will result in a more concentrated spring break season with more than two-thirds of public school students on break during the 2018 Easter weekend. In 2017, less than half of those students were on break at that time.

More public school students will have their Winter/Christmas break extended into January with just less than half of all public school students on break during the first week of January 2018 compared with only one-fourth in 2017.

The Presidents Day break appears to be becoming more popular with just shy of one-third of all public school students on break in 2018 compared with just less than one-fourth in 2017.

The start of the public school year ranges seven weeks from 19 July to 7 September (shifting only one day compared with last year).

Public school end dates range almost eight weeks from 3 May to 27 June (also shifting one day compared with last year).

College/university calendars show later start dates compared with public school districts. Classes begin as early as 14 August and as late as 28 September.

The college/university window of end dates begins more than a week earlier than public school districts, ranging from 23 April to 17 June.

Public school districts and colleges/universities each have a 55-day range in end dates.

When combining 2018 public school end dates and estimated 2018 public school start dates, we see only three weeks (28 June-18 July) with all traditional school districts on summer vacation, Klauda said.

The School Break Report, a forward-looking tool utilized to plan for vacation hotel demand, includes information for more than 1,000 public school districts and 500 four-year universities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. More information is available HERE, and licenses can be purchased by contacting info@str.com.

STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com.
For the week of 28 May to 3 June, the U.S. hotel industry reported occupancy decreased 1% to 63.9%, ADR rose 1.4% to $120.34 and RevPAR rose just 0.4% to $76.89.

The U.S. hotel industry reported mixed year-over-year results in the three key performance metrics during the week of 28 May through 3 June 2017, according to data from STR.

In comparison with the week of 29 May through 4 June 2016, the industry recorded the following:

Occupancy: -1.0% to 63.9%

Average daily rate (ADR): +1.4% to US$120.34

Revenue per available room (RevPAR): +0.4% to US$76.89

Among the Top 25 Markets, New Orleans, Louisiana, posted the largest year-over-year increase in RevPAR (+16.2% to US$96.02), driven primarily by the weeks only double-digit lift in ADR (+10.1% to US$142.57). Occupancy in the market was up 5.5% to 67.4%.

Orlando, Florida, saw the only other double-digit increase in RevPAR (+10.1% to US$78.32).

Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia, experienced the largest increase in occupancy (+6.8% to 64.7%).

Houston, Texas, reported the steepest declines in ADR (-8.5% to US$90.37) and RevPAR (-16.3% to US$48.98).

Dallas, Texas, saw the weeks largest dip in occupancy (-8.6% to 61.6%) and the only other double-digit decrease in RevPAR (-10.8% to US$57.45).

View weekly U.S. hotel performance review

STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com.
The newly opened Grand Hyatt Baha Mar announces the appointment of Scott Allen as general manager. Widely known and respected within the Hyatt family, Allen brings 28 years of experience and leadership to the artistically designed 1,800-room resort on Nassau's Cable Beach. Boasting unprecedented amenities and services, the oceanfront property is the first hotel to open as part of the expansive Baha Mar Resort.

Elevating the profile of opulent experiences in Nassau, Grand Hyatt Baha Mar is set to usher in a new level of luxury to the island. Guests are immersed into the bold beauty of the Bahamas and can enjoy island-inspired and global cuisine; seven multi-level pools with various water features ranging from a sea-life sanctuary filled with adopted nurse sharks, stingrays and tropical fish; world class ESPA spa and fitness center; the Caribbean's largest casino; state-of-the-art nightly fountain and light shows; Royal Blue, a Jack Nicklaus Signature Design Course; Peter Burwash-managed Racquet Club; luxury retail shops; nightlife; local art and more.

"As the first resort to welcome guests to the highly-distinguished Baha Mar Resort, Grand Hyatt Baha Mar sets the stage for an unforgettable Caribbean vacation," said Allen. "The property is a significant addition to the destination and the Hyatt portfolio of celebrated hotels. We look forward to creating everlasting memories for visitors to the Bahamas with gorgeous beaches, global cuisine and world-class hospitality."

Allen manages a team of associates and oversees more than 20 food and beverage outlets as well as Grand Hyatt's signature Grand Club and the Baha Mar Convention Center, one of the largest meeting and convention spaces in the Caribbean, with 200,000 square feet of flexible, indoor and outdoor meeting space.

Most recently, Allen was general manager at Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort in Maui, Hawaii. During his tenure, Andaz Maui was voted the "#1 Top Resort in Hawaii" in Conde Nast Traveler's 2016 Readers' Choice Awards.

"I am proud to welcome Scott Allen to Baha Mar," said Graeme Davis, President of Baha Mar/Chow Tai Fook Enterprises CTFE's Bahamian subsidiary. "As a distinguished general manager for Hyatt, Scott brings over 20 years of hospitality management experience to Baha Mar, and I look forward to our shared future successes."
Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe Hotel Opens

Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe opens today, marking the first opening of a Hyatt House hotel in Mexico and Latin America. With the new property, the Hyatt House brand enters the Latin American market with an innovative hospitality offering that beyond welcoming guests, looks to welcome neighbors. Grupo Presidente, a leading Mexican hospitality company, will be responsible for hotel operations.

The Hyatt House brand is rooted in extensive consumer insights indicating that guests seek stylish, comfortable, seamless experiences that accommodate their lifestyles and familiar routines. To embody this, the brand offers casual hospitality and purposeful service in a smartly designed, high-tech and contemporary environment.

We are very excited to announce the opening of Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe, which marks the arrival of the Hyatt House brand to the region, said Luciano Julio, regional director of operations in Latin America for Hyatt Place and Hyatt House. Every space in this hotel has been conceived to remind guests of home, and we want to warmly welcome them to their new home in the heart of the Santa Fe business area.

With social areas to enjoy, rest and feel at home, Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe offers 119 residentially inspired guestrooms designed to accommodate the travel needs of those visiting Mexico Citys Santa Fe area. Located less than 17 miles from Mexico International Airport, the hotel is connected by a bridge to Centro Medico ABC Hospital and a short distance from corporate offices, shopping centers and restaurants.

Now that we have opened our doors, we couldn't be more excited to welcome guests, said Braulio Arsuaga, chief executive officer of Grupo Presidente. We are excited to collaborate with Hyatt on this project, and we believe guests will be pleased with the innovative extended stay concept offer at Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe.

Hyatt House Mexico City/Santa Fe offers:
Badger Still In on Climate Action, Asks New Hampshire Businesses, State Officials, and Local Leaders to Join Forces in Honoring Paris Agreement

Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 06-08-2017 5:00 am

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Award-winning family and environmentally friendly company vows to continue doing its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% by 2025GILSUM, NEW HAMPSHIRE (PRWEB) JUNE 05, 2017In support of the Paris climate agreement, the W.S. Badger Co. today announced signing an open letter to the international community pledging to do its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 26-28% by 2025. As part of its stance on climate change, the award-winning organic body care maker is asking New Hampshire businesses, state officials, and community leaders also to sign the open letter and join them in the global fight on climate change.Initiated by WWF, Ceres, and other NGOs, the open letter has an overarching message of We Are Still In. It is intended to show that businesses of all sizes, investors, state and local officials, and higher education leaders are still committed to ambitious action on climate change and will move forward with efforts to reduce carbon pollution and support the transitio...

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'In Search of Excellence in Background Screening: Best Practice Insights from Accredited Background Screening Firms' Guide Released to Help Hiring Managers

Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 06-08-2017 4:56 am

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PreemploymentDirectory.com, the worlds leading background screening information portal for HR professionals, released its newest publication, 'In Search of Excellence in Background Screening: Best Practices Insights from Accredited Background Screening Firms' at the recent SHRM Talent Management Conference.ALPHARETTTA, GA (PRWEB) JUNE 06, 2017PreemploymentDirectory.com, the background screening information portal for Human Resources professionals, announced the release of their newest publication, 'In Search of Excellence in Background Screening: Best Practices Insights from Accredited Background Screening Firms' at the recent SHRM Talent Management Conference in Chicago. The guide features articles written by firms who have earned accreditation from the National Association for Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), which is the trade association for the global background screening profession.To earn accreditation, firms must implement the standards as defined by the Background S...

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Steven Drexel, Cornerstone Staffing President/CEO, Shares Insights on a Soft May 2017 Employment Report

Posted by Press Releases on Thursday, 06-08-2017 4:58 am

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Mays result suggests that growth has been softer than expected with room to improve during the rest of the 2017. This moderate job growth will be sufficient to support a growing labor force, a low unemployment rate and, over time, increasing average hourly earnings.LEASANTON, CALIF. (PRWEB) JUNE 06, 2017As an economist and seasoned staffing industry professional, Steven Drexel is regularly asked to participate in several monthly surveys and discussions that predict key elements of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) press releases describing The Employment Situation. On Friday June 2nd, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its monthly summary of labor market activity covering May 2017. The consensus expectation called for a return to a solid trend growth of around 185,000 positions.On balance, Mays result suggests that growth has been softer than expected with room to improve during the rest of the 2017, comments Drexel. The official report indicated that Mays job ...

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TrenData Launches Cloud-Based Predictive Analytics Platform Using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Interface

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TrenData's Solution Provides Corporate Leadership with Actionable People Insights Necessary to Increase Revenue and Reduce CostsDALLAS, TX (PRWEB) JUNE 07, 2017TrenData has launched a cloud based, predictive analytics platform focused on optimizing workforce performance. The solution supplies corporate leadership with the insights they need to make better people and business decisions. The easy to install and use solution ties directly into HRIS, Talent Management, and other Big Data applications to provide management with a unified platform that will visualize actionable data.Unlike most Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software, TrenData can be up and running in a few days providing robust metrics, trended analytics, while boasting a powerful artificial intelligence engine that will build predictive algorithms and provide natural language interface capabilities.Leaders will be able to operate from a more enlightened position when recruiting talent, managing performance, and impleme...

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About Webcast

10 Tips for Reducing Workers Compensation Costs

Featuring Knell, OConnor, Danielewicz



June 8, 2017

12:00-1:00 p.m. Central Time



Rising workers compensation costs are among many employers greatest concerns, as large-dollar claims against companiesespecially those who employ hourly, blue collar workerscontinue to rise.



While the laws regarding workers compensation benefits vary from state to state, all but one state requires mandatory coverage for private employees. Generally, these mandatory benefits include medical bills, compensation for lost time from work, and permanency benefits for the residual effects of a work related injury. Interestingly, medical services provided on a workers compensation case are typically billed at a much higher rate than Medicare, state provided health coverage such as Medicaid, and even private group health insurance. Because of this and other factors, the cost of doing business has taken a significant toll on both the traditional mom and pop small employer and large corporations in certain states.



While workers compensation coverage is a necessary expense for businesses, there are also many indirect costs of on-the-job injuries and accidents, which go beyond your insurance costs. This may include training replacement employees, investigating claims, repairing damaged equipment and property, and implementing corrective measures. Plus, your business may lose productivity and be forced to deal with lower employee morale.



When it comes to lowering your losses and reducing the total cost of risk, many businesses dont know where to start, so join EPAY Systems and Knell, OConnor, Danielewicz for an upcoming webinar as we explore 10 ways to reduce workers compensation costs.



About the Speakers



Bradley C. Knell

Equity Principal, Knell, OConnor, Danielewicz



Bradley C. Knell is admitted to the Illinois State Bar and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He graduated from Eastern Illinois University (B.A., 1984) and Ohio Northern University (J.D., 1987). Currently an Equity Principal with the firm of Knell OConnor Danielewicz, Mr. Knell has specialized in Workers Compensation and Civil Litigation.



Mr. Knell has tried and supervised more than 150 Workers Compensation cases at the Illinois Workers Compensation Commission. He also handles Insurance Fraud, 1(b) Employers Liability and Employment matters. Mr. Knell has led and spoken at many seminars concerning Workers Compensation, Insurance Fraud and Employment matters. He is a member of the Chicago Bar Association, Illinois Bar Association and the Illinois Workers Compensation Trial Attorney Association.





Nicole V. Russo

Principal, Knell, OConnor, Danielewicz

Nicole V. Russo recently re-joined the firm as Principal in August 2016, and has been practicing workers compensation defense her entire legal career. She is a graduate of Chicago-Kent College of Law and was admitted to the Illinois State Bar in 2005. Nicole has tried more than 40 cases at the Arbitration, Commission, and Circuit Court levels, and has defended a victory decision on appeal in the Second District Appellate Court.



Nicole was honored as an Emerging Lawyer, selected by Illinois Leading Lawyers in 2017, 2016 and 2015. This distinction is awarded to the top 2% of lawyers under 40 years old. Nicole has also participated in client presentations where she spoke on the topic of managing difficult clients and effective use of prior awards and injuries in defending a claim.



By registering for this webcast you will receive email communications and notifications from the sponsor(s).
The Osage Nation is facing both support and opposition to a proposed casino on ancestral territory in Missouri.

A location in Cuba, a community about 90 minutes outside of St. Louis, is reportedly under consideration. A local lawmaker told The Missouri Times that he would welcome a casino there.

I think it will provide an opportunity to bring more revenue into a county that really needs it, Rep. Jason Chipman (R) told The Times. Overall, it would be a benefit for Crawford County, Cuba, the state and the Osage.

But the Missouri Baptist Convention will oppose it, advisor Don Hinkle told the paper. The state is already home to 13 gaming facilities , though none are in the vicinity of Cuba.

Well fight it tooth and nail because its bad stuff, Hinkle told the times. A new casino coming to Missouri would be a bad and destructive thing.

The tribe once had a reservation in Missouri but would need to acquire trust lands in order to establish a casino there. The land-into-trust process typically takes years to complete.

The tribe also would need to negotiate a Class III gaming compact with the governor if it intends to offer slot machines, blackjack, poker and related games. The state has never entered into such an agreement.

Generally, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act bars casinos on land acquired after 1988. But Section 20 of the law contains an exception for land within a tribe's "last recognized reservation."

In the history of IGRA, the Quapaw Tribe appears to be the only one to have secured this particular exception. In that case, the land was within a former reservation in Kansas

After living in Missouri, the Osage Nation was forced to move to Kansas and later to present-day Oklahoma. The tribe operates seven gaming facilities in northeastern Oklahoma.

Read More on the Story: Osage Nations efforts for a casino already has opposition (The Missouri Times 6/6)

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Join us in this CELEBRATION of diversity, acceptance and inclusion, as we gather to show the world that we will not accept any form of hate in our district.WHY: A group called ACT FOR AMERICA has chosen Santa Clara as one of its locations across the country to stage an anti-Muslim demonstration. The group has been classified as a HATE GROUP, and has made it their mission to villainize Muslims, building a platform to perpetuate and promote the most hateful language imaginable.WE WILL NOT ACCEPT HATE IN OUR COMMUNITY!WHAT: We are calling on activists and allies from the region to come together for peaceful Unity Rally. We will show our support for people of every race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, color, ethnicity, and ability.HOW:- Wear white- Wear flowers- Bring flowers to give away- Bring American flags!- Make LARGE white signs with BOLD black letters- Signs should be POSITIVE- Signs should show what we believe INPLEASE visit the FB page and click the "GOING" button if you will come, and come back often for updates.Vigil hosted by:AMAAN Committee of the Arab American Cultural Center--Silicon ValleyASATA - Alliance of South Asians Taking ActionAlum Rock United Methodist ChurchAmerican Muslim VoiceAsian Americans Advancing Justice - Asian Law CaucusAsian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI)Asian Law AllianceBangladeshi American Democratic CoalitionBay Area Conference of Associates and Religious (BACAR)Bay ResistanceBend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for JusticeBuena Vista United Methodist ChurchCalifornia Immigrant and Religious Community Protection CoalitionCasa de Clara Catholic WorkerCenter for New CommunityCoalition for Justice and AccountabilityCongregational Church of SunnyvaleCongregation Shir Ami, Castro ValleyCAIR - San Francisco Bay AreaCounter-Friction SunnyvaleCourage CampaignCrisis Response Team (Bay Area Muslim Mental Health Professionals)Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALCEden Area Interfaith CouncilFirst Congregational Church of Palo AltoFirst Congregational Church of Palo Alto, UCCFirst Congregational Church of San JoseFirst Presbyterian Church of Palo AltoFirst Unitarian Church of San JoseGreen Party of Santa Clara CountyHealing Flower EnergiesICNA SF Bay Area ChapterIndivisible East San JoseIndivisible San JoseIndivisible SausalitoIndivisible South Bay (ISB)Interfaith Center at the PresidioInterfaith Committee and Social Action Committee, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City (UUFRC)Interfaith Council of Contra Costa CountyInterfaith Movement for Human IntegrityInternational Socialist Organization - Northern CaliforniaIslamic Networks Group - INGJapanese American Citizens League, San Jose ChapterJewish Voice for PeaceLakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, OaklandLos Gatos United Methodist ChurchMeet a MuslimMountain View Voices for Peace and JusticeMultifaith Voices for Peace & JusticeNAACP Youth Council of the San Jose/Silicon Valley AreaNIACNihonmachi Outreach Committee (NOC)Nikkei ResistersOFA-East Bay CentralOrange AlertOrganizing For Action, East Bay CentralOur Developing WorldPangea Legal ServicesPeninsula Peace and Justice CenterPACT South Bay: People Acting in Community TogetherPriest of The Episcopal ChurchProgressive Action - Mountain ViewRamallah Club of San JoseResource Center for NonviolenceRISE UP FOR JUSTICESan Jose Dharma PunxSan Jose Friday Peace VigilSan Jose/Silicon Valley NAACPSan Jose Peace and Justice CenterSanta Clara County Democratic ClubSanta Clara County Peace & Freedom PartySanta Clara County Wage Theft CoalitionSanta Clara Valley chapter of the ACLU of Northern CaliforniaServices, Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN)Shomeret Shalom Global CongregationSilicon Valley Interreligious CouncilSilicon Valley Japanese American Citizens League (SVJACL)Sisterhood of Salaam ShalomSomos MayfairSOUTH BAY SANCTUARY COVENANTSouth Bay Jewish Voice for PeaceSt. Jude's Episcopal ChurchSt. Mark's Santa ClaraSt. Paul's United Methodist ChurchStarr King Unitarian Universalist Church in HaywardStand UP! United Peninsula, Uniting Against Racism & HatredStudents for Justice in PalestineSURJ at Sacred HeartSunnyvale Democratic ClubSunnyvale Presbyterian Pilgrims of IbillinTogether We Will - San JoseTogether We Will Palo Alto/Mountain ViewTri-City Interfaith CouncilTrinity Church in Menlo ParkTWW-Los GatosUnited Marin RisingUnitarian Universalist Church of Palo AltoUnitarian Universalist Fellowship of SunnyvaleWest Bay Chapter of the Buddhist Peace FellowshipWestminster Presbyterian Church, San JoseTo join the list of event hosts and add your organization's name to this effort, complete this form: http://bit.ly/2s5V0jz
Protest and Drown Out Anti Muslim Bigotry! (Counter-Protest)

Date:

Saturday, June 10, 2017

Time:

11:00 AM - 2:00 PM

Event Type:

Protest

Organizer/Author:

Refuse Fascism Bay Area

Location Details:

Corner of Winchester Ave and Stevens Creek Blvd

Santa Clara, CA

(Look for the "No! We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America" banner and signs)

In the Name of Humanity  REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! Protest and Drown Out Anti-Muslim Hatred and Bigotry.



On June 10, fascists will rally in dozens of cities across the country. They claim to oppose Sharia Law, but really they are against all Muslims. They claim that Islam is a political ideology, not a religion  therefore, they insist that Muslims dont deserve legal protection under the Constitutional right to Freedom of Religion. They claim to stand for women and LGBTQ people against Islamic extremists, but this is hypocrisy used to prettify their anti-Muslim agenda. Their lead organizer, Brigitte Gabriel, worked for years for the viciously woman-hating, anti-LGBTQ Christian fascist Pat Robertson, and their speakers list is packed with notorious misogynists. Most dangerous of all: they are closely aligned with  and in many cases directly tied to  the fascist Trump/Pence Regime.



Some people say the stakes are too high to speak up. The truth is the stakes are too high NOT to speak up and act. This is a moment in history where your grandchildren will look back and ask you, What did you do when they came for Muslims?



On June 10, counter the xenophobic hatred and lies, defy intimidation, and drown it out with a sea of opposition declaring: NO! We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! We must build up the strength to drive the whole fascist Trump/Pence Regime from power. We must do this not just for ourselves, but in the name of humanity.


Business Burma Signals for Foreign Investment

Planning and Finance Minister U Kyaw Win (left) and other cabinet members at Myanmar Investment Forum 2017. / Pe Thet Htet Khin / The Irrawaddy

NAYPYIDAW  Burmas businesspeople are expecting foreign investments to help launch their projects after buying thousands of acres across the country to develop industrial zones and large-scale operations, according to the Myanmar Investors Development Association (MIDA).

Companies presented their ventures at MIDAs Myanmar Investment Forum 2017 in Naypyidaw on June 6-7, which attracted mostly Chinese businesspeople, followed by Thai, and then Indian, according to the exhibitions organizers.

Projects seeking foreign investment are sprawled across Rangoon, Pegu, Mandalay, Tenasserim, and Irrawaddy divisions, and Shan State, MIDA vice chairman U Hla Myint told The Irrawaddy.

There are many foreign investors who have enquired to us about opportunities, MIDA vice chairman U Hla Myint told The Irrawaddy.

In Rangoon, KMA Group will build high-rise projects in 12 locations covering nearly 11 acres of land in Kyauktada, Mingalar Taung Nyunt, Tamwe, Bahan, Kamayut, Hline and Mayangone townships.

Also in the commercial capital, New City Development Co Ltd will develop an industrial park on 547 acres of land in East Dagon Township, and another on more than 700 acres of land 10 miles from Hlegu Township, according to the MIDA.

Although they have bought the land, the companies are yet to receive official approval from the government to develop the projects, said U Hla Myint.

U Sein Win, the managing director of Hanthawaddy Co., said his company planned to begin three major projects, including an industrial zone near Pegu, on land bought from locals. The company has built roads and water supply facilities for the planned projects, he said.

For the rest, well invite local and foreign investors to join in partnership with us, he said. For the industrial project, well invite foreign industrialists and work together in a joint venture.

U Saw Oo, managing director of Maw Shan Co, said the Shan State government approved the companys proposal to establish a border trade zone between Shan States Muse and Chinas Jiegao and submitted the proposal to the Union government.

In her visit to China, the State Counselor signed an agreement on establishing border trade zones, including in this place. The proposed zone covers about 3,000 acres, he said.

Economist U Khin Maung Nyo stressed the importance of making good use of land purchased by companies.

Yes, companies have to play competitively to obtain land. This is right from an economic point of view, as land is a limited and valuable resource. But, it is important that land brings benefits. If there will be factories and job opportunities on the land, it would be beneficial, he told The Irrawaddy.

U Toe Aung Myint, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Commerce, said granting foreign investors the same rights as local businesspeople would attract them.

I think well be able to catch up with other countries only by establishing industrial zones and export zones, U Toe Aung Myint told the press after the forum.

[Foreign investors] are interested in the infrastructural sector of the country. For example, they want to invest in electricity, as it is lacking here. They want to know about policies on how investment can be made in electricity, said chairman U Khin Maung Aye of the MIDA.

Responding to anti-China sentiment surrounding controversial China-backed projects such as the suspended Myitsone Dam in Kachin State, and the Letpadaung Copper Mine in Sagaing Division, chairman of the Co-operative Bank (CB) U Khin Maung Aye said, I would like to tell the whole country that I dont agree to boycotting all the Chinese investors.

My view is we should accept Chinese businesspeople if their projects benefit us. But if the projects only benefit them, we should not accept it, he added.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Why Was Bail Denied to Journalists Charged Under Article 66(d)?

Journalists march from the Bahan Township courthouse to The Voice Dailys office on Thursday, as part of a Freedom of Press campaign. / Thet Htun Naing / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  After a Bahan Township court denied bail to The Voice Dailys chief editor and columnist on Thursday, legal consultant U Khin Maung Myint criticized police and the court for acting unfairly and inconsistently in the handling of the defamation case, alleging that the decision was influenced by the plaintiffsthe Burma Army.

The Burmese publications editor U Kyaw Min Swe and columnist Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing were charged with defamation under the controversial Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law after publishing an article on March 26 that satirized the countrys armed struggle and peace process.

Both journalists pledged to honor the terms of bail, however, the Bahan Township judge denied the detainees a temporary release, saying that they had failed to present a medical recommendation letter justifying the granting of bail during Thursdays hearing.

From inside a police vehicle, Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing told reporters what had happened, saying that the judge told them they did not present the medical release in time.

Police officers asked the judge to extend the remand on bail and to keep the men in custody, explaining that they had not yet completed the necessary police work in the case, including compiling documents and consulting attorneys, according to U Khin Maung Myint.

Placing such a request was wrong, U Khin Maung Myint said. Asking for a medical recommendation from us rather than assessing our pledge [to honor the terms of the bail] is also poor conduct on the part of the judge.

He added: we are not asking for bail for health reasons. We are asking for legal rights.

U Kyaw Min Swe and Ko Kyaw Zwa Naings team had in fact prepared a medical recommendation from a doctor to present at Thursdays court hearing. The individual designated to deliver the document was held up in traffic, leading the judge to call for a resumed session on June 16.

We are expecting to be granted release on bail next week if we can provide the medical recommendation letter to the judge, said U Khin Maung Myint.

U Khin Maung Myint told the reporters that the legal team would file complaints concerning the actions of the judge and the police with the Chief Justice and Advocate General.

The Myanmar police force, and several levels of the court, are not acting in coordination with existing lawsthey are instead concentrating on the background of the plaintiffs. Thats why many inappropriate things are happening, he explained.

Lawyer U Myo Thein and legal adviser U Khin Maung Myint asked for bail to be determined according to Article 497(1) of the criminal code of conduct, which states that any person arrested by the police without a warrant or summoned to the court can request bail. Only if the person is believed to have committed a crime punishable by death or a life sentence can see the right to bail waived.

The detainees are facing a maximum of three years in jail if convicted defaming the Tatmadaw.

The fact that the detainees, who have been sued by army officials under Article 66(d) for writing an articlewere denied bail is not in line with the law, U Khin Maung Myint said.

The legal adviser said that in other states and divisions, the procedures for bringing charges under 66(d) appeared to be different, citing the case of human rights activist U Tun Tun Oo in Irrawaddy Division. U Tun Tun Oo was charged by an army official with violating the statute, but a township judge granted him bail in line with Article 497(1).

U Khin Maung Myint explained that the conditions for U Tun Tun Oo, U Kyaw Min Swe and Ko Kyaw Zwa Naing were the same, but that in the former case, the judge decided fairly, and granted bail.

A woman from Pegu Division, Daw Sandi Myint Aung, was also charged with violating Article 66(d) and defaming State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi; she was granted bail in 2016.

Ex-president U Thein Seins government enacted the telecommunications law in 2013 and a media law in 2014, yet plaintiffs and judges have opted to situate defamation charges under the telecommunications law. U Khin Maung Myint said that if there is contradiction between laws enacted by Union legislature, the latest enacted law should override previously enacted laws.

Hundreds of journalists gathered to obtain news and comment from the detainees after Thursdays court session, but police rushed The Voice Dailys editor and columnist into a car, making it difficult them to speak to the media.

Representatives of various media houses participated in a white armband campaign entitled Freedom of Press on Thursday morning, walking from the Bahan Township courthouse to The Voice Dailys office in Tamwe. Journalists have pledged to wear the armbands for at least ten days.
Burma Canada Announces Almost $9 Million for Burmas Peace Process and Humanitarian Support

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Canadian government officials and Burma ethnic armed group leaders after a federalism forum in Ottawa on Wednesday. / Myanmar State Counselors Office / Facebook

Amid Burmese refugees in Canada voicing concerns over their countrys peace process, Canadas Prime Minister Trudeau has announced $8.8 million in support for humanitarian assistance and the advancement of peace and stability in Burma.

The announcement came as Burmas State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi visited Canada, meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau on Wednesday in Ottawa.

A statement released on the prime ministers website said the financial contributions will help protect human rights, support peace building, and promote womens participation in the national peace process.

They will also support a range of life-saving services, including emergency food assistance, shelter and health care, to vulnerable populations, read the statement.

Canadas Prime Minister said in the statement, Canadas ties with Myanmar grow every day, and we are committed to supporting this country as its people progress towards true peace and stability.

We encourage an inclusive peace process that respects human rights and meets the needs of all people in Myanmar, especially those of traditionally vulnerable populations, including ethnic and religious minorities, women and children, he was quoted as saying.

Burmas State Counselor and Canadas Prime Minister also discussed the political transition in Burma and the Canadian governments support of ongoing reforms.

The Prime Minster encouraged Burma to speed up its efforts to uphold human rights, particularly with respect to women, youth, and protecting ethnic and religious minorities, including the Rohingya.

The prime minister also expressed condolences for the tragic loss of life after a Burma Army plane, carrying more than 100 people including servicemen and their families, crashed near Dawei on Wednesday.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi also joined a federalism study workshop on Wednesday with leaders of Burmas ethnic armed organizations. Ethnic leaders from Karen, Shan, Chin and Pa-O armed groups are currently visiting Canada on a federalism study tour.

On Monday, ethnic Karen refugees in Canada released an open letter on the arrival of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, raising their concern over the ongoing militarization in Karen State despite a bilateral ceasefire agreement that was signed between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the previous government.

Slone Phan, chairman of the Karen Community of Canada, told The Irrawaddy: We are concerned about human rights abuses, land confiscation, mega-projects, and militarization in ethnic areas. We want to tell the Canadian government to encourage Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out for human rights, to stop conflict and withdraw her troops [Burma Army] in Karen and other ethnic states.

He also urged the state counselor to sincerely cooperate with ethnic leaders for national reconciliation and a new constitution that reflects a genuine democratic federal union in Burma.

Canada and Burma established diplomatic ties when Burma gained independence from the British in 1948. Canada has disbursed more than US$95 million to Burma in official development assistance since 2013, according to the prime ministers website.
Burma China and Burma: Not Only Pauk-Phaw

Hillary Clinton, then the US Secretary of State, looks at Burmas pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as she speaks to the media at Daw Aung San Suu Kyis residence in Rangoon on December 2, 2011. / Saul Loeb/Pool / Reuters

Part 4 of a 5-part series.

2011-to present: Burma-US Relations, Its Complicated

Western sanctions did not cause Burmas economicand strategicfall into the hands of the Chinese, as many foreign observers have argued. But Western policies certainly made it easier for China to implement its designs for Burma. This, in return, caused some in the West to criticize a policy of isolating Burma and handing it over to China. These concerns were outlined as early as June 1997 in a Los Angeles Times article by Marvin Ott, an American security expert and former CIA analyst. Washington can and should remain outspokenly critical of abuses in [Burma]. But there are security and other national interests to be servedit is time to think seriously about alternatives, Ott concluded.

But the turn took some doing. Between 2000-2008, the George W. Bush administrations bipartisan Burma policy not only maintained sanctions put in place by Congress during the Clinton administration but added new ones in an attempt to support Burmas democratic forces. In the wake of the 2007 Saffron Revolutions popular uprising and the regimes disastrous response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008, the Bush administration did seek to take advantage of additional space to support civil society on the ground by expanding humanitarian assistance and other programs inside the country, but overall it maintained a hard line against the regimes leadership.

The revelation in the early 2000s that Burma and North Korea had established a strategic partnership helped to tip the balance in Washington. North Korea reportedly was providing Burma with tunneling expertise, heavy weapons, radar and air defense systems, andit is alleged by Western and Asian intelligence agencieseven missile-related technology. Some leading foreign policy voices, such as then-Senator Jim Webb, began arguing that it was high time to shift tracks and start to engage the Burmese leadership, which seemed bent on clinging on to power no matter the consequences. When the Obama administration came into office on a platform of reversing Bush-era foreign policy, many saw an opening for a change on Burma as well.

The November 2010 election in Burma, which formally ended junta rule by Senior General Than Shwe and brought the Thein Sein government to power, was blatantly rigged and fraudulent. Nonetheless, it was seen as an opportunity that the West needed to mend fences with the Burmese leadership. Burma suddenly had a new face and a country ostensibly run by a constitution, not a junta. With a new administration in Washington, it was also the perfect time for Burmas former generals to launch a charm offensive in the West, and for the United States and other Western countries to begin the process of detente. Both the US and Burmese leadership viewed pulling Burma from its uncomfortable Chinese embrace and close relationship with North Korea as a key element of this new era.

In early December 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paid a high-profile visit to Burma, the first such trip by a top-ranking Washington official in more than 50 years. Clintons visit to Burma was followed by a visit by President Obama in November 2012, who returned to Rangoon two years later as the country finally took its turn as chair of ASEAN. In May 2013, Thein Sein became the first Burmese head of state to visit the United States since Gen. Ne Win was there in 1966. By the time Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Washington for a September 2016 visit as State Counselor, US-Burma relations had been almost completely normalized. On the occasion of her visit, she and President Obama announced the lifting of all remaining economic sanctions.

In order to understand Burmas rather dramatic policy shift, it is instructive to look deeper into what was discussed in inner circles of the military in the early 2000s. Then condemned and isolated by the international community, the ruling military junta announced in August 2003 a seven-step Roadmap to Discipline-Flourishing Democracy. That plan called for the drafting of a new constitution, general elections, and convention of a new parliament that would elect state leaders charged with building a modern, developed, and democratic nation.

The roadmap was made public, but at the same time a confidential master plan that outlined ways and means to deal with both the international community, especially the US, and domestic opposition was also drawn up. The authors of that plan are not known; however, an internal military document written by Lt-Col Aung Kyaw Hla, who is identified as a researcher at the countrys prestigious Defense Services Academy, was completed and circulated as early as August 2004, less than two months before Lt-Gen Khin Nyunt, Chinas man, was ousted.

The Burmese-language document, received and reviewed by this author, outlines the thinking and strategy behind the master plan. It is, however, unclear whether Aung Kyaw Hla is a particular person, or a codename used by a military think-tank. Anecdotal evidence suggests the latter.

Entitled A Study of Myanmar [Burma]-U.S. Relations, the main thesis of the 346-page dossier is that Burmas recent reliance on China as a diplomatic ally and economic patron has created a national emergency that threatens the countrys independence. According to the dossier, Burma must normalize relations with the West after implementing the roadmap and electing a government so that the regime can deal with the outside world on more acceptable terms.

Aung Kyaw Hla goes on to argue that although human rights are a concern in the West, the US would be willing to modify its policy to suit strategic interests. Although the author does not specify those interests, it is clear from the thesis that he is thinking of common ground with the US vis-a-vis China. The author cites Vietnam and Indonesia under former dictator Suharto as examples of US foreign policy flexibility in weighing strategic interests against democratization.

If bilateral relations with the US were improved, the master plan suggests, Burma would also get access to badly needed funds from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions. The country could then emerge from regionalism, where it depended on the goodwill and trade of its immediate neighbors, including China, and enter a new era of globalization.

The master plan clearly articulated the problems that must be addressed before Burma could lessen its reliance on China and become a trusted partner with the West. The main issue at the time of writing was the detention of pro-democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who Aung Kyaw Hla wrote was a key focal point: Whenever she is under detention pressure increases, but when she is not, there is less pressure.

While the report implies Suu Kyis release would improve ties with the West, the plans ultimate aimwhich it spells out clearlyis to crush the opposition.

The dossier concluded that the regime could not compete with the media and non-governmental organizations run by Burmese exiles, but if US politicians and lawmakers were invited to visit the country they could help to sway international opinion in the regimes favor. In the years leading up to the recent policy shifts, many Americans, including some congressmen, did visit Burma and often proved less critical of the regime than they previously had been.

In the end, it seems that Burmas military leaders successfully managed to engage the US rather than vice versa. As a result, relations with the United States have improved rapidly, exactly along the lines suggested by Aung Kyaw Hla in 2004. Both China and North Korea were high on the agenda when Clinton visited Burma in December 2011. Subsequently, strategic and economic concerns have risen up the bilateral agenda even as human rights and democratization have been steadily de-emphasized.

Today, the two old adversaries, Burma and the United States, increasingly end up on the same side of the fence in the struggle for power and influence in Southeast Asia. Frictions, and perhaps even hostility, can certainly be expected in future relations between China and Burmabut barring some unforeseen event, Burma will no longer be seen by the United States and elsewhere in the West as a pariah state that has to be condemned and isolated.

Read Part 3 of the series here. Tomorrow: Part 5. Recovering Influence and Checking Rivals

This article was originally published here by The Project 2049 Institute, a policy group based in the US.
Burma Crashed Military Aircraft Carried 9 Officers Transferring for Medical Treatment

Bodies found by navy vessels and local fishing boats in the Andaman Sea were transferred to the Dawei Military Hospital on Thursday at around 5 p.m. / Office of the commander-in-chief / Facebook

RANGOONNine of the 35 military officers onboard the crashed Y-8 military aircraft carrying a total of 122 people on Wednesday were traveling from Tanintharyi Divisions Myeik to commercial capital Rangoon for medical treatment, according to the flights passenger manifest released by the military on Thursday afternoon.

The military personnel were being transferred from the 100-bed Myeik military hospital to the 1000-bed Mingalardon military hospital in Rangoon to receive further treatment, military spokesperson Col Myat Min Oo told The Irrawaddy.

According to figures issued by the military, 14 crew members and 108 military staff members and their families, including 15 children, were on board when the welfare flight lost communication with Dawei airbase.

The planes captain was Lt-Col Nyein Chan and the co-pilots were Lt-Col Soe Thu Win and Maj Thant Zin Htay, the statement read. Six high-ranking officers including three majors and 29 other military personnel from the coastal region command and Myeik Air Force headquarters were on board, the passenger manifest said.

Navy vessels and local fishing boats in the Andaman Sea found 29 bodiesone male, 20 females and eight childrenin the search for the missing Y-8 military plane, according to the latest Facebook statement issued by the military. Bodies and debris of the missing aircraft were found 35 kilometers (22 miles) southwest of Dawei Districts Launglon Township in the Andaman Sea at 8:18 a.m. on Thursday, along with a wheel, lifejackets and luggage, the statement said.

Several Navy ships and aircraft are searching for the Y-8 200 F military transport plane 5820 after contact was lost about 69 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Tanintharyi Divisions Dawei at 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday.

There were a total of 73 family members of military personnel on the aircraft, who were traveling to return to their hometowns, or for school enrollment.

Commander-in-Chief Gen Khin Aung Myint of the air force, the Navy chief of staff, and the coastal region commander met with family members of those who were on board and provided 700,000 kyats to families for each member that was on board on Thursday in Myeik.

The Presidents Office issued a condolence statement on Thursday afternoon that said, We will continue search and rescue operations and will assist with support [for family members of those onboard].

The Chinese-made plane was acquired in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It was also carrying 2.4 tons of supplies, according to the military statement.

A military helicopter crashed last June in central Burma, killing three personnel on board.

Five military personnel were killed last February after an air force plane crashed in administrative capital Naypyidaw, according to media reports. Two people were killed and 11 injured after a small private plane crashed in central Burma in 2012.
Burma Irrawaddy River Urban Project Gets Green Light

Shan Lay Kyun Island during the 2016 monsoon season. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY The Mandalay divisional government has allowed a company to begin the initial stages of a major development project on an island in the Irrawaddy River despite protests from locals and environmentalists.

The Amarapura Urban Development Project secured 20 acres on an islandknown locally as Shan Lay Kyunin the Irrawaddy River in Amarapura Township about six kilometers southwest of Mandalay.

Mandalay Business Capital City Development Ltd (MBCCD) plans to build high-rise buildings, which will house apartments, business offices, markets, government offices, and schools by laying soil 20-feet deep across the island.

On MBCCDs board of directors is controversial tycoon Maung Weik, founder of the Maung Weik and Family Company, one of the biggest importers of steel in Burma.

Mandalay Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung told a press conference at the end of May that the government would provide MBCCD with 20 acres and then review the project later to see whether it should continue. The proposal for the development encompasses 2,500 acres, including the whole island and the watershed on the opposite side of its southern shore.

First we will construct office buildings and upgrade the road running parallel to the island that goes to Mandalay, MBCCD spokesperson U Zaw Ye Win told The Irrawaddy on Wednesday. We will begin testing and filling the soil, however we are facing many challenges.

The area is usually flooded during the monsoon season, said U Zaw Ye Win, so the company needs to protect the land from submersion and erosion as well as improve the soil fill for the foundation of the site. Another challenge, he added, is building trust with the locals.

Weve met with the locals of Shan Lay Kyun village to assure them we will return their land and homes once the project is finished, he said. We are also making sure that the area will be protected from natural disasters and environmental impacts, but these tasks are still challenging us.

He said the project would bring development to the region, and the company would do its best to protect the surrounding environment, adding that it sent an analysis on the projects social and environmental impact to the divisional government.

The project, which took advice and technical assistance from Dutch experts, will take at least 10 years to complete, according to MBCCD.

Environmentalists said a series of meetings they held with MBCCD resulted in disagreements. U Maung Maung Oo, a local environmental activist of Green Activities, expressed surprise over the divisional governments decision to give permission to the company to begin the project.

Local experts have continuously advised the company not to carry out the project on the island because it would greatly affect the river flow during the monsoon season, and result in the flooding of the lower region, he said.

He explained that the soil filling process would narrow the waterway and increase the strength of the current during the monsoon season, swamping places farther down the riverbank.

The company has stated it would build canals to channel the water away from the island, but this would not be enough during the wet season, according to U Maung Maung Oo.

Neighboring lakes such as Taung Tha Man and Kandawgyi would be flooded, he said, as well as nearby ponds and natural canals.

The whole island becomes flooded during the monsoon season, during which time some residents move to the mainland, however most of the residents live in two-story stilt houses and live upstairs.

I just want to tell the government and the company to leave the Irrawaddy River alone, for the safety of the people who live in this region, U Maung Maung Oo added.

Many residents want to stay in their village, although the company stated it has offered between 1 and 6 million kyats to purchase 10 by 10 meters of land, depending on the location. It also promised to rehouse residents on the island after the construction is completed.

It is unclear whether the residents would be allowed to stay on the island during the construction, but locals fear the scale of the development would push them out regardless.

Ma Wai Wai Mar, a local of Shan Lay Kyun village, said there have been many examples of people being forced to move from similar project areas without receiving any form of compensation.

We do not want to take the risk of believing anyone associated with this project, she said. There are some villagers who agree with the project. But the company said it would take 10 years to completewho knows what will happen during that time. We do not want to lose our land and homes.
Burma Mandalay Journalists Join Armband Campaign to Oppose Use of 66(d) Against the Media

Journalists and supporters Mandalay wear white armbands and distribute leaflets on to protest the charging of journalists under Burma's Telecommunications Law Article 66(d). / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy
Burma Three Bodies, Debris Found in Search for Missing Military Plane

A Burma Army map showing the location of the found bodies in blue. / Office of the commander-in-chief / Facebook

RANGOON  Navy vessels found three bodies and debris from a military aircraft carrying 122 people that went missing flying between Tanintharyi Divisions Myeik and Rangoon on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Burma Army commander-in-chiefs office Facebook post on Thursday morning.

The bodies of one male, one female, and one child were found 35 kilometers (22 miles) southwest of Dawei Districts Launglon Township in the Andaman Sea at 8:18 a.m. on Thursday, along with a wheel, lifejackets and luggage, the statement read.

Nine military boats and three aircraft began searching for the Y-200 F military transport plane after contact was lost about 69 kilometers (43 miles) southwest of Tanintharyi Divisions Dawei at 1:35 p.m. on Wednesday.

According to figures released by the office of the commander-in-chief, 14 crew members and 108 military staff members and their families, including 15 children, were on board when the plane lost communication with Dawei airbase.

Six high-ranking officers and 29 other military personnel were on board. The planes captain was Lt-Col Nyein Chan and the co-pilots were Lt-Col Soe Thu Win and Maj Thant Zin Htay.

The Chinese-made plane was acquired in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It was also carrying 2.4 tons of supplies, according to the military statement. A civil aviation official told Reuters the weather had been normal with good visibility when the plane took off.

Nicknamed air camel in Chinese, the multi-purpose aircraft was approved for production in 1980 and is still being produced by Shaanxi Aircraft Corporation, a unit of state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China. The four-spoke turboprop is used in countries including China and Sudan.

A military helicopter crashed last June in central Burma, killing three military personnel on board.

Five military personnel were killed last February after an air force aircraft crashed in the countrys capital, Naypyidaw, according to media reports. Two people were killed and 11 injured after a small private plane crashed in central Burma in 2012.
Guest Column One year Under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Press Freedom Lags Behind Democratic Progress

An anti-Article 66(d) demonstrator in Rangoon in January 2017. / Pyay Kyaw / The Irrawaddy

BANGKOK, Thailand  When Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her long-persecuted National League for Democracy party won elected office in November 2015, bringing an end to nearly five decades of authoritarian military rule, many local journalists saw the democratic result as a de facto win for press freedom.

Burmas previous military regimes imposed strict restrictions on the media, including a pre-publication censorship system that left any news or commentary even remotely critical of the junta or its commanding officers on news publications cutting room floors.

For decades, Burma was home to one of Asias most repressive media environments, where scores of journalists who dared to shirk the regimes censorship orderseither under pseudonyms or by filing secretly to exile-run independent mediawere sentenced to jail terms in abysmal and often brutal prison conditions.

While those restrictions started to lift under previous President Thein Sein, including an end in August 2012 to pre-publication censorship and the release in November 2012 of political prisoners, including many journalists, in a mass presidential amnesty, self-censorship endured because laws used to stifle free expression and punish dissent remained on the books. In 2013, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)s report Burma falters, backtracks on press freedom, found Thein Seins military-backed, quasi-civilian government lacked a genuine commitment to a more open press environment.

Now, one year into State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyis de facto leadership, and despite hopes that the former political prisoner and pro-democracy icon would leverage her resounding mandate to roll back military power and strike down draconian laws, the situation for journalists has not materially improved, according to Burma-based journalists who spoke with the CPJ.

Press freedom in our country is not really improving, said Kyaw Zwa Moe, editor of the The Irrawaddy, a news group established by exiles that began operating from inside the country during Thein Seins term. There is still limited space for independent media due to restrictive laws, [media] market monopoly, no clear policy for access to information, and media-unfriendly establishments and authorities.

Presidential spokesperson Zaw Htay, who served the same role under Thein Sein, did not immediately respond to CPJs request for comment.

Kyaw Zwa says while Daw Aung San Suu Kyis NLD-led government has not imposed new restrictions on reporters, it has also not done enough to amend or abolish laws from the military era, including bans on reporting that could be deemed as threatening to national harmony and security. The government has still failed to create an environment where independent media can practice their professions freely and ethically, said Kyaw Zwa.

Chief among those laws is section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, a broad provision that carries potential three-year prison terms for cases of defamation over communications networks. While the law was used only occasionally against journalists under military rule, politicians, military officials, and even Buddhist monks are increasingly using it now to stifle online and social media criticism.

Journalists who endured the military regimes pre-publication censorship say there is still a wide range of topics, including cases of high-level corruption, religious criticism, communal violence, and the militarys operations, activities and business dealings that are still largely taboo under Daw Aung San Suu Kyis democratic government.

They say the rising use of 66(d) has hamstrung them from reporting into alleged past corruption and abuses committed under the former junta. Burma PEN, a free expression group, estimates 55 Article 66(d)-related cases have been filed since the NLD took power, including charges filed against social media users who posted material critical of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ko Swe Win, chief reporter at the local Myanmar Now newspaper, was charged under 66(d) on March 7 for his critical reporting on a prominent radical Buddhist monk, U Wirathu, who in a Facebook post thanked the assassins who shot and killed a Muslim NLD legal adviser at Rangoons international airport in January. A week later, the reporter was stopped in the street by three men who had photos of him on their mobile phones and who acted in a threatening manner, according to reports.

The monks defamation case against Swe Win, filed by supporters of one of the radical Ma Ba Tha groups that he leads, has since been dropped. However, the Buddhist fundamentalist group the Patriotic Monks Union of Burma pressured the Ministry of Religious Affairs to pursue legal action against the reporter for allegedly defaming Buddhism, according to reports. It is an incendiary charge in the Buddhist-majority nation. Human rights activists have accused Ma Ba Tha of inciting communal violence against groups or individuals it views as a threat to Buddhism, according to media reports and rights groups. Wirathu has denied any role in the violence.

Politicians have also used the act to stifle media criticism. Eleven Media Group chief executive Than Htut Aung and chief editor Wai Phyo were detained on Nov. 11 under 66(d) over an editorial that alleged Rangoons chief minister might have been involved in corruption, according to reports. The journalists were held in pre-trial detention for nearly two months before they were released on bail. The results of the pending case will set an important precedent on the laws use against the press.

Section 66(d) is hugely problematic, said Thomas Kean, editor-in-chief of Frontier, a local weekly English-language news magazine that he says has faced threats of legal action but no cases under the law. It is so broad that anything we report could result in a complaint to police. We dont actually spend too much time thinking about it because if you tried to avoid potential cases by self-censoring you would have little left over that you actually wanted to publish, he said.

Other reporters and editors told CPJ that critical reporting on the military, completely banned under the junta, is still fraught under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Thats in large part because Burmas transition to democracy remains incomplete, with the military maintaining autonomous control over the defense, home, and border affairs ministries and having a 25 percent appointed bloc in parliament.

The military has leveraged those residual powers to block reporters access to conflict zones, including a news blackout of a military operation in western Arakan Stateimposed since Octoberthat rights groups claim gave cover for rights abuses of ethnic Rohingya civilians. The government denies abuses were committed during the lock-down operation, which is now the subject of a United Nations human rights inquiry.

Authorities have blocked access to the region to enforce the blackout and threatened legal action against reporters who violate the ban. Reporters have been allowed access to certain areas in recent weeks, but only via two tightly controlled tours run by the government, Kean said.

Reporters are not wholly free to report on military and security matters deemed as sensitive, said Aye Aye Win, a recently retired Associated Press bureau chief who reported for decades under Burmas military rule. The fact that the NLD government has no control over the military and [lacks] political will to promote press freedom are the reasons [the] situation in Burma has not significantly improved.

Reporters who question the official narrative also come under pressure. Presidential spokesman Zaw Htay singled out Myanmar Times investigations editor Fiona MacGregor on social media, including on the President Offices official Facebook page, as biased against the government for a story she reported citing information provided by a local rights group that alleged around 30 Rohingya women had been raped by soldiers in a Arakan State village on Oct. 19, 2016.

MacGregor said she was fired by the privately owned English-language newspapers management days later for breaking company policy against damaging national reconciliation and the papers reputation. MacGregor told CPJ at the time that she felt Zaw Htays comments aimed to stifle local and foreign reporting on the alleged sexual violence and carried a tacit threat of possible criminal defamation charges.

Zaw Htay did not immediately respond to CPJs request for comment about her claims. Kavi Chongkittavorn, a senior editor at Myanmar Times, acknowledged CPJs emailed request for comment but the papers managers did not immediately respond.

The rape accusations have since been widely reported, including in a Reuters investigation published April 25 that interviewed several Rohingya women in refugee camps in Bangladesh who claimed they were sexually abused and raped by Burma security forces. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi told the United Nations in February she would investigate the allegations, according to news reports.

Still, local groups are pushing for positive change. On May 3, Burma PEN and 13 local media and rights groups released a one-year scorecard report assessing free expression conditions that found a significant shortfall in relevant reforms under Daw Aung San Suu Kyis watch. The government has the power to promote media freedom and freedom of expression, but it hasnt made it a priority, the report concluded.

The report noted that the NLD-dominated parliament amended 19 and enacted 23 laws during its first year in power, including a new personal privacy and security law that aims to curb physical, though not online, state surveillance. Lawmakers also abolished the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act, the ex-military regimes security law of choice for targeting dissidents and journalists, which had allowances for life in prison or even death for violations.

But with other repressive laws still on the books, including the 2013 Telecommunications Law, 2004 Electronics Transactions Law, and the 1923 Official Secrets Act, among others, that carry prison terms, Burmas media is still susceptible to vague and arbitrary threats. The NLD government is trying to reform laws, but based primarily on its own perceptions, not on international human rights standards, the PEN report said.

This article was originally published by CPJ.

Shawn W. Crispin is Senior Southeast Asia Representative of CPJ based in Bangkok, Thailand, where he has worked as a journalist for more than 15 years. He has led CPJ missions throughout the region and is the author of several CPJ special reports.
MATTOON -- The Kiwanis Spastic Paralysis Research Foundation offers grant funding for medical research and financial support for a youth summer camp, among its charitable efforts.

Members of the Mattoon Kiwanis Club and their guests learned about these programs during a lunchtime presentation Wednesday about the foundation, which is funded by the Kiwanis Illinois-Eastern Iowa District.

The presentation was given by foundation board Chairman Larry Forsberg, who is a past governor of the district, and board member Bob Wilton, who is a past lieutenant governor of the district.

Forsberg said the foundation was founded in 1952 and has provided more than $9 million in grant funding over the years for medical researchers who specialize in spastic paralysis and diseases of the central nervous system.

Wilton said the term "spastic paralysis" does not refer to an actual disease, but is instead a symptom of other medical conditions of the central nervous system that cause stiff or rigid muscles that interfere with walking, movement, or speech.

Forsberg said supporters of spastic paralysis research take hope from the great strides that research has made in treating and preventing spina bifida, a birth defect where there is incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord. He said, "Research does work.

"They are actively getting to the bottom of things and not just covering up the symptoms," Wilton said of medical research into spastic paralysis.

The foundation's medical director is Dr. Rodger Elble, a professor of neurology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield.

In addition to funding medical research, Forsberg said the foundation supports the YMCA of Chicago's Camp Independence in northeast Illinois. He said this camp serves youths ages 8-18 who are afflicted with spastic paralysis.

Campers are assigned a counselor who looks out for their safety and encourages them to become more independent while they take part in summer camp activities.

"They are with people being active who have the same health issues as they do," Forsberg said. He added that the campers are sometimes anxious about being away from their parents when they arrive at the camp, but they always want to stay longer when their week-long visit concludes.

Forsberg said the foundation provided $125,000 for an accessible playground at Camp Independence, as well as funding for a lift for getting campers into kayaks, raised flower and vegetable beds, picnic tables and other amenities at the camp.

The Spastic Paralysis Research Foundation is supported by district Kiwanis clubs, including the Mattoon Kiwanis Club, through annual club donations and club events, such as the Bowl-a-Thon, and through individual donations.

For more information about the Spastic Paralysis Research Foundation, go to www. sprfoundation.org. The Mattoon Kiwanis Club meets at noon on Wednesdays at Brians Place in Mattoon. For more information about the Kiwanis Club, go to www.mattoonkiwanis.com.
Guest Column Does The Issue of Kachin States Displaced People Only Matter to Ethnic Kachin?

Nearly 2,000 internally displaced people arrived at Shait Yang village in Laiza District in January 2017. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

As the sixth anniversary of the resumption of Burmas civil war between the Burma Army and ethnic armed group the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) arrives, civilians in Kachin State continue to be displaced by conflict.

Immediately after the second session of the 21st Century Panglong peace conference ended, the Burma Army launched an offensive on KIA posts in Tanai Township, inhabited by tens of thousands of people who depend on mining gold and amber for their livelihoods. Many people have fled the conflict zone, some were injured and two died.

These new Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) join more than 100,000 others in Kachin Statehistorically unprecedented numbers of displaced people in the area. The war not only produced tens of thousands of IDPs, but has taken the lives of combatants, civilians, and animals. Many villages have been devastated; paddy fields and farms turned to bushes.

The question do Kachin IDP issues only matter to ethnic Kachin? needs to be answered. Displacement creates social problems in a peaceful society and disrupts the state, the Union, and the economy.

The Problem of Unemployment

Civil war and displacement creates unemployment in Kachin, impacting GDP growth. According to the Asian Development Bank, Burma has one of the fastest GDP growth rates in the world at 7.7 percent, but its unemployment rate is still high at 4.02 percent. By comparison, Cambodias unemployment rate is 0.3 percent, Thailands 0.9 percent, Laos 1.3 percent, and Vietnams 3.7 percent.

Farm workers, fishermen, and hunters quit their jobs for fear of conflict when traveling in the region. They often become porters to support troops instead. Residents increasingly turn to opium poppy cultivation and drug dealing as a quick way to make money. Instability and unemployment has led to a low standard of living and an increase in violent crime.

A 2015 report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported Kachin State is one of the largest poppy growing areas in the region with 2,000 hectares under cultivation. Unsurprisingly, in some villages, an estimated 20 percent of households deal drugs. High unemployment and opium cultivation breeds drug addiction, particularly among youth. The cycle of unemployment, drug dealing, addiction, and crime will not only impact Kachin, but the countrys society at large.

Loss of Trade

Kachins major trading partner is Chinas Yunnan province, and a major trade route, passing through KIA headquarters in Laiza, has been shut down by conflict. It is the same story for the Lweje trade route. The Kanpaiti trade route was opened as a replacement, but the road is not as good and is longer. It is fair to say that war in Kachin has negatively affected cross-border trade between China and Kachin, and therefore Burma.

The railway between Kachin and Mandalay via Sagaing has been affected by clashes along its course, disrupting domestic trade and pushing up the price of daily commodities which are imported by train to Kachin State. Trade between state capital Myitkyina and the far norths Putao has also been halted by fighting. In 2012, an acute rice shortage was only alleviated when the government delivered sacks of rice to hungry villagers. Prices in Putao are often double, if not triple, those in the capital.

Its not just trade of day-to-day necessities that has been disrupted by warthe trade of natural resources including gold, amber, and jadeite have also been affected, naturally affecting the states GDP.

Brain Drain

The civil war has driven people in Burma to seek better opportunities abroad. According to the International Organization for Migration, 4.25 million out of Burmas 51.9 million population are now living abroad. Regionally, Burma has grown to be the largest migration source country in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Among them, 70 percent of migrants living abroad are based in Thailand, followed by Malaysia (15 percent), China (4.6 percent), Singapore (3.9 percent) and the USA (1.9 percent).

Although there is no specific data on a brain drain of workers from Kachin State, an estimated one person in ten is now working in a foreign countryChina, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and others. Most initially work in Malaysia and Thailand before seeking asylum in third countries such as Australia, the US, and Europe. This loss of labor undermines productivity in Kachin and the country.

Forlorn Hope

Despite the six-year anniversary of the civil war, the mounting number of IDPs maintain a forlorn hope for resettlement. The miserable IDP camps face increasing cuts to aid. According to Human Rights Watch, the Burma Army has blocked World Food Program aid since mid-2016 for fear that it could be used to supply KIA troops. Food rations for able-bodied men in IDP camps were cut in March 2017, according to camp organizers.

Burma Army Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing upset many Kachin last month when he accused insurgents of using IDPs as human shields in a conversation with International Committee for the Red Cross President Peter Maurer.

State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyiwho initially fostered hopes of peace from voters including ethnic minoritiesgave IDPs little hope of resettlement when she visited Kachin camps in March this year. We can close these IDP camps and people can live in their homes only if we attain peace, she said. Gaining peace seems a long way off for IDPs and their dream to return home remains blurrythey have no alternative but to wait.

Now is not time for Burmas government to increase military spending, but rather to provide aid to IDPs, curtail unemployment, and rebuild communities in Kachin State and elsewhere. The Burma Army and ethnic armed groups should not argue over secession from the Unionas they did at the recent peace conferencebut rather seek solutions to end conflict and build lasting peace in the region.

The international community, particularly China, must help Burma to end its civil war not just in the interest of border stability, but for the livelihoods of those displaced by conflict. China should not be shy in stepping in to solve the conflictgetting fully involved in order to achieve peace is preferable to being overly cautious and muddling through. Without attempts to broker peace, IDPs will be waiting beyond the seventh anniversary of civil war before they can return home. No one wants that.

Joe Kumbun is the pseudonym of a Kachin State-based analyst.
Guest Column Personal Tribute to a Communist Veteran

Yebaw Htun Lin / Supplied

On May 29, 2017, Yebaw (Comrade) Htun Lin, a leading member of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), passed away in the Thai border town of Mae Sot. He had been rushed to the hospital with sudden gastric pain, and died soon afterwards. He was in his mid-seventies.

Few attended his funeral service. Several remaining comrades were either too elderly or had no documents to travel to Mae Sot.

I was greatly saddened, as much by his sudden death as by the oblivion accorded to a revolutionary leader who had committed his entire life to his beliefs, at huge personal sacrifice.

I had only known Yebaw Htun Lin for a few months. He had come to stay in Chiang Mai for medical treatment, and despite his infirmitiesincluding crippling back painhe was a gracious and affable house guest.

I spent many a fascinating hour listening to his life story and critique of the current political situation in Burma. Due to the ongoing outlawing of the CPB, he had been living at the Thai border for about twenty years. He refused to return to Burma if it meant officially surrendering.

Yebaw Htun Lin was born in Yemethin, Mandalay Division, towards the end of the Second World War. I was born into war, and spent my life at war, he would say wistfully. After completing school, he joined the Air Force, but, disillusioned with military rule, within a few years had become an underground member of the CPB.

In 1965, he was exposed as a CPB cell member and arrested. He was interrogated and tortured by military intelligence for two weeks in Mingaladon, then imprisoned in Insein. One year later, he was transferred to the penal colony on Great Coco Island (200 kilometers off the Burmese coast), where the majority of the 230 prisoners were communist party members. He stayed there for five years, until a mass hunger strike, in which eight prisoners starved to death, forced the authorities to transfer all inmates back to the mainland. He returned to Insein Prison, enduring further torturehooded with a blanket and beaten with a metal rodbefore being released in 1972.

After doing manual labor in Rangoon for a few years, he regained contact with the CPB and traveled up to their Panghsang headquarters on the Chinese border. He spent a year there, before moving down to the southern Shan-Karenni area, where he worked as military commander of the Central Region Democratic Front, a CPB-linked alliance including the Kayan New Land Party (KNLP), Shan Nationalities Peoples Liberation Organization (SNPLO) and Karenni National Peoples Liberation Front (KNPLF). Constantly on the move, hounded by Burma Army troops, he described being without food and water for days on end.

While in the jungle, he married Ma Saw Hla, head of the allied fronts womens association and cousin of U Than Soe Naing, the current KNLP chairman. Tragically, she died of blood poisoning only days after bearing their first child. On her deathbed, she asked her husband to make two promises: to continue the revolutionary struggle, and to take care of their baby daughter. To his lasting sorrow, he was unable to keep his second promise, as the baby died three months later. He never remarried, and kept his wifes picture with him till the end.

After the 1989 mutinies against the CPB leadership on the China-Burma border, Yebaw Htun Lin remained in the southern Shan-Karenni area, only moving out when the CPBs former allies signed ceasefires with the military regime in 1994. He survived by cultivating a small farm on the Thai border.

Despite his partys reversal of fortune, Yebaw Htun Lin remained proud of being part of a revolutionary force which had played such a key role in Burmas political history.

His time on Coco Island, and the heroism of the hunger strikers who sacrificed their lives, was clearly inspirational for him. He described how, even as they lay dying  too weak to wipe ants off their bodies  the strikers called for the downfall of the military dictatorship. Ones last request was to hear comrades sing the Communist Internationale. Their courage inspired me my entire life, he said.

I feel privileged to have known Yebaw Htun Lin, however briefly. He was confident that a new left-wing movement would emerge in Burma, and to contribute to this, was in the process of writing his memoirs when he died. I very much hope his friends can complete his book and fulfill his wishes.
Rising Up with Sonali | Sonali Kolhatkar | (Audio and Video Interview) |

Just days before the UK elections, US president Donald Trump has wielded his Twitter account as a weapon once more, accusing Londons mayor Sadiq Khan of making a pathetic excuse for the attack that killed 7 people on London bridge last Saturday. Mr. Khan has in turn questioned whether Trump should be received in London for a visit. The bridge attack came just days after a suicide bombing in Manchester at a concert where nearly 2 dozen people including children were killed.
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Turkey and Qatar also both supported Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated projects throughout the Arab Spring, drawing strong Saudi ire.

Turkey has waded into the geopolitical storm engulfing Gulf Arab states as its Parliament approved a draft bill Wednesday to expedite the deployment of troops to a Turkish military base in Qatar. The move to support its wealthy longtime ally comes as the oil-rich Qatari monarchy faces unprecedented diplomatic pressure and trade isolation from its counterparts in the Middle East led by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed relations with Qatar Monday and sealed off their airspace to commercial flights, accusing the ruling Al Thani dynasty of financing militant groups, including Hezbollah and Hamas, while sowing discord between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Qatar has adamantly denied the allegations.

Gulf states were also enraged after Doha paid up to US$1 billion to release 26 members of its royal family who had been kidnapped in Iraq by local militia Kataeb Hizbollah while on a falconry expedition in the countrys south in 2015. The ransom was paid to Iranian figures, regional Shia militias, and even radical Syrian opposition group Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaida affiliate that had been holding Iran-backed Shia fighters hostage, according to the Financial Times.

The alleged move  called a crazy deal by an Arab official  has been interpreted variously as a grave miscalculation by Doha or a deliberate stab in the back to its Arab allies, but Saudi-aligned officials have described it as Qatari funding for blacklisted Iranian and al-Qaida jihadis as well as the straw that broke the camels back.

The bill  drafted before the rift  passed with 240 votes in favor, mainly with support from the ruling Justice and Development party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the opposition, Nationalist Movement party.

The move would lead to the consummation of a bilateral defense deal between the two that was agreed upon in late 2014. It entailed the initial construction of the Turkish military base in the small Gulf monarchy, but officials say up to 3,000 Turkish troops could be deployed to Qatar as part of Ankaras program to increase its military cooperation with Doha.

The decision could place Ankara on a dangerous path of confrontation with Riyadh as Saudi Arabia seeks to punish its Gulf neighbor, but Turkish officials have protested Saudi moves while attempting to simultaneously appear neutral.

It will not contribute to solving any problem to try and isolate in this way Qatar, which we know for sure has fought very effectively against terrorist groups, Erdogan said.

Officials, however, have stressed that they will not allow Qatar to be beaten up, according to the Financial Times, which quoted an unnamed senior Turkish official.

We feel Qatar and Saudi Arabia are very close friends and we do not want to differentiate between them and take sides, said the senior official.

The latest game of thrones in the Arab world comes as a sequel to the 2014 spat between Riyadh and Doha, when Saudi-aligned Gulf states withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar due to Dohas support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt  a longtime target of Saudi ire  and Islamist groups from UAE to Libya and Hamas in Palestines Gaza Strip.

Turkey and Qatar also both supported Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated projects throughout the Arab Spring, which began in 2011. While the two allies strongly supported the brief presidency of the Brotherhoods democratically-elected President Mohamed Morsi, the Saudis and their junior partners in Bahrain and UAE backed his overthrow by the Egyptian military, which subsequently branded the group as terrorists.

The crisis was only resolved after Qatar agreed, under strong Saudi pressure, to expel Muslim Brotherhood leaders from Doha. Brotherhood members eventually found sanctuary in Turkey, where they were welcomed by Erdogan.

Turkey and Qatar also enjoy relatively normal, if complicated, relations with Iran. Shiite Tehran, however, remains a foe of the Saudi ruling dynasty and its Wahhabi Arab allies in the Persian Gulf.

Via TeleSur



Related video added by Juan Cole:

Newsy: Turkey speeds up sending troops to Qatar
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Coral Gold Resources Ltd. (TSX.V:CLH) (OTCBB:CLHRF) (the Company or Coral) announced today that, further to the Companys news release dated June 21, 2016, Coral has closed the purchase and sale agreement (the Agreement) with Barrick Cortez Inc. (Barrick), a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation, for the sale of the Robertson Property in Lander County, Nevada, to Barrick.

The Agreement with Barrick

The consideration under the Agreement includes a cash payment (the Cash Consideration) to Coral of US$15.75 million (approximately Cdn $21.2 million based on the current exchange rate, before transactional costs) and a sliding scale 1% to 2.25% net smelter returns royalty on the Robertson Property (see details below).

The sale of Robertson to Barrick, and the potential for long-term royalty income down the road, represents a major turning point for Coral and its shareholders, said Corals President and CEO David Wolfin. Coral is evolving quickly with a fresh business model and strategy, looking to capitalize on our experience, knowledge and relationships in Nevada, particularly on the Cortez gold trend. Were thrilled to see Barrick use its vast experience in the region to advance Robertson towards production.

The cash payment provides Coral with a significant infusion of non-dilutive capital. The cash consideration received from Barrick, along with a reduction of approximately 8.7% of Corals basic shares outstanding, creates substantial immediate value for Coral shareholders. In addition, I am very excited about the NSR consideration received by Coral. As Robertson is advanced to production, Corals NSR could be become a very valuable asset for Coral shareholders and provide continued economic benefits. We also have the opportunity to participate in enhanced economic returns as gold prices increase.

The funds also allow Coral to advance its other projects on the Cortez Trend. The Eagle, JDN and Norma Sass properties represent excellent, early-stage projects, noted Wolfin. We will use the extensive knowledge gained from our exploration at Robertson to advance our Nevada portfolio.

Rob Krcmarov, Barricks Executive Vice President, Exploration and Growth, said, We are excited to add Robertson to our pipeline of projects at the Cortez property, where our vision is to create a multi-mine operation that will deliver long-term value to our shareholders and our government and community partners in Nevada. Consolidating ownership of the Robertson project will allow us to realize synergies with the Cortez operation, benefitting both Barrick and Coral shareholders as the project advances.

The Robertson Property

Robertson is an advanced-stage exploration property located along the Cortez gold trend adjacent to Barricks Cortez/Pipeline Gold Mine which produced over a million ounces of gold in 2016 and recently reported gold reserves of 10.2 million ounces proven and probable. Over the past 25 years, exploration at Robertson by Coral and its various senior partners identified at least six mineralized gold zones with an inferred mineral resource of 2.7 million ounces* (191,725, 418 tons grading 0.0143 oz Au/Ton). Coral completed a positive Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) and Plan of Operation towards pre-feasibility in 2012. The property spans approximately 8,480 acres, comprised of 415 claims and 9 patented claims.

*Note: Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The estimate of mineral resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, sociopolitical, marketing, or other relevant issues. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred resources in this estimation are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these Inferred resources as an Indicated or Measured mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in upgrading them to the Indicated or Measured mineral resource category.

Agreement Details

In addition to the Cash Consideration to Coral, Coral will receive:

The return of 4,150,000 common shares of Coral held by Barrick (which represent approximately 8.7% of the Companys basic common shares outstanding) for cancellation by the Company (the Share Reduction); and

A sliding scale 1% to 2.25% net smelter returns royalty (the NSR) on the Robertson Property, payable quarterly, subject to potential advance royalty payments as outlined below, as well as a right of first refusal enabling Barrick to acquire the NSR in the event that the Company wishes to sell the NSR to any third party.

The sliding scale NSR rate will be determined based on the observed gold price during each quarterly period based on the average LBMA Gold Price PM during the quarterly period, as follows:

Average Gold Price/Oz

During the Quarter (USD) Applicable NSR Royalty Rate Up to and including $1,200.00

$1,200.01 to $1,400.00

$1,400.01 to $1,600.00

$1,600.01 to $1,800.00

$1,800.01 to $2,000.00

Over $2,000.00 1.00%

1.25%

1.50%

1.75%

2.00%

2.25%

Based on the Company's current number of basic common shares outstanding, adjusted for the Share Reduction, the Cash Consideration alone, excluding the value of the NSR, on a per share basis is equal to approximately Cdn $0.48, as compared to the closing price of Coral's common shares on June 20, 2016 and June 2, 2017 on the TSX Venture Exchange of Cdn $0.195 and Cdn $0.31 respectively.

Pursuant to the Agreement, as amended, and due to the delay in closing, in the event that the Robertson Property is not placed into production by December 31, 2024, then beginning on January 1, 2025, and continuing on an annual basis thereafter until the earlier of (i) the date commercial production commences and (ii) January 2, 2034, Barrick will make advance royalty payments to Coral Gold of US$0.5M, which will be non-refundable and fully credited against any future obligations under the NSR. These dates have all been extended by one year from the dates in Corals earlier announcement.

Barrick will also assume all liabilities relating to the Robertson Property, and will provide replacement security for the reclamation bond.

The Robertson Property includes the properties also known as the Core, Gold Ridge, Excluded and the RUF mining claims, but does not include the properties known as the Norma, Sass, Eagle and JDN mining claims. Robertson is located in eastern Lander County, Nevada, sixty miles southwest of Elko.

Qualified Person

Coral's projects are under the supervision of Robert McCusker, P.Geo, Coral Consultant, who is a qualified person within the context of National Instrument 43-101. Mr. McCusker has reviewed and approved the technical data herein.

About Coral

Coral Gold Resources is exploring a portfolio of strategically-located claim blocks along the Cortez gold trend in north-central Nevada. The Company intends to acquire new exploration and development projects, focused primarily in Nevada. Our overall objective is to generate long-term wealth for shareholders.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - June 8, 2017) - Sama Resources Inc. ("Sama" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE:SME) announces that the Company has signed a Technology License Agreement ("License") with Canadian-based CVMR Corporation ("CVMR" or the "Licensor"). Under the terms of the agreement, CVMR grants Sama use of its technology to refine the mineralized material from the Samapleu property in Ivory Coast, West Africa, to produce nickel and iron powders. At present, prices payable for nickel powders treated using CVMR's technology are at a significant premium above the current LME prices for nickel, providing Sama with a market advantage and growth opportunity not previously available.

CVMR initiated a pilot program in March 2017 with a 260-gram concentrate of mineralized material from Samapleu. The concentrate graded 3.01% copper, 2.30% nickel and 25.90% iron. Preliminary results indicate a 91% and 92% recovery rate for the nickel and the iron, respectively.

"The partnership with CVMR will enable Sama to complete technical studies for a proposed open pit operation at Samapleu with higher returns compared to a simple flotation process," said Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sama Resources. "We expect to complete the Samapleu feasibility study by year-end 2017."

"The geological formation of the Samapleu deposit is ideally suited to CVMR's nickel and iron powder production technology. The manufacture of metal components and additives has undergone a paradigm shift in the past ten years as 3D printing and metal injection moulding are replacing many other manufacturing methods. Accordingly, the demand for nickel and iron powders is increasing more rapidly than most optimistic forecasts. Sama Resources is well positioned to take advantage of this major shift in the manufacturing industry," said Kamran M. Khozan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, CVMR (http://www.cvmr.ca).

The Licensor authorizes Sama to use CVMR's patents and technology to operate nickel and iron powder manufacturing plants in the Ivory Coast (the "Plants"), to be built, commissioned and delivered on a turn-key basis by CVMR, following a positive feasibility study. The Plants will be dedicated to the production of metal powders used in a variety of products and manufacturing processes, including: 3D printing (additive manufacturing), aerospace and automotive parts manufacturing, medical instruments, computer and electronic parts, super alloys, sophisticated net shapes for use in the defence and space industries, metal injection molding (MIM), anti-seize lubricants, chemicals and catalysts, etc.

In consideration of the License, Sama has agreed to pay CVMR CA$5,000,000 either in cash or, subject to approval from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), through the issuance of an equivalent value of common shares of Sama within 90 days of the granting of the mining license. Share price will be based on the average closing price of those shares on the Exchange for each day during the three months of trading prior to issuance. In addition, CVMR will receive a royalty equal to 15% of the sale price of metal powders produced by the Plants in excess of the London Metal Exchange price of the elements contained in such powders.

Sama and CVMR will negotiate a project construction agreement with respect to the Plants.

Sama has also retained CVMR to perform a detailed technical study to confirm the commercial viability of producing nickel and iron powders from nickel-iron concentrate obtained from the flotation of the mineralized material of the Samapleu deposits. Sama will apply to the Department of Mines in Ivory Coast to transform the current exploration permit #123 ("PR123") into a mining license.

A Proven Process with In-Demand Products

Global nickel carbonyl powder production capacity is approximately 37,000 metric tons per year, with the main producers being Vale (Inco) in Canada and Wales, Jilin Jien and Jinchuan in China and Norilsk in Russia. Iron powder production capacity is reported to be around 29,000 metric tons per year, with BASF of Germany being the largest manufacturer followed by Ashland in USA, Sintez in Russia, CVMR in Canada and Jilin Jien in China.

About Sama Resources Inc.

Sama is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company with projects in West Africa. For more information about Sama, please visit Sama's website at http://www.samaresources.com.

About CVMR Corporation

CVMR Corporation is a privately held multinational, multi-disciplinary, organization operating in four continents, with offices in Canada, US, UAE and Turkey, and representative offices in Indonesia, Australia, and a number of Latin American countries. The company specializes in manufacture of metal powders, nano-powders, alloys, super alloys and net shapes based on its proprietary vapour metallurgy. It designs mineral processing plants, constructs and commissions the plants on behalf of its clients. It conducts metallurgical tests and piloting of various minerals.

CVMR's vapour metallurgy processes and technologies have been developed over 20 years and are continuously upgraded and improved as new complementary technologies evolve. CVMR's refining/manufacturing processes are capable of producing pure metal products with very high degree of purity.

Such high-purity metal was used by CVMR to produce nickel tubes for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), through the Canadian Department of Defense. These tubes are the only nickel tubes with minimum radioactive emission needed to be used for the detection and measurement of neutrinos being emitted from the sun.

CVMR Corporation was one of the very few privately held corporations to have contributed to this scientifically valuable project in partnership with the governments of Canada, US and UK. The SNO project was the precursor to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, at CERN, in Switzerland, which is probing the fundamental structure of the universe.

Readers are invited to visit CVMR's website at: http://www.cvmr.ca.

The technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo and President and CEO of Sama, and a 'qualified person', as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
TORONTO, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - Contact Gold Corp. (the "Company" or "Contact Gold"), formerly Winwell Ventures Inc. ("Winwell"), is pleased to announce the completion of the previously announced business combination with Carlin Opportunities Inc. ("Carlin") by way of a court approved statutory plan of arrangement (the "Plan of Arrangement") under the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia) and the subsequent acquisition of a portfolio of 2,762 unpatented mining claims (the "Carlin Trend Properties") distributed over 13 gold properties, including the Pony Creek gold project, located in Nevada (collectively, the "Transactions").

It is anticipated that the common shares of Contact Gold (the "Contact Gold Shares") will commence trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") under the ticker symbol "C" on or about June 14, 2017.

Matt Lennox-King, President, CEO and co-founder of Contact Gold stated "We are very excited to have completed the acquisition of the Carlin Trend Properties and expect to begin trading on the TSXV in a matter of days. With a strong treasury we believe Contact Gold is well positioned for success. The team is composed of seasoned and successful mining professionals. Our collective backgrounds and expertise cover all facets of the industry, from exploration, development, production, finance, accounting, M&A and corporate governance."

"Our portfolio of assets is made up of advanced-stage, large, strategically located, district scale exploration properties on Nevada's prolific Carlin Trend and proximal to some of the most successful exploration projects and mines in Nevada. The Company is well financed with strong shareholders, including Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP and Goldcorp, and several leading institutional investors. We plan to begin exploration on the Pony Creek gold property immediately."

Vance Spalding, the newly appointed Vice-President, Exploration of the Company added, "I'm excited to work with many of my former colleagues from Fronteer Gold to use a proven systematic approach to advance our large project pipeline. Nevada is an area I am very familiar with having spent a considerable portion of my career working in the state. The Carlin Trend Properties have excellent potential to host multiple significant gold discoveries. Our initial focus will be the Pony Creek project which has an extensive exploration database including historic gold resources. This database will allow us to get off to a quick start to building on the work of previous operators while incorporating new ideas and learnings from other operators in the Railroad-Pinion district. This is a very exciting time for exploration in the district, and the recent discoveries on the ground to the north of Pony Creek are a testament to this."

New Board and Management

Upon closing of the Transactions, the board of directors and management of the Company were reconstituted as follows in place of the previous directors and officers of Winwell, including the appointment of directors Charlie Davies and Riyaz Lalani as Waterton Nevada Splitter, LLC's ("Waterton Nevada") representatives on the Company's board of directors:

Matthew Lennox-King , President and Chief Executive Officer and a Director;

, President and Chief Executive Officer and a Director; John Wenger , VP, Corporate Strategy, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary;

, VP, Corporate Strategy, Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary; Vance Spalding , VP, Exploration;

, VP, Exploration; Andrew Farncomb , Senior Executive VP and a Director;

, Senior Executive VP and a Director; John Dorward , Chairman and a Director;

Chairman and a Director; George Salamis, Director;

Director; Mark Wellings , Director;

, Director; Charlie Davies , Director; and,

, Director; and, Riyaz Lalani, Director.

Matthew Lennox-King, President and Chief Executive Officer and a Director

Mr. Lennox-King brings over 20 years of experience in mineral exploration to the Company, as a geologist, and mining company executive. From April 2011 to November 2015, Mr. Lennox-King was President and Chief Executive Officer of Pilot Gold Inc., a TSX listed gold exploration & development company, active in the Western United States and Eastern Europe. At Pilot Gold, Mr. Lennox-King raised over $70 million in equity financings to support the company's activities. Prior to joining Pilot Gold, Mr. Lennox-King was a Senior Geologist at Fronteer Gold Inc. where he successfully identified properties and executed multi-million dollar exploration programs that generated exponential deposit growth for Fronteer Gold. Mr. Lennox-King brings expertise in mineral exploration, finance, corporate governance, M&A and corporate leadership to his role as President & CEO. Mr. Lennox-King holds a B.Sc. in Geological Sciences from the University of British Columbia and was a 2014 recipient of Business in Vancouver's Top 40 Under 40. Mr. Lennox-King is also a non-executive director of BCM Resources Inc., a TSX-V listed base metals focused exploration company.

John Wenger, Vice-President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Financial Officer

From 2011 to 2017, Mr. Wenger served as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary of Pilot Gold, where he was part of a management team that raised over $100 million, and successfully completed multiple property transaction deals and acquisitions. Mr. Wenger worked for Ernst & Young LLP from 2001 to 2011 where he acquired considerable experience in financial reporting for both Canadian and U.S. publicly listed companies, primarily in the mining industry. Mr. Wenger has been a Chartered Professional Accountant with the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia since 2006. Mr. Wenger is also a non-executive director of New Dimension Resources Ltd., a TSXV-listed exploration company. Mr. Wenger will also serve as corporate secretary of the Company.

Vance Spalding, Vice-President, Exploration

Mr. Spalding's gold exploration experience spans more than 28 years. A Certified Professional Geologist (AIPG), and Qualified Person, he most recently served as Deputy Director of Brownfields Exploration for Kinross Gold Corporation. At Kinross, Mr. Spalding built and led the exploration team at Bald Mountain from January 2016 to June 2017, overseeing 60 km of drilling and adding 1.24 Moz of gold to the mineable reserve base. Mr. Spalding previously worked with Pilot Gold from listing in April of 2011 until January, 2016 serving first as Exploration Manager and then as Vice President of Exploration, managing programs at the Kinsley (Nevada) and Goldstrike (Utah) properties, and overseeing budgets of up to $20M per year and 20 full time employees in Nevada and Turkey. Prior to this, Mr. Spalding served as Fronteer Gold's U.S. Exploration Manager from 2009 until the sale to Newmont Mining Corporation in 2011, where he oversaw the generative exploration program as well as multiple early to advance stage drilling and development. He served as a Project Manager at Centerra / Cameco Gold from 1997 to 2009, where he led the discovery of 2 Moz of gold at the REN project on the northern Carlin Trend. He also served as Exploration Manager at Centerra's Kumtor Gold mine in the Kyrgyz Republic, where he managed a $15 million annual budget and supervised a staff of 400 employees. Prior to Centerra, he worked with Santa Fe Pacific Gold and Gold Fields Mining on various exploration and development projects in the western United States, including Mule Canyon and Atlanta in Nevada, and Elkhorn in Montana. Mr. Spalding holds a B.Sc. in Geology from the University of Idaho.

Andrew Farncomb, Senior Vice-President and a Director

Mr. Farncomb brings extensive experience in the capital markets to the Company. Mr. Farncomb has diverse experience advising public and private companies on mergers and acquisitions and financing transactions across a range of sectors. In the natural resources sector, Mr. Farncomb has worked with exploration to production stage companies in advisory and Board capacities. Mr. Farncomb is a founder and Principal at Cairn Merchant Partners LP, an independent merchant bank focused on early stage principal investing. Prior to forming Cairn Merchant Partners, Mr. Farncomb was a Partner at Paradigm Capital Inc., a Canadian investment bank focused on small to medium-sized companies. Prior to Paradigm Capital, Mr. Farncomb held a business development role at a consumer goods company in Hong Kong. Mr. Farncomb is also a board member of several TSXV-listed and private companies. He is also a member of the Board of Directors and chairs the Investment Committee at the Flavelle Foundation. Mr. Farncomb graduated from the Smith School of Business at Queen's University with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree and received the Merrill Lynch Scholarship.

Board of Directors

John Dorward, Chairman

Mr. Dorward is President and Chief Executive Officer of Roxgold Inc., a TSX-listed gold producer and has over 20 years of experience in the mining and finance industries. Prior to his time at Roxgold, Mr. Dorward served as Vice-President, Business Development at Fronteer Gold from October 2009 to April 2011 where he was an integral part of the team that sold the large Michelin uranium deposit, acquired AuEX Ventures Inc., and successfully advanced Fronteer Gold's properties prior to the company's sale to Newmont for $2.3 billion in 2011. Mr. Dorward was the Chief Financial Officer of Mineral Deposits Ltd. from 2006 to 2009, where he was responsible for financing the construction of the Sabodala Gold Project in Senegal, West Africa, and was the Chief Financial Officer at Leviathan Resources Ltd., an ASX-listed gold producer, before its acquisition in 2006. He was a non-executive director of Pilot Gold from 2011 to 2015, and is currently a non-executive director of Navarre Minerals Ltd., an ASX-listed exploration company.

George Salamis

Mr. Salamis has over 25 years of experience in mineral exploration, mine development and operations and is currently Executive Chairman of Integra Gold Corp., a gold development company subject to a friendly takeover bid by Eldorado Gold Corp. Mr. Salamis is also Chief Executive Officer of Pinecrest Resources Ltd., a TSXV-listed exploration company. Mr. Salamis has previously held senior management positions with a number of mining companies including Placer Dome Inc. and Cameco Corporation. He has been involved in mergers and acquisitions transactions valued over $1.8 billion, either through the sale of assets, or of junior mining companies that he played a key role in building. Mr. Salamis holds a degree in geology from the University of Montreal.

Mark Wellings

Mr. Wellings is a mining professional with over 25 years of international experience in both the mining industry and mining finance sector and is currently President and Chief Executive Officer and a director of Eurotin Inc., a director of Gran Colombia Gold Corp. and Principal at INFOR Financial Group Inc. From 1988 to 2004, Mr. Wellings worked in the finance industry with a variety of companies and roles including Derry, Michener, Booth & Wahl, Arimco N.L., Inco Ltd. and Watts Griffiths McOuat, acquiring valuable hands-on experience in exploration, development and production. In 1996, Mr. Wellings joined the investment dealer GMP Securities L.P. where he cofounded the firm's corporate finance mining practice. During his 18 years at GMP, Mr. Wellings was responsible for, and advised on, some of the Canadian mining industry's largest transactions, both in equity financing and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Wellings is a Professional Engineer and holds a master of business administration degree and a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Geological Engineering.

Charlie Davies

Mr. Davies has over 15 years of experience in exploration and mining, and is currently the Principal, Exploration for Waterton Global Resource Management, Inc., where his primary duties involve technical evaluations and developing mining projects for study work. Prior to joining Waterton, Mr. Davies served over six years as an Exploration Manager for Kinross Gold. Prior to Kinross Gold, Mr. Davies held senior exploration management roles for Bolnisi Gold NL in Mexico and Ivanhoe Mines Mongolia Ltd in Mongolia. Mr. Davies was awarded a PhD in Economic Geology and holds a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honours).

Riyaz Lalani

Mr. Lalani is the CEO of Bayfield Strategy, Inc., a communications firm that specializes in financial transactions, shareholder actions, crisis communications and media relations. He has been involved with over 100 shareholder actions, and dozens of hostile M&A transactions. Before founding Bayfield, Mr. Lalani served three years as the Chief Operating Officer of Canada's largest proxy firm. Prior to that, Mr. Lalani was employed by an international asset manager for almost 10 years in New York and Toronto. He worked in a variety of analytical, business development and operational roles at the firm, eventually leading overall research and operational efforts. Mr. Lalani is a director of Difference Capital Financial Inc., a TSX-listed company, a director of the Canadian Journalism Foundation and a past director of two junior mining companies.

Overview of Transactions

Prior to the completion of the Transactions, Winwell consolidated its share capital (the "Consolidation") on the basis of eight (8) (existing) common shares for one (new) common share ("Winwell Shares"), was continued under the laws of the State of Nevada (from British Columbia) (the "Continuance") and changed its name to "Contact Gold Corp." (the "Name Change").

Pursuant to the Plan of Arrangement, Winwell acquired 28,815,000 common shares of Carlin in exchange for the issuance of post-Consolidation Winwell Shares to shareholders of Carlin on a one (1) share for one (1) share basis. Following the completion of the Plan of Arrangement, Continuance and Name Change, the Company acquired from Waterton Nevada, a subsidiary of Waterton Precious Metals Fund II Cayman, LP, all of the issued and outstanding membership interests of Clover Nevada II LLC, the holder of the Carlin Trend Properties, in exchange for the issuance of 18,550,000 Contact Gold Shares, 11,111,111 preferred shares of the Company ("Contact Gold Preferred Shares") and a cash payment of C$7,000,000. On closing of the Transactions, there were 50,134,497 Contact Gold Shares issued and outstanding.

The TSXV has provided conditional acceptance of the Transactions including the listing of the Company as a Tier 2 Resource Issuer on the TSXV. The Contact Gold Shares were listed on the TSXV today and immediately halted, with trading expected to commence pending receipt by the TSXV of the Company's final submissions in connection with the completion of the Transactions. As noted above, the Company expects that the Contact Gold Shares will commence trading on the TSXV under the ticker symbol "C" on or about June 14, 2017.

For further information with respect to the Transactions, including the Plan of Arrangement and the Carlin Trend Properties, please refer to the management information circular of Winwell dated April 25, 2017 and the supplement to the management information circular dated May 8, 2017 (collectively, the "Circular") and posted under Winwell's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Subscription Receipt Financing

As previously announced in March 2017, Carlin completed a subscription receipt financing led by Cormark Securities Inc. and including Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd., BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., Paradigm Capital Inc. and INFOR Financial Inc. (collectively, the "Agents"), whereby Carlin issued 11,000,000 subscription receipts ("Subscription Receipts") at a price of C$1.00 per Subscription Receipt for aggregate proceeds of C$11,000,000 (the "Brokered Offering"). Tranche two of the Offering (as defined below) consisted of the sale of 7,500,000 Subscription Receipts on a non-brokered private placement basis to Goldcorp USA, Inc. ("Goldcorp") (the "Non-Brokered Offering" and together with the Brokered Offering, the "Offering"). The proceeds from the Offering, less certain expenses, were placed into escrow on completion of the Offering. In connection with the completion of the Transactions, the Subscription Receipts were converted on a one-for-one basis into a total of 18,500,000 common shares of Carlin, which upon completion of the Plan of Arrangement, Continuance and Name Change automatically became Contact Gold Shares. The escrowed proceeds from the Offering, less certain fees, have been released from escrow to the Company.

Lock-up Agreements and Escrow

As a condition to the completion of the Transactions, and in addition to any escrow provisions imposed by the TSXV, Waterton Nevada's holdings in Contact Gold are subject to a lock-up whereby it shall not sell or otherwise dispose of its securityholdings in Contact Gold for a period of 24 months, other than in limited circumstances. In addition, the Contact Gold Shares held by each of Matthew Lennox-King, Andrew Farncomb, John Dorward, George Salamis and Mark Wellings are also subject to a lock-up period ending 24 months following the completion of the Transactions.

A total of 23,410,248 Contact Gold Shares held by certain principals and insiders of the Company are subject to a 36 month TSXV imposed escrow with such Contact Gold Shares to be released based on the following schedule: 10% released on the date that the Contact Gold Shares are listed on the TSXV with an additional 15% to be released 6, 12, 18, 24, 30 and 36 months thereafter.

Information for Shareholders

The Company's transfer agent, Computershare Trust Company of Canada ("Computershare"), will be mailing share certificates or statements pursuant to the Direct Registration System ("DRS") to all of Carlin's former shareholders holders of Subscription Receipts, evidencing the Contact Gold Shares that they received in connection with the completion of the Transactions. Shareholders of the Company wishing to receive a physical share certificate should contact Computershare for information on how to obtain physical shares certificates in place of a DRS Advice. The ISIN number for the Contact Gold Shares is US21074G1013 and the trading symbol for the Contact Gold Shares on the TSXV is "C".

Former holders of Winwell Shares that held their Winwell Shares through a broker or other person, were directed to contact that broker or other person for instructions and assistance in receiving post-Consolidation Winwell Shares (which are now Contact Gold Shares). Each person who was a registered holder of Winwell Shares immediately prior to the effective time of the Arrangement was instructed to forward a properly completed and signed letter of transmittal, along with the accompanying certificate(s) representing their Winwell Shares to Computershare, in order to receive post-Consolidation Winwell Shares (which are now Contact Gold Shares) to which such former holder of Winwell Shares is entitled under the Arrangement.

Early Warning

In connection with the Transactions and the Non-Brokered Offering, Waterton Nevada acquired 18,550,000 Contact Gold Shares and 11,111,111 Contact Gold Preferred Shares, and Goldcorp acquired 7,500,000 Contact Gold Shares, as further described above. Prior to the completion of the Transactions and the Non-Brokered Offering, neither Waterton Nevada nor Goldcorp owned any securities of Winwell or Carlin. As at the date hereof, the 18,550,000 Contact Gold Shares held by Waterton Nevada and the 7,500,000 Contact Gold Shares held by Goldcorp represent approximately 37% and 15%, respectively, of the total issued and outstanding Contact Gold Shares. The Contact Gold Shares and Contact Gold Preferred Shares were acquired for investment purposes only. Depending on market and other conditions, or as future circumstances may dictate, both Waterton Nevada and Goldcorp may, respectively, from time to time, and subject to the lock-up agreements referenced above, increase or decrease their holdings of Contact Gold Shares or other securities of Contact Gold.

This portion of the news release is issued pursuant to National Instrument 62-103  The Early Warning System and Related TakeOver Bid and Insider Reporting Issues of the Canadian Securities Administrators, which also requires an early warning report to be filed with the applicable securities regulators containing additional information with respect to the foregoing matters. A copy of the early warning reports of Waterton Nevada and Goldcorp will be available on Contact Gold's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Goldcorp's head office is located at 6100 Neil Road, Suite 500, Reno, Nevada 89511-1149. Waterton Nevada can be contacted c/o Elko Mining Group LLC, 230 South Rock Boulevard, Suite 30, Reno, NV 89502.

Other Matters

The Company also announces it has retained Venture Liquidity Providers Inc. ("VLP") to provide market-making services in accordance with the policies of the TSXV. The market making service will be undertaken by VLP through a registered broker, W.D. Latimer Co. Limited, in compliance with the guidelines of the TSXV.

VLP is a specialized consulting firm based in Toronto providing a variety of services focused on TSXV listed issuers. VLP will trade the Contact Gold Shares on the TSXV for the purposes of maintaining an orderly market and improving the liquidity of the Contact Gold Shares. In consideration for their services, Contact Gold has agreed to pay VLP C$5,000 per month. VLP will not receive shares or options as compensation. The capital and securities required for any trade undertaken by VLP as principal will be provided by VLP. The agreement between the Company and VLP may be terminated at anytime by either the Company or VLP. Contact Gold and VLP act at arm's length, and VLP has no present interest, directly or indirectly, in Contact Gold or its securities. The agreement between the Company and VLP is subject to regulatory approval.

About Contact Gold Corp.

Contact Gold is a gold exploration company focused on leveraging its properties, people, technology and capital to make district scale gold discoveries in Nevada. Contact Gold's extensive land holdings are on the prolific Carlin and Independence gold trends which host numerous gold deposits and mines. Contact Gold's land position is comprised of 24,772 hectares (247 square kilometres) of target rich mineral tenure which hosts numerous known gold occurrences, ranging from early to advanced-exploration and resource definition stage.

U.S. Disclaimer

The securities described herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and accordingly may not be offered or sold within the United States or to "U.S. persons", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act ("U.S. Persons"), except in compliance with the registration requirements of the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities requirements or pursuant to exemptions therefrom. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy and of the Company's securities to, or for the account of benefit of, persons in the United States or U.S. Persons. For more information about the transactions described herein, please refer to the Circular.

Additional information about the Company is available at www.contactgold.com.
VANCOUVER, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - INCA ONE GOLD CORP. (TSXV: IO, Frankfurt: SU9.F, SSEV: IOCL) ("Inca One" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that mineral purchases in February, March and April, 2017 increased more than 117% while mineral processing increased 88% compared to the same three month period in 2016.

February, March and April are the height of the rainy season in Peru. Typically flash-floods and landslides temporarily disrupt mining activity, causing transportation delays and a sharp drop in production. Particularly harsh torrential rains in Peru this year made international headlines, damaging the national economy. In light of the state-of-emergency flooding in Peru over the three month period, the Company still achieved an average throughput of 57 tonnes per day ("TPD") an increase of 88% over the same three month period in 2016, while gold production at Inca One's Chala One Plant ("Chala One") reached 2290 oz, an increase of 91% from the comparable February, March and April, 2016 period.

"Despite the unusual weather challenges, mineral buying and production increased early in 2017," confirmed Inca One President and CEO, Edward Kelly. "In fact we reached all-time company highs for these months, compared with rainy seasons in previous years."

The Company expects that mineral supply and gold production for Chala One will accelerate as the rainy season has ended, resulting in higher levels of production for the remaining months of 2017.

Private Placement

The Company will no longer be pursuing the Private Placement announced on April 6, 2017.

About Inca One

Inca One is a Canadian-based mineral processing company. The Company's activities consist of the production of gold and silver from the processing of purchased minerals located in Peru. Peru is the 6th largest producer of gold in the world and the Peruvian government estimates the small scale mining sector accounts for a significant portion of all Peruvian gold production, estimated to be valued approximately US$3 billion annually. The Company purchases its minerals from government registered small-scale mining producers from various regions and processes it at its Chala One milling facility located in Chala, Southern Peru.
MATTOON (JG-TC) -- Lake Land College's 2017-18 budget is scheduled to be presented to the Board of Trustees during a special meeting today.

Vice President for Business Services Bryan Gleckler said the budget is projected to have a balanced operating fund, with $43.3 million in revenue and expenses. He said the budget projects that Lake Land will receive state funding at a level of 50 percent of what it has received in recent years.

Minus a mandatory recording of Lake Land's pension obligations that is not a revenue or an expense, Gleckler said the proposed budget is only approximately $250,000 larger than the current 2016-17 budget.

Gleckler said he will give a detailed talk on the budget proposal during the board finance committee meeting at 3 p.m. today in Webb Hall 081 and then give an overview of the budget during the board meeting at 5 p.m. there. He said the board is scheduled to vote on this proposal at its July 10 meeting.
In this combined photo taken in front of Shinsegae Department Store in downtown Seoul, on June 10, 1987 and Wednesday, respectively, cars and buses, left, are running, while the protesters, right, take to the streets to fight the authoritarian military regime of the time. / Korea Times file



Nation to remember historical milestone of democracy movement alongside April 19 in 1960, May 18 in 1980 and 2017 candlelit rally in Gwanghwamun

By Lee Kyung-min

The candlelit rallies at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul marked a significant historical chapter in Korean history.

The ouster of former President Park Geun-hye meant a victory against what the people considered a corrupt and authoritarian government.

The protests were most distinctive in their diversity in age and gender, in a country that has long been suffering from internal strife, whether it be generational, class or other socially divisive issues.

The months-long struggle will be remembered as another significant grassroots democratic movement in the modern history of Korea.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the pro-democracy movement June 10, 1987, against the then authoritarian regime of President Chun Doo-hwan.

In this combined photo taken in front of Euljiro, downtown Seoul, on June 10, 1987, and Wednesday, respectively, the lower part of the photo shows military officers running towards protesters, while the upper part of the photo shows modern buildings in the area. / Korea Times file



The June 10 movement was triggered by the torture death of a Seoul National University student, Park Jong-chul, in January 1987.

He died after he was taken in for questioning on the whereabouts of his friends, information police suspected Park withheld in the interrogation room in Namyeong-dong, Seoul.

While police initially denied the torture allegations saying Park died after an officer pushed a desk which hit him; an autopsy determined he was severely waterboarded and electrocuted.

Public outrage over his death continued for more than two months, until it was suppressed by the April 13 measures ordered by then President Chun, who claimed he was protecting the Constitution by refusing public calls to adopt a direct presidential vote.

Amid the outrage, a group of Catholic priests, who had a source, held a mass on May 18 and told their congregation about the allegations that a number of ranking officials were involved in the torture death of Park, as well as the attempts to cover up.

The expose set off a firestorm nationwide prompting the public to organize massive protests from June 10.

Hundreds of students stand with their arms around each others' shoulders demanding democratic reforms. / Korea Times file



The outrage swelled after a Yonsei University student Lee Han-yeol fell unconscious after being hit by a tear gas canister, fired by riot police. He died a month later.

The protests grew both in size and intensity, with office workers in their 30s and 40s also taking to the streets to demand the government halt its violent crackdown, abandon its harsh military rule and usher in a democratic system.

Chun finally yielded to the people's demand for democracy, promising to revise the Constitution to end military rule and elect a new president in a popular vote.

His friend, Roh Tae-woo, also a retired Army general, announced the measures.

In this combined photo taken in front of Yonsei University in Sinchon, western Soul, on June 10, 1987, and Wednesday, respectively, student protesters, right, retreat onto the school campus away from charging military officers, while contemporary students, left, walk to class. / Korea Times file



Roh issued a statement on June 29, declaring the adoption of direct voting in electing a president. He was elected president in February 1988, beating the so-called Three Kims _ Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil.

His election was seen as a setback to the pro-democracy movement as it virtually prolonged Chun's military rule.
CHARLESTON -- The state budget will probably be at the center of the Legislative Update lunch slated for June 15.

State Sen Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, and state Rep. Reggie Phillips, R-Charleston, are scheduled to update community members on what is happening in Springfield at noon June 15 at the Unique Suites Hotel, 920 W. Lincoln Ave.

The lunch is hosted by the Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce Diplomats.

Righter said the budget stalemate will likely play a big part in his update. A compromise on the state budget has remained just as elusive today for Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-led state legislature as it was almost two years ago.

Rauner is adamant on some business reforms that Democrats and others say are non-budgetary items. Other Republicans like Righter also argue that it is up the legislature to pass a budget and they have yet to do so in the past three sessions.

State entities like educational institutions have seen the brunt of the impact of the impasse. Eastern Illinois University in Charleston has not seen state money since December, at which time higher education was funded through a small measure to help the universities through the end of the year.

Righter noted he will also speak on the economic climate at this point and efforts underway at the state level to make the area better for the creation of jobs.

Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Cindy White noted that there will be a question-and-answer period after the two representatives speak. She said the lunch is geared to be a more open forum to give people in the community a chance to speak to their legislators about what is happening at the Capitol.

According to a press release, a buffet lunch will be served at noon with time for eating and networking. The actual update will begin at 12:20 p.m.

The cost of the luncheon is $20 per person and $11 for Charleston Chamber diplomats. Seating will be at tables of eight. The release states that all area business people are welcome to attend.

To take part, pre-registration is required. Reservations can be made by calling the Charleston Chamber office at 217-345-7041 or registering online at www.charlestonchamber.com by the end of the day Monday.
I want to thank Jarad Jarmon for covering the rally at Dale Righters office Thursday, June first. There were up to twenty people during the time I was there in support of education funding for all students at all levels. Some people left to go to jobs, and others came late, but the intensity was high the entire time. Much like the overflow, standing room only crowd that met with a Congressman Shimkus representative in Charleston a short while back.

The groundswell is beginning. The JG-TC newspaper Fri. June 2, does not miss any of the reasons why people should wake up and smell the coffee. All politics are local. But the local leads to the state and the state leads to the federal and the buck-stops-here is being constantly passed around so no one is willing to buck-the-system, stand on high ground, be accountable, responsible and morally ethical. Why should they? They might cause waves, they might not get elected next time and they might not get richer. Anybody who does not by this time acknowledge that Donald Trump is destroying our planet, our country and alienating our allies systematically has his or her head in the sand, while accepting his non-truths and alternative facts. Trump complained that other countries are laughing at the U.S.A. Their supposed laughter would be one of embarrassment, disappointment and horror at what is happening to the USA. The alternative is to cry.
For middle schoolers, obesity can lead to unreciprocated friendships and even cause peers to actively dislike a child, new research finds.

The study, published today (June 7) in the journal PLOS ONE, adds to a body of research detailing how being overweight as a child can lead to social and psychological struggles. Previous work has suggested that overweight schoolchildren have fewer friends and are often pushed to the periphery of social groups, and the new research finds that overweight children may be actively ostracized by their peers.

The negative relationships, said the authors, can carry serious mental and physical health implications for overweight kids, who have become a significant part of the U.S. population. Obesity affects one out of five school-age children in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Overweight kids are being rejected by their peers," said Kayla de la Haye, lead author of the new study and an assistant preventive medicine professor at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. "It's not just exclusion, but there's also an overt rejection and dislike for these kids and that is a serious risk factor for them [not] having healthy social development." [10 Ways to Promote Kids Healthy Eating Habits]

Middle school friendships

In the new study, researchers surveyed 504 preteens in the Netherlands, who came from 28 middle school classrooms. The researchers asked the children to name an unlimited number of other kids whom they considered among their "best friends," as well as an unlimited number of classmates whom they "disliked." Researchers also individually measured each child's height and weight to assess body mass index.

The results showed that overweight children were less likely to be named as friends than their slimmer classmates in 70 percent of the classrooms.

Overweight children listed as many people in the friend category as children with healthy weights, on average. However, the overweight kids were 1.7 times more likely to be disliked by others than children who were not overweight. The overweight kids were also 1.2 times more likely to dislike their peers.

The survey also found that overweight children were more likely to include, in their lists of friends, classmates who did not list the overweight children as friends.

Lynn McAfee, who works as an advocate with the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination, said she remembers middle school as a particularly tough time, when she felt "second rate" as an overweight child.

"I had a terrible time," McAfee told Live Science. "What I learned as a fat child is that I had to be charming. I had to be friends with people who, maybe, I didn't have much in common with, but they were willing to be friends with me." [5 Ways to Foster Self-Compassion in Your Child]

De la Haye told Live Science that the findings point to the urgent need to address the widespread stigma associated with being overweight.

"There's no evidence that stigmatizing obesity motivates people to lose weight," she said. "In fact, there is more evidence showing it's counterproductive. It leads to social and mental health risk factors. We also know that kids who are ostracized are more like to eat [high-calorie] foods and are less likely to be active. And they end up in peer groups that tend to be less active."

Reducing stigma

The stigmatization of overweight children has been documented for decades. A 1961 experiment showed that when children were asked to rank images of potential friends, including children with disfigurements and disabilities, obese children were consistently ranked last. A follow-up study in 2007 replicated the 1961 study and found that children at that time ranked the images of obese children even lower than children had 40 years previously. More children ranked obese children last in their list of potential friend choices in the later study.

That research suggests that as obesity rates have increased, so has the social stigma associated with being overweight. The percentage of children with obesity in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

De la Haye argued that it's important to reframe the discussion about obesity to minimize the stigma associated with it.

"The problem is we have looked at obesity as a moral problem of an individual, a result of their laziness or lack of willpower," she said. "Now, we know that that is not the cause of this large-scale rise in obesity rates. It's really because we've created these food systems and environments that make it really easy to consume a lot of calories and be sedentary."

Originally published on Live Science.
Human-caused climate change has resulted in record rates of glacial melting. This glacier and the marker of it's edge in 1908 is in Jasper National Park, Canada.

Climate change is any long-term alteration in average weather patterns, either globally or regionally. Climate change has occurred many times in Earth's history, and for many different reasons. The changes in global temperature and weather patterns seen today, however, are caused by human activity. And they're happening much faster than the natural climate variations of the past.

Scientists have many ways to track climate over time, all of which make it clear that today's climate change is linked to the emission of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. These gases trap heat from the sun's rays near Earth's surface, much like the glass walls of a greenhouse keep heat inside. Small changes in the proportions of greenhouse gases in the air can add up to major changes on a global scale.

On average, the effect of greenhouse gases is to increase global temperatures. This is why climate change is sometimes called global warming. However, most researchers today prefer the term climate change because of the variability of weather and climate across the globe. For example, warming global average temperatures might alter the flow of the jet stream, the major air current affecting North American weather, which could in turn lead to seasonal periods of extreme cold in some areas.

"It's important for people to realize that there is a lot of variability from place to place on the Earth in terms of the temperature," said Ellen Mosley-Thompson, a paleoclimatologist at the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center of The Ohio State University. "When we talk about global climate change, we're talking about temperature changes over large areas."

How do scientists know climate change is real?

The effects of global warming are visible. The climate of the past is recorded in ice, sediments, cave formations, coral reefs and even tree rings. Researchers can look at chemical signals  such as the carbon dioxide trapped in bubbles inside glacial ice  to determine what atmospheric conditions were like in the past. They can study microscopic fossilized pollen to learn what vegetation used to thrive in any given area, which in turn can indicate what the climate was like. Scientists can also measure tree rings to get a season-by-season record of temperature and moisture. Ratios of chemical variants of oxygen in corals and stalactites and stalagmites can reveal past precipitation patterns.

Different types of natural records can reveal different clues about the climate of the past. Ocean sediments don't carry season-by-season or even year-by-year levels of detail, but they can provide blurrier pictures of climate dating back millions of years, Mosley-Thompson told Live Science. (The oldest cores drilled from ocean sediments date back 65 million years, according to The Smithsonian Institution (opens in new tab).) Tree records are relatively short but incredibly detailed. And ice can be chock-full of information: Not only do glaciers capture atmospheric gases in the form of air bubbles, they trap dust and other sediments, pollen grain, volcanic ash and more. As the ice gets older and more compressed, the record can become fuzzy, Mosley-Thompson said, but newer ice can provide a year-by-year look at what the climate was doing.

The most recent changes in the climate  since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution  have also been tracked directly. Record-keeping of things like land temperature began to improve in the late 1800s, and ship captains began to keep a wealth of ocean-based weather data in their logs. The advent of satellite technology in the 1970s provided an explosion of data, covering everything from ice extent at the poles to sea surface temperature to cloud coverage.

Overall, the Earth is warming up because of human-caused climate change. But climate change also causes seasonal periods of extreme cold. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

(opens in new tab)

How is the climate changing?

Taken together, these records show that the modern climate is undergoing a swift departure from the patterns of the past.

Before the Industrial Revolution, there were about 280 carbon dioxide molecules for every million molecules in the atmosphere, or 280 parts per million (ppm). As of 2021, the global average level of CO2 was 419 ppm  more than 100 ppm higher than the level has been in the last 800,000 years, and up 6.5 ppm from 2020, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (opens in new tab). The last time atmospheric carbon reached today's levels was 3 million years ago, according to NOAA.

The rate of change in today's atmospheric carbon is also faster than in the past, according to NOAA. The rate of increase was 100 times faster over the past 60 years than any time in the last million years or so  a period that saw eight major climate flip-flops between glacial cycles, in which ice expanded from the poles into the middle latitudes, and interglacial cycles, in which the ice retreated to where it is today. And the rate continues to increase. In the 1960s, atmospheric carbon went up by an average of 0.6 ppm a year. In the 2010s, it rose by an average of 2.3 ppm per year.

The heat-trapping ability of all that extra carbon has translated to rising global average temperatures. According to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) (opens in new tab), Earth's average temperature has risen by just over 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) since 1880, a measurement accurate to within a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit. As with the rate of atmospheric carbon increase, the rate of global temperature increase is also speeding up, according to NASA's Earth Observatory (opens in new tab): Two-thirds of the warming thats taken place since 1880 has occurred since 1975.

What are the impacts of climate change?

This warming has caused changes in Earth ecosystems and environments. Some of the most dramatic changes have occurred in the Arctic, where sea ice is on the decline. Record-breaking ice extent lows have been the new normal since 2002, according to NASA (opens in new tab), and studies are finding that even the oldest, multiyear sea ice is thinning rapidly. Summer 2020 was one of the worst years ever for summer sea ice extent , with only one year on record  2012  exhibiting a lower ice extent. Scientists now expect the first ice-free Arctic summer sometime between 2040 and 2060.

Glaciers are retreating globally, particularly in the middle latitudes, Mosley-Thompson said. Montana's Glacier National Park was home to 150 glaciers in 1850. Today, there are only 25. Mosley-Thompson and her team estimate that the last tropical glaciers will disappear within the next decade.

Melting ice and the expansion of ocean waters due to heat have already contributed to rising sea levels. According to NOAA (opens in new tab), the global average sea level has risen 8 to 9 inches (21 to 24 centimeters) since 1880. The rate of rise is increasing, from 0.06 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year in the 20th century to 0.14 inches (3.6 mm) per year from 2006 to 2015. According to NOAA, this sea level rise has translated to a 300% to 900% increase in high-tide flooding in coastal areas of the United States.

Ocean water absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which creates a chemical reaction that causes ocean acidification. The global average pH of ocean surface waters has decreased by 0.11 since the Industrial Revolution began  a 30% increase in acidity  according to NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (opens in new tab). Increasing ocean acidity makes it more difficult for corals to build their carbonate skeletons and for shelled animals such as clams and some types of plankton to survive.

Climate change is even affecting the timing of spring-like weather. The earliest spring (as defined by plant growth and temperatures) on record in the United States was in March 2012. Climate models now suggest that such early springs could be the norm by 2050 (opens in new tab). But late freezes will likely still occur, creating conditions in which plants could leaf out early and then be damaged by cold temperatures. Climate models also predict the exacerbation of alarming trends in droughts and wildfires due to warmer temperatures.

Models are a key tool for climate scientists, said Kathie Dello, a state climatologist for North Carolina. There is no way to compare different futures for Earth in the real world, Dello said, but models enable scientists to create virtual versions of the planet to test different scenarios. Though the Earth system is complicated, these computer models have proved capable of predicting future climate trends. A 2020 paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (opens in new tab) found that climate model predictions published between the 1970s and 2010 were accurate when compared with the actual warming that occurred after publication.

Can we reverse climate change?

A growing number of business leaders, government officials and private citizens are concerned about climate change and its implications, and they are proposing steps to halt and reverse the trend.

"While some argue that 'the Earth will heal itself,' the natural processes for removing this human-caused CO2 from the atmosphere work on the timescale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years," Josef Werne, a geochemist and paleoclimatologist at the University of Pittsburgh, said. "So, yes, the Earth will heal itself, but not in time for our cultural institutions to be preserved as they are. Therefore, in our own self-interests, we must act in one way or another to deal with the changes in climate we are causing."

If all human greenhouse gas emissions stopped immediately, Earth would likely still experience more warming, some studies suggest (opens in new tab), because carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. There are proposals that could theoretically reverse some of this "locked in" warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as carbon capture and storage, which involves injecting carbon into underground reservoirs. Advocates argue that carbon capture and storage is technologically feasible (opens in new tab), but market forces have prevented widespread adoption.

Whether or not removing already-emitted carbon from the atmosphere is feasible, preventing future warming requires humans to stop causing the emission of greenhouse gases. The most ambitious effort to forestall warming thus far is the Paris Agreement . This nonbinding international treaty, which came into effect in November 2016, aims to keep warming "well below 2 degrees Celsius [3.6 F] above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 F]," according to the United Nations. Each signatory to the treaty agreed to set their own voluntary emissions limits and to make them stricter over time. Climate scientists said that the emissions limits that were outlined in the agreement wouldn't keep warming as low as 1.5 or even 2 degrees C, but that it would be an improvement over the "business-as-usual" scenario in which no changes are made to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Obama administration, the United States pledged to limit greenhouse emissions to less than 28% of 2005 levels by 2025. However, President Donald Trump announced soon after his election that his administration would not honor the Paris Agreement. The Trump administration began the formal withdrawal process from the agreement in 2019. Upon assuming the presidency in 2021, Joe Biden re-committed the U.S. to the Paris Agreement. A 2021 study found that greenhouse emissions have already "locked in" enough warming such that Earth will warm more than 3.6 F , pushing past the Paris Agreement's goal. However, curbing emissions could still slow the temperature rise to a more manageable rate and reduce the ultimate peak.

Several state and local governments have launched their own efforts to combat climate change. For instance, 24 states and Puerto Rico have joined the U.S. Climate Alliance (opens in new tab), pledging to meet goals set in the Paris Agreement regardless of politics at the federal level.

"The federal government, even when it's operating well, is not the most nimble institution," Dello said. "But states and cities are a little more flexible."

Additional resources

For more on the sources of today's carbon's emissions, see the Live Science reference article on global warming. For a global view of how temperatures have changed over time, visit NASA's Earth Observatory. NOAA also catalogs signs of a warming world, from sea surface temperatures to shrinking Arctic sea ice to increased water vapor in the air.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issues regular reports on the state of climate science. The World Bank also tracks data related to climate change and lists climate mitigation projects around the globe.

Bibliography

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Sixth Assessment Report. Feb. 28, 2022. https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/

United States Geological Survey. Climate Change Viewer. Accessed March 22, 2022. https://www.usgs.gov/tools/national-climate-change-viewer-nccv

National Snow and Ice Data Center. Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis. Accessed March 23, 2022. https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

This article was originally written by Live Science contributor Stephanie Pappas and has since been updated.
When paleontologists first described <i>Megalosaurus</i> in 1824, they thought it looked like the humped creature on the right. But now, researchers have deduced that it looks like the dinosaur on the left.

Victorian researchers missed a key dental detail when they described Megalosaurus, the first dinosaur on record to get a scientific name, a new study finds.

When William Buckland (1784-1856)  an English theologian, geologist and paleontologist  described the Jurassic-age carnivore in 1824, he named it Megalosaurus. The genus name means "great lizard" in Greek, as Buckland knew the fossil belonged to an ancient reptile.

But during his Megalosaurus inspection, Buckland missed five teeth hidden in the creature's jawbone  a finding that a computed tomography (CT) scan recently uncovered, researchers at the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom announced yesterday (June 7). [7 Surprising Dinosaur Facts]

In the recent scan, researchers took more than 3,000 X-rays of the 167-million-year-old Megalosaurus jawbone, and then used computer software to piece the X-rays together into a 3D digital image.

The scan revealed that the jawbone was damaged, likely when it was removed from the rocky ground in southern England. In fact, records at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, where the specimen is on display, as well as information from the CT scans, suggest that the fossil underwent two phases of repair with different types of plaster, likely when a museum assistant did restoration work on the fossil between 1927 and 1931, the researchers said.

More importantly, the scan showed that the 30-foot-long (9 meters), 3,000-lbs. (1,400 kilograms) dinosaur had previously unknown teeth that were growing deep within its jaw when the animal was still alive. These included the remains of old, worn teeth and newly growing teeth, the researchers said.

"Being able to use state-of-the-art technology normally reserved for aerospace and automotive engineering to scan such a rare and iconic natural history specimen was a fantastic opportunity," said Mark Williams, a professor in the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick.

The new research has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it was presented last month at the IEEE International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference in Turin, Italy.

Original article on Live Science.
A train that doesn't run on physical tracks and that has no driver could soon carry commuters in China, according to news reports.

The new Autonomous Rail Transit (ART) combines bus and train transportation systems, reported Xinhua News. Like a subway train but on the street, the ART uses sensors to detect road dimensions and is guided by autonomous driving technology developed by Chinese rail-maker CRRC Zhuzhou Locomotive. This technology enables the vehicle to follow routes without needing rails Feng Jianghua, chief engineer for the project, told Xinhua.

CRRC unveiled the ART on June 2 in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province. The transit system is intended to speed up the city's public transportation, reported People's Daily Online. [Hyperloop, Jetpacks & More: 9 Futuristic Transit Ideas]

A three-carriage ART is more than 100 feet (30 meters) long and can carry up to 307 passengers, reported People's Daily. The transit system can reach a top speed of 43 mph (70 km/h) and can travel more than 15 miles (25 km) after just 10 minutes of charging.

The ART has been in development since 2013, and CRRC plans to deploy the system in 2018, reported The Independent.

Original article on Live Science.
ndd Medical Technologies, a company with offices in Andover, MA and Zurich, Switzerland, is releasing a new professional spirometer for primary care physicians. The EasyOne Air uses the companys TrueFlow ultrasound technology that does not require any calibration or maintenance, allowing it to be used for years. It has a rechargeable battery thats replenished when connected to a base station, and when disconnected it can be carried in one hand.

A color touchscreen is used to select settings and to review the readings, which are also interpreted to the ATS/ERS guidelines.

The spirometer can connect to in-clinic EMRs to upload its readings via a Bluetooth connection to a paired PC or via a USB cable.

It has received both U.S. FDA and CE Mark approval in Europe earlier this year.

Product page: EasyOne Air

Via: ndd Medical
Thursday, June 08, 2017 Time For Another Edition Of Vox Populi As Readers Weigh In On The Major Issues Of The Day In La Politica



Let's kick it off with former State Land Commissioner Ray Powell who is seeking the '18 Dem nomination for that office. He informs us that he has changed his mind about supporting a constitutional amendment that would ask voters to tap a portion of the state's $16 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to finance very early childhood programs. He had previously opposed the amendment:



The most important investment we can make is in our childrens education. And in a short fifteen years, todays children will be adults pursuing their dreams. The majority of New Mexicos children are in dire need. Their future and that of our state depends on bold and decisive action. As an important part of my commitment to our childrens health and success, I support the additional increase in funding from the Land Grant Permanent Fund (LGPF) for early childhood education. The issues that have concerned me about protecting the integrity of the LGPF, accountability, and measuring programmatic success have been addressed in the most recent proposed legislation. I fully and enthusiastically support this action to help our children and our State.



LAGGING LOTTERY



Reader Doug Echols comments on the state's decision to reduce funding for the state lottery scholarships for higher education from 90 percent of tuition to 70 percent:



Looks like the state just raised taxes by $700 a year on every hard working New Mexico family who rely on the Lottery Scholarship.



Meantime, former state Rep. Dick Minzner comes with the controversial idea of



OUR 21ST CENTURY



Reader John Ingram reacted to our blog this week that said New Mexico's great mistake of this century is austerity politics--(tax cuts, etc.) instead of investment in human capital in the aftermath of the Great Recession:



Joe: New Mexico's first great mistake occurred in 1980, when legislators passed and our governor signed the 'Big Mac' tax cut. Big Mac effectively removed property tax revenues as public education's primary funding source. Our lawmakers then voted to fund schools, colleges and universities with revenues gained from gross receipts taxes, sales taxes, and state income taxes. Since 1980, lawmakers have doubled-down on those first two mistakes with a third one: passing hundreds of gross receipts tax exemptions, as well as corporate tax loopholes, corporate tax cuts/credits/giveaways, film tax credits, and personal state income tax cuts. Over time, these anti-tax measures resulted in fewer state budget revenues. The tax cuts also caused too many years of either public education cuts, freezes, or stagnation. New Mexico's economy, good jobs and higher standards of living are dependent upon sufficient and adequate investment in our public education systems. The dire conditions which you so clearly detailed in your blog document the failure to provide that investment.



CRIME SCENERY







Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPED) is to influence new development and redevelopment relying upon the ability to influence offender behavior. Specifically, altering the physical design of communities to deter criminal activity. . . and influencing the amount of opportunity for "eyes on the street." Some strategies include: Limiting access to buildings and subdivisions; encouraging a mix of land uses to promote walkability and pedestrian activity; encouraging natural surveillance such as better lighting, landscaping that allows for improving sight lines and developing policies related to security that allow for fostering a sense of common place and purpose. . . Research into criminal behavior shows that the decision to offend or not to offend is more influenced by the perceived risk of being caught than the reward or ease of entry.



Borrego is a former city planner. She is a Democrat seeking the District 5 seat being vacated by GOP Councilor Dan Lewis who is running for mayor. We will have the final list of all city council candidates shortly after June 28, when the hopefuls must file the necessary petition signatures with the



DUMPING ON DAVIS



Dem ABQ City Councilor and congressional hopeful Pat Davis was scorched this week for playing budget ball with Republican Mayor Berry and refusing to join his Democratic colleagues in overriding the mayor's budget veto. Among those blasting Davis as a faux progressive were former Dem City Councilors Greg Payne and Pete Dinelli. Davis responds:



Albuquerque has very real and concerning budget issues. On the Albuquerque City Council, Ive fought to increase funding for first responders, community programs, the arts, sidewalks, and for investment in our local economy to create jobs. I voted the way I did because I refuse to hurt hundreds of New Mexico families by furloughing vital city workers to score cheap political points.



For 6 years, Ive been the most vocal and active critic in our state against Susana Martinez, RJ Berry and Donald Trump as the head of ProgressNow New Mexico. We need progressive champions in Congress now more than ever to stand up for working families, to create jobs from the bottom up and to hold the Trump administration accountable. Thats why Im running for Congress.



MORE VOTERS NEEDED



Reader Bob Perls of



Hi Joe, If we end up with 8 or more candidates in the Dem. primary, it is a stunning example of how and why we need election reform. A candidate could move on to the general with less than 20 percent of the primary vote and walk right through the general.



Since we have a closed primary, only the hardcore party base is going to turn out, so you have a fraction of the people registered and a fraction of those will actually vote and those who vote will not be representative of most New Mexicans. Since this is a strongly leaning Dem seat, there is a good chance that fewer than 1 percent of New Mexicans in CD-1, and fewer than 5 percent of the registered voters will actually decide who goes to Congress.



Open primaries or ranked choice voting could take care of these problems leading to electing a person that has a mandate and actually had to reach out to the full spectrum of political beliefs to get through the first round elections. Instead we will see Dem. candidates doing the usual shuffle to the left in the primary and a shuffle to the center in the general perpetuating the view that politicians will do and say whatever they want to get elected and stay in office. And that damages our democracy.



TRUMP AND SUSANA



Bannon A reader writes of a similarity they see between the Trump White House and Gov. Martinez's office:



Steve Bannon is to Trump as political adviser Jay McCleskey is to Gov. Martinez--a nation and a state run entirely by political handlers:



"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough repeatedly called Steve Bannon "President Bannon" on his show recently: "TIME magazine was right: Steve Bannon is the president of the United States."



"He has gone in. Donald Trump doesn't know anything about policy. Donald Trump doesn't know anything about politics. Donald Trump doesn't know anything about anything. He can get up and give a good speech. You listen to him talk about any topic and he wanders from sentence to sentence to sentence. So Steve Bannon is now the President of the United States."



Reader Dennis Martinez also isn't happy with the Santa Fe administration:



Governor Martinez hides behind her crime bills because she is unwilling to face reality. She will leave state government in worse financial shape than it was when she was elected and the states economy in decline and declining. She realizes (too late) that she has run out of time to make any improvements. She never overcame her dependence on her experience as a district attorney and she never grew into her job as governor. She was vindictive, unwilling to compromise and a believer in failed economic policies.



SHE'S ENDORSED



Finally, the campaign of ABQ Dem congressional hopeful Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez writes:



Antoinette Sedillo Lopez announced that her campaign had received endorsements from former New Mexico Attorney General Patricia Madrid, Albuquerque State Senator Bill Tallman, Albuquerque State Rep. Miguel Garcia and PRC Commissioner Cynthia Hall.



This is the home of New Mexico politics.







Interested in reaching New Mexico's most informed audience? Advertise here.



( c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2017 It's time for another edition of the always popular reader Vox Populi, where the readers weigh in on the pressing and maybe not so pressing issues of our beloved La Politica:Let's kick it off with former State Land Commissioner Ray Powell who is seeking the '18 Dem nomination for that office. He informs us that he has changed his mind about supporting a constitutional amendment that would ask voters to tap a portion of the state's $16 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to finance very early childhood programs. He had previously opposed the amendment:Reader Doug Echols comments on the state's decision to reduce funding for the state lottery scholarships for higher education from 90 percent of tuition to 70 percent:Meantime, former state Rep. Dick Minzner comes with the controversial idea of ending the lottery scholarships whose funding has become unreliable and force the legislature to deal directly with the problem.Reader John Ingram reacted to our blog this week that said New Mexico's great mistake of this century is austerity politics--(tax cuts, etc.) instead of investment in human capital in the aftermath of the Great Recession:A while back reader Frank Haley wondered what ABQ westside City Council Candidate Cynthia Borrego meant when she said the environment can be a crime-fighting tool. We asked her to explain:Borrego is a former city planner. She is a Democrat seeking the District 5 seat being vacated by GOP Councilor Dan Lewis who is running for mayor. We will have the final list of all city council candidates shortly after June 28, when the hopefuls must file the necessary petition signatures with the city clerk . Borrego's most prominent foe is GOP attorney Robert Aragon. Five of the nine council seats are up for election this fall.Dem ABQ City Councilor and congressional hopeful Pat Davis was scorched this week for playing budget ball with Republican Mayor Berry and refusing to join his Democratic colleagues in overriding the mayor's budget veto. Among those blasting Davis as a faux progressive were former Dem City Councilors Greg Payne and Pete Dinelli. Davis responds:Reader Bob Perls of NM Open Primaries opines about the possibility of there being as many as eight or more Democrats seeking next year's nomination for the ABQ U.S. House seat:A reader writes of a similarity they see between the Trump White House and Gov. Martinez's office:Reader Dennis Martinez also isn't happy with the Santa Fe administration:Finally, the campaign of ABQ Dem congressional hopeful Antoinette Sedillo-Lopez writes:This is the home of New Mexico politics. E-mail your news and comments. (jmonahan@ix.netcom.com) Links HOME

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Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham

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Medtronic, having received FDA approval last year, is now introducing its MiniMed 670G hybrid closed loop insulin delivery system to the U.S. market. The first such system to become available, the MiniMed 670G utilizes Medtronics SmartGuard HCL algorithm to deduce when and how much insulin to deliver, yet allowing the patients themselves to make changes when necessary.

The systems most automated setting has it manage insulin delivery as long as the patient inputs carb counts after every meal, confirms any bolus changes, and periodically calibrates the sensor against a conventional finger prick glucometer, the CONTOUR NEXT LINK 2.4 from Ascensia Diabetes Care that comes with the system.

The Guardian Sensor 3 within the package that measures glucose levels every five minutes can be worn continuously for up to a week, including during showering and other activities. It has a self-check feature that automatically helps keep the sensor accurate from measurement to measurement, helping to guarantee quality readings and therefore correct insulin delivery.

From Medtronic:

Data from the pivotal trial of the MiniMed 670G system published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) demonstrated less glycemic variability, more time in the target range, less exposure to hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia, and reduced A1c for patients on the system.1 Importantly, real-world use of the system in the Customer Training Phase has shown consistent improved outcomes across several important areas including Time in Range (74 percent) and greater median time in Auto Mode (92 percent).2 Real-world use of the Guardian Sensor 3 also demonstrates continued strong performance and reliability of the companys most accurate sensor to date with a MARD of 10.56 percent against BG3  confirming why its the only continuous glucose monitor trusted and approved by the FDA to power a hybrid closed loop system.

Heres a Medtronic promo video for the MiniMed 670G:

Flashback: MiniMed 670G Approved, Worlds First Hybrid Closed Loop Insulin Delivery System

Product page: MiniMed 670G

Via: Medtronic
by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, June 7, 2017

Basic cable becomes more like porno every day.

The latest example: A new drama premiering Sunday night on TNT called Claws that quite possibly contains the most graphic sex scene ever seen on basic cable.

Niecy Nash is the recipient of this long, sustained dose of pleasure, which is provided by a tattooed hoodlum. Claws is an ensemble drama, but Nash (seen at right in the photo above with one of the shows co-stars, Carrie Preston) is the obvious star of the show.

The shows principal storyline is all about her character, a Florida manicurist who aspires to own her own business. Shes raising the money to buy her own nail salon (hence the title Claws) by working for a local crime organization in the business of selling various prescription opiates. Nashs character, Desna Sims, helps this organization launder its cash.

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Its a colorful environment for a new TV drama series, and one with great potential. But back to that sex scene for a moment.

It occurs barely six minutes into the show in a backroom at the nail salon where Desna now works. She either owns this shop or manages it. The advantage of buying the new shop she covets seems to be its location in a better part of town.

In any case, Desna and her hoodlum boyfriend, who is nominally her boss in the crime organization, do the nasty on a desk -- and do it and do it and keep doing it until you begin to wonder if this shows editors were so mesmerized by this guys rhythmic thrusting that they forgot to cut the scene and make it shorter.

I wish I could tell you whether or not this scene made a contribution to the advancement of the plot, but for some reason I forgot what was going on just before these two entered the back office.

Other graphic sex scenes occurring later in the premiere episode of Claws (which I watched this week) had the hoodlum doing it with someone else on the floor of his house, and two lesbians engaged in oral sex in the back seat of a car.

Please let me state at this point in this blog that when I contemplated becoming a journalist and writer years ago, this was not the kind of writing I had in mind. Sorry.

With these sex scenes, Claws represents another step in TNTs apparent strategy to push the envelope and smash various taboos in an effort perhaps to better compete with all the dramas on pay cable and on the streaming services. They traffic in the kind of content generally not seen traditionally on advertiser-supported television.

Those days are apparently over. With shows such as Claws and Animal Kingdom, which started its second season recently, TNT seems to aspire to be more like FX.

In fact, TNT and TBS President Kevin Reilly was once the head of programming at FX in the early 2000s when that network was making its bones with shows such as The Shield and Nip/Tuck. It is not unreasonable to conclude that he is applying the same strategy here.

The problem is that much of the taboo-shattering material in a show like Claws comes across as gratuitous and unnecessary, such as one scene in which Desna is seen sitting on the toilet and urinating. The scene is ostensibly about the lack of privacy she has in her private life.

Well, as a Claws viewer, I say give this woman her privacy and try and refrain from scenes showing her on the toilet.

Fans of Breaking Bad will be interested to know that one of the standout stars of that show, Dean Norris, is also in Claws. He plays the southern-fried and very obnoxious kingpin of this opioid crime syndicate. He tears into the role too -- a little too much, truth be told, as if hes hellbent on making everyone forget he ever played a good guy in Breaking Bad.

Believe it or not, aspects of the storytelling in Claws keep the show moving right along, and you do wind up rooting for Desna. But on the whole, the experience of watching Claws is ugly, unpleasant and, at least in part, wholly loathsome. It is not a way most of us would choose to spend our summer.

Claws premieres Sunday night (June 11) at 9 Eastern on TNT.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, June 7, 2017

WPP CEO Martin Sorrell took a roughly one-third reduction in total compensation last year. He only made around $62 million.

As a result, far fewer feathers were ruffled among WPP shareholders voting at the companys annual meeting today on the firms executive compensation policy.

The company did away with a long-term incentive plan known as LEAP, which enabled Sorrell to collect more than $90 million in total pay in 2015.

That riled a lot of shareholders at last years meeting, as votes representing roughly one-third of company shares were cast against the pay policy.

Today, with a revised compensation plan that puts a lower ceiling on potential long-term incentive pay than in the past, nearly 80% of votes cast were in favor of a the new plan.

Shareholders at the meeting also questioned board chairman Roberto Quarta about CEO succession planning.

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Sorrell is now 72 and likely will run the company for a few more years; however, there is no heir apparent in the wings. (Former Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy, 75, stepped down at the end of May.) Quarta indicated that succession is a priority and plans are in the works.

WPP also reported some improvement in organic revenue growth for the first four months of the year (versus first-quarter results) while organic net sales growth declined slightly.

Organic revenue growth was up 0.7% overall through April, better than the 0.2% reported for the first three months of the year. Organic net sales growth was also 0.7% through April, down a tick from the 0.8% reported for the first quarter.

North America remained a drag on overall results: North America, with year-to-date, like-for-like revenue and net sales growth of -2.7% and -1.6%, respectively, continued to be the weakest performing region, with advertising and media investment management, data investment management and parts of the Groups healthcare businesses weaker, partly offset by stronger growth in the Groups public relations and public affairs, branding & identity and digital, eCommerce and shopper marketing businesses, according to a statement by Quarta at the meeting.

The full-year outlook remains the same, with the company projecting just 2% revenue and net sales growth reflecting the impact of a lower net new business record in the latter part of 2016, Quarta added. That would be down from the roughly 3% growth the firm has achieved in the last couple of years.

But Quarta noted in his statement that new business activity and conversion rates have recently started to improve, possibly indicating a faster rate of growth for the second half of the year.
by Dave Morgan , Featured Contributor, June 8, 2017

Im writing this from Europe. I started the week at TV Rise 2017 in San Sebastian, Spain, where top addressable TV experts from companies like WPPs Group M, RTL, ProSieben, Ericsson, A&E Networks and Iponweb convened to share experiences. Today and tomorrow, Im in Stockholm, speaking at egtas CEO Summit, where the commercial leaders of Europes largest TV and radio companies are talking about how they are managing digital-born change.

Its back to the future for me in a way. The last time I talked advanced TV advertising in Europe was in the late 1990s as CEO of Real Media, when I was evangelizing addressable TV.

In 1998, we modified our online ad server in Europe to deliver addressable and interactive ads within parts of the terrestrial cable footprints of NTL, Telewest, Cable & Wireless, Swisscom and France Telecom. Yes, that kind of stuff was actually happening back then.

Ironically, in the late 1990s, it was much easier for people anywhere in the world to grasp the notion of targeted ads on TV than it was to explain to them how we would target ads on personal computers and mobile phones (yes, we were targeting ads to mobiles in Europe back then too, leveraging SMS delivery).

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This week, while I came to talk to European peers about how marketers in the U.S. are leveraging data, science and software to make linear TV ads more predictable and performant, Ive been spending most of my time here listening and learning. Here are some of the highlights:

At TV Rise, I learned about the extraordinary work that Sky is doing to bring truly sophisticated addressable TV ads with its AdConnect platform. Executives from WPPs Group M talked about the companys new global Addressable TV Group, based in London, that is being built out to create centralized expertise and tools in this fast-emerging sector.

Brian Golbere of Iponweb walked the audience through a truly insightful presentation on the intersections between ad tech and martech in the TV ecosystem.

egtas CEO Summit vent kicked off with the managing director of Volvo Sweden, Per Carleo, who closed his talk with clear and specific expectation of what Volvo wants from TV companies: Help us tell our stories. Embrace the media mix  dont just fight other channels. And integrate the metrics. Dont just dump data on us, integrate yours with other media channels.

Giorgio Stock, president of Turner in Europe, Middle East and Africa, talked about how the company has changed its core focus from serving TV viewers to fan engagement, which caused it to embrace YouTube, not reject it. He talked about Turners participation in OpenAP, the U.S. consortium bringing audience targeting to linear TV.

Christof Wahl, member of the executive board of ProSiebenSat.1, talked about how the company is planning to win audiences and advertisers in competition with FANGA (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google and Amazon), who are bringing enormous capital and technical expertise to the fight. ProSiebenSat.1s strategies: invest in addressable TV; buy data and ad tech; look for synergistic value plays; create a Hulu-like aggregated over-the-top platform; and create the European Media Alliance, a group of like-minded European TV companies.

My biggest learning? From the presentations I attended and the conversations Ive had here over the past few days, its clear that the intense, diverse innovation of addressable and advanced TV in Europe is as great or greater than in the U.S. Whether this is a product of the nationally supported telecommunications infrastructure, the multiplicity of different national markets, or the tenacity of smaller countries wanting to prove that they can beat big ones, the result is clear: at lot is happening over here.

Im going to watch the players in this market more closely going forward. Were likely to see a lot of pioneering TV ad innovations born here over the next few years.
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Bay Banks of Virginia, Inc., through its subsidiaries, provides various banking products and services to businesses, professionals, and consumers in Virginia. The company accepts checking accounts, savings accounts, money market accounts, cash management accounts, certificates of deposit, and individual retirement accounts. Its loan products include commercial and industrial loans, such as small business loans, asset based loans, and other secured and unsecured loans and lines of credit; purchased loans; residential and commercial mortgages; home equity loans; consumer installment loans; and consumer loans comprising automobile and boat financing, home improvement loans, and unsecured personal loans. The company also provides credit cards; and insurance, online banking, telephone banking, mobile banking, analysis checking, cash management deposit, wire, direct deposit payroll, lockbox, positive pay, and remote deposit services, as well as a line of commercial lending options. In addition, it offers management services, including estate planning and settlement, as well as trust administration, investment, and wealth management services; and revocable and irrevocable living trusts, testamentary trusts, custodial accounts, investment planning, brokerage services, investment managed accounts, and managed and self-directed rollover individual retirement accounts for personal and corporate trusts. As of March 9, 2020, the company operated 17 banking offices located throughout greater Richmond region, the Northern Neck region, Middlesex County, and the Hampton Roads region. Bay Banks of Virginia, Inc. was founded in 1930 and is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.
The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets railroad freight car equipment in North America, Europe, and South America. It operates through three segments: Manufacturing; Wheels, Repair & Parts; and Leasing & Services. The Manufacturing segment offers conventional railcars, such as covered hopper cars, boxcars, center partition cars, and bulkhead flat cars; tank cars; double-stack intermodal railcars; auto-max and multi-max products for the transportation of light vehicles; pressurized tank cars, non-pressurized tank cars, flat cars, coil cars, gondolas, sliding wall cars, and automobile transporter cars; and marine vessels. The Wheels, Repair & Parts segment provides wheel services, including reconditioning of wheels and axles, new axle machining and finishing, and downsizing; operates a railcar repair, refurbishment, and maintenance network; and reconditions and manufactures railcar cushioning units, couplers, yokes, side frames, bolsters, and various other parts, as well as produces roofs, doors, and associated parts for boxcars. The Leasing & Services segment offers operating leases and 'per diem' leases for a fleet of approximately 8,800 railcars; and management services comprising railcar maintenance management, railcar accounting services, fleet management and logistics, administration, and railcar remarketing. This segment owns or provides management services to a fleet of approximately 444,000 railcars for railroads, shippers, carriers, institutional investors, and other leasing and transportation companies. The company serves railroads, leasing companies, financial institutions, shippers, carriers, and transportation companies. The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's main opposition, the Democratic Alliance, suspended on Wednesday its former leader Helen Zille over a controversial tweet in which she praised some aspects of colonialism.

The feisty leader who is now the premier of the Western Cape province sparked a firestorm when she made the offending comment in March.

She wrote: "For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water."

The party said the suspension was "decided by an overwhelming majority" and that sanction would remain until a disciplinary hearing was finalised.

"The suspension is effective immediately," said a statement.

The tweet caused furore among South Africans and within DA ranks, as the group is still struggling to shed its image as a "white" party.

The DA'S top executive said Zille's action had damaged the party.

"There is no question that Ms Zille's original tweets and subsequent justifications have damaged our standing in the public mind."

The party went on to say that Zille had "refused to take the appropriate action necessary to resolve this unfortunate and damaging matter."

On Saturday, DA leader Mmusi Maimane announced Zille's suspension, before backtracking to say a final decision would be made after she was given the chance to defend herself.

A date for the hearing has been set for June 9.

Zille who has a large twitter following is no stranger to controversial tweets.

Zille, 66, is credited with growing support for the DA among black people, whose votes helped it take control of key cities, including the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg, from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) after the local government elections last year.

South Africa, which was colonised by both the Dutch and British, remains deeply divided more than 20 years after the end of white-minority apartheid rule. The DA bills itself as an non-racial and equal opportunity party.
The Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), has inaugurated a Master programme in International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD).

The new programme is under the School of Public Service and Governance and its a two year programme designed to equip participants with knowledge, attitude and conceptual tools to analyse transnational issues and manage real world organisations.

The Rector of GIMPA, Prof Philip Ebow Bondzi Simpson speaking at the launch of MIRD in Accra said the programme adopts an interdisciplinary skills for excellence, achievement and leadership in a highly complex, multipolar and globalised world.

The MIRD reinforces GIMPAs commitment to providing high quality programmes, customised educational approaches and a participant- centered learning environment, he said.

He added that the newly introduced programme will also enable the School and the Institute to contribute to human capacity development and national development.

Prof Bondzi Simpson explained:  The rational for the MIRD stems from the fact that Ghana is increasing expanding its relations with the international community and host to a number of international and regional organisations

MIRD seeks to provide an excellent academic and professional programme of study to contribute to capacity building of relevant Ministries and Departments, international organisations in Ghana and the West Africa region, and corporations in Ghana and the region.

He hinted that the MIRD will further serve as preparation for doctoral research degree in international relations and to specialise in one of the major subfield of international relations.

Prof Bondzi Simpson noted that the programme is also targeted at practitioners in the field of international relations and diplomacy who wish to acquire a doctorate in the field.

Commenting on future plans and opportunities, the Rector of GIMPA said: Developing a four year Doctor of Philosophy Programme in International Relations and Diplomacy; one option under consideration is to allow those who have successfully completed the MAIRD to complete additional two years of comprehensive exams, candidacy exams and a dissertation of 70,000 words.

He added that the Institution will introduce a short term certificate and diploma courses for practitioners from Foreign/ Diplomatic Service, Public Service and International Diplomatic Community.

Prof Bondzi Simpson stated that the institution will develop a centre that will focus on researching the current development in the area of Regional Economic groups and their effect on our governance system and the emergence of new powers in our complex world.

GIMPA was established in 1961 as a joint Ghana Government/United Nations (UN) special fund project. It was set up as one of the key strategic institutions to develop the public administrative system, to provide civil servants with administrative and professional competence, and to plan and administer national, regional and local services. In 1966, the joint sponsorship ended and the UN formally handed over the Institute to the Government of Ghana.
08.06.2017 LISTEN

There is chaos everywhere in this country. Whether or not it be a political diversion, a brave soldier has fallen. How he fell and how similar injustices keep happening show there is a monster hidden somewhere in us.

In Everyone.

I grew up in the streets of Amakom and have witnessed four of such *Saint Stephen-like Assassinations* there so far and I do not wish to see or hear of any anymore. Yet there is a monster which has to die. In us all. A monster so much rooted in our hearts. Before we think of killing, knives down. Let's starve the monster in us to death first. Let's digest this.

In every typical Ghanaian home, by the time a male child turns 12, he should know how to slaughter at least a fowl. We kill at home during all festivities and we see nothing wrong with it.

With stones, cutlasses and fire, we chase rats out of their abode and stone them. (This is where the monster enters the lynchers)As if that is not enough, we bring them home to burn their corpses to our desire, cut them up, then we eat them.

Except for the eating aspect, this isn't very different from what happens across the country, with especially the recent one in Denkyira Obuasi.

We see no faults in doing all these in the presence of our children, so they grow up as hardened killers - whether animal killers or human killers.

During our durbar festival called Sallah, we kill cattle in the full glare of the community and everyone just looks on.(The monster enters onlookers.) Media men go around to take coverage of these activities and we enjoy hearing about them.(Monster enters video and picture takers.) We learn how to kill, how to murder, even how to look-on and how to take pictures and videos while another being suffers - from our homes and communities, so we obviously do not find it difficult testing it on humans.

If we intend to put a stop to all these, to put our knives down and to starve the monster in us to death, then the revolution must start in our homes and societies.

1. Let's enact a law to stop the inhumane killing of animals

2.Let's get our meat from the abattoirs..

3. Let's find a humane way of hunting game

4. Let's stop the public display of cruel animal torture as done during some festivals (Papa Nantwie)

5. Let's learn from the West.

_ restrict the animal

_ stun it to make it unconscious...

_ kill it quickly.

6. Let's give it a try and the hearts of our countrymen will be softened.

7. Let's talk about it

8. Let's stop this cruelty

9. Let's share it around.

#StunAnimalsBeforeKillingGh

#KnivesDownStarveTheMonsterInUsGh

Richard N. Asuming.

Presby. Univ. Coll. Ghana

[email protected]

0245596402
08.06.2017 LISTEN

Kemi Oluloyo is so notorious, why would anyone defend her? The manner and surreptitious way she was arrested is exactly how many innocent citizens disappear. There is no doubt that some people would abuse the role of the press to get facts out. However, if the choice we have is between abuse of free information and abuse by the powerful and the mighty, most people would err on the part of free press.

Pastor Ibiyeomea was able to get police as far away as Port Harcourt to arrest Kemi Oluloyo in Ibadan where the alleged defamation took place against him. Jurisdiction does not matter since police in Ibadan may not be competent enough or understand how to turn civil defamation into criminal defamation. One would expect this oppression of a citizen, no matter how notorious, could not take place in Nigeria where there is a tradition of vigorous press against oppressors.

Nigerian pastors are so powerful these days, they no longer wait for God to punish those that trespass against them, they employ the police and the courts to implement instant justice by locking up critics of their sexual escapades. It does not matter what evidence is provided by those they fornicate with, their believers and supporters remain unmoved by pastors guilt.

Whenever you have desperate people looking for salvation out of terrible situations as poverty, elusive diseases, bareness, barrenness or infertility or miracles; pastors get big congregations. Some of them display their power directly from God to cure, raise the dead, predict calamities and the demise of people except their own. Their followers would do anything asked as we saw in Kenya where pastor ordered his followers to eat grass.

There is certainly a link between some of these pastors that are sexual deviants whose only way of satisfying their lascivious appetite is by gathering many ladies looking for salvation and using them to gratify their sexual cravings. They are so rich and influential, their secret is well kept. A pastor of Faith Word Church International at Nii Boi in Accra, Ghana was arrested by police for rubbing olive oil in the vagina and on the clitoris of his church member .

We also saw how a man died after he had been nailed in a coffin on their way to church where he was supposed to be brought back alive in Nigeria. Some pastors are gullible, bold face criminals in cloaks. In South Africa, a 38-year-old woman narrated how, a self-acclaimed man of God paid an equivalent of about K30 thousand a week to a team of actors claiming to be just ordinary citizens to stage being healed.

Where do all these pastors get so much money from? We know some pastors have been caught in armed robbery but those are extremists. Many have built large congregation and followers, some of whom donate some of their loot with the hope that God would forgive them. At the same time, these flamboyant pastors with personal planes, mansions in and out of the country should be investigated for outrageous display of wealth.

Nigeria cases is more pathetic because its on a grander scale in a country where enormous amount of money can be made by oppressing and exploiting the poor and looting the treasury at the same time. Even other African countries wonder how much money is there in Nigeria after all the billions they hear about have been stolen. They are not the only ones, one of Nigerias head of states also wondered how Nigeria had not disintegrated after all that looting.

There is no dispute that many poor people would rather starve to death than see their pastors in their own condition. They are just like bees that adores and work for their queen. However, we do not have enough money from so many poor on religious opium to make so many pastors so rich watching them spend peoples offerings foolishly.

One of these days, we are going to discover that some of these pastors that are so filthy rich have other source of income like drug smuggling, running houses of prostitution and at least some have been found to be running baby factories after getting most of the women pregnant . The way they spend, not only locally but internationally, is simply beyond just tithes from their congregations. Unless they have money machines at home.

Mind you some of them have branches of their ministries overseas where tithes are collected and saved in foreign banks for the pleasure of their pastors to spend as he wishes. They also buy jets and mansions like the politicians and militaricians. This is how they can patronize international call girls, stars and even women of so called repute fascinated by power and money of the holy men of God.

We just have to pity members of their congregation that finance and build the school their own children cannot afford to attend. Politicians are not the only ones exploiting the poor, these pastors go even further. Pastors promise the poor heavenly riches after robbing them blind without pointing a gun like armed robbers. Whenever people are in need and may have exhausted every reasonable means of achieving their needs, they turn to miracles of pastors.

The fact that these pastors go untouched either by the law or the tax men show some forms of conspiracy between them and the politicians. After all, both are in the business of milking the poor and the country. The same way we cannot get rid of the mega enumerations of politicians despite all cries, triers and admonitions; the pastors are enjoying a free control of the peoples mind with the sole objective of dispossessing them like daylight robbers.

Pastors have turned religions into the biggest scam since the Europeans and Arabs dispossessed Africans of their cultures and replace them with foreign ones perpetuated, not by them, but by African grandfathers to father to son and daughters as give English and Arab names. Children in turn pass these religions and names on to their own offspring. The fastest growing religions are among the poor developing countries and the underclass, minorities in rich countries.

Pastors prey on, not pray! Some have taken religion and salvation out of the hands of God, into their own hands. Heavens only help those that help themselves. If God is anywhere, hear every language in every home, Continent; no need to bring God from Europe, Israel or Saudi Arabia.
Once upon a time, a Ghanaian acquired a piece of land on the edge of Nweneso No. 1 village with the aim to search for gold. However, a few residents objected.

Then, with the twinkle of an eye, multitudes of Chinese miners moved in with excavators, destroying farmland and denuding the local stream into a trickle of mud.

The Chinese destroyed our lands and our rivers, they are sitting there with pick-ups and guns, plenty of guns.  They wield guns and would fire at anyone who dares to confront them to stop mining, a native of the village said (graphic.com.gh).

I am not a blithe doomsayer, or a gleeful grumbling geezer, but if we failed to curb the activities of the recalcitrant illegal miners in our countryside, I am afraid, we are, of course, be heading towards a gargantuan environmental catastrophe.

I must admit, I hold a contrary view to a school of thought who believes that the NPP governments efforts to halt the illegal mining will come to nothing if they failed to provide alternative livelihoods for the galamseyers.

The sceptics somehow argue that the galamseyers will most likely return to the illegal activities in the absence of alternative employment.

In as much as there is an element of truth in the sceptics assertion, lack of employment does not give anyone an absolute right to engage in criminalities and go scot free.

Succinctly put, illegal miners (galamseyers) are criminals like any other criminal on the street and must therefore be treated as such.

Then again, why must we pamper an illegal miner who is bent on stealing our natural resources, destroying the environment and above all terrorising the indigenes ?

Many observers would also agree with me that the illegal activities of the galamseyers in our country side are unprecedented (apologies to the late Mills).

And more so what appears baffling to many discerning citizens is the fact that the illegal miners have been enjoying an unfettered fun over the years without any serious action to curb their activities until recently.

In the time past, we witnessed a few occasions whereby the illegal miners were rounded up and the powers that be ended up setting them free.

There have also been reported cases of deliberate killings of informers and anti-galamsey crusaders by illegal miners .

A reality documentary on DSTVs Discovery Channel which was shot in Ghana and captured horrifying scenes of foreigners taking over mining sites and killing indigenes has sent Ghanas Lands and Natural Resources Minister fuming(See: 'Jungle Gold' film: Gov't orders arrest of two US nationals; Inusah Fuseini fumes over mining documentary, Myjoyonline.com/Ghanaweb.com, 10/05/2013).

In another instance, two Ghanaians were shot dead in 2013 by illegal Chinese miners in Obuasi (See: Two Ghanaians shot dead by Chinese miners in Obuasi; myjoyonline.com, 09/05/2013).

It was reported that the two Ghanaians were among a group of Ghanaians who attempted to resist the Chinese illegal miners from encroaching on their land. How pathetic?

They wield guns and would fire at anyone who dares to confront them to stop mining, Mr Yeboah-Asare told graphic.com.gh (See:graphic.com.gh/.../illegal-chinese-miners-resume-operations-in-parts-of-ashanti.html-).

It seems that a section of Chinese miners become extremely spiteful when they find themselves in mirthful Africa.

Take, for example, two Chinese foremen injured 13 miners by opening fire on a crowd of Zambian demonstrators at the Chinese Collum Coal Mine in 2010.

This incident touched off a wave of anger throughout Zambia (See: cesran.org/index.php?...id=1468%3Achinas...).

Of course, we cannot allow a few obdurate criminals to hold us to ransome. Suffice it to stress that even the Holy Book, the Bible, tells us that whoever brandishes a gun should die from the gun. That, for me, is a pragmatic stance.

Indeed, there is nothing wrong to resort to a draconian measure, if that will indeed circumscribe the menace of illegal mining.

Let us face it, they, the scumbags, are well -prepared and they routinely carry out their illegal activities with military precisions, and can strike as lighting, and as deadly and destructive as molten magma.

In any case, the barbaric murder of the innocent Captain Mahama by the Denkyira Obuasis merciless and uncivilised mob (alleged galamseyers), should be a wake-up call to all and sundry.

Given the criminal intent of the vast majority of the galamseyers, we are, more than ever, urgently required our military power to combat the menace of the impenitent nation wreckers who are bent on despoiling and denuding the environment through illegal mining.

In theory, the illegal miners invasion of our country side with a view to forcibly digging our mineral resources, polluting our sources of drinking water, destroying the environment and above all terrorising the natives is tantamount to war.

I will, however, venture to state that if we failed to act sooner than later, we risk a possible conflict between the incompliant galamseyers and the state futuristically.

Take, for instance, the United Nations maintains that in the last 60 years, at least 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts have a link to natural resources, and that this link doubles the risk of a conflict relapse in the first five years (UNEP, 2017).

The United Nations stresses that since 1990, at least 18 violent conflicts have been instigated by the exploitation of natural resources, whether high-value resources like timber, diamonds, gold, minerals and oil, or scarce ones like fertile land and water (UN, 2017).

Consequently, the United Nations went ahead and mandated a few peacekeeping missions with a view to helping the host country to better managed its natural resources.

One such example is the 2003 UN Resolution 1509, which sought to help the war thorn Liberia to protect its natural resources from illegal miners (UNEP, 2017).

The other UN mandated peacekeeping mission is the 2010 Resolution 1925, which aimed to protect life and property in the Democratic Republic of Congo (UEP, 2017).

In sum, illegal miners are flamboyant nation wreckers. So, let us join hands with the NPP government and flush the impenitent criminals out of our country side.

K. Badu, UK.
With our heartfelt sympathy we share with the Nation, the Security Forces and the Family, the loss of Captain Maxwell Adams Mahama, a proud son of Ghana. Death is sad enough when anticipated, but even worse when unexpected in such a barbaric and unprecedented nature when you loose the opportunity to say goodbye to a lovely and young wife and innocent children.

We are shocked and chilled to the bone by this cruelty to a soldier who has devoted his youthful life to protect property and life and make all of us safe.

Gone too soon! Its time like this that put our faith to the test. Its our fervent hope that we will all use our faith to see us through the grief and despair that comes with such a barbaric tragedy. Our firm belief is that Captain Maxwell Mahama would want us to keep his memory by expressing our faith and not make this cruelty a nine (9) day wonder.

All our prayers should remind us of the loving, compassionate, youthful, energetic and proud son of Ghana. The Bible says, Blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted. We pray that God will bless the Nation, the Family and the Security Forces to get through this trying moment.

Think before you speak. - (Socrates). To those uncultured mouths (Politicians) who in their stupidity and ignorance, have chosen to politicize this cruelty, our plea with you, sychophants, is to Look into thyself. Your dirty, corrupt and ignorant selves and how you have personally contributed to this national cancer. (Vigilantism - mob attack)

In our solemn support, of the Nation, Family and the Security Forces, we applaud His Excellency President Akuffo Addo, Ex-President JJ Rawlings, and Heads of the Military and the IGP who have spoken to calm all nerves down. The President has spoken and is resolved to book the perpetrators of this gruesome murder.

To the peace loving people of our Nation Ghana, we want to assure you that Oboase (Denkyira) citizens are peaceful and law abiding citizens of the Paramount. We cannot use the few barbaric behavior to vilify the entire township. These types of people are found in every nook and corner of Ghana; Eg Siakwa (B/A) Telensi (Upper) Kasoa (Accra). To those politicians who wants to inflame this absurd situation just to be heard, our advice is Zip It Off. Its not worth it.

On behalf of Denkyiraman Association of USA and the citizens of Denkyira Paramount, we sympathize and empathize with the Nation, the Family and the Security Forces for this animalistic instincts displayed in such outrageous murser. May he rest in peace.

Nana Oduro Appiako II

Kyidomhene of Dekyira Traditional Area

Acting President - Denkyiraman Association of USA.
TO THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

H.E. NANA AKUFFO ADDO

FLAGSTAFF HOUSE

ACCRA

Dear Sir,

DISCRIMINATORY TREATMENTS AGAINST SECURITY OFFICERS WHO DIE IN LINE OF DUTIES.

Mr. President, my name is Lance Corporal Daniel Kwofie with a service number 44679 but I am popularly known as Ahanta Apemenyimheneba Kwofie III in social media circles and other electronic media outlets. I was formerly stationed at Peki in the Volta Region but has recently been transferred to the National Police Headquarters, Accra. In fact, I am just one and half weeks old at the the National Police Headquarters here in Accra.

Certainly around this time last year, I wrote an open letter to your predecessor H.E John Dramani Mahama bemoaning the rate at which police officers die in line of duties with nothing done to their families particularly, the wives and children. It is a cause for worry and I need to be very sincere with you Mr. President. When I heard that you have made a cash donation to the family of Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama, I was intrigued. I have been pondering on a lot of questions since then. Since I cannot get the opportunity to speak to you one on one, I decided to put my thoughts into writing, hence this letter of mine.

Mr. President, because I have openly been talking about these issues on a regular basis for a long time, I am no longer afraid of premeditated disciplinary actions in the police meant to seal my mouth anymore. I have never been afraid to lose my life as a police officer who has sworn an oath to protect lives and properties so I am not expected to be afraid of being pushed from the police because I am risking my career to speak on issues that is of interest to common the police officer. If I should go home for speaking the truth, I will just join the second hand clothes sellers here at Kantamanto because that was what I was doing untill I joined the police service. It is time we must take responsibilities to address welfare issues that is of paramount interest to the common security officer in which my case is the ordinary police officer. We are not given what we deserve and it is all because we cannot demonstrate or go on strikes due to the tag essential services.

I must commend you for your cash donation of Ghc 50 000.00 to the TrustFund established in memory of late Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama. As a police officer who attended same school with him on the green hills of St. John's School, Sekondi, I am very much elated to have seen your kind gesture towards a member of our fraternity -OLD SAINTS. In 2003 when I reported at St. John's School, the late Captain was in final year so I should be happy to see my President donating to his family in hard times like this. As an old student of St. John's School, I will join the Old Saints to pay our last respect to the late Captain when he is laid in state. I hear he will be given a state burial and that is very good to hear.

Mr. President, I however, have serious concerns about how security officers are treated particularly if one is a junior rank and dies in line of duties. This makes me to see your donation and establishment of the TrustFund in memory of the late Captain as very discriminatory and smacks of unfair treatments particularly to we the junior ranks who are always at the forefronts of risky duties which have tendencies to claim our lives anytime. Many security officers have died in line of duties but no TrustFunds have been established to take care of their wives and children particularly police officers. Why? I will not fault you because your government is relatively new but it is your donation that gingered me to write this long letter of mine. I would expect to see more of these donations and TrustFunds established in memory of junior ranks as well as giving them state burials too. After all, how many senior officers die in line of duties?

The very week that the Captain died, a police officer was killed in Kintampo also in line of duties but it is being treated silently either because he is a junior rank or probably from a very poor home. He is not from a generation of senior military or police officers, and not politically and socially connected like the late Captain so no one cares about him. It is sad! Isn't it? He would silently be taken from the mortuary and be sent to his home town and be buried. If his home town is far like mine, just a handful police officers will follow his corpse to his home town to see where he will be laid to rest. Sometimes a police officer is buried without the usual ritual 21 gun salutes to inform members of the police fraternity who have taken the lead in the world of death that another officer is coming. Is it fair?

For us in the police, regulations 80 of the C.I 76 talks about award scheme for police officers who die in line of duties but Mr. President I must say that since the C.I 76 came into force in 2012, the only benefit we have gotten from it is disciplinary actions, reduction in ranks and dismissals. That is all that we have gotten since the C.I 76 took effect despite working under harsh conditions and most at times beyond the stipulated 8 hours. Even in situations that we work beyond the stipulated 8 hours, we are not paid the adequate monetary compensation mentioned in inregulations 35(2) of the C.I 76. How long should we keep quiet and grumble whilst we serve our country Ghana as police officers? I am not sure we will keep on grumbling in pains like this forever.

Mr. President, I have a request to make. It is time not to establish a TrustFund for only the late military Captain. That is very unfair and discriminatory. Even in the military, I am not sure he is the only military senior officer who has died in line of duty let alone to talk of junior military officers who have perished in dozens in line of duties. Mr. President, the TrustFund should be wide enough to cover every security officer particularly we the police who die almost every day in line of duties. Is it a crime to serve Ghana as junior officer? Must we all be senior officers? The discriminations and unfair treatments against security officers who die in line of duties must stop as a matter of fact.We must be recognised properly whether a police constable or a military captain because we are all serving Ghana in our respective capacities.

To die is not the problem but to die and leave your wife and children to their fate is the problem. We can not continue to die like chicken whilst our wives and children wallow in abject poverty and most at times, the education of deceased police officers children truncates. Last year, a good number of police officers died in line of duties and much they could do for them is to inscript their names on a cenotaph at somewhere National Police Training School whereas there is a regulations in the C.I 76 instructing that children of deceased police officers who die in line of duties should be catered for up to highest level of education. This is what you should look at Mr. President but not to donate to one and establish a TrustFund in his memory and leave others. This issue should be tackled holistically but not singularly as we are seeing in the case of the military Captain. That is unfair and very discriminatory and makes the whole situation looks like George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Mr. President, you seriously need to look at this kind gesture of yours towards the family of late Capt. Maxwell Adama Mahama again and extend it to we the "sankwas" in the police who are equally dying in line of duties just as the Captain died almost every day. Mr. President, you must give us hope that from henceforth, if a security officer particularly we the junior ranks in the police die in line of duties, a TrustFund will be established in our memory and if possible be given a state burial too. If nothing at all, our C.I 76 must be fully implemented with a special emphasis on regulations 80 which talks about scholarship scheme for children of deceased police officers who die in line of duties.

Mr. President, I believe our democracy has grown and it is time our laws are reviewed or modified for police officers to form unions or an associations in order to be taken serious because we seemed to have been taken for granted for far too long and that is not in the interest of the country. Due to security concerns when police officers go on strikes and demonstrations, the framers of the law in their wisdom barred security officers from embarking on industrial actions with the firm believe that their needs will be prioritised but it seems we are being taken for a fool. The nation seems to take delight in watching our wives and children suffering when we die in line of duties. It will not go on like this forever. We need to look at those laws again Mr. President.

May the souls of all security officers particularly, police officers who died in line of duties yet no presidential donations and TrustFunds were established in their memories to take care of their wives and children who are wallowing in abject poverty rest in peace. Their crimes were to serve Ghana and got killed in line of duties to leave their wives and children to very unfair fate. It is sometimes very ashame to lay your life down for Ghana particularly if you are police officer.

Mr. President I wish you grace in office as the president of the Republic.

Yours faithfully,

No.44679 G/L/Cpl Daniel Kwofie

(Ahanta Apemenyimheneba Kwofie III)

[email protected]

#Ahantadiaries_08_06_17
Every city has its version of the Kwame Nkrumah Circle where many small business activities take place. Perhaps what some of these cities do not have is the occasional clashes between pavement hawkers and the city authorities as we often have at our Circle.

Accra's Circle, a name challenged by the Circle Interchange, is a warren of activities. It is the informal mobile and laptop sales headquarters of Accra. Here you can bargain for these hi-tec gadgets at will.

Newcomers to the city find the place too clumsy to contain but it gives the city a special flavour.

Efforts to restore sanity in this part of the city did not start today. In fact, the late Salifu Amankwah pitched camp here instilling his military rating discipline in both hawkers and pedestrians in the general area. Under him Circle looked great, although there were instances of human rights breaches which we do not subscribe to.

The former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Oko Vanderpuije, also attempted doing something about the place but his efforts were swallowed by intense politicization and rendered unproductive.

The hawkers' market nearby was intended to create a place for this class of traders so they can leave the pavements and give the place a clean whiff of life. The hawkers appear to prefer selling on pavements and rubbing shoulders with pedestrians  a preference which has brought them in collision with the city authorities.

With the inception of a new leadership at the AMA has come a fresh desire to instill discipline in this part of the city, especially the main roads. That has unfortunately become a source of friction between the AMA and those breaching the ban on pavement hawking.

Ordinarily, there should be no qualms about evicting those breaching the order. But a situation where people at places outside the restricted segments are arbitrarily attacked by a certain Chief Okine from the AMA, we think something is wrong.

The said Okine who heads the City Guards, last Saturday or so embarked on an unauthorized operation attacking the Tiptoe Lane area  a place which falls outside the 'no hawking' zone.

There is the need for the AMA chief to bring this man to order. He has overstayed his appointment at the AMA and should have long vacated his post. He could not have done what he did last Saturday without an intention to inflict harm to the new political administration in place in the country.

Misguided actions are being perpetrated by persons who are still sulking because to them the political change in the country should not under any circumstance be tolerated.

The Circle issue must be managed with care. The traders within the Tiptoe Lane have breached no bylaw and should be left alone to mind their businesses.

Any operation within the Circle area should be done with the representatives of the traders  which is the Circle Youth Traders' Association.

The AMA Chief Executive Officer must be careful about these unauthorized operations after all, the 'no go' portions are known to the representatives of the traders.
The largest privately-owned Ghanaian Bank, Fidelity Bank recorded the highest positive issues projections across the traditional media in the first quarter of 2017. It recorded 540 positive issues out of the total 5261 issues recorded in the Ghanaian Banking Sector followed by competitors such as Ecobank which had 470 positive issues and Access Bank 388 positive issues emerging in the second and third positions respectively.

This was contained in a statement signed and issued by Dr. Messan Mawugbe, Executive Director of Institute of Africa Media Monitoring Intelligence and Advocacy (IAMMIA-Africa), a leading media research NGO in its recent Image Sentiment Ratings Index.

The statement explained that, the image sentiments ratings basically measures the nature and impact of the various news stories that were reported in the media about the Banking Sector.

The statement revealed that, GCB and Stanbic Bank recorded the highest negative issues projections in the first quarter of 2017 with 24 and 26 negative issues respectively. the negative issues recorded by GCB was in relation to corporate allegations leveled against GCB whilst the Stanbic Bank negative issue was in relations to the bank`s staff duping customers to the tune of GHC900, 000 Dr. Mawugbe explained in the statement.

The statement pointed out that, in terms of medium coverage projection of news stories per bank, StanChart Bank recorded the highest (16) stories projections with a media reach of 48 in the first quarter of 2017. Stanbic Bank and GCB emerged second and third with 12 and 11 news stories respectively.

Dr. Messan Mawugbe in the statement further explained that, the research is necessary because sentiment ratings of all banks in Ghana has intrinsic direct impact on their brands as most customers in recent times tend to attach personality characteristics to them. Analysts at IAMMIA-AFRICA encourages banks to attach critical importance to their brand-health strategies by employing the efforts of strategic communication and monitoring intelligence.
Kinshasa (AFP) - DR Congo authorities on Thursday rebuffed a UN warning to launch an international probe into violence in the central Kasai province following the discovery of dozens of mass graves.

The region has seen a major spike in violence since September when government forces killed tribal chief and militia leader Kamwina Nsapu who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila.

The unrest has claimed more than 400 lives and forced some 1.3 million from their homes, according to UN figures.

Unconfirmed local statistics put the number of dead as high as 3,000.

"As far as the violence recorded in the Grand Kasai provinces go, including the murder of two UN experts and the police officers beheaded by the Kamwina Nsapu (militia), the Congolese judicial system will retain charge of the investigations," Human Rights Minister Marie-Ange Mushobekwa told AFP.

"One does not give ultimatums to a sovereign state," she said.

UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said on Tuesday he was giving Kinshasa two days to show it was seriously investigating the Kasai violence or submit to an international investigation.

In March, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights demanded a high-level investigation into abuses committed against civilians in Kasai.

And Washington called this week for a UN-led probe into the murder of two UN experts who had been gathering evidence about 40 mass graves in the region.

Mushobekwa said Congolese officials were working with the UN mission in Congo MONUSCO and the UN office for human rights to probe the violence.

She said the Congolese would seek the help of UN forensic experts "as and when the need arises."
A few years ago, I had the privilege of being a part of an international conference in Accra. At one of the group sessions, the issue of lawyer advertising came up. I argued forcefully against the current rules that prohibit advertising and described them as colonial relics that have become shorn of their relevance.

The other participants applauded me to the very echo. The then President of the Ghana Bar Association (GBA), who chaired the session, disagreed with me.

Those rules together with a few other undesirable ones continue to sit pretty on our statute books.

England

The practice of law in England with its Greco-Roman influences, rules, conventions and practices dates as far back as the 12th Century. At some point the advocates were clergymen until the Church banned them in 1207. At that time and many years later notions of public service and nobility were the crowning glory of the advocate.

As far back as 1340, England separated barristers from solicitors. In simple terms, the barristers went to court and the solicitors were their clients. The solicitors on the other hand were the ones that interfaced with the outside world.

It is said that only nobles with marquee surnames and means practiced as barristers and solicitors. They did not advertise their noble profession. In that era, touting and advertising ones trade was deemed befitting for only those on the lower parts of the ladder of social standing.

Through changing vistas, the Law Society emerged in 1825 to regulate the law profession, causing the Society of Gentleman of 1793 and all other such bodies to pale into oblivion.

In 1970, restrictions against advertising started experiencing a subtle pushback and this intensified in 1978. This culminated in the Law Societys decision starting from 1st October 1984 to permit solicitors in England and Wales to advertise in newspapers, on radio and at their premises. Currently, barristers are also permitted to advertise in any way that is consistent with the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion.

The United States of America

Having been colonized by the British, the Americans quite naturally embraced the rule against advertising. They also adopted the distinction between solicitors and barristers but only for a relatively short period of time. Indeed many Americans who wanted to become lawyers at the time actually studied in England and returned with the imbibed culture.

The American Revolution however marked the beginning of the rebellion against strict British tendencies but did not immediately lead to a removal of the restrictions on advertising by lawyers.

It all changed when two young men, John Bates and Van OSteen set up a legal clinic in the State of Arizona in 1974. Two years later, as their practice began to fall on hard times, they advertised their practice and its relatively low rates in The Arizona Republic newspaper, against the rules of the Arizona State Bar.

The disciplinary committee of the State Bar recommended a six-month suspension each for the young lawyers. The young men sought refuge in the Arizona Supreme Court but lost. They proceeded to the United States (US) Supreme Court itself, where the Court relying on its earlier decision affecting pharmacists, ruled that the lawyers had a 1st Amendment right to advertise their service. The court relied on the commercial speech doctrine. That was in 1977.

The US Supreme Court expanded its decision in 1982 in the case of In re R.M.J. This led to changes in the American Bar Association (ABA) rules.

Kenya

In 2012, in the case of Okeyo Omwanza George & Anor vs. Attorney-General & 2 Others, a newly admitted lawyer convinced Justice David Majanja to declare among others that the rule prohibiting Kenyan lawyers from advertising was unconstitutional.

In 2014, the Law Society of Kenya approved rules to enable lawyers to advertise.

Ghana

Being a former British colony, Ghana at independence in 1957, had all the trappings of the strict rules preventing advertising by lawyers. However, Ghana never adopted the British distinction between barristers and solicitors. In Ghana, a lawyer is both a barrister and a solicitor at the same time. However, as of 2017, Ghanaian lawyers do not enjoy the right of advertising that barristers and solicitors in England & Wales currently enjoy.

The Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules, 1969, LI 613 forbids a practicing Ghanaian lawyer from advertising whether directly or indirectly except that they may have their names on name plates and stationery.

Analysis of the Ghanaian Situation

As students of Advocacy and Legal Ethics at the Ghana School of Law, we were taught that it is the quality of your work that will sell you. We were told that satisfied clients will tell others about you and bring you repeat business. We were taught that touting and advertising would debase our noble profession.

What that viewpoint does is to force all lawyers to scramble for space under the wings of old and established law firms for as long as they can endure it. It cements the hold of these few names and denies newer and smaller firms the opportunity to compete and to grow.

It also creates social cost in the sense that clients are denied critical information about which lawyers are in the competitive space and with what levels of expertise and at what competitive price. In the end most of the legal work ends up going to a small group of law firms who in a sense become a composite monopoly and become placed wittingly or unwittingly in a rent-seeking posture. They dictate the terms and pricing of the market, defend the rules that protect their interest and cause deadweight loss by eliminating those who cannot afford their rates. The younger generation is forced to wait for its turn and the cycle continues.

If a lawyer has expertise in energy law, corporate finance, mergers and acquisition or any other area of law, she is not allowed to announce it to a client seeking that expertise. For that matter, the client is likely to end up at a law firm whose name is synonymous with law in general but not necessarily the expertise required.

The claim that your work will sell you also assumes that all work is done in a courtroom and in the open. It is a faulty way to look at the law in this day and age.

Meanwhile, foreign law firms who are not regulated locally find ingenious ways including writing letters and directing clients to their websites (advertising). They enter the local market and take the choice legal jobs, make a lot of money, keep their skills updated as a result and still fall on the established old law firms for local assistance when required.

Today, law practice is not limited to the noble and wealthy class. It is as much a business as any other. It requires investment, sacrifice and the payment of taxes. It is subject to nearly the same innovations demanded by the efficient market.

We must remove the shackles of these rules against advertising and doing business generally for lawyers to enable our country to reap the full benefits of this potentially viable area of our national life. After all, competition breeds excellence.

The writer is a practicing lawyer in Ghana.
Introduction

The issue of cheating in the BECE will stay with us for a very long time.

Many of the supposed solutions that are supposed to curb this unfortunate act rather seem to be the means through which students cheat 'effectively'. Some of the solutions are that the papers must be brought from one location and transported to wherever in the country. Another is that, they need a security personnel to travel with the WAEC officers to the exams centres and hope that the 'sealed' papers are not torn deliberately or intentionally. Then the papers are to be delivered few hours to the centre and must be torn open in the exams room after which the students are put under strict investigation of human invigilators.

So there lies the problem. Too many human boundaries are put in place to control the leakage of exams questions and to also act as impermeable membrane to the very profitable demand for questions. This is what of cause has led to the black market supplying very authentic questions, and even tells you which is question 1 with the rest in their right order.

The flaw with the human boundaries setup by WAEC is this: there will always be leakage at each point, always. No human boundary is perfect. By printing the papers at one location, humans who arrange it, get to peep. Now as security personnel and WAEC personnel travel the route to their destination, should there be any understanding to which both agree to do what they should not, we are also likely to have an act that will not be laudable. Invigilators also are capable of allowing students to have their way. Of cause, that has to proceed, proper compensation.

Proposed Solution

But then a solution to this malpractices has been with us for a while and we are not taking advantage of it. However, the solution can be implemented more effectively when the call to reduce the number of subjects to four is adhered to. The basic level needs a reform that will make JHS students more competitive with their colleagues in the West. The concentration should be on English, Math, Science and ICT. This does not mean that the other subjects should not be taught. Rather, instead of loading a student from Primary One with 10 subjects, he could rather be picking and dropping them on the way up to JHS 3 [In order to make sure students appreciate what is being taught them, the other subjects can be taught using evidence based teachings and making students have presentations on them as End-of-Term examination. This will also present them with certain vital skills from the beginning].

The solution to the perennial BECE malpractices could be cured, or mitigated extremely, by 'borrowing' the system setup by other professional examination bodies in the world such as the organisers of GRE, TOEFL, etc., but with a little modification.

Theirs have to do with using a computerised system for students to undertake the exams. There is almost no supervision, only when one requires technical assistance from the invigilator present. What they use are cameras and the duration for each exam is on a countdown, so when the time is up, you are logged out. This would mean that WAEC can employ less people to supervise and then only have to request a video where a malpractice has been alleged to have occurred and then investigations can begin.

In fact, in adopting such practices, WAEC will need large halls to cater for the large number of students. In modifying it, they could have a large bank of questions from which the questions will be selected.

This would mean that students will be required to take objective-based questions which also makes it possible for students to have their score immediately they are done. With respect to the essay in English questions, they could obviously type it in a window on the screen. By doing this, a computer program can be used to shuffle the questions so that the questions student A gets is different from that of student B. In effect, it will be a waste of time even for students and invigilators to try and figure out which question each student is answering and then assist them.

Furthermore, for the success of this model, it will be important for the students to write in batches. Since it is the same syllabi, it is expected that the students must have learnt the same thing and this should not be a problem if GES have done their supervisory role in making sure all things have been taught. This could help WAEC change the questions with almost no sweat for students to answer as there is already a question bank from a well-guarded computer server with multiple layers of protection. This could even help the student write the exams over a longer duration, which must be reasonable and take the stress off them. Assuming an exam for the four subjects is slated every other day from the next, it should take students, two weeks to complete the entire BECE.

Conclusion

In summary, by reducing the number of subjects and adopting a computerised system of writing exams, we will most certainly solve this perennial problem of exams malpractice.

My name is Kotey and I believe in Ghana.

Good morning.

Author: Edwin Kotey

Email: [email protected]

Blog: koteyscribbles.wordpress.com
File Photo

08.06.2017 LISTEN

QUOTE: Chinese Embassy donates GHc10,000 to Attorney Generals office

Wednesday 7th June, 2017

Madam Sun Baohong, the Chinese Ambassador, on Tuesday [6 June 2017] donated items, including desktop computers, printers, UPS and a cheque for GHc10,000 to the office of the Attorney General.

The donation comes at a time when China has been heavily criticized for the involvement of its nationals in illegal mining activities in Ghana.

Currently, there are several Chinese nationals standing trial for their involvement in illegal mining activities following a clampdown by the government on the menace which is destroying water bodies and farmlands.

A similar donation was made to the police service this year, with the Ghanaian public suspecting that they were attempts by the Chinese government to influence the justice system, for the benefit of its nationals who are in the grip of the law.

The latest donation, according to the Chinese Embassy, is to support the Attorney Generals Office, towards organising a stakeholders consultative workshop, on the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017. UNQUOTE

- See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2017/06/07/chinese-embassy-donates-ghc10000-to-attorney-generals-office/#sthash.5Kc6gyQq.dpuf

This would, normally, not be a story to raise any eyebrows. The immediate past Government of Ghana had denied working tools to so many institutions in the country that many public bodies are in the habit of openly begging foreign Governments for assistance to carry out their job.

However, the body language of this particular story, that is, its context, puts a completely different complexion on it. I doff my hat to the journalists of CitiFM for having been able to identify that context in their story. (The originators of the report, the Ghana News Agency, had, rather witlessly, presented it straight. Their failure to add context to the story illustrates one of the great weaknesses of journalism, namely, to present a set of facts in a vacuum, that gives them a meaning that changes when those same facts are juxtaposed to other known facts.)

When the earlier Chinese gift to the Ghana Police Service is recalled, and a common link is made between it and the new gift to the Attorney-General's office, a pattern emerges: the Chinese Ambassador has the knack of making gifts to prosecution agencies, either when legal proceedings are actively going on, or are in the process of being launched, against Chinese nationals.

Indeed when the ambassador presented a gift to the police, I wrote in the Daily Guide calling on the Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, to repudiate the gift. Such facile instances of open courtship should not be allowed, I wrote.

But like most Ministers in the Ghana of recent years, the Minister of the Interior did not react publicly to my suggestion. If he had, I am sure the Chinese ambassador would have had second thoughts about approaching the AG's department directly this time. Remember  I am not suggesting that the AG's office can necessarily be influenced. The issue is that the approach should never be made under any circumstances. Period.

The ambassador said, among other things, that the gifts were to help stakeholders to get educated about the creation of the position of a Pubic Prosecutor in Ghana!

I don't know the degree of naivety that exists in the Attorney-General's office, but are they completely unaware that electronic devices are the most potent instruments of espionage in the 21st century?

Has anyone in that Department heard that cyber systems were used to successfully interfere with the elections in the country that's at the forefront of developments in the cyber world, namely, the United States of America?

If cyber activity can be effective in such a country, what chance would Ghana stand if and when a powerful nation decided to pry into its affairs?

Let me tell the AG's Department that in the 21st century, sophisticated software exists that can prompt innocent-looking smart television sets, mobile telephones, laptops and desktop computers as well as refrigerators and ovens, to send information from their locations to pre-determined stations. Any device equipped with Blue-tooth and other smart signalling systems can undertake such tasks.

Every word that is typed on a doctored laptop or desktop can automatically be sent to a listening station. . So, if you are conversing with a dear one whilst your TV is on, you could be telling someone somewhere your innermost secrets. How much more a laptop or desktop!

That's the technical reality. But there is also a political aspect to the matter. Is it in our national interest to allow foreign embassies to make direct gifts to sensitive offices of state like the AG's office? In China itself, is it easy for foreign nationals to engage in social intercourse with the Chinese people?

If contacts between individuals is discouraged, how can access be provided to foreign missions and Chinese Government Ministries?

No  I do not think the Chinese would allow any foreign embassy access to a sensitive national institution, such as its Attorney-General's office, in the way our Attorney-General's Department has allowed to be done.

Which raises the question: does the practice of presenting gifts to a pubic institution with which a foreign mission may have an axe to grind, not flaunt the diplomatic accords that exist between Ghana and China? For it can be seen as an intervention in, if not interference with, Ghana's internal affairs, doesn't it?

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have been aware enough of potential breaches of national security as to immediately order an investigation into whether any rules of diplomatic practice had been breached by the Chinese Ambassador, when she first made a gift to the Police Service. Its failure to protest may have led to the current approach to the AG's office.

I would like the Ministry to ask to be briefed on what has recently happened in Australia, where there have been widespread allegations that China has been secretly collecting thousands of Australian Government documents. Mind you  Australia and China are great friends!

I ask you: what would the Ghana prosecution do, if it went back to court to pursue its case against Ms En Huang (Aisha) and four other Chinese nationals, only to find itself

caught flat-footed, because the defence happened -- mysteriously -- to know the prosecution's case from back to front  thanks to the secret interception of all the prosecution's discussions and arguments, regarding how the caseshould be conducted?

As the Romans said: " Beware the Greeks when they come bearing gifts!" (Timeos

THIS CHINESE GIFT TO THE ATTTORNEY-GENERAL'S OFFICE MUST BE RETURNED AT ONCE!! By CAMERON DUODU

QUOTE: Chinese Embassy donates GHc10,000 to Attorney Generals office

Wednesday 7th June, 2017

Madam Sun Baohong, the Chinese Ambassador, on Tuesday [6 June 2017] donated items, including desktop computers, printers, UPS and a cheque for GHc10,000 to the office of the Attorney General.

The donation comes at a time when China has been heavily criticized for the involvement of its nationals in illegal mining activities in Ghana.

Currently, there are several Chinese nationals standing trial for their involvement in illegal mining activities following a clampdown by the government on the menace which is destroying water bodies and farmlands.

A similar donation was made to the police service this year, with the Ghanaian public suspecting that they were attempts by the Chinese government to influence the justice system, for the benefit of its nationals who are in the grip of the law.

The latest donation, according to the Chinese Embassy, is to support the Attorney Generals Office, towards organising a stakeholders consultative workshop, on the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017. UNQUOTE

- See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2017/06/07/chinese-embassy-donates-ghc10000-to-attorney-generals-office/#sthash.5Kc6gyQq.dpuf

This would, normally, not be a story to raise any eyebrows. The immediate past Government of Ghana had denied working tools to so many institutions in the country that many public bodies are in the habit of openly begging foreign Governments for assistance to carry out their job.

However, the body language of this particular story, that is, its context, puts a completely different complexion on it.I doff my hat to the journalists of CitiFM for having been able to identify that context in their story. (The originators of the report, the Ghana News Agency, had, rather witlessly, presented it straight. Their failure to add context to the story illustrates one of the great weaknesses of journalism, namely, to present a set of facts in a vacuum, that gives them a meaning that changes when those same facts are juxtaposed to other known facts.)

When the earlier Chinese gift to the Ghana Police Service is recalled, and a common link is made between it and the new gift to the Attorney-General's office, a pattern emerges: the Chinese Ambassador has the knack of making gifts to prosecution agencies, either when legal proceedings are actively going on, or are in the process of being launched, against Chinese nationals.

Indeed when the ambassador presented a gift to the police, I wrote in the Daily Guide calling on the Minister of the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, to repudiate the gift. Such facile instances of open courtship should not be allowed, I wrote.

But like most Ministers in the Ghana of recent years, the Minister of the Interior did not react publicly to my suggestion. If he had, I am sure the Chinese ambassador would have had second thoughts about approaching the AG's department directly this time. Remember  I am not suggesting that the AG's office can necessarily be influenced. The issue is that the approach should never be made under any circumstances. Period.

The ambassador said, among other things, that the gifts were to help stakeholders to get educated about the creation of the position of a Pubic Prosecutor in Ghana!

I don't know the degree of naivety that exists in the Attorney-General's office, but are they completely unaware that electronic devices are the most potent instruments of espionage in the 21st century?

Has anyone in that Department heard that cyber systems were used to successfully interfere with the elections in the country that's at the forefront of developments in the cyber world, namely, the United States of America?

If cyber activity can be effective in such a country, what chance would Ghana stand if and when a powerful nation decided to pry into its affairs?

Let me tell the AG's Department that in the 21st century, sophisticated software exists that can prompt innocent-looking smart television sets, mobile telephones, laptops and desktop computers as well as refrigerators and ovens, to send information from their locations to pre-determined stations. Any device equipped with Blue-tooth and other smart signalling systems can undertake such tasks.

Every word that is typed on a doctored laptop or desktop can automatically be sent to a listening station. . So, if you are conversing with a dear one whilst your TV is on, you could be telling someone somewhere your innermost secrets. How much more a laptop or desktop!

That's the technical reality. But there is also a political aspect to the matter. Is it in our national interest to allow foreign embassies to make direct gifts to sensitive offices of state like the AG's office? In China itself, is it easy for foreign nationals to engage in social intercourse with the Chinese people?

If contacts between individuals is discouraged, how can access be provided to foreign missions and Chinese Government Ministries?

No  I do not think the Chinese would allow any foreign embassy access to a sensitive national institution, such as its Attorney-General's office, in the way our Attorney-General's Department has allowed to be done.

Which raises the question: does the practice of presenting gifts to a pubic institution with which a foreign mission may have an axe to grind, not flaunt the diplomatic accords that exist between Ghana and China? For it can be seen as an intervention in, if not interference with, Ghana's internal affairs, doesn't it?

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have been aware enough of potential breaches of national security as to immediately order an investigation into whether any rules of diplomatic practice had been breached by the Chinese Ambassador, when she first made a gift to the Police Service. Its failure to protest may have led to the current approach to the AG's office.

I would like the Ministry to ask to be briefed on what has recently happened in Australia, where there have been widespread allegations that China has been secretly collecting thousands of Australian Government documents. Mind you  Australia and China are great friends!

I ask you: what would the Ghana prosecution do, if it went back to court to pursue its case against Ms En Huang (Aisha) and four other Chinese nationals, only to find itself caught flat-footed, because the defence happened to know the prosecution's case from back to front  thanks to the secret interception of all the prosecution's discussions and arguments, regarding how the case should be conducted?

As the Romans said: "Beware the Greeks -- when they come bearing gifts!"
Dr Nii Kotei Dzani, President of Groupe Ideal, has been adjudged the Most Influential Economist at GUBA 2017 in the UK for his outstanding contribution to the financial sector through his entrepreneurial achievements and job creation.

The Influential Economist Award is awarded to outstanding individual with unique insight in their line of profession and contributes to the financial sector as well as overall sustainable development in the financial business prototypes.

Dr. Nii Kotei Dzani is an outstanding Entrepreneur with proven record of success. He is the founder and President of Groupe Ideal, one of the fastest growing business groups in Ghana.

Born in Lolonya in the Ada District of the Greater Accra Region, Dr Dzani holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, an MBA in Corporate Governance & Finance from University of Hull, UK, and an Honorary Doctorate from Oral Roberts University, Oklahoma.

Dr Dzanis economic contribution and financial knowledge to corporate institutions, SMEs and banking establishments cannot be underestimated.

With a strong passion for the growth of the brand, Dr. Dzani has been instrumental in the development and implementation of strategies as well as innovative products and services which have been very much part of the groups success story in the market.

Dr. Dzani has won many awards including overall best entrepreneur at the entrepreneur foundation of Ghana awards 2016 , Emerging Man of the year 2014 by an Accra based VIASAT1 Television, Banking & Finance Entrepreneur for the year 2015 by Entrepreneur Foundation Ghana, Most Outstanding Finance/SME Entrepreneur in West Africa 2015 at the Security Watch Awards in South Africa. He also led the team through his leadership skills for Ideal Finance, the flagship of the group to win Emerging Brand of the Year 2015 at the CIMG Marketing performance awards under.

In 2016, under his able leadership, Groupe Ideal acquired majority shares in TV Africa which has consequently been rebranded, equally saving the jobs of over 150 Ghanaians while giving them hope of continental excellence. Again he took over EZI savings and loan in 2014 and rejuvenated it to now FirsTrust savings and loans.

Dr. Dzanis firmness and intelligence in business has led to the success of Groupe Ideal, which currently has 13 subsidiaries and still counting.

The highly esteemed GUBA Black Star Award scheme this year awarded thirteen outstanding members of the Ghanaian, UK and African community, exalted them for their consistency, dedication to excellence and longstanding contributions to society.

Some prominent Ghanaian personalities who won award on the night include Dr. Papa Kwasi Nduom, Excellence in business award, Anas Aremeyaw Anas GUBA Exceptional Journalist Award, Maidie Elizabeth Arkutu-Vice President Unilever Francophone Africa also took home the Female Influential Leader award, The Innovative Pioneer Award went to Dr. Apostle Kwadwo Sarfo, Kweku Oteng CEO Angel Herbal Products won GUBA Outstanding industrialist.

Established in 2009 by UK based Ghanaian TV personality Dentaa, the GUBA award scheme is to award excellence to the "hugely significant" contribution that British Ghanaian make to society
Lusaka (AFP) - Zambia's opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema will face a High Court trial over treason charges and remain in police custody, a magistrate ruled on Thursday.

Hichilema was arrested in April for allegedly failing to give way to President Edgar Lungu's motorcade and has so far been held in detention for nearly two months.

The incident led to the leader of the United Party for National Development being accused of endangering Lungu's life and treason charges followed.

"I am in court because of hatred. This has everything to do with hatred," Hichilema told journalists inside the courtroom.

His lawyers asked the court to throw out the treason charge, arguing it was baseless, but the magistrate referred the case to the High Court with the date for the hearing yet to be announced.

Treason suspects are not eligible for bail in Zambia and, if found guilty, Hichilema could face a possible death sentence.

Hichilema said he hoped the trial would start soon and criticised the police, accusing them of failing to properly investigate the case.

"We need a dedicated judge to deal with our matter expeditiously," he said.

Zambia is considered one of the most stable countries in Africa and Hichilema's arrest and detention has been widely criticised by human rights groups.

In a show of support, the leader of South Africa's main opposition party, Mmusi Maimane, also tried to visit Hichilema in Zambia last month but was barred from entering the country.

The treason case comes after Hichilema made a fifth unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year.

He refused to recognise Lungu as president and has challenged the narrow poll defeat in court.
Shareholders of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) are turning their eyes overseas in search of good news after a rocky May and a leadership shakeup at its Dearborn headquarters. Unfortunately, sales in China are off to a slow start during the first half of 2017, but it appears Ford is starting to dig itself out of the hole. Here are the highlights from Ford's May sales data, and where it sits for the year so far.


Five senior officials of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority (GEPA) are in China for a three-week seminar on that countrys developmental agenda.

Led by Akilu Sayibu, Deputy CEO of GEPA, the Ghanaian delegation group would attend series of lectures and embark on a tour of some of Chinas industrial and historic cities.

The seminar is under the auspices of the Academy of International Business Officials of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China.

It would focus on new concepts, new thoughts and new strategies of China National Leaders Governance; the One Belt and One Road Initiative; Chinas experience in agricultural development and agricultural modernization, as well as Chinas experience in international economic and technical cooperation, among others.

Aside the lectures, practical visitations would be made to the Great Wall of China, the Birds Nest and Chinatown.

The team will also visit the Xi, a city planning exhibition hall and also the Drum Tower Square.

There are 122 participants from 17 countries participating in the various seminars for 2017 and the five member GEPA team, which is already in China, will return to Ghana on June 22.

Speaking to BUSINESS GUIDE, Mr Sayibu expressed gratitude to the government and people of China for sponsoring the seminars and explained that knowledge acquired from the seminars would be used to enhance and improve their work.

According to him, their participation in the seminars would improve their understanding of some of the ethics and strategies of China in terms of their economic advancement and development.

He noted that the seminar would go a long way to enhance the business relationship between China and Ghana.

Other members of the delegation from GEPA are Samuel Lartey, Janet ArmahJoyce Baah Tawiah and Madam Ramatu.

From Eric Kombat, Tamale


Minister For Railways Development, Joe Ghartey, has assured the investment community that procurement processes at the ministry would be transparent.

Mr Ghartey disclosed this when a seven-member delegation from the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Trade called on him at his office in Accra recently.

The minister indicated that the procurement process shall be open to all interested parties in accordance with the public procurement law of Ghana.

Overwhelming Interests

The minister is overwhelmed with proposals from investors, who are interested in investing in the country's railway sector, which the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration is seeking to revamp in order to open up the country to trade.

According to information from the ministry, about 200 local and foreign investors have so far expressed interest in the railway projects.

During the meeting, the minister spoke about the vision of the NPP government for the railway sector over the next four years and how the UK Department could support the state in that regard.

The vision of the government is ambitious but it is certainly doable, he said.

He told the delegation emphatically that if the colonial government could complete the Western line from Takoradi to Kumasi from 1898 to 1903, with the technology of the time, then we can complete our programme if we work hard.

Recounting the history of the rail transport in Ghana, the sector minister said the British left us with 947 kilometres of rail, but only 13% of it is still in operation.

It was the rail that made Ghana the largest producer of cocoa and also made Ghana the richest British colony in Africa by the 1930s, he said.

The existing railway network consists of the Western and Eastern lines.

The Western line from Takoradi to Kumasi covers a distance of 339 kilometres.

The Eastern line covers a distance of 303.9 kilometres from Accra to Kumasi with a branch line from Accra to Tema.

The Central Spine, which is yet to be constructed, will cover a distance of 595 kilometres.

It will link Kumasi in the central part of Ghana to Paga in the North on the border with Burkina Faso.

Head of Special Projects, UK Department of Trade, Craig Sillars, who led the delegation, said they were ready to partner the railway sector in the designing, engineering, construction and funding of rail projects.

India

In a related development, the Indian Government has promised to support the development of Ghana's railway system.

The Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Birender Singh Yadav, made this known when he called on the Railways Development Minister recently.

According to him, the Government of India was ready to offer technical and financial assistance to the sector as part of its technical cooperation programme with Ghana.

By Melvin Tarlue
Boniface Saddique (3rd left) receiving the items from Ifeanyi Njoku and the Access Bank team

Minister For Inner City and Zongo Development, Boniface Abubakar Saddique has urged the private sector to support his ministry to deliver on its mandate of improving Zongo communities and other slums across the country.

Mr. Saddique highlighted the important role the private sector plays in empowering the citizens, which will contribute to reducing some social vices and stigma attached to these communities.

He made the call when a team from Access Bank Ghana paid a courtesy call on him in his office to show their support for Muslims during Ramadan, the period of fasting for all Muslims around the world.

The Minister, addressing the team, mentioned that persons living in the Zongo communities are hardworking individuals who, if given the opportunity, would be able to turn their situation around to impact their families and other community members.

These are areas within our cities who have been excluded for a very a long time by nature of their settlement. To ensure we change this situation, we need to include them in the total integration of the nation's development so that we can transform their living standards and let the Ghanaian economy benefit. This is why we are giving a special focus to them, he said.

Speaking on the bank's support to the Ministry, the Executive Director for Business Development, Ifeanyi Njoku, cited the bank's continuous contribution to addressing socio-economic challenges in the communities in which the bank operates.

He added that the bank was committed to its objective of supporting Ghanaians to achieve the nation's economic development agenda.

In line with its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the team presented 100 bags of rice to the Ministry which would be distributed to deprived Muslim communities during this year's Ramadan.

Over the years, Access Bank Ghana has demonstrated its continued commitment to social investments and is focused on the areas of education, health, arts and culture, environment and sports.

The bank complements its CSR activities through Employee Volunteering Programmes (EVP).

The bank has a strong belief that the inclusion of employees in its CSR activities elicits a deep sense of fulfillment, as well as building a strong advocacy for employee empowerment as a meaningful tool for national development.
Women in general are more trustworthy to perform duties of higher offices to appreciable expectations than men provided they have the same qualifications and expertise as their male counterparts. This has always been my conviction because in such positions of trust, they have always been fair and firm unlike men who easily succumb to the persuasions of beautiful damsels to do the unthinkable.

Have the young Chinese ladies in Ghana not wooed the hearts and minds of some supposedly powerful men in Ghana through the offer of sex to get free licence to wreak havoc on Ghanas ecosystem through unrestrained, but absolutely illegal surface mining popularised in Ghana as galamsey?

A married woman in a higher position will never do as the men do to undermine their own authority, ego, trust reposed in them by the citizens and the integrity of Ghana as a sovereign State. Subsequently, I would have in any day any time voted for a woman to occupy a position that a man of same qualification would contest her for.

Unfortunately, the performance of four women in Ghana in their higher positions have left a sour taste in my mouth, if not left me agape. This is the very reason why I am putting out this publication to find out from the general reading public if Ghanaian women are indeed not capable of handling higher positions.

First, the retiring Chief Justice, Mrs Theodora Georgina Wood, concluding from empirical observations, has performed abysmally. Under her watch, the Ghana judiciary service became too corrupt. She was always decrying the corruption that had become part and parcel of the judiciary. She was behaving like a person with a stick in hand but refusing to use it to defend themselves when being attacked by a wild dog bearing its strong canine and incisor teeth at them.

Could she not have disciplined the erring and/or corrupt judges, lawyers and court clerks/registrars? Had she not always bemoaned the clerks taking bribes before filing away or retrieving a person's (litigants) file regardless of their victims oftentimes being poor? The clerks by their deplorable attitudes had often contributed to the unnecessary adjournments or delays in hearing and ruling on cases.

Had she not the powers to discipline the judges until Anas Aremeyaw Anas stood in, thus, could she not have taken the necessary steps as the constitution and other judicial powers vest her with to address the canker long before it got out of control? All the ongoing despicable acts of mob justice in Ghana with the attendant broader reprehensible consequences; ramifying institutional corruption, armed robberies etc., can be partly blamed on her because of her actions and inactions that have made the Ghana judiciary a laughing stock.

Once the judiciary loses its effectiveness, it gives birth to all forms and shapes of lawless activities hence the lynching, brazen armed robberies, Fulani menace, some police and military personnel involving in robberies and engaging themselves in broad daylight acceptance of bribes and the on air insults going on in Ghana at the moment.

The Chief Justice, Mrs Theodora Georgina Wood, retires today, Thursday, 8 June 2017 same day as the British go to the polls to elect their Prime Minister and Members of Parliament of which the Prime Ministers fight is between Mrs Theresa May of the Conservatives (Tories) and Mr Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party.

Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu was once the Attorney General in the late President Evans Atta Mills NDC-led government. She defied the ruled modalities of a Financial Court/High Court judge which had specified how to pay a claimed judgement debt to one Alfred Agbesi Woyome, a self-styled major financier of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the then ruling political party.

The judge had directed that the payment of the judgment debt to Woyome be staggered. This was to oblige Woyome or his accusers to produce certain documentations before the entire debt owed him was finally settled. However, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu went behind the judge to negotiate a one-off sum payment instead of the three-time staggered payments as directed by the judge.

In the end, it was discovered that Alfred Agbesi Woyome had simply duped the nation for he had never signed a contract with, nor worked for, the government, to merit the GHS51.2 million judgment debt paid to him.

Interestingly, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu was fingered or alleged to have taken a share of the loot by Woyome, the 21stCentury award-winning swindler in Ghana. The truth about this allegation will surely come to light in the coming days, weeks or months when Woyome will be properly fairly held to account in a court of competent jurisdiction.

Did Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu not pile pressure on then Finance Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor, to settle the later found to be alleged judgment debt owed Woyome? As the Finance Minister was nowhere near to succumbing to the irresponsible demands by Betty Mould-Iddrisu and Woyome because of his doubts hence resorted to communicating or sounding an alert to President Mills, a junior staff at the Finance Ministry, their lawyer or whoever, signed to authorise the payment of which Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu was allegedly a beneficiary. What a shame on her and the womb that conceived her!

This woman has duped the nation yet some people with Kwesi Pratt Jnr being a vocal defender, came out praising her for having the Englishmans accent when discoursing in the English language. Because she has the Whitemans accent, she has the right to support a swindler and to flout a courts order with impunity. What a height of stupidity on the part of Kwesi Pratt Jnr and his like-minded NDC swindlers! No wonder in Ghana, it is the knowledge of English which is the criterion for a mans great learning!

The other one is the Attorney General and Minister for Justice under former President John Dramani Mahamas NDC-led government, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong. This woman woefully failed to serve Ghana and her people creditably. She intentionally dithered in prosecuting Alfred Agbesi Woyome by her repeated failure or that of her many State Attorneys to appear in court on dates scheduled for the hearing of Alfred Agbesi Woyomes case.

This led to the Financial Court Judge Ajet Naseem often sounding the alert that he would be bound to set Woyome free if the State Attorneys continued with their no-shows in court but always offering preposterous excuses and requesting for adjournments.

Finally, Judge Ajet Naseem, who was later found to have been a corrupt judge according as revealed by Ghanas ace investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas conducted investigations into judicial corruption in Ghana, did not only discharge Woyome but also, acquitted him of any wrongdoing.

When former Attorney General Brother Martin Amidu (I call him brother because he has an aversion to being addressed as Honourable) took Woyome on at the Supreme Court with Woyome ordered to pay back the money to Ghana for wrongful representation hence having duped the nation, Mrs Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong could not enforce payment. She was towing the line of her party; the party that assisted Woyome to dupe the nation to use the money so obtained to finance it and to share some among certain members of the party both within and outside the NDC government.

This same woman might have signed the most stupid petition by the NDC party faithful that culminated in the most clueless and incompetent President Ghana has ever had, former President John Dramani Mahama, exercising his prerogative of mercy powers to commute the four-month prison sentence of the Montie 3.

These notorious premeditating murderers of the Accra Montie FM, Salifu Maase a.k.a Mugabe, (the host of programme), Alistair Nelson and Godwin Gunn (the guests to the programme), had threatened to murder some specified Supreme Court judges and to arrange for a mentioned person to force-marry (rape) Chief Justice Mrs Theodora Georgina Wood. They were subsequently charged with contempt of court, tried and sent to Nsawam Medium Prisons for four months in addition to fines.

However, the NDC mounted an outcry that saw the President release these would-be murderers from prison, barely a month into their incarceration. The Attorney General was supportive of that move, whether she signed the petition or not or else, she would have advised the President against any such move but she didnt. She was a disgrace to the nation!

There is this final lady who is the worst of all. She is the person of Mrs Charlotte Osei, the Chair of the Electoral Commission. She had schemed to rig the Election 2016 in favour of the NDC and President/Presidential-candidate John Dramani Mahama. She was in secret meetings with NDC; always coming out with completely absurd regulations or propositions that were always supported by the NDC but spurned by the opposition parties and all discerning Ghanaians.

Many a Ghanaian across the socio-politico spectrum spoke against her actions, warned her against about to bring civil unrest into the nation by her obstinate, biased actions but she did not give a hoot. At a crunch when clarification was sought on over-vote and the use of biometrics as verification of the identity of a voter, she was not forthcoming with reasonable responses. One could clearly see that the woman was on a mission to rig the election for NDC. However, as man proposes and God disposes, one could see how this woman became confused and wondered how she could not achieve her goal when Ghanaians voted overwhelmingly for NPP and Nana Akufo-Addo with the NPP going before her to announce the election results 6 to 8 hours after the closing of the polls at 17:00 hours on Wednesday, 7 December 2016.

This woman would not say, Over-vote is when the number of ballots found in a ballot box at a polling station is greater than the number of actual ballots cast but was about to do worse than her predecessor, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan. Afari-Gyan licked back his own sputum (phlegm) when he unethically reneged on his earlier given and embraced by all definition of an over-vote to come up with his classical definition when the heat was on his back.

Earlier, he had said to the whole nation that an over-vote is when the ballots in a ballot box are found at the time of counting to exceed the number of the ballots cast. This was long before the polling day and date. However, at the Supreme Court, during the election petition hearing, he talked about not even understanding over-vote himself and came up with his said nonsensical classical definition of An over-vote is when the number of the ballots in a ballot box at a polling station exceeds the number of people on the voter register for that particular polling station.

Anyway, from the above cited instances, Ghanaian women are not coming across as handling higher offices creditably. They are in the same bracket as some of their male counterparts who yield in to persuasions by beautiful young women to do the unthinkable.

By the way, who was that NDC Government Minister bonking a Chinese woman in a video trending on WhatsApp and other social media?

To conclude, may I emphasize that I am now in two minds about Ghanaian women being capable of, and able to, handling the duties of higher positions creditably. It is up to the newly appointed Attorney General, Ms Gloria Akuffo and Chief Justice Ms Sophia Akuffo to prove me wrong or make me decide in favour of women.

Rockson Adofo

(Written on Thursday, 8 June 2017)
Maiduguri (Nigeria) (AFP) - Eleven people were killed when Boko Haram gunmen and suicide bombers launched a rare combined attack inside the strategic northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, police said on Thursday.

Borno state police commissioner Damian Chukwu said one civilian was killed as locals in the Jiddari Polo area of the city fled, while 10 were killed nearby in three separate suicide blasts.

Wednesday night's attacks took place on the eve of a visit by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, deputising for unwell President Muhammadu Buhari, to launch a major humanitarian aid programme.

The raid came barely a month after a senior Boko Haram commander threatened to attack the city after he was released from government custody in exchange for 82 kidnapped schoolgirls.

Outlying districts of Maiduguri, including the university campus and camps for people displaced by the eight-year insurgency, have been hit repeatedly by Boko Haram suicide bombers.

But armed fighters have not managed to get through the tight security for more than a year.

The raid will likely raise fresh fears about the extent of government and military claims that the Islamic State group affiliate is all but defeated.

Chukwu and the military both confirmed that troops responded to an attempt by the suspected insurgents to attack a village outside the city.

Residents gather near the scene of a suicide bomb attack on a market in Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria, in December 2016 after two young girls blew themselves up, killing themselves and wounding at least 17 others

Fighters thought to be loyal to the group's embattled factional leader Abubakar Shekau stormed the Aridawari settlement, firing heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, and burning down homes.

Residents said they then drove towards a military base through the Jiddari Polo area, firing guns and forcing locals to flee, before they headed towards the Giwa military barracks.

Chukwu said police and troops from the Nigerian Army 7th Division stationed in Maiduguri were deployed and "repelled the attack in a gun battle that lasted about an hour".

"A civilian whose identity is yet to be ascertained was killed in a stampede while a soldier was reported wounded. Normalcy has been restored," he said in a statement.

The police commissioner said the first of the three suicide bomb attacks happened in the Goni-Kachallari area of Maiduguri and targeted worshippers leaving a mosque.

"The suicide bomber and six others died, while 18 others were injured," he said.

"The second suicide bomber detonated within the premises of the Chad Basin Development Authority in Maiduguri at about 2120 hours (2020 GMT)," he added.

"The suicide bomber and three others died. The third suicide bomber detonated across the road outside the CBDA premises, killing himself and one other person."

Twenty-four people were injured in all three bombings, he said.

Hit-and-run raids were once a regular feature of Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency, which since 2009 has left at least 20,000 people dead and made more than 2.6 million others homeless.

On December 27, 2015, just days after Buhari said the group was "technically defeated", a raid and suicide bomb attack killed 22 in Jiddari Polo.

On March 14, 2014, Islamist fighters overran Giwa barracks and freed dozens of suspected insurgents held there.
These days, it's very difficult to share your thoughts on issues concerning the development of Ghana. We are in an era of political vampires who are always waiting for 'active ' citizens to talk about a topical issue for them to chastise or troll them publicly. I have been following the social media from the start of the year and

I must say a lot of unfortunate events have happened.

In the Akan dialect, politics is "amanyosem"

To wit ,nation building or national development issues,i stand to be corrected though because, I'm not a repository of knowledge.

These political gimmicks, vampires or what I usually call, technical knockers are always ready to soil the clothes of people.

John Dumelo, one of the best actors in Africa and a son of Ghana has had enough from Ghanaians.He has received a lot of criticisms and insults from left, right and centre all because of politics. Before Dumelo made his reasons known to Ghanaians that, he want to become president ,about 90% Ghanaians saw him as a demigod. The fine actor was admired by all ranks and file. So I ask, what went wrong?

Is it wrong for a son of the land to declare his ambition of becoming the first gentleman of our land? Is it wrong to be affiliated to a political party of his own choice?

Must he be in your party before you would accord him with respect?

For me, the last time I checked, there is Freedom of Association in Ghana. People should understand that, they can't force others to hold the same ideologies. It is not done anywhere.

It is about time, we understand politics as a collective effort to development instead of using it as a way to bringing down people who have built their reputation for a long time.

I quite remember when Abraham Atta won the Oscars, many mature Ghanaians congratulated him for making us proud but others quickly took to social media to troll John Dumelo simply because, he is yet to win that award. We must not forget that, one man's success is not another man's failure. John Dumelo won the Australian Movie and Music Academy Award in the category of Most Promising African Actor far back, 2011.In 2013 ,he was given a key to the City of Philadelphia in the United States for his immense contribution to African movie and Arts.

Aside that, he had won several awards prior to declaring his support to John Mahama in the year 2012.

John, as an entrepreneur has companies in Gambia and some parts of West Africa and even, a hotel in Ghana. He has cattle farms in the Northern part of Ghana before joining politics.

Aside that, he's a Philantropist who gives a lot to charity.

No matter how much you dislike a person, don't use his political affiliation to discredit all the things they have achieved personally. Let's see him as John Dumelo, the actor ,instead of labelling him as a party card bearer.

Today, people think what John Dumelo has achieved came from political benevolence. Many fake and hungry bloggers have fabricated stories to destroy the hard earned reputation this young man has achieved at age 33.

It is a sad development knowing a youth like John is being treated this way by fellow young people.

This young man has worked very hard to establish himself as a good actor and entrepreneur before joining politics.

There's an Akan proverb which goes like " you may hate the dog, but you can't undermine it when it comes to running"

People like Okyeame Kwame have declared their ambition of becoming president in the nearest possible future.

So should Incase he doesn't join your party of affiliation, would you discredit him of his exploits as one of the most successful musicians in Ghana?

Until we consult an opthamologist to remove our political glaucoma, our development as a nation would delay.

I refused to talk about the A1 bread seller's issue because, I realized many people didn't see the other side of what Dumelo's post meant.

"I saw a KNUST graduate selling bread in the street.. What went wrong?

To me ,this is not a mockery statement.

He asked a legit question. But some self acclaimed entrepreneurs, political vampires and social commentators took the negative part of the issue and lambasted him to the extent of forcing the man to apologise which he politely did.

To me, Dumelo was drawing our attention to the high rate of Youth unemployment in Ghana, John ,was identifying the various loop holes in our education system ,in a way, his post was encouraging other young graduates to put their certificate aside and start something sustainable . But sadly, people didn't see it this way. Upon their criticisms, John, the first Ghanaian to get a million Followership on Facebook did a good publicity for the guy. How many of us knew the guy has been in the business for 8 years and have employed a lot of people?

Thanks to Dumelo, this revelation was made and it's obvious that, his sales have increased which In turn, would call for more hands, therefore, creating employment for others.

For those of you who said there's nothing wrong in selling bread as a graduate, I hope you are walking the talk.

The direction young Ghanaians are heading to is very dangerous to the development of our nation. We are too quick to judge and insult people.

A few days ago, a friend told me, "Ken, looking at how Ghanaians are doing political partisanship, if serving God was affiliated to a political party, Some Ghanaians may either reject him totally or may not credit him as 'God Almighty' "

This kept me thinking. I am happy the God we serve is not a politician.

My advice to John Dumelo is that, no matter what his critics say, he shouldn't forget that, his dreams are valid and achievable. He should keep up with his good works and trust in the Lord.

Going forward, this vindictive behavior must stop.
A two-day symposium to deliberate on ways to translate health research into influential policies and programme decisions has been organised by stakeholders in the health research sector.

The programme which was organised by the steering committee of the National Health Research Dissemination Symposium (NHRDS), with support from the USAID, is envisaged to bring to the forefront policies and programming implications of research findings and tested innovations.

The two day event, themed 'translating research into policy: evidence-based decision making for equitable improvement in health status', is also expected to rejuvenate the purpose of setting up health research institutions and forge a greater linkage between researchers, health managers and decision makers.

The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, in a speech read on his behalf, acknowledged the significant progress made in health research, indicating that 55 percent of district health offices conducted operational research in 2016.

He, however, admitted the lack of implementation of health interventions that have been demonstrated to be cost-effective by high-quality research.

Mr Agyemang-Manu, thus, stated government's resolve to strengthen health institutions and mechanisms that can promote and influence the uptake of research findings.

For our country to achieve the SDGs especially Goal 3, cost-effective and evidence-based policy decision making is crucial and this can be possible if our research activities are strengthened and research recommendations utilized to inform policy, he said.

The sector minister called for the symposium to find practical solutions on how research finding can be successfully translated into policy actions, taking into consideration the capacity of policymakers on crucial organisational issues like funding, monitoring, evaluation and learning on policy influence.

Professor David Ofori-Adjei, former rector, Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS), in his presentation on overcoming the obstacles to translating health research products to health policy and programme decisions in Ghana, highlighted the important role of policy formulation to the Ministry of Health and drew a very vivid picture of the various stages of what he termed a key responsibility of the ministry.

Prof Ofori-Adjei said in as much as researches in the health sector are available with evidence showing their meaningful contribution to the development of the health system of the country, hindrances like institutions structures, finance for implementation still remain a big challenge.

There is a lot of evidence available but the challenge is putting them into practice and we must be well resolved to make them work, he said.

Akua Kwateng-Addo, USAID/Ghana Director of HPNO, said equality and access to health was still a critical issue in the country as almost half of the populations still do not have health insurance.

She, thus, called for the research not to be put on shelves but discussed with the right stakeholders to lead to the necessary actions needed.

A tape was cut to open the photo exhibition of the research findings.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri


Eva Aryee, the Sunyani West District Director of Health, has said community support is required to eradicate the filariasis disease in the country.

She said the disease is common in the area and the government has ordered the directorate to ensure that it is eradicated by the year 2020.

Filariasis is often manifested as swelling or thickening of one or both lower limbs.

Mrs Aryee said this when the Heart of Children Foundation-Ghana, a non-governmental organisation, presented medical equipment worth GH50,000 to the directorate at Nsoatre.

The items comprise electronic surgery beds, thermometers, syringes, wheel chairs, baby washers, BP apparatus and several devices that would be distributed among the various health centres and clinics in the district.

Mrs Aryee disclosed that the Ministry of Health has stepped up measures to eliminate filariasis, which is still common in 26 districts of the country.

She said the ministry will soon supply those districts with drugs to be distributed free-of-charge in the disease prone communities.

Mrs Aryee explained that strict adherence to the drugs is very necessary to combat the disease and rallied the support of community leaders and family heads to ensure that members of their families requiring the drug would finish the full dose.

Mr Solomon Boateng, the director of the foundation which also operates an orphanage at Nsoatre, said the NGO works to promote health and education in the district.

He said the home has 16 inmates and very soon it would establish a modern disabled care centre to offer skill training for people with disabilities in the area.

Mr Boateng, a philanthropist, expressed discomfort about high tariffs on imported goods and appealed to the government to take a second look at taxes imposed on items imported to be supplied free-of-charge.

Mr Martin Obeng, the Sunyani West District Chief Executive, expressed appreciation to the NGO, and advised the communities to support the effort.

He said the district assembly is poised to ensure equitable distribution of development projects in the communities, and called on the people to preserve the prevailing peace in the area.

GNA
Government will cater for the educational and financial needs of children of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama, the army officer, who was lynched at DenkyiraObuasi while jogging on Monday, May 29, 2017.

The Minister of Defence, Dominic Nitiwul disclosed that the children of Major Mahama would be adopted by the government to ensure that they are financially stable.

He made this disclosure when he paid a visit to the residence of the slain army officer at Burma Camp to sympathize with the bereaved family on Friday, June 2, 2017.

Mr. Nitiwul reiterated government's commitment to prosecuting the perpetrators of the heinous crime.

Commending the men and women of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) for exhibiting professionalism, the Defence Minister urged them to continue to exercise restraint.

Forty-three suspects, including six women, have been apprehended for the various roles they played in the murder of the late Army soldier, who was then the commander of a military detachment station at Diaso that is tackling illegal mining in the area.

Forty-one of the suspects, who have been provisionally charged for murder, have been remanded into police custody.

Mr. Nitiwul announced that his outfit would support the police to employ the latest technology to investigate and pursue the rest of the perpetrators.

He donated a cash amount of GHC10,000.00 to the family and pledged government's support before, during and after the funeral, which comes off on Friday, June 9, 2017 at the State House.

Also present were the Deputy Defence Minister, Major (rtd) Derrick Oduro, Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant General Obed Boamah Akwa and other senior military officers.

The family thanked the Defence Minister and the government for the endless show of support and urged Ghanaians not to politicize the death of their son.

In a related development, the Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan, has expressed condolence to the family of the late Major Maxwell Adam Mahama on behalf of his region during the one-week celebration at his residence in Burma Camp on Monday, 5 June 2017.

He added that the death of Major Mahama was a great loss to the country and made a passionate appeal to the bereaved family to forgive him and his region for the unfortunate incident.

We prostrate before this family and beg for their forgiveness, he noted.

The Minister and his entourage gave an undisclosed amount of money to the family.

Zachariah Sakara, family spokesperson, said the consolation they had received from the entire country had gone a long way in keeping them in shape.

He further stated that no amount of bloodshed would bring back their lost son and that justice should be done appropriately.

Women's delegation from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), led by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hannah Tetteh, also expressed their condolence to the family and donated cartons of bottled water to support the family.

( [email protected] )

By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey


On the passing of Okuapehene Oseadeyeyo Addo Dankwa III in August 2015 and his interment early last year, the citizens of Akropong and Okuapeman were eagerly awaiting the enstoolment of a successor from the Sakyiabea Royal Family, but the process was painfully interrupted by the demise of the queen mother and aunt of the late Omanhene, Nana Dokua II.

In accordance with tradition, it became necessary for the queen mother's funeral to be held and a replacement installed before the enstoolment process for a new Okuapehene could commence.

Tradition demands that an Ohenmea (queen mother) must properly assume her position to officially request the appropriate Royal family to present a qualified, fit, and proper person for her consideration and subsequent presentation to Asona Chiefs of Akropong and the entire Okoman for endorsement and enstoolment.

On Monday, 22nd May 2017, at a colourful and solemn ceremony, a new Ohenmea from the Nketia Royal family of Akropong, Madam Awo Prah Agyekum, an educationist, was peacefully selected in accordance with the time-tested tradition and custom of the proud people of Akropong and Okuapeman.

This was heart-warming news. Her formal installation and presentation to Okuapeman after her 21-day customary confinement is therefore eagerly awaited.

The Ohenmea's selection procedure was a fitting dress rehearsal for the selection and enstoolment of a new Okuapehene.

Information from authentic sources confirms that the people of Akuapem must expect good tidings of great joy. We are told that the Sakyiabea Royal Family, one of the three royal families from which the Omanhene must be selected, led by their Abusuapanyin Dr. Obuobisa Newman with the support of Aberewatia Lily Agyeman, have exhausted their internal processes and have settled on Odehye Awuku Amaning, a graduate of the University of Ghana. Although some other royals from the family have expressed keen interest in the succession, it has been determined that Odehye Awuku Amaning meets the criteria the family established after a list of 19 royals had been pruned to four.

The four short-listed persons were Odehye Kwadwo Kesse Antwi, Odehye Kwaku Addo Kwadade, Odehye Kwasi Dokyi and Odehye Felix Awuku Amaning

It is therefore expected that should tradition be allowed to prevail, as in the case of the Ohenmea, Okuapeman will have 34-year-old Odehye Awuku Amaning, a corporate executive in the tourism industry who is married with children as the Omanhene.

The Abusuapanyin and members of his advisory committee, which included Aberewatia Lily Agyeman, Odehye Ohene Frimpong, Odehye Abrokwa Okoampa, Ahenenanahene Dr. F.W.A. Akuffo and others deserve commendation for a job well done.

The well-documented selection process of the Abusuapanyin commenced as far back September 2015 with meetings of the entire Sakyiabea Family and exclusive meetings with the royals in the family.

The Sakyiabea Royal Family has confirmed through the head of family that they are ready to present a suitable candidate that is acceptable to the family and meets the high standards of Okuapeman.

It is expected that after the new queen mother has been enstooled, Okoman will formally request for a new Okuapehene through the Kurontihene of Akuapem.

This request will be taken to the Ohenmea.

The queen mother takes over the process at this point. She will send emissaries, the Akyeamehene and the Asonahene, to the Abusuapanyin of the Sakyiabea Royal Family with this request.

The date for the presentation of the chosen royal will be agreed with the queen mother, and on that day he will be presented.

The Sakyiabea Royal Family, led by the Abusuapanyin Dr. Obuobisa Newman, is able and ready to provide an Odehye from the Sakyiabea Royal Family as the prospective occupant of the Oforikuma Stool.

It is our hope and expectation that the new queen mother and other stool elders will play their respective roles without fear or favour so that a fit and proper person will succeed the late Nana Addo Dankwa III.

By Yaw Bediako


Many and sharp the num'rous ill Inwoven with our frame man's in humanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.

Robert Burns: Man was Made to Mourn: A Dirge

RESIDENTS OF DENKYIRA-OBUASE reached the apogee of cruelty, bestiality and depravity that is latent in them by their last open murder of then Captain Mahama. No, not all of themthe old men and women, lactating mothers who could not bear to leave their babies and watch others take the law into their own hands, schoolchildren who were at that time 'abcd-ing' or telling Ananse stories about life and death. Sorry, I nearly got carried away to the family, friends and the security fraternity, my condolences. The animalistic instinct in the crowd which lynched Mahama can hardly be appreciated by the ordinary Ghanaian. Here was somebody call him a stranger  in his jogging outfit, reaching a spot and purchasing some snails with the intention of returning to pick them up from the seller. Then, in pulling out the cash to pay for the items, he inadvertently exposes a pistol. Then the woman raises an alarm, and, presto, the people surround an armed robber! Tell this story to the marines! But for the scenes captured by an amateur photographer, holding an all-purpose mobile phone, the scene would have passed and Mahama would have been 'lost' since the assailants burnt the cadaver.

Well, there are more questions than answers and Mahama cannot be resurrected to answer any. The assailants have the burden of telling the tale. No, I am not talking about the criminal chargesI am talking about the morality, the African perspective and the Ghanaian hospitality. Let me repeat: there are more questions than answersthe time; any batman; the identification; what defences; instruments used; what use did Mahama make of the weapon he was bearing, et cetera. . In Henry IV Part I, Hotspuir says: Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair when the intent of bearing them is just. Some of us have borne arms before, and, mind you, it takes an officer and a gentleman to be confronted with such a situation, and be constrained! So, the assailants just gave a dog a bad name in order to hang it! And, all to a man had no compunction, no pity on the innocent man, and they mowed him down, and brutally tortured him till he gave up the ghost. And because the assailants did not wish Mahama to go to heaven, they smoked his body. Ah! What! Ouch! Whoops! Oh! Murder! Gruesome murder! If this story were to be told to our mothers, they would find it difficult to believe it. The listeners would not believe it in modern Ghana, in 2017, Incroyable!(Unbelievable).

And look at the assailants' faces! Like something from the forest! Shakespeare in Loves Lab our Lost wrote: Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye not utter 'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues Oh, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Bur these assailants should not curse their maker for making them look like ogres, fiends, monsters, scoundrels.

I.K Gyasi could not view the scenes so he deleted them from his mobile phone. A lot more people have done so: a few are, however, holding on to what they have-perhaps, someday, they will be able to show the scenes to their children and their children's children.

Why this mob justice? No one can tell and the suspicion is rife that it was an alleged plan to lynch the soldier who was making it difficult for the galamseyers in the Obuase area to have their way. Those who perpetrate mob justice invoke 'mob law' which has no defined rule of behavior and action. People can bet: Mahama's ghost will haunt all those who indulge in 'galamsey' and those parading as 'small scale miners' who are flashing fake certificates as their defence.

Ex-President Mahama spoke like a statesman when he cautioned Ghanaians not to 'politicise' the murder of Major Mahama. He appropriately called the murder a national tragedy! Nana Akufo Addo, the President, in his capacity as the Commander-in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces promoted the murdered soldier from Captain to Major. The President also set up a GH500,000 Education Trust Fund for his children's education and personally donated GH 50,000 to the fund. In Major Mahama's honour, the President promised to build a monument. The promise affirmed the family's request that after the burial, the family wants a monument to be built anywhere in Ghana on his behalf so that in the future, we use that to remember and that in our lifetime we don't want to see anything of this sort again.

The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Oquaye added his voice to that of the President, This death is not yours alone. It is a national affair. This is a man the nation had clothed in uniform to work for us we have heard of this request for a monument for this young man. For Parliament and the leaders here, we are listening with very good ears and we trust that it will even go beyond that, and with the support of government, we expect that something will be done to take care of them as a gesture of respect for a fallen hero

The loquacious Asiedu Nketia, the General Secretary of the NDC, did not pick a cue from the former President, John Mahama. He lamentably mixed Major Mahama's death with politics when he noted that, the murder happened under the direct supervision of President Akufo  Addo. Asiedu Nketia confirmed: NDC will sooner than later if this level of impunity persists, be compelled to engage in a legitimate social revolution to protest the inability of President Akufo-Addo to protect the good people of this country. He sounded ominous: President Akufo-Addo's 'All die be die' despicable style of leadership shall not be allowed to fester. Were Ghanaians expecting less pugnacious diatribe from Asiedu Nketia?

Other serious  minded Ghanaians have issued statements of condolence, and comfort at this time of national mourning. But Asiedu Nketia is still in the propaganda garb. That may be a good strategy for the NDC. If at the time of President Mahama, J.B. Danquah, the MP died after a 'robbery' attack, and the Chief of Seikwa (Asiedu Nketia's hometown) was shot and killed, and Afoko, the Upper East NPP Regional Chairman was smeared with acid and killed; and if Professor Mills died under strange circumstances, and NPP did not connect President Mahama, why? They are two different political parties.

For him, it is opportune to campaign along that propagandist trajectory. That will be good for him and his party, he being still the General Secretary and John Mahama, a quondam president, no longer holding any particular office. The District Chief Executive, Ambrose Amoah Eshia was better advised to keep his mouth shut, not to challenge the authority of the President. As for Major Mahama, all that we can give himfor noware a poppy and an adieu.

AFRICANUS OWUSU-ANSAH

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A political science lecturer at the University of Ghana is chiding the Electoral Commission for failing to take concrete steps to implement the law that allows Ghanaians living outside the country to vote in local elections.

Dr Alidu Seidu believes if the law had been piloted shortly after it was in passed in 2006, perhaps, the Electoral Commission would have, by now, noticed the challenges involved in implementing it and found a way around such challenges.

The Representation of Peoples Amendment Law was passed by the Kufuor-led administration in 2006 to enfranchise Ghanaians living abroad.

The law was in line with Article 42 of the 1992 Constitution and was amid protestations and stiff opposition from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Article 42 says "every citizen of Ghana, of 18 years of age or above and of a sound mind has the right to vote and is entitled to be registered as a voter for the purposes of public elections and referenda".

Over eleven years after the law was passed, the EC has yet to implement it, except to give promises that the law will be implemented in phases.

As a result of the delay, five Ghanaians living abroad have sued the EC demanding the execution of the law.

They argue the continued delay in implementing the law is a flagrant violation of their right to vote.

On Wednesday, an Accra High Court judge, Justice Anthony Yeboah gave an order for the EC to produce evidence that it is taking steps to implement the law.

The order was made after the EC stated in its defence in the case before the court that it was already in the process of implementing the law.

The court gave the EC two weeks to furnish it with the steps being taken to ensure Ghanaians everywhere take part in local elections.

In an interview with Joy News, the political science lecturer, Dr Alidu Seidu said the expectation was that the state should liaise with the EC to start piloting the Act.

Even though he admitted that the piloting will mean disenfranchising some Ghanaians living abroad, he believed that was the best way to begin implementing a rather complicated law.

We need to know the number of Ghanaians in other countries, he said, adding that will also help in the implementation of the law.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com|Nathan Gadugah
Kigali (AFP) - A conservationist who was training rangers to track and protect black rhinos in Rwanda has been killed by one of the animals, the organisation he worked for has said in a statement.

Information about the exact circumstances of Hungarian Krisztian Gyongyi's death on Wednesday morning in Akagera National Park is "still being gathered", said Peter Fearnhead, the chief executive of Africa Parks.

"(This is) a huge loss for all who knew Kris and for rhino conservation across the continent," said Fearnhead, who sent condolences to Gyongyi's family.

Gyongyi, a married father of one, had been helping reintroduce the black rhino into Akagera National Park while also working on a PhD on the conservation of the animals in Liwonde National Park in Malawi since 2012, the park said.

Black rhinos disappeared from Rwanda in 2007 due to poaching but were reintroduced into the country in May after 20 animals were sent from South Africa to Akagera National Park.

Only about 1,000 East African black rhinos live in the wild, out of a total population of less than 5,000, according to African Parks.

"This is a tremendous loss for all of us, especially for rhino conservation efforts in Africa" said Fearnhead, paying tribute to Gyongyi.

Gyongyi's wife and daughter have been informed of his death.
A GNA feature By Afedzi Abdullah

Cape Coast, June 7, GNA - Psychiatric disorders (mental illness) according to experts can be caused by a predisposing factor.

This means that it is genetic and could run in a family with history of mental illness and members have higher chances of catching the disease.

It could also be precipitated by the abuse of drugs especially cannabis, alcohol and perpetuated by discrimination, isolation, financial issues and some form of accidents.

Some of the signs and symptoms are disturbed or disruptive behaviour, unkempt appearance, disorientation to place time or person, distortion in perception, poor judgment and orientation.

Like in most illnesses, delays in early detection, treatment and support for the patient can cause distress, increase the risk of relapse and can be harmful for the individual, their friends, family and care givers.

There is a disturbing trend that had emerged over the years but nothing seem to have been done about it.

A tour across the major cities and towns in the country may reveal a lot of mental patients, both young and old on the streets.

There is no doubt that the number of mentally deranged people patrolling the principal streets especially in the capital cities have increased. These persons some of them stark naked, mostly drink from the gutters and eat from refuge dumps. They often carry large luggage's full of rubbish.

The dangers they pose

Mad people are a very dangerous and they must not be ignored. The scenario where mad people have murdered many people and caused mayhem across the country is very rampant but painful.

The recent butchering of a number of people by their mentally deranged relatives as well as those who are attacked on the streets and farms by these persons should be a wakeup call to the authorities and all in the society.

A case in point was a five year- old boy who was butchered by a mental patient at Asikuma Gyamena in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District of the Central Region and later died at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital where he was admitted sometime last year.

According to the community members this same mental patient often rapes women on knife point, yet he still walks around freely.

In another instance, a mad man who patrols around the Takoradi market circle area frequently rapes women.

Many market women have fallen victim and although many people are aware of it, nothing had been done to get him out of there.

Also, there were recent report in the Ashanti Region where a madman butchered four people including a school boy and a nursing mother at Abrepo Junction.

Indeed, the appearance of these mad men and women on the streets is very scary and society seem to have completely ignored anything concerning them and that is very dangerous.

There is the possibility that there is no institution mandated to rid the streets of such dangerous people.

Sanitation concerns

There is the need to check the activities of these mentally unstable people who usually go round collecting refuse ranging from plastics, dirty cloths, leftover foods, poly bags and dumping them at strategic places thereby creating garbage dumps sometimes at the outskirts and the middle of cities.

State of Mental Health care in Ghana

Although mental health care is an integral part of the country's health delivery chain, the three main mental health facilities are in very deplorable state making the delivery of such services very difficult for both patients and health practitioners.

The Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital in the Komenda -Edina -Eguafo -Abrem Municipality of the Central Region for instance is in a dire need of funds to cater for its inmates.

The situation has led to the discharge of some 82 patients who are said to be in stable condition to their families to continue treatment from the house with a subsequent temporal ban on admission of new inmates.

Some of the problems cited by the hospital included inadequate drugs supply, feeding and other logistics for their care, as the government subvention has not been forthcoming.

The question however is, what happens to these patients who have been released? Surely majority of them will end up on the streets because it takes committed people to give them the requisite care.

The situation looks the same in the other two psychiatric hospitals in the country, namely Patang and Accra as infrastructural development had virtually been non-existence.

Though there are enough spaces at their facilities, the hospitals are also unable to admit more patients due to lack of funds, which had resulted in huge debts to their suppliers.

Attitude of family members

Another challenge is that some family members of the mentally challenged are not helping matters as they abandon their sick relatives at the hospital whilst others fail to send them for review.

Coupled with that, some families after the inmates have been discharged isolate and discriminate against them.

For others too fail to seek early treatment for their mental patients at the hospital and rather take them to prayer camps to seek spiritual healing and in most instances the treatment they go through include starvation, physical assault and chaining for days and this eventually compound their situation.

The need for the passage of the LI on mental health

The psychiatric hospitals as a matter of urgency needs regular and consistent release of funds and budgetary allocations and availability of tracer medicines.

They also need more doctors, laboratory technicians and other staff including sign interpreters to help them communicate with dumb patients.

Dr Akwasi Osei, Chief Executive Officer of the Mental Health Authority (MHA) in an interview with the Ghana News Agency last year, expressed the need for the passage of the Legislative Instrument (LI) on mental health as it will go a long way to help remove mental patients from the streets.

The LI, which included the establishment of a Mental Health Fund is expected to give the Mental Health Authority the power to source for funding from private entities and also make mental health treatment community based.

The Bill also stipulates the establishment of a Mental Health Board to be responsible for mental health matters, and make it mandatory for Government to build more mental health institutions across the country.

This, according to Dr Osei, would create the avenue to provide treatment to mental patients on the streets of the major towns and cities in the country.

'Gradually we can get rid of all the mental patients from the streets, because the rate at which mental patients continue to pour on the street is very outrageous and much attention has to be given to it,' he pointed out.

But after a number years of appeals by the MHA and other stakeholders to get the LI passed, it has still not seen the light of day.

Though Parliament must be commended for the passage of the Mental Health Bill, passing the LI to give legal backing to the MHA to function effectively would inure to the benefit of the nation so far as mental health care is concern.

Way forward

Mental health care is a shared responsibility and therefore the government, benevolent individuals, families and organisations must give it immediate intervention to help fix the challenges.

It is imperative for families, relatives and friends to desist from neglecting their mentally ill relatives, they should give them the needed attention and care and not leave them to their fate.

The MHA should be able to design systematic programmes and liaise with relevant bodies to clear mental health patients from the streets for people to go about their daily activities without fear.

GNA
Accra, June 7, GNA - Mr Joe Ghartey, Minister for Railways Development, has disclosed that about 200 local and foreign investors have expressed interest in investing in various components of the country's railway sector.

He therefore, gave the assurance that government would ensure fairness and transparency in the procurement processes, irrespective of the country of origin of prospective bidders in compliance with the country's laws and regulations.

Mr Ghartey who is also the Member of Parliament for Essikadu-Ketan, said this when a seven-member delegation from the United Kingdom Department for International Trade paid a courtesy call on him in Accra.

He said government had ambitious vision of revamping the railway industry, adding: 'if the colonial government could complete the Western rail lines from Takoradi to Kumasi (1898-1903) with the technology at that time, then we could execute the task when we work harder'.

The Minister said the British colonial administration left behind 947 kilometres of rail lines and thus, indicated that only 13 per cent of them were in operation at the moment.

He noted: 'It was the rail that made Ghana the largest producer of cocoa and also made Ghana the richest British colony in Africa by the 1930's'.

The sector Minister therefore urged the Department to offer the necessary support in order to breathe life into the hitherto vibrant industry.

Currently, he said, Ghana was operating Western and Eastern rail lines with the former covering 339 kilometres from Takoradi to Kumasi, while the latter covered 303.9 kilometres from Accra to Kumasi with a branch line from Accra to Tema.

The Minister stated that the Central Spine which was yet to be constructed would cover a distance of 595 kilometres, which would link Kumasi to the central part of Ghana to Paga in the North, near the Ghana-Burkina Faso border.

Mr Craig Sillars, the Head of Special Projects, United Kingdom Department of Trade, said his outfit was ready to partner government in designing, engineering, construction and funding of rail projects in the country.

GNA

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA
08.06.2017 LISTEN

Accra, June 7, GNA - Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance has stated that the GHE9.7 billion bond were issued in local currency and not denominated as dollar bond.

He said the recent bond issuance was transparent and any allegation of conflict of interest was borne out of lack of understanding of the transaction.

Mr Ofori-Atta made this known in response to a motion filed by Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minority Leader on March 31, on the $2.25 billion.

The Minority in Parliament recently raised concerns over the integrity of the country's bond issue and accused the government of selling all of the Ghana's bond to one institution, Franklin Templeton.

According to the Minority there was conflict of interest in the issuance of the bond because one Trevor G. Trefgarne, who represented Franklyn Templeton, the company that bought a chunk of the bond issued in April was a director of Enterprise Insurance.

Enterprise Insurance also had the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta as a director.

Mr Ofori-Atta said the bond like the previous ones were issued in a competitive and in a transparent bidding process, managed by the Joint Book Runners (JBRs), namely Barclays Bank Stanbic Bank and SAS, who were appointed in 2015.

He explained that as in normal practice since the book building process began in 2015, the JBRs announced the sale of the bond, as per the 2nd quarter Issuance Calendar.

Subsequently, the primary dealers who are mostly banks mobilised interested foreign and local investors to participate in the sale.

He said as part of the book building process, the JBRs sent emails indicating the details of the upcoming transaction, to all potential investors.

This is to inform them of the transaction in line with the normal practice.

Mr Ofori-Atta also stated that external investors participated in the domestic medium-term debt instrument of tenor, three years and above, since 2006.

He said all over the world, government securities were issued in a manner that was quite distinct from other forms of borrowing, and there were elaborate rules that governed the issue of bonds.

He assured the House that the Ministry of Finance did not deviate from the rules in the issuing of the seven -year and 15-year bonds, and re-opening the five and 10-year bonds for tap-in, with the view to building benchmark bonds and improving liquidity in those instruments.

Mr Ofori-Atta said the advantage of opening it up to foreign investors was to bring in their hard currency to purchase the bond in the local currency.

He said this had the positive impact of helping to strengthen the cedi.

He said to-date out of the total amount raised, GH2.5 billion had been used to re-profile the debt and GH1.1 billion used to finance the budget.

Government would continue to use the remaining amount to re-profile short term maturing bills, he said.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Leader speaking after the Finance Minister's responses, stated that his side has not had adequate information as expected and called on the minister to be sincere and candid with the good people of Ghana.

He said the failure of the minister to provide detail information governing the controversial $2.25 billion Dollar bond vindicated him.

He said he had earlier on warned government that the bond had implications on the country's debt profile as well as the future of the country.

'We asked for the utilisation of the bond and this is Parliament of Ghana, the people's representatives, the Minister has accounted for 2.5 billion dollars, where is the rest of the money,' the Minority leader queried.

He stated that the Minority was not questioning foreign participation in the transaction, they were only questioning the concentration risk, as a whopping 95 percent of the bond issued by the Finance Ministry went to one entity known as Franklin Templeton.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu also pointed out that, the interest of the Minority was to prevent Ghana from being declared as debt distress country and that the Minister's inability to furnish Parliament with the detail information requested for by the Minority would have a dire consequence for the country.

He said the Minority thinks the transaction was not done in a manner which was transparent to both participants and investors of Ghana and abroad.

He said the Minority would make its voice known soon after studying the documents the Minister presented to the House.

Mr Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, Majority Leader in his response noted that securities market was more intelligent and clever than the minority's accusation that was why they responded positively to the country's domestic bond.

He said at the very onset issues were raised by the minority that the bond issuance did come to Parliament however those people have run away from that allegation.

He said recent GH9.7 billion domestic bond went through the necessary processes in terms of transparency and no breaches in integrity during the transaction.

GNA

By Christopher Arko, GNA
08.06.2017 LISTEN

Juaso (Ash), June 08, GNA - The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has counselled the youth to exhibit high sense of responsibility and to be more patriotic.

They should be good citizens and refuse to be defined by indiscipline and violence.

Mr. Gaston Defoe, acting District Director of the Commission in the Asante-Akim South, who gave the advice asked that they avoided anything likely to make them a liability to society.

He was speaking at a civic education forum held at the Great Jesus International School at Juaso.

This formed part of activities lined up for the celebration of this year's constitution week in the area.

'Restoring our Ghanaian values; the Role of the Ghanaian Child', is the theme chosen for this year's event, which focuses on inculcating good citizenship in children.

About 30 selected basic schools in the district would be covered.

Mr. Defoe reminded the young people that as future leaders, they needed to get right with the law and develop a passion for knowledge acquisition and excellence.

This, he said, was the path to travel to assure the nation it would be in safe hands.

Mr. Patrick Asare, a Civic Education Officer, urged the school children to be honest, law abiding, respect the elderly and people in authority.

GNA

By Yussif Ibrahim, GNA
Ndasimaim (C/R), June 8, GNA - Fistula and autism patients as well as patients of sicknesses that make it difficult for patients to work productively would now be included in the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme.

Madam Otiko Afisa Djaba, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) announced this when she led a team from the Ministry to monitor the 48th cycle of payment at the Mfantseman Municipality of the Central Region.

She said persons who had suffered severe stroke, tuberculosis as well as hole in heart patients would also be considered under the programme.

The Minister said efforts were being made to reach out to more people adding that, 'poverty is dynamic, you can be wealthy today but can become poor tomorrow and vice versa'.

The move, she explained fell in line with the target of the Ministry to expand the programme to cover the very poor and vulnerable in the country to sustain their livelihood and lift others out of poverty.

Currently the programme is operational in 216 districts across the country.

Madam Djaba said since its inception the LEAP programme had reached 213, 00 household nationwide and expressed the hope to increase the figure to 350,000 by the end of the year.

Currently, it covers the extremely poor and vulnerable households which have orphans and vulnerable children, persons with severe disability without any productive capacity, elderly persons of 65 years and above, pregnant women and children under two years.

It also covers leprosy patients as well as individuals accused of witchcraft.

According to the revised payment system, one eligible member of a household would receive GH 64.00, two eligible household beneficiaries would take GH 76.0, GH 88.00, and GH 106.00 for three and four or more households respectively.

Madam Djaba said in addition to other social intervention programmes, Government wanted to create a society of equity where many Ghanaians could become prosperous to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

In this regard, she said the Ministry was working on skills training modules for individuals to equipped for them to be gradually weaned off the LEAP programme

'We want to have an exit plan for LEAP and so even the carers of LEAP beneficiaries will also be trained to provide them with alternative ways of increasing their income to better take care of beneficiaries under their care' she stated.

Madam Djaba, said there was the need for the country to holistically address the issue of poverty.

There are more than 10,000 beneficiary households in the Central Region with the Mfantseman Municipality alone having 500 poor and vulnerable individuals benefiting.

While some beneficiaries who spoke to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) said the LEAP intervention had been of immense help, others appealed to the government to increase the quantum of the grant given them to enhance their socio-economic well-being.

GNA

By Afedzi Abdullah, GNA
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor Joseph Ghartey Ampiah has called for a greater collaboration between universities and their alumni to build excellent an academic community for effective teaching and learning.

He made this call when he delivered the keynote address at the Inauguration and 2017 Alumni Congress of the United States of America branch of the University of Cape Coast Alumni Association (UCCAA-USA), which was held on 27th May 2017 at Ramada BWI Airport/Arundel Mills Hotel in Hanover, Maryland, USA.

Speaking of the theme The Role of Alumni in Contemporary Times, Professor Ampiah mentioned that the universities all over the world recognize the contributions that alumni are making towards their alma mater, and this makes it imperative for the universities to cooperate with the alumni to build sustainable and growing institutions.

The Vice Chancellor noted that the alumni could create opportunities for strategic partnership for the university by initiating affiliations with the employers, organizations and partners they work or associate with. He was also of the view that the alumni could serve as brand ambassadors and improve the reputation of the UCC.

The occasion, which was graced by Mr. E.B. Asare- Asiedu, Ag. Head of Mission, and Mrs. Akosua Okyere-Badoo, Minister-Economic, both of the Ghana Embassy, USA, saw UCC alumni that span from 1969 to 2015 graduating year groups coming together to build the UCCAA-USA.

Solomon Faakye, Coordinator of Institutional Advancement, UCC also highlighted the five-point strategy of the Alumni Relations. They include creating international Alumni Associations; stratifying alumni into five generations (1960&70s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000-2010, &2010-2017); engaging each stratum according to their needs and interest; identifying the Forgotten Alumni (alumni we have never reached) and reach out to them; and advocating for inclusion of alumni engagement in overall university strategic policy and trust.

During the 2017 Alumni Congress, which attracted UCC alumni from all over the United States, a Board of Directors for the Association, led by Professor Kobina Armoo, a former UCC Students Representative Council President, was ushered into office to steer the affairs of the group for the next three years. The eight-member Board of Directors include, Prof. Grace Lartey, Vice President; Mr. Opare Ayisi, Communications Director, Dr. Henry Amedeker, Dep. Communications Director, Mr. Sampson Kumi Tete, Finance Director; Dr. Ras Acolatse, Events/Programs Director; Mr. Daniel Owusu, Dep. Events/Programs Director and Mr. Solomon Kwaku Ahenkan Ntiamoah, Chief technology Officer. In his acceptance speech, Prof. Kobina Armoo gave the assurance that his team will help build a formidable of alumni association in the USA, with the aim of bringing alumni together and helping to UCC become the first choice for students and parents considering university education in Ghana.

The next congress of the Association has been scheduled for the Memorial Day weekend on Saturday, May 26, 2018.

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Over 700 students from various senior high schools (SHS) in the Central and Western regions participated in the maiden Open House activity of the Nduom School of Business and Technology (NBS&T) at Aboabo.

The Open House was organized to unveil the facilities, programs and resources available to interested students and their parents. near Ayensudo in the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abirem (KEEA) Municipality of the Central Region.

Addressing the students and other guests during an interactive session, the Rector of NSB&T, Professor James H. Ephraim noted that the School has been granted Institutional Authorization by the National Accreditation Board (NAB).

He disclosed they are in the process of completing all other issues of the accreditation and affiliation processes.

According to Professor Ephraim, the Nduom School of Business and Technology is aimed at providing innovative education that hinges on critical thinking, ethics and practical skills in order to produce leaders who can positively transform society.

Professor Ephraim welcoming students

He said, at the inception, the school will run three undergraduates programmes namely: BSc. Banking and Finance, BSC. Information and Communications Technology and BSc. Information Technology Management for Business.

Other speakers at the function were Dr. Thomas Dorson, Kwabena Nkansah Simpeh and the registrar, Andrew Kwesi De Roy,

Mrs. Valentina Bannerman, a member of the Board of Directors of the Nduom School of Business and Technology elevated the event with her presence and Mr. Victor Minta, Manager of the Coconut Grove Beach Resort was present to support.

The NSB&T is set to roll out its programmes in September 2017. The Institution is owned by Groupe Nduom, with Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom as the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors.

The School boasts of air-conditioned lecture halls, fitted with state-of-the-art projectors, an ultra-modern ICT Lab, Library, staff and residential facilities and adequate space for extra-curricular activities.

Present were students and teachers from St. Johns School, Sekondi College and Archbishop Porters Girls Senior High School, all in the Western region.

From the Central Region were Ghana National College, St. Augustines College, Wesley Girls High School, Holy Child School, Ogash Secondary School, Aggrey Memorial Senior High School, Edinaman Senior High School and Adisadel College.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Deputy General Secretary says he will quit politics if the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) gets another shot at governance.

Nana Obiri-Boahen told Evans Mensah on Joy FMs Top Story Thursday the NDC has fallen out of favour because of the many corrupt practices it engaged in while in office.

The private legal practitioner in a rather bold declaration said: I will quit politics if NDC comes into power again.

He said the NPP is aiming higher so that it will be in power beyond the eight year period.

Nana Obiri-Boahen was reacting to comments by some senior members of the NDC that the party might come into power if it is able to solidify its ranks.

The NDC is marking its 25th Anniversary in June and several activities have been planned to observe it.

At the launch of the Anniversary, Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin told the gathering the NDC has the men and women more than the NPP does.

They have few lawyers who are only good at writing, he said, adding the party might come into power if there is a good system of apprenticeship which will enable the youth to learn from senior members of the party.

Mr Bagbin reiterated the need for party functionaries and members to be united ahead of the next election.

He also urged members to fall back on the principles upon which the NDC was established in 1992  probity, justice and accountability.

NDC National Organiser, Kofi Adams said the senior members' call for Sankofa reflects the concerns of all the members of the party.

Although he believes they have not departed from the core values and principles of the party, he believes our small meetings have been replaced by social media.

He also said the partys defeat at the 2016 polls comes as a wakeup call for them to deepen the comradeship in the party in order to wrestle the power from the NPP in 2020.

But Nana Obiri-Boahen has ruled out a future NDC government in the country.

Ghanaians are fed up with the greed of the NDCthey can continue to wallow in their sheer pride thinking they enjoy support in the country, he said.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers | [email protected] | Instagram: @realbrakopowers
Al-Hoceima (Morocco) (AFP) - Police fired tear gas as clashes erupted Thursday between them and demonstrators in the Moroccan city of Al-Hoceima, epicentre of a protest movement that has shaken the northern region for months.

The tear gas was fired as dozens of young people threw stones at the riot police in the alleys of Sidi Abed neighbourhood, where demonstrations have been held for days without any violence.

The northern port city of Al-Hoceima, in the neglected Rif region, has been rocked by social unrest since the death in October of a fishmonger.

Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed in a rubbish truck as he protested against the seizure of swordfish caught out of season and his death has sparked fury and triggered nationwide protests.

The demonstrations have snowballed, giving way to a wider protest movement demanding more development and railing against corruption, repression and unemployment.

In Sidi Abed on Thursday, groups of young people gathered again for a surprise demonstration in the alleys of the neighbourhood.

Police responded by forcefully pushing them back to a square where several of them began throwing stones, an AFP correspondent reported.

At least two people were injured, a policeman hit in the jaw by a stone and a demonstrator who had been struck with truncheons.
Kinshasa (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday urged the release of two of its staff kidnapped after armed men attacked their convoy in the troubled eastern DR Congo.

The ICRC said the workers were abducted on Wednesday morning while on a humanitarian mission between Kirumba and Beni in North Kivu province.

"We are launching an appeal to the kidnappers to immediately free our colleagues, safe and sound, and facilitate their return," the aid group said in a statement.

The ICRC has suspended all work in the region, where it is helping 5,000 families, it said.

The eastern DR Congo has been rocked by more than 20 years of armed conflict among both domestic and foreign armed groups, fuelled by struggle for control of lucrative mineral resources as well as ethnic and property disputes.

The area of North Kivu where the aid workers were abducted has served as a base for Hutu rebels fighting with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) since 1994 and sees frequent kidnappings.
08.06.2017 LISTEN

Princess Town (W/R), June 8, GNA - Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the Minister for Aviation, has appealed to chiefs to release land for the various airport projects in the Western Region to commence on schedule.

She said it is the hope of the NPP government to open up the region to development and this would attract investors, grow the local economy and create jobs.

Mrs Dapaah said this after inspecting more than 8000 acres of land in Princess Town in the Ahanta West District for the construction of a commercial airport.

The Minister was accompanied by his Deputy Kobby Okyere Darko, the Deputy Regional Minister, Mrs Eugenia Gifty Kusi and a consultant and technocrats from the Ghana Airport Company.

Nana Kofi Nyame II, chief of Princess Town, lauded government for the initiative saying they should speed up all the processes involved to ensure a successful execution of the projects.

The team also went to Axim to inspect two parks: Dr Bimish and Victoria Parks which would be developed into an airstrip.

Mrs Catherine Afeku, the Minister for Tourism, Creative Arts and Culture, who took the team on inspection of the two parks, said usually planes that have visited the town in the past landed on the Dr Bimish Park.

The chiefs of both Lower and Upper Axim who hosted the Minister expressed their gratitude to the NPP government, saying, 'Yours is to act on your words, we are ready to support'.

The entourage later visited the ENI constructed Helipad at Sanzule.

GNA

By Mildred Siabi-Mensah GNA
Agona Swedru (C/R), June 8, GNA - The Agona West Assembly has reviewed its environmental health and sanitation programme to ensure sound environmental cleanliness in the Municipality.

Mrs Justina Marigold Assan, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of the Assembly made this known at a clean-up exercise at Agona Swedru.

Personnel of Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), staff of Zoomlion, Melcom stores, civil society organisations operating in the Agona Municipality, Assembly members and market women took part in the six-hour exercise.

They desilted choked gutters and swept various vantage points of the Municipality.

Similar exercises also took place in the adjoining towns in the Agona West Municipality.

The MCE hinted that the review of the sanitation programme would go a long way to reduce filth at Agona Swedru and other adjoining towns in the Municipality.

Mrs Cynthia Morrison, Member of Parliament for Agona West who took part in the exercise, donated sanitation materials worth over GHC 6,000 to the Environmental Health and Sanitation Department of the Assembly.

The items included; four wheel borrows, pickaxes, shovels, wellington boots, one packet of cutlass, reflector vests, brooms.

Mr George Freeman, Agona West Municipal Environmental Health and Sanitation Chief, thanked the MP for her kind gesture and assured her that his outfit would take good care of the items.

He said the sanitation issue was collective responsibility and called on the residents in the Municipality to avoid shirking their civic responsibility of ensuring a clean environment.

Mr Freeman said his outfit had intensified public education especially in the wake of the raining season to avoid outbreak of cholera and other communicable diseases.

GNA
Accra, June 8, GNA- Passion for Needy, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) on Thursday donated assorted items worth GH24,590.00 for the upkeep of 150 Cerebral Palsy Persons in Accra.

The donation formed part of the 2017 Founder's Day Donation, an annual event that is done to acknowledge the contribution made by the Founder, Prophet T.B Joshua, Senior Prophet of SCOAN to the organisation and to celebrate his birthday which falls on June 12 every year.

Mrs Janet Torgbor El-Aschkar, the Chairperson of Passion for Needy, presented the items to Mrs Benedicta Oduro, the Facilitator of Yaw Owusu Foundation (YOA), an Accra-based institution that caters for the well-being of Cerebral Palsy Persons.

The items included; five pieces of wheel chairs, 150 Bags of rice, 25 cartons of cooking oil, 30 cartons of diapers, 20 cartons of key soap, 40 cartons of cerelac, 150 kilogrammes of sugar, five cartons of luncheon meat, 50 packs of toilet roll and a box of mega mackerel.

Mrs El-Aschkar said the organisation since its inception in 2009 had provided support to various NGO's in the country, including supporting government's effort at alleviating poverty among the needy in society.

Mrs El-Aschkar said the decision that informed the donation was based on information from one of its members about Cerebral Palsy Persons in Ghana who received help from YOA Foundation.

She said Cerebral Palsy was one of the health conditions of individuals that needed much attention from parents as most parents of these children were usually unable to work to generate any income.

'We thank YOA Foundation for this initiative to support these families and to acknowledge their effort, Passion For Needy deemed it very important to present the 2017 Founder's Day Donation to the Cerebral Palsy Persons.

'The target is to acknowledge contributions made by individuals and organisations or provide social intervention in a major national issue,' she said.

Mrs Oduro commended Passion for Needy for the gesture and called on other benevolent institutions and philanthropists to come to their aid to help develop the children.

She also called on Government to put the Cerebral Palsy Persons on the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme in order to help ease the expenses of their caregivers.

GNA

By Kwamina Tandoh, GNA
08.06.2017 LISTEN

Accra, June 8, GNA - Mr Sampson Ahi, a Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Works and Housing, has appealed to the government to urgently pay the contractors that dredged the Odaw drain and Korle Lagoon.

He said the dredging of the river and the drain was part of the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project intended to solve the perennial flooding in Accra in order to save lives and property.

Mr Ahi who is the Member of Parliament for Bodi, said the contractors, Dredge Masters, a wholly-owned Ghanaian construction firm, started dredging in December 2015 but the actual contract was signed in June 2016, and had since not been paid.

Mr Ahi, a former Deputy Minister for Works and Housing in the previous administration, made this known when Parliamentary Select Committee on Works and Housing toured some parts of Korle Lagoon to familiarise themselves with the progress of work in Accra on Thursday.

He said although the contract was signed under the National Democratic Congress government it was binding on the current New Patriotic Party administration, therefore the issue of payment should not be politicised since the project was important and intended to prevent flooding in the capital.

For his part, Nana Amoako, the Chairman of the Committee who is also the Member of Parliament for Upper Denkyira East, called for attitudinal change among Ghanaians, especially regarding indiscriminate disposal of garbage into drains.

He said it cost government huge sums of financial resources desilting drains and urged the citizenry to comply with sound environmental practices.

Mr Wise Ametefe, the Project Co-ordinator and Registrar of Engineering Council, said the contractors pre-financed the project and had spent about $10 million dollars.

He said a hydrographic survey conducted on Korle Lagoon established that there was more than one million metric meters of silt deposited in the lagoon that needed to be dredged.

However, he said, the contract the contractors signed with the government only tasked them to dredge 500,000 metric meters.

He, therefore, called for review of the contract so that the contractors could desilt the quantities of silt remaining in the lagoon.

According to him, the contractors had completed desilting the Odaw drain but there was the need for the signing of maintenance contract with the government in order for them to desilt the drain on regularly to prevent flooding since silt flowed into the drain from sub-canals during rains.

In addition, he said, there must be re-designing of the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KREP) Interceptor at the estuary of the Korle lagoon in order to allow free flow of water in and out of the lagoon.

He noted that there should be silt traps along the various adjoining sub-canals to Odaw drain to control siltation.

Captain Ansar Ahmed Khan, Project Director of Dredge Masters Limited and Mr Sena Adiepena, Operations Manager, briefed the members of the Committee on the various components of the project.

They said the KREP involved dredging of the Odaw drain, which was completed in July 2016.

However, less than 30 per cent of dredging of Korle Lagoon had been conducted due to contractual limitations.

They said there were dredging and non-dredging components of the project which comprised landscaping of the green vegetation around the lagoon, beautification, desilting and putting up of infrastructure to achieve the contractual design. GNA

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA
Whats happened to the banks share price since the budget?

Since the budget last month, the Big Four banks are all sharply down.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia [ASX:CBA] is down 10.5%, National Australia Bank [ASX:NAB] is down 13.9%, Westpac [ASX:WBC] is down 15.8%, and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group [ASX:ANZ] is down a whopping 16.5%. All since the start of May  only one month ago.

A buying opportunity?

Does the drop in banking share prices make them a good buying opportunity now?

Maybe, but maybe not.

The catalyst for the share price falls was the announcement of the bank levy in Morrisons budget. The levy will cost the banks $1 billion in the first year, and up to $6.2 billion over four years.

But, in reality, this is just one factor that will impinge upon the banks profitability over the next few years.

There is the slowing housing boom, which will affect mortgage revenue, and a move away from high-fee superannuation products. The rising shift to SMSF structures are also steering clear of bank retirement products.

Not to mention slow wage growth and a general uneasiness in the state of the economy at large.

There are also regulatory issues playing out that require banks to hold more capital. This reduces their ability to lend out as much money as they previously could.

I think that if you view this as a buying opportunity, you can afford to wait a little longer to try and pick up a bargain.

Further falls to come

My take is that, over the next few months, we will see more falls in the share prices of the big banks. These falls will be roughly the same magnitude as last month.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is psychological.

Technically, there has been a breach of a long-term uptrend line stretching back to 2009. What this means is that a key area of support traders look to has been broken.

Although non-chartists might be sceptical, chartists and quant traders see such signs as big opportunities. This in turn encourages more short sellers to start looking at these banks as targets and planning trades to bet on the share price falling further.

Unless a wave of buyers comes in to counter them, they can be a pretty powerful force in the short term.

Now, if the fundamentals start to pick up, buyers will come in and push this back above the long-term trend line, scaring away the short sellers.

But if the fundamentals align with the charts, further falls of 1218% are possible in the next two to three months.

Any signal of panic, such as a rise in bad debts, will facilitate such moves.

These falls could even act as political pressure for the government to change the terms of the banking levy. Possibly the introduction of a sunset clause to determine a date when the levy no longer applies.

After all, voters are bank stock holders as well, through superannuation at the very least.

If it does play out like this, a bounce-back in prices could be in everyones interests, at least in the short term.

Final thoughts

Governments have a generally terrible record of taxing specific industries at the right time. Remember the mining tax?

It didnt raise one cent

Although I dont think it is in the governments interest to cause a banking share price fall, the market will be the ones to decide the ultimate fate of the Big Four banks.

In the short term, the market appears very wary on the future profitability of the Big Four banks, which are the most profitable banks in the world.

Can that continue?

Ryan Dinse,

Money Morning
Twain Harte, CA  A traffic stop that netted drugs and money prompted detectives to head to the suspects Jamestown home to search it, too.

24-year-old Christian Gonzalez was taken into custody by Tuolumne County Sheriffs Narcotic Team Detectives after being pulled over in Twain Harte Tuesday afternoon for having a suspended registration. He was searched and found to have 3.7 grams of heroin, more than $600 in cash, and drug paraphernalia on him. Detectives obtained a search warrant for Gonzalezs home on 3rd Avenue in Jamestown where they discovered more heroin, cash, and items associated with the selling of narcotics.

Gonzalez was arrested for heroin for sale and possession of drug use paraphernalia. Sheriffs officials say he could face additional drug charges related to keeping a place to sell drugs once the investigation is completed. Gonzalez bond is set at $20,000.

(The story earlier showed a picture taken by the Tuolumne County Sheriffs Office of an intersection near the crime scene. The home pictured in the background was not involved with the crime investigation.)
Rim Fire Burn Area - Cherry Oil Road near Camp Mather View Photos

Sonora, CA  Next week is a chance to learn about how some of the $70-million from HUDs National Disaster Resiliency Competition funding will be spent in Tuolumne County, post Rim Fire.

The US Forest Service and the state of Californias Sierra Nevada Conservancy will host two public meetings related to a $27-million forest and watershed health program. The funding will be used towards reforestation, biomass removal, noxious weed eradication, fuel break construction and range improvements in areas impacted by the 2013 Rim Fire.

The meeting is a chance to learn more about the program, and also give input in identifying priority areas within the footprint. Additional NDRC grant money will also go towards funding a Community Resilience Center and a Biomass Utilization Facility, but the two upcoming meetings will focus solely on forest and watershed health activities.

The first meeting will be Tuesday, June 13, from 3-5pm, in the Stanislaus National Forest Supervisors Office at 19777 Greenley Road. The second will be Wednesday, June 14, from 3-5pm, at the Groveland Community Hall at 18720 Highway 120 in Groveland.
Do you want to start a profitable agriculture business? What about pepper farming in Nigeria? We will tell you how profitable pepper farming in Nigeria is. Find out the best tips for the beginning of this business and easy steps to succeed.

If you have a serious intention of cultivating pepper for subsequent sale, in addition to pepper seeds, seedlings, and quality fertilizer, you should buy the following important components:

 A plot of land where this delicious agricultural crop will grow;

 Vehicles for transportation of finished product;

 Container for vegetables.

The land should be located near local water basin, or water supply system. Since pepper demands moisture, it should be watered quite regularly - otherwise do not expect good harvest.

In fact, chilli and green pepper farming in Nigeria have a lot in common, so we will tell you about pepper cultivation and using chili pepper as an example. To improve crop quality, you should use natural fertilizers to help your pepper look more attractive.

Chili pepper farming in Nigeria

One plant can give you up to hundreds of pods. They can be used for seasonings, depending on various culinary needs, also seeds can be used for subsequent planting. This kind of pepper can live and bear harvest for 2-3 years. If you grow chili pepper on the open ground, you can get a crop of 2-3 kg per square meter.

According to specialists, pepper is much better developed in the greenhouse. This is because of a controlled temperature regime and a constant level of humidity. So, in a greenhouse, chili pepper can grow up to 1 meter in length and provide a large amount of massive fruits.

If you create good conditions, then after a while you will be able to admire your strong lush bushes. If you care more about large fruits than their numbers, then just get rid of some flowers on the plant.

Preparation of a site for pepper farming in Nigeria

In sunny areas with mild climate, pepper grows very well. If there is no wind protection, it is possible to build some wind shields.

The soil on the area allocated for pepper cultivation should be fertile, well drained and have high water retention capacity.

After harvesting the crop, remove plant remains and dig through the soil.

In any case do not plant pepper on the site with fresh manure. Pepper does not need fresh organic fertilizers. It adversely affects preservation of the crop and its ripening.

How to plant pepper in Nigeria?

Before planting, seedlings must be watered abundantly, so that during planting they do not fade.

Withering affects plants, delays growth and leads to the fall of the first buds - and this is the loss of the early harvest. If you plant seedlings in the heat it is better to choose the second half of the day, so that the plants can grow stronger overnight. In cloudy weather, you can plant seedlings in the morning.

READ ALSO: Mushroom farming in Nigeria - Guide to success

Pre-prepared holes should be filled with water - 1-2 liters of water per hole, it is better to use warm water. After freeing seedlings from pots, they are placed vertically in the holes and planted a little deeper than they were in the pots.

Watering

Growing pepper is impossible without watering. For a better survival, after planting pepper is watered at an interval of 2-3 days, taking 1-2 liters of water per plant, and in dry and hot weather, pepper is watered daily.

There is a need to monitor the watering so as not to damage pepper plants by excessive irrigation. Wilting leaves in the afternoon hours on hot days do not indicate that plants need water.

Vegetable farming care

It is necessary to observe the distance between the rows of about 65 cm and between seedlings 40 cm. You can also use another method - plant two or three seedlings in one hole. It is necessary to install pegs when planting in order to keep the plant away from breaking (you should not install pegs during the growth period, as it can damage plant root system).

Loosening

Pepper is fond of loose soil, and therefore you should avoid the formation of soil crust. Loosening activates the influx of air to the roots, which accelerates growth and development of plants and stimulates biological activity of microorganisms in the soil, and also helps with weed control.

During the first two weeks after planting, the pepper grows very slowly: during this period its root system acquires strength. Take care of them so as not to injure your plants.

Pepper cultivation problems

With a lack of potassium, pepper leaves become a twisted and drying edge. But it is necessary to be careful with potassium - pepper does not tolerate abundance of potassium chloride.

If the plant lacks nitrogen, its leaves become opaque and grayish, gradually begin to fade. When there is lack of magnesium, leaves become marbled, and the excess amount of nitrogen in soil leads to dropping of pepper flowers.

What are the best varieties for pepper farm launching?

 Trinidad Scorpion

This is one of the hottest varieties of chili pepper. The main source of its distribution is export.

 Bell pepper

This kind of pepper has different varieties - its colour varies from yellow, orange, purple, red to green.

 Cayenne pepper

This is the most common type of pepper in Nigeria. It has also other names - Red hot chili pepper or Guinea spice. Its main peculiarity is that it can be stored for a very long time in the form of powder.

How profitable is pepper farming in Nigeria?

To get profit from pepper cultivation in Nigeria you should think about distribution channels. We have prepared a list of them below.

Distribution channels:

- Gardeners/amateurs;

They can buy your seedlings;

- Pharmacies;

You can sell natural tinctures from bitter varieties.

- Representatives and organizers of public catering outlets;

- Shops in your locality;

- Ordinary citizens.

The last three groups of people usually buy green pepper, revered for its rich and sweet taste.

Let's conduct simple calculations:

 You will need between 4 and 6 months;

 Your investment should be - N1 million;

 Your profit - N4 million.

Now, you see that pepper farming in Nigeria is rather profitable. Why not give it a try?

READ ALSO: Small scale business in Nigeria with little capital

Source: Legit.ng
Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the political leader of the old western region of Nigeria was not a friend to the old Alaafin of Oyo, oba Adeymi Adeniran

Oba Adeyemi was playing friendship with the NCNC an opposition party to the Action Group, a party set up by Chief Obafemi Awolowo

Following his support for the NCNC, a rival party, Awolowo plotted his dethronement in 1955

Power is no doubt an intoxicating factor in the lives of many  men and women alike. This is really the reason many come out on different platforms in different levels of the society to hustle for it. Eventually though not many are able to effectively handle and maneuver through it. That is why it is said that most men can stand in the face of adversity, but the true test of a man is the way he acts when he is given power.

The struggle for supremacy is nothing new to man, and in the history of Nigeria, there has been such tussles, with different parties trying to show their superiority; political leaders, pressure groups and even traditional rulers. One of such tussles was what led to the deposing and unceremonious de-stooling of the Oba Adeyemi Adeniran II.

In the pre-colonial times, the Oyo Empire was headed by the Alaafin in a monarchical system where the only functional check on his usage of powers was Oyomesi council. The coming of the colonialists changed it to a form of indirect rule where the Britons ruled via the instituted system. However, this system was again tampered with after the exit of the colonialists following a clash of powers between the Oba and Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

Oba Adeyemi II, who succeeded his father Oba Adeyemi I Alowolodu, ascended the stool in 1945 and reigned for about a decade before his abrupt and unexpected dethronement in July 1955. When in 1950, Obafemi Awolowo established the Action Group promising freedom from British rule, disease, ignorance and want for all those who followed him, particularly the westerners.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo

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The Alaafin was one of the few highly placed men of the Yoruba extraction who did not go along with him. The Oba did not, in any way, hide the fact that he was a fan of Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe and by extension the National Council of Nigerians and the Cameroons (NCNC).

READ ALSO: Atiku reacts to quit notice issued to Igbos by northern youths

This was the beginning of the rift between Awolowo who was the national president of the newly formed party which was thought to project the interest of westerners and the Alaafin who was the undisputed supreme ruler of the Yoruba race. Based on the regional ties, the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) dominated the North, the National Council of Nigerians and the Cameroons (NCNC) dominated the East, while Action Group (AG) had the West as their home zone.

This means that the Obas support for the NCNC, a rival party, gave them an edge over the AG which was supposed to dominate this region; and this resulted in his being unable to gather any coalition of voters large enough to win a federal election. This was of course, something Awolowo would not tolerate, as it was not just an affront to his person, but threatened the base of the AG, his political brain-child.

When the Egbe Omo Yoruba association was formed by some prominent Yoruba sons in 1953, and the Alaafin was named grand patron, this threat became magnified. With his dual position, Oba Adeyemi II personally campaigned for the NCNC during the local government elections in 1954. This was a contradiction to what the Oba had done during the 1951 elections when he was still close buddies with the Action Group allies, where he had supported the Bode Thomas, who was the deputy leader of Action Group, and Abiodun Akerele in their bid for the regional house of assembly.

Sequel to that election, Bode Thomas became the chairman of the Oyo divisional native authority controlling the town of Oyo and the hinterlands, while Abiodun Akerele became the chairman of Oyo southern district native authority, both of which were hitherto controlled by the royal stool.

Furious over the attitude of the Alaafin which was not in any way favouring the regional government, the Awolow-led government started dishing out policies which one might be tempted to refer to as anti-Alaafin. The policies were majorly targeted at undermining the authority of the traditional rulers in general and the Alaafin in particular, and transfer more powers to the regional government.

First of all, the Oyo divisional native authority which was headed by Bode Thomas, cut off a major source of fund by replacing the traditional judges also known as the Iwefa chiefs, with their new and elite appointees. The Baales and senior chiefs, as a result, had to hustle for whatever they wanted to come to them, as the new arrangement did not take them into consideration. This, of course, also meant that the Oba was no longer paramount in any way, except in the minds of his loyalists.

This is Oba Adeyemi Adeniran who was dethroned by Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1955

The Action Group further tightened the noose by reforming the tax collection system so that the tax collection and assessment which was until then done by the Alaafin was now handled directly by the government in addition to a ten shilling tax and four shilling education rate. All of these provoked the Alaafin to state that a close examination of the partys policies had led him to withdraw his earlier support and method.

READ ALSO: Niger Delta youths blast Northern group over eviction notice to Igbos

After this, he declined the invitation of Sir Kofo Abayomi, the secretary of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, making reference to earlier occasions when he had been publicly disregarded by both Bode Thomas whom he had earlier installed as Balogun of Oyo in 1950 and Abiodun Akerele. From there, he gave his full support to the opposition NCNC at all levels.

The Oba immediately put actions to his words, setting up his own private courts within the palace and in the residences of his chiefs, which rendered the governments native court reforms redundant as the people preferred to meet with their Oba to resolve the disputes especially marital issues, rather than visit the courts which they saw as an elite thing. He also passed a resolution against the education and capitation taxes, and told the people not to cooperate with the government.

In a counter attack, the regional government set about intimidating supporters of the Oba. When the Oyo native authority council was formed, the counselors who took the side of the government against the Oba were reportedly attacked, and all fingers especially those of Bode Thomas pointed at the Crown Prince (Aremo) as being responsible for the assault. This same council eventually reduced the annual salary of the Alaafin by 650 pounds, removed the salary of the Aremo and other palace nobles. They did not stop at that but went ahead to de-stool the Oba and banish his son who was tagged as being a threat to public order.

At this point, it was clear that it was not just a minor clash of titans, but a major and cataclysmic head-on collision between the two powerful figures. It also appeared to be a contest between the educated minority elites of the land (represented by Awolowo) and the majority illiterates and devote traditionalists, chiefs and rulers (represented by the Alaafin).

Awolowo kept advocating a reformed system of administration and overhaul of the constitution so that the educated minorities could wield the powers  a system where the traditional rulers would be stripped of their already streamlined powers and same would be shifted to the educated few.

The house of chiefs was thus placed under the regional government, and the institution of chieftaincy was placed under the control of the Action Group party. Their method of dealing with any errant Oba or chief could be by demotion, punishment or the person in question could even be completely declined membership of the house of chiefs.

How Chief Obafemi Awolowo dethroned the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Adeyemi Adeniran who married 200 wives in 1955

The already delicate power balance was tipped further when a fight broke out between Bode Thomas and the Alaafin over issues of supremacy in the Action Group controlled Oyo divisional council. This was worsened by the death of Bode Thomas at the prime age of 34, in November 1953, a death which the Oba was accused of having perpetrated through diabolical means.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Arewa youths make next move after issuing 90 day quit notice to Igbos in north

It was so terrible that when the members of the Action Group launched a violent attack on the opposing camp, they reacted immediately and stormed the party meeting in Oyo, an action which led to the death of about six AG loyalists. Throughout the rest of 1954, there were further clashes and counter clashes resulting in injury of many and destruction of properties worth thousands of pounds.

When in September of the same year, an emergency committee composed of seven Yoruba rulers including the Alaafin, the Ooni of Ife Oba Adesoji Aderemi, and the Alake of Egbaland, as well as fourteen leaders of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa was convened, the Alaafin was accused of conspiring to work against the regional government and the party in power.

Awolowo then stated that the government had outrun their patience and could no longer tolerate his insubordination, and after consultation with the other Obas, he was suspended from office and removed from the native authority.

This de-stooling was done despite the position of Sir Richard Lloyd, senior crown counsel to Sir John Macpherson the then Governor-General, that the elected counsellors could have shown more tolerance to the older members of the council who were majorly illiterate and could not easily understand or adapt to the new system. Despite all his grammar and recommendations, they went along with their initial plan, deposing and banishing the 84-year-old Alaafin.

His banishment led the Oba to relocate to Lagos where he was housed by a wealthy NCNC stalwart Alhaji N.B, Soule, a citizen of Benin Republic and fellow Muslim, alongside his large entourage and loyalists who came daily in their thousands to pay their respects.

Even though the deposed Oba was touched by his generosity and tolerance, he acknowledged that there was no place like home, and that his only pain was being subjected to such a treatment at his old age. Even the paltry 210 pounds salary which was left for him was finally stopped. His over 200 wives could not be accommodated with him in Lagos, and so his wives came in batches of 30 to spend times with him, before returning for another batch to take their place.

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After taking the Oba out of the way, Awolowo proceeded to pass into law three crucial policies giving him as the regional head tight control over the local government, the customary courts and matters of lands and chieftaincy.

The Action Group thus had the traditional rulers under their firm grip, but the chiefs decided to make the relationship more mutual by dishing out honorary chieftaincy titles to the politicians. This was how Obafemi Awolowo became Chief Obafemi Awolowo. By November 1970, the son of the banished Oba ascended the throne as Adeyemi III Lamidi Olayiwola, to the delight of Oyo indigenes.

Source: Legit.ng
- Nigerians keep making Nigeria proud all over the world with their achievements

- One of such Nigerian is Ambassador Chiedu Osakwe

- Osakwe has been elected chairman of the Negotiating Forum for the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) for Africa

Ambassador Chiedu Osakwe has been elected chairman of the Negotiating Forum for the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) for Africa.

Ms Constance Ikokwu, strategy and communications adviser to the minister of industry, trade and investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah said this in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday, June 7, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

Ikokwu said that Osakwe was elected chairman of the 54-member negotiating forum in Niamey, Niger, on June 5, during the 6th cycle of the negotiations for the CFTA.

Ambassador Chiedu Osakwe has been elected the chairman, Negotiations Forum Continental Free Trade Area

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She listed other members of the bureau to include first vice chairman (Swaziland); second vice chairman (Ethiopia); third vice chairman (Chad); and rapporteur (Algeria).

According to her, this puts Nigeria at the forefront of the negotiations, where it is expected to show leadership and work with the bureau to drive the CFTA to conclusion.

Ikokwu quoted Osakwe as saying after the election we have a duty to deliver on an integrated market for goods and services in Africa and, as a consequence, generate a radical boost for intra-African trade.

The responsibility we have is a major challenge and at the same time a unique opportunity to contribute to growth, job creation and poverty reduction in Africa.

Concluding the CFTA is of necessity, for improving intra-African trade as part of a broader response to a global economy in rapid and uncertain change.

Nigeria is grateful for this honor to serve and lead.

She said that the African Union (AU) had set a deadline of December 2017 for adoption of the CFTA.

Ikokwu added that nevertheless, it was believed that adoption would depend on how much progress was made by the end of the year.

When concluded, the CFTA will enhance the movement of goods and services, boost trade facilitation and support the Presidential Initiative on the Ease of Doing Business within the 54-member block of the continent, she added.

Ikokwu said that Osakwe was presently the trade adviser to Enelamah, chief negotiator for Nigeria and provides technical advise on trade policy and structural reforms to the Economic Management Team (EMT). (NAN)

READ ALSO: FG reacts to quit notice issued by Arewa youths to Igbos

Legit.ng had reported recently that Osakwe was one of the board members of the Nigerian Industrial Policy and Competitiveness Advisory Council.

The 36-member council which will be chaired by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was inaugurated last week.

Watch the Legit.ng TV report below of Osinbajo flagging off the Lagos-Ibadan railway project in Lagos.

Source: Legit.ng
- The Kaduna police has started manhunt for the Arewa youths that ordered Igbos out of the north

- The police insist every Nigerian is free to live in any part of the country

- The quit notice has generated reactions and stirred nationwide controversy

The police in Kaduna have launched a manhunt for Arewa youths who signed a declaration issuing a 90-day ultimatum to Igbos in the north to leave.

Legit.ng had reported that a coalition of northern youths in what they tagged Kaduna Declaration on Tuesday, June 6, ordered Igbos to vacate and return to the south east.

In response, Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Wednesday, June 7 ordered the arrest and prosecution of the signatories of the quit notice. The Kaduna state government takes exception to the fact that the northern youths did their irresponsible press conference in Kaduna. This government has been consistent in taking action to punish hate speech and incitement. People who may feel unhappy about irresponsible comments or actions that have taken place in other states must know that two wrongs cannot make a right, and they cannot use our state to do or say things that threaten the peace."

READ ALSO: Boko Haram attacks Maiduguri ahead of Osinbajos visit (photos)

Vanguard reports that following the directive of the governor, the police in Kaduna launched a manhunt to arrest all those who signed the declaration.

Moshood Jimoh who is the police spokesperson in Kaduna said any Nigerian was free to live in any part of the country.

He said: Kaduna state government has reacted promptly to the issue. We are also using this opportunity to warn anybody that wants to foment trouble to beware because we will deal decisively with such group or persons.

Also, the national president of Ohanaeze Youth Foundation, Mr. Chukwuemeka Don Uba said the threat was an indication that Nigeria cannot continue to remain as one.

He said: The threat for Igbo indigenes by some organized youth groups of the Northern part of Nigeria is an indication that this country can no longer be together as one entity.

The South- Easterners had before now agitated for a sovereign State of Biafra, but never threatened the stay of the Northern indigenes resident in their area.

In my own view they are being sponsored to give out this threat, bearing in mind that some Northern Elders recently claimed that, the oil blocks located mostly in the South-East and South- South parts of the country also belong to them since it in the Nigeria state of which they cited the constitution as the bases of their claims.

Mr. Peter Ezeobi who is the Imo state chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance described the quit notice as unconstitutional.

He said: It will lead to massacre of Ndigbo and intimidation of the Igbos in the north. It is unconstitutional and it is not acceptable anywhere in the world.

The Igbo people have their assets in the north and they have helped to develop the north. There is no civil war, no threat and they are saying that the Igbos should leave the north.

They do not have the right to do that I believe that the Arewa forum they have intellectuals and I believe they should be guided against making any statement that will lead to war. I see it as a primitive way of trying to resolve problems.

Meanwhile, the governors of the south east held an emergency session following the issuance of a quit notice by northern youths to Igbos in the north.

The south east governors help an emergency meeting on Wednesday, June 7 to address the issue.

Chief Nnia Nwodo who is the president-general of the Ohaneze Ndigbo made this revelation during a night of tributes in honour of the late Ohanaeze chieftain and veteran Biafra soldier, Prof. Ben Obumselu.

Nwodo said it was the intervention of Governor Nasir El-Rufai that stopped the south east governors from sending luxurious buses to bring back their kinsmen

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of a retired army major speaking about the Niger Delta agitation and the Biafra issue.

Source: Legit.ng
- Goodluck Jonathan has reacted to the threat issued to the Igbos in the north

- The former president stated that Nigerians have the right to live in any part of the country

- The Coalition of Northern Youths had issued a statement ordering Igbo people in the north to leave

Nigeria's former president, Goodluck Jonathan has weighed in on the ethnic tension following an ultimatum issued to the Igbos in the north to leave the region by a Northern youth forum.

Legit.ng gathered that Jonathan took to his Facebook page on Thursday, June 8, to share a powerful message to Nigerians.

READ ALSO: PDP founding member blasts northern youths, remind them of historical truth

In his message the former president stated that Nigerians have the right to live in any part of the country.

Read his message below:

"Every Nigerian citizen has an inalienable right to reside in any part of Nigeria. As Nigerians, we should all tailor our thoughts, actions and utterances to promote this and other rights.

We are all brothers and sisters born from the womb of mother Nigeria. There are no still births or unwanted births from our mother.

We are all one and equal and it is the responsibility of all men of goodwill to appeal for calm and unity in our beloved country Nigerians."

Legit.ng had reported that a group named, the Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY) on Tuesday, June 6, issued a statement ordering Igbo people in the north to vacate Northern Nigeria within 3 months.

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It was learnt that learnt that the group also urged northern people in the south-eastern part of the country to immediately start moving back to their various states.

The group threatened that from the 1st October, 2017, it will begin to prove to the whole world the north was no longer part of any federal union that should do with the Igbos.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below about the 50th anniversary of the declaration of Biafra Read more:

Source: Legit.ng
The market was mixed on Thursday, with the Nasdaq Composite posting a modest gain while the Dow and S&P 500 stayed almost unchanged on the day. Events in Europe, including the U.K. election and a decision from the European Central Bank to keep interest rates stable, drew attention from international investors, but those in the U.S. didn't have a major response to those or other political events going on both domestically and across the globe.
After more than 117 years, two statues taken by the British during the invasion of Benin were returned by a Briton to their rightful home.

This led to calls for other ones to be returned. They were looted from the palace of the Oba of Benin, Edo state, during the punitive expedition/invasion of the Benin Empire in 1897.

Led by Captain Philip Walker, the British soldiers looted the Benin empire. A congratulatory message from the House of Representatives was then sent to the Benin monarch, Omo Onoba N'edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Oba Erediauwa 1.

The return of the statues was followed by the passing of a resolution following a motion sponsored by Samson Osagie.

The stolen artifacts Britain returned to Nigeria

According to Africaeagle, a news website, Osagie had urged the House to appreciate the gesture of Dr Mark Walker who decided, after painstaking inquiries from the Richard Lander society about their origin, to retrieve the artifacts and return them.

READ ALSO: Fake prophet caught putting juju inside bus to cause accident

Walker, the great grandson of Captain Philip Walker, who took part in the 1897 Benin massacre, returned the bronze, popularly known as "Ahianwen-Oro' and presented it to the Oba of Benin in company of other foreign nationals.

He noted that among the items stolen was the original mask of the head of Queen Idia, which was used as the official symbol of Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977.

Stolen artifacts Britain returned to Nigeria

Legit.ng earlier reported that a group of Nigerians have discovered the diabolical means used in locking the progress and glory of a family in Benin city.

The diabolical pot which was said to have been used in preventing the members of the family from being successful contained different objects.

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People gathered round a man thought to be a pastor as he removed the symbolic objects from a diabolical pot.

Different denominations of naira notes were seen in the pot as the young man gently dipped his hand into the pot.

Watch this Legit.ng video on Nigerians opinion regarding marriage:

Source: Legit.ng
- A new group from Niger Delta has demanded that it gains independence from Nigeria

- The Niger Delta group says when it becomes sovereign, it will place power only in the hands of the qualified

- The groups resolution comes after a 6-hour secret meeting

A group named Region of the Niger Delta (Rondel) has demanded the sovereignty of the region.

The group in a statement by its spokesman, Efe Edet-Tamuno, said its demands are made on a non-violent struggle.

The statement reads: "A Demand for the Independence of Rondel from Nigeria in 2018.

We the people of the Region of the Niger Delta (Rondel), represented by members of Rondel Solidarity Movement (RSM) - a newly born aggressive but non-violent umbrella body for all intellectuals, groups and associations in the Niger Delta Region, having lived together in the past as a loose federation under the Benin Empire and the great Ijaw and other kingdoms, desirous of searching for our own country since northerners in Nigeria have decided to evacuate southerners from 'their Nigeria' - we today, 07.06.2017 wish to announce the fusion of our various groups into one strong and united non self seeking group to champion our developmental causes and help build our region into a nation of justice, freedom, peace and prosperity.

We have, after over 6 hours of a well attended meeting held at a secret location in Rivers State, met and made Resolutions which will be remembered as The Rondel Covenant.

The Resolutions are in response to the threat by lazy and ignorant Arewa Youths to divide and destroy Nigeria (disguising as evicting the Igbos - an injury to any Southerner is an injury to all Southerners - the days of divide and conquer has ended) and noting the obvious foot dragging of the Nigerian government over this issue with no one arrested, tried or jailed despite the fact that the treasonable felons are well known and they are all not hiding whereas a certain Nnamdi Kanu of Biafra was incarcerated for over two years for daring to discuss Biafra and a certain Kola Edokpayi of Rondel is currently incarcerated for daring to challenge the government in Edo state.

READ ALSO: Top 12 quotes: Pressure in the presidency as Northern leaders attack Osinbajo

Following the treasonable ultimatum issued by the Arewa Youths with tacit backing of the Arewa Consultative Forum and Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs led by Sultan of Sokoto either of who has not openly condemned the felons and call for their incarceration like they would do when the table turned, and being fed up of being described by the President of Nigeria as 5% undeserving of the benefits of Nigeria, thus desirous to found our own country where we will be treated as citizens with full rights, not some species with 5% rights,

We hereby make the following declarations and resolve as follows:

1. That all the intellectuals, groups and associations in the Niger Delta should fuse into Rondel Solidarity Movement and our demands shift from Resource Control to Independence Movement

2. That in our country, we shall return power to the true owners of the lands, the monarchs, in English-style power sharing between the Royals and the people in a Parliamentary system.

3. That we demand Independence for Rondel from Nigeria from 2018.

4. That Rondel comprises all the six states in the present South-South of Nigeria.

5. That Rondel is an acronym derived from the Region of Niger Delta, later Republic of Niger Delta, if the Arewa groups make good their threats.

6. That Rondel is our name, Rondish will be our Language and Rondland shall be our capital city. Details of these, including the locations of Rondland, shall be in our October 1 book.

7. That no inch of Rondel in the six states of Akwa-Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Cross River, Edo, and Rivers States shall ever be ceded to any other people or nation for any reason whatsoever and all those people drawing maps up and down are hereby warned to desist forthwith or risk our disproportionate vengeance including present and future social and economic sanctions.

8. That our motivations for decision to leave Nigeria are first President Buhari's treatment of our people as 5%, Northerner's nearly exclusive illegal and immoral occupation of our oil wells destroying our ecosystems and the eviction notice by Arewa Youths with tacit support of government and the Arewa leaders.

9. That since that treasonable order by Arewa youths, and because no one was arrested, tried and convicted for the high treason, the same matter for which Nnamdi Kalu was imprisoned for about two years, we no longer have faith in one indissoluble Nigeria.

That we state emphatically and without equivocation, that in the likely event of the disintegration of Nigeria, we have resolved to live together in the Region of Niger Delta', which we henceforth now wish to call RONDEL.

That we wish henceforth, as a people, to be known and addressed as Rondelites and our languages to be known as dialects of Rondish, which shall be our Official Language, side by side English.

That our capital city shall be a portion carved out of an existing area in the Region of Niger Delta and to be renamed Rondland. Details, including out national anthem, flag, coat of arms and interim Constitution, will be published in our book, "RONDEL MANIFESTO: The Making of a Nation" to be released on October 1, 2017.

That the Igbo people, and indeed all Africans and foreigners, are heartily welcome to visit, stay, live in or do legitimate business unencumbered anywhere in Rondel now and in the future.

14. That in the event of a breakup and the Biafrans, the Omoluabis, Middle Beltans, etc have their separate countries, we will be willing to enter into economic partnerships to help each other grow their economies and societies to achieve the Millennium Developed Goals.

15. That this Resolution serves as a warning and a Notice to the Nigerian government, the International community, including all the northern states of Nigeria that henceforth, if any Igbo or indeed any Southerner or Middle Beltan Nigerian is ever attacked or killed again anywhere in the north in a hate or xenophobic attack, we shall declare our Independence within three months.

This is not a threat but self preservation.

That since the Arewa youths have given the Igbos (that implies all southerners, we are not fooled) three months notice to vacate their Nigeria, we give all northern oil bloc owners three months notice from October 1, 2017 for them to leave the Niger Delta Region or face unpredictable adverse consequences.

17. That we are now ready to take our destiny in our own hands and end this parasitic forced marriage of perpetual disaster since 1914.

18. That we in the Region of Niger Delta declare today 07.06.2017 as the commencement date for our Independence struggle.

19. That the minimum demand for negotiation is arrest, prosecution and conviction of all those who were involved in the provocative treasonable felony. Condemning their action or threat to arrest them will not suffice this time.

20. That we wish to declare to the troublesome northerners that Enough is Enough."

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In a similar vein, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) worldwide has lashed out at the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) for including the Niger Delta region in its Biafra map.

MASSOB and other pro-Biafra group have been agitating for an independent Biafra state and has insisted that the Niger Delta region was part of its territory.

However, in a statement issued on Tuesday, June 6, the IYC through its spokesperson, Barr. Henry Iyalla, said while it recognised the Biafra struggle, their agitation predates the south east own.

The Ijaw group said it has a separate and distinct identity to the Igbo people and therefore wasnt part of its territory.

The group said: we wish to state clearly that the Ijaw and Niger Delta struggle for self-determination predates the Biafra agitations.

It is on record that even before the Biafra declaration of independence in 1967, Major Jasper Adaka Boro during the twelve days revolution declared a Niger- Delta Republic in 1966. This was before the advent and struggle for the actualization of Biafra."

Below is Legit.ng video in which IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, speaks from court.

Source: Legit.ng
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- The chairman of Ohaneze Youths Council (OYC) in Bayelsa, Chief Chinedu Arthur-Ugwa, calls on members of the group to remain law abiding and peaceful across the nation

- Chinedu Arthur-Ugwa urges Igbos to disregard a quit notice purportedly issued to Ndigbo by the Arewa youths to leave the northern part of the country

- The OYC chairman says there is no cause to panic over the notice

The leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo will soon makes its position known on the three month eviction notice issued to Igbos in northern Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Jonathan sends powerful message to Nigerians after north issues quit notice to Igbos

The chairman of Ohaneze Youths Council (OYC) in Bayelsa, Chief Chinedu Arthur-Ugwa, disclosed this on Thursday, June 8, when urging members of the group to remain law abiding and peaceful across the nation.

Arthur-Ugwa, according to Vanguard, called on Igbos to disregard a quit notice purportedly issued to Ndigbo by the Arewa youths to leave the northern parts of the country, on the grounds that investigations had showed that the purported quit order had no basis.

He said: The leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo under the leadership of Chief Nnia Nwodo is on top of the situation and there is no cause for alarm following assurances from northern leaders, our people have no need to fear.

In the coming days, the leadership of Ohaneze will take a position but we in the youth wing of Ohaneze urge our people to refrain from panic because there is simply no need for it.

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The Ohaneze Ndigbo has been working tirelessly to strengthen the bond of unity amongst Ndigbo and their hosts across the country and that has yielded peace and harmony across ethnic divides."

The OYC chairman said the assurances also been given by the minister of interior, retired Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau, on the issue was further proof that there was no cause for alarm.

Meanwhile, the police in Kaduna have launched a manhunt for Arewa youths who signed a declaration issuing a 90-day ultimatum to Igbos in the north to leave.

Legit.ng had reported that a coalition of northern youths in what they tagged Kaduna Declaration on Tuesday, June 6, ordered Igbos to vacate and return to the south east.

In response, Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna state ordered the arrest and prosecution of the signatories of the quit notice.

The state government in a statement issued by Samuel Aruwan, the spokesman to the governor of Kaduna state on Wednesday, June 7, condemned what it described as inciting, hate speech targeted at citizens of Igbo extraction.

The government therefore ordered investigation and prosecution of the signatories to the statement issuing the quit notice to the Igbos in the north.

Following the Biafra Day celebrations, Legit.ng TV asked some Nigerians if they believed the Biafra Republic will be achieved in the nearest future. Check out what they had to say.

Source: Legit.ng
- Militant group, New Delta Avenger, vow to resume bloody attacks on the oil industry in Delta state effective from midnight June 30, 2017

- The group says it is putting the federal government and oil companies operating in the state on notice over the proposed attacks

- The militants accuse Governor Ifeanyi Okowas administration of neglecting oil producing areas in Delta state

While the nation is still grappling with the tension caused by a quit notice issued Igbos residing in the northern part of the county, militants in the Niger Delta have threatened to resume attacks on oil exploration activities in Delta state.

READ ALSO: Jonathan sends powerful message to Nigerians after north issues quit notice to Igbos

A militant group, New Delta Avengers, which issued the threat on Wednesday, June 7, warned that effective from midnight June 30, 2017, it would resume bloody attacks on the oil industry in the state, The Guardian reports.

Spokesman of the group, Cpl Oleum Bellum, said they were putting the federal government and oil companies  local and multinationals  operating in the state on notice over the proposed attacks tagged Operation Cripple Oil and Gas Production."

The group, which claimed to be ex-militants cautioned that those who try their resolve would be made a scape goat.

The statement issued by the group read: From the oil producing parts of Delta State, this morning, June the 6th 2017, converge in Delta State, we have agreed to resume attacks on oil facilities, resurrect the spirit of insurgency and to make a demand for a better deal for our people, and by extension our beloved Delta State. We will do this through bloody attacks, crippling of oil industry in the state.

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We watched the activities, policies of Governor Ifeanyi Okowas administration these past two years and we have found that, like the biblical Pharaoh, only extraordinary actions can soften his hardened heart towards the oil producing areas of the state. While developments are going on in rivers and other states, oil communities in Delta have been stagnant.

As a result, we have decided to take up arms and return to the essence of our agitation for the development of oil producing communities in the state. Our return to the creeks starts on the 7th day of June, 2017. This campaign shall be bloody, destructive and vengeful.

Meanwhile, the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, has ordered the Commissioner of Police (CP) in Kaduna state to investigate and arrest members of the Coalition of Northern Youths for issuing ultimatum to South Easterners living in the North.

The I-G gave the order at a meeting with Commissioners of Police and other high ranking officers on Thursday in Abuja.

He warned that no individual or group of persons had the right to ask any individual to leave his or her place of residence in any part of the country.

He ordered other state commissioners of police in the North and Assistant Inspectors -General of Police in the various zonal commands to do same.

In the Legit.ng video below, acting president, Yemi Osinbajo, said Nigeria is greater together than apart.

Source: Legit.ng
- The three-month notice handed to Igbos in the north to quit has continued to cause tension across the Nigeria

- Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi said his state is very safe for Igbo people just as he promised to ensure their security

Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi has urged Igbo people in the state to remain calm as they remain partners-in-progress.

In reaction to a three-month notice on the people of the south-east to quit the north, Governor Bello also promised to continue to protect the interest of the Igbo people in the state.

Speaking through his spokesperson, Kingsly Fanwo, in Lokoja, the capital of the state, Bello said: As a nation, our strength has always been embedded in our unity in diversity.

Nigeria is home to all and we must continue to see ourselves as brothers and sisters in a united nation.

Ethnic segregation is unacceptable to humanity and we must continue to wax stronger and unbroken as a nation. The God that created Nigeria is a God who believes in the strength of unity.

READ ALSO: Jonathan sends powerful message to Nigerians after north issues quit notice to Igbos

The Kogi state government under the leadership of Alh Yahaya Bello wishes to assure all Igbos that they are not only safe in the state, but that the administration will continue to consider Igbos resident in the state as partners in the New Direction Agenda of the government.

Igbos should go about the legitimate businesses in the state as they continue to contribute to our economy as a state and a people.

With the appointment of Igbos into strategic positions in Kogi state, we are making a strong case for social integration in Nigeria.

Let me once more salute the courage and nationalism of the Kaduna state governor who has shown with his recent actions that Kaduna will remain the home of all nationalities, he said.

Asking the leaders in the north to continue to defend the interest of the country by securing the lives of the people of other tribes, Bello said: As we strive to move out of the economic recession in Nigeria, bloodbaths would only compound the situation.

We are the same before God and we should always play up the factors that unite us. We can only be strong when we are united.

He also begged Nigerians to continue to pray for the full recovery of President Muhammadu Buhari.

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President Buhari has sacrificed a lot to ensure we remain a respected nation in the comity of nations.

Nigerians should pray for his full recovery as he is determined to tame corruption and drive the nation toward prosperity, responsibility and respectability."

Meanwhile, Legit.ng also reports that an elderstatesman and leader in the north, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, has warned leaders in the region to begin to prepare for the eventual breakup of the country.

I have been having this conviction right from 1953 and my position remains the same till today. But, it will be foolhardy to sit idly by in the face of one agitation after another.

In a period of uncertainty, it is wrong to assume everything is normal.

It is better to have as many options as possible at your disposal," he said.

Is Biafra really achievable? Watch this video:

Source: Legit.ng
- The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, says the high level of corruption, economic downturn and insecurity did not make the current administration contemplate restructuring

- Lai Mohammed states that upon resumption of the administration, its focus was on the fight against corruption, insecurity and to fix the economy

- The minister dismisses the perception in certain quarters that the governments anti-corruption fight is one sided or targeted at opposition

The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, has said restructuring the country could not have been the priority of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration given the challenges it inherited upon resuming office.

READ ALSO: South east governors hold emergency meeting following Arewa youths' quit notice to Igbos

Lai Mohammed made the disclosure on Thursday, June 8, when he featured on Focus Nigeria current affairs programme of African Independent Television (AIT), anchored by Gbenga Aruleba, Premium Times reports.

According to Mohammed, the high level of corruption, economic downturn, insecurity, particularly with the activities of Boko Haram, could not have made the government contemplate restructuring.

The minister said upon resumption of the administration, it focused on the fight against corruption, insecurity and the economy which formed the basis of its campaign.

He said two years after its inauguration, the administration had succeeded on the three campaign promises.

The minister dismissed the perception in certain quarters, that the governments anti-corruption fight was one sided or targeted at opposition.

He said that anywhere there was anti-corruption fight, corruption would fight back and the tensions being experienced in the country could be linked to it.

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Meanwhile, Nigerian security agencies have been put on alert by the federal government over the eviction notice issued by a coalition of Northern groups to Igbos living in the northern region of Nigeria.

Lai Mohammed, disclosed this on Wednesday, June 7, when answering questions from journalist shortly after the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mohammed said that such statement by the northern groups was capable of destabilising the country.

The minister however, assured Nigerians that security agencies are on top of the matter.

Watch a Legit.ng TV video below of acting president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo speaking about the importance of the unity of Nigeria.

Source: Legit.ng
- Ijaw youths of the Niger Delta are seeking friendship with youths of middle belt region of Nigeria

- The needed friendship is predicated on the region youths dissociation from the quit notice issued to Igbos to quit the northern states within three months

- The youths said the present Nigeria is suffocating and that restructuring was needed to make the nation work

Following the dissociation of Middle Belt youths from the quit notice issued by a faction of Northern youths to Igbos resident in the North, the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) on Thursday said it is extending a hand of fellowship to the youths of the region.

In a statement made available to Legit.ng, President of the IYC, Eric Omare, commended the Middle Belt youths for dissociating themselves from the quit notice, saying the middle belt position made available by Emma Zopmal was an indication of maturity and respect for Nigerians from different parts of the country to express opinion as to the structure of Nigeria.

Omare, who came hard on the present structural arrangement of Nigeria, said the country as it is presently is suffocating and is in dire need of urgent surgery to reconstruct it so as to achieve unity, peace and progress, the motto of the nation.

The IYC president said: It is in this light that we are gladdened by the expression of support for self-determination by the Middle Belt Youth Council.

READ ALSO: Let us leave Nigeria now - Igbos thank northern youths for quit notice

This is a clear message to the caliphate north and the Hausa/Fulani oligarchy that no amount of intimidation and threat would stop the movement for the restructuring of Nigeria for it to work.

The Ijaw nation and the Niger Delta people express solidarity and extend hands of friendship to the Middle Belt Youth Council and the people of the middle belt for being their brothers keepers and for their support for self-determination.

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In the days ahead, there shall be robust engagement in coordinating our respective independent struggles towards achieving peaceful self-determination for the people of the Niger Delta, Middle Belt, South East and any other part of Nigeria desirous of self-determination.

Watch this Legit.ng video and ascertain the possibility of achieving Biafra after 50 years

Source: Legit.ng
- Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state met with the top officials from the United Nations in his office in Port Harcourt

- Governor Wike lamented that one year after the clean-up of Ogoni was launched, the situation in the area has remained the same

Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike of Rivers state has pleaded with the leadership of the United Nations to prevail on the federal government to implement the clean up of Ogoni-land.

The clean-up was flagged off in 2016 by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.

Legit.ng learnt that Wike spoke at the Government House, Port Harcourt on Thursday, June 8 when he granted audience to the United Nations Resident/Humanitarian coordinator, Mr Edward Kallon.

The governor regretted that nothing has so far been done on the Ogoni clean up.

According to Wike, the large scale environmental pollution in different parts of the state leads to environmental degradation, which negatively affects the sources of livelihood of the people.

He further said the clean-up of Ogoni land should not be politicized, as it dwells directly on the development of the area.

READ ALSO: South east governors hold emergency meeting following Arewa youths' quit notice to Igbos

"Yesterday in the Senate, somebody said that the Federal Government has not done anything as far as Ogoni clean up is concerned.

"When we were saying it, they said we were playing politics. But now, it has dawned on them that nothing is being done. So, we urge you to intervene.

"Part of the problem we are having today is because of the lack of attention by the Federal Government when it has to do with Rivers state.

"We will provide you with Helicopter to see what we are talking about. Don't only read it on papers. You will really pity us," he said.

A statement from Wike's office said the governor added: "The federal government has taken our oil and our environment has been degraded. Nothing seems to be done.

"We urge you on your own part as the United Nations to impress on the federal government that this clean up is very serious.

"Let it not be a political issue. We should not play politics with the lives of the people."

He also called on the United Nations to partner with the state government in the area of commercial agriculture adding that because of the volatile nature of oil prices, investments in the agric sector would help create jobs for unemployed youths.

Governor Wike urged the United Nations to provide a link for investors in commercial agriculture to come to the state, adding that his administration will provide incentives such as access to land and certificate of occupancy.

Soliciting for partnership in the area of environmental sanitation, Governor Wike declared that his administration places premium on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The governor informed the United Nations that his administration has improved security through the diligent implementation of the state amnesty programme.

Governor Wike said that the state government was working with relevant agencies to improve human rights and decongest the prisons.

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Mr Edward Kallon had earlier lauded Governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike for his infrastructural development.

Kallon said this had improved the living condition of the people.

He promised that the United Nations would continue to mobilise support for the development of Rivers state.

He also assured that the United Nations would partner with the Rivers state government in the area of agriculture as a tool of employment generation and empowerment.

In a related development, Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has approached the Federal High Court, Abuja for a restraining order to stop the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris and two other security agencies from carrying a search on his Abuja residence or any other nationwide.

Who will you vote for between Muhammadu Buhari and Governor Ayodele Fayose? Watch this video:

Source: Legit.ng
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The Air Force has selected SpaceX to launch the secretive X-37B unmanned spaceplane on its fifth mission to orbit, according to Spaceflight Now. The Falcon 9 Upgrade or Full Thrust that will be used is taller and more powerful than previous versions of SpaceXs primary launch vehicle. The Full Thrust has been launched before, carrying large payloads such as one of the Inmarsat-5 satellites.

The Air Force has two X-37Bs, and these reusable, uncrewed orbital vehicles generally spend hundreds of days in orbit at a time. During the crafts fourth and most recent mission, it orbited the planet for 718 days before landing on a runway used by the space shuttle program at NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida last month.

The X-37B spaceplane, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), is similar in shape to NASAs space shuttle but about a fourth of the size.


NYFA Screenwriting Alumnas "The Dark of Night" Directed by Robin Wright Premieres at Cannes

May 30, 2017 Denise Meyers began her career in Los Angeles as a literary agent assistant at the William Morris Agency in 1982. While she knew she didnt want to pursue the career of an agent, she soon realized that screenwriting was her true calling.



"I thought that since Id watched hundreds of movies growing up, I understood what went in to a good screenplay," said Meyers in an interview with the Black List. "I wasnt a terrible writer, but I wasnt a great writer either."



After 12 years of exhausting her contacts with her material and getting nowhere fast, Meyers moved onto a different career as a gourd artist, but, at the end of the day, her heart wasnt in it as much as screenwriting.



"I set a goal for myself to learn how to write screenplays the way they are supposed to be written, with no expectation that I would ever get any farther in the film business than I had ever been before," said Meyers. "I wanted to master the art form, in the same way I taught myself how to work with gourds."



Meyers took advantage of an 8-Week Screenwriting scholarship at the New York Film Academy Los Angeles, where she hoped to truly master the craft.



"I won an eight-week screenwriting scholarship to NYFA a few years ago, and the experience was invaluable," she said. "I use everything I learned at NYFA in every script I have written since then, and it has helped elevate my career beyond what it was before."



Since attending NYFA, Meyers has won a number of screenwriting competitions, including a spot on the Athena List (with a script she wrote at NYFA), the Atlanta Film Festival, Table Read My Screenplay Austin, and several others.



From there, she wrote a short screenplay called "The Dark of Night," which won the grand prize at Table Read My Screenplay Austin in 2015.



"Denise Carlson, an instructor at NYFA, told me about a short script writing contest she had plans to participate in called the NYC Midnight Short Screenwriting Contest," Meyers recalls. "Twelve hundred people from across the globe signed up to participate, so there were groups of 40 people each who were given a genre, a character and a setting. My group received the following prompts; suspense, a diner, and an unemployed man or woman. We had eight days to write 12 pages, then, if we survived each heat, we were given a new genre, character and setting. I came up with the idea almost immediately, though God knows where it came from. The story is set in 1930. A woman on her way to Chicago for a job interview seeks refuge in the diner where she encounters a waitress, a drifter, and a cop, each with dark and dangerous secret."



Meyers gave the script to Robin Wrights assistant and, before she knew it, she was getting a call from Wright who wanted to direct the film, along with some of her cast members from "House of Cards." In fact, 80 crew members from "House of Cards" signed on to work on the film including the director of photography, Dave Dunlap, and costume designer, Jessica Wenger. Boris Maldin, the producer of "House of Cards," loaned his cameras and equipment.



After that, Leslie Bibb, Sam Rockwell, Callie Thorne and Michael Godere signed on to act in the film for scale.



Meyers "The Dark of Night" recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The black and white film noir is about a woman seeking refuge from a storm who takes matters into her own hands when she encounters a drifter and a waitress at an isolated diner where everyone has a secret and nothing is what it seems.



Meyers says she just finished a one-hour pilot episode based on "The Dark of Night" that she is developing with TV producer Michelle Rubenstein. She also completed a new feature about Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney that she hopes to get in front of Brad Pitt, and is currently working on a World War II drama about a battle in the Pacific that only a handful of people know about. Finally, shes working on a web series based on her experiences as an award-winning screenwriter who still fixes toilets for a living.









Please note: NYFA does not represent that these are typical or guaranteed career outcomes. The success of our graduates in any chosen professional pathway depends on multiple factors, and the achievements of NYFA alumni are the result of their hard work, perseverance, talent and circumstances.
Nebraska political party leaders sparred Thursday before hundreds of Boys State and Girls State students, offering different perspectives about the independence of the nonpartisan Legislature and the pathway to budget stability and growth in the state.

Democratic State Chair Jane Kleeb raised concerns about Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts' 2016 campaign funding support for conservative Republican candidates who challenged and ousted incumbent state senators who were more moderate Republicans.

That equated to an effort to "buy legislative seats," Kleeb said, and "we have got to fix that."

Republican state executive director Kenny Zoeller countered that the governor's funding support was not excessive or overwhelming in determining the outcome of those legislative contests and the results tended to tip the Legislature "more conservative, back to what Nebraskans believe."

The 2017 Legislature was "more ideological, not more partisan," he suggested.

Zoeller praised the governor's efforts to reduce taxes while sharply reducing the growth of state government with an austere state budget that responded to declining state revenue.

That's the formula for future economic prosperity and growth in the state, he said.

Kleeb raised the spectre of Kansas, which had pursued a similar philosophy under Gov. Sam Brownback before its legislature sharply reversed course this week with enactment of tax increases over the governor's veto after his policies failed to spur economic growth.

"That's the poster child for the Ricketts tax plan," Kleeb said.

Brownback's plan "did not produce jobs," she said, but it did create a record budget deficit and reduced education funding.

Zoeller responded that "Kansas is not what Nebraska is proposing."

The Ricketts proposal would "slowly lower the top (income tax) rate over time," he said, with a built-in proviso that requires growth in state revenue before tax cuts would be triggered.

Both party leaders attracted applause from hundreds of high school juniors who participate in the annual Boys State and Girls State events.

"One party does not have all the answers," Zoeller told the students.

"We need more young people with diverse ideas and big ideas," Kleeb said.

Zoeller said the GOP believes that local control and local government are the best solutions to most issues; Kleeb said the Democratic Party is leading the way on critical issues like health care reform and climate change.

Sadly, Kleeb said, "the partisan divide is so toxic now that we are unable to get basic agreement" on fundamental issues that are important to the country and its future.
An 89-year-old North Platte man was killed early Thursday when he drove the wrong way on Interstate 80 in Dawson County and collided with a pickup.

Deloyce Robinson entered the westbound lanes of I-80 at about 1 a.m. and hit a pickup driven by Nicholas Yonce, 28, of Garner, North Carolina.

Robinson, who was not wearing a seat belt, was killed in the accident, which happened one-half mile west of Cozad.

Yonce, who was wearing a seat belt, was treated at the Cozad hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
From Global Research



If you were going to arrange a political assassination in an indoor crowded setting, would you have one of your operatives (not the assassin) at the murder site be a strikingly curvaceous young woman in a conspicuous white dress with black polka-dots, and then have her flee the scene, yelling, "We've shot him, we've shot him," so that multiple witnesses would see and hear her as she made her escape?

Would you have the same woman earlier in the day pick up a salesman in the hotel where the assassination was planned, spend the day with him driving around and having dinner together, while repeatedly inviting (i.e. luring) him to join her later that night at a big public event where they will shoot their famous victim, whom she names?

Would you have your operative tell this man that, although she wasn't staying at the hotel, and although she had been in town only three days, having flown from NYC where she had arrived from overseas, that she knew the hotel stair routes very well, including an unobtrusive one that she shows the man?

Would you have this woman tell this man that a few days earlier she had met with a very famous political operative (whom she names), diametrically opposed to your victim's political philosophy, and that she would need to flee the country after the assassination and would like the man's help?

Would you have your operative in the tight dress so conspicuously lay down a trail of breadcrumbs from morning until night, until she made her escape, never to be found despite having been seen by more than a dozen credible witnesses at the shooting site?

I think you would agree that you would have to be extremely stupid to plan an assassination in this manner, except if you were extremely devious, and the voluptuous stand-out girl was part of your intricate plot to create a false lead to someone other than the assassins.

This is exactly what happened when Senator Robert Kennedy, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, was shot shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, after celebrating his victory in the California Democratic Primary. The woman in question came to be known as "the girl in the polka-dot dress," but unlike the ways we associate girls with innocence, this woman was a key player in hideous evil.

While many people are aware that President John Kennedy was killed five years earlier in a conspiracy organized by U.S. intelligence operatives and that Lee Harvey Oswald was the "patsy" that he said he was, far fewer realize that Robert Kennedy was also killed as a result of a conspiracy and that the convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan did not kill RFK. In fact, not one bullet from his gun struck the senator. Sirhan was standing in front of Kennedy when, as the autopsy definitively showed, RFK was shot from the rear at point-blank range, three bullets entering his body, with the fatal head-shot coming upward at a 45-degree angle from 1-3 inches behind his right ear. In addition, an audio recording shows that many more bullets than the eight in Sirhan's gun were fired in the hotel pantry that night. It was impossible for Sirhan to have killed RFK.

While Sirhan still sits in prison to this day, the real killers of Senator Kennedy went free that night. For anyone who studies the case with an impartial eye (see this, this, this, this, and this), the evidence is overwhelming that there was a very sophisticated conspiracy at work, one that continued long after as police, FBI, intelligence agencies, and the legal system covered up the true nature of the crime. That Sirhan was hypnotized to play his part as seeming assassin is also abundantly clear.

But it is not my intention here to detail all the facts of the case that still scream out for justice, as do the linked assassinations of JFK and MLK. In fact, referring to the Kennedy assassination is a misnomer; we should speak of the Kennedy assassinations, since JFK wasn't the only one.

I would like to focus on the so-called "girl in the polka-dot dress," and ask you to think along with me as we explore why she was so conspicuous that day and night, and what function she may have served. I know you will agree that it is counterintuitive for her to have behaved the way she did. Counterintuitive for the general public, that is.

The best detailed day-to-day account of this mysterious girl is in the book linked to above by Fernando Faura, The Polka-Dot File: on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing (see my review here). Faura writes, "Seconds after the shooting stopped, a young woman in a polka-dot dress ran out of the kitchen, past Sandra Serrano [see video], a Kennedy campaign worker. The woman shouted, 'We shot him, we shot him.' Asked who they shot, the woman replied, 'Kennedy,' and ran into the morning darkness, never to be found." Although Serrano was interviewed by Sandy Vanocur of NBC News on live TV at 1:30 AM shortly after the shooting, she -- as well as other eyewitnesses to this girl -- was browbeaten by the police to retract her story, yet she never did. The police shut down its pursuit of this girl, despite all the witnesses. The LAPD officer in charge of the investigation, Lt. Manny Pena, was CIA connected, having worked for U.S. AID and been recently brought back to control the investigation. So too was the brutal interrogator, Sgt. Hank Hernandez, CIA affiliated.

It is obvious that this girl was part of a conspiracy to kill Robert Kennedy and that it is equally obvious that she was meant to stand out, be seen, and to be heard shouting what she did. Why?

Logically it follows that she was meant to create false leads, and generate mystery when there was none. Writing of the JFK assassination, Vince Salandria, the eminent and early critic of the government's false conspiracy story, has recently said something quite appropriate to the RFK case and this girl: "The Kennedy assassination is a false mystery. It was conceived by the conspirators to be a false mystery, which was designed to cause interminable debate. The purpose of the protracted debate was to obscure what was quite clearly and plainly a coup d'e'tat". President Kennedy was assassinated by our national-security state." While far fewer people have yet to question the false narrative in the RFK case, when or if they do they will find that the polka-dot girl's actions and her disappearance could keep them guessing for a long time, and that that guessing will lead away from the obvious and essential truth.

The investigative journalist Robert Parry has written about how Richard Nixon sabotaged a possible peace accord in Vietnam in the summer/fall of 1968. This he did through an intermediary, right-wing Republican Chinese e'migre' Anna Chennault, wife of General Claire Chennault, legendary founder of the Flying Tigers. Parry explains, "Nixon's gambit was to have Chennault pass on word to South Vietnamese President Thieu that if he boycotted Johnson's Paris peace talks -- thus derailing the negotiations -- Nixon would assure Thieu continued U.S. military support for the war." This treachery has been confirmed. Having stumbled on Parry's work in 2014, the reporter Fernando Faura was startled to find himself connecting the girl in the polka-dot dress to Anna Chennault and to Nixon. This was because he remembered that the man, John Fahey, who had spent all day with the girl on June 4, 1968, and dropped her off in the evening at the Ambassador Hotel, had told him that the political operative she had met with three days before the assassination was Anna Chennault. Faura speculates that perhaps Nixon was therefore connected to RFK's assassination because he feared that, if Robert Kennedy were to become the Democratic presidential nominee, he would push to end the Vietnam War and would be more likely that anyone else to defeat him in the general election. He speculates that the "peace talks" conspiracy might have been the origin of the Kennedy killing; that the two conspiracies were connected.

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From Reader Supported News

The arrest this week of NSA contractor Reality Winner on Espionage Act charges of providing national defense information to The Intercept is the clearest evidence to date that President Donald Trump intends to continue former president Barack Obama's war on whistleblowers and transparency. It also calls into question the professionalism of The Intercept's journalists, as well as the professional integrity of reporters Richard Esposito and Matthew Cole.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have a history with both Esposito and Cole. Esposito and I were friends for many years, and we worked together at ABC News from 2008 to 2009 and again from 2011 to 2012. My history with Cole is far more sordid. Cole approached me in 2008 to say that he was writing a book on the CIA's rendition program. He sent me a list of a dozen names and asked if I could introduce him to anybody on the list. I told him truthfully that I was not involved in renditions and that I did not know anybody on the list. He followed up with a second list, and then a third. I finally said that he obviously knew the issue far better than I did and that I just couldn't be helpful. Finally, he said, "What about the guy you mentioned in your [first] book? I think his name was 'John.'" I said, "You're talking about John Doe. He must be retired by now and living somewhere in Virginia." That conversation was a crime. I confirmed the name of a former colleague to Cole. Even though I had no idea that colleague was still undercover, it was still a felony.

But the story gets much worse. As it turned out, Cole was never working on any book. Instead, he was secretly acting as an investigator for the Guantanamo defense attorneys. He took John Doe's name, sent it to a fellow investigator, John Sifton, and Sifton sent it to the attorneys. The attorneys then put the name in a sealed, classified motion asking the judge for permission to interview Doe. The Guantanamo judge immediately recognized that the name was classified and he called the FBI. The FBI subpoenaed the defense attorneys' emails and traced one back to Sifton. Sifton either cooperated with the FBI (he later testified against me in the grand jury) or the FBI subpoenaed his emails, and traced the information back to Cole.

The next step is still a mystery. The FBI either subpoenaed Cole's emails -- those of a working journalist -- or Cole ratted me out to the FBI. Neither Cole nor the FBI have ever said what happened.

And it wasn't just me who Cole manipulated. In the course of my case, my investigators found 10 pages of handwritten notes from Cole, provided to us by a friendly attorney, wherein Cole had spoken with a disgruntled former CIA employee who had eventually given him the names of 10 different undercover CIA officers. Cole also passed these names to the Guantanamo defense attorneys, whose investigators then photographed these officers at a secret CIA site so that the Guantanamo detainees they represented could identify them. That's not journalism. It's activism. It's also highly unethical.

Fast-forward seven years. The Intercept promotes itself as the go-to place for national security whistleblowers. The outlet even has its PGP encryption keys on its website, where it encourages national security professionals to send in classified documents. That's a great idea and one that I support fully. Apparently, that's what Reality Winner did. She sent The Intercept an NSA analysis of Russian involvement in hacking related to the 2016 presidential election. Esposito and Cole, however, in an ill-advised attempt to "authenticate" the document, sent it to one of their "NSA contacts," who immediately alerted authorities. Winner was arrested mere hours after the Esposito/Cole article was published.

How did the FBI zero in on Winner so quickly? Admittedly, she made mistakes. She initially contacted The Intercept from a work computer. And when she finally sent the document in, she left identifying information on it. More importantly -- and this is something that every journalist who purports to be a specialist in national security ought to know -- NSA marks every single document with microscopic tags. When an NSA employee prints a document, there are tiny markings indicating that that specific employee has printed it. When Esposito and Cole showed a copy of the original document. to their NSA contact, they had sealed Winner's fate.

And now Winner faces charges under the Espionage Act, a 1917 law designed to combat spies and saboteurs. It's like using an iron fist to kill a fly. As recently as the Clinton administration, such revelations of classified information were dealt with administratively and internally. When I was at the CIA, I worked with a woman who was accused of providing classified information on Iran to a CNN reporter with whom she was having an affair. The leak was traced to her, she admitted passing the information, and she was suspended without pay for six weeks and barred from promotion for three years. Her career eventually recovered, and she was promoted into the Senior Intelligence Service. There was no Espionage Act prosecution for her.

We now know where Trump stands on whistleblower issues. He stands with Obama. He stands as an enemy of transparency. Let me be clear: Reality Winner is a whistleblower. I don't care what her motivation for disclosing the document was. It's irrelevant. What is relevant is that the American people have a right to know what she revealed. Why is it a secret that the Russians were working to elect Donald Trump? There is a public interest in disseminating that information.

Winner faces the possibility of many years in prison. But what she did was heroic. The American people will come to recognize that. And in the meantime, she's going to take her place in a long line of truth-tellers. Esposito and Cole, meanwhile, should see the unemployment line.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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PYD and YPG experience must be used by PJAK and KODAR Kurdish forces to protect Kurds in Iran after the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic of Iran is surrounded by forces to bring them down sooner than later.

The bloody history of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his followers is not forgivable by the majority of Iranian people. Persian traitors sided with every power who control Iran in last 2500 years.

The enemies of Median (Kurdish) Royal Family used Persian of Tamil traitors to overthrow Bardiya, son of Cyrus the great, as the last king of the Median Empire in year 522 BC or BCE. Persian of Tamil under the leadership of Darius, son of Hystaspes (Darius I founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire), betrayed Median (Kurdish) Royal Family by joining enemies of Medes. The Median (Kurdish) Royal Family used Persian of Tamil as the servant for a generation. And Persian of Tamil traitors learn how to serve powerful individual as ruler of Iran and then abuse Kurds in last 2500 years. They even served Alexander the Great who conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire to abuse Kurds. In recent histories they served Safavid Kurdish dynasty, Qajar Turkish dynasty, Reza Shah Kurdish Pahlavi of Pahlavi dynasty and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Sayyid Arab families to abuse Kurds in Iran.

Today PJAK and KODAR Kurdish forces that are using the philosophy of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan to protect Kurds from Persian of Tamil lead Kurds of Iran. They are similar to PYD and YPG of Syrian Kurds of Rojava.

KCK's Hozat: ISIS will receive the lethal blow in Raqqa

click here

PJAK and KODAR Kurdish forces can take over Iran from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The majority of Iranian people are descendants of Medes (Kurds), and Abdullah Ocalan philosophy is good for all Iranian too. To stabilize Iran after the fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the US must help only PJAK and KODAR Kurdish forces in the similar way they are helping PYD and YPG now.

PKK forces are fighting Islamist Turks in Turkey now.

The peace and stability can be restored with the defeat of Islamist terrorist forces in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Erdogan of Turkey and Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei of Iran are the leaders of Islamic terror in the Middle East. Only educated Kurds by Abdullah Ocalan philosophy can defeat them in the region.
This is a reprint from NewsBred.

So we read this comic-tragic news the other day that Rahul Gandhi is reading Bhagwad Gita and Upanashids to counter Rashtriya Swayam Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in his political battle. (So, at least he has moved from the "RSS killed Gandhi" platform.)

It's comical for Bhagwad Gita and Upanishids are meant for self-advancement in the realm of spirituality. It's not for debating points. It's tragic because this bachelor wants to lead India's destiny without the slightest idea of its heritage.

Rahul is free to follow the religion or philosophy of his liking. But it isn't too smart for him to show his ignorance. It betrays how little initiation in country's heritage he has had, both at his home or in the schools he went.

It's an educated guess that Sonia Gandhi, and by inference her husband late Raajiv Gandhi, has had little appreciation of India's sacred texts. Indira Gandhi probably carried the indifference of her father Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru who was scornful of India's cultural traditions.

It's fair to argue that a political leader shouldn't align himself with any religion in a country of many faiths so as to appear unbiased. But Bhagwad Gita is about Dharma--and not religion. Dharma advocates the righteous way for an individual which the Western colonists cleverly implied it with religion. You were thus forced to be ambivalent about your own glorious past lest you appeared communal and non-secular.

This heinous ploy by the West did two things: One, it helped create a republic where in the name of "secularism" India was made to appear shameful if it owned up its magnificent past. Two, it helped to put one community against the other. A weak India is what the West has always wanted.

Rahul Gandhi displays a typically "colonized mind." Swami Vivekananda mirrored such individuals of confused identity succinctly:

"The child is taken to school, and the first thing he learns is that his father is a fool, the second thing that his grandfather is a lunatic, the third thing that all his teachers are hypocrites, the fourth, that all the sacred books are lies! By the time he is sixteen, he is a mass of negation, lifeless and boneless."

India suffered terribly at the hands of Muslims invaders and British colonizers. But there was a difference. Muslim rulers did coerce locals to take up Islam. However, they never tried to control Indians' mind. British were more sinister. From the start, they set about systematically denigrating India's past, its achievements, its scriptures and customs. They introduced the fake Aryan Invasion Theory. And courtesy the Macaulay Doctrine, they set about wiping out the land's own heritage with its monstrous education policy. Today, before knowing anything about India, the children recite "Humpty-Dumpty" in front of doting parents. Higher education is no different. As celebrated Indologist Michel Danino writes:

"There is no mention of India's seminal achievements: the decimal place-value system; that the so-called Gregory series, Pell's equation or the fundamentals of combinatorics were anticipated by several centuries by Indian mathematicians of the Siddhantic period; or that Indian astronomers of the same era had developed powerful algorithms that enabled them to calculate planetary positions and the occurrences of eclipses with an excellent degree of precision.

"It is equally hard to accept that medical students should know nothing of Indian systems of medicine such as Aryuveda or Siddha, of proven efficacy for a wide range of disorders and even serious diseases.

"If the topic is psychology, the Western variety alone will be taken up, completely eclipsing the far deeper psychological system offered by yoga.

"Water harvesting is taught as if it were a new contribution from the West, even if it was widely practiced from Harappan times onward.

"One could go on (in the same manner) with metallurgy, chemistry, textiles, transport and a host of other technologies."

It is no wonder that any attempt to revise school books is met with serious opposition today. Indian languages are called "vernacular" whose root meaning is 'belonging to native slave.'

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Just follow the lies".

"President Trump doesn't understand Watergate; he hasn't learned anything from it." -- Former Watergate Prosecutor Nick Akerman





"The slow rising central horror of "Watergate" is not that it might grind down to the reluctant impeachment of a vengeful thug of a president whose entire political career has been a monument to the same kind of cheap shots and treachery he finally got nailed for, but that we might somehow fail to learn from it." -- Hunter Thompson





With all that is currently unknown about the possibility of collusion between donald trump and the Russians, there are, at this point, a few things that make for fairly easy assumptions. One of them is that Hunter Thompson is twisting in his grave -- again.

Another is that "President" donald trump -- clearly as a result of having learned absolutely nothing from the lessons of Watergate -- is now twisting in the wind.

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Doha, Qatar

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has defended Qatar after Saudi Arabia and several other countries severed diplomatic ties with it for supporting Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

President Erdogan is the Chairman of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Ironically, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya and Maldives are members of the OIC.

"Let me say at the outset that we do not think the sanctions against Qatar are good," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara. "Turkey will continue and will develop our ties with Qatar, as with all our friends who have supported us in the most difficult moments," he added alluding to last year's failed coup.

Erdogan was careful not to criticize Riyadh, calling on the member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council to "resolve their differences through dialogue." "Efforts to isolate Qatar ... will not solve any problem," said Erdogan, praising Doha's "cool-headedness" and "constructive approach".

Qatar is a member of the six-state Gulf Cooperation Council. Other GCC members are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

President Erdogan on Monday held phone calls with leaders of several Muslim and Western countries in a bid to find a solution to the diplomatic row between Qatar and five Arab states. "Our President, as the current head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, got actively involved in this [Qatar row] by having phone calls with both some Islamic countries and some Western countries, to resolve the issue," Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said.

The Kremlin press service said on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin and Erdogan discussed the situation in a phone call, urging all involved sides to engage in a dialogue to "develop compromise solutions in the interest of preserving peace and stability in the Persian Gulf region."

Turkish parliament approves troop deployment in Qatar

Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, an apparent move to support the Gulf Arab country when it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from Saudi Arabia and few other states.

The Turkish bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favor, largely with support from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and nationalist opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Officials from the AKP and MHP said the legislation would allow troops to be deployed to a Turkish base in Qatar, amid reports Turkey is also set to offer food and emergency supplies to the country.

Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installation in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. In 2016 Ahmet Davutoglu, the then Turkish prime minister, visited the base where 150 troops have already been stationed, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.

In an interview with Reuters in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, Turkey's ambassador to Qatar at the time, said 3,000 ground troops would eventually be deployed at the base, planned to serve primarily as a venue for joint training exercises.

Trump speaks to Qatar's emir

Trump spoke with the emir of Qatar on Wednesday and offered help in resolving the crisis, the White House said. "The president emphasized the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology" in his call with the emir, the White House said. Trump offered to help resolve the diplomatic crisis, including through a White House meeting.

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Terrorists struck Irans capital today, killing 12 twelve people and injuring 42. ISIS, the Wahhabist Sunni paramilitary organization, claimed credit.

The attacks occurred at two sites Wednesday morning: The Mausoleum and the Parliament building in Tehran. Gunmen dressed as women entered Parliament in mid-session and detonated an explosive. Members of the Iranian legislature recorded the event on their cameras. Shortly after, the Khomeini tomb was hit, ten miles south of the capital complex. Another suicide bomber struck. Iranian security forces were quick to respond.

The attacks horrified the Shiite country. The Times noted that When the Islamic State loses territory, it often creates a distraction by staging attacks abroad.

The Los Angeles Times noted that ISIS has clashed with Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, but Wednesdays attack marked the first time the group has struck deep in the heart of the worlds most powerful Shiite state. Irans military-industrial segment, the Revolutionary Guards, accused Saudi Arabia of backing the attacks.

What happens next? Iran has been attacked. So have we. We can learn from this tragedy. It doesnt have to be the same carousel of reprise and counter-reprise between us and the Middle East. We dont have to fight terrorism separately. As strange as it will sound to Western ears, Iran can be our ally in this moment. The government of Saudi Arabia makes noises about opposing ISIS, but they will never be able to adequately cut the root of the Islamic State. Their own authoritarian rule is the headwater of the pox.

Heres the background. Iran just re-elected their President, the reforming Hassan Rouhani. He will mount his second term with the mandate of election, the frank love of the people, and the seething hatred of the mullahs. Although part of the establishment, Rouhani is the best hope for change inside the Islamic Republic. Our nations message in the election was clear, Rahani said, Irans nation chose the path of interaction with the world, away from violence and extremism. The Iranian President helped secure the American-Iranian treaty with Obama. This would be the same agreement that Trump has threatened to dismantle during his free moments when he isnt teetering on the edge of indictment.

Forming a broad, anti-ISIS front with Iran is counterintuitive in Washington these days. The Beltway Establishment specifically, and the Western Establishment generally, has never forgiven Iran for ejecting Old Man Shah. Every blood-lusted moron in Washington, from Bill Kristol on down to the war-liberals, has been baying at the moon since 1979 for us to kill a lot of Iranians. Theyve been aching for a war with Tehran since forever.

The rage of the Beltway has nothing to do with Irans Islamic government. Why? Because we tolerate the Saudis, who are thousand times more religious and conservative, than anything practiced in Tehran. We endorse the depredations of that reprehensible slave-lording conclave of crowned reptiles whenever we scorn Iran. We wink at tyrants while we threaten to bomb the preachers. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is a hideous outgrowth of a dead revolution, but even men in bedlam can read a map. ISIS is at the root of the attacks, Wahhabism is at the heart of ISIS, and Wahhabism comes from Saudi Arabia. This doesnt mean assaulting Riyadh, but it does mean understanding who ISIS affects, and its ultimate source.

Saudi Arabia is not the immediate cause of ISIS, but its the center of the system: its the housefire that keeps ejecting tinders to the roof of every roof in the neighborhood. Saudi Arabia is a colonial power that became a global oil vendor. It went from brutalized serf to brutal master, in one generation. The Kingdom loves power and wealth, and fears the religion of its own people. To buy off their own extremists, the Saudis ship Wahhabism in every direction, spinning a rumor mill on a drowning ship.

We all know Irans faults. At the end of the day, Iran is an ancient culture of decent people bossed over by a dreary, reactionary group of repulsive clerics and their noxious henchmen. The Iranian public want to be part of the world. The government of Iran are not made of the milk of human kindness, but they are not our biggest problem.

There will always be bloodthirsty murderers, like the gunmen today. What we can stop is them being in league with one another, under semi-state apparatus. The West will not stop terror attacks until we see the world clearly, and seeing the world clearly means looking at our repressive allies, and how our country, the United States, aids and abets them. Why does the new President make one of his first state visits to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where homosexuals are killed by the secret police? Why does Britain send its weapons to the House of Saud, to be used in its reprehensible war against Yemen?

If I had to pick two countries and design an alliance between them, with the deliberate purpose of showing the moral hollowness of both, I dont think I could do a better job than Saudi Arabia and the United States. It is dazzlingly unique in the history of the globe. Looking over the past, we can see vampire tyrannies like Saudi Arabia are as common as big trucks at a rest stop. But the American experiment was founded on explicit principles, and was rededicated during the Civil War on those lines.

Our marriage to the Saudis violates every single one of those ideals. Our civil union with the absolutist monarchy is a mighty mockery of all we stand for and ever claimed to stand for, and a nicely vile reminder that raw capitalism, not democracyand certainly not freedom or human rightsis the governing principle of Washington. But our helpmeet status to the Kingdom is merely a habit of time and cold-bloodedness. No terrorist can bring down our system, but moral failure can. It can discredit the dream, and loss of faith is the deepest cut of all. We can change the course of eventswe can all unite against ISISwe can shame and block the source of ISIS, if we but will it. The world can be changed by moral awareness, if we will confront it.

Todays strike in Tehran was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks of a truly global scale. There have been ricochets everywhere. Manchester. London. Now Tehran. The massacres of ISIS hurt all of us. Including Iran. We cannot turn a blind eye to the complexities of the world. An attack on one city is an attack against all.
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are shaping up to be an unstoppable director/actor duo with news of their fourth film together, Wrong Answer, Deadline reports.

Coogler has cast Jordan in all of his major directorial pursuits, including the critically successful Fruitvale Station and Creed, and the forthcoming Black Panther film. Now, the two are uniting again to produce a film scripted by Ta-Nehisi Coates, an award-winning writer, Atlantic correspondent, and author of the Black Panther comic book series on which Cooglers forthcoming Marvel film is based.

Wrong Answer will retell the story of what is held to be the largest cheating scandal in the nations history, which took place in Atlanta Public Schools back in 2013. In what seemed to be a response to the No Child Left Behind program, educators throughout the district cheated the scores of standardized tests, leading to the eventual conviction of 11 teachers, testing coordinators and administrators.

More specifically, Coates script will be an adaptation of a New Yorker article that takes an interesting perspective in detailing the scandal. The article follows middle school math teacher Damany Lewis, who will be played by Jordan. Feeling federal and local pressure to perform at an underprivileged school with declining test scores, Lewis, along with over 100 other employees at least 44 schools, found himself altering standardized test scores to keep his school from shutting down.

Rachel Aviv, writer of the aforementioned New Yorker piece, will consult on the film along with Lewis himself. If it was not already clear that the project is in good hands, production companies Plan B, run by Brad Pitt, and New Regency are behind the picture after previously working together to produce Oscar winners The Big Short and 12 Years a Slave.
You come at the kings, you better not miss.

David Luttsy Lutteral, the Brisbane Nova radio host who claimed Andy Lee had pilfered his concept for Channel 9s newest hit True Story, has unreservedly pulled that allegation.

Earlier this week, Lutteral said Lee word for word copied his 2014 pitch for a similar show, after they had a chat over drinks in New York City. He even said a pilot for the show, tentatively-titled Cracking Yarns, had been halfway-filmed.

Channel 9 shot down that claim the same day.

Now, Lutteral has walked his earlier statements way back, saying some things were said on our breakfast radio program on Monday about Hamish [Blake] and Andy that were pretty serious allegations about the concept of their program true story being stolen

I fully accept now that that was not the case.

While claiming ownership to the concept of dramatising real-life events always seemed a little audacious, Lutteral says actually seeing Channel 9s 2013 concept document spurred the retraction.

It is clear to me that they had conceived and documented the format for true story over a year before I met with Andy in New York, Lutteral says.

Lutteral went on to say sorry to True Storys masterminds, saying while I pitched a concept that had some similarities I accept that Hamish and Andy came up with their idea independently from mine.

I apologise to Hamish and Andy and their team for implying they took my idea.

FWIW, the shot itself has been going great guns. The first episode debuted to largely positive reviews, including from the regular Aussie who experienced the yarn IRL.

Source: The Fix / Ash, Kip & Luttsy / Nova 106.9.

Photo: Hamish & Andy / Facebook.
"The moment I lost everything I started music with friends who supported me over the years and I decided to start over again from the end," says End of the World.

Though just recently having come to the United States, the Japanese band End of the World is by no means a new band. The band - a four person group composed of Nakajin, Fukase, Saori, and DJ LOVE are memorable - which comes from years of experience (and serious acclaim) in the Japanese music scene. End of the World has had some pretty serious collaborations - working with artists like Owl City and Nicky Romero.

If you're a fan of the movie "Attack on Titan" - then you've heard their music, as they wrote the music for both "Anti Hero" and "SOS" - both of which have received millions of plays on Youtube.

Recently, End of the World has come over seas - releasing music in English, in America, for the first time. They're first song - "One More Night" - has already received over 200,000 plays (and growing!) on Spotify. The song, a poppy, fun, summer anthem - has recently been remixed by several notable artists, which the band described saying "we are so excited to share a great series of "One More Night" remixes and the first one by Tep No is so refreshing, breezy, and cool - we absolutely love it."

I sat down with End of the World to talk about the band's origins, "One More Night", and what they have in store for us down the road.

For more on End of the World, you can follow them on Instagram, Facebook, and Spotify.





INTERVIEW WITH END OF THE WORLD

So first I have to ask about the name - End of the World - how did you go about choosing the band's name?

In the course of my life, I was going through such a hard time that it felt like the world was ending for me. The moment I lost everything I started music with friends who supported me over the years and I decided to start over again from the end.

You guys have long been big in Japan, but recently released your first English single in America, "One More Night" - what made you decide to start releasing music and playing shows overseas?

We are born and raised in Japan but that shouldn't restrict the extent or countries where our music can live, we simply wanted to deliver our music to the world and to do that, switching the language to English was crucial.

How do you think that the Japanese and American music scenes are similar or different?

How people engage with music is very different meaning music plays different roles in different cultures since music is hugely impacted by the culture or the other way around.

In Japan it is a common practice to go to Karaoke with friends and they sing together that is the most common engagement with music in Japan. On the other hand, in western culture people dance to music as part of party / clubbing culture.

The demand for music depends on what people are looking for so naturally music scene differs for each culture but the love for music is definitely what we have in common.

Who are some of the biggest influences to your music?

We find inspiration in so many things and from so many artists it is hard to choose but from our recent interaction  we went into a studio with Clean Bandit and it was a quite memorable and influential session.

Who are some of the biggest influences to your on stage performances?

There is very fine line between being copying someone and being inspired by them. We have become extremely conscious in trying not to copy things, even with how amazing the performances can be. So I, in the good way, avoid watching other artists perform.

I loved the music video for "One More Night"! Can you tell us a little bit about the video, and what you guys were going for with it?

So we wanted to make a music video for this song and so we were looking a director to work with. Then Zac brought in this cool idea of the video and that was the love story of plastic bags. The beautiful thing in life. We thought it was pretty crazy idea at first but it was so loveable we were attached to it. Especially the last bit when they go into the bin-world dancing under the starry skies we thought it was so stylish and romantic. Not to mention DNCE to join us too, we happened to see each other the day before of the shoot and frankly asked if they would be interested and they were down for it. It was so much fun and they are amazing people.

Can we expect more music videos from you down the road?

We definitely want to make more fun videos you can all enjoy, when we have new song.

I also know you guys collaborated with Owl City in 2014 - how was that experience, and how did that all come to be?

OWL CITY was actually the first artist we collaborated with. We were fan of his music long before so we offered for the collaboration and it all just happened so quickly it was like a dream. He joined us on our show back home. Best memory ever!

I also have to ask DJ Love - what influenced your decision to perform in a clown costume?

The mask was originally Fukase's idea and he was meant to wear it but everyone stopped him so it came down to me. Being on the stage is definitely hard but since no one knew what I looked like without the mask, I have quite comfortable private life. It would be harder without the mask after all.

What can we expect from you guys down the road - more music, an album, touring?

In the near future, you can definitely expect more music. We will be releasing fantastic remixes and we would love to have some live performances this year. Really can't wait to announce some more exciting things!




On their debut album, Brooklyn band Big Thief delivered exactly what they called it: a Masterpiece.

Less than a year later, the group, led by the stunningly talented Adrianne Lenker, returns to give listeners more of the same. It continues to tell the kind of stories than only a person like Lenker can tell after having experienced a very unique first twenty-five years of life. She was born into a religious cult in Indianapolis before her parents moved her and her siblings around the Midwest starting at the age of four, then she eventually attended college and moved to New York City to begin Big Thief. Some of these stories are what we have heard on Masterpiece and continue to hear explored on Capacity.

However, for Lenker, the experience of releasing the albums is not as similar as listeners may believe. She told Stereogum, "A lot of those emotions were really raw when we were capturing them on Masterpiece, and I think on Capacity those emotions and experience are just settling in and now it's as if they've woven themselves into a bigger, deeper picture  I feel like Masterpiece was this beginning  like digging a shovel into the Earth and cracking the hardened topsoil."

Shervin Lainez

Capacity does, indeed, deep-dive into the nitty gritty details of Lenker's life, giving the same sort of specificity. However, the material composing the sophomore release is also more diverse. While Masterpiece's title track enveloped us in a romance over a year, Capacity focuses more prominently on friendship, family, and even self love  arguably the more difficult aspects of life to capture.

Setting the heavy, analytical tone for the entire album is the opening track "Pretty Things," depicting the complicated understanding of a physical, sexual relationship. It introduces two of the recurring themes of the album: gender roles and fragility.

Lenker breaks whatever mold we might have thought to put Big Thief into, doing so in an untraditional format. Her voice is arguably even more vulnerable here than it ever approached on Masterpiece, cracking and cooing as plucked out guitar chords and external background noise fills the empty space. It's a brave place to start a sophomore body of work. It continues in this vein as the lyrics grow more intense and more questioning. Lenker sings: "There is an eating in my thighs / Wherein thunder and lighting / Men are baptized in their anger and fighting / Their deceit and lies." For a song that is all about everyone being a little bit woman and a little bit man, it makes the female presence not only known but powerful.



This continued question of gender carries out and even concludes the album. One of the first singles from the album, "Shark Smile," depicts a magical, all powerful woman named Evelyn who has the power to enchant us with a flash of the song's namesake smile. It's upbeat tempo and running narrative of being on a road trip in a cool car makes it worthy of an add to your summer playlist.

The concluding track, "Black Diamonds," similarly, discusses the ability to get lost in a person, this time their eyes being "like diamonds." It has Lenker pondering if she should allow herself to be made a woman, while seemingly wondering what this means in general if she is unable to leave the man she's painting a picture of, anyway. Could she make him a man, and what does that mean? Lenker doesn't seem too concerned that she hasn't figured this out yet. After all, how else could we have a third album?

These tracks are easier listening than some of the others, though they aren't without their dark elements ("Shark Smile" ends in a car accident while "Black Diamonds" has even more tears). They explore the happy side of emotion with as much seriousness as Big Thief is known for handling the darker times.

Less questioning and more declaratory narrative is the focus when Lenker opens up about her family on another single, "Mythological Beauty." It is a song about Lenker's mother, about whom she says, "There is a child inside you who's trying to raise a child in me," proving she has figured out the big secret all parents try to hide. Lenker also knows about her mother's other secrets, like the child she gave up for adoption. Giving us this information is why a song where Lenker experiences a near death accident herself remains about her mother  because it is about understanding exactly what the chorus proclaims, a message of trust: "You're all caught up inside / But you know the way."

While the title track on Capacity embodies the matured control and all-encompassing nature of the album (it takes on many, discombobulated, half-filled but somehow suspenseful sounds and wanders in themes in the way all of the songs do), "Mary" is the "Masterpiece" for Big Thief this time around.

The ballad is more than five-minutes long, something you will not realize when listening because of your investment in the friendship it depicts. Slowly, more of the band accompanies Lenker as she sings of being a child and remembering the impact of one of her first friends. We don't necessarily feel the same attachment to the objects and pictures Lenker names and grew up seeing, but we understand the importance of naming these things. On a larger scale, we understand the desire to want something simpler, to feel we're missing something even if we've left that something for something arguably bigger and better. The emptiness is reflected in the musical accompaniment (which we realize during the piano solo, with seagulls in the background) and it is equally brilliant and beautiful.

On their Bandcamp page, the band describes their sound:

"Listening to Big Thief is like the feeling of looking at a dog and suddenly marveling that it is like you but very not like you; when you are accustomed to looking at a dog and thinking 'dog', watching Big Thief is like forgetting the word 'dog' and looking at that naked animal and getting much closer to it and how different it is to you."

Nothing is more true of Capacity. It will make the listener question what it means to label anyone and anything in our lives, and why the thought of having to put people in these categories can often make us upset. At least Lenker's voice will be help soothe the streaming of our tears.

You can follow Big Thief on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Capacity will be available everywhere, including Bandcamp and Spotify, June 9 via Saddle Creek.

Rachel A.G. Gilman is a writer, a radio producer, and probably the girl wearing the Kinks shirt. Follow her on Twitter.
In August of 2014, John Di Nunzio (drums) got a job at a liquor store. It was here, stocking shelves and selling booze to South Jersey housewives, that he was introduced to Zachary Tyler (guitar). In a meeting that can only be described as kismet, the two quickly bonded over a love of The Rolling Stones and as summer came to a close, decided to start a band. In the following weeks, Tyler returned to Rutgers University for the fall semester and enlisted Mike Parry (vocals) and Matt Szkaradnik (bass). By January, the band was ready to record. Parry and Szkaradnik actually met Di Nunzio, the only member not attending Rutgers, during their first recording session.



In the years since their formation, The Dead Flowers, named after the famous Rolling Stones' song, have played shows in every basement in the New Brunswick area. They've established a residency at Kelly's Korner, a dive bar in their neighborhood and have also played live on Philadelphia's Radio 104.5. They're currently in the semi-finals of the Stone Pony's Rock to The Top contest.



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target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a="" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a="" http:="" thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com="" album="" the-dea."="" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea.." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea..&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea.." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/the-dea..&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;."&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Dead Flowers - Live@5 on Radio 104.5_2/10/17 by The Dead Flowers&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

The Dead Flowers never play the same set list twice. The songs are selected 20 minutes before the show, huddled around a phone, this time in the back of The Bowery Electric passing around beers from guitarist Tyler's backpack. This is the first time the band, originally from New Brunswick, has played in New York City. After a flurry of rhythmically ambivalent cymbal crashes and misplayed notes from the openers followed by tepid applause from the audience, The Dead Flowers took the stage.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/mountain-house-blues" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/mountai...&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Mountain House Blues by The Dead Flowers&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

From the onset, the room wasn't sure how to respond to the group's in-your-face, classic rock inspired style. Bassist Szkaradnik's crowd work and Tyler's wailing solos were a far cry from the mumbling apathy infecting much of today's indie scene. While a few rock n' roll enthusiasts stepped forward from the timorous mass gathered at the bar, the majority of the people there didn't seem to understand what they were watching. Tyler, donning reflective sunglasses and an oversized tie, was jumping on speakers and playing behind his back. The entire band was ear shatteringly loud and the songs bled into one another with an uncompromising energy. The entire spectacle was a flailing, thrashing mess, completely devoid of self-consciousness. In short, it was rock n' roll, a throwback to an era of music unencumbered by irony.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" http:="" thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com="" track="" roses-in-the-road"="" 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target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a="" http:="" thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com="" track="" roses-i."="" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a="" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=" &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a="" http:="" thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com="" track="" roses-i."="" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i.&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i.." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i..&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i.." target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/track/roses-i..&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;."&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Roses in the Road by The Dead Flowers&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

That being said, The Dead Flowers don't rely on volume and gimmicks. These aren't a bunch of noisemakers that can't play their instruments. Di Nunzio and Szkaradnik were rhythmically locked in on drum and bass and Parry didn't miss a note. Every song was remarkably clean and punctuated by one of Tyler's incredible solos. While many bands would have let the crowd's lack of energy bring them down, The Dead Flowers kept playing harder and harder, continually extending the olive branch as if to say, 'hey, it's okay to scream along. Stop thinking so much.' Eventually, as the band played their most recently recorded song, Roses in the Road the audience's white-knuckle grip loosened and they let themselves slip, screaming along with the outro. As the performance came to a close, the crowd burst into applause.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/mountain-house-blues" target="_blank"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;http://thedeadflowersnj.bandcamp.com/album/mountai...&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Mountain House Blues by The Dead Flowers&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

Before the show, when I asked about the band's goals, Tyler responded, "it's all about having a good time", Szkaradnik adding jokingly "We're not making much money right now, might as well have a good time." The Dead Flowers are simple. There's no grandiose artistic or aesthetic aim. The point is for the audience to enjoy themselves and The Dead Flowers deliver, following a time-honored rock n' roll edict: play every show like you're in an arena. If they keep doing what they're doing, eventually they might find themselves in one.




Dmitry Korobkov, Chairman of the Board of ADV (Russias biggest communications group) becomes its CEO once again

Dmitry Korobkov, ADV Group, CEO

PR-Inside.com: 2017-06-08 20:30:54

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ADV Group

4-YA TVERSKAYA-YAMSKAYA, BUILDING 20/1 Moscow Russia



Yulia Nikitina



4959375270

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http://www.advglobal.com



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Yulia Nikitina

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4-YA TVERSKAYA-YAMSKAYA, BUILDING 20/1 Moscow Russia4959375270Yulia Nikitina+79267020069http:// http://www.advglobal.com/en/

Moscow, June 8th 2017 - Dmitry Korobkov, Chairman of the Board of ADV (Russias biggest communications group) becomes its CEO once again.Previously Dmitry had left operational management to study digital markets and innovative approaches in communications. For the recent couple of years he has been active as a venture investor and mad tech entrepreneur in various startups, including London-based CognitionX, Attest, Action.AI as well as others. He also holds advisory positions in several international business accelerators such as Seedcamp or Collider.io New technologies are reshaping all the markets. The ways of reaching the audience and interacting with it, delivering content and analytics are changing dramatically. Being one of the most innovation-sensitive fields, advertising should adapt to these changes as fast as it can, says Dmitry. He stated his return to operational management was inevitable because not only business processes should be revised but the overall understanding of the advertising industry.Kirill Korobeynikov, the former CEO and Member of Advisory Board, will keep working as a business development and key account executive.About Dmitry KorobkovDmitry Korobkov was born in 1969. He has graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations and holds MBA degrees from INSEAD and London Business School. In 1994 he founded the Adventa creative agency which grew up to become a group of 40+ companies. Dmitry has also created a Marketing Communications School at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, several public entities such as Russian Social Advertising Alliance and his own charity fund. Dmitry lives between London and Moscow, he is married and has four children.About ADV GroupADV is Russias biggest communications group uniting more than 40 agencies operating on the advertising markets of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan for 20 years. It was founded in 1995 by Dmitry Korobkov.ADV unites over 40 communications agencies, both independent and those representing major international advertising holding companies The Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG) and Havas. Subdivisions of international networks don't depend on each other but they realize common purchasing function and can consolidate on behalf of their clients.The ADV team is made up of over 2,200 talented people: both experienced experts in marketing communications and young ambitious specialists brimming with unconventional solutions and creativity. ADV expertise includes all existing advertising disciplines.ADV is one of the global growth companies according to the World Economic Forum. Its revenue in 2015 financial year was RUR 28,66 bln.For any additional inquries please contactLilith Agayanlagayan@ comunica.ru
PR-Inside.com: 2017-06-08 16:30:13

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for The Graystone Company Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Santa Ana, California (FSCWire) - The Graystone Company Inc. (OTC Pink:GYST). has issued a press release with the following headline:Expansion of The Commons Online Presence Has Tremendous Impact On The Graystone Companys Cannabis Business GrowthTo 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 The Graystone Company Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/The Graystone Company Inc.Source: The Graystone Company Inc. (OTC Pink: GYST)Date: June 08, 2017Time: 10:30 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of The Graystone Company Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
PR-Inside.com: 2017-06-08 18:40:13

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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Addison, TX (FSCWire) - Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation (OTC Pink:PGPM). has issued a press release with the following headline:Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation Receivesa Commitment of $3.0 Million Working CapitalTo 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 Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation, or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Pilgrim Petroleum CorporationSource: Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation (OTC Pink: PGPM, WKN: A0ETGE, ISIN: US72147P1075)Date: June 08, 2017Time: 12:40 PM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Pilgrim Petroleum Corporation and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
Viscosupplementation Market

PR-Inside.com: 2017-06-08 09:10:34

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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.com3479183531Abhishek Budholiya+1-347-918-3531

Russias healthcare infrastructure will continue witnessing significant rise in number of orthopaedic patients as several bone & joint-related disorders are likely to be caused by peoples eating & drink habits, their proactive lifestyles and the countrys harsh weather conditions. Rising occurrence of joint-related ailments such as knee osteoarthritis in Russia are a result of people performing physical labour in severely cold weather conditions. This has necessitated the adoption of viscosupplementation as an ideal medical procedure for injecting lubricating fluid in bone joints during surgeries. An in-depth analysis of Russias viscosupplementation market, conducted by Future Market Insights, projects that demand for three-injection viscosupplementation will gain traction over the next decade.According to Future Market Insights recent report, titled Viscosupplementation Market: Russia Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026, nearly 70% of viscosupplementation revenues amassed across Russia in 2016 were accounted by three-injection viscosupplementation. The report estimates that the Russian viscosupplementation market incurred revenues worth over RUB 1.13 billion (US$ 19 million) in 2016. Registering a steady increment at 5.3% CAGR, Russias viscosupplementation revenues are expected to reach RUB 2.02 billion (US$ 34 million) by the end of 2026. With higher demand for three-injection viscosupplementation, Russias healthcare industry leaders will continue to extend production of three-injection viscosupplementation products as opposed to single injection and five-injection viscosupplementation products.Ask For Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-ru-2897 The report also establishes projections regarding the end-use of viscosupplementation in Russia. Hospitals across the country will account for just above RUB 1.24 billion (US$ 21 million) revenues by the end of projection period. Within this, the demand for viscosupplementation will remain considerably higher in hospitals with capacity of more than 500 beds. End-use of viscosupplementation in Russias ambulatory surgical centres (ASCs) will remain nascent, while revenues accounted by orthopaedic clinics are expected to surpass RUB 595 million (US$ 10 million) through 2026.Ask For More Information@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-ru-2897 Top Players in Russias Viscosupplementation MarketTop three established players in Russias Viscosupplementation market include Hyaltech, Croma-Pharma GmbH and TRB Chemedica. The market is fragmented with small players holding substantial market share. While Hyaltech, Croma-Pharma GmbH and TRB Chemedica collectively dominate with more than half of the countrys viscosupplementation revenues. International players such as Sanofi, Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Fidia Farmaceutici spa have low share as compared to the other players, Anika Therapeutics has recently launched their viscosupplementation product in Russias viscosupplementation market.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-06-08 08:33:01

's-Hertogenbosch, 8 June 2017

Van Lanschot Kempen today announced that Leonne van der Sar will succeed Joof Verhees as member of its Executive Board per 1 August. Leonne will head up Van Lanschot Kempen's Merchant Banking activities Securities and Corporate Finance. Her appointment is subject to regulatory approval. Joof Verhees will stay with Van Lanschot Kempen in the capacity of Senior Client Adviser.

Karl Guha, Chairman of the Executive Board, said: 'We are pleased to announce the appointment of Leonne van der Sar to the Executive Board as Head of Merchant Banking. She takes on the responsibility in an important moment of our corporate history. Leonne has had a long and successful career in investment banking; we believe that she will bring to bear her considerable experience, energy and focus to the Merchant Banking activities and in doing so provide a clear strategic focus in the new era.'

Karl added: 'I'm very grateful to Joof for the excellent work he has done for Kempen and the group. He is one of the key players in building and expanding Kempen's strong name and reputation. On several occasions, he has shown real leadership and courage. A respected member of the Executive Board, he has made a major impact thanks to his market knowledge, deal-making experience and great sense of humour. I'm very pleased that he will continue his work for Van Lanschot Kempen as Senior Client Adviser.'

Joof Verhees said: 'This is the right time for me to take on a new, client-focused position. Both Kempen Securities and Kempen Corporate Finance are in good shape. We have a well-filled pipeline and our teams are well positioned in their niche markets. I'm very proud of our results of the past years and of the transformation Van Lanschot Kempen has achieved. In Leonne we have found a successor able to offer our business fresh energy and insights.'

Mediarelations: +31 20 354 4585; mediarelations@vanlanschot.com

Investor Relations: +31 20 354 4590; investorrelations@vanlanschot.com

About Van Lanschot Kempen

Van Lanschot Kempen, a wealth manager operating under the Van Lanschot, Kempen and Evi van Lanschot brand names, is active in Private Banking, Asset Management and Merchant Banking, with the aim of preserving and creating wealth for its clients. Van Lanschot, listed on Euronext Amsterdam, is the oldest independent bank in the Netherlands with a history dating back to 1737.

Profile of Leonne van der Sar

Leonne van der Sar (1969) has over 20 years of financial industry experience in areas such as capital markets, corporate development and project management. Since 2014, she has been responsible for Strategy & Corporate Development at Van Lanschot Kempen, with key achievements including the sale of Delta Lloyd's stake in Van Lanschot and the acquisitions of Staalbankiers and UBS the Netherlands.

Leonne started her career as a trainee with ABN AMRO Bank, moving on to various positions at ABN AMRO Rothschild - the equity capital markets joint venture in charge of major IPOs and secondary offerings. As Managing Director there and a member of ABN AMRO's global management team, she had ultimate responsibility for activities in the Netherlands. She then took on the executive directorship of ABN AMRO Corporate Development.

From 2008, she became an independent consultant and project manager, facilitating a series of major integration and change projects at the interface of IT and commercial operations for various Dutch and international financial institutions.

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: Van Lanschot via Globenewswire


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.




Deadline for Arizona residents to get grandfathered in before new APS rates kick in is less than a month away. T

By: azseo

Contact

Sandy Cordero

***@mearoon.com Sandy Cordero

End

-- We all know the routine whether it is the 1or 15of the month one thing for sure, the bills are due. It seems each year those bills are becoming higher and higher. The question is how can we save money. Ask Solar Sandy could save Arizona residents a pretty penny.off your APS BILL THAT's going up July 1st.Arizona residents could be looking at some pretty hefty increases in their electric bills in the very near future. Residents can save money by switching to solar before July 12017.The grandfather clause makes this offer available to all existing solar home owners and any homeowner who installs before 7/1/17. Ask Solar Sandy is assisting Arizona residents with the transition. Arizona residents that sign up for the no cost solar program, before July 12017 will have the opportunity to secure rates for 20 years.Ask Solar Sandy will show residents how to eliminate any out of pocket costs for the solar system or the installation of the solar lease.The best news is that is homeowners can sell their homes and continue to be participate in the solar program. The solar panels can be transferred to the new home owner or go with you.Additional information about the deadline can be viewed on the website http://www.asksolarsandy.com
Contact

Michael Lehman- Owner Cert. Infrared Thermographer

Montana Infrared Services, Inc.

***@montanainfrared.com Michael Lehman- Owner Cert. Infrared ThermographerMontana Infrared Services, Inc.

End

--Montana Infrared Services, Inc. announces that they have joined the United Infrared Network. Montana Infrared Services is an infrared service company based in Laurel, MT (www.montanainfrared.com). United Infrared is the world's largest network of multi-disciplined infrared thermographers.Montana Infrared Services, Inc. is an infrared service which has been in business in the area since 2017 and is owned by Michael and Billie Lehman. Michael is a level 2 Certified Infrared Thermographer (#11272). "We provide professional infrared services for a wide variety of clients in Montana and the surrounding area, states Mr. Lehman. "Being part of a nationwide network provides our company with a huge resource of expertise in many different applications of infrared thermography, which we will provide to our clients," stated Mr. Lehman. "United Infrared, Inc. (www.unitedinfrared.com ( http://rs6.net/ tn.jsp?et=1102653346155&s=1704& e=0... )) provides application-specific resource systems for contractors of infrared thermographic services. "We are delighted to welcome Montana Infrared Services, Inc. as a member of our network and look forward to working with them" said Peter Hopkins, UI's Vice President.To learn more about Montana Infrared Services, Inc., please visit ( www.montanainfrared.com ) or call (406 670-4593).
Local Bay County ADDY entries move on to the district level in Florida!

By: Panama City American Advertising Federation Assc.

Kerigan Gold 2017

Contact

Kristi Kirkland

***@answermarketing.net Kristi Kirkland

End

-- Bay County FL - Every year local businesses, agencies, graphic artists and students submit their creative works to the American Advertising Association club to be judged and spotlighted at the local ADDY's annual gala. The American Advertising Awards (ADDY's) are the only Nationally recognized advertising awards that begin at a local level and move up to the district and national. This year local AAF Club brought in a distinguished panel of advertising creative executives gathered in Panama City the weekend of February 18th, 2017 to select the winners. Our club did exceptionally well, with 22 Gold ADDY Awards and 25 Silver ADDY Awards from both industry professionals and students.Bay County Florida had two of our entries move on to the district level and we couldn't be prouder! Sara Patterson; a student with Gulf Coast State College received a Gold ADDY at both the local and district level for her still photography, 'Early Morning Dew'. Kerigan Marketing Associates received a Gold ADDY at both the local and district level for their 30-sec commercial for Life Management Center, 'Like You'. Both if these can be found on our Facebook page @AAFPanamaCity."We are especially proud of this Silver ADDY Award, at the 4District level, for our:30-second television spot. Not just because of the level of competition---which included McDonald's, Disney and Publix TV spots---but because Life Management Center does so much good in our community. Mental health issues happen to people just like everyone who will see our commercial, and we wanted to help de-stigmatize the subject with relatable people and real language through a message of hope." Jack KeriganEstablished in 1905, the American Advertising Federation (AAF) is the only organization that includes members from all disciplines and career levels in advertising. Whether you're new to the fast-paced world of advertising or a seasoned professional, the AAF is for you. There are more than 40,000 professional members of the AAF representing 15 districts across three regions who are actively engaging in local, district, regional and national programs. Being a professional member gives you access to invaluable resources, connections and advertising opportunities. We thank you for your time and dedication to your profession. We also look forward to continuing to bring value to your AAF membership in 2017/18.Chuck Giambra Giambra B2B Marketing 2016/17 AAF PresidentKristi Kirkland Answer Marketing, Inc. 2017/18 Incoming PresidentDetails about the ADDY's: americanadvertisingawards.comLink for TV spot: http ://bit.ly/2rh7ELUWe look forward to growing this event and seeing an increasing amount of local entries move onto the next levels. See you all in 2018!
Owner of Answer Marketing, Kristi Kirkland honored in annual Women of Distinction Ceremony

WOD Final photo 2015

Contact

KaLynn Townsend

***@answermarketing.net KaLynn Townsend

End

-- Answer Marketing Inc Owner ~ Kristi A Kirkland was honored at the 2015 Women of Distinction gala in the Business Leader category.By NEWS HERALD STAFFPosted Jul. 18, 2015 at 11:00 AMPANAMA CITY - Twenty-one women nominated for the 2015 Women of Distinction awards were announced at a noon luncheon Friday at the St. Andrews Bay Yacht Club.The Women of Distinction program is hosted locally by the Girl Scouts of the Florida Panhandle and honors women who demonstrate a commitment to their community. This year's finalists are: Lori Allen, Carolyn Butchikas, Sharon Carroll, Tiffany Castricone, Terri Davidson, Karen Durden, Vickie Gainer, Jennifer Jones, Kristi Kirkland, Terri Legg, Lana Jane Lewis-Brent, Janice Lucas, Beverly McDaniel, Holly Melzer, Kay Phelan, Jody Schnell, Cecile Scoon, Karen Smith, Ellie Spivey, Tanya Wester-Deal and Jennifer Watson.The nominees were selected by members of the community and will be honored by the Girl Scouts during the 2015 Women of Distinction Awards Gala at the Edgewater Beach and Gulf Resort on Aug. 29.Up to nine women will be selected from the finalists as 2015 Women of Distinction honorees. They will join the 133 women in the Florida Panhandle who have been honored as Women of Distinction since the program's inception in 1998."The women chosen for this year's Women of Distinction nominees set an excellent example for our girls and the opportunities for women in positions of leadership and service to the community," Raslean Allen, Girl Scout Council of the Florida Panhandle chief executive officer, said in a released statement. "The finalists are women who exemplify the characteristics of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place, the mission of Girl Scouts."
By: Auriga

Contact

Julia Wunder

***@softpressrelease.com Julia Wunder

End

--The "Strongest in Lithuania" certificates are provided by the Credit Bureau "Creditinfo,"which assesses companies in accordance with strict requirements. The most important assessment criterion is a high rate of solvency, which indicates that there is a low statistical probability that a company will not meet its financial obligations for 90 or more days in the upcoming 12-month period. Company solvency is evaluated and its rank is determined based on credit history, financial results and their changes, business connections, and other information.The "Strongest in Lithuania" certificate demonstrates to business partners and customers that Auriga is not only financially sound but also strong and responsible. It is worth mentioning that it is not the first time Auriga finds itself listed among the strongest companies in Lithuania. In 2015, Auriga Baltics was acknowledged as one of the most financially stable companies in the country. Only 4% of Lithuanian companies have ever been rated at the same level.Sergey Berezko, Head of Auriga's European Branch, made the following comment on Auriga's continuous success: "It is a great honor to once again be named one of the strongest Lithuanian companies. This impressive achievement is a result of our joint efforts seeking to provide high-quality services and position Auriga as a responsible and reliable partner. The fact that our financial stability is continuously acknowledged by the experts is a good reason for customers to prioritize us over competitors, and it will surely help us to expand our operation in Europe considerably in the coming years".Auriga ( http://auriga.com ) is an elite software R&D and IT outsourcing services provider incorporated in the U.S. and operating development centers in Russia and Lithuania. Auriga offers the full range of software engineering services  managed teams and projects  for high-tech and software vendors, allowing them to quickly build and scale teams, access required skills and expertise, focus on strategic tasks. The client list includes Barclays, Broadvision, Chrysler, Dialogic, Digital Guardian, Drager Medical, Hewlett-Packard, Home Credit, IBM, and others.
Dating website Academic Dating has reached a milestone of 5,000 registered members. The site now has 5,000 members from 159 countries.

By: Melbourne Paraplanning Services Pty Ltd

Contact

Mark McIlroy

***@outlook.com Mark McIlroy

End

-- Dating website Academic Dating achieved a milestone this month June 2017, reaching 5,000 registered members.The site has been operating since 2007.Academic Dating was originally developed as a dating website for the academic community.However, people from a wide range of backgrounds joined the site and the site now has a wide base of members.The site has an international membership base with members from 159 countries across the globe.The website is totally free to use and supports its expenses through modest use of Google Adsense advertisements on the site.Members come from a wide range of backgrounds and locations.The largest countries represented on the site are the USA, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and India.The gender split of the site is quite even, with 59.5% male and 40.5% women.Academic Dating has a comprehensive set of dating site functions including sophisticated search options, the ability to upload an unlimited number of photos to a member's profile, messages sent through the site, and the ability to remember or block communication with other members.A unique feature of the site is the ability of a member to select from three colour schemes, which when selected will update all pages throughout the site as viewed by that member.Although hosting members from a wide range of backgrounds, academics do join the site at times in line with the original intention of the website.A comprehensive set of Frequently Ask Questions, and Policies documentation is provided online.Academic Dating is extremely easy to use, with all screens based on menus, links and function buttons.Operation of the site is extremely fast, due to the careful limiting of the use of graphics, and the high quality hosting solution and database system used.Being an international site the website pages are available in a wide range of languages. Members may select a option on their profile to display a language translation box, which allows the site to be translated into over 100 different lanaguages. Translation is provided by a Google website function.The language translation includes the website prompts and also translations of text that members of the site have entered.The site is hosted on a secure commercial hosting service based in the USA.The site was developed as a new venture by the owner, Mark McIlroy in 2007.Site administration is based in Melbourne, Australia and is a venture of Mark Laurence McIlroy.Mark McIlroy is based in Melbourne, Australia and currently works in the Financial Planning industry.He has a background in the corporate Financial Services sector in Australia. His early career was based in Information Technology roles, and included Financial Services roles such as Portfolio Manager (Quantitative), managing Australian Equity share portfolios for a major bank.The site address of Academic Dating is is https://academicdating.net
Aroma Bravo applauds the Piefee for being a creative and respectful reinvention of coffee.

Contact

Charles C Harmon Co LLC

***@gmail.com

888-582-6650 Charles C Harmon Co LLC888-582-6650

End

-- After months and months of ridiculous coffee fads have plagued the social media world, there has been a dire need for an impressive coffee trend to save the reputation of gourmet coffees online. The long wait is finally over, thanks to the coming of the Piefeea unique creation wherein coffee is served in a thick tart casing that's coated with chocolate. The creative combination of the coffee and the edible tart casing has not only been praised for its taste but also for making sensesomething that was clearly missing from the previous coffee trends."Finally, here's a coffee trend that actually makes sense!" A representative from Aroma Bravo Coffee and Tea exclaimed. "In my opinion, using apples, avocados, carrots, kiwis and even pineapples to serve coffee is completely illogical. It doesn't only ruin the flavor of coffee but also wastes expensive produce and gourmet coffee beans. The Piefee, however, is a respectful reinvention of coffee that deserves all the attention more than its predecessors."The Piefee (short for pie and coffee) was created in a humble little bakery in Auckland, New Zealand. One of the bakers has always been one for trying out exciting creations in the kitchen, and one day thought of pouring coffee over a tart casing for fun. It resulted in a new delicious product that has received a positive reception from customers."The innovation of coffee should stem from creativity and inspiration, and not for the sake of Instagram likes," says the Aroma Bravo representative. "You can tell that they really thought about the product. They made the tart casing thicker and even covered it with chocolate for added protection and taste. But the best thing is that it's very reasonably priced at only $4 NZD each."The representative was impressed by the efforts of the Auckland bakery and praised them for not giving into the hipster coffee trends that have been spamming the internet. Time will tell if this newest trend will stick, but so far things are looking great. The representative also hopes that other cafes and bakeries will follow suit and come up with something that respects gourmet coffee beans for a change.More info about Aroma Bravo Coffee and Tea is available at https://www.amazon.com/ Honduras-Coffee- Whole-Bean-Marcala... Aroma Bravo offers the best coffee beans from the mountains of Marcala, Honduras. Grown in organic farms and roasted in small batches, Aroma Bravo Honduras Coffee is highly recommended for coffee lovers.
Intu Properties and TH Real Estate  on behalf of its pan-European investment vehicle, the European Cities Fund  have agreed to form a joint venture to own Madrid Xanadu shopping centre. Madrid Xanadu shopping centre is the retail and leisure destination for the south-west of Madrid and one of the top ten shopping centres in Spain. The centre, which opened in 2003, has an annual footfall of 13 million customer visits and an annual net rental income of 23 million.

.

Create an email alert for: Intu Properties plc Ivanhoe Cambridge TH Real Estate Madrid Activate

The centre provides around 220 retail, catering and leisure units. The two level retail mall includes key retailers such as El Corte Ingles, all of the Inditex fascias, Primark, H&M, Apple and Mango. In addition there is a strong leisure offering with SnowZone, Spain's only indoor ski slope, a 15 screen Cinesa cinema and Ilusiona bowling. This will be enhanced by an aquarium and Nickelodeon indoor theme park which are under development.



Intu acquired Madrid Xanadu in March 2017 stating at the time that it would look to introduce an investment partner. TH Real Estate will acquire a 50 per cent interest in the joint venture, which includes the centre and the SnowZone business but excludes the management company, for a price of 264.4 million (50 per cent of the price paid by intu to entities of the Ivanhoe Cambridge Group) before net debt, working capital and other adjustments. intu will use the net proceeds of the transaction to repay debt on its revolving credit facility. The joint venture arrangements provide that intu will continue to be the manager of the centre. The closing of the transaction is subject to certain completion conditions including regulatory approvals.
NATO plans to have around 3,000 troops in the Baltic states by the end of May as part of the Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP)  the largest reinforcement of NATO troops in the region for a generation. This represents a geopolitical shift of focus for NATO, from its earlier Central European theatre vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, further eastwards to the Baltic region vis-a-vis Russia. The aim is to demonstrate the strength of the transatlantic bond, reiterating to Russia the message that an attack on one ally would be considered an attack on the whole NATO alliance, an alliance which now includes the three ex-Soviet members of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. These NATO troops will be joining the US troops deployed there as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve that the Pentagon claimed demonstrates continued US commitment to collective security in Europe.

Strategic communications planning is part of preparing any military deployment; however, this deployment could face the Kremlin's sophisticated disinformation operations and propaganda in NATO territory. This represents the geopolitics of disinformation, currently being tracked by the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), who argue that such Russian disinformation has specific geopolitical objectives; namely to try to decrease public support for the NATO deployments in both the troop-sending states and the host nation countries.

The disinformation campaigns waged by Russia in the Baltic region may take different forms. NATO defence planners and decisionmakers need to prepare for fake news stories, which report fictional incidents and opinions. For example, a recent fake news story alleged that German soldiers deployed in Lithuania had raped a teenage girl. A Lithuanian police investigation determined that the report was false and that the email from which the story originated was sent from a country outside the European Union. Other deceptive reports include: (1) claims that bad behaviour by allied soldiers deployed in the region has become the norm; (2) reports that allied troops in Latvia would be permitted to roam the country with loaded weapons; and, (3) allegations that American soldiers in Latvia have been poisoned with mustard gas that have been sunk in the Baltic sea, the latter having been published on a Lithuanian news site after it was hacked. Specific disinformation was deployed to rally the country's [Latvia's] Russian-speaking minority against NATO. Other methods include using provocations to create incidents, such as the alleged attempts by a Russian TV crew to pay local youths to riot in Sweden. Actual incidents may also be used to give them political colour and portray the allied soldiers as disrespectful of the host Baltic states, their culture and people, as well as using compromising information published by the allied soldiers in social media. The risk of allied troops being provoked in order to discredit the alliance has also been raised by the head of the Estonian intelligence agency Estonian Information Board (EIB).

Despite Russian disinformation, the populations of the Baltic states are very supportive of the allied presence.

In this regard, the Baltic states have been heavily targeted by Russia for their eagerness to have allied forces on the ground and accused of plotting an attack on Russia. The Baltic states are, however, hardened and sensitised to information attacks, having learnt many lessons from their history of dealing with Soviet era Kremlin propaganda. Despite Russian disinformation, the populations of the Baltic states are very supportive of the allied presence. For example, a Lithuanian poll, carried out in December 2016, suggested that 81 per cent of respondents supported the permanent presence of NATO troops in Lithuania. Typical of Russian disinformation strategy was the rejection of the poll by the website newsbalt.ru (based in the Russian enclave of Kalingrad), which argued that the poll was skewed to please the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defence.

However, many of the troop-sending countries are less aware of the character of the Kremlin's information warfare. Information warfare is part of the Russian approach to non-linear warfare that encompasses old and new methods and tools. One such example is the Soviet reflexive control that aims to interfere with the decisionmaking processes of the adversary through disinformation and deception and the use of today's information technologies and media, not only in Russian but many other languages. It also encompasses strategic masking, which is spreading disinformation via media and manipulation of the adversary into believing reports of military movements. With the proliferation of information technologies and the amounts of private information that people make available online, national governments, international organisations and societies have become more vulnerable to information warfare.

It is clear that NATO needs to prepare for such disinformation campaigns. Some of the EFP framework nations have already announced that they are aware of the need to deal with these challenges. Most recently Gen. Jonathan Vance, the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, announced that Canada will take all the precautions it can and noted that they [] have to take on a sophisticated, strategic communications role so that truth prevails. Gen. Curtis Scaparotti, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander and the Commander of the U.S. European Command, has also suggested doing more to deal with Russian disinformation, telling the US Senate Armed Forces Committee that I think we're focused on it, I don't think we've had enough of a response at this point.

While the varied nature of disinformation warfare complicates preparation, NATO could pursue well-designed and holistic strategic communications approaches in the Baltic states, while also recognising the threat of disinformation beyond the region. Countering Russian disinformation requires rapid investigation of the information and its sources, establishing the facts and ensuring that the facts reach the same audiences that were targeted with the disinformation. However, reactive responses alone will likely be inadequate to deal with the threat. NATO could be more proactive and shape the information agenda with support and possibly led by the host nations. Soldiers and their commanders also could be educated on the nuances of preparing for and reacting to information warfare. The Allies might learn from Lithuania's information influence identification and analysis ecosystem ( PDF ) project that monitors and analyses physical and electronic information environments. Consulting with the NATO Strategic Communications (STRATCOM) Centre of Excellence, based in Latvia could also help, given its work on Russian information war and propaganda efforts elsewhere in the region.

In managing disinformation, allies will need therefore to strike the right balance between combating the disinformation threat and maintaining secrecy about military details. This balancing act could be a challenge for NATO and its allies. However, a proactive and open communications strategy could help to ensure that disinformation does not impact on military operations in the Baltic states. Finally, the efforts would likely need to move beyond a centralised strategic communications messaging plan and involve each and every soldier, and member of society. This could demand a higher level of information resilience, especially during the first months of the deployment.

To conclude, NATO alliance countries deploying in the Baltic states should be prepared to deal with increasing levels of disinformation, both proactively and reactively. A high level of preparation, including an open and robust communication strategy, could be crucial in tackling a sophisticated Russian disinformation campaign aimed to disrupt support for these deployments in the sending and host nations.

Marta Kepe is a defence analyst at RAND Europe. She previously worked for the Latvian Ministry of Defence.

This commentary originally appeared on European Geostrategy on June 6, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Chinas Youku will stream and distribute five BBC Earth giant screen films across its own digital platforms and others linear TV platforms, following a deal with BBC Worldwide.





The natural history films  Earthflight, Incredible Predators, Tiny Giants, Walking with Dinosaurs and Wild Africa  will be available for broadcast in HD. Youku alone has 500 million monthly active users in China, although the content deal also allows Youku to distribute the 4K versions of the films to linear channels with the capacity to transmit in ultra HD.With our BBC Earth Giant Screen films available in 3D, HD and 4K formats, viewers will have even more opportunities to get up close and personal with some of natures most awe-inspiring events, said Kelvin Yau, general manager, Greater China, BBC Worldwide.The BAFTA-nominated Earthflight uses aerial photography to take viewers on a breathtaking flight on the wings of birds across six continents, while Incredible Predators delves into the interactions between predators and their prey. The film premiered at the China Science and Technology Museum Film Festival in Beijing earlier this year.Also part of the BBC deal with Youku, the award-winning film Tiny Giants features a day in the life of a scorpion mouse and a chipmunk, both trying to survive in a sometimes hostile world. Walking with Dinosaurs, meanwhile, is a 2013 family film from the BBC series of the same name, set in the Late Cretaceous period, 70 million years ago. The production features computer-animated dinosaurs in live-action settings.Finally, Wild Africa, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, takes a journey through Africa to discover how water shapes all life.
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.
Prime Minister Theresa May and her main rival Jeremy Corbyn cast their ballots in Britain's general election. May called the early election for June 8, three years ahead of schedule, seeking a stronger majority in the lower house of parliament ahead of Britain's negotiations to leave the European Union. Despite May's Conservative Party once having a wide lead in opinion polls, Corbyn's Labour Party closed the gap in recent weeks. (Reuters)
Meeting late last month with Russian presidential administration first deputy head Sergei Kiriyenko, members of Russia's Presidential Council for Human Rights suggested that President Vladimir Putin announce an "administrative amnesty" to mark the centenary of the October Revolution of 1917. Among possible candidates for a pardon under such an amnesty, they proposed former Makhachkala Mayor Said Amirov, who is serving a life sentence on charges of terrorism and commissioning contract killings.

Putin has not yet commented on the amnesty proposal, but even if he agrees to it, observers in Daghestan doubt whether Amirov will be one of the beneficiaries.

At the time of his arrest in June 2013, Amirov, now 63, was one of the most powerful and feared men in Daghestan. During the 15 years he was Makhachkala mayor, he gained a reputation for ruthlessness in sidelining political rivals and survived four attempts on his life, one of which left him partially paralyzed and wheelchair-bound.

Amirov is currently serving two prison terms. The first, of 10 years, was handed down in June 2014 on a charge of "terrorism": He was said to have planned to kill a political rival, Sagid Murtazaliyev, by using a ground-to-air missile to shoot down the aircraft in which Murtazaliyev was traveling.

Then in August 2015, the North Caucasus Military District Court found Amirov guilty, on the basis of testimony that his lawyers repeatedly challenged, of planning a further terrorist act and of commissioning a contract killing, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

The Presidential Council for Human Rights raised Amirov's case with Putin several months later, expressing concern that the testimony on the basis of which he and seven co-defendants were found guilty had been obtained by torturing key witnesses for the prosecution, the news portal Regnum reported. Putin duly ordered the Prosecutor General's Office to investigate, but no such probe was launched, and in March 2016 Russia's Supreme Court upheld the verdict against Amirov.

It is not clear what arguments the Presidential Human Rights Council adduced during the meeting with Kiriyenko in proposing a pardon for Amirov. Factors in his favor might include the doubts raised by defense lawyers over the reliability of the prosecution's witnesses and Amirov's age and precarious health (he also suffers from diabetes and hepatitis). Also of concern is the fact that one of his co-defendants, Zubair Mutayev, died suddenly last month at the labor camp in Bashkortostan where he was serving his 11-year sentence. The cause of death remains unclear.

On the other hand, for Putin to pardon Amirov would be to raise doubts about the competence of the federal law enforcement agencies responsible for apprehending him and bringing him to trial, and that is something he may well be reluctant to do. As Magomed Magomedov, deputy chief editor of the independent Daghestani newspaper Chernovik, points out, those agencies "do not enjoy having to admit their mistakes or sit back and watch lawyers and human rights activists undermine the efforts they made to have Amirov sentenced."

As for Amirov's health, Republic of Daghestan deputy parliament speaker Kamil Davdiyev made the point that since it was not taken into account as a mitigating factor when sentence was initially passed, it is unlikely to prove decisive now, especially given the serious nature of the crimes of which he was found guilty.

Moreover, an amnesty would almost certainly be geared to persons serving short prison terms for administrative or minor offenses, rather than for those found guilty of large-scale embezzlement, terrorism, or murder. On balance, therefore, Amirov's chances of clemency appear minimal.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
Belarusian authorities have detained a Chechen man who has been seeking to avoid being returned to Chechnya, where he says he has been tortured by police in the past, and are preparing to hand him over to Russia.

Murad Amriyev was detained by Belarusian border guards after crossing from Russia overnight, Igor Kalyapin, chairman of the Russian-based Committee for the Prevention of Torture, wrote on Facebook on June 8.

Belarusian police told RFE/RL that Amriyev was being held in the town of Dobrush, near the border, and that papers needed to transfer him to the Russian authorities were being drawn up.

Amriyev, a former mixed martial arts champion, told Kalyapin's rights group in 2013 that he had been kidnapped by police in Chechnya who tortured him for two days, hanging him in handcuffs and applying electric shocks to his body.

He was detained in western Russia on June 4 and Chechen law-enforcement officials sought to seize him when he was released from custody, but he evaded them, according to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and other supporters.

The rights group has warned that he could face abuse, torture, or even death if he is returned to Chechnya, where he is wanted on suspicion of using forged documents.

The effort to take Amriyev to Chechnya reignited questions about the reach of Kremlin-backed Chechen leader's Ramzan Kadyrov's security forces, who have raised concerns several times in the past by carrying out operations in Moscow and other areas far from Chechnya.

Rights activists say that Kadyrov, who was appointed to head Chechnya by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2007, rules through repressive measures and has created a climate of impunity for security forces in the province in the North Caucasus.

They claim that he bears responsibility for abuses including kidnappings, disappearances, torture, and killings of political opponents. He denies it.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus and North Caucasus services
WASHINGTON -- Former FBI Director James Comey said President Donald Trump's administration lied in describing the bureau as having major problems and that he believes Trump fired him because of the agencys criminal investigation into communications with Russian officials.

Speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee June 8, Comey said it seemed that the investigation, which focused on interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials, was irritating for Trump and that was why he decided to fire Comey.

I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was in some way putting pressure on him, in some way irritating him, Comey said.

Trumps personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, denied the allegations, and in turn accused Comey of unauthorized disclosures of privileged communications he had with the president.

Comeys stunning assertions to the Senate committee were the latest and most momentous chapter to date in the political turmoil that has gripped the White House and riveted much of Washington.

What started out as a series of unusual interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials has now been overtaken by questions of whether Trump sought to obstruct the FBI investigation into his first national security adviser.

That adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired as Trumps first national security adviser in February after he misled White House officials about his communications with Russian government officials, including Russia's ambassador to the United States.

WATCH: Comey Says Russian U.S. Election Meddling 'A Big Deal'

Obstruction of justice is criminal offense in U.S. law, though there has been some debate among legal experts whether Trump in fact could be indicted.

A series of news reports detailing the interactions between some Trump associates had with dubious Russian and other foreign officials have dovetailed with the U.S. intelligence communitys conclusion that Moscow waged a hacking-and-propaganda campaign to interfere in last years election campaign.

At least two congressional committees are looking into both issues, as well as the FBI, which began its criminal probe in July as the presidential race between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was entering its home stretch

Comey, who was appointed by Trumps predecessor Barack Obama, had given only fleeting public indications about the nature and scope of the FBI investigation. In testimony to a House committee in March, Comey revealed the existence of the investigation, but said little otherwise.

A day before the June 8 hearing, the Senate committee released Comeys written testimony, in which he detailed some of the interactions he had with Trump.

In that testimony, Comey said that Trump demanded loyalty from him during a private dinner at the White House on January 27, one week after Trump was inaugurated as president.

Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9, claiming the Justice Department had been critical of his job performance.

In his spoken testimony to the Senate June 8, Comey forcefully pushed back against that, making the remarkable assertion that Trump had lied.

"The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said.

Comey said that after he met Trump at the White House at the White House in January, he thought he should be writing memos recounting details of their meetings because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie."

Comey recalled that he thought at the time: "I gotta write it down and I gotta write it down in a very detailed way."

He also said that he leaked contents of a memo about his conversation with Trump to The New York Times, an effort he said was aimed at forcing the appointment of a special counsel.



Kasowitz suggested that Comey could be prosecuted for the release of "privileged information."

"Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified," Kasowitz said.

Comey was asked by senators whether Trump's suggestion that Comey should drop the investigation into Flynn constituted obstruction of justice. Comey demurred, saying that was a question for special counsel Robert Mueller, also a former FBI director.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," he said. "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning."



Later, he said that he believed he was fired to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted."

Despite sharply criticizing Comey, Kasowitz said the fired FBI directors testimony established that Trump was not being investigated for colluding with Russia or attempting to obstruct an FBI probe.

Trump never, in form or substance directed Comey to halt the probe into Flynn, Kasowitz said.

A day after Comeys firing, on May 10, Trump held an unusual White House meeting with Russia's foreign minister and its ambassador. According to press reports, Trump bragged about firing Comey to the Russians, calling him a "real nut job" and saying that the firing had taken pressure off his administration.

Trump's firing of Comey prompted an outcry among congressional lawmakers. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department and thus the FBI, earlier had been forced to recuse himself from any Russian investigations due to his own interactions with Russian officials.

Oversight would have then fell to newly appointed deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, but he co-signed the May 9 letter firing Comey. Outcry over that led to his appointing Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

In a speech delivered to supporters in Washington, roughly at the same time with the hearing, he vowed to fight on.

"We're under siege...but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever," he said. "We will not back down from doing what is right ... We know how to fight and we will never give up."

Earlier, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on June 8 that Trump was "not a liar.

In Washington, we often say the cover up is worse than the crime," Norm Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama's special counsel and special assistant from 2009 to 2011, told RFE/RL in an interview.

"And this obstruction allegation is a cover-up, but today we heard very powerfully from Director Comey that the crime was even worse than the cover-up, because the crime that occurred was Russian interference, and an attack on our democracy; the same kind of attack using cyber tools and propaganda and espionage, the same kind of attacks that people in Europe are all too familiar with Russia, Mr. Putin launching against them," Eisen said.

Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican in the House of Representatives, said it was "obviously" inappropriate for Trump to demand loyalty from Comey.

"This is nowhere near the end of the investigation," the committee's Republican chairman, Richard Burr, told reporters after the hearing concluded.

RFE/RL correspondent Mark Najarian contributed to this report
1 Iraqi soldiers outside the villa used as a prison by Islamic State militants. The incognito prison is an example of the extremist group's new tactic of hiding their operations among the civilian population.
Judging women by the degree to which they respect the compulsory hijab is nothing new in Iran.

In the past, hard-liners have accused so-called "badly veiled women" of being responsible for everything from social ills to natural disasters.

But recent comments by the Friday Prayer leader of the central Iranian city of Saveh, who likened women who don't fully respect the Islamic head scarf to prostitutes, appear to mark a new low.

Hojatoleslam Seyed Ebrahim Hosseini reportedly made the comments during his Friday Prayers sermon on June 2. He criticized those who are against compulsory veiling while defending it as one of Islam's "most-pressing issues."

"The white veil, like those green and purple wristbands -- they all smell of sedition. They're all like flags that prostitutes would hang over their roofs in the [Dark Ages]," Hosseini said, according to an audio recording of his comments posted online.

Hosseini appeared to be referring to a campaign called White Wednesdays, in which some women have been wearing white veils in public for one day each week. They have also recorded antihijab messages and posted them on social-media platforms such as Instagram.

The movement was launched by exiled Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad, who has been campaigning against the compulsory hijab from outside the country.

Hosseini's reference to green and purple wristbands appeared to target both supporters of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who chose purple as his campaign color, as well as backers of Iran's opposition Green Movement, which was formed to protest alleged fraud in the 2009 presidential vote and which was violently suppressed by authorities.

At some of Rohani's campaign events held before the May 19 presidential vote, loosely veiled women were seen holding signs criticizing the hijab and the morality police who enforce the law. Many Rohani supporters also wore purple and green wristbands and other items.

The hijab became compulsory following the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the creation of the Islamic republic. For nearly four decades, tens of thousands of women have been harassed because of their appearance. Those who fail to fully observe the hijab are fined, detained, and publicly harassed by the country's dreaded morality police, which launches regular crackdowns, especially in summer.

Hosseini's comments have been condemned by several lawmakers and activists, who have accused him of insulting Iranian women and of being overly sensitive about their political activism.

Lawmaker Hojatoleslam Abdollah Mazani blasted Hosseini in a post on the popular Telegram app used by millions of Iranians. "Those who wore green and purple wristbands were 24 million Iranians who voted for Rohani," he wrote, adding that if Hosseini was worried about women wearing the hijab, he should guide them while also respecting "Islamic ethics and manners."

"Based on what religious, moral, and legal right do you allow yourself to accuse millions of Iranians of depravity from the sacred tribune of Friday Prayers?" he asked.

Lawmaker Parvanhe Salahshouri was also critical of Hosseini's comments. "I don't understand why some are so concerned about women's political participation. And such concerns aside, why the insults?" she was quoted as saying by the reformist Sharq daily.

She said Hosseini should apologize to women to preserve the "dignity" of Friday Prayer leaders.

Women's rights activist Minou Mortazi Langaroudi said relevant authorities should interfere and prevent a repetition of "such insults."

Sharq journalist Ameneh Shirafkan wrote on Twitter that several different women's rights groups are considering launching a formal complaint against Hosseini.

Hosseini has not publicly commented on the controversy sparked by his comments.

Friday Prayer leaders are said to receive their talking points from the office of Iran's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Friday Prayers are often used as a platform to sends messages to Iran's "enemies," usually the United States, and critics of the establishment.

The physical appearance of Iranian women, and their hijab habits, have been a recurring theme at Friday Prayers.

In an episode that made international headlines in 2010, Tehran's temporary Friday Prayer leader, Ayatollah Kazem Sediqi, suggested that women who don't respect hijab rules fully and who wear revealing clothing instead increase the risk of earthquakes.
The United Nations says it has received credible reports indicating that the Islamic State (IS) extremist group has killed more than 231 Iraqi civilians attempting to flee the fighting in northern city of Mosul over the past two weeks.

In a June 8 statement, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Right said that at least 204 civilians, including women and children, were shot and killed over three days last week alone.

Noting a "significant escalation" in such killings, it said the civilians were trying to flee the Al-Shifa neighborhood in western Mosul amid armed clashes between IS fighters and pro-government forces.

The statement also mentioned reports of between 50 and 80 civilians being killed in a May 31 air strike on Zanjili, another IS-held area of western Mosul, and called on Iraqi security forces and their coalition partners to ensure that "all possible measures are taken to avoid the loss of civilian lives."

Also on June 8, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other rights groups said in a joint statement that some air strikes and unguided munitions used against IS militants in Mosul were putting civilians "at excessive risk."

The statement said that large air-dropped bombs, unguided artillery rockets, and other "inaccurate" ammunition "can be unlawfully indiscriminate if used in heavily populated areas."

In October 2016, Iraqi forces launched an offensive to retake Mosul from IS militants with the support of a U.S.-led multinational coalition. They have since taken control of the east of the city and are now battling IS fighters on the west.

The United Nations has estimated that 200,000 civilians remain in the IS-held Old City, which pro-government forces have been encircling.

IS militants seized large swaths of northern Iraq and Syria in an offensive in June 2014.
Authorities in China and Pakistan say they are investigating the Islamic State (IS) extremist group's claim that two Chinese teachers kidnapped in southwestern Pakistan have been killed.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on June 9 that the government was seeking information from Pakistani authorities.

Pakistani security officials said they were investigating but that no bodies have been found.

Islamic State on June 8 claimed to have killed two Chinese nationals the extremist group had kidnapped in Pakistan's Balochistan province in late May.

The group also circulated a video of their killing late on June 8.

The two Chinese, a man and a woman, were reportedly studying the Urdu language and teaching Mandarin in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province bordering Iran and Afghanistan, when they were kidnapped.

The killing came hours after Pakistani security forces published a video showing a military operation against militants in the same province.

The Pakistani officials claimed they destroyed the training facility of sectarian group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-alami in the operation. But a statement from that group hours later claimed the facility that was destroyed and militants who were killed were from IS.

IS is believed to have executed the Chinese hostages in revenge for the military operation. China is carrying out massive infrastructure building operations in Pakistan and the number of Chinese citizens in Pakistan has increased significantly during the past year and a half.

China's state news agency Xinhua said on June 9 that Beijing is "gravely concerned" about the reported killings and is working with Pakistani authorities to verify the IS claims.

With reporting by Reuters


ASTANA -- Chinese President Xi Jinping has held separate talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana, where a June 8-9 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is taking place.

Nazarbaev told Xi on June 8 that China had become a "major partner" of the Central Asian country in recent years."

According to Nazarbaev, Astana is working to transfer 51 industrial facilities from China to Kazakhstan.

"Every year, China gets closer to the place in the world it deserves, and we will always be next to you," Nazarbaev said.

Xi, who arrived in Kazakhstan on June 7, thanked Kazakhstan for its support of Beijing's One Belt One Road international trade initiative, which grabbed attention when Xi hosted a summit devoted to it last month. He said that he "feels at home" in Astana.

Several documents on taxation, constructions, infrastructure, education, and movie-making were signed after the meeting.

Xi also met with Putin after the latter arrived in the Kazakh capital on June 8 to take part in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security grouping that is dominated by China and Russia.

It also includes summit host Kazakhstan as well as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Putin said that Moscow was preparing for Xi's official visit to the Russian capital next month (July 3-4), and that he is confident it will be "a significant and big event in our bilateral relations."

Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov said earlier that Xi and Putin would discuss issues including the tension on the Korean Peninsula.

Xi said that Moscow-Beijing ties were developing "very well," adding, "Our mutual cooperation and interaction have a big significance for the world in a global scale."

Russia has sought to increase its focus on China, its ally on many geopolitical issues but also a rising neighbor with a much larger economy, amid badly strained ties between Moscow and the West.

Kazakh Foreign Ministry said earlier that India and Pakistan were expected to be declared full-fledged members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at the summit.

The membership for Pakistan and India in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was approved in July 2015.

Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia have observer status.
KACANIK, Kosovo -- The self-proclaimed commander of ethnic Albanians fighting as part of the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq has been killed in the Middle East, the leader of the Muslim community in his hometown of Kacanik said.

Florim Neziraj told RFE/RL on June 8 that Lavdrim Muhaxheri's brother had informed him of Muhaxheri's death earlier in the day. He said family members told him that Muhaxheri was killed by an air strike in Syria and asked him to notify the Islamic community of his death.

Muhaxheri, an IS member who has declared himself as the "commander of Albanians in Syria and Iraq," is notorious in Kosovo for a video posted on the Internet in 2014 showing him beheading a man in Iraq.

Another video showed him killing a person with a rocket-propelled grenade.

In November, authorities in Kosovo said they had arrested 19 people on suspicion of having links to IS militants and planning to carry out terrorist attacks. Police said the suspects had received attack orders from Muhaxheri.

His death was announced over mosque speakers in Kacanik, in line with tradition when someone from the community dies.

This decision sparked criticism in Kosovo.

"We are serving every citizen and the mosque belongs to everyone," Neziraj said.

With reporting by Reuters
BISHKEK -- The trial of opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party leader Omurbek Tekebaev, who says the bribe-taking charge against him is false and politically motivated, has resumed in Bishkek.

Judge Aibek Ernis-uulu did not allow journalists to use cameras at the trial as it resumed on June 8.

Several supporters of Tekebaev and his co-defendant, former Emergency Situations Minister Duishonkul Chotonov, staged a protest against the judge's decision in front of the court, blindfolding themselves with white fabric.

Tekebaev and Chotonov are charged with receiving a $1 million bribe from a Russian businessman in 2010, when Tekebaev was deputy prime minister.

Both deny any wrongdoing, saying the case against them is politically motivated.

Ata-Meken has alleged that the government launched the case in an effort to stifle dissent ahead of the October presidential election in the Central Asian country and keep Tekebaev off the ballot.

Tekebaev was arrested in late February. On March 5, Ata-Meken named him its candidate for the presidential election.
A court in Montenegro has confirmed the indictment of 14 people, including two Russians and two pro-Russia opposition leaders, over their alleged roles in what authorities say was a plot to overthrow the government last year.

The High Court in Podgorica announced on June 8 that it confirmed the indictment, which includes charges of "preparing a conspiracy against the constitutional order and the security of Montenegro" and an "attempted terrorist act."

Trial proceedings are due to start within two months, the court said.

The defendants include lawmakers Andrija Mandic and Milan Knezevic of the Democratic Front, nine Serbian citizens, two Russian citizens, and one other Montenegrin.

Officials allege that Serbian and Russian nationalists plotted to take over parliament during October 2016 parliamentary elections, assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, and install a pro-Russian leadership in order to halt Montenegro's bid to join NATO.

Prosecutors said the two Russians, identified as Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov, were based in Serbia and were allowed by authorities there to return to Russia. They remain at large.

Montenegro's special prosecutor has said that "Russian state bodies" were involved in the alleged coup, something Russia denies.

Montenegro became NATO's 29th member at a ceremony in Washington on June 5, marking a historic turn toward the West amid protests from traditional ally Russia and the country's pro-Russian political opposition.

With reporting by Reuters and dpa
Law enforcement authorities have carried out an unannounced search at the Moscow office of a Russian human rights organization that advocates for inmates.

Olga Romanova, the director of Rus Sidyashchaya, told RFE/RL that officers of the Moscow police directorate for economic security and the fight against corruption searched the group's headquarters and seized documents related to its financial activities.

Romanova also said that the officers said the search was linked to an investigation into alleged embezzlement of state budget funds.

A coordinator with the organization, Aleksei Fedyarov, told RFE/RL that there were no grounds for the police to search the group's office as it receives no financial support from the state.

Police and city officials have not commented.

Rus Sidyashchaya, whose name can be translated as Russia Behind Bars, defends the rights of inmates in Russian jails and prisons.

Kremlin critics say President Vladimir Putin's government uses police searches, snap investigations, and other measures by law enforcement agencies to harass opponents and activists.

With reporting by RBK, Interfax, and TASS


Pakistan's military says it has foiled an attempt by militants linked to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) to establish a base in the southwestern region of Balochistan.

The army said five soldiers were wounded and 12 "hard-core terrorists" of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami extremist group were killed in a three-day operation earlier this month in a mountainous area near Mastung district.

The June 1-3 operation "successfully denied the establishment of any direct or indirect IS-organized infrastructure in Pakistan," a statement said.

It said a bomb-making facility was destroyed and explosives, suicide bombing vests, grenades, and other weapons were seized.

The operation came after IS militants claimed responsibility for a suicide attack targeting a Pakistani lawmaker last month in the Mastung district in which 25 people were killed.

Based on reporting by AP and Dawn
In the end, a typo in a passport could fell a Russian mixed-martial-arts fighter who accuses police in Chechnya of torturing him.



Murad Amriyev, a 32-year-old MMA fighter from the southern Russian region ruled by Kremlin-backed strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, was facing deportation from Belarus on June 8, a transfer that rights activists say would place his life and well-being at risk.



On paper, Amriyev is suspected in Russia of knowingly using a false document -- a result, his mother says, of an erroneous birth date in his passport.

Bubbling under that charge, however, is a tale of alleged torture and blood revenge and a daring flight from the clutches of Kadyrovs feared security forces, whose reach has extended far beyond the borders of the North Caucasus region that was at the center of two devastating post-Soviet wars.



Amriyevs plight began in August 2013, when he says he was kidnapped by police in Chechnya and subjected to torture, including electric shocks to his body.



He claims a top Chechen police official accuses his brother, who now lives in Germany, of trying to kill him and has declared the MMA fighter a blood enemy. Chechen authorities deny Amriyevs torture claims and won a defamation case over the allegation before a regional court in 2015.



He sought assistance from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, a Russia-based group active in Chechnya and loathed by Kadyrov, who has ruled the region with Kremlin backing since 2007 and whose security forces are accused by rights activists of brutal abuses and extrajudicial killings. Kadyrov denies these allegations.



Cat And Mouse



Amriyev fled to Ukraine after his release and participated in MMA bouts there. But he returned to Russia on June 4 to renew his documents.



However, he was pulled off a train by police and detained in the western Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine, sending rights activists scrambling. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture warned that he risked death if he were handed over to Chechen security forces.



A dramatic cat-and-mouse game unfolded in Bryansk, where Chechen investigators arrived and verbally sparred with local prosecutors over Amriyevs custody, lawyers who assisted the detainee say.



After Amriyev was held for 48 hours, he was formally released from custody. But a Chechen police officer and a group of special forces officers -- identified by lawyers as from the Bryansk region -- were waiting outside the prosecutors office to detain him, Pyotr Zaikin, a lawyer who was with Amriyev at the time, told RFE/RL.



In a video shot inside the building, Amriyev said he recognized one of the Chechen police officers who had arrived at the scene as a man who he claims took part in torturing him in 2013.







According to Zaikin, the Chechen officials apparently did not have the proper documentation to secure his transfer into custody. And as they argued with Bryansk prosecutors about Amriyev, the MMA fighter -- knowing that he was technically a free man -- simply walked out the front door, hopped in a waiting car, and sped off, Zaikin said.



He said the police forces waiting for him outside did not move to grab Amriyev.



"They werent expecting that, in this situation, he would calmly walk out the main entrance, and they got a bit confused," Zaikin told RFE/RL.



Another human rights lawyer who was at the Bryansk prosecutors office said the Chechen police officials were "furious" when they learned their target had vanished.



"They ran around the building looking for Amriyev and screaming, 'Where is he?'" Anastasia Garina of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture wrote in a June 7 Facebook post.

'Its No Big Deal'



Amriyevs freedom was short-lived. Belarusian authorities told RFE/RL on June 8 that he was being held in the town of Dobrush, near the border, and that papers were being drawn up to hand him over to Russia.



Anton Bychkouski, a spokesman for Belaruss state border committee, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that Amriyev was detained, based on the Russian false-documents allegation, shortly after 5 p.m. on June 7 after crossing into the country in a Toyota.

In a statement released prior to reports of his detention in Belarus, Amnesty International said that Amriyev is "still at risk of being arbitrarily detained and transferred to Chechnya, where he would be at risk of torture."



Amnesty urged the Russian government to protect Amriyev and investigate "the actions of the Chechen Ministry of Interior officers who attempted to arbitrarily detain" him in Bryansk.

In a June 8 statement, Amnesty urged Belarus not to hand Amriyev over to Russia, citing Minsks status as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and the Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Security forces under Kadyrovs control have previously carried out operations against targets in Moscow and in other Russian regions far from Chechnya. Austria also accused a Chechen policeman of assassinating a former Kadyrov bodyguard in Vienna in 2009 before fleeing the country.



In a video posted on YouTube on June 8, Amriyevs parents pleaded for help, saying their son faces "deadly danger" if he is returned to Chechnya.



"Our son suffered abuse, was kidnapped, and we couldnt help him at all," his father says in the appeal. "Please help prevent this transfer. He is not guilty of anything. He didnt violate the law. They just want to settle personal scores with him."

An unidentified law enforcement official in Chechnya downplayed concerns about the regions pursuit of Amriyev, telling Russias state-run TASS news agency that officials merely wanted to bring the MMA fighter in for questioning under a federal warrant and that formally he has not been charged.

Amriyevs mother told Current Time TV, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL and Voice of America, that her sons original birth certificate was destroyed in 2000 during a bombing of Grozny in Russias second bloody war with separatists in Chechnya.



She said she noticed the typo in her sons documents when she was restoring his records: his birth year was listed as 1986 instead of 1985 -- the mistake that ultimately made its way into his passport.

"I said, 'Oh, what should we do now?'" Roza Amriyeva said she asked the woman handling the paperwork. "She answered: 'Its no big deal compared to whats happening right now.'"

With reporting by RFE/RL's Belarus and North Caucasus services and Current Time TV
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Authorities have searched the Moscow headquarters of a Russian human rights organization that advocates for prison inmates. The leaders of Rus Sidyashchaya -- or Russia Behind Bars -- said police entered the group's office on June 8 and seized documents related to its finances. (RFE/RL's Russian Service)
ON MY MIND



The trial of Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov is a farce and a travesty.



But it is also more than that.



It's part of an elaborate Kremlin PR campaign. It's a macabre exercise in guerrilla marketing. It's part of a mind game designed to legitimize and normalize Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea.



Umerov was arrested in May 2016 and charged with "separatism" because he made statements opposing Russia's armed seizure of his homeland. In August 2016, he was forcibly sent to a psychiatric clinic for a month of tests.



The separatism charge is significant as it is meant to send the message that the annexation is a fait accompli -- despite the fact that, in the eyes of international law, Crimea is part of Ukraine and Umerov is a Ukrainian citizen.



And anybody who questions this will be treated either as a criminal -- or as insane.



It's crude. It's brutal. And for the Crimean Tatars, it's the new normal.



IN THE NEWS



Russian lawmakers are asking authorities to consider broadening the country's controversial "foreign agent" law to include nongovernmental organizations that receive funding from Russian citizens with foreign income sources.



An anticorruption march and rally organized by opposition politician Aleksei Navalny will go ahead on June 12 at a site offered by Moscow city authorities.



Lawmakers from Vladimir Zhirinovsky's nationalist Liberal Democratic Party have submitted bills that would restore Russia's tsarist-era national anthem, God Save The Tsar!, and the Julian calendar the country used before the 1917 communist revolution.



A Dutch-registered foundation is reportedly poised to acquire the English-language Moscow Times in a shake-up that is expected to include major staff cuts and a discontinuation of the print version after a quarter-century in the Russian capital.



Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar leader who has criticized Russia's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine, has gone on trial on "separatism" charges.



Vladimir Putin says in a documentary set to air on U.S. television that "nobody would survive" a war between the nuclear-armed countries.



Belarusian authorities have detained a Chechen man who has been seeking to avoid being returned to Chechnya, where he says he has been tortured by police in the past, and are preparing to hand him over to Russia.



Russia has sent a U.S. satellite into space atop a Proton rocket, in the first launch of one of the workhorses of Moscow's space program in a year following a series of setbacks.

Ukraine's parliament has passed legislation strengthening cooperation between Kyiv and NATO with the aim of eventually joining the alliance.



Ukrainian authorities say a device has exploded in the U.S. Embassy compound in central Kyiv, causing no casualties.



U.S. prosecutors on June 7 arrested and charged more than two dozen alleged members of what it called a "Russian organized crime syndicate" working out of New York City with what a statement said was a "dizzying array of criminal schemes."



WHAT I'M READING



New Report On Russian Active Measures



The Center for American Progress has released a new report, War By Other Means, on Russia's online active measures. The report is authored by Max Bergmann and Carolyn Kenney.



Fake News In Qatar



In his column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky takes issue with reports that Russian hackers planted fake news in Qatar, helping spark the current crisis with Saudi Arabia.



Toward A European Defense Force?



In another column, Bershidsky looks at the European Union's steps toward creating a defense force.



A Flawed Election



In World Affairs Journal, Vladimir Kara-Murza looks at the European Court for Human Rights ruling on Russia's 2011 State Duma elections.



Foreign Agents



In his column for Republic.ru, opposition journalist Oleg Kashin takes a look at proposed new amendments that would expand Russia's infamous "foreign agents" law.



New Poll On Ukraine



A new poll by the International Republican Institute reveals that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians think the war-torn Donbas region should remain part of Ukraine.



Remembering Archbishop Lubomyr Huzar



Melinda Haring, editor of the Atlantic Council's UkraineAlert blog, has a piece on the legacy of Archbishop Lubomyr Huzar, who died on May 31 at the age of 84. Archbishop Huzar led the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and was a leading moral authority in Ukraine.



Putin's U.S. Media Blitz



In Foreign Policy, Matthew Bonder explains the real goals of Putin's much-discussed interview with NBC News anchor Megyn Kelly. "The Russian president's recent Western media blitz is aimed at winning over an audience of one: Donald Trump," Bonder writes.



Kremlin Spear Phishing



Former FBI agent Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, has a piece in The Daily Beast, on what was behind Russia's alleged spear phishing of U.S. election officials days before the presidential vote.



Gangs Of New York



Mark Galeotti of the Institute of International Relations in Prague has a piece on his blog about the U.S. criminal case against 33 people charged with being members of the Eurasian organized crime group known as the Shulaya Enterprise.
A modern Praetorian Guard. A revival of Josef Stalin's NKVD. And a 21st-century version of Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki.



Russia's National Guard has been called all these things, and not only by its critics.



Ever since Vladimir Putin established the guard as a domestic security force last year and placed it in the hands of his uber-loyal former bodyguard, Viktor Zolotov, alarm bells have been periodically sounding among the Russian opposition, in the media, and within the elite.



With hundreds of thousands of men under arms and reporting directly to Putin, the National Guard is widely viewed as both a tool to quickly put down civil unrest and an insurance policy against a potential palace coup.



It has quickly taken on a mystique and a menacing aura, one that the guard's top officials have eagerly encouraged.



There have been rumors floated in the Russian media, for example, that the National Guard was making a play to take over the Interior Ministry's notorious and shadowy Center-E, a special investigative unit set up to combat so-called "extremism" and that the Kremlin was receptive to the idea.



The Interior Ministry denied this and the story, which appeared to have been leaked from within the guard itself, disappeared.



But the impression lingered that with Putin's pal Zolotov at the helm, it just might have the bureaucratic clout to pull off such a move.



More recently, in a May 30 interview with Izvestia, the National Guard's deputy commander, General Sergei Melikov, proudly called it "the heir to the NKVD."



Izvestia scrubbed the reference to Stalin's feared secret police in its online edition, but screenshots of the comment continue to circulate on social media.



Days before Melikov's remarks, Yury Baluyevsky, a retired general who advises the National Guard, wrote in Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye that "the main threats to Russia come not from the outside but from within" and that the guard must be prepared to deal with those threats.



Its formation, he added, was an answer "to the threat of so-called nonviolent resistance, which can more accurately be called a colored revolution."



Melikov and Baluyevsky made their provocative remarks as opposition leaders organized nationwide anti-Kremlin protests scheduled for the June 12 Russia Day holiday.



They also made them shortly after Putin signed a decree effectively giving the National Guard commander the power, with Putin's consent, to assume control over and give direct orders to regular military units for specific domestic operations.



Military analyst Aleksandr Golts wrote in Yezhednevny Zhurnal that the decree indicated that the Kremlin was laying the groundwork to use military units against Russian citizens in the event of civil unrest.



The General Staff, Golts wrote, was resistant to this idea, "but the Kremlin was anxious. And so the National Guard conquered the army."



Likewise, political analyst Ruslan Gorevoy wrote in Versiya that Putin's decree gives the National Guard powers that exceed even those enjoyed by Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki or Stalin's NKVD.



That's a bit of a stretch. The National Guard hasn't been empowered to carry out extrajudicial executions like Stalin's secret police. At least not yet.



And they certainly won't be riding around the country on black horses and clad in monastic garb, sacking cities and torturing dissidents as the feared security forces of Ivan IV did in the 16th century.



But the likes of Zolotov, Melikov, and Baluyevsky probably don't mind if people fear that it might.



The guard "was clearly established both in case the Kremlin wants to break heads on the streets and also to represent an additional obstacle to any elite political coup," Mark Galeotti of the Institute of International Relations in Prague wrote on his blog, In Moscow's Shadows. "But lets not get caught up in the hyperbole."



Putin's decree, Galeotti added, follows up on previous edicts allowing regular military units to be subordinated to the command of Interior Ministry troops.



And since the National Guard is now absorbing those Interior Ministry troops, along with the OMON riot police, and the SOBR -- or SWAT -- forces, Putin's latest decree looks like "a piece of legislative tidying up."



That may well be the case. Although taken in context with the recent bravado from Melikov and Baluyevsky, and coming as Russia is gearing up for a fresh round of protests, it's not difficult to see how Putin's decree raised a few red flags.



And the fear and anxiety that the guard is generating, just a year into its existence, is a big part of its power.



NOTE TO READERS: Be sure to tune in to this week's Power Vertical Podcast on June 9, where I will discuss the issues raised in this post with Mark Galeotti and Aleksandr Golts.
WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Donald Trumps personal attorney has denied allegations made by fired FBI Director James Comey during a Senate hearing, including that the president directed Comey to stop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Attorney Marc Kasowitzs comments on June 8 also accused Comey of "unauthorized disclosures" of "privileged communications" he had with the president.

Kasowitzs remarks were released in a statement before a briefing with reporters and following Comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Despite sharply criticizing Comey, Kasowitz said the fired FBI directors testimony established that Trump was not being investigated for colluding with Russia or attempting to obstruct an FBI probe.

Kasowitz said Trump "never, in form or substance" directed Comey to halt a probe into Flynn, who was being investigated for his contacts with Russian officials before Trumps January 20 inauguration.

Kasowitz also denied that Trump told Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," as Comey claimed.

Trump fired Comey on May 9, claiming the Justice Department had been critical of his job performance.

Comey pushed back against those claims, asserting that Trump had lied.

"The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said.

Comey also said he asked a friend to share with the media the contents of memos he had written about his conversations with Trump, saying he thought the move would lead to the naming of a special counsel to investigate Russias interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Kasowitz suggested that Comey could be prosecuted for the release of "privileged information."

"Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified," Kasowitz said.

"We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leak should be investigated along with all those others being investigated," he added.

Trump has hired Kasowitz to handle matters related to various investigations of Russian interference in the U.S. president election, freeing his White House counsel to handle other government-related matters.

With reporting by AP, dpa, Reuters, and AFP
Turkey on June 7 threw its support behind Qatar in Doha's split with other Arab states, with Ankara accelerating troop deployment to Doha and offering to provide food and water supplies that have been cut off by Saudi Arabia.

Turkey's move came as Iran, which already has offered to provide food to Qatar, where panicky citizens have been sweeping supermarket shelves clean, sent Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Ankara to discuss what he called the "worrying" developments between the Persian Gulf's Arab states.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Libya, and several other Sunni-led Arab nations have severed diplomatic relations, cut off transport routes, and suspended other ties with Qatar, accusing it of getting too close to Iran and funding "extremist" groups.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has good relations with Qatar and both countries have backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as well as rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Erdogan has urged other Arab countries not to isolate the small Gulf nation, saying it will not resolve any problems, and has offered to mediate the dispute. But he openly sided with Doha on June 7.

Turkey's parliament accelerated approval of legislation allowing Turkish troops to be deployed to Ankara's military base in Qatar and increasing military training and cooperation.

Meanwhile, Turkey's main exporters group said it was ready to meet food and water needs in Qatar, while a Qatari official said Doha was in talks with Iran and Turkey to ensure trade disruptions do not create shortages of food.

The president of Qatar's Chamber of Commerce told Qatari media on June 7, however, that Qatar has enough food durables such as grain stored in strategic reserves to last for a year, and should have no trouble importing fresh food needs.

"There will be no shortage of food and other products as more than 95 percent of imports arrive by air and sea," Qatari Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim al-Thani said.

Worries about food supplies had arisen when Saudi Arabia stopped food delivery trucks at its land border with Qatar on June 7.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters


KYIV -- The Ukrainian parliament has defined cooperation with NATO, with the ultimate goal of joining the Western military alliance, as a top priority for the country in the face of Russian "aggression."

A total of 276 lawmakers in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada supported amendments to several laws governing foreign policy on June 8.

The amendments, which must be signed by President Petro Poroshenko to become law, say that Ukraine's foreign policy will be focused on steps to promote cooperation with NATO in order to "achieve the criteria needed to gain membership in this organization."

The document explaining the amendments says the move is a response to "the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine and annexation of a part of Ukraine's territory" -- references to Russia's armed takeover of Crimea in 2014 and its involvement in a conflict between Kyiv's forces and separatists that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine.

"The experience of a number of countries neighboring Ukraine shows that they consider structures of collective security that function on the basis of progressive democratic values...to be the most effective way to ensure security and to secure territorial integrity and sovereignty," the document says.

After Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was toppled by pro-European protests in 2014, Russia seized the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine and fomented mutiny in eastern Ukraine, where the Russia-backed separatists hold parts of two provinces.

In 2010, Yanukovych signed legislation imposing neutral "non-bloc" status on Ukraine, meaning it could not join any military alliance. Poroshenko signed a law abolishing the neutral status in December 2014.
Ukrainian forces have liberated 41 settlements in the south of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on November 10 but noted the "brutal struggle" and the "lives given for freedom for Ukrainians."

In his nightly address Zelenskiy said: "Today we have good news from the south. The number of Ukrainian flags returning to their rightful place within the framework of the ongoing defense operation is already dozens," he said, adding that 41 settlements have been liberated.

But he stressed that even as Ukrainians rejoice, they must remember that "every step by our defense forces represents...lives given for the freedom of Ukrainians. Everything that is happening now has been achieved by months of brutal struggle. It was achieved through courage, pain, and losses."

Zelenskiy spoke a day after the Russian defense minister announced the withdrawal of Russian troops from the west bank of the Dnieper River, the latest in a number of setbacks for Moscow on battlefields in Ukraine's east and southeast.

Zelenskiy did not specify the number of Ukrainian troops killed in the effort to reclaim the settlements, where he said stabilization measures have begun.

He noted the Russian troops left behind thousands of land mines and ammunition as they retreated from Kherson.

Presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said the land mines turned Kherson into a "city of death" and predicted they would shell it from occupied areas across the Dnieper River.

Vitaliy Kim, the regional military administration chief in the Mykolayiv region, said Ukrainian soldiers had already entered the outer suburbs of Kherson. He declined to give further details to avoid revealing the military's plans.

Russia said it began withdrawing troops on November 10 from Kherson city. The Ukrainian military's General Staff said the withdrawal was taking place slowly to allow the Russian forces to reinforce positions on the other bank of the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said it will take Russia at least a week to withdraw from the city of Kherson. He told Reuters Russia had 40,000 troops in Kherson region and it still had forces in the city, around the city, and on the west bank of the Dnieper River.

"It's not that easy to withdraw these troops from Kherson in one day or two days. As a minimum, [it will take] one week," he said.

Ukrainian Army chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy said earlier that Kyiv could not yet confirm whether Russia was indeed pulling out from the southern Kherson region but said Ukrainian forces were continuing their advance.

"We continue to conduct the offensive operation in line with our plan," he wrote in a post on Telegram.

Ukrainian officials said Moscow's forces had no choice but to flee Kherson, yet they remained cautious, fearing an ambush.

"The enemy had no other choice but to resort to fleeing," armed forces chief Zaluzhniy said, because Kyiv's army destroyed supply systems and disrupted Russia's local military command.

Kherson is strategically important, as it controls both the only land route to Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and the mouth of the Dnieper, which bisects Ukraine.

Recapturing the city could provide Ukraine a launching pad for supplies and troops to try to win back other lost territory in the south, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in late September celebrated the annexation of Kherson and three other Ukrainian regions and vowed to defend them by any means, has not commented on the withdrawal.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa
The first-ever tanker with liquefied natural gas from the United States arrived in Poland on June 8 as part of the country's and the region's efforts to cut its dependence on Russia.

It was the first delivery of U.S. gas to eastern and northern Europe, which is building a new network of energy sources and gas transportation.

Last year, Poland opened its first terminal for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, in Swinoujscie, on the Baltic Sea coast.

Another distant supplier -- Qatar -- has already made some deliveries.

Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said it was a historic moment that improves the region's energy security, as she attended the ceremony welcoming the U.S. tanker "Clean Ocean."

"Today, Poland can say that it is a safe and sovereign country, also because we have such wonderful investments" like the LNG terminal, Szydlo said. "Days like this go down in history."

She urged the United States to develop "further and more efficient cooperation."

The region is trying to cut its reliance on Russia, which has occasionally used its gas exports to exert political pressure. It is planning to bring in gas from the North Sea and also to boost its own production.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that LNG exports "support American jobs, lower energy prices for our partners abroad, and contribute to Europe's energy security goals using a reliable, market-based supplier."

Officials did not reveal the size of the delivery or the cost of the deal.

The United States is rich in shale gas and has been exporting the fuel to southern European nations such as Spain and Turkey but not yet to nations in the continent's north.

Another U.S. delivery to Poland is expected this summer.

With reporting by the Associated Press

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U.S. prosecutors on June 7 arrested and charged more than two dozen alleged members of what it called a "Russian organized crime syndicate" working out of New York City with what a statement said was a "dizzying array of criminal schemes."

The U.S. attorney's office in southern New York State said the suspects operated internationally and across the United States, trafficking in drugs and stolen goods, including cigarettes and shiploads of chocolate, while engaging in extortion, murder for hire, and credit card fraud.

Most of the 33 defendants were led by Razhden Shulaya and Zurab Dzhanashvili, were born in the former Soviet Union, and had strong ties to Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia, the federal prosecutors said.

Prosecutors called Shulaya a "vor" -- the Russian word for thief -- which they said in criminal jargon means that he belongs to an "order of elite criminals from the former Soviet Union who receive tribute from other criminals, offer protection, and use their recognized status as vor to adjudicate disputes among lower-level criminals."

They said he was one of the first such alleged criminals to be charged with racketeering in the United States.

The indictment, unsealed in a Manhattan federal court, accuses the alleged gang members of plotting to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform and using electronic devices to hack casino slot machines, among other crimes.


RACINE  Instead of holding a due-process hearing Wednesday, the city announced a settlement with Riverside Inn that addresses several issues beyond the inn's alcohol license.

The inn, 3700 Northwestern Ave., has been subject to several ongoing concerns brought forth by members of the citys police and health departments and was recommended for a due-process hearing on March 14. The city's Public Safety and Licensing Committee, which was set to serve as an informal jury for the due-process hearing, approved the settlement 4-1, with 5th District Alderman Steve Smetana voting against it.

The settlement included a 90-day suspension of Riverside's liquor license, the maximum punishment allowed without revoking the license, and laid out deadlines of varying lengths for the inn's owner Sam Naimi to take care of numerous concerns held by the city's Health Department. Naimi also has to resubmit his application for liquor license renewal for the coming year.

If Naimi fails to comply with the terms of the agreement or misses deadlines, the city still can assess damages such as reinspection fees.

"As far as compliance, the city does retain its full panoply of options with regard to violations," said Paul Alexy, the city's outside counsel for the settlement.

The agreement was brokered by Alexy and attorney Vince Bobot, who represented Naimi, with oversight from the City Attorney's Office. The City Council was informed of the settlement in an hour-long meeting run by senior city staff Tuesday night.

Bobot called the agreement a "global settlement" and characterized it as a positive step for both Riverside and the city.

"I would say my client has made very diligent efforts to work with the City of Racine to run a respectable, thriving business within the City of Racine," Bobot said. "This is an agreement that's comprehensive in its nature. There's many things he has to do and is willing to do."

Those things include fully finishing renovations to the bar before selling alcohol again, fixing parts of the building's roof before July 7 and reopening the inn's 42 uninhabited rooms within two years. Naimi said he's already working on a few parts of the settlement and admitted it will be a challenge to complete all of the settlement's requirements.

"But a challenge is good in your life," he added.

Howell, Weidner weigh in

Notably, the settlement didn't include any specific terms regarding police calls or public safety issues, even though the discussion originally arose earlier this year because Police Chief Art Howell attempted to declare the inn a nuisance property. Both Alexy and Bobbitt said Police Department representatives told them that interactions with Riverside had improved recently.

Howell, who attended the meeting, said his officers were responding to Riverside less frequently but clarified that "it's all relative." He added that he still considers Riverside "a threat to public safety."

"I won't be satisfied until we have compliance," Howell said.

Alderman Sandy Weidner, whose 6th District includes Riverside, said she is "cautiously optimistic" about the settlement.

"Im hopeful that the property owner will come in compliance," she said. "Im satisfied that the appropriate action was taken. We want businesses to run here in the city."
A spokeswoman for U.S. President Donald Trump says sanctions against Russia for its interference in Ukraine would remain in place until the crisis is resolved.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on June 8 said the United States "is committed to existing sanctions against Russia."

She added the administration will keep them in place "until Moscow fully honors its commitments to resolve the crisis in Ukraine."

"We believe that the existing executive-branch sanctions regime is the best tool for compelling Russia to fulfill its commitments," she added in an off-camera briefing with reporters.

The United States and other Western nations imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014 for its illegal annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and its support for Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

President Donald Trump has caused some concern among allies about his commitment to sanctions, praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and saying he wants to improve relations with Moscow.

Based on reporting by AP and Reuters
A Kazakh citizen has been arrested in Uzbekistan over what local authorities said were two extremist videos found on his mobile phone.

Vitaly Nenchenko's wife, Tamila Beksheneva, said in a Kazakh TV report on June 6 that her husband was arrested in late May during a trip to Uzbekistan with his family.

According to Beksheneva, Uzbek border guards studied Nenchenko's phone and found two videos that they called extremist. Nenchenko was later charged with smuggling extremist materials to Uzbekistan and has been in Uzbek custody for more than a week.

Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Anuar Zhainaqov said in a televised statement that the Kazakh Embassy in Tashkent had been in contact both with Nenchenko's relatives and Uzbek officials.

If convicted, Nenchenko could be sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2016 another Kazakh national, Aqmal Rasulov, was sentenced to five years in prison in Uzbekistan after border guards found videos on his mobile phone that Uzbek authorities defined as extremist.

And in 2012, an Uzbek court imposed the same sentence on Kazakh citizen Ermek Qosmaghambetovl for videos on his laptop that were deemed extremist.

With reporting by KTK-TV
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The worlds police" is an essential force to fight international terrorism and organized crime. But rights groups accuse certain countries of misusing Interpol's system of red notices to harass opposition politicians, journalists, and activists.
At least 100,000 military veterans who served in the 1990-1991 Gulf War were exposed to chemical weapons, released into the air after the United States bombed an ammunition depot in Khamisiyah, Iraq. Today, many are still suffering from Gulf War Illness, a mysterious, multi-symptom disease that experts believe is linked to organophosphate nerve agents sarin and cyclosarin.

A new paper by researchers at Drexel University sheds light on the neurological consequences of exposure to low-levels of these nerve agents and suggests that drugs like tubacin could treat some of the toxins' neurological effects. The results were recently published in the journal Traffic.

To model Gulf War Illness, the researchers treated cultures of human and rat neurons with an organophosphate called diisopropyl flurophosphate, which is an analog of sarin. They also pretreated the neurons with stress hormones to better mimic the stressors of war.

Within the neurons, the research team was looking for deficits in the activity of microtubules, hollow cylinders that act as the cell's conveyor belt, which the investigators believe might go awry in Gulf War Illness patients. Organophosphates can affect a variety of proteins and pathways in cells, and the impacts on microtubules and microtubule-related proteins are likely to be many. The researchers wanted to find whether particular microtubule-related deficits could be identified and corrected pharmacologically to improve Gulf War Illness symptoms.

"In addition to being an architectural element that helps to shape the cell, the microtubule also acts as a railway, which transport organelles throughout the cytoplasm," said Peter Baas, PhD, a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at Drexel's College of Medicine. "We hypothesized that toxins would change the typical way microtubules are chemically modified in neurons and that a drug like tubacin could restore those modifications to normal, thereby treating the disease."

Once treated with tubacin, which makes the microtubules more chemically modified, the researchers observed a restoration in everything that went wrong with the microtubules due to the toxin and stressor treatments.

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Surprisingly, they also found that once they corrected the microtubule deficit, defects in dopamine release also markedly improved. Fluctuations in dopamine are thought to be connected to many of the neurological symptoms that Gulf War Illness sufferers face, including insomnia, cognitive problems and headaches. This study's results suggest that dopamine alterations after toxin exposure are in part due to changes in microtubules, and restoring microtubule function to a more normal state could help to alleviate symptoms.

"The fact that a microtubule-based therapy would correct the problem with dopamine release is really encouraging," Baas said.

Baas' research group is part of a multi-institution Gulf War Illness Consortium, a group of investigators dedicated to uncovering the source and treatment for Gulf War Illness. As described in the journal Neurology, Drexel University and Boston University recently received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense to create a Gulf War Illness human stem cell repository, to be shared with researchers across the country for a deeper understanding of this disease.

To create the repository, the researchers are taking blood cells from Gulf War veterans and "reprogramming" them into their "pluripotent" state, which can then be transformed into any type of cell, from a kidney to a neuron. These "pluripotent cell lines" will be especially groundbreaking for studying Gulf War Illness, because they preserve the genetic and possibly epigenetic factors specific to disease susceptibility.

For the study published in Traffic, the researchers did not use pluripotent cells lines derived from Gulf War veterans, but said they plan to use veterans' cells in the future for more refined results.

Since the use of organophosphate pesticides is widespread around the world, and growing evidence indicates a link between these pesticides and disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Baas said that a deeper investigation of low-level OP exposure is critical for preventing and treating neurological conditions arising from such exposures, in addition to Gulf War Illness. Baas also noted that the use of sarin is a concern for the growing threat of bioterrorism, so preparedness for treating victims is paramount.

"We're living in an increasingly toxic world," Baas said. "It's likely that this kind of disease is going to repeat itself if we don't educate ourselves as to its causes, as well as how to prevent and treat it."
Public hospitals that generate more scientific publications are also more efficient at attending patients, according to a study by Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the IE Business School. The study also analyzes the reduction in health care costs associated with scientific production in medicine and surgery.

To assess the cause and effect relationship between clinical and basic research and efficiency in public health centers, the researchers used a database from the Ministry of Health.With this database, which consists of results from 189 public Spanish hospitals over more than a decade (1996 to 2009),researchers measured the impact that R&D&i has on the length of patients hospital stays.

The results of the study, published in the journal Research Policy, show that both basic and clinical research have a positive effect on hospital efficiency. "Hospitals that can produce more knowledge in terms of scientific publications are also going to be better hospitals, in both diagnosis and treatment and surgery. As such, they contribute to reducing the patient's average stay in hospitals," said one the study's authors, Josep A. Tribo, full professor in the UC3M Department of Business Administration.

"Taking into account that approximately 9% of the population is hospitalized over the course of the year, each day of a hospital stay entails an annual cost of some 660 euros per patient in Spain," explained another of the researchers, Alvaro Escribano, full professor in the UC3M Department of Economics. "Therefore, adopting measures that reduce the duration of hospital stays will greatly reduce health costs." Tribo added, "If you reduce or penalize doctors' research activity, they will be less prepared, which will ultimately lead to an increase in health care costs." In other words, hurting research can have a great impact on global health care costs.

The study also analyzes the impact of R&D on the sustainability of the National Health System (initialed SNS in Spanish) through the cost reduction entailed by the reduction in the length of hospital stays. "If scientific production increased significantly, health costs would be reduced by around 1%," stated another of the researchers, Antonio Garcia-Romero, professor at the IE Business School.

In the study, they also point out the most important factors that affect the efficiency of hospitals, such as their characteristics, human resources, diagnostic activity, investment and capacity to absorb knowledge. Their recommendation, however, is that "it is necessary to promote research, and in particular, basic research, because this would have very clear effects in the medium to long term on efficiency and a reduction in health care costs."In addition, there are other indirect benefits that are even more important. For example, if patients recover sooner, they will also return to work sooner, which in turn will increase labor production.

Furthermore, research carried out in hospitals affects other aspects such as reduction in mortality and patient safety patient. The methodology used in this article could be employed to analyze these effects.
When decaying organic matter sinks to the bottom of a lake or ocean, methane is produced as the biomass is broken down. Some of the methane is released from the surface into the atmosphere, where it acts as a potent greenhouse gas, while some is broken down by microorganisms in the water column. In a study just published in the ISME (International Society for Microbial Ecology) Journal, an international research group reports that, as well as the "classical" methane consumers, filamentous bacteria of the genus Crenothrix -- previously little studied in the environment -- are also involved in the methane removal process.

Chance discovery

The role played by Crenothrix bacteria was discovered by chance, when the researchers were seeking to quantify methane removal in the Rotsee (Canton Lucerne) and Lake Zug with the aid of stable isotope labelling. In this method, methane molecules are labelled with heavy carbon-13 atoms; when 13C-labelled methane is assimilated by bacteria, the individual cells can be visualized by means of imaging mass spectrometry. "Typically," says co-author Jana Milucka of the Max Planck Institute in Bremen, "these are small round or rod-shaped cells." In this case, however, the bacteria enriched with 13C were not only single round cells but also long, filamentous varieties (see photo): This finding was very surprising, because at that point, the researchers didn't know these filamentous bacteria could occur so abundantly in nature. "We then started wondering about their role in the environmental removal of methane," says Milucka.

Commonly known as well-thread

Eawag geologist Carsten Schubert -- an expert on microbial degradation of methane in water -- was also surprised by the group's findings in the two Central Swiss lakes. While the large filamentous Crenothrix bacteria have long been known, they are only familiar as a contaminant in drinking water systems (hence their name "well-thread"), where their proliferation can cause clogging of pipes, sand filters and screens. Crenothrix bacteria have not previously been detected in lake water, because they have not been specifically sought and they are difficult to identify with molecular genetic methods. Schubert concludes: "We seem to have completely underestimated their role in the biogeochemical cycle." The researchers have now shown that Crenothrix are not only a stable part of the microbial community in freshwater lakes but may also be the most important methane consumers.
The mouse lemur -- the world's smallest primate -- has the potential to transform the field of genetics and serve as an ideal model for a wide range of primate biology, behavior and medicine, including cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer's disease, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers say.

For decades, scientists have relied on mice, fruit flies and worms as genetic models, but despite all their success, these organisms routinely fail to mimic many aspects of primate biology, including many human diseases, said Mark Krasnow, MD, PhD, professor of biochemistry.

Frustrated by the lack of a good study model, Krasnow and his colleagues turned to the mouse lemur and began conducting detailed physiologic and genetic studies on hundreds of these petite, docile creatures in the rainforests of Madagascar.

Working in a Stanford-funded lab on the island country, the scientists report that they already have identified more than 20 individual lemurs with unique genetic traits, including obesity, high cholesterol, high blood sugar, cardiac arrhythmias, progressive eye disease and motor and personality disorders. Their hope is that continued study of these abundant primates could lead to a better understanding, and possibly better treatments, of these and other conditions in lemurs and humans.

'Huge potential'

"I think mouse lemurs have great potential for our understanding of primate biology, behavior and conservation, in the same way that fruit flies and mice over the last 30 or 40 years have transformed our understanding of developmental biology and many other areas of biology and medicine," Krasnow said. "Some of the most fascinating and important questions that need to be answered are primate-specific. For those, we really need something besides humans to complement the work that has been done in fruit flies and mice."

A paper describing the researchers' findings will be published online June 9 in Genetics. Krasnow is the senior author. Lead authorship is shared by graduate student Camille Ezran and postdoctoral scholar Caitlin Karanewsky.

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The project began in 2009 when Krasnow, frustrated by the lack of a good animal model for lung disease -- his area of expertise -- commissioned three high school interns to search the animal world for something better. By the end of the summer, the interns had come up with the mouse lemur, which fits all the necessary criteria: Like mice, these animals are small (about twice the size of a mouse), develop quickly, reproduce rapidly, produce many offspring, and are inexpensive and easy to maintain and manage. In genetic terms, the mouse lemur is about midway between humans and mice, Krasnow said.

"When I talk to scientists, their faces light up when I tell them about mouse lemurs because they are about the size of a mouse but they are primates, so that makes a huge difference," said Ezran, who was one of the high school interns. "I think they really do present such great potential for biological, behavioral and medical research in general."

Early on in the project, Krasnow sought out the perspective of Stanford veterinarians, ultimately recruiting Megan Albertelli, DVM, PhD, assistant professor of comparative medicine. A geneticist and primate specialist, Albertelli said she was initially skeptical of the idea of lemurs as animal models, but soon became enthusiastic after realizing their enormous potential for contributions in understanding neurologic problems, eye disease and other conditions where mouse models have fallen short.

Trip to France

She accompanied the group on a trip to France to visit with scientists who had been studying lemurs in the laboratory for years. A French team had found that some aging lemurs develop a form of dementia and accumulate plaques in the brain that resemble those of Alzheimer's patients.

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"I saw that they were promising models for Alzheimer's disease," Albertelli said. "Alzheimer's is a condition that is hard to model in other animal species, so that was very exciting."

Mouse lemurs live exclusively on Madagascar, where they are found in great abundance. Tens of millions of them populate the island. While lemurs generally are endangered due to habitat destruction, mouse lemurs are not under threat and freely roam the island, said Ezran, who calls them the "rodents of Madagascar."

The Stanford researchers began to develop collaborations with other scientists studying lemurs, including those at the Centre ValBio near the Ranomafana National Park in Madagascar, who have been examining lemur ecology, family structure and behavior for decades.

During periodic visits to the island, Krasnow and his colleagues learned how to catch brown mouse lemurs in the rainforest just outside the research station, using a tiny banana slice inside a trap as a lure. The scientists then tagged and photographed each animal, gave them a thorough physical examination, analyzed them for behavioral issues and abnormalities and removed a drop of blood for detailed genetic and serum studies. The animals then were released back into the wild so the researchers could follow them over time to see how their environments may influence their progress and health. In 2013, Stanford built a sophisticated molecular biology and genetics lab within the ValBio complex, where these studies could be carried out.

'Distinctive personalities'

Lemurs have distinctive personalities, Krasnow said, and the researchers gave each one a name, based on his or her looks or behavior. For instance, one was named Feisty for his unusually aggressive nature; most lemurs are docile.

The work has led to a whole new way of doing genetic studies, said Krasnow, who is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Instead of using the traditional method of introducing genetic mutations into mice to create "knockout" mice -- or animals with customized genes -- they found they were able to find naturally occurring variants among animals in the wild. Moreover, in working with lemurs in their native habitats, the researchers could better understand how the animals interact with their surroundings and the relationship between genes and the environment.

"Instead of introducing mutations in mice or fruit flies, we are doing something much more similar to what is done in humans," he said. "We are looking at all the wonderful genetic variation already existing in nature, since there are so many millions of mouse lemurs out there. We calculate that most 'knockout' mutations are already present in nature, and all we have to do is find them. And because the cost of sequencing a genome is rapidly dropping, it's now possible to sequence the genomes of thousands of mouse lemurs to see what mutations they are carrying."

In doing so, the researchers could accomplish in a few years for a tiny fraction of the cost what the International Knockout Mouse Consortium will accomplish in 10 years, at a cost of nearly $1 billion, he said.

But the project could use some additional staff, as the process of capturing the animals and screening them in the laboratory is labor-intensive, he said. He and his colleagues have come up with a multipurpose solution that will contribute to the local educational system while helping preserve the lemur populations in Madagascar, whose habitats are threatened by farming, mining and logging interests, he said.

Help from students

The group is developing a science curriculum for use in Malagasy high schools in which students learn about biology by exploring the rich environment right outside their school houses. Among the instructors is Manu Prakash, PhD, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford and a pioneer in the field of "frugal science," who has brought his powerful $1 paper microscopes to Madagascar and taught students how to explore the microscopic world in which they live, including the lice in their hair, the pathogens in their water and the disease-causing parasites in their environment. The curriculum was first introduced among university students, some of whom now are screening lemurs at the Stanford lab in Madagascar.

"We saw this as an opportunity because we are going over there to study the unique animals and biology and ecology of Madagascar, which is unsurpassed in the world," Krasnow said. "It is the No. 1 hotspot for biodiversity, but most of the students don't realize what they have in their backyards because they are being taught from textbooks and from teachers who have learned from Europeans."

He said the researchers hope to expand scientific curricula at all levels of education, helping train the Malagasy scientists of the future and build scientific capacity in the country, all the while creating an appreciation among the local population of the need to understand and preserve lemurs and other species for the future.

"We are trying to do this in a way that is respectful and will help the lemurs and the people of Madagascar, while enlightening many aspects of primate biology and human disease," he said.

The researchers plan to make the genetic sequencing and phenotyping information they obtain from the lemurs publicly available so that researchers around the world can take advantage of this trove of knowledge, Albertelli said.
University of Florida researchers may have come a step closer to finding a treatment for a disease called Huanglongbing, or citrus greening, that has been decimating citrus trees in the state. In work published this week in mSphere, an open access journal from the American Society for Microbiology, the investigators describe identifying a small protein from one bacterium living in Asian citrus psyllids -- the flying insects that spread the disease as they feed on the trees -- that can "cross-talk," moving to another bacterium within the insects to silence so-called "prophage genes" containing viral material in the second bacterium, helping prevent an insect immune reaction that would likely be detrimental to both bacteria.

The protein, from the Wolbachia bacterium, could serve as a potential target to develop spray treatments to protect trees against the psyllids, and could potentially help the trees themselves fight off bacterial invasion, said senior study author Dean W. Gabriel, Ph.D., a professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Wolbachia is a natural bacterium present in up to 60 percent of all insect species. (image: citrus greening disease on mandarin oranges, wikimedia commons)

"In this case, one bacterium is doing a favor to the whole bacterial community living within the psyllid by shutting down a potential threat to survival of insect host," Gabriel said.

Gabriel and colleagues had been looking for ways to interrupt citrus greening, a disease process caused when psyllids carrying but not affected by a bacteria called Candidatus Liberibacter feed on healthy trees and inject this bacteria into the trees' phloem, a tubular system normally used to transport sugars produced during photosynthesis from the leaves of a plant to the rest. The bacterium suppresses the plants' defenses as it moves, Gabriel said: "It's like a little cunning burglar sneaking in under the radar." It impacts the tree from its roots to its shoots, he said, and has a long incubation period: "By the time disease is detected in one tree, the entire grove is thoroughly infested and much more difficult to treat."

Citrus greening causes a severe decline in the trees -- leaves turn a blotchy, mottled yellow color, the fruits produced are smaller and have an off-taste, and fruit yield is much reduced. The disease has devastated Florida over the last 10 or so years, Gabriel said. As a result, the state's overall citrus production has declined by about 60 percent over the last six years. Scientists have been desperately seeking a cure.

In a series of laboratory experiments, Gabriel's team discovered that expression of proteins that help drive the spread of the Candidatus bacteria were suppressed when they were treated with extracts from the psyllids. Further studying the process, they identified a fragment of the protein doing part of suppression as encoded by the Wolbachia strain and secreted into the insect. This protein could move within the insect into the Candidatus bacteria causing greening, bind itself to a genetic region that would normally promote prophage activity, and repress these genes.

Gabriel's group has a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grow the Candidatus Liberibacter bacterium in culture, a process that has been difficult because, once removed from its host, the bacterium historically has destroyed itself. Now that a protein target has been identified, it can be commercially synthesized and added to culture media, where the bacterium may be more likely to grow, Gabriel said.
MADISON  The state Senate moved closer Wednesday to passing a bill that would allow the sale of home-baked cakes, muffins and doughnuts, passing the measure through committee after supporters insisted it would jump-start small businesses.

Wisconsin and New Jersey are the only states that ban the sale of home-baked cookies, muffins and other items to the public.

Law struck down

Wisconsins prohibition comes in the form of state requirements that bakers obtain a license, which means renting or building a commercial kitchen, submitting to inspections and paying numerous fees. Home bakers say those hurdles are too high to meet. A LaFayette County judge struck down the statutes last week, saying the law makes it impossible for home bakers to legally sell their wares.

The Senate bill, authored by River Falls Republican Sheila Harsdorf, would allow people to sell without a license if they do it face-to-face, register with state consumer protection officials and generate less than $25,000 in annual revenue. Their products also would have to have low moisture amounts that dont support dangerous organisms.

Many oppose measure

The Wisconsin Association of Local Health Departments and Boards, the Wisconsin Grocers Association, the Wisconsin Public Health Association and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association oppose the measure. But Harsdorf told the Senates public benefits and licensing committee that the bill would open the door for entrepreneurs.

Rebecca Otte-Ford, a 36-year-old massage therapist and exercise trainer from Madison, told the committee that shes allergic to gluten and dairy products and would love to bake gluten-free, dairy-free cakes for people but she doesnt want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a commercial kitchen.

The bill originally called for limiting revenue to $7,500 a year, but the committee upped it $25,000 after Otte-Ford and Nick Levendofsky, a lobbyist for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, complained that ingredients are expensive and a lower revenue cap would discourage people from testing the market.

The panel approved the measure unanimously with almost no discussion. The vote clears the way for a vote in the full Senate. Harsdorf said she hopes that could happen next week.

The Senate passed a nearly identical bill last session but it died in the Assembly. Last week Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the most powerful member of that chamber, began circulating his own bill that would de-regulate the entire baking industry. Vos spokeswoman Kit Beyer said Wednesday that the speaker wants a level playing field for everyone.

The competing bills come as Senate and Assembly Republicans are locked in a bitter intraparty squabble over how to fund roads and public schools in the state budget. Harsdorf sits on the Legislatures finance committee, which is smack in the middle of the budget battle as it revises the spending plan. She called Vos baked goods bill interesting but believes the industry must be regulated.

Asked if Republicans were going to start fighting over doughnuts next, she replied no comment.
For the first time, autism researchers used MRIs of six-month olds to show how brain regions are connected and synchronized, and then predict which babies at high risk of developing autism would be diagnosed with the condition at age two. A previous UNC-lead study, published in Nature in February, used MRIs to determine differences in brain anatomy that predict which babies would develop autism as toddlers.

Published in Science Translational Medicine, this paper describes a second type of brain biomarker that researchers and potentially clinicians could use as part of a diagnostic toolkit to help identify children as early as possible, before autism symptoms even appear.

"The Nature paper focused on measuring anatomy at two time points (six and 12 months), but this new paper focused on how brain regions are synchronized with each other at one time point (six months) to predict at an even younger age which babies would develop autism as toddlers." said senior author Joseph Piven, MD, the Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine, and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities. "The more we understand about the brain before symptoms appear, the better prepared we will be to help children and their families."

Co-senior author John R. Pruett Jr., MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said, "There are no behavioral features to help us identify autism prior to the development of symptoms, which emerge during the second year of life. But early intervention improves outcomes, so if in the future we could use MRI to identify children at ultra-high risk before they develop symptoms, we could begin treatments sooner."

During the study, sleeping infants were placed in an MRI machine and scanned for about 15 minutes to view neural activity across 230 different brain regions. The researchers analyzed how various brain regions were synchronized with each other. This synchrony reflects the coordinated activity of brain regions, which is crucial for cognition, memory, and behavior, and may be observed during sleep.

The researchers then focused on brain region connections related to the core features of autism: language skills, repetitive behaviors, and social behavior. For instance, the researchers determined which brain regions -- synchronized at six months -- were related to behaviors at age two. This helped Piven's co-investigators create a machine learning classifier -- a computer program -- to sort through the differences in synchronization among those key brain regions. Once the computer learned these different patterns, the researchers applied the machine learning classifier to a separate set of infants.

This part of the study included 59 babies enrolled at four sites, including the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (CIDD) at UNC-Chapel Hill, Washington University in St. Louis, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and the University of Washington in Seattle. Each baby had an older sibling with autism, which means each baby had about a one-in-five chance of developing autism, as opposed to one in 68, which is the approximate risk among the general population. Eleven of the 59 babies went on to develop autism.

The machine learning classifier was able to separate findings into two main groups: MRI data from children who developed autism and MRI data from those who did not. Using only this information, the computer program correctly predicted 81 percent of babies who would later meet the criteria for autism at two years of age.

Robert Emerson, PhD, a former UNC postdoctoral fellow and first author of the study, said, "When the classifier determined a child had autism, it was always right. But it missed two children. They developed autism but the computer program did not predict it correctly, according to the data we obtained at six months of age."

Emerson added, "No one has done this kind of study in six-month olds before, and so it needs to be replicated. We hope to conduct a larger study soon with different study participants."

This marks the fourth autism imaging study UNC researchers led or co-led this year. Along with the Nature paper, UNC researchers and collaborators published a study in Biological Psychiatry in March linking increased cerebrospinal fluid surrounding to autism diagnoses. In February, they published a paper in Cerebral Cortex about the brain network functional connections involved in social behavior deficits in children with autism.

"I think the most exciting work is yet to come, when instead of using one piece of information to make these predictions, we use all the information together," Emerson said. "I think that will be the future of using biological diagnostics for autism during infancy."
According to recent studies, declines in wild and managed bee populations threaten the pollination of flowers in more than 85 percent of flowering plants and 75 percent of agricultural crops worldwide. Widespread and effective monitoring of bee populations could lead to better management; however, tracking bees is tricky and costly. Now, a research team led by the University of Missouri has developed an inexpensive acoustic listening system using data from small microphones in the field to monitor bees in flight. The study, published in PLOS ONE, shows how farmers could use the technology to monitor pollination and increase food production.

"Causes of pollinator decline are complex and include diminishing flower resources, habitat loss, climate change, increased disease incidence and exposure to pesticides, so pinpointing the driving forces remains a challenge," said Candace Galen, professor of biological science in the MU College of Arts and Science. "For more than 100 years, scientists have used sonic vibrations to monitor birds, bats, frogs and insects. We wanted to test the potential for remote monitoring programs that use acoustics to track bee flight activities."

First, the team analyzed the characteristic frequencies -- what musicians call the pitch -- of bee buzzes in the lab. Then, they placed small microphones attached to data storage devices in the field and collected the acoustic survey data from three locations on Pennsylvania Mountain, Colorado, to estimate bumble bee activity.

Using the data, they developed algorithms that identified and quantified the number of bee buzzes in each location and compared that data to visual surveys the team made in the field. In almost every instance, the acoustic surveys were more sensitive, picking up more buzzing bees.

"Eavesdropping on the acoustic signatures of bee flights tells the story of bee activity and pollination services," Galen said. "Farmers may be able to use the exact methods to monitor pollination of their orchards and vegetable crops and head off pollination deficits. Finally, global 'citizen scientists' could get involved, monitoring bees in their backyards."

Currently, using the algorithms developed in this study, the team is developing a smartphone app that could record buzz activity as well as document the bees photographically. Future studies could determine whether bees detect competitors by sound and whether flowers have chemical responses to bee buzzes, Galen said.
An increase in mean temperature of 0.5 degrees Celsius over half a century may not seem all that serious, but it's enough to have more than doubled the probability of a heat wave killing in excess of 100 people in India, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions.

This could have grim implications for the future, because mean temperatures are projected to rise by 2.2 to 5.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century in the low- and mid-latitude countries of the Asian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

"The impact of global climate change is not a specter on the horizon. It's real, and it's being felt now all over the planet," said Amir AghaKouchak, UCI associate professor of civil & environmental engineering and co-author of the study, published in Science Advances. "It's particularly alarming that the adverse effects are pummeling the world's most vulnerable populations."

Using data gathered by the India Meteorological Department from 1960 to 2009, the UCI-led team analyzed changes in summer temperatures; the frequency, severity and duration of heat waves; and heat-related deaths.

They found that when mean summer temperatures in the South Asia nation went from 27 to 27.5 degrees Celsius, the probability of a heat wave killing more than 100 people grew from 13 percent to 32 percent -- an increase of 146 percent.

In real terms, there were only 43 and 34 heat-related fatalities in 1975 and 1976, respectively, when the mean summer temperature was about 27.4 degrees Celsius. However, at least 1,600 people died from excessive heat in 1998, when the mean summer temperature was higher than 28 degrees Celsius.

The average number of heat wave days over the five-decade study period was 7.3 per year. The most heat wave days occurred in 1998 (18), when 1,655 people died, and 2003 (13), when 1,500 people died.

A global issue

India is currently home to over 1.3 billion people, nearly a quarter of whom live on less than $1.25 a day and have little to no access to electricity.

"In addition to India, populations in other developing countries in low- to mid-latitude regions are especially hard hit by these extreme heat events," said lead author Omid Mazdiyasni, a UCI graduate student in civil & environmental engineering. "They lack air conditioning that people in richer countries rely on when the heat is unbearable, and they don't have funds to escape to cooler climates."

The study authors stressed that their findings should serve as a wake-up call for governments and international organizations to help improve the resilience of areas most vulnerable to climate change-induced weather events. But in the wake of last week's news of the United States withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, they acknowledged the difficulty in building a broad-based coalition to tackle the issue.

"Given the quantifiable impacts of climate change in India and other developing nations in the coming decades, both rich and poor countries should be ramping up our efforts to combat global climate change instead of turning our backs on commitments we have made to the international community," said co-author Steven J. Davis, UCI associate professor of Earth system science.
The motivation to own a handgun for self-protection is not just about fear of crime, according to the model proposed by Wolfgang Stroebe and Pontus Leander (University of Groningen, The Netherlands), and Arie W. Kruglanski (University of Maryland), it is also about a more general sense of threat emanating from "the belief that the world is an unpredictable and dangerous place and that society is at the brink of collapse." These dual layers of threat also predict beliefs that people have the right to shoot and kill in self-defense and that people should have broad 2nd Amendment rights.

The study, "Is It a Dangerous World Out There?: The Motivational Bases of American Gun Ownership" appears in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

In terms of human behavior, "it is not just concrete, specific threats that change our behavior, but also vague, general ideas about threat," write Stroebe and colleagues. "Even if we cannot pinpoint exactly why we feel threatened, the fact that we are threatened at all can lead us to want to own handguns for self-protection and advocate for more expansive rights to carry and use them." The authors developed a new theory based on psychological principles, to better understand how these behaviors and beliefs influence American gun owners.

The researchers' first three studies explored their model for understanding gun ownership beliefs. The authors conducted surveys of 839 men in the U.S, 404 gun owners and 435 nonowners.

In their first study, they used survey data to compare gun owners with nonowners to tap possible differences in their gun-related beliefs. In their following two studies, the researchers focused exclusively on the gun owner survey to test the predictions derived from their two-component theory.

In support of their theory they found that fear of crime alone did not explain the need for personal protection, "Different forces are making people feel threatened in different ways, and yet these different types of threat both correlate with increased handgun ownership and stronger beliefs that people have a right to kill in self-defense," according to Stroebe. Whereas fear of crime was mainly influenced by past crime victimization, the more general sense of threat about the world being a dangerous place, was "instead more strongly influenced by a person's (conservative) political beliefs than by past experience with crime victimization."

The researchers conducted their first three surveys in May and June 2016, before the Orlando Nightclub shootings. They conducted an additional survey a week after the event, replicating their earlier studies with a new group of male gun owners, to see if the mass shooting influenced their beliefs.

"We expected the Orlando mass shooting to move the needle on the belief systems of gun owners, so we were surprised that there was practically no effect," says Stroebe.

The authors note that the threat and belief system they tested mainly applies to handgun owners and not owners who only have long guns.

Based on their research, "Long guns such as bolt-action rifles, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, are linked to hunting and not really linked to a sense of threat," says Stroebe, "Although the gun owners in our sample owned an average of 4 guns each, we saw no evidence that any of our findings apply to owners of long guns only -- that is, those who do not own a handgun."

The framework presumably only applies to the United States. "Guns have been part of US history since the American frontier and the right to own a gun is enshrined in the Constitution, which may change the way Americans think about guns relative to people who live in other countries and cultures," says Stroebe.
Garry Buchko and his colleagues are at the front line battling some of the most fearsome enemies that humanity has ever known: Tuberculosis. Pneumonia. Ebola. Plague. Botulism.

But he is not in a hospital or field tent, taking vital signs or administering medications. Instead, Buchko the biochemist is in the laboratory, where the front line is the world of proteins -- the molecular workhorses that keep all organisms functioning properly and make life possible. Using some of the highest-tech approaches available, he works with scientists in the Pacific Northwest to uncover crucial information needed to develop better treatments or vaccines against a host of nasty agents that can cause body aches, nausea, fatigue, food poisoning, diarrhea, ulcers, difficulty breathing, and death.

Buchko does such work as part of the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease, one of two centers funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases tasked with solving the structure of proteins that enable pathogens to live, thrive, and infect people. Scientists from four institutions partner in the effort: The Center for Infectious Disease Research, Beryllium Discovery Corp., the University of Washington, and the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where Buchko does his research.

This week the team reached a milestone, announcing that its scientists have solved the 3-D structure of the 1,000th protein from more than 70 organisms that cause infectious disease in people. The proteins the team has studied come from microbes that cause several serious diseases, including tuberculosis, Listeria, Giardia, Ebola, anthrax, Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection, Legionella, Lyme, chlamydia and the flu.

While the proteins isolated for study are not pathogenic, the structural information provides scientists the opportunity to design molecules that will knock out an essential process in such microbes.

It is challenging work. Protein shapes are very complex -- many look a lot like convoluted roller coasters with multiple twists, turns, and loops, all squeezed into a tiny space just one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair. The arrangement and lengths of these features give each protein its specific biochemical properties -- what other molecules they will interact with and precisely what they will do in the body. Knowing the precise shape of proteins provides a blueprint for scientists searching for new ways to disable the pathogens and stop the diseases they can cause.

Buchko's expertise is with nuclear magnetic resonance or NMR, which is very similar to the magnetic resonance imaging technique widely used by physicians to diagnose all manner of medical conditions. Buchko scrutinizes proteins from pathogens drawing upon the NMR technology at EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science user facility at PNNL.

While the end result is an atomic-level picture, it's not as simple as snapping a photograph. Instead, Buchko places the protein inside an NMR spectrometer and records information about the orientation, energy and other properties of all the atomic nuclei in the molecule. Then he interprets the information and feeds the thousands of pieces of data into a computer program to calculate the position of every atom, resulting in a complete 3-D reconstruction of the protein. Data analysis is crucial to getting the structures correct.

Buchko has been an author on more than 20 of the team's studies in the last 10 years. Among his targets are pathogens that cause tuberculosis, malaria, cat scratch fever, and hemorrhagic fevers, as well as water-based parasites that cause severe diarrhea and abdominal pain.

SSGCID scientists have published more than 100 manuscripts detailing their findings. In addition, all the structures are immediately shared with the scientific community through a public database called the Protein Data Bank. As a result, the structures have been used in nearly 600 scientific papers from other laboratories in academia, research institutes, and pharmaceutical companies around the world that are working on human pathogens. Sharing its findings so that scientists worldwide can make further discoveries is at the heart of SSGCID's mission.

The Seattle-based center is one of two centers funded by NIAID (contract # HHSN272201200025C). The other, based in Chicago, is the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases and includes another DOE laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, among its participants. The SSGCID is led by Peter Myler, professor and director of core services at the Center for Infectious Disease Research.

"When the SSGCID solves protein structures, it lays the foundation for researchers at CID Research and around the world to find new drugs, therapies and vaccine candidates for diseases that kill thousands each year," said Myler. "I'm very proud of the hard work carried out by our team and our dedicated partners."
Rocket Lab will try to catch the falling first stage of its Electron rocket with a helicopter today (May 2) shortly after the launch of 34 satellites in a key reusability test. Watch it live here. Read more.

'ISS Live!' Tune in to the space station

Find out what the astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (opens in new tab) are up to by tuning in to the "ISS Live" broadcast. Hear conversations between the crew and mission controllers on Earth and watch them work inside the U.S. segment of the orbiting laboratory. When the crew is off duty, you can enjoy live views of Earth from Space. You can watch and listen in the window below, courtesy of NASA.

From NASA: (opens in new tab)

"Live video from the International Space Station includes internal views when the crew is on-duty and Earth views at other times. The video is accompanied by audio of conversations between the crew and Mission Control. This video is only available when the space station is in contact with the ground. During 'loss of signal' periods, viewers will see a blue screen.

"Since the station orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes, it experiences a sunrise or a sunset about every 45 minutes. When the station is in darkness, external camera video may appear black, but can sometimes provide spectacular views of lightning or city lights below."

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On Aug. 21, 2017, skies darkened from Oregon to South Carolina in the first total solar eclipse visible from coast to coast across the United States in 99 years. Read our wrap story here: Rare Coast-to-Coast Total Solar Eclipse Thrills Millions Across U.S. Here is Space.com's complete guide to the epic event. It includes the latest amazing photos (which you can see in galleries here, here and here) and videos (which are compiled here; some are also highlighted in our eclipse stories here and here).

Miss the 2017 total solar eclipse? Another one's coming to the U.S. in 2024:

After 'Super Bowl of Eclipses,' US Looks Forward to 2024 Total Solar Eclipse | 2024 Eclipse Totality Path Maps

More Awesome Photos & Stories:

Interactive Solar Eclipse Maps | Eclipse Times | Weather & Traffic Guide | Best Video Streams | Complete Coverage

REMEMBER: During totality, when the sun's disk is completely covered by the moon, it is safe to view the eclipse with the naked eye. But skywatchers should NEVER look at a partial solar eclipse without proper eye protection. Looking directly at the sun, even when it is partially covered by the moon, can cause serious eye damage or blindness. See our complete guide to find out how to view the eclipse safely.

What is a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the disk of the moon appears to completely cover the disk of the sun in the sky. The fact that total solar eclipses occur at all is a quirk of cosmic geometry. The moon orbits an average of 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) from Earth  just the right distance to seem the same size in the sky as the much-larger sun. However, these heavenly bodies line up only about once every 18 months.

Outside the path of totality, skywatchers in the continental U.S. and other nearby areas will see a partial solar eclipse, in which the moon appears to take a bite out of the sun's disk. Two to five solar eclipses occur each year on average, but total solar eclipses happen just once every 18 months or so.

What will I see during a total solar eclipse?

During a total solar eclipse, the disk of the moon blocks out the last sliver of light from the sun, and the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, becomes visible. The corona is far from an indistinct haze; skywatchers report seeing great jets and ribbons of light, twisting and curling out into the sky.

"It brings people to tears," Rick Fienberg, a spokesperson for the American Astronomical Society (AAS), told Space.com of the experience. "It makes people's jaw drop."

During totality, the area inside the moon's shadow is cloaked in twilight  a very strange feeling to experience in the middle of the day. Just before and just after totality, observers can see this cloak of darkness moving toward them across the landscape, and then moving away.

These effects are not visible during a partial solar eclipse, so skywatchers are encouraged to see if they are inside the path of totality during the total eclipse.

Where will the total solar eclipse be visible?

The path of totality for the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse is about 70 miles wide and stretches from Oregon to South Carolina. It passes through Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

You can use this interactive map from NASA to zoom in on the path and find out the exact locations from which it will be visible.

You can also check out our state-by-state guide to find out which major cities and prime locations will fall inside the path of totality. You may also want to attend one of the many eclipse parties and organized events taking place around the path of totality.

When will the total solar eclipse occur, and how long will it last?

The timing of the total solar eclipse and its duration both depend on where you are inside the path of totality.

At most, the moon will completely cover the disk of the sun for 2 minutes and 40 seconds. That's about how long totality will last for observers positioned anywhere along the center of the path of totality. As you move toward the edge of the path, the duration of totality will decrease. People standing at the very edge of the path may observe totality for only a few seconds.

The chart below lists the moment of mid-totality and the duration of totality for a handful of cities that lie close to the center of the path. Data from NASA.

Eclipse Begins Totality Begins Totality Ends Eclipse Ends Madras, OR 09:06 a.m. 10:19 a.m. 10:21 a.m. 11:41 a.m. PDT Idaho Falls, ID 10:15 a.m. 11:33 a.m. 11:34 a.m. 12:58 p.m. MDT Casper, WY 10:22 a.m. 11:42 a.m. 11:45 a.m. 01:09 p.m. MDT Lincoln, NE 11:37 a.m. 01:02 p.m. 01:04 p.m. 02:29 p.m. CDT Jefferson City, MO 11:46 a.m. 01:13 p.m. 01:15 p.m. 02:41 p.m. CDT Carbondale, IL 11:52 a.m. 01:20 p.m. 01:22 p.m. 02:47 p.m. CDT Paducah, KY 11:54 a.m. 01:22 p.m. 01:24 p.m. 02:49 p.m. CDT Nashville, TN 11:58 a.m. 01:27 p.m. 01:29 p.m. 02:54 p.m. CDT Clayton, GA 01:06 p.m. 02:35 p.m. 02:38 p.m. 04:01 p.m. EDT Columbia, SC 01:03 p.m. 02:41 p.m. 02:44 p.m. 04:06 p.m. EDT

Because the shadow of the moon will move from west to east, totality will occur later in the day the farther east you travel. Use the NASA interactive eclipse map to find out exactly when totality will occur and how long it will last in the location where you plan to observe the eclipse. Just click on a spot on the map, and an informational box will appear with specific times.

Do I need any equipment to view the eclipse?

Anyone planning to view the total solar eclipse of 2017 should get a pair of solar viewing glasses. These protective shades make it possible for observers to look directly at the sun before and after totality. The following four companies sell eclipse glasses that meet the international standard (ISO 12312-2) recommended by NASA, the AAS and other scientific organizations: Rainbow Symphony, American Paper Optics, Thousand Oaks Optical, Lunt Solar Systems and TSE 17.

Sunglasses cannot be used in place of solar viewing glasses. See our complete guide to find out how to view the eclipse safely.

During totality, when the disk of the sun is completely covered by the moon, it is safe to look up at the celestial sight with the naked eye.

Binoculars are helpful for seeing more detail in the solar corona. Telescopes are not necessary, but some skywatchers may use low-powered telescopes to observe the sun's atmosphere during totality. Note that telescopes, binoculars and cameras must be fitted with solar filters before and after totality. Pointing an unprotected lens directly at the sun can damage the instrument. NEVER look at the sun through binoculars, a telescope or a camera lens without a solar filter -- the magnified light can damage your eyes faster than looking at the sun unaided.

Skywatchers outside the path of totality will still be able to see a partial solar eclipse. Solar viewing glasses allow skywatchers to look directly at the moon's progress across the face of the sun. You can also view the progress of a partial solar eclipse using a pinhole camera.

For more information, see our complete guide for how to view the eclipse safely.

What else should I know before viewing the eclipse?

Aug. 21, 2017, may be one of the worst traffic days in national history, some NASA representatives predict. Although about 12 million people live within the narrow band of totality, approximately 25 million reside within a day's drive of it, and the agency has estimated that the population inside the path of totality may double on the day of the eclipse.

With that in mind, make sure you plan for extra travel time, especially on the day of the eclipse. Most hotel rooms inside the path of totality have been booked for months or years, so you may not be able to stay inside the path the night before.

When selecting a location where you plan to view the eclipse, keep in mind your proximity to food, water, parking and facilities. Attending an organized eclipse event is an ideal way to make sure those things are close by. Traveling even short distances could be difficult in some areas, and midday in the middle of August can mean punishing heat in many parts of the country.

When is the next time a total solar eclipse will be visible from the U.S.?

In 2024, a total solar eclipse will darken the skies above Mexico and Texas, up through the Midwest and northeastern U.S.

For more information about the total solar eclipse of 2017, check out these additional articles:

General eclipse info

Get Ready for Major Traffic Jams During the 2017 Solar Eclipse

Where to See the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse, State by State

How Long Will the 2017 Solar Eclipse Last? Depends Where You Are

How to Survive the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017

How to Safely Watch the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

7 of the Best Total Solar Eclipse Apps for Aug. 21

Eclipse science and history

Here's What Scientists Have Learned From Total Solar Eclipses

NASA Wants YOU to Be a Citizen Scientist for the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

This Is How YOU Can Do Science During the Great American Eclipse

Eclipse events and photography

Solar Eclipse Photography: Tips, Settings, Equipment and Photo Guide

How to Film or Photograph the 2017 Solar Eclipse Like a Pro

Eclipse Party! 13 Solar Eclipse Celebrations Across the U.S.

How to Use Your Phone or DSLR to Help Make an Eclipse 'Megamovie'

Watch a Livestream of the 2017 Solar Eclipse From 100,000 Feet in the Air

Editor's note: If you take an amazing photo of the 2017 solar eclipse or any other celestial sight you'd like to share with us and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, send images and comments to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
WASHINGTON  Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, attended a round table discussion with President Donald Trump at the White House Thursday to try to get more road money for the state.

Vos could not be reached directly for comment Thursday, but said in an emailed statement, Its an honor to have been invited to this important discussion on the nations infrastructure and to represent Wisconsins interests in that discussion.

Vos was in Washington as part of a National Conference of State Legislatures event including a White House infrastructure summit with other state and local leaders.

Trump has proposed a $1 trillion overhaul of the nations roads and bridges, a key item on his domestic agenda. Vos said Trump listened to the ideas from state officials on infrastructure.

Im encouraged by the Presidents plan to rebuild our nations roads and bridges, and appreciated his invitation to be part of the discussion at the White House. It was an amazing opportunity to be among a committed group of leaders who care deeply about our country and its future, Vos said.

State lawmakers are trying to figure out how to bridge a $1 billion funding hole for transportation.

The states infrastructure is falling into disrepair and we need a long-term, sustainable solution to fund our transportation needs, Vos said. As we look for a long-term sustainable solution to meet our state transportation needs, its important that the federal government gives states like Wisconsin the flexibility to innovate.

Vos and other Assembly Republicans want a gas tax increase to be considered as part of the solution, however, Gov. Scott Walker and Senate Republicans oppose it.

The states infrastructure is falling into disrepair and we need a long-term, sustainable solution to fund our transportation needs. ... Its an honor to have been invited to this important discussion on the nations infrastructure and to represent Wisconsins interests in that discussion. Rep. Robin Vos, R-Rochester
Kevin Sloan is director of the University Rover Challenge for The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the human exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. He contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices.

After three days of intense competition under the hot desert sun, the Mars Rover Design Team (MRDT) from the Missouri University of Science and Technology became the first team from the United States to win the University Rover Challenge (URC) since 2010. Thirty-five rovers and more than 500 students from seven countries descended upon the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah from June 1 to June 3 for this annual competition, which asks college students to design and build the worlds best Mars rover.

Poland was represented on the podium for the fifth consecutive year, as the PCz Rover Team from the Czestochowa University of Technology won second place. Brigham Young University from the United States earned the third position, marking the sixth time BYU has won a place on the podium. [Mars Explored: Landers and Rovers Since 1971 (Infographic)]

The international robotics competition for college students, which is part of the Mars Societys Rover Challenge Series, featured an elite field of teams vying to build the worlds best student-designed Mars rover. A record 82 teams from 13 countries took part in URC2017. Following a rigorous two-stage down-selection process, 36 teams were invited to the field competition at MDRS. Thirty-five teams from seven countries arrived with their rovers, ready for the exciting challenges in the Utah desert.

For its 11th year, URC introduced two new tasks: the Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Task, designed to support astronauts by delivering a variety of items across aggressive terrain; and the Autonomous Traversal Task. This was the first time that a fully autonomous capability has been required at URC. MRDT, in a display of exceptional engineering and execution, earned perfect scores in each event.

During the Autonomous Traversal Task, the MRDT rover, named Gryphon by its builders, demonstrated a remarkable set of subsystems that enabled it to autonomously navigate between a series of defined gates. While Gryphons navigation system enabled it to reach the vicinity of each gate, a visual tracking system located the gate markers, allowing it to stop inside the required 3-meter (10 feet) radius.

Between gates, while operating autonomously, Gryphons suspension systems and innovative carbon-fiber-based wheels displayed tremendous agility as they overcame dangerous and rocky terrain that threatened to flip most other competitors. Gryphons suspension, named Mantis, is a variation on the classical rocker-bogie suspension seen on typical NASA Mars rovers. The Mantis suspension was specifically designed for the rigors of URC, which include large obstacles and high-speed impacts as rovers race to complete tasks in a harsh environment.

Judges watching Gryphon complete the Autonomous Traversal Task were amazed at the ease with which MRDT tackled a task believed to be unbeatable in its first year at URC. Only two other teams were able to successfully reach the fifth gate, leaving the two most difficult gates for MRDT alone.

More than 500 students from seven countries descended upon the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah from June 1 through June 3 for the 2017 University Rover Challenge. (Image credit: The Mars Society)

Other tasks included an Equipment Servicing Task, in which teams were required to perform maintenance on notional field equipment that involved fine motor skills; and a Science Cache Task, in which teams were required to search for signs of life using a method that is applicable to Mars exploration. The latter event is particularly unique, in that teams of engineers work with their scientist counterparts to understand the requirements of field science.

"The students hard work and enthusiasm are well-shown throughout the competition," remarked Dr. Heather Smith, lead science judge. "The high level of collaboration between science, engineering and business students leads to well-designed, scientifically capable rovers."

More than 1,000 students were involved in URC projects at their local universities during the 2016-2017 academic year. The rovers they built reflected the dedication, passion and ingenuity of the student teams  a point that was not lost on the judges and industry representatives attending the event.

The scores for all teams can be found at http://urc.marssociety.org/home/about-urc/urc2017-scores.

For more information, visit URC online at: http://urc.marssociety.org, on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/universityroverchallenge), and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/URConMars).

Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Space.com.
The U.S. Air Force's robotic X-37B space plane on the Shuttle Landing Facility runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center after a May 7, 2017, landing that ended a 718-day mission.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas  The Air Force is preparing to launch its secret X-37B space plane aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket later this year, the service said yesterday (June 6).

It will be the first time Elon Musks company will carry the robotic X-37B into orbit, and is possibly the biggest national security launch SpaceX has been responsible for to date.

The X-37B will be going up again on top of a SpaceX launcher in August, Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, showing members a small model of the space plane. [The Mysterious X-37B Space Plane: 6 Surprising Facts]

This will be the fifth launch of the X-37B, which is also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle. Wilson didnt disclose why the Air Force selected SpaceX over United Launch Alliance, who launched the first four X-37B missions aboard Atlas V rockets. However, she emphasized in her testimony the growing capabilities of the commercial space industry in general.

"Theres some very exciting things happening in commercial space that bring the opportunity for assured access to space at a very competitive price," Wilson said.

Randy Walden, director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, said in a press release that "the ability to launch the Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms will ensure a robust launch capability for our experiment designers. We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexible and responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceXs ability to provide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program."

The X-37B vehicle returned from its fourth mission on May 7, landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after 718 days in orbit.

There are actually two Boeing-built X-37B spacecraft. The Air Force has not indicated which one will be launching aboard the SpaceX rocket. However, the fact that the service has been alternating missions between the two craft, and that the second X-37B was the one that landed in May, means that its likely the first X-37B is due up for the next mission.

The Air Force said it intends to continue building "upon its fourth mission collaboration with experiment partners. The mission will carry the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Advanced Structurally Embedded Thermal Spreader (ASETS-11) to test experimental electronics and oscillating heat pipes in the long duration space environment."

The X-37B is a secret Air Force program, with the first space plane launching on April 22, 2010 and spending roughly 224 days in orbit. The Air Force said that all together, the four missions have spent a total of 2,085 days in space.

Reporter Jeff Foust contributed to this story. This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
In an infrared image of Mars, strange bright streaks extend from the planet's Santa Fe crater. New research suggests that the streaks came from sideways, tornado-like vortices from the impact that generated the crater.

Ancient cosmic impacts on Mars might have created powerful wind vortices similar to sideways tornadoes, and the whirling winds would have rolled across the Red Planet's surface like barrels, a new study finds.

The streaks that those winds left behind could help reveal details about Mars' past, the researchers said.

The new study's lead author, Peter Schultz, an impact specialist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, discovered hints of the odd vortices while conducting a routine "tour of Mars." During his downtime, Schultz analyzes NASA images to see if he might notice something interesting. [Photos: Most Powerful Storms of the Solar System]

"I know Mars pretty well  have studied it since the 1960s  and I enjoy looking at the new data that comes in," Schultz told Space.com.

The evidence

Schultz and Brown graduate student Stephanie Quintana, the study's co-author, analyzed infrared images taken during nighttime on Mars by NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter. Areas that appeared brighter at night were surfaces that retained more heat from the previous day than surrounding regions, "just as grassy fields give off heat more quickly than buildings or rock," Schultz said.

The images revealed sets of bright streaks emanating from a few big impact craters on Mars more than 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) in diameter. This infrared brightness was likely due to exposed blocky rock surfaces, "which retain more heat than surfaces covered by powder," Schultz said in a statement. "That tells us that something came along and scoured those surfaces bare."

These streaks can extend quite far from the impacts that created them. For instance, on the 12.4-mile-wide (20 km) Santa Fe crater in the flat lowland region in Mars' northern hemisphere known as Chryse Planitia, the streaks can extend more than 72 miles (120 km) away from the point of impact, the new study found.

At times, debris kicked up by the impacts that created these streaks appears to have fallen on top of the streaks themselves, Schultz said. This finding suggests that the streaks were produced before the debris landed and that they were created very rapidly after the impacts, likely by winds, he added.

The wind streaks found on Mars often appear aligned with smaller craters that formed before the larger one; the craters' raised ridges disrupted the vapor plume from the impact to generate vortices, according to the study. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University)

The culprit

Using geological data, laboratory impact experiments and computer models, the researchers determined that tornado-like wind vortices might explain the streaks.

"These have tornado-like speeds but do not go straight up," Schultz said. "Instead, they are horizontal, like a tornado on Earth turned on its side."

When an asteroid, comet or other body strikes a planet at high speed, tons of material from both the impactor and the surface it hits gets vaporized instantly, he noted.

"This vapor travels outward at very high speeds from the impact point and interacts with the atmosphere to create very strong vortices," Schultz said. "These winds can exceed 600 mph [965 km/h]."

The researchers said these vortices might result when the intense flow of air from an impact encounters the rims of craters from previous impacts. The vortices form on both sides of the crater rims and roll downward, scouring the surface.

In the future, these streaks could help scientists learn details about ;the history of Mars, such as rates of erosion and the deposition rates of dust, "or even figure out how polar caps have advanced over time," Schultz said. "We can use these streaks as tools to say something about past conditions on Mars," he added.

Future research needs to investigate how these vortices get so big, and when they are or are not generated, Schultz said. For instance, factors such as the speed of the impactor or the amount of icy material in the object or below the surface that was impacted could play a role.

"We want to see why not every fresh crater on Mars exhibits these wind streaks  if there's something unusual about these streaks," Schultz said.

The scientists will detail their findings in the August issue of the journal Icarus.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
Bir-Lehlu (Liberated Zones), 4 June 2017 (SPS) The Polisario Front has informed the United Nations of the delay in the presence of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) in El Guerguerat in accordance with the letter and spirit of the April Security Council resolution.

In an official protest submitted Saturday by Saharawi coordinator with MINURSO, Mhamed Khaddad, the Polisario Front informed the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Western Sahara, MINURSO Chief Kim Bolduc, of the need to the presence of the Mission in El Guerguerat pursuant to Security Council resolution 2351.

"After more than a month of this resolution of the UN Security Council no presence has been noticed of MINURSO in the buffer zone of El Guergarat," said Mr. Khaddad, regretting the arrest of the Moroccan forces of occupation in the same area of Saharawi citizen Baba Ahmed Haidalla, preventing him for a few days from entering the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

Mr. Khadad called for the immediate release of Saharawi citizen Ahmed Baba Haidalla and unrestricted access to the occupied territories of Western Sahara.

It should be recalled that the situation in the El Guerguerat area was at the center of the discussions of the Security Council in April, which resulted in the renewal of the mandate of MINURSO and the need for a permanent presence of the MINURSO in the area, considering that last year's crisis in El Guerguerat area "raises fundamental questions related to the ceasefire and relevant agreements and urged the Secretary-General to explore ways of resolving it." (SPS)

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T wo "barbaric" burglars who tied up soon-to-be great grandparents in their home and poured boiling water over their heads have had their unduly lenient sentences almost doubled.

In April last year, Kacey Adams, 34, and 33-year-old Daniel Wallace broke in to the Kent bungalow of 66-year-old John Buswell, as he watched TV and his wife Janis, 64, knitted clothes for her expected great-grandchild.

The intruders used cable ties to tie up the couple and subjected them to almost two hours of torture to demand the codes to their safes.

Both men admitted aggravated burglary and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

They had earlier been found guilty of conspiracy to murder after a man was shot in the face in a revenge attack.

Burglars who tortured pensioners with boiling water receive lengthy sentences

At Chelmsford Crown Court in April, Adams of Ilford, and Wallace, of Dagenham, were jailed for life with a minimum term of 12 and a half years before they are eligible to apply for parole.

At the Court of Appeal in London on Thursday, three judges increased the minimum term to 23 years.

Lady Justice Sharp, sitting with Mr Justice Popplewell and Judge Picton, said it was a "quite exceptional case" and the original sentences did not reflect the extreme gravity of the crimes.

The pair were sentenced arrested on a flight from Dubai / PA

The men poured two kettles of boiling water over Mrs Buswell and threatened to sever her fingers and gouge one of her eyes out.

They poured one kettle over Mr Buswell, punched him repeatedly in the face and threatened to cut his ears off.

They have had their sentences almost doubled / PA

They made off with around 50,000 before going to Dubai on a spending spree and were arrested on their return with more than 18,000 of luxury goods in their luggage.

In her victim impact statement Mrs Buswell, who was left permanently disfigured, described her attackers as "barbaric".

The appeal judges also increased the sentence imposed on 25-year-old Edward Dooley for his part in a drive-by shooting in May 2016, which the victim survived but was left with life-changing injuries.

Dooley, of Romford, was given a 16-year sentence for conspiracy to murder but that was replaced with a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years.
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Since few American troops are in combat at the moment, and most of them are SOCOM (Special Operations Command) commandos and Special Forces in Iraq and Syria, their requests for special equipment are promptly taken care of. Earlier in 2017 SOCOM requested a rush shipment of 350 LMAMS (Lethal Miniature Aerial Munition System) UAVs. LMAMS is the much delayed second generation of the existing Switchblade system. The original Switchblade was a one kilogram (2.2 pound) expendable (used only once) UAV that can be equipped with explosives. The Switchblade is launched from its shipping and storage tube, at which point wings flip out, a battery powered propeller starts spinning and a vidcam begins broadcasting images to the controller. The Switchblade is operated using the same gear the larger (two kg/4.4 pound) Raven UAV employs. A complete Switchblade system (missile, container, and controller) weighs 5.5 kg (12.1 pounds). Switchblade was very popular with troops in Afghanistan and with SOCOM in all sorts of places they wont discuss in detail. Swithblade was a very popular combat tool. The LMAMS order was delivered by May and promptly put to work watching the enemy and attacking them if needed. LMAMS is the second generation of what was originally called Switchblade, which is still widely used (with over 4,000 produced) since it first saw combat in 2009.

The United States sent some Switchblade UAV systems to Afghanistan in 2009 for secret field testing. This was very successful and the troops demanded more, and more, and more. That was unexpected because initially, Switchblade was mainly used largely by Special Forces and other special operations troops. In 2011, after a year of successful field testing, the army ordered over a hundred Switchblade UAVs for troop use and every year more had to be ordered because regular infantry units in combat got their hands on it and demanded more. By 2012 the U.S. Marine Corps were using Switchblade as well.

Users regarded Switchblade as a micro-UAV/cruise missile. It was both aerial surveillance and a weapon. More importantly it could be carried by individual troops;. Switchblade has been so successful that the army passed on user comments to the manufacturer and asked for a Switchblade 2.0. That was delayed by budget cuts and technical problems. Meanwhile improvements were made to Switchblade.

The new version was called LMAMS and it was ambitious. It was heavier (up to 2.2 kg/5 pounds) with up to 30 minutes endurance and a 9 kilometer range. The sensor must have night vision and be stabilized. It must also be able to lock onto a target and track it. The warhead had to be capable of disabling light vehicles as well as being harmless against people 10 meters (31 feet) from detonation but lethal within 4 meters (12.4 feet). All this was possible with current technology and the Switchblade manufacturer (who also makes the Raven) had a head start but not a lock because there is nothing exotic about the basic tech. The trick was getting it all into one package and working.

The complete LMAMS system weighs about 8 kg (17 pounds). Budget cuts delayed LMAMS but Switchblade continues to be in big demand. In 2015 the marines successfully tested using Switchblade from an MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft. This showed that Switchblade could be used from helicopters and other slow moving aircraft wanting to know whats on the other side of the hill while avoiding getting shot at by any bad guys who are there.

Switchblade can also be launched from the existing 70mm rocket tubes used on army helicopters. Moving at up to a kilometer a minute, the Switchblade can stay in the air for 20-40 minutes (depending on whether or not it is armed with explosives). The armed version can be flown to a target and detonated, having about the same explosive effect as a hand grenade. Thus, Switchblade enables ground troops to get at an enemy taking cover in a hard to see location. Technically a guided missile, the use of Switchblade as a reconnaissance tool encouraged developers to refer to it as a UAV. But because of the warhead option, and its slow speed, Switchblade also functions like a rather small cruise missile. The troops were particularly enthusiastic about the armed version because it allowed them to easily take out snipers or a few bad guys in a compound full of civilians. It was these sort of situations that apparently led to the request for LMAMS.

Others noticed Switchblade. In 2015 An Israeli firm has introduced a new loitering UAV, portable enough (weighing 3 kg/6.6 pounds) for the infantry to carry and use. The Hero 30 has 30 minutes endurance and has a small warhead that can use used to turn it into a weapon if the onboard vidcam indicates a target that has to be taken care of immediately. Otherwise it can be landed and reused. Hero 30 is based on the older Hero 400 which weighs 40 kg and has an 8 kg (18 pound) warhead. This UAV has a four hour endurance and can operate up to 150 kilometers from the operator. But Israel noticed that the United States was having lot of success (and demand from SOCOM and infantry units) for the similar (to Hero 30) Switchblade.
Since World War II thousands of retired warplanes have been stripped of their weapons, engines and most electronics and donated for use as displays in museums or public spaces. This used be rather cheap, compared to retired warships. But that is changing as the first stealth aircraft (an F-117) was prepared for use as a museum display. That was because most stealth aircraft incorporate expensive, and toxic, paint and other materials to obtain their ability to defeat detection by radar. Removing these materials is necessary because of security concerns. The composition of the materials and paints still contains information you want to keep secret. So it cost several million dollars to scrub the F-117 so it could be safely (in terms of health and national security) displayed in a museum.

The situation is worse for ships, in large part because of rust and now the removal of nuclear power plants. Starting in the 19th century it became increasingly popular, especially in the United States, for the military to donate retired ships, and then vehicles and aircraft to local governments for display. The museum ships became particularly popular after World War II. Most of these were smaller ships, like PT Boats, patrol boats or landing craft. A small seaside town could afford to maintain these small craft with local volunteers and some cash donations. But many cities sought to obtain large ships. The big problem, for whoever takes the ship, is money. Lots of money. Hundreds of millions to outfit the ship as a museum and maintain it.

The navy has long been willing to donate old ships to groups that were willing to maintain the retired vessels as museum ships. But the navy attaches some very expensive strings. That is, the navy expects the ship to be kept in decent shape. This is a problem with many old metal ships, as they rust. And eventually they rust so much that the hull is breached, and ultimately will collapse.

For example, one museum ship, the World War II Essex class carrier USS Intrepid in New York City, returned to its display berth in 2009 after a two year refurbishment costing $120 million. The entire hull was examined, in dry dock, for decay, and over a hundred square meters (nearly a thousand square feet) of hull had to be replaced.

Current nuclear powered carriers are a lot more expensive. Not only are they larger ships but you now have costs of over half a billion dollars to retire a nuclear powered carrier. Most of that goes to removing and disposing of the nuclear reactors. That leaves the carrier partially disassembled and in no shape to be a museum. In contrast a non-nuclear powered carrier costs less than $60 million to decommission. The first nuclear powered carrier (the 93,000 ton USS Enterprise), which began the decommissioning process in late 2012 (with the lengthy removal of all classified or reusable equipment). The cost of dismantling this ship (and disposing of radioactive components) may be close to $2 billion.
May 23, 2017 CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Marines deliver synchronized fire in their M1A1 Abrams tanks during a fire mission at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., May 17, 2017. The Marines are participating in Burmese Chase, an annual, multi-lateral training exercise between U.S. armed forces and NATO members. Photo By: Pfc. Taylor Cooper

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The government is facing a more aggressive United States and is unsure how to deal with it. Moreover, increased aggressiveness by the Americans has emboldened the Arabian oil states to be more bold. This is being seen in Yemen and especially in the recent actions against GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council, the Arab oil states in the Persian Gulf) member Qatar. In Syria the Americans are working with the rebels, Russians and Israelis to block Iran from expanding its power and establishing a Syrian version of Hezbollah in Syria. Iran has not moved aggressively against this American interference in eastern Syria. But across the border in Iraq it has its pro-Iran Shia militias declaring they will cross the border into Syria to help take Raqqa. The U.S. has persuaded the Iraq government to forbid that. While the Iraq government is dominated by Shia Arabs most Iraqis (including most Shia Arabs) oppose Iranian domination and control. Thats why the Americans are still around. This puts Iran in a difficult situation. For decades Iran has been blaming the United States for all their woes and regularly organizing massive rallies where Iranians (not all of them very enthusiastically) shout death to America. But Iran has avoided direct military confrontations with the United States. The few that have occurred ended badly for the Iranians. But here they are again. What to do? No one knows and that apparently includes the Iranians.

Syria

Iran is losing this war with Israel and is seeking a way to change that by establishing a pro-Iranian base in Syria. This is important inside Iran where the government has long publicized victories (usually invented) over Israel. Highly visible defeats by Israel, as are happening in Syria, do little to prop up the unpopular religious dictatorship that has been running the country since the 1980s. Another embarrassment is the success of Russian air power and ground forces (mainly special operations and artillery) in helping the Assad forces win back territory. Until 2016 Iranian forces were seen as the key to Assad survival and the Assads were not shy about praising their Iranian saviors. But that changed in 2017 as the Iranian alliance with Turkey and Russia began to come apart. Iran blames this on Israel which, in this case, is partially correct. Israel knows that Iran wants to establish a pro-Iranian militia in Syria similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Assads know this would mean they would have to share power in Syria with Iran. Most Syrians dont care for this, just as most Lebanese dont care for the Hezbollah presence since the 1980s. No one, including Russia, Turkey and Israel, wants another Hezbollah established in Syria. Iran will not back down on this and that has damaged their relationships with their allies.

Iran continues to suffer embarrassing setbacks throughout Syria. For example, in eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) Iran backed Shia mercenaries (mostly from Iraq and Afghanistan) are coming as close as they can to the Tanf border crossing and the U.S. backed rebels who control it. The pro-Assad mercenaries tried to reach Tanf on the 20th but were turned away by an American airstrike and the threat of more of that is apparently all that is keeping the Iranian forces away. Iran wants to seize border crossings in order to clear a road from Damascus (the Syrian capital in the southwest) to border crossings controlled by pro-Iran forces. In the last week the U.S. dropped nearly 100,000 leaflets on pro-Iran Syrian militias near Tanf warning them that they will be treated as a hostile force if they again enter one of the de-confliction zones the U.S. and Russia agreed would be controlled by U.S. backed rebels who operate out of training bases in Jordan and near the Iraq border. Iran has made it clear that it is not bound by such agreements with the United States and this puts Russia into an uncomfortable position. Iran likes to do stuff like that but this time the Americans are fighting back and that is a problem for Iran.

There are currently two major border crossings between Iraq and Syria that have been cleared of ISIL forces. One at Tanf and another to the north (in Hasakah province). Either of these would make it possible for Iran to move personnel and supplies by road from Iran to Assad controlled territory and then into Hezbollah controlled southern Lebanon. That only works if pro-Iran (or at least neutral or bribable) forces control each side. The U.S. and Israel are determined to prevent this Iran to Lebanon highway. Technically Russia backs Iran in this endeavor but Russia also has an understanding with Israel and Turkey to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent military presence in Syria. At the moment Russia is giving verbal backing to Iranian efforts at Tanf but is not making any moves to provide military assistance.

The Turks have refused to take part in the Raqqa battle and the Assads and their Iranian sponsors are certainly not welcome. So its basically up to the U.S. backed SDF (Kurdish led secular rebel coalition) and various local tribal militias that have been increasingly at war with ISIL since 2015. SDF has agreed to turn Raqqa over to the locals once ISIL is forced out. For the moment thats the plan. Nobody in Syria trusts plans much.

Iraq

The battle west of Mosul for Tal Afar was fought largely by the Iran-backed Shia militia and those mi;litias are now on the Syrian border. With the main road from Mosul to Raqqa now blocked it is more difficult but not impossible to travel between Syria and Mosul. While the militias have established heavily armed checkpoint on the main roads, vehicles can still travel on dirt roads or cross country. The militias have not got the manpower to provide garrisons for all the towns in the area between Mosul and Syria so the fighting has consisted of lots of heavily armed patrols looking for the many small groups of ISIL men still around. The militias are largely pro-Iran and thus refuse to work with American advisors or air support. But with about half the thousand ISIL fighters left in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province cornered in about one percent of west Mosul, the rest of those ISIL men have to be chased down. The army, and particularly the Iraqi special operations troops can now be sent west of Mosul to deal with the remaining ISIL forces in Tal Afar and surrounding areas. The Iraqi army has air support and more specialists.

Yemen

The Shia rebels are stalling efforts to negotiate a peace deal. This is seen as an example of Iranian influence because its the sort of tactic Iran has often used for a long time. In this case Iranian advisors have convinced Yemeni Shia rebel leaders is that their best chance of coming out of all this intact is to hang on for a bit longer. Waiting for exactly what is a mystery, at least to the public.

Some secrets have been revealed. For example Iran has quietly put several hundred Iranian and Lebanese (Hezbollah) advisers and technical experts into Shia controlled northwestern Yemen since early 2015. In that time about fifty of these Iranian personnel have been killed or captured. But the rest have been very effective. But this has not stopped the government forces from advancing although it has slowed them down.

In the north government forces are now within 20 kilometers of the rebel held national capital Saana. Living conditions in Saana continue to decline and in April there was an outbreak of cholera (that is spread by infected water and food). This is because the rebels have not put a priority on maintaining the quality of the water supply and now there have been nearly 10,000 cases of cholera with over a hundred deaths so far. Iran blames the people fighting the rebels, especially Saudi Arabia.

While the Iran-backed Shia rebels in Yemen have not surrendered they are very much in retreat. Iran wont admit that but the fact that Iran calls for more ceasefires and peace talks in Yemen says otherwise. None of these ceasefires or peace talks have worked but the UN calls for another round of ceasefire negotiations have ceased for the moment because Ramadan (the Moslem holy month) began on May 27th and it is considered bad manners to negotiate during Ramadan. Fighting and Islamic terrorism are another matter. The UN also steadfastly refuses to address the corruption that triggered the civil war in the first place and continues to make it difficult to deliver essential food and other aid or halt the delivery of Iranian weapons to the rebels (who were supposed to be the champions against corruption). Its the proverbial elephant in the room no one wants to acknowledge much less try to eliminate.

Iran believes it is on the winning side, and not just for religious reasons (the thousand year old Shia-Sunni dispute). The Iranians have dominated the region for thousands of years and see Arabs as inferior in just about every way. The Iranians are smart enough to be subtle about this but the Arabs have understood the Iranian attitude for a long time. They also understand that historically the Iranians usually prevail in a dispute, be it commercial, diplomatic or military. Thus when Iran says they are winning in Syria, Iraq and Yemen most people are inclined to believe them, even if all those realists in the Middle East will not admit it (at least not in public). This attitude infuriates Arabs but Yemen seems to be following the Iranian script, not the Arab one.

Israel

Iranian efforts to cultivate an alliance with the Palestinians is not working out so well. Since 2011 Arab governments have been more open with their criticism of the Palestinians. This process accelerated after 2016 when the Arab Gulf states admitted they could no longer trust Hamas (or Fatah either) and are put off by the recent Iranian announcement that it was still subsidizing Hamas, which has run Gaza and its nearly two million Palestinians since 2005. Iran supported Hamas early on. There were recently more rumors that Iran had stopped supporting Hamas. Iran decreased its support for a while, in large part because of the sanctions and low oil prices but never cut off Hamas completely. Although Sunni Hamas sometimes persecutes Shia, Iran supports energetic Hamas efforts to attack Israel. Hamas also supports Islamic terrorists active in Egypt and that has turned Egypt completely against Hamas and helped put Egypt firmly into the anti-Iran Sunni coalition. The Iran link makes Hamas an enemy as far as most Sunni Moslem nations are concerned. Hamas has made a lot of bad decisions since 2005 and the Iran link is seen as one of the worst. In response to Arab states who have cut aid to Gaza and the West Bank Palestinian leaders have quietly told the reluctant Arab donors that if they do not increase aid there will be violent Palestinian protests (in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem) against the Arab donors as well as Israel. These Arab donors (mainly Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait) have lost patience with the Palestinians and not only cut donor aid (which was being stolen or misused by corrupt Palestinian leaders) but also openly allied themselves with Israel against Iran. The Arab world still technically backs the Palestinians and their effort to destroy Israel but have lost confidence in the Palestinians.

Israel has also managed to interfere with the Iranian alliance with Russia in Syria. Russia realized it had some unique opportunities here. Israel considers Iran its major military threat and for that reason is actively involved opposing Iran in Syria. Irans allies there, Russia and Turkey, are not backing Iranian efforts to destroy Israel once ISIL is destroyed in Syria. Russia is quite open about its good relationships and cooperation with Israel while Turkey is making it clear that if pressed to choose sides, they would prefer Israel to Iran. Nevertheless Turkey is still run by an Islamic political party that is highly critical of Israel, and the West in general. But thats another problem.

June 7, 2017: There was a rare ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) attack in the capital as six ISIL men armed with firearms and explosive vests attacked the parliament (in central Tehran) and a shrine to religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (who established the current religious dictatorship) south of Tehran. All six attackers were killed but not before seven other people died and 43 wounded. Some damage was done to the Parliament building and the Khomeini Shrine. It turned out all six of the attackers were Iranian. Only about six percent of Iranians are Sunni (ISIL is a VERY Sunni organization) and most of them are Kurds (who tend to avoid Islamic terrorist beliefs) or Baluchis (who are more into the Islamic terrorist thing). IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) leaders blamed Saudi Arabia for the rare ISIL attack but that was not likely because if theres one thing Iran and the Saudis agree on is the need to destroy ISIL. Thats because while ISIL is the most extreme of Sunni Islamic terror group out there it makes a point of considering all other Islamic terrorists imposters and religious dictatorships like Iran and Saudi Arabia run by heretics and in need of new leadership. The need for new leadership is certainly true but most Iranians and Saudis are seeking an end to the corruption and general misrule they suffer under, not embracing ISIL ideas. The religious leaders in both countries would rather not dwell on that and instead concentrate on imposing their brand of Islam on their powerful rivals across the Gulf.

That said every country in the region, especially Iran, has offered sanctuary to hostile (to Iran) groups who were also eager to attack Iranian enemies. Thus Iran has provided sanctuary to Taliban and al Qaeda members since 2001, even though both of these groups have (and continue to) murder Shia at every opportunity. But the ancient rule is if you can behave in your sanctuary y0u are free to operate elsewhere. ISIL wont abide by those rules and therefore has no sanctuary anywhere. But any terror attacks in Iran are typically blamed on foreign powers. America and Israel have long been the usual evil instigator of local misfortune but of late Saudi Arabia has achieved evil instigator status because Iranian religious leaders are pushing the radical idea that Shia should replace Sunnis as the guardians of Moslem shrines in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, not to mention the nearby oil wealth. This goal is not popular in Iran if it involves more poverty and violence inside Iran. Most Iranians agree with the idea that Iran is best suited to run things in the region but times and technology have changed and leaders have to pay more attention to public opinion in an age of universal mass communication that, so far, seems immune to government control. Or at least enough government control to prevent bad news from spreading and causing popular unrest against government misbehavior. In this case it involves years of expensive (in terms of lives and economic growth) overseas wars in places like Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and so on.

June 5, 2017: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) an American airstrike hit a positions occupied by Iran backed Shia mercenaries headed too near the Tanf border crossing. This was the second such attack since late May and carried out after repeated warning (to the Russians, mainly) to remove those forces from the area. The first airstrike (May 20) was carried out because a convoy had entered a de-confliction zone the U.S. and Russia had agreed would be controlled by U.S. backed rebels who operate out of training bases in Jordan and near the Iraq border. The Iranian militia did not try to advance again for a while. But recently some did move forward and establish a camp within the zone. Iran backed Syrian Army forces have advanced to within 20 kilometers of Tanf and the U.S. wants to keep Iran backed forces away from the Iraq border to prevent Iran from established a road link from Iran through Syria and into Lebanon. An American backed Sunni tribal militia (Maghawir a Thawra or MAT) controls the Tanf crossing and an Iraqi tribal militia controls the Iraqi side. By March these two tribal militias have opened and maintained the border crossing for all non-military traffic. Vehicles are searched for explosives and the MAT militia admit they have American air power on call if they encounter any problems. MAT charges a fee for most cargo passing through and does not care where the cargo is going (to Assad or ISIL controlled territory). Apparently MAT will contact the Americans if they encounter vehicles that are clean but may be Iranians. Naturally vehicles carrying cargoes of weapons are not allowed.

In a surprising move Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Bahrain cut diplomatic, economic and military relations with Qatar. Ambassadors were expelled, borders were closed and Qatar was made to feel very unwelcome. Yemen and several other Moslem nations followed the suit. In addition Qatar was expelled from the coalition that sent forces into Yemen in early 2015. Qatar contributed about a thousand troops, apparently with the understanding that they would not be required to do any heavy fighting. Thus the Qatari troops have been stationed in the north, to guard a usually quiet portion of the border with Saudi Arabia and only reported six of their troops wounded (or injured) during their time in Yemen.

The expulsion comes after years of criticisms over Qatari support for Islamic terrorism and the perception among Arab states that Qatar could not be trusted. Cutting ties with Qatar is partly retaliation against the Qatar based and subsidized al Jazeera satellite news network which often reports on real or imagined (depending on who you ask) bad behavior by Sunni Arab governments and their security forces, including the Arab coalition bombing campaign in Yemen and Egyptian efforts against Islamic terror groups in Sinai where troops often murder civilians and try to pass that off as a clash with Islamic terrorists. While that happens, al Jazeera also gives sympathetic treatment to Islamic radical and terrorist groups, especially in Egypt and Syria, that hardly anyone else (Moslem or otherwise) has much sympathy for. Qatar also openly supports Palestinian terror group Hamas, although Qatar recently ordered some senior Hamas leaders to leave Qatar for another sanctuary. Al Jazeera reporters have a hard time avoiding arrest (or worse) in Egypt and other Moslem states but they are often abused by Islamic terror groups as well.

Qatar is also seen as siding with Iran in the current struggle between Shia Iran and the Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia. This sort of behavior is not uncommon in the region and the small Arab Gulf states like Qatar, Kuwait and the member states of the UAE have survived for centuries using these methods. One could say Qatar has been too successful and the current unpleasantness is the price of that success. As is the local custom secret meetings will be held, demands discussed and agreements made. How long this takes will depend on how long Qatar can last without its usual providers of all the food and just about everything else. The expulsion cut off half of that immediately and a naval blockade would be disastrous. About 40 percent of imports came via Saudi Arabia.

The Gulf Arab states have a long history coping with Iran and other hostile outsiders. The solution has always been to seek unity and outside allies. Qatar is seen as violating this ancient and sacred tradition by stirring up trouble inside other Arab states (with al Jazeera) and getting to cozy with Iran. Qatar is the only GCC member to maintain diplomatic relations with Iran. Qatar has long been the most open Gulf Arab state when it came to doing business with anyone. That includes gangsters throughout the region (and beyond). Qatar will even cater to the needs of Islamic terror groups, most of whom operate like criminal gangs and often evolve into purely criminal organizations eventually. Even Israel found they could quietly do some kinds of business in Qatar. That sort of attitude has its limits and the current ISIL and Iran threat to the Saudis and the GCC was seen as too dangerous to ignore. Qatar refused to cooperate with its neighbors and even went ahead and paid a billion dollar ransom to al Qaeda and Iraqi Shia militias recently to obtain the release of 26 prominent Qataris kidnapped in southern Iraq at the end of 2015. The Qataris were there legally on a falcon hunt and appeals to Iran and Iraq to help resolve the issue failed. So the Qataris made a deal, mainly because eleven of the captives were members of the Qatari royal family. As part of the deal Iran did persuade their forces in Syria to release a number of al Qaeda captives. Most of the ransom money went to Iran or pro-Iranian Shia groups.

A lesser factor in the break with Qatar was a recent hack of Qatari government news agency and distribution of fake message from the Qatari monarch praising Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah and criticizing the new U.S. government. Where that hack came from is still a mystery.

Qatar has turned to Iran and Turkey to quickly replace traditional suppliers of essentials (like food and water) and assured the United States that the American bases and troops in Qatar were safe. Turning to Iran was obvious but Turkey is a more interesting case. Turkey is establishing a military base in Qatar to support Turkish peacekeeping and efforts in Africa and relations with the Arabian states. Turkey is less eager to get too close to Iran. Qatar is expected to get the message and make suitable apologies and reparations to its Arabian neighbors. Like everything else in this part of the world negotiations are necessary because the Arabian coastal states have a long tradition of working things out that way.

The most recent chapter in this tradition became in the 19th century when the Arabian coastal emirates (city states that depended on trade, pearls, and fishing) allied themselves with Britain, for protection against the Turks (who controlled what is now Iraq), Iran (always a threat to the Arabs), and the interior tribes of Arabia. Britain was interested in suppressing pirates (which often operated out of the emirates) and halting Turkish expansion. Then came oil wealth no one ever expected. There were changes. In 1971, seven of the emirates formed a federation: the UAE. There were immediate disputes with Saudi Arabia about where the land and water borders should be. Some of those disputes are still unresolved. The Saudis consider themselves the leader of Arabia, but many in Yemen, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE often disagree. There is lots of friction. Nevertheless, in 1981, the Gulf Cooperation Council was formed by Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE was the chief organizer of the council and has constantly quarreled with Saudi Arabia over leadership issues.

But when it comes to outside threats, especially the Iranians, there is less quarrelling and a lot more cooperation. It's uncertain if this will be enough to thwart the Iranians. Only an actual war will reveal the reality of the situation. Qatar has become the most accommodating of the coastal entities and been very successful at it. In doing so they have caused disputes with their traditional Arab allies and these disputes showed how you can only ignore them for so long. Locals dont see this action against Qatar as victory for Iran but a sign of Arab strength and ability to adapt and unite to face an external threat (namely Iran).

In the Gulf Islamic terrorism is really a separate issue because it is tied to the nature of Islam, which is unique among the major world religions in that explicitly condones and encourages violence against non-Moslems and provides scriptural justification for all sorts of misbehavior. Since there is no central authority to change the Islamic scriptures it is more difficult to achieve an end to over a thousand years of religious warfare.

June 2, 2017: In northwest Iraq several hundred members of an Iran-backed Shia militia crossed into Syria despite assurances by the Iraqi government that these pro-Iran militias would not enter Syria. Another problem was that the Iraqi militiamen entered an area (Hasakah province) that has largely been under Kurdish control since 2012 and the Syrian Kurds warned Iraqis to stay out. This incursion apparently has more to do with the Iranian goal of establishing a safe (for Iranian arms shipments) land route from Iran to Lebanon. A major highway crosses the border in the area where the Iraqi Shia militia are operating, now on both sides of the border. The Iraqis did not advance far and most returned to Iraq.

May 27, 2017: In the northwest (Kurdistan) border guards clashed with a group of Iranian Kurds belonging to PJAK, which usually hides out in northern Iraq but also has ties with the Turkish PKK. Two border guards were killed and five wounded before the firefight ended. Kurds are about ten percent of the Iranian population and most live in the northwest near the Iraq and Turkish borders. The PJAK separatists have been active for a long time and have links to similar groups in Turkey (PKK) and Iraq (where the Kurdish minority in the north has been autonomous since the early 1990s). Most of the 2,000 armed PJAK members are in northern Iraq, where local Kurdish government tolerates their presence. There has been more clashes between PJAK and the IRGC since Saddam Hussein was taken down in 2003.

In northern Iraq (West of Mosul near the Syrian border) another IRGC officer was killed while advising (or leading) Iraqi Shia militiamen. Iran has sent hundreds of IRGC officers, most of them from the Quds Force. Dozens of senior IRGC officers have been killed in Syria and Iraq since 2012.

In the southeast Iranian troops fired five mortar shells into Pakistan (Baluchistan) killing one Pakistani civilian.

May 22, 2017: The Iranian army revealed it had managed to refurbish and restore to service twelve elderly (at least 40 years old) American helicopters that had all been grounded since about 2010 because of the sanctions. What these helicopters needed to be flyable again was components and tools unavailable because of growing economic sanctions. But those sanctions were largely negotiated away in 2015 and now Iran, which is still short of cash because of low oil prices and corrupt officials, can at least import needed items to get aircraft and other sidelined vehicles operational.

May 21, 2017: In the southeast Iranian troops fired ten mortar shells into Pakistan (Baluchistan). There were no casualties but Iran had warned Pakistan that if they did not cooperate in curbing Iranian Baluchi Sunni rebels hiding out in Pakistan, there would be repercussions. Iran now believes these Iranian rebels are one of the Islamic terrorist groups secretly supported by the Pakistani military.

May 20, 2017: In eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) an American airstrike hit a convoy of Iran backed Shia mercenaries headed for the Tanf border crossing. After the American aircraft fired on them the convoy turned around and headed west. Iran reported that the airstrike killed one of their men and wounded six.

Russian officials revealed the United States told them recently that they were in Syria mainly to remove the Assads from power and destroying ISIL was a means to that end not the main reason they were. The Americans also told the Russians that the U.S. would operate in Syria as it believed necessary to accomplish its mission and that American military commanders now had a lot more freedom to do what they through best without first waiting to have their decisions scrutinized, and sometimes modified or blocked officials and advisors back home. The U.S. Department of Defense (now led by a retired marine general) can set troop levels in Iraq and Syria. Officially there are currently 5,800 (nine percent in Syria) inside Syria and Iraq but the real number may be about 40 percent higher if you count contractors and allies. The Russians and Syrians are in Syria to keep the Assads in power and destroying ISIL is part of that. Fighting with the Americans is apparently not something Russia or Iran want do in Syria.

May 18, 2017: In Iraq (Baghdad) two policemen died during a clash with pro-government Shia militia. Exactly what happened was unclear. There has been more of this violence in Baghdad this year. Over half the 100,000 or so Shia militia on the government payroll are loyal to Shia politicians and clergy who support establishing a religious dictatorship in Iraq. These leaders have been able to get their followers into the police and armed forces and increasingly the pro-democracy and pro-religious dictatorship factions have been confronting each other in Baghdad, and that regularly leads to violence. One reason for the growing violence is many members of their Iran supported militias are losing confidence in Iran.

May 17, 2017: A small forces of Western (U.S., British, Norwegian) special operations troops has been sent to eastern Syria to block Iranian efforts to clear a path for their Iran-to-Syria road. Iraq will not block Iranian air or ground traffic and the Assads encourage it.

May 15, 2017: In Iraq the government is under domestic and foreign pressure to curb senior Shia clergy who are openly calling Iraqi Christians infidels and urging Shia to do whatever they can to drive the remaining Christians out of Iraq. This is not official government policy but it is still what many Shia and Sunni religious leaders openly and frequently preach. While ISIL atrocities against religious minorities gets some publicity, and recognition as war crimes, the similar atrocities by Iran backed Iraqi Shia militias in Iraq have gone largely unpublicized. That is changing but not fast enough to slow down the killings. The United States and most European governments had adopted the attitude that Christians in Iraq have not been singled out for attack but now the growing mountain of evidence has led a more Western leaders admitting that Christians and other non-Moslems are under heavy attack from Iraqi Shia (usually sponsored by Iran) militias as well. In 2014 ISIL atrocities against religious minorities like the Yazidis and Christians was noticed by the world media but that attention was temporary and the plight of Christians in Syria and Iraq was largely ignored. Atrocities against Christians is again newsworthy because the Iraqi Shia militias are increasingly attacking Christians in Baghdad. The militias are trying to drive all Christians out of Baghdad and Iraq. The militias are also out to make some money as they systematically seize the homes, businesses and other assets of the departed Christians and sell them off or trade them for something they need. The Iraqi government does nothing save for an occasional press release condemning this behavior. These press releases are to placate foreign aid donors who threaten to reduce aid if the atrocities do not stop. So far few aid donors have acted on these threats. In Baghdad the Shia militia want to emulate ISIL, which has, for the first time in history, killed or driven all Christians from Mosul

At the same time the number of Shia religious and militia leaders who openly support Iran is declining. More Iraqi Shia are doubting Iranian intentions towards Iraq and believe Iran ultimately wants to control the Iraq government or even partition Iraq and annex the largely Shia (and oil rich) south. At the same time Iranian efforts to discourage Iraqi Kurds from obtaining more autonomy are unwelcome with many Arab Iraqis who see this as another example of Iran treating Iraq like a subordinate, not an ally.

Adding to the fears are reports that Iran backed (and sometimes led, officially or otherwise by Iranian officers) Shia militia are ignoring earlier promises and entering liberated areas of Mosul and seeking disloyal civilians who can be arrested and perhaps murdered. Now there is fear that Iraqi Shia militia will ignore earlier agreements and cross into Syria when they get the chance.

May 14, 2017: The U.S. accuses Russia of colluding with Iran, or Iranian arms smugglers, to supply the Taliban with weapons. Apparently Russia is again trying to destabilize the Afghan government so that they, and their ally Iran, will have more influence. This has been going on since the 1800s. But for over a thousand years before that warlords in Iran and northern India fought to control parts of Afghanistan, especially those areas that were part of the Silk Road between the Middle East (and Europe) and China (as well as stops along the way, like India and Iran.)

Russia further complicates the issue by currently hosting Afghanistan peace talks that involve leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and China but not the United States. Even many of the invited participants point out that this makes no sense. But for Russian leaders the idea that most problems in Russia and with Islamic terrorism worldwide are the work of the United States is important to maintain. This makes the Afghan peace effort pointless because the non-Russian participants know nothing will work without American participation.

May 8, 2017: Off the West coast Saudi warships discovered some naval mines. Upon closer examination it was determined that these mines were locally made contact mines.

May 4, 2017: Russia, Turkey and Iran agreed to establish four de-escalation zones in Syria and maintain them for at least six months. The largest zone contains all of Idlib province and portions of adjacent Hama, Aleppo and Latakia provinces. The other three zones are in northern Homs province, the Ghouta suburbs 15 kilometers east of Damascus and an area along the Jordan border. The final map for these zones will be agreed to by June 4th. Russia, Turkey and Iran will supply troops to police these zones and supervise the zones to ensure movement of foreign aid and civilians. The problem is that most rebels do not agree with this arrangement, nor does the United States.

May 3, 2017: The pro-Assad coalition of Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government began two days of peace talks with each other about how to settle the Syrian mess. This took place in the Central Asian city of Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan). This time some rebel factions were there as well but the rebels soon left because they described the Astana talks had nothing to do with peace but everything to do with how to defeat the rebels. The rebels refused to attend the last round of talks in March and were enticed back with assurances that things would be different during the May talks. That was not true. The rebels see the decision by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the Assad government to establish de-escalation zones in rebel held areas as a ploy to make it easier to defeat the rebel forces there. By the terms of this the zones would be no-fly zones for all aircraft except those from Russia, Turkey and Syria. The Assads and their supporters (Russia, Iran and Turkey) would establish checkpoints around the zones to control ground access. This would, in theory, allow emergency aid to get in (or be blocked) and eliminate air attacks on civilians. But the rebels point out that in previous ceasefire agreements the Russians and Assads ignored the terms and attacked rebels and civilians claiming they were reacting to rebel violence. In the case of the four de-escalation zones thats exactly what happened.
4 Indians, 1 Pakistani plead guilty for scamming millions of United States Citizens in massive call center scam

A massive call center scam which fooled millions of United States citizens for millions of dollars was brought a logical conclusion a day before yesterday when four Indians and one Pakistani pleaded guilty. The scam involved the Indians and Pakistani gent colluding to scam US citizens by impersonating as IRS and other officials and extorting U.S. citizens to pay the ransom. Though this entire call center operation operated through India-based call centers, the main accused in the scam operated out of the USA, US Department of Justice has said.

Three Indians  Rajubhai Patel (32), Viraj Patel (33), Dilip Kumar Ambal Patel (53), and a Pakistani national Fahad Ali (25)  pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy before US District Court Judge David Hittner of the Southern District of Texas.

The mastermind behind this call center scam, Hardik Patel (31), had already pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy before the same court on June 2. Hardik hit upon the idea of impersonating US authorities and calling US citizens in an accented voice to extort them into paying what they thought were penalties for defrauding. The call center scam was started in August 2012 and continued till FBI and the Mumbai police launched a joint operation to hunt the scamsters down.

Hardik owned and managed the day-to-day operations of an India-based scam call center before leaving for the US. While in India, in his capacity as a manager and mastermind, Hardik directed other members of the cybercrime gang to defraud millions of dollars. They used email, text, and other means with various India-based co-defendants to operate the scheme and exchange scripts used in the scheme, coordinate the processing of payments from scammed victims, obtain and exchange lead lists used by callers to target US victims, and exchange spreadsheets containing the personal identifying information (PII) of US persons misappropriated by the scammers to register reloadable cards used in the scheme.

Hardik controlled the entire operation and paid cuts to the other gang members based on the profits and expenses of which he kept a record. Other accused in the case, Rajubhai operated as a liaison between Hardik and other gang members. He also assisted Hardik in managing the activities of other crew members. He was based in Illinois and used various locations in the state to liquidate the funds received from the victims.

Another scammer, Viraj Patel worked in India and oversaw the call center operations in Mumbai and Surat. He reported directly to Hardik. Dilip Kumar Patel operated as a runner in and around Southern California and used the state banks to liquidate the scam money. To date, 56 individuals and five India-based call centers have been charged for their roles in the fraud and money-laundering scheme in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas on October 19, 2016.

The lone Pakistani in the case, Fahad Ali worked as a member of the gang operating in the Chicago, Illinois area, the Southern District of Texas and elsewhere throughout the country.

DoJ has said that all four will be sentenced when the court reconvenes.
Japan police arrests a 14-year-old for creating ransomware

While the computers affected by the WannaCry ransonware around the world last month are still trying to return to normalcy, a 14 year-old teenager from Japan in the meanwhile was arrested on Monday for developing a malware similar to the WannaCry malware.

For those unfamiliar, WannaCry ransomware exploited a weakness in Microsofts Windows operating system and went on to infect more than 3,00,000 computers in 150 countries within 72 hours last month. The WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm encrypted data and demanded payment in virtual currency Bitcoin in exchange for a password to unlock data.

The 14-year-old boy, who is a secondary school student in Osaka Prefecture, is accused of creating a malware designed to infect and encrypt computers to financially exploit victims. The malware in question has been uploaded by the teenager on a foreign website that included instructions and procedures for the users to download, install and use it, according to sources quoted by the Kyodo news agency.

The student living in the city of Takatsuki admitted to the allegations said that he wanted to test his ability as a programmer. He supposedly went on to learn and create the ransomware all by himself.

I tested my skills, and I could make one, he was quoted as saying to police.

He also said that he had participated in a computer skills class on how to assemble a personal computer while he was in elementary school, according to the sources. He collected all the necessary data from overseas websites to create the ransomware on his home computer in January, which took him about three days to complete it.

This ransomware, which has been downloaded more than 100 times, allowed a user to infect the victims computer, demanding in Japanese that a payment be made in digital currency. Apparently, the malicious malware created by the teenager has infected computers of about 100 users, who have been demanded a payoff, in the form of virtual currency. However, there have been no reports of financial exploitation.

The young boy, whose identity has not yet been revealed, also reportedly used social media to lure users into downloading the program for free.

The malware was discovered by the Kanagawa Prefectural Police during cyber patrolling duties in January, who confiscated the teens computer during a house search in April, reports The Japan Times. The young boy revealed to the investigating authorities that he created the ransomware out of curiosity and because he wanted to become famous.

The users who downloaded the malware could also be charged with violating the law on acquiring electromagnetic records by illegal command, said the sources. This is the first arrest involving a ransomware-related crime in Japan, said police.

According to Trend Micro Inc., a major IT security provider, ransomware was found on more than 65,000 computers in Japan in 2016 alone, which is around 10 times more than the previous year.
Chevron Corporation, through a network of subsidiaries, engages in integrated energy and chemicals operations worldwide. The company is the 7th largest integrated oil company worldwide, the 2nd largest in the US, and has been in operation since 1879. Chevron was part of the original Standard Oil Company and is one of the 34 successor companies that were formed when it was broken up. Today, the company brings in roughly $160 billion in annual revenues and is the last remaining oil and gas component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Originally called Standard Oil Of California the company grew quickly via mergers and acquisitions. It was hailed as one of the Seven Sisters to dominate the US and global production throughout the mid-20th century and became even bigger in 1985 when it merged with Gulf Oil. The merger with Gulf Oil resulted in the rebranding from Standard Oil Of California to Chevron (a brand used by the company outside its California jurisdiction) and then ChevronTexaco Corporation in 2005 when that merger took place. The company rebranded again in 2005 to what we know today as Chevron Corporation.

Chevron Corporation is now based in San Ramone, California, and has operations in 180 countries. The company employs more than 42,500 people who operate 5 refineries and 8,000+ Texaco, Chevron, and Standard Oil service stations in the US alone. The company's Exploration and Drilling operations produced a record 3.1 million barrels per day and its US refineries process more than 1 million barrels per day. At the end of 2021, the company has more than 11.3 billion barrels of proven oil and liquid-equivalent reserves and boasted a 112% reserve replacement rate.

The company operates in two segments, Upstream and Downstream. The Upstream segment explores new reserves, develops known reserves, produces petroleum and gas products as needed, transports, processes, pipes, stores, and markets petroleum worldwide. The Downstream segment refines and markets the full line of petroleum-based products including but not limited to fuels such as gas, diesel, and aviation fuel, as well as lubricants, petrochemicals, and plastics. The company transports products via pipeline, rail, marine vessels, and truck.

Chevron recognizes the need to lower the worlds carbon output and is working toward that end. The companys strategy is two-pronged and includes reducing its own carbon output while investing in green and lower-carbon technologies. The companys goal is to invest $10 billion or more into lower carbon energy sources and technologies by 2028.

Chevron is a Dividend Aristocrat. The company has been paying a dividend since 1989 and it has raised it every year since its inception.






Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, a pharmaceutical company, develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes generic medicines, specialty medicines, and biopharmaceutical products in North America, Europe, and internationally. The company offers sterile products, hormones, high-potency drugs, and cytotoxic substances in various dosage forms, including tablets, capsules, injectables, inhalants, liquids, transdermal patches, ointments, and creams. It also develops, manufactures, and sells active pharmaceutical ingredients. In addition, it focuses on the central nervous system, pain, respiratory, and oncology areas. Its products in the central nervous system include Copaxone for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis; AJOVY for the preventive treatment of migraine; and AUSTEDO for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia and chorea associated with Huntington disease. The company's products in the respiratory market comprise ProAir, QVAR, ProAir Digihaler, AirDuo Digihaler, and ArmonAir Digihaler, BRALTUS, CINQAIR/CINQAERO, DuoResp Spiromax, and AirDuo RespiClick/ArmonAir RespiClick for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Its products in the oncology market include Bendeka, Treanda, Granix, Trisenox, Lonquex, and Tevagrastim/Ratiograstim. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited has a collaboration MedinCell for the development and commercialization of multiple long-acting injectable products, a risperidone suspension for the treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The company was founded in 1901 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
iStock/Thinkstock(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) -- The city of Pittsburgh is showing off a popular and rather large premature baby for the very first time.



A baby elephant at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium made its long-awaited debut Tuesday morning. ABC affiliate WTAE says she weighed in 52 pounds below the median birth weight since she was born early.



WTAE says her mother, Seeni, was rescued along with three other elephants from Botswana in 2011.



Willie Theison, elephant manager at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and International Conservation Center, told WTAE they were shocked to find the baby elephant last week. Seeni wasnt expected to calve until the end of June, so to walk in in the morning and see this tiny little elephant attempting to stand on wobbly legs was a total surprise."



The elephant is still unnamed and wont be on exhibit for several months, according to WTAE.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Photo: H. Armstrong Roberts/Retrofile/Getty Images

Erica, 26, is a nurse who lives in Baltimore. She finished her degree last year, and although she has a decent job, shell be working off her student debt for a while. Meanwhile, her parents are both comfortably retired and regularly fund family trips, including flights, hotels, and meals. Two years ago, they all went to the Grand Canyon, and now, her parents are plotting a vacation to France in September. Theyve even invited Ericas boyfriend, Marcus, whom shes been seeing for over a year. Erica loves her family and genuinely enjoys spending time with them, but she and Marcus have limited vacation days and shes not wild about spending a week of them with her mom, dad, and two younger brothers  it just wont be relaxing, and they wont all want to do the same things. Can she work out an arrangement where she and Marcus can split off for a few days, or at least a couple of afternoons? Or will this seem opportunistic and hurt her parents feelings? She doesnt want to turn down the whole the whole offer (its a free trip to France, after all), but she doesnt want to seem bratty or put Marcus in a weird position, either. Should she just find a way to say no and nip the whole thing in the bud? Where can she draw the line  and how much longer can this vacation-funding go on?

When I was in my early 20s, my mom and dad planned a family trip to Mexico with my brother, me, and our respective significant others. It was their Christmas present to us, a kindhearted and welcoming gesture toward our partners, and it backfired spectacularly when I broke up with mine a few weeks before we left. I felt awful about the way Id ended things, and leaving my folks in the lurch as collateral damage was the crappy guilt cherry on top of the mess Id made. I asked to pay them back for his flight fees and they refused. I then spent the whole trip thinking about what a jerk I was. My parents had been trying to give us a nice time together, and Id ruined it.

Moral of the story: An all-expenses-paid trip with your family is way more stressful than anyone intends, especially as you get older and throw partners into the mix. No matter how selfless and cool your parents are, money always comes with obligations attached, emotional and otherwise. Whats more, it has the odd power of converting every choice into a request  for example, if your mom buys your plane ticket but you want a window seat, you have to ask her. (Maybe it costs an extra $50; awkwardness ensues.) And what good is a vacation without that world-is-your-oyster feeling that time is truly your own, free from people you want to please and schedules you have to follow? Its generous of your mom and dad to foot the bill  and certainly tempting to accept it when moneys tight  but unless you hammer out a few very clear boundaries, its time to figure out a way to cut the cord, gently.

No matter how cool your parents are, money always comes with obligations

You have three options in how to proceed: (1) You could say no to the trip (a week off can be just impossible to coordinate these days!); (2) You and Marcus could try to pay your own way; or (3) You could commence the sticky process of negotiating a patchwork-payment situation, where you and Marcus do your own thing for a few days (and cover all you time, financially). It seems like you want to do No. 3 (and cant afford No. 2), but before you take another step, make sure that Marcus is really on board to sip Chablis with your dad for multiple days, and not just smiling stiffly whenever you mention it. Debating over whether to have dinner at the tapas place at 8 p.m. or that cute little bistro at 6:30 p.m. (moms tired, etc.) can be annoying enough with your own family; doing it for days on end with someone elses  even if you genuinely like them  can be downright hellish.

Which is why some couples rule against it, period. A number of years ago, my husband and I decided that we wouldnt go on group family trips anymore, says my friend Farrah, 33. As nice as a free vacation sounds, we realized that spending any of our precious free time NOT doing exactly what we want, with whom we want, just isnt worth it. Also, she adds, their family dynamics are better this way: Truth be told, my in-laws drive me nuts, and my relationships with my family members are much healthier when I spend time with them one-on-one.

Rather than issuing a blanket statement, Farrah and her husband just started saying no. We never broke the news to our parents  its more that we consistently declined the invitations, with the explanation that we only have so much time off and that wed honestly like to spend it together as much as we can, she explains. Theyre disappointed sometimes, and ever-hopeful, but we see them frequently enough that they cant guilt-trip us too much. Harsh? Maybe. We love our families, but we love our time together as a duo a lot more, and we are protective of it.

And even if Marcus wasnt in the picture, its normal to want autonomy during your much-deserved time off  and it feels bad to tell your parents to give you space when theyve literally flown you across the Atlantic to hang out with them. My friend Grace, 30, struggled with this when her retired parents brought her and her two adults siblings on a cruise. First of all, I hate cruises, but since they were paying, I was in no position to complain, she says. I also really wanted some time to myself, alone, but every day was so planned that it was hard to find that. It was like a game of chess  Id watch which excursions my family members signed up for, and then Id pick a different one to do on my own. And then my dad would be like, Oh, you cant do that by yourself! Ill go with you! And Id be like, Noooo, its really okay. But you cant tell your parents that you dont want to spend time with them, because theyve just spent all this money to bring the family together.

Which is why you need to do it before you say yes to the vacation. How to manage that conversation without seeming like an ingrate whos being picky about her free trip to Europe? Start by being empathetic to your parents position, says Dr. Maggie Baker, a psychologist who specializes in family and financial therapy. You can say, Thank you for being so generous, and for making time to spend together. Then explain that you have limited time off, and that youd love to take a few days with your partner on your own. Be specific about your plan  for example, you could spend Saturday through Wednesday with the family, and then leave for a few days, and meet up with them for brunch before you fly back together. I wouldnt recommend bringing up money at first, at all.

Then, if your parents hem and haw about payment (or, as Baker puts it, weaponize the money,) you can play that game, too. If theyre hesitant when you ask for flexibility, be sure to ask why. They might say, Well, were paying for this, but youre not even participating. Then you can say, We would like to pay for any expenses that we incur on our own, says Baker. Or they might say something like, We just want to do everything with you, because we love you so much! At which point you have to say, Im not 10 anymore! You can have a sense of humor about it. After all, this is vacation  its supposed to be fun. Take their good intentions seriously, but keep a light touch.

After the Mexico debacle, I wish I could say that I never accepted a free trip from my parents again, but the transition was more gradual  and yours might be, too. Ironically, I wound up getting back together with the guy who was supposed to come with us, and were now married. (My mom likes to joke that I still owe him a vacation.) He has since traveled with my family several times, but theyve wisely steered clear of buying anyones plane tickets, and were all better for it.
The Crazy Things Pacifists Tell Me

By Rob Morse. May 17th, 2017

Article Source

I dont bring up the subject with strangers. That said, sometimes people find out Im a gun owner. The way they respond is remarkable. I assume that they are sincere in what they say but that assumption is strained. Their comments are more a confession about themselves than as an honest question directed to me. I usually bite my tongue because of the social situation. Then it occurred to me that other gun owners must be hearing similar comments. Ive kept my answers to myself. Now Ill share them with you.

I live on the safe side of town so I dont need a gun for protection. I usually hear this from a well-to-do woman and it makes me smile. Does she think criminals dont have maps that show them where the rich people live? Maybe she thinks criminals cant drive. The woman is obviously intelligent, yet she has a profound blind-spot when it comes to personal safety. We didnt meet inside her gated community. Why does she think she is safe everywhere?

Guns arent the answer. Maybe guns are not the answer, but then we are certainly talking about different questions. I assume the speaker knows that the police have firearms for personal protection. The first person who told me to go armed was a police officer. I listen to professionals.

People dont protect themselves with guns any longer. That is just a fantasy from the old-west. This one perplexes me. I assume they read too many cowboy novels. I think they stopped reading too soon. They never learned the real history of our western frontier. Also, the speaker never bothered to learn the facts about armed citizens who carry in public now. Armed towns on the western frontier were safer than our large democrat-controlled cities are today. Aint that right, Marshal Dillon?

Only the police should have guns. True, the police should have guns, but have you thought about what it is like to be a policeman? Almost every policeman Ive met told me to carry because of what they see every day. Time after time, day after day, the police arrive too late. They take reports from innocent injured victims. That is a core part of their job and it has to hurt. The police would much rather take your report that says you protected yourself and the criminal ran away.

Only criminals have guns. This is really a statement about how narrow a group of friends the speaker has. Im probably the first gun owner they know.. and there are a hundred million gun owners in the US. To be fair, they probably dont know anyone who owns a pickup truck either.

You dont need a gun. That is true. I dont. I dont need toothpaste and deodorant either. I dont need a fire extinguisher at home or a first aid kit in my car, but I have them..just like I have a firearm.

My husband or wife has a gun, so I dont need one. This comment makes me bite my tongue. Im thinking they volunteered to be the designated victim..or maybe the designated hostage. They must have an interesting personal relationship they have with their spouse, but I dont ask.

Guns dont belong in schools. Lots of things dont belong in schools, but Ive seen them there. Cuts and broken bones dont belong in schools, yet we have first-aid kits on scene for a reason. I wont pretend that bad things dont happen. I wont lie to make you feel better. What exactly is their plan when they see more things they dont want in schools?

You just want to kill someone. This person obviously has no idea about the huge personal and financial costs of threatening to use lethal force, let alone pulling the trigger. Ignorance must be bliss.

I couldnt kill someone. That is hard to believe. Maybe the people who say this think they are gentle. Would they really stand by and watch while their family is threatened or injured? If I take them seriously, then either they dont care about other people or they look forward to seeing someone hurt. Maybe some village lost its sociopath?

People like you shouldnt have machine guns. Ive fired a machine gun. Not having automatic weapons hasnt compromised my self-defense plans since I dont feel the need to fight off a zombie horde tonight.

Why do you want another tool that kills? I love this question. I look around the room and see how many things I could use for self-defense. Im an engineer so everything is a tool.

Youre more likely to be hurt if you have a gun because the criminal will take your gun away from you. So they are saying we would all be safer if we disarmed the police and gave guns to criminals? That way the police would always have a gun when they needed it by taking the criminals gun! Its an interesting idea, but they can go first and Ill record the results from here.

I bet Im not alone. Youve heard similar things and youve thought similar things. Thank you for sharing them.. here, and not saying them in public.

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OTTAWAAs Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr explores avenues in China to expand foreign investment in the oilsands, his government is being accused of allowing Chinese takeovers of Canadian firms with little regard for national security.

Carr is on a five-day trade mission to China, pursuing partnerships and new markets for the energy and forestry sectors. The trip comes as the two countries pursue exploratory free trade talks, and the federal Liberals adjust their foreign policy to confront the headwinds of Donald Trumps America First doctrine.

Carrs message? Canada welcomes Chinese investment, including in the oilsands, he told a conference call from Beijing  a departure from the previous Conservative policy of keeping state-owned-enterprises out of Canadas energy sector.

Read more:

Feds announce $867M to help support lumber producers affected by U.S. tariffs

Canada faces new world order as America reduces leadership role, says Chrystia Freeland

Canada is right to push back against Trumps isolationism: Editorial

We think there is opportunity and we laid out along with experts from the industry what we believe to be Canadian opportunities for them, Carr said.

Chinese investors are no different than investors from anywhere else. They look at costs they look at prices and they make their investment decisions.

In 2012, after the China National Offshore Oil Corp. was allowed to buy Calgary-based Nexen Inc., then-prime minister Stephen Harper put strict limits on SEOs investing in the oilsands, fearing foreign government influence inconsistent with Canadian policy.

Harpers policy called for assessing investment proposals and takeover bids on a case-by-case approach, granting approval only in exceptional circumstances.

Talking to China about investment opportunities is no different, and will still be done on a case-by-case basis, Carr argued.

The Canadian government is prepared to talk to the Chinese government about investments in most sectors of our economy, he said. I dont think that represents a change in public policy but as a general expression of our willingness to talk.

Chinese investors became leery of the oilsands when oil prices plunged in 2014. The Chinese ambassador to Canada said in April that unless prices rebound, their interest is unlikely to be rekindled.

The Conservatives, meanwhile  now sitting in Opposition to the governing Liberals  have accused the government of currying favour with China to the detriment of Canadas national security  accusations that were flying again Thursday.

Tory MPs pounced on media reports that the government had recently agreed to let Chinas Hytera Communications acquire Vancouver-based Norsat International Inc., after only a preliminary security screen.

Norsat makes satellite communications systems used for national security and defence purposes. It has a number of government customers in both Canada and internationally, including the Canadian Coast Guard and the Pentagon.

Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains said the review was thorough and didnt raise enough concern to merit a full review by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or the Department of National Defence.

We always have and always will protect our national security, Bains said Thursday in question period.

Nonsense, countered Conservative House leader Candice Bergen and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, who accused the Liberals of putting Canadas national security in jeopardy.

The Hytera-Norsat approval comes just three months after Bains gave the go-ahead to Hong Kong-based O-Net Communications to buy out Montreals ITF Technologies. ITF makes fibre-laser technology for communications and industry which can be used in direct-energy weapons.

The former Conservative government originally approved the deal in 2015, but changed its mind after a national security assessment, saying it feared handing over advanced western military laser technology to the Chinese.

Bains overturned that decision last fall and ordered a new national security review. It approved the sale in March; Bains said there were conditions imposed on the deal to protect national security.

Conservative spokesman Saro Khatchadourian said given the ITF and Norsat deals, its hard to trust the Liberals to properly evaluate foreign investment in anything, including the oilsands.

This government continues to put our national security at risk by allowing the Chinese unprecedented access to key, sensitive technology that compromises our national security, Khatchadourian said.

Hytera was subjected to strict national security safeguards when it made a bid earlier this year for a British manufacturer of radio devices, Khatchadourian added.

This Liberal government is just letting them waltz right through.

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Shoppers of Pirate Joes, the Canadian renegade reseller of groceries from the U.S. chain Trader Joes, no longer have a place to buy products like Organic Carrot Turmeric Juice Blend or Quinoa Cowboy Veggie Burgers.

Pirate Joes, which for more than five years celebrated its status as an unauthorized importer of Trader Joes products with a blend of cheeky humor and David-versus-Goliath determination, closed its doors at 12:01 a.m. Thursday after a protracted legal battle with the corporation.

Mike Hallatt, the founder of Pirate Joes, had an approach that was both simple and complex: He sought to meet a demand for Trader Joes products in Vancouver, British Columbia, by opening a store and selling the goods at inflated prices. But to get the groceries, he shopped in bulk at the Trader Joes stores almost three hours away in Seattle.

Trader Joes, a private company with more than 450 stores across the United States, is known for its loyal following, customer service and clever product names, like Speculoos Cookie Butter Cheesecake Bites and Chocolate Dilemma Cheesecake. Its stores are often desired by communities.

His bulk shopping trips got the attention of Trader Joes, and in 2013, the company filed a lawsuit against Hallatt for trademark infringement, unfair competition, false designation of origin and false advertising.

A U.S. District Court in Washington ruled that the violations occurred in Canada, where Trader Joes has no stores, and that Trader Joes failed to prove that Pirate Joes affected business in the United States. In August 2016, a federal appeals court sent the case back to the lower court for a trial to take place in November of this year.

Hallatt, who had personally spent about $75,000 in court costs, was trying to raise $50,000 by the end of this month to put toward the $250,000 he needed. As of Thursday, a little more than $5,700 had been raised, according to an online fundraiser.

On Wednesday, the two sides reached a settlement in which Trader Joes agreed to drop the lawsuit and Hallatt agreed to close the store. They definitely didnt want me to be a business, he said.

A spokesman for Trader Joes, which is based in Monrovia, California, declined to comment on Thursday.

Hallatt had been banned by Trader Joes from stepping foot in its stores, but he had devised workarounds to shop undetected and keep his enterprise afloat.

At various times, he relied on a fake mustache and a wig, and once dressed in drag, the podcast StartUp reported last year. On another visit, he went for a more subtle look: a gray pinstripe suit and wire-rim glasses.

He would fill a cart with the items he needed and then have cohorts pay at the cashier  the most sensitive part of the expedition because its where he most risked being spotted. In ads on Craigslist, Hallatt recruited day laborers for $25 an hour.

He organized a hot shop  going to a Trader Joes and stocking up on vast multiples of a few items. His undercover shoppers would go directly to a manager with a cover story about some event or party.

In one trip, he hired a couple who he said did not look like conventional Trader Joes shoppers. They had dreadlocks and numerous tattoos and piercings. They looked like they just walked off the set of a Burning Man documentary, he said.

Their story? They were hosting a marijuana trimming festival. (Recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state.) They went in there and lit the place up, he said, noting they bought $600 worth of chips and crackers.

Hallatt appeared to revel in tweaking Trader Joes. On its Facebook page, Pirate Joes described itself as running groceries from undisclosed locations in the Pacific Northwest up into Vancouver. And it declared itself, Unaffiliated. Unauthorized. Unafraid.

At one point, Hallatt dropped the P from his store sign so it read Irate Joes  a signal of his determination to fight the grocery chain. He opened his first store in a former Romanian bakery on Jan. 1, 2012, and later relocated to the storefront of a former dry cleaners.

For all the attention and news coverage his business garnered, its closing happened abruptly and with little fanfare. Thank you to everyone who has ever supported us, he wrote on the stores Facebook page. We are sad that it had to come to this, but hey, at least we had some fun while we were at it right?!

He closed the doors at 9:30 p.m. to put one of his daughters to bed, and returned to find people still lined up outside.

At the end, the shelves were mostly bare, and Hallatt rang up the last customer a minute into Thursday.

The customer bought gluten-free pancake mix, matcha green tea mix and shortbread cookies with dark chocolate filling.

He threw in a free bar of organic milk chocolate  his personal favorite.

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Katie Hawley was not home when the black bear toured her house in Vail, Colorado, but it had no problem getting in. She had accidentally left the kitchen window unlocked, and the bear slid it right open, as if it were familiar with the model.

In the living room, as security camera footage would later reveal, the bear took in the views, loped around the coffee table and briefly stood on its hind legs to play the piano. The animal was less adept with that human-designed apparatus: The music was not very good.

This was no Bear-thoven. Its Clair de Lune was more Bear de Lune: one atonal chord. Vail police, accustomed to mediating bear-human encounters in the mountain town, declared it unbearable and grizzly.

Hawley, a 21-year-old college student, did not know any of this had occurred when she arrived home after a night away on the morning of May 31. There was no sign of disturbance in what had briefly been the bears concert hall. That came in the hallway and kitchen, where the visitor left things in shambles.

The bear had opened the refrigerator, and the freezer drawer, too. It had emptied a gallon bag of frozen strawberries and bananas that Hawley used for making smoothies, leaving only remainders kind of slimed all over the carpet in the hall, she said. It overturned a box of flour. It drank pancake syrup and downed a Costco-sized sack of chocolate bark. It delicately used its padded paws to access the peanut butter.

That was the crazy thing, Hawley said. He twisted the lid and opened it himself.

Hawley, seeing the mess, ran outside to call the police and report an intruder. A cop came, looked through the house and made the call: He was like, that was a bear, not a person, Hawley recalled. She confirmed this for herself that night, when she reviewed the video.

Bears will do a lot for food, including breaking and entering. A Colorado state website explains that they will eat just about anything with calories, and it offers a 28-ounce jar of peanut butter (4,750 calories) as one example of an efficient bear snack.

As if to prove the point, the piano-playing bear came back about an hour after Hawley went back inside, she said. The police returned to shoo him up the hill. Hawley said she heard it come back a few more times that day to pound at the window, which by then was locked. She ignored it.

Hawley, who studies hospitality in Florida and is temporarily working at a hotel in Vail, said she had regularly seen bears outside. But, she clarified, weve never had one go into the house.

Now the kitchen window has been boarded up, and Hawley said she tiptoes and peeks around when she arrives home, just to make sure no bear is there.

I think the bear is very cute, she said. But it just scares me he was in the house.

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Last chance

Luis Jacob, Habitat: Over the years, Jacobs civic-minded conceptualism has been a generator of some of the most important thinking to be found here about a Toronto art scene past, present, and, ultimately, future. Here, he reminds us that, outside his role of creative convener  in the last two years, he has assembled a significant symposium on the citys artistic character and curated an exhibition on the same subject, both full of fresh thinking  hes an artist to be reckoned with.

Ending shortly, Habitat, part of the Contact festival, should be seen again, elsewhere, often and soon: A show so gorgeous, and so deeply engaged with both this place and its uneasy status as no place, is a no-brainer acquisition for one of the citys museums. The not-quite-open Museum of Contemporary Art should be arm-wrestling the Art Gallery of Ontario for buying rights; if theres a more fitting first gesture for a new museum looking to reintroduce itself to its city and the world, I cant imagine it.

Anyway: Built around Jacobs Album XIV, the most recent in a 20-year series of hundreds of images salvaged from books and magazines (previous versions are owned by the National Gallery of Canada and the Guggenheim, among others), Habitat echoes with the ghosts of Torontos past: Here an image of nattily dressed men examining a painting at the old Art Gallery of Toronto, there a black and white photo of Torontos long-erased Ward district.

Quietly rapturous, it engulfs  a psychological game of cat-and-mouse, with the mind hunting for connections where there are but few. The deliberate arrangement suggests a taxonomy  an album, after all, is built on logic, either chronology or type  but its a leading ploy.

Habitat sets the viewer adrift in the sea of ambiguity that our image-heavy world has become. Photographs of modern art, advertising clips, and unidentified urban planning and construction projects abound. Interspersed, small islands of particularity  this place, its history, art, city-building and otherwise  serve as resting points in the swim.

All around, a seductive tease: for the show, Jacob coaxed Wayne Reuben, Honest Eds longtime sign painter, out of retirement. The cheekily oblique slogans here (In Memory of the Toronto Scene: Come In And Get Lost!) rendered in so intensely familiar Toronto-ese deepen what I think is Habitats reason for being: Putting in place a city that has always managed to serve as both everywhere and nowhere, but somehow, always here.

Until June 10 at Gallery TPW, 170 St. Helens Ave.

Ongoing:

Sandra Brewster, Its All A Blur: The Gattuso Prize is given annually to the Contact Festival featured exhibition judged by a panel to be the years best. This year, the $5,000 award goes to Brewster, whose large-scale photo portrait project gleefully subverts her medium while exploring some deep personal truths. Her subjects, photographed in motion, are less captured than slipped from the cameras grasp; for Brewster, whose parents left Guyana for Toronto in the 60s, the pictures reflect both that upheaval, and an ongoing process, nowhere near finished, of becoming.

At Georgia Scherman Projects, 133 Tecumseth Street, until June 24. www.georgiascherman.com

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Belize might be small in size but its mighty in history and culture and an interesting fusion of Caribbean and Latin-American vibes. These are some of the things you can do during a trip to the country:

Lamanai ruins

The Lamanai ruins are one of the oldest continuously occupied Maya sites in Belize, from about 1,500 BC, when inhabitants grew maize at the site, to 1,680 AD. Its one of the largest Maya ceremonial sites in Belize and had once been a major city of the Maya civilization. The site includes the Temple of the Mask, the Temple of the Jaguar Masks and the High Temple. Climb to the top of High Temple for great views of Belize. Details: travelbelize.org/things-to-do

Baboon sanctuary

The Community Baboon Sanctuary, founded by National Geographic grantee Dr. Robert Horwich, is a conservation project that works to protect the natural habitat of the endangered black howler monkey. Its one of the six howler monkey species found in Central and South America and one of two monkeys found in Belize (the other being the spider monkey). A guide will take you on a nature walk through the rainforest, pointing out significant flora and fauna, while spotting the black howlers swinging from tree to tree. Details: belizehowlermonkeys.org

Preserving culture

The Cayo Womens Cooperative started in 2001, when a few women realized aspects of their culture had been slipping away, including the process of making traditional pottery. These women began learning throwing, also known as hand-forming pottery, which had been passed down for centuries through generations of women in the village of San Ignacio. Today the women sell their pottery in a small on-site shop and will teach you how the pots are made, along with how to make traditional corn tortillas before serving up a scrumptious lunch of traditional Cayo food. Details: gadventures.com/trips/explore-belize

Bang a drum

The breezy seaside village of Hopkins is considered by some to be the cultural centre of the Garifuna population in Belize. Garifuna are descendants of Island Carib, African and Arawak. Try your hands at traditional drumming at the Lebeha Drumming Centre (lebeha.com), where your instructor will also teach you more about the history and culture of the Garifuna. Beating a drum to the beat isnt as easy as traditional drummers make it look! Your evening will be capped by a musical performance by the centres teachers. Details: lebeha.com

Bike with Purpose

Caye Caulker is a chilled-out island that offers up stellar snorkelling, complete with swimming with massive stingrays and sharks! Tour the small island on a bike from the G Adventures-supported Bike with Purpose project. The tours are led by students from Ocean Academy high school. Started by an American couple, its the first high school on the island and provides students with an enriching education. My 18-year-old guide rose from difficult circumstances and now is a multilingual top student.

Charmaine Noronha was hosted by National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures, which didnt review or approve this story.

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NEAR SAN IGNACIO, BELIZE-Our Maya ancestors saw caves as a portal to the underworld, often referred to as Xibalba, which translates to the place of fear or fright. They believed evil spirits, demons and monsters were guarding caves and only elites, priests and their entourage were permitted to access them; commoners were not allowed to go in, says caving tour guide Gliss Penados.

And yet here I am, a mere commoner, about to descend into the underworld of Actun Tunichil Muknal, also known as the ATM cave, in western Belize.

Under a blazing sun, our tour group treks through a tropical jungle, punctuated by a few river crossings before we arrive at the entrance of this massive limestone Mayan archeological site. It feels both foreboding and magical. A portal back to between 300 to 600 AD.

Ancient Maya believed the rain god Chaac resided in the underworld and that gods could be both benevolent and malevolent. Offerings were made to keep the gods happy, especially Chaac, to ensure healthy maize crops.

Penados says when rain was abundant, rituals were performed outside the cave, but when the Maya went through a period of drought, they headed deeper into the cave. And so we delve deeper into the cave and follow what may have been the path ancient Maya took to perform sacrificial rituals.

We take the plunge into the river that formed this cave, also known as Cave of the Stone Sepulchre. The warm, crystal-clear water initially pools around our ankles, but as we move further in, the water rises to our necks. We carefully step from rock to rock and boulder to boulder, our way illuminated only by a headlamp fastened to our helmets. Penados tells us ancient Maya used torches made out of pine wood to guide their way.

While we manoeuvre our bodies over and around rock formations, at times swimming through the river, I am boggled at the thought of trying to forge through the slippery terrain while carrying torches, food offerings and utensils.

The flame from torches created shadows and the flickering would have made it appear like the shadows were moving, giving the experience a whole different feeling, says Penados. Dont forget Maya used hallucinogens, which alone will give you a whole different perspective of the cave; a whole different trip than were having.

Minus hallucinogens, its still a trippy experience. Huge crystal formations slide down the cave walls, melding into boulders, swallowing stalactites that drip from the ceilings. The surfaces shimmer when illuminated. At times it feels almost like a prehistoric cathedral. In just moments in the brooding stillness, youre enveloped in the all-encompassing, mesmerizing beauty of this underworld.

Standing stones mark bloodletting ceremonies performed by the elite and their wives. Female Maya would thrust stingrays spines through their own tongues or slit their finger or wrist. Males would pierce the foreskin of the penis. Both genders would drip this blood onto strips of paper, adding incense to burn it. The smoke rising from this would sometimes be depicted as the body of a serpent, referred to as the Vision serpent, says Penados. These acts were performed as a self-sacrifice on special occasions to nourish gods and ancestors.

These tales send shivers down my spine as we wade through the now chilly, shadow-cast river. We scramble over boulders, climbing onto chambers, where we find remnants of ceramic pots scattered throughout, including one nearly fully intact. Penados says there are up to 1,400 artifacts scattered throughout the cave.

The pots were used for food offerings. The idea is that the aroma, vapour and steam that rises from the food is what nourishes the souls of our relatives that have passed away. Its also believed that when the rituals for the rain god ceased to work, they started conducting human sacrifice as food for the gods.

Goosebumps spread over my body as Penados leads us through a maze of chambers, revealing the various ways people were sacrificed, sometimes through a blow to the head, decapitation or disembowelment. The hairs on my arms rise as we come upon water-worn basins that cradle the remains of 14 human sacrifices, children and babies among them. Their skulls have exaggerated foreheads, a sign of beauty achieved through skull binding.

It was an honour to volunteer to be sacrificed because your soul would go straight to heaven and avoid the nine levels of the underworld. Families would offer their child to be sacrificed, Penados says while leading us through narrow crevices.

We climb a ladder and snake our way into a small upper chamber where the main attraction lies. Were collectively wowed as we stand before the Crystal Maiden  a complete female skeleton that sparkles from eons of crystal calcification. Archeologists believe a priest sacrificed her, age 20, as part of a religious ritual. Her skeleton has been lying here for more than 1,000 years.

Penados relays the story behind the Crystal Maiden and chills run through me, not so much from the cavernous climate but in reflection of a civilization so rooted in spirituality, tradition and devotion, and in gratitude for the opportunity to explore this magical, mystical underworld.

Charmaine Noronha was hosted by National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures, which didnt review or approve this story.

When you go

Explore this cave: The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave (belize.com/actun-tunichil-muknal ) is in an area known as the Tapir Mountain Nature Reserve. This is a tropical jungle so your guides will prepare you with suitable jungle hiking gear. The ATM cave is about a 45-minute drive from San Ignacio, Santa Elena or Belmopan. From the ATM sites parking lot, expect a 40-minute hike to the cave entrance. The entrance to the cave is through 3.6 metres of water, so the government oversees the site to ensure licensed guides take in visitors. Tour prices vary, starting at $95 (U.S.), depending on which tour company you go with.

Do this trip: This 10-day National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures Explore Belize trip (gadventures.com/trips/explore-belize ) enables you to explore diverse aspects of Belize, from Mayan ruins to Garifuna culture to beautiful white-sand beaches and tropical jungles. The tour is now on sale for $1,799 (Canadian). The price includes your arrival transfer, several tours, transportation to destinations and to/from included activities, as well as hotel stays and some meals.

Fly: I flew WestJet (westjet.ca) from Toronto to Belize City. In November, WestJet will bring back its seasonal direct flights from Toronto to Belize City, with flights that are just over four hours.

Stay:Midas (midasbelize.com) in San Ignacio is a good mid-range choice, where you can grab some pool time and a rum punch the night before you head out to Actun Tunichil Muknal, which is about an hours drive from the hotel.

Go: Visit November to mid-April, during the countrys dry season (which is also peak season).

Do your research:travelbelize.org/home

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OTTAWAThe meeting had the look of a feel-good visit between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and honorary Canadian citizen Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of Burma, also known as Myanmar.

But a major international human rights watchdog and groups representing Burmese refugees in Canada called on Trudeau to push Suu Kyi to allow an independent international investigation into allegations of widespread human rights abuses against the Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority in the western state of Rakhine.

Suu Kyis government has so far resisted those calls, which came from a special UN commission chaired by former secretary general Kofi Annan.

Farida Deif, Canada director for Human Rights Watch, urged Trudeau to use the Wednesday meeting with Suu Kyi on Parliament Hill to specifically push her to accept the UN call.

The prime minister should make clear that Myanmars full co-operation with this independent and impartial investigation is expected by Myanmars international donors and friends, said Deif.

Trudeau made no mention of the Rohingya situation during a brief public photo-op with Suu Kyi as the two exchanged pleasantries in his office.

We have some way to go before we become a working, democratic, federal nation such as yours, but Im sure well get there, Suu Kyi told Trudeau.

She is a one-time political prisoner, democracy champion and Nobel Laureate who won a landslide election victory in late 2015.

While Trudeaus office said he did raise the investigation during the meeting, he didnt attach any strings. His office said Canada was giving Burma an additional $8.8 million in humanitarian assistance to promote peace and stability programs, including human rights.

Deif said Canada should view the Rohingya situation as an important test of the Burmese governments commitment to uphold the rule of law and to work constructively with the international community to establish the facts, identify perpetrators and deter future human rights abuses by all sides.

Trudeaus spokesperson said the prime minister planned to use the meeting to advocate for further reforms in Myanmar, especially those that support ethnic and religious minorities, women, and young people  including the situation of the Rohingya.

The prime minister also offered Suu Kyi Canadas condolences for the loss of a military plane from Burma, which disappeared Wednesday while carrying more than 100 passengers and crew.

The Karen Community of Canada, which represents ethnic Karen refugees, also urged Trudeau to press for an independent UN investigation in Myanmar.

The group said in an open letter to Trudeau it didnt want the visit to be a feel-good celebration that will ignore human rights abuses in Burmas ethnic areas, which Aung San Suu Kyis government has done virtually nothing to alleviate.

The Rohingya situation has dulled much of the lustre of Suu Kyis successful entry into democratic politics in what was once one of South Asias most repressive military regimes. She spent 15 years in detention in Burma before her National League for Democracy won the election after five decades of military rule in her poor but resource-rich country.

Former Conservative foreign affairs minister John Baird travelled to Myanmar in 2012 to present Suu Kyi with honorary Canadian citizenship and support her and the democratic reforms that were taking root then.

Canada has since re-established diplomatic relations with Burma and wants to forge new business links with a country the World Bank has described as possessing fertile lands, significant untapped agricultural potential and a rich endowment of natural resources.

But in its letter to Trudeau, the Karen community urged the government to reign in its enthusiasm for exploiting opportunities in Burmas oil and gas sector because that has human rights implications.

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LA MALBAIE, QUE.Hosting the next G7 summit will give Canada the perfect opportunity to promote issues that are important to the country, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday.

Trudeau was visiting La Malbaie, the small picturesque town northeast of Quebec City that will be the centre of global attention for a few days when it welcomes international leaders next year.

In 2018, the eyes of the entire world will be riveted on (the region of) Charlevoix, a magnificent location...that is really ideal for welcoming world leaders, he told a news conference.

As host of the G7, Canada will be in a unique position in 2018 to advance our priorities, including gender equality....This topic will be at the top of the agenda next year and I look forward to working with my counterparts to promote gender equality, both at home and abroad.

Security, he said, will also be taken very seriously in La Malbaie, which is about 140 kilometres from Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River.

Earlier in the day, Trudeau met with Mayor Michel Couturier and local business and tourism representatives to discuss issues related to the summit.

The G7 comprises the seven richest economies in the world, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

It will mark the sixth time that Canada has hosted the meetings, including in the Muskoka region of Ontario in 2010, Albertas Kananaskis in 2002 and Halifax in 1995.

Trudeau said Charlevoix will benefit economically from hosting the event if the previous G7 summits held in Canada are anything to go by.

Read more:

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In the opening scenes of the satirical Netflix show Dear White People, the mixed-race Samantha White, a junior media studies major at a fictional Ivy League University, is told by various people, You look like Beyonce. Storm from the X-Men. Wait. What are you?

Annoyed, she takes to the mic on her radio show. Dear white people, she begins. Heres a little tip. When you ask someone who looks ethnically different What are you? the answer is usually a person about to slap the s--- out of you.

Its not the only stock reaction that greets mixed-race people, nor do the comments all come from white people, although just like bilingual is assumed to mean English and French, mixed race is assumed, by default, to mean a product of white and another race.

People think mixed-race people are smarter, they are genetically better off, said author Sharon H. Chang, speaking on the sidelines of a Mixed Art Conference in Toronto last weekend, where she was the keynote speaker. When you get into biological superiority, that gets into very dangerous territory.

Mixed-race couples account for only 4.6 per cent of all unions in Canada, according to a Statistics Canada report last updated in 2013.

The offspring of such a couple are often described as being exotic or post-racial. These positive stereotypes often apply to those who look closer to white or have elitism on their side. Think Keanu Reeves, think Drake.

As the children born of mixed heritages get further from whiteness, problems of racism or colourism crop up, even from within families. White parents who deny their own privilege can also be blind to the racializing experiences of their children, Chang found after interviewing 68 families for her book Raising Mixed Race.

The idea that by their birth they bridge the divide between races is a myth, Chang says. Birthing mixed kids does not fix racial issues.

Zainab Amadahy, 62, knows this only too well. She is mixed race of African-American, Cherokee, Seminole, Portuguese and Amish descent. Her mother was white, her father Black and in the Jim Crow era that normalized segregation, her mothers parents disowned her. Internalized racism meant it wasnt smooth sailing on the racial front on her fathers side, either.

My fathers people were very shade-ist, she told the conference audience. Upward mobility meant being lighter, marrying into light skin.

Amadahy identified as Black and as an activist, was easily accepted as one. In those days, to talk about being mixed race was to claim light-skin privilege, she says.

One of her earliest memories involves waking up to New York City cops rousing her father out of bed one night in the 60s and then punching and kicking him down the stairs. He came back beaten and bruised the next day. There were no charges against him. Turned out the police had mistaken him for someone else. No apologies either. That was my introduction to the idea that cops were not safe.

School? As the only Black in school with her siblings, she remembers being assaulted, beaten up. It was my white mother, of all people, who taught me how to defend myself, sent us all to karate school.

She was a follower of MLK and didnt believe in violence, but I guess that was theoretical when it came to her own kids being beaten up.

In the days when mixed in America meant white mixed with black, her Indigenous roots stayed in the background. It was only when she came to Toronto as a 19-year-old that she got involved with the pan-Indigenous community and felt freer to explore that side of her heritage.

Indigeneity is anything but in the background for Dani Kwan-Lafond, who is Chinese, Indigenous and French-Canadian. She and her partner, who is Jewish, have a little girl.

Mixedness comes with challenges for a parent, not the least of which is, Do I put her in native school in Toronto? Or do I put into a French school?

Certainly, she sees a lot of Asian faces, both Chinese and Filipino, Kwan-Lafond said.

But being Indigenous is something different. We have these mixed identities . . . and one of those identities is a really politicized one in Canada . . . we do a lot more in our house around Indigeneity than we do around Asianness.

Kwan-Lafond wonders: As a parent, how do I bring her up in a good way with a community of elders and listen to my teachings? How do I also acknowledge those other parts of identity?

So, they end up celebrating a number of traditions. We do Chinese New Year, Passover. We do Pow Wows.

Its a complicated situation, but its our normal.

Intermingling may not have the inherent ability to solve racial inequalities, but with considered parenting, it can offer a genuine shot at moving past tribalism.

Amadahy considers her background a blessing. It has allowed me to move in and out of communities, have passion for many, many stories and to question our socially constructed ideas of identity.

Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar.

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Pramod Mishra is a biweekly columnist for The Kathmandu Post. He is the department chair of English Studies at Lewis University in the United States.
When Torontos very first phone book was published on June 8, 1879, the telephone was still a newfangled gadget that had been patented only a mere three years earlier.

All 56 listed businesses and residences at the time fit on a grand total of six pages. Of course, there were no numbers yet  a live operator had to connect every call between phone subscribers.

The phonebook, published by the Toronto Telephone Despatch Company, predated dialing, combined ear and mouth pieces, and even the ability to talk and listen at the same time.

It was easy to see why making a quick call was a little complicated for residents to understand at the time  so much so that clear instructions on how to do so were included in the book.

Let the telephone rest against the lower lip. While listening press the telephone firmly against the ear, it instructs. Speak slowly and distinctly, with some force, but not in a high tone.

At all times give your hearers ample time to transfer the telephone to their ear before you speak, and be certain a sentence is finished before you reply.

The Toronto Telephone Despatch Co. only lasted two years before it was bought out by the Bell Telephone Company of Canada, later becoming the familiar Bell Canada.

Needless to say, Torontos very first phonebook was a far cry from the hefty Yellow Pages gathering dust in the back of your cupboard.

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Chilly weather in the city may be coming to an end this weekend, but the road closures are not.

As you begin making plans for the hot weather, here is a round up of some of the delays and closures you can expect as you maneuver your way around the city.

Over the weekend, there will be no subway service between St. George and Broadview stations due to city work being done on the Prince Edward Viaduct. Shuttle buses and accessible Wheel-Trans buses will be operating between these stations.

There will also be other road closures and TTC routes diverting over the course of the weekend for activities happening in the city.

On Saturday:

The Portuguese Day Parade will be closing down Lansdowne Ave., from College to Dundas Sts. W. Dundas St. W. will also be closed from Sorauren Ave. to Bathurst St., from 10:45 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lansdowne Ave. from Bloor W. to College Sts. will be closed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This parade is affecting the 47 Lansdowne and 505 Dundas from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m..

The SHOPPERS LOVE. YOU. Run for Women, an event supporting womens mental health, will cause closures on Queens Park Cres., from College St. to Bloor St., from 7 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. A number of smaller roads in the area will also be closed to accommodate this event, police say.

The Enbridge Ride to Conquer Cancer taking place from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., will be affecting several roads, including the area bounded by Burnhamthorpe Rd. in the north, The West Mall in the west, Kipling Ave. in the east and Lake Shore Blvd. in the south. The event will begin at Exhibition Place at 8:30 a.m.

On Sunday:

From 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., musicians, food vendors and several other activities will be closing down Bloor St. from Bathurst St. to Spadina Ave. for the Bloor Annex Street Festival.

The city is closing the southbound lanes near Queens Park and Bloor St. W, in front of the Royal Ontario Museum, for the Toronto Taste Festival.

Duncan Mill Rd., between Valleybrook Dr. and Lesmill Rd., and Lesmill Rd., between Duncan Mill Rd. and Valleybrook Dr., will be closed for the Graydon Hall for Nicolas Kids Triathlon, an event that supports the Sick Kids Foundation and research into marrow failure and myelodysplasia at the Hospital for Sick Children.

From 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., the city is closing down the northbound lanes on University Ave., from Queen St. to Armoury St., for the Toronto Challenge Run.

The city is also undertaking a couple of construction projects over the weekend. Here are some roadways to avoid this weekend:

Lake Shore Blvd. E, from Don Roadway to Cherry St., will be closed every day until Wednesday from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Starting at 8 p.m. on Sunday to 5:30 a.m. on Monday, the city is closing down westbound lanes near Lake Shore Blvd. at Bay St.

A northbound lane on the W. R. Allen Roadway at Flemington Rd. will be closed on Saturday from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Monday for a bridge rehabilitation project.

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Its not a drop in the bucket.

The Ontario government has made it official by announcing fees for bottlers of water will jump from $3.71 for a million litres of groundwater taken to $503.71 per million litres, later this summer.

This increased fee, along with the other measures weve taken, will help increase groundwater protection and scientific understanding of how to best manage this vital resource, Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray said in a statement Thursday.

As the impacts from climate change become more prevalent, Ontario is taking action to ensure water resources are better protected and that we have the best science available, said Murray.

Premier Kathleen Wynnes government wants to discourage use of bottled water, which creates around 180 times more greenhouse gas emissions than tap water due to the use of plastic bottles and the fuel used to ship it to market.

I really think we need to look at the culture around bottled water. Why are we all drinking water out of bottles when most of us dont need to? Wynne said in an interview with The Canadian Press last December.

Do all of us need to be using bottled water? I think we need to have a bigger look at the whole industry, and our role in regulating it, she said.

Wynne was moved to act after Nestle Waters Canada bought a well that Centre Wellington township had hoped to use to sate that growing communitys thirst.

Nestle has permits to take up to 3.6 million litres a day from its well in Aberfoyle, where it has a bottling plant, and another 1.1 million litres a day from Erin.

Starting Aug. 1, water-bottlers will pay the additional $500 per million litres of groundwater.

The additional revenue will be used to study the environmental impact of water being bottled.

Ontario has also placed a moratorium on all new bottling permits at groundwater sources until Jan. 1, 2019 and imposed rules on renewing existing licences.

A permit is required to tap into groundwater sources for all companies who take more than 50,000 litres of water on any given day.

Each year, Canadian consumers spend around $2.5 billion on bottled water  thats 71 litres for every man, woman, and child in the country  even though most of the country, with the notable exception of some remote Indigenous communities, enjoys clean, safe tap water.

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North Koreas Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned U.S. President Donald Trump for pulling the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change, dubbing it a short-sighted and silly decision.

In a statement published Tuesday on Pyongyangs official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and attributed to a foreign ministry spokesperson who wasnt named, the isolated country warned that global warming is one of the gravest challenges humankind is facing today and praised the Paris accord for its attempt to stop it.

Noting that the Trump administration had announced on June 1 that the U.S. would leave the landmark agreement, the unnamed official said that this was because of the presidents America First policies and an ignorance of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests.

Read more: World leaders defiant after Trump pulls U.S. out of Paris accord

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This is the height of egotism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being at the cost of the entire planet, the statement said.

The Paris agreement was reached in 2015 and was a signature diplomatic achievement for Trumps predecessor, president Barack Obama. More than 190 nations came together in the French capital to agree to voluntary pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Only two nations didnt sign the agreement: Nicaragua, who argued that the agreement didnt go far enough, and Syria, which was in the midst of a devastating civil war.

Despite its international isolation, North Korea signed the agreement. In December 2015, then-foreign minister Ri Su Yong told delegates in Paris that North Korea leader Kim Jong Un had declared war on deforestation and that the country aimed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 37.4 per cent compared with the levels of the 1990s.

Experts have warned that North Korea is at significant risk of climate change-related problems. In particular, the countrys chronic food shortages could be made worse by droughts or flooding. In a report released on Wednesday by the North Korea-watching website NK News, academics David Von Hippel and Peter Hayes wrote that North Koreas estimates for its greenhouse gas reductions were roughly accurate and climate change represented a good opportunity for engagement with the international community.

The United States has long been criticized by Pyongyangs frequently bellicose official media outlets. However, during the campaign, Trump was largely spared criticism from North Korea  in one instance, a state media outlet praised him as wise. Since entering office, Trump has been on the receiving end of a number of insults from outlets like KCNA.

Tuesdays Foreign Ministry statement linked Trumps selfish positions on climate change with the U.S. administrations stern opposition to North Koreas nuclear program. Warning of a dangerous ideological trend that had emerged in the U.S. with Trumps election, North Korea warned other nations not to follow suit.

Whoever chooses to blindly follow the Trump administration overpowered by its bravado should be fully aware that the judgment of history shall take them all as one, the statement said.

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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREANorth Korea fired several suspected short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, South Koreas military said, in a continuation of weapons launches that have rattled Washington and the Norths neighbours as Pyongyang seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.

South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the launch came from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan, and that the projectiles likely flew about 200 kilometres with an apogee of about 2 kilometres.

The Norths missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped ICBM in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the Norths weapons activities.

Read more:

North Korea calls most recent missile test a success

Experts stunned at sheer number of new North Korean missiles

The Norths projectiles were fired into waters between South Korea and Japan where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week. Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seouls JCS, said North Korea with the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its precision strike capabilities on ships in response to the joint drills.

Last week, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile that also landed in waters between South Korea and Japan, prompting protest from both Seoul and Tokyo. Japans Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after Thursdays launch that Tokyo has not detected any flying objects that headed toward Japan or landed inside the countrys maritime economic zone.

North Koreas weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile program that can stand up to what it sees as U.S. and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. These demands include the removal of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea meant to check North Korean aggression.

The launches Thursday from Wonsan were North Koreas fourth missile test in as many weeks as the country continues to speed up its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

North Korea on May 14 premiered a powerful new mid-range missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel mid-range missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new precision-guided missile, which experts say is designed with a manoeuvrable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defence systems like the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence that is being deployed in South Korea.

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VANCOUVERA retired RCMP inspector sexually assaulted a woman inside a locked washroom at police headquarters in British Columbia, a Crown attorney said at the opening of a provincial court trial on Wednesday.

Michelle Booker told the judge hearing the case without a jury that former inspector Tim Shields also sexually harassed the woman at E Division headquarters in Vancouver.

She asked him to stop. The harassment continued, Booker said of the woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban.

Booker said the woman, who was a civilian employee, will testify that Shields sexually assaulted her in the fall of 2009 at E Division headquarters in Vancouver.

He did so by kissing her, touching her breasts, exposing himself, touching her hand and placing her hand onto his exposed penis, she told the court.

At the time of the alleged incidents, Shields was in charge of strategic communications and was the public face of the Mounties in the province.

He was charged in May 2016 and pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault in July.

Shields arrived in court flanked by two lawyers and did not respond to a request for comment.

He appeared passive while listening to the proceedings, spending part of the time hunched over writing in a notebook.

The Crown called RCMP Sgt. Jeff Wong as the first witness, who described photos he had taken in May 2015 of the Mounties former headquarters to assist with an internal investigation.

Wong said he was told only that the photos were for a sensitive situation involving professional standards. He provided a detailed description of the facilitys washrooms.

Retired deputy commissioner Craig Callens said previously the Mounties became aware of allegations of sexual misconduct against Shields in 2013, but an investigation could not proceed because of a lack of evidence. That changed in 2014 after new information came to light, Callens said.

Shields was suspended with pay in May of last year and submitted his discharge documents in December, Callens said. The Mounties said at the time his suspension was due to a code-of-conduct investigation.

The Crown told the court it expects to call a civilian witness and an RCMP superintendent to testify on Thursday.

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CARACAS, VENEZUELAIt was 10 a.m. and the newly promoted lieutenant was already sweating under his plastic face shield and black flak jacket.

A few days before, the 28-year-old who goes by the name of Catire had watched a national guardsman get his arm broken at a protest. A week earlier, a friend collapsed several paces from him on the riot line, shot through the groin. Catire pulled up his visor and chain-smoked by his motorcycle, hoping the day would pass quickly.

Several miles away on the other side of the city, tens of thousands of Venezuelans in white shirts and homemade gas masks gathered to march toward Catire and his unit, part of a bloody protest movement that has seen dozens of deaths in more than two months of turmoil.

Read more:

Jailed Venezuela opposition leader calls for protests to continue

Young activist, ex-military man latest killed as Venezuela protests continue

Venezuelans shut down capital roads to protest government

Catires family suffers along with protesters who skip meals while watching their money become worthless. The lieutenant is unsure whether to blame the government or the opposition for the crisis. What he and other soldiers decide in the coming months could decide the countrys fate.

President Nicolas Maduro has greatly expanded the militarys authority and is leaning on the armed forces as his own grip on power weakens. The military has helped hold up the socialist administration for more than a decade, but never before was it the governments main crutch. And despite the outward loyalty of top officers, cracks are beginning to appear.

In April, three lieutenants publicly rejected Maduro as commander in chief and sought asylum in Colombia. Another lieutenant in a restive western state cut up his official military ID card as supporters cheered. Soldiers must not turn their arms on the people, he said. Days later, he was in military prison.

The country is unhappy with the situation right now, and the armed forces are no exception. The military has traditionally been on the right side of history here. If they turn, its all over for Maduro, said Cliver Alcala, a retired general who participated in an unsuccessful 1992 coup led by a then-unknown junior officer named Hugo Chavez.

These days, Alcala is a vocal opponent of the socialist government installed by Chavez after he won election to the presidency in 1998. Despite counterintelligence and close surveillance in the barracks, Maduro is unlikely to know an uprising is brewing until its already upon him, Alcala said.

Any actual coup would cause an international crisis across a hemisphere profoundly scarred by the bloody military takeovers that marked much of the past century. But most opposition figures are hoping for much more passive support: for soldiers to hold back from attacks on protesters.

More than a dozen military officers were arrested during the first two weeks of the protests and thrown into a military prison on suspicion of rebellion, according to military documents provided to The Associated Press by a third party.

The government has pampered the armed forces as much as an economy in shambles will allow. Before Catire put on his green fatigues, knee-high boots and black body armour before the protest, he sat down to a breakfast of two corn cakes, beans, eggs and coffee with milk  more than many Venezuelans eat in a day.

He gets bonuses in dollars, and his status has allowed his relatives to cut the line for government-subsidized apartments, household appliances and cars. But those perks have not been enough to insulate military families from shortages and crime. In Caracas, Catire, whose name is local slang for blond, feels increasingly hemmed in. Like most other soldiers, he has been confined to barracks since the protests started at the end of March.

Opposition leaders have used social media to broadcast appeals to young soldiers killing time in the barracks. In one recent video, lawmaker Jose Manuel Olivares emphasized the potential consequences for soldiers who fire on protesters.

Captains and lieutenants, we are the same age, we have the same dreams and expectations from life. But you are the ones carrying out orders to repress on the street while your bosses try to figure out how to preserve your special privileges. Youre the ones who risking prosecution, Olivares said.

Like many leading politicians, the 31-year-old Olivares has been photographed multiple times stumbling away from blooms of tear gas at protests with blood streaming down his face.

The opposition has said it will hold officials to account for human rights violation and the message seems to be getting through. In 2014, the U.S. sanctioned officers involved in a far tamer crackdown on protesters. On a secret recording The Associated Press obtained last month, high-level military officers are heard debating the use of snipers against protesters, with some expressing concerns about possible prosecution should the opposition gain power. The recordings authenticity could not be verified.

Catire has taken extra precautions since the day he saw a friend collapse next to him as his unit shot tear gas at protesters near an upscale eastern Caracas plaza. A bullet passed through his friends upper thigh and punctured his groin, causing rapid blood loss. A teenage protester was killed at the same plaza that afternoon, his chest crushed by a tear gas canister.

While the soldiers inflict more injuries than they receive, Catire is wary of protesters throwing gasoline bombs and rocks. Shots also often come from pro-government militias who ride into the scrum on motorcycles. At least two National Guard soldiers and two policemen have been killed in the protests.

Along with asking soldiers to break up demonstrations, Maduro relies on military tribunals to jail protesters and gives the armed forces a prominent role in his effort to rewrite the constitution. He has invited uniformed military members to appear at televised rallies since the protest movement started, and has promoted waves of officers to general.

Although he lacks the military background of Chavez, his late mentor, Maduro has been at pains to point out he shares soldiers working-class background and emphasize that he and many soldiers have browner skin while opposition leaders and elite Venezuelans in general look more European. In May, he appeared before a group of grim-faced young soldiers and told them opposition protesters had burned a bystander to death just because he had dark skin like you and me. Witnesses say the bystander was caught stealing.

Catire, who did not give his full name because he was violating protocol by speaking to a reporter, said he feels the country is descending into civil war. He grew up poor near the Colombian border, and joined the military because he liked the idea of bringing order to a chaotic country. He disapproves of the opposition calling on the armed forces to pick a side and believes the military must stay neutral and wait for elections.

By noon on the day of the protest, he and other soldiers were turning back the crowd with tear gas and water cannons.

Toward the days end, a group of women approached Catires post and shouted, Lay down your arms and join us! Some stripped naked and threw their clothes over the 12-foot barricade the soldiers had set up. But the young men stayed immobile and silent. Take down this wall, the women insisted.

After a few more hours, both sides went home to cool down and prepare to repeat the whole process the next morning.

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WASHINGTONSome people in Washington skipped work Thursday to watch former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. That wasnt necessary for Lillyanne Daigle, who simply followed the rest of her office to a bar.

Daigle, a 29-year-old who works at a nuclear non-proliferation advocacy group, wasnt playing hooky as she stood in line with hundreds of other people outside Shaws Tavern, a D.C. bar that opened at 9:30 a.m. to show the Comey hearing on its big-screen televisions. All of her co-workers were there on an official field trip.

Ive been in D.C. three years. This is my first D.C. scandal, Daigle said, occasionally peeking at the block-long line of like-minded political spectators between herself and the door. This is the most D.C. thing  watch a political scandal, at a bar.

At work, added Jennifer Knox, one of Daigles colleagues.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

Hangovers, power breakfasts, sporting events in distant time zones  people have many motives for walking through a saloon door before lunch. In most cities, the opportunity to watch jargon-studded Congressional testimony by a fired bureaucrat with the haircut of a 1950s Boy Scout is not among them.

But anyone looking for evidence that Washington truly is a place apart from the rest of the country needed look no further Thursday morning than Shaws, one of at least a half-dozen District watering holes that opened early to show Comeys testimony.

The crowd was a mix of young and old. Some, in ties or pantsuits, kept up a pretense of weekday seriousness. Others were at their summertime ease in salmon slacks and checkered linen shirts.

Inside the bar, the crowd was not raucous. By mid-morning, most were still eating breakfast and favouring coffee to stronger beverages. But, in between long stretches of silence as Comey spoke, the patrons werent above an occasional demonstrative outburst  most of it, in a city that voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, directed against President Donald Trump.

When Comey referred to some of Trumps statements as lies, plain and simple, the room burst out in applause. Comeys dry laugh-lines  Yes, because Ive heard the president say so, he deadpanned at one point when asked whether the FBIs investigation of Russian meddling in the election played a role in his firing  were duly met with guffaws.

This being Washington, some people sought to fill the role of anonymous sources.

This is crazy, and just a total testament to how different D.C. is as a city, a lawyer told a reporter before remembering his government clients and catching himself. I think its probably best that we stay off the record, he added.

Mohammad Al-Rousan, a 22-year-old intern freshly arrived in the capital from Dallas and still not practiced in the dark arts of not-for-attribution quotes, was less guarded.

Ive never seen anything like this, he said, looking wide-eyed around the tavern. The closest he could recall, he said, was a mob scene at the mall for the release of the iPhone 7.

Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, Al-Rousans boss at an international aid-and-development outfit, said he wasnt expecting any smoking-gun moments during Comeys testimony. Nevertheless, he said he had decided that a trip to the bar would be a fitting orientation for his new crop of interns.

Whats more D.C., Ghosh-Siminoff said, than making a huge political circus out of dry testimony in the Senate?

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KHAN YUNIS, PALESTINIAN TERRITORYQatar, one of the few foreign backers of Hamas, faces massive pressure from its Gulf neighbours to cut ties with the Islamic militant group. If it does, the result could be disastrous for Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Qatar has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in roads, housing and a major hospital in the tiny territory. Its infrastructure projects are one of the few job-creators in a devastated economy.

Gaza already suffers from an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, widespread destruction from a string of Israel-Hamas wars, economic misery and chronic electricity shortages. For Hamas, Qatars money pumping into the economy is a vital lifeline bolstering its rule.

Qatar appears to be weighing its options. The mere prospect of losing Qatari support prompted Hamas on Wednesday to issue rare criticism of Saudi Arabia, which has been leading the campaign against its tiny Gulf neighbour.

Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said the Saudi call for Qatar to cut ties with the Palestinian group is regrettable and contradicts traditional Arab support for the Palestinian cause. He accused Saudi Arabia of siding with American and Zionist calls to put Hamas on the terrorism list.

Saudi Arabia and three other Arab states cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting violent Islamist groups across the region, including Hamas. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Qatar must sever its ties with Hamas.

Qatar has denied the allegations. But its small size and reliance on food imports from Saudi Arabia could make it susceptible to the pressure.

This could spell trouble for Hamas. The group  which calls for Israels destruction, even if it has offered long-term interim ceasefires  is considered a terrorist group by Israel and its Western allies. Israel and Hamas have fought three cross-border wars that caused large-scale damage in Gaza.

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Theres nothing to negotiate with Qatar, Emirati diplomat says

After a decade under Hamas, Gaza is short on freedom, jobs and electricity

Qatar says Kuwait trying to mediate Gulf crisis with Arab neighbours

Qatar doesnt support Hamas directly, but its large-scale projects have significantly eased the burden on Hamas authorities and given it some credit for bringing this money to Gaza.

In 2012, Qatars then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza, the first and only head of state to do so since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas 10 years ago. The emir announced a grant of $550 million for humanitarian projects.

The grant is being used to build a housing complex of 3,000 units. Two phases of the project have been completed and families moved into their new houses in the complex, dubbed the Hamad Residential City in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

Last month, Palestinian contractors and Qatari envoys signed deals to start the third and final phase of Hamad City. Now, those deals could be in question.

Using that grant, Qatar also built a specialist prosthetic centre, the first of its kind in Gaza. Qatar paved roads, repaired or rebuilt mosques and oversaw dozens of other infrastructure projects.

Qatari Ambassador to the U.S. Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, told The Associated Press in an interview that his countrys work in Gaza is purely humanitarian.

All our contacts are very transparent, and they are clear, in co-ordination with the U.S. and the Palestinians and the Israelis. We dont understand where the problem is, he said.

Following a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, Qatar was the largest single donor to the reconstruction of Gaza, pledging $1.4 billion at a Cairo-hosted international conference.

So far, Qatar has delivered just $68 million of this pledge for rebuilding 1,000 houses.

Qatar also helped pay for fuel deliveries from neighbouring Israel, which, despite its enmity to Hamas, supplies energy to Gaza for what it says are humanitarian reasons. But in an ominous sign for Hamas, Qatar stopped the energy payments for the past two months.

It is unclear whether the payments were halted under Arab pressure.

On Wednesday, bulldozers with Qatari flags were seen levelling land overlooking Gaza Citys coastal road. The spot is supposed to house the headquarters of Qatars Gaza reconstruction mission and a residence for an envoy.

In Hamad City, new shops and stores are opening, including a pharmacy named Qatar, barber shops and a video gaming cafe as more families move in. The complex is the largest in Gaza.

Wael al-Naqla, a contractor, has won a bid to build several buildings in the final phase. Thanks to Qatari money, he is one of the few businessmen who can hire workers in todays Gaza.

Without these projects, we would have been idled long time ago, he said, voicing fears that the funding could soon dry up. We are afraid I wont be able to keep paying for my 20 workers and they will not be able to eat.

The construction is one of the few bright spots in Gaza.

As the Islamic group marks its 10th anniversary in power, the situation is grim. The territory suffers from rolling power cuts, with just four hours of electricity at a time, followed by 14-18 hours of outages. Tap water is undrinkable, youth unemployment is estimated at 60 per cent. Thousands wait for a rare chance to exit the blockaded territory.

Unable to offer a remedy, Hamas has jailed people who dare to criticize it. A new political program that Hamas hoped would mollify the West and Arab nations instead underscored its ideological rigidity. While softer in tone, the document reaffirmed a call to armed struggle and its goal of eliminating Israel.

Mkhaimar Abusada, an independent Gaza political analyst, said Qatari pressure could increase Hamas political and financial isolation.

This week, a high-level Hamas delegation was summoned to neighbouring Egypt, which has had cool relations with Hamas. If these talks dont lead to new understandings getting Hamas out of its difficult political situation, I think there will be more crises, he said.

One person who could benefit from Hamas troubles is Abbas, who has repeatedly failed in talks with Hamas to regain control of Gaza.

Abbas recently reduced the salaries of his former employees in Gaza and threatened to scale back payments for Gazas electricity  attempts to pressure Hamas. Abbas government, which maintains good ties with Qatar, has not commented on the latest crisis.

Chagai Tzuriel, the director general of Israels Intelligence Ministry, said Hamass many troubles have put it in a strategic bind.

I think they are under greater pressure now than before, he said.

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North Koreas latest launches of several suspected anti-ship missiles were short-range and landed well short of past efforts, but they still served as a defiant message for its enemies that Pyongyang will continue to pursue a weapons program that has rattled its neighbours and Washington.

The projectiles were fired Thursday from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200 kilometres, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang, said during a National Security Council meeting he wont back off even a single step and make any compromise on the issue of national security. He warned that North Korea could only face further international isolation and more economic difficulties.

The Norths missile tests present a difficult challenge to Moon. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the Norths weapons activities.

Read more: North Korea fires suspected cruise missiles, South Korea says

South Korean military spokesman Roh Jae-cheon said the launch was intended to show off Pyongyangs widening arrange of missiles and also its precision strike capabilities on ships in response to the joint drills.

Bolivias UN Ambassador Sacha Llorentty Soliz, the current UN Security Council president, told reporters Thursday he had not received any requests for a meeting on the latest launches.

Britains UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft condemned North Koreas latest provocations and said we look forward to working with our council colleagues about the best way to respond to them.

Its irresponsible and it is destabilizing what is already a very sensitive situation, he said.

He said the U.K. was looking at details of the launches and its possible that they come underneath a threshold to count as a violation.

The Security Council voted unanimously on June 2 to add 15 individuals and four entities linked to North Koreas nuclear and missile programs to a UN sanctions blacklist. That was in response to a spate of recent ballistic missile tests which violate UN sanctions.

North Koreas weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile program that can stand up to what it sees as U.S. and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. Analysts say the latest test appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Moon to wrest concessions.

Moon has sought to expand cross-border civilian exchanges as a way to improve ties, but North Korea on Monday rejected a Seoul civic groups offer to provide anti-malaria supplies to protest South Koreas support of fresh UN sanctions adopted last week.

In what will likely become another source of animosities, Moons government said Thursday that it will let two of the four North Korean fishermen recently rescued at sea resettle in the South in accordance with their wishes. The two other fishermen who want to return home will be repatriated.

Pyongyang is expected to demand the return of all four fishermen by accusing Seoul of enticing them to defect to the South.

The launches Thursday were North Koreas fourth missile test since Moons inauguration on May 10.

Analyst Kim Dong-yub at Seouls Institute for Far Eastern Studies said the projectiles, which showed longer range than North Koreas previously known KN-01 anti-ship cruise missiles, were likely from a new cruise missile system the North displayed during a massive April 15 military parade. The improved range indicates North Korea is pursuing weapons capable of reaching U.S. aircraft carriers that operate from deeper positions, he said.

Last month, North Korea premiered a powerful new mid-range missile that outside experts said flew higher than any other missile previously tested by North Korea.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel mid-range missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new precision-guided missile, which experts say is designed with a manoeuvrable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defence systems like the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence that is being deployed in South Korea.

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Bhutanese refugees congratulate PM Deuba, hope solution of refugee crisis

The Bhutanese refugees living in different camps in eastern districts of the country have extended congratulations and best wishes to Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba on his election to the post of Prime Minister.
WASHINGTONThe former director of the FBI says Donald Trump is a liar who improperly tried to shut down a criminal investigation into a key ally and then fired him to attempt to influence the broader investigation into dealings between Russia and the presidents campaign.

In congressional testimony so hotly anticipated in the U.S. capital that bars opened in the morning to televise it, James Comey built an extraordinary case that Trumps words and acts were inappropriate at best and may have constituted obstruction of justice.

Comey, a former prosecutor, refused to say whether he thought Trump did commit obstruction. But he offered repeated hints that he thinks the president at least came close to the line, and his two-and-a-half hours under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday made clear that Trump himself, not just his associates, faces significant legal and political peril.

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Comey also handed Trump some ammunition, questioning the behaviour of Barack Obamas attorney general and declaring a New York Times article about the Russia probe inaccurate. On the whole, though, his testimony amounted to a searing indictment of the presidents conduct and character.

By the time he was done, a Trump spokesperson, Sarah Sanders, felt the need to issue the kind of denial political messengers usually try to avoid: I can definitively say the president is not a liar.

Read more:The Stars running tally of all 281 false things the president of the United States of America has said, so far.

Senators asked Comey a broad array of questions related to Trump and Russia. The sharpest dispute between Republicans and Democrats was over a single sentence that may shape Trumps fate: his declaration to Comey, in a one-on-one Oval Office conversation on Feb. 14, that I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.

Even Trumps attack dog for the day, son Donald Trump Jr., did not deny that Trump said this. But he described hope as a benign expression of support for a friend, not an attempt to shut down the probe.

The president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, said Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz.

Comey disagreed. He said he took Trumps request as a direction from the president, tantamount to an order. He said the request was so out of bounds it left him stunned and became of investigative interest to the FBI.

And he said Trumps insistence that the attorney general and others leave the Oval Office before he made this request was, to me as an investigator, a very significant fact.

Why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office? he said.

Comey said he believes Trump fired him in May to influence the FBI probe into possible collusion by his campaign with the Russians who interfered in the 2016 election  noting that Trump himself said on television that he was thinking of the Russia inquiry when he made the decision.

Its a fair judgment, its my judgment, that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired in some way to change  the endeavour was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me, he said.

Comey suggested that special counsel Robert Mueller is now probing the question of obstruction.

Rep. Adam Schiff, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said it is difficult to overstate the significance of this testimony.

In my view, this testimony constitutes evidence of an intention to interfere or potentially obstruct at least a portion of the Russia investigation, if not more, he said.

Comey never deviated from his trademark expression of sober serenity. But in his opening statement, he claimed Trump uttered defamatory lies when he claimed he dismissed Comey because rank-and-file FBI employees had lost confidence in him.

And Comey said he had so little faith in Trumps truthfulness that he felt compelled to document all of their conversations in writing, something he never did with Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, Comey said of their first exchange, a January briefing about Russia.

As usual with things Trump, reaction to the testimony was split along partisan lines. Some Republicans said they heard vindication.

Comey said Trump had not personally been under investigation, never asked him to halt the larger Russia probe, and never mentioned Flynn again. Comey also said he had been uncomfortable with a request from Obamas attorney general, Loretta Lynch, about how to publicly describe the investigation into Hillary Clintons email server.

Comey acknowledged that he gave a memo on Trumps Oval Office request about Flynn to a friend, a university professor, to pass along to news reporters  hoping that the disclosure would lead to the appointment of the special counsel.

Conservative media seized on this leak, and Kasowitz accused Comey, with no evidence, of leaking information that was classified and privileged to try to harm the administration.

Trump managed to keep himself from responding to Comey on Twitter. As the hearing approached its conclusion, the president gave a speech to a gathering of Christian conservatives, telling them, without mentioning Comey, that the Bible says the truth will prevail.

Senators challenged Comey over his own conduct during his talks with Trump. If he knew Trump was wrong to have made the Flynn request, they asked, why had he not spoken up at the time?

I was a bit stunned, I didnt have the presence of mind, Comey said at one point. At another, he said, Maybe if I were stronger I would have.

Trump has threatened Comey with the prospect of releasing tapes of their exchanges  though the White House again refused to say on Thursday whether such tapes exist.

Said Comey: Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

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Chrystia Freelands eloquent defence of a rules-based international order this week was a call to arms. It was also a requiem.

In an impassioned speech to the Commons on Tuesday, the foreign affairs minister anchored her approach to the world firmly in the tradition of the liberalism associated with former prime minister Lester Pearson.

Pearson and others of his generation had lived through the horrors of the Second World War and the Depression. Determined to prevent similar catastrophes in the future, they created a host of international institutions designed to bring some order to a dangerous planet.

In a world dominated by the U.S. and Soviet Union, they reckoned, a rules-based system could also provide smaller countries, such as Canada, with a degree of relative autonomy.

And so the postwar international order was born. It had many parts.

The International Monetary Fund would encourage countries to follow the basic rules of fiscal solvency. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, while not a full-fledged free trade deal, would set rules for international commerce.

To the U.S., the 1949 NATO alliance was a vehicle to confront the Soviets. To Europe and Canada, it was also a mechanism designed to keep an America prone to isolationist impulses engaged in the larger world.

Overseeing the entire edifice was the United Nations, a world body that was supposed to intervene whenever state-to-state relations got out of hand.

The postwar order was far from flawless. But most of the time, it worked  particularly for countries like Canada. It is that order that Freeland says she hopes to recreate  with or without Donald Trumps America.

She forgets how crucial America was to the entire era she yearns for. Beneath all of those supposedly collegial international organizations was the stark fact of American power.

In the West, the U.S. was the ultimate arbiter. Its dollar acted as the global currency. It could project military force anywhere and often did.

Its corporations ruled.

International organizations, such as the IMF, operated with some degree of independence. But in the end, their actions reflected the needs of American capital.

The Americans complained about the UN. But its most important decisions, from entering the Korean War in 1950, to authorizing NATOs intervention in the 2011 Libyan conflict, reflected U.S. priorities.

And then Americas engine began to sputter. The forces of globalization that it had unleashed bit back.

The 2008 financial collapse, in particular, demonstrated that the U.S. could no longer shift the destructive effects of boom and bust onto other countries.

And now, as Freeland noted in her speech, Donald Trumps America is sick of being the worlds indispensable nation. It is tired. It is weary.

In the past, it was willing to spend money and lives to protect American economic interests. But its voters see no upside in protecting multinationals that do most of their work in Europe and Asia.

Can the postwar, rules-based world that America directed for so long survive without a powerful country like the U.S. at the helm? Im not sure it can.

Its not clear that China, which has its own economic problems, is able to step into the breach. Even if it were, an international order dominated by Beijing would look far different from one dominated by Washington.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is hinting that Europe might rise to the task. But given that Europeans already agree on little, this is surely wishful thinking.

In short, there may be more nostalgia than realism in Freelands paean to the rules-based world.

She has certainly articulated her governments approach. In policy terms, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is more Pearsonian than his father, Pierre, ever was.

But even if Ottawa follows through on its ambitious plans to increase military spending over the next decade (plans which, incidentally, appear designed to speak to Trumps demand that Americas NATO allies devote more to defence) Canada alone wont have the muscle to enforce much of anything should the rules-based world continue to go awry.

The postwar world was, for many Canadians, a golden era. Its time has passed.

Thomas Walkom appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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What if I told you there was a way Canadians could help save millions of lives and fight climate change at the same time. And what if I also told you this method has already been tried and tested in Canada and the U.S. Its ready to go, all it needs is funding. Would you support it? Would you tell your local MP that the government of Canada ought to invest in it?

This investment would be made in Ethiopia, where I recently represented Canada at a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Although the meeting concerned the future impacts of climate change across the globe, it was hard to ignore the immediate climate challenges faced by the host country.

The Horn of Africa is experiencing its worst drought since the 1980s, and appeals are already being made for emergency famine relief for South Sudan and Somalia. Nearly eight million Ethiopians live in drought-stricken areas, but unlike its neighbours, Ethiopia has a stable, functioning government.

Granted, that government has an authoritarian bent and a spotty human rights record, but it spends more than 60 per cent of its budget on social and economic development. So its not some tinpot dictatorship.

In fact, Ethiopia hosts 600,000 refugees from its conflict-prone neighbours. It is one of the worlds poorest nations, but its trying hard and has achieved steady economic growth over the past decade of close to 10 per cent annually. In short, Ethiopia is an emerging success story in a region that desperately needs one.

All this progress may be undone if the rains dont come in the next 10 weeks. Ethiopia has a plan in place to build long-term drought resilience and rural food security, but it needs additional funds right away. We know this plan will work, because its almost exactly what Canadians did to build drought resilience on the Prairies during the Dirty Thirties, and how Americans overcame the hardships of the Dust Bowl that same decade.

Ethiopias plan is called the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP). Money from foreign donors and loans from the World Bank are invested in rural water infrastructure, in soil erosion prevention measures, such as tree planting and slope terracing, and in new roads and social infrastructure.

Farmers who lose a crop or struggle to feed their kids can get paid work on PSNP projects. External audits show that PSNP is working. More than 7.8 million Ethiopians have benefited since the program was established a decade ago. Food production has risen and soil erosion has fallen. Over 2,800 km of irrigation canals have been built, along with 200,000 storage ponds, and 35,000 wells. Rural areas have 4,000 new classrooms and 600 new health posts.

And its not just Ethiopians who benefit from PSNP  we all do. PSNP projects have created new forests and vegetation that remove 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually. Thats equal to taking 40,000 cars off the road. Its far from solving all our climate change problems, but in an era of rapid global warming, every additional hectare of forest is needed. And since it simultaneously helps poor farmers improve their lands and withstand drought, its a win-win proposition.

This drought could overwhelm Ethiopia, its that severe. Now is the moment when additional financial support for PSNP from Canada and like-minded countries is needed.

If we wait until a full-on famine breaks out in Ethiopia, lives will be lost and years of hard work will evaporate. So while Canada can and should be sending emergency relief to victims of the current famines in Somalia and South Sudan, we should also be making investments that prevent future famines.

In Ethiopia, we can do so in a way that we know from our own experience works, and which helps offset some of the carbon dioxide emitted by our cars tailpipes. Its an investment we cant afford not to make.

Robert McLeman is associate professor of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University.

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A free, independent news media is vital to ensure government is held to account at every level  local as well as national. Unfortunately, that freedom is under threat by a group of city councillors in Brampton who seem out to bully the media for simply reporting what theyre up to.

The Brampton Guardian newspaper recently published an article criticizing the lack of work by certain members of city council on key transit files. In response, Regional Councillor Gael Miles put forward a motion that would effectively put independent reporting under official scrutiny.

The motion, to be voted on June 14, would require all media inquiries received by the mayor, members of council and staff to be posted on the citys website, along with their responses provided. It would also require councils agendas to include time to respond to any recent media coverage of council issues and decisions.

The councillors supporting the motion say theyre putting the media on notice for supposedly biased and inaccurate reporting. In fact, they are simply pushing back against truthful but unflattering coverage of whats been going on at Brampton city hall by a newspaper that takes local coverage seriously.

This clumsy attempt to hinder the free flow of public information is unacceptable and undemocratic.

At the core of a journalists job is holding public officials accountable for their actions. The news media doesnt need to ask permission from politicians to do this. Freedom of the press and other media of communication is spelled out in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The media ultimately answers to the public, not politicians, for what they do.

Brampton council has been called out over the past few years by the Guardian, which is part of the Metroland Media Group owned by Torstar Corp. (which also owns the Toronto Star). The paper has questioned councils handling of issues ranging from a downtown development project that landed the city in legal trouble to the restructuring of its civil service.

This is the kind of vigilant local reporting that a fast-growing city like Brampton, now approaching 600,000 residents, both needs and deserves.

Some councillors are clearly feeling the pressure. But attacking the messenger is not the way to handle this.

They would be more effective if they acknowledged the problems exposed by the Guardians reporting and worked to fix them. Most importantly, the public would also be better served.

Admittedly, the news media is far from perfect. Mistakes happen. But there are established ways to deal with its shortcomings  from Canadas strict libel laws to the National NewsMedia Council, a self-regulatory body that promotes ethical practices and deals with complaints against its members (including the Guardian).

Rather than turning to any of the established remedies, though, the Brampton councillors are trying to intimidate the local media.

They should abandon this futile and undemocratic effort and instead focus on holding themselves accountable to those they actually serve  the public.

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For far too long, Canada has asked its men and women in uniform to do tough and dangerous jobs while failing to provide them with the modern equipment they need. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have bungled the task of procuring updated weapons systems, leaving our air force flying aging planes and our navy operating ships well past their best-by date.

The Trudeau government now promises a dramatic fix to this sorry situation with a new defence policy that would invest many more billions in our armed forces.

Much of what Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan outlined on Wednesday is welcome news, both for the military and for anyone who believes Canada should have the capability to back up its good intentions with force, if necessary, in key areas.

Still, it comes with a host of questions  especially since a major build-up of the military wasnt exactly at the heart of what the Liberals promised voters during the 2015 election campaign. That was all about infrastructure and social spending, not fighters and frigates.

Indeed, as recently as March, Finance Minister Bill Morneau brought down a budget that stripped more than $8 billion out of the defence departments equipment budget, and postponed it far down the road.

Now, the government is promising to spend an extra $62.3 billion over the next 20 years, two-thirds of it on capital equipment, to effectively create a new, modernized military. Its plans include 88 new-generation fighter jets (significantly more than the 65 pledged under the Conservative government) as well as 15 surface-combatant ships  practically an entirely new navy.

Sajjans plan shows the defence departments budget increasing from $18.9 billion now to $32.7 billion a decade from now  a 70-per-cent increase. That, according to the government, would boost Canadas military spending from 1.1 per cent of GDP now (according to a revised calculation) to 1.4 per cent. It isnt the 2 per cent that President Donald Trump has been calling for from NATO members, but its going in that direction.

Of course, the military has seen many bold announcements like this come and go. Plans to replace aging helicopters, fighters and ships have been made over and over again, to be followed by delay after delay.

This new plan stretches far into the future, with major spending starting only in 2019 and later  after the next election. In the normal run of things, there will be four or five elections before the full 20-year schedule is completed, and it will depend on future finance ministers to make sure the money is actually set aside.

More to the point, Sajjan ducked some important questions about more pressing matters, including the peacekeeping mission to Africa that was at the top of his agenda last year. That has been on hold for six months and its high time for some clarity around it, but the minister had nothing to offer.

He did, however, have some welcome words about the future direction of the forces that doesnt involve buying new hardware.

The government aims to make the military more inclusive and respectful, with a target of having a quarter of its members women by 2026. Recruiting more women is likely the best way to change the culture of the armed forces and fighting their persistent problems with sexual misconduct.

Sajjans promises for the military are a big change for the Liberals and are aimed at backing up the ambitious role that Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has outlined for Canada in the Trump era. Its far from clear, though, that the Trudeau government  or any government  can carry through.

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The president is siding with Wall Street over Washington on the debt ceiling.

President Donald Trump told Republican Party leaders that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is the White House's point person on raising the debt ceiling, not Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, Politico reported on Tuesday. The former Goldman Sachs (GS) - Get Free Report executive has called for a clean increase to the debt limit, while the House Freedom Caucus founding member has said he would prefer spending cuts be attached to a deal.

"Mnuchin is that guy," Trump reportedly told GOP leaders at the White House.

While it might not make striking a deal on the debt ceiling overwhelmingly easier in Congress, that Trump would lean on Mnuchin on the issue is a good sign for Wall Street.

Mnuchin has repeatedly called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, which expired in March. While lawmakers were initially expected to strike a deal in the fall, the timeline for an agreement has tightened in recent weeks on concerns the Treasury Department might not have the funds to keep operations up and running for as long as expected.

Mnuchin has asked Congress to hike the debt limit before its August recess, in testimony before the House Way and Means Committee in May saying doing so was "absolutely critical."

Markets tend to get itchy around the issue of the debt ceiling and government spending. In 2011, a showdown over the debt ceiling saw banks and companies withdraw billions of dollars from money market funds that invest in U.S. Treasury debt over worries an agreement wouldn't be struck, and credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating.

"While there is little doubt that the debt limit will ultimately be raised, the timing of the deadline is important as the debate over raising it could be temporarily disruptive for financial markets and because it could affect other tax and spending decisions that could affect the real economy," said Goldman Sachs analyst Alec Phillips in a recent note.

To be sure, just because Mnuchin wants a clean hike to the debt ceiling (meaning no spending cuts attached) doesn't mean he'll have an easy time getting it.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus has said it would oppose a clean increase -- the same group tanked the first version of the GOP's health care bill. And the Freedom Caucus has a friend in Mulvaney, who told the Washington Examiner he would "like to see things attached to it that drive certain spending reforms and debt reforms in the future."

Still, investors who are often left wondering who is heading economic and fiscal policy in the Trump administration might breathe a sigh of relief at the idea that Mnuchin appears to be in charge -- at least on the debt ceiling (and, given Trump's volatile personality, for now).

Editors' pick: Originally published June 7.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May could find herself in the rare position of winning today's general election -- a snap poll she called while holding a commanding lead only 8 weeks ago -- but losing the top job in British politics thanks to a stumbling campaign.

Polls have opened in the U.K.'s snap election, but with the direction of the results only expected around 2 am local time Friday, a day of speculation lies ahead for investors.

The U.K.'s "first-past-the-post" electoral system, where the candidate with the largest number of votes in a constituency is elected and the party with the most seats in the House of Commons leads the government, means Britain could wake up to a number of scenarios Friday morning.

The pound remained flat at $1.2966 in Thursday morning trading, after the final poll released by Survation Wednesday night put the governing Conservative party at 41.3% and Labour on 40.4%.

May called the snap election in April in a bid to increase her current Conservative party majority of 10 seats and improve her negotiating hand in Britain's upcoming Brexit negotiations, which are slated to begin on June 19.

However, May's campaign has been replete with blunders on domestic issues such as social care and income tax and her former role as Home Secretary -- the British official responsible for security and policing -- has eroded her poll lead in the wake of terrorist attacks in London and Manchester.

That's created the odd scenario of the Conservative party winning the election -- with a slimmer majority -- and May either resigning as Prime Minister or facing a leadership challenge from rivals keen to head to Brussels with a more determined "Hard Brexit" ambition.

DeVere Group International Strategist Tom Elliott said he believes there is a 55% chance that the will have a majority of below 60.

"Should this happen, sterling would wobble, and would fall sharply if that majority is below 40 and Theresa May is again beholden to the hard Brexit lobby of Tory MPs," he said in a note. "Anything below 25 [seats] and May's job would be on the line, with a leadership contest beckoning. Sterling would then fall further as the risk of a hard Brexit PM, such as David Davis, is priced in. Capital markets would become very volatile."

If May decided to stay in the job, her negotiating stance in Brussels would be weakened, with the remaining 27 EU nations likely pushing her to get more of what they want.

"Can she come back from that? No. She'd look like a wounded animal," said Steven Fielding, professor of politics at Nottingham University told Bloomberg. "People will react to that, people will ask questions about her leadership. It's not a defeat in numbers but it's not a mandate."

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Apple (AAPL) - Get Free Report is likely to still be in focus after mixed responses on Wall Street to its WWDC.

Tesla's (TSLA) - Get Free Report shares continue to be unstoppable. They are hovering near a record high of $359.65.

FANG stocks -- an acronym for Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report , Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report , Netflix (NFLX) - Get Free Report and Google (Alphabet) (GOOGL) - Get Free Report also continue to be red-hot. But chip-maker AMD (AMD) - Get Free Report also continues to notch big gains amid the rush to bitcoin.

Apple, Facebook and Alphabetare holdings in Jim Cramer'sAction Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sellsAAPL, FB and GOOGL?Learn more now.

Click here for the latest business headlines.

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CoAS meets his Bdeshi match

Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Rajendra Chhetri met his Bangladeshi counterpart General Abu Belal Muhammad Shafiul Huq at Nepal Army Headquarters on Wednesday and discussed bilateral and mutual relations of the two nations.
It's showtime for former FBI director James Comey, and the stock market is on edge.

Comey is testifying in front of lawmakers on Thursday, and TheStreet has the live markets analysis you need to know (below).

In prepared testimony released on Wednesday, Comey detailed his numerous meetings with President Donald Trump since January. Comey said he had not told Trump that he would cease investigations into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn despite Trump's request. Comey also said that Trump had said, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty." Comey based his testimony on his recollections and a series of memos composed after several meetings.

Trump fired Comey in May while the FBI was investigating the Trump transition team's ties to Russia.

What's Hot

Wow, BABA: Alibaba (BABA) - Get Free Report shares are going bonkers following up an upbeat investor day. Check back throughout the day for TheStreet's coverage of the red-hot Chinese e-commerce company. Hat tip to Jack Ma.

This Tesla run is remarkable: Tesla's (TSLA) - Get Free Report shares continue to be unstoppable. They are hovering near a record high of $359.65. But, the company was dealt a rare blow in terms of board composition, TheStreet's Ron Orol points out.

It feels like the internet bubble all over again: FANG stocks -- an acronym for Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report , Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report , Netflix (NFLX) - Get Free Report and Google (Alphabet) (GOOGL) - Get Free Report also continue to be explosive. But chip-maker AMD (AMD) - Get Free Report also continues to notch big gains amid the rush to bitcoin. Meanwhile, rival NVIDIA (NVDA) - Get Free Report caught a massive upgrade by Citigroup. What the heck is going on here.

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Italian stocks rallied and government bond yields fell sharply Thursday after the country's ruling party appeared to abandon plans for electoral reform that could have led to a snap poll later in the year.

The center-left Democratic Party (PD) said the bill was effectively "dead" after the far-right and anti-European Five Star Movement (M5S) rejected the proposal during a firery parliamentary debate.

Italy's FTSE MIB, the country' benchmark for share prices, rallied more than 1% following the revelation, compared to modest or no gains for indices around the region. Benchmark 10-year government bond yields, which move inversely to prices, fell 10 basis points to 2.19%, the lowest since late May.

Electoral risk has held down gains for Italian assets given the strength in popularity for M5S which, like other anti-European movements in the region, has vowed to cut ties with Brussels and exit the single currency.
Valeant (VRX) struck a deal to sell its iNova Pharmaceuticals unit for $930 million by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported.

A company jointly owned by affiliates of Pacific Equity Partners and Carlyle Group will buy the iNova unit, which operates in more than 15 countries.

iNova specializes in prescription and over-the-counter products for weight management, pain management, cardiology and cough and cold medicines.

The sale comes as part of a string of deals aimed at reducing $5 billion of the company's debt by February of 2018. As of March 31, the company has $28.2 billion in long-term debt, according to company filings.

Valeant shares traded up 3.7% at $12.17 in pre-market trading.

Jim Cramer and Real Money columnists discuss the latest from President Donald Trump and the GOP's efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. See which stocks they are discussing and get his insights or analysis with a free trial subscription to Real Money.
Can't blame Nordstrom (JWN) - Get Free Report for wanting to get the hell out of public markets.

As TheStreet's insanely fast Flash Desk reported Thursday, Nordstrom's stock was up more than 20% on Thursday, after the luxury department store announced that the Nordstrom family has formed a group to explore the possibility of a "going private transaction."

The company's board of directors has formed a "special committee" comprised of independent directors to act on behalf of the company. Nordstrom said that there was no guarantee that it would proceed with going private.

With shares badly lagging the S&P 500 by about 16 percentage points the last year, one can't blame Nordstrom for wanting to be private. The company has always been run as a private fiefdom, with profits often held back by numerous initiatives led by the family. Seeing as the family likely thinks its investments are being ignored by the market and sentiment on retail is terrible, why not be a private company.

More broadly, Nordstrom joins Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) - Get Free Report as a retailer exploring going private transactions. For you traders out there, there may be a short-term bottom being formed in beaten-up retail stocks.

Read This Or Lose Out

Sears is going up in flames: Stellar feature interview by TheStreet's Michelle Lodge with the former CEO of Sears Canada Mark Cohen. The long-time retail executive pulled no punches in his criticism of Sears CEO Eddie Lampert.

An excerpt:

"This is the ongoing seemingly endless tortuous liquidation of Sears. [CEO Eddie] Lampert has no strategy to make the company profitable.

Now all they're doing is stripping everything that will burn above the waterline of this ship and throwing it all into the boiler, so the company won't sink. Eventually, when it does sink, they'll pump it out again and refloat it with a smaller boat until there's absolutely nothing left."

Wow, BABA:Alibaba (BABA) - Get Free Report shares are going bonkers following an upbeat investor day. Check back throughout the day for TheStreet's coverage of the red-hot Chinese e-commerce company. Hat tip to Jack Ma.

This Tesla run is remarkable:Tesla's (TSLA) - Get Free Report shares continue to be unstoppable. They are hovering near a record high of $359.65. But, the company was dealt a rare blow in terms of board composition, TheStreet's Ron Orol points out.

It feels like the internet bubble all over again: FANG stocks -- an acronym for Action Alerts PLUS charity portfolio holding Facebook (FB) - Get Free Report , Amazon (AMZN) - Get Free Report , Netflix (NFLX) - Get Free Report and Google (GOOGL) - Get Free Report also continue to be explosive. But chip-maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) - Get Free Report also continues to notch big gains amid the rush to bitcoin. Meanwhile, rival NVIDIA (NVDA) - Get Free Report caught a massive upgrade by Citigroup. What the heck is going on here?

Click here for the latest business headlines.

This article originally appeared at 10:10 ET on Real Money, our premium site for active traders. Click here to get great columns like this from Jim Cramer and other writers even earlier in the trading day.
It may be heavily subsidized and it may have a CEO who is not widely loved, but today Qatar Airways deserves our praise.

The airline is operating smoothly during a storm created by neighbors who suddenly decided to shut off access to airspace that normally is assured by longstanding treaties.

Even through all the years of dispute with the United States, Cuba kept its airspace open. But not Qatar's neighbors.

"Qatar Airways is operating the Doha Airlift," said aviation consultant Bob Mann, recalling the late 1940s when the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin and Western countries organized the Berlin Airlift to bring in supplies including food. Qatar "provides a lifeline to an economy," he said.

On Monday, four neighbors -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain -- severed relations with Qatar and closed their airports to its flag carrier's flights. CNN reported that Qatar Airways is losing more than 50 flights a day, accounting for an estimated 18% of its capacity.

Not only can the airline not operate in the four countries, but also it cannot fly within their airspace, a far bigger problem because the four countries largely surround Qatar. CNN said the airline must use alternative, longer routes -- primarily routes over Iran -- for flights to Europe and North America.

From all reports, Qatar is not only operating smoothly but also "it appears to be taking very good of its booked passengers, rerouting them on other carriers when necessary," Mann said. "Not every airline does that."

Qatar newspaper The Peninsula reported Wednesday that Qatar Airways chartered Oman Air to operate three flights to bring its passengers to Doha from Saudi Arabia via Muscat. Qatar Airways also arranged for Kuwait Airlines to carry remaining passengers to Doha via Kuwait.

"Qatar Airways has worked tirelessly to ensure that all passengers were brought home safely to Doha within 24 hours of the flight cancellations," said CEO Akbar Al Baker in a prepared statement. "Our global operations are continuing to run smoothly and remain unaffected.

As far as we are concerned, it is business as usual," Al Baker said.

It isn't business as usual, but the remark seems to typify Al Baker, who is known for being outspoken and confrontational. Travel writer Joe Brancatelli called him "brash {and} willing to say anything;" Aviation consultant Addison Schonland called him "forthright and prickly."

In 2016, Al Baker became involved in a dispute with Delta (DAL) - Get Free Report as Qatar began Doha-Atlanta service. He said the route would "rub salt in the wounds" of Delta, which has led opposition to the government subsidies that enable Qatar, Emirates and Etihad to operate.

Qatar Airways' Doha-Atlanta route began June 1, 2016. In anticipation, Delta ended Atlanta-Dubai service in February. "The cancellation of nonstop service between Atlanta and Dubai comes amid overcapacity on U.S. routes to the Middle East operated by government-owned and subsidized airlines," Delta, said in announcing the cancellation.

In mid-afternoon trading Thursday, Delta shares were up 57 cents to $52.84.

Schonland said Qatar faces severe operational challenges in Doha. Because of the now limited access, inbound and outbound planes must fly toward one another. They compensate with timing and by flying at different elevations.

"Normally, traffic is flowed in a direction where there's no conflict," Schonland said.

A second problem, he said, is that Qatar Airways long-haul flights arrive with less reserve fuel in their tanks. "They don't have the same margin for error," Schonland said. "If you're coming in to land after a very long flight such as Auckland-Doha, you don't want less margin."

On the positive side, in terms of air traffic control operations, the refusal of several airlines to fly to Doha means fewer flights to manage. "When it's quiet, it's fine," Schonland said. "When it gets busy, it gets dicey."

Richard Aboulafia, aerospace consultant for Teal Group, said Qatar Airways' ability to operate smoothly despite major obstacles "is pretty astonishing."

But Aboulafia noted the airline "is easily the least transparent of the three Gulf carriers." Additionally, Aboulafia said, subsidies enable it to absorb the cost of maintaining operations despite fewer passengers.

"Qatar Airways is owned by the state," Aboulafia said. "The state has a very patient long-term view. It does not require returns soon if ever."

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Alibaba Shares Soar on Stellar Guidance at Company's Investor Day

WATCH: James Comey Unloads on President Trump In D.C. - Here's Your Top Analysis of Nervous Markets

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.
Demand for traditional handicrafts surges

There is an quiet economic revolution brewing in rural villages of Nepalgunj. The Tharu women living in these villages have seen their incomes rise steadily by selling traditional handicraft.
The following companies are subsidiares of Xerox: A B S Digital Limited, Acorn Business Machines (Holmfirth) Limited, Alloy Acquisitions Corp. LLC, Altodigital Networks, Altodigital Networks Limited, American Photocopy Equipment Company of Pittsburgh LLC, Amici, Arena Group, Arena Group Holdings Limited, Arena Group Limited, Arizona Office Technologies Inc., B 2 Business Systems Limited, Back2Business Limited, Bessemer Insurance Limited, Bessemer Trust Limited, Boise Office Equipment Inc., Bright Ceramic Technologies Inc., Bunch CareSolutions, Business Systems (North Wales) Limited, CPAS Systems, CREDITEX - Aluguer de Equipamentos S.A., CTX Business Solutions Inc., Capitol Office Solutions LLC, CareAR Holdings LLC, CareAR Inc., Carolina Office Systems Inc., Carr Business Systems Inc., Chicago Office Technology Group Inc., ComDoc Inc., Competitive Computing, Concept Group, Concept Group Limited, Connecticut Business Systems LLC, Consilience Software, Continua Limited, Continua Sanctum Limited, Conway Technology Group LLC, Copyrite Business Solutions (Holdings) Limited, Copyrite Business Solutions Limited, Copytrend Limited, Criterion IT Limited, Customer Value Group, Dahill Office Technology Corporation, Digitex, Digitex Canada Inc., Docucentric Holdings Limited, Document Systems, Document Systems, Eastern Managed Print Network LLC, Elan Marketing Inc., Electronic Systems Inc., Fovia (Innovation) Limited, G-Five Inc., GDP Technologies Inc., Global Imaging Systems, Global PR Corporation, Groupe CT, Gyricon LLC, Healthy Communities Institute, Heritage Business Systems Inc., ITEC Group, Image Technology Specialists Inc., ImageQuest Inc., Imagetek Office Systems, Impika, Impika SAS, Inland Business Machines Inc., Institute for Research on Learning, Integrity One Technologies Inc., Intrepid Learning, Invoco Group, Irish Business Systems, LRI LLC, LaserNetworks, LaserNetworks Inc., Lateral Data, Learn Something, Lewan & Associates Inc., Limited Liability Company Xerox (C.I.S.), M & S Reprographics Limited, MRC Smart Technology Solutions Inc., MT Business Holdings Inc., MT Business Technologies Inc., MWB Copy Products Inc., Mail A Doc Limited, Merizon Group Incorporated, Michigan Office Solutions Inc., Minnesota Office Technology Group Inc., Mitral Systems Limited, Mr. Copy Inc., Nemo (AKS) Limited, NewField IT, NewField Information Technology LLC, NewField Information Technology Limited, Northeast Office Systems LLC, Osprey Business Systems Limited, PARC China Holdings Inc., Pacific Services and Development Corporation, Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated, Platinum Digital Print Solutions Limited, Powerland, Precision Copier Service Inc., Quality Business Systems Inc., Quilver Business Services Limited, R. K. Dixon Company, RRXH Limited, RRXIL Limited, RRXO Limited, RSA Medical, Rabbit Copiers Inc., Reflex Digital Solutions (UK) Limited, Reprographics Egypt Limited, Saxon Business Systems Inc., Smart Data Consulting, SoCal Office Technologies Inc., Stem Networks Limited, Stewart Business Systems LLC, Stewart of Alabama Inc., StrataCare, Talegen Holdings Inc., Tektronix - color printing, Text Comm Limited (in receivership), The Xerox (UK) Trust, The Xerox Foundation, Time Business Systems Limited, Triton Business Finance Limited, Una-Stem Limited, Veenman B.V., Veenman Financial Services B.V., WDS, WaterWare Internet Services, XC Asia LLC, XC Global Trading B.V., XC Trading Hong Kong Limited, XC Trading Japan G.K., XC Trading Korea YH, XC Trading Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., XC Trading Shenzhen Co. Ltd., XC Trading Singapore Pte Ltd., XEROX CZECH REPUBLIC s r.o., XESystems Foreign Sales Corporation, XFS Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, XHC Acquisition Corp., XMPie, XMPie Inc., XMPie Ltd., XRI Limited, XRO Limited, Xerox (Europe) Limited, Xerox (Ireland) Limited, Xerox (Nederland) BV, Xerox (Romania) Echipmante Si Servici S.A., Xerox (UK) Limited, Xerox (Ukraine) Ltd LLC, Xerox A/S, Xerox AG, Xerox AS, Xerox Argentina Industrial y Comercial S.A., Xerox Austria GmbH, Xerox Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Equipment Limited, Xerox Business Services Bulgaria EOOD, Xerox Business Solutions Inc., Xerox Business Solutions Southeast LLC, Xerox Buro Araclari Servis ve Ticaret Ltd. Sti, Xerox Canada Inc., Xerox Canada Ltd., Xerox Canada N.S. ULC, Xerox Capital (Europe) Limited, Xerox Capital LLC, Xerox Computer Services Limited, Xerox Comercio e Industria Ltda, Xerox Corporation, Xerox DNHC LLC, Xerox Dienstleistungsgesellschaft GmbH, Xerox Distributor Operations Limited, Xerox Egypt S.A.E., Xerox Equipment Limited, Xerox Equipment UK Limited, Xerox Espana S.A.U., Xerox Exports Limited, Xerox Finance AG, Xerox Finance Leasing S.A.E., Xerox Finance Limited, Xerox Financial Services B.V., Xerox Financial Services Belux NV, Xerox Financial Services Canada Ltd., Xerox Financial Services Danmark A/S, Xerox Financial Services Finland Oy, Xerox Financial Services LLC, Xerox Financial Services Norway AS, Xerox Financial Services SAS, Xerox Financial Services Sverige AB, Xerox Foreign Holdings LLC, Xerox Foreign Sales Corporation, Xerox GmbH, Xerox Health Care LLC, Xerox Hellas AEE, Xerox Holding Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Holdings (Ireland) Limited, Xerox Holdings Inc., Xerox Hungary Trading Limited, Xerox IBS Limited, Xerox IBS NI Limited, Xerox India Limited, Xerox International Joint Marketing Inc., Xerox Investments Europe B.V., Xerox Israel Ltd., Xerox Italia Rental Services Srl, Xerox Kazakhstan Limited Liability Partnership, Xerox Latinamerican Holdings Inc., Xerox Leasing Deutschland GmbH, Xerox Leasing GmbH, Xerox Limited, Xerox Luxembourg SA, Xerox Mailing Systems Limited, Xerox Manufacturing (Nederland) B.V., Xerox Maroc S.A., Xerox Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Xerox Middle East Investments (Bermuda) Limited, Xerox N.V., Xerox Overseas Holdings Limited, Xerox Overseas Inc., Xerox Oy, Xerox Pensions Limited, Xerox Polska Sp. z o. o, Xerox Portugal Equipamentos de Escritorio Limitada, Xerox Products Limited, Xerox Products UK Limited, Xerox Professional Services Limited, Xerox Realty Corporation, Xerox Renting S.A.U., Xerox Reprographische Services GmbH, Xerox S.A.S., Xerox S.p.A., Xerox Secured Borrowing 2020-1 LLC, Xerox Servicios Compartidos Guatemala y Compani Limitada, Xerox Servicos e Participacoes Ltda, Xerox Shared Services Romania SRL, Xerox Sverige AB, Xerox Technology Services India LLP, Xerox Technology Services SAS, Xerox Telebusiness GmbH, Xerox Trading Enterprises Limited, Xerox Trinidad Limited, Xerox UK Holdings Limited, Xerox XHB Limited, Xerox XIB Limited, Xerox Xf Holdings (Ireland) DAC, Xerox de Chile S.A., Xerox del Ecuador S.A., Xerox del Peru S.A., Zeno Office Solutions, Zeno Office Solutions Inc., Zoom Imaging Solutions Inc., and inVentiv Patient Access Solutions.

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Corning Incorporated engages in display technologies, optical communications, environmental technologies, specialty materials, and life sciences businesses worldwide. The company's Display Technologies segment offers glass substrates for liquid crystal displays and organic light-emitting diodes used in televisions, notebook computers, desktop monitors, tablets, and handheld devices. Its Optical Communications segment provides optical fibers and cables; and hardware and equipment products, including cable assemblies, fiber optic hardware and connectors, optical components and couplers, closures, network interface devices, and other accessories. This segment also offers its products to businesses, governments, and individuals. Its Specialty Materials segment manufactures products that provide material formulations for glass, glass ceramics, crystals, precision metrology instruments, software; as well as ultra-thin and ultra-flat glass wafers, substrates, tinted sunglasses, and radiation shielding products. This segment serves various industries, including mobile consumer electronics, semiconductor equipment optics and consumables; aerospace and defense optics; radiation shielding products, sunglasses, and telecommunications components. The company's Environmental Technologies segment offers ceramic substrates and filter products for emissions control in mobile, gasoline, and diesel applications. The company's Life Sciences segment offers laboratory products comprising consumables, such as plastic vessels, liquid handling plastics, specialty surfaces, cell culture media, and serum, as well as general labware and equipment under the Corning, Falcon, Pyrex, and Axygen brands. The company was formerly known as Corning Glass Works and changed its name to Corning Incorporated in April 1989. Corning Incorporated was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Corning, New York.
Deuba braces for berth pangs as he takes office

When Parliament voted to elect the new prime minister on Tuesday, it was plain sailing for NC President Sher Bahadur Deuba, who returned to power after 12 years with 388 votes in the 593-strong Parliament.
KAR Auction Services, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides used vehicle auctions and related vehicle remarketing services for the automotive industry in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The company operates through two segments, ADESA Auctions and AFC. The ADESA Auctions segment offers whole car auctions and related services to the vehicle remarketing industry through online auctions and auction facilities. It also provides value-added services, such as auction related, transportation, reconditioning, inspection, title and repossession administration and remarketing, vehicle research, and analytical services, as well as data as a service. This segment sells its products and services through vehicle manufacturers, fleet companies, rental car companies, finance companies, and others. As of December 31, 2021, this segment had a network of approximately 70 vehicle logistics center locations in North America. The AFC segment offers floorplan financing, a short-term inventory-secured financing to independent used vehicle dealers; and sells vehicle service contracts. The company provides wheel repair and hail catastrophe response services. It serves vehicle manufacturers, vehicle rental companies, financial institutions, commercial fleets and fleet management companies, and dealer customers. The company was formerly known as KAR Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to KAR Auction Services, Inc. in November 2009. KAR Auction Services, Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.
Deuba sworn in as PM

President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Wednesday administered the oath of office and secrecy to the newly elected Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba amid a ceremony in Sheetal Niwas.
First Cabinet meeting catalogues priorities

The first Cabinet meeting of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Wednesday set the priorities of the government.
When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site.
- President Uhuru's government has been accused of emboldening al-Shabaab terrorists in northern Kenya

- This is because of its refusal to deploy reservists and providing faulty equipment in the fight against the militants

- A number of Jubilee politicians from the region gave the government two months to get rid of the militants or they will take matters into their own hands

- Their first move will be to buy guns from Somalia

A number of North Eastern Members of Parliament led by two senators have threatened the Jubilee government that they will arm their people as the government has failed to do anything to protect them.

This comes after more than 16 people were killed in a number of terrorist attacks in the span of one month.

Fafi MP Barre Shill told the government that they will head into Somalia and buy guns for personal protection.

READ ALSO: Joho gets loose after long battle with Uhuru, excites social media by poking fun at fellow politician

Fafi MP Barre Shill

READ ALSO: Dj Mo's wife Size 8 borrows a leaf from Dj Pierra Makena, breastfeeds in public (Photos)

We are extremely worried by these events. Life in northern Kenya has come to a virtual standstill. We are tired of crying like babies, said Shill as quoted in Daily Nation on Thursday, June 8.

Speaking at Parliament grounds on Wednesday, June 7, the seven MPs claimed that the government is lethargic in its response, something that has emboldened terrorists to attack them, including police officers.

The MPs also called out Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph Nkaissery of being untruthful about the security situation in northern Kenya.

READ ALSO: Lupita Nyong'o FINALLY responds to claims that she is HIV positive(Video)

Interior CS Joseph Nkaissery

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Earlier, Nkaissery had said that the regional is fully covered and the regional coordinator was given more resources to facilitate movement and communication to counter terrorist threats.

The security personnel have a tendency of pursuing attackers fleeing on foot with a vehicle. This must change if the attacks are to be halted. The government must deploy Kenya Police Reservists who are more familiar with the terrain, added the MPs.

They also demanded to know why the government is uncomfortable with deploying reservists in the region after doing the same in Kitui, Baringo, Tana River and Turkana counties.

READ ALSO: NASA co-principal HOT on Jubilee's heels as he takes his campaigns to a region Uhuru visited days earlier

DP Ruto deployed hundreds of police reservists in Baringo following the wave of bandit attacks that left scores injured or dead.

READ ALSO: Kenyan doctor left heartbroken after son dies due to nurses strike

The government should tell us if it has no faith in the region so that it is reluctant to deploy reservists in the region. Nkaissery is busy threatening politicians yet police officers are dying on duty because of poor quality armored vehicles. The government must protect the people in the region or they should instruct us to protect ourselves, added the parliamentarians.

They gave the government a two month ultimatum to end the al-Shabaab attacks or they arm themselves and their people.

Other parliamentarians included Mohammed Dahir, Mohammed Shidiye, Abbas Sheikh Mohammed and Senators Yusuf Hajji and Ibrahim Abbas. All, except Dahir and Abbas are Jubilee politicians.

Have something to add to this article? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Watch what Kenyans think of Muthama's role in NASA:

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Himalayan feat

Pushpa Kamal Dahal adeptly kept balanced ties with India and China during his second term
- Sonko's rescue team was recently registered as an NGO months after helping Kenyans for free

- The team has numerous employees, numerous vehicles including hearses, ambulances and limos

- The team does humanitarian work for Kenyans, something that has brought Sonko problems with his political opponents

- Now, ODM's Passaris claims that it is actually the government that funds him to frustrate Kidero's work

ODMs Nairobi county Woman Representative nominee Esther Passaris made sensational claims about Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko during one of her campaign trips over the weekend about his humanitarian work.

Speaking after a church service, Passaris was quoted by several media houses claiming that the recently registered Sonko Rescue Team non-governmental organization is actually funded by the Jubilee government.

Sonko is using the SRT to frustrate and undermine Governor Evans Kidero. We know that the team is receiving a lot of money on the side to do a few things here and there even as the same government has failed to empower governors and provide them with funds for projects, said Passaris.

READ ALSO: Four surprising things you did not know about Kalonzo Musyoka's son who is giving Jubilee sleepless nights

ODM Woman Rep nominee Esther Passaris

READ ALSO:This old man has excited Kenyans by planning to sell everything to save Uhuru from Raila

For months now, Sonko and Kidero have been engaged in a war of words over the operations of the Sonko Rescue Team.

At one point, Kidero ordered SRT vehicles to be impounded and at another time, Sonko accused him of ordering the arrest of members of the SRT team.

Before it was registered as an NGO in May 2017, SRT did public service activities such as offering free transportation in wedding and funerals, cleaning up the city, transferring sickly people to hospital and even paying for their medical bills as well as responding to emergencies such as the Huruma tragedy when a flat collapsed.

READ ALSO: Lupita Nyong'o FINALLY responds to claims that she is HIV positive(Video)

Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko

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They also supply water to areas where the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company fails to provide for residents to the extent of sinking boreholes.

Most of these functions are county government offered services, and Sonkos detractors claim he usurps its powers in carrying out these activities for free.

In the past, he has been quoted defending SRT, saying most of its funding comes from his senatorial salary and the money generated from his seven buses which bring in an average of KSh 7 million.

READ ALSO: Uhuru LANDS in Western with Millions and ODM MPs are PISSED

A Sonko Rescue Team ambulance transferring a sick patient to hospital under police escort.

He also said he works in collaboration with partners and well wishers.

Have something to add to this article? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Watch what Kenyans think of Muthama's role in NASA:

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- Citizen TVs journalist Patrick Igunza is the best dressed media personality if photos on his Instagram account is anything to go by

- The celebrated Kenyan media personality has wowed many with his sense of fashion

- TUKO.co.ke can authoritatively report that Igunza has surpassed his peers by far matters fashion

Citizen TV is without a doubt the home of great talents. From high performing news anchors, to revered field reporters, to show presenters, the Royal Media Services owned TV station has it all.

Well, among them is the dapper Patrick Igunza who normally hosts Citizen Business features and sometimes sit in for Willis Raburu whenever he is off air.

READ ALSO: 10-year-old Kakamega boy makes a bicycle using STICKS and tin lids

The multi-talented TV presenter has risen the ranks over the years to become a force to reckon with in the TV world, thanks to his talents and sense of fashion that have always gone hand in hand.

READ ALSO: Super-rich Kenyan soccer star Victor Wanyama mourns Ivorian midfielder CHEICK TIOTE

Igunza, a father of two has been killing ladies both on and off screen with his aesthetic fashion that is characterized with suits, ties and basically everything official and casual.

Install TUKO App To Read News For FREE

A trip across the Citizen TVs presenter will out rightly confirm that the young TV journalist is the best dressed media personality in Kenya, giving his peers a run for their money.

Have something to add to this story? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Watch what this actress said about the Kenyan film industry:

Source: TUKO.co.ke
Eight employees of the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services have been referred
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman says he expects that a share of consumer goods industry in Ukraines GDP could grow from one to several percent.

The Prime Minister stated this during his official trip to Chernihiv, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

A significant share of consumer goods industry in the countrys GDP is slightly above 1%, but the growth potential, I think, is exactly the same, which can reach several percent, Groysman said.

However, he said that meetings with representatives of the Ukrainian Association of Consumer Goods Industry are planned to be held in the coming weeks, and the issues of customs procedures in the industry will be put on the agenda.

iy
President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will soon sign a decree to appoint Ukraines representative to NATO.

Deputy Head of Presidential Administration Kostiantyn Yelisieiev stated this on 112 Ukraine TV Channel.

"Were very pleased that NATO is now becoming a significant factor in the security of our state. Our President will soon sign a decree to appoint a representative of Ukraine to NATO and thus we will fully develop our cooperation with this Alliance," Yelisieiev said.

He recalled that a delegation of the North Atlantic Council headed by NATO Secretary General will visit Ukraine in early July. "We will talk about ways of cooperation, and let's not forget that today, due to the results of the NATO Summit in Warsaw, held in July last year, NATO has provided a full package of assistance to us," Yelisieiev said.

iy
House passes 1st amendment bill of Local Level Elections Act

The Parliament on Thursday passed the first amendment bill of the Local Level Elections Act.
More than 40 trucks with humanitarian aid for residents of Donetsk region arrived in the temporarily occupied territory.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson for ATO issues Oleksandr Motuzianyk said this at a press briefing on Thursday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"The total weight of the cargo was about 800 tons. The humanitarian aid included food, hygiene kits, medical equipment, reagents, building materials and sanitary ware. The aid came from the Mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the Swiss Government and philanthropists," Motuzianyk said.

ish
NATO has taken into account the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to resume the strategic course of the state towards accession to the North Atlantic Alliance.

Ukrinform own correspondent in Brussels learnt this from the NATO headquarters.

"We take note of this decision," the Alliance representative said.

"Ukraine has not applied for NATO membership at this time. Kyivs focus is on reform and the modernization of its defence and security institutions, and NATO is supporting those efforts. This is the priority," the Alliance representative said.

He also confirmed the official position of the North Atlantic Council that NATO-Ukraine cooperation is an important part of the Alliance's contribution to stability in the Euro-Atlantic space and beyond.

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Hubby pours hot oil over wifes face in Dolakha gruesome

In a heart wrenching incident, a man poured hot cooking oil over his wifes face at Namdu in Baiteshwor Village Council-6 of Dolakha district on Tuesday.
Election observers in Cambodia have declined to officially endorse the results of the commune elections despite saying that they received no complaints about the vote count.



Elections in Cambodia have historically been fiercely disputed by the opposition and observers alike, with the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party of Prime Minister Hun Sen routinely accused of rigging the vote.



Yong Kim Eng, executive director of the People Center for Development and Peace, told reporters on Monday that the vote was largely conducted according to procedure.



He added that there were some reports of irregularities, particularly with regards the delayed announcement of results by the National Election Committee (NEC).



He added that there were some mistakes in how the results were distributed or posted at some polling stations.



Koul Panha, speaking at the same press conference, said it was important for election monitors now to look at regions where there were reports of irregularities. We want to know how many mistakes there were and if those mistakes derived from technical problems or if they were intentional, he said.



I think that political parties; if they do have evidence [of misconduct], they will file complaints. But we will look into this issue. We will see whether there are complaints or there are some people, as you said, wanting to complain but they feel scared, he added.



Hun Sen previously appealed to political parties not to protest the results and threatened legal action against those who lodged complaints. The current law permits the elimination of political parties, he said.



Preliminary results had the CPP winning 48 percent of the vote compared to the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Partys 45 percent. The CNRP did best in large cities and areas with high tourism numbers, while the CPP led in rural areas, its traditional base of support.



Hang Puthea, NEC spokesman, claimed the body was slow to release the results due to technical difficulties meaning its staff now had to collate the results by hand.



He said that groups that had reported results before the NEC released the official tally could face legal action. The pro-government Fresh News website has been criticized for publishing misleading results before the NEC had received them, which may breach the election law.



Election observers have opted to wait until the official results are announced before commenting on the quality of the election process.



Initial findings from international observers, including those from the U.S. Embassy, suggested that the election was orderly and peaceful.



The Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel), another observer, called for stricter regulations to avoid vote buying. However, its secretary general, Rohana Hettiarachchie, said that honestly, we did not see vote buying directly.
India has second thoughts about Butwal powerline

Construction of the 400 kV Butwal-Gorakhpur cross-border transmission line is in limbo as India is having second thoughts about the project.
Cambodians have criticized the national election body for delaying the release of results in the aftermath of the commune elections on Sunday.



The National Election Committee (NEC) was scheduled to begin publishing official results as early as 3pm on the day of the vote, but had not released the results by Wednesday evening, prompting questions from voters.



Phrom Sothy, 63, a tuk tuk driver in Phnom Penh, claimed there was no reason for a delay as the NEC knew the results already.



He suggested that the body should have released results province-by-province as they came in, rather than waiting for a nationwide result.



Other voters agreed and said they did not believe that the NEC had suffered from Internet connectivity problems as it had claimed.



One voter, Man Samorn, remarked: The response was just an excuse. I have wondered for several mandates, why does the NEC always announce the result in rural areas first?



Ouk Sovann Kongkea, a student at the Royal University of Agriculture, said the NEC, ostensibly an independent body, had no excuses not to be prepared.



The election only happens once in five years, she said. They cannot say they are unprepared.



However, some voters said they believed the delays were due to the NEC seeking to ensure the accuracy of the ballot.



Om Ramorn, 77, said the time-consuming process would ensure the accuracy of the result.



In the past, the result was announced on the radio... So now the NEC analyzes the result and then declares it. It is more accurate than before, he said.



An official result is due to be announced on June 25.



Hang Puthea, NEC spokesman, on Tuesday apologized for the delay in an interview with VOA on Tuesday.



Yoeung Sotheara, a legal observer with election monitor Comfrel, urged voters not to be concerned with the accuracy of the results.



Due to a technical error and a lack of training of NEC officials, errors occurred, he said.
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This week Straight Talk Africa examines where things stand in terms good governance, rule of law and social and economic justice for all in Africa. Host Shaka Ssali is joined by Mmeli Dube, a Zimbabwean Human Rights Activist, Nii Akuetteh, African policy analyst and Morrison Rwakakamba, Chief Executive Officer of Agency for Transformation, a Ugandan think tank.
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the warlord who entered a peace deal with President Ashraf Ghanis administration, said he would not allow anyone to overthrow the government illegally because efforts to do so would result in Kabul being overrun by Taliban.



Without an alternative, can we have a result other than the fall of Kabul to the armed insurgents, he said.



The Hizb-e-Islami leader was responding to the warnings by Salahuddin Rabbani, the countrys foreign minister, that if the government did not replace the heads of all security institutions, his party, Jamiat-e-Islami, would move for a change in administration.



Rabbani made the demand after a tanker bomb in one of Kabuls highly fortified area killed more than 150 people.



He also accused some in the security institutions of colluding with terrorists and trying to eliminate the top leadership of his party through what he said were suspicious terrorist attacks. He was referring to an attack on a funeral last Saturday that was attended by Jamiats leadership.



Hekmatyar also said his party would take part in the next parliamentary elections. Rather than sporting its own presidential candidate, the party would support a candidate acceptable to regional countries, as well as international community.



The notorious warlord returned to Kabul last month to a red-carpet treatment by President Ghani. His return was controversial, as many said they believed he should be tried for war crimes.



Feared as a ruthless warlord, Hekmatyar has been part of a lot of bloodshed in Afghanistans decades of war. In early 1990s, his forces attacked Kabul with a barrage of rockets, killing thousands of people.



Ghani hopes a deal with him would encourage other militants to come forward and sign their own agreements with the government. However, the Afghan Taliban have categorically rejected the Hekmatyar peace deal as un-Islamic and tantamount to a surrender.
Qatar-based Al Jazeera News Network reported repeated cyberattacks on all of their media platforms Thursday.

"Al Jazeera media platforms under cyberattack. Entire Doha-based network undergoing 'continual hacking attempts'," the network tweeted.

Sources at the network also confirmed the attacks to reporters, and viewers in the region said they could no longer view Al Jazeera television.

The alleged cyberattacks come at a time of heightened diplomatic tensions in the region. On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Al Jazeera, one of the largest news organizations in the world, has long been a source of conflict between Qatar and its neighbors who accuse the network of bias.

Mostefa Souag, the network's acting director-general, told Reuters that Al Jazeera will maintain editorial independence despite the diplomatic rift.
Brazil is considering measures that would roll back environmental protections and make it difficult to meet its Paris climate accord targets  a signal it is stepping back from its global leadership on climate change just as the United States is also retreating.



Congress has already passed two measures that will dramatically reduce the size of protected environmental reserves. Lawmakers are also considering substantially relaxing environmental licensing rules for infrastructure, agricultural and industrial projects. A proposal that would change how indigenous lands are designated, potentially reducing their size and protection, is also on the table.

This comes at a time when the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests are being cut at the fastest rate in nearly a decade, and the violent struggle for control of forested land is in on the rise.

"Brazil is throwing aside the opportunity to be a leader on these questions,'' said Marcio Astrini, coordinator of public policy for Greenpeace in Brazil. "It's very hard for someone to manage to be worse than [U.S. President Donald] Trump on the environment, but the Brazilian government is working very hard'' to do that.



Brazil was long seen as a global leader on environmental issues. As the major steward of the Amazon rain forest, its policies have a tremendous effect on global rates of carbon emissions reduction. In conjunction with Trump's recent decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement, Brazil's move away from environmental regulation could jeopardize global goals.

The moves come amid political turmoil in Latin America's largest nation. President Michel Temer is struggling to stay in office amid corruption allegations and threats of impeachment or removal by an electoral court. Amid the furor, he is trying to pass unpopular reforms he says are essential to helping Brazil's economy shrug off a two-year recession.

Temer has agreed to back a series of measures promoted by Congress' so-called "rural caucus''  a group of lawmakers representing the interests of rural landowners, including agribusiness and ranchers  in exchange for help passing his own agenda, and hopefully avoiding impeachment.



"This government is using the environmental agenda as currency,'' Astrini said.



In April, a weeklong protest outside Congress by indigenous groups who say Temer is reducing protections on their lands and allowing land-grabs by farmers and ranchers illustrated the debate. When police fired tear gas at the protesters, they responded with spears and arrows.

Last month, Congress passed two measures that convert around 1.4 million acres of protected land, the vast majority of it in the Amazon, into areas open to logging, mining and agricultural use. An analysis by the Institute for Amazon Environmental Research estimates the drop in protections could result in the loss of nearly 700,000 acres (280,000 hectares) of forest by 2030 and lead to the release of 140 million tons of carbon dioxide.



Nilson Leitao, a federal lawmaker from the rural caucus, disputed that the measures would lead to deforestation and noted that the area was already one of the most protected in the world. "The people who live there ... they need a life, they need to produce,'' he said.



Milder versions of the measures  which partially offset the losses by designating newly protected areas  began as executive orders.



But the congressional amendments have made the measures unpalatable even to Temer's own environment minister, who has recommended the president veto them, saying they would impede efforts to combat deforestation and achieve the promises Brazil made in Paris accord.



In that agreement, Brazil vowed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions primarily through slowing and reversing deforestation, which is rising again after years of progress.



Last year, deforestation of the Amazon jumped 29 percent over the previous year, according to the government's satellite monitoring, in the highest rate since 2008. In the Atlantic rainforest, deforestation was up 58 percent last year.



The president has until June 19 to sign or veto the measures.



Not only would the measures allow for legal deforestation, but they could increase incentives for illegal logging because they were partially designed to legalize incursions by farmers and ranchers into protected areas.



"Ranchers feel they can act with impunity and that their interests are protected by the courts and the executive branch,'' said Cleber Buzatto, executive secretary of the Indigenous Missionary Council, a Catholic Church organization.



Such incursions are driving a spike in violence not seen in years. At least 39 people have died in land conflicts this year, according to the Pastoral Land Commission, which tracks the violence. That puts 2017 on track to surpass 2016's 61 deaths, the highest figure since 2003.



Another measure in Congress would relax Brazil's strict environmental licensing laws, which require impact assessments ahead of an array of projects. The bill would allow states and cities to decide what licenses are necessary and would exempt some projects, like agricultural ones, from licensing.



The Parliamentary Front for Agriculture, which represents the rural caucus, says the bill would provide much needed flexibility, arguing that current rules punish Brazilian businesses because they are unclear and approval for projects can take years.



Critics say they bill weakens regulations and gives too much power to states and cities.



The bill has languished in Congress for over a decade but a new version received "urgent'' status this year, meaning it can skip committee approvals and be put to a floor vote at the discretion of the president of the Lower House.



Environment Minister Sarney Filho, meanwhile, is preparing a competing overhaul of the licensing rules, which the government says takes into account more stakeholders' views.



While these measures could harm the environment, Marcio Sztutman of The Nature Conservancy said the trend could still be reversed.



"There are lots of sectors, even in agribusiness, that are against this model of development at any cost,'' said Sztutman, the group's conservation manager in Brazil. "This isn't a change of course with no return.''
Brazil's top electoral court on Wednesday was split over whether to allow new evidence in plea-bargain testimony from construction company Odebrecht in an illegal campaign funding case that could lead to President Michel Temer leaving office.

The issue delayed proceedings on the second day of sessions by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), which adjourned until Thursday without voting on whether to annul Temer's ticket in the 2014 election for allegedly receiving under-the-table donations.

Temer opponents expect a TSE ruling against the president to force him from office and help Brazil exit a political crisis stoked by graft allegations against the center-right leader. A TSE decision could take weeks if not months and could be appealed by Temer.

The judge tasked with spearheading the case, Herman Benjamin, said the additional evidence in plea bargain testimony by Odebrecht executives was crucial to determine whether former president Dilma Rousseff and her running mate Temer used illicit funds in their 2014 campaign.

Biggest parasite

Benjamin, who is expected to vote to annul the ticket and its 2014 election victory, said Odebrecht was the "biggest parasite" among the companies accused of paying billions in kickbacks from overpriced contracts with state-run oil company Petrobras.

But Judge Napoleo Nunes Maia said he would oppose use of the extra plea statements as evidence, arguing that the case would never end if it continued to add information from the avalanche of testimonies in the so-called Car Wash probe.

Temer, who replaced Rousseff when she was impeached last year, has said his campaign accounts received no illegal money.

The defense team of both Temer and Rousseff requested the testimony be scrapped, arguing that it went beyond the scope of the original complaint filed by the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB) after it lost the 2014 election. The PSDB's own candidate in that race, Aecio Neves, has since been charged for graft himself, accused of taking millions in bribes from the world's largest meatpacker, JBS SA.

In plea-bargain testimony given in Brazil's sprawling Car Wash graft investigation, Odebrecht executives said the company channeled millions of dollars to the Rousseff-Temer campaign in illegal donations.

If the seven-justice tribunal decides that Rousseff and Temer used illegal money to fund their campaign, it could annul the election result and force Temer from office.

If Temer is removed from office, lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia would take over and Congress would have 30 days to pick a caretaker to lead the country until elections in late 2018.
Voters in Britain apparently have dealt Prime Minister Theresa Mays ruling Conservative Party a major setback in a snap election she called to rally support ahead of negotiations to exit the European Union.

An exit poll Thursday night suggested Mays gamble in calling the early election has backfired spectacularly, with her party in danger of losing its majority in parliament. The poll was conducted for a consortium of broadcasters and is based on interviews with voters leaving polling stations across the country.

If confirmed, the result would lead to a period of political uncertainty and could throw Britains negotiations to leave the European Union, set to start June 19, into disarray.

With nearly two-thirds of the seats counted, the results appeared to be generally bearing out an exit poll that predicted the Conservatives would get 314 of the 650 seats in Parliament, down from 330, while the Labour Party was projected to win 266, up from 229. Final results are expected Friday morning.

Amber Rudd, Britains interior minister, managed to hold onto her seat, but she saw her previous 4,796 majority slashed to 346 votes as her Conservative Party was predicted to lose its majority.

If May is forced to step down as prime minister, less than 11 months after landing the job, that would make her tenure the shortest of any British prime minister since the 1920s.

The country needs a period of stability and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability so that we can all, as one country, go forward together, she said.

Election called in April

When May called the election April 18, her Conservative Party held a huge lead in public opinion polls along with its slim majority in parliament. That lead in the polls shrank over the course of the campaign, during which she backtracked on a major proposal on care for the elderly, opted not to debate her opponents on television, and faced questions about her record on security after Britain was hit by two Islamist militant attacks that killed 30 people.

By contrast, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who initially was written off as having no chance, was widely considered to have run a strong campaign. Labour drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

If the exit poll is correct, Corbyn could attempt to form a government with smaller parties, which, like Labour, strongly oppose most of Mays policies on domestic issues.

One of those parties, however, would be the Scottish National Party, which was predicted to lose 20 of its 54 seats.

If Labour does take power with the Scottish nationalists and the Liberal Democrats, both opposed to Brexit, Britains future will be very different from the course the Conservatives were planning.
Three men arrested in a series of raids Wednesday in east London are suspected of having been in the final stages of plotting a terror attack in the British capital similar to the murderous rampage carried out last Saturday at London Bridge, say officials.

The men, all in their 30s, are not connected to last week's van-and-knife attack in the London Bridge and Borough districts of the capital that left eight dead and 48 injured, say police officers.

Video of recent attack

The news of the arrests came as new video footage emerged of the dramatic shooting of the London Bridge attackers by armed police last Saturday. It shows officers leaping out of a moving police car to shoot the men in a few seconds of frenetic activity, bringing an end to a killing spree that lasted eight minutes.

The footage, taken by a local resident, has been circulated on social media sites.

Other footage has also emerged of the three London Bridge attackers, who have been identified as Khuram Shazad Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, meeting outside an all-Muslim gym the trio frequented in east London five days before the attack.

In the video obtained by The Times newspaper, the three are seen hugging and laughing outside the Ummah Fitness Center near where Butt lived with his wife and two young children.

The men appear to want to evade surveillance.

Redouane is seen placing his cellphone on a builder's sack nearby before the men walk away. Presumably, they feared the phone was bugged. They are out of view of the CCTV camera for 10 minutes and when they return Redouane retrieves his phone.

The footage of the meeting outside the gym will reinforce pressure on the British intelligence services to explain why the three were not under full-time surveillance.

The Ummah Fitness Center was once run by a man accused of helping to train the Islamic extremists responsible for the coordinated July 7, 2005, underground train bombings in London, Britain's first-ever Islamist suicide attack.

Fifty-two people were killed across the city in the 2005 coordinated strike that left more than 700 injured.

Missed chances

The British intelligence service, MI5, has been accused of missing a string of chances to identify Butt as a high-risk militant.

On Tuesday The New York Times reported that in 2015 FBI informant Jesse Morton, a one-time al-Qaida recruiter, warned his American handlers about the London Bridge terrorist. "Khuram Butt was on our radar rather a lot," he told the newspaper.

Questions are also being asked about why the British security services didn't act on information supplied by Italian police on Zaghba, an Italian-Moroccan, who had been stopped at Bologna airport last year on suspicion he was heading to join the Islamic State in Syria.

Italian authorities say they informed British intelligence agencies about him and uploaded his details to a European Union database that's designed to trigger an alert to passport control officers.

Officer injured in attack

Meanwhile, the rookie transport policeman who was stabbed in an eye while tackling the London Bridge terrorists armed only with a baton issued a statement Wednesday saying he "did everything I could" to stop them.

He has not been named by the authorities. He was one of the first officers to confront the London Bridge assailants.

"I am truly moved and overwhelmed by all the support and comments that I've received, not only from people in this country, but across the world," the officer said.

He has been hailed as a national hero, but he dismissed the description.

"Like every police officer who responded, I was simply doing my job," he said. "I didn't expect the level of love and well wishes I have received. I feel like I did what any other person would have done. I want to say sorry to the families that lost their loved ones."
Cambodia's ruling political party breathed a sigh of relief as vote counting continued following Sunday's commune elections, which left opposition supporters disappointed after their leaders failed to deliver on electoral expectations.

Buoyed by gains at national elections in 2013, the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) had expected to win 60 percent of the popular vote at the commune poll, where almost 12,000 local and district positions were contested.

Instead, the CNRP picked-up just 44.22 percent of the vote, according to early government figures, sharply higher than the 30.6 percent it scored at commune elections in 2012 but still significantly short of expectations and of what's required if its leader, Kem Sokha, is to become the next prime minister after national elections next year.

The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) picked-up 51.39 percent of the overall vote.

I expect they will be happy or at least relieved, said one CPP source who did not want to be named.

Officials results are due June 25.

CNRP disappoints

Absent from this election was the long serving and highly popular opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who stepped aside for his less charismatic deputy, Kem Sokha, after several criminal defamation suits forced him to retire from politics.

Analysts said Sam Rainsy's appeal was missed, especially among younger voters. They said the CNRP had failed to extend its reach beyond the capital and provincial towns and into the CPP's traditional rural heartland where Prime Minister Hun Sen is at his strongest.

The commune electoral system, which is fought on local issues and differs substantially from the national poll, also had an impact.



Commune elections were initiated in 2002 and designed to complete Cambodia's transition from communism to full democracy. At that time, the CPP held all commune positions with a party machine entrenched in even the remotest of villages.

Over successive elections, opposition parties were expected to win positions on councils and as district chiefs who wield constitutional powers in the national senate.

But 15 years and four elections later, the CPP still has control of more than 70 percent of the 1,646 communes, control of the senate, and a modest lead in the popular vote. Minority parties have also made a comeback, picking up four percent of the vote.

The reason that I supported the CNRP was because I wanted to see change with a leader that has high ethical standards, said a disappointed Kea Ponlok, a 29-year-old CNRP supporter in Phnom Penh. I am not really happy with the preliminary result.

Focus shifts to national poll

Kea Ponlok said the CNRP must improve its strategy in the countryside, where the CPP dominates, while trying its best to cement its hold on the burgeoning youth vote, which backed the opposition at the 2013 national poll.

I want them to promote more broadly so that youth and people in difficult [to reach] areas who lack political knowledge can fully understand the partys policies, and that what they are doing is real and clear in the election, he said.

Others complained a CNRP key election promise to fund each commune directly with $500,000 a year was flimsy, as the $830 million price tag could not be guaranteed because the CPP government controls the purse strings.

Chea Chheng, 27, voted for the CPP in Phnom Penh and said 300,000 more people voted for the ruling party at this commune election than did at the national poll four years ago.

Based on this data, plus the governments policy on reform, he said, particularly in regards to education, I believe that after the 2018 election the CPP will still be leading the government.

CPP rules

Since late 2015, Cambodian politics has been marred by Hun Sen's threats of war should his party lose elections and the criminalization of defamation laws that resulted in CNRP supporters being jailed. But election day and the two-week official campaign period were peaceful, winning praise from established democracies like the United States.

It's a pattern that long-term observers are familiar with and will probably persist leading into next July's national election.

At this year's election, it was much better and more people participated, Chea Cheng said, adding the peacetime economic accomplishments of the CPP would give it an advantage going into the national election.

Kea Ponlok, however, was also confident the CNRP can improve on its standing and win in 2018.



My hope is that if the CNRP wins the national election, they must do what they have promised to do and guarantee this party and their leader actually serves the interest of their own people.
A military tribunal in Cameroon has denied bail to two civil society leaders accused of directing violent unrest in the northwest and the southwest in December. They are among the more than two dozen people still detained in connection to the ongoing strike in Cameroons two English-speaking regions. Calls for their release continue to drive unrest and remain the key roadblock to dialogue as the strike enters its seventh month.

It was quiet at the Mbingo Baptist hospital in northwestern Cameroon despite the hundreds of people who have come out to sympathize with Chatelle Anyerre.

The 17-year-old was brutally attacked Monday, June 5. She was on her way to school with two of her peers when the machete-wielding assailants pounced. The attackers have not been identified.

The surgeon, Jim Brown, had good news. "The injuries required some washing out the wounds and there were some muscles that had to be repaired, and also some fractures and bones that had to be set. She is doing fine, she is very stable, he said.

It is believed Anyerre was targeted because she was defying calls to boycott classes as part of the ongoing strike in Cameroons two English-speaking regions. Most schools remain shut in those areas.

The government say strikers have resorted to violence to press for the unconditional release of people detained over the strike. VOA could not reach strike leaders for comment as many are detained or in hiding.

Authorities have condemned what they say have been a series of arson attacks on government buildings and markets in the English-speaking areas this year.

A crowd assembled here at Nkwen in the northwestern capital of Bamenda last Monday after a four-story hotel went up in flames.

"We had to call the fire brigade and thank God they came on time. We don't know as of now. We don't know any cause that might have caused the fire to explode," said Ngom Angelbert, a hotel worker.

He said they suspect the act was carried out because the business did not respect calls for citywide shutdown days to protest the continued detention of the strike leaders. He said an investigation into the fire is underway.

In Yaounde, 27 people arrested over the strike appeared again Wednesday before a military tribunal. Chief judge, Colonel Abega Mbezoa Eko Eko, presided.

On May 30th, the judge had said the two detained leaders  Barrister Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla and Fontem Neba  would be granted what the judge called controlled freedom. But no bail was granted Wednesday.

The prosecution argued that people facing terrorism-related charges punishable by a possible death sentence cannot be granted conditional release.

Following the proceedings, the judge took no questions from the media. Soldiers prevented the defense counsel from granting interviews at the court premises.

Strikers have refused to reopen dialogue with the government until the detainees are freed.

Lawmaker Elias Ijalle from Manyu in southwestern Cameroon said the continued unrest is counterproductive for both sides.



"Young men are getting into the street and destroying existing infrastructure and it is unfortunate. It is a regrettable situation that we condemn in all its forms because whatever form of state we have in this country or whatever form of state we are going to have in the future will require structures like that for children to go to school. So it can't be possible that the few we have are being destroyed," said Ijalle.

The strike began in November with anglophone teachers and lawyers in the northwest and the southeast. They said English-speaking citizens are marginalized in the bilingual country and they demanded reforms. But secessionist groups soon joined the movement, and their calls for full independence for the English-speaking zones derailed dialogue and helped spur a government crackdown.
Market monitoring underway in Valley

The Department of Supplies Management (DoSM) has begun special market monitoring in the Kathmandu Valley from Tuesday and said that it would book the traders involved in market anomalies under the legal framework.
Canada's defense chief announced Wednesday that the country plans to sharply increase its military budget following pressure from the Trump administration to bolster spending.

Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said military spending will grow 70 percent to reach $32.7 billion Canadian ($24.1 billion) in a decade. That means Canada would spend about 1.4 percent of gross domestic product on defense by 2026-27, up from about 1.2 percent now.



U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO's member countries increase their spending on defense forces. The U.S. accounts for more than 70 percent of all NATO military spending. Only Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland now meet the NATO goal of spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense.

Reliable, credible partner

Sajjan said the added money is designed to make sure Canada is a reliable and credible partner.



The plan calls for 5,000 additional military personnel, 15 new warships and 88 new fighter jets, the latter up from a planned 65 announced by the previous government.



If we're serious about our role in the world, we must be serious about funding our military, Sajjan said. And we are.''

NATO pleased

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he was pleased.



I warmly welcome Canada's new defense policy and the major planned investments, Stoltenberg said in a statement. This new policy affirms Canada's unwavering commitment to NATO and will ensure Canada has the armed forces and key capabilities that the Alliance needs.

Canada has about 800 military personnel in the international mission against the Islamic State group, but removed its fighter jets after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party government was elected in late 2015. Canada also has about 200 troops in the Ukraine and 220 in Poland.
Poaching and wildlife trafficking have endangered some of Africas most iconic species and the loss of the animals has cost African countries critical tourism revenue.

But at least one national park is getting a second chance. Liwonde National Park in southern Malawi has just welcomed some new inhabitants  four cheetahs relocated there from South Africa courtesy of the nonprofit African Parks group.

Park rangers lured the first cheetah out into its new home with a fresh carcass. It's the first cheetah Malawi has had in the wild in two decades.

The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world, but even that couldnt protect the species in Malawi. Poachers killed off the cheetahs' prey and ultimately the cheetahs themselves.

They were last seen in Malawi about 20 years ago," said Craig Reid of the Liwonde National Park. "Specifically in Liwonde area, they have been absent for over a 100 years. So, as part of the rehabilitation of the park, we feel it is very important to bring back the cheetah to Malawi and Liwonde specifically.

A total of four cheetahs  two males and two females  were airlifted to Liwonde from South Africa in May.

Before being released into the park, the cheetahs spent their first three weeks in an enclosure to allow them to become acclimated to their new surroundings.

Liwonde National Park has a population of 12,000 large mammals. These include bush buck, water buffalo and antelope.

The cheetah is the first large predator to be reintroduced to the park.

We have a very healthy animal base and now that the protection measures are in place as we have got a very good law enforcement in the park," Reid said. "The numbers of animals are increasing very rapidly and, as a result to that, there are more than enough animals to provide for some carnivorous animals such as the cheetah.

Officials are holding meetings with communities surrounding the park.

Those people are likely to face danger," said David Nongoma of African Parks. "And our message to the community is to say that...they refrain from entering the park and stop doing what they used to be doing because these animals are definitely very dangerous. They can kill a human being.

Park officials say they also plan to reintroduce leopards and lions to restore the parks lost glory.
When the police called, Deng Guilian was at an indoor playground watching her 3-year-old. It was 2:19 p.m., Tuesday, May 30.

The man on the phone said her husband had been picked up on suspicion of making illegal recordings and taking illegal photographs. He told her she didn't need to know the details, he just needed her address so he could send a formal notification.

Could you please say that again? Deng asked.

Her husband, Hua Haifeng, was a thousand kilometers (620 miles) away from her, in Ganzhou, a city in southeastern China where he had been investigating working conditions at factories that until at least March made shoes for Ivanka Trump's brand. He and his colleagues at China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, were preparing to publish a report alleging low pay, excessive overtime, crude verbal abuse and possible misuse of student labor at Huajian Group factories. The company denies the allegations.

Deng grew furious at the man on the phone.

I have to take care of old people and children. All the money comes from him, she spat. You tell me what I should do.

There was a pause. I don't know, the voice answered.

She hung up without giving her address.

Deng, 36, had entered the swelling ranks of relatives swept up in Beijing's crackdown on human rights lawyers and labor activists. Hundreds have been detained, leaving many of their extended families with no source of income.

Beyond financial suffering, the Chinese government wields great power over the lives of its citizens, which it can use to make things better - or infinitely worse - for those left behind. Wives, husbands, children and grandparents are left to look on solemnly as their lives are systematically dismembered until all that remains are the bones of fear: How will I feed my children? Will we keep our house? When will we see each other again?

Deng was terrified. Standing at the playground, watching children trying to catch goldfish, she felt like she might fall down. She didn't know whom to talk to. Her husband's ailing parents didn't know what kind of work Hua did. They just knew he made money for everybody.

Above all, she had to protect her children, from sadness and fear and whatever else lay ahead. She would tell them lies and buy them chocolate late at night when they cried for a father they weren't supposed to know was missing. It would be days before Deng herself could eat.

"Papa was taken away by a monster"

Rewind. Back to when idealism didn't seem to cost so much.

Deng met her husband in 2006 on an online chat group for people from Nanzhang county, where they are both from. A petite woman with a quick, wide smile, Deng liked Hua because he made her laugh. Deng began working in factories after high school, helping to churn out clothes, toys and electronics across Guangdong province, the heartland of China's manufacturing boom. She sat in on information sessions Hua organized to help workers learn their legal rights, and fell in love with both the man - even though she thought he was kind of short - and his ideas.

She wore a white Western gown when they married in 2010. It was a simple ceremony, at home, with no rings or fancy jewelry. She believed they were on the right side of things, working to make society better for everyone, not just the rich and the lucky.

Hua's latest investigation had taken him inside the Huajian Group, which has pumped out millions of pairs of shoes a year for brands including Ivanka Trump's from factories in China and Ethiopia. In May, Hua went undercover as a worker at one of their factories in Dongguan.

When he tried to travel to Hong Kong, he was blocked and taken out for lunch by the police, who warned him to stop the investigation. China Labor Watch, which has been exposing labor abuses for 17 years, says authorities had never made such a move before.

Hua kept working, turning his attention to Huajian's factory in Ganzhou, along with his colleagues Li Zhao and Su Heng.

Right up until Sunday afternoon, Deng and Hua chatted and exchanged photos by phone: Their 7-year-old daughter, Chen Chen, in a new dress, their son, Bo Bo, in mirrored sunglasses that made him look like a little bug.

Then Hua went silent.

You disappeared? Deng texted Monday afternoon, hoping to convince herself it was nothing.

That night, Bo Bo inexplicably burst into tears. Papa was taken away by a monster, the boy said. He told his mother he wanted a weapon so he could transform himself into the superhero Ultraman and fight the monster.

You do not have a weapon to transform yourself, Deng told her child. And you are not Ultraman.

But the boy insisted he would find a magical weapon and save his dad with his great new power.

"Each one was like a wolf"

Deng got the call about her husband two days after he disappeared. She soon began to regret decisions made long ago, like leaving work to take care of the family. It was what her husband had wanted, but now seemed stupid, isolating. She had only 400 yuan ($59) in cash. She didn't dare use the family credit card because Hua paid that bill, and how would he pay from jail?

I feel so embarrassed that I do not have money, Deng said. Look at me now. I am just a housewife.

She took loans from family members to pay the bills. The days were anxious. The nights worse. She went to bed with her phone clutched in her hand.

Her husband's disappearance had thrust Deng roughly back into society. She scrambled to learn about lawyers and fielded so many calls from foreign journalists she didn't have time to brush her teeth.

I was a blank sheet of paper before, she said. Now I have no choice, I have to get to know this circle. It is hard.

She said she never wanted to get involved with the police or the Chinese government or, most unimaginable of all, the president of the United States and his daughter.

Ivanka Trump has not commented on the arrests. Deng wishes she would, and believes she could help. As a wife and mother of two children, I ask Ivanka Trump to release my husband, she said.

Deng struggled to help her husband while caring for her children. Her 3-year-old grabbed peaches from the kitchen and fed himself, but he was still hungry. She sent him and his sister off to their aunt's house for two days, without explaining why. The children kept calling to say they missed her cooking and their toys.

Three days after the first phone call, police began searching for Deng. They knocked on the doors of family members in town, who Deng had been trying to hide the terrible news from, humiliating her in front of her neighbors.

People here may think as long as someone is being taken away, this person must be evil, she said. They eventually tracked her down at her mother's house and drove her to the station around 9 p.m. that Friday night.

Four men took her into a small room and pulled their chairs in a tight circle around her.

Each one was like a wolf, she said.

One man stared at her. Another wrote down everything she said. A third examined her phone, scrolling through her exchanges with foreign journalists. You don't know these people but you told them how old your children are and where you live, a fourth man said. Do you think that's safe?

It was after midnight when they let her go.

'Do not let your husband's crime turn into something like leaking state secrets,' Deng said she was told. They spoke so seriously. Anyway, I don't understand, but it was just terrifying.

The following afternoon, the post office called to say they had a letter for her. She raced over on her bicycle and tore the envelope open with a knife at home. As expected, it was the official police notice of her husband's arrest.

She finally knew for sure what had happened to Hua.

For the first time in nearly a week, Deng was hungry. She sat down to a bowl of her mother's steaming rice porridge and fried green vegetables.

The police called again and came by to take her to the village committee office. The Communist Party secretary of the village, a local official and a policeman began asking about her family. They took photographs of her text message exchanges with The Associated Press. They told her Hua was in serious trouble and advised her to make smart decisions.

They offered to help her financially, and to provide good health care to her mother, who suffers from serious diabetes. They said her home would finally get the running water her family had long sought, which would mean Deng could stop hauling well water upstairs in buckets.

The more these men talked, the more she grieved, until she burst. The men watched as she cried - for her sick mother, her children, her isolation, her sudden poverty, her lost husband.

She went home calm and determined.

What she had to do was simple: Her husband needed clothing and food. She would deliver them.

I will not be afraid, she said, using a Chinese expression, I dare to climb a mountain of swords or plunge into a sea of flames.

Buying underwear for other people's husbands

Deng packed a single black backpack and the next morning boarded a standing-room-only train with her son and sister-in-law for the 12-hour journey to Ganzhou, where her husband and his two colleagues were being held on allegations of using secret recording devices to disrupt Huajian's business. It was folly making a 3-year-old stand up through the night, but she figured they could camp out in the canteen car and pick on fried cucumber with pork while the child slept. His sister stayed with Hua's parents.

Eight days after Hua's disappearance, Deng arrived in Ganzhou, a relatively poor Chinese city better known for oranges than factories that sits astride a lazy brown river in southeastern China's Jiangxi province. One of its biggest corporate players is Huajian, the company that Hua, Li and Su had been investigating.

The shoe factory where the alleged labor violations occurred sits in a growing complex of Huajian buildings, all painted the same pale blue, including rows of Huajian apartment towers, a Huajian innovation park, a Huajian school and a Huajian swimming pool.

The first thing Deng did when she arrived was install her son and sister-in-law in a small hotel room with cheery yellow walls. Then she hired a lawyer. Then she went shopping.

She figured Hua's colleagues could also use a few things, but she agonized over what sizes to buy for the men. Li Zhao was so big she worried even XL wouldn't fit. Su Heng she'd never set eyes on. Medium seemed like a safe bet.

I've never bought underwear for other people's husbands, Deng said, laughing.

Two hours later, she stumbled out in her high wedge sandals, tripping under the weight of three pairs of slippers, six pairs of shorts, six T-shirts, three towels and nine pairs of underwear. It cost 450 yuan ($66), nearly half of her rainy day fund.

She brought everything back to the detention center. She didn't know the center's rules and came at the wrong time, and she didn't know she had to label everything. Worse, they forbade rope and made her pull the string out of the waistband of all the men's shorts. She worried they would all fall down. She put money on meal cards for the three men.

Summer rains washed across Ganzhou, leaving the air hot and heavy. There was no air conditioning at the detention center. When the lawyer Deng had hired, Wen Yu, came out, his hair was wet with sweat. He'd been waiting since 9 a.m. to meet Hua and sometime after 5 p.m. was finally permitted to see him for one minute, just long enough to introduce himself. Deng was not allowed to visit her husband and was anxious for news.

We need to try again tomorrow, Wen said.

Police from her hometown, Deng learned, had visited Hua in jail, urging him to write a letter telling his wife to stop talking with the foreign media. Police also threatened her brother-in-law, she said.

Wen was ordered not to speak with foreign reporters and he stopped granting interviews. On Tuesday, police visited the hotel in Ganzhou where Deng was speaking with AP journalists, sending a maid up to knock on the door, effectively cutting short the interview.

Police in Ganzhou and Jiangxi, as well as in Deng's hometown could not be reached immediately for comment.

Chinese state-run media began publishing photos of the evidence collected against her husband and his colleagues, claiming they had all confessed.

But Deng still talked. The more they tried to stop her, the more she wanted to speak.

She talked so much her mouth dried out and her voice grew raspy.

What, she wondered, was so threatening about her story?

I have an unknown tenacity, she said.

Lawyer hired, underwear delivered, by Wednesday it was time to go home.

I want to stay here, Bo Bo said. I don't want to go home.

Here, I bought you snacks, chips and chicken, Deng said. Come on, put your shoes on.

A 10-minute taxi ride later, Deng hoisted Bo Bo to her hip and stepped through a metal gate with her sister-in-law into the cool blue of the train station. She wiped her son's nose, gave him water and played with him on the grimy floor while they waited.

Deng hoped to rest when she got home, but expected the police would be there again for her in the morning and maybe the afternoon too, reminding her they were there, watching. She was not afraid. China is a country of laws, she believed, and as long as she didn't break them, nothing bad would happen.

Then again, there was her husband, who she believed had done nothing wrong and was at that very moment in jail, eating bad food and sleeping by a plastic bucket used as a toilet by 20 men who had been ordered not to speak to him. At least he hadn't been beaten.

At 1:12 p.m., the green train to Xiangyang city eased forward, carrying Deng and her son off to an uncertain future.
President Donald Trump's choice to replace ousted FBI Director James Comey is a former federal prosecutor who switched to defending powerful clients like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom he once counted as a Justice Department colleague.

While Christopher Wray earned high marks from past associates for his national security experience and legal acumen, hes likely to face tough questions about his independence given the circumstances surrounding Comey's dismissal, which came after a series of fraught conversations he had with Trump about the FBI probe into his campaigns ties to Russia.

The White House had initially pinned Comey's May 9 firing largely on his handling of the 2016 Clinton private email server investigation, but Trump later said he had the Russia probe in mind when he decided to dismiss the FBI director.

Trump announced his intention to choose Wray in a tweet Wednesday morning, calling him "a man of impeccable credentials." The Justice Department later released an endorsement of the nomination by several former department officials.

Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, praised Wray for his "solid credentials." He tweeted that the "job will require independence and guts to stand up to political interference."

Retired FBI agent David Gomez said the timing of the announcement was clearly meant to "deflect attention from Comey's testimony," but added: "I don't think it's a bad choice or political choice."

Early years

Wray, 50, has had a distinguished career as a federal prosecutor and private lawyer. After graduating from Yale University and Yale Law School in 1992, he returned to his native Atlanta to briefly work for the King & Spalding law firm, before spending eight years as a federal prosecutor in the city and later as a senior Justice Department official in Washington.

In 2003, former President George W. Bush tapped him as assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division, a position that brought him under Comey, then the Department's No. 2 official, and above Christie, then U.S. Attorney for the state of New Jersey. While leading the division, Wray oversaw the federal investigation into the collapse of energy giant Enron Corporation and other fraud cases.

With jurisdiction over counterterrorism and counter-intelligence matters, working in the division gave Wray extensive national security experience, said Alice Fisher, who succeeded Wray as assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division and was under consideration for the FBI director's job.

"Even before that, in his other role in the department and in the deputy attorney general's office, Chris was right there on 9/11 with many of us, working on national security every day for weeks and months on end," said Fisher, now a partner at Latham & Watkins.

But working in the Justice Department in the wake of the attacks of 9/11 also put Wray in the position of defending controversial Bush administration policies, including the Patriot Act's provision on providing material support for terrorism, which was roundly criticized by rights organizations.

Wray's support for Bush policies had its limits. In 2004, he came to the support of Comey after Comey threatened to resign over his refusal to approve parts of a controversial domestic wiretapping program, according to a 2013 Washingtonian report.

Back to beginning

The two officials left the Justice Department for private practice around the same time in 2005, with Wray returning to King & Spalding as the law firm was embarking on an international expansion that led to the opening of offices in more than 17 countries, including Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

While King & Spalding's bio of Wray credits him with representing large corporations under federal investigation, Wray's representation of Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, during the so-called Bridgegate investigation stands out as a high-profile political case likely to draw renewed scrutiny.

Christie was never charged in the case, but last year two of his former associates were sentenced to prison. Randy Mastro, a partner at Gibson Dunn who represented the governor's office during the investigation, said Wray "distinguished himself in the representation."

"He knows the bureau, he knows the Department of Justice, he has all the attributes of professionalism, personal integrity and honor that one would want to see in an FBI director," Mastro said.

Wray's current party affiliation is unknown, but in 2001 he was registered as a Republican in Maryland and he's contributed almost exclusively to Republican candidates.

In December, he joined a group of other former assistant attorneys general to endorse Trump's nomination of Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

Wray is not the first King & Spalding partner to be picked by Trump for a senior position. In April, Trump appointed Gilbert Kaplan to head the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration. Another partner, Stephen Vaughn, serves as the general counsel to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

The firms employees and partners gave $537,378 in campaign donations to national political candidates during the 2016 election cycle, including $87,967 to Clinton and $3,200 to Trump, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Lynn Davis contributed to this report.
James Comey, who served as the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as at the center of the highly charged investigation into possible collaboration between President Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies  including the FBI  concluded in January that Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of helping Trump win the presidency.

Comey, a former Republican, was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2013 and fired by Trump on May 9, 2017. By Trumps own admission, an FBI investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Russia was on the presidents mind when he decided to dismiss Comey.

Praised for his independence and integrity, Comey spent three decades in law enforcement and has been no stranger to controversy.

Some career highlights:

OPPOSED SECRET SPY PROGRAM IN STANDOFF WITH BUSH OFFICIALS

Before being fired by Trump, Comey was perhaps best known for a remarkable 2004 standoff with top officials in the George W. Bush administration over a federal domestic surveillance program.

As the deputy attorney general, Comey rushed to the hospital bed of Attorney General John Ashcroft to physically stop White House officials in their bid to get Ashcroft to reauthorize a secret no-warrant wiretapping program.

Comey described the incident in 2007 testimony to Congress, explaining that he believed the spy program put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was legally questionable.

When he learned that Andrew Card, the president's chief of staff, and Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel, were heading to Ashcroft's hospital room despite his wife's instructions that there be no visitors, Comey told Congress, Comey beat them there and watched as Ashcroft turned them away.

"That night was probably the most difficult night of my professional life," Comey said.

PUBLICLY DISAGREED WITH OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OVER POLICE CONDUCT

Comey irritated Obama officials after he suggested last year that increases in violent crime across the country could be fueled in part by anxiety among law enforcement officers who increasingly fear being recorded by citizens.

Reiterating that view in May, Comey said officers may hesitate to get out of their patrol vehicles to interact with people. His comments came in the wake of episodes of police violence, several against African-Americans, that spurred outcry and in some cases riots.

"I'm not against videotaping police, I'm not against scrutiny. We get better that way," Comey said. "What I'm asking is, is there something unintentional affecting our communities that is contributing to the spike in violent crime?"

That position put him at odds with his boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, as well as the White House, which said the remarks lacked evidence and could undermine their efforts to revamp the criminal justice system.

ANGERED TECH INDUSTRY OVER ACCESS TO TERROR SUSPECT'S IPHONE

The FBI director clashed with the technology industry in a legal battle over access to the work-issued iPhone of San Bernardino, California, gunman Syed Farook.

As the public face of the federal government, Comey went to court in 2016 to force Apple Inc. to help it open the locked iPhone of Farook after the California attack in December 2015, which killed 14 people. Farook and his wife died in a gun battle with police.

Apple accused the government in court filings of seeking "dangerous power," a high-stakes dispute pitting national security against digital privacy. Comey said the issue was the "hardest question I've seen in government."

A federal magistrate granted Comey's request, but the court fight ended weeks later when an unidentified third party came forward with a solution to access the device.

DECLINED TO RECOMMEND CHARGES OVER CLINTON EMAILS

Comey received criticism from both parties over the FBI's handling of the yearlong investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email account as secretary of state. Clinton was the Democratic nominee  and Trumps main opponent  in the 2016 election.

Comey announced in July that the FBI was recommending no criminal charges for Clinton's handling of highly classified material in a private email account. That drew the dismay of Republicans in a presidential election year, who said the FBI director may have unnecessarily rushed a decision without a more complete airing of the evidence.

Comey in his announcement also harshly criticized Clinton's "extremely careless" behavior, irritating Democrats who said the comments were unwarranted since she was not being charged.

REOPENED INVESTIGATION INTO CLINTON EMAILS

Two weeks before the 2016 election, Comey sent a letter to members of Congress notifying them that the FBI was reviewing a newly discovered collection of emails found on electronic devices owned by the husband of a top Clinton aide.

Shortly before Election Day, Comey announced the new emails did not alter the FBIs conclusion that Clinton should not be charged.

Some Democrats  including Clinton  say Comeys last-minute reopening of the email probe caused her to lose the election.
Fired FBI Director James Comey told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that President Donald Trump expected him to pledge his loyalty and urged him to drop the investigation into links between his aides and Russian officials.

Trump ousted Comey last month, saying he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he decided to dismiss the chief of the country's top criminal investigative agency while he was leading its Russia probe. Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee marked his first public comments about the nine conversations he said he had with the president in the months before he was fired  three face-to-face meetings and six phone calls.

He told lawmakers he was confused by various explanations that Trump and his aides gave for his ouster and said they "chose to defame me" for his performance as the FBI chief by claiming -- wrongly in his view -- that the agency was in disarray.



WATCH: Comey opening statement on his firing

Ultimately, Comey said of Trump, "I take him at his word," that he was fired because of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ongoing Russia investigation.

Comey said it is the "high confident judgment" of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the campaign to help Trump defeat his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "It's not a close call."

In his opening written statement, Comey recounted how at a White House dinner in January shortly after Trump assumed power, the president told him, "'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didnt move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence."

WATCH: Comey on Trump's loyalty request



The committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, called Trump's comments, as recounted by Comey, "very disturbing."



In another passage, Comey testified that Trump asked him on February 14 to "let go" of the investigation into Michael Flynn, who had been fired as Trump's national security adviser the previous day for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to Washington. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. Comey quoted Trump as saying, He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comey acknowledged under questioning that Trump did not order him to stop the investigation of Flynn's connections with Russia, but said, "I took it as direction. This is what he wanted to me to do," even though Comey said he did not end the probe.

Comey said he was "so stunned" by Trump's request to "let go" of the investigation of Flynn that he did not think at the time to tell Trump, "Mr. President, that's wrong."

He said FBI colleagues were as "shocked and troubled as I was" by Trump's comments urging an end to the probe of Flynn.

Comey said that in a March 30 phone call, Trump "described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. ... He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.' I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problem this was causing him."

WATCH: Comey on FBI's work, leadership



In his statement, Comey described five of his conversations with Trump. Lawmakers are likely to ask him about the other four contacts Comey said he had with the president. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the president, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the committee, Comey wrote in his seven-page statement.

After Comey's opening statement was released Wednesday, Trumps lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, offered the presidents interpretation of Comeys testimony: The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.

WATCH: Washington DC area resident on attending Comey testimony

WATCH: Tourist on why he's attending Comey testimony



Talk of obstruction of justice

Comey said he told Trump three times that he was not personally under investigation, but some opposition Democrats now say that Trump's requests to Comey to drop the Russia probe amounts to obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense similar to that leading to the 1974 resignation of former President Richard Nixon.

Kasowitz did not address any of Comey's claims that Trump attempted to curb the FBI's Russia investigation.

Within days of Comey's firing, Trump's Justice Department, over his objections, named a special counsel, Robert Mueller, another former Federal Bureau of Investigation director, to lead the criminal investigation into all aspects of Russia's meddling in the election aimed at helping Trump defeat former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Trump said at the time that thinks Mueller's appointment "hurts our country terribly, because it shows we're a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country."

Trump, a New York real estate mogul turned Republican politician, has been dismissive of the Russia probes, calling them "a witch hunt" and saying they are an excuse by Democrats to explain Clinton's stunning upset loss in the November election. He has denied any collusion with Russian officials.

Comey's Capitol Hill testimony is one of the biggest congressional hearings in years in Washington. Broadcast television networks, in an unusual occurrence, are dropping their daytime programming schedule to air his testimony. Some bars in Washington are opening early to show it, offering Russian-themed drinks to patrons.



WATCH: What does obstruction of justice mean?
The recently fired director of the FBI, James Comey, said on Capitol Hill Thursday that he believed U.S. President Donald Trump was trying to get him to drop an investigation of Trump's former national security adviser, and that White House officials spread "lies, plain and simple" to cover up the reason for his dismissal.

"There's no doubt that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Comey told lawmakers, referring to the widening investigation of Russian influence on last year's U.S. presidential election, which American intelligence agencies have said was an effort by the Kremlin to assist Trump's electoral defeat of his Democratic opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The president's efforts "to change the way the Russia investigation was conducted, that is a big deal," Comey said.

Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was his first chance to speak in public about the meetings and conversations he had with Trump during the months before he was fired. The former head of the nation's largest law-enforcement agency was questioned alternately by Republican and Democratic senators for nearly three hours; the dramatic session was covered live by all major U.S. television networks, and broadcast worldwide.

Russian probe resulted in Comey's firing

Comey said it was and still is the "high confident judgment" of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 campaign. "It's not a close call," he added.

"I know that I was fired because something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was putting pressure" on Trump, Comey testified.

The president's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, told reporters immediately after the Senate hearing that Trump "never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone."

WATCH: Trump lawyer on Comey testimony, investigation

After Comey's abrupt and stunning dismissal last month, Trump and his aides at first said the action was necessary because the Federal Bureau of Investigation was in disarray, and its director had lost the trust of his agents.

Comey said Trump lied and defamed him by that story, and in fact the president himself subsequently admitted the ongoing investigation of Russian influence on U.S. politics was his primary motivation for the firing.

FBI chief's private notes

Comey told how he made meticulous efforts to document his interactions with Trump, whose insistence on private meetings aroused the veteran prosecutor's suspicions. The FBI chief wrote detailed memoranda immediately after each of his talks with Trump, a measure he had never felt obligated to do with previous presidents, and kept those documents in government files.

Comey said he did not distribute his private notes to the attorney general - the U.S. government's top legal official, who supervises the FBI - because Trump's appointee to that post, former Senator Jeff Sessions, was about to recuse himself from the Russian investigation due to his own unpublicized meetings with senior Russian officials.

The Justice Department later issued a statement saying that Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation only because he was involved in President Trump's campaign. In a statement late Thursday, a spokesman said, "It was for that reason, and that reason alone"' that Sessions decided to step aside from the probe.



The president floated the notion that there was a recording of his most sensitive conversation with Comey, and that it would embarrass the FBI chief.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said, because he felt his contemporaneous notes accurately reflected what happened. In fact, no tapes have surfaced.

High-level 'leak' made headlines

Comey testified he realized that a special counsel would have to be appointed to pursue the widening investigation of Russian influences on U.S. officials, so he took the extraordinary step of "leaking" some of his private notes - passing them to a confidant at a university in New York, who in turn relayed the information to a reporter for The New York Times. Unofficially releasing information in this way is not uncommon in Washington, but rarely, if ever, at such high levels of government.

Comey's highly unorthodox tactic worked, however, because a respected former FBI director, Robert Mueller, was named to head the probe of Russian influence on U.S. politics. Mueller's team has been given Comey's private notes, the ex-director said.

Asked whether he felt Trump had obstructed justice by his actions since taking office this year, Comey deflected those queries, saying such questions should go to Mueller, the special counsel.

Obstruction of justice is a federal crime and an impeachable offense; such a charge was being discussed at the time Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, following the Watergate political burglary scandal.

In his opening written statement, Comey recounted how at a White House dinner in January, shortly after Trump assumed power, the president told him, " 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didnt move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence."

WATCH: Comey on request to drop Flynn investigation

Secret testimony afterwards

The committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, said Trump's comments, as recounted by Comey, were "very disturbing."

Later Thursday the Senate Intelligence Committee reconvened in closed session to hear more from Comey, on subjects that he said should not be discussed in public. Senators met in a portion of the U.S. Capitol configured as a "secure compartmented information facility," built to resist eavesdropping.

Despite his well-known preference for posting quick messages on Twitter, Trump was silent during the Senate hearing Thursday. The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., instead sent out a series of notes criticizing Comey, and the White House deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told reporters: "I can definitively say the president is not a liar."

Trump: 'Let Flynn go'

Comey said Trump asked him on February 14 to "let go" of the FBI's investigation of Michael Flynn, a retired general who had been fired as Trump's national security adviser the previous day, reputedly for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about Flynn's contacts with Russia's ambassador to Washington.

I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Comey quoted Trump as saying. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Trump did not explicitly order him to stop the investigation of Flynn's connections with Russia, Comey said, but "I took it as direction. This is what he wanted to me to do."

Still the FBI chief at the time, Comey said he was "so stunned" by Trump's request to go easy on Flynn that he did not think to say, "Mr. President, that's wrong."

He said FBI colleagues were as "shocked and troubled as I was" by Trump's comments urging an end to the probe of Flynn.

In a March 30 phone call, Trump "described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country," Comey said. "...He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.' I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problem this was causing him."
After three Islamist attacks in Britain in as many months, many voters in the town of Corby say security is now their major concern for Thursdays election  and they see both Prime Minister Theresa May and her Labour challenger as weak.

A once thriving steel town in central England, Corby has backed the winning party in every British general election since 1983, and if Labour is to upset opinion polls that point to victory for Mays Conservatives, this is the kind of parliamentary seat it needs to take.

The town overwhelmingly backed leaving the European Union in last years referendum, following a campaign when immigration became a central issue.

While Brexit negotiations have yet even to begin, a number of Corby residents told Reuters that national security has become their main worry since the militant attacks in London and Manchester, and some still link it to the immigration question.

Neither Corbyn nor May

Voters were unimpressed with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran, anti-war campaigner who the Conservatives have tried to paint as soft on fighting terrorism.

Corbyn has invited supporters of the Palestinian group Hamas to parliament, and advocated dialogue with Irish republicans who fought British forces in northern Ireland until the late 1990s, although he says he condemns political violence by all sides.

Local residents, however, have little time for May either, even though the Conservatives have traditionally portrayed themselves as the party of law and order.

Lesser of two evils

I am voting Conservative because I would never vote for Jeremy Corbyn, but May is also very weak on terrorism and is an indecisive leader without principles, said Claire Soltzed, 61, who owns a boutique shop in the towns shopping mall. In no way am I a May supporter, but she is the lesser of two evils.

The Corby parliamentary constituency has been hotly contested by the two main parties, changing hands five times since 1983. In 2015, the Conservatives won it by 2,412 votes and Labour has made it a top target this time round.

In worrying increasingly about national security, Corby residents appear broadly typical of voters across Britain. After Saturdays attack in London in which eight people died, an Opinium poll showed 11 percent of respondents said anti-terrorism policy would influence their vote, up from just 2 percent last week.

Britain under attack

Once a destination for Scots who moved south to work in Corbys huge steelworks, large numbers of eastern European immigrants from countries such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have arrived in the past decade.

The surrounding rural areas remain affluent, but the steelworks have closed, to be replaced by retail chains and indoor shopping centers. Corbys main shopping street is now lined with discount stores.

The mix of immigration and the recent attacks now looms large for locals, although two of the three recent attacks were staged by British-born militants.

I hate Corbyn, he is a terrorist sympathizer, said taxi driver Phil Andrews, who voted for the anti-EU U.K. Independence Party in 2015 but will be backing the Conservatives this time.

I voted for Brexit, I lived here for all my life and I think immigration is a big issue in this election. At one point Corby was called little Scotland, now it is called little Poland.

Butcher Susan Short, in her 50s, said: My main issue is terror, there are a lot of immigrants in the U.K. and I worry about more terrorism.

Narrow lead for May

Since May called the snap election in April, her lead in the polls has narrowed from more than 20 percentage points to single figures, suggesting that instead of a landslide, she might even struggle to win an overall parliamentary majority.

Mays own ratings have fallen significantly too and her record on security has come in for criticism as police numbers were reduced every year under her watch as interior minister from 2010-2016.

I do not like Theresa May. The last few weeks have shown how weak she is on terrorism, said Mary Talbot, in her mid 50s, who works in a convenience store in Corby. I did not think that it was a main issue until the last few weeks and now I am worried about my kids and about safety. May has cut police officers and made our country less secure.

William Wagner, in his 40s, who did voluntary work in the town, said he was still undecided on his vote but he was not going to back the Conservatives.

I hate Theresa May, he said. My main issue is terrorism. We need to stop it right away.

Mays theme throughout the campaign has been that she would provide strong, stable leadership in contrast to Corbyn. Only last year he had to fend off a challenge to his leadership by lawmakers in his own party who thought he was not up to the job.

Anthony Smith, a 21-year-old a bar supervisor who supports Brexit, dismissed Mays pitch for power.

She says one thing and then says something completely different. Shes making promises she cant keep, he said.

Samantha Turner, 55, works in a corner shop, was equally scathing of Corbyn.

I am not voting Labour for the first time in a while, she said. Corbyn is weak and I do not trust him for the future of my kids. He will not make a good deal for Brexit.
A northern Nigerian state's governor on Wednesday ordered the arrest of activists for demanding the eviction of eastern Igbo people, amid rising tensions between ethnic groups that hark back to the country's Biafra civil war.

Secessionist feeling has simmered in Nigeria's east since the Biafra separatist rebellion, a mainly Christian Igbo movement, tipped the country into a civil war from 1967 to 1970 that killed an estimated 1 million people.



Since 2015, those sentiments have heightened, spurred by a lack of economic development and fears of Islamic encroachment, often blamed on the government of Muslim President Muhammadu Buhari. That has in turn sparked ill will towards secessionists, especially from northern Muslims.



"All Igbos currently residing in any part of northern Nigeria are hereby served notice to relocate within three months and all northerners residing in the East are advised likewise," a spokesman for a movement called the Northern Youth Groups said on Tuesday in the northern city of Kaduna.



He called for "sustained, coordinated campaigns" to remove Igbo people from the region.



The Northern Youth Groups coalition is made up of organizations who claim to promote the interests of the region.



The widespread slaughter 51 years ago of Igbos living in Nigeria's north helped spur the Biafran secession from 1967-70, which led to war against Nigeria's central government and a famine in which millions died.



Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Tuesday ordered the arrest of the signatories to the Northern Youth Group statement, condemning their "inciting" and "hate speech."



The Kaduna government "assures every resident of our state that their constitutional and human rights to live peacefully and own property wherever they choose is sacrosanct," a spokesman for El-Rufai said in a statement.



Nigeria has in recent years seen a rise in other ethno-religious conflicts, particularly deadly clashes between Muslim herders and Christian farmers, partly over land use, in the region known as the Middle Belt.
On this day in 1949, a report by the Federal Bureau of Investigation named well-known Hollywood figures as members of the Communist Party, setting off a period of paranoia known as the Red Scare Two.

Among those on the reports list were Frederic March, John Garfield, Paul Muni, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Robeson, and the writer Dorothy Parker.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was cooperating with the House Un-American Activities Committee to find and out so-called Hollywood subversives.

In 1947, Congress cited 10 Hollywood writers and directors for contempt because they refused to divulge their political leanings or name others who might be communists. The Hollywood Ten, as they came to be known, were later convicted and sent to prison for varying terms.

John Berry, who directed the documentary below, released in 1950, was himself blacklisted.

The FBI report relied on accusations made by confidential informants, supplemented with analysis later widely viewed as highly questionable.

McCarthyism



Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin led the charge of stoking fears that communism was spreading in the United States. He held hearings, and claimed that he personally had the names of dozens of American communists working in the government.



The senator made allegations without presenting evidence, smearing reputations and ruining careers.

Have you no sense of decency, sir?



In the spring of 1954, McCarthy picked a fight with the U.S. Army, charging lax security at a top-secret army facility.



The army hired Boston lawyer Joseph Welch to fight the accusation.



At a session on June 9, 1954, McCarthy charged that one of Welch's attorneys had ties to a communist organization.



In front of a live and stunned television audience, Welch lashed out, questioning the senators moral compass.

That exchange ended McCarthys career. He was censured by his Senate colleagues, ostracized by his party, and ignored by the press. McCarthy died three years later at the age of 48.
Naya Shakti flays govt decision to award Budhi Gandaki Project to Chinese company

Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Nepal has said that the decision of Pushpa Kamal Dahal-led government to award the contract to construct Budhi Gandaki Hydropower Project to Chinas Gezhouba Group Corporation was against the nations interest.
From a Peruvian trout farm manager to the head of an Indonesian meatball company, a list of 500 women entrepreneurs in emerging markets was launched Thursday to challenge the stereotype of a typical company boss and inspire women globally.

The Foundation 500 list features the portraits and careers of 500 female entrepreneurs in 11 emerging markets where women are often refused the same access to education, financial services and bank loans as men.

The list, an initiative of humanitarian agency CARE and the nonprofit H&M Foundation, mirrors the Fortune 500 list of U.S. companies but highlights unusual chief executives, ranging from a Zambian woman who set up a mobile drug store to a woman in Jordan who set up a temporary tattoo studio.

Create role models

Karl-Johan Persson, CEO of Swedish retailer H&M, said the project was designed to create role models for women in emerging markets and challenging perceptions in developed countries of business leaders.

The entrepreneur is our times hero and a role model for many young but the picture given of who is an entrepreneur is still very homogenous and many probably associate it to men from the startup world, Persson said in an email.

He said all the women in the list had made an incredible effort.

But one that stands out to me is Philomene Tia, a multi-entrepreneur from the Ivory Coast who has overcome setbacks such as war and being a refugee, and who has, in spite of it, always returned to the entrepreneurship to create a better future and a strong voice in society.

Buses, fish and tattoos

Tia is the owner of a bus company in the Ivory Coast, a chain of beverage stores, a hotel complex, and a cattle breeding operation.

I often tell other women that it is the force inside you and your brains that will bring you wherever you want to go. I mean, I started with nothing and I dont even speak proper French, but look at me now, she was quoted on the projects website www.foundation500.com.

The women featured are from Indonesia, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, Jordan, Zambia, Burundi, the Ivory Coast and Yemen.

One of the women portrayed is Andrea Gala, 20, a trout farm manager in Peru and president of the women-only Trout Producers Association.

This business has worked out so well for us now we dont depend on our fields anymore, which is hard work and often badly paid, Gala said in a report on the project.

With the association we want to open a restaurant one day, next to the trout farm, so we can attract more visitors. We want to turn the area into a tourist zone, where people can come and relax and enjoy our restaurant with trout-based dishes.

The H&M Foundation, privately funded by the Persson family that founded retailer H&M, said this was part of a womens empowerment program started with CARE in 2014 in Latin America, Asia and Africa.

As part of this project H&M Foundation Manager Diana Amini said about 100,000 women in 20 countries had received between 2,000-15,000 euros in seed capital and skills training to start and expand businesses.

In Burundi, the average rate of increase in income among women in the program was 203 percent in the three years to the end of 2016, she said.
A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix that the famous architect designed for his son and was saved from demolition by its current owner was donated Thursday to the architecture school that Wright founded.

Owner Zach Rawling announced that he is giving the David and Gladys Wright House to the School of Architecture at Taliesin, formerly known as the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. The announcement came on the iconic architect's 150th birthday.

Nestled at the base of Camelback Mountain, the house is constructed in the form of a spiral that appears to rise from the ground and offers 360-degree views of Camelback and other mountains that loom over the city.

The house, completed in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, said Aaron Betsky, the school's dean. The Guggenheim Museum is one of Wright's most revered works. The architect designed over 1,000 architectural works, 532 of which were built, and he is regarded by many as one of America's best architects.

Betsky said the donation "will allow us to use that great legacy to be a living laboratory in which we will figure out how to use what Frank Lloyd Wright taught us about living in the desert Southwest, to make the life in this desert and in this community even better in the future."

Rawling bought the Phoenix home in 2012 for $2.4 million to save it from being demolished by its previous owners.

He had plans to restore it and turn it into a museum, but neighbors complained doing so would generate excessive traffic in the well-heeled residential Arcadia area where the house is located.

He said he hopes the donation will engage the community and continue the school's mission.

"I think we're celebrating every aspect of Wright's legacy and hopefully it informs future generations to carry on those ideas," Rawling said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Rawling said the donation is contingent on an organization affiliated with the school raising $7 million for the program by 2020.

The David and Gladys Wright House is considered one of Wright's late career masterworks, said Victor Sidy, the architect in charge of the home's renovation.

Wright called plans for the home "How to Live in the Southwest." His son lived there until he died in 1997, and his daughter-in-law Gladys lived in it until she died in 2008.

The home will be transformed into a place for architecture students to do hands-on restoration and renovation projects.

The school's students currently split their time between a Wright house in Wisconsin and another in the Scottsdale suburb of Phoenix.

Those living at David and Gladys Wright House will work on projects like correcting leaks in the ceiling and corrosion in some metal work. Students will also restore an old pool.

The school plans to have 24 students at the house starting in the fall. Visitors will be allowed when the school holds educational tours and lectures.

"It's definitely one of those buildings that is worth visiting to truly understand," Sidy said.
The European Union must compromise if it wants to reach a trade accord with South American trade bloc Mercosur, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a news conference on Thursday after a meeting with Argentine President Mauricio Macri.

Merkel said German agriculture had its own interests, but Germany supported Argentina's push to reach a trade deal with the EU quickly. She said "great progress" had already been made.

"Negotiating a free trade agreement is always a difficult matter. And Germany is not always an easy partner," Merkel told reporters.

"If there is a will to sign such an agreement ... then we must also make compromises."

Merkel said such compromises would have to be carefully negotiated and would likely be painful for both sides.

"There is certainly still work to do, but I am convinced that we should take on this task," she said.

Argentine Foreign Minister Susana Malcorra and EU ambassador to Brazil Joao Cravinho on Monday proposed a 2017 target for reaching a trade agreement.

Malcorra said the retreat of the United States from trade talks had opened a window for the European Union to become a strong player in multilateral, region-to-region accords.

Mercosur, which also includes Uruguay and Paraguay, began negotiations with the European Union in 1999, broke them off in 2004 and resumed talks again in 2010.

Macri told reporters that Mercosur was committed to a deal regardless of political turmoil in Brazil, and said he thought protectionism in Europe was a bigger hurdle to be overcome.

"Brazil is perfectly aligned with this idea, we share it with Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. We see it as an opportunity to reach an agreement with the European Union after more than 20 years of these conversations," Macri said.

"In this sense I am very optimistic. I believe Chancellor Merkel will have more work with protectionist themes against the agricultural measures than we will have within Mercosur."

Asked about U.S. President Donald Trump's push for a more isolationist policy, Merkel said such an approach could bring short-term gains, but Argentina's example showed that it was not fruitful in the longer term.

Merkel, accompanied by a delegation of German business executives, welcomed Argentina's current more open policies and said Germany could be a good partner for Argentina as it sought to rebuild its infrastructure and modernize.
After playing a major role in Indonesian politics by influencing the Jakarta election, hard-line Islamist groups may have hit an impasse.

Although they were allowed broad leverage to organize and demonstrate across Indonesia in the past year, an effort to replicate their success outside Jakarta fell flat, and the government has taken measures to hamper two major hard-line groups.

And a new survey suggests most Indonesians dont know about some major Islamist groups, much less support them, both domestic ones and global organizations like the so-called Islamic State (IS).

Federal crackdown

Indonesias government has taken a pointed stand against the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), the hard-line group that organized last years anti-Ahok rallies and acts as Indonesias unofficial moral police by helping activities like recent anti-gay raids.

Jakarta police issued a warrant for the arrest of FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab, who is in Saudi Arabia, on a pornography charge linked to his sexting scandal with a female social activist.

Beyond FPI, Indonesian Security Minister Wiranto also announced that the state would ban the radical Islamist group Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) because its goals run counter to the pluralistic state ideology known as Pancasila. After Wirantos announcement, Indonesia President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo repeated a promise to clobber radical groups that threaten Pancasila.

The crackdown on Rizieq Shihab and Hizbut Tahrir  looks to me like a response from the government to the anti-Ahok mobilization, said William Liddle, an Indonesian politics scholar at Ohio State University. Ahok was the Chinese Christian Jakarta governor who was the target of Islamist protests late last year, which played a role in his resounding defeat in his re-election bid last month.

The next Jakarta governor, Anies Baswedan, openly allied with FPI in his campaign, which seemed to give the group a newfound legitimacy. But FPIs mandate may be narrowing. When FPI tried to organize a similar demonstration against the Christian governor of West Kalimantan, Cornelis, who vowed to ban extremists from his province, the result was anticlimactic, with just a few thousand people in attendance.

One reason is that FPI was up against a more formidable enemy than Chinese Indonesians, a long downtrodden minority; Cornelis is an indigenous Dayak person, a group with a history of using lethal violence in sectarian conflict.

So hard-line groups such as FPI are by no means all-powerful, or even broadly effective outside the specific Jakarta election context.

The cynical support of secular elites was key to mobilizing opposition to Ahok. Without that support, FPI struggled, said Aaron Connelly, a research fellow at the Lowy Institute.

Indonesian attitudes on Islamist groups

A recent poll on extremist groups from the Jakarta-based Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting found that more than 66 percent of the 1,350 adults polled nationwide had heard of IS. Of the 66.4 percent who had heard of IS, 90 percent viewed IS as a threat to the country and even more, 92.9 percent, favored banning the group in Indonesia, according to the May 14-20 survey.

Two years ago, a Pew Research Center poll found 79 percent of Indonesians had unfavorable opinions of IS, and only 4 percent favored the group. That survey was conducted in 11 countries with significant Muslim populations, including several in the Middle East and Africa.

The new survey, however, showed that 10 percent of those who had heard of IS do not see IS as a threat to Indonesia, and many have never heard of the group.

So aside from hard-line groups, it remains to be seen exactly where Indonesians, who are 87 percent Muslim, stand on Islamist politics and Muslim leadership.

Last year, researchers Elizabeth Pisani and Michael Buehler analyzed the roughly 440 sharia-inspired bylaws across Indonesia, and found that Islamic legislation did not translate into re-election votes for the politicians that advocated them.

Extremism threat still small

Beyond perceptions of extremism, the threat of actual violent extremism in Indonesia remains low. There was a suicide bombing in an East Jakarta train station last month that killed three police officers, but it was perhaps most notable for the fact that it caused fatalities.

The current generation of Indonesian terrorists are neither many nor effective: three recent suicide attacks resulted in only the death of the bomber, according to a 2016 report from the Economist Intelligence Unit. Indonesia also has a famously capable counterterrorism program, particularly the elite Detachment 88 squad formed after the 2002 Bali bombings.

Indonesian militants today largely lack the capacity to inflict much damage, said Nava Nuraniyah, of the Institute for Policy Analysis and Conflict. Unlike the [Al Qaeda affiliated] Jemaah Islamiyah generation, they were never trained abroad  learning bomb making from the internet could only take them so far.

Reporting for this story was made possible with a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
Losing the 2016 presidential election was pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to, Hillary Clinton told graduates of Medgar Evers College on Thursday.



But Clinton said that setback pales in comparison to the heartbreak endured by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain black civil rights leader for whom the Brooklyn college is named.



Clinton urged the graduates to follow the example of Evers, who was assassinated in 1963, and of Evers-Williams, who has continued to fight for civil rights for more than 50 years.



Never let anyone silence your voice, Clinton said. Medgar Evers faced constant threats because of his work. His house was firebombed by white supremacists. But he refused to back down.



Clinton, a Democrat who served as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, did not mention Republican President Donald Trump by name but criticized his policies including the travel ban affecting citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.



She noted that graduate Yahya Mused worked in a deli across the street from Medgar Evers College after arriving in New York from Yemen, one of the countries targeted by the travel ban.



He made sandwiches for students and professors. And today he's graduating with honors, Clinton said. I'm certainly glad he wasn't banned from America.



Clinton spoke as former FBI director James Comey was telling Senate members in sworn testimony that Trump had fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia's role in the election. Clinton made no mention of Comey.



Medgar Evers College is part of the public City University of New York system, the largest urban university in the United States.



Clinton said she visited the Medgar Evers campus last year and was asked if she would come back and speak at commencement.



I said yes, she said. Now, I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I'm just as happy to be here anyway!
Indonesia, the worlds biggest archipelago has called for the United Nations to establish illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, known under its acronym of IUUF, as a transnational crime. The proposal has the support of the president of the U.N. General Assembly but theres still a long way to go before member countries adopt it. Patsy Widakuswara reports from the U.N. headquarters in New York.
U.S. intelligence chiefs are making a strong push, backed by the White House, to reauthorize a controversial law that allows U.S. spy agencies to eavesdrop on foreign electronic communications.

During a Senate hearing that was largely concerned with the governments ongoing investigations into Russia and possible collusion with members of President Donald Trumps campaign, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats called permanent reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) his top legislative priority.

The law, set to expire at the end of the year, has been criticized repeatedly by privacy advocates who say it allows for the data of millions of U.S. citizens to be swept up in government surveillance.

Fight against terrorism

But Coats downplayed such concerns, calling the law a vital tool in the fight against terrorism.

The purpose of the authority is to give the United States intelligence community the upper hand in trying to avert these types of attacks before they transpire, he said, referring to last months attack in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people.

Coats also argued that the capabilities authorized by the surveillance law have produced a critical stream of intelligence, including information that helped the U.S. track down and ultimately kill the Islamic State terror groups second-in-command in March 2016.

NSA [National Security Agency] used collection, permitted and authorized under Section 702, to collect intelligence on the close associates of Haji Iman, he said, acknowledging the programs role in that effort for the first time.

This collaboration enabled U.S. forces to attempt an apprehension of Haji Iman and two of his associates, Coats added.

Admiral Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, also said the FISA program was vital to gaining an understanding of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Without 702, we could not have produced that level of insight, Rogers said.

Impact on citizens

Still, some lawmakers remain concerned that U.S. officials have been unable to assess the programs impact on citizens who may be inadvertently caught up in collection efforts.

And U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday had no answer for those who demanded to know how many U.S. citizens may have been swept up in the surveillance efforts, a figure Coats said would be impossible to deliver.

You went back on a pledge, and I think it is damaging to the public, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, told Coats. Were going to battle it out in the course of this, because there are a lot of Americans who share our view that security and liberty are not mutually exclusive.

But Richard Burr, a Republican who is the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, said he supports the laws reauthorization, calling it exceptionally critical.

The committees ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, also voiced support, although he cautioned that any reauthorization should ensure there is robust oversight and restrictions to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.
Iraqi Kurdish officials announced Wednesday that Kurds in Iraq's autonomous northern region will hold a referendum on independence on Sept. 25.



Masoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdish regional government, announced the vote on Twitter. Hamin Hawrami, a senior presidential adviser, said on his own Twitter account that the decision follows a meeting of the major Kurdish political parties in Irbil, the region's capital.



The referendum on whether to secede from Iraq will be held in the three governorates that make up the Kurdish region and in the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Iraqi governments but are currently under Kurdish military control.

It is not clear whether a yes vote, which is expected to be the result, will lead to the declaration of independence. The Iraqi government has so far not reacted to the announcement. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in April that he respects the Kurdish right to vote on independence, but he did not think the timing was right for the move.

Relationship with Baghdad strained

Iraq's Kurdish region, with a population of about 5 million, already enjoys a high degree of autonomy, including its own parliament and armed forces. But relations with the central government in Baghdad have nosedived in recent years over a range of issues. These include the sharing of oil revenues and the control of some areas that are technically part of federal Iraq but have come under Kurdish control since 2014 during the war against the Islamic State group.

Neighboring states like Turkey, Syria and Iran that all have large and sometimes restive Kurdish populations have in the past resisted moves towards Kurdish independence. Turkey in particular is strongly suspicious of Kurdish ambitions and sent its own troops into Syria in part to shrink the territorial gains of a U.S.-backed predominantly Kurdish militia that is battling the Islamic State group. Turkey regards its own local Kurdish political movement as a terrorist organization.

Under US protection

Since Iraq's founding, its Kurds have always had a difficult relationship with the central government; a series of revolts have either been crushed, sometimes with great brutality, or ended in unsatisfactory compromises. Since the Gulf War in 1991, the region has enjoyed de facto autonomy under U.S. protection and seen significant economic development largely due to its oil and gas reserves and strong trade links with Turkey.

Relations with the Iraqi government have been difficult since a revenue-sharing agreement over the country's oil resources collapsed in 2015. IS militants routed the Iraqi security forces and took control of much of the country's north in 2014. Since then Kurdish Peshmerga forces have retaken large chunks of IS-held territory, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, leading to more tensions with Baghdad.
Islamic State claimed Thursday that it had killed two captive Chinese nationals in southwestern Pakistan.

The Chinese language instructors, a man and a woman, were kidnapped at gunpoint two weeks ago from Quetta, the capital of violence-hit Baluchistan province.

A second Chinese woman accompanying them escaped the abduction while the gunmen were trying to force them in a vehicle.

There had been no claims of responsibility until Thursday, when the Syria-based terrorist group's global media outlet, the Amaq News Agency, announced the executions.

A provincial government spokesman, when contacted for comments, told VOA that authorities were looking into the reported claims.

The news of the alleged killings of Chinese nationals came hours after Pakistan's military released details of last week's operation against a major IS base in a rugged mountain range near Mastung, a volatile district about 50 kilometers south of Quetta.

Pakistani troops, including commandos, raided what was being described as headquarters of IS operatives in the province and killed 12 "hard-core" militants. The army confirmed that five soldiers were wounded during the three-day operation, which ended Sunday.

Sunni extremists

A military spokesman said the multiple cave complex spread over 10 kilometers was occupied by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Alami, a Sunni extremist organization known for deadly attacks against minority Shi'ite Muslims in Pakistan.

The group used to be an al-Qaida loyalist, but Pakistani officials think it has lately been working to help IS establish a foothold in Pakistan.

IS has taken credit for several recent deadly suicide bombings in Baluchistan and elsewhere in Pakistan. The latest such attack took place last month in Mastung, which killed 25 people.

The military said the suicide bomber had been sent from the IS base that security forces neutralized last week. Pakistani officials have long insisted the Syrian-based terrorist group has no organized presence in the country, but a string of attacks and the army's destruction of the Mastung base contradicted officials' claims, critics say.

'Belt and Road' threatened

The army also released video footage of the IS base it raided. A bomb-making facility was destroyed, and security forces seized suicide vests, grenades, machine guns, sniper rifles, communication systems and 50 kilograms of explosives, according to an official statement.

Baluchistan, particularly its newly expanded deep-water port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, is at the heart of a $60 billion Chinese-funded "Belt and Road" trade and development initiative.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, consists of a network of roads, rail links and power plants. It will ultimately link China's western Xinjiang region to Gwadar, giving Beijing the shortest trade access to the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

But as the work on CPEC-related projects has picked up, the Pakistani province has encountered an uptick in militant and separatist violence.

Thursday's announcement by IS, if confirmed, would increase worries among Chinese experts and workers associated with CPEC-related projects.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry said Thursday that five of the men involved in attacks on the country's parliament and the tomb of former leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were Iranians who had joined the Islamic State group.

The ministry said the men had fought for Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and in Raqqa, Syria, before returning to Iran in August of last year.

Iranian officials also raised the death toll in Wednesday's attack, saying at least 17 people were killed and 40 wounded.

The near simultaneous attacks by machine-gun wielding assailants and two suicide bombers were claimed almost immediately by Islamic State, and could set off a new round of hostilities in an already tense Middle East.

In a new twist, the terror groups Amaq news agency also quickly distributed a 24-second video of the attack showing a bloody, lifeless body inside the parliament complex, and threatened it would strike again.

Iranian security officials late Wednesday confirmed IS involvement, saying the attackers, many disguised as women, were Iranians who had joined the terror group.

Attackers

The officials said Iranian forces killed six of the attackers. Another five suspects were arrested, and two suicide bombers blew themselves up. Officials suggested a third attack had been foiled.

These fireworks have no effect on Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told state-run television, vowing the terrorists will soon be eliminated.

Islamic State and Iran have long been at odds, with IS fighters facing off against Iranian proxies and Iranian-led forces in Syria and Iraq. But Wednesdays attacks marked the first by the Sunni terror group in the majority Shiite country.

U.S. intelligence called the incident the worst domestic terror attack in Tehran since the 1980s, but an official said there have been signs IS was, at least, hoping to strike.

ISIS has expressed a growing interest in conducting attacks on the Iranian homeland, the official said, using an acronym for the militant group.

And pointing to increasingly virulent propaganda over the past six months, the official added it had become clear Iran has been at the top of ISIS enemy list.

Still, Iranian officials immediately placed the ultimate blame on Saudi Arabia.

This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. president and the [Saudi] backward leaders who support terrorists, according to statement by Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack.

Watch: Iranians Support Qataris, Blame US For Tensions in Middle East

World reaction

Condemnation for the attacks poured in from around the world.

The United Nations Security Council said the attacks were barbaric and cowardly and stressed that it condemned the attacks in the strongest terms.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences and offered assistance

In a statement, President Donald Trump said the U.S. grieves and prays for the innocent victims of the attacks, and the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times.

But Trump also warned states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Twitter, criticizing both Trumps words and the U.S. Senate moving closer to new sanctions against Iran.

Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by U.S. clients. Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship, Zarif wrote.

Middle East tensions

Tensions have been running high across the Middle East, where Iran and Saudi Arabia have long vied for prominence and influence, including in Yemen where the rivals have been locked into a proxy war.

The region has further put been on edge following a decision by key Arab powers to cut ties with Qatar, accusing the government in Doha of supporting terror groups and of aligning too closely with Iran.

Some analysts fear Wednesdays terror attack in Tehran could prompt a harsh response by Iran, at home and perhaps even across the region.

At least initially, though, Irans proxy forces have been quiet on social media.

Its reminiscent of when some IS bombs have hit Baghdad or other parts of Iraq, said Phillip Smyth, a University of Maryland researcher who closely follows Shiite militia activity. Often there is little reaction and the groups continue to talk about their efforts.

Some of the groups issued condolences, Smyth said, though one Tehran-based account called it a blueprint of [how] Zionist, Gulf-Saudi, and American terrorism [is exported] to Iran.
Nepal Network Operators Group to hold conference, workshop from June 15

Nepal Network Operators Group (npNOG), a community of network operators that works in Internet Service Providers (ISP), Telecom, Content Providers and other areas of the Internet & Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry in Nepal, is all set to organise npNOG-2 event from June 15th to 18th, 2017.
Developments in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday include President Donald Trump as he discusses infrastructure and his health care plan, while his top intelligence officials are questioned before the Senate Intelligence Committee, hours before fired FBI Director James Comey will be questioned by the same panel; the president also offers to mediate between Gulf nations in conflict.

Comey to Testify Trump Tried to Influence FBI Probe of Russian Election Meddling -- Fired FBI Director Jim Comey will tell a Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday that President Donald Trump asked him for loyalty during White House conversations concerning the agencys handling of investigations into current and former administration officials, including the president himself. The committee released an advance copy of Comey's seven-page opening statement a day before his scheduled appearance. This came shortly after the Director of National Intelligence and other top intelligence officials refused to answer the committee's questions about Comey and the Russia investigation.

Verbatim: Ex-FBI Chief Comey's Recollection of Conversations With President -- Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Comey was leading the agency's investigation of Russian interference in last year's U.S. presidential election when Trump, frustrated by the ongoing probe, fired him last month. Here are several excerpts about Comey's recollections, from his expected opening statement to the Senate panel.

Questions Comey Will Likely Face Before Senate Panel -- Comey, who was fired nearly a month ago by Trump, will testify Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russian meddling in last years U.S. election, as well as any ties between Moscow and Trumps inner circle. Here are some questions that will likely be asked of the former FBI head on Thursday.

Comey Is No Stranger to Controversy -- Comey, who served as the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as at the center of the highly charged investigation into possible collaboration between Trumps presidential campaign and Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies  including the FBI  concluded in January that Russia attempted to meddle in the 2016 presidential election with the aim of helping Trump win the presidency.

Raise Your Right Hand: High Stakes at Congressional Hearings -- This city knows how to do big hearings - even Titanic ones. Dramatic congressional hearings are something of a Washington art form, a rite of democracy carefully crafted for the cameras. A look at past high-drama hearings.

WATCH: Coats is questioned by Senate Intelligence Committee

WATCH: Rogers is questioned by Senate Intelligence Committee

US Intelligence Chiefs Decline to Discuss Conversations with Trump -- Two top U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers they did not feel inappropriately pressured by Trump to publicly disavow possible Russian collusion with Trump aides in last year's election. But Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told the Senate Intelligence Committee they would not discuss details of their White House meetings with Trump in recent months. They refused to answer questions about whether Trump asked them to intervene to curb the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Trump to Nominate Christopher Wray as FBI Director -- Trump has selected Christopher Wray, a former federal prosecutor, as his nominee to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday the nomination is based on Wray's reputation and strong support across the political divide.

US Senate Works on New Iran Sanctions, Possible Russia Sanctions -- The U.S. Senate has moved forward on a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran. The bill advanced on a procedural vote Wednesday. It now will be available for amendments before a final Senate vote.

Trump Offers to Mediate Qatar's Diplomatic Crisis -- In a call with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Trump offered to mediate the country's diplomatic crisis with its neighbors.

North Korea Apparently Test Fires Land-to-Ship Missiles, South Korea Says -- North Korea apparently has test launched several land-to-ship missiles, South Korea says. Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said several projectiles were fired early Thursday from the North's eastern coast town of Wosan. It gave no other details.

Trump Calls for Infrastructure, Health Care Overhaul -- Trump called for a bipartisan effort Wednesday to overhaul the country's crumbling infrastructure.

US Swipes at China Signal a Micro Policy Shift in Disputed Sea -- The U.S. government is challenging China over its dominant position in Asias major maritime sovereignty dispute, but those moves, after months of silence, are seen as aimed at reassuring nervous Southeast Asian countries rather than as a major anti-Beijing pivot. Trump has shelved the South China Sea issue for most of his nearly half-year term as he tries to get along with Beijing, especially seeking Chinese help in throttling missile and nuclear weapons development in North Korea.

How Many Refugees Will US Accept This Year? -- U.S. officials still can't confirm how many refugees will arrive this fiscal year, with less than four months left and an imminent increase in the works. The ambitious ceiling of 110,000, set by then-President Barack Obama shortly before the 2016 election has little chance of being met. It would require a massive surge of personnel to pull off in the 16 weeks remaining in this fiscal year, which is an unlikely prospect under an administration calling for significant cuts to the refugee program. And it likely won't be as low as 50,000, the number demanded by President Donald Trump in two executive orders embroiled in legal friction.

WATCH: Hispanic immigrants in Pennsylvania town

Layer of Fear Hangs Over Immigrants in Rural Pennsylvania Town -- "They took my brother." The visibly frightened woman speaks from inside the doorway of a multifamily house as she describes how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came at night, knocking on apartment doors, demanding to be let in. Shes not alone. Lately, the streets of the York Springs have been emptier and for rent signs have popped up in front of some buildings. A new layer of fear hangs over the rural Pennsylvania town and its large Hispanic population in the wake of recent sweeps by ICE agents.

Battle for Raqqa Pits US-backed Kurds Against Syrian Government-backed Militias -- U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG militia forces chanted as they advanced toward the northern outskirts of the Islamic State-held town of Raqqa in northern Syria, attempting to set foot inside the city and dislodge the militant group from its so-called capital. The U.S. envoy to the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk, said Wednesday in Baghdad that the battle for Raqqa would "only escalate," as the group loses control of its northern Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. He added that the fight for Raqqa would be a "difficult and very long-term battle."

EU Launches Defense Fund Amid US Pressure to Boost Spending -- The European Union on Wednesday unveiled a new defense fund to get better value for money on high-tech projects like drones or robotics as European allies at NATO come under U.S. pressure to boost their military budgets. The European Commission said the fund would provide a total of 500 million euros ($563 million) in EU money in 2019 and 2020 to help buy and develop military equipment.

Obama says Paris Climate Agreement Still Has a Chance -- The Paris climate agreement still has a chance despite the "temporary absence of American leadership," Obama said Tuesday, adding that he was cheered that U.S. states, cities, corporations and others have decided to carry on with the Paris commitments. The former U.S. president made the remarks in a speech to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and got a round of applause from the business crowd for mentioning the Paris accord.

Obama Has Private Dinner with Trudeau in Montreal -- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is tweeting his thanks to former U.S. President Obama after the two shared a private dinner at a Montreal restaurant.

Eyes on Russia Probe Leaves Washington's To-Do List Undone -- You've probably heard all about what's happening in Washington. This is a story about what isn't. The rapid-fire revelations about the Trump campaign and its Russia connections that are heating up this city are having a chilling effect in plenty of other ways. There are bills that have been pushed to the back burner. Diplomatic initiatives that aren't fully initiating. Interest groups that can't stir up much interest. Appointees that haven't been appointed.

Lawmakers Decry Trump's Proposed Cuts in Homeland Spending -- Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is defending Trump's proposed budget cuts, even as he tells Congress that the United States "cannot invest too much in security" after recent terrorist attacks in Europe. Trump proposed a budget last month that would cut nearly $700 million from grant programs for local first responders. Overall, Homeland Security would face a reduction of 3.2 percent.

Eric Trump Calls Father's Critics 'Not Even People' -- Eric Trump says critics of his father are "not even people." Trump's son told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Tuesday that he's "never seen hatred like this" and "morals have flown out the window" when it comes to attacks against his father.

Are New Trump Hotels Exploiting Presidency Or Just Business? -- The name of the new hotel chain is American Idea. The owner is now president of the United States. That said, the Trump Organization wants to make something perfectly clear: It is not exploiting the presidency for profit. The American Idea chain was unveiled Monday night in New York at a Trump Tower party hosted by the president's two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and featuring a video showing the Washington Mall.

Luxury Hotels Arrive in Cuba Despite Fears Trump May Hurt Tourism Boom -- Towering cranes dot the Havana skyline as communist-run Cuba races to build luxury hotels, amid indignation among some residents and concern that Trump might reverse a detente that fueled the tourist boom. Swiss-based Kempinski Hotels S.A. will inaugurate its Gran Hotel Manzana in the heart of the capital on Wednesday, billing it as Cuba's first true luxury hotel.

Trump Administration Wants to Make Internet Spying Law Permanent -- The Trump administration supports making permanent a law that allows for the collection of digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas and which pass through U.S. phone or internet providers, a senior White House official said.

Madeleine Albright Pens New Book, Warns of Fascism's Dangers -- Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, is worried about democracy. Albright's next book, Fascism, is a warning that democratic governments are fragile and the United States under Trump is enduring its own crisis.

Violence Warned Over US Dropping Conflict Minerals Rule -- Increased violence and corruption in central Africa could be the result of the recent decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission not to enforce a rule requiring American companies to report their use of conflict minerals, warn Congolese civic groups, rights groups and U.S. senators.

Facebook Launches Features to Connect US Users, Elected Officials -- Facebook announced three new features Wednesday that are intended to boost civic engagement among users in the United States on its platform by connecting them more easily with their elected representatives.

Trump Chooses Regional Banker as Key Regulator of US Banks -- Trump has chosen a regional banker as his nominee for a key government position in bank regulation. Trump announced late Monday he is naming Joseph Otting as comptroller of the currency, heading a Treasury Department agency that is the chief overseer for federally chartered banks.
More than 30 Western countries called on Maldives at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday to thoroughly investigate the death of a prominent blogger and to guarantee space for activists and political opposition.

Yameen Rasheed, who denounced Islamist extremism and state corruption, was found stabbed to death in late April. He had led a campaign to find a journalist presumed abducted in 2014 and had repeatedly complained to police about death threats.

The Maldives government denies targeting any critic unfairly and President Abdulla Yameen has condemned Rasheed's murder, vowing to bring the perpetrators to justice.

But Britain, in a joint statement read out on behalf of countries including the United States, said strong guarantees in the Maldives constitution of freedom of expression were being "increasingly curtailed."

"We welcome the government's commitment to ensuring an objective and impartial investigation into the killing of blogger and prominent human rights defender, Yameen Rasheed," Britain's ambassador Julian Braithwaite said in the statement, noting that Rasheed's father, Hussain, attended the session.

The joint statement urged the government to "prevent the intimidation of human rights defenders," including by those who promote violent extremism.

"Legitimate opposition remains a vital component of a healthy democracy, and it is essential that the freedoms of assembly and expression are granted to all."

Forum-Asia, a non-governmental organization which promotes human rights and development, welcomed the "unprecedented censure" at the council, adding that "the government is yet to hold a credible investigation" into Rasheed's murder.

Maldives Ambassador Hala Hameed told the council her government had shown "our willingness to engage in constructive dialogue across the breadth of human rights issues, engaging with human rights institutions and robust press and civil society to maintain our strong record of protecting core political rights."

The tropical Indian Ocean archipelago of 400,000 people has been mired in political instability since its uneasy shift to democracy in 2008, and critics accuse President Yameen of autocratic behavior.

Many potential challengers in elections due in 2018 have been arrested for alleged security offenses.

"The use of the judicial system to target political opponents is a serious threat to the prospect of credible and inclusive elections in 2018," the European Union said Wednesday.
Mexican sugar producers want an investigation into suspected dumping in Mexico by U.S. fructose producers even after a U.S.-Mexico deal on access to the U.S. sugar market, the head of the Mexican sugar industry group said Wednesday.

The sugar lobby last month said it had asked the Mexican economy ministry to investigate U.S. high-fructose corn syrup imports, saying there was evidence of dumping.

Mexico Tuesday conceded to U.S. demands for changes in the terms of Mexican access to the lucrative U.S. sugar market, but U.S. sugar producers refused to endorse the deal.

The agreement would avert possible steep U.S. import duties on Mexican sugar and had been seen as lowering the risk of Mexico slapping its own import duties on U.S. high-fructose corn syrup as a retaliatory measure.

This issue with the U.S. sugar industry is not over, Juan Cortina, the head of Mexican sugar industry group (CNIAA), told reporters at an event in Mexico City where he said the group would keep pressing for a fructose probe in Mexico.

The sweetener trade has been a longstanding source of disputes between the two countries that are preparing to start talks with Canada to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo on June 1 said he was reviewing the request by the Mexican sugar lobby to initiate the investigation.
While its unclear how much the rest of the country is eagerly awaiting Thursdays testimony from former FBI Director James Comey, for Washingtonians, the event is must-see TV, prompting some bars to open as early to host viewing parties.

And yes, one bar, Shaws Tavern, will be serving a special covfefe cocktail, named after President Donald Trumps mysterious Twitter typo.

Watch: 'Super Bowl' of Congressional Hearings has US 'Wanting Truth'

Rob Heim, general manager of Shaws Tavern, told People magazine that he got the idea after a friend invited him over to watch the testimony. Since he had to work, he thought why not host a viewing party at the bar.

I remember I was visiting my mom at the time and she said, Who would watch that? And I said, In D.C., people would watch it. But I was shocked by how much interest we got in just a couple hours.

The bar will also offer FBI-themed food such as the FBI sandwich (fried chicken, bacon and iceberg lettuce) and the FBI breakfast (French toast, bacon and ice cream).

Another bar, aptly called The Partisan, will open early and offer themed cocktails, including "The Last Word" and "Drop the Bomb."

Duffy's Irish Pub will have another version of the "Covfefe cocktail."

The Capital Lounge, which normally opens at 4 p.m., will open at 9 a.m. so that Comey watchers can get an early start.

Comeys hearing is set to start at 10 a.m. local time and is expected to cover conversations between Comey and President Trump about Russias meddling in the election and what, if any, role was played by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

If you dont want to wait, Comey released his prepared remarks Wednesday.

Of course, not everyone is interested in the event, prompting one bar, The Pug, to host a party free of news about the testimony.
There she is, walking on air she is, fairest of fair she is  Miss Tibet.

Tenzin Paldon, 21, emerged from the largest ever field of contestants - nine - to take the title of Miss Tibet at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) in Dharamshala, the city that is home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile.

My feet arent touching the ground at the moment, Paldon told VOA Tibetan in comments that echoed the lyrics to the song There She Is, Miss America soon after she was crowned. I hope to inspire people and  be a good role model for younger Tibetans.

Tenzin Khechoe, 22, a nursing student from Bangalore, India, who wants to become a doctor, was the first runner-up. Tenzin Nordron Zalutsang, 21, a second-year history student, was the second runner-up in the event, which included a swimsuit competition on June 2, "talk and talent" competition on June 3, and the finale with the women, who were interviewed, competing in evening gowns and traditional Tibetan costumes.

Paldon, who has a degree in aviation management, is a cabin crew member with SpiceJet Airlines and a model. Paldon also took the Miss Photogenic title, which was decided by online voting. Out of 14,285 votes, Paldon received 5,161 or 36 percent of the total.



Beyond the honor, the winners received travel and cash prizes.

WATCH VIDEO:

Diaspora contestants

Paldon, like the other contestants, belongs to the Tibetan diaspora.

She is from Kollegal, a Tibetan agricultural settlement in south India. Although most of the contestants live in India, nursing student Migmar Dolma, 22, arrived from New York City, and Saldon, 19, who goes by one name, came to the event from Vienna, Austria.

All the women participated in a swimsuit contest, which caused waves, or as one headline proclaimed, Beauty queens' raunchy poses shock ENTIRE country after the women displayed some flesh.

This year, the contestants ranged in age from 19 to 25.

Lobsang Wangyal, the entrepreneurial impresario behind the Miss Tibet and the Miss Himalaya pageants, described all nine women as beautiful, intelligent and ambitious" to The Tibet Post.



He described the Miss Tibet contest, which was the subject of a 2015 documentary, as a traditional pageant with a higher calling.

There is a tendency for Tibetans to be only seen as a people that are in struggle against the Chinese, as a culture that is predominantly made up of Buddhist monks and nuns, as nomads who herd yaks, according to the events website. Or as people who are on pilgrimage to sacred sites or who live in caves in the mountains of Tibet.

To have international support for the plight of the Tibetan people, it is important to have many different venues to create awareness, it continues, pointing out that the Miss Tibet winners may attend international beauty competitions.

"To have representation in events like these will create awareness about the Tibetan cause for a population that may not generally know about Tibet, yet which is composed of millions of men and women who could potentially be Tibet supporters, the website says.

Lobsang announced the 2017 Miss Tibet pageant would be his last.

This report originated with VOA Tibetan.
Montenegro's higher court on Thursday confirmed prosecution indictments against 14 people, including two Russians charged with masterminding a coup attempt aimed at preventing Montenegro from joining NATO.



Russian nationals Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov have been indicted with various criminal offenses, terrorism and acts against the constitutional order of Montenegro, a court statement said.



The two alleged members of Russia's military security agency had reportedly operated from neighboring Serbia with sophisticated spying equipment. They have returned to Russia and are beyond the reach of Montenegro's judiciary.



Shishmakov was a deputy military attache at the Russian embassy in Warsaw, but was declared persona non grata in Poland in June 2014 because it was believed that he was involved in spying.



The other 12 suspects, mostly Serbs, allegedly planned on election day in October to take over parliament in the capital of Podgorica and kill then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic.

Among the indicted suspects are two top Montenegrin opposition officials who have made frequent visits to Moscow before and after the alleged coup attempt.



This is a political process against fierce opponents of NATO, said opposition leader Milan Knezevic, who was indicted.



Montenegro, once a Russian ally, formally became the 29th member of NATO on Monday, despite Moscow's strong opposition.



Russia, which is against NATO's expansion in Europe, has repeatedly denied involvement in the alleged coup attempt. But it has openly supported groups in Montenegro that opposed the small Balkan country joining the Western military alliance.



The higher court said it will open the trial within the next two months.
North Korea apparently has test launched several land-to-ship missiles, South Korea says.

Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said several projectiles were fired early Thursday from the North's eastern coast town of Wosan. It gave no other details.

This would be the fourth North Korean missile test in a month, coming after the U.N. Security Council imposed more sanctions on Pyongyang last week.

The three most recent previous tests were of ballistic missiles.

North Korea appears to be determined to develop a missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons and able to reach the U.S. mainland.

The Trump administration has been leaning on China, North Korea's chief ally, to get it to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

Meanwhile, South Korea has said it will suspend any further deployment of a controversial U.S. missile defense system until an environmental impact assessment ordered by new President Moon Jae-In is finished.

Seoul agreed under Moon's ousted predecessor Park Geun-Hye last year to deploy the powerful missile intercept system to guard against threats from nuclear-armed North Korea, despite angry opposition from Beijing, which views it as a threat to its own military capabilities.

Two missile launchers have been deployed in the southern county of Seongju, where hundreds of residents have staged fierce protests over what they see as potential environmental hazards posed by the batteries used in the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

There is "no need to withdraw" the two launchers that already have been deployed, a senior official at South Korea's presidential office said.
North Korea test fired another missile, just one day after South Korea suspended the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.

The early morning launch occurred Thursday from the coastal city of Wonsan.

Multiple projectiles that appear to be short-range, land-to-ship cruise missiles were fired and flew about 200 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan or East Sea as it is called in Korea, according to South Koreas Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

Targeting enemy vessels

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month ordered his military to develop the missile capability to precisely target enemy vessels at sea, according to North Korean state media.

During the first week of June, two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups, the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan, conducted military exercises in international waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The South Korean JCS said Thursdays test was a direct response to the recent U.S. naval exercises.

It was to show off the capability of various types of missiles and is an armed protest to show off its precise strike capability against enemy warships regarding the (recent) joint naval training of the U.S. carriers, or to secure an advantage in U.S. and North Korea or inter-Korean relations, said JCS Chief of Public Affairs Roh Jae-Cheon.

The JCS also noted that North Koreas test of low-altitude cruise missiles is not a violation of United Nations Security Council sanctions, which specifically prohibit high-altitude ballistic missile and nuclear weapons development.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said this cruise missile test did not warrant a response by the United Nations.

The government has dealt with actions of North Korea based on responses of the international community, however, we dont think this (North Koreas missile launch this time) is something we need to protest against, he said.

He also confirmed that the North Korean missiles did not reach his countrys exclusive economic zone that extends 370 kilometers from the coast.

THAAD on hold

Thursdays launch is the fourth missile test by North Korea since South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office May 10, pledging to reduce tensions with Pyongyang through dialogue and engagement. His conservative predecessor, former President Park Geun-hye, was impeached for her alleged ties to a multi-million dollar corruption scandal.

President Moon convened his first meeting of the National Security Council Thursday where he ordered heightened military readiness to respond to any North Korean provocation.

President Moon condemned (North Koreas provocation by saying that) what North Korea will gain from this provocation is international isolation and economic difficulties and it will lose the opportunity for development, said Park Soo-hyun, the spokesman of the presidential office after the NSC meeting.

The Moon administration Wednesday suspended the further development of THAAD until an environmental survey required by law has been completed. A presidential aide was reported to have said that the survey could take up to two years.

THAAD uses six mobile launchers and 48 interceptor missiles to target long-range ballistic missiles using high-resolution radar and infrared seeking technology. Two of the launchers were installed in March.

During the campaign, Moon called for a full review of the THAAD agreement before authorizing deployment.

U.S. President Donald Trump also raised concerns about the agreement when he demanded $1 billion for the American weapons system in April. Officials in both Washington and Seoul subsequently clarified the U.S. would bear the cost of THAAD systems deployment and South Korea would provide the land and supporting facilities.

Undermining the U.S. alliance

Washington considers the advanced anti-missile battery critical for defense against North Koreas growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

However China adamantly opposes the THAAD regional deployment that could potentially give the U.S. the means to counter its missile capabilities as well.

And many residents living near the deployment site have raised concerns over the possible negative health effects of the systems powerful radar, and over the increased danger of North Korea targeting their region if hostiles break out.

Last week, the South Korean Defense Ministry approved the delivery of four remaining launchers without informing the presidential office. The president suspended a deputy defense minster for his role in bypassing the executive oversight function. Kang Kyung-hwa, Moons Foreign Minister designate, also called for the National Assembly to debate this national security matter.

On Thursday, the Defense Ministry declined to comment on the status of THAAD because of an internal investigation under way.

In the National Assembly Thursday, conservative Rep. Lee Cheol-woo with the opposition Liberty Korea Party said delaying THAAD is neglecting the countrys duty, while fellow party member Rep. Chung Woo-taik accused the Moon government of undermining the U.S. alliance, while taking no measures whatsoever against North Koreas missile launches.

The South Korean presidential spokesman also said Thursday that Moon will reaffirm South Koreas strong commitment to the U.S. alliance when he meets with Trump in Washington later this month.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.
Polling stations are open for the general election Britain is holding Thursday.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap election  an early vote, three years before Parliament's term was to expire  in early April in the hope of winning strong backing for her government during upcoming negotiations in Brussels on the country's exit from the European Union.

The prime minister originally expected a big win to boost her Conservative Party's majority in Parliament, but that optimism faded as her campaign sputtered over the past few weeks.

Late developments, however, could upend the experts' predictions once again.

Polls: Labour Party is gaining

Several recent opinion polls showed the opposition Labour Party was gaining on the Conservatives, or Tories as they are known in Britain. Not all of the polls agreed, though, and Conservative activists professed confidence.

The Times newspaper reported Wednesday night that a final poll by the YouGov group showed the Conservatives' lead over Labour had widened to seven percentage points  up from four percent on Saturday, just hours before the London Bridge terrorist attack that killed eight people.

All 650 seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament, are up for election Thursday. A party needs to win 326 seats to form a majority government.

The deadly terror attacks in England  in London last Saturday, and in Manchester 12 days earlier  have overshadowed the late stages of political campaigning. Speaking at a rally Tuesday, the prime minister pledged to put security first:

And if, if our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we'll change those laws so we can do it, she told supporters to enthusiastic applause.

Proper funding needed

May's threat to tear up the Human Rights Act drew criticism from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The way you deal with the threat to the democracy is not by reducing democracy, it's by dealing with the threat, he said during a campaign visit to Glasgow Wednesday. That means properly funding our police and security services.

Political analyst Professor Iain Begg of the London School of Economics says the prime minister is now fighting to save face:

If she does no better than [former Conservative prime minister] David Cameron did in 2015, it would be deemed a considerable defeat for her. Jeremy Corbyn seems to be doing far better than most people expected.

Needed: Young voters

Corbyn needs a big turnout by young voters, and his focus on improving public services and reducing fees for university students has won support. But he also has faced questions over national security and his past associations with groups including Hamas and the Irish Republican Army.

Watch: Terrorism, Brexit Dominate British Election Campaign

Third in the polls are the Liberal Democrats, whose central theme is opposition to Brexit  Britain's departure from the European Union. On that question, analyst Iain Begg says, the country appears to have moved on.

Economy, national health services and party leaders are the top issues, Begg said. Even in this Brexit context, Europe is not as high an issue as it might otherwise be, and therefore the Liberal Democrats have probably backed the wrong horse by trying to emphasize their campaign is about Brexit.

May needs a big win

Support for the far-right UK Independence Party has collapsed. With Brexit decided, pollsters say many UKIP voters have switched to the Conservatives.

Theresa May says she needs a big win to give her a stronger hand in upcoming Brexit negotiations, but officials in Brussels say the size of her majority will have no bearing on the talks.

There will be no political honeymoon for the winner, says Kevin Schofield, editor of the website politicshome.com, the self-styled "home of digital public affairs" in Britain.

You're straight into the biggest discussions, the biggest negotiations that any British government has faced in a generation, probably since the Second World War, Schofield said. "So there is no respite, there is no letup."

Independence for Scotland?

A big Conservative win would encourage those who support independence for Scotland. Breaking away from the United Kingdom and becoming an independent nation won considerable support earlier in this decade, but the Scots rejected independence in a referendum three years ago.

Now, however, following the Brexit decision by voters nationwide  in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland  the Scottish National Party is demanding a second referendum on independence.

In actual fact, the Scottish people, most of them don't want a referendum so soon, said website editor Schofield. They think that they've made their decision in 2014.

Terrorism, Brexit and the potential breakup of Britain are daunting challenges that lie ahead for the winner of Thursday's election. Each political party is offering voters a very different road map to the future.
NRA chief commits to supporting marginalised people

National Reconstruction Authority Chief Executive Govinda Raj Pokharel has called for sustainable and strong approach of rehabilitation.
It was almost sunset as fishermen guided their boats back onto the beach at Joal, Senegal, after a long day at sea.

At first glance, it looks as though they'd collected a good day's haul, but their nets were full of small sardinella, known locally as yaabooy.

Fisherman Mamdou Lamine had caught just one bucket of mackerel. He held one up next to a yaabooy to show how much bigger it was  and there are many more yaabooy than mackerel these days, he said. Furthermore, A local favorite, grouper, called thiof in Senegal, is getting harder to find.

The U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization says more than half of West Africa's fisheries are dangerously depleted. Local officials in Senegal say it's the foreign-owned industrial boats that have depleted fish stocks and destroyed marine habitats.

When fishermen at Joal set off on trips, they have to carry more fuel to reach waters farther away, and the added fuel costs cut into their earnings.

Longer trips, more fuel

Saff Sall was heading to Guinea-Bissau, about 200 kilometers south, in search of the elusive thiof. He said the fish are found among rocks, but that there are no more rocks because they have all been destroyed by the big industrial boats. That's why they have to go to Guinea-Bissau to search for fish.

Before, Senegalese fishermen had to spend only a week at sea to have all the fish they needed, he said, but now they have to spend twice as long to catch what they need.

Under-regulated fishing by locals has also contributed to the problem, said Joal Fishing Wharf chief of operations El Hadji Faye.

He said the government was making an effort, but the situation was very complicated. He said that in the Senegalese city of Saint Louis, for example, each neighborhood has a designated day it can fish. But in Joal, they do not do that yet. Every day, he said, all the fishermen go to sea. Sometimes when a lot of them go, they bring back a lot of fish and the price is not good.

Economic staple

Fish are the backbone of the town's economy. The day's catch is taken to the local smokehouse, turned into fish meal for export abroad or sold fresh at the market, where knife-wielding female vendors prep the fish for sale.

Business is tough even for vendors with the rare large fish. Scarcity has driven up the prices. The price of thiof per kilogram has doubled in the past five years, local officials said.

Fish vendor Rose Ndour said that maybe those in the industry would do other work  if there were better jobs available.

The impact of overfishing is felt in households. The wife of the fishing wharf manager, Coumba Ndiaye, said that for the family's evening Ramadan meal, she had to make due with sardinella because she could not get an affordable thiof at the market.

She made thieboudienne, Senegal's national dish. Its name literally translates to "fish and rice." But for a good thieboudienne, you need good fish like dorade or thiof.

The fish are a part of Senegal's culture. Ndiaye said that "when someone says your husband is 'thiofee,' they are comparing him to thiof. The thiof is beautiful and noble. The thiof is classy."

IN PHOTOS: No Good Fish in the Sea: Overfishing in Senegal

The children sat on their parents' knees as the family ate around the large shared bowl of thieboudienne.

The fishermen would return to the sea the next day to try their luck again.
Pakistan is alleging India is seeking another war by escalating tensions on the de facto Kashmir frontier, cautioning the rival nation against undertaking "any strategic miscalculation."

The nuclear-armed countries are locked in routine military skirmishes across the Line of Control, or LoC, that separates Pakistani and Indian portions of the disputed Himalayan region.

The recent clashes, harming soldiers and civilians on both sides, have apparently rendered ineffective a 2003 mutual cease-fire truce, plunging bilateral relations to historic lows in recent months.

"We have cautioned India from making any strategic miscalculation. It appears that India is seeking conflict with Pakistan," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nafees Zakaria told a weekly news conference Thursday.

There has been no immediate reaction from New Delhi to Pakistan's assertions.



Accusations

Zakaria again accused India of deliberately escalating operations on the Kashmir cease-fire line to divert international attention from rights abuses against locals by Indian troops in their part of the divided territory.

"While we have no desire to escalate the situation, Pakistani armed forces would respond effectively to unprovoked violations," Zakria said.

India claims its forces are firing at Pakistan army backed militants who try to infiltrate the LoC to fuel unrest in Kashmir, Islamabad rejects the Indian claim.

India and Pakistan have already fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. Kashmir was the issue in two of the conflicts and the dispute remains the primary source of regional tension.

Both countries claim the region in its entirety.

The two rival South Asian nations tested their nuclear devices in 1998, raising fears another war could escalate to nuclear exchanges.
Pakistan has a plan to curb extremism and violence in a key terror-wracked province: add 10,000 police officers, flood the region with security cameras, and enhance protection of a major economic project with China.

But analysts and activists question whether boosting security spending in Pakistan's Sindh province by 10 percent in the new fiscal year will significantly deter terrorism and crime, particularly in Karachi, a city of 27 million people.

"We don't just need a plan but execution of the plan," said Jameel Yusuf, a citizen crime fighter and founder of Citizens Police Liaison Committee, a self-funded nonpolitical organization which gathers data on crime and extremism-related activities in Karachi. "We need huge changes in the current law-and-order system. We need massive funding, mapping, modern investigative and management tools and an up-to-date intelligence network to counter crime and extremism in Karachi."

Sprawling Karachi has several pockets which serve as territories to organized criminal gangs and armed political parties where police hesitate to enter. The city is also home to various terror and militant groups.

"In these trying times. Law and order remains at the forefront of our efforts to create a nation that is safe for all its citizens regardless of caste, creed and religious affiliation," Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said in his recent budget speech, as quoted by the Dawn newspaper. "Strengthening our law enforcement agencies through training and equipment is at the forefront of our fight against terrorism."

In addition to adding police to ease the world's worst police-to-population ratio in Karachi, the provincial government plans to install security cameras in major cities and create 3,000 security posts to protect parts of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a multi-million-dollar project designed to create jobs and facilitate trade.

Past attacks

Karachi has been a victim of several terrorist attacks in recent years.

In June 2014, 36 people died when Karachi's International airport was stormed by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants. In May 2015, gunmen sprayed bullets on a bus carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims, a minority sect, killing 46; Islamic State claimed responsibility. Security agencies recently arrested five Islamic State operatives who they say were planning to carry out terrorist attacks there.

Pakistani media say there's been a significant decrease in terrorism-related activities in the city over the past two years, but analysts fear more attacks are possible if security isn't bolstered. Security experts say Karachi has the worst police-to-citizen ratio in the world: one police officer for every 950 residents, when it ideally should be one for every 275 people.

"Karachi needs more police presence. It is a demographic pressure cooker," Huma Baqai, a political analyst, told VOA.

According to the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, some 60,000 citizens were mugged in 2016.

Adnan Abro, a resident of Lyari, one of the oldest and most densely populated areas of Karachi, says his perception is that crime is increasing.

"They [gangsters] come and kill us or snatch our belongings in broad daylight, and there's no one to stop this or to protect us," Abro said.

Allocation of resources

Sindh, Pakistan's third-largest province, has allocated nearly $893 million to strengthen its security agencies in fiscal year 2017-18, which includes adding 10,000 posts of different ranks to the provincial police force.

The total also includes nearly $19 million to equip law enforcement agencies with hi-tech security equipment, $1.9 million to install security cameras, $25 million to build a state-of-the-art forensic laboratory, and $2.69 million to build an intelligence school and data center to help police solve complex crimes.

Ahmed Khan, a longtime resident, is hopeful that increased security will help to fight lawlessness.

"The raise in security budget is laudable and will help Karachi to overcome street crime, which has swarmed the city for decades now," Khan said. "People lose their lives for a mere mobile phone. We can only hope the government will make sure to keep up their promises."

Analysts say the anti-terror proposals are "highly optimistic," but warn that the government should take many other factors into consideration as well.

"Smart political footwork, vigilance and accountability is needed at the topmost level to resolve government," analyst Baqai said.
Peru joined Indonesia Wednesday as the only two countries worldwide to commit to make their fishing boat tracking data available to the public.

Such access will give conservationists, along with those who buy, sell and eat seafood, a clearer picture where their favorite dishes come from.

Officials from both countries made their announcements Wednesday at the United Nations Ocean Conference in New York.

Indonesia said its data is available now, while Peru promised to follow suit.

"This is another demonstration of the Peruvian government's commitment to fight illegal activities at sea," fisheries vice minister Hector Soldi said. "The Peruvian government intends to make the utmost effort to achieve sustainable management of our fisheries in order to increase its contribution to nutrition and global food security."

The independent Global Fishing Watch uses satellites and terrestrial receivers to track the activities of 60,000 commercial and private fishing boats across the globe.

Global Fishing Watch is not an enforcement agency but a tool for environmentalists, conservationists and the general public to follow what's happening on the open ocean.

Jackie Savitz, senior vice president of the Oceana conservation group, tells VOA that once a fishing boat leaves port and disappears over the horizon, it's hard to monitor the vessels. For example, she says, are they fishing in protected parts of the sea or encroaching into another country's exclusive economic zone?

Savitz says she applauds the very strong leadership by Indonesia and Peru in allowing anyone to monitor their fishing boats at any time.

"With more eyes on the ocean, there are fewer places for illegal fishers to hide," she said.

Savitz says she hopes other countries will follow Indonesia and Peru in helping to ensure the sustainability and health of one of the world's most valuable resources.
A deal between Italy's main political parties on electoral reform unraveled on Thursday, leading to calls for a snap election that could usher in more instability in the euro zone's third largest economy.

Two major opposition parties, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing Northern League called for an immediate vote, and the ruling Democratic Party (PD) said it now seemed hard for the government to carry on.

An accord in favour of a proportional representation voting system based on the German model collapsed after the PD lost a parliamentary vote on a minor, proposed amendment.

Italian bonds and stocks rose as investors bet the breakdown of the accord would reduce the risk of early elections this year, with opinion polls pointing to an inconclusive outcome.

Negotiations resume

The parties agreed to take the legislation back to a parliamentary committee to resume the negotiations, but comments from leaders held out little hope of progress.

There is no chance of starting all over again. The legislature should end here with immediate elections, said 5-Star Deputy Luigi Di Maio, widely expected to be the movement's candidate for prime minister at the forthcoming ballot.

Upping the pressure for an early election, the PD's parliamentary party leader Ettore Rosato said he did not know how the center-left coalition, which is itself split over the reform, could hold together following Thursday's rupture.

Markets are wary of more political instability in Italy, which has the eurozone's highest public debt after Greece, and fear an autumn election could interfere with the presentation of a belt-tightening 2018 budget.

Some parties, including 5-Star, are also strongly eurosceptic.

Local elections

The row over the electoral law raises the political temperature ahead of local elections on Sunday to choose new mayors in hundreds of towns and cities around the country.

Only after that vote might it become clearer whether there will be a general election in the autumn, some six months ahead of the natural end of the legislature in May 2018, with the main parties looking to gauge their support across the country.

New voting rules demanded

President Sergio Mattarella, the only figure with the power to dissolve parliament, had demanded new voting rules be drawn up because at present there is too much divergence between the systems for electing members of the two houses of parliament.

The four main parties  the PD, 5-Star, Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and the Northern League  agreed last week they would support a proportional representation system.

However, as soon as voting on the bill began in the lower house this week, the agreement looked shaky. On Wednesday some 60 parliamentarians opposed it in secret ballots, with the PD and 5-Star blaming each other for the defections.

Furious speeches

The PD declared the deal dead on Thursday after an amendment it opposed, regarding elections in the autonomous northern region of Trentino Alto-Adige, was passed in a secret vote.

In furious speeches in parliament, PD and 5-Star lawmakers swapped accusations of being traitors, cowards and ridiculous, even as they voted to go back to the constitutional affairs commission to re-negotiate the bill.

The Northern League called for a new electoral law to be introduced by emergency decree so a snap general election could be held, but this was opposed as undemocratic by most parties.
The diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors is putting Chinas political clout in the Middle East to the test as Beijing strives to flex its economic muscle there with its trillion-dollar Belt and Road trade Initiative (BRI).

But analysts say many of Chinas belt and road projects are often more aspirational than reality, including those involving Gulf nations, which gives the worlds second-largest economy less-than-expected leverage to play a bigger role in a region plagued by domestic unrest, intra-regional conflicts and superpower competition.

On top of that, they add, Chinas own diplomatic policy of non-interference also limits Beijings ability to engage with the region.

Simmering Gulf crisis

On Monday, Saudi Arabia and its allies including United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt led a regional effort to cut diplomatic ties and possibly air and sea traffic with Qatar, accusing it of funding terrorism  charges that Doha has denied.

Despite efforts by the U.S. and Kuwait to prevent a further escalation, the Gulf crisis is showing no signs of abating after the UAE threatened to impose an economic embargo against Doha and Bahrain added all options were on the table.

Given Chinas increasing economic interests in the region, there have been calls from some for Beijing to adjust its no-interference policy and take up a more active role.

Or the spat, observers fear, may disrupt part of President Xi Jinpings ambitious BRI, which stretches across 65 countries and encompasses Asia, Africa and Europe.

In no hurry to mediate

But Li Quofu, a senior research fellow at China Institute of International Affairs, said China is in no hurry to mediate conflicts in the Middle East.

He said China believes Gulf nations remain committed to iron out their differences while Xis trade initiatives provide a solution for them to work together.

Weve proposed the BRI  a great platform, which we hope Middle Eastern countries would utilize to co-develop their economies instead of fighting each other. In this regard, I think China is already playing an active role there, Li told VOA.

According to Wu Sike, formerly Chinas Special Envoy on the Middle East issue, Chinas cooperation with the region has deepened, partly due to the BRI. For example, Kuwait plans to invest $130 billion to build a northern Silk City, which will help connect Europe and Asia as part of the Silk Road.

China is also switching its earlier focus on energy in the region, which accounts for half of its imported oil, to investment with trade in manufactured goods having risen substantially, Wu said in May.

As such, China will place its vested interests in the region before its political role despite the BRI showcasing its ambition to expand its geopolitical influence globally, said Wang Tofar, an economics professors from National Taipei University.

The BRI actually carries a strategic implication, in which China is poised to challenge the U.S.s economic [or political] power, Wang told VOA.

China First

But whether China will rise to mediate in the Middle East, it depends on whether it is within Chinas interests as China will prioritize its economic interests there, the professor added.

Given its dependence on the region for energy, China will be required to play some kind of role, although its involvement there will be highly circumscribed, said Kerry Brown, associate fellow with the Asia Program at London-based Chatham House.

It has direct, tangible interests in the region. But it also is desperate to avoid being sucked into the intractable problems that exist there. So in the end it has to perform a balancing act, Brown wrote in an emailed reply to VOA, adding that Chinas non-interference principle will also cause a constant brake on its desires to be more involved in the region.

Insufficient economic clout

Chang Liu, China economist at Capital Economics, has doubts China even has the required economic clout to influence in the region.

In the case of BRI projects, it is often the case that rhetoric is more ambitious than reality, Liu said in an emailed reply to VOA.

For example, it remains unclear whether Kuawits Silk City project will be completed or where the financing would come from.

Chinas latest commerce data shows its foreign domestic investments (FDIs) to Kuwait declined from $162 million in 2014 to $144 million in 2015.

Chinas combined FDIs to Kuwait, Omen and Saudi Arabia totaled $560 million in 2015, which the economist said wasnt insignificant, but only equivalent to 5 percent of what China invested in Singapore and 0.4 percent of its total outbound investments in 2015.

Theres little evidence that China has been investing significantly more in countries that are part of the BRI since it kicked off in 2014 than before, he concluded.
As he works to get his crops planted, the weather keeps Illinois farmer Gerald Thompson in his fields during the day.

Worrying about the political direction of his country is what often keeps him up at night.

To me, we are in such a dysfunctional state, he said as he stands between his green John Deere tractor and the planter attached to it that help him get his seeds into the ground.

Worried about Congress

Thompson says he is not upset with President Donald Trump, the candidate he voted for in the 2016 general election.

I think Trump is a good businessman and hell see the value in what agriculture has to offer, he said.

But Thompson is among a majority of Americans who disapprove of the performance of the U.S. Congress.

Until we get rid of 90 percent of the politicians, put in term limits and put people there that actually go to work for the right reasons, were going to have problems, he told VOA.

Agricultural Act of 2014

The 2016 presidential election was largely shaped by rural and working class voters in a part of the country sometimes called flyover country, the interior of America where many felt overlooked by their elected lawmakers. What fuels a large part of the economy in flyover country, where Thompsons home and farmland are located in rural Bellflower, Illinois, is agriculture. Here, the Agricultural Act of 2014, the most recent Farm Bill, is a key piece of legislation.

Its provided somewhat of a safety net, Thompson said.

The Farm Bill is the single biggest piece of legislation that impacts his livelihood, and Thompson knows that the politicians he is critical of now will be the ones he will have to depend on to craft a new Farm Bill by 2018.

The Farm Bill that became law in 2014 provided nearly $500 billion of federal funding overall.

Eighty percent of the farm bill is food and nutrition programs and rural development, Thompson said, referring to the U.S. Governments SNAP  or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called the Food Stamp Program  that provides assistance to millions with little or no income. Twenty percent of the total amount of the Farm Bill goes to farmers, Thompson said.

Direct payments

Part of that assistance includes reimbursement for certain conservation efforts and assistance with securing crop insurance. In previous Farm Bills, much of what farmers received was by direct payments.

The amount of dollars that come back to us in the form of direct payments is so insignificant today as a percent of our total budget, it needs to be gotten away with, in my opinion, because I believe its a political challenge for us to defend that, Thompson said.

The last Farm Bill significantly cut those direct payments, instead subsidizing and expanding crop insurance.

So far the loss of direct payments hasnt been that big of a deal, said Kirkwood, Illinois, farmer Wendell Shauman. Time will tell. We ebb and flow in this. Back in the 80s it was a huge deal. Basically our income was what we got from the government. Thats a sad time in agriculture and we certainly dont want to go back to that situation again.

While Shauman agrees with ending direct payments, it could have provided recent relief.

Supplies are high, prices low

Were buried in corn and beans, prices are so low. The farm economys been so bad I think this will be the fourth year in a row where farm income has gone down, he said.

Shauman is in a race against time, and the weather, to get the last of his soybeans planted. As he steadily guides his tractor through dusty fields he hopes will produce abundant corn and soybeans later this year, he is just as concerned about the crops he harvested last year, which are stored in his grain bins.

The price has been so low, so long, people have held on hoping its going to get better, he told VOA. And in the last couple of weeks its gotten even worse.

The price of corn today is just less than $4 a bushel, down from a high of more than $8 a bushel at the peak of the drought in 2012. While the current price is higher than average over the last 50 years, thats no solace to struggling farmers.

The difference today is the cost of production we incur is so much greater that even though we are at historically high levels, our margins are still very, very thin, Gerald Thompson said. They look to project this years net farm income to be about half of what it was four years ago.

Stagnant grain prices, high quantities in storage, and no direct Farm Bill payments form the basis of the agricultural landscape lawmakers and farmers face as they begin negotiating a new Farm Bill. Despite the economic outlook, Shauman expects further cuts.

Politically, we have very little clout, Shauman said.

Bad weather could be good

But Thomson says the lack of clout in Washington isnt the biggest issue for him.

Your biggest risk factor is something you have no control over, which is the weather, he said as he battled the dust and heat to finish the last of his major tasks of getting his corn and soybeans planted.

But in a twist of irony, bad weather could be the thing that helps farmers.

A short crop this year  and it wouldnt have to be a terribly short crop  would raise the price considerably, he said.

But just like the weather, a short crop isnt something Wendell Shauman can count on. But he hopes the Farm Bill is, which is why he wants whatever legislation to take shape by 2018 ultimately help keep him in business when everything else a farmer cant control is working against him.
Hundreds of Senegalese migrants have been flown home in the past week, saying their dreams of a new life in Europe were dashed after they crossed the Sahara desert only to endure the hell of imprisonment in Libya.

Some came home heavy hearted, hungry and broke.

For others, home was better than making it to Italy after all, given the grueling desert crossing, brutal beatings and deaths of fellow migrants they had encountered en route.

Coming home feels better than getting to Italy, said 30-year-old Mohammed Gueye, swigging from a bottle of water while filling in forms with aid workers and state officials ahead of the migrants return to their homes and families this week.

It was hell in prison, everyone broke down eventually. I cried and gave up hope, Gueye told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in the capital of Dakar, as he recalled watching his peers die of hunger and illness during nine months in detention.

Gueye was one of more than 160 migrants, mainly young men in their 20s, who arrived in Dakar late Tuesday, wearing hoodies and woolly hats, looking unkempt, tired and dazed.

Libyan prison, forced labor, exploitation

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Senegalese government helped to release the returnees from detention centers in northern Libya, run by criminal gangs or Libyan troops, where some migrants were held for up to a year.

At least 20,000 migrants are detained in Libya, the main gateway for those headed to Europe by sea. Rising numbers are traded, in what they call slave markets, for forced labor and sexual exploitation, according to the IOM.

Yet driven by poverty and a lack of work, a rising number of Senegalese are risking their lives to reach Europe via Libya.

More than 10,000 Senegalese migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year, up from 6,000 in 2015, IOM data shows.

The voyage from Libya across the Mediterranean to Italy, most cross the sea on flimsy boats run by people smugglers, has become the main route to Europe for migrants from Africa after a European Union clampdown last year on sea crossings from Turkey.

Help at hand

Many of the migrants gathered in the airport hangar in Dakar spoke not only of the hardships endured in Libya, but also of the hellish 1,200 km (750 miles) trek through the Sahara.

At least 40 West Africans died in the desert last week after their truck broke down in arid northern Niger, the Red Cross said. More migrants may die in the Sahara than in the Mediterranean, according to migration tracking group 4mi.

The Sahara, its another reality, said Thierno Mendy, 37. There were 30 of us crammed into a jeep with little to eat and drink for a week ... I saw dead bodies along the way, he added.

More than 500 Senegalese migrants have returned home so far this year from Libya or Europe through the IOMs voluntary repatriation scheme. About 1,800 people were flown home in 2016.

Travel money, re-integration

The IOM gives the migrants cash for their journey home within Senegal, and has a community re-integration program to invest in projects such as sustainable agriculture and poultry farming, which support whole communities, not just the returnees.

Given the sums of money invested in the journey (as much as $3,000), and our strategy to benefit the wider community, we dont see such a scheme as a push factor for migration, said Jo-Lind Roberts-Sene, IOM Head of Office for Senegal.

While the migrants were visibly relieved to be back in Senegal, many were ashamed to go home empty-handed, having wasted the family savings, while others feared they would be unable to prevent peers from following in their footsteps.

You cant tell someone not to go to Europe, it is their personal decision, said Gueye, recalling how his friends who made it to Italy would phone him to boast about their new lives. Aspiring migrants are poorly informed of what lies ahead.
Slovakia wants to be a part of the EU "integration machine," its prime minister said on Wednesday, in comments that follow calls by Germany, France and Spain for deeper cooperation and contrast with the eurosceptic stance of some other east European states.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's new President Emmanuel Macron agreed in May to outline a road map for deeper European Union integration while Spain suggested that members of the bloc should pool some aspects of their debt management and share a budget to fight crisis shocks.

"Slovakia meets conditions to be a part of the EU integration machine led by Germany and France," said Robert Fico, Slovakia's leftist third-time prime minister who oversaw his country's adoption of the euro in 2009.

"Deeper cooperation and integration with stronger countries suit a small country like Slovakia, this is a historic chance to come closer to the average living standards of the EU," he told reporters after a regular government meeting.

"Either we get in the integration express or we'll be stuck in the depot on the second track," he said, distancing himself from eurosceptic governments in neighbouring Hungary and Poland, and the Czech Republic, where integrationist Social Democrats are expected to lose an election in October.

Slovakia is the only one of these so-called Visegrad Four countries that uses the euro as its currency.

It has been one of the better budget performers in the eurozone, with public debt load expected to fall to 51.8 percent this year, less than the eurozone average at 89.2 percent in 2016.

Fico also called on opposition parties to get behind the consensus on Slovakia's foreign policy direction.

Richard Sulik, leader of the eurosceptic, anti-immigrant Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, Slovakia's second largest after Fico's center-left SMER, said on Tuesday Bratislava should not try to be part of the eurozone core as it would be forced to agree to tax harmonization and refugee quotas.

Slovakia under Fico's government, along with the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, refused to accept EU refugee quotas and challenged them in an EU court.
Many U.S. states, cities and businesses say they will forge ahead with the U.S. commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, even though President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal. They say want to meet the pledge made by the Obama administration to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels in 2025. VOA's Elizabeth Lee looks at whether this can be achieved without the federal government.
Protest over two minor girls death

People from Madi Municipality-6 of Chitwan, led by women rights activists, picketed the District Police Office and the District Hospital in Bharatpur on Wednesday, demanding a thorough investigation into the deaths of Deepika Sunar, 10, and Deepshila Pariyar, 11.
A court has convicted South Koreas former health minister of pressuring the countrys pension fund to support a merger of two Samsung companies.



The merger was crucial in Samsungs father-to-son leadership succession but faced opposition from U.S. hedge fund Elliott Associates and other minority shareholders. Support from the National Pension Service was crucial to ensure shareholder approval.



The Seoul Central District Court said Thursday that Moon Hyung-pyo, the former health chief who oversaw the National Pension Service, was sentenced to 2 years in prison. He was found guilty of abusing power to sway the pension funds vote on the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.

Ruling on key players

The ruling is among the first on key players in the corruption scandals that ensnared the countrys ousted president and Samsungs heir.

A former executive at the pension fund was also found guilty of causing damages to the fund by swaying its investment committee to support the Samsung merger. Hong Wan-sun, a former head of the funds operation division, was sentenced to 2 years in prison.



The court said Hong swayed the vote even though he knew that the merger ratio was unfair to Samsung C&T shareholders and hence it would cause damages to the pension funds stake in the construction company.

Corruption scandal trigger



The 2015 Samsung merger and the allegations that the pension service was pressured to support Samsungs succession plan were among the triggers of the massive corruption scandals that led to the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in March and the arrest of Lee, Samsungs de facto leader.



Prosecutors have accused Lee, who is on trial for bribing Park Geun-hye and her long-time friend, of offering bribes in exchange of seeking the governments support of the smooth leadership transition at Samsung, including the merger.



The allegations that the pension fund, which manages $508 billion for South Koreans post-retirement, supported the controversial Samsung merger despite financial damages angered public and it was one of the reasons that prompted South Koreans to stage massive demonstrations for months last fall.
Native American activists from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in the U.S. state of North Dakota, have gone global with their fight to stop fossil fuel corporations from possibly fouling water sources by transporting oil on indigenous lands.

Peaceful protests that began April 1, 2016, to try to stop construction of the Dakota Access pipeline largely died down in February when the main protest camp was cleared. Oil drilling began on June 1.

While they may have lost this battle, the activists say the war is far from over. They say the fight for indigenous rights continues to be waged on many fronts nationally, and moves to expand it globally already have begun.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the Dakota Access pipeline developer, disputes the tribes' claims and says the $3.8 billion, 1,885-kilometer pipeline is safe.

Rachel Heaton, a member of the Muckleshoot Tribe and an indigenous leader among Dakota Access pipeline opponents in Seattle, is one of four "water protectors" touring various countries and cities in Europe to try to drum up support for their cause. She said Native Americans plan to hit corporations and banks where it hurts most  in their wallets.

Credit Suisse targeted

"We are going around and sharing our stories as well as talking to the banks here in Europe that are invested in the fossil fuel projects on our lands," she said. "We are here to ask the banks to divest from the fossil fuel projects as they are contributing to the genocide of our people, the environmental racism that continues to take place, as well as the violation of our treaty rights."

She said the group of water protectors had come to Geneva to confront Credit Suisse, which is one of the largest financiers in the Dakota Access pipeline.

"They are invested in the fossil fuel projects on our lands that again continue to oppress our people. So we are here to send a message to Credit Suisse that they need to divest from these projects, as well as invest in policies that protect our indigenous nations," she said.

The activists were not successful in their quest. Credit Suisse refused to meet them. But the group said it would not give up, because the bank has invested $1.4 billion in fossil fuel projects on indigenous lands, making it the leading investor among all European banks.

The group, which began its European tour in Paris on May 20, has managed to ruffle the feathers of a significant number of shareholders in other banks as well. They crashed shareholder meetings at BNP Paribas, Natixis Bank and Societe Generale.

"We were not welcomed," said Heaton. "We were muffled out. We were booed. Some of the board members that were present avoided us. They went around the room and tried to avoid our question. They would not answer it," she said. "They did not say they would divest. They did not respond to us at all."

'We will continue'

Heaton said indigenous people would not be deterred by these setbacks. She told VOA that trying to get banks to divest from fossil fuel projects was a long process.

"We will continue to be a voice," she said. "We will continue to express ourselves in the way we have and continue the civil disobedience, taking people out of their comfort zones until these banks and these nations get the message."

Nataanii Means, an Oglala Sioux and Navajo activist and hip-hop artist, agreed that native communities would continue fighting for their rights.

"We have been fighting this kind of fight for years, and we are going to continue to fight it because it affects our communities first," he said.

"We are suffering the highest rates of cancer. We are suffering the highest rates of sex trafficking per capita. We are suffering the highest rates of suicide per capita.

"Our communities are on the front lines literally because we are affected first by these extraction companies  oil extraction, gas extraction and fracking," he said.

While in Geneva, the activists networked with United Nations officials, civil society and nongovernmental organizations. They met with Mayor Guillaume Barazzone, who pledged his solidarity with their cause.
French Guiana is facing a nationwide strike Monday over crime and economic difficulties, amid protests that have paralyzed the French territory in South America, halted flights and a rocket launch and prompted a U.S. travel warning.

The French government sent an emergency mission to try to quell tensions before Monday's general strike by some 27 unions, expected to hit public services across Guiana.



Protesters are angry over high crime, the cost of living and the quality of health care and other social services. Their protests have already blocked roads to neighboring Brazil and Suriname, and shuttered many businesses and schools.



The unrest is a reminder of the deep economic, social and racial divides between France's mainland and former colonies from the Caribbean to the South Pacific that remain French today. Some territories use the euro currency, and they all depend heavily on imported goods and policy decisions made in Paris.



Candidates for France's two-round presidential election starting next month have urged aid or intervention in Guiana, as the concerns of overseas voters suddenly entered the spotlight in the race after having been largely ignored.



The Collective of 500 Brothers, the group largely behind the unrest, is demanding that the French government send a minister to negotiate with them.



The government minister for overseas holdings called for calm Monday, and said on RTL radio that the government mission has made progress on demands from fishermen and farmers. However, she said ``conditions for dialogue are not met'' for her to visit Guiana herself as the demonstrators demand.



A visit of Segolene Royal, the French minister of ecology, to the territory on March 17 was cut short after masked demonstrators from the collective stormed into a regional conference on biodiversity she was attending in the department's capital city of Cayenne.



Protests disrupted the planned launch last week of an Ariane 5 rocket from the space center in Kourou, carrying a South Korean satellite and a Brazilian satellite.



Air France cancelled all flights Sunday and Monday because of the strike. Flights from regional airlines to Cayenne on Friday were canceled.



The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning because of the potential for the protests to turn violent. It said the U.S. Embassy in Paramaribo, Suriname, is able to provide only very limited consular services in French Guiana and said citizens should avoid travel to French Guiana.
Nearly 16,000 young children die every day around the world, says researcher Sue Grady, citing U.N. figures. The Michigan State University medical geographer says newborns account for about half of the deaths.

A U.N. study of neonatal mortality around the world found that Africa has the highest rate, at 28 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In a study pertaining to 14 sub-Saharan African countries, Grady and her student investigators found that neonatal mortality was significantly associated with, among other factors, home births, where babies are delivered without the supervision of a trained professional.

Grady said many of the newborns succumbed immediately after birth to asphyxiation or an inability to take their first breath. Other common causes of death were infection and diarrhea from unclean water.

Grady said newborn deaths in East and West Africa could be dramatically reduced if babies were delivered in medical facilities with trained personnel standing by.

"Focusing on real hygienic conditions as the baby is being delivered, really cleaning the umbilical cord well [and] being very, very careful as far as the water the baby receives after birth" are critical, she added.

Targeting resources

The study conducted by Grady and colleagues is aimed at informing the United Nations in its global efforts to reduce infant mortality by targeting resources where they are most needed.

Since 1990, when the U.N. Millennium Development Goals were adopted, infant mortality has decreased 53 percent, from nearly 12 million deaths a year to about 6 million.

Those goals have been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals, a universal call to action to reduce scourges of poverty.

In Africa, Grady said, many women can not afford or access medical care or prefer to deliver their babies at home, surrounded by family and community. Newborn mortality also increases with the age of the mother, she noted.

And a disturbing trend also was found: More female babies were dying than male infants. Grady's study, which looked at more than 344,000 births in East and West Africa, did not identify the possible causes for that, but "we do know there is some bias, so we would want to better understand why female infants were less likely to survive."

The findings were published in the journal Geospatial Health.
U.S. President Donald Trump has uncharacteristically refrained from making comments about Thursday's congressional testimony by the FBI director he fired a month ago.

The president, in a speech a few kilometers from the White House and on his favorite social media platform, made no reference to James Comey, who accused Trump of removing him from his job to undermine the FBI's investigation into suspected collusion between Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign team and Russia.

The president, during a White House meeting with governors and mayors about infrastructure, ignored shouted questions about Comey during a brief media photo opportunity.

Hours earlier, Trump said "we're under siege" when he spoke to the Faith and Freedom Coalition at a Washington hotel. "We will not back down from doing what is right."

WATCH: Trump speaking to evangelical supporters

Using language similar to that in some of his other recent speeches, Trump added, "We know how to fight and we will never give up."

Direct public comment about Comey's blunt testimony was left to Trump's outside personal counsel and the president's namesake son, who was active on Twitter during the Comey testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Never in form or substance did Trump ask for Comey's loyalty, nor did the president try to impede any federal investigation, lawyer Marc Kasowitz told reporters at the National Press Club.



The president's personal attorney zeroed in on the disclosure of purported memos that Kasowitz called "privileged communications" with the president that Comey Thursday acknowledged disseminating to the media via a law professor friend to prompt the appointment of a special counsel.



"The president feels completely vindicated," said Kasowitz, who took no questions from reporters at the Press Club.



During Comey's testimony, Donald Trump Jr. provided a running commentary on his Twitter feed.



Trump Jr. said Comey's testimony indicated that his father's words and actions were "very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!"



Commenting on Comey's assertion that he interpreted the president's "I hope" comment as "direction" to end the investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Trump Jr. tweeted the following:

During Thursday's more than two hours of testimony, Comey said the White House "chose to defame" him and the FBI by saying that under his leadership the bureau was in disarray.

"Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey told senators and a global audience watching live on television.

While Comey was testifying, the principal deputy White House press secretary took to the podium and was asked about Comey's comments.

"I can definitively say the president is not a liar," said Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "It's frankly insulting that the question would be asked."

Asked how much of the televised Comey testimony Trump may have watched before departing the White House for his mid-day speech, Sanders replied she was unaware of the amount and described it "as a regular Thursday at the White House."
Turkey's decision to send up to 3,000 troops to Qatar further cements their growing ties, but it virtually eliminates a possible role for Ankara to mediate between Qatar and the Gulf states that have decided to isolate it for alleged support of terrorism.

Both countries have found themselves increasingly isolated Turkey for the increasing authoritarian rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar for its alleged financial support of extremist groups and growing ties with Iran, the main competitor to Saudi Arabia for power and influence in the region. Qatar denies the allegation.

Erdogan reportedly tried to intervene after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Yemen cut diplomatic ties Monday with Qatar and took other measures to pressure it. He then convened a special session of Parliament on Wednesday night to authorize the dispatch of up to 3,000 troops to Qatar and hold military exercises with the country.

Saying both countries faced the same threats, Turkey agreed last year to open a military base in Doha and had already dispatched 150-300 troops there. The agreements that were finalized Wednesday were signed in 2016 but had not yet been approved before suddenly being pushed to the top of Parliament's agenda.

Risky business

The move carries some risk for Turkey, particularly if Saudi Arabia attacks or annexes Qatar.

If there is Qatar on one side and the rest of the Gulf states on the other, one must be very careful, said Dr. Ali Faik Demir, a member of the Galatasaray University International Relations Department. Meaning that no state can be brave enough to take on the Gulf states in investment and economic relations-wise by standing with Qatar.

While the troops are not expected to fight for Qatar should hostilities break out, Demir says Turkey should have avoided the appearances of giving Qatar military support when it could mediate the crisis.

Turkey is in a position to become a key in peace in Middle East and other subjects when one considers her America and West relations, even Russia relations, and especially the delicate Iranian balances and how she is an important power in the Muslim world and in the Middle East, Demir told VOA Turkish.

Qatar needs quick solution

Kadir Has University professor Serhat Guvenc says Qatar will suffer badly if the crisis is not solved in a short time, and if the crisis continues this will impact Turkey adversely due to its support of Qatar.

But Turkey's decision also is an economic one.

Qatar has recently developed into one of the most active investors in Turkey's economy. Economists estimate Qatar has invested $19 billion in Turkey, buying Digiturk and Finansbank in the last two years. Turkish defense industry giant BMC also has a Qatari partnership, and Qatari Emir Sheik Temim bought the most expensive part of the Bosphorus in 2015.

In December 2015, Turkey reached a long-term deal to buy liquefied natural gas from Qatar. Bilateral trade totaled $710 million last year.

VOA Turkish contributed to this report.
Federal prosecutors have charged two men with scouting potential targets for and providing material support to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization.

Ali Kourani, 32, of New York City and Samer El Debek, 27, of Dearborn, Michigan, were arrested June 1, prosecutors in Manhattan announced Thursday. Both have appeared in Manhattan federal court, according to prosecutors.

Lawyers for Kourani and El Debek could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, prosecutors said Kourani attended Hezbollah-sponsored weapons training in Lebanon as a teenager in 2000 before lawfully coming to the United States in 2003. He became a U.S. citizen in 2009, going on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees, the complaint said.

Prosecutors said Kourani worked for Hezbollah while in the United States, identifying potential weapon suppliers; identifying people affiliated with the military of Israel, Hezbollah's adversary; and gathering information about U.S. airport security and about military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.

They said Kourani received additional weapons training, including on a 2011 trip to Lebanon.

In a separate criminal complaint, prosecutors said Hezbollah recruited El Debek, a U.S. citizen, in 2007 or 2008, and he began taking a salary from the organization.

Over the years, prosecutors said, El Debek received weapons training, including instruction in making bombs. They said he carried out missions for Hezbollah in Thailand to clean up materials used to make explosives that had been left behind in a house, and in Panama, where he gathered information about security and the Panama Canal and Israeli Embassy.

Both men, who remain in custody, are charged with providing material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy, and illegal weapons possession.

Hezbollah, a Shi'ite group aligned with Iran and the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department since 1997.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said Thursday it has credible reports indicating Islamic State fighters in Iraq killed at least 231 civilians who were trying to flee western Mosul.

The reported killings happened between May 26 and June 3, all in the al-Shifa neighborhood, and involved people trying to get from Islamic State-held areas to locations held by Iraqi troops.

The United Nations also said it is still investigating reports of other civilian casualties from an airstrike in the Zanjilly section of western Mosul that reportedly killed between 50 and 80 people.

Civilians a major concern

The fight for western Mosul has been going on since February, following the success of Iraqi troops backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition in taking the eastern side of the city. Fully securing Mosul would mark a major victory in the campaign to oust the militant group that swept through large areas of Iraq, including Mosul, in 2014.

The fate of civilians still living in Iraqs second-largest city has been a major concern, with rights groups, aid organizations and the United Nations warning of supply shortages and the danger of having the battle play out in tight streets.

A group of human rights and humanitarian groups called Thursday for the Iraqi military and the U.S.-led coalition to avoid the use of weapons that could indiscriminately target civilians during the final push to recapture western Mosul.

Thousands of families are trapped by ISIS in west Mosul with its fighters preventing civilians from fleeing to safety, Human Rights Watch Deputy Middle East Director Lama Fakih said in a statement. Iraqi and coalition forces should recognize that in the crowded Old City, using explosive weapons with wide area effects puts civilians at excessive risk.

HRW, Amnesty International, Airwars, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Human Rights First, the International Network on Explosive Weapons, and War Child all signed on to Thursdays statement.

They highlighted the use of mortars, unguided artillery rockets and airstrikes with bombs larger than 225 kilograms, saying the weapons lack the accuracy or limited effects that allow them to be used in heavily populated areas without putting civilians at risks that outweigh the military objectives that can be achieved.

Risk from IS tactics

The statement also notes the additional risk to civilians posed by Islamic State tactics.

The difficulty of detecting civilians in the packed city, even with advanced targeting systems and continuous observation, make it difficult to determine accurately the number of civilians occupying a target area prior to approving strikes. The dangers are increased by ISIS use of civilians as human shields, which is a war crime, the groups said.



The Public Affairs Office of the U.S. military told VOA in a statement: "The Coalition adheres to strict targeting processes and procedures aimed to minimize risks to non-combatants. These procedures include selecting platforms and munitions for the airstrike that are most appropriate for the specific target and mission. The Coalition always seeks to use weapons that are proportional to the target to minimize collateral damage and risk to civilians. The avoidance of civilian casualties is our highest priority when conducting strikes against legitimate military targets with precision munitions, unlike the indiscriminate nature of ISIS tactics which result in an enormous number of avoidable civilian deaths.

"The Coalition respects human life, which is why we are assisting our Iraqi partner forces in their effort to liberate their lands from ISIS brutality. Our goal has always been for zero civilian casualties, but the Coalition will not abandon our commitment to our Iraqi partners because of ISIS's inhuman tactics terrorizing civilians, using human shields, and fighting from protected sites such as schools, hospitals, religious sites and civilian neighborhoods."

The U.S.-led coalition has been bombing Islamic State targets in Iraq since August 2014 and in Syria since September of that year. Its latest monthly civilian casualty report said that based on the information it has, the coalition assesses that its strikes have unintentionally killed 484 civilians since the campaign began.

Rights groups have put the figure much higher. Airwars estimates at least 3,817 civilians have been killed in coalition strikes.

The coalition has said it takes all reports of civilian casualties seriously, and that its forces take all feasible precautions during the planning and execution of airstrikes to reduce the risk of harm to civilians.
The United Nations says the rights of indigenous people as well environmental and human rights in Brazil are under attack.

The office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights said Thursday that over the last 15 years, Brazil has seen the highest number of killings of indigenous, environmental and land defenders of any country.

According to the Catholic Church's Indigenous Missionary Council, 137 Indians were slain in Brazil in 2015, bringing to 891 the number killed since 2003.

Global Witness, a London-based organization that campaigns for environmental rights, says 50 land and environmental activists were killed in Brazil in 2015.

Disputes over land frequently turn violent in Brazil. More than 60 people were killed in violence in 2016 stemming from such disputes.
Congressman Jim McGovern is calling for a new U.S. policy on Tibet, saying the status quo isnt working and urging U.S. businesses to raise the issue of human rights in Tibet with Chinese business partners.

Its important that the U.S. have a policy toward Tibet because the status quo isnt working, McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, told VOA Mandarin. The Chinese government is just getting worse on a whole range of issues  jailing more and more Tibetans in Tibet and in the Tibetan region, so I think we need to re-assess. ... We need to start walking the walk.

Watch: US Congressman Calls for New US Policy on Tibet

China says the Himalayan region has been part of its realm for more than seven centuries and considers the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, to be 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 since Chinese army units crossed the Yangtze River into eastern Tibet in 1950.

Congressional visit

Last month, McGovern traveled to Nepal and the north Indian hill town of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama has been in exile from Tibet for almost 60 years. The eight-person House delegation led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, wanted to make China aware that they would not stand down in their campaign for human rights in Tibet.

Watch: US Congressman Calls for China to Show Flexibility on Tibet

The delegation, including a lone Republican, Wisconsins Jim Sensenbrenner, met with the Dalai Lama.

His Holiness is not a separatist  but he wants to go home and so do his people, McGovern said.

China is one of the great powers of the world, theyre doing great things on climate change, he said, adding hes always puzzled that China is paranoid over this monk, and paranoid over his message.

McGovern is the sponsor of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2017. He introduced the bipartisan bill in the House in April with Congressman Randy Hultgren, a Republican from Illinois. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, and Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat from Wisconsin, introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

Watch: US Congressman Poses Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act

Travel in US

McGovern described his bill as saying we will treat you like you treat us in that it calls for restricting where Chinese can visit in the United States in the same way China restricts United States officials, journalists and other citizens in Tibetan areas of the Peoples Republic of China.

If China wants its citizens and officials to travel freely in the U.S., Americans must be able to travel freely in China, including Tibet, McGovern echoes on his website.

He also wants the U.S. to publicly call on the Chinese government to restart the direct dialog that used to exist between the Chinese government and the Tibetan people. That needs to be restarted.

McGovern said he wants the United States to appoint a special coordinator on Tibet as soon as possible to help elevate these issues.

Weve also talked about working with other countries and establishing what we call A Group of Friends on Tibet who would meet regularly and publicly to assess the situation in Tibet, and whether theres been progress or not, he added.

Watch: US Congressman: US Firms Can Raise Issue of Tibet With Chinese Counterparts

McGovern, who is co-chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, told VOA that while U.S. and Chinese companies profit from trading with each other, if U.S. companies know whats happening and you dont say anything [about human rights in Tibet], then youre complicit. China wants to do business with you. You want to do business with China but that doesnt mean you cant raise the issue of human rights.

In the interview with VOA Mandarin, McGovern, who has been arrested three times protesting human rights violations in Sudan, said he is also concerned about human rights in Hong Kong, and Chinas treatment of the ethnic minority group, the Uighurs.

Were not perfect

Listing hate crimes and attacks against members of the Muslim community, threats against Jewish community centers and hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, McGovern said he also worries about human rights in the United States, so were not perfect.

None of that, however, should lessen the attention paid to Tibet, McGovern said.

I think the Chinese government thinks this issue will just go away. The Dalai Lama is in his 80s, and they think at some point he wont be around and everybody will forget, McGovern said.

But, he stressed, were not going away, and this issue is not going away, and were going to keep on bringing it up over, and over, and over again until theres some change.

This story originated with VOA Mandarin.
Special security plan for polls in Rupandehi

The District Security Committee has implemented a special security plan in Rupandehi for the second phase of local level elections.
Theres a saying among Native Americans who rely on the U.S. government for medical care: Dont get sick after June -- thats when the federal money runs out.

Adae Romero-Briones, associate director of Research and Policy for Native Agriculture for the First Nations, cites personal experience.

How about the time my grandfather went in for cataract surgery -- they did one eye," she told VOA. But when he went in for the second eye, they told him funding had run out for the year and to try again the next year.

The U.S. government is obligated to provide free health care to federally-recognized tribes in exchange for the millions of hectares of land they ceded to the government. The Indian Health Service (IHS), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is the agency that provides that care. But the service has been plagued with scandal and accusations of mismanagement since it was formed more than 60 years ago, including the forced sterilization of Native American women in the 1960s and 1970s.

Staff shortages, faulty medical diagnoses, outdated equipment and crumbling facilities are just some of the problems tribal leaders described to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in a February hearing. Tribes say these are life and death issues for Native Americans, who die at higher rates from chronic liver disease, diabetes and respiratory disease and, with few exceptions, cannot afford private health insurance.

IHS struggles to attract and keep qualified physicians, who complain about low salaries, inadequate housing and long working hours. Medical staff can also find it difficult to accommodate traditional Native American healing practices.

South Dakotas Rosebud reservation is among the worst cases cited: Its 45-bed hospital must serve more than 21,000 residents across more than 5,000 square kilometers. The state of health care was so dire in late 2015 that the IHS shut down its emergency room for several months, forcing tribal members seek emergency care in towns about 80 kilometers away -- a hardship for tribal members, many of whom live in poverty and lack transportation.

In 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services noted that one IHS hospital was so old that its plumbing had corroded, causing sewage to leak into the operating room.

Lawmakers in the Senate and House of Representatives have heeded calls for reform and in May introduced parallel bills calling for a complete overhaul of the IHS.

The long history of failures at IHS are unacceptable and will not be tolerated, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), co-sponsor of The Restoring Accountability in the IHS Act (S.1250) said in a statement May 25. Our bill will ensure tribal members get the medical care they desperately need and deserve.

The bill seeks to increase transparency and accountability at IHS, streamline the hiring of medical staff, provide incentives for doctors and nurses to stay on the job, and protect whistle-blowers who report violations of health and safety rules.

U.S. Representative Kristi Noem (R-SD) introduced an identical bill in the House. But similar legislation stalled during the Obama Administration, and tribes worry the latest bills will suffer the same fate.

Limited funding means the IHS must ration out the services it provides. VOA spoke with one Native American who praised the service.

I've never had a bad experience and they have been my health care provider for many years, said a Lakota woman who asked not to be named. I believe the IHS is only as good as its funding.

In his Fiscal Year 2018 budget request, President Donald Trump has asked for Congress to allocate $4.7 billion to the IHS. Thats $300 million less that the amount stipulated in the FY 2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act, which passed in early May.

In the meantime, IHS says it is taking these criticisms seriously. IHS Acting Director, Rear Admiral Chris Buchanan, recently outlined to Senators a number of initiatives to improve the quality of patient care. And on June 1, the agency announced it had hired a new chief medical officer who will be responsible for implementing new policies and monitoring compliance.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday in Saudi Arabia that he would talk with Riyadh's leaders about a proposed humanitarian pause in the fighting by the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

"We have urged all sides, anybody involved, to comply with humanitarian law and to take every precaution to keep civilians out of the line of fire, out of harm's way, as well as to provide the opportunity for humanitarian assistance to be able to be delivered," he said.

Kerry will meet with Saudi leaders and Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who has fled to Saudi Arabia for his own safety.

The Saudis have said they are considering a pause in airstikes and other action against the Houthis. Humanitarian aid workers have complained about how hard it has become to deliver food and other aid to Yemeni civilians.

Kerry said that for a pause to be effective, it would have to be respected.

I think this would be welcomed news for the world if it were able to be effected in a way that does not see people try to take advantage of it and either secure more territory or attack people participating in a legitimate pause," he said.

A senior State Department official said that in addition to discussing Yemens crisis, Kerry and Saudi leaders would also talk about Syrias unrest, Islamic State militants and the Iran nuclear negotiations.

Earlier in the day, Kerry met in Djibouti with President Ismail Omar Guelleh and other officials. Kerry said Somalia and Yemens unrest were among the issues they discussed.

Djibouti has played a key role in hosting Americans and other foreigners fleeing from violence in Yemen.

Kerry said there were signs that parties involved in Yemens conflict were ready to consider a humanitarian pause. In my conversation yesterday with another foreign minister from another country, there was an indication that others, the Houthi, might be willing to engage in a pause, he said.

Kerry made his remarks during a joint appearance with Djiboutis Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.

US aid to Yemen

During the appearance, Kerry also announced the U.S. would provide another $68 million in humanitarian assistance to Yemen. The money will be used to provide food, water, shelter, medical care and other aid.

Millions of vulnerable people urgently need help, the secretary said.

The State Department said the money would help humanitarian organizations, which have been hampered by fuel shortages in the country, meet the needs of nearly 16 million people in Yemen affected by the countrys crisis, including about 300,000 who have been internally displaced.

Ahead of Kerrys arrival in Djibouti, a senior State Department official said more than 500 American citizens evacuated from Yemen had come through Djibouti, along with an equal number of family members. The official said the number of foreigners leaving Yemen has been steady.

Youssouf noted that Djibouti had been dealing with the refugee influx by itself.

"So far, we have evacuated 12,000 refugees from Yemen," he said, and "most of them were not Yemenis. They were Americans, Chinese, Indians and many other nationalities.

Kerry thanked Guelleh and Youssouf for their assistance to Americans who sought refuge from the violence in Yemen.

An army for Somalia

In an interview with VOA's Somali service, Guelleh said the discussions with Kerry "went very well" and focused on bilateral cooperation as well as regional issues that included terrorism and piracy. He commended U.S. support to governments in the region.

Guelleh also asked Kerry to put increased effort into establishing a national army from all regions of Somalia with good training that would be ready when African Union troops leave Somalia. Otherwise, he said, "our efforts and your efforts will be incomplete.

In addition to meeting with Djibouti officials, Kerry visited a mosque, where he talked to young people, including some who participated in the U.S.-organized Young African Leadership Initiative fellowship program.

He also met with U.S. service members at Camp Lemonnier. The U.S. base with about 4,500 personnel serves as a hub for U.S. military efforts in the Horn of Africa.

Kerry traveled to Djibouti from Kenya, where he met with the countrys political leaders and civil society members. He made a side trip to Somalia on Tuesday, becoming the first sitting U.S. secretary of state to visit the country.

After Kerry wraps up his visit to Saudi Arabia, he will travel to Paris to meet with Gulf Cooperation Council members to discuss security and regional cooperation.
Small-business owners who install solar panels or help customers use clean energy don't seem fazed by President Donald Trump's plan to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, saying they expect demand for their services will still keep growing.

They're confident in two trends they see: A growing awareness and concern about the environment, and a desire by consumers and businesses to lower their energy costs.

"It's an economic decision people are making, although it also makes environmental sense," said Suvi Sharma, CEO of Solaria, a Fremont, California-based company that designs and sells solar energy panel systems.

Trump said he was putting U.S. interests ahead of international priorities in leaving the agreement that would, among other things, require the U.S. and other countries to report greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. is the world's second-largest emitter of carbon after China, and carbon is one of the gases that scientists cite as a key factor in global warming.

Reaction to withdrawal split

Many of the nation's largest companies opposed Trump's move, and some have already committed to reducing emissions and are spending billions to do it.

Small business advocacy groups are split over the impact of a U.S. withdrawal. The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council doesn't believe Trump's action will hurt the United States.

"Even without the U.S.'s formal participation in the pact, we believe our nation will continue to lead in carbon reduction and clean energy," said Karen Kerrigan, CEO of the group. "The market is demanding as much and the private sector and investment are responding."

But the Small Business Majority, which has supported limits on greenhouse gas emissions as a way to help the environment and the economy, said the U.S. needs government policies that "promote the development of renewable energy and the implementation of energy efficiency standards."

"America's entrepreneurs understand that the future of our economy and the job growth associated therewith depends upon policies that move us forward, not backward," said John Arensmeyer, the group's CEO.

The American Sustainable Business Council also warned that global warming would hurt companies, giving them "a chaotic and unsustainable future of business disruptions from rising seas and changing weather patterns."

Whether business owners outside energy-related industries are likely to support the Paris accord may depend on how much they're worried about climate change, and whether they're concerned about saving on energy bills.

Demand, awareness growing

A private equity firm that invests in clean energy companies doesn't expect Trump's action to have much impact on U.S. companies whose business is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Neil Auerbach, CEO of Hudson Clean Energy in Teaneck, New Jersey, said the U.S. has been able to move away from carbon fuels with more use of natural gas and renewables.

Arcadia Power, which helps consumers and companies switch to wind and solar power for their electricity, has seen orders rise 5 percent from its usual pace since Trump's announcement last week, says Ryan Nesbitt, president of the Washington, D.C.-based company. Demand was particularly strong for the electricity supply plans the company offers through solar power producers.

"They sold out over the weekend. We're scrambling to get more," Nesbitt said. Some customers who signed up for Arcadia's service said they were doing so in response to Trump's announcement, Nesbitt says.

State and local environmental laws, which can be tougher than federal statutes and regulations, have contributed to the growth of small businesses in the energy sector. So companies that help businesses track and report their carbon and other emissions shouldn't see their business disappear if the U.S. isn't part of the Paris accord.

At ERA Environmental Management Solutions, whose customers include companies that use paints and other chemicals, "nobody's coming out and telling us they're going to stop doing a project," owner Gary Vegh said.

But Vegh, whose company is based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, says companies are also reacting to changing perspectives.

"Each generation is getting more educated about the environment," Vegh said. "Even preschool and elementary children  the new generation is already aware."

Barry Cinnamon's homeowner customers buy solar panels because they believe the climate is in trouble. "They understand from a science and engineering perspective that there's a problem and there's a solution," said Cinnamon, the owner of Cinnamon Solar in Campbell, California.

Installing solar panels on a home can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, so owners aren't expecting an immediate windfall from lower energy prices  they're willing to wait five or 10 years for their investment to pay off, Cinnamon says.

For some owners, it's the "what ifs" that are worrisome. Many business customers at Vitaliy Vinogradov's lighting business base their buying decisions on tax rebates for green LED fixtures.

"What I am afraid of is that this may be a slippery slope  where eventually green technology loses subsidies, rebates, or gets taxed," said Vinogradov, whose Modern Place Lighting is located in Pensacola, Florida.

Saagar Govil, CEO of Cemtrex Inc., an environmental technology company, fears it will lose business in the U.S. because there may be less need for his equipment that monitors and destroys greenhouse gases. He hopes the Farmingdale, New York-based company will be able to sell those products overseas, and in states that have pledged to follow the Paris accord.

"But until we start to see something concrete, it's unclear how that will fly," he said.

Some business owners, however, think Trump's action will ultimately help their companies. John-Paul Maxfield, whose Denver-based Waste Farmers sells agricultural products and technology to greenhouse operators, believes it will raise awareness of global warming.

"It reinforces the need for alternative systems in the face of climate change," Maxfield said.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has praised a U.S.-based Nigerian woman for running a secret support group on the social media platform where more than 1 million women discuss issues ranging from health and marriage to work and sex.

The head of the worlds largest social networking company met with Lola Omolola, who is based in Chicago, and posted late Tuesday about Female IN (FIN), which was founded in 2015.

'No-judgment space'

Its a no-judgment space ... helping end the culture of silence that exists for women in some parts of the world, the 33-year-old billionaire said in a post on his Facebook page.

Zuckerberg, who visited Nigeria last year, said he would be meeting more Facebook group leaders such as Omolola at the first ever Facebook Communities Summit later this month in Chicago.

The summit will help group administrators to do even more to build community ... and common understanding, he added.

In response to Zuckerbergs post, Omolola said Facebook had helped women worldwide to find their voices through the FIN group, and thanked the entrepreneur for helping me create the world I wish to live in and have my 8- and 10-year-old inherit.

Although the FIN group is secret, meaning that only members can invite others to join and view its content, Omolola said in a public video that it aimed to disrupt the status quo and change the landscape in communities where women are not heard.

I come from a community where lots of the time women have a lot to say, but we have been conditioned and we have been raised to keep silent, because someone is going to get embarrassed by something we say, Omolola said in the video interview with Facebooks diversity director, Maxine Williams.

Equality law thrown out

Nigerias Senate last year threw out a gender and equality law that pledged to end discrimination in politics, education and employment, protect womens rights and tackle violence against women after lawmakers opposed it on religious grounds.

Womens rights activists said the dismissal showed the government was ignoring the dangers facing Nigerian women, ranging from sexual assault and abduction to forced marriages.
Fired FBI Director Jim Comey will tell a Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday that President Donald Trump asked him for loyalty during White House conversations concerning the agencys handling of investigations into current and former administration officials, including the president himself.

The committee released an advance copy of Comey's seven-page opening statement a day before his scheduled appearance. This came shortly after the Director of National Intelligence and other top intelligence officials refused to answer the committee's questions about Comey and the Russia investigation.

Watch: Comey Confirms Conversations with Trump Ahead of Senate Testimony

In his statement, he offers explosive details and accounts of five separate conversations he had with Trump, including strong suggestions the president tried to influence FBI investigations.

The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,'  Comey recounted about one White House meeting. I didnt move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.

Statement to committee

In his prepared remarks, Comey said he told Trump three times that he was not a subject of the FBI investigation into whether his associates had improper contacts with Russian government officials.

In another passage, Comey will testify that Trump asked him on February 14 to "let go" of the investigation into Michael Flynn, who had been fired as national security adviser the previous day. "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go." Comey quotes Trump as saying. "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

Trump last month flatly denied pressuring Comey to close or back down from the Flynn investigation. "No. No. Next question," he replied to a reporter's question.The president also rejected allegations that his associates colluded with Russia to influence last November's presidential election, calling it a "witch hunt."

Trump supporters see vindication

After Comey's statement was made public Wednesday, Trump's supporters suggested there was nothing to indicate presidential wrongdoing.

Trump's private counsel for the Russia investigation said the president "feels completely and totally vindicated."

"The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigations in any Russian probe," attorney Marc E. Kasowitz said in a statement. "He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel made the same point in a statement on the RNC website: "President Trump was right. Director Comey's statement reconfirmed what the president has been saying all along - he was never under investigation."

Democrats see it differently

Democrats in Congress had a different take on the significance of the testimony.

Congressman Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called Comey's allegations "troubling." In a statement, Schiff said the president's interaction with Comey "represents yet another improper effort to coerce the intelligence agencies to do public relations for the White House and to undermine the independence and integrity of the intelligence community."

Several other Trump critics said the accounts of his attempted intervention were inappropriate and could amount to obstruction of justice.

I don't think there's any real smoking gun," a former veteran FBI official told VOA, asking for anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding the investigation.

"I think Director Comey did everything correctly," he added. "It just shows a president who's not aware of how the government works or that the government's a bureaucracy, and [he] was approaching it more like a business deal."

FBI head fired in May

Trump fired Comey last month. The White House at first issued a statement saying the dismissal had been made on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had sent a memo criticizing Comey's handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emails.

Trump later contradicted that account, telling a reporter he was "thinking of the Russia thing" at the time he fired Comey.

Presidential scholars say that, if confirmed, Comey's version of events would represent a significant challenge to the traditional barriers meant to preserve the independence of U.S. law enforcement institutions.

"There is a level of concerning interaction between the president and the FBI that I don't think we've seen since the Watergate era," said Dan Mahaffee, executive director of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

Earlier Wednesday, two top U.S. intelligence officials told the Senate Intelligence Committee they did not feel inappropriately pressured by the president to publicly disavow possible Russian collusion with Trump aides in last year's election.

Both Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told committee members they would not discuss details of their White House meetings with Trump in recent months. They refused to answer questions about whether Trump asked them to intervene to curb the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Ken Bredemeier and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
By Mike Hove

Sixty young Zimbabweans are heading to the United States of America for the Mandela Washington Fellowship.

They are expected to be studying various issues at several tertiary institutions.

Fashion curator, social entrepreneur and television host, Gilmore Moyo, is one of the fellows.

Moyo, who is humbled and excited to be part of group heading to America, says the opportunity to link up with youths from fellow African countries and those that he will be studying with in USA, is very exciting.

He says it does not only provide a leeway for him to fly the Zimbabwean flag high in a foreign country and sharing the Zimbabwean story, but it also opens the door to the possibility of future collaborations.

Zimbabwe has an extremely special story to share with the world. As young people we are constantly hustling to make things happen and I think this is a massive opportunity for us to show the world what we are really made off.

Moyo further says he is also looking forward to learning how his fellow youths approach the several different issues they face in their respective countries.

According to Moyo, what made the selection committee pick him for the fellowship is that unlike a lot of youths who complain about the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe, he tries by all means to improve the living standards of those around him, by implementing programs that give the youth hope that their future is bright.

I have constantly used my expertise in fashion to train fellow designers in Zimbabwe and I make sure I bring in renowned experts to co-facilitate the training.

After completing the six-week program, Moyo expects to use his newly-attained knowledge to set up a platform that will promote training for those looking to go into the fashion industry.

For those looking to get to know the fellows better, follow us as we are going to be providing daily profiles of the fellows.
SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook offers data to humanitarian groups

Facebook said Wednesday that it will share data culled from its Safety Check feature with aid organizations  specifically UNICEF, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the World Food Program  to make it easier for them to locate people who need help.

Safety Check allows users to notify family members and friends after natural disasters or attacks that prompt Facebook to deploy the tool. The data sharing announced Wednesday is only for aid organizations  the average Facebook user is not going to see it  and could help groups determine where to send supplies or other aid.

Humanitarian organizations need more of a birds-eye view of areas affected by natural disasters, said Molly Jackman, a public policy research manager at Facebook. The data could be used to see how populations are moving, where they are checking in safely and how their normal routines have been disrupted.

Jackman said that the new tools, as with the original Safety Check, will initially share users behavior only after natural disasters and not during violent situations such as shootings.

Facebook said it is using data only from users who have opted in to location tracking and that it is looking at that data in aggregate.

 Hayley Tsukayama

TECHNOLOGY

Judge says Waymomay see Uber report

Uber Technologies lost a battle to prevent Waymo, the self-driving-car unit of Googles parent company, Alphabet, from seeing an internal report that Waymo is betting will show that its former engineer colluded with the ride-hailing giant to steal driverless technology.

David A. Perlson, an attorney for Waymo, confirmed the ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco in a court hearing Wednesday.

Since Waymo sued in February, Uber and engineer Anthony Levandowski resisted turning over a due-dilligence report evaluating the risks associated with Ubers acquisition of Otto, the company Levandowski formed days after he quit Waymo. They argued it cannot be disclosed because it involves confidential legal communications.

Waymo claims that in 2015, Levandowski and Uber hatched a plan for him to steal more than 14,000 proprietary files, including the designs for lidar technology that helps driverless cars see their surroundings. Levandowski left Waymo in January 2016. Uber bought Otto in August for $680 million.

Uber has denied Waymos trade-secret theft allegations. The company fired Levandowski last month after a judge said he should be threatened with termination for refusing to turn over evidence.

Uber spokesman Matt Kallman declined to comment. An attorney for the company said that it will decide Thursday whether to appeal the decision.

 Bloomberg News

Also in Business

A medical marijuana dispensary in Massachusetts has created a pizza for patients who dont want to smoke their pot. Quincy-based Ermont has been selling cannabis-infused pizza for about three weeks, to rave reviews. Seth Yaffe, the companys director of operations, says Ermont has several marijuana edibles, but it wanted to offer meals without a lot of sugar. The six-inch cheese pizzas sell for $38. The tomato sauce contains 125 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. Only people with state-issued medical marijuana ID cards can buy the pizzas.

U.S. consumers increased their borrowing at the slowest pace in April than in almost six years. Credit-card spending growth slowed, along with borrowing for school and autos. The Federal Reserve reported Wednesday that total consumer borrowing rose $8.2 billion, or 2.6 percent, to $3.8 trillion. The category that includes student and auto loans increased $6.7 billion, or 2.9 percent. Credit-card borrowing increased $1.5 billion, or 1.8 percent.

Lowes announced Wednesday that it is laying off about 125 information technology workers, the third round of job cuts this year. A Lowes spokesman said the company has been planning a strategic IT workforce team to respond better in this highly competitive 24/7 retail environment. Some of the jobs will be relocated to Bangalore, India. In January, Lowes announced layoffs of 2,400 full-time workers. In February, Lowes cut more than 500 full-time corporate jobs.

 From news reports

Coming today

8:30 a.m.: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.

10 a.m.: Freddie Mac releases weekly mortgage rates.


(Lisk Feng/For The Washington Post)

Your boss doesnt care if you finish your novel. Your partner would rather not hear about the memoir youve been threatening to write. Feeling discouraged? It may be time to escape the creativity-quashing grind and reconnect with your muse in a lovely locale.

Whether you like Midwestern lakes or Icelandic hot springs, theres a writers retreat for you. Here are half a dozen programs where you can spend quality time with your journal or get started on the next bestseller:

For the Nordic-lit set

Iceland has a rich literary tradition that encompasses 13th-century sagas, the in-vogue Nordic Noir and a Nobel Prize-winner (Halldor Laxness, 1902-1998). So many books are released in the run-up to Christmas that they call it the Jolabokaflod, the Christmas Book Flood.

That literary bent, along with the spectacular scenery, makes the country an appealing setting for the Iceland Writers Retreat. Writers at any level are welcome. The retreat includes excursions such as a literary twist on the Golden Circle tour, which features the Great Geysir and the famous Gullfoss waterfall, as well as a visit to Icelands ancient seat of learning, Skalholt.

The twist: Youll see these sites in the company of writers such as Hilton Als, Alice Hoffman and Gwendoline Riley. Youre in a workshop with them or sitting next to them at lunch or on a tour with them going to see geysers, so you have an opportunity to interact, says Eliza Reid, who founded IWR with Erica Jacobs Green. Reid also happens to be Icelands first lady, and her enthusiasm for the country and its literary life is both winning and good public relations.

Anyone can sign up for the IWR, and everyone does, Reid says. Our participants really run the gamut from professional writers to people who write cookbooks to people who just keep a diary.

Cost/duration: Approximately $3,000; four nights.

For foodies

If youre equally serious about food and writing, a cookNscribble retreat might be the secret ingredient youve been seeking. Molly ONeill, the cookbook author who was a longtime New York Times reporter and food columnist, created cookNscribble for writers who didnt have access to the kind of training she had early in her career. (Promoting community is a common theme of writers retreats.)

ONeill began with online courses and added an intensive food-writers residency in Upstate New York, her home base. She also puts together several in-person retreats a year in culinary meccas such as La Pitchoune, the French summer home of Julia Child, one of ONeills mentors. For this fall, cookNscribble has organized a retreat in a super-cool unknown part of Tuscany in a castle repurposed as a food learning center, ONeill says.

Why go? Youre in a beautiful place, people are pretty darn motivated, and people get work done, ONeill says. And lives change. Thats pretty cool. And you will eat well.

Cost/duration: $3,500; seven nights.

For culture connoisseurs

If tapas and flamenco are more your thing, the Summer in Granada retreat, sponsored by the Cambridge Writers Workshop, promises a warm cultural bath: Let the old city stimulate your writing with its winding streets, Moorish history, and evocative landscapes, the website says.

Summer in Granada is part of a series of retreats created by writers Rita Banerjee and Diana Norma Szokolyai. They describe their retreat model as a kind of roving salon, with previous sessions in Paris and at a chateau in Picardy, among its envy-inducing locations. All of these places have a very alive and electric culture, a culture that exists on the streets, in the imagination, Banerjee says.

This summer, participating writers will enjoy an experiential tour alongside workshops and writing sessions. Fiction writer Tim Horvath will teach a writing from the senses class that includes a visit to a museum of smells, a visit to a chocolatier and a tapas tour. No matter how intellectual writing gets, you always want to draw in the senses and immerse the reader, he says. (Did we mention chocolate?)

Cost/duration: $2,950; four nights. Some scholarships available.

For runners

If youd rather burn calories, Writers Who Run could be your cup of tea. Founder and director Christie Wright Wild has two passions: running and writing. Days at her retreat in the mountains of North Carolina begin with a 7 a.m. trail run, a challenge for those normally still fumbling for the coffee pot at that hour. Wild says, It wakes up the mind, wakes up the body  and its a good cure for writers block.

Post-run, participants take two two-hour workshops on craft and the business of writing with instructors such as fantasy novelist Alex Lidell and Social media Jedi Kristen Lamb. Evenings are for socializing  simple things like smores, journal making, a dip in the pool, Wild says. The final day involves a 10K race through the woods along a course marked with inspirational signs about writing and running.

Cost/duration: $1,499; four nights.

For women only

Men need not apply for Storyknife Writers Retreat, a program in Homer, Alaska, founded by mystery-novel powerhouse Dana Stabenow. For her, Storyknife is a way to repay a creative debt. Early in her career, she attended Hedgebrook Farm, a women-only writing retreat on Whidbey Island in Washington State.

Why women-only? Its still true that women are underrepresented in publishing, Stabenow says. Its different when youre just concentrating on women writers. Theres more of a focus. Its a total removal from their ordinary, everyday life.

Stabenows Storyknife, which is nonprofit, has raised money for three cabins so far, with a main house and three more cabins planned. Sixty-five people applied this year for four slots, one of which will be taken by a not-yet-published writer. Stabenow expects to host four writers again in 2018.

Cost/duration: Free (includes small stipend to defray transportation costs); one month.

A generative retreat

If cranking out fresh pages is your top priority, try a generative retreat. At the Interlochen Writers Retreat in Michigan, participants pick their genre  memoir, personal essay, novel, short story or poetry  and spend four days generating material under the tutelage of established writers.

About 45 percent of participants are returning students; three-quarters are female, most from the Midwest, many in the 45-64 age range. (Many writers retreats skew female.)

Katey Schultz, Interlochens artistic director and author of the story collection Flashes of War, attributes the high return rate to an atmosphere thats supportive but not coddling. Students dont arrive with manuscripts in hand only to get destroyed in cutthroat MFA fashion, she says. Youre there to make and create and feel the energy.

Youre writing all week, says Mary Kay Zuravleff, a D.C.-based novelist who teaches at the Interlochen Writers Retreat. Every time you meet your class, theres a writing prompt. Every craft lecture, theres a writing prompt.

Interlochen attracts a mixture of experience levels. Whether your novel is just a twinkle in your eye or youre on your second draft, Zuravleff says, come on in.

Cost/duration: $520 (lodging not included); four or five nights.

Practicalities and caveats

A retreat can be great for networking, but it is not where pro writers go to hobnob with peers, agents and publishers. It isnt a high-wattage artists colony like Bread Loaf or Yaddo. Except for the cost, which can be alarmingly high, most retreats work on an egalitarian, all-are-welcome model that is too rare in literary life. Lodging, some meals and excursions are usually but not always included. Expect to pay for your own transportation. The more glamorous the destination, the higher the cost of travel. Also, keep in mind: Retreats fill up, and registration closes at different times of year for different programs; if youve missed this years windows, theres always next year.

Jennifer Howard is a writer based in Washington.


Rives Wileys DIY Laser Eye Surgery (2016), oil paint, hair weave, wood, resin and video, on view through June 24 at Hamiltonian Gallery. Wileys show includes traditional paintings, but all are concerned with vision and depth. (Rives Wiley/Paolo Morales/Courtesy Hamiltonian Gallery)

It was a Renaissance when 15th-century Italian painters began to use vanishing-point perspective. In our age of 3-D flicks and virtual-reality goggles, such techniques have been aggressively upstaged. Yet there are 3 perspective-teasing paintings in DIY Laser Eye Surgery, Rives Wileys Hamiltonian Gallery show.

The puckish centerpiece, which shares the shows name, combines painting, video and stage-set sculpture. In the video, a parody of YouTube tutorials, a girlish off-screen voice instructs do-it-yourselfers on how to physically modify their eyes for the digital age. Gallery visitors watch the small screen from behind the silhouette of a long-haired person who appears intent on the video. The hair is genuine, not painted, and there is actual space between the sculptural viewer and the video. Yet some of the distance is simulated with painted imagery.

Also depicted in the Washington artists diorama are translucent colored shapes that represent lens flare. These take on a separate existence in resin forms that hang in spots in the gallery. From the proper angle, perhaps, looking through these oversize spheres can imitate the effects of digitized eyesight.

Wileys more traditional paintings are entirely flat, yet just as concerned with vision and depth. The artist employs a sort of photo realism, crisp yet sometimes blurry edged, that emulates Internet imagery. The pictures depict a dinner party, a paint-and-sip venue and a wheat field that inspires women to jump for joy, all rendered precisely but disorientingly. Some objects are rounded naturalistically, while others are as flat as, well, pictures. The composition might flow or be chopped into vignettes. Wiley has classical skills, but the world she depicts owes less to Botticelli than to Instagram.

Rives Wiley: DIY Laser Eye Surgery On view through June 24 at Hamiltonian Gallery, 1353 U St. NW. 202-332-1116. hamiltoniangallery.com.

Samera Pazs Untitled 2, on view at Transformer. (Samera Paz/Transformer)

Bloodlines

In Rives Wileys video at Hamiltonian Gallery, an X-ACTO knife inserted into a photo of an eyeball yields trickles of pink liquid. Most of the hues are redder in Transformers Bloodlines, a four-woman show that includes Iman Persons wispy drawings made with ink and dried menstrual fluid. More vivid are Samara Pazs large, bloody abstractions, whose pooling crimson is the product of an inkjet printer.

The shows theme isnt simply menstruation, notes curator Martina Dodd, but bloodlines of family and heredity. Tsedaye Makonnens installation, which consists of candy, fake flowers and candle-like LEDs, appears ready for an intergenerational ritual. The largest piece is Lisa Hills Regeneration: 93 Days, whose hanging, partly draped roll of raw-flax paper is meant to evoke the shedding, scarring and regeneration of skin. The cycle commemorated by this immense yet fragile construction is of both birth and rebirth.

Bloodlines On view through June 24 at Transformer, 1404 P St. NW. 202-483-1102. transformerdc.org.

Greetings From Adams Morgan

The entity represented by Greetings From Adams Morgan is more of a sensibility than a location. There are no evident images of the neighborhood in the District of Columbia Arts Center show, which also includes work by artists based in adjacent precincts. Indeed, the most urban entry is Zarina Zuparkhodjaevas Coming Soon 2, which is mostly a misty-gray abstraction, but with a fleet of orange construction cranes lurking in a corner. The groupings other trickster is Yaroslav Koporulin, who has trapped a classic mime routine inside a designer handbag.



Lisa K. Rosensteins Daily Drawing April 15, Micron pen, watercolor pencil on paper, on view at the D.C. Arts Center. (Lisa K. Rosenstein/D.C. Arts Center)

Among the realist works are several that hint at underlying structures. Rita Eisners mountain scape was drawn with pastel on assembled brown paper bags, whose seams and text show through like cracks in the universe. The printed-on-metal photographs by Michael OSullivan (a Washington Post writer and editor) accentuate natural patterns in trees and vegetation. Both Ellyn Weisss small wax-and-pigment pieces and Betsy Stewarts exuberant large painting suggest microbiological entities writ large.

The title of Maryanne Pollocks Double Helix Silver Cells also implies something glimpsed though a microscope, but what makes this monotype stand out is the potent contrast of silver and black geometric forms with looser aqua ones. The effect is both rigorous and splashy.

Greetings From Adams Morgan On view through June 18 at the District of Columbia Arts Center, 2438 18th St. NW. 202-462-7833. dcartscenter.org/exhibitions.htm.

Kai Wiedenhoefers photo of Duwaa, 2, and Schahd, 5. In 2013, a rocket hit the house where they lived with their uncle. They had moved there after their home came under control of the Syrian army. (Kai Wiedenhoefer/Goethe-Institut)

40 Out of One Million

The photographic portraits in Goethe-Institut Washingtons 40 Out of One Million are almost mundane. Syrian refugees gaze at the camera, most of them solemnly, but a few younger ones with a hint of a smile. Kai Weidenhofers crisp, large-format pictures neither flaunt nor conceal the thing his subjects all share. Only occasionally does the Berlin photographer engage in irony, as when he depicts a boy under a poster of a child who is about the same age. The poster boy is being nuzzled by playful puppies; the real one is missing an arm and a foot.

Made in Jordan or Lebanon in 2014-2015, the photos document children and a few adults who left some of their blood and flesh in their homeland. Several are in wheelchairs, others wear elaborate medical apparatuses, and many are amputees. The perhaps luckier ones display grisly scars. The pictures are accompanied by short biographies that convey the same sense of ruptured ordinariness as the images. These are simply people who couldnt get out of the way fast enough when war came to town.

40 Out of One Million On view through June 16 at Goethe-Institut Washington, 1990 K St. NW (entrance on 20th Street). 202-847-4700. goethe.de/washington.

Trish Palasik & Trix Kuijper

Sculptors Trish Palasik and Trix Kuijper each craft tapered humanoids, although the results on display at Studio Gallery are quite different. Palasiks are chunky and primal, with vestigial craniums. Kuijpers are conical bases for baby-doll heads differentiated by such accessories as goggles and antlers.

Palasiks Looking Forward: States of the Union is larger and more diverse. The materials include ceramics and twisted wire, and occasionally pinpoint LEDs. But the most striking pieces are groupings of neo-primitivist clay people, especially the largest one, whose three figures appear ancient yet universal.



Trish Palasiks We the People, on view at Studio Gallery. (Trish Palasik/Studio Gallery)

The idea of Kuijpers Familiar Faces 2 is to summon the brew of feelings when meeting someone new. Seemingly emerging from cocoons, the mixed-media creatures are surreal, yet their visages are unthreatening and essentially identical. Both artists streamlined figures evoke complex responses.



Trix Kuijpers work in Looking Forward: States of the Union. (Trix Kuijper/Studio Gallery )

Trish Palasik: Looking Forward: States of the Union and Trix Kuijper: Familiar Faces 2 On view through June 17 at Studio Gallery, 2108 R St. NW. 202-232-8734. studiogallerydc.com.
Strained legacy

New Prime Minister Deuba gets yet another opportunity to rewrite his blighted history


Kai Thompson, 24, graduate student, and Deondre Jones, 24, public policy researcher. (Daniele Seiss)

Interviews by Michele Langevine Leiby

Kai Thompson, a 24-year-old graduate student, and Deondre Jones, a 24-year-old public policy researcher, are D.C. newcomers who have progressive outlooks. Both have connections to North Carolina. (He grew up there; she attended school there.) He has a ton of hobbies, including longboarding, playing guitar and writing, and she enjoys bike rides, stand-up comedy and long conversations, so things looked promising. They whiled away the evening at Sette Osteria near Dupont Circle.

Deondre: I got there first, but I was still around 10 minutes late. And I was worried because thats definitely not a good look to be late. The Yellow Line was out, as usual.

Kai: We were both late, though.

Deondre: I actually [searched her first name on] Facebook and I filtered it to Washington, and the first person that popped up turned out to be her. At the time I obviously didnt know it was going to be her, but I just looked at her profile and I was like, I feel The Washington Post would set me up with someone like this. So I was halfway expecting that person to walk in, and that person did walk in. I wasnt surprised to see her, but I was surprised that I got it right, if that makes sense.

Kai: He dressed nicer than I did for this. I wore a T-shirt dress and a jean jacket, and he wore a button-down and khakis. I dont think he was someone that I would just talk to in a bar or something, but if he started talking to me first I definitely would continue talking to him. Hes not unattractive, just probably different than I would pick for myself. I like his haircut. He has a cute face.

Deondre: She describes herself as being from Michigan by way of North Carolina by way of Michigan. We definitely bonded over the North Carolina deal. She was living in Asheville, where she went to school. And thats a city that Ive visited a lot.

Kai: Were both really interested in policy, and thats why were here [in Washington]. Im working on a masters degree in public policy, and hes here on a fellowship for an NGO that does policy research.

Deondre: I work in hunger and food insecurity policy, which is actually her passion; thats where she wants to be. And she is very dedicated to learning more about that. She described herself as an academic, which is something that I admire because I definitely dont consider myself to be an academic. I was very eager to get out of school.

Kai: It got kind of deep when we were talking about our families. I told him that my dad passed away when I was younger. And he told me that he was really raised by his grandparents. Getting to know things that I dont know about some of my friends on the first date was pretty memorable to me.

Deondre:We bonded over the lack of Southern charm in D.C. Your pace of life is a lot quicker. We had similar political ideologies. Were both very liberal, which isnt a hard thing to find in D.C. Thats kind of a baseline for me. We were able to have discourse about politics in America, and it didnt result in a fight, even though we werent necessarily exactly on the same page. We bonded over both being people of color and being woke for lack of a better term.

Kai: I was definitely ready to make a love connection, but I really feel like we could be really, really tight friends. He feels like somebody I could talk to about very serious things. But I dont know if Im interested in dating him necessarily. But I want to hang out with him again. Hes a really cool person. I didnt particularly feel that he thought that I was a romantic candidate for him either.

Deondre: We stayed at the restaurant until it closed. She opted to call it a night, but she said that she wanted to give me her number. Before we [left] I said, Id love to see you again, and she said [yes].

Kai:I think we would probably hang out again. Maybe in a group with other people.

Rate the date

Deondre: 4.3 [out of 5]. I could definitely see myself dating her.

Kai: 3. Id like to see if theres any potential for building something.

Update

Theyve texted briefly and plan to hang out in the coming weeks.
Donald Trump last month informed America that he is (1) a victim of the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! and that (2) no politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.

Let us examine his grievances, historically.

To be fair, the mainstream media has been rather skeptical of Trumps temperament and abilities, and the Justice Department doesnt seem willing to accept his protestations of extreme innocence. Whereas:

Witch hunt

(Illustration by Eric Shansby)

I think most of us can agree that as far as American witch hunts go, the one in Salem, Mass., in 1692 was pretty bad. Fourteen women, five men and two very bad dogs were put to death. At least one victim was what passed in that time for a politician: John Willard, the towns assistant constable. Willard was in charge of rounding up suspected witches but soon sickened of it inasmuch as he realized he was largely relying on accusations from giggly, histrionic, sexually frustrated teenage girls. He quit his job in protest. For this, he himself was accused of being a witch. At his trial people testified that, among other things, he had caused a mans urinary agony  current medical evidence suggests the guy had kidney stones  by giving him the evil eye. Willard was held in a dungeon for two weeks, then hanged. Bad witch hunt!

Worse and unfair

Cicero: This 1st century B.C. Roman lawyer and politician is said to have been the greatest public speaker in history. He is considered the grandfather of the Enlightenment and great-grandfather of the United States, profoundly influencing revolutionary democratic thinkers like John Locke. But Cicero fell into disfavor with Marc Antony, who ruled Rome. Antony had Cicero hunted down and stabbed to death. So that was pretty unfair. Unfairer still was that Ciceros head and hands were then displayed at the Roman forum, like some sort of meat puppet. Definitely worse. Very unfair.

Edward II of England : Edward was, by most accounts, a mediocre 14th-century king with one notable achievement: graciously ceding greater authority to Parliament. He is also said to have been a homosexual, which possibly contributed to his overthrow and murder, which by some accounts occurred via the application of a hot poker into his royal wazoo. Bad! Unfair!

Georges Danton, French revolutionary : Danton helped overthrow the monarchy and began the Reign of Terror. However, he became sickened by the spectacle of power-mad thugs triumphantly holding up by the hair the severed heads of the guillotined aristocrats, to the cheers of ravening crowds of bloodthirsty yeehaws with bad teeth. Danton publicly suggested that the state consider executing only those clearly guilty of crimes. For this, he was guillotined. Definitely unfair and bad.

Harry S. Truman: During his eventful seven-plus years as president, Truman merely solved the worst refugee crisis in world history; ended Jim Crow in the federal government; created NATO, the World Bank, the IMF and the Marshall Plan; saved Berlin and rebuilt Europe. But when he left office in 1953, he was the least popular president ever, widely reviled, mercilessly ridiculed, in part because of Joe McCarthys shamefully dishonest attack on alleged communists in his administration. Unfair!

Helen Gahagan Douglas: A capable, liberal-leaning congresswoman from California and a former Hollywood star, she had the bad luck, when she ran for Senate in 1950, to be opposed first in a primary by an unscrupulous Democrat, and then, in the general election, by Richard Nixon. He called her the Pink Lady and said she was pink right down to her underwear, an appallingly sexist statement even for the 1950s. Nixon also tasked surrogates to attack her on the grounds that her husband, Melvyn Douglas, was Jewish. Very, very unfair.

Zainab Fatuma Naigaga : This isnt all ancient history. In October 2015, the female opposition-party official in Uganda was headed to a political rally when she was taken from her car by government thugs, dragged through the street and stripped naked to the waist. The scene was uploaded to the Internet for all to see.

Very, very, very, very unfair, Donald.

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Something happened on Thursday that hardly ever happens any more: The news media stopped and collectively focused on one event. There was no other story in this otherwise fragmented news world; James B. Comeys congressional testimony was it and only it.

Fox News metaphorically locked arms with CNN, which linked with MSNBC and HLN and Fox Business and CNBC and CSPAN and PBS in airing the former FBI directors testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. The commercial broadcast networks swept aside Lets Make a Deal, The Price is Right and other syndicated trifles to carry it live for nearly 2 hours. Univision (Comey: El Testimonio) provided hushed simultaneous English-to-Spanish translation of the proceedings, too.

Public radio stations fed the audio. Dozens of websites streamed the live feed. On Twitter, #comey, #comeyhearings and #jamescomey all trended simultaneously.

It was this way for epic congressional hearings of yore, from Army-McCarthy in 1954 through Watergate, Iran-contra and Clarence Thomass confirmation hearings. But the key word is yore. All of those were artifacts of a bygone media age, long before an explosion of news sources made living in an info-bubble possible if not desirable. Those hearings were a product of the pre-Internet, pre-10,000 channel, pre-Netflix universe when media consensus was easily achieved.

But now? Outside of presidential elections and a thankfully rare national emergency such as 9/11, Americas news industry flies on many separate beams. The news agenda is in pieces, dependent on the demographic imperatives and perceived audience tastes of each outlet and organization. There is no consensus on an agenda, and certainly no consensus about something as telegenically inert as a congressional hearing.

(Kate Woodsome,Monica Akhtar,Dana Milbank/The Washington Post)

[How Washington celebrated Comey Day  the ultimate holiday for a city of nerds]

Cable networks fueled the buildup to Comey-Palooza with countdown clocks, 10-member talking-head panels, and prehearing hallway shots of senators arriving like heavyweights before a title fight. Although some of the surprise may have been deflated by the release of Comeys written testimony on Wednesday, the hearing was cast as a national suspense story unequaled since verdict day at O.J. Simpsons double-murder trial in 1995.

There was no finality in the event itself. News was made during the hearing, of course, but to what effect remains unclear.

Comey testified that he believed he was fired because he refused to commit to burying an FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He said President Trump had attempted to establish a quid pro quo  by backing off the investigation, hed keep his job, Comey suggested the president suggested  providing fodder for post-hearing discussions about whether Trump had obstructed justice. Comey also confirmed his prehearing testimony that he had told the president repeatedly that he was not the subject an investigation.

Perhaps more plainly, the public was treated  if thats the right word  to the extraordinary spectacle of a former FBI director telling the world that the president is a liar. Five times.

Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader, Comey said. Those were lies plain and simple.

Lie-wise, Comey said he documented his private meetings with Trump because he was concerned Trump would lie about what happened. He directly disputed Trumps claim that Comey had requested a meeting in February to lobby for keeping his job; that Comey had called Trump (other way around, he said), and, the FBI director went on to say, that the president was lying when he said he had not asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

View Graphic How cable news networks reacted to Comeys Senate hearing

(Punching back later in the day, Trumps private lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, underscored Comeys statements that Trump wasnt under investigation, and he noted that Comey did not say that the president attempted to impede the investigation. Whats more, Kasowitz asserted that Comey and others had leaked classified and privileged information, such as details of his meetings with Trump at the White House, in a retaliatory fashion.)

Hearings are static, visually dull affairs  just a bunch of people sitting around talking. Yet the networks, supplied with images from four pool cameras in the hearing room, made the most with not much. There were useful split-screen shots of speaker and listeners, and dramatic close ups of Comeys impassive expression.

The only distinguishing element among the many networks carrying the hearing were the banners summarizing bits of information at the bottom of the screen. These betrayed both editorial emphasis, point of view, and sometimes a bit of snark.

At the same moment that CNNs banner read, Comey: Trump Administration Lied About Me & FBI, Fox News offered, General Flynn Was in Legal Jeopardy at Time of February 14 Conversation, and MSNBC displayed, Comey to Trump: Release All the Tapes.

At one point, CNN picked up on one of Comeys few colorful phrases and bannered it. Lordy, I hope there are tapes, it read, a reaction to Trumps tweet last month that Comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! (The White House has repeatedly refused to say if any of their conversations were recorded, including on Thursday).

More helpful, and occasionally more loaded, were the half-screen graphics displaying bullet points about participants in the hearings. One, on CNBC, said this about Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.): As lawyer, focused on defending doctors who were sued for malpractice.

PBS and CSPAN2 took the neutral path. They didnt run banners, just the name of each person speaking.

Whether any of this will prove significant in the course of the Trump presidency is hard to know in the immediate moments after the hearing. But for about 150 minutes on a Thursday in June, the media ensured that it was something that few things are any more: inescapable.
Our readers share tales of their ramblings around the world.

Who: Cheryl Leaman (the author) and her husband, Carlo Iannandrea, both of Chantilly, Va.

Where, when, why: We spent two weeks in Peru, visiting Lima, Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca. Ive been intrigued by Machu Picchu since I was a little girl and would read my grandpas National Geographic magazines, which were always stacked by his La-Z-Boy recliner. For three decades, I collected magazine articles and newspaper clips about Machu Picchu for the day I would make my dream a reality. My husband gave me the book The Road to Machu Picchu and we decided to celebrate my 50th birthday by hiking the Inca Trail.

Highlights and high points: This trip was a journey where we simply lived in the moment. The Peruvian culture captured us in every sense of the word. In the Sacred Valley, we walked the same cobblestone streets built by the Inca empire hundreds of years ago. We not only hiked the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, we climbed Huayna Picchu. Going up the mountains stairs of death was a physical effort that defied anything I had ever done. But sitting on the top of the mountain and looking down at the ruins made it worth it; it was a real pinch me moment. On Lake Titicaca, we visited the Uros Islands (floating islands made of reeds) and stayed in a local familys home. The night sky was brilliant, with millions of stars so bright it felt as if we could reach up and touch them.

Getting acclimated to the altitude (the highest we experienced was 12,700 feet) was easier than expected. We found that sucking on coca candies or leaves and staying hydrated with water and lots of coca tea minimized the effects of thinner air.

Cultural connection or disconnect: I brought a large tote bag filled with dental kits, colored pencils, coloring books and stickers to give to Peruvian children in some of the remote areas we visited. I will never forget the look of wonder on the faces of the youngsters as they were handed these treasures, nor the triumphant fist pumps of a little girl who ran down a dirt road with her goodies clutched in her hands. She returned to us within 10 minutes with two other girls in tow!

Biggest laugh or cry: We hiked the Inca Trail from milepost 104 near Winay Wayna, thru the Sun Gate and into Machu Picchu. The hike was far more difficult than I had anticipated, along four miles that gained 6,000 feet in elevation. Ninety minutes into the hike, we had to stop because I was suffering from dehydration. Our guide felt that we should turn back, but I was determined to fulfill my long-held dream. We trudged on, and 6.5 hours later we arrived at the Sun Gate and I saw Machu Picchu before me. The tears were instantaneous. It was surreal to see before me the architectural masterpiece that had captivated me from childhood. Though I was physically exhausted, and on the verge of collapse, I stood there, awestruck, with tears streaming down my face and my hands over my mouth.

How unexpected: Our whole experience in the Sacred Valley and Lake Titicaca regions filled us with a deep sense of peace. The people live simple lives, some without electricity and indoor plumbing. But they work hard and play hard. They are happy and content, and willing to share what little they have with travelers. I didnt expect to feel so at home in such a distant and remote area.

Favorite memento or memory: We came back from Peru with a few souvenirs  items made from alpaca wool and handmade pottery. But the best mementos are the memories of the physicality of our trip  being at high altitude, having conversations with our guides, Jose and Javier, and feeling the sense of inner peace and spirituality we gained from our interactions with the Peruvians.

To tell us about your own trip, go to washingtonpost.com/travel and fill out the What a Trip form with your fondest memories, finest moments and favorite photos.

More from Travel:

Enchantment under the sea  with whales  in Tahiti

Family history comes alive in Finland

Honeymooning in Middle Earth: Leaving current events behind to explore New Zealand
When Shira Newman flies home from Tel Aviv this summer, she wont be worried about long lines at the airport or short tempers on the plane. Instead, shell be concerned about her Samsung Galaxy S7 phone  specifically, the information on it.

Newman, a stay-at-home mom from Portland, Ore., has heard about Sidd Bikkannavar, the American citizen who was asked for his phone and his passcode when he entered the country this year. She knows U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reserves the right to search laptops and phones and even to review social media profiles, and she doesnt want to be next.

No one has the right to take my phone, Newman says. Is there a way to protect my privacy?

It helps to know the likelihood of having a digital pat-down. Searches of your electronics at the border, at least the kind experienced by Bikkannavar, appear to be rare. Of the more than 390.6 million arriving passengers in the United States during fiscal year 2016, the number of travelers whose electronic devices were searched was 19,033, or 0.005 percent, up from 0.002 percent in the previous year.

[Youve never heard of these people, but theyve changed the way you fly]

Keeping America safe and enforcing our nations laws in an increasingly digital world depends on our ability to lawfully examine all materials entering the U.S., says Jennifer Gabris, a CBP spokeswoman.

Her agency, which is responsible for ensuring the safety and admissibility of the goods and people entering the United States, exercises its border-search authority in accordance with its statutory and constitutional authority. And, notes Gabris, no court has ruled that the border search of electronic devices requires a warrant  at least not yet.

In a vast majority of electronics searches, agents are not interested in your Facebook friends, experts say.

Most customs or border-protection agencies are looking to verify that the device functions normally, and is not being used to transport illicit materials or possibly explosives, says Nathan Wenzler, chief security strategist at AsTech Consulting. Customarily, theyll ask an individual to power it on to demonstrate this.

Depending on the country youre arriving from and your nationality, customs agents may go a step further, Wenzler says. They could ask arriving passengers to log on to their computers and verify that the device functions normally, a request that might be seen as intrusive, if not inappropriate.

So how do you protect your electronics when youre passing through customs?

Lets start with what you shouldnt do, which is to check the electronics in your luggage. When ramp workers pilfer your luggage, theyre looking for valuables such as electronics. To make matters worse, airlines often have language in their contracts of carriage  the legal agreements between you and the airline  that limits their liability. Checking your iPad isnt a workaround. Instead, it exposes you to a different kind of trouble.

[Will the rash of recent viral videos have a lasting impact on airline regulation?]

One popular strategy among privacy-conscious air travelers is the backup-and-wipe maneuver. Make sure you are backing everything up in the cloud, explains James Carder, a vice president of LogRhythm Labs, a computer security company. He backs up his iPhone and iPad to the cloud before leaving. Then, if he gets to the border and sees agents checking devices, he deletes all the data on them. When I get to the other side, I restore the device with all my data in it, he explains.

If backing up to the cloud is impractical, you can still make your device more difficult to access. One easy strategy: Enable PIN codes on your smartphone, tablet, or laptops. That forces a nosy customs agent to ask for your code before accessing your data.

Log out of your apps, too, says Yaron Baitch, a senior director at LastPass, a password-management application. To do that, launch each app and log out of any active sessions. Dont forget to uncheck the remember me option on your apps. These steps can be enough to deter an unwarranted search of your electronics, but they dont guarantee it.

Protecting your data should be your highest priority. To do that, consider swapping out the hard drive on your laptop for a clean one, advises Craig Smith, an attorney who specializes in intellectual-property issues for the Cambridge, Mass., law firm Lando & Anastasi, LLP.

The goal is to limit the amount of data you carry during your travels to mitigate the risk of disclosure, he notes. If you cant remove the hard drive, consider encrypting it and protecting it with a strong password. Again, this creates an obstacle for a customs agent that could be enough to deter a more detailed search.

[With eco-friendly travel more popular than ever, approach green claims with skepticism]

But theres only one certain way to ensure that a federal employee doesnt see your Twitter account. I have been advising all of my clients to not carry electronics with saved data on them, says immigration attorney Renata Castro. She admits thats a little extreme, but says its the only way to ensure you get across the border without giving up your privacy. And for her clients, that could literally be a life-or-death matter, especially for those who might want to file for asylum in the United States. Erase your phones and laptops before you travel, or leave them at home. Theres no constitutional way to protect information at the border, she adds.

Better yet, leave your laptop at home when you travel this summer, says Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security strategy at SentinelOne. This might actually be a welcome option, he says. Rather than feel attached to a laptop, consider going device-free.

Newman, the concerned traveler from Portland, can add a stronger password, upload her data to the cloud or be prepared to wipe her device at the border. But the only certain way of maintaining her privacy is to leave her phone at home.

Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org.
The Capital Pride Parade moves along 17th Street NW in 2014. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)

When 2,000 people attended the first D.C. Capital Pride festival in June 1975, their thirst was quenched by one truck with beer and another with soda. Refreshment options were limited, but everyone appeared satisfied that gay men and women were marching at all.

We were the majority, suddenly, Deacon Maccubbin, former owner of Lambda Rising bookstore, who helped organize Pride events until 1980, told The Washington Post in 2000. We could have a good time together without worrying about offending anyone.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has made strides since that first Pride festival  both in wider public acceptance and in laws that grant protections and rights  but activists say that sense of unity has slipped away.

An activist collective that says the Pride festival is too closely tied to corporations and police is planning alternative events and action during this weekends LGBT rights festival. No Justice No Pride (NJNP) seeks to end the LGBT movements collusion with systems of oppression that further marginalize queer and trans individuals, according to its Facebook page.

NJNP finds fault with Pride and Capital Pride Alliance, the nonprofit organization behind the festival. Pride sponsors include large corporations such as Wells Fargo, recently condemned by members of the D.C. Council for its lending to private prisons and investment in the Dakota Access Pipeline, and weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman. Another sponsor, Maryland Live Casino, is owned by the Cordish Companies, which has ties to the Trump administration.

For some time, theres been a general sense that Pride has become more of a corporate festival rather than being true to Prides roots as resistance to state violence, said Andrew Ambrogi, a spokesman for NJNP.

[How to celebrate Capital Pride this week]

Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for Capital Pride Alliance, said the LGBT community is a microcosm of culture. Not everyone agrees on everything  particularly under a presidential administration hostile to gay rights, she said.

Having to fight constantly and resist constantly, we are turning a little bit on each other, Renna said. Its totally understandable, but I dont think its totally justified.

Organizers said there are advantages to having the backing of deep-pocketed businesses, which they see as advancing LGBT rights. Big businesses also helped to fight recent legislation such as the anti-transgender bathroom bill in North Carolina, Pride organizers say  adding that rules for which companies can contribute might be needed.

We know not every corporation is in line with the sentiments of everyone attending, said Bernie Delia, president of Capital Pride Alliance, adding that the board will develop criteria for corporate sponsors later this year.

Some activists say they think that corporate cash comes with a cost, arguing that it sullies the history of LGBT activism, which includes the 1969 Stonewall riots, when drag queens and others battled police after a raid on a gay bar in Manhattan.

[The long march from the Stonewall Inn]

We dont think its right or fair or in line with the legacy of Pride for these institutions . . . to walk alongside us in the parade and say they are standing up for the community, said Angela Peoples, the D.C.-based director of GetEqual, an LGBT activist organization.

Given the history of relations between police and some members of the LGBT community, others questioned whether police should be part of Pride at all.

Jen Deerinwater, a D.C.-based activist and member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock last year.

A bisexual and disabled journalist, she said she objects to the presence of police at the Pride parade  not just gay officers who may choose to march in uniform but any uniformed police at all.

All water protectors have faced a great degree of police brutality, she said of the pipeline protests. Theres an idea in America that police are here to keep us safe . . . that their main role is to serve and protect. Thats not really what they do.

Delia said he understood concerns about historical problems with law enforcement in general. After a discussion with the D.C. police LGBT liaison unit, officers participating in the parade will wear polo shirts, not uniforms, he said.

Capital Pride Alliance cant control how D.C. police deploy officers throughout the city, but Delia said officers would be welcome regardless.

Theres no interest on our part in removing them from the parade, Delia said. They are members of the community.

The Metropolitan Police Department pointed out that its been a part of Pride for decades.

MPD has a long history dating back at least to the [1990s] of participating in and ensuring the safety and security of the Capital Pride events, Brett Parson, head of the D.C. police LGBT liaison unit, said in a statement. We look forward to being part of this years festivities, as well as ensuring everyone in attendance has a safe and enjoyable time.

NJNP also questioned the diversity of the Capital Pride Alliance board, saying various genders and economic classes must be represented.

The 17-member board, for example, includes just one transgender person.

The board is primarily upper-middle class, able-bodied, American gay cis men, Deerinwater said. (Cisgender refers to those whose biological sex matches their gender identity.) Thats not what our community is made up of.

Although members of NJNP were given the chance to talk to the Capital Pride Alliance board in April and May, Delia said, concerns they identified couldnt be addressed weeks before a large event. He said critics should look beyond the board to volunteers and producers of events, who were members of an extremely diverse population.

We have taken measures to try to make the board as diverse as we possibly can, he said. Are we where we need to be and hope to be? No.

Ambrogi said activists were frustrated with the slow pace of progress on diversity, homelessness in the LGBT community and overpolicing, especially after the Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same-sex couples could legally marry.

They said, Let us win this together, and then well get to those issues,  he said. Now were seeing an identity crisis. We want to see if the establishment is true to their word.

Maccubbin, 74, said he was an antiwar protester from the 60s sensitive to complaints about sponsors such as Northrop Grumman but has also fought for LGBT visibility and for police to protect gay people rather than harass them.

He said protesters might have trouble getting what they want any time soon.

People engaged in building the war machine are not my first choice of people to party with, but they have a right to be there, he said.
THE DISTRICT

Motorcyclist is killed after striking truck

A 28-year-old man was killed Tuesday night when his motorcycle crashed into the back of a parked truck in Northeast Washington, D.C. police said.

The crash occurred about 11:20 p.m. in the 2100 block of Queens Chapel Road NE, near New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road. The man who died was identified as Raheem Johnson of Northeast.

Police said the motorcycle was speeding and went over a bridge and struck the back of the truck. The truck had its hazard lights flashing, headlights on and orange emergency lights activated, police said.

Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the investigation remains open.

 Peter Hermann

MARYLAND

Man shot in Oxon Hill dies from his injuries

A man shot in Oxon Hill, Md., died from his wounds, officials said.

The incident happened about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday in the 5200 block of Leverett Street. The initial investigation shows the man was found suffering from gunshot wounds when police arrived. He was taken to a hospital, where he later died.

Officials said detectives are trying to find a suspect or suspects and figure out a motive.

The victim was later identified as Shahim Body, 26, of Oxon Hill.

Prince Georges County police said they are offering a reward of up to $25,000. Anyone with information is asked to call 301-772-4925.

 Dana Hedgpeth

New hires at state Democratic Party

The state Democratic Party has hired Stephanie Potter, a former aide to Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), as its new executive director. Potter most recently was executive director of Senate Majority PAC, which supports Democratic senate candidates.

Party Chair Kathleen Matthews also announced the hiring of Brittany Oliver, who worked for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland as police accountability program coordinator, as digital communications manager.

Matthews, a former television anchor and corporate executive who ran for Congress last year, has vowed to heal a state party that is divided and depleted after the 2014 election.

 Bill Turque

Man steals backhoe to break into ATM

Investigators in Prince Georges County said theyre looking for a man who stole a piece of construction equipment, drove it five miles to a bank and used the heavy machinery to pry an ATM from a drive-through.

County police released video of the attempted theft of the ATM, with the recording showing the arm of a backhoe slamming the machine several times before it toppled over about 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

Police said the man left without cash. The ATM was too difficult to crack open, police said.

The backhoe was driven to a bank in the 7500 block of Marlboro Pike and caused about $10,000 in damage, police said.

Coleman said the man who drove the backhoe is thought to be the same person responsible for an ATM theft in March 2016, when three men broke into a tobacco shop on Marlboro Pike.

 Lynh Bui

VIRGINIA

Firefighter is hurt in townhouse blaze

A Fairfax County firefighter suffered minor injuries Wednesday while battling in a blaze at a townhouse in Reston.

The fire broke out Wednesday morning in the 1600 block of Greenbriar Court. It reached two alarms. It took crews about 20 minutes to extinguish the fire.

The firefighter fell through the first floor of the home into the basement, according to Battalion Chief Willie F. Bailey, a spokesman for the department. He said the firefighter was taken to a hospital but later released.

An initial investigation found that the fire was electrical in nature and was probably started by a light above the basement ceiling, according to Bailey.

There was no immediate estimate of how much monetary damage the fire had caused.

 Dana Hedgpeth
Some in Washington skipped work Thursday to watch former FBI director James B. Comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. That wasnt necessary for Lillyanne Daigle, who simply followed the rest of her office to a bar.

Daigle, a 29-year-old who works at a nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group, wasnt playing hooky as she stood in line with hundreds of others outside Shaws Tavern, a D.C. bar that opened at 9:30 a.m. to show the Comey hearing on each of its big-screen televisions. All of her co-workers were there on an official field trip.

Ive been in D.C. three years. This is my first D.C. scandal, Daigle said, occasionally peeking at the block-long line of political spectators between herself and the door. This is the most D.C. thing  watch a political scandal, at a bar.

At work, added Jennifer Knox, one of Daigles colleagues.

Hangovers, power breakfasts, sporting events in distant time zones  people have many motives for walking through a saloon door before lunch. In most cities, the opportunity to watch jargon-studded congressional testimony from a fired bureaucrat with hair like Joe Friday is not among them.

Leah Thrum joins patrons at Shaws Tavern to watch former FBI director James Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. (Win Mcnamee/Getty Images)

But anyone searching for evidence that Washington truly is a place apart from the rest of the country needed look no further Thursday than Shaws, one of roughly a half-dozen D.C. watering holes that opened in the morning to show Comeys testimony.

The patrons were a mix of young and old. Some, in ties or pantsuits, kept up a pretense of workaday seriousness. Others were at their summertime ease in salmon slacks and checkered linen shirts. This being Washington, a few people tried to stake out roles as anonymous sources.

This is crazy, and just a total testament to how different D.C. is as a city, a lawyer told a reporter. Then, clenching his jaw, he said he had clients in the federal government. I think its probably best that we stay off the record, he continued.

Mohammad Al-Rousan, a 22-year-old intern freshly arrived in the capital from Dallas and still not practiced in the dark arts of not-for-attribution quotes, was less guarded.

Ive never seen anything like this, he said, looking wide-eyed around the tavern. The closest he could recall, he said, was a mob scene at a mall for the release of the iPhone 7.

Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, Al-Rousans boss at an international aid-and-development outfit, said he wasnt expecting any smoking-gun moments during Comeys testimony. Nevertheless, a trip to the bar was a fitting orientation for his new crop of interns, he said.

Whats more D.C., Ghosh-Siminoff said, than making a huge political circus out of dry testimony in the Senate?

People line up outside Shaws Tavern for The Comey Hearing Covfefe watch party. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

The patrons werent raucous. By midmorning, most were still eating breakfast and favoring coffee over stronger beverages. But, in between long stretches of silence as Comey spoke, they werent above an occasional demonstrative outburst  most of it, in a city that voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, directed against President Trump.

[Comey says he helped reveal details of conversations with Trump]

When Comey called some of Trumps statements lies, plain and simple, the room erupted in applause. Aww, several people intoned when Comey spoke fondly of his former FBI colleagues. His wry laugh-lines  Yes, because Ive heard the president say so, he deadpanned when asked whether the bureaus investigation of Russian meddling in the election played a role in his firing  were duly met with guffaws.

The mood was more intense up the street at Duffys Irish Pub, home of the newly coined Covfefe Cocktail, named after one of the presidents less scrutable tweets. Inside the bar, there were few sounds other than senators questions and Comeys answers coming from the wall-mounted TVs. Whenever conversation or laughter periodically rose a few decibels, it was suppressed by another noise rarely heard in Irish pubs: shushing.

Outside on the patio, Hannes Schaser, a 41-year-old German citizen who lives in Arlington, was less constrained. Schaser, a stay-at-home dad with Adidas sneakers and a long prophets beard, was feeding his 13-month-old son in a stroller beside him. He said the hearing was living up to its billing as a spectator sport.

Comey is an entertaining guy, and he loves the stage, Schaser said. So why not make it like a sports event?

As lunchtime approached and Comey wrapped up the public portion of his testimony, a sense of anticlimax set in. Some said he had stolen his own thunder by releasing a written portion of his remarks on the eve of the hearing.

Theres nothing really damning, or something that we havent heard of or thought of before, said Shaws co-owner Eric Heidenberger. But in at least one respect, he added, the hearing was epoch-making: The crowd at the bar, which ultimately ran to about 300, eclipsed turnout at previous election watch nights.

Nothing before has compared to the outpouring we have seen today, he said. I think people want some answers.

At least one drinking establishment tried to buck the trend. The Pug, in the H Street corridor, had advertised itself on social media as an apolitical foil to bars like Shaws and Duffys. It opened at 11 a.m.  and resolutely tuned the television to HGTV.

Bartender Russell de Leon, surveying a room empty except for a reporter tapping at her laptop, said the gag didnt exactly pay off.

One guy did come in, he said. He just sort of stood there for a moment and then walked out.
Four school board members have urged Kevin Maxwell, chief executive of Prince Georges County Public Schools, to publicly apologize for graduation incidents last week.(Photo by Mark Gail/for The Washington Post) (Mark Gail/For The Washington Post)

Four school board members have urged the leader of a suburban Maryland school system to publicly apologize for his administrations efforts to stop two students from speaking at one graduation and bar a school board member from the stage at another.

In a letter last week addressed to Kevin M. Maxwell, chief executive of Prince Georges County schools, the four board members described the events at Oxon Hill and Potomac high schools last week as shocking and appalling.

The conflict began May 31, when board member Edward Burroughs III attended the Oxon Hill graduation as a speaker and tried to turn over part of his allotted time to the presidents of the schools senior class and student government. The two student leaders had not been designated as speakers.

[Two students get a final lesson at their graduation. And its not one they wanted.]

School district officials cut the microphone off when one of the students began to speak, and Burroughs was stopped again later during the program when he made a second effort to involve them. As the incident unfolded, one student broke into tears.

District officials later said that they told Burroughs in advance that he could not cede his time to the students. Burroughs, in turn, said the only thing he heard came from a deputy superintendent who made a vague comment to him, as he walked on stage, about the program remaining as is.

Consider this a Letter of Rebuke from us to you, the board members wrote to Maxwell. At the very least, a public apology is warranted to Mr. Burroughs and the two senior student leaders at Oxon Hill High School.

The letter was signed by board members David Murray, Raaheela Ahmed and Beverly Anderson as well as student member Juwan Blocker. Those four and Burroughs hold five of the 14 seats on a board that sets policy and oversees the budget for the 132,000-student system. Maxwell, as chief, was selected by the county executive. The board is a hybrid of elected and appointed leaders under an unusual governing arrangement spelled out in a state law that gives the county executive more influence than in other Maryland districts.

School system officials said this week that Maxwell had received the letter and that he had no comment on it.

The graduation conflict is the latest flare-up between Maxwell and Burroughs over a range of issues, including last years string of child-abuse scandals. Burroughs has questioned Maxwells effectiveness and called for his resignation. Critics have accused Burroughs of seeking the media spotlight and being divisive.

[Teacher pushed out of Head Start kept in school system for months]

The letter from his four colleagues also singled out Deputy Superintendent Monique Davis, saying she not only overstepped her authority by restricting Mr. Burroughs, but she also traumatized two graduating senior student leaders on stage by scolding them publicly  to the point of tears.

It went on to describe how Burroughs was barred from the stage and a backstage area at Potomac Highs commencement the next day. The school is in his district, and Burroughs said he showed up intending to sit with other dignitaries on stage but not have a speaking role.

Burroughs posted video clips of his encounter with the school systems chief operating offficer, Wesley Watts, and later with park and planning police and school security officers. As he pressed the issue, an officer told him that he would be arrested for trespassing if he went on stage.

The letter questioned Maxwells authority to keep a board member offstage at a graduation and to direct police to take action. The two-page document was first reported by WUSA9.

We were insulted by the threat of Mr. Burroughs being arrested if he proceeded to join his peer on the platform, the letter said. Using armed police to discipline an elected official is unprecedented, excessive and unwarranted.

Burroughs said Thursday that Davis has since apologized in a phone call but that he has not heard from Maxwell. I was surrounded by police like a criminal, and Dr. Maxwell had no authority to do that, he said. That was a grave abuse of power.

School district officials said Davis had spoken to Burroughs but would not characterize it as an apology.

Last week, school district officials said that because of the events at Oxon Hill, officials were concerned about a disruption at the Potomac High graduation. Maxwell made the decision to deny Burroughss request to be onstage, officials said.

According to board policy, the boards chairman has the authority to assign a board member to such functions as graduations. The policy does not discuss whether additional board members may join dignitaries on stage.

The four board members elaborated on that question in their letter.

Board practice allows for other board members to be platform guests at any graduations of their choosing, the letter said. Under no known authority can the CEO or his designee stop board members from being platform guests.

Segun Eubanks, chairman of the school board, said Friday that board members are invited to attend graduations as guests onstage months in advance. Last-minute requests, he said, are granted by the boards chairman and the districts administration. What happened at Oxon Hill certainly was a factor in the decision about access for Burroughs at Potomac, he said. Graduations should be about the incredible achievements of our kids, he said.

Board member Curtis Valentine apologized to the students on a recent radio program. In an interview with The Washington Post, he reiterated his regret for any confusion or disruption to their ceremony. . . based on the actions of a board member who was acting outside the confines of graduation protocols about who gets to speak. You dont want students to have to go through that, he said.
A revolution is coming to the nations second-biggest school system, with a pro-charter majority set to take over the governing board of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Backed by billionaire charter interests and fiercely opposed by teachers unions, the two winners of last months bruising election  said to be the most expensive school board race in U.S. history  will take office in July.

Nick Melvoin, 31, and Kelly Gonez, 28, will join two other charter-friendly members on a seven-member board that oversees a system with 1,300 schools, 735,000 students and major academic and fiscal challenges.

L.A. Unified is already home to a significant concentration of charter schools, which are publicly funded, privately managed and seldom unionized. The district counts more than 107,000 students enrolled in independent charter schools, according to a school system fact sheet. That works out to about 16 percent of its non-adult enrollment.

The question now is whether the election will spur the board to authorize even more charters. The winners insist their aim is more about fresh ideas and openness to change.

Im school-model agnostic, said Melvoin, though he added: When you have more charters in L.A. than anywhere else in the country, its an indictment of a failed status quo.

The rise of the charter movement here coincides with President Trumps push to use school choice to disrupt traditional public school systems.

Unions around the country have sought to take advantage of that dynamic.

[Trumps education budget: Deep cuts to public school programs in pursuit of school choice]

In the run-up to the May 16 board election, the union United Teachers Los Angeles issued news releases that lumped the charter-backed candidates and wealthy donors together with the Trump administration.

But the politics of education reform are complex.

Melvoin and Gonez, both Democrats, were endorsed by Arne Duncan, President Barack Obamas first education secretary. Melvoin, an attorney and former middle-school teacher, campaigned last year for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; Gonez, a seventh-grade science teacher, worked for two years as an education policy adviser for the Obama administration.

I am very strongly against Donald Trump and everything that he stands for, Gonez said. For me as a Latina, as a daughter of an immigrant, and a teacher, to be associated in that way with Trump and [Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos was very upsetting.

Both newly elected trustees say they oppose taxpayer voucher programs that help students attend private schools  a key initiative for Trump and DeVos.

Still, Los Angeles is becoming a crucial laboratory for testing whether market-oriented reform will help or hurt public education, said Pedro Noguera, an education professor at UCLA.

The campaign didnt provide any clear indications of what we have to look forward to, Noguera said. This is a whole new world were entering.

Charter advocates have long been influential in Southern California. But Steve Zimmer, the two-term incumbent whom Melvoin ousted, said this is the first time a successful pro-charter takeover has been explicit and electoral in Los Angeles.

The school board contest here featured record spending, national endorsements and political mudslinging.

All told, the race drew nearly $15 million in contributions, according to the Los Angeles Times. Teachers unions and affiliated political action committees spent millions to back Zimmer and Imelda Padilla, who ran against Melvoin and Gonez, respectively. But charter proponents appeared to nearly double the union spending.

Among the deep-pocketed charter advocates were Netflix founder Reed Hastings, Gap founder Doris Fisher and the Arkansas-based Walton Family Foundation, which was created by the founders of Walmart and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to expand charter schools nationwide.

Also, real estate and insurance tycoon Eli Broad gave $450,000 to an advocacy group that backed the pro-charter candidates.

They bought the election, said Eric Heins, president of the California Teachers Association. These billionaires are subverting our public schools.

The battle drew national attention. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) championed the unions picks and attempted to tie the pro-charter candidates to the Trump/DeVos agenda.

Billionaires should not make a profit off of public school children, Sanders said in a statement trumpeted by the teachers union.

In another sign of the intensity of the conflict, the Parent Teacher Alliance  a PAC supported by the California Charter Schools Association  sent out mailers that superimposed the face of Zimmer in the gunners hatch of a tank in an effort to portray him as a crazed military enthusiast. (Zimmer has never been in the military.)

Im not the first person to have had a viciously negative campaign waged against them, Zimmer said. But Im not sure anything quite like this has been done. Certainly not in a school board race.

Elsewhere in California, wealthy pro-charter interests have ratcheted up spending.

In the Oakland Unified School District, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $300,000 to a committee that supported three charter-friendly school board candidates in November. (Two won.) Silicon Valley investor Arthur Rock and the late T. Gary Rogers  longtime chief executive of the Dreyers ice cream company, who died in May  each chipped in an additional $100,000.

Last fall, pro-charter PACs  again bankrolled by the likes of Hastings, Fisher, the Waltons, Rock, Bloomberg and others  helped steer $17 million to charter-friendly candidates for state legislative races.

In 2014, the contest for state superintendent of public instruction proved three times as expensive as the governors race. In the pro-charter corner was Marshall Tuck, a former president of a large network of charter schools. His big-money backing was not enough to defeat the union favorite, Tom Torlakson. Tuck has announced he wants to run again in 2018.

Folks want to get behind people with newer ideas that are about big change, Tuck said.

But fresh ideas can be hard to implement when there is bad blood, warned Michael Druckman, executive chair of Schools That Can, a New York-based nonprofit organization serving urban schools nationwide.

The fact that the elections became a last-stand between the district and charter schools leaves such a hostile taste in L.A. that I worry whether true progress can be made, he said in an email.
Tension in Darjeeling over language dispute

Fresh tension erupted in Darjeeling, India, after cadres of Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) tried to disrupt the Cabinet meeting of Darjeeling state government on Thursday.
Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner on Wednesday became the third council incumbent to enter the 2018 county executives race, promising to bring a progressive and pragmatic approach to the job of running Marylands most populous jurisdiction.

Berliner, 66, said he would work to bridge disparities between the east and west regions of the county and expand access to mass transit, education and economic opportunity.

We are consistently ranked as one of the finest places in the country to live, he told supporters during a kickoff event in North Bethesda. That is not to say we should be satisfied. We shouldnt be. We have a far, far higher ceiling as a community. We have a potential that has yet to be tapped.

Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) joins council members Marc Elrich (D-At Large) and George L. Leventhal (D-At Large) in next years Democratic primary. Other possible candidates include wine executive David Trone, former council member Mike Knapp and Del. Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Montgomery). The lone Republican candidate to announce is longtime activist Robin Ficker.

Elrich, Leventhal and Berliner are barred from running for reelection to the council because of the three-term limit approved by voters in November. Incumbent executive Isiah Leggett (D), also in his third term, is retiring. Ficker led the campaign for the term limits charter amendment.

Berliner said Wednesday that he would not participate in the countys new taxpayer-funded campaign finance system. Elrich and Leventhal have committed to gathering several hundred small, individual contributions apiece to qualify for public matching funds.

Berliner said he has been a strong supporter of the public system but thinks that it might not enable him to produce the money he needs to get himself known outside his district.

Im running against people whove been on the ballot countywide four, five, six times, Berliner said, referring to Elrich and Leventhal. I need to go out and get my name in front of people who havent heard of Roger Berliner. So that takes more resources.

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Eldon Garrett, left, helps his friend, Kathalene Kilpatrick, 74, move out of her storage unit before demolition begins at Capital Self Storage in Northeast Washington. A retired bus driver, Kilpatrick is currently homeless. (Petula Dvorak/The Washington Post)

Gut-wrenching decisions have been made this week in the dirty, musty-smelling halls of a storage facility several blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

Capital Self Storage is on red alert, the loudspeaker crackling with the countdown of how many hours are left before the building in Northeast Washington is gone. No one is obsessing about former FBI director James B. Comeys testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee here. Instead, a man in a straw fedora is pushing out cartloads of file boxes, another man is moving stacks of oil paintings and dozens of folks are stuffing garbage bags with all of their earthly possessions, then wandering, a little lost, like wartime refugees in the streets.

Plenty of stuff didnt make the cut.

Trophies and tutus, Grandmas broken armoire, faded photos of women in bikinis, Aunties china, calculus textbooks, the box of Wheaties with the Redskins on it, and at least one full dress military uniform were left behind, in drifts and piles.

The stuff? Its just stuff. Probably a good commentary on our consumer culture. But theres more going on here, a sadder story of a changing city and its human toll.

[For D.C.s desperate, a refuge from homelessness is about to disappear]

Because in this place, people are being discarded, too.

It was the only place that let me keep some of my things. My life, you know? My dignity, said Kathalene H. Kilpatrick, 74, from her perch in one of the bargain, top units, where $40 a month lets her hold on to the remnants of her tattered life.

Like many storage facilities across the country, this one also served as a halfway house for the citys hidden homeless. These are folks who still have the possessions that proved they were once part of mainstream, housed society, but have lost the place to put them. They still have lives, just not homes.

Many of them are employed. And each morning, as the loading bay doors rolled open, theyd pour into the warehouse and begin their morning routine. Pants were ironed on boards dragged into the hallway, irons, hair clippers and small TVs were plugged into extension cords, shaving was done.



In this 2015 photo, Michael Evans, 54, uses an electrical outlet so he can cut his hair in a hallway between storage units at Capital Self Storage, which is being demolished to make way for a boutique hotel. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

There were waiters changing into work clothes; handymen getting their tools. A little deodorant, some mouthwash, and they were ready for the day.

At night, when the storage facility locked up and the longtime manager patrolled the hallways to urge everyone to leave, these folks slept in shelters, or on friends couches or in a cousins spare bedroom. Officially part of the homeless population, but not totally disenfranchised. For many of them, it was a workable, by-the-bootstraps, self-styled social safety net.

There were 1,070 units, and the former business manager there told me she estimated that between 30 and 40 percent were rented by homeless folks.

Kilpatrick stays in a shelter or sleeps in Franklin Square park on mild nights. She was fierce in her day  one of the citys first female bus drivers, roaring through the nations capital, shifting all those gears and pumping the clutch when so many believed a woman couldnt do such work.

[I wasnt crazy: A homeless womans war to prove the feds owe her $100,000]

But she lost her savings after her daughter was killed in a domestic-violence murder-suicide, and she found herself raising her grandson. Hes in the military now, but she was evicted from her senior housing unit after too many clashes with her landlord over the units bedbug problem a couple of years ago and hasnt found a new place since then.

So now shes living rough, a homeless advocate who shows up at every public meeting with D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to encourage her to find better solutions for homeless senior citizens. Theres one Friday. She asks everyone to be there.

This storage unit was her base of operations, her safe place.



In 2015, a homeless man waits for Capital Self Storage to open so that he can change his clothes before heading to work. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post)

If I get someone to drive me to Rhode Island Avenue, they have units there, she said, joining many of the homeless folks moving their stuff to a facility in another part of the city. But its not so cheap. Not sure how Im going to pay for it.

That facility charges twice  about $64 for a 5-by-5 space  what Capital Self Storage charged.

As my husband and I joined the evacuation frenzy  moving sleds, his aunts rock maple dresser we cant part with, skis and the kids boogie boards that never fit into our small city townhouse  we said goodbye to some of the folks wed seen there over the years.

Eric Sheptock, one of the citys most vocal homeless advocates, was on our floor of the warehouse, dragging his bag of stuff to a new place when I ran into him.

Debris and abandoned possessions litter the hallways as people clear out their storage units. (Petula Dvorak/The Washington Post)

In many of his meetings with city and nonprofit organization officials, the issue of storage comes up as one of the many casualties of gentrification, he said.

Three laundromats that Ive used over the years have been shut down, Sheptock said. The storage near Fourth and H Northeast was closed a couple of years ago. Different amenities used by the poor and homeless are being taken away.

The city is quickly becoming a place only for people who can afford a shiny, new condominium with ample closets and laundry rooms. Theres an REI in the neighborhood now. And more places with $14 cocktails.

The old warehouse  which is in a part of town now called NoMa  will be gutted like so many others have, two years after developers bought it and began touting its location near a Metro stop  an asset that drew homeless folks, too. It will become a boutique hotel and luxury apartments.

It was built in 1931 as National Capital Press, a printing facility that turned out war manuals, bulletins for the Pan-American Union, the Congressional Record and the Choctaw Indian language version of the Catechism of the Catholic Religion, according to the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Boards summary of the developers plans.

During the move-out this week, developers walked through to check on progress, men in starched shirts and khaki pants who tucked their arms in, careful to avoid touching the open metal doors and the filthy railings on stairwells.

As units were emptied, a tent city bloomed along the sidewalk outside the warehouse, folks who truly had no place else to go.

I talked with one man who came here from West Africa two years ago. He was working as a nurse but was recently laid off. He sat outside the warehouse with two suitcases, a duffle bag and a backpack. He wasnt sure how hed be able to carry it all to the friend who said hed store the stuff for him.

This was the best bargain in America, he said, waving toward his old unit. It made America possible for me. Now the city is changing. America is changing.

Twitter: @petulad
A man shoots heroin in a park. Maryland saw its sharpest increase ever in overdose fatalities in 2016. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The increase in drug- and alcohol-related deaths in Maryland in 2016 was the biggest ever recorded in the state, officials said Thursday, the latest sign of an opioid epidemic that has triggered a state of emergency and prompted leaders to dedicate millions in funding to combat addiction.

Overdoses killed 2,089 people in 2016, an increase of 66 percent from the previous year, according to data released by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The statewide death toll climbed for the sixth straight year, as heroin, fentanyl and prescription opioid use surged among all age, racial and regional groups, and authorities reported that deadlier combinations of the three narcotics were appearing more frequently on the streets. The sharpest increase involved individuals 55 and older.

Health officials said medical examiners will now screen for one particularly lethal drug, carfentanil. The drug, which is used to tranquilize elephants, can be mixed with other opioids to make them more potent and is contributing to fatal overdoses in Maryland and elsewhere.

We want deaths to cease, Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene Dennis R. Schrader said. And we need those who use drugs to seek help before they feel compelled to use again.

Suspected fentanyl is seen on a table after a drug bust in Massachusetts. The drug is blamed for contributing to increases in overdoses. (Jessica Rinaldi/AP)

Advocates  many of them relatives of addicts  say acute and long-term treatment remains the greatest need for their communities. The state health department says there are more than 2,200 beds available across Maryland that provide varying levels of treatment for everything from withdrawal management to rehab centers and group homes.

The state was granted a waiver by the federal government this year to expand Medicaid reimbursement to clinics that provide residential substance-abuse treatment and make more treatment beds available to individuals who need care.

Gov. Larry Hogan (R) has raised the profile of the crisis since taking office in 2015, pledging $2 million from his budget to expand drug-court programs and raise public awareness. His administration has launched initiatives to identify those at risk of abusing drugs and is reaching out to overdose survivors to connect them to services.

The legislature passed bills this year to address addiction, although a proposal to fund 10 crisis-treatment centers was trimmed to one.

The new laws will supply public schools with overdose-reversal drugs; shield people who try to help overdose victims from legal liability; and try to prevent the overprescribing of painkillers by implementing new standards for doctors.

According to the newly released data, Baltimore City continues to lead the state in drug- and alcohol-related deaths, followed by Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties.

Together, the three jurisdictions account for nearly 60 percent of all such deaths  the vast majority of which are attributed to heroin and fentanyl overdoses.

Non-opioid-related deaths accounted for 11 percent of drug and alcohol fatalities in Maryland, and were also on the rise. Nearly 300 more people died because of alcohol in 2016 than in 2015. During that same period, the number of cocaine-related deaths doubled, in part because users are combining the drug with more potent opioids, authorities said.
Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia.

Betty Revis, Metro aide

Betty Revis, 88, former assistant to the director for handicapped and elderly services for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, died April 21 at her home in Washington. The cause was Alzheimers disease, said a son, Larry Paull.

Mrs. Revis was born Betty Bloom in Boston and came to the Washington area in 1961. She worked for Metro from the mid-1970s until the mid-1990s.

Mary Woods, Foreign Service wife, librarian

Mary Woods, 94, a supervisory U.S. Information Agency librarian from 1973 to 1985 who also accompanied her husband on his Foreign Service postings in Moscow, Paris, Brussels and what then was British Guyana, died April 30 at a retirement center in Fairfax County, Va. The cause was complications from hypertension, said a son, Stephen Woods.

Mrs. Woods was born Mary Gordon in Urbana-Champaign, Ill., and came to Washington in 1944 as a World War II Japanese language code-breaker.

Glenn Schleede, energy consultant

Glenn Schleede, 83, an energy consultant who was based for decades in the Washington area and retired in 2012, died May 7 at his home in Ashburn, Va. The cause was complications of glioblastoma, a form of cancer, said a daughter, Kimberly Terzian.

Mr. Schleede, a native of Lyons, N.Y., held high-level jobs at the White House, the Energy Department, the National Coal Association and the Office of Management and Budget. From 1982 to 1992, he was a top executive with the New England Electric System, a public utility holding company based in Westborough, Mass.

Richard Kelley, Energy Department official

Richard Kelley, 78, who built and sustained a materials chemistry program at the Energy Department that helped support similar initiatives at universities and national laboratories, died May 13 at a retirement home in Frederick, Md. The cause was complications from Type 1 diabetes and dementia, said a daughter, Carolyn Klinger.

Dr. Kelley, a former resident of Potomac, Md., was born in Brighton, Mass. He began his federal career in 1962 as a research chemist with what is now the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He worked at the Energy Department from 1987 to 2011.

George Simmons, sales manager

George Simmons, 85, a regional sales manager for Goodyear Tire and Rubber, died May 8 at a hospital in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was pneumonia, said a son, Anthony Simmons.

Mr. Simmons, a resident of Hyattsville, Md., was born in Washington. He worked for Goodyear from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, retiring as East Coast manager for sales of tires to fleets, such as bus or trucking companies. He was a member of St. Jerome Catholic Church in Hyattsville.

Howard Frank, U of Md. dean

Howard Frank, 75, a dean and professor of management sciences of the University of Marylands business school, died May 1 at a hospital in Atlanta. He died of an intestinal bacterial infection on his journey home to Bethesda, Md., from a vacation in Puerto Rico, said a daughter, Laura Frank.

Dr. Frank was born in New York City. He was business school dean from 1997 to 2008 and continued teaching management sciences until 2015. Before joining the faculty in 1997, he had been director of the information technology office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a telecommunications consultant, an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business, and chief executive of an information technology network management analysis company.

Steven Ballew, lawyer

Steven Ballew, 71, a partner in the Washington law firm Hogan Lovells who specialized in financial institutions practice, died April 27 at a hospital in Arlington. The cause was cancer, said his husband, Bob Rappaport.

Mr. Ballew, an Arlington resident, was born in Inman, S.C. He practiced law in San Francisco before moving to Washington in 1981. He joined Hogan Lovells two years later and headed the firms Warsaw office in the 1990s. He also started the firms office in Berlin and worked in the Moscow office. He retired in 2008.

Dorothea Hammond Capello, actress

Dorothea Hammond Capello, 101, a Washington actress for a half-century who played principally at Arena Stage, but also at Olney Theatre and Theater J, died April 28 at her home in Washington. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Paul Hammond.

Mrs. Capello was born Dorothea Jackson and began her acting career in her native New York during the 1930s. She moved to Washington in the 1950s and became one of the principal actors at the newly opened Arena Stage, where her roles included Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman and Mary Tyrone in Long Days Journey Into Night. Her last performance was in 1999 at Theater J at the age of 83, her son said.

Anthony DiBiase, dentist

Anthony DiBiase, 83, a dentist for 33 years who retired and sold his practice in Damascus, Md., in 1997, died May 3 at his home in Hayden, Idaho. The cause was cancer, said his wife, Dorothy DiBiase.

Dr. DiBiase, a Philadelphia native, moved to the Washington area and opened his practice in 1964. He had done volunteer work at Washington Adventist and Shady Grove Adventist hospitals. He moved to Idaho from Gaithersburg, Md., last year.

Ernest Corea, Sri Lankan ambassador

Ernest Corea, 84, the ambassador of Sri Lanka to the United States from 1981 to 1986, died May 11 at his home in Springfield, Va. The cause was kidney disease, said a son, Andy Corea.

Mr. Corea was born near Colombo in what was then Ceylon and was editor of two newspapers before being named Sri Lankas high commissioner to Canada in 1978. After stepping down as ambassador, he worked in Ottawa for the International Development Research Center and then for the World Bank in Washington until the late 1990s.

Mary Sherwood, writer, editor

Mary Sherwood, 99, a retired writer and editor for the U.S. Information Agency whose stories about domestic events were published in overseas newspapers, died May 3 at her home in Alexandria. The cause was respiratory failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said a daughter-in-law, Nancy Sherwood.

Mrs. Sherwood was born Mary Burke in Red Oaks, Iowa, and came to the Washington area in 1949. She worked for USIA from 1957 to 1974. For several years, she wrote a column, The Week in the United States, about issues ranging from civil rights to politics, and she covered events at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

Joseph Kraft, Naval engineer

Joseph Kraft, 94, a civilian engineer who spent 34 years with the Naval Research Laboratory before retiring in 1982, died April 18 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. The cause was leukemia, said a daughter, Rebecca Krafft.

Dr. Kraft was a native and resident of Alexandria. He retired from the Naval Research Laboratory as head of the structural mechanics branch in the ocean technology division. His specialties included working on crack growth, fracture mechanics, fatigue damage, and stress corrosion cracking. He was a member of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Alexandria and the Model A Ford Club of America.

Thornton Tony Hagert, loan specialist, musicologist

Thornton Tony Hagert, 86, a musicologist and former loan specialist with the Rural Electrification Administration, died April 5 at a hospice center in Philadelphia. The cause was lung cancer and glioblastoma, said a son Zack Hagert.

Mr. Hagert, a Philadelphia native, worked for the REA from 1958 to 1968. During the 1970s, he was an independent musicologist. He compiled an archive for historians and musicians, and did some work for the Smithsonian. He worked for the REA again from 1979 to 1989. He then left Washington that year and eventually settled in Philadelphia.

Dain Andy Williams, advertising firm partner

Dain Andy Williams, 74, the chairman and founding partner of what became the Williams Whittle advertising and marketing firm in Alexandria, Va., died May 12 at a hospital in Washington. The cause was complications from pancreatitis, said his daughter, Claiborne Milde.

Mr. Williams, an Alexandria resident, was born in Richmond. He settled in the Washington area in 1968 and formed Morrison Williams, which became Williams Whittle in 1978. He retired in 2008. He was a past board member of the historic preservation group APVA/Preservation Virginia and current board member of the historic Tudor Place estate in Washington. He also was an honorary trustee with the Menokin Foundation, which preserves the Francis Lightfoot Lee House in Warsaw, Va.

Kanwal Singh Bawa, civil engineer

Kanwal Singh Bawa, 99, a civil engineer who worked on the construction of Washingtons Metro system, died May 17 at his home in Bethesda, Md. The cause was complications from dementia, said a daughter, Malini Wilkes.

Mr. Bawa, a Bethesda resident, was born in Gujranwala, India, now a city in Pakistan. He came to the Washington area in 1966 for the engineering and consulting company DeLeuw, Cather & Co. He retired in 1991.

Lewis Gulick, journalist, Hill staffer

Lewis Gulick, 93, who covered the State Department for the Associated Press from 1953 to 1973, then served as senior staff consultant to the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1973 to 1986, died May 20 at a senior residential center in Falls Church, Va. The cause was heart ailments, said a daughter, Spencer Baker.

Mr. Gulick, an Arlington resident, was born in Karuizawa, Japan, to American missionary parents. After leaving the Foreign Affairs Committee, he did consulting, then from 1988 to 1992 was Washington representative of the American Great Lakes Ports Association.

Wren Cooper, teacher, costume creator

Wren Cooper, 90, a teacher at the private St. Albans School in Washington and a designer and creator of costumes for dramatic productions of Washington National Cathedral and St. Albans schools, died May 6 at a hospice center in Washington. The cause was cancer, said a daughter, Kate Cooper.

Mrs. Cooper, a District resident, was born Wren Davie in San Francisco and had lived in the Washington area since 1961. She was a designer and creator of costumes at St. Albans and Washington National Cathedral from 1967 to 1989, for summer festivals and St. Albans Repertory Theatre productions. She also taught drama at St. Albans.

Carmel Cassidy, FEMA officer

Carmel Cassidy, 82, a former officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency whose work included designing training seminars and workshops, preparation for Y2K contingencies, and participation by civil agencies in global war games, died April 19 at a rehabilitation facility in Alexandria, Va. The cause was adenocarcinoma, said a daughter, Martha Cassidy.

Mrs. Cassidy, a resident of Arlington, Va., was born Carmel Jones in New York City and had lived in the Washington area since 1950. She was a FEMA employee from 1981 to 2000, then became an independent consultant.

Jack Golodner, AFL-CIO officer

Jack Golodner, 85, former director of the AFL-CIOs department for professional employees, died May 13 at a hospice center in Washington. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Dan Golodner.

Mr. Golodner, a District resident, was born in New York City and came to Washington in 1958. He joined the AFL-CIO staff in 1967 and retired in 2001 as chief of the department that represents white-collar employees, such as teachers, musicians and journalists. Earlier in his career, he managed his own law firm specializing in arbitrations. He was a past board member of the National Theatre in Washington.

Lloyd Hal Woodward, business owner

Lloyd Hal Woodward, 72, a former project manager for the computer software company Inco who became owner of Redi Programs, a business that sold automated federal regulations to federal agencies, died May 19 at his home in Denver, N.C. The cause was congestive heart failure, said his wife, Sheila Woodward.

Mr. Woodward, a native Washingtonian, left Inco in the early 1980s to become a project manager at Redi Programs; he became owner and sold the business in the early 1990s. In the mid-2000s, he was involved in an effort to build a battery-operated car.

Doris Froman, union official

Doris Froman, 95, a former purchasing director at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, died May 25 at an assisted living center in Solomons, Md. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a niece, Lynn Kuhn.

Ms. Froman, a resident of Silver Spring, Md., was born in Washington. She worked for the union from 1942 to 1983. She was a past member of St. Thomas Apostle Catholic Church in Washington.

Charles Brock Jr., investment adviser

Charles Brock Jr., 96, an investment adviser who worked for Johnston, Lemon & Co. from the early 1970s to 1990, among other firms, died May 6 at a health center in Gainesville, Va. The cause was dementia, said a son, Charles Brock III.

Mr. Brock, resident of Broad Run, Va., was born in Harrisonburg, Va. In the mid-1950s, he began his career in sales working with U.S. Gypsum and Georgia-Pacific before turning to investment advising.

Suzanna Senda, craftswoman

Suzanna Senda, 87, a craftswoman who made elaborate gingerbread houses and decorative baskets, died May 11 at a health care center in Derwood, Md. The cause was breast cancer, said a daughter Susan Senda.

Mrs. Senda, a resident of Germantown, Md., was born Suzanna Pitek in Denbo, Pa., and moved to the Washington area in 1963. Her gingerbread houses often resembled ski chalets or mansions with fine detail, and they had been displayed at foreign embassies. Her decorative baskets were made from recycled cardboard and were festooned with ribbons.

Stanley Hamilton, DOT public affairs directors

Stanley Hamilton, 83, who directed public affairs for the Transportation Department from 1986 to 2001, died May 26 at a hospital in Lawrence, Kan. The cause was multiple organ failure, said a son, Arthur Hamilton.

Mr. Hamilton was born in Grand Island, Neb., and came to the Washington area in 1957 for the old Traffic World magazine, where he worked as an associate editor until 1968. For the next 33 years he worked in public affairs for various transportation organizations. In 2003 he published Machine Gun Kellys Last Stand, about the gangster. He was a past board member of the National Press Club. He moved to Lawrence from Alexandria, Va., in 2002.

Eli Flam, USIA officer

Eli Flam, 83, a U.S. Information Agency officer who served in public affairs, cultural affairs and press assignments before retiring in 1988, died May 19 at a hospital in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. The cause was complications from colon cancer surgery, said his wife, Ludmila Obolensky-Flam.

Mr. Flam, a native of New York City, served in the USIA for 24 years, including assignments in Caracas, Buenos Aires, Moscow and Madrid. He last assignment was deputy director of worldwide program of book reading and the teaching of English. In retirement. he did freelance writing. He moved to New Smyrna Beach, Fla., from Greenbelt, Md., in 2016.

Philip Dorman, USIA officer

Philip Dorman, 99, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Information Agency who served as chief of his agencys missions in Zambia and Sudan in addition to assignments in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, died April 8 at his home in Washington. The cause was a heart attack, said a son, Tim Dorman.

Mr. Dorman, a native of Racine, Wis., joined the State Department in 1948, then moved to USIA after it was established in 1953. He returned to the State Department in 1971 and retired in 1976. In retirement, he served as a member of the Foreign Service Grievance Board.

D. Jeffrey Lenn, GWU professor

D. Jeffrey Lenn, 76, an emeritus professor of strategic management and public policy at George Washington University where he had served 34 years on the faculty, died May 4 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. The cause was complications following heart surgery, said a daughter, Rebecca Lenn.

Dr. Lenn, an Alexandria resident, was born in Kansas City, Kan. He taught at schools in New England before joining the GWU faculty in 1982. He had served as associate vice president for academic operations from 2008 to 2011 at GWU and as senior associate dean of the business school from 1998 to 2004.

James Feldman, USIA employee

James Feldman, 92, an information officer with the U.S. Information Agency who retired in 1983 and became a part-time document reviewer at the State Department for more than a decade, died May 26 at his home in Silver Spring, Va. The cause was bile duct cancer, said a daughter, Regina Koch.

Mr. Feldman, a Chicago native, spent 21 years with USIA. He was a past head of the retirement advisory council at the Riderwood Village retirement community in Silver Spring, and his memberships included the American Foreign Service Association and the Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired.

Marlene Leon, officer manager

Marlene Leon, 74, who managed her husband Barry Leons dental practice in Annandale, Va., from 1986 to 2002 and then worked as a part-time receptionist for OB/GYN John Doppelheuer in McLean, Va., until 2016, died May 23 at a hospital in Falls Church, Va. The cause was a hemorrhagic stroke, said a daughter, Mindy Leon.

Mrs. Leon, a resident of Annandale, was born Marlene Himmelfarb in Washington. She was a former volunteer at Wakefield Forest Elementary School in Fairfax County, Va., a former volunteer usher at Arena Stage in Washington and a former volunteer at the Friends of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, an organization supporting children involved in the court system.

Richard Skinner, magazine editor

Richard Skinner, 92, former managing editor and associate publisher of Air Force Magazine, the monthly publication of the Air Force Association, died May 6 at his home in Silver Spring, Md. The cause was vascular dementia, said a daughter, Anna Skinner.

Mr. Skinner, a native of Princeton, Ill., served in the Army Air Forces in the Pacific during World War II and joined the staff of Air Force Magazine as a civilian in 1951. He retired in 1989 as managing editor and associate publisher. He also had been managing editor of Space Digest and executive editor of Aerospace International, a sister publication, and he had edited several anthologies.

Gustavo Jimenez, maitre dhotel

Gustavo Jimenez, 87, who worked at the Hotel Washington for 42 years and rose to maitre dhotel before retiring in the mid-1990s, died May 9 at a hospital in Cheverly, Md. The cause was a stroke, said a daughter, Susie Jimenez.

Mr. Jimenez, a resident of Hyattsville, Md., was born in Toluca, Mexico, before settling in the Washington area in the mid-1950s. He began as a waiter and later, as maitre dhotel, presided over the hotels Independence Day celebrations for decades.

Robert Barton Jr., bank president

Robert Barton Jr., 83, who served as president at the old Interstate Federal Savings and Loan Association in Washington and later was an executive with the Business Bank in Vienna, Va., died May 27 at a hospice center in Aldie, Va. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Scott Barton.

Mr. Barton, a Washington native, joined Interstate Federal in 1955 as a teller. He was an assistant vice president in 1963 when he and a colleague ran after a thief who had robbed the banks main office and detained him for the police. Perpetual Savings Bank acquired Interstate Federal in 1983, and Mr. Barton was a senior vice president around the time Perpetual collapsed in 1992 amid massive losses on real estate loans, The Washington Post reported.

He was a financial consultant during the 1990s. He then spent 14 years as a vice president and commercial loan officer at the Business Bank until retiring in 2014 when the bank merged with Cardinal Financial. He was a resident of Vienna, Va., and former member of Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Md.

Jerene Thomas, program manager

Jerene Thomas, 96, who coordinated study abroad family placements as a volunteer American Field Service program manager from 1959 until the early 2010s, died May 11 at a family home in Ashburn, Va. The cause was cardiac arrest, said a daughter, Sherry Watkins.

Mrs. Thomas, a resident of Great Falls, Va., was born Jerene Snuffer in Amity, Mo. She settled in the Washington area in 1955 and was a past president of the Great Falls Womans Club.

Eric Bibby, IT executive

Eric Bibby, 46, who formed and ran an information technology company, Amaryllis Technology, died May 20 at his home in Washington. A spokeswoman for the D.C. Medical Examiners office said determination of the cause is pending further tests.

Mr. Bibby was born in Moline, Ill., and had lived in Washington for 20 years. He ran another information technology company, Avatar International, before he formed Amaryllis a decade ago.

Carl Rochelle, journalist

Carl Rochelle, 79, a former broadcast journalist with CNN who became a narrator of political commercials and public service announcements through a self-titled company he started in 2007, died May 20 at a hospital in Arlington, Va. The cause was non-Hodgkins lymphoma, said an ex-wife, Christy Carter.

Mr. Rochelle, an Arlington resident, was born in Washington, N.C. He came to the Washington area in the mid-1960s and was a radio and television journalist for ABC, NBC and MSNBC at various times. He spent 20 years with CNN  covering wars in the Middle East, aviation and transportation issues, and national security, among other topics  before leaving in 2001 amid staff cutting.

 From staff reports
Vic Gold, second from right, jogging with President George H.W. Bush and others in Washington in 1989. (Rick Bowmer/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Vic Gold, a high-powered and sometimes high-strung Republican political strategist who served as the press secretary for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and who wrote books with a president and the wife of a vice president, died June 5 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. He was 88.

The cause was complications from an infection, said a daughter, Paige Gold.

Mr. Gold, who began his career as a lawyer, began advising Democratic candidates in Alabama before moving to Washington and undergoing a political conversion that led him to the Republican Party in the early 1960s. Short, intense and often irritable, he was once dubbed the Mount Vesuvius of press secretaries for his outbursts, but he had a redeeming sense of humor and an appreciation of the theatricality of politics.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, as the indefatigable deputy press secretary for Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), Mr. Gold had the unenviable task of presenting the candidates then-novel conservative agenda to a skeptical press corps.

In The Making of the President 1964, journalist Theodore H. White said Mr. Gold was practically a valet to traveling reporters. He carried their bags, got them to the trains on time, outshouted policemen on their behalf, bedded them down and woke them up, and before they knew it, the correspondents, about 95 percent anti-Goldwater by conviction, had been won to a friendship with the diminutive intellectual which spilled over onto his hero.

Vic Gold in 2007. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

From 1970 to 1973, as the administration of President Richard M. Nixon was becoming mired in the Watergate political scandal, Mr. Gold was press secretary to Nixons vice president, Agnew.

Every reporter who traveled with Agnew had at least a dozen Vic Gold stories, Timothy Crouse wrote in The Boys on the Bus, a classic account of coverage of the 1972 election. Vic screaming horrible threats at cars in the path of the press bus. Vic terrorizing press-bus drivers who fell behind the motorcade. Vic becoming so deranged he distractedly pounded the assistant press secretary over the head with a rolled-up newspaper.

After the campaign, the reporters presented Mr. Gold with a straitjacket as an ironic gift.

Mr. Gold considered Agnew an unappreciated intellectual, but he felt betrayed when the vice president resigned in disgrace in 1973 and pleaded no contest to charges of tax evasion stemming from his earlier years as Maryland governor.

During the 1970s, Mr. Gold embarked on a second career as a writer and commentator, which included a 25-year association with Washingtonian magazine.

He returned to the political battlefield in 1979 as a speechwriter for the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush and continued as an occasional adviser after Bush became vice president under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Gold helped Bush write a 1987 autobiography, Looking Forward, which appeared one year before Bush won the presidency.

In 1988, Mr. Gold collaborated on a book with another GOP luminary, Lynne Cheney, with whom he once shared an office at Washingtonian. Their book, The Body Politic, was a political thriller in which a Republican vice president dies of a heart attack while, as Mr. Gold put it, in the carnal embrace of a curvaceous television news reporter.

Vic Gold in 2007. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The book was reprinted in 2000, the year Cheneys husband, Richard, was elected vice president as George W. Bushs running mate. Richard B. Cheney had suffered several heart attacks by then, but Mr. Gold gallantly leapt into the breach and said Lynne Cheney was not responsible for dreaming up the untimely demise of the fictional veep.

That stuff about the vice president? he said. Mine! Mine! Mine!

Victor Gold was born Sept. 25, 1928, in East St. Louis, Ill. During the Depression, his family moved to New Orleans, where his father worked as a longshoreman and factory worker, among other jobs.

Mr. Gold attended Tulane University in New Orleans before entering law school at the University of Alabama, from which he graduated in 1951. Throughout his college years, he wrote for campus newspapers, humor magazines and theatrical productions.

He served in the Army during the Korean War, then opened a law practice in Birmingham, Ala. He became an adviser to several Democratic political campaigns before moving to Washington in 1958.

He said he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party largely over foreign policy interventions and was an early supporter of the 1964 candidacy of Goldwater, who lost badly to President Lyndon B. Johnson but whose conservative ideas later became the part of the GOP mainstream.

From 1964 to 1970, Mr. Gold headed a Washington consulting firm and worked on many congressional campaigns before being tapped as Agnews press secretary.

Survivors include his wife of 65 years, the former Dale Solomon of Alexandria; three children, Paige Gold and Jamie Gold, both of Alexandria, and Stephen Gold of McLean, Va.; two grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Mr. Gold wrote two books in the 1970s about the humor and hypocrisy of the Washington public relations world. He recalled a self-dealing Louisiana governor who once said, When I took the oath of office, I didnt take any vows of poverty.

On another occasion, he noted, a senator read a news release about a speech in the mistaken belief that it was the speech itself.

For immediate release, he began. Senator Joseph Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National Legislative Conference . . .

In later years, however, Mr. Gold grew dismayed by his fellow Republicans and in 2007 published Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.

I really came to the conclusion that there was a threat to our system, to our way of life, and it was coming from those I thought were my people, Mr. Gold wrote.

He alienated old friends, including President George W. Bush, whom he called the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times. Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.

Mr. Gold said his principles hadnt changed over the years  it was the party that shifted around him.

You remember the old play Waiting for Lefty? he said in a 2007 television interview on Bill Moyers Journal. Well, Im waiting for righty. And for a rebirth of Goldwater. I dont see him around.
A man has been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a teenager last week in Prince Georges County, police said Thursday.

[Police investigate fatal shooting of man in Adelphi, Md.]

On the evening of June 1, officers responded to the report of a shooting in the 1800 block of Fox Street in Adelphi, Md. Officers found William Canales, 19, of Adelphi, with a gunshot wound, Prince Georges police said in a statement. He later died at a hospital.

Rolando Juarez-Vasquez, 22, of Langley Park was arrested Wednesday on a charge of second-degree murder. Police say the suspect got into a dispute over a woman with the victim before the shooting. Police also say Juarez-Vasquez is a known gang member; Canales is not.

Police asked that anyone with further information about the incident contact them at 301-772-4925.
Jessica Laycock is arrested during a protest in April in which her marijuana and other belongings were taken. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

A District woman is firing a novel legal challenge to the ambiguous marijuana laws in the nations capital.

U.S. Capitol Police seized Jessica Laycocks cannabis earlier this year on land under local police jurisdiction, but the charges against her were dropped. Now, shes fighting to get her pot back.

Laycock, 25, was among seven protesters arrested on April 20  an annual day of pro-pot advocacy  during a demonstration in which activists gave joints to congressional staffers to push for marijuana-friendly federal laws. Possession of marijuana is illegal on federal land, but protesters say they strategically held the event on District land, where possession of up to two ounces of pot is legal and small amounts can be given away free.

The circumstances of her case highlight the clash between federal pot laws and looser local regulations in a city where small amounts of marijuana are allowed.

U.S. Capitol Police also have jurisdiction on D.C. land, and its officers arrested some of the activists who openly smoked marijuana. Laycock originally was charged with possession and distribution of marijuana, but the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia dropped the charges. Upon her arrest, police seized Laycocks marijuana  less than two ounces and considered legal on District land  and other marijuana- and cigarette-related paraphernalia.

(The Washington Post)

[Marijuana advocates vow to smoke pot and get arrested on steps of U.S. Capitol]

Federal laws apply throughout the District of Columbia and the federal law was applied by the [U.S. Capitol Police], Eva Malecki, a spokeswoman for the federal police agency, wrote in an email.

The U.S. Attorneys Office declined to comment on the case.

Laycock said since she was following the local law, her marijuana and vaporizer rightfully belong to her. A D.C. police spokeswoman said that the local police agency has returned marijuana to people who are 21 years or older.

Why am I being told that my stuff is being incinerated? said Laycock, who works as a cannabis lobbyist. Where I was standing, cannabis was legal.

Malecki said marijuana is a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance, and even though charges were dismissed, Capitol Police protocol calls for the marijuana to be destroyed. In the eyes of the federal police agency, Malecki said, marijuana is illegal everywhere in the city.

Nearly 70 percent of District residents favored a referendum in 2014 to legalize marijuana, and Laycock and her lawyer contend that the substance is now legal in the city, even if a Capitol Police officer is patrolling the area.

(Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post)

[You can get weed delivered to your door in D.C. just like pizza. But is it legal?]

Laycocks lawyer, Evan Parke  who is working the case on a pro-bono basis  said Capitol Police have refused to return Laycocks possessions.

The strongest legal argument is that she was not doing anything unlawful under D.C. law to begin with, and she was never charged, Parke said, adding that since there were ultimately no federal charges, police shouldnt keep what was taken from her.

Parke said is submitting public information requests to Capitol Police in hopes of determining what led them to make the arrests. It is unusual  although not unprecedented  for Capitol Police to make arrests on District grounds while applying federal laws.

Parke said if he doesnt get clearer answers from police, he might file a lawsuit to get the property back for Laycock in the hopes of having a judge decide the fate.

They are giving us the runaround, he said.

Another woman at the April 20 protest is also seeking to have her cannabis returned. Adam Eidinger, a prominent D.C. marijuana activist who helped organize the demonstration and was also arrested, was carrying slightly above the D.C. legal limit of two ounces and is still facing charges. Because of that, he said, he is not asking police to return his marijuana, although he supports Laycocks legal quest.

They are letting the stigma of cannabis override the correct interpretation of the law, Eidinger said.
As Haddassah Belle Boykin waited for the light to change the rainy night of Oct. 10, 2014, she thought how unusual it was to have caught a red light where she normally caught green along Livingston Road in Oxon Hill, Md.

It was the last thing she remembered before a Mercedes came barreling down a hill at more than twice the posted speed and rear-ended her car, leaving it mangled and twisted around a telephone pole. At the hospital, she slipped in and out of consciousness before fully awaking and discovering that her two children and two nieces in the car with her  four angels  died in the crash.

The man behind the wheel of the Mercedes, Kenneth Kelley, was sentenced to 50 years in prison Friday in the drunken-driving collision that killed five in all. Kelley, 27, pleaded guilty in March to 28 counts of manslaughter, negligent homicide, driving under the influence and related charges.

This is still unbelievable, Boykin tearfully testified Friday at the sentencing hearing. Losing them changed my lifes course. This life means nothing.

Emotions ran high at Kelleys hearing in Prince Georges Circuit Court, with women wailing as they stormed out of the courtroom and fell to their feet in tears in the halls. It was a sentencing that grieving families of three women and two children had awaited for more than three years, only to be delayed further when Kelley ducked a court appearance in May and went on the lam for three days.

Kelley said he didnt appear for his May sentencing hearing because he couldnt bear the thought that he was responsible for taking five lives. In the days he was on the run, he said, he took a variety of drugs in an attempt to take his own life.

That morning, I woke up and I couldnt live with the weight that was upon me, Kelley said during his apology in court Friday for missing his first sentencing hearing.

Dominique Green, 21, who was a passenger with Kelley, was killed in the crash. Four people in the Acura with Boykin also died: Typhani Wilkerson, 32; Tameika Curtis, 35; Hassan Boykin, 1; and Khadija Ba, 13.

Judge Albert W. Northrop, who has worked in Prince Georges since 1969, said hes never encountered such a terrible tragedy.

This is one of the saddest moments of my career, he added.

Wilkerson and Curtis left behind 10 children between them.

Kelleys blood alcohol concentration of 0.14 was nearly twice the legal limit of 0.08 in Maryland the night of the crash, said Assistant States Attorney Jennifer Rush. Kelley was fleeing from a police officer who had pulled behind him over right before he slammed into Boykins car.

[D.C. man pleads guilty in Md. crash that killed three woman and two children]

Northrop sentenced Kelley to an additional 25 days in prison for contempt for failing to appear last month.

Kelley was out on a $100,000 bond pending his initial May sentencing hearing and was supposed to have a GPS monitoring device under the supervision of the District of Columbia, according to prosecutors and his defense attorney. But the tracking device was removed and returned to authorities prematurely, said Prince Georges County States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks. Officials learned of the missing GPS only when Kelley didnt appear for a hearing in May and went on the run. He he was captured at a Suitland-area hotel.

[Fathers helping 10 kids cope with grief after their mothers die in Maryland crash]

Kelleys attorney, Antoini M. Jones said his client took responsibility for his actions by pleading guilty. There wasnt a trial because Mr. Kelley did not wish the family to relive the horror, Jones said.

But the horror of losing a loved one will forever linger, said Keanna Glascoe, Greens sister.

I just hope every day of his 50 years this is on his mind like it has been on ours, Glascoe said.
D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, shown last month, said it was wrong for an officer to arrest a woman after her neighbors in Chevy Chase made a noise complaint about music from a party. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham has told a woman that it was wrong for an officer to arrest her after her neighbors in Chevy Chase complained that music from a party was too loud, the department confirmed Wednesday.

It was inconsistent with his vision of community policing, and we probably could have handled the situation differently, said Dustin Sternbeck, the departments spokesman.

Police typically deal with violations of the noise ordinance by issuing criminal citations  similar to a traffic ticket  to alleged violators, requiring them to appear in court. Sternbeck said that Newsham plans to order that arrests can be made only with the approval of a supervisor who has the rank of a lieutenant or higher.

Police said that so far this year, officers across the District have arrested at least 37 people for allegedly violating the noise ordinance, which caps the level at 55 decibels between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. in residential neighborhoods. That is roughly the equivalent of a conversation in a restaurant. Conviction is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 and 10 days in jail.

The woman, C. Nicole Mason, was arrested the night of May 28, the Sunday before Memorial Day, after her neighbors in the Barnaby Woods subdivision in Northwest Washington complained of a loud DJ at a birthday party.

[Barnaby Woods resident files complaint after arrest on noise ordinance violation]

Mason, who filed a complaint against the department, said that she ordered a DJ to turn down the music within seven minutes of the officers arrival and that it had stopped before she was arrested. Sternbeck said the officer waited in his cruiser for 21 minutes after he issued the warning and that he made the arrest after seeing her standing on a patio with the music still loud enough to be heard from the street.

Sternbeck said the officer believed that an arrest was the only way to abate the issue given what he described as Masons initial refusal to turn the music down. Mason was taken to a police station, where she was photographed, fingerprinted and briefly put in a cell. She was then given a citation and released. The officer could have issued the citation at her home without jailing her at the station.

Mason, an African American author who speaks on television regularly, also argued that race played a role, both on the part of neighbors who complained and a white officers demeanor and decision to arrest her. He was accompanied by a black officer.

Sternbeck has denied that race played a factor in the call.

In emails, Mason said she was pleased with Newshams response and his efforts to create protocols that reflect a desire to build communities where all residents feel safe and are treated fairly.

She said that some of her neighbors have come to her defense and that one is throwing a block party on Saturday with a DJ. Fortunately, itll be held from 2-10, before the ordinance kicks in, she wrote.
US envoy calls on PM Deuba

US Ambassador to Nepal Alaina B. Teplitz called on Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba at the latters office in Singha Durbar on Thursday.
The D.C. medical examiners office has ruled the death of a 66-year-old man a homicide, months after the man was found dead in a Northeast apartment fire which authorities said was intentionally set, D.C. police said Wednesday.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined Awlachew Ayele, of Northeast, died from smoke and soot inhalation in addition to other significant conditions, namely multiple blunt force injuries, according to a police statement.

D.C. firefighters found Ayele unconscious inside a burning apartment in the 1100 block of Queen Street NE the morning of Jan. 26.

In the days after the fire, D.C. fire officials said the fire has been ruled incendiary, which means investigators believe the fire was set. That ruling does not necessarily mean that authorities believe the fire involved arson, which means set with criminal intent.

Officials released no further details.
An armed robbery suspect was killed and a police officer and bystander were wounded Wednesday after a gun battle that began aboard a Maryland Transit Authority bus and spilled onto a suburban Maryland street, Baltimore County officials said.

Officers were initially called about 3 p.m. to a report of an armed robbery in progress along Dundalk Avenue and Avon Beach Road in Dundalk, according to a police statement. Police said arriving officers received information that a male gunman had robbed two people at gunpoint and fled on an MTA bus.

Officers stopped the bus near the Logan Village Shopping Center, about seven blocks away. The gunman then fired several times from the bus as officers approached and police returned fire, authorities said.

The suspect ran from the bus and continued to fire at police but later collapsed after being shot at least once, police said. The man, who police did not immediately identify, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A video posted to Facebook appears to show the suspect shooting at police from both the front and rear doors of the bus and officers returning fire from behind their cruisers. The video could not be immediately verified by police.

A message to the person who posted the video was not immediately returned.

The wounded officer, who was only identified as female, was listed in serious condition Wednesday evening, police said. The wounded civilian, also a woman, was said to have suffered injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

Police said they have body-camera footage from the officers involved as well as video from the bus surveillance cameras.
The gunman killed in a Wednesday shootout in Dundalk, Md., had an open warrant in Pennsylvania and was prohibited from possessing firearms because of an armed robbery conviction, Baltimore County police said Thursday.

Police identified the gunman Thursday as Blaine Robert Erb, 35, of no fixed address. Erb was killed by police during the incident, which also left a bystander wounded and a police officer in serious condition.

Authorities identified the wounded officer as Officer First Class Slocum, a 13-year veteran of the county police. She was shot twice in the lower body and remains in serious condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Baltimore County police do not publicly release the full names of officers in these cases, citing an agreement with the police union.

The bystander, a 21-year-old Baltimore woman, suffered a gunshot wound and is expected to survive, police said. Her name was not released, and police had not determined who shot her.

Officers went to the 3400 block of Dundalk Avenue at 2:49 p.m. Wednesday in response to a report of an armed robbery in progress, police said. At the scene, they learned a man  later identified as Erb  had run onto a Maryland Transit Administration bus. Police said Erb had robbed two people at gunpoint before the shootout began.

When officers stopped the bus near a shopping center and confronted Erb, he opened fire on police, they said. The incident culminated in a shootout that left Erb dead on a nearby lawn. The incident was captured on video and posted to Facebook.

Police said Thursday that four officers had fired at Erb. The officers, whose names have not been released, were placed on routine administrative leave.

Investigators found two .40-caliber handguns next to Erbs body, as well as gun magazines and ammunition. Police said they are looking into where Erb obtained the firearms.

Police said Erb had a lengthy criminal history in Maryland and neighboring states. His previous charges included robbery, weapon violations, assault and theft.

There also was a bench warrant for Erb in York County, Pa., for failure to appear on DUI charges, Officer Jennifer Peach, spokeswoman for the Batlimroe County police, said.

Online court records indicate Erb pleaded guilty in 2012 in Anne Arundel County to a charge of possessing contraband in jail. He pleaded guilty in 2011 in Somerset County to second-degree assault.

In Baltimore County in 2003, Erb pleaded guilty to attempted robbery, court records show. In that case, prosecutors dropped other charges.

Relatives of Erb could not be reached for comment.
A teenager admitted Thursday that he shot and nearly killed a cabdriver last year in an attempted robbery.

Troy Vann, a 17-year-old from Fairfax County, pleaded guilty in Alexandria Circuit Court to two felonies and a misdemeanor connected to the attack on Izedin Ahmed, 48.

Around 2 a.m. on Sept. 22, outside a Shell station at Duke Street and Holmes Run, Vann got into Ahmeds cab and demanded money. He then shot Ahmed several times in the upper body.

[Cabdriver critically wounded in shooting outside Alexandria gas station ]

Ahmed almost died, prosecutors said; a portion of his right shoulder was shattered, and his lungs were permanently damaged. He spent two months in the hospital, much of it on life support and in a medically induced coma.

Vann was seen running from the gas station, and he was found by police several hours later. The gun was found in the woods near the crime scene, and a bullet taken from Ahmeds chest was linked to the weapon.

Vann, described by police as a felon, was 16 at the time of the crime but was charged as an adult.

An attorney for Vann said the teenager suffers from significant mental health and substance abuse issues.

Unfortunately, he was spending time with people who negatively influenced him, and on the night of this incident he was dangerously under the influence of drugs, attorney Mark Petrovich said. What happened that night doesnt represent who Troy is and what is Troy is.

Vann will be sentenced on Sept. 28, when he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and possession of a concealed weapon.
On Thursday, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring (D), right, shown with Gov. Terry McAuliffe, on Thursday announced new federal funding to further eliminate the backlog of untested rape kits. (Astrid Riecken/Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post)

Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring announced Thursday that an additional 1,247 untested rape kits will be screened for evidence, part of a $3.4 million effort to clear a backlog of several thousand rape kits that have languished in local police departments for years.

The kits, collected by police departments between 2014 and 2016, will be screened under a $2 million federal grant meant to help the state eliminate its backlog.

A separate $1.4 million federal grant launched the process of clearing out more than 2,000 kits collected before 2014  some going as far back as 25 years.

Combined, Herring said, the two rounds of testing mark a push by Virginia to leave behind an era when DNA evidence was collected from potential rape victims but, because of a lack of resources or police apathy, often went ignored.

I think we really are turning the page from a time when these incidents were swept under the rug, were treated with suspicion, Herring (D) said during a roundtable discussion in Fairfax County with first lady Dorothy McAuliffe, local police officials and victims advocates. Were really orienting ourselves toward a more trauma- and survivor-centered response that makes communities safer.

View Graphic Meet the candidates running to become Virginias next governor

The push for speedier testing in Virginia is part of a national effort to clear such backlogs and preserve the evidence in rape kits, including in Maryland.

Earlier this year, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) signed a law that will streamline an array of local policies on rape cases into one, more-cohesive approach.

Under the law, if a victim visits a medical professional to collect evidence for the rape kit but ultimately decides not to press charges, the kit will still be stored for at least two years. For cases that are reported, the evidence must be sent for analysis within 60 days.

With the federal grant money, Herrings office will set up a statewide tracking system to keep additional test kits from falling through the cracks. His office also plans to hire a survivor-support specialist to help rape victims navigate the legal process.

At the roundtable discussion, Dorothy McAuliffe  who helped lead a state task force that recommended the new law  said the overall effort should allow victims to feel more confident about reporting allegations of rape to local police. Often, such cases go unreported because the victim istoo traumatized or does not trust local authorities to properly investigate the crime.

In more diverse communities like Fairfax  home to 142 untested rape kits gathered between 2014 and 2016  language barriers can also come into play, authorities said.

Dorothy McAuliffe noted that the new round of testing has already resulted in 44 cases being reopened by local police departments.

Thats what we really need to underscore, the first lady said. That the work is making a difference.
Former FBI director James B. Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8 in D.C. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

Former FBI director James B. Comey says President Trump asked him whether he could trust then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe after Trump criticized donations that McCabes wife, a state Senate candidate, received from Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Hillary Clinton confidant.

At the time, McCabe was overseeing the bureaus investigation into Clintons use of a private email server, one of Trumps favorite topics on the campaign trail.

Some critics suggested McCabe might undermine the investigation out of misplaced loyalty to Hillary and Bill Clinton  a theory Democrats have called nonsense in part because Jill McCabe lost her local election before her husband was put in charge of the email investigation.

Comey cited what he said was Trumps remark about McCabe Thursday during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee. His comment came under questioning from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who asked Comey whether he thought Trump was attempting to use McCabe as leverage in his quest for Comeys loyalty.

In an opening statement Comey released Wednesday, Comey said Trump told him he hadnt brought up the McCabe thing  because Comey vouched for McCabe as an honorable person.

View Graphic Meet the candidates running to become Virginias next governor

Rubio asked, Did you perceive that to be a statement that, I took care of you, I didnt do something because you told me he was a good guy, so now, you know, Im asking you for something potentially in return. Was that how you perceived it?

Comey responded that he wasnt sure what to make of the statement.

Thats possible, but it was so out of context that I didnt have a clear view of what it was, he said.

The exchange inserted a dose of local Virginia politics into a national saga over Trump and the FBIs probe of his associates contacts with Russia.

In 2015, McAuliffe was doing all he could to help Democrats win the majority in the state Senate, which was then and remains now under GOP control.

Democrats hoped Jill McCabe, a pediatrician and first-time candidate, could topple state Sen. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), a lightning rod for controversy and one of the most conservative members of the Virginia legislature.

McAuliffes political action committee, Common Good VA, was McCabes top donor with $467,500 and the state Democratic Party was her second-highest donor with $207,788, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan tracker of campaign donations.

The race was a local barnburner but barely registered outside Virginia. Then Trump stepped in.

At at rally in St. Augustine, Fla., he called the donations absolutely disgraceful and alleged without presenting evidence that Hillary knew this money was being paid.

McCabe outspent Black and still lost, costing McAuliffe the majority  by one seat.

[We're following Virginias governors race on Facebook. Join our Facebook group dedicated to the latest reporting around this election]
Republican candidates for lieutenant governor Bryce Reeves, left, Glenn Davis and Jill Vogel. (Reeves for Lt. governor; Timothy C. Wright for The Washington Post; Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch via Associated Press)

RICHMOND  Virginia state Sen. Bryce Reeves blasted one of his Republican rivals in the primary race for lieutenant governor for supporting the appointment of the states first openly gay judge. Now, other Republicans are accusing Reeves of gay bashing, prompting an intraparty dispute around gay issues.

In a pair of mailers landing days ahead of Tuesdays three-way GOP primary, Reeves (Spotsylvania) slams Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (Fauquier) because she voted to approve the first openly gay judge in the Commonwealth and was the only Republican to vote for special rights for gays and transgenders.

The fliers refer to Vogels support for Tracy Thorne-Begland, a gay former Navy pilot and veteran Richmond prosecutor whose 2012 nomination for a city General District Court judgeship was defeated by the Republican-dominated House of Delegates. After an uproar and an interim appointment by city Circuit Court judges, the legislature confirmed him the next year.

Vogel was one of eight Senate Republicans to vote for him in 2013, while Reeves was one of 12 who, in observance of Senate custom on judicial votes, left the chamber instead of voting against him.

[Va. lawmakers appoint gay judge after rejecting him last year]

View Graphic Meet the candidates running to become Virginias next governor

At the time, even Thorne-Beglands most vocal opponents called him unfit not because of his sexuality but because they perceived him as an activist who had bucked the states now-defunct ban on same-sex marriage and the nations now-repealed ban on gays openly serving in the military.

[Bob McDonnell evolves on gay judges]

But Reevess mailer flatly states his beef was with Thorne-Beglands sexuality.

I am very upset by the mailer I saw, Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.) said in an email. Gay bashing and discrimination is unacceptable and the wrong message for the people of our party, the people of Virginia, and the people of America.

More criticism came from John Adams, a conservative Richmond lawyer who is unopposed in the GOP primary for attorney general.

This attack is very disappointing because I know Judge Thorne-Begland, Adams said. He was a tough prosecutor in Richmond, and he has served admirably as a judge in Virginia. When I am attorney general, I will hire the most talented and capable people to represent the Commonwealth of Virginia and those are the only standards I will apply.

Reeves stood by the flier.

Bryce is proud to be the conservative choice for Lt. Governor, campaign spokeswoman Sam Azzarelli said in an email that also noted that the Family Foundation opposed Thorne-Beglands appointment.

Vogel campaign manager Pat Trueman said in an email: Jill Vogel believes discrimination is wrong and violates the Republican creeds call for equal justice for all. 

In the Senate, Vogel voted this year to ban discrimination against gay and transgender people in housing and public employment, although she has also formed an alliance with E.W. Jackson, whose anti-gay rhetoric has made him one of the partys most polarizing figures.

In a mailing of her own, Vogel raised alarms about the Obama administrations order to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice. Vogel has said she was objecting to a heavy-handed federal mandate, not the goal of protecting transgender students.

The third Republican contender for lieutenant governor, Del. Glenn Davis (Virginia Beach), posted a video that said: If you cant win on policy and you have to win on stuff like this, you just shouldnt be running. Davis joined the House in 2014, after Thorne-Begland was already on the bench.

Other Republicans treaded lightly. State GOP chairman John Whitbeck, who in March publicly rebuked gubernatorial contender Corey Stewart for using a racially tinged slur against rival Ed Gillespie, said in a text: We dont comment in Party contests unless the circumstances are truly extraordinary.

Asked if a blanket opposition to gay judges falls into that category, Whitbeck said, We are neutral in primaries.

[GOP chair lams Va. gubernatorial contender for calling rival a cuckservative]

Of the three GOP contenders for governor, only Gillespie chimed in. Spokesman David Abrams said Gillespie was not taking sides in the lieutenant governors race but, as governor, he would make appointments and staff decisions based solely on a persons experience, judgment and ability, regardless of sexual orientation. Stewart did not respond to a request for comment. The third GOP candidate for governor, state Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach), also voted for Thorne-Begland and for the bills this year that sought to ban anti-gay discrimination in housing and public employment. His only comment: Let the LT governor candidates duke it out.

The race for lieutenant governor has been unusually bitter, with Reeves and Vogel repeatedly accusing the other of dirty tricks while the underfunded Davis has struggled to grab attention. Reeves says Vogel was behind emails falsely accusing him of having an affair. Vogel has denied any involvement and suggested her familys electronics, which were linked to the messages, had been hacked. The two square off in Stafford County Circuit Court Friday for a hearing in a related defamation suit.

The fliers, first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, prompted conservative blogger Jim Hoeft to yank his support for Reeves.

Reeves, who up until about ten minutes ago was going to be the candidate I was going to endorse and vote for, just made a tremendously egregious mistake: he chose to play a game of identity politics that specifically limits opportunity (legitimate opportunity  not silly bathroom issues) to Americans who just want to serve their commonwealth, Hoeft wrote on Bearing Drift.

Another critic was state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico), who initially supported Reeves in the race but withdrew it in May and has stayed neutral.

I feel like discrimination in any form is wrong and people ought to be judges on their merit and on their performance, she said. We have so much positive that we can talk about in the Republican Party. I think we need to stay focused on policy and really have the dignity to step away from this identity politics.

State Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), Virginias first openly gay state senator, was taken aback by Reeves fliers. I thought he was better than that, Ebbin said. Theres a lot of people who were Republicans who arent anymore because of things like this.
MONTANA

Gianforte will enter plea in assault case

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) wants to enter a plea and be sentenced on a charge of assaulting a reporter who asked him a question about health care on the eve of last months special election, his lawyers said in a motion filed Thursday.

The request made in Gallatin County Justice Court calls for the congressman to appear Monday on the misdemeanor charge.

It came a day after Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs signed a release agreeing not to sue Gianforte and not to object to the technology entrepreneur entering a no-contest plea in the criminal case.

In exchange, Gianforte wrote a letter of apology to Jacobs and pledged to donate $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Gianforte said in a statement that he and Jacobs are looking to put the episode behind them.

A no-contest plea would allow Gianforte to concede to the offense without entering a guilty plea. The maximum penalty for misdemeanor assault is six months in prison and a $500 fine.

 Associated Press

ARKANSAS

Board drops probe of execution drug

The Arkansas Medical Board on Thursday voted to end its investigation into how drugs used to execute four inmates in April were obtained after the panels attorney said he found no evidence that any doctors licensed by the state were involved.

Last month, the board said it was investigating the purchase of one of the drugs used in the states first executions in nearly 12 years. But board attorney Kevin ODwyer said Thursday that he didnt find any evidence of a violation of the states medical practices act by a licensed doctor because none was involved in obtaining the execution drug.

Doctors can participate in executions under Arkansas law. But questions were raised in a court case about whether the state improperly used a doctors name and license to purchase one of the drugs. The Department of Correction has denied those claims. ODwyer said the investigation focused on whether a doctor was involved or allowed his or her license to be used in obtaining the drugs.

 Associated Press

N.Y. lawmakers vote to raise marriage age: The New York legislature has voted to overturn a state law that allows 14-year-olds to legally wed. The Democratic-led Assembly passed a bill Thursday that would increase the age of marriage to 17. The Republican-led Senate passed the measure earlier this week. New York is one of three states that allows children as young as 14 to marry, with parental and judicial consent. The other two are Alaska and North Carolina. The legislation heads to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) for approval. He designated the proposal a top priority in February.

St. Louis removes part of Confederate monument: A portion of a 38-foot-tall granite monument to the Confederacy in St. Louis has been removed, but a spokesman for the mayors office said the bulk of the memorial may remain in place for weeks. Cranes arrived Thursday at the 103-year-old monument in Forest Park. Koran Addo, a spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson (D), said workers are mostly doing preliminary engineering work toward removal of the monument, but they did remove the top of it.

Three charged in thrill shootings in Seattle area: Three people have been arrested and charged in what police describe as a series of thrill shootings in the Seattle area, including one that left a newspaper carrier with life-threatening injuries. Investigators say the first shooting was on April 24, when two defendants  a 23-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy  tested out an AK-47 by firing about 19 bullets at a couple and their young daughters as they walked to the front door of their home in Kent. Prosecutors say the defendants, who also include an 18-year-old man, participated in at least four more shootings. Among them: Gunfire hit a teachers home on April 30, an occupied car on May 3, and a car carrying a couple delivering newspapers on May 4.

 From news services
John and Cammie Harding look out onto flooded Fifth Street in Sunshine Village in Davie, Fla., on Wednesday. Several days of rain have caused flooding in Broward and Palm Beach counties. (Joe Cavaretta/Associated Press)

MONTANA

Gianfortes assault case is in settlement talks

A judge has given congressman-elect Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), who is accused of attacking a reporter, until June 20 to appear in Gallatin County Justice Court to face a misdemeanor assault charge.

The request filed Tuesday by former U.S. attorney William Mercer and Bozeman attorney Todd Whipple says they are in settlement talks with prosecutors. Justice of the Peace Rick West granted the extension Wednesday.

Gianforte had faced a Wednesday deadline to appear in court over allegations that he attacked Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs the night before last months special congressional election. Jacobs said he was body slammed by Gianforte on May 24 while he was trying to ask him a question about a health-care bill.

Gianforte won Montanas only congressional seat despite the last-minute fracas at his Bozeman campaign headquarters. He is not expected to be sworn in until later this month.

 Associated Press

NORTH DAKOTA

Fugitive in $5.7 million lottery scam captured

U.S. and Jamaican authorities have apprehended another suspect in an alleged multimillion-dollar lottery scam targeting dozens of Americans.

Gregory Gooden, one of four fugitives still being sought in the case, was arrested this week in the Jamaican capital of Kingston, North Dakota U.S. attorney Chris Myers announced Wednesday.

Fifteen people are charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering. Nine Jamaican nationals and a U.S. citizen who have pleaded not guilty are scheduled for trial July 17 in federal court in North Dakota.

Authorities allege the scam bilked at least 90 mostly elderly Americans out of more than $5.7 million.

The case is being tried in North Dakota because the investigation began in the state more than five years ago.

The suspects are accused of calling victims, persuading them to send money and wiring the money to bank accounts in Jamaica.

 Associated Press
Deja Foxx, 17, of Tucson, came to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to talk to lawmakers about her experiences with Planned Parenthood. She credits the organization with keeping her life on track. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Deja Foxx went to Planned Parenthood just once  but it was a transformative experience.

She was 15, sexually active for a year already, and constantly worried that her dreams would be derailed.

Growing up in a gritty part of Tucson, she saw firsthand what pregnancy could do to a young womans aspirations.

Attending a magnet school in an affluent part of town showed her another possible future.

Watching those kids grow up, I wanted all the chances everyone else had, said Foxx, now 17.

Deja Foxx says her future would be in doubt if she had not received assistance from Planned Parenthood about birth control. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Still a year shy of the legal driving age, she borrowed her boyfriends old Mitsubishi Eclipse and drove 45 minutes to the Margaret Sanger Health Center. A kind nurse showed her a booklet of birth control options.

She left with a seven-month supply  and a heart full of relief.

Today, Foxx is a fresh young face in the effort to block government cuts to Planned Parenthood, a 100-year-old womens health organization that is under attack for its role as the nations largest abortion provider.

She has taken on her states elected officials and this week brought her message to Washington: Without Planned Parenthood, she says, her future would be in doubt.

The Senate is preparing to take up a health-care bill that would, among other things, block Medicaid dollars from flowing to Planned Parenthood. States like Arizona, with the aid of congressional Republicans, also are seeking to block the organization from receiving federal grants under the Title X family planning program, which made Foxxs visit to the clinic possible.

[Congressional health-care bill defunds Planned Parenthood]

Foxx, then 16, gained national prominence via a viral video that captured an exchange April 13 between her and Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R), at a town hall meeting in Mesa. Foxx unleashed some built-up rage against the junior senator, who had just voted to permit states like Arizona to redirect Title X funds from the program.

Deja Foxx spent Wednesday meeting with members of Congress, arguing against blocking funding for Planned Parenthood. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Im a young woman, and youre a middle-aged man, Foxx said in the video. Im a person of color, and youre white. I come from a background of poverty, and I didnt always have parents to guide me through life. You come from privilege.

She continued: So Im wondering, as a Planned Parenthood patient and someone who relies on Title X, who you are clearly not, why its your right to take away my right to choose Planned Parenthood?

Flake responded that he was not privileged but did enjoy some advantages growing up, even as he paid for his college education on his own. What I want is to make sure that everyone can realize the American Dream, he said. Foxx snapped back: Then why would you deny me the American Dream?

Foxxs story is significant, in part, because the reproductive rights movement is seeking to recruit more young people to its cause. Some veteran activists have accused young women of complacency at a time when abortion rights have seemed a given, and the issue has not incited the same passion as immigration or LGBT rights in the Trump era.

Polls show young people are slightly more supportive of abortion rights than other age groups. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from last year found that 57 percent of adults younger than 35 said they wanted the next president to support legal abortion in most cases, compared with 52 percent overall.

Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, an antiabortion organization, said she sympathizes with Foxx but argues that the teenagers could have abstained from sex until marriage. And she said other health centers could have provided Foxx with the same birth control services she sought out at Planned Parenthood.

Getting free birth control from Planned Parenthood  is not the means for her to achieve the American Dream, Mancini said. Thats a really reductive view of the American Dream.

At about age 15, Foxx stopped living full-time with her mother, who struggled with mental illness and was unable to care for her, Foxx said. The teen strung together housing by spending nights at various friends homes, she said. During that time, she was technically on Medicaid, but she had no idea how to use the program to get health care.

In high school sex education, she said, she recalls looking at a slide that showed a list of contraception methods and described them only as available with a prescription or without.

But where do you get a prescription? she wondered, without getting an answer from her teachers.

She credits her Planned Parenthood visit with keeping her life on track. She hopes to one day run for political office.

So this week, for her first visit to Washington, Foxx donned a suit and a Planned Parenthood pin to tell her story to members of Congress in hopes of preserving funding for the organization.

With visits to Arizona Democrats, she was preaching to the choir  sort of.

After telling her story to Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, the lawmaker shook his head in disgust at efforts to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Theres a meanness in it, he said.

Rep. Tom OHalleran, who represents part of Tucson, praised her work and offered his help. But he felt the need to clarify.

My major concern is the health-care side, he said, differentiating that from Planned Parenthoods work as an abortion provider. He looks at that service differently, he said, coming from a Catholic family, though he considers himself pro-choice.

Foxx smiled politely. Later, she would explain that his parsing neither surprised her nor concerned her. There are plenty of justifications for Planned Parenthoods existence, she said.

Scott Clement contributed to this report.
BURMA

Military plane carrying 120 people disappears

A military transport plane with 120 people on board disappeared Wednesday on a flight from southern Burma to Rangoon, a military spokesman said. There were fears that it may have crashed into the ocean, because its route would have taken it over the Andaman Sea.

Gen. Myat Min Oo said the Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft was carrying 106 passengers  mostly families of military personnel  and 14 crew members when it disappeared.

An announcement posted on the Facebook page of the commander of the military, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said that the flight took off from Myeik, a city in southeastern Burma, and that contact with it was lost a half-hour later, when it was believed to be about 20 miles to the west of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.

The area is about 440 miles north of the last primary radar contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board.

 Associated Press

TURKEY

Amnesty International official is detained

Amnesty Internationals chairman in Turkey has been detained as part of a crackdown on people suspected of links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused by Turkey of orchestrating last years coup attempt.

The rights group said late Tuesday that Taner Kilic, a lawyer, was detained at his home in the western Turkish city of Izmir along with 22 other lawyers. Both his home and office were searched, Amnesty said.

His detention did not appear to be linked to his work with Amnesty and the organization was not believed to be specifically targeted in the police sweep, the group said. Amnesty said it was not clear why Kilic was suspected of having ties to Gulen.

There was no immediate comment from the Turkish authorities on Kilics case. But in Washington, the State Department said the United States was deeply concerned about the detention, calling it part of an alarming trend.

As we have expressed to the Turkish government on numerous occasions, persistent curbs on free speech and other freedoms erode the foundations of democratic society, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

Turkey has launched a widespread crackdown on Gulens followers since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, arresting some 50,000 people and purging tens of thousands of others from government jobs.

 Associated Press

FRANCE

Suspect in attack was ex-journalist, student

The Algerian doctoral student suspected of attacking police officers in front of Notre Dame Cathedral  with cries of This is for Syria! and a hammer  was identified Wednesday by a relative and a friend as an ex-journalist who firmly believed in democratic values and showed no signs of radicalization.

The Paris prosecutors office said a search of a residence linked to the suspect in the suburb of Cergy-Pontoise uncovered a declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State. A nephew in Algeria, lawyer Sofiane Ikken, said he was mystified by the finding because his uncle, Farid Ikken, had previously expressed disdain for the extremist group.

The assault, in which an officer was slightly injured, was the latest act of violence targeting security forces in France.

University of Lorraine President Pierre Mutzenhardt told France Bleu radio that the suspect was enrolled as a student at the school, where he had been working since 2014 on a thesis about North African media.

 Associated Press

Germany to pull troops from Turkish base: Chancellor Angela Merkels cabinet has decided to pull German troops and reconnaissance aircraft out of Turkeys Incirlik Air Base after Turkish officials refused to let German lawmakers visit them. The troops and planes, part of an international coalition against the Islamic State group, will redeploy to Jordan. Merkel portrayed the move as allowing Germany and Turkey to put aside one of many problems causing friction between the two NATO allies.

Iraqi Kurds plan referendum on independence: Masoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan, said Iraqi Kurds will hold a referendum on independence on Sept. 25. Barzani announced the vote on Twitter. The Kurdistan region, with a population of about 5 million, enjoys a high degree of autonomy, including its own parliament and armed forces. But relations with the central government in Baghdad have nose-dived in recent years.

 From news services
COLOMBIA

Rebels begin disarming as part of peace accord

Guerrillas in Colombia have begun to lay down weapons as part of last years historic peace agreement, injecting a much-needed dose of optimism after weeks of feuding over the slow pace of the deals implementation.

The United Nations said Thursday that it had collected about 2,300 weapons handed over a day earlier by guerrillas belonging to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. That represents a little more than a third of the FARCs declared arsenal of weapons, the U.N. mission in Colombia said.

This is a major development that bears witness to the parties will to respond to the hope generated in Colombia and the international community by the peace agreement signed last November, it said.

Almost since the deal was signed, both sides have been squabbling over what rebels see as foot-dragging by the government in passing implementation legislation, freeing jailed rebels who have received amnesty and investigating killings of leftist activists.

Amid the bickering, the FARC missed the original May 31 deadline to conclude the disarmament process. Under a deal worked out last week, the remainder of its weapons must be handed over by June 20.

 Associated Press

YEMEN

WHO: Cholera cases pass 100,000 mark

The number of suspected cholera cases in war-torn Yemen has risen to more than 100,000 since an outbreak began April 27, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The rapid spread of the disease through 19 of Yemens 23 governorates highlights a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen after two years of civil war.

To date, 101,820 suspected cholera cases and 789 deaths have been reported in 19 governorates, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said.

The WHO has warned that the number of cases could hit 300,000, but the number of daily new cases declined slightly in the week to June 5, to 3,432, compared with 3,651 in the previous seven-day period.

The war has left 19 million of Yemens 28 million people needing humanitarian aid, with many on the verge of famine.

 Reuters

BURMA

31 bodies recovered in military plane crash

Fishermen joined navy and air force personnel Thursday in recovering bodies and aircraft parts from the sea off Burma, where a military plane carrying 122 people crashed a day earlier, officials said.

The Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft had left Myeik, also known as Mergui, heading for Rangoon on a route over the Andaman Sea. It was raining, but not heavily, when contact was lost with it at 1:35 p.m. Wednesday.

By nightfall Thursday, the bodies of 31 people  21 women, eight children and two men  had been recovered, a military spokesman said.

More than 1,000 people, including volunteers, had gathered Thursday on the beach at San Hlan village in Laung Lone township, which served as a landing point for recovery operations.

Local fishermen joined nine navy ships, five military aircraft and three helicopters in the search, the spokesman said.

The plane had been carrying 108 passengers  mostly military personnel and their families  and 14 crew members, according to an announcement on the Facebook page of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. It is not unusual for such flights to carry civilians to offset transportation costs for military families stationed in the somewhat remote south.

 Associated Press

Boko Haram kills 9 in Nigeria: At least nine people were killed in Boko Harams deadliest assault in months on the northeast Nigerian city that is the birthplace of the Islamist extremist group, police said. The militants struck in Maiduguri as evening prayers were ending, targeting four locations. Nine people were killed, as were four attackers. Extremists also clashed with troops outside the city in Alidawari village and Jiddari Polo suburb, where homes were set on fire, police said.

Islamic State kills 2 Chinese in Pakistan: The Islamic State has killed two Chinese teachers it kidnapped in Pakistans southwestern Baluchistan province last month, the militant groups Amaq News Agency said. Armed men kidnapped the two teachers in the provincial capital, Quetta, on May 24. The abduction was a rare security incident involving Chinese nationals in Pakistan, where Beijing has pledged $57 billion for its Belt and Road plan.

 From news services
Graeme Wood is a correspondent for the Atlantic.

The question why do they hate us? has been asked, usually in headline form, after every major jihadist attack in the past two decades. Fareed Zakaria posed it on the cover of Newsweek after Sept. 11, 2001, and again, about the Islamic State, on a CNN special one year ago. Politico ran it as a headline after the Brussels attack in March 2016. One would think that the genre reached its natural conclusion last July, when the Islamic States magazine, Dabiq, published its own entry  Why We Fight You & Why We Hate You  answering the question authoritatively, like Columbo in the minutes before the credits roll. But the question persists, and the London attacks keep it current.

The latest attempted answer is I Was Told to Come Alone, a memoir by Washington Post national security correspondent Souad Mekhennet. In late 2002, Mekhennet met Maureen Fanning, widow of a firefighter killed on 9/11, who asked a version of the familiar question. Mekhennet stammered something about Western foreign policy being unpopular in the Arab world. Her book is an acknowledgment of the poverty of her initial answer and an attempt to give Fanning and others a more satisfying one, after 15 years on the jihadism beat.

One could hardly imagine a more suited writer to examine the possible answers. Mekhennet appears to have been assembled in a Frankenstein-like lab, perhaps in a basement at Columbias journalism school. She is, first and foremost, a brave, resourceful, canny and tireless reporter. Additionally, she is Muslim (a fact that endears her to some sources) and a woman (which endears her to some of those same sources and others). By nationality and birth, she is German, with a Moroccan Sunni father and a Turkish Shiite mother, and she speaks English, German, French and Arabic. Jihadism in the past five years has been principally a European and Arab story, and Mekhennet is geographically, linguistically and personally poised to tell it.

Most of her memoir is less about jihad than about the process of reporting it. She spends a great deal of time as reporters do  waiting for sources to call back, puzzling over whom to trust, haggling with editors about when to publish and when to hold out for more confirmation. On several occasions, the calls she gets are anonymous tips about imminent danger to her own life, and whether jihadists or hostile governments intend to kidnap, torture or rape her. (They dont. But the memory of Daniel Pearl, the murdered South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, is a constant presence in these pages.) Journalists will admire her. Readers unfamiliar with the painstaking and unglamorous process of newsgathering may also admire her, but they will find their alternative career choices validated by this account.

The jihadists, when she finds them, are vividly and humanely portrayed. She wheedles her way into interviews with al-Qaeda and Islamic State fighters and sympathizers in Algeria, Jordan and Lebanon, and in Germany she briefly but memorably meets the tattooed rapper Deso Dogg (real name: Denis Cuspert), now famous in Syria as the only Islamic State fighter to have opened for the American rapper DMX. Another jihadist, a pimply 18-year-old female convert, says she divorced her first husband, a fellow convert, to find a real man who would take her to live in an Islamic state, out of the unbearable country of Germany.

At other times the jihadists appear as phantoms, and the best Mekhennet or anyone else can do is describe the vapors they leave behind. She deduced the identity of Mohammed Jihadi John Emwazi, the recreational sadist who executed James Foley and several other Islamic State prisoners on camera before being obliterated by an American drone in November 2015. Emwazis friends and acquaintances tell her he turned to violence after harassment by British authorities. But most people who allege abuse by the government do not commit mass murder, so the biography she collects explains very little.

The most alarming portraits are not of jihadists at all. Khaled el-Masri, a hapless German of Lebanese descent who shares a name with an al-Qaeda operative, contacts her and alleges that the CIA kidnapped and tortured him for several months in 2004. His evidence is strong and the official reaction of the U.S. government evasively incriminating. Mekhennet acknowledges that el-Masri went berserk after returning to Germany  he burned down a store after it refused to let him return an iPod, and he later assaulted others in separate incidents  but she makes plain that these might be mild reactions to the trauma of being abducted and sodomized by the most powerful government on earth.

And then there are the guilty. The most menacing figures are Egyptian spies who hint that they will torture and rape Mekhennet for reporting during the Arab Spring. The most scurrilous, perhaps, are parasites who have joined the refugee flow, hidden among real victims of persecution, and have overrun central Europe in the past two years. Rather than sentimentalize the migrants, she walks among them and reports that many are dangerous, lazy, criminal or worse. They are, she says, often frauds  Syrians who dont look Syrian but North African, and who change the subject when asked which neighborhoods of Damascus they have fled  and more often peasants than the educated elites that Angela Merkels government has claimed make up a large portion of the recent arrivals. Their intentions range from freeloading, in the case of those who expect to live off welfare, to murder, in the case of a few who have brought sectarian hatreds against fellow Syrians or Iraqis to European soil. Mekhennets sympathies elsewhere in the book make her distrust here potent, and worrisome for those who imagine the dangers of the migrant flow to be a fever dream of xenophobes.

These portrayals by themselves make Mekhennets memoir a work of significant merit. But what of the original question? The hate remains largely mysterious  and, as Mekhennet points out, it is her own example that confounds most attempts to explain it. The root of hate is not Islam: She is Muslim and feels no compulsion to detonate herself in a German crowd. Nor is it U.S. politics or foreign policy: She too criticizes it, with conventional liberal European annoyance at the decisions of the George W. Bush administration in particular. Nor does it suffice to point to racism or Islamophobia: As an Arab and Turk and Muslim, she has lived in Germany and survived into adulthood without murderous impulses. Her failure to venture a clear positive hypothesis is hardly a fault of her memoir. To note that most other hypotheses are wrong, and to show that even the most ghoulish of the jihadis she profiles is human, is a good start.

But the hypothesis offered in Dabiq still strikes me as requiring a response more sophisticated than she provides. We hate you because you are disbelievers, writes the Islamic State author, who I believe is an American convert named John Georgelas. You reject the oneness of Allah. . . . Your secular, liberal societies permit the very things Allah has prohibited while banning many of the things He has permitted. He continues, providing accurate quotations from scripture and citations from Islamic history and scholarship, to argue that Muslims must hate and fight.

Mekhennet claims that religion doesnt radicalize people; people radicalize religion. From the evidence she provides, the jihadists appear to have malignant religious beliefs that distinguish them from others who are not violent but have similar backgrounds or are similarly aggrieved. There are bad people and bad ideas  including religious ideas that have been around for a long time  and in Mekhennets world of jihadists, their symbiosis is on elegant display.
Jack Kingston, a Republican, represented Georgias 1st Congressional District from 1993 to 2015 and served as an adviser to the Trump campaign.

For weeks, Democrats and many in the media cast doubt on President Trumps assertion that former FBI director James B. Comey told him that he was not under FBI investigation.

But now we know that when Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, he will confirm what the president has been saying all along: that Comey assured him on three separate occasions that he was not under investigation.

With Comey himself contradicting what Democrats had planned to focus on during the hearing, they will no doubt seek to frame his dismissal as some sort nefarious plot on the part of Trump.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

But that narrative ignores the facts surrounding the presidents decision to hand Comey his walking papers.

First off, Democrats and the chorus of anti-Trump media have seemed to experience a case of collective amnesia regarding Comeys performance as FBI director. Despite criticizing Trump for his decision to fire Comey, the very Democrats whom Comey will testify in front of sang a different tune about Comey before his dismissal.

In October, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) said that Comeys letter to Congress about the investigation into Hillary Clintons emails was appalling.

In November, fellow Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden (Ore.) called out Comey for continued leadership failures at the FBI.

Democratic leadership piled on, with current Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) saying days before the election that he no longer had confidence in the FBI director and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) saying that Comey may not be in the right job.

And most recently, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), the Democratic Partys 2016 vice presidential nominee, called Comeys actions leading up to the 2016 election one of the lowest moments in the history of the FBI.

A recent CNN report exposed Comey for inserting himself into the midst of the 2016 election based on intelligence that he knew to be Russian disinformation. Not only did he fail to disclose this in classified meetings, but also he used the fake information to justify his unusual news conference slamming Clinton during the campaign. By peddling evidence that he knew to be false, Comey bypassed Justice Department protocols and undermined the very integrity he sought to protect.

Then there is the handling of the investigation into Russias interference in the election. This is a serious matter that requires a thorough probe, as would any foreign meddling in our democracy. However, to date, there has been zero evidence presented of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Backing up this fact are statements from both Democrats and Republicans familiar with the investigation that no evidence of collusion has been found. This refrain has elevated into a deafening chorus as former Obama intelligence officials and prominent congressional Democrats have all denied the existence of any evidence of collusion.

The gravity of the investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 election means that it requires both the absolute confidence of the American public and maximum efficiency in its conclusion.

Unfortunately, Comeys continued FBI directorship could not deliver on either of these imperatives. Add to this lack of confidence the vindictive intelligence leaks out of the investigation clearly intended to embarrass Trump, and it is no wonder that the public and the president lost faith in the status quo at the FBI.

Following his firing, a New York Times article quoting an associate of Comey alleged that memos written by Comey stated that the president had asked the then-FBI director to end the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

But this suggestion that the president sought to interfere with the investigation was contradicted when acting FBI director Andrew McCabe testified unequivocally in May: There has been no effort to impede our investigation. Moreover, both Democrats and Republicans have questioned why, if Comey thought the president had acted inappropriately, as alleged, he didnt act upon it at the time.

Now Comey will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee as a disgruntled former employee of the president. His testimony should be regarded as such.

Nevertheless, I hope that the former FBI director will stick to the facts and not seek to exact spiteful retribution on his former boss or participate in the lefts deliberate campaign to undermine the Trump presidency with rumors, falsehoods and disinformation.
Philip Allen Lacovara, a former U.S. deputy solicitor general in the Justice Department, served as counsel to Watergate special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.

In prepared testimony released on the eve of his appearance Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, former FBI director James B. Comey placed President Trump in the gunsights of a federal criminal investigation, laying out evidence sufficient for a case of obstruction of justice.

Comey proved what Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers carefully avoided admitting in their testimony on Wednesday  that the president had specifically attempted to shut off at least a major piece of what Trump calls the Russia thing, the investigation into the misleading statements by fired national security adviser Michael Flynn concerning his role in dealings with the Russians. This kind of presidential intervention in a pending criminal investigation has not been seen, to my knowledge, since the days of Richard Nixon and Watergate.

Comeys statement meticulously detailed a series of interventions by Trump soliciting his assistance in getting the criminal probe dropped. These details are red meat for a prosecutor. Presumably, the team of experienced criminal prosecutors that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has assembled will be following up on this crucial testimony, which rests on contemporaneous memorandums that Comey was sufficiently alarmed to prepare immediately after receiving the presidents requests.

That both Coats and Rogers denied that they felt pressured provides no comfort for the presidents position. The obstruction of justice statute prohibits not only successful interference with pending criminal investigations but also any use of threats to endeavor to obstruct an investigation. Thus, it is the attempt or objective that is criminal, and Coats and Rogers were apparently unable to deny that the president had solicited their interference in the pending FBI investigation. If Coats and Rogers did not yield to the endeavor, kudos for them, but that is no excuse for the president.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Moreover, Comeys testimony also supplies the element of threats. He vividly describes a dinner with the president on Jan. 27, which the president surprisingly limited to just the two of them. The president asked Comey whether he liked his job and wanted to continue in it, even though, before the inauguration, the president had asked Comey to stay on the job, and Comey had eagerly accepted.

Leaving little doubt about the price of continued retention, the president twice, according to Comey, told him that he expected loyalty from Comey, just as he did from everyone else around him.

Then, on Feb. 14, the president carefully structured another one-on-one meeting with Comey, specifically ordering Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to whom the FBI director ordinarily reports, to leave the Oval Office where Comey, Sessions and other national security officials (and Jared Kushner) had been meeting. At that point, the president laid his cards on the table, according to Comey: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Next, in phone calls on March 30 and April 11, the president solicited Comeys help in removing the cloud over Trump resulting from the FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible Trump campaign collusion. The president again demanded loyalty: Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. He pressed Comey to make public statements exonerating the president, but Comey declined to do so.

The president dropped the other shoe on May 9, summarily firing Comey. The White House initially blamed this action on Comeys actions during the 2016 campaign, but within the week Trump admitted that the cover story was a sham. He brazenly stated that he fired Comey in order to bring the Russia thing to a close, and he bragged to senior Russian officials in a private Oval Office meeting that this is what he thought that he had accomplished by sacking Comey.

Comeys statement lays out a case against the president that consists of a tidy pattern, beginning with the demand for loyalty, the threat to terminate Comeys job, the repeated requests to turn off the investigation into Flynn and the final infliction of career punishment for failing to succumb to the presidents requests, all followed by the presidents own concession about his motive. Any experienced prosecutor would see these facts as establishing a prima facie case of obstruction of justice.

But whether a sitting president may be indicted while in office is an open question. I advised the Watergate special prosecutors (and argued to the Supreme Court in the Nixon tapes case) that the president enjoys no unique immunity from obeying criminal laws. Other Justice Department officials, however, have taken a contrary position.

(Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

The ball now is in Muellers court to decide whether he has (or will have) enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction and, if so, whether to reach the same conclusion that I reached in the Nixon investigation  that, like everyone else in our system, a president is accountable for committing a federal crime.
Over the past decade and a half, tolerance for polygamy has more than doubled among the American public. A similar trend applies to human cloning.

Stunning as they are, these findings from the latest Gallup survey of moral opinion in the United States may tell more about the political future than the daily drama surrounding President Trump.

To be sure, the percentage declaring polygamy and human cloning morally acceptable, in Gallups phrase, remains small: Seventeen percent are okay with the former; 14 percent, the latter. Neither is likely to become legal soon.

Yet the speed with which these formerly fringe ideas have moved toward the mainstream is significant and consistent with Gallups broader finding: Since 2001, there has been a clear and, apparently, irreversible, move toward more permissive, or, to use Gallups word, liberal social norms.

Libertarian might be a better term. Gallup documents what can only be called a strong live-and-let-live consensus regarding several practices  birth control, divorce, sex between unmarried adults, gay or lesbian relations, out-of-wedlock child-bearing  that within living memory were either fiercely contested or taboo. All garnered at least 62 percent acceptance in the poll, conducted just a month ago. Doctor-assisted suicide is trending up and now stands at 57 percent acceptance.

Taboos are weakening against pornography (acceptance up six points to 36 percent since 2011) and sex between teenagers (acceptance up four points to 36 percent since 2013). Meanwhile, new taboos are developing against wearing fur and medical testing on animals. Only adultery remains as unacceptable as in 2001; just 9 percent tolerate it.

In short, the culture wars may be ending in victory for progressives, with the caveat that a left-right frame is misleading regarding some issues  opposition to pornography, for example, has at times been a rare point of agreement between the religious right and left-wing feminists.

Americans are not only far more willing to countenance formerly taboo practices, they are also much less interested in government protection of traditional values than they were in the not-so-distant past.

It has been six years since another poll, by CNN/ORC, found for the first time that more Americans said the government should not favor any set of values rather than promote traditional values.

As of the most recent poll, in late 2014, 55 percent preferred a value-neutral government. No one would have predicted that just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when CNN/ORC found that 59 percent of Americans favored government promotion of traditional values, an all-time high.

Maybe that galvanizing moment gave way to the multiple disappointments and disillusions of the Iraq War and the financial crisis, which in turn bred broader doubts about governments ability to do anything right, let alone foster moral values, and perhaps about the values themselves.

Another explanation, though, is that Gallups numbers confirm a long-standing postwar trend first identified by political scientist Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan, who has argued that Western societies turn from traditional values to individual autonomy and self-expression reflects their growing economic security, notwithstanding periodic wars and recessions.

The satisfaction of basic material needs, on a consistent basis, provides time and space for cultural, sexual and spiritual experimentation. Conversely, Inglehart has argued, members of society who feel least secure, materially and otherwise, continue to derive meaning from tradition and react against perceived threats to it emanating from the political sphere.

One interpretation of the overwhelming support of the countrys most religious, tradition-minded voters for a thrice-married, hedonistic tycoon is that it demonstrates their desperation to stop the progressive cultural wave. Another, of course, is to reduce it to racist and nativist backlash.

Then again, data from Gallup and other sources show such wide moral acceptance of nontraditional norms that the new consensus must include plenty of Trump voters as well. The main exceptions to that consensus are abortion and gun control, about which a relatively even and highly partisan divide persists  and which candidate Donald Trump exploited to win over red-state voters who might otherwise have distrusted him.

That suggests our partisan battles over abortion and guns are far from over. Otherwise, social-issue politics could be increasingly a matter of managing the new consensus  setting the conditions for doctor-assisted suicide, say, as opposed to debating its permissibility. That could facilitate a soft landing from the current instability.

This bizarre moment in American politics reflects the desperate effort by all concerned  voters, parties, politicians, journalists  to find our footing in a postmodern world we inescapably inhabit but poorly understand. Trumps rise is a cause of this predicament, but also a symptom of it.

Read more from Charles Lanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
What does the FBI director do when he suspects the president is a manipulative liar? The answer in James B. Comeys case is that he writes memos, tries to evade demands for loyalty  and anguishes about protecting himself and the FBI.

But by Comeys own admission, perhaps he should have done more.

The big news had already surfaced before Comeys appearance Thursday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, with the release of his prepared testimony. What we got at the hearing was the raw morality play, told in Comeys words, about his dealings with a president whose behavior frightened him.

I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document, Comey said about his Jan. 6 meeting with President Trump. Comey had just briefed the president-elect, alone, about salacious, unverified details of a dossier alleging various Trump escapades in Moscow.

What troubled Comey, he said, was the circumstances, the subject matter and the person I was interacting with. As he left Trump Tower, he began writing a self-protective memo describing the encounter.

Comey was a compelling witness to the bullying behavior of this president. But Trump supporters can argue that the presidents hand was strengthened by Thursdays Super Bowl hearing. Even as Comey chronicled his disturbing encounters with Trump, he also affirmed some important strands of the White House narrative.

Comey said that as of May, when he was fired, Trump was not personally under FBI investigation  offering, finally, the public acknowledgment Trump had been requesting so assiduously. Comey also said Trump had never ordered him to halt the overall FBI investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

And on the sensitive subject of leaks, Comey revealed that to prompt the appointment of a special counsel, he had used a cut-out to share with the New York Times details of a memo recounting Trumps Feb. 14 request, I hope you can let this go, referring to the FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Thursdays hearing offered a haunting portrait of a moralist confronting a dealmaker. Comey conveyed his fastidious attention to ethics, and to his own reputation. He spoke of his personal pain in dealing with the Hillary Clinton investigation, his concern for morale if FBI agents heard that Trump wants [the Flynn investigation] to go away.

He wrote memos after his encounters and briefed his closest aides. But he didnt take the evidence of what he saw as Trumps wrongdoing to Justice Department superiors or congressional oversight committees.

It was Pilgrims Progress meets House of Cards when Comey arrived for a one-on-one dinner at the White House on Jan. 27. Comey described his fear that Trump wanted to create a patronage debt by making Comey ask for his FBI job. He said that Trump might have similarly hoped to induce an obligation in a March 30 phone call suggesting that he hadnt questioned the Democratic political ties of the wife of Comeys deputy. As Trump stressed so baldly, in Comeys telling, he wanted loyalty  much as a feudal lord might seek allegiance from his barons.

Comey imagined that by offering Trump only honest loyalty during the dinner, he had diluted his demand. But in their last phone call, on April 11, Trump protested: I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. Comey didnt push back. He wrote another memo.

The most poignant moments in Thursdays hearing were Comeys reflections on what he might have done differently. When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) asked why he hadnt rejected outright Trumps hope that he close the Flynn investigation, Comey answered: Maybe other people would be stronger in that circumstance. . . . Maybe if I did it again, I would do it better.

Later Comey was pressed about why he accommodatingly told Trump in the March 30 call that he would see what we could do to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation. He conceded that his response was a slightly cowardly way . . . of getting off the phone, frankly.

What is it about being FBI director that makes people so concerned about image, yet unable to be entirely independent of the politicians they serve? Thats been part of the bureaus history ever since J. Edgar Hoover. Comey couldnt escape it.

Comeys personal ethical dilemmas are now interwoven with the nations political history. Its the stuff of high drama  the temporizing ethicist meets the amoral bulldozer. The story didnt have a happy ending for Comey  or, it seems, for the country.

Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Gary Abernathy is publisher and editor of the (Hillsboro, Ohio) Times-Gazette, a Civitas Media newspaper.

As publisher and editor of the Times-Gazette, a small daily newspaper in this southwest Ohio town (pop. 6,600), I thought our endorsement of Donald Trump for president last year seemed innocuous enough. Then someone said to me, Did you see that Rachel Maddow mentioned the Times-Gazette last night?

Seriously?

Next Politico called. I soon discovered that our two-sentence endorsement was being reported  and often ridiculed  far and wide. The nearby Cincinnati Enquirer produced a post headlined This Ohio paper is one of only six to endorse Donald Trump. Not one of six in Ohio  one of six in the entire nation.

Hillsboro is the seat of Highland County, which has voted for the Republican candidate for president for decades but was particularly enthusiastic about Trump. He ended up winning 75 percent of the vote here, compared with 64 percent for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Interestingly, the conservatives I speak with do not really consider Trump one of them. Rank-and-file Republicans tend to view Trump more as an independent who ran under the Republican banner.

But for the most part theyre still with him. They appreciate Trumps America first agenda, not because they believe in isolationism, but because they believe the United States and its citizens should be the governments top priority.

The presidents tweets can be as annoying to his supporters as to his opponents, and if there is a common criticism, it is that he should tweet less. But his inability so far to overhaul health care, enact tax reform, destroy the Islamic State or drain the swamp is largely blamed on overreaching courts and the open resistance that appears dedicated to opposing anything Trump wants.

What Trumps supporters also appreciate about him are the very attributes for which he is relentlessly criticized in the media. People here  a farming community supplemented by modest-paying retail jobs and a few factory opportunities  are frank and plain-spoken. Theyre weary of politicians whose every statement seems carefully crafted to say nothing and offend no one.

I understand that. Years ago, I took a break from journalism to work in politics. I know what candidates and politicians are supposed to say and how they are supposed to say it. I sometimes find myself cringing at things Trump says, wishing he would behave more like a typical politician. But then I remind myself that if he did, he would likely lose the support of the grass-roots movement that put him where he is.

The negativity that permeates Trump coverage is a frequent subject of conversation here. Matters that are not frequently discussed: James B. Comey, tax returns, the Paris climate accord and the Russians. Instead, we talk about the heroin overdose epidemic ravaging our community.

Yes, Hillsboro is a rural setting with a majority-white population. But that doesnt equate to its citizens or its Trump supporters being racist, homophobic or Islamaphobic.

Last weekend I covered the opening of an exhibit at our historical society that pays tribute to a school desegregation saga that unfolded here in the 1950s; the event honored surviving members of the African American community who lived through a chapter in local history too long ignored. A big crowd, white and black, was on hand. Steps toward racial harmony happen even in Trump country.

While Trump carried Highland County heavily, there are people here who did not vote for him and who do not care for him. But overall, despite the avalanche of negative news stories, Trumps support remains firm. Hillsboros mayor mentioned recently that he has noticed Trump yard signs popping up again, either in a show of support or a sign of defiance.

Im an editor who happens to be a conservative on most issues. But Im not a conservative editor. I strive to practice and teach solid, unbiased reporting regardless of what we are covering, doing our best to demonstrate respect, accuracy and fairness to all sides. Our political leanings are reserved for the opinion page. I wish more of my liberal colleagues would acquit themselves similarly.

Im still astounded that our brief endorsement of Trump garnered such attention. In the end, Trump won the state by a solid eight-point margin. Consider the fact that Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, but in most of those states not a single newspaper endorsed him. Could there be better evidence of the gulf that exists between what is called the mainstream media and millions of Americans?

After the election, some news media leaders pledged to reexamine their approach. If they are even slightly successful in retooling political coverage, perhaps by 2020 a small southern Ohio newspapers endorsement of a major-party candidate for president wont qualify as national news, no matter which candidate it chooses.
ONE OF the most popular  and successful  aspects of the Affordable Care Act has been the access it has given women to no-cost birth control. Not only has it saved women millions of dollars, but also the increased use of birth control has corresponded to significant drops in the rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions. It is troubling, then, that the Trump administration is either so shortsighted or so ideologically driven that it is reportedly considering a rule change that would cause hundreds of thousands of women to lose vital health-care coverage.

The draft of a proposed regulation, dated May 23 and obtained last week by Vox, would dramatically overhaul the governments contraception coverage mandate. It would, if finalized, expand the exemption that currently applies to religious organizations and private employers with religious scruples to any employers or insurers expressing religious beliefs and moral convictions against birth control. No formal notification to the federal government would be required. Moral is not defined. And even for-profit, publicly traded companies would be able to lay claim to moral convictions. The rule essentially would allow any employer to drop birth control coverage in employee health plans virtually at whim, wrote Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times.

Clearly, this is of little concern to the Trump administration. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price once famously said that not one woman has been unable to afford birth control, and he has staffed the department with appointees who are openly antagonistic to the efficacy of birth control. Never mind the scientific studies showing that as the use of contraceptives increases, the rate of unintended pregnancies decreases. Or that the decline in the rate of teen pregnancy in recent years is believed to be a result of the greater availability of free long-term reversible contraceptives.

Without insurance  which, it should be noted, women pay for  birth control can be out of reach. A recent survey from PerryUndem found that 33 percent of women could afford to pay only $10 or less out of pocket for oral contraceptives, and 14 percent said they couldnt afford to pay anything. Before the mandate went into effect, co-pays ranged from $15 to $50 a month. Again, this is of little concern to the Trump administration, which argues in the draft proposal that women can turn to federally subsidized family planning programs, a maddening if not insulting argument since the administration has also proposed cuts in Medicaid. Moreover, if Republicans had their druthers, Planned Parenthood, the main source of birth control for low-income women, would lose federal funding.

The repeal and replacement of Obamacare has stalled in Congress, but this proposed regulation, which could go into effect as soon as it is published in the Federal Register, sadly demonstrates the harm that can be done if the executive branch sets its mind  and authority  to dismantling key provisions.
What do you do if youve just been fired as director of the FBI, the administration has chosen to defame you with lies plain and simple, and you believe the president of the United States may be trying to obstruct justice? You leak bombshell information to the media in hopes of forcing the appointment of a special counsel. It might work.

Actually, it did work.

In stunning public testimony Thursday, James B. Comey acknowledged arranging for a friend to leak details of a conversation Comey had with President Trump  the Feb. 14 Oval Office encounter in which Trump said he hoped the FBI director could drop the bureaus investigation of fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to Comeys contemporaneous notes. I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee about his orchestrated leak.

I dont think its for me to say whether Trump committed obstruction, Comey demurred, but thats a conclusion Im sure the special counsel will work toward, to try and understand what the intention was there and whether thats an offense. Comey said he took Trumps words not as just a hope but as a direction from the highest official in the land  an order he was not about to obey.

[The most chilling line in Comeys testimony]

Three months later, with no warning, Comey was summarily dismissed. Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Comey testified. That is a very big deal.

Comey was unabashed about accusing Trump and his administration of telling lies, and said he began the practice of immediately making notes after talking with the president because I was honestly concerned he might lie about the conversations. He said he had no such concern about the veracity of the other two presidents he served, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

On one subject, Comey confirmed that the president is being truthful: Comey did tell him three times that he was not personally under investigation. Comey explained that this was technically the case during his FBI tenure. He said he does not know, however, whether special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating Trump now  and left little doubt that he hopes Mueller is doing just that.

Comeys best line of the day was a belated response to a May 12 tweet from the president, which warned that James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

Said Comey: Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

I hope so, too, but I would be surprised if such recordings exist. Trumps inner circle is such a sieve that full transcripts surely would have leaked by now. Investigators and the public will have to decide whether they believe Trump, who lies all the time, or Comey, who has a flair for the dramatic but also the bearing of an oversized Boy Scout. Thats a pretty easy choice.

[The latest Republican defense of Trump is built on a massive lie]

1 of 28 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene in Washington during former FBI director James B. Comeys testimony View Photos Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. Caption Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. June 8, 2017 People walk past the Capitol the morning before former FBI director James B. Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington. Matt McClain/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

And now for some rare kind words about members of Congress: Overall, the senators questioning Comey behaved in a manner that could be described by such last-century terms as bipartisan and patriotic. The Democrats questions tended to be somewhat more accusatory toward the president, the Republicans questions somewhat more exculpatory, but there was a welcome air of sobriety about the whole thing. At this point, any examples of grown-up behavior should be recognized and praised.

The one exception was the weird line of questioning pursued by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who wanted to know why Comey wouldnt publicly clear Trump of wrongdoing even though he had done so for Hillary Clinton. Comey tried to explain that the investigation of Clintons emails was finished whereas the investigation of Trumps campaign is ongoing. Maybe going forward I shouldnt stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games, McCain later said.

As perhaps should have been expected, the most important takeaway from Comeys testimony may be what he didnt say. Topics he scrupulously avoided may give a hint of where the investigation is headed.

He declined, for example, to answer a question in open session about Vnesheconombank (VEB), a Russian government-owned development bank linked to President Vladimir Putin. Trumps adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, met last year with VEB executives.

Comey was also reticent about his interactions with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was his boss  and who had to recuse himself from Russia-related investigations.

Comeys memos about his meetings with Trump are now in Muellers hands. Trump desperately wanted the Russia investigation to end. Firing Comey ensured that it is only beginning.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
PRESIDENT TRUMP on Wednesday announced he would nominate veteran government lawyer Christopher Wray to be the next FBI director. Several hours later, the public got the text of testimony that the man Mr. Wray has been tapped to replace, ousted director James B. Comey, prepared to deliver at a Senate hearing Thursday. As legislators consider Mr. Wrays nomination and await Mr. Comeys full testimony, this much is clear: Mr. Wray must get much more intense scrutiny than the typical executive nominee, because it is evident that the next FBI chief may face severe pressure from a president who is unwilling to respect the boundaries of his office.

At first glance, Mr. Wray seems to be a solid choice. Mr. Trump was reported to have considered choosing a current or former politician for a job that has always gone to a law enforcement official. By contrast, Mr. Wray has not been involved directly in partisan politics. He held high positions in President George W. Bushs Justice Department, rising from federal prosecutor to head the departments Criminal Division. During that time, he worked on some of the major financial fraud cases of the era. He then went into private practice representing major corporations and, notably, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) during his Bridgegate scandal.

Mr. Wrays work during the Bush administration deserves a careful look, as does his relationship to Mr. Christie, a close Trump ally with whom he served in the Justice Department. But the most important line of questioning will concern how Mr. Wray views the role of FBI director and the relationship he intends to have with the man who appointed him.

According to Mr. Comeys prepared testimony, the president told the then-FBI director in a private January dinner, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. Mr. Comey declined to offer more than honesty and explained the importance of FBI independence. Yet, per Mr. Comeys account, the president later persisted in asking that the FBI back off its investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and that Mr. Comey state publicly that Mr. Trump was not personally under investigation. The FBI complied with neither request, and the president fired Mr. Comey, citing the Russia investigation as a motivation.

Mr. Wray must be prepared to reveal whether Mr. Trump demanded his loyalty before nominating him to lead the FBI. He should detail his conversations with the president and in particular disclose whether the two discussed the Russia probe. If he admits to making any commitments or refuses to answer, the Senate should reject his nomination. He must explain what he would do if the president demanded that the FBI terminate an investigation involving Mr. Trump or his circle, or if other staffers from the White House or in the intelligence community pressured him to do so. This possibility is all too real: The Post reports that Mr. Trump tried to persuade Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats to influence Mr. Comey on the Russia probe. Mr. Wray should also say whether he would speak with the president one-on-one, an apparent habit of Mr. Trumps that Mr. Comey found inappropriate.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Thursdays testimony from Mr. Comey may bring more troubling revelations that will add to the pressure on Mr. Wray. Never before has a nominee for FBI director borne such a high burden to show that he will put the FBIs independent application of the law above all other considerations.
Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor and a contributing editor at National Review.

James B. Comeys testimony Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee will no doubt embolden those who believe we already know enough to conclude that President Trump obstructed justice by leaning on the then-FBI director to halt a criminal investigation of Michael Flynn. But nothing that Comey said alters the fact that this claim remains fatally flawed in two critical respects: It overlooks both a requirement for corrupt intent and the principle of executive discretion.

It is true that federal statutes criminalizing obstruction of the administration of law  including by agencies such as the FBI  cite not only actual interference with an investigation but attempts to do so as well. That is, the fact that the investigation of Flynn, a close Trump campaign adviser who would briefly serve as his national security adviser, was never actually shut down cuts against the case for obstruction, but it is not dispositive.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

But the arguments for presidential obstruction here tend to omit the statutes most important word: corruptly. Not every form of interfering with an investigation, or even the closing down of an investigation, is felony obstruction. Only corrupt ones. Prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused not only acted intentionally but also with an awareness that his actions violated the law.

The usual examples are straightforward: A public official is paid off to lean on the police to drop a case. Or an official acts to halt an investigation out of fear that a suspect will reveal wrongdoing by the official.

So, what would be a legitimate interference with an investigation?

This brings us to executive discretion. Every day, in FBI and U.S. attorneys offices throughout the nation, agents and prosecutors decide to close investigations and decline prosecutions. Many of these cases are viable, but these executive-branch officials judge that the equities weigh against continuing the investigation or filing an indictment. They consider the seriousness of the offense and balance that against personal factors related to the suspect  criminal history, contributions to society, whether alternatives to criminal prosecution would be more appropriate, whether a criminal charge would be overkill because of other consequences the suspect has suffered, etc.

This is important because the president is the chief executive. We like to think of law enforcement as insulated from politics, and we certainly aspire to a politics that does not undermine the rule of law. In our system, however, it is simply not the case that law enforcement is independent of political leadership. The FBI and Justice Department are not a separate branch of government. They are subordinate to the president. In fact, they do not exercise their own power; the Constitution vests all executive power in the president. Prosecutors and FBI agents are delegates.

That means that when they exercise prosecutorial discretion, they are exercising the presidents power. Obviously, the president cannot have less authority to exercise his power than his subordinates do.

Consider Comeys testimony. He said there was an open investigation based on suspicion that Flynn made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In describing their Feb. 14 meeting, Comey understandably inferred, from Trumps request that others leave the room, the presidents possible awareness that he was about to do something inappropriate. But this suspicion must be balanced against what Trump actually did, which was merely to plead on Flynns behalf, not order an outcome.

Comey recalled the president opining that Flynn had not done anything terribly wrong. And it is true that Flynns communications with Kislyak were consistent with his role in the Trump transition, and that reportedly he did not make any commitment to undo sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama. According to Comey, Trump added that Flynn was a good guy. This is also true: Flynn is a combat veteran who served his country with bravery and distinction. The president added that Flynn had been through a lot. True again: Hed been fired in humiliating fashion, and his financial prospects were obviously dimmed by indications that he had been incompetent, if not deceitful.

In other words, assuming Comeys version of the conversation is correct (Trump has disputed it), Trump was doing what prosecutors and agents do: He weighed the equities and opined that further investigation and potential indictment were not warranted. Enough was enough.

Comey, we must note, took pains to say that Trump did not ask him to halt the broader investigation of Russian meddling in the election. Indeed, he said the president observed in a March 30 phone call that it would be a benefit if potential wrongdoing by any of his satellite associates were uncovered. This strongly suggests that he was not lobbying for Flynn out of fear that the investigation would uncover misconduct by Trump and his circle.

One can certainly disagree with Trumps marshaling of the equities involved in proceeding against Flynn. But to weigh them and recommend against proceeding was a legitimate exercise of executive discretion. The president has every bit as much authority to engage in that exercise as his subordinates. And it bears repeating that he did not order a halt to the investigation  though he could have.

This was clearly not corruption. And without corruption, there cannot be obstruction.

This is not to suggest the presidents executive discretion is absolute. A president who abuses his power in a manner that undermines our system of justice can and should be impeached. Indeed, the Nixon articles of impeachment alleged obstruction of law-enforcement investigations. Trump, by contrast, has not obstructed the administration of law, much less done so systematically.
President Trump walks back to the Oval Office after disembarking Marine One and returning from Cincinnati to the White House on June 7, 2017. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

To President Trump, the Russia matter is not a legitimate federal investigation into a foreign governments interference with American democracy. That, he says, is a charade manufactured by Democrats to account for their loss in the 2016 election.

Nor does Trump seem to regard Russia as an issue that could result in his impeachment, or even one that could expose him to legal trouble of any kind. Over and over, the president has insisted that he has had nothing to do with Russia.

Rather, Trump sees Russia as a political cloud that hangs over him, as he repeatedly referred to the Russia probe in his private conversations with the man who had been overseeing it, FBI Director James B. Comey, according to the statement Comey is preparing to deliver Thursday under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In their March 30 phone call, Trump described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country, Comey wrote in his prepared remarks. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud. 

Trump talked about the cloud again in an April 11 phone call with Comey, one month before the president fired him. Comey recalled Trump telling him that the cloud was getting in the way of his ability to do his job, according to his prepared testimony.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

As Trump sees it, the Russia investigation has been an act of personal betrayal with political, though not legal, consequences, insofar as it has impeded his agenda and sullied the start of his presidency.

Whats more, friends and advisers have said, Trump views the Russia scandal as a threat to the legitimacy of his election. Trump feels immense pride that he ran as a political outsider and defied the polls and pundits to handily win an electoral college majority, despite losing the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. He has handed out as mementos to visitors to the Oval Office, including this Washington Post reporter, color maps charting his county-by-county win  the United States nearly awash in red.

[I need loyalty: James Comeys riveting testimony about what Trump asked him, annotated.]

To Trump, the Russia matter challenges the validity of that win. And for that, he exhibits a feeling of victimization.

When he talks about Russias meddling in the election, the president often speaks in deeply personal tones. He uses words like witch hunt, and he professes his innocence against an ill-intentioned intelligence community spurred on by obstructionist Democrats and the MSM, or mainstream media.

It is the same Fake News Media that said there is no path to victory for Trump that is now pushing the phony Russia story, Trump tweeted on April 1. A total scam!

In February, after Trump said he fired national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to Vice President Pence about his communications with Russian officials, Trump scolded reporters for focusing on the Russia matter.

(Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)

You can talk all you want about Russia, which was all a fake news, fabricated deal to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats, and the press plays right into it, Trump said at a Feb. 16 news conference.

The whole Russian thing, he added, thats a ruse. Thats a ruse.

Even before being sworn in as president, Trump was impatient to get out from under his Russia cloud. I think we ought to get on with our lives, he told reporters in December, as he was planning his transition.

Trumps family casts the president as a victim, too.

They try to obstruct a great man, son Eric Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity this week. They try and obstruct his family. They come after us viciously, and its truly, truly horrible. And honestly, I blame most of those [Democratic] politicians, and I blame the media.

[Trump, furious and frustrated, gears up to punch back at Comey testimony]

The Russia controversy has unquestionably slowed or halted progress on Trumps agenda. His fellow Republicans control both chambers of Congress, yet have delivered no signature legislation to the president. His plan to replace President Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act only narrowly passed the House and is stalled in the Senate, while his tax cuts proposal has gone nowhere in either chamber.

In a briefing Monday designed to convince reporters that Trumps agenda remains on track, Marc Short, the White Houses director of legislative affairs, conceded that the Comey firing and investigation into Russian interference were distracting lawmakers.

Theres no doubt that keeping members focused on investigations detracts from our legislative agenda, detracts from what were trying to deliver for the American people, Short said.

Trump and his aides are not the only people who see the Russia matter as a cloud hanging over the president.

This cloud is impacting everything else, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said last month on CNN.

Even James R. Clapper Jr., the Obama-appointed director of national intelligence whose credibility Trump repeatedly has sought to undermine publicly, has used the same meteorological description as Trump.

I think what needs to happen here is to clear this cloud, the cloud thats hanging over the administration, over the president, over the White House, Clapper said on MSNBC last month.

One of the last times Comey testified on Capitol Hill was March 20, when he answered questions from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), a Trump ally who served on the executive committee of his presidential transition, concluded the hearing by discussing  yes  the cloud.

There is a big gray cloud that you have put over people who have very important work to do to lead this country, Nunes said. And so the faster you can get to the bottom of this, its going to be better for all Americans.

I understand, Comey replied. Thank you.

Alice Crites contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 7: President Donald Trump greets visitors after disembarking Marine One as he returns from Cincinnati on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday, June 07, 2017. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The stories Donald Trump most relishes telling are those in which a no turns into a yes. The prime actor in those stories is always Trump himself.

Sometimes his weapon is mischief, as when Trump wanted to persuade a law firm to vacate its offices in a Wall Street skyscraper he had bought in the 1990s. The lawyers had stopped paying rent. So one wintry morning, they got to work and the elevators to their 52nd-floor offices were kaput. And the heat was off.

Telling the story, Trump flashed the same impish smile he deploys when he recounts tales of even tougher tactics he has used to persuade his executives, wives or bankers to do his bidding. They were real wiseguys, he said of his lawyer tenants. I got a check for the whole thing and the law firm moved out.

But as president, Trump has found that at least some of the people on the receiving end of his strong-arming are far more likely to push back publicly. Which is what fired FBI director James B. Comey did Wednesday in a seven-page, single-spaced statement that portrays the president as a stereotypical tough guy out of a B movie.

In Comeys telling, Trump talks like a mob boss: I have been very loyal to you, very loyal. We had that thing, you know. Trump can be politely cajoling: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, he tells Comey, referring to the FBIs investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And Trump can be relentlessly insistent, as when he came back at Comey on four separate occasions to press the FBI chief on whether he might commit himself to loyalty to the president.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Trump was so demanding that Comey took it upon himself to document every twist of his encounters with the new president, a bit of self-protection it had never dawned on him to use during Barack Obamas presidency.

Now, as Comey prepares to testify before Congress and a nationwide TV audience, Trump faces pushback against his tools of persuasion that he rarely confronted in four decades as a real estate developer, entrepreneur and celebrity entertainer.

Trump said during last years campaign that he intended to govern the nation much as he had run his businesses  as a hard-driving boss who takes no guff, acts from the gut and holds people to account. Some of that approach is not new to the White House. Presidents bully, threaten and punish. Even the best presidents sometimes get down and dirty as they shoulder their initiatives through peckish bureaucrats and recalcitrant legislators.

And some of what comes off as rough and defiantly non-Washington about Trump is rhetoric that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) called an artifact of the presidents roots: What youre seeing is a president who is now very publicly learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation, Christie said Wednesday on MSNBC.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.)  chair of the Republican Study Committee, which brokered a deal on health care in the House  said Trump is accustomed to dealing with people as someone whos been a New York-style say what you want to say, do what you want to do. Now hes in this new arena where . . . that behavior is sometimes not always probably the best approach.

Some of Trumps supporters say he is adapting to Washingtons expectations while holding on to whats worked for him in his first 70 years of life: Hes like the guy who can pitch 100 miles an hour but he hasnt pitched in a game yet and hasnt learned how to control the direction, said Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), an early Trump endorser. Remember, this is what we love about him  that hes got this different style, that he doesnt adhere to the traditions and the rules of the swamp.

However they speak, presidents have deployed different styles in practicing their central task  persuading people to do what they want. President Lyndon B., Johnsons tough tactics, memorialized in hundreds of White House tapes and explicated in Robert Caros majestic biography of a president who relished power, have become the stuff of legend. Obama drew as much criticism for his failure to strong-arm members of Congress as some other presidents have garnered for being overbearing.

Trump, like Johnson, is perfectly willing to dress down people to their faces or in a larger gathering. But both presidents main tool was the telephone. As Caro wrote in The Passage of Power, Johnson would browbeat congressmen whose votes he needed but would also butter them up, offering goodies for their own districts.

In one recorded phone call, Johnson, pushing to get the 1964 civil rights bill passed, told the bills Senate manager, Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.), how to get the Republican leader, Sen. Everett Dirksen (Ill.), on board: Youve got to let him have a piece of the action. Hes got to look good all the time. . . . You drink with Dirksen! You talk to Dirksen! You listen to Dirksen!

Trumps style is less solicitous. During the House health-care battle earlier this year, Trump confronted the leader of the House Freedom Caucus at a meeting of Republicans. If the bloc didnt back the bill, Im going to come after you, Trump told Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.). Those were familiar words to many Trump-watchers; he has used the phrase with reporters writing about him, TV executives he was negotiating with and activists who opposed his building projects.

With his top executives, underlings, attorneys and vendors, he won loyalty with a finely crafted mix of threats, shouting, demands  and generous gestures, such as extra time off, an encouraging phone call when someone was down, and repeated promises that an employees loyalty would be returned in kind. He was the same way with the reporters he alternately cultivated and bashed  he could praise a story, threaten a lawsuit, deliver an exclusive scoop and call the reporters boss seeking a firing, sometimes all in a week.

Some presidents  Ronald Reagan, for example  flexed their power muscles with self-deprecating humor. Trump does this, too, as when, during a lunch with U.N. ambassadors, he jokingly polled the room on whether they thought U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, seated next to him, was doing a good job. How do you all like Nikki?  he asked. Otherwise, she can easily be replaced.

Because Trump can also be rough and even humiliating, comments like that often come off as double-edged  possibly a joke but possibly a real threat. (Trump followed his jest with a reassurance: No, we wont do that. I promise.)

In April, during the health-care bills push, Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who was skeptical about the proposal, said Trump sent an emissary to tell him that the president hopes you vote against this because he wants to run somebody against you if you do. Sanford said Trump has made those kinds of threats to any number of members. . . . But I dont think its productive to his own legislative agenda. It doesnt make anybodys day when the president of the United States says, I want to take you out. 

But the same tough tactics that might pass ethical muster between a president and Congress may turn out to be inappropriate between a president and, say, the head of the FBI, an agency that is designed to be as free as possible from political interference.

Trumps tactics in some ways recall Johnson, who had what one of his aides once called a horror of defeat. Johnson, like Trump, saw himself as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who knew how to get things done and had little patience for the niceties of high society. (Of course, Johnson really did come up from nothing; Trump, not so much.) Johnson, like Trump, also believed that good ends often justified rough, even brutal, means.

Johnson, like Trump, was a big man, comfortable with using his size and authority to get in peoples space and show them who was boss. Johnson, Caro once said, would grab your lapel. He leaned into you. He got bigger when he talked to you.

Trump has always taken pride in his ability to get his way, whether in his work or his personal life. When his marriage to Ivana Trump was collapsing in a very public way in the late 1980s, Donald Trump said during the divorce proceedings that my marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection.

Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.
Former FBI director James B. Comeys highly anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill Thursday could bring the question of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice to the forefront of several wide-ranging congressional investigations.

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., Comey is likely to be asked about his firing as well as reports that Trump asked him to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. In a preview of his opening statement released by the committee Wednesday afternoon, Comey said Trump said to him during a meeting at the White House in February: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comeys testimony comes on the heels of new revelations that Trump also asked two of his top intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to back off its focus on Flynn. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday, those two officials  Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers  declined to describe private conversations with the president. Instead, they both said they never felt pressure to do anything inappropriate.

[Top intelligence official told associates Trump asked him if he could intervene with Comey on FBI Russia probe]

A series of such revelations in recent weeks have fueled accusations of obstruction, but at least four congressional inquiries have remained wide-ranging, with some lawmakers expressing greater concern about whether Trump campaign associates colluded with Russian officials to meddle in the 2016 election and others more focused on prosecuting those who have leaked classified information to the media.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

In addition to those congressional probes, the FBI is heading up a counterintelligence investigation into collusion and Russias interference last year.

Still unknown is whether Comey will offer more details about his conversations with Trump than he already detailed in his opening statement. Additionally, his opening statement does not recount his firing. He will be careful not to discuss classified information, which is likely to prevent him from providing new details about the Russia probe, several associates said.

Comey also will try to steer clear of saying anything that could compromise or constrain the work of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, now heading up the FBIs investigation, such as offering legal or prosecutorial judgments, these people said.

Comey insisted on testifying publicly, but he will also address the committee behind closed doors following the public forum.

An intensification of the obstruction question could cause the center of gravity to shift on Capitol Hill. Besides the FBI, the House and Senate intelligence panels are exploring Russian meddling and the potential politicization of intelligence gathering. Members of both parties and in both chambers generally agree that the Senate investigation is the most comprehensive and advanced of the congressional probes.

The House and Senate Judiciary committees could become a more central focus after Thursday if Comeys testimony suggests that Trumps actions constituted obstruction of justice, as that could potentially shift congressional focus from intelligence matters to legal and criminal matters that those two committees oversee. In addition, House Judiciary is where any discussion of impeachment proceedings would begin.

To date, Democrats are split on the question of impeachment proceedings, with some readily suggesting the possibility but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) impatiently dismissing that as premature.

Still, Democrats again this week called for Comey to testify next before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the panel continues its duties overseeing the FBI and preparing to confirm Comeys successor. An aide on the House Judiciary Committee said the panel has no current plans to launch a new, separate inquiry.

The House Oversight Committee also has begun exploring how Trump and his associates may have attempted to influence the FBI investigation.

In addition to Flynn, current and former Trump associates, including his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, former adviser Carter Page, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, are the focus of the ongoing probes.

Republicans, already wary of how the investigations are impeding their legislative ambitions, said they will be listening Thursday for how Comey describes what the president said to him in a series of meetings and what he told Trump in response.

I think the whole world has the same question, said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), adding that Comeys version of events is possibly going to be very illuminating.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a long-serving member of the Intelligence Committee, said that Having more details  fleshing out what was said, who was involved, was it documented  I think will very much clarify where things were at the time Mr. Comey was fired.

Legal analysts said the testimony adds detail that would beef up an obstruction of justice case.

While no one meeting itself is the smoking gun that Trump tried to illegally hinder an investigation, the totality of his interactions with Comey suggest he might have acted corruptly, said Cornell Law School Professor Jens David Ohlin.

I think that the stuff thats now been put on the record, if you add it all up together, to me it spells obstruction of justice, Ohlin said. The pieces are (1) Trump demanding loyalty, (2) Trump telling Comey or directing Comey to end the Flynn or close the Flynn investigation (3) Trump firing Comey when Comey refuses to close the Russia investigation, and then (4) Trump admitting on national television that the reason he fired Comey was because of the Russia investigation and not any of the other reasons cited in the memo.

Ohlin said that Trump seemed to have been particularly concerned with Flynn, though he said Comeys interpretation that he only wanted the Flynn aspect of the probe shut down was a very generous interpretation of Trumps comments.

At best, Ohlin said, Trump might be looking out for a loyal surrogate he thought had been wronged. At worst, he said, Trump might view Flynn as this potential pressure point in the whole investigation in the administration, and that hes a little bit worried about Flynn as someone who could potentially do a lot of damage if he were charged and decided to cut a deal and reached some sort of plea agreement where he had to provide information about the administration.

Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice at Perkins Coie, said of Comeys testimony: Theres enough here to raise serious questions about whether obstruction occurred. He noted particularly Trumps comment about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife received money from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) during her run for a state senate seat.

Its a suggestive statement by President Trump and could be read as, I did you a solid by not making a big deal out of the McCabe campaign contributions, you owe me, Cohen said.

Senators said that much of the attention on Thursday is expected to focus on a May 9 letter informing Comey of his firing. Trump wrote that he appreciated the directors repeated reassurances that the president himself was not the focus of the investigation.

I find that phrase to be very curious, said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the intelligence panel, who said she planned to press Comey for his side of the story and that she could see no reason why Comey wouldnt be forthcoming.

Comey kept memos of several conversations with Trump pertaining to the FBIs ongoing probes, but not all of them are unclassified. Senators are likely to quiz Comey about his memo regarding his conversations with Trump about Flynn, which is unclassified, according to an associate of Comey.

It makes a big difference what the exact words were, the tone of the president, the context of the conversation, Collins said.

Wyden declined to tell reporters whether Comey planned to describe or read from his personal notes at the hearing, citing private committee deliberations.

Well have debates about what constitutes obstruction of justice, but the comments the president made with respect to why he fired Mr. Comey on national television I think constitutes an attack on national institutions, Wyden said, adding that Comey deserves a chance to publicly respond.

Other lawmakers said the former director will face close scrutiny too.

Comey has to answer some hard questions about why didnt he do more to raise concerns about Trumps comments, said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). If you really believe that the man was trying to obstruct justice and youre the head of the FBI, more than writing a note to yourself, you probably ought to do something about it.

Comey is a practiced witness in front of congressional committees, having taken political heat from lawmakers over controversial decisions during his time as FBI director and previously as deputy attorney general during the second Bush administration.

He is also unbothered by the prospect of crossing his superiors in an open forum. In some ways, doing so has defined his career, from his arguments during George W. Bushs presidency against the use of torture to his more recent testimony contradicting Trumps claims that the government had wiretapped Trump Tower. On another occasion, in front of the House Intelligence Committee, Comey was asked to respond in real time to a Trump tweet claiming that Comey had testified that Russia did not influence the election. It certainly wasnt our intention to say that today, Comey replied.

Comey may be pressed again to respond to Trump in real time, given that the president is not planning to refrain from Twitter on Thursday, according to administration officials.

He is also likely to be asked for his personal take on the tone of his meetings with Trump.

I just hope he tells everything he can, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said this week, adding that the former director should tell the whole story. The American people on a subject as serious of this are entitled to the whole truth and nothing but.

Other senior Democrats said that Comeys appearance is by no means the end of congressional investigations  with some suggesting that it may constitute a major step toward more discussion of impeachment.

There has been discussion about obstruction of justice charges or even impeachment, but very little can happen until we obtain the documents we need to evaluate the reports we have heard to date, said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. He faulted committee Republicans for not yet requesting or obtaining a series of memos that would detail Trump and Comeys interactions.

At some point, Republicans need to start holding President Trump accountable.

Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has requested Comeys memos and papers and threatened to use his subpoena power to obtain them. But he is retiring from Congress this month, and GOP leaders have not yet picked a successor, leaving the committee investigation in limbo.

Pelosi is less ready to discuss impeachment than other Democrats.

Anything you do has to be based on data, evidence, facts, she said on ABCsThe View.

When the hosts persisted, Pelosi shot back: Lets take a deep breath and just calm down as a country. This is a serious matter.

.

Matt Zapotosky, Devlin Barrett and Robert Costa contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) arrive for former FBI director James Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. (Jim Bourg/Reuters)

In early January, before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Sen. Marco Rubio took a brief turn as the highest-profile Republican critic of Trumps emerging foreign policy.

Rubio (R-Fla.) opened his questioning at the Jan. 11 confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson, Trumps nominee for secretary of state, with blistering questions about whether the ExxonMobil CEO believed that Russians, at the behest of President Vladimir Putin, had interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

Five months later, Trumps onetime GOP campaign rival displayed a far different demeanor. In Thursdays Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with James B. Comey, the fired FBI director who testified about his interactions with Trump before his dismissal, Rubio used his seven-minute stint to blunt allegations that the presidents behavior toward Comey constituted an obstruction of the FBIs counterintelligence investigation of Russia.

Once dismissed by Trump as Little Marco, Rubio even homed in on the issue that has most animated the president: leaks of information damaging to him.

Weve learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do from our open hearings, for sure, Rubio said to Comey. You ever wonder why of all the things in this investigation, the only thing thats never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation?

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

[Top intelligence official told associates Trump asked him if he could intervene with Comey on FBI Russia probe]

For those wondering whether Republicans are ready to make a sharp break from Trump, think again. Rubio was among a vast majority of the Republicans on the committee who, judging from the questioning of Comey, could well be described as Trumps political defense team.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who earlier this year pushed for a more forceful Russia investigation, pressed Comey on his decision to leak a Trump-related memo through a friend to the New York Times. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), who has questioned Trumps posture toward Russia, dismissed Comeys claim that Trump was pressuring him to drop the probe as a pretty light touch.

And across the Capitol, as Comey was midway through his testimony, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) dismissed Trumps demands of loyalty from Comey as the actions of a novice politician who does not understand that the FBI needs to maintain its independence from political influence. Hes just new to this, Ryan said of Trump.

Some Democrats were stunned that Republicans did not break away from the president.

Given the fact pattern, its a little surprising, said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

Others suggested that the GOPs reluctance to move against Trump was understandable because the investigation is still in its infancy. I expected it a bit, to be honest with you, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif). I think were not at anywhere close to making conclusions.

Feinstein said it will take many more months before the committee can determine whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russian hackers or Trump committed obstruction of justice. Were not there yet, she said.

Republicans did not succeed in breaking Comeys stride or expose wrongdoing on his part while running the FBI. Nor did they refute the underlying allegation that Trump fired Comey because he declined to drop portions of the FBI investigation. There are plenty of doubts lurking in Republican minds about what will be unearthed next, sometimes expressed publicly and often expressed privately.

In the early moments Thursday, Comey clearly commanded the hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, explaining why he kept highly detailed memos of each of his interactions with Trump from early January until his May 9 firing.

I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of the meeting, he said of their first meeting, when he briefed the president-elect about allegations that Russians had obtained compromising information on Trump. I knew that there might come a day when Id need a record.

Many Republicans felt the need to pay homage to Comeys long career as a federal prosecutor and leader of the FBI. America needs more like you, said Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho).

[The man to watch in Rex Tillersons confirmation hearing? Marco Rubio.]

But on the political front, Republicans circled back to the idea that this portrait painted by Comey was not good for Trump  yet it was also not a high crime or misdemeanor.

Rubio stood out in part because of his often personal fights with Trump during the 2016 presidential primaries. In January he appeared ready take Tillersons nomination down, particularly after Rubio asked whether Putin was a war criminal.

I would not use that term, the future secretary said.

Later that month, however, Rubio relented, and Tillerson was confirmed on a narrow vote.

Some saw Rubio as a potential maverick in the Intelligence Committees investigation, and on Wednesday he was forceful in trying to get Trumps top intelligence advisers to confirm The Washington Posts report that the president had asked them to intervene with Comey to get him to drop the Flynn investigation.

On Thursday, however, Rubio kept his questions to Comey in the realm of narrowing the scope of the allegations. He attempted to diminish the impact of the allegation that Trump wanted Comey to let go of the Flynn probe. He asked whether Comey responded in any negative fashion: Did you say anything to the president about  that is not an appropriate request? Or did you tell the White House counsel that is not an appropriate request?

No, Comey said  and then Rubio asked the questions about leaks. He seemed to be suggesting that Comey or his onetime allies at the FBI were behind the leaks damaging to Trump, asking him to name every member of his senior leadership team with whom he had discussed his interactions with Trump.

Afterward, Rubio told reporters that Trumps interactions with Comey were probably not appropriate. Whether it rises to criminality, you know, I think theres significant doubts about whether it rises to that level, he said.

Read more from Paul Kanes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
A soldier from Somalia's Puntland keeps guard on high grounds at the Galgala hills during preparations for an offense against al-Shabab militants, north of the capital Mogadishu, on Jan. 8, 2015. (Reuters Staff/Reuters)

A large contingent of al-Shabab militants stormed a Somali military encampment on Thursday, killing dozens of government-aligned soldiers and civilian bystanders.

The incident was rare in its brutality  many of the dead reportedly were beheaded  as well as its location in the semiautonomous region of Puntland, hundreds of miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, where al-Shabab has focused its recent attacks.

Military officers gave conflicting reports of the number of soldiers killed when speaking to news agencies. Estimates ranged from 20 to 70, although all agreed it was the worst al-Shabab attack in Puntland in many years. Through its Shahada News Agency, al-Shabab claimed that it killed 61 soldiers.

[How terrorists warp the meaning of Ramadan to justify their atrocities]

The attack came just days after Puntland sentenced five al-Shabab fighters to death after they were found driving a truck laden with explosives through the regions biggest city, Bosaso, in late April. The events Thursday unfolded in the village of Af Urur, about 60 miles southwest of Bosaso. Puntland is also home to a group of fighters that splintered off from al-Shabab last year to form an Islamic State affiliate.

Al-Shabab is an Islamist group whose leaders have pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda. They are most active in southern Somalia, where they once exercised almost total control, but since 2011 have been pushed out of most major cities by African Union troops.

The troops attacked on Thursday belong to the Puntland Dervish Force, an official paramilitary group that receives substantial funding from the United States.

The number of people killed by al-Shabab rose sharply last year, as compared to 2015. A study by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies found that the group was responsible for 4,281 deaths, a 30 percent rise. Those numbers make al-Shabab the deadliest militant group in Africa, as attacks by Boko Haram in Nigeria dropped precipitously in 2016 after years of accelerating violence.

Between 1991 and 2012, Somalia effectively had no internationally recognized federal government and was in a state of civil war. The northern regions of Puntland and Somaliland assumed differing degrees of autonomy during those years, and the country has yet to fully reintegrate. Elections earlier this year brought Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed to power. Known as Farmajo, he is seen by many as a leader capable of working toward national unity.

[Expectations run high for Somalias new president]

A resurgent al-Shabab has compounded the misery that has beset Somalia stemming from more than two years of pervasive drought. Nearly 7 million Somalis are dependent on some form of humanitarian aid, accounting for more than half the countrys population.

Thursdays attack plays into fears that al-Shabab will expand its militancy during the holy month of Ramadan. The attacks often prevent aid organizations from going about their work.

Read more:

Expectations run high for Somalias new president

Somalis are fleeing famine  only to find death in a place of refuge

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
If North Korea wanted to enter into negotiations, it might decide that it first had to gain the upper hand in a hurry, and it might conclude that the best way to do that was through shooting off one missile after another in rapid succession.

As an explanation for all the launches that North Korea has recently conducted  three ballistic missiles launched last month, the salvo of cruise missiles launched Thursday  it seems at first blush like a stretch.

But a growing number of analysts with backgrounds in talking to North Korean officials wonder whether the relentless pace of the Norths missile testing is designed to get Kim Jong Uns regime into its strongest bargaining position before economic sanctions force it to return to the negotiating table.

This is like taekwondo, said Peter Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability, referring to the Korean martial art.

This is the part where your opponent engages the spiral kick to the head with a bloodcurdling scream to put you off balance at the outset, said Hayes, who has been dealing with North Koreans for more than 20 years.

Kim has made it clear that he is determined to acquire a missile capable of reaching the continental United States. He has overseen the launch of a dozen missiles in the ast four months, compared with 16 fired during the entirety of his fathers 17-year reign.

After the latest launch, Kim said that the Yankees should be very worried about North Koreas capabilities.

But beyond the bombastic pronouncements and technical progress, some analysts see familiar signs that North Korea is ratcheting up the tensions before being forced to talk on American terms.

The further they advance towards having an operational arsenal, the more they can get from outside powers just for a freeze when they return to the negotiating table, said Chun Yung-woo, a former South Korean nuclear negotiator with the North and former national security adviser in Seoul.

With more and more sanctions being piled on North Korea, it is just a matter of time until the pressure becomes unbearable, he said. So before theyre drawn back to the negotiating table, they have every reason to speed up their technical development, Chun said.

[ North Koreas latest ballistic missile launch lands in Japans economic zone ]

Diplomacy still seems a long way off.

The Trump administration has been talking about exerting maximum pressure on North Korea, and last weekend Defense Secretary Jim Mattis praised Chinas renewed commitment to leaning on North Korea. Senior administration officials have repeatedly said that the conditions for talks with North Korea are not right.

At Track 2 talks in Sweden over the weekend, North Korean representatives told U.S. experts and former officials that they were not interested in discussing an end to their missile or nuclear programs. This was the latest of several periodic meetings with American experts and former officials to send messages to the administration in Washington and to test ideas. The State Department knows about the meetings, but officials say the talks have no impact.

The underlying North Korean message throughout our discussions was that denuclearization is totally off the table and there is nothing that either the U.S. or South Korea could offer that could achieve denuclearization,  said Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, who participated in the weekends talks.

[ After North Korea fires another missile, Kim Jong Un approves it for action ]

Negotiations with North Korea, even when they do happen, do not have a good record of success.

The six-party talks in 2005 led Pyongyang to agree to dismantle its nuclear program in return for economic assistance and security guarantees, but the deal collapsed in 2009 when North Korea launched what it said was a satellite. The international community said it was part of an intercontinental ballistic missile program.

In 2012, Washington and Pyongyang tried to forge a new deal, known as the Leap Day agreement because it was announced Feb. 29. Under it, North Korea promised no more nuclear tests or long-range missile launches, while Washington offered new humanitarian assistance. That deal lasted only 16 days before North Korea said it was getting ready to launch another satellite  which it duly did.

Despite this poor record, there is general agreement that this sort of diplomacy is the least-bad option for dealing with North Korea.

And there have been signs of qualified willingness from both sides.

President Trump, who prides himself on negotiating skills honed during decades in business, said last month that he would be honored to meet Kim, even labeling him a smart cookie. A top North Korean diplomat, after talks with former U.S. officials in Norway last month, said the Kim regime would be willing to talk if the conditions are there.

Recent efforts to resume official talks have broken down because of various preconditions, including Washingtons insistence that there can be no talks unless denuclearization is on the agenda, and Pyongyangs insistence on instead discussing a peace treaty  a document that would lead to calls for the United States to remove all its troops from South Korea while leaving the North as a nuclear state.

[ Here are the missiles North Korea just showed off, one by one. ]

At some point Kim could decide that he is in a strong enough bargaining position, said Gary Samore, who served as President Barack Obamas top nonproliferation official and is at Harvards Belfer Center. Then he can agree to a test moratorium, just like he did with the Leap Day deal, he said.

Adding to North Koreas incentive to talk: the election last month of a pro-engagement president in South Korea. Moon Jae-in has promised to resume talks with Pyongyang if it will help solve the nuclear problem.

Kim Jong Un could agree to take a pause [from testing] and find out what kind of a deal he could get from Moon, who is clearly more willing to address North Koreas economic interests and security concerns, and to see what Trump, with all his big talk, has on offer, Samore said.

That could pave the way for further talks. Frankly, I dont think it will get very far, but at least it will calm the current situation and slow down the program, Samore said.

Oh Joon, South Koreas ambassador to the United Nations until last year, agreed that talks would at least stop North Korea from making progress on its missile program.

The Moon Jae-in government will jump at the opportunity for talks, Oh said. And for Trump, if he can bring North Korea back to denuclearization negotiations, he can say, See, I have achieved what Obama couldnt in eight years. Its good for everyone.

The question now is what Kim Jong Un thinks is enough in terms of his bargaining position.

If he thinks he needs a long-range capability in order to negotiate with the U.S. on strong terms, Samore said, then we may have years of testing ahead of us.

Read more:

Why does North Korea hate the United States? Lets go back to the Korean War.

Worried about North Korea? Spare a thought for Otto Warmbiers family.

North Korea puts out new video showing the White House in crosshairs

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
British Prime Minister Theresa Mays bet that she could strengthen her grip on power by calling an early election backfired spectacularly on Friday, with her Conservative Party losing its parliamentary majority and May facing calls to resign.

The outcome  an astonishing turn following a campaign that began with predictions that May would win in a historic landslide  immediately raised questions even among her fellow Tories about whether she could maintain her hold on 10 Downing Street.

It also threw into disarray the countrys plans for leaving the European Union, threatening to render Britain rudderless just days before talks were to begin with European leaders over the terms of the nations exit.

[Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party may be No. 2 but still won big in British elections]

As of 5 a.m., a projection based on final results in nearly every district nationwide put the Conservatives at 318 seats  eight short of what they would need for a working majority in the 650-member Parliament and well down from the 331 they won just two years ago.





The Labour Party was forecast to win 262 seats  an unexpected gain of dozens of seats under far-left leader Jeremy Corbyn. The outcome gave him at least a chance, albeit a remote one, of becoming prime minister  something virtually no one had thought possible before Thursdays vote.

The results mark the second time in as many years that the British body politic has defied predictions, scrambled the countrys direction and bucked the will of a prime minister who had gambled by calling a vote when none had been required.

But unlike last years E.U. referendum  which delivered a clear if close verdict to get out of the bloc  the will of the voters who cast ballots Thursday was not nearly as easy to decipher.

There was no doubt that the Conservatives would emerge, again, as the largest party. But as Labour unexpectedly picked off seats  especially in areas of London that had voted last year to remain in the E.U.  Mays once-undisputed political authority was being called into question.

A triumphant Corbyn, crowing that the country had had enough of austerity politics, demanded that she resign.

The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate, Corbyn said in an early-morning speech after winning reelection to his north London district. Well, the mandate shes got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought that is enough for her to go, actually.

Minutes later, May  her voice trembling  delivered her own speech in which she said that as long as the Conservatives remain the largest party, they should be allowed to govern.

1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See photos of the scene in England during a snap election View Photos People in England head to the polls to vote for new government. Caption People head to the polls to vote for a new government. June 8, 2017 Britains Prime Minister Theresa May leaves with her husband, Philip, after voting in Maidenhead, England. Alastair Grant/AP Wait 1 second to continue.

The country needs a period of stability, she said.

But it was not a given that May would be allowed to stay on. Within her own party, Thursdays results represented a catastrophic outcome that may prompt a search for a new leader  even if the Tories ultimately have the votes necessary to continue to govern.

It was a dreadful campaign  and thats me being generous, Anna Soubry, a Tory member of Parliament who narrowly won reelection, told the BBC.

Asked whether May should resign, Soubry replied: Its bad. Shes in a very difficult place.

Other top Tories were declining to appear on television to discuss Mays fate amid internal party discussions over whether Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or another senior figure should be brought in to replace her, BBC anchors reported as dawn broke Friday.

[What Britains next government could look like if exit polls turn out to be correct]

The election results meant that no party won a majority  a scenario known as a hung parliament.





The outcome set off a free-for-all, with both Labour and the Tories seeking to forge alliances that get them to the magic number for a majority.

It is far from clear which parties would team up, or under what arrangements, to try to govern. A progressive alliance  including Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish and Welsh nationalists, and others  may have as many seats as the Conservatives. But the Conservatives also have a potential coalition partner in Northern Irelands right-of-center Democratic Unionist Party, which emerged with 10 seats.

The results  and the turmoil they portend  prompted an immediate drop in the pound, which fell 2 percent against the dollar within minutes after exit polls were released following the end of voting Thursday night.

Tories were incredulous at the early numbers, saying that they thought the results had undersold the partys performance and that official tallies would give them a higher total.

[A fading British coal town might vote Conservative for the first time in 86 years]

But as the results rolled in, they grew more somber and acknowledged suffering losses that virtually no one had foreseen.

In Europe, observers were bracing for yet more instability out of Britain.

Could be messy for the United Kingdom in the years ahead, tweeted former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt. One mess risks following another. Price to be paid for lack of true leadership.

The results drew intense scrutiny to Mays choice to gamble by going back on repeated promises not to call an election before the one that had been due in 2020.

[The center in British politics has all but disappeared, leaving the country as polarized as the U.S.]

In April, with her popularly spiking and the country seeming to rally around her vow to be a bloody difficult woman in talks with European leaders, May stunned Britain with her call for a snap vote that she thought would give her a stronger mandate before the negotiations began.

Observers hailed the move as a cunning bit of political strategy and predicted she would secure the sort of overwhelming parliamentary majority that predecessors Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had enjoyed.

But after that, little went according to plan.

Thursdays vote follows a turbulent campaign that was interrupted by two mass-casualty terrorist attacks, and that was marked by a faltering performance by May even as Corbyn exceeded expectations.

[London attack spawns political controversy as May and Corbyn trade barbs ahead of vote]

May  known for her resolute and no-nonsense persona  claimed the nations top job only last year, emerging from the political wreckage of the countrys choice to leave the E.U.

Since then she has had only a slender majority in Parliament  won in a 2015 election when the country was governed by her predecessor, David Cameron  and she had feared that without a bigger cushion she would lack the latitude she needs in steering the country to Brexit.

But the approval May enjoyed in office didnt translate to the campaign trail. A politician who endlessly touted herself as a strong and stable finished the race being tagged by critics as weak and wobbly after high-profile U-turns, including a particularly disastrous bid to force senior citizens to pay more for social care  a measure derisively dubbed the dementia tax.

She also ducked debates, and rarely mingled with voters in unscripted moments.

Weve learned what we suspected all along: Shes not particularly fast on her feet, shes not a natural campaigner, shes not really a people person, said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Lacking the common touch, Mays strategy was to focus the campaign on a presidential-style choice between her leadership skills and those of Corbyn. She relentlessly hammered her rival as a far-left throwback to another era who would leave the country vulnerable in both the Brexit talks and at a time of growing terrorist threats.

Corbyn  for decades a backbencher who unexpectedly vaulted to the partys leadership in 2015 with his Bernie Sanders-style message of taking on the 1 percent  faced a steeply uphill challenge to sell himself as a potential prime minister.

But he was widely seen to have mounted a far more credible challenge than many thought possible, running a nothing-to-lose campaign focused on ending seven years of Tory austerity policies and shrinking the gap between rich and poor.

Even if he doesnt prevail, his performance has undoubtedly saved his job as Labour leader  a stinging blow for more-centrist party figures who had quietly hoped the harsh glare of a national campaign would leave him exposed and force him to step aside.

Deep into Friday morning, Labour lawmakers who had spent nearly two years trying to overthrow Corbyn lined up to appear on television and sing his praises.

The results are a vindication of Corbyns decision to focus the campaign on Tory budget cuts rather than allow it to be defined by Brexit.

May had wanted the vote to be a referendum on her Brexit plan. But Corbyn spent little time discussing the issue.

Like the prime minister, Corbyn halfheartedly favored a vote to remain in the E.U. during the Brexit referendum. But also like May, he promised not to obstruct the will of voters and to follow through on their desires if they approved an exit.

Negotiations with the remaining 27 members of the E.U. are due to kick off in a little over a week. Even before Thursdays vote, May had faced long odds in delivering the successful exit she has promised. If she is still in office, her job has become even harder following the rejection of her plea for a broader mandate.

May had vowed a hard break with the bloc that leaves Britain outside the single market, the customs union and the European Court of Justice. But she has also promised to deliver a free-trade deal that will preserve the best elements of membership without many of the onerous burdens.

European leaders scoff at such a notion, and say that Britains demands for E.U. benefits without responsibilities will have to be denied lest the countrys departure trigger a rush to the exits by other nations demanding the same sweetheart deal.

If she prevails, May also will be under pressure to deliver on pledges to expand the powers of police and other security services following three deadly terrorist attacks this spring, including two in the midst of the campaign.

After the most recent attack  a van-and-knife rampage in London that left eight dead  May said that enough is enough and promised a sweeping review of the nations counterterrorism rules.

Many observers thought the attacks would play to Mays advantage. But Corbyn managed to flip one of his potential areas of weakness  security  to a strength by hitting out at May for the cuts to police budgets she had authorized as the nations home secretary, the top domestic security official.

He promised to put more cops back on the beat  a message that aligned with his broader mantra.

Its sort of like Labour offering a huge platter of beautiful juicy burgers and steak and fried food in front of voters. And the Tories are like, Think about the bill! and the voters are like, We dont want cold radish again!  said Rob Ford, a politics professor at the University of Manchester. You can see why people find that appealing.

Read more

After London attack, questions mount over Britains approach to domestic extremist groups

The center in British politics has all but disappeared, leaving the country as polarized as the U.S.

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Britain's Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron gestures to supporters while on the General Election campaign trail in Twickenham, London, Wednesday. (Victoria Jones/AP)

Conditions seemed ripe for a resurgenceof Britains political middle when the country learned seven weeks ago that it would return to the polls in a snap election, which took place Thursday.

The spirited bid of the Liberal Democrats, a center-left party punished two years ago for joining a coalition with the Conservatives, had resonance but did not produce a major realignment, owing to the foibles of its leader, the peculiarities of the British electoral system and the decisive  if highly contested  choice of voters last year to leave the European Union. The party, which saw its representation in Parliament fall to eight seats in 2015, was poised to gain modest influence but not greatly fortify its position, according to an exit poll released late Thursday.

The prospect that the Conservatives might fail to capture a majority, as Labour support appeared to surge, put the Liberal Democrats in a potential kingmaker position. But the party has said it will not join a coalition.

Its difficulty gaining ground, despite apparent advantages, offers a case study of how political alternatives wither even as distrust for politics as usual mounts.

[The U.K. election, explained]

1 of 17 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See photos of the scene in Britain during a snap election View Photos People head to the polls to vote for a new government. Caption People head to the polls to vote for a new government. June 8, 2017 Britains Prime Minister Theresa May leaves with her husband, Philip, after voting in Maidenhead, England. Alastair Grant/AP Wait 1 second to continue.

A special election win in December, in a district that had heavily favored remaining in the European bloc, seemed to offer a blueprint for the partys return to prominence. A redo referendum was at the heart of its manifesto. The two leading parties, the ruling Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party, had moved to the extremes, reflecting  or magnifying  the polarization of public opinion. Neither has offered a comfortable home for those who believe the country is doing itself harm by cutting ties with Europe. Nearly half the country feels this way, according to Pew data.

Trends beyond Britain were encouraging, too. Globally, dissatisfaction with mainstream politicians was soaring. Across the English Channel, a pro-European centrist, Emmanuel Macron, rose to the presidency from relative political obscurity, under the banner of a new party.

[Frances Macron flexes new international star power]

We look to France and indeed to Canada and see anything is possible, said Tim Farron, the Liberal leader, in an interview during a campaign stop in Twickenham, a leafy suburb of London.

As he barnstormed the country the day before the polls opened, Farron made his final case that theres got to be a better way forward than the simplistic, easy answers of the hard left and the cruel, mean narrowness of the Conservative government.

The space for the Liberal Democrats is huge, he said.

Nick Clegg, who led the Lib Dems before Farron and served as deputy prime minister alongside Conservative David Cameron, said the party is in transition, from one of perpetual opposition with its base in the anti-London southwest to a proponent of internationalism and a free-market economy.

Its obvious that the small-l liberal center in British politics is pretty empty right now, Clegg said. With politics in flux, the Liberal Democrats, he said, are on a journey of our own to fill the void.

But on Thursday, Clegg lost his seat to the Labour candidate. It was a stark example of how votes had clustered around the two main parties.

Views of Farron expressed by voters along Twickenhams main commercial drag offer a reason. Some met him enthusiastically, including Peter Pearce, an agent for a Spanish shoe company who said he saw his prices go up overnight after the vote to leave the E.U.

But Leonard Clark, who used to work in the pharmaceutical industry, said Farron was irrelevant, even useless, and pledged to vote for the Conservatives, led by Prime Minister Theresa May. Others had barely heard of Farron.

I just dont know enough about him at the moment, said Claire Dunckley, a stay-at-home mother.

Farron struggled to break though, in part owing to personal shortcomings, analysts said.

A lot of the structural conditions seem to be favorable  youve got this gaping center, youve got 48 percent of the electorate that voted to remain and no one seems to be representing their interests, said Oliver Heath, an expert on voting behavior and polarization at Royal Holloway, University of London. But the party hasnt been able to mobilize, and part of that is whether Farrons got the stature and the personality to really drive support for Liberals.

Andrew Gamble, a political scientist at the University of Cambridge, said Macrons rise in France demonstrates that the potential is there.

Its very difficult to lead an insurgency in Britain, Gamble said. Nevertheless, if the Lib Dems had had a Macron, that would have been very interesting.



One stumbling block was doubt about how Farron, a Christian, views homosexuality and abortion rights. He was tongue-tied at times about the distinction between his own beliefs and legitimate subjects of government regulation. Im not running to be pope, he said Wednesday, calling it fundamental to liberalism that everybody live the way they choose to.

Colin Hay, a political scientist at Sciences Po in Paris studying European democracy and voter disaffection, said it was deeply ironic that the Liberal Democrats leader was accused of being the only illiberal leader of a liberal party in Europe.

Farrons inability to capitalize on voter discontent in the way that Macron did, however, had more to do with the specificity of the two electoral systems, Hay said. In France, Macron convinced millions of voters to buck the established parties. In Britain, the path to Downing Street runs through Parliament, in a first-past-the-post system where placing second or third in scores of constituencies does not translate into legislative power.

Meanwhile, the partys difficulty even in constituencies that voted to remain in the E.U. reflects a miscalculation about the strategic choice voters are making, said Stephan Shakespeare, the chief executive of YouGov, an international survey firm headquartered in Britain.

Conventional wisdom was that frustrated remainers would flock to the Liberal Democrats as the only party saying we can stay in, Shakespeare said. But theyre so small that a vote for them is not going to get you that. People are voting tactically, he said, either backing Labours Jeremy Corbyn in hopes he would block the most severe version of Brexit, or else reconciling themselves to the split and voting for the Conservatives, who have tacked right to capture supporters of the stridently anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party.

I think were essentially stuck with two-party politics for a while, Shakespeare said.

Read more:

For Britains populist right, Brexit success comes with a poisoned pill

A fading British coal town might vote Conservative for the first time in 86 years

British election puts Theresa Mays cozy relationship with Trump to the test

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Police detain an activist in Bhopal, India, during a protest organized by the Indian National Congress on Thursday against what demonstrators say is detention of the partys vice president, Rahul Gandhi, after he tried to enter Mandsaur, where five farmers were killed during a protest Tuesday. (Raj Patidar/Reuters)

About 1,000 paramilitary troops were deployed in the Mandsaur region of Madhya Pradesh in central India on Thursday to curb spreading riots after five protesting farmers were fatally shot by police.

Video footage from India Today showed crowds chanting Long live freedom as the bodies of the farmers, shrouded in the Indian flag, were paraded through the streets.

Internet and mobile services were suspended in the region, and a curfew was imposed. Rioters set buses and trucks ablaze as tollbooths along the road were looted. Sixty-two farmers were arrested. On the front page of the Times of India, a headline read: War zone Mandsaur.

After admitting that police officers killed the farmers, the government offered compensation equivalent to $155,300 to the victims families. Top district officials have been removed from their posts.

The protests started after the debt from loans to farmers was waived in the neighboring state of Uttar Pradesh. There, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party recently won a landslide victory based on campaign promises to help farmers, including canceling their debts. Now, farmers in Madhya Pradesh and other parts of the country want the same aid.

Over the past week, truckloads of produce were dumped in the middle of roads or burned in protests calling for higher crop prices. In cities, prices of fruit, vegetables and milk shot up as supplies were blocked.

Speaking to a news crew from NDTV, one of those protesting said: Farmers were killed. Tell us why first. We are all with them.

They should get punishment upon punishment, the Shivraj government, he said, referring to Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of the state.

Chouhan appealed for peace in tweets, saying the government would increase prices in accordance with farmers demands. I, myself, am a farmer, and I understand your grievances, he said. Rest assured the government is acting on all your demands.

Read more:

Farmers public suicide in India opens debate about compassion and climate

More than 300 million Indians suffer from crippling drought

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Irans foreign minister on Thursday derided as repugnant a statement from President Trump that linked twin attacks in Tehran to what he called Irans support for terrorism.

Meanwhile, Irans Intelligence Ministry identified five of the attackers  all killed during Wednesdays bloodshed  as Iranians who had left the country to join the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. The ministry published photos of their bodies. A sixth attacker was arrested, officials said.

At least 17 people were killed at Irans parliament in Tehran and at the sprawling mausoleum complex for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Irans Islamic revolution.

The State Department and White House joined other nations with statements condemning the attacks. But Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, fired back at the White House and the U.S. Senate.

Zarif, who is on a visit to Turkey, tweeted criticism of a vote by the Senate soon after the attack to extend sanctions on Iran.

Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship, he said, hinting in the tweet that the terrorist attacks were backed by U.S. clients  an apparent reference to Irans regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

[Analysis: Terror in Iran shows hypocrisy of Trump and his allies]

In a White House statement, Trump expressed grief for the victims but concluded by saying that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote. Other countries such as Russia, Britain and France just expressed condolences for the attack.

The Trump administration has taken a much harder line toward Iran than its predecessor, describing the country as the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world and backing the view of allies Israel and Saudi Arabia that Iran is the chief threat to stability in the region.

The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State  an avowed enemy of the United States and Iran. The United States and Iranian-backed fighters are battling the Islamic State in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

Iranians awoke Thursday to find increased security on the streets of the capital and an announcement that the death toll from the attack had risen by five to 17, according to the coroners office. Emergency medical services said 52 were injured, with 31 people still in the hospital.

Irans police chief, Brig. Gen. Hossein Ashtari, said Thursday that one of the attackers was in custody and being interrogated.

According to the Interior Ministry, four people attacked the parliament building Wednesday with automatic weapons. One attacker detonated an explosive vest, and the others eventually were gunned down by security. The men entered the building disguised as women, who in Iran often wear billowing robes that would have allowed them to conceal weapons.

A two-person team, including one woman, launched a nearly simultaneous attack at Khomeinis enormous tomb complex in the south of the city. The woman blew herself up with an explosive vest, according to the ministry statement.

Both sites are revered symbols for Iran. The tomb commemorates the founder of Irans 1979 Islamic revolution, and the Majlis, or parliament, represents what the country describes as its participatory government  in contrast with the hereditary monarchies of its main regional rivals across the Persian Gulf.

The attack appeared to be inflaming the enmity between Iran and the Arab gulf states.

In another tweet, Zarif, the foreign minister, referred to the parliament as the seat of democracy, attacked by the proxies of terror-sponsoring despots.

Irans powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement vowing to avenge the attacks. The Guard said it was very meaningful that the assault occurred just a week after Trump met with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has constantly been supporting Takfiri terrorists.

Iran and its allies use takfiri, an Arabic word, to describe its extremist Sunni Muslim enemies, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The militant factions, in turn, consider Shiites  the dominant Muslim sect in Iran  as heretics.

Iranian officials did not say whether the attackers were from Irans Sunni minority. Sunni-led factions have carried out previous attacks in Irans border region with Pakistan.

The attackers launched the rare assault in the heart of Tehran at a time when the whole Persian Gulf region is on edge because of a feud between the Arab monarchies and gas-rich Qatar over its alleged support for extremist groups and its ties to Iran.

On Thursday, Bahrains foreign minister, Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa, put renewed pressure on Qatar to distance itself from our number one enemy, Iran, in remarks to the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Read more:

Islamic State claims new reach into Iran with twin attacks on Tehran

The Tehran terrorist attacks targeted one of Irans most sacred spaces

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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With the modern glass and steel buildings of the skyline in Doha, Qatar, serving as the backdrop, a traditional wooden fishing dhow is seen in port in February. (Jacky Naegelen/Reuters)

Bahrain on Thursday declared it a crime, punishable by imprisonment of up to five years and a fine, to show sympathy or favoritism to Qatar or to object in any way to Bahrains decision to break relations and impose economic and border restrictions on the neighboring Persian Gulf country.

A similar statement by the United Arab Emirates, with a possible 15-year penalty, was issued Wednesday, prohibiting criticism of that government or sympathy toward Qatar, whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form.

The measures, in countries where civil rights are already sharply restricted, came as Al Jazeera, the state-funded Qatari media organization, said its website and digital platforms were under cyberattack and facing systematic and continual hacking attempts.

President Trump met Thursday at the White House with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss the situation and reiterated his proposal that Tillerson help mediate the dispute among Arab governments, according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

But the American preference is for the GCC countries to arrive at a solution of their own, Nauert said.

[By backing Saudi Arabias vision for the region, Trump stokes tensions]

On Monday, three members of the six-nation GCC, or Persian Gulf Cooperation Council  Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain  severed relations with Qatar, a fourth member. They were joined by Egypt and, since then, several other Arab nations.

In statements, the Saudis and the others have demanded that Qatar distance itself from Iran and stop support for terrorist groups. Qatar has to realize its interests are with us, not with another country that conspires against us, wants to dominate and divide us, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa told Asharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper.

Other countries, including Turkey, have voiced support for Qatar. Kuwait and Oman, within the GCC, have tried to mediate.

Trumps offer of U.S. mediation was first voiced in a telephone call Wednesday with Qatars emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in which the president offered to hold a meeting of regional leaders at the White House.

A White House readout of the call took a markedly different tone from Trumps first comments on the rift, in Twitters postings Monday congratulating Saudi Arabia for taking action against Qatar. Trump also credited his own meetings with the Saudis, the GCC and other Muslim leaders in Riyadh late last month with sparking the action.

Those initial tweets also differed sharply from statements by Tillerson and Mattis, who at the time were visiting Australia and called for Persian Gulf unity. The United States directs its air wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan from a huge air base in Qatar where more than 10,000 U.S. service members are stationed.

On Wednesday, the readout of Trumps call to Qatar said he reiterated that a united GCC and its partnership with the United States are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability.

In the past, the Treasury Department has said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others in the region, have provided support for Sunni extremist groups. More recently, it has said that governments in the gulf have taken steps to stop money flows, but it has singled out Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Qatar, for failing to stop terrorism financing by individuals in those nations.

A number of regional experts have charged that Trumps lavish praise of Saudi King Salman during his visit to Riyadh effectively encouraged that kingdom to act on long-standing disputes with Qatar over its less restrictive foreign and domestic policies, and what the Saudis charge is biased reporting by Al Jazeera.

Qatars foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, speaking to reporters in Doha on Thursday, said his government had not received a list of specific demands from the Saudi-led bloc, but he suggested Qatar was unwilling to modify its policies to satisfy their complaints.

We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy, Thani said, according to Al Jazeera.

Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Former FBI director James B. Comey said Thursday that he was unsettled last year by a request from the attorney general that could have been construed as enlisting him in an effort to play down the gravity of the federal investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server.

Comey said that Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch had asked him to refer to the Clinton email probe as a matter, rather than an investigation.

I dont know whether it was intentional or not, but it gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way a political campaign was describing the same activity, which was inaccurate, Comey said, referring to Clintons 2016 presidential campaign. That gave me a queasy feeling, he added.

[Comey testifies he could not trust Trump to tell the truth]

Clinton, a former secretary of state who was then the Democratic front-runner for president, insisted she never mishandled classified information while conducting government business over a privately owned and operated email server. Her political campaign frequently referred to the FBIs investigation as a security review and said the issue was overblown.

1 of 28 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene in Washington during former FBI director James B. Comeys testimony View Photos Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. Caption Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. June 8, 2017 People walk past the Capitol the morning before former FBI director James B. Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington. Matt McClain/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Comey said he thought that the wording Lynch requested looked silly but that he decided not to challenge her because it was not a hill worth dying on. And he used the word matter in congressional testimony.

A spokesman for Lynch did not respond to a request for comment on Comeys remarks.

A former U.S. official close to Lynch challenged Comeys description of events.

Former Director Comey requested a meeting in September of 2015 in which he asked the AG and other Department officials for guidance on how to discuss the investigation at his upcoming testimony before Congress, said the former official, who provided an emailed statement on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The primary question before the group was not how to refer to the investigation, but whether to confirm its existence at all . . . The AG told Director Comey that she had used the term matter in response to press inquiries, in order to ensure that she neither confirmed nor denied the investigation, in accordance with longstanding Justice Department and FBI policy. She suggested that she and the director should be consistent in their language, and at the end of the meeting, she asked if everyone was comfortable with using the term matter. No one, including the Director, contested that view.

On conservative media all day, the story of the hearing was Comeys exchange with Lynch on how to describe the Clinton probe. Hes admitting that hes a coward, said Rush Limbaugh. He admitted that he let Loretta Lynch shape the language used in describing the Hillary investigation. He has admitted that she pressured him to do that and that he fell for her pressure.

Comey testified Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his firing by President Trump, alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and, at the behest of several Republican senators, his decisions involving the Clinton email investigation.

[Comey lays out case that Trump obstructed justice]

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Comey repeated that he had found no case on which to prosecute Clinton or her aides and told senators he did not recommend an independent counsel to take the matter further because there was no evidence that any crime had been committed.

Under questioning from the committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Comey said former president Bill Clintons meeting with Lynch on an airport tarmac last year was a large factor in his decision to announce the conclusion of the investigation without consulting Justice Department leadership.

He made clear Thursday that he spoke out in part to rebut suggestions that Lynch or the FBI had been swayed by the former president.

In an ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me, Comey said. That I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.

Lynch said that the meeting was an unscheduled social encounter that occurred at Bill Clintons request and that they did not discuss the investigation. Trump and other Republicans strongly criticized Lynch for meeting with Clinton while the investigation was open, and both she and Clinton later said they regretted it.

Comey also cited the plane episode in defending his decision not to recommend a special counsel in the Hillary Clinton case.

We had investigated very, very thoroughly, Comey said. I know this is a subject of passionate disagreement. But I knew there was no case there. Calling for the appointment of special counsel would be brutally unfair and would send the message theres something here.

Clinton and her former aides blame her loss partly on Comeys decision to briefly reopen the case less than two weeks before the election, after agents in another case had discovered additional Clinton work emails.

Comey announced on Nov. 6, two days before the vote, that the additional material did not change his initial view that there was no criminal case, and he again closed the probe.

Speaking to donors several days after her loss, Clinton said the first Comey announcement sapped enthusiasm from Democrats and blunted what had seemed like strong momentum toward a victory. The second announcement, she said, energized Republicans angry that she would not be prosecuted.

David Weigel contributed to this report.
Former FBI director James B. Comey on Thursday used a dramatic appearance before a national audience to sharply criticize the character of the president, accusing Trump of firing him over the Russia investigation and then misleading the public about the reasons for the dismissal.

Trump and his team, Comey said, told lies, plain and simple, about him and the FBI in an effort to cover up the real reason for his sudden sacking last month. Comey said that after one particularly odd private meeting with the president, he feared Trump might lie about the conversation, prompting him to begin taking careful notes after each encounter.

Comey revealed that after he was fired, he leaked notes on his interactions with Trump to the media, hoping that sharing the information would prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the administration over possible links to Russia.

Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Comey said. I was fired, in some way, to change  or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

Comeys testimony threatened to deepen the legal and political crisis engulfing the White House, which has struggled to respond to growing questions about the presidents conduct.

1 of 28 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  The scene in Washington during former FBI director James B. Comeys testimony View Photos Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. Caption Fired FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump and the FBIs Russia probe. June 8, 2017 People walk past the Capitol the morning before former FBI director James B. Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington. Matt McClain/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

I can definitely say the president is not a liar, said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the hearing. I think its frankly insulting that that question would be asked.

Over nearly three hours of testimony in a packed hearing room, Comey grimly recounted the events that he said showed the president sought to redirect the Russia probe away from his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and get the FBI to publicly distance the president himself from the probe.

As Comey spoke, most senators on the dais sat spellbound. Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sought to soften Comeys version of events, noting that Trump never ordered him to drop the Flynn investigation but merely hoped he would. Democrats tried to build a case that Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey.

Pressured by the administration to focus on the presidents legislative ambitions rather than the politically consuming investigation, Republican leaders defended the president after the hearing, with House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) casting Trump as a political novice who isnt steeped in the long-running protocols of Washington and is just new to this.

Comey declined to say whether he thought the president had obstructed justice, saying that was a determination to be made by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

In response to Comeys testimony, Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement saying the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone.

Kasowitz also accused Comey of trying to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications.

[Comeys testimony: Live analysis and video updates]

The hearing, broadcast nationally by at least 12 television networks, was held in a cavernous space in the Hart Senate Office Building with hundreds of seats to accommodate the intense interest. Several lawmakers who do not serve on the committee took seats in the audience, a rarity on Capitol Hill. Most were Democrats eager to hear Comeys claims of presidential impropriety.

Inside the hearing room, people audibly groaned or gasped when Comey said he had no doubt that Russian government officials were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee last year.

Anticipation for the hearing stretched far beyond the Hill. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) walked into the hearing with a binder that included 20 of more than 600 questions he said were submitted to him by constituents.

Comey began his testimony by saying he became confused and increasingly concerned about the public explanations by White House officials for his firing on May 9, particularly after the president said in an interview that he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he decided to fire him.

The former director wasted little time repudiating White House statements that he was fired in part because of low morale among FBI employees who supposedly had soured on his leadership. Comey said the administration chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI.

Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said. And Im so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and Im so sorry the American people were told them.

His most damning remarks were directed at the president, but in the course of his testimony, Comey also raised doubts about the judgment of a host of other people, including Justice Department officials such as former attorney general Loretta E. Lynch and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

During questioning, Comey said that while the Hillary Clinton email case was ongoing, Lynch asked him to refer to the probe as a matter rather than an investigation.

The former FBI director said he thought that that wording gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the campaign talked about it. That was inaccurate, he said. That gave me a queasy feeling.

Regarding Sessions, Comey said he took his concerns about one particular conversation with Trump to the new attorney general and said he did not want to be left alone again in a room with the president. Comey said Sessionss body language gave Comey the impression there was nothing to be done.

Comey described his state of mind as he tried to navigate a number of tense conversations with the president about the investigation into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russian operatives.

In his written testimony, released Wednesday, Comey described being summoned to a private dinner at the White House in January with the president, who told him: I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.

Comey said the conversation, in which Trump asked whether Comey intended to stay on as FBI director, despite three prior discussions in which Comey had said he did, raised concerns in his mind.

My common sense told me whats going on here is hes looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job, Comey testified.

[5 things to expect when ex-FBI director James B. Comey testifies on Russia]

Comey made clear he felt the discussions were improper since Trump repeatedly pressed him about specific investigations that involved people close to the president.

The former FBI director described another interaction in February, one day after Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser for misleading Vice President Pence about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

A number of senior officials had met with the president in the Oval Office to discuss terrorism. At the end of the meeting, according to Comey, Trump asked everyone to leave but Comey.

Sessions, the attorney general, lingered until the president told him to leave, too, Comey said.

My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldnt be leaving, which is why he was lingering, Comey said. I knew something was about to happen which I should pay very close attention to.

Once they were alone, Comey said, the president told Comey he hoped he could let go of the investigation into Flynn.

When it comes from the president, I took it as a direction, Comey said.

At the time Flynn was fired, he was being investigated for possibly lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Comey said.

He said he was shocked and concerned about the presidents request, but decided not to tell Sessions about it because he expected that the attorney general would soon recuse himself from the Russia probe, which he eventually did.

It was after this meeting that Comey went to Sessions about never being left alone with Trump again.

Comeys account made clear that his relationship with Trump was fraught from their very first meeting, which occurred before the inauguration, when he told the president-elect that a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations against him had been circulating around Washington.

I didnt want him thinking that I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way, Comey said. He needed to know this was being said, but I was very keen to not leave him with the impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him.

Comey acknowledged, as the president has claimed, that he repeatedly told Trump that he was not personally under investigation. But he also said that in private meetings and one-on-one phone calls, the president repeatedly asked him to say publicly that he was not personally under investigation  something Comey did not want to do.

After firing Comey, the president tweeted a suggestion that there could be tapes of their private talks.

The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that Id better hope there are not tapes, Comey said. That made the ex-FBI director think any such tapes would back up his account of Trumps improper statements, so he said he asked a friend of his to share with a reporter a memo he had written about the February conversation.

I thought it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel, Comey said.

Asked by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) why he felt he had the authority to do that, Comey replied: As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it was very important to get it out.

[A viewers guide to the James B. Comey hearing]

The friend is Daniel Richman, a law professor and a former federal prosecutor who confirmed his role but declined to comment further. The reporter is Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, who declined to comment.

A special counsel was appointed  Mueller, who is a former colleague of Comeys  and Comey has provided him with his memos, he testified Thursday.

Comey said he still has no idea whether the president has tapes of their conversations, but he said: I hope there are, and I will consent to the release of them. . . . The president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did, my feelings arent hurt.

When the hearing was over, Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the two senior members of the committee, walked out to greet reporters camped in the hallway outside.

This is nowhere near the end of the investigation, Burr said.

Read more:

How cable news networks are reacting to Comeys hearing

A guide to the past year in James B. Comey news and scoops

Everything that led up to Comeys big moment, in one visual timeline

To Trump, the Russia matter is a cloud that hangs over his presidency

As Comey testifies, Moscow shrugs off claims of Russian hacking
Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump jokes with retired Gen. Michael Flynn as they speak at a rally on Oct. 18, 2016, in Grand Junction, Colo. (George Frey/Getty Images)

He was in office only 24 days, but former national security adviser Michael Flynn remains a constant presence for the Trump White House, a figure who seems to occupy a larger and more lasting role in the ongoing Russia-related probes than he ever did in his brief stint as a top adviser.

Flynn was mentioned 68 times Thursday during a congressional hearing in which former FBI director James B. Comey recounted Trumps alleged efforts to persuade the bureau to abandon its investigation of the retired three-star Army general.

Flynn also surfaced repeatedly during a separate hearing a day earlier, when Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats refused to discuss  or deny  a Washington Post report that Trump had asked Coats to discourage the FBI from pursuing the ousted national security chief.

The Russia inquiries are still in their early stages on Capitol Hill and at the offices of the special counsel. But the mounting public testimony puts Flynn at the center of two major investigative fronts  whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia, and whether Trumps alleged efforts on Flynns behalf amount to obstruction of justice.

Trumps personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, vigorously disputed the latter allegation in a statement issued after Comey had finished testifying Thursday. The President never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, Kasowitz said. He also denied that Trump had ever in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey let Flynn go. 

The statement is at odds with both written and verbal accounts delivered by Comey over the past two days that present a detailed chronology drawn from contemporaneous notes he kept before being fired.

Comeys descriptions of his interactions with Trump can border on cinematic. Recounting a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office, Comey described how Trump ordered others out of the room.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, I want to talk about Mike Flynn. 

Flynn had been forced to resign the previous day after exposure of misstatements he had made to Vice President Pence and others about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump maintained that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong, even though he had been caught on surveillance of his conversations with Kislyak pledging to revisit sanctions that the outgoing Obama administration had imposed on Moscow for election interference.

He is a good guy and he has been through a lot, Trump said, according to Comeys account, although Trump also mentioned that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

Comey expanded on that written account during his testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying that Flynn at that point in time was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts.

Comey appeared to be referring to potential discrepancies in what Flynn had told FBI agents during an interview at the White House. His comment was the most direct to date from a current or former FBI official on the bureaus investigation of Flynn.

The reasons for Trumps alleged efforts on Flynns behalf remain unclear. Flynns attempt to secure immunity in exchange for congressional testimony have prompted speculation that he may have potentially incriminating information to share.

Trump might also feel guilty over how quickly he discarded the most high-ranking U.S. national security official to endorse him and campaign for him during the 2016 race.

By Flynns own account, he and Trump met during the campaign and did not strike an immediate bond. In an interview with The Post, Flynn said that he had been advising several GOP candidates and only joined Trumps team as he closed in on securing the nomination.

I found him to be very attuned to what was going on around the world, Flynn said of Trump at the time.I got the impression this was not a guy who was worried about Donald Trump, but a guy worried about the country.

Flynns impression is hard to reconcile with depictions of Trump as uninterested in global issues and preoccupied with how he is perceived. But for a president who often goes out of his way to make clear that subordinates are expendable, Trump appears to have formed an attachment to Flynn.

Even in recent months, Trump has reportedly continued to muse about scenarios in which Flynn might return to the administration, and sent his exiled adviser a message to stay strong.

Comey, in his testimony, described a dinner with Trump on Jan. 27 in which the newly inaugurated president pressed the FBI director to pledge his loyalty. Comey demurred. You will always get honesty from me, he said. Trump replied, according to Comey: Thats what I want, honest loyalty.

Flynn, by contrast, never seemed to hold back his enthusiasm or fealty to Trump. He was the first high-ranking former military officer to endorse Trump, appeared at campaign rallies with the candidate, and delivered a fiery speech during the GOP convention in which he led the crowd in Lock her up! chants aimed at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

At one point, Flynn was even considered a potential vice-presidential running mate.

A month ago, Trump was still defending his decision to delay ousting Flynn for weeks after learning he had misled Pence. In an NBC interview, Trump said that Flynn has served for many years, hes a general, hes a  in my opinion  a very good person.

Whether Trumps efforts to intervene on Flynns behalf amount to obstruction may now rest with Robert S. Mueller III, the former FBI chief who was appointed special counsel to lead the ongoing criminal probe. Asked whether he expects the investigation to produce evidence of obstruction, Comey said, I dont know. Thats Bob Muellers job to sort that out.

Abby Phillip and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
A Senate committee on Thursday heard former FBI director James B. Comey essentially lay out an obstruction of justice case against President Trump as he highlighted critical encounters that will be part of any evaluation of whether Trump committed a crime.

There was evidence of possible intent: when the president cleared the room so he could ask Comey  without the attorney general or his son-in-law present  about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynns contacts with Russian officials after the 2016 election.

There was the suggestion of quid pro quo: when Trump repeatedly raised the status of Comeys job as he asked for loyalty.

And there was the consequence: when Comey, having not steered investigators away from Flynn, was fired by Trump in May, long before the end of his 10-year term.

Comey, a former prosecutor, did not connect those dots explicitly to allege obstruction. But he posited someone who might.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct, Comey said. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but thats a conclusion Im sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether thats an offense.

Robert S. Mueller III, another former FBI director, was appointed special counsel last month and heads the independent investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 election.

Legal analysts said Comeys testimony clarified and bolstered the case that the president obstructed justice  adding rich new color about the former FBI directors interactions with the president.

It might not be the last word. Trumps personal lawyer disputed key portions of Comeys under-oath account, and the president has hinted on Twitter he might have tapes of what happened. But Comey said he kept contemporaneous memos, which he was willing to see released. He also said he would not stand in the way of the presidents purported recordings also becoming public.

Release all the tapes, Comey said. Im good with it.

Comeys testimony was remarkable for its frankness, and for his willingness to reveal his personal reactions to the president along with his view of the facts. Comey said Trumps request that he terminate the Flynn investigation left him stunned, and it sparked serious conversations among senior leaders at the FBI about what to do next.

It was of investigative interest to us to try and figure out what just happened with the presidents request, Comey said.

(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

[7 takeaways from Comeys extraordinary testimony]

Of particular concern, Comey said, was that Trump asked other officials to leave him alone with his FBI director in the Oval Office before saying of Flynn: He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office? Comey said. That, to me as an investigator, is a very significant fact.

Kelly Kramer, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at the Mayer Brown law firm, said that point was particularly damaging.

I think any reasonable prosecutor would look at that and say it implies a consciousness of guilt, Kramer said. You know this is not something youre supposed to be doing. Youre not even willing to do it in front of the attorney general.

Marc E. Kasowitz, Trumps lawyer, disputed Comeys descriptions of Trumps interactions with the president and said Trump never pressured Mr. Comey.

Kasowitz said Trump never directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, and he said Trump specifically never suggested that Mr. Comey let Flynn go. 

As the president publicly stated the next day, he did say to Mr. Comey, General Flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot and also asked how General Flynn is doing,  Kasowitz said.

Comey testified that he was skeptical of Trump almost from the outset, and he decided to document their interactions because he was concerned [Trump] might lie about the nature of our meeting.

[Comey testifies: Former FBI director says he helped reveal details of conversations with Trump]

He said his concerns were realized almost immediately. In a meeting soon after Trump took office, Comey said, Trump brought up his job as FBI director and asked for loyalty. Comey said he felt Trump was looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job. The FBI director is generally appointed to a 10-year term to avoid political influence.

Kasowitz said the president never told Mr. Comey, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. He never said it in form, and he never said it in substance.

The next month, after a counterterrorism briefing, Comey testified that Trump asked him to stay for a one-on-one conversation. He said both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Trumps son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, lingered behind  in Comeys view, because they were leery of what might happen next.

When they left, Comey said, Trump said he hoped Comey would shut down an investigation of Flynn. At the time, Comey said, Flynn was in legal jeopardy, as agents were investigating him for his contacts with Russians and whether there were false statements made to government investigators.

Under questioning from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Comey denied that Trump had asked him to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections. But he said the Flynn request was nonetheless very disturbing and that other bureau officials were as shocked and troubled by it as I was.

Comey also said he believed he was fired to affect the Russia probe.

Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Comey said. I was fired, in some way, to change  or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

Comey allowed, under questioning from Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), that Trump did not outright give him an order on Flynn.

He did not direct you to let it go? Risch asked.

Not in his words, no, Comey said.

But Comey later said he took the presidents assertion as akin to a command.

I took it as a direction, Comey said. This is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying I hope this. 

[Legal analysts: Trump might have obstructed justice, if Comeys allegation is true]

The specific language of Trumps request could be pivotal. In response to a question from Risch, Comey conceded he was not aware of a case where the FBI had charged someone for hoping something.

Cornell University law professor Jens David Ohlin said that he understood why the Republicans would want to focus on hope versus direct, but I dont think it makes any difference.

Trump made his wishes clear and fired Comey when his wishes werent respected, Ohlin said. It doesnt matter whether it was an order or not. What matters is the action that Trump took when it became clear that Comey was continuing the investigation.

While Mueller could ultimately conclude Trump obstructed justice, previous Justice Department legal opinions say he could not indict or charge a sitting president. Congress, though, could impeach the president.

Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice at Perkins Coie, said he believed Comey was walking a fine line by trying to convey how he interpreted the president, but also admitting that there might have been other ways to interpret what the president said.

But Comeys assessment of the situation, he said, was critically important.

He was there; he heard the presidents tone and saw his body language  things that shape whatever the president was trying to express, Cohen said. Thats why direct evidence of someone who witnesses an alleged crime is so important.

Read more:

Comey and Trumps interactions: what we know so far

Comey raised serious concerns about two highest-ranking Justice officials

Comey shot down one media report but confirmed a bunch of others
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, seen here in New Zealand, heads a department that is anticipating sharp reductions to its budget, including a 47 percent cut to the Fulbright Scholar Program.

Former Fulbright scholars are not the type to shy away from a fight. Their ranks include dozens of Nobel and Pulitzer prizewinners, geniuses recognized as MacArthur Foundation fellows, and almost 60 foreign Fulbrights who went on to become heads of state.

Now, the programs funding is facing what its alumni association calls an existential threat from a 47 percent cut proposed by the Trump administration, one of many sharp reductions in the State Department budget. And over 100,000 former Fulbright scholars, among them several members of Congress, are being asked to lobby for not only full funding but also a small increase.

A 47% cut would devastate the Fulbright Program, forcing the elimination of many grants and damaging our relationships with host countries, says the appeal, which also asks alumni to take to social media using the hashtag #StandForFulbright. The program as you know it, which changed your life and makes the world safer and more peaceful, would be diminished beyond recognition.

[What Trump cut in his agency budgets]

The Fulbright alumni are part of a growing parade of individuals and organizations heading to Capitol Hill in coming weeks to persuade lawmakers to reject the administrations proposed cuts. Next week, for example, more than 500 leaders in business, retired military, nonprofits and faith groups will urge lawmakers to provide more money for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Few carry the pedigree and credentials of the Fulbright scholars.

The program was the brainchild of Sen. J. William Fulbright, who proposed it in the wake of World War II as an expression of the U.S. commitment to democratic values and soft power.

It is a modest program with an immodest aim  the achievement in international affairs of a regime more civilized, rational and humane than the empty system of power of the past, he said of the program, signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1946.

Over the past seven decades, 370,000 people from 165 countries have received Fulbrights to study abroad, both Americans going overseas and foreigners coming to U.S. universities.

During the current budget year, the U.S. government has provided a little more than $235 million to finance study abroad for about 8,000 scholars. The Trump administration wants to slash that to $125 million  less money than other governments, universities and businesses contribute separately. The Fulbright Association wants it increased to $240 million.

[Tillerson tells State Department employees budget cuts reflect new priorities]

Were dismayed, said John Bader, executive director of the Fulbright Association, predicting the economic impact would be immediate. People will lose jobs, people will be hurt, and American universities will suffer. Because suddenly the scholars they were expecting to come to town wont.

Previous administrations have tried to pare back the Fulbright budget but never succeeded, in large part because it enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress.

President Trumps budget is a blueprint, said a statement by Sen. John Boozman, a Republican from Fulbrights home state of Arkansas who supported a funding increase the program received this year. Congress has the power of the purse and I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Budget and Appropriations Committees as the FY18 process gets underway.

Among the more effective lobbyists for the Fulbrights are the three members of Congress who themselves are alumni.

The symbolism of what the Fulbright program has meant over many years, decades now, is something we need to hold on to and preserve, said Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), who studied law and politics in Greece on a Fulbright scholarship and signed a letter urging House appropriators to keep its funding strong.

One of the important ways of exercising soft power is public diplomacy. Within the public diplomacy realm, you cant find a program that is more critical, more successful or more respected than the Fulbright Program.
An undated photo released by the Korean Central News Agency shows the test-fire of a ballistic rocket equipped with a precision guidance system at an undisclosed location in North Korea. According to South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea has fired several suspected land-to-sea ballistic missiles early Thursday from the Wonsan area of the Kangwon Province. (Kcna/European Pressphoto Agency)

North Korea fired another salvo of missiles Thursday morning, keeping up the relentless pace of testing as it advances toward its goal of producing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the mainland United States.

The latest barrage comes after three launches in May, and means Kim Jong Un has now ordered almost as many missile launches this year alone as his father oversaw  16  during 17 years in power.

It was not immediately clear how many missiles were fired Thursday or what type they were, but they appeared to be anti-ship missiles rather than the ballistic missiles North Korea had been testing recently.

North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said, according to local media.

They flew about 125 miles, it said.

Wonsan is on North Koreas east coast, on the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, and has been the site of several recent launches.

Japans foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, condemned the latest launches. This kind of provocative action is unforgivable, he said.

Cruise missiles are generally considered to be less provocative than ballistic missiles, although cruise missiles can also carry warheads.

The Missile Technologies Control Regime, the multilateral export control framework, draws the line at missiles that can travel 300 kilometers (186 miles) or more, and deliver a payload of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) or more.

These missiles only went 200 km, and their payload is probably maybe about 250 kg max, said Shea Cotton, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation in California, adding that this was only an estimate while awaiting further data.

Basically, this isnt the sort of weapon that North Korea can use to cow South Korea into submission or threaten Japan, Cotton said.

[ Here are the missiles North Korea just showed off, one by one ]

Kim has been pushing ahead with his weapons program at a rate that has alarmed analysts and policymakers, ordering the launches of a variety of rockets that appear to be part of his ambition to obtain an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

The technological advances that North Korea has demonstrated in the last six months were of great concern, the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Vice Adm. James Syring, said in Washington on Wednesday.

The advancements in the last six months have caused great concern to me and others, in the advancement of and demonstration of technology of ballistic missiles from North Korea, Syring told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, according to wire reports from the hearing.

It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead, he said.

While the United States was addressing the threat that we know today, it was comfortably ahead of the threat, Syring said.



[ South Korea suspends deployment of American missile defense system ]

North Korea has been testing at a rapid pace but it has also been demonstrating many different types of missiles.

Last month North Korea conducted three missile launches, the latest being a new short-range ballistic missile, similar to a Scud, that flew about 280 miles to land inside Japans exclusive economic zone.

The previous launch, a week before, was a medium-range ballistic missile that flew about 310 miles, landing in the sea. Kim, who was photographed at the launch site, declared it perfect.

The first launch in May was a ballistic missile that flew even further, some 450 miles.

Efforts to dissuade Kim from advancing his missile program have not been successful. Rounds of sanctions imposed through the United Nations and directly by concerned countries  including the United States and Japan  have failed to change North Koreas calculus.

President Trump has repeatedly urged China, North Koreas main benefactor, to crack down on trade with North Korea and fully implement international sanctions against the Kim regime, but it is not clear that Beijing is doing so, analysts say.

Chinas top priority is stability on its borders and, angry as it is about North Koreas continued provocations, it is considered unlikely to inflict serious pain on the Kim regime while it conducts only missile tests. Another nuclear test, however, could be a red line for Beijing, analysts say.

Against expectations, Kim has refrained from carrying out a sixth nuclear test.

Read more:

North Koreas latest ballistic missile launch lands in Japans economic zone

After North Korea fires another missile, Kim Jong Un approves it for action

Here are the missiles North Korea just showed off, one by one

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
Wells Fargo & Company, a diversified financial services company, provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management. The Consumer Banking and Lending segment offers diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses. Its financial products and services include checking and savings accounts, and credit and debit cards, as well as home, auto, personal, and small business lending services. The Commercial Banking segment provides financial solutions to private, family owned, and certain public companies. Its products and services include banking and credit products across various industry sectors and municipalities, secured lending and lease products, and treasury management services. The Corporate and Investment Banking segment offers a suite of capital markets, banking, and financial products and services to corporate, commercial real estate, government, and institutional clients. Its products and services comprise corporate banking, investment banking, treasury management, commercial real estate lending and servicing, equity, and fixed income solutions, as well as sales, trading, and research capabilities services. The Wealth and Investment Management segment provides personalized wealth management, brokerage, financial planning, lending, private banking, and trust and fiduciary products and services to affluent, high-net worth, and ultra-high-net worth clients. It also operates through financial advisors. Wells Fargo & Company was founded in 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
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.
The following companies are subsidiares of Centene: AT Learning Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AT Medics Holdings LLP an English and Welsh LLP, AT Medics Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AT Technology (Private) Ltd. a Pakistan private company, AT Technology Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, AWC of Syracuse Inc. a New York corporation, Absolute Total Care Inc. a South Carolina corporation, AcariaHealth Inc. a Delaware corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #11 Inc. a Texas corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #12 Inc. a New York corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #13 Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #14 Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy #26 Inc. a Delaware corporation, AcariaHealth Pharmacy Inc. a California corporation, AcariaHealth Solutions Inc. a Delaware corporation, Access Medical Acquisition LLC a Delaware LLC, Access Medical Group of Florida City LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Hialeah LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Lakeland LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Miami LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of North Miami Beach LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Opa-Locka LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Perrine LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa II LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa III LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Tampa LLC a Florida LLC, Access Medical Group of Westchester LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition Direct Contracting LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Chesapeake LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers II LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Community Health Centers LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers II LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers III LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers IV LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers LLC a Hawaii LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers V LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Elite Providers VII LLC an Arizona LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Florida Partners LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Georgia LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Maryland Primary Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Accountable Care Coalition of North Texas LLC a Texas LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Georgia LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northeast Partners LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Northwest Florida LLC a Florida LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Prime Health LLC an Oregon LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health II LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health III LLC a Delaware LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Quality Health LLC an Oregon LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Partners LLC a Georgia LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Physician Partners LLC a South Carolina LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Accountable Care Coalition of Southeast Wisconsin LLC a Wisconsin LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Tennessee LLC a Tennessee LLC, Accountable Care Coalition of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Agate Resources Inc. an Oregon corporation, AirLogix, Ambetter of Magnolia Inc. a Mississippi corporation, Ambetter of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, Ambetter of Peach State Inc. a Georgia corporation, America's 1st Choice California Holdings LLC a Florida corporation, American Progressive Life and Health Insurance Company of New York a New York corporation, Apixio, Apixio Inc a Delaware corporation, Arch Personalized Medicine Initiative LLC a Missouri LLC, Arkansas Health & Wellness Health Plan Inc. an Arkansas corporation, Arkansas Total Care Holding Company LLC a Delaware LLC, Arkansas Total Care Inc. an Arkansas corporation, B2B Gestion Integra S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., B2B Salud S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., BMI Healthcare Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Hospital Decontamination Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Imaging Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Southend Private Hospital Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, BMI Syon Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Bankers Reserve Life Insurance Company of Wisconsin a Wisconsin corporation, Bishopswood SPV Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Bridgeway Health Solutions LLC a Delaware LLC, Bridgeway Health Solutions of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Buckeye Community Health Plan Inc. an Ohio corporation, Buckeye Health Plan Community Solutions Inc. an Ohio corporation, CCTX Holdings LLC a Texas LLC, CEF Holding Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, CMC Real Estate Company LLC a Delaware LLC, CT Poprad s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., CT Presov s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., California Health and Wellness Plan a California corporation, Cantina Laredo Clayton LP a Delaware limited partnership, Cardium Health Services, Care 1st Health Plan of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Care1st Health Plan Administrative Services Inc. an Arizona corporation, Carolina Complete Health Holding Company Partnership a Delaware partnership, Carolina Complete Health Inc. a North Carolina corporation, CeltiCare Health Plan Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, CeltiCare Health Plan of Massachusetts Inc. a Massachusetts corporation, Celtic Group Inc., Celtic Group Inc. a Delaware corporation, Celtic Insurance Company an Illinois corporation, Cenpatico Behavioral Health LLC a California LLC, Centene Center I LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Center II LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Center LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Company of Texas LP a Texas limited partnership, Centene Europe Finance Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, Centene Health Plan Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Centene Institute for Advanced Health Education LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene International Financing Company Limited a limited liability Malta company, Centene International Ventures LLC a Delaware LLC, Centene Management Company LLC a Wisconsin LLC, Centene Technology Europe S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Centene Technology UK Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Centene Venture Company Alabama Health Plan Inc. an Alabama corporation, Centene Venture Company Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Centene Venture Company Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, Centene Venture Company Indiana Inc. an Indiana corporation, Centene Venture Company Kansas Inc. a Kansas corporation, Centene Venture Company Michigan Inc. a Michigan corporation, Centene Venture Company Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Centene Venture Insurance Company Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Centro Inmunologocia De La Comunidad Valenciana S.L. a Spanish S.L., Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico LLC a New Mexico LLC, Centurion Detention Health Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Arizona LLC an Arizona LLC, Centurion of Delaware LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Florida LLC a Florida LLC, Centurion of Indiana LLC an Indiana LLC, Centurion of Kansas LLC a Kansas LLC, Centurion of Minnesota LLC a Minnesota LLC, Centurion of Mississippi LLC a Mississippi LLC, Centurion of New Hampshire LLC a Delaware LLC, Centurion of Pennsylvania LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Centurion of Tennessee LLC a Tennessee LLC, Centurion of Vermont LLC a Vermont LLC, Centurion of West Virginia LLC a West Virginia LLC, Centurion of Wyoming LLC a Wyoming LLC, Chrysalis Medical Services LLC a New Jersey LLC, Circle Birmingham Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Clinical Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Harmony Health Ltd. a Hong Kong private company, Circle Health 1 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 2 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 3 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health 4 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Health Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Holdings Ltd. a Jersey private company, Circle Hospital (Reading) Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle International an English and Welsh PLC, Circle Nottingham Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Circle Rehabilitation Services Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Clinica Santo Domingo De Lugo S.L. a Spanish S.L., Collaborative Health Systems IPA LLC a Florida LLC, Collaborative Health Systems LLC a New York LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Maryland LLC a Maryland LLC, Collaborative Health Systems of Virginia LLC a Virginia LLC, Community Medical Group, Community Medical Holdings Corporation a Delaware corporation, Comprehensive Health Management Inc. a Florida corporation, Coordinated Care Corporation an Indiana corporation, Coordinated Care of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, DELMARVA Collaborative Care LLC a Delaware LLC, Discare CZ a.s. a Czech Republic A.S., District Community Care Inc. a Washington D.C. corporation, Dr Magnet s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Elche-Crevillente Salud a Spanish S.A., Envolve Benefits Options Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Dental IPA of New York Inc. a New York corporation, Envolve Dental Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Dental of Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Envolve Dental of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Envolve Health, Envolve Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Optical Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve PeopleCare Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Pharmacy IPA LLC a New York LLC, Envolve Pharmacy Solutions Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Total Vision Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision Benefits Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision IPA of New York Inc. a New York corporation, Envolve Vision Inc. a Delaware corporation, Envolve Vision of Florida Inc. a Florida corporation, Envolve Vision of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Essential Care Partners LLC a Texas LLC, Fidelis Care, Forensic Health Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Foundation Care LLC a Missouri LLC, GHG (DB) Pension Trustees Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Healthcare Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Intermediate Holdings Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Leasing Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, GHG Mount Alvernia Hospital Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Group Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Holdings 2 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, General Healthcare Holdings 3 Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Generale de Sante International Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Golden Triangle Physician Alliance a Texas not-for-profit corporation, Granite State Health Plan Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, HHS Texas Management Inc. a Texas corporation, HHS Texas Management LP a Texas limited partnership, HLM Strategic Investment Fund L.P. a Delaware limited partnership, Hallmark Life Insurance Company an Arizona corporation, Harmony Health Management Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Harmony Health Plan Inc. an Illinois corporation, Harmony Health Systems Inc. a New Jersey corporation, Health Care Enterprises LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Access Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net Community Solutions Inc. a California corporation, Health Net Community Solutions of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net Federal Services LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Health Plan of Oregon Inc. an Oregon corporation, Health Net LLC, Health Net LLC a Delaware LLC, Health Net Life Insurance Company a California corporation, Health Net Life Reinsurance Company a Cayman Islands corporation, Health Net of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, Health Net of California Inc. a California corporation, Health Plan Real Estate Holdings Inc. a Missouri corporation, HealthSmart Benefit Solutions Inc. an Illinois corporation, HealthSmart Benefits Management LLC a Texas LLC, HealthSmart Care Management Solutions LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Information Systems Inc. a Texas corporation, HealthSmart Preferred Care II LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Preferred Network II Inc. a Delaware corporation, HealthSmart Primary Care Clinics LP a Texas partnership, HealthSmart Rx Solutions Inc. an Ohio corporation, Healthy Louisiana Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC , Healthy Missouri Holdings Inc. a Missouri corporation, Healthy Washington Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Heritage Health Systems Inc. a Texas corporation, Heritage Health Systems of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Heritage Physician Networks a Texas not-for-profit corporation, Home State Health Plan Inc. a Missouri corporation, HomeScripts.com LLC a Michigan LLC, Hospinet S.L. a Spanish S.L., Hospital Polusa S.A. a Spanish S.A., Hospital Povisa S.A. a Spanish S.A., Illinois Health Practice Alliance LLC a Delaware corporation, Infraestructuras y Servicios de Alzira S. L. a Spanish S.L., Integrated Mental Health Services a Texas corporation, Interpreta Holdings Inc. a Delaware corporation, Interpreta Inc. a Delaware corporation, Iowa Total Care Inc. an Iowa corporation, Kentucky Spirit Health Plan Inc. a Kentucky corporation , LifeShare Management Group LLC, LifeShare Management Group LLC a New Hampshire LLC, Louisiana Healthcare Connections Inc. a Louisiana corporation , MH Services International Holdings (UK) Limited an English and Welsh private company, MHM, MHM Correctional Services LLC a Delaware LLC, MHM Health Professionals LLC a Delaware LLC, MHM Services Inc. a Delaware corporation, MHM Services of California LLC a California LLC, MHM Solutions LLC a Delaware LLC, MHN Government Services LLC a Delaware LLC, MHN Services LLC a California LLC, MHS Consulting International Inc. a Delaware corporation, MHS Travel & Charter Inc. a Wisconsin corporation, MR Centrum Melnick s.r.o. a Czech Republic S.R.O., MR Poprad s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., MR Zilina s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Magellan Health Inc, Magnolia Health Plan Inc. a Mississippi corporation, Managed Health Network LLC a Delaware LLC, Managed Health Network a California corporation, Managed Health Services Insurance Corporation a Wisconsin corporation, Marina Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Maryland Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Maryland Collaborative Care Transformation Organization Inc. a Delaware corporation, Mauli Ola Health and Wellness Inc. a Hawaii corporation, Medicina NZ spol s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Meriden Hospital Advanced Imaging Centre Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Meridian Health Plan of Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, Meridian Health Plan of Michigan Inc. a Michigan corporation, Meridian Management Company LLC (a/k/a Meridian Administration Company LLC) a Michigan LLC, Meridian Network Services LLC a Michigan LLC, MeridianRx IPA LLC a New York LLC, MeridianRx LLC a Michigan LLC, MeridianRx of Indiana LLC a Michigan LLC, Michigan Complete Health a Michigan corporation, Mid-Atlantic Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Mount Alvernia PET CT Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Nations Healthcare Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Nebraska Total Care Inc. a Nebraska corporation, Network Providers LLC a Delaware LLC, New York Quality Healthcare Corporation a New York corporation, Next Door Neighbors Inc. a Delaware corporation, Next Door Neighbors LLC. a Delaware LLC, North West Cancer Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Northern Maryland Collaborative Care LLC a Maryland LLC, Novasys Health Inc. a Delaware corporation, OB Care a Czech Republic S.R.O., OB Klinika a.s. a Czech Republic A.S., Ohana Health Plan Inc. a Hawaii corporation, Oklahoma Complete Health Holding Company LLC a Delaware LLC, Oklahoma Complete Health Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, One Care by Care 1st Health Plans of Arizona Inc an Arizona corporation, Operose Health (Group) Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Operose Health (Group) UK Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Operose Health Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, OptiCare Health Systems - Managed Vision Business, PANTHERx Rare Pharmacy, PRIMEROSALUD S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Panther Pass Co LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Panther Specialty Holding Co LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Pantherx Access Services LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Pantherx Specialty LLC a Pennsylvania LLC, Parker LP LLC a Nevada LLC, Peach State Health Plan Inc. a Georgia corporation, Penn Marketing America LLC a Delaware LLC, Pennsylvania Health and Wellness Inc. a Pennsylvania corporation, Preamed s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., Premier Marketing Group LLC a Delaware LLC, Primary Care Partners Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Pro Diagnostic Group A.S. a Slovakia A.S., Pro Magnet CZ s.r.o. a Czech Republic S.R.O., Pro Magnet s.r.o a Slovakia S.R.O., Pro Nuclear a.s. a Slovakia A.S., Pro RTG s.r.o a Slovakia S.R.O., Progress Medical A.S. a Czech Republic A.S., Prowl Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, QCA Healthplan Inc. an Arkansas corporation, Qualchoice Life and Health Insurance Company and Arkansas company, Quincy Coverage Corporation a New York corporation, Rhythm Health Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Ribera Diagnostics S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Healthcare S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Lab S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Management S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Salud II a Spanish UTE, Ribera Salud Proyectos S.L. a Spanish S.L., Ribera Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Ribera Salud Tecnologias S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera Slaud Infraestructuras S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Ribera-Quilpro UTE a Spanish UTE, Runnymeade SPV Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Salus Administrative Services Inc. a New York corporation, Salus IPA LLC a New York LLC, Secure Capital Solutions 2000 S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., SelectCare Health Plans Inc. a Texas corporation, SelectCare of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, Servicios De Mantenimiento Prevencor S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Shanghai Circle Harmony Hospital Management Limited a Chinese private company, SilverSummit Healthplan Inc. a Nevada corporation, Social Health Bridge LLC a Delaware LLC, Social Health Bridge Trust a Delaware trust, Specialty Therapeutic Care GP LLC a Texas LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings, Specialty Therapeutic Care Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, Specialty Therapeutic Care LP a Texas limited partnership, Sunflower State Health Plan Inc. a Kansas corporation, Sunshine Health Community Solutions Inc. a Florida corporation, Sunshine Health Holding LLC a Florida LLC, Sunshine State Health Plan Inc. a Florida corporation, Superior Health Management Advisors LLC, Superior HealthPlan Community Solutions Inc. a Texas corporation, Superior HealthPlan Inc. a Texas corporation, TKH Holding Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, Terapias Medicas Domiciliarias S.L. a Spanish S.L., The Pavilion Clinic Ltd. an English and Welsh private company, The Practice Properties Limited an English and Welsh private company, The WellCare Management Group Inc. a New York corporation, Three Shires Hospital LP an English and Welsh limited partnership, Torrejon Salud S.A. a Spanish S.A., Torrevieja Salud S.L.U. a Spanish S.L.U., Torrevieja Salud UTE a Spanish UTE, Transplant Health Solutions IPA Inc. a New York corporation, Trillium Community Health Plan Inc. an Oregon corporation, UAM Agent Services Corp. an Iowa corporation, US Script, Universal American Corp. a Delaware corporation, Universal American Financial Services Inc. a Delaware corporation, Universal American Holdings LLC a Delaware LLC, Vivamed s.r.o. a Slovakia S.R.O., WCG Health Management Inc. a Delaware corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of America an Arkansas corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Kentucky Inc. a Kentucky corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Louisiana Inc. a Louisiana corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Nevada Inc. a Nevada corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Hampshire Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Oklahoma Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, WellCare Health Insurance Company of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Connecticut Inc. a Connecticut corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Hawaii Inc. a Hawaii corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of New York Inc. a New York corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Southwest Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Insurance of Tennessee Inc. a Tennessee corporation, WellCare Health Plans, WellCare Health Plans Inc. a Delaware corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Arizona Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky Inc. a Kentucky corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Massachusetts Inc. a Massachusetts corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Missouri Inc. a Missouri corporation, WellCare Health Plans of New Jersey Inc. a New Jersey corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Rhode Island Inc. a Rhode Island corporation, WellCare Health Plans of Vermont Inc. a Vermont corporation, WellCare National Health Insurance Company a Texas corporation, WellCare Prescription Insurance Inc. an Arizona corporation, WellCare of Alabama Inc. an Alabama corporation, WellCare of Arkansas Inc. an Arkansas corporation, WellCare of California Inc. a California corporation, WellCare of Connecticut Inc. a Connecticut corporation, WellCare of Georgia Inc. a Georgia corporation, WellCare of Illinois Inc. an Illinois corporation, WellCare of Indiana Inc. an Indiana corporation, WellCare of Maine Inc. a Maine corporation, WellCare of Michigan Holding Company a Michigan corporation, WellCare of Mississippi Inc. a Mississippi corporation, WellCare of Missouri Health Insurance Company Inc. a Missouri corporation, WellCare of New Hampshire Inc. a New Hampshire corporation, WellCare of New York Inc. a New York corporation, WellCare of North Carolina Inc. a North Carolina corporation, WellCare of Ohio Inc. an Ohio corporation, WellCare of Oklahoma Inc. an Oklahoma corporation, WellCare of Pennsylvania Inc. a Pennsylvania corporation, WellCare of South Carolina Inc. a South Carolina corporation, WellCare of Texas Inc. a Texas corporation, WellCare of Virginia Inc. a Virginia corporation, WellCare of Washington Inc. a Washington corporation, Western Sky Community Care Inc. a New Mexico corporation, Windsor Health Group Inc. a Tennessee corporation, Winning Security S.L. a Spanish S.L., and Worlco Management Services Inc. a New York corporation.

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The following companies are subsidiares of HCA Healthcare: 2490 Church LLC, 360 Community Alliance LLC, 4600 Waters Avenue Professional Building Condominium Association Inc., 52 Alderley Road LLP, AC Med LLC, ACH Inc., ADC Surgicenter LLC, AOGN LLC, AOSC Sports Medicine Inc., AR Holding 1 LLC, AR Holding 10 LLC, AR Holding 11 LLC, AR Holding 12 LLC, AR Holding 13 LLC, AR Holding 14 LLC, AR Holding 15 LLC, AR Holding 16 LLC, AR Holding 17 LLC, AR Holding 18 LLC, AR Holding 19 LLC, AR Holding 2 LLC, AR Holding 20 LLC, AR Holding 21 LLC, AR Holding 22 LLC, AR Holding 23 LLC, AR Holding 24 LLC, AR Holding 25 LLC, AR Holding 26 LLC, AR Holding 27 LLC, AR Holding 28 LLC, AR Holding 29 LLC, AR Holding 30 LLC, AR Holding 31 LLC, AR Holding 4 LLC, AR Holding 5 LLC, AR Holding 6 LLC, AR Holding 7 LLC, AR Holding 8 LLC, AR Holding 9 LLC, ASD Shared Services LLC, Acadiana Care Center Inc., Acadiana Practice Management Inc., Acadiana Regional Pharmacy Inc., Access 2 Health Care Physicians LLC, Access Health Care Physicians LLC, Access Management Co. LLC, Ace Leasing II LLC, Acute Kids Urgent Care of Medical City Childrens Hospital PLLC, Acworth Immediate Care LLC, Administrative Physicians of North Texas PLLC, Advanced Bundle Convener LLC, Advanced Plastic Surgery Center of Terre Haute LLC, Advanced Practice Providers of Gulf Coast PLLC, Alaska Regional Medical Group LLC, Albany Family Practice LLC, Aligned Business Consortium Group L.P., All About Staffing (India) Ltd., All About Staffing Inc., All About Staffing Philippines Inc., Alleghany General and Bariatric Services LLC, Alleghany Hospitalists LLC, Alleghany Primary Care Inc., Alleghany Specialists LLC, Alliance Surgicare LLC, Alpine Surgicenter LLC, Alta Internal Medicine LLC, Alternaco LLC, Altitude Mid Level Providers LLC, Ambulatory Endoscopy Clinic of Dallas Ltd., Ambulatory Endoscopy Holdco LLC, Ambulatory Laser Associates GP, Ambulatory Services Management Corporation of Chesterfield County Inc., Ambulatory Surgery Center Group Ltd., American Medicorp Development Co., Anchorage Surgicenter LLC, AppleCare/Memorial Immediate Care Joint Venture LLC, Appledore Medical Group II Inc., Appledore Medical Group Inc., Appomattox Imaging LLC, Arapahoe Surgicenter LLC, Arlington Diagnostic South Inc., Arlington Neurosurgeons PLLC, Arlington Primary Care PLLC, Arlington Primary Medicine PLLC, Arlington Surgery Center L.P., Arlington Surgicare LLC, Arthritis Specialists of Nashville Inc., Ashburn ASC LLC, Ashburn Imaging LLC, Athens Community Hospital Inc., Atlanta Healthcare Management L.P., Atlanta Home Care L.P., Atlanta Market GP Inc., Atlanta Outpatient Surgery Center Inc., Atlanta Surgery Center Ltd., Atlantis Surgicare LLC, Atrium Surgery Center L.P., Atrium Surgicare LLC, Augusta CyberKnife LLC, Augusta Inpatient Services LLC, Augusta Management Services LLC, Augusta Multispecialty Services LLC, Augusta Primary Care Services LLC, Augusta Specialty Hospitalists LLC, Augusta Urgent Care Services LLC, Aurora Endoscopy Surgicenter LLC, Austin GI Surgicenter LLC, Austin Heart Cardiology MSO LLC, Austin Medical Center Inc., Austin Physicians Management LLC, Austin Urogynecology PLLC, Aventura Cancer Center Manager LLC, Aventura Comprehensive Cancer Research Group of Florida Inc., Aventura Healthcare Specialists LLC, Aventura Neurosurgery LLC, BAMI Property LLC, Backlogs Limited, Bailey Square Ambulatory Surgical Center Ltd., Bailey Square Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Bannerman Family Care LLC, Barrow Medical Center CT Services Ltd., Basic American Medical Inc., Basil Street Practice Limited, Bay Area Healthcare Group Ltd., Bay Area Surgical Center Investors Ltd., Bay Area Surgicare Center Inc., Bay Area Surgicenter LLC, Bay Hospital Inc., Bayonet Point Surgery Center Ltd., Bayshore Family Practitioners PLLC, Bayshore Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Bayshore Occupational and Family Medicine PLLC, Bayshore Partner LLC, Bayshore Radiation Oncology Services PLLC, Bayshore Surgery Center Ltd., Bayside Ambulatory Center LLC, Bedford-Northeast Community Hospital Inc., Behavioral Health Sciences of West Florida LLC, Behavioral Health Wellness Center LLC, Bellaire Imaging Inc., Belleair Surgery Center Ltd., Belton Family Practice Clinic LLC, Big Cypress Medical Center Inc., Blacksburg Family Care LLC, Blossoms Healthcare LLP, Blue Ridge-TKC LLC, Bone & Joint Specialists Physician Group LLC, Bonita Bay Surgery Center Inc., Bonita Bay Surgery Center Ltd., Bountiful Surgery Center LLC, Boynton Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Bradenton Cardiology Physician Network LLC, Bradenton Outpatient Services LLC, Brandon Imaging Manager LLC, Brandon Regional Cancer Center LLC, Brentwood ASC LLC, Brigham City Community Hospital Inc., Brigham City Community Hospital Physician Services LLC, Brigham City Health Plan Inc., Brighton Surgicenter LLC, Brookwood Medical Center of Gulfport Inc., Broward Cardiovascular Surgeons LLC, Broward Healthcare System Inc., Broward Neurosurgeons LLC, Brownsville Specialists of Texas PLLC, Brownsville Surgery PLLC, Brownsville Surgical Specialists PLLC, Brownsville Surgicenter LLC, Brownsville-Valley Regional Medical Center Inc., Buford Road Imaging L.L.C., Byron Family Practice LLC, C. Medrano M.D. PLLC, C/HCA Capital Inc., C/HCA Development Inc., C/HCA Inc., CAREOS Surgicenter LLC, CC Clinic PLLC, CCBH Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, CCH-GP Inc., CFC Investments Inc., CH Systems, CHC Finance Co., CHC Holdings Inc., CHC Management Ltd., CHC Payroll Agent Inc., CHC Payroll Company, CHC Realty Company, CHC Venture Co., CHC-El Paso Corp., CHC-Miami Corp., CHCA Bayshore L.P., CHCA Clear Lake L.P., CHCA Conroe L.P., CHCA Mainland L.P., CHCA Pearland L.P., CHCA West Houston L.P., CHCA Womans Hospital L.P., CHCK Inc., CJW Infectious Disease LLC, CJW Wound Healing Center LLC, CLASC Manager LLC, COL-NAMC Holdings Inc., COSCORP LLC, CP Surgery Center LLC, CPS TN Processor 1 Inc., CRMC-M LLC, CUC PLLC, CVMC Property LLC, Calder Immediate Care PLLC, California Imaging Center Manager LLC, California Urgent Care LLC, Calloway Creek Surgery Center L.P., Calloway Creek Surgicare LLC, Cancer Centers of North Florida LLC, Cancer Services of Aventura LLC, Capital Anesthesia Services LLC, Capital Area Cardiology, Capital Area CareNow Physician Associates, Capital Area Multispecialty Providers, Capital Area Neurosurgeons, Capital Area Occupational Medicine PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care Providers, Capital Area Providers, Capital Area Specialists PLLC, Capital Area Specialty Providers, Capital Area Surgeons PLLC, Capital Division - CCA Inc., Capital Division Inc., Capital Network Services Inc., Capital Professional Billing LLC, Capital Regional Healthcare LLC, Capital Regional Heart Associates LLC, Capital Regional Psychiatry Associates LLC, Cardiac Surgical Associates LLC, Cardio Vascular Surgeons of North Texas PLLC, Cardiology Associates Medical Group LLC, Cardiology Clinic of San Antonio PLLC, Cardiology Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Texas PLLC, Care for Women LLC, CareNow, CareOne Home Health Services Inc., CarePartners HHA Holdings LLLP, CarePartners HHA LLLP, CarePartners Rehabilitation Hospital LLLP, CareSpot Professional Services of Middle Tennessee LLC, CareSpot of Brentwood (210 Franklin Road) LLC, CareSpot of Cool Springs (100 International Drive) LLC, CareSpot of Donelson (2372 Lebanon Road) LLC, CareSpot of Hendersonville (280 Indian Lake Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Hermitage (5225 Old Hickory Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Lebanon (1705 West Main Street) LLC, CareSpot of Mt. Juliet (S. Mt. Juliet Road) LLC, CareSpot of Murfreesboro (1340 Broad Street) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (2001 Glen Echo Road) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (West End Avenue) LLC, Career Staffing USA Inc., Carlin Springs Urgent Care LLC, Carolina Forest Imaging Manager LLC, Carolina Regional Surgery Center Inc., Carolina Regional Surgery Center Ltd., Cartersville Medical Center LLC, Cartersville Occupational Medicine Center LLC, Cartersville Physician Practice I LLC, Catalog360 Limited, Cedar Creek Medical Group LLC, Cedars International Cardiology Consultants LLC, Cedars Medical Center Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Cardiovascular Consultants LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Center LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Manager LLC, Centennial Heart LLC, Centennial Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Neuroscience LLC, Centennial Psychiatric Associates LLC, Centennial Surgery Center L.P., Centennial Surgical Associates LLC, Centennial Surgical Clinic LLC, Centennial Womens Group LLC, Center for Advanced Diagnostics LLC, Center for Advanced Imaging LLC, Center for Digestive Diseases LLC, Center for Occupational Medicine LLC, Centerpoint Cardiology Services LLC, Centerpoint Clinic of Blue Springs LLC, Centerpoint Hospital Based Physicians LLC, Centerpoint Medical Center of Independence LLC, Centerpoint Medical Specialists LLC, Centerpoint Orthopedics LLC, Centerpoint Physicians Group LLC, Centerpoint Womens Services LLC, Central Florida Cardiology Interpretations LLC, Central Florida Division Practice Inc., Central Florida Health Services LLC, Central Florida Imaging Services LLC, Central Florida Management Services LLC, Central Florida Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates LLC, Central Florida Physician Network LLC, Central Florida Regional Hospital Inc., Central Health Holding Company Inc., Central Pasco LLC, Central San Antonio Surgical Center Investors Ltd., Central Shared Services LLC, Central Tennessee Hospital Corporation, Central Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Physicians PLLC, Centrum Surgery Center Ltd., Charleston CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Chatsworth Hospital Corp., Chattanooga ASC Acquisition Inc., Chattanooga Diagnostic Associates LLC, Chattanooga Healthcare Network L.P., Chattanooga Healthcare Network Partner Inc., Chelsea Outpatient Centre LLP, Chesterfield Imaging LLC, Chicago Grant Hospital Inc., Childrens Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Chino Community Hospital Corporation Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Hospitals Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Sports Medicine LLC, Chippenham Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Chippenham Pediatric Specialists LLC, Chiswick Outpatient Centre LLP, Christiansburg Family Medicine LLC, Christiansburg Internal Medicine LLC, Christina Cano-Gonzalez M.D. PLLC, Chugach PT Inc., Church Street Partners, Citrus Memorial Hospital Inc., Citrus Memorial Property Management Inc., Citrus Primary Care Inc., Citrus Specialty Group Inc., Citrus Surgicenter LLC, City of San Antonio H2U Employee Health and Wellness Center PLLC, Clarksville Surgicenter LLC, Clear Creek Surgery Center LLC, Clear Lake Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., Clear Lake Cardiac GP LLC, Clear Lake Family Physicians PLLC, Clear Lake Medical Tower Owners Association Inc., Clear Lake Merger LLC, Clear Lake Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center Inc., Clear Lake Regional Partner LLC, Clear Lake Surgicare Ltd., ClinicServ LLC, Clinical Education Shared Services LLC, Clinishare Inc., Coastal Bend Hospital CT Services Ltd., Coastal Bend Hospital Inc., Coastal Carolina Home Care Inc., Coastal Carolina Multispecialty Associates LLC, Coastal Carolina Primary Care LLC, Coastal Healthcare Services Inc., Coastal Imaging Center L.P., Coastal Imaging Center of Gulfport Inc., Coastal Inpatient Physicians LLC, Coliseum Health Group Inc., Coliseum Health Group LLC, Coliseum Medical Center LLC, Coliseum Park Hospital Inc., Coliseum Primary Care Services LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Macon LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Riverside LLC, Coliseum Professional Associates LLC, Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center L.P., Coliseum Surgery Center L.L.C., College Park Ancillary LLC, College Park Endoscopy Center LLC, College Park Radiology LLC, Colleton Ambulatory Care LLC, Colleton Diagnostic Center LLC, Colleton Medical Anesthesia LLC, Colleton Medical Hospitalists LLC, Colleton Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery LLC, Collier County Home Health Agency Inc., Collin County Diagnostic Associates PLLC, Colorado Health Systems Inc., Columbia ASC Management L.P., Columbia Ambulatory Surgery Division Inc., Columbia Arlington Healthcare System L.L.C., Columbia Bay Area Realty Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Health Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare Inc., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare of South Florida Inc., Columbia Call Center Inc., Columbia Central Florida Division Inc., Columbia Central Group Inc., Columbia Champions Treatment Center Inc., Columbia Chicago Division Inc., Columbia Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Columbia Development of Florida Inc., Columbia Doctors Hospital of Tulsa Inc., Columbia Eye and Specialty Surgery Center Ltd., Columbia Florida Group Inc., Columbia GP of Mesquite Inc., Columbia Good Samaritan Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia Greater Houston Division Healthcare Network Inc., Columbia Health System of Arkansas Inc., Columbia Healthcare System of Louisiana Inc., Columbia Healthcare of Central Virginia Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation at the Medical Center, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Arlington, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Bay Area, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Central Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Corpus Christi, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Fort Worth, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Kendall, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Massachusetts Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of North Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Broward, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Dade, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Florida, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Tamarac, Columbia Hospital Corporation of West Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation-Delaware, Columbia Hospital Corporation-SMM, Columbia Hospital at Medical City Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Hospital-El Paso Ltd., Columbia Integrated Health Systems Inc., Columbia Jacksonville Healthcare System Inc., Columbia LaGrange Hospital LLC, Columbia Lake Worth Surgical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia Medical Arts Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center Dallas Southwest Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center at Lancaster Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Arlington Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Denton Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas Inc., Columbia Medical Center of Lewisville Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of McKinney Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Plano Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Group - Centennial Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Daystar Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Parkridge Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southern Hills Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southwest Virginia Inc., Columbia Medical Group - The Frist Clinic Inc., Columbia Midtown Joint Venture, Columbia North Alaska Healthcare Inc., Columbia North Central Florida Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia North Florida Regional Medical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia North Hills Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia North Texas Healthcare System L.P., Columbia North Texas Subsidiary GP LLC, Columbia North Texas Surgery Center Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Inc., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Partners Ltd., Columbia Ocala Regional Medical Center Physician Group Inc., Columbia Ogden Medical Center Inc., Columbia Oklahoma Division Inc., Columbia Palm Beach GP LLC, Columbia Palm Beach Healthcare System Limited Partnership, Columbia Park Healthcare System Inc., Columbia Park Medical Center Inc., Columbia Parkersburg Healthcare System LLC, Columbia Pentagon City Hospital L.L.C., Columbia Physician Services - Florida Group Inc., Columbia Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Primary Care LLC, Columbia Psychiatric Management Co., Columbia Resource Network Inc., Columbia Rio Grande Healthcare L.P., Columbia Riverside Inc., Columbia South Texas Division Inc., Columbia Specialty Hospital of Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Specialty Hospitals Inc., Columbia Surgery Group Inc., Columbia Surgicare of Augusta Ltd., Columbia Tampa Bay Division Inc., Columbia Valley Healthcare System L.P., Columbia West Bank Hospital Inc., Columbia Westbank Healthcare L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Canton Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Cleveland Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-Georgia PT Inc., Columbia-Osceola Imaging Center Inc., Columbia-Quantum Inc., Columbia-SDH Holdings Inc., Columbia/Alleghany Regional Hospital Incorporated, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Central Texas, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Northern Ohio, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of South Carolina, Columbia/HCA Heartcare of Corpus Christi Inc., Columbia/HCA International Group Inc., Columbia/HCA John Randolph Inc., Columbia/HCA Middle East Management Company, Columbia/HCA Physician Hospital Organization Medical Center Hospital, Columbia/HCA San Clemente Inc., Columbia/HCA of Baton Rouge Inc., Columbia/HCA of Houston Inc., Columbia/HCA of New Orleans Inc., Columbia/HCA of North Texas Inc., Columbine Psychiatric Center Inc., Columbus Cardiology Inc., Columbus Cath Lab Inc., Columbus Cath Lab LLC, Columbus Doctors Hospital Inc., Commonwealth Perinatal Services LLC, Commonwealth Specialists of Kentucky LLC, Community Hospital Family Practice LLC, Comprehensive Radiation Oncology LLC, Comprehensive Radiology Management Services Ltd., Concept EFL Imaging Center LLC, Concept West EFL Imaging Center LLC, Congenital Heart Surgery Center PLLC, Conroe Hospital Corporation, Conroe Montgomery Physicians Group PLLC, Conroe Orthopedic Specialists PLLC, Conroe Partner LLC, Conroe Specialists of Texas PLLC, Continental Division I Inc., Coral Springs Surgi-Center Ltd., CoralStone Management Inc., Corpus Christi Healthcare Group Ltd., Corpus Christi Heart Clinic PLLC, Corpus Christi Primary Care Associates PLLC, Corpus Christi Psychiatric Specialists PLLC, Corpus Christi Radiation Oncology PLLC, Corpus Christi Surgery Center L.P., Corpus Christi Surgery Ltd., Corpus Christi Surgicenter LLC, Corpus Surgicare Inc., Countryside Surgery Center Ltd., Crewe Outpatient Imaging LLC, Cumberland Medical Center Inc., Cy-Fair Medical Center Hospital LLC, DFW Physicians Group PLLC, DOMC Property LLC, DS Real Estate Holdings LLC, Daleville Imaging L.P., Daleville Imaging Manager LLC, Dallas CardioThoracic Surgery Consultants PLLC, Dallas Cardiology Specialists PLLC, Dallas Hand Surgery Center PLLC, Dallas Medical Specialists PLLC, Dallas Neuro-Stroke Affiliates PLLC, Dallas Pediatric Neurosurgery Specialists PLLC, Dallas/Ft. Worth Physician LLC, Davie Medical Center LLC, Daytona Medical Center Inc., Dean 4641 LLC, Deep Purple Investments LLC, Del Sol Bariatric Clinic PLLC, Delray EFL Imaging Center LLC, Denton Cancer Center PLLC, Denton County Hospitalist Program PLLC, Denton Pediatric Physicians PLLC, Denton Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Denver Clinic Surgicenter LLC, Denver Mid-Town Surgery Center Ltd., Denver Surgicenter LLC, Derry ASC Inc., Diagnostic Breast Center Inc., Diagnostic Mammography Services G.P., Diagnostic Services G.P., Dickson Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Bay Area Physician Hospital Organization, Doctors Hospital (Conroe) Inc., Doctors Hospital Columbus GA-Joint Venture, Doctors Hospital Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Hospital of Augusta LLC, Doctors Hospital of Augusta Neurology LLC, Doctors Osteopathic Medical Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Ltd., Doctors-I Inc., Doctors-II Inc., Doctors-III Inc., Doctors-IV Inc., Doctors-IX Inc., Doctors-V Inc., Doctors-VI Inc., Doctors-VII Inc., Doctors-VIII Inc., Doctors-X Inc., Doctors Memorial Hospital of Spartanburg Limited Partnership, Dominion Hospital Physicians Group LLC, Dublin Community Hospital LLC, Dublin Heart Specialists LLC, Dublin Multispecialty LLC, Dura Medical Inc., E.P. Physical Therapy Centers Inc., EASTSIDE URGENT CARE LLC, EHCA Diagnostics LLC, EHCA Eastside Occupational Medicine Center LLC, EHCA LLC, EHCA Metropolitan LLC, EHCA Parkway LLC, EHCA Peachtree LLC, EHCA West Paces LLC, EIRMC Hospitalist Services LLC, EMMC LLC, EP Health LLC, EP Holdco LLC, EPIC Development Inc., EPIC Diagnostic Centers Inc., EPIC Healthcare Management Company, EPIC Properties Inc., EPIC Surgery Centers Inc., EPSC L.P., East Falls Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery LLC, East Falls Family Medicine LLC, East Falls Plastic Surgery LLC, East Florida - DMC Inc., East Florida Behavioral Health Network LLC, East Florida Cardiology Network LLC, East Florida CareNow Urgent Care LLC, East Florida Division Inc., East Florida Emergency Physician Group LLC, East Florida Healthcare LLC, East Florida Hospitalists LLC, East Florida Imaging Holdings LLC, East Florida Primary Care LLC, East Houston Primary Care PLLC, East Houston Specialists PLLC, East Layton Internal Medicine LLC, East Orthopedics PLLC, East Pointe Hospital Inc., Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment LLC, Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment Manager LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners ACO LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners Holdings LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners LLC, Eastern Idaho Health Services Inc., Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Eastside Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Eastside General Surgery LLC, Eastside Heart and Vascular LLC, Eastside Medical Center LLC, Eastside Surgery Center LLC, Edmond General Surgery LLC, Edmond Hospitalists LLC, Edmond Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Edward White Hospital Inc., El Paso CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, El Paso Healthcare Provider Network, El Paso Healthcare System Ltd., El Paso Healthcare System Physician Services LLC, El Paso Nurses Unlimited Inc., El Paso Primary Care PLLC, El Paso Surgery Centers L.P., El Paso Surgicenter Inc., Eldridge Family Practitioners PLLC, Elite Family Health of Plano PLLC, Elite OB-GYN Services of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Irving PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Plano PLLC, Elstree Outpatient Centre LLP, Emergency Physicians at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Emergency Providers Group LLC, Emergency Psychiatric Medicine PLLC, Encino Hospital Corporation Inc., Endocrinology Associates of Lees Summit LLC, Endoscopy Surgicare of Plano LLC, Endoscopy of Plano L.P., Englewood Community Hospital Auxiliary Inc., Englewood Community Hospital Inc., Envision Stakes LLC, Eye Care Surgicare Ltd. a Missouri limited partnership, FHAL LLC, FMH Health Services LLC, Fairfax Surgical Center L.P., Fairview Medical Services LLC, Fairview Park GP LLC, Fairview Park Limited Partnership, Fairview Partner LLC, Family Care Partners LLC, Family Care of E. Jackson County LLC, Family First Medicine in Brownsville PLLC, Family Health Medical Group of Overland Park LLC, Family Health Specialists of Lees Summit LLC, Family Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Family Practice at Forest Hill LLC, Family Practice at Retreat LLC, Family Practitioners of Montgomery PLLC, Family Practitioners of Pearland PLLC, Fannin MOB LLC, Fannin MOB Property Management LLC, Far West Division Inc., Fawcett Memorial Hospital Inc., Florida Care Partners LLC, Florida Care Partners Orlando LLC, Florida Home Health Services-Private Care Inc., Florida Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Flower Mound Surgery Center Ltd., Focus Hand Surgicenter LLC, Foot & Ankle Specialty Services LLC, Forest Park Surgery Pavilion Inc., Forest Park Surgery Pavilion L.P., Fort Bend Hospital Inc., Fort Chiswell Family Practice LLC, Fort Myers Market Inc., Fort Pierce Immediate Care Center Inc., Fort Pierce Orthopaedics LLC, Fort Pierce Surgery Center Ltd., Fort Walton Beach Medical Center Inc., Fort Worth Investments Inc., Forward Pathology Solutions LLC, Four Rivers Medical Center PHO Inc., Frankfort Hospital Inc., Frankfort Wound Care LLC, Freeport Family Medicine LLC, Fremont Womens Health LLC, Frisco Surgicare LLC, Frisco Warren Parkway 91 Inc., Frist Clinic Express LLC, Ft. Pierce Surgicare LLC, Ft. Walton Beach Anesthesia Services LLC, G. Rowe M.D. PLLC, G. Schnider M.D. PLLC, G. Voorhees M.D. PLLC, G.P. Martin Fletcher & Associates LLC, GA PHYSICIAN SERVICES LLC, GA Urgentcare Holding LLC, GHC-Galen Health Care LLC, GI Associates of Denton PLLC, GI Associates of Lewisville PLLC, GME Services of Osceola LLC, GPCH-GP Inc., GYN-Oncology of Southwest Virginia LLC, Gainesville GYN Oncology of North Florida Regional Medical Center LLC, Gainesville Physicians LLC, GalTex LLC, Galen (Kansas) Merger LLC, Galen BH Inc., Galen Center for Professional Development Inc., Galen College of Nursing, Galen Diagnostic Multicenter Ltd., Galen GOK LLC, Galen Global Finance Inc., Galen Health Institutes Inc., Galen Health Partners Limited, Galen Holdco LLC, Galen Hospital Alaska Inc., Galen Hospital of Baytown Inc., Galen Hospital-Pembroke Pines Inc., Galen International Holdings Inc., Galen KY LLC, Galen MCS LLC, Galen MRMC LLC, Galen Medical Corporation, Galen NMC LLC, Galen NSH LLC, Galen Property LLC, Galen SOM LLC, Galen SSH LLC, Galen Virginia Hospital Corporation, Galen of Aurora Inc., Galen of Florida Inc., Galen of Illinois Inc., Galen of Kentucky Inc., Galen of Mississippi Inc., Galen of Virginia Inc., Galen of West Virginia Inc., Galen-Soch Inc., Galencare Inc., Galendeco Inc., Galichia Anesthesia Services LLC, Galichia Emergency Physicians LLC, Garden Park Community Hospital Limited Partnership, Garden Park Hospitalist Program LLC, Garden Park Investments L.P., Garden Park Physician Group - Specialty Care LLC, Garden Park Physician Group Inc., Gardens EFL Imaging Center LLC, Gastroenterology Specialists of Middle Tennessee LLC, General Hospitals of Galen Inc., General Medical Clinics Limited, General Surgeons of Houston PLLC, General Surgeons of North Richland Hills PLLC, General Surgeons of Pasadena PLLC, General and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Conroe PLLC, Generations Family Practice Inc., GenoSpace LLC, Georgia Health Holdings Inc., Georgia L.P., Georgia Psychiatric Company Inc., Glemm SA, Good Samaritan Hospital L.P., Good Samaritan Hospital LLC, Good Samaritan Surgery Center L.P., Goppert-Trinity Family Care LLC, Grace Family Practice LLC, Gramercy Eye Surgicenter LLC, Gramercy Surgery Center Ltd., Grand Strand Regional Medical Center LLC, Grand Strand Senior Health Center LLC, Grand Strand Specialty Associates LLC, Grand Strand Surgical Specialists LLC, Grandview Health Care Clinic LLC, Grant Center Hospital of Ocala Inc., Grayson Primary Care LLC, Greater Gwinnett Internal Medicine Associates LLC, Greater Gwinnett Physician Corporation, Greater Houston Preferred Provider Option Inc., Greater Tampa Bay Physician Network LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physician Specialists LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physicians - Pinellas LLC, Green Oaks Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Greenview Hospital Inc., Greenview PrimeCare LLC, Greenview Specialty Associates LLC, Gulf Coast Division Inc., Gulf Coast Electrophysiology Associates PLLC, Gulf Coast Inpatient Specialists LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Center Primary Care LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Ventures Inc., Gulf Coast Multispecialty Services LLC, Gulf Coast Physician Administrators Inc., Gulf Coast Provider Network Inc., Gwinnett Community Hospital Inc., Gynecology Specialists of Utah LLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Del Sol Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Las Palmas Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Medical City Dallas PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - St. Davids Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers LLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Clear Lake Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe ISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Corpus Christi PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  El Paso PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  PISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  San Benito CISD PLLC, HBP Lone Star Inc., HCA - IT&S Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S Inventory Management Inc., HCA - IT&S PBS Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S TN Field Operations Inc., HCA - Information Technology & Services Inc., HCA - Raleigh Community Hospital Inc., HCA - Viera ALF LLC, HCA - WHS Progressive LLC, HCA - WHS Services LLC, HCA ASD Financial Operations LLC, HCA ASD Sales Services LLC, HCA American Finance LLC, HCA Carenow Limited, HCA Central Group Inc., HCA Central/West Texas Physicians Management LLC, HCA Chattanooga Market Inc., HCA Development Company Inc., HCA Eastern Group Inc., HCA Global Capital LLP, HCA Gulf Coast GME PLLC, HCA Health Services of California Inc., HCA Health Services of Florida Inc., HCA Health Services of Georgia Inc., HCA Health Services of Louisiana Inc., HCA Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Health Services of Midwest Inc., HCA Health Services of New Hampshire Inc., HCA Health Services of Tennessee Inc., HCA Health Services of Texas Inc., HCA Health Services of Virginia Inc., HCA Health Services of West Virginia Inc., HCA Healthcare Mission Fund LLC, HCA Healthcare UK Limited, HCA Holdco LLC, HCA Human Resources LLC, HCA Imaging Services of North Florida Inc., HCA Inc., HCA International Holdings Limited, HCA International Limited, HCA LewisGale Regional Cancer Centers Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Long Term Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Luxembourg 1 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg 2 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Equities Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Finance Limited, HCA Luxembourg Investments Sarl, HCA Management Services L.P., HCA Medical City Limited, HCA Medical Services Inc., HCA Midwest Comprehensive Care Inc., HCA Outpatient Clinic Services of Miami Inc., HCA Outpatient Imaging Services Group Inc., HCA Patient Safety Organization LLC, HCA Pearland GP Inc., HCA Physician Services Inc., HCA Plano Imaging Inc., HCA Property GP LLC, HCA Psychiatric Company, HCA Purchasing Limited, HCA Realty Inc., HCA Richmond Cardiac Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA SF LLC, HCA SFB 1 LLC, HCA Sarasota Orthopedic and Spine Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Squared LLC, HCA Staffing Limited, HCA Swiss Capital 1 LLP, HCA Swiss Capital 2 LLP, HCA Switzerland Finance GmbH, HCA Switzerland Holding GmbH, HCA Switzerland Limited, HCA UK Capital Limited, HCA UK Holdings Limited, HCA UK Investments Limited, HCA UK Limited, HCA UK Services Limited, HCA Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital Inc., HCA Western Group Inc., HCA-Access Healthcare Holdings LLC, HCA-Access Healthcare Partner Inc., HCA-California Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-EMS Holdings LLC, HCA-EmCare Holdings LLC, HCA-Georgia Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-HBPS Holdings LLC, HCA-HealthONE LLC, HCA-Solis Holdings Inc., HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Continental LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Gulf Coast LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of North Texas LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of TriStar LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Services LLC, HCA-Solis Master LLC, HCA-Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCAPS Anesthesia Manager LLC, HCAPS Conroe Affiliation Inc., HCOL Inc., HD&S Corp. Successor Inc., HDH Thoracic Surgeons LLC, HHBY Holdings LLC, HHNC LLC, HICCH-SCL LLC, HM Acquisition LLC, HM OMCOS LLC, HMMG 1226 LLC, HPG Energy L.P., HPG Enterprises LLC, HPG GP LLC, HPG Solutions LLC, HSS Holdco LLC, HSS Systems LLC, HSS Virginia L.P., HTI Gulf Coast Inc., HTI Health Services of North Carolina Inc., HTI Hospital Holdings Inc., HTI MOB LLC, HTI MSO LLC, HTI Memorial Hospital Corporation, HTI Physician Services of Utah Inc., HWCA PLLC, Hamilton Memorial Hospital Inc., Hamsard 3160 Limited, Harley Street Clinic @ The Groves LLP, Hathor Chelsea Ltd., Healdsburg General Hospital Inc., Health Care Indemnity Inc., Health Insight Capital LLC, Health International Billing Partners Limited, Health Midwest Medical Group Inc., Health Midwest Office Facilities Corporation, Health Midwest Ventures Group Inc., Health Partners of Kansas Inc., Health Service Partners Inc., Health Services (Delaware) Inc., Health Services Merger Inc., Health to You LLC, HealthCoast Physician Group LLC, HealthONE Aurora Investment LLC, HealthONE Care Partners LLC, HealthONE CareNow Urgent Care LLC, HealthONE Clear Creek LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Bariatric Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Behavioral Health LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cardiovascular LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Medical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Neurosciences LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Occupational Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Oncology Hematology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Orthopedic Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Otolaryngology Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Primary Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Surgeons LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgery Neurological LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Transplant Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Womens Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Youth Rehabilitation LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services LLC, HealthONE High Street Primary Care Center LLC, HealthONE IRL Pathology Services LLC, HealthONE Institutes for Clinical Research LLC, HealthONE Lowry LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Red Rocks LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Thornton LLC, HealthONE Ridge View Endoscopy Center LLC, HealthONE Surgicare of Ridge View LLC, HealthONE Urologic LLC, HealthONE at Breckenridge LLC, HealthONE of Denver Inc., HealthOne Heart Care LLC, HealthOne Lincoln Investment LLC, HealthOne Westside Investment LLC, HealthTrust Europe Company Limited, HealthTrust Europe LLP, HealthTrust Locums Inc., HealthTrust Workforce Solutions LLC, Healthcare Oklahoma Inc., Healthcare Purchasing Alliance LLC, Healthcare Sales National Management Services Group LLC, Healthcare Technology Assessment Corporation, Healthco LLC, Healthnet of Kentucky LLC, Healthserv Acquisition LLC, Healthtrust Inc. - The Hospital Company, Healthtrust MOB Tennessee LLC, Healthtrust Purchasing Group L.P., Healthtrust Utah Management Services Inc., Healthy State Inc., Heart Specialist of North Texas PLLC, Heart of America ASC LLC, Heart of America Surgicenter LLC, Heartcare of Texas Ltd., Hearthstone Home Health Inc., Heartland Womens Group at Wesley LLC, Heathrow Imaging LLC, Heathrow Internal Medicine LLC, Hendersonville Hospital Corporation, Hendersonville Hospitalist Services Inc., Hendersonville OB/GYN LLC, Hendersonville ODC LLC, Hendersonville Primary Care LLC, Henrico Doctors Hospital - Forest Campus Property LLC, Henrico Doctors Neurology Associates LLC, Henrico Doctors OB GYN Specialists LLC, Henrico Surgical Specialists LLC, Heritage Family Care LLC, Heritage Hospital Inc., Heritage Medical Care LLC, Hermitage Primary Care LLC, Hidalgo County Family Practitioners PLLC, Hidden Lakes Health Center PLLC, Highlands Regional Medical Center, Hip & Joint Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Homecare North Inc., Hometrust Management Services Inc., Horizon Orthopedics LLC, Horizon Surgical LLC, Hospital Corp. LLC, Hospital Corporation of America, Hospital Corporation of Lake Worth, Hospital Corporation of Tennessee, Hospital Corporation of Utah, Hospital Development Properties Inc., Hospital Partners Merger LLC, Hospital Realty Corporation, Hospital-Based CRNA Services Inc., Hospitalists at Centennial Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Fairview Park LLC, Hospitalists at Greenview Regional Hospital LLC, Hospitalists at Horizon Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Parkridge LLC, Hospitalists at StoneCrest LLC, Hospitalists at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists of the Wabash Valley LLC, Houston - PPH LLC, Houston CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Houston Healthcare Holdings Inc., Houston NW Manager LLC, Houston Northwest Concessions L.L.C., Houston Northwest Operating Company L.L.C., Houston Northwest Surgical Partners Inc., Houston Obstetrics and Gynecology for Women PLLC, Houston Pediatric Specialty Group PLLC, Houston Urologic Surgicenter LLC, Houston Womans Hospital Partner LLC, ICU Associates of West Houston PLLC, IMX Holdings LLC, IRL Pathology Services MidAmerica LLC, Idaho Behavioral Health Services LLC, Idaho Physician Services Inc., Illinois Psychiatric Hospital Company Inc., Imaging Realty LLC, Imaging Services of Appomattox LLC, Imaging Services of Jacksonville LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana Manager LLC, Imaging Services of Orlando LLC, Imaging Services of Richmond LLC, Imaging Services of Roanoke LLC, Imaging Services of West Boynton LLC, InVivoLink Inc., Independence Neurosurgery Services LLC, Independence Regional Medical Group LLC, Independence Surgicare Inc., Indian Path Hospital Inc., Indianapolis Hospital Partner LLC, Institute for Womens Health and Body LLC, Institute of Advanced ENT Surgery LLC, Integrated Regional Lab LLC, Integrated Regional Laboratories LLP, Integrated Regional Laboratories Pathology Services LLC, Intensive Care Consortium Inc., Internal Medicine Associates of Huntsville PLLC, Internal Medicine Associates of Southern Hills LLC, Internal Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Internal Medicine of Pasadena PLLC, Internist Associates of Houston PLLC, Isleworth Partners Inc., J. M. Garcia M.D. PLLC, JCSH LLC, JDGC Management LLC, JFK Internal Medicine Faculty Practice LLC, JFK Medical Center Limited Partnership, JPM AA Housing LLC, Jackson County Medical Group LLC, Jackson County Pulmonary Medical Group LLC, Jacksonville CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Jacksonville Multispecialty Services LLC, Jacksonville Surgery Center Ltd., James River Internists LLC, John Randolph Family Practice LLC, John Randolph OB/GYN LLC, John Randolph Surgeons LLC, Johnson County Neurology LLC, Johnson County Surgery Center L.P., Johnson County Surgicenter L.L.C., Jordan Family Health L.L.C., Jupiter EFL Imaging Center LLC, KC Pain ASC LLC, KC Surgicare LLC, KPH-Consolidation Inc., Kansas CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Kansas City Cardiac Arrhythmia Research LLC, Kansas City Gastroenterology & Hepatology Physicians Group LLC, Kansas City Neurology Associates LLC, Kansas City Pulmonology Practice LLC, Kansas City Surgery Center Properties LLC, Kansas City Vascular & General Surgery Group LLC, Kansas City Womens Clinic Group LLC, Kansas Healthserv LLC, Kansas Pulmonary and Sleep Specialists LLC, Kansas Trauma and Critical Care Specialists LLC, Kathy L. Summers M.D. PLLC, Kendall Healthcare Group Ltd., Kendall Regional Medical Center LLC, Kendall Regional Urgent Care LLC, Kennedale Primary Care PLLC, Kingwood Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Kingwood Surgery Center LLC, Kingwood Surgicenter LLC, Kissimmee Surgicare Ltd., Kyle Primary Care PLLC, L E Corporation, LAD Imaging LLC, LGMC Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, LOC @ The Christie LLP, LOC @ The London Bridge Hospital LLP, LOC Partnership LLP, LPN TeleBehavioral Health PLLC, Lafayette OB Hospitalists LLC, Lafayette Urogynecology & Urology Center LLC, Lake City Imaging LLC, Lake City Regional Medical Group LLC, Lake Forest Family Health PLLC, Lakeside Radiology LLC, Lakeside Womens Services LLC, Lakeview Cardiology Specialists LLC, Lakeview Hospital Physician Services LLC, Lakeview Internal Medicine LLC, Lakeview Medical Center LLC, Lakeview Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Lakeview Regional Physician Group LLC, Lakeview Urology & General Surgery LLC, Lakewood Surgicare Inc., Laredo Medco LLC, Largo Medical Center Inc., Largo Physician Group LLC, Las Colinas Primary Care PLLC, Las Colinas Surgery Center Ltd., Las Encinas Hospital, Las Palmas Del Sol Cardiology PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Internal Medicine PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Urgent Care PLLC, Las Vegas ASC LLC, Las Vegas Surgicare Inc., Las Vegas Surgicare Ltd. a Nevada Limited Partnership, Lawnwood Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, Lawnwood Healthcare Specialists LLC, Lawnwood Medical Center Inc., Layton Family Practice LLC, Leaders in Oncology Care Limited, Leadership Healthcare Holdings II L.P. L.L.P., Leadership Healthcare Holdings L.P. L.L.P., Lees Summit Family Care LLC, Leslie Cohan M.D. PLLC, Lewis-Gale Hospital Incorporated, Lewis-Gale Medical Center LLC, Lewis-Gale Physicians LLC, Lewisville Primary Care PLLC, Lewisville Surgicare LLC, Lincoln Surgery Center LLC, Live Oak Immediate Care Center LLC, London Oncology Clinic LLP, London Pathology Limited, London Radiography & Radiotherapy Services Limited, Lone Peak Hospital Inc., Lone Star Intensivists at Gulf Coast PLLC, Lonestar Provider Network, Longview Regional Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Lorain County Surgery Center Ltd., Los Gatos Surgical Center a California Limited Partnership, Los Robles Regional Medical Center, Los Robles Regional Medical Center MOB LLC, Los Robles SurgiCenter LLC, Loudoun Surgery Center LLC, Louisiana Psychiatric Company Inc., Loveland Surgicenter LLC, Low Country Health Services Inc. of the Southeast, Lowry Surgicenter LLC, M. Jamshidi D.O. PLLC, MCA Investment Company, MCA-CTMC Holdings LLC, MEC Endoscopy LLC, MFA G.P. LLC, MFM Fact PLLC, MGH Medical Inc., MH Anesthesiology Physicians LLC, MH Angel Medical Center LLLP, MH Asheville Specialty Hospital LLC, MH Blue Ridge Medical Center LLLP, MH Eckerd Living Center LLLP, MH Highlands-Cashiers Medical Center LLLP, MH Hospital Holdings Inc., MH Hospital Manager LLC, MH Master Holdings LLLP, MH Master LLC, MH McDowell Imaging LLLP, MH Mission Hospital LLLP, MH Mission Hospital McDowell LLLP, MH Mission Imaging LLLP, MH Physician Services LLC, MH Transylvania Imaging LLLP, MH Transylvania Regional Hospital LLLP, MHS Partnership Holdings JSC Inc., MHS Partnership Holdings SDS Inc., MHS SC Partner L.L.C., MHS Surgery Centers L.P., MMC Sleep Lab Management LLC, MOSC Sports Medicine Inc., MOVCO Inc., MP Management LLC, MRT&C Inc., MSL Acquisition LLC, MVH Professional Services LLC, Macon Healthcare LLC, Macon Northside Health Group LLC, Macon Northside Hospital LLC, Macon Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, Madison Behavioral Health LLC, Mainland Family Medicine PLLC, Mainland Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Mainland Primary Care Physicians PLLC, Management Services Holdings Inc., Manatee Surgicare Ltd., Marietta Outpatient Medical Building Inc., Marietta Outpatient Surgery Ltd., Marietta Surgical Center Inc., Marion Community Hospital Inc., Mark Gottesman M.D. PLLC, Martin Fletcher & Associates L.P., Martin Fletcher Associates Holdings Inc., Mary Alice Cowan M.D. PLLC, Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialists of Corpus Christi PLLC, Maternal Fetal Services of Utah LLC, Maury County Behavioral Health LLC, Mayhill Cancer Center LLC, McAllen Comprehensive Upper Extremity Center PLLC, McKinney Surgeons PLLC, Mechanicsville Imaging LLC, Mecklenburg Surgical Land Development Ltd., Med City Dallas Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Med Corp. Inc., Med Group - Southern Hills Hospitalists LLC, Med-Center Hosp./Houston Inc., Med-Point of New Hampshire Inc., Medi Flight of Oklahoma LLC, MediCredit Inc., MediPurchase Inc., MediStone Healthcare Ventures Inc., MediVision Inc., MediVision of Mecklenburg County Inc., MediVision of Tampa Inc., Medical Arts Hospital of Texarkana Inc., Medical Associates of Ocala LLC, Medical Care America Colorado LLC, Medical Care America LLC, Medical Care Financial Services Corp., Medical Care Real Estate Finance Inc., Medical Care Surgery Center Inc., Medical Center - West Inc., Medical Center Imaging Inc., Medical Center Surgery Associates L.P., Medical Center of Baton Rouge Inc., Medical Center of Plano Partner LLC, Medical Center of Port St. Lucie Inc., Medical Center of Santa Rosa Inc., Medical Center of Southwest Florida LLC, Medical Centers of Oklahoma LLC, Medical City Dallas Hospital Inc., Medical City Dallas Partner LLC, Medical City Dallas Primary Care PLLC, Medical City Frisco, Medical City OB-GYN PLLC, Medical City Pediatrics PLLC, Medical City Specialty Surgicenter of Dallas LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Alliance LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Frisco LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Lewisville LLC, Medical City Transplant PLLC, Medical Corporation of America, Medical Group - Dickson Inc., Medical Group - Southern Hills of Brentwood LLC, Medical Group - Southern Hills of Nolensville LLC, Medical Group - StoneCrest FP Inc., Medical Group - StoneCrest Inc., Medical Group - Stonecrest Pulmonology LLC, Medical Group - Summit Inc., Medical Imaging Inc., Medical Imaging of Colorado LLC, Medical Office Buildings of Kansas LLC, Medical Oncology Associates LLC, Medical Partners of North Florida LLC, Medical Plaza Ambulatory Surgery Center Associates L.P., Medical Specialties Inc., Memorial Family Practice Associates LLC, Memorial Health Primary Care at St. Johns Bluff LLC, Memorial Healthcare Group Inc., Memorial Neurosurgery Group LLC, Memorial Satilla Specialists LLC, Memorial University Medical Center, Menorah Medical Group LLC, Menorah Urgent Care LLC, Mercy ASC LLC, Metairie Primary Care Associates LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Boerne LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Landmark LLC, Methodist Cardiology Physicians, Methodist CareNow Physician Associates, Methodist CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio Ltd. L.L.P., Methodist Inpatient Management Group, Methodist Medical Center ASC L.P., Methodist Physician Alliance, Methodist Physician Practice Services LLC, Methodist Physician Practices PLLC, Metroplex Surgicenters Inc., Metropolitan Multispecialty Physicians Group Inc., Miami Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Miami Beach Healthcare Group Ltd., Miami Dade Surgical Specialists LLC, Miami Lakes Surgery Center Ltd., Miami-Dade Cardiology Consultants LLC, Michael Mann M.D. PLLC, Mid-America Surgery Center LLC, Mid-America Surgery Institute LLC, Mid-Cities Surgi-Center Inc., Mid-Continent Health Services Inc., MidAmerica Division Inc., MidAmerica Oncology LLC, Middle Georgia Hospital LLC, Middle Georgia Urgent Care Services LLC, Middle Tennessee Neurology LLC, Midtown Diagnostics LLC, Midwest Cardiology Specialists LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Kansas LLC, Midwest Division - ACH LLC, Midwest Division - CMC LLC, Midwest Division - LRHC LLC, Midwest Division - LSH LLC, Midwest Division - MCI LLC, Midwest Division - MMC LLC, Midwest Division - OPRMC LLC, Midwest Division - RBH LLC, Midwest Division - RMC LLC, Midwest Division Spine Care LLC, Midwest Doctors Group LLC, Midwest Heart & Vascular Specialists LLC, Midwest Holdings Inc., Midwest Infectious Disease Specialists LLC, Midwest Medicine Associates LLC, Midwest Metropolitan Physicians Group LLC, Midwest Oncology Associates LLC, Midwest Trauma Services LLC, Midwest Womens Healthcare Specialists LLC, Mikrod Services Inc., Mill Creek Outpatient Services LLC, Millenium Health Care of Oklahoma Inc., Mission Bay Memorial Hospital Inc., Mission Community Anesthesiology Specialists LLC, Mission Employer Solutions LLC, Mission Health, Mission Health Partners Inc., Missouri Healthcare System L.P., Mobile Corps. Inc., Mobile Heartbeat, Mobile Heartbeat LLC, Montgomery Cancer Center LLC, Montgomery Hospitalists LLC, Montgomery Regional Hospital Inc., Montgomery Surgery Associates LLC, Mountain Division - CVH LLC, Mountain Division Inc., Mountain View Hospital Inc., Mountain View MRI Associates Ltd., Mountain West Surgery Center LLC, MountainStar Behavioral Health LLC, MountainStar Brigham General Surgery LLC, MountainStar Canyon Surgical Clinic LLC, MountainStar Cardiology Ogden Regional LLC, MountainStar Cardiology St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Intensivist Services LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Cache Valley LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Ogden Regional Medical Center LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - St. Marks Hospital LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Neurosurgery-St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Primary Care LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Specialty Care LLC, MountainStar Specialty Services LLC, MountainStar Urgent Care LLC, MountainView GME Primary Care LLC, Mountainstar Brigham OBGYN LLC, Mountainstar Cardiovascular Services LLC, Mountainstar Ogden Pediatrics LLC, Movement Disorders of North Texas PLLC, Mt. Ogden Utah Surgical Center LLC, NPAS Inc., NPAS Solutions LLC, NT Urgent Care PLLC, NTGP LLC, NTMC Management Company, NTMC Venture Inc., NTX Pathology Program PLLC, Nashville Psychiatric Company Inc., Nashville Shared Services General Partnership, Nashville Surgicenter LLC, Natchez Medical Associates LLC, Natchez Surgery Center LLC, National Association of Senior Friends, National Contact Center Management Group LLC, National Patient Account Services Inc., National Transfer Center Management Services LLC, Navarro Memorial Hospital Inc., NeighborMD Management LLC, Network MS of Florida Inc., Network Management Services Inc., Neuro Affiliates Company, Neuro-Hospitalist of Clear Lake PLLC, NeuroHospitalist of McAllen PLLC, Neurological Eye Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Neurological Specialists PLLC, Neurological Specialists of McKinney PLLC, Neurology Associates of Hendersonville LLC, Neurology Associates of Kansas LLC, Neurosurgery Atlanta LLC, Neurosurgery of Kingwood PLLC, Neurosurgical Associates of North Texas PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of El Paso PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Nevada Surgery Center of Southern Hills L.P., Nevada Surgicare of Southern Hills LLC, Nevada Urgent Care Holdings Inc., New Iberia Healthcare LLC, New Iberia Holdings Inc., New Port Richey Hospital Inc., New Port Richey Surgery Center Ltd., New Rose Holding Company Inc., Niceville Family Practice LLC, North Augusta Imaging Management LLC, North Augusta Imaging Services LLC, North Augusta Rehab Health Center LLC, North Austin Plastic Surgery Associates PLLC, North Austin Surgery Center L.P., North Brandon Imaging LLC, North Central Florida Health System Inc., North Central Methodist ASC L.P., North Charleston Diagnostic Imaging Center LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Lake City LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Live Oak LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Tallahassee LLC, North Florida Division I Inc., North Florida Division Practice Inc., North Florida GI Center GP Inc., North Florida GI Center Ltd., North Florida Immediate Care Center Inc., North Florida Neurosurgery LLC, North Florida Outpatient Imaging Center Ltd., North Florida Physician Services Inc., North Florida Physicians LLC, North Florida Radiation Oncology LLC, North Florida Regional Company Care LLC, North Florida Regional Freestanding Surgery Center L.P., North Florida Regional Investments Inc., North Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., North Florida Regional Psychiatry LLC, North Florida Regional Trauma LLC, North Florida Rehab Investments LLC, North Florida Surgical Associates LLC, North Georgia Primary Care Group LLC, North Hills Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., North Hills Catheterization Lab LLC, North Hills Orthopaedic Surgeons PLLC, North Hills Surgicare L.P., North Houston - TRMC LLC, North Miami Beach Surgery Center Limited Partnership, North Miami Beach Surgical Center LLC, North Palm Beach County Surgery Center LLC, North River Physician Network LLC, North Shore Specialists of Texas PLLC, North Suburban Spine Center L.P., North Tampa Imaging LLC, North Texas - MCA LLC, North Texas Cardiology PLLC, North Texas Craniofacial Fellowship Program PLLC, North Texas Division Inc., North Texas General L.P., North Texas Geriatrics PLLC, North Texas Heart Surgery Center PLLC, North Texas Internal Medicine Specialists PLLC, North Texas Medical Center Inc., North Texas Neuro Stroke OP PLLC, North Texas Pulmonary Critical Care PLLC, North Texas Sports and Orthopedics Center PLLC, North Texas Stroke Center PLLC, North Texas of Hope PLLC, North Transfer Center LLC, Northeast Florida Cancer Services LLC, Northeast Methodist Surgicare Ltd., Northeast PHO Inc., Northern Utah Healthcare Corporation, Northern Utah Healthcare Imaging Holdco LLC, Northern Utah Imaging LLC, Northern Virginia CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Northern Virginia Community Hospital LLC, Northern Virginia Hospital Corporation, Northern Virginia Surgicenter LLC, Northlake Medical Center LLC, Northlake Physician Practice Network Inc., Northlake Surgical Center L.P., Northlake Surgicare Inc., Northside MRI Inc., Northwest Fla. Home Health Agency Inc., Northwest Florida Healthcare Systems Inc., Northwest Florida Multispecialty Physicians LLC, Northwest Florida Primary Care LLC, Northwest Medical Center Inc., Notami (Opelousas) Inc., Notami Hospitals LLC, Notami Hospitals of Florida Inc., Notami Hospitals of Louisiana Inc., Notami Hospitals of Missouri Inc., Notami LLC, Notco LLC, Nuclear Diagnosis Inc., OB Hospitalists of Womans Hospital PLLC, OB/GYN of Brownsville PLLC, OB/Gyn Associates of Denton PLLC, OBS Diagnostic and Treatment Centre LLP, ODP Holdings LLC, ODP Manager LLC, ODP Properties LLC, OHH Imaging Services LLC, OPRMC-HBP LLC, Oak Hill Acquisition Inc., Oak Hill Family Care LLC, Oak Hill Hospitalists LLC, Oakwood Surgery Center Ltd. LLP, Ocala Health Company Care LLC, Ocala Health Imaging Services LLC, Ocala Health Primary Care LLC, Ocala Health Surgical Group LLC, Ocala Health Trauma LLC, Ocala Regional Outpatient Services Inc., Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery LLC, Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery Partner LLC, Occupational Health Services of PRH LLC, Occupational and Family Medicine of South Texas, Ogden Imaging LLC, Ogden Internal Medicine & Urology LLC, Ogden Regional Health Plan Inc., Ogden Regional Medical Center Professional Billing LLC, Ogden Senior Center LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy Manager LLC, Okaloosa Hospital Inc., Okeechobee Hospital Inc., Oklahoma Holding Company LLC, Oklahoma Outpatient Surgery Limited Partnership, Oklahoma Physicians - Medical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Primary Care LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Surgical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Surgicare Inc., Old Fort Village LLC, On-Site Primary Care PLLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi LLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi Manager LLC, OneSourceMed Inc., Online Pathology Services Limited, Orange County Healthcare LLC, Orange Park Hospitalists LLC, Orange Park Medical Center Inc., Orlando CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Ltd., Orlando Surgicare Ltd., Orthopaedic Specialty Associates L.P., Orthopaedic Sports Specialty Associates Inc., Orthopedic Hospital Ltd., Orthopedics Specialists LLC, Osceola Neurological Associates LLC, Osceola Physician Network LLC, Osceola Regional Hospital Inc., Osceola Regional Hospitalists LLC, Osceola Surgical Associates LLC, Outpatient Cardiovascular Center of Central Florida LLC, Outpatient GP LLC, Outpatient Services - LAD LLC, Outpatient Services Holdings Inc., Outpatient Surgical Services Ltd., Outpatient Womens and Childrens Surgery Center Ltd., Overland Park Cardiovascular Inc., Overland Park Medical Specialists LLC, Overland Park Orthopedics LLC, Overland Park Surgical Specialties LLC, Oviedo Medical Center LLC, Ozarks Medical Services Inc., P&L Associates, P/SL Hyperbaric Partnership, PET CT LLP, PMM Inc., POH Holdings LLC, PSG Delegated Services LLC, PTS Solutions LLC, Pacific Partners Management Services Inc., Palm Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Palm Beach General Surgery LLC, Palm Beach Healthcare System Inc., Palm Beach Hospitalists Program LLC, Palmer Medical Center LLC, Palms West Gastroenterology LLC, Palms West Hospital Limited Partnership, Palms West Surgery Center Ltd., Paragon Physicians Hospital Organization of South Texas Inc., Paragon SDS Inc., Paragon Surgery Centers of Texas Inc., Paragon WSC Inc., Paragon of Texas Health Properties Inc., Parallon Business Solutions LLC, Parallon Enterprises LLC, Parallon Health Information Solutions LLC, Parallon Holdings LLC, Parallon Payroll Solutions LLC, Parallon Physician Services LLC, Parallon Revenue Cycle Services Inc., Park Central Surgical Center Ltd., Park Ridge Surgery Center LLC, Park South Imaging Center Ltd., Park View Insurance Company, Parkersburg SJ Holdings Inc., Parkland Hospitalists Program LLC, Parkland Oncology LLC, Parkland Physician Services Inc., Parkridge East Specialty Associates LLC, Parkridge Hospitalists Inc., Parkridge Medical Associates LLC, Parkridge Medical Center Inc., Parkridge Professionals Inc., Parkside Surgery Center Inc., Parkway Cardiac Center Ltd., Parkway Hospital Inc., Parkway Surgery Services Ltd., Parthenon Insurance Company Limited, Pasadena Bayshore Hospital Inc., PatientKeeper, PatientKeeper Inc., Patients First Neurology LLC, Pavilion 2 Condominium Property LLC, Pavilion 2 Medical Office Building Condominium Association Inc., Pavilion Surgicenter LLC, Peach State Anesthesia Partners LLC, Pearland Institute for Womens Health PLLC, Pearland Partner LLC, Pediatric Anesthesia Consultants of San Antonio PLLC, Pediatric Cardiac Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Critical Care of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Hospitalists of Conroe PLLC, Pediatric Intensivist Group LLC, Pediatric Intensivists of El Paso PLLC, Pediatric Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Specialty Clinic LLC, Pediatric Surgicare Inc., Pediatrics of Greater Houston PLLC, Pensacola Primary Care Inc., Physician Associates of Corporate Woods LLC, Physicians Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Physicians West Surgicenter LLC, Pinellas Medical LLC, Pinnacle Physician Network LLC, Pioneer Medical LLC, Plains Healthcare System Inc., Plano Ambulatory Surgery Associates L.P., Plano Heart Institute L.P., Plano Heart Management LLC, Plano Surgery Center - GP LLC, Plano Surgery Center Real Estate LLC, Plano Surgicenter Real Estate Manager LLC, Plano Urology PLLC, Plantation General Hospital L.P., Plaza Medical Specialists PLLC, Plaza Primary Care PLLC, Plaza Transplant Center PLLC, Podiatry of Clear Lake PLLC, Poinciana Medical Center Inc., Port St. Lucie Surgery Center Ltd., Portland Primary Care LLC, Portsmouth Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Portsmouth Surgicenter LLC, Preferred Hospitals Inc., Preferred Works WC LLC, Premier ASC LLC, Premier Medical Management Ltd., Primary Care Medical Associates Inc., Primary Care Plano PLLC, Primary Care Services of Orlando LLC, Primary Care South PLLC, Primary Care West PLLC, Primary Care of West End LLC, Primary Health Asset Holdings Ltd., Primary Health Group Inc., Primary Health Inc., Primary Health Network of South Texas, Primary Health Physicians PLLC, Primary Medical Management Inc., Proaxis Therapy HealthOne LLC, Provident Professional Building Condominium Association Inc., Psychiatry Services of Osceola LLC, Pulaski Community Hospital Inc., Pulaski Urology LLC, Pulmonary Renal Intensivist Group LLC, Putnam Community Medical Center of North Florida LLC, Putnam Hospital Inc., Putnam Radiation Oncology LLC, Putnam Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Putnam Surgical Group LLC, Quantum/Bellaire Imaging Ltd., Quick Care Centers LLC, Quivira Internal Medicine Inc., RCH LLC, RMC - Pulmonary LLC, RMC Transplant Physicians LLC, RMCA Professionals Mgmt LLC, ROi CPS LLC, Radford Family Medicine LLC, Radiation Oncology Center of Thornton LLC, Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Raleigh Community Medical Office Building Ltd., Rapides After Hours Clinic L.L.C., Rapides Healthcare System L.L.C., Rapides Regional Physician Group LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Primary Care LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Specialty Care LLC, Rapides Surgery Center LLC, Raulerson GYN LLC, Raulerson Gastroenterology LLC, Raulerson Primary Care LLC, Raymore Medical Group LLC, Red Rock Holdco LLC, Red Rock at Smoke Ranch LLC, Red Rocks Surgery Center LLC, Redmond Anesthesia Services LLC, Redmond Hospital Services LLC, Redmond Neurosurgery LLC, Redmond Park Health Services Inc., Redmond Park Hospital LLC, Redmond Physician Practice Company, Redmond Specialty Services LLC, Regional Hospital Healthcare Partners LLC, Research Cardiology Associates LLC, Research Family Physicians LLC, Research Internal Medicine LLC, Research Neurology Associates LLC, Research Neuroscience Institute LLC, Resource Optimization & Innovation L.L.C., Reston Hospital Center LLC, Reston Hospitalists LLC, Reston Surgery Center L.P., Retreat Cardiology LLC, Retreat Hospital LLC, Retreat Internal Medicine LLC, Retreat Surgical Associates LLC, Rhodes Limited-Liability Company, Richmond Imaging Employer Corp., Richmond Multi-Specialty LLC, Richmond Pediatric Surgeons LLC, Ridgeline Surgicenter LLC, Rim Building Partners L.P., Rio Grande Healthcare MSO Inc., Rio Grande NP Inc., Rio Grande Regional Hospital Inc., Rio Grande Valley Cardiology PLLC, Rio Grande Valley CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Rio Grande Valley Urology PLLC, Riverside CyberKnife Manager LLC, Riverside Healthcare System L.P., Riverside Holdings Inc., Riverside Hospital Inc., Riverside Imaging LLC, Riverwalk ASC LLC, Roanoke Imaging LLC, Roanoke Neurosurgery LLC, Roanoke Surgery Center L.P., Roanoke Valley Gynecology LLC, Robotic Radiosurgery LLP, Rocky Mountain Pediatric Hematology Oncology LLC, Rocky Mountain Surgery Center LLC, Rome Imaging Center Limited Partnership, Roodlane Medical Limited, Rose Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Rose Health Partners LLC, Rose Medical Plaza Ltd., Rose POB Inc., Rosewood Medical Center Inc., Rosewood Professional Building Ltd., Round Rock Hospital Inc., Round Rock Trauma Surgeons PLLC, Royal Oaks Surgery Center L.P., S.A. Medical Center Inc., SAPN LLC, SCRI Global Services Limited, SCRI Holdings LLC, SCRI Scientifics LLC, SJMC LLC, SSHR Holdco LLC, SSJ St. Petersburg Holdings Inc., STPN Manager LLC, SWMC Inc., Sahara Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Salem Hospitalists LLC, Salem Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Salt Lake City Surgicare Inc., Samaritan LLC, San Antonio Division Inc., San Antonio Regional Hospital Inc., San Antonio Surgicenter LLC, San Bernardino Imaging LLC, San Joaquin Surgical Center Inc., San Jose Healthcare System LP, San Jose Hospital L.P., San Jose LLC, San Jose Medical Center LLC, San Jose Pathology Outreach LLC, San Marcos ASC LLC, San Marcos Surgicenter LLC, Sante Fe Family Practitioners PLLC, Sarah Cannon Development Innovations LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute UK Limited, Sarasota Doctors Hospital Inc., Savannah Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Savannah Health Network LLC, Savannah Health Services LLC, Savannah Inpatient Services LLC, Savannah Multispecialty Associates LLC, Savannah Pediatric Care LLC, Savannah Primary Care Associates LLC, Sebring Health Services LLC, Selma Medical Center Hospital Inc., Senior Health Associates LLC, Short Pump Imaging LLC, Silicon Valley Health Holdings LLC, Silicon Valley Surgery Center L.P., Silicon Valley Surgicenter LLC, Sky Ridge Spine Manager LLC, Sky Ridge Surgery Center L.P., Skyline Medical Group LLC, Skyline Neuroscience Associates LLC, Skyline Rehab Associates LLC, Skyline Specialty Associates LLC, Smith Laboratories Inc., Solis Mammography at Bayshore Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Conroe Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Denton Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at HCA Houston Tomball LLC, Solis Mammography at Kingwood Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Las Colinas Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Alliance LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Arlington LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Lewisville LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of McKinney LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Plano LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical City Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography at Pearland Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Rose Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Skyline Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at StoneCrest Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at West Houston Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Womans Hospital of Texas LLC, Solis Mammography of Cedar Hill LLC, Solis Mammography of CyFair LLC, Solis Mammography of Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography of Flower Mound LLC, Solis Mammography of Frisco LLC, Solis Mammography of Garland LLC, Solis Mammography of Grand Prairie LLC, Solis Mammography of Houston NW LLC, Solis Mammography of Katy LLC, Solis Mammography of Louetta/249 LLC, Solis Mammography of Mainland LLC, Solis Mammography of Mansfield LLC, Solis Mammography of Mesquite LLC, Solis Mammography of Montgomery LLC, Solis Mammography of North Cypress LLC, Solis Mammography of North Loop LLC, Solis Mammography of Sugar Land LLC, Solis Mammography of West Plano LLC, Solis Mammography of Womans Place LLC, South Atlantic Division Inc., South Austin Surgery Center Ltd., South Austin Surgical Management LLC, South Austin Surgicenter LLC, South Brandon Imaging LLC, South Florida Division Practice Inc., South Texas Surgicare Inc., South Transfer Center LLC, South Valley Hospital L.P., Southeast Georgia Health Services LLC, Southern Hills Medical Center LLC, Southern Hills Neurology Consultants LLC, Southern Kentucky Medicine Associates LLC, Southern Kentucky Surgicenter LLC, Southern Texas Physicians Network, Southpoint LLC, Southtown Womens Clinic LLC, Southwest Florida Health System Inc., Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., Southwest Medical Center Family Practice LLC, Southwest Medical Center Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Southwest Medical Center Surgical Group LLC, Southwest Medpro Ltd., Southwest Surgical Clinic Inc., Southwest Virginia Orthopedics and Spine LLC, Spalding Rehabilitation L.L.C., Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology PLLC, Specialty Associates of West Houston PLLC, Specialty Physicians of Northern Virginia LLC, Specialty Surgicare of Las Vegas LP, Spotsylvania Condominium Property LLC, Spotsylvania Medical Center Inc., Spotsylvania Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Spotsylvania Regional Surgery Center LLC, Spring Branch Family Practitioners PLLC, Spring Branch Medical Center Inc., Spring Hill Hospital Inc., Spring Hill Imaging LLC, Spring Hill Physicians LLC, Springview KY LLC, Spruce Pine Healthcare LLC, St. Davids Austin Area ASC LLC, St. Davids Cardiology PLLC, St. Davids CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, St. Davids Healthcare Partnership L.P. 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Ann & Simmons LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Cactus & Southern Highlands LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Charleston & Decatur LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Charleston/Sloan LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Craig & Clayton LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Craig & Decatur LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Durango & Cheyenne LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Durango & Flamingo LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Eastern & Horizon Ridge LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Rainbow/Mardon LLC, Urgent Care Extra - Warm Springs & Green Valley LLC, Urgent Care Extra Silverado & Maryland LLC, Urgent Care Extra-Tropicana & Jones LLC, Urgent Care Nevada LLC, Urological Specialists of Arlington PLLC, Urology Associates (London) Limited, Urology Center of North Georgia LLC, Urology Services of El Paso PLLC, Urology Specialists Devonshire LLP, Urology Specialists London LLP, Urology Specialists of Kingwood PLLC, Urology Specialists of Richmond LLC, Urology Surgery Center of Colorado LLC, Utah CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Utah Imaging GP LLC, Utah Medco LLC, Utah Surgery Center L.P., VH Holdco Inc., VH Holdings Inc., VHSC Plantation LLC, VIP Inc., Valify, Valify Inc., Value Health Holdings Inc., Value Health Management Inc., Vascular and Endovascular Specialists LLC, Venture Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Venture Medical Management LLC, Village Oaks Medical Center Inc., Virginia Care Partners ACO LLC, Virginia Gynecologic Oncology LLC, Virginia Hematology & Oncology Associates Inc., Virginia Hospitalists Inc., Virginia Psychiatric Company Inc., Virginia Quality Care Partners LLC, Vision Consulting Group LLC, Vision Holdings LLC, W & C Hospital Inc., WCP Properties LLC, WHG Medical LLC, WHMC Inc., WJHC LLC, Walterboro Community Hospital Inc., Warren County Ambulance Service LLC, Wasatch Front Surgery Center LLC, Washington Holdco LLC, Waterway Primary Care LLC, Weatherford Health Services LLC, Weatherford Mammography JV LLC, Weatherford Regional Medical Center, Welbeck Street Diagnostic Centre LLP, Wellington Diagnostic Services LLP, Wesley Cath Lab LLC, Wesley Manager LLC, Wesley Medical Center LLC, Wesley Physician Services LLC, Wesley Physicians - Anesthesiologist LLC, Wesley Physicians - Cardiovascular LLC, Wesley Physicians - Medical Specialties LLC, Wesley Physicians - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Wesley Physicians - Primary Care LLC, Wesley Select Network LLC, Wesley Urgent Care LLC, West Boynton Beach Open Imaging Center LLC, West Creek Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, West Creek Medical Center Inc., West Florida - MHT LLC, West Florida - PPH LLC, West Florida Behavioral Health Inc., West Florida Cardiology Network LLC, West Florida Cardiology Physicians LLC, West Florida CareNow Urgent Care LLC, West Florida Division Inc., West Florida Gulf Coast Primary Care LLC, West Florida HealthWorks LLC, West Florida Imaging Services LLC, West Florida Internal Medicine LLC, West Florida PET Services LLC, West Florida Physician Network LLC, West Florida Professional Billing LLC, West Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., West Florida Specialty Physicians LLC, West Florida Trauma Network LLC, West Florida Urgent Care Network LLC, West Hills Hospital, West Hills Surgical Center Ltd., West Houston ASC Inc., West Houston Healthcare Group Ltd., West Houston Internal Specialists PLLC, West Houston LLC, West Houston Medical PLLC, West Houston Outpatient Medical Facility Inc., West Houston Surgicare Inc., West Jacksonville Medical Center Inc., West Jordan Hospital Corporation, West LPN Fort Worth Oncology PLLC, West LPN Inc., West Los Angeles Physicians Hospital Inc., West McKinney Imaging Services LLC, West Paces Services Inc., West Park Surgery Center L.P., West Valley Imaging LLC, West Valley Medical Center Inc., West Valley Medical Group LLC, West Valley Medical Group Specialty Services LLC, West Valley Therapy Services LLC, Westbury Hospital Inc., Western Plains Capital Inc., Westlake Surgicare L.P., Westminster Community Hospital, Westside Surgery Center Ltd., Wichita CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Wildwood Medical Center Inc., Willis Surgicenter LLC, Wilson County Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Womans Health Group PLLC, Womans Hospital Merger LLC, Womans Hospital of Texas Incorporated, Women Practitioners of Houston PLLC, Women Specialists of Bayshore PLLC, Women Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Women Specialists of Mainland PLLC, Womens & Childrens Center LLC, Womens & Childrens Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Center LLC, Womens & Childrens Pulmonology Clinic LLC, Womens Center at Brookside LLC, Womens Health Center of Central Florida LLC, Womens Health Center of SWVA LLC, Womens Hospital Indianapolis GP Inc., Womens Hospital Indianapolis L.P., Womens Link Specialty Obstetrical Referral Clinic PLLC, Womens Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Womens Surgical Specialists of Texas PLLC, Womens and Childrens Professional Management L.L.C., Womens and Childrens Specialists LLC, hInsight-Airstrip Holdings LLC, hInsight-BMA Holdings LLC, hInsight-Customer Care Holdings LLC, hInsight-Digital Reasoning Holdings LLC, hInsight-Healthbox Holdings LLC, hInsight-I2 Holdings LLC, hInsight-InVivoLink Holdings LLC, hInsight-LS Holdings LLC, hInsight-Loyale Healthcare Holdings LLC, hInsight-Mobile Heartbeat Holdings LLC, hInsight-NX LLC, hInsight-PWS I Holdings LLC, hInsight-Procured Holdings LLC, and hInsight-VAI Holdings LLC.

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General Mills, Inc. manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates in five segments: North America Retail; Convenience Stores & Foodservice; Europe & Australia; Asia & Latin America; and Pet. It offers ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and salty snacks, ice cream, nutrition bars, wellness beverages, and savory and grain snacks, as well as various organic products, including frozen and shelf-stable vegetables. It also supplies branded and unbranded food products to the North American foodservice and commercial baking industries; and manufactures and markets pet food products, including dog and cat food. The company markets its products under the Annie's, Betty Crocker, Bisquick, Blue Buffalo, Blue Basics, Blue Freedom, Bugles, Cascadian Farm, Cheerios, Chex, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp, EPIC, Fiber One, Food Should Taste Good, Fruit by the Foot, Fruit Gushers, Fruit Roll-Ups, Gardetto's, Go-Gurt, Gold Medal, Golden Grahams, Haagen-Dazs, Helpers, Jus-Rol, Kitano, Kix, Larabar, Latina, Liberte, Lucky Charms, Muir Glen, Nature Valley, Oatmeal Crisp, Old El Paso, Oui, Pillsbury, Progresso, Raisin Nut Bran, Total, Totino's, Trix, Wanchai Ferry, Wheaties, Wilderness, Yoki, and Yoplait trademarks. It sells its products directly, as well as through broker and distribution arrangements to grocery stores, mass merchandisers, membership stores, natural food chains, e-commerce retailers, commercial and noncommercial foodservice distributors and operators, restaurants, convenience stores, and pet specialty stores, as well as drug, dollar, and discount chains. The company operates 466 leased and 392 franchise ice cream parlors. General Mills, Inc. was founded in 1866 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
NASDAQ is an acronym for the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. The NASDAQ stock exchange is owned by Nasdaq, Inc. and serves as an international electronic marketplace where investors can buy and sell securities. It is the second largest stock exchange in the world.

The NASDAQ exchange lists stocks from virtually every sector of the economy. Although they are heavily weighted in technology, you will also see them as a leader in fields such as healthcare and biotech, energy and industrials and financial services.

And the NASDAQ is also an index which is referred to as the NASDAQ Composite. When you hear that the NASDAQ was up or down, they are referring to the index.

This index measures over 3,000 stocks listed on the NASDAQ exchange and includes the worlds leading tech stocks including the FAANG stocks. The index is a mathematical average of the stocks that are listed. The NASDAQ index cant be traded. However, investors can purchase an index fund that is similar to a mutual fund or an ETF and is made up of the stocks in the index.

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief history of the NASDAQ, explain how its different from the NYSE and the Dow Jones Index, and why the NASDAQ is important to investors.

What Were the Origins of the NASDAQ?

The NASDAQ started trading on February 8, 1971. It was created as an alternative to the NYSE so as to give new, emerging companies a way into the stock market. Since the NYSE is made up of primarily blue-chip companies with a large market capitalization, many financially sound companies with modest assets had to look for alternate means to raise capital.

At first, the NASDAQ only provided quotations and matched buyers and sellers with dealers. As it started trading, it became a source for speculative, over-the-counter (OTC) stocks to raise capital. However, when it became the first U.S. stock market to conduct online trading, it soon became the go-to exchange for technology stocks that saw it as a more modern way to list their stocks. In a way, it reflected the innovation that those companies represented.

What Are the Listing Requirements for the NASDAQ?

For starters, the NASDAQ is a company. So every company that wishes to be listed on the NASDAQ has to pay an initial listing fee. This fee can be between $50,000 and $75,000. In addition, there is an annual fee to remain as a member. This fee can be as lows as $42,000 or as high as $155,000 depending on the companys size.

But being part of an exchange is not just a matter of paying dues. To be listed, a company must meet a set of requirements. These include but are not limited to:

Quantitative financial requirements (earnings, market cap, and assets)

Corporate governance standards that give clear guidance about issues like shareholder rights and annual meetings

Once a stock is listed, they must continue to meet regulatory requirements by making financial information about the company and the stock available to the public. And, the companies listed on the NASDAQ must meet SEC requirements, including the filing of financial reports. All of this is done to provide transparency to investors. For this reason, as the NASDAQ has grown up it is no longer the domain of speculative over-the-counter stocks.

How is the NASDAQ Different from the NYSE?

Initially, the primary difference between the NYSE and NASDAQ was in the way trades were conducted. The NYSE is an auction market. As the word auction implies, trades occur between buyers who offer a bid price for a stock and sellers who have an ask price. The highest bidding price is matched with the lowest asking price. The NASDAQ, by contrast, started as a dealers market where these dealers served as middlemen between buyers and sellers.

With the advent of trading technology, the difference in methodology between the two exchanges is more subtle. The NASDAQ now automatically matches buyers and sellers similar to an auction system. And the NYSE relies heavily on computers to facilitate their trades. One of the differences remains the presence of human brokers who still man the trading floor of the NYSE.

Another subtle difference comes with how the exchanges ensure liquidity and security. On the NYSE, each security has a Designated Market Maker (DMM) who serves as an auctioneer of sorts. Unlike the NYSE, each security on the NASDAQ has multiple Market Makers to help ensure liquidity. Apple, for example, has 54 registered Market Makers.

Yet another difference can be found in the size and profile of the companies listed with each exchange. As of June 2022, the NYSE includes approximately 2,400 companies with a market capitalization of over $28.2 trillion. The NASDAQ has over 3,300 listings with a total market capitalization of $11 trillion dollars. Why is this significant? The NYSE has been around since 1792 making it the oldest stock exchange and for almost 200 years the only game in town. As a result, it is home to many of what are seen as the blue-chip companies. The NASDAQ, by comparison, generally consists of stocks that are more volatile and growth oriented. In recent years, it is for housing the FAANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google/Alphabet).

How is the NASDAQ Different from the Dow?

Both the Dow and the NASDAQ are predictive indicators of the market direction. In the case of the Dow, the stocks can be listed on the NYSE or the NASDAQ exchanges.

The Dow Jones (also known as The Dow) is an index of what are considered the 30 biggest companies in terms of scale and firm returns. When stock reports are given you usually hear reference to The Dow was up X number of points or The Dow was down X number of points. This is referring to the average of these 30 stocks. It is considered to be a broad view of the market in general. You may also hear the phrase advancers versus decliners. This refers to how many stocks in the Dow 30 made gains for the day (advancers) and how many had losses (decliners).

The companies in the Dow 30 make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Some investors may buy an index fund which contains only the securities that make up the Dow 30.

The NASDAQ is also an index, but it is also an exchange that is made up of over 3,400 individual securities. Many of these securities are in the technology sector. Some of these securities may be part of the Dow 30, but the index as a whole is separate from the Dow. Like the Dow, many investors choose to invest in index funds that are tailored to stocks in the NASDAQ. The USAA NASDAQ 100 Index Fund (USNQX) is one such fund. This fund includes the 100 biggest stocks (non-financial) that are listed on the NASDAQ exchange.

What Does the NASDAQ Say About Investor Sentiment?

The NASDAQ offers growth investors a cue to how much risk the market is willing to absorb at a given moment. For example, when you hear that the Dow is up (which usually means the NYSE is up), it typically signals a time of where investors may be less inclined to take risks. But when the NASDAQ is up and the Dow is down or trailing, it usually signifies that investors are more confident about the overall economy and are willing to assume more risk.

And as we stated earlier, the NASDAQ still plays a critical role in how many young companies go public. There were 34 initial public offerings (IPOs) posted on the NYSE in 2016. This was just three percent of the total volume of IPOs worldwide. By contrast, in that same year, the NASDAQ held 77 IPOs which was seven percent of global IPOs, more than double that of the NYSE.

Some Final Thoughts on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange

The arrival of the NASDAQ stock exchange in the 1970s created a choice for investors that meant more than just choosing Coke or Pepsi. By offering a lower cost of entry and welcoming start-ups with a focus on innovation, the NASDAQ gave these companies a stock exchange that looked like them.

Today, the NASDAQ is the largest electronic stock market with over 3,000 companies listed. And ironically, the five largest companies in terms of market cap are listed on the NASDAQ. However, although this stock exchange has grown up a bit, it still retains its rebellious cache. With its focus on technology stocks, many of the worlds most nimble and innovative companies look to get listed on the NASDAQ as a way to raise capital. It is almost synonymous with technology and serves as a predictor of the broader markets appetite for risk.
Bancolombia S.A. provides banking products and services in Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The company operates through nine segments: Banking Colombia, Banking Panama, Banking El Salvador, Banking Guatemala, Trust, Investment Banking, Brokerage, International Banking, and All Other. It offers checking and savings accounts, fixed term deposits, and investment products; trade financing, loans funded by domestic development banks, working capital loans, credit cards, personal and vehicle loans, payroll loans, and overdrafts; financial support to real estate developers and mortgages for individuals and companies; factoring; and financial and operating leasing services. The company also provides hedging instruments, including futures, forwards, options, and swaps; and brokerage, investment advisory, and private banking services, including selling and distributing equities, futures, foreign currencies, fixed income securities, mutual funds, and structured products. In addition, it offers cash management services; foreign currency transaction services; life, auto, commercial, and homeowner's insurance products; and online and computer banking services. Further, the company provides project and acquisition finance, debt and equity capital markets, principal investments, M&A, hedging strategies, restructurings, and structured financing; money market accounts, mutual and pension funds, private equity funds, payment and corporate trust, and custody; internet-based trading platform; inter-bank lending and repurchase agreements; managing escrow accounts, and investment and real estate funds; and transportation, securities brokerage, maintenance and remodeling, and outsourcing services. As of December 31, 2021, it operated 1,015 branches; 28,676 banking correspondents; 529 PAMs; 210 kiosks in El Salvador and 187 in Colombia; and 6,094 ATMs. Bancolombia S.A. was incorporated in 1945 and is headquartered in Medellin, Colombia.
Gannett Co., Inc. operates as a media and marketing solutions company in the United States. It operates through two segments, Publishing and Digital Marketing Solutions. The company's principal products include 230 daily print media with total paid circulation of approximately 1.9 million and Sunday circulation of 2.2 million; 249 weekly print media with total circulation of approximately 1.4 million; and 292 locally-focused websites. Its principal products also comprise 123 daily and weekly news media brands and approximately 80 magazines, and related digital platforms; sports network, as well as Reviewed.com, an affiliate marketing service; and USA TODAY NETWORK, a community events platform. The company also offers digital marketing solutions, such as online presence solutions, online advertising products, conversion software, and cloud-based software solutions. In addition, it produces niche publications that address specific local market interests, such as recreation, sports, healthcare, and real estate. Further, the company offers local market news and information, as well as advertising and subscriptions, and commercial printing and distribution services; and prints commercial materials, including flyers, business cards, and invitations. The company was formerly known as New Media Investment Group Inc. and changed its name to Gannett Co., Inc. in November 2019. Gannett Co., Inc. was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in McLean, Virginia.
GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.
North Korea has reacted to the imposition of further US and UN sanctions last week by condemning the punitive measures and conducting another round of missile tests yesterday.

According to South Koreas military, Pyongyang fired what appeared to be multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles from the countrys east coast. The launches are the latest in an accelerating series of tests in recent weeks.

Far from defending the North Korean people, the missile-testing plays directly into the hands of the US and its allies by providing a pretext for its military expansion in the region and repeated threats of war against Pyongyang. On Tuesday, an American nuclear-powered attack submarine, the USS Cheyenne, docked at the South Korea port of Busan, following a port call in April by the nuclear guided-missile submarine, the USS Michigan. Both submarines are capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The US Navy is building up what President Donald Trump described as an armada off the Korean Peninsula. Two aircraft carriersUSS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reaganare already in the area, together with their strike groups of destroyers and cruisers, and have been engaged in exercises with Japanese naval vessels. Another aircraft carrierUSS Nimitzand its strike group are en route to create an unprecedented US naval presence in the region.

The US finally pressured China and Russia into agreeing to extra UN sanctions, which were incorporated into a Security Council resolution passed last Friday. The new penalties were limited in scope, subjecting another four North Korean entities, including the Koryo Bank and Strategic Rocket Force, as well as 14 individuals, to a global travel ban and freeze on assets held overseas. While the new measures did not require a public Security Council vote, Washington insisted on a vote to intensify the pressure on North Korea.

The UN sanctions followed further unilateral American measures announced last Thursday by the US Treasury, which blacklisted nine companies and government institutions, including two Russian firms, along with three individuals, for allegedly supporting North Koreas weapons programs.

The Trump administration has placed huge pressure on China to exploit its economic clout to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs. Previous UN sanctions imposed crippling economic penalties, banning the purchase of a range of North Korean minerals and restricting the import of coalthe countrys top export commodity. Beijing, however, is reluctant to take further steps, such as cutting of oil and food supplies, fearing that would provoke an economic and political crisis in Pyongyang that Washington would exploit.

Speaking at the Security Council, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley again made a thinly disguised threat to take military action if North Korea did not accede to US demands. While paying lip service to seeking a peaceful, diplomatic resolution, she warned: Beyond diplomatic and financial consequences, the United States remains prepared to counteract North Korean aggression through other means, if necessary.

Liu Jieyi, Chinas ambassador to the UN, reiterated Beijings call for dialogue with North Korea, declaring there was a critical window of opportunity for the nuclear issue to be settled through negotiations. He urged all parties concerned to exercise restraint and called for the US to suspend the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile battery in South Korea.

Beijing is well aware that the US military build-up in Asia is not primarily directed at North Korea and its limited nuclear arsenal. The THAAD system is just one aspect of the Pentagons inter-linked, anti-missile systems in the Asia Pacific that are part of US military planning for nuclear war with China. The sophisticated X-band radar associated with the THAAD installation is able to peer deep inside the Chinese mainland and provide advanced warning of any missile launches.

Significantly, newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on Wednesday for a suspension of the controversial THAAD deployment. His office said two THAAD launchers already in place could remain, but the installation of a further four would depend on an environmental impact assessmentwhich could take months. During South Koreas recent presidential election, Moon exploited widespread opposition to THAAD by posturing as an opponent but stopped short of calling for its immediate removal. The proposed suspension is a blow to US war preparations that will undoubtedly provoke a reaction in Washington.

North Korea denounced the UN sanctions on Sunday and underscored the growing breach with China by lashing out at Beijings support for the measures. A foreign ministry spokesman declared that Washington and Beijing had railroaded the resolution through the Security Council in a high-handed and arbitrary act in pursuit of their own interests, trampling upon international justice. Pyongyang said the sanctions would not stop the development of its nuclear forces even for a moment.

The US Treasurys decision to blacklist two Russian companies appears to be a warning to Moscow not to boost ties with Pyongyang as relations between North Korea and China deteriorate. Articles have appeared in the American media highlighting trade and transport links between Russia and North Korea.

The USA Today this week estimated that trade between the two countries grew by 73 percent in the first two months of the year, compared to the corresponding period last year. It added that a Russian company had opened a new ferry line in May to the North Korean port city of Rajin. It also cited talks about upgrading rail links, and an agreement to expand the employment of North Korean workers as cheap labour in Russias timber and construction industries. However, as the article pointed out, North Korean trade with Russia was just $130 million annually, compared to $6.6 billion with China.

Speaking last Friday, Russias deputy UN ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, said the US sanctions against Russian firms were very puzzling and deeply disappointing. He added: Instead of trying to work through the bilateral backlog in our work, Washington is doing exactly the opposite and undertaking unfriendly steps. This would make it more difficult to cooperate on international affairs.

The latest North Korean missile tests will only heighten the geo-political tensions surrounding the Korean Peninsula and thus the danger of war. The Trump administration has repeatedly declared that time is short for a diplomatic solution, pointing to the alleged threat posed by North Koreas development of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the American mainland.

Those warnings were underscored when Vice Admiral James Syring, head of the US Missile Defence Agency, testified to the US House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. He said North Koreas missile tests in recent months were of great concern. His agency assumed that Pyongyang could already range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead.

This unsubstantiated assumption is precisely what Trump officials have repeatedly invoked as the pretext for pre-emptive military attacks on North Korea.
Nineteen people, including all six assailants, were killed as the result of a coordinated terrorist attack Wednesday morning that targeted Irans Parliament complex in central Tehran and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Islamic Republics founder-leader, some 15 miles to the south.

The attack, which took Iranian elite forces close to two hours to end, also wounded 43 people, some gravely.

Islamic State (ISIS) quickly claimed responsibility for the twin assaults, which showed a considerable degree of sophistication. The assailants, five men and a woman, were armed with AK-47s, hand grenades and explosive vests.

ISIS has long vowed to target Iran. Not only does the Sunni fundamentalist terror group view Shiite Muslims (who comprise the vast majority of Irans population) as apostates, but Iranian fighters and logistical support have played a major role in the Syrian governments largely successful military campaign against ISIS.

Yesterdays attack comes in the midst of a major geopolitical crisis in the Middle East, triggered by Saudi Arabias attempt to force Qatar, a tiny oil-rich Gulf emirate, to drastically curtail its economic and diplomatic relations with Iran. On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Maldives and the embattled Saudi-supported government of Yemen severed all relations with Qatar and initiated an economic blockade against itpunitive measures that stop just short of war.

Iranian authorities charged that Saudi Arabia and Washington orchestrated yesterdays terror attack. Little more than two weeks ago, Donald Trump made Saudi Arabia the site of his first foreign visit as US president. While there, he denounced Iran as a terrorist menace and proclaimed Americas unstinting support for the Saudi effort to forge a Sunni Arab military alliance against Iran.

On Tuesday, Trump issued a series of tweets hailing the Saudi action against Qatar.

In a clear reference to the Saudi absolutist regime, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted in response to yesterdays attack: Terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland. Proxies attack what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were more explicit. In a statement issued Wednesday they noted the attack came shortly after a joint meeting of the US president with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has constantly been supporting terrorists.

The IRGC referenced the Saudi regimes long history of colluding with the US military-intelligence apparatus to support Islamist terrorist groups, including ISIS. It said public opinion in the world, especially the Iranian nation  believes that (ISISs) acknowledgment of responsibility for the terror attack in Tehran indicates Riyadhs and Washingtons complicity in this wild move.

The Revolutionary Guards statement threatened retaliatory action, saying the IRGC has proved that it would not leave unanswered the shedding of innocent blood.

Yesterdays attack exacerbates an already explosive situation.

The US-armed Saudi regime has repeatedly threatened Iran. According to news reports, on Tuesday, just hours before the attack in Tehran, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said: Iran must be punished for its interference in the region.

Last month, Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vowed the Saudi regime would ensure that the battle with Tehran was waged in Iran, not the Saudi homeland.

The US political establishment, Democrats and Republicans alike, and the Pentagon, continue to threaten and bully Iran, which they view as an intolerable obstacle to unbridled US hegemony over the worlds principal oil-producing region.

Yesterday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to proceed with legislation imposing new sanctions on Iran. As it is, existing US sanctions are so threatening that most European businesses continue to refrain from extensive business dealings with Iran, despite the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the lifting of the punishing economic sanctions that the European Union imposed on Tehran in concert with Washington

Although the US elite is determined to settle accounts with Tehran, and plans for war with Iran are under constant review, there are sharp divisions in Washington over the Saudi blockade against Qatar.

US officials were reportedly informed of the action just before it was publicly announced.

Qatar plays a pivotal role in US military operations. It is the site of the forward operating base of the US Central Command, from which the US wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are largely organized and directed, and an air base that is home to 11,000 US troops.

While Trump has supported the Saudi campaign against Qatar, the US military has publicly declared its appreciation for the emirates support, and various members of Trumps administration have indicated they believe the Saudi action threatens the unity of the US-backed Gulf Cooperation Council.

Yesterday, Trump, under intense pressure, appeared to pull back somewhat. A day after he called King Salman of Saudi Arabia to draw up a list of demands for Qatar to fulfill, he called the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin HamaAl-Thani, to offer to mediate the dispute.

The US president combined this with actions meant to underscore his administrations hostility to Iran. Only after many hours did the White House issue a pro forma statement condemning the ISIS attack on Tehran. In the statement, Trump repeated his and the Saudis stock propaganda denunciation of Tehran, declaring: We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Washingtons encouragement of Saudi belligerence against Iran has thrown the relations between its client regimes in the Gulf into turmoil.

Qatar is threatened with food shortages due to the closing of its only land border, that with Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the emirate is roiled by fears the confrontation with Saudi Arabia could escalate. According to the Financial Times: As tensions swirl, (the Qatari capital) Doha has been gripped by fear of military escalation or a Saudi-backed coup against the emir.

The New York Times reported that Trumps support for Saudi Arabia has sent a chill through other Gulf states, including Oman and Kuwait, that fear that any country that defies the Saudis or the United Arab Emirates could face ostracism as Qatar has. The Times cited Gerald M. Feierstein, a former top Middle Eastern diplomat in the Obama administration, as saying: Everyone in the region is looking over their shoulder, thinking, This is potentially us.

The Saudis anti-Iran offensive and the support provided it by Washington are not just raising the hackles of Iran and various Gulf states; they are exacerbating tensions between various regional and great powers.

Israel is egging the Saudis on. Meanwhile Turkey has come to Qatars support. Ankara has become increasingly estranged from Washington, including because of the US readiness to use Kurdish forces as its shock troops in the Syrian war and its role in the failed July 2016 Turkish coup.

Yesterday, Turkeys parliament rushed through legislation authorizing the dispatch of Turkish troops to Qatar. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif flew to Ankara yesterday for talks with Turkish leaders about the crisis in the Gulf.

The tensions in the Middle East have also become a new source of frictions between Germany and the US.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel published a blistering attack on US policy in the region. Apparently, Qatar, he complained, is to be isolated more or less completely and hit existentially. Such a Trumpification of relations in a region already susceptible to crisis is particularly dangerous.

Gabriel made clear he was not just objecting to Trumps tweets about Qatar, but US policy toward Iran. Trumps recent giant military contracts with Gulf monarchies raise the risk of a new spiral in arms sales, he wrote. This policy is completely wrong and is certainly not Germanys policy.

Berlin is no less rapacious than Washington. But it views the US drive against Iran as an impediment to its own predatory ambitions, which include capturing Irans markets and oil resources through the development of closer economic ties.

The eruption of a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which would rapidly bring in the US and other powers, cannot be excluded. Whatever the immediate outcome of the current crisis, it points to the unravelling of geopolitical relations, and the consequent surge in inter-state rivalry and great power conflict, in the Middle East and around the world.
Nicole Tracking Across Florida; First November U.S. Hurricane Landfall In 37 Years
By Carrie Hojnicki. Photos by: Getty Images and courtesy of Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust and Chicago History Museum.

For all the praise Frank Lloyd Wright garnered in his 70-year career, the architect was equally a magnet for controversy in all its forms. With three wives and eight children (seven biological, one adopted), the architect spent much of his adult life racking up sensational, though not untrue, headlines like SUIT ENDS WRIGHT ROMANCE; Sculptress Who Fled With Architect to Japan Obtains Alimony (New York Times, 1925) or ISSUE WARRANT FOR WRIGHT; Architect's Wife Seeks to Re-enter Their Wisconsin Home (also New York Times, also 1925), each referring the personal tumult that seemed to follow the architect through much of his adult life.

Scholars have long been tempted to link these fascinating personal dramas to the singular genius of Wrights work, particularly in how the architect would come to shape 20th-century home life in the U.S. But for all thats common knowledge about Wright, there are a number of tantalizing details lying just below the surface. In honor of the architects forthcoming sesquicentennial, we picked ten little-known facts that offer a glimpse into the architects fascinating life.

1. Wrights childhood nursery was decorated with engravings of English cathedrals.

In his autobiography, Wright discusses how his mother prophesied his future as an architect, decorating his nursery with buildings to encourage this development. She also famously purchased her son a Froebel Gifts block set, and used it heavily in his early childhood education.

2. Wright abandoned his practice for a year in 1909 to run away with Mamah Borthwick Cheney.

First connected when Cheney and her husband Edwin commissioned Wright to build their Oak Park, Illinois, home in 1903, the amorous couple abandoned their spouses, children, and lives (and Wright his practice) in 1909 to spend a year together in Europe before relocating to Taliesin in 1911. This elopement would estrange Wright from several of his children for decades to come.

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3. A disgruntled servant carried out a brutal seven-person murder at Wrights Taliesin estate in 1914.

While Wright was away on business in Chicago, in 1914, a disgruntled servant at Taliesin set the structures living quarters on fire before murdering seven of the homes residents, including Wrights then-partner, Mamah Borthwick Cheney.

More: Frank Lloyd Wrights 150th Anniversary Events This Summer

4. Wright was vehemently against the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

Wright was famous for his disdain for other architects, and refused to join the AIA. Even so, the organization awarded the architect its gold medal in 1949.

5. In 1926, Wright was arrested in violation of the Mann Act, a stipulation that made it illegal for men to transport women across state lines for immoral purposes.

Though his divorce with second wife Miriam Noel was not yet final, Wright fled to Taliesin in 1926 with Olgivanna Lazovich Hinzenburg, whom he had met at a Russian ballet in Chicago. The charges would later be dropped, and the pair would be formally married in 1928.

6. Wright dabbled in fashion design.

According to Wright biographer David Hanks, the architect designed dresses for his wife Olgivanna and female clients, though little documentation exists around the designs.

7. Richard Neutra briefly worked for Wright.

The Austrian-American Neutra spent a brief stint at Wrights practice with his friend, architect Rudolph Schindler, before ascending to modernist fame himself.

8. Wright was a prominent dealer in Japanese art.

Until his death in 1959, Wright managed a prosperous business dealing Japanese block prints. Its been said that at times during his career, Wright earned more from this operation than his architectural practice.

9. The architects son John Lloyd Wright invented Lincoln Logs.

Wrights second eldest son, John Lloyd, followed in his fathers footsteps to a career in architecture, inventing the still-prolific Lincoln Logs in 1916.

10. Wright was an early automobile adopter and a car collector his whole adult life.

Wright is said to have owned more than 50 cars in his adult life, a staggering number considering he was born two decades before the invention of the automobile. His love of cars informed the ramped design of his final project, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

This story originally appeared on Architectural Digest.

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Annabelle Wallis (Photo: Getty Images)

British actress Annabelle Wallis appears to be the definition of regal, refined elegance. So when people meet her for the first time, she doesnt blame them for being, well, a bit thrown off.

I grew up following my brother around. I joined a paintball team. So much of me is a tomboy and I love to offset that with the fashion element, she tells Yahoo Style. I have this classic blond aesthetic but I can do a wheelie on a motorbike and ride a dirt bike. So while people expect her to be the lady in the corset, she jokes, they instead get a woman whos at home on a skateboard and riding rollercoasters.

But on the red carpet, Wallis brings the glam. Big time. She works with top stylist Elizabeth Stewart, and gravitates towards bright colors and bold cuts. She and Stewart eat donuts during fittings, and Wallis loves every step of the process  something many other actors moan about.

Its so fun to play dress-up. Its such an honor to go to a red carpet event and to think that people want to dress you, she says. Its important to go for it. Hollywood is lacking a little glamour at the moment. I like to go for it.

Thats apparently true in every way. In The Mummy, opening Friday, shes a fearless archeologist with zero interest in anything resembling fashion, as shes too busy fighting a mutinous corpse that comes to life. That means she kept pace with her famously tireless costar Tom Cruise  who in this film plays a soldier of fortune, and is the same guy who scaled the worlds tallest building in Dubai while shooting Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol.

I did my own stunts and competed with Tom Cruise in the running scenes. Id like to make a statement that I was right there about to take off, but he has a turbo-charge button. He just plowed through. He says hes faster now than when he was in his 20s, because of the techniques hes learned, she says of her costar.

At 54, Cruise is eternally youthful, like some sort of mythical creature, she says, joking, I did see one or two unicorns on the set.

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The actress, who was raised in Portugal and broke out in the BBC drama Peaky Blinders, is rumored to be dating Chris Martin, something she doesnt address either in interviews or on social media. Which is actually refreshing, at a time when theres no such thing as oversharing and when many stars use their personal lives to build their brands.

I wasnt brought up to talk about my life or show off. You lose the element of mystery thats so much your currency as an actor. You are there to play a role and to be believable as other people. If you share too much, you lose that fourth wall, she says. Its dangerous. Its wonderful to support causes and charities and use your voice. You can choose the pictures that represent you the best.

Ultimately, believes Wallis, rambling on about yourself is just tacky and boring, noting, Its not classy to talk too much about stuff thats not about work.

But when it comes to style, Wallis is more than happy to let her clothes speak for themselves, or tell a story to someone who doesnt know her. Much of what she owns, she scooped up while traveling. Im a little bit of a chameleon. I go from minimal to bohemian to tomboy to girlie. I use that when I go to meetings. Im strategic about what I wear when I am meeting with a director, she says. Below, a beautiful sampling of her style.

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

Photo: Getty Images

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Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.
James Comeys Senate testimony asserted that the Trump administration lied to smear his reputation, and that he leaked details of Trump meetings to the press

The scandal of Donald Trumps alleged ties to Russia deepened on Thursday when James Comey, the man he fired as director of the FBI, branded the US president a liar.

At a hearing that riveted Washington and millions across the United States, James Comey said he believed he had been sacked because of the FBIs investigation into Moscows meddling in last years presidential election.

Comeys explosive testimony over nearly three hours asserted:

The Trump administration lied to smear the reputation of Comey and the FBI following his dismissal;

Comey documented every meeting he had with Trump because he thought the president might lie about what had taken place;

He passed details of the meetings  via a friend  to the press in the hope of spurring the appointment of a special counsel;

He believes that Trump directed him to shut down the FBIs investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey also offered a stark view of the underlying issue  massive Russian interference in the US election. There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts.

In one of the most gripping chapters yet of the long-running Trump/Russia saga, Comey testified under oath to the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill. Bars in New York and Washington DC opened as Americas three major TV networks broadcast live coverage of the hearing, which earned comparisons with Watergate.

His evidence did not deliver a knock-out blow to the Trump presidency, but it nevertheless cast the billionaire Republicans integrity in a withering light.

Comey said of his own dismissal: The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.

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Those were lies, plain and simple, and Im so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and Im so sorry the American people were told them.

He told the panel: Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal.

In a statement for the record released on Wednesday, Comey detailed several meetings with Trump this year, claiming that Trump demanded his loyalty and directly pushed him to lift the cloud of suspicion by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the Russia investigation.

In his testimony, Comey explained that he documented each meeting because he thought Trump might be dishonest about what had taken place  a practice he never felt obliged to undertake with former presidents George W Bush or Barack Obama.

I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document, he said of their first conversation at Trump Tower in New York in January.

He also described a meeting in the Oval Office in February, when Trump allegedly cleared the room of officials, including the attorney general, and discussed the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynns links to Russia. I hope you can let this go, the president allegedly said.

In a memorable exchange, Senator Angus King of Maine asked: When a president of the United States in the Oval Office says something like I hope or I suggest or would you, do you take that as a directive?



Comey replied: Yes, it rings in my ear as kind of, Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?  a reference to King Henrys IIs kiss of death to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket.

Comey also revealed that he asked a friend to leak to the New York Times details of his memo about the Oval Office encounterbecause I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.



The former FBI chief was testifying under oath to the Senate intelligence committee on Russias interference in the presidential election in a packed room of the Senates Hart building on Capitol Hill, with millions watching on TV and online.

Comey entered the room at 10.02am to a chorus of clicking cameras, shook hands with chairman Richard Burr and sat behind a table, staring ahead inscrutably, his hands pressed together.

Those were lies, plain and simple Comey on the White House's stated reasons for firing him

Comey said he was puzzled when the dismissal was attributed to his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clintons use of a private email server, only for Trump to tell an interviewer it was because of Russia.

Comey said: Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, telling senators: I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

Comey set out the high stakes of the Russia investigation in passionate remarks about an attack on Americas way of life.

The reason this is such a big deal is we have this big, messy, wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time, but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans, he said. And thats wonderful and often painful. But were talking about a foreign government using technical intrusion and lots of other methods tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. That is a big deal.



And people need to recognize it. Its not about Republicans or Democrats. Theyre coming after America, which I hope we all love equally. They want to undermine our credibility in the face of the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them, and so theyre going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible.

The former FBI chief faced detailed questioning about a series of meetings with Trump he set out in his statement for the record, which was published by the committee on Wednesday.

One was a private dinner with Trump at the White House in January. Comey said he walked away feeling like the president was looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.

He also discussed a meeting in the Oval Office in February, when Trump allegedly cleared the room of officials, including the attorney general, and discussed the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynns links to Russia. I hope you can let this go, Trump allegedly said.

Senator James Risch of Idaho zeroed in on the word hope, asking: He did not direct you to let it go?

Comey acknowledged: Not in his words, no.

Risch asked: Again, those words are not an order? He said: I hope.

Comey replied: The reason I keep saying his words is, I took it as a direction. This is the president of the United States. I took it as a direction.

Risch demanded: You dont know anyone who has been charged for hoping something?



Comey: As I sit here I dont.

Comey also revealed that he was behind the leak to the New York Times of the details of his memo describing Trump asking him to let the Flynn inquiry go. He said his motivation in asking a friend to share the content of the memo was to prompt the appointment of a special counsel to take over the Russia investigation  special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed the next day.

He was motivated by Trumps tweet implying that there were recordings of their meetings. Comey said he woke up in the middle of the night in a panic about the presidents tweet.

In a later line of questioning, Comey was again asked why he chose to leak his notes to the media. As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it was very important to get it out, he said.

Asked whether he thought Trump had tried to obstruct justice or merely seek a way for Mike Flynn to save face,Comey replied: I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing and very concerning, but thats a conclusion that Im sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether thats an offence.

Comeys written testimony disclosed that Trump demanded his loyalty and directly pushed him to lift the cloud of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the investigation into his campaigns Russia ties.

Democrats are keen to establish whether Trumps actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have seized on Comeys confirmation that he assured the president more than once that he was not a target of the FBIs investigation.

Trump fired Comey as director of the FBI on 9 May, admitting later that the Russia investigation was on his mind at the time. The president later tweeted: James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

Comey said on Thursday: Ive seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

He added later: The president surely knows whether he taped and, if he did, my feelings arent hurt. Release all the tapes: Im good with it.

Trump managed to refrain from tweeting during the hearing, but his personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz in a statement tried to turn the tables on Comey, saying he had admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorised disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president.

Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters: I can definitively say the president is not a liar. I think it is frankly insulting that question would be asked.
Black troops are as much as two times more likely than whites to face military punishment, according to a study released by Protect Our Defenders on Wednesday.

Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy organization for victims of sexual assault and military justice, analyzed Pentagon data from 2006-2015 to compile the study.

"Over the past decade, racial disparities have persisted in the military justice system without indications of improvement," the report says. "These disparities are particularly striking for black service members, who face military justice or disciplinary action at much higher rates than white service members in every branch. In fact, the size of the disparity between white and black service members' military justices involvement has remained consistent over the years, and in the case of the Air Force and Marine Corps has increased."

READ: Police Racism 2016: Driving While Black Means Getting Pulled Over And Searched For Many African-Americans

The military branches supplied Protect Our Defenders with differing sets of data, which makes comparing the punishment rates among the services difficult. The Air Force provided court martial and non-judicial punishmetn data from 2006-2015, whereas the Marine Corps produced guilty findings for court martial and non-judicial punishment for the same period.

The research shows that the Marine Corps has some of the most noteworthy issues with race, especially in events where the harshest punishments were available. During an average year, black Marines were shown to be 2.61 percent more likely than whites to be found guilty at a general court-marticial, the military proceeding for more serious offenses.

The study also showed that black members of the Air Force were 71 percent more likely than whites to face court-martial or non-judicial punishment, discipline designated for less serious offenses. Black soldiers in the Army and Navy were 61 percent more likely to face court-martial than whites. Black sailors were 40 percent more likely than whites to be court-martialed.

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soldiers

Photo: Getty Images

"From the findings of the study, race appears like it plays a big role, which is disheartening," said Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders and a former top prosecutor for the Air Force. "Military leadership has been aware of significant racial disparity in its justice process for years, and has made no apparent effort to find the cause of the disparity or remedy it," he said in a statement given to The Hill on Wednesday.

Christensen suggested that lack of diversity in the military may correlate to the racial inequality for black troops. About 78 percent of military officers were white in 2016.

Officials will review the report, according to a spokesman for the Pentagon. "It is a long-standing Department of Defense policy that service members must be afforded the opportunity to serve in an environment free from unlawful racial discrimination," said Johnny Michael, a spokesman for the Pentagon. "The department will review any new information concerning compliance with this policy," he said according to USA Today on Wednesday. The data indicates that guilty findings peaked in 2010, coinciding with peak deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq war zones.

READ: Donald Trumps New Military Policy Could Reverse Obamas Legacy In Afghanistan

The study released indicates the military is affected by the same racial issues that are present in the civilian police and the courts, said Michael Wishnie, clinical professor of law at Yale University. Because of the lack of comparable data from the services, the Pentagon cannot pinpoint systemic problems regarding racial equality, he said in a statement provided by Protect Our Defenders.

"This report cries out for action."

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A 7-year-old Tennessee girl was accidentally shot dead by her 2-year-old cousin this week.

Harmony Warfield was killed Tuesday while in her apartment with four other relatives, her 29-year-old aunt, and children ages 14, 11 and 2, the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department said.

Read: 7-Year-Old Boy Killed by Stray Bullet as He Ate Cake Inside His Home

The children were in the kitchen area when a shot was heard, police said in a statement.

The 14-year-old reportedly told cops that the 2-year-old was found holding a pistol.

Harmony was rushed to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead, according to the statement.

Police believe the aunt's 27-year-old friend, Anthony Sanders, was outside when the shot was fired.

Sanders allegedly "went inside the apartment to see what happened, and then ran from the area," according to their statement.

Read: Boy, 4, Fatally Shoots Himself at Babysitter's House

The pistol has not been recovered and Sanders is now being sought for questioning to determine what he may know about the gun.

Anyone who has seen Sanders is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463.

Watch: 4-year-Old Boy With Special Needs Killed by Truck After Wandering From Hotel

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London (AFP) - British police on Wednesday said a 30-year-old man had been arrested following the London Bridge terror attack which killed seven people and injured 48.

Officers arrested him in the eastern London suburb of Ilford, near Barking, where two of the assailants lived.

The Saturday attack was claimed by the Islamic State and follows the May 22 suicide bombing at the Manchester Arena by Salman Abedi, killing 22 people.

There are now two men in custody while another 12 people held following the attack have since been released.

The assailants drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge, before descending into the nearby Borough Market where they stabbed people out for the night in the bars and restaurants.

Police have identified the attackers as Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old Italian national of Moroccan descent, Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, a Pakistan-born Briton, and Rachid Redouane, 30, a self-described Moroccan-Libyan dual national.
Former agents describe the justice department veteran as qualified and uncontroversial, but hes likely to face questioning over his independence

Christopher Wray, a former senior justice department official, may face scrutiny over his work as an attorney for Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who chaired Trumps transition team. Photograph: Ron Edmonds/AP

After Donald Trumps abrupt firing of the FBI director, James Comey, last month, former agents said the bureaus rank-and-file wanted one thing: a fiercely independent replacement who would restore the bureaus reputation for staying apolitical.

Christopher Wray, a criminal defense attorney and former senior justice department official, may not have been their first choice. But Trumps pick for FBI director seems qualified and fairly non-controversial, according to former agents.



He has the credentials that bode well, said Jeffrey Ringel, a 21-year veteran of the FBI who now heads a private security consultancy.



Wray, 50, is likely to face Democratic questions over his independence, given his work as an attorney to Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who chaired Trumps transition team, and the curious fact that Wray possesses Christies old cellphone.

The phones location was a mystery during the trial of former Christie allies charged over the 2013 Bridgegate scandal. They argued unsuccessfully that the phone should be turned over to help them hunt for text messages between Christie and his chief of staff, which were erased from the chief of staffs own phone. Christies office eventually confirmed that the device was being held by Wray.



But former FBI agents played down the significance of Wrays link to a Trump associate. If he was trying to keep evidence out of court, thats what a defense attorney does, said Louis J Caprino, who served as an FBI agent for 29 years and now runs a public safety program at Vincennes University in Indiana.



Ringel agreed that Wrays history of defending Christie was not really a consideration as lawyers have a duty to protect their client as best they can.



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Further questions about Wrays suitability for the FBI job may arise because a partner at the law firm he is poised to depart, King & Spalding, currently serves as an ethics counsel to the trust that holds Trumps business assets.



An Obama rule renewed by Trump in January bars presidential appointees for two years from working on any matters related to his or her former employer or clients. The FBI is reviewing Trumps business interests as part of its investigations into ties between his presidential campaign and Russia.



But Norman Eisen, a former ethics counsel to Barack Obama, said the rule should not present a problem to Wray if Wray did not do work on the Trump matter himself while at his law firm.

Democratic senators may also be keen to ask Wray about the energy company president defended by Wray in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities who is listed among his past clients on Wrays biography at King & Spalding, which has been taken down from the companys website.

FBI agents were outraged by the manner of Trumps dismissal of Comey, which many viewed as disrespectful. Comey found out that the president had fired him from news reports as he was giving a speech to agents in Los Angeles. The following day, Trump reportedly called Comey a nut job in a conversation with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

Even former FBI agents who disapproved of Comeys handling of the Clinton email investigation considered the way Trump fired Comey disgraceful and a slap in the face to the bureau. Whatever their personal opinions of Comey, former agents said, he had done honorable public service.

The White House and the president gave multiple, contradictory reasons for why Comey was fired. The administration reportedly backed away from having the president visit FBI headquarters after Comeys dismissal, amid reports of fury and frustration within the FBI at the presidents actions, as well as the way White House officials publicly disparaged Comeys character after he was fired.

In congressional testimony, the acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe, flatly denied the White Houses assertion that Comey had lost the confidence of FBI agents.

Trump had considered a parade of possible candidates for FBI director, including some overtly political choices, such as the former senator Joe Lieberman, who later publicly withdrew himself from consideration.



As the search for Comeys replacement kicked off, one former FBI official, Ron Hosko, said: What some reasonable people might fear is that this might become a game of FBI Apprentice.



In a statement on Wednesday, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, said America was fortunate that Wray had decided he is willing to make this personal commitment to serve.

Sessions called Wray an extraordinary person, possessing all the gifts necessary to be a great director of the FBI.

Former agents said that a nominee who had served in the FBI himself, such as the former TSA chief John Pistole or the former congressman Mike Rogers, might have been more popular choices for the position of FBI director, an appointee who typically serves a 10-year term, and might have had an advantage in restoring some of the FBIs battered morale. But Wray was also a much better choice than Lieberman or another politician, former agents said.

I think most rank-and-file employees are going to have an open mind about this guy, said one recently retired FBI agent, who served for 26 years, most recently in Philadelphia. The former agent, who had called Comeys firing unprecedented and very, very suspicious, said Wray was certainly qualified and a decent choice and that he expected Wray would be easily confirmed by the Senate.



Its fantastic news for our country ... I wish I had as steady a moral compass as his Jake Poinier, writer and high school friend

Wray hasnt been a person on the forefront either for or against the current administration, which was a positive, said Ringel, who is now the director of the Soufan Group, a security consultancy.



FBI agents do not expect directors to have experience working within the bureau itself, but they do value justice department experience  and having a director who understands the nuts and bolts of how to conduct an investigation.

Wray worked as an assistant US attorney in Georgia and spent two years as the assistant attorney general in charge of the justice departments criminal division, before returning to private practice. He has been in the trenches and worked directly with federal law enforcement agents, which will win him credit with the rank and file, Ringel said.

Wrays choice to leave public service for a much more lucrative job as a criminal defense attorney will probably be viewed as a typical decision for many federal prosecutors, the former FBI agent who served in Philadelphia said.



But the question of what Wray will do after his tenure as FBI director may prompt some skepticism, the former agent said.



Christopher Wray, who was then assistant attorney general, sits behind James Comey at a news conference in 2004. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Hes only 50 years old. Lets presume he serves his full 10 years, and then he leaves the government at 60. Where does he go? Hes going back to criminal defense. After serving as FBI director, he said, Wray would be worth even more.

Wray was raised in New York and attended Phillips Academy, the same posh New England boarding school as the former presidents George Bush and George W Bush. He graduated from Yale University in 1989 and promptly married his classmate Helen Howell that summer, beforegraduating from Yale Law School in 1992. The couple own a house in Atlanta and have a son and a daughter.

Jake Poinier, Wrays high school friend, college roommate and best man, said Wray was a serious-minded student who was conservative but not politically active. Asked for a standout memory of their youth, Poinier said that at both Phillips and Yale, our lives revolved around rowing. The pair were team-mates on the universitys lightweight crew.

Its fantastic news for our country  I cant think of anybody Ive known in my life who would do a better job on all this, Poinier, now a Phoenix-based writer and editor, said of Wrays nomination, adding: I wish I had as steady a moral compass as his.



The White House on Wednesday emailed out a series of statements hailing Wrays credentials from a list of former senior officials, including Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Obama. White called Wray smart, independent and widely regarded as a strong leader.



Kent Alexander, the Clinton administration US attorney who hired Wray as an assistant US attorney, was quoted as saying that Wray always put justice before politics.

Wray oversaw the inquiry into the scandal-ridden collapse of Enron, which the FBI called the largest and most complex white-collar investigation in the bureaus history. The case led to the convictions of several executives at the energy giant.

Civil liberties campaigners voiced concerns about Wrays involvement in the legal oversight of the Bush administrations detention, rendition and torture of terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks. Faiz Shakir, the national political director of the ACLU, said senators should press Wray to come clean about his role in the Bush-era programs.

The FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents about 13,000 active and former FBI agents, had endorsed a different candidate for FBI director, Rogers, the former Republican congressman who once served as an FBI agent himself.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Thomas OConnor, the associations president, did not endorse or oppose Wrays nomination, but said the group looks forward to meeting with Mr Wray and that it was critically important that the FBIAA understands his views on the FBI, special agents, and the criminal and national security threats that agents combat daily.

I just want to hear him say hes not going to be giving many press conferences, Caprino, the former FBI agent, said.


Make sure this gets out, former FBI Director James Comey told a close friend, a Columbia Law School professor, as he gave him copies of his memos detailing his one-on-one interactions with President Trump, according to Comeys Thursday morning testimony before the Senate intelligence committee.

Comey believed the publication of the memos might prompt the appointment of a special prosecutor to pursue the investigation into Russian penetration of the American political system and contacts with the Trump campaign. The memos were Comeys own accounts of his conversations with Trump in the months before the president fired him as head of the bureau.

The friend, Daniel Richman, who did not respond to Yahoo News request for comment, confirmed to CNN that he shared Comeys memos with the press. Richmans biography states that he is an adviser to Comey.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

I needed to get [the memos] out into the public square, Comey said in response to questioning from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) about whether he had shown the memos to anyone outside the Department of Justice.

After Comeys May 9 firing, the president tweeted that Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

The White House has refused to say whether such tapes actually exist. But hours after Trumps tweet, Comey testified, he awakened in the middle of the night with the thought he needed to get his version of events before the public and made plans to release the memos.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes, Comey said Thursday, in the expectation that they could corroborate his own recollections.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Comey said he asked his friend to share details of a conversation in the Oval Office during which Trump said he hoped Comey would let go of an investigation into Michael Flynn, who had resigned as the presidents national security adviser the previous day.

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A seven-page opening statement prepared by Comey for his testimony and released the day before describes a conversation with Trump in the Oval Office on Feb. 14, when the president told him: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comey said during testimony that he decided to document the exchanges due to the circumstances, subject matter and the nature of the person with whom he was interacting  a combination of factors that Comey hadnt experienced before in his interactions with a president but that led him to create a meticulous record.

I was honestly concerned that [Trump] might lie about the nature of our meeting, Comey said.

On May 16, the New York Times broke the contents of the memo detailing the Feb. 14 conversation.

Comey said he refrained from leaking the memos himself because he was under intense press scrutiny and was worried itd be like feeding seagulls at the beach if I gave it out personally.

Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate intelligence committee hearing on Russias alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Capitol Hill June 8, 2017. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

When Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) asked whether Comey believed the memos were government documents, Comey replied no, noting that they were unclassified, memorializations of  conversations.

[It was] my recollection, recorded, of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen, I felt free to share that, Comey said. I thought it very important to get it out.

Comey has turned his copies of the memos over to special counsel Robert Mueller. He said that he is unsure whether his friend who shared the memos with the press still has the documents.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Former FBI directors J. Edgar Hoover and James Comey. (Photos: Herbert K. White/AP, Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

In Senate testimony Thursday, James Comey explained that he was trying to avoid a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation when he first assured Donald Trump that he was not personally under investigation.

During a January meeting at Trump Tower in New York, Comey briefed the president-elect on the existence and circulation of a dossier containing some salacious and unverified material on Trump. This was a reference to reports that Russian intelligence had compiled material on Trump that could have been used to blackmail him. A secondhand account of that material was obtained by a private investigator and was subsequently leaked to the media.

Comey told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday that Trump had a strong and defensive reaction about that not being true. In his prepared testimony, released Wednesday, the former FBI director noted that Trump referred to one of the allegations in the dossier again during a call on March 30, telling Comey that he had not been involved with hookers in Russia.

Trumps reaction at the January meeting led Comey to conclude it was important for me to assure him we were not personally investigating him.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

Comey went on to explain: I was worried very much about being in kind of a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation, referring to the first FBI director, who reportedly kept files of potentially compromising material on elected officials for his private use.

I didnt want him thinking that I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way, said Comey. I was briefing him on it because we had been told by the media it was about to launch, we dont want to be keeping that from him.  He needed to know this was being said.

But, he continued, I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him, and so thats the context in which I said: sir, were not personally investigating you.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Former FBI Director James Comey said during his Thursday morning testimony before the Senate intelligence committee that he believed that President Trump was looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay on the job.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the committee, asked Comey about whether Trump had been holding Comeys job as FBI director over his head. Warner also asked about the notion of the patronage relationship Comey said he thought Trump was trying to establish with him, according to the statement Comey released the day before.

My common sense told me that  [Trump] had concluded or someone had told him, Youve already asked Comey to stay, and you didnt get anything for it, Comey said, noting that Trump had asked him for loyalty.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

Comey added that he believes his one-on-one January dinner with the president was one of Trumps efforts to build a relationship with him and that the president had asked him for loyalty, but noted that his impression of the presidents intentions was an interpretation.

The ex-FBI director also recalled that in an exchange with Trump in the Blue Room of the White House the Sunday after the inauguration, Trump had whispered in his ear, I really look forward to working with you. According to the ex-FBI chief, that exchange marked the third time the president had asked him about remaining in his position as FBI director.

President Trump shakes hands with then-FBI Director James Comey, Jan. 22, 2017. (Photo: Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images)

Trump abruptly fired Comey last month, and the White House has offered shifting explanations for the termination. Trump reportedly told Russian diplomats that firing Comey had relieved pressure from the FBIs investigation into whether Trump campaign associates colluded with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Washington (AFP) - Former FBI director James Comey gave damaging details Wednesday of a series of nine meetings or conversations he had with President Donald Trump before being sacked last month.

The following are some of the key points from testimony that Comey published ahead of his much-anticipated hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday:

- 'Let this go' -

Comey, who had been leading an investigation into alleged Russian meddling in last year's US election, confirmed reports that Trump urged him to drop an investigation into former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Flynn, who quit after less than a month in his post after admitting misleading Vice President Mike Pence, was under scrutiny over his contacts with Russian officials when Comey and Trump met in the White House on February 14.

Comey said that Trump had told him that Flynn was "a good guy and has been through a lot."

"He (Trump) then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go'."

Comey said he then wrote up a memo about the conversation and discussed it with other senior members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The conversation was "very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency," Comey added.

- An awkward dinner -

Comey also outlined how Trump called for a pledge of loyalty during a dinner at the White House, an appeal the former FBI chief says he rebuffed while instead promising his honesty.

According to Comey, the dinner on January 27 began with Trump asking whether he wanted to stay on at the helm of the FBI.

"My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship," Comey recalled.

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"That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch."

Comey said that the president then told him: 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.'

"I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence," he added.

- 'Lift the cloud' -

In one of their last phone conversations, Comey says that Trump spoke of his exasperation at how the focus on the Russia investigation was beginning to dog his presidency.

"He described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country...He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud'," Comey recalled.

"I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didnt find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him."

Trump initially justified Comey's sacking on the grounds that an official report had found him guilty of multiple failings in his handling of an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email server.

But in a later interview, Trump admitted that he was considering "this Russia thing" when he made the decision to sack Comey.

- 'Nothing to do with hookers' -

Ahead of Trump's inauguration, the two men met in New York where Comey briefed the president-elect on what he called "salacious and unverified" claims that would soon emerge in the press.

Comey briefed Trump one-on-one at Trump Towers on January 6 "to minimize potential embarrassment to the president-elect" about the claims involving prostitutes at a Moscow hotel which Trump visited in 2013.

Trump angrily dismissed the reports when they were published in early January and Comey recalled how the claims still rankled with the president when they spoke in March.

"He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," said Comey.
On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Robert Irwin stopped by, bringing with him a treasure trove of baby animals including a honey badger, a joey kangaroo and three adorable warthogs. But when Jimmy was handed Donatella, a two-year-old alligator snapping turtle, he was told by Irwin, "Make sure you don't get anywhere near his mouth because he's got quite a bite on him." The son of the late famous Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin has always been a fan-favorite of Tonight Show lovers and it's always enjoyable to watch Fallon freak out at the animals. And Fallon did just that when little Donatella started to extend his head out of his shell. And although you certainly wouldn't want to put your finger anywhere near Donatella's mouth, Irwin had another animal that could make a meal out of your whole hand. When Irwin brought out Sheldon, the 100-year-old version of an alligator snapping turtle, Jimmy realized that little Donatella was definitely not that scary. Robert Irwin also explained that every year a team of scientists from the Australia Zoo and his family go to the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, which is a reserve about the size of New York City. They invite people to go on an expedition to research different animals. That have the most comprehensive study of crocodiles in the entire world with techniques that Steve Irwin started.
On The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Robert Irwin stopped by, bringing with him a treasure trove of baby animals including a honey badger, a joey kangaroo, and three adorable warthogs. But when Jimmy was handed Donatella, a 2-year-old alligator snapping turtle, he was told by Irwin, Make sure you dont get anywhere near his mouth because hes got quite a bite on him.

The son of the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, is a fan favorite amongTonight Show viewers, and its always enjoyable to watch Fallon freak out at the animals. The host did just that when little Donatella started to extend his head out of his shell. And although you certainly wouldnt want to put your finger anywhere near Donatellas mouth, Irwin had another animal that could make a meal out of your whole hand. When Irwin brought out Sheldon, the 100-year-old version of an alligator snapping turtle, Jimmy realized that little Donatella was not that scary.

Robert Irwin explained that every year a team of scientists from the Australia Zoo and his family go to the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve, which is about the size of New York City. They invite people to go on an expedition to research different animals, including the most comprehensive study of crocodiles in the world.

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of The Tonight Show for free on Yahoo View.

Check out Tom Cruise and Jimmy Fallon performing The Mummy as imagined by kids:

Read more from Yahoo TV:

Tell us what you think! Hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or leave your comments below. And check out our host, Kylie Mar, on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Tuesday marks 73 years since D-Day, the pivotal World War II operation in which Allied troops invaded Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. It is known to be the largest seaborne invasion in history, with more than 160,000 soldiers landing on the beach in Normandy to take on the Nazi German fighters.

Up to 12,000 Allies and 9,000 Germans were killed, according to the National World War II Museum. The day is billed as the beginning of the end of war in Europe.

Here are a few of their quotes, from GoodReads, about the invasion:

1. "Sixty-five years ago in the thin light of gray dawn, more than 1,000 small craft took to a rough sea on a day that will be forever a day of bravery. On that June morning the young of our nations stepped out on those beaches below and into history. As long as freedom lives their deeds will never die."  Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

2. "This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.''  Winston Churchill

dday

Photo: Reuters

3. This operation is not being planned with any alternatives. This operation is planned as a victory, and thats the way its going to be. Were going down there, and were throwing everything we have into it, and were going to make it a success.  Eisenhower

4. "They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate."  Former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

dday10

Photo: Reuters

5. "The 6th June is not a day like others: it is not just the longest day or a day to remember the dead, but a day for the living to keep the promise written with the blood of the fighters, to be loyal to their sacrifice by building a world that is fairer and more human."  French President Francois Hollande

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dday_0

Photo: Reuters

6. "It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only 6 miles long and 2 miles wide."  Former U.S. President Barack Obama

7. "It is difficult to understand the courage it took to advance through minefields and barbed wire under fire from mortars and machine-guns in order to punch through Hitlers Atlantic Wall, and yet that is exactly what many Canadians did."  Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

8. "We know that progress is not inevitable. But neither was victory upon these beaches. Now, as then, the inner voice tells us to stand up and move forward. Now, as then, free people must choose."  Former U.S. President Bill Clinton

dday3

Photo: Reuters

9. Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.  Stephen E. Ambrose

dday5

Photo: Reuters

10. "The first night in France I spent in a ditch beside a hedgerow wrapped in a damp shelter-half and thoroughly exhausted. But I felt elated. It had been the greatest experience of my life. I was 10 feet tall. No matter what happened, I had made it off the beach and reached the high ground. I was king of the hill, at least in my own mind, for a moment."  Sgt. John Ellery

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Testimony could establish whether Trumps conversations with the ex-FBI chief were simply high-level confidential chatter  or something crossing into illegality

Obstruction may be in play if Trump fired Comey, or asked Comey to idle the investigation of Flynn or others, with a broader intent. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Three days after he fired FBI director James Comey, when a story about a clumsy request for a loyalty pledge made the papers, Donald Trump jumped on Twitter to threaten the reported object of his one-time overtures.

James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! the president tweeted.

Now it is Trumps turn to hope that Comey has no tapes, or memos, or anything else that might stand as evidence of untoward conduct on his, the presidents, part.

Comey is set to testify before Congress on Thursday about pressure the president may have placed on him to end the FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and his contacts with Russian operatives before and after the 2016 presidential election.

The perceived hazard for the president, when Comey is sworn in, lies in three words: obstruction of justice.

Comeys testimony, legal experts say, could go a long way toward establishing whether Trumps conversations with him amounted to the kind of confidential chatter two high officials thrown together in an unusual situation might be expected to share  or, alternatively, to something bordering on, or crossing into, illegality.

The question is whether Trump sought to use the weight of his office to stifle a criminal investigation to protect a friend, or to protect himself, over and above the national interest.

I think the most important thing thats going to happen is were going to get a sense of the feel and flavor of the conversations that took place, at least some of them, between the president and Comey, said Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Duke University.

The flavor of these conversations is significant, Buell explained, because obstruction of justice is an offense that largely comes down to mental state or purpose.

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Obstruction may be in play if Trump fired Comey, or asked Comey to idle the investigation of Flynn or others, with a broader intent  for example to stifle inquiries into alleged Russian tampering in the election or possible collusion with Trump campaign figures. Trump has said that this Russia thing was part of his thinking when he decided to dismiss the FBI chief.

The stakes could not be higher. Obstruction of justice is a federal criminal offense. It also happens to have a rich history in the field of presidential impeachment, with the two presidents to face impeachment proceedings in the 20th century  Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton  both facing obstruction of justice charges.



The congressional committee that will hear from Comey on Thursday will not have the power to bring such a charge or to determine definitively whether it might be warranted.

But if Comeys testimony before the Senate intelligence committee corroborates other seeming evidence of wrongdoing by the president or anyone else, then the Trump presidency could be pushed closer to the brink.

Buell tamped down expectations for a bombshell outing by Comey.

For example, I would expect him to say, One of my main objectives here is not to do anything that would in any way compromise an ongoing criminal investigation, Buell said. And that might lead him to decide that he shouldnt talk about all kinds of things.

Comey has telegraphed, through surrogates speaking anonymously with reporters, that he will not state explicitly that he believes that the president committed obstruction of justice in discouraging the FBI from pursuing its inquiries, including a line of questioning about the conduct of Flynn.

Such a judgment would not, as Comey recognizes, be his to make. While Trump is not theoretically above the law, he does appear to be, for likely practical purposes, beyond prosecution by the justice department or by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, while he is president.

Congress may weigh articles of impeachment against the president, with evidence of obstruction of justice potentially coming into play. It is here that Muellers role could be essential. At the end of his investigations, likely to include extensive interviews with Comey, the special counsel would be expected to submit to his justice department superiors a report of his findings. That report could potentially be used by Congress to prosecute the president.

In his testimony on Thursday, Comey is expected to contradict Trump, notably, on the presidents assertion in a signed letter accompanying Comeys firing that on three separate occasions Comey informed Trump that I [Trump] am not under investigation.



Republican senator Susan Collins, a member of the intelligence committee, said in an interview on Sunday that she had made three separate trips to CIA headquarters to review the raw data and that her questions for Comey would focus on that very point: Trumps assertion of not being under investigation.

That phrase raises a lot of questions in my mind, said Collins. Does Mr Comey agree that that was what was said?

A blank contradiction by Comey of that assertion would further damage Trumps credibility. The damage to his presidency remains an open question.
Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee members, including Sen. Kamala Harris of California, left, and Vice Chair Mark Warner of Virginia, center, will question former FBI Director Jim Comey Thursday in Washington. (Yahoo News photo Illustration; photos: AP, Getty)

WASHINGTON  On Thursday morning, Senate Democrats have what could be their only chance to publicly question former FBI Director James Comey about whether President Donald Trump attempted to interfere in the bureaus investigation of Russian meddling in the U.S. elections.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has taken over the investigation into members of the Trump campaigns alleged ties to Russia, a probe that could take years and might never end up implicating the president. Thursdays hearing, however, is the Democrats best chance to convict the president in the court of public opinion  assuming Comey is willing to play along.

The former FBI director released a detailed, seven-page opening statement to the Senate intelligence committee Wednesday afternoon that gave the committees Democrats several possible avenues for questioning. He wrote that the president asked Comey to let  go his investigation of former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who is alleged to have lied about his earlier contacts with Russian officials. Trump, Comey wrote, also asked the longtime law enforcement official to pledge his loyalty to him in a private dinner.

Trump also repeatedly asked Comey to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation from over his head, according to the statement. Comey wrote that he implored Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me, because he felt the presidents attempts to isolate him were inappropriate.

But Comey stopped short of concluding that Trump was attempting to obstruct his investigation  a potential crime Democrats are eager to pin on the president. Its also unlikely the former FBI director will offer his personal opinion on whether the presidents actions amounted to obstruction, even under questioning. The other big questions  whether Comey was fired for not pledging loyalty to Trump or not making the cloud of the Russia investigation go away  also cant be answered directly by Comey.

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But Senate Democrats can drill down on the context of Comeys conversations with the president, pumping him for more details in order to better make a case on their own for obstruction. The Jan. 27 one-on-one dinner Comey describes in his statement, for example, occurred the day after then acting Attorney General Sally Yates said she warned the White House that Flynn had lied to the vice president about not having contact with Russian officials.

The dates are very significant, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Yahoo News. The first dinner takes place the day after Sally Yates goes to the White House to warn the White House counsel about Flynn. The very next day, the president wants loyalty. Was there more to that conversation that could shed light on what the presidents motivations were? Did Flynn come up in that conversation? A lot of those factual details in that conversation are going to be important.

Democrats on the committee, who include Vice Chair Mark Warner of Virginia and newcomer Sen. Kamala Harris of California, will also almost certainly ask for details about who exactly Comey told about each of his conversations, and the whereabouts of any memos detailing them  all of which could become potential evidence for the Senate investigation going forward.

At least some of the Intelligence Committees Republican members are likely to focus on Comeys admission that on three separate occasions he reassured Trump he was not a suspect in the FBI investigation  a claim the president made in his letter firing Comey that was met with skepticism by Democrats. The Republican National Committee quickly blasted out those excerpts from Comeys statement Wednesday night, and some Republican senators will likely use their questions to make the hearing about how Trump was not being personally investigated at the time of Comeys conversations with him. (The Senate Intelligence Committees chairman, Richard Burr, R-N.C., told the Guardian Wednesday he thought the president was within his rights to ask Comey for loyalty, suggesting this will also not be a theme of questioning for the committees Republicans Thursday.)

Schiff says Democrats should also ask Comey why he told the president he was not a subject of investigation, since usually the FBI director would not be asked or answer that sort of question. Well, I would frankly drill down on some of his explanations for why he didnt inform people at Justice about his concerns [about Trump], as well as why he took it upon himself to tell the president he was not a suspect of the investigation, Schiff said.

A Senate Democratic aide said he expected committee members to also seek answers regarding Attorney General Sessions role in the Russia investigation given that Sessions recused himself due to his role in the Trump campaign. Comey writes in his opening statement that Sessions didnt answer him when he asked him not to leave him alone with the president; lawmakers will likely ask him if Comey and Sessions had any other interactions along those lines.

Democrats expect Comeys testimony will stick fairly closely to his written statement, and will rebuff questions from lawmakers about the state of the investigation into Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election at the time of his firing. Still, Democrats will likely try to ask him who was a subject of that investigation.

Well, I do expect that he wont discuss the Russian investigation itself, Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats and is on the intel committee, told CNN Wednesday. In other words, the investigation that [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller is now in charge of, I dont expect him to give us an update or anything from what it was like or what he knew when he left. Ill be surprised if he does that.

Even if Comey refrains from discussing details of the investigation or opining on the presidents actions, Democrats are counting on the detail-oriented former director to lay down a trail of facts that they can follow as the Senate investigation continues.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The congressmen are starting the process even though they appear to have little chance of succeeding: AFP/Getty Images

A pair of Democrats in Congress are drafting up articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, saying that the presidents decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey constitutes an obstruction of justice.

Texas Representative Al Green, who has been one of the most outspoken proponents of impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump, was joined by California Representative Brad Sherman in announcing the long-shot bid.

The question really is whether the president can obstruct justice with impunity, Mr Green told a press conference. We live in a country where no congressmen, no senator, and not even the president of the United States of America is above the law.

Mr Green said that Mr Trumps actions are his primarily concern. Whatever Mr Comey might say during planned congressional testimony this week isnt important to his rationale on impeachment, the congressman said in a statement released before his official announcement.

Several other Democrats have indicated that impeachment could be possible if obstruction is proved, but most have held back from actually calling for the measure.

But the efforts to impeach the president dont appear likely to be successful given the current makeup of Congress. While Mr Trump has historically low approval ratings among the public, his Republican Party control the House of Representatives that would be tasked with formally indicting the president.

If he were somehow impeached, removal from office also seems especially far-fetched right now: Republicans also control the Senate, where two-thirds of the members would need to vote in favour of pushing Mr Trump out of office.

Mr Comey is expected to testify before the Senate this week in what will be one of the most watched congressional hearings in modern times. Mr Trump fired the former FBI director last month, and has been criticised frequently for doing so. While the Trump administration initially cited Justice Department rationale for the ouster, Mr Trump later said that he had decided to fire Mr Comey on his own and said that the FBIs Russia investigation played a part in that reasoning.

It was later revealed that Mr Trump had asked Mr Comey to pull back on his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynns contacts with Russian officials. A draft of Mr Comeys planned opening remarks confirms those allegations.
Russian hackers, who played such a prominent part last year in the U.S. election and this year in the French presidential race, may have helped blow up relations between Qatar and its neighbors in the Arab world.

The Qatari government claims that a May 23 news report  in which the Qatari ruler purportedly criticized the Saudis while praising Iran and Israel  was actually a fake story planted by Russian hackers. CNN reported Tuesday night that U.S. intelligence officials also believe Russian hackers planted the fake story; FBI investigators were recently on the ground in Doha.

The article is thought to have served as the catalyst for several Muslim-majority countries, including Saudi Arabia and most Persian Gulf states, to cut their economic and political ties with Qatar this week. They accuse Qatar of supporting extremist groups and cozying up to Iran, a regional rival to the Sunni nations.

President Donald Trump piled on Tuesday, blaming Qatar for funding extremism and implicitly taking credit for the Gulf countries hard-line approach.

So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off, he wrote on Twitter. They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism! (He did not mention Saudi Arabias funding of Wahabi extremist groups.)

Qatars foreign minister blamed the entire diplomatic crisis on misinformation.

It was started based on fabricated news, being wedged and being inserted in our national news agency which was hacked and proved by the FBI, he said.

CNN cited U.S. officials who say the Russian goal appears to be to cause rifts among the U.S. and its allies.

Qatar is home to a key U.S. air base, a centerpiece in the U.S.-led coalitions fight against the Islamic State. While U.S. defense officials have so far downplayed the impact of the diplomatic spat on the base, some security experts are worried a further deterioration in U.S.-Qatari relations could jeopardize the Pentagons ability to use the base.

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It is still unclear how many fake news stories were planted, if at all, and whether the hack, if there was one, was instigated by Russian security services or Russian criminal organizations. Qatari News Agency, the source of the purportedly false news story, has been offline since the alleged hack.

If Russian cybermischief is indeed behind the Qatari dust-up, it would fit a clear pattern of Russian hacking meant to sow instability and division in the West and between allies. Hacks of political candidates, embarrassing leaks, and a flood of fake news stories  which cyberinvestigators all blame on state-supported Russian hackers  were a constant in recent U.S. and European elections.

But one big question remains about the motivations behind the alleged hack in this case: Qatar has for years annoyed its neighbors in the Gulf for supporting groups like the Muslim Brotherhood  seen as incubators of terrorism by Saudi Arabia and Egypt  while openly seeking more cordial relations with Iran and Israel. Likewise, Qatar waged a proxy battle with its Gulf neighbors during the recent Libyan unrest.

In other words, fake news story or not, the sentiments attributed to Qatars emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, do not significantly deviate from what is widely considered official Qatari policy.

Russia denied involvement in the hack, stealing a page from the White Houses media relations strategy.

Unfortunately, our colleagues from CNN again and again publish references to unnamed sources in unnamed agencies, etc, etc. These streams of information have no connection with the reality. Its so far away from the reality. Fake is a fake, a Kremlin spokesman said.

Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
Mr Trump had insisted the FBI Director told him he was not being investigated: AP

Former FBI Director James Comey has confirmed something that Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed - that he is not personally under investigation.

In a statement prepared ahead of testimony on Capitol Hill, Mr Comey said that at an intelligence briefing with the President-elect on January 6, he discussed with the FBI leadership team whether he could assure him that we were not investigating him personally.

That was true; we did not have an open counter-terrorism case on him, wrote Mr Comey. During my one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-elect Trumps reaction to the briefing and without him asking the question, we offered that assurance.

(THREAD) All four men now testifying before Congressthe FBI Director, Deputy AG, NSA head, and DNIshould be found in Contempt of Congress. pic.twitter.com/tGgV0M9CBn  Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) June 7, 2017

Mr Trump had raised the eyebrows of many when he fired Mr Comey as FBI Director and claimed at the time, that the 56-year-old had told him three times he was not the target of federal investigators looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias alleged interference in the 2016 US election.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau, Mr Trump wrote in a letter confirming the firing.

Later, in an interview with NBC, he said Mr Comey had made this clear to him once over dinner, and twice in phone calls.

During the phone call, he said it. And during the other phone call, he said it, Mr Trump said. So, he said it once at dinner, and then he said it twice during phone calls.

Reports at the time, quoting unidentified sources said to be close to Mr Comey, dismissed Mr Trumps claims, saying that the FBI Director would never have given such an undertaking.

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However, Mr Comeys statement, ahead of testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, confirms he did indeed tell Mr Trump he was not personally under investigation, on not three occasions, but four.

Mr Comey said that at dinner with Mr Trump on January 27, the President brought up the dossier of salacious material that had been collected by former British intelligence official Christopher Steele and which he and Barack Obama had been informed of.

He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didnt happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we werent, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative, he said.

The third instance when Mr Comey told Mr Trump he was not personally the target of investigators, was a March 30 phone call.

Mr Comey said he had explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump.

I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, We need to get that fact out, wrote Mr Comey.

The fourth instance was on April 11. The President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I get out that he is not personally under investigation, wrote Mr Comey.

Getting ready to leave for Cincinnati, in the GREAT STATE of OHIO, to meet with ObamaCare victims and talk Healthcare & also Infrastructure!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2017

I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that the cloud was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled.

Mr Comeys prepared also make clear that Mr Trump asked him to stop investigating his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. The former general was forced to resign after lying about his contacts with Russian officials. The former FBI Director also says that Mr Trump repeatedly sought his loyalty and asked what could be done to lift the cloud of investigation shadowing his administration.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, He is a good guy and has been through a lot. He repeated that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President, said Mr Comey.

He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that he is a good guy.
Washington (AFP) - She was once the face of the heated debate on immigration, the child of Mexicans who entered the United States illegally yet went on to became a promising student before a minor run-in with the police.

With immigration once again at the center of US politics, 28-year-old Jessica Colotyl is now facing deportation to a country she knew only as a small child.

But she is determined to fight to the last.

Colotyl had spent most of her life in the United States when she was arrested seven years ago for the minor offense of driving without a license and put behind bars for 37 days. Her incarceration prompted protests on college campuses.

Eventually able to return to school in the southern state of Georgia, she graduated and began work as an assistant in a law firm.

She also became the country's most prominent "Dreamer," the informal name for undocumented migrants brought into the country as young children and protected by a program set up under former president Barack Obama.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allowed immigrants' children to obtain residence and work permits -- covering some 750,000 people.

But with Donald Trump newly installed in the White House, Colotyl learned in early May that her DACA status had been revoked.

"It's been an emotional rollercoaster between frustration, anguish, anxiety, fear and confusion because President Trump said the Dreamers could breathe easy," she told AFP.

A court hearing for her case is scheduled for Thursday. "I only have one choice," she said, "to fight to the very end."

- 'Culture shock' -

Originally from Mexico's southern Puebla region, Colotyl remembers her native country as "a very Catholic country, everything was centered on the Church."

She crossed the border at age 11 unable to speak English.

"When I started school, it was really difficult because of the language barrier," she said. "It was a culture shock. Little by little, I found my feet, though."

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Pursuing her dream of higher education, she eventually enrolled at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta.

But she was arrested for driving without a license in March 2010 a few months before her exams and sent to a detention center for foreigners, where the only way to communicate with loved ones was through a video screen.

"That was devastating because I had lost all hope of staying here and I had to give up on my dream of a university degree," Colotyl said. "The conditions in the detention center were very bad. A lot of people were getting sick with no medical treatment."

But her classmates mobilized by staging protests that spread thanks to action by sororities and fraternities.

Colotyl quickly became a national symbol in the immigration debate.

- Illegal and a graduate -

While some critics objected to the fact that she had received a tuition discount for local residents, Colotyl's supporters believe she is anything but a candidate for deportation.

Released from detention, Colotyl tried to prove the nay-sayers wrong. She resumed her studies and paid the full tuition fee, graduated and joined a law firm in the Atlanta area.

Although still recognized on the street, she didn't feel threatened -- until May, when the authorities suddenly revoked her DACA status and began the process of deporting her, citing her past offense.

Trump has boosted spending on deportations of undocumented migrants.

"No one is safe," Colotyl said. "Today, it's happening to me, but tomorrow it could be lot of other people."

In her latest fight, Colotyl has received the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union advocacy group and a team of lawyers.

Her lawyer, Charles Kuck, said Colotyl had been targeted by an "overzealous" prosecutor from the Citizenship and Immigration Services, or ICE, who he said had "misled" the immigration agency into believing his client had a criminal record.

"She does not have such a conviction," he said, "a fact that ICE has now acknowledged."
Eric Trump, Donald Trump's son has called critics of his father "not even people".

Appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News programme, Mr Trump was responding to a segment on supposed attacks against the Trump family.

"You see the Democratic Party, they are imploding...they don't even have a message," Mr Trump said

"Morality is just gone, morals have flown out the window," said Eric.

The President came under fire during the 2016 election for a leaked audio clip of his derogatory remarks about sexual assault against women.

His father's campaign team is also under investigation by the FBI, Senate, and House for alleged ties between the aides and Russia. Mr Trump's brother-in-law Jared Kushner has been named a person of interest in the probe as well.

"We deserve so much better than this as a country" than for Democrats to "obstruct a great man [like my father]" said Mr Trump.

Eric Trump says, "Morality is gone." This is Eric Trump. pic.twitter.com/DpsCVXZOb1  Ari Solomon (@VeganAri) June 7, 2017

The third son of Ivana and Donald Trump went on to say that Democrats were doing this because "they lost an election they should have won".

He paused a moment to weigh what he had just said, but recovered to blame the lack of leadership in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for the President not being able to pass necessary legislation.

He called the head of the DNC Tom Perez a "whackjob" and complained that Democrats and media come after the Trump family "viciously".

Several people took to social media to express what they felt was irony in Mr Trump's comments.
It's not exactly news that North Korea is upset with the United States. However, the subject matter of the most recent dustup between the nuclear-armed dictatorship and the "America First" Trump administration is an unusual one.

On Tuesday, North Korea's foreign ministry blasted Trump for his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, removing the world's second-largest emitter of global warming pollutants from the treaty.

SEE ALSO: Trump who? Tech giants join massive effort to uphold Paris Agreement

In announcing the withdrawal on June 1 from the nearly universally supported agreement, Trump earned the scorn of the European Union, China, India, Brazil, and many other nations that have been taking ambitious actions to reduce their emissions of global warming gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Trump said the move was aimed at preserving and creating more American jobs, even though the studies he cited during his speech omitted the steep costs from climate change itself, such as sea level rise inundating valuable real estate in coastal cities.

2016 was the warmest calendar year on record worldwide.

Image: bob al-greene/mashable/nasa data

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of North Korea said that Trump's move and his overall "America First" foreign policy "is the height of egoism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being even at the cost of the entire planet..."

The spokesman went on to call Trump's Paris Agreement decision "short-sighted and silly," and "ignorant of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests."

"The selfish act of the U.S. does not only have grave consequences for the international efforts to protect the environment, but poses great danger to other areas as well," the spokesman said.

North Korea has vowed to combat deforestation but is viewed as increasingly vulnerable to climate change, given the countrys frequent food shortages. One of its only economic lifelines is the export of carbon-intensive coal to China, which is the worlds number one emitter of greenhouse gases.

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Interestingly, Trump's decision is not popular at home either, with two recent polls showing the majority of the American people support staying in the agreement.

The U.S. is now one of just three countries worldwide to be either outside the agreement or on their way out, with Syria and Nicaragua as the other two nations. Nicaragua, though, never joined because it didn't think the agreement goes far enough toward preventing dangerous amounts of global warming.
WASHINGTON (AP)  You've probably heard all about what's happening in Washington. This is a story about what isn't.

The rapid-fire revelations about the Trump campaign and its Russia connections that are heating up this city are having a chilling effect in plenty of other ways.

There are bills that have been pushed to the back burner. Diplomatic initiatives that aren't fully initiating. Interest groups that can't stir up much interest. Appointees that haven't been appointed.

"It reminds me very much of the Monica Lewinsky days, when things just slowed to a crawl," says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist who worked for then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich when President Bill Clinton was under investigation for his affair with an intern in the late 1990s. "Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are consumed by it and there seems to be little appetite for getting into the nitty gritty of other things."

Public relations executive Jamie Horwitz, who leads the team that schedules National Press Club events, emails that "nothing, NOTHING of any importance" is happening at the press club this week. By contrast, the organization's schedule for June 2016, when reporters were out covering campaigns and President Barack Obama was almost out the door, still featured plenty of press conferences, breakfasts, luncheons and newsmaker events.

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, would like to see the nation more focused on voter suppression laws she says are being adopted around the country, but "attention spans for these critical issues are short" with so much interest focused on the Russia matter.

"It does feel like the Comey controversy is sucking up a lot of the air," Clarke said, referring to James Comey, the fired FBI chief.

Even Marc Short, President Donald Trump's legislative affairs director, this week acknowledged that all of the focus on the Russia investigations "detracts from our legislative agenda. It detracts from what we're trying to deliver."

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To be sure, the city has not ground to a halt.

Trump himself made a point of agreeing to address religious conservatives at the same time that Comey will be testifying before Congress on Thursday. And the White House is gamely attempting to keep the focus this week on proposed infrastructure improvements.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Wednesday that Trump was "not letting the distractions get in the way" of his focus on infrastructure and other items on his agenda, even as Washington's focus shifted to Comey's release of written testimony a day in advance of his appearance in the Capitol.

On Capitol Hill, senators are writing their version of legislation to replace the Obama administration's health-care law, which stalled out once before. And the full Senate and House are scheduled to be tackling Iran sanctions and financial regulations when Comey is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But the mushrooming Russia investigation throws a long shadow.

Former Oklahoma congressman Mickey Edwards said the drumbeat of revelations about the Trump campaign's connections to Russia makes even Republican legislators less likely to deliver full-throated support to Trump initiatives such as health care.

"Everybody's going to be a little skittish about casting votes to support a Trump agenda when you don't know what's the next shoe that's going to drop," says Edwards, who spent 16 years in the House from 1977 to 1992 and served in the GOP leadership.

And with Trump running far behind on making appointments, Edwards adds, the Russia investigations put even more pressure on the "small group of people" who are running his administration.

"It's like a little family gathering trying to run a country," he says. "They don't have the capacity even without the Russia investigation. And with Russia, they're totally diverted."

On Capitol Hill, a handful of congressional committees are directly involved in the Russia question. And beyond that, "everybody's interested in it from a gossip standpoint," says Galen.

With the Senate and House intelligence committees at the center of the Trump-Russia vortex, legislation to renew and revise a key section of the foreign intelligence surveillance law that allows the U.S. to collect certain communications on the internet has been forced to compete for attention with the Russia matters. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday on the surveillance law, questions to the nation's intelligence chiefs repeatedly pivoted instead toward the Russia investigation.

As for action on health care, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said that after the House passed its version of health legislation, he returned to Washington the following Monday psyched for the Senate to tackle the issue.

"And then Tuesday, Comey got fired," Kaine said. "And since then, aside from Republicans working behind closed doors to find health care solutions without Democratic participation, we haven't had hearings on health care. We haven't had witnesses. ... It does divert attention."

At the State Department, the constant questions about potential collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia have added another layer of difficulty to the administration's efforts to improve relations with the former Cold War foe.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking during a visit to New Zealand, said Tuesday that Trump wants him to keep what's happening "in the political realm" from impeding efforts to rebuild U.S. relations with Russia. But he acknowledged that "our relationships with Russia are at a very low point and they've been deteriorating."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., recently lamented that the Russia probe is "a challenge to Washington, D.C., the way we do business, a challenge to bipartisanship and a challenge to the effectiveness of this newly elected president." And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., warned that all the leaks related to Russia were making it hard for people within the executive branch to trust one another "when you are in a room and you don't know where these notes or where these comments are going to wind up in the newspaper in 48 hours."

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Clinton administration, cautions against blaming all of Trump's problems on the Russia probes when there is plenty of "independent dysfunction in the White House."

"It wasn't going to be so easy to get any of this done even without the distraction of the Russia investigation," he says.

"I don't think he's been in a commanding position from Day One," Galston adds. "He's taken a bad hand and played it very badly into an even worse hand."

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Associated Press writers Josh Lederman, Jill Colvin and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.

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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac

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This story has been corrected to reflect that the first name for president of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, is Kristen, rather than Elizabeth, Clarke.
Hong Kong (AFP) - Major international finance institutions in Hong Kong made a landmark intervention Wednesday in the case of a gay couple struggling to get their rights recognised by the city's courts.

The 12 businesses -- including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse -- say they want to submit evidence to a hearing at the Court of Appeal next week in the case of a British woman refused a spousal visa because she is in a same-sex partnership.

Law firm Davis Polk and Wardwell, representing the companies, said their clients had intervened "to assist the court by giving a more rounded picture of the issues".

"They all seek to attract and hire top talent from around the world in line with their diversity policies," the statement added.

Hong Kong does not recognise gay marriage and only decriminalised homosexuality in 1991.

Its immigration law does not explicitly rule out gay couples, but states that only the "spouse" of a person permitted to work in the territory may apply for a dependant visa.

Known to the court only as "QT", the woman at the centre of the case came to Hong Kong in 2011 after she entered into a civil partnership with a woman known as "SS" in Britain.

SS was moving to Hong Kong for a new job.

But QT was denied a dependant visa and was given instead a visitor visa, which does not allow her to work.

She lost a legal challenge in March last year.

Despite the emergence of some LGBT-supporting initiatives in Hong Kong, conservative groups regularly hit back at the promotion of what they claim is an anti-family agenda.

The government has also been criticised by rights campaigners for a lack of anti-discrimination laws and little progress towards marriage equality.

QT's lawyer Michael Vidler said her legal team welcomed the unprecedented intervention by the companies, which he said aimed to highlight the practical effect of government policy on major employers.

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"It is a landmark move by a substantial proportion of an industry which provides the backbone for Hong Kong's economic success," he said.

The court now has to decide whether to accept the submissions.

Even if it refuses, Vidler said the application was "historic".

"It provides a concrete example of major businesses leading by example in unequivocally standing up for LGBT rights in Hong Kong," he told AFP.

A Taiwan court ruled in favour of gay marriage last month, galvanising campaigners in the region.

But on the same day in Hong Kong, 27,000 people, including five lawmakers, submitted a petition to the government requesting it appeal a recent court decision to grant welfare benefits to a gay civil servant and his husband.

When HSBC -- which is not on the list of court interveners -- displayed a pair of rainbow-painted lions outside its office in Hong Kong in December to show of support for the city's LGBT community, anti-gay campaigners slammed it as "disgusting".
Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch had seemingly pushed him to downplay an investigation into Hillary Clintons private email server.

Comey told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Lynch, who served under then-President Barack Obama, had ordered him to use particular wording  a matter  while discussing the probe.

Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is that at one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me, he said. But that was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude, I have to step away from the department if were to close this case credibly.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, asked Comey if Lynchs controversial meeting with Clintons husband, former President Bill Clinton, on a private airplane influenced the way he handled the email scandal.

Comey noted that this meeting did in fact raise questions about the impartiality of the FBI and the Justice Department in the minds of many Americans.

Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former FBI Director James Comey. (Photos: Nancy Wiechec/Reuters, Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

That was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.

Though the bulk of his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence focused on President Trumps decision to suddenly fire him and the Kremlins alleged influence, conservatives seized on the Lynch comments, interpreting them as Lynchs attempt to interfere with the Clinton probe and downplay its importance. Clinton exclusively used a private email server for her official State Department business, raising the question of whether classified material was mishandled.

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Will fmr AG Lynch be charged w/ obstruction of justice after Comey revelations of demands she made? Will Dems demand it?  Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) June 8, 2017

When Comey announced that neither Clinton nor her aides would face charges, he nevertheless publicly called her setup extremely careless with classified information.

Whether intentional or not, Comey said, Lynchs command gave the impression the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way a political campaign was describing the same activity.

He added that even though he obliged and used the word matter, it would be entirely inaccurate to refer to their examination of Clintons email use as any other than what it was: an investigation.

We had a criminal investigation open at the time, so that gave me a queasy feeling.

Read more from Yahoo News:
Yara Shahidi is officially a high school graduate.

The Black-ish actress flashed the peace sign  and a smile  as she posed in her white cap and gown on Wednesday. The stars future is bright as she announced on Tuesday that shell be attending Harvard at the recommendation of former first lady Michelle Obama, who wrote her college recommendation.

One large supportive family, like minded peers, three seasons of a comedy, 1  years of no heat on my hair, many life changing books, quite a few lessons learned from @afshineee and @chocolatemommyluv , many great adventures, a handful of all-nighters finishing essays, getting frustrated while doing derivatives, falling in love with James Baldwin, (more breakdowns than Id like to admit), followed by even more growth, a daunting college process, a few panic attacks, with even more blissful moments, a spin off, and a final APUSH project later. Im here, the grad captioned her pic. Thank you to everyone whos created the beautiful memories/opportunities/and adventures thatve gotten me to this moment.

A second photo showed her adorably jumping up and down. Time well spent, she wrote.

Time well spent A post shared by Yara () Shahidi (@yarashahidi) on Jun 7, 2017 at 9:46pm PDT

Shahidi got some immediate love from her TV mom, Tracee Ellis Ross, who shared one of Yaras graduation photos as well as the photo she posted to announce shes going to Harvard. How about this being all kinds of wonderful?!? she wrote. @YaraShahidi what a treat and an honor it is to witness your growth, to witness you blossoming. You are taking flight, young lady. And Im so happy youre on this planet. @Harvard is lucky to have you grace their halls, so go paint em up with all that Yara!! #MeLovesMeSomeYou.

On Tuesday, Yara posted a photo of herself in a Harvard hoodie and announced that shed be attending the school. She previously said she planned to defer for at least a year, so its unclear if that is still part of her plan, especially in light of talk about her getting her own spin-off from Black-ish. FTR, she was accepted at every school she applied to.

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The paradox of education is precisely this  that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. ~ James Baldwin #CrimsonPride A post shared by Yara () Shahidi (@yarashahidi) on Jun 6, 2017 at 6:56pm PDT

As reported, Michelle Obama wrote a recommendation letter for her to attend Harvard, where she attended law school. Malia Obama will also be attending the school this fall after taking a gap year to intern at the Weinstein Company.





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Hawaii has become the first state to codify its position to stand with the Paris accord: Getty Images

Hawaii has become the first state in the US to formally codify its pledge to defy Donald Trumps decision to withdraw the country from the Paris climate agreement.

Governor David Ige signed two landmark laws that would require the island state to honour the commitments and goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions laid out in the accord. Hawaii is joined by many other US states and localities to declare that the Paris agreement would be honoured, with many governors and mayors signing executive orders or pledging to continue the fight.

The two Hawaii bills codifies the state legislatures commitment to Paris, and commits Hawaii to cut emissions by publishing greenhouse gas contribution levels every five year to promote environmental integrity. The state hopes to protect forests, wetlands, and nature preserves while providing incentives for companies to become carbon-neutral. A certification scheme for farmers will be implemented to measure and promote carbon-neutrality as well.

Mr Trump announced that the US would withdraw from the international accord last week, making American one of three countries in the world to not be a part of the framework. The President  who has previously called climate change science a hoax  said that the non-binding commitments laid out in the Paris agreement threatened American jobs and disadvantaged the country.

That announcement drew the ire of international allies, including France, Germany, and Italy, which issued a joint statement condemning Mr Trumps actions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the move was extremely regrettable. French President Emmanuel Macron joined in the fray with a play on Mr Trumps campaign slogan, saying, make our planet great again.

But American cities and states have stepped up to try and fill the void in leadership from the US that Mr Trump is leaving behind. Hundreds of mayors have vowed to honor the climate commitments, and a growing number of states have indicated the same. An alliance between California, Washington, New York, and nine other states quickly vowed to drop emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels. Those states represent some of the largest US economies, and a considerable portion of the overall emissions.
The U.S. might be abandoning the Paris Climate Agreement, but that doesn't mean the states have to play along.

Hawaii this week became the first state in the country to adopt legislation that upholds portions of the landmark climate treaty.

Gov. David Ige signed two bills, one of which expands strategies for reducing statewide greenhouse gas emissions, and the other which expands "carbon-negative" agricultural practices on the island's farms.

SEE ALSO: California's governor, not Trump, meets with China over climate change

"The Hawaii state legislature understands the importance of taking action, and I applaud its work this session to ensure that we continue to deliver the island Earth that we want to leave to our children," Ige said at a signing ceremony on Tuesday.

The actions arrive less than a week after President Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, which was signed in 2015 and entered into force last year. Trump called the voluntary, non-binding treaty a "draconian" document that's "unfair" to Americans. He said he'd try to renegotiate the agreement, which is legally impossible to do.

Since then, more than 1,200 U.S. governors, mayors, businesses, investors, colleges, and academic institutions have joined "We Are Still In," an effort to assure the international community that the U.S. is still working toward the targets of the Paris agreement.

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The treaty commits nations to reducing emissions enough to limit global warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels through 2100. It also sets a more ambitious goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Image: ed hawkins

At Tuesday's event in Honolulu, Ige said Hawaiians "look forward to working with other states to fight global climate change. Together, we can directly contribute to the global agenda of achieving a more resilient and sustainable island Earth."

The first of Hawaii's new climate laws enshrines the state's commitment to combatting climate change by reducing emissions  through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other methods  and improving the state's resiliency to climate-related impacts, including rising sea levels and more severe and frequent storms.

The measure adopts relevant portions of the Paris agreement as state law, "which gives us a legal basis to continue adaptation and mitigation strategies for Hawaii  despite the federal government's withdrawal from the treaty," State Sen. J. Kalani English said in a statement.

And the journey continues. We stand committed to the fight against global #climatechange. Latest to our #storymap https://t.co/hz1Tkb2KHh pic.twitter.com/SDthUYaOPk  Governor David Ige (@GovHawaii) June 7, 2017

The second law establishes the Carbon Farming Task Force, aimed at identifying "agricultural and aquacultural practices to improve soil health and promote carbon sequestration." Healthy soils can potentially soak up heat-trapping carbon emissions and keep them out of the atmosphere, where they contribute to global warming.

While Hawaii is so far the only state to pass legislation in support of Paris after Trump's withdrawal announcement, other governors have similarly voiced support for the global agreement.

Ige is one of 13 U.S. governors, including Republicans and Democrats, to join the newly created United States Climate Alliance, which commits states to upholding the Paris agreement's targets.
Trumps infrastructure week builds on his call for spending $1 trillion in US infrastructure over 10 years. Specifically, Trumps plan aims for $200 billion in federal spending that would trigger $800 billion in private financing through public-private partnerships.

While the need for increased infrastructure investment has been acknowledged by Democrats and Republicans, disagreements on funding suggest a more uncertain road to passage.

Investors in companies that would benefit from an infrastructure boom dont appear convinced that a wave of spending is coming any time soon. Martin Marietta (MLM), Vulcan Materials (VMC) and United Rentals (URI) have all underperformed the market, as shown in the year-to-date chart below.

Management at these companies arent factoring in a boost in federal spending in their forecasts. The last time these companies updated their investors was just over a month ago.

Martin Marietta, a leading supplier of aggregates used for heavy construction, reiterated in its first-quarter report on May 2 that it is not banking on legislation in its estimates.

The 2017 guidance we provided in February and reaffirm today does not reflect any benefits that may be gained from potential legislation, increasing federal infrastructure investment, Martin Marietta CEO Howard Nye said.

Vulcan Materials, the biggest producer of construction aggregates in the US, also would benefit from more federal infrastructure funding. But on the companys earnings conference call on May 10, CEO Thomas Hill pointed to state-level funding, such as Californias Senate Bill 1, as the key driver for the company. He added he was optimistic about something happening eventually on the national level but remained focused on state efforts in the near and medium term for Vulcan. Its worth noting transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao served as a board member before stepping down this year.

Construction crews work on a section of Interstate 20 West that buckled in Decatur, Ga., Monday, April 17, 2017. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

This will continue to happen across other Vulcan states and other states throughout the country, but its also going to happen at some point in time on a national level, Hill said on the earnings call.

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United Rentals, which is the largest equipment rental company in the world, also stands to benefit from a ramp-up in infrastructure, but it too is not banking on any federal approval.

As far as infrastructure, the infrastructure is being talked about on the political front, were not baking that into our number, that would be added on to as we go forward, CEO Michael Kneeland said at the Wells Fargo Industrial Conference on May 10. But I would tell you that the employment numbers, the consumer index, trucking improvements that were seeing, the tonnage weight, all point to the economy doing fairly well.

The needs are significant

State and local governments currently provide 75% of the $400 million in annual infrastructure dollars. But support from the federal government is necessary to address the nations needs.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that a build-out for everything from the countrys roads and bridges to schools and transportation systems needs $4.59 trillion in investment by 2025. The group gave Americas infrastructure a D+ on a 2017 report card.

As noted in the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) Building to Win infrastructure plan, Without immediate action on the infrastructure crisis, the United States will lose more than 2.5 million jobs by 2025 and more than 5.8 million by 2040.

Meanwhile, past federal actionincluding Obamas 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and 2015 Fixing Americas Surface Transportation (FAST) Acthavent been enough, according to Stifel analyst Stanley Elliott.

Trumps tax-credit approach has been critiqued by the left as a privatization scam that would be better served with public money. Meanwhile, passage is threatened by his own party, with health care and tax reform seen as higher agenda priorities.

Considering all these needs and hurdles, its no wonder why stocks in this sector havent seen better performance.



Nicole Sinclair is markets correspondent at Yahoo Finance.

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Doha (AFP) - Qatar said Thursday it will not "surrender" and rejected any interference in its foreign policy, defying its Gulf neighbours in an escalating dispute over its alleged support for extremists.

In an interview with AFP, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said calls for a change in Qatari policy from Saudi Arabia and its allies, which cut diplomatic ties with Doha this week, were unacceptable.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed said.

He also rejected "a military solution as an option" to resolving the crisis, and said Qatar could survive "forever" despite the measures taken against it.

"We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender the independence of our foreign policy," he told reporters later, adding: "No one will break us."

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar strongly denies the allegations and has expressed a willingness to engage in talks to resolve the crisis.

The gas-rich emirate's satellite news giant Al-Jazeera has also emerged as a point of contention, and on Thursday the broadcaster said it was battling a major cyber attack.

Al-Jazeera tweeted that it was "under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms", and a source said it was trying to repel the hack.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have banned Al-Jazeera from the airwaves and closed the channel's offices.

- Kuwait emir leads efforts -

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar, barred the emirate's planes from their airspace and ordered Qatari citizens out within 14 days.

The feud has raised fears of wider instability in an already volatile region that is a crucial global energy supplier and home to several Western military bases.

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Kuwait -- which unlike most of its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members has not cut off ties with Qatar -- has been leading efforts to mediate.

Its emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah held talks on Wednesday with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, following talks with senior UAE officials and Saudi King Salman.

US President Donald Trump, who had initially backed the measures against Qatar in a tweet, called Sheik Tamim on Wednesday with an offer "to help the parties resolve their differences".

Qatar hosts the Al-Udeid military base, the largest US airbase in the Middle East. Home to some 10,000 troops, it is central to the US-led fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also reached out to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bid to kick off negotiations.

Turkey, which works closely with Qatar in the energy sector, has walked a fine line between defending Qatar and abstaining from openly antagonising Saudi Arabia.

Ankara hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif this week for talks, including on Qatar.

In a sign of support for Doha, Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved an agreement to expand the number of troops deployed to a Turkish base in Qatar. The agreement did not detail a timeframe or the number of troops.

Iran and Qatar share the world's largest gas field, an offshore site the Iranians call South Pars and the Qataris call the North Dome. Doha is the world's largest exporter of natural liquefied gas.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a 2014 dispute, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Doha over Qatari support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

A top Gulf official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a major concern was the influence of Sheikh Tamim's father, Sheikh Hamad, who had allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha and helped arm Syrian rebels before abdicating in 2013.

"The previous emir is a big supporter of this whole extremist agenda, so we do have an issue," the official said.

- Foreign policy 'gone wild' -

Doha has for years forged its own alliances in the region, often diverging from the politics of the six-state GCC and taking in leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and members of the Afghan Taliban.

A senior Emirati official told AFP this week's decision was not aimed at a change of regime in Qatar but to pressure the country to reshape its policy.

"This is a foreign policy that has gone wild," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told AFP. "We need to put everything in check."

Gargash said the four Arab states seek a "political commitment to change course" by Qatar, including ending its support for the Brotherhood and Hamas.

Bahrain on Thursday followed the UAE in announcing that expressing sympathy for Qatar over the sanctions was an offence punishable by jail.
Mohammad Javad Zarif, Foreign Minister Of Iran, tweeted late Wednesday, stating he found the White House Statement in response to the Iran terror attacks repugnant and that the people of his nation reject a fake show of friendship.

Following the terror attacks that struck Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini which left 12 people dead and more than 40 injured, Trump issued a statement to offer condolences and prayers for the families of the victims who were affected by the tragedy.

Zarifs scathing comments however were directed towards President Donald Trump and the White House for the second part of the statement released after the attacks. The official statement started off by offering condolences after the attack before moving on to read we underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Read: Khomeini Shrine, Iran Parliament Attacks Live Updates: Casualties Reported After Firing And Blast

This was not the first time Trump was condemned by Zarif. He has been criticised by the Iranian foreign minister a number of times in the past.

This latest White House statement was seen by many as a taunt directed at Iran for being victimized by the very terrorists they allegedly shelter, according to U.S. claims. Shortly after the attacks, the Islamic State group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were there to stay," First Post reported.

The White House statement however was backed by Aaron Sagui, a spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington. He highlighted the second sentence in the statement and added an Exactly after that.

The fact the U.S. government will not back down became clearer hours after the terror attacks when Republicans and Democrats in Congress acted on a procedural vote to move forward with a bill to impose additional sanctions on the on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program, as well as anyone trading with them. It would also apply terrorism sanctions on Irans Revolutionary Guard and enforce an arms embargo, Fox News reported.

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The vote on the bill went ahead despite a few senators, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, urging for it to be delayed in light of the recent Iran attacks.

Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," Sanders said.

But New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez countered by saying the bill was a "carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East."

Iran Terror Attacks

Photo: Reuters/Omid Vahabzadeh

While the U.S. blamed Iran for the attacks on its own soil, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard pointed the finger at Saudi Arabia and its growing friendship with the U.S.

This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. President Donald Trump and the Saudi backward leaders who support terrorists. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they [Saudi Arabia] were involved in the brutal attack, they stated, according to Newsweek.

Saudi Arabia denied the allegations and also condemned the attack.

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Tehran (AFP) - Iran said Thursday that five of its nationals who killed 17 people in twin attacks in Tehran were Islamic State members who had been to the group's strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Wednesday's attacks on Tehran's parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which also wounded more than 50 people, were the first claimed by IS in Iran.

"The five known terrorists... after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the intelligence ministry said in a statement.

It suggested there were only five attackers rather than the six originally reported.

An official said previously that those who attacked the parliament complex had been dressed as women.

The ministry released their photographs and first names.

It said they were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of "high-ranking Daesh commander" Abu Aisha intending to carry out "terrorist operations in religious cities".

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee the country, the statement said. It was unclear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of Wednesday's attacks.

IS on Thursday released a video of the five attackers before the assault, via its Amaq propaganda agency.

"Allah permitting, this is the first brigade that was established (in Iran) but it will not be the last," one said in the video message, as the group sat masked in a circle with their weapons.

The jihadist group had earlier released footage of the attackers from inside the building, also via Amaq -- a rare claim of responsibility while an assault was still going on.

- 'The evil they promote' -

Following the attacks, US President Donald Trump said the United States would "grieve and pray" for the victims, but added: "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

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The statement was condemned by foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: "Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients."

Trump was also criticised on social media by Iranians, who recalled their government's offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

"Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy," tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

The US president has long accused Iran of backing terrorism and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

Even as Washington expressed its condolences on Wednesday, the US Senate advanced legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran, partly for what the bill described as the regime's "support for acts of international terrorism".

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have pointed the finger at regional rival Saudi Arabia -- a close US ally -- which Tehran accuses of funding extremism and groups including IS.

IS has threatened to step up recruitment within Iran, releasing its first Persian-language video in March in which it threatened to "conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before."

The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iranians to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.

- Khomeini shrugs off attacks -

The attackers were armed with rifles and pistols and at least two blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police said a further five people were arrested around Khomeini's shrine on suspicion of involvement.

In the midst of the unfolding attacks, the intelligence ministry said a third team had been stopped before the attacks started, but no further details have since been given.

Sunni Gulf Arab states are in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis after Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with Qatar on Monday over claims it supports extremism and has fewer tensions with Iran.

Iranian leaders sought to play down the attacks, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: "These firecrackers that happened today will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people."
American and coalition forces operating in southeast Syria were attacked Thursday by a drone that hit a coalition patrol, part of a rapidly escalating war with Iranian-backed militias in the country, according to the Pentagon.

The attack, which U.S. military officials say caused no casualties or damage to equipment, was the first time U.S.-backed forces had been targeted by a drone in Syria, and indicates that the Bashar al Assad regime and his Iranian backers are willing to target American and coalition troops directly. It also came just after American warplanes struck Shiite militias, backed by Iran, for the third time in as many weeks near the U.S. garrison at al Tanf.

A spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, Col. Ryan Dillon, told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that the drone was similar in size to a U.S. MQ-1 Predator, indicating it was likely Iranian-made, even if it was piloted by Syrian forces. Dillion would not comment on the make of the drone, or where it might have come from.

But the description and the fact that it was armed, appears to point to the Iranian-made Shahed-129, which has been spotted in Syria since at least 2014. The drone, one of a handful of unmanned aerial vehicles Iran has sent to support Assads forces, can be equipped with a combination of eight bombs or Sadid-1 air-to-ground missiles.

Iranian military officials have claimed at least one previous strike by the Shahed-129 in Syria, saying it hit rebels near Aleppo in October 2015. A year later, chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri claimed his forces were using drones to hit terrorist targets in Syria and Iraq.

Recent footage from Iranian television shows other strikes by the drone in Syria.

The U.S. air strike on the militias on Thursday came as two armed vehicles strayed close to the al Tanf base, which is home to U.S. and other allied forces partnering with Syrian rebel groups fighting the Islamic State. The vehicles, Pentagon officials acknowledged, were likely operated by Iranian-backed Shiite militias fighting on behalf of the Syrian regime, though they couldnt rule out some Syrian government forces might have been in the small convoy as well.

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The U.S. has carved out a 55-mile deconfliction zone around al Tanf and has warned that any forces who come within that area could be subject to attack.

The first incident came on May 18, when several vehicles, including bulldozers and tanks, entered the space and after ignoring warnings, were bombed by American jets. A small element of over a dozen troops remained at the site, but hadnt moved. On Tuesday, another militia group entered the area and despite warnings, refused to leave. They were also destroyed. Thursdays incident came after two more armed trucks approached the area.

In a statement, the U.S. Central Command said that the U.S.-led coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime, Russian or pro-regime forces partnered with them. The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces near Coalition and partner forces in southern Syria, however, continue to concern us and the Coalition will take appropriate measures to protect our forces.

Photo Credit: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images
Former FBI director offers statement describing a meeting in which Trump asked him to drop his inquiry into Michael Flynn: I hope you can let this go

Donald Trump asked James Comey to drop an investigation into Michael Flynns ties to Russia, Comey says. Photograph: Gary Cameron/Reuters

The fired FBI chief, James Comey, has publicly revealed how Donald Trump put pressure on him to shut down an investigation into a senior advisers links to Russia.

Trump asked Comey to drop his investigation into the former national security adviser Gen Michael Flynn, Comeys first written account of his interactions says.

I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, the president is alleged to have told Comey in the White House in February. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.



Comey, who was subsequently dismissed by Trump, writes that he understood the president to be asking him to drop the investigation into Flynn, an intervention he found very concerning.

Comeys statement for the record was released on Wednesday ahead of his eagerly awaited appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Over seven pages, he provides intriguing detail about his private conversations with Trump, including a 30 March phone call in which Trump asked what Comey could do to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation.

The document appears certain to become the focus of an investigation into whether Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, an offence for which he could be impeached.

It tells how, over dinner on 27 January, Trump told him repeatedly, I need loyalty, and, in a phone call on 30 March, he asked what Comey could do to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation.

In between, on 14 February, Comey recalls a meeting at the Oval Office with a group of senior officials who were then asked to leave the room. He writes: When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, I want to talk about Mike Flynn. Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadnt done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

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The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information  a concern I shared and still share.

After a brief interruption, Trump resumed. The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, He is a good guy and has been through a lot. He repeated that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President.

He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that he is a good guy. (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would let this go.

Comey adds that he immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign.



I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynns departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency.

In another critical and vividly described scene, Trump invited Comey to dinner at the White House on 27 January and repeatedly asked the FBI director to pledge his personal loyalty.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks, Comey writes.

Trump started off the conversation by asking Comey whether he wanted to stay in his job, which the FBI director said he found strange as the president had already told him in earlier conversations he wanted Comey to stay.

In his statement, Comey makes it clear that Trump was seeking to put pressure on him. My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship, Comey said. That concerned me greatly, given the FBIs traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

Comey said he had every intention of staying on to finish his 10-year term in office, and made an effort to fend off Trumps attempt to gain leverage on him.

And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not reliable in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybodys side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.

Later in the conversation, Trump tried again, telling Comey: I need loyalty.

Comey replied: You will always get honesty from me.

Trump then said: Thats what I want, honest loyalty.

Comey writes: I paused, and then said, You will get that from me. As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently, but I decided it wouldnt be productive to push it further. The term  honest loyalty  had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

The statement also describes how Trump called Comey at the FBI on 30 March and described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to govern. In a reference to a salacious dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer, Comey writes: He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud.

I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didnt find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

The last time Comey spoke to Trump was an 11 April phone call, where Trump repeated his request that Comey make public that the president was not under investigation, again complaining that the cloud hanging over his presidency was stopping him from doing his job.

Comey says he told Trump that the request should go through the justice department. Trump then said: Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. Comey says he did not reply or ask what the president meant by that thing.

Less than a month later, on 9 May, Trump fired Comey. The FBI director first discovered he had been dismissed when the news was projected on a screen where he was giving a speech on an FBI field office in Los Angeles.

On Wednesday, Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill the testimony had been released in advance per an agreement with Comey.

Senators were in the midst of casting votes as news of Comeys prepared remarks surfaced. Senator John McCain of Arizona said his initial understanding of the revelations was that they were disturbing, although he stopped short of deeming it an obstruction of justice just yet.

Just as I suspected ... I think theres going to be many shoes to drop before this one is over, McCain said.

Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Comeys testimony confirms a host of troubling allegations around Trumps conduct.

Two stand out, he explained in a statement. The president sought to obtain a pledge of loyalty from the director of the FBI during a conversation that centered on whether the director would be able to keep his job.

And second, the president effectively asked the director to drop the investigation of his former national security adviser.

Congress must now determine whether the directors refusal to do either  or any other motivation to interfere with or obstruct any part of the Russia investigation  led ultimately to Comeys firing.
Despite all his youthful bombast and childlike temper tantrums, Kanye West is now 40 years old. Its very likely that the rapper will keep us entertained and on our toes for another 40 years, but to celebrate this milestone, lets look back on five of his wildest, most confounding, and most controversial moments.

5. Yeezus thinks hes Jesus (2006-present)

Perhaps nobody else alive has a healthier Christ-like complex. In 2006, Kanye riled up critics with his Rolling Stone cover, complete with a crown of thorns. The headline, referencing the 2004 Mel Gibson film, was The Passion of Kanye West.

Then in 2008, he went on an extended rant about his biblical worth, telling DJ Tim Westwood, You dont think I would be one of the characters of todays modern Bible?

In 2013, he bluntly named his new album Yeezus. It included the song I Am a God,  in which Kanye has a fictional conversation that goes like this: I just talked to Jesus / He said, What up Yeezus? / I said, Sh*t Im chilling / Trying to stack these millions.'

The constant comparisons didnt go unnoticed. In early 2017, an artist created a statue of Kanye in Hollywood  complete with a crucifix.

a life-size Kanye West Jesus golden statue has been unveiled on Hollywood Boulevard pic.twitter.com/UiqzRjiMcp  Rapper Reactions (@RapperReact) June 4, 2017



4. Kanye for president? (2015)

In June 2015, Donald Trump announced he was officially running for president. Three months later, at the MTV Video Music Awards, Ye followed suit with a glorious mic-drop moment. He said, I have decided, in 2020, to run for president.

Later, after a much-publicized visit with then-President-elect Donald Trump, he revised his statement: He would now be running in 2024, not 2020.

3. His 2016 hospitalization

Most of the time, Kanyes high jinks can be laughed at, or at least made fun of for their ridiculousness.

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But in November of 2016, he suddenly canceled his tour after a rant during a Sacramento show, a rant that criticized Jay Z and Beyonce.

Shortly after, he was hospitalized for temporary psychosis. Ever since, hes kept a relatively low profile.

2. That unforgettable George W. Bush comment (2005)

During a 2005 telethon in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West stood next to Mike Myers. Both made a case for why viewers should donate. Then, out of nowhere, Kanye said, George Bush doesnt care about black people. That comment, and Mike Myers shocked reaction, would live on in infamy.

Later, President Bush called it one of the most disgusting moments of [his] presidency. And in 2010, during a super uncomfortable interview with Matt Lauer on Today, Kanye apologized, saying, I didnt have the grounds to call [Bush] a racist.

1. All things Taylor Swift (2009-present)

It all started with Kanyes notorious Imma let you finish interruption during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. The two later made peace and were even photographed together having a good time at the 2015 Grammys.

Frenemies? Kanye West and Taylor Swift shaking hands at the 2015 Grammys. (Photo: Getty Images)

Of course, that didnt last long. In 2016, Kanye ruined their good vibes with two choice lyrics in his song Famous: I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / I made that b*tch famous.

Swift was reportedly incensed at the dig and later responded at the 2016 Grammys. She never said Kanyes name during her acceptance speech for Best Album but attacked those who took credit for her accomplishments  a thinly veiled knock on the rapper.

Kanye defended himself, claiming that he had called Swift to ask permission for the lyrics and she had approved them. But when she denied that, Kim Kardashian Snapchatted video of Kanye talking on the phone to someone who sounds a lot like Swift.

For Kanye and his fans, that was proof that she had reportedly given it the OK.

In more Kanye news, the rapper has an extensive history with U.S. presidents:

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LGD claimed the 2015 LPL Summer trophy in Hangzhou (LGD weibo)

In accordance with the LPLs franchising and home and away game system, LGD Gaming have revealed that they will relocate to Hangzhou, China in September of 2017. They will move their DotA 2 and other major esports teams with the League of Legends team to Hangzhou.

According to the announcement, LGD have a long history in Hangzhou. They established their club there in 2012. In 2015, their LoL team won their first and only LPL title in the final located in Hangzhou. Although currently their main teams are based in Shanghai, this will change beginning in September of this year when LGD will move all major esports teams to the downtown Star Studios.

Star Studios is a movie theater based on Hangzhou. LGD will use the facilities to start with a gaming hall, open to visitors, that will seat 600 spectators. They will move all media offices and supporting staff along with their teams in September.

According to the announcement, LGD hope that they can become part of Hangzhous rich cultural tradition. They want to become as entrenched as Real Madrid is to Madrid and Bayern is to Munich.

Their more long-standing plan is to use technology from the new laser I MAX hall to develop a larger venue of 3,000 seats. LGD hope that they can blend some aspects of the cinema and esports experiences when other esports teams come to Hangzhou to compete.

Franchising was implemented for the Chinese LPL this split. This Summer, teams continue to compete in Shanghai, but starting in the 2018 season, a home and away system will be implemented. LPL will take place in 3-5 cities. LGD are the first to officially announce a new permanent location.

You can follow Kelsey Moser on Twitter @karonmoser.
Donald and Melania Trump on the White House lawn on May 19. (Photo: AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Will this curtail his off-hours tweeting habit and bring a smile to his face?

Donald Trump will soon have his family under one roof: Melania and Barron will (finally) be relocating from NYC to Washington, D.C., next week, reports Politico. A source familiar with the situation said that Barrons school year at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan is wrapping up, and he will make the move with his mom on Wednesday.

There is the hope that Melania, who is the only first lady in modern history not to move into the White House immediately after the inauguration, will bring some stability  and happiness  to the 45th presidents life when she moves in on June 14. As reported by CNN, Trump has seemed lonely, angry, and not happy with much of anyone since he moved in solo in January. The presidency has not been a natural fit for the real estate mogul. He now lives within himself, which is a dangerous place for Donald Trump to be, a Trump confidant told the news outlet. I see him emotionally withdrawing. Hes gained weight. He doesnt have anybody whom he trusts.

Katherine Jellison, a history professor at Ohio University who specializes in first-lady studies, told Politico she has high hope for Melanias move to the White House. Her presence is not going to stop any investigations, but at a time when this particular presidency needs an air of stability, it might lend that, she said. The move helps to give the impression that the president is currently in a stable, solid marriage and that his home life is under control.

According to the report, Melanias parents, Victor and Amalija Knavs, will also become figures at the White House, and they will help care for 11-year-old Barron, whose classes end tomorrow and who will be attending St. Andrews Episcopal School in Potomac, Md., this fall. However, the Knavses, who currently live with Melania in the Trump Tower penthouse, arent relocating to the capital like Michelle Obamas mom, Marian Robinson, did.

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While Melania, a former model, remained a full-time resident of NYC, she has been making more visits to D.C. ahead of her move. The most recent was to attend a fundraiser at Fords Theatre on Sunday followed by a reception on Monday at the White House to honor Gold Star families. She also recently accompanied her husband on his first foreign trip.

There has been endless speculation about the state of the Trumps marriage (its his third), which has only grown after those viral videos of her pushing his hand away. Last week, there was more gossip stemming from a novelist claiming Melania was having an affair. So far that chatter remains just that: gossip.





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Guatemala City (AFP) - Mexico and Guatemala on Tuesday said they would boost the help they give to their citizens deported back home, especially from the United States.

Both countries recognize the need for policies "of inclusion and development for returned migrants, as well as programs of labor mobility," Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said after talks with visiting Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

He said they shared a goal of "concrete actions that will fully tackle the structural causes of migration."

Neither president made any direct comment about the hardline anti-immigration policies of US President Donald Trump and his administration.

"The Guatemalan and Mexican peoples are united by strong ties of friendship and by a proximity that has created close links between our citizens," Pena Nieto said.

The United States has an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, most of them from Mexico. In recent years, migrants from Central America have become the biggest group seeking entry into the US.

Last year, before Trump took power, US authorities deported 35,465 Guatemalans -- 13 percent more than the previous year.

Trump has vowed to have a wall built along the US-Mexican border to prevent illegal entries.

Pena Nieto was on a three-day official visit to Guatemala -- his first since becoming president in 2012.

He and Morales also held discussions on modernizing crossing points along their countries' shared border, where gangs, people-smugglers and drug cartels ply their trades.
Michigan state House of Representatives on Wednesday approved A legislation allowing gun owners to carry concealed firearms without a permit. The package consisting of four bills will now move to the Senate for approval, Reuters reported.

Two bills were passed with 59 to 49 votes, Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, while the other two bills were passed with 60-48 and 61-47 votes.

If approved by the Senate, the bill will make its way to the governors desk for approval. However, it is unclear if Gov. Rick Snyder will vote in favor of the bill. The bill, if passed by the Senate, will automatically become a law 14 days after reaching the governors desk, unless he vetoes it, the report added.

Read: After A Year Of Gun Violence In America, Victims Debate Whether Gun Control Is The Answer

Once the law comes into effect, handgun owners would no longer be required to obtain a license with a $100 fee to legally carry their firearm in public.

The current law in Michigan requires a gun owner to obtain a license for carrying a concealed firearm.

During the debate on gun laws, Rep. Lee Chatfield said criminals do not obey gun laws in any way and therefore, it is the fundamental right of every law-abiding citizen to carry a concealed weapon for his own safety. Criminals do not obey the law. Criminals dont obey the gun laws we have now. And criminals wont obey the new gun laws we pass. That is why theyre called criminals, Chatfield said.

I wholeheartedly believe allowing law-abiding citizens the opportunity to have the same freedoms that criminals already do in this state will make our communities safer, he added.

Voicing her opinion in favor of the bill, Rep. Michele Hoitenga, the sponsor of the bill, said in a statement: We all know criminals are not paying fees, taking classes and waiting for approval to come in the mail before they begin carrying guns.

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The legislation levels the playing field for honest people, she added.

Read: Gun Control Laws 2017: Before Fort Lauderdale Shooting, Florida Lawmakers Wanted To Restrict Second Amendment Rights

Though the bill received support from a few Democrats, there were some who opposed it stating that it would endanger the safety of the people, the Detroit News reported.

Democrats who voted against it said, if passed, the bill would allow offenders, stalkers, and criminals to carry concealed pistols. These changes are dangerous for our law enforcement and dangerous for our families, Rep. Donna Lasinski said.

This is as much a coat tax as a fee for a marriage license is a walking-down-the-aisle tax, said Rep. Jon Hoadley, adding, If you want the responsibility of carrying concealed, you intentionally get the permit. And getting a permits a good thing.

Michigan law enforcement officials too opposed the bill arguing that it will make residents less safe. It could be potentially devastating, Howell Chief of Police George Basar said. Someone needs to know the limits and the responsibilities and the bounds in which they can use a weapon in that capacity for a civilian, he added.

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California resident Jake Gardiner is not sure exactly what he saw but he believes it was a mystery creature climbing through the trees in the foothills of La Crescenta, near the 210 Freeway.

Gardiner who works near the area, spotted the creature while he was taking a stroll in the woods during his lunch break last week. A blurred video of the creature that he shot with his cellphone has gone viral since, reports said.

Read: Watch A Mysterious Massive Sea Creature Rotting On Indonesian Beach

"At first, I heard a bunch of strange noises in the trees. Figured it was just some types of bird or something like that, Gardiner told KTLA, a CW-affiliated television station located in Los Angeles, in an interview Tuesday. Gardiner said he felt something was watching him from a distance and got the uneasy.

Gardiner says he saw something move in the trees and pulled out his cellphone and started shooting. Although, he could not make much of the creature while he was recording the video, when he checked the clip later, he noticed something unusual.

You can definitely see a torso and four limbs moving around and swinging around, Gardiner said. Its a pretty obvious kind of motion," Gardiner told the local channel.

The video has drawn the attention of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is investigating it with the help of Los Angeles Animal Control, reports said.

The department says the creature might be an ape, but there is no confirmation.

Andrew Hughan, who is with the Department of Fish and Wildlife told KTLA that it's not often that an ape is spotted by people in the California woods. Weve had this before where we get exotic pets and people cant take care of them, Hughan said. They either let them go or escape.

However, he said that apes are dangerous. He said: "These animals are incredibly strong. And they can very easily kill or seriously injure a person because  if it turns out to be an ape  this animal is scared, hungry, out of its element." He added that although the situation is not alarming now, people should avoid heading out to the woods to look for that creature.

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A similar mysterious creature was captured on a resident's security camera in Norwalk, which is a suburban city in Los Angeles County, in July 2014. The animal in the video was passing silently through a residential neighborhood, and according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, it was not a mountain animal, which it was initially thought to be, NBC reported.

Apart from these sightings, California coastline also has a long history of visits by alleged sea monsters. In November, a number of photographs showing mysterious jelly-like creatures washed up on the sands in Huntington Beach in Southern California, went viral on social media, KTLA reported.

One Facebook user, Ryan Rustan, wrote on his profile that while walking on the shoreline, he felt "little water baloons popping" under his feet. When he looked down, he did not know whether those creatures were jellyfish or eggs but there were thousands of them.

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Heres a look at some of the stocks the Yahoo Finance team will be watching for you today.

Nordstrom (JWN) shares soared in early trading. The family behind the high-end retailer has formed a special committee to explore a deal to take the company private. The news is sparking a rally in other department store chains this morning, including Macys (M), Sears Holdings (SHLD), Kohls (KSS) and J.C. Penney (JCP).

Investors are loading up on shares of Alibaba (BABA). The stock is eyeing a record high after the Chinese e-commerce giant gave a bullish revenue outlook. During an investor day presentation, CFO Maggie Wu predicted annual sales growth will rise between 45% and 49% for fiscal 2018. Yahoo our parent company, owns about a 15% stake in Alibaba.

Yahoo (YHOO) shareholders will vote today on the sale of the companys media business to Verizon (VZ). Unfortunately, with mergers come layoffs. Recode reported that the combined AOL, Yahoo companies are expected to eliminate up to 1,000 jobs, or about 20% of its combined workforce.

Pandora (P) is back in the headlines. Sirius XM (SIRI) is once again considering investing in the streaming music service, according to Reuters. This comes after prior talks between the two companies broke down.
The North Korean cruise missiles test-fired Thursday were designed to sink enemy ships and similar to Russian Kh-35 anti-ship projectiles, according to analysts, just a day after the U.S.-South Korea THAAD deployment was suspended.

In what was North Koreas fourth such test in as many weeks, the missiles were fired from the countrys east coast and according to South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff, they appeared to be surface-to-ship and flew towards the ocean, the New York Times reported.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the South Korean Defense Ministry said, adding Seoul had increased surveillance, Agence France-Presse reported.

Read: North Korea Tests Scud Missiles

This was the 10th North Korean missile test this year, which led to South Korean President Moon Jae-in calling a National Security Council meeting, came just a day after he suspended the U.S. missile defense system, known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD).

The move was reportedly a concession to China which sees the system as a threat and had taken economic measures against Seoul to retaliate as well as punished South Korean companies in China. A representative for the South Korean president, however, said the move was due to the need for an environmental assessment.

We wont do anything to (the two launchers) already deployed, but when it comes to the additional deployment (of four launchers), we have to wait for the environmental impact assessment, the representative said, according to the Korean Herald.

The decision to suspend THAAD had reportedly been coming for some time, with Moon Jae-in previously promising during his presidential campaign he would review the decision of the previous administration to allow the U.S. to deploy them.

Read: China Unhappy With US System THAAD In South Korea

He also said he wanted to improve relations with North Korea, which is very different to President Donald Trumps much more aggressive stance on the Pyongyang regime. Some of the U.S. Navys most powerful ships have been reportedly sent to South Korea and officials are even said to have openly talked about a possible preemptive military strike on North Korean nuclear facilities, Vox reported.

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That was also the reason THAADs deployment had been sped up before by Trump and the previous South Korean administration due to its primary function of intercepting incoming missiles from North Korea.

Experts, however, have said North Korea now has precision-guided missiles which have the ability to frustrate missile defense systems like THAAD. One of the earlier missiles North Korea launched May 14, according to experts, flew higher and for a longer duration than any the country had tested. They also said it could someday reach U.S. shores as far as Hawaii and Alaska, according to an Associated Press report.

The latest tests also happened a week after expanded sanctions from the United Nations Security Council against Pyongyang, and a day after the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Vice Admiral James Syring was reported saying the technological advancements under Kim Jong Un was of great concern to him, according to a Reuters report.

Read: Kim Jong Un Threatens US With Promise To Mass Produce Ballistic Missiles

He even told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee his agency was assuming North Korea had the ability to range the United States with a nuclear warhead mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

"I would not say we are comfortably ahead of the threat; I would say we are addressing the threat that we know today," he said.

"The advancements in the last six months have caused great concern to me and others, in the advancement of and demonstration of the technology of ballistic missiles from North Korea. It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead."

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Washington (AFP) - Fired FBI director James Comey withheld judgment Thursday on whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in requesting that he drop an investigation into his former national security advisor.

Instead he indicated before the Senate Intelligence Committee that it was up to a high-powered special prosecutor to determine whether the president's behavior constituted the potentially impeachable offense.

But what does the charge mean, and how might it lead to possible impeachment?

- The felony -

Obstruction of justice requires proof that a person has "corruptly influenced, impeded, or endeavored to influence or impede, the due administration of justice," says Ohio State University law professor Joshua Dressler.

It is not one crime but a family of overlapping federal crimes set out in statutes, says Brandon Garrett, professor law at the University of Virginia.

Someone does not necessarily have to try to end a pending, federal proceeding, only influence it, says Garrett.

- Establishing intent -

Intent -- defined as "corrupt" motive -- must be established and can be difficult to prove.

Acting improperly is not enough. The question is whether Trump crossed the line "fully aware that he was acting wrongly or whether he was oblivious to proper, established protocol," Dressler cautioned.

- Case against Trump -

Based on Comey's testimony, Dressler says you could make the legal case that all the elements of the crime of obstruction of justice is there.

But he said realistically it would take more to make impeachment suddenly more likely -- perhaps the existence of tapes that demonstrate collusion or support the idea that Trump tried to impede the investigation, or if someone else with first-hand knowledge comes forward.

It is also up for debate whether an FBI investigation even qualifies as a federal pending proceeding.

"The weight of the authority is that it is not... but a prosecutor could reasonably take a different view," Harvard University law professor Mark Tushnet told AFP.

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It would be easier if a grand jury investigation had started and Trump knew that.

- Punishment -

In the courts, basic obstruction is punishable by not more than five years in jail, but a sitting US president has never been indicted and it remains an open question as to whether that is even possible.

It would also be near impossible to get a 12-person jury to reach a unanimous decision on such a case.

"Realistically no prosecutor, at least with what we've heard, would bring any action, just because you don't bring those kind of cases unless there is a slam dunk," Dressler said.

But obstruction was the basis of impeachment proceedings against president Richard Nixon in the 1973-74 Watergate scandal and Bill Clinton in 1998 over his affair with an intern.

- What is impeachment -

Impeachment is political recourse against a president at the hands of the House of Representatives with no legal indictment necessary.

Lawmakers only have to believe a president is guilty of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," to initiate articles of impeachment.

It is a two-step process.

A first vote takes place in the House, where a simple majority is needed.

In the event of impeachment, the case shifts to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is needed for conviction in the 100-member chamber.

If that happens, the president is ousted -- with no recourse for appeal. Should the Senate fall short of conviction, the president is acquitted and remains in office.

No US president has been ousted from office under impeachment proceedings. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 but acquitted in the US Senate. So was Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid impeachment.

- Not there yet -

Given that the House is currently controlled by the Republican Party, few experts believe Comey's testimony alone is enough to proceed against Trump.

The existence of tapes or the testimony of someone with first-hand knowledge could serve as catalysts, Dressler said.

"Then maybe the Republican Party would want to back away from Trump and actually initiate impeachment proceedings, but I don't think they're anywhere near willing," he said.

The climate could change should the Democratic Party win back control of the House in the 2018 mid-term elections.

But even senior Democrats say it is too early to call for impeachment, and that the facts of the case must first be established.
No need to send a birthday card when you can post a viral meme!

On Wednesday, Olivia Wilde, 33, gave a social media shout-out to birthday boy Liam Neeson, who was celebrating his milestone 65th, and it wasnt just any throwback of her former co-star, with whom she appeared in 2010s The Next Three Days and 2013s Third Person. It was a meme around a photo of them snapped in Rome in 2012, while on the set of the the latter of the two movies, in which Wilde was squatting down tying Neesons shoe while he just stood there, chill as could be, waiting for her to finish. You may be cool, but youll never be Liam Neeson getting his shoes tied up by Olivia Wilde cool, the copy on the photo says.

Also happy birthday to Liam Neeson, who is so cool you cant be in a photo with him without becoming a meme. Ill tie your shoes any day, my friend. ???????? A post shared by Olivia Wilde (@oliviawilde) on Jun 7, 2017 at 9:20am PDT

Wilde, who is currently appearing on Broadway in 1984, captioned her post, Happy birthday to Liam Neeson, who is so cool you cant be in a photo with him without becoming a meme. Ill tie your shoes any day, my friend.

The funny photo was first turned into a meme several years ago  and Wilde became aware of it quickly thanks to Twitter. Several thousand of you have sent me this, she wrote in 2013. How do you know I wasnt actually tying his shoes together as sabotage?

Several thousand of you have sent me this. How do you know I wasnt actually tying his shoes together as sabotage? pic.twitter.com/u8b2l7CYTk  olivia wilde (@oliviawilde) December 7, 2013

So it turns out, it wasnt sabotage after all, making his cool points soar even higher. The guy just gets better with age.





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Ousted FBI Director James Comey is slated to give his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday. After he was fired May 9, he is set to testify about his relationship with President Donald Trump, the possible collusion between Russian and the Trump campaign and Russia and many other pressing issues. What some people might want to know, however, is Comeys other half, his wife, Patrice Failor.

Failor, 57, and Comey, 56, are high school sweethearts. The met when they were freshmen at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1978, the Daily Press reported. They married in 1987.

READ: What James Comey Will Say At Hearing About Trump, Russia And Mike Flynn

Jim Comey has made his alma mater enormously proud yet again, William and Mary President Taylor Reveley said to the Daily Press when President Barack Obama nominated him to be FBI director in 2013. President Obama has nominated Mr. Comey to lead an agency whose effectiveness and integrity are vitally important to our country. Jim's willingness to return to public service in this crucial post is quite wonderful.

Comey paid tribute to his wife, after he was nominated, according to Westport Now.

Nearly everything I am and have done in my adult life is due to the great good fortune of marrying up, he said.

Thanks to the love and support, and occasional constructive criticism of my beloved troops, of my amazing wife, Patrice, and Abby, Claire, Brien, Kate and Maurene, I am a much better person that I would have been without you. I love you guys. I have a debt. I cannot repay you, but thank you for that.

trump comey

Photo: Reuters

They have been married since 1987 and share six children together. One of them tragically died.

Collin died when he was 9 days old from a Group B strep infection, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in 1995. Failor responded to the childs death by writing a op-ed column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. She lobbied in support of screening for the bacteria during pregnancy, the publication wrote.

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MY BABY DIED a month ago today. He was nine days old. Collin Edward Comey was killed by a preventable infection. I am sharing our tragedy so other mothers babies might be saved, Failor wrote. The kids prayed for him and kissed my tummy good night before being tucked in each night. They helped me prepare Collins baby clothes.

The Comeys moved to Virigina because Failor didnt like living in New York. My wife wasnt digging New York, James Comey told New York Magazine.

READ: Will Donald Trump Be Impeached? Approval Rating Drops Again After Comey Firing

While Comey was set to give his testimony live Thursday, the full text of his speech was released the day before. Its a lengthy piece where he talks about meeting Trump for the first time Jan. 6 and how their relationship progressed until April 11.

It ended after Trump requested that Comey find a way to get out word that he wasn't being investigated by the FBI.

'Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know, Trump apparently said to Comey. I did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing. I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

James Comey

Photo: Getty Images

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Qatars foreign minister called the move by Gulf countries to sever ties with the nation a collective punishment, according to a statement posted on the foreign ministrys website Wednesday. The comments came after Qatars state-run news agency published a story May 23 about Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani questioning Donald Trump's presidency, insulting Saudi Arabia and supporting Iran.

While Qatar maintained the story was false, the report was followed by diplomatic problems between the country and other Middle Eastern nations Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, as well as the UAE. The four nations accused Doha of supporting terrorist organizations such as the Islamic state group (ISIS), Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda as they announced the removal of diplomatic staff from Qatar.

Read: Russia Planted Fake News About Qatar, Probably To Divide US, Allies, Report Says

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatars foreign minister, said the measures taken against the country were surprising, according to the statement, which also cited the minister's interview with the BBC on Tuesday.

He added that all parties involved want a positive relation with Iran and would not want to escalate against any side, but rather resolve disputes through dialogue in line with the principles adopted by Gulf Cooperation Council leaders, the statement said. What happened was collective punishment ... that tried to put Qatar and its people under a blockade.

Thani also reacted to Trumps tweet on the Gulf countries severing ties with Qatar. On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: "So good to see Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding . extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!

However, Thani said Trump met with the Qatari emir and discussed allegations of funding terrorism by countries in the region.

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"And we told him very clearly if there is any allegation we can sit on the table and we can sort it out," Thani said, adding there was no evidence showing Qatar supported terrorist groups.

On Tuesday, the minister maintained his country was a victim of hacking.

"Whatever has been thrown as an accusation is all based on misinformation and we think that the entire crisis being based on misinformation," Thani told CNN. "Because it was started based on fabricated news, being wedged and being inserted in our national news agency which was hacked and proved by the FBI."

CNN reported earlier in the day, citing U.S. officials, Russia planted the fake news on Qatars news agency triggering a major crisis in the Middle East. This, the sources reportedly said, was possibly done to create a rift between the U.S. and its Gulf allies.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have banned Qatari nationals from entering the countries. The UAE gave Qataris a two-week notice to leave the country, while Bahrain only gave them 24 hours time.

The UAE's state airline Etihad Airways also suspended all flights to and from Doha. Emirates and Flydubai followed suit.

Later, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the Gulf countries to solve their differences.

"I think what we're witnessing is a growing list of disbelief in the countries for some time, and they've bubbled up to take action in order to have those differences addressed," Tillerson reportedly said. "We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences."

Meanwhile, fearing the situation could worsen in the coming days, Qatar is reportedly in discussions with Turkey and Iran to get food supplies. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were Qatar's biggest suppliers of food and water.

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New evidence explains why rape victims may be unable to fight back.

(Photo: Getty Images)

New research only further reinforces what many experts on sexual violence have long believed: that when it comes to sexual violence, a victims response might not be fight or flight, but rather tonic immobility, or a state of involuntary paralysis.

The findings, published in the official scientific journal of the English language Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology (NFOG), Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, confirmed that for most victims, tonic immobility is the normal response to a sexual assault.

For the study, Anna Moller, MD, PhD, of the Karolinksa Institutet and the Stockholm South General Hospital in Sweden, led an evaluation of 298 women who had visited the Emergency Clinic for Rape Victims in Stockholm within one month of a sexual assault. After six months, 189 of these women women were assessed for the development of PTSD and depression.

Of the 298 women, 70 percent reported significant tonic immobility and 48 percent reported extreme tonic immobility during the sexual assault they had experienced. And among the 189 women who were evaluated six months after their assault, 38.1 percent had developed PTSD and 22.2 percent had developed severe depression. Furthermore, women who had experienced tonic immobility during their assault were nearly three times more likely to develop PTSD and more than three times as likely to develop severe depression.

The findings square with past understandings of how the brain reacts to sexual assault. Part of what it means to be a victim of a major trauma is to be in a state of shock. And when youre in shock, you dont always make the kind of decisions you would make otherwise, Rebecca Campbell, PhD, a professor of ecological-community psychology at Michigan State University and a leading expert on neurobiology, trauma, and sexual assault, previously explained to Yahoo. The circuits in the pre-frontal cortex, the key part of the brain for the decision-making process, are not functioning optimally after trauma.

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This shock, and its impact on the brain, can also explain why a victim of sexual violence might experience temporary paralysis, instead of acting in a more seemingly rational way and attempting to fight back or flee.

Tonic immobility has long been studied in the animal kingdom and is why animals are seen playing dead as an instinctual defense mechanism when they feel threatened. The same goes for humans.

When rape victims learn about tonic immobility, it helps them forgive themselves a bit because they are often so angry that they couldnt do something in that moment, Maureen McDonald of the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence previously told Yahoo.

Moller herself only further emphasized the importance of this understanding, saying in a statement that her work shows that tonic immobility is more common than earlier described. This information is useful both in legal situations and in the psychoeducation of rape victims. Further, this knowledge can be applied in the education of medical students and law students.

An American is sexually assaulted in the United States every 98 seconds, according to RAINN (the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network). Out of every 1,000 rapes, 310 are reported to the police, 57 reports lead to arrest, 11 cases get referred to prosecutors, seven cases will lead to a felony conviction, and six rapists will be incarcerated. Perpetrators of sexual violence are less likely to go to jail or prison than other criminals.

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Reality Winner, the government contractor who leaked top-secret NSA intelligence detailing Russia's alleged interference, was arrested Saturday. Winner is being temporarily housed in the Lincoln County jail in Augusta, Georgia. Her mugshot leaked to Twitter on Wednesday.

UPDATE | Accused leaker temporarily housed in Lincoln County jail. https://t.co/ekwgE6Pg0y pic.twitter.com/ypcIySU5fA  Joey Gill WRDW/WAGT (@DigitalProdJoey) June 7, 2017

Winners arrest was announced on Monday and she was charged for "removing classified material from the government facility where she worked and mailing it to a news outlet," according to an official report by the Justice Department.

The 25-year-old leaked the top-secret report to The Intercept, who subsequently published the classified material after Winner allegedly sent it to the online news outlet by mail.

Winner started working at a Georgian government facility in February as an employee of Pluribus International, a firm based in Alexandria, Virginia. She printed the top secret document, dated May 5, on May 9. An FBI audit showed that six people printed the document, including Winner, and that her computer at work showed that she emailed The Intercept.

READ: Reality Winner Indictment: Edward Snowden Condemns Charges Against NSA Leaker

The report said that Russian cyberattacks targeted more than 100 election officials in the weeks leading up to last years election. Here's an excerpt from the text:

Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors  executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions.  The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to  launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations,

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Winners Attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, said in an interview that his client was a "good person" and will remain in federal custody until Thursday.

"She is still in federal custody and we have a detention hearing on Thursday to determine if shell be released before trial," Nichols told ABC News in a statement Monday night. "Shes a good person with no criminal history who is caught in a political whirlwind."

READ: How Does Reality Winner Compare To Edward Snowden After Leaking NSA Documents?

Her mother, Billie Winner-Davis, the accuseds mother said that her daughter was a linguist with the Air Force in Maryland and speaks Pashto, Farsi and Darilanguages widely spoken in Iran and Afghanistan, according to CNN.

"She served her country; she is a veteran," Gary Davis, her stepfather, told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday: "She's a patriot, and to see her maligned and slandered in the media is very disheartening."

This is the first leaker of classified documents that has been arrested under the Trump Administration. Since taking up the mantle as president, Trump has fumed about leaks related to Russian hacking and the investigation into whether anyone in his campaign colluded with the effort.

"The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security 'leakers' that have permeated our government for a long time," he tweeted in February. "Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW."

Reality Winner

Photo: Reality Winner/Social Media via Reuters

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When pilgrims lined up in a church in northern Italy to pray before the relic of St. John Bosco, the revered founder of the Salesian religious order, on Saturday (June 3), they encountered a sign with an unexpected message: "Closed. Under construction."

However, it was clear that no construction work was going on in the church, called the basilica of Castelnuovo, located near Turin. And so, as pressure mounted over the puzzling sign, the church revealed a shocking truth: Someone had stolen preserved brain bits of a saint.

"The relic of St. Bosco has been stolen," Rev. Moreno Filipetto, a spokesman for the Salesian religious order, said in a statement. "To avoid hindering the ongoing police investigation, no other information will be provided." [Saint Science: The 10 Most Controversial Miracles]

The mysterious theft probably occurred just before the basilica's closing time on Friday (June 2), according to reports in Turin's newspaper, La Stampa. The thief, disguised as a pilgrim, likely just walked out of the church with a glass case containing pieces of the preserved brain of St. John Bosco, popularly known as Don Bosco, La Stampa reported.

Satanic rituals or ransom may lie behind the theft, according to reports in the Italian press.

Preserved brain pieces of St. John Bosco are kept at the basilica of Castelnuovo, near Turin, Italy. Andrea Cherchi

"We do not really know why the relic was stolen," Filipetto told Live Science in Italian. "We have the utmost trust in the work of the police; they are working hard on the case."

However, Filipetto said he could not confirm the details of the case.

Indeed, the case is still a mystery, said Fr Francesco Cereda, vicar of the Rector Major. (Cereda is the vicar, who takes the Rector Major's place whenever he is absent or impeded; he's second from the top of this Salesian hierarchy.)

"To date, there is nothing new in the investigations regarding those responsible for the theft of Don Bosco's relics," Cereda said.

Born in Castelnuovo, Italy, on Aug. 16, 1815, Don Bosco devoted his life to helping deprived children. In 1859, he founded the Society of St. Francis de Sales, better known as the Salesians or Salesians of Don Bosco, to help the poor and homeless children during the Industrial Revolution. The religious order has grown to become the second-largest order in the Catholic Church. According to Salesian Missions, the order is regarded as the single largest provider of vocational and technical training in the world, operating more than 3,200 schools and technical training centers, more than 70 colleges, more than 90 clinics and a hospital, and more than 330 orphanages and shelters.

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Don Bosco died in 1888 and was canonized in 1934 by Pope Pius XI. He is one of the most venerated saints, and each year, more than 600,000 pilgrims visit the basilica of Castelnuovo, according to La Stampa.

Body parts belonging to holy figures are often displayed in Catholic churches as "tangible elements to favor the invocation of the saint," Cereda said. "Don Bosco is loved and invoked for the young people, especially the poor and marginalized," he added, referring to invocations, or prayers.

The person who took the relic should "give it back immediately and without conditions," Monsignor Cesare Nosiglia, archbishop of Turin, said in the statement, "so that this painful page can be turned, and we can duly continue to honor Don Bosco's memory in his rightful birthplace," he added, as translated to English.

This is not the first time that thieves have targeted body parts of saints. Past raids of holy relics include the preserved heart of St. Laurence O'Toole, Dublin's patron saint, which was stolen in 2012 from the city's cathedral, as well as a vial of blood from Pope John Paul II, taken in 2014 from a chapel near L'Aquila, in central Italy.

Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct a statement saying that the vicar was the head of the Salesian order. The Rector Major has that position.

Original article on Live Science.

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London (AFP) - Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a tycoon known for his lavish billionaire lifestyle and far-reaching international connections, has died in London at the age of 82, his family said on Tuesday.

"Our beloved father Adnan Khashoggi, aged 82, died peacefully today in London while being treated for Parkinson's Disease," they said in a statement.

"He lived his last days... with the same elegance, strength and dignity that characterised his remarkable life," the statement said.

US-educated Khashoggi brokered arms deals around the world, earning handsome commissions and operating in a shady business while partying with global elites.

"Our father understood the art of bringing people together better than anyone," the family said, adding: "He celebrated life in the living of it, and always with an innate curiosity in others".

Khashoggi was an uncle to Dodi Fayed, Princess Diana's last love, since his sister was married to Fayed's father Mohamed Al-Fayed.

He was at one time estimated to be worth 2.4 billion ($3 billion) but ran into financial difficulties and had to sell his private DC9 airliner and his yacht, Nabila.

In 1997, a Paris court ordered him to pay a $1.6 million fine for smuggling 37 paintings into France in 1986. Khashoggi brought in the paintings on his private jet on a flight from the United States to Nice with a stopover in Spain.

In 1998, the casino at London's Ritz Hotel settled out of court its lawsuit against Khashoggi for 8.0 million of gambling debts.

The judge had heard that the Saudi businessman between January and April 1986 had gambled a total of 10 million.

His luck quickly ran out and he had to sign a total of 16 cheques for 200,000 each, all drawing from a Swiss bank account.

The bank subsequently refused to honour the cheques because the money to cover was not in the account.
A proposed sale of $500 million worth of U.S. precision-guided missiles to Saudi Arabia is coming under growing scrutiny from Congress, with lawmakers poised to vote on a resolution Thursday that could prove embarrassing for Riyadh and the Donald Trump administration.

The planned sale of munitions would replenish the kingdoms depleted stocks after two years of daily bombing raids by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. But human rights groups say the coalitions forces have carried out a reckless air war in Yemen that has inflicted a heavy toll on civilians, and an increasing number of lawmakers are losing patience with Riyadh as a result.

Saudi Arabia has sought to lobby senators to support more weapons sales but in a setback for Riyadh, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced Thursday he would vote in favor of a resolution rejecting the arms deal.

Cardin accused the Trump administration of failing to throw its weight behind diplomatic efforts to end the civil war in Yemen.

The administrations decision to proceed with the sale of precision-guided munitions, absent leadership to push all parties toward a political process for a negotiated settlement, including Saudi Arabia, sends the absolutely wrong signal to our partners and our adversaries, Cardin said in a statement.

The joint resolution condemning the arms sale is due to come up for a vote on Thursday and was sponsored by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and two Democrats, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota. Although its unlikely the resolution will secure a majority sufficient to block the sale, a significant number of senators castigating Saudi Arabias air campaign will send an uncomfortable message to Riyadh.

The two-year-old war pits Houthi rebels against forces loyal to ousted president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and Saudi Arabia sees it as a wider regional struggle against Iran. The Houthis are backed by Shiite-ruled Iran, and Hadis troops are supported by Sunni Gulf allies.

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The proposed U.S. sale is just a small part of $110 billion in outstanding arms deal the Trump administration is looking to push through Congress at a time when the White House is looking to repair relations with Riyadh and align Washington with Sunni states against Iran.

The Obama White House last year put a hold on shipments of thousands of precision-guided munitions and cluster bombs for Riyadh, and pulled back some intelligence support, over concerns about botched targeting in Saudi air strikes. The bombing of a crowded funeral ceremony by coalition aircraft on Oct. 8 last year in the capital Sanaa left more than 100 dead and hundreds wounded. According to an independent survey issued in September 2016, more than one-third of all Saudi-led air raids hit civilian targets such as schools, hospitals and mosques.

The Obama administration imposed conditions on the arms sales to try to encourage the Saudis to take more precautions to avoid killing civilians in air raids. There were some signs of progress but not as much as we wanted, said Larry Lewis of the Center for Naval Analyses, who advised U.S. officials and commanders in the Middle East.

But the conditions were dropped since President Donald Trump took office. The new administration came in and just said were going to give it to you, Lewis told FP.

Sen. Murphy, one of the resolutions sponsors who has long sought stricter vetting of Washingtons arms sales to Riyadh, told a teleconference that the Saudis will tell you they need these precision guided munitions to more effectively target Houthi rebels, but theyre not telling the truth. Saudi jets are already using U.S.-made precision munitions, and have a track record of hitting hospitals and other civilian sites, he said.

The Saudis are trying to starve the Yemenis to the negotiating table, said Murphy, citing widespread food shortages.

About seven million Yemenis are already suffering from acute malnutrition, creating conditions under which a child under five dies every 10 minutes, according to U.N. officials. Murphy said he is increasingly worried that the United States is participating in the creation of a famine.

Human Rights Watch has recorded what it says are 81 unlawful attacks against civilians by the Saudi-led coalition, and 23 U.S. weapons have been identified as having been involved in those air strikes.

The Senate vote comes after Saudi Arabia rolled out the red carpet for Trump when he visited the kingdom last month. Trump made clear in his remarks in Saudi Arabia that he was breaking with the policies of former President Obama, whose diplomatic overtures to Tehran infuriated Riyadh and other Sunni Gulf states.

Photo credit: MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images
Scott Disick arrives at LAX after flying home solo following a week of hard partying for his birthday on June 2. (Photo: BJJ/BACKGRID)

Another day, another downward spiral for Scott Disick  but is this one more worrisome than all of his previous downward spirals? Disick certainly seems to be on a hard partying tear in recent weeks, hooking up with a bevy of ladies in Cannes, Monaco, and Ibiza before heading to London for some late-night clubbing followed by a stop at a liquor store.

While at the film festival, the 34-year-old father of three was spotted cozying up to everyone from his ex Chloe Bartoli to actress Bella Thorne to blogger Maggie Petrova to model Ella Ross. Its probably worth mentioning that Thorne is 19 years old, which makes her 15 years younger than Disick. They were seen sunbathing together  Disick with a glass of wine in his hand  and she was photographed snuggled up on his lap (which upped the creep factor by quite a bit).

Scott Disick is seen with short-term gal pal Bella Thorne as they sunbathed at a luxury villa in Cannes, (Photo: Splash News)

According to one report, Disick hit the clubs hard in Cannes too. One eyewitness described the star as surrounded by girls and liquor and looking exhausted during a romp at Gotham Nightclub, which, like several other outings, lasted until in the wee hours of the morning.

He then headed to Monaco  where he hooked up again with his ex-girlfriend Bartoli  before hopping over to what may be the party capital of the world, Ibiza. Everyone around him is worried hes on a slippery slope, an alleged friend reported. They arent angry, just concerned, because hes clearly going through something.

Disick arrived in London on May 31 and promptly hit the club scene. He was spotted hanging all over a leggy brunette at the Toy Room nightclub that same evening. They left together around 3:30 a.m. with another couple and made a pit stop at a liquor store (presumably, for more liquor), before heading to an apartment in Chelsea. Scott seemed very drunk when he left the club, one onlooker said.

Apparently the group was partying inside the pad (where drugs and alcohol were alleged to be), but Scott and the woman hed been with earlier at the Toy Room ended up on the balcony with her shirt off and his hands on her. He was touching her and they were being flirty, a witness explained. Scott had a beverage in his hand and there were drugs inside. Hmm. That doesnt sound good. Around 6 in the morning, Disick and his new lady friend left the apartment and went to the Dorchester hotel, where they headed inside with a pair of blonde women which would indicate that even at 6 a.m., the night was not over.

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At some point during his London stint, Disick also tried to make out with a waitress at hot spot restaurant Chiltern Firehouse. Scott was walking around aimlessly and, at one point, grabbed a waitress, made out with her, then walked away. Everyone was shocked, a source reported. (ICYMI, Orlando Bloom had allegedly slept with a waitress who worked there which might be where Disick had gotten the idea.)

Kourtney Kardashian and Younes Bendjima spotted out and about in Cannes, France. (Photo: Splash News)

To put this in context, Disick has been in rehab four times in the last two years and his most recent meltdown was filmed for Keeping Up With the Kardashians during the familys vacation in Costa Rica, which led to Kourtney Kardashian declaring that she didnt think she could ever get back together with him.

While one report claimed that she is worried for Scott, it does certainly seem that she has moved on, as she spent most of her time in Cannes canoodling with her beau-of-the-moment, model Younes Bendjima. This isnt the first time shes seen her baby daddy in a downward spiral, but it does seem that this particular spiral might be even more downward than the usual.





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Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday, in what will be his first public appearance since being fired by President Donald Trump on May 9.

The anticipated testimony, and the questions that will follow from the 13 members of the bipartisan committee, is already being played up as political theatera chance for the agency head supposedly ousted for lack of loyalty to the President to present his side of the story.

Read: What Happened With James Comey? Timeline Of Events That Led To FBI Directors Firing

While much of the public will tune into the hearing for the drama, security experts will be watching Comeys appearance with the hope the former FBI director may provide insight into the FBIs investigations into ties between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government, as well as reveal details about the alleged Russian hacking and meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

Robert L. Deitz, who served as senior counselor to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and general counsel at the National Security Agency prior to that, told International Business Times he believes many in the security community would like to gain insights into specifics about the Russian interference on the U.S. election.

They would probably like to know the techniques the Russians used to hack into U.S. systems. The information has two values, according to Deitz: Closing defensive weaknesses and identifying patches. He said cybersecurity experts would also like to learn about the signatures of the Russian hackers, which may help in the difficult task of attributing attacks to a particular source.

The issue is likely particularly pressing in the wake of the publishing of a leaked NSA document that details cyberattacks carried out by the Russian military against U.S. voting software companies and local government officials.

However, Deitz was not optimistic about the likelihood of any of that information actually being revealed over the course of Comeys testimony. I doubt whether Comeys testimony will get into the weeds," he said. I expect that stuff will be classified Top Secret, and most senators couldnt care less about techniques.

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Hank Thomas, the cofounder and chief operating officer of Strategic Cyber Ventures, told IBT he hopes Comeys appearance will answer questions about the content of conversations between Trump surrogates and Russian officials during and after the campaign.

We know that Mike Flynn was in communications with the Russians, what was said? Was it appropriate, borderline, or criminal?" Thomas said.

Thomas, a former executive at defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, said he hopes Comey will report on the supposed backchannel established between the Trump campaign and Russian diplomats so the public may learn if it was designed to simply be a backchannel, or a covert communications channel?

The backchannel, reported last month by the Washington Post, was supposedly sought by Trumps son-in-law and confidant Jared Kushner. According to the report, he approached Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities for communications in an apparent attempt to shield discussions from monitoring by U.S. intelligence agencies.

Read: What James Comey Will Say At Hearing About Trump, Russia And Mike Flynn

Like Thomas, University of New Haven professor and national security expert Jeff Beatty told IBT the main question he hopes to see answers is was there any criminal activity?

Beattywho has served as in the Delta Force, FBI and CIAnoted that question itself has many component questions within it, but at the heart of it all is the possibility that something criminal took place.

Glenn Carle, a national security expert and Associate Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, told IBT he didnt expect the topic of Russia to arise much in Comeys testimony. Instead, he said he expects Comey to focus on his interactions with the President.

The critical question is the independence of the FBI and the FBI director from the executive branch, Carle said. Comeys description of the nature of the interactions that Trump had with him and to what extent he found them appropriate or inappropriate, thats the key thing.

While Carle said he doesnt expect Comey to explicitly say whether the President attempted to obstruct justice by interfering with FBI investigationsspecifically the agencys probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynnbut to provide information that may allow the committee to make such a determination.

Most experts seemed to share in Deitzs somewhat gloomy outlook for the hearing.

I think we are likely to hear commentary on policy and politics which may or may not have anything to do with criminal activity, Beatty said.

Carle said the anticipation for Comey's testimony has been "like the build up to the Super Bowl" because of the broad expectations for what the former FBI director may talk about, but expects the hearing itself will be much more narrowly focused than some seem to expect.

"I can't imagine he'll give details [into investigations]," Carle said, noting that while Comey may comment on how serious the investigation is, he expects he will defer most questions regarding investigations to Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

Thomas, on the other hand, said he expects the hearing would produce rather definitive answers by the time it is said and done.

I suspect the conclusion will be that there is no doubt that the Russian security services are actively trying to divide the west and influence decisions that are beneficial to the growth of Russias global standing and power, he said.

Thomas also said he anticipates the public will learn that members of the of the Trump team participatedwillingly or unwillinglyin Russian influence operations including hacking efforts in order to gain an advantage in the 2016 Presidential election.

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Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., delivered a scathing rebuke of President Trump on Thursday morning after reading former FBI Director James Comeys written testimony about their interactions.

In his opening statement, Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told Comey that he has not agreed with him on every issue and has questioned his actions occasionally but has never had any reason to question his integrity, intelligence and expertise.

You have been a straight shooter with this committee and have been willing to speak truth to power, even at the risk of your career, which makes the way in which you were fired by the president utterly shocking, Warner said.

Recall, we began this entire process with the president and his staff first denying that the Russians were ever involved, and then falsely claiming that no one from his team was ever in touch with any Russians. We know thats just not the truth.

Senate intelligence committee ranking member Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) delivers opening remarks before former FBI Director James Comey testifies during a hearing on Capitol Hill June 8, 2017. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Warner expressed disapproval of the various times Trump allegedly pressured Comey. According to Comeys testimony, Trump demanded loyalty and threatened to fire him on Jan. 27, beseeched him to drop a federal investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, on Feb. 14 and asked him to lift the cloud of the Russian investigation on two separate occasions: March 30 and April 11. Trump fired Comey on May 9.

The initial explanation for the firing didnt pass any smell test, he said.

For Warner, these requests clearly violated guidelines that had been established to prevent any whiff of political interference by the White House into FBI investigations, following the Watergate scandal that led to former President Richard Nixons resignation.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

The testimony that Mr. Comey has submitted for todays hearing is disturbing, he said.

Warner noted that Trump allegedly pressured other senior officials in the intelligence community to downplay the importance of the investigation into the Kremlins influence peddling, or to intervene with Comey themselves.

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Former FBI Director James Comey (L) is greeted by Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) (R) and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) before a hearing on Capitol Hill June 8, 2017. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Warren said that the investigation is not about relitigating the election but protecting American democracy from foreign adversaries: We must determine the necessary steps to protect our democracy and ensure that they cant do it again.

The Virginia lawmaker noted that NSA Director Mike Rogers and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats refused to deny these reports while testifying before the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday  though they were given plenty of opportunities to do just that.

My belief, thats not how a president of the United States should behave. Regardless of the outcome of our investigation into those Russia links, Director Comeys firing and his testimony raise separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of.

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Yahoo Finance is tracking Nvidia, Valeant, Nordstrom and Alibaba in intraday trading on Thursday.

Nordstrom (JWN)  The department store announced that members of the Nordstrom family have formed a special committee to explore going private. The group has not yet made a proposal regarding a transaction and said, No assurances can be given regarding the terms and details of any transaction. Nordstrom has been struggling to boost its business over the past few months. Since the start of the year, the stock is down about 5.5% compared to the S&P 500s 8.7% gain.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX)  The Canadian drug maker is selling its iNova Pharmaceuticals business for $930 million as it looks to focus on its core divisions. In a statement, chairman and chief executive officer Joseph Papa said, The sale of iNova is part of the companys ongoing efforts to both simplify our operating model and strengthen our balance sheet. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of the year.

Nvidia (NVDA)  The chipmaker received its most bullish call yet. Citi lifted its price target on Nvidias stock to $180 per share, the highest on the Street. Analyst Atif Malik cited strength in Nvidias data center business and autonomous driving division. The companys stock has soared over the past year, jumping about 236%.

Alibaba (BABA)  The Chinese e-commerce giant revealed at its second annual investor day that revenues are expected to grow between 45% and 49% in 2018, exceeding analyst expectations. Alibabas stock has surged about 78% over the past year.

For more on Thursdays big stock movers, check out the Final Round, live at 4 p.m. ET, right here on Yahoo Finance.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello at a town hall in Richmond, Va., May 3, 2017. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP)

ARLINGTON, Va.  To the casual political observer, it might seem as though Tom Perriello has the edge in next Tuesdays Democratic primary for governor in Virginia.

Perriello, 42, has been endorsed by the leading progressive politicians in the country  Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren  and has been cast in the role of a populist crusader. He is running against an older politician, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who speaks with a Southern drawl that resonates with the states older demographic.

And yet, despite the fact that a recent poll showed Perriello ahead by two points, the former one-term congressman knows he has a big hill to climb. Hes banking on getting new voters to the polls in an election that hasnt generated a lot of media attention at a time when the news cycle is dominated by all things Trump. The congressional testimony of former FBI Director James Comey Thursday morning is just the latest episode to overwhelm the political worlds bandwidth.

Ralphs base is highly likely to vote in the primary, Perriello said in an interview this week, noting that Northams voters generally are Democrats who have voted in past primaries, skewing older and more suburban. A lot of people are skeptical that our supporters  younger voters, voters of color, rural voters  are actually going to show up for a primary election.

A half hour later, Perriello warned a group of 30 or 40 supporters in an Arlington restaurant that Virginia gubernatorial primaries are usually a pretty sleepy affair.

If we see the same electorate show up, its going to be a challenge for us, he told them.

Brad Jenkins, a former White House aide under President Obama who co-hosted this Perriello event, lamented that if Trump isnt on the ballot  no one is paying attention.

Perriello picked up that point and expanded on it, in a gentle critique of the many people energized by anti-Trump sentiment or the droves of young progressives who are quick to protest but have yet to show up at the polls in nonpresidential contests.

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We have to get them excited about state and local elections, Perriello said. And it should be so easy, because the things that we care about so much, states actually have more of a role: criminal justice reform, community policing, quality education.

He went on to note that when he tried to mobilize support for Gov. Terry McAuliffes proposal in March to expand Medicaid, it was difficult to get with a lot of the resistance groups.

We said, Hey, lets go all in on this for 10 days, put every bit of pressure we can, because the fight could immediately affect 400,000 lives. And it was disappointing to see how hard it still is to get people to make that transition from anything Trump and federal-related to the state level, Perriello said.

Still, after Perriello finished talking, one young professional I spoke to was surprised when I informed him that most of the states Democratic establishment  the governor, both U.S. senators and many others  have endorsed Northam. The man, who did not want to give his name, said he wished Perriello had stirred the crowd with more urgency about the need to mobilize support.

Democratic gubernatorial candidates Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, left, and former congressman Tom Perriello, right, at a debate in Richmond, Va., May 9, 2017. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP)

Northams campaign is further emboldened by the fact that college campuses are empty thanks to summer break  depriving Perriello of a potentially huge voter source  and that many Virginians are more interested now in where theyre spending their vacation than in whos running for governor.

The Northam campaign has also worked hard to try to undermine Perriellos support among young and progressive voters, sending operatives to his rallies to ask him questions about his past positions on abortion and guns.

Northam wants Perriello on defense about his more conservative past views, which were the product of his deep Catholic faith and the fact that in 2008 he won election to Congress in Virginias largely conservative Fifth Congressional District, which starts on the states southern border and snakes up the eastern edge of the Shenandoah Mountains all the way to Manassas.

Perriello lost his seat in 2010 after voting for the Affordable Care Act. During the debate over the law, he was part of a group of Democratic congressmen who pressed for restrictions on federal funding for abortion services under the law, known as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. During his 2010 reelection campaign, he boasted of having previously broken with Democrats on abortion and guns. But he now says he has always been pro-choice personally and apologized in January for his support of Stupak-Pitts.

Perriello is still critical of the Democratic Party for its approach to cultural issues. What I hear from a lot of voters who went either third-party or Trump this last year, was the sense  and obviously this was partly promoted by Fox News  that Democrats only care about where people go to the bathroom, Perriello said. My view is we absolutely should care about protecting trans teens and vetoing bathroom bills. We just have to be clear we care about all of humanity.

But Perriello wants to talk economics much more than culture war issues, and makes a passionate and interesting case for breaking up big business monopolies to help return jobs and wealth to both poor inner cities and rural communities. He has opposed two proposed natural gas pipelines that would run through Virginia, and refused any financial contributions from the states largest energy utility, Dominion Power.

The energy issue, he said, is incredibly important to our base and the environmental base but is also extremely popular with Trump voters and third-party voters, who hate monopolies, hate corruption in the system and hate the fact that this is standing in the way of farmers and rural communities being able to get some of the jobs of the new energy economy.

When Perriello discusses racial justice and on how to force compromise in the legislature, however, his intelligence and depth shines through the most. He draws on his years of experience mediating foreign conflicts in places like Sierra Leone and the Congo  where Obama named him a special envoy  to explain his vision for a special commission on racial healing and transformation.

One of the things you learn as a peace negotiator is the same thing you learn in any human relationship, which is when two people are fighting, theyre not actually listening to each other. Theyre just waiting for the other person to validate whatever point of view they have or pain that they feel, and until then its just noise, right? he said. And figuring out how in these conversations we can acknowledge legitimate grievances from various perspectives is an issue of trust-building.

Perriello has spoken out regularly and forcefully on systemic issues of inequality and racism, but also said that it is vastly oversimplified and unwise to say to someone in Appalachia that you are benefiting from white privilege when you have relatives dying of the opioid crisis, you have uncles dying of black lung and the rest.

When he was asked while campaigning this week whether Northams relationships with the Republican-controlled legislature might make the lieutenant governor more adept at getting things done in Richmond, Perriello responded with a thoughtful and forceful argument that politics has changed.

Thats just a misunderstanding of how politics works and how leverage works, he said. The way you do this is you go out and you win the Republican constituents, not the legislators.  Doing this in backroom deals in Richmond hasnt gotten us a minimum wage increase, it hasnt gotten us criminal justice reform, it hasnt gotten us Medicaid expansion. And so if Ralph could have pointed to successes on that over the last few years, quite frankly I wouldnt be in this race and I wouldnt be winning.

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Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump Tuesday linked Arab moves to isolate Qatar to his recent Middle East trip, showing little sympathy for the plight of the Gulf emirate despite its role as a hub for US military operations in the region.

"During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

Saudi Arabia and several Arab allies, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing the Gulf state of supporting extremism.

The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for a united Muslim front against extremism.

The US military uses a vast air base in Qatar as a crucial hub for its military operations in the region, now focused on the fight against the Islamic State group.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Gulf states Monday to stay united and work out their differences.

Energy-rich Qatar has long had strained ties with its neighbors but the move by Riyadh and its supporters shocked observers, raising fears the crisis could destabilize an already volatile region.

The Gulf states and Egypt banned all flights to and from Qatar and ordered Qatari citizens to leave within 14 days.
On the heels of James Comeys testimony to a Senate intelligence committee Thursday, President Trumps personal lawyer hit back at the ousted FBI director, suggesting Comey had lied under oath and should be investigated for leaking memos documenting his interactions with Trump.

Reading from a prepared statement, Marc Kasowitz directly contradicted two bombshells from Comeys testimony: that Trump asked the then-FBI director to ease up on former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and that the president told Comey he expected loyalty.

The president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, Kasowitz said. The president never suggested that Mr. Comey let Flynn go.

The president also never told Mr. Comey, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty, Kasowitz continued. He never said it in form and he never said it in substance.

However, immediately after making this assertion, Kasowitz said a presidents expectation of loyalty from those serving him is normal and appropriate.

Of course, the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving the administration, Kasowitz said.

The presidents personal lawyer also addressed the revelation that Comey gave a friend memos documenting his conversations with Trump in order to leak to the media and trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor. Kasowitz characterized the leak as an unauthorized disclosure of privileged information that appears to be entirely retaliatory.

Comey said in his testimony that he resolved to somehow publicize the memos after Trump tweeted on May 12, James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! Kasowitz tried to poke holes in that justification by stating, incorrectly, that the New York Times quoted the memos prior to Trumps tweet. In reality, the first story to quote them was published May 16.

In the hearing, Republicans also pressed Comey on his authority to release memos recounting private conversations, but he maintained they were not government documents, but unclassified memorializations of  conversations.

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As a private citizen, I felt free to share that, Comey said.

We will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether these leaks should be investigated along with all the others that are being investigated, Kasowitz said of the memos.

Despite the overall attempt to discredit Comey, Kasowitz touted the portion of the former FBI directors testimony that stated Trump himself was not personally under investigation and that there is no evidence to prove Russia successfully influenced the election. He punctuated the statement with a definitive expression of confidence on Trumps behalf.

The president feels completely vindicated and is eager to continue moving forward with his agenda, with the business of this country, and with this public cloud removed.

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After firing James Comey, president calls Wray a man of impeccable credentials as Paul Ryan says: I dont know the guy

Christopher Wray, right, meets reporters at the justice department in 2003. Photograph: Kevin Wolf/AP

Donald Trump plans to nominate Christopher Wray to be the next director of the FBI, he announced on Twitter on Wednesday.

I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2017

The announcement comes nearly one month after Trump fired FBI director James Comey  one of the most controversial decisions of his young presidency  and just one day before Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate intelligence committee.

During the hearing, Comey is expected to be asked about Trumps attempts to soft-pedal the investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynns contacts with Russia.

Trump has indicated that the FBIs investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 elections and links to his campaign made up part of his thinking when he dismissed the director.

In the tweet, Trump called Wray  whose name emerged as one of those in the frame on 31 May  a man of impeccable credentials. An FBI director must be confirmed by the Senate and typically serves a single, 10-year term.

Hours after Trumps morning tweet, the White House issued a formal statement on the presidents selection.

I am proud to announce Christopher as my choice as the director of the FBI, Trump said in the statement.

He is an impeccably qualified individual, and I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity once the Senate confirms him to lead the FBI.

During a visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, on Wednesday, Trump remarked briefly on his decision, telling the traveling press: Hes gonna be great.

Wray called his selection a great honor and said: I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country.

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Wray, 50, was the assistant attorney general overseeing the criminal division under George W Bush, in charge of investigations into corporate fraud.



Wray more recently represented the New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, during the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case, in which two of Christies former aides were convicted of plotting to close lanes of the bridge to punish a Democratic mayor who would not endorse the governor. Christie, who has informally advised the president, was not charged in the case.

I have the utmost confidence in Chris, Christie told the Bergen Record last week. Hes an outstanding lawyer. He has absolute integrity and honesty, and I think that the president certainly would not be making a mistake if he asked Chris Wray to be FBI director, Christie said Thursday.

Christie, who remains a loyal supporter of Trump and served briefly as head of the transition team before being edged out, would not tell the paper whether he had any involvement in the presidents decision to consider Wray.

Wray works as a litigation partner at King and Spalding, an Atlanta-based law firm, where he oversees the companys government investigations practice, representing a number of Fortune 100 financial institutions. The unit represents companies and clients in a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters.

An archived search of his company biography revealed that as early as November 2016 Wrays profile listed as one of his clients an energy company president in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities.

Prior to joining the firm, Wray served from 2003 to 2005 as assistant attorney general in charge of the US Department of Justices criminal division under Comey, then the US deputy attorney general. The Senate confirmed Wray to that post by unanimous consent  a feat that may be difficult to achieve again amid the current polarization in the chamber.

Wray began his legal career in private practice. In 1997, he joined the US attorneys office for the northern district of Georgia as a federal prosecutor before joining the leadership ranks at the justice department in 2001, months before the September 11 attacks would reshape law enforcement response to terrorism.

According to his biography, Wray played an pivotal role in the departments response to the 9/11 attacks, overseeing legal and operational actions in the continuing war on terrorism. He also served as a member of the Bush administrations corporate fraud taskforce and led the fraud investigation of Enron Corp.

Wray graduated from Yale University in 1989 and Yale Law School in 1992, where he served as executive director of the Yale Law Journal.

Trumps announcement took lawmakers in Washington by surprise. Trump did not consult the two highest ranking members of the Senate judiciary committee before announcing his decision to pick Wray. A spokesman for the Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the committees chairman, said he had learned about the decision as everyone else had: on Twitter.

Diane Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, told reporters she too learned about Wray from Trumps tweet and needed more time to review his background before commenting.

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, also said the president hadnt consulted him before making the announcement.

Wray - right? I dont know the guy ... but he seems like the perfect kind of person House Speaker Paul Ryan

Wray  right? Ryan asked in reply to a reporters question. I dont know the guy. But Ive looked at his resume [and] he seems like the perfect kind of person. I thought we should have a career person take over the FBI, someone with a deep bench of experience. He certainly seems to fit that bill.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont and a member of the judiciary committee, said in a statement that he was particularly interested in Wrays ability to maintain the independence of his agency in light of reports that Trump attempted to pressure his FBI director into curtailing an investigation into his national security adviser.

For obvious reasons that could not be clearer right now, Leahy said in a statement, Mr Wrays ability, willingness and commitment to be independent of the White House and presidential pressure is the threshold hurdle, and a cardinal test.

But US attorney general Jeff Sessions congratulated the president on his nomination of Wray, who he called a leader of proven skill, independence, and integrity, a man in whom all Americans can have confidence. Sessions said the former justice department official combines a brilliant legal mind, outstanding accomplishments, and a proven record of public service, adding that he Wray had tremendous respect for the FBI and in turn, the agents he worked with at the agency enthusiastically affirm his leadership and integrity.

Sessions recused himself from the FBI investigation into Trump associates contacts with Russia after it was revealed that he had failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador.

It was reported on Tuesday that Sessions offered to resign amid escalating tensions with the president, who apparently believes his attorney general should not have recused himself from the investigation.

In an early signal of possible conflicts of interest senators are likely to pursue during Wrays confirmation hearing, the ACLU flagged parts of his professional background that the group said raised questions about his ability to lead the FBI with the independence, even-handed judgment and commitment to the rule of law that the agency deserves.

Given that Wray touts his deep involvement in the Bush administrations response to the 9/11 attacks, which includes his connections to some of the most unlawful legal memos on Bush-era torture programs, the Senate should press Wray to come clean about his role in the programs, said Faiz Shakir, the national political director for the ACLU.

The group also raised potential conflicts of interest over the fact that Wrays law firm has advised Trumps family trust and his history of donating to Republican candidates and causes.

In this important moment for our country, the American people deserve a commitment from any nominee for FBI director to the foundational principles of our constitution, and that that commitment outweighs any loyalty to a political party or a single politician. We will be watching closely in the coming days to ensure Wray makes these commitments and earns the trust of the public.

Sabrina Siddiqui contributed to this report
WASHINGTON  In his effort to undercut former FBI director James Comeys Senate testimony Thursday, President Trumps lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, appears to have misstated the sequence of two crucial events in the ongoing probe of the administration: Trumps now infamous tweet implying he may have tapes of his conversations with Comey, and a New York Times article disclosing the existence of Comeys memos about his meetings with the president.

In Comeys account to the Senate intelligence committee, he woke up in the middle of the night on Monday, May 15, thinking about the presidents tweet the previous Friday, suggesting there might be tapes of the conversations between the two of them.

Marc Kasowitz, personal attorney of President Trump, leaves the National Press Club after delivering a statement following the congressional testimony of former FBI Director James Comey, June 8, 2017. (Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

The possible existence of tapes, Comey testified, prompted him to ask a friend  a Columbia University law professor  to leak the contents of one his memos to a New York Times reporter. This, in turn, led to a bombshell story by reporter Michael Schmidt that for the first time revealed that Comey had written contemporaneous memos about his conversations with Trump and quoted an excerpt from one of them: the conversation in which the president, discussing the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, said, I hope you can let this go.

Kasowitz, in his first public appearance in the matter, accused Comey of leaking privileged conversations  but there is no indication the memos were classified. The lawyer then sought to dispute the timing of Comeys account.

Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comeys excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory. We will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether this (sic) leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.

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Excerpt from Trump attorney Marc Kasowitzs statement to the press regarding the Comey testimony.

But Kasowitz  whose prepared statement was filled with typos and misspellings  appears to have gotten it wrong. The key Trump tweet about White House tapes was Friday, May 12, at 8:26 a.m. James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

The first Times story quoting from one of Comeys memos was not the day before that tweet, as Kasowitz claimed, but four days later, on May 16.

James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Kasowitz was evidently referring to an early Times story by Schmidt that did appear the day before Trumps tweet. On May 11, Schmidt, citing accounts from Comey associates, described a Jan. 27 dinner the then FBI director had with Trump in which the president asked him for his loyalty. But the earlier story does not quote from any memos by Comey  or make any reference to the existence of such memos. And there is nothing in the story to suggest it was based on read-outs from those memos. Contacted by Yahoo News, a spokesman for Kasowitz said only: Our statement stands. A source close to the matter added: It is our firm belief that the Times report [on May 11] had the memos read to them.

_____

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Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate intelligence committee on June 8. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

So much about James Comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding his communications with President Trump seems like completely uncharted territory in politics. But when the former FBI director revealed more details of what happened before he was fired last month, some came up with an unexpected analogy for the situation: that it had vibes similar to a post-date-rape discussion, and the murky prosecution that often follows sexual assault.

Comey is getting a little glimpse of what it feels like to be a woman trying to report a rape or sexual harassment: https://t.co/ZGXizv8c3b  Andrea Chalupa (@AndreaChalupa) June 8, 2017

It is absolutely eerie how the Qs directed at Comey about how he reacted in that heated moment sound like our questioning of rape victims  sonia saraiya (@soniasaraiya) June 8, 2017

Beginning with the release of Comeys prewritten testimony on Wednesday night, observers took to Twitter to note that the relationship between the president and Comey was uncomfortably like that of a sexual assault perpetrator and his victim.

On some level the view from inside Comey's head on all this Tr*mp stuff feels so weirdly like a date with terrible guy.  Nicole Serratore (@MildlyBitter) June 7, 2017

#Comeys January (surprise) one-on-one dinner w/ the #BogusPOTUS kind of like a type of date-rape when u realize oh, s***, were all alone,  @PhinkPlamingo wrote.

#Comey's January (surprise) one-on-one dinner w/ the #BogusPOTUS kind of like a type of date-rape when u realize "oh, shit, we're all alone  Phink Plamingo (@phinkplamingo) June 7, 2017

On Thursday, in answer to Sen. Mark Warners questions about his dinner with the president in January, Comey described why it seemed like Trump wanted his patronage.

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I could always be wrong, but my common sense told me what was going on is, either he had concluded or someone had told him that  youve already asked Comey to stay, and you didnt get anything for it,' Comey said. And that the dinner was an effort to build a relationship, in fact, he asked specifically, of loyalty in the context of asking me to stay.

This sounds a lot like the old-fashioned argument that if a guy pays for dinner, he expects sexual favors from his date, regardless of consent.

Perpetrators of sexual violence often use tactics, such as guilt or intimidation, to pressure a person into something they do not want to do, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network states on its website.

Then Comey said Trump repeatedly mentioned that he would be allowed to stay in his job, which Comey interpreted to mean he should remain loyal.

When  youve seen the picture of me walking across the Blue Room. And what the president whispered in my ear was, I really look forward to working with you,' Comey told Warner.

That prompted Twitter user Adam Barken to write, Is it just me, or do details of the Trump/Comey relationship feel like an Afterschool Special about date rape? He whispered in my ear 

Is it just me, or do details of the Trump/Comey relationship feel like an Afterschool Special about date rape? "He whispered in my ear"  Adam Barken (@adambarken) June 8, 2017

More viewers pointed out that the Senate committees questions seemed like they were prosecutors blaming a victim.

Now, heres the question, youre big, youre strong; I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in, Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked of Trumps allegedly telling Comey he hoped he would drop the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. There is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didnt you stop and say, Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?

Its a great question, Comey replied. Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took in.

That reaction sounded eerily like the phenomenon of temporary paralysis some women experience when being sexually assaulted.

TV writer and producer Nell Scovell began to replace words of the session to illustrate just how powerful this analogy was. Feinstein essentially asks Comey: Why didnt you fight back? Whyd you let him date rape you? Comey: I should have been stronger, she wrote. More Comey/date rape Why didnt you tell anyone? I talked to my friends. We all agreed no one would help.

Feinstein essentially asks Comey: "Why didn't you fight back? Why'd you let him date rape you?"

Comey: I should have been stronger.  Nell Scovell (@NellSco) June 8, 2017

More Comey/date rape

Why didn't you tell anyone?

I talked to my friends. We all agreed no one would help.  Nell Scovell (@NellSco) June 8, 2017

Comey/date rape

"I remain puzzled by your response." When he said Flynn's a good guy, why didn't you say X? Why did you stay in his room?  Nell Scovell (@NellSco) June 8, 2017

Jaclyn Friedman, a writer and anti-rape activist, made the same connection. Why didnt you try harder to stop him? she tweeted. Why didnt you tell the authorities? This is straight-up blame the victim bulls***. #Comey #ComeyDay

Why didnt you try harder to stop him? Why didnt you tell the authorities? This is straight-up blame the victim bullshit. #Comey #ComeyDay  Jaclyn Friedman (@jaclynf) June 8, 2017

One of the most important things to tell a victim of sexual assault to facilitate their recovery: Its not your fault. Perhaps the Senate hasnt read these guidelines.

Quite a few Twitter users were unhappy with the comparison.

Can we not compare the Comey grilling to that of a rape victim? Carolyn Framke wrote. Even if sometimes rhetorically similar, theyre not the same f***ing thing.

Certainly, this discussion does not solve the problem of possible Russian collusion or obstruction of justice. One hopes it can work the other way around, though: to remind people of just how helpless even seemingly strong people can become.

As Huffington Post writer Chloe Angyal tweeted, If anything, the parallels in language and tone here should be reminder that harassment and rape are far more about power than about sex.

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Hazima (Syria) (AFP) - The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces broke into the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion of Raqa on Tuesday, less than an hour after declaring a new phase in their fight for the city.

"Our forces entered the city of Raqa from the eastern district of Al-Meshleb," SDF commander Rojda Felat told AFP.

She said fierce clashes were also raging on the northern outskirts of the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the SDF had seized a number of positions inside Raqa on Tuesday after advancing to the city's eastern edge overnight.

"They have taken control of a checkpoint in Al-Meshleb, as well as a number of buildings," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"The advance came after heavy air strikes by the US-led coalition," he said.

The coalition has backed the SDF's seven-month drive for Raqa with military advisers and weapons deliveries as well as air support.

After months sealing off access routes to the city from the east, north and west, the SDF on Tuesday announced a new phase in their fight for Raqa.

"We declare today the start of the great battle to liberate the city of Raqa, the so-called capital of terrorism and terrorists," SDF spokesman Talal Sello told reporters in the village of Hazima, north of the city.

"With the international coalition's warplanes and the state-of-the-art weapons they provided to us, we will seize Raqa from Daesh," Sello told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

He asked civilians inside the city to keep away from IS positions and from the front lines.

As the SDF has drawn closer to the city, reports of civilian casualties in coalition air strikes have swelled.

On Monday, the Observatory said a coalition bombing raid killed 21 civilians as they tried to escape Raqa by dinghy on the Euphrates River.

The same route had been used by IS fighters, Abdel Rahman said.

More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions more have fled their homes since the civil war erupted in Syria in March 2011.
The US tourism industry faces the possibility of another "lost decade" of foreign visitors due to President Donald Trump's travel ban, a leading hotel executive said Monday.

Jonathan Tisch, chief executive of Loews Hotel & Co., warned that policies viewed as hostile to foreign visitors could damage the US industry, much as a visa crackdown and other policies after 9/11 led to the loss of billions of dollars in revenues from overseas travelers.

"When it comes to a business as competitive as travel, we need to remember that words matter. Perceptions matter," Tisch said at a hospitality conference hosted by New York University.

"In other words, it's important to balance security measures designed to keep out people who mean us harm ...with words and actions assuring legitimate travelers that we welcome them and their business."

The remarks came as Trump doubled down on his controversial campaign to revive a ban on travelers from seven predominately Muslim countries, saying the measure was needed in the wake of the London attacks. The measure has been blocked in US courts.

Tisch's remarks have been echoed by other leading hoteliers in recent months.

Hilton chief executive Christopher Nassetta, in an interview with CNBC on Monday, called for a "balanced" approach to foreign tourism that recognizes that the vast majority of visitors to the US want to come for the right reasons.

Tisch said it was still too soon to have hard data on the exact impact of Trump's proposed ban, but one of Loews' hotels in Miami has had groups cancel because they had attendees from a travel ban country.

He also cited cases of Emirates airline cutting flights to some US cities and projections of steep cutbacks in foreign travel to New York City.

"This is mostly anecdotal evidence," he said. "We all hope the data on travel to the US remains positive. But no one can deny the tremendous uncertainty people feel about traveling to the US right now."

Tisch endorsed Trump's call for a $1 trillion infrastructure investment program, agreeing with the president's assessment that US airports lag those in other countries and should have runways, gates and terminals upgraded.
Washington (AFP) - Washington buzzed with new questions Friday after ousted FBI director James Comey accused President Donald Trump of lies and defamation, in gripping testimony that undermined an already troubled White House.

During almost three hours of extraordinarily frank statements before a Senate committee Thursday, Comey described himself as "stunned" by Trump's "very disturbing" and "very concerning" behavior in several meetings.

Detailing one-on-one talks with a sitting president -- which under normal circumstances are private -- Comey said he took painstaking notes for fear Trump might "lie" about the unusual encounters.

The former lawman also admitted he asked a friend to leak those notes to a reporter, betting -- correctly -- that the details would prompt the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Comey's testimony painted a devastating picture of an untrustworthy president, who at best unknowingly shred the norms of office by pressing Comey on a probe into Russian election meddling, and at worst may have criminally obstructed justice.

Pundits and legal experts were divided on whether Trump's actions rose to the level of obstruction of justice, a potentially impeachable offense, while Comey said that decision was now in the hands of the special prosecutor.

But Trump early Friday claimed "total and complete vindication" after Comey confirmed that the president was not personally under investigation, easing months of speculation.

"Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication... and WOW, Comey is a leaker!" Trump said in a tweet, his first reaction to the bombshell testimony.

Trump was scheduled to face the press later Friday at a joint press conference with the visiting president of Romania.

- 'Loyalty' -

During one White House dinner, Comey recalled that the president asked him for "loyalty" and to lay off his former national security advisor Michael Flynn -- who is under criminal investigation over his Russia ties -- imploring Comey to "let this go."

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Comey said he believed he was sacked over his handling of the Russia investigation, which includes probing allegations that Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow to tip the election to the real estate tycoon.

"I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal," Comey told senators.

The White House and Trump's lawyers lashed out at Comey's unflattering portrayals.

"I can definitely say the president is not a liar and frankly am insulted by that question," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz said the president "never told Mr Comey 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' in form or substance," rejecting the key allegation.

Deploying Trump's trademark bareknuckle style, Kasowitz also suggested the ousted lawman should be prosecuted for leaking "privileged information."

- 'Lies, plain and simple' -

A visibly aggrieved Comey kicked off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight about the state of the bureau he led until he was sacked last month.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader," he charged.

"Those were lies plain and simple," Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senate's Hart building, which stood silent except for the shutter clicks of photographers capturing the political theater.

Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump's actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans zeroed in on Comey's admission he assured the president he was not personally an FBI investigation target.

Trump abruptly fired Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 9, admitting later that the Russia probe was on his mind at the time.

In a written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in person and phoned to press him on the probe into his campaign associates and possible collusion with Russia.

- 'A big deal' -

At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him.

"The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said.

In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month, Comey said Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Harvard Law School professor Mark Tushnet said onlookers should keep in mind that Comey knows much more than he can say.

"He's saying that when he looks at all the evidence that he knows, that he draws the conclusion that the president was trying to pull him off the investigation of Flynn.

"It's a pretty powerful statement that an investigator with his background (says) when I look at this investigation, this is what I conclude. So his statement is a big deal," he said.

But Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared to sympathize with Trump, telling a news conference that "the president's new at this."

"He probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between (Department of Justice), FBI and White Houses. He's just new to this."
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during an earlier, on-camera briefing. (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Fired FBI Director Jim Comey, in nationally televised testimony on Thursday, said he worried President Trump might lie about their first face-to-face meeting. A White House spokeswoman, Sarah Sanders, denied from the briefing room podium later in the day that the commander in chief was a liar. She then sarcastically said shed check under the mansions couches for any recording equipment that could provide the definitive account of Comeys Oval Office meetings with Trump. She also ended a bizarre two-day refusal by the presidents spokespeople to express his confidence in his attorney general. All the while, she referred reporters questions about Comey to the outside lawyers Trump has had to hire. And the Twitter-embracing president himself stayed uncharacteristically quiet.

Its a regular Thursday at the White House  were carrying on, Sanders told reporters in an off-camera briefing.

Even by the roller-coaster standards set by the Trump administration, the business-as-usual pose felt strained.

Related slideshow: James Comey testifies at Senate hearing >>>

The White House officially left hitting back at Comey to the Republican National Committee and to Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. But even the pushback had a surreal quality: One of the presidents sons, Donald Trump Jr., aggressively defended his father amid an avalanche of tweets that included personal attacks on Comey and broad derision for reporters. It was unclear whether the White House approved or authorized his comments.

Sanders left unclear whether Trump was watching the former FBI directors testimony to the Senate intelligence committee, noting that the president had been meeting with senior national security aides.

Comey spent part of the day testifying at a hearing on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election. In an earlier news account about Comeys firing not disputed by the White House, Trump told visiting Russian officials, I faced great pressure because of Russia. Thats taken off.

Story continues

I dont know if hes seen much of it, Sanders said, adding that, in the West Wing, we have the news on like we do every single day. Thats not new. Pretty sure thats standard operating procedure for this building.

Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate intelligence committee, June 8, 2017. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

With Comey and the president starkly at odds about the nature and content of several one-on-one communications, Sanders bristled when asked whether the president was a liar.

I can definitively say the president is not a liar, she said. I think its frankly insulting that that question would be asked.

Two days after reporters began fruitlessly asking White House press secretary Sean Spicer whether Trump had confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Sanders declared: Absolutely, the president has confidence in all of his Cabinet, and if he didnt they wouldnt be here.

Sanders shrugged off a reporters question about one remarkable aspect of the testimony from Comey, who noted Trumps peculiar May 12 suggestion of tapes of their conversations. Comey declared, Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

Is there a White House recording system, a reporter asked? I have no idea, Sanders replied. Could she try to find out, another reporter asked.

Sure, she said with an eye roll. Ill try to look under the couches.

Read more from Yahoo News:
This cave in Mexico has crystals the size of trees, proving miracles do exist

Crystals are the new black, and for good reason. The powerful minerals not only help balance out our energetic fields, thanks to their nearly perfect molecular structures, but theyre also just beautiful to look at. We like to imagine sleeping surrounded by these gemstones, falling peacefully into slumber as their magick touches our souls. And while this is a fantasy for many, it may be reality soon for some.

A cave in Naica, Mexico has crystals growing that are the size of trees. It wasnt until 2000 that the magnitude of these gigantic crystals was truly seen, after Eloy and Javier Delgado broke into the cavern that houses them.

Crystal Cave of Giants

Naica, Mexico pic.twitter.com/usZxDyFhg2  The Human Experience (@thehumanxp) April 22, 2017

The giant crystals are actually selenite, a stone known for its cleansing and centering properties. Its named after the Greek Goddess of the moon, Selene.

Just Pinned to Crystals & Stones: This is the crystal cave of giants found in the Naica Mine, Chihuahua, Mexico. T https://t.co/2I4ICppt9O pic.twitter.com/HIcGoXlVT7  Divine You Crafts (@divineyoucrafts) May 12, 2017

According to Another Mag, the stones

formed when the caves at Naica, which sit above a volcanic magma chamber, filled with hot, sulphur-rich water from below and cold, oxygenated water seeping down from above.Over time, the sulphur reacted with the calcium in the limestone to form a crystal-growing soup which slowly cooled in these unique conditions.

The result? The largest known crystals on the planet.

Sadly, operations at the mine were suspended in October 2015 after a flood. Thankfully, it should be possible to drain the excess water and open the caverns to the public. Until then, well be dreaming about this magical cave where dreams come true. And well be crossing our fingers that one day, well be able to visit.
The La Crosse Concert Band has been around so long, its origins were almost lost in the mists of time. The Wednesday evening concerts in Riverside Park have become such a part of La Crosses summers that it seems theyve been a tradition forever.

Back in 2005, the band celebrated 75 years, but that only went back to 1930s Riverside Park band shell debut for the La Crosse Municipal Band, as it was known then. It later was learned that the bands first concert in Riverside Park was played in 1917, so 2017 was going to be the bands centennial celebration.

In preparing for this years concert season, though, longtime conductor and LCCB board President Alex Vaver explained, it was found that the band actually was formed in 1916. A front-page story in the July 3, 1916, edition of the La Crosse Tribune noted that the band would conduct its first rehearsal that evening, in Paveks Hall on Jay Street.

A front-page story in the July 31, 1916, Tribune  complete with a photo of the band, a rarity in newspapers in those days  marked the bands first concert, held on a sweltering Sunday afternoon in Pettibone Park. The record-setting heat, an adjacent story noted, resulted in the deaths of six people.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the bands Riverside Park concert tradition and 101 years since the formation of the band, Vaver put together a musical program to kick off this years seven-concert season called 1916, 1917 and Beyond.

These days, the La Crosse Concert Bands weekly summer concerts draw 1,000 to 2,000 people, averaging about 1,200, according to Abbie Leithold-Gerzema, a longtime band board member. Even with a much smaller population, that first concert in 1916 brought thousands to Pettibone Park, according to the Tribune report, an indication of what a big deal it was for La Crosse to have a city band.

Every town had one or wanted one, Vaver said. Civic pride and all that.

The band had 30 members for that first concert, roughly half of what the La Crosse Concert Band puts on stage at the band shell for its summer concerts. Leithold-Gerzema said the band ranges in strength from 55 to 60, barely fitting on the stage, with players drawn from a pool of 130, who sign up online to indicate which dates they can play.

The concert season this year will feature six conductors. Vaver, former Central High School band director, will lead two concerts, with other area music educators taking a turn at the podium including Harry Hindson of Winona State University, Jeff Krauklis of Holmen Middle School, Mark Lakmann of Logan High School, Elissa Kinstler of Bangor High School and West Salem Middle Schools Ryan Waldhart, a tuba regular with the band making his conducting debut.

They all bring their own backgrounds and personalities and flairs to the program, Leithold-Gerzema said. Thats whats fun about going to the concerts because theyre all a little different.

The musicians are what Vaver described as hobbyists, but that doesnt mean theyre not excellent players. They have to be to pull off the hour-long concerts with only two hours of rehearsal the night before.

The band this year will feature roughly half a dozen high school students along with college age musicians, music educators, people of all ages who have a passion for performing band music and retired musicians. Vaver, who started playing trombone in the La Crosse Concert Band a few years before he made his conducting debut in 1969, recalled one older clarinetist in the band when he first picked up the baton who was particularly impressive. It turned out the man had been in John Philip Sousas band.

Its a kick, it really is, Vaver said of conducting the band. These people play! There are some really good players.

One element all seven concerts will have in common is the flag-waving childrens parade midway through the program, led by Leithold-Gerzema, who has been serving as the march lady for about 20 years.

If the weather doesnt hold out, the show goes on, moved to the auditorium at Central High School, but the hope is always that the band can stay in the park, a setting both Vaver and Leithold-Gerzema view as magical.

People love to come to the park and listen to the band, Vaver said. Its a slice of Americana.

We have such a beautiful setting for this on the Mississippi, Leithold-Gerzema added. You couldnt have a better setting.
The repeal of Wisconsins prevailing wage law hasnt had as big an impact on western Wisconsin as it has on the rest of the state.

According to data provided by opponents of the repeal, a number of local construction projects have gone to local companies in Minnesota both before and after the repeal went into effect. Across the state as a whole, out-of-state contracts have jumped 53 percent this year compared with the same time in 2016, with a number of contracts going to companies from states as far away as Kentucky and Florida.

The Legislature repealed prevailing wage regulations for municipal construction projects in 2015, with the change going into effect in January. Prevailing wage regulations provide a minimum wage requirement for public construction projects, and state lawmakers now are debating repealing the requirements for state construction projects such as infrastructure projects and University of Wisconsin System projects.

Proponents of the bill say it could save the state millions of dollars, as labor contributes up to 25 percent of the cost of a construction project and is one of the few places where companies have the flexibility to control expenses. Estimates from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation are that 78 percent of projects will not be affected by a repeal, as those projects receive federal funding and federal prevailing wage laws would apply. Estimates of savings from other agencies are mixed.

The Wisconsin Contractor Coalition, an organization opposed to prevailing wage repeal, analyzed municipal construction contracts awarded across the state between January and April of 2016 and the same time period in 2017. Analyzing the data, they found out-of-state contracts jumped 53 percent from $20.9 million in 2016 to more than $32 million this year.

The data does come with some caveats. The spreadsheets only looked at out-of-state contracts awarded during those two time periods, which makes it impossible to determine whether the jump is caused by out-of-state contractors outbidding their Wisconsin counterparts or whether more or larger contracts were awarded this year compared with last.

Some of the out-of-state contracts have gone to companies in Kentucky, Missouri and Florida, which opponents say can pay their employees lower wages. The result of the increase in out-of-state contracts, opponents argue, is a loss of Wisconsin jobs, wages and the transfer of taxpayer dollars from local communities to other states.

The goal is going to be lower wages and worse living conditions for people who work on these kinds of projects, North Central States Regional Council of Carpenters representative Kevin Hennessy said. The law opens up competition from states with much lower wages.

That doesnt seem to be the case in the Coulee Region, where nearby companies in Minnesota such as Wieser Brothers General Contractor of La Crescent and Wapasha Construction in Winona won a number of contracts in both 2016 and 2017, according to the data. Minnesota is a higher wage state than Wisconsin, with the minimum wage there at $9.50 per hour compared with Wisconsins minimum of $7.25 per hour.

Chris Peterson, vice president of Western Wisconsin union Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons Local 599, said quality will go down as a result of the changes. Local workers spend a lot of time enhancing their skills and completing safety training, and he said he worries about fly-by-night companies from outside the state getting projects by providing very low bids that result in a lower quality product.

It makes no sense to get rid of a system that gives more bang for the buck to Wisconsin taxpayers, he said.
A proposed new subdivision in the northern part of Holmen has a number of hurdles to clear before construction can begin, not the least of which will be the results of an archaeological study.

Ben Thorud, subdivision developer of the mixed-use subdivision did get the OK from the Holmen Planning Commission May 30 to rezone the nearly 90-acre parcel located north of Hwy. 35 and east of Hwy. XX. The rezoning petition still needs to be approved by the Holmen Village Board.

While neighbors of the development didnt object to the rezoning request, they did raise concerns about the proposed developments density, potential increased traffic and the need for the archaeological study.

Ruth Monskis home property borders the proposed development on the northwest. Along with expressing dismay at the proposed density of the new addition, she cautioned the HPC that she and her family have found Native American artifacts in the area.

The heaving ground has brought up points and bones, said Monski during the public hearing held on the rezoning petition. There are bodies buried on the prairie. I dont think you want to dig them up.

Holmen Village Board Administrator Scott Heinig assured Monski and others attending the public hearing those concerns would be addressed.

The archaeological (study) will absolutely take place, said Heinig. The Phase One study has to be done.

Along with the archaeological study, the project is still waiting for input from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation regarding access points into the subdivision from the highways.

The McGilvray Park addition is designed to be a mix of commercial, multi-residential, twin-homes and single family districts.

The rezoning approval will change the western section of the land from agriculture, which would allow for variety of residential development. The east section of the parcel was already zoned as general business district, but only one commercial project has been built in that district.

The developer presented a preliminary design for the new addition that showed the business district plat would be redrawn.

Town of Holland supervisor Bob Stupi also questioned the proposed residential density for the project and suggested larger lots would draw high-end purchasers.

I agree it needs to be developed, said Stupi, but all adjoining properties are less dense.

Heinig explained higher density is needed in order to cover the cost of installing infrastructure such as streets, curb and gutter and sewer and water.

Paul Menches, Holmen Area Fire Department chief, raised concerns about development design that might hinder emergency response to the subdivision. He has been urging the three municipalities making up the Holmen Area Fire District Association, the village of Holmen and the towns of Holland and Onalaska, to standardize the building codes so contractors can be provided a check list before building.

With the increase in residential and commercial development, standardization should be developed, said Menches. Theres a desperate need for a process that can keep up with the growth.

Having the check list available to contractors will inform them of code requirements before construction starts. Such a check list would help prevent the expense of redoing construction once its begun.

Seven Bridges

The HPC also recommended the HVB approve the preliminary plat for the 59-lot Seven Bridges Addition, provided the street design conforms to village specifications.

HVB trustees were reluctant to endorse the proposed street design that didnt include curbs or sidewalks. The developer submitted plans for a rural street design, so the roadways in the new addition would be consistent with streets constructed in an adjoining town of Holland subdivision.

Those streets were constructed using a rural cross-section design. Streets using the urban street cross-section have curb and gutter.

HPC member and Holmen Village Board trustee Bill Ebner opposed allowing the subdivisions developers to be an exception.

I had concerns about the lack of sidewalks and gutter, said Ebner. It would be unfair to other developers.

Because of the recent boundary agreement with the town of Holland, the towns Plan Commission was given the opportunity to review the proposed subdivision and offer recommendations for the project.

With the requirement that the street plans meet village specifications, the HPC voted to recommend the preliminary plat be sent to the HVB for approval.

Site plans

In other action, the HPC also approved the site plan and architectural review (SPAR) for a mini-mall on an outlot on the new Festival Foods store site, a day care center on Circle Drive, a new home for Verve: A Credit Union and a warehouse addition for a business on Ryan Street.
WASHINGTON (TNS)  In extraordinary testimony to Congress on Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey accused President Donald Trump of pressuring him to end an investigation into the presidents ousted national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and also claimed that Trump lied about the reasons that Comey himself was ultimately fired.

From their first meeting, Comey said, he felt uncomfortable with the presidents demands that he demonstrate loyalty, so he started taking detailed notes because he suspected Trump might lie about their conversations. After being fired, Comey said, he felt the need to leak some of those notes to the media, through a friend, so that the Justice Department would be compelled to appoint a special counsel to probe the Trump campaigns ties with Russia, which is what ultimately happened.

Speaking under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said that Trump, during a Valentines Day meeting in the White House, urged him to let this go, referring to the Flynn probe. Comey deflected senators questions on whether Trump was attempting to obstruct justice with his urgings, but he said that the president was making his desires clear.

I took it as a direction, Comey said in describing his meeting with Trump, which left him stunned, he added. What was playing in my mind is how we respond.

Some legal experts say the former FBI directors disclosure builds a case for obstruction of justice against Trump, but many are doubtful Congress will pursue such allegations. A Trump lawyer forcefully rejected them Thursday.

Less than three hours after Comeys testimony, Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, disputed that Trump had pressured Comey to let go of the Flynn investigation, and insisted the president never demanded loyalty from the FBI director.

There are those in government trying to undermine the president with leaked information, said Kasowitz, adding that Comey has joined that group with his disclosure that he passed on some of his memos to The New York Times through a friend.

Comey acknowledged that theres no corroboration for his account.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes of the conversations, he said  a retort to a threatening Trump tweet, in response to leaked reports about Comeys memos that he had better hope there were not tapes of their conversations.

Comey testified for more than two hours in an open session of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a packed hearing room that included several well-connected observers, including Preet Bahara, the former U.S. attorney from New York fired by Trump. After Comey expressed hope that the White House kept tape recordings, Bahara tweeted: We can all agree with Jim Comey that, Lordy, we hope there are tapes.

Comey has a reputation as a calm and deliberate elocutioner, but on Thursday he displayed moments of passion, especially when defending the agency he once headed. He started his comments by apologizing to his former FBI colleagues: I did not say goodbye to you properly. He then described how he became concerned and confused when Trump and the White House justified Comeys firing by saying he had undermined morale at the agency.

Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said Thursday.

Comey also offered an impassioned response when asked about the significance of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The reason this is such a big deal is we have this big, messy, wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time but nobody tells us what to think what, to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans, he said. And thats wonderful and often painful. But were talking about a foreign government that, using technical intrusion, lots of other methods, tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. That is a big deal.  Theyre coming after America, which I hope we all love equally.

While the White House originally cited two factors for Comeys firing  FBI disarray and a memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein  Trump later negated that justification. In May, he told NBC News that he had made up his mind to fire Comey before Rosensteins memo, and that the Russian investigation was on his mind at the time. On Thursday, the White House pushed back against claims the president had lied when offering concerns about FBI morale. The president is not a liar, said Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trumps principal deputy press secretary.

In questioning Comey, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were generally deferential to Comey, praising his public service and also displaying some partisanship in their line of query. Democrats pressed him on why he started to take such detailed notes about his conversations with Trump, having not done so with two previous presidents. I was honestly concerned that he (Trump) might lie about the nature of our meeting, Comey responded.

Republicans pressed Comey to confirm that Trump was not personally a focus of the FBI investigation, which Trump had wanted Comey to acknowledge. Republicans Tom Cotton of Arkansas and John McCain of Arizona also zeroed in on Comeys investigation of Secretary of State Hillary Clintons use of a personal email account, and his dealings with the Obama Justice Department at the time. Comey said he felt some pressure then from Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who he said asked him to refer to the Clinton inquiry as a matter, not an investigation.

Following nearly three hours of testimony, the 15-member committee adjourned before meeting in closed session to discuss classified matters with the former FBI director.

In testimony before the same panel on Wednesday, director of national intelligence Dan Coats and Mike Rogers, who heads the National Security Agency, declined to comment on media reports that Trump had asked them to prod the FBI to back off the Russia investigation. Late Thursday, Republican Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the intelligence committee chairman, said his panel will hold a closed session with Coats and others probably next week.

During his public testimony, Comey was careful not to make public any revelations about the sprawling, highly classified investigation of possible coordination between Trumps associates and Russian intelligence agencies prior to the 2016 election. Intelligence officials say there is evidence that Russian agents hacked the emails of top Democrats and orchestrated cyberattacks to spread fake news and sow confusion during the campaign.

That inquiry is now in the hands of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Comeys predecessor as FBI director. Comey met with Mueller prior to Thursdays hearing to discuss what boundaries he should not cross in public testimony about the Russia investigation. The disclosure that Comey has also turned over his memos to Mueller creates the possibility that the special counsel will probe the circumstances of the FBIs directors firing, examining possibly obstruction of justice.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, issued a statement Thursday suggesting possible criminal violations.

Today we learned that Mr. Comey, a long-time prosecutor, concluded that the president of the United States intended to obstruct an FBI investigation. That alone is remarkable testimony, said Whitehouse. Mr. Comey painted a picture of a president so obsessed with getting out from under the cloud of the Russia investigation that he asked the FBI director to let go one investigation and to prematurely vindicate Trump in another.

Republicans are a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, however, and late Thursday there were few signs that Comeys testimony had elevated their legal concerns about Trump. Sens. Marco Rubio and McCain, members of the intelligence committee who have been critical of Trump, did not focus their questioning on whether Trump was seeking to shut down the FBIs inquiry into Flynn.

For his part, Trump by late Thursday afternoon had defied expectations that he might respond to Comeys testimony via Twitter blasts. When asked about the testimony at an event in the afternoon, Trump smiled through pursed lips but declined to comment, according to a pool report.

At the start of the hearing, chairman Burr pledged that his committee would act in bipartisan fashion to uncover Russian meddling in last years presidential race.

Russian activity during the 2016 election may have been aimed at one partys candidate, but as my colleague Senator Rubio says frequently, in 2018 and 2020, it could be aimed at anyone at home and abroad, Burr said. My colleague Senator (Mark) Warner and I have worked hard to stay in lockstep on this investigation.

I took it as a direction. What was playing in my mind is how we respond. James Comey, Former FBI Director
A judge Thursday sentenced an Onalaska woman shot while burglarizing a business in the town of Holland to 4 years in prison.

Amy Zielke, 37, will serve the sentence alongside prison terms imposed in four other burglary cases in La Crosse and Trempealeau counties. She also will serve four years on extended supervision.

Zielke was on probation for burglary on Oct. 10 when the owner of Gibbons Auto Service in the town of Holland shot her in the leg while she was burglarizing the business.

She was treated for the gunshot wound at Gundersen Health System.

Shes very lucky she wasnt killed, La Crosse County Deputy District Attorney Jessica Skemp said. Thats something the owner wont recover from. To make that decision to pull the trigger.

Zielke pleaded guilty to burglary. A charge of concealing stolen property was dismissed but considered by the court at sentencing.

Prosecutors in early 2016 charged Zielke with trying to break into Kratt Lumber on Nov. 24 and burglarizing a Holmen car wash of cash and electronics on Dec. 18 for drug money while on bond for burglary in Trempealeau County.

She was charged in another case with breaking into Fiesta Mexicana, 5200 Mormon Coulee Road, on April 12, 2016, and fleeing police while on bond.

La Crosse County Circuit Judge Elliott Levine on June 22 placed Zielke on concurrent terms of five years on probation and ordered her to complete drug court after she pleaded guilty to two burglary charges. She also was sentenced to four years on probation in Trempealeau County for burglary.

Zielkes probation was revoked in three La Crosse and Trempealeau county cases. She is serving concurrent four-year prison terms.

Skemp asked Zielke serve no more than four extra years in prison for her most recent case, while her defense attorney argued she serve four years concurrent to her other cases.

Zielke told the judge she understands the impact of her crime on the victim and, now sober, recognizes the magnitude of her decisions.

Im not a monster, she said. I had a bad addiction problem.

Zielke said she aims to contribute to society and to become a better mother to her four children.

I want it to be known that Ive come a long way since Oct. 10, she said. That day was life changing for me. I realized I could be dead, either from that gunshot or from the drugs.

Describing burglary as a property crime diminishes the impact it has on victims, Circuit Judge Scott Horne said. In this case, he said, there was an invasion of personal property and an intrusion on the familys sense of security.
The Kmart store on State Road in La Crosse will close in early September with its liquidation sale beginning June 15.

We can confirm that we are making the difficult, but necessary decision to close this Kmart store, Howard Riefs, director of corporate communications for Sears Holdings, said Wednesday. The store will close to the public in early September. Until then, the store will remain open for customers.

The retailer hopes to continue its relationship with area shoppers online.

We have been strategically and aggressively evaluating our store space and productivity, and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced, Reifs said. We often hear from our members who are disappointed when we close a store, but our Shop Your Way membership platform, websites and mobile apps allow us to maintain these valued relationships long after a store closes its doors.

According to Kmart.com, there are no other stores within 50 miles of La Crosse, but there are five within about 100 miles: Rochester Minn. (72 miles), Mauston, Wis. (72 miles), Oelwein, Iowa (110 miles), Stevens Point, Wis. (116 miles) and Charles City, Iowa, (116 miles).

A Sears store remains in La Crosses Valley View Mall, although its auto center closed in May as did the State Road Kmart pharmacy.

The number of associates is not publicly available, Reifs said. Those associates that are eligible will receive severance and have the opportunity to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores. Most of the associates are part time/hourly.

The closing is disappointing to shoppers interviewed Wednesday.

We would always like to have it filled, said John Blaschke, owner of Village Custom Framing, which is across State Road in the Village Shopping Center anchored by a Festival Foods store. A big empty building is never a good thing. But to tell the truth Kmart has not been very busy for a while.

Blaschke parks in a lot next to Kmart daily when he comes to work.

To see Kmart going is sad, he said. But well be excited to see what new things come, he said, adding that hes been hoping for a new restaurant to add diversity to the dining market there.

The Village Kitchen restaurant closed its doors in 2016 after 40 years in business at State Road and Losey Boulevard.
WASHINGTON (AP)  For all of the things that came into clearer focus with Thursday's testimony from fired FBI Director James Comey, plenty of other questions remain.

A few takeaways from Comey's appearance before the Senate intelligence committee:

THE OBSTRUCTION QUESTION

A central  and unresolved  question from the hearing revolves around whether President Donald Trump was trying to derail the Russia investigation by pressuring, and ultimately firing, the man in charge. Comey delivered his answer clearly.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," he said. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted."

The firing came, Comey said, after he was pushed to drop the probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The president told him, "I hope you can let this go," and he took it as more than a mere suggestion.

"I took it as a direction," Comey told the committee.

Trump's lawyer says the president "never, in form or substance" directed Comey to stop investigating anyone, and Republicans suggested Comey was reading too much into it.

"You may have taken it as a direction, but that's not what he said," said Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho.

Whether Trump's behavior and comment amount to obstruction of justice, however, depends not on how Comey understood the comment, but Trump's intent in delivering it.

Finding that out, as Comey noted, is now up to the special counsel, Robert Mueller.

"MY WORD AGAINST HIS"

In one of the unexpected moments of the day, Comey essentially took credit for Mueller being on the case.

The former FBI director and media-savvy operator acknowledged he shared with a friend the memos detailing his conversations with the president and specifically asked the friend to pass them on to reporters.

"My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square," Comey said.

But the goal wasn't just to tell his story. Comey said he wanted to spur the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to take over the investigation.

Comey knew the whole thing could come down to his word against the president's, and he wanted the memos to serve as proof of his version of events.

With trademark flair, Comey told the committee, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" of his conversations with Trump.

"If there are tapes," Comey said, "it's not just my word against his."

SESSIONS INTRIGUE

Comey added an element of intrigue to the hearings when he said he knew of a "variety of reasons" why Attorney General Jeff Sessions' involvement in the Russia investigation would be problematic but that he couldn't discuss those reasons "in an open setting."

Sessions recused himself from anything related to the Russia inquiry in March, after it was revealed that he had spoken with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice during the presidential campaign. Sessions failed to disclose those contacts during questioning at his Senate confirmation hearing, when he told senators he hadn't had any contacts with Russia.

Even before Comey's cryptic reference Thursday, Democratic senators had been raising more questions about Sessions' contacts with Kislyak.

Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Al Franken, D-Minn., have asked the FBI to check into the possibility of a third encounter at an April 2016 Trump campaign event that Sessions and Kislyak attended. The Justice Department has acknowledged that Sessions was at the Mayflower Hotel event in Washington, but said there were no private or side conversations that day.

BIPARTISAN DISCOMFORT

It wasn't just the Trump administration that made Comey anxious about the need to protect the integrity and independence of the FBI.

He'd had moments of discomfort during the Obama administration as well.

Comey described an episode during the inquiry into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch directed him "not to call it an investigation but to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me."

Comey said that language "tracked" how the Clinton campaign was talking about the FBI's work.

"We had an investigation open at the time so that gave me a queasy feeling," he added.

MCCAIN'S CONFUSING QUESTIONS

Sen. John McCain suggested that he was tired when he questioned Comey, a performance that lit up Twitter and the Internet with unsparing criticism.

The 80-year-old Arizona Republican joked that maybe he shouldn't have stayed up late watching the Arizona Diamondbacks playing a night game out West.

"What I was trying to get at was whether Mr. Comey believes that any of his interactions with the president rise to the level of obstruction of justice," McCain said in a statement after his questioning.

Instead, McCain flummoxed Comey with a question about why "the investigation of anything former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore?"

Comey pointed out they were separate investigations, begun at different times.

"I'm a little confused," Comey responded. "With respect to Secretary Clinton, we investigated a criminal investigation in connection with her use of a personal email server."

McCain said he doesn't understand how Comey could be done with the Clinton probe having concluded no charges were warranted, but wouldn't say the same about the Russian investigation. Comey said the Russian investigation is ongoing as far as he knows.

McCain, who can alternate between gruff and self-deprecating, afterward made light of the mess.

"I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people's heads," McCain said in a statement. Turning more serious, McCain said, "while I missed an opportunity in today's hearing, I still believe this question is important, and I intend to submit it in writing to Mr. Comey for the record."

The Diamondbacks joined in, retweeting McCain's statement with the "shrug" emoticon.

 ANDREW TAYLOR , Associated Press

___

Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at twitter.com/nbenac
Madeline Anderson of the Westby Area Historical Society completed this Looking Back article before she passed away in April.

A number of years ago, the Westby Area Historical Society received a donation of a beautiful dress from the La Farge, Vernon County area. The dress has several parts  a black lace jacket, a black linen skirt, and a black velvet brimmed hat with a feather attached. The donation form states that the dress is circa 1870 and that it was worn by Hannah Roberts Cather. So, who was Hannah Roberts Cather, and what might be the significance of the date in reference? As I researched Hannah, I found that she lived an interesting life, marked, as with most lives, by happiness and tragedy. So, lets begin to tell Hannahs story.

Hannah Roberts was born in Athens, OH, the daughter of James Gilbert Roberts and Hannah Coleman Roberts. According to census records, Hannah had nine brothers and sisters. A story found at the Vernon County Historical Society relates the following about the Roberts family arrival in the La Farge area: James G. and Hannah Roberts and five of their ten children came to Vernon County, Wisconsin by train to Tomah, Monroe County, Wisconsin, and then by oxen and wagons over the rough and rutted roads to La Farge, Vernon County, Wisconsin. This was either in the summer of 1865 or 1866.

Hannahs father, James Gilbert Roberts, was a cabinet maker in the East, an occupation he continued when he came to the La Farge area. He had the nickname of Big Pappy, because of his height of 6 feet 7 inches, and weight of 317 pounds. There is a photo that shows him standing with family members as a certainly imposing figure.

Two of Hannahs brothers fought for Ohio in the Civil War. One brother, Wilson Clark Roberts, was killed in 1863 during his service. The other brother, Joseph Roberts, survived the war. After Josephs discharge, he went to college for a year, then went to work in the wood and saw mills in Vernon County.

The area in La Farge, around the Kickapoo where the Cather family lived, was largely settled by immigrants from the Eastern states. They came to this area because of the plentiful lumber supply and saw mills. The mighty Kickapoo River was used for floating logs to sell, and float to the mills for cutting.

In the 1870 census for Stark township in Vernon County, it appears that Hannah is living at home, although the age listed for her is not consistent with her having been born in 1850. Her sister Ellens age is also incorrectly reported. Perhaps this was the result of a mother with ten children getting a bit frustrated as the census taker was asking questions? Hannahs obituary, in the La Farge Enterprise on June 29, 1922, states her birthdate as August 22, 1850.

Tragedy would strike the Roberts family in September of 1870, when Hannahs older brother, James Roberts, who was working for Anson DeJean, drowned in a freak accident while taking logs down the river. There was a large oak tree along the bank of the river where their raft had stopped so the young men could rest for the night. There had been a good amount of rain and the banks were water-logged. Mr. DeJean called out, but of the four other men on the raft, only one heard DeJean and escaped. Helplessly, they watched as the oak tree began to fall on the raft where the three young men were still sleeping. There was nothing to be done. All three drowned. Two of the bodies were immediately recovered but it took several days to find the body of James Roberts, age 21, near Wyalusing. He was brought back to La Farge by his family and is buried in Star Cemetery in Stark township. There is a poem by Abigal J. Payne, entitled The Fatal Oak, that tells the story and is a eulogy of this event.

Hannah met and married Joseph Cather in a clerical ceremony on July 1, 1871. Joseph was the son of John and Catherine Cather, who were early pioneers in the La Farge area, and who also came from the Eastern states. A month before the marriage, Hannahs mother died on June 9, in an accident on the same river where Hannahs brother, James, had died.

Hannah and Joseph were apparently active in township affairs where he held several offices, including Town Chairman for 13 years. The couple had been members of the Bear Creek Baptist church before transferring to the La Farge Methodist Episcopal Church. Hannah and Joseph had either 12 or 13 children, depending on which obituary you read. Hers says they had 12 and her husbands says they had 13. Hannah and Joseph celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1921 and Hannahs obituary states it was one of the memorable occasions in the peaceful journey they have traveled together.

Hannah Roberts Cather died June 19, 1922 at the age of 71. Her husband died June 28, 1926 at the age of 79. Both are buried in Cather family plot in Bear Creek Cemetery in Stark township.

Did Hannah wear the black dress, now at the Thoreson Museum, during a period of mourning for her brother? Or perhaps her mother? Wedding dresses back in that time were often made of dark fabrics. They were fancy dresses used for multiple purposes because people did not have the money for clothes like we spend today. Maybe she wore it for her wedding? We do not know the answer to these questions; however, the gift form we have states specifically that the dress is circa 1870, about 1870, so she probably wore it for at least one of these events. We also dont know what blouse she wore under the lace jacket but, if we follow the fashions of the time, it was probably black linen like the skirt. (Our mannequin in the picture is wearing a white blouse to show off the lace.)

We are interested in locating a photo of Hannah Roberts Cather and her husband, Joseph Cather. There is a photo of Hannahs mother, Hannah Coleman Roberts, at the Vernon County Historical Society but not one of Hannah Roberts Cather who wore our dress. If you can help us, please leave a message at 608-634-4478 or send an email to westbywihistory@gmail.com.
SPARTA  Margaret (Caffarello) OHara-Newton, of Sparta, was born in Chicago, Oct. 19, 1927, the daughter of Michael and Estelle Caffarello. She graduated from Lindbloom High School in Chicago in 1943, after which she worked at the Chamber of Commerce in downtown Chicago.

On Aug. 3, 1946, she was united in marriage to Walter OHara in Oak Park, Ill. They lived in Palos Park, Ill., for 17 years. Their son, Kerry Michael, was born in 1949. They were divorced in 1964.

Margaret worked for the White-Meyer Cabinet Co., in Orland Park, where she met Dean Newton. They were later married in La Crosse. Margaret also worked for the GTE Co., now known as Verizon in Chicago, in the research and development lab, where she was a computer software technician for 17 years. Upon retirement from Verizon, she worked for the Elmhurst Memorial Hospital in Elmhurst, Ill.

Margaret and Dean moved to Wisconsin in 1985. Dean died Oct. 13, 2000. Margaret and Dean had 37 happy years together. She worked for St. Marys Hospital in Sparta and the Foxxy Shopper as a proofreader. She also worked at the Tomah Memorial Hospital, Mulder Health Care Center in West Salem, and the Pineview Health Care Facility in Black River Falls, before retiring in 2001.

Margaret loved all animals, especially dogs. Margaret was very active in the Monroe County Animal Shelter, on the board of various rescue groups, funded spaying and neutering programs at the Sparta Veterinary Clinic and Morganside Veterinary Clinic. She provided assistance to people unable to provide necessary care for their pets. Margaret also established weekly vet visits for all the dogs at Monroe County Animal Shelter, for their required shots and exams. She was also a generous supporter of SACS, A.S./A.P., and Boys & Girls Club.

Margaret is survived by her two granddaughters, Kellie A. OHara and Lisa Marie (Michael) OHara-Maratea; three great-grandsons, Michael Culinan, Jacob Le Bahn and Michael Arnold; nephew, Howard ( Jan) Bloom; and great-nephews, Patrick (Paige) Bloom, Darick Bloom and Garett (Jill) Bloom and their son, Leo.

Margaret passed away Tuesday, May 30, 2017, at Gundersen Health System in La Crosse.

In addition to her parents and her husband, Dean, Margaret was preceded in death by her son, Kerry Michael OHara Sr.; and her grandson, Kerry Michael OHara Jr.

Per Margarets wishes, a private memorial service was held Saturday, June 3, at the Lanham-Schanhofer Funeral Home in Sparta.

Memorials may be given in Margarets name to: Boys & Girls Club of Sparta, Sparta Area Cancer Support (SACS), A.S./A.P. Cat Shelter, and for her spaying program fund at Sparta Small Animal Veterinary Clinic and Morganside Veterinary Clinic.
The benefits of Wisconsins dairy industry reaches far beyond the barn doors. While our Wisconsin farm families rely on the dairy business for their livelihood, we all rely on dairy for the impact it has on our states economy, culture and future.

We see Americas Dairyland on our license plates every day while driving down the highway, but we likely take what that really means for granted. Dairy contributes $43.4 billion to Wisconsins economy annually. That is more than if you combine the value of citrus to Florida, potatoes to Idaho, apples to Washington and raisins to California. These dollars support local communities, businesses and schools.

Our friends and neighbors, in urban and rural areas of the state, have jobs that are related to the states dairy industry. The dairy industry employs 78,900 people in the state. Jobs created by dairy businesses bring long-term stability to local employment bases. Every job in agriculture supports an additional 1.46 jobs elsewhere in Wisconsin.

Wisconsins universities and technical schools prepare young people for future careers in the dairy business, from animal science and biotechnology to equipment engineering and marketing. There is a place for everyone who wants to work in Wisconsins dairy industry.

Wisconsins dairy industry may be changing but it continues to be strong. Every farm is unique. When you drive down the road, you wont see any two farms that are identical. Some farms are small and rely on robotic technology to get the milking done. Others are large and produce organic milk. Our diversity is our states greatest strength. With more than 9,000 dairy farms and 400 dairy processors, we all benefit from these beautiful bovines and the quality products created from their milk.

More than a quarter of the nations cheese is made right here in our state by our cheeseheads. Our dairy processors create more than 600 types, styles and varieties of cheese, and they continue to do research to ensure they are meeting our customer needs in the future. At national and international award events, Wisconsins cheesemakers are recognized for their quality work, taking home top prizes again and again.

Wisconsins reputation as a dairy state has spread around the world. Wisconsin sells its agricultural products to 150 different countries. When you say you are from Wisconsin, international government officials and business leaders are immediately engaged in how they can learn from our expertise or buy our products. Wisconsins cows produce milk every day of the week. One day out of seven, this milk is being made into products that will go beyond our countrys borders. Dairy is a worldwide business we are lucky to have in Wisconsin.

It is fitting that the World Dairy Expo calls Wisconsin home. Each fall, the dairy industry comes to Madison to meet for the five-day event. World Dairy Expo features a premier dairy show with more than 2,000 elite dairy cattle. The enormous trade show allows agribusinesses to showcase the latest in technology and research. The business meetings and farm tours that occur during World Dairy Expo build connections that continue to grow throughout the year.

Its June Dairy Month. Lets celebrate. Visit dairydaysofsummer.com/ to find a dairy breakfast or event near you. The best thing you can do to support our hardworking family farmers is to come out to the farm, take a tour and enjoy a meal together. Every time you drink a glass of milk, grab a string cheese or have yogurt with lunch, you are contributing to the continued success and the future of Wisconsins dairy industry.
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About 125 ACT test scores went missing after students took the test on April 8 at University High School in Los Angeles.

According to KTLA, the whereabouts of the tests are unknown; an ACT spokesperson said that the tests never arrived at any one of ACT's facilities across the nation. "We are working with the test center supervisor and the carrier (FedEx) to attempt to locate the package," ACT spokesman Ed Colby said in an email.

Im really frustrated because I know I did really well, student Sarah Fahn, who would undoubtedly get high marks on a hypothetical self-esteem portion of the exam, told CBS 2.

All is not lost, however. As reported at the L.A. Times, students will have the chance to re-take the test on June 10 or during a later date. And in the case that the initial tests are found, the students will be represented with whichever test has the highest score (is this part of some teen's Ferris Bueller-y scheme to up his ACT scores?).

Still, the whole process has been frustrating to students and parents, as teens will have to begin studying again as the summer nears. Also, thousands of dollars that had been pumped into test-prep programs may have gone down the drain, as the information may have faded from memory with time.

"They have to do this again with no prep. You know, my girls personally have been studying since August for this April test," Fahn's mother, Jewlz, told KTLA. "People take this test seriously. It's their life."

The Times notes that this isn't the first time ACT scores have gone missing. Just last year, 88 tests disappeared in Maryland. In 2011, 100 students in the Oakland area saw their tests vanish into thin air. These situations, invariably, lead to a host of apocalyptic outbursts; in regards to the 2011 incident, ABC 7 claimed that "The college dreams of 100 Oakland High School seniors may have been dashed," with one student saying, "It was like an empty feeling like, 'ah gosh I'll never know.'"

The ACT test, you may remember, is a crucial college placement exam that keeps studious teens up studying until the wee hours. In contrast with the SAT, the ACT has an added science portion and somewhat more advanced math questions. ACT says more than 1.8 million graduates take the test each year.

LAist called University High School to ask if that have any theories as to what happened to the test scores, but, according to the school calendar, Wednesday is a half day because it's finals week. Good luck, guys!
iStock/Thinkstock(TEWKSBURY, Mass.) -- During a public hearing on Tuesday, Massachusetts lawmakers debated a bill that would ban the use of Native American mascots in public schools.



The bill, which was filed by State Sen. Barbara A. L'Italien, seeks to "prohibit the use of Native American mascots by public schools in the Commonwealth," and comes after the town of Tewksbury refused to change the name of its high school mascot, the Redmen.



The bill defines the issue as "a name, symbol or image that depicts or refers to an American Indian tribe, individual, custom or tradition that is used by a public school as a mascot, nickname, logo, letterhead or team name."



The bill also outlines a list of banned team names, including "Redskins," "Savages," "Indians," "Indianettes," "Chiefs," "Chieftains," "Braves" and "Redmen."

According to the New England Mascot Coalition, 41 schools in Massachusetts use Native American mascots, nicknames and logos.

A Tunica-Biloxi tribe member originally from Louisiana told ABC affiliate WCVB that imagery such as the Tewksbury logo is racist and offensive to Native Americans' identity.



"They minimize our culture and our contributions," the unnamed resident told WCVB.



Linda Thomas, another local resident, told WCVB: "We'd like to see names in Massachusetts that are not discriminatory."



WCVB reported that State Rep. James Miceli, who represents Tewksbury, was among those urging lawmakers to reject the bill, saying that people in the town overwhelmingly support sticking with the "Redmen" name.



The Massachusetts bill follows similar ones in states such as Minnesota and Wisconsin that, according to WCVB, already ban Native American mascots in school districts. In Oregon, school districts have been asked to do away with tribal mascots by July 1 unless the schools secure approval from the tribe.



The use of Native American mascots is also being discussed in the realm of professional sports, with the NFL's Washington Redskins and the MLB's Cleveland Indians facing criticism for their team names and logos.



In 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office declined to register several trademarks for the Redskins, citing federal regulations against protecting words and images that are disparaging or offensive. The team, however, argued that the rule violated the First Amendment.



Residents of Massachusetts are still waiting for a decision to be made because a verdict was not finalized in Tuesday's hearing.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 8, 2017

Immigrant Defense Project Podcast--Indefensible: Episode 2:

Lundy and Linda Khoy are sisters who both got in trouble with the law. They were arrested separately for intent to distribute ecstasy when they were in their teens. Both say they were rebelling against their strict parents in Virginia. The fork in their destinies can be traced back to where they were born  illustrating how a seemingly straightforward fact like birthplace gets codified in harsh immigration laws to create vastly different life chances.

Lundy was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after her parents fled Cambodias genocide. Like millions of other Southeast Asians displaced from the region due to US aggression, the family was brought to the United States through a refugee resettlement program, and Linda was later born in California. As they adjusted to life here, Lundy and her parents, who received Green Cards (or permanent residence status), didnt know how to become U.S. citizens.

Lindas arrest at 19 years old involved hundreds of pills of ecstasy. As a U.S. citizen, Linda served a year in prison and when she was released, she got on with her life. Lundy, on the other hand, was arrested with just seven pills. The judge suspended her sentence and put her on probation so she could go back to school, but now she is facing deportation. Even though Lundy married a US citizen and has a US citizen child, an immigration judge ordered her deported. Through her activism with groups like the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), Immigrant Defense Project (IDP), and the Immigrant Justice Network (IJN), Lundy secured a pardon from the Governor of Virginia. But the risk of deportation still looms.

Immigrants with criminal convictions have been increasingly demonized by the Trump Administration. Alongside hateful and racist rhetoric, Trumps executive orders set into motion an indiscriminate deportation machinery, blind to the realities of peoples lives: their children and families, how long they have been in the country, what they have contributed to their communities. Because of changes enacted in the 1996 immigration laws, many non-citizens (including longtime residents like Lundy) face mandatory deportation for a broad range of offenses, including minor drug charges.

Southeast Asian American refugees have been disproportionately impacted by harsh laws designed to deport anyone with an old criminal record. Of all deportation orders to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam since 1998, almost 80% were due to old criminal convictions. The vast majority of these are people who came as babies and children fleeing war and genocide with their parents. Because these countries accept only a small number of deportees, around 12,000 community members like Lundy are living day-to-day with final orders of deportation, rebuilding their lives and raising families, all the while knowing that the threat of deportation looms over them. Lundy calls this a life sentence.

Click here to access the podcast.

bh

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2017/06/sisters-separated-by-birth.html
Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed an order to remove the mortal remains of a World War I Medal of Honor winner to a veterans cemetery from his resting place of nearly 83 years in a family cemetery.

The petition was filed by another MOH winner otherwise unconnected to his fellow hero

This appeal arises from a petition filed in the Circuit Court of Mason County seeking authorization to disinter the remains of Chester Howard West, a World War I Medal of Honor recipient, and bury him with full military honors at the Gold Star Family Memorial Monument located within the Donel C. Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery in Institute, West Virginia (Veterans Cemetery). Hershel Woodrow Williams, a Medal of Honor recipient, filed the petition for Mr. West to be recognized as a recipient of the highest award a citizen can receive for bravery and valor. In an order dated March 23, 2016, the Circuit Court of Mason County granted Mr. Williamss petition.

Petitioner Roger VanSickle urges this Court to reverse the order below on the grounds that the circuit court lacks the authority to rule on the question of disinterment of Mr. Wests remains. Alternatively, Mr. VanSickle argues that the circuit court abused its discretion in concluding that the equities favor disinterment over the wishes of the surviving spouse at the time of Mr. Wests death and the living VanSickle family relatives.

Mr. Williams argues that the circuit court properly exercised its equitable jurisdiction and carefully balanced the equities in favor of disinterment of Mr. Wests remains. He contends that Mr. Wests remains should be moved to the Veterans Cemetery so that he is honored for his heroic service and his grave is properly maintained.

On the opening day of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the deceased

While making his way through a thick fog, his advance was halted by direct and unusual machine gun fire from two guns. Without aid, he at once dashed through the fire and, attacking the nest, killed two of the gunners, one of whom was an officer. This prompt and decisive hand-to-hand encounter on his part enabled his company to advance farther without the loss of a man.

He survived the Great War and married Elizabeth VanSickle. He was shot and killed by one Sam McCausland on May 20, 1935.

Wikipedia tells the story of his life and murder. His murderer was the son of a Confederate general.

He had laid at rest in the VanSickle family cemetery ever since until

In 2015, a Boy Scout learned of Mr. Wests Medal of Honor status and burial in Mason County and sought to locate the VanSickle family cemetery as an Eagle Scout project. The Boy Scout, with the help of family members and other scouts, located the cemetery and cleared it. The work included removal of a large oak tree that had fallen and damaged two of the headstones, including Mr. Wests headstone.

The circuit court exercised its equitable discretion in favor of disinterment. The order is linked here.

The court here affirmed and has sent Mr. West to his new place of honor .

...the record contains no evidence of living blood relatives of Mr. West. While Mr. VanSickle filed an objection to Mr. Williamss petition to disinter Mr. Wests remains and others testified at the hearing, all of those objecting to the removal have no direct, familial connection to Mr. West. Mr. Wests surviving spouse remarried and died over sixty-five years ago, leaving no documented sentiment as to her own burial with her first husband. The VanSickle family cemetery is now overgrown and neglected in a remote section of a public wildlife management area owned by the State. To date, no one on Mr. Wests behalf has asserted any right to enter into the [burial site] Cornstalk WMA to provide upkeep to the cemetery and particularly the gravesite of this Medal of Honor recipient.

On the other hand, upon discovery of Mr. Wests remains, Mr. Williams has expended time and energy to arrange for persons qualified to undertake Mr. Wests disinterment with dignity and care, transport his remains with honor, reinter them with full military honors, and provide perpetual care for his gravesite. We understand that the VanSickle family has been denied the opportunity to enter Cornstalk WMA with the necessary equipment to keep the cemetery in the condition deserving of their loved ones. The fact remains that the cemetery where he is buried is in a location where perpetual care is highly unlikely. Mr. Williams has demonstrated the integrity and capacity to provide a most suitable and deserving resting place for Mr. Wests remains.

A moving dissent by Chief Justice Loughry

[A]s to the dead, who are not here to answer for themselves, it would be the height of injustice and cruelty to disturb their ashes, and violate the sanctity of the grave[.] Haudenschilt v. Haudenschilt, 129 W.Va. 92, 121, 39 S.E.2d 328, 343 (1946) (Kenna, J., dissenting) (internal citation omitted). Yet, the majority of this Court has done just that and, in the process, they have opened Pandoras Box. Critically, [g]ood intentions . . . like bad facts[] sometimes make bad law. Motorists Mut. Ins. Co. v. Huron Rd. Hosp., 653 N.E.2d235, 239 (Ohio 1995). Consequently, I am impelled to dissent...

In short, the exhumation of Mr. Wests earthly remains is completely unnecessary to fulfill Mr. Williamss admirable wish to honor Mr. Wests distinguished military service. In fact, the circuit courts order references the Gold Star Family Memorial Monument established by the Medal of Honor Foundation within The Donel C. Kinnard Memorial State Veterans Cemetery. If that particular monument cannot be employed in some manner to honor Mr. Wests memory and status as a Medal of Honor recipient, then perhaps another monument could be erected in the cemetery to honor not only Mr. West, but all West Virginians who receive the Medal of Honor but who either have been or will be laid to rest elsewhere.

Not only is the majoritys decision both legally and equitably wrong, I am deeply concerned that a dangerous precedent has been set that threatens the sanctity of burial in this state. Will third-parties now have an imprimatur to seek the disinterment of any person with whom they have no relationship, either legal, familial, or otherwise, if their purpose is sufficiently laudable? Further, will a laudable purpose alone be sufficient, or will an ill-maintained cemetery also be required for court-ordered disinterment? Moreover, by what standards will a circuit court determine whether the purpose for disinterment is sufficiently commendable or whether a cemeterys maintenance is sufficiently inadequate to warrant disinterment?

Lastly, and to the extent the majoritys holding extends the risk of a judicially ordered disinterment to any deceased person in this State, I would caution lawyers engaged in estate work to apprise their clientsveterans and non-veterans alikethat if they wish their final resting place to be just thatfinaltheir wish needs to be explicitly set forth in their testamentary papers with the caveat that their corporeal remains never be moved absent particularized circumstances. Unlike Mr. West, there may not be someone to defend a decedents final resting place, but perhaps a recorded will containing specific burial instructions would carry some weight when a legal action is instituted seeking to disinter a person twenty, fifty or, as in the case at bar, nearly a hundred years later.

Justice Workman also dissented

In this case, we confront the question of whether a person with honorable intentions but absolutely no personal connection to or familial relationship with a deceased person has a unilateral right to remove the deceaseds remains, contrary to both the wishes of his widow and his remaining kin. The majority permits this result in the face of such familial objection ostensibly because it agrees that a stranger to the deceased will provide a resting place more befitting the deceased than his family.

An American hero, First Sergeant Chester Howard West (hereinafter Sgt. West) was the recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor for his courageous service at the age of 20 during battle as a member of the 363rd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army 91st Division. Sgt. West survived the war, but died seventeen years later, still a young man at age 37, leaving a young widow, Maggie VanSickle. Maggie made the decision to bury her husband in the VanSickle family cemetery in Mason County, and he has been at his eternal rest for now more than eighty-two years.

Hershel Woodrow Williams (hereinafter Mr. Williams), another American hero and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, discovered that Sgt. Wests gravesite was not well-cared for in the VanSickle family cemetery, which is located in a remote area of Mason County within the Chief Cornstalk Wildlife area which is owned and managed by the State. Mr. Williams unilaterally decided that Sgt. Wests remains should be removed to the Donald C. Kinnard cemeterya location which Mr. Williams believes to be a more honored resting place. The lower court and the majority permit this disinterment by Mr. Williams on the basis of a weighing of the equities, finding that the VanSickle family cemetery is not a place of honor and that by being removed to the Kinnard cemetery, he may be more appropriately honored and potentially re-connected with lost family member[s].

This analysis is simplistic and to some appealing, but there is a major obstacle to this reasoning: the important concept in American jurisprudence calledstanding, which the majority does not even address...

In this matter, despite his noble intentions, Mr. Williams lacks standing because he fails to articulate a legally cognizable interest and threatened or actual injury entitling him to remove Sgt. Wests remains...

There is hundred-year-old case law recognizing a strong common law presumption in favor of repose. In fact, since antiquity, most societies have held burial grounds in great reverence. The early common law protected the sanctity of the grave by recognizing the right to a decent burial and the right to undisturbed repose. Accordingly, unless a good and substantial reason existed, the common law strongly disfavored disturbing a body once it had been suitably buried. In the words of Justice Cardozo, then a member of the New York Court of Appeals, [t]he dead are to rest where they have been laid unless reason of substance is brought forward for disturbing their repose. Yome v. Gorman, 152 N.E. 126, 129 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1926)(other citations omitted)

Mr. Williams was awarded his Medal of Honor for heroism on Iwo Jima.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as Demolition Sergeant serving with the First Battalion, Twenty-First Marines, Third Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, Volcano Island, 23 February 1945. Quick to volunteer his services when our tanks were maneuvering vainly to open a lane for the infantry through the network of reinforced concrete pillboxes, buried mines and black, volcanic sands, Corporal Williams daringly went forward alone to attempt the reduction of devastating machine-gun fire from the unyielding positions. Covered only by four riflemen, he fought desperately for four hours under terrific enemy small-arms fire and repeatedly returned to his own lines to prepare demolition charges and obtain serviced flame throwers, struggling back, frequently to the rear of hostile emplacements, to wipe out one position after another. On one occasion he daringly mounted a pillbox to insert the nozzle of his flame thrower through the air vent, kill the occupants and silence the gun; on another he grimly charged enemy riflemen who attempted to stop him with bayonets and destroyed them with a burst of flame from his weapon. His unyielding determination and extraordinary heroism in the face of ruthless enemy resistance were directly instrumental in neutralizing one of the most fanatically defended Japanese strong points encountered by his regiment and aided in enabling his company to reach its' objective. Corporal Williams' aggressive fighting spirit and valiant devotion to duty throughout this fiercely contested action sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

The State Journal covered the case when it was before the court. (Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2017/06/the-west-virginia-supreme-court-of-appeals-this-appeal-arises-from-a-petition-filed-in-the-circuit-court-of-mason-county-see.html
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Luke Combs is the winner of the Country Music Association Awards' coveted entertainer of the year trophy. Combs thanked the country music community for making his dreams come true. It was the second time in a row he won the show's top honor, and he also won won album of the year for Growin' Up. Wednesday's show in Nashville, Tennessee, opened with Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Reba McEntire playing tribute to the late country queen Loretta Lynn. The superstar trio performed a medley of Lynns hits including You Aint Woman Enough, Dont Come Home A-Drinkin and Coal Miners Daughter. Leading nominee Lainey Wilson took home two trophies and Alan Jackson accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cozad  A two-car crash on Interstate 80 one half mile west of Cozad in Dawson County has claimed one life and sent another person to the hospital.

According to a press release from the Nebraska State Patrol the crash occurred just before 1 a.m. Thursday, June 8, 2017.

A car driven by Deloyce Robinson, 89, of North Platte, entered the westbound lanes of I-80 traveling the wrong direction when it collided with a pick-up driven by Nicholas Yonce, 28, of Garner, North Carolina.

Robinson was killed in the accident. Nebraska State Patrol investigators determined that Robinson had not been wearing his seat belt.

Yonce was treated at the Cozad hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. Yonce was wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash.

This is a tragic crash, but an important reminder that all motorists should wear their seat belt, said Major Mike Gaudreault, Nebraska State Patrol Field Services Division Commander. Of the 79 fatalities on Nebraska roadways in 2017, 80 percent have not been wearing seat belts. Properly wearing your seat belt dramatically

increases your chances of surviving an accident.

All lanes of I-80 at Mile Marker 222 have reopened after a two-hour closure of the westbound lanes to complete the investigation.
A letter drafted by a senior Islamic State militant and obtained by The Associated Press points to a growing power struggle within the groups Afghan affiliate, pitting notoriously fierce Uzbek fighters against Pakistanis seen as too close to that countrys powerful intelligence service.

The rumblings of discontent come as the IS affiliate, which refers to itself as the Khorasan Province, is at war with both the U.S.-backed government and the more well-established Taliban, with which it differs on tactics, leadership and ideology.

The IS affiliate emerged in 2014 and refers to itself as the Khorasan Province, an ancient term for an area that includes parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian states. It has pledged allegiance to the IS group in Iraq and Syria but consists mainly of disgruntled former Taliban and other insurgents from South and Central Asia.

The letter, obtained by a jihadi fighter with ties to the IS affiliate and then provided to AP, was signed by Moawiya Uzbekistani, the apparent nom de guerre of an Uzbek militant, who claims to have become the leader of the IS affiliate after the death of Abdul Hasib, who was killed in a joint U.S.-Afghan operation in April.

Uzbekistani rejects reports that another fighter, who he identifies as Sheikh Aslam Farouqi, has been chosen to lead the group and suggests Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence is behind the rumors.

Even if this information is true, then its the IS of Pakistan behind this function and we dont accept it, because we all fight for Allah and his religion, the letter says, warning against infidels, intelligence services and the deceitful acting from behind the scenes.

Militants belonging to allied groups said Central Asian fighters as well as Afghans want the leadership of the group taken out of Pakistani hands, even though the founder of IS in Afghanistan, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was a Pakistani tribesman. Khan was killed in a U.S. drone strike in July 2016.

The rift seemed to widen with a recent IS meeting in Pakistans Orakzai tribal belt, from where Khan originates, according to two people familiar with the meeting, which was said to have been attended by 40 senior IS commanders.

The council appointed Saif-ul Islam, a close Pakistani ally of Saeed, as the new leader. With the many names used by insurgents it wasnt immediately clear if Aslam Farouqi and Saif-ul Islam were the same person. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Khorasani, an Afghan from the eastern Kunar province, was appointed deputy, they said. The militants all spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief reporters.

There has been no official IS confirmation of a new leader and in Washington intelligence officials refused to comment.

More than 16 years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to end Taliban rule and flush out al-Qaida, the mountainous regions along the Afghan-Pakistani border are still home to an array of extremist groups. Pakistans spy service is said to have connections to some, including the Afghan Taliban, even as it battles other groups that threaten its own citizens.

The growing assertiveness of the Uzbek militants within the IS affiliate is particularly worrying.

Uzbek fighters were so vicious in Pakistans South Waziristan province that they drove the areas fractious tribesmen to unite to push them out in 2015. They then based themselves in North Waziristan before being driven across the border by a Pakistani military offensive. They have since clashed with the Taliban in different parts of Afghanistan and claimed responsibility for brazen and deadly attacks in Kabul, including a daytime assault and siege of an Afghan military hospital that killed 50 people earlier this year.

Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow-based expert on Central Asian militants, says the Uzbeks reputation for brutality is likely rooted in the fact that they are aliens in much of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are dominated by other ethnic groups.

That may also explain their tensions with the Afghan Taliban. While both IS and the Taliban are determined to overthrow the Afghan government and impose a harsh version of Islamic law, the former views itself as part of a global movement, while the latter confines its operations to Afghanistan.

Dubnov also noted that the son of Tahir Yuldashev, the powerful Uzbek leader of the outlawed Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan in 2009, is leading efforts to help expand IS influence in Afghanistan.

Central Asian fighters are now a key pillar of support for the IS affiliate, according to Anatol Lieven, a regional expert at Georgetown Universitys Qatar campus.

They have been encouraged to move to IS because of the longstanding Taliban declaration that they are not an international jihadi force, he said.

The estimates of the number of Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen and other fighters from the former U.S.S.R. living in Afghanistan that I heard ranged from 6,000 to 25,000, said Lieven adding many have intermarried with Afghans of a similar ethnic background. Kathy Gannon, Islamabad, AP
As Chinese appetite for Swiss companies grows, so is demand for flights between the two countries.

Air China Ltd. is seizing on an opportunity to jet more executives to Zurich by introducing its first direct flights from Beijing to the financial hub yesterday. Airbus SE A330-200s will ferry as many as 227 passengers between the cities four times a week.

More and more Chinese companies are interested in investing in Switzerland, Chen Ge, general manager of Air Chinas Swiss branch, said in an interview in Zurich. Thats helpful for our operations because it means there are more businessmen traveling to Switzerland.

The start of the route follows on the heels of a string of Chinese takeovers in the central European country, the biggest of which was China National Chemical Corp.s USD43 billion purchase of pesticide maker, Syngenta AG. Smaller deals have taken place in the aviation, energy and waste management industries.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG also stands to benefit from the new service. The company in September said its setting up a commercial joint venture with Air China that allows the partners to coordinate schedules and prices on routes covered, which will include the German airlines Swiss and Austrian arms.

Swiss and Air China already code-share on the airlines twice weekly Geneva-Beijing route, meaning each carrier sells tickets for those flights. The cooperation will also include the new service offered by Air China to Zurich, and the companies will share the revenues generated from these flights once the joint venture is fully implemented.

The flights will not only haul executives to Switzerland, but also big-spending tourists seeking luxury goods. Some of the most popular Swiss watch brands can be purchased at a lower price in continental Europe than in mainland China. Chinese consumers accounted for as much as half of the worlds spending on Swiss timepieces in past years, according to Citigroup.

Swiss luxury-goods maker Richemont last month disclosed a 5 percent stake in Dufry AG, the worlds largest travel retail company, after Chairman Johann Rupert predicted Chinese tourists will buoy the economic prospects of France, Italy and the rest of Europe.

While Air Chinas direct flights to Zurich are targeted mainly at business travelers, Chen Ge said he is also expecting a significant increase in the numbers of tourists.

Switzerland is still a dream destination for the Chinese, he said. Alice Baghdjian, Bloomberg
Britains vote today is set to be a textbook example of the limits of elections. When choices are clear, and articulated by strong leaders, elections can move politics forward. When choices arent clear, and parties dont know what they stand for, votes resolve nothing.

Six weeks ago, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa Mays call for a snap election made sense. With her popularity high and her Labour Party opponents in disarray, she hoped to strengthen her position in Parliament, undercutting her partys euroskeptic hard-

liners and making it easier for her to negotiate the terms of Britains divorce from the European Union.

Things havent gone according to plan. New terrorist atrocities have sidelined discussion about Brexit, such as it was. May has waged a weak campaign and seen the once-commanding lead of her Conservative Party evaporate. A Labour win still looks unlikely, but anything less than a big Tory victory will leave May diminished, and the outlook for Brexit even more muddled.

Fact is, on the two main issues  Britains exit from the EU and the persistent threat of Islamist terrorism  there isnt much difference between the main parties. The Labour opposition isnt promising to reverse Brexit, only to make it less disruptive. (It hasnt said how.) On counterterrorism policy, both parties have deplored the attacks with equal conviction and run up against the same familiar, intractable trade-offs between security and civil liberties.

All of which has lent a strange air of near-irrelevance to Thursdays vote. Issues of world-

historical import bear down on British voters  and the election has had almost nothing to say about them. Instead, the parties have been squabbling about Mays so-called dementia tax and Labours half-baked economic plan.

Taking the parties programs at face value, the Tories make a far better case. Yet its come down to a confidence vote on the two leaders, May and Jeremy Corbyn. At a moment of great political stress, Britain finds it has little confidence in either. Bloomberg
Ho Hoi Leng, assistant coordinator of the Social Services Advisory Committee of the Islands, said that the new Taipa Maritime Terminal is not as large as commonly perceived. Maybe it is due to us seeing a temporarily low usage rate, which makes us feel that the new terminal is relatively big, explained Ho, adding that she disagreed with the proposition. We must not see just what is in front of us. When speaking from a perspective in terms of long-term development, Macau really needs a ferry terminal of a scale capable of meeting further social developments. Ho made her comments during a visit her committee paid to the new terminal.

Restaurant closed after second food safety violation

The restaurant Lakeport Party Paradise, which previously provided unsafe food to a party held by the Centro Hospitalar Conde de Sao Januario (CHCSJ), has been found to have provided unsafe food to the Public Security Police Force detention center. Last week, the PSP immigration department detention center served food ordered from the aforementioned restaurant to five people who were awaiting deportation from Macau. The five people, after eating the food, showed symptoms of a gastroenteritis, and were admitted to a local hospital. They have since returned to the PSP detention center. The Civil and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) has closed Lakeport Party Paradise in response.

WiFi street to cover Rua do Cunha

The Macau International Industrial Technology Development Association will launch another WiFi Street in mid-June to cover several areas in Taipa, including Rua do Cunha. Those who intend to access WiFi in the area should connect to the wifiguide.mo network. Currently, this network is available from the Istmo F. Amaral to the Lin Zexu Memorial Museum, next to the Amigos do Jardim Triangulo, spanning 1 km in total. A second WiFi Street is located on the central and southern area of Macau. The program has recorded 2.6 million users since its launch.

SMJ to build building next to Lotus Square

According to a notice published in the Official Gazette yesterday, three land plots near Lotus Square will be used to construct an 18-story building. The lands has been allocated to the Sociedade de Turismo de Diversoes de Macau (SMJ). In total, the three lands occupy an area of 3,876 square meters. The lands temporary concession is valid until December 20 2019, which means that the company must complete construction before this deadline.

API calls for curb on illegal inns

The Alliance for Common People Building Up Macau (API) is calling for the government to combat illegal accommodation, urging them to amend the relevant laws because it is severely affecting the security of communities. Lawmaker Song Pek Kei noted that Macau law does not feature sufficient punishments for offences relating to illegal accommodation. She also noted that the Secretary for Social and Cultural Affairs, Alexis Tam, promised to improve the laws, but that no progress has been made thus far. Song added that it is necessary for the government to rethink how to more effectively combat illegal accommodation.
A top Emirati diplomat said theres nothing to negotiate with Qatar over a growing diplomatic dispute about the energy-rich nations alleged funding of terror groups, signaling Arab countries trying to isolate it wont back down.

Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told AP that Qatar has chosen to ride the tiger of extremism and terrorism and now needed to pay the price.

Gargash said Qatar absolutely should expel members of Hamas, stop its support of terror groups with al-Qaida DNA around the world and rein in the many media outlets it funds, chief among them the Doha-based satellite news network Al-Jazeera.

While applauding a Kuwaiti effort to mediate the crisis, Gargash said Emirati and Saudi officials planned to concede nothing to Qatar, now cut off from some of the skies around it and blocked from receiving the trucks of food it relies on to feed its citizens.

Their fingerprints are all over the place in terror funding, Gargash said. Enough is enough.
Britains political leaders crisscrossed the country on the last day of the general election campaign yesterday, with security dominating the agenda in the wake of the London Bridge attack.

The main contenders are battling over who will keep Britain safer from an ever-morphing terrorist threat.

Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to crack down on extremism if she wins Thursdays vote  even if that means watering down human rights legislation.

Her main opponent, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, said the real danger comes from Conservative cuts to police budgets.

We wont defeat terrorists by ripping up our basic rights and our democracy, Corbyn said.

May began the day with an early morning visit to Smithfield meat market in London, where she was heckled by some butchers shouting vote Labour.

She called the snap election in a bid to boost the Conservative majority in Parliament, which May says will strengthen Britains hand in divorce talks with the European Union.

Get those negotiations wrong and the consequences will be dire, she said.

Labour has had a better campaign than many expected, with opinion polls showing a narrowing of the gap between the party and the Conservatives. Corbyn, widely written off at the start of the campaign, has drawn thousands of people to upbeat rallies and energized young voters with his plans to boost public spending after years of Conservative austerity.

Corbyn planned to address six rallies in England, Scotland and Wales, ending in his north London constituency on Wednesday night.

He said Thursdays vote offered a clear choice between another five years of a Tory government, underfunding of services all across the UK [] or a Labour government that invests for all, all across Britain.

Attacks in Manchester on May 22 and London on Saturday have put the threat from international terrorism at the center of the campaign.

Corbyn has criticized cuts to the police under the Conservatives, which saw the number of officers fall by almost 20,000 between 2010 and 2016.

The Tories, meanwhile, have increased their attacks on Corbyns security record. He opposed British military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, wants to scrap Britains nuclear arsenal and shared platforms with Irish republicans in the years when the IRA was setting off bombs in Britain.

Conservative-supporting

newspapers went on the attack against Corbyn yesterday. The Daily Mail branded him and senior colleagues apologists for terror, while the Daily Express exhorted: Vote May or we face disaster.

Its unclear whether Britains anxiety about terrorism will benefit May, as the incumbent prime minister, or whether criticism of her record in government will hit home.

I was going to vote Labour and Im still going to vote Labour, said Tom Lewis, an insurance broker walking in Borough, the London neighborhood hit in Saturdays attack.

I think that the idea of the Tories being strong on security is a bit of a red herring because they are unwilling to pay for more police. Fundamentally thats what you need for security. Cutting human rights doesnt necessarily increase security  it can very often decrease security.

The latest opinion polls vary between a solid Conservative lead and a dead heat. The difference depends largely on the predicted size of turnout among young people, traditionally the least likely to vote.

One of Corbyns top allies, Diane Abbott, stepped down temporarily because of illness, the party said yesterday.

Abbott, Labours spokeswoman on law and order, has been ridiculed by opponents for poor performances in interviews during the campaign. In one she said Labour would hire more police officers at a cost of 30 pounds (USD39) each. She amended that with a larger but also incorrect figure.

Jill Lawless, London , AP
A retired U.S. Navy commander in Hawaii charged in a growing corruption scandal pleaded guilty yesterday [Macau time] to lying about his relationship with a Malaysian defense contractor known by the nickname Fat Leonard.

As part of a deal with federal prosecutors, David Kapaun entered the plea to a count of fraud and false statements in federal court in Honolulu involving his relationship with Leonard Francis, who prosecutors describe as the center of a colossal bribery and fraud scandal.

Kapaun said in court that he omitted Francis from a security clearance update form because he knew I did have a past association with him that was unfavorable.

He also didnt disclose receiving dinners, hotel stays and prostitutes from Francis, said his defense attorney, Victor Bakke.

Francis has acknowledged bribing Navy officials with cash, prostitutes and other gifts in exchange for classified information to help his company, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia. The company provided services such as trash and sewage removal, food, water, security and fuel to U.S. Navy ships, according to prosecutors. Hes awaiting sentencing.

He played a minor role in the overall scheme that was conducted by Fat Leonard, Bakke said of Kapaun. Hes remorseful. He realizes he should have used better judgment. But just like the number of other Naval officers that are involved in this case, he was seduced by this guy.

Twenty-one current and former Navy officials have been charged so far in the scandal. Kapaun is the 11th to plead guilty.

The allegations prompted Kapaun to resign earlier this year from his civilian position as deputy chief of staff for U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific.

Kapaun could face up to five years in federal prison when hes sentenced on Sept. 11. The terms of his plea agreement will require Kapaun to pay USD50,000 restitution and a $25,000 fine, Bakke said.

Kapaun retired and was honorably discharged in 2008 after a 25-year Navy career, Bakke said.

Even though hes retired, they could pull him back to active duty and court-martial him if they wanted to, Bakke said. AP
The New Macau Association (ANM) is echoing UNESCOs concerns about the slow progress for a comprehensive urban plan to protect the world heritage sites in Macau.

During a press conference

held yesterday, the associations resigning president Scott Chiang noted that the government had published a management plan for public consultation but stopped there. Nothing went beyond the consultation and we dont see any solid scheduling on when it will materialize, he said.

UNESCOs World Heritage Committee (WHC) published some of the working documents online, which will be addressed during the 41st session its World Heritage Committee (WHC), scheduled to be held from July 2 to 12 in Krakow, Poland.

The concerns include the impact of high-rise buildings on the Guia Lighthouse area, Area B of the new reclamation land that might impact the integrity of the Penha Hill and lastly the abandoned high-rise project at Calcada do Gaio.

Those issues, according to UNESCO, pose a serious threat to the integrity of the historic center of Macau.

We have been talking about this for years and we have seen very little substance from the Macau government, Chiang said.

The WHC document states in its analysis and conclusions, The possible impact of high-

rise developments on the landscape of Guia Lighthouse and Penha Hill, as well as growing concerns about the lack of a Protection and Management Plan could have serious consequences for the classification of the historical centre of Macau as part of World Heritage, which was obtained in 2005.

The current issue of height restrictions concerning the project at Macau Fishermans Wharf, the proposals for land reclamation around the property, and possible developments involving high-rise buildings all raise serious concerns, the document reads.

Furthermore, information on the expected timescale for the completion of the Management Plan [requested by February 1 2015] has not been provided, which raises concerns due to the slow progress with the completion of the comprehensive Urban Plan, which was requested on several occasions.

UNESCO requested that the MSAR submit an updated report on the state of the conservation of the property and the implementation of the above to the World Heritage Centre, which will be examined at its 43rd session in 2019. The deadline for submission is December 1, 2018.

During yesterdays press conference, the president of ANM compared the Macau government to a school boy that is very late in turning in his homework.

Remarking on the possibility of justifications from the government on the delays, Chiang said, I dont know what you can say to the professor when you are so late  two years late in turning in your report  but whatever words might come out from their honorable mouth might not be a remedy for this situation.

According to Chiang, the first thing the government should do is to acknowledge their lack of responsibility [in addressing the issue] in the past. He recalled when Macau managed to have the heritage sites listed by UNESCO in 2005, when the incumbent Chief Executive was the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture and whatever we promised at that time to the international community was promised by him and we clearly failed [to deliver] that promise.

What are we going to do now, from today on, to actually satisfy the requirements? It would be good if [the Macau government] could make a solid promise that would make the committee change their mind and flex a little the final report, said Chiang. We [dont want and] are not looking for the humiliation of Macau and of the Macau people.

When questioned on what the association proposes should be done, Chiang responded, The UNESCO report is quite clear in stating the problems and what should be done [by the government], and we agree with that.

The New Macau Association met with the director UNESCOs World Heritage Committee in December last year.

Cultural Affairs Bureau acknowledges concerns

The Cultural Affairs Bureau (IC) addressed the WHC report during a press conference yesterday, informing that the bureau will be attending the July meeting in Poland, along with a delegation from the Peoples Republic of China State Cultural Heritage Administration.

Contrary to what ANM stated, the president of the IC, Leung Hio Ming, said: The wording from WHC isnt that hard. It is just a formal way to address the issue, he said, stating that he has been in contact with the organization.

It is an important issue and we are concerned with it, but as they [WHC] mentioned to us, it is just a list of points in which we have to work with a given deadline until the end of 2018.

Leung also mentioned that after the report was acknowledged by the IC on May 22, a delegation from the IC travelled last week to Beijing to attend a meeting with the central authorities on the matter and discuss the preparation of the July meeting in Poland with Chinas experts. The president of the IC also acknowledged that this meeting was suggested by the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam.

Leung also recalled that Macau is included in the Cultural Heritage of China, who is the formal member, adding, If we need to address the members, it cant be us [Macau] doing it, [it must be] the central government authorities.

When questioned on how Macau will justify the delays in the delivery of the requested documents, the chief of the Cultural Heritage Department of the IC, Leong Wai Man, responded: The heritage law was only approved in 2013 and was only in force from 2014. He added that the government plan that was open for public consultation will this year enter its second phase.

Leung further said that the IC is confident to have the work on the administrative regulation for the plan of safeguarding the historical center done, to be submitted during the mid-term of next year, reaffirming that the region will comply with the requests of WHC as soon as possible.

We are doing our very best to protect all our heritage, he added.
Hong Kong overtook Tokyo as the most expensive city in Asia-Pacific for expatriates, and is second globally, according to consultancy firm ECA International. Thanks to the pound, London is now cheaper than Bangkok.

Hong Kong climbed to its highest position ever on the rankings. Tokyo maintained its No. 7 spot globally while Singapore fell to 24th place. London, at 132nd, is now cheaper than Thailands capital, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. Luanda in oil-rich Angola climbed to the top spot.

Over the past few years, the Hong Kong dollar has appreciated against most major currencies, owing to its peg to the U.S. dollar, which has pushed up the price of goods and services relative to those in locations whose currencies have weakened against the greenback, Lee Quane, a regional director for Asia with ECA, said in a statement yesterday.

While local prices have risen in Singapore, the city states currency has weakened against counterparts over the past 12 months making relative costs cheaper than a year ago, Quane said. For Luanda, goods costs  already high due to poor infrastructure  have risen as the Angolan kwanza becomes increasingly overvalued.

ECA conducts two surveys a year to help companies calculate cost-of-living allowances for expat employees. The surveys compare a basket of like-for-like goods and services bought from more than 460 locations worldwide, according to the company. The survey doesnt include rent, utilities, car purchases and school fees, which are tracked separately.

Much of the movement in the rankings amongst Asian locations in the past 12 months has been strongly influenced by currency movements, with Yangon falling in the regional rankings on account of depreciation of its currency in the past year, said Quane.

An ECA survey published in May also found the value of expat pay and benefits packages continued to decline last year in both Hong Kong and Singapore. A package for a middle manager in Hong Kong, including salary, tax and benefits, has fallen 2 percent in U.S. dollar terms over the past five years to around USD265,500, while the typical package in Singapore dropped 6 percent to $235,500. Bloomberg

Macau 11 in Asia-Pacific ranking

According to the Cost of Living survey, Macau ranked as the 11th most expensive city for expatriates in the Asia-Pacific region, moving up one place from the previous year. That puts the MSAR slightly ahead of Guangzhou (13), Taipei (14) and Shenzhen (15), also beating out the South Korean city of Ulsan (12). According to the authors of the survey, it is less expensive for expats than Beijing (8), Busan (9) and Singapore (10). In the global index, Macau ranks as the 25th most expensive city in 2017.
The Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM) has launched its Conference Ambassador program and invited six people from mainland China and abroad to be Macaus Conference Ambassadors, who will jointly promote the development of the local MICE industry.

The Conference Ambassador program was launched by the MSAR jointly with experts from different fields in a bid to boost the local MICE industry.

The program is in line with the MSARs policy of giving Priority to Conventions, in a bid to drive the growth and development of Macaus different business sectors.

It also aims to support the development of the professional sectors through the professional influence of Ambassadors in Mainland China and abroad, in addition to the co-operation of related entities within Macau.

According to IPIM, the MSAR will co-operate with the Ambassadors in several ways by combining efforts to attract a greater number of national and international conventions to Macau.

The six experts were invited from different sectors: medicine, construction, sport, information technology, and chemistry.

The experts include Orlando Monteiro da Silva, former president of FDI World Dental Federation, Zhu Lilan, former Minister of Science and Technology of the Peoples Republic of China, He Jingtang, member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Li Ning, a former athlete of the Chinese Gymnastics Team.

Tsui Lap-Chee, a specialist in molecular genetics,

and Liu Chung Laung, a member of the Advisory Board of the Macau Science and Technology Development Fund have also been named as ambassadors.
Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Irans parliament and the shrine of its revolutionary leader yesterday, killing at least 12 people, wounding dozens and igniting an hours-long siege at the legislature that ended with four attackers dead.

The Islamic State group claimed the attacks, marking the first time the Sunni extremists have taken responsibility for an assault in Shiite-majority Iran. The militants are at war with Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Iraq, and view Shiites as apostates.

The attacks began midmorning when assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles stormed the parliament building. One of the attackers later blew himself up inside, where a session had been in progress, according to a statement carried by Irans state TV.

Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari told Irans state TV the apparently male attackers wore womens attire. The semi-official Tasnim news agency later reported the siege had ended with four of the attackers killed.

Mizan Online, an Iranian state-run news website, said 12 people were killed and 42 wounded in the two attacks. It quoted Pirhossein Kolivand, the head of Irans emergency department.

The IS groups Aamaq news agency released a 24-second video purportedly shot inside the parliament building during the siege. The video, circulated online, shows a gunman and a bloody, lifeless body of a man lying on the ground next to a desk.

A voice on the video praises God and says in Arabic: Do you think we will leave? We will remain, God willing. Another voice repeats the same words. The two appeared to be parroting a slogan used by IS spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, who was killed in Syria last year.

An Associated Press reporter saw several police snipers on the rooftops of buildings around the parliament. Shops in the area were shuttered, and gunfire could be heard. Witnesses said the attackers were shooting from the fourth floor of the parliament building down at people in the streets below.

I was passing by one of the streets. I thought that children were playing with fireworks, but I realized people are hiding and lying down on the streets, Ebrahim Ghanimi, who was around the parliament building when the assailants stormed in, told The Associated Press. With the help of a taxi driver, I reached a nearby alley.

Police helicopters circled over the parliament building and all mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected. The semi-official ISNA news agency said all entrance and exit gates at parliament were closed and that lawmakers and reporters were ordered to remain in place inside the chamber during the siege.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called the attack a cowardly act.

Iran is an active and effective pillar in the fight against terrorists and they want to damage it, he said.

Soon after the parliament attack, a suicide bomber and other assailants targeted the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini located just outside the capital, Tehran, according to Irans official state broadcaster. It said a security guard was killed and that one of the attackers was killed by security guards. A woman was also arrested.

Khomeini, who died in 1989, is a towering figure in Iran. He led the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah and became Irans first supreme leader.

An Associated Press reporter saw security forces, some uniformed and others in plainclothes, around the large and ornate shrine.

The IS group often claims attacks around the world, even when links to the group cannot be confirmed and appear dubious. Iranian security officials have not said who they suspect is behind the attacks, though state media has referred to the attackers as terrorists.

The unusual attacks prompted the Interior Ministry to call for an urgent security meeting. Officials at one point urged people to avoid using public transportation until further notice. Amir Vahdat & Nasser Karimi, Tehran, AP
A military transport plane with 120 people on board went missing yesterday on a flight from southern Myanmar to Yangon, a military spokesman said. There were fears it may have crashed into the ocean, since its route would have taken it over the Andaman Sea.

Gen. Myat Min Oo said the Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft was carrying 106 passengers  mostly families of military personnel  and 14 crew members when it went missing yesterday afternoon. In an earlier statement, the number of passengers was said to be 90. It is not unusual for such flights to carry civilians to offset transportation costs for military families stationed in the somewhat remote south.

The military plane went missing and lost contact after it took off from Myeik, and now the military has started a sea and air search with naval ships and military aircraft and is preparing for rescue operations, he said.

It was raining at the time, but not heavily, he said. Myeik, also known as Mergui, is a city in southeastern Myanmar on the Andaman coast.

An announcement posted on the Facebook page of the commander of the military, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, said the flight took off from Myeik at 1:06 p.m. and contact with it was lost at 1:35 p.m., when it was believed to be about 32 kilometers to the west of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.

The area is about 700 kilometers north of the last primary radar contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished on a flight from Malaysia to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board. That plane is believed to have flown far off course and crashed into a remote area of the Indian Ocean.

The military announcement said Myanmar received the Y-8 plane in March last year, and since then it had logged 809 flying hours.

In a second announcement yesterday night, the commanders office said six navy ships and three military aircraft were searching for the missing plane. Esther Htusan, Yangon, AP
Sao Tome and Principe has appointed Gualter Vera Cruz as the representative to the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries (Forum Macau), according to Xu Yingzhen, the Secretary-General of the institution.

With the appointment of Cruz, who is an advisor to the Sao Tome and Principe minister of finance, trade, and economics, Forum Macau will have delegates from the eight Portuguese- speaking countries: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and East Timor.

Vera Cruz will take office during the next regular meeting of the organizations permanent secretariat.

Sao Tome and Principe was admitted to Forum Macau in March 2017 after re-establishing diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China in December 2016.

Forum Macau is undergoing a phase of internal adjustment and restructuring to provide faster and more effective responses to its role linking China with Portuguese-speaking countries.

In addition to the 2016 nomination of the new Secretary-General, Xu Yingzhen, the Ministry of Commerce of China has also appointed Ding Tian as Deputy Secretary-General this year. Ding joins Echo Chan and Mozambican diplomat Vicente Manuel, who both hold the same title, but were appointed by the Macau government and the Portuguese-speaking countries respectively.

Manuel will soon retire from his role and will be replaced by Portuguese economist Rodrigo Brum.

As part of the restructuring of Forum Macau, and as the Times reported earlier this week, the local government has appointed Teresa Mok as coordinator of the Support Office of the Permanent Secretariat.

The coordinating structure of Forum Macau also includes Hu Huajun as the coordinator of the Management Office and Timor-Leste representative Danilo Henriques as the liaison office coordinator representing the Portuguese-speaking countries. MDT/Macauhub
Seven decades ago in Manila, one of Henry Sys first bonanzas was buying cigarettes off of American soldiers and selling them in the city plaza at a markup.

Now, heirs of the retail and property mogul behind Southeast Asias largest fortune may have found a jackpot of their own: Theyre building a supermall in China thats almost the size of the Pentagon.

The project signals increased exposure to the worlds biggest consumer market, in line with the foreign policy shift towards Beijing by President Rodrigo Duterte. Investors have come around to the tough-talking populist since his election last May, supporting a rally for Philippine equities and a surge for the stocks owned by Sys SM Investments Corp as the company undergoes a generational shift. Thats made billionaires of his six children, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Henry Sy was one of the more forward-looking and canny tycoons in the Philippines in that he paid attention to succession issues probably better than most, said Alejandro Reyes, a Manila-born visiting professor at University of Hong Kongs politics department. The Philippines is an oligarchy where you have a limited number of families who benefit when the economy is doing very well, and who control an inordinate amount of the economy.

The heirs collectively have direct stakes of around 44 percent of SM, which has holdings in retail, property development, banking and logistics. The siblings  Teresita, Elizabeth, Henry Jr., Hans, Herbert, and Harley  have a combined net worth of USD10.7 billion, according to the index. Henry Sy, 92, is credited with the remainder of the clans share of the conglomerate, held directly, with his wife and through family-owned holding companies.

The familys $17.6 billion fortune amounts to more than 5 percent of the island nations annual GDP and has risen more than $3 billion since Dutertes victory, more than any in Southeast Asia, according to the Bloomberg index.

The conglomerate is viewed by investors as a proxy for the fast-growing Philippines economy, according to Frederic DyBuncio, who assumed the presidency of SM Investments in April. Indeed, logistics company 2GO Group Inc., which counts Sys group among its largest stakeholders, has tripled in the past year, while property company SM Prime Holdings Inc., lender BDO Unibank Inc. and holding company SM Investments are each up more than 19 percent.

Teresita Sy-Coson, the eldest of the heirs, lauded Duterte in a recent interview with CNBC or his laissez-faire approach to the economy, even as he faces scrutiny for thousands of drug war killings that watchdog Human Rights Watch has called a calamity. She declined to comment on the familys net worth, and the family declined requests for additional comment sent through the holding companys investor relations department.

Teresita and her brother Hans have been in delegations that went with Duterte to China for talks with President Xi Jinping, a sign that the descendants of the conglomerates China-born founder are well-positioned to benefit from the detente, Reyes said. Visits from Chinese tourists grew by more than one-third last year, a boon for the Sys tenant at the City of Dreams Manila casino resort.

Seven of the groups more than 60 malls are in China. The conglomerate is building a residential project in Chengdu, with plans for Xiamen and Jinjiang, the latter being the birthplace of Henry Sy, who spearheaded the groups push into China. A supermall in the works in Tianjin would have more than 500,000 square meters of floor space, rivaling that of the Pentagon. It was designed like a blossoming flower to symbolize growth and new opportunities, according to the companys website. Still, China only accounts for about 2 percent of the groups total revenue.

The expansion in China brings the fortune back to the founders homeland, and comes as Henry Sy attempts to execute an orderly handover of his wealth to a new generation, which includes the appointing of professional managers from outside the family. By involving all of his children as managers and giving them an ownership stake, hes been more proactive than some  even if he hasnt publicly designated a successor.

That transition was pushed forward in April when Henry stepped down as chairman of SM Investments and gave up a casting vote that gave him the power as a tiebreaker in cases of deadlock on the board. The company replaced him with longtime chief financial officer Jose Sio, who holds an MBA from New York University, and named 57-year-old DyBuncio, a former JPMorgan banker, to take over Harleys role as president.

The family has learned to deal with decisions very professionally, said Corazon Guidote, senior vice-president for investor relations at SM Investments. She said that while the clan is handing management to professionals, each of the siblings still gets a vote on strategic decisions.

Even so, the odds may be against a smooth transfer, which remains a challenge for many of the worlds richest families. Joseph Fan, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong who studied 214 family-run firms in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, found that their stock prices dropped by almost 60 percent on average in the eight years surrounding a change of power at the top.

We have to wait and see how the relationships of his offspring evolve, Fan said in an e-mail response to questions about Sy. The real test of the familys governance is typically when the founder approaches the end stage of life. Blake Schmidt, Bloomberg
On the two biggest issues of the U.K. general election, the countrys withdrawal from the European Union and the threat of Islamic terrorism, Brits living in Macau told the Times yesterday that they think incumbent Prime Minister Theresa May is slightly more suited for the job.

But only slightly, they insisted, recalling a similar political climate around the U.S. presidential election last year, when presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were both broadly unpopular with the public.

A very recent poll conducted in the U.K. by Opinium showed that some 42 percent of respondents think that May would make a better prime minister, with just 26 percent preferring Corbyn. As in the case of Trump and Clinton, the leading contenders in Britain have been beset by their low personal approval ratings in the run-

up to todays vote.

Suzanne Watkinson, managing director of Ambiente Properties, told the Times last night that her burning issue in the campaign was how the Brexit negotiations will be handled and whether that will impact Brits living and retiring in the European Union. She thinks that Theresa May is marginally better suited for the task of leading the negotiations.

Better the devil you know than the devil you dont, said Watkinson. Better stick with May.

Brexit will still be central, but terrorism will also be a major deciding factor. These threads will be woven together in peoples minds as they head to the polls, she added, but hinted that her vote of confidence would go to the incumbent.

Watkinsons compatriot, Eileen Stow, the chief executive of Lord Stows Bakery, admitted that she thought May would negotiate a more advantageous withdrawal from the EU than Corbyn, but said that it pained her to admit that.

Im the daughter of a Labour man, brought up Labour, and I would probably vote Labour if I could. However, although I regret to say it, I think that Theresa May probably has a better chance of getting us a better deal out of Brexit, said Stow. In terms of security, I also have to take Theresa Mays view that enough is enough. Thats what everyone is saying and I stand with the [Labour] Mayor of London [Sadiq Khan], who is a Muslim himself.

Meanwhile, University of Macau professor Glenn Timmermans is divided between the two leading candidates and suggested that, were he to vote, it would be for Britains Liberal Democrat party, which is likely to come third or fourth among nation-wide partiesin the election.

Ive never liked the Liberal Democrats but I would have voted Lib Dem in the election, if I could vote, said Timmermans.

Up to three million Brits living abroad, including Watkinson, Stow and Timmermans, will not be permitted to cast their ballot in tomorrows election, because they have lived overseas for more than 15 years. The prohibition is in place despite a Tory pledge to give foreign nationals votes for life.

In a statement issued by the U.K. government in April, a cabinet spokesperson said that there was not sufficient time before the election to enfranchise all British expats and scrap the 15-year time limit.

A month ago, it was just a formality, with Theresa May expected to get a thumping [significant] majority, Timmermans told the Times yesterday, expressing his fustration. Its really amazing how she has just [expletive] this up Its extraordinary that we might go to the polls and [elect] a hung parliament.

A hung parliament is an expression used to describe a situation under a parliamentary system where no one political party controls an absolute majority.

With regards to security, Timmermans echoes the sentiments of Watkinson in that the two options can be reduced down to a choice of the lesser evil.

Although May might be slightly damaged by her reputation as Home Secretary  like cutting police numbers  Corbyn has also had affiliations with the IRA [Irish Republican Army] and Islamic terrorism. [] I think that this could make him a liability, and with the country nervous, we dont want to trust an unknown entity, he said.

On the other hand, May has come across very badly in this campaign because she took [over] the leadership by default and has shown a general unwillingness to engage [in election debates], the UM professor continued.

I think that she has lost stature by calling the election. Like Brexit, which was a Tory party squabble, it was a mistake. Had she not called the election, she would be in a better, stronger position. I think she miscalculated.

Now, in order to justify having called the election, the incumbent prime minister will need to attain a significant victory and expand on the 12-seat majority she currently controls, inherited from her predecessor, David Cameron in his, unexpected electoral success in 2015.

But even then, that may not be enough to save her job.

Mays campaign strategy has seen the Conservative leader, once commanding a position of unassailable strength, reduced to a mere participant in a contest that has become increasingly narrow. According to some of the latest polls, just 6 percentage points now stand between them.

I regret to say it, but I think Theresa May will win, remarked Stow when pressed for an opinion, despite the narrowing of the polls. When given a choice between two [options], it will always be close. If you had a strong choice between three  a real choice  it wouldnt be so close.

I suppose the smart money is still on May getting a respectable majority, Timmermans complemented, but speculated that it would be her last election as Tory leader whatever the outcome. Unless she gets a triumph in the election and with the Brexit negotiations, she will not be there in five years time.

No follow-up after call for local trade negotiation help

At a celebration event for the 10th anniversary of the British Business Association of Macau (BBAM) in July last year, former U.K. Consul General Caroline Wilson said that Hong Kong and Macau would remain a priority market for the U.K. The celebration, which was held less than a month after the Brexit referendum, was also an occasion for the British community in Macau to come to terms with the decision, which they had overwhelmingly opposed in interviews with the Times. Speaking alongside the British Trade Commissioner for Hong Kong and Macau, Frances Moffett-Kouadio, Wilson said that the government would be reaching out to British expatriates in Macau to seek on-the-ground knowledge ahead of potential trade negotiations. Eileen Stow, a founder member of BBAM, told the Times yesterday that, to the best of her knowledge, there has been no outreach as of yet.
Nevada wildfire crews brace for more gusty winds

RENO, Nev. (AP)  Fire crews braced for windy conditions in western Nevada again Wednesday after battling a series of wildfires the day before that threatened dozens of homes, downed power lines, shut down a highway and prompted voluntary evacuations along the California-Nevada line.

Power was restored by noon Wednesday to about 650 residents who lost it Tuesday in the area where flames threatened as many as 40 homes near Topaz Lake about 70 miles south of Reno.

U.S. Highway 395 was closed near the state line for about three hours before it reopened Tuesday night. One out-building was destroyed, but no homes were damaged or injuries reported in that 8-acre blaze.

Jailed Utah woman accused of 2nd murder-for-hire plot

SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  A Utah woman who is already facing charges of trying to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband now faces additional charges after prosecutors say she asked a fellow inmate to kill the man she tried to hire.

Linda Tracy Gillman, 69, is accused of offering a Salt Lake County Jail inmate a large sum of insurance money that she said she stood to inherit if her ex-husband died, charging documents said. Gillman called herself the bank and said she could make everything happen, prosecutors wrote.

She told the inmate that shed also like to see disappear the man she originally hired to kill the ex-husband, the documents said. That man is now the primary witness against her in a felony criminal solicitation case filed in January.

Gillman said if that if he ended up dead, she could walk free, prosecutors said, and she gave the inmate an address of a condominium where she said he could be found. The inmate ended the conversation when she realized Gillman wanted her to kill the witness, authorities said.

Man accused in Portland stabbings targets victim

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)  The man accused of killing two men and wounding a third who tried to stop his anti-Muslim tirade against two teenagers on a Portland, Oregon, light-rail train shouted he was not guilty Wednesday during a courtroom outburst directed at one of the victims.

Not guilty, Jeremy Christian said before a pause, of anything but defending myself against the violent aggression by Micah Fletcher!

Fletcher was in the courtroom but said nothing to reporters and displayed no reaction as he left with his father. The 21-year-old was stabbed in the neck during the May 26 attack that killed Ricky Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche.

Christian was arraigned in a 15-count indictment charging him with aggravated murder, attempted murder and other crimes. The judge did not ask him for a plea during the two-minute hearing, but court records show the entry of not guilty pleas.

The defendant is being held without bail at a jail in downtown Portland. He due in court again July 18.

Spokane police investigate sex assault by federal agent

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP)  Police in Spokane are investigating a Department of Homeland Security agent who is suspected of flashing his badge, then knocking a woman unconscious and raping her in her apartment last week.

Court documents say police have obtained a search warrant investigating the allegations of first-degree rape, burglary and robbery against the Homeland Security agent from Yakima.

The Spokesman-Review says the case began last Wednesday when officers responded to a report of a stranger-to-stranger rape. The victim told officers that a man arrived at her apartment complex looking for a woman named Sharon, which is not her name.

The man flashed a Homeland Security identification badge and shortly after punched her in the face.

He has not been arrested.
Volunteers  The Jerome County Historical Society is looking for volunteers to help at the Depot Museum and at the Idaho Farm and Ranch Museum. Volunteers will receive training on duties at either museum. The in-town Depot Museum duties will include answering the phone, some filing, and showing visitors the artifacts. The IFARM Museum duties will mostly be outdoors helping to clean the grounds and repairing buildings, but also cleaning inside the buildings. Some machinery and building repairing may be included. Closed Sundays and Mondays. To volunteer, call 208-324-5641 from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Volunteers  The Senior Companion Program at the CSI Office on Aging needs volunteers, age 55 and older, to assist homebound seniors by providing friendly visits, transportation or other assistance as needed. Senior Companions make positive impacts by helping to improve the mental and emotional status of their clients. Senior Companions receive a stipend per hour of service (to income eligible seniors) and can work between 15 to 40 hours a week. They receive reimbursement for mileage, and training on age-related problems. Information: Dandre, 208-736-2122, or toll free, 800-574-8656.

Volunteers  Hospice Visions Inc. is looking for volunteers to visit with patients and their families, and volunteers to provide handyman services, play the piano at assisted living centers, and help with art projects for patients at assisted living centers. If you have a special talent to share with others, contact Nora Wells at Hospice Visions, 208-735-0121 or nwells@hospicevisions.org.

Volunteers  Hospice Visions Inc is looking for men and women to serve as Veteran-to-Veteran volunteers for their veteran patients. All ages of veterans from all branches of service are welcome to join Hospice Visions volunteer forces as part of the We Honor Veterans program. Information: Nora Wells, volunteer coordinator at Hospice Visions, 208-735-0121 or nwells@hospicevisions.org.

Volunteers  Community volunteers are needed to become CASA volunteer advocates to represent the best interest of abused children during the court process. Volunteer candidates must pass a background check and receive training and continued support as they speak up and make the difference in the lives of abused children. The program covers all eight counties in south-central Idaho. Information: Tahna Barton, 208-735-1177.

Volunteers  Encompass Hospices work can be supported by volunteers in many ways. Patients need loving and compassionate volunteers to provide companionship, caregiver respite, light housekeeping, shopping, yardwork, or to be there. If you are a veteran who needs to make a connection of shared experiences that only a Veteran to Veteran can share, we need you. Bring your touching hands and hearts to share a smile, hold hands, listen to a story and laugh with Encompass Hospice patients. Information: Cindy, 208-733-8600 or ckeithley@ehhi.com.

Volunteers  Pomerelle Place Senior Living in Burley is looking for volunteers who want to have fun making new friends and bringing happiness to others. Volunteers can play bingo, games and cards with the residents, complete crafts, cook, or help paint fingernails for the ladies. Information: Carla Thompson at Pomerelle Place, 208-677-8212.

Volunteers  Twin Falls Senior Center is looking for volunteers to teach basic computer classes to senior citizens. Classes are for one hour twice a week for a two-week period, and the times are flexible based upon your schedule. The center provides the class agenda and instruction manuals. Information: 208-734-5084 or stop by the senior center at 530 Shoshone St. W. in Twin Falls.
RUPERT  Have you ever seen horse-skid chains or a fence-weaving machine?

Minidoka Countys livery history is now on display in a new room at the museum.

Ray Stockton, board member of the Minidoka County Historical Society, took on the project completing much of the work himself, after construction bids to add a room onto the museum came back too high.

The museum didnt need a shop room, it needed a display room, Stockton said about converting the room into the needed space.

Most of the items now displayed in the room were stored elsewhere at the museum, said Carma Firkins, a museum employee.

The new room features a fence-weaving machine patented in 1898 along with historical tack items like a calf weaner, braided rawhide rope, skid-chains for horses and horse-drawn buggy. There is also a handcart used to haul freight from the train depot to the post office in Rupert.

People use to just figure out what they needed and then they would go and make it, Firkins said.

Minidoka County ranchers are encouraged to bring in one of their branding irons to sear their mark into a door in the room.

Stockton said the brands will be assigned a number, and a reference chart with the names of the brands owners will be hung on the wall.

Stockton said the former shop room did not have an enclosed ceiling and was just open duct work and two walls needed sheetrock.

Stockton completed much of the work himself with a couple of volunteers.

Cost to the museum, including a cargo trailer placed at the back of the museum to function as a shop room, ran about $11,000.

New displays in other rooms at the museum include rifles and pistols donated by Wayne Birch and a display of arrowheads and fossils donated by the Samuel Osgood family.

There are also mammoth bones found at Acequia.
TWIN FALLS  The Magic Valley Pride Festival returns with four days that organizers hope educate, unite and celebrate the entire Twin Falls community.

We want people to see us as humans and not a moral issue, said Sarah Zatica, one of the organizers.

The second annual event starts at 3 p.m. Thursday with an LGBT Inclusivity Training at the College of Southern Idaho Taylor Room 276-77. Cody Hafer will lead the discussion. There will be a social hour from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and beverage and appetizers will be provided. A Community United Forum will follow at 6 p.m. with a panel of guest speakers.

Panelists will include a gay man who is Christian and conservative and a transgender woman who is a parent. Zatica, her partner and her ex-husband will also join the panel and talk about co-parenting. Zatica is the mother of a 6-year-old daughter.

Its going to be a very diverse forum, Zatica said. To show, again, that we are all people and do the same things that everyone else does. We are giving people the chance to see we are families like everybody else and give them the opportunity to ask questions they might otherwise be uncomfortable asking.

In addition to educating the public, there are two events scheduled on Friday to entertain.

Ursulas Big U Drag Show starts with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at the Orpheum Theatre and an after party will be held at the Brickhouse with DJ Philly. Tickets for Ursulas Big U are available at orpheumtwinfalls.com.

Pride Festival in Twin Falls City Park from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday is the groups family-friendly event featuring 30 vendors, bounce houses, carnival games, food, music and dancing.

About 120 people attend last years barbecue at Thompson Park. Zatica hopes this years event at City Park will draw double the people.

Our theme is Community United, meaning we are open to all, she said. Hopefully, when people come out theyll get that perspective. Dont expect to have phallic symbols or sexuality. Its all information or resources.

Following the park gathering, a Rainbow Party will take place for adults from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at City Park with a DJ, drinks and giveaways. A separate youth dance for those 17 and younger will take place from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at the Rousseau Community Center. Adults can also attend a MVP Night Out event from 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. at various Twin Falls bars.

The event will wrap up from 10 a.m. to noon with a Sunday appreciation brunch at the Brickhouse for volunteers, vendors and sponsors. If others would like to attend, the cost is $10 or sign up to volunteer at the information booth on Saturday. Then after brunch, the group will head to the Perrine Bridge to watch a BASE jumper sail over the Snake River Canyon as a way to close out the festival.

We focus on the inclusivity of celebrating pride, Zatica said. Where we can be open to allies and friends. We want to focus on the whole community rather than a percentage of the community, no matter what their beliefs may be.
TWIN FALLS  Residents of the Meadow Ridge subdivision enjoy a lifestyle somewhere between urban and rural.

A brushy expanse separates the community from the nearby Canyon Rim Trail and Snake River Canyon. Here, a snake glided lazily across a cheat grass-lined dirt path on Wednesday while birds and butterflies flitted in sagebrush.

Examining the dry grass, Gloria Gott explained how all it would take is one lightning bolt  or a dragging chain from a vehicle above Shoshone Falls Grade  to put the area in the path of a wildfire.

With help from local agencies, communities such as Meadow Ridge have registered become Firewise, and begun the necessary steps to protect their homes.

We have a long ways to go, Gott said.

But its a start. Residential areas with a high fuel load of cheat grass, sagebrush and trees are the most susceptible to wildfire damage.

Which is why the Mid-Snake Resource, Conservation and Development Council, along with local fire departments, encourages similar homeowners associations to become Firewise Communities/USA.

The program is sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Association of State Foresters.

Most people dont want to get involved until they have smoke coming in their windows, said Lorraine Simonson, fire education coordinator for Mid-Snake RC&D. Its not a matter of it its going to happen, but when.

7 wildfires contained after lightning storms TWIN FALLS  Lightning ignited seven fires in rural southern Idaho on Sunday, burning vegeta

Being Firewise

In 2009, Kanaka Rapids in Buhl was the first Magic Valley homeowners association to become a Firewise Community. Resident Rol Parkhurst remembered a previous fire that burned 25 acres and came near his property, on some common ground between lots.

Were trying to get back to native grasses on this common ground, he said.

The association also owns a tractor. Employees and homeowners work more than 100 hours each year mowing between homes to cut down fuels.

We just encourage people to cut the brush away from their homes and get the grass mowed down, Parkhurst said.

The Hidden Lakes subdivision in Kimberly joined Firewise the following year. Firewise communities perform annual assessments with the Mid-Snake RC&D and fire departments. During these, homeowners receive advice to protect their homes  including what types of vegetation to put in as a buffer.

A lot of wind comes up that canyon, said Kim James, a homeowner in Hidden Lakes. It can carry a fire fast.

Meadow Ridge has been threatened by fires at least twice in the past two decades. On Saturday, with help from the Twin Falls Fire Department, the subdivisions homeowners will have their yearly workday for chipping dried sagebrush.

Gott, the Firewise communitys president, has been distributing flyers and spreading the word. Many homeowners have already have piled up branches for the big day.

Its only part of whats been done, however, to help mitigate fire damage. A portion of the sagebrush has been mowed, and native grasses planted, in a strip of land between Meadow Ridge and the Canyon Rim Trail.

But Theres still a fuel load of cheat grass, Simonson said.

It will probably take at least another spring before the native grasses spread and a difference can really be seen.

In the meantime, its the homeowners turn to continue the process of brush clearing and seeding. By November, Gott said they will have done walk-throughs with experts and contractors to identify and authorize places to create barriers on their properties.

Even with these measures, theres no guarantee that a fire wont reach a home, Simonson said.

Really its about educating the homeowners about what they can do around their homes, she said. It is proven they can make a difference if they take some steps to protect their homes.
President Donald Trump has been defending his plan to withdraw from the Paris climate-change accord on nationalist grounds. Announcing the decision last week, he said he was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris. Vice President Mike Pence, in Iowa, said that Trump had shown he is more concerned with Des Moines than Denmark. (Someone on his team should have told him theres a Denmark, Iowa.)

Administration officials sometimes go even further. Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has suggested that the accord was intentionally designed to handicap our economy. There is very little evidence for that view. If Trump believes it, why has he said that he wants to renegotiate the deal with the countries behind the plot?

Theres a stronger case for leaving the accord  even a stronger nationalist case. The costs of restricting energy use, as I wrote when Trump made the announcement, are likely to exceed the benefits of mitigating global warming. Climate change is expected to reduce global GDP by up to 4 percent by 2100. Thats a significant cost. Given that the world is also expected to be much wealthier by then, it makes more sense to devote resources to researching how to mitigate and adapt to the effects of warming than to discourage energy use. Paris-style solutions are therefore not in our national interest.

The fact that almost all the other governments of the world favor the accord should not keep us from pursuing our interests. We should factor their views into our decision, because we have an interest in good relations with other countries. But sometimes our interests will counsel breaking with the rest of the world.

There are better and worse ways to do that. Withdrawal from the Paris accord is being taken as a sign of contempt for our European allies and of reflexive hostility to international cooperation, not of our resolution to make hard-headed judgments about our countrys welfare. The decision might be leaving a different impression if Trump had not repeatedly treated NATO in cavalier fashion or mused about leaving the World Trade Organization. Leaving the accord would still be intensely controversial, but it would not fit into the same pattern.

A foreign policy based on the national interest also need not entail a public rhetoric that refers exclusively and narrowly to the national interest. The costs of energy restriction are likely to exceed the benefits for the whole world. Thats what most opponents of the accord actually believe. We think its not in Pittsburghs interest, in other words, but its not in Pariss, either.

Criticism of Trump often dwells on matters of tone at the expense of substance. But sometimes, and especially in foreign policy, tone is substance. What the administration has been unable to teach, because it has yet to learn, is that nationalism does not have to be bumptious.
The Times-News and several other Idaho newspapers have run stories in the last week contemplating the implications of Sam Wolkenhauers recent population projections for Idaho. Wolkenhauer, a Department of Labor regional economist, models population growth trends. Sources of data for the analysis include the US Census Bureau and US Bureau of Economic Analysis. To the great joy, or great consternation of Idahoans (depending on who is commenting) our population growth rate is projected to be triple the national average through 2025.

Weve all had conversations with fellow Idahoans about the way we view the impacts of population growth. Those who associate benefit from strong population growth tend to be happy about growth. Those nostalgic for the fading rural agrarian character of Idaho will likely be less enthusiastic about growth and lament the predictions.

A high rate of population increase benefits many economic sectors. Developers and retailers see a rise in demand and potential sales. Manufacturers see potential increases in work force size. If the state maintains or improves its ratio of public service careerists to population (educators, social workers, law enforcement, firefighters, etc.,) those professions represent opportunities for employment. Similarly retail work forces and manufacturing jobs will potentially increase as enterprises take advantage of the potential growth in work force.

However, a high rate of population increase can also both distort cultural norms and stress local, state and national governmental capacities and budgets to adequately respond to the concomitant needs for infrastructure, personnel and service expansion. Since growth is expected to be significantly greater in urban and suburban areas, it will also potentially require reformulation and creation of innovative new facets of institutional interface with the public to match the changes in its societal character.

Higher population and higher population density puts greater stress on existing infrastructure. It will both demand infrastructure expansion and more frequent infrastructure maintenance schedules. Both mean increased costs, and likely disproportionately higher per capita costs than in previous decades. That is a bitter pill to swallow in a state that has adhered to an absolute minimalist philosophy regarding state investment in infrastructure and services.

Idahos population will have nearly doubled between 1980 and 2020 (two generations). The fabric of Idaho society has vastly changed. Urban areas have mushroomed and currently represent our most concentrated areas of increasing real gross domestic product, according to the US BEA. Many small communities are stagnating or losing population. Where small communities are growing, that growth is well below the rate of metropolitan areas.

While small-town residents are likely gratified that their physical communities have been only minimally morphed, even the most bucolic and remote Idaho communities are nonetheless affected by inescapable inroads of technology, bureaucracy and even visitation by the outside world. Rural Idahoans, especially middle aged and older folks, may suffer from a kind of social schizophrenia. They cherish the comfortable parochial, pastoral, cultural and social norms of the past, but simultaneously dont want to be deprived of the internet, cable TV, cellphones and rapid access to emergency medical care, etc. Furthermore, reality is that everywhere is now in reach of a Sunday drive by anyone from anywhere to tour the Idaho outback. And some sightseers wind up buying idle property on a whim.

The times they are a changin says the song. And burgeoning populations are one of the strongest agents of change. But the change is not uniform across regions or demographic groups.

To keep up, Idaho needs better targeted and more robust commitment to the varied needs of individual age groups and locales. Expansion of educational opportunity and resources at all levels is perhaps the top priority  one that has suffered egregiously from both lack of vision and commitment by GOP legislators who still gauge their success by finally meeting pre-recession funding.

Wokenhauer projects that the over-65 population will increase from 14.7 percent to 17.3 percent by 2025. This demographic typically has greater health care needs, assisted living needs, and a range of expensive social service needs. It is also more often financially incapable of meeting its overall financial needs, resulting in bankruptcy or near decimation of their accumulated monetary worth. That scenario can impose severe financial burdens on their children or grandchildren. Idaho has consistently failed to adequately meet the overall health care needs of her general population. If these growth projections come true, and if Idaho remains one of the lowest median income states in the Union, this demographic shift could prove highly problematic, if not catastrophic, to Idaho extended families.

Idahos statewide population is projected to grow by over 202,000 between now and 2025. In south-central Idaho alone an increase of nearly 16,000 is expected.

Idaho population is growing at three times the national rate. However, I dont think our current leaders are demonstrating anything like three times the national vision to deal with that challenge. If anything, most days it feels more like one-third the vision and resources are being devoted to this tsunami of needs compared to the national average. The same-old, same-old of generous tax breaks for the rich, crossed fingers for tinkle down to the working class and turned backs to the future isnt likely to cut it.

Eight years is a short time. Most of us are still licking our wounds from the recession of 2009. Are you really confident that leaders still infatuated with the 1950s will meet the challenges of 2025?
The Iranian supreme leader Sunday told a gathering of officials that Europe is reaping what it sowed in the Middle East in reference to the string of terror attacks claimed by the Islamic State group (IS).

Today, Daesh (IS) is being pushed out from its birthplace in Iraq and Syria and is moving to other countries  Afghanistan, Pakistan and even the Philippines and European countries, Khamenei said at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989.

This is a fire that (Western powers) themselves ignited and now has backfired on them, he told the gathering, broadcast on television.

IS claimed responsibility for the Saturday London attacks in which seven people were killed by three IS militants.

The attack was the second to hit the UK in less than two weeks following a terror bomb attack against concert-goers in Manchester late last month.

Twenty-two people lost their lives at the end of US artist Ariana Grandes concert on May 22 in Manchester. The suicide bomber was identified as Salman Ramadan Abedi, a 22-year-old British Muslim. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

According to analysts, the Iranian leader also used the speech to slam the Iranian President Hassan Rouhanis reformist promises to grant more rights to people, to curtail home extremism and to promote dialogue with the West.

Do not dismiss revolutionary behavior as extremism. Being revolutionary is the need of the country today, Khamenei said.

Rationality means not coming under the dominance of the power of America and its arrogance again, once one has freed oneself from it.

For the Iranian leader aligning with the West has a price, in reference to regional rival; Saudi Arabias multi-billion arm deal with the US during President Trumps May visit in Riyadh.

In order to compromise with the new US president, the Saudi government is forced to spend more than half of its financial resources in line with Americas objectives and in accordance to Americas will, Khamenei said.
Irans Intelligence ministry has stated that it has killed all the five assailants who stormed the Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The death toll of the two attacks has risen to 17 while more than 40 people are injured. The attackers were identified as Iranians linked to Wahhabi and Takfiri groups and have been engaged in the wars in Mosul and Raqqa.

According to the statement from the Intelligence ministry, it is not the first time that the five men have plotted attacks in the country. They came to Iran in August 2016 under the command of Abu Aysheh, a ranking commander of the Islamic State, but their plan to attack religious cities was aborted after Abu Aysheh was killed.

Analysts said the attack on the parliament building and the mausoleum was well planned before the attackers were eliminated after several hours. Profile pictures of corpses and their names were released but their surnames have been kept a secret due to security and privacy concerns for their families. Six people including a woman have also been arrested in connection to the attack.

Syria and Hezbollah have expressed their support to Tehran while President Trump tweeted that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded that such repugnant statements are rejected by the Iranian people, adding that terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland. Proxies attack what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy. His message is believed to be directed at Saudi Arabia.

The two attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State and they have vowed to increase their targets.
The Turkish parliament, Wednesday, in what looked like Ankaras support for Doha, approved a draft bill allowing deployment of Turkish forces to a military base in Qatar as the tiny Gulf country faces increasing isolation, Middle East Eye has learned.

Ankara regretted that tensions between Qatar and its neighbors have festered. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan indicated that Turkey disapproved the escalation after Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Mauritania, and Maldives froze diplomatic relations and imposed economic sanctions against Qatar.

Aside from the military deployment, Turkey is also set to supply food to Qatar, which has seen 85 per cent of its food supply cut off because of the blockade.

Ankara and Doha enjoy good ties and both are accused of offering shelter for members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Analysts argue that if the crisis persists, Ankara will grow its military power in Qatar to surpass the US current protection. There are currently thousands of US and British troops stationed at al Udeid Air Base where the US-led coalition flies aircrafts for aerial operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

UAE has requested the US to remove the air base from Qatar. The Pentagon Tuesday renewed praise of Qatar hosting a vital U.S. air base and for its enduring commitment to regional security, Reuters reports.

Wednesday, the White House announced that President Trump spoke with the emir of Qatar and offered to help defuse the crisis, after he twitted on Tuesday criticism of Doha for financing terrorism.

In his call with the emir, The president emphasized the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology, the White House said.
The Palestinian Hamas movement controlling the Gaza Strip Wednesday lambasted Saudi Arabias condition to restore ties with Qatar adding that the current Qatar-Arab fallout will favor Israel, which will exploit the situation against the Palestinian people.

The movement is facing tough economic conditions in the Strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade for over a decade.

Qatar is known as a main backer of the movement and seen as one the major donors for Gaza reconstruction following the 2014 conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, Tuesday during a visit in France, said Qatar could only return to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) if it stops funding Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas in a statement laid into the Saudi position as it argued that it is a legitimate movement.

It is no secret to anyone how the Zionist enemy exploits such statements to commit more violations and crimes against our people and our land and our sanctities and the right of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it added.

The movement further pointed out that Riyadhs condition contradicts the international laws and Arab and Islamic positions, which emphasize the right of the Palestinian people to resist and struggle to liberate their land and holy sites, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reports.
Former Prime Minister of Lesotho, Thomas Thabane has taken the lead in the countrys parliamentary election, final results published on Tuesday showed.

According to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Thabanes party won 48 seats out of 120, ahead of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, who won only 30 seats.

The ABC secretary general Samonyane Ntsekele said the party would join forces with the Alliance of Democrats (AD), Basotho National Party (BNP) and the Reformed Congress of Lesotho (RCL) to form the countrys third coalition government.

We intend to form a government with the Democratic Alliance, the Basotho National Party and the Reformed Congress of Lesotho, said Samonyane Ntsekele.

We will make this coalition government official in the next two days, he added.

77-year-old Thabane has ruled the tiny southern African nation from 2012 to 2015 and fled to South Africa after a failed coup in 2014. He is expected to return to his post as head of government.

As a reminder, Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, who had been in power since 2015, lost a confidence vote in parliament in March after several defections by ruling coalition lawmakers to the opposition eroded his support.

Lesotho, which has been hit by political instability for five years, has been hit by several coups since independence from Britain in 1966.
Cameroon military court in Yaounde on Wednesday maintained that Lawyer Felix Nkongho, Professor Fontem Neba as well as radio host Mancho Bibixy, who have been the main leaders in the recent demonstrations in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon will remain in custody.

The courts presiding judge also rejected an appeal for the release of 24 other Anglophones facing charges over acts of terrorism and complicity to commit such acts.

The accused pleaded not guilty to charges including complicity in hostility against the homeland, secession, civil war, and campaigning for federalism.

Since November 2016, people in Cameroons two western English-speaking regions have joined protests against what they say is their marginalization by the French-speaking majority.

At least six protesters have been shot dead and hundreds of others arrested during the rare challenge to state authority, prompting criticism from human rights groups.

Speaking to reporters at the Yaounde-based court, Bernard Muna, chief defense counsel for the accused, said he was disappointed at the tribunals decision.

The defendants are being tried under a 2014 law created to help combat militants from Nigeria-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram whose fighters regularly launch attacks in Cameroon.
Harvard university students interested in Georgias business opportunities

More than 50 students from one of the worlds prestigious universities, Harvard Business School, are paying a visit to Georgia to become familiar with the countrys business environment and investment opportunities.Hosting the international students at the Technology Park in Georgias capital of Tbilisi, Deputy Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development Giorgi Cherkezishvili said he believes these young people will be the future partners of Georgia both in public and private sector.Speaking about the countrys tourism, transport, industry, energy and logistics Cherkezishvili presented Georgias achievements in all those directions.Minister of Agriculture Levan Davitashvili believes these youth will be Georgias "wine ambassadors to their countries and share their impressions about the country with friends.The team of foreign students who wanted to learn more about Georgia arrived with two Georgian students of Harvard Business School Ilia Gogichaishvili and Mariam Melkadze who have guided their friends throughout the country.
iStock/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Two months after Michelle Carter's 18-year-old then-boyfriend Conrad Roy died of carbon monoxide poisoning after locking himself in his truck, Carter texted a classmate that "his death was my fault."



"I couldve stopped him," Carter texted a classmate in September 2014. Carter texted that she and Roy were on the phone the day of his suicide in July when Roy "got out of the car," he was "scared."



Carter texted that she "told him to get back in."



I couldnt have him live the way he was living anymore," Carter texted the classmate. "I started giving up because nothing I did was helping, but I shouldve tried harder. ... Its my fault. I could've stopped him. ... All I had to say was, 'I love you. Don't do this' one more time, and hed be here."



Carter, 20, is charged with involuntary manslaughter after she allegedly urged Roy to commit suicide, purportedly documented in thousands of text messages. But Carter maintains her innocence.



Her trial in Massachusetts began Tuesday with prosecutor Maryclare Flynn saying, "She used Conrad as a pawn in a sick game of life-and-death for attention." The testimony of several of Carter's classmates Wednesday supported the prosecution's argument that Carter didn't have many friends and pushed Roy to suicide to get more attention from the friends she was pursuing.



Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Carter, then 17, exchanged 20,000 text messages with Roy, and more than 1,000 of those were sent in the days leading up to his death.



Carter texted him that he kept "overthinking it" and "pushing it off."



"You just need to do it, Conrad," she wrote.



The defense argued that Carter had tried before to talk Roy out of harming himself, and the defense pointed to a conversation where Roy told Carter that he regretted dragging her into his plans to kill himself.



"It is not a homicide," lawyers for Carter said. "The evidence of the texting is overwhelming that Conrad Roy was on this path to take his own life for years."



During Wednesday's cross-examination, Fairhaven Police Detective Scott Gordon said Conrad Roy was communicating with someone in Great Britain about suicide.



The defense added, "Even if somebody supports another individual in a suicide, it doesnt create a homicide."



Meanwhile, the prosecution said Carter "assured him that his family would understand why he did it. She researched logistics and reassured him that he was likely to succeed."



According to prosecutors, Carter urged him to go to the parking lot where he eventually would die and texted, "You are ready and prepared. All you have to do is turn on the generator and you will be free and happy."



Prosecutors added that Carter displayed frustration and anger when Roy delayed the plan, and that she "ordered him back and then listened as he cried, took his last breath."



On July 12, 2014, the day of Roy's suicide, Carter texted a classmate, "He just called me and there was a loud noise like a motor. ... I heard moaning. ... I stayed on the phone for like 20 minutes and thats all I heard. ... I think he just killed himself."



On July 14, Carter texted a classmate, "I do blame myself. It's my fault. I was talking to him while he killed himself."



On July 21, Carter texted a classmate that Roy's mother told her that detectives were going through Roy's belongings. "They have to go through his phone and see if anyone encouraged him to do it," Carter texted. "Im done. His family will hate me and I could go to jail."



The defense on Tuesday said Carter struggled with her own depression, and her attorney blamed her behavior on the medications she was taking.



Conrad Roy's mother, Lynn Roy, was tearful on the stand Tuesday as she explained the state of her son's mental health.



"I knew he was a little depressed, but I thought ... he was doing great. I mean, he just graduated from high school, got his captains license and I thought everything was moving forward, not backward," she said.



Conrad Roy's then-13-year-old sister testified that she received a text on the day of his death from Carter that read, "Find him yet?" She also said that just two days before his funeral, Carter asked for some of his ashes.



Carter waived her jury trial, leaving her fate in the hands of the judge.



If convicted, Carter could face 20 years in prison.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
How does Georgia protect its rights?

By Messenger Staff

June 1 was the International Day for the Protection of Children.For International Children's Day, Georgias Public Defender released a report entitled The Children's Rights Situation in Georgia.The main problems detected in the report (which took examples from last year) included the following: child labour, implementation of the ILO Convention on the Prevention and Elimination of Worst Forms of Child Labour, trafficking of children and their involvement in prostitution, ineffective investigations of cases of illegal production and selling of pornographic materials, and insufficient efforts of the law enforcement agencies and juveniles labour migration.The cases of dropping out of school due to work are still frequent. In 2016 alone, 241 children dropped out of schools before the completion of the basic level of education and 924 after the completion of the basic level of education, the Ombudsman said.He said the situation of children living and working on the street is extremely worrying; the steps taken by the state remain ineffective, particularly in terms of the realization of the right to education, access to healthcare services and integration into society.As in previous years, the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 is still high. According to the preliminary data, 511 children aged between 0-1 and 93 children aged between 1-5 died in 2016, Nanuashvili reported.He stressed the situation of healthcare, water, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene are extremely worrying in childcare institutions.Other problems are the high rate of violence against children, ineffective measures for the identification, rehabilitation and protection of victims of violence. Cases of corporal punishment and bullying are especially problematic in general education institutions.According to the Social Service Agency (LEPL), 755 cases of child abuse were detected in 2016. Low number of workers and psychologists is a major challenge. It is particularly problematic that only 11 psychologists are employed in the Social Service Agency across the country, Nanuashvili stated.The Ombudsman also launched a campaign against harmful toys.The results of a survey conducted by the Center for Strategic Research and Development, substance D-2-ethylholexpliflate (DEHP), which is hazardous to health and its use in toys is prohibited in the EU, was found in nine out of ten toys bought in Georgia.The Ombudsman says important activities are planned within the Safe Toy campaign in order to establish a mechanism for monitoring the production and supply of toys, regulate the legislative and institutional market, determine the responsibility of the business sector and raise awareness of citizens.The EU Directive on Toy Safety says that states must create toy safety and market supervision mechanisms to ensure availability of safe and secure toys for children.The Directive should be implemented in Georgia before September 1, 2019.On March 9, 2017, the Public Defender of Georgia recommended the Government of Georgia to take measures for the protection of the childs health. It is welcome that the Government of Georgia has taken into account the recommendation, but it is necessary to bring existing regulations closer to the Directive in a timely manner, Nanuashvili says.The Public Defender's campaign has been joined by business organizations, which are ready to support the production, import and sale of safe toys in Georgia; Association Safe Toy has been founded and an agreement has been reached on a number of basic principles.Meanwhile, the Government of Georgia listed dozens of activities carried out by them since 2013 in order to improve childrens conditions in the country.They stressed that hundreds of free books, medical support, free transport, allowances and others have been provided for thousands of children in Georgia.The government truly did carry out a number of innovative changes for children in need, but the countrys general economic condition is so poor that children will never enjoy the lives they deserve until the government moves the economy forward.
The News in Brief

Russias Southern Military District Launches Snap Exercises



Russian troops in its three North Caucasus regions - Chechnya, Daghestan, and Krasnodar - as well as its troops stationed in Georgias Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia were put on alert on June 1, as part of the combat readiness inspection by Colonel General Alexander Dvornikov, Commander of Russias Southern Military District.



According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the snap drills involve over 6.5 thousand soldiers and about 1.5 thousand items of armament and military equipment of the motorized, tank and artillery units, as well as the naval infantry of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and Caspian Flotilla.



As part of the drills, the troops will march for over one thousand kilometers to unfamiliar locations, where they will practice conducting combat operations, the Ministry said.



Combat readiness inspection in an important form of examining the state of affairs in the armed forces, the statement reads. In 2017, the Southern Military District conducted more than 40 combat readiness checks of its units, it also added.



Also on June 1, the Russian military bases in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia opened their summer training period, the Russian Defense Ministry reported in its separate press releases.



In Tskhinvali, the military equipment, including T-90 tank, BMP-3 infantry combat vehicles and self-propelled howitzer Akatsiya, were presented at the opening ceremony. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, more than one thousand items of military equipment, including armor, have been prepared for their exploitation for the summer training period.



During the opening ceremony in Abkhazia, deputy commander of the South Military District forces Lieutenant General Alexander Romanchuk said that the summer training period would include over 100 tactical, special tactical and command staff exercises in the field, more than 500 practical drills.



The number of hours of combat training in the field will be increased by 50 percent, with each mechanized unit serviceman spending over 2.5 months in the field.

(Civil.ge)







President ready to provide Afgan Mukhtarlis spouse and children citizenship of Georgia



The President has accepted the initiative of the Prime Minister. We believe this is the right course of action, the head of the Presidential Administration Giorgi Abashishvili has said.



He has responded to the Prime Ministers special statement asking the President to grant Azeri journalist Afgan Mukhtarlis wife and children citizenship of Georgia.



According to him, if the family wants to remain in the country, the President will provide them with Georgias citizenship.



On the Presidents order, I will contact with the journalists family tomorrow and start the relevant procedures in case they want Georgian citizenship. As an exception, the President will provide them with Georgian citizenship very shortly, he said.



Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili has recently released a special statement regarding Afgan Mukhtarlis case, asking President Margvelashvili to quickly grant Mukhtarlis wife and children Georgias citizenship.



I would like to make a statement concerning the situation created in relation to Azerbaijani citizen Afgan Mukhtarli case and first of all say that it harms the image of the country, which is absolutely unacceptable. For me, as the head of the government, it is the main task to respond to all the questions over the case as soon as possible. An investigation has been launched, and our state is interested in conducting the process transparently. Therefore the law enforcers are intensively communicating with international organizations, as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps, expressing full readiness for open cooperation.



We have come along a difficult path, and today we are a fair, democratic country aspiring towards membership in European and Euro-Atlantic structures, sharing their values, recognizing the rule of law and protecting human rights. We will do our best to provide full protection of human rights in our country, no matter their citizenship and political viewpoints. I would also like to show readiness from the side of the Georgian government and the Justice Ministry will provide Azerbaijani citizen Afgan Mukhtarlis wife and children with all assistance shortly. I would also like to ask the Georgian President to make an exception due to the current situation and grant Mukhtarlis spouse and children Georgias citizenship as quickly as possible, the special statement reads.

(IPN)




@ByKristenMClark

A contentious, charter school-friendly education reform bill that has incensed traditional public school advocates  and given some in the Florida Senate feelings of buyers remorse  isnt on the agenda as the Legislature meets in special session this week.

But some senators will force the issue on Thursday morning  by proposing to strip out most of the $419 million in HB 7069 and redirect the money toward increasing general spending for K-12 public schools.

Approving a boost in K-12 funding is one of the reasons lawmakers are back in Tallahassee after Gov. Rick Scott vetoed the Legislatures original spending level  an extra $24 per student  as insufficient.

The House and Senate disagree over how to pay for the $215 million it would take to increase spending by $100 per student over this year, as Scott wants. That divide threatens to blow up the special session, which would leave 4,200 public schools without billions of dollars in state funding on July 1.

The ideas now offered by Senate K-12 education budget chairman David Simmons  with support from some senators  to partially or mostly defund HB 7069 wont help ease the tension.

Although his proposals are gathering steam among some rank-and-file senators who oppose HB 7069, theyre dead-on-arrival in the House.

Full details here.

Photo credit: Scott Keeler / Tampa Bay Times
@MichaelAuslen

Negotiators in the House and Senate have reached agreement on how to put medical marijuana into effect. But one senator says lawmakers are going about it the wrong way.

Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, was the first lawmaker to publicly support Amendment 2, which 71 percent of voters supported, forcing lawmakers to implement medical marijuana. On Thursday, he proposed an alternative to House and Senate leaders' plan. He has long been a critic of the way lawmakers are going about implementing medical pot, saying it is too regulated.

A key disagreement: From the beginning, House and Senate negotiations have centered on a system that would require any company licensed to sell marijuana to grow, process and dispense the drug. Brandes supports allowing companies to choose to do one or multiple of those functions.

He also would allow smoking in his proposal.

"This proposal is the purest implementation proposal that the Legislature has seen to date for Amendment 2," Brandes said in a statement. "For the first time, the Florida Senate will have an opportunity to vote consistent with our Republican principles of free markets and fair competition."

The House and Senate plan to vote Friday on a deal (HB 5, SB 8) legislative leaders agreed to privately late Tuesday night.

During a Senate meeting late Thursday, lawmakers will face a vote on Brandes' proposal. Given that a deal was already struck, however, its odds of passing are slim.

Photo: Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, (right), and Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island. (Scott Keeler | Tampa Bay Times)
@PatriciaMazzei

The Republican primary in a special Florida House race has quickly become a battle over the granddaddy of Miami political issues: Cuba, and which Cuban-American candidate is a more staunch opponent of the island's communist regime.

Jose Mallea, whose campaign last week attacked rival Daniel Anthony Perez for taking wedding engagement photos in Havana despite opposing U.S. policy that would make that sort of trip possible, has old ties of his own to a well-known local exporter to Cuba.

As the Miami New Times noted Thursday, the Miami Herald reported in 2010 that Mallea co-chaired a political fundraising committee with Ariel Pereda, a longtime adviser to companies looking to trade with Cuba.

Over its active life of about six years, the Future Leadership Committee raised some $243,000. It spent tens of thousands of dollars to campaign workers for then-state Rep. David Rivera, an anti-embargo Cuba hardliner who in 2010 was running for Congress.

The committee shared an address with two of Pereda's firms, PM Strategies and The Havana Group. As first reported by the New Times, Mallea conceded to lobbying for PM Strategies for three months in 2007, on behalf of Dell Computers.

"It had nothing to do with Cuba," Mallea told the Herald on Thursday. "What he chooses to do as a private citizen, while I disagree with him, shouldn't reflect on me just because I have a relationship with the guy."

Pereda has had longstanding ties with Miami-Dade County Republicans despite their ideological disagreements over Cuba; his lawyer in 2010 was Nelson Diaz, who now chairs the Miami-Dade GOP, and U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo sat on the board of PM Strategies, before Curbelo was elected to Congress and before Pereda dived into the Cuba business, Curbelo has said. Mallea stressed to the New Times that, unlike his opponent, he hasn't traveled to Cuba: "As the son of a Cuban father whose family was torn apart, I would never honor the Castro dictatorship with my presence, much less with my dollars."
At the end of Day 1 of the special session, House Republicans dodged the rain to attend a reception Wednesday night that was planned as a grand exit, a celebration of an agreement on schools, jobs and tourism money. But the session is in a ditch with the House and Senate battling each other.

"That was the plan," House Speaker Richard Corcoran told about 35 lawmakers who attended the social hour at the Hotel Duval ballroom. "I don't want to say who, but one of them did not stick to the plan," an obvious dig at the Senate.

Then the Land O'Lakes lawyer rallied members to continue to "go after the status quo" on education and taxes. He dismissed talk that his deal with Gov. Rick Scott was cloaked in too much secrecy: "Every special session is done the same way." He said Scott's signing of HB 7069 signals "transformational" education policy in Florida, to be followed by Scott replacing three retiring state Supreme Court justices right before leaving office in January 2019, a scenario that could face a challenge.

Corcoran described a Senate willing to "cave to special interests" by pushing a property tax increase on new construction to pay for a K-12 funding increase and by challenging Scott's vetoes of their "porkbarrel projects."

"It's going to be a tough three days, or three weeks. But we'll find out," Corcoran said. "Hopefully, we'll get all this squared away."
@alextdaugherty

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio defended President Donald Trump during a widely publicized hearing with former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday.

Rubio, who dined with the president earlier this week, pushed Comey over his decision to not publicly disclose that Trump was not a person of interest in the ongoing investigation into Russias influence in the 2016 election.

Rubio asked Comey about his conversations with Trump in which the president asked about the ongoing investigation.

We keep talking about this cloud, you perceive the cloud to be the Russia investigation in general, but the specific ask [from Trump] was that you would tell the American people what you had already told him, what you had already told the leaders of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, that he was not personally under investigation, Rubio asked.

Yes sir, Comey replied.

Just to be clear, for you to make a public statement that he was not under investigation would not have been illegal but you felt it made no sense because it could potentially create a duty to correct if circumstances changed, Rubio asked.

I wrestled with it before my testimony where I confirmed that there was an investigation and that there was two primary concerns, Comey said. One was that it creates a duty to correct, which Ive lived before and you want to be very careful about doing that, and second its a slippery slope because if we say the president and the vice president arent under investigation, whats the principled basis for stopping?

Rubio, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, questioned that decision from Comey, saying that the overall Russia investigation was full of leaks from the news media, and that Comeys decision not to disclose that information implied to the American people that the president was potentially part of the investigation.

This investigation is full of leaks left and right, Rubio said. Weve learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do from our open hearings for sure. You ever wonder why in this Russia investigation the only thing thats never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation?

I dont know, I find matters that are briefed to the gang of eight are pretty tightly held in my experience, Comey said.

The Gang of Eight are Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate and each chamber's intelligence committee.

Two days before the hearing, Rubio and fellow intelligence committee member Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., had dinner with President Trump and a small group of lawmakers at the White House, and Rubio has been working closely with the White House on rewriting the nations Cuba policy in recent weeks.

Comeys hearing attracted widespread national attention, and early in his testimony the former FBI director said President Trump told lies about why he was fired in May.

Read more here.
@amysherman1

Its clear that Sarah Palin hates the Paris climate agreement.

Whats unclear is why she used a photo of Florida lawmakers to make her point in a Facebook meme.

"Dont be fooled! The Paris climate accord is a scam," stated the headline at the top of Palins Facebook post June 6, 2017. (By June 7, the Facebook meme was no longer available but PolitiFact had taken a screenshot of her post, which had been shared at least 8,000 times.)

Beneath the headline is a photo of an unidentified group of mostly men cheering. The Facebook post doesnt identify the people in the photo, but they are Florida House members at the state Capitol in Tallahassee.

Beneath the photo Palin shared is text that says: "They pretend its about fixing our environment ... But its really about stealing billions from the American people and giving it to foreign countries, governments and lobbyists!"

The Facebook meme, posted after President Donald Trump pulled out of the agreement, could leave the impression that the people in the photo are rejoicing using the agreement to steal billions from Americans.

That's not the case.

PolitiFact fact-checked Palins photo as part of our effort to debunk fake news on Facebook. Our efforts to reach a spokesperson for Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, were unsuccessful. (Palins post was previously debunked by other news outlets including the Miami Herald, a partner along with the Tampa Bay Times in PolitiFact Florida, and Politico.)

Keep reading from PolitiFact Florida.
@alextdaugherty

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson nabbed the hottest ticket in Washington on Thursdaya front row seat to former FBI Director James Comey's hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

As other senators who weren't on the committee went about a normal work day in Washington, Nelson leaned back in his chair to hear the detailed steps that Comey took to document his conversations with President Donald Trump because he didn't feel the president was trustworthy.

"Let me give you my strongest impression, the testimony was riveting and I was riveted when he (Comey) answered that he took copious and detailed notes because he felt that the president would lie," Nelson said. "That was stunning."

Nelson told reporters after the hearing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should testify before the committee to explain his role in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"He was part of it," Nelson said. "The special counsel certainly has lots of information to work with."

Sessions, a former senator from Alabama and Trump ally, recused himself from the Russia investigation after a flurry of criticism over his previously undisclosed contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Nelson, leaned back in his chair as his fellow Floridian, Sen. Marco Rubio, asked Comey questions during Thursday morning's open hearing. Rubio repeatedly questioned Comey about why he chose not to disclose publicly that Trump was not a target in the Russia investigation.

UPDATE 3:23pm: Rubio said Sessions should testify before the Intelligence Committee to reporters after the hearing. "The attorney general...will hopefully answer some questions on a number of topics."
@ByKristenMClark

Lawmakers on Thursday morning inched closer to agreeing on how to boost state funding to K-12 public schools starting on July 1, even as a few senators still have plans to revive a debate over a controversial education reform bill, which could wrinkle any compromise.

In amending legislation to add money to the K-12 budget in 2017-18, the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed to forgo the chambers plan of using local property tax money to pay for the new spending  a plan House Speaker Richard Corcoran had rejected outright as a massive tax increase.

The Senate now agrees with the Houses method of paying for the extra $215 million using general revenue  money freed up from Gov. Rick Scotts vetoes handed down last week. About $150 million of that would be one-time spending that lawmakers would have to make up for the next budget year in order to keep spending level, or else schools would lose funding in 2018-19.

The Senate also withdrew its intent to demand the Legislature respect the Constitutions required 72-hour cooling off period for general budget bills, which would have kept lawmakers in Tallahassee for longer than the three-day special session thats supposed to end Friday evening.

By approaching the extra school money as supplemental spending to the K-12 budget lawmakers passed in May  instead of starting from scratch with a whole new budget  the 72-hour period wouldnt be necessary, Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, said in explaining his changes to the Senates K-12 spending bill (SB 2500A).

Full details here.

Photo credit: Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, speaks to the Senate about overriding Gov. Rick Scotts veto of the public schools budget during a special session of the Florida Legislature Wednesday June 7, 2017 at the Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla. AP
In swift fashion, the Florida Senate passed $75 million in veto overrides late Wednesday.

Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, the head of the Senate higher education budget, said that the governor's vetoes seemed to be "an inordinate amount of vetoes" to universities and colleges that betray the Senate's goal of shoring up universities and colleges this session.

The move appears destined to be essentially ignored by the House at this point. So was there a rhyme or reason for which projects were chosen? Were they targeted projects, intended to put pressure on the House to persuade Speaker Richard Corcoran to reconsider his opposition to overriding vetoes?

The answer is "not really," according to Senate sources. The selection of projects was handled by Senate President Joe Negron's office and appear to be based on "whoever had juice."

"We're feeling left out in Jacksonville,'' said Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach, whose district was left off the override list.

The biggest projects include: $15 million for Florida Gulf Coast University's integrated watershed and coastal studies, $15 million for Florida International University's School of International and Public Affairs, $8 million for the Florida State University Interdisciplinary Research & Commercialization Building and $7 million for the University of Florida's Music Building. Here's the list: Download Veto Overrides Higher Education
POLSON  Everyone came to hear about plans for the National Bison Range, but they really wanted to talk about other problem animals.

The gorilla in the room is that positions are not filled because of uncertainty about the future of the Bison Range, Polson resident Phil Barney told a team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service planners at the listening session on Tuesday. Will you develop a long-term plan to address this uncertainty and maybe clear the air?

Susan Campbell Reneau of Missoula pointed more directly at a proposed annual funding agreement that might allow the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes greater management authority on the federal wildlife refuge. A long-standing opponent of such a proposal, she asked if it would be included in a new comprehensive conservation plan the refuge must soon complete.

Thats the elephant in the room and thats what caused the angst at the National Bison Range, Campbell Reneau said.

Attempts to bring greater CSKT presence on the 19,000-acre refuge in the middle of the Flathead Indian Reservation have failed twice since 2006 and lie at the heart of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinkes decision in April to change course on a third stab at giving the tribes management authority.

Tuesdays Polson meeting and a second session set for Wednesday in Kalispell open a three-year process of writing a comprehensive conservation plan for the National Bison Range. Every wildlife refuge in the FWS network must have a such a plan, which typically lasts 15 years. The Bison Range has spent almost 20 years trying to complete its first one.

FWS released a Federal Register notice on Jan. 18 that its preferred alternative was to transfer management of the Bison Range to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and support draft congressional legislation expanding CSKT management of the facility.

Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, who had just won re-election to a second term, resigned his seat to become President Donald Trumps Interior secretary. The Cabinet office supervises both FWS and BIA. Zinke visited the Bison Range nine days after he was sworn in to the new post.

FWS Regional Refuge Supervisor Bernie Petersen said in Polson that the Obama Administration's work leading up to the Federal Register notice was still on the table, but was part of a new process.

We wont say its not going to be used, but were taking a fresh look at all of it, Petersen said. There is an alternative on the table for a transfer (to CSKT management), but when the secretary decided to change course, that means hes not in favor at this time of doing a transfer.

The future comprehensive conservation plan should include everything from animal population targets to visitor experience expectations. It could also have a variety of cooperative levels of CSKT involvement, from allowing the tribes to conduct wildlife survey projects to giving them day-to-day operations authority. Those would be covered in a separate annual funding agreement.

CSKT attorney Brian Upton said that while the first attempt at tribal co-management in 2006 ended in conflict between the tribes and the federal agency, the second attempt forged a much warmer relationship that the tribes wanted to continue. He added there was a significant misrepresentation of history within the local community that should be corrected in the final federal plan.

One thing that wont be in the plan is consideration of climate change in refuge management. In response to an audience question, acting branch chief of planning and policy Kelly Hogan said a previous requirement to work with the federal Council on Environmental Quality on climate-change impacts had been revoked.

That guidance isnt available to us anymore, Hogan said. Its not in effect for this project.
HELENA  U.S. Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte agreed to a civil settlement Wednesday to head off a potential lawsuit by the reporter he attacked last month, issuing a written apology in which he backtracks his original account of events and promises to make a $50,000 donation to a nonprofit that works to protect journalists from violence worldwide.

The agreement was reached between the Montana politician and their reporter Ben Jacobs, the Guardian first reported. The Britain-based newspaper has a large presence and online following in the United States.

I have taken full responsibility for my actions and both publicly and personally apologized to Mr. Ben Jacobs," Gianforte said in a statement issued Wednesday by spokesman Shane Scanlon. "Ben has accepted my apology and we are both ready to move on."

In the letter, Gianforte wrote: My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful. As both a candidate for office and a public official, I should be held to a high standard in my interactions with the press and the public. My treatment of you did not meet that standard.

The donation will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit based in New York formed in 1981 to promote press freedom and defend the rights of journalists.

Gianforte also said in the letter that Jacobs "did not initiate any physical contact with me." That contradicts a statement issued by his campaign spokesman in the hours after the May 24 attack on the night before Election Day. He did not take direct ownership of the false statement or explain why his campaign issued the lie, instead referencing it vaguely in the letter as "anyone's statements to the contrary."

Jacobs said in an emailed statement that he hopes the settlement agreement allows everyone, including the nation, to move forward.

I have accepted Mr. Gianforte's apology and his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and statements," he wrote. "I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country."

Jacobs will not receive any money as part of the agreement.

Scanlon acknowledged a request to talk and asked for questions by email, but did not answer them Wednesday evening. Gianforte did not return a call for comment.

Gianforte also faces a criminal misdemeanor assault citation for the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, a Bozeman judge granted an extension requested by attorneys for Gianforte to appear in court.

The judge did not set a date for Gianforte's appearance, meaning the Republican congressman could appear in court any Monday, Wednesday or Friday between now and June 20. Those are the days Justice Court is in session.

Gallatin County Justice Court Judge Rick West signed the order Tuesday, the same day attorneys for Gianforte filed the motion for an extension.

The motion also said "the parties are currently exploring a settlement'' of the case and that the extension was not opposed by the state. County Attorney Marty Lambert clarified Wednesday that means Gianforte and the state are negotiating a plea agreement related to the criminal citation.

The civil agreement with Jacobs included a requirement that the journalist email Lambert about the criminal case. In that message to the county attorney, Jacobs said he does not object to Gianforte entering a "no contest" plea in the pending civil case rather than a guilty plea, according to a copy provided by Scanlon.

Gianforte, who became wealthy starting a customer-service platform in Bozeman that he eventually sold to Oracle for $1.8 billion, was cited for misdemeanor assault, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, for an attack on Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs at a campaign event on May 24, about 24 hours before Gianforte was elected to the U.S. House.

An audio recording from the altercation details Jacobs trying to ask Gianforte a question about a health care bill, then a scuffle, followed by Jacobs saying Gianforte body-slammed him and broke his glasses. Gianforte can be heard yelling Get the hell out.

Jacobs description of what happened was confirmed by accounts of others in the room, including a reporter for Fox News who saw the altercation.

But just after it happened, the Gianforte campaign sent out a press release saying Jacobs grabbed Gianfortes wrist and pushed both men to the ground, and made a point of calling Jacobs a liberal journalist with aggressive behavior.

Gianforte refused repeatedly in an interview with MTN Friday to say why his campaign released what appears to be a false statement about the altercation. His letter to Jacobs Wednesday likewise does not address the issue.

He did say in his letter that he was sorry for the "unwanted notoriety" his assault created for Jacobs and acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of the press. He said journalists play "a critical role" in society and said those rights are "fundamental to who we are as a nation and the way government is accountable to the people."

"I also know that civility in our public discourse is central to a productive dialogue on issues. I had no right to respond the way I did to your legitimate question about health care policy. You were doing your job," he wrote to Jacobs.

Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist last month in the race to fill Montanas lone U.S. House seat, vacated when Ryan Zinke became Secretary of the Interior.

Gianforte's attorneys are William Mercer, with Holland and Hart law firm in Billings, and Todd Whipple, with Whipple Law Offices in Bozeman. Mercer was the U.S. Attorney for Montana from 2001-2009 and also served briefly as acting associate attorney general.

Gianforte's attorneys last week received a set of documents containing confidential criminal justice information that Lambert said cannot be made public.

That set of documents includes the citation, a 17-page case summary report, 16 pages of reports from three detectives, three pages of medical records, a sketch of the place where the altercation occurred, the arrest report, copies of media coverage, 14 more pages of handwritten notes from various sources, three pages of names and addresses of witnesses, the violent crime victim notice of rights forms, five pages of teletype history records and a release form and 40 pages of records from Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.

Gianforte also on Friday filed to run for re-election in 2018, according to Federal Election Commission records.
HAMILTON  The last of the trio charged with robbing the Lucky Lils Casino in Stevensville last year at gunpoint was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years and six months in prison.

Thomas Earl Dempsey, 36, was one of two men who entered the casino just before midnight in May last year wearing all-black clothing and masks and carrying handguns, while an accomplice waited outside.

He was charged with felony counts of aggravated kidnapping and robbery.

Ravalli County District Judge Jeffrey Langton accepted a plea agreement that included the 21 1/2-year sentence, a $8,956.50 restitution payment and a requirement that Dempsey be classified as a persistent felony offender.

Dempsey, Nick JR West, 39, and Carissa Lynn Kopp, 24, were part of a short crime spree that concluded with a carjacking in Missoula of a Washington State vehicle with a family of four inside a few days after the robbery in Stevensville.

Dempsey was sentenced to 26 years in federal prison earlier for the Missoula incident that included the robbery of a convenience store, kidnapping of the family and a high-speed chase.

The Stevensville crime occurred in the final hours of May 19 when Dempsey and West entered the casino northwest of town.

The two men locked the casinos three patrons in a bathroom after confiscating their cellphones. Dempsey forced the clerk to extract money from the casinos cash drop system.

Waiting outside, Kopp, 24, communicated with Dempsey through a Bluetooth cell phone connection about information coming over a police scanner.

The three stole $8,600 in cash, a carton of cigarettes and $75.58 from the clerk.

The three were arrested on May 26 following an early-morning robbery at the Deanos gas station in Missoula. During the robbery, a man and his son came into the convenience store and were told to leave.

The two got in their car and drove a short distance before calling police. West and Dempsey followed them and took the family hostage in their vehicle.

A high-speed chase ensued, which included Dempsey shooting at a deputys patrol car. The men eventually abandoned the vehicle, with the mother and father of the kidnapped family inside. Other family members were released earlier.

Dempsey was sentenced to 26 years in federal prison for that crime.

The Ravalli County sentence will run concurrently with the federal sentence. Dempsey will serve his sentence in a federal prison.

West was sentenced earlier to 10 years in prison for the Ravalli County robbery. He received a 15-year sentence in federal prison in the Missoula case.

Kopp received a five-year prison sentence in the Ravalli County case and nine years in a federal prison in the Missoula robbery.
The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee's Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE) Subcommittee held its spring meeting in Kalispell on April 25. The committee is comprised of over 20 people who are mostly on the payroll of various government agencies, with some few exceptions from other organizations.

The gist of the meeting was to get all members on board to support the notion of deciding that the highly intelligent, mighty grizzly bear has been fully recovered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and is ready to be delisted from the endangered species list and then trophy-hunted for the cruel pleasure of those who enjoy killing animals for the pure lust and sport of it. First, I seriously dispute the overestimated population counts they use. Second, the buzzwords for this dialog were update and complete the NCDE conservation strategy. Outrageous as that must seem to all intelligent, compassionate, nature-loving, sensitive, human beings, this is not the case with these government-sponsored organizations. Some derive their budgets for their salaries from the issuance of hunting and trapping licenses. Can you say "conflict of interest"?

In fact, let me list the names of the NCDE members here so they can be contacted by the citizenry to account for their inhumane position on grizzly bears: Jim Williams (chair, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks); Jeff Mow (co-chair, Glacier National Park); Chip Weber (Flathead National Forest); Liz Roberts (Lolo National Forest); Mark Albers (Bureau of Land management); Paul Frame (Alberta Fish and Game Association); Scott Jackson (advisor, USFS); Randy Arnold (Montana FWP); Bill Avery (Lewis and Clark Forest); Gary Bertellotti (Montana FWP); Jodi Bush (FWS); Cecily Costello (advisor, Montana FWP); Deb Mucklow (FNF); Holger Bohm (British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations); et al. The committee members are all welcome to go on record and deny in writing that they should be included on this list if, in fact, they do not believe in delisting grizzly bears and wish to make declarative statements to continue protecting them. So please do so. I realize your very political jobs are at stake to go along to get along but this is serious business when deciding to kill grizzly bears for no other reason than that your career requires you to do so  or else.

At the conclusion of the general meeting, members of the audience seated at the rear of the room were allowed to speak against delisting and killing grizzly bears. The most moving testimony was given by Jimmy St. Goddard, who represented 125 Native American Indian Tribe treaties and the greatest stewards of the land, along with the world United Nations advocacy for the ESA, in his impassioned pleading for the life of the ceremonially sacred, culturally symbolic grizzly bear. Unfortunately, as I scanned the faces of the NCDE committee members, I read no compassion in their faces, only an egotistical arrogance of human superiority that was unconscionably dismissive of Indian culture and the plight of the grizzly bear, and wishing the pleading on behalf of the great bear would end soon. It reminded me of Republican blind political ideology of anything goes in this era of Donald Trump that infects Montanans and where politics trumps science.

I come down hard on the side of the tribes and the grizzly bear. My wish is that anyone reading this and sharing in my extreme desire to save the grizzly will become proactive and advocate in any and every way to join in this effort. The grizzlies are already reduced to only 2 percent of their former ranges, so how can they be recovered? Time is of the essence. Thank you.
Many rural counties with sizable amounts of federal lands within their jurisdictional boundaries depend on federal payments to support basic services like fire, police, schools and the like.

The main programs include the Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), Refuge Revenue Sharing, Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act (SRS). One of the bargains made with states with significant amounts of federal lands are payments in lieu of taxes. In 2015, the combined payment from all these programs amounted to $781 million. (www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/2016_pilt_national_summary.pdf.)

The assumption being that if the lands were not in government ownership, they would be in private hands and paying taxes to local governments. So, to compensate rural counties for their losses, the federal government annually sends checks to rural lands based primarily on the acreage of federal holdings in each county.

Under Donald Trumps proposed 2018 federal budget, PILT funding would be limited to the most recent 10-year average of payments ($397 million) and funding for SRS and RRS would be eliminated. These rural counties would receive 39 percent less under the Trump plan than they receive under current payment plans.

Of course, it is well-established fact that in most rural western counties, there was overwhelming support for Donald Trump. So, it is particularly ironic and perhaps a bit of poetic justice that the counties most likely to be negatively impacted by any reduction in federal payments are the very counties that helped elect Donald Trump.

Of course, some of the assumptions behind such payments are questionable.

For instance, it is uncertain that most federal land would ever be converted to private ownership, and thus be taxed. Keep in mind it was the government policy for decades to give away as much of its western federal holdings as possible through any number of land giveaway schemes like the Homestead Act, Timber and Stone Act, railroad grants, Desert Lands Act and many others.

Much of the West remains in public ownership because no one could figure out how to seriously exploit them. As a result, what we have as federal holdings are primarily the lands that no one wanted. So, it is questionable that these lands would have been transferred to private hands.

Plus, even where private land ownership exists, property taxes in rural areas are determined by local control. And most of the larger land holdings in rural areas are held by timber companies, farmers or ranchers all of whom lobby to keep property taxes low  frequently lower than comparable lands that enjoy PILT or other federal payments. Typically, their property taxes are a fraction of their market value.

I recall one example of this disparity that occurred a number of years ago in Park County. The Forest Service acquired a large acreage of private lands from a ranching family which it added to the nearby national forest. The county commissioners, all ranchers and generally ideologically opposed to the federal government despite all the handouts they receive, were upset with the land transfer, asserting that this would greatly diminish the tax base in the county. However, it came out in the public discussions that since the rancher paid such low property taxes on his lands, the federal PILT payments would increase county revenues about eight times over what the county had been taxing the rancher.

For instance, in Montana, private timber companies like Weyerhaeuser and others collectively own millions of acres, paid only $3,088,463 in taxes, which made up 0.22 percent of all property taxes in the state. Agricultural lands, which make up 59,758,917 acres or 64 percent of the entire acreage in Montana (www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Montana/Publications/Special_Interest_Reports/agfacts.pdf) contributed just 5.2 percent to state revenues in 2013 (https://revenue.mt.gov/Portals/9/publications/biennial_reports/2012-2014/BiennialReport14-PropertyTaxes.pdf).

Now some of this is justified by the fact that large tracts of forest or ag lands require fewer services, but the cost per capita of individual living in rural areas is often higher. It costs more per person to provide for schools, police, fire and other services.

Nor do local taxes cover the cost operating everything from rural airports to public highways to numerous other programs like fire protection, water treatment, and so on provided with state and federal assistance.

At the same time, rural residents do not pay for the real cost of many amenities they enjoy such access for camping, hunting and fishing provided on federal lands.

With the election of Trump, we can expect this federal largess to be reduced, and an increase in poverty and loss of employment opportunity in rural counties.
Gov. Steve Bullock says that pulling out of the Paris accord is a threat to farmers, hunters and fishermen because of climate change  typical of the short-sightedness of Democrats.

Our continued pursuit of policies that put the rest of the world in front of our own country, our families and our children is the real threat. Yes, we need to control emissions, if only for our own health  and were working on our own.

All Donald Trump wants is fairness, for you, me and the American worker. And spending money, paying for other countries rather than insisting they pay their own way, is not fair to America, no matter how kind and benevolent you and other Democrats want to appear. Governor, have you noticed the USA is nearing $20 trillion in debt?

Trump sees the real threat to farmers, hunters and fishermen, and its blind spending without any economic consideration. Its time to stop posturing and get tough!

But why not continue to preach what your constituents want to hear? Its been the blind leading the blind for decades now. Its time to get real, and Trump is making it happen  if the libs will just get the hell out of the way.

L. J. Martin,

Clinton
The Environmental Protection Agency expressed surprise Wednesday at recent test results showing high levels of arsenic in children's play sand at Anaconda's Benny Goodman Park, and insisted the park was safe.

An EPA official said that when tests were done in the park in 2003, the amount of arsenic found in the children's play sand area was much lower than recent tests showed. But the agency also said the earlier testing did not include checking for lead contamination.

Due to a growing concern over lead in Anaconda residents yards, Anaconda-Deer Lodge County had Benny Goodman Park tested in late April for both lead and arsenic. Of 55 spots tested, only four drill holes came back without contamination. In a children's play sand area, arsenic levels tested at 725 parts per million. Lead within the top two inches of the sand tested at 817 parts per million.

The EPA's response came nearly two weeks after the test results were reported. The Montana Standard had requested comment from the agency on May 26, and repeatedly thereafter.

EPA provided documents Tuesday showing the results of sampling done by Atlantic Richfield, with EPA oversight, at Benny Goodman Park in 2003.

Montana Superfund Director Joe Vranka said the arsenic level in the sand play area in 2003 came back at less than 70 parts per million, well below what the agency would consider unsafe for Anaconda.

Vranka said EPA doesnt know how the sand play area could have less than 70 parts per million in 2003 and 725 parts per million in 2017.

So what happened in that time frame  thats what were trying to figure out, Vranka said.

EPA didnt test for lead in the sand, or anywhere else in the park in 2003, or any time since, said Vranka. EPAs strategy on lead in Anaconda, until 2013, was that the cleanup for arsenic would take care of lead, but testing showed that to be false.

Vranka said EPA doesnt consider the lack of lead testing in Benny Goodman Park an oversight.

This is exactly why we have a program to go back and continually review what we determined in the remedial investigation (when the site was first understood). We dont believe it was an oversight. We made good decisions on the data we had. But we got more data, so we went back and  addressed that, Vranka said.

EPA set lead action levels for Anaconda  400 parts per million in the soil, which is mostly in line with other Superfund sites  in 2013. At that time, the agency announced that cleanup would have to be repeated to take lead from at least 1,000 east Anaconda yards more than a decade after the yards were cleaned up for arsenic, leaving some Anaconda residents upset.

EPA argues that most of the lead contamination does not come from the smelter, despite the smelter's location close to the town and particularly close to the park.

Even though the parks sand play area was well in excess of action levels for both lead and arsenic, Vranka said the contamination present was in a range that EPA regards as safe for a park because a person spends less time in a park than in a back yard.

But because its a place where children play, it made sense to go ahead and replace that sand, Vranka said.

There is a disagreement between the county and EPA over how the park was tested, and how test results were evaluated.

When EPA tested the parks soil in 2003, it came up with a number based on an average of what was found in the drill holes.

EPA didnt order Benny Goodman Park cleaned up because the average number for the park, for arsenic, was below 250 parts per million in 2003.

EPA didnt test below the top two inches in 2003. The county tested to a depth of 18 inches.

When considering only the top two inches of testing in the park, and only considering arsenic, there are 16 spots that have more than 250 parts per million for arsenic now, according to the countys data.

Vranka said the 2003 testing was similar.

Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Chief Executive Bill Everett said EPAs methods made little sense and he added that Anaconda kids are diggers. He believes that where the soil is high in arsenic or lead, even up to 18 inches deep, it needs to be removed.

Everett said the sand play area, which was closed for much of last week so the contaminated sand could be removed and replaced, has kids playing in it again.

I feel better about things, Everett said.
A Butte man pleaded not guilty Thursday in Butte district court to charges stemming from an April 13 chase with police that began with a probation officer shooting out a tire and ended when the mans car crashed.

James Franklin Wasson, 28, was charged with five felony counts of criminal endangerment for putting people at risk during the chase, one felony count of possessing dangerous drugs, one misdemeanor count of having drug paraphernalia, and one felony count for later trying to escape.

Wasson entered not guilty pleas to all eight charges. He could face up to 75 years in prison if convicted on all counts, Judge Brad Newman told him during Thursdays arraignment.

Wasson was arrested after driving up to a house being searched by Butte police and probation and parole officers on April 13. Police said when probation officers walked up to his vehicle, Wasson took off, and a probation officer shot at least two rounds at the car's tires, flattening one.

Several squad cars pursued Wasson's vehicle to the overpass on Second and Shields, where it crashed.

Wasson tried to harm himself while in jail and was taken to the Montana State Hospital at Warm Springs for mental evaluation, police said. When he was returned, he jumped out a van door and ran, losing officers for about 20 minutes. He was found and arrested again outside of St. James Healthcare.

He remains in jail with bond set at $105,000. Another bond hearing is set later in June.

In other court proceedings Thursday:

ASSAULTING AN OFFICER

A July 6 hearing was set for a man who pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of assaulting an officer.

Nicholas Dudla, 28, also pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges for resisting arrest and obstructing a police officer.

Police say an officer recognized Dudla outside a local convenience store April 18, weeks after he had eluded police in a high-speed chase March 9. Police called that chase off for safety reasons.

When police questioned him April 18, they say Dudla punched an officer in the face and resisted arrest until he was hit with a Taser. Charges related to the previous car chase are before District Judge Brad Newman. Dudla remained in custody Thursday with bail set at $25,000.

METH AT STORE

A man pleaded not guilty to allegedly having methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia when he was arrested at a convenience store on Harrison Avenue in February.

District Judge Kurt Krueger then set July 6 as the next hearing for Anthony Risher, 30, who was arrested in the early morning hours of Feb. 12.

Risher did not appear for his first arraignment, so he was arrested again on a bench warrant, and bail was set at $50,000. He remained in custody Thursday with bail at the same amount.

PRISON SENTENCE

A woman who was sentenced to seven years in prison on forgery charges in 2004 denied accusations that she violated terms of her probation.

Several years of Melissa Jo Beebes previous sentence were suspended but carried probation terms. Prosecutors say she violated those conditions in part by possessing or using illegal drugs and not complying with drug and alcohol testing.

She denied those violations and remains free on $10,000 bond, but she must now wear a drug-monitoring patch.
Most people working and living on the Butte Hill 100 years ago knew Big Con ONeill. By all accounts and according to family lore, he was a popular guy.

Marian ONeill-Rickard, who lives in Palm Desert, California, is ONeills granddaughter. He was larger than life, she said.

Rickard, of course, never met her grandfather, but Big Con stories were shared throughout her childhood.

He was just an easygoing guy, she was told.

Easygoing he may have been, but his physical appearance was a bit daunting.

ONeill was not your stereotypical Irishman, towering over most men at 62 and weighing 230 pounds.

The average height for a man 100 years ago was 57, so its not an understatement to say ONeill would have definitely stood out in a crowd.

Rickards aunts, Catherine, Alice and Lil, along with her dad, Frank, frequently shared stories about their father. Some had been passed down by their mother Julia, others they knew first hand.

According to Rickard, it was not his stature that drew people to her grandfather, it was his never-ending loyalty he felt towards family, friends, and his fellow miners.

ONeill came to Butte before the turn of the last century, along with his friend, Red Mike ONeill, who later would become his brother-in-law as well.

In 1904, Con married Reds sister, Julia ONeill.

They knew each other back in Ireland, said Rickard of her grandparents, but only as acquaintances.

Fast forward to 1917, and ONeill was living the American dream. The native of Castletown Bere in County Cork had a good-paying job as foreman at the Bell-Diamond and a home that the North Butte Mining Co., provided for ONeill, his wife and their children.

They were not by any means well off, said Rickard, but they were comfortable.

That American dream would soon be shattered.

Big Con was off shift the night of the fire. In fact, he was already bedded down for the night. Word, though, spread fast that a fire was at the Granite Mountain-Speculator, and ONeil was quickly out the door and on his way to help.

First and foremost, the Irishman was concerned about his men. The Bell-Diamond adjoined the Speculator, and smoke was already billowing through the Diamond.

That, too, does not surprise Rickard, who said his sense of loyalty again came into play.

ONeill didnt hesitate. Make some canvas bulkheads boys, he reputedly said. We must keep the smoke and gas from our men and save all the lives we can.

ONeill knew that a crew of his men was on the 1,800-foot level of the Diamond, so he, along with Con Toomey and Ed Lorey, high tailed it into the cage and headed down to get the men.

The trio, not wearing gas masks, only got as far as perhaps 50 to 100 feet before the gas rendered ONeill and Lowery unconscious. At some point, a weakened Toomey was able to get back to the station where rescue workers had just descended. For God sakes, hurry in there; to hell with me. I can make it, he cried.

Big Cons oldest child, 12-year-old daughter Catherine, watched and prayed as they brought her father to the surface. It was not to be.

According to newspaper accounts, a rescue crew got both men up to the surface, where doctors, along with ONeills best friend and brother-in-law, Red Mike, tried to revive the men, but it was too late.

The combination of gas and smoke was too thick and visibility was practically nil. One of the rescue workers, C.E. Calvert later said No man could live in that gas without a helmet for 10 seconds.

Ironically, the men that ONeill, Toomey and Lowery went into save had reportedly already made it out, via the West Gray Rock.

News quickly spread that Big Con was dead. It was reported the following day that when miners spoke of Con ONeill yesterday there was a universal expression of sorrow  He was as big-hearted as man can be and his jolly nature was so charitable that his men loved him.

ONeills life was celebrated at St. Lawrence OToole Church and he was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery. His widow, Julia, was now on her own with four young children to raise. The youngest, Lil, was just seven months old.

Although the family had to move out of the foremans house, they didnt go too far.

According to Rickard, North Butte Mining gave her grandmother a home on Boardman Street, where she raised her children and some grandchildren as well.

I think my grandfather was it for her, said Rickard, because, although my grandmother was a social person, she never dated.

In a cruel twist of fate, another mining tragedy would befall the ONeill family.
Mark Sweeney announced Wednesday his intention to run as a Democrat for the Montana House District 77 seat.

Kathy Swanson, Anaconda, held the post for eight years, and has been termed out.

Sweeney lives in Philipsburg, and splits his time between there and Helena. He lived in Anaconda for 27 years, where he raised both of his daughters, he said.

Sweeney is owner-broker of Montana Blue Ribbon Real Estate and owner of Aquatic Resource Management. He worked 28 years with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks in fisheries research, and also worked at and managed the Washoe Park Trout Hatchery in Anaconda for 26 years.

"My main focus as your legislator will be to grow our economy in a sustainable way while keeping the jobs we have and always looking at ways to create more employment,'' he said. He also supports access to public lands and employees at Montana State Hospital at Warm Springs and Montana State Prison.

Sweeney served two terms as Anaconda-Deer Lodge County commissioner, and played a role in securing grants for water line replacement projects, street light projects, keeping a private bridge from being built across the Big Hole River and in acquiring public access and preserving key recreational and wildlife habitat areas. He supported the development of NorthWestern Energy's David Gates natural gas electrical generation facility.

He is president of the Arrowhead Foundation, an EPA technical advisory group for Superfund. He serves on the Clark Fork River Basin Citizen Advisory Council, Citizens Advisory Council for the Highlands College. He is on the Montana Wildlife Federation board and an active member of the Anaconda Sportsmen Club.
On June 1, Great Falls was the center of our nations agriculture conversation as I hosted the Montana Ag Summit, a conversation about the future of jobs in our states No. 1 economic driver: agriculture.

We had two of the nations top ag leaders at the Montana Ag Summit: the new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, and the U.S. Senate Ag Committee Chairman, Pat Roberts.

The day before the summit, Secretary Perdue and Senator Roberts joined me in Cascade, Montana, for a listening session at Rick Bogdens cow-calf operation. We had several ag groups there including the Wool Growers, Stockgrowers, Grain Growers, U.S. Cattlemens Association, the Montana Association of Counties, state elected officials, the Farmers Union and the Montana Farm Bureau around the table for a conversation about the future of agriculture in Montana. We had a hard time hearing each other sometimes because the cows were bellowing so loudly.

Getting all our folks face-to-face and around the table helps Montana agriculture  it was important for the secretary of Agriculture and the chairman of the ag committee to see Montana firsthand outside the Washington, D.C., bubble and out in the field.

During our conversation we heard about the future of Montana agriculture and I was reminded about the blue corduroy jackets and the meaning behind the first F in FFA. It means future. The Future Farmers of America deserve to know that taking over their family farms and ranches is full of opportunity.

With 95 percent of the worlds consumers outside of the United States, we need to focus on gaining access to new markets, like China for our beef. The ban on U.S. beef in China has been in place since 2003  far too long. Anytime you allow American producers to compete on a level playing field, we win. Thats why Ive been to China twice since Ive served as your U.S. senator, written numerous letters, and pressed our countrys top officials to create a level playing field in China, and even hand-delivered four Montana steaks to Chinese leaders in Beijing. At the Montana Ag Summit, Secretary Perdue announced we are closer than ever to getting there  it shouldnt be more than a few weeks now before Montana beef is served in Beijing.

Secondly, our farmers and ranchers spend way too much time acting as if they were Harvard lawyers dealing with D.C. regulations. I heard loud and clear at the Montana Ag Summit that we need to roll back these excessive regulations. Our farmers and ranchers are some of the best stewards of the environment because they depend on it and know that and if they dont protect their lands they wont have a future in agriculture.

The third issue on the pathway to growth is permanently eliminating the death tax  a generational showstopper. Ive heard from far too many Montana farmers and ranchers that this is the singular reason they cannot pass on their livelihood to their children. As we look at tax reform, I am strongly in favor of eliminating the death tax once and for all.

By eliminating the death tax, expanding markets for our producers and reducing regulatory burdens, FFA students and future cow-calf operations like Rick Bogdens in Cascade can succeed and be strong for future generations.

I look forward working alongside you to keep Montana agriculture on the national map, and its great to know we have Montana allies in Sonny Perdue and Pat Roberts.
Repeatedly in his presentation to former fellow House colleagues on Thursday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said this is what a balanced budget looks like.

Representatives around the committee table didnt much like that look; reactions ranged from flabbergasted in Kentucky coal country about the elimination of abandoned mine reclamation funds to asking why nearly finished early-warning earthquake systems were getting canceled on the West Coast.

The former representative from Montana assured them he would work together to get priorities balanced.

But with a 13 percent cut pushing Interiors 2018 budget down to $10.6 billion, a lot of zeroed-out line items will compete for that reassessment. The cuts will affect many Montana-centric activities, even as some activities get a boost.

The Interior Secretarys own office would take the largest hit, cutting $596 million or 82 percent of its operating budget. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement would be cut by more than half, from $240 million to $129 million.

Increases would occur in the departments Payment in Lieu of Taxes program (from zero to almost $400 million), and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (zero to $138 million). Interiors portion of the FLAME wildfire suppression reserve would be eliminated, saving $177 million.

It assumes the Land and Water Conservation Fund will expire at the end of this the 2018 fiscal year, and the Administration will review options for reauthorization, including consideration of a range of conservation-related investments that could be funded through the LWCF.

At Thursdays hearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, Zinke said he remained a supporter of LWCF, and there would be money to maintain existing public lands. But he noted the program would not acquire new properties.

Conversely, the Interior budget document assumes the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act will be permanently reauthorized, allowing Interior to dispose of lands with low conservation value and use the proceeds to acquire lands with high conservation values.

Interior wilderness management would be reduced by $3 million to $15.5 million annually, by reducing monitoring of wilderness values in Wilderness Areas and Wilderness Study Areas, among other measures according to the budget report.

Abandoned Mine Lands and Hazardous Material Management (HMM) programs would take a $16 million combined hit, meaning BLM will not undertake any new mine remediation work and HMM program will have reduced capacity to address existing and emergent environmental impact incidents and will also reduce facility environmental compliance monitoring.

At the hearing, Zinke touted an increase of $35 million toward national park infrastructure needs. But John Garder of the National Parks Conservation Association said that figures misleading.

Its puzzling that in his confirmation hearing, Zinke outlined priorities on land use and front-line personnel and increases to deferred maintenance, Garder said. But in the case of deferred maintenance, they take credit for a 6 percent increase when in reality its a 9 percent cut of $34 million.

That happens because the proposed budget bases its percentages off the fiscal 2016 budget rather than the FY 2017 continuing resolution passed in April, Garder said. On top of that, staff and funding cuts throughout the Interior Department mean there will be fewer people available to carry out those chores.

Zinke joked he was making a lot of savings by not having anybody on staff. The Interior Department staff would be reduced by about 4,000 full-time workers, from 64,025 to 59,968 workers.

That includes reductions of 674 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions in Zinkes secretarial office through the dispersal of Office of Natural Resources Revenue duties to other areas, 1,062 FTE in the Bureau of Land Management, 1,089 FTE at the U.S. Geological Survey and 1,242 FTE at the National Park Service.

The secretary said he will be an advocate for on-the-ground personnel, but the disappointing reality of this budget is with an 8 percent cut to operations and 1,200 park service staff cut, the budget does quite the opposite. More than 90 percent of our parks would be significantly affected by these cuts," Garder said. "They mean eliminating large numbers of seasonal rangers, closing facilities or reducing hours. And thats while parks are struggling with a 13 percent increase in visitation in the last two years.
BILLINGS  During the coming fiscal year, Montana will receive more than $5 million in funding for AmeriCorps programs that support conservation, health and legal services around the state.

In a conference call with reporters and grant recipients Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, said President Donald Trumps proposed 2017-18 budget will, if Congress approves, cut funding for the Corporation for National and Community Service, the program that funds AmeriCorps, by 88 percent.

While we always look for ways to cut wasteful spending and reduce our debt, we cannot do it on the backs of volunteers and services that build and strengthen Montanas economy, Tester said. The presidents budget decimates funding for AmeriCorps. We will do our level best to knock some sense into these folks.

Grant funding for Montana includes:

Of the $5.1 million announced Wednesday, about $1.4 million goes to education awards to AmeriCorps members, who are given the money after theyve completed their service to help pay for post-secondary education or to pay down student loans.

From improving and protecting our public lands to ensuring the next generation has the opportunity to succeed, Gov. Steve Bullock said in a news release, AmeriCorps and the ethic of service it cultivates is invaluable to the strength of our state.

Montana is known as the Last Best Place, Tester said. AmeriCorps plays an important role in keeping it that way.
Evel Knievel Days is more than a month away but the festival is ahead of the curve going into its 16th year, getting OKs from several government officials and submitting plans well before the event July 27-29.

Commissioners accepted plans and permit applications from event organizers Wednesday night that included a pledge to work with county officials in advance to ensure a much more smoothly run production.

The council also authorized The Big Bang Celebration  known in previous years as the pre-fireworks "Freedom Fest  at Chester Steele Park on July 3 and a Fourth of July parade the next day. The latter event was in doubt when its longtime organizers, Butte Community Celebrations, dissolved last fall.

But the Butte America Foundation and local events promoter Matt Boyle have taken the reins and the parade will be held along the same route as last year starting at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 4.

Commissioners previously authorized this years Montana Folk Festival for July 7-9.

EK Days is Buttes longest-running festival, debuting in 2002, but it has been troubled in recent years with feuding, last-minute changes and maneuvering, unannounced street closings, little communication with Uptown businesses and residents, and stunts deemed dangerous to spectators  after they occurred.

Organizers miffed commissioners again last year by submitting applications for permits well past the deadline for lead time and not contacting business owners about plans until days before the festival.

But the festival itself, although lacking extreme stunts such as a semi soaring through the air or a man jumping off a headframe, was relatively trouble-free.

We are hoping to build on that momentum, Stephen Coe, new president of the Evel Knievel Days Board of Directors this year, told The Montana Standard earlier Wednesday.

Coe, in a letter he submitted to the council along with permit applications, said organizers could not create an event like ours without support and guidance from county staff and police and firefighters.

Working with the county in advance for this years event will ensure a much more smoothly run production that will be safe and fun for all performers and attendees, and minimize the impact to Uptown business owners and residents, Coe wrote in the letter.

Organizers were dealt a fundraising setback earlier this year after the countys Superfund Advisory and Redevelopment Trust Authority Board gave them a $125,000 grant instead of a regular annual allocation of $25,000.

The bigger grant was to help them front load the free summer festival with big name acts that might allow it to become self-sustaining in future years. But the amount was later reduced to $25,000 because the board did not have authority to make the larger award.

Coe said Wednesday that money from other sources was trickling in, but they were still working to land sponsors for a major extreme stunt. He said he was leery of talking about the stunt itself until a deal is done, but said it would occur just below the Maroon Activities Center, not a city street as in years past.

Organizers hope to increase family attendance this year, in part by expanding a Kid Knievel Area to most of the Original Mine Yard. The event will also pay tribute to and raise money for military veterans, Coe said.

We have been working really hard to kind of rebrand the event, he said.

Although several state and local officials have signed off on the plans, organizers still need an OK from the Butte-Silver Bow Public Works Department.

Road Operations Manager Nick Sandford said officials need a few additional details on possible stunts and activities and whether ramps will be necessary, but he did not foresee any major obstacles at this point. The council put the permit application on hold until that OK is received.
Tuscaloosa County, AL - The president and CEO of the West Alabama Boys and Girls Club is behind bars, accused of possessing child pornography.

Anthony Dellon "Tony" Bush, 42, was arrested Sunday night, said Northport police Assistant Chief Keith Carpenter. He is being held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail with bonds totaling $200,000.

Carpenter said the pornographic images were discovered in the course of another investigation. Court records show officers responded on March 17 to the area of Northbrook Apartments in reference to Bush stalking his ex-girlfriend. When they arrived on the scene, a witness told officers Bush had been stalking the woman for about two months and was under investigation for breaking into a car the week before.

The witness said he saw Bush drive by the ex-girlfriend's apartment twice that night and had learned he had done the same thing three to four times on March 15. The witness confronted Bush and asked him why he kept stalking the woman, according to court records, and Bush replied, "I don't know. I don't know." The male witness told him to get out of the vehicle to wait for police, and Bush then punched the man in the face.

The witness struck back in defense, according to a deposition, and hit Bush in the face. Once police arrived on the scene, Bush was taken into custody and then taken to the hospital for treatment of facial bruising and lacerations.

Authorities said they will present evidence to the grand jury to determine whether Bush will be charged with stalking, criminal mischief and unlawful breaking and entering of a vehicle. He is charged with misdemeanor assault of the witness.

In the meantime, Carpenter said, while investigating those possible crime, authorities found pornographic images of children on Bush's cell phone. Based on what they saw, they obtained a search warrant for Bush's office at the Boys and Girls Club, where they seized his computer as well as his cell phone. On Friday, they obtained the child porn warrant against Bush and he was arrested Sunday night.

Carpenter said the images they have found so far appear to have been downloaded from the internet, and there have been no images found of any of the children who participate in the West Alabama Boys and Girls Club.
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The annual Fourth of July Parade will begin in downtown Muscatine at 5 p.m. Tuesday, July 4. The theme for this years parade is an Old-fashioned Fourth of July, and participants are encouraged to use that theme when designing their floats.

Entry forms are available at the chamber office or online at Muscatine.com. Forms must be completed and returned to the chamber no later than 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 27. The parade is free for individuals or nonprofits. Businesses and advertisers pay a $100 fee. Business who contribute $100 or more to the fireworks, will receive a free parade entry. Late entries will be subject to a $50 fee.
Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life!
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 []
As Kenyans complain about the cost of the recently opened SGR, and the ugly locomotives, our friends in Nigeria do not understand what were trying to accomplish.

Though the locomotives are not appealing, they wish they could lay their hands on some of the stations weve just built.

Nigerian YouTube comedian Adeola Fayehun posted a video comparing Kenyas new railway service, to their $12 billion Chinese funded one.

In the hilarious skit, Adeola wonders why Kenyans are complaining yet they Nigerians got nothing to show despite spending 4 times our amount.

She goes ahead to post photos of the various stations on our SGR, and compares them to what they have over there.

Watch that video below.

Now Read: Fact Check: Was Sh100 Billion Really Stolen in the SGR Project?
If you have not heard about Public Likes, you probably dont have Whatsapp. Their links are spreading like wildfire, and its all on the promise of quick, easy money.

Kenyans are not only used to getting conned, but I think they actually enjoy it.

First and foremost, the rule of the thumb is that anyone promising you money for doing nothing or almost nothing, is probably lying. And it explains why the victims of such schemes are almost always the financially unstable. Most of the people who have money understand that it doesnt just fall from the sky.

So what is this Public Likes?

Basically, it is a website that pays you to view adverts yeah, really.

When you create an account, you get the starter plan that gives you 5 adverts to view every day. For each of these adverts, Ksh10 ($0.1) is credited to you. So you can easily make Sh50 ($0.5) per day.

But theres a catch. You can only withdraw your money once you reach Sh2500.

At a rate of Sh50 per day, it will take you 50 days. The prospects are not very lucrative as you can see.

But the considerate fellows at Publiclikes have a work around for this problem. If you want to bring down the number of days it takes you to get paid, you simply upgrade to the Basic account.

After paying Sh4500, your daily viewing limit is increased five fold to 25. Now you have the potential to make Sh250 ($2.5) per day.

Assuming you log in every day, it will now only take you 10 days for your first payout, and about 18 days to recoup your money. Remember we live in a world where making 10% of your invested money per year is considered decent. And someone is promising you 100% in 18 days.

With this Basic package, you can potentially make Sh7500 per month.

[showad block=6]

But what if you want to earn even more? Once again, the considerate guys at Public likes have a workaround.

For only Sh14,000, you can upgrade to a Premium, account. Here your daily limit is raised to 50 ads per day, meaning you can potentially make Sh15,000 per month. Everything else after the first month is pure profit.

But what if you want to make even more money? It so happens there is the Gold plan where you have a daily limit of 100 adverts. Your monthly income will be Sh30,000, but for this you have to pay Sh90,000.

Meaning everything after your 3rd month is pure profit.

They also claim to pay you to like Facebook pages, but I did not find this option while preparing this article.

READ: BIG SHAME: Kenyans Angered by Royal Media Services Recruitment Scam

Why Public Likes is a Scam

1. The advertising eco-system does not work like this.

Advertisers do not pay for their ads to be shown to paid people. They pay for their adverts to be displayed to relevant people. For example, if a hotel decides to advertise, they will target people who have an interest in this service, eg. travellers, tourists etc. Google and Facebook for example have a way of knowing what you have been searching, which explains why you are always bombarded by relevant ads on these two platforms.

Paying a jobless person in some cyber cafe to view your advert makes no sense to any business.

2. The pay is too high.

Worldwide, advertising rates are measured per 1000 views (most of the time). Meaning the advertiser negotiates a rate with the media company for every 1000 times their ad is viewed. There is a lot of science that goes into this, but the average in the US is around $5. That means the advertiser pays $5 (Sh500) every 1000 times their ad is viewed.

It so happens that the United States rates are the best in the world. Here in Kenya, this rate is constantly under $1 (Sh100). Often its as little as $0.5.

Then comes along Public Likes. For a single view, they are paying Sh10 ($0.1). That means for 1000 views, they are paying Sh10,000 ($100). Without exaggeration, Public Likes is the best paying company on earth.

3. Faulty Mathematics for Business

Serious companies do their mathematics and risk calculations right. In Public Likes case, theres a big discrepancy between the Premium plan and the Gold plan.

You pay Sh90,000 for the Gold plan, and will only break even after the 3rd month, and henceforth earn Sh30,000 a month.

However, if you buy 6 premium plans at Sh14,000 each (Sh84,000 total), you will break even after only 1 month, and henceforth make a total of Sh90,000 a month. You can use your friends and familys phone numbers to accomplish this.

4. This not new.

There are literally hundreds of examples online. The best example is SocialTrade that stole over $500 million from 7 million Indians. The similarities between these two are shocking. Read the story on this link if you dont believe.

And the thing is, this Indian scam was paying Sh1 per like, not the Sh10 being offered by Public Likes.

Why is Public Likes paying?

Well, as with any pyramid scheme, the first people are paid in a bid to lure in more.

The guys behind this site most likely had a big budget to start with, which they paid the first people. These first people then spread all the referral links youve been seeing around, and more people join.

Then these new people start paying to upgrade their packages, and before long, most of the country is looped in.

One morning, halfway through your Sh90,000 plan, you log in to Public Likes and youre greeted by a 503 error.

I dont know when the fun will end, but believe me it will. And there will only be one winner.

So, Is Public Likes a Scam? YES IT IS. A BIG ONE.

Now READ: How To Spot a Real Estate Scam
A Milimani Law Court has directed that three men be detained for 14 days in connection with the rape and murder of one of the mens girlfriend.

The three men  Patrick Odhiambo, Celeb Munyonga and Brian Agunjo  are accused of killing Achieng Ochieng.

The deceased was reportedly killed after an argument with her boyfriend on May 14.

According to the Star, her body was found dumped on Muranga road in Ngara, Nairobi. She had bruises on her feet and arms and appeared to have been raped.

The suspects were arrested on Tuesday following a tip-off by members of the public.

The Court heard that Ms Achieng lived with her boyfriend in Kasarani prior to her disappearance.

In a sworn affidavit by Constable Bridget Wanjiku of Parklands DCI office, the deceased did not return home after the argument with her boyfriend.

She said police will conduct a post-mortem and DNA tests on the suspects.

Investigations include apprehending more suspects, conducting a postmortem, taking a swab from the deceased and conducting DNA tests on the suspects, the prosecution said.

The suspects will also be taken for psychiatric tests to ascertain their mental status before pleading to murder charges.

Milimani senior principal magistrate Peter Ooko said the case will be mentioned on June 21.
A University student was on Sunday found dead at a Mombasa guest house where she had spent a night with her boyfriend.

Doris Kagendo, 23, and her boyfriend checked into Las Vegas Guest House in Kisimani area, Kisauni, on Friday. They checked out the next day but Kagendo later returned and checked back in at the guest house.

According to Area deputy OCPD Walter Abondo, the facilitys management found Kagendos body hanging from a rope.

The Deputy Police boss said they were tracking the boyfriends phone and that he may have ended their relationship before leaving.

The boyfriend went missing on Saturday and she was left stranded in Mombasa. That is when she decided to go back to the guest house, an investigating officer said as quoted by The Star.

There was no suicide note but a message on Kagendos phone indicated she was worried about her health.

She was a student at Taita Taveta Campus, and her belongings were found in the guest house.
The National Labor Relations Board has filed a complaint against Queen of the Valley Medical Center, accusing it of violating federal labor law by coercing pro-union workers and refusing to bargain in good faith.

The complaint, issued May 31 by NLRB Regional Director Jill Coffman, came in response to several unfair labor practice charges filed by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). The union represents 420 workers at the Napa hospital.

The union won an election in November to represent the workers, who include nursing assistants, pharmacy technicians and respiratory care practitioners, but the hospital has sought to overturn the result.

Coffman is asking a federal labor board judge to order the hospital to provide data it has withheld, allow the union access to the hospital grounds and begin good-faith bargaining.

Queen of the Valley Medical Center CEO Larry Coomes countered that the hospital does not believe the election held in November 2016 ensured all of our employees had a free and fair ability to vote in the election.

That left the Queen with first having to ask for a new election, which the NLRB rejected, Coomes said in a statement. Then the Queen refused to bargain with the union and waited for the NLRB to issue what is called a bad-faith bargaining order, he said.

An employer who fails to follow this specific procedural course waives the right to contest certification, which is why Queen of the Valley strongly believes that taking this course of action and pursuing our appeal to the highest allowable court is necessary to protecting the rights of our employees and is consistent with our mission of inclusion for all, Coomes said.

At the same time, we offered to meet with the union to discuss the terms of a collective bargaining agreement with the understanding that it would only go into effect if our appeals were denied, Coomes wrote. The union declined that request, he said.

In asking an NLRB judge to hear the case, Coffman said she found sufficient evidence that the hospitals Environmental Services Director Bruce Herring threatened employees with unspecified reprisals for engaging in union activities. She further found that the hospitals human resources director denied an employees request to be represented during a meeting with supervisors that could have led to discipline.

Both actions amounted to restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of their federal rights, Coffman wrote.

Coffman said she also found evidence that hospital administrators changed work schedules for employees because they reportedly assisted the union. The administrators, she added, were seeking to discourage employees from engaging in these activities.

Coffman is also asking the judge to require the hospitals human resources director to read workers a notice spelling out their rights. A labor board official would have to be present at staff meetings to confirm that the hospital complied.

The complaint is a powerful indictment of the Queens anti-worker behavior, said NUHW President Sal Rosselli.

The fact that the NLRB wants a Queen administrator to verbally explain to employees how the hospital violated their rights  and do it in the presence of a labor board official  is an extraordinary request reserved for egregious labor law violations, he said.

Union supporters spoke out about the complaint.

From the moment we began organizing, Queen executives have tried to intimidate us and bully us out of forming a union, said Ray Herrera, a radiology technician. They clearly dont want a workforce with the power to shine a light on how they have compromised patient care to further increase their profits.

We are thrilled that the labor board director took this action, and we are determined to continue standing up for ourselves and our patients, said Anacelia Trejo, a cook at the Napa hospital.

The 211-bed hospital has until June 14 to respond to the NLRB complaint.

A tentative hearing before a National Labor Relations Board judge is scheduled for Aug. 7 in San Francisco.

Queen of the Valley is owned by Providence St. Joseph Health, the nations third largest hospital system, with North Bay facilities in Napa, Santa Rosa and Petaluma.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers represents more than 13,000 caregivers.
(Natural News) The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines racism as the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. Youll notice that nowhere in this definition does it mention white superiority or the discrimination of African-Americans because racism goes both ways; that is, whites can be racist towards blacks, AND blacks can be racist towards whites.

Liberals dont see it this way, however. Instead, they have come up with their own definition of racism, which has to do with whites discriminating against blacks and nothing more. In April of 2013, for instance, MSNBC host Chris Matthews played a clip on the air of Rush Limbaugh suggesting that Barack Obama inspires racism. In response, Matthews said, Well actually, Rushbo, racism is the belief that one race  whites  should rule all others. Get your definitions straight.

There is a deep, dark reason why liberals only acknowledge racism when it is whites discriminating against blacks and not the other way around. For decades now, liberals in this country have been painting minorities as victims  victims of racism, victims of capitalism, and victims of a societal system that is somehow designed to prevent them from reaching their life goals. They perpetuate this victim mentality so that at the end of the day, they can come in as the saviors, promising minorities that if they vote for Democrat politicians, then the Democrats will fight to end the so-called systemic racism that they say is embedded within the DNA of our country.

In other words, they make people into victims to remain in power. To acknowledge the fact that racism can also be defined as blacks discriminating against whites would be to dilute the electoral support from black voters. Thus, they claim that only minorities can experience racism.

This is the very reason why there has been little outcry (if any at all) from the left over the events that have recently unfolded at Evergreen State College in Washington.

Last month at Evergreen, students demanded that all white people on campus, including professors and school administrators, leave the college for a Day of Absence. Whats even more shocking is the fact that the schools president, Mr. George Bridges, responded to the racist event by expressing gratitude to the students who were trying to make it happen. Let me reiterate my gratitude for the passion and courage you have shown me and others, Bridges said, as reported by the student newspaper The Cooper Point Journal. I want every one of you to feel safe on this campus and be able to learn in a supportive environment free from discrimination or intimidation. (RELATED: Racist student mob at Evergreen College just got granted homework exemptions by the snowflake administration after threatening professors).

So the school administration didnt seem to have a problem with this Day of Absence event, but what about the mainstream media? Surely the hosts on CNN and MSNBC who are always talking about how racist this country is would have a problem with a school that bans white people for a day, right?

Wrong. Besides a segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight, the events that are unfolding at Evergreen State College have hardly been discussed at all. The reason, as previously mentioned, is because most of the liberals within the mainstream media dont see this as racism, because whites are the victims in this case instead of blacks.

Could you imagine if the opposite were true? What if a group of white students got together on a college campus and decided to have a Day of Absence free from black people? Do you think the talking heads on cable television would pay attention then? Of course they would. The news coverage would be endless.

Sources:

NYPost.com

Newsbusters.org

Breitbart.com

WashingtonTimes.com
(Natural News) When law enforcement officers entered an American Airlines plane to escort one of the passengers off the craft, they expected an extremely intoxicated individual. Michael Mennella greeted them instead. The shaky hobble that American Airline personnel took as a sign of Mennellas inebriation was actually the result of him being a double amputee with no feet. Why he was staggering down the plane aisle in the first place was simple: he wanted to ask for water to drink his pain medication after he was forced to cross the jet bridge on his stumps. American Airlines forgot to provide him with the wheelchair he requested prior to the flight.

Menellas ordeal occurred on August 28, 2016, while the suit that followed was filed in federal court in Miami just recently. As reported by MiamiNewTimes.com, the suit stated that: As demonstrated by police-administered field tests, and as revealed in an official field report, Mr. Mennella was not intoxicated. Instead, he was an innocent victim of AAs brutish misconduct.

The word brutish is an apt word for what the Florida businessman endured. The flight from Miami International Airport to Las Vegas was diverted to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in order to have Mennella removed from the plane. American Airlines personnel told passengers and Mennellas colleagues that he was a drunk, while airport police were told Mennella was intoxicated to the point of needing medical attention.

In the lawsuit, it was stated that The law enforcement officers proceeded to tell Mr. Mennella that he was being arrested for a felony due to his intoxication, and that the severity of his crime merited a lengthy incarceration. However, once the officers spoke with the businessman they concluded that he was not under the influence of any substances. Mennella was subsequently released and had to arrange another flight for Las Vegas.

In addition to calling the airlines actions negligent, Mennellas lawsuit further claimed that American Airlines damaged his reputation and defamed him by calling him a drunk and forcing him off the plane. (Related: United Airlines drags physician kicking and screaming off a flight he PAID FOR because they overbooked and wanted the seat back)

American Airlines believes otherwise. An email that was included in the lawsuit came from an American Airlines customer service representative. In the email, the representative wrote that the flight had to be diverted because of Mennellas disruptive and unruly behavior that was compromising the safety of the other passengers. We believe our pilot made the correct decision in this situation, the customer service representative wrote in the email. And we apologize if you feel otherwise.

Since the story broke out, American Airlines has been condemned by social media users. So American Airlines treated a double amputee like a dog. Just disgusting. Time to sell my AA stock. wrote Kerry L. Armstrong, who added the hashtag #boycottamericanairlines to his tweet.

Menenllas lawsuit could not have come at a more stressful time for the airline. Just last April, American Airlines was involved in an earlier controversy, one involving a flight attendant and some passengers. In the now-viral video, a flight attendant violently took a stroller from a passenger with her baby, hitting the passenger and narrowly missing the child as he did. A male passenger confronted the flight attendant over the incident. While the passenger and flight attendant never came to blows, it escalated to the point that the captain had to step in to diffuse the situation. The flight attendant has since been suspended, while the female passenger and her family were upgraded to first class for the rest of their trip.

It remains to be seen if Mennella will be receiving treated just as fairly.

Go to NewsTarget.com today for more stories similar to the Mennella case.

Sources include:

MiamiNewTimes.com

DailyMail.co.uk

Carbonated.tv

USAToday.com
"We have just returned from Egypt. We discussed these issues. The helicopter carriers were initially intended for the Ka-52K rotorcraft. Thus, the helicopters will be used by the ground forces and be based on the Mistral ships," Kladov said.



"I believe that a fundamental decision has been made, the procedure of signing a contract is only a technical issue," he added.



It was reported earlier that the tender winner who would deliver shipborne helicopters for Egypts Mistral ships would be announced in late May.



The Ka-52K derives from a range of shipborne helicopters operational with Russias Navy. The range includes the Kamov Ka-25 (NATO reporting name: Hormone), Ka-27 (Helix), Ka-29 (Helix-B) and Ka-31 rotorcraft.



The Ka-52K is designed for patrol missions, fire support during amphibious assaults and antiamphibious assault defense on the frontline and in tactical depth. Unlike the baseline version, the Ka-52K features folding stub wings specifically upgraded to carry heavy weapons and folding main rotor blades that allow it to compactly fit into an under-deck compartment. The Ka-52Ks smaller size increases the number of helicopters onboard.

The crews armored cockpit and the ejection system allow pilots to leave the helicopter safely. The Ka-52K shipborne helicopter has rescue equipment for people in distress at sea.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


"She [the frigate] will be evolving in a drastic manner. The ship will be bigger that the Project 22350 [frigates]. She will feature a more powerful armament suite and an increased effectiveness," Rakhmanov said commenting the statement by the Minister.



"The armament suite will be reinforced certainly. Regarding the displacement, we will have to change her dimensions to incorporate a heavier armament suite and the frigate may become bigger," the head of the USC added. However, the new ship would remain a frigate not transforming into a destroyer, he pointed out.



The research and development works on the upgrade of the Project 22350 are underway, according to Rakhmanov.



The third Project 22350 frigate, 'Admiral Golovko', is planned to be launched in 2017. "The 'Admiral Golovko' ship will be launched this year to all appearance. The deliveries of its main instruments and components are supposed to be started since mid-2017. Therefore, we are planning to catch up the shifted schedules," the President of the Corporation said.



He reminded that the 'Admiral Gorshkov' ship had started the final stage of the state trials. Rakhmanov expressed the hope that they would finish in Summer and the St Andrew`s flag-raising ceremony would take place.



"She will become the newest naval combatant, only once her main complexes and systems are in good working order meeting the original terms of reference," he pointed out. The Navy is planning to get the second Project 22350 frigate, 'Admiral Kasatonov', in 2018.



Previously, Russia`s Vice Premier Dmitry Rogozin said that the new state armament program through 2025 would focus on the building of the corvettes and frigates armed with guided weapons.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.






It also does not reflect the views of the Firm of which the Author is working for.





Since the inception of this blog, the Author has avoided writing views and opinions of his clients or views and opinions which third parties has paid him to write.





The Author has maintained editorial independence since Day One.





Any individual or group affected by the opinions and views of the Author can write the author thru mangubat.patricio@gmail.com.

Opinions and views expressed in this blog are personal views of the Author and does not involve organisations and companies being serviced by the Author as part of his profession as a Strategic Communications professional.
Tom Williams/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- There were several key phrases and terms that came up in former FBI Director James Comeys testimony on Thursday.



Here's a breakdown.



"Honest loyalty"



In his opening statement, which was provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee a day ahead of the hearing, Comey described one exchange where Trump allegedly asked for Comeys loyalty:



He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "Thats what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me." As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldnt be productive to push it further. The term -- honest loyalty -- had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.



"That thing"



There are two "things" that Comey mentioned in his written testimony. The first was the McCabe thing, which Comey said Trump brought up during their March 30 phone call. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) inquired about that at the Thursday hearing, asking Comey, Specifically, the McCabe thing, as you understood it, was that McCabe's wife received campaign money from what I assume means Terry McAuliffe.



Comey replied, Yes, sir.



The other "thing" remains more of a mystery.



During an April 11 phone call, Comey said Trump called him to follow-up on his request that Comey publicly "get out" that he was not under investigation. Comey said he had talked to the acting deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, and suggested the White House counsel contact the Department of Justice. He went on to write in his memo:



He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the acting deputy attorney general. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.



Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), asked Comey about it in the closing minutes of the hearing.



McCain: You talked about the April 11 phone call, and he said, "Because I've been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you know." Did that arouse your curiosity as to what, quote, that thing was?



Comey: Yes.



McCain: Why didn't you ask him?



Comey: It didn't seem to me to be important for the conversation we were having to understand it. I took it to be an effort to communicate to me that there is a relationship between us where I've been good to you, you should be good to me.



McCain: But I would think it would intensely arouse my curiosity if the president of the United States said, "We had that thing, you know." I'd like to know what the hell that thing is, particularly if I'm the director of the FBI.



Comey: Yeah. I get that, senator. Honestly, I'll tell you what. This is speculation, but what I concluded at the time is in his memory he was searching back to our encounter at the dinner and was preparing himself to say, "I offered loyalty to you. You promised loyalty to me." And all of a sudden, his memory showed him that did not happen, and I think he pulled up short. That's just a guess. A lot of conversations over the years.



McCain: I think I would have had some curiosity if it had been about me, to be honest with you.



"Hope"



Early on, there was a big moment when Comey was questioned over some of the language that Trump used when talking about Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser.



Comey recounted that Trump said I hope you can let this go when talking about Flynn, who had been fired the previous day. During todays hearing, Comey was asked if he knew of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome?

Trumps eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., responded to the exchange on Twitter, posting: Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak.

Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

Later, at different points, Comey touched on one of Trumps more controversial tweets, when he alluded to the possibility that there were recordings of their conversations.



At one point he said, Lordy, I hope there are tapes! Later, he reaffirmed this hope, adding, "I'll consent to the release."



"Counterintelligence"



At the beginning of the hearing, Comey defined counterintelligence investigations as ones that "tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power."



"It is important to understand that FBI counterintelligence investigations are different than the more commonly known criminal investigative work. The bureaus goal in a counterintelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets," Comey wrote.



Comey went on to write that before his Jan. 6 meeting with the president, he asked his team at the FBI if it was appropriate to assure Trump that he was not being investigated.



"That was true; we did not have an open counterintelligence case on him," Comey wrote.



He reiterated that sentiment during today's hearing, saying that when he conferred with his team, there was one person who thought Comey shouldn't tell Trump anything about the status of the Russia investigations. On Thursday, Comey said, "I disagreed. I thought it was fair to say what was literally true: There was not a counterintelligence investigation of Mr. Trump. I decided in the moment to say it, given the nature of the conversation."



"No fuzz"



Comey emphasized at the hearing that Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential election.



There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. They did with purpose. They did with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts, and it was an active-measures campaign driven from the top of that government, Comey said during one exchange during Thursday's hearing.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
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Pakistan and India are to become full members of the SCO at the 7th SCO summit being held in the Kazakh capital Astana.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz are accompanying Sharif, Pakistan Today reported.

During his stay, Sharif will be holding bilateral meetings with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Thursday, and the Mongolian and Russian presidents on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also attending the conference, as India too will be granted full membership of the SCO.

According to sources, there may be a chance meeting between Sharif and Modi on the sidelines of the summit.

With the inclusion of Pakistan and India, the SCO will have a total of eight states as permanent members - after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The group will then represent nearly half of the world's population after the inclusion of the subcontinental neighbours.

Pakistan and India both currently hold observer status at SCO.

Sharif will also be attending the inaugural ceremony of the International Expo 2017, in which more than 100 countries, including Pakistan, are participating.

--IANS rn

( 238 Words)

2017-06-08-13:54:11 (IANS)
The Sikh pilgrims are visiting Pakistan on the occasion of Martyrdom Day (Shahidi Purab) of Guru Arjan Dev Ji from June 8 to 17, a Pakistan High Commission statement said.

According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, Indian Sikh pilgrims were visiting Pakistan via the Wagha Railway Station on Thursday to take part in the events to mark the 411th death anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the fifth of the 11 Sikh gurus.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board (BTPB) Chairman Muhammad Siddiqul Farooq, board officials and Sikh leaders were to receive the pilgrims at Wahga Railway Station.

After arrival, the Sikh pilgrims would leave for Gurdwara Punja Sahib, Hassanabad, and stay there for two days and perform their religious rituals.

They would go to Gurdwara Janum Asthan Nankana Sahib on June 9 where they will stay for three days.

Then they will leave for Sucha Sauda, Farooqabad, on June 12.

On the same day, the pilgrims will return to Nankana Sahib. They will go to Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore on June 13 by special train.

The main function will be held at Lahore at Gurdwara Dera Sahib on June 16.

They will return to India on June 17.

--IANS rn

( 250 Words)

2017-06-08-20:34:17 (IANS)
US President Donald Trump has presented a plan to improve the country's infrastructure and once again make the US a nation of "builders", giving authorities more freedom of action, fewer environmental regulations and private support. "It's time to recapture our legacy as a nation of builders," Trump said on Wednesday in Cincinnati on the bank of the Ohio River to business and union leaders, as well as workers in the mining and steel-making sectors. We will "create new lanes of travel, commerce, and discovery, and we're going to see all the way into the future, which is going to be beautiful, and ... bright," he said. According to Trump, during his election campaign he saw infrastructure all over the country was "crumbling" and he found communities were "desperate" for new highways and bridges, Efe news reported. Saying that the American public deserves the best infrastructure in the world, the President, who made his own fortune in the construction industry, said that the federal government in recent years has spent "billions and billions" of dollars abroad while leaving such projects at home by the wayside. "We will not be content to allow our nation to become a museum for former glories," Trump said. "We will construct incredible new monuments to American grit and inspire wonder for generations and generations. We will build because our prosperity demands it and above all we will build because that is how we make America great again." According to the White House, the US infrastructure system has fallen to 12th place in the world ranking. Trump's proposal includes $200 billion in federal spending for infrastructure within the trillion dollars he intends to see invested in such projects with the help of the private sector. The President also said that he wants to drastically reduce the wait time for approval of infrastructure projects, which were slowed down due to environmental regulations that have raised costs and pushed back completion dates, according to the White House. Trump called upon Republicans and Democrats in Congress to join together to approve the investments needed in infrastructure, but his proposal has already been questioned by some lawmakers. --IANS ksk ( 367 Words) 2017-06-08-10:56:11 (IANS)
The Delhi High Court has sought to know the Lt Governor's (LG) decision on a representation challenging as "illegal" the reappointment of the director of Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) here. A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice Navin Chawla asked for the decision of the LG to the representation made by a Delhi-based RTI activist Balbir Singh, to be presented before the court. Singh alleged in his petition that the appointment of Nimesh G. Desai as director of the institute was "illegal" as it was not approved by the LG. Desai was appointed as director in 2010 and his tenure ended in April 2015. After extending his tenure for about a year, Desai was selected as director of IHBAS again, said the plea, claiming that a fresh selection process was initiated by Delhi's Health Minister only to benefit and appoint Desai in a "pre-determined manner". The appointment process, initiated earlier in which other eligible candidates were selected, was abruptly stopped and a fresh selection process was initiated with relaxation in rules to suit Desai, said the plea. The petition added that Desai was not eligible for consideration for appointment for the post of director, having crossed 60 years of age, the said requirement of age was relaxed so that he could apply for the post of director under the fresh advertisement issued in February 2016. Singh made a representation to the LG last September informing him of the alleged "irregularities" committed in the selection of the director, but no action has been taken till date, the plea said. --IANS gt/vgu/dg ( 280 Words) 2017-06-08-21:00:30 (IANS)
With pristine Darjeeling on the boil over a fresh Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) stir, travel operators on Thursday said the West Bengal government must ensure that tourists remain a priority even as the West Bengal government rushed to ease worries. "Such political disputes should be between the government and the people and tourists should not be affected," Anil Punjabi, Chairman (eastern region) of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), told IANS. He said Darjeeling -- due to its vantage location in the Eastern Himalayas, straddling nature reserves and Buddhist sites, as well as proximity to northeast India, Nepal and Bhutan -- draws around 600 tourists per day during summer till July. "Around 250 to 300 tourists arrive each day via air. The rest through trains etc. This time of the year, there is a steady inflow of tourists due to school vacations. The cheap hotel fares are a huge draw," Punjabi noted. He said many weekend travellers have postponed their travel dates till the unrest subsides while those who are planning a trip to the hills are in a dilemma. "We have received complaints and cancellations. We would advise those who are stuck in Darjeeling to remain calm, stay indoors and wait," Punjabi said. State Tourism Minister Gautam Deb told IANS that special buses will be launched on Friday to help ferry stranded tourists to Kolkata. "I am going to Siliguri to oversee the situation. It is extremely unfortunate. Special buses are being launched from New Jalpaiguri station. We are also setting up tourist assistance booths," Deb said. However, Punjabi batted for a long-term solution. "The state government is launching buses etc. but that is not the solution. The tourists should be looked after. They are our guests and they become our ambassadors when they go back. When Thailand witnesses coups, tourism doesn't get affected. So the state government has to ensure the same in Darjeeling," Punjabi added. --IANS sgh/vgu/dg ( 330 Words) 2017-06-08-21:22:19 (IANS)
Upen said in a statement: "I love doing action, but the action for this movie was very difficult due to the dangerous weather conditions. It was minus 3 degrees and we were shooting on a hill near the coast with no stuntmen. The wind was so strong, and below us was the sea so one wrong move... it could have been over for me."

The sequence involved hand-to-hand combat and the choreography was devised on the location at Cornwall, UK. No training was given as they wanted it to look natural.

According to a source, Upen even got injured while performing a stunt. He was asked by the doctors to rest for a week, but due to shortage of time, Upen continued to shoot.

--IANS nn/rb/bg

( 162 Words)

2017-06-08-13:50:11 (IANS)
Priyanka Chopra is now seen as a global star and with her subtle acting skills and brilliant dressing style is making a strong mark in Hollywood. Recently, the 34-year-old actress was a victim to social media trolling, when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin and wore a short dress during the meeting. In a recent interview given to Glamour Magazine, when asked about how important it is for her to have a voice and speak about things, the actress shared, "I feel like we live in a world right now where everything gets magnified so much and most of us are afraid to have an opinion because everything gets magnified and everyone has an opinion on the internet. Since when did trolling become international news first of all? It's TROLLING FOR A REASON." She also noted that she does not let the trolling affect her because she gets so much love and affection from the people on her social media profiles. "I don't care, I get so much love and affection from people on my social - I focus on that. And second of all, that's how you should treat life. I was raised by my parents to have an opinion, I was raised to be fearless, I was raised to not be a girl who was meant to always be quiet and demure. I was told to be the best that I can be and I wish that for every girl-child on the planet," shared PeeCee. The 'Baywatch' star also said that her co-star of the movie Dwayne Johnson would definitely be a good marriage material. She noted, "I definitely think he would make great marriage material because I've seen him with his family and I've seen him with his kids and I know how much of a family man he is. The one thing you need in a husband is honesty and trust and The Rock totally exudes that." (ANI)
As per the reports of the Deadline, film's lead Gal Gadot is an Israeli, due to which the film's debut in Tunisia has been suspended.

Following a request by Arab nationalist political party the People's Movement, the Tunisian Culture Minister has prevented the film's screening in the capital of Tunis.

According to the publication, Gadot's 2014 defence of Israel during the Gaza war was cited as a reason for the delay.

In a statement, the People's Movement said, "We must continue the mobilisation on this type of affair, as on everything related to normalisation with the Zionist entity."

Wonder Woman was due to officially start playing today (Thursday, 8 June) in two cinemas, but has been 'suspended' until a later date.

A spokesperson for the Tunisian Culture Minister said the delay was "purely administrative" for the meantime, with a permanent ban yet-to-be-decided.

'

Distributor Lassaad Goubantini said, "It's a decision based on bogus accusations. Today they prevent a film because of an actress, tomorrow they'll invent another excuse. It's an attack on liberties."

The Warner Bros. film was also pulled from an Algiers film festival, where the film was due to premiere.

Meanwhile, Patty Jenkins has not been confirmed to be returning for the 'Wonder Woman' sequel yet.

(ANI)
Shah will hold talks with MPs, MLAs, BJP office-bearers and workers to guide about how to strengthen the party ahead of next year's Assembly polls and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

A road-map for the coming Assembly and parliamentary elections will be drafted under the guidance of the BJP national president.

He will visit the birth place of Satnami saint Guru Ghasi Das ji in Giroudhpuri, 130 km from the state capital Raipur.

Shah will be concentrating more towards augmentation of Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste vote banks.

Scheduled Castes constitute about 12 percent of Chhattisgarh's population of 2.5 crore.

These communities, once considered a Congress vote-bank, sided with the BJP in the 2013 Assembly elections.

The ruling party won nine out of 10 seats reserved for the SCs then.

However, it is being maintained that Shah's visit to Giroudhpuri is apolitical.

The Congress said it would stage protests against alleged 'commission-khori' (bribery culture) in the BJP-ruled state during Shah's visit.

During his stay, Shah will be attending 16 meetings apart from inaugurating Modi Fest. (ANI)
A joint team of Gurugram and Uttar Pradesh police has confirmed the arrest of the third accused in connection with the recent Manesar gang-rape case. The third accused was arrested on Thursday from Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district. Two other accused were arrested by Gurugram Police yesterday. On Wednesday, one of the arrested informed the sarpanch of Bas Kusla village in Manesar about the crime and the people involved in it. "Crime teams used every resource to get information and a very sustained investigation was carried out. This was made possible because of intelligence inputs. The one accused who is absconding has also been identified and will be apprehended soon," Gurugram Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar told ANI on Wednesday. On Tuesday, sketches of the three accused of gang raping a woman were released by the police. A 22-year-old woman was travelling to her parents' house in Khandsa village around midnight on May 29 with her infant daughter when she was gang-raped by the three men. The accused threw her nine-month-old daughter out of the auto rickshaw, leading to her death. The raped woman, who was not identified, told the police that the accused started molesting her as soon as she sat in the auto rickshaw. When the woman started shouting, the infant began crying. The three men threw the girl child out of the auto rickshaw and took turns to rape her. The woman filed her complaint a couple of days after the incident at the Manesar Police Station. (ANI)
After holding administrative meetings in different districts across the state, the West Bengal government has decided to hold Cabinet meetings in the hills and Jangalmahal also. On May 29, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, during a press meet a Nabanna said, " We will hold our next Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling on June 8. Yearly, two out of the four Cabinet meetings will be held in the hills. The rest of the two meetings will be held in different districts of Jangalmahal. Therefore, the north and southern districts will be covered. " The Chief Minister also requested her ministers not to disturb tourists by staying in hotels since that time will be the peak season for tourism in Darjeeling and adjoining areas. She said, in Darjeeling, the Cabinet meeting will be held at the Raj Bhawan and therefore a couple of senior ministers will be able to stay there. " Yearly, we will hold two meetings at different places in the hills. In Jangalmahal, we will hold the meetings in Birbhum, Bankura, Purulia, Jhargram and West Midnapore districts ," she said.UNI SJC KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926108.Xml
"Major Pardeep Singh,36, son of Brigadier Kamal Singh Chauhan, resident of Shaim Nagar, Kanpur UP, presently posted at 87 Brigade, Udhampur fell from pony near Indarprasth Adhkuwari," police here said.

They said that he was shifted to the nearby dispensary at Adhkuwari where doctors declared him brought dead.

The deceased was a brother of IAS ranked lady officer of J&K Cadre.UNI VBH SV RJ 1201

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926067.Xml
Chandrashekhar alias Ravana, head of Bhim Sena, a regional caste based outfit working for Dalits, has been taken on a transit remand and is being brought to Uttar Pradesh, a police officer here said.

A cash reward of Rs 12,000 was placed on his head. Chandrashekhar is accused of inciting clashes between Dalits and Thakurs in Saharanpur, which led to violence later and claimed a few lives.

He had a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against him and had been in hiding. Political parties have been accusing each other of patronising Chandrashekhar.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati has alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was using the Bhim Sena leader to bait Dalits against her party.

The BJP, however, rebutted the charges and said it was an offshoot of the BSP and Mayawati, worried of her slipping vote base, was using Chandrashekhar to defame the Yogi Adityanath government in the state.

Chandrashekhar was named the prime accused by the police on May 9, alleging he led a violent attack on a police station, vandalised government property, set afire many cars and bikes, and attacked the police.

--IANS md/pgh/vt

( 228 Words)

2017-06-08-13:42:20 (IANS)
The Delhi BJP today staged a protest outside Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence against the alleged power and water crisis in the region.The protest was led by Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, where a large number of party volunteers and other leaders gathered and raised slogans against the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government. The police personnel used water canon to control the crowd.The BJP protest against the AAP government comes close on the heels of the latter being charged with alleged corruption by former Minister Kapil Mishra. Mr Kejriwal had made an announcement that Lt Governor Anil Baijal has agreed that power distribution companies should compensate for unscheduled power cuts.UNI DS RJ 1324 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926249.Xml
Over 1,000 exhibitors from the country and abroad are scheduled to participate in the three-day long mega textile events, the largest in the world ,to be held at Gandhinagar in Gujarat from June 30to July 2 next. Trade Advisor to Union Textile Ministry Aditi Das Rout told newspersons here today that international exhibitors from the UK, the USA, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, Turkey, Australia, ASEAN and BIMSTEC countries will exhibit their products in the three-day event being organized by the Union Textile Ministry. Ms Das Rout told newspersons here that while Assam and Andhra Pradesh would be the partners states, Maharashtra and Jharkhand would be the focus states. When asked why despite its rich repository of handloom and handicrafts Odisha did not find a place in the list of partner of focus states, she said the Union government has written to all states including Odisha to participate in the mega event as partner or focus state but there was no response from Odisha till today. Ms Das Rout said she would meet some people in the state government and would discuss about it. But she did not disclose the name of the person /minister/ or officer with whom she would meet. She said the mega event would be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 30 next and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is scheduled to grace the valedictory function. The event christened as Textiles India 2017 will have 2500 international buyers from 60 countries and 15,000 domestic visitors daily. Spread over 125,000 Sq metres the exhibition will showcase the rich heritage and modern diversified products in Handlooms, Handicrafts, Jute, Silk, Cotton and Wool and man made fibre. She said the main objective of the exhibition is to connect and collaborate with global manufacturers, investors, buyers and to explore opportunities and strength of textiles and apparel manufacturing in the country for global investors. Ms Das Rout said the exhibition will have 24 round table conference, cultural programmes, fashion shows, state session, B2 TO B2G and G2 TO G round tables by Industry Associations, councils and institutions. The international conference would hold discussion on six themesIndia as a Global sourcing hub and investment destination, exploring growth potential of technical textiles, productivity and product diversification challenges for natural fibres, skilling requirements in high value chain in the textile sector, carving a niche market world over for Indian handcrafted goods and potential for growth of man made fibre in India. Speakers from reputed institutions of the world would also speak on textilesand related issues in the seminar organized during the three-day event. She said India is the only country in the world which supply value chain from fiber to fashion. It exported textiles and apparel worth 40 billion US dollar in 2015-16 and figured in the second position in global textile exports.UNI BD-DP KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926464.Xml
Police fired tear gas cells after batons failed to quell violent GJM supporters after they torched four police vans and pelted stones on security personnel near Bhanu Bhawan close to Chowrasta even as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held her first cabinet meeting outside Kolkata today. Reports of sporadic violence poured in after the GJM supporters were lathi charged near Bhanu Bhawan whilst trying to break barricades on way to Raj Bhawan. The supporters, who were on sit-in-demonstration since 1230 hours, just two hours before the scheduled Cabinet meeting at Raj Bhawan, became violent when they were prevented from moving towards it, the venue of the Cabinet meeting. Pitched battles between the baton held riot police and GJM supporters were reported from different locations of the Darjeeling's Mall area forcing the tourists to flee for safety. Initial report said that at least four police vans parked near the Mall were set ablaze forcing the police to fire tear gas cells. The latest report said police cordoned off the entire Raj Bhawan where all the cabinet ministers, headed by CM Mamata Banerjee, and top IAS and IPS officials were stationed.UNI XC-PC KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926534.Xml
Police fired tear gas cells after batons failed to quellviolent GJM supporters after they torched four police vans and pelted stoneson security personnel near Bhanu Bhawan close to Chowrasta even asWest Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held her first cabinet meetingoutside Kolkata today. Reports of sporadic violence poured in after the GJM supporters werelathi charged near Bhanu Bhawan whilst trying to break barricades on way toRaj Bhawan. The supporters, who were on sit-in-demonstration since 1230 hours, justtwo hours before the scheduled Cabinet meeting at Raj Bhawan, becameviolent when they were prevented from moving towards it, the venue of theCabinet meeting. Pitched battles between the baton held riot police and GJM supporterswere reported from different locations of the Darjeeling's Mall area forcingthe tourists to flee for safety. Initial report said that at least four police vans parked near the Mall wereset ablaze forcing the police to fire tear gas cells. The latest report said police cordoned off the entire Raj Bhawan whereall the cabinet ministers, headed by CM Mamata Banerjee, and top IAS andIPS officials were stationed.UNI XC-PC KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926564.Xml
A security blanket was thrown around the Raj Bhawan here today in view of the Mamata Banerjee's government's maiden Cabinet meeting in the Hills and GJM's protest demonstrations against the government's proposed imposition of Bengali as the third language in the state. Bimal Gurung's Gorkha Janmukti Morcha is opposing the study of Bengali from classes I to X. Gurung had intensified protests across the hills and even raised the separate state issue for Gorkhas. He announced a sit-in demonstration in front of the Gorkha Ranga Mancha Bhawan, barely 100 metres from the Raj Bhawan. The state Cabinet meet, headed by Ms Banerjee, began at 2 pm. "We have decided many protest rallies from the Batasia Loop, Darjeeling Railway Station and Singamari. They will converge in front of the Gorkha Ranga Mancha Bhawan where the protestors will be staging a two-hour long sit in demonstration," Mr Gurung said. Taking no chances, the district administration tightened security rings. The law enforcing agencies, including the CRPF, is anticipating trouble near the Chowrasta, an elevated road thronged by tourists. The sit-in demonstration was scheduled for two hours from 12.30 pm. The TMC Government's first Cabinet meeting in the Hills and Gurung's tough posture has thrown up the inevitable question of "who will lord over the Hills". Ms Banerjee insisted that her government, in a bid to decentralise the administration, had decided to hold four Cabinets meetings (two each) in Darjeeling and Jangalmahal in the tribal Santhal Parganas so that development works were equally distributed across the state. The GJM, however, insisted that this was a ploy of the TMC government to wrest power from the hills party by dividing the hills communities with the creation of several community development boards and weaken the GJM-ruled Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA). It wondered why was the government spending crores of rupees by holding the Cabinet meeting here. Instead the amount could have been spent for the development of the Hills. "For now we want a clear cut direction from the Cabinet that Bengali language would not be imposed in the Hills and status quo maintained," the GJM leader said. Ms Banerjee, however, had clarified that the language would only be the third option.UNI XC-PC PL -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926577.Xml
The two-year-old daughter of a professor of Assam University, Silchar, remained untraced for four days even as police continued intensive investigation to find the missing child. ADGP Mukesh Agarwal told reporters at Silchar that police are constantlymonitoring the case. He said, "We are on the job. We are following all leads to find the child safely." He added that it was premature to reveal whether any militant group wasinvolved in the incident or it was the handiwork of criminals. Subhamita alias Trisha (2), daughter of Shubhadeep Roy Chaudhury, a professor of the department of life science, and Shatabhisha Roy Chaudhaury, a medical officer of the Assam University was abducted from their quarters on June 5 last. Police had revealed that Trisha was last seen with her caretaker Rambha Bakti alia Neha (20), boarding a white colour Maruti in front of the quarter. The father of the missing child, who was away at Slovakia on an official visit, has returned to Silchar following the incident. Eight suspects have so far been detained by police in the case.UNI SG KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926585.Xml
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee toady said students of the Hills can study whatever they want. '' Bengali has not been made compulsory', '' Ms Banerjee said adding, '' None can stop good work from happening. '' She said the people of the Hills have been neglected for a long time and added, " We want development of the Hills." After holding a Cabinet meetings here, Ms Banerjee said, " The people of the Hills are very nice; we want development of the Hills. " Speaking to mediapersons, she said, '' From now on, every year, four Cabinet meetings would be held outside Kolkata two in the Hills and two in Jangalmahal. '' '' Today is a historic day the first Cabinet meeting in the Hills was held today, ''the Chief Minister said. Ms Banerjee said a secretariat like the Uttarkanya would be built in the Hills, to be named Tenzing Norgay Bhawan. The Chief Minister announced a polytechnic college would be built in Mirik anda Skill Development Centre would come up in Mirik, which would train 3,000 youths. A police commissionerate is being set up in Chandannagar; this was finalised today. The period for getting promotion in civil service has been decreased to every eight years, she announced. " We want that the people of the Hills to live well. We want that Jangalmahal keeps smiling, the whole of Bengal keeps smiling, " she said. " For 34 years nothing was done for the Hills. We should be given respect for the work we have re-started, " the chief minister said. " The people of the Hills want that we come back again and again, " she added.UNI BM SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926889.Xml
The supporters of the CPI-M andOdisha Krushan Sabha marched in a rally from the Bhubaneswar Railway stationand held a demonstration at lower PMG area against the killing of farmers.

They condemned the killing ofagitating farmers and appealed to people to fight against anti-farmer policy ofthe BJP government in Madhya Pradesh ledby Shivraj Singh Chowhan.

The CPM also protested againstthe attempts of two allegedly RSSactivists to attack Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechury while he wasaddressing a press conference at the central party office yesterday.UNI BD DP SJC

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At least 50 police personnel, including DIG, North Bengal, Rajesh Yadav, were injured in stone pelting by the GJM supporters, who went on a rampage torching over 15 vehicles and seting afire a traffic outpost in Darjeeling town today, immediately after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee completed her first ever Cabinet meeting in the Hills, outside the state capital Kolkata. Meanwhile, Bimal Gurung-led GJM called 12-hour Darjeeling Hills shutdown tomorrow, party assistant secretary Binay Tamang announced. " The next course of action would be announced tomorrow, " he said after a GJM meeting at Bhanu Bhawan. The Chief Minister was now holding an emergencymeeting with the Chief Secretary and Home Secretary here to assess the situation. The situation was now under control, said a top officialhere in the hills. Ms Banerjee, who was scheduled to leave the hills tonight,has decided to stay in the Hills till the restoration of normalcy. Ms Banerjee also told the administration to ensure safe passageof all tourists. About 12,000 tourists were stranded. Meanwhile, of the 32 Cabinet Ministers who had come to attend themeeting, 28 have left the hills this evening with police escorts. An NBST bus plying between Darjeeling and Siliguri was torched near Mall, the main trouble spot where sporadic clashes between police and violent GJM supporters reported. Police fired several rounds of tear gas shells after lathicharge failed to quell the mob. The GJM said if the tourists wanted to go down ,they could go right now because 12-hour bandh will start tomorrow morning at 6 AM. Deployment of combat forces was being contemplated in Darjeelingafter scores of policemen sustained stone injuries. The injured included one DIG, one DSP, an ASP and one woman police constable. Meanwhile, Ms Banerjee said, '' Students of the Hills can study whatever they want. Bengali has not been made compulsory. '' '' None can stop good work from happening. The people of the Hills have been neglected for a long time. We want development of the Hills, " she stated. After holding a Cabinet meetings here, Ms Banerjee said, " The people of the Hills are very nice; we want development of the Hills. " Pls : Pick up suitably from earlier series.UNI XC-PC SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-926987.Xml
Meghalaya Governor Banwarilal Purohit today summoned the specialsession of the state assembly to meet on June 12. The special Assemblysession will witness the passage of the draftMeghalaya Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill , which was approved by the statecabinet on June 5. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma said the draft bill had beenapproved by the cabinet and would be introduced in the Assembly for passage. The state GST bill would provide forlevying and collecting tax by the states on inter-state supply of goods orservices. UNI RRK SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-927023.Xml
Union Road Transport and Waterways Minister Nitin Gadkari today said that Ganga waterways would be the growth engine for development of Jharkhand and once developed the waterway would create direct and indirect employment for 1.5 lakh people. Addressing the people after inaugurating the Modi Fest at the Harmu Grounds here, he said the length of national highways has been substantially increased in the country while during the UPA only 2 kms of roads were being constructed in a day during the BJP rule on an average 23 kms of roads are being built in the country. He said, this year the central government has set a target to issue tenders for building 16,800 kms of NH in the country. He said, during a meet with the world bank officials in London they said if such length of roads are constructed in a year then the name would be in registered in the Guiness Book of World Records. Mr Gadkari said before the NDA government came into power, the length of NH in the state was 2,402 kms which has been decided to increase to 5,390 kms. He said, in the next five years these NH projects would be completed over which an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore would be made. He said, work on Ranchi-Jamshedpur NH has been on since the previous governments but unfortunately the banks stepped backwards and now the central government has provided Rs 400 crore to the NHAI so the road can be completed by December next year. Apart from that work was also on Barhi-Hazaribagh and Mahulia-Behragora roads. The Union Minister said that the flyover in Ratu Road has been approved and he would be coming for the foundation laying for that flyover. He said, once the Ganga waterways are developed and terminal constructed at Sahibganj, Jharkhand would be linked with Burma and Bangladesh. He asked the Chief Minister to provide 5,000 acres of land so that Sahibganj can be developed as smart city. He said once the waterway becomes operational the cost of cooking oil would be reduced and cost of other items would also be reduced.MORE UNI AK AKM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-927063.Xml
Fifteen Naxalites who were killed last month in anti-Naxal operation in Sukma were members of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), said Devendra Chouhan; Inspector General (IG), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), on Thursday. Addressing a press conference here, Chouhan said that an audio clip released by a top Naxal leader named Vikalp has now confirmed that 15 Maoists killed in an anti-Naxal operation between May 12 and May 16 were actually members of the PLGA. "The security forces launched an anti-Naxal operation between May 12, 2017 and May 16 in Sukma district. The operation by the CRPF COBRA, District Reserve Group (DRG) and local police killed at least 15 Naxalites but their bodies were not recovered," said Chouhan, adding that "the security forces gauged the number of the killed Naxalites on the basis of blood stains and intercept of seized wireless sets". He added that "initially the Naxalites rebuffed the security forces' claim but now a top Maoist, Vikalp, in an audio tape has admitted that their 15 associates were killed between May 11 and May 16. Though, he claimed that these encounters were fake and the killed ones were innocent adivasis". The CRPF IG said that Maoists' accusation is false as "the journalists who visited the areas where anti-Naxal operation was launched have come to know that the security forces didn't kill any villager". (ANI)
Deputy Commissioner of Police Bhisham Singh said 25-year-old Rohit, a local resident, was arrested from Samaypur Badli area earlier in the week.

Singh said that one country-made pistol and two live cartridges were seized from Rohit's possession.

Rohit is accused in a number of cases of killings in gangwars and committing car thefts in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

Police laid a trap to catch Rohit on June 4, after receiving a tip-off that he would come near Hanuman Mandir area in Badli, and he was arrested after a brief scuffle.

Rohit, a resident of Najafgarh area of Delhi, had studied up to Class XII and had been involved in criminal activities since Class XI.

First he was a member of "Neetu Dabodhia" gang but switched loyalties to "Ashok Pradhan" gang, police said.

Rahul had killed a rival gangster in police custody in Jhajjar court complex and another rival at a "Ragini Competition" (music contest) in Barahi of Haryana.

He was also involved in a murderous attempt on Secretary of a jewellers' association in Agra, who was under police protection.

Police of Delhi and Haryana had been hunting fir Rohit for the last three years in different states of India.

Police said that efforts were being made now to nab absconding gang leader Ashok Pradhan.

--IANS nkh/nir/dg

( 252 Words)

2017-06-08-21:28:16 (IANS)
Following the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's (GJM) 12-hour strike against proposal to make Bengali language compulsory in government schools, the North Bengal State Transport Corporation will now run buses from Siliguri to Kolkata, every two hours from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. "The Bagdogra Airport to remain open from 5 a.m. onward to allow passengers inside terminal building," Bagdogra Airport Director, R. Sahay said. Two Army columns have been deployed in the town on the request of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to maintain law and order situation. Each column consists an officer, two JCOs and 40 jawans. The Chief Minister took the decision to seek Centre's help in an emergency meeting held at Rajbhawan in which 30 ministers and delegates, including Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee, participated. The meeting was convened following the violent protests across Darjeeling earlier in the day after Mamata announced that Bengali would be compulsorily taught to students up to class 10 in schools. Police vehicles and a government bus were set afire and the police were attacked with stones and bottles by the GJM protesters. A protest rally was taken out by the protesters only 100 metres away from the venue of the meeting. The protesters shouted slogans and burnt effigies of the chief minister. The GJM has announced 12-hour bandh against the State government's move. The GJM has been demanding Nepali as a language instead of Bengali or can accept Hindi, but is strictly against the making of Bengali mandatory in all schools across the state. (ANI)
Army was today deployed in the Hills of Darjeeling following violent GJM agitations in which some 50 police personnel were injured, 15 vehicles torched and a police post was burned down near the Mall (Chowrasta) earlier this afternoon. Official sources said that a company of Army personnel began patrolling around the Mall (Chowrasta), in and around Raj Bhawan and Bhanu Bhawan tonight. The gun-held army arrived from Jalapahar after the state administration sought the help of Military after some 50 police personnel sustained stone pelting injuries. DIG, North Bengal, Rajesh Yadav were injured among others after the GJM supporters, who also torched over 15 vehicles and set on fire a traffic outpost in Darjeeling town today, immediately after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee completed her first ever Cabinet meeting in the Hills, outside the state capital Kolkata. Meanwhile, Bimal Gurung led GJM called 12-hour Darjeeling Hills shut tomorrow, party assistant secretary Binay Tamang announced. " The next course of action would be announced tomorrow," he added after a GJM meeting at Bhanu Bhawan. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee was now holding an emergency meeting with chief secretary and home secretary here to assess the situation. The situation was now under control, said a top officialhere in the hills. Ms Banerjee, who was scheduled to leave the hills tonight, has decided to stay in the Hills till the restoration of normalcy. Ms Banerjee also told the administration to ensure safe passage of all tourists. About 12,000 tourists stranded. Meanwhile, of the 32 Cabinet minsters had come to attend the meeting, of them 28 have left the hills this evening with police escorts. An NBST bus ply between Darjeeling and Siliguri was torched near Mall, the main trouble spot where sporadic clashes between the police and violent GJM supporters reported. Police fired several rounds of tear gas cells after lathicharge failed to quell the mob. The GJM said that if the tourists wanted to go down then can go right now because 12-hour bandh to being tomorrow morning at 0600 hrs. Deployment of combat forces were being contemplated in Darjeeling after scores of policemen sustained stoned injuries. Of the one DIG, one DSP and an ASP and one of the woman police constable. The GJM supporters attacked them after torching scores of vehicles, a traffic post near Chowrasta. Pls pick from earlier series. UNI XC-PC AKM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0213-927206.Xml
Cutting edge technology sheds fresh light on world's first scientifically-described dinosaur, Megalosaurus, thanks to research by WMG at the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford's Museum of Natural History. Professor Mark Williams at WMG has revealed five previously unseen teeth in the jawbone of the Megalosaurus and that historical repairs on the fossil may have been less extensive than previously thought. Using state of the art CT scanning technology and specialist 3D analysis software, Professor Williams took more than 3000 X-ray images of the world-famous Megalosaurus jawbone, creating a digital three-dimensional image of the fossil. In an unprecedented level of analysis, Professor Williams at WMG was able to see inside the jawbone for the first time, tracing the roots of teeth and the extent of different repairs. Some damage occurred to the specimen when it was removed from the rock, possibly shortly after it was discovered. Records at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History suggest that some restoration work may have been undertaken by a museum assistant between 1927 and 1931, while repairing the specimen for display - but there are no details about the extent of the repairs or the materials used. The scans have revealed previously unseen teeth that were growing deep within the jaw before the animal died - including the remains of old, worn teeth and also tiny newly growing teeth. The scans also show the true extent of repairs on the fossil for the first time, revealing that there may have been at least two phases of repair, using different types of plaster. This new information will help the museum make important decisions about any future restoration work on the specimen. This research was made possible through a collaboration between Professor Williams' research group at WMG, University of Warwick - including PhD researcher Paul Wilson - and Professor Paul Smith, director of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Professor Williams commented: "Being able to use state-of-the-art technology normally reserved for aerospace and automotive engineering to scan such a rare and iconic natural history specimen was a fantastic opportunity. "When I was growing up I was fascinated with dinosaurs and clearly remember seeing pictures of the Megalosaurus jaw in books that I read. Having access to and scanning the real thing was an incredible experience." The Megalosaurus jawbone is on display at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History alongside other bones from the skeleton. Megalosaurus - which means 'Great Lizard' - was a meat-eating dinosaur which lived in the Middle Jurassic, around 167 million years ago. It would have been about 9 metres long and weighed about 1.4 tonnes (1400 kg). The research was recently presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)'s International Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference in Torino, Italy. (ANI)
After screening a record 18,000 applications, the US space agency has finally picked 12 astronaut candidates -- its largest astronaut class since 2000 -- and Indian-American Raja Chari, a Lieutenant Colonel with the US Air Force, has bagged a most sought-after seat. If all goes well, Chari may become the third person of Indian origin from the US after the late Kalpana Chawla and current NASA astronaut Sunita 'Suni' Williams to fly to space. Shawna Pandya, a Canada-born neurosurgeon, is also in the race to go on a space mission with NASA after being shortlisted under its 2018 Citizen Science Astronaut (CSA) programme earlier this year. The selected 12 - seven men and five women -- will be trained for missions into the Earth orbit and conduct key research for deep space missions, including Mars. The term astronaut candidate refers to individuals who have been selected for the NASA astronaut corps and are currently undergoing a training programme at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Chari, who will report for duty in August this year, graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1999 with bachelor's degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science. Hailing from the state of Iowa, he earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School as well as from US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chari was raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He is married to Holly Schaffter Chari, also a Cedar Falls native, and the couple have three children. Chari is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight time in F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18, including F-15E combat missions in 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula. Chari has been awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defense Service Medal and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal, among other citations. After a two-year training like other candidates, Chari will be assigned technical duties in the NASA Astronaut Office till he gets a flight assignment. On Wednesday, US Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders as they introduced the members of the 2017 astronaut class during an event at the agency's Johnson Space Center. "These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery and who I know will inspire our children and our grandchildren every bit as much as your forebears have done so in this storied American programme," said Pence. "And to this newest class of astronauts, it's my honour to bring the sincere congratulations of the 45th President of the US, Donald Trump. Your President is proud of you, and so am I," the Vice President added. The astronaut could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including performing research on the International Space Station (ISS), launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies and departing for deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. "We look forward to the energy and talent of these astronauts fueling our exciting future of discovery," said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot in a statement. "Between expanding the crew on board the space station to conduct more research than ever before, and making preparations to send humans farther into space than we've ever been, we are going to keep them busy," he said. With the addition of these 12 members, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959. "These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations," said Ellen Ochoa, astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director. The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot. --IANS rt/na/vt ( 696 Words) 2017-06-08-13:02:19 (IANS)
According to Xinhua, the bill includes two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military officer training cooperation.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday expressed disapproval of the sanctions imposed on Qatar by several Arab countries.

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AKP Party and nationalist opposition MHP.

The new move appears to support Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, claiming it of "terrorism support."

--IANS ahm/

( 176 Words)

2017-06-08-04:58:19 (IANS)
A restaurant booth, a candlelit dinner and presumably some Secret Service right outside the door - the most talked-about international date night of the modern diplomatic era had every romantic element the Trudeau-Obama fandom could ever dream of.

The icing on the cake was that the photogenic pair even shared a long embrace at the end of the evening.

Obama has been succeeded in the White House by President Donald Trump, with whom Trudeau so far appears to have less chemistry.

Obama's scheduled speech in Montreal gave him and Trudeau an opportunity to reunite and talk policy goals. (ANI)
Malaysian anti-graft investigators began collecting documents at the headquarters of Felda Global Ventures Holdings (FGV) today in their probe of corruption and abuse of power at the world's third-largest palm oil company.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is looking into several officials at FGV, following the suspension of the firm's chief executive officer, chief financial officer and two other executives earlier this week.A MACC spokesman said the anti-graft agency was at FGV's offices in Kuala Lumpur "to collect supporting documents" following a meeting with FGV Chief Executive Zakaria Arshad on Wednesday.The investigators could seize laptops and computers as well, he said, declining to give details on what was discussed with Zakaria.An FGV source, requesting anonymity, said MACC officials also want to meet chairman Mohd Isa Abdul Samad at the company's offices.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Isa said he was willing to meet the anti-corruption investigators if asked. He added that FGV was continuing its own investigation into a transaction with a subsidiary that led to the suspensions of the FGV executives.Isa was a former chief minister of Negeri Sembilan state and a former vice-president of Malaysia's ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation.PRIME MINISTER STEPS IN Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's office stepped into the boardroom spat yesterday, asking a former cabinet minister to look into the suspension of FGV's top executives.Turmoil at FGV -- whose biggest shareholder is the state-owned Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) -- could hurt Najib, who government sources say is expected to call elections later this year. FGV's shareholders, many of them small landowners, form a key vote bank for Najib's ruling alliance in battleground states.Felda "settlers", or land owners, are the majority voters in at least 54 of the 222 seats in the parliament. They own shares in FGV, which raised over $3 billion in one of the world's biggest listings of 2012.The shares have dropped 70 percent since that stock market launch, hurting settlers. They have also complained about delayed payments from Felda, which buys the palm fruit the settlers produce in their land.FGV's shares fell 0.6 percent on Thursday to 1.65 ringgit per share, valuing the company at 5.91 billion ringgit ($1.39 billion). The shares have lost about 6 percent of their value since Tuesday's suspension of the top executives.The FGV board has said a deal with Dubai-based palm oil buyer Safitex was at the heart of the company's internal investigation and Safitex owes an FGV unit about $11.7 million as of 2016.The FGV crisis unfolded on Tuesday when CEO Zakaria's letter to the chairman, stating his refusal to step down as instructed by the chairman, was leaked.FGV's board then suspended Zakaria and three others. The CEO has denied wrongdoing and called on MACC to conduct its own investigation into FGV, but did not provide any details.REUTERS SV 1032 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926045.Xml
A leading candidate for Mongolia's presidency has called for greater state control of projects like the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine run by Rio Tinto, making mining and foreign investment central issues in the election campaign.The landlocked North Asian country of three million people goes to the polls on June 26, just a month after securing a $5.5 billion International Monetary Fund-led bailout to lift the economy out of a balance of payments crisis.Campaigning began on Tuesday, and painful austerity measures agreed by the Mongolian People's Party (MPP), which runs the government but doesn't hold the presidency, have made an easy target for rivals, as have controversies over deals done with foreign mining companies.The presidential election in the former Soviet satellite, wedged between China and Russia, comes amid growing frustration among voters over suspected corruption and the perceived ineffectiveness of their governments.Under Mongolia's parliamentary democracy, the MPP government's term should run for another three years, but its policies could be challenged by a president with veto powers.The outgoing president Tsakhia Elbegdorj belongs to the Democratic Party, but has to step down having served a maximum two terms.The Democratic Party's new candidate Khaltmaa Battulga, a martial arts star turned business tycoon, opened his campaign with a call for greater government control over the economy and the country's mineral resources."Our political environment is very unstable, so our big development policy won't go forward. Because of that, we can't solve unemployment or poverty," Battulga told CI Television in an interview posted on the network's official Facebook account late on Tuesday."The government should hire experts and take control of everything, including Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi," he said.His comments could send shudders through Rio Tinto, which owns 66 percent of Oyu Tolgoi, and scare off private companies that might be interested in forming strategic partnerships at the giant, fully state-owned Tavan Tolgoi coal mine.Oyu Tolgoi LLC, the Mongolia-based company that runs the project, declined to comment. Rio Tinto did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Dale Choi, analyst and head of the Altan Bumba Financial Group, said the Mongolian government did not have a good record when it came to managing its assets."Most of the SOEs are loss making businesses, and even those that pay some of the highest taxes to Mongolia are not efficient businesses," he said.RUN OFF LIKELYThe ruling MPP candidate Mieygombo Enkhbold, has called for continued "stability", while the government struggles to introduce economic reforms having already raised some taxes and cut spending as part of the IMF bailout deal.Asked for Enkhbold's position on the mining sector, an MPP spokesman forwarded a statement setting out the party's support for the further development of big mining projects "based on the fundamental interests of our people."Nationalist politicians have repeatedly called for greater Mongolian control over Oyu Tolgoi, which is forecast to become the world's third-largest copper producer when output peaks at 550,000 tonnes in 2025, up fourfold from this year.A third party candidate Sainkhuu Ganbaatar, who is expected to win enough votes to force Mongolia's first-ever second round presidential election run-off, has continued his hardline stance when it comes to Mongolia's ownership of its resources."The Mongolian people in Mongolia are the real master. This means that Mongolians are the deciders of their natural resources," he said in his manifesto.Attempts to renegotiate ownership and a long dispute over taxes and cost overruns led to the suspension of construction on the underground tunnels at Oyu Tolgoi in 2013, and also scared off investment for other projects.Construction on the project was relaunched after the signing of a new agreement that ended the dispute in 2015.During its first phase, the open pit mine had already contributed more than $1 billion in taxes and other payments to the government by 2015, while local businesses and suppliers had earned some $4 billion from the project, according to the International Finance Corporation. REUTERS SV 1156 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926155.Xml
China called today for all parties to exercise restraint and take action to stabilise the situation after North Korea fired what appeared to be several land-to-ship missiles off its east coast.Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comments at a daily news briefing in Beijing. REUTERS SV 1253 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926230.Xml
Italian banks are considering assisting in a rescue of troubled lenders Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca by pumping 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) of private capital into the two regional banks, sources familiar with the matter said.The Italian government plans to lead the rescue but EU competition authorities have requested a private capital injection as a condition to approve the bailout. The two banks need 6.4 billion euros in capital.Italian banks, which have already pumped 3.4 billion euros into the two ailing rivals, had said until now that they would not stump up more money.However, one source said on Thursday the banks were aware that it would be much more costly for them if the two Veneto-based banks were to be wound down. In that event, the healthier lenders would need to top up a depositors' protection fund.The plan has the backing of some leading Italian banks but the participation of the entire banking system is seen as essential, the source said. Each bank would take part based on the size of its deposits.REUTERS SV -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926257.Xml
When Nwe Nwe Oo left Myanmar's restive Rakhine State for the commercial hub of Yangon with a $590 government stipend in her pocket, she hoped to escape persecution against minority Muslims and start a new life.Two months on the 50-year-old widow, who had lived in the rundown camp for displaced people since Rakhine was roiled by communal violence in 2012, has already spent more than half of the money to rent a room of 8 square metres (86 sq ft). With few job prospects and high living costs, she struggles to feed her two daughters in a strange city 500 km (310 miles) from home."What do we eat after the money runs out? We are all very worried. I can't find a job here," said Nwe Nwe Oo. The family is dependent on her elder daughter who earns $88 a month in a tea factory.The authorities began shuttering her small camp in the town of Ramree in April, the start of a push by Aung San Suu Kyi's government to close down all such camps in Rakhine within five years, following a recommendation from a commission led by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan.Humanitarian experts back the eventual closure of the camps but criticise the way the government has begun the task, which they say sets a worrying precedent for the handling of much larger camps elsewhere in Rakhine where tens of thousands of people still live.Without more efforts to bring peace and stability to Rakhine, "by closing camps one will simply be transferring the problem to another place," said Mark Cutts, Head of U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Myanmar.Nwe Nwe Oo had little choice in moving to Yangon. The authorities said it was not safe for the 128 Muslim residents of the camp in Ramree, a coastal town in southern Rakhine, to remain in the town, where they had lived before the violence."We don't have enough police force to prevent conflict happening again," said Min Aung, spokesman of the Rakhine State government. "That's why we allow them to relocate to other places as they want to."OFFICIALLY RECOGNISEDNwe Nwe Oo's family belongs to the Kaman Muslim minority, who, unlike the more numerous Rohingya Muslims from northern Rakhine, have Myanmar citizenship and are officially recognised as an ethnic group.The homes of Kamans in Ramree were burned in the clashes between Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists in 2012 that killed nearly 200 and displaced tens of thousands in the state."The new government helped us move to Yangon, but what we hoped for was to return to our homeland. I don't know whether that will ever happen," Nwe Nwe Oo told Reuters.She was among nearly 100 Kaman Muslims from the camp who since April were offered bus fares, air tickets as well as additional modest financial support if they chose to leave the Buddhist-majority area.The OCHA's Cutts said the Ramree Kamans told U.N. staff they were not allowed to go back to their original land and were given no viable options other than to leave.In contrast to the Kaman Muslims, the government in April resettled nearly 300 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, displaced in the same conflict, to 65 houses in the neighbouring Kyauk Pyu area, local officials, residents and OCHA officials said. Each family was offered about $294 to settle in their newly-built homes with water, electricity and drainage systems.Rights groups say that if the Kaman were not allowed to return to their places of origin, there is little prospect of a workable solution for the 120,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims still living in camps in Rakhine."If the government can't facilitate the safe and voluntary return of the Kaman, a group they officially recognise as citizens, what hope is there for the Rohingya?" said Amnesty International researcher Laura Haigh.NO GOING BACKKaman residents said apartheid-like conditions in Ramree, where some bus drivers refuse to carry Muslims, give them little chance of finding a job or a good education for their children in the Buddhist-majority town of 97,000."I really love my homeland, but I will face so many problems if I stay," said 55-year-old Tin Hla, a father-of-four and one of the last remaining residents of the camp, who is planning to move to Yangon this month.Some former residents, though, remain hopeful that the closure of the camp will improve their daily lives.Back in the Yangon suburb, another recently arrived Kaman Muslim, 28-year-old Kyaw Soe Moe, anxiously awaited the outcome of a job interview with a construction material company.While life in the country's largest city could be tough, the newly-arrived man said it's an improvement compared with the days in the Ramree camp, where their movements were restricted and job prospects bleak."At least there's freedom here," he said. REUTERS SV 1342 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926307.Xml
The president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has sent condolences to his Iranian counterpart after at least 13 people were killed in militant attacks on Iran's parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran.The unprecedented assault in the highly controlled Shi'ite Muslim country was claimed by the Sunni militant Islamic State group. Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed regional Sunni rival Saudi Arabia, a UAE ally. Riyadh denied involvement.The UAE state news agency WAM said President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan had condemned "the horrific crime"."His Highness Sheikh Khalifa expressed his sincere condolences to the Iranian people and the families of the victims, wishing the injured a speedy recovery," the message to President Hassan Rouhani said, according to WAM.Tensions have been rising between conservative US-allied Gulf Arab states, including the UAE, and non-Arab Iran over accusations that Tehran is meddling in the affairs of its Arab neighbours, a charge the Islamic Republic denies.Riyadh and Tehran vie for predominance in the Gulf and influence in the wider Islamic world. The attacks in Tehran came days after Riyadh and other Sunni Muslim powers cut ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing Tehran and militant groups.REUTERS SV 1343 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926310.Xml
Bahrain's foreign minister, keeping up the pressure on Qatar in a deepening Arab row, reiterated today a demand that Doha distance itself from Iran and stop support for "terrorist organisations".Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and several other countries severed relations with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran - charges Qatar says are baseless. In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said conditions posed by the four countries for a resolution of the crisis were "crystal clear"."Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy, Iran," he said."It has to realise its interests are with us, not with another country that conspires against us, wants to dominate and divide us. It has to stop supporting terrorist organisations, Sunni or Shi'ite, and its policy has to be for the benefit of its people."In an earlier interview with the Saudi newspaper Makkah on Wednesday, Sheikh Khalid said he appreciated Kuwaiti mediation to resolve the dispute but that all options were open for his country to protect itself from Doha.In some of the strongest comments related to those efforts by a senior Gulf Arab official, Sheikh Khalid told the newspaper he doubted whether Qatar would change its behaviour.Kuwait's ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber al-Sabah, travelled from the UAE to Qatar on Wednesday after visiting Saudi Arabia the day before to try to resolve the crisis.REUTERS SV 1352 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0103-926329.Xml
A police spokesperson confirmed the accident on Thursday, saying that the driver had failed to negotiate a curve leading to him losing control of the bus and hitting a tree before overturning.

According to local media reports, the driver failed to negotiate a curve as he might have been speeding. (ANI)
Voting was underway across the UK in a snap general election on Thursday as the nation is set to elect a new Prime Minister ahead of negotiations over Britain's exit from the European Union slated to begin on June 19. The election will have a big impact on how the country negotiates its exit from the European Union. Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and they will close at 10 p.m. with the first result -- likely to be Houghton and Sunderland South which has been quickest at the last five elections -- expected to declare just one hour later at 11 p.m., The Telegraph reported. Prime Minister Theresa May, along with her husband Philip, cast her vote at a polling station in the town of Sonning, in her parliamentary constituency Maidenhead, which she has represented since 1997, Efe news reported. May made no comment to the media after exercising her franchise. Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn greeted reporters as he arrived at Pakeman primary school in Holloway, north London, to cast his vote, the Guardian reported. He told the the media: "Thank you very much, all of you, for coming here today. It's a day of our democracy. I've just voted. I'm very proud of our campaign. Thank you very much." A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote. Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting. Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon cast her vote in Glasgow. May called the snap general election in April, when the ruling Conservative Party held a working majority in the British House of Commons of just 17 seats and had a lead of over 10 percentage points suggested by some surveys. But the Conservatives' lead over the opposition Labour Party narrowed to a single digit after weeks of campaign, which has made the battle for 10 Downing Street unpredictable. To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats. --IANS soni/dg ( 343 Words) 2017-06-08-20:42:20 (IANS)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 01:01:04|Editor: yan

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SKOPJE, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Macedonia's new Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said Wednesday in an interview that Macedonia's state treasury has only 6 million euros (6.7 million U.S. dollars) while the public debt has topped over 50 percent of GDP, reaching around 1 billion euros.

According to Zaev, it is important to tell the public here that the new government didn't find 130 million euros at the treasury coffers as the previous government led by Nikola Gruevski claimed.

"Public debt has exceeded every limit and is now over 50 percent of GDP. Soon, the minister of finance will come out with a report," Zaev said, noting that he possessed documents which showed Macedonia's debts amount to around 1 billion euros.

But after the publication of such statements, ex-prime minister, head of VMRO-DPMNE party Nikola Gruevski rejected Zaev's declarations, saying that he was deceiving the people.

"Zaev lied because the truth is that the new government led by SDSM had 130 million euros in the treasury, unless Zaev has made the other 124 million euros disappear in a mysterious way," VMRO-DPMNE said in a press statement Wednesday.

According to VMRO-DPMNE, the current Ministry of Finance paid 77 million euros for subsidies and pensions on June 5 what confirmed that SDSM-led government didn't find only 6 million euros as claimed.

Further on, VMRO-DPMNE said that Macedonia's public debt stands at the level of 45.9 percent and not 50 percent of GDP as the current government claimed. (1 euro=1.12 U.S. dollars)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 01:01:05|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned Wednesday two terror attacks in the capital Tehran, indicating that terrorism is a serious threat to global security.

"Terrorism is a global issue and it necessitates regional and international convergence to fight extremism, terrorism and violence," Rouhani said.

Also, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif condemned terror attacks in Tehran, saying that the "indiscriminate" terror attacks are threatening the Middle East and the rest of the world, Press TV reported.

Zarif urged collective work to address "very grave conditions that are prevailing the region," he was quoted as saying. "The entire region has become insecure."

At least 12 people died in the twin attacks by militants against Iran's parliament and Imam Khomeini Shrine in capital Tehran on Wednesday, Iran's Interior Ministry said in a statement.

An additional 42 people were injured in the terrorist attacks, the statement read.

In the meantime, all four assailants against the parliament and two against the Khomeini Shrine were killed.

One of the attackers on the parliament blasted his explosive belt and three others were shot dead by the security forces after about five hours siege that they laid on the gunmen's hideouts inside the parliament.

Also, out of two attackers on Khomeini Shrine, one blasted his explosive belt after shooting, the other was shot dead by the security guards.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry on Wednesday said that another terrorist team was busted before doing any operation in Tehran and some suspects were arrested.

Besides, the security deputy of Iran's Interior Ministry said that the terrorists had entered the parliament building in the women attire, according to official IRNA news agency.

However, after their incursion into the building, the security forces brought the situation under control and the terrorists had to flee to the upper floors of the building without doing any harm on the lawmakers, Hossein Zolfeghari was quoted as saying.

On Wednesday, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani downplayed a terrorist attack at parliament, saying it was a "minor issue".

"Today several coward terrorists penetrated into the parliament building and were dealt with seriously," Larijani was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

"This (terrorist) act is a minor issue" for the country, he said, adding that terrorists are seeking to create troubles for the country, which is actively fighting against terrorism.

In the meantime, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) vowed to retaliate the Wednesday deadly terrorist attacks in the capital.

On the day, the twin attacks were simultaneously carried out in Tehran at around 10:30 a.m. local time (0600 GMT).

The gunmen were equipped with AK-47 assault rifles, handguns and explosive belts.

According to the reports, the Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 01:16:14|Editor: MJ

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BRUSSELS, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday announced it launched a European defense Fund to boost defense capabilities.

The fund, with an estimated amount of 5.5 billion euros(6.2 billion U.S. dollars) per year after 2020, will coordinate EU member states' national investments in defense research and development.

The European Commission has already proposed 25 million euros (28 million U.S. dollars) for defense research as part of the 2017 EU budget.

It will propose a defense research program to make the EU one of the biggest defense research investors in Europe.

The fund would also act as a financial tool allowing participating member states to purchase certain assets together, such as helicopters and drones to reduce their costs.

European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said: "People across Europe are worried about their and their children's security. Complementing our cooperation with NATO, we need to do more and better ourselves."

"The fund will act as a catalyst for a strong European defense industry which develops cutting-edge, fully interoperable technologies and equipment," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 02:11:39|Editor: yan

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BUCHAREST, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Bulgaria and Romania have met the technical criteria for acceding to the Schengen Area, and the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) can't last forever, visiting Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zakharieva stated on Wednesday.

"Romania and Bulgaria's accession to Schengen is a security issue for the entire Europe, for all the European states, and we hope the political decision... will become a reality as soon as possible," said Zakharieva in a joint press conference with her Romanian counterpart Teodor Melescanu.

According to Zakharieva, the two neighboring countries have mutual interests in respect to the Schengen treaty and are fulfilling the technical criteria for the accession to the border-free area.

She stressed that Bulgaria and Romania must convince their European partners that the outcome of justice reforms is irreversible in the two countries, and the CVM, under which the progress with judiciary reform is gauged, can't last forever.

"The most important objective to us is completing the judiciary reforms in the two countries. This mechanism cannot last forever, ten years have passed already," stressed Zakharieva.

Schengen accession has been a long process for Romania and Bulgaria, whose entry into the border-free area has been constantly delayed since 2011, despite Bucharest and Sofia authorities' claims that they had done all the needed preparations.

Currently, citizens of the two countries are allowed visa-free entry into the Schengen zone and there are eased accesses to Romania and Bulgaria for Schengen visa holders, but the two European Union member countries are not full members of the Schengen system.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 02:52:14|Editor: MJ

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WASHINGTON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump offered to help Qatar and the other Gulf nations resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary, the White House said Wednesday.

In a telephone conversation with Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Trump reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability.

He also emphasized the importance of all countries in the region to work together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology, according to a White House statement.

The telephone talk came after a diplomatic row erupted between Qatar and the other Gulf nations. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. But Qatar has rejected the accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless."

On Tuesday, Trump seemed to claim credit for Gulf nations' decision to isolate Qatar, saying his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was "already paying off."

"They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" Trump said on Twitter.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the U.S. wants to see the diplomatic row between Qatar and the other Gulf nations "deescalated and resolved immediately."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 05:23:18|Editor: Liu

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ANKARA, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Germany readies withdrawal of its military installations in Turkey over a dispute about the latter's blocking of German parliamentarians' access to its soldiers in the key Incirlik Airbase.

The strain is the latest of series of disagreements between two NATO allies, but the move is significant as it would be the first time that a NATO member country has to withdraw its troops from another ally, and likely to deploy at a non-NATO country, a German official told Xinhua.

Ankara and Berlin have been at odds since two years ago over several issues, with the latest tension escalated after Germany accepted asylum claims from former high-ranking Turkish generals, who were also former NATO officials.

Turkey claimed that these generals had a direct hand in the failed coup attempt in July 2016. But Germany accepted the asylum by the Turkish officers for fear that they would not receive a fair trial in Turkey.

Turkey subsequently refused German lawmakers to access to Incirlik Airbase in southern of the country where hosts anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition members for military activities in Syria.

Germany has six Tornado surveillance planes, one tanker aircraft and around 250 troops deployed at the airbase providing intelligence and logistics support for anti-IS operations.

The refusal prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her CDU party to consider the possibility of moving the troops from Incirlik airbase in Adana province and the cabinet on Wednesday approved the withdrawal.

German Defense Minister Ursula Von Der Leyen has called his Turkish counterpart Fikri Isik on Wednesday and informed about German cabinet's decision, a Turkish official told Xinhua.

German Minister told Minister Isik that they were grateful Turkey for hosting German troops in Incirlik, but eventually they were obliged to take this decision and that will inform for plans of withdrawal, the official said.

Yet, German government is careful in its wording in order not to further harm bilateral relations with Turkey despite it had to withdraw troops which are likely to be deployed to Jordan as part of anti-IS coalition.

It is important that Germany and Turkey keep talking even after German troops leave the Incirlik air base, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

"We have a huge range of common interests with Turkey and also close economic relations, so discussions are very necessary," Merkel told reporters after her cabinet backed the withdrawal of troops from the base.

Making one last push to convince Ankara, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel held talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mevlut Cavusoglu on Monday, but he could only get Turkish consent for a visit to a base in Konya, where a few German soldiers were stationed as part of a NATO mission.

"I regret that. Conversely, I ask for understanding that we - for domestic political reasons - must transfer soldiers out of Incirlik, because the German parliament has a parliamentary army and places value on German lawmakers being able to visit Bundeswehr soldiers at any time," he said at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart.

Shortly after his remarks, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim had cancelled a planned meeting with Gabriel, citing a "busy work schedule."

Ankara considers that retreat of German military installations will not have serious consequences for Turkey.

On Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Germany could "remove its troops however it wants" and the decision has "nothing to do with Turkey." Withdrawal of German soldiers from Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey would be of little consequence, he stated.

It is not the first time that Ankara refused to allow German parliamentarians from visiting their troops at Incirlik. Turkey initially made this decision in retaliation against the adoption by the German parliament in June 2016 of a resolution referring to the killing of Armenians during the Ottoman era in 1915 as "genocide."

Tensions have also heightened ahead of an April 16 referendum for constitutional amendment, as Germany shut its doors to Turkish government members who wanted to campaign for nearly three million Turks living in the country.

President Erdogan resembled the decision of German authorities to "Nazi methods of the past" inflaming further anti-Turkey rhetoric in Germany.

Another source of tension between Berlin and Ankara is the latter's accusation that the German government fails to take necessary measures against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) activities in German territories, even blamed some German lawmakers who applied to visit their troops in Turkey of having links with group.

Germany, meanwhile, has been asking release of Deniz Yucel, a Turkish-German journalist who was arrested in February, yet Turkish authorities claim that he was not arrested because of his journalistic work, "but because of his links with terror organizations."

Ankara has already been facing the fallout from the dispute with Berlin. Germany reportedly has refused to a proposal by President Erdogan to host next year's NATO summit in Istanbul.

"Germany's moving out of the Turkish military base, for relocation in a non-NATO country, will be assessed and analyzed with regard to Turkey's commitments to the world's most important military alliance," according to Hurriyet Daily News columnist Serkan Demirtas.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 05:33:51|Editor: Yurou Liang

Armed police officers patrol near London Bridge after the terror attack took place on Saturday night in London, Britain on June 4, 2017. (Xinhua/UK OUT)

LONDON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- London's Metropolitan Police (Met) said Wednesday night that 25 people had been arrested in the capital for "hate crimes" since Saturday's terror attack on London Bridge.

"The Metropolitan Police has made 25 arrests for hate crime offences since Saturday," said Police Chief Superintendent Dave Stringer, head of community engagement at the Met.

Stringer said the Met has increased the number of specialist investigators across London's boroughs by 30 percent, with more than 900 members of the staff now dedicated to investigating hate crime and domestic abuse crimes.

"We have increased the number of officers on the streets and in communities to reassure local people that they are able to go about their daily lives in peace and without fear of harassment or intimidation," said the police officer.

He said dedicated police officers have also contacted places of worship in London to encourage people to report hate crimes and to reassure those who congregate there that the police will take hate crimes seriously.

The figures came as the death toll in the weekend attack rose to eight after the body of French tourist Xavier Thomas, 45, who had not been seen since the attack, was recovered from the River Thames Tuesday night.

Thomas is thought to have been thrown into the river as the hire vehicle driven by the terrorists ploughed into pedestrians with high speed.

Thomas was walking across London Bridge with his girlfriend Christine Delcros who was also hit by the vehicle. Delcros was badly injured in the attack and is now recovering in hospital after undergoing a two-hour operation to reset her shattered pelvis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 06:09:18|Editor: yan

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BAGHDAD, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Wednesday announced it has set a date to hold a referendum on independence on September 25, a move that expected to be opposed strongly by Baghdad central government.

Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdish region, announced the vote after a meeting with the Kurdish political parties in Arbil, the capital city of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, according to the Kurdish Rudaw media network.

The referendum will be held in the three provinces of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulamaniyah, in addition to the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Baghdad governments, which are currently under Kurdish military control, Rudaw quoted Hemin Hawrami, senior advisor to President Barzani, as saying.

"Referendum and independence are an inalienable and natural right, but it has to take place according to legal measures and within the context of the legitimate institutions and the Kurdistan parliament," Rebwar Hamad, the spokesperson of the Kurdish Islamic Party, told the Kurdish media.

So far, the Iraqi government has no reaction to the declaration and is expected to oppose the Kurdish move in protest to the timing as the Iraqi forces are in fighting against terrorism, including the Islamic State (IS) militant group, and because of the disputed areas outside the region.

Disagreements between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government have been high for years, as the ethnic Kurds consider the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arabs and Turkomans and by Baghdad government.

The Iraqi government will see the Kurdish move illegal, as the article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution calls for several steps to address the dispute over the ethically-mixed disputed areas, including a referendum.

However, problems raised among the conflicting ethnicities, as Arabs and Turkmen accuse the Kurds of carrying out demographic change in the disputed areas, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk in the years after 2003, while the Kurds are accusing Saddam Hussein's regime of displacing thousands of Kurds who were replaced with Arabs to make Kirkuk a predominantly Arab province.

On March 28, Kirkuk's council voted in raising the Kurdish flag alongside the Iraqi flag on the building of the provincial council despite the withdrawal of Arab and Turkoman council members, who argued that the move is a pre-decision that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan.

The independence of Kurdistan could be opposed also by neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran and Syria who will see that such a step would threaten their territorial integrity, as larger populations of Kurds live in those countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 08:00:03|Editor: MJ

Yemeni people from poor families who were affected by the ongoing crisis and unpaid salaries receive bread at a charity bakery, in Sanaa, Yemen, on June 7, 2017. The bakery, collecting money from rich, merchants and benefactors, distributes 7,000 bread to 700 families each day. According to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 14.12 million Yemenis are food insecure as of May. (Xinhua/Mohammed Mohammed)
The file photo taken on July 14, 2016 shows that U.S. FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Homeland Security Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C., capital of the United States. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

WASHINGTON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday released a statement from former FBI director James Comey, which revealed five exchanges between him and U.S. President Donald Trump since election day.

The seven page statement, which the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director was due to formally deliver in a hearing on Thursday, offered the accounts of three one-on-one meetings and two phone calls Comey had with Trump since this year.

The exchanges, which took place on January 6, January 27, February 14, March 30 and April 11, focused mainly on the FBI's ongoing investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign, in particular former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and Russia.

According to Comey's recollection, Trump has asked the FBI to stop its investigation on Flynn, who resigned in February after his inappropriate contacts with a Russian diplomat came to light.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," the statement quoted Trump as saying in the February 14 meeting.

Comey said he had replied that "he is a good guy", but did not say that he would "let this go."

Another request from Trump was for the FBI to clarify that he was not under investigation himself, to which Comey voluntarily confirmed in the meetings but was reluctant to make public.

"He described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country," the statement said of Trump in the March 30 phone call, adding that Trump had asked how to "lift the cloud".

During their dinner on January 27, Trump asked Comey for loyalty, to which Comey pledged honesty. The two men later agreed that Comey would give "honest loyalty" to Trump, despite Comey admitting later that "it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently."

Comey also said all of the records were made immediately after each exchanges based on Comey's memory, implying that there were no recordings on Comey's side.

The White House has said it would not exercise executive privilege to prevent Comey from testifying in front of Congress.
Lin Shanqing, Deputy Director of China's State Oceanic Administration, addresses the United Nations Ocean Conference at the UN headquarters in New York, June 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, June 7 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese official attending the UN Ocean Conference here on Wednesday called for enhancing equality and mutual trust in the global ocean governance.

The international community should "build a blue partnership and enhance equality and mutual trust in the global ocean governance," said Lin Shanqing, Deputy Director of the State Oceanic Administrations of China at the plenary meeting of the United Nations Conference on Marine Sustainable Development.

"China is willing, based on its own development experience, to work actively for the establishment in the area of the ocean of an open, inclusive, concrete, pragmatic, mutually beneficial and win-win blue partnership with other countries and international organizations," he said.

The UN Ocean Conference is taking place at UN headquarters in New York from June 5 to 9, coinciding with World Oceans Day, which falls on June 8.

Co-chaired by Fiji and Sweden, the Conference aims to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.

Lin told the meeting that China, like some other countries, is confronted with challenges of ecosystem degradation and frequent ocean related natural disasters.

"The Chinese government has noticed the inter-connection between Goal 14 and other SDGs, such as economic development, climate change, science and technology and poverty reduction," he said.

China is implementing Goal 14 in conjunction with its own marine development undertakings, he said, adding that "we have linked this goal with our 13th Five-Year Plan on National Economic and Social Development and other mid- and long-term national development strategies."

According to Lin, China's ocean related GDP in 2015 was about 6.5 trillion yuan (956 billion U.S. dollars), accounting for 9.4 percent of the total GDP and representing a year-on-year growth of 7 percent. Some 36 million people are employed in this sector.

The deputy director also told the meeting that China has taken measures to protect the marine ecological environment.

"A Regime of Marine Ecological Red Line Areas is established. Under this regime, important marine ecological functional areas, sensitive areas and fragile areas are designated as red-line areas where development activities are strictly controlled," he aid.

Speaking of the linkage between China's development with the world, Lin said that the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road is especially closely related to China's implementation of SDG 14.

"While seeking a good life for ourselves, we want other people to have a good life, too. We believe that we can have a huge bonfire only if all contribute to collecting firewood, and we can go far only by helping each other," he said.

Lin called on the international community to "vigorously develop blue economy and promote a virtuous circle of marine development."

He also appealed to all countries involved to "promote the development of marine ecological civilization and jointly assume the responsibility of global marine governance."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 08:14:53|Editor: MJ

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SEOUL, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles on Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on the DPRKs east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into its eastern waters. South Korea and the United States were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The South Korean military strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional DPRK provocation, while maintaining the full defense preparedness, the JCS said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 08:35:12|Editor: Song Lifang

People watch news at train station in Seoul, South Korea, June 8, 2017. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. (Xinhua/Lee Sang-ho)

SEOUL, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on DPRK's east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into the DPRK'S eastern waters. South Korea and the United States were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The South Korean militaryhas strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional DPRK provocation, while maintaining full defense preparedness, the JCS said.

The DPRK projectiles were not ballistic missiles. Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The test-firing by the DPRK came as the U.S. military dispatched nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The test-launches were immediately reported to South Korean President Moon Jae-in right after being detected, according to local media reports.

Pyongyang has conducted missile test-launches five times since Moon took office on May 10.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 09:15:29|Editor: MJ

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TOKYO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo stocks opened marginally higher Thursday on relief that a statement written by former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey will reflect his stance before Congress on the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

As of 9:15 a.m., the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average edged up 18.72 points, or 0.09 percent, from Wednesday to 20,003.34.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, added 0.65 point, or 0.04 percent, to 1,597.74.

Air transportation, insurance and bank-related issues comprised those gained the most in early trade.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 09:20:35|Editor: MJ

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MELBOURNE, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Australian state of Victoria on Thursday called for specialist counter-terrorism police officers to be based at all major Australian airports.

Daniel Andrews, premier of the Victorian government, said that raising security at Australia's airports to combat terrorism would be a priority at the Coalition of Australian governments (COAG) meeting in Tasmania on Friday.

Asking for support of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at airports, Andrews will also request that state authorities are granted further access to telecommunications systems and defence facilities for training.

The COAG meeting will take place just days after a gunman killed one man and took a woman hostage at an apartment building in a Melbourne suburb in what has been described as an act of terror.

In a separate incident, a man forced a Malaysia Airlines flight to return to Melbourne earlier in June when he demanded access to the cockpit, claiming he had an explosive device.

"The Tullamarine airport, the Avalon airport, these are federal assets and I think the time has come for us to have dedicated 24/7 tactical response provided by the Australian Federal Police," Andrews told reporters in Melbourne.

"We stand ready to support them as we always have."

"Across the world airports have so often been the target. We need to take the next step."

Lisa Neville, Victoria's police minister, said she expected leaders of other Australian states to support the idea.

"Having (a) tactical response group based at the airport makes sense (and)... I think improves safety and surety for all passengers," Neville said.

"The premier is in discussions with other states about these measures... and we think these are measures that will assist other states in response to counter-terrorism as well."

"We're going to COAG with every intention to maximise and improve the counter-terrorism response across the country and work very closely with the Commonwealth on the ground," Neville added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 09:20:37|Editor: MJ

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TOKYO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Japan confirmed the launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Thursday morning of surface-to-ship missiles but said there was no impact on its national security.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the missiles landed in the Sea of Japan but that there was nothing to suggest the missiles reached Japan's exclusive economic zone.

Kishida said Japan will continue to work with the United States and South Korea to gather more information and analyze the latest launches.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 10:05:52|Editor: MJ

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YANGON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Search for missing Myanmar military airplane is continuing with the use of nine naval vessels, five aircrafts and two helicopters of the Air Force as well as local vessels, according to an updated release of Myanmar's Defense Office on Thursday.

The aircraft of the Myanmar Air Force suddenly lost contact with the ground and went missing off the coast of southern Tanintharyi region on Wednesday afternoon on its flight from Myeik to Yangon.

Officials revised the number of those onboard to 122, including 108 military personnel and their family members and 14 crew members. Earlier reports suggested 104 passengers onboard.

With a load of 2.4 tons of cargo, the military aircraft carrying some welfare goods took off from Myeik air base at 01:06 p.m. local time for Yangon (0636 GMT), but when it reached a height of 18,000 feet (5,400 meters) at about 01:35 p.m. local time (0707 GMT), it lost contact with the ground at a location 32 km west of Dawei and went missing.

The aircraft was on a round trip transport mission along the route Yangon-Myeik-Pokkpyin-Myeik-Yangon.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 10:36:12|Editor: MJ

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CANBERRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Muslim leaders in Australia need to be "loud in their condemnation" of Islamic extremism while Australia also needs to have an "honest conversation" about the threat posed by terrorism, a government minister said Thursday.

On social media on Thursday morning and in a speech overnight, Multicultural Affairs Minister Zed Seselja has delivered Canberra's strongest message yet about Islamic extremism, declaring that Australians needed to stop "pretending that Islamist terrorists are mentally ill and not driven by an extreme ideology."

"We must have an honest conversation about terrorism and get tough on all forms of extremism and violence," Seselja posted to social media platform Twitter.

The comments followed a terror attack Monday that saw a gunman kill one man and take a woman hostage at an apartment building in a Melbourne suburb. Last week a man forced a Malaysia Airlines flight to return to Melbourne earlier when he demanded access to the cockpit, claiming he had an explosive device.

Seselja's comment came after he was invited to speak at an open forum in Parramatta overnight, during which he said it was important that the government calls out terrorism for "what it is", and even more important for moderate Muslims - who had been too quiet on recent events - to denounce terrorism and terrorist ideologies.

"It's important that we call it how we see it. We need moderate Muslims to be loud in their condemnation in their communities," Seselja said in comments published on Thursday.

"Our freedom, our values, and in some cases our lives are under threat from barbaric Islamist terrorists -- they want to harm us as individuals, our families, our communities, and our way of life."

"Those who believe in this Islamist ideology are a small minority of Muslims, but there are still far too many of them. So it's on the majority -- including the moderate, peaceful Muslims of our world -- to rise up against this," Seselja said.

In the wake of terror attacks overseas and in Melbourne in the past fortnight, Australia needed to have an "open discussion" about the scourge while also promoting the vast majority of "good (Muslim) citizens," Seselja said.

"We are surely mature enough as a nation to have an open discussion about the inspiration for Islamist terrorism in Salafist jihadist teaching, while acknowledging that most Muslims in Australia are good citizens who reject this extremism," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 10:36:15|Editor: MJ

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CANBERRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- More Australian children are being immunized by their parents after the government's introduction of a "no jab, no pay" policy, which bans parents of unimmunized children from accessing welfare benefits and rebates, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Releasing a report detailing the immunization rates of children in 2015-16, the AIHW said a record 93 percent of Australian five-year-olds had been immunized compared to 90 percent in 2011-12.

In a statement accompanying the release, AIHW spokesperson Michael Frost said that while improvements had been made in the overall immunization rate, the 93 percent figure was still below the national target of 95 percent.

He said immunization was "a safe and effective way of reducing the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases in the community," and vital in "protecting against potentially serious health problems."

"(But) the good news is that for the first time, all 31 of Australia's Primary Health Network (PHN) areas now have immunization rates for five-year-olds above 90 percent," Frost said on Thursday.

"And the gap we see between the areas with the highest and lowest immunization rates have started to shrink."

While most Australians are happy to immunize their children, Frost said there are still some parents who refused to take their children to their general practitioner (GP).

"When looking at smaller areas, like postcode areas, we see much greater variation in immunization rates, from a high of almost 100 percent and to a low of 71 percent for fully immunized five-year-olds," he said.

"Even though the majority of Australian kids are immunized, it's important to maintain high immunization rates to protect the community, including vulnerable groups such as babies who are too young to receive their vaccines."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 10:41:17|Editor: MJ

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WASHINGTON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon now believes that the United States has the ability to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) targeting the U.S. mainland, according to U.S. media reports.

Citing a Pentagon memo which has not been made public, U.S. TV network CNN reported on Wednesday that after last month's successful test, U.S. ballistic missile defense system's capability against ICBMs is no longer "limited," as indicated by a previous evaluation in 2012.

"(Ground-based Midcourse Defense) has demonstrated capability to defend the U.S. homeland from a small number of intermediate-range or intercontinental ballistic missile threats with simple countermeasures," CNN cited the memo as saying.

The Pentagon said on May 30 that it successfully shot down an incoming ICBM over the Pacific in a test that day.

According to earlier reports, the Pentagon fired the ballistic missile with a mock warhead from Marshall Island, located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, then launched an interceptor from Vandenberg Base, 250 km northwest of Los Angeles.

The interceptor "destroyed the target in a direct collision," according to a statement from the Missile Defense Agency.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 10:51:20|Editor: MJ

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CANBERRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- In the wake of Tropical Cyclone Debbie which ripped through Australia's northeast in March, the country on Thursday launched a campaign to "bring tourists back" to the battered region.

In late March this year, a Category 4 storm named Cyclone Debbie ripped through pristine parts of Queensland, before continuing south and causing major flooding in the southern parts of the state and in the northern parts of New South Wales.

The storm and subsequent flooding killed 12 people and caused hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damage, crippling the region's vital tourism trade.

On Thursday, Trade Minister Steven Ciobo said the government had overnight launched one of the nation's largest tourism campaigns, which aims to lure international tourists to the tropical paradise which is northern Australia.

"More than 500 billboards showcasing the best of the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef went up in Paris last night," Ciobo said in a statement on Wednesday.

"This is the first phase of Tourism Australia's international campaign to assist the recovery of some of Queensland's most iconic tourism destinations following the impact of Cyclone Debbie."

The minister said they chose France as the first place to launch the campaign as it was Australia's 15th largest inbound market for tourists; Ciobo described the French as the "most prepared to travel far and wide throughout Australia" - to scenic places such as the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef.

"This campaign is part of Tourism Australia's broader work to attract more tourists to Australia. Australia is currently welcoming record numbers of international tourists, who are staying longer and spending more when they are here," Ciobo said on Thursday.

"The government knows tourism creates jobs and drives economic growth, which is why Tourism Australia continues to receive record funding.

"The government jointly funded a 10 million Australian dollar (7.5 million U.S. dollars) campaign to assist the recovery of the tourism industry following Cyclone Debbie."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 11:01:25|Editor: MJ

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RIO DE JANEIRO, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian government on Wednesday condemned the two terrorist attacks in Iran's capital earlier in the day, which killed at least 13 people and wounded 43 others.

Brazil expresses condolences to the families of the victims and solidarity with the Iranian government and people, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that the country condemned any act of terrorism, regardless of motivation.

The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attacks on Iran's parliament and Imam Khomeini Shrine.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 11:01:26|Editor: An

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CHENGDU, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Some 580,000 residents of southwest China's Sichuan Province no longer live with the threat of geological disasters, according to local authorities.

An 8.0-magnitude earthquake in 2008 and a 7.0-magnitude quake in 2013 showed that the region is vulnerable to geological disasters and prompted government action from 2014 to prevent and manage potential threats.

Local government efforts have removed potential hazards from more than 10,000 sites within the province. The population living under threat has been dropped from 2.2 million at the end of 2013 to 1.62 million currently.

More than 60,000 families have been relocated from disaster-prone areas and over 400 disaster control projects completed, according to local authorities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 11:21:32|Editor: An

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ASTANA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit to be held here in the Kazakh capital on Thursday and Friday will advance security and economic cooperation among its members, analysts have said.

India and Pakistan will complete their accession to the SCO during the Astana summit. Meanwhile, leaders of the member states will also discuss the bloc's missions and prospects and exchange views on international and regional issues.

Former SCO Secretary-General Dmitry Mezentsev called the summit "historic," as it will be the first time for the China-initiated organization to expand membership since its founding in Shanghai in 2001. The SCO currently groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

"The SCO is turning into a transcontinental organization covering (an extensive area) from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean, from China's Pacific city of Lianyungang to Russia's Baltic city of Kaliningrad," said SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov.

The SCO has played an effective role in ensuring security, stability and sustainable development in the modern system of interstate relations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told Xinhua.

The key factor is the readiness of the SCO members to base their activities on the principles of the "Shanghai Spirit," said the Russian diplomat.

SECURITY COOPERATION

According to Morgulov, new risks are added to traditional security challenges in the SCO region, and the Islamic State terrorists are trying to penetrate into the SCO space.

Against this backdrop, the SCO needs to increase the effectiveness of its anti-terrorist efforts, Morgulov said.

To that end, the SCO should strengthen its regional anti-terrorist structure headquartered in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, said Vladimir Yevseyev, deputy head of the Moscow-based Commonwealth of Independence States Studies Institute.

Since some SCO members belong to the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, Yevseyev suggested that the two organizations coordinate their actions to fight terrorism.

South Asia faces growing anti-terrorist pressure, said Alexey Maslov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, one of Russia's top universities.

With the participation of India and Pakistan, the SCO members can exchange terrorist lists, establish a database, track cross-border flows of terrorists and bust drug business, which has been a traditional funding source for terrorism, said Maslov, adding that the organization should also safeguard cybersecurity.

ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP

The SCO Development Strategy towards 2025, adopted during the Ufa summit in 2015, aims to expand trade, economic and investment ties, as well as increase joint project activities in priority areas of cooperation.

The economic agenda within the SCO is becoming more and more weighty, said Mezentsev.

"The establishment of a free trade zone (FTZ) requires time. We are perfectly aware that today, when competition in the world market is increasing, it is very important to find formats for interaction with each other," said Mezentsev.

In this regard, Maslov said the establishment of FTZs should not be carried out hastily, as some economically weak countries may oppose it.

He said economic cooperation within the framework of the SCO should start with the lifting of trade barriers and the establishment of joint high-tech parks.

In Alimov's view, there are two advantages. Firstly, about 70 percent of the SCO population are under the age of 50 and economically active. Moreover, geographic proximity and a series of deals have enhanced economic coherence among member states.

"The Astana summit will define key directions for further development of the SCO," Alimov said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 11:51:43|Editor: MJ

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by Peerzada Arshad Hamid

NEW DELHI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The death toll in the deadly fire incident inside a fireworks factory in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has rose to 25, local officials said Thursday.

According to officials, five critically injured workers in the incident are undergoing treatment in a hospital.

The fire on Wednesday triggered series of blasts inside the factory at village Khairi in Balaghat district, about 437 km southeast of Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh.

"Of the 10 people injured in the incident five succumbed at the hospital," Bharat Yadav, Balaghat district collector told Xinhua. "As of now the death toll in the incident has gone up to 25."

Officials said rescuers have retrieved all the bodies from the debris of factory.

According to officials more than 40 workers mostly women were inside the legally-run factory at the time of fire.

The cause of blasts and subsequent fire inside the factory was yet to be known.

"It is a matter of investigation to find out the actual cause of fire," a senior police official said. "The post-mortem on the bodies have been conducted and then samples from the spot were also collected. We will soon be able to find out the cause behind the fire."

Reports said there is a suspicion that someone might have thrown a burning beedi (a type of cheap cigarette made of unprocessed tobacco wrapped in leaves) inside the factory, when the production was going on.

Hospital authorities said some of the bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of 3,100 US dollars to each of the families that lost kin in the tragedy, besides free medical treatment for the injured.

Firefighters doused the flame completely by Wednesday evening.

"It took several hours for firefighters to douse the flames and retrieve bodies from the debris," Anil Patley, a local official said. "Since the factory was located away from the human settlement that is why the fire didn't spread and remained confined within the factory."

Accidental explosions are common at Indian fireworks factories and shops.

Chances of fire in Indian factories and buildings are often high as owners usually ignore safety standards vis-a-vis fire.

In India firecrackers are set off during festivals, weddings and other merrymaking ceremonies.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 11:56:45|Editor: MJ

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BERLIN, June 7 (Xinhua) -- German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel criticized the decision by several Arab countries to sever ties with Qatar and U.S. President Donald Trump's involvement in the crisis, German media reported.

"Apparently, Qatar is to be isolated more or less completely and hit existentially," the DPA reported on Wednesday, quoting an interview Gabriel did with Handelsblatt Daily a day earlier.

"Such a 'Trumpification' of relations in a region already susceptible to crises is particularly dangerous," he said.

"I am very concerned with the dramatic escalation and the consequence for the whole region," Gabriel told the newspaper.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates severed ties with Qatar on Monday. Yemen, Libya and the Maldives followed suit.

Qatar has been accused of supporting extremism and destabilizing the region, but it rejected such accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless."

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that "During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!"

Gabriel met with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Tuesday and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Wednesday, trying to find a solution to the diplomatic crisis.

He also warned that Trump's latest "gigantic military deal" with some Gulf countries is "exacerbating the risk of a new arms build-up."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 12:01:49|Editor: MJ

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YANGON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar has established diplomatic ties with Guinea at the ambassadorial level, said a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.

The move came after permanent representatives of both countries to the United Nations signed a joint communique on the establishment of the diplomatic ties in New York on Tuesday.

Both sides said that the diplomatic relations and beneficial cooperation are established on the basis of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of the international Law.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 12:57:02|Editor: An

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CARACAS, June 7 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change will only benefit industry owners and other elite groups, Venezuelan scientist Carlos Mendez said Wednesday.

"I think he is looking out for the interests of the elites in the United States," Mendez, a member of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, told Xinhua in an interview.

Trump announced his decision to pull out of the Paris Agreement on June 1, citing concerns that emissions reduction established by the agreement would harm the U.S. economy.

Trump indicated Washington was open to a different, less demanding accord, saying he was willing to negotiate an entirely new agreement with more favorable terms for the United States.

"His biggest concern -- taking into account his statements -- is unfair competition from other countries" rather than the risks of global warming, Mendez said.

After years of hard negotiations, 195 countries finally signed the Paris climate agreement on how to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in December, 2015, when the United States agreed to reduce its emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.

The withdrawal of the world's largest economy will negatively affect the accord, Mendez said, adding it is tougher to reach the objectives of the Paris Agreement which seeks to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But without U.S. cooperation, "we would reach 3.6 degrees Celsius. So the ecological consequences are very serious," said the scientist.

When Trump said lowering carbon emissions and oil production in the United States would affect the country's economy and raise unemployment, he was going to put more fossil fuels in the market, Mendez said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 13:12:06|Editor: ZD

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Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency, delivers a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the BRICS Media Forum in Beijing, capital of China, June 8, 2017. The forum opened here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli)

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao Thursday called for efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among BRICS media while delivering a keynote speech at the opening of BRICS Media Forum in Beijing.

Cai said Xinhua will provide 1 million U.S. dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the Action Plan to Strengthen Cooperation Among BRICS Media and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The plan was passed at a presidium meeting of the BRICS Media Forum Wednesday and will be released at the end of the forum.

Cai, also executive president of the BRICS Media Forum, said that the participating media organizations all agree to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award, and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions.

"Xinhua would like to host the first event for selecting BRICS news reporting award winners, and help other BRICS media to prepare the second joint photo exhibition," Cai said.

According to Cai, participating media organizations all agree to actively explore cooperation in areas such as integrative development, video, new media and social media.

Last year, Xinhua established the cooperative and sharing platform "On-Scene Cloud," which can offer its members media content, channels, technologies and other services. "We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge," he noted.

Cai said Xinhua is willing to provide funding to invite 20 BRICS media reporters every year to visit Chinese media and exchange views with them, and do news reporting in China. Xinhua is also willing to offer strong support for the establishment of the media forum liaison office in terms of capital, personnel, place and other aspects.

The liaison office will listen to the suggestions from the presidium's member institutions in a timely manner, coordinate and communicate well, and organize related important activities, Cai added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 13:37:17|Editor: ZD

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Liu Qibao (C), member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the committee's Publicity Department, addresses the opening ceremony of the BRICS Media Forum in Beijing, capital of China, June 8, 2017. The forum opened here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of 27 media organizations from BRICS countries Thursday promised to deepen cooperation and contribute to the BRICS framework at the ongoing BRICS Media Forum.

The forum, with the theme "Deepening media cooperation among BRICS countries, promoting equity and justice in international media," was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africa's Independent Media.

Liu Qibao, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the committee's Publicity Department, urged BRICS media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction while addressing the forum.

"Sharing a common destiny, BRICS countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions," said Liu.

"There are misinterpreting and misreading voices in international public opinion that are skeptical of the development prospects of BRICS countries and even BRICS itself," said Liu, urging BRICS media to maintain composure and consolidate confidence, and pass on the message of confidence in BRICS countries' development.

Liu called for pragmatic cooperation among BRICS media, including conducting joint interviews on major topics, promoting cooperation in information services, professional training, human resources and think tank exchanges, as well as sharing experiences in meeting the challenges of the Internet and promoting integrated media development.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency and executive chair of the forum, urged efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among BRICS media.

Cai said Xinhua will provide 1 million U.S. dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the Action Plan to Strengthen Cooperation Among BRICS Media and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The plan was passed at a presidium meeting of the forum Wednesday.

Cai said the participating media organizations all agree to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award, and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions.

"Xinhua would like to host the first event for selecting BRICS news reporting award winners, and help other BRICS media to prepare the second joint photo exhibition," Cai said.

According to Cai, participating media organizations agree to explore cooperation in areas such as integrative development, video, new media and social media.

Last year, Xinhua established the cooperative and sharing platform "On-Scene Cloud," which can offer its members media content, channels, technologies and other services. "We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge," he noted.

Cai said Xinhua is willing to provide funding to invite 20 BRICS media reporters every year to visit Chinese media and exchange views with them, and do news reporting in China.

Zenariah Barends, co-chair of the forum and chief of staff of Independent Media from South Africa, called for more efforts in developing solutions to the current narrative which focuses on the negative side of BRICS countries.

BRICS media have the huge role in telling the amazing stories, not only what the BRICS structures are doing, but also the important life-changing stories happening in these countries, said Barends.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 13:42:20|Editor: An

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Some six Taliban militants were killed and eight others wounded in clashes in Imam Sahib district of northern Afghan province of Kunduz overnight, an army source said Thursday.

"The army commandos launched a night raid operation in the northern side of the district, killing six armed militants and injuring eight others," Abdul Khalil, a press officer of army's Division 20 Pamir based in the region, told Xinhua.

Sporadic clashes have been continuing in Imam Sahib since the weekend after Taliban militants carried out a coordinated attack to take control of the town bordering Tajikistan.

Imam Sahib, if captured by militants, would facilitate the Taliban outfit to receive support from their fighters based in the neighboring Qala-e-Zal and Khwaja Ghar districts to mount pressure on provincial capital Kunduz city.

"Cleanup and cordon operations continue in Imam Sahib and its surrounding areas and Afghan National Defense and Security Forces are determined to ensure public security there," Khalil said.

The clashes had also forced more than 2,000 families to flee their homes and seek safer places.

In a separate incident, a local leader and pro-government figure Mehiuddin Ibrahim was injured after gunmen attacked his vehicle in Kunduz city late on Wednesday, Waisuddin Talash, head of provincial Criminal Investigation Department, told Xinhua earlier.

The Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since late April when the militant group launched its annual rebel offensive in different places of the country, which had claimed hundreds of lives including militants, security personnel and civilians.
By Jessica Washington

SYDNEY, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Australia has some of the world's best universities, according to new global rankings released on Thursday, which placed five Australian universities in the top 50 worldwide.

The 2018 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings revealed most Australian universities have moved up the ranks compared to last year's results, with 7 universities making the top 100.

The Australian National University was the top ranked Australian university, securing 20th place in the competitive global rankings, which assess institutions based on their teaching, employability of graduates, and research efforts.

The University of New South Wales (UNSW) was Sydney's highest ranked university at 45th place, the University of Melbourne secured 41st place, the University of Queensland came in at 47th, while the University of Sydney slipped four places from last year to fall to 50th place, and became the only Australian university not to improve upon its ranking from the year previous.

The results are a "great testament" to Australian education, according to UNSW International Pro-Vice Chancellor Laurie Pearcey, who told Xinhua on Thursday that Australian universities should be proud of the progress they have made in a relatively short amount of time.

"Australian universities have been known for many years for punching above their weight in terms of the education quality and international research. It's worth reflecting that our universities are relatively young compared to some of the ancients like Oxford and Cambridge," Pearcey said.

"Our universities are young and we are in a young country, but our universities are very well known for training students and producing high quality research on an extremely large scale that is well regarded internationally."

The 959 universities pitted against one another in the global rankings are also judged on their international academic reputation, and according QS research director Ben Sowter, Australia is performing extremely well in this aspect.

"Improvements in academic reputation can be attributed to both the type of teaching innovations and the standard of research emanating from Australia's universities," Sowter said.

Australia is one of the top 5 most popular destinations for international students, according to UN statistics, and its reputation for quality education has attracted more than 110,000 Chinese student enrollments, making China the number one source country for international students in Australia, and according to Belinda Robinson, the chief executive of Universities Australia, these rankings are an important tool in attracting even more international students.

"When these reports come out, it reinforces to those contemplating an international education that Australia is a great place to study. The rankings show an indication of the quality of the system as a whole and it really does provide a tick of approval for the quality of Australian higher education," Robinson told Xinhua on Thursday.

"What the rankings show is that if you come to Australia, no matter which institution you choose, you are basically guaranteed a world class education."

However, Robinson said the recent government funding cuts, which saw hundreds of millions of dollars slashed from university investment, may eventually take a toll on the quality of education, and put Australia at risk of falling behind.

"Many countries in our region, including China, are investing very heavily in their own education systems because they recognize that education, research and innovative are the keys to long term economic sustainability," Robinson said.

"The rankings reinforce that the Australian higher education system is a national treasure that we should be nurturing and celebrating. We have to be very careful that we understand what we have and what we could lose if we continue to erode the system through cuts."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 14:07:36|Editor: MJ

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HANOI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 200 Vietnamese bank officers were prosecuted in the 2011-16 period, many of whom have been brought to court, according to Vietnam's central bank on Thursday.

At the state-run Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development alone, 122 officers were prosecuted.

Three clerks in the bank's transaction bureaus in Hanoi were prosecuted for appropriating assets and gambling. In 2012, one clerk was sentenced to death, and two others received life sentences, mainly for appropriating a total of more than 45.8 billion Vietnamese dong (2 million U.S. dollars).

According to the central bank's data, bad debts in Vietnamese banks dropped to 2.46 percent of loans by the end of November 2016 from 4.83 percent in December 2014.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 14:37:42|Editor: MJ

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NEW DELHI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- It is a fact well known that Indian roads account for highest number of accidents in the world. As per government data, India reports 400 road deaths per day or one death every four minutes.

To deal with this problem, which is rightly a public health emergency, the central and state governments have often chalked out different plans and launched schemes to both raise awareness and curb accident numbers. The latest in this regard is the "no helmet, no petrol' policy launched by the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh recently.

According to provisional police data provided by states, Uttar Pradesh records the maximum number of road deaths every year (17,666), followed by southern state of Tamil Nadu (15,642), Maharashtra in the west at 13,212, Karnataka in the south at 10,856 and western state of Rajasthan 10,510.

Most of the accidents in Uttar Pradesh are recorded by two-wheelers. Therefore, in order to discipline them and initiate a sense of responsibility, the government initiated the policy of refusing petrol refill to two-wheelers who ride without helmet.

The government has asked petrol pumps to also counsel two-wheelers regarding safety measures they should follow on roads and look out for repeat offenders. It has also promised to provide petrol pump owners with adequate security measures to prevent any law and order challenges that the move might pose for them.

While the "no helmet, no petrol" policy may sound like an innovative move to tackle the perils of irresponsible driving, it is actually an old campaign taken from different states where it had failed.

Earlier, the same move had been introduced in the states of West Bengal in the east, Maharashtra in the west and Madhya Pradesh in central India to both enforce the compulsory helmet rule and arrest the alarming number of road accidents. However, the move didn't go down well with either the motorists or petrol pump owners, forcing the state governments to eventually withdraw the orders.

For instance, in West Bengal's capital Kolkata, where helmets are mandatory for years, the re-introduction of the move fuelled tempers and several fights were reported from petrol pumps. Owners were also seen flouting norms and giving petrol to helmet-less drivers a few days after the initiative was launched. The move therefore died a premature death.

"The government keeps introducing these initiatives without real preparation. It is easy to take petrol even when not wearing helmet. I borrowed it from someone who had just filled fuel and bought petrol. So I am not very positive about the move," a two-wheeler driver said.

R. Chaudhury, a member of the Lucknow Petrol Pump Owners' Association, said: "Denying fuel isn't going to discipline motorists. In a state like Uttar Pradesh, we risk our lives by denying fuel to customers. But nonetheless, we will support the government in the initiative and also put up banners and posters to raise awareness."

"However, we still feel that the entire responsibility should not be put on petrol pump owners. The high numbers of accidents require serious, productive measures unlike this one which has failed in other states," he added.

In 2016, transportation-related deaths touched 150,000 across the country. Besides this, nearly half a million were reported to be injured. By all accounts then, road accidents leave more people dead in India than any other epidemic each year, rightly making it a public health emergency. It is also believed that these numbers are far higher because only a limited get reported.

Pooja Shah, who is associated with a Delhi-based road safety organisation, said: "In the case of accidents, affected parties generally reach informal agreements and try to settle the matter among themselves. Only when the accidents are serious in nature, police get involved. Formal reporting is done only after passing these stages. Therefore, we believe that the actual figures of accidents in India are much higher than what are reported each year."

She added: "All states in India should make 'no helmet, no petrol' mandatory in all states to curb road accidents."

A 2015 report by the premier Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, called Road Safety in India, had also pointed to the lackadaisical attitude towards accidental injuries that require hspitalisation.

Besides, those who were mostly killed in road accidents were among the young population, i.e., 15 to 34 years of age, making it calamitous for the young generation. In the face of these facts and figures, campaigns like "no helmet, no petrol whose effectiveness has been marred by poor implementation seem too small to address this epidemic.

"While the campaign puts the onus on petrol pump owners, what is needed are joint efforts from the state, police and the civil society alike. Productive measure like enforcement of zero tolerance and strong policing will only lead the way for making roads less vulnerable for the users, especially youngsters," said a petrol pump owner in Delhi.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 15:02:56|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China will offer more opportunities for private companies to participate in lunar and Mars exploration, a space exploration official said.

Tian Yulong, secretary general of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that commercial aerospace programs had been carried out in low Earth orbit (LEO), but those in deep space exploration would be a challenge, at the Global Space Exploration Conference, which lasts from Tuesday to Thursday.

"In deep space exploration, we need to provide a favorable environment for middle and small-sized enterprises," he said.

At present, space exploration is mostly invested and operated by government bodies and institutions. Encouraging private investment in space exploration has long been a challenge for countries worldwide.

Tian said many Chinese companies showed enthusiasm for taking part in space exploration. In the last two years, more than 10 enterprises have been engaged in microsatellite research and development and about 100 have worked on the development and use of satellite LEO data.

There are more than 20 companies that have been listed based on the business possibilities of aerospace technology, he said, adding that space exploration technology, such as communication and human intelligence, could be widely used.

"The CNSA is working on enabling enterprises to become the main force of technical innovation by creating favorable laws and policies," Tian said.
Chinese customers purchase flowers during the opening of International Flower Trade Expo in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, June 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Charles Onyango)

NAIROBI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Kenya is planning to expand its flower exports to China as part of its diversification strategy, an industry official said on Wednesday.

Kenya Flower Council (KFC) chairman Richard Fox told a media briefing in Nairobi that currently less than 1 percent of all flower exports goes China directly.

"We are encouraging flower producers to establish links with Chinese importers in order to tap into the lucrative market," Fox said at the opening ceremony of the International Flower Trade Expo 2017.

Currently, Kenyan flowers reach the Asian nation market after passing through the Dutch flower auction. "This makes Kenyan flowers very expensive in the Chinese market," Fox said.

In 2016, Kenya exported approximately 133,000 metric tons of flowers, 80 percent of which was sold in the EU. Fox said that by selling flowers to China, Kenya will diversify its export destinations.

"It is not advisable to be heavily dependent on a single market as it makes flower producers very vulnerable," he added.

He said that China is an emerging flower market as 80 percent of all flowers produced globally are sold to the U.S, EU and Japan.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (7th L) poses for a group photo with other leaders at the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization ( SCO) prime ministers' meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Nov. 3, 2016. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

ASTANA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit held here in the Kazakh capital on Thursday and Friday will advance security and economic cooperation among its members, analysts have said.

India and Pakistan will complete their accession to the SCO during the Astana summit. Meanwhile, leaders of the member states will also discuss the bloc's missions and prospects and exchange views on international and regional issues.

Former SCO Secretary-General Dmitry Mezentsev called the summit "historic," as it will be the first time for the China-initiated organization to expand membership since its founding in Shanghai in 2001. The SCO currently groups China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

"The SCO is turning into a transcontinental organization covering (an extensive area) from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean, from China's Pacific city of Lianyungang to Russia's Baltic city of Kaliningrad," said SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov.

The SCO has played an effective role in ensuring security, stability and sustainable development in the modern system of interstate relations, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told Xinhua.

The key factor is the readiness of the SCO members to base their activities on the principles of the "Shanghai Spirit," said the Russian diplomat.

SECURITY COOPERATION

According to Morgulov, new risks are added to traditional security challenges in the SCO region, and the Islamic State terrorists are trying to penetrate into the SCO space.

Against this backdrop, the SCO needs to increase the effectiveness of its anti-terrorist efforts, Morgulov said.

To that end, the SCO should strengthen its regional anti-terrorist structure headquartered in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent, said Vladimir Yevseyev, deputy head of the Moscow-based Commonwealth of Independence States Studies Institute.

Since some SCO members belong to the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, Yevseyev suggested that the two organizations coordinate their actions to fight terrorism.

South Asia faces growing anti-terrorist pressure, said Alexey Maslov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics, one of Russia's top universities.

With the participation of India and Pakistan, the SCO members can exchange terrorist lists, establish a database, track cross-border flows of terrorists and bust drug business, which has been a traditional funding source for terrorism, said Maslov, adding that the organization should also safeguard cybersecurity.

ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP

The SCO Development Strategy towards 2025, adopted during the Ufa summit in 2015, aims to expand trade, economic and investment ties, as well as increase joint project activities in priority areas of cooperation.

The economic agenda within the SCO is becoming more and more weighty, said Mezentsev.

"The establishment of a free trade zone (FTZ) requires time. We are perfectly aware that today, when competition in the world market is increasing, it is very important to find formats for interaction with each other," said Mezentsev.

In this regard, Maslov said the establishment of FTZs should not be carried out hastily, as some economically weak countries may oppose it.

He said economic cooperation within the framework of the SCO should start with the lifting of trade barriers and the establishment of joint high-tech parks.

In Alimov's view, there are two advantages. Firstly, about 70 percent of the SCO population are under the age of 50 and economically active. Moreover, geographic proximity and a series of deals have enhanced economic coherence among member states.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 15:53:31|Editor: Song Lifang

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NEW DELHI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday departed for Kazakhstan to take part in the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Astana.

In his pre-departure statement, Modi said he was looking forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries and that India's association with the grouping will help the country in economic growth as well as counter-terrorism cooperation.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things," the prime minister said.

"At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 percent of humanity and nearly 20 percent of the global GDP (gross domestic product," Modi said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realizing our full potential," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 15:58:39|Editor: Song Lifang

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LUSAKA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government plans to come up with a local content strategy aimed at encouraging mining firms to buy equipment and other supplies from local firms, a senior official said Wednesday.

Minister of Mines and Minerals Development Christopher Yaluma said the strategy will see more local firms benefiting from foreign mining firms and allow the country to get enough foreign exchange it requires.

The minister, speaking at the ongoing Copperbelt Agriculture, Mining and Industrial Expo in the city of Kitwe, added that the strategy is also aimed at discouraging mining firms from importing most of the things they need in their operations, according to state broadcaster, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation. ( There have been growing concerns over the decision by foreign mining firms who prefer dealing with foreign suppliers in Africa's second largest copper producer.

Last month, the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Investment Holdings, an entity that holds shares in all mining firms on behalf of the government, revealed that out of 2.8 billion U. S. dollars spent by mining firms on procurement of goods and services, only 4 percent was spent locally.

Pious Kasolo, chief executive officer of the entity said Zambia was exporting 100,000 jobs through the trend of mining firms preferring to import the bulk of their supplies and services.
Voters wait outside a polling station in London, Britain, June 8, 2017. Polling stations across the Britain opened early Thursday as voters started to make their decision in the general election. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Polling stations across Britain opened early Thursday as voters started to make their decision in the snap general election dubbed by some media as the most crucial one in a generation.

The voting came weeks after the official start of the Brexit talks between London and Brussels.

The polling stations opened at 7 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) as early risers and people on their way to work were among the first to cast their votes.

Polling stations have been set up in a whole range of premises, from libraries to schools, with more unusual venues such as public bars, supermarkets, hairdressing salons

The kitchen of one house in Yorkshire will act as one of the country's smallest polling stations.

The voting is expected to end at 10 p.m. when the official counting will begin.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap general election six weeks ago, when her party of the Conservatives held a working majority in the British House of Commons of just 17 seats and had a lead of over 10 percentage points suggested by some surveys.
People pose for a selfie outside a polling station in London, Britain, June 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Han Yan)

LONDON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Early risers and people on their way to work were among the first to cast their votes Thursday in what has been described as Britain's most crucial election for decades.

Although Theresa May is on target to hold on to power, a late rally by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn may thwart the Conservative's ambition to give their majority a turbo-boost.

When May called the snap general election just six weeks ago, she held a working majority in the British House of Commons of just 17 seats.

She has pleaded with the British public to increase her strength in parliament to enable her to fight for a good deal with Brussels when negotiations start later this month on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

The battle for 10 Downing Street has emerged as a two-horse race between May and Corbyn, with political commentators saying the May landslide predicted just weeks ago is now less likely.

The election result is crucial as it will set the tone for those all-important talks about the future EU-UK relationship.

May wants to strike a deal she described as "good for Britain", while Corbyn says he respected the majority decision by Britain to quit the EU, but he wants to maintain access for business and the protection of workers' rights.

Hundreds of polling stations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland opened at 7 a.m. local time (0600 GMT), and close at 10 p.m.

Almost 47 million people, aged 18 and over, a record number, are entitled to vote in the election, half a million more than in the 2015 election.

Polling stations have been set up in a whole range of premises, from libraries to schools, with more unusual venues such as public bars, supermarkets, hairdressing salons

The kitchen of one house in Yorkshire will act as one of the country's smallest polling stations. Peter Easterby, 63, and his wife Liz, 53, expect a procession of around 40 neighbors to make the journey to vote in their remote home in Driffield, 48 km east of York.

Traditionally campaigning does not take place on voting day, with cabinet ministers and opposition shadow ministers making the journeys to their respective constituencies to await the results.

As well as being prime minister and resident of 10 Downing Street, May is also a constituency MP, so she will head to Maidenhead in Berkshire, a seat she has represented since 1997, to await her fate. If she failed to win she would immediately cease to the prime minister.

Her constituency includes Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen, however, does not vote so nobody will ever know who she would support.

At precisely 22:00 local time, the voting stops, the pencils used to place crosses on ballot papers will be stacked away, and an army of vote counters take over.
Investigators work at the site where former lawmaker of the Russian State Duma Denis Voronenkov was shot dead in Kiev, Ukraine on March 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Sergey)

KIEV, June 8 (Xinhua) -- An explosion occurred in the U.S. Embassy compound here early Thursday, but no one was injured, Ukraine's National Police said.

The blast took place after an unknown assailant threw an unidentified explosive device into the diplomatic mission's premises shortly after midnight local time (around 2100 GMT, Wednesday), the police said in a statement on its website.

The Ukrainian government is investigating the incident as a "terror act," the statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 18:15:21|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China's exports and imports surged in May, beating expectations, customs data showed Thursday.

Exports in yuan-denominated terms hit 1.32 trillion yuan (about 194 billion U.S. dollars) last month, up 15.5 percent year on year, higher than market expectations and the 14.3 percent growth in April, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

Imports grew 22.1 percent in May, much faster than market forecasts and the 18.6 percent growth in April.

This led to a monthly trade surplus of 281.6 billion yuan, in contrast with a 262.3 billion yuan surplus in April. However, the May surplus declined 3.4 percent year on year.

Total foreign trade volume reached 2.35 trillion yuan last month, up 18.3 percent year on year.

May's data continued the growth in China's foreign trade since the beginning of the year.

In the first five months combined, exports increased 14.8 percent from a year ago to 5.88 trillion yuan, and imports jumped 26.5 percent to 4.88 trillion yuan, resulting in a 21.1 percent decline in the trade surplus.

During the first five months, trade with the EU jumped 16.1 percent from the same period last year to hit 1.6 trillion yuan. The EU is China's biggest trade partner, accounting for 14.8 percent of the country's foreign trade.

Meanwhile, trade with the United States, ASEAN and Japan increased by 21.1 percent, 23.2 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively.

Machinery, electronics and clothing exports rose in the first five months, while labor-intensive products such as fertilizer and steel saw shrinking orders.

A leading indicator for China's exports increased from 40.7 to 41.1 month on month in May, signaling positive export potential.

"Strong exports extend support to an economy showing signs of slowing momentum heading toward 2H," said Bloomberg chief Asia economist Tom Orlik.

Robust export growth in recent months is a marked improvement from a contraction during much of 2015 and 2016.

That raises hopes that exports may buffer the economy from a slowdown, as efforts at deleveraging and controls on real estate hit domestic demand, according to Tom.

For policymakers, as the trade-off between controlling risks and supporting growth has become significantly more pronounced, a tailwind from external demand offers relief, given the feared increase in protectionist pressure from the United States has not materialized and growth in Europe is surprisingly strong.

"This gives policymakers a little more room to leave tight policy settings in place, as they pursue deleveraging and yuan stability. It's also a buttress ahead of a likely Federal Reserve rate hike in mid-June," said Tom.

Tightening so far by China has been cautious and incremental -- using targeted instruments like reverse repos rather than benchmark rates, and moving in small 10 basis point steps rather than 25 basis points.

In Bloomberg Intelligence Economics' view, China's central bank will look to other instruments to secure its objectives.

Going forward, the export outlook is for sustained but unspectacular growth, according to Tom, as both the Caixin and National Bureau of Statistics purchasing managers' index data show export orders registering a fractional improvement.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 18:35:42|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

Zambian President Edgar Lungu (R) meets with visiting Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong in Lusaka, Zambia, June 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun)

LUSAKA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Zambian President Edgar Lungu has hailed China for its support towards the country's economic development.

The president made the remarks while meeting with visiting Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong on Tuesday, who conveyed to the Zambian leader Chinese President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings.

Lungu appreciated the role that China played in supporting Zambia's liberation struggle, as well as China's support during the nation's peace building periods.

He said that China is Zambia's true friend and Zambia is fully confident in bilateral economic and trade cooperation as well as economic development, adding Zambia stands ready to work with China to further push forward bilateral friendly cooperative relations.

On his part, Wang hailed the relationship between the two countries which have existed for a long time, making the two countries good brothers and good partners.

Wang said China is willing to work with Zambia to deepen the mutually beneficial cooperation in infrastructure construction, agriculture, human resources and industrial capacity in accordance with the important consensuses reached by the two heads of state and the outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit last held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Reiterating China's African policy featuring sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith, Wang said China will actively promote the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, and work with Zambia to promote mutual benefits and common development of the two countries.

Lungu and Wang also witnessed the signing of cooperative agreements between the two governments.

During his stay, Wang also attended the opening ceremony of the expansion project of the Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital, and toured some Chinese enterprises based in Zambia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 18:35:45|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China's State Council published a guideline Thursday to improve the management of the government websites.

To establish a clean, innovative and service-oriented government ruled by law, websites should be open, clear, informative and convenient for the public, said the document issued by the general office of the State Council.

According to the guideline, ministries of the State Council and government offices above county level should each have one official website.

The guideline also stressed Internet security, urging government offices to set up stable, reliable and safe websites by having online security warning systems and emergency response systems.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 18:45:51|Editor: Song Lifang

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KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 (Xinhua) -- A Malaysian court on Thursday sentenced nine Filipino militants to death for participating in the incursion into the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah in 2013, which led to the death of more than 70 people, including Malaysian soldiers and policemen.

The Appeals Court in Putrajaya overturned the life imprisonment given by a court in Sabah last year and sentenced the nine to death, the New Straits Times reported.

The three-judge panel said the nine men, followers of a self-proclaimed Filipino sultanate, were held accountable for conspiring to reclaim Sabah via the means of war and causing the deaths of Malaysian citizens.

In 2013, a group of about 180 Filipinos landed in Sabah's Lahad Batu through southern Philippines and threatened to reclaim Sabah to the Sulu sultanate of Jamalul Kiram III.

Conflicts erupted between the militants and the Malaysian authorities after they refused to leave, which became one of the most serious conflicts on the Malaysian soil in recent years.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 18:51:02|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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by Peter Mertz

LOS ANGELES, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Some might think a trillion-U.S.-dollar super highway connecting Europe and Asia has little to do with California, but Governor Jerry Brown pointed out they would be wrong.

In the trillion dollar clean energy field, the America's most populous state hopes to bolster climate partnerships with China, making joint efforts to push green and low-carbon development.

Local experts said it was the reason why California welcomed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which proposed forever linking 70 percent of the world's population and the gigantic markets of Asia and Europe.

On Wednesday, Brown delivered a keynote speech at a clean energy forum in Beijing to hundreds of global energy ministers.

Brown leads a state of almost 40 million people with a GDP greater than France, and has been a clean energy champion since he first became California governor in 1975.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met Brown in Beijing on Tuesday and called on California to play a bigger role in promoting bilateral exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States in areas including technology, innovation and green development.

It is agreed that "infrastructure development, trade and transportation, almost everything, will be enhanced by clean energy," said Washington political analysts David Richardson.

"California does it better than any other state in the United States," Richardson told Xinhua Wednesday.

"Governor Brown's current trip to China underscores the tremendous value California puts on this vastly important economic policy," Margaret Wong, CEO of the California Center said of the Belt and Road Initiative in a statement Wednesday.

Wong, based in Sacramento, has been spearheading trade efforts with China for 30 years, and was in 2014 one of the 25 business leaders on the president's official China trade mission led by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

She sees the BRI "forging trade and utilizing the opportunity to make lasting and meaningful reductions in global emissions and increasing clean energy/technology solutions."

With China accelerating development of manufacturing hubs in the western part of the country, the BRI has the potential to create an economic corridor and promote stability and energy security, while opening up trade, said the Brussels-based think tank Friends of Europe.

"If we don't seize exports opportunities where they exist, the jobs will go to others, not Americans," former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Chas Freeman told NBC News Tuesday.

Freeman highlighted that 60 countries involved in the BRI boast about 55 percent of global economic output and an estimated 75 percent of known energy reserves.

On Tuesday, the California governor visited Chengdu in Sichuan Province, China's gateway to the "Silk Road," where he again voiced his support of California's involvement in the BRI.

"A prominent and strategic focus of China's economic plan that focuses on connectivity and cooperation -- there is no better location than Chengdu for seeing first-hand the level of dedicated cooperation occurring between our two countries," Wong said.

"We are so excited the governor made this stop a priority," said Wong, whose California Center hosted the business event.

California Center has been a valuable resource and advocate for many clean technology efforts in China and helped to launch the U.S. Smart Cities Alliance focused on smart energy solutions between the United States and China.

"The possibilities are endless for U.S. industries to build a presence in China markets thanks to the Silk Road," said Gordon Hinkle, Senior VP of global operations for the California Center, which was set up according to the initiative of Brown.

One of California Center's projects is working with government officials in Changsha, China's Hunan province, to design a "Smart City" that includes "Smart Street Lamps," according to Hinkle.

"These streetlamps not only cast light, but also collect data on climate, air quality, information that makes running a city more efficiently, has sensors to detect floods, and can also help emergency responders," Hinkle told Xinhua.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:16:12|Editor: Song Lifang

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OSLO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Norway's Supreme Court will not process the appeal by mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik on his prison conditions and he will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, local media reported Thursday.

The Supreme Court said in a press release that that no parts of Breivik's appeal have opportunities to give different outcome than the appeals court came to.

Breivik's lawyer, Oystein Storrvik, said he will appeal the ruling of the Supreme Court as soon as possible to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

"We have always been prepared," Storrvik was quoted by the newspaper Aftenposten as saying.

The appeals court ruled in March that the Norwegian government had not violated the human rights of the convicted mass murderer by holding him in isolation in prison.

"The Borgarting Court of Appeal has determined that Anders Behring Breivik is not, and has not been subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment," the appeals court said in a statement.

The appeals court said that Breivik "still appears strongly affected by his right-wing extremist, political universe" and "there is a high risk that Breivik will resort to violence in the future."

Last year, Oslo district court supported the 37-year-old mass killer's claim that his prison conditions violated his human rights as he was subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment according to the European Convention on Human Rights.

On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb that killed eight people outside the government headquarters in Oslo before killing 69 others in a shooting rampage on Utoya Island, where young members of the governing Labor Party had gathered for their annual summer camp.

Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison in 2012 at Oslo district court.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:16:13|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Following is the full text of the Action Plan of Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation, adopted at the BRICS Media Forum that closed in Beijing Thursday.

Action Plan of Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation

June 8, 2017 Beijing, China

The BRICS Media Forum, attended by leaders of 27 mainstream media organizations from the BRICS countries, was held in Beijing, China, from June 6 to 8, 2017. It was a high-level dialogue among BRICS media organizations held before the 2017 BRICS Summit in Xiamen. The participating BRICS media organizations appreciated that the forum was incorporated into the annual BRICS meeting, and also extended best wishes to the 2017 Summit.

Under the theme "Deepening BRICS Media Cooperation, Promoting Fair and Just International Public Opinion", in-depth exchanges were held on two topics: Multimedia Innovation for Media Development, and Media Organization's Duty and Social Responsibility.

The participating BRICS media organizations believed that on the occasion of entering into the second decade of establishing the BRICS bloc upholding a spirit of openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, BRICS media organizations have a more solid foundation for improving cooperation.

They also deemed that the rapid development of new media has provided a rare opportunity for media organizations from developing countries to break the information monopoly and rebalance international public opinion.

The participating BRICS media organizations have reached extensive consensuses on driving BRICS partnership through media cooperation, building a fairer international communication order, fulfilling the media's social responsibilities and obligations, and expanding and deepening exchanges and cooperation among BRICS media organizations.

The participating BRICS media organizations reviewed the progress made in improving media cooperation. It's widely considered that strengthened cooperation and exchanges among BRICS media outlets have improved mutual knowledge, mutual understanding, mutual support and mutual affection among BRICS peoples, and enhanced the strength and power of BRICS media organizations.

The participating organizations acknowledged that media serves as the link to boosting mutual understanding and friendship among peoples. They also held that as an important basis for national friendship and mutual learning among civilizations, media exchanges are of great significance to consolidate public opinion and amplify a sense of a BRICS identity.

The participating organizations believed that the content, depth and breadth of BRICS media cooperation should be expanded and deepened in conformity with the needs of the BRICS nations.

With firm confidence of a BRICS partnership and for further improving media cooperation, the participating outlets unanimously agreed to carry out a cooperative action plan in the spirit of equity, pragmatism and mutual benefit.

First they agreed to jointly maintain balanced international public opinion. This can be achieved by jointly sending out press releases on international major issues, improve coordination on topics-setting, amplify the voice of justice and rationality, and firmly safeguard international equity and justice as well as the lawful rights and interests of developing countries. They agreed to strengthen the rights of expression, discourse and communication of emerging markets and developing countries, rebalance international public opinion and drive it to a fairer and more just direction, and promote building a fairer and more rational global governance system.

Secondly, the outlets agreed to jointly strengthen the media's social responsibility. This is necessary to demonstrate the achievements and prospects of BRICS economic development, and social progress and its role in world economic growth engine. It is vital to present to the world the conviction of BRICS countries in building an open global economy, and show the pursuit and dream of BRICS countries of mutually beneficial cooperation and peaceful development.

Third, jointly boost people-to-people ties. Doing so is necessary to uphold a comprehensive, unbiased and equitable reporting philosophy, and objectively report on the present situation of BRICS development and events related to BRICS relations. BRICS news organizations must accurately guide public opinion, resist distortion and speculation, and offer more coverage on stories conducive to increasing friendly ties within the bloc.

Fourth, to jointly expand cooperation fields among BRICS media organizations. Practical cooperation can include joint interviews, joint press releases on major issues, coordination in topic-setting, and more cooperation in news reporting, professional training, talent cultivation and think tanks, as well as exchanges of newspaper pages, TV channels and airing times. We should continue to hold the BRICS joint photo exhibition.

Fifth, there is a need to jointly develop digital media among BRICS countries. That is, to explore new channels and new spaces in international communication. We should strive to develop an integrated digital media, video new media, social media and jointly seek new ways of increasing international voices via digital means.

Sixth, jointly provide financial information services. BRICS news media organizations should attempt to build a professional economic and financial information platform, jointly establish a real-time information exchange system, and facilitate the two-way flow of BRICS companies' project information via online and offline channels. All would be in an effort to help BRICS companies find more business opportunities and control risks.

The BRICS Media Forum was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated by Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, India's The Hindu Group and South Africa's Independent Media.

Present at the forum were leaders of the five initiating media organizations as well as the People's Daily, China Daily, China Central Television, China Radio International, Correio Braziliense, Monitor Mercantil, Grupo Estado, Valor Economico, Empresa Brasil de Comunicacao S/A, TASS Russian News Agency, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Russia Today TV, Interfax Information Services Group, Press Trust of India, India Today Group, ABP News Network, Indo-Asian News Service, Media 24, Independent Online, Sunday Tribune, Times Media and E Media Investments.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:26:17|Editor: Song Lifang

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BAGHDAD, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations human rights office on Thursday said that "credible reports" showed that the Islamic State (IS) militants killed at least 231 civilians who tried to flee the battleground in the western side of Mosul.

A statement by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that all the reported killing took place in al-Shifaa neighborhood between May 26 and June 3, when the extremist militants opened fire on families who tried to flee the neighborhood. Many of the deaths were women and children.

"The bodies of those who died were reportedly left on the street for several days following the killings. In addition to those who died, an undetermined number of civilians went missing," the statement said.

The OHCHR also said that they are seeking further information about reports of civilian casualties caused by air strikes, including in the IS-held al-Zanjili neighborhood, where some 50 and 80 civilians were killed on May 31 by an air strike.

"Shooting children as they try to run to safety with their families ... there are no words of condemnation strong enough for such despicable acts," the statement quoted the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein as saying.

The High Commissioner called on the Iraqi security forces and the anti-IS international coalition to ensure that all possible measures are taken to avoid casualties among civilians.

So far, the troops recaptured large parts of the al-Zanjili and al-Shifaa, but heavy back and forth street battles are still underway, as the extremist IS militants showed stiff resistance, while heavy clashes and bombings are underway at the edges of city center.

Earlier, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said the number of civilians remaining in the old city and surrounding neighborhoods cannot be known exactly, but the office estimated 200,000 may leave their homes in the coming days of battles.

"We don't know for sure how many civilians are still in IS-held districts, but as many as 200,000 additional people may try to leave in coming days," an OCHA report said on May 18.

According to the Iraqi military, over 90 percent of the city has been retaken from IS in the ongoing major offensive launched in October last year.

Mosul, 400 km north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, has been under IS control since June 2014, when government forces abandoned their weapons and fled, enabling IS militants to take control of parts of Iraq's northern and western regions.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:31:21|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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MACAO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative has brought unprecedented opportunities to China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), Hao Yufan, dean of faculty of social sciences of University of Macao, has said.

"The Belt and Road Initiative will promote Macao's industrial diversification and help it go global," Hao said in an interview with Xinhua ahead of a two-day symposium on the Belt and Road and Macao's development, which started Thursday.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative refers to the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aiming at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes of Silk Road.

During the symposium, participants are expected to discuss such topics as Macao's role in the development of the Belt and Road, the building of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Macao and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

Hao said Macao was an important stop along the ancient maritime Silk Road and it will continue to play an important role in the development of the Belt and Road, the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in particular.

Macao has unique geographic and language advantages, and it can take advantage of the principle of "one country, two systems" in the development of the Belt and Road, he added.

Macao can shoulder the role as a communication center as it is a place where eastern and western cultures meet, he suggested.

Macao is striving to become a world tourism and leisure center and a platform for business and trade cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries.

Macao must seize the opportunities to promote its economic diversification and internationalization, so that Macao's economy can develop in a sustainable way, Hao said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:46:34|Editor: Zhou Xin

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JAKARTA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian men's water polo team step up their preparation to vie in SEA Games this year in Malaysia as they target to secure one gold medal in the tournament, association disclosed here on Thursday.

Deputy chairman of the country's water polo association Harlin Raharjo disclosed that the exercises already undertaken by the players are considered insufficient.

To have the team fully prepared, the deputy chairman revealed that the team will have some tryout matches with opponents in Serbia.

"The men team plan to vie with several clubs in tryout matches in Serbia as we have networks there," he said.

Harlin said that the team will leave for Serbia in July and will stay there for two weeks.

"During the period we can vie against five clubs there," he added.

The 29th SEA Games is scheduled to be held in Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia from August 19 to 30.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu (R) met with visiting Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong in Lusaka, capital of Zambia on June 6, 2017. (Xinhua)

LUSAKA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Zambian President Edgar Lungu has hailed China for its support towards the country's economic development.

The president made the remarks while meeting with visiting Chinese State Councilor Wang Yong on Tuesday, who conveyed to the Zambian leader Chinese President Xi Jinping's cordial greetings.

Lungu appreciated the role that China played in supporting Zambia's liberation struggle, as well as China's support during the nation's peace building periods.

He said that China is Zambia's true friend and Zambia is fully confident in bilateral economic and trade cooperation as well as economic development, adding Zambia stands ready to work with China to further push forward bilateral friendly cooperative relations.

On his part, Wang hailed the relationship between the two countries which have existed for a long time, making the two countries good brothers and good partners.

Wang said China is willing to work with Zambia to deepen the mutually beneficial cooperation in infrastructure construction, agriculture, human resources and industrial capacity in accordance with the important consensuses reached by the two heads of state and the outcomes of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit last held in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Reiterating China's African policy featuring sincerity, real results, affinity and good faith, Wang said China will actively promote the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative, and work with Zambia to promote mutual benefits and common development of the two countries.

Lungu and Wang also witnessed the signing of cooperative agreements between the two governments.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 19:56:41|Editor: xuxin

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DUBAI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Government-controlled Emirates Post Group (EPG) in Abu Dhabi said on Thursday it has suspended postal services to Qatar from all of its postal offices in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) until further notice, state news agency WAM reported.

All letters and packages with stamps from June 6 with destination to Qatar have been already withheld, said EPG.

The UAE has halted all flights to Qatar, and Qatari aircraft like those of Qatar Airways are likewise not allowed to enter UAE airspace.

Qatari nationals were given on Monday 14 days to leave the UAE. Qataris from abroad are no longer allowed to travel to the UAE.

Earlier the week, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing the Gulf state of supporting "terrorism and extremism," the official Saudi news agency SPA said in a statement on Monday.

Moreover, Jordan has reduced its diplomatic representation in Qatar.
ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump disputes that he ever asked for James Comey's loyalty or requested that the ex-FBI director drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a source familiar with the president's thinking told ABC News.



In written testimony released Wednesday, Comey documented several alleged encounters with Trump following his inauguration in January, including the president's alleged appeal for loyalty and his alleged call to end the inquiry into Flynn's actions.



"I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," said Trump, according to Comey, who later added that on Flynn the president said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."



Trump will watch Comey's highly anticipated hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday from the White House with his legal team.



The president will be joined by attorney Marc Kasowitz, who was retained by the president in May to represent him on matters related to the Russia investigation, as well as other senior advisers. They will watch the testimony from the president's personal dining room near the Oval Office.



White House press secretary Sean Spicer previously suggested that Trump would be too busy to watch the hearing.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:06:49|Editor: xuxin

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ACCRA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank Group has approved a 150 million US Dollars credit facility for the improvement of road networks in the Northern Region of Ghana, a release received here late Wednesday said.

The International Development Association (IDA) facility will help improve regional connectivity in the Northern Region involving rehabilitation of road links from Tamale to Yendi and Tatale, about 650 km north of the capital on the Eastern border with Togo, and about 200km of feeder roads to link agricultural value chains to provide access to markets and support agribusiness, said the release.

The World Bank envisages that the project will reduce travel time on selected parts of the classified road network in Northern Ghana; promote road safety; and strengthen the institutional management of the transport sector.

A 2014 Household Survey of the country rated the northern area as being consistently poorer than the rest of the country. It derives most of its income from agriculture through a mix of irrigation along the major rivers and dry land farming.

The current state of the road infrastructure is a key contributor to low income growth and poor access to services and growth opportunities, observed the World Bank.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:11:52|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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HORGOS, Xinjiang, June 8 (Xinhua) -- A new passenger train route was launched on Thursday connecting China and Kazakhstan, the second between the two countries.

A 198-seat train numbered 9001 left Horgos, a border port in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China, on Thursday morning.

Departing from the regional capital Urumqi, the train number will change to 701 after entering Kazakhstan, where it will operate via a local train.

The train's destination is Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, via stations in Almaty, Sary Shagan and Karaganda.

It is the second passenger train route following one that travels via the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang.

The new route will reduce travel time between Urumqi and Almaty by eight hours, compared with the first route via the Alataw Pass, said Ma Yinong, chief of the Horgos Railway Station.

Located about 670 km from Urumqi and 370 km from Almaty, Horgos was once a busy passage used by traders traveling along the ancient Silk Road. The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, has injected new vitality into the land port.

The port saw border trade of more than 17 billion yuan (2.5 billion U.S. dollars), and 16,000 visitors from Central Asian countries in the first quarter of this year, according to Wang Gang, Communist Party chief of Horgos city.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:11:57|Editor: ZD

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Liu Qibao (C), member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the committee's Publicity Department, addresses the opening ceremony of the BRICS Media Forum in Beijing, capital of China, June 8, 2017. The forum opened here on Thursday. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The BRICS Media Forum concluded Thursday after leaders of 27 organizations agreed on an action plan to boost media cooperation.

The Action Plan Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation noted that the content, depth and breadth of BRICS media cooperation should be expanded and deepened in accordance to the needs of BRICS nations.

UNITY A MUST

The forum, with the theme "Deepening BRICS Media Cooperation, Promoting Fair and Just International Public Opinion," was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africa's Independent Media.

Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the committee's publicity department, urged BRICS media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction while addressing the forum.

"Sharing a common destiny, BRICS countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions," said Liu.

"There are misinterpreting and misreading voices in international public opinion that are skeptical of the development prospects of BRICS countries and even BRICS itself," said Liu, urging BRICS media to maintain composure and consolidate confidence, and pass on the message of confidence in BRICS countries' development.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency and executive chair of the forum, urged efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among BRICS media.

Cai said Xinhua will provide 1 million U.S. dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the action plan and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The participating media organizations all agreed to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award, and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions, according to Cai.

ACTION PLAN HIGHLIGHTS COOPERATION

The action plan shows BRICS media's determination to accept social responsibility and create a fair public opinion environment, said He Ping, editor-in-chief of Xinhua News Agency, while addressing the closing ceremony of the forum.

Participating organizations agreed to maintain balanced international public opinion and to strengthen the media's social responsibility.

"BRICS media organizations should create a platform to share verified and reliable information, and we should work together to expose fake news," said Alexey Nikolov, managing editor of Russia Today TV, at Thursday's session.

The participating media agreed to boost people-to-people ties and to expand cooperation fields. There is a need to jointly develop digital media and provide financial information services among BRICS countries.

Mahesh Daga, director and CEO of Indo-Asian News Service, called for more communication among journalists to promote inclusiveness.

The media organizations unanimously agreed to carry out the action plan in the spirit of equity, pragmatism and mutual benefit.

Zenariah Barends, co-chair of the forum and chief of staff of Independent Media from South Africa, called for more effort to find solutions to the narrative which focuses on the negative side of BRICS.

BRICS media have a role in telling amazing stories, not only what BRICS is doing, but also life-changing stories happening in these countries, said Barends.

NEW MEDIA, NEW OPPORTUNITIES

BRICS media also agreed to explore new channels and new spaces in international communication. "We should develop integrated digital media, video new media, social media and jointly seek new ways of increasing international voices via digital means," according to the plan.

"For BRICS media... the popularization of information has broken the traditional information monopoly and put us at the same starting line as media from the United States and European countries," Cai said in his keynote speech.

Xinhua's app has been downloaded 220 million times, and the number of followers of Xinhua's Weibo account is close to 60 million.

Last month, followers of Xinhua's accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube reached 30 million, among the top mainstream international media outlets.

Last year, Xinhua established a cooperative, sharing platform "On-Scene Cloud," which offers members media content, channels, technology and other services. "We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge," Cai said.

Full Text: Action Plan of Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Following is the full text of the Action Plan of Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation, adopted at the BRICS Media Forum that closed in Beijing Thursday. Full story
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:17:03|Editor: xuxin

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JAKARTA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Indonesian government condemned the terrorist attack in Tehran of Iran that left 13 people dead and dozens injured, foreign ministry said in a statement here on Thursday.

In telephone conversation with her Iranian counterpart, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi expressed a deep condolence and sympathy to the families of victims and prayed for the healing of the injured.

The government stressed that terrorism is an unjustifiable form of crime.

The Indonesian mission office in Tehran continues to monitor the situation and has coordinated with relevant authorities.

Indonesia has been fighting against radicalism and has been included in the global target of IS group.

The country has also suffered a series of suicide bombing strikes recently that claimed dozens of casualties and scores others people injured.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:17:05|Editor: xuxin

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NAIROBI, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police have arrested more than 40 Ethiopians in a security swoop at a residential estate in Nairobi for being in the country illegally.

Nairobi County Police Commander Japheth Koome said on Thursday the foreigners aged between 10 and 25 who could not speak English or Swahili were arrested on Wednesday night at a house in Kayole estate.

"They told us through their translator they were headed for South Africa," said Koome, noting that they arrived in the country from Ethiopia on Monday and had paid their way here to an agent who was organizing the trip.

He said the men, children and women are expected in court on Thursday to face charges of being in Kenya illegally. The officers handling the issue say they are looking for the agent who had brought them.

The police have on several occasions rounded up dozens of illegal immigrants especially from Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea who have been discovered locked up in congested rooms in Kenyan towns and cities but the trade continues to thrive even as many were repatriated.

The immigrants are said to be using Kenya as their transit route to other countries such as South Africa or other European countries.

Many foreigners from regional countries have managed to sneak in the county with the help of brokers after paying hundreds of shillings.

But refugee rights organizations and aid agencies have blamed poverty in Africa for the rising cases of human trafficking.

They said that the huge supply of labour both skilled and unskilled makes them vulnerable to criminal syndicates.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:32:13|Editor: xuxin

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MANAMA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Bahrain's Information Affairs Ministry on Thursday warned media outlets not to publish or circulate anything that contradicts the kingdom's stance towards Qatari policies.

The Ministry said the decision was taken so that it does not affect "Bahrain's highest interest intended by the measures and the political decisions taken by Bahrain and Gulf, Arab and other countries vis-a-vis Qatar."

The ministry warned of legal action against anyone for violating the law by publishing statements that question the decision taken by Bahrain and other Gulf countries to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday.

"Legal action will be taken against anyone who contributes to publishing such material and will be held responsible before the law," the ministry added.

Bahrain's King Hamad visited Riyadh on Wednesday and held talks with King Salman, and asserted collective steps taken by Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt.

Bahrain earlier this week revoked the license of Qatar Airways and shut down its offices in Manama.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 20:37:23|Editor: xuxin

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PHNOM PENH, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Commercial dry-season rice cultivation in Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake floodplain increasingly threatened the critically endangered Bengal Floricans, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said in a statement on Thursday, citing a new study.

"This and other threats put the species at high risk of extinction in the near future, unless it is managed appropriately," the statement said.

Conducted by researchers with the Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and WCS-Cambodia, the study assessed the impact of local community livelihood activities on Bengal Florican habitat in and around the Northern Tonle Sap Protected Landscape in Kampong Thom and Siem Reap provinces.

"Dry season rice cultivation increasingly encroaches on Bengal florican breeding areas, disturbing the birds during key breeding periods," said Imperial College of London's Harriet Ibbett, corresponding author of the study.

"In addition, dry-season rice cultivation is strongly associated with agro-chemical use that has potentially significant implications for florican food availability," she said.

An estimated 20 percent of dry season rice fields are located within identified florican habitat, including formally protected areas, she said, adding that 46 percent of dry-season rice farmers cultivate two crops of rice per year, extending cultivation activities into breeding periods.

"This significantly reduces both the amount of time and habitat that floricans have to breed undisturbed and successfully," Harriet said.

But there is reason for hope, the study said.

Bengal floricans can breed in dry-season rice fields as long as only one crop of rice is cultivated each year and areas of long grass are retained in head-ponds or along broad embankments.

"Substantial investment in community engagement, education and outreach are required to prevent the extinction of the florican," said Simon Mahood, WCS senior technical advisor.

"Beyond protected areas, we urgently need to work with dry season rice farmers to help them make their farming profitable and compatible with Bengal floricans. For example, we need to trial legumes instead of a second crop of rice to improve soil fertility and create foraging habitat for floricans," he said.

The Bengal florican is listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List as Critically Endangered, and has a global population of fewer than 800 individuals, according to the WCS. Cambodia is the most important country worldwide for Bengal florican conservation with an estimated 432 individuals nationwide in 2012.

The grassland habitat of the Tonle Sap floodplain in central Kampong Thom province is home to the largest population of the birds in the world and is critical to their survival.

In other findings, the study indicated that at least 8 percent of surveyed households actively hunt birds in grassland areas, suggesting a small but significant threat to floricans.

"There is an urgent need for conservation interventions in unprotected grassland areas, and the findings emphasize the role of community engagement in improving protection within protected areas," said Hong Chamnan, deputy director of Freshwater Wetlands Conservation at the Cambodian Ministry of Environment.

The Northern Tonle Sap Protected Landscape, established in 2016 from the Bengal Florican Conservation Areas, covers 31,159 hectares in central Kampong Thom and northwestern Siem Reap provinces.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 21:22:58|Editor: xuxin

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BANGKOK, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's crime suppression body has been urged to investigate a fraud in which more than 2,000 people were lured to invest in raising crayfish that were said to be able to bring high profit, local media reported Thursday.

Ten victims were led to file a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) against the chairman of the so-called crayfish federation of Thailand, Bangkok Biznews said.

According to the victims, at least a total of 20 million baht (570,000 U.S. dollars) has been invested into the crayfish breeding scam, which took place since last November.

The federation asked people to pay at least 15,000 baht (429 U.S. dollars) each as membership fees, to buy crayfish for breeding, promising that it would purchase the matured crayfish at a price between 400 baht to 700 baht (11 to 20 U.S. dollars) per km.

The federation, characterized by a pyramid scheme, also established networks at the district and provincial levels. District and provincial network chiefs had to pay 30,000 baht and 50,000 baht (857 and 1,428 U.S. dollars) respectively. They were supposed to get 10 percent of the membership fees of members they recruited.

In order to make it more credible, the federation frequently invites experts to give lectures to its members on how to breed crayfish, local media said.

However, after their crayfish purchased by the federation just once or twice, the federation fell silent, the victims said, adding that the bought crayfish were used for luring new members.

Crayfish, known as crawfish, are freshwater crustaceans closely related to the prized seafood lobster that lives in the sea.

The prices of ornamental crayfish usually start at 100 baht each and the maximum price is usually 100,000 to 200,000 baht (2,857 to 5,714 U.S. dollars). It's widely believed in Thailand that crayfish farming will bring a lucrative income.

Some victims learned that the federation was not registered in the Commerce Ministry.

The case is under investigation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 21:58:19|Editor: An

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Chui Sai On, chief executive of the Macao Special Administrative Region, addresses the opening ceremony of the International symposium on Belt and Road and Macao's development in Macao, south China, June 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Cheong Kam Ka)

MACAO, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The International symposium on Belt and Road and Macao's development kicked off in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Thursday to discuss Macao's role in the construction of the Belt and Road.

The two-day symposium, co-organized by the Macao SAR government, Macao Foundation and Grand Thought think-tank, has attracted about 400 officials, scholars and entrepreneurs from China, Brazil, Portugal and Thailand.

Macao SAR Chief Executive Chui Sai On said at the opening ceremony that Macao will seize the opportunities of the Belt and Road and continue to promote its economic diversification and improve people's livelihood.

Wang Bingnan, assistant minister of commerce of China, said Macao is an important gateway for China's reform and opening up. The Ministry of Commerce will support Macao in participating in Belt and Road construction and playing its unique role, he said.

During the symposium, participants are expected to discuss such topics as Macao's role in the development of the Belt and Road, the building of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Macao and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, among others.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:08:30|Editor: Song Lifang

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MADRID, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The corporate wing of Huawei Spain celebrated Huawei Enterprise Day in the Spanish capital on Thursday.

The event is designed to showcase the value of new technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud, and Big Data and the business models promoting the digital transformation of companies.

Representatives of Banco Santander, media company Mediaset, online travel company eDreams were there to participate in roundtable discussions on the implication of future developments in digitalization strategies.

"Huawei is a company which has been client-oriented for years," said Leon He, president of Huawei Enterprise in Western Europe.

"We look to create value for our clients and work to convert them into business partners."

"As market leaders, we offer services which combine specific ICT applications and infrastructures to face up to the challenge of the digital transformation," said He.

Those attending Huawei Enterprise Day were also able to view the Huawei ICT (Information Communications Technology) Road Show, a mobile demonstration center which visited 11 major European cities under the banner "Building a Better Connected World."

The road show focused on the opportunities offered by Software Designed Networks (SDN), which allow for the industrial transformation in industry and the operation of remote networks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:13:33|Editor: xuxin

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BRUSSELS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Council of the European Union on Thursday decided to add 14 persons and 4 entities to the bloc's sanction lists against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The decision brought the total number of the persons and entities on the lists to 53 and 46, respectively. Those on the lists are subject to an asset freeze and travel restrictions in the EU.

The council said in a statement that the move is in line with the UN Security Council resolution 2356 adopted on Friday.

The UN Security Council agreed to add more DPRK individuals and entities to its sanctions list in response to the country's repeated ballistic launches.

Condemning "in the strongest terms" the nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development in the face of earlier sanction resolutions, the 15-member council imposed travel bans and asset freezes on 14 individuals, two companies, one bank and the Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People's Army.

The DPRK test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:13:36|Editor: xuxin

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JUBA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- South Sudanese President Salva Kiir will skip the crucial upcoming summit slated on June 12 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa by the regional body Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to discuss the unfolding humanitarian situation in the war-torn country, a spokesman said Thursday.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny told Xinhua in Juba that president Kiir will not attend in person due to domestic issues but will send the minister in the office of the presidency Mayiik Ayii Deng to represent him at the 31st Extra-ordinary IGAD summit.

He added that South Sudan is expected to brief the IGAD Heads of States on the progress on the implementation of the Agreement on Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCISS) signed in August 2015 to end more than three years of violence.

According to the IGAD communique, the summit is expected to deliberate on the dire security and humanitarian situation facing South Sudan.

The deteriorating security situation that has resulted in sharp increase of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, requiring IGAD leaders to speak with one voice to abate the crisis.

"IGAD's consultations with the African Union and the UN also highlight that the region has to lead the way for a concerted effort to bring forward the dialogue to solve the problem in South Sudan," the bloc said.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Kiir and his former deputy Machar led to fighting that pitted mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced over 2 million from their homes, and forced more than 1.5 million to flee into neighbouring countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:18:42|Editor: xuxin

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HARARE, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's gold output marginally declined to 4,637 kg in the first quarter of 2017 from 4,711 kg during the same period last year, the Ministry of Finance said Thursday.

Production was adversely affected by excessive rainfall received during the month of February, which reduced throughput due to flooding, the ministry said in its 2017 first quarter treasury bulletin released Thursday.

However, it said the contribution of small-scale miners continued to rise, with the 2017 first quarter output at 2,083 kg against 2,033 kg during the same period in 2016.

"Production is anticipated to pick up from the second quarter, to give annual output consistent with the total projection for the year of 24,500 kg," the Ministry said.

The ministry said the anticipated increase in gold output was in view of the ongoing support to small scale miners through an additional 20 million U.S. dollars facility that had been availed for equipment for the miners, coupled with a 5 percent export incentive scheme being given to miners by the central bank.

"Furthermore, the expected resumption of riverbed mining in the second quarter of the year is also expected to drive up production," the ministry said.

Gold is Zimbabwe's top mineral export earner.

The ministry said platinum output for the first two months of the year stood at 2,418 kg against a total annual target of 15,500 tonnes.

Diamond production during the first quarter of 2017 stood at 567,024 carats, six percent lower than 603,590 carats produced in the comparable period of 2016.

The Ministry attributed the decline in diamond production to transitional challenges involving the consolidation of former diamond companies into one state company, the Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company since February 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:18:49|Editor: xuxin

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JUBA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- A South Sudanese official said Thursday that the presence of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) during the ongoing trial of soldiers on rape charges was approved by the UN Security Council.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Mawien Makol told Xinhua in Juba that this was a joint effort of the UN Security Council, government and UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to have the American intelligence services help with investigations of the case in which 12 soldiers face raping, looting and killing charges at the army General Court Martial (GCM).

The South Sudanese army (SPLA) came under intense scrutiny by the UN, U.S. after it emerged that a section of soldiers during the July 2016 clash gang raped aid workers mostly American citizens after having forcefully broken into the Terrain Hotel in Jebel suburb.

The GCM trial of the accused soldiers which started in May saw FBI attache at the U.S. embassy in South Sudan attend the second hearing on June 6, which was later on adjourned until June 20 to allow the new army prosecutor time to study the case and also arrival of witnesses and victims from outside the war-torn country.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013 after political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar led to fighting that pitted mostly Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital forcing the rebel leader Machar to flee into exile.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 22:59:19|Editor: yan

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NANNING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China, ASEAN and other South Asian nations should enhance legal cooperation to ensure regional peace and stability, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang said Thursday.

Zhou Qiang, president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC), made the remarks at the second China-ASEAN Justice Forum.

Zhou said regional countries should strengthen judicial cooperation to fight crime more effectively, provide strong legal guarantees for the Belt and Road Initiative, and contribute to the peace and stability in the region.

Attendees reached consensus on improving cross-border legal framework, mechanism of solving trade disputes and promoting mutual recognition of civil and commercial judgements.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:14:29|Editor: yan

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KIEV, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian parliament on Thursday adopted a bill on the resumption of Ukraine's course towards joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The bill, which secures the membership as a "strategic priority" of Kiev's foreign policy, was backed by 276 out of the 357 lawmakers present in the assembly, said a statement issued on the parliament website.

While commenting on the bill, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said the course towards NATO membership will facilitate the implementation of the reforms in Ukraine's security, defense, justice and anti-corruption sectors.

"In addition to the ultimate goal of acquiring membership, it will help to unite civil society and government agencies in their efforts on reforming the country according to NATO standards," Klympush-Tsintsadze wrote on her Facebook account.

Meanwhile, Olexandr Vilkul, co-head of Ukraine's Opposition Bloc, said that Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO will bring more troubles than benefits.

"The only effective model for Ukraine, which lies at the crossroads between different systems and civilizations, is the eternal neutrality enshrined in the constitution. Any other way is an eternal confrontation," Vilkul said in a statement.

Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 shortly after Kiev gained its independence from the former Soviet Union.

In 2003, Ukraine declared a course towards NATO membership, but revoked the policy in 2010, declaring non-aligned status.

Shortly after the conflict between the government troops and pro-independence insurgents broke out in eastern Ukraine in April 2014, the Ukrainian parliament abandoned the country's non-aligned status, paving the way for it to join the military bloc.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:14:31|Editor: yan

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VILNIUS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania's ruling parties and the government must urgently implement bold reforms to prevent people's growing frustration, President Dalia Grybauskaite said in her state of nation address on Thursday.

Speaking to the parliament (Seimas), the president noted that after last year's parliamentary elections, Lithuanian people's expectations for awaited changes and hopes for a more prosperous life increased, however, "the prolonged confusion in state governance and the vagueness of some reforms are already causing alarm."

"Strategic reforms can predetermine the quality of state governance for decades to come," Grybauskaite underlined.

The lagging education system reform was mentioned by Grybauskaite as one of the most disappointing examples of the current governance.

"Low quality education is becoming an issue of national security. It is the cause of emigration, social exclusion, declining investment, economic stagnation, and, most importantly, corruption," the head of state stressed.

Instead of "quality change", the governing politicians tend to stick to minor improvements, thus it "looks like an imitation of action", Grybauskaite continued on the education issue.

"Lack of political will in critical decision-making", "entanglement in petty details", "mania for hasty unprepared reforms", "undelivered political promises", all these are becoming a serious problem, the head of state said in a series of critical remarks.

Reforming the public sector, addressing corruption, social exclusion issues, enhancing justice and bringing Lithuanian emigrants back home from other countries to reduce the scale of emigration, were among the priorities listed by the president.

"The jubilee year commits us to take an intense and realistic look at the most challenging tasks facing us. There is no one but us to speed up the national progress," said Grybauskaite, referring to 100th anniversary of Lithuanian independence which will be marked in 2018.

She noted that science and innovation should set the further economic path for Lithuania: "The decisions of today will shape the Lithuania of tomorrow: a country of innovators or a deserted land of elderly people."

Lithuanian Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, when speaking to reporters after the president's address, said that his government's will to implement reforms was "obvious."

"The problems in education, society and many other areas were being ignored for nearly two decades. We started to implement these reforms and this is a long-term process," Skvernelis was quoted as saying by local media.

He noted that the current government had only been working for half a year and proposed to withhold judgment until the full four-year government program was be implemented.

"Then we will be able to objectively judge what has been achieved," the prime minister said.

However, he said he believed that the president's criticism was not against the government.

"The president spoke about the ruling majority in general and voiced her expectations; I appreciate every remark," said Skvernelis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:34:53|Editor: yan

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ISLAMABAD, June 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of Nigerian troops on Thursday completed an eight-week anti-terrorism training in Pakistan, the military said.

The Nigerian contingent comprised of 440 trainees including 26 officers, the army spokesman said.

Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa visited the Special Service Group (SSG) training area near the town of Terbela in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to witness completion of the Counter Terrorism Training of Nigerian Special Forces Battalion by Pakistan Army SSG team.

General Bajwa appreciated standard of training imparted and the results attained by the trainee contingent, the spokesman said in a statement.

"The COAS (Chief of the Army Staff) said that terrorism is a menace that requires a collective response," according to the army statement.

He said Pakistan Army has vast experience of Counter Terrorism operations as well as modern training facilities and we are happy to play a part in enabling counter terrorism response of multiple friendly countries.

Acting Nigerian High Commissioner, Salisu Murtala Isa and senior military officials attended the graduation ceremony.

Pakistan also offers training to the forces of friendly countries at the SSG training center at Tarbela.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:39:59|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The deep blue sea still remains an abyss of mystery after years of exploration by scientists worldwide. But adventurers never pause before the great unknowns, and the Chinese are no exception.

China is making progress in becoming a maritime global power, pushing forward technology and research on all fronts.

DEEP-SEA OBSERVATION

China is setting up a submarine observation network, the first national science and technology infrastructure project in the maritime field.

The network will be completed within five years at a cost of more than 2.1 billion yuan (about 310 million U.S. dollars).

The cable-based network will study the bed of the East China Sea and the South China Sea to collect data to be analyzed in Shanghai.

The network will emphasize on observation of the environment and marine disasters.

DEEP-SEA DIVING

The Chinese have long dreamed of going up to the sky and down into the ocean on the backs of dragons.

On Friday China's manned submersible Jiaolong will have its 150th dive, in the Yap Trench.

Named after a mythical water dragon, Jiaolong completed its first dive in 2009 and reached a maximum depth of 7,062 meters in the Mariana Trench in June 2012.

"Hailong 2" and "Qianlong 1," both unmanned submersibles, were deployed at the National Deep Sea Center in Qingdao in February.

The three types of subs are all domestically-made and each has its own specialty.

"Hailong 2", which needs a wire to link to the support ship, can work at a maximum depth of 3,500 meters. Wireless "Qianlong 1" can operate at a depth of 6,000 meters.

DEEP-SEA DRILLING

A four-month drilling expedition in the South China Sea as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) is drawing to an end.

Among the 66 scientists from 13 countries on the drilling ship JOIDES Resolution, 26 are from Chinese universities and research institutions.

Since joining the IODP in 1998, China has played a major role in two previous expeditions to the South China Sea in 1999 and 2014. Scientists collected samples for the study of climate change and basin formation.

China will organize an international expedition and set up a new research center for deep-sea sediment core research between 2018 and 2020, then build a new-generation ocean drilling vessel.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:45:05|Editor: yan

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ROME, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Thirteen Nigerian nationals were arrested in Italy in an operation targeting an alleged human trafficking ring, Italian police said on Thursday.

All of the suspects were variously charged with the induction of people into slavery and prostitution, human trafficking, and illegal immigration. At least seven women were among those arrested.

The operation was coordinated by prosecutors of the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) in Cagliari, Sardinia, and raids were carried out in the provinces of Cagliari, Reggio Calabria, Perugia, Pistoia, and Pescara.

"The operation resulted from complaints filed by young women from Ghana and Nigeria, who were engaged in prostitution at the outskirts of the regional capital (Cagliari)," the police headquarters said in a statement.

The suspects allegedly trafficked women from various countries in Central Africa to Italy with the promise of regular employment, and then forced them into prostitution.

They are also believed to have threatened to retaliate against the victims'relatives back in their countries of origin had they disobeyed.

According to investigators, each victim had to pay traffickers 25,000 to 30,000 euros (28,000 to 33,600 U.S. dollars) to repay the cost of the journey from Africa to Europe.

The probe also uncovered links between the Nigerian traffickers and migrant smugglers based in Libya, where most of the trafficked women were brought before undertaking the Mediterranean crossing to reach Italy.

In at least one case, the victim was recruited through Facebook, the investigation revealed. In another case, the Nigerian traffickers said they would try to ensure the transfer of a young woman to the German city of Munich, after a short stay in Italy.

Some of the young victims contributed to the probe with their testimonies, and were put under protection as provided by Italian law, police said.
A gunman is seen entering Iranian parliament building in a still image taken from close circuit television (CCTV), taken on June 7, 2017, in Tehran, Iran. (Reuters photo)

TEHRAN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Intelligence Ministry on Thursday released the pictures and first names of five gunmen as Iran nationals and members of the Islamic State (IS) who attacked the Iranian parliament and Imam Khomeini's shrine on Wednesday.

According to the ministry's statement, the five attackers had left Iran and were engaged in the IS operations in Iraq's Mosul and Syria's Raqqa, Tasnim news agency reported.

In August 2016, the five gunmen had returned to Iran for a terrorist operation under the command of Abu Aysheh, a ranking commander of IS, with the purpose of carrying out operations in Iran's religious cities, the statement said.

They fled Iran after their cell was dismantled at the time and their ringleader, Abu Aysheh, was killed, it added.

On Wednesday, six assailants attacked Iran's parliament and Imam Khomeini mausoleum in capital Tehran, whereby at least 17 people died and 52 others injured.

All the six assailants involved in the attacks were killed. The IS has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-08 23:50:14|Editor: yan

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JUBA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The East African Court of Justice (EACJ) has granted an interim order restraining the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) from swearing in nine Members of Parliament (MPs) from South Sudan over nomination fiasco.

The EAC said in a statement on its website that an application was filed by Wani Santino Jada, a citizen of South Sudan against the country's Attorney General, the Speaker of the Parliament and the Secretary General of the East African Community who are to be served with the ex parte order issued by the Court.

The statement said Jada appeared ex parte before a bench comprising of six Justices on June 5, and the next hearing is set for June 15.

The new EALA representatives from the six EAC member states were supposed to take oath of office on June 5, 2017, but have been suspended following the restraining order against South Sudan, and the EAC is also waiting for Kenya to elect its representatives.

Jada told Xinhua on Thursday that the appointment of the nine representatives by the President of South Sudan Salva Kiir on March 11 was in violation of Article 50 of the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community.

Article 50 of the EAC treaty grants the National Assembly of each member state to elect nine members of the Assembly from various political parties represented in the National Assembly.

Jada said he sought the court's intervention to determine whether the appointment was legally binding or else the appointees be disqualified.

"All other members of the EAC conducted elections, why is that South Sudan appointed their representatives through Presidential decrees. What we want is the spirit of democracy to be in place because the internal affairs of South Sudan can't over right the EAC Treaty," Jada said.

The East African Court of Justice is one of the organs of the East African Community established under Article 9 of the EAC Treaty.

Established in November 2001, the court is tasked with ensuring adherence to the law in its interpretation and application in compliance with the EAC Treaty.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:00:22|Editor: yan

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by Mohamed al-Azaki

SANAA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Early this week, one-year-old Yemeni boy Ali Abdullah suddenly fell sick with vomiting and severe diarrhea.

Living in a remote mountainous village in Nehm district northeast of Yemen's capital Sanaa, his father Abdullah took him to the village's only clinic, where the boy was diagnosed with cholera disease.

The doctor advised Abdullah to quickly take his son to hospitals in Sanaa, as his clinic lacks of appropriate medicines because of the two-year long war and siege.

Nehm, about 90 km northeast of Sanaa, has been the scene of almost daily clashes between exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government forces and their foe of Shiite Houthi rebels who control the capital and much of the northern provinces.

The boy Ali was then admitted in hospital in the west of the capital Sanaa, a private hospital with its cholera treatment section supported by the Yemeni health ministry and United Nations humanitarian agencies to ease the burden of the state-run crowded hospitals.

"Ali is now undergoing a treatment for the fourth day in this hospital," his father said, adding that he hoped his son would recover soon.

Terrified of losing his son, Abdullah spoke of his wish that they could continue life in a "healthy and normal" manner.

"I wish that the cholera outbreak, war and siege come to an end," he added.

The war-torn Arab country has been fighting a major cholera outbreak since April 2017. The death toll of the confirmed disease cases reached 789, while suspected cases reached 101,820 on Thursday, according to the World Health Organization data.

Elsewhere in downtown Sanaa, more patients suspected to be infected with cholera keep arriving at Al-Sabeen hospital, which is the largest state-run hospital in the city.

Hadiyah Hussien, 80, had suffered severe diarrhea and vomiting for three days until she went into coma before she was rushed into Al-Sabeen hospital from her village in Amran province, some 50 km north of Sanaa.

"I want to live," Hussien said, as she has been in hospital for two days receiving IV treatment.

"The hospital has been receiving more and more cholera-infected patients, mostly elder people and children ... because of their weak immunity and the spread of dirty sewage water and rubbish piles," said the doctor, Ismail al-Mansouri.

The doctor also complained of acute shortage in medicines and beds in the hospital.

"There was increasing number of suspected cholera-infected patients during this week while the capacity of this hospital is limited and there are very big shortage in beds and medicines," the doctor said.

Rahaf Abdullah, a six-year-old girl, lies in a nearby bed suffering from the same disease. Her mother sits beside her.

"My daughter had suffered from severe diarrhea and vomiting for two days, and then she went into coma before I brought her to the hospital," said the mother, who lives in Sanaa.

Hamza Faris al-Joufi, an eight-year-old boy, lies in a nearby bed. His father Faris said the boy was infected with cholera four days ago, adding that he was also very worried about the money needed to take care of his son.

The capital Sanaa and northern provinces have been under control of Houthi rebels since late 2014 after the rebels marched from their stronghold in the far north of Saada province and stormed Sanaa and other provinces in September 2014.

The rebels then expelled the internationally recognized President Hadi along with his government, triggering a military intervention and sea-air-land siege in March 2015 by a Saudi-led coalition forces backing Hadi to try to recapture northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.

The war and all-out blockade since more than two years ago have caused severe shortage of imports of medicines and food.

The sewage systems and rubbish collection have all stopped and now rubbish piles can be seen spread across the streets and neighborhoods of all northern cities, including Sanaa.

The World Health Organization has warned that the healthcare system in Yemen is on the verge of collapse as many hospitals have shut down because of the ongoing war, saying only 45 percent of Yemen's hospitals are operational, and they are facing a shortage of supplies and staff.

The war has so far killed more than 10,000, half of them civilians, and displaced over 2 million others, according to humanitarian agencies.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:05:27|Editor: yan

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JOHANNESBURG, June 8 (Xinhua) -- South Africa banned all trade in birds and chicken products from Zimbabwe on Thursday after an outbreak of H5N8 bird flu was reported over the weekend.

"All importers were immediately notified that their import permits are any permits which have not been used should please be returned to the Department with immediate effect," South Africa's Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' (DAFF) said in a press statement.

"We have heightened inspections of all consignments, including all private and public vehicles at all our ports of entry, especially in and out of Zimbabwe," it added.

Communities have been urged to be extremely vigilant, especially in areas of the Limpopo Province that neighbour Zimbabwe, and report any unusual mortality of chickens or other birds to the State Veterinary Services immediately for samples to be collected.

The South African Poultry Association (SAPA) told Xinhua on Thursday that his association worried of a potential loss of 140 million chickens to bird flu in the event that the virus spread from Zimbabwe.

"We are so concerned, this is the first time that Zimbabwe has had a highly pathogenic avian influenza in its chickens. We're at risk," CEO of SAPA Kevin Lovell said.

According to a state-controlled newspaper, The Herald, the virus was detected on a farm in Zimbabwe with 2 million birds in Lanark and killed 7,845 animals.

"The affected site is close to a small dam where there are a number of different migratory waterfowl, which are tentatively suspected to be the source of infection," the Herald reported.

Based on the information to date, humans can be infected with the H5N8 virus, but the likelihood is low, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) information.

"To date, no human cases of infection with influenza H5N8 have been detected," the WHO website said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:20:43|Editor: yan

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JUBA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's police said on Thursday that at least 14 people have been reported killed and unknown numbers injured following an ambush on a convey traveling from the border town of Nimule to the capital, Juba.

Police spokesman Daniel Justine, said the attack happened in the remote area of Moli, about 40 kilometers from the South Sudan border with Uganda.

Justine said the attackers first hit a military vehicle before attacking other commercial vehicles that followed.

He said among the dead were security officers and civilians who are yet to be identified, adding that investigations are ongoing to establish the motive of the attack and the identity of the attackers.

"At around 11 a.m., gunmen attacked convoy of buses coming from Kampala to Juba. They targeted the first car of the military and then blew it up. Fourteen people are reported dead but we are still gathering more information about the ambush," Justine said.

The Juba-Nimule road remains the only open and major route linking the war-torn country to its Southern neighbor Uganda.

The road has witnessed increased gun violence since renewed fighting erupted between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his former deputy former Riek Machar in July 2016.

Military escorts provided by the government late last year have failed to quell the ambushes.

Between March and April, at least 50 civilians and scores injured during gun attacks on commercial vehicles along another road linking the capital, Juba to the eastern parts of the East African nation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:30:51|Editor: yan

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BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union) arrived in Buenos Aires on Thursday, marking the start of a three-day trip to Argentina and Mexico.

Merkel will consult with Argentinian president Mauricio Macri over the possibility of adopting a shared stance on a range of global issues areas including trade, migration and the environment.

Both politicians will subsequently host a joint press conference.

The meeting follows close on the heels of the latest Group of Seven (G7) meeting in Taormina, Italy in May and roughly four weeks before the Northern German city of Hamburg will host a summit of the Group of 20 major economies known as the G20.

Of particular interest to international observers will be how the positions staked out in the course of Merkel's visit to Latin America will differ from the stance taken by U.S. President Donald Trump since he took office.

Trump clashed with other leaders over issues such as trade and climate policy at last month's G7 meeting.

The U.S. was the only nation present not to express its support for the Paris agreement negotiated in 2015 with the intention of curbing global CO2 emissions and limiting the adverse impact of climate change.

Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris agreement shortly after returning to Washington from Italy, prompting heavy criticism.

Merkel has since launched an effort to shore up global support for efforts to reduce the effects of climate change by intensifying international cooperation with partners in Europe and beyond.

She is expected to further promote this agenda over the course of the next three days as she meets Argentinean and Mexican officials.

While in Buenos Aires, Merkel will also visit a Jewish Synagogue whose organ was originally manufactured in Germany in 1933 and was recently restored with the financial support of the Federal German government.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:41:01|Editor: yan

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RIGA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Latvian law enforcement authorities have detained three insolvency administrators, including Ilmars Krums, the liquidator of Latvia's insolvent Trasta Komercbanka bank, and a financier in an ongoing criminal probe, local media reported Thursday.

Andrejs Grisins, chief of the Latvian Criminal Police, told reporters at a press briefing that the economic crimes unit of the Latvian State Police on Wednesday made four arrests and conducted searches as part of a criminal investigation into offenses related to various insolvency processes.

The police representative did not reveal the names of the detained persons, but confirmed that there were three insolvency administrators among the detainees. He also declined to elaborate on the ongoing investigation and promised to provide more detailed information next week.

The online edition of the Diena daily identified the two other insolvency administrators under investigation as Maris Spruds and Nauris Durevskis.

Financier Jorens Raitums, whose name also features among those detained as part of the probe, is known to have been involved in business dealings with entrepreneur Julijs Krumins who last year was briefly held in connection with violations of party financing regulations in Latvia's seaside resort Jurmala.

Neither the three insolvency administrators nor the financier could be immediately reached for comment.

Krums is currently the administrator of Trasta Komercbanka, which has been ruled insolvent and lost its license after the Latvian banking regulator accused the bank of serious violations. Latvia's TV3 commercial television reported last year that in the process of the bank's liquidation, Krums had spent nearly 7 million euro on various services, most of them provided by Spruds. According to a more recent TV3 report, a criminal probe has been started against Krums over a failure to comply with a court ruling.

The banking regulator has also accused Krums of abusing his office powers as administrator of Trasta Komercbanka but has not provided more detailed information about his dealings.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:46:04|Editor: Lu Hui

An Armed policeman is pictured after Manchester Arena bombing, in London, Britain, on May 23, 2017. (Xinhua/Tim Ireland)

by Martin Banks, Zhou Jun

BRUSSELS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Europe has found itself at the frontline in the fight against terrorism. The sight of armed soldiers on the streets of European cities has become all too familiar.

The spotlight has swung to Britain this time, but no-one in France, a country that has experienced several attacks in the past few years, is under the illusion that their country is completely safe.

Squads of soldiers with automatic weapons at the ready are a regular sight on the streets of Paris. Despite their presence, the French were reminded of the threat when police shot a man outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris on Tuesday.

The suspect, a 40-year-old Algerian doctoral student, attacked an officer with a hammer while shouting "This is for Syria."

One worrying trend to emerge from the British attacks is that, in all three -- the Westminster Bridge and London Bridge killings in London and the attack in Manchester which also targeted children -- at least one of the perpetrators was known to the authorities.

As radicalization become ever more complex and multifaceted, many now agree that it is necessary to move beyond a mere cause-effect analysis and look at the problem from different angles.

One thing that deserves attention is the growing trend of domestic terrorism, or homegrown terrorism, in Europe.

Just over a year ago, the spotlight was on Brussels after a twin attack on the city's airport and metro left 32 people dead. It soon emerged that those responsible for the attack and the earlier Paris attacks, were based in the small Brussels suburb of Molenbeek. Some attackers were born and raised in Europe.

Asked about how to eradicate extremism, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said: "We have to sell our own values. We leave the door open to IS (the Islamic State) with their proposals. We have to be more convinced in presenting our own values and chances to youngsters who are maybe open to IS ideology."

After the Brussels attacks, the European Policy Centre and the Counter Extremism Project came together to launch a project to analyze the rise of radicalization in Europe and beyond and develop concrete policy recommendations.

They concluded that cooperation and intelligence sharing between member states, and between the European Union (EU) and its partners, was an "absolute must."

Equally important is that European governments have to take longer-term actions to integrate immigrant communities and give economic opportunities to those most vulnerable and marginalized people at risk of radicalization.

Lack of education and poverty were often regarded as drivers in the pathways of Europe-based extremists, experts said.

John Duhig, a senior counsellor at the European Foundation for Democracy, warned that attacks on "soft targets", like those seen in Britain, were more difficult to prevent, requiring less preparation and communication than more complex operations, and therefore more difficult for the authorities to detect.

"The threat of lone wolf attacks initiated by those who have never left Europe and have been radicalized online remains a significant threat," Duhig cautioned.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:46:06|Editor: yan

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BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Federal Statistical Office reported on Thursday that there has been 6 percent rise in occasional students attending higher education in Germany.

Occasional students are those who take short academic courses with no initial intention of pursuing an advanced degree.

In the winter semester of 2016-17, 36,900 occasional students attended German higher education, including course and lectures, compared to 34,800 in the winter semester of 2015-16.

The rise of German occasional students remained unchanged from the previous year (1 percent) whereas attendance of foreign occasional students rose by 58 percent, compared to 7 percent in the previous year.

Germany has no tuition fees for international students attending public higher education which is one of the main factors for the continual rise in international students.

However, German public higher education is currently undergoing issues of overcrowding, with many students complaining that there aren't enough professors for the number of students and that classroom sizes are too small.

Professor Matthias Jaroch, the spokesman for the German Association of Professors and Lecturers, said the government is failing to back Angela Merkel's 2008 vision with the necessary funding, which is causing the overcrowding.

The Association has demanded the government to put more investment into public higher education. "We are now working at a ratio of 60 students to one professor," Jaroch said, "The system is no longer tenable."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:56:16|Editor: yan

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NICOSIA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Cyprus has achieved "notable economic achievements" since exiting a three-year bailout program, but still faces challenges, mostly because of the high levels of private-sector debt, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday.

The IMF executive board said in a statement made available in Nicosia that it had concluded its first post-economic adjustment program on Wednesday, almost 15 months after Cyprus ended its three-year bailout probation.

The eastern Mediterranean island was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy in March 2013 under a 10-billion-euro (12 billion U.S. dollar) economic assistance package involving harsh austerity, which was offered by the Eurogroup and supported by the IMF.

The statement said that during the post-program months, Cyprus achieved a robust and broad-based economic growth of 2.8 percent in 2016 that supported a sharp drop in the unemployment rate.

"The fiscal primary surplus reached a sizable 2.3 percent of GDP (on a cash basis) in 2016, supported by reforms undertaken in previous years and improving cyclical conditions, and the cost of market-based borrowing by the sovereign has fallen considerably," the IMF said.

It added that the restructuring of non-performing loans which had reached close to 50 percent of total loans had also gained momentum.

"Still, the clean-up of private and public sector balance sheets is progressing slowly, and indebtedness remains very large," it added.

However, the IMF said that an expected pickup in private sector debt servicing, coupled with a write-down of debt, will gradually restore private indebtedness to a more sustainable level and improve the banking sector's financial health.

It projected a 3-percent primary surplus for Cyprus this year, (a surplus before servicing the sovereign debt), which means that Cyprus can pay the interest of its debt and try to refinance it by obtaining cheaper credit from international markets.

IMF said the primary surplus would stabilize at 2.5 percent for the 2018 to 2022 period. That will allow Cyprus to lower public debt to just over 80 percent of GDP from the present level of around 100 percent.

It said that Cyprus's capacity to repay its debt to the fund was satisfactory, but was subject to risks from the high private sector debt and a slowdown in reforms, mostly in the form of privatizing state-owned enterprises, because of objections by opposition parties.

Apart from urging a revival of the privatizing program, the IMF also recommended measures to accelerate the downward path of non-performing loans and private debt and to save income from over performance of the economy and windfall revenues.

Before issuing its report, the IMF allowed Cyprus late in May to repay IMF loans before maturity.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 00:56:21|Editor: yan

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BERLIN, June 8 (Xinhua) -- On his surprise visit to Libya on Thursday, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel pledged 3.5 million euros of extra refugee aid for the conflict-ridden state struggling to emerge from the throws of civil war.

The money will be used to improve the catastrophic conditions seen in the refugee camps across the country, with systematic sexual abuse and violence reportedly widespread.

For many African refugees, Libya is used as the gate to travel across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe.

In the first five months of this year, 60,000 refugees have come to Europe via Libya, a rise of 26 percent compared to the previous year. Approximately 1,700 people were killed as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from January to May 2017.

Upon his arrival in Libya, Gabriel told journalists "Our goal is to fight against instability alongside Libyans."

The foreign minister referred to the importance of the state in the larger global crisis, saying "In Libya, we see the enormous political, humanitarian and security consequences of the conflict in the Middle East."

He continued "Escape, expulsion and migration are the consequences that directly affect us."

He also called on rival groups to compromise and negotiate with one another. "Only then will there be a chance to elevate the fighting and, in medium terms, to find order and a statehood."

Since the former Libyan President Muammar al-Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011 civil war, infighting has reigned over the North African country.

Libya remains politically divided despite signing a UN-sponsored peace agreement by the rival parties and appointing a unity government. The North African country is plagued with insecurity and unrest with presence of numerous extremist groups.
File photo taken on May 3, 2017 shows that James Comey, the director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing in Washington D.C., the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump fired James Comey, the director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the White House said in a statement on May 9. (Xinhua/Bao Dandan)

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Former Director of Federal Bureau of Investigations James Comey said Thursday that he was confused over the circumstances under which he was fired.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing that the Trump administration had offered "shifting explanations" for his firing, which was confusing and concerning.

"It confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation," he said.

"I was also confused by the initial explanation that was offered publicly, that I was fired because of the decisions I had made during the election year," Comey said.

"The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray," Comey said.

The high profile hearing is scheduled to find out the circumstances under which Comey was fired and if Trump had interfered with FBI investigations.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 02:17:23|Editor: yan

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LISBON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Portugal is better off than it was a year and a half ago, but the government has yet to deal with structural problems which were "aggravated by the previous administration," Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said at a quarterly debate at the Portuguese parliament on Thursday.

"Portugal is not in paradise but it is certainly better off than it was a year and a half ago," Costa said.

Costa blamed the previous government led by Pedro Passos Coelho, leader of the Social Democratic Party, for the country's banking troubles.

"During the previous four years they made efforts to hide the problems of our financial system. They didn't resolve them and they left it for the next government to resolve them," Costa said.

Portugal had to be rescued under an international 78 billion euros bailout program in 2011, and was almost fined by Brussels for not bringing down its deficit.

Portuguese Prime Minister came into office in November 2015 and pledged to reverse some of the austerity measures imposed by the previous administration.

The country managed to bring down its deficit to 2 percent of GDP in 2016, below the 3 percent threshold imposed by Brussels. But the country's debt still amounts to over 130 percent of GDP and the Bank of Portugal earlier this week warned investors that Portuguese banks were still vulnerable to risks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 02:22:27|Editor: yan

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LJUBLJANA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Slovenian government decided on Thursday to suspend the procedure to sell the nation's largest bank Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), due to the disagreement with the minimum offer price for the NLB share.

"In its capacity as the general meeting of the Slovenian Sovereign Holding, the government decided it disagreed with the minimum offer price at 55 euros per NLB share and the offer price range of between 55 and 71 euros a share," Slovenian Press Agency (STA) quoted a press release issued after the cabinet session.

The government has tasked Finance Minister Mateja Vranicar Erman to notify the European Commission of the decision and to examine together with the stakeholders the possibilities of alternative measures, Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar said after the decision made late Thursday afternoon.

Slovenia pledged to sell 75 percent of NLB minus one share in exchange for the European Commission approving state aid for the bank in late 2013. The country reached an agreement with the commission earlier this year to sell at least 50 percent of the bank by the end of this year and the rest by the end of 2018.

In a brief message on Thursday the European Commission said it was in constructive discussion with the Slovenian authorities, adding it could not say anything more at this point, said the STA.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 02:47:38|Editor: yan

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BAGHDAD, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi Turkoman minority on Thursday rejected the decision of the Kurdish regional government to set a date to hold a referendum on independence in the autonomous region of Kurdistan and the disputed areas, including Kirkuk.

The rejection by the Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITF), an umbrella body for several Turkoman parties, came a day after Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdish region, announced the referendum on September 25 following a meeting with the Kurdish political parties in Arbil, the capital city of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

The Kurdish move is a "clear violation of the Iraqi constitution which emphasizes the unity of Iraq," and because the insertion of the areas outside the Kurdish region (in the referendum) is unilateral action against the will of the Turkoman, Arab and other residents of the area (disputed areas), the ITF said in a statement.

The ITF demanded the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the Iraqi parliament and all political parties to "take concrete measures against any step aimed at dividing Iraq and that any such proposal should be discussed first inside the parliament and with the consent of all components," according to the statement.

So far, the Iraqi government has no official reaction to the referendum declaration and is expected to oppose the Kurdish move in protest to the timing as the Iraqi forces are in fighting against terrorism, including the Islamic State (IS) militant group, and because of the disputed areas outside the region.

Disagreements between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government have been high for years, as the ethnic Kurds consider the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arabs and Turkomans and by Baghdad government.

The Iraqi government will see the Kurdish move illegal, as the article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution calls for several steps to address the dispute over the ethically-mixed disputed areas, including a referendum.

However, problems raised among the conflicting ethnicities, as Arabs and Turkomans accuse the Kurds of carrying out demographic change in the disputed areas, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk in the years after 2003, while the Kurds are accusing Saddam Hussein's regime of displacing thousands of Kurds who were replaced with Arabs to make Kirkuk a predominantly Arab province.

On March 28, Kirkuk's council voted in raising the Kurdish flag alongside the Iraqi flag on the building of the provincial council despite the withdrawal of Arab and Turkoman council members, who argued that the move is a pre-decision that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan.

The independence of Kurdistan could be opposed also by neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran and Syria who will see that such a step would threaten their territorial integrity, as larger populations of Kurds live in those countries.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 03:02:48|Editor: An

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) shakes hands with his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev as they signed a China-Kazakhstan joint statement and witnessed the inking of a series of bilateral cooperation documents after their talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)

ASTANA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Back in 2013 in Kazakhstan, Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt, starting the process of Belt and Road (B&R) cooperation.

Four years later, when Xi paid his third state visit to the Central Asian country, the B&R Initiative has developed from a proposal to actions, and from a concept to practice.

On Thursday in Astana, Xi held talks with his old friend, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, to take stock of the achievements the two countries have made since they forged diplomatic ties 25 years ago and to chart the course for future cooperation in all areas -- especially in seeking synergy between the B&R Initiative and Kazakhstan's new economic policy of the "Nurly Zhol," or "Bright Path."

It has been the 16th meeting between the two leaders since 2012.

Noting that the political mutual trust has reached an unprecedented height, Xi said China is willing to build "a stronger community of shared interests and shared future" with Kazakhstan, and hopes the two countries can be "good neighbors, friends and partners forever."

For his part, Nazarbayev lauded the significance of the B&R Initiative, pledging to actively participate in B&R cooperation in areas including cross-border transportation, production capacity, industrial parks, finance, agriculture, people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

The two countries will focus on aligning the construction of the New Eurasian Land Bridge and the China-Central and Western Asia Economic Corridor with the Kazakh strategy of building an international logistics corridor.

Meanwhile, they will join efforts in connecting the international production capacity cooperation with Kazakhstan's push for industrialization, sharing China's transportation advantages on land and by sea with the world's biggest landlocked country, and linking China's "digital Silk Road" initiative with the "digital Kazakhstan" strategy.

According to a joint statement signed between the two sides, China and Kazakhstan also agreed to develop more international cargo train services, starting from China via Kazakhstan to Central Asia, Europe and Gulf countries and to effectively lower logistic cost, making railway freight a major solution for cargo transportation between Asia and Europe by 2025.

To showcase the B&R cooperation achievements between the two countries, the two heads of state inspected via videolink the logistic center in China's eastern city of Lianyungang and a dry port in Horgos, a city of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region bordering Kazakhstan.

Both cities are key hubs of the Europe-bound China Railway Express and the New Eurasian Land Bridge. In 2016, more than 1,200 trains transited through Kazakhstan, with rail freight handled by the two countries' railways reaching 8.2 million tons and the number of freight containers rising by more than two-fold.

The two leaders praised this cross-border transportation project as a model in their B&R cooperation, saying it will benefit the economy and people of the countries along this route.

Xi's visit to Kazakhstan came only less than a month after China held in Beijing the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which was attended by leaders from 29 countries, as well as the heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

The countries represented at the May 14-15 forum agreed to work more closely together to synergize development strategies for greater complementarity and common development.

At the forum, China pledged more financial support for the B&R construction, including an additional 100 billion yuan (about 14.5 billion U.S. dollars) to the Silk Road Fund, and assistance worth 60 billion yuan (8.8 billion dollars) in the coming three years to developing countries and international organizations participating in the initiative.

"The international situation is undergoing profound and complex changes. The world economy is slowly recovering amid deep-going readjustment. Global development remains a daunting challenge. In this context, the building of the Belt and Road brings us unprecedented historic opportunities," Xi wrote in a signed article in the Kazakh newspaper Aikyn Gazeti ahead of his visit to Kazakhstan.

Also Thursday, Xi met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana, all pledging to boost B&R cooperation.

On Friday, the Chinese president will attend the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the opening ceremony of Expo 2017 in Astana.

Accompanied by Nazarbayev, Xi visited the China Pavilion at the Expo on Thursday afternoon.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 04:03:27|Editor: MJ

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SKOPJE, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The European Council and European Commission Thursday affirmed their commitment to continuing to support Macedonia in conducting EU-oriented reforms and projects, Macedonian PM's cabinet informed.

In a letter sent to Macedonia's new Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, President of European Council Donald Tusk and President of European Commission Jean Claude Juncker said they expected the new government to work on Euro-Atlantic integration objective.

They noted that the formation of the new government offered Macedonia the opportunity to move beyond the political strife that has held the country back for so long.

"The coming period offers the new government the opportunity for dedicated work, through a constructive dialogue with the opposition, on the common objective of Euro-Atlantic integration," according to the letter.

Further on, Tusk and Juncker called for continued commitment to the full implementation of the Przino Agreement and the implementation of the Urgent Reform Priorities.

According to them, the meeting of such priorities would be essential to Macedonia's success in its drive to integration processes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 04:58:53|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese President Xi Jinping (L) meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 8, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

ASTANA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, pledged here Thursday to enhance bilateral ties and promote the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The two heads of state met ahead of the 17th SCO summit in Astana.

Noting that the SCO is facing new opportunities and challenges for development, Xi said China and Russia should strengthen communication and coordination, firmly observe the "Shanghai Spirit," boost solidarity among the SCO members, maintain regional security and stability, promote pragmatic cooperation, so as to constantly enhance SCO's influence in the international and regional affairs.

Xi urged the SCO to play a bigger role in Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation process, adding that China will assume the SCO rotating presidency after the Astana summit and is willing to maintain close communication and coordination with all parties including Russia, to achieve further development for the SCO.

During their meeting on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in Beijing last month, the two leaders reached an important consensus on maintaining a high-level China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination and enhancing all-round cooperation, according to the Chinese president.

Under the current complex international situation, sound China-Russia ties are of great significance to the two countries' development and revitalization, as well as to peace and stability of the world, Xi said.

The two countries should strengthen their mutual support on the issues relating to each other's core interests, said Xi, urging more achievements in the alignment of the Belt and Road construction with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).

The Chinese president also urged the two countries to deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges and strengthen coordination and cooperation in international and regional affairs.

For his part, Putin said it is of great significance for Russia and China to maintain frequent high-level interactions.

He urged the two sides to step up their communication and coordination in a bid to maintain peace, stability and security in the region and around the world.

Russia and China should work together with all sides concerned to boost unity and coordination among the SCO members to enhance the influence of the organization in international affairs, Putin said.

Reiterating his congratulation on the success of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, the Russian president said the Belt and Road Initiative has won extensive support in the international community.

The two heads of state also exchanged views on the situation in Afghanistan and on the Korean Peninsula, as well as on other international and regional issues.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 06:14:46|Editor: yan

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Tripoli, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Serraj met with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Thursday in the capital Tripoli.

The two officials discussed several areas of mutual cooperation, including security, services, infrastructure, health and energy, in addition to the fight against terrorism and illegal immigration.

The prime minister's office said Gabriel reiterated Germany's full support for the Libyan government.

He said his visit reflected Germany's keenness to resolve the Libyan crisis and achieve stability throughout the country.

Gabriel also praised Serraj's efforts to achieve consensus between Libyan political parties.

"In Libya, we are witnessing the tremendous political, humanitarian and security policy consequences of the conflicts in the Middle East in sharp relief," he said in a statement following the meeting.

"Many migrants are also in a desperate situation on dry land. An initial, pressing task is therefore to improve the shameful living conditions in the detention centres," the minister noted.

Serraj stressed the importance of the relations between the two countries, hailing Germany's support for the government and its efforts to end the crisis in Libya.

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Sayala also attended the meeting.

He said the West "views Libya as a source of terrorism and illegal immigration, while it is a great concern for the Libyan government, which is doing its best to fight them."

"The fight against illegal immigration cannot be done at sea only when crossing to the other side of the Mediterranean. It should be at the four-thousand-kilometer long southern border in cooperation with neighboring countries," Seyala said.

Seyala also called on countries of origin to accept their nationals who are deported after being rescued at sea.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 06:19:48|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, June 9 (Xinhua)-- Tens of civilians were killed on Thursday when the U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syria's northen city of Raqqa with white phosphorus, pro-government Sham FM radio reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-06-09 06:34:55|Editor: An

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LOS ANGELES, June 8 (Xinhua) - The Los Angeles Superior Court announced Thursday that Andrew Garcia was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of a Chinese graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC) in 2014.

24-year-old Ji Xinran was attacked during an attempted robbery on July 24, 2014 when he was walking to his apartment from a study session. He was found dead the next morning.

Medical reports indicate that Ji suffered skull fractures, facial lacerations and a broken nose. Andrew Garcia and three co-defendants were charged with first-degree murder, second-degree robbery, second-degree attempted robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.

After five days of jury trial, the Court had a closing statement on Wednesday, where prosecutor John McKinney presented evidence including footage from surveillance cameras, autopsy report, DNA report and interrogation recordings.

"All the evidence have proved that Garcia is not only an aider, he is the perpetrator," Cai Wenhui, Ji's family attorney told Xinhua on Wednesday.

After about two hours of discussion on Thursday, the jury group of 12 made a decision that 21-year-old Garcia is guilty. He will face up to life in prison without parole. Garcia is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

The other two defendants will also face jury trials in the future.
Questions surround GATE funding for private institutions

We asked some attendees if they were concerned about how changes in the GATE programme would affect their schooling.

One parent was unaffected by the changes, at least for now. He has a daughter studying in Canada.

Meanwhile, his son who is the second year of his IT degree is safe. As he started the programme before last years changes, his degree will be fully funded until he finishes.

The parent was concerned about a younger daughter still in secondary school though. He thought his portion of the fees for her degree will be exorbitant. He doesnt remember Minister Garcia breakdown of the parents contribution under the new GATE system amounting to hundreds of dollars per month according to the degree, with totals of less than $4,000 for most programmes.

Another parent looked wistfully around the campus. Even though he was there for his daughter, he told us he would have liked to have gone back to do a Masters programme. He cant though. He is now over the age limit for funding. They seemed to be in a minority, however.

Most people didnt ask about GATE, said an administrative officer on duty for the afternoon shift, I provided the information because it was there.

But it didnt appear to be a concern. But if funding does not yet appear to be a concern at public educational institutions, it certainly is at the private ones. When we last wrote about the GATE programme, we projected that the private institutions would feel the brunt of the cuts. We wrote: The first big losers are likely to be private tertiary institutions. Several of the private tertiary schools we approached were reluctant to discuss their enrolment prior to GATE and after its introduction as well as their levels of profitability over the same period.

However, some extrapolations can be made based on other information.

Government expenditure for GATE has steadily increased over the past 10 years From 472.8 million in financial year 2006/07, both the finance and education ministers have estimated that between $650 and $700 million has been spent on GATE every year since 2010.

Additionally, checks with the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago show that roughly over the same period, 81 institutions sought to be registered. An institution cannot be considered for GATE unless it is at least registered with ACTT. Documents on the Education Ministrys scholarship division page average that the cost of a post graduate degrees at a public tertiary institution is roughly $70,000, the cost at the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, is around $100,000 and the cost at other private institutions is around $140,000, or about twice that of the public schools.

Even though undergrad degrees cost less, they are also more expensive at the private institutions owing to the fact that a number of them are foreign based.

The above would indicate that over the past 10 years, private institutions have been receiving a handsome portion of GATE funding, although the figures do not show if they have been receiving more or less than public institutions. We have subsequently been able to obtain figures for the cost to taxpayers of nationals schooling at private tertiary institutions. From 2004 to 2015, the government has spent $212,786,822 at private institutions, just slightly over half of the $421,875,568 spent at public institutions.We also noted at the time that private institutions were likely to see significant reductions in GATE funding support because several of their degree programmes were not aligned to stated national skill priorities. It appears as though our projections were right, if reports coming out of the private tertiary education sector are any indication.

Business Day has sought interviews with executives at several of the countrys leading private institutions, but again, as was the case last year, was unsuccessful.

Sources tell us, though that the situation is likely to be grim.

At one major institution, closure of branches is already being considered in anticipation of lowered class numbers.

According to our sources, the GATE administration office of the Ministry of Education has signaled that funding will be cut across the board at private institutions. At another institution, the administration has signaled changes to lecturers rosters. Previously, the lecturers were signed to a fixed contract over the school year. Now, they will be paid according to class numbers. One source told Business Day that the silence on the issue continues to be disturbing.

The ministers arent communicating with us at all, they said.

In turn, the schools arent able to provide much information to current or prospective students.

People need to know whats going on so that come 2017. Students need to be able to come in and be able to ask questions. And not be startled when they come in and find out that programmes they thought were funded are no longer and they will now be covered out of pocket, said the source.

Business Day attempted to reach the GATE Administration Office through its office numbers and email, however, we were unsuccessful in getting responses.

Next week, we explore the GATE issue further, as we attempt to contact the both the Minister of Education and the GATE Administration Office for an update on how the programme intends to treat with private institutions.
Cost of a friends act

In 2015, the US agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 as part of the Paris deal.

The Rhodium Group estimates that under Trumps policies, US emissions will now most likely fall just 15 to 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. In addition, the US promised $3 billion in aid to poorer countries to assist them increase clean energy and adjust to droughts, sea-level rise, and other global warming disasters. The Obama administration contributed $1 billion thus far, as have other wealthy nations. But Trump has promised to terminate all future payments; one possible result is for developing nations in Africa and Asia to be less enthusiastic to deal with their emissions.

It has to be admitted that before President Trumps announcement, those efforts of curbing emissions and strengthening those pledges with the expectations of escaping catastrophic warming were not being met. In fact, the total current pledges place the earth on track to warm three degrees Celsius or more above pre-industrial levels, an outcome with a far greater risk of destabilising ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, higher sea-level rise, more destructive heat waves and droughts, and the loss of vital ecosystems like coral reefs.

Global warming, brought on by the release of carbon dioxide, methane, soot, and other pollutants into the atmosphere act like a blanket, trapping the suns heat and causing the planet to warm.

Data reveals that 2000 to 2009 was hotter than any other decade in the past 1,300 years. Higher temperatures are worsening many types of disasters, including storms, heat waves, floods, and droughts, events with which we in the Caribbean are all too familiar.

The increasing occurrence of droughts, intense storms, and floods were seeing as our warming atmosphere holds  and then dumps  more moisture, poses risks to public health and safety, too. Heavier rains cause streams, rivers, and lakes to overflow, which damages life and property, contaminates drinking water, creates hazardous-material spills, and promotes mould infestation and unhealthy air. A warmer, wetter world is also a boon for foodborne and waterborne illnesses and disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes, fleas, and ticks.

All these have costs which have afflicted us in the Caribbean, from Zika to powerful hurricanes.

The Government of Guyana has projected that improved sea and river defenses and drainage systems costs could exceed US$1 billion.

This figure includes the costs of activities ranging from building and reinforcing levees and seawalls to flood-proofing health clinics.

In damages alone the Caribbean suffered just under US$2 billion dollars in damage from selected natural disasters between 2000 and 2012.

The Caribbean needs to first understand what the potential costs are from this one decision by the US. In addition, they need to cost what is required to upgrade their infrastructure and buildings to address more severe natural disasters: all this as the most indebted countries in the world.

One act from a friend  the US - will affect every facet of life and impose huge costs on us.
bmobile partners with CANTO

Dr Jacob was addressing secondary school students from Brazil, Coryal, Valencia, Matelot, Manzanilla, Toco, Guaico and Malabar who attended the North Eastern Secondary Schools ICT Expo at the UTT OMeara campus on May 31. The expo was hosted by CANTO (Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations), under the patronage of the Maxie Cuffie, Minister of Public Administration and Communications, and supported by bmobile.

The expo theme, Demonstrating ICTs as a Viable Career Choice, was geared at stimulating students to consider careers in ICT, and featured several presenters, including representatives from bmobile, UTT, and FLOW. NIHERST, iGovTT and the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago were among the companies with information booths on display.

Teresa Wankin, CANTOs Secretary General indicated that the expo demonstrated the wide range of programmes and career choices in the field of ICT and made students more aware of the ICT-based industries that could be targeted for their career choices.

The ICT sector is the most creative and resilient sector for employment. It is also the fastest growing sector and the only sector that combines with all disciplines. As we move toward an ICT-based knowledge society, we are living in exciting times where creativity and innovation provide entirely new ways of working, interacting and building. The future is bright for you. This expo brings you opportunities that no other generation enjoyed. Camille Campbell, VP Marketing, TSTT explored how ICT has transformed the global landscape and has proven to be a catalyst for innovation, diversification, productivity, national development and social transformation. Indicating that trends in the job market reflect double digit growth for ICT careers, Campbell added, At bmobile we are proud to be that catalyst in Trinidad and Tobago.

bmobile remains committed to investing in the necessary infrastructure that will allow Trinidad and Tobagos most valuable resource, you, to realise your full potential. Minister Cuffie noted the equalising impact of ICT on rural areas and the impact on economic growth for Trinidad and Tobago. For developing countries like Trinidad and Tobago, ICT has the potential to increase access to and improve the relevance and quality of your education, thus presenting a potentially equalising effect in developing countries for the youths in rural areas.

Todays event is about exposing you to the endless possibilities through technological literacy. Dr Jacob demonstrated the numerous applications of ICT in the world of work, as well as everyday life, by using examples that included airplanes autopilot, logistics planning and maintenance functions, smart cars, smartphones, smart buildings, and e-health applications which allow remote consultations and surgeries from around the world. He told the attendees, Technology is changing the world and is in everything we do today. Today is your opportunity to become well informed. His colleague, Professor Rodney Rambally, from the UTT Centre for ICT, discussed the various UTT bachelors and masters degrees, diploma and certificate programmes available.

Guest speaker Petriann Trancoso, a Big Data and Cloud Computing Expert and Database administrator, used online shopping and the impact it was having on the local retail industry to discuss the pervasiveness of ICT in all industry sectors worldwide and the equalising effect of ICT for local businesses. She stated that local companies must compete globally to remain viable and they need ICT to do this.

The feedback from some of the participants showed that the expo was appreciated. Gail Pierre-Ashing, a guidance officer at Brazil Secondary said the expo was quite informative. This gave the students the opportunity to broaden their perspective beyond the traditional choices and to include ICT as one of their career options. I also enjoyed visiting the booths which presented more in-depth exposure to some of the topics discussed. One of her Form Three students, Treangelo Gayah, agreed and said, I want to be a PE teacher and ICT has a lot of relevance in this field so this expo was quite educational. Form Four Valencia Secondary student, Kemone Perez, added, I learnt about the different aspects of ICT in everyday life and how many different jobs are available. I am a business student but this expo made me more interested in the ICT
NIB questions

The Ninth Actuarial Review warned that from 2019-2020, assets will rapidly decrease and the NIS funds will be completely depleted in 2029-2030 if nothing is modified in terms of contributions or benefits.

Interestingly, according to the 8th Actuarial Review, NIS assets would have increased until 2027-28 and would have then started to decrease.

It was projected that the fund would be depleted in financial year 2039-40.

Therefore, it would appear that in the three years between the Eighth and Ninth Actuarial Reviews, the rate of depletion of the funds increased by ten years. Would this mean that, if no changes are made, we can assume by the Tenth Actuarial Review, the projected depletion would be in 2019? The obvious next question is  how did we reach to this point? There are people who are making statements that the public should not panic - assurances are being given to the public that the NIB is wellmanaged, well-governed, transparent and accountable. There is much evidence to suggest otherwise, and citizens who are currently making NIS contributions, and who may not be able to receive any benefits, must demand some answers. We need to evaluate the NIB based on competence of the Board, as well as the operational efficiency and the financial health of the institution.

Actuarial reviews would have had to be undertaken over the life of the establishment and is an instrument that is intended to allow the government to understand the financial state of the NIB and is a fundamental tool in ensuring the financial sustainability of the scheme. The actuaries have made recommendations after each of the nine reviews. Have these recommendations been adopted by the NIB? Has the government been made aware of these recommendations and the implications of not implementing them? Would the government have been willing to raise contributions to the NIS as would have been necessary to ensure the viability of the fund if it threatened a loss of votes? According to the actuaries, it would be necessary to implement a mechanism that would force the adjustment of the contribution rate at regular intervals. However, the schemes adjustments are conditional on the willingness of the government to pass the law to introduce those changes.

What about the operational efficiency of the NIB? Does the NIB receive contributions for 100% of the employer population? If not why not? The record management is critical for an institution such as the NIB. Is it efficient? Is there a competent record system? Are the records of the contributions available and accurate? How many citizens either at retirement or even earlier have to battle with NIB over the number of contributions made? It stands to reason if the records of the contributions are inaccurate then the benefits will be inaccurate and funds available for investment will be inaccurate; how then is the investment portfolio being effectively managed?.

The next area for discussion is the financial health of the institution and with that investment decisions that the NIB would make. We need to ask then about the NIB spending $37 million to acquire the property housing Apsara and Thamnak Thai restaurants in Port-of-Spain and promptly leasing it back to the owners at $96,000 a month for ten years. Interestingly, the property was valued at $16.5 million. In addition, $5 million was spent on repairs to the building. We must also inquire as to whether the financial performance of the company is reported to the Minister of Finance? What about any shortfall in benefits versus contributions received? Who pays the difference? Is it the NIB or the government? If it is the NIB and there are no more funds, can the government afford to fund a deficit? Finally, according to the Fit and Proper Guideline issued by the Central Bank, the Board of Directors must consider character, competence and financial soundness when assessing key personnel for employment within the organisation.

But what does the Central Bank mean by competence? According to the Guideline a person must demonstrate the competence and ability to understand the technical requirements of the business, the inherent risks therein, and the management processes required to conduct its operations effectively.

The technical requirements of the NIB would therefore include an understanding of business, finance, investments and other aspects of managing a national social security scheme. Is a background in law then, considered sufficient to steer a billion-dollar financial institution that citizens depend heavily on? What is the Minister doing to address all the deficiencies at the NIB that are becoming ever more apparent? Where are the Board in all of this? Certainly, they must be aware that all failures of the institution will ultimately be theirs.
$.4M in marijuana seized

Officers also seized two guns, a quantity of ammunition and a magazine in the Morvant district during the same exercise.

The anti-crime initiative began at 1 pm on Tuesday and ended at 11 am yesterday.

It was coordinated by ACP Surujdeen Persad and supervised by Snr Supt Surendra Sagramsingh, ASP Sookar and Sgt Guelmo.

Other officers taking part included those from the CID, Task Force, Canine Unit and Coastal Patrol Unit.

According to reports, officers acting on information went to the forested area in Blanchieusse where they found 32 packets of marijuana weighing 16.4 kilos.

Officers believe that the marijuana came from Venezuela and was due to be picked up by a well-known drug trafficker from the Maracas area.

The same team of officers then went to Morvant where they seized a pistol, a revolver, four rounds of nine-millimetre calibre ammunition and a magazine in a bushy area. ACP Persad thanked members of the public for partnering with the police to provide key information on criminal activities within their communities.
Shot siblings sent home

Lian and Lael Alexander of Railway Road, Enterprise, Chaguanas were at Building 7 in Maloney with their mother at 9.05 pm when shot were fired. Lael was shot in the right hand while Liam was shot in the left hand.

The children were taken to hospital and warded for several days.

They both underwent emergency surgeries to have bullets removed and were recuperating at their Enterprise home yesterday.

Maloney police led by ASP Mervyn Edwards carried out a look-down of Maloney hours after the incident and detained a 21-yearold man with a Colt .45 pistol with seven rounds of ammunition.

The gun was sent for ballistic testing to ascertain if the weapon was used in the shooting of the children.
Police seize guns, ammo, drugs

The Police Service, in statements to the media yesterday, said the exercises were conducted between Tuesday and yesterday.

Police also found firearms and ammunition. A 30-year-old man was arrested during one of the raids.

Police officers from the Moruga police station found and seized a pump action shotgun and 3.86 kilogrammes of marijuana with an estimated street value of $38,600.

They were on patrol when they went to a camp in a forested area off Shorty Street, Bois Jean Jean, Moruga. As they arrived they saw three men running away.

When police searched the camp, they found a 12-gauge shotgun and the marijuana.

Two guns, ammunition and 15 grammes of marijuana were found in Blanchisseuse and Morvant by members of the North Eastern Division Task Force on Tuesday.

Acting on information, the police went to a forested area off Paria Main Road, Blanchisseuse where they found 15 kilogrammes of marijuana.

Then they went to Nine Storeys, Almond Drive Morvant, where they found a .38 revolver, a .9mm pistol, four rounds of ammunition, 1.4 kilogrammes of marijuana and 11 grammes of cocaine with an estimated street value of $ 16,500.

In Diego Martin on Tuesday, they found 62.4 grammes of marijuana while searching abandoned houses on Sparrow Drive and Simeon Road. In Maraval between 8 pm on Tuesday and 1 am yesterday, a search warrant was executed at the home of a 30-year-old man. Some 32 grammes of marijuana was found.

The man was arrested and charged and was expected to appear before a Port of Spain magistrate yesterday.
Clerk of the Peace investigates Bajans matter

Worrell, 41, of Half-Moon Fort, Barbados, was arrested, charged and granted bail pending appeal for possession of ten grammes of marijuana in 2013.

Four years later, Worrell is still in Trinidad and is yet to have his matter heard in the Court of Appeal because the notes of evidence have not been sent from the Tunapuna Magistrates Court to the Court of Appeal.

Without a national ID and with an unenforceable deportation order hanging over his head, the painter has been unable to find work.

Newsday contacted the clerk of the peace yesterday morning to ask about the status of the notes of evidence.

Declining to give her name, she said she was asked yesterday morning to look into the matter.

She declined to comment further.

Also contacted yesterday, the Judiciarys corporate communications department acknowledged Newsdays emailed queries and gave an assurance that it will respond by the end of the week.
Judge orders retroactive promotion of senior cop

On Monday in the Port of Spain High Court, Justice James Aboud ordered Williams to retroactively promote Persad from May 19, 2011.

Persad initiated judicial review proceedings against Williams in 2014 when he failed to promote him based on his placement on the merit list.

Persad contended that Williams decision was illegal, unlawful and in breach of his Constitutional rights.

When the matter came up in 2014, Aboud ordered that a place be reserved for Persad before any promotions were made.

While the matter was ongoing, Persad, who was acting in the position, was promoted to the substantive post in 2016.

However, Persad argued that his promotion ought to have been backdated to the time when he was placed on the merit list which was in 2011.

Aboud ordered the retroactive promotion in order to preserve Persads seniority and to ensure that he suffered no prejudice as a result of Williams failure to promote him.

Persad was represented by attorney Gerald Ramdeen while the State was represented by Neil Byam of the Solicitor Generals Office.
400 students on suicide watch

Suicide is a public health crisis in this country and has extended to the very young and very vulnerable students as well, she added.

Khan was among several mental health professionals who went before a Joint Select Committee of Parliament yesterday, enquiring into the state of mental health services and facilities.

We have an idea of how critical the problem is, she said, but the system is falling short on follow up and monitoring on what was happening to the students, and on treatment and interventions they were receiving.

Dr Khan said there is a glaring lack of child and adolescent mental health services in TT.

Medically, if a child is injured and is suicidal he/she can be admitted to a hospital, she said.

Past that, there is very little that is available. With respect to psychological and counselling services there is very little that is available. Services currently available are two child guidance clinics, one on Pembroke Street, Port of Spain and the other in Pleasantville, San Fernando, operating under the aegis of the South West Regional Health Authority.

The clinics have a minimum of six months waiting time due to demand.

Asked about specific training in child psychology at the UWI, St Augustine campus, Khan said, We are not accepting an intake in September largely because of financial reasons. While the UWI cannot afford to run the programme, she said, it is in heavy demand not just in TT but across the Caribbean. Dumps shop

As to the role that the Secondary Entrance Assessment was contributing to childrens mental health, she said, it was a valid argument for a study.

The nature of this exam, where parents and students feel if a student does not pass for a certain school, their academic trajectory is dismal, Dr Khan said, puts a lot of pressure on parents and children.
UNC loses property tax case

In their ruling, which upheld the appeals of the Commissioner of Valuations and Attorney General, Justices of Appeal Peter Jamadar, Gregory Smith and Judith Jones ruled unanimously that neither interim orders by Justice Seepersad, should have been granted.

In setting aside the two orders, the judges said the public interest would best be served if the voluntary nature of the exercise (submission of the VRFs and supporting documents) was made known. They further ordered that the collection of VRFs could continue only after the first publication of a notice by the Commission, in the three dailies over a period of three weeks and at all Valuation Offices in the country where persons are required to go to submit their documents.

In their ruling, the judges also made it clear the data collection exercise (submission of VRFs) was the statutory responsibility of the Commissioner of Valuations alone. They also reiterated that the courts order did not impact the future exercise of the Commissioners other lawful powers.

In their oral summary, delivered by Justice Jamadar, the judges unanimously held that even though the first order of Justice Seepersad on May 19, expired on May 31 and was spent, he (Justice Seepersad) was plainly wrong to order it. They said although he cited the correct law, Seepersad did not apply it properly.

They also held that he should not have heard the application of former UNC senator Devant Maharaj ex-parte, as no reason was advanced by him (Maharaj) as to why notice could not have been given to the Commissioner, even as the time for the response to the pre action letter had not yet expired.

The judges also found that the second interim order, granted on May 31, which was to continue until June 27, should not have been granted because there was no written application before the court, supported by evidence.

They said Justice Seepersad failed to give the State an opportunity to put in evidence.

Maharaj challenged the legality of the property tax and Justice Seepersad had set the matters for trial on September 19, at the Port of Spain Supreme Court and September 21 at the San Fernando Supreme Court.

The former UNC senator challenged the legality of Section 6(1) of the Valuation of Land Act 18 of 1969, which commanded every landowner to file a return form, failing which it empowered the Commissioner to notify the owner that he was required to file, failing which he may be liable to conviction.

It was the contention of lawyers led by Senior Counsel Russell Martineau and Deborah Peake, who represented the Commissioner at the appeal, that the exercise of submitting VRFs was always voluntary. Speaking to the media, Maharaj said he was not disillusioned by the courts ruling, saying the court reinforced the position that the submission of the VRFs is voluntary, contrary to what was being said that it was compulsory and had to be carried out by a particular deadline.

He repeated his call to homeowners to exercise their voluntary option and not submit the forms. Maharaj was represented by a team of attorneys led by former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, SC. The Commissioner was also represented by Ravi Heffes-Doon and Zelicia Haynes-Soo Hon while the AG was represented by Fyard Hosein, SC, Rishi Dass and Sasha Bridgemohansingh.

There was an initial deadline to submit the VRFs by May 22 and this was extended to June 5, by government. According to the Property Tax Act the payment of property taxes is due on March 31 of each year.

The Opposition has raised concerns over implementing the tax during an already uncertain financial period for citizens, asking why the property tax was being implemented during this tough economic period.
2 judges sworn in

Both were scheduled to take the oath on Tuesday but because of an injunction granted by Justice Frank Seepersad earlier that morning, the ceremony was postponed.

On Monday night, attorneys for former UNC Senator Devant Maharaj approached the High Court with the emergency injunction which also sought to prohibit the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) from giving any advice on appointments of new judicial officers.

On Tuesday, Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Nolan Bereaux and Peter Rajkumar said they were satisfied the JLSC was properly constituted and the swearing in could proceed. During the ceremony yesterday, Chief Justice Ivor Archie said he knew the media has a lot of burning questions for him, but he did not want to steal the limelight from the newly sworn in judges.

I want to assure you all the matters that are of concern to all of us as citizens will be addressed in due course but this is their moment in the sun and I wont want to steal that, Archie said. Waterman-Latchoo, a former deputy DPP was most recently a judge in St Vincent while Wilson was the Solicitor General of the Cayman Islands, Archie described Wilson as, one of the most able attorneys I have ever come across during my career. There is something about being Solicitor General of the Cayman Islands that does something for your career. So Im looking forward with interest to see what happens in the future, but certainly for now, we are grateful to have her on the bench as she comes with a broad range of experience, keen analytical mind, a superior work ethic and I know that the complement of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago will have been significantly enhanced by your addition today, Justice Archie said.

Carmona in his remarks said Waterman-Latchoo, a former editor of the Express newspaper, is the first journalist in this country to have attained this judicial rank.

He said she has demonstrated here and abroad, a social conscience by engaging in restorative justice, alternative dispute resolution and mediation as progressive components of a just and fair legal system.

He told the new judges that they were the guardians and guarantors of the rule of law and it is a responsibility not to be taken lightly.

The slings and arrows will come your way but I am gratified, given your experience, your knowledge and your competency that you will be able to lead from in front, Carmona said.
Justice Seepersad upset

A police source confirmed yesterday that Justice Seepersad recently wrote to Commissioner Williams expressing concern about his personal security and that of his family. The judge, source said, was supposed to have interacted with CJ Archie yesterday on the issue of the online comments.

Following delivery of judgments on the Property Tax and the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC) lawsuits, Facebook was rife with comments, with several suggesting Justice Seepersad picks and chooses anti-government lawsuits to adjudicate on. Over the past two weeks, Justice Seepersad presided over former UNC Senator Devant Maharajs challenge of Governments imposition of the property tax.

In this case, Justice Seepersad wrote a 28-page judgment. In the JLSC lawsuit, which sought the courts order to stop the swearing in of two judges, Justice Seepersad delivered a 22-page written judgment. In both cases, Justice Seepersad ruled in favour of the lawsuits. However, his rulings were subsequently overturned on appeal at the Court of Appeal.

Yesterday, Newsday obtained from the Registry of the Supreme Court, a copy of the Civil Procedure Rules. Under the rubric: Docket System, the Rules explained how cases are assigned to judges. The Rules state under, Individual Assignment System that: The Court shall operate under an individual assignment system to assure continuous and close judicial supervision of every case and the even distribution of cases among judges.

Each civil, public law and matrimonial proceedings except as otherwise provided, shall be randomly assigned to a judge. The system shall be administrated by the calendering and case management committee prescribed in the directions in such a manner, that all judges except the chief justice, shall be assigned substantial and equal share and kind of the work of the court. The rule, a legal source clarified, makes it abundantly clear that judges do not pick and chose cases to determine.
Rowley: Opposition wont run this country

Speaking after a specially-convened Cabinet meeting at the Diplomatic Centre in St Anns, Rowley referred to the States successful appeal of a ruling on the property tax issue as well as its successful appeal of a judges decision to halt the swearing in of two new judges, Rowley said the government acknowledges the authority of the Judiciary in taking decisions in the best interest of all citizens.

But having said that, we also acknowledge persons who see themselves in the political arena and who look around for opportunities to advance their political possibilities.

They are largely the Opposition and in strategising for their future prospects, they have identified the courts as a place to go and create as much mayhem and disturbance as possible in Trinidad and Tobago with a view that if they are successful or even partially successful, in creating this climate of disturbance, it will advance their political prospects.

I say without apologies that I intend, as head of the Executive, to defend the government and people of Trinidad and Tobago from such political excursions, Rowley said.

On the property tax issue, Rowley said it was clear that people now in the Opposition want to use the court system to advance the agenda they had when they were in government and prevent the law from being applied in the collection of revenue to the State via this tax. I am saying today, the PNM will have none of it. The Opposition will not run this country. The rules that we operate under is the rule of the majority and that majority creates the executive and it is the authority of the executive to observe the law. And if there are challenges to this executive, we are prepared to defend those matters all the way to the Privy Council on every occasion, Rowley said. People who were in the last Cabinet for five years, to do all the things they want this government to do in five months, see the court as a place to go to stymie Governments opportunity to collect $500 million on an annual basis. That is their assignment. That is their agenda and the Government intends to resist it. Rowley expressed optimism that honest, right-thinking citizens will support the Governments initiative to collect property tax. The Opposition, which was the Government a few months ago, has gone out of its way to misrepresent the facts on this tax, telling people the Government would take away their property...all lies, he said.

The fact that there are a handful of people in the Opposition, largely people of the last Cabinet and I want to make that point very clear, they have good reason for not wanting this aspect of the States operations to come to pass. They put themselves out as defenders of the public interest but I daresay, they are not defenders of the public interest.

They are defenders of their own interest, Rowley said.

(See Page 8A)
PM unhappy with property tax issue

Speaking at a news conference following yesterdays Cabinet meeting, Rowley said he took issue with the ministry for not properly laying the foundation for the exercise.

Because I knew that these mischief- makers would have made mischief of it and I knew that population ought to have been properly prepared to receive it since it was not something they would have been accustomed to, he said.

Because many persons, while they were willing to participate, there were many questions to be answered. I must say that the Ministry of Finance did not do the best job of it.

But that does not say that the Ministry of Finance is not to carry out the law. The PM said his statement must not be seen as a criticism.

All we have to do is improve on it. And we are improving on it because right now on the subject of property tax, a lot has been said and we will continue to say so that people can be comfortable that the tax is fair and reasonable and it is part of the administration of collecting revenue to service the country, he said.
Kanagawa Prefectural Police have arrested the representative director of the company that manages a long-running chain of live music venues over the alleged sale of marijuana, reports TBS News

In May, Akimasa Yasumoto, the 34-year-old head of the company that manages the Kento's chain, allegedly sold 10 grams of marijuana to a male dentist on a road in Setagawa Ward for 60,000 yen.

Yasumoto denies the allegations, telling police he did not hand over anything.

A search of the suspect's residence revealed used cigarettes that are believed to have contained marijuana.

The dentist, Yosuke Takano, 35, was also arrested in the case. Takano, who became acquainted with the suspect while in school, said that he had bought marijuana about once each month over the past three or four years.

Founded in 1976, the Kento's chain has a number of venues in the Tokyo area, including in Roppongi and Ginza. The chain specializes in live performances of oldies.

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A Japanese man was charged Tuesday in court with two counts of murder for the brutal slaying of two Japanese nationals last week in the western Philippine province of Palawan, official documents obtained Wednesday showed.

The Palawan provincial prosecutor's office alleged that 55-year-old Hiroyuki Nagahama was "the mastermind who planned and instigated the killing" of Yoshihiro Arai, 24, and Masaru Itani, 59, on Galoc Island in the northern Palawan town of Coron "upon consideration of a price, reward and/or promise."

Authorities believe that insurance money was the motive for the May 30 murder, based on the testimony of Reynante Labampa, an associate of Nagahama since July last year.

Witnesses alleged that local men hired by Nagahama first shot the two victims and then chopped up their bodies before throwing them into the sea.

The prosecutor's office, headed by Alen Ross Rodriguez, wrote in the documents that it finds "sufficient ground" for a case against Nagahama for alleged murder with illegally possessed firearms. Nagahama, who hails from Osaka in western Japan, has denied the allegations.

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The Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka plans to add a new area featuring Nintendo characters and worlds, which was unveiled at a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday.

Super Nintendo World will have rides, shops and restaurants, including a Mario Kart race game, the park operator said.

The new area is set to open in 2020. More than A60 billion will be invested.

During Thursday's ceremony, Nintendo's iconic character Mario made an appearance. Clad in red work overalls, he jumped to hit a yellow question block - just like in the eponymous game - setting off fireworks to kick off the start of construction.

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Japan's current account surplus grew 7.5% on the year in April to 1.95 trillion yen ($17.7 billion), the highest for the month in 10 years, according to data released Thursday by the Ministry of Finance.

Mainly driving the increase was growth in inbound tourism. Also contributing was higher dividend income from overseas investments.

Japan has now logged a surplus for 34 straight months. It was the second-highest April reading since 1985, when comparable data first became available. The largest surplus for the month -- 1.96 trillion yen -- was recorded in 2007, a year before the global financial crisis hit.

The balance for services, which includes transport, travel and financial transactions, improved by 116.7 billion yen to a deficit of 294.7 billion yen.

The deficit shrank thanks in part to a bigger surplus in the travel balance. According to the Japan National Tourism Organization, a record 2.57 million tourists visited Japan in April.

Spending per tourist has been declining due to higher tariffs in China and the spread of online shopping. But that contraction was outweighed by growth in the number of tourists. Foreign visitors spent more in Japan than Japanese spent abroad.
It started in mid-September  Black Friday specials. I took the bait when I saw an email from a retailer offering sales that were way ahead of the traditional Friday after Thanksgiving Black Friday sales. Beat the rush! Get all the deals before anyone else offers them and you lose out! Get y
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The growing diplomatic rift between Qatar and other regional Doha as S&P downgraded its credit rating from AA to AA- while warning that further steps in this vein could follow.

The decision was made late on Wednesday. The crisis has also reflected on the countrys stock market as it slipped by 9%. The riyal has also fallen to an 11-year low against the US dollar.

Qatar, with its 2.4 million people, is the 18th-most-competitive country in the world according to Global Competitiveness Report released by the World Economic Forum. It is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of gross domestic product per capita although the majority of its population are foreign workers.

The rift between Doha and the other states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates started last week, leading to a series of diplomatic and economic measures against Doha.

Germanys Foreign Minister Sigmar said he is extremely concerned about the dramatic escalation of the situation and the consequences for the entire region. He stressed that the Trumpification of relations with one another in a region already rife with crises is dangerous because the Middle East is a political and military powder keg. He pointed out that Qatar seems to be more or less completely isolated and existentially targeted. The German official lamented about Washingtons strategy of pure confrontation with Iran, including arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump boasted via several tweets that the speech he delivered two weeks ago in Riyadh was already paying off.

So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism! Trump said in a series of Twitter posts.

Sigmar offered to mediate towards ending the crisis during a meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Wednesday but his proposal was turned down as Riyadh is convinced that the Gulf Cooperation Council can handle the matter.
In Egypt, a consortium nine local banks have pledged to invest about $1.5 billion in a project to increase the North African nations electricity capacity.

The financing, granted as a loan, will benefit the construction of a coal-fired power station with a capacity of 6,000 MW in the Hamrawein area in the coastal region of the Red Sea, Ecofin News Agency reported.

The consortium includes the Commercial International Bank (CIB), QNB Al-Ahli, the Arab African International Bank (AAIB), AlexBank, Ahli United Bank, Export Development Bank of Egypt (EDBE), Egyptian Gulf Bank, Societe Arab Internationale de Banque (SAIB), and Emirates NBD Egypt.

The plant, which is expected to be completed within 84 months, will be developed in the Hamarawein port, which is currently used for phosphate exports, about 150 kilometers south of Gouna.

Estimated at $10 billion, the new plant is set to add 6,000MW to the countrys electricity grid.

Egypts ministry of power has earmarked $386 million for upgrading the north African nations electricity grid in the next appropriation bill. The Ministry plans to produce 7,000 MW through coal-fired plants by 2023.
Another cargo of five US-made M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks arrived in the port of Casablanca on Wednesday (May 7), reported Far-Morocco, a website specialized in armaments and defense.

This cargo and a similar delivery in July 2016 are part of an order of 250 of this type of third generation battle tanks, as the Royal Armed Forces have launched an ambitious program to modernize and upgrade their arsenal and equipment.

The contract to supply Morocco with the 250 tanks, worth over one billion dollars, according to specialized media, was approved by the US Congress in 2011 and signed in 2013.

Under the $358m foreign military sales (FMS) contract, the General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) company will upgrade a total of 150 M1A1 Abrams tanks for sale to the Kingdom of Morocco.

The advanced M1A1 SA tank features gunners primary sight, new Block I 2nd generation forward-looking infrared technology, and a blue force tracking system for enhanced effectiveness in the battlefield.

Designed for modern armored ground warfare, Abrams tank is the main battle tank in the US Army and Marine Corps.
Reality Winners mug shot. Photo: Lincoln County Georgia Sheriffs Office

Reality Winner, the 25-year-old government contractor charged this week with leaking top-secret information to the press, intends to plead not guilty at her detention hearing on Thursday, according to her court-appointed attorney, Titus Nichols.

The criminal complaint asserts that as FBI agents searched Winners home on Saturday, she admitted to printing out a classified report, removing it from the U.S. government facility in Georgia where she works, and mailing it to an online media outlet.

The details in the case suggest that she is the source for the Intercepts story on Monday about a May 5 NSA intelligence report that describes two cyberattacks carried out by Russian government hackers against a U.S. voting software supplier before the 2016 election. However, Nichols emphasized that those details have yet to be confirmed.

Theres not much to comment on right now as far as whether there is a connection between my client and Intercept, Nichols told NPR. I know that there is documents circulating on the internet and everything else, but as far as concrete proof, were just not at that stage, yet.

Nichols told CBS News that he hopes to have Winner released on bond. We have the burden of showing that my client is not a risk of committing new offenses, that shes not a risk of fleeing, he said.

Winners family made the case for her release in several media interviews. Her stepfather Gary Davis noted that she served six years in the Air Force, provided real-time translation to Americans on field missions, and received a commendation for aiding in the death of more than 100 enemy combatants and the capture of another 250 combatants. He called her a patriot and said that if she actually did leak information to the press, it needs to be balanced against what she has done in the past and how she has served this country.

She served her nation with distinguished honor. And thats who Reality Winner is. Its not the person thats being portrayed. She is a winner, Gary said. Shes, shes our winner.

Winners mother, Billie-Jean Davis, said shes worried the Trump administration  which has been focused on shutting down the constant stream of leaks  is going to try to make an example of her. Her words to me were that she was really scared that they would make her disappear, Davis said.
Still the president, goddammit. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump was onstage beneath a gilded chandelier the size of a manatee, addressing a Washington ballroom packed with conservative Christian evangelicals early Thursday afternoon. As you know, we are under siege, you understand that, he told them. But we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever  you watch.

It was difficult to not hear in those words and all that flowed out subsequently a response to the events taking place at that very moment a short motorcade-ride away on Capitol Hill  though Trump never made direct mention of James Comeys damning testimony about him to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

When he first appeared before the crowd to the tune of Hail to the Chief, it seemed almost designed to serve as a reminder that, even amid questions about obstruction of justice or a cover-up of potential collusion with Russia during the campaign, hes the goddamn president.

The juxtaposition was like the baptism scene in The Godfather but much, much weirder.

The Faith and Freedom Coalitions Road to Majority Conference, held at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, was a welcome opportunity to feel at peace. The speech, though subdued, was classic Trump, with a little Jesus thrown in. Even when praising others, it was within the context of discussing his own many, yuge wins in life.

Who wouldve known this was going to happen? he asked, referring to the phenomenon of his November 8 election, exactly seven months ago. But we had a feeling, didnt we?

He attributed his victory to the support and prayers of those in attendance. Wow, did you deliver, he said. You really did.

He continued to dwell on the campaign. The doors his supporters knocked on, he said, were in key battleground states, which was smart strategy. Youre supposed to be focusing on those states, he said, a trace of disbelief in his voice at the idea that anyone might think otherwise. He recalled the millions of messages sent by his supporters on social media, and all of the phone calls made and pieces of campaign literature distributed. You didnt let me down, and I will never, ever let you down. You know that.

In my first 100 days, and I dont think anybody has ever done more or certainly not much more, he claimed, in a statement that may be reasonably characterized as false witness.

He promised he was going to battle for the forgotten men and women, like anyone who had lost a job, or lost a loved one, or lost their right to express their religious beliefs.

I have one goal as president: to fight for the American people and to fight for America and America first, he said.

And, more comfortably than hed managed as a candidate  when he memorably admitted, in Iowa of all places, that he had never asked God for forgiveness, or when he cited Two Corinthians  he read scripture. The words of Isaiah chapter one, verse 17: learn to do right; seek justice; defend the oppressed; take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

He said his cause as president was righteous, and, in an interesting choice of words, claimed that his enemies in Washington were going to lie and obstruct to get their way.

But we will not back down from doing what is right, he said. Because as the Bible tells us, we know that the truth will prevail. That Gods glorious wisdom will shine through.
Amer Ghazzal/Barcroft Media/Barcroft Media/Getty Images(LONDON) -- When U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap general election in April, polls suggested a big lead for her Conservative Party over rival Labour Party. But now, one day before British voters cast their ballots, polls predict a much tighter race.



In recent weeks, May has lost popularity over some of her social care policies, including a so-called dementia tax, which would make pensioners pay a bigger part of the cost of their care.



One is that there was a terrible reaction to the Conservative policy proposals on social care, Stephen Fisher, associate professor in political sociology at the University of Oxford, told ABC News. Around the same time, Theresa Mays performances in press conferences and her campaigning style were not as polished as Jeremy Corbyns, so people warmed a lot to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party and were less impressed with the Conservatives.



An average of opinion polls published by the Economist shows the Conservative Party leading with 44 percent of voters' support to Labour's 36 percent, but support for the Labour Party has been rising steadily since April -- by some 10 points.



Some polls suggest such a close election that a hung parliament becomes a possibility -- meaning that no single political party has an absolute majority, which would raise questions about who will govern the U.K. in the future, he said.



Recently, May's campaign has also been affected by attacks on London Bridge and in Manchester.



There is no doubt that the Conservative Party failed to match the initial expectations of a convincing landslide, Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent, England, told ABC News via email. The campaign period has seen considerable volatility, including two terrorist attacks, a U-turn on the major policy issue of social care and an upsurge of public support -- at least in the polls -- for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party.



He added that the Conservative Party has nonetheless maintained a share of the national vote in the polls of above 40 percent -- a strong position -- and that most opinion polls put the Conservatives ahead of the other parties.



Most of the fundamentals in this campaign also favor Theresa May and her party, which is the most trusted party on Brexit, immigration, the economy and also security issues that have gained importance in recent years, he said.



A very personalized, almost presidential style of campaigning has contributed to the Conservative Partys apparent loss of support, according to Mark Goodwin, lecturer at the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.



Theresa May has been in British politics for quite a long time, but she is not somebody with a huge media profile or who is associated with particular policy positions, he told ABC News. She seems to have found it very difficult to kind of do the baby-kissing part of campaigning.



A week ago, Mays political rivals criticized her for staying away from a televised election debate, while her main opponent, Jeremy Corbyn, participated.



Its a relative novel thing in British politics, but if youre about leadership, perhaps you turn up to these things, Goodwin said. The idea that it was in some sense beneath Theresa May to appear alongside these minor parties in the televised debate, that shes someone above the pettiness and interparty conflict of these debates was possibly the strategy that backfired somewhat.



Its difficult to predict what the election result will be because of a number of high-profile polling misses in British politics lately, Goodwin said, including in connection with the British referendum in June last year when a majority voted to leave the European Union.



So you have to be a little more tentative than in the past, he said, adding that polls suggest that the Conservatives will win, but that Labour has been doing much better in the past few weeks, especially compared to the early days of the campaign, when polls suggested that the Conservative Party was headed to a landslide victory while Labour could perhaps be wiped out.



That seems less and less likely, he said.



Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Sam Brownback: pay no attention to the collapsing budget! Photo: Bo Rader/TNS via Getty Images

In 2015, Grover Norquist, who has successfully defined unconditional opposition to taxes as the defining tenet of party orthodoxy, waxed enthusiastic about one state in particular that was leading the way for the nation. Kansas is the future, he told an interviewer. Kansas is the model. Kansas was the state where Sam Brownback, the former congressman who mentored a young staffer named Paul Ryan, implemented supply-side tax cuts that, Brownback promised, would usher in prosperity and fiscal stability.

Now Brownbacks tax cuts have failed so dramatically and incontrovertibly that the states Republican legislature overrode Brownbacks veto to eliminate them. Incredibly, a majority of the Republicans in both chambers of the state legislature voted against the tax cuts. In a new interview with Russell Berman, Norquist insists the failure in Kansas does not tell us much at all about anything. If youre a Republican looking for a model, he says, Kansas is not the model.

One might think that the economists who designed this now-repudiated plan would have been cast out of the party, or at least embarrassed into rethinking their assumptions. Yet nothing of the sort has taken place. Stephen Moore and Art Laffer, the supply-siders who crafted the failed Kansas experiment, are also taking the lead in designing Donald Trumps tax plan. Their op-ed urging the president to throw himself behind massively regressive, debt-financed tax cuts found its way into his hands. So profoundly did their argument impress Trump that he instructed his advisers to immediately release a tax-cut plan mirroring the recommendations made by the architects of the Kansas debacle. Now the machinery of government is in the hands of people determined to replicate a policy so unmistakably erroneous that the majority of their own party could no longer live with it.

The pattern on display in Kansas has recurred over and over in Republican politics for more than a quarter century. (In this sense the state is, like Norquist said in 2015 but now denies, a model.) The pattern has four steps:

1. Demand a program of regressive, debt-financed tax cutting.

2. Deny or minimize the first-order effects of these tax cuts (reducing revenue available to the government, and increasing the incomes of rich people) and instead emphasize second-order effects: the tax cuts will trigger faster growth, and perhaps inspire legislators to reduce spending. Both these speculative effects will, the tax cutters assure the skeptics, prevent the predicted deficits from materializing.

3. Deficits in fact materialize when the predicted second-order effects fail.

4. Insist the tax cuts only failed because weak-minded legislators did not do their part to cut spending as required. Continue advocating regressive, debt-financed tax cuts.

Kansas fits the pattern perfectly. When Brownback passed his plan in 2012, enthusiasts dismissed fiscal skeptics. (Wall Street Journal editorial page, 2012: The tax cut will force state politicians to restrain spending.) When massive deficits appeared, the same cheerleaders blamed spending policies. (Wall Street Journal editorial page, 2015: The real story is how unchecked spending, especially entitlements, can undermine tax reform.) But werent the tax cuts supposed to prevent unchecked spending? Wasnt this the very reason their supporters gave to discount the predictions that the tax cuts would create deficits?

The tax cuts, which were sold above all as a plan to yield faster economic growth, produced nothing of the sort. The state, which had been growing slightly faster than the overall U.S. economy before the tax cuts, grew more slowly afterward:

Of course, the most famous example of the model is George W. Bushs tax cuts. Conservatives overflowed with confidence that the Bush tax cuts would produce an era of prosperity, and that predictions of fiscal irresponsibility were doomsday nonsense. Norquist called Bush Reagans son, and insisted the tax cuts would drive down spending: The goal is reducing the size and scope of government by draining its lifeblood, he said in 2003. When none of these things happened, the culprit was, of course, excessive spending. The Bush White House didnt focus on spending, Norquist said in 2008. They didnt make it a priority. And this predates September 11. It just wasnt on the list of things they were going to do. Like Trotsky being erased from old Soviet photographs, now the hero of the supply-side revolution was revealed to have been a traitor from the very outset.

What enables Republicans to persist in this charade is that duping themselves is not completely necessary. Many, perhaps most, conservative elites believe as a matter of principle that taxing the rich at higher rates is morally wrong. They consider the first-order effects of regressive tax cuts  the transfer of resources from the public fisc to the makers  desirable. Since most Americans do not approve of tax cuts for the rich, this requires them to focus on the alleged second-order effects. And it explains why they continue to support the policy even when those second-order effects continuously prove ephemeral.

The entire identity of Republican politics has followed this same four-step pattern. The GOP made the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 the centerpiece of its domestic policy platform. When the economic and fiscal goals of the tax cuts failed, and a cycle of miserable job growth culminated in a massive speculative collapse, the party rebranded itself as a new, austere rebooted version of the old thing. The failures of the Bush-era party turned out to be its deviation from conservatism. It had been corrupted and seduced by big spending. And now the Trump-era party is right back to where it was under Bush, following the same policies and insisting the result will be different.
Upon further reflection, Gianforte has realized he isnt the victim of an aggressive liberal journalist. Photo: William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images

Last month, when Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs accused Montana congressional candidate Greg Gianforte of body slamming him in response to a question about the American Health Care Act, Gianforte spokesman Shane Scanlon released a statement painting the GOP candidate as the victim:

After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Gregs wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. Its unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.

Later, on the evening of May 24, the eve of the election, Jacobs posted audio of the incident, and Gianforte was not heard asking the reporter to back off. Then Fox News journalists offered an eyewitness account that was even worse than what Jacobs described. Reporter Alicia Acuna said Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him, then continued punching Jacobs.



Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault overnight, and the next day he ignored calls for an apology from national politicians and the press. He waited until he won the election, then expressed his remorse at his victory party. Last night I made a mistake and I took an action I cant take back and I am not proud of what happened, Gianforte told the crowd. I should not have responded the way I did and for that I am sorry.

On Wednesday, the tech millionaire, whos expected to be sworn in later this month, issued a full apology to Jacobs, and announced that hes agreed to donate $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists to settle any potential civil claims.

My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful, Gianforte wrote. As both a candidate for office and a public official, I should be held to a high standard in my interactions with the press and the public. My treatment of you did not meet that standard.

Gianforte went on to discuss the importance of the press, and said hes making the donation in the hope that perhaps some good can come of these events. He added, I made a mistake and humbly ask for your forgiveness.

Letter to Guardian Reporter Ben Jacobs from Rep-elect Gianforte. Jacobs says he "accepted" the apology pic.twitter.com/OSCbzWKzIZ  Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 8, 2017

Gianforte is still facing criminal charges, and could be fined up to $500 or jailed for six months (which wouldnt necessarily prevent him from serving in Congress).

I have accepted Mr. Gianfortes apology and his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and statements, Jacobs responded. I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the first amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country.



Jacobs asked that the $7,500 raised in an online campaign to replace his broken glasses be donated to the Committee to Protect Journalists as well.

Gianforte has not explained why his spokesman initially released a false statement about the altercation, or answered Jacobss question about the Congressional Budget Offices score of the GOP health bill.
Showtime. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

One month ago, James Comey was addressing a room full of FBI employees in Los Angeles, when he realized that he was being pranked. On a television screen above the officers heads, a news network was reporting that President Trump had abruptly fired his FBI director. According to the New York Times, Comey complimented his fellow G-men on a fairly funny stunt.



Then Comey was asked to step into a side office  and, from there, into his newfound unemployment.

A lot has happened since May 9. Contrary to Trumps naive hopes, Comey didnt take the Russia scandal with him into obscurity  in fact, he didnt even take himself. On Wednesday, Comey allowed his opening statement at todays hearing to be published in advance, and it confirmed every previous report of the presidents myriad attempts to undermine the FBIs independence.

Now, Comey will tell his story to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and undergo its interrogation, in front of an audience of millions  including a reality-television president with a finger poised above his Twitter app.

So fire up some popcorn, call in sick, and enjoy Washingtons Super Bowl with Daily Intelligencers live analysis and commentary:

Nine revelations from this mornings hearing.

The public session is over, the senators will interrogate Comey in a private session beginning at 1 p.m. Here are the most significant things we learned this morning.



1) Comey believes that the special prosecutor should look into whether Trumps behavior toward him constituted obstruction of justice.



2) Comey says that the president is a liar, who defamed him and the FBI.



3) Comey suggested that the investigation into Michael Flynn does not overlap significantly with the investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also suggested that a New York Times report that linked Trump associates to Russian intelligence officials was almost entirely false. Still, he did not feel comfortable saying, in open session, that he believes Donald Trump did not collude with the Russian government.



4) The FBIs leadership all believed Sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, in light of facts that made his oversight of the matter problematic.



5) Speaking of problematic behavior from attorneys general: Comey says Loretta Lynch asked him to refer publicly to the Clinton email probe as a matter, rather than an investigation. This request made Comey queasy, as it tracked with the campaigns own preferred rhetoric. The former FBI director says that the request contributed to his decision to keep Lynch at a distance from the investigation.



6) Comey believes he was fired because Trump disapproved of his handling of the Russia investigation. He believes this because Trump said on national television that this was the reason why Comey was fired.



7) Comey leaked his memos to the press with the hope that they would trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor.



8) In Comeys telling, Trump once called him to explain why he was more certain than ever that there was no tape of him fornicating with Russian sex workers.



9) John McCain is too old for this.

And, in reverse chronological order, heres a blow-by-blow of todays hearing:

12:32 p.m. Is John McCain drunk?

John McCain rambling incoherently, seems to be collapsing the investigation into Clintons email server and the hacking of the Clinton campaigns emails.



McCain is apparently insinuating that the FBI should be investigating Clinton for potentially colluding with the Russian government to undermine her own campaign.

John McCain's "double standard" theory doesn't make any sense at all. The Clinton and Trump/Russia investigations are two different things.  Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 8, 2017

Have you tried shutting down and restarting your Senator John McCain?   (@Anthony) June 8, 2017

12:24 p.m. The president appears to be successfully exercising self-restraint.

Something new: Trump pre-decided that he wouldn't live-tweet today, per WH sources via @tarapalmeri https://t.co/PPbtIcfacO  Hanna Trudo (@HCTrudo) June 8, 2017

12:23 p.m.

Meanwhile, the White House confirms that Trump has confidence in attorney general Sessions (a statement it was not comfortable making days ago).

Does Trump have confidence in AG Sessions? Sarah Sanders: "Absolutely. The president has confidence in all of his cabinet."  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 8, 2017

12:17 p.m.

John Cornyn takes his turn as Trumps defense counsel. Asks Comey if he thinks firing the FBI director is a good way for a president to kill an investigation. Comey says no, but admits hes biased, given that hes the one who was fired.



Cornyn ostensibly suggesting that Trump couldnt have fired Comey with the intention of killing the Russia investigation, since that would be a stupid thing to do. And everyone knows Donald Trump never does stupid things.

12:14 p.m.

White House claims that the president (a cable news addict) hasnt had much time to take in this mornings proceedings (the biggest television news event of the year, thus far).

Sarah Sanders on whether Trump watched the Comey hearing "I don't know if hes seen much of it."  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 8, 2017

Sanders says Trump spent the morning meeting Mattis, Tillerson and McMaster.  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 8, 2017

12:10 p.m.

Asked whether he believes Trump colluded with the Russian government, Comey says he cant answer that in an open session  but stipulates that he does not mean to single anything nefarious with his silence.

12:04 p.m.

Comey disputes the veracity of a bombshell New York Times report on Trump associatess contacts with Russian intelligence.

Comey agrees with Cotton reference to NYT Feb 14 story as "almost entirely wrong"



this story --> https://t.co/tQHrH5g5xj  Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 8, 2017

12:02 p.m.

Tom Cotton asks about the interactions Comey didnt record in his written testimony. Comey says that Trump called him to say that he had reflected more on the salacious claim in the Christopher Steele dossier, and had thoughts about why it wasnt true (that he had paid Russian sex workers to urinate in front of him).

"He thought about it more and had thoughts about why it wasn't true... the unverified and salacious parts." That is, the PEE TAPE.  Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 8, 2017

"Hey Jim, how's it going? I was just thinking about that tape you told me about and the more I think about it, the more it's def not real."  Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 8, 2017

11:57 a.m.

Comey reiterates that Trump has his full permission to release tapes of their conversations.

11:50 a.m.

Earlier, Comey likened Trump expressing the hope that the investigation into Flynn would disappear to an anecdote about Henry II. Specifically that kings complicity in the murder of his Archibishop of CanterburyThomas Becket in 1170.

Specifically, Henry II reportedly said: Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest, in the presence of his aristocratic cronies, which they took as direction to kill him.

11:47 a.m.

Paul Ryan suggests that a man who spent a year-and-a-half imploring Americans to make him their president cant be expected to understand the basic responsibilities that come with that job.

Paul Ryan on Trump and the Comey testimony: "He's just new to this."  Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) June 8, 2017

11:45 a.m.

Comey felt he couldn't say one word in an open setting about the Russian bank VEB, whose head secretly met with Kushner. Telling.  Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) June 8, 2017

11:42 a.m.

Senator Angus King references these remarks from Trump, gets Comey to confirm that they were lies.

On May 18, Trump was asked if he at any time urge[d] Comey in any way, shape or form to close or to back down the investigation into Flynn"  Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) June 7, 2017

He responded, "No." Then repeated, "No. Next question."  Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) June 7, 2017

11:37 a.m.

Earlier, senator Risch suggested that no one had ever been held legally responsible for obstruction of justice, merely for expressing a hope that was interpreted as a command.



That appears to be untrue.

For instance: Eighth Circuit affirmed an obstruction of justice enhancement based partly on an I hope statement https://t.co/85F2d7A8A4 pic.twitter.com/EbQHsCphL7  Adam Liptak (@adamliptak) June 8, 2017

11:33 a.m.

Huge revelation Comey told Rosenstein about his concerns with Trump - yet he still wrote the memo justifying his firing. Needs follow up.  Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) June 8, 2017

11:29 a.m.

In his conversations with Comey, Trump expressed concerns about Michael Flynns fate, the damage the pee tape allegation had done to his reputation, and the FBI directors loyalty.



He never expressed concerns about Russias attempts to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election.

"I don't remember any conversations," Comey says, where Trump expressed concern about Russian meddling  Robert Costa (@costareports) June 8, 2017

11:26 a.m.

Specifically, Comey said he leaked his memos to the press through a close friend of his at Columbia law school. You can watch a CNN interview with that friend here.

11:24 a.m. Comey leaked his memos to the press following Trumps tweet threatening to release tapes of their conversations  with the specific intention of triggering the appointment of a special prosecutor(!)

Trump made a lot of poor decisions in the aftermath of Comeys termination. But in hindsight, this tweet may be the single most ill-advised.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

11:14 a.m.

Comey explains why he voluntarily informed Trump that he was not under investigation: The FBI director first met the president-elect to brief him on the infamous Christopher Steele dossier, and wanted to make it clear that this was not a J. Edgar Hoover situation  he was not trying to hold this over the presidents head as a kind of blackmail. May be first time an FBI Director has been so snarky about The Founder.

11:10 a.m. Comey refers to facts about Sessions and Russia that made the attorney generals oversight of the investigation problematic.

Asked why the FBI did not inform Sessions of Trumps specific acts of interference, Comey says that the bureaus leadership team was convinced that Sessions would have to recuse himself from the Russia probe, eventually.



! Comey says there was facts that would make Sessions involvement in the Russia investigation problematic but he cant discuss in public pic.twitter.com/H1rNT4SBN1  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017

11:07 a.m.

Rubio suggests he finds it mildly outrageous that no one leaked word that Trump wasnt under investigation, given how many other details of the FBIs probe have made it to the press.



(People did leak word that Trump wasnt under investigation to the press.)

Not true Marco Rubio. We've reported on numerous occasions that the President himself was not personally under investigation.  Tom Winter (@Tom_Winter) June 8, 2017

11:03 a.m.

Rubio emphasizes key point for team Trump: Comey doesnt believe Trump ever asked him to drop the investigation into his campaigns Russia ties. When Trump asked him to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation, Comey understood the president to be asking him to publicly announce that the president was not personally under investigation.

10:59 a.m.

Don Jr. speaks for the defense.

3/3 Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

10:57:



Comey admits that he wasnt as firm with Trump as he ought to have been. Calls his efforts to cut short conversations cowardly."  Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) June 8, 2017

10:54 a.m. Comey: I was fired because of the Russia investigation.

Asked why he believes he was fired, Comey replies, I dont know for sure but:

Comey: "I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation."  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 8, 2017

10:51 a.m.

Senator Risch plays Trumps defense attorney: Notes that Trump didnt command Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn, but said I hope you will drop the investigation.

Comey confirms that Trump didnt command him to drop the investigation with his words. But insists that he interpreted the presidents words as a command, seeing as they came in private (after Trump asked him to pledge loyalty).

Risch maintains that Trump was merely voicing an abstract wish  he hopes Comey lets Flynn go the way he hopes the Yankees win the pennant.



10:44 a.m.

Comey throws shade at Jeff Sessions. On the day Trump infamously asked his attorney general to leave the room, so he could speak with the FBI director alone (about dropping the investigation into Flynn), Comey says Sessions appeared to know that he shouldnt honor that request, but did any way.

10:42 a.m.

Comey adds a persuasive new interpretive point to his published account. He believed Trump thought he gave away Comeys chance to stay in the job for nothing, and was trying to reopen the negotiation even after Comey had already stated his desire to keep his position.

10:40 a.m.

Comey says when they were in the blue room and Trump whispered in his ear, he said: "I really look forward to working with you."  Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) June 8, 2017

"I really look forward to working with you," Trump whispers to Comey, in this photo, according to the latter's testimony pic.twitter.com/kAkoupwwGW  Ali Gharib (@Ali_Gharib) June 8, 2017

10:36 a.m.

Comey answers one of the questions unanswered in his pre-hearing testimony: Why did he take detailed memos of his every meeting with Trump, even before the president started trying to undermine his independence.



Answer: Unlike other presidents, Trump is a known liar.

Comey has now said twice in this hearing essentially that he thinks Trump is a liar. pic.twitter.com/xrVTRr5H44  Domenico Montanaro (@DomenicoNPR) June 8, 2017

10:33 a.m. Comey indicates special prosecutor is looking into Trump for obstruction of justice.

Comey declines to give his opinion on whether the actions he describes Trump taking constitute obstruction of justice.

Flag: Comey doesn't want to opine on Trump trying to obstruct, but says "That's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work toward." pic.twitter.com/0WVe6dTN8t  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017

Comey just made it pretty clear Mueller is going to investigate obstruction of justice. A bombshell for the WH.  Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) June 8, 2017

10:29 a.m. Comey declines to say that the FBI hasnt confirmed any criminal allegations in the infamous Steele dossier.

Burr: Had the FBI confirmed any criminal allegations in the Steele dossier?

Comey: I can't answer that in an open setting.  Eric Geller (@ericgeller) June 8, 2017

Burr seems to have expected a different answer.

10:21 a.m. Comey: The Trump administration defamed me and the FBI.

Comey claims that initially, he was inclined to accept his dismissal quietly and return to private life. But the administration gave an explanation for his firing  that the Justice Department disapproved of his handling of the Clinton email investigation  that didnt make sense for a whole bunch of reasons. Namely, that there had been so much time and water under the bridge since the decisions on that investigation were made.



And then Trump began suggesting publicly  and, to Russian officials  that the firing was linked to the investigation, and Trumps desire to relieve the pressure that investigation put him under.



And then, Trump chose to defame Comey and the FBI.

Comey: Admin "chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI, by saying that the org was in disarray, that it was poorly led..."  Eric Geller (@ericgeller) June 8, 2017

The fact that Comey feels comfortable using this language testifies to his confidence in his support among the FBIs rank-and-file.

10:17 a.m.

Warner continues to remind us what we know: Trump asked Comey to pledge loyalty, and, then, to demonstrate that loyalty by dropping the FBIs investigation into Flynn and doing something to lift the cloud the Russia investigation had cast over his administration.



Warner also references yesterdays hearing with Americas top intelligence officials, who refused to say whether or not the president asked them to encourage Comey to let Flynn go easy.

This is an important exchange btwn DNI Coats and Sen. Heinrich on Coats' refusal to share details of discussions with Trump. (via @MSNBC) pic.twitter.com/vzxAiJQjum  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 7, 2017

10:10 a.m.

Burr indicates that the committees Republicans plan to grill Comey on his handling of the Clinton email investigation today. Just a few weeks ago, the GOP was perfectly content with that investigation, while Democrats were eager to castigate Comey over it.



In his opening statement, the committees ranking Democrat Mark Warner keeps the focus on what we already know about Trump and Russia, including the presidents unexplained affection for Vladimir Putin.

10:06 a.m. Trump disputes Comeys account.

Comey is seated. Richard Burr is saying niceties.



Burr to Comey: 'This is your chance to set the record straight'



Watch live here: https://t.co/piPyGTCKz5 pic.twitter.com/DUlWPEN7ap  The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 8, 2017

Meanwhile, Trump is officially disputing Comeys claim that he demanded the FBI director pledge personal loyalty to him.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Source: Trump `disputes' Comey's claim that he asked for loyalty and to let go of the Flynn probe.  Ken Thomas (@KThomasDC) June 8, 2017

Yesterday, Trump claimed he felt vindicated by Comeys testimony.

10:02 a.m.

Preet Bharara, one of the U.S. attorneys whom Trump fired, has a front row seat.

Preet Bharara is at James Comey's hearing. His seat is couresty of Chuck Schumer, per @kasie. pic.twitter.com/7vxaJrCUES  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017

Bharara has been unflinching in his criticism of the president.
Will there be his and hers Coke buttons? Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Soon Melania and Donald Trump will be doing their cable TV hate-watching side by side. Politico reports that the First Lady and the Trumps young son Barron are set to move into the White House full-time on June 14. Melania remained in New York while Barron finished the school year, making her the first First Lady in modern history to delay her arrival to the White House.

Melanias parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, are expected to make more frequent visits to the White House, but they wont be moving in like Michelle Obamas mother Marian Robinson.

Politico reports that Trump aides hope Melanias presence will add some normalcy to the White House and rein in the presidents Twitter usage. None of the highly anticipated Trump pivots have panned out, so we predict there will be just as much self-destructive tweeting  but a huge uptick in analysis of the first couples awkward body language.
The excuse maker. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A day after New Jersey governor Chris Christie unveiled the normal New York City talk defense of President Trumps controversial conversations with former FBI director James Comey, House Speaker Paul Ryan arrived with his own dumb excuse for Trump on Wednesday.

Hes new to government, Ryan said, after emphasizing the importance of an independent Justice Department. So he probably wasnt steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses. Hes just new to this.
President Trump meeting with Republican leaders. Photo: Olivier Douliery - Pool/Getty Images

Since the beginning of Donald Trumps presidency, or even before, Democrats have been waiting for the moment when the Republican Partys indulgence would snap. In every incremental advance of the Russia story, many hear the ticking hands of an impeachment clock. But there is no clock, and there will probably be no impeachment, at least not based on the field of Trumpian misdeeds currently at play. To imagine Republicans might turn on Trump over the Russia scandal to the point of deposing him from office is to misunderstand how they have been thinking about Trump and the presidency all along.

The metaphor of the ticking impeachment clock presupposes some relationship between the evidence that comes to light and the behavior of Congress. There is little evidence that the two are linked. Or, at least, the link is so weak that there is hardly enough room for additional evidence to produce the necessary response in Congress. One a scale of zero to ten, with ten being a videotape of Trump speaking in Russian to his handlers from the Kremlin, like Kevin Costner in the last scene in No Way Out, were currently at about 7.5. Trump repeatedly demanded loyalty from the FBI director, asked that he halt his investigation into the Russia scandal, instructed other intelligence officials to pressure him to end the investigation  the precise action that forced Richard Nixon to resign  and then fired Comey for refusing to do so. Many of his associates have been caught lying about their meetings and financial ties with Russia and what they said at those meetings. His son-in-law and close adviser tried to establish a secret line of communication to Russia. All of this took place after Trump appeared on camera during the campaign asking Russia to hack his opponents emails. (This is not even to mention the ongoing profiteering from his office that, in a normal presidency, would be an all-consuming mega-scandal in its own right.)

Watch: All of the times Donald Trump has shown hes his own worst enemy.

The vast majority of the Republican Party has absorbed these developments, a numbing procession of leaks and shocking news developments, with no diminished confidence in Trump whatsoever. I travel in this state every single day  top to bottom, east to west, big cities and small towns, and I have yet had anybody come up to me and say theyre worried about Russia messing with our elections, says Republican senator Luther Strange of Alabama. I have no doubt that Russia tried to meddle in our election. Theyre going to continue trying to  just like they have my entire lifetime. Others have shifted the focus to nefarious deep state bureaucrats who have found the incriminating evidence. Both these arguments are ways of saying that any actions by Trump and his staff are benign by definition, and any evidence of crimes he has committed is actually evidence of crimes committed against him.

Other Republicans have expressed unease with the president. This group appears on the surface to present a greater danger, and has attracted wide attention for their occasional scoldings of Trump. But the only Republicans who have criticized Trump for his corruption and abuse of power are the ones who have opposed him from the beginning  mostly intellectuals and pundits who do not work in Republican politics or conservative media. When more loyal Republicans have criticized the president, they have aimed more indirectly at his communication style and disorganization.

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial created a sensation for scolding Trump, after having largely carried water on his behalf. It seemed on the surface to indicate a fissure between the party Establishment and the president. But the actual substance of the complaint focused narrowly on Trumps self-defeating communications strategy. Mr. Trump popping off, complains the Journal, is undermin[ing] his own lawyers. For instance, the editorial notes, The White House spent days explaining that the President fired James Comey on the counsel of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, only for Mr. Trump to tell an interviewer that he planned to dismiss the FBI director in any case.

The Journals editors do not mention that they too gamely toed the initial, obviously absurd Trump party line that the administration only fired Comey at Rod Rosensteins behest. While they obviously feel humiliated, the Journals editors arent complaining about Trump firing the FBI director for investigating him, or even that he Trump lied about it. The complaint is that he stopped lying about it and made the people who endorsed his lie look silly.

While it may seem puzzling to liberals, this kind of behavior is consistent with the method of the conservative movement. The conservative movement takeover of the Republican Party began in the 1960s and took decades to complete. Conservatives still have not lost their sense of being an insurgent movement that might at any moment be betrayed by the party Establishment. Conservatives think of their role as quasi-independent, but they also imagine it as focusing exclusively on enforcing fealty to their doctrine by politicians who might otherwise be inclined to wander. The scenario they are built to fight against is the Republican president who colludes with Democrats, not one who colludes with foreign dictators. If the president is fighting against the opposition party, they assume he is acting correctly. Conservative organs like National Review originally viewed Richard Nixon with hostility, and  perverse as it may sound  came to his defense because of Watergate.

Many conservatives opposed Trump during the primaries because they suspected, with good reason, that his conservatism was shallow or insincere. They worried that, once elected, Trump would abandon their priorities and pursue the most expedient course.

But Trump has not done that at all. The policies or talking points Trump has abandoned are the centrist ones: He would protect Medicaid from cuts, give everybody terrific coverage, hammer the big banks, spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure, and cut deals with both parties. This week, Trump formally abandoned the last possible area of ideological compromise in infrastructure, clarifying that his plan relies on private industry, states, or cities ponying up the money. Trumps budget actually cuts federal investments in infrastructure. He has positioned himself to the right of even House Republicans on domestic spending, and continues to push for their grossly unpopular plan to cut a trillion dollars from Obamacare. The Never Trump conservative argument that Trump is not a conservative  one that I, too, made repeatedly during the Republican primaries  is not only no longer relevant, it is no longer true, points out the popular conservative talk-show host Dennis Prager.

Trump is faithfully supporting the conservative agenda, so most conservatives faithfully support him. Their concerns are pragmatic ones about his effectiveness on behalf of their common agenda, rather than moral objections to the legitimacy and propriety of his actions. Trump may have committed impeachable offenses, but the impeachment clock has not even begun to move.
Comey dont play. Photo: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

James Comey has said his piece. After weeks of speculation about awkward dinners, nonconsensual hugs, and indecent proposals, the former FBI director has spilled the beans on the most talked-about, tumultuous relationship since Brangelina.

On Wednesday night, Comey offered detailed written testimony on five of his encounters with president Trump. That document confirmed virtually every previous report on their interactions. Most crucially, it established that Trump had asked Comey to pledge personal loyalty to him  and, then, to demonstrate that loyalty by dropping the FBIs investigation into Michael Flynn.

On Thursday morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee spent three hours grilling Comey on the details of his story; the motives behind his actions; his intuitions about the presidents motives; and, of course, Hillary Clintons emails.

Here are the nine biggest revelations from Thursdays hearing.

1) James Comey believes that Trump may be guilty of obstruction of justice.

The former FBI director was asked, repeatedly, whether he believed Trump had committed obstruction of justice. Comey refused to directly opine on that matter. But he did say that he believed the special counsel will work toward a conclusion on that question, and that it was  [special counsel] Bob Muellers job to sort that out.

At one point, Senator James Risch played the part of Trumps defense attorney, noting that the president had only told Comey that he hoped the FBI director would let Flynn go.

Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offense, where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? Risch asked.

Comey couldnt provide an answer to Rischs question. (People have, in fact, been found guilty of obstruction for I hope statements). Nonetheless, Comey made it clear that he took Trumps remark as a command.

I mean, this is a president of the United States with me alone saying, I hope this, Comey said. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didnt obey that, but thats the way I took it.

Given that Trump asked everyone else to leave the room, before informing the FBI director (whose loyalty he had previously demanded) of his fondest hopes, this seems like a reasonable conclusion.

None of this means that Comey believes the president is guilty of obstruction. But the FBI director does believe that Trump tried to interfere with an active federal investigation, and that a special prosecutor should at least consider whether that interference constituted a criminal offense.

2) Comey said that the president is a liar, who defamed him and the FBI.

In his written testimony, Comey said that after his first meeting with Trump, he decided that he would have to keep a written record of his every interaction with the new president  even though he had kept no such records of his meetings with Barack Obama.

And yet, Comeys account did not detail any misbehavior on the presidents part during their first meeting. This begged the question: Why did Comey immediately decide that he needed to take a different approach to his relationship with this president.

At his hearing, Comey answered this question with reference to the extraordinary subject of his first conversation with Trump  a dossier that accused the president-elect of having been compromised by the Russian government. But the FBI director also stipulated that the nature of the person was a factor.

I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it important to document, Comey said.

In other words: Comey saw the president as a liar. And in a separate part of his testimony, the former FBI director said that Trump had fully validated that impression.

Although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly the FBI, by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader, Comey said in his opening remarks. Those were lies, plain and simple.

3) Comey leaked his memos to the press with the hope that they would trigger the appointment of a special prosecutor.

Two days after Comey was fired, the New York Times reported that Trump had asked his FBI director to pledge personal loyalty to him at a dinner in January.

The following morning, Trump (ostensibly) tried to intimidate Comey into silence with a tweet.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

This backfired.

The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope theres not tapes, Comey told the Senate Thursday. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night because it didnt dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. My judgement was, I need to get that out into the public square.

I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter, Comey continued. I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

He thought right.

As Trumps lawyer Marc Kasowitz noted, theres something odd about Comeys story: The Times report on the Trump-Comey dinner was based on the former FBI directors memos. And yet, it was published the night before the presidents tweet  which Comey portrayed as one impetus for his decision to share his memos with the press.

Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, Kasowitz said Thursday, which belies Mr. Comeys excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to [be] entirely retaliatory.

Still, the bombshell memo that triggered Muellers appointment  and, eventually, Thursdays hearing  was Comeys description of Trumps request on Flynns behalf, which was first reported after the presidents tweet.

4) Comey disputed a New York Times report on communications between Trump aides and Russian intelligence officials.

On Thursday, Comey stayed mum on the state of the investigation into the Trump campaign circa May 9. But he did dispute one high-profile report on the campaigns alleged collusion in this exchange with Tom Cotton:

COTTON: On February 14 the New York Times published the story, the headline of which was Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence. You were asked if that was an inaccurate story. Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?



COMEY: Yes.



COTTON: Do you have  at the time the story was published  any indication of any contact between Trump people and Russians, intelligence officers, other government officials, or close associates of the Russian government?



COMEY: Thats one I cant answer sitting here.

5) The FBIs leadership all believed that Sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, in light of facts that made his oversight of the matter problematic.

In Comeys account, the FBI knew Jeff Sessions was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation before the attorney general knew that himself. Asked why the bureau never briefed Sessions on the presidents actions, Comey replied:

Our judgment, as I recall, is that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. We also were aware of facts that I cant discuss in an opening setting that would make his continued engagement in a Russia-related investigation problematic. So we were convinced  in fact, I think wed already heard the career people were recommending that he recuse himself, that he was not going to be in contact with Russia-related matters much longer. That turned out to be the case.

6) Speaking of problematic behavior from attorneys general 

Comey says Loretta Lynch asked him to refer publicly to the Clinton email probe as a matter, rather than as an investigation. This request made Comey queasy, as it tracked with the campaigns own preferred rhetoric. The former FBI director says that the request contributed to his decision to keep Lynch at a distance from the investigation.

7) Comey believes he was fired because Trump disapproved of his handling of the Russia investigation.

(He believes this because Trump said as much on national television.)

Comey: "I have no doubt" I was fired because of Russia investigation https://t.co/F6ZupC6PNC  MSNBC (@MSNBC) June 8, 2017

8) In Comeys telling, Trump once called him to explain why he was more certain than ever that there was no tape of him fornicating with Russian sex workers.

Comey said that, shortly after their initial meeting, the president called him to reiterate his rejection of the Christopher Steele dossiers most salacious allegation (that Vladimir Putin has a tape of Trump watching Russian sex workers pee on the bed that Barack and Michelle Obama stayed in during their stay in Moscow).

He just wanted to reiterate his rejection of that allegation, Comey said, and talk about [how] hed thought about it more, and why he thought it wasnt true.

Thought?

Anyhow, according to Comeys testimony, Trump assured his FBI Director that the pee tape wasnt real at least three times  and expressed concern over the substance of Comeys investigation (the Russian governments attempts to subvert American democracy) not once.

9) John McCain is too old for this.

The Arizona senator  who has been widely described as a pivotal check on Trumps power  made a compelling case for his imminent retirement Thursday. In eight incoherent minutes of interrogation, McCain appeared to accuse Comey of applying a double standard  because the FBI had declined to investigate the possibility that Hillary Clinton had conspired with the Russians to undermine her own campaign.

McCain later suggested that his incoherent questioning may have been the product of staying up late watching the Diamondbacks night games.
Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

Reading the statement Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz released in response to James Comeys testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, much of it is what youd expect. He gloats about Comeys verification that the president was not the target of an FBI counterintelligence investigation. And he disputes Comeys account of two key interactions between the FBI director and the president (the loyalty pledge request and the expression of hope that the FBI could find a way to leave poor Michael Flynn alone). It seems clear that Team Trump does not believe it can count on charitable interpretations of Comeys account to shield the president from obstruction of justice accusations. So they are challenging the underlying statement of facts.

But then Kasowitz goes on to dwell at considerable length on an item of testimony that did not seem that central at the time: Comeys decision after Trump fired him to leak via associates his personal notes on his meetings with the president  the meetings he is now discussing publicly in great detail. Kasowitz describes the leak in the language of an indictment: Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president.

If privileged here refers to information protected by executive privilege, thats strange, since the White House chose not to assert executive privilege to block Comeys testimony, principally because the president had already run his mouth about the topics in question.

Kasowitz goes on to suggest that the authorities should look into Comeys leak, presumably to see if laws were broken, even though no one up until now has suggested that as a private citizen (which is what he was at the time) he could not give his personal notes to the press or anyone else.

What he seems to be doing most of all is to lump in Comey with all the other leakers that the White House has been complaining about as the main national security threat to the United States throughout the Russian investigation. Indeed, the statement ends with this bit of pointed  if poorly copyedited  snark:

In sum, it is now established that there [sic] the president was not being investigated for colluding with the [sic] or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events.



It sure sounds like Kasowitz is hinting at a deep state conspiracy theory, whereby bureaucrats, intelligence agency figures, and other federal personnel who are loyal to Barack Obama or simply hostile to Trumps swamp-draining project are trying to reverse the 2016 election results. Indeed, the release of the Comey memo about the Trump meetings occasioned a large burst of deep state speculation from Trump defenders like Alex Jones:

The anti-Trump media immediately ran with hysterical headlines accusing Trump of obstructing justice, with several news anchors and columnists calling for his impeachment.

Amid all the frenzy however, CNNs Dana Bash let slip the truth  that the memo is just the latest volley in the Hillary-aligned deep states revenge campaign against President Trump.

And just today, Breitbarts coverage of the Comey testimony hits the same note, with a headline reading: Deep State Gone Wild: Comey Asserts Unprecedented FBI Supremacy.

So is this where Team Trump is headed next, a counteroffensive against Comey and his allies that seeks to undermine their credibility by making them out to be agents of the ancien regime? Most of us would probably have a hard time thinking of James Comey as an agent of Hillary Clinton, but then again, its gospel in Trumpland that he shielded her from prison by usurping the attorney generals right to decide whether she should be prosecuted.

Like Kasowitzs attack on the credibility of Comeys accounts of the meetings with Trump, this could be a perilous strategy. Yes, it will resonate with hard-core Trump supporters. But elsewhere it is problematic. Revered is probably not too strong a word for Comeys standing among current and former FBI agents, and hes deeply respected throughout the law enforcement and intelligence communities. Going after him this personally may be the best way for right-wing claims of deep state hostility to become self-fulfilling.
If it comes down to a conflict in accounts of their interactions, who are you going to believe? The guy whose own supporters dont take him literally? Photo: Olivier Douliery - Pool; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Here is an essentialist perspective to keep in mind when considering Jim Comeys Congressional testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee today: Underlying all the present and future controversy over the conflict between the former FBI director and Donald Trump is a question of personal credibility.

This came up directly at one moment in the proceedings, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D., N.M.) notes to Mr. Comey that a lot of this comes down to who we should believe, and invites him to make the case for why Americans should believe him over the president.



My mother raised me not to say things like this about myself, Mr. Comey saysnot his first reference of the hearing to how his parents raised him.



But he notes that the significant fact to him is that Mr. Trump asked his aides, including the attorney general, to leave the room before raising the issue of Mr. Flynn with his then-FBI director.



Why do that, Mr. Comey asked, if it was about something else?

This isnt the only time Comey suggested the president isnt being honest about his account of their interactions. He forcefully (if ironically) expressed the hope that tapes existed of their meetings (as the president hinted was possible in a famous tweet) as a way to vindicate his recollections.

On the central issue of Trumps intentions in asking him to lay off Michael Flynn, Comey clearly indicated he believed the president was ordering him to do so without using explicit language (his allusion to Henry II asking his loyal men to do something about Thomas Becket making that clear). And in a rare flash of emotion, Comey denounced the White Houses effort to defame him and the FBI itself with lies about its morale and the quality of its leadership after firing him.

The response to Comeys testimony by the presidents personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, comes right back at Comeys own honesty, and not very diplomatically. The President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey let Flynn go. Thats one direct contradiction of Comey. Heres the other: The President also never told Mr. Comey, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty in form or substance.

But Heinrichs hunch that it will come down to who we should believe is very dangerous for Trump. Most of the Intelligence Committee senators, Republicans as well as Democrats, began their questioning with expressions of appreciation for Comeys integrity. Telling the truth regularly and consistently is not exactly Donald Trumps strength. Even his strongest supporters have been described (in the famous formulation of pro-Trump journalist Salena Zito) as taking him seriously, but not literally.

Unfortunately, factual disputes over interactions that might represent obstruction of justice is an area where it is important to be literally truthful. It is a point one would hope the presidents lawyers will impress upon him at this perilous moment.
Theres no better way to find out what dad wants for Fathers Day than to, well, ask. We decided to go straight to the source, talking to a dozen dads of various ages to find out what they truly want on June 18. Below, the best Fathers Day gifts according to real dads.

Mollusk Surf Shop Cosmos Crew $50 Cosmos Crew sweatshirts are pretty much the ultimate fatherhood apparel. Theyre comfy and thin  you can wear it as a heavier long-sleeved shirt or a light sweatshirt.  Danny Shapiro, beverage director, father-to-be in November $50 at East Dane Buy

Edition Hotel Gift Card For Fathers Day this year, Id love to wake up next to my kids in Miami at the Edition Hotel. Well have pancakes for breakfast, swim and eat ice cream during the day, then go bowling in the basement at night.  Zak Normandin, CEO of Dirty Lemon, father of a 6-year-old, 9-year-old, and 11-year-old Buy at Marriott Buy

The Lego Architect by Tom Alphin $14 My love affair with Lego was rekindled with the arrival of my older son Kasper, and we quite often battle over bricks while on a Sunday-morning build session. Its a good way to spend time together, and actually quite therapeutic after a week at work. To take it to the next level, I would love to get The Lego Architect book by Tom Alphin together with an Architecture Studio Lego set to show Kasper who is boss in the building stakes. I also love to write and sketch wherever I travel, so a good sketchbook or notebook is a must. I keep all my old books as a creative diary, so for Fathers Day Id love a personalized Smythson sketchbook in navy blue, my favorite color.  Dean Gomilsek-Cole, design head of Turnbull & Asser, father of a 6-month-old and 11-year-old $14 at Amazon Buy $14 at Amazon Buy

Postalco A6 Notebook $18 Most of what I really want for Fathers Day are unobtainable things, such as extra days in the week, hours in the morning, sunshine in the Chicago winter, or Hamilton tickets. But if pressed, Id say Id love a Postalco notebook. And if the kids strike it rich on their YouTube channels, Id ask for a pair of Aedle headphones.  Jason Hammel, chef, father of a 6-year-old and 9-year-old $18 at Need Supply Buy

Sur La Table Wine Enthusiast Silent 16-Bottle Touchscreen Wine Refrigerator $219 My son Henry is in bed by 7:30 p.m. most nights, which pretty much means my wife and I either find a sitter or we are staying in. All those nights at home mean we are consuming a lot more wine these days. A wine fridge for storing all those bottles would be a great gift.  Ethan Mosbaugh, software engineer, father of an 18-month-old $219 at Sur La Table Buy

Wahoo Kickr Trainer $1,199 Biking in New York City is too dangerous. I want to see my sons future birthdays. So to stay fit, get engaged with other bikers online, and prepare for triathlons, I would like a solid indoor trainer that I can control with my iPhone. Wahoos Kickr trainer is the perfect Fathers Day gift for me.  Scott Sinawi, investment banker, father of an 18-month-old $1,199 at Competitive Cyclist Buy

Griffin Travel Power Bank Backup Battery $70 I am always on the go, and I love the idea of an Apple Watch that gives you immediate updates. The only problem is that you need a charger for your iPhone, one for your laptop, one for your iPad, and an additional one for your Apple Watch. The ideal gift would be ONE charger for ALL devices, but I would already be very happy with this portable one for my Apple Watch.  Naveen Jain, entrepreneur, father of a 20-year-old, 23-year-old, and 27-year-old $70 at Amazon Buy $70 at Amazon Buy

Tokyobike Ace Limited Matte Vermillion $875 Its so hard to decide what I want. Its my first Fathers Day, so I wanted to get something cool and classic  and this bike is it. I always knew Id want to pass it along to my daughter one day. Aside from that, my real desire is to spend the entire day with my little girl.  Deon Douglas, manager of A$AP Ferg and head of marketing at Trap Lord, father of an 8-month-old $875 at Spring Buy

Persol PO0649 Sunglasses $130 As a family, we spend a lot of time outdoors, and these are the perfect sunglasses for the playground, park, and beach. Gotta keep dads looking chic.  Jason Oranzo, vice-president of brand creative at Victorias Secret, father of 11-year-old twins $130 at Jet Buy

5-in-1 Tool Pen $25 I like this five-in-one tool pen a lot. I doubt Id ever use the screwdriver and level on it, but I think it would look cool on my desk. The banned-books socks are also a must. As a writer, Id have to have them, particularly as so many of my favorite books are on them. I think this gift has to be given in tandem with the democracy coasters.  Jonathan Santlofer, writer and artist, father of a 34-year-old $25 at Uncommon Goods Buy

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While fruits and vegetables are undeniably good for the body, they're also a major boost for Alabama's economy, Auburn University and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station economists found in a recently completed analysis of the industry.

"Specialty crops is definitely a potential growth area for Alabama," said Deacue Fields, chair of the College of Agriculture's Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology and study leader.

"We grow a lot of corn, cotton, soybeans and peanuts, but in terms of profitability per acre, specialty crops rank highest," Fields said.

The study was funded by the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries. Fields' co-investigator was postdoctoral fellow Zhimei Guo.

Six years ago, Fields and Guo completed an analysis of the impact agriculture and forestry in general have on Alabama's statewide economy, but that focused on agriculture in general.

"The earlier study masked the specialty crop component, so we wanted to drill down and take a closer look at this important sector of the agricultural economy," Fields said.

The latest analysis showed that the fruit, vegetable and tree nut industry has a significant impact on Alabama's economy, with a total output of $161.5 million, value-added production of $103.6 million, creation of 1,121 jobs and indirect business taxes of $2 million.

The total economic impact captures the industry's ripple effect, too, revealing the following:

 The fruit, vegetable and tree nut industry generates additional 0.5 dollar in the state economy per dollar of output.

 On average, fruit and tree nut production generates over 17 jobs per $1 million in direct sales.

 On average, vegetable and melon production generates eight jobs per $1 million in direct sales.

 Processed fruits and vegetables generate two additional jobs for each job within its own industry.

Production and processing of fruits, vegetables and tree nuts are important to both state and national agricultural and manufacturing industries, says Fields, who has studied the produce industry throughout his career.

Alabama ranks seventh in the U.S. in sweet potato sales, eighth in pecan sales and 12th in watermelon sales. While a portion of these fruits, vegetables and tree nuts enter fresh markets, other sales go to processors for freezing, canning, drying and pickling. Each sector, Fields says, creates economic activity and jobs within its own industry.

Small farms equal big returns

"This is by no means a small impact on the economy, but it is coming from a lot of our smaller farms in Alabama," he said. "We have about 43,000 farms in the state, and 80 to 90 percent of those are categorized as small."

Many fruit and vegetable producers have truck-crop operations and are extremely savvy with their marketing plans and are entrepreneurs by necessity, Fields says.

"Although small in scale, these producers have tractors and other equipment, and some of them have more capital per acre than larger row-crop farms," he said. "A lot of capital is invested in these small farms, but there's a higher return in terms of the market value of what they sell. They have a lot of infrastructure, such as cooling facilities and sheds.

"All farmers are entrepreneurs to an extent, but these producers have to know how to market," he said. "The overall specialty crop industry is where you find the majority of agricultural entrepreneurs, because they have to know what the consumer wants, how the customer thinks, and they have to be able to provide a product that's desired."

Agritourism is another important aspect of specialty crop production.

"Specialty crop producers have you-pick operations and other things, like pumpkin patches and corn mazes, going on around the farm," Fields said. "Fruit and vegetable growers are the largest participant in the agritourism sector, and many of these are located near large population centers like Birmingham and Huntsville."

Value-added products also play a role in specialty crop production, such as growers selling jellies or jams made from their own strawberry harvest.

In addition, sweet potato growers in Alabama are providing products for school lunch programs and foods for daycare and summer nutrition programs, Fields says.

Opportunities for expansion

Hopefully, the analysis can help encourage investments in the state's specialty crop infrastructure, which lags behind neighboring states.

"This could be an entirely different industry with some infrastructure investments for processing," Fields says. "A lot of fruits and vegetables are sold directly to consumers, and a lot of products are wasted because they are highly perishable."

The state's fruit and vegetable industry is unique in that it is present throughout the state, with some production in almost every county, he said. It's also very diverse, including multiple crops, from cucumbers to peaches.

While there has been a recent uptick in the demand for organic specialty crops, consumers will pay even more for local products, Fields says.

"There are opportunities for serving these local marketsselling to individuals, restaurants and others," he said. "When the water crisis hit in California, a lot of people were looking at Alabama because of our favorable climate. We have the capacity to grow our fruit and vegetable production, and that isn't the case with some of our row crops."

For the nine-month analysis, Fields and Guo used IMPLAN economic impact assessment software and associated databases for Alabama to estimate the industry's impact.

"We also were interested in multipliershow those employed within the industry spend their money, and what producers buy to actually support the industry," Fields said. "We worked with some of the state's specialty crops organizations to validate what was being reported. Many times, the impact of small farms is missed in standard reporting."
log kya kahenge (what will ppl say?) is the story of my life

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The audience's groan of despair/sympathy when he said that the first time was amazing.

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i was watching it with my cousins and we all groaned in sympathy. it was so great! everything he was saying was absolutely true.

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me tooooooo, still ruling my life...probably forever

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Same, forever

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his netflix special was great, he's very charming

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It really was brilliant. The structure and the message... It went deeper than most comedy sets.



Also, he's super cute. If he weren't married and straight, I'd hit that so hard, when he pulled out, he'd become the King of England.

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Boooo @ 'ol Outlander dude most likely being the male lead. I HATE that show and wish nothing but failure on him.

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Why do you hate Outlander? I had to quit half-way through the 1st season because of all the rape.

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That's exactly why.

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SAMEEEEE I saw his name listed here and rolled my eyes, I think he's an awful actor tbh

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I was on board for this until I saw Sam Heughan's name. He's insufferable, and a bad actor.

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I thought he was going to be the male lead and was briefly intrigued but now I'm disappointed

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same. he's so fine.

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every time that girls night out movie or whatever the fuck it is trailer comes on when i'm watching hulu and i hear kate's loud ass "NOOOOOOOO" in that aussie accent it makes me wanna stab my ears



i love her but they edited that in the most grating way possible

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I watched that special the other night and he's, like, too handsome. Like, I'm starting to worry he's a secret douchebag because guys that good-looking can get away with being dicks. Oh well, he gets a pass forever just for that "I do not see Steve Bannon...not see Steve Bannon...nazi Steve Bannon" thing. 

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didn't someone mention he's racist? like he made some comment about a black woman at his show or some shit like that.

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Ehhhh, is that true? Because I feel like I've heard him acknowledge/call out anti-black racism several times (including in the special). Someone on Tumblr was mad that he said "sand n****r" without censoring himself, but like...that's a real slur that he's had to deal with?? I didn't think it was exactly fair to police how he discusses the racism he's actually faced & still faces. But idk, maybe he's another one with a super-shady pre-fame Twitter past or something.

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That moment was absolute gold.

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the bannon not see/nazi joke had me howling

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sign me the fuck up, especially with my scottish celebrity crush sam heughan tbh.

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Dick me good!!! Lawd

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I tried to get into his special on Netflix (it was at my alma mater) but I just didn't really like his delivery/timing. I agree he is very handsome, though.

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it was hit or miss, parts of it were hilarious to me and other parts fell flat. he talks a little too fast and his expressions/mannerisms can be very aziz-like times, which was distracting

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Yeah, I think it was the fast-talking/mumbling that bothered me. I'm either was nervous, tbf. Maybe I'll give it another try.

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me too! i really wanted to like it.

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I liked life partners so will probably check this out. disappointed that he's not the male lead tho

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He was annoying on colbert last night. He felt very "on" and disingenuous.

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I watched his netflix special and fell in love.

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My bad! Added!

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i'd ride it.

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As noted in Part I of this series, the downstream theft of hydrocarbons is a huge industry in Nigeria. As global oil prices rose above $100 a barrel in the early 2000s, the theft of oil became ever more lucrative, attracting the attention of numerous stakeholders willing to engage in illicit activities.

Although low-level criminal elements are involved in the business, they only account for a minor percentage of the overall problem. The majority of hydrocarbon theft involves technical sophistication and sophisticated networks comprised of facilitators, local elites, militant groups, and oil company workers  and benefits from the facilitation of public sector officials open to bribery.

Structure of Illicit Hydrocarbon Networks

Naturally, given the secrecy and the illicit nature of this activity, it is challenging to determine the exact structure of the networks participating in the trade. However, it is highly likely that it involves intricate and multifaceted webs of relationships that range from local level criminals to civil servants and political elite, oil companies (both domestic and foreign), and the security forces.

In terms of the local level illicit network hierarchy, Niger Delta youth and community leaders have often been identified as playing a key role, while more senior roles are occupied by oil workers, security officials and politicians.

Oil theft is a big criminal ring with sophisticated organisation and international network. Where will poor people get the millions to buy or rent vessels, bribe customs and get military cover for their operations? Oil theft is not for the poor - Premium Times

Related: Nigerias Oil Theft Epidemic (Part 1)

Lastly, the illicit hydrocarbons trade is highly opportunistic and is open to all parties seeking to turn a profit. Accordingly, individuals looking to further their financial standing can establish a protection racket or offer their services to an existing network. It has been common for corrupt members of the security forces (Navy and JTF) to form unions to collect taxes from individuals actively participating in oil theft. These dues may be payable on a weekly, monthly or per trip basis, and those who refuse to pay the union can have their operations halted.

Local militias and criminal groups are also known to have extorted taxes from illicit hydrocarbons networks in return for abstaining from sabotaging their pipeline taps and vessels.

Militant-Assisted Theft & Illicit Networks

While criminal elements are certainly present in the trade to some degree (i.e. tapping and loading oil), large-scale oil theft and sale requires a network of key players. According to a variety of existing open source reports, and based on Shadow Governance enquiries, these stakeholders include facilitators, operators, logistics and security advisors, domestic and foreign transporters, as well as purchasers and sellers.

In 2002, militant groups operating in the Niger Delta began to infiltrate pipelines to pilfer and sell oil to finance their respective agendas. As the proceeds were largely used to finance armed rebellions against the Federal Government and multinational corporations operating in the region, the illicit hydrocarbon trade shot to regional and international prominence.

According to a 2008 BBC interview with a source close to the former government of President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007), illicit groups conducting oil theft operations on the ground in Delta State are merely the tip of the iceberg. Several of these groups were under the control of the nations top political godfathers, who were able to exert considerable influence over the executive and security forces. Accordingly, there has arguably been a lack of political will to address the issue over fears that investigating the shadowy elite could result in a coup d'etat or civil war.

Given the extent of alleged elite involvement in the illicit hydrocarbons trade, these individuals have sought to leverage the presence of regional instability and hide behind the conflicts between local militants and the state.

Due to sustained high unemployment levels in the region, it has been easy to recruit local gangs to provide protection to illicit cargos and prevent it from being stolen by rivals. These groups have also formed protection rackets and have been employed to sabotage pipelines to allow taps to be placed more easily while the pipelines are shut down and repaired.

Of course, there is complicity within government agencies, coastguard and security forces, and port authorities tasked with combatting the issue. These officials have been known to provide falsified documentation and the logistics required for illicit networks to sell the oil.

Military Involvement

Given the nature of illicit oil theft; operations such as large-scale hydrocarbons theft and bunkering in the Niger Delta could not take place without the assistance, collusion and/or complicity of regional security forces. Accordingly, collusion between illicit actors and members of the countrys military  particularly the Navy, Joint Task Force (JTF) and coastguard  has effectively nullified attempts to stem the proliferation of illicit activities.

The extent of security forces complicity was highlighted in November 2004, when three high-ranking Nigerian naval officials were dismissed and charged in relation to their complicity in illegal bunkering and for facilitating the disappearance of impounded vessels to be used in illicit bunkering operations.

However, in several other cases, military personnel arrested on suspicion of having connections to bunkering operations have simply been released without charge  once again attracting allegations of high-level protection.

Local sources have also claimed that members of the military frequently work for militant groups in their downtime, if provided the appropriate financial incentives, and have alleged to have witnessed JTF officers standing guard at illegally placed taps in pipelines and providing armed escorts to vessels carrying illicitly obtained oil.

Conspicuously, the complicity of security forces officials has been evident by the very fact that barges carrying stolen oil have often operated in broad daylight and are easily observable from the air or ground. The ostensible failure to identify, apprehend and impound these vessels is a very telling sign of military complicity in the illicit trade (both active and passive). Related: Libyas Largest Oil Field Shuttered By Protests After Oil Worker Dies

Official Involvement

Aside from militant-assisted theft, the misappropriation of hydrocarbons can be conducted by the bunkerers themselves during the process of loading cargos at jetties or terminals. With the complicity of officials from parastatals, IOCs and ships captains, oil can be stolen when a ship is moored and lifting oil from port-side bunkering facilities.

In some instances, secret compartments are constructed in ships to hold an unreported portion of the cargo, while in other cases, oil theft simply involves filling the ship with stolen product using fake documents obtained from a friendly customs agent.

Additionally, hydrocarbons can also be misappropriated through the loading of stolen product into unauthorised vessels or ships. The resale of the oil is then facilitated by the provision of forged bills of lading from corrupt officials. These forms of bunkering naturally involve the complicity of oil company employees  as well as key government officials who issue the oil lifting contracts.

Furthermore, although the tapping of oil pipelines or wellheads is the most frequently utilised method of hydrocarbon theft, the complexity of the process suggests the complicity of company insiders or former employees who can provide detailed technical advice, as well as critical information on security patrols and inspection schedules.

It is also alleged that oil workers with positions in pipeline control rooms are paid to lower the pressure in pipelines so that they will not explode when taps are placed. According to local sources, in 2016, control room operators were paid approximately $4,500 for reducing pipeline pressure or informing illicit networks when pressure would be reduced for routine maintenance operations.

Furthermore, in terms of piracy, hijacking a tanker is no small feat and requires sophisticated logistics and illicit network connections to facilitate the offload and resale of the stolen hydrocarbons. Conducting an attack on a vessel far from the coast involves considerable planning, a working knowledge of the victim ship (and its cargo), and real-time information on the ships location or route. Such information is naturally restricted, which would tend to infer the complicity of security forces and shipping industry employees.

Conclusion

Although President Muhammadu Buhari was elected on a strong anti-corruption platform, and vowed to clean up the oil sector, he continues to face a monumental task.

Security operations that have been established to combat oil theft are unlikely to succeed as long as corrupt security elements continue to be involved in illicit activities. Perhaps more importantly, progress will also be impeded by those political and business elites with vested interest in the illicit sector who remain reluctant to confront the issue.

Furthermore, the fact that the theft of oil continues to flourish today, suggests that both political, security and military complicity in the illicit trade (both active and passive) continues, and that corruption and bribery remain part and parcel of the industry.

By Shadow Governance Intel

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Canada is inviting Chinese companies to invest in its oil sands, Canadas Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said on Thursday, after an exodus in the past few months saw international oil majors selling a total of US$23 billion worth of assets to domestic producers.

Speaking at a conference call to reporters during his trip to China, Carr said We think there are opportunities and we laid out, along with experts from industry, what we believe to be opportunities for them, as quoted by Reuters.

We would welcome investment from any nation thats interested in the oil sands, the minister noted, without giving details of what kind of Chinese investment Canada would see as welcome. The government is interested in discussing proposals case by case, he said.

Chinese firms, including PetroChina, CNOOC, and Sinopec had invested in Canadas oil sands industry between 2005 and 2012.

But now, with the price of oil at around US$50, which is half of what oil prices were in 2012, and Canadas oil sands one of the most expensive projects to develop, not many international companies are seeing returns from investing in new projects there. Related: How Oil Tech Saved This Permian Town

According to GMP FirstEnergy analyst Michael Dunn, who spoke to Reuters:

Its probably a question not of investing, but whether or not they sell. Non-Canadian entities have been selling the oil sands, why would the Chinese be different?

Earlier this year, Shell said it was selling oil sands interests to Canadian Natural Resources for around US$8.5 billion, as part of its strategy to focus on free cash flow and higher returns on capital, and prioritize businesses such as integrated gas and deep water.

ConocoPhillips announced the sale of oil sands assets in Canada to Cenovus in a US$13.3 billion deal, while Norways Statoil has sold its entire oil sands operations in Alberta to Athabasca Oil Corporation.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Decreasing production in 2016 not enough to dethrone U.S. oil and gas industry

Despite the lowest commodity prices in 13 years, U.S. oil and gas production in 2016 continued to outpace all other nations, according to a note from the EIA.

The United States has been first in the world in natural gas production since 2009, when American output surpassed Russia. U.S. production of petroleum hydrocarbons (a catch-all term the EIA uses to account for crude oil, condensate, bitumen, natural gas plant liquids, biofuels and others) exceeded that of Saudi Arabia in 2013.

(Click to enlarge)

Source: EIA

Low prices decreased oil, gas production

WTI prices in 2016 dropped to a bottom of $26.05/bbl in intraday trading in February, the lowest price seen since mid-2003. These low prices in the beginning of the year understandably depressed oil activity last year, and U.S. petroleum production fell by about 300 MBOPD.

In the U.S., crude oil and condensate only accounts for about 60 percent of total petroleum hydrocarbons production. Saudi Arabia and Russia produce significantly fewer NGPLs and biofuels and have smaller refinery gains, meaning that in these countries this percentage is much higher. Related: OPEC Production Spikes  Has The Cheating Begun?

U.S. natural gas production in 2016 faced similar challenges to oil production. According to the EIA, strong growth in gas production in 2015 and a mild winter meant average gas prices in 2016 were the lowest seen since 1999. These low prices caused natural gas production to drop by 2.3 Bcf/d in 2016.

Russia, Saudi production grew in 2016

The U.S. remains the largest hydrocarbon producer in the world, even with low prices. Americas dominance is even more impressive because both Saudi Arabia and Russia saw production increase in 2016.

According to the EIA, Russian oil and gas companies have been increasing CAPEX recently, which has pushed up production. Russian tax regimes are highly favorable, and exchange rates also encourage further activity. Russian oil production broke records in late 2016, before the production cut took effect. Natural gas production also rose, as European OECD countries saw gas demand increase by 6 percent in 2016. Related: Oil Prices Collapse As The EIA Reports Unexpected Inventory Build

Saudi Arabia also saw production increase in 2016, before the country agreed to production cuts late in the year. The EIA estimates that total Saudi hydrocarbon production rose by 3 percent last year.

U.S. dominance to continue thanks to shale ramp-up

The U.S. is likely to remain the foremost hydrocarbon producer in the future as well, as shale companies continue to ramp up activity. The EIA estimates that U.S. petroleum hydrocarbons production will grow by about 0.8 MMBOPD in 2017 and 1.1 MMBOPD in 2018. This growth is significantly higher than expected growth from Russia or Saudi Arabia, particularly because both countries agreed to extend production cuts through March 2018.

U.S. natural gas production is predicted to grow by about 1 Bcf/d in 2017 and 3.3 Bcf/d in 2018.

By Oil & Gas 360

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Oil prices have plunged back to levels not seen since OPEC announced its original production cut deal last November. Prices have been falling since the group extended their cuts for another nine months, a two-week slide that puts WTI back in the mid-$40s.

The underlying factors for the price drop are the same as before: U.S. shale production continues to rise; inventories remain elevated; and the markets are concerned that the OPEC cuts are not doing enough to drain the surplus.

But, in fact, the outlook has grown a bit darker more recently, as downside risks to the market have grown.

The immediate spark to the sharp percent selloff in crude oil prices on Wednesday came from the unexpectedly bearish EIA inventory report, which surprised market analysts. The report was especially bad news because both crude oil and gasoline inventories increased by 3.3 million barrels each at a time when stocks typically decline heading into the driving season. The increase ended several consecutive weeks of drawdowns and poured cold water on any hopes of swift rebound in prices  WTI and Brent dropped roughly 5 percent.

That comes after the EIA issued a statement saying that it is growing more confident that U.S. oil production will surge past 10 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2018, which would be an all-time record for the United States. Piling on, the EIA said that it expects relatively unimpressive drawdowns in inventories this year, projecting declines of just 0.2 mb/d worldwide in 2017. And in what should be very worrying for OPEC and other oil bulls, the EIA also sees inventories rising again in 2018 by 0.1 mb/d.

But the oil market also has some other immediate problems. Nigeria has presented downside risks to oil prices for quite some time, although the threat was latent for most of this year. Everyone knew that Nigerias disrupted pipelines and export terminals could come back at some point.

That day has finally arrived. Royal Dutch Shell just lifted its force majeure on its Forcados oil shipments on Tuesday, paving the way for a flood of new supply. The Forcados shipments  an estimated 250,000 barrels per day  have been offline for more than a year. Nigeria is set to add the equivalent of one-fifth of the size of the OPEC cuts back into the market. The market is already drowning in oil supplies that are of similar quality to Forcados, Ehsan Ul-Haq, an oil analyst at KBC Advanced Technologies, told Bloomberg.

In what could be a temporary jolt to oil prices, Libyas largest oil field temporarily shut down on Wednesday due to a workers strike. But output from the 270,000-barrel-per-day Sharara field will probably come back online pretty soon, putting Libyas total output back at its highest levels in years at 850,000 bpd.

One wildcard over the past few days was the severing of diplomatic ties by several Gulf States with Qatar over the latters support for terrorism. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, a move that temporarily rattled the oil market. The initial reaction from market analysts was that any tension in the Middle East is always bullish for crude. If Qatari shipments were disrupted for some reason, that would erase some supply. But the flip side is that hostility between fellow OPEC members could undermine mutual trust, threatening to derail compliance with the production cuts. That would be decidedly bearish for oil prices. However, for now, many experts think that the tension wont have any immediate impact, especially since Qatar was a major driver of the OPEC deal. Related: Is Russia Running Out Of Patience With OPEC?

Looking further out, there is a much larger, if less certain, risk to oil prices. Several Russian officials have made some eye-raising comments recently regarding their production; comments that do not necessarily mean anything concrete right now, but offer an important reminder that Russias willingness to prop up oil prices cannot be taken for granted.

Well, if the question is how Opec is going to exit from these arrangements: abruptly, Rosnefts CEO Igor Sechin told the FT. We will also be prepared. If something goes wrong, we will not let them occupy our markets. Well defend ourselves. Sechin said that Russia was willing to go along with the OPEC deal for now, but that if U.S. shale comes back too much, it might question the wisdom of restraining output. Right now Russias interests are aligned with OPEC, but I assume that at some point in time, after some time, these interests will diverge. And we will respond to that.

That is a pretty chilling and not-so-subtle threat to ramp up production if prices continue to flounder. Indeed, Russia is preparing for lower prices ahead. Were actually ready to live forever with the oil price at $40 or below, Russian Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin said in a Bloomberg TV interview at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 1. All macroeconomic policy is now based on the assumption of the oil price of $40. Related: Hydrocarbon King: U.S. Ranks No.1 In 2016



It is hard not to view the statements as a threat to prices. There were some stark comments from the Rosneft CEO who said that there is a plan by producers to flood the market with oil, John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, told Bloomberg last week. His comments certainly registered with the market. As you look back now at the deal, it looks increasingly lame."

Taken altogether, the end result could be that oil gets stuck in the mid-$40s in the near run, rather than gradually rising beyond $50 and closer to $60 as previously expected.

The worry in the market is that the overhang is definitely not going to be taken care of, Gene. McGillian, research manager at Tradition Energy, told the WSJ. Unless OPEC wants to do something else, the idea of $50 or $55 oil is basically not realistic.

By Nick Cunningham, Oilprice.com

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India Oil Corp., the countrys biggest oil refiner, is planning a major though temporary refining capacity reduction this year for maintenance, unnamed sources told Reuters. The reduction totals around 600,000 bpd and most of the maintenance operations will take place over the summer.

IOC will shut down the crude oil refining unit of its 300,000-bpd Panipat refinery for two weeks in July, taking off 150,000 bpd of refining capacity. Another 120,000 bpd in capacity will be shut down for five weeks in July-August at the Barauni refinery, and the 160,000-bpd Mathura refinery will close doors for maintenance for 15 days in August. Towards the end of the year, IOC will also shut down the 150,000-bpd Haldia refinery for about three weeks.

In addition to these cuts, the refiner, which already suspended operations at its 274,000-bpd Koyali refinery from the start of this month, will do the same with the oil processing unit of the 300,000-bpd Paradip plant, the sources said.

The large-scale maintenance plan will likely prompt an increase in fuel imports as in the current fiscal year Indias fuel demand was projected by the Oil Ministry in January to hit 200 million tons, or 1.466 billion barrels. This would be the highest demand level since 2010/2011.

Over the first quarter of the year demand for fuels actually dropped, on the back of a nationwide demonetization program, but in April it returned to growth, by 3.3 percent to 16.79 million tons, or 123.07 million barrels.

India is what a lot of oil bulls are pinning their long-term hopes on as the most oil-hungry nation in the coming years. Importing as much as 80 percent of the crude it uses, India is seen to be the fastest-growing consumer of the commodity in the years to 2040, according to the International Energy Agency.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The oil-rich autonomous region of Kurdistan has scheduled its long-awaited independence referendum for September 25, President Masoud Barzani said in a tweet. The referendum may cost Iraq a large chunk of its oil reserves.

The region of Kurdistan is made up of three provinces that are run by an autonomous government. Perhaps the most sensitive point geographically is the city and region of Kirkuk: control over it is still disputed with the central government in Baghdad, not least because the area contains some of the biggest oil fields in the country. The Kirkuk region will be included in the referendum, a government official told Reuters.

The Kirkuk field alone contains some 8.7 billion barrels of crude, with a daily rate of production back in 2015 of 300,000 bpd.

Tension between Erbil and Baghdad has been more or less permanent on the topic of Kirkuk oil and Kurdistan oil in general. At the moment, the Kurdistan Regional Government gets a share in Iraqi budget spending in exchange for a solid part of the oil it produces. Yet the KRG has more than once made it clear it would like to keep a bigger portion of the oil output for itself and have greater control over it.

Related: Can Canadian Crude Compete In Asia?

Earlier this year, for example, Kurdish security forces seized an unspecified facility in Kirkuk as a way of protesting against Baghdads oil policy. The event led to a temporary suspension of oil flows from the surrounding fields.

Naturally, the central government is not on board with any sort of independence for Kurdistan and more specifically Kirkuk, with Ammar al-Hakim, president of the ruling coalition, telling Reuters back in April that Baghdad will not support an independence referendum. We believe that the politics of accomplished facts and drawing borders with blood hasn't succeeded in any country of the world and won't have good results in Iraq either, he said at the time, adding that Baghdad will insist on a dialogue on the matter.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Just a day after Abu Dhabi was said to have removed the restrictions on Qatar operated, owned, or flagged tankers to call at UAE ports, the port authority backtracked and re-imposed the ban on all oil tankers with any connection to Qatar from stopping at UAE, creating the latest confusion surrounding crude oil loadings and co-loadings in the Middle East.

The latest circulars issued by Abu Dhabi Petroleum Ports Authority and state-held Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) say that there is denial of entry into any of the Petroleum Ports, for all vessels arriving from, or destined to Qatar, regardless of its flag, Reuters reports on Thursday, citing the notices it has seen.

After, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya severed diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism and destabilizing the region, port authorities in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain barred Qatar-flag or owned vessels, as well as Qatar-bound or Qatar-origin tankers, from calling at their ports, thus making crude and oil product loadings in the Persian Gulf more complicated, and forcing large oil importers to change loading plans.

The reinstatement of UAEs total ban for any Qatar-bound or Qatar-originated tanker is likely to create further confusion among refiners and shipbrokers that have been wondering if they could continue their common practice of co-loading several grades of crude from several Middle Eastern producers, including Qatar, since the spat in the Middle East began. The impossibility to co-load Qatari grades from Qatari ports together with UAE grades from UAE ports could increase transportation costs and tanker fees, and potentially create logistical jams.



Related: What Is Behind The Diplomatic Crisis In The Persian Gulf?

According to a source from an Asian refiner who spoke to Reuters:

ADNOC has officially confirmed that we cannot co-load to and from [Qatar]. So we need to find new vessels, then find co-loadings around the region.

According to Reuters industry sources in Asia and the Middle East, co-loadings could continue on a case-by-case basis, despite the port ban.



But despite the UAE ban on port callings from and to Qatar, the emirates have not shut a gas pipeline from Qatar, which meets around 30 percent of UAEs energy needs. The UAE pays for that gas from Qatar well below the current market prices, according to industry analysts who spoke to CNN.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Four members of family injured in AJK by Indian firing

Four members of a family were injured in Leepa valley of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in overnight exchange of heavy fire across the restive Line of Control (LoC), officials and residents said early Thursday. Exchange of fire in the valley, located a hundred kilometres southeast of state capital Muzaffarabad, began at about 5pm on Wednesday and continued till 2am on Thursday, said deputy commissioner Jhelum valley Abdul Hameed Kiani. Initially the Indians used small arms, but later they resorted to use of heavy artillery, targeting both the army posts and civilian populations in Union Council Naukat, he told reporters. Pakistan army gave them a befitting response, he added. The Pakistan army refers Union Council Naukat as the Kayani sector. In a statement, the Inter Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said that Indian border troops resorted to "unprovoked" ceasefire violation along the LoC in Nakyal and Kayani sectors late on Wednesday with heavy weapons and mortars. "Pakistan army responded effectively on Indian posts to silent guns targeting civilians," the ISPR said. Deputy commissioner Kayani said that a shell landed on a house in Channiyan village, injuring four members of a family. Identifying them as Rafiq, his wife Parveen, son Taufiq and brother Nazir, the deputy commissioner said they were being treated in a local army run health facility. Foreign office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria also confirmed that four civilians were injured in Indian shelling with heavy weapons and mortars in Kayani sector. Deliberate targeting of civilians by India is deplorable. The international community and United Nations should take notice of the situation. India continues to endanger regional peace, Zakaria tweeted. Shaukat Javed Mir, a Muzaffarabad based political activist who hails from Leepa valley, told Dawn that some houses were also damaged in enemy shelling. The shelling was heavy and created panic amongst people, as such an incident happened in that area after a long time, he said. He said those who had built bunkers long ago took shelter there after the shelling intensified, but the rest spent a sleepless night in their vulnerable homes. I am constantly in touch with my relatives and acquaintances in the valley and they have told me that many families in the most vulnerable spots either missed their sehri or took it hurriedly amid fears of being caught in shelling, he said. Incidents of cross-border firing have become a norm since the last months of 2016 as tensions simmer between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue. Exchanges of fire have been reported sporadically since the new year began. Tensions are running high on the heavily militarised LoC that splits the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan for quite some time and have caused a number of civilian casualties. Two civilians were killed and six others injured in Battal sector of Poonch district on June 1 while another two were injured in Nezapir sector of Haveli district on June 2. On Saturday, Indian troops resorted to shelling in Tatta Pani sector, which was aggressively responded by Pakistan army. Indian bunkers were destroyed and at least five Indian soldiers were killed and several others injured in what Pakistan army had described as violent response to Indias unprovoked ceasefire violation. Amid unrelenting ceasefire violations by India, the director general military operations (DGMO) of Pakistan army had spoken to his Indian counterpart over this issue through a special hotline contact on Saturday. The DGMO had told his Indian counterpart that killing of innocent civilians and inadvertent crossers at the LoC and labelling them as infiltrators was highly unprofessional and un-soldierly act. It was further said that any Indian misadventure from across or along the LoC in any form would be responded with full force at the time and place of Pakistans choosing with onus of responsibility on Indias aggressive behaviour.
JIT facing problem in Panama investigation

ISLAMABAD: The six-member joint investigation team (JIT) on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that it was facing a number of impediments and problems in its probe into money-laundering allegations stemming from the Panama Papers. But team leader Wajid Zia did not explain the nature of the obstructions, nor did a three-judge Supreme Court implementation bench headed by Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan  constituted specifically to implement the April 20 Supreme Court verdict in the Panama Papers case  ask what was bothering the team. But the bench asked Mr Zia to submit an application to the court in this regard, since there was no secrecy involved. When filed, these apprehensions will be taken up in the open court on Monday, when Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf will also be asked to ensure that all such issues are attended to. Khawaja Ahmed Haris, the counsel for Hussain Nawaz, also filed an application requesting the formation of a judicial commission under a Supreme Court judge to ascertain who leaked his photo on social media. The application also asked the apex court to do away with the practice of video recording of interrogations and asked for an early hearing due to the urgency of the matter. The photograph released is aimed at humiliating the petitioner and is violative of his fundamental right to human dignity, the application said. It contended that the JIT chairman could not personally conduct the inquiry since no credibility would be attached to any such inquiry, alleging that the responsibility for the leak rested squarely with the JIT members. The Supreme Court also asked the JIT to come up with its response to the application by Monday. Experts believe the latest application, in addition to a number of ferocious press statements outside the Supreme Court premises by PML-N loyalists, was part of a well-thought-out strategy to put pressure on the JIT and the superior judiciary. Hussain Nawaz had earlier accused two JIT members of being close to his fathers arch-nemesis, Imran Khans Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), which was rejected by the court for being premature. The smaller Courtroom No 2 was packed to capacity on Wednesday, when the JIT furnished its second voluminous report, brought in sealed envelopes in the traditional fat leather briefcases. The bench had a cursory look at the reports and then ordered the JIT to re-submit the entire record before the registrar office after re-sealing the same. Expressing its satisfaction over the pace of the probe, the court repeated its earlier direction that the 60-day time frame will remain unchanged and JIT will have to do the needful in time. We cannot afford to extend a day more; you should understand the time constraint, Justice Khan told Mr Zia. Both the prime ministers sons will be appearing before the JIT this week. The elder, Hussain, who has appeared before the JIT four times already, will be appearing again tomorrow (Friday), while Hassan Nawaz is scheduled to appear at the Federal Judicial Academy (FJA) on Saturday. The JIT has questioned Hussain in connection with the purchase of four apartments in Londons Park Lane. The investigation also focused on the establishment of companies by Hassan Nawaz soon after completing his education and the phenomenal increase in his business in a short span of time. In his four sessions with the JIT, Hussain has explained the variations in his account with regard to the London flats and submitted the record of the establishment, sale and purchase of Al-Azizia Steel Mills in Saudi Arabia, Gulf Steel Mills in the United Arab Emirates and further investments in steel and real estate in United Kingdom and Qatar. Meanwhile, Hassan Nawaz was questioned with regard to his interview with the BBC, where he said he was a student in the year 1999 with no income of his own. In view of that, how was he able to start his own business in London on April 12, 2001, named Flagship Investments Limited.
Bald men in Mozambique could be targets of ritual attacks, police have warned, after the recent killing of five men for their body parts.



Two suspects have been arrested in the central district of Milange, where the killings occurred.



"The belief is that the head of a bald man contains gold," said Afonso Dias, a police commander in Mozambique's central Zambezia province.



Albino people have also been killed in the region for ritual purposes.



Three men have been killed in the past week alone.



The BBC's Jose Tembe in the capital, Maputo, says police think the notion of a bald head containing gold is a ruse by witchdoctors to get clients to take a person's head to them.



"Their motive comes from superstition and culture - the local community thinks bald individuals are rich," Commander Dias is reported as having told a press conference in Maputo.



The suspects are two young Mozambicans aged around 20, the AFP news agency reports.



A regional security spokesman, Miguel Caetano, told AFP that one of the victims had his head cut off and his organs removed.



The organs were to be used in rituals to advance the wealth of clients in Tanzania and Malawi, Mr Caetano said, citing the suspects.



There has been a spate of killings of people with albinism in East Africa in recent years, with their body parts used to make charms and potions by witchdoctors.

Source: BBC









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We went to see "Wonder Woman" and it was fun and entertaining -- not profound, not moving, but by modern standards of computer-generated spectacle, not half bad. What is amusing is seeing that the movie, because of its tame forays into breaking with Hollywood big-budget summer movie tradition, is generating all sorts of online controversy and argument.

First, a film critic -- David Edelstein for New York magazine -- angered feminist readers by suggesting that part of Gal Gadot's appeal comes from being gorgeous. He was called sexist and attacked for not taking the movie seriously enough. First, Gal Gadot is gorgeous. How much of her appeal depends on that might depend on who you are. She can act and -- unlike many other actors and actresses cast as superheroes -- she's physically convincing, too, as someone with extraordinary physical abilities. Nonetheless, her extraordinary looks are a big part of her appeal, as has been true for legions of actors and actresses before her. Does that really need to be argued?

Second, a debate has flared over whether Gadot qualifies as "a person of color." She sure looks like a white person. On the other hand, she's an Israeli Jew, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and so has credentials as an oppressed minority. Some culture warriors have argued, since WW is a princess from an "Amazonian island," a non-white actress should have been cast.

Well, WW is an Amazon, not a South American. She's the daughter of Zeus and a queen of the Amazons, as in the mythical race of immortal warrior princesses. So, while, yeah, the choice of a white woman for the role is surely not random but meant to appeal to white audiences, it seems a bit literal in a silly sort of way to argue that, as an Amazon, she should look like someone who grew up in the real Amazon, in Brazil.

It's equally silly to say that, as a Jew, she qualifies as a person of color. She qualifies as Jewish. Also gorgeous, if I haven't mentioned that.




















The Syrian governments allies will strike at American positions inside Syria if it crosses any red lines, Hezbollah warned on Wednesday.









The Lebanese terror group, a close ally of the Syrian government, issued the threat via its military media arm one day after American forces bombed pro-government forces in eastern Syria.





The Pentagon said Tuesday the pro-government forces were infringing on a de-confliction zone established to protect US-backed local opposition forces, who are engaged in fighting the Islamic State group.





On its TV station al-Manar, Hezbollah broadcast footage it said was of an Iranian drone tailing an American one over eastern Syria. It said the video was proof the Syrian governments backers could strike American units at will.





Iran is a key backer of Hezbollah and the Syrian government, and is deeply involved in the Syrian civil war.





Hezbollahs military media said it was only self-restraint keeping pro-government forces from attacking American units.





Also Wednesday, a US official said the fight for Raqqa, the Islamic State groups de facto capital, will only accelerate as the jihadists lose their grip on Iraqs Mosul.





Brett McGurk, the US envoy for the global coalition against IS, said the US and its local allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, were prepared for a protracted fight for the northern Syrian city. He spoke at a press conference in Baghdad.





The jihadist group is locked in twin battles for its key strongholds, Raqqa and Mosul. The SDF launched its attack on Raqqa on Tuesday and has already captured a neighborhood on the citys eastern end. Iraqi forces have been battling IS in Mosul since October. McGurk said the fight for Raqqa will be a difficult and very long-term battle.

































said it could hit U.S. positions in Syria, warning that its "self-restraint" over U.S. air strikes on government forces would end if Washington crossed "red lines", according to Reuters. One day after American warplanes bombed an Iranian-backed militia that allegedly entered a supposed no-go zone near a U.S garrison in southern Syria on Tuesday - its second such strike in three weeks - a military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad The statement from the pro-Assad alliance was issued in the name of the "commander of the operations room of the forces allied to Syria", and was circulated by a military news unit run by Hezbollah, one of Assad's military allies in Lebanon. "America knows well that the blood of the sons of Syria, the Syrian Arab Army, and its allies is not cheap, and the capacity to strike their positions in Syria, and their surroundings, is available when circumstances will it," the statement said, adding that such attacks could be carried out with "different missile and military systems, in the light of the deployment of American forces in the region". The statement also warned that the silence of "the allies of Syria" thus far was not a sign of weakness but "an exercise in self-restraint" to allow for "other solutions". "This will not last if America goes further, and crosses the red lines," it said.





The stark warning by Syria, the first of its kind, which was struck by a volley of ballistic missiles launched by the Trump administration in early April, marks an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran-backed forces over control of Syria's southeastern frontier with Iraq, where the United States has been training Syrian rebels at a base inside Syrian territory. While Assad's allies also include Iran and Russia, the statement did not spell out whether Moscow was a signatory to it Reuters added. The US strike on Syrian forces came on the same day U.S. and coalition aircraft were busy supporting thousands of Syrian Arab and Kurdish forces assaulting the de-facto Islamic State capital of Raqqa, the terrorist groups last urban stronghold in what is left of its caliphate in Iraq and Syria. The Raqqa assault comes even as U.S. officials acknowledge that most of the Islamic States leadership has already fled the city for the more isolated Euphrates River valley running from the city east to the Iraqi border. But military planners have stuck with plans drawn up under the Obama administration and continued under President Donald Trump, predicated on the fall of Mosul and Raqqa before launching an effort to push the terror group out of the valley and Deir Ezzor province. U.S. officials view the Iranian movement near al Tanf, in the extreme south of Syria, as a probing action to test the U.S.-trained forces there, and possibly act as a blocking force to prevent them from moving north to Deir Ezzor, according to FP . The Syrian regime wants to eventually retake the province, and Iran views the province and the river valley as a vital conduit to maintain influence from Iraq, through Syria and into Lebanon.
































The US Justice Department Thursday said it arrested two men tied to Hezbollah who had been plotting attacks against Americans and Israelis in the US and Panama.





On June 1, Samer El Debek was arrested in Livonia, Michigan, while Ali Kourani was arrested in the Bronx. Both men are being held in New York City.





A statement from US authorities claims that the men tried to provide support to Hezbollahs Islamic Jihad organization after receiving weapons and bomb-making training from the group in Lebanon.





El Debek allegedly looked for potential targets in Panama, including US and Israeli embassies, while Kourani surveilled American targets, including Israeli military personnel and US military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.





Pre-operational surveillance is one of the hallmarks of Hezbollah in planning for future attacks, New York Police Commissioner James P. ONeill said.









Defense lawyers did not immediately comment.





William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the New York FBI office, said the charges reveal once again that the New York City region remains a focus of many adversaries, demonstrated as alleged in this instance by followers of a sophisticated and determined organization with a long history of coordinating violent activities on behalf of Hezbollah.





ONeill noted that Kourani, who was born in Lebanon, received sophisticated military training overseas on at least two occasions, including the use of a rocket-propelled grenade. He said El Debek also was charged with possessing extensive bomb-making training from Hezbollah.









Authorities said Kourani attended Hezbollah-sponsored weapons training in Lebanon in 2000 when he was 16. They said he lawfully entered the US in 2003, obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical engineering in 2009 and a masters in business administration in 2013. They said he was in Lebanon in 2006 when his family home was destroyed in Israels war with Hezbollah. Authorities said El Debek, a naturalized US citizen, was first recruited by Hezbollah in late 2007 or early 2008. They said he received military training from the group from 2008 through 2014, including instruction on the use of explosives similar to those used in the 2012 Burgas, Bulgaria bus bombing in which six Israelis and a local bus driver were killed. On Wednesday, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said that although the Hezbollah terrorist organization suffered a massive blow during its conflict with Israel in 2006 and in the years since, the group remained Israels top security challenge. Israels northern border and Hezbollah are our top priorities, Eisenkot said, speaking at an event marking 11 years since the Second Lebanon War.




























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LIMA: Since March 27, it was decided to exempt, with some restrictions, the temporary tourist and business visa to the citizens of India who visit Peru, according to Supreme Decree No. 006- 2017-RE of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As India is the second most populated country in the world and with an economic growth that places it among the four largest emerging economies in the world, this becomes an exceptional opportunity to strengthen our strategies and increase the arrival of Indian visitors to our country.

According to the Supreme Decree, the exemption will apply to Indian citizens holding valid ordinary passports and proving that they will comply at least one of the following conditions:

A) Hold visas with a minimum validity of six (6) months of the United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom -Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia or any State belonging to the Schengen Area.

B) To have permanent residence in the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Australia or any State belonging to the Schengen Area.

The document stipulates that Indian citizens will have a maximum period of stay that will be up to one hundred and eighty (180) calendar days, whether as a continuous visit or several consecutive visits, during the period of one year.

It is worth noting that in 2016 there were 5, 900 international arrivals coming from India, representing a growth of 4% with respect to the previous year. In addition, Indian travelers look for destinations rich in culture and unique natural beauty, are frequent travelers and have a travel culture to destinations such as Europe and North America. Therefore, PROMPERU will work in activities directed to the Indian tourist, revealing the extent of culture and history that our country has to offer.
Finding Peace of Mind: Discover These Five Places in Europe to Unwind
SMACKDOWN IN PUERTO RICO, BIG UK WEEKEND FOR NXT AND MORE

Smackdown's tour starts tonight, which is a rarity for them, with a show in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They have an event tomorrow in Sunrise, FL, Saturday in Panama City, Panama and Sunday in San Jose, Costa Rica. They travel on Monday to New Orleans, LA for Tuesdays Smackdown Live.

NXT has has a show tonight in Brighton, England. Then they will be working the Download Festival in Derby, England on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The Raw brand is back in action tomorrow night with a show in Jackson, MS. On Saturday they are in Alexandria, LA and Sunday they have an event in Beaumont, TX. Mondays Raw emanates from Lafayette, LA.

If you are going to any of the shows and can send a report, please drop me a line.

If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
The Quad-City International Airport's governing board indicated Thursday that it wants to "hold the line on taxes" but also re-structure its budget.

Sitting as the Internal Affairs Committee of the Rock Island County Metropolitan Airport Authority, airport commissioners made it clear that the board's policy has been to avoid raising taxes. But members also showed support for utilizing separate tax levies, as allowed by law, to pay for mandated costs without increasing taxes.

At a committee meeting a month ago, airport staff had recommended that the authority consider new tax levies as a means of raising an additional $1 million to improve the airport's financial picture.

Commissioner John Malvik, chair of the internal affairs committee, said Thursday that the issue arose when the board "charged the staff to find ways to reduce operating costs or increase revenue for the airport."

But the use of the specific tax levies, he said "is a separate issue from raising taxes. That is a budget issue."

In May, Angela Burch, the airport's controller, told the committee that the airport could begin levying, by law, for other items such as: auditing, pensions, unemployment insurance, Social Security, tort liability and workers compensation. Currently, the airport only levies for expenses with the corporate tax (general tax), which is capped, and pays for those mandated costs from that levy.

"The question before the board is should we be utilizing all those separate tax levies that the statute allows use of ...," Malvik said. "There are certain expenses we are mandated to pay and they were not meant to be paid out of the general fund. They are now."

The board now is considering adding the levies, without raising additional taxes.

In an interview after the meeting, he said the board was looking at "are we structured fiscally, the way we should be structured? And that answer is 'no.'"

Malvik said the airport is looking to structure its budget as other local governments in Rock Island and across Illinois do, such as including municipalities, counties and school districts. "The practice of every unit of local government is to have separate tax levies for these items."

"Does not mean we want to increase taxes, no," he said after the meeting. "The policy of the board has been to hold the line on taxes and not increase taxes."

Under the initial proposal, which never advanced to regular airport authority meeting, the new levies would have increased the airport portion of a Rock Island County taxpayer from 1 percent to an estimated 1.4 percent. The owner of a home with $150,000 assessed valuation would have seen taxes for the airport's portion raise from $112 to $197.

But after the meeting, Burch said the board's decision to not increase taxes now means the airport "will reallocate from the corporate levy for the other levies." Ultimately, she said that "would mean a reduction for the corporate levy."

In a one-page prepared statement released after the meeting, the airport said: "If the airport authority taxes the same total amount of money in the upcoming budget that was taxed for the current budget with the additional levies, then the answer is no, taxes will not increase.

"If more money is sought for airport operations in the upcoming budget than in last year's budget, then taxes would increase. Whether taxes will increase or remain the same will not be known until the upcoming budget is approved," the statement said.

But during the meeting, commissioners went to work on further trimming the proposed fiscal 2018 budget, which will be approved in July.

Burch presented a draft $25.828 million budget for FY18, which is lower than the current year's $27.43 million budget. However, as the commissioners and staff went down each budget line, they identified at least another $150,000 in cuts, including reducing a residential property acquisition fund by $100,000 and delaying the replacement of a $45,000 dump truck.

Burch said the adjustments will be made and a new draft presented to the board.

But Malvik said, in the interview, there is a long-term issue of how the airport is funded. "We're looking at a much longer range plan on how to explore how we can expand the tax base."

That current taxing structure, which taxes Rock Island County taxpayers living in seven townships, he added, "was when this was a small municipal airport. That is not what it is today. It is a large regional airport. It needs to be operated as a regional airport, structured like a regional airport and funded like a regional airport."

Commissioners previously have suggested the airport look at the untaxed townships as well as possibly expanding the taxing district to Scott County, which also benefits from the presence of a regional airport. But those options would require approval beyond the commision's authority.

Malvik said the airport's financial situation is important to the entire region "because the airport is a huge driver of the Quad-City economy."

The airport's statement added "To remain competitive, it is critical that our airport provide physical facilities and services to the airlines at a cost that is comparable to, or better than, other airports with whom we compete for customers."

"We need to find a method where people who get the benefit of the airport are actually supporting it," Malvik said. "It should not be on the backs of property owners in seven townships in Rock Island County."
Q. I was wondering what happened to Emily Scarlett on WHBF-TV4, Rock Island?  Concerned Reader

A. According to information on Emily Scarlett's LinkedIn profile, she has been an anchor/reporter with WIS-TV10 in Columbia, South Carolina, an NBC affiliate, since May 2017. She was with WHBF-TV4 from April 2014 until May 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile.

According to her biography posted on WIS-TV10 on May 4, "Emily Scarlett joined WIS-TV as a weekend anchor/reporter in May of 2017.

"She is originally from Southfield, Michigan, and a graduate of the University of Michigan.

"Emily is an award-winning journalist after her coverage on one of the pioneers in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Quad-Cities area.

"Her career in news broadcasting began as a morning announcer for her elementary school. Her journey to the news desk continued in middle school when she was selected as a student columnist for her city's newspaper.

"Previously, Emily has worked as an anchor for KFBB in Great Falls, Montana, and a morning anchor for WHBF in the Quad-Cities. After testing out the Northwest and getting back to the Midwest for some time, she is excited to try out the South for a change.

"Emily enjoys exploring new places and especially trying out new food. She is open to suggestions as she gets to know more about the Columbia area.

"Feel free to reach out with news tips, or just to say 'hello': escarlett@wistv.com.

Emily Scarlett also reached out to her former viewers in the Quad-Cities. She said, "Sending my love back to the Quad-Cities. For those of you who don't know, I recently took a new anchor/reporter job in Columbia, South Carolina. My contract came to an end at WHBF and the station was supportive of me taking on this new opportunity. I am so grateful to the Quad-Cities and the time that I spent there. It has been so heartwarming hearing from all of the people who used to watch in the morning and wanted to wish me well. You do this job and you think, 'well people dont really care,' but I am always blown away by the overwhelming and genuine support people give. Thank you all again for a wonderful three years. I'm excited to see what sunny days in South Carolina have to offer."

Q. I had read a story that Trader Joe's will be opening a store in Coralville, Iowa, in June. Are they still planning on opening then?  Betty, Davenport

A. According to an article by Zach Berg posted April 18 on the Iowa City Press-Citizen website, the 13,000-square-foot Trader Joe's planned for the Iowa River Landing is expected to open around October, quoting Deanna Trumbull, a retail consultant for the Iowa River Landing and Coralville.

To view the full story about Trader Joe's at Iowa River Landing in Coralville, visit qctimes.com/askthetimes.com.
In a 4-1 vote, the Rock Island County Zoning Board of Appeals approved a special use permit that will allow Top of the World Ranch to build a 24-bed high-end substance abuse treatment center on 312 acres in rural Milan.

Mark Sadler, 54, a Moline High School graduate, wants to duplicate in Milan his Top of the World Ranch Treatment Centre that he has located in Fort Steele, British Columbia.

Plans at the Milan property call for a partnership with Robert Young Mental Health Center. Those seeking treatment would pay a reported $30,000 for a 40-day stay.

Opponents of the project have said they are concerned about safety, increased crime, response for police and fire, as well as the traffic on the gravel roadway leading to the property.

Zoning board of appeals member Bob Brown said he had talked with Rock Island County Sheriff Gerry Bustos and that the sheriff had no issues with response time to the facility for both police and fire.

Additionally, Brown said there was no issue with water supply, and as far as the road is concerned, he said, In todays world if a delivery person does not drive appropriately, they usually lose their job. This is not 1955.

Brown acknowledged that at the last meeting when the public was allowed to speak it was rather emotional for everybody. But, he added, that as a board member the arguments made by the citizens did not present the best evidence for denying the special use permit.

Sadler said that detoxification of patients will not be done at the facility, but that it will be done at the Robert Young Center.

Detox requires medical intervention, Sadler said. Were there solely to attend to addictions treatment.

Along with the approval came eight conditions put on by board member Don DeLoose that included if the property is sold at any time then a new use permit will need to be gotten. Also, if the scope of the operation changes another meeting would be required. The facility also will operate in compliance with state regulations.

The Rock Island County Board will take up the measure at its next meeting June 20.

Im happy with the decision, Sadler said. Were grateful that the neighbors have made their concerns known. Were hopeful that with time they will see that we are an asset to the community and that we are trying to do some really good work and I think theyll find were a good neighbor as well.

Rural Township Trustee John Abbott said after the meeting that, We would have been much happier as a community if they would have come out and met with us to try and be a good neighbor; to let us know what they had in mind and voice their concerns, let us voice our concerns and find common ground. They havent done that at all.

The zoning board recommended that they come out and meet with us. They totally blew us off, Abbott said. Theyre trying to run everything bypassing the township and going straight to the board.

Abbott said that neither side is adhering to the land use plan for the area.

Township Trustee Jim Zwicker added that access to the property is not what it needs to be.

Zwicker said that neither the taxpayers nor the township should be responsible financially for upgrading the roadway. That financial burden should fall to Top of the World and Trinity.

Sadler said they are looking now for a builder and that while a time table has not necessarily been set, A Nov. 1 opening would make us very happy.
ABERDEEN | Bridger Gordon of Whitewood, who will be a senior this coming year at Sturgis Brown High School, was elected governor of The American Legion Boys State of South Dakota.

The event, the 75th annual session, drew 305 high school boys from across the state who are between their junior and senior years of high school. It was held on the campus of Northern State University in Aberdeen from May 29 to June 2.

Gordon said he went to Boys State because his teacher, Brett Monson, and the local American Legion Post recommended that he give it a chance.

"I didnt know what to expect from it. I figured I could meet a few new people and maybe learn some interesting information. I didnt plan on running for any important office, certainly not any state level ones," he said.

Gordon said he noticed almost immediately during the group gatherings that some boys were already campaigning for governor.

"I just focused on talking to the other boys in my group, and getting to know them. Senator John Thune came and spoke to us about getting involved throughout our week at Boys State, and I took this message to heart," he said.

So during sessions on the second day Gordon decided to run for mayor of his city-level group.

"I was lucky enough to win that election by one vote. My lucky success at the group level convinced me to try for a higher-level office," he said.

He grabbed a petition and entered the race for governor.

All Boys Staters are split into two different political parties, the Nationalists and the Federalists, on the second day. Gordon says the parties are random and have no ideologies to begin with, but they give the experience to see how the party system works. Gordon was a Federalist.

Each candidate for governor was asked to give a short speech to the party about why they should be the candidate.

"I simply told the people that I would represent them, and help get a Federalist elected governor. It surprised me when the party chose me to be their nominee for governor," he said.

Following his nomination, Gordon learned about campaigning first hand. His fellow Federalists gave him the nickname "Flash Gordon" in hopes voters would better remember his name at the polls.

Then, the candidates for governor and lieutenant governor from both parties participated in the annual governors debate. Boys Staters could ask questions about their platform, their political views, their campaigns. Gordon said both sides faced pointed questions and polite ones, fierce opposition and staunch support, cheers and jeers.

When the votes were tallied, Gordon and his running mate, Shaiv Kittur of Sioux Falls, a student at Sioux Falls Roosevelt High School, won 62 percent to 38 percent.

"It was at that time that I finally looked at the list of past Boys State Governors in the booklet we each received at the beginning of the week. I realized I was the first Boys State Governor from Sturgis," he said.

Additionally, Gordon of Whitewood and Garrett Kiefer of Lead were selected as alternate delegates to The American Legion Boys Nation in Washington, D.C., in July.

Gordon says he's glad he threw his hat in the ring for the top office at Boys State.

"Boys State makes clear the importance of humility. There were people running for governor that had been campaigning since the moment they arrived at Boys State; I wasnt like that. I wasnt there so I could run for office, but so I could meet new people," he said.

Gordon said he knew when he decided to run for governor, he was running against people who deserved the position just as much as he did.

"What set me apart is that I remained down-to-earth and humble while still running for office, which is something that the world could use a little more of," he said.
PIERRE | Gov. Dennis Daugaard used his executive authority Wednesday to call the South Dakota Legislature back to Pierre for a special session Monday on nonmeandered waters that lie over private property.

The session convenes at 10 a.m. MDT.

Fifteen lawmakers spent five days this spring on a special task force that the Legislatures Executive Board appointed in April to consider regulations for nonmeandered waters.

They can be as small as cattail potholes or as large as open lakes, especially in the northeastern counties of South Dakota. They are often floodwaters that remained from the 1980s and '90s after being trapped in closed basins.

The legislators task force met for the fourth and final time Friday, generating a draft bill that will be the starting point when the 105 lawmakers  or as many of them as can attend the special session Monday on short notice  gather again at the Capitol.

The interim legislative committee considered hours of testimony and struck a good compromise that balanced the rights of landowners with the ability for sportsmen to use public waters for recreation, Daugaard said in a statement released by his office Wednesday afternoon.

I hope the Legislature can act quickly to resolve this long-standing issue.

South Dakota lawmakers last held a special session in 2011 to draw new boundaries for the 35 legislative districts.

The task force leaders, Rep. Lee Qualm, R-Platte, and Sen. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark, said Friday the decision was up to the governor for calling the Legislature into special session.

LRCs staff canvassed legislators in recent days to see whether June 12 or June 14-15 better met lawmakers schedules.

The South Dakota Supreme Court set off a chain of events when the justices ruled unanimously March 15 in a case known as Duerre v. Hepler that neither landowners nor recreation users had superior rights to use some waters in Day County.

The justices said the Legislature needed to resolve the matter.

The state Game, Fish & Parks Department in early April decided to close 25 nonmeandered waters where GF&P officials had spent public money on infrastructure such as boat ramps and parking lots.

That in turn caused protests from anglers and from businesses that served them, including bait sellers, boat shops, restaurants and lodges.

GF&P Secretary Kelly Hepler said he was willing to do what the Legislature wanted. Qualm, the House Republican leader, praised Hepler on Friday afternoon for being cooperative.

Without him and his attitude, we wouldnt be at this point, Qualm said.

The final version declares nonmeandered waters open to public use unless a landowner posts them as closed. It also incorporated Greenfields amendments that prohibit landowners from profiting off waters they close and requiring GF&P to report back to the Legislatures Executive Board in 2019.

To read a copy of the final draft, visit bit.ly/2sEAOCB.
ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, S.D. | The 77th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is approaching. The rally attracts approximately 500,000 visitors, brings $800 million to South Dakota, and makes up to 95 percent of the citys annual revenue. Local businesses are currently looking for seasonal employees in preparation for the 10-day event, which will take place Aug. 4 to Aug. 13, 2017.

This may present some tempting opportunities for personnel assigned to Ellsworth, but there are guidelines and procedures Airmen must follow before starting any off-duty employment including jobs during the rally.

Off-duty employment is defined as business activities and compensated outside employment, which include the sale of goods or services. It does not include the one-time sale of personal property, conducting a garage sale or similar event, or services rendered as a volunteer when an incidental, non-monetary benefit is involved.

All military personnel must submit an Air Force Form 3902 to their first-level supervisor at least two weeks prior to beginning off-duty employment, except in cases where two weeks' notice is not possible. First-level supervisors review the off-duty employment request for potential conflicts of interest. The form must then be approved by the unit commander before beginning employment.

Certain civilians are also required to obtain approval from authority through the appropriate channels.

Military personnel who fail to comply with the filing requirements are in violation of a lawful general order, which may result in disciplinary action or criminal liability under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Air Force civilian employees who violate this instruction by failing to comply with its filing requirements are subject to disciplinary action without regard to criminal liability.

After a request is approved or disapproved by the commander, it will be maintained by their unit and sent to the Legal Office, if legal coordination is necessary.

Even if you will not be paid for your time and/or help during the rally, there are a few things to keep in mind.

 Airmen must be on leave or pass status to volunteer during their duty hours.

 Airmen are not to be in uniform while volunteering.

 Private organizations should contact the 28th Force Support Squadron's private organizations section for more information and regulations on fundraising.

Airmen and civilian personnel may not attend events for the rally in an official capacity without prior approval and coordination from their commander and the 28th Bomb Wing Public Affairs office.

For more information, contact your supervisor or the 28th Bomb Wing Judge Advocate's Office at 605-385-2329.
The missing car of a Rapid City man found dead at home Tuesday is a piece of the puzzle that homicide investigators are trying to figure out, according to local police.

Larry Mintzlaff, 64, was found dead Tuesday morning at his house at 3320 Wisconsin Ave. He was a retired teacher who worked for the Rapid City Area Schools from 1983 to 2013, according to school district spokeswoman Katy Urban.

An autopsy showed Mintzlaff died of blunt force trauma. Investigators believe he died late last week.

The type of assault that caused his death is not clear at this point in the investigation, Rapid City police Lt. Mark Eisenbraun said in an interview Wednesday.

Investigators are trying to find Mintzlaff's vehicle, a 2007 Ford Focus with license plate number 2H3205, which they believe was stolen. "It's a piece of the puzzle that we need to figure out," Eisenbraun said, "and we need to follow that path where it takes us."

There were no initial indications that Mintzlaff's killing was related to illegal drugs, he said in response to a question. State and law enforcement officials have emphasized the links between violent crime and meth, a drug that has become a growing problem throughout South Dakota.

Mintzlaff's death is the fifth homicide in Rapid City this year, following three fatal stabbings in January and one in March.

"It's really an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation where we are gonna do everything we can to get to the bottom of this, and try to create a safer city," Eisenbraun said. "We're gonna be focusing right now on information we can glean from the scene and from the interviews."

Authorities are asking anyone with information on Mintzlaff's death to call 394-4134. People can also send anonymous tips by texting "RCPD" and the information to 847411.

Rapid City police and the Pennington County Sheriff's Office are investigating the case.
In 1928, in the old railroad town of Kadoka, my Dad and his sister, Emmaline, boarded a train in the late September dusk. My dad was 6, Aunt Emmaline, several years older. Sometime after midnight, a tall man in a large black car picked them up at the downtown Rapid City station. They rode in silence until, mounting a hill, the tall stranger deposited them before a large brick building.

It was the Rapid City Indian School. Brother and sister were separated: she to the girls dorm, he to the boys. There he lay, awake in the open bay, till night lifted. Fear seized his throat. He could not speak for several days.

Stark and implacable times. I returned to them a few weeks back, ferried by three remarkable Rapid City women: Karen Mortimer, Heather Dawn Thompson and Kibbe Conti, founding members of the Mniluzahan Okolakiciyapi Ambassadors. Anderson and Conti have tirelessly researched the history of the Indian School and the west Rapid City lands apportioned to it. Redolent of my father, the truth seems barely speakable.

The old school buildings currently house the Indian Health Services Sioux San Hospital. Nearly 1,400 acres went with the school. West Rapid, my present home, is as serene and beautiful a place as can be found in the Black Hills. Early on, to be near their children Native parents and family members camped nearby along the Mniluzahan  now called Rapid Creek.

Pretty as a postcard, this could not, and would not, last.

In a packed conference room in the Ramkota Inn, a second presentation on the sordid facts of the case was presented. The encore made necessary when the first presentation at The Journey Museum in early May was so heavily attended well over a 100 people were turned away. At the museum, Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender and Police Chief Karl Jegeris were in front-row attendance. The topic hit a nerve.

For those with a passing knowledge of U.S. history, vis-a-vis Indigenous contacts with European refugees from 1492 to the present, the tale of west Rapid City is that in microcosm. To wit: Indians can have whatever is theirs so long as the grass grows, river flows, and wind blows  or until the white man decides he wants it. Whichever comes first.

I say this without animus. You get used to things.

Point by meticulous point, Ms. Thompson and Ms. Conti retailed the details in chronological order. Thompson, a lawyer, made an irrefutable closing argument  save for a subtle but salient tone: she spoke only in notes of healing. The facts were the facts: however legally decided and divided, the land was stolen. But her review was presented  not as an indictment  but as the beginning of a civil conversation.

To my mind, it worked. In one or two places, trauma and grief did surface. Given the subject, this was unavoidable. West Rapids history and wounds are relatively fresh. There are those still alive who lived it. And it is a great gift and mercy that these three women, Mortimer, Thompson and Conti, now come to cleanse the wound, and suture it.

A side note: Yes, for better or worse, Ill be regularly back on the Journals Thursday editorial page. Many thanks to Editors Bart Pfankuch and Patrick Butler for making it possible.
St. Petersburg Church of Scientology executive director put in detention

ST. PETERSBURG, June 8 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov)  The Nevsky District Court of St. Petersburg on Thursday ordered the detention of executive director of Church of Scientology local religious group, Galina Shurinova, until August 5, RAPSI reports from the courtroom.

Shurinova is charged with participating in an extremist organization, illegal business, inciting hatred and enmity, and violation of human dignity. Law enforcement officers have seized literature banned in Russia as extremist during searches at her premises, an investigator said in court.

According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Shurinova is the main manager of Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg, who exercises control over cash inflow. From 2013 to 2016, the organization received over 276 million rubles ($4.9 million) for rendering its services. However, the Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg has not been incorporated under the law, an FSB representative noted in court.

Shurinova motioned for house arrest or release on bail.

On Wednesday, the court detained two other managers of Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg, Anastasia Terentyeva and Sakhib Aliev.

On June 6, the Federal Security Services (FSB) officers raided the Church of Scientology of St. Petersburg as part of investigation into illegal business operations, incitement of hatred and enmity, and organization of an extremist community. Five members of the religious group were arrested.

Dianetics and Scientology are a set of religious and philosophical ideas and practices that were put forth by L. Ron Hubbard in the US in the early 1950s.

The scientific community never recognized it as science.

A resolution passed in 1996 by the State Duma, the lower house of Russias parliament, classified the Church of Scientology as a destructive religious organization.

The Moscow Regional Court ruled in 2012 that some of Hubbards books be included on the Federal List of Extremist Literature and prohibited from distribution in Russia.
MOSCOW, June 8 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova)  Lawyer Mark Kaverzin has asked jurors to acquit Zaur Dadayev, who stands charged with killing of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, RAPSI reported from the Moscow District Military Court on Thursday.

Dadayev is not involved in the crime, Kaverzin said. All other lawyers in the case have already spoken to a jury panel. Each lawyer insisted on innocence of a client they represent and asked for acquittal.

On June 1, prosecutor Maria Semenenko asked jurors to deliver a guilty verdict for five defendants in the case. According to the prosecutor, their guilt in the murder has been proven.

Boris Nemtsov, 55, a prominent opposition politician, who held a number of high-ranking posts in the Russian Government in the 1990s and in the 2000s joined the opposition, was shot down in the center of Moscow as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin on the night of February 28, 2015.

Five men, Zaur Dadayev, brothers Anzor and Shadid Gubashev, Khamzat Bakhayev have been charged along with Tamerlan Eskerkhanov with contract murder and illegal acquisition, carrying and keeping of weapons.

Ruslan Mukhudinov, a former officer in Chechen Interior Ministry, is believed to be a mastermind of the murder. He was placed on the international wanted list in November 2015. Beslan Shavanov, who allegedly was also implicated in the crime, reportedly killed himself when police tried to arrest him.

Investigators believe that the conspirators in the murder had thoroughly prepared to commit this crime: they studied Nemtsovs schedule, spied upon him, prepared suitable weapons, vehicles and communication equipment. On the day of the murder, 28 February, after following Nemtsov from his home, at about 11.31 p.m. Dadayev, having received a signal from Anzor Gubashev and Shavanov that the situation was suitable for the murder, shot Nemtsov at least six times, according to investigation.

Criminal prosecution of Shavanov was dismissed because of his death. Investigation into Mukhudinov is underway.
Bill on prison terms for carousel voting reaches State Duma

MOSCOW, June 8 (RAPSI)  A bill introducing punishment of up to 5 years in prison for so-called carousel voting has been submitted to the lower house of Russias parliament, the State Duma database reads on Thursday.

The bill was approved by Russias Supreme Court and government on June 5.

Carousel voting is illegal issuance and obtaining of ballots instead of other voters or bussing from one polling site to another in order to cast multiple votes.

Members of election and referendum commissions would face fines ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 rubles ($1,770  5,300), community service of up to 4 years, or imprisonment of up to 4 years for the issuance of ballots to citizens enabling them to vote repeatedly during the election or for other individuals and for issuance of completed voting papers.

Receipt of ballot papers instead of other voters or for repeated voting would result in fines ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 rubles ($3,500  8,800), community service of up to 4 years, or prison sentence of up to 4 years.

These crimes committed by an organized group and in collusion would be punished with 100,000 to 300,000 rubles, community service of up to 5 years, or prison terms of up to 5 years.

Amendments are proposed to the Criminal Code of Russia.
Nearly 50 people interested in addressing the issue of food insecurity and hunger in in the county attended a community conversation about hunger in Montana and Ravalli County hosted by Montana Food Bank Network, Wednesday.

Free healthy and nutritious food is available through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly food stamps), Women Infant and Children and the Summer Food Service Program.

Lorianne Burhop, chief policy officer of the food bank network, told representatives from schools, businesses, service organizations and the general public that nearly 5,750 individuals struggle with hunger in Ravalli County.

This means they have the inability to access food in a consistent manner, Burhop said. One in eight Montana households has food insecurity. In Ravalli County the numbers are higher with 14 percent of residents and 21 percent of children living in food insecure homes.

Burhop said there are programs to help.

The Summer Food Service Program fills in the gaps in summer months when kids dont have access to school food, Burhop said. For families that participate in free and reduced lunches and breakfasts when summer rolls around thats a huge increase in demand on their food budget. Its a loss of a huge resource for them.

The Summer Food Service Program is funded federally by the United States Department of Agriculture, administered by the Office of Public Instruction in each state and sponsored locally by non-profit organizations and schools.

Food is free to every child under age 18. No paperwork is needed and children can visit any participating location in Montana and the United States. If a child is traveling on vacation, they can find a food location by texting Lunch to 877-877 or visiting online fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks (which should be online by mid June.)

Ravalli County has four locations for summer food: Hamilton, Corvallis, Darby and Stevensville.

The Hamilton Summer Food Program is being hosted by Grace Lutheran Church. Meals are served noon to 1 p.m., Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, June 6 through Aug. 17, at The Outpost, 296 Marcus St., at the corner of Marcus and Kurtz in Hamilton.

Robin Stahleker, coordinator, said this is the fourth year for their church to participate. The Outpost is within walking distance of the Bitterroot Aquatic Center.

If they are swimming or taking lessons, they can come over here to get lunch, Stahleker said. Theres a bike path on Marcus thats safe for walking on. We hope people dont think were too far away to come.

Stahleker said the church participates to help hungry children and last year averaged 30 children each day.

In addition to lunch, well have activities for the kids, Stahleker said. We have a summer intern working with the kids and he wants to encourage them.

Teresa Stricklin is the cook returning for her second season.

She is the learning center and child care director from our church, Stahleker said. She comes up with meals that kids like. Mostly hot meals because they maybe dont eat many of these. Barbecue chicken, tacos, meatballs, enchiladas, noodles, rice, chicken nuggets, most of the kids like what we have.

At this location parents are guardians may purchase a meal for $3.75. For more information call Grace Lutheran Church at 406-363-1924.

The Corvallis Summer Meals Program is run by Corvallis Food Service Director Call Kathy Martin.

Free food for kids will be available for five weeks total at Corvallis School lunchroom, off Eastside Highway, with breakfast from 8 to 9 a.m. and lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, June 12-29, and, Monday through Friday, August 14-25.

The dates that are scheduled are days that we have a known number of students attending camps and practices, Martin said. The dates we set are when the most children will benefit from the program. We are trying to run a fiscally sound program while still feeding the hungry kids in the valley. The summer program is structured for each feeding site to set a flexible schedule so that the program is a success.

Darby is participating in the Summer Meals Program with food director David Thomas doing the cooking.

Breakfast will be served 9 to 11 a.m. and lunch will be served 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. from June 12 to August 11.

We are doing breakfast later because in the summer time some kids dont wake up until later, Thomas said.

The food at Darby will be similar to what is made during the school year.

A lot of our food is from scratch and we buy the ingredients to make our own, Thomas said. Well have fresh fruits and vegetables with the salad bar up and running. I dont usually make salads in the summer but lots of fresh produce you can eat with your hands or dip in sauce.

This is Thomass second year with the Summer Food Program that Darby has participated in for four years.

Its nice for us to feed the children of the community, Thomas said. We have the same kids every day. Our numbers were higher last year then what they had been.

Thomas said one day last year the meal program had 75 children eating, compared to the usual 20 to 40.

We had a lot of activities happening that day, he said. We get most of our kids in June and July when we have so many summer programs going like summer school and drivers ed. Im excited to do it. It is great to help the community to feed the kids.

For more information contact the Darby School Summer Meals Program at 406-493-5004.

In Stevensville, the St. Marys Mission Parish is hosting the Summer Food Program. Free food will be available Monday through Friday, June 15 through August 14. Breakfast will be served 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. and lunch will be available 11:15 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.

To start a Summer Food Site, visit online opi.mt.gov/summerfood.

Participants in the Montana Food Bank meeting participated in small group discussions about challenges to accessing food and action ideas to help reduce hunger in Ravalli County. Collaboration and promotion of services available seemed the best suggestions to fight food insecurity.

Results are available from a survey of food pantry clients at Haven House. The results were used by Montana Food Bank Network for their Hungry in Montana 2016 report (available online at mfbn.org/research). For more information, contact lburhop@mfbn.org.
HELENA  PacificSource Health Plans and REACH Air Medical Services announced they will offer in-network air ambulance services in a statement on Thursday.

If air ambulance providers dont have a contract with an insurance company, covered patients are often left with exorbitant medical bills. The 2015 Legislature spent the interim studying billing and in-network participation of air ambulance services to introduce legislation in 2017.

Legislators passed a measure with bipartisan support to keep Montanans from paying upwards of $100,000 in air ambulance bills. Senate Bill 44, which was signed into law by the governor, keeps insured patients from being held accountable for crippling medical bills. Instead, the insurance company and the air ambulance are responsible for figuring out who pays the balance, most likely through expensive litigation.

Jesse Laslovich, a former attorney in the state auditors office dealing with air ambulance issues, said REACH resisted partnering with an insurance company for two years. REACH operates in seven states and has bases of operation in both Helena and Bozeman.

Its a huge deal for the people of the state, he said.

Laslovich said the legislation likely pressured insurance companies and air ambulance providers to enter into contracts to avoid litigation.

It wasnt until the Legislature acted, he said. From my perspective, theres no question that it brought the parties to the table.

Although the legislation passed this session protects people regardless of whether the provider is in-network, Laslovich said theres a chance it could be challenged in court.

Thats the one black cloud thats out there for me, he said. Ok the legislation is there, but if its challenged, I think we would win. I cant guarantee that but then of course people are susceptible to having these exorbitant bills.

Federal law says states cant regulate an airlines route or service price. Laslovich said Montanas legislation was drafted carefully and he doesnt think it would be struck down like other states whove attempted to do something similar.

Laslovich said if enough air ambulance providers and insurance companies enter into a contract, theres no reason to challenge the legislation.

The statement from REACH said the company was dedicated to providing care and keeping patients from worrying about coverage during a tragedy.

REACH is here to serve our communities and finding solutions through healthcare partners such as PacificSource is one way we can do this, Sean Russell, president of REACH, said in the statement. The last thing a person wants to worry about while they are ill or injured is their coverage. PacificSources dedication to working with us to help their communities should be applauded by their members, their communities, and the Montana Legislature.

With the addition of REACH, people with PacificSource insurance will be covered regardless of where they use air ambulance services in the state.

Laslovich said all of the hospital based providers are in-network. The other major providers, REACH and Life Flight, have contracts with PacificSource. Laslovich said he hopes theyll soon reach an agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover a larger portion of the state.
Guwahati, June 8 : The crime branch of Guwahati city police on Thursday had arrested the general secretary of Nikhil Bharat Bangali Udbastu Samanvay Samiti (NIBBUSS) in the capital city of Assam in connection with the All Assam Students Union (AASU) office attack incident in Dhemaji district on March 6 last.

Police had arrested Ambika Ray, NIBBUSS general secretary and advocate of Supreme Court, while he was trying to get interim bail from a local court in the city.

A top police official said that, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had earlier summoned the NIBBUSS general secretary to appear before the investigating team.

'CID summoned to Ambika Ray after arrested SSP of CID providing information of investigation report of the AASU office attack incident to the NIBBUSS leader through RTI,'A the top Assam cops said.

Earlier, the Guwahati city police crime branch had arrested IPS officer Dr N Rajamarthandan after proving of leakage of investigation process information through RTI.

The top police official said that, the IPS official was violating the government notification while the Assam government had already notified that, CID organization is exempted from providing information under RTI Act as per government notification no PLA.384/2005/54 dated March 8, 2006 and no details of investigation can be divulged to anyone without the permission of the competent court.

Assam police had already arrested NIBBUSS president Subodh Biswas and 54 others in connection with the ransacking AASU office incident.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati: At least four militants belonging to outlawed ULFA (I) and an Army Major were killed and three jawans injured in a fierce gun fight near the India-Myanmar border in Nagaland's Mon district on Wednesday, officials said.

According to the reports, the encounter took place at Lapa Lempong hilltop in Oting village near Tizit at around 12-30 am on Wednesday.

Following intelligence input, a combined team of 12 Para Commandos of the Army and Naga Territorial Army ambushed a group of ULFA (I) and NSCN (K) militants at the remote jungle area.

During the gun battle, four militants killed on spot and a Major David Manlum of Territorial army also died.

Security personnel had recovered three AK series rifles, magazines, two grenades, three IEDs, 270 rounds AK ammunition, war like stores in possession from the slain militants, who are yet to be identified.

Nagaland's police chief LL Doungel said that, three jawans of 12 Para Commandos also injured in the gun fight.

The injured jawans were immediately rushed to Jorhat based army hospital for treatment.

Unconfirmed report that, a civilian also died during the encounter.

On the other hand, some militants had managed to flee from the area and army launched massive operation at the bordering area to nab them.

Meanwhile, the mortal remains of Major David Manlum will be flown to Shillong for last rites.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Kathmandu, Nepal: The US Ambassador to Nepal Alaina B Teplitz called on newly elected Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba at latters office on Thursday.

During the meeting US Ambassador Teplitz congratulated Prime Minister and Nepali Congress President Deuba and expressed best wishes of behalf of US for his successful tenure.

In the meeting, Deuba expressed gratitude to the US government for its assistance in various sectors in Nepal. Prime Minister Deuba also expressed his expectations that such assistance would be continued and increased in the days ahead.

Responding to the concerns of the Prime Minister US Ambassador Teplitz also expressed confidence that the relations between Nepal and the US would take a new height in the days ahead.
KATHMANDU, June 8: The Legislature-Parliament session on Thursday endorsed 'Local-Level Election Act (first amendment) Bill- 2017'. The bill was passed by majority after going through clause-wise deliberations, accepting the proposal presented by Home Minister Janardan Sharma.

Taking part in the clause-wise deliberations on the bill, lawmaker Prem Suwal said the act required to operate the local level which according to him would help strengthen democracy was yet to be formulated. He demanded the government to come up with a bill toward that end.

Lawmaker Meena Pun demanded the guarantee of participation of all political parties in the election before endorsing the bill.

In his response to queries raised during the discussions, Minister Sharma said the bill relating to the first amendment to the 'Local Level Election Act' was introduced before the House as the government wished to ensure a greater acceptability of the constitution and to the participation of all political parties in the second-round election by lifting the legal complexities seen to this connection. He requested all lawmakers for help pass the bill.

The House session earlier accepted the proposal presented before it by Minister Sharma, seeking consideration on the 'Local-Level Election (first amendment) Bill- 2017. The proposal was endorsed by majority.

Taking part in discussions on the principles of the bill, lawmaker Suwal said the suspension of rule was not supposed to take place in democracy, present situation arrived due to failure to conduct work on time.

Likewise, lawmaker Pun raised the question over the preparations for amending the act if political parties to whom it meant for were not certain to take part in the election.

In his replies to queries raised in the discussion, Minister Sharma said the amendment proposal was for making the election easier, calling on all lawmakers to help endorse the bill which according to him would pave the way for participation of all in the election.

Meanwhile, the parliament session today approved the proposal tabled seeking the suspension of Rule 127 (1) of the Parliament Regulations-2073 BS as per the Rule 259.

The proposal to suspend the Rule 127 (1) was presented to pave the way for amending the 'Local Level Election Act' to ensure the participation of all political parties in the upcoming June 28 local-level second-phase election.

Any Member of the Parliament wishing to amend the amendment proposal regarding the bill shall inform the General Secretary or Secretary about it within 72 hours of the completion general discussions over the bill. Nepali Congress chief whip Chinkaji Shrestha tabled the proposal before the meeting, seeking the suspension of that by-rule which was seconded by CPN (Maoist Center) chief whip Tek Bahadur Basnet.

Prior to this session, lawmaker Onsari Gharti read out the letter received from the Office of Prime Minister and Council of Ministers regarding portfolio division of the government formed under the leadership of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba.

The next meeting of the Parliament will take place at 11: 00 am tomorrow, Friday. RSS
Chinese and Ethiopian train drivers shake hands, celebrating a railway station operational in Addis Ababa. [Photo/Xinhua]

China is a source of inspiration as Ethiopia modernizes its economy.

Arkebe Oqubay, special adviser to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Hailemaraim Desalegn, said he believes the Belt and Road Initiative will bring further tangible benefits to the East African nation through enhanced trade and investment.

Building industrial parks and the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway are among the latest examples of how China's businesses in the country can drive economic development and boost employment.

"China has long been focusing on fighting poverty," said Oqubay on the sidelines of the Shanghai Forum, an annual international symposium on Asian and world affairs, at the weekend.

"It has successfully lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It also specializes in manufacturingcreating millions of jobs. So it has been a source of inspiration for us."

Oqubay pointed out that Ethiopia was not only a participant but a pioneer in the Belt and Road Initiative.

He felt the program of rapid development can help transform his country from a low-income agricultural-based economy into a medium-income, export-oriented one by 2030.

"The Belt Road Initiative creates a win-win situation for China and Africa," said Oqubay. "The underlying values and principles include nonintervention in internal affairs, mutual benefits and peaceful coexistence, which are all similar to those of the United Nations Charter."

With a young population, Ethiopia is banking on overseas investment in industrial parks to create jobs and produce a stable and thriving economy.

Chinese companies are major investors in the country and during the past 15 years have financed 20 percent of all manufacturing-related projects.

China Communications Construction Co is one of the biggest players and has been involved in a range of activities from building industrial parks, roads and railways to setting up leather factories.

The aim has always been to bolster economic growth without causing environmental damage.

"Africa is perhaps the last frontier on the earth for textile production," said Oqubay.

"We have together built zero liquid discharge systems in these facilities so that up to 95 percent of water is recycled."

Oqubay also expected another dividend to come out of the Belt and Road Initiativean extension to the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway to cover the west part of the continent.

"This would boost tourism by attracting more travelers," he said.
Pe aceeasi tema

Iohannis a mai spus ca romanii sunt cei mai pro-americani dintre toate popoarele din UE si a subliniat sprijinul SUA pentru lupta anticoruptie si sustinerea statului de drept. Iohannis a militat pentru mentinerea NATO si a relatiei cu SUA drept principal instrument pentru asigurarea securitatii in Europa, o abordare diferita de cea sugerata in ultimele saptamani de unii dintre liderii europeni: "Romania ramane un membru UE credincios relatiei transatlantice, o pozitie care s-ar putea dovedi si mai importanta acum, dupa ce Marea Britanie a decis sa paraseasca UE", conform HotNews.

Seful statului a mai spus ca "avem nevoie de dialog cu Rusia, dar bazat pe o puternica descurajare", lucru care necesita atat unitate in interiorul Uniunii Europene, cat si unitate in relatia dintre UE si SUA. Presedintele a mai adaugat ca un "lucru esential pentru asigurarea securitatii si stabilitatii in Vecinatatea Estica" consta in sprijinul pe care NATO trebuie sa continue sa il arate fata de parteneri precum Ucraina, Georgia si Moldova.

De asemenea, acesta a dat asigurari ca Romania va contribui la dezvoltarea relatiei transatlantice, pe care o considera "pilonul central pentru stabilitatea intregului sistem international".

"Prezenta trupelor americane in Romania, complementara prezentei inaintate a NATO pe Flancul Estic, este, pentru noi, cel mai puternic semnal de sustinere si solidaritate din partea SUA. De aceea, salutam decizia administratiei Trump de a creste in mod substantial finantarea pentru Initiativa Europeana de Reasigurare. Ea reprezinta o investitie foarte avantajoasa in apararea noastra colectiva", a mai spus Iohannis.

Presedintele Iohannis a participat miercuri, 7 iunie, in a treia zi a vizitei pe care o intreprinde in Statele Unite ale Americii, la dezbaterea cu tema "Dupa 20 de ani: relevanta Parteneriatului Strategic dintre Romania si SUA in actualul context international si de securitate", organizata de Heritage Foundation, unul dintre cele mai influente think-tank-uri conservatoare din SUA. Evenimentul a fost moderat de presedintele organizatiei, domnul Edwin Feulner.

Inregistrarea VIDEO a discursului lui Iohannis si a sesiunii de intrebari:



Discursul:

Thank you so much, President Feulner,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear fellows and friends of the Heritage Foundation,

Dear friends of Romania,

I am delighted to be here in Washington, to share with you my thoughts around this milestone moment for our bilateral relationship: 2017 marks the 20 years' anniversary of the United States-Romanian Strategic Partnership.

One thing is very clear to us and we are proud to say it! The Strategic Partnership between Romania and the United States has been a key factor in shaping my country's strategic profile as a NATO ally and EU member.

And I am happy to share our success story with President Trump on Friday, when we will hold talks at the White House. Our meeting will be important not only on a political level, but it will have a major positive impact on the Romanian public back home, on the vibrant Romanian community in the US, on the business communities in both our countries and on all those who have put longstanding efforts making our relationship more solid.

To further underscore our enduring friendship, I will mention that this 20 years' anniversary comes in our 137th year of diplomatic relations, established in 1880. In addition to this, in 2018, my country is celebrating the centenary of its Great Union, an event which would not have been possible without the President Woodrow Wilson's principled commitment to democracy and national self-determination.

Dear participants,

This Strategic Partnership with the US is and will always be a core pillar of Romania's foreign and security policy.

Its remarkable success is due not only to our two countries' shared vision and political commitment, but, most importantly, to the genuine sympathy and friendship between our two nations. My country is the most pro-American country in the European Union. Over 70% of Romanians, this is what polls show, have positive feelings towards the US, and this is translated into concrete action.

These positive feelings also originate from the consistent support provided by the USA after the fall of the Iron Curtain. This support was enhanced after the Strategic Partnership was launched in 1997. It was a real catalyst for progress and modernization efforts and for Romania's deep democratic, economic and social changes, which resulted in Romania's joining NATO and the European Union.

We have achieved, throughout these 20 years, tangible results and concrete progress to give substance to our Strategic Partnership. Romania stands now as one of America's most reliable NATO ally in Europe, an active and committed partner in the efforts to ensure stability, security and prosperity in the region and beyond.

We face today's geopolitical challenges shoulder to shoulder, we stand together in the battle against terrorism and our soldiers train and fight side by side. We have successfully worked together in areas such as security, defense, law enforcement and the rule of law.

Dear friends,

Security and defense represent a key component of the US-Romanian Strategic Partnership and has brought substantial results. I would like to once again underline the unity of vision between the United States and Romania on virtually all major international security issues.

As a dependable ally, Romania is doing its share. This year we have fulfilled our objective, as you mentioned, Mr. President, assumed under NATO auspices, of allocating 2% of GDP for defense expenditures.

This makes us the first Ally to reach this target in the current US Administration's mandate and the 6th NATO member to do it. I am happy to mention that this was one of the top priorities on my agenda, when I assumed office.

And it was adopted with virtually unanimous political support. We aim to maintain the 2% as a minimum level for at least a decade. It will enable Romania to continue major acquisition programs, expanding the potential of long-term cooperation also with the US defense industry.

At the same time, we are aware that fighting international terrorism is crucial. That is why Romania firmly supports the US in combating this worldwide plague. Romania is engaged in the anti-ISIS coalition. Our country has pledged military trainers and other resources in Iraq, including stabilization and communication support.

We stand together in Afghanistan, where the Romanian troop contingent is the 4th largest among NATO Allies, with almost 700 troops on ground.

My country is also proud to host the first Aegis Ashore missile defense site on its territory - capable of countering ballistic missile threats from outside the Euro-Atlantic area. This is one of the most important political-military projects of our Strategic Partnership.

The site in Deveselu - this is how the place is called - hosting around 200 Navy troops, has become operational last year and was integrated with the NATO Missile Defense System. It is highly important to continue and finalize the European Phased Adaptive Approach and, based on it, the NATO Missile Defense System, since Iran continues its ballistic missile program.

We conduct intensive joint training of US and Romanian forces in some of the best equipped forward facilities on Romanian soil, such as the Mihail Kogalniceanu base, very important for the pre-deployment of US troops and military equipment.

In addition, the recent acquisition of U.S. F-16 fighter jets has increased Romania's capabilities to contribute to the security of our regional allies and it has laid the ground for potential long term cooperation with the U.S. defense industry. Our cooperation extends in critical fields such as cyber-security, intelligence and energy security.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Romania shares the U.S. commitment to transatlantic security, and fully supports endeavors to improve the effectiveness of NATO and strengthen its capabilities to address all current challenges. This can only be done by reinforcing the core pillar of the Alliance, which is collective defense, backed by a robust and credible deterrence.

Thus, we are particularly grateful to our U.S. ally for its strong political support and substantial concrete contribution to projects such as the multinational brigade hosted by Romania, the enhanced maritime presence in the Black Sea or the Combined Joint Enhanced Training Program.

The presence of US troops in Romania, complementary to the NATO's Forward Presence, is, for us, the strongest signal of support and solidarity. That is why we welcome the Trump administration decision to consistently increase funding for the U.S. European Reassurance Initiative. It is a very advantageous investment in our collective defense.

It has enabled Allies, such as Romania, to upgrade and expand their own infrastructure and capabilities, increasing the scope and size of cooperation with our US partners. However, NATO is not just about capabilities - its foundations lie in allied unity, political commitment and strategic vision. The current security situation in Europe is the most challenging in two decades and clearly underscores the need for transatlantic solidarity.

We face threats and challenges on both the Alliance's East and South. They must be addressed in a coordinated and cohesive manner and this is a challenge in itself.

In the East, Russia attempts to carve out its own sphere of influence by force, through the invasion of Georgia, illegal annexation of Crimea and its heavy militarization, aggression in East Ukraine, military posturing on NATOs borders and malign influence from the Balkans to Western Europe.

Against this background, we believe we need dialogue with Russia, but based on a strong deterrence.

Our own approach must be strategic, coherent and coordinated. We need to keep our unity, inside the European Union, but also within the US - EU relations.

The Black Sea area has an important pivotal role for the transatlantic security. NATO's Eastern flank must be treated, in this logic, in a unitary coherent manner and adequately reinforced, from its North to its South, on all main components - land, sea and air.

Romania is acting within NATO, but also together with its strategic partners Poland and Turkey, to keep the region safer. That is why Romania has developed, together with these two countries, a Trilateral format on security issues. Romania is also, together with Poland, the initiator of the Bucharest Format, including all the 9 Allies on the Eastern Flank. This format is relevant for the U.S. interests in NATO, and for the security of the Eastern neighborhood.

NATO must also continue to support its partners, such as Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic of Moldova.

This is essential for ensuring security and stability in the Eastern Neighborhood.

Romania has strongly supported, at the same time, a close NATO-EU cooperation, on the basis of complementarity. There is simply no alternative to the most powerful and successful alliance in history. The EU can bring a significant contribution to capacity building, supporting research and development, to areas such as cyber or energy security. But a more substantial commitment to common defense by European allies must not result in weakening the transatlantic security link.

Romania remains a faithful Atlanticist EU member - a position that may prove even more important now, as the UK has decided to leave the Union. We will continue to work for the further development of the transatlantic relation, which is, in our view the central pillar for the stability of the overall international system. Romania is, thus, ready and able to strengthen its role to this end, as we are dedicated to both the European project and the Strategic Partnership with the United States.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Besides security, our nations need shared prosperity. Let me thus return to our bilateral relations and focus on our economic engine. Trade and investment are crucial dimensions of our Strategic Partnership, with a high potential for development, providing benefits not only for Romania and the US, but for the region as a whole.

Romania will soon rank the 6th EU's largest country after UK will leave the EU, in terms of population. We are strategically positioned at the crossroad of all major commercial and energy routes in the region, a potential gateway to the EU's common economic space, regional hub for Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Greater Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Romania has experienced a constant upward economic trend over the last seven years, with positive perspectives ahead. Last year we had the highest economic growth in the European Union.

This growth pattern is anchored in a number of highly competitive economic sectors. Romania is one of the largest vehicle manufacturing bases in Central and Eastern Europe. This includes, of course, the Ford plant in Craiova, a partnership that saw its first iteration in 1935. The IT sector is one of the largest and most dynamic in the EU.

Romania is also the least dependent country in the region on gas imports and can become an energy supplier with our resources in the Black Sea.

Dear friends,

As the final and most important enabler of US-Romanian partnership, one must mention the people-to-people connections. Romanian-American friendship has endured and, indeed, flourished, even during some of the most challenging moments of the 20th Century.

Our almost 1 million strong Romanian-American community inside the United States, be they students, professors or entrepreneurs, are proud of this close relationship and work every day to make it stronger.

On the governmental side, working together on Romania's inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program will further strengthen this bond and help us advance on the path to shared prosperity.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I want to end my intervention by underlining, once again, that Romania is able to act as a hub for advancing our joint transatlantic agenda in the region. We are at a strategic crossroad, at the Black Sea, and we very well understand to act as a security provider in Europe and beyond.

At the same time, the region is counting on the continued US commitment for its security. For us, the US support means security, prosperity, freedom, democracy and, last but not least, the guarantee that Romania will not go back to some Eastern sphere of influence.

Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions!
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Jun-08-2017 12:40 TweetFollow @OregonNews USS Liberty Attacked by Israel 50 Years Ago Today The USS Liberty was a spy ship, keeping tabs on Israel's Arab neighbors and their Soviet advisers.

Basic Facts about USS Liberty:

34 Killed in Action,

174 Wounded in Action,

Congressional Medal of Honor;

2 Navy Crosses,

38 Silver/Bronze Stars,

208 Purple Hearts.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Sometimes it's not your enemies you should be wary of. Fifty years ago today, on June 8, 1967, 34 American servicemen were killed and 174 were wounded when Israel attacked the USS Liberty navy ship in international waters. It was the highest casualty rate ever inflicted on a U.S. naval vessel, with 7 out of every 10 crew members killed or injured. To make it even worse, help did not come for 17 hours. "Everyone that worked in the space I worked in died," says one survivor, "except me." Israel's sea and air attack lasted approximately two hours. It was no accident. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Israel knew the virtually defenseless vessel belonged to the United States. It was clearly marked with an American flag, and more than 40 antennas capable of receiving every kind of radio transmission. It could not have been confused with any other ship. Research has revealed that for more than nine hours, Israel had flown over the Liberty almost hourly and maintained radar tracking. American Sailors did not worry about Israel, they felt safe. Then, suddenly, they were attacked! The USS Liberty was strafed by planes, killing and wounding many Americans, in international waters without warning. The attack came in the light of day. Men that were off duty were playing games and sun bathing on the deck of the ship. Crew members had no idea whose planes were shooting at their ship - at first. According to the most reliable accounts, unmarked Israeli aircraft dropped napalm canisters on the USS Liberty bridge, and fired 30mm cannon and rockets into the ship. Survivors estimate 30 or more sorties were flown over the ship by a minimum of 12 attacking Israeli planes. The torpedo boat attack involved not only the firing of torpedoes, but machine-gunning of Libertys firefighters and stretcher-bearers. The Israeli torpedo boats later returned to machine-gun at close range three of the Libertys life rafts that had been lowered into the water by survivors to rescue the most seriously wounded. U.S. Navy fighters located just 40 minutes away were launched to rescue the ship after they received a distress signal. But the White House cancelled the planes just minutes later, and help did not reach the USS Liberty for seventeen hours. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara ordered the defensive aircraft back to their carriers. He was also well known for escalating our involvement in the Vietnam War, and just one year later, Robert Strange McNamara became President of the World Bank. Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis had protested the order to recall the U.S. warplanes, to which McNamara replied, President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally (sic) over a few sailors.1 According to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, Those men were then betrayed and left to die by our own government. It took six days for the battered ship to limp in to Malta, where it was repaired and returned to active duty. So, why do so few Americans know what happened that day? Good question. SIMPLE ANSWER: Survivors were forbidden to tell their story under threat of courts-martial. They were told not to even speak to their wives about it. Most didn't, and they suffered tremendous PTSD as a result. The Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. It is the only peacetime attack on a U.S. naval vessel that, to this day , the Congress of the United States of America formally refuses to investigate. Americans who volunteer for the military do not sign up for this. When we use the cliche "support the troops", this is when it really counts. When someone joins the military, they make a commitment with an expectation that they will also be defended and respected. If we count on them, they should certainly be able to count on us. It's been FIFTY YEARS. There's no longer an excuse to overlook this murderous travesty. Victims of Israel's malicious behavior deserve justice: WE WILL NOT FORGET. Watch the VIDEO PROGRAM, "Dead in the Water": Sources: 1According to Chief Petty Officer J.Q. Tony Hart; Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas (by Philip Nelson); the late Adm. Thomas Moorer's independent commission October 2003; BBC Documentary 2002; Others SEE ALSO: Israel's Deadly 1967 Attack on the USS Liberty

USSLibertyVeterans.org

USSLiberty.org

HonorLibertyVets.org

IfAmericansKnew.org _________________________________________

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Blurbs are a strange thing. Always intended to get a certain hype going, they can easily help set up false expectations, intentionally or not. And so, while Roger Ebert was spot on when he placed My Neighbor Totoro in the pantheon of the best family films of all time (and DVDs have proudly sported his words since), a favorable comparison between Star Wars and Princess Mononoke has always struck me as a very odd and deceptive praise quote to promote home video releases of Miyazakis 1997 epic.

Recently, while in the process of upgrading my Studio Ghibli collection (read: replacing old VHS tapes with prettier Blu-ray editions), I again stumbled upon the strange quote, still in use on a 2014 DVD/Blu-ray combo of the film. Since I recalled disagreeing with it without quite remembering why it had rubbed me the wrong way, but also because it had been close to a decade since the first and only time I had watched what is often still referred to as one of Miyazakis greatest masterpieces, I decided it was high time to revisit Princess Mononoke.

Finding fault with an old New York Post review (the source to which the DVD attributes the favorable Stars Wars comparison) is certainly not the purpose of this re-visitation. Nor do I want to take aim at the Star Wars saga (of which, for the most part, I too am a fan). But, placing Princess Mononoke next to George Lucas space odyssey offers a fruitful starting point for identifying the films defining characteristics as well as helping to explain why my teenage self was not terribly impressed with Miyazakis eco-driven tale of warring factions.

See, at age 18, the main problem Princess Mononoke presented me with was that I had a hard time choosing sides, a must which Disney had ingrained in me as something straightforward, thanks to the clear-cut if not perversely stereotypical depictions of right and wrong in their animated films. While Star Wars amounts to a classic battle between good guys and bad guys, the opposing forces in Princess Mononokes conflict are drawn in shades of grey.

There is, on the one hand, Lady Eboshi, introduced to us as a woman who is escorting merchants back to Irontown when all of a sudden the convoy is attacked by Moro and her wolf children. Anything but a damsel in distress Eboshi goes beyond fighting off the threat and seeks to exterminate her opposition. Fearless and not to be trifled with, we come to see her as a business-savvy entrepreneur who calls the shots in Irontown and keeps the men in check.

She has made women an active part of the workforce in the city she built (by buying back their freedom). Employed at the iron forge they put food on the table in the idiomatic sense, by creating the materials which can be traded or sold in exchange for other provisions. Not only do women play a vital part in Irontowns day-to-day sustainability, Eboshi avoids shunning the sick and disabled by having them design the weapons in her arsenal. And yet one has to wonder: what is the line between kindly giving them a purpose and exploitation?

If on occasion she acts for the greater good of her city and its inhabitants, it also becomes clear she is selfish, motivated by greed and singularly intent on expanding her domain. After all, having depleted the natural resources in the river, Eboshi plans to penetrate deeper into the forest, keen on appropriating the deer gods lands and ready to annihilate any number of animals that stand in her way. As a colonizer and representative of a type of modernization that must come at the cost of nature, she is a catalyst of violence.

Fighting for opposite ideals but equally radical in her approach is San, the knife-wielding, wolf-riding girl who dubbed herself the titular Princess Mononoke. Certainly no Disney princess, San too represents a flawed character and seems deliberately designed as such.

Together with the wolves who raised her, she fights for the preservation of the forest but her immediate reaction to pretty much any situation is to draw a knife and lunge headfirst into violent confrontation. Even though Sans motivation is understandable and even if her actions are fueled by a hatred that is fanned by human provocation, does the end justify the lethal means?

Caught in the middle of this altercation is Ashitaka, the storys altruistic hero. He sets out to find a cure for a curse that is an indirect and unwanted side-effect of Eboshis heedless, militaristic expansion, yet bears no ill will towards either party and tries to act as a neutralizing force. If Eboshi is a symbol of modernizaton as destructive progress (that appropriates land unencumbered by ecological concerns) and San is a staunch supporter of nature (yet close to an eco-terrorist given her lethal means of resistance) then Ashitaka stands as an embodiment of Miyazakis pacifism, a figure who not only seeks to prevent the further escalation of violence but wants to formulate an alternative to the collision course that both extremes find themselves on.

Princess Mononoke is interesting to consider as Miyazakis rumination on how mankinds need for self-development and modern societys perennial expansion can be espoused to a respectful treatment of the earth we inherited. During a pivotal scene that sums up the film Ashitaka literally puts himself in between Eboshi and San, keeping them at bay and saving both from mutual destruction. Ashitaka is the only one who sees commendable qualities in each character. In the end, his interventions help point to a future in which humans and animals can coexist next to one another as equals without one feeling the need to dominate the other.

Insofar as territorial expansion is a motivation that fuels the conflict the Star Wars parallel does hold up, but in terms of how the clash is represented Princess Mononoke could not be further removed from the space epic. While the latter celebrates lightsaber duels and relishes the grandeur of space combat, the former builds towards a huge battle between humans and animals steering clear from spectacle. In fact, when Okkoto and his boar warriors attack we are never treated to an actual fight, only confronted with its grizzly aftermath  one harrowing shot of dead bodies strewn about. We see the carnage and one guy sitting in a corner, crying, shocked by the horror of war and the immense losses on both sides.

Even though Princess Mononoke was the most action-oriented Studio Ghibli film I had seen at eighteen, I didnt grasp that the action is mostly beside the point. Having rewatched it now I find it easier to admire what Miyazaki is going for thematically even if I still dont find the film as instantly enjoyable as some of his other works. Films like Kikis Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro have lead characters that audiences can more easily identify with, while also tackling more universal, relatable rites of passage. With fewer extravagant fantasy sequences and a more solemn tone overall Princess Mononoke offers less of an immediately gratifying experience than for instance Howls Moving Castle or Spirited Away.

On the whole, Princess Mononoke seems more eager to give us something to chew on rather than to entertain us. After all, instead of transporting us to another world that brims with vibrant color and the promise of enchantment, Miyazakis 1997 epic is a fantasy rooted in reality, intent on confronting viewers with just how ugly mankind can be (which puts in perspective the films early depictions of beheadings and dismemberment).

As an indictment of the pointlessness of war, the nature of mankind, how indiscriminately we can kill, and a film that aims to find a peaceful middle ground as an alternative to extremism its easy to see why, with age, the film has become more valuable to me. In light of a certain presidents recent decision to turn his back on climate change, and faced with an increasingly violent world that seems to be radicalizing on a daily basis it is striking (and harrowing) that twenty years after its Japanese release the message of Princess Mononoke rings truer and more relevant than ever.
Traditional and modern methods collide in Amit Dubey's feature film debut and Cambodia's first psychological thriller, Mind Cage. Dubey passed along the trailer for his first feature film and it is definitely worth checking out. Apart from some arresting imagery there is a great sense of menace in it as well.

A traditional healer in a Cambodian village uses violent methods to treat his mentally ill patient by locking her up in a cage. He gets humiliated and locked up when a Psychiatrist from the city intervenes and proves him wrong. Having lost all respect and hungry for revenge, the Healer manages to escape and tracks down the Psychiatrist and stalks his family. The Healer breaks into the Psychiatrists house every night and the family wakes up to a disturbing surprise each morning. Strange events happening in the house start to disintegrate the happy family. Things get even more complicated as the Psychiatrists wife is a strong believer of traditional old beliefs. Sanity is challenged as the Healers cruel games pushes everyone in the family towards the edge.

So here are some facts from the film. Rous Mony, who plays the villain Mony, was the lead actor of Ruin, a Cambodian film that got the Horizons Award, Special Jury prize at Venice Film Festival in 2013. He also appears as Scar in Jimmy Henderson's upcoming action flick Jailbreak. More on Jimmy in a moment. Actress Sveng Socheata is a famous Cambodian actress who is also in Angelina Jolie's upcoming film First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers, to be released on Netflix in September.

Jimmy Henderson, who has directed four feature films in Cambodia, including the latest action flick Jailbreak is the cinematographer. Mind Cage was written by Michael Hodgson who has written five Cambodian feature films including Jailbreak and Jimmy Henderson's Hanuman.
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28-year-old Michael Sione Green has been sentenced to at least 82 years in prison for a 2013 murder of 23-year-old Melquiesha "Mel" Warren over a fender bender outside of a South of Market nightclub, according the San Francisco Chronicle.

The crime occurred on November 17th outside the LGBTQ club OMG when Warren and her friend, 21-year-old Danisha Bean left a party for Warren's wife. Here's what happened according to a statement from District Attorney George Gascon:

According to court records, on November 17th, 2013 at about 2 am, decedent Melquisha Warren joined Ms. Bean to walk across the street to a parking lot to retrieve Bean's vehicle following a night at Club OMG in San Francisco's Tenderloin Neighborhood. While backing up, Bean accidentally sideswiped another vehicle. The driver of that vehicle exited and opened Bean's door and began yelling. Ms. Warren exited the driver-side in an attempt to diffuse the situation and to tell the woman that they had insurance. Soon thereafter, Defendant Green shot Ms. Bean once who was still sitting in the driver's seat with her seatbelt on. Ms. Warren exclaimed, "No, wait." In response, the defendant shot Ms. Warren in the face. Ms. Warren then fell to the ground where she died. Green then continued to fire the gun at Ms. Bean about nine to fifteen times, causing bullets to penetrate her left side, thigh, rib, back, the top of her buttocks and front. After the shooting, Ms. Bean sustained serious injuries and was hospitalized for thirty-eight days. On May 16, 2014, SFPD's Homicide and NIU/TSU units took Green into custody in Miami Florida where he was hiding under a fake name, with a significantly altered appearance.

Last year, Green was found guilty on counts of murder, attempted murder, firing at a motor vehicle, assault, being a felon in possession of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, and carrying a loaded firearm. Bean testified against him. The Bay Area Reporter quoted Assistant District Attorney Heather Trevisan who said, "Ms. Bean's bravery is to be commended. She witnessed a violent man shoot her childhood friend, and she was brave enough to take the stand and play a critical role in holding him accountable."

On Tuesday, Green was sentenced in San Francisco Superior Court to 82 years to life in prison.

"This was an extremely heinous crime that left one woman deceased and one severely injured. A woman who had her hands up was effectively murdered over a fender-bender. The only appropriate outcome for someone who takes life with this level of ease and callousness is to spend the rest of their days behind bars," District Attorney George Gascon told the Chronicle after the sentencing.

The Chron reports that Warren graduated from Cal State Sacramento in 2012 with a degree in criminal justice. She grew up in Oakland and was just six days away from her 24th birthday when she was murdered.

Related: San Mateo Man Convicted Of Murder In 2013 Double-Shooting Outside Gay SoMa Club
The nationally televised congressional hearing Thursday morning, with former FBI Director James Comey answering questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, has one particular fashion highlight that's been widely noted on Twitter: Sen. Dianne Feinstein's seersucker suit. For those unaware, Seersucker Thursday was an annual event started in 1996 by Sen. Trent Lott on National Seersucker Day, in part to recognize the traditional American cloth donned by Senators in decades past during the warmer months before air conditioning  and, he said, to "bring a little Southern charm to the Capitol." The tradition was discontinued a few years ago  though congressional staffers will still randomly wear seersucker on Thursday throughout the summer  but this year Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy announced it would be revived on June 8th. Today.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, obviously a seersucker fan who began over a decade ago encouraging women in the Senate to join in the tradition, was not about to be deterred from wearing her seersucker suit today, despite the television appearance and the huge attention this hearing is getting. You'll notice that none of the other Senators on the committee are wearing their seersucker.

Setting aside Feinstein's characteristically hard-hitting, withering questioning of Comey, and the fact that we really shouldn't be concentrating on the way one of only three female members of the committee is dressed: You go, Dianne.

And, so, Twitter has gone wild.
A convicted sex offender who'd been sought by US Marshals since 2014 was finally arrested this week, after investigators received a tip that the man was hiding out in San Francisco.

According to Virginia's Daily Press newspaper, 59-year-old Daniel Nickerson, of Norfolk, Virginia, was charged in 2013 with aggravated sexual battery and indecent liberties with a minor. He was released on bail in 2014 and apparently fled the area, as he was a no-show for subsequent hearings.

That wasn't Nickerson's first brush with the law, Bay City News reports, as "He was also convicted of risk of injury to a minor child in 2005 in Connecticut for an offense that occurred in 1989." According to the Daily Press, Virginia State Police "also wanted the man for failure to register as a sex offender."

Earlier this year the US Marshals received a tip that Nickerson was "hiding out among [San Francisco's] homeless population," KRON 4 reports. And on Tuesday that tip paid off, as Marshals tracked him to a homeless shelter at Fifth and Bryant Streets, where he was arrested without incident.

Nickerson is now a short-term resident San Francisco County Jail, which will keep him in custody until he's extradited back to Virginia. After that, he's expected to finally face the charges levied against him in the 2013 case.
Accordingly, the United State Agency for International Development (USAID) will grant 7.2 million USD over three years to help the university develop its tertiary training programme. This is USAIDs first ever grant to the Fulbright Vietnam University.The Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs under the US Department of State has also decided to offer $8.3 million to the university. The Department of State has funded the Fulbright Economics Teaching Programme - the predecessor of the university  over the past 20 years.At the ceremony to announce the grants, US Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius said the USADIDs financial assistance aims to help reduce the cost at the university, thus facilitating access to the institution for Vietnamese students, while reaffirming the USs commitment to the success of the university.The university will open the first masters programme in September, and begin recruiting undergraduate students in 2018.Fulbright University Vietnam President Dam Bich Thuy expressed her pleasure at receiving the aid from the US Government, which she said is significant to the universitys development in the early stage.On the occasion, the university also announced its 40 full scholarships, each worth up to VND65 million ($2,680) for an eight-week English language skill course for high school students from July 3 to August 31.Registration can be made online at www.fel.edu.vn or at the universitys office in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnamnews




The event themed How to Continue Growth in U.S.-Vietnam Trade Relations was organized by The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Consulate General, and AmCham Vietnam.Attending the event were Politburo member and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee cum Secretary of HCMC Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan; Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee's Commission for Economic Affairs Cao Duc Phat; Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong.There were Mr. Ted Osius, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, U.S. Embassy in Vietnam; Jonathan Moreno, Chairman, AmCham Vietnam  HCMC; Mary Tarnowka, Consul General, U.S. Consulate General; and representatives of government officials, enterprises, and media of both countries.The meeting aimed to share U.S. companies successful stories and projects they have been done, and their development plans in Vietnam with top leaders from 21 provinces and officials from several Ministries. The events key subjects highlight IT, smart city, renewable energy, waste solutions, healthcare, education and others.Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Nguyen Thien Nhan reviewed Vietnams significant achievements and economic development after 30 years of the 'Doi Moi' (renewal) process. He affirmed that the municipal authorities will always create favorable conditions for American businesses and give them thorough support.On the same day, Secretary of HCMC Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan and Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong hosted a reception for heads of Vietnamese representative agencies abroad in the 2017-2020 tenure.Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong on June 7 also hosted a reception for Mr. Ted Osius, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam.

By staff writers  Translated by Kim Khanh
During a meeting in Hanoi on June 7, Ngan wished that the two countries will continue active cooperation and mutual support at regional and global forums, particularly at the United Nations, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), and the ASEAN-EU.She also hoped that the recent signing of numerous memoranda of understanding on cooperation will promote bilateral trade and investment.Vietnam is ready to offer all possible support to Czech businesses to do long-term business in the country, particularly in fields of Vietnams demand, she stated, adding that the regular exchange of delegations from the two legislatures will make important contributions to developing bilateral ties.Zeman, for his part, informed the host that during talks with President Tran Dai Quang, both sides expressed wish to open direct flights linking the two nations and agreed to assign ministries and agencies concerned to launch negotiations on the issue.He said if short-term tourist visa waiving for Czech citizens is realised, tourist arrivals to Vietnam will increase, opening a new chapter in investment for the two countries businesses.The guest affirmed that the Czech Republic will continue supporting the comprehensive cooperation partnership between Vietnam and the European Union and hasten the EUs signing and adoption of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.Host and guest expressed delight that a treaty on the transfer of sentenced persons and an agreement on combating crime have been signed during the visit.On the East Sea issue, they underscored the necessity of settling disputes by peaceful means, including diplomatic and legal processes, in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.The same day, President Tran Dai Quang hosted a banquet in honour of the Czech guest.

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 Expand Photo credit: Alex Walzak

One of the most commercially successful acts to spring from Baltimores bustling, ever-eclectic music scene, Future Islands have experienced something of a meteoric rise over the last few years, and its easy to see why. The bands brand of anthemic, cinematic synth-pop, a kind of spiritual successor to the likes of New Order and Kate Bush, is immediately accessible in a way which, if put in front of a large enough audience, was bound to catch on. And thats exactly what happened following a career-making 2014 appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, but more impressive is that theyve been able to turn what started as a viral sensation into a lasting, loyal following (something thats easier said than done) and thats partly thanks to their passionate live performances and unique stage presence.

Speaking of stage presence, local opener Milo also had plenty, albeit in a different way. Surrounded by musicians covering every inch of available real estate, Milo deftly led his sizable ensemble through a loosely structured set of inspired acid-rap. With the house all but packed for the buzzed-about main act, Milo and company definitely gained more than a few new fans with their jazzy, genre-bending explorations, which put a strong lyrical emphasis on social justice issues, particularly police brutality. The politics, however, never felt heavy handed, aligning nicely with the positivity-laced, consciousness-expanding spirit of the music, one in the grand Afro-cosmic tradition of Sun Ra and Parliament-Funkadelic. While more than entertaining throughout, they put an exclamation point at the end of their performance with an unexpected appearance from likeminded local MC Lorde Fredd33.

When the lights dimmed for Future Islands, frontman Samuel T. Herring offered up some sincerely effusive praise for their warm-up act before launching into a long set that delivered three-and-a-half-minute doses of dreamily danceable art-pop with the steady precision of a morphine drip. The discography-spanning setlist, predictably showcasing their brand-new The Far Field, had plenty of highlights, but after well over an hour and a half, the similarities between the songs started to stand out more than the differences. Yet, if their overall enjoyable style began to get a little repetitive by the time they reached the end of a four-song encore, what didnt was Herrings evocative voice and especially his strange dance movesa theatrical mixture of Michael Jackson, Brazilian capoeira and Ian Curtis epileptic twitchiness which often stole the show.
While New Yorkers have marveled at the idea of a small town pitching in and helping those in need, Come From Away isnt some odd tale well told, but a tribute to the neighborly love others know well.

Set in Newfoundland, the based-in-truth musical shows what happened when planes that couldnt land in New York following 9/11 were diverted to Newfoundland.

There, the 6,000-some residents played host to more than 7,000 passengers who had no idea theyd ever visit this Canadian refueling post.

Told in readers theater style, the compelling stories of dozens of locals and their guests are skillfully handled by a cast of 12 who move chairs, play instruments and change costumes in mere seconds.

The direction  by Christopher Ashley  is a marvel of timing, particularly when you consider how easily this could be done in a gymnasium as well as a New York theater.

Written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, Come From Away relies on familiar themes  overcoming various forms of prejudice and fear, embracing friendship and acceptance  but doesnt pander or clobber its audience with political messages. Its a simple story well told.

While its hard to pull individuals out of the mix (particularly when one is saving animals aboard airplanes, another is offering showers at her home and a third is trying to round up grills for a massive barbecue), Jenn Colella gets a touching thread as a female pilot detailing her journey. Chad Kimball and Caesar Samayoa deal with an unraveling relationship while Lee MacDougall and Sharon Wheatley detail a blossoming one.

Rodney Hicks stands out as man worrying that little Gander, Newfoundland, might be as racist as the U.S. cities he has encountered.

Heavy on stomping, Kelly Devines choreography doesnt add much to the experience and Beowulf Boritts tree-lined set isnt as effective as those moving chairs. But Ashleys ability to create whole neighborhoods out of nothing is amazing.

Come From Away offers up plenty of pieces of trivia and detail we had no idea was occurring outside of New York 16 years ago. A brief 100 minutes, the musical covers plenty of territory and leaves a hopeful glow about a world that now seems less accepting.

Sioux City could have inspired a similar we help experience after its response to the crash of United Airlines Flight 232 in 1989. The emotional peaks would have been higher, the stories decidedly more dramatic.

But Come From Away is an excellent way to pay honor to the human spirit and, down deep, the desire to invoke the golden rule no matter what the occasion.

It brings tears  deserved tears  when the folks of Gander and the plane people say their goodbyes. Lessons are taught; we can only hope theyre learned.
The story of two cosmetic titans becomes secondary when youve got Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole playing them.

Will one gain an edge? Do both get powerful solos? And how do they finally come to appreciate one another?

The questions roll during War Paint, the story of Helena Rubenstein (LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (Ebersole) but Doug Wrights book doesnt set this up as a battle royal.

The musical, in fact, is very much two shows mashed into one. Rubensteins journey involves anti-Semitism and science; Ardens thrives on power and packaging. Together, the two could have dominated the industry. Divided, theyre ardent rivals.

Director Michael Greif gives both actresses equal opportunities; both seize them. While LuPone can be overwhelmed by her accent, Ebersole is everything youd want in a business pioneer. (Shed be perfect as Brownie Wise, the Tupperware titan.) Both have men behind their thrones (Douglas Sills and John Dossett) and loyalty breaches that suggest its all business.

While Grief and Wright reach for a meeting of the minds (the two dont meet face to face until the end) theyve got beautiful costumes and sets to help them make this thrive. Catherine Zubers costumes are so stunning when women come into Ardens red door its like a four-decade fashion parade.

The main event, though, is seeing LuPone and Ebersole. The two dont try to one-up each other. They prove supportive and, in those scenes where one is a fly on the wall, unwilling to attempt any upstaging.

Ebersole, though, gets a song  Pink  thats one of the shows highlights. In passionate words and soaring music, it reveals so much about Ardens journey.

LuPone doesnt get anything as succinct, but the two have a first-act closer, Face to Face, that achieves just what fans want of both.

The music and lyrics, written by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, are filled with the kind of depth most scores dont have. Blessed with clever rhyming schemes and those two soaring voices, theyre the reason to embrace this spa day.

War Paint doesnt tell great truths or come to conclusions about the price of success, but it does give two superb actresses beautiful star turns. Its day cream and night cream packaged in one slick jar.
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LAKE PARK, Iowa | Two men are facing arson and burglary charges following a monthlong investigation that included nine law enforcement and emergency agencies from Iowa and Minnesota.

Curtis Caskey, 50, of Spirit Lake, Iowa, and Lawrence Bartley, 51, of Lake Park, are each facing second-degree arson, second-degree burglary and possession of burglar tools charges. Bartley is facing additional charges for third-degree burglary and second-degree theft.

According to a news release from the Dickinson County Sheriff's Department, Caskey had previously been arrested on drug charges with some other people following a May 10 search of two apartments in Lake Park.

Upon the execution of search warrants at those properties, authorities found items related to some burglary and theft calls earlier in the year. Other items were linked to the arson of a Lake Park home that occurred Feb. 4.

An investigation linked Caskey and Bartley to that arson incident, the release said.

Caskey is currently being held in the Dickinson County Jail on $47,000 bond. Bartley is being held on $20,000 bond.

Deputies say additional cases remain under investigation and more arrests are expected.

The investigation included aid from police departments in Lake Park, Spirit Lake and Milford, as well as Dickinson County Emergency Management and Dispatch, the Iowa State Fire Marshal's Office, the HEAT team and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.
ELK POINT, S.D. | Lean Finely Textured Beef is a lot of things, a meat expert testified Wednesday.

It's definitely meat and definitely beef.

What it is not, Mindy Brashears said, is "pink slime."

"Slime is not beef. It does not meet any of the definitions of beef," Brashears said. "It is false to call LFTB 'pink slime.' It is not 'pink slime.'"

"Why not?" asked Erik Connolly, a lawyer for LFTB's maker, Beef Products Inc.

"Because it is beef," said Brashears, a food safety and public health professor at Texas Tech University.

Use of the term "pink slime" is one of the major complaints listed in BPI's $1.9 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC and correspondent Jim Avila. A series of stories, many reported by Avila, run by the network in March and April 2012 used the term more than 350 times.

BPI claims the network's use of that term in reference to LFTB, which was mixed and sold in ground beef across the nation, caused a backlash against the product, costing the business millions of dollars in sales and leading to the closure of three of its four plants. The Dakota Dunes-based meat processor aims to prove that ABC knowingly used false information in its stories about LFTB and interfered with its business relationships with its customers. If BPI wins at trial, its $1.9 billion claim could be tripled to $5.7 billion under provisions of South Dakota's Agricultural Food Product Disparagement Act. The company also plans to request punitive damages.

During the third day of trial, Brashears told jurors that since being retained by BPI in this case, she has visited its South Sioux City plant 18-20 times in the past four years and has observed the process the company uses to make LFTB.

Connolly asked Brashears about several statements contained in ABC stories, attempting to debunk the wording as false and misleading.

Stories often referred to the product as "filler" made from "low-grade trimmings" that were once only used for dog food and cooking oils.

Brashears said a filler is a non-meat ingredient such as flour that is added to meat products. The USDA does not allow fillers to be added to ground beef.

"It was false to describe LFTB as a filler because it's beef. It's pure beef. It's 100 percent beef," Brashears said.

The sparse lean trimmings used to make LFTB come from all areas of a beef carcass, Brashears said, and were never, to her knowledge, ever restricted for use only in pet food and cooking oil.

Above all, said Brashears, who reviews meat production facilities and procedures nationwide, LFTB is safe. None of the hundreds of processing plants she's visited come close to the BPI plant's cleanliness or the company's testing for bacteria in its product, she said.

ABC attorney Dane Butswinkas had only 15 minutes to cross-examine Brashears before the trial ended for the day. He had begun to question why some USDA scientists were opposed to LFTB prior to the agency's approval of the product in 1993. LFTB, Butswinkas said, appeared to be just a different name for partially defatted chopped beef, the classification BPI's product fell under before it was approved as LFTB. Meat classified under the previous name was not allowed to be mixed with ground beef.

"Was it the same product with a different name?" Butswinkas asked.

Brashears said the USDA decided it was meat and approved the LFTB classification.

"Just because someone is opposed to it doesn't change what it is," she said.

Earlier in the day, BPI lawyers showed the jury a video of the deposition of Sarah Amos, a former senior producer who oversaw ABC's "World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer" web pages and Facebook and Twitter accounts in 2012.

Amos told lawyers in the deposition that she monitored reader comments and questions on those sites and forwarded them to producers and Avila for possible use in other stories about LFTB. Those stories, she said, were among the most popular on the news broadcast's website.
LE MARS, Iowa | Nate Kass paused on Wednesday morning while walking into work at Bob's Drive Inn, his family's iconic restaurant at the intersection of Highways 3 and 75 in Le Mars.

A friend, or a customer, the terms are synonymous at Bob's, had placed flowers at the base of the rock on the restaurant property, the rock that contains the name of the eatery. They did so in memory of Myles Kass, longtime owner/operator of Bob's Drive Inn, who died on Monday.

Myles Kass, 63, died of esophageal cancer, which he fought for four years.

Myles Kass grew up in Le Mars and began working for his father, Bob Kass, at the age of 11. Bob Kass started Bob's Drive Inn, a loosemeat maker and hot dog server of international acclaim, four years after returning from service in World War II. Bob Kass tore down a garage and used the wood to build the restaurant, which he opened in June 1949.

After graduating from Le Mars Community High School, Myles Kass earned an associate degree in refrigeration maintenance from Western Iowa Tech Community College. He headed to Omaha, where he worked for a short time until returning to Le Mars with wife, Roberta Kass, in the mid-1970s.

"Bob (Kass) had gotten sick, so probably around 1976, Dad came back to help him at Bob's," said Nate Kass, who has operated Bob's Drive Inn for several years.

Bob Kass died in 1982. Myles Kass kept running the eatery and had each of their seven children, Nate, Clint, Dusty, Kevin, Kristi, Katy and Sarah, work for him.

What was he like as a boss? "There was only one way to do it: The right way," Nate said. "We weren't going to cut any corners. We were going to work hard."

Myles Kass told his children that although restaurant work might not be their life's ambition, the lessons involving customer service, the ability to communicate with and befriend strangers and showing up on time ready to work would serve them in any career choice. Several of the Kass children stayed in the food and hospitality trade, either with Bob's Drive Inn, Bob's in the Park (at Arnolds Park), or with 4 Brothers Bar & Grill, which has sites in Le Mars, Sioux City and, within months, a new location in Sioux Center, Iowa.

"All of my brothers and sisters are hard workers," Nate Kass said, setting up a punch line. "Maybe Mom had the toughest job."

Myles Kass, his son said, kept working through his battle with cancer. He'd get a chemotherapy treatment in Spencer, Iowa, and then go to a meeting or a work session at Arnolds Park, an Iowa Great Lakes community he came to love for the opportunity it provided his business the past 14 years.

"Dad believed that we're all in this together and the 'Save the Park' effort at Arnolds Park helped the entire area, including our business," Nate said.

Funeral services for Myles Kass take place at 11 a.m. Friday at All Saints Parish-St. Joseph Catholic Church in Le Mars. Kass is survived by his wife, Roberta, seven children and their spouses, 15 grandchildren, four siblings, his beloved dog, Moses, and tens of thousands of people who left his places of business not only as satisfied customers, but as friends.

And one of those friends took the time late Monday night, or early Tuesday morning, to leave flowers at the rock outside a Siouxland icon, Bob's Drive Inn, to remember a Siouxland icon, Myles Kass.
PRIMGHAR, Iowa | One of the most impressive structures in Siouxland, the O'Brien County Courthouse in Primghar, hosts its 100th birthday celebration on June 16.

The bash promises fun with self-guided tours, lawn games, root beer floats and a trivia contest.

When it comes to O'Brien County historical trivia, questions and answers fascinate. I didn't know that Primghar was nothing but a prairie when folks in 1873 decided to move the county seat from O'Brien, Iowa (near Peterson, Iowa), to the exact center of the county. The site became Primghar, a name taken from the first letters of eight men involved in platting the town.

In 1879, folks from nearby Sheldon, Iowa, sought to have the county seat relocated to Sheldon. The petition was rejected as 392 voted in favor of Primghar, clipping 386 votes for Sheldon, a 6-vote margin.

In 1882, raiders from nearby Sanborn, Iowa, sought to move the county seat to their community. They came to Primghar with wagons, crowbars and more, forcing their way into the courthouse around midnight. Folks in Primghar answered by cutting the Sanborn harnesses and removing nuts from wagon wheels. The raid stalled and the court records ultimately stayed in Primghar. A wagon wheel from the raid is displayed inside the courthouse's east entrance.

The century-old courthouse is a marvel, its exterior featuring No. 1 Buff Bedford stone. The interior, which showcases 80 windows, is done in English vein Italian marble, imported. Office floors are battleship linoleum, the rest of the flooring an inlaid tile, including a second-floor centerpiece that shows the original O'Brien County seal, inlaid in hand-cut colored tile.

"The 20-feet columns on the exterior weigh 10 tons apiece and there are 12 of them," said Fay Schall, who has researched construction of the courthouse. Schall noted that the architect, of Smith & Keffer of Des Moines, died during the construction process and did not see his finished work, said to be his crown jewel.

The courthouse came with a dormitory suite, with shower and bath, large enough for one sequestered jury. Blueprints are placed on the walls on each floor, currently.

There's a small stage in the assembly room, believed to be used for eighth-grade graduation ceremonies a century ago as the county's superintendent of schools maintained an office here. That area is now used for various meetings.

The meeting room for the O'Brien County Board of Supervisors uses a meeting table that's original to the building, as are seats for the general public. Schall's research discovered that the county allotted a $10,000 furniture allowance for quartersawn white oak furniture that was "plain, but heavy and substantial."

A newspaper editor at the time, Schall read, wrote "the furniture should last a good, long while."

"It certainly has," Schall answered.

A wow factor tops the building in a glass dome that was taken apart and addressed by Bogenrief Glass Studio of nearby Sutherland, Iowa, two years ago.

"We put a new roof over the dome while it was being done," said Barb Rohwer, O'Brien County auditor since 1989. "It was a $100,000 project."

Susan Smith, O'Brien County recorder, said this birthday celebration, and the work leading up to it, has given her a new appreciation for the workplace she shares with 31 county employees. Smith is gathering items for a time capsule she's putting in an urn to be located under glass, not stone, which is where the 1915 time capsule was placed as the courthouse was being built.

"It's buried with the cornerstone," Smith said of the 1915 time capsule. "We cannot get to it."

This incredible place, and its cornerstone, obviously, were built to last.
SIOUX CITY | The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission paid a visit to three Northwest Iowa towns Wednesday to address the issue of broadband Internet access -- or lack thereof -- in rural areas.

Ajit Pai, the FCC chairman, stopped in Iowa as a part of his tour from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Casper, Wyoming, exploring rural areas' access to broadband Internet. He visited Spencer, Laurens and Sioux City, Iowa, before heading to South Dakota.

In Sioux City, Pai met with Western Iowa Telecom as well as the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce in order to assess the issues of broadband access in Siouxland.

Many people in rural areas are without broadband Internet access, Pai said.

"There's a big and growing divide, a 'digital divide,' in this country between those who have high-quality internet access and those who don't," Pai said. "Disproportionately, rural Americans find themselves on the wrong side of that divide."

Having a broadband connection, Pai said, is empowering to people.

"If you've got a broadband connection, you can start a business... you can get better educational opportunities for your kids, you can get better healthcare through telemedicine and telehealth, so there's virtually no limits to what you can do," he said.

The FCC has several means to help spur broadband infrastructure and access, Pai said, such as giving federal subsidies to companies to provide rural Internet, and modernizing regulations to make it easier for companies that wish to provide access.

Within 10 years, federal subsidies should help furnish broadband access to many Americans that don't have it now, Pai said.

"We're hopeful that over the next decade, we'll be able to get substantial results," he said.

Pai said the FCC is exploring alternative ways to deliver broadband to places where traditional methods, like laying fiber-optic cables, are not cost-effective.

"In some areas, we recognize that it might be more economical to have a wireless provider or a satellite provider take a crack at trying to provide access to those areas," he said.

President Trump's infrastructure plan, Pai hopes, will take broadband access into consideration.

"One of the things I've consistently said, publicly, is that I hope that plan includes a component relating to broadband," he said. "Because I think in the 21st century, if we're talking about infrastructure and we don't include digital infrastructure, that's an opportunity missed."

During his visit to Spencer, Pai said he learned about some of the challenges the area has faced in the pursuit of broadband. However, he also said Iowa is "increasingly on the leading edge of broadband access."

"We also heard about some of the success stories that they've had, in terms of being able to connect the local high school, for instance, and the local hospital, with high-speed broadband," he said.
SIOUX CITY | In the days and weeks before Margarita Morales died, she told co-workers that she wanted out of her marriage and that her husband physically abused her.

Morales described her husband, Rogelio Morales, as controlling and jealous, someone who appeared to be angry if his wife went out with her friends after work rather than being at home.

"He looked angry. He was staring straight forward with his arms crossed," said Carina Rodriguez, describing how Rogelio Morales showed up at a downtown Sioux City bar where his wife was dancing late at night with friends who worked with her. "She grabbed her coat and left."

Rogelio Morales, 29, of Hubbard, Nebraska, is charged with first-degree murder for the April 19, 2015, death of Margarita Morales, 21. Court documents say he strangled her in his car while parked in the 2200 block of Floyd Boulevard after she told him she no longer wanted to be married to him and was seeing another man.

After hearing that, Morales told investigators, the next thing he remembered was that his wife was not breathing and she may have been dead, court documents said.

Throughout the trial's first day of testimony, many of the witnesses, six of whom had worked with Margarita Morales at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, described Rogelio Morales as controlling and jealous.

Margarita Morales left her husband after she went to her sister's South Sioux City home early on April 6, 2015, for help after she'd been assaulted.

"When I woke up and looked at her, she was crying and shaking and began telling me about her assault," her sister Monica Terriquez testified. "She said, 'Rogelio hit me ... he was choking me and punching me in the face.'"

Morales continued to live with her sister after the assault, but wanted Rogelio Morales to continue to be involved in their young son's life. He also gave Margarita rides to work because she didn't drive, Terriquez said.

About a week after the assault, Rogelio Morales gave his wife a card and letter while she and Terriquez were shopping for clothes at Southern Hills Mall. In the letter, which Terriquez was asked to read in court, Morales apologized to his wife.

"What I did is not me. That's not who I am," Terriquez read from the letter. "I'm sorry and please forgive me."

During his opening arguments to jurors, defense attorney Mike Williams said Rogelio Morales, a former Marine who had served in Afghanistan, had no idea his wife was unhappy.

"She was miserable. He didn't know it. She didn't tell him," Williams said.

If found guilty of first-degree murder, Morales would face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man has pleaded not guilty to biting a hospital worker and throwing rocks at cars outside the facility.

Eriksen Todd, 31, entered his written plea Thursday in Woodbury County District Court to single counts of third-degree criminal mischief, assault on a person in a certain occupation and serious assault.

According to court documents, Todd fought with staff members at UnityPoint Health -- St. Luke's hospital during a May 28 disturbance in which he bit a staff member and scratched his neck and then shoved and dragged another staff member on the ground.

After leaving the hospital, court documents said, Todd threw rocks at cars outside the hospital, causing an estimated $1,000 in damage to one of them.
SIOUX CITY | A man who had sexual contact with a young girl will be deported after pleading guilty Thursday.

Jhony Chilel-Ramos, 25, of Sioux City entered his plea in Woodbury County District Court to one count of lascivious acts with a child.

District Judge Julie Schumacher suspended a 10-year prison sentence and placed Chilel-Ramos on two years probation. Chilel-Ramos will be deported.

According to court documents, Chilel-Ramos had sexual contact with the girl, who was under the age of 12 at the time, between Oct. 12, 2009, through Oct. 11, 2011.
According to the Iowa Department of Transportation, replacement of the bridge at Business Highway 75 between Iowa 12 and U.S. 75 near Sioux City will require the closure of the off-ramp at exit 99 starting 5 p.m. Friday.
SIOUX CITY | The 185th Air Refueling Wing of the Iowa Air National Guard will hold an open house Saturday to thank the community for its support of the base and the men and women serving there.

Col. Larry Christensen, wing commander at the 185th, said the base will display 15 military aircraft, as well as two Army helicopters and other Army vehicles, Mercy Medical Center's air ambulance helicopter and Sioux City Fire Rescue and Police Department vehicles.

Visitors will get to see the insides of some of the larger aircraft on display.

There will also be a 5K walk/run on the base, which will pass near the airplanes on the runway, from 9 to 10 a.m. From 10 to 3 p.m. the base will be open to the public.

The base is hosting this event in recognition of its relationship with the community.

"One of the biggest reasons we're doing it is, kind of a thank you to the Siouxland community, because they treat us very, very well," Christensen said.

The reason to thank the community, he said, is because many of the men and women employed on the base also work elsewhere in the community.

"A guard unit, or any reserve unit, they depend on the community mainly because, most people out there don't work there full time," he said. "We actually rely on the community for the people that we recruit, and 2/3 of my people, they actually have jobs on the outside because they're part-time in the military... so they have to rely on the community for their livelihood."

The base has hosted open houses similar to this in the past, but Christensen said it has been some time since the most recent event.

"We're pretty much what they call in 'operational reserve' now, where we're involved in pretty much everything you see on TV, we're deploying pretty much on a constant basis, and that's why we probably haven't done this in a while, because we have been so busy," he said.

The event itself is free, and Christensen said there will be food vendors on the base during the event.

Christensen also recommended that attendees wear appropriate walking shoes, because there will be a lot of walking during the event. Attendees are also asked not to bring coolers or large bags to the event for security reasons.
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa -- Robert Donley said he never intended to stay in Iowa for nine years after taking the job as Iowa Board of Regents executive director and chief executive officer, in explaining why he is now resigning from that position.

He planned to commit for about three years of his contract, maybe up to five years. But now as hes moving on, hes ready to be closer to family out east.

I made the decision several months ago, Donley told media outside the regents meeting on the University of Northern Iowa campus Thursday after making comments to the board. This was my decision. No one should read anything other than that into this. The timing was perfect.

He said with the board under new leadership and moving in the right direction, it was a good time to leave. Hell stay on until July 15 to help with a transition to an interim director and to finish out duties as chairman of the State Higher Education Executive Officers.

Donley, 57, said he did not have future plans beyond going on an very long vacation. He has been in higher education for 22 years, his second career, and didnt say whether he would remain in the field in his next endeavor.

Donley spent time during his comments before the board both talking about how he ended up in Iowa, for a job he wasnt necessarily interested in at first, and also the accomplishments during his tenure.

He said he is proud of the strategic planning that gave the board metrics and goals to achieve; decreases in student debt, increases in graduation rates; expanding online education; leveraging state dollars for better return on investments, among others.

The journey, for me, has been very rewarding, and for the most part, fun. It did have its moments, Donley said. This is not an easy job. Im sure a lot of folks believe that its an easy job. But only when youre in here, you know its not.

He applauded the board members for their support and the staff for their work.

Donley acknowledged the salary cap on the position is a challenge. He said it was an issue nine years ago when he took the job and expects the board now could face challenges in limiting the salary -- by state statute -- for his replacement.

Its time for them to take a look at that, certainly, Donley said.

He said the board will continue to have other challenges as well, but he said they will be up to the board and its president to handle.

Donley praised the new board pilot program to accept public comments at the meeting and hoped to see it ramp up beyond the two speakers who addressed the board Thursday. The first speaker was UNIs United Faculty President Joe Gorton, who praised Donley in his final comments.

Im really sad to have received the news that Bob is moving on, Gorton said. Bob has been a very effective collaborator with our organization.

He called it a real honor and a privilege to work with Donley.

Steve Gettel, superintendent for the Iowa schools for the deaf and blind, also said that Donley worked well with him and his small schools, and always stressed the importance of the special schools as part of the regents duties.

Weve gotten great support from him and from his staff, Gettel said. I could always depend on Bob.
We want to know what you think about the movies. You can Tweet us your reviews @scweekender or share them on Facebook, facebook.com/siouxcityweekender. We'll pick the best comments on Monday before the next Weekender. Here are this week's movies:

Wonder Woman

Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine

Story: Diana, princess of the Amazons, feels called upon to leave her homeland defend a raging war in the outside world.

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and some suggestive content

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Starring: Kevin Hart, Ed Helms

Story: The overly imaginative George and Harold have hypnotized their principal into thinking he's a underwear-clad superhero, the subject of their comics.

Rated: PG for mild rude humor throughout

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No tales

Starring: Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem

Story: Captain Jack Sparrow searches for the trident of Poseidon while simultaneously being tracked down by a vengeful undead pirate hunter.

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of adventure violence, and some suggestive content

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Baywatch

Starring: Zac Efron, Dwayne Johnson

Story: A devoted lifeguard butts heads with a new recruit and they must both work together to uncover a criminal plot that threatens their beach.

Rated: R for language throughout, crude sexual content, and graphic nudity

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Alien: Covenant

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston

Story: A space crew colonize a remote planet but discover an unknown terror is waiting to reveal itself in horrific fashion.

Rated: R for sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity

Verdict: #AlienCovenant mixes musings on creation & sci-fi horror. Falls short of potential - many questions from Prometheus unanswered. -@sizynski

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

Starring: Some wimpy kid

Story: While on a road trip to grandma's house, the Heffley family's vacation is taken off course.

Rated: PG for some rude humor

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Starring: Charlie Hunham, Jude Law

Story: Arthur is denied his royal birthright and destiny before being thrust back into it after unsheathing a sacred sword.

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some suggestive content and brief strong language

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Snatched

Starring: Amy Schumer, Goldie Hawn

Story: A woman is dumped by her boyfriend right before an exotic vacation, so she decides to take her ultra-cautious mother instead.

Rated: R for crude sexual content, brief nudity, and language throughout

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana

Story: The team of has been superheroes and outlaws continue on their adventures and also unravel Peter Quill's parentage.

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language, and brief suggestive content

Verdict: "Guardians is fine film, but not as funny as Vol.1, too long and without the thrill of discovery. Rocket, Baby Groot best." -@SCJBretH

The Fate of the Furious

Starring: Vin Diesel and Johnny Unleaded

Story: The cruisin' and bruisin' Dom is seduced by a mysterious woman and betrays his family and friends.

Rated: PG-13 for prolonged sequences of violence and destruction, suggestive content, and language.

Verdict: Your movie review could go here. Tweet us @scweekender
Doug Severson knows about meat.

Spending nearly a quarter of a century working at John Morrell will do that to a guy.

In addition, Val Schwedler has been working in the kitchens of various Sioux City bars, including the much-missed Soozs Saloon, for years.

Together, Severson and Schwedler have joined forces, creating comfort food classics at Severson's Variety Meats and Eats, located in the back of Pete's 20th Street Tap, 3118 Jay Ave.

"At some bars, you might want a snack," Schwedler said, shaking her head. "Our customers, on the other hand, expect full, home-cooked meals."

And both Schwedler and Severson are more than happy to please patrons with plenty of lip-smacking food that is several cuts above standard bar food fare.

An experienced smoker, Severson grills everything from fall-off-the-bone ribs to seductive barbecued wings and drumsticks.

Schwedler's specialty is harder to pinpoint. She's equally at home, making everything from chicken fried steaks, goulash and hot beef sandwiches.

"Our hot beef sandwiches are to die for," Schwedler said. "You'll need a to-go box because we give you a mountain of meat."

Severson nodded in agreement.

"Our ribs platter comes with three huge ribs plus an order of fries for only $8,"he said. "People's eyes just light up when they see how much food they'll be getting."

Severson's a big believer in giving people their money's worth. His smoked wings are massive. While you can order them "naked" (or sauceless), we recommended choosing any one of the spicy hot sauces concocted by Schwedler.

From a spicy habanero number to an Asian sauce that is both sweet and hot, Schwedler has the magic touch with things that will make you sweat.

Just don't ask her to sample any for herself.

"I can't eat anything spicy," Schwedler said, shrugging.

"I get to be Val's hot sauce guinea pig," Severson said. "I like everything spicy, so I don't mind at all."

He's especially fond of the full menu of Mexican foods, that included soft and crunchy tacos, a taco burger and a ginormous Burrito Supreme,

However, if you're in the mood for pizza, Severson can make that as well.

Customer have their choice of meats, cheese and veggies for made-from-scratch pizzas. Though Severson sometimes lets his pizza oven do some double duty.

"Doug will put the rolls he uses for hoagies in the pizza oven," Schwedler said. "That way, the roll gets a bit crusty on the outside and soft on the inside."

Those are but a few of the small details that sets Severson's apart from the pack.

"Nothing we make is fancy," Severson said. "But everything that we make is good."

Which, apparently, is exactly what the patrons of Pete's 20th Street Tap have been hankering for.

"You can get bar food any place," she said. "If you want a delicious, home-cooked meal, you can come here."
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.
Whether it is most likely as the U.S. says or a conjecture as China says, the possibility of a Chinese military base in Pakistan has to be a source of great concern for India.

I was reading the U.S. Department of Defenses annual report to Congress titled Military and Security Developments Involving the Peoples Republic of China 2016 and was struck by this: China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries.

As a precedent to a possible naval base in Pakistan, the report cites Chinas first overseas naval base in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. It is a port city on the Gulf of Aden. There are defense experts in India who see this base as the first of Chinas much talked about string of pearls military policy as part of which Beijing seems to be creating a string of military alliances around India through its ties with Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lana and Pakistan. China, of course, dismisses this perspective.

I first wrote about this on May 2, 2009.This is what I said:

The Indian strategic establishment has known for a while that Chinas long-term strategy is to encircle India under the guise of creating strong commercial relationships in countries around India. Its project to build a billion dollar port at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka is in keeping with that encirclement or string of pearls strategy. China has been involved in upgrading port facilities at Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sittwe in Burma. Once you look at the map of the region and plot these four points you begin to make sense of that strategy.

Of the four ports Hambantotta is probably the most strategic as it sits at one of the worlds most strategic spots. As Page notes it is also one of the worlds busiest sea routes. That gives China both a powerful commercial and strategic vantage point that it so badly needs in that part of the world.

In some ways China has been following the ways of predatory lenders in its quest for establishing a global sphere of influence. Quite like predatory lenders it preys on countries which are either unsuspecting or desperate or helpless or a combination of all three to lend large sums of money and arms without any conditions attached. Once these countries are hooked on to money without any apparent strings, China moves in with its long-term objectives.

As a rule China does not seek to politically influence a country it sees as a part of its larger design. However, the backing of the worlds most coveted economy has unintended consequences. For instance, it is believed by Indian experts that the reason why Sri Lanka has been able to withstand international pressure during its current bloody military assault on the Tamil Tigers separatists, it is because of the no-strings attached Chinese billions. In return China would demand untrammeled access to Hambantotta port. Many see this as a Faustian bargain which will eventually exact its price on these countries.

It is possible that China may be driven primarily by commercial motivations and may see any strategic benefits as incidental. It is equally possible that China may not have any grand strategic vision of the kind being attributed to its planners but now that the word is out they might choose to exploit that part of the deal as well.

Since then, there have been a couple of developments with Djibouti coming up as Chinas first overseas naval base. The string has become larger. The other development are the report that Hambantotta may not be as successful as first thought. Recently, Colombo rejected a Chinese request to dock one of its submarines at Colombo port amid apprehensions of Indias strong opposition.

Coming back to the Pentagons report to Congress, it points out, Pakistan remains Chinas primary customer for conventional weapons. China engages in both arms sales and defense industrial cooperation with Pakistan, including LY-80 surface-to-air missile systems, F-22P frigates with helicopters, main battle tank production, air-to-air missiles, and anti-ship cruise missiles. In June 2014, Pakistan started co-producing the first two of 50 Block 2 JF-17s, which is an upgraded version of the Block I JF-17.

Between 2010 and 2014, China signed arms exports agreements around the world worth $15 billion. China tends to provide favorable payment arrangements, it says. The report particularly points out how they are low-cost weapons with generally fewer end-use monitoring conditions relative to other arms suppliers.

It seems unlikely that in the near future India would be able to expand its military footprint anywhere near Chinas surging ambitions. This is quite apart from the fact that India has historically avoided military influence as part of its foreign policy doctrine. There are several factors for that, including predominantly cultural ones, but this is not post to dwell on them.

I am sure Indian strategic experts will closely study the Pentagon report even if they may not be able to much about it in terms of effecting an official response.
(AP) Ricardo Negron never kissed his boyfriend in front of conservative relatives. Carlos Guillermo Smith was once attacked by anti-gay students at a college party. After coming out in high school, Marco Quiroga left his mother's home and became temporarily homeless.

Many gay Latinos in Orlando have endured indignities, rejection or violence because of their sexual orientation. But in the year since a gunman killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub, these men and others have sought to strengthen their wounded community, forming support groups and community organizations, seeking seats at the tables of power, and creating a foundation to champion gays and Latinos.

"There's no question that the tragedy at Pulse has created an entire new generation of grassroots leaders who are young, who are queer, people of color, who want to make a difference and affect change," said Smith, who was elected to Florida's Legislature last fall.

Most of the dead at Pulse were gay Latinos, and the attack on June 12, 2016, highlighted the gulf between gay people of color and other gays.

Though Orlando's gay institutions are open to anyone, some gay Latinos did not use them, either because of language barriers or because Orlando's Latino communities are scattered throughout the metro area and much of Orlando's gay life is concentrated downtown. There were other obstacles too, including cultural issues of "machismo," deep Latino connections to the Roman Catholic Church and, for some, concerns about immigration status.

Before Pulse, many gay Latinos felt they could only meet each other in gay bars on Latin or hip-hop nights.

"In our community, there was an absence of spaces for people who were queer and people of color," said Christopher Cuevas, who founded the support group QLatinx after the Pulse shooting.

Still, many regarded Orlando as a haven, both for its visible gay community and for its thriving Latino population. Of metro Orlando's 2.3 million people, more than a quarter are Hispanic, with Puerto Ricans making up about half of the Latino population. Smith describes Orlando "as one of the gayest cities in America."

"Which makes what happened here so shocking because this is already such an inclusive community," said Smith, who grew up in South Florida and moved to Orlando for college. "This is a city that is very supportive of the LGBTQ community."

To Javier Nava, Orlando seemed like a gay Magic Kingdom when he visited during a pride weekend three years ago from small-town North Carolina, where he worked in the restaurant business without legal permission to be in the United States.

"When I came here, and I see the gay pride, I just fell in love with Orlando, so full of Latinos," said Nava, who is originally from Mexico City and moved to Orlando shortly after his visit. He recently became eligible to stay in the U.S. legally. "It just seemed free and open here," he said.

When the gunshots began at Pulse, Negron at first thought they were coming from the beats of the thumping reggaeton music. Then the music stopped and everyone dropped to the floor.

He managed to run out of an exit as gunman Omar Mateen kept firing. Mateen, a New York-born son of Afghan immigrants who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, was killed hours later in a shootout with police.

Nava was on the dance floor when he heard what sounded like a fight. That's when everybody got on the floor. A moment later, he felt something hit his abdomen and realized he had been shot.

Debating in his head whether to play dead or try to escape, he stood up, ran through a door behind the bar and found stairs leading up to a second-story office. Five other people followed him and hid under the desks. They called 911, and dispatchers gave them instructions on how to stanch Nava's bleeding.

They tried to be quiet until police found them about half an hour later. As the officers escorted them out, Nava saw the lifeless body of a friend on the floor.

Smith was in bed at home when his smartphone started beeping furiously before dawn with news about Pulse. Before long, he was standing shoulder to shoulder at a news conference with leaders of Orlando's Muslim community to show that Orlando "respects inclusivity and diversity."

In the aftermath of the attack, a joint venture between local governments and nonprofits offered mental health services and other assistance to Pulse victims and their families. But because of language barriers, immigration fears or previous feelings of disconnection, some of the victims and their families did not feel like they could use the services, Cuevas said.

The community had to "create our own because these spaces never catered to us before. They didn't understand us, and they still don't," he said.

Thus was born QLatinx, a community group for Latino gay and lesbians. The Q stands for "queer," and "Latinx" is a gender-neutral form of "Latino." The organization holds support-group meetings every week and is starting a storytelling project in which they hope to dismantle stereotypes of what it means to be gay and Latino through the personal stories of its members. They're also helping more mainstream gay organizations, like the local LGBTQ center, cater to the needs of gay Latinos.

Quiroga has undertaken a similar effort with the Contigo Fund, which was formed after the Pulse tragedy with $1.5 million in funding from several national foundations. The goal was to financially support LGBTQ and social-justice causes in central Florida, with a particular focus on Latino communities. The fund has given grants to QLatinx, as well as Proyecto Somos Orlando, a nonprofit community center run by Negron that offers bilingual mental health counseling, conversational English classes and immigration assistance for free.

Through the center, case managers check in with Pulse survivors at least once a month. Proyecto Somos Orlando soon will start a program helping newly arrived LGBTQ Puerto Ricans adjust to life in central Florida and hold regular seminars on topics like how to use the health care system.

The ultimate goal is to create a safe haven for LGBTQ people of color that can be a model for other cities, said Quiroga, who moved to Orlando as a 2-year-old from Peru. He is part of a program that allows immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children to stay.

Many of the Pulse survivors are in demand to talk to politicians, celebrities and activists about gun violence and gay rights. Nava met Hillary Clinton and talked in Spanish about immigration policy with vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine.

For Nava, the Pulse tragedy forced him to engage with the wider world in ways he never expected. He and his husband, Adrian Lopez, who escaped the nightclub unhurt, have shared their stories about the Pulse massacre with Clinton, Kaine and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot six years ago during a public appearance, among others.

"At that level, it's a big step for our community," Nava said, explaining that his discussion with Kaine about immigration reform represented more than just one person talking with "one of the people who might run this country."

"It's me, as a gay Latino, talking to one of those people. In Spanish."
After years of potholes, cracked asphalt, and faded parking stripes, the parking lot of the shopping center where Old Florida Seafood was located has been resealed, restriped, and landscaped.

Located on Northeast 26 Street, the once-dilapidated parking lot was considered an eyesore by city officials, and business owners felt it was hurting their bottom line.

Its 100 percent better, said John Yang, owner of Lotus Chinese Kitchen. Yang said business has increased since the improvements because he said some people thought the parking lots condition meant the shopping center was about to be demolished or redeveloped.

Any improvement is better than no improvement, Yang added.

Its a major improvement. Its about time, said Richard Stetler, owner of The Best Cellar.

Lori Cobb, property manager for the shopping plaza, said that signage will be added and additional painting will be done. She said the owners are also trying to get tenants to fill Old Florida Seafood and the other empty storefronts, such as where Jimmies Chocolates and J M Designs was located. Were open to any type of business, from art to retail to restaurant, said Cobb.

Commissioner Julie Carson and Commissioner Tom Green also praised the improvements. It certainly looks a lot better, said Carson, who called the parking lot horrible before. This is an example of improvement in the city, said Green. In April of 2015, Mayor Gary Resnick called the parking lot an eyesore which was discouraging businesses from coming into the city. Commissioner Scott Newton disagreed on the impact the parking lot was having but agreed it needed to be fixed.

At a recent commission meeting, the mayor spoke about another unsightly property at the corner of Andrews Avenue and Oakland Park Boulevard and the importance of code enforcement as a tool to get property owners to maintain their properties. Strong code enforcement is the greatest contributor to [high] property values.

Despite the improvements to the shopping center on Northeast 26 Street, its days may be numbered. At least in its current form.

In October of last year, Fort Lauderdale Commissioner and Wilton Manors attorney Dean Trantalis, who represents the owner of the plaza, which is located at Northeast 15 Street and Northeast 26 Street, said his client plans on demolishing the existing structures and building a mixed-use development that would include condos, retail space, and possibly a boutique hotel and parking garage.

In October, he also said his client is working to attract joint venture partners for the project. An application for development could be submitted within the next 24 to 36 months. Any proposed development would have to be approved by the city commission.
So far, 2017 has been one hell of a ride. June is already here, which means that it is time to get moving on my To Do List for 2017. Almost half a year is gone, and the second half has a habit of going by at a much faster pace. The arrival of June also reminds me to take some time out to celebrate the Summer Solstice later this month, making a Midsummer Nights Dream by stirring up some merriment and awakening the spirit of mirth.

There are a couple items swirling around my head this week that I want to mention. The first is the May 10 SFGN issue, reporting on the Diversity Honors Award Ceremony, specifically the comment by Stuart Milk, Executive Chair of the Harvey Milk Foundation. We made a statement this year that LGBT is not just a liberal issue. We set the tone with some conservative speakers.

Wow, really? No longer just a liberal issue? Pretty easy for the conservatives and the rest of the closeted queens of years gone by to claim the spotlight now that all the fighting, sacrificing, and dirty work has been done. By mere definition of the word liberal, LGBT issues can be nothing but liberal. Where were these Conservatives in the early days of the movement? Where were they when LGBT lives were being ruined, attacked, and arrested for speaking out for equality, justice, funding for HIV/AIDS research? Disgraced Congressmen like Mark Foley and Dennis Hastert, apparently felt a need to play with under-aged boys instead, while the liberals were marching for equality in San Francisco, New York, and other urban centers where the LGBT movement took hold and blossomed into a national movement.

No problem for Stuart Milk though. I prefer to think about the 99.5 percent of the people who enjoyed the event and dont even know who Mark Foley is. That deserves another Wow! Really? I can guarantee that most of the attendees at the Diversity Honors know exactly who Mark Foley is. Looking past the controversy of the awards ceremony, the Harvey Milk Foundation and Stuart Milk have done tremendous work in the worldwide fight for LGBT equality. Hopefully next years event will honor regional leaders and leave the divisive speakers, such as Nancy Brinker and her guest Mark Foley, off the speaker list.

Another topic on my mind is a Tale of Two Islands. As someone who grew up during the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War, and the Mariel Boatlift that overtook Miami, I am somewhat amazed at the comparisons of two islands very close to one another--Cuba and Puerto Rico. When 125,000 Cuban refugees where flooding into South Florida in 1980, the national news outlets covered it around the clock. However, there was little media coverage when in 2014, more than 140,000 people left Puerto Rico for the mainland, followed in 2015 by even greater numbers, with the exodus continuing as their economy falters. Fellow citizens forced to leave family and their homes in search of jobs, education for their children and economic security. Little or no media coverage on what might be one of the largest population displacements ever seen outside of a war.

One would think that it should be the other way around. Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the richest nation in the world, should not be bankrupt, should not have such a high poverty rate, should not have so many citizens fleeing its shores. Cuba, an island that has endured a trade embargo for 60 years and imposed Communist rule, should be the one suffering such a fate. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that both systems have their faults when left unchecked. A totalitarian regime that limits the freedoms and of its people and an unchecked free market system that saddles its people with huge debt burdens, both leave a lot to be desired.

Returning to the shores of our own island, Wilton Manors, the summer heat is rising, the humidity is rising, and so are my FPL bills. The 2017 Hurricane Season has begun, so take some time to make a plan of action, bulk up on supplies, and get acquainted with the helpful information on the Wilton Manors and Broward County websites. Its always best to heed the Boy Scout motto of Be Prepared so we can get over whatever hurdles we may face this Hurricane Season. Being ready for what might head our way will make it easier to say afterwards, Life is just better here.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




New NASA Astronaut Recruits NASA

After receiving a record-breaking number of applications to join an exciting future of space exploration, NASA has selected its largest astronaut class since 2000.

Rising to the top of more than 18,300 applicants, NASA chose 12 women and men as the agencys new astronaut candidates.

Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders Wednesday as they introduced the members of the 2017 astronaut class during an event at the agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston. While at Johnson, the vice president toured the International Space Station mission control center, and the historic mission control center, which was used during early NASA spaceflights, including the first moon landing mission, Apollo 11. He also was presented with a model of the International Space Station and a framed U.S. flag that was flown to and from the orbiting laboratory this winter.

These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery and who I know will inspire our children and our grandchildren every bit as much as your forebears have done so in this storied American program, said Vice President Pence. And to this newest class of astronauts, its my honor to bring the sincere congratulations of the 45th President of the United States of America, President Donald Trump. Your President is proud of you, and so am I.

The astronaut candidates will return to Johnson in August to begin two years of training. Then they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including: performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and departing for deep space missions on NASAs new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

We look forward to the energy and talent of these astronauts fueling our exciting future of discovery, acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot said. Between expanding the crew on board the space station to conduct more research than ever before, and making preparations to send humans farther into space than weve ever been, we are going to keep them busy. These candidates are an important addition to the NASA family and the nations human spaceflight team.

Applicants included U.S. citizens in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa. The talented women and men selected for the new astronaut class represent the diversity of America and the career paths that can lead to a place in Americas astronaut corps.

The 2017 astronaut candidates are:

Kayla Barron, 29, Lt., U.S. Navy, is originally from Richland, Washington. She graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelors degree in systems engineering. A Gates Cambridge Scholar, Barron earned a masters degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge. As a submarine warfare officer, Barron was a member of the first class of women commissioned into the submarine community. Shell come to NASA from the U.S. Naval Academy, where she has been serving as the flag aide to the superintendent.

Zena Cardman, 29, calls Williamsburg, Virginia, home. She completed a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Master of Science in Marine Sciences at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Cardman is currently a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow working on her doctorate at The Pennsylvania State University. Her research has focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments. Her field experience includes multiple Antarctic expeditions, work aboard research vessels as both scientist and crew, and NASA analog missions in British Columbia, Idaho and Hawaii.

Raja Chari, 39, Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force, hails from Waterloo, Iowa. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy with bachelors degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science. He continued on to earn a masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Chari has been serving as the commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Matthew Dominick, 35, Lt. Cmdr., U.S. Navy, was born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of San Diego and a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. He also graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan, serving as department head for Strike Fighter Squadron 115, when he got the call saying hed been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, 42, considers Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, his hometown. He graduated from Boston University with a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering. From there, he went on to graduate from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School, and then the University of Alabama, where he earned a masters degree in aerospace engineering. He has served in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years. For the last five years, Hines has served as a NASA research pilot at Johnson.

Warren Woody Hoburg, 31, is originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelors degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT. He continued on to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley. He is a private pilot and has extensive experience with wilderness search and rescue efforts. Hoburg will come to NASA from MIT, where he currently is leading a research group as an assistant professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Dr. Jonny Kim, 33, Lt., U.S. Navy, was born and raised in Los Angeles. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy, then trained and operated as a Navy SEAL, completing more than 100 combat operations and earning a Silver Star and Bronze Star with Combat V. Afterward, he went on to complete a degree in mathematics at the University of San Diego and a doctorate of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Kim is a resident physician in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, 33, hails from Anchorage, Alaska. He earned a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Denver before going on to complete a masters degree in materials science and a doctorate in engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers, and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska. Since 2011, Kulin has worked for SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, where he leads the Launch Chief Engineering group.

Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, Maj., U.S. Marine Corps, considers Baldwin, New York, her hometown. She earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering with information technology at MIT, followed by a masters degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School. She also is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. Moghbeli currently tests H-1 helicopters and serves as the quality assurance and avionics officer for Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral OHara, 34, calls Sugar Land, Texas, home. She earned a bachelors degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Kansas and a masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdue University. As a student, she participated in NASAs KC-135 Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, the NASA Academy at the agencys Goddard Space Flight Center, and the internship program at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. OHara is currently a research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Dr. Francisco Frank Rubio, 41, Maj., U.S. Army, is originally from Miami. He earned a bachelors degree in international relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a doctorate of medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Rubio has accumulated more than 1,100 hours of flight time in helicopters, including 600 hours of combat and imminent danger time. Hes currently serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Armys 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Carson, Colorado.

Jessica Watkins, 29, hails from Lafayette, Colorado. She graduated from Stanford University with a bachelors degree in geological and environmental sciences, then went on to earn a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Watkins has worked at NASAs Ames Research Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory and currently is a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where she collaborates on the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity.

With the addition of these 12 members of the 2017 astronaut candidate class, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959.

These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations, said astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa. Children all across the United States right now dream of being in their shoes someday. We here at NASA are excited to welcome them to the team and look forward to working with them to inspire the next generation of explorers.

The astronaut candidates will be available to talk to media in person at Johnson and by remote satellite link on June 8. Media interested in this limited opportunity should contact the Johnson newsroom at 281-483-5111.

Find photos and additional information about the new astronaut candidates at:

https://www.nasa.gov/2017Astronauts

Follow NASA astronauts on Twitter at:

https://www.twitter.com/NASA_Astronauts
NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 6 June 2017. NASA

Today  SpaceX (SpX)-11 Ingress and Unpack: Following yesterdays successful capture, berthing, and ingress of SpX-11, today the crew began transferring payloads and cargo to the ISS.

This multi-day process will result in the transfer of 3,900 pounds of science and cargo and the beginning of Fruit Fly Lab and Rodent Research later this week.

Fruit Fly Lab-02 (FFL-02): The crew installed four Vented Fly Boxes with live flies into the Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) incubator. The two remaining Vented Fly Boxes will remain in the cargo transfer bag they were flown up in and stowed in the Columbus Endcone for the duration of the experiment. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster serves as a useful model organism for investigation of cellular and genetic mechanisms that can cause heart problems during spaceflight. Significant effects on numerous body systems have been identified as a result of spaceflight, including the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, neuroendocrine, and immune systems. The FFL-02 investigation compares flies that have hatched in space with flies grown on the ground to understand how prolonged spaceflight affects their heart function.

JAXA Area PADLES (Area Passive Dosimeter for Life-Science Experiments in Space): The crew installed nine area dosimeters on Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) walls today. The JAXA Area PADLES investigation uses area dosimeters to continuously monitor the radiation dose onboard the ISS. Radiation exposure can have significant biological effects on living organisms, including the biological investigations being done on ISS in the JEM.

NanoRacks Module 9 Operations: The crew activated mixture tubes in support of NanoRacks Module 9 experiments for the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. The SSEP supports various schools and student-designed experiments that address challenges of living and working in space. The program is also a key initiative for U.S. science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), that strives to educate and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to work on the space program.

Cardiac Stem Cells: In support of the Cardiac Stem Cell investigation, the crew changed out media for three BioCell Habitats in the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG). Cardiac Stem Cells investigates how microgravity affects stem cells and the factors that govern stem cell activity, in order to clarify the role of stem cells in cardiac biology and tissue regeneration. This investigation also supports research into the possible acceleration of the aging process in microgravity.

Robotic Operations in Support of SpX-11: Yesterday evening, Robotic Ground Controllers translated the Mobile Transporter (MT) from Worksite 4 (WS4) to WS6. Next they ungrappled the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) from SpX-11 Dragon Flight Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF) and maneuvered it to unstow the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) from Mobile Base System (MBS) Power Data Grapple Fixture 2 (PDGF2). Finally, controllers configured the SSRMS and the SPDM for extraction of the Multiple User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) payload from the Dragon trunk.

Todays Planned Activities

All activities were completed unless otherwise noted.

IMS Update

Greetings Video Recording

URAGAN: Observation and Photography

ECON-M: Observation and Photography

Installation of Bel Air Access Point in SM.

Meteor Shutter Open

Dragon Ingress (Completed GMT 156)

Collecting air samples in SpX-11 using ??-1? sampler

24-hour ECG Recording

Dragon Arrival Photos

EHS Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Water Recovery System (WRS) Sample Analysis

24-hour Blood Pressure Recording

Transfer Dragon Center Stack

??? Maintenance

Cold Stowage Double Coldbag

Fruit Fly Lab-02 Hardware Installation

Space Pup MELFI Insertion

Glacier 4 Sample Remove

WAP power off and Bel Air power on

European Modular Cultivation System Cable Swap

CALCIUM. Experiment Session 8

Area Dosimeter Installation

Replacing ??0501 ??2 Filter Unit

EHS Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Sample Data Record

PCG-6 Hardware Photography

Testing Bel Air Access Point. RSE1 laptop and iPad No.7 connection setup.

Setup of Bel Air wireless users

Seedling Growth-3 Transfer of Hardware from DCBs into Biolab TCUs

WAP power on

Cardiac Stem Cells SABL Insertion

Science Box Installation

NanoRacks Module 9 Ops

Cardiac Stem Cells 1st Media Change

Completed Task List Items

AC Dry Vacuum Debris Bag R&R (Completed GMT 156)

Sound Level Meter Measurements (Completed GMT 156)

Battery Stowage Assembly (BSA) Battery Operations (Completed GMT 156)

Space Station Computer (SSC) 11 and 19 Deploy (Completed GMT 156)

Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) Unit Setup

Ground Activities

All activities are on schedule unless otherwise noted.

Cargo transfer support

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Wednesday, 06/07: Fine Motor Skills, Protein Crystal Growth sample prep, Sprint PFS setup, NanoRacks Module 52 start, Rodent Research transporter stow

Thursday, 06/08: Sprint, Rodent Research ops

Friday, 06/09: Glacier Install, Rodent Research ops, Progress On-Board Training
There is no doubt that agricultural extension and advisory services (EAS) have been going through a tumultuous crisis over the past years. But, from my over 25 years of experience as a farmer, agricultural extension practitioner, and ICT for development specialist, I have come to believe ICTs are tools that can enable EAS  whether they are old or new models and approaches of extension.

So the question is, should development partners, donors, technology developers and researchers continue exploring new extension models and approaches or find innovative ways by which ICTs can enable any existing models? Is there a holy grail somewhere, someday to be grabbed? My position is that there is no need to continue exploring new models of EAS; instead we need to find ways of using ICTs innovatively to revamp existing extension systems. However, the use of any ICTs should be context specific; it depends on the state of the extension services in a given country. The ICT application/system that will have an impact on the extension system in Uganda may not work in Ethiopia.

Reflecting on some extension models and approaches

Over the years, several models and approaches to agricultural EAS have been promoted with different assumptions, objectives and structures, but all with the goal of improving agricultural productivity. Take, for example, the training and visit (T&V) approach. It was designed with a focus on building a professional extension service that is capable of guiding farmers in agricultural production and raising their income. While the T&V principle still stands, ICTs are being used to enhance the training of intermediaries and significantly reduce the frequency of visits made to farmers.

The technology transfer approach has been seen as a top-down approach which believes that certain technologies could revolutionise farming and therefore provides specific recommendations to farmers for adoption. New innovations and technologies move from research and development through agricultural extension services to the producer/farmer. While the technology may be new, it still takes the human component  extension personnel  for the technology to work. ICTs are increasingly being seen as a means of facilitating the functions of extension personnel.

The commodity specialised approach can be likened to the current value chain development model that focuses on promoting services peculiar to specific crops and animals. Whilst this approach may lead to availability of highly specialised extension staff for these specific commodities, several disadvantages exist. This is because farmers see extension officers as a one-stop-shop for all their information needs  from technical, through social, to economic. Specific ICTs are being used to support specific commodities, a situation that strengthens the approach.

The participatory approach to agricultural extension, such as farmer field schools, recognises the active contribution of farmers themselves. It is based on partnerships between farmers and extension agents with the goal of learning from each other and contributing to their knowledge and skills. But the concept of participation is complex and resource-intensive. Integrating ICTs in such a system can be enriching for all partners.

The farming systems research approach emphasises context and collaboration between research, extension and farmers. This approach has been seen as a means to sensitise scientists on the variability of farmers production environments rather than promoting blanket-type package technologies. ICTs are currently being used to avoid blanket-type recommendations of advisory services to farmers and they are tools that scientists can easily be acquainted with.

Agricultural extension is more than only information dissemination; it extends beyond collection and sharing of research outcomes or farmers local knowledge with producers. It is an advisory service that entails human interaction. It is about knowledge brokering, which involves mediation between a wide range of actors within the agricultural innovation system. Despite all these tested and workable models and approaches to EAS, the sector is still in crisis. With the emergence of new ICTs, development partners should not make the mistake of thinking that ICTs could act as the new model of extension, nor be used to by-pass the extension officer and placed directly in farmers hands just because the extension has become dysfunctional.

Lets understand the context and use the technologies appropriately.
The disruptive force of technology is difficult to predict. As those of us in the space can attest, agricultural extension is due for a transformation, but there wont be a silver bullet. We know the future lies in different approaches for different circumstances, with each more accountable to catalysing a deeper impact for smallholder farmers.

Digital technologies have reached even the most remote corners of the world and can be a key lever for change. While it is interesting to imagine what will change for smallholder farmers a decade from now, perhaps, even more importantly, it is worth considering what will not. Smallholder famers will want to reduce their production costs, increase their returns and reduce their risk exposure. Extension services must enable smallholder farmers to achieve this.

Technology alone will not close this divide. Technology can be powerful in amplifying good, but only when partnered with organisations and individuals that realise its potential, including conventional government-run extension services, but also the broader constellation of actors, such as researchers, creditors, agro-dealers, etc.

Technology can serve as a platform to link these actors in the food and agriculture system, but exactly how varies from location to location. In the Feed the Future Developing Local Extension Capacity project, we use the best-fit framework (Birner et al., 2009) to map the extension ecosystem across 22 countries in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America to identify key opportunities to catalyse change.

The Government of Ethiopia, for instance, operates one of the most intensive public extension systems in the world with roughly three extension agents for every village. But, these agents have limited resources, so trainings are often conducted in large groups. Jorge Nanesso, a 41 year-old farmer from the Becho district participated in training on a tool to create furrows for better drainage. With 70 other farmers in attendance, it was difficult to see and understand how the tool worked, so Jorge never used it. We provided Jorges extension agent with locally-produced videos and a battery-operated mobile projector. After attending a smaller, facilitated video screening on the same topic, Jorge grasped the concept. She applied what she learned and increased her harvest of teff from 800 kg/ha to 1,800 kg/ha.

In Bangladesh, the USAID Agriculture Extension Support Activity project launched the Agriculture Card (A-Card) initiative, a type of debit card for farmers used specifically with agro-dealers. Farmers using the A-Card have 6 months to pay back the debt at 10% interest per year. This flexibility means that farmers can hold out for better prices, and agro-dealers are ensured hassle-free payment. As exciting as A-Card is, it was made possible because of the penetration of mobile banking and agro-dealers in the country.

We have found success by remaining nimble and adaptable to local environments. Rather than innovate for the sake of innovating, we take context-specific, evidence-based approaches to make an impact. The future of ICT in extension is neither in strengthening existing systems, nor innovating new ones, but in both.
Extension is as old as agriculture itself. With shifts in agricultural trends, the emphasis on extension has also varied. Initially, agricultural extension was part of the research-extension-farmer triangle. During the training and visit (T&V) era, communication of innovation was the key concept and extensions role was to effectively disseminate innovations.

However, after the green revolution, the gap between resource rich and resource poor farmers widened with information and extension going to a select few. With the conceptualisation of new models, like Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems (AKIS), extension changed in nature to facilitation; the collectivisation of farmers into groups became the focus, and the system emphasised the process of mobilisation and extension. In time, the private sector also entered the agricultural landscape, introducing the concept of pluralism in extension. Emphasis on mass media also increased.

More recently, Agricultural Innovation Systems (AIS) theory was introduced within the innovation systems framework. It focused on the actors, their interactions, the institutions, and the policy environment to support or hinder it all. Communication for innovation was the key AIS concept, which tried to identify the actors in systems, their core activities and bring them into an innovation platform for effective service and successful innovations.

While all the models discussed have been theoretically sound, implementation has been a different story altogether. Extension was once merely a mouthpiece of research; it ignored resource-poor farmers during the green revolution era, mostly because it was not equipped to communicate on a mass scale. While T&V was an acclaimed approach, reaching the grassroots became very costly and, without international funding, had to be abandoned. In the AKIS model, the last mile was still unreached and collectivisation was also happening at a very slow pace, further marginalising marginal farmers. With pluralistic extension, the duplication of efforts occurred because of a lack of communication among stakeholders. In the AIS model, convergence remains a lacuna (unfilled space) because of the lack of a common platform for research, innovation and dialogue.

Effective communication and reaching the last mile are still major hurdles in extension models, which makes it vitally important to focus on appropriate technologies and available forms of ICTs to reach, communicate, converge and improve on extension to farmers instead of investing in the development of new models of extension. Models like the Agricultural Technology Management Agency in India, implemented with the aim of increasing convergence and reducing the duplication of efforts in agricultural development, have failed to achieve the desired success. To a great extent, this could have been avoided with the proper use of ICTs and creating a knowledge network.

The use of ICTs cannot be a silver bullet with blanket recommendations, as the efforts and effects will be entirely context specific, but exploring new ways to integrate them in the development sector might help better reach the last mile. The agriculture and rural development sector is highly context dependent and the situation and solutions are also dynamic depending on the socio-economic and psychological background of the people. The ways of using ICTs will also vary completely within these settings and so should only be based on research-based solutions.

However, it also needs to be emphasised that the personal touch in extension systems cannot be completely replaced by using ICTs. Technology on its own can only go so far in the development sector but it can be a very powerful aide for starting a dialogue, reaching the clients effectively, mobilising people and resources, and bringing about faster change in the current context of low and middle-income economies, rather than investing in exploring new models and approaches in extension.

This blog was written in collaboration with Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee

Suchiradipta Bhattacharjee is working as a fellow at the Centre for Agricultural Extension Innovations and Reforms at MANAGE, Hyderabad, India. Her specialisation is in agricultural extension and her research interests are agricultural innovation systems, ICT4Ag, mExtension, and rural development.
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Move over, game birds, big-antlered stags, coats of arms, fleurs-de-lis, and all that other usual liquor-bottle iconography. Theres a new booze in town, and the label says it all: Patricia, a 22.7 percent ABV liqueur made with coffee from Lot Sixty One. At Amsterdam cocktail bars, where Patricia debuted earlier this year, the bottle is easy to spotits logo is a pinball-machine maze of lines on a backdrop the color of persimmon.

Patricias alcohol base is jenever, the 16th-century Dutch invention traditionally distilled with juniper berries that begat what the English called gin. Its coffee component is FIVR, a Brazilian espresso from Amsterdams most venerable Australian-run roaster. And not coincidentally, the person behind Patricia is also Australian.

Peter Ong is best known in the Dutch capital for heading handmade sweets supplier Baked in Amsterdam. Nowadays, that company and Patricia are headquartered in the citys culinary startup incubator Kitchen Republic. A few years ago, however, Ongas a newcomer needing an ovenbegan baking his famous banana bread at Lot Sixty One.

More recently, its Kinkerstraat cafe served as his liqueur laboratory and its co-founder, Adam Craig, as his test subject. Adam was sitting there tasting it and he was saying, This is a really good idea. You should go for it, says Ong.

The choice was for a young (rather than old) jenever because it was more neutral, allowing the espressos chocolate and orange notes to come through. Unlike other popular coffee liqueurs, Patricia is vanilla-free, which is intentional: Ong says that keeps it from being unfailingly restricted to the dessert side.

At Lottis in the Hoxton hotel, head bartender Paolo Banfi recommends Patricia as an aperitif or a digestif. For a cocktail, he mixes it with Sipsmith gin, Cocchi vermouth, Merlet Lune DAbricot liqueur, and dashes of orange bitters. Boozy, Banfi says.

Its lovely, says Ray Luca, Lottis head barista, who also works at Lot Sixty One. Compared with Kahlua, [Patricia] is really more flexible.

Flexible is an appropriate word to describe Ong as well. Back in his native Melbourne, he was an employment lawyer before realizing that wasnt the best job for him. He pursued that career partly to appease his Asian parents, though he explains (more seriously) that his parents moved to Australia as refugees after the Vietnam War. Ong eventually emigrated to study pastry in Paris. His on-the-job training as a chef at Emperor Norton was formidableclearly influencing his approach to Patricia today as well.

I really, really want to focus on getting the pros in the cocktail world, giving them a new ingredient to get excited about, he says. The best butter in the world is butter from Jean-Yves Bordier, from Brittany in France. If someone gives me butter like that, Im like, Oh, goodie goodie! 

Living in France also helped Ong to understand how many regions in and around the country have a signature alcohol: an Alpine offering proved particularly memorable.

After a day of hiking, they pour you a shot of genepi, he recalls. This is really exciting: Its so local, it has so much of the character of the place. And so when I think about it, as a description of a spirit, its not just spirit in terms of strong alcohol, but its also the spirit of the place. So I wanted to do something similar here.

As for Patricias neon-inspired bottle label, Ong explains: I am a kid of the 80s. The name of the product came from a woman with whom he shared a couple days. When speaking of Patricia the person rather than the beverage, his usual precision gives way to poetics.

When youre traveling and you meet someone, its magic, he says. You sort of preserve a really perfect memory and a bit of a perfect mystique.

After cracking himself up, he says: I actually also do think that if I meet her again and Im like, By the way, I named a business after you, she might be like, Ah, excuse me, what? Get away from me, you creep! 

His John Hughes-ian self-awareness is bittersweet though encouragingto be here and now, taking in what Patricias cork seal identifies as Amsterdam coffee and Amsterdam spirit.

Patricia is available at various Amsterdam bars. Visit their official website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge
When Mark Davis was named the acting executive director of the Delaware Harness Racing Commission several years ago, he figured it was a temporary assignment not unlike other interim positions he held during his time as the Delaware Department of Agricultures deputy principal assistant and policy advisor.

But after a nationwide search, it was determined the best person for the job was the person already there. Temporary became permanent.

In the ensuing years, Davis has sought to learn as much as possible about all aspects of the sport, which is why he was jogging horses and cleaning stalls last week at the Delaware County Fairgrounds in central Ohio.

Davis was one of 20 participants at the 18th annual U.S. Trotting Association Driving School, a three-day program that offered work at fairgrounds-based stables each morning followed by classroom sessions with trainers, drivers, veterinarians, nutritionists, and others.

Im just trying to learn more, Davis said. Ive never seen this side of the sport up close. Thats why I thought it was important to come. The class is awesome. Its good to hear other perspectives. Ive enjoyed it a lot.

Davis had jogged a horse prior to attending the school, but was happy to get multiple opportunities at the fairgrounds, which is the home of the Little Brown Jug.

That was great, Davis said. Its a lot of fun. Its addictive. Agriculture is like that in general. The horsemen are like other farmers; poultry farmers, crop farmers. Its in their blood and theres nothing else they want to do. Theyre fiercely independent, good, hard-working people. Thats the same throughout agriculture.

* * * * * * *

Craig Schmidt may have retired and moved to his home in Florida, but hes still getting up every morning at 7:30 for his new hobby, harness racing. He owns a two-year-old pacer stabled near Pompano Park and wants take a more hands-on approach to ownership.

Opportunity struck when Schmidt saw an advertisement for the USTA Driving School in a track program and decided it would be a great learning experience for him.

Im trying to figure out how to help my trainer train my horse so I can be more involved, Schmidt said. Hes really nice and will let me help and do anything I want really, but I sometimes feel like Im just getting in the way.

I really want to be able to jog a horse. I also really want to be able to understand everything that goes on behind the scenes.

Schmidt was happy with the knowledge he gained to take back to the stable.

The best thing Ive learned here is the barn work and washing the horses down, he said. Ive already heard and learned a lot, just while working in the barn area and trotting.

* * * * * * *

After serving in the Navy for eight years, Logan Hawkins recently moved from Hawaii to Lexington, Ky., all because of horse racing. He was first interested in Thoroughbred racing, but quickly switched to harness racing after going to the races at the Red Mile.

It just kind of happened that I got into harness racing, said Hawkins, who works in construction. I just really enjoy it and the fact that I might be able to drive and not have to weigh 110 pounds to do it.

Hawkins does not currently own any horses, but he does have his owners license and an aspiration to do more.

This Driving School is a great way to get my foot in the door, Hawkins said. I want to get my drivers license and eventually become a trainer.

As for the school, Hawkins said that although shovelling stalls has not been his favourite part, he appreciated the experience and was excited to drive.

Its been fun jogging, he said. Im ready to go faster though.

(Haley Clinker contributed to this story.)

This story courtesy of Harness Racing Communications, a division of the U.S. Trotting Association. For more information, visit www.ustrotting.com.
The publicity department for the Grand Circuit has sent out its recap and preview of Grand Circuit races.

This Week: Armbro Flight, Goodtimes, Pepsi North America Cup, Fan Hanover and Roses Are Red eliminations, Mohawk Racetrack, Campbellville, Ontario; Charlie Hill Memorial, Scioto Downs, Columbus, Ohio; and Graduate Series third leg, Tioga Downs, Nichols, N.Y.

Schedule of events: Grand Circuit action this week begins on Friday (June 9) at Mohawk Racetrack with two $35,000 eliminations in the Armbro Flight for trotting mares and two $30,000 eliminations in the Goodtimes for three-year-old trotting colts. The Saturday (June 10) card at Mohawk features a trio of $50,000 eliminations for the Pepsi North America Cup for three-year-old pacing colts, three $35,000 eliminations in the Roses Are Red for pacing mares and two $35,000 eliminations in the Fan Hanover for three-year-old pacing fillies.

Scioto Downs will also host Grand Circuit racing on Saturday as the central Ohio oval features the $200,000 Charlie Hill Memorial for older trotters.

Tioga Downs will round out a busy Grand Circuit weekend on Sunday (June 11) with $75,000 (est.) third leg contests in the Graduate Series for four-year-old open pacers and trotters.

Last time: All Bets Off won Saturdays (June 3) $200,000 Battle of Lake Erie at Northfield Park, making him only the second horse to win both the Carl Milstein Memorial and the Battle of Lake Erie, which are two of the tracks prestigious Grand Circuit events. Wiggle It Jiggleit, the 2015 U.S. Horse of the Year, is the only other horse to accomplish the same feat.

All Bets Off (Bettors DelightArmbro Penelope) is owned by the partnership of Burke Racing Stable, Weaver Bruscemi, Frank Baldachino and The Panhellenic Stable. He is trained by Ron Burke. Matt Kakaley had the winning drive.

As the gate pulled away from the stellar Battle field, Luck Be Withyou and Aaron Merriman rushed to the front, setting wicked fast fractions of :26, :52.4 and 1:20.3.

All Bets Off started from Post 4 and made a three-wide bid late in the third panel to make the front and best Luck Be Withyou and Rockin Ron by two and a quarter lengths, stopping the clock at 1:49.2. The time represents a new track record for pacers that are five-year-olds and up. The former 1:50.4 mark was set in 2002 by Western Millennium and Walter Case Jr.

Saturdays win marks the 25th score for All Bets Off in 86 career races and increases his bankroll to $2,372,503.

Grand Circuit Standings: In 2017, the Grand Circuit leaders in three categories (driver, trainer and owner) will once again be tracked on a points system (20-10-5 for the top three finishers in divisions/finals and 10-5-2 for the top three finishers in eliminations/legs). Winbak Farms is the sponsor for the 2017 Grand Circuit awards.

Here are the leaders through and including the races on June 3.

Drivers: 1. Yannick Gingras  179; 2. Jason Bartlett  148; 3. Jordan Stratton  136; 4. Matt Kakaley  121; 5. David Miller  94.

Trainers: 1. Ron Burke  203; 2. Peter Tritton  132; 3. Richard Banca  86; 4. Rene Allard  84; 5. Noel Daley - 67.

Owners: 1. Harry von Knoblauch Stable  103.5; 2. Burke Racing Stable  49.2; 3. Weaver Bruscemi  40.4; 4. J&T Silva Stables  34.4; 5. Fred Monteleone Stable  32.

Looking ahead: Grand Circuit action will again take place at Mohawk next weekend as the track will host its five stakes finals, led by the $1 million Pepsi North America Cup, on Saturday night (June 17).

(Grand Circuit)
The cream of the New York-sired sophomore trotting colt crop will gather at Vernon Downs this Friday night (June 9) to contest the eliminations for the Empire Breeders Classic (EBC).

Vernons racing secretary, Scott Warren, took 13 declarations which have been separated into a pair of $12,500 elimination races, which have been carded as the fourth and sixth dashes on the program.

Race 4 will feature a powerful field of six, led by an entry from the Julie Miller barn. Money MacIntosh (PP1, Andy Miller), owned in part by Julie with partner Natalia Stroy as Stroy, Inc., won over $150,000 on the circuit at two on the strength of five victories. He had a start at Vernon last week, finishing fourth in the NYSS raced on Memorial Day. His entrymate is Legendary Standardbred's homebred Top Flight Angel (PP4, Marcus Miller) who will be driven by Marcus Miller on Friday.

The Millers will also send out the early favourite for Division 2 in the winner of last season's NYSS final, Devious Man (PP2, Andy Miller). The half brother to 2005 Hambletonian winner Vivid Photo made over $300,000 as a freshman and was a 1:53.3 winner in his 2017 debut against sires stakes company. He is owned by Stroy Inc. and the Andy Miller Stable, Julie trains and Andy will drive.

The top four from each elimination and one fifth-place finisher chosen by lot will return on Sunday, June 18 for the $252,000 final.

The $228,250 EBC filly race had 10 declare and required no eliminations. They will race on the same June 18 card and are listed below in post position order for that race.

1  Maewegonow

2  Celebrity Ruth

3  Sunshine Delight

4  Ostrich Blue Chip

5  Amber Ella

6  Mamora Bay

7  Heels On Wheels

8  Stars N Sparkles

9  Barn Bella

10  Chapter Too

The supporting card is composed of three divisions of NYSS for three-year-old filly pacers and the accompanying Excel races.

Post time for the card is 6:45 p.m.

(Vernon Downs)
Pastor Lively Files Challenge to Judge's Prejudicial Language

Contact: Liberty Counsel , 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org SPRINGFIELD, Mass., June 8, 2017 / Standard Newswire / -- Earlier this week federal Judge Michael A. Ponsor ruled that he lacked jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit against Pastor Scott Lively by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company that the federal Alien Tort Statute (ATS) does not allow a foreign citizen to sue a U.S. citizen in America alleging violation of some international law. Even though the court dismissed the case in favor of Lively, due to the prejudicial and immaterial findings and outrageous statements by Judge Ponsor, today Liberty Counsel filed an appeal to strike Judge Ponsor's language that was not necessary to the disposition of the case.Judge Ponsor should have dismissed the case in 2013, when asked to do so following the Supreme Court opinion. Instead, he forced Lively to needlessly endure four more years of intense litigation and discovery by the army of lawyers working for the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that has received funding from George Soros.Judge Ponsor had no choice but to follow clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent when he ruled this week the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. That should have been the end of the matter. But, Judge Ponsor, known for his support of the LGBT agenda, went on to appease the LGBT activists by making unlawful "findings," including that Pastor Lively violated international law of "crimes against humanity."Judge Ponsor had correctly concluded that he lacks jurisdiction over the lawsuit brought under the Alien Tort Statute by the Ugandan homosexual activists, because SMUG had failed to bring forth any evidence that Lively did anything illegal in the United States. Judge Ponsor correctly found that Lively "supplied no financial backing," and "he directed no physical violence, he hired no employees and he provided no supplies or other material support" to alleged "crimes" supposedly committed by various people in Uganda.However, Judge Ponsor improperly littered his Order with a prolonged tirade against Lively, badly distorting his Christian views and activism, and insulting him with such unbecoming epithets as "crackpot bigot[]," "pathetic," "ludicrous," "abhorrent" and numerous others. Even more egregiously, and even though he admittedly lacked jurisdiction to rule on SMUG's claims, Judge Ponsor purported to conclude, without even a pretense of legal or factual analysis, that Lively's Christian beliefs and pro-family activism violated "international law" and that Lively's peaceful speaking on homosexuality in Uganda somehow "aided and abetted" crimes supposedly committed by people Lively has never even spoken to or met."Judge Ponsor's vitriolic Order is clearly unlawful," said Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel's Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel. "Once Judge Ponsor concluded that he lacked jurisdiction over SMUG's preposterous lawsuit, the only thing left to do was dismiss it. The Supreme Court, and many federal appellate courts, have repeatedly rebuked judges who inject unnecessary and prejudicial 'findings' in cases where they lack jurisdiction. We will defend Pastor Lively's name in the Court of Appeals and work to remedy this injustice," said Mihet.Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, added: "It is improper for a judge who clearly lacks jurisdiction to hear a case to make legal findings unrelated to the disposition of the case. When a court lacks jurisdiction, its only job is to acknowledge that fact and end the case. Judge Ponsor allowed his support for the LGBT agenda to enter an opinion and make prejudicial findings laced with defamatory statements that are both illegal and unbecoming. The statements are so far outside the norm that we have filed an appeal to ask that these prejudicial and unnecessary statements be stricken. Judges may hold personal opinions like anyone else, but they should restrain themselves from lacing court rulings with them, especially when they admit they lack jurisdiction to hear the case," said Staver.Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
My crystal ball CB said that the war in Ukraine will end by March 2023. Why? - Ukraine does not want to continue fighting, as most of thei...
With preliminary budgets due next month, local school districts are stuck in a holding pattern as state legislators struggle to hammer out a new plan to fully fund the states K-12 public education system.

Lawmakers in Olympia are approaching the end of a second special legislative session called by Gov. Jay Inslee after failing to reach a budget agreement that complies with the state Supreme Courts controversial 2012 McCleary ruling.

In that decision, justices ruled that the Legislature was violating the state constitution by forcing school districts to rely on local levies for basic expenses such as buses and teachers salaries.

Multiple proposals have been floated, but its still unclear what the details of a final budget deal will look like  and thats making life harder for people like Chris Fritsch, assistant superintendent at Longview Public Schools. According to state law, school districts are required to deliver a preliminary budget proposal to the public by July 10 and a finalized budget by Aug. 31.

Id rather not bank on conjecture, Fritsch said. Right now were just waiting for a final number.

Fritsch said hes operating under the assumption that there will be no new revenue from the state this year. A representative from Kelso School District could not be reached for comment.

The McCleary decision has been a boon for local school districts in that the state now shoulders the full cost of transportation and supplies. But contracts for both Longview and Kelso teachers  which are still paid using a mix of state and local dollars  expire at the end of August.

And the uncertainty in Olympia has brought has produced a stalemate in contract negotiations.

Im at seven different negotiating tables, and nobodys going to budge until McCleary is resolved, said Roy Maier, the director for the Washington Education Association who represents the lower Columbia region in labor talks. Nobody wants to talk about money until we know what the Legislature is going to do.

Maier said he hopes to the legislature will address salary concerns in its new biennial budget.

If lawmakers cant reach a deal by June 30, the state risks a partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has given the state until September 2018, to comply with McCleary, but it also has mandated that the details on how to fully fund public education be in place before the Legislature adjourns for the year.
Northwest congressional representatives are reaching across the aisle to save salmon lives with legislation to make it easier to shoot sea lions.

U.S. Reps. Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-Wash) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore) have introduced the Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Protection Act. The bill will get a Congressional hearing Friday morning.

This bill would allow tribal and government fish managers to lethally remove up 100 sea lions per permit, according to a press release from Herrera Beutler, who represents Southwest Washington.

The Endangered Salmon and Fisheries Predation Prevention Act is critical because sea lion predation is posing a serious threat to our salmon populations, impacting our efforts to ensure their survival, Rep. Herrera Beutler said in the prepared statement. With this solution, we have tools to better protect the salmon so vital to our recreational, cultural and economic interests.

As of now, there is only one permit in place, issued to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, according to Herrera Beutlers office. This new bill would make the current permit process more efficient, and would allow tribes with resource management experience to apply and receive permits for hunting sea lions.

A previous bill the Republican congresswoman introduced in 2015 would have allowed tribal members to kill up to 85 sea lions, 15 fewer per permit than the new bill.

According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, there were 203 sea lions present at the Bonneville Dam in 2016, which was the second highest yearly total since 2002, when the Corps started monitoring the area for sea lions. The sea lions estimated salmon consumption rate at the dam in 2016 was around 6 percent of the salmon that passed through, or over 9,000. That number was slightly down from 2015, where sea lions ate more than 10,000 salmon at the dam, according to Corps reports.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife states that sport fishing generates $1.1 billion yearly in activity for the state.
A Woodland man has been identified as the driver killed in an Amboy-area crash last week in which the vehicle he was ejected from rolled on top of him.

Jeffrey Heafner, 38, died of multiple blunt force injuries and his death was ruled an accident, according to the Clark County Medical Examiners Office.

Heafner was driving a 1991 Honda Accord east on North Cedar Creek Road at about 5:15 a.m. on May 31 when he crossed into the westbound lane and went off the road, crashing in a farm pasture, the Clark County Sheriffs Office said.

Heafner, who was not wearing a seat belt, was thrown from the vehicle, which then rolled over him, the sheriffs office reported.

Though the sheriffs office first reported that the vehicle was stolen out of Cowlitz County, they have since learned it was stolen in Hood River, Ore.

Speed may have been a factor in the crash, the sheriffs office said, though the investigation is ongoing.
The Trump administrations proposal to sell the Bonneville Power Administrations transmission system is meeting strong opposition from both Washington and Oregons congressional delegations.

In a letter sent Monday to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, all 15 U.S. representatives from the two states wrote that selling the BPAs transmission system will harm people and industries, divert capital away from needed regional infrastructure improvements, and undermine regional utility coordination.

Selling off BPAs transmission assets is bad public policy that undermines the Presidents economic objectives and betrays a lack of understanding of the Northwest, they wrote.

The fiscal year 2018 budget, sent to Congress by the Trump administration, proposed selling BPAs transmission assets, arguing the move could save the government about $4.9 billion over 10 years.

The representatives, including Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Spokane, wrote that they are united in opposition to the proposal.

The BPA owns 75 percent of the transmission lines in the Northwest that deliver energy from 31 hydroelectric dams and one nuclear power plant. The maintenance and operation of those lines is paid for by the more than 12 million customers the agency supplies with electricity.

The representatives said theyre concerned that divesting from the system would break up the regional power grid. Selling lines to the highest bidders, they argue, would lead to rate increases for customers in the Northwest who have invested in the system over the decades.

They also said the move would put rural communities at risk. The representatives predicted high-value lines would be sold at a premium while rural lines and grids would likely be abandoned.

Private companies are unlikely to give these communities the proper maintenance and attention they need to maintain complex transmission assets, they wrote.

In their letter, the representatives argued selling BPAs assets could jeopardize its ability to repay the costs of the Federal Columbia River Power System.

The BPA is overseen by the Department of Energy and was created as a nonprofit by Congress in 1937. It has made $32.5 billion in payments to the U.S. Treasury over the years.

The proposal is not a new concept in Washington, D.C. The Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations all raised similar ideas in the past. Northwest congressional delegations objected every time.
US President Donald Trump has warned Pyongyang that "all options are on the table" after North Korea fired a missile over Japan early Tuesday.

Tuesday's launch was particularly provocative as it was North Korea's first ballistic missile to fly over Japan. Kim Jong Un's regime regularly fires missiles into the sea between its own territory and Japan.

The launch comes as the US and South Korea conduct joint military drills on the peninsula and a day after drills ended between the US and Japan on the northern island of Hokkaido.

It also follows a fiery exchange of threats and insults between Trump and the North Korean regime, commenting through state media.

"The world has received North Korea's latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior," Trump said in a statement, taking a more measured tone than in his previous remarks.

"Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime's isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table."

Minutes after the missile was launched, residents in northern Japan received a text message urging them to seek shelter in a strong structure or a basement.

"We were awoken by sirens and messages from the government telling us to take cover," one local resident told CNN.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe -- who had a 40-minute phone call with Trump on Tuesday -- described the launch as a "reckless act."

"This launch of a North Korean missile is an unprecedented serious and grave threat to Japan," Abe said after the call, adding that Trump said "the US stands with Japan 100%."

"I would like to make the utmost effort to protect the lives and assets of the Japanese people under a strong alliance between Japan and US."

What happened?

The missile was fired just before 6 a.m. Japan time (Monday 5 p.m. ET), and the launch set off warnings in the northern part of the country urging people to seek shelter.

The unidentified missile flew over Erimomisaki, on the northern island of Hokkaido, and broke into three pieces before falling into the Pacific Ocean, about 1,180 kilometers (733 miles) off the Japanese coast.

The missile was in flight for about 15 minutes, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at an emergency press conference.

"There is no immediate report of the fallen objects and no damage to the ships and aircraft," he said.

News had still not been broadcast to people in North Korea by Tuesday evening in Pyongyang.

The missile was fired from a location near Pyongyang, in a provocative and rare move by the regime. It may have been intended to deliver a message that pre-emptive US strikes on missile launch facilities could land uncomfortably close to civilians.

It was the fourth missile North Korea fired in four days -- Pyongyang tested three short-range ballistic missiles, one of which failed, from Kangwon province that landed in water off the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea responded by conducting a bombing drill at 9:30 a.m. local time to test its "capability to destroy the North Korean leadership" in cases of emergency, an official with the country's Defense Ministry told CNN.

Why Japan?

Tuesday's launch is the first time North Korea has successfully fired a ballistic missile over Japan. Various stages of launch vehicles have overflown Japan during Pyongang's attempts to launch satellites into space in 1998, 2009, 2012 and 2016.

While the missile flew over Japanese territory, one analyst said it wasn't necessarily intended as a threat to the country.

"If they're going to launch to a distance they've got to go over somebody. It looks to me like a risk reduction measure, they want to reduce the populated areas they fly over just in case anything goes wrong," said Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

The launch also comes just over two weeks after North Korea threatened to fire a series of missiles in the waters around the US Pacific territory of Guam.

The country has not followed through with that threat, but firing a missile over Japan and into the Pacific is in Guam's direction, even if nowhere near the island.

David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told CNN that Tuesday's launch shows a new level of confidence from the North Koreans.

"It is a big deal that they overflew Japan, which they have carefully avoided doing for a number of years," he said.

He added that the country had in the past tested missiles upwards on high trajectories and launched their satellites to the south to avoid firing missiles over Japan.

CNN's Will Ripley reported from Pyongyang. Yoko Wakatsuki reported from Tokyo, K.J. Kwon reported from Seoul. CNN's Brad Lendon, Michael Callahan, Barbara Starr, Ryan Browne, Zachary Cohen, Yazhou Sun, Richard Roth and Angela Dewan contributed.
tech2 News Staff

OnePlus founder and CEO, Pete Lau posted a photo from his OnePlus 5 on the Chinese social network Weibo. The shot comprising of mostly the sky seems very clear and GSMArena's reading into the metadata suggests a 16-megapixel sensor.

The photograph, despite being taken in very low light manages to get the exposure and detail on the building just right along with a negligible amount of noise, further showing off the company's emphasis in the camera department with the OnePlus 5. Lau captioned the picture in Chinese which translates to, "What a purely clear sky! See you at 10 am tomorrow," which might point towards more leaks in the coming few days.

The images taken earlier on the OnePlus 5 suggested that the camera has a f/1.8 aperture, enabling it to capture greater depth for bokeh with its dual camera setup. Earlier leaks from Android Police also suggested that the phone would look similar to Oppo's R11, with a few other smaller changes. The phone would sport Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor, confirmed by the CEO earlier.

The company revealed only yesterday that it would globally launch its flagship on 22 June 2017 in India, soon after it announced the device's global launch scheduled for 20 June 2017.
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Delphi Automotive PLC will partner with Paris-based Transdev Group, a public transport service controlled by the French government, to develop an automated on-demand shuttle service in Europe, the companies said on Wednesday. In a joint statement, Delphi and Transdev said they will test driverless vehicles in Normandy and outside Paris, in advance of building a commercial service, starting in 2019, that could be deployed in other markets, including North America.

It would be the first such commercial application on public roads of fully automated vehicles, they said. The Delphi-Transdev partnership will provide "a clear path to commercializing automated mobility on demand," said Glen De Vos, Delphi's chief technology officer, in a media briefing. Delphi is contributing a self-driving system that it has been developing with Israeli mapping and vision expert Mobileye NV, which is being acquired by U.S. chipmaker Intel Corp.

Transdev will manage the project and will provide ticketing, dispatch, routing and remote control-command services, the companies' statement said.

French automaker Renault SA will supply the venture with Zoe electric minicars, according to Yann Leriche, Transdev's chief performance officer. The test phase will start later this year with two Zoe minicars in Rouen in Normandy and a shuttle bus in the Paris suburb of Saclay, Leriche told the media briefing. Initially, the vehicles will have "safety" drivers on board, but the plan is to move quickly next year to tests of fully driverless vehicles that are remotely controlled and monitored by human operators, he added. Delphi has been building its expertise and capability in self-driving vehicles through partnerships, investments and acquisitions.

Several of its affiliates will participate in the project with Transdev, including Ottomatika (vehicle control software), Control-Tec (real-time data analytics) and Movimento (over-the-air software updates). Transdev, a mobility services provider, operates public and private transport services in 19 countries.

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

To increase the dissemination of information about the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) app to the general public, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has launched the BHIMUPI website. The website will contain videos and infographics informing the citizens of the nation about the various features of the BHIM app, how to use it, and the and the advantages it offers. Users can also find out more information about the BHIM app through the dedicated number, 022  45414740.

Mr. A. P. Hota, MD and CEO, NPCI said, The website will meet the needs of the customers for general information on BHIM and incentive programmes launched by the government in the form of BHIM referral programmes. Through simple tools like product videos, customer can have self-learning instead of calling banks and NPCI.

The BHIM app uses a clean and simple interface that allows users to make instant transactions through a number of ways, including the Unified Payment Interface (UPI). Recently, the NPCI announced that UPI is being offered by more than 50 banks across the country. Till 14 October 2017, there is a Rs 495 crore referral scheme ongoing for using the BHIM app. After a new user executes at least three transactions through the app totaling a minimum of Rs 50, the referrer gets paid Rs 10, while the referee gets paid Rs 25.
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By Nandavarapu Kiran

The WannaCry ransomware struck in May 2017, to once again remind countries of the importance of Cyber Security. First identified in UK, it later spread to Russia, Ukraine, India, Taiwan, Tajkistan, Khazakhstan, Luxembourg, China, Romania etc., to about 150 countries that have faced the severity of the attack. Being highly destructive and infectious, it has affected more than 10,000 organizations and 2,00,000 individuals worldwide. India has been one of the worst victims of this cyberattack, being the third largest country to be affected, and about 48,000 computers being hacked. West Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat, NCR (Delhi) and Odisha were the top five states with the maximum number of detections. It has been found by cyber security experts that only those computers running Microsoft Windows, which have installed neither the security patch that the company released in March 2017, nor the emergency patch it released for older Windows systems in May 2017, have been affected.

To accommodate the growing needs of globalization, digitization has become inevitable. Especially with regard to a workforce that is scattered and disconnected, the rise in the number of devices (BYOD), has in fact made life easier, through greater accessibility, collaboration, engagement and productivity. This is slowly progressing, to make the devices feel connected, dependable, complex and vulnerable as well. Unconsciously an alarming threat has crept in, and this is undoubtedly going to increase. While we embrace fast paced innovation, and digitization, sustainability has to be kept as top priority. Only by being proactive, aware, and communicating a culture of being ethical in handling devices, can an organization remain protected.

Globally, the US, China, Germany and Britain are the countries typically prone to cyber-attacks, including the most recent ones on Walmart, Sony, Yahoo etc. However, over the recent couple of years, India has been emerging as an attractive destination for malicious activities too. It has never been targeted, or exposed to attacks before, as much as it is being now. This is mainly because of the growing digitization, resulting in India facing higher visibility, thus increasing the chances of attacks. The attack at Zomato, ICTC Hack, and Bangladesh bank hack, are some of the attacks, which recently made headlines in the sub-continent. The maximum risk prone countries such as the US, have already begun exploring the reasons behind the attack and taking measures to resolve the issue. It is now Indias turn, which has now begun experiencing the criticality, and the necessity to think seriously about the problem and a solution to minimize the impact.

On further analysis of the attack in India, the incident has revealed that a majority of those affected are government bodies, a few notable ones being Andhra Pradesh police, the computers at panchayat offices of Keralas Wayanad and Pathanamthitta districts, West Bengal Electricity Distribution Company, Gujarat governments WAN, Southern Railway Divisional Office in Keralas Palakkad district, and Tirumala Tirupati Devastanam (TTD). This clearly reveals the tendency of the victims to ignore, and of being careless with regard to cyber security and its implications. While on the one hand, the Government emphasizes on digitization, cashless economy, smart cities etc., on the other, the most important security aspect of it is being overlooked. The incident has also exposed the vulnerability of India to such types of attacks, and has additionally brought out in the open, the numerous pirated software and outdated licenses present in the market.

One major reason behind the occurrence of these attacks is that, most of the companies are still not very serious about the allocation of a substantial security budget. Businesses are more concerned about aspects related to revenue generation and business expansion. The overall spending on cyber security is quite low, an average of about 5.6% of the overall IT budget. This leads to a security department being formed for the sake of existence, with several loopholes. And hence, when an attack strikes, or such a need arises, companies only think of a temporary solution to resolve it internally. This has exactly been the case with the WannaCry attack as well.

Furthermore, reporting of a cyber-breach has not become mandatory for a corporate firm, which tries to conceal it fearing damage to their reputation and image. This entire mindset has to undergo a radical change, and a serious realization has to set in. Cyber Security awareness has to be thought of, endorsed and addressed with equal priority, as that of any other business division. A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), with a solid cyber security team should be made mandatory in every organization, driving the entire process and establishing it as significant component of every stakeholder in every company.

It is unfortunate that organizations dont make it stringent to follow even the minimal security measures or practices those are required. It is high time that every company realizes the importance of cyber security and starts to Act, instead of React after every adverse occurrence. It becomes very essential to get at least their first line of defense in order, such as, installation of Anti-Virus with firewalls in every system, efficient Data backup system, Authentication, proper encryption at the user end, and creation of specific access controls. Once this preliminary set up is in place, there has to be diligent maintenance of up to date versions of all software, operating systems and antivirus packages. Regular maintenance of security patches has to be strictly ensured as well, and any data that is accessible through the public domain has to be doubly secure, and ensured that it is not compromised.

In the case of small and medium businesses, managing the resources, cost and time, can be quite challenging. Cloud computing technologies can be the best alternative to handle in this situation. In addition to efficient resource utilization, Cloud also helps in saving maintenance, management and monitoring costs, as the responsibility lies with the service provider. The data also becomes more secure as it is maintained in a separate network, outside of the office network, which can be easily disconnected in case of any attack. Periodical reviews, audits and awareness, can guarantee a safe and defensive organization.

Cyber Security attacks in the form of ransomware, malware, phishing, etc., are definitely nothing new. Hackers keep on trying to find an opportunity from within the smallest loophole existing in the system. Several Threat intelligent systems are still nascent and are still emerging to defend and help organizations safeguard their data and resources. Deception and Diversion tools and technologies is another innovative weapon that is emerging to counter the attack from hackers. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 10 percent of enterprises will use deception tools and tactics, and will actively participate in deception/diversion ions against attackers. Cyber situational awareness and Cyber-crime training can be periodically fed into the minds of the all the stakeholders across businesses. India may still have a long way to go before it catches up with the advanced countries in terms of the volume of data generated, but it has already begun to emerge as a threat prone market. Hence it is essential to address the issue at this stage, as an early and combined effort of both the public and private sector could help save the situation, before things get totally out of hand.

The author is the Director of Hi-Tech Practice at Blueocean Market Intelligence
PTI

Billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla has blamed rival Reliance Jio for causing "unprecedented disruption" in the telecom industry by offering free voice and data but hoped the sector would return to growth in 2017-18.

Without naming Jio, Birla in a letter to shareholders of Idea Cellular said flourishing telecom industry witnessed a 2 per cent decline in annual revenues in 2016-17 fiscal. The industry honcho's commentary in the latest annual report of Idea Cellular comes at a time when the telecom industry is facing a squeeze on revenue and profitability on account of competition intensified by the entry of Reliance Jio, which is owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani.

"It has been a 'Period of Telecom Discontinuity', permanently changing mobility business parameters," Birla said adding that financial parameters for all mobile operators have sharply declined. However, Birla said that the recovery is expected in 2017-18 with the new entrant starting to charge for its services, "albeit very slowly".

In spite of short-term challenges, the Aditya Birla Group telecom company remains committed to the process of building world-class broadband services, Birla asserted. On the mega-merger of Vodafone's India unit with Idea, he said a joint merger notification has been filed with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Scheme of Arrangement has been filed with SEBI and stock exchanges for their approvals.

The two companies will combine their operations in India (excluding Vodafones 42 per cent stake in Indus Towers) to create Indias largest telecom operator. "The combined company would become the leading communication provider in India with about 400 million customers, 35 percent customer market share and 41 percent Revenue Market Share...," he said in Chairman's letter to shareholders.

Birla exuded confidence that Idea will capitalise on the emerging opportunities in mobile voice, digital content, mobile banking and wireless data business as telecom market invariably moves towards consolidation with five major providers.

(Disclosure: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)
tech2 News Staff

Xiaomi has announced that it has become the world's largest wearable company. The claim comes from Xiaomi India VP and Managing Director, Manu Kumar Jain who tweeted about the milestone and mentioning that Xiaomi has topped the wearable category in the first quarter of 2017.

Jain write, "Xiaomi overtakes Apple, Fitbit to become #1 wearable device company in the world." The company has overtaken wearable companies including Apple, Fitbit, Samsung and Garmin. Xiaomi has also shared some stats indicating that Xiaomi sold 3.6 million volume units occupying a market share of 14.7 percent. Xiaomi was rather close as it beat Apple by a small margin. Apple also managed to sell 3.6 million in volume but had a market share of 14.6 percent.

https://twitter.com/manukumarjain/status/872682921550692352

This is followed by Fitbit in third spot which is surprising as the company's core business is making wearable devices. In the first quarter of of 2017 Fitbit sold 3 million units with a market share of 12.3 per cent. Right after Fitbit is Samsung with 1.4 million and market share of 5.5 percent. Fifth position was taken up by Garmin having a shipment volume of 1.1 million and market share of 4.6 percent.

Xiaomi has managed to hit big numbers thanks to its latest Mi Band 2 fitness band which is being sold at Rs 1,999 on multiple online retailers and the company's own online Mi Store. The Chinese company recently opened its first official offline store called Mi Home in Bengaluru and is expected to open more stores in the near future.
NAIROBI - Kenya is set to host the third edition of China Week Kenya from June 29 to July 1, organizers said on Tuesday.

MIE Events International Events Director Michelle Meyrick told a media briefing in Nairobi that the three-day event will be a business to business trade show featuring Chinese manufacturing companies looking to connect with local and regional firms in Africa.

"It will be an opportunity for the local community to develop direct trading links with high-end Chinese product manufacturers," Meyrick said.

She noted that the event will provide a trade environment that will be conducive to creating stronger ties between Chinese companies and the local business community looking to source for products and services from China.

According to the organizers, there will be 450 exhibitors from a range of industries including building construction, lighting, consumer electronics, auto parts, furniture, textiles, stationary and jewelry.

In 2016, the event brought together 400 exhibitors and over 16,500 visitors. Similar events will also be held in Ghana, South Africa, and Ethiopia.

Meyrick said that the exhibition is the only comprehensive China-focused trade event to be hosted in East Africa.

MIE Events Managing Director David Wang said that Kenya is the most developed economy in Eastern Africa and also the economic, commercial and logistic hub of the entire region.

"Sino-Kenya cooperation in various fields has gained momentum over the years, and it is the very reason why we are holding the China Trade Week in Nairobi for the third time," Wang said.

He noted that the exhibition will provide an opportunity for Kenyan entrepreneurs to grow strong business partnerships with Chinese companies and also benefit from the industrial capacity and wealth of knowledge from China.
After calls from United States Senators to move South by Southwest (SXSW) out of Austin due to Texas new sanctuary cities law, SB 4, which punishes cities and officials for failing to work with federal immigration authorities and allows officers to inquire into someones immigration status, SXSWs founder, Roland Swenson, said the convention is staying put.

Austin is our home and an integral part of who we are, Swenson said in response to a call from two U.S. senators for the festival to move. We stand by the City of Austin in their challenge against SB4 and will continue to speak out against it, and all discriminatory legislation.

Critics say Texas could lose millions in money from conventions that boycott the state for violating civil liberties. Arizona lost hundreds of millions of dollars from a similar law, and North Carolina lost close to $4 billion for its anti-transgender bathroom bill.

SXSW is one of the biggest conventions in the United States, and losing it would be a massive blow to Austin. However, SXSW identifies more with the heavily liberal, anti-SB4 City of Austin than it does with Texas. That dynamic may be what keeps SXSW from leaving. Other conventions could be different. Austin is suing the state over the law.

Austin mayor Steve Adler, who is opposed to SB4, predictably doesnt think SXSW should leave the city.

Austin Mayor Steve Adler said in a statement asking SXSW to leave Austin is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard. There are few greater expressions of Austins spirit and soul than SXSW, he wrote. In Austin, we welcome refugees, immigrants, people of all persuasions, religions, ethnicities, and orientations  even Senators from New Jersey and Nevada. There is no greater way to protest what is happening in Texas than to be yourself in Austin. Do not call on SXSW to leave Austin.

SB4 faces significant legal and institutional challenges. Many law enforcement officials are against the law, because it makes immigrant communities less likely to work with them in solving crimes. A federal court in Illinois has also found that law enforcement cannot hold people on administrative Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers, which is what this law forces them to do. This is why many jurisdictions in heavily Trump-supporting areas are often considered sanctuary jurisdictionsthey dont want to get sued (like Texas is).

Its unclear whether SXSW will provide any material aid to those suing the state over SB4, or whether it will just provide statements and emotional support opposing the law.
Nobel Lecture of Bob Dylan

Weekend Plus Desk :

When I first received this Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature. I wanted to reflect on it and see where the connection was. I'm going to try to articulate that to you. And most likely it will go in a roundabout way, but I hope what I say will be worthwhile and purposeful.

If I was to go back to the dawning of it all, I guess I'd have to start with Buddy Holly. Buddy died when I was about eighteen and he was twenty-two. From the moment I first heard him, I felt akin. I felt related, like he was an older brother. I even thought I resembled him. Buddy played the music that I loved - the music I grew up on: country western, rock 'n' roll, and rhythm and blues. Three separate strands of music that he intertwined and infused into one genre. One brand. And Buddy wrote songs - songs that had beautiful melodies and imaginative verses. And he sang great - sang in more than a few voices. He was the archetype. Everything I wasn't and wanted to be. I saw him only but once, and that was a few days before he was gone. I had to travel a hundred miles to get to see him play, and I wasn't disappointed.

He was powerful and electrifying and had a commanding presence. I was only six feet away. He was mesmerizing. I watched his face, his hands, the way he tapped his foot, his big black glasses, the eyes behind the glasses, the way he held his guitar, the way he stood, his neat suit. Everything about him. He looked older than twenty-two. Something about him seemed permanent, and he filled me with conviction. Then, out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened. He looked me right straight dead in the eye, and he transmitted something. Something I didn't know what. And it gave me the chills.

I think it was a day or two after that that his plane went down. And somebody - somebody I'd never seen before - handed me a Leadbelly record with the song "Cottonfields" on it. And that record changed my life right then and there. Transported me into a world I'd never known. It was like an explosion went off. Like I'd been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me. I must have played that record a hundred times.

It was on a label I'd never heard of with a booklet inside with advertisements for other artists on the label: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, the New Lost City Ramblers, Jean Ritchie, string bands. I'd never heard of any of them. But I reckoned if they were on this label with Leadbelly, they had to be good, so I needed to hear them. I wanted to know all about it and play that kind of music. I still had a feeling for the music I'd grown up with, but for right now, I forgot about it. Didn't even think about it. For the time being, it was long gone.

I hadn't left home yet, but I couldn't wait to. I wanted to learn this music and meet the people who played it. Eventually, I did leave, and I did learn to play those songs. They were different than the radio songs that I'd been listening to all along. They were more vibrant and truthful to life. With radio songs, a performer might get a hit with a roll of the dice or a fall of the cards, but that didn't matter in the folk world. Everything was a hit. All you had to do was be well versed and be able to play the melody. Some of these songs were easy, some not. I had a natural feeling for the ancient ballads and country blues, but everything else I had to learn from scratch. I was playing for small crowds, sometimes no more than four or five people in a room or on a street corner. You had to have a wide repertoire, and you had to know what to play and when. Some songs were intimate, some you had to shout to be heard.

By listening to all the early folk artists and singing the songs yourself, you pick up the vernacular. You internalize it. You sing it in the ragtime blues, work songs, Georgia sea shanties, Appalachian ballads and cowboy songs. You hear all the finer points, and you learn the details.

You know what it's all about. Takin' the pistol out and puttin' it back in your pocket. Whippin' your way through traffic, talkin' in the dark. You know that Stagger Lee was a bad man and that Frankie was a good girl. You know that Washington is a bourgeois town and you've heard the deep-pitched voice of John the Revelator and you saw the Titanic sink in a boggy creek. And you're pals with the wild Irish rover and the wild colonial boy. You heard the muffled drums and the fifes that played lowly. You've seen the lusty Lord Donald stick a knife in his wife, and a lot of your comrades have been wrapped in white linen.

I had all the vernacular all down. I knew the rhetoric. None of it went over my head - the devices, the techniques, the secrets, the mysteries - and I knew all the deserted roads that it traveled on, too. I could make it all connect and move with the current of the day. When I started writing my own songs, the folk lingo was the only vocabulary that I knew, and I used it.

But I had something else as well. I had principals and sensibilities and an informed view of the world. And I had had that for a while. Learned it all in grammar school. Don Quixote, Ivanhoe, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Tale of Two Cities, all the rest - typical grammar school reading that gave you a way of looking at life, an understanding of human nature, and a standard to measure things by. I took all that with me when I started composing lyrics. And the themes from those books worked their way into many of my songs, either knowingly or unintentionally. I wanted to write songs unlike anything anybody ever heard, and these themes were fundamental.

Specific books that have stuck with me ever since I read them way back in grammar school - I want to tell you about three of them: Moby Dick, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Odyssey.

Moby Dick is a fascinating book, a book that's filled with scenes of high drama and dramatic dialogue. The book makes demands on you. The plot is straightforward. The mysterious Captain Ahab - captain of a ship called the Pequod - an egomaniac with a peg leg pursuing his nemesis, the great white whale Moby Dick who took his leg. And he pursues him all the way from the Atlantic around the tip of Africa and into the Indian Ocean. He pursues the whale around both sides of the earth. It's an abstract goal, nothing concrete or definite. He calls Moby the emperor, sees him as the embodiment of evil. Ahab's got a wife and child back in Nantucket that he reminisces about now and again. You can anticipate what will happen.

The ship's crew is made up of men of different races, and any one of them who sights the whale will be given the reward of a gold coin. A lot of Zodiac symbols, religious allegory, stereotypes. Ahab encounters other whaling vessels, presses the captains for details about Moby. Have they seen him? There's a crazy prophet, Gabriel, on one of the vessels, and he predicts Ahab's doom. Says Moby is the incarnate of a Shaker god, and that any dealings with him will lead to disaster. He says that to Captain Ahab. Another ship's captain - Captain Boomer - he lost an arm to Moby. But he tolerates that, and he's happy to have survived. He can't accept Ahab's lust for vengeance.

This book tells how different men react in different ways to the same experience. A lot of Old Testament, biblical allegory: Gabriel, Rachel, Jeroboam, Bildah, Elijah. Pagan names as well: Tashtego, Flask, Daggoo, Fleece, Starbuck, Stubb, Martha's Vineyard. The Pagans are idol worshippers. Some worship little wax figures, some wooden figures. Some worship fire. The Pequod is the name of an Indian tribe.

Moby Dick is a seafaring tale. One of the men, the narrator, says, "Call me Ishmael." Somebody asks him where he's from, and he says, "It's not down on any map. True places never are." Stubb gives no significance to anything, says everything is predestined. Ishmael's been on a sailing ship his entire life. Calls the sailing ships his Harvard and Yale. He keeps his distance from people.

A typhoon hits the Pequod. Captain Ahab thinks it's a good omen. Starbuck thinks it's a bad omen, considers killing Ahab. As soon as the storm ends, a crewmember falls from the ship's mast and drowns, foreshadowing what's to come. A Quaker pacifist priest, who is actually a bloodthirsty businessman, tells Flask, "Some men who receive injuries are led to God, others are led to bitterness."

Everything is mixed in. All the myths: the Judeo Christian bible, Hindu myths, British legends, Saint George, Perseus, Hercules - they're all whalers. Greek mythology, the gory business of cutting up a whale. Lots of facts in this book, geographical knowledge, whale oil - good for coronation of royalty - noble families in the whaling industry. Whale oil is used to anoint the kings. History of the whale, phrenology, classical philosophy, pseudo-scientific theories, justification for discrimination - everything thrown in and none of it hardly rational. Highbrow, lowbrow, chasing illusion, chasing death, the great white whale, white as polar bear, white as a white man, the emperor, the nemesis, the embodiment of evil. The demented captain who actually lost his leg years ago trying to attack Moby with a knife.

We see only the surface of things. We can interpret what lies below any way we see fit. Crewmen walk around on deck listening for mermaids, and sharks and vultures follow the ship. Reading skulls and faces like you read a book. Here's a face. I'll put it in front of you. Read it if you can.

Tashtego says that he died and was reborn. His extra days are a gift. He wasn't saved by Christ, though, he says he was saved by a fellow man and a non-Christian at that. He parodies the resurrection.

When Starbuck tells Ahab that he should let bygones be bygones, the angry captain snaps back, "Speak not to me of blasphemy, man, I'd strike the sun if it insulted me." Ahab, too, is a poet of eloquence. He says, "The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails whereon my soul is grooved to run." Or these lines, "All visible objects are but pasteboard masks." Quotable poetic phrases that can't be beat.

Finally, Ahab spots Moby, and the harpoons come out. Boats are lowered. Ahab's harpoon has been baptized in blood. Moby attacks Ahab's boat and destroys it. Next day, he sights Moby again. Boats are lowered again. Moby attacks Ahab's boat again. On the third day, another boat goes in. More religious allegory. He has risen. Moby attacks one more time, ramming the Pequod and sinking it. Ahab gets tangled up in the harpoon lines and is thrown out of his boat into a watery grave.

Ishmael survives. He's in the sea floating on a coffin. And that's about it. That's the whole story. That theme and all that it implies would work its way into more than a few of my songs.

All Quiet on the Western Front was another book that did. All Quiet on the Western Front is a horror story. This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. You're stuck in a nightmare. Sucked up into a mysterious whirlpool of death and pain. You're defending yourself from elimination. You're being wiped off the face of the map. Once upon a time you were an innocent youth with big dreams about being a concert pianist. Once you loved life and the world, and now you're shooting it to pieces.

Day after day, the hornets bite you and worms lap your blood. You're a cornered animal. You don't fit anywhere. The falling rain is monotonous. There's endless assaults, poison gas, nerve gas, morphine, burning streams of gasoline, scavenging and scabbing for food, influenza, typhus, dysentery. Life is breaking down all around you, and the shells are whistling. This is the lower region of hell. Mud, barbed wire, rat-filled trenches, rats eating the intestines of dead men, trenches filled with filth and excrement. Someone shouts, "Hey, you there. Stand and fight."


Solar Salon and other going on

Monica Jahan Bose :

The Peoples Climate March

in Washington, DC was incredibly beautiful. The mall was absolutely packed with a sea of people, and Storytelling with Saris joined the Climate Museum in an art action with saris from Bangladesh and the USA.

We have been working hard on grants for the future feature-length film RISING UP TO CLIMATE CHANGE:

STORYTELLING WITH SARIS.

The talented all-woman film crew includes Leena Jayaswal, Shefali Akhter Shetu, Nandita Ahmed, and Kimberley Williams. Executive producers include the incredible Preema Nazia Andaleeb; and our intern Juliet Hutchings has been invaluable. We are looking for foundation and corporate funding to get this off

the ground, so please send us any

suggestions. An event is planned this winter in Bangladesh.

I am thrilled to be collaborating with Hawai'ian artists on my project RECLAIM for the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Centers AE KAI culture lab on convergence, taking place in Honolulu on July 7 to 9. I am

collaborating with fabric designer and Hawai'ian language activist Hina Kneubuhl, as well as with cartoonist and artist Sloane Leong. We have found many common threads in the struggles of Hawai'i and Bangladesh. RECLAIM will include an installation, a climate and language lab, and a beach performance.

In the next few months, I am

presenting a workshop on gender and climate for the Sierra Clubs Youth Activist Weekend in Washington, DC as well as a series of empowerment

workshops for women of Calgary Womens Services, a shelter in Anacostia DC. Save the date September 1, 2017

for a performance on the banks

of the Anacostia River.

I am planning a film screening and performance called Deux Degres

in Paris in September/October as part of a Sister Cities grant from Washington, D C's Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Paris friends, please email me ASAP with ideas for venues and

communities to work with! I am so excited to see you soon. n

(Monica Jahan Bose writes from USA)


When is it and all you need to know about it

Muslims across the world mark end of Ramzan by celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr

Sheikh Arif Bulbon :

Every year millions of Muslim across the globe fast from dawn to dusk during Ramzan, the ninth month in the Muslim calendar. It is considered as the holiest month and this year it started from first hour night of May 28 and it is expected to end on June 26.

The objective of the fast is to remind the suffering of the less fortunate people and to bring the followers closer to Allah. As mentioned in the holy book, Quran, Muslims, during this month, are supposed to donate alms to the poor and feed the hungry.

The fast begins at dawn and must continue till dusk. In the interim eating or drinking anything is strictly prohibited. Muslims celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr, one of their most important festivals, to mark the end of Ramzan.

Ramzan is a time to detach from worldly pleasures and focus on ones prayers.

During this month, Muslims spend more time at the mosque than at any other time of the year. Fasting during Ramzan is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with the Muslim declaration of faith, daily prayer, charity, and performing the hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. The month of Ramzan is a self-exercise in restraint. Apart from offering namaz five times every day, Muslims are also expected to recite the Quran before breaking their fast. To prepare for the fast, Muslims eat what is commonly called sehri, a pre-dawn meal.

The reason for fasting and ways to break it

Muslims believe that the Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed (Sm) during Ramzan, the ninth month of Islamic calendar. To break the fast, a large, sumptuous feast known as iftar is prepared. It includes an array of different fruits, fries and other delicacies which are shared among the members of the family. Needless to say, it is a highly anticipated event, and preparations for it begin from the afternoon itself.

Across the Arab world, juices made from apricots are a staple at Ramzan iftars. In South Asia and Turkey, yogurt-based drinks are popular. Across the Muslim world, mosques and aid organisations set up tents and tables for the public to eat free iftar meals every night of Ramzan.

Though the Quran harps on the need to fast during the holy month of Ramzan, it also has room for some exceptions. Children, pregnant women, elderly and unwell people and girls who are menstruating are allowed not too fast.

Different traditions during Ramzan

Muslims during Ramzan generally greet each other saying, Ramzan Mubarak! and Sunni Muslims go to the mosque at night to offer prayers, the practice is known as taraweeh. In Egypt, lantern called fanoos, which is often placed at the centre of the iftar table, can sometimes be seen hanging in window shops and balconies during Ramzan. In the Gulf countries, wealthy sheikhs hold majlises where they open their doors for people to pass by all hours of the night for food, tea, coffee and conversation. Several restaurants also keep their doors open till the wee hours in the morning, and offer lavish meals.

How does it end?

The end of Ramzan is marked by intense prayers as Muslims seek to have their prayers answered during Laylat al-Qadr or the Night of Destiny. It is on this night, which falls during one of the last 10 nights of Ramzan, that Muslims believe Allah sent the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad (Sm) and revealed the first versus of the Quran.

The end of the month is celebrated with grandeur and celebrations. Children wear new clothes, and people visit their friends and relatives, and together celebrate the holy festival - Eid-ul-Fitr.


KESHABPUR(Jessore): Upazila Administration, Keshabpur arranged a view exchange meeting with local journalists and Iftar Mahfil at Upazila Parishad Hall Room on Wednesday.
Human traffickers misleading our youths

THE global refugee crisis enters its fourth year but the demography of migrants reaching the European shores from Libya had already witnessed unprecedented shift from predominantly Syrians refugees to Bangladeshi nationals along with Afghans, Iraqis, Eritreans and people from Sub-Saharan countries. Moreover news about tragic death of migrants in the Mediterranean is shocking the world everyday but there is hardly any remedial measures at work - be it short-term or long term basis. War and violence continue in most regional countries and so exodus of migrants also continues.

But why Bangladesh can come to the forefront is the big question. Earlier Business Syndicates ran illegal human trade to Malaysia through Thailand. New stories about Bangladeshi nationals crowding in the Libyan coast show that human traffickers are misleading our youths now to the West. Invariably we must say when our leaders regularly tell about big development stories the ground reality is that we are both losing our hard earned capital in large scale capital flight and also our young people who could be used in local mills and factories productively to create jobs and their precious life. Our youths would not have fallen to human traffickers to lose everything if our leaderships were capable to run the country and develop the economy.

News reports galore often that Bangladeshi nationals in Libya were being held in bondage and families in Bangladesh were paying the ransom to free the boy to move onward to Italy. Many reach the Italian coast while many others drown in the sea.

According to media reports, the number of illegal migrants from Bangladesh to Europe has tremendously increased over the recent months. When there was just one in three months in the first quarter of last year, it rose to 2,800 during the first three months of 2017 making the country the largest single origin of migrants towards Europe. They are reportedly paying more than $10,000 (7,750) each to be taken from Dhaka to Libya via Dubai or Turkey to the sailing point across the sea.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the route has dramatically changed the demographics of asylum-seekers to Europe. "The thing that's really changing is the nationality of the migrants, and the number coming from Bangladesh," IOM's representative told the London based The Independent.

We must say the traffickers in Bangladesh are not unknown to immigration officials, law enforcers as well as to political leaders and yet why they are failing to stop them is the big question. They are endangering their lives in addition to bringing bad name to the nation. The government must find out the 'agencies' running such human trafficking, the slave trade must immediately stop.


Drug addicts rising alarmingly

Md Joynal Abedin Khan :

As drug addiction is rising countrywide alarmingly, a study on the number of addicts started Wednesday in the capital and elsewhere under the auspices of the Department of Narcotics Control (DNC) with a view to taking proper measures to address the menace.

The government is attempting to make a list of drug addicts in Bangladesh for the first time, said Md Khorshed Alam, the DNC's assistant director (media).

IRG Development Service Limited will conduct the study, 'Baseline Study on Drug Addiction in Bangladesh', he said, declining to elaborate.

The study will be conducted in three phases. After conducting the first phase of study, 125 drug addicts will be rehabilitated in the country's 25 rehabilitation centres.

The second and third phases of survey will start next year, which are to ascertain the sources of drugs and the number of drug users.

A high official of the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) said some 9, 220 drug addicts are undergoing treatment at 145 drug rehabilitation centres.

According to a recent survey of an ICCDR,B journal, the number of drug addicts stood at around 80 lakh.

Of them, 13 per cent are females and the rest 87 per cent are males. Most of these drug addicts are lower and middle class people between ages from 18 and 25.

These drug addicts spend around Tk 70 crore every day, said experts and social scientists.

The drug addicts are committing various crimes like murder, rape, hijacking, robberies, smuggling, child trafficking and prostitution for collecting money, they said.

Children of poor and rich economic backgrounds are falling prey to this curse because of the apathy of the families concerned.

Some 5 lakh new drug addicts are being added every year. The number is increasing. Among the total drug addicts, 41 percent are unemployed and 14 percent students. That means some 55 percent are dependent on others for money. They are somehow collecting money for purchasing drugs. Some 50,000 cases are filed over drugs every year. But only 1,000 cases are settled. Thus, the criminals are rising in numbers.

Professor Dr Arup Ratan Chowdhury, President of MANAS and member of National Board of Drug Control, said, " Smoking is the key to addiction. A study shows that smokers constitute 98 percent of drug addicts. Of them, 44 percent commit offences."

Professor Dr Zinat Huda of the Department of Sociology at Dhaka University, said, "Family bondage is a big issue as it prevailed earlier in respect of all families. We had religious values and some instructions from families. Now, parents are not able to spend time for their children. We are running after money, but indifferent to our children."

Dr Farzana Rahman Dina, Assistant Professor of National Institute of Mental Health, said, "I learnt from a female patient that she was involved in prostitution to collect money to take drugs. A patient said she sold her daughter to get money to pay for drugs. Some mothers urged us to kill her son when they brought them (addicted sons) to the hospital as they were being exploited and tortured by their addicted sons."

Afia Sultana Moni, a teacher at a government primary school in Nilphamari said, "Drug use shown on television, films, magazines and public displays can only attract children, if not confuse them, about the serious health hazards that are associated with drug abuse."

A source at Karwan Bazaar slum area said, "Without a nexus with law enforcers it is not possible to run illegal drug business," he said.

Khandakar Rakibur Rahman, former Director General of the Department of Narcotics Control, said, "The drug offenders languishing in jail in the country constitute 30 percent of the total drug prisoners across the globe. The law enforcers are performing their duties to arrest the drug offenders."

"We have to create public awareness to fight the drug abuse effectively. The drug addicts should be treated well. They ought to be integrated into the mainstream society. Their employment is a must," he said.




Edn Ministry may shut 153 colleges

M M Jasim :

As many as 153 educational institutions at higher secondary level will face punitive measures for their poor performance in Class XI admission.

According to the Education Ministry's rule, action will be taken against higher secondary level educational institutions that failed to admit at least 10 students in Class XI. The number of such educational institutions is 153 this year, the ministry sources said.

The ministry will also serve show cause letters on at least 200 more colleges and madrasas as 10 to 20 students have applied to each institution for admission. Usually, the ministry sends show cause letters to the institution whose students' enrolment goes below 20.

Inter Boards' College Inspector Dr Ashfaqus Salehin told The New Nation that the ministry closed 200 higher secondary level educational institutions in 2016 because they failed to fulfil the boards' condition on admission.

"We will take the same action against the unsuccessful institutions this year. But it is impossible to identify the exact number of the colleges before July 1," the inspector said.

An official of the Education Ministry wishing anonymity told this correspondent that the ministry asked the education boards to make a list of the institutions with poor performance.

"The Education Minister is rigid in this regard. He also rejected all the recommendations of the influential persons for refraining from taking action against the 200 educational institutions last year. He will not tolerate any irregularities this year, too," he said.

Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Dhaka, sources said no student applied to 10 educational institutions out of 153. The names of the institutions are Nowabganj

Dakhil Madrasah, Kocaria School and College, Khondoker Abu Sayeed Adarsha Science College, Munshir Taluk Girls Alim Madrasa, Mahmudpur Rasulpur Hamiudia Alim Madrasah and Adiabad Islamia High School and College.

An official of the Dhaka Education Board said some politicians established many educational institutions across the country. In Dhaka the number of such institutions is higher than these in other towns. They forced the students after passing Secondary Certificate Examination to admit at politically influential institutions. But the online admission system hampers their initiative and they are failing to collect students every year.


Thugs forced us to quit homes during BNP regime

FFs Khaled Mosharraf, Altaf Mahmud's daughters allege

Special Correspondent :

Valiant freedom fighter and Commander of 'K' force in Liberation War Khaled Mosharraf's daughter Mahjabeen Khaled, MP on Thursday said that they were forcibly evicted from their house during the BNP regime.

She made this allegation yesterday on a point of order in the Jatiya Sangsad while expressing her reaction over Wednesday's eviction drive of RAJUK at BNP leader Moudud Ahmed's Gulshan house in line with the apex court order.

"My father General Khaled Mosharraf was an army officer and also freedom fighter. Whereas Khaleda Zia took vindictive steps one after another to evict our family from the house, which was given to my mother by the government for the glorious contribution of my father in the Liberation War," Mahjabeen Khaled said.

She continued, "Khaleda Zia's nephew along with a gang of hired thugs came to our house riding a microbus in 2005 and threatened my mother

to evict the house. At one stage, they forcibly evicted us from the house. There was no court order and there was no government or bureaucratic tangle. They took hold of our house by applying force."

"After Moudud's eviction Khaleda Zia had played a drama in front of Moudud's house. But the countrymen understand the drama Justice has done by the almightily Khaleda Zia and Moudud Ahmed have to leave their houses. Moudud Ahmed can't agree with the court order, though he, is a lawyer,!" the lawmaker said terming it the consequences of one's misdeeds.

Interestingly, after his defeat in the legal battle Moudud Ahmed on Wednesday told the media that he would lie down on the footpath as he apparently nothing to do.

Reacting to Moudud's eviction, martyred freedom fighter Shaheed Altaf Mahmud's daughter Shaon Mahmud on Thursday posted a status on the social media network Facebook accusing Moudud Ahmed for forcibly evicting their family from their house in 1982.

In the heartbreaking post Shaon Mahmud said, "After the independence, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had allotted some houses to the shaheed families in exchange of 'token money'. Our residence was situated at No. 1 Malibagh in Dhaka. We were forcibly evicted from the house in one day of February in 1982."

"Sitting on a suitcase under a flame tree, I was observing the police brutality on the day. They were throwing out my father's bag from the second floor. My father's LP records were smashed. They also damaged the musical instruments, including harmonium of the music school on the ground floor. We had even no idea where to stay in the night."

Meanwhile, criticising the government for evicting Moudud Ahmed, BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia on Wednesday said people will one day evict ruling party men from their houses the same way.

"Moudud Ahmed was driven out to the street from the house he had been residing for over 30 years. I was also removed with one cloth from the house I had lived for 40 years," she said.

But rejecting BNP chief's statement, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader on Thursday said BNP leader Moudud Ahmed was compelled to leave his house as per order given by country's apex court; there was no role of the government.

"Zia and Moudud had been staying in their houses illegally. The departments concerned took step after getting the court order. There is no relation with the government," he said.

"BNP after coming power in 2001 cancelled Sheikh Hasina's Ganobhaban residence and Sheikh Rehena's Dhanmondi residence issuing executive orders. But they [Khaleda, Moudud] were evicted from their houses in accordance with the court order," Obaidul Quader, also General Secretary of Awami League, said.


Fitra fixed at Tk 65

UNB, Dhaka :

Fitra has been fixed at minimum Tk 65 per head this year. The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Fitra Fixing Committee of Islamic Foundation held at conference room of the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque on Thursday morning.

Senior Pesh Imam of Baitul Mukarram National Mosque, Moulana Mohammad Mizanur Rahman presided over the meeting. Per person Fitra has been fixed at minimum Tk 65 and maximum Tk 1,980 this year taking into account the market prices of ata, dates and other essential items, said a press release of Islamic Foundation.

Fitra can be given in cash or kind. Members of the National Fitra Fixing Committee Mozaharul Mannan, Dr Muhammad Abdus

Salam, Mufti Mohammad Abdullah, Prof. Sirajuddin Ahmed, Mufassir Dr. Mohammad Abu Saleh Patwari, Mufti Mohammad Mahmudul Hasan were, among others, attended the meeting.


Trump`s reaction to deadly attacks is `repugnant`: Iran

Al Jazeera News/ AFP :

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called US President Donald Trump's reaction to deadly attacks in Tehran "repugnant", as intelligence officials said that the five attackers were Iranians who had fought for ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini - leader of the 1979 revolution - in the capital, Tehran.

"Repugnant [White House] statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

He was responding to a statement released by Trump's press secretary's office, which took the opportunity of an attack to make a point that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote".

The White House statement, which mentioned how Iranian people were "going through such challenging times", came as the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, partly for what the bill described as Iran's "support for acts of international terrorism".

What kind of "terrorism" these statements refer to remains vague. Trump has long accused Iran of backing "terrorism" and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between the Iranian government and major western powers.

Trump's comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government's offers of support and candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York.

"Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy," tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst. More than 40 people were also wounded in Wednesday's attacks.

A statement by the intelligence ministry issued on Thursday said that the men who carried out the twin attacks had left Iran to fight for ISIL in the Iraqi city of Mosul, as well as Raqqa, in Syria - the armed group's de facto capital - before returning last summer. It identified the men only by their first names, saying they did not want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The assault marks the first attacks claimed by ISIL in Iran. Iranian security officials counter that it is their regional rival Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, that is responsible for funding and spreading the ideology that most closely resembles ISIL's. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard weighed Saudi Arabia of being behind Wednesday's attacks. "The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack," the Revolutionary Guard said in statement, referring to Saudi Arabia. The statement also said that the "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged".


Attacks in Tehran should be investigated to know for whom and against whom ISIS is working

Editorial Desk :

Barely a week had passed after the much debated US President's visit to the Middle East - and diplomatic and security situation inside the Gulf region seems to have dramatically shifted for the worst. Just after the region had plunged into a serious diplomatic crisis, a group of terrorists had carried out twin-attacks in Iran's parliament building and the Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum. Some twelve people have been reported to have been killed during the onslaught. Moreover, The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed to have carried out the attacks.

The claim, if we take to be true, calls for immediate joint response by all Muslim states against this unanticipated act of terror. It was a despicable act of desperate cruelty.

However, Iran is an Islamic Republic, and despite the country's majority being the followers

of a different school of thought - the country is a major stakeholder in the Islamic world and the oil industry. Therefore, any act of terror carried against the Iranian people also goes against Muslims. It is because of this reason why, a terrorist non-state actor such as the IS should be highly condemned by the Muslim world.

Needs be mentioned, Iran has been at the top of so-called Islamic State's target list for a number of years now, but it is, however, the timing of this attack which now confirms - the so-called Islamic State is also being potentially used to destabilise and spread terror in the Gulf region. Iran, Qatar, and all Middle-Eastern countries should at once come to realise that a severe geopolitical crisis is quick looming over the Gulf and the Middle-East. It is not only a terrorist organisation but in fact, the evil syndicate which has once again become operational to tear apart the cultural and religious unity of the Muslim states in the Middle-East.

Despite appearing to be a more vulnerable target than European countries due to its proximity to territories controlled by the jihadist group - Iran until, last Wednesday, had been able to prevent cross-border terror attacks. Now with Iran coming under attacks, other Gulf countries too have become potential Islamic State targets. And it is right now more than ever, when all Muslim countries should unite and jointly find out the deeper truth behind ISIS and others Islamist terrorist outfits. They are working more against the interests of Muslim and Muslim countries.

Today, IS militants are facing a losing battle in Iraq and are retreating in Syria but even more dangerous is that, a syndicate of major global powers have unfolded a evil strategy to hit and destroy Islam in the name of fighting extremism, militancy and global terrorism.

We stand united with Tehran, Kabul, London, Paris, and all terror-afflicted cities for that matter. It is our firm belief that ISIS and other Islamist outfits are not for helping the cause of Muslims. They are anti-Muslim bodies using mentally problematic young Muslims to make Muslims hated in the Western countries. These bodies are also making Muslim countries target of their acts of terrorism. The truth must be found out by Muslim countries together.


SB16 provides a pathway to possible parole for all juveniles who were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and will allow state prosecutors to continue to pursue life sentences for juveniles charge with first degree murder.

Photo by Andreas Bohnenstenge/Wikimedia

The final piece of the Justice Reinvestment Task Force's legislative package cleared the House on Thursday afternoon but only on its second try.

The conference committee report SB16 initially failed when the measure did not get the needed 53 votes needed for passage. The vote was 46-44.

Pete Adams of the Louisiana District Attorneys' Association and the bill's author Sen. Dan Claitor feverishly worked the House in the wake of the vote to get the matter reconsidered when the House returned from a recess.

The bill came back up at about 2:30 for reconsideration after the House suspended the rules to allow another debate and vote.

Despite a heated debate on the bill, it won approval by a 67-34 margin.

House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice chair Rep. Sherman Mack was a member of the conference committee and he refused to sign the compromise approved by the other five members. His opposition contributed to the failure of the measure to initially win approval.

Rep. Mack took to the floor to say that he opposed the bill on the basis of a pledge he had made to crime victims in his district.

"I told them that I would push for a 30-year limit before any of these people could seek parole," Mack explained. "The members of the conference committee went with 25. I just couldn't sign off on that."

That swayed the House, where even supporters like Magee and Rep. John Stefanski admitted that it was not a popular bill, but one made necessary by U.S. Supreme Court decisions that have declared life sentences for juveniles without the possibility of parole unconstitutional.

Mack made the same arguments when the bill was called up to be reconsidered, but a letter from the LDAA in support of the bill appeared to sway votes in the opposite direction that Mack's appeal had on the bill's first vote.

Rep. Tanner Magee told his colleagues that this was the legislature's second attempt to put state law in line with the Supreme Court's 2012 Miller v. Alabama decision declaring life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. In 2016, the SCOTUS ruled in the case of Montgomery v. Louisiana that the Miller decision applied to those who had already been sentenced to life while they were still juveniles.

As amended by the conference committee, SB16 by Sen. Dan Claitor allows Louisiana prosecutors to continue to seek to impose life sentences for juveniles convicted of first degree murder but provides a pathway toward potential parole. It also makes first degree murder convictions the only instances in which Louisiana prosecutors could have sought life sentences for juvenile offenders. Louisiana law currently allows prosecutors to seek life sentences for juveniles convicted of second degree murder.

The final version of SB16 also allows for all juveniles sentenced to life without the benefit of parole to become eligible for a parole hearing once they've served 25 years. There are approximately 300 such inmates serving time in Department of Corrections facilities.

The state will still likely face litigation over the availability of life sentences for juveniles, according to one of the proponents of the original bill who expressed disappointment in the compromise that won final passage.

Aaron Clark-Rizzio of the Louisiana Center for Children's Rights, in a statement issued on Wednesday after the Senate approved the conference committee report on SB16, said the law will continue to allow sentences that the Supreme Court has condemned.

"For the past five years, Louisiana has failed to comply with the Supreme Court's mandate that almost no child be sentenced to die in prison," Clark-Rizzio said. "This legislation enables the state to stay on its misguided course, which in all likelihood will lead to further litigation and a directive to once again revisit our legislation."

Ironically, the fact that the final version of SB16 does allow life sentences to be available to prosecutors became one of the chief selling points in support of the bill in the final debate on the bill on Thursday afternoon.

Rep. Joe Marino of Gretna, who emerged as a key player in handling Justice Reinvestment Task Force bills in the House, read from a letter distributed by the LDAA which trumpeted prosecutors' ability to continue to seek those sentences in first degree murder cases.

In a phone interview with The Independent on Thursday morning prior to the House vote, Clark-Rizzio said Louisiana prosecutors have mostly ignored the Supreme Court's Miller decision and using the option to pursue life without parole sentences for juvenile offenders convicted for either first or second degree murder.

"What we've seen in the five years since the Supreme Court's 2012 Miller decision," Clark-Rizzio said, "is that prosecutors here seek life sentences for juveniles charged with murder 100 percent of the time and get convictions in 75 percent of those cases. This undercuts the Supreme Court's mandate that these sentences be used rarely."

Clark-Rizzio had predicted more litigation against the state had the conference committee version of SB16 passed.

Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District Attorneys' Association, and the bill's author Sen. Claitor were working the floor of the House during a recess that came shortly after the vote.

"We are working to get the conference committee report reconsidered," Adams told The Independent. "It would be a terrible thing for this bill not to pass."

Ultimately the brief scramble that Adams and Sen. Claitor engaged in just before 2 p.m. succeeded. The bill now heads to Governor Edwards' desk for signature. It is unlikely that the state's issue with the use of life sentences when dealing with juveniles has been resolved.
Written by Eamon Hickey

[Ed. Note: This post responds to the story, published by Sentaku magazine in Japan and repeated by FujiRumors, that the Japanese government had asked Fuji to step in and help rescue ailing Nikon. I had commented on that in the "Around the Web on a Wednesday" roundup. Ed.]

I wish I had seen Mike's post on this story yesterday, so I could have chimed in earlier.

First of all, there is an earlier Sentaku article about Nikon, from the April issue, available in English.

It's a weird article in several ways. I didn't know about Sentaku magazine before this story popped up, but I'm getting the sense that it has a kind of gossipy, sharp-tongued, slyly in-the-know point of view, akin to the old Spy or the early years of the New Yorker. It's intentionally not bylined in order to facilitate that breezy, punchy style. The Japan Times syndicates Sentaku, but it does so under the "Opinion" section, not the news section, of its website. Here's the link.

Wending down a lazy rumor

So here's my guess about what's really going on here: Sentaku may well be picking up on some real behind-the-scenes activity, but have misunderstood it, or perhaps explained it sloppily. My suspicion is that whatever may be going on is about Nikon's semiconductor lithography business unit, not about Nikon as a whole. That unit makes the machines that manufacture computer chipsthey're very much like enlargers in reverse, except that they cost millions of dollars and use lenses that weigh several tons.

Last November, Nikon publicly stated that they have "looked at" selling that unit off, or finding some other solution to its ongoing problems. Instead, as of November, they had decided to drastically scale it back. This is the source of the "extraordinary loss" that Nikon declared earlier this year.

Sentaku's April article talks about South Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese semiconductor companies being interested in Nikon. That is not plausible at all for Nikon's camera businessno chip maker would want that business (which is profitable, by the way). But it makes perfect sense for Nikon's semiconductor lithography group. And Nikon has already said they'd like to sell it. See this article for the semiconductor lithography story.

It's also completely plausible that the Japanese Ministry of Trade et. al. might try to prevent Nikon's lithography business from passing into non-Japanese hands. This is the new part of the story that Sentaku is apparently publishing in its June issue (not online yet). The Ministry of Trade actually directed Nikon to start the lithography business back in 197778, and it has long been considered a key strategic technology. The U.S. government spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the 1990s trying (and failing) to create an American company that could build the machines (called steppers).

Finally, Sentaku's April issue badly mis-characterizes Nikon's current overall financial situation, I think mostly out of a boring-details-don't-matter writing style. Nikon is not in any financial distress. See the Reuters article I cited above for comments from Nikon and from independent analysts on that topic.

Nikon declared a small overall loss this year due entirely to the lithography restructuring costs. It does have a big future growth problem, as well as a big exposure to future camera market risk. But Nikon does not have a current financial problem. Anybody who can read a balance sheet can verify that.

Final thought on the Nikon-Fuji rumor: to the extent that there is a real story here, whatever it is, the mainline business publications will chase it down, for sure. So we can all keep our eye on Nikkei, Bloomberg, Reuters, Japan Times et. al. for more exacting business journalism on this.

A picture I love

As an aside, and speaking of steppers, here's a picture I love. Steppers were invented in the 1970s, at the tail end of the Massachusetts / upstate New York precision technology era that included the invention of the transistor and involved companies like Xerox, IBM, Kodak, et. al. In many ways we owe the modern world to the work that began there.

The Massachusetts company that invented the stepper was called GCA Mann (formally the David W. Mann division of GCA). The 1960s ancestor of the stepper was a machine called the Photo Repeater, which required unbelievably sharp lenses. GCA Mann found those lenses in Japanthey were called Ultra Micro-Nikkors, and came from a company called Nippon Kogaku, K.K. They were designed by the legendary Zenji Wakimoto, one of the great lens designers of the 20th century, who, probably because he is not German, is relatively unknown in the West.

Anyway, here is David Mann with the last and greatest of the Photo Repeaters. This picture, from a product brochure (via chiphistory.org), is so redolent of a kind of swashbuckling, macho engineering gestalt of the 1960s and '70s that it makes me smile every single time I look at it. (The lens in that contraption is almost certainly an Ultra Micro-Nikkor.)

Eamon

Business analyst, former photo-writer, and long-ago Nikon employee Eamon Hickey is a Contributing Editor of TOP.

2017 by Eamon Hickey, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer

(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)

Featured Comments from:

Matt: "This is exactly the type of 'not gear' post that keeps me coming back here day after day. Very educational, and yes, a great photo from the 'swashbuckling' era of engineering. Thanks Eamon."

Bill Tyler: "Actually, although lots of good stuff came from the Massachusetts/upstate New York area, the transistor came from Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. The contributions of the pre-AT&T breakup Bell Labs to the modern era were enormous."

Eamon replies: Yes, in my sloppy way I was thinking of Bell Labs as part of that whole corridor, even though it's in New Jersey. I'm a California boy; the northeast is still all kind of one big lump in my mind.

Carl Blesch adds: "I worked in PR at Bell Labs for many years, and was privileged to lead the media relations campaign on our '50th anniversary of the transistor' commemoration in 1997. I saw detailed and thoughtful coverage of the anniversary, much of it in media based outside the USA. But I saw little coverage in Silicon Valley. I remember one thoughtful piece by Keay Davidson of the San Francisco Examiner, who suggested that Silicon Valley people nod toward the East in remembrance of the development that started their industries. I have a feeling his suggestion fell on deaf ears. Silicon Valley is about looking forward and moving forward. What happened in the past has, well, passed. No need to reflect on it."

KeithB: "Given that Canon is still a stepper powerhouse, would the Japanese care about the Avis?" [Keith means the second-place competitora famous and long-lived ad campaign for Avis car rental admitted it was in second place (at the time) but claimed "We try harder." Ed.]

Eamon replies: Actually, Canon is very much not still a semiconductor stepper powerhouse. It withdrew from the leading-edge stepper market several years ago, the first victims of the ASML onslaught. There is now only one chip stepper powerhouse: ASML. With Nikon leaving the market, ASML has swept the field. Flat-panel display (FPD) steppers are a different story, and Nikon is not leaving that business, which it dominates now (but will not dominate as clearly in the coming two years, according to its own forecasts). Along with cameras, FPD steppers are Nikon's only solidly profitable businesses. (It makes many, many other optical devices, from industrial inspection equipment to microscopes to custom telescopes, but has had a hard time making money on most of them in recent years.)
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Codell Rodriguez Codell Rodriguez is the night editor for The Southern Illinoisan, and he writes a movie column for Scene618. Follow Codell Rodriguez Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

If everyone involved in DC Comics' movie universe hasn't already started writing blank checks to "Wonder Woman" director Patty Jenkins, something's wrong.

Why? Because "Wonder Woman" is now DC's golden child. Because after years of Marvel Studios putting out critical darlings that make sick amounts of money, "Wonder Woman" is likely the first film from their longtime rivals that made them stop lighting their gold-dusted cigars with $100 bills for a few minutes and say, "Uh oh."

Though "Batman V. Superman" and "Suicide Squad" made money, the frosty critical reception still takes a toll. But is "Wonder Woman" really as good as the critics and everyone on social media are saying? I was hoping it would be enjoyable. With DC's track record, I wasn't expecting to see the best comic book movie of the year so far. But unless "Spider-Man: Homecoming" or "Thor: Ragnarok" just blows me away, it's likely going to stay the champ.

The film follows Diana (Gal Gadot), princess of the Amazon island of Themyscira, who travels to the world of men during World War I to find and kill the god Ares, who she is convinced is behind the war. Chris Pine plays spy and love interest Steve Trevor, who promises to guide her to the worst of the war.

Now there's a lot of hubbub about the value of a female director taking on the most iconic female superhero of all time. The move isn't just symbolic. It's practical. Here's what I mean. When men make action movies starring female protagonists, many seem to tackle it from a point of view of, "How do I make the audience believe women can be badasses?" Often, they overcompensate and it feels like they're convincing themselves, as well as the audience.

But when you have someone like Jenkins, who doesn't need to be convinced, she just makes a good superhero movie without ignoring the significance of an Amazon trying to save a world from war while women are fighting just for the right to vote.

And beyond the significance, this is just a fantastic action movie. I would pay money just to re-watch a battle between German soldiers and Amazons on a beach of Themyscira or Wonder Woman's triumphant march across the deadly battlefield of No Man's Land and subsequent rescue of a Belgian village. If you're not chuckling with delight when she starts decimating enemies with her golden lasso, then I don't know what to tell you.

And the crazy thing is, the No Man's Land scene  a superhero-defining moment that shows Wonder Woman's sense of justice and just about every power at her disposal  was almost not in the movie. Jenkins fought for it and got it included.

Wonder Woman just has a great journey throughout this film. Her introduction to early 20th century London and being flabbergasted by society's rules are some of the funnier moments of the film. Especially as she admonishes all the dresses for being unfit for combat. Other times it's funny in a pathetic way, like when she wanders into a war council and the men, offended by the idea of talking war in the presence of a woman, act like someone just lit a match at a gas pump.

But Diana's hero journey is all about finding something in this world worth fighting for. She's ready to be a hero from the get-go, but being surrounded by so much inequality, destruction and death takes its toll. It helps that she has fantastic camaraderie  that can be very sweet at times  with Trevor and his band of specialists. The movie has a very natural flow and by the end, Wonder Woman is in a perfect place for "Justice League" and beyond.

There has been talk about showing the world what a woman can do with a superhero movie, and even I pointed out the value of a woman guiding the journey of a woman action hero. But this never should've been about proving women can make superhero movies. It's silly that women should have to prove they can make any kind of film, but there it is.

As for Jenkins, I'm happy if she decides to helm another "Wonder Woman," but if DC knows talent, they're going to be begging her to take on future "Justice League" movies, just as Marvel turned to the Russo brothers to helm their big team-up efforts after their fantastic Captain America films. Hell, I'd love to see her take on a standalone Superman movie, because the quality Jenkins gave us with Wonder Woman could definitely benefit the Amazon's male colleagues.
A Harrisburg man pleaded guilty Wednesday to three separate felony charges and was sentenced to more than a decade in the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to a news release from Saline County States Attorney General Jayson Clark.

Larry W. Harris Jr., 42, pleaded guilty to a Class 2 felony charge of possession of a weapon  brass knuckles  by a felon, a Class 4 felony charge of driving while driver's license is revoked (with enhanced sentence) and a Class 2 felony charge of unlawful delivery of methamphetamine (which was a violation of probation).

Judge Walden E. Morris sentenced Harris to a total of 12 years in prison, with two years of mandatory supervised release.

The investigation of Harriss cases was led by Officer Brent Davis of the Harrisburg Police Department and Deputy Steve Sloan of the Saline County Sheriffs Offices.

 The Southern
William A. Patton, 38, of Shawneetown, was sentenced Wednesday to a total of 20 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, a news release from the Saline County States Attorney Office said.

Patton pleaded guilty to a Class 2 felony charge of possession of a stolen or converted vehicle, and a Class 2 felony charge of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.

Patton must also serve three years of mandatory supervised release.

The States Attorneys Office filed charges against Patton in October after an incident in which it was alleged that Patton unlawfully possessed a stolen 1999 Chevrolet Corvette.

The States Attorneys Office filed additional charges against Patton n March after he was caught unlawfully possessing a shotgun after a previous conviction of a forcible felony, the release said.

Because Patton had been convicted of multiple, prior felony offenses, he was sentenced as a Class X offender on each charge, the release said.

The investigation of Pattons cases was led by Officer Jerod Gott of Eldorado Police Department and Deputy Chuck Welge of the Saline County Sheriffs Department. Saline County States Attorney Jayson Clark handled the successful prosecution of the cases.

 The Southern
NAIROBI - Kenya Railways said on Wednesday that some 7,000 passengers have so far traveled on the newly launched Madaraka Express between Mombasa and Nairobi, the highest number ever recorded in one week.

Kenya Railways (KR) Managing Director Atanas Maina said the first phase of the Standard Gauge Rail service, which was launched on May 31, is currently operating with scheduled passenger trains from Nairobi and Mombasa running on a daily basis.

"Over the last week we have experienced a daily surge in passenger numbers. The growing numbers demonstrate the vital role Kenya Railways plays in our nation's transportation system; we are definitely off to a strong start," Maina said in a statement issued in Nairobi.

The railway firm also announced that plans are under way to introduce the intercounty trains that will make stops at seven railway stations.

The train is scheduled to start operations by July. KR and the operator CRBC have put together a joint team to address the customer service issues in order to ensure that the service remains efficient and convenient to the customers.

Maina said they are planning to rescheduling additional trains to cope with demand for train services which is at an all-time high.

"The combination of state-of-the-art design, unrivalled comfort and convenience means that we are well placed to meet the growing demand as passengers increasingly opt for our services over other existing means," he said.

He said there are many passengers who intend to ply their businesses across the five counties that the line traverses and this new train "will ensure that we play our role in devolution by connecting businesses across the counties."

The company has also announced a partnership with National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to enable private bus operators provide last mile services to and from the various destinations along the route.

For passengers in Nairobi, the company has scheduled a daily train to the Nairobi terminus that will be dropping off travelers in the morning from the City Centre and transporting them back to the city from 1 PM when they arrive from Mombasa.

In Mombasa, the access road is in its completion phase and thus is expected to provide a fluid road connection to the Miritini Station from Mombasa City.

"We will continue to enhance the customer experience and optimize our services through continuous improvement of our internal systems such as retraining staff on service delivery," Maina said.

This, in addition to the new online ticket payment platform to be unveiled on Monday, will ensure convenience in travel for all customers.
A traffic stop led to an arrest Wednesday after the discovery of a bottle of pills and a loaded semiautomatic AK-47 pistol, according to the Orangeburg County Sheriffs Office.

A Vance man was charged with unlawful carrying of a pistol and driving without a license.

Orangeburg County Sheriffs deputies were assisting the S.C. Highway Patrol with a vehicle collision on Toney Bay Road in Holly Hill around 7:30 p.m. when a Honda Civic approached the collision site.

Deputies motioned for the vehicle to stop when they realized it was traveling at a high rate of speed, the report said.

When the driver was asked for his license, he opened a glove box before slamming it shut again. However, officers said they had already seen a pill bottle and a set of digital scales.

Deputies retrieved the scales and completely full pill bottle as well as a bag that contained something heavy, the report said. The driver said it was a gun that was legally registered.

Deputies found an AK-47 with a pistol handle inside the bag, the report said. A magazine with 21 rounds was also found.
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By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are planning to clarify the situation in the zone of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, during their visit to the region, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on June 8.

During the visit of the co-chairs to Yerevan on June 10, it is planned to discuss topical issues on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including in the light of the results of recent meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia on April 28 in Moscow, noted Zakharova.

The spokeswoman added that a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh is also expected during the visit to the region, and a week later the co-chairs will visit Baku.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Since the war, 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.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

Armenia ignores four UN Security Council resolutions on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, thus keeping tension high in the region.
By Trend





Turkey will provide Qatar with food, Turkish media outlets reported on June 8.

A special delegation from Qatar is expected to visit Turkey to discuss this issue soon, according to the report.

Earlier, Arab media outlets reported that the foodstuff available in Qatar will suffice for four weeks and that Qatar started talks with Turkey and Iran for the supplies of drinking water and agricultural products.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE announced about breaking their diplomatic relations with Qatar June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.

Later, the authorities of Libya, Yemen, as well as the Maldives and Mauritius also announced about severing diplomatic relations with Qatar.








By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

Iran is expected to take a much tougher stance in the fight against terrorism following the recent attacks in Tehran, which killed 16 people while another 43 were injured.

Deputy Head of the elite unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran, Brigadier General Hossein Salami promised to take revenge on terrorists for the attacks in Tehran.

"Let no one doubt that we will avenge the terrorists in today's attacks in Tehran, those who are associated with them and support them," he said.

The attacks come amid heightened tension in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states cutting ties with Qatar over alleged support for Islamist militants and closer ties with Iran.

Today Iran found itself in a dangerous situation both from the standpoint of terrorism and from the point of view of the global confrontation that is unfolding in the Middle East.

The world countries, including the U.S. , condemned the attacks. U.S. President Donald Trump said he was praying for the victims but added that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Two separate attacks shook Tehran on June 7. As reports said, several armed people tried to break their way into the Parliament building.

The attackers managed to get inside the building and engaged in a shootout with the security forces. One terrorist committed suicide by blowing himself up. The latest reports indicate that all four terrorists who took part in the siege of the parliament building have been killed.

Meanwhile, another attack took place at the Imam Khomeini Shrine. The reports said Iran's security forces neutralized one terrorist, another one committed suicide. At least 4 pilgrims have also been injured in the attack.

A separate terrorist group in the country has been detained before it managed to carry out any terror attack. ISIS claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in Tehran.
Shuaa Capital, a premier financial services company in the UAE, has appointed Fawad Tariq Khan as its new general manager.



Khan brings more than a decade of experience in private equity and debt advisory and investment roles spanning the Middle East and Europe, said the company in a statement.



He takes up his new role with immediate effect, following the departure of Houssem Ben Haj Amor due to personal reasons.



Jassim Alseddiqi, the chairman of Shuaa Capital, said: "With Shuaa Capital now back on the path towards sustainable profitability, I am delighted to welcome Khan to the team. His wealth of talent and experience makes him an exceptional appointment to lead the firm through the next phase of its journey."



"On behalf of Shuaa Capital, I would like to thank Houssem for his exemplary service and valuable contribution to the firm during his ten year tenure, and we wish him every success in the future," he added.



On his new role, Khan said: "I am hugely excited about the opportunity ahead. As the firm steadily returns to the forefront of the regions financial services sector, I look forward to working with the team to build on the Shuaa Capital legacy and to deliver further success in the future."



Fawad joins from Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG), where he led the investments team and focused on devising and implementing alternative investment strategies. He was also the head of Integrated Alternative Finance, the debt platform of ADFG.



He began his career with Deloitte in London focusing on strategy consulting and financial advisory for clients across the UK and mainland Europe.-TradeArabia News Service
The UAE government has completed a major cultural centre in the northern emirate of Fujairah using sustainable materials, in line with its GCC green building regulations, at a total cost of Dh51 million ($14 million).



The UAE Ministry of Infrastructure Development will be handing over the facility next week, reported state news agency Wam, citing a senior official.



"The projects being implemented by the ministry, including the cultural centre project, are characterised by modern architecture while considering sustainability standards and reducing energy consumption," remarked Mariam Abdul Kareem, the head of the implementation department at the Ministry of Infrastructure Development.



She pointed out that the construction and maintenance of all government establishments are being done on par with international standards, green building regulations and sustainability requirements, to reduce their environmental impact.



This comes in line with the governments vision to make the UAE among the worlds best countries by 2021, by providing high-quality services, stated Kareem.
Shapoorji Pallonji International Property Developers (SPIPD) has unveiled an attractive payment plan for investors interested in buying a luxury apartment at Imperial Avenue, its debut international real estate project located in Downtown Dubai, this Ramadan.

Under the new scheme, investors will get the opportunity to upgrade their living experience with an initial payment of only five per cent followed by another 55 per cent of the property value upon completion.

Following the five per cent reservation amount, home owners will be required to pay an additional 10 per cent of the property value within 60 days from booking.

Subsequently, investors will have the flexibility to complete seven instalments of four per cent each of the property value every three months and a final instalment of two per cent of the property value.

On the Ramadan offer, Rayomand Dastur, the director - sales and marketing at SPIPD said: "Imperial Avenue is a premium residential development that offers larger living spaces in the heart of the city. With a booking fee as low as five per cent and a flexible payment plan until completion, we want to support investors by reducing the monthly instalments and providing peace of mind."

As of May this year, 15 per cent of the project work has been completed. In addition, the construction of the raft has been completed recently, setting the next stage for construction of the 45-storey high-rise.

The main structural works are expected to be concluded by June 2018, ensuring the project is on track for handover in the third quarter of 2019.

With over 45 years of experience in completing and delivering quality projects in the Middle East, Shapoorji Pallonji Mideast was recently honoured by HH Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, with Dubai Quality Appreciation Award (2016 cycle) for the construction sector at the Dubai Business Excellence Award.-TradeArabia News Service
Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), one of the largest and modern aluminium smelters in the world, expects to significantly increase its value-added exports to North America with the ramp-up of Line 6 Expansion Project, said its top official.



Albas CEO Tim Murray was speaking at the Harbours 10th Aluminium Summit, being held at the Radisson Blu Aqua, in Chicago, US.



Murray took part in a panel discussion along with speakers from several major aluminium players discussing strategic market subjects such as import duties, LME prices and premium outlook as well as raw materials and demand outlook, said a statement from the company.



Albas chief marketing officer Khalid A Latif along with other officials were also present at the summit.



Organised and hosted by Harbor Aluminium Intelligence, the summit is considered among one of the largest and most strategic aluminium market gatherings in the world.



One of the key sponsors of the summit, Alba aims to develop business relations through networking opportunities at the three-day event.



"Our company is committed to the North America market which is supported directly by our Alba Americas subsidiary," he added.  TradeArabia News Service
Hyundais 2017 Veloster, a sporty coupe, has been ranked one of the coolest cars under $18,000 by Kelley Blue Books KBB.com, a leading online guide to new and used motors in the US.



The ranking, which highlights dynamic vehicles that remain affordable to a wide array of consumers, is one of the longest-running by Kelley Blue Book, a trusted resource that dates back by almost a century.



When we look at these rankings, we factor in not only price but what we describe as a cool factor represented by a vehicle being both fun to drive and fun to own, said Jack R Nerad, executive editorial director and executive market analyst for Kelley Blue Books KBB.com.



The Veloster definitely fits the bill here, with a visual styling and ownership value that gives first-time owners and other budget-conscious buyers a fun experience without having to break the bank.



Awarding the accolade, Kelley Blue Book cited the Velosters utterly unique styling, particularly the three-door configuration, coupled with a long warranty and low price to offer consumers high value.



With bold design features on both interior and exterior, an available 6-speed EcoShift Dual Clutch Transmission, and a five-star safety rating by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Veloster provides value and owner experience like nothing else in its class, it said.



The Veloster delivers a fun, fresh design that makes a modern, bold statement to Middle East and Africa consumers, who want affordable vehicles that have high performance and sophisticated styling, said Mike Song, head of Operations for Africa and the Middle East at Hyundai Motor Company.



This accolade cements the Velosters position as the most refined vehicle in its class, and underscores our determination and refusal to compromise on consistently exceeding our customers expectations.  TradeArabia News Service
New projects between General Electric (GE) and Saudi Arabia will focus on the kingdoms power, healthcare, energy and mining sectors, as well as skills training and digital analytics running on Predix, said a report.



Predix, the companys platform for the industrial internet, is aimed at powering digital industrial businesses.



The agreements, worth $15 billion overall, includes a partnership with Saudi Aramco to generate $4 billion in efficiency savings by digitising its operations, Kate Johnson, vice president and chief commercial officer, GE Digital, was quoted as saying in a Saudi Gazette report.



GE and its Saudi partners will also use software applications running on Predix to create digital hospitals in the kingdom and improve the efficiency of its minerals mining, it said.



Johnson said: It also includes a large healthcare digitisation component through partnerships with Saudi Telecom, under the patronage of the Saudi Ministry of Health and Dr Sulaiman Habib Medical Group (HMG).



She added that the landmark agreement is a vital element in the digitisation of industry in the kingdom and will introduce digital solutions through an Electronic Medical Records Predix Solution and a centralised appointment system (CAS). Together, these will serve to transform MOH facilities into digital hospitals across the region.



Johnson also highlighted that GE has recently announced a partnership with Obeikan Investment Group that will support the digitisation of Obeikan facilities.



She further noted that initially, two plants will be digitally transformed, with the potential to scale and convert the groups other plants across the Middle East, Africa and Europe in the future.



This conversion will bring unprecedented levels of efficiency and productivity, leveraging GE Digitals Brilliant Manufacturing solutions, added the report.
Geneva has been nominated by the prestigious World Travel Awards (WTA), for the 2017 Europeans Leading Destination Award as well as the Europeans Leading City Break Destination Award - regarded as the Tourism Oscars in the industry.



Ideally located in the heart of Europe and known as one of Switzerlands most spectacular landscapes, Geneva is a dream of a city thanks to a unique setting on the shores of Western Europes largest lake and with a dazzling view on the Mont-Blanc.



In 2016, Geneva experienced over 250,000 guest nights from GCC visitors, making it the most popular Swiss destination for the GCC and amongst the most popular in central Europe.



The quality of life is exceptional and the city knows how to welcome her guests with great activities, ultimate experiences as well as Switzerlands most refined tables. This makes her a charming city with a unique and most famous landmark, the Jet dEau that all travellers wish to discover. Considered as the capital of peace, as well as a city truly international in scope and humane in size, no visitor remains immune to her charm. Her assets make it the perfect nominee for the 24th edition of the World Travel Awards.



Established in 1993, the World Travel Awards honours and rewards excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry-offering one of the most prestigious and comprehensive awards program in travel and tourism, recognized worldwide as the hallmark of industry excellence. The Wall Street Journal has heralded WTA as the Oscar of the travel industry.



The winners are determined by an online vote cast carried out by hundreds of travel professionals and consumers around the world. The winners of this award will be announced on September 30, 2017 in a ceremony held in St-Petersburg, Russia. Nominations can be voting for at www.worldtravelawards.com and voting closes on August 6, 2017. - TradeArabia News Service


Cebu Pacific of the Philippines has placed an order with Airbus for seven A321ceo to meet ongoing strong growth on its domestic and regional network.



The latest contract comes on top of an existing order for 32 A321neo. The aircraft will start joining the carriers fleet next year.



We are very excited about adding the A321 to our fleet, said Lance Gokongwei, Cebu Pacific president and CEO. The aircraft will enable us to increase capacity on popular routes, while at the same time benefiting from the lowest operating costs in this size category. This will mean more low fares for more customers flying across our domestic and regional network.



"We are pleased to sign this additional order with one of the most successful airlines in the Asian region, said John Leahy, Airbus Chief Operating Officer, Customers. With the A321 Cebu Pacific will be able to respond to growing demand with the highest levels of efficiency. Carrying more passengers further, and at lower cost, the A321 is the perfect solution to meet the requirements of airlines worldwide in the middle of the market segment.



Manila-based Cebu Pacific is one of Asias leading low cost carriers. Operating domestic, regional and long haul services, the carrier flies to over 60 destinations in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and the USA. The carriers in-service Airbus fleet currently comprises 36 A320s and four A319s flying on domestic and regional services, plus eight widebody A330-300s operating on high capacity regional and long haul routes.



The A320 Family is the worlds best-selling single aisle product line. To date, the Family has won over 13,000 orders and more than 7,500 aircraft have been delivered to some 400 customers and operators worldwide. With one aircraft in four sizes (A318, A319, A320 and A321), the A320 Family seats from 100 to 240 passengers. The Family features the widest cabin in the single aisle market with 18 wide seats in Economy as standard.- TradeArabia News Service
The world demand for medium-haul airliners within the category that includes Russias newest MC-21 will reach about 15,000 planes in the next 20 years, a top official said.



"In our estimates, the demand in the MC-21 segment will make up about 15,000 new planes in the next 20 years," Yuri Slyusar, head of Russias United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) was quoted as saying by Tass.



The aircrafts parameters put this airliner in the conditions of tight competition with Boeing and Airbus, he noted.



"The plane is planned to be offered to the world market simultaneously with the developments of the Chinese side, which will thus help destroy the duopoly existing on the market, he said.



The MC-21 is the family of short-and medium-haul narrow-body airliners intended to replace Tupolev Tu-134 and Tu-154 planes and also their Western rivals.



The MC-21 has a flight range of 6,400 km, while the Sukhoi Superjet 100 can fly at a distance of 4,578 km.



The MC-21 will be able to carry 211 passengers, while the Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliners seating capacity is 108.



The current portfolio of orders for MC-21 is 285 airliners, 185 of which have been contracted on prepayment. The first client is Russias Aeroflot, which plans to have 50 MC-21 in its fleet. In April, the companys director general, Vitaly Savelyev, said they expect the first three airliners in 2019.
National carrier Royal Jordanian's (RJ) witty and lively marketing advertisements on social media has gained worlwide attention, for which it was awarded one Grand Prix, two Gold and two Silver prizes at the Dubai Lynx awards 2017.



The lively marketing advertisements on social media is a trend the airline first adopted in October 2016, before the US elections, when it started using smart messages, with the aim of being in tune with the daily lives and concerns of the public.



The tone of the RJ messages is unique; it targets most recent events in a humorous way while also promoting a sense of patriotism among Jordanians through the adoption of the message Be Jordanian, Be Smart, Fly Royal Jordanian.



The feedback, according to figures, has been very positive. RJs fan base on the main social media platforms increased by an average of 25 per cent since last October, while the reach has topped 450 million mark.



The airline also received tremendous exposure through global news articles.



Royal Jordanian president/CEO Stefan Pichler expressed pride in the sassy and cheerful spirit of the advertisements, as well as in the positive impact on the audience and the number of passengers flying RJ.



The objective of Royal Jordanian is for our communication messages to be full of fun, realistic and relevant. We are firm believers in the importance of the service delivery experience  the soft product  and we aim to put a smile on every passengers face, Pichler said.



He said: At Royal Jordanian we believe that every seat has a story and our aim is to ensure that all our guests experience a more entertaining and travel friendly experience throughout their journey with RJ, and that their travels with us are a lot of fun, which will help lower any travel-related stress a guest may experience. - TradeArabia News Service


The US government's electronics ban might be expanded to 71 airports overseas, a dramatic increase from the 10 airports where the security protocol currently applies, said a report.



Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly told a House panel on Wednesday that the administration is currently analysing whether to expand the ban to include dozens of airports in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to Reuters.



"We are looking right now at an additional 71 airports," Kelly said. "We're also looking at ways that we think we can mitigate the threat" without expanding the ban.



Kelly said the move would be part of a broader airline security effort to combat what he called "a real sophisticated threat."



The restrictions on laptops were first announced in March for US-bound flights originating from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, the report said.



The administration has been considering an expansion of the security measure, which officials say is needed because terrorists are pursuing innovative methods to smuggle bombs onto commercial flights.
Dubai treated 326,640 domestic and inbound medical tourists in 2016, resulting in revenues of Dh1.421 billion ($386.7 million) according a report.



The patients were received across the emirate's hospitals licensed by DHA.



Dr. Layla Al Marzouqi, director of the DHA Medical Tourism Council, said: "Dubai's medical tourism revenues hit Dh1.421 billion ($386.7 million) in 2016, which is an increase of 1.5 per cent against Dh1.40 billion ($381 million) in 2015," WAM reported.



We expect this number to multiply by the end the year and we aim to surpass our 2020 target - which is Dh2.6 billion - by an additional 20 per cent," she said.



Dr Al Marzouqi said that 31 per cent of the medical tourists were from GCC and Arab countries, 27 per cent were from Asian countries, 15 per cent from European countries and the remaining 27 per cent were from from other countries of the world.



A majority of the medical tourists were in the age group of 25 to 45 years. The top health specialties availed by the medical tourists were orthopaedic surgeries, ophthalmology and cosmetics dermatology.



"Dubai is known for its high-quality medical care, rendering the emirate a sought-after destination for recuperative tourism," said Dr. Al Marzouqi.



DHAs aim is to deliver an efficient, accessible and unified healthcare system, as well as boost the emirate's competitiveness and enhance its position on the global medical tourism scene, she said.



DHA recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with The Health Bank with the aim to drive medical tourism in the region and hopes to over 1.3 million medical tourists by 2021.



We aspire to position Dubai as the first medical tourism destination in the Mena region and to be among the top 10 medical tourism destinations in the world," said Dr Marzouqi.  TradeArabia News Service
Boeing's newest aircraft - the 737 Max 10 - has already caught the attention of aviation companies as the US plane manufacturer is in talks with firms for initial sales, said a report.



The roster of potential buyers of the largest-ever 737, which is expected to launch this month, includes Indonesias Lion Air, Jet Airways, Spice Jet and Copa Holdings, said a report in Bloomberg.



Boeing is looking to gain ground on a fast-selling A321neo, which is capturing trans-continental routes once dominated by Boeings out-of-production 757.



The Max 10 talks arent final. A spokesman for Chicago-based Boeing declined to comment on the talks, the report said.



The newest 737 Max would seat around 230 passengers in a single-cabin layout common among LCCs or 189 passengers in two-class capacity. At a length of 43.8 meters (only a modest 1.68 m or two rows longer than the MAX 9), the new variant does not require a thorough re-design, the only major change being the trailinig-link landing gear modification. This means that the model can be fitted with same wing and CFM LEAP 1B engines as the MAX 9.



We arent looking to simply build something on par with the A321neo, said Randy Tinseth, a Boeing vice president for marketing. Were bringing a better airplane to the market -- and thats our focus.



United Continental Holdings Inc. is studying whether to convert 61 orders for the 737 Max to the -10 version, while taking a handful of Boeing 777-300ERs, the largest twin-engine jetliner currently flying, persons close to the matter said.



Chief executive officer Oscar Munoz said United, the third-largest US carrier, was interested in the Max 10, during a brief interview on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association meeting in Cancun, Mexico, this week.
Sen. John Barrasso stands behind Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead when it comes to sage grouse management, he said in a statement Thursday.

The senators comments were in response to the Department of the Interiors planned review of federal sage grouse conservation plans, which have an outsize impact on energy development and ranching in the imperiled birds 11-state habitat.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke mentioned the possibility of broadening the way sage grouse population health is measured by setting population targets, an idea discouraged by many in the conservation community as well as leaders of a decade-long collaboration among western states to save the grouse from being listed as an endangered species.

I share Governors Mead and Hickenloopers concerns that setting population targets is not the best way to manage this species, Barrasso said, after commending the secretary for the review itself. Comments like these reflect valuable state expertise that will help the Department of the Interior during the course of this review. I will continue to work with the administration as it implements its plan to conserve the sage grouse habitat in a more balanced way.

Mead and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper have sent two letters to the Interior Secretary warning that population targets  a numbers-based approach to conservation are fraught with complications. The co-chairs of the Western Governors Sage Grouse Task Force welcomed a review but pointed out that it was unlikely the plans needed wholesale changes.

In his comments Wednesday, the secretary said the review was in part due to complaints from Western governors that the federal plans were too heavy-handed.

Sen. Mike Enzi, said in a statement that he appreciated the secretarys tone of state collaboration.

Secretary Zinke seems to be taking a listening posture which is positive, Enzi said. Wyoming has worked for decades to get to where we are in terms of Wyomings sage grouse plan. Its a delicate balance between conservation, industry, state, local and federal concerns and a heavy-handed approach from Washington could upset that balance.

Wyoming has led the charge on sage grouse management since 2008, when previous Gov. Dave Freudenthal called a task force together to stave off more serious federal measures as the birds population was in steep decline. What resulted was a state plan for management that identified core areas of habitat, essential for breeding, that would be protected from development. The federal plans follow a similar approach, identifying the most crucial areas, reducing surface disturbance in habitat areas and allowing oil and gas developers to make up for disturbance in one area that they want to drill, by enhancing the birds habitat in another area.

Though the plans left many groups frustrated, the overall contribution from conservationists, oil and gas companies, ranchers, federal agencies and state departments was considered a breakthrough in conservation and species management and credited with fending off an endangered species listing.

But the plans need time to work, proponents say. The sage grouse population rises and falls on a cycle, and long-term trends take time to decipher, they say.

The sage grouse is known for an elaborate mating ritual in which the male grouse inflates bright yellow air sacs on his chest and deflates them sending out a mating call that can be heard by females for miles. The species is iconic in the West and dependent on sage brush habitat to survive. Finicky and sensitive to noise, the grouse has been a challenge for energy production, from drilling wells to mining, key economic drivers in the state of Wyoming.

In comments to reporters Wednesday, Zinke said the review would bring parity to the federal approach to the grouse while giving states greater flexibility. He also said the review would bring sage grouse management in line with the presidents America First Energy Plan and presidential orders, which promise to review rules and regulations that inhibit energy development on public lands.

Those who are skeptical of the review fear it sets up the risk of an endangered species listing down the road, which would come with strict limitations on development in energy-dependent states like Wyoming.
In response to Western anger over sage grouse conservation on public lands, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Wednesday that the departments sage grouse management plans are under review.

Its a move that some say will disrupt Wyoming-led efforts to save the declining population of the chicken-sized bird by changing the focus from conservation of threatened habitat to simply boosting the number of birds on the landscape. That stance flies against a consensus in the scientific community that without sagebrush habitat renewal and protection, the birds numbers will continue to fall.

A sage grouse team will evaluate the current management plans and report its findings with recommendations for next steps within 60 days, Zinke said in a call with reporters.

This does not change or alter existing work that has been done, he said. But it prioritizes our work on the sage grouse.

Zinke penned a secretarial order that will be made public Thursday morning outlining the review of the 2015 plans. The management strategies put together by Bureau of Land Management leaders, in collaboration with state and local partners, were a successful attempt to stave off an endangered species listing, which would have imperiled oil and gas development in places like Wyoming.

But the plans did not sit well with many westerners, according to Zinke.

There have been complaints by several of the governors that their ability to use federal lands, whether its for oil and gas, recreation, timber, across the board, that some of the heavy-handedness on habitat doesnt allow for some of those uses, he said.

Zinkes comments appear to diverge from Wyoming Gov. Matt Meads public letters advising the secretary that the plans do not need wholesale review but time to work. The letters, dated April 19 and May 26, were also signed by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper and warned the secretary against a numbers-based approach to saving the grouse. Wyoming has about 40 percent of the worlds sage grouse habitat and is widely acknowledged as a leader in the efforts to conserve the species.

In his Wednesday comments, the former congressman from Montana implied that the habitat-focused strategy for conserving the grouse could benefit from further study over other factors affecting the grouse like predation and West Nile virus, while new strategies like captive breeding of the bird may be considered.

Zinkes view comes as a surprise to some in Wyoming, who were part of developing state plans in tandem with the local Bureau of Land Management leaders.

Its naive, said Brian Rutledge, director of the Rocky Mountain Region Audubon Society.

The secretarys comments regarding habitat and captive breeding sounded off-kilter, Rutledge said. They are the opinions of someone who hasnt spent significant time studying the grouse or its challenges, he said.

Captive breeding has been largely debunked as a viable conservation strategy by biologists in the West.

Though many in Wyoming disagree about the plan  some say it did not go far enough to protect the bird, others say it was too restrictive  most in Wyoming saw the strategy from the state and federal partners as a landmark event in collaborative conservation.

I have been in the conservation business all my life, Rutledge said. I have a 50-year career in conservation. I have never seen the kind of collaborative effort put forth around sage grouse. It has included people from every walk of life.

Others in the state say there is no reason to be alarmed, because Zinke made it clear that he wanted state input and was not looking to force states to review or revise their own plans.

Bob Budd, chairman of the Sage Grouse Implementation Team, said he understood Zinkes comments as an affirmation of continued state control.

The good news is he said we are going to listen to the states, Budd said. Thats the best I would hope for. I dont think there were any bombshells or anything out of the ordinary (in the announcement).

Though Wyomings state plans takes a habitat-focused approach, some states may find a different strategy works best for them, Budd said.

Mead said in a statement Wednesday evening that he looked forward to working with the feds as they move forward.

Wyoming has been a leader on this difficult issue, he said, and will continue its efforts.
Helping Others</&h1>

Hospice needs volunteers

Would you like the opportunity to truly make a difference in someones life? Choose how you would like to give back, whether being a companion to our patients, helping run the Memory Lane Boutique, or sit vigil through patients last hours. Join us for our next Volunteer Training Program beginning June 6 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Please call Tammy at 577-4832 or go to cwhp.org and fill out an application. We would love to have you on our team.

Hospice boutique accepting donations

Memory Lane Boutique at Central Wyoming Hospice and Transitions is in need of donations for its inventory. Items accepted include furniture, jewelry, household goods, knickknacks, craft supplies, toys and sporting goods. Donations may be dropped off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 319 S. Wilson. The public is invited to shop during the same hours.

Would you host a hockey player?

The Casper Coyotes are preparing for the next season already and that means finding loving families to host young men, ages 17 to 20 years old from across America and foreign countries. The boys arrive in August and stay until March or April. They should have a room of their own and become a part of your family. Their expenses are paid. Team rules are simple and you add family rules. If you raised a young man this age, then you know that it takes love, but the love and cultural experience that comes back is many times greater. Interested? Call a veteran of hosting and lets talk, Joe at 315-1987.

Volunteer for family event

Its time for the 5th annual HUD Fathers Day event. Wyoming Food Bank of the Rockies is in search of volunteers to help with set up, distribution, and clean up for our mobile pantry assisting single fathers in Natrona County. Come join us in Washington Park on June 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information or to sign up as a volunteer, contact Ashley Nickolai at 265-4016 or anickolai@foodbankrockies.org.

Quilts of Valor every Wednesday

The Central Wyoming Chapter of Quilts of Valor meets from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to sew at the Central Wyoming Senior Services Center, 1831 E. Fourth St. Quilts of Valor are made by volunteers. Donated fabrics, supplies or monetary donations are appreciated. The group makes all quilts for service men and women who have been touched by war. Our chapter awards quilts to veterans who reside in the Central Wyoming region. Dues are $5 per year and new members are always welcome. If you have any questions, please contact Yung Hui Torske at 258-5578, Sandy Elliott at 307-5540331 or any chapter member.

Scarves for Special Olympics

Special Olympics Wyoming invites those who knit and crochet to make scarves for the Wyoming Special Olympics athletes to wear at State Winter Games in February 2018. Please use black, gray and white in the scarves, which should measure approximately 6 by 60 inches in any pattern. The deadline to receive the scarves is January 2018. Please send scarves to Special Olympics Wyoming, attn. Scarf Project 2017, P.O. Box 624, Jackson, WY 83001. There is more information available at www.sowy.org/other-fundraisers.

Food of the month

Wyoming Food for Thought Project has announced its food of the month suggestions for the nearly 1,000 weekend food bags its volunteers prepare for food-insecure school students in Natrona County each week. Often, schools, churches and other groups designate certain collection days for a specific type of food as a donation.

The suggested food items may be taken to program headquarters at 900 St. John, but its best to call ahead to make certain someone is there to receive it.

June, peanut butter; July, pork n beans; August, mac n cheese; September, Chef Boyardee products; October, cereal; November, soup; December, chili.

For more information, call Cassandra at 337-1703.

Disabled vets need volunteer drivers

The Disabled American Veterans need volunteer drivers to take veterans to their medical appointment at the VA hospital in Cheyenne. The volunteer driver will transport them in a VA vehicle. If you are interested, please call the DAV transportation office in Cheyenne at 307-778-7577 for further information.
Friday support meetings

Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 8:30 a.m., 500 S. Wolcott; 10 a.m., 328 E. A; noon, 500 S. Wolcott; 2 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 5:30 p.m., 1124 Elma, Imitate the Image Church; 5:30 p.m., 328 E. A; 8 p.m,. 328 E. A; 8 p.m., 328-1/2 E. A, closed; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech; 10 p.m., 917 N. Beech. Douglas: 7:30 p.m., 628 E. Richards (upstairs in back). Unless otherwise noted, Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688.

Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 6 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 8:30 p.m., 302 E. 2nd St., Methodist Church. Web site: www.urmrna.org.

Overeaters Anonymous: 10 a.m., 12-24 Club, 500 S. Wolcott. Info: Candace, 359-6225; Rebekah, 320-6779.

Al-Anon Family: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200, 12-24 Club, all ages welcome. Info: 377-7260 or 258-1444.

International Addictions Program: 7 p.m., Calvary Baptist Church, 1800 S. Conwell. Info: 266-5417.

LGTBQ AA/NA: 7 p.m., A 12-Step AA/NA Recovery Group for gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and questioning persons meets at the United Church of Christ, located at the corner of 15th and Melrose. Info: 259-5026.

Sale at Memory Lane Boutique

Memory Lane Boutique, inside Central Wyoming Hospice, 319 S. Wilson, is having an anniversary 50 percent off sale on everything but furniture from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. one day only.

Summer food sites for kids

Summer is right around the corner, and its time to think about keeping children healthy while school is out. Once again, the Natrona County School District is partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide free meals to children when school is out for the summer. There are no income requirements or registration. Any child under age 18 may come to eat. For more information, contact 307-253-5205.

Meals will be served Monday through Friday at the following locations: Casper Recreation Center, 11:15 a.m.; Boys and Girls Club main branch, 11:30 a.m.; Paradise Valley Boys & Girls Club site, 11:30 a.m.; Verda James Boys & Girls Club site, 11:30 a.m., June 12 to August 25; YMCA, 11 a.m., June 12 to September 1; Salt Creek Recreation Center in Midwest, 11:30 a.m., June 14 to August 25.

Pony Express at trails center

The 37th annual re-ride of the Pony Express National Historic Trail will pass through Casper at approximately 2 p.m., at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center.

Visitors should arrive at the Trails Center by 1 p.m. due to the potential early arrival of the Pony Express. Visitors are welcome to tour the trails centers six exhibit galleries while they await the arrival of horse and rider.

Les Bennington, president of the Eastern/Southeastern Wyoming Division of the National Pony Express Association, said this years heavy snowfall and early-season ride time could provide challenges when traveling through South Pass.

When the schedule was set up it was based on the full moon, said Bennington. Itll be the earliest its ever been for our re-ride in 37 years.

This years re-creation of the Express will transport mail east to west. Following the Old Glenrock Highway into town, the re-ride will make several stops in Casper before arriving at the Trails Center mid-day. The ride will continue west, with an estimated 55 total hours spent in Wyoming.

To obtain a more specific arrival time or for more information, please call the Trails Center Information Desk at 307-261-7780. For details about the re-ride along its entire route and to follow the riders progress, visit the National Pony Express Association online at www.xphomestation.com.

Adult Coloring Club

Stop by the Natrona County Library anytime between 2 and 5 p.m., for Adult Coloring Club. Coloring books and pages will be available for you to turn into works of art. Colored pencils, crayons, and markers also will be provided.

Celebrate Recovery every Friday

Celebrate Recovery meets at 5:30 p.m. every Friday at Highland Park Community Church, just south of Elkhorn Valley Rehabilitation Hospital on East Second Street. A family meal starts the evening, followed by praise and worship. At 7 p.m., theres either a lesson from Celebrate Recoverys planned curriculum or a testimony by a person who has found recovery through Christ. Then, people go to gender-specific small groups until 8:30 p.m., when dessert and fellowship conclude the evening. Child care is available at no cost. For more information, contact Chris at 265-4073.

Cheeseburger in Paradise

United Way of Natrona County presents Cheeseburger in Paradise, a Wyaui event, at 6 p.m., at the Industrial Building, Central Wyoming Fairgrounds. Treat yourself to beach music while you enjoy delicious cheeseburgers, finished off at the incredible toppings bar. This will be the world premiere of The Sandy Beaches, a five-piece Wyoming band consisting of Chad Lore, two of Caspers finest firefighters, Smitty and Patrick Stafford, and Chads children.

Tickets are $40 each. For more information, call the United Way office at 237-9367.

Fundraiser dinner at the Elks

Elks National Foundation fundraiser dinner will be held at 6 p.m., at the Casper Elks Lodge. Dinner is beef brisket and fixings. Cost is $10. ENF Fundraiser dinner is prepared by Wes Stull and Casper volunteers. Please sign up at the bar for reservations. Cut off is Thursday June 8, 2017. Members, significant other and guest accompanied by member. For more information, call Beth at 262-9077 or 234-4839.

Casper Pride Weekend set

Casper Pride Weekend runs through Sunday. Friday, Rainbows & Cowboys Hoedown, Downtown Grill, 2nd Street, 7 to 11 p.m. Ages 15+. Free.

Deadline for junior leadership

The Junior Leadership Casper Summer Program provides students entering the 8th grade the opportunity to share a one-week curriculum of structured leadership activities from 2 to 5 p.m., each day, June 26 to 30 on the University of Wyoming-Casper campus at Casper College. Junior Leadership participants will work at age-appropriate levels to improve self-confidence, communication skills, relationship skills, and leadership while learning about community resources and exploring career paths. Students will learn how local resources are structured and how they affect quality of life issues for residents of Natrona County.

The application deadline is June 9. A mandatory orientation for those selected will be held on Friday, June 23, at Washington Park during Sinclair Casper Family Movie Night.

Applications are available online at www.casperwyoming.org or at the Casper Area Chamber of Commerce office, 500 N. Center St., between 8 a.m., and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Eastbound 15th closed

City crews have begun concrete repairs on 15th Street to prepare for August chip sealing. The eastbound lane of 15th Street from McKinley to Wilson Street will be closed while crews repair concrete curbs, gutters, and alley approaches. The closure will occur weekdays from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the street will be open on weekends. The repairs may take several weeks to complete and the weekday closure is until further notice.

Jackson, Washington, Melrose, and Conwell Streets will be fully closed to all traffic at 15th Street during the closure. Motorists are encouraged to use 12th Street as an alternate route.

For questions or additional information, contact Shad Rodgers, 235-8283.Follow community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur on Twitter @WYOSAS
One of the suspects in a crime spree that led to a standoff in Casper on Saturday exchanged gunfire with law enforcement during a chase and assaulted an elderly woman in Glenrock, newly filed court documents allege.

The details are included in court papers attached to three felony drug charges filed against another of the suspects, Santana Keener. She appeared in court Tuesday in Douglas.

The male suspect arrested in connection to the incidents in Glenrock and Casper  Christopher Eads  had been hospitalized at Wyoming Medical Center between his arrest early Sunday and Wednesday, said Frosty Williams, deputy director of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. Eads was released from the hospital in the late afternoon Wednesday and was then booked into the Natrona County Detention Center, he said.

Williams declined to specify what condition kept Eads in the hospital.

Eads is suspected of firing at officers during the pursuit. Hes also alleged to have beaten the elderly woman, assaulted a Glenrock police officer and stolen a patrol vehicle.

Keener was charged Tuesday in Converse County Circuit Court with one count of possession of heroin, one count of possession of heroin with intent to deliver and one count of entering a building with intent to commit a felony, according to court documents filed Wednesday. Authorities found 18 grams of heroin in Keeners person during a cavity search after her arrest.

She made her first court appearance Tuesday in circuit court, where her bond was set at $25,000, authorities at the Converse County Detention Center said.

The court documents in Keeners case shed light on the events of Saturday night.

Pursuit

Agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation had been surveilling Keener and Eads since April because they believed the pair were trafficking heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs from Colorado to Casper, court documents show.

On Saturday, law enforcement located a Toyota Sequoia that the two had been known to use during their trips to Colorado. DCI agents as well as Wyoming Highway Patrol agents attempted to stop the vehicle about 9:30 p.m. as it traveled near mile marker 177 on Interstate 25 near Casper.

However, the vehicle refused to stop and led law enforcement on a pursuit at a high rate of speed, the documents state. A man  later identified as Eads  began shooting a handgun toward a troopers vehicle shortly after the chase began.

Troopers used road spikes a few miles down the interstate to puncture the Toyotas front tires. The Toyota continued down the interstate toward Casper for a time before the suspects turned off the Toyotas headlights and stopped in the median. They then turned and drove toward law enforcement down the median, the documents state.

Agents and troopers shot at the Toyota as it drove past them on the median, according to the documents.

Incidents in Glenrock

The Toyota then pulled back onto the interstate and drove east at speeds topping 100 miles an hour before taking exit 165 toward Glenrock. Law enforcement followed the vehicle at a safer distance.

Law enforcement later located the abandoned vehicle at the intersection of Fourth and Fir streets in Glenrock.

During the search for Eads and Keener, law enforcement received a report of an elderly Glenrock woman bleeding from the head.

The woman told law enforcement that a man had come through the back door of her home in the 600 block of South Fifth Street and attacked her, the documents state. She said that the man, later identified as Eads, pushed her to the ground, then took her car keys off of her person.

The woman, who is in her 80s, was later found to have a broken rib, a broken toe and a laceration to her scalp that required 18 staples to close, the documents state.

Investigators found that someone had driven through the womans garage door, destroying it. They later found the womans car abandoned in a drainage ditch in northeast Glenrock.

Eads then stole a Glenrock police patrol vehicle after assaulting an officer and left the area of the drainage ditch, the court documents allege. Glenrock Police Chief Tim Hurd said Wednesday that the officer suffered minor injuries in the altercation and was back at work.

Keener, however, did not leave the area and law enforcement found her hiding in a field about 400 yards from the elderly womans crashed car, the documents state.

Interview with authorities

In an interview with DCI agents, Keener admitted to being involved in the I-25 pursuit. She said she handed a pistol to Eads, who then shot at law enforcement while driving. She said that both drove the Toyota at different points during the pursuit.

Keener said she saw Eads grab the elderly woman, push her to the ground and take the keys. Keener said she never entered the womans home but did ask if she was OK after the woman had been pushed down. She said she and Eads then took the womans car before crashing it.

Keener said she saw Eads take a law enforcement vehicle and that he told her to get in as she hid near the ditch. However, Keener wasnt able to get in and fell back down into the ditch, at which point Eads drove off.

Details about the standoff in Casper and other events that happened after Keeners arrest were not available in the court documents filed in her case. Williams said those details would become more clear after charges are filed against Eads in Natrona County Circuit Court.

Williams said that agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation continue to look into the incidents and that additional charges could be filed against Keener as the case progresses.
HELENA  U.S. Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte agreed to a civil settlement Wednesday to head off a potential lawsuit by the reporter he attacked last month, issuing a written apology in which he backtracks his original account of events and promises to make a $50,000 donation to a nonprofit that works to protect journalists from violence worldwide.

The agreement was reached between the Montana politician and their reporter Ben Jacobs, the Guardian first reported. The Britain-based newspaper has a large presence and online following in the United States.

I have taken full responsibility for my actions and both publicly and personally apologized to Mr. Ben Jacobs," Gianforte said in a statement issued Wednesday by spokesman Shane Scanlon. "Ben has accepted my apology and we are both ready to move on."

In the letter, Gianforte wrote: My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful. As both a candidate for office and a public official, I should be held to a high standard in my interactions with the press and the public. My treatment of you did not meet that standard.

The donation will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit based in New York formed in 1981 to promote press freedom and defend the rights of journalists.

Gianforte also said in the letter that Jacobs "did not initiate any physical contact with me." That contradicts a statement issued by his campaign spokesman in the hours after the May 24 attack on the night before Election Day. He did not take direct ownership of the false statement or explain why his campaign issued the lie, instead referencing it vaguely in the letter as "anyone's statements to the contrary."

Jacobs said in an emailed statement that he hopes the settlement agreement allows everyone, including the nation, to move forward.

I have accepted Mr. Gianforte's apology and his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and statements," he wrote. "I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country."

Jacobs will not receive any money as part of the agreement.

Scanlon acknowledged a request to talk and asked for questions by email, but did not answer them Wednesday evening. Gianforte did not return a call for comment.

Gianforte also faces a criminal misdemeanor assault citation for the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, a judge in Bozeman, Montana, granted an extension requested by attorneys for Gianforte to appear in court.

The judge did not set a date for Gianforte's appearance, meaning the Republican congressman could appear in court any Monday, Wednesday or Friday between now and June 20. Those are the days Justice Court is in session.

Gallatin County Justice Court Judge Rick West signed the order Tuesday, the same day attorneys for Gianforte filed the motion for an extension.

The motion also said "the parties are currently exploring a settlement'' of the case and that the extension was not opposed by the state. County Attorney Marty Lambert clarified Wednesday that means Gianforte and the state are negotiating a plea agreement related to the criminal citation.

The civil agreement with Jacobs included a requirement that the journalist email Lambert about the criminal case. In that message to the county attorney, Jacobs said he does not object to Gianforte entering a "no contest" plea in the pending civil case rather than a guilty plea, according to a copy provided by Scanlon.

Gianforte, who became wealthy starting a customer-service platform in Bozeman that he eventually sold to Oracle for $1.8 billion, was cited for misdemeanor assault, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, for an attack on Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs at a campaign event on May 24, about 24 hours before Gianforte was elected to the U.S. House.

An audio recording from the altercation details Jacobs trying to ask Gianforte a question about a health care bill, then a scuffle, followed by Jacobs saying Gianforte body-slammed him and broke his glasses. Gianforte can be heard yelling Get the hell out.

Jacobs description of what happened was confirmed by accounts of others in the room, including a reporter for Fox News who saw the altercation.

But just after it happened, the Gianforte campaign sent out a press release saying Jacobs grabbed Gianfortes wrist and pushed both men to the ground, and made a point of calling Jacobs a liberal journalist with aggressive behavior.

Gianforte refused repeatedly in an interview with MTN Friday to say why his campaign released what appears to be a false statement about the altercation. His letter to Jacobs Wednesday likewise does not address the issue.

He did say in his letter that he was sorry for the "unwanted notoriety" his assault created for Jacobs and acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of the press. He said journalists play "a critical role" in society and said those rights are "fundamental to who we are as a nation and the way government is accountable to the people."

"I also know that civility in our public discourse is central to a productive dialogue on issues. I had no right to respond the way I did to your legitimate question about health care policy. You were doing your job," he wrote to Jacobs.

Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist last month in the race to fill Montanas lone U.S. House seat, vacated when Ryan Zinke became Secretary of the Interior.

Gianforte's attorneys are William Mercer, with Holland and Hart law firm in Billings, Montana, and Todd Whipple, with Whipple Law Offices in Bozeman. Mercer was the U.S. Attorney for Montana from 2001-2009 and also served briefly as acting associate attorney general.

Gianforte's attorneys last week received a set of documents containing confidential criminal justice information that Lambert said cannot be made public.

That set of documents includes the citation, a 17-page case summary report, 16 pages of reports from three detectives, three pages of medical records, a sketch of the place where the altercation occurred, the arrest report, copies of media coverage, 14 more pages of handwritten notes from various sources, three pages of names and addresses of witnesses, the violent crime victim notice of rights forms, five pages of teletype history records and a release form and 40 pages of records from Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.

Gianforte also on Friday filed to run for re-election in 2018, according to Federal Election Commission records.
A University of Wyoming assistant professor has pleaded not guilty to possession of child pornography.

Jian Cai is accused of possessing digital images depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He entered his plea Monday in federal court.

Charging documents show an investigation into Cai began on Feb. 14. Agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation were able to determine that a computer belonging to Cai had downloaded pornographic images depicting children.

Cai is currently out on bail. His trial is set for July 17 before U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal.

UW spokesman Chad Baldwin said Cai has been placed on administrative leave without pay.

Cai is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
An Arizona farm accused of housing its workers in inhumane living conditions is at the center of a federal crackdown on worker-visa fraud and abuse.

The U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday that it would aggressively pursue employers and others abusing workers and worker-visa programs and increase protections for American workers.

G Farms near El Mirage, which brought in workers through the H-2A temporary agricultural program, housed its workers in converted school buses and semitruck trailers with beds stacked end to end and with inadequate ventilation, among other violations, according to court records and a U.S. Department of Labor statement.

Daytime temperatures in the housing units exceeded 100 degrees, the Labor Department said.

The department also raised concerns that the workers were inadequately paid.

What G Farms is accused of doing is simply inhumane, Labor Department Secretary Alexander Acosta said in a prepared statement Tuesday. No worker deserves to be treated this way. And honest employers cannot compete against those who break the law by underpaying and mistreating their workers.

Michael King, an attorney representing G Farms and its owner Santiago Gonzalez, said the housing conditions were out of necessity. G Farms learned that hotel rooms it booked werent available as workers arrived in late April.

U.S. District Judge Douglas Rayes granted an injunction May 19 ordering G Farms to make housing and transportation available for the workers, to pay them no less than the hourly rate of $10.95, and to prohibit the withholding of wages. G Farms was cleared to hire 70 workers to harvest potatoes, watermelons and onions between April 2 and July 31, according to a court filing.

The farm initially committed to house employees in eight mobile barrackstile (sic) rooms at the farm site. A separate mobile unit would be a kitchen and another a shower facility.

That site didnt pass inspection by the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

The application was amended and listed 30 rooms at Woodspring Suites hotel on Sweetwater and 89th avenues in Peoria as the new housing site, according to a court filing.

With that, the visa application was approved.

Its unclear how the Department of Labor got further involved, but inspector Kristina Espinoza visited the farm on May 4 and 5 and documented the living conditions.

In a court filing, Espinoza describes the G Farms facility where workers lived and worked as a makeshift labor camp.

Espinoza said three school buses were used as sleeping quarters, housing 10 workers each on beds lined up in two rows. Another two semitrailers had bunk beds with no windows. Other workers slept in an open-air shed apparently made of removed seats from the school buses.

Some of the housing units didnt provide appropriate air conditioning and posed fire hazards and exposed employees to electrocution.

A fourth school bus was the kitchen, with a refrigerator, a sink and two gas-powered burners connected to propane tanks sitting outside the buses, Espinoza said.

A cargo container had nine filthy shower stalls that werent properly connected to a sewage system and posed a risk of electrocution.

Espinoza said after investigators visited G Farms, workers were threatened with not being hired in the future if they spoke with the government.

G Farms attorney King blamed the situation on a Wyoming firm, LeFelco, that helped Gonzalez obtain the visas. King, in an email to the Republic, said LeFelco was responsible for planning the housing for migrant workers.

Justin Greenberg, an attorney representing LeFelco, said the company should not have been named in the suit because it had no power over workers pay or housing conditions.

The Department of Labor website says the employer must provide housing at no cost to the workers.

On May 9, Espinoza said she received a voicemail from a worker who said G Farms was requiring workers to pay for their room and board, according to a court filing.

The Department of Labors court filing alleges G Farms didnt keep accurate records of hours worked and didnt pay workers the minimum agreed wage of $10.95 per hour.
Workplace safety is no game, especially if youre a miner.

But University of Arizona researchers have come up with a gamelike interactive training program for miners that promises to keep trainees engaged and thinking  rather than snoozing over PowerPoint slides.

The program was developed with the help of federal and state grants at the UAs Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources, by inventors including recently retired UA professor Mary Poulton, UA grad and Lowell research scientist Leonard Brown, and Michael Peltier, programmer at Lowells Center of Mine Health and Safety.

Now, the UA inventors are looking to take the training program to market, as the university recently licensed the technology to Desert Saber LLC, a startup formed by the inventors.

Brown, who for his UA dissertation focused on the application of games for mining training, said computer games work because they are highly engaging and foster critical thinking.

We know from teaching that sitting there, staring at a screen, listening, is not a way to engage people, Poulton, a former UA distinguished professor of geosciences, mining engineering, law and public health and founding director of the Lowell Institute, said in a UA news release.

Yet new miners must have at least 40 hours of safety training plus eight hours of annual training.

Desert Sabers gamelike programs use interactive, scenario-based training exercises, simulating situations where teams need to come together and quickly make life-or-death decisions, the UA says.

Poulton said the scenarios create stress and help teach communication, decision-making and leadership skills.

Tech Launch Arizona is supporting the startup with mentoring and business plans, with the help of Lewis Humphreys, TLA licensing manager for information technology; Mark Baker, a volunteer commercialization partner; and TLA mentor-in-residence Kevin McLaughlin, who helped with company formation and continues to advise the Desert Saber team.

STARTUP SUMMER

The summer doldrums have arrived in Tucson, but the local startup scene isnt taking a break.

Startup Tucson has several events planned for local techpreneurs in June, starting this weekend with Thryve Weekend 2017, a three-day event where people are mentored to take their ideas and turn them into a launch-ready business proposition over a weekend.

Tickets are still available for the event, which runs 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, June 9 to 11, at CoLab Workspace, 17 E. Pennington St. The cost is $125 for individuals or the first team member and $50 for additional team members; go to startuptucson.org for more information and registration links.

Startup Tucson also is planning its next 1 Million Cups event, during which local entrepreneurs talk about their journeys, on Wednesday, June 14, at CoLab. And on June 28, entrepreneurs from the second cohort of Startup Tucsons Thryve ScaleUp accelerator program will graduate from the program and pitch their business concepts and plans for growth.

More information on those events also is available at startuptucson.org

ANGEL INVESTOR BOOST

Startup companies need seed money, and some early-stage money dried up a couple of years ago when $20 million in state tax credits for investments made by private-equity angel investors ran out.

But expect angel funding to surge again after Gov. Doug Ducey in late May signed into law legislation that added another $10 million worth of credits over four years.

The Arizona Technology Council pushed for recapitalization of the program, citing a total economic impact of more than $1 billion and a direct return on investment to the state of 2.2 to 1 in tax revenue.
Richard Gordon

A Gemini pilot and command module pilot for the Apollo 12 mission, he is one of only 24 people to have flown to the moon.

Michael Collins

Now 85, Collins was picked by NASA to be an astronaut in 1963. His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 10 with John Young in 1966, and he flew again on Apollo 11 in 1969, the first moon landing mission with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Collins orbited the moon in the Command Module Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin went to the surface in the Lunar Module Eagle. After a day on the moons Sea of Tranquility, they rendezvoused with Collins and returned to Earth.

Charlie Duke

Charlie Duke served as capsule communicator during the first lunar landing of Apollo 11. He made his own walk on the lunar surface as lunar module pilot three years later on Apollo 16, the 10th of 12 moonwalkers, with mission commander John Young.

Dave Scott

Part of Gemini 8 and Apollo 9 and 15, Scott was the first to drive the lunar rover, landing his Apollo 15 LM Falcon in the northern mountains of the Hadley-Apennine region in mid-1971. Apollo 15 was the first real scientific exploration of the moon, and the two moonwalkers (Scott and Jim Irwin) spent nearly three days on the surface. The entire crew was schooled in geological skills, and it paid off with an unprecedented amount of meaningful rock samples and lunar photography.

Major General Joe H. Engle

Engle earned his astronaut wings on June 29, 1965, flying the X-15 aircraft to an altitude of 280,600 feet, becoming the youngest pilot to qualify as an astronaut. Three of his 16 flights in the X-15 exceeded the 50-mile (264,000 ft) altitude required for astronaut rating. In March 1966, Engle was one of 19 pilots selected for the NASA astronaut program, serving as support for Apollo 10 and the back-up Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 14 mission. During 1977, Engle was the commander of one of two crews that flew the initial Space Shuttle Enterprise approach and landing test flights. Enterprise was flown off the top of a modified Boeing 747 for a 2  minute glide test flight from 20,000 feet to landing. On Nov.12, 1981, Engle commanded the second orbital test flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia. On this flight he became the first and only pilot to manually fly an aerospace vehicle from Mach 25 to landing. Engle commanded the Space Shuttle Discovery on flight 51-I which launched on Aug. 27, 1985 to deploy three communications satellites and perform an on-orbit rendezvous and manual repair of the disabled SYNCOM communications satellite.

Col. Karol J. Bo Bobko

A graduate of the first class of the USAF Academy in 1959, Bobko was first selected as an Air Force astronaut for the MOL program after graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards AFB. When that was canceled, he moved to NASA, where he participated in the Skylab Medical Experiments Altitude Tests (SMEAT). He was then on the support crew for the Apollo Soyuz mission, and was support crew and capcom for the ALT flights with Fred Haise and Joe Engle. His first spaceflight was as pilot for STS-6 with Paul Weitz as mission commander. This was the first flight of the shuttle Challenger. He went on to command STS-51D, with Astronaut Rhea Seddon on board for her first flight. He then went on to command the first flight of the shuttle Atlantis.

Paul J. Weitz

Weitz served as pilot on the crew of Skylab-2 (SL-2), which launched on May 25 and ended on June 22, 1973. SL-2 was the first manned Skylab mission, and activated a 28-day flight. In logging 672 hours and 49 minutes aboard the orbital workshop, the crew established what was then a new world record for a single mission. Mr. Weitz also logged 2 hours and 11 minutes in extravehicular activities.

Weitz was spacecraft commander on the crew of STS-6, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on April 4, 1983. This was the maiden voyage of the Orbiter Challenger. During the mission, the crew conducted numerous experiments in materials processing and recorded lightning activities.

Nicole Stott is a veteran of two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS), including 3 Space Shuttle missions and one spacewalk. She is also a NASA Aquanaut and is the holder of the womens world record for saturation diving following her 18-day mission with the NEEMO9 crew on the Aquarius undersea habitat.

Seeing the Earth from space, Nicole had an epiphany. After 28 years with NASA, she has begun her next adventure as a full-time artist and motivational speaker.

Vance Brand

Brand initially was a crew member in the thermal vacuum chamber testing of the prototype Command Module 2TV-1 and support crewman on Apollo 8 and 13. Later he was backup command module pilot for Apollo 15 and backup commander for Skylabs 3 and 4. As an astronaut he held management positions relating to spacecraft development, acquisition, flight safety and mission operations. He got to finally pilot an Apollo spacecraft on the final mission, the historic linkup, Apollo-Soyuz in 1975. Vance stayed on with NASA, eventually becoming a three-time Space shuttle commander.

Jim McDivitt

McDivitt was picked by NASA to be an astronaut as part of the New Nine, the second group after the first seven, in 1961. His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini IV, as the rookie commander on the first long-duration flight (four days.) The highlight of the mission was the iconic first American spacewalk by Jims neighbor and lifelong buddy and fellow New-Niner, Ed White. The memorable photos and video were shot by McDivitt, standing up in his seat with his hatch open.

McDivitt also flew as commander of Apollo 9, the shakedown cruise of the LM, in Earth orbit for a lunar-landing length 10-day flight. Apollo 9 was largely overlooked and under-documented because Apollo 8 had already gone to the moon, minus the LM, four months before. Shortly afterward, he became manager of Lunar Landing Operations, and then manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program for all subsequent landings except 17. He retired from NASA and the USAF as Brigadier General in June 1972 at age 43. Never looking back, he became successful in the business world serving on many boards of directors.

SOURCE: Spacefest; NASA.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some June 8 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.
Sen. John McCain puzzled just about everybody with his eight-minute questioning of the former FBI director, James Comey, today.

What's troubling is how confused McCain himself seemed to be.

Today, of course, was a big moment on Capitol Hill, in which members of the Senate Intelligence Committee questioned Comey, who was fired by Pres. Trump May 9.

Much of the senators' questioning focused on Comey's relationship and conversations with Trump and on the investigation into Russian meddling with the 2016 presidential campaign.

Getting sense my q's today went over ppls heads - maybe going fwd I shouldnt stay up late watching @Dbacks games... https://t.co/r5cnX0yypm  John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 8, 2017

Not McCain's. To be as generous as possible, McCain, 80, seemed to be suggesting that Comey's FBI treated Trump unfairly by continuing to investigate his campaign's links to Russia but not investigating whether the Clinton campaign had similar links. Or maybe, as McCain later suggested, the idea was to point out that Comey reached a legal conclusion exonerating Clinton in the investigation of her email server but hadn't taken a similar step in Trump's case.

Either explanation is generous.

Here's McCain's opening question to Comey:

"In the case of Hillary Clinton, you made the statement that there wasnt sufficient evidence to bring a suit against her, although it had been very careless in their behavior. But you did reach a conclusion in that case that it was not necessary to further pursue her, yet at the same time in the case of Mr. Comey [Here, McCain seemed to mean Mr. Trump], you said that there was not enough information to make a conclusion. Tell me the difference between your conclusion as far as former Secretary Clinton is concerned and Mr. Trump."

Comey answered that the investigation of Clinton's private email server was completed last July but the Russia-campaign investigation was ongoing when he left office.

Next McCain question: "That investigation was going on, this investigation is going on, you reach separate conclusions.

Comey: "No, that one was done."

McCain went on: Well, at least in the mind of this member, there's a whole lot of questions remaining about what went on, particularly considering the fact that, as you mentioned its a big deal as to what went on during the campaign. So, Im glad you concluded that part of the investigation but I think that the American people have a whole lot of questions out there, particularly because you just emphasized the role that Russia played, and obviously, she was a candidate for president at the time, so she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news  as you just described it, big deal  took place. Youre going to have to help me out here. In other words, were complete, the investigation of anything that former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we dont have to worry about it anymore?

Comey's response began understandably: "I'm a little confused, senator."

McCain was not done in his apparent conflation of the concluded Clinton email-server investigation and the ongoing Russia investigation: "But you reached the conclusion that there was no reason to bring charges against Secretary Clinton. So you reached a conclusion in the case of Mr. Comey  President Comey  er, President Trump you have an ongoing investigation, so youve got one candidate who youre done with and another candidate that you have a long way to go, is that correct?

After the hearing, McCain's office put out a statement attempting to clarify his questioning.

"What I was trying to get at was whether Mr. Comey believes that any of his interactions with the President rise to the level of obstruction of justice. In the case of Secretary Clintons emails, Mr. Comey was willing to step beyond his role as an investigator and state his belief about what no reasonable prosecutor would conclude about the evidence. I wanted Mr. Comey to apply the same approach to the key question surrounding his interactions with President Trumpwhether or not the Presidents conduct constitutes obstruction of justice. While I missed an opportunity in todays hearing, I still believe this question is important, and I intend to submit it in writing to Mr. Comey for the record.

Even if that was what McCain was trying to accomplish in his line of questioning, it doesn't make much sense. The Clinton email investigation was over when Comey opined about it; the Russia-campaign investigation is not, and he's not even FBI director anymore.

McCain's performance was one that went beyond inspiring mockery in his critics. Instead, it inspired sympathy and concern for a man who seemed confused.
A Vail woman filed for divorce from her husband who is charged with killing her daughter.

Jessica Lelevier, the mother of 13-year-old Jayden Glomb whose body was found May 11 along the side of a road in Vail, filed for divorce in Pima County Superior Court on June 6, said Attorney Matthew Randle, who represents the woman.

On May 31, Tucson police said Jayden was killed by asphyxiation and homicide detectives arrested her stepfather, Joshua Lelevier, 37, who is accused of first-degree murder and abandoning or concealing a body. He is being held at the Pima County jail on a $500,000 bond.

Jayden was last seen at her home by family members the night of May 10, police were told. The body of the Old Vail Middle School seventh-grader was found hours later.

In a news release, Randle said Jessica Lelevier "wants to express her heartfelt gratitude for the continued outpouring of support from the community." She also asked for privacy to be allowed to mourn.

Jessica Lelevier is a senior master sergeant with the 943rd Rescue Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Joshua Lelevier was not employed, according to court documents. In March 2012, he joined the Florida Air National Guard and the technical sergeant worked as an avionics test station and components craftsman, said William Manley, deputy communications director for the Department of Military Affairs for the Florida National Guard, in an email.

Manley said Joshua Lelevier initiated paperwork to leave the Florida National Guard and transfer to another unit, but had not completed that process.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to approve a resolution Tuesday that aligns the county with the Paris Climate Accord, which President Trump recently announced the United States was withdrawing from.

The resolution reaffirms the countys commitment to studying and preparing for the impacts of climate change, and includes the creation of a special task force to assess which climate related efforts to prioritize. Pima County will implement greenhouse gas, carbon and water-use goals adopted in the 2014 Sustainable Action Plan, as well as measures laid out in the countys comprehensive Pima Prospers plan.

The meeting had high turnout from the public, with a sizable majority in support of the resolution and expressing concerns about climate changes impacts on the local ecosystem and public health.

John Laitner, an international resource economist with a small consulting firm in Pima County who spoke during a call to the public, said the ecosystem is just one issue impacted by climate change.

Inefficient use of resources ... it really does detract from the productivity of the larger economy, he said. Hence, a smart climate strategy, one that encourages productive investment in energy efficiency actually will move the economy to the forefront.

Supervisor Ally Miller voted no on the resolution, stating there must be a balance between protecting the environment and the economy.

This agreement is less about the climate, she said. We all know its about the transfer of wealth from the United States. Why would we want to transfer jobs to countries that are the worlds largest polluters?

Supervisor Steve Christy said the resolution was a diversion from local issues affecting the county.

Here we go again, grandstanding on the national stage when we have a county to run, he said.

You may not think it makes a difference, but how we run this county and how we think about climate change affects our budget in every way possible, Supervisor Richard Elias said before the vote.

Christy and Miller were the two votes against the resolution.
The Smith Fire near Sonoita burned 1,790 acres by Wednesday evening as pre-monsoon storms moving through the area southeast of Tucson brought gusting winds, lightning and some rain.

Late Wednesday night, Cochise County Sheriff's deputies and Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers evacuated about a dozen homes in the community of Dragoon because of the Lizard Fire, said Carol Capas, a sheriff's spokeswoman.

Dragoon, a community of about 200, is about 17 miles east and northeast of Benson and authorities were making notifications to residents to evacuate because of grassland fires near residential areas, Capas said.

The blaze is in Jordan Canyon and Interstate 10 at Dragoon Road was shut down on to Arizona Highway 191, said Capas.

Capas did not have an estimate on the size of the Lizard Fire, but said that wind gusts were contributing to the fire's growth. Multiple agencies were battling the lightning-caused blaze that began shortly before 2:30 p.m.

Union Pacific Railroad was notified and it stopped its freight trains that pass through the area, said Capas.

The Southern Arizona Chapter of the American Red Cross will establish an evacuation shelter plan, and families were advised to get a "go bag" ready with important documents, medications, identification, money and gather their pets, said Capas.

Lightning strikes caused about six brush fires, primarily in Cochise County when thunder began between 1 and 2 p.m. Fire crews were battling the wildland fires burning mostly grasslands.

The Otra Fire in the Mule Mountains near Bisbee had burned more than 200 acres, and was threatening a state Department of Forestry and Fire Management tower, said Tiffany Davila, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Ground crews and air tankers were working the fire in rugged terrain, Davila said. She said the blaze is expected to be 50 percent contained by late Wednesday night.

Isolated rain from the storms coming from Mexico helped crews battle the largest blaze reported so far, near Sonoita.

The most significant blaze  the Smith Fire  started about 2:30 p.m. seven miles northeast of Sonoita in the Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.

Multiple ground crews and aircraft, including air tankers, were assigned to the blaze, officials said. About 80 personnel were working the fire.

Arizona 82 was closed for a a couple of hours east of Sonoita, but has since reopened in both directions.

The National Weather Service said the storms were moving to the northeast and were producing gusty winds of up to 45 mph. Rainfall, less than .10 of an inch, is associated with these storms.

June Lowery, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Land Management, said heavy rain fell on the Smith Fire Wednesday afternoon, helping the fire crews. However, the fire continued to grow. No evacuations were in place.

On Thursday, Tucson's high is predicted to be 103 degrees and mostly clear with a low of 72 degrees by the evening, according to the weather service.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Solihull, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - Prime Minister Theresa May is oncourse to increase her majority in parliament in Britain'selection on Thursday, opinion polls showed on Wednesday,suggesting her gamble to call the vote to bolster her positionin Brexit negotiations will pay off.

May has seen her once-commanding lead over the Labour Partyand its veteran hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn narrow sharplysince she surprised almost everyone by calling a snap electionin April.

Of six polls published on Wednesday, two showed theConservatives widening their lead over Labour, two showed anarrowing and two were unchanged.

But they mostly suggested she would increase the smallmajority she inherited from David Cameron last year, shortlyafter the surprise referendum decision to take Britain out ofthe European Union.

Polling firm ICM said Conservatives' wide lead of 46 percentto 34 percent for Labour would give May a majority of 96 seats,up sharply from the working majority of 17 she has had until nowand bigger than any Conservative majority since the days whenMargaret Thatcher was prime minister.

The Independent newspaper said the 44-34 lead for theConservatives in a poll it commissioned from ComRes would giveMay a majority of 74.

YouGov, which found the Conservatives' lead had increased toseven percentage points from four during the weekend, also saidMay would bolster her power in parliament.

"The seven-point Conservative lead is the same as at theprevious election, but we think it is likely they willnevertheless be returned with an increased majority," YouGovDirector Anthony Wells said.

The polls were conducted after a deadly attack by Islamistmilitants in London on Saturday.

ICM and ComRes have tended to give the Conservatives biggerleads than other polling firms.

At the other end of spectrum, Survation said theConservatives' lead stood at just one percentage point, echoingtwo polls it published in recent days which called into questionwhether May would get a majority at all.

Polling experts have said the main difference between thepolls which give the Conservatives a big lead and ones such asSurvation which suggest a tighter race is largely down tovarying estimates of how many young voters, who typicallysupport Labour, are likely to actually vote on Thursday.

Investors took the latest findings as a sign May was likelyto emerge victorious, giving her a boost before the start ofBrexit talks this month. Sterling rose by nearly half acent against the US dollar after the ICM poll was published.

GAMBLE

ComRes Chairman Andrew Hawkins said May was in the clearafter securing the support of around 2 million voters - worthabout six percentage points in the polls - who backed theanti-EU UK Independence Party in Britain's last election in2015, and who have warmed to her tough stance on negotiatingBrexit.

"Despite Mrs May's ratings taking a hit during the campaign,older voters in particular have stuck with her party and itappears that the electoral gamble is about to pay off," he saidin a blog.

The big differences in the poll findings in the run-up toThursday's vote have added to scepticism among critics ofpolling who point to how the industry largely failed toaccurately predict the outcome of the 2015 election and lastyear's referendum vote to exit the EU.

REUTERS
OPINION: "People have a perverse attraction to bad news and in todays digital world, bad news has become easier and easier to access. No group is quite as vulnerable to its influence than the digital natives of Gen Z," writes Marana resident Mitch Carroll.
The proposed Rosemont Mine is one big step closer to reality after the U.S. Forest Services approval Wednesday.

Just as it did more than three years ago, the Forest Service determined Wednesday that the mine in the Santa Rita Mountains will meet environmental laws, while acknowledging impacts such as diminished groundwater. But unlike the services tentative December 2013 decision, this one is final.

It does not authorize mining at the 5,400-acre site about 30 miles southeast of Tucson, however. That will require a Clean Water Act permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and separate Forest Service approvals of a detailed mining plan and a reclamation plan from Hudbay Minerals Inc., the Toronto firm seeking to build the project.

But it clearly puts the Forest Service on record that the mine will meet all applicable environmental standards under the services purview. The service said the mine will meet the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Arizona Environmental Quality Act that protects water quality in the state.

As for the Clean Water Act, the Army Corps will have the final say.

The $1.9 billion mine would create more than 400 permanent jobs and remove about 224 million pounds of copper annually for 19 years from an open pit of at least a half-mile deep and more than a mile in diameter. Hudbays predecessor Augusta Resource Corp. proposed the project more than a decade ago.

The Rosemont team thanks the Forest Service and all the other cooperating agencies for their hard work and dedication to the public interest over the past 10 years, Patrick Merrin, vice president of Hudbays Arizona business unit, said Wednesday.

The proposal has been tied up by massive opposition from environmentalists and by numerous inter-agency conflicts over its potential effects on water supplies, water quality and endangered species including the very rare jaguar.

The Forest Services decision faces a certain court challenge from environmental groups.

On Wednesday, a chorus including the Center for Biological Diversity, Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, and the Defenders of Wildlife issued news releases blasting the decision as premature and environmentally unsound. They cited the fact that the Forest Service has previously said it will approve the mine if it meets all environmental laws, but that the Corps hasnt weighed in on that point.

They were joined in their criticism by U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, and Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, who are also longtime Rosemont opponents. The office of Republican Rep. Martha McSally, whose district includes the mine site just west of Arizona 83, didnt return a phone call seeking comment on the decision.

The Forest Services announcement is a hollow paperwork maneuver, said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. This huge mine is just too dangerous to get a free pass. ... Apparently, with the Trump administration, promises are meant to be broken.

But the Tucson Metro Chamber of Commerce greeted the decision warmly, with its president and CEO Mike Varney saying it will mean a lot more jobs and more in the way of paychecks and prosperity for a lot of local families.

He noted that the chambers board conditioned its recommendation for the project back in 2010 on its ability to show it met environmental laws, which the group now believes it has done.

It will bring 1,500 to 2,000 full-time construction jobs at the mine in a two-year construction process, Varney said. That means that the construction industry, which was the hardest-hit sector of our community after the Great Recession, will get welcome construction jobs and that will mean significant paychecks for families across Southern Arizona.

This decision concludes a thorough process involving 17 co-operating agencies at various levels of government, 16 hearings, over 1,000 studies and 245 days of public comment resulting in more than 36,000 comments, Hudbays Merrin said.

This decision brings us another step closer to being able to build a modern mine that will fulfill the requirements of its permits, create jobs and strengthen the local economy, he said. The (Forest Services) final Record of Decision was granted based on years of public input allowing rigorous study and analysis of fact and science.

Coronado National Forest Supervisor Kerwin Dewberry said Wednesday tjat he has delayed a decision as long as possible after completing his review well over a month ago. Because the Army Corps has declined to say when it will make a decision, Dewberry said he now believes he must be reasonable and prudent and give the mining company a timely decision.

I have nothing else to stop me from making a decision, Dewberry said. Im really trying to make sure, as a decision maker for this project, that Ive taken all analyses and all things into consideration. Ive done my job in relation to this project.

But Save the Scenic Santa Ritas spokesman David Steele noted that federal environmental law requires the Forest Service to analyze all the projects impacts. The Army Corps public record is plentiful, full of technical information that clearly spells out the mines impacts to water resources of Southern Arizona, he said.

For Dewberry to suggest that he wanted to move it off his desk, move it along and reward Rosemont and its investors with a likely windfall, without waiting to determine whether it meets the Clean Water Act, is irresponsible, Steele said.

Dewberrys decision authorizes the mines Barrel Alternative, which will concentrate the mines waste rock and tailings in Upper Barrel Canyon and part of Wasp Canyon on the east side of the Santa Ritas. That alternative was recommended nearly six years ago by his predecessor Jim Upchurch as a way to keep wastes out of neighboring McCleary Canyon. The service says thats the most biologically diverse canyon near the mine site.

Dewberry and Upchurch said the Barrel Alternative will have the fewest environmental impacts of any alternative studied except for a no action option, which the service has long said it cant legally approve for Rosemont because of federal mining laws.

Dewberry wrote that Barrel will disturb the least amount of riparian areas and other vegetation, the smallest number of springs, and the smallest number of acres that could attract invasive species after the land is disturbed. Dewberry said Barrel is the only alternative that can meet federal air quality standards.

But many issues remain legally and scientifically unsettled. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote a favorable biological opinion on the mine, the Center for Biological Diversity has signaled its intention to sue to have that opinion tossed out. Although the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has certified the mine will meet state water quality standards, Pima County is challenging that in court.
The diplomatic crisis in Qatar saw a new development Wednesday as Turkey's parliament passed legislation permitting the deployment of troops to a Turkish military base in Qatar. The legislation was drafted prior to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain severing ties with Qatar, but indicates that Turkey is willing to help the Gulf Arab country.

The bill was supported by both the governing AK party and the nationalist opposition.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated Tuesday that "Turkey will continue and will develop our ties with Qatar," adding that "we do not think the sanctions against Qatar are good." Erdogan insisted Turkey would have intervened if the sanctions of terrorist support were proved, but questioned the effectiveness of measures already taken by his Arab neighbors in isolating the small emirate. Reports of Qatar's ongoing support for regional Islamist groups, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood, and Shiite-ruled Iran, led to uneasy relations with many neighboring nations. Weekly Standard

----------------

Well, pilgrims you can add Mauretania the list of those following Saudi Arabia's lead in this. They must be on "the dole" from Riyadh.

Qatar is a strange little place. It is really a sandbar sticking out into the Gulf. Qatar possesses large gas reserves but does anyone think that desire to possess these reserves motivates Saudi Arabia? Qatar is the only Wahhabi country other than Saudi Arabia itself. It exists because imperial Britain wanted to hold a non-Saudi piece of Wahhabi dominated "soil" in the Gulf region. Qatar realizes the weakness of its position vis a vis Saudi Arabia. The emirate is in fact if not in appearance an absolute dictatorship. I was present at a meeting at the ruler's palace in Doha in which the then emir laughed and told the group I was with that if the West wanted democracy he would create things for them to look at. He would have a parliament. He would have a "free" press (Al-Jazeera?). He said that there had been a subversive conspiracy attempting a coup recently and that he had a number of the plotters in prison. What should I do with them he asked this group of millionaires and corporate representative. I do not wish to upset "The West" too much. The response from the leader of the group was that the prisoners should receive due process. The emir then changed the subject.

Existing in such a milieu, Qatar's rulers have sought to "fireproof" themselves against a future in which Saudi Arabia decides that the Qatari mini-state's existence is unnecessary.

1. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly they have given the US the use of land including the area of the former British air base at al-udeid and enough space to position USCENTCOM's forward headquarters in theater. These facilities are very important to the US. The air war in the ME is run from al-udeid air base, not the flying necessarily, but just about all the staff functions for command and control. DJT does not seem to grasp the importance of al-udeid to the US air war.

2. The "Al-Jazeera network" is a great irritant to the autocratic states of the Arab World. It has always been such and it has been bitched about to me by rich and otherwise powerful Arabs from its creation. It is clearly under the protection of the house al-thani (the rulers of this little country). As I have said, this princely house is not IMO in any way democratic. Al-Jazeera is part of the Potemkin Village of democracy that is presented to the West by the Qatari state, but that image is helpful to them.

3. Qatar maintains a certain ambiguity with regard to its relations with Iran. It has recently chosen to emphasize that ambiguity, probably IMO in response to DJT's acceptance of his role as the mukhtar of America.

And now, in demonstration of Sultan Erdogan's ambition to one day be thought Commander of the Faithful, the Turkish parliament has provided the legal basis for Turkey to intervene militarily and politically in settlement of the present difficulty involving Saudi Arabia, its Arab allies and mukhtar Trump on the one hand with Qatar and Turkey (possibly Iran?) on the other.

Can one doubt that Turkish support for the al-thani will achieve great influence in Qatar? If so, what will be Turkey's level of influence over US use of al-udeid AFB? Without the C&C facilities at that base we would essentially be out of business in the air war. And then there is Incirlik AFB ...

What on earth does DJT think he is doing by siding with SA against Qatar? pl

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar

http://www.weeklystandard.com/turkey-approves-deploying-troops-to-qatar/article/2008364
Help India!

TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter

Founder of the Bhim Army advocate Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan was arrested today from Dalhousie town of Himachal Pradesh by Special Task Force of UP police.

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According to sources, the STF team arrived in plain clothes to arrest Chandrashekhar from Subhash Chowk in Dalhousie when he was roaming around. Police personnel arrived in a Toyota Innova and took away Chandrashekhar. Dalhousie DSP Sagar Chand confirmed the arrest.

The UP Police had been trying to locate Chandrashekhar for the past one month but had not been successful. Earlier it was speculated that Chandrashekhar could be hidden in remote areas of Punjab, but there was no credible intelligence to support the same.

Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan went absconding about a month ago when the UP Police implicated him in the Saharanpur riots. While no tough action was taken against BJP leaders and Thakurs who were directly involved in the case, UP Police found it easy to frame Chandrashekhar in incident where Dalit houses were burnt.

To trace and catch Chandrashekhar, Saharanpur was turned into a surveillance state where family members of Chandrashekhar were being detained and abducted without any charges. Moreover, the family members of Chandrashekhar also alleged that they were being followed by police personnel in plain clothes.

With the arrest of Chandrashekhar, it is speculated that violence may again spike in Saharanpur and as a preventive measure, Police is again thinking to put blockade over internet.

Days before the arrest, Chandrashekhar issued audio tapes and video recording from various unknown locations. In an interview given to PTI, Chandrashekhar had said, Instead of arresting the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence, the police has arrested innocent people and put them behind bars. This has resulted in growing anger among the Dalits.
Help India!

Mandsaur/Bhopal, (IANS) Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh was calm on Thursday, two days after police shot dead five protesting farmers, but Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhis attempt to meet the deceased farmers kin raised political temperature in the state.

Gandhi was arrested along with 29 other leaders including Janata Dal-Uniteds Sharad Yadav when they entered the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh but were later released on personal bonds. The Congress leader then met some farmers and expressed solidarity with them.

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After being prevented from entering violence-hit Mandsaur, Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi government of favouring the rich and giving farmers only bullets. After Gandhi got bail, the curfew imposed on Tuesday evening was released in the area for two hours from 4 p.m.

Modi waived off loans worth Rs 150,000 crore for the richest people in India, Gandhi said, But they cant pay the right price to farmers for their produce, they cant give compensation either. They can give only bullets.

Asked who was responsible for the killing of the five farmers on Tuesday, Gandhi said: (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (Madhya Pradesh) Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan).

Gandhi entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan and switched over to a bike in a bid to reach Mandsaur after seeing police deployment. But he could not go too far.

Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh as well as Sharad Yadav were also stopped from meeting the families of the dead farmers.

When they reached Neemuch near Mandsaur, Kamal Nath demanded to know why they were being stopped as they were only three in number and so not violating the prohibitory orders.

A former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh said: This government is acting foolishly. Shivraj Singh Chouhan must resign.

He said the Congress and JD-U leaders didnt go to Mandsaur to ignite passions. We have come here to ease the tension. We have come to talk to the farmers.

He said the Chief Minister had promised farmers 1.5 times return on the yield of crops. Why hasnt he implemented his own promise?

Amid the simmering tension, the Madhya Pradesh government transferred the District Magistrates of Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch districts. The Mandsaur Police Superintendent was also shunted out. All three places witnessed violence by farmers.

The BJP accused the Congress of instigating the violence and said Gandhis conduct was irresponsible.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the Modi government would not do anything that breaks the faith of farmers and the common man.

There is information that some people were involved in instigating violence, he said.

Chief Minister Chouhan urged the farmers to maintain peace and vowed to resolve the crisis through talks.

He said anti-social elements trying to inject instability would be dealt with strictly.

Meanwhile, Youth Congress workers organised a Rail Roko protest at Mumbais Ghatkopar railway station over the farmers protest.

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu described Gandhis visit as another photo opportunity.

Another Union Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, dubbed Gandhis decision to visit Mandsaur as irresponsible.

The farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh entered the eighth day on Thursday.

On Tuesday, police fired at farmers after they reportedly resorted to violence in Mandsaur district. The Madhya Pradesh government says five farmers were killed in police firing but the leaders of farmer groups claim eight died.

The farmers want their loans to be written off and their produce to be bought at a fair price by the government.
Cooperation in energy saving, industry and investment are the themes for the 7th plenary session of the Ukraine-Czechia intergovernmental commission on economic, industrial and scientific cooperation on Thursday in Kyiv.

"Cooperation in the energy sphere is important for us, especially increasing the effective functioning of the gas transportation system (GTS), as well as cooperation in the energy saving sphere. Nuclear energy is also important, electricity and industry. It is also very important to cooperate in industrial development, because, as you know, this is one of the priorities of state policy for the upcoming years," Vice Prime Minister on European Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.

The deputy PM said supplying spare parts for cars, repair work and helicopter maintenance were also discussed, as well as creating joint production ventures.

"We decided we're ready to develop cooperation in developing the production of trolley bus cars," she said.

Czech Minister of Industry and Trade Jiri Havlicek said a wide range of topics were discussed in the meeting.

"I am pleased that we talked about economic issues, industry, export development and investments. These are important issues for Ukraine and Czechia," he said.

Havlicek invited Klympush-Tsintsadze to visit Prague next year.
Everyone had high hopes for this movie, the first stand-alone Wonder Woman movie in the DC characters long history. Gal Gadots brief appearances in Batman V Superman were some of that films highlights.

The trailers promised action and visual delights; the film delivered these fundamental requirements. Then on several unsuspected levels, it surpassed the expectations and smashed through the confines of the comic book hero/heroine genre and delivered far more than was expected: an anti-war epic film capable of moving viewers to tears and then uplifting them.

Expectations were for a feminist icon Hollywood style; of course, WW would be beautiful, intelligent, strong and the rest of it. Gadot was cast from hundreds of hopefuls in the role of Diana Prince, and she brought remarkable strength and beauty to the role. These were exceeded by Gadots vulnerability and innocence  to an extent which wasnt expected.

About the film

Born and raised on the Amazon stronghold, Diana was highly educated, but unaware of the ways of the world. She encounters WWI pilot Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), swiftly followed by his German pursuers who slay sword- and bow-wielding Amazons with their superior weaponry - our first anti-war comment, with more than a few echoes of historic colonial decimation of native cultures still going on today.

The battle on the Amazonian beach was not our first invitation to consider combat issues. The question of whether to train for battle came earlier, when girlhood Diana longed to learn the arts of warfare but her mother objected, wanting to keep her safe. Can parents keep their children safe? The answer no was given swiftly when the German troops arrived.

We need to know how to defend ourselves and what we hold dear. Soon the film took us to the offensive side of military preparedness.

Diana listens to Steve tell her of the great war raging across the globe and of the millions who have died. Her mother Hippolyta who was a great warrior wants her to stay; Diana knows she must go and do something about this war.

She leaves her island paradise for good: once you see the realities of evil, there is no return to innocent peaceful beauty. Bidding her mother and her former life goodbye forever, Diana accompanies Steve Trevor to London, and from there to the front.

A few jokes

There are some laughs in London; Diana needs clothes to blend in, and wonders how women can fight in such restrictive, impractical clothing. There is a joke or two about the role of the secretary, about women not being allowed to attend high-level meetings or vote, and these make points about feminism and how much further we have to go. Diana is new to this world. If she found London with its choking fog and dark towers hideous, wait until she gets her wish and gets to the front lines.

Diana and Steve team up with a trio of men to make their way to the front lines. The parallel is with the Scot and Welshman in Henry V who are flawed rogues, but who will fight for their cause. One of these is a man who wants to be an actor  his skin is too dark. One is a native American turned smuggler  everything has been taken from him, and now he smuggles. Later we see him helping those who have like him lost everything to warfare when he meets them on front lines  this is a hero.

Real horror

Diana travels with this team out of London, she sees the wounded and the shell-shocked pass her as they return home. They reach the front. Horses are suffering under heavy loads, there is more injury, and then real horror as they reach the front trenches.

A woman pleads that her village has been overtaken, and the villagers enslaved. Dianas face reflects shock and empathy throughout all the previous scenes. The innocent Diana, raised in a paradise, is horrified by this wars brutality and sees that the war horses and innocent people are its victims. Her face, her reactions to the horror around her are genius  the writing is superb, the imagery as awful as it intends to be, and GAdots revulsion at the horror of war are outstanding.

She cannot stand any more without taking action. Despite calls from the others to stay in the trenches, she literally puts her head above the parapets and charges the opposing forces. The village is liberated, the people celebrate.

All seems well.

Victory and happiness are short lived

Without giving too much away of this deftly-crafted plot, victory and happiness are short lived. A masterfully-cast David Thewlis takes a turn as Mars, God Of War, whom Diana knew must be somewhere around this hellish war.

Diana set out to literally destroy war. She assumed the most violent, cruel leader of the Germans must be Mars the god of War. That would have been too easy, and War is the quiet English politician played by David Thewlis. Thewlis delivers a cold, chilling speech on human nature and war and this scene alone is worth several accolades. All the god of war has done is to enable the human race to choose war, and they have chosen war in spades, killing each other indiscriminately from great distances.

Diana has already questioned a Scots sharp-shooter in her small party about killing someone when you cannot see their eyes  she calls this murder. It is.

Not a paper doll

GAdot is not posing her way through this film; shes not a cardboard cut-out paper doll chosen only for her resemblance to the Wonder Woman comic. When she battles, when she is furious, you sense she could not care less what she looks like  and this lack of enslavement to looking beautiful not only makes the film work that bit more, its another lesson in feminism.

Provoked beyond all endurance by this war, by the costs paid in innocent blood, and forced to realise that all people have both good and evil in them, Diana could have been forgiven for joining Mars and hating people for all they have done and the violence and pain she has seen them dish out.

She faces her moment of truth, has a revelation on the superior power of love, and as super-heroines do, she does the right thing. She emerges as Wonder Woman.

The many observations on the failings and beauty of human behaviour mark this as a film that deserves a place in the anti-war pantheon of great movies. How the idea of making this original film such a powerful vehicle for promoting peace came about should be known. It accomplishes this anti-war message while retaining the values and codes of a comic super-hero film  some comic relief, fantastic action scenes, dazzling sets, and a wonderfully-constructed mythology. The writing (screenplay by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs) is perfect: where no words are required, none are written.

Managing this massive project is Director Patty Jenkins (Monster, AMCs The Killing), and there not one single scene that could be better realised.

Feminist ideology to emulate

Wonder Woman is the DC world at its best since the halcyon days of the late great Christopher Reeve. Wonder Woman is a modern feminist ideology to emulate. Wonder Woman is a great anti-war film holding up a mirror to the ugliness and reality of the senseless suffering of war. More movies like this please. If the team behind this diamond can be harnessed for more projects in and out of the comic genre, please let that happen.

It is a tragic irony that mindless violence in Manchester caused the London premier of this anti-war, pro-woman film to be cancelled. But one premier less cannot dampen these messages  and a finer collection of messages in a movie is a rare thing.
It would appear that the US backed and trained forces like the Kurdish Peshmerga and some Christian forces are preparing an assault on the Islamic State self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa. Reuters reported that The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) "had launched an operation to capture Raqqa, Islamic State's de facto Syrian capital, piling pressure on the jihadists whose self-declared caliphate is in retreat across Syria and Iraq." The battle, as with Mosul in Iraq, has been in the offing for a while now and has been slowly heading for Raqqa as Islamic State forces fall back.

It is widely assumed that IS leader Baghdadi and other senior figures in the ranks of the Jihadi group will have fled the city and gone into hiding. The city has been bombed mercilessly by allied air power hitting IS targets but unfortunately, many civilian casualties have also succumbed to the bombing too.

Islamic State will be preparing a welcoming committee for the forces ranged against them, like suicide bombers, car bombs, truck bombs, IEDs, and all manner of ambushes. The fighting, as in Mosul, is still not completely under Iraqi government control and it will be ruthless, determined, street to street and house by house.

Mosul and other towns and cities under IS control may have been important and IS would not have wanted to lose them but we are talking about the capital of the caliphate here.

IS will not want to give up their capital and will offer no doubt the hardest and most fanatical defence of it. Civilians have been leaving the city in their droves.

It is understandable civilians would want to leave before the assault begins as they do not wish to die in the fighting or be used as human shields. Meanwhile, the forces surrounding Raqqa will have preparations in place to accommodate this influx of scared, tired and hungry people as they did around Mosul.

A history of the Islamic State

Islamic State grew out of Al-Qaeda in Iraq when there was a disagreement between Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-Qaeda's offshoot in Iraq had been doing things that even Al-Qaeda did not agree with, so the offshoot broke from the main body and called itself many names before settling on Islamic State.

After this, the Islamic State set off on a war of conquest and as the Iraqi forces and others fell back before them they captured American equipment. After the northern Syrian city of Raqqa fell, their leader Baghdadi stood atop a famous mosque and proclaimed a caliphate. He asked all Sunni Muslims to join him in this paradise and to widen its borders and fight the infidel.

Many people flocked to this so-called paradise from various parts of the world and they did conquer and widen the caliphates borders. Islamic State functioned like a state and at one point it was estimated 10 million people lived under its rule.

But its rule, if you were a Shia Muslim or a Sunni Muslim that did not agree with their interpretation of Sharia law, was brutal.

For Yazidis and Christians, Islamic State's rule was brutal, In some cases, it was genocidal, particularly for the Yazidis who the Islamic State thought were Satanists.

Islamic States similarity to the Japanese forces of World War II

Looking back historically, there are many similarities between the Imperial Japanese forces of World War II and Islamic State now. Both launched a war of conquest and for six months or more both were successful in their conquests.

However both the Japanese back then and IS now soon began to fight a war of defence against a much stronger enemy who had resources and time on their side. Back then in the Pacific, the Japanese fought to hold onto their territory they had captured as IS do now.

Nevertheless, the war turned against the Japanese back then as it has with IS now.

The Japanese were fanatical fighters and did unspeakable crimes against humanity just like the Islamic State is doing.

They say history sometimes repeats itself so maybe the comparison between Imperial Japan and today's Islamic State is a reasonable parallel.
Since the mid-2000s, UKIP has been a thorn-in-the-side for the Conservatives. Many voters and activists disenchanted with the latter party's quarrels over the EU led traditional Tories to abandon their natural party. Indeed, it was a Eurosceptic surge prior to Cameron's Bloomberg speech that led the former prime minister to issue an EU Referendum in 2015. A study commissioned after the 2010 General Election said the Brexit party's support cost the Conservatives quite a few seats.

Kippers must lend Tory MPs their support

Yet this general election is unique, because it is the first one where the Tories have committed to pulling Britain out of the EU, which has been UKIP's raison d'etre since its formation.

For too long, Farage's party has cast a dark shadow over the Conservatives' electoral prospects. It is now the duty of Kippers to lend their support to Tory MPs to ensure leaving the EU finally becomes a reality. The alternative is worse. Corbyn cannot publicly commit to Britain leaving the EU. As Robin Walker said in a recent interview with Blasting News, his position on the issue changes all the time. If he wins those six seats likely to create a hung parliament, he will inevitably be strung along by Sturgeon and Farron, whose views on leaving the EU are hardly a secret.

Many UKIP supporters may be sceptical of Theresa May's commitment to leaving the EU because she supported Britain's EU membership last year.

But if one studies the long history of the Conservative Party, you will see that our current prime minister is part of the long history of pragmatic responses to radical changes in this country. She has accepted the result and is helping to shape a post-Brexit Britain.

It is time for the centre-right to unite behind our Prime Minister and not allow Corbyn a backdoor entrance into Downing Street on Friday morning.
The 1980s were undoubtedly a dark time for Labour. The year 1983 saw their leader, Michael Foot, issue a manifesto dubbed the longest suicide note in history. It was a year that changed British politics forever, as voters overwhelmingly rejected Foot's radicalism and embraced Thatcher's vision for the nation. Her reforms have remained intact, if not enhanced, since.

The talk over the last two months has not been about a Corbyn victory, but how big the Conservatives' final majority will be. Mr. Foot was a principled man who fell by the sword after his humiliating defeat in 1983.

Do you think Mr. Corbyn has enough backbone to resign and pass the torch onto someone else if he loses more seats than Miliband did in 2015? It's unlikely. If that was the case, he would have resigned last year. Instead, he got re-elected with a bigger mandate than the one he received during his first leadership election. Even if he did have the dignity to resign, Labour's membership is so heavily left-wing that they would only replace him with the dreaded John McDonnell. Either way, the party's prospects look grim.

'What choice do Blairites have?'

Many have argued Labour will not split in the same way it did during the 1980s because the memories are still all too real for many of their MPs. They also suggest it will not happen due to the entrenched two-party system Britain uses to elect its representatives.

But what choice do the Blairites in the party have? Five years of misery on the backbenches? It was the formation of the SDP in 1981 that galvanised Neil Kinnock to begin their arduous journey back to power. The Tories look set to remain in power until the 2030s at the latest. If the actions of another 'Gang of Four' can inspire the centre-left party to sort themselves out, they need to do so now before someone else offers them a better job, like directing a history museum, perhaps?
Thursday, 8 June is a crucial day for the United Kingdom as the polling stations open across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. As the counting begins in the 650 constituencies where an MP spot is up for grabs, there will be plenty of key questions to emerge and what answers will they bring.

It is already the fifth General Election since the millennium and the last one of this particular decade. Currently, the score stands at 2-1 to Labour with a hung parliament the final outcome of the 2010 result. For Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn, Thursday night and the early hours of Friday morning will be pivotal for their political careers.

Has May's gamble paid off?

When Theresa May stunned everyone in the political spectrum by calling a snap General Election, she surely couldn't have predicted the drama and national issues she'd have to face in the last 50 days. A campaign where Brexit always looked like being the dominant policy has moved swiftly away to other major issues. Whilst health and education reforms have played their part, national security has come right to the forefront of the campaign battle.

The recent awful events at the Manchester Arena just over a fortnight ago, followed by Saturday's attacks on London Bridge have put political battles to the back of many minds. In some cases, political divisions have been withdrawn and campaigning suspended as a mark of respect to the victims of these appalling losses of life.

The UK is no stranger to terrorism, especially going back several decades to the heavy presence the IRA had, but to have had three attacks in less than three months has shaken many people and dented confidence in our safety and well-being.

Therefore, no Prime Minister has had it harder than Theresa May over the past few weeks.

She has had to try and keep the country together whilst at the same time, maintaining a campaign which has seen people turn their backs on the Conservative Party. Her refusal to do any of the TV debates was widely criticised by the other parties. She felt she had too much to lose and in her Q&A appearances on both the BBC's "Question Time" and the Channel 4/Sky News programme "The Battle for No.10," she looked nervy and shaky.

She has decided to lead a campaign on old values and urging people to trust the Tories' recent record in many areas from crime to the debt level.

Under David Cameron, it was only a slender majority that saw the Conservatives regain full power in 2015. Only a few seats could shift the balance. The polls and confidence levels suggest that what started out as a routine victory has become a much tighter battle. There must be some nerves for the Conservatives. Whilst a 1997 demolition is highly unlikely, they desperately need a majority government, or they will find the next five years to be extremely tricky - both in domestic policies and achieving the best deal for leaving the European Union.

Can Corbyn upset the odds?

Last summer, Jeremy Corbyn's grip on leadership of his own party was looking very loose. He had to see off a leadership challenge within Labour MPs to maintain his status as party leader. Many people would have completely wilted under this pressure. To his credit, Mr Corbyn has led a passionate, strong campaign which has now given him a realistic chance of sweeping Labour back into Downing Street for the first time since Gordon Brown resigned in the aftermath of the 2010 Election.

Corbyn should be able to count on the young vote. His determination to reshape the NHS, scrap tuition fees for University students and ensure a fair society for all forms of life have seen improvements in his ratings.

Unlike Theresa May, he did turn up to do the BBC Election debate and did a very good job, making Home Secretary Amber Rudd (who was Tory spokeswoman on the night) look completely out of her place.

Labour might not have national newspaper support and they might not be as strong as they were under Tony Blair's stewardship. However, Corbyn has been a strong voice and seems to understand the needs of all people. If you look at the main points from both manifestos, Labour's did look more positive for many people - especially nurses, students and the elderly.

Although it would be a shock to see a Labour majority on Thursday night, Corbyn might have done enough to force a hung parliament and he might have more power than May when it comes to striking a coalition deal.

The results will decide if it has been a strong enough campaign from Jeremy Corbyn but he has done all he possibly can and should be satisfied with what he has done.

Will the SNP sweep Scotland? Can the Liberal Democrats fightback?

Of course, Westminster politics is not just about two parties, even if they are the only ones realistic enough to have a Prime Minister by the weekend. The rise of the SNP in recent years has certainly ended the days of the three-way political party system. Nicola Sturgeon experienced a wonderful election night in 2015 with the SNP winning all but one seat. Can they claim the one remaining seat? Don't rule that out. Should it be a hung parliament result, Sturgeon will be the main player who could dictate who she'd be happy to work alongside.

She's a strong-minded woman who won't settle for second-best. The SNP are here to stay.

The same can't be said for the Liberal Democrats. Results night in 2015 was an unmitigated disaster. When the exit poll came in, former leader Paddy Ashdown famously said: "If this exit poll is right Andrew (Neil), then I will publicly eat my hat on your programme!" They lost over 40 MPs, including Ed Davey, Simon Hughes and Vince Cable. Nick Clegg only just about held onto his seat in Sheffield but promptly resigned as party leader. His part in the coalition government has set the Liberals back many generations.

There is a new leader this time round in Tim Farron. Considering their fall from grace, any gain in seats has to be seen as a positive for the Liberal Democrats.

This election might have come a bit too soon for them in terms of their party reform.

For UKIP, they are unlikely to play a part in proceedings. Leader Paul Nuttall will be a strong challenger in his constituency but it is difficult to see where the support is for them, especially after achieving their goal last summer of Britain exiting the European Union. Life after Nigel Farage has been very difficult for UKIP.

Can Theresa May secure her own mandate? Will Jeremy Corbyn spring a big Labour surprise? Is there a place in the government for the SNP? Is there a realistic future in mainland British politics for the Liberal Democrats?

All these questions should be answered within the next 48 hours. The last thing to say is - make sure to vote because it is important to use it. This election is now in the finishing straight. It is time for Britain to decide.
The Conservative Party looks set to gain 45 seats mostly at the expense of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, according to a polling expert.

The University of East Anglia's Chris Hanretty said the Conservatives are on course to gain a healthy majority.

This is despite the final opinion polls, which are the last to be published prior to today's General Election, suggesting the gap between Britain's two main political parties has narrowed to a six-point lead for the governing party.

A surge in support for Mr. Corbyn over the past few weeks has caused a mixture of results among different polling companies.

Survation said the Tories had a one point lead over Labour, while ComRes suggested the Conservatives had a twelve point advantage over the centre-left party, regardless of Theresa May's refusal to appear on the BBC Leaders' Debate.

Terrorist attacks in Manchester and London have not dramatically altered both parties' support in the polls.

Conservatives on course for 375 seats

With seats in the North of England and Scotland set to go blue at the expense of Labour and the SNP respectively, this would land Mrs May with 375 seats.

After the Prime Minister called the general election on April 18th. her party emerged as the favourites to win, with an anticipated landslide of 100 seats. This would increase the Conservatives' current majority of 17.

The last eight polls produced since she called the election have given the Tory leader an average of a ten point lead over Mr. Corbyn, despite starting off with a 17.8 lead over the Labour leader.

The narrowing of the polls was caused by the Conservatives' wobble over their social care plans, which unexpectedly took centre stage in this election.

Tory plans to increase the social care threshold from 23,000 to 100,000 has caused uproar among many voters.

Concerns in CCHQ

Considering the likely outcome of this election was meant to result in a significant boost for the governing party, many staffers in Conservative Central Headquarters are no doubt worried about Labour's poll bounce.

However, the effect a possible collapse in the UKIP vote remains unclear. This could result in the Tories gaining 56 seats, providing them with a 200-seat lead over the opposition parties.

Labour has lost a substantial amount of support across the country since the 2010 General Election. It will be an uphill struggle for Mr. Corybn to regain his party's support, which has been shrinking since Gordon Brown became prime minister in 2007.

Yet opinion polls failed to predict a Conservative victory in 2015, Brexit almost a year ago, and a Donald Trump victory in the United States last November.

Prior to that, Labour's poll lead during the 1997 General Election shrunk during the final weeks of the campaign, but Tony Blair went on to become prime minister with a 179-seat majority, the largest ever seen in British Politics so far.

Betting odds

Betting companies have stated Theresa May is incredibly likely to return to Downing Street as prime minister on Friday morning, with Coral betting the Tories return to power with an increased majority at 20/1. Betfair made the same guess, with a 4/1 probability.

But Paddy Power has controversially bet Mr. Corbyn will be prime minister on Friday morning at 18/1.

Brexit is shaping up to be the deciding factor in this election, with 58 Labour seats where the Tories are 9,000 votes behind at threat.

37 of these seats are located in the Midlands and the North of England.

One of those key battlegrounds is the Birmingham seat of Northfield. Labour is fighting to defend this seat.

Labour's PPC, Richard Burden, has recently found his association under fire due to some of their activists caught leafleting the day after the Manchester attacks, despite publicly pledging not to.

This led to Mr. Burden providing a statement for Blasting News saying a message was distributed to all Northfield Labour activists informing them that no campaigning was taking place that day.

This is a constituency that voted to leave the EU, but the Liberal Democrat candidate for the constituency, Roger Harmer, said the NHS is an important concern to many people in Northfield.

Polls open from 7am today.
Ever since the election of Donald Trump, last November, the partisan divide in the United States has only gotten worse. While the president is usually the one who leads the charge, some of his advisers have also been known to voice their opinion.

Conway on Twitter

Once Donald Trump announced that he was running for president, he quickly changed the direction of American politics. It started early on in the 2016 presidential election when it became clear that the former host of "The Apprentice" was not going to see eye to eye with the mainstream media.

As the feud between both sides progressed, Trump increased his use of social media, making Twitter his number one form of communication. Bypassing the traditional press, the billionaire real estate mogul lashed out on social media on a routine basis, pushing his political agenda without the filter of the media. In addition, Trump would often air his grievances, targeting not just his political opponents, but also celebrity critics, other world leaders, and anything else he needed to get off his chest. Since becoming president, Trump has failed to tone down his outbursts, and has only kicked up his rhetoric on the social media platform. In an ironic turn of events, Presidential Counsel Kellyanne Conway decided to speak out against the Democrats on her own Twitter account on May 9.

Good read: More evidence that Dems (& friends) are playing to Twitter fan base and not speaking to real voters. https://t.co/yqA9ViA0n8  Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 9, 2017

Taking to Twitter on Tuesday morning, Kellyanne Conway posted an article from the right-wing Daily Caller that accused the Democrats of focusing more on "retweets" than connecting with actual voters on the ground.

"Good read," Conway said of the article, before adding, "More evidence that Dems (& friends) are playing to Twitter fan base and not speaking to real voters." Conway's complaint about Democrats spending too much time on Twitter comes at an odd time considering Donald Trump uses the platform almost daily.

Twitter reacts

In response to Kellyanne Conway's tweet, social media users were quick to give their thoughts.

"You all have control of all three branches of gov't, still can't accomplish anything, and then try to blame dems. Deserves Twitter mocking," one tweet read.

@eliszus @KellyannePolls So twitter users aren't "real voters"? That's hilarious. She never disappoints does she?  Terri (@atheistsresist) May 9, 2017

@KellyannePolls You are probably incapable of seeing the irony in your tweet. By the way, how many puppies do you need to finish that coat?  John Jones (@JJCaddis) May 9, 2017

@KellyannePolls lol oh Kellyanne you cray cray  I am a Real voter and I can happily say that I DID NOT vote for TRUMP  Kim Gardner (@kimgard728) May 9, 2017

"Says the woman to her Twitter audience. Who are real voters exactly, according to you?" another tweet went on to read about Kellyanne Conway, which was followed up with a reply stating, "So twitter users aren't "real voters"?

That's hilarious. She never disappoints does she?" "You are probably incapable of seeing the irony in your tweet. By the way, how many puppies do you need to finish that coat?" an additional comment went on to say. The negative reactions kept on coming as it was clear the partisan divide was not going to end anytime soon.
As the scandal surrounding Donald Trump and Russia heats up, it's been the testimony of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates that has dominated the headlines over the last 24 hours. After getting into a heated exchange with Yates, the internet made sure to hit back at Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Cruz trolled

Not long after Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president on the floor of Trump Tower back in June 2015, rumors of his relationship with Russia kicked into gear. One of the first red flags regarding the controversy was Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, creating speculation that he could be hiding potentially damaging financial information from his history as a businessman.

Another issue that critics focused on was Trump's praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he would routinely shy away from criticizing, despite calling out many other world leaders in the process. As time went on, the former host of "The Apprentice" was forced to deal with several of his advisers and associates being exposed for having spoken to high-ranking Kremlin officials, including retired Gen. Michael Flynn who was forced to resign as National Security Adviser because of the revelation. During the aforementioned Sally Yates testimony, Ted Cruz did his best to defend the administration but it didn't go over well, leading to massive Twitter trolling on May 9.

Dem senator tells Morning Joe that Sally Yates "clearly got the best" of Ted Cruz https://t.co/mqxupx1VJn pic.twitter.com/NkQimbPYYW  The Hill (@thehill) May 9, 2017

The reason Sally Yates is no longer the acting attorney general is due to the fact she refused to enforce Donald Trump's controversial "Muslim ban" executive order.

Yates has also spoken out against the White House, especially in regards to what role Michael Flynn had with Russia. While questioning Yates, Ted Cruz did his best to pin her down, claiming that the Office of Legal Counsel gave Trump the right to order the ban in question. Time and time again, Yates pushed back against the Republican from the Lone Star State, debunking Cruz's claims and leaving him scratching his head in the process.

They're going to need to exclude "burns" from the list of pre-existing conditions. https://t.co/Lxhio3dMDg  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 9, 2017

Twitter reacts

In response, social media users took time to troll Ted Cruz for failing to come out on top in his exchange with Sally Yates. "They're going to need to exclude 'burns' from the list of pre-existing conditions," actor George Takei tweeted out.

Before Russiagate erupts into flames(and it will) the greedy mentally ill pathological liar kills us with smoke inhalation. #Trumprussia  Rob Reiner (@robreiner) May 9, 2017

The craziest thing about today's testimony is that Ted Cruz had any dignity left to destroy  Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) May 9, 2017

@MarlowNYC @PragmaticDems She's too smart for everyone. Chewed up Ted Cruz like a piece of tasteless gum. She rocks!  Nina Zuberi (@nizuberi) May 9, 2017

"Sally Yates brilliant. Russia closing in on the trapped rat," actor and director Rob Reiner tweeted out, before adding, "Might take a while,but greedy,sick pathological liar heading out." "Truly a thing of beauty to watch!! Ms. Yates out-classes @tedcruz inethics, intellect, and morals!" another Twitter user wrote.

Message to smug @tedcruz ' next time you feel froggy, and are itching for a fight. Pick someone not named @SallyQYates ' cause she whooped U  Adelino Camara (@ADIC33) May 9, 2017

@tribelaw @Fusion Truly a thing of beauty to watch!! Ms. Yates out-classes @tedcruz inethics, intellect, and morals!  Diane A Burton (@daurelia47) May 9, 2017

I go to sleep smiling tonight, knowing somewhere in Washington, Ted Cruz is crying into his pillow, yelling, "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"  WilcoMeThat (@WilcoMeThat) May 9, 2017

"I go to sleep smiling tonight, knowing somewhere in Washington, Ted Cruz is crying into his pillow, yelling, 'Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!'" a tweet went on to read. "The craziest thing about today's testimony is that Ted Cruz had any dignity left to destroy," Chase Mitchell wrote on Twitter. As the tweets kept coming, Cruz quickly became the butt of the joke, as Yates watched her star power increase by the moment.
It looks like that the Chinese government is going to officially approve a return to the moon program, according to the UK Telegraph. Yang Liwei, deputy director general of China Manned Space Agency and the first Chinese astronaut to fly into space, said in a group interview that Beijing will not take long to announce the new program. No date has been mentioned as to when China intends to follow in the footsteps of the Apollo astronauts.

Chinas lunar aspirations

The Chinese have indicated that they have ambitions to go to the moon and use its resources for the betterment of that nations economy for quite some time.

China has already sent three space probes to the moon, the Change 1 and Change 2 in lunar orbit and the Change 3 to the lunar surface. The Change 4 is scheduled to land on the moons far side in 2018, perhaps near the lunar south pole. The Change 5 will launch in November 2017 to the Mons Rumker region, a volcanic formation in the northwest part of the moons far side. The probe will take samples from this geologically fascinating part of the moon and return them to Earth for study by scientists.

The challenge to the West presented by Beijings journey to the moon

News of Chinas increased interest in going back to the moon could not have come at a more exciting time. President Donald Trump has expressed interest in revamping NASAs space program and directing Deep Space Exploration efforts to the moon as well as Mars.

Return to the moon can be achieved in a much shorter timeframe compared to the Journey to Mars. A lunar effort would have a great many practical benefits, not only concerning access to lunar resources but in enhancing national prestige and morale. The moon, because of the presence of water ice, could support expeditions to Mars as well.

Cooperation or a space race

The question arises, what should be the response of the United States and her western allies to the Chinese lunar challenge? One view is that we should seek cooperation. To be sure any American effort for deep space exploration will involve her traditional allies as well as the commercial sector. The argument for including China is that such cooperation will bring potential earthly adversaries closer together and will avoid the waste of duplicative efforts.

On the other hand, much can be said for a space race as well. The argument is that China is far too antagonistic to trust with the technology sharing that a joint mission to the moon or Mars would imply. Besides, during the last space race, the United States made great strides in technology and exploration in a very short time. Perhaps it is time to replicate the experience.
It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie, with a 16-year-old teenager driving a Stolen Car at High Speed for around 20 miles from Charlotte to Concord in North Carolina. However, this was no movie and Dahmeune Isaiah Baxter is now in the Mecklenburg County jail facing a series of charges relating to the incident.

Victim robbed in Charlotte and his Honda Accord car stolen

The chase began in east Charlotte, shortly after 7 p.m. on Wednesday evening. According to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, a call was received to advise them a man was in the process of being robbed at gunpoint in Winterfield Place, outside an apartment complex.

During the robbery, the victim was unhurt, but his Honda Accord car was stolen.

16-year-old charged after chase reaches speeds of 100 mph, police say https://t.co/7FFfw4ZsV6 pic.twitter.com/zkoWvM1N6I  WSOCTV (@wsoctv) June 8, 2017

16-year-old car thief heads onto the interstate

A short time later, police spotted the stolen car in Morehead Road in West Charlotte and attempted to pull the driver over. However, the driver didnt stop and headed northbound on I-85. All the while police vehicles were chasing the stolen car but were unable to stop the speeding driver. WSOC-TV reports that DOT cameras showed Baxter weaving through the traffic on I-85, with police close on his tail, traveling at speeds police say reached more than 100 mph.

The vehicle then left the interstate at the George W. Liles Parkway turnoff in Concord. At that time the 16-year-old driver stopped the car and was arrested by police, along with a passenger in the vehicle, in a shopping center near the turnoff.

Completely chaotic arrest scene was like something out of a movie

A witness to the incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told WBTV it was the most action he had seen in Concord for some time.

The witness watched the end of the car chase, calling the incident completely chaotic. He said the state police and local police were on the scene, with a helicopter flying over and that it looked like something from a movie. The man watched as police drew their guns as the suspects surrendered into their custody. The witness did add that he was thankful no one was injured in the incident and that the police had kept everyone safe that night.

As reported by the Charlotte Observer, Baxter is now behind bars at the Mecklenburg County jail, facing charges of aggressive driving, speeding, robbery with a dangerous weapon and eluding the police. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department later confirmed that only Baxter is facing charges and the passenger in the car was released from custody. The teenager is reportedly heading to court on Friday.
Beijing firmly opposed the report issued by the Pentagon on Chinese military spending in the South China Sea. In a 100-page report, the Pentagon said that china is spending extensively to achieve great power status, which is needed for their national rejuvenation. China denies such reports and calls it irresponsible and exaggerated.

What are the details of the Pentagon report over China's military spending?

The report released by the Pentagon apparently showed that Chinese President Xi Jinping initiated reforms in 2015 to build capabilities to fight short-duration battles with high-intensity at distances far from the Chinese mainland.

It also states a plan to increase the power of the communist party to take hold of the Chinese army.

The document also accuses China of using coercive tactics to achieve its goals with other countries. This involves the use of maritime militia to forcibly enforce claims over large portions of the South China Sea. It also reports that China is speedily installing defense installations in various islands in the contested sea like the Spratly Islands.

It also claims that China is planning to degrade U.S. advantages in terms of military technology. The report said that they are planning to focus on critical military assets such as warships, submarines, and cyber hacking capabilities.

What is China's response to the Pentagon reports?

China called the report released by the Pentagon as full of baseless assumptions, disregarding facts, a blatant exaggeration and irresponsible. The Chinese government stressed that their occupation of islands in the South China Sea is to preserve the peace and stability of the region.

Though the building of military installations raised valid questions on the real intention of China, Beijing had not released any comment on that issue.

However, China is deeply adamant on its assertive claims over much of the South China Sea to the detriment of other countries in the region. Even though much of the countries in the said area enjoy an exclusive economic zone, this is not recognized by Beijing.

At the moment, China is still pouring down much of its coastal navy on patrolling the South China Sea,

This is in direct response to the freedom of navigation operations made by the United States to enforce international laws in the said region. The tension in Asia is brewing slowly under the specter of a sudden nuclear strike coming from North Korea, which is hell bent on completely humiliating the United States.
Michelle Carter was 17-years-old when prosecutors contend that she encouraged and pressured Conrad Roy III, her 18-year-old boyfriend, to commit suicide. He did kill himself July 2014 by carbon monoxide poisoning. Carter, now, 20, waived a jury trial and is, instead, relying on Judge Lawrence Moniz to determine the outcome. She stands accused of involuntary manslaughter.

Her lawyers assert that Roy was troubled and looked for ways to kill himself. His mother testified that her son attempted suicide in 2012. He used over-the-counter medication in his failed attempt.

Since, then, according to his mother, his mental health had improved.

Yesterday, prosecutors aim was to depict Carter as fixated on her social status and her social life, which she is accused of seeking to elevate.

After Roy took his own life, she told peers that she listened on the phone as Roy was overcome by carbon monoxide fumes, and she also admitted that she didnt alert authorities or his family, according to the prosecution.

Peer-to-peer texts led to suggestion defendant see therapist

Four days after Roy died, Carter texted Ali Eithier. They met in 2014 at a summer camp and hardly knew each other. She wrote Eithier that she was talking with Roy on the phone when he committed suicide. She said she heard him dying.

Either told her that she did not know her very well and suggested that Carter see a therapist.

If Carter is convicted, she could spend up to 20 years in prison. She was charged as a youthful offender, Bristol Juvenile Court.

Daniel Medwed is a professor of law and criminal justice, Northeastern Universitys School of Law. He said the question is if her despicable behavior constitutes manslaughter under the law.

He also stated that he doesnt know that it does.

Even though Roy was vulnerable, Rosanna Cavallaro, who is also a law professor, Suffolk University, said Roy was free to decide. Insistent pressure by Carter wasnt a crime under the existing law.

Roy repeatedly searched the Internet for ways to kill himself, according to Carter attorneys.

In the days leading to his actual suicide, he tried to kill himself using a generator and trying to fill his truck with carbon monoxide. In the process, though, the generator broke, according to both the prosecution and the defense.

Accused girlfriend sent texts days prior to suicide saying boyfriend was missing

Two days before Roy ended his life, the defendant started sending texts stating that he was missing. Those texts, said prosecutors, were her dry run.

In Taunton Juvenile Court, prosecutors read a series of texts aloud, which were sent to friends by the defendant. Carter texted friends and classmates in the hours leading up to when Roy died. She noted that he was missing, but, in reality, she was in constant contact with Roy, prosecutors stated.

Carter and Roy allegedly texted until the time he parked in a lot of a Kmart and turned on a pump he used to generate carbon monoxide in his black Ford F-250. They were on the phone until he died.
In the aftermath of Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord, the issue of climate change has jumped back into the national spotlight. When the topic was highlighted during a recent interview on MSNBC, the segment got intense.

MSNBC on climate change

Even before he officially became a candidate for president, Donald Trump expressed his skepticism over climate change. The most notable example came in the form of a tweet sent out in 2012 when referred to global warming as a "hoax" that was created by the Chinese. As reported by Vox last week, the former host of "The Apprentice" has sent out over 100 tweets denying or questioning the validity of climate change, despite 97 percent of the scientific community agreeing that global warming is taking place and that humans are a contributing factor.

During the 2016 presidential election, Trump continued on with his agenda, which appealed to many of those on the political right who often deny the scientific facts. After pulling off the shocking upset over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton last November, Trump went on to nominate Scott Pruitt, who has a history of not supporting climate change legislation, to become the head of the EPA. As seen during the June 6 edition of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, Pruitt and Joe Scarborough didn't see eye to eye.

Joining MSNBC host Joe Scarborough during the Tuesday edition of "Morning Joe" was EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, which quickly turned into a heated debate over climate change and Donald Trump's official position on the issue.

"Mr. Pruitt, its a simple question," Scarborough said, before asking, "Have you ever talked to the president about whether he believes climate change is real?" "Does he still believe it was a hoax launched in China?" Scarborough doubled down.

Video: Joe and Willie press Pruitt on whether he and President Trump have discussed climate change. https://t.co/TEduryrsJ5 #morningjoe pic.twitter.com/cMIlr5iP4U  Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) June 6, 2017

Scott Pruitt deflected, turning the attention to Donald Trump's talking point that the president wants to "put America first." As Joe Scarborough attempted to get a straight answer from Pruitt, the head of the EPA continued to dance around the question until the MSNBC host appeared to have had enough.

"Im sorry, Im sorry. I got to stop. I want to stop it. This interview has to stop in its tracks until I just get a yes or no answer from you," Scarborough stated. While Pruitt didn't give the yes or no answer that Scarborough was looking for, he didn't admit "The President has indicated the climate is changing."

Moving forward

While Donald Trump and his administration continue to push back at climate change, those who accept the science on the issue appear to be losing their patience.

The decision to back out of the Paris climate accord made the United States become just the third country to do so, joining only Syria and Nicaragua. Though it's unknown how the country will handle the issue in the future, with Trump in the White House it doesn't look promising for those who want to fight back against global warming.
Probably the most famous politician duo was seen together again on Tuesday night as former United States President Barack Obama and current Prime Minister of Canada justin trudeau got together for dinner in montreal.

What did Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama talk about?

A photo from the very relaxed "candlelight" dinner was uploaded on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Twitter account with the following caption:

How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks @BarackObama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown.

How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks @BarackObama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown. pic.twitter.com/EwJXPEkN3w  Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 7, 2017

Both the world leaders talked about increasing the next generation's involvement in their respective communities.

Details about the place where the duo met

The 55-year-old American President and 45-year-old Canadian Prime Minister met in a restaurant called "Liverpool House" in Trudeau's hometown of Montreal. The owner of the restaurant David McMillan, later on, admitted that his restaurant is a favorite of the Canadian Prime Minister and he has been dining there since before he even took charge of the office. McMillan also revealed that the politician duo's meal included oysters, asparagus, halibut, spaghetti lobster, shrimp, steak and they ended the dinner with a strawberry shortcake.

McMillan further revealed that Trudeau made a reservation for dinner that day however what he did not know was that he would be bringing along 44th President of the United States.

Security outside the eatery was tighter than routine obviously. However, inside the restaurant, it was business as usual for the staff and the owner.

McMillan also managed to get a photograph of himself and his daughter with the two politicians.

Trudeau was hosted by Obama in 2016

It was just last year when the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama hosted the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau at the White House for a state dinner, which was the first one for a Canadian Prime Minister since the year 1997.

What was President Obama doing in Montreal

President Obama was present in Montreal to present a 70-minute long keynote speech at an event which was completely sold out and was hosted by the Montreal Chamber of Commerce. During his speech, President Obama talked about the Paris climate agreement and conveyed his dismay about the fact that the U.S. had withdrawn from the agreement. This speech will be marked as his first address in Canada after leaving the Presidency and White House.
Leaked information showed Russian intelligence tried to hack a U.S. voting Software Company days before the American elections in November 2016. The information was reported by The Intercept, which also revealed phishing attempts made by Russian Intelligence on 100 local U.S. election officials prior to the nationwide voting.

What are the details of the new Russian hacking report?

A confidential National Security Agency (NSA) document was reportedly obtained by The Intercept showing details of Russian hacking attempt against a major U.S. voting software company days before the November elections.

The report didn't provide actual proof that the hacking attempts had a major impact on the U.S. elections but only showed that Russia had the intention and means to conduct cyber attacks on the U.S. voting infrastructure.

The document definitively belies Putin's claim that Russia wasn't doing any hacking of the U.S. voting system. Though the leaked report was verified independently, the information it contains can serve as a foundation for a further inquest into Russian activities in the United States.

The leaked report was dated May 5, 2017, and it is now regarded by Trump's opposition to be major proof of a rigged election. However, some NSA officials urged caution on drawing conclusions based on the leaked document as it is not a definitive report.

Nevertheless, the revelation of such a document is sure to rattle many in the Trump administration into a defensive stance.

How will this information affect U.S. - Russian relationship?

Since U.S. President Trump came to office, his Russian ties became a major issue for the opposition. This is a fact that Trump isn't ashamed of, as he has regularly spoken highly of Russia and President, Vladimir Putin.

However, due to the hacking leaks after the election, Trump's ties with Russia is now something that is slowly being swept under the rug.

Trump's firing of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn due to his Russian ties was one of the major events in the entire Russian hack controversy. Former CIA James Comey was fired next for his apparent probing into Trump's ties with Russia and now another leaked document surfaced showing Russian attempts to gain access into the U.S.

voting infrastructure. All of these show a deeper Russian controversy is still hidden.

What is the importance of strong U.S. - Russian ties?

Russia is a major force to content with in the Middle East. Russian support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is a major hindrance for the United States who wish to topple this pro-Iranian government. Deteriorating ties with Russia means creating another enemy that will greatly complicate the ongoing crisis not only in the Middle East, but in Ukraine and in North Korea.
As the scandal surrounding Donald Trump and Russia continues to heat up, the latest chapter has focused on the recent testimony of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates. After speaking to Congress on Monday, Trump was quick to smear Yates across social media, but not before others decided to speak out, including the vocal George Takei.

Takei on Trump

From the start of his campaign for president back in the summer of 2015, Donald Trump has been playing defense when it comes to allegations of collusion with Russia. Trump's kind words about Russian President Vladimir Putin left the door open for further criticism, which has only increased since the election.

From Trump's hidden tax returns to his advisers and associates being caught communicating with Kremlin officials, the former host of "The Apprentice" can't seem to shake the drama linking him back to Russia. With the pressure mounting, Trump was dealt another blow when it was revealed that his pick for National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, had met with a Russian official just weeks after the election. Following Flynn'a resignation, his name was one of the main talking points used against the White House on the issue, which was highlighted when Sally Yates testified in Congress earlier this week. After Trump sent out several tweets in an attempt to discredit Yates, George Takei fired back on his own social media account on May 8.

Sally Yates is the kind of woman America needs to lead us.  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 8, 2017

Taking to Twitter on Monday was George Takei, who proceeded to comment on the Sally Yates testimony, while taking a shot at Donald Trump in the process. "Sally Yates is the kind of woman America needs to lead us," Takei tweeted out.

Yates warned that Flynn was a blackmail risk, but Trump kept him on til the truth got out. Guess he wanted company in the blackmail dept.  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 8, 2017

Sally Yates served it so hard to GOP senators that they've decided to exclude "burns" from the list of preexisting conditions.  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 8, 2017

"Yates warned that Flynn was a blackmail risk, but Trump kept him on til the truth got out," George Takei wrote on Twitter, before adding, "Guess he wanted company in the blackmail dept." "Sally Yates served it so hard to GOP senators that they've decided to exclude 'burns' from the list of preexisting conditions," he added.

I believe this is what is called "shade." https://t.co/7QsEIV5BhN  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 8, 2017

After trolling Donald Trump over a recent spelling error in one of his tweets, Takei refocused his attention on Yates. "Don't try to come for Sally Yates, you sniveling miscreants," George Takei wrote, while noting "She has things you long since abandoned: truth, integrity, and honor."

Don't try to come for Sally Yates, you sniveling miscreants. She has things you long since abandoned: truth, integrity, and honor.  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) May 9, 2017

Moving forward

With the testimony of Sally Yates, it adds yet another piece to the puzzle that is building a case against Donald Trump, the White House, and Russia. Despite Trump denying any wrongdoing, he might need more than a rant on Twitter to deal with the problem.
The droughtlander continues until Outlander Season 3 will be finally aired this year in September. However, the shows main stars Caitriona Balfe, who plays the role of Claire Fraser, and Sam Heughan, who portrays Jamie Fraser, have been continuously teasing what fans could expect on their return. Aside from the two much-loved characters, the author of Voyager, which the third chapter is based, Diana Gabaldon is also giving little details about the show. In fact, the 65-year-old novelist recently dropped a major spoiler for the upcoming new chapter.

A depiction of the book on TV

I do think that season three is going to be remarkably strong, Diana Gabaldon told RadioTimes. The author revealed that she has already watched the first nine episodes of the show and she described it to be fabulous. In fact, its first six episodes are really close to its source. In the novel, there are flashbacks that feature Claire telling her daughter some things. Now, it will be seen on the small screen as people behind the show expanded on this story. However, Diana Gabaldon revealed that the shows writers made some tweaks and additions that will make Outlander Season 3 more intriguing. And this includes the books biggest mystery.

Does Frank cheat Claire?

According to the author, the book has a long overdue question whether Frank Randall (Tobias Menzies) has been faithful or not to his wife Claire during their marriage. Ive always left it ambiguous, Diana Gabaldon said. She explained that she let the series fans to make up their own minds if they like Frank or not.

Hence, in the upcoming Outlander Season 3, this question will be finally answered as its writers will reveal if he has been loyal or he has cheated. In the question if the result will be in his favor, she said that the show will definitely treat him fairly.

Jamie and Claires old looks and voyage

Meanwhile, in celebration of World Outlander Day, Caitriona Balfe and Sam Heughan revealed the old versions of themselves while filming Outlander Season 3.

It has been known that the two will be seen 20 years older in the show and now, they gave their fans a glimpse of how they will look like in the television drama series official Twitter page. Here, the 37-year-old Irish actress has a lot of gray hair while the Young Alexander the Great star is wearing a lighter red hair.

They also talked about the production of the show and revealed that they are now left with only three weeks of filming and the third chapter will be finally done. They, too, dropped three major hints that fans should expect to see. The turtle soup that Jamie feeds Clair when she is sick, their first reunion in the print shop, and their journey to the coconut-filled place of Jamaica at the end of the series.
With former FBI Director James Comey set to testify in front of Congress on Thursday, his opening statement was released to the public on Wednesday and revealed interesting and potentially damaging information about Donald Trump. In response, Stephen Colbert decided to have a little fun with the information in yet another shot at the president.

Colbert on Trump

In the five months that Donald Trump has been in office, he's been facing increased scrutiny over whether or not his campaign and administration are linked to Russia. As expected, the former host of "The Apprentice" continues to deny any wrongdoing, doubling down his denial dating back to the early days of the 2016 presidential election.

Last month, the scandal involving Russia got even more intense after Trump shocked many by firing James Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The move came off as a major surprise since Comey was the one who was leading the investigation into Russian election interference, which included their alleged role in aiding the Trump campaign. After much debate, Comey is set to appear in Congress on Thursday to testify in regards to the Russian investigation, with his opening statement being released early to the press. As seen during the June 7 edition of "The Late Show" on CBS, Stephen Colbert made sure to mock the president.

Tonight: Stephen read through James Comey's pre-written testimony, and found some pretty weird stuff. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/XUWcabcyul  The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) June 8, 2017

During his opening monologue on Wednesday night, "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert highlighted the latest information about James Comey and his testimony.

"Comey first met with Trump on January 6 to let him know about so-called 'salacious intelligence,'" Colbert said, before mockingly referring to the "intelligence" as the "pee pee tape." "He agreed to the meeting alone to minimize the potential embarrassment of the president," he continued, while adding, "remember, this was back when we thought it was possible for him (Trump) to feel embarrassed."

These are some of the most thought-provoking lines from fired FBI Director James Comey's prepared testimony https://t.co/XwLReQS9SC pic.twitter.com/eO3XQqd6qO  CNN (@CNN) June 7, 2017

"Comey writes that Trump said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia," Stephen Colbert said using his "Trump" voice.

Colbert details the uncomfortable meeting that James Comey had with the president following the inauguration, with the host paraphrasing the former FBI director, saying, "It turned out to be just the two of them, seated at a small oval table." Colbert then highlighted Trump's reported attempt to get Comey to agree to "loyalty," before further trolling the commander in chief.

Moving forward

While Stephen Colbert and others poke fun at the upcoming James Comey testimony, it's expected that Donald Trump will be glued to the television. Recent reports suggest that the president is even thinking about live-tweeting during the testimony in what could only be an attempt to defend himself.
It would appear that Iran has made another windfall profit on hostage taking. As of now, there are few official confirmations about this story, though Saudi Arabia has officially cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar.

According to a report in the Financial Times, over the last few months, the small oil kingdom allegedly made clandestine payments to Iran, among others, that all totaled add up to around a billion dollars. These monies were paid in exchange for Qatari royals that were taken hostage on a hunting trip in Iraq in 2015 and were held by persons unknown until their recent release.

This payment has created a rift between Qatar and its neighbors, with Saudi Arabia denouncing Qatar as a state-sponsor of terrorist extremism, and taking a range of punitive measures. Business Insider also cited FT, writing, "A ransom payment of up to $1 billion to Iranian and Al Qaeda-linked forces in Syria may have been the tipping point for Qatari-Gulf Arab relations."

To add to the already complex situation, the same report from FT states there are accusations that Qatar may be using kidnappings as a means of funneling money to terrorist groups and maintaining a political cover.

What is likely

Based on the information that the FT presented, Qatari royals were on a hunting trip in Iraq, and they were taken into custody.

There appears to have been a drawn-out negotiation process with militia groups and Iran, though all of the proceedings were kept secret for reasons that are now very apparent.

After the payments were made, some of the groups that were involved in this situation felt slighted by Iran, who supposedly received around 700 million US dollars, which may not have been the original agreement.

As this entire affair was highly illegal and politically sensitive, the group that was slighted went public as a form of redress.

Dark water

It should be very clear that there is little that can be known about the motivations for those involved in a situation like this one. There is clearly suspicion within the Arab world that Qatar isn't being honest about its dealings with radical militia groups and the recent political moves by Saudi Arabia are evidence of that.

The FT cites a source who is a Syrian with close ties to al-Queda, and he had this to say on the matter, "if you want to know how Qatar funds jihadis, look no further than the hostage deal.... And this isnt the first  it is one of a series since the beginning of the war.

The Iranians would seem to be the winner in this narrative, and when this recent score is added to the pallet of cash they made from another ransom payment by then-President Obama, they would appear to be sitting on more than 2 billion US dollars, in cash.

It will be interesting to see if there is any official confirmation for this wild story, or if the recent political actions in the Gulf will be explained away with another narrative.
BEIJING - Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli Wednesday called for joint efforts to improve global energy governance to push green and low-carbon development.

China is willing to work with the international community on the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change, Zhang said in a speech delivered at the opening of the Eighth Clean Energy Ministerial and the Second Mission Innovation Ministerial in Beijing.

The vice premier called for deepening innovative cooperation in clean energy, improving the energy use system and promoting greener and more efficient energy consumption, to build a low-carbon and clean energy supply system.

Zhang said that China would carry out joint action plans to mobilize businesses in the clean energy push and ensure the benefits were shared by the public.
One of Huang Yue's paintings will be collected by the National Irish Bank. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Chinese artist Huang Yue, known for his flower and bird oil paintings, exhibited a range of artworks at the House of Lords in Ireland on May 31. The exhibit was attended by 19 former government chiefs and major politicians.

Ahern Bertie, former prime minister of Ireland, made a speech at the opening ceremony of Huang's exhibition. He delivered a message from Irish President Michael D. Higgins who hoped Ireland would deepen its communication with China in culture and art.

Huang was further invited to sign his name on the world celebrity list at the House of Lords in the opening ceremony  a place in which some of Huang's paintings will remain permanently.

Prior to the event, Huang and staff from the public art foundation were invited to the president's residence to meet the Irish President. Huang presented two colored ink lotus paintings to the president, as a gift, during the visit.

Many of the artworks crafted by Huang, which fuse Chinese and Western styles, have won international awards and have been collected by art galleries and celebrities around the world.
The Republic of Korea has reportedly suspended the rollout of a controversial US missile defense system on its soil after its President Moon Jae-in ordered an environmental impact assessment.

This is expected to allow more time and room for Seoul to fully weigh the pros and cons of deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense and it is to be hoped it arrives at a more rational decision that accommodates the concerns of all parties involved.

The installment of the THAAD system in the ROK, a decision made during the administration of impeached and ousted president Park Geun-hye, has complicated the already combustible situation on the Korean Peninsula and worsened the ROK's ties with China.

The issue of THAAD has continued to cast a shadow over Sino-ROK relations despite some signs of improvement since Moon entered office last month.

On the campaign trail, Moon supported a THAAD review and vowed to consult China on the issue, which raised hopes THAAD's rollout would be suspended or even reversed.

Last week, Moon consolidated such hopes by ordering an investigation into the clandestine shipment of four more anti-missile launchers for the THAAD battery already installed in the country.

However, the optimism that engendered was dashed when Moon told visiting US Senator Dick Durbin on May 31 that the investigation is not about "trying to change the existing decision or sending a message to the United States".

Moon seems to be caught in a difficult situation: By reversing the decision to deploy THAAD, he will displease the United States; by giving the green light to it, he will definitely deal a fatal blow to the ROK's relations with China.

In fact, he can take his lead from the words of US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who, speaking during the Shangri-La Forum in Singapore over the weekend, quoted President Xi Jinping, saying "only if all sides live up to their responsibilities and come together from different directions can the nuclear issue on the peninsula be resolved as quickly as possible."

Mattis said those words "must be followed by actions by all of us".

No doubt, the controversies surrounding THAAD have all stemmed from the nuclear issue on the peninsula. But even though Moon has expressed his willingness to engage with the ROK's neighbor in the north, Seoul cannot defuse the crisis singlehandedly.

The US has stepped up collaboration with China over the issue, which has contributed to easing tensions on the peninsula.

This good momentum should be nurtured because communication and negotiation are the only feasible means for stakeholders to build consensuses and find solutions acceptable to all.
Guests propose a toast at a gala in celebration of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in Toronto on June 5. From left: Michael Lim, director of Canada, Central and South America of the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB); Michael Chong, Canada Member of Parliament; He Wei, Chinese consul general in Toronto; Kathy Chan, director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Toronto); Anthony Lau, executive director of HKTB; Jeff Nankivell, the consul general of Canada in Hong Kong and Macao; and Bonnie Crombie, mayor of Mississauga. [Photo by Na Li/chinadaily.com.cn]

Twenty years after its establishment as a special administrative region, Hong Kong has seen tremendous growth.

"Over the past 20 years, the real gross domestic product (GDP) of Hong Kong has achieved a cumulative growth of more than 80 percent," said Kathy Chan, director of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office (Toronto). "The number of regional headquarters and offices set up by overseas and mainland corporations in Hong Kong has increased by 50 percent. The amount of foreign direct investment stock has expanded by 6.5 times."

Chan spoke at an official celebratory gala themed Together, Progress & Opportunity on Monday in Toronto.

With much dedication to building a fair and just society, the HKSAR government had allocated substantial resources to care for the needy to ensure that they could also enjoy the fruits of economic advancement, Chan said.

At the same time, the government has also invested heavily in education to nurture talent to maintain Hong Kong's competitiveness, she said.

"The past 20 years have not always been a smooth sail for Hong Kong. We have faced many challenges, such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008. We could not have overcome the uphill battles without Hong Kong people staying together," Chan said. "More importantly, we would not have been able to prevail at difficult times without the staunch support of the central government."

She cited the measures rolled out at those crucial moments by the government in Beijing, including the signing of the Mainland and Hong Kong Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement in 2003 and the use of Hong Kong as the launch pad for the mainland's financial market liberalisation measures in 2008, under the "one country, two systems" arrangement.

"The development of Hong Kong and the well-being of Hong Kong citizens have always been the common aspiration of all Chinese, no matter where they are," He Wei, Chinese consul general in Toronto, said at the gala. "I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks and respect to the local Chinese, especially to the Hong Kong community in Canada here."

"It's a special anniversary, the 20th anniversary of HKSAR and 150th anniversary of Canada," said Member of Parliament Michael Chong. "But it's not just that these two anniversaries tie together, because the Canadian confederation would not have happened without people from the south of China, from Hong Kong, who 150 years ago immigrated to Canada.

"Confederation happened because a promise was made to the people who lived on the west coast of this country, British Columbia, to build the Pacific railway," he said.

renali@chinadailyusa.com
SEOUL -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) launched several projectiles Thursday morning, local media quoted the Republic of Korea's military as saying.

The DPRK test-fired "multiple unidentified projectiles" from a site near Wonsan in Gangwon Province, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing ROK's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The JCS claimed that the projectiles appeared to be surface-to-ship missiles.
File photo shows US President Donald Trump announces his $1 trillion infrastructure plan to the crowd during a rally along side the Ohio River at the Rivertown Marina in Cincinnati, Ohio, US, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump offered to help Qatar and the other Gulf nations resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary, the White House said Wednesday.

In a telephone conversation with Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Trump reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability.

He also emphasized the importance of all countries in the region to work together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology, according to a White House statement.

The telephone talk came after a diplomatic row erupted between Qatar and the other Gulf nations. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. But Qatar has rejected the accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless."

On Tuesday, Trump seemed to claim credit for Gulf nations' decision to isolate Qatar, saying his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was "already paying off."

"They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" Trump said on Twitter.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the US wants to see the diplomatic row between Qatar and the other Gulf nations "deescalated and resolved immediately."
By AMY HE and WANG LINYAN at the United Nations | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2017-06-08 09:51

Lin Shanqing, deputy director of China's State Oceanic Administration, address the United Nations Ocean Conference at the UN headquarters in New York on June 7. [Photo/Xinhua]

China calls for the development of a "blue economy" to optimize the traditional marine sector and speed up the development of emerging marine industries while promoting sustainability, a Chinese official said.

Lin Shanqing, deputy administrator of China's State Oceanic Administration (SOA), said at United Nations headquarters that the global community at the international, regional and national levels should take advantage of each other's experiences in marine economic development to establish environmentally friendly marine industries.

"It is important to adjust an optimized traditional marine industry, speed up the development of emerging marine industries, and encourage marine resources and development and marine eco-environmental protection simultaneously," he said on Wednesday during the third day of the UN Ocean Conference.

The conference explores how the global community can achieve ocean sustainability and conservation, also known as the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 of the 2030 SDG agenda.

China has registered five voluntary commitments to SDG 14: strengthen the protection of the marine ecological environment, enhance the international marine cooperation in Asia Pacific region, improve the ability of marine observation and early-warning and disaster prevention and mitigation capacities, strengthen scientific and technical innovation and international cooperation, and develop a sustainable ocean economy.

China plans to establish 10 to 20 demonstration zones during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period to test ocean economy polices. The zones will plan projects that aim to strike a balance between sustainable development of ocean industries and protection of the marine ecosystem, according to a guideline by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and SOA.

"We are now shifting from paying equal attention to both marine development and protection to prioritizing marine ecosystem protection," Lin said. "Projects that endanger marine ecosystem would not be given the green light," he said.

SOA introduced China's first regulation on shorelines in March, which requires that no less than 35 percent of the country's total shoreline should be natural by 2020. It calls for 30 percent of the ocean to be protected from coastal development activities. China also extended the annual period of banning fishing from four months (June to September) to five months (May to September) this year.

Zhang Haiwen, director-general of the SOA's department of international cooperation, said cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region will focus on ocean economy, function planning and trash management.

"We can share our experience with other countries," Zhang said. "We also need to work with other countries in technology and innovation in terms of developing ocean renewables, upgrading traditional oceanic industries to make them sustainable.  China's development is the biggest contribution to the world."

Lin said in his speech at the meeting that China is willing to "actively establish" an open, inclusive and mutually beneficial blue partnership with other countries and international organizations.

"[The] establishment and implementation should be appropriate to and serve the diversified theme of sustainable marine development, dovetail with national economic and social development goals and tackle global marine-related challenges," he said.

The international community should join together in assuming the "responsibility of global marine governance", encouraging the active implementation of ecosystem-based management of oceans and coastal zones and the tasks of coastal rehabilitation and conservation, said Lin.

"We all live in this global village, sharing one and the same ocean. China is willing to work with all countries to implement the SDGs as our mission and create a more beautiful blue future for our posterity," he said.
NAIROBI - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday received $5 million in food aid from the Chinese government in Kakuma refugees camp in northen Kenya.

The money was used to buy 9,000 tonnes of cereals for 420,000 refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma refugees camps. After more than a year of ration cuts caused by funding shortage, new donor contributions from China and other countries have allowed WFP to resume full food rations for 4 months.

"We welcome this critical contribution from China as WFP has struggled to provide adequate food to refugees living in camps in food-insecure northern Kenya due to insufficient funds," said Annalisa Conte, WFP's Country Director and Representative for Kenya.

Liu Xianfa, Chinese Ambassador in Kenya, said China has responded quickly to the appeals of the international community for support to the refugees.

"We have provided relief materials or cash aid as needed. At the same time, China has within its capacity rendered support to the assistance programs initiated by multilateral development organizations, and has exchanged experience in an increasingly open-minded manner," Liu said.

Ceaser Okulo Unu, a refugee from Uganda lining up for the food aid, said he was happy that WFP resumed full food rations.

"I thank China for its generous donation, which will allow the WFP to give us more food and make our hard life a bit easier," said Unu.

Kenya has the second largest refugee population in Africa. The East African country hosts over 600,000 registered refugees, the majority fleeing conflict in Somalia and South Sudan, who mostly live in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
Ha Jiming of CF 40, a think tank in China, and Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE), speak at a seminar on Thursday on US-China cooperation in the new era of globalization. Chen Weihua/China Daily

Chinese and US economists agreed that having a relatively stable renminbi exchange rate is both in China's and the world's interest.

Ha Jiming, a former senior executive with Goldman Sachs, noted that China's current account surplus is declining in percentage relative to GDP but still quite sizable, while its capital account is experiencing significant outflow pressure.

"We need to make both a short-term and long-term judgment on the viability of the capital control measures," Ha said on Thursday at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) in Washington, in a talk on US-China cooperation in a changing global economy.

PIIE and CF40, a think tank in China of which Ha is a founding member, recently released a paper on the same topic covering not only the exchange rate policy, but also bilateral investment, regional economic integration and the impact on China of US President Donald Trump's economic policies.

Ha, a former chief economist and managing director of China International Capital Co Ltd, believes that in the short term, capital control in China could play a role in deterring disorderly capital outflow, but added that in the longer term, it should not be put in place forever. "It actually distorts resource allocation," he said.

China's foreign currency reserves sustained a sharp drop in 2016 due to capital outflow and government sales from currency reserves to prevent the renminbi, or yuan, from falling. The reserves have stabilized this year.

Ha, however, believes that China should press ahead with reforms to pave the way for capital account liberalization.

"It's actually enshrined in PBOC's (central bank) policy. It's also enshrined in the Communist Party's 18th Congress: Let the market play a decisive role,'" he said.

Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the PIIE, cautioned that financial markets often get things wrong. "I think it would be good to put some buffers or dampers on that," he said.

Gagnon, a former US Federal Reserve official, believes that China is doing exactly that, though maybe not for exactly the reasons he would have.

"If you imagine a huge outflow of private capital from China causes a massive fall of the renminbi, massive trade surplus again, I think the rest of the world, especially now, would have trouble with that," he said.

Adam Posen, president of the PIIE, agreed, saying that "it's in China's own interest, as well as the world's, to have a relatively stable currency."

"And the imbalance should not be allowed to get way out of whack," he said.

The US Treasury Department determined in its April report that China has not been manipulating its currency. Secretary Steven Mnuchin also described China's intervention to prevent the renminbi from falling as helping US competitiveness.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
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HCM City  More than 200 business owners were trained on how to develop their e-commerce strategy for sustainable development in Viet Nam at a seminar on Wednesday in HCM City.

The seminar, entitled E-Commerce Trends and Legal Issues, was jointly organised by the Vietnam Internet Association (VIA) and Adpex JSC with support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Information and communications.

Viet Nam e-commerce has grown rapidly in the last 10 years but the market size is not large and the transaction scale is rather small, Vu Hoang Lien, President of Viet Nam Internet Association said.

Lien said that retailers needed to invest in marketing and online sales, improve delivery services, and integrate online payment on their website. Businesses also needed to keep up with the latest e-commerce trends to stay competitive.

Particularly, building brand reputation and credibility is the pre-requisite to enhance business competitiveness. For e-commerce businesses, choosing the right domain name is the first step to build a trustworthy online presence, thereby, ensures business success, said Lien.

Experts said that there were still obstacles that prevent the sustainable development of e-commerce which were trusted by consumers in terms of the quality of goods, services they bought online, and the security for online payment.

A strong online presence requires a successful website with the right domain name. Especially for businesses with global vision, .com has always been trusted thanks to its availability, credibility and high stability for more than 18 years, Hoc Nguyen from P.A Vietnam said.

At the event, experts from various IT related fields such as Microsoft, IM Group, VNG, P.A Vietnam, Verisign brought business opportunities to understand the situations to adjust business strategies in a timely fashion in line with technological and digital changes, legal issues in e-commerce and updates on new payment methods.

According to Nielsen, Viet Nam is leading the world in terms of the number of people who love technological products. A survey result in 2016 showed that 90 per cent of urban residents use smartphones and their average Internet access time per week was 24.7 hours, which was only lower than that of Singapore.

The growth rate of e-commerce in the retail sector will reach about 20 per cent per year and by 2020 will be about $10 billion. However, e-commerce in the retail sector is rising faster and is expected to grow at 25 per cent in 2017, according to the Governments e-commerce developing plan from 2016 to 2020.  VNS
HCM CITY  Vietjet will participate in the Hanatour International Travel Show 2017, which will open at the Korea International Exhibition Centre (KINTEX) in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, on Friday.

At the forthcoming fair, lucky visitors will receive Vietjets flight tickets priced from only zero dollars, or discount codes of 20 per cent and 10 per cent, which can be used to book any flight between Viet Nam and Korea, including HCM City/Ha Noi/Hai Phong /a NangSeoul and Ha NoiBusan.

This is the second year Vietjet has participated in the Hanatour International Tourist Fair - the largest annual trade fair in South Korea. The event, which will run until next Monday, attracts many travel companies, hotels, airlines and tourism service enterprises from across the world.

Vietjet operates five flights from Ha Noi, HCM City, Hai Phong and a Nang to Korea, giving more opportunities for travel, tourism and trade to residents and international visitors.  VNS
A cashew processing line for exports. Vietnamese firms were provided with updates on US food and beverage regulations at a conference yesterday.  VNA/VNS Photo Huy Hung

HCM CITY  Viet Nams food and beverage exports to the US are growing and likely to do so for many years, but manufacturers need to be aware of that countrys requirements, an American expert told a seminar in HCM City yesterday.

David Lennarz, vice president of legal consultancy firm Registrar Corp, said: We would like to explain current US Food and Drug Administration regulations as well as provide an update on the new FDA Food Safety Modernisation Act, and how the law will affect exports to the US.

To prevent, prepare for and respond to bio-terrorism and other public health emergencies, the US passed the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act in 2002. The act requires registration of domestic food facilities, and foreign facilities must designate a US agent.

Under the 2011 Food Safety Modernisation Act, registration of a food facility must be renewed every even-numbered year. Facilities must consent to FDA inspection, and failure to renew results in invalidated registration, Lennarz said.

The FDA removed thousands of food facility registrations that were not properly renewed in 2017 from its registration database on February 1, and Vietnamese registration has decreased by 45 per cent to 806 in 2017. Vietnamese manufacturers do not fully understand US import regulations, he explained.

Lennarz also updated the seminar on the Food Canning Establishment Registration, New Nutrition Labeling Requirements, Foreign Supplier Verification Programme and Food safety Modernisation Act.

Viet Nam is the USs 16th biggest trade partner, with bilateral trade growing at around 20 per cent annually.

This year, as of the end of April, Viet Nams exports to the US were worth $12.4 billion, 20 per cent of its total exports and 8.7 per cent higher year-on-year.

The major products included seafood, garment and textile, footwear, wood and furniture, computers, electronic accessories and products, and agricultural products.  VNS
Viet Nams industrial sector growth has slowed in recent years (from 14.3 per cent in 2006-10 to 10 per cent in 2011-15) despite its production value rising 3.5 times in the past decade. Low labour productivity, compared to other countries in the region, has also been an issue. Nguyen Thi Tue Anh, deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, spoke to local media about the current state of the sector and what needs to be done about it.

What is your assessment of the shortcomings in Viet Nams industrial sector?

Obviously, the sectors growth has slowed, and its productivity and added value aspects have not impressed either.

It should be noted that although processing and manufacturing industries account for a large portion of the industry in general, they have the lowest labour productivity. Where it is high, like in electricity generation, its portion in the industrys total added value is small.

We should also note that the industrys growth in the past few years has heavily depended on labour and capital, and its contribution to technological development is still low.

The Government should, therefore, increase the technology component as the sector is restructured over the next four years (2017-20) period. This could help increase labour productivity as well as competitiveness.

The added-value factor is mentioned often. What can be done to improve the situation in this regard?

The industrial sector has expanded in term of scale, but its added value has been low because the main focus has been on processing and assembly.

Over the last few years, the electronics sector has shown a strong growth rate and contributed much to the national economy, but its added value has been low despite large scale exports. This is because most of the sectors inputs are imported. So the activity that happens in Viet Nam is still processing and assembly, which delivers low added value.

But we should continue to grow as it is still possible to expand the scale of operations. I think that the industry should continue to expand production, but it has to deeply join into the global production chain.

If the industrial sector has to import a large amount of inputs, what is the direction for the support industry?

The Government should concentrate on developing support industries for specific sectors and fields. For example, Viet Nam should only invest in support industries for large-scale sectors like electronics because of its relatively large market size. The sector has sufficient conditions to develop to the next stage. What is lacking is the capacity of domestic enterprises.

Samsung has requested Vietnamese firms to become its component suppliers. Since Samsung produces the final products, they need intermediate products, which they have to source through imports or get them produced in the country. Although Viet Nam cannot provide all the products needed, it should develop the ability to supply some parts or components to the standards required by SamSung.

For this the Government should support local companies by facilitating training and developing standards so that businesses are able to meet set requirements.

The Government should also urge Samsung enter into commitments with domestic component suppliers and increase their localisation rate.  VNS
HCM CITY  There is huge opportunity for Viet Nam and the US to further boost investment and trade ties in many sectors, a seminar heard in HCM City on Wednesday.

Tran inh Thien, general director of the Viet Nam Institute of Economics, told "Meet the USA" that the US is among Viet Nams largest trading partners and investors.

Bilateral trade increased from US$1 billion 17 years ago to more than $46 billion last year.

The US ranks ninth among 119 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam, with investments of around $12 billion, but the amount is modest compared to the potential, he said.

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ha Kim Ngoc said during the US visit by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the two sides pledged to promote economic ties.

The two economies are complementary rather than competing, and so co-operation would result in a win-win situation, he said.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of the HCM City Peoples Committee, said, Viet Nam, particularly HCM City, wants advanced technologies in manufacturing, environment and services from the US.

Smart city development, environment, agriculture, and clean energy are among the sectors in Viet Nam offering great incentives to investors, he said.

Nguyen Thien Nhan, the city Party Secretary, Viet Nam wants to co-operate with the US in the fourth industrial revolution.

Viet Nam is currently in the third, he said.

US firms can utilise the low labour costs in Viet Nam  of just $3 per hour compared to $30 in the US  he said.

Many Korean and Japanese businesses have seen this advantage and invested in Viet Nam, Nhan said.

"Investment by South Korean firms now is five time that of US firms," he said.

Fred Burke, managing partner of Baker & McKenzie Vietnam, said even without the TPP investment and trade between the US and Viet Nam would continue to increase.

Viet Nam has done a lot of good things to make its investment environment better, and its robust implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement would reduce its trade costs, making the country competitive as an investment, he said.

Those are the key drivers for increasing trade and investment with Viet Nam, and US companies are watching that very closely.

Ted Osius, the USs ambassador to Viet Nam, said US businesses want to bring innovative technologies to Viet Nam, and to do this they need to develop effective partnerships with provincial governments and leaders.

US companies need confidence and security with respect to their investments here, he said.

This means a level playing field, especially in terms of property rights, and rules of competitions that are clear and well informed, he said.

US companies also need a platform of modern services and infrastructure which allow them to connect their global trade networks, he said.

Jonathan Moreno, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Viet Nam  HCM City, said a lot of US companies do not come to Viet Nam because they worry about transparency, predictability, and infrastructure.

So building a system of trade that is modern, predictable, and transparent where US companies do not have to worry about corruption is needed, he said.

The supporting industry supply chain is not developed here yet, he said

Agriculture, technology and healthcare (medical devices) are among the sectors with great business opportunities now, he added.

Cao uc Phat, member of the Central Committee and standing vice chairman of the Central Economic Committee Commission, said Viet Nam would pursue a consistent policy of economic reform and international integration, creating favourable conditions for foreign companies, including those from the US, to do business and invest.

Viet Nam has signed 11 free trade agreements, and so US companies can also take advantage of them when investing in Viet Nam, he said.

Organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the US consulate general and AmCham Vietnam, the seminar - a sideline event of APEC 2017 - attracted about 350 delegates, including government officials, local leaders, and Vietnamese and US business executives.  VNS
HA NOI  SHB Cambodia Bank, the Sai GonHa Noi Bank (SHB)s wholly-owned subsidiary, was given approval to increase its chartered capital from the current US$50 million to $75 million.

The Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV), Le Minh Hung, on Tuesday promulgated a document to approve SHBs proposal to increasei ts chartered capital at the subsidiary after five years of operation in Cambodia.

Earlier, SHB submitted a document No 253/HQT on October 19, 2016, on the capital increase.

SHB opened its branches in Laos and Cambodia in 2011. However, SHB officially opened its subsidiary in Laos on January 15, 2016, and in Cambodia on September 9, 2016. It opened four branches in Cambodia.

The central bank also asked SHB to take responsibilities for implementingthe adjustment of the investment licence to foreign countries for SHB Cambodia Bank, in accordance with the current laws and regulations.

SHB was required to follow regulations on foreign currency management, investment and ensure safety in banking operation, including capital contribution and buying of shares. All the works must be reported to the SBV for supervision.

The Governor asked the Department of Bank Inspection and Supervision to supervise the SHBs implementation of increasing its chartered capital.  VNS
HCM CITY More than 600 international cosmetics brands will make their debut in Viet Nam during the Mekong Beauty Show 2017 in HCM City from June 15 to 17.

Taking place at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre, the expo is expected to be an exciting show for the four emerging Mekong countries, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, said Nguyen Van Minh, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Essential Oils, Aromatherapy and Cosmetics Association.

Viet Nam is an emerging market in the consumer beauty and personal care products, with annual growth of 30 per cent in the last few years, Minh said at a press meeting held on Thursday (June 8) in HCM City.

The Mekong Beauty Show will offer a comprehensive business platform for industry players in the entire supply chain covering beauty and cosmetics, hair and nails, herbal and health, and OEM and packaging, said Selena Li, event director of Informa Exhibitions.

Around 200 buyers from Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand and other countries in the Mekong region who are mainly importers and distributors will meet with international exhibitors and discuss how to bring these brands into the Mekong beauty market, she said.

The Vietnam Essential Oils and Aromatherapy Association will organise a seminar on the first day of the event with topics including the Vietnamese cosmetics market, exploiting and using medicinal materials for cosmetics in Viet Nam, and achievements in the field of essential oils and aromatherapy from natural materials.

An onsite workshop on June 16 will gather top retailers and distributors to discuss building a mutually collaborative relationship between beauty brands and conventional and online retailers, Viet Nams market landscape and trade channels coupled with key consumer trends.

A delegation of 300 brands from South Korea will showcase K-beauty in the exhibition.

KINTEX (Korea International Exhibition & Convention Center) will bring in famous fitness models from Korea to perform and showcase authentic K-beauty both in fashion, lifestyle and beauty.

Owning strong brand names such as Miss Saigon and Miss Vietnam perfumes, Saigon Cosmetics Corporation (SCC) will unveil The Essence, its latest and most precious perfume, by launching it exclusively for the Mekong Beauty Show Miss Saigon.

International exhibition organiser Informa Exhibitions and KINTEX are co-organisers of the show. VNS
HA NOI  There is no evidence to show that northern Viet Nams recent record-breaking hot weather--the hottest in 45 years--will repeat again this summer, Le Thanh Hai, Deputy General Director of the National Hydro-Meteorological Centre, told Suc khoe & oi song (Health and Life) newspaper.

Although other heat spells will likely continue to occur throughout this summer, it is unlikely that temperatures will hit 40 degrees Celsius again in northern provinces, Hai said.

"The climate is currently in an intermediate state, not El Nino, so the possibility that north Viet Nam will suffer extreme heat spells during this years summer is not high," Hai said.

He added that the centre predicts an average of three heat spells per month during June and July. Last weeks heat spell was the first in June, and there may be two more heat waves from now to the end of the month.

Last weeks heat wave occurred on a large scale in the north and provinces from Thanh Hoa to the central coastal province of Phu Yen, where the highest temperatures ranged from 35 to 37 degrees Celsius.

In Ha Noi, the temperature reached 41-42 degrees.

Hai called last week an extreme weather phenomenon and therefore difficult to predict.

The main reason was the influence of low air pressure in the west, which usually occurs in the summer. Additionally, a rare hot, dry wind in the west and urbanisation in cities helped drive the temperature up, he said.  VNS
Gia Loc

CAN THO  Within a month of treatment, the pain that Nguyen Tuyet Hanh had tolerated after a bad fall began to diminish greatly, thanks to treatment from a volunteer physical therapist from Japan.

With skillful and gentle movements, Wakamiya Akiko, 29, of Japan had helped improve the strength and mobility of the 61-year-olds injured shoulder.

Hanh, who is from the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, said that she had decided to visit Can Tho General Hospital after the pain began to get worse two months after the fall.

A doctor at the hospital prescribed medicine and asked her to see a physical therapist daily until the pain disappeared.

Akiko, who has been working at the hospitals physical therapy and rehabilitation department since May last year, conducted an initial evaluation of Hanh, asking about the nature of her pain. She then chose an appropriate therapeutic modality.

Akiko is working with the Japan International Cooperation Agencys programme called Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), which has provided technical assistance in developing countries since 1965.

Whenever Akiko meets Hanh, she is friendly, and during therapy, she always checks to see if Hanh is in pain.

She was really enthusiastic treating my shoulder injury. She also told me about physical exercises that I can do at home, Hanh said.

Ha Thi Minh Chau, a physical therapist at the department, said: Akiko has a lot of experience in evaluating patients pains and injuries and choosing the right therapeutic modality.

Patients with a spinal cord injury, for example, are advised to pick up objects on a table to improve the strength of their arms and hands after they begin to walk, Chau said.

Although these exercises had been taught at university, Chau said the therapists had not paid attention to them until Akiko began working there.

We started to change our mindset and pay more attention to such exercises, she added.

Based on Akikos experience, Chau has learned that patients should try to become independent and do exercises so they can better integrate into society.

Akiko, who worked for six years at St Marianna University Hospital in Japan, said that patients who have ligament injuries should begin exercising before and after surgery.

This was new for us as exercise was recommended after surgery only, Chau said.

Ngo Thi Lanh, head of the team of physical therapists in the department, said: Akiko is very studious and works with her heart.

She is friendly with colleagues and has adapted well to working and living condition in Viet Nam, Lanh added.

Asked why she chose Viet Nam, Akiko said that she liked the country and wanted to help improve the quality of healthcare.

I want patients to receive better care and recover more quickly, Akiko said.

While physical therapy is important for patients who have had a stroke or surgery, it also helps prevent complications in patients who have other conditions.

Although the climate here is hot, which is uncomfortable for me, I still like working at a Vietnamese hospital. I feel happy working here, Akiko said.

At the hospital, Vietnamese colleagues help Akiko with working and living issues, while Lanh assists her with Vietnamese, which she studied prior to coming to work, so she can communicate more easily with patients.

JOCV provides volunteers with technical skills an opportunity to experience the joy of discovery and creation through technical cooperation, according to the organisation.

Cooperation is provided in agriculture, forestry and fishery, processing, maintenance and operation, civil engineering, public health care, education, culture and sport.

The programmes volunteers, aged 20 to 39, spend two years involved in cooperation activities and living and working with people in the community.

Since 1995, JOCV has placed more than 500 Japanese volunteers in provinces and cities throughout the country.  VNS
NEW YORK  Chuck Berry defined rock n roll as he gave voice to feel-good 1950s baby-boomer culture. For his swan song, he is reliving that same youthful spirit  and tidying up some loose ends.

The rock pioneer died in March just as he was planning an unlikely comeback; in October, for his 90th birthday, Berry had announced he was releasing a new album.

Entitled simply Chuck, the album comes out Friday and marks the first studio recordings by Berry since 1979, with the 10 songs fine-tuned for release since his death.

Returning after three decades in which musical tastes have shifted in manifold ways, Berry stays true to his classic sound  tightly structured tunes rooted in the blues, with a touch of country and the electrifying energy that he called rock n roll.

On Chuck, Berry signs off as forever young. His world at age 90 was the same one that embraced him in the 1950s  a lifestyle of driving fast cars, partying mischievously and checking out women.

The album kicks off with quintessential Berry, his verses alternating with frolicking yet brassy-toned guitar riffs, on Wonderful Woman.

In the song, Berry remains transfixed  who knows for how many years  by a woman with "big beautiful eyes" and "long, brown wavy hair" who showed up at his concert  in the second row, he recalls.

On the albums first single, Big Boys, Berry remembers trying to befriend cool older schoolmates, with his enthusiastic guitar complemented by one of rocks premier axe-men, Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

A woman for Johnny B. Goode

Berry recorded the album around St. Louis, where he lived his whole life, with his son and grandson and other artists who accompanied him for two decades in gigs at the Blueberry Hill club.

Berry dedicated Chuck to his wife of 68 years, Themetta Suggs. But he also appeared to want to close some of the musical stories he started.

Berry revisits 1958s Johnny B. Goode  a song so famous that it represents rock n roll to potential extraterrestrials on the Voyager spacecraft  with the new Lady B. Goode.

Nearly 60 years later, Berry has turned his classic song into a diptych. Lady B. Goode brings the perspective of "the little teen queen" who fell in love with someone who sounds an awfully lot like Johnny B. Goode  a humble country boy who finds fame with his guitar.

Berry, opening with a hard-driving R&B guitar riff similar to Johnny B. Goode, sings of her: "She followed him around where he would play his guitar / Till he got so popular they made him a star."

"Then she could only see him on a TV screen / And hoped someday that hed come back to New Orleans," he sings.

Back to the Caribbean

Berry also revisits old territory on Jamaica Moon, a remake of his Havana Moon whose commercial flop in 1956 had irritated him.

For his second take of the song, Berry again imagines himself as a Caribbean boy waiting on a dock for an American girl who promised to return.

But this time, a bouncy guitar brings a touch of reggae as Berry sings in patois, "Me still alone, me sip on de rum."

The original Havana Moon  acoustic with a Latin flavor  faded as Fidel Castros revolution soured Americans romance with Cuba, although the song was revived as a cover by Carlos Santana.

Jamaica Moon also echoes a lyric in another defining rock song, the famously indecipherable Louie Louie.

Berrys sound goes most contemporary on Dutchman as he switches to spoken-word over his blues guitar, telling the story of a dog who enters the bar and explains he was once a musician whose "music was considered superb."

"He didnt make the Hall of Fame, but it bought him shrimp, rice and beans."

Berry, in real life, was one of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. AFP
A doctor in a health center in Koulikoro takes pictures of a patient suffering from a skin disease. An online dermatology platform offers a diagnostic and instructions for a treatment from a doctor located in Bamako, Mali.Sebastien Rieussec / Agence Francepresse

BAMAKO, Mali - In Mali, where skin conditions are widespread and skin doctors are scarce, physicians have turned to technology to treat patients remotely.

From his Bamako office, Professor Ousmane Faye, one of a small number of dermatologists in Mali, examines photos of an arm and a torso afflicted by a skin pigmentation disorder.

The photos arrived the same day the patient visited his doctor in Koulikoro, 57 kilometers away.

Faye's pilot program, in place for 18 months, allows general practitioners working in even the most remote areas to consult with a specialist.

In a country that has around one dermatologist per million people, that is an invaluable aid. For in Mali, according to estimates, nearly 30 percent of the population suffers from skin diseases, such as leprosy, psoriasis and eczema.

"The patient from Koulikoro suffers from hypochromia lesions with some healthy patches of skin," said Faye, head of dermatology at Mali's national disease control center.

"Two months ago, the patient had treatment that made the lesions worse," he added. By this he meant traditional remedies.

But thanks to the "Bogou" app, designed by a Malian developer, the professor can bring his specialist knowledge to bear on the information sent over by general practitioners, using his computer or even his mobile phone.

Using a secure platform protected with a password, Faye says he can see images posted by the general practitioner in Koulikoro.

"Then I can confirm the doctor's diagnosis and even give advice."

Provided clear images are available, Faye's line of work is particularly well-suited to remote diagnosis, as dermatology is based on observation by the human eye, he explains.

"There is a triple benefit: time, money and training", for the doctors out in the field, he said.

The Pierre Fabre foundation, which is financing the program, said the results have been "solid", with 175 complex cases diagnosed remotely.

Already, 20 doctors and nurses have been trained with the goal of extending the service throughout Mali over the next two years.

The specialists will first focus on reaching the most disadvantaged and remote areas that have internet coverage.

Agence France-presse
GRENOBLE  A cable car whose dramatic breakdown last September forced 33 tourists to spend the night stranded  suspended high over the French Alps  is to reopen on Thursday, local officials announced.

The cars which offer visitors stunning views in the shadows of Mont Blanc will be put back in service after an extensive overhaul, nine months after the incident which made headlines across the world.

The sightseers were trapped in the cars at an altitude of 3,800 metres (12,500 feet) for 18 hours after the cables got crossed last September 8.

Nightfall and deteriorating weather had forced emergency workers to suspend their rescue operation.

New safety features have been added to the overhauled system, said a statement from the regional authority of Haute-Savoie.

They include a smoother movement out of the station to guard against the cables crossing, and improvements to the back-up engine for the system.

The cabins have also been supplied with emergency kits containing warm clothing and food in case of any future breakdown.

The five-kilometre (three-mile) system connects the Aiguille du Midi on the French side of the mountains with Pointe Helbronner on the Italian border, offering panoramic views of Mont Blanc.

It has been operating since 1950. AFP
TOKYO  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc yesterday called on Japanese business to expand their public-private partnerships (PPP) in Viet Nam and urged Japan to take a lead role in executing this form of investment.

Phuc spoke at a meeting with member groups of the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), such as Toray Industries, JXTG Holdings, Nomura Holdings, Tokyo Gas and Mitsubishi Corporation, and others, during his official visit to Japan.

Viet Nam hopes Keidanren will invest in environmental protection, renewable energy, industry, agriculture, high technology, tourism and services, he said, noting that Viet Nam especially encourages the federation to engage in the equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs), considered one of the countrys priorities.

The Vietnamese Government commits to creating the best possible conditions for you, he pledged. Viet Nam will also do its best to maximise Japans official development assistance (ODA), the PM said.

Responding to the firms proposal for unilateral visa exemptions for Japanese, PM Phuc said all Japanese nationals are already eligible for unilateral visa exemption for short-term stays (maximum 15 days) in Viet Nam. For representatives of Japanese enterprises or Japanese experts who need to enter Viet Nam frequently, enterprises can apply for one-year multiple-entry visas, or working visas valid for two years. He added that since February 1, 2017, Vietnam has launched a two-year e-visa pilot scheme for citizens from 40 countries, including those from Japan, and suggested Japanese enterprises use this service.

He said his country wants to work together with Japan in order to accelerate international integration, with the economy as the centre in the context of trade protectionism.

At the meeting, many investors urged Viet Nam to improve its support industry capacity and focus more on personnel training, especially high-quality labour resources, to meet the demand of cooperation projects.

Some noted their wish to cooperate with their Vietnamese partners in construction, industry and energy, and hold regular dialogues with the Vietnamese Government to contribute to finalising the countrys legal framework on foreign investment.

Some 1,500 Japanese firms now operate in Viet Nam in various fields such as industry, agriculture, construction, culture and education.

Trade fair

Also yesterday PM Phuc attended the inaugural ceremony of the Vietnamese Goods Week held by the Ha Noi Peoples Committee and Japans AEON Group in Saitama prefecture.

With 50 pavilions, nearly 70 businesses from Ha Noi and other Vietnamese cities and provinces are introducing their products to Japanese consumers, mostly clothes, footwear, handicrafts, home decorations, souvenirs and processed agricultural products.

Within the framework of the event, there will be an exchange programme between Vietnamese and Japanese enterprises, a workshop on tourism promotion, along with an array of cultural activities.

Osaka visit

Later yesterday, the PM left for Osaka Prefecture, the second biggest economic hub of Japan.

He asked Governor of Shiga Prefecture, Taizo Mikazuki, to encourage local enterprises to invest in Viet Nam.

Viet Nam welcomes Shigas cooperation in experience exchanges, human resources training and technology transfer in the fields of high-tech farming and water resources treatment, he added.

For his part, Governor Taizo Mikazuki said Shigas businesses are interested in the Vietnamese market.

He said his prefecture was willing to assist Vietnam in support industry, high-tech agriculture and environmental protection.

New flight routes

The PM also attended a ceremony announcing new flight routes to Osaka by the budget airline Jetstar Pacific.

Jetstar Pacific will open two new routes connecting Ha Noi and a Nang to Osaka, becoming the first Viet Nams budget airline to offer direct flights to Japan.

The first flight is expected at the beginning of September, with four return flights per week for each route. Tickets will be sold from mid-June, with average one-way tickets starting from VN1.5 million (US$67), excluding tax and fees.

National flag carier Vietnam Airlines also announced at the ceremony that it will start using the advanced Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft on its current Ha Noi-Osaka route.  VNS
Chairman of the Cuban National Assembly Esteban Lazo Hernandez will pay an official visit to Vi

et N

am between June 11 and 18, said the National Assemblys Committee for External Relations

yesterday
Viet Nam and the Czech Republic have issued a joint statement during the state visit to Vietnam from June 6-8 by Czech President Milos Zeman and his spouse. Following is the full text of the joint statement.

1. At the invitation of the President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, His Excellency Tran ai Quang, the President of the Czech Republic, His Excellency Milos Zeman and Spouse, paid a state visit to Viet Nam from 6th to 8th June, 2017.

2. The President of the Czech Republic was accompanied by a sizable business delegation organised by the Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic. The business delegation was made up of 60 representatives of companies from various sectors.

3. During the visit, the President of the Czech Republic held talks with the President Tran ai Quang, paid a courtesy call to the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Nguyen Phu Trong, the Chairwoman of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and met with the Deputy Prime Minister Vuong inh Hue. He also attended the Viet Nam  Czech Business Forum and met with the Viet Nam  Czech Friendship Association.

4. The bilateral meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere of mutual understanding. The two Leaders informed each other of the political and economic situation in their respective countries as well as their foreign affairs and external economic priorities. They also discussed concrete measures how to promote bilateral relations and exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual interest and concerns.

5. The President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam reaffirmed that Viet Nam consistently attaches importance to fostering friendship and co-operation in all areas with traditional friends in the Central Europe, especially the Czech Republic. He congratulated the Czech Republic on its achievements in national development. The President of the Czech Republic held in high esteem the achievements Viet Nam had made in economic development. He re-confirmed the strong interest of the Czech Republic in furthering friendly and mutually beneficial relations with Viet Nam.

6. The two Sides greatly valued the positive growth of the traditional friendship and co-operation in all areas over a history of 67 years of official relations between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic; welcomed the maintenance and strengthening of high-level political dialogues as well as the exchange of delegations between ministries, agencies and regions of the two countries. The two Sides also expressed the political will to create momentum to further strengthen the cooperation between the two countries in areas of mutual interests.

7. In this regard the two Leaders expressed their desire to launch the direct flight connection between the Czech Republic and Viet Nam. Both Presidents will task the respective national bodies to hold talks on the issue and conclude on details.

8. Both Sides are pleased to accept the fact that the Treaty between the Czech Republic and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and the Agreement between the Government of the Czech Republic and the Government of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam on Cooperation in Combating Crime had been signed.

9. The two Leaders expressed their satisfaction with the signing of seven memorandums of understanding between the following partners: Optokon Group and Sinh Phuc Technology Systems; Drevojas and Hao Canh Porcelain Production and Trading; East Sea Travel & Air Service Group and Indovina Bank; ClineX and Dapharco; Techniserv Group and Yestech; Na Homolce Hospital and Viet Nam Friendship Hospital; and Vari JSC and James Boat Technology JSC.

10. The two Sides highly appreciated the encouraging result in trade and investment cooperation, reaffirming the determination to work together to raise bilateral trade turnover and rebalance the trade between the two countries. The two Sides expressed their willingness to create all necessary favourable conditions for each other to explore the market and investment opportunities. Both Sides confirmed their resolve to ensure favorable legal framework and facilitate friendly environment for effective cooperation of both countries investors and entrepreneurs.

11. The two Sides highly valued the role of the Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation between the Czech Republic and the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, and acknowledged the great potential and opportunities for cooperation between the two countries. The two Sides agreed to make thorough preparations for the 6th Session of the Committee, which is expected to take place in 2018 in Ha Noi, Viet Nam.

12. Both Sides agreed to promote and strengthen cooperation in various areas, such as agriculture, science and technology, environment, energy, education and training, culture, tourism, justice and law, etc.

13. The two Sides highly value the well-established relations in the area of defense. Both Sides will seek ways to further enhance relations in the area of defense across the spectrum.

14. The two Sides agreed to promote the exchange and mutual support on international and regional issues of mutual interest. The two Sides also agreed to coordinate and cooperate more closely at international and regional forums and organisations, especially at the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation, the Asia  Europe Meeting (ASEM), and that they would consider supporting each others candidacy for membership in international organisations and forums. Both Sides are committed to maintaining peace, stability, promoting maritime security and safety, and freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea. The two Sides stressed the importance of the settlement of territorial disputes through peaceful means, in accordance with international law.

15. Both Sides support the early signing, ratification and implementation of the EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA).

16. The two Leaders stressed the importance of human dimension in political and economic collaboration. The Leaders shared view that democracy and rule of law are the core principles which both Sides are aiming to promote.

17. The two Sides agree to cooperate in the promotion and protection of human rights, including with regards to the implementation of international human rights instruments.

18. Both Leaders shared the deep concern over the real threats posed by terrorism, extremism, illicit drugs trafficking, and other transnational organized crime to the world. In this regard, both Sides reached mutual understanding that strengthening of the cooperation in countering these threats is needed.

19. The President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam expressed his gratitude to the Czech Republic for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community living in the Czech Republic. The President of the Czech Republic valued the contribution of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic in promotion of the friendship between the two countries.

20. The two Sides expressed their satisfaction with the results of the state visit of the President of the Czech Republic to Viet Nam, and considered this a significant political event in the strengthening and promotion of the traditional friendship and multi-faceted cooperation between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic.

21. The President of the Czech Republic, His Excellency Milos Zeman, expressed his sincere gratitude for the kind and warm hospitality that Viet Nam had accorded to him and his Spouse and the Czech high-level delegation and took the opportunity to invite the President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, His Excellency Tran ai Quang, to pay a state visit to the Czech Republic. President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam welcomed the invitation with a great pleasure and expressed his willingness to visit the Czech Republic at a mutually convenient time to be communicated through diplomatic channels.  VNS
HA NOI  President Tran ai Quang and his Czech counterpart Milos Zeman agreed to forge co-operation between Viet Nam and the Czech Republic in various areas during their talks in Ha Noi yesterday.

At the talks, held following a welcoming ceremony for the Czech leader, President Quang expressed his belief that Milos Zemans State visit to Viet Nam will contribute to deepening the time-honoured friendship and multi-faceted collaboration between the two countries in a pragmatic manner.

Viet Nam always attaches importance to consolidating and developing relations with traditional friends, including the Czech Republic, he affirmed.

The leaders briefed each other on situations in their respective countries and discussed concrete measures to promote bilateral ties. They also exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern.

Hailing achievements Vietnamese people have recorded in the national process of reform as well as the countrys increasing role and position in the global arena, President Zeman said the Czech Republic always regards Viet Nam as a traditional partner and wishes to advance their bilateral affiliation across all fields.

Host and guest noted with pleasure active developments of the Viet Nam-Czech Republic relations in the past, particularly in politics and diplomacy, as well as their effective collaboration in the international arena.

They held that bilateral economic and trade ties have remained stable with annual two-way trade averaging US$250 million in recent years.

The two leaders agreed to continue improving the effectiveness of the joint commission on economic co-operation, while strengthening trade and investment promotion, encouraging and backing the business community of both sides to foster their partnership and study each others market, especially in areas of the Czech Republics strength and Viet Nams demand such as infrastructure, food processing, pharmaceuticals, urban planning, public transportation, environmental protection and water resources management.

President Quang thanked the State and people of the Czech Republic for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country to live, work, and integrate into local society.

The State leader expressed his belief that the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic will continue promoting their role as a bridge for friendship and co-operation between the two countries.

The two Presidents showed their delight at the close and effective co-ordination between the two countries at international forums.

President Zeman affirmed that the Czech Republic supports the enhancement of Viet Nam-EU relations as well as the signing and approval of the Viet Nam-EU free trade agreement, and the EUs anticipated recognition of Viet Nams full market economy status.

Regarding the East Sea issue, the two leaders stressed the need to settle all disputes through peaceful measures, including diplomatic and legal processes in conformity with international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS).

Meeting with the press following their talks, President Quang said both sides consented to increase the exchange of all-level delegations and consultations on issues of shared concern.

The presidents were unanimous on the need for the two countries to improve the efficiency of cooperation in trade and investment and collaborate with each other in preparing for the sixth meeting of the Vietnam-Czech Joint Commission on Economic Co-operation scheduled for 2018 in Ha Noi.

They welcomed and pledged to facilitate Czech investment in Viet Nam in areas such as energy, environment, support industry, infrastructure, manufacturing, medical equipment and food processing.

Host and guest also consented to beef up the partnership in other realms like education-training, science-technology, culture-tourism, health care, environment, employment, national defence and security.

Regarding regional and international issues, President Quang said that the two leaders highlighted the significance of the maintenance of security and peace as well as the promotion of co-operation and development in the world.

President Zeman said that the business community of his country is interested in the Vietnamese market. He stated that his entourage included representatives of 68 enterprises in various sectors, who hope to affiliate with Vietnamese peers through specific agreements.

He also revealed that the two leaders discussed and agreed on the opening of a direct air route connecting Prague and HCM City, and a short-term visa exemption for Czech tourists to Viet Nam. The Czech Republic will open a Consulate General in HCM City in the near future.

He also said that he believes this will contribute to boosting the number of Czech tourists to Viet Nam in the future.

After their talks, the presidents witnessed the signing of co-operation documents between the two countries, including an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons and another on combating crime.

Viet Nam and the Czech Republic set up diplomatic ties on February 2, 1950.

With 35 projects worth $91.3 million, focusing on real estate, beer, electronic equipment and construction materials, the Czech Republic ranks 42nd out of 101 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam.

Viet Nam was among 12 priority markets included in the Czech national export strategy during 2012-20, which was announced in 2012.

The Czech Republic has been the first Eastern European nation to provide official development assistance (ODA) for Viet Nam with about $18 million.

More than 60,000 Vietnamese are living in the Czech Republic. On July 3, 2013, the Czech Government appointed a Czech representative of Vietnamese origin to the Council of Ethnic Minorities, thus recognising the Czech Vietnamese community as an ethnic minority group in the country.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam and the Czech Republic should maintain delegation exchanges at all levels and increase co-operation between their ministries, sectors, localities and businesses to carry out the signed agreements, said Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

At a reception for Czech President Milos Zeman in Ha Noi yesterday, the Party leader described the Presidents visit as important to the countries traditional friendship and multi-faceted co-operation.

General Secretary Trong applauded the outcomes of the talks between the Czech President and his Vietnamese counterpart Tran ai Quang, stressing that the two countries relations are developing soundly.

Acknowledging the Czech Governments favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country, he said they will serve as a bridge linking the two nations.

At the meeting, President Zeman informed the host about his countrys situation and the outcomes of his talks and meetings with Vietnamese leaders.

He emphasised that the Czech Republic attaches importance to the reinforcement and development of the time-tested friendship and co-operation with Viet Nam. It will promote the realisation of the two countries co-operation agreements in such fields as economy, trade, culture, education, science and sports, thereby making substantive changes in bilateral ties.

The visiting President also wished the Vietnamese people even greater attainments in reforms so as to build an affluent and strong Viet Nam.  VNS
TOKYO  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc assured more than 30 corporate executives in the Kansai region of Japan that Vietnamese localities will offer all possible support for them to do business.

The Vietnamese leader made the point during a dialogue yesterday. Speaking highly of Kansai firms strength in equipment manufacturing, mechanical engineering, support industry and trade, the PM wished that they would soon launch projects in Viet Nam.

He suggested developing a particular scheme for the Kansai region based on survey results, adding that Kansai businesses should pour capital into key infrastructure projects, particularly those in public-private partnership models, environment and water resources treatment, renewable energy, finance-banking, and especially equitisation of State-owned enterprises.

Viet Nam is committed to creating the most favourable conditions for Japanese firms to do long-term business in the country, he stated.

Participating Kansai firms operate in electronics, trade, iron and steel, food processing, banking, construction, media, health care and industrial parks.

They asked the Vietnamese government to upgrade infrastructure, further develop support industry, and minimise foreign exchange risks for investors due to the importation of materials.

As Japans major economic and industrial region, Kansai is home to 10 prefectures including three big cities of Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe with strength in the manufacturing industry. The Kansai economic region is worth nearly US$931 billion, focusing on garments, chemicals and electronic spare parts.

Meeting Osaka prefecture authorities the same day, PM Phuc said Viet Nam appreciates the expansion of co-operation with Japanese localities, including the Osaka prefecture and other localities in the Kansai region, considering it an important factor in advancing ties between Viet Nam and Japan.

Lauding the results of co-operation between the Osaka prefecture and Vietnamese localities, especially HCM City and Hoi An City, he thanked Osaka authorities and people for actively helping the Vietnamese Consulate General perform its role as a bridge linking the Kansai region and Viet Nam, as well as assisting Vietnamese nationals living here.

On the occasion, he asked Governor of Osaka prefecture Ichiro Matsui and Kansai authorities to encourage local enterprises, especially small- and medium-size ones, to invest in Viet Nam in the fields of high technology and support industries, as well as share experience with Viet Nam in workforce training and technological transfer in agriculture, and enhance labour coordination, including welcoming more Vietnamese technical apprentices to the region.

He wished that Osaka would encourage other Kansai localities to establish co-operative ties and reinforce mutually-beneficial collaboration with Viet Nam.

Governor Matsui, for his part, vowed to continue support for the Vietnamese Consulate General in Osaka and Vietnamese nationals living in the prefecture, thus contributing to intensifying exchanges and mutual understanding between the two countries people.

In a meeting with leaders of the Kansai regional chapter of the Japan-Viet Nam Friendship Association, the Vietnamese leader hailed the chapter for boosting bilateral ties over the past two decades.

President of the chapter Teiichi Nishimura informed the PM that the chapter has connected Japanese firms with Vietnamese partners, as well as held cultural and art exchanges over the past years.

He vowed to do his best to strengthen exchanges and mutual understanding between the two countries people, including those from Kansai and Vietnamese localities.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Transport has proposed that the government invite investment from the private sector to complete the Yen Vien-Ha Long-Cai Lan railway project.

The project, which commenced in 2004 with an initial investment of VN7.7 trillion (US$3.39 billion), aims to connect Yen Vien station in Ha Noi with Cai Lan station in the northern province of Quang Ninh. It has been designed to shorten the rail route between the capital city and the province by 37km from the current 168km, and thus reduce the travel time to between two and two-and-a-half hours.

Khuong The Duy, deputy director of Viet Nam Railway Authority, said around VN4.3 trillion of the initial VN7.7 trillion has been disbursed. Work on the route came to a halt in 2011 because of insufficient capital. To restart the project, another VN6 trillion is needed, he said.

At present, the government is gathering opinions from ministries and relevant agencies on how to restart the project. After the prime minister makes his decision, the ministry will propose specific mechanisms to attract investors, he said.

Cai Lan station already has seven lines, as well as a warehouse and container area. However, it has not been used since 2014, station chief Nguyen uc Tan told Giao Thong (Transport) newspaper.

The station management has been doing routine maintenance of the tracks and the station infrastructure to minimise the degradation of facilities, Tan said.

Similarly, Ha Long station in the province is serving only one train a day, with very few passengers.

Prior to 2014, the route between Cai Lan and Ha Long stations used to serve dozens of goods trains transporting steel, but the lack of connectivity with other stations and incomplete infrastructure lengthened travel time and increased the cost for transportation, which has driven away traffic from this rail route, Duy said.

In March this year, during a meeting with the transport ministry, authorities from Quang Ninh Province authorities suggested that the railway project be restarted to fully exploit the potential of rail transportation in the province and to attract freight transport to Quang Ninh seaport.

The full potential of this seaport has also not been exploited in the past few years, partly because of the incomplete rail route. Meanwhile, seaports in the neighbouring city of Hai Phong are over-burdened.  VNS
HCM CITY The HCM City Peoples Committee has instructed District 8 authorities to speed up land acquisition and compensation payment to enable the construction of an aromatic substances and chemical trading centre by the beginning of next year.

At a meeting to discuss the project on Tuesday, deputy chairman of the Peoples Committee, Tran Vinh Tuyen, said 42 households need to receive satisfactory compensation before moving out.

Tuyen also instructed the departments of Industry and Trade and Planning and Investment to begin the tender process this year.

The city authorities have to identify a new investor for the project after Tuan Chau Group, chosen as the investor, failed to go ahead with the work.

When the centre is up and running, Kim Bien Market in District 5, which specialises in trading chemicals, as well as other chemical trading facilities in the city will relocate to it.

This would help authorities easily control food hygiene and safety, Tuyen said.

Incentives would be offered to aromatics and chemical stores and business households to move into the new centre, he said.

In February the city announced the plan to build the 11-hectare centre in District 8s Ward 7 for selling industrial and medical aromatics and chemicals besides organising research, consultancy, exhibitions and international co-operation. VNS
by Hong Kieu

HA NOI  Nguyen Tien Lang, 79, and Nguyen Cong Uan, 80, are war veterans who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the country.

One of them was seriously wounded while on duty, but could not get his due benefits because of complications in the application process.

Both of them were cut to the deep long after the war ended as their countrymen hatched fraudulent schemes to gain social welfare benefits designated for veterans.

Silence was not an option.

They did not realise then that it was going to be a long drawn battle against a lot of tough odds, but giving up was not an option, either.

In 2005, many residents of Thuan Thanh District in Bac Ninh Province, where Lang and Uan lived, spread through word of mouth information on how to make fake documents and benefit from the Governments support policies for war veterans.

An acquaintance told me that for VN30 million (US$1,300), one can get a dossier certifying that one is a veteran. Another VN30 million, and one could get a certificate of injuries and become eligible for a monthly stipend, Lang said.

I felt heartbroken. I used to serve in the army back in 1965 and stayed for 10 years. I was also seriously injured, but due to complications in the certification process, I didnt have a veterans certification and did not benefit from any supporting policies.

But now, people who merely had work accidents, lost a finger or had a forehead injury, could so easily become veterans! Meanwhile, many of my comrades and I, who were willing to die for the country, some of them have actually died, hadnt been recognised as veterans!

Uan said many people in the village advised him to fake a document and collect the money. He didnt do it, of course. Instead he began to fight the scheme, silently.

After talking to many people trying to get the fake veteran documents, Uan found out how it was done. Then, he and Lang set out to try and collect all the relevant documents and other incriminating evidence.

Long, winding road

For three years, the two men cycled from place to place for the whole day, collecting hundreds of fake veteran documents.

And while, this was happening, they were not silent about other corruption cases.

In 2006, they denounced several officials of Gia ong Commune in Thuan Thanh District for their wrongdoings in land management.

For this, Uan was threatened and beaten by one of the officials several days before the Tet holiday. He asked local police for help and was allowed to stay at the police station for a few days. That year, Uan spent the Tet holiday in Langs house.

But the people hed exposed were not done exacting revenge. His orchard of longan trees was destroyed. It had at least 25 longan trees more than 40 years old, which had helped him raise six children.

Lonely journey

While Uan and Lang never felt like giving up their thankless crusade, they did feel lonely for most of their long journey.

My wife and kids kept telling me to quit doing such things. They even said I have to choose: stay with them or continue what I was doing, Uan said.

I love my family dearly but I believed what is right would win in the end. If I quit what I was doing, it would mean what I was fighting for was wrong. How could that be? I couldnt quit, he said.

Nguyen Thi Thom, Uans wife, said she was very scared and worried for a long time.

I didnt support what he did. Not at all. What he did made a lot of people in our community hate us. I was even afraid they would place a bomb in our house! she said.

While many ways were tried to force Uan to withdraw his petitions, he was hurt most when he was made to leave the group of elders in the village. Not a single person in the group dared to stand up by his side.

Langs situation was no better. He spent most of his pension on traveling to find evidence and submitting denouncement letters.

When my wife asked me about my pension, I said I was using it to do good deeds. When she talked too much about it, I made my own meals and slept separately, Lang said.

He said it was understandable that his wife and children were angry. His house was often covered with dirt and waste and rocks, and people would stand in front of his house and abuse him verbally. His orchard of more than 100 grapefruit trees and 100 papaya trees was destroyed.

He did not budge.

Ive fought in the war  and the war couldnt kill me. I was willing to fight for my country, and now Im willing to fight for the right things, Lang said.

Finally, a response

In 2009, Bac Ninh officials, unable to ignore the mounting evidence, began investigating the denouncement made by Uan about land management in his commune. Disciplinary action was initiated against the officials.

At the end of that year, Uan was granted a reward by the Central Anti-Corruption Steering Committee.

In 2010, the denouncements and all the evidence collected by Uan and Lang were sent to the Department of Affairs for People of Meritorious Service to the Country under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

The department took the denouncements seriously and conducted an examination of the hundreds of documents. Many violations were found. Names had been changed or replaced, injury certifications were done incorrectly, and assessments were faked.

In 2013, five defendants were prosecuted for fraudulent efforts to appropriate assets, and the case was placed under further investigation.

Since then, the High Command of Military Zone 1 has found more than 2,700 cases in which veteran documents were faked. Twenty-four people had to face criminal charges. More than VN150 billion (US$6 million) was revoked, and some VN20 billion was cut in State Budgets spending on wrong beneficiaries.

The people living in my village eventually understood that I didnt fight against anyone  I merely fought against wrongdoing and injustice, Lang said.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs is now processing the request to grant Ministers Award to Lang and Uan for their contribution to the anti-corruption cause.

Representative of the ministry said they were seeking for guidance from the Government Inspectorates Anti-Corruption Department to grant awards to Lang and Uan.

Uan said: I never thought of getting any award when I did all this, I only think of social justice. I might not live long enough to get the states awards. But I think if awards are given, it would encourage other people to fight corruption as well. --VNS
Dozens of planned urban development projects on the outskirts of Ha Noi have not been completed, turning into ghost towns and a source of misery for residents and investors.  Photo tienphong.vn

HA NOI  Dozens of planned urban development projects on the outskirts of Ha Noi have not been completed, turning into ghost towns and a source of misery for residents and investors.

According to a report by the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper, Me Linh District, for example, was a hot real estate market in 2008 and 2009. But now housing and urban development projects that were begun there have become deserted.

The Housing and Urban Development Corporation (under the Ministry of Construction) spent hundreds of billions of ong for ground clearance, road paving and compensation for local farmers, but the Thanh Lam-ai Thinh 2 New Urban Area located near the office of the Me Linh District Peoples Committee has not been completed.

Close by is a project named Spring Hill City, the infrastructure for which was completed, but the grass covering the unfinished villas have turned it into a cow pasture.

Nearly 20 projects in Tien Phong Commune which took over hundreds of hectares of lands, remain deserted. These include large-scale projects of Nam Son hotels and villas located on an area of 60ha, Phuc Viet eco-villas on 24.3ha, buildings and houses for workers on 16ha, Minh Giang am Va Urban City on 22ha, Tien Phong Flower Village on 40ha, and Tien Phong International Village on 30ha.

So far, only the Ha Phong Urban Area projects with hundreds of villas and houses has been completed but few people have moved in, the paper reported.

The districts authority said that many out of the 47 projects undertaken in the district have not been completed.

Hoai uc District located on the western side of the city, which was expected to develop fastest among 19 planned outskirts districts, is similarly abandoned.

With the advantage of transport facilities connecting it with National Highway 32, Thang Long Boulevard, To Huu and Le Van Luong roads, the districts lands were targets of big real estate companies such as Sudico, Posco, Vinaconex, Lideco or Vietacimex.

However, a series of housing and urban development proejcts by the investors has not been completed.

Many projects were approved since 2006 but they were not finished for many reasons, said Hoa uc Districts vice chairman, o uc Trung. Trung said he had several meetings with relevants offices to push the investors, but the projects are at a standstill.

"These were projects approved by the central city authority and land was allocated to investors, so we [district] could not intervene but suggest recommendations only," Trung said.

Luong Toan Thang, head of Me Linh District Urban Management Division said that in the "land fever of 2008 and 2009, many projects in the district mobilized capital from thousands of people. Project suspensions cause losses for people and prolonged sueing, he told the paper.

Recently, the local authority asked project investors to update it on the situation, but few complied, Thang said.

Violations of land use

According to Pham Thanh Tung, chief manager of the Viet Nam Architects Association, abandoning housing and urban development projects was a violation of land regulations by investors.

When investors applied for projects, there were concrete regulations on the duration and stipulations that the project licences would be revoked if projects could not be realized, said Tung.

The first reason was weak management. The second was interest groups, Tung added, explaining the cause of the problem.

Actually, many investors transfered the land allocated to others to make money on the increased value of the land, he said.

Meanwhile, Prof ang Hung Vo, former deputy minister of natural resources and environment, said this was the consequence of approving too many projects not taking into account real demand.

Its time for the city to revoke lands and give strict sanctions if investors do not restart their projects, architect Tung said. Unfinished projects cause not only money waste but also social consequences.  VNS
Residents receive last years environmental incident compensation in central Quang Tri's Vinh Linh District.  VNA/VNS Photo Tran Tinh

HA NOI - Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh has urged four localities affected by last years environmental incident to accelerate the disbursement of compensation and complete the process by June 30.

He made the request yesterday at the eighth meeting of the Steering Committee on stabilising the lives and production of people in four central coastal provinces  Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien  Hue, which were ravaged by environmental disaster caused by Taiwanese firm Formosa in April last year.

Following the Governments direction, the four provinces established inter-sector teams to inspect and supervise compensation for affected local people.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam said that after four periods of compensation disbursement, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc provided an advance payment of more than VN7 trillion (US$304.4 million) to the four provinces.

As of May 31 this year, the four provinces disbursed more than VN4.5 trillion ($195.7 million), making up about 65 per cent of the total disbursement.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, by May 30 this year, more than 1,100 tonnes of contaminated seafood was destroyed.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasised two requirements, which focus on addressing the consequences of the incident while creating conditions for locals to support their livelihoods as well as implementing projects to regenerate profits from aquatic products and ensure an environment monitoring system.

He said that until now the compensation progress has been conducted in an open, transparent manner with the supervision of the Fatherland Front, community and associations.

He asked the ministries of Health, Natural Resources and Environment and relevant agencies to continue supervision on seafood and seawater quality in the four central provinces.

The health minister is responsible for testing seafood quality on the seabed, comparing it to safety indicators from other neighbouring localities and international reference points.

If the fish are not safe for consumption, fishermen must be banned from catching fish from the seabed, he said.

Binh also assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to conduct inspections on Formosa in terms of waste water, emissions and solid waste.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must work with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to review the recovery of eco-systems in the central coastal provinces to implement projects serving marine economic growth and tourism, he said.

Stabilised livelihoods

According to the report by relevant agencies at the meeting, aquatic production, tourism and local livelihoods have gradually stabilised.

The number of fishing boats going offshore has increased. As many as 70-80 per cent of the vessels operating near the coast have resumed operation, while the figure is 80-90 per cent for offshore fishing boats. Seafood exploitation output in the first quarter of this year reached 25,386 tonnes, a decline of 8.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.

The total fish raising output of the four provinces in the first three months this year was more than 6,200 tonnes, an increase of 3.12 per cent year-on-year.

The seafood business has resumed, however, business facilities still face challenges related to infrastructure and capital during the recovery process.

Meanwhile, the four provinces have also stepped up tourism promotion activities to prepare for the upcoming tourism season.

The mass fish deaths were first reported on April 6, 2016 when a large number of fish washed ashore in Ha Tinh Province. The incident also occurred in Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien  Hue provinces.

About 70 tonnes of dead fish were found in the four provinces and Thua Thien  Hue alone reported 35 tonnes of farm-raised fish had died.

The pollution also affected more than 260,000 people who earn their living from the sea.

In June last year, Formosa accepted responsibility for the fish deaths and pledged compensation to local fishermen and to help renew the polluted marine environment.  VNS
LAM ONG  The Lam ong Department of Science and Technology on Wednesday imposed administrative fines on the Viet Khang Co Ltd for using fraudulent means to pilfer petrol and cheat customers.

The company, in Di Linh District, was fined VN30 million (US$1,300), and its trading permission was withdrawn for three months.

It was forced to hand in VN65.3 million ($2,900) to the State budget, equivalent to the amount it earned by shortchanging petrol.

On May 25, inspectors from the department conducted a surprise check on the companys petrol station. The company had used an electric chip to commit fraud while selling the petrol. For every 10 litres, it rigged 0.886 litres.  VNS
HA NOI  Its business as usual for around 1,800 Vietnamese workers in Qatar, as the Middle Eastern nation faces the biggest diplomatic crisis in decades, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) has announced.

Deputy Minister Doan Mau Diep spoke to the press yesterday after meeting with enterprises that have sent workers to Qatar. He said that Vietnamese workers in Qatar are mostly in the construction, welding, home electrical and refrigerator industries. The ministrys Department of Overseas Labour has requested enterprises sending workers to Qatar to check and report the number of workers, their information, and their contractors so that support and protection measures can be taken if necessary.

The current situation is not worrisome. Vietnamese workers all work for prestigious contractors.

However, in the worst case scenario, the ministry will withdraw all workers and bring them back to Viet Nam to ensure their safety. The cost for this will be covered by the Fund for supporting overseas jobs after receiving the Prime Ministers approval, Diep said.

The ministry has also directed enterprises to temporarily suspend new worker contracts to Qatar and has ordered relevant agencies to keep a close watch on developments in the Middle East and prepare necessary measures to support Vietnamese workers.

If there are any requests for support, Qatar-based Vietnamese workers can contact the Vietnamese Embassy in Qatar at +974 4412 8480, +974 4412 8365 or contact the hotline of the Department of Overseas Labour at + 84 98 7476 466, +84 90 4240 467, or +84 4 393666633.

The Qatar crisis broke out after several Arab Gulf and African countries on Monday cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and suspended all Qatar-bound flights, accusing the country of supporting extremism.  VNS
HOA BINH  Poor water quality used in dialysis machines might have led to eight deaths in the largest fatal medical incident in Viet Nam, the Hoa Binh Province Department of Health announced on Thursday.

The incident took place on May 29, when seven of the 18 patients undergoing dialysis at Hoa Binh hospital displayed symptoms of anaphylactic shock and died soon after. Another patient from the same group died on June 4 after multiple organ failure, raising the death count to eight.

The department deputy director Bui Thu Hang told the press that a specialised medical council, specifically set up to study the case, held a closed meeting on Thursday morning to look into the cause of the tragic deaths.

The council, she said, believes that all the victims suffered acute poisoning syndrome with symptoms of multiple organ failures in the respiratory and circulatory systems as well as the liver and the kidney.

The poisoning was uniformly caused by a single source, according to the council.

At the moment, the specialised council lacks conclusive scientific evidence to surely determine the true cause of the incident, as the water and medicine test results and autopsy reports are yet to come out, Hang said.

However, the specialised council thinks that there was very likely an abnormality in the reverse osmosis water system during the dialysis treatment for patients at the Hoa Binh General Hospital.

The reverse osmosis system, shortly known as RO, is used to purify water for dialysis process.

Hoa Binh health department director Tran Quang Khanh also told the press that the company in charge of maintenance for the dialysis machines in Hoa Binh hospital failed to test the water before letting the dialysis run again.

The Thien Son company, according to Khanh, performed a maintenance on the RO system on May 28, just one day before the incident occurred.

After the service, the company didnt test the output water quality but allowed the machines to resume operation for the patients, he said.

On Thursday, Hoa Binh hospital director Truong Quy Duong and another two hospital employees were suspended from work for 15 days to assist the investigation into the case.  VNS
SEOUL  North Korea launched a series of what appeared to be "surface-to-ship" cruise missiles today, South Koreas defence ministry said, in what would be the latest in a string of tests in defiance of UN sanctions.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the ministry said.

Seoul has stepped up surveillance against possible threats, it added.

This would be the fourth missile test by the nuclear-armed regime in less than five weeks, as Pyongyang continues to defy UN warnings and US threats of possible military action.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions.

However, North Korea on Sunday slammed the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and vowed to press ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies said "North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korean".

The 6,900-tonne USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korea port of Busan on Tuesday.

Muscle-flexing

The US has stepped up its muscle-flexing in recent months in response to what it sees as aggressive shows of strength by North Korea.

Two US aircraft carriers and their escort vessels have carried out naval maneuvers in the Sea of Japan within the last two weeks in a show of force directed at Pyongyang, the US military has said.

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States - something President Donald Trump has vowed "wont happen".

The US military "successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target" in a test conducted amid concerns over the Norths weapons program, it said.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of a US attack.

China, the reclusive regimes sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks - and not more sanctions - is its priority.

But the US has said it is willing to enter into talks only if the North halts its missile and nuclear tests.

Many analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.
YANGON  Myanmars military said today it has found the wreckage of a plane in the Andaman Sea that went missing with around 120 people on board, along with several bodies.

"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 am (local time)," a spokesman from the militarys information team said.

The countrys Commander in Chief confirmed in a Facebook post that the wreckage had been found off the coast of Launglon, in southern Myanmar, by a navy search team today morning.

Nine navy ships and three air force planes had been dispatched to search for the aircraft, which disappeared on Wednesday as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chiefs office said in a statement.

"Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school," said a spokesman from the militarys information team.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.

Sources said that debris had been found in the sea off the coastal town of Dawei, which lies an hours flight southeast of Yangon.

The commander-in-chiefs office said the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 pm (local time) on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

The military named the captain of the Chinese-made Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

Myanmars military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.
CHARLES CITY -- Two Charles City men are facing felony charges after items stolen from the YMCA and a local church were found in their possession, according to police.

On Tuesday, Charles City police arrested Jonathan Goodman, 29, when the police executed three search warrants.

His initial arrest was on a Kentucky warrant for methamphetamine, but he has now also been charged with one felony count of possession of stolen property and two felony counts of third-degree burglary, according to a Facebook post by the Charles City Police Department.

Then on Wednesday afternoon, police arrested Justin Gulian, 26, on two counts of third-degree burglary, second-degree theft and fourth-degree criminal mischief.

The charges are all a result of the investigation into two burglaries, one at the Trinity United Methodist Church and one at the YMCA. Gulian also had a warrant for unauthorized use of a credit card (aggravated misdemeanor). He is being held at the Floyd County jail.

Goodman also is charged with misdemeanor counts of fourth-degree and fifth-degree criminal mischief.
CEDAR FALLS  Robert Donley said he never intended to stay in Iowa for nine years after taking the job as Iowa Board of Regents executive director and chief executive officer, in explaining why he is now resigning from that position.

He planned to commit for about three years of his contract, maybe up to five years. But now as hes moving on, hes ready to be closer to family out east.

I made the decision several months ago, Donley told media outside the regents meeting on the University of Northern Iowa campus Thursday after making comments to the board. This was my decision. No one should read anything other than that into this. The timing was perfect.

He said with the board under new leadership and moving in the right direction, it was a good time to leave. Hell stay on until July 15 to help with a transition to an interim director and to finish out duties as chairman of the State Higher Education Executive Officers.

Donley, 57, said he did not have future plans beyond going on a very long vacation. He has been in higher education for 22 years, his second career, and didnt say whether he would remain in the field in his next endeavor.

Donley discussed how he ended up in Iowa for a job he wasnt necessarily interested in at first and also the accomplishments during his tenure.

He said he is proud of the strategic planning that gave the board metrics and goals to achieve; decreases in student debt, increases in graduation rates; expanding online education; and leveraging state dollars for better return on investments, among others.

The journey, for me, has been very rewarding, and for the most part, fun. It did have its moments, Donley said. This is not an easy job. Im sure a lot of folks believe that its an easy job. But only when youre in here, you know its not.

He applauded the board members for their support and the staff for their work.

Donley acknowledged the salary cap on the position is a challenge. He said it was an issue nine years ago when he took the job and expects the board now could face challenges in limiting the salary  by state statute  for his replacement.

Its time for them to take a look at that, certainly, Donley said.

He said the board will continue to have other challenges as well, but he said they will be up to the board and its president to handle.

Donley praised the new board pilot program to accept public comments at the meeting and hoped to see it ramp up beyond the two speakers who addressed the board Thursday. The first speaker was UNIs United Faculty President Joe Gorton, who praised Donley in his final comments.

Im really sad to have received the news that Bob is moving on, Gorton said. Bob has been a very effective collaborator with our organization.

He called it a real honor and a privilege to work with Donley.

Steve Gettel, superintendent for the Iowa schools for the deaf and blind, also said Donley worked well with him and his small schools and always stressed the importance of the special schools as part of the regents duties.

Weve gotten great support from him and from his staff, Gettel said. I could always depend on Bob.
WATERLOO  Two new projects are looking to locate inside the Crossroads Center Mall ring.

Members of the Waterloo Planning, Programming and Zoning Commission voted 7-0 Tuesday to endorse a proposed $2 million, five-bay strip mall near the intersection of Crossroads Boulevard and Sears Street in what currently serves as the mall parking lot.

But commissioners voted 4-3 to reject a separate site plan for a low-budget UFuel gas station proposed just east of the planned strip mall in the northeast corner of the mall parking area.

Mason Asset Management of Great Neck, N.Y., bought Crossroads Center in January and recently platted five out lots around the mall, all inside the Crossroads Boulevard ring, that can be sold to generate revenue for mall improvements.

Prime RE is planning to buy one of those out lots for the strip mall expected to include two fast/casual restaurants, a furniture store and two more retail bays.

Prime RE is an investment group managed by Chris Fischels, Howard Allen, Brent Dahlstrom and John and Dan Deery, which has developed similar projects in the Crossroads area.

While the site plan for the strip mall won support, several commissioners raised concerns about a lack of sidewalks. Most of the Crossroads area is notoriously ill-equipped for pedestrians, including those walking from hotels to restaurants and stores amid busy traffic.

Were continuing to see development without seeing a plan for pedestrian accommodations, said commissioner Tavis Hall.

City Planner Aric Schroeder said the Iowa Northland Regional Council of Governments is working on a pedestrian plan, which includes Crossroads. But he said it will be difficult to incorporate sidewalks inside the Crossroads ring due to the lack of unpaved, public land.

As we have seen redevelopment in the Crossroads area we have tried to look at that, he said. We have started making some developments, where it made sense, provide sidewalks.

Commissioner Sue Flynn cautioned against forcing developers to put in sidewalks that wouldnt connect to other walkways.

We have to be guarded in the demands we put on people if we want growth, she said.

The separate request from AMS Energy Ventures Inc., of Rockwell Centre, N.Y., involved putting a UFuel gas station on a portion of the mall parking lot north of Sears, which would be leased from the mall owners.

Ethan Henderson, representing the developer, said the project would be a 10,000-gallon above-ground fuel tank with a kiosk and pumps. It would sell nothing but fuel using credit and debit cards, with discounted prices due to the low development costs.

But the project drew criticism due to its perceived poor appearance and location in a highly visible corner of the mall parking lot.

Im very concerned investing $2 million next door and having this next to it in front of Crossroads, said Chris Fischels, the strip mall developer. This is a pretty important area in Waterloo, and we want to make sure its a pride in Waterloo.

Christa Thompson, general manager of Hampton Inn across the street, also said she was concerned about the appearance and potential annoyance truck traffic could create for her guests.

Commissioners Carole Gustafson, Hall, Eric Donat and Craig Holdiman voted against the site plan while Flynn, Jamie Castle and Matt Miehe supported it.

I support the concept, Gustafson said. It just needs to be someplace else.

Both site plan requests require City Council approval before any construction could begin. The UFuel request would need a supermajority, or six of seven council votes, to win approval.
CEDAR FALLS  Authorities are seeking the publics help in the case of a man who took photos up a womans skirt while shopping last month.

The incident happened May 28 in the Cedar Falls Target store. A surveillance video from the store shows a man holding a cell phone under the womans skirt while her back was to him. The man did this at least four times while she is talking with a friend, and he left the store after accidentally touching her.

Video can be viewed at Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers website.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Cedar Falls police at 273-8612 or Cedar Valley Crime Stoppers at 855-300-TIPS (8477).

No prison term

in theft sentencing

HAMPTON  A Waukon man was given a suspended two-year prison sentence this week for his role in stealing guns and other items from a Hampton residence in December.

Christian Carstens, 19, was put on probation for two years after pleading guilty to misdemeanor third-degree theft. He also was ordered to spend 180 days at a residential correctional facility.

Carstens and co-defendants Jason Riggan, 20, Charles City, and Nicholas Howe, 20, Waukon, were arrested in February and originally charged with felony third-degree burglary in Franklin County District Court.

They were accused of stealing guns, ammunition and a gun safe Dec. 30 from a home in the 1600 block of Club Drive in rural Hampton.

Carstens kicked in a locked basement door and Riggan went inside to help get the items, according to court documents. Howe allegedly drove the others to the house, waited for them in the vehicle and then drove them away.

Howe received a two-year suspended prison sentence in March after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of third-degree theft. He was put on probation for two years and ordered to spend one year in a residential correctional facility.

Stolen items found in Charles City

CHARLES CITY  Items stolen during recent burglaries at the YMCA and a local church were found Tuesday during a search warrant at two Charles City residences, police say.

Many charges in the case are pending, according to a post on the Charles City Police Departments Facebook page.

During the execution of the search warrants, Jonathon Goodman, 29, of Charles City, was arrested on a Kentucky warrant for methamphetamine.

The Charles City police, along with the Floyd County Sheriffs Office, executed two search warrants shortly after 7:30 a.m. Tuesday at a residence in the 800 block of Wisconsin Street.

Another search warrant was executed in the 800 block of Richings Street.

Police say they located items taken during two burglaries reported in late May. One burglary was at Trinity United Methodist Church and the other at Charles City YMCA.
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"Nothing was going my way and everything was going his way," Djokovic told reporters.

Reigning champion Novak Djokovic suffered a demoralizing French Open quarter-final exit when he slumped to a 7-6(5) 6-3 6-0 defeat by Austrian sixth seed Dominic Thiem on Wednesday.

Djokovic, bidding for a seventh consecutive semi-final spot at Roland Garros, squandered two set points in the opener before losing the tiebreak and his game then fell apart.

Thiem, beaten 6-1 6-0 by Djokovic in Rome last month, could hardly believe his luck as his Serbian opponent waved the white flag in the third set, losing it in 20 minutes.

It was 12-times grand slam champion Djokovic's first defeat before the semi-finals in Paris since 2010 when he was also beaten by an Austrian, Juergen Melzer.

Thiem, who reached the semi-finals last year when he lost to Djokovic, will face nine-times champion Rafa Nadal next.

"He deserved to win, he was definitely the better player today. He made it difficult, he has really heavy spin and plays quick," Djokovic told reporters.

"It was just not there for me today. It's unfortunate to finish at Roland Garros the way I did today. It's a fact that I'm not playing close to my best."
Even the limited environmental reforms of the Paris Agreements were too much for the United States.

Hawaii has broken from the White House's abrupt exit from the Paris Agreement, becoming the first U.S. state to legislatively bring its environmental standards in line with the global deal, officials said Wednesday.

The move by state Governor David Ige comes less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the United States' withdrawal, drawing ire from Washington's counterparts in capitals across the world.

"People come to Hawaii to enjoy its environment," the governor's environmental adviser Scott Glenn said. "When climate change is threatening our reefs and threatening our weather ... then it's threatening our economy, too.

An overwhelming majority of scientists say human activity  including the burning of oil, gas and coal  is the main driver of rising global temperatures. However, nonrenewable fossil fuels remain the basis of the world capitalist economy's agriculture, transportation, profit-based economic growth and ever-expanding material consumption.

Ige signed a bill Tuesday requiring officials to plan climate change responses aligning the state with the standards and goals of the Paris Agreement, primarily through the expansion of "strategies and mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide" and by finding ways to better capture and store "atmospheric carbon dioxide to mitigate climate change."

Hawaii is committed to environmental stewardship, and we look forward to working with other states to fight global climate change," Ige said.

Along with setting climate change as a state priority, the bill entails the creation of a state commission devoted to researching climate change and recommending plans for responding to sea-level rise and climate change as a whole.

The celebrity billionaire-turned-president of the United States said Thursday that the landmark 2015 climate agreement threatened millions of jobs in the U.S. and that he would start a multi-year process to withdraw from the deal, breaking from attempts by his global counterparts to strike a small compromise on economic growth for the sake of the environment.

The governors of Washington, California and New York on the same day announced the creation of a "climate alliance of states that would remain committed to the Paris goals. Hawaii joined the next day. Nearly 250 mayors and eight more states likewise joined alliances promising to proceed with fulfilling the terms of the accord.

California Governor Jerry Brown has been extremely vocal in his criticism of Trump, accusing the former reality television star of taking a misguided and insane course of action and pledging that his state is ready for battle.

Scientists at the University of Hawaii said in April that sea-level rise driven by global warming will cause flooding of low-lying areas in the state dozens of times per year by 2050, and increase the risk of dangerous interactions between tropical storms and seasonal high tides.

However, some critics claim that limited environmental reforms such as constraints on greenhouse gas emissions are far from sufficient in terms of achieving ecological sustainability while private markets strive to achieve perpetual economic growth, including the industrialization of the Global South and electrification of undeveloped regions, thus ensuring climate-related catastrophes.
PITTSBURGH, PA, June 08, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Three Rivers Telecom Consulting (TRTC) today announced that it received approval from the Pennsylvania Department of General Services for the state's COSTARS program as a qualified contractor. COSTARS is a purchasing program designed to assist local governments, state-affiliated entities and qualifying non-profit organizations in reducing their expenses and achieving best value.



As a qualified contractor in the state's Master IT Services Invitation to Qualify (ITQ) program, Contract No. 4400016472, TRTC's telecom consulting services are now available to a list of 8,600 COSTARS members throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.



"COSTARS is an excellent program for non-profits, universities, hospitals, municipalities and authorities because it saves them both money and time by removing the need for a long drawn-out and expensive RFP process," said Kris Macurdy, President of TRTC. "This streamlined access results in COSTAR members receiving faster service and more savings, all from state qualified and vetted vendors."



Macurdy added, "TRTC's awarded contract further substantiates the quality of our telecom cost-reduction audits, managed and project services and we look forward to working with and delivering measurable added-value to COSTARS members. Our continuous improvement services are directly aligned with those of our clients. We ensure the best possible telecom services at the best possible prices." An important financial cost-improvement service considering telecom is a top 5 largest operating expense for nearly every business, including government and non-profits.



About Three Rivers Telecom Consulting:

TRTC is an independent and objective telecom consulting firm that helps businesses substantially reduce their monthly telecom (wireless, landline and internet/data) expenses by typically 22-39% without spending a dime of their own money or charging carriers. TRTC specializes in working with mid to large-sized clients that have locations in the United States, Canada, Mexico and/or the Caribbean. TRTC offers a free, no lose and no risk evaluation of an organization's telecom spend to identify where they are unknowingly and needlessly overpaying their carriers each month. For more information, visit http://www.3riverstele.com.



# # #
Jun 8, 2017 | By Benedict

Its election day in the UK, and Comey is giving an earth-shattering statement about President Trumps behind-the-scenes conduct. But when the world gets busy, 3D printing gets busier. Here are some of todays shorter stories, featuring EnvisionTEC, Aether, and the U.S. Marines.

EnvisionTEC unveils cost-saving material tray for desktop 3D printers

EnvisionTEC, a global manufacturer of desktop and full-production 3D printers and materials, today announced a cost-saving, disposable material tray for its premium desktop 3D printers. The announcement was made at JCK Las Vegas, the jewelry industrys premier trade show.

The M-Type tray, developed and tested at EnvisionTECs R&D facility in Gladbeck, Germany, will be offered as an optional replacement for EnvisionTECs current Pre-Stretched Assembly (PSA) tray system in the Micro and Vida lines of 3D printers. The tray features optical glass coated in a film that is similar to a Mylar-type film and allows for easy separation of each exposure layer during the 3D printing build. The outer perimeter of the tray is made of a flexible silicone.

This new material tray system makes using EnvisionTEC desktop 3D printers even easier and more affordable, said EnvisionTEC CEO Al Siblani. Our company has offered a similar tray for years on our original desktop models, such as the Aureus and Apollo, as well as some Perfactory models. And although the PSA still has benefits for many applications, we decided to bring this cost-saving approach to our Micro and Vida lines, too.

The new M-Type tray will be available in North America this summer, with its cost expected to vary between regions.

Aether to develop revolutionary bio-inks with new Science Director Karen Dubbin

San Francisco bioprinting startup Aether is developing a brand new line of bio-inks, spearheaded by Aethers newest employee, Science Director Karen Dubbin. The company says it hopes to keep the bio-inks as affordable as possible.

Dubbin, who has attended MIT and Stanford and will receive her PhD from Stanford at the end of this summer, will join Aether full-time this fall as the companys Science Director. Aether says that, until then, she will work with the bioprinting company as a consultant to build the foundation for its upcoming bio-ink research and bio-ink product launch.

Im very excited to join the team at Aether, Dubbin said. I believe Aethers bioprinting technology can make a substantial positive impact on medical research, and Im looking forward to contributing to this thrilling field.

Aether describes its Aether 1 bioprinter as the most advanced 3D bioprinter in the world, adding that the combination of this technology with the skill set of Karen Dubbin will put the company in a stronger position than any company on Earth to dominate the bio-ink market and give society the massive benefits of the bioprinting revolution.

German companies OR Laser, Heraeus to collaborate on metal 3D printing materials

OR Laser, a laser technology company based in Germany, has announced a collaboration with Heraeus, a Germany-based, family-owned technology company with specific expertise in materials development. The two companies will develop powdered metal materials for additive manufacturing applications using OR Lasers Orlas Creator metal 3D printer.

According to OR Laser, the Orlas Creator metal 3D printerlaunched at Formnext 2016 last Novemberoffers a new paradigm for the high quality, economic 3D printing of metal products and parts. It does this using a powder bed process that utilizes a high quality laser and a proprietary recoater blade that promises speeds up to 30% faster than comparable systems.

The new collaboration between OR Laser and Heraeus will involve Heraeus obtaining an Orlas Creator system, which the company will use to develop powdered materials. The aim is to qualify Heraeus powdered materials for the Orlas Creator and subsequently develop specific 3D printing parameters and guidelines for its powders.

OR Laser says the 3D printing collaboration will allow it to provide better value to its wide-ranging client base.

Marines seek Congress funding for rapid prototyping equipment

A Marine Corps combat development officer has claimed that the Marine Corps is shifting small amounts of money from existing accounts in order to fund rapid prototyping of potentially groundbreaking technologies. It is also seeking extra funding from Congress in order to develop these technologies and acquire the 3D printing equipment needed to make them.

What we really need is money in the S&T [science and technology] area, Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, the deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration, said on Tuesday, adding that any funding supplied by Congress should be free of attachment to specific programs.

Walsh claimed that the need for investment in technologies like 3D printers is greater than ever following 15 years of combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We risked modernization to ensure the combat readiness of deploying Marines, he said. While our focus was elsewhere, our potential enemies modernized, reducing the technological advantages American forces once took for granted.

Walsh also stressed the importance of investing in new vehicles, including electric-powered and amphibious means of transport.

U.S. Marines carried out a number of additive manufacturing tests last year.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Jun 8, 2017 | By Tess

Polish 3D printer company Zortrax has just given us a first look at a slew of new products, including the Zortrax Inventure 3D printer and DSS station, Z-PLA Pro and Z-ASA Pro 3D printing materials, and version 2.0 of its Z-SUITE software. With a launch described as the biggest event in the companys history, the new products were recently announced at the Zortrax Experience Conference in Olsztyn, Poland.

The event, which took place on June 6 and 7, brought together over 100 of Zortraxs business partners and resellers from all over the world. We used Zortrax Experience to present new products for all elements of our ecosystem, commented Rafa Tomasiak, CEO of Zortrax. We are very glad to have been able to present everything live, right here in Olsztyn, where it all began.

While our excitement for Zortrax is high, and we could go on about the conference itself, were much more eager to take a look at the companys new products.

First off, and most excitingly, lets look at the new 3D printer: the Zortrax Inventure. The new 3D printer, which will be officially released on June 20, 2017, boasts a number of notable features, including dual extruders (for printing dissolvable supports), a closed print chamber, and a HEPA filter. The 3D printer also comes with a DSS station, which can be used for dissolving support materials once a print is complete.

With a build volume of 140 x 140 x 140 mm, the Zortrax Inventure is more compact than its predecessors, the M200 and M300, which have respective build volumes of 200 x 200 x 180 mm and 300 x 300 x 300 mm. Still, Zortrax says its new 3D printerwhich has been in development for yearsis well suited for professional applications in the fields of architecture, automotive, engineering, medicine, and more, because of its exceptional printing precision.

Along with the 3D printer, Zortrax is releasing a number of new 3D printing materials, including Z-PLA Pro and Z-ASA Pro. As you can guess by their names, both filaments are being geared towards the professional markets.

Z-PLA, compatible with the companys M200 and M300 3D printers, is reportedly ideal for 3D printing such things as architectural models, because it offers a stylish matte finish and fine detail. Other possible applications for the filament include industrial design or modeling projects.

Z-ASA Pro, for its part, offers good resistance to weather, including UV rays, and has low risk of shrinkage when printed. This means it can offer ABS-level resistance and can be used to print bigger models. The Polish 3D printing company will also be releasing new materials for its Zortrax Inventure 3D printer, including Z-PLA, Z-PETG, and Z-SUPPORT filaments.

Finally, with the release of the Z-SUITE 2.0 beta version on July 18, Zortrax customers will be able to test out a number of updates and improvements to the 3D printing software. Some of the bigger updates include the ability to work in multiple tabs, editable supports, and grid repairs to automatically repair errors that appear in the model. For ease of use, the software also features a more intuitive interface.

Until the official release of the full version of Z-SUITE 2.0, users can use Z-SUITE version 1.11, which will introduce support for the Zortrax Inventure 3D printer and profiles of the new materials (Z-ASA Pro and Z-PLA Pro), the company says.

Overall, the new products signal some exciting growth for the Polish 3D printing company.

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Grey Anderson in n+1:

WITH 66 PERCENT OF THE POPULAR VOTE, the new president could claim a resounding victory, outperforming polling estimates. Throughout France voters rallied to the En Marche! (EM) eponym, who performed especially well in high-income urban areashis tally reached 90 percent in Paris, and handsomely surpassed 80 percent in Rennes, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Lyon. Marine Le Pens National Front (FN), at one point breaking 40 percent in polls, collapsed after her cack-handed performance in the televised debate on May 4. Projections for the FN candidate promptly sank to 34 percent, matching the final score three days later. Macron won a majority of voters in every age category, every socio-professional group save manual laborers, and all but two of Frances 102 administrative departments. Reasons enough, it might be thought, for satisfaction.

Yet cracks marred the veneer. In 2002, the only other occasion on which the French far right appeared in the second round of a presidential election, Le Pens father was routed. Large-scale mobilization against the FN delivered an unprecedented victory to the incumbent Jacques Chirac, his 82 percent landslide earning comparison with Enver Hoxhas Peoples Republic of Albania. At the time, the French elite could bathe in contentment, praising the victory of a republican front and recalling the glories of interwar antifascism. Fifteen years later, no such united front would take shape. Nor was support for the FN, nearly doubled, the sole cause for concern. By some measure the most striking feature of the 2017 run-off was a surge in the number of blank and spoiled ballots11.5 percent of the total, a record figure and more than twice that clocked in 2002. Together with historic levels of abstention, the highest in almost half a century, this defiant protest left the winner of the election with a mere 43.7 percent of registered voters, a desultory share in the face of his anathematized, fumbling challenger. Of those who did turn up at the polls for Macron, less than half (41 percent) expressed support for the candidate, as opposed to the desire to see his opponent defeated, and an even smaller fraction endorsed his program.

More here.
James Wood at the LRB:

Hardy can be awkward, but at the same time astonishing beauty is sowed into every scene and stanza of his work. Herons, in Tess, which arrive with a great bold noise as of opening doors and shutters. Winter winds, in the poem The Prospect: Iced airs wheeze through the skeletoned hedge from the north. Hares, in The Haunter: Where the shy hares print long paces. Beech leaves, that yellow the noon-time in At Day-Close in November. The rain, in Childhood among the Ferns: The rain gained strength, and damped each lopping frond. This is the writer who meant so much to D.H. Lawrence, to Auden, to Larkin. But all my examples are pastoral, drawn from Hardys uncanny noticing of the natural world. Using notebooks, diaries and unfamiliar poems and novels, Ford demonstrates how Hardy also trained his eye, as Baudelaire desired, by looking at the city, by gazing at landscapes of stone. Ford brings out a modern impressionist, who brilliantly sketched urban interiors and exteriors; this writer is more concise, more direct, more imagistic than the writer we know from the Wessex fiction. From March 1878, the Hardys lived in an end of terrace house in Tooting, not far from Wandsworth Common railway station, and here they remained for a little more than three years. South London inspired several poems (A January Night, Snow in the Suburbs, Beyond the Last Lamp), and several notebook entries. In one of these Tooting passages, Hardy does nothing more than describe his study, and the glow of the fire:

Firebrick back red hot  underside of mantel reddened: also a shine on the leg of the table, & the ashes under the grate, lit from above like a torrid clime. Faint daylight of a lilac colour almost powerless in the room. Candle behind a screen is reflected in the glass of the window, falling whitely on book 

more here.
The Bay Area is feeling the love with a host of celebrations marking the 50 years since the Summer of '67. Now, the City of San Francisco is joining the party.

Having rejecting several proposals for a concert that would have electrified the epicenter of the counterculture movement, the City is getting all DIY. San Francisco Rec and Parks announced this week that it will throw its own Summer of Love concert and light show, called the Surrealistic Summer Solstice, on June 21.

The free event will brighten up Golden Gate Park for the golden anniversary with a flower-powered celebration featuring 60s-inspired tunes, bites from Off the Grid food trucks, and a grand trippy lighting of the Conservatory of Flowers, where a rotating art projection will be on view until October.

The concert's line-up is being curated by the organizers of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and hearkens back to those good ole days. Look for jams from legendary local bands including Jefferson Airplane, ALO, Moonalice, Phil Lesh's Terrapin Family Band, and more. So yes, it's time to pull out those flower crowns and tie-dyed crop tops for a four-hour jam (and basically huge street party)and feel the love.

// S urrealistic Summer Solstice Concert and Grand Lighting, June 21, 610pm, at the Conservatory of Flowers, 100 John F Kennedy Dr. (Golden Gate Park), eventbrite.com.
You're likely not planning to visit the tiny island of Guam anytime soon, but you could pull up a chair on the socially distanced outdoor patio at Prubechu, the Mission Street restaurant serving tasty Guamanian cuisine made with fresh Californian ingredients and high technique.

Hineksa' aga'ga (red rice) is an essential component of any celebratory dinner in Guamit has been an important part of Chamorro culture for eons. It's also a hella comforting dish for winter during a pandemic.

Eat in, call for takeout, or even make it at home with this recipe varies from chef/owner Shawn Naputi. It's a wonderful accompaniment to roasted chicken.





Prubechu's Red Rice

Serves 8





Ingredients

4 cups Calrose rice

4 teaspoons achiote seeds

4 cups water

1 large onion

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp vegetable oil



Salt & pepper to taste

Chives (optional)



1. Soak the achiote seeds overnight in 4 cups warm water. Give a good stir the next morning before usethe longer it is stirred/agitated, the deeper the color and flavor.





2. Dice a large onion and saute lightly in a pan with minced garlic and 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil. Be careful not to burn the onions and garlic; cook until translucent. You'll have more than you'll need for the recipe.

3. Rinse the uncooked rice to remove some of the starch and drain. Add to a pot along with the achiote water, 2 tbsp of the onion/garlic mixture, 1 tbsp. vegetable oil, salt and pepper; stir well.

4. Place pot on the stove. Start on high heat until the water boils. Once it boils, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked all the way.

5. Garnish with finely chopped chives (optional), then serve with whatever you fancy.





// Prubechu, 2224 Mission St. (Mission), prubechu.com
"It's a testament to their enduring talents and the industry's reverence for shows of yore," says David Buchanan, the chief Broadway critic at GoldDerby.com, the website that predicts awards odds as ruthlessly as a racetrack tout.

The 71st Annual Tony Awards, hosted by Kevin Spacey, air Sunday, June 11 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. Heres our forecast (backed by the Buchanan brain trust of experts) of who'll take home statues and who will sob all the way home.
While the pay could be better, benefits of teaching out of this world

columns
TORONTO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

SkyPower, the world's largest global developer of utility-scale solar energy projects, and China Huayang Economic and Trade Group Co., a Chinese state-owned company under the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, announced today that it has entered into a world-class partnership together.

Huayang has selected SkyPower to be its global partner to develop, build, and operate large utility-scale solar projects in key strategic markets. The partnership combines Huayang's extensive financial capabilities with SkyPower's proven solar expertise to bring new, clean energy and hundreds of thousands of jobs to dozens of countries worldwide. The partnership's mandate and objective is to advance Chinese President Xi Jinping's vision of eliminating barriers in countries under the Belt and Road Initiative.

In speaking about SkyPower's selection by Huayang and the signing of this monumental agreement today in Toronto, SkyPower's President and Chief Executive Officer, Kerry Adler, said, "SkyPower is so very proud to be part of President Xi's visionary policy of opening up economic and trade routes across the Belt and Road regions, stimulating substantial employment and ensuring economic growth and security along the Road. This partnership clearly demonstrates how Canadian and Chinese companies can work hand in hand, in partnership and unison to leverage each country's respective skills and capabilities to help address and tackle climate change and the other 16 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), which are critical to humanity and future generations to come."

Weiwen Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of Huayang International Capital Holdings, the international financial arm of the China Huayang Group, commented, "One of the key objectives of the Belt and Road Initiative, which was showcased in Beijing in May 2017 amongst 29 foreign Heads of State, government representatives, and global companies from nations around the globe, was for Chinese companies to seek world-leading organizations and build global partnerships and platforms to advance important initiatives like climate change. After Huayang's extensive research over the past six months of solar developers around the world, Huayang has chosen SkyPower, the world-leading global developer of utility-scale solar energy projects, as its global partner to jointly develop and build renewable energy projects along the Belt and Road regions as well in other key selected countries. I believe this unique partnership, which is with a company like SkyPower of the greatest integrity and the highest calibre and professionalism in concert with Huayang, will represent and result in numerous successful renewable energy projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. Huayang intends to use this partnership to help promote trade and requisite financing, which will undoubtedly bring great benefits to the people and communities of these countries. Huayang intends to set up a multi-billion $US special purpose fund to achieve this important strategic initiative for the projects of this partnership with SkyPower."

"Huayang brings exceptionally strong financial capabilities to this partnership and a clear focus, vision, and strategy, especially under the Belt and Road Initiative. This, coupled with SkyPower's track record and development know-how in the utility-scale solar energy industry, creates a unique opportunity to help deliver lower costs of electricity to tens of millions of people around the world," added SkyPower's Kelly Yin, Vice President of Asia Strategy.

The agreement was signed on June 7, 2017 at SkyPower's global headquarters, located in Toronto, Canada and represents the first partnership of its kind.

About SkyPower

http://www.skypower.com

SkyPower is the largest and one of the most successful developers and owners of utility-scale solar energy projects in the world. With roots dating back more than 14 years, SkyPower's global team possesses a vast track record of over 975 years of combined experience in power and large infrastructure projects.

The experienced and accomplished SkyPower team has built, assembled and acquired an extensive pipeline of over 25 GW worldwide - some of which were recently announced to be built in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia over the next five years.

SkyPower's over 30 utility-scale solar Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) and Contracts in aggregate represents billions of dollars' worth of long-term renewable energy sales to leading utilities and governments around the world.

SkyPower is majority owned by CIM Group, a U.S.-based premier full-service urban real estate and infrastructure fund manager founded in 1994 that has systematically and successfully invested in dynamic and densely populated communities throughout North America.

About China Huayang Economic and Trade Group Co., Ltd

China Huayang Economic and Trade Group Co., Ltd. is a state-owned enterprise in China under the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). CCPIT, as the trade entity of the Chinese government, was founded in 1952 directly under the China State Counsel.

Huayang is an industrial conglomerate that operates in infrastructure construction, commercial real estate, petrochemicals, auto parts, international trade, technology products, and exhibitions, as well as financial service industries. The group holds the majority shares of Xiamen International Bank, Bank of Anshan and Bank of Rizhao.

Contacts:

Maria Vorobieva

Senior Director, International Public Affairs

mariav@skypower.com

+1-416-979-4625

Kelly Yin

Vice President, Asia Strategy

kellyy@skypower.com

+1-416-979-4625

Shamini Selvaratnam

Director, International and Institutional Relations

shaminis@skypower.com

+1-202-660-8499

For more information about China Huayang Group, please contact:

Roger Zhu

Managing Director

zhuym_chygroup@126.com

+1-647-960-4588


Abu Asim Azmi says that media is trying to malign his reputation after the arrest of his nephew Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi in drugs smuggling case.

Samajwadi Party leader Abu Asim Azmi has distanced himself from the arrest incident of his nephew Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi for allegedly being involved in an international drug racket. Delhi Police had arrested Aslam from Grand Hyatt Hotel, Vakola in Santacruz on Wednesday evening. Azmi said since he belonged to a political outfit his name is being in dragged by media. The Delhi Police has seized 5 kg of drug worth Rs 40 crore and arrested three persons Amit Agarwal (40), Avdesh Kumar (26) and Chandan Rai (31). The accused have been booked under the NDPS Act. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA is a renowned drug in Delhi, Mumbai and Goa. Cops are further investigating Abu Aslams involvement in the international drug cartel.

Media is unnecessarily dragging my name after the arrest of Aslam who happens to be my nephew. They are only trying to malign my reputation by reporting about this incident. I have seven brothers. All their children are independent and looking after their own activities, said Abu Azmi.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, The accused had planned to smuggle the drugs to US and UK. They were planning to courier it across several regions of these countries. Abu Aslam was accompanied by another woman at Grand Hyatt whom he was supposed to marry. He used to run the cartel from hotel room.

Abu Aslam used to work as a right hand man, handling Indian operations, for one Kailash Rajput who supplied drugs while operating from Dubai.

Aslam had become friends with Kailash Rajput through common friends. Aslam worked as a cargo officer in Dubai till 2008. He returned back to India started a restaurant in Goa and developed contacts with drug traffickers who supplied drugs from Rajput. Azmi also made Mumbai his base. When Kailash Rajput was arrested around three years back by Mumbai police Azmi had helped him as he became his close aide, said Yadav.

Aggarwal would procure the drug consignment and then pack it in the courier parcels, often between layers of garments, to be sent abroad.

Following a tip, cops laid a trap at Mahipalpur. Avdesh was apprehended while he was opening the door to his office, and was questioned. Around five kg of the drug was recovered from his possession. He gave up the details about Aggarwal and Chandan. Aggarwal revealed that the consignment was sent by Aslam from Mumbai. Later police arrested him from Grand Hyatt hotel.
The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, the 30-year-old lawyer who heads the Dalit-rights outfit, was arrested from Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh. Recently, UP Police had declared a reward of Rs 12,000 each for information leading to the capture of Chandrashekhar, the 30-year-old leader of the Bhim Army, along with two of his associates. Chandrashekhar, who is wanted in connection with violence in Saharanpur on May 9, offered to surrender to the court when he emerged on stage at a massive rally in New Delhis Jantar Mantar. He feels Dalit needs justice, but UP has been ruled by Dalit CM  dalit mobilization happened long ago. Now, it is time to stop the over reach!

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5. About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured on May 9. Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

The Uttar Pradesh police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month. The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly. On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

BSP leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the districts border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area. The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region. But the atrocity by the police and authorities tells another story. Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

This new brigade Bhim Sena that is said to be funded by some prominent Muslim Leaders to divide Hindus, are too much at decisive politics these days. Earlier, it was always Hindu Vs Muslim politics in India, where in political parties used to derive benefit by polarizing Muslim votes and used them as a vote bank. But in the recent past these parties realized that the strategy actually started backfiring when Hindus too started voting unitedly and obviously they are the majority population. So as a new strategy these political forces and Muslims are trying to play it smart by funding organizations like Bhim Sena which emerged from nowhere, to fight against Hindu upper caste, so the entire battle can be settled on caste politics. The intent is to divide the majority population on the basis of caste and unite the Muslim, other minority votes with Dalits and backward castes as theyve realized that they wont exist politically if Hindus start voting unitedly.

Chandrashekhar Azad the so called Bhim Sena leader titled himself as Ravan. These people kept such name just to demean Lord Rama who is worshipped by the majority and known as Maryada Purushottam but while glorifying Ravan they forget that Ravan was actually a Brahmin and a literate one. This is the irony of these Anti Brahmanical forces. Meanwhile it is worth noticing that those days the human beings were not divided into caste politics, it was always a God vs Demon and Good vs Bad, and Ravan was king of Demons which is chosen by todays so called Dalit mascots as their lord. They have nothing to do with Dalit welfare, education or rights but only interested in keeping them so called deprived community to derive political mileage. Some Dalits should actually question their Messiah the Ravan, what is his contribution towards his own communitys betterment? And how much he earned for himself in the name of Dalit and Bhimrao? They have not spared a legend that has shown them a right path to live with self-respect and dignity, by mortgaging their loyalties to politics than the community itself.

If Dalit leaders and Politics could really change the fate of Dalits in India, trust me today they wouldnt have been on roads, protesting against so called upper caste. Meanwhile no Dalit wants to be at par on merit basis with others in spite being given all facilities and reservations. The reason, their political motive will come to an end. Atrocities against Dalits have given them topic to chew their vote back sentiments. Why dont they ever become aggressive or harsh educating their people about their rights? Why these Dalit leaders for their own advantage get sheltered under parties like BJP? There are many Dalit leaders who are part of BJP/ RSS wings; they laugh at these parties called Bhim Sena. The need of the hour is that, Dalit should fight against Dalit leaders and bureaucrats who failed to serve their own community and serving the Brahmanical administration. Their fight should be against those people who sabotaged community, their fight should be against those leaders who took their votes but could not make much difference to their lives. By misguiding youth and dragging them towards violence is not solution towards betterment.
The Bombay High Court came down heavily on activists opposing the tree cutting for setting up of the Colaba-Seepz Metro-III line and said a pragmatic view must be taken considering ground realities. A division bench of justices V M Kanade and A M Badar was hearing an application by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) seeking permission to cut 108 mangroves for the suburban Bandra Kurla Complex metro station. The permission was required as the high court had earlier while hearing a public interest litigation filed by Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) had mandated taking its nod for anything regarding mangroves. We need the Metrotraffic in the city is going from bad to worsea pragmatic view has to be taken considering the ground realities, Justice Kanade said. The bench was informed by MMRCLs advocate Kiran Bagalia that the MMRCL has earlier undertaken to restore the green cover removed for construction of stations.

We will be replanting and will even do compensatory mangrove replantation, she said. Bagalia also informed that a loan has been taken from Japan and added that delay in work has huge cost repercussions. Advocate Robin Jaisinghani, who had appeared for a petitioner in the earlier PIL, said no underground construction can be carried out in the area falling under CRZ-III, wherein the proposed BKC station will come up.
June 8, 2017

CAIRO  As Egypts presidential election scheduled for June 2018 approaches, Egyptian authorities arrested between mid-April and June 1 at least 44 people belonging to various political parties and movements in 17 governorates, according to statistics published June 2 by the Freedom for the Good Guys campaign. The campaign, launched in January 2014, works to defend political prisoners.

In an official statement May 19, the Interior Ministry said security services shut down five social media accounts where the sites' administrators had created posts inciting sabotage acts against institutions and citizens.

The apprehensions targeted members of the Constitution Party, the Strong Egypt Party and the April 6 Youth Movement. Also, seven members of the Bread and Freedom Party (BFP)  which is under establishment  were arrested May 18. The BFP was founded by Khaled Ali, a human rights lawyer and former candidate in the 2012 presidential elections.

Suzanne Nada, a representative of the BFP founding members, said in a May 23 press conference that the real reason behind the arrests is authorities' attempts to clamp down on political parties now that civil society and popular movements have been blocked. She indicated that the BFP is holding consultations with civil forces to organize a number of events in order to triumph over repression.

On May 18, Ali posted on Facebook, The accusations lobbed at the detainees are based on Facebook posts, claiming that they are against the regime. Indeed, the campaign targets parties that have been active this year, and pursues their members and offices in the governorates; they are disseminating fear and aborting all attempts designed to reactivate political action and take back the public sphere.

Hafez Abu Saada, a member of the National Council for Human Rights, told Al-Monitor that none of the political parties have lodged complaints before the council to inquire about the incident, and expressed his objection to citizens' being arrested for expressing their opinions.

Ali himself was apprehended May 23 on charges of offending public decency, only five days after he announced the arrest of activists and members of political parties. Ali was accused of making an offending hand gesture outside the court after Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court issued its ruling in the Tiran and Sanafir islands case Jan. 16. Ali was a member of the defense in the case. Back then, the court rejected the Egyptian governments plan to transfer the two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia and confirmed Egyptian sovereignty over Tiran and Sanafir.

On May 31, Ali listed the charges he faces in a Facebook post: Leveling sharp criticism at the state and state institutions, accusing the regime of treason to cause tension among Egypts different sects by undermining the state and state institutions, willing to take advantage of [the Red Sea islands case] to distort the image of the regime and turn the public opinion against the state institutions, and seeking to promote himself in a way that serves his political aspirations.

Ali was released May 25 on bail of 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($55). In case Ali is convicted, he may be imprisoned for a year or sentenced to pay a fine, and would not be allowed to run in the elections.

In February, Ali told the Associated Press that he is considering running in the 2018 presidential elections, after he secured about 134,000 votes in the 2012 elections that brought Mohammed Morsi to the presidency.

In another interview with CNN on May 27, Ali said, This [running for elections] is being discussed with colleagues within and outside the party. I am also examining the needed guarantees. I am consulting with some political forces, since I previously ran in the presidential elections, and I am expected to join the race one more time. It is an important battle to take back the public sphere.

Gamal Zahran, the dean of the department of political science at Suez Canal University, told Al-Monitor that targeting Ali is a regime message to reduce [his] chances of winning in the next presidential elections. In fact, he does not have a chance, for he lacks a direct influence on the street.

Zahran said the regime should not target figures willing to run for president to prevent them from gaining citizens sympathy; he said authorities failed to assess the situation in Alis case.

Zahran called for competition in the next presidential race instead of trying to limit the potential candidates chances of winning. He argued that the presence of more than one candidate would promote the next presidents legitimacy in the eyes of the world. He noted that in the 2014 presidential election, Had it not been for the candidacy of former candidate Hamdeen Sabahi, who was competing against [Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi to become president, the latter would not have gained such a legitimacy.

Nine political parties and movements as well as 115 public figures announced in a May 29 statement their solidarity with Ali in the face of what they called attempts to push him away from the electoral race by fabricating false charges and referring him to trial. The statement stressed the right of Ali and other potential candidates to run in the elections.

The statement was signed by the following parties: the Socialist People's Alliance Party, the Dignity Party, the Constitution Party, the Justice Party, the Strong Egypt Party, the April 6 Youth Movement and the Revolutionary Socialist Party. In addition, Sabahi, former Al-Ahram newspaper Chairman Ahmed El-Sayed Al-Naggar and human rights activist Negad El Borai also signed the statement.

Campaigns in support of Alis candidacy started to be unleashed with his supporters creating a Facebook page May 24 favoring his candidacy for the 2018 presidential elections, and offering opportunities to volunteer for his campaign.
June 8, 2017

CAIRO  After four years of Egyptian-Qatari skirmishes since the ousting of former President Mohammed Morsi for his affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood, Cairo has now decided to respond to Qatars harassment by following in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain and sever diplomatic ties with Qatar.

Qatar, which supports the Muslim Brotherhood, had mobilized its media outlets to attack the Egyptian regime and hosted a number of Muslim Brotherhood leaders who had fled Egypt.

A statement issued June 5 by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained why Egypt has decided to break its ties with Qatar, citing the Qatari regimes insistence to adopt an approach hostile to Egypt, support terrorist organizations  especially the Muslim Brotherhood by harboring its leadership  promote the Islamic State (IS) ideology in the Sinai Peninsula and interfere in Egypts internal affairs.

Although Cairo's announcement of shunning Qatar came after Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeirs visit to Cairo June 4, the Egyptian position had appeared clear in the speech of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the US-Arab Islamic Summit in Riyadh May 21.

In his speech, Sisi specifically accused countries in the Arab region of supporting terrorism. Egyptian satellite stations on June 4 repeatedly showed a rerun of Sisis speech in addition to media reports attacking and criticizing Qatari policies as being behind instability in the region.

A diplomatic official at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry familiar with the developments in the Gulf told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "Egyptian diplomacy sees the strict Gulf stance against Qatar this time in its favor.

He explained that Egypt made several political and diplomatic attempts over the past four years to obtain a strong Gulf position against Qatars policies. But Qatars repeated attempts of appeasement and containment prevented Egypt from obtaining tangible guarantees mitigating the risks ensuing from Doha policies on its national security. Qatars commitments to abide by the GCC's [Gulf Cooperation Council] decisions succeeded in calming the Gulf anger. Indeed, three Gulf countries reinstated their respective ambassadors to Qatar only nine months after deciding to recall them in March 2014.

The official added, Diplomatically speaking, the decision to sever ties marks the highest level of escalation against Qatar's policies. Cutting ties and halting air and sea traffic between the two countries is a political maneuver targeting mainly the political system in Qatar and is not intended to harm the interests of Qatari nationals in Egypt or damage Qatari private investments inside Egypt whose fate is still subject of discussion.

Responding to criticisms leveled against Egypt of taking a stance biased to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, he said, Egypt had exerted concerted efforts to push Gulf countries to take such a unified position. We provided Gulf countries with several information reports proving Qatar's involvement in terrorist acts and its policies that harm Gulf interests and the security of the Arab region in particular in relation to the crises in Yemen, Syria and Iran.

It is worth recalling that many Arab and African countries had cut or downgraded their diplomatic ties with Iran in solidarity with Saudi Arabia following the attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran in June 2016. Egypt, however, did not break its ties with Iran.

This shows that Cairo does not accord high importance to the Qatari-Iranian rapprochement, while it is this same rapprochement that further encouraged Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to cut their relations with Qatar against the background of statements attributed to the emir of Qatar, criticizing the Gulf hostility to Iran. Qatar has maintained that the statements  which appeared in a news ticker during a Qatari state TV broadcast  were the result of a hacking attack.

Egyptian Ambassador Ahmed al-Quesni, the assistant foreign minister for Gulf affairs, told Al-Monitor, Egypt's political gains ensuing from the decision to sever relations with Qatar cannot be determined now, but the Egyptian stance in line with that of three major Gulf states is an ideal move that serves Egypts position.

He added, Although most indicators of the situation in Qatar suggest so far that there are attempts to calm the situation, Egypt cannot settle for any temporary guarantees to stop any hostile activity taken by the Qatari administration against it.

Egypt has the right to take action in any issue that has proven Qatars involvement in policies supportive of terrorism in all international forums, he said.

The decision to sever relations with Qatar was widely welcomed by local Egyptian newspapers and media outlets, which have launched extensive media campaigns against Qatar and its emir, accusing the Qatari regime of being behind the terrorist threats to Egypt. The Egyptian parliament also welcomed the decision.

Kamal Amer, the head of the Egyptian parliament's National Defense and Security Committee, described in press statements June 5 the decision as a decisive step after Egypt has long been patient toward Qatars hostile efforts against Egypt.

In a press statement on the same day, Ambassador Mohammad al-Arabi, a member of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee, called for an escalation of sanctions against Qatar should it not renege on its position. He called for taking measures that go beyond land, air and sea embargo only.

Ambassador Sayyed Qassim, an adviser to the secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told Al-Monitor, The Gulf states sudden decision to sever relations with Qatar was excessive. As per diplomatic norms, sanctions are imposed gradually. However, this decision was meant to shock the Qatari administration.

Qassim criticized the impact of political differences on the peoples public interests. There is a diplomatic custom, whereby differences among Arabs should not harm Arab people. Saudi Arabias decision to expel Qataris from Saudi territories came in direct conflict to this custom, he said.

In terms of gain and loss dynamics, Cairo has achieved great political and diplomatic progress by taking part in the Gulfs decision against Qatar. It found a decisive response to Qatars practices, which the Egyptian regime has always regarded as a direct threat to its national security.
June 7, 2017

A TV commercial that aimed to show how Egyptian peoples donations were used to make a difference in the lives of people in need was accused of humiliating the poor. It has also rekindled a debate on whether commercials that showed the poor and needy were the best or the most ethical way to ask for donations.

The commercial showed dirty water bottles carried by a woman called Afaf, who lives in Beni Suef in Upper Egypt, explaining to actress Dalal Abdel Aziz the difficulties of bringing water to her family. The commercial then invited the public to donate money to Beit al-Zakat (House of Alms) so that families like Afafs can have access to water.

Beit al-Zakat, which is affiliated with Al-Azhar, Sunni Islams oldest seat of learning, ran the commercial to point to concrete cases of how the foundation uses peoples donations. The sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb, ordered that the commercial be taken off the air after the public dismay.

The commercial by Beit al-Zakat was only one of similar commercials that charity foundations air on TV during Ramadan, when Muslims are inclined to pay Ramadan zakat (an amount of money paid by enabled people to the poor, which is one of the holy month rituals). Seventy-five percent of donations are collected in Ramadan, according to Maissera Ellaithy, who currently leads the Corporate Social Responsibility arm of TA Telecoms MegaKheir, an online app for charity activities. For many charity organizations, these donations will be used for their projects most of the year, as the other months hardly match the amount gathered during this single month, Ellaithy said.

In the case of the Beit al-Zakat commercial, many of the viewers thought that the advertisement was instrumental in humiliating the poor, rather than helping them, or the image of the foundation.

One of the strong voices against the commercial belonged to Mahmoud Haggag, the founder of 1000-Writer Initiative, a project to support Arab writers. In a statement to Al-Monitor, he said that although access to water was a very acute problem in the poor villages in Beni Suef, the issue was tackled in a counterproductive way.

Statistics show that the poverty rate is high in Upper Egypt and this leads to many socio-economic problems, including clean water access and water shortages. According to Egypt Network for Integrated Development (ENID), The poverty rate is highest in Upper Egypt and specifically rural Upper Egypt (51.5%), followed by urban Upper Egypt (29.4%), and it is the least prevalent in urban governorates (9.6%). ENID report maintains, The current priority for Egypt is now to redress the balance in government budget allocations on a geographic basis and in favor of the countrys most deprived regions. Overall poverty masks differences in welfare among regions and among governorates within the respective regions of Egypt.

Haggag told Al-Monitor that the commercial is an indirect abuse of poor families in the way it tried to raise funds from viewers. It is ironic that you ask people to give money for the poor and then spend money on expensive ads, he said.

The statement also said that superstar Azizs conduct with poor people showed the huge gap in society, particularly with the people who live below the line of dignity.

Both clerics and public relations experts criticized the Beit al-Zakat commercial and other similar ads. Salah El Din Aloui, a public relations and marketing specialist, told Al-Monitor, "Those kinds of advertisements are very disappointing and disgusting. All of them are either exploiting poor people or children to obtain funds.

Aloui said, "It is better to use infographs and ads that show figures and facts of what we are facing, instead of exploiting poor people, even if the problems they face are real.

Aya Kader, the founder of Insanyah (Humanitarian), an online platform for volunteers and charity, told Al-Monitor that only big nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can put out advertisements because they get huge donations. The costs of such advertisements also come from the budget of the donations itself," she said, adding that Insanyah creates ads online at low costs and guarantees that donations go to the right place. The NGOs show their charity activities on Insanyah in a credible way, which helps donors know where the money is going.

"We see ads like that by Ahl Masr [People of Egypt], an NGO for treating burn victims, [and] the ad of 500 500 Hospital for treating children suffering from cancer. [They] are successful examples. Both ads are creative and show positive impact," Kader said.
June 8, 2017

On June 3, media reports claimed Qatar had asked some Hamas officials to leave its territories after their names were listed alongside Palestinian detainees in Israeli intelligence investigations as being involved in armed attacks against Israel. Although no Qatari officials confirmed the news, other reports said Qatar expressed regret about having to make such a move because of pressure by foreign parties, who were not identified.

Hamas remained silent for an entire day before its spokesman, Hossam Badran, said such reports were aimed at ruining the movements image and influencing its foreign relations. However, he neither confirmed nor denied the reports, perhaps to avoid embarrassing either party.

Al-Monitor tried to contact some Hamas officials inside and outside the Palestinian territories to clarify the issue, but none would confirm or deny the reports.

However, Badran  a Qatar resident and former military official in Hamas  told Al-Monitor, Hamas new leadership, elected in early May, began to arrange the activity of its leaders and their organizational functions in various geographical areas inside and outside the Palestinian territories to best serve the movement's interest." He added, Hamas values Qatars support to the Palestinian people, especially in the reconstruction of Gaza and the constant support for the steadfastness of its people.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri tweeted June 4 that Hamas' ties are firmly established with Qatar and other allied countries, and it will build good relationships with more countries as well. Betting on weakening and pressuring Hamas is doomed to fail, he said.

On June 5, the Israeli news website Times of Israel reported that the Hamas officials mentioned in the news were Saleh al-Arouri, a member of Hamas political bureau and a Hamas military leader who had already left Turkey in August 2015 because of Israeli pressure and Moussa Doudine, a Hamas official in charge of the prisoners dossier and a senior Hamas military commander who was released by Israel as part of a prisoners exchange deal in 2011. Al-Monitor interviewed Doudine in August 2015.

Meanwhile, the West Bank-based Al-Hadath newspaper reported June 5 that six Hamas leaders whose names were not mentioned had left Qatar a few days before and relocated to Lebanon, Malaysia and Turkey after Qatari authorities asked them to leave. Turkey has expressed strong support for Qatar in this matter.

Mustafa Sawaf, former editor-in-chief of the Hamas-affiliated Felesteen newspaper, told Al-Monitor, This Qatari decision, assuming it was true, should not be perceived as the end for Hamas. This is not the first time the movement has been faced with such action; it was forced out of Jordan in 1999, it then had to leave Syria, and today Qatar is under pressure from Gulf countries and the US [to expel Hamas].

However, he noted, Qatar is still refusing to classify Hamas as a terrorist group. If the movement is given the choice of staying in Qatar or forcing the latter to suffer because of it, it would voluntarily choose to leave out of respect. Hamas can find an alternative because it is welcome in many countries. Although Hamas is suffering from a crisis, it is not alone."

The timing of Qatar's request wasn't surprising. It followed US President Donald Trumps visit to the region May 20-21 when he met with Gulf and Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia and accused Hamas of being a terrorist movement.

This also coincides with the unexpected decision made June 5 by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to sever their ties with Qatar because of its alleged support for terrorist groups, without mentioning Hamas by name.

The Palestinian Authority did not officially comment on the matter. However, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, Hamas' rival political party, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Qatar has always supported Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian national project. Every time we get closer to reaching reconciliation with Hamas, Qatar swoops in and convinces it otherwise and urges it to continue to control the Gaza Strip and keep the division going, by providing financial support for Hamas rule in Gaza. Although this Qatari move [forcing out Hamas leaders] might harm Hamas, the movement might actually resort to reconciliation with Fatah after being abandoned by the last of its allies.

Despite asking some Hamas officials to leave its territories, Qatar continued to praise the movement. On June 5, Jaber al-Harami, a prominent Qatari journalist close to the royal palace, told Al Jazeera, Qatar had the honor to support Hamas because it is a Palestinian national liberation movement resisting the Israeli occupation.

Many in Israel, unsurprisingly, welcomed the Qatari decision. On June 3, former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni called it a very positive step because Hamas should not be given legitimacy. On June 4, head of the Israeli opposition Isaac Herzog called it an exceptional regional opportunity.

Yet Hussam al-Dajani, a political science professor at Al-Ummah University Open Education, told Al-Monitor, Qatar will never give Hamas up. It is a country with foreign policy vision and will never abandon the movement. Hamas presence in any Arab country increases its position and role. But if Qatar is subject to external pressure, Iran will be the first to receive Hamas with arms wide open and Malaysia would follow.

Regardless of which Hamas officials are affected by Qatar's decision, the regional campaign against Qatar seems quite fierce this time. This could force Qatar to give in and make things easier on itself by asking Hamas to reduce its total presence there without ending it altogether, although that might still restrict Hamas officials' movements between countries.

However, the newly elected Hamas leadership, represented at home and abroad by Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, resides in Gaza, which might dampen the consequences of Qatar's request.
June 8, 2017

According to a statement by Irans Intelligence Ministry, the attackers behind the first Islamic State (IS) bombing inside Irans borders have been identified. Iranian news agencies shared graphic pictures of the corpses of the attackers and their first names. They withheld the family names. Some Iranian social media users shared the pictures of Seryas Sadeghi, one of the individuals who blew himself up in the attacks. Sadeghi was reportedly active in promoting extremism online.

The attacks on Irans parliament and the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, on June 7 left 17 people dead and the capital shocked. According to the statement, the team of five attackers had previously belonged to Sunni extremist groups inside Iran but later joined IS, where they went to fight in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.

The group had originally belonged to a terrorist cell under the leadership of an individual by the name of Abu Ayesha. In July 2016, Abu Ayesha was killed in a shootout with Iranian authorities. He had traveled into Irans western border province of Kermanshah from Iraq along with two cells, according to Iranian authorities. Security officials had found explosives in his hideout and claimed that his group had designated 50 locations inside Tehran for attacks. According to Iranian authorities, the team of five that carried out the attack was able to hide and evade authorities after the raid on Abu Ayeshas hideout.

Fars News published pictures of Abu Ayesha, whom they referred to as Abu Ayesha Kurdi; an accompanying article claims an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sniper killed him. One of the pictures shows Abu Ayesha standing above three blindfolded individuals in orange jumpsuits on their knees, a common video set up for IS.

Contrary to a claim by the IRGC that attempted to link the attack to US President Donald Trumps visit to Riyadh, Irans Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said, It is too early to judge whether Saudi Arabia had any role in the terrorist attack. Alavi, however, did accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Alavi added that a number of individuals connected to the attack have also been arrested. Alavi also said that Iran had prevented over 100 terrorist attacks in the last two years. In the last month alone, Alavi said that a number of two- and three-team cells were arrested.

According to Irans police chief, Hossein Ashtari, sensitive locations in Iran will experience increased security.

During a speech that was planned before the attack on June 7, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed the attacks and linked them to Irans support for the governments of Iraq and Syria in their fights against IS. This event showed that had the Islamic Republic not stood in the center of these seditions, today we would have had many more of these encounters inside the country. God willing they will be eradicated. Khamenei did not make accusations of blame. Instead, he said that the terrorist attacks would not influence the will of the nation.
June 7, 2017

A UN-devised global education agenda known as Education 2030 proved to be one of the biggest challenges for incumbent Hassan Rouhani in Irans May 19 presidential election. Just 12 days before the polls, on May 7, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Rouhanis Cabinet for quietly adopting the measure and said, It is the Islamic Republic here! Here Islam is the benchmark! The Quran is the benchmark! It is not a place where the deficient, destructive and corrupt Western lifestyle can infiltrate! ... The UNESCO 2030 education agenda and the like are not agendas that the Islamic Republic of Iran should have to surrender and submit to.

Khameneis comments paved the way for Rouhanis conservative rivals, cleric Ebrahim Raisi and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, to attack the government, accusing it of making education un-Islamic. The parts of the document they criticized were gender equality  which the Principlists believe should be gender fairness and gender separation  as well as the idea of educating schoolchildren about sex and homosexuality.

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution titled Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Education 2030 agenda is one of 17 goals envisioned in this plan. Based on the document, all 192 UN member states must ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning for everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity or age, by the year 2030. Based on this document, the Rouhani administration designed its own educational plan called The Islamic Republic of Iran 2030 National Education Act: Moving Toward Quality Education and Lifelong Learning, which has so far neither been approved by the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution nor become law.

The 2030 education document is not the first of its kind to be unveiled in Iran. Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed The Fundamental Reform Document of Education [FRDE] in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2011. This document was prepared with a strong emphasis on Islamic teachings, and its first goal was to foster monotheist individuals who have faith in God and believe in the Hereafter. This document, which was approved by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, has not reached the implementation stage yet  a fact that has been criticized by the supreme leader.

Hajar Tahriri Niksefat, the head of the womens committee in Raisis election headquarters in the northern province of Gilan, told Al-Monitor she believed that educating children on gender equality was not necessarily to the childs benefit, but could also be oppressive. Niksefat, who previously served as a legislator in Irans seventh parliament (2004-2008), also expressed opposition to how the 2030 document proposed to teach sex education and said, In our country, family, marriage, controlling sexual desire and satisfying it through proper channels are emphasized and taught at their appropriate time. We will not consider relations that in our national and religious teachings are viewed as improper and do not think its fit to teach them in our schools.

This is while the Robie H. Harris It's Not the Stork! children's book, which teaches kids about sexuality and the facts of life, was recently translated into Persian. Pictures of this book were quickly posted on Persian-language social media and described as an educational book being taught in schools. However, pro-Rouhani media outlets and social media activists were quick to respond and called the majority of campaigns against the 2030 UNESCO document a lie while trying to change the public mindset by providing translations and explanations. A short video, for instance, was used to show that teaching homosexuality was not mentioned anywhere in the document. They did, however, confirm that sex education and gender equality  one of the key demands of Rouhani supporters during the elections  were referred to in the documents text.

Attending a youth campaign rally on May 13, Rouhani responded to Khameneis criticism and blamed a lack of awareness for all the propaganda against the UNESCO document. Rouhani said, I assure the supreme leader of the Iranian nation and the great nation of Iran that the government has pledged to adhere to the document within Irans laws and cultural parameters.

In another speech on May 15 in the northwestern city of Tabriz, Rouhani addressed those who believed the government had adopted the 2030 document and said, They have become so bold that they send false reports to the supreme leader.

Meanwhile, a statement issued on the same day by the governments media center criticized political movements that were taking advantage of the timing of Khameneis comments and using it to tarnish the governments image among Irans religious community in the days leading up to the elections. The statement stressed that the 2030 UNESCO document was not binding but more of a recommendation and described the rumors about agreeing to teach homosexuality in schools and distributing books regarding sex education as being completely false.

Niksefat, meanwhile, stressed that the initial criticisms against the 2030 document were made in 2014 by members of the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution  which is headed by the president  and other experts, and so were not limited to the campaigning. Niksefat told Al-Monitor, Unfortunately they did not take the issue seriously until December 10, 2016, when the UNESCO national commission, in the presence of Rouhanis education minister, unveiled the document and sparked sensitivities and criticisms. This still had no impact until reports were presented to the supreme leader and he ordered that the implementation of this document be halted. Therefore, as can be seen, these criticisms are nothing new  but naturally, during elections, the weak points become more prominent.

Three days after the presidential elections, on May 22, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi brought up the 2030 UNESCO document while lecturing seminary students in the holy city of Qom. While describing many of the documents goals as beautiful and humane, Makarem Shirazi said that in general, it would consolidate the hegemonic system. He also confirmed Rouhanis comments about adopting the document as long as it did not interfere with Irans religion and culture and said, They [the Rouhani administration] have put this in writing and sent a letter, signed by three ministers, to the supreme leader and sent a copy of it to us as well. However, they seem to have forgotten that the creators of this document will only agree to those exceptions and conditions written below it that do not oppose the spirit of the document.

Niksefat, who was seen as a potential head of the Ministry of Education in Ahmadinejads second Cabinet (2009-2013), believes that Khamenei's recommendation that Ahmadinejad's 2011 reform document be implemented means that progress on implementing the 2030 UNESCO document is practically halted. She said, The 'reform plan' is in accordance with our national and religious culture and does not go against other rules and regulations in our country. On the other hand, at Mr. Rouhanis [May 22] press conference [his first after being re-elected], he announced that this document would be accepted as long as it adhered to our laws and values  which they clearly do not.
June 7, 2017

An Iraqi aid worker calls them a ticking time bomb. Almost 170 families are being held in isolation in the Shahama camp, near the city of Tikrit, without access to even a phone to check on their loved ones. Al-Monitor received permission from security forces to visit the camp and spoke with some of the people living there.

We were not with Daesh [Islamic State (IS)], and they never gave us anything, Samara Musa said inside the almost empty tent she occupies with her nine children. Her husband was picked up by the Iraqi army because his brother was with IS. Musa said, however, We opposed his decision. Her brother-in-law is currently in Syria with the extremist group.

Shahama is the only official camp for the family of IS members in Iraq. While the war against IS rages, women, children and some elderly couples whose husbands, brothers, fathers and sons joined IS find themselves locked in Shahama, the Iraqi army having judged them guilty by association, without the involvement of a single court or judge. Protecting the community is the official reason given for their treatment, but the inmates appear to need protection as well, from members of the community seeking revenge.

Ebtisam Obeid Isa proclaimed her innocence, saying she had argued with her brother and later with her husband when they joined IS. Their mothers and I, we said to them, We dont need the money. We have cars, a house.  Now Ive lost it all. My daughter was in college. How can she go back after this?

As phones are forbidden in the camp, and hardly anyone is allowed to visit out of fears that information about investigations into IS will be leaked to the terror group. Obeid does not know where her husband is, how he is doing or even if he is alive.

Ali Arkady, an Iraqi photojournalist, recently published pictures and videos of Iraqi police torturing and killing suspected IS members. On June 4, Human Rights Watch reported on the discovery of the bodies of handcuffed men who had been executed and on the informal prisons where those with possible IS links were being held in dire conditions.

Saheya Ibrahim also lives with uncertainty about the fate of her son at the hands of the military. She lives in the Shahama camp with her husband. He tried to stop my son when he wanted to follow my brother into Daesh, Ibrahim told Al-Monitor. He fought him, but my son went all the same.

Families with IS connections are also trapped in other locations. Many families who fled from Fallujah to Amiriya Fallujah are now not allowed to leave that town, which is about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Fallujah.

Others with IS connections are living in camps for internally displaced persons from Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah. They have gone underground, for if the truth about their family members' links with IS come out, they could be subject to the rage of Iraqis who lost loved ones to IS.

The women in Shahama, when asked, say they hate IS and were betrayed by them, as were the men who joined the group. They gave them a false picture of the future, sighed Obeid. They are kaffir [infidels], said Iman Hazem Ismael.

A frail widow, Hazem is among the inhabitants whom camp administrators believe were actively involved with IS. She lost two sons, both killed fighting against the Iraqi army. It is rumored that she conducted body searches of female civilians, looking for forbidden SIM cards. When confronted with this allegation, Hazem just shakes her head.

Earlier she said she had tried to get her sons to leave IS after she realized its true nature. She also said that she had tried to escape, but that IS members beat her and threatened to execute her three other sons, whom she tried to shield from its influence.

Hazem said the baby sleeping next to her on a blanket in the hot tent belongs to her daughter, who had married the son of an IS emir, or commander, and had fled to Syria with him. She recounted how, as an IS family, they were moved to Mosul and then, when the fighting started, were evacuated by boat to the western part of town, which was still in IS hands. They only gave themselves up after the army took over their neighborhood.

I dont think we can go on living with these people, she said when asked about her future. My eldest son has done too much to too many people. He made some big mistakes. I want to bring up my other sons in a better way, but I am so tired. Ive lost everything.

Most of the women complain about the hopelessness of their situation, seeing themselves more as victims than perpetrators. After all, where can they go?

The camp has a primary school, but there is nothing for the older kids. Money is a problem as well. One woman said she did not even have enough to buy a kilo of tomatoes. Hazem said that for her kids sake, she wants to live where no one knows her. She lamented, I want to feel Iraqi again. Here we are just Daesh families. Nothing more.

Al-Monitor learned from aid workers that the situation in the camp has led to prostitution and drug abuse. The women cannot cook for themselves, and they get their meals handed out to them, as they are not allowed to go out to shop.

They do not get enough, said Hanaa Edwar, director of the Al-Amal Association at her organizations office in Baghdad. Al-Amal is one of the few organizations active in the camp, where its focus is on the women and children.

They still sing Daesh songs, Edwar said about the children. They have been under their influence for so long. We have to find a way to help them put all that in the past. She is worried about what might lie ahead for the camps inhabitants.

You cant punish people for something a family member has done, Edwar said. In liberated cities such as Tikrit and Ramadi, regulations have been put in place by the mainly Shiite security apparatus to keep IS families away, unless they give up disgraced family members or kill them.

This is not healthy, Edwar said. It is not possible for them to go and live elsewhere. We need people to realize that it is possible to live together. We need a program and have to encourage both sides.

Edwar is looking for ways to get these families out of their isolation and back into communities. She said, We need a rehabilitation program. And it would be helpful if families issued public apologies for the actions of their sons, husbands and brothers, even though they are not accountable for their actions.

The families are a ticking time bomb and need to somehow rejoin society, Edwar said, adding, Because if you isolate them, the result will be a new circle of hate and revenge, and a new Daesh.
June 8, 2017

June 5 marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the Six-Day War, but the State of Israel, its institutions and its citizens continue to disagree about what exactly happened in June 1967. At public rallies, Israelis on the right are celebrating the liberation of Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank. Meanwhile, activists on the political left are gathering at numerous seminars on the occupation of Palestinian land. As for the rest  that is, most Israelis  they are staying at home. The majority were born into the situation or found it ready-made when they immigrated to Israel. They are satisfied with the information they are fed by politicians and journalists, most of whom were also born after 1967 or moved to Israel years later.

The public discourse since June 1967 helps millions of Israelis sleep peacefully with a clear conscience. The laundered language used  as defined by author David Grossman in a series of articles he wrote after two decades of occupation and published as a book titled The Yellow Wind  seeks to conceal the existence of millions of other people living miles from Israels cities, people who have not enjoyed a single day of liberty, freedom of movement or dignity in 50 years.

To mark the occupation jubilee, this column looks at the top 10 terms of occupation speak.

Judea and Samaria

These biblical terms even roll off the tongues of left-wing Israelis. There is nothing better with which to wash away the long green stain of the Green Line, demarcating Israels eastern border until June 5, 1967. How many Israelis can distinguish between the Judean Mountains, under Israeli sovereignty, and the Judea area, in the southern part of the West Bank captured by Israel in 1967 and not recognized internationally as part of its territory?

Omission or blurring of the Green Line appears constantly in the official terminology of government offices and public services. For example, the Israel National Service Authority, and Clalit, the country's largest HMO, are divided into districts, one being the Sharon (coastal zone) and Samaria district. In the first years after the 1967 war, these areas were called Israeli-held territories. The nomenclature changed as the sense of ownership over these lands, in other words, the occupation, grew.

The website of the Foreign Ministry insists that the term occupied territories be replaced with disputed territories. It should be noted that the US-proposed road map, adopted by the government of Ariel Sharon in 2003 and attracting the support of Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, held that a permanent agreement between Israelis and Palestinians would resolve their dispute and end the occupation that began in 1967. Israel presented 14 reservations to the document, not one includes the word occupation.

State lands

The argument that the territories captured in 1967 are not occupied, but rather held or disputed, helps validate the scourge of Jewish settlement on the other (eastern) side of the Green Line. Once this obstacle was removed, land ownership had to be registered. The extent of the land registered in the name of the state 50 years ago was quite limited  some 572,000 dunams (141,000 acres)  and almost all of it was in the Jordan Valley and Judean Desert. So, what do you do when you want to establish an Israeli settlement on other parts of the West Bank, such as the Samaria Mountains? You dust off Ottoman-era land laws and interpret them in such a way that it enables the significant expansion of land under government control.

Today, the West Bank territory designated in the Oslo Accord as Area C, under total Israeli control, includes 1.2 million dunams of state lands, 36.5% of Area C. Some 94% of these so-called state lands is under the administrative jurisdiction of Israeli settlements and their regional councils. The assertion But these are state lands, as opposed to private Palestinians land, has over the years become a central argument used by authorities and settlers in trying to legitimize the settlement enterprise.

Security needs, special security zone, live-fire drill zone and closed military area

No argument in private Israeli discussions or public discourse stands a chance against anything involving security needs. The same is true in the halls of justice. This is how a number of linguistic inventions were born that include the special security zone, the strip of land surrounding a settlement, entrance into which is only permitted by Israelis or Palestinian workers employed in the settlement. According to data compiled by the human rights organization BTselem, these strips of land, half of which are located on Palestinian territory, have expanded the areas of the settlements by 240%.

Whats more, extensive Palestinian-owned lands, especially in the Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley, have over the years been declared off limits as Israel Defense Forces live-fire drill zones. As a result, thousands of Palestinians have been expelled from their lands and some from their homes. Meanwhile, no one disturbs the Israeli settlers who enter these areas with their grazing herds or grape vines to plant.

Declaring an area a closed military zone has become routine for the soldiers serving in the territories, in fact serving the settlers. Whenever human rights activists travel to the territories to protect Palestinians, especially Bedouin sheepherders, from the settlers and to record violent incidents, Israeli soldiers whip out a closed military zone order and kick them out.

Unauthorized outposts

The use of the term unauthorized outposts makes Israelis believe that there is a difference between a settlement, allegedly an authorized, legal entity, versus an outpost, an entity allegedly established legally but without official permission from Israeli authorities. This is how the government can claim that it does not build new settlements and at the same time turn a blind eye to the establishment of new outposts and offer them funding. The anti-settlement Peace Now organization has documented 99 outposts, most of them on private Palestinian land. International law and the international community do not distinguish between settlements and outposts. As far as they are concerned, neither is legal.

Settlement blocs and security fence

Although security fence is the official term, security considerations were not the main concern of this structure's planners or the current government. Eighty-five percent of the fence's route goes through West Bank territory, in particular next to settlements and industrial parks. Even though the route was drawn and determined unilaterally, Israeli politicians have put it into the heads of Israelis that the areas to the west of the fence will remain in Israeli hands in any future arrangement with the Palestinians. Therefore, these areas constitute part of the settlement blocs where additional homes and enterprises can (allegedly) legitimately be built.

Jewish and democratic

Israel prides itself on being both Jewish and democratic, but more Arabs than Jews live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea  in other words, in the areas under complete Israeli control (inside the Green Line, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem) or partial control (the Gaza Strip). According to the CIA World Factbook, last July the population between the Jordan and the Mediterranean numbered 6,510,894 Arabs and 6,114,546 Jews.

What about democracy? Well, the facts and data presented in this abridged occupation lexicon have had nothing and will never have anything whatsoever to do with democracy.
June 8, 2017

The Israeli Labor Party has the reputation of eating its own. Nevertheless, last week will go down in the party's annals as one of the strangest in its history. It is not just because of the unusually high number of candidates (nine) for the party's leadership, who can't seem to stop squabbling among themselves. It is mainly because of the pitiable quality of their disputes.

The first round in these primaries are scheduled to take place July 4. It is almost certain to be followed by a second round. Given the number of candidates alone, it seems unlikely that any one of them can pass the threshold needed to win (40% of all votes cast) in the first round.

While the newly elected chairman will lead Labor in the next election, the chances of Labor becoming an alternative to the Likud government are slim. Ever since the last election in 2015, the party has lost almost half of its strength, most of it to Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid. It  or rather the Zionist Camp, in which Labor is the major partner  is now expected to win about 12 seats.

Until just a few months ago, traditional Labor voters still hoped that one of two former chiefs of staff  Gabi Ashkenazi or Benny Gantz  would join the party and lead it back to power. But neither of them found the party attractive enough, leaving Labor with an internal campaign that does not bode well for it.

Of the nine candidates in these primaries, four are currently Knesset members: current chairman Isaac Herzog, former chairman Amir Peretz, Knesset members Omer Bar-Lev (a colonel in the reserves) and Erel Margalit (a high-tech millionaire). The other candidates include Avi Gabbay, a former minister who quit Kulanu, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Amiram Levin and three relatively unknown individuals: professor Avner Ben Zaken, social activist Dina Dayan and former chair of the National Student Union Hod Krovi.

Cautious assessments say that the first person to make it to the second round will be Peretz, who has made an impressive comeback. Competing for second place are Herzog, Margalit and Gabbay.

The campaign is receiving considerable attention, but only because of the highly publicized, heated infighting, cooked up by creative media advisers. Here are some examples. Margalit and Gabbay accused Peretz of registering party members improperly and have submitted appeals to the party's institutions to disqualify certain voters. Margalit accused Peretz and his team of thuggish behavior, extortion and threats against voters party members and called on him to withdraw, not only from this race but from public life in general. In response, Peretz called Margalit a millionaire who invested his money in the race only to find that people don't like him and lost his mind over it. Meanwhile, there were claims that the party's computers had been hacked.

Most of the attention is focused on the squabble between Margalit and Gabbay, two relatively young candidates who were supposed to bring a new vibrancy to the party. Gabbay joined Labor just a few months ago, but had received some support from the press, mainly because of his attacks on the Netanyahu government, which he quit. Margalit has since targeted him for political elimination. In a debate between the candidates on June 4, held at the Walla news studio, Margalit succeeded in humiliating Gabbay when he forced him to address his voting record. Gabbay contended that he never voted for the Likud in the past, even though he admitted to doing so in earlier interviews.

To top it all off, even ethnicity politics came into play, when Margalit hinted that Gabbay does not speak English well. It could have gone unnoticed if Gabbay, the son of Moroccan immigrants, hadn't used the opportunity to accuse Margalit of racism. It was likely an attempt to divert attention from his own conflicting accounts of his voting record, but Gabbay's decision to invoke ethnicity involved an extraordinary, arrogant, thoughtless and offensive attack on one of the most talented and outstanding politicians in Israel's history, former Foreign Minister David Levy.

Gabbay said in a June 5 interview with Army Radio, "They are trying to do to me what they did to David Levy, as if 40 years havent gone by since then. Well, I'm not David Levy. I was an officer. I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. I was general manager of an international corporation for 4 years. I did business around the world. What does he think, that I don't know English?"

It was a week that Gabbay, Labor's "Mizrahi hope," would probably rather forget. He suddenly lost his momentum and went from being a fresh new candidate to an unsophisticated and extremely vulnerable politician.

But it is not at all certain that Margalit benefited from it. The underdog, Herzog, may still be held responsible for the party's current state, but he could yet gain from this childish squabble. In the party's current state, it is quite possible that the current chairman and its former chairman Peretz will compete head-to-head over the party's leadership, even though in many ways both of their political brands are long worn out.

It is reasonable to assume that whoever is elected chair will be able to improve the state of the party, and maybe even win back a few of the seats now held by Lapid, but that's all. Even talk that after these primaries attempts will be made to hold a second round of primaries over who will lead the center-left bloc is meaningless, since centrist Lapid will never agree to it. Whoever is elected will have to lead the party after Lapid has already established in the public's eyes that he will run against Netanyahu for prime minister in the next election. To make any headway, the new Labor leader will have to come up with a more modern and relevant identity for the party.

Netanyahu is following these primaries not because he is worried that a rival to his leadership will emerge, but because he wants to put the option of forming a national unity government with the Zionist Camp/Labor back on the table. With the possibility of a renewal of diplomatic negotiations as pushed by US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu would like to have the option of an alternative government to wave before Naftali Bennett's right-wing HaBayit HaYehudi. Netanyahu believes that if Herzog is re-elected, that option will be revived.
June 8, 2017

The 50 years since Israel defeated three Arab armies in the 1967 war and seized control of Palestinian, Syrian and Egyptian lands can be characterized in two words: occupation and settlements. Both are illegal, and both have been denounced by the international community, but it seems nonetheless clear that they will be around for years to come.

Rev. Naim Ateek, founder of Sabeel, an ecumenical grassroots liberation theology movement among Palestinian Christians, recently published Naksa (Setback), a scathing rebuke of Israel on the 50th anniversary of its occupation. The June 5 column was critical of both secular and religious Zionism, which Ateek blamed for perpetuating the occupation. Ateek linked Israels aggression and refusal to make peace to its lust for land.

Israel can be likened to a bulldozer plowing through Palestine and taking it bit by bit, Ateek wrote. In fact, one of the main reasons for failing to arrive at a possible resolution of the conflict is that Israel has never been satisfied with what it had of Palestine and was always craving for more.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the Palestinian Task Force on Public Diplomacy, an independent group with strong support from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), launched #Occupationis and _#, a grassroots social media campaign on Twitter, in English and Arabic. A quick review of the comments from the campaign shines a light on the width and depth of the Israeli occupation and how it filters into every aspect of Palestinian life.

Palestinian Twitter user Elena Khoury tweeted June 4, #occupationis going through unnecessary paperwork requirements over and over again to be able to live with your spouse/child/parents. Another Twitter user, Mays, posted on the same day, #Occupationis not being able to visit your relatives who live 10 minutes away and an hour away without permission from your occupiers. PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi inaugurated the campaign on June 3 with a video featuring stories about her daughters and the restrictions they face, experiences with which every Palestinian can identify.

Speaking to Al-Monitor via email, Noura Odeh, spokesperson for the task force, said that #Occupationis is a campaign to highlight the direct impact of Israel's occupation on all Palestinians, no matter where they live or what their circumstances are. The 50 years of Israeli occupation are not isolated from the injustices of dispossession and denial our people have suffered over the past 100 years, starting with the Balfour Declaration, she wrote.

Odeh said that many people have forgotten how toxic the occupation is and the extent of its brutality and injustice. This campaign gave everyone an opportunity to shed light on the occupation through the personal experiences of people, faces, lives  not statistics. It is also shedding an important light on the strength of the Palestinian spirit and the resilience of Palestinians who continue to innovate and leave their clear imprint on human heritage in all fields despite the odds.

While Palestinians discuss loss of their land and reflect through personal stories, leading international human rights organizations have tried to encapsulate the meaning of the 50 years that Palestinians have endured under foreign military rule. In a June 4 report, Israel: 50 Years of Occupation Abuses, Human Right Watch focuses on major violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law that define the occupation: unlawful killings; forced displacement; abusive detention; the closure of the Gaza Strip and other unjustified restrictions on movement; and the development of settlements, along with the accompanying discriminatory policies that disadvantage Palestinians.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, head of the UN Human Rights Council, have both delivered sharp words against Israel on this occasion. Guterres stressed that 50 years of occupation have imposed a heavy humanitarian and development burden on the Palestinian people and fueled recurring cycles of violence and retribution.

Guterres asserted in a statement released June 5 that the continuation of the occupation is sending an unmistakable message to generations of Palestinians that their dream of statehood is destined to remain just that, a dream; and to Israelis that their desire for peace, security and regional recognition remains unattainable.

Rights council chief Hussein did not mince words either. He called for an end to Israels occupation of Palestine, as the United States mulled over withdrawing from the council. He made his comments June 6 in a speech delivered at the opening of a three-week session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. He described the anniversary for the Palestinian people as marking a half-century of deep suffering under an occupation imposed by military force.

Former US presidential nominee Bernie Sanders expressed his total opposition to the occupation in a June 5 video message to the left-wing Israeli party Meretz, saying, I know so many of you agree with me when I say, this occupation must end. Peace  real peace  means security not only for every Israeli, but for every Palestinian. It means supporting self-determination, civil rights and economic well-being for both peoples.

Although Palestinians and world leaders have rightly denounced the occupation as the reason for the absence of peace, one of the biggest obstacles has been the illegal settlements built in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Fourth Geneva Convention bans the movement of people from the areas of an occupying power to occupied areas. This was reiterated in the June 9, 2004, advisory decision on the Israeli-built security wall by the International Court of Justice and was most recently restated in UN Security Council Resolution 2334, approved Dec. 23, 2016, with 14 yes votes and the United States abstaining.

Visitors to the occupied territories are often shocked when they see the extensive nature of the colonial settlement enterprise. At present, there are 650,000 settlers living in the occupied territories  300,000 in East Jerusalem and 350,000 on the rest of the West Bank  in approximately 127 official settlements approved by successive Israeli governments and more than 100 outposts, settlements that are protected by the Israeli army but have not been legally sanctioned by the Israeli government.

Human Rights Watch notes the vast difference between the lives of Palestinians and Israeli settlers in its June 4 report: Israel applies Israeli civil law to settlers, affording them legal protections, rights, and benefits that are not extended to Palestinians living in the same territory who are subjected to Israeli military law. Israel provides settlers with infrastructure, services, and subsidies that it denies to Palestinians, creating and sustaining a separate and unequal system of law, rules, and services.

There are no plans to end the Israeli occupation and the corresponding illegal Jewish settlement enterprise anytime soon. Negotiations have failed and will continue to fail, largely because of the uneven balance of forces. This imbalance has been perpetuated by the pass that most world powers, especially the United States, have given Israel.

Without Israel having to pay a political and economic price for the occupation and settlements, the end to these twin evils is highly unlikely. The imbalance of power will only change when the international community becomes serious about forcing Israel to end the occupation and its settlement enterprise.
June 7, 2017

The diplomatic row around Qatar that is flaring up into something more serious caught many in Russia by surprise. Although disontent with a number of Dohas activities has been smoldering in the region for a while, it didnt appear on most Russian experts radar screens largely because Russia didnt expect the rivalry for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leadership to affect Moscow policies all that much.

Now that the crisis threatens to spill over to the rest of the Middle East, Moscow is adopting a more watchful stance.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have severed ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting Iran and financing jihadis. Doha denies both counts.

On June 5, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss Qatar. Both leaders urged everyone involved to develop compromise solutions in the interest of preserving peace and stability in the Persian Gulf region.

Meanwhile, in a phone call reportedly initiated by Doha, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the situation with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. According to a Russian Foreign Ministry press release, the diplomats expressed "serious concern over the emergence of yet another hot spot of tension within the Arab world. Lavrov favored negotiating in the face of unprecedented challenges such as terrorism. The next day, June 6, Putin and Thani conversed by phone themselves, talking investments, trade and economy, and praising existing cooperation. On June 7, Russias president was on the phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Russia considers both Qatar and Saudi Arabia protagonists in the crisis. The Kremlin, and arguably most Russian experts, place both countries in the category of "terrorism sponsors. This perception originated largely from the time of the Chechen war, which according to Russian security services was heavily supported  financially and ideologically  by the Gulf monarchies. That period of contemporary Russian history to a great extent shaped the current narrative on "accomplices of terrorism" enshrined in the public perception of what Moscow is fighting against in the Middle East. There is little reason to presume this view in Moscow has dramatically changed. Moscow holds its own ideas about who sponsors what, when and at what amount  handy scorekeeping tidbits to pull out on a rainy day, as it did after Turkey downed a Russian jet. Outside the expert circuit, however, Russia makes little distinction between the ideological tints of the radical movements over which Qatar and the Saudis spar.

Yet, as Russia has sought to diversify its regional foreign policy toolkit, constructive relations with both the Saudis and Qataris have been of vital importance to Moscow in recent years. In December, Russian state oil giant Rosneft sold 19.5% of its shares to Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority for 10.2 billion euros (about $11.5 billion at todays conversion rate). The deal raised many eyebrows in Russia and across the Middle East, but was considered mutually beneficial. When speculations arose about Rosneft potentially invoking a buyback option from the Qatari fund, the Kremlin called them irrelevant, signaling its long-term commitment to dealings with Doha.

A senior Russian diplomat in the Gulf who spoke with Al-Monitor not for attribution noted a "positive change in Qatar's attitude regarding Russia under the new emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Positive changes are in short supply for Russia in the Gulf, which makes the relationship with Doha even more valuable for the Kremlin. Moreover, 2018 is supposed to be a cross-cultural year for Russia and Qatar with a number of big public events and lucrative deals to boost the relationship even further.

The current regional dismay, however, jeopardizes Russias calculations for Qatar. In late May, rumor had it that Putin would be going to the Gulf  allegedly on a tour to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait  but the Kremlin dismissed the reports. Going to the region at this point would indeed be read as an attempt to interfere in the conflict by taking sides. So even if the top-level visit had been planned at one point, it would now have to be canceled or delayed. This doesnt mean, however, that Moscow cannot designate an envoy to learn the depth of the conflict and its implications for Russias interests in the Middle East and North Africa region. A source close to the Russian Foreign Ministry told Al-Monitor that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov is in contact with top Qatari officials.

Although the chain of communications in the days following the crisis suggests Moscow took a pro-Qatar stance, that is not necessarily the case. On June 7, Putin aide Yuri Ushakov dismissed suggestions that Moscow is considering a go-between status in the crisis, saying, "The very instance of our proactive work and efforts by the president, the foreign minister and through other channels underscores the fact that we are interested in a settlement to the Qatar affair through political and diplomatic means."

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak's statement that same day was designed to double-down on this agenda, with the minister suggesting that Russia and Saudi Arabia may potentially invest billions of dollars into implementation of joint oil projects."

Moscow wants to avoid risking its relations with other states  both those that cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and those advocating the move. Soon after the diplomatic ties ruptured, many in Russia suggested the split was driven in part by the United States. US President Donald Trumps tweets reinforced the initial suspicions, though Washingtons official stance is more moderate and nuanced.

There is also the possibility Israel might have had its say in the matter. Kirill Semyonov, a well-connected expert on the Middle East, told Al-Monitor, Israel, too, may have played some role in this [Qatar crisis] by putting some pressure on the White House. Israelis were displeased with both the role Qatar played in the Gaza Strip and Dohas dealings with Tehran in supporting Hamas.

Russia barely even considers Iran when perusing its list of other usual suspects of instigators in the row, but Iran is definitely talked about  alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and, in this case, Israel  as an immediate beneficiary of the conflict among major Arab nations.

On a larger scale, Moscow is ensuring the spat surrounding Qatar doesnt create more instability in Syria, given Qatars influence over armed opposition groups there. This might be the case in Yemen and Iraq, but since Russia has fewer assets there, it is thus less worried about those fronts. Moscow is preoccupied with what the regional turmoil might do to energy markets. Earlier, Gazprom suggested Qatar might have problems with liquefied natural gas exports. Another indication of these concerns is that one of the first issues the Russians talked through with the Qataris hours into the row was Dohas commitment to the OPEC deal to cut oil output.

Turkey, as a much bigger stakeholder in Qatar, apparently has similar concerns. No wonder in the phone discussion of the Qatar crisis between Erdogan and Putin the two focused on the conflict in Syria and prospects for the South Stream offshore oil pipeline project linking Russia and Turkey.

They say friends make the worst enemies. The current situation might not become as bellicose or bloody as some predict, but it could sow even more distrust among regional players, making regional conflict settlement even more of an ordeal for everyone.
Montgomery city leaders are touting an upgrade for the state's only Internet Exchange, which can now handle 100 Gigabits per second of traffic.

Officials announced 18 months ago a partnership to establish the exchange, known as MGMix, the state's first Internet Exchange. An Internet Exchange Point is a facility where Internet service providers and networks of proxy servers exchange Internet traffic.

But this week, officials announced a cyber strategy for Montgomery that would involve collaboration between business, military, government and universities.

"A 100 Gig Montgomery Internet Exchange is a game-changer," Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said.

The 100 Gig benchmark is seen as crucial to attracting companies that handle large amounts of data, such as Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. In addition, Auburn University at Montgomery has signed a peering agreement to become the first university to join MGMix.

Officials said this would not only reduce costs but provide opportunities for "large-scale collaborative research with other universities."

In addition, CoWerx46, which is being billed as a developer-centered co-working space for the tech market, will open this month at 46 Commerce Street in Montgomery.

"Partnership is at the heart of our strategy," said Montgomery County Commission Chairman Elton Dean. "We are excited about how government and business working together with our technology partners is making Montgomery stand out as an emerging tech hub."
The weekend death of a toddler boy in Lee County has now been ruled a homicide, authorities announced Wednesday evening.

Konner Flowers, 16 months, died Saturday morning at Midtown Medical Center in Columbus, Georgia, said Lee County Coroner Bill Harris. The boy was found unresponsive at a home on Lee Road 554 and rushed to the hospital, but efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. He was pronounced dead in the pediatric emergency room at 7:03 a.m.

Harris said emergency room nurses and doctors noticed bruising on Konner while they were trying to revive him. Lee County sheriff's investigators were then summoned.

Deputies and Harris responded to the hospital and, upon further investigation, determined Konner's death did not appear natural. Harris said preliminary results from the autopsy showed the cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the abdomen, and the manner of death was ruled homicide.

Sheriff's investigators have been interviewing persons of interest to determine the circumstances leading up to Konner's death, Harris said, but no further information is being released at this time. The case remains under investigation by the Lee County Coroner's Office, Lee County Sheriff's Office, the Lee County District Attorney's Office and the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.

Anyone with information about Konner's death is asked to call the Lee County Sheriff's Office at 334-737-7150, the Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-888-522-7847 or the Lee County Coroner Secret Witness line at 334-745-8686.
Gov. Kay Ivey is hiring a public relations firm on a contract that will pay up to $46,000 over six months.

The contract with Brent Buchanan's firm, Direct Response LLC, was on the agenda for today's meeting of the Legislature's contract review committee. The Decatur Daily reported on the contract.

Buchanan said he began working for the governor under a two-month emergency contract on April 10, the day Robert Bentley resigned and Ivey became governor. Buchanan said his role was to help Ivey with the transition from lieutenant governor to governor and to help Ivey communicate her message.

Buchanan said his firm had worked for Ivey during about the first two years of her time as lieutenant governor.

The new contract will pay $6,500 a month over six months, plus up to $7,000 in expenses over that time.

"Whatever her priorities and agenda is, that's what I'll be helping out with," Buchanan said.

Deputy Press Secretary Daniel Sparkman told the Decatur Daily on Wednesday that the contract is for public relations support and messaging strategy.

"Typically, when a new governor comes into office there is a more than two-month transition period. In this instance, there was no transition," Sparkman said.

The contract review committee cannot block contracts, but can delay them if a member wants more information. The committee did not delay the Ivey contract at today's meeting, although one senator asked questions.

Sen. Paul Sanford, R-Huntsville, said the contract was for a "substantial amount of money" considering the governor's office has an in-house communications staff. He also noted that Buchanan's firm does a lot of political consulting.

"It seems like a fine line that we're going to be treading here," Sanford said.

Ivey has not said whether she will run for a full term as governor next year.

Buchanan said his work will not involve any preparation for a possible campaign.

"I'm not going to do anything political on state dollars, and she wouldn't want me to," Buchanan said.

Ivey's office is not the only public office to use private firms to help with communications or public relations.

Also on the contract review agenda today was a contract by the office of the House majority leader for $36,000 over four months for a social media strategist.

The House speaker's office also has a contract with Azbell Communications LLC, David Azbell's firm.

Press Secretary Eileen Jones said Ivey is in Washington today to join other governors for a meeting with President Trump about infrastructure.

This story was updated at 6:04 p.m. to add information from the contract review committee.
A Hueytown man is facing charges in at least two Jefferson County cities after a bizarre series of incidents Wednesday that ended in another man's death.

Cody Allen Abney, 24, is being charged with first-degree theft of property by Hueytown police, said Chief Chuck Hagler. Abney, of Hueytown, is a convicted felon. He is expected to be charged by Birmingham police as well.

The Jefferson County Coroner's Office on Thursday identified the fatality victim as Fred Cornelius Wilson II. He was 69.

Birmingham police said the incident started as a hit-and-run accident on Bessemer Road. A car was struck by a truck that was stolen out of Hueytown, said Birmingham police Sgt. Bryan Shelton. The white male suspect then fled the scene, got on the interstate and exited off Arkadelphia Road. A lookout bulletin was issued to other officers in the area.

An nearby officer on patrol saw the suspect striking four vehicles, including the officer's patrol car, between the 600 and 800 blocks of Seventh Street West around 5 p.m. Wilson was hit and pinned under a white truck that the suspect hit.

He was taken to UAB Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly before 3 a.m.

An Alabama Power employee who was on a routine call was sitting in his work vehicle when it was struck by the suspect as well. The employee was taken to the hospital for observation, but he is expected to be OK. No one was injured in the hit-and-run on Bessemer Road, Shelton said.

Police said the suspect struck two power poles before coming to a complete stop.

"There were multiple people out here. So the guy had a total disregard for human life," Shelton said.

Hagler said he is not releasing much information about the Hueytown theft because of the seriousness of the nature of charges Abney is facing in Birmingham. Court records show Abney has multiple prior arrests for non-violent crimes. In 2015, he pleaded guilty to second-degree forgery and second-degree theft of property. He was sentenced to five years in prison. According to the Alabama Department of Corrections, he was released from prison on Sept. 16, 2016.
Alabama Death Row inmate Robert Bryant Melson was executed by lethal injection Thursday night for the 1994 slayings of three fast food restaurant workers in Gadsden. It was the second execution for Alabama in two weeks.

The execution of Melson -- convicted of numerous counts of capital murder, attempted murder, and robbery in the shooting at Popeye's -- was delayed by federal and state appeal courts on his requests for a stay. The execution was set for 6 p.m. at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore but did not begin until 9:55 p.m.

Thursday night's updates:

10:55 p.m. Commissioner Jeff Dunn made a statement at the media center following the execution. He read a statement from Tamika Collins' family, part of which said, "[Melson] feels that he should not suffer a little pain... what does he think those three people felt?... I see no feeling for anyone but himself."

A cousin of Tamika Collins also wrote a statement. It said, "The day has finally arrived... it does not change the acts he so violently carried out." The cousin, whose name was not given, also said of Collins' late father, "This was a day he waited for."

Collins mother and two sisters witnessed the execution.

No family members of Melson were present.

Dunn said he was not aware of any other executions planned, but the Department of Corrections has supplies of the lethal drugs if necessary.

10:35 p.m. Melson was officially pronounced dead at 10:27 p.m. When asked if he had any last words, Melson shook his head "no." His hands were shaking before the execution began at approximately 9:59 p.m.

For approximately seven minutes, Melson appeared to have slightly labored breathing. His breathing then slowed, and he did not respond to a consciousness check by a corrections officer before the second two drugs in the three-drug execution method-- which stop the heart and breathing-- were administered.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall released the following statement Thursday night after Melson's execution: "Robert Melson's decades-long avoidance of justice is over. For twenty-three years, the families of the three young people whose lives he took, as well as a survivor, have waited for closure and healing. That process can finally begin tonight."

Photo of Tamika Collins, one of the victims of the 1994 Popeyes shooting. This photo was provided by her family who witnessed the execution Thursday night.

Governor Kay Ivey released the following statement:

"As governor, I do not relish the responsibility that I hold related to executions of those convicted of capital murder in this state. However, it is my duty and my charge, on behalf of the people of Alabama, to ensure that justice is done, by both the victims and the convicted.

"I have given the facts of this case and Mr. Melson's request for clemency the highest level of scrutiny and review. After carefully considering the nature of this crime, a triple-murder in a public restaurant, the evidence presented to and considered by a jury, and the mitigating factors presented by Mr. Melson, I determined that justice and the law of this state required me to deny his clemency petition and to allow the punishment to be carried out."

"Mr. Melson murdered three people and attempted to murder a fourth, while the victims were trying to do their best to earn a living and provide for their families. Our court system has done its job in this matter and his convictions have been upheld. Accordingly, the laws of this state have been carried out. It is my prayer that, with tonight's events, the victims' families can finally have closure."

9:10 p.m. The U.S. Supreme Court has lifted its temporary stay of Melson's execution. The execution can now proceed. The temporary stay had been issued about 5:45 p.m.

8:30 p.m. Melson's attorneys state they have withdrawn the supplemental pleading after being advised that the photo in the Facebook post was not taken at the prison.

7:55 p.m. Melson's attorneys file supplemental brief with the U.S. Supreme Court. They claim that family of victims allowed to bring cell phone into prison when courts, including U.S. Supreme Court, have told them they can't bring in a cellphone. They attached a photo for the court to see that shows a cell phone on a table in front of family members whose faces are not shown. Visitors are not allowed to bring cell phones into the prison.

Picture submitted by Melson's attorneys in a supplemental brief

"Mr. Melson files this in support of his request for a stay of execution, specifically related to his access to courts claim. This attached photo was taken by the victim's family at Holman Correctional Facility this evening. They are apparently permitted to bring an electronic device into the prison, yet Mr. Melson's attorneys are not permitted to even bring in a piece of paper and a pencil. The State has argued that bringing a cell phone into the prison is against prison policy for any visitor, and no exceptions can be made for security reasons."

6:50 p.m. Melson's attorneys have replied to the Attorney General's brief. "Mr. Melson respectfully requests that this Court stay his execution," the filing states.

6:15 p.m. The Alabama Attorney General's Office filed a response to the Supreme Court's temporary stay, stating the execution should proceed. "Nothing has changed in the two days since this Court vacated the stay...The fact that this Court has already vacated a stay of execution for Melson is reason enough for this Court to deny his most recent attempt to delay his sentence. Further, Melson's request for a stay does not even hint that there is a certworthy issue for this Court to ultimately review that could justify a stay in this case," the response says.

5:45 p.m. Temporary stay issued by Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas after emergency appeal by Melson's attorneys. The temporary stays usually are just so justices have time to consider the arguments.

Alabama has until midnight to at least start the execution or it will have to seek a new execution date. The death warrant for Melson is for Thursday only.

5:40 p.m.: Notification that Melson's attorneys have filed emergency appeal to U.S. Supreme Court.

5:25 p.m. Horton confirms Melson did leave a will.

5:05 p.m. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Melson's emergency motion for a stay of execution.

4:50 p.m. Alabama Department of Corrections spokesperson Bob Horton gave an update on Melson's activities over the past two days. On Wednesday, Melson was visited by his uncle, brother, cousin, aunt, and two attorneys. He called two attorneys and a cousin. He attempted to call two other family members, but they were unavailable.

Today, Melson was visited by his uncle, brother, aunt, and two attorneys. He called two attorneys and tried to call his uncle, but the uncle was unavailable. Horton said Melson refused his breakfast at 5 a.m. and also refused a last meal. He has made no special requests.

3:50 p.m. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals also issued an order stating it will not hear Melson's claim "based on the constitutional right of access-to-courts" and stay Melson's execution.

3:05 p.m. Lawyers for Melson are making another last-minute bid to halt his execution, filing another request with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A panel of three judges on the 11th Circuit denied one stay request Thursday. The subsequent request from Melson was filed in a related case before the 11th Circuit in which other Alabama inmates are challenging the humaneness of the state's lethal injection procedure.

The state has urged the 11th Circuit to let the execution proceed.

Melson' lawyers wrote that he is scheduled for execution using a protocol "that has never been determined to be constitutional."

1:45 p.m. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has joined the Alabama Supreme Court in denying a stay of execution. Whether Melson is executed tonight is likely in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

12:30 p.m. Melson's attorneys filed a reply to Alabama Attorney General's brief opposing a stay of execution with the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. "Defendants' (AG's) opposition to Mr. Melson's stay motion is another attempt to avoid substantive review of their method of execution, and to prevent this Court from undertaking thorough consideration of the significant issues surrounding Alabama's continued use of an execution protocol that violates the Eighth Amendment. Mr. Melson asks this Court to grant him a stay of execution," Melson's reply brief states.

10:30 a.m. Alabama Supreme Court denies Melson's request to stay the execution, ending his state appeals.

The original story continues below.

Melson was granted a temporary stay last week, but the Supreme Court of the United States vacated the stay Tuesday night.

The stay of the execution was lifted in an order issued by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Three of the nine Supreme Court associate justices-- Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor-- said they did not want to vacate the stay of execution, according to the order.

Wednesday morning, John Palombi and Leslie Smith with the Federal Defenders for the Middle District of Alabama filed a motion to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and one to the Alabama Supreme Court for stays.

In the state supreme court motion, Melson's attorneys say the federal courts have yet to rule on whether Alabama's method of execution is unconstitutional and violates the eighth amendment. The lawyers' filing to the 11th Circuit states that Melson has a likelihood of winning an appeal on his challenge to midazolam, the first drug in the lethal three-drug method. Melson's attorneys asked the 11th Circuit to stay the execution pending the results of Melson's challenge.

The challenge, which lists four other inmates as petitioners, concentrates on midazolam, the first drug in the execution cocktail. Melson and the other inmates claim the drug does not completely sedate a person so that they cannot feel the pain of the second and third drugs in the cocktail, which stop the heart and breathing.

A lower court had dismissed the challenge, but Melson's attorneys appealed to the 11th Circuit and asked for a temporary stay last week. That temporary stay was granted last Friday before being struck down Tuesday by SCOTUS.

On April 15, 1994, Melson and Cuhuatemoc Peraita robbed the Gadsden Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits restaurant, where had previously worked. After taking approximately $2,100, the men herded the four Popeye's employees into the store's freezer. Moments later, survivor Bryant Archer said, the freezer door opened and Melson began firing. Nathaniel Baker, 17; Tamika Collins, 18; and Darrell Collier, 23, were all fatally shot in the freezer; Archer was shot five times, but was able to stand up, walk to the office, and call police.

When officers arrived, Archer told police one of the attackers was Peraita. Archer also said Peraita drove a black Monte Carlo, so police issued a lookout bulletin for the vehicle. Melson and Peraita were arrested about an hour later.

After his conviction in 1996, Melson has been on death row at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. Peraita was originally sentenced to life in prison, but moved to death row in 2001 after fatally stabbing another Holman inmate.

According to a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday, the governor received a request for clemency from Melson.

Alabama has already carried out three executions using the three-drug protocol that Melson is challenging, including the May 25 execution of Tommy Arthur in which the 11th Circuit denied a stay. Two other Alabama inmates who were executed -- Ronald Bert Smith and Christopher Brooks -- also were co-plaintiffs in the case with Melson.

Court documents filed in Melson's case argue the state's switch to midazolam from pentobarbital during executions has caused a "method of execution that has failed to work properly in four states, including Alabama."

During Smith's Dec. 8 execution, he heaved, coughed and gasped for breath for about 13 minutes after apparently being administered midazolam. At times his left eye also appeared to be slightly open. He underwent two consciousness tests to make sure he couldn't feel pain before the execution continued. Smith's attorneys called it "botched," but Alabama Prison Commissioner Jeff Dunn said Smith's execution went as outlined in the prison system's execution protocol.

Archer will not attend the execution, he said, because of a previously planned vacation with his wife and children.

"That's another way God said, 'Hey, get out of town,' " he said. "[Melson] has to have to live every day with knowing what he did ... 23 hours a day in a cell. That's his punishment."

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey as of Wednesday had responded to a request by Melson for clemency.

This post will be updated throughout the day and evening Thursday. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Melson Clemency Petition by KentFaulk on Scribd
The Alabama Department of Public Health today fired a former veterans health care official after an outcry from veterans and a public demand from a state lawmaker.

James Talton is the former director of the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System and was fired in 2014 amid a scandal over poor care at the CAVHCS.

On June 1, Talton began working at the Alabama Department of Public Health as an administrator over programs, including the Children's Health Insurance Program.

ADPH announced Talton's firing today in a two-sentence press release: "Effective today, Mr. James Talton is no longer employed with the Alabama Department of Public Health. The Department wishes him well in his future endeavors."

State Health Officer Tom Miller said public opposition to Talton's hiring was becoming an increasing distraction.

"It reached a point where it was interfering with us getting our work done," Miller said.

State Rep. Barry Moore, R-Enterprise, posted on Facebook this morning a letter to Miller denouncing the decision to hire Talton, saying it showed a "severe lack of judgment" because of problems that occurred at CAVHCS under Talton. Moore is chairman of the Alabama House Military and Veterans Affairs Committee.

"I expect a quick and decisive response to this letter and hope you choose to side with the men and women who bravely served the United States of America," Moore wrote.

Moore said Miller called him today and told him of the decision to fire Talton. Moore said he appreciated Miller's prompt action.

Moore said there is a heavy concentration of veterans in his district, which borders the Army base Fort Rucker. He said he heard their concerns about Talton's hiring.

"It had created a bit of a sore spot with a lot of my voters," Moore said.

Miller said the decision to hire Talton came through the normal state merit system process. Seven qualified candidates were identified for the job.

Miller said he and three other ADPH officials who took part in interviews of the candidates unanimously agreed that Talton's qualifications best fit the job.

"We respect our state veterans and our national veterans and the price they paid and the service and the sacrifice," Miller said. "None of this was ever intended in any way to cast anything negative on that."

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced in October 2014 that Talton had been removed from federal service after an investigation by the Office of Accountability Review substantiated allegations of neglect of duty.

Moore is challenging U.S. Rep. Martha Roby in Alabama's 2nd Congressional District, which covers southeast Alabama, next year.

Roby took an active role in seeking changes at the CAVHCS after the scandal over poor care surfaced a few years ago. She issued a statement today saying that she had declined to comment publicly on the hiring of Talton because she did not think it was her job to tell state officials who to hire. But she said today's move to fire Talton was the right decision.

"There was a clear record of neglect at CAVHCS, and I wouldn't want anyone implicated in that scandal to hold a position of public trust," Roby said.
Birmingham Mayor William Bell announced earlier this week that he joined a network of more than 200 mayors in the United States supporting local efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.

President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement on June 1.

On Thursday, the mayor's office released a list of steps the city is taking to reduce the city's energy consumption. The city law department is also reviewing what can be done within the limits of Alabama laws to require industry to require greenhouse emissions.

That report is expected within the next 30-60 days, according to the mayor's office.

Jefferson County is home to the country's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases -- James H. Miller Jr. Electric Generating Plant, a coal-burning plant operated by Alabama Power, according to a report from The Weather Channel. The plant isn't located in the city limits of Birmingham.

Much of the Birmingham's efforts to reduce energy consumption were outlined in October 2015 when the city announced a contract with Trane to perform energy upgrades in the city's 125 buildings.

The city is investing about $61.3 million in the upgrades to reduce energy usage and save the city $100 million over the next two decades. Birmingham will see $3.2 million in savings the first year, according to Trane.

The project, which wasn't approved by the City Council until late last year, is expected to take about two years. It includes:

Replacing the lights in city buildings with LED lights. This will result in at least a 50 percent reduction in lighting costs in city buildings. Maintenance costs also decrease due to the longer life of LED fixtures.

Plumbing fixtures are being replaced with low-flow fixtures, which will cause the city to use 50 percent less water in city buildings.

Twenty city buildings are getting new roofs. Of those, a dozen are fire stations.

The city is instituting a control system for energy systems across all city buildings, which will allow the city to control lights and HVAC when buildings are unoccupied.

According to the mayor's office, some 10,022 streetlights have been converted to LED so far.

In the proposed budget for the 2018 fiscal year, the mayor is proposing purchasing electric vehicles to be used by meter readers instead of gasoline vehicles.
A Huntsville murder suspect is expected to argue self-defense in the gas station shooting death of a 36-year-old father of five.

Adrian Hyder, 29, is accused of killing 36-year-old Lucas Payne on March 9 at the Citgo gas station on the corner of Oakwood Avenue and Pulaski Pike in north Huntsville. Hyder told police Payne fired the first shot, according to testimony by Investigator Julian Johnson during a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

Johnson testified Payne and Hyder had been involved in an ongoing dispute over a woman named Brandy.

"Lucas thought Adrian was sleeping with Brandy," Johnson read from a witness statement. "You know it was all over Brandy."

The day of the fatal shooting, Brandy and Payne were at the Citgo station in a Chevy Impala and she went inside to pay for gas. After she returned to the car, a black SUV pulled in the parking lot and witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots, Johnson told Madison County District Judge Linda Coates.

Coates ruled prosecutors have enough evidence to send the case to a grand jury for consideration of an indictment.

Johnson testified that a witness saw shots fired from the Hyder's SUV and from the Impala in which Payne was a passenger.

One woman who was stopped at the Oakwood Avenue intersection told police she saw the first shots fired from the SUV, Johnson testified.

After he was shot, Payne ran toward the gas station and collapsed near the dumpsters, Johnson testified. Brandy fled the scene to a family member's nearby car wash business. When she returned, she found Payne on the ground, Johnson testified.

'Next time somebody's going to die'

Surveillance footage collected at the store doesn't show the shooting, according to Johnson, but Payne can be seen on the video running toward the building before falling to the ground.

The SUV driven by Hyder also sustained damage, including a gunshot to the front driver's side tire, according to police.

Johnson testified police found three or four shell casings on the ground at the Citgo station. The casings are from a .380-cailber weapon, Johnson told the judge. Police haven't recovered the gun Payne reportedly was using, and they didn't find bullets or shell casings that match the type of weapon they believe he used, according to the investigator's testimony.

Payne was transported by emergency personnel to Huntsville Hospital where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the right side of the stomach, Johnson testified.

Hyder wasn't arrested until weeks after the fatal shooting. Johnson received an anonymous call from a person who said Hyder and a man named Travis were in the SUV that pulled up before Payne's death.

Johnson said Hyder claimed Payne had "jumped him" at another gas station prior to the shooting.

"Lucas said, 'Next time somebody's going to die,'" Hyder told police, according to testimony.

Hyder was arrested by U.S. Marshals on March 24. Since then, he has been housed in the Madison County Jail with bail set at $75,000. Judge Coates during Wednesday's hearing denied a defense motion to lower Hyder's bond.

'He didn't deserve it'

One of Payne's five children attended Wednesday's court hearing. Also in attendance was the 10-year-old boy's mother, Nichonn Jones.

Homicide victim Lucas Payne is pictured with one of his five children. The 10-year-old boy attended a preliminary hearing for his father's accused killer this week.

"It's been real hard for my son," Jones told AL.com via phone after the hearing. "He has his good days and sometimes he just cries. He had a good relationship with his dad."

Jones said Payne's children ranged in age from 6 to 18 years old.

"We were always friends," she said of Payne. "I been so upset about it. It's nothing I would have expected to happen to him.

"He was a good person," Jones continued. "He's always been a genuine, kind-hearted person who would do anything to help anybody. He was always a real sweet, funny person who liked to have fun and joke around."

Originally from Georgia, Payne moved to the Huntsville area in high school, Jones said.

"It's sad what happened to him," she said. "He didn't deserve it. Your actions -- you don't know how many people it can devastate. This has hurt his kids and his family."

Life in prison

Hyder already has been indicted by a grand jury on an unrelated charge of trafficking heroin. If convicted in that case or for the killing of Payne, Hyder faces an automatic sentence of life in prison. That's because he already has been convicted of two felonies in the past. His prior cases involve marijuana, drugs and theft, court records show.

Payne also has a history of drug and theft related arrests in Madison County, records show.

This week's court hearing was for the judge to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence for the murder charge to remain active pending indictment by a grand jury. A grand jury is tasked with determining whether prosecutors have enough evidence to send a case to trial.

Hyder is represented by Huntsville Attorney John Brinkley. Assistant District Attorney William Starnes is prosecuting the case.
A teenage girl killed when a Huntsville church bus crashed in the Atlanta area on Thursday, injuring dozens of others, wrote in her final journal entry of the great things she hoped God would do through her youth group when they arrived in Africa.

"Mount Zion Baptist Church's Sarah Harmening lost her life (on earth) in today's bus accident but she left us all with a special journal entry from earlier today, reminding us that God "going to do incredible things," the Alabama Baptist newspaper shared on Facebook.

"Sarah was a gift to us that was given on December 20, 1999. And she loved the Lord with a love that was tangible," mother Karen Harmening said Thursday night, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.

That report continued: "Sarah's cousins Katelyn, Kristen, and Sophie then came forward to share one last text message. Katelyn said she received the scripture 1 Peter 5:23-25 followed by Sarah's thoughts.

"'This is such a great reminder. We are like a wisp of smoke. We are only here for a moment and this not about us, life is not about us, it's about God who is eternal. So, I want to dedicate the one moment I am here, completely and entirely to Him,'" Katelyn read.

The Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office early Friday said she was 17.

Huntsville's Mount Zion Baptist Church opened its doors Thursday evening to a devastated community.

The wife and son of Madison County Commission Phil Vandiver were among about 40 people who were on the bus.

"I got a hold of my son about two minutes after the accident and he was just rather shook--couldn't get much information but him and his mama was fine," Vandiver said.

Madison County Commission Chairman Dale Strong told WAAY-TV that a teen girl died as a result of the bus wreck. Madison County Schools spokesman John Southerland said several Sparkman High School students were hurt, some with broken bones. The girl who died was not a student in the district, he said.

WATCH: Family of a victim in the deadly church bus crash speak for the first time. The latest: http://bit.ly/2r0MBKh Family gathers after crash: http://bit.ly/2sJ7v1M Posted by FOX 5 Atlanta on Thursday, June 8, 2017

"I was just sitting here (on) the bus feeling a little sad. I guess because I'm going to be gone so long and I was a little uncomfortable. Then I decided to read my Bible. I prayed and opened up to 1 Peter 5 and 2 Peter 1. Pretty much everything I read applies to me now," Harmening wrote in the message shared by Alabama Baptist.

"It talked about watching over the flock entrusted to you, which would be my little buddies in Botswana. Humbling yourself, which I will need to do also (and that also means being a little uncomfortable). It talked about the devil prowling about like a lion seeking whom he may devour, which he will especially be doing on this mission trip, and how we need to be alert and of a sober mind.

"And lastly how we get to participate in his divine nature! I mean, how awesome is that? So mostly, I was reminded of why I am here and why God has called me here... So I know He's going to do incredible things."

Recent high school graduate Allison Thrasher was asleep on the Mount Zion Baptist Church bus when the accident happened... Posted by The Alabama Baptist newspaper on Thursday, June 8, 2017

Fox 5 Atlanta reported the wreck happened around 2:30 p.m. central time along Camp Creek Parkway in south Fulton County, just outside Atlanta. The station's helicopter flew over the scene an hour later, finding the bus overturned with portions of it crushed. The bus came to rest next to a dark-colored sedan.

Fulton County Fire Chief Larry Few said crews were working to cut a person out of the bus earlier today, but their condition was not immediately available.

"Life changes so rapidly on us, you know? One moment, things are fine. The next moment you're dealing with things like this. It's just tough," Few told WSB-TV.

Firetrucks and ambulances swarmed the area near Atlanta's airport. Mount Zion Baptist Church posted on its Facebook page that the bus with its student ministry mission was traveling to the airport at the time of the wreck.

Images from the scene showed the bus had come to rest on top of another vehicle. AJC.com reported Fulton County police said 38 people were on board the bus at the time of the crash, which left four people in critical condition. The other vehicle was a black Mercedes sedan, that report stated.

According to 11alive.com, Grady Memorial Hospital received nine patients. Of those, four were in critical condition, three in fair and one was listed in stable condition.

WellStar Atlanta Medical Center officials Kim Ryan and Daniel Jackson told reporters three of its centers received a total of 24 patients.

"The patients were largely young adults in their late teens and early 20s," Ryan said at a press conference Thursday night. Most of the injuries, she said, were cuts, scrapes and bruises. Chaplains were on hand to counsel the injured and their loved ones, Jackson added.

"Most of the patients have been reunited with their families," Jackson said.

The church posted on its Facebook page that there are "several serious injuries" but did not provide further details. Some were reported critically injured.

Vandiver was at the church this afternoon before going to Atlanta to retrieve his family.

Vandiver said his son wasn't able to provide details about the seriousness of the crash or injuries. "At that time he was sort of out of it--he was dazed a little, just trying to figure out what was going on."

"We need prayers," Vandiver said. "There are a lot of families that are going to have tough times ahead."

Mount Zion was to remain open all night, if needed, as a place for those affected by the wreck to pray together, Vandiver added.

Many churches and community members in the Atlanta area reached out to Mount Zion, Vandiver said. "It's heartwarming to have that; it's terrible to be in a situation where you need it."

Alabama Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon also noted the kindness shown those involved in the accident.

"The Huntsville community is coalescing around the Mount Zion Baptist Church family as transportation to Atlanta is being provided, blocks of hotels rooms are being booked, and local leaders are doing everything possible to aid and assist the relatives and friends of those affected.

"The Speaker's Office stands ready to do everything in our power to assist this effort, and we will ensure that Gov. Kay Ivey remains updated on the situation."

The church members were on their way to Botswana, where they were going to do mission work helping with a Vacation Bible School. The trip was canceled and survivors were returning home, Vandiver said Thursday afternoon. An airplane and bus were taking family members from Huntsville to be reunited with the survivors in Atlanta.

"Please pray for our Sparkman community members and students on the Mt. Zion bus that crashed this afternoon in Atlanta," Sparkman High School posted on its Facebook page.

"I just heard about it (before Thursday night's council meeting)," Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the folks at Mount Zion Baptist. It just pulls at your heart - people who were going to do mission work being in that. We hold all of those families in our hearts. There's just not much you can say."

AL.com's Bob Gathany, Carol Robinson, Paul Gattis, Starr Dunigan, Ashley Remkus and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Turkeys decision is not necessarily anti-Saudi, but it is definitely pro-Qatari, say analysts.

Only two days after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed diplomatic relations with Qatar for its alleged support of terrorist organisations, Turkeys parliament has ratified military deals allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar. Turkish analysts talking to Al Jazeera interpreted the move as an apparent show of support for Qatar.





This indeed suggests that Turkey sees its defence ties with Qatar as an indispensable pillar of its strategic posture in the region, Can Kasapoglu, a defence analyst from Turkeys EDAM, told Al Jazeera. It also shows that Ankara would not drastically alter its long-term vision for regional fluctuations.

Turkey has had a base and soldiers in Qatar for a while, Kadir Ustun, the executive director of the SETA Foundation in Washington, DC, explained. Increasing Turkish presence there at this point might be an attempt to reassure Qatar.

Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installation in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. The base, which has a capacity to accommodate up to 5,000 troops, already hosts 200 Turkish soldiers.

Late on Wednesday, two deals were ratified in Turkeys parliament; one allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and another approving an accord between the two countries on military training cooperation.

Both agreements, which were drawn up before the spat between Qatar and its neighbours erupted, were brought to parliament by MPs from Turkeys governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) in an extraordinary session.

READ MORE: Qatar-Gulf crisis: Your questions answered

A power projection asset

The military base in Qatar is an important power projection asset for Turkey, said Kasapoglu. Turkey has always considered Qatar an important strategic ally in the region, and it is using this base to demonstrate this view.

Yet analysts added that it is important not to read Turkeys decision to deploy troops in to Qatar as picking a side in the spat that rocked the Gulf.

Turkeys military base in Qatar has always been, and still is, a symbolic gesture and nothing more, said Atilla Yesilada, a political analyst with Istanbuls Global Source Partners.

While Turkey values its partnership with Qatar, and does not approve the foreign policy vision Saudi Arabia is trying to enforce on the small but influential emirate, it is also not willing to  and can not afford to  pick a fight with Riyadh.

The ratification of the military treaties is not an anti-Saudi move at all, Kasapoglu added. Turkey still sticks to I dont want problems between my two good friends policy.

Yet, although this is not an anti-Saudi position, it is a pro-Qatari one for sure. Ankara prioritised its geopolitical perspective, and showed that it holds its military presence [in Qatar] above the recent diplomatic crisis.





On the same side

Turkey and Qatar have a long history of being on the same side of regional conflicts and developments. They both provided support for the Egyptian revolution and condemned the military coup that brought the countrys current leader, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in to power.

Riyadh is viewing Iran as an existential threat, yet Qatar, much like Turkey, has been following a rather complicated and multilayered strategy against Iran. by Atilla Yesilada, political analyst

They also refuse to classify Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as terrorist organisations and they both backed rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Their partnership in regional politics gained further strength after Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani showed strong support for the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during and after last Julys failed coup attempt.

Qatar and Turkey are also following a similar strategy of balance in their relations with Iran. Analysts explained that at the moment Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with Donald Trumps support and encouragement, are trying to form a unified front to isolate Iran completely.

Qatar, as a result of its refusal to follow a hawkish strategy against the Islamic Republic, is being perceived as the weakest link in this anti-Iran Gulf alliance, analysts said.

OPINION: Looking beyond the siege of Doha

Turkey, with its strong trade links to Iran and apparent unwillingness to have a confrontation with its neighbour, is supporting Dohas appoach to the Iranian threat.

Riyadh is viewing Iran as an existential threat, yet Qatar, much like Turkey, has been following a rather complicated and multilayered strategy against Iran, said Yesilada.

Turkey is in loggerheads with Iran in Iraq and Syria, but it is also continuing its growing trade relationship with this neighbour  and this compartmentalised relationship is making Riyadh question the strength of Turkeys position in the alliance that is forming against Iran in the Middle East.

Their attitude towards Iran is putting Qatar and Turkey in the same camp, once again.

Analysts explained that Turkey would do everything it can to resist the US and Saudi pressure to turn its historic rivalry with Iran into enmity. Turkey and Iran had long been compertmentalising their relations, Kasapoglu explained.

They faced each other in Iraq and Syria, but this did not stop the Iranian Foreign Minister from visiting Turkey, or affected the two countries trade relations.

Turkey agrees to many aspects of Qatars foreign policy vision, and President Erdogan made it clear that he does not agree with the accusations Riyadh directed at Qatar, Yesilada said. On subjects like Palestine, Egypt, Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood, two countries are definitely on the same page.

But this does not mean Turkey is willing to jeopardise its relations with Saudi Arabia or the UAE.

OPINION: Qatar-Gulf rift  The Iran factor

Resolving the crisis through dialogue

Turkey also enjoys strong political and economic relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The two countries signed a special agreement in April last year to establish a team specifically tasked with strengthening bilateral trade ties.

Turkey wants to increase its share in the global arms trade, said Kasapoglu. Ankara believes this is a prerequisite to becoming a global power and it rightly identifies Saudi Arabia as a sustainable and hungry market.

Turkey is expected to sign a major export deal to sell several national corvettes to Saudi Arabia in the near future, he added. If the deal comes to fruition, it is going to be Turkeys largest arms export deal to this day and Ankara is not eager to jeopardise this opportunity.





Yesilada pointed out that Turkey also needs Saudi Arabia to stay a trusted strategic partner.

Ankara is aware of Riyadhs growing friendship with the new US administration and it wants to open up a new channel for dialogue with Donald Trump through Saudi Arabia, he said.

Of course, this does not mean Turkey is going to abandon Qatar, but it is safe to say that Ankara wont be openly positioning itself against Riyadh.

Turkey supports resolving the crisis within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) through diplomacy, Ustun said. I think Turkey is not interested in being seen as on one side of a dispute like this, he added.

At the moment, Turkey does not want anybody to win the conflict that is ripping apart the GCC, Kasapoglu said. Turkey wants the GCC to swiftly solve its internal problems and show a unified front to the world and to their mutual adversaries.
US and Israel lead a campaign of intimidation against the UN to forcibly rehabilitate Israels international standing.

The Trump administration is using unprecedented threats and financial blackmail against the United Nations and its agencies to end their focus on human rights abuses by Israel, according to analysts and Palestinian leaders.

They accuse the United States of joining Israel in a campaign of intimidation against the UN secretariat and member states to forcibly rehabilitate Israels international standing.

The offensive comes after the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had faced several years of criticism in diplomatic circles for refusing to engage in a peace process with the Palestinians.

An early indication of the new campaigns success, analysts noted, was the election last week of Danny Danon as a vice president of the UNs main representative forum, the General Assembly.

Danon has been Israels ambassador to the UN since 2015.









He is known as an arch-opponent of the two-state solution and, before heading to the UN in New York, had repeatedly called for Israel to annex most of the West Bank.

It is views like Danons, which are increasingly dominant inside the Israeli government, that have driven a swelling boycott movement, as well as increasing comparisons between Israel and apartheid South Africa.

The US and Israel are now jointly engaged in street fighting at the UN, a Western diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera. Washington is throwing its weight around and bullying people. The old rules of diplomacy have been thrown out of the window.

That view was confirmed by Hanan Ashrawi, a former Palestinian negotiator and member of the PLO Executive Committee.

The Trump administration has become a very vocal and aggressive attorney for Israel, she told Al Jazeera. It threatens consequences for anyone seen to be supporting the Palestinians or criticising Israel.

READ MORE: Accepting the apartheid label will normalise Israel

Danon will take up his new post in September, chairing sessions of the General Assembly, helping to set its agenda and overseeing enforcement of rules and decorum during its meetings.

The increasingly overt alliance between Israel and the US at the UN was highlighted this week when Danon escorted Nikki Haley, Trumps envoy to the UN, on a visit to Israel.

In a speech to the US pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC in March, Haley promised to be a new sheriff in town at the UN.

On the way to Israel, Haley stopped in Geneva to berate one of the UNs chief agencies, the Human Rights Council (UNHRC), for what she termed its chronic anti-Israel bias. Its behaviour makes a mockery not of Israel, but of the Council itself, she added.

She threatened that the US would pull out of the UNHRC if it did not rein in its criticism.

In April, Haley issued a similar warning when she took over the rotating presidency of the UNs most powerful body, the Security Council. She told members that their monthly Middle East debates would now focus on Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, not Israel.

Israel and the White House have been leaning on other key UN agencies.









In March, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia was forced to retract an expert report after it concluded that Israel had established an apartheid regime ruling over the Palestinians.

The US and Israel are now jointly engaged in 'street fighting' at the UN. Washington is throwing its weight around and bullying people. by Western diplomat based in Jerusalem

And last month the US condemned a resolution by the UNs cultural agency, UNESCO, after it called on Israel to uphold international law and end policies that were changing the religious and cultural character of occupied East Jerusalem.

Although the resolution passed, most European countries either abstained or voted against it. Afterwards, Netanyahu crowed: The number of countries who support this absurd UNESCO resolution is getting smaller.

All this has been occurring against the drumbeat of threats from the Trump administration that it is ready to impose drastic cuts to the UN budget. Washington is the UNs biggest contributor, covering nearly $13.5bn of the world bodys funding.

The main factor behind Danons promotion is blackmail by the Trump administration, said Ashrawi. It is threatening to withhold UN funding and it is clear member states are scared.

READ MORE: Donald Trumps budget losers

Nathan Thrall, author of a new book on Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, The Only Language They Understand, said the campaign had forced the Palestinians to back off from diplomatic initiatives at the UN.

Over the past seven years, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas placed an emphasis on the struggle to win recognition of Palestinian statehood at the UN. That included joining a UN agency, UNESCO, in 2011. The US responded by suspending its UNESCOs funding.

The Palestinians are afraid what Trump might do, Thrall told Al Jazeera. If the US starts making global institutions collapse, the Palestinian leadership are worried they will get the blame from other countries.

Peacekeeping operations and humanitarian assistance would be among the UN operations expected to suffer. The Palestinians dont want to lose friends when they need them most, added Thrall.

Danon, aged 46, was selected for the role of General Assembly vice president by a regional faction at the UN known as the Western European and Others Group. It includes most European countries, plus Israel, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The election of vice presidents is organised on a regional basis to ensure fair geographical representation.

Salah Bardawil, a senior Hamas official, tweeted that Danons elevation was a mark of Cain on the UNs forehead.

Israel has been the subject of dozens of resolutions condemning its violations of the UN charter  far more than any other member state. But in particular, the choice of Danon has disturbed Palestinian leaders. Until recently, his was widely seen as the enfant terrible of the Israeli right.

Netanyahu sacked Danon from his post as deputy defence minister in summer 2014, during Israels attack on Gaza, in which some 500 Palestinian children were killed. He called Danon irresponsible for describing Israels military operation as too lenient.





When Netanyahu announced Danons posting as ambassador a year later, Israeli analysts described the decision as a cruel joke.

Ashrawi noted that Danons treatment at the UN contrasted strongly with that of Salam Fayyad, the former Palestinian prime minister.

Efforts by the US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint Fayyad, a Palestinian moderate, as the UN envoy to Libya were blocked by the US in February. Haley described the move as against Israel and added: The United States will act, not just talk, in support of our allies.

Even before Trump, there were signs that Israels fortunes at the UN were changing.

Last year, Danon made history becoming the first Israeli ambassador to chair a permanent committee  dealing, paradoxically, with international law, the subject on which Israel has faced most criticism. Again, Danon received the backing of the Western European and Others Group.

However, Danons relations with the previous US administration were strained. In late 2012 he accused President Barack Obama of being no friend of Israel.

By contrast, Danon has been enthusiastically embraced by the Trump administration, observed Thrall.

Israel is doing well diplomatically, at the moment. There are rumours that it aspires to a seat in the Security Council. The climate is such that some Israeli politicians even seem to think that might be achievable.









Interviewed by the settlers news agency Arutz Sheva last month, Danon said there was a new spirit at the UN. They no longer focus only on Israel. The UN is no longer the Palestinian playground. Something is changing here.

Of his relationship with Haley, he told the Orthodox Jewish magazine Mishpacha in April: When it comes to Israel, we share the same views. Although the world body has been viewed as traditionally hostile to Israel, experts have cited several factors that explain Israels changing fortunes.

In recent years, Israel has made strategic alliances with powerful states at the UN, in addition to its main ally in Washington.

Israel has won favour often through arms sales and intelligence sharing.

READ MORE: How European pension funds sustain Israeli occupation

The diplomat, who has worked in Israel, said: Israel has been reaching out to emerging economies in BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] as well as Mexico. That is starting to pay a diplomatic dividend. Also, Europe, which is in growing disarray, has abandoned even the pretence of acting as a counterweight to Washington.

That has made it easier to win over European countries to Israels side.

Thrall noted: The apparent calculus in countries like the UK is that the best way to ingratiate themselves with the US is to be good to Israel.

And the UN, mired in financial difficulties, is reeling from the threat of further penalties from the US and its allies if it continues to be seen as anti-Israel.

Israel and the US are ready to break the international order to get their way, said the diplomat. People are scared of what they might be capable of doing.
The Muslim Brotherhood came up frequently during the GCC rift. Here is a breakdown of the groups ideology and roots.

The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has been in the news lately as one of the reasons behind the current diplomatic crisis between Qatar and other Gulf countries.

On June 7, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters during a visit to Paris that Qatar must stop supporting Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jubeirs statements came two days after Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed diplomatic ties with Qatar in the worst rift to hit the GCC region.

Qatar became a central target of the Saudi-Emirati-Israeli joint lobbying efforts for its perceived role in promoting the Muslim Brotherhood and hosting members of Hamas political bureau.

Saudi Arabia and other GCC nations also released a list of alleged terrorists with links to Qatar. The list included the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates.

In response to the allegations, the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said the classification of the entire Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists is problematic.

During his June 14th testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Relations, Tillerson pointed out that there are elements of the Muslim Brotherhood that have become parts of governments.

I think you can appreciate the complexities this enters into our relations with [governments in the region], he added.

But who is the Muslim Brotherhood and do they pose a grave risk to regimes in the region?

Here is a breakdown of the groups ideology and historic roots.

Who are the Muslim Brotherhood?

The MB is the oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world. It is not allowed to operate as an official political party in some Arab countries.

When and where was the Muslim Brotherhood founded?

The MB was founded in Egypt in 1928 by and Islamic scholar and teacher by the name of Hassan al-Banna. He had a vision of a universal Islamic system of rule that could be attained by promoting Islamic laws and morals and by engaging society through offering social services.

READ MORE: The evolution of Islamists

What are the main principles of the Muslim Brotherhood ideology?

The ideology of the MB is mainly focused on reform of existing political systems in the Arab world. It embraces the idea of political activism and social responsibility, organising charitable works and social support programmes as part of its outreach to its core support base of lower-income populations.

The members of the MB represent a broad spectrum of interpretations of the initial ideology of Hassan al-Banna. Many members embrace a more pragmatic idea of achieving their goals, urging political participation and cooperation.





Has the Muslim Brotherhoods ideology shifted or changed?

There were a couple of shifts in the MBs ideology over the years, as they developed from an active participant in a nationalist movement to a banned group forced to operate underground and leaning towards an armed struggle for their ideology, and then back to a reformist-minded party.

Throughout they have always adhered to their ideal of a society governed by Islamic laws and morals.

Who are the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood?

The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is Mohamed Badie, who is currently in prison, having been sentenced to a number of life in prison and death sentences for a variety of charges.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood a violent organisation?

In its early days in Egypt, the MB was involved in the active struggle against British occupation, and also cooperated with the Free Officers movement to liberate Egypt from the monarchy.

A difference of opinion arose between the Free Officers (led by Gamal Abdel Nasser) and the MB, with Abdel Nasser preferring a secular socialist country to one ruled by Islam.

An assassination attempt on Abdel Nasser in the 1950s led to the jailing of Sayed Qutb, a leading MB figure. His writings from prison advocated armed struggle against the Egyptian regime and others in order to spread the MB ideology. Qutb was executed in 1966 but his writings are used by many Islamist groups to justify armed struggle.

The MB officially renounced violence in the 1970s during the rule of Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat. They formally adopted a mandate of democracy in 1995 and their influence became apparent in professional work syndicates and social welfare work circles.

READ MORE: The Muslim Brotherhood and Trumps terror list

Has the Muslim Brotherhood ever made political gains in the Arab world?

Here are some notable cases of Muslim Brotherhood or MB-affiliated political gain.

In late 2011, Tunisias Ennahda party (an Islamist party inspired by the MB) won the first parliamentary elections to be held in the country after the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

In 2012, the Muslim Brotherhood ran a candidate in the post-Arab Spring presidential elections in Egypt. Mohamed Morsi won the election and was Egypts first democratically elected leader until a coup by the Egyptian armed forces in 2013 overthrew and jailed him along with many individuals in the MB leadership.

In Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, which was a Muslim Brotherhood party until it cut ties with the mother organisation in 2013, has a large presence in the Jordanian parliament.





In which countries is the Muslim Brotherhood active?

Other than Egypt, which is the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood, there are parties that can be considered offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood in a number of Arab countries, as they were inspired by the core tenets of MB ideology. These include Hamas in Palestine, the Ennahda party in Tunisia, and Kuwaits Islamic Constitutional Movement.

In Jordan, the Muslim Brotherhood is represented in the Islamic Action Front, the political wing that is one of the largest blocs in the Jordanian parliament. It broke formal ties with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood after the 2013 coup in Egypt. In Bahrain, the political arm of its Muslim Brotherhood group is known as the Minbar.

Not all Islamist parties are MB, a clear example of that is the Salafi movement of Egypt, which was Islamist in nature, but chose its own path in various political situations including the 2013 overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi by the armed forces in Egypt.

Which countries call the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation?

To date, the countries that have labelled the MB as a terrorist organisation are: Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.

Why do Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates dislike the Muslim Brotherhood?

In 2013, Saudi rulers threw their weight behind Egypts brutal crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters. In March 2014, the kingdom designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.

Analysts have concluded that a brand of Sunni Islamism that called for political participation and electoral legitimacy, of which the Muslim Brotherhood is perhaps the best example, was seen as almost an existential threat, because it offered a different model of Islamist politics to that of the Saudi state.
The visit of Donald Trump to Israel and Palestine showed that the return to negotiations will not be easy. But at the same time it made everyone realise that neither Palestinians nor Israelis are willing to refuse or ignore the wishes of the new resident of the White House.

The fact that both parties understand the dangers of rejecting gestures from Washington provides a unique opportunity for the Trump administration to provide a blueprint for a solution. This requires a change in approach, something that President Trump has said in Saudi Arabia that he is open to.





Instead of working hard to get the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table, what the US president needs to do now is to huddle with his advisers, look up the archives of many of the nearly agreed plans and devise a Trump plan.

Such a plan, if it is fair and generally in synch with accepted international guidelines, should be announced unilaterally by the White House and even presented to the UN Security Council for ratification. The parties will then be asked to implement a plan instead of creating one. If Israel refuses to do so, someone will remind them that the state of Israel was established following a UN resolution in 1947  something Jews in Tel Aviv celebrate to this day.

This process may be arduous, but it will probably be much more effective than trying to accommodate preconditions of all parties and working on useless and unimportant confidence-building measures. Some of these supposed confidence-building measures are nothing more than attempts to avoid dealing with the main issues that separate the two sides.

OPINION: Palestinians expect nothing good from Trump

The basic plan for a Palestinian-Israeli deal already exists. It calls for a contiguous, independent Palestinian state roughly within the 1967 borders with some land swaps. It also calls for Jerusalem to be an open city and capital to both states, and a fair solution to the refugee problem. In fact this is pretty much what the Arab Peace initiative, which has been awaiting Israeli response since 2002, states.

Based on so many lost opportunities, it is clear today that the most efficient way forward is not pressuring the parties to go back to direct talks. by

This is not to say that some of the details are not important. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, the two major sources of disagreement were the issue of the return of the refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The latter being the one that is more difficult.

On the refugee issue, the Clinton Parameters called for Israel to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees over ten years under a family reunification scheme.

On Jerusalem, the parameters suggested that Arab neighbourhoods of the city were included into the state of Palestine, that Jewish ones were part of Israel and that the old city was governed under a special arrangement.

While Palestinians accept that the city should be open and the holy sites should be available to followers of different faiths, Israel has been adamant about not sharing the holy city with anyone else.

Today, with such an international vision already on the table, the parties should be asked, cajoled and pressed to sit down and work out the details of implementing it rather than waste their time in talks ad nauseam on what the result of the talks should be.

The fact that neither side wants to anger Donald Trump might be useful in this instance.

OPINION: Donald Trump and the death of the two-state solution

While the issue of settlements is important, it is mostly an internal Israeli problem. It is understood that the bulk of settlers living near the green line would be absorbed into Israel, but settlements around the West Bank and especially in the centre of Hebron pose a bigger challenge to the success of any peace plan.

Palestinians have accepted that settlers can live in the state of Palestine as long as they are not living on stolen Palestinian land and they abide fully to the sovereign Palestinian government.

The challenges listed above reflect the complexity of the problem that Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt are facing as they get into the details of peacemaking.

Based on so many lost opportunities, it is clear today that the most efficient way forward is not pressuring the parties to go back to direct talks. Instead, the US and the international community should act as an active facilitator rather than a neutral observer in this conflict. The US should be cognizant of international law and fairness while facilitating a deal, since it knows very well that a bad and unfair deal will not stand the test of time.

One possible interim way to break the logjam might be to agree to a plan to end the occupation and to place the occupied territories under a third party trusteeship for a short and agreed-to transitional period.

The UN, the US, and NATO, as well as other international forces, can be made available to safeguard the occupied territories during this transitional period.

While the Trump administration is keen on getting the talks started, it should give serious consideration to a new strategy. Instead of leaving everything to the parties to the conflict that are negotiating on uneven ground, the US should adapt a more creative strategy. Reversing US foreign policy on this issue and beginning with an endgame plan and a timeline would allow everyone involved in the conflict to know where the peace process is going. This would be a much smarter and practicable path for President Trump to follow, if he really wants to oversee the ultimate deal.

Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist, is a former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
After 50 years of Israeli war crimes on Palestinian land, the world has to act and ban Israeli settlement goods.

Everyone has a right to live in his home and no one may uproot him.

These were the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Knesset event this week marking 50 years of Israels military occupation of the Palestinian territories in which he vowed to strengthen Israels settlement enterprise.

The right elucidated in Netanyahus speech, it would appear, however, does not extend to Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Israels unlawful construction and expansion of settlements and their related infrastructure on Palestinian soil is one of the most defining features of Israels occupation and has bred mass violations against Palestinians over the past five decades.

Tens of thousands of Palestinian homes and properties have been demolished displacing entire communities from their homes and at least 100,000 hectares of land have been seized for Israels settlement project, including for construction and agricultural use.

INTERACTIVE: Palestine in motion

Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land do not just amount to war crimes under international law, they violate fundamental principles of international law triggering additional responsibilities among all states.

Yet, for decades, Israel has openly defied international law by ruthlessly pursuing its settlement expansion.

Palestinian natural resources such as fertile land, water and minerals have been extensively and unlawfully appropriated to sustain the Israeli settlements. At the same time, Israel has imposed restrictions on Palestinians access to  and use of  water, land and other natural resources, as well as restricting Palestinians freedom of movement, tearing families apart, stopping farmers from accessing their farmland and preventing people getting to work or earning a living.

Over the years, as the Palestinian economy has steadily declined under the strain of these restrictions Israel has simultaneously built a multibillion-dollar business out of Palestinian suffering  exporting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of settlement goods internationally each year.





This thriving enterprise helps to sustain the presence and the expansion of settlements and is a key driving force for the systematic violations we continue to witness against Palestinians today. For five decades, the world has stood by and watched as Israel has exploited Palestinian people, land and natural resources for profit to support its illegal settlement expansion, offering little more than condemnation of Israels unlawful acts.

International lack of action

Unless concerted international action is taken to stop and remove settlements, the already dire human rights situation for Palestinians in the occupied territories will only get worse.

Under international law, states have an obligation not to recognise nor to render aid or assistance to the illegal situation created by Israeli settlements  yet many states continue to allow imports from settlements and permit their companies to operate on occupied Palestinian land.

The vast majority of states, including all EU member states, publicly acknowledge Israeli settlements as illegal under international law and have been nearly unanimous in their condemnation of the settlement project.

There have also been many UN resolutions passed demanding an end to settlement construction and expansion. As early as 1980, UN Security Council Resolution 465 called on all states not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connection with settlements in the occupied territories.

Yet, time and again, the global condemnation of Israels settlement policy has fallen on deaf ears. Israel has repeatedly made it clear that it couldnt care less what the world thinks and is doggedly determined to continue its expansion of settlements in flagrant violation of international law.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus speech pledging his continued commitment to expanding settlements proves just that. Israels military-run Civil Administration is also set to approve thousands of new homes in existing settlements in the occupied West Bank announced earlier this year as well as plans to establish two new settlements, the first in years.

Ban settlement goods

It has become increasingly evident that merely condemning Israels settlement expansion is not enough. Thats why, to mark the 50 years of occupation Amnesty International is making a call, for the first time in the organisations history, on governments worldwide to uphold their obligations by banning settlement goods from their markets and putting in place laws and regulations to stop their companies from operating in settlements or trading in settlement goods.

Governments worldwide have the responsibility to ensure that goods grown, produced or manufactured on stolen Palestinian land do not end up on our supermarket shelves. They have to show that their verbal condemnation of Israel is more than hot air. Failure of states to do so would undermine the legal principles that they claim to uphold.

Fifty years on its easy to feel helpless about what can be done to address decades of injustice and Israeli violations against Palestinians. Banning settlement goods and stopping companies from operating in settlements are concrete steps that governments must take to meet their international obligations and to help to end an inherently discriminatory system that has brought suffering to millions of Palestinians.

Philip Luther is Amnesty Internationals Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Despite recent setbacks, if we work together, we still have a chance to make our oceans great again.

Aban Marker Kabraji is the Regional Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Asia.

Covering more than 70 percent of our earths surface and home to 700,000 to two million species, the ocean is the lifeblood of our planet. Besides bringing a sense of serenity through the gentle  albeit sometimes roaring  rhythm of its waves, the deep blue sea employs millions of workers, feeds billions of people and generates trillions of dollars of the worlds economy.





However, despite having such a profound effect on our lives, oceans are often taken for granted. As vast as they may seem, the resources provided by our oceans are finite.

In recent decades, threats such as unsustainable and illegal fishing, tourism and climate change have increasingly threatened coastal and marine resources.

In Asia, where more than 30 million people rely on these resources for their livelihoods, the stakes are high.

While the regions exponential economic growth has benefitted its communities through higher incomes and a better quality of life, ever-increasing commercial, agricultural and industrial activity has also exacerbated threats to the regions ecosystems. 95 percent of Southeast Asian coral reefs are at risk of being destroyed and over 80 ocean species in the region are listed as critically endangered and endangered.

Scientists have warned that, as increasing amounts of carbon dioxide are absorbed by our oceans, seawater is becoming more acidic, threatening aquatic ecosystems and organisms.

OPINION: Science doesnt care if you believe in it or not

But tides might actually be turning.

The Paris Climate Agreement has united many nations in the common cause of tackling climate change by limiting global carbon emissions and thereby protecting our oceans.

Through progressive and forward-thinking policies, commitments from industrialised and developing nations alike, and a multi-sectorial approach that harnesses advancements in science, finance and development, we actually stand a chance to make our oceans truly great again. by

The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has made it crystal-clear that a commitment to the conservation of oceans is necessary to secure a better future for all, through Sustainable Development Goal 14  Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.

One way to protect our vital ocean ecosystems is to increase the number, size and management effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

MPAs are established to preserve not only coastal and marine terrain, water and the genetic diversity of associated flora and fauna, but also historical and cultural heritage.

It is important that the boundaries of MPAs are delineated through multi-stakeholder consultation and consensus, so that encroachment becomes less likely and enforcement becomes more effective. Local communities, which have traditional knowledge of their natural resources, also need to be involved in the governance of their ecosystems to relieve the pressure on both nature and governments.

In Pakistan, Astola Island is shaping up to be the first MPA in the country. At the IUCN World Conservation Congress last September, a motion was adopted to declare the island an MPA. Since then, a situational analysis of the island has been undertaken. The next steps will be to ensure that local communities and other stakeholders at the grassroots level are included in the governance and decision-making processes related to the establishment of the new MPA.

This week, at the UN Ocean Conference in New York, IUCN will be joining the government of Pakistan as it reaffirms its pledge to protect Astola Island, thereby fulfilling its commitment at the Congress to designate at least one site in Pakistans territorial waters as an MPA by 2020.

Studies have shown that small MPAs that are well-managed and well-enforced are facilitating resources recovery, sustaining fisheries, improving livelihoods and promoting sustainable tourism. Yet, while MPAs can be very effective in the conservation and management of our oceans, they cannot address all threats to marine life. Complementary actions need to be implemented in parallel to make fishing and aquaculture sustainable, address climate change and reduce marine pollution.

OPINION: Gender equality  A game changer for nature

Governments, intergovernmental and civil society organisations alike need to make more efforts to further improve the resilience of coastal ecosystems, support the livelihoods of millions of people, and increase carbon storage capacity by protecting and restoring coastal and marine habitats.

This years theme for World Oceans Day is Our oceans, our future. Despite recent setbacks such as the US administrations decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, many other nations remain committed to the Paris Accord. Through progressive and forward-thinking policies, commitments from industrialised and developing nations alike, and a multisectorial approach that harnesses advancements in science, finance and development, we actually stand a chance to make our oceans truly great again.

Aban Marker Kabraji is the Regional Director of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Asia. She provides strategic leadership for IUCNs work in Asia region. This includes oversight of 11 country offices with 275 staff and some 70 environmental initiatives.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
The websites and digital platforms of Al Jazeera Media Network are undergoing systematic and continual hacking attempts.

These attempts are gaining intensity and taking various forms. However, the platforms have not been compromised.

Last month, Qatars official news agency was hacked and false statements attributed to the countrys ruler were posted that helped spark a rift with other Arab Gulf states.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and several other countries cut their ties with Doha on Monday partly because of the comments briefly posted on the Qatar News Agency.

The fake report said Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in a speech at a military graduation ceremony, was critical of renewed tensions with Iran, expressed the need for contextualising Hezbollah and Hamas as resistance movements, and suggested US President Donald Trump might not last long in power.

A Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) team has been in Doha for the past week after the Qatari government asked the US for help following the security breach by hackers.

Qatars Ministry of Interior said it would release the full findings once the investigation is complete, but did not say when that would be.
Massive explosion goes off as workers were making firecrackers at factory in Madhya Pradesh state.

At least 25 people were killed and several others injured in an explosion at a fireworks factory in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, police said on Thursday.

The blast occurred on Wednesday afternoon when a blaze engulfed the factory in Balaghat district.

Dozens of workers managed to escape unhurt as firefighters brought the fire under control in two hours.

The blast was so powerful that its sound could be heard five kilometres from the site, Balaghat Police Chief Amit Sanghi said.

Another five were being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, while the condition of two was critical.

Police said the cause of the blast was not immediately known and was being investigated.

READ MORE: Manufacturing discontent  Indias workers in crisis

However, it was most likely triggered by a worker who may have callously tossed a lit cigarette butt in the premises.

The rescue operation is over now. We have cleared the place and thankfully no one is trapped inside, local administrative chief Bharat Yadav told the AFP news agency from the site of the blast.

Police have lodged a criminal case against the factory owner.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, announced compensation of about $3,000 for the families of the deceased.

India has a huge demand for firecrackers, which are used in religious festivals and weddings.

Workplace accidents are common in Indian fireworks factories, where inadequate safety standards and lax enforcement of regulations have led to horrific deaths.

Local media reported that at least 11 people were killed in similar accidents in Madhya Pradesh in April.
Attacks in Maiduguri city occurred while soldiers were trying to repel another group of Boko Haram fighters.

At least 11 people have been killed and several others injured after Boko Haram fighters launched a series of attacks in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, according to police.

Damian Chukwu, Borno state police commissioner, said one civilian was killed as locals in the Jiddari Polo area of the city fled the fighters, while 10 were killed nearby in three separate suicide blasts on Thursday.

The fighters targeted mosques where Muslim worshippers were praying on Wednesday evening, witnesses told local media.

The attack occurred while soldiers were trying to repel another group of Boko Haram fighters, who were trying to invade the city.

READ MORE: Boko Haram feeds off corruption in Nigeria

Some suspected Boko Haram fighters attempted to attack a far off village and our troops subdued them, Sani Usman, Nigerian military spokesman, said in a statement.

The situation in Maiduguri is under control.

Fighters thought to be loyal to the groups leader Abubaker Shekau stormed the Aridawari settlement on the outskirts of the city.





Abba Shehu, a private security worker, said wounded people filled the emergency ward of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, where all beds were in use.

Maiduguri has been the epicentre of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram.

The attack comes barely a month after five commanders of the armed group were released from government custody in exchange for 82 schoolgirls, who were among the group of over 200 kidnapped by the fighters from Chikbok town three years ago.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the start of Boko Harams armed campaign in 2009.

Nigerias government and military maintain that Boko Haram is a spent force, but intermittent attacks and suicide bombings pose a constant threat, particularly in remote areas.












Polls put Corbyn between one and 12 points behind May with youth turnout expected to decide the outcome of the vote.

Campaigning for the general election in the UK is drawing to a close and millions of Britons will head to the polls within hours to choose their next government.

The general election on Thursday pits Prime Minister Theresa Mays Conservative Party against Jeremy Corbyns Labour, with the nationalist Scottish National Party expected to continue its domination in Scotland.

The centrist Liberal Democrat party has positioned itself as the party that will reject Brexit and hold a second referendum, but that platform has only earned them a modest increase in the opinion polls.

While the election was widely expected to be fought on the basis of upcoming Brexit negotiations with the European Union, two recent attacks that killed at least 30 people and wounded scores of others brought security to the top of the agenda.

Both attacks, one in Manchester and the other in London, were believed to have been inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Corbyn has attacked May for cutting police numbers during her time as home secretary and leaving the country vulnerable to threats.

UK ELECTION: Is this the NHS election?

The Conservatives for their part have attacked the Labour leader over his record on voting against anti-terror legislation.

But the election is not being fought on security issues alone, with Labours platform promising a dramatic reversal of austerity policies brought in by the Conservatives when they took power in 2010.

Our Westminster system is broken and our economy is rigged, both are run in the interests of the few, Corbyn said in a speech earlier in the campaign.

Labour is under attack because we are standing up to the elites who are determined to hijack Brexit and pay even less tax and take even more of the wealth that we all create.

The Conservatives say a government led by Labour would lead to overspending and political instability.





Its a choice between me working constantly to protect the national interest and to protect our security, and Jeremy Corbyn frankly isnt up to the job, May said.

At the start of the campaign, May marketed her next government as the strong and stable option, and according to the polls, many Britons agreed with her, with a 25 point Conservative lead over Labour.

However, Corbyn has whittled that lead down with pledges to scrap tuition fees, build a million more homes, and nationalise core industries, such as rail and energy.

Most polling companies, with the exception of YouGov, still expect May to win a majority but her lead is between one and 12 points.

The large disparity in the polls has been put down to the methodology used  particularly estimates of how many young people will turn up to vote.

Corbyn has the support of nearly three-quarters of people between the ages of 18 and 24 but the demographic also has the lowest turnout rates.

The extent to which supporters of both major parties use tactical voting to limit their opponents chances also remains a possible factor in influencing the outcome.

Whoever wins will be tasked with negotiating Britains departure from the EU, with formal talks due to start in little over a week.

Both Labour and the Conservatives have ruled out reversing the outcome of last years referendum.
Gun battle in military base in Somalias semi-autonomous Puntland region kills at least 70 soldiers.

Heavily armed al-Shabab fighters have stormed a military base in Somalias semiautonomous state of Puntland, killing close to 70 people and wounding dozens more, officials say.

The attack began with a blast at the remote Af-Urur camp, about 100km west of the commercial hub of Bossaso, before the fighters overran the base and killed soldiers at close range, said Ahmed Mohamed, a senior military official.

Close to 70 people were killed, though an exact death toll was not yet available, Mohamed said.

Abdi Hersi Ali, Puntlands interior minister, said troops suffered casualties but he declined to give further details.

Officials called it the regions deadliest attack in years, highlighting the dual challenges facing security forces from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab and the growing presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

The situation is grim over there. This attack was an unexpected one, Mohamed said.

The armed fighters, including suicide bombers, reportedly attacked the base from three directions, forcing soldiers to retreat.

Colonel Hashi Ahmed, a senior military official, told the Associated Press news agency that reinforcement troops reached the area and drove the fighters out of the camp. He estimated that at least 100 fighters were involved in the attack.

READ MORE: Farmajo calls for arms embargo end to defeat al-Shabab

Al-Shabab claimed to have killed at least 61 soldiers. They also seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition and more than a dozen military vehicles in the assault.

Puntland in northern Somalia also faces a growing threat from ISIL-linked fighters who have split from al-Shabab.

The assault came days after Puntland sentenced to death five al-Shabab members who were arrested as they drove a vehicle carrying three barrels packed with explosives into Bosaso, Puntlands capital, on April 26.

Al-Shabab, which is fighting to overthrow the internationally recognised Somali government, has launched a series of deadly incursions in neighbouring Kenya, which has contributed troops to the Somalia-based African Union peacekeeping force.
Ousted FBI director says he was fired to undermine probe into Russia-Trump collusion in 2016 presidential campaign.

Former FBI Director James Comey has accused President Donald Trump of firing him to undermine his investigation into Russias role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

Its my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Testifying under oath in a hearing watched worldwide, the former FBI boss said he believed he was dismissed to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.





Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading lies, plain and simple about him and the FBI after his abrupt sacking, by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership.

Those were lies, plain and simple, he said.

But in more than two hours of testimony, Comey would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.

Marc Kasowitz, Trumps personal attorney, said Comeys testimony finally confirmed publicly that the president was not under investigation.

He also denied that Trump had asked Comey for loyalty or to drop a FBI probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynns links with Russia.

Stunned

In his testimony, Comey said he was confused and increasingly concerned by Trumps shifting explanations for his dismissal, saying Trump had repeatedly told him he was doing a great job.

Comey said it was not for him to decide whether the presidents actions amounted to an obstruction of justice, a serious crime that could lead to impeachment. However, he called the presidents pressures a very disturbing thing, very concerning.

READ MORE: Why was James Comey so controversial?

It was a Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comeys firing, as one media leak followed another revealing Comeys claims about Trumps inappropriate interactions with him.

Alluding to an Oval Office meeting during which Comey says Trump asked him to pull back the Flynn probe, Feinstein asked: Why didnt you stop and say, Mr President, this is wrong?

Comey responded: Thats a great question  Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in.

He also described his concerns that Trump was trying to create a patronage relationship with him at a dinner during which Trump asked if he wanted to keep his job.





In a startling disclosure, Comey also revealed that he gave one of his memos about Trump to a friend of his to leak to the press in the hope that it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square, Comey said.

He told senators he had decided he must document every meeting he had with Trump, with a written record because he was honestly concerned that he [Trump] might lie about the nature of our meeting.

I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened, not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.

Kasowitz, Trumps lawyer, seized on the admission, accusing Comey of unauthorised disclosures of privileged communications with the president.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a White House spokeswoman, also hit back, telling reporters: I can definitely say the presidents not a liar.

OPINION: Comeys sacking will not be the end of President Trump

In his testimony, Comey said he leaked memos of his conversations after a tweet by the president suggested he may have taped the conversations.

Comey said he did not know if there were tapes of his conversations with Trump, but that they should be made public if they existed.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes, Comey said.

The former FBI director also stressed the intelligence communitys conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election.

There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered, Comey said firmly. That happened. Its about as unfake as you can possibly get.

Russia has denied such interference and the White House has denied any collusion.

Trump stayed off social media while the drama played out in Congress, but his son, Donald Trump Jr, fired off a series of tweets attacking Comey.
UN says it has received reports that 50-80 civilians died in Zinjili air raid, while more than 230 were killed by ISIL.

Up to 80 civilians were reportedly killed late last month in an air raid on an ISIL-held neighbourhood outside the Iraqi city of Mosul, the United Nations said on Thursday.





The UN human rights office (OHCHR) said in a statement it was seeking further information on the May 31 strike on the Zinjili district, which killed between 50 and 80 people.

A US-backed military offensive to retake ISILs last three remaining enclaves, including Zinjili, outside Mosuls Old City began nearly two weeks ago  the latest push in a major operation that began in October.

Several reports in recent weeks, including Pentagon investigations, have found that civilians have repeatedly been killed by air raids from a US-led coalition supporting Iraqi troops. The Iraqi air force has also been bombing ISIL targets.

Zeid bin Raad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged the coalition to ensure that their operations comply fully with international humanitarian law and that all possible measures are taken to avoid the loss of civilian lives.

ISIL killings

OHCHR also said there had been a significant escalation of civilian deaths by ISIL, whose fighters have targeted those trying to flee Mosul.

Credible reports indicate that more than 231 civilians attempting to flee western Mosul have been killed since 26 May, including 204 over three days last week, the agency said, reporting a much higher figure than what it had said earlier this week.

Shooting children as they try to run to safety with their families  there are no words of condemnation strong enough for such despicable acts, al-Hussein said.

I call on the Iraqi authorities to ensure that those who are responsible for these horrors are held accountable and brought to justice in line with international human rights laws and standards. The victims of such terrible crimes must not be forgotten.

READ MORE: Iraqi artist depicts life under ISIL

Bullets fell like rain

Aid groups have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the safety of hundreds of thousands of civilians at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

On Monday, UNICEF warned that 100,000 children were still in ISIL-held areas, living under extremely dangerous conditions.

Almost 10,000 people fled from Mosuls northwest and the Old City every day last week, according to UN estimates.

Mosul resident Riyadh Abdullah told the Associated Press that he and his family, along with about 200 neighbours, decided to leave their homes last Thursday after days of heavy shelling.

THE STREAM: Ramadan in Iraq

As they they neared a hospital, gunmen fired down on them, shooting Abdullah in the leg and hitting several others. Iraqi troops nearby then opened fire at the snipers.

There were bullets falling on us like rain, he said from a hospital bed in Erbil, east of Mosul.

For two days there were kids bleeding, no food, no water, under the sun. So the majority died. Nobody came to us. We were shouting but no one came, Abdullah added.

Ahmed Najim, who also fled Mosul last week, said people decided to leave after seeing the intensive shelling.

The people saw this intensive shelling, this destruction, and so they all left their homes. And thats what caused the massacre, he said.

READ MORE: Mosul civilians  Who knows who was shooting?

ISIL overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air raids have since regained much of the territory they lost to the group.

Iraqi forces launched a major operation to retake Mosul in October last year, fighting their way to the city and retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely populated west.

The eastern half of Mosul was recaptured in January and the push for the citys western section, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began the following month.

More than 750,000 people have been displaced from the city since October.
Poll by broadcasters shows Tories in lead after tumultuous campaign brought to a halt twice by ISIL-inspired attacks.

Polls have closed in the UK and an exit poll by British broadcasters points to the Conservative Party being the largest in the country.

A joint poll by BBC, Sky, and ITV news said the ruling party of Prime Minister Theresa May had won 314 seats with Jeremy Corbyns Labour Party winning 266 seats, which means Mays party will fall short of a majority in the parliament.





In Scotland, the nationalist Scottish National Party (SNP) continued to dominate, according to the poll, and would bag 34 seats.

With the exit poll announced, attention will now turn to individual results coming in, especially from key marginals and bellwether constituencies such as Croydon Central and Nuneaton.

In 2015, exit polls correctly predicted big Conservative gains when most analysts thought a deadlocked hung parliament was an inevitability.

The exit poll for the 1992 contest is infamously remembered for predicting that Labour would win most seats but the Conservatives ended the night with a majority of 10.

The 2017 campaign was called ostensibly to give May a comfortable enough majority to allow her to pursue the Brexit deal of her liking.

UK ELECTION: Is this the NHS election?

However, after two attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) group, focus quickly turned to security.

The attacks in the northern city of Manchester and the capital, London, killed at least 30 people and wounded scores more.

Campaigning was halted in their aftermath but the leading candidates attacked each other on their record on countering such threats.

Corbyn said Mays cut to police numbers had left the country vulnerable to attack, while May attacked the Labour leader over his record of voting against anti-terror legislation.

When the campaign began, Mays party enjoyed a 25-point lead over Labour, but the gap narrowed to as close as one point in one poll.

As in other recent elections, the polls themselves became a talking point as different companies reported wildly different results.

The gap going into the final day ranged between one and 12 points.

Different visions

The election was notable in that the leading parties were offering radically different visions of how the UK should be governed, with differences over the economy, education and key services.

Corbyn has promised to nationalise key industries, scrap tuition fees and build a million new homes, as well as taking an approach to Brexit that is less hostile to the EU.

Corbyn accuses the Conservatives of ruling for the benefit of the countrys elite and promised to govern for the many.

Our Westminster system is broken and our economy is rigged. Both are run in the interests of the few, he said in a speech earlier in the campaign.

.@Theresa_May, you cannot protect communities on the cheap and by disregarding the views of the police. They've been warning you since 2011. pic.twitter.com/bq8Dqs9APF  Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) June 8, 2017

May has threatened to walk away from talks if the EU does not offer an adequate deal, and domestically showed no sign of ending austerity policies.

Before the end of the campaign, she said voters had to choose between me working constantly to protect the national interest and to protect our security, and Jeremy Corbyn who frankly isnt up to the job.

Those divisions were on display outside polling stations across the country, among people Al Jazeera spoke to.

In the central English city of Leicester, a man in his fifties named Robert said he had never voted but felt compelled to this time.

I dont like the Conservatives and the way they have reacted to several issues, he said.

Cast my vote with Philip and going to catch up with our campaign locally. Every vote counts  so please #VoteConservative in your area. pic.twitter.com/jpO6tD3OrT  Theresa May (@theresa_may) June 8, 2017

Ive never voted before. This is the first time Im voting and its because of the way Brexit is being handled.

The way the Conservatives talk about immigration, their warmongering and so on.

Not soon after he had left the polling station in the Labour stronghold, Lydia, a Conservative supporter, told Al Jazeera her choice came down to Brexit.

I dont trust Labour with Brexit at all. Theres only May who can get us a good deal on Europe. We had a vote and people decided and its wrong to go back on that.

With opinion so divided on the issue and talks due to start with the EU in a matter of days, the issue may be a thorn in the side of the party that takes power next.
Gulf crisis continues to escalate despite efforts by US and Kuwait to calm rising tensions among GCC member states.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) threatened to impose an economic embargo against Qatar while Bahrain said any options were on the table as the crisis in the Gulf showed no signs of abating on Thursday.

The tough talk from the Gulf Cooperation Council members came on Wednesday despite efforts by US President Donald Trump and Kuwaits emir to prevent a further escalation of the dispute, which started on Monday when Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain, along with Egypt, announced they were severing diplomatic relations with fellow GCC country Qatar.

UAE Foreign Affairs Minister Anwar Gargash told Reuters news agency there would be more economic curbs on Qatar if necessary, and said Doha needed to make ironclad commitments to change what he claimed was a policy of funding armed groups.

Qatari officials have repeatedly denied the allegations.

Gargash later told France 24 television any further steps could take the form of a sort of embargo on Qatar.

READ MORE: Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates

Kuwaits ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, travelled from the UAE to Qatar on Wednesday after visiting Saudi Arabia the day before to resolve the crisis.





But in some of the strongest comments yet, Bahrains foreign minister, Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, reportedly told the Saudi newspaper Mecca he doubted whether Qatar would change its behaviour.

We will not hesitate to protect our interests and the road is open to any options to protect ourselves from Qatar, Sheikh Khalid was quoted as saying.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and several other countries cut their ties with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting armed groups and their regional rival, Iran  charges Qatar says are baseless.

Gargash said measures taken against Qatar this week were not aimed at seeking new leadership in Doha.

This is not about regime change  this is about change of policy, change of approach, Gargash told AFP news agency in Dubai.

After apparently showing support for the moves against Qatar in tweets sent on Tuesday, Trump on Wednesday called Qatars Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and later UAEs Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to calm the situation.

READ MORE: Turkish parliament approves troop deployment in Qatar

Trump even suggested a White House meeting among Gulf officials to resolve the crisis.

First, and most importantly, the leaders agreed on the importance of implementing agreements reached in Riyadh to counter extremism and to combat the funding of terrorist groups, a White House statement said on the talks between Trump and Al Nahyan.





Additionally, the president emphasised the importance of maintaining a united Gulf Cooperation Council to promote regional stability, but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism, it added.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf states could resolve the row with Qatar among themselves without outside help.

We have not asked for mediation, we believe this issue can be dealt with among the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, he told a news conference in Berlin.

Jubeir declined to confirm a list of 10 demands published by Al Jazeera, which included shutting down the Doha-based news channel but added that Qatar knew what it needed to do to restore normal relations.

READ MORE: Qatar reveals preliminary results of QNA hacking probe

In a sign of economic damage from the dispute, Standard & Poors downgraded Qatars debt on Wednesday as the countrys riyal currency fell to an 11-year low amid signs that portfolio investment funds were flowing out because of the rift.

S&P cut its long-term rating of Qatar by one notch to AA- from AA and put the rating on CreditWatch with negative implications, meaning there was a significant chance of a further downgrade.

Qatars Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, played down news reports that its military forces were put on high alert on the countrys southern border with Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of Defence is always on alert to protect the borders of the state of Qatar from a 360-degree approach  land, sea and air  24 hours a day, every day of the year, said a ministry statement sent to Al Jazeera.
Foreign minister Javad Zarif rejects statement by US president that Iran fell victim to the evil they promote.

Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called US President Donald Trumps reaction to deadly attacks in Tehran repugnant, as intelligence officials said that the five attackers were Iranians who had fought for ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini  leader of the 1979 revolution  in the capital, Tehran.

Repugnant [White House] statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship, Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

He was responding to a statement released by Trumps press secretarys office, which took the opportunity of an attack to make a point that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship  Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 8, 2017

The White House statement, which mentioned how Iranian people were going through such challenging times, came as the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, partly for what the bill described as Irans support for acts of international terrorism.

What kind of terrorism these statements refer to remains vague. Trump has long accused Iran of backing terrorism and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between the Iranian government and major western powers.

Trumps comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their governments offers of support and candlelit vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York.

Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while theyre down. Classy, tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

Attackers fought for ISIL

More than 40 people were also wounded in Wednesdays attacks.

A statement by the intelligence ministry issued on Thursday said that the men who carried out the twin attacks had left Iran to fight for ISIL in the Iraqi city of Mosul, as well as Raqqa, in Syria  the armed groups de facto capital  before returning last summer.

It identified the men only by their first names, saying they did not want to release their last names owing to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The assault marks the first attacks claimed by ISIL in Iran.





Iranian security officials counter that it is their regional rival Saudi Arabia, a close US ally, that is responsible for funding and spreading the ideology that most closely resembles ISILs.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard weighed Saudi Arabia of being behind Wednesdays attacks.

The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack, the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement, referring to Saudi Arabia.

The statement also said that the spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged.
Officials in Iraqs autonomous Kurdish region have announced that the northern territory will hold an independence referendum on September 25.

Masoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), announced the vote on Twitter on Wednesday.

I am pleased to announce that the date for the independence referendum has been set for Monday, September 25, 2017https://t.co/Woj0JuYZNE  Masoud Barzani (@masoud_barzani) June 7, 2017

Hamin Hawrami, a senior presidential adviser, said on his own Twitter account that the decision follows a meeting of the major Kurdish political parties in Erbil, the regions capital.

The referendum on whether to secede from Iraq will be held in the three governorates that make up the Kurdish region and in the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Iraqi governments but are currently under Kurdish military control.





The disputed areas include swaths of northern territory that are claimed by both Kurdish Iraq and Baghdad, including the key oil-rich province of Kirkuk.

Opposition in Baghdad to Kurdish Iraq becoming independent would become even greater if the region tried to take disputed territory along with it.

READ MORE: Iraqi Kurdistan  Playing the independence game

But it is not clear whether a Yes vote, which is expected to be the result, will lead to the declaration of independence.

While the concept of Kurdish independence has broad appeal among Iraqi Kurds, they themselves remain deeply divided politically, which could lead to paralysis in a new state.

The Iraqi government has so far not reacted to the announcement. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in April that he respected the Kurdish right to vote on independence, but he did not think the timing was right for the move.

The key fundamental issue we have, is that there is a lack of partnership [with Baghdad], Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the KRGs representative to the US, told Al Jazeera.





She said that if Kurds do vote in favour of independence and actively pursue it, then they will seek a future relationship with Baghdad in which they are each others biggest trade partner, [with] agreements on security, banking, finance, currencies, economic trade, and many others.

Iraqs Kurdish region, with a population of about five million, already enjoys a high degree of autonomy, including its own parliament and armed forces.

But relations with the central government in Baghdad have nosedived in recent years over a range of issues.

These include the sharing of oil revenues and the control of some areas that are technically part of federal Iraq but have come under Kurdish control since 2014 during the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Neighbouring states like Turkey, Syria and Iran, which all have large and sometimes restive Kurdish populations, have in the past resisted moves towards Kurdish independence.

Kurdistan exports most of its oil via a pipeline leading to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, but also overland through Turkey by tanker truck.

Potential opposition from Turkey could thus pose a major economic as well as political challenge to Iraqi Kurdish independence.
Reporters Without Borders condemns countries for shutting down offices of the Doha-based media network.

Reporters Without Borders condemned Arab countries for targeting the Al Jazeera Media Network, saying the broadcaster was a collateral victim of [the] diplomatic offensive against Qatar.

The media rights group slammed Saudi Arabia on Wednesday for closing Al Jazeeras office in Riyadh and revoking its operating licence. Jordan, which has lowered the level of its diplomatic representation in Doha, closed the Amman office of the Doha-based television news channel on Tuesday.

Closing Al Jazeeras bureaux is a political decision that amounts to censoring this TV broadcaster, Alexandra El Khazen, the head of the groups Middle East desk, said in a statement.





El Khazen singled out Saudi Arabia.

This violation of the freedom to inform compounds the countrys already very bad record on free speech and media freedom. We urge the Saudi authorities to rescind this decision and to let Al Jazeera resume operating, she said.

The decision to close Al Jazeeras office in the Saudi capital came hours after Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on Monday announced they were severing all ties with Qatar over its alleged support of extremism.

Egypt quickly followed suit and other countries have also done so in the days since.

Egypt shut down Al Jazeera in 2013 and seized equipment out of its Cairo office. The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has also locked up Al Jazeera journalists, some for years, including Mahmoud Hussein who has spent 169 days in prison.

The countries targeting Qatar have reportedly issued a list of 10 demands, which include shutting down Al Jazeera.

This is not the first time that Saudi authorities have imposed such restrictions on Al Jazeeras operations We firmly believe these are unjustified measures, Al Jazeera said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia is ranked 168th out of 180 countries in Reporter Without Borders 2017 World Press Freedom Index.

READ MORE: Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates

Reporters Without Borders said the Gulf diplomatic crisis and the crackdown against Al Jazeera are having repercussions throughout the region, including in Jerusalem.

Individuals led by Israeli far-right activist Baruch Marzel stormed into the building that houses the Al Jazeera bureau in East Jerusalem on Tuesday, accusing the broadcaster of being allied to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group and demanding its closure, the media rights group said.
A series of trade and movement measures against Qatar imposed by neighbouring countries are against human rights before anything else, a senior Turkish official has told Al Jazeera.

Ravza Kavakci Kan, deputy chairperson of Turkeys ruling party AK Party, said that Ankara would work closely with Qatar for people living there not to be left without necessary food and water supplies, after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut trade and diplomatic ties with Doha.

Other measures against Qatar, which relies heavily on food imports, included the closing of airspace, land border and maritime territories.

Kavakci Kan, who is also a member of Turkeys foreign affairs parliamentary committee, said that Ankara would honour its commitments with Qatar and the two countries relationship would not change.





Countries who stayed silent while massacres were carried out in Syria, while babies were killed in [the Syrian city of] Idlib, are now doing this, not to another country, but specifically to Qatar for a reason we cannot understand, she said.

This is against human rights.

In the most serious split between the Gulf Arab states in decades, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting and financing extremist groups and destabilising the region. Qatar has strongly denied the allegations.

They were gradually followed by Egypt, Yemen, the eastern government of Libya, Maldives, Mauritius, Mauritania, and Senegal. Jordan and Djibouti downgraded diplomatic relations with Qatar.

Kavakci Kan told Al Jazeera that Turkey would continue to cooperate with all the countries in the region to resolve the issue, adding that Saudi-Turkish relations would not be affected negatively by the latest developments.

READ MORE: Why is Turkey deploying troops to Qatar?

Turkey will try to work as a mediator to resolve the problem through diplomacy, as it did in other regional issues such as the situation in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticised the moves against Qatar on Wednesday.

Isolating Qatar, which is putting up an efficient fight against terrorism, will not resolve any problem. I hope the sanctions against Qatar will be withdrawn as soon as possible, Erdogan said in a speech.

Turkey and Qatar are close allies in foreign policy issues in various parts of the region, such as Palestine, Syria and Egypt.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group. Saudi Arabia fighter jets join anti-ISIL operations through Turkeys Incirlik airbase.

Turkeys parliament on Wednesday fast-tracked the approval of a bill that allows troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar. It also endorsed another agreement that allows the Turkish military to train Qatari security forces.

Umut Uras is on Twitter, follow him on @Um_Uras
Chinese-made Y-8-200F transport plane vanished on Wednesday over the Andaman Sea with 122 soldiers and family members.

Several bodies and debris were found in the water after a Myanmar military plane vanished over the Andaman Sea with 122 soldiers, family members and crew on board, the countrys army said in a statement.

The Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft disappeared on Wednesday afternoon about a half-hour after leaving Myeik, also known as Mergui, for Yangon on a route that would have taken it over the Andaman Sea.

The army said on Thursday that 10 corpses, including five children and four women, had been retrieved so far from the sea.

A plane wheel, two life jackets and some bags with clothes  believed to be from the missing plane  was also found, the statement also said.

We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8:25am [01:55 GMT], a spokesman for the militarys information team told the AFP news agency.

Some were on their way for medical check-ups and to attend school, said a spokesman from the militarys information team.

There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update, the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members.

The contact with the plane was lost about a half-hour into the flight, around 1:35pm (7:05 GMT) on Wednesday.

Experienced pilot

The military named the captain of the Chinese-made Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience. He was accompanied by two co-pilots.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours. It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.

Myanmars military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
Foreign minister says Qatar has never experienced such hostility even from an enemy country.

Qatar will never surrender to the pressure being applied by its Arab neighbours and wont change its independent foreign policy to resolve disputes that have put the region on edge, Qatars foreign minister has told Al Jazeera.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani made the remarks in Doha on Thursday, just days after Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and several other countries cut relations with Qatar.

They accuse Qatar of supporting armed groups and their regional rival, Iran. Qatar says the charges are baseless.

We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said.

He also said Qatars Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani would not leave the country while it was in blockade, and therefore could not attend an offered mediation by US President Donald Trump at the White House.

READ MORE: Qatar diplomatic crisis  All the latest updates

Al Jazeeras Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Doha, said Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman was defiant and stressed that Qatar could live under embargo for ever.

He said Qatar has the backing of the international community and that they will manage to mitigate the consequences of this crisis, our correspondent said.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said that measures had been taken by the Qatari government to ensure that the standards provided to the people will be maintained.

He said Qatar had not yet been presented with a list of demands by the countries that cut off ties with the country on Monday, but he insisted it be solved by peaceful means.

There cannot ever be a military solution to this problem, he said.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman further said that the contingent of Turkish troops set to deploy to Qatar was for the sake of the entire regions security.

LNG gas agreements

Meanwhile, Qatar will respect the LNG gas agreements it has made with the UAE despite its cutting off relations with Doha, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said.

He said Iran has told Qatar it is ready to help with securing food supplies and will designate three of its ports to Qatar, but the offer has not yet been accepted.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahmans comments came a day after a high-level UAE government official told AFP news agency that the unprecedented measures against Qatar aim to pressure the country into making drastic policy changes.

READ MORE: Moves against Qatar violate human rights

Accusing the Qatari government of being in denial, Anwar Gargash, UAE state minister for foreign affairs, said: This is not about regime change  this is about change of policy, change of approach.

The four Arab countries have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has also closed off Qatars only land border.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a pre-existing dispute which saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Donald Trump green-lighting weapon sales withheld by Obama over concerns about Saudi Arabias conduct of war in Yemen.

Washington, DC  President Donald Trumps highly touted deal to sell Saudi Arabia $110bn in weapons from the United States is coming under new scrutiny in Washington, DC, where politicians are increasingly concerned about the kingdoms conduct of the war in Yemen and, now, the sudden blockade of Qatar.

As details have emerged about the arms sale, its become clear the $110bn value Trump claimed is exaggerated. The new sales are actually just proposed offers and most of the underlying weapons systems were previously organised under former President Barack Obama.

Congress is poised to vote in the coming days on a resolution of disapproval of a portion of the announced deal. US law gives Congress the right to veto arms sales to foreign countries. While Republican lawmakers are likely to support their president, the resolution will draw more than 40 supporters in the Senate, more than previous measures and a sign of trouble for Riyadh.

The $110 billion is definitely inflated, but its not zero, said William Hartung, an arms trade analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington, DC.





Its very hard to evaluate. They havent been very specific about some of the categories they are talking about, Hartung told Al Jazeera.

What is new is Trumps offer to Saudi Arabia of the US hi-tech THAAD missile defence system, now being deployed in South Korea, and the proposed future sale of 150 Blackhawk combat helicopters, as well as new cyber-warfare capabilities. These are all future propositions, analysts say.

More practically and immediately, Trump is green-lighting sales of precision-guided, air-to-ground missiles that Obama had withheld because of concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and civilian casualties.

In addition, Trump is moving forward to replenish and expand the Saudi supply of battle tanks and armoured vehicles, replacing equipment damaged in the Yemen conflict.

The Saudis are in a war in Yemen and they need weapons. You want to win, you need weapons, Senator John McCain, a Republican, told Al Jazeera. We are in a war.

Separately, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon both announced major sales in connection with Trumps trip. But this seems more in the nature of a promise than a finished deal, Hartung said.

READ MORE: Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates

Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, published a blog post earlier this week saying Trumps announced weapons deal with Saudi Arabia was fake news.

There is no $110bn deal, Riedel said. Instead there are a bunch of letters of intent, but not contracts.

About $24bn of the claimed $110bn in Trumps deal are weapons sales that were already in the pipeline, analysts say. Obama had offered Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states new military assistance to gain their acquiescence to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.

Trump attempted to score political points at home with the agreement, announced during his visit to Riyadh, by touting the economic value of US defence contractors. He claimed it would create many thousands of jobs.

Previously announced sales included more than $7bn in munitions and support for the war in Yemen, $3.5bn in Chinook cargo helicopters, and $1.15bn in tanks and armoured vehicles, according to a fact sheet put out May 20 by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.





That $110 billion is a mix of old sales and future prospective sales that have not been announced or signed, Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, told Al Jazeera.

Four US senators led by Murphy are demanding a Senate vote to reject that portion of the arms sales related to guided missiles that Obama would not have approved. A companion measure is pending in the House of Representatives.

Citing the suffering of civilians in Yemens war, US Senator Ben Cardin said on Wednesday he would oppose arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

He noted the catastrophic humanitarian crisis with millions of Yemenis on the brink of famine, and hundreds of thousands at risk from a cholera outbreak.

Given this deplorable context, I am disappointed that we have yet to learn of the administrations strategy to support a political process, or any statement from the administration that more military action in Yemen is counterproductive, will disproportionally affect civilians, and will likely generate conditions for expanded activities by al-Qaeda and Iran, as well as Russian influence. Instead, this administrations approach appears to be more weapons sales, Cardin said in a statement.

With Saudi Arabias surprise move against Qatar, positions of senators on Murphys resolution are shifting hour to hour, said Trevor Thrall, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think-tank.

It means something different to vote against this resolution now than it did a few days ago. Now a vote against it looks like it is more of a blank cheque to Saudi Arabia, Thrall told Al Jazeera.

READ MORE: US and Saudi Arabia sign arms deals worth almost $110bn

Trumps speech to a gathering of Muslim leaders in Riyadh on May 21 was widely interpreted as a signal the new US president would not raise human rights issues. Instead, the US will focus on combating terrorism, for which Trump placed primary blame on Iran in the speech.

Middle East experts in Washington were scrambling to understand what prompted the Saudi move and how Trumps conduct may have encouraged it. Qatar is a US ally and host of a major military airbase, the biggest in the Middle East.

Its possible just his blanket endorsement of the Saudis may have emboldened them to do something theyve been wanting to do for a while. And they are certainly hoping to escalate the tensions with Iran. I dont think they thought Qatar was on board with that, Hartung said.
Forcing 11,387 citizens of Saudi, Bahrain and UAE from Doha amid Gulf rift is a step against freedom, rights group says.

Doha, Qatar  Qatars National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) has expressed concern for the wellbeing of thousands of nationals of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) living in Doha, and for Qataris living in the Gulf region, in the wake of a major diplomatic fallout.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE, along with several other countries, on Monday severed ties with Qatar, claiming that Doha was funding banned armed groups. Qatar strongly rejects these charges.

The three Gulf states also ordered Qatari citizens to leave the countries and demanded their nationals living in the peninsula return.

At a news conference held on Thursday in the Qatari capital, Doha, the NHRC said it was alarmed over the violation of human rights, with measures against Qatar issued on Monday including recalling citizens.

READ MORE: Qatar-Gulf crisis  Who are the terrorists?

These steps were clear and blatant violations of human rights that impacted peoples freedom of movement, freedom to work, access to health and the right to property, said Ali bin Smaikh al Marri, NHRC chair.

These steps result in tearing up families, disrupting businesses and interrupting students education across the region.

Al Marri estimated that 8,254 Saudi, 784 Emirati, and 2,349 Bharani citizens live in Qatar.

All of them will be forced to leave their jobs or face punishment and legal consequences by their governments, he said.

While Qatar has not asked Saudi, Emirati or Bahraini citizens to leave Doha, the three countries demanded Qatari nationals leave as they announced a series of punishing measures.





The UAE, for instance, gave Qataris 14 days to leave.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE gave Qatari diplomats just 48 hours to leave.

Families often intermarry, businesses and and governments employ nationals from neighbouring Gulf Cooperation Council countries and students enroll in universities in all four nations.

Al Marris office was set to send a report on Thursday afternoon to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain detailing the consequences of their actions.

He also promised to correspond with human rights organisations in European capitals.

The measures against Qatar also included the closing of airspace, land borders and maritime territories.

National airlines of the three countries involved have halted flights to and from Doha, causing confusion and chaos at airports.
Winter storm unleashes heavy rain and wind on South African city, displacing thousands already coping with drought.

At least eight people have been killed and thousands displaced in the South African city of Cape Town after the worst storm in three decades unleashed heavy rains and high winds.

The storm, which hit on Tuesday and Wednesday, fanned fires and forced evacuations of some residents who were already having to cope with the regions worst drought in a century.

In Cape Town and surrounding areas, victims included four people who died in a fire caused by lightning, three who died in another fire and one who was killed when a home collapsed, disaster management officials said.

This wind is blowing very, very strong, causing the fire to spread extremely rapidly, Clinton Manuel, the fire chief of Knysna, a town east of Cape Town, told African News Agency.

Eleanore Bouw-Spies, Knysnas mayor, described the fires as the worst in decades.

Additional firefighters have been sent to the town on Thursday as fires continued to rage, officials said.

James Styan, a spokesman for the Western Cape local government, said between 8,000 and 10,000 people had been evacuated from their homes due to the fires.

He added that officials were cautiously optimistic that no further evacuations would be needed in the area.

The mother of all storms, as it has been called by local media, hit more two weeks after a drought disaster was declared in the area.

Im scared to stay

Al Jazeeras Malcolm Webb, reporting from Cape Town, said the problem isnt simply because of the weather, but also because of the poor state of housing of so many people living in the area.

Thousands of people have been left homeless, according to Western Cape officials, with the millions living in shanty towns the hardest hit. Many had already been displaced in March when their homes burned down owing to a period of prolonged drought.

Im scared to stay in my house because of wind, Cape Town resident Unati Sigcau told Al Jazeera.

Also the rain, thats why I moved here with my child. Were scared to stay in my shack, she added from a shelter in Cape Town.

On social media, #CapeStorm and #KnysnaFire trended in the country, with many sharing photos and video of the storm, as well as urging residents to aid those who have been displaced.

https://twitter.com/___AzanianQueen/status/872409312060211206

Thoughts&prayers to families &people of #Knysna as they are evacuated due to raging #KnysnaFire ~ God Bless emergency service staff  pic.twitter.com/MHbOSa5suH  CATHERINE Constantinides (@ChangeAgentSA) June 7, 2017

The storm also forced President Jacob Zuma, who was in the city, to cancel a scheduled speech at an international media conference in Durban, a city on the Indian Ocean coastline, his office said.

The South African military said it had placed a helicopter on standby to help with any emergency evacuations in Western Cape province, which includes Cape Town.

Schools were also closed on Wednesday owing to the storm.

The South African Weather Service said high winds were expected in the region into Thursday.

While the storm provided some relief for a severe drought, officials said sustained rainfall over several years is needed in a city whose reservoirs are at low levels.

Cape Town recently announced restrictions on water use.

On Wednesday, authorities urged residents to capture rain from the storm in containers for flushing toilets and other needs.
The ongoing Gulf rift is not the first crisis to hit the bloc, but what is the effect going to be this time around?

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is in its worst crisis ever after three of its six members cut ties with Qatar.

The emir of Kuwait was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.

He is plane-hopping around the Arabian Peninsula, hoping to mediate in whats being called the Qatar Crisis.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE, as well as Egypt, have severed ties with Qatar, closing land and sea borders and airspace.

They say Qatar is supporting extremist groups in Iraq and Syria, which Qatar strongly denies.

They have also had disagreements over its alleged ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

The GCC has been an alliance since May 1981 and is made up of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman.

The ongoing crisis is not the first to hit the bloc, but what is the effect going to be this time around?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Jean-Marc Rickli  Head of Global Risk at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Ali Alkandari  Professor of contemporary Gulf history at Kuwait University

Rami Khouri  Senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut
After founding New Scooters 4 Less in 2004, Collin Austin realized that most of his customers werent wearing helmets.

Since NS4Ls beginning, its goal has always been to put more helmets on heads, Austin said. With 80 percent of Austins student clientele purchasing helmets, the owner said he originally didnt think there was a problem.

When you really go around Gainesville, and you really go around the University of Florida, you realize not many people are wearing them, he said.

In an attempt to prevent future injury, Austin said NS4L has taken a pledge: It will give away a free helmet with every new scooter purchase through the end of August. As it approaches its busiest season, the company expects to sell about 400 scooters to new and returning students.

With that prediction, NS4L stands to lose $30,000 in helmet sales, Austin said. But to him, its worth it.

I started this company because I wanted to help students get to and from class at their convenience, Austin said. I never got into business to see somebody get killed on a scooter.

Austin said he thinks most students only buy the helmet to please their parents and believe wearing helmets is uncool. Since there are currently no laws requiring people to wear helmets on scooters, unlike on bicycles, there is no way to make sure riders are being safe, and thus they can easily opt out of the safety precaution.

The company will also have each customer sign a pledge promising they will wear a helmet. In doing so, Austin said he hopes to change the perception surrounding helmets.

I know that if I can get the majority of scooter riders wearing helmets, other people will look at it and say, Theyre wearing a helmet, and its no big deal to wear one, Austin said.

NS4Ls campaign video has received more than 130 shares on Facebook, including from UF Public Safety and Gainesville Police.

(This pledge) is a huge step in the right direction, Austin said. I think youre going to see a lot more helmets on heads as we continue to push this movement.

Contact Adam Turner at aturner@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter: @fladam98.

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In light of recent global terrorist attacks, leaders of different faiths gathered at Gainesvilles City Hall on Tuesday to deliver a message.

Our hearts go out in sympathy to the many innocent victims of hate crimes in London and Manchester, England; Portland, Oregon; Minya and Alexandria, Egypt; Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq; and Orlando, Florida, retired UF professor Saeed Khan told about 20 people on the steps of the city hall.

In addition to Khan, whos a Muslim, members of the Christian and Jewish faith all delivered one common message  one of unity, acceptance and tolerance.

Mayor Lauren Poe explained that Gainesville is a welcoming place for anybody, noting the citys international culture. Poe said it was important for leaders of faith to join with leaders of government in Alachua County to reinforce the idea that no matter what religion people practice, theyll be accepted.

We just want to drive home the point that every single human being has equal value, and we need to do our best to reach out to every person regardless of their circumstances, regardless of where they came from or how long theyve been here, Poe said.

Khan, who used to be a professor in UFs Department of Pathology, Immunology and Laboratory Medicine, said he thinks many Muslims in the community fear that others associate their religion with terrorism. If you research Muslim reactions to recent terrorist attacks, Khan said youll notice most Muslim leaders condemn the acts.

One of the best ways to bring awareness to this stereotype is for community members of all faiths to communicate, Khan said. For example, last month, the United Church of Gainesville, located at 1624 NW Fifth Ave., called on Khan to teach members of the church more about the Islamic faith.

I dont want the people to get the impression of Islam from what they read in the paper, Khan said. I want them to look at me.

Contact David Street at dstreet@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter: @dstreet177.

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Nick McMillen has become a better person by being a counselor for the Alachua County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center, or at least his wife thinks so.

McMillen, who is one of the 12 counselors currently at the center, said his time volunteering has made a positive impact on his life.

Ive taken all of the information, and Ive applied it to my job and everything in my life, he said.

How we operate on the phone has helped me with my relationship with my wife and my daughter.

The center, located at 218 SE 24th St., is currently looking for more counselors like McMillen because its experiencing a shortage with students leaving for the summer, said Jessie Lazarchik, the sexual assault program manager.

Lazarchik said more than counseling experience, the center is looking for people who wont judge those who call in.

I look for people who have some level of passion for survivors of sexual violence, she said. I want to see that people are really invested in the cause.

The hiring process for the center starts with potential counselors filling out an application on the centers website. Then members at the center will schedule a one-on-one meeting with the applicant to see if their views align with the centers.

If chosen, the applicant goes through a free nine-week course and level-two background check before they can begin volunteering.

We will take one (volunteer), well take 10, Lazarchik said. Whoever is able and willing to help.

McMillen said when he first learned about the program, he jumped into the deep end.

People in my life, in the past, have been victims of the assault, he said. I know that when these situations came up, I didnt know what to do.

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Since he first started working for the center, McMillen said he feels like theres a whole new world of information.

He said counselors often help callers by providing them with an understanding person to talk to and provide options for their situations.

If theyre in a position of crisis, we get them into a place where theyre in a good mindset, he said. We then see where they want to go from there.

McMillen said he plans to continue volunteering in the future.

I think being able to feel that you have something to offer people that are in a really, really low point in their life is rewarding, he said.
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it will answer that question in an upcoming term, ultimately deciding whether law enforcement authorities should be required to get a warrant before they can track your location through your cellphone records.

Police can currently track your location using phone records with a law that was passed 13 years before the first BlackBerry was released.

The case comes to the justices through an appeal made by Timothy Carpenter, who was convicted for a series of armed robberies in Michigan and Ohio. Police were able to find Carpenter by looking into his past cellphone records without a warrant, which he claims to be a violation of his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

Hes right.

In a world where our smartphones are becoming a treasure trove of information about our personal lives, police should not be able to look into our digital history without a warrant.

There must be a process preventing such abuse of power from happening. Abuse such as former National Security Agency employees spying on their ex-girlfriends and husbands  without a warrant, of course.

As we outsource more of ourselves to our phones and onto the web, we should be fighting for more privacy protections, not less.

Although the ability to track suspects locations is a valuable tool for the police, it needs to be weighed against the right of privacy for the innocent people that will undoubtedly be surveilled without their knowing. Ask people how they feel about their digital privacy and most will talk about it as if zero privacy is a forgone conclusion. Many will also say they have nothing to hide, but thats a topic for another time.

A provision of the Stored Communications Act in 1986 says the government doesnt need to prove probable cause to obtain customer records from businesses like telecommunication companies  all it needs is reasonable grounds and proof the records are relevant and material to the investigation.

There is no way that congress couldve imagined being able to find the locations of people by using signals that ping to and from cellphones back in 1986. The first commercially available cellphone (or commercially available brick) didnt become available until 1983.

Police should not be able to retrieve text message logs (encrypted messaging services such as iMessage and WhatsApp cant be obtained by police) whenever they please. They shouldnt be able access to emails between two people without a warrant, either. But thats a precedent the Supreme Court must set going forward.

This isnt the highest courts first rodeo when it comes to whether the police can track and spy on their suspects using todays technology. Back in 2012, it ruled that police need to have a warrant in order to place a GPS tracking device on suspects vehicles. More recently, it decided that police may not search a suspects phone without a warrant.

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We should hope the Supreme Court decides in favor of our privacy. If it doesnt, it may be a bad sign of where things are headed for those of us who value freedom from surveillance.










INTERNATIONAL China pavilion features future energy, green Silk Road

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



During the three-month event, the pavilion will hold more than 200 trade and economic, cultural and tourism activities attended by more than 2,000 enterprises, including the Shanghai energy-themed exhibition, promotion of the 2019 Beijing International Horticultural Expo and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and cultural relic exhibitions such as the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses.

By Zhao Cheng, Zhou Hanbo and Xie Yahong from Peoples Daily The Astana Expo 2017 will kick off on Saturday. The China pavilion will demonstrate the nations concepts and visions for the development of future energy, said Wang Jinzhen, deputy director of the organizing committee of the pavilion.



With the theme of "Future Energy, Green Silk Road", the China pavilion consists of a lobby, an energy corridor, a theater themed with future energy, a smart energy zone as well as an exhibition area themed global mission and partnership, Peoples Daily reporters paid a visit to the pavilion.



As future energy will be an important carrier to solve energy crisis and promote sustainable development, Chinas ideas and efforts in development, utilization and protection of the new energy will be highlighted when designing the pavilion, Wang said.



Likewise, the theme of Green Silk Road is a deep interpretation of Chinas concept for green development, she added.



The energy corridor displays representative events and achievements in Chinas energy development, such as Zheng He Treasure Ship, Daqing oil field, Qinshan and Dayawan nuclear power plants and the Three Gorges Dam, showcasing the evolvement from fossil energy to new energy.



In the future energy themed theatre, a movie centered on energy transformation will be screened, telling the story on how the main character looks for new energy and compensates for nature, showcasing Chinas efforts to develop future energy.



Rashid Alimov, secretary-general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, said that the China pavilion will demonstrate first-class technologies in the world. Chinas utilization of energy impresses the world and the countrys energy exploitation achievements should be respected, he added.



During its trial operation, the China pavilion offered visitors a feast of high technology, including a nuclear fusion reactor described as an "artificial sun" and Hualong One reactor.



Rapil Zhoshybayev, Kazakh first deputy foreign minister and government representative for the Astana Expo, noted that the China pavilion will present the most wonderful exhibits in this expo.



Kazakhstan is the country where Chinese President Xi Jinping first proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt. It is also an important partner to build the Belt and Road, and more importantly a major country to launch production capacity cooperation with China, Wang said.



Wang said that the expo is an important move to implement the consensus reached by heads of the two countries, as it is held after the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation and in the year of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Kazakhstan.



China has sent an unprecedentedly number of enterprises, representatives from provinces and cities to participate in the expo, exceeding that to any other expos held in a foreign country.



During the three-month event, the pavilion will hold more than 200 trade and economic, cultural and tourism activities attended by more than 2,000 enterprises, including the Shanghai energy-themed exhibition, promotion of the 2019 Beijing International Horticultural Expo and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and cultural relic exhibitions such as the Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses.



All the activities will make the China pavilion a platform to promote Belt and Road cooperation and to enhance mutual understanding and exchanges.





Dans la meme rubrique : < > 20 brillantes chercheuses africaines dont une tchadienne recompensees par Fondation L'Oreal - UNESCO La Fondation Gates appelle a une action audacieuse et immediate a la COP27 Meta annonce le deploiement des Communautes sur WhatsApp afin de rapprocher autour dinterets communs Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Economic, cultural cooperation cements SCO prosperity: experts

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



The top priority of Kazakhstan is to align the Silk Road Economic Belt with its new economic policy of Bright Road, said chief research fellow Konstantin Syroezhkin with Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS), adding that it is also the most important part of bilateral cooperation.

Source: People's Daily The deepened economic, trade and cultural cooperation among Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members has helped them abandon divergences and realize peaceful and stable development, experts told the Peoples Daily.



Their statement came as leaders from SCO members gathered in Kazakhstan for the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State. Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the meeting during his state visit to the Central Asian nation.



Thanks to their efforts, the SCO has now grown into a regional cooperation organization with pioneering philosophy and significant influence, the experts said, adding that it not only plays an important role in boosting regional peace and development, but also bolsters economic, trade and cultural exchanges.



The SCO is a non-aligned, non-confronted and non-military organization that aims to pursue healthy development, security and economic growth of the region through dialogues and collaboration, said Han Xudong, professor with National Defense University of People's Liberation Army.



The conclusion can be evident by its principle of peace, cooperation and openness, he added.



The professor called on the members to follow the development trend of the era, uphold trade liberalization and facilitation, accelerate economic integration, and effectively cope with the risks confronted in development course, so that they will embrace better economic prospect.



In order to maintain a healthy growth, the members should intensify their cultural exchanges, tighten the people-to-people bonds, and eliminate the barriers obstructing their common development, in a bid to march towards shared prosperity in a faster pace, Han stressed.



The people of Pakistan are grateful to the Chinese people for their consistent and steadfast support to the application of Pakistan for the full membership of SCO, said Syed Hasan Javed, director of Chinese Studies Centre under the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Sciences and Technology of Pakistan.



The director said that Pakistan will share with the fellow SCO Member States its own experiences, strengths in nation building and economic revival for the achievement of the goals and principles of the SCO Charter.



Javed called on the SCO members to dissolve their contradictions and join efforts for pragmatic actions, so as to ensure their long-term interests.



It is necessary for the members to use their best minds and resources to serve the SCO goals and visions, he said, believing that a progressing SCO will contribute to the regional and international peace, stability a lot, and promote the development of regional and global economic.



The top priority of Kazakhstan is to align the Silk Road Economic Belt with its new economic policy of Bright Road, said chief research fellow Konstantin Syroezhkin with Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS), adding that it is also the most important part of bilateral cooperation.



As a SCO member, Kazakhstan concerns about economic and cultural cooperation most, the researcher explained.



Trade and connectivity act as the best remedy to regional security, B. R. Deepak, professor from Center of Chinese and South East Asian Studies under the India-based Jawaharlal Nehru University told the Peoples Daily, explaining that they can work better than external interference.



The SCO members should abandon their differences and realize regional peace, stability and development by following the pathway depicted by the Belt and Road initiative, the scholar said.



Amid the rising tide of global trade protectionism and increasingly severe regional security, the SCO, after its membership enlargement, should grasp the epochal pulse, back trade liberalization and facilitation, speed up economic integration and boost regional economic, trade, and cultural communication, Deepak noted.



After India and Pakistan officially join the organization, it will be the regional cooperation organization with the most population, largest area, great development space and promising cooperation potentials.



(Source: Peoples Daily)



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News SCO increases efforts to combat separatism, extremism and terrorism

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



The membership of India and Pakistan will further enhance the security cooperation of the SCO, safeguard each countrys regime and homeland security, as well as promote regional peace and stability, noted B. R. Deepak, professor from the Center of Chinese and South East Asian Studies under the India-based Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Source: People's Daily The members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are expected to sign an anti-extremism convention during the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State held in Kazakhstan. It is their latest effort to combat the three evil forces of separatism, extremism and terrorism.



Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off his four-day trip to Kazakhstan on Wednesday, during which he is scheduled to attend the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State and the opening ceremony of Astana Expo 2017.



The SCO has listed the fight against separatism, extremism and terrorism as their major mission since its founding in 2001.



During the summit held in Tashkent in 2004, the SCO set up a regional anti-terrorism institution to enhance their coordination, through which the members could share intelligence and their experience on fight against terrorism.



The document they would sign comes as increasingly frequent terrorist attacks by international terror organizations have increased safety risks of each member state.



Against such backdrop, the world casts more eyes on how the SCO would improve the efficiency of security cooperation and fight against the three evil forces in a more efficient way.



An intra-SCO cooperation among the member states as well as the cooperation between SCO and other international organizations must be enhanced to fight against regional extremism and terrorism, said chief research fellow Konstantin Syroezhkin with Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Kazakhstan (KazISS).



He told the Peoples Daily that close monitoring on the regional recruitment of extremist terror groups such as ISIS should be carried out, in a bid to prevent ideological infiltration.



Central Asia should never be the target or the origin of religious extremism and terrorist attacks, Syroezhkin stressed.



India and Pakistan will officially join the SCO in Astana during the summit, further improving the organizations cooperation potential and international influence.



Professor Han Xudong from National Defense University of Chinese People's Liberation Army said that the enlargement of the organization will bring both opportunities and challenges.



With the expansion of the SCO, the organization will be able to enhance coordination on the fight against the three evil forces, make better strategies to safeguard regional peace and stability, and deal with disputes and conflicts between the countries in a more proper manner, he elaborated.



However, the enlargement also hints new challenges, Han said, explaining that more conflicts over interests will emerge when coordination or unified actions are necessary, and disputes are possible to rise because of each member states different understanding of the three evil forces.



The membership of India and Pakistan will further enhance the security cooperation of the SCO, safeguard each countrys regime and homeland security, as well as promote regional peace and stability, noted B. R. Deepak, professor from the Center of Chinese and South East Asian Studies under the India-based Jawaharlal Nehru University.



The SCO holds tremendous promise for the future generations of the Eurasian region, said Syed Hasan Javed, director of Chinese Studies Centre under the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Sciences and Technology of Pakistan.



The SCO will become the harbinger of peace, prosperity, stability, harmony and security in the world, he believed, adding that the membership enlargement of the SCO will set in motion, a new era of cooperative ventures in the region.



It will neutralize the negative and destabilizing influences of the extra- territorial powers and their proxies during the last several decades, widely benefiting the people of each member country, Javed noted.



(Source: Peoples Daily)



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Shanghai Cooperation Organization - Reliable defenders of peace and stability in the region

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



The SCO has always adhered to the principle of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, and has provided strong guarantee for the stable development, security and prosperity of the region. It is hoped that the SCO member states will adhere to the basic principle of "Shanghai Spirit" and harmonious development, and continue to practice the cooperative mode of consensus, mutual benefit, win-win cooperation, creating a cooperative atmosphere for regional development.

Source: People's Daily From June 8 to 9, the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is being held in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. As an international student of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, majoring in International Politics, I am very happy and honored to have had opportunities to participate in the seminars and intern at China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation" (hereinafter, CNISCO) because I have been studying here for four years, which enables us international students to contribute to the development and deepening of the friendship between the SCO member countries.

On 13 September 2013, at the 13th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in Bishkek, Chinese President Xi Jinping, in his important speech entitled "Promoting the Spirit of Shanghai, and Promoting Common Development" he announced that China will set up CNISCO at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, and is willing to use this platform to train judicial personnel for other member states. This is of great significance to the development of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, but also for the school students since it will bring them more opportunities to contact the world. At present, CNISCO has held a lot of high-level judicial trainings and forums to promote professional exchanges of stability and anti-terrorism officials, to train judicial personnel of the SCO member countries, and to provide international research exchanges and advisory services, which will also bring new opportunities for the international students of the university.

The SCO is an open-minded and balanced international organization. In today's world, the SCO faces many new opportunities and challenges in the political, economic and military fields. The SCO plays an important role in maintaining and promoting national good-neighborly and friendly cooperation in the region. The organization has always made a significant contribution to the stability of the Eurasian continent, with the goal of maintaining and strengthening regional peace, security and stability, resolutely responding to the destabilizing factors, and proving to the world that "SCO has effectively responded to new threats, counting with the joint efforts of all member states".

As a reliable defender of peace and stability in the region, the SCO has played an invaluable role. In Central Asia, for example, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, many problems appeared. Under the regulation and adjustment of the SCO, Central Asia has regained its order. The SCO Annual Summit provides a platform for national consultations and friendly exchanges, and its joint anti-terrorism exercises have significantly reduced the potential threat of terrorist organizations to Central Asia.

At the establishment of the SCO, its mission was set to combat terrorism, and it has effectively fulfilled this duty. On the day when the SCO was established, the member states signed the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, and for the first time in the international community, they made a clear definition of the "three forces". After the signing of the Convention, in October 2002, China and Kyrgyzstan successfully held joint anti-terrorism military exercises in the border areas of the two countries. Subsequently, the SCO member states held multilateral exercises in Kazakhstan and China's Xinjiang. The SCO did joint military exercises in Central Asia, which are of great significance to enhance the unity and cooperation among member countries, while they jointly deal with regional terrorist threats and work together to combat the "three forces".

The SCO was established to promote and deepen good-neighbourliness, mutual trust and friendly relations among member states, consolidate regional security and stability, and at the same time open up new horizons for cooperation in national economic fields. China has made great contributions to promoting economic cooperation and development among SCO member states and called on the other member countries to further deepen cooperation in the economic field.

In recent years, member states have deepened cooperation in the field of humanities, which has become one of the organization's key works. Each year, the cultural exchange activities held jointly between member states have promoted the development of cultural exchanges and cooperation that further enhances mutual understanding and friendship among the people of each country.

The SCO has always adhered to the principle of equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit, and has provided strong guarantee for the stable development, security and prosperity of the region. It is hoped that the SCO member states will adhere to the basic principle of "Shanghai Spirit" and harmonious development, and continue to practice the cooperative mode of consensus, mutual benefit, win-win cooperation, creating a cooperative atmosphere for regional development.



(Author: Bibolatova Akmaral, Kazakhstan student majoring in International Politics of Shanghai University of Political Science and Law)





(Source: Peoples Daily)



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Shanghai Cooperation Organization: What does it mean to India and Pakistan?

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



In order to have better results, the SCO in true spirits of its Charter, needs to coordinate their policies, integrate their developmental strategies, and pool resources to tap the vast potentials in the region. For India and Pakistan, I believe the SCO will provide an excellent platform for dialogue and constructive cooperation, and hopefully they should be able to narrow down their differences on some issues if not all.

Source: People's Daily As India and Pakistan set to become formal members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during its forthcoming summit on 8th June 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, there are lot of anxieties as regards the SCO turning into a battleground for settling scores owing to their animosities over the question of Kashmir and diametrically opposite approaches towards counter terrorism. While the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has thanked the Russian President Vladimir Putin for his active help in supporting Indias entry into the SCO, China on Thursday, cautioned both India and Pakistan to strictly follow the SCO Charter, the idea of good neighbourliness, uphold the SCO spirit, improve their relations and inject new impetus to the development of the SCO. Indeed, since the SCO is a cohesive political, economic and military bloc contrary to the loose grouping of the BRICS, and perhaps the most successful multilateral organisation in Eurasia and the world; the inclusion of new members certainly offers opportunities as well as challenges.



First and foremost, as Chinas GDP surpasses the combined total of all the members, it offers immense opportunities for member states to benefit at bilateral and multilateral levels. As of now, the SCO was limited to China, Russia and Central Asia, the inclusion of India and Pakistan will extend the reach of multilateralism to South Asia, thus expanding its diplomatic, economic, cultural, and security boundaries. The inclusion of more dialogue partners into members, and perhaps further expansion into Europe, will turn the bloc into a real Eurasian organisation, and Eurasia into a Super continent as advocated by my friend, Prof. Feng Da Hsuan, Advisor to Rector, Macau University. Even if China and Russia remains dominant economic players in the region, however, India believes there is enough space for its strategic and economic interests in the region. Its connectivity projects in Chabahar in Iran and in energy security in Central Asia, and the International North-South Transport Corridor is a point of reference where polcy could be coordinated.



Moreover, since the regional and trans-regional connectivity, expansion of trade, investment and commerce is the top priority of China in Eurasia and beyond, and since the mechanism of the Belt and Road is an important instrument in realising the policy goals, which in turn have been supported by the SCO members, the new entrants, especially India, may have second thought on the same, as it initiates a close policy dialogue with incumbent and new member. It would make sense if Indias connectivity projects could be docked with similar Chinese and Russian projects in the region. It was here in Astana in 2013 that President Xi Jinping floated the idea of building the Silk Road Economic Belt.



Secondly, in the long run, the SCO may provide an opportunity to resolve outstanding issues between India and Pakistan on one hand, and India and China on the other. It may be remembered that in 1996 when Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan established the Shanghai Five, the idea behind was to resolve border disputes, and downsize military forces along the borders. The resolution of the border disputes has undoubtedly resulted in greater connectivity and economic cooperation between the member states. However, ultimately the borders need to be settled bilaterally, but SCO will certainly ameliorate the environment to certain extent, as there would be frequent meetings between the heads of the states. There are apprehensions too, that Pakistan may attempt to internationalize the Kashmir issue through SCO, but I believe good sense will prevail and the platform will not be used for settling scores on certain issues, especially when the SCO has no such mandate to do so.



Thirdly, since fighting terrorism, separatism, and extremism is another important goal of the SCO ever since its formation in 2001, and during the Tashkent Summit in 2004 a Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure was officially inaugurated in Tashkent, I believe the expansion of the SCO would entail a more coordinated approach on terrorism. Sharing of intelligence, counter terrorism operations and combat experience etc. of various countries will come handy. Nevertheless, since perceptions on cross border terrorism between India and Pakistan are diametrically opposite  if India believes that Pakistan differentiates between good and bad terrorists and uses the good terrorists as assets against India, conversely, Pakistan believes India is fomenting trouble in Baluchistan, cooperation especially between the duo would be difficult. The volatile and explosive nature of the issue is also likely to disrupt the proceedings at SCO. Here again, I believe China and Russia will not let the SCO turf to be used for settling scores.



Fourthly, since most of the SCO members have huge stakes in Afghanistans security, political and economic stability, they need to devise a magic formula, for the security situation in Afghanistan has been worsening, tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan are escalating, peace with the Taliban that again owing to diametrically opposite perspectives between some countries is elusive, and the Islamic State expanding its reach in the regions exponentially, thus endangering the regional peace and stability. The trade and connectivity remains the best bet in restive region that will yield better result than the foreign doles, and enable the country to stand on its own feet. Since regional integration form the bulwark of the Belt and Road as well as the SCO, member states need to bury their differences and work on these lines to bring stability in Afghanistan.



Finally, in order to have better results, the SCO in true spirits of its Charter, needs to coordinate their policies, integrate their developmental strategies, and pool resources to tap the vast potentials in the region. For India and Pakistan, I believe the SCO will provide an excellent platform for dialogue and constructive cooperation, and hopefully they should be able to narrow down their differences on some issues if not all.



(Author:B. R. Deepak, professor from Center of Chinese and South East Asian Studies under the India-based Jawaharlal Nehru University)



(Source: Peoples Daily)



Dans la meme rubrique : < > Yunnan dispatches sci-tech experts to South Asia, Southeast Asia, builds bridge of int'l technological cooperation China's Beidou reaches world-leading level: white paper Silk Road e-commerce promotes trade among Belt and Road countries Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena)










English News Sino-Kazakh ties see deeper cooperation and substantial results

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



The first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing last month, serving as a symbol that the initiative has not only garnered wide endorsement from the international community, but has also witnessed magnificent accomplishments over the past few years. For instance, the increasingly deepening collaboration between the Belt and Road initiative and Kazakhstan's new economic policy, the Bright Road, looks to be creating a promising future of win-win cooperation.

By Yang Jin, Source Peoples Daily/Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping embarks on a four-day journey to Kazakhstan Wednesday. At the invitation of his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev, Xi is scheduled to pay a state visit to the country and attend the 17th Meeting of Heads of State Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).



The visit is of great significance and is expected to be productive as it is the first following the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation where Xi and Nazarbayev met on the sidelines to discuss future cooperation.



Both China and Kazakhstan are key neighbors to each other. Since Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991, its relationship with China has enjoyed healthy, consolidated development thanks to the strenuous efforts made by both governments. Their bilateral ties have gone through steady development from the establishment of diplomatic ties to the signing of a comprehensive strategic partnership.



Both sides boast in-depth cooperation in politics, economy, security, culture and people-to-people exchanges. Mutual trust, benefit and cooperation on an equal footing among a variety of other principles have become the foundation of the development of Sino-Kazakh ties. Based on these principles, the two sides have made new breakthroughs with a multitude of substantial results.



For example, the Central Asia-China gas pipeline project has developed quite smoothly over all three phases, of which Sino-Kazakh oil and gas cooperation is a crucial part. Currently, Beijing and Astana are advancing and implementing 51 cooperation programs in energy, agriculture, transportation, communications, construction, manufacturing and infrastructure, involving an investment amount exceeding $26 billion.



Nazarbayev is an old friend of the Chinese people. He has visited China more than 20 times and met with Xi at various occasions and established a friendly personal relationship with him, laying a solid foundation and creating a favorable environment for the healthy development of bilateral ties.



It has been noted that prior to Xi's trip, Kazakhstan's mainstream media outlets have published many commentaries expressing high anticipation for the further improvement of Sino-Kazakh ties leading to fruitful outcomes.



Kazakhstan is also an important supporter of, and participant in, China's Belt and Road initiative, which was envisioned by Xi during his visit to Kazakhstan back in September 2013. Once he put forward the concept, it was immediately met with positive responses.



The first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing last month, serving as a symbol that the initiative has not only garnered wide endorsement from the international community, but has also witnessed magnificent accomplishments over the past few years. For instance, the increasingly deepening collaboration between the Belt and Road initiative and Kazakhstan's new economic policy, the Bright Road, looks to be creating a promising future of win-win cooperation.



China and Kazakhstan also boast a high degree of strategic alignment in SCO development. As the SCO's founding members, both countries have delivered significant contribution to its development. They have actively coordinated positions and kept adding fresh elements to the arenas of security, economy, trade and culture, injecting new vigor into the growth of this important regional framework.



During his visit, Xi will also attend the 17th Meeting of Heads of State Council of the SCO. The meeting will be of great symbolic importance since the founding of the organization. At the summit, state leaders will continue discussing, negotiating and signing relevant accords on major issues concerning the further development of the SCO.



A highlight of the summit is that two new members - India and Pakistan - will join the organization, the first expansion in its history. In the future, the SCO is expected to absorb profound changes from the perspectives of geopolitics and international influence. It will therefore gain more attention from the international community.



In the present global landscape, where the international financial crisis has yet to come to an end while Western countries are mired in a daze regarding both internal and external affairs and are undergoing a stage of profound adjustment, China is showcasing an upward trend and presenting growing clout upon the rest of the world.



Xi's visit will bring new ideas and hopes for future cooperation. And it is expected that this trip will further consolidate the foundation of the China-Kazakhstan comprehensive strategic partnership and infuse new vitality into the SCO.



(The author is deputy secretary general of the Center of Shanghai Cooperation Organization studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.)



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English News The SCO is Pakistan's natural platform: scholar

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



Like China and other member States of SCO, Pakistan believes that Dialogue provides the sole way to resolving disputes, on the basis of the well recognized principles of International Law, Justice, Equality, Non-interference, Co-existence, and sovereign independence guiding Interstate relations.

By Syed Hasan Javed The evolution of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) since its emergence 16 years ago, as an effective regional organization is reflection of the success of the principles that underpin its establishment, as well as the firm commitment of its Members. The SCO has heralded the dawn of a new era in the Eurasian region, away from the template of tension, acrimony, crisis and conflict to that of Reconciliation, Rapprochement, Cooperation and Collaboration.

The peaceful economic rise of the Peoples Republic of China and its advocacy of a Positive Win-Win Paradigm of Peace and Development has provided a historic opportunity to the states in the extended region for building upon their own achievements in nation building. The inclusion of Pakistan and India which are Emerging Powers in their own right, in SCO at the Astana Summit, will not only raise the stature of the organisation, but also add to its enhanced effective role in regional and international affairs. The SCO will come to command immense geo-political clout in a fast transforming world, accounting for nearly half of the World population. The richness of the cultural diversity of SCO will be visible with the addition of English language, in addition to Chinese and Russian in official communication.

Differences among the Nation States are normal, just as it is in the human society and in its core unit i.e family. Nations draw their inspiration from their varied historical experience, geographical location, cultural heritage, political ideology, economic interests, strategic outlook, diplomatic worldview, roles, aspirations and dreams. Foreign Policies of states keep evolving in response to the opportunities and transformation within and outside its borders. There is no last word in diplomacy. The world is witnessing transformation on a scale and magnitude beyond comprehension of any previous generation of humanity, not only in the field of technology but also in social, economic and political arena. What are we witnessing is a new wave of globalization, powered by new geo economic realities. Like China and other member States of SCO, Pakistan believes that Dialogue provides the sole way to resolving disputes, on the basis of the well recognized principles of International Law, Justice, Equality, Non-interference, Co-existence, and sovereign independence guiding Interstate relations.

The SCO will now become even a bigger family, with the inclusion of Pakistan and India. The SCO holds tremendous promise for the future generations of the Euro Asiatic region. The potential is neither fully acknowledged, nor has been utilized. The SCO will become the harbinger of peace, prosperity, stability, harmony and security in the world. Pakistan holds the key to the realization of the dream of a fully integrated Euro Asiatic Economic Sphere of prosperity and an era of peace and security. Pakistan is a multi-civilization hybrid state, with dominantly Central Asian DNA. The SCO is Pakistans natural platform. The enlargement of SCO will set in motion, a new era of cooperative ventures in the region. It will neutralize the negative and destabilizing influences of the Extra- territorial Powers and their Proxies, who have bequeathed to the Region only miseries, destruction and violence over the past decades.

With Pakistan and India signing on to the SCO Charter, it will be a good omen for building peace and security in the Extended Euro Asiatic region. Pakistan is rightly called the Zipper State of Euro Asia, by Russian Strategist Andrew Korybko. Hopefully in future, the SCO could help establish a Common Market. What will be needed is to bring down barriers of all kinds on travel, job and residences for the regions youthful population by opening up the heart of Euro Asiatic Continent. It will greatly benefit all the Member States in the region. Pakistan has historic and cultural relations with the people of Central Asia and beyond. Pakistan will work together with the fellow Member States against the forces of Extremism, Fundamentalism and Terrorism to usher in an era of Tolerance, Peaceful Co-existence, Cooperation and Collaboration. All the Member States should be committed to the SCO Charter in letter and spirit, and be prepared to overcome all differences for the greater good.

The people of Pakistan are grateful to the Chinese people for their consistent and steadfast support to the application of Pakistan for the full membership of SCO. Pakistan has a diplomatic presence in the capitals of all the SCO Member States. Pakistan will share with the fellow SCO Member States its own experiences, strengths in nation building and economic revival for the achievement of the goals and principles of the SCO Charter. It is in the long term interest of all the Member States to overcome their contradictions and work instead on their Positives. The success of SCO is bound to attract to its fold, other influential Powers in the neighbourhood and beyond, becoming in due course the worlds most powerful regional grouping. It is hence necessary that the Member States utilize their best minds and resources in the service of goals and ideals of SCO, which must establish its permanent Headquarters and Country Liaison Offices. I believe that the SCO will contribute to the regional and international peace, stability a lot, and promote the development of regional and global economic.



The author is director of Chinese Studies Centre under the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, National University of Sciences and Technology of Pakistan

(Source: Peoples Daily)





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English News Xis Kazakh visit to promote B&R initiative

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



"The SCO used to focus on cooperation against terrorism, but has gradually shifted to economic cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative," said Wang Dehua, director of the Institute for Southern and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Municipal Center for International Studies.

By Leng Shumei Source: Peoples Daily and Global Times China and Kazakhstan will sign agreements on trade, economy and water conservation during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the country from Wednesday to Saturday, the foreign ministry announced Monday.

Xi will attend the 17th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the opening of the Astana Expo 2017, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Huilai said at a press conference on Monday.



The two sides will exchange in-depth views on the bilateral ties, a mutual developmental strategy between the two countries, the construction of the Belt and Road initiative, as well as other regional and international issues of common concern. A joint statement will be released, Li Huilai said.



"Xi's visit to Kazakhstan is another major Chinese diplomatic activity after the Belt and Road forum in Beijing in May," Li Xing, director of the Eurasian Studies Center at Beijing Normal University, told the Global Times on Monday.



"Xi's visit will continue to promote the construction of the Belt and Road initiative and the strategic link between the initiative and the Eurasian Economic Union," Li Xing said, noting that Kazakhstan is a vital country on the ancient Silk Road and has always been supportive of the initiative.



The 17th SCO summit in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, will focus on the future of the organization, and SCO members will exchange views on vital regional and international issues, Li Huilai said.



China hopes all SCO members can reach a consensus on current regional and international issues and work together to sustain regional peace, encourage mutual prosperity as well as promote a fair and reasonable direction for the international order, Li Huilai added.



Li Huilai also announced that the SCO members will sign a treaty against terrorism. India and Pakistan will complete the process of joining the SCO during the summit.



"The SCO used to focus on cooperation against terrorism, but has gradually shifted to economic cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road initiative," said Wang Dehua, director of the Institute for Southern and Central Asian Studies at the Shanghai Municipal Center for International Studies.



Cooperation against terrorism still needs to be strengthened among SCO member countries, especially after recent terrorist attacks in London and the Philippines, Wang stressed.



The membership of India and Pakistan will make the SCO the world's largest regional cooperation organization in terms of population, which will create unprecedented development potential and cooperation, the Xinhua News Agency reported last month.



Li Xing pointed out that the two countries' membership in the SCO will help the organization act better as a platform to link the Belt and Road initiative. However, he warned that territorial disputes between the two countries might create challenges to their cooperation within the organization.



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ABU USHAR, Sudan - At Abu Ushar hospital in Sudan, also known as Sudan-China Friendship Hospital, Sudanese and Chinese doctors are reflecting the human face of the medical profession as they provide services for poor patients in the area.

With the increase of health symptoms in Ramadan Month due to change in food habits and meal times, Abu Ushar hospital represents a refuge for thousands of patients in the area of Abu Ushar city.

Abu Ushar hospital lies in Gezira State in central Sudan, some 110 km southeast of Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Abu Ushar, one of the oldest rural hospitals in Sudan, was established in 1929 and then gained great momentum after it was chosen to be the headquarters for the Chinese medical mission that first came to Sudan in 1974.

"This hospital gained its reputation from presence of the Chinese medical mission which provides excellent medical services for the citizens of the area," Mohamdain Hussein, Chairman of Board of Directors of Abu Usher hospital, told Xinhua.

Abu Ushar hospital is regarded as one of the best health utilities that developed its infrastructures and improved the quality of the services.

"This hospital serves a great number of citizens, and the Chinese mission is working with high efficiency. The hospital receives around 5,000 cases monthly," Al-Sadiq Ahmed Mohamed Babikir, Financial and Administrative Director of Abu usher hospital, told Xinhua.

Since the arrival of the Chinese medical mission in Abu Ushar, it has remained under warm welcome and gained respect of people of the entire Gezira state. The relationship was not only a relationship between doctors and patients, but extended to the broader context of human relations.

"Last year I came to work here at Abu Ushar hospital. I now work in this hospital continuously to provide treatment for thousands of simple patients," Xie Yanhua, a female Chinese Dentist at Abu Ushar Hospital, told Xinhua.

Meanwhile, Cao Wei, a Chinese internal medicine physician, for her part, told Xinhua that "I love Sudan. I love Abu Ushar city and I love all the people in this city. I have many friends here. I think the friendship between the Chinese and Sudanese people is deeply-rooted."

Seham Abdalla Hashim, a Sudanese doctor at Abu Ushar Hospital, meanwhile, said that "we work together as one medical team. There are no differences. We are one family. We perform our human duty with simple and poor patients. Thanks for China."

Great number of citizens from Gezira State and neighboring states rush to Abu Ushar hospital due to its good reputation and its success in conducting complicated surgeries, such as cartilage, besides that the fist open heart surgery in Sudan was conducted for a Sudanese female student at Abu Ushar hospital in 1978.

Rashid Ahmed Mustafa, a patient at Abu Ushar hospital, said that "this hospital has become a center of attraction for thousands of patients who come from far cities, even from eastern Sudan, to receive free treatment and even conduct complicated surgeries at nominal cost."

As preparations are underway to inaugurate an additional building for Abu Ushar hospital in June, the hospital administration hope to overcome some issues including a paved road linking between the hospital and Abu Ushar city.










English News Xi to upgrade Kazakh ties

Alwihda Info | Par peoplesdaily - 8 Juin 2017



"Kazakhstan's location, in the heart of the Eurasian continent, is strategically significant, and it is also rich in natural resources. The deep cooperation, especially on energy, between the two countries started before the B&R initiative, and now the country is successfully hitching a ride on the fast train of China's rise," Feng Yujun, director of the Institute of Russian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

By Yang Sheng Peoples Daily/Global Times Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Kazakhstan from Wednesday to Saturday will upgrade Sino-Kazakh relations to a new level, and cooperation on the Belt and Road initiative and counterterrorism will be improved, experts said.



Xi left Beijing Wednesday for a state visit to Kazakhstan and the 17th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State. Xi was invited by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and will also attend the opening ceremony of the World Expo in Astana, the capital of the country, during his stay, the Xinhua News Agency reported.



"It has been four years since Xi launched the Silk Road Economic Belt at Nazarbayev University in Astana, and this year is also the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties between China and Kazakhstan. Xi's visit will be historic and will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a new level," said Chen Yurong, a senior research fellow on Eastern Europe and Central Asia studies at the China Institute of International Studies.



Cooperation between the two countries has flourished in the past three years and reached an unprecedented high level, covering areas such as energy, infrastructure, trade and environmental protection, amid efforts to integrate China's Belt and Road (B&R) initiative with Kazakhstan's Bright Path Economic Plan, Xinhua reported.



"The Bright Path Economic Plan is Kazakhstan's national development strategy, and the core of the strategy is developing domestic transportation networks to connect the land-locked territory with the outside world and activate domestic growth, so this perfectly accords with the Belt and Road," Chen said.



"Kazakh political and business elites really appreciate China's efforts to boost cooperation, and they are very motivated to deepen ties and seek more opportunities. The two countries have made themselves a community of common destiny and a friendly policy toward China is the country's unshakable national consensus," Chen added.



Kazakhstan was among the first to join China in the B&R initiative. In late 2014, China and Kazakhstan reached a preliminary consensus on industrial capacity cooperation worth more than $14 billion.



In March 2015, the two countries signed 33 deals in this field totaling $23.6 billion, covering steel, non-ferrous metals, sheet glass, oil refining, hydro-power and automobiles, Xinhua reported.



China's oil imports from Kazakhstan via the Sino-Kazakh oil pipeline reached 100 million tons in 2016, approximately equal to half of China's oil production in 2016.



"Kazakhstan's location, in the heart of the Eurasian continent, is strategically significant, and it is also rich in natural resources. The deep cooperation, especially on energy, between the two countries started before the B&R initiative, and now the country is successfully hitching a ride on the fast train of China's rise," Feng Yujun, director of the Institute of Russian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times on Wednesday.



Counterterrorism cooperation



Security cooperation is also an important part of the Sino-Kazakh relationship, Feng said.



"We have common enemies, terrorism, separatism and religious extremism, which are seriously threatening China, Kazakhstan and also other SCO members' national security."



In recent years, Kazakhstan has faced more serious threats from terrorism, and the main reason is Central Asian jihadists who joined the Islamic State with real combat experience in Syria are returning, Feng said.



A police station in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, was attacked by a terrorist gunman on July 17, 2016, killing four people, including three policemen and one civilian, Xinhua reported. On June 5 in the same year, terrorist attacks in Aktobe, a city in northwest Kazakhstan, killed six people. Police killed 11 suspects and arrested nine others.



Kazakhstan intelligence agencies prevented 12 violent extremist acts in 2016, Sergei Shveikin, deputy chief of the anti-terrorist center of the Kazakh National Security Committee, said on January 31.



The 12 plots were prevented in the early stages of preparation, with 182 people convicted in connection with them, Xinhua reported.



Counterterrorism cooperation between China and Kazakhstan includes intelligence exchanges and joint military exercises, Feng said. "SCO members will also sign an agreement on anti-extremism in the summit, so the cooperation will be deepened."



"Russia is also an important ally of Kazakhstan, and some Russians are still concerned about China's partnership with Kazakhstan. Due to the difficult situation [with its economy and Western sanctions] that Russia is facing, Moscow's capacity is limited. Central Asia's safety and stability is in the common interest of every SCO member, including China and Russia," Feng said.



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Brazil is a functioning democracy, albeit not functioning that well. Brazil's economy is still a horrific mess; and that is all we hear. But what mainstream media often ignores is a massive sea change in Brazil  and in Latin America - which will spill over into world politics. That change is an emerging conservaive evangelical Christian constituency.

When most of us grew up, Brazil was a typical South American country with a massive Roman Catholic culture. No longer.

Brazil is now one-quarter evangelical, and their numbers are growing by leaps and bounds  which is one reason I do not fear a demographic increase of Islam in South America. Muslim radicalism will be sporadic  and anti-Zionism is problematic in Chile -- but ultimately they cannot compete against millions of converts to evangelical Christianity.

Brazil's culture and politics are radically changing.

Rio de Janiero is famous for its yearly Carnaval, but a lot of the Carnaval schools that compete in the parade have noticed a decline in membership. The salacious, raucous, semi-pagan folk aspects of the festival have been condemned by the the Evangelicals, and it is starting to hurt participation.

Rio then elected an evangelical bishop as its mayor, and he refused to show up for the event this year.

But this year, for the first time in memory, the mayor skipped it. Thats because, for the first time in its 450-year history, Brazil's second-largest metropolis is being run by a [Pentecostal] pastor. -- Christianity Today

Moving beyond issues of morality and parades, upon being elected last autumn, the mayor-elect, Marcelo Crivella, flew to Israel to celebrate.

Crivella, who was elected on Oct. 30, met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat during a visit to Israel two weeks ago. As a senator, Crivella has maintained a pro-Israel stance. He claims to have visited Israel around 40 times. -- Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Brazil is starting to become very pro-Israel.

The previous Brazilian administration under Dilma Rousseff had been hostile to Israel, and refused to accept Israel's ambassador, Dani Dayan, for being a settler leader.

After a months long diplomatic standoff with Brazil over plans to install a former settler leader as its ambassador there, Israel pulled back on Monday -- reassigning him to a post in the United States after the government in Brasilia refused to approve his appointment. -- March 2016, New York Times

Today, Rousseff is gone. Michel Temer  who is the son of Christian Lebanese immigrants  is friendly to Brazil's small Jewish community, and the mayor of Rio is a staunch Christian Zionist.

On chatting with people on the internet, I have read a line by a Brazilian that they expect that when the evangelicals reach 50 percent of the population, Brazil's foreign policy will change radically. It may not even require a 50% metric. The evangelicals are strong enough right now to swing elections by allying with conservative parties.

In Sao Paulo, which ironically has a very large Arab community, a massive reconstruction of Solomon's Temple for the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a Pentecostal denomination, was built.

Then-president, Dilma Rousseff, no lover of right-wing Zionism, showed up for the inaugural festivities in 2014. She had to! No politician could safely ignore it. While the UCKG church has some scandals concerning corruption, and some issues with prosperity doctrine, what is fascinating is that it has such political clout that Brazilians politicians had to pay homage to a Judeocentric celebration.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God may be suspect, but general Brazilian evangelical support for Israel is quite real across denominational lines, as this Calvary Chapel (Rio de Janiero) video on prophecy concerning Israel shows.

Christian Zionism has a massive following in Brazil, where the Jewish community is only 0.05% of the population. So much for a claim of Jewish influence peddling. At those low numbers, no matter how wealthy, Jews could not swing an election.

Oddly enough, some of these Jews marry Christian Arabs in Sao Paulo.

[Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio de Aguiar Patriota] said he was encouraged by all the intermarriage he saw between Jews and Arabs in Sao Paulo, remarking that if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere. - JPOST

Brazilians now flock to Israel to show support. Brazil has its share of preachers supporting Zionism on TV. And the Israeli government and Zionist groups have started to act on this emerging trend over the past decade.

IFCJ launches a new campaign to raise Israel support among growing evangelical community in Brazil, which is world's largest following US. -- Israel National News Brazilian Facebook followers of Israeli tourism exceed 2 million Tourism Ministry hopes targeting Christian evangelicals will boost number of visitors from Latin America  Times of Israel Israeli Ministry of Tourism -- YouTube Once in a Lifetime - Israeli Ministry of Tourism -- YouTube (2015)

While post-Christian Europe is abandoning Israel, the Brazilians are starting to fill in the breach.

And it is not just concerning Israel. It appears that evangelicals in Brazil are anti-abortion, and not so keen on the LBGT agenda.

Evangelical Christians demonstrate against gay marriage and abortion before the National Congress last June. Almost a quarter of Brazilians now identify themselves as evangelical -- The Guardian

No one is saying all these evangelicals are perfect. Like all churches, they have their share of crooks and scoundrels. However, a major force is rising in Latin America, and apart from the occasional article or report, much of our mainstream media is ignoring this truly colossal development.

During the Obama administration, Latin America was abandoned to Iran and its lackey, Hugo Chavez. It was this growing evangelical movement which held them in check. In much of Latin America, the power of a rising evangelical conservatism is fighting a pitched battle against leftist extremists. In Chile, the evangelicals are in a ferocious contest with the entrenched, but very powerful and wealthy, anti-Israel Palestinian Christian (usually Eastern Christian) community. However, in Brazil, it looks like the evangelicals are winning.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish in high school, lo those many decades ago. He writes on the Arabs of South America at http://latinarabia.com. He also just started a website about small computers at http://minireplacement.com.
At some of the raucous town hall meetings this year, indignant constituents would tell their representatives that if it werent for ObamaCare theyd be dead. Actually, if it werent for modern medicine theyd be dead; ObamaCare is merely a payment system, (and a rather rickety one). The Left and their useful idiots at the town halls seem to be throwing up death itself as though it were some unthinkable tragedy, as though it should never happen. And if death does happen, its somebody elses fault, probably a Republican.

Is it in the national interest for government to keep all of us alive for as long as it can, to ensure that each and every one of us gets to take as many breaths as is physiologically possible? Few of us live for as long as we could because few of us live the clean, prudent lives that lead to max longevity. So I cant get exercised if some are cheated of a day or two of life, especially since that day or two is so exorbitantly expensive. Much of the expense of healthcare is run up in our last days on Earth, when our prospects are already pretty much dead.

If modern medicine found a cure for death, but it was so monstrously expensive that few could afford it, Democrats would be grabbing their pitchforks and caterwauling that the rich are getting to live forever while the poor are being allowed to die. Democrats would insist that the eternal life afforded by modern medicine is a right and that the federal government should provide it for everybody, regardless of cost.

Some of the rich already store their heads in cryogenic freezers for future resuscitation when science comes up with cures. Is it not monstrous that this isnt included in ObamaCares list of essential health benefits? By not ensuring that all Americans get their own cryonic vaults to preserve their remains for eventual revivification, Republicans are literally killing people. (If that sounds over-the-top, then you havent paid any attention to the reaction to President Trumps pulling out of the Paris climate accords.)

Much of the cost of modern medicine in America is incurred in treating a very small fraction of us. About 5 percent of Medicaid users account for half of that systems payouts, according to the GAO. The same numbers apply to the nation as a whole. Now, this is just anecdotal, but I recently heard that an acquaintance of mine, a diabetic, had gone into a coma, had two major organ transplants, and was still in a coma. If doctors are using this patient to see how long they can extend life, should insurance companies and taxpayers being paying for it?

Although some might think it inhuman, one might ask, why are we trying to keep some of these patients going? Should the decisions for pulling the plug on patients in persistent vegetative states who are being kept alive by machines be made by their loved ones or by those footing the bill? Consider the Terri Schiavo case. Taxpayers and insurers shouldnt be forced to pay for such healthcare. After the brain has died, when all hope is lost, pull the plug and let Nature do her damnedest. And for those of you who arent (yet) vegetables: when Mr. Death smiles on you, just smile back; whats the worst that could happen? You have no right to live forever, so embrace the natural order of things.

The Left has got masses of Americans thinking that they should have the same healthcare as rich folks have and that they shouldnt have to pay for it. But if we have two types of patients, those who pay and those who dont, perhaps we should have a two-tiered system, with separate hospitals and doctors.

Recently, President Trump praised the Australian healthcare system. But lefties who delight in what they think was a concession might want to look a little deeper into healthcare Down Under. In Was Trump right in praising the Australian healthcare system? on May 6, Australian psychologist Dr. John Ray summed up Australias two-tiered system thus: our private hospitals are as good as our public hospitals are bad. On May 11 at American Thinker, Dr. Brian Joondeph also took a sober look at the Australian healthcare system. At the website for AIHW, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, we can read more about that nations public and private hospitals. It seems that in Australia, if you want the best you pay for the best. But in America, separate but unequal goes against our belief that the best should be free and that someone else should pay for it.

On June 5, the Washington Post ran Ed Rogerss The momentum for socialized medicine is growing. Where is the GOPs strategy? Every Republican in Congress should read Rogerss short article:

It looks as though there will probably be a consensus position among Democrats running in 2020 in support of a single-payer system. [] Could it be that Republicans are on the brink of defending Obamacare as the only practical alternative to the Democrats march toward socialized medicine?

So, the party that gave us ObamaCare, which seems to be in a death spiral, is the same party that presumes to give us ObamaCares replacement. It makes one think that ObamaCare was deliberately designed to fail, because what the Democrats are offering up now is what they wanted all along: socialized medicine. Nonetheless, many voters will buy into the Democrats demagoguery. (Read my little idea for universal healthcare that is not single-payer.)

If the majority of Americans now agree that everyone should have formal healthcare coverage, complete with an insurance card so that anyone can waltz into any doctors office for treatment, then they also need to agree on something else: how to pay for it. For Democrats, the solution to that problem is simple and its always the same: tax the rich and go further into debt. For Republicans, thats not good enough, (one would hope).

Few in America are denied medical treatment. There may be a few wino hobos sprawled out underneath train trestles taking repeated slugs of Thunderbird who cant find their way to the nearest ER to get that painful boil lanced, but most folks get treated whether they have an insurance card or not. In America, even illegal aliens get medical care. How else would illegals get U.S. citizenship for their newborns? (By the way, where are we on reversing that policy, Mr. President?)

Some think that the warring factions within the GOP are irreconcilable, and that nothing will come from the ObamaCare repeal and replace efforts. But before they pull the plug on healthcare reform, Republicans should all agree to do at least one thing even if thats all they do: scrap the mandates. And regardless of what else is in the GOPs bill, it should state that the federal government cannot command Americans to buy things, even health insurance. Let the Democrats just try and reverse that.

Jon N. Hall of Ultracon Opinion is a programmer/analyst from Kansas City.
In his latest jet-setting travels, this time to Canada, President Obama warned of "authoritarianism" taking hold, in what his media ally, CNN, helpfully revealed was a veiled attack on President Trump. Politics, for Obama, doesn't seem to stop at the water's edge. In his frustrated ex-presidency, it appears he really is determined to be the Backseat Driver in Chief, and he is about as useful.

Obama said that everyday people who felt left behind by government and a changing world could find authoritarians alluring. He said people who felt at a loss with the democratic process could "try anything," but that liberal values would win out over time. "I am convinced that the future does not belong to strongmen," Obama said.

He can take a look in the mirror on that one.

Obama's sudden, newfound claim to be a champion of liberty rings hollow, given that he spent most of his presidency issuing executive orders instead of working democratically with Congress to enact actual laws. He preferred to follow the Hugo Chavez model and rule by decree, justifying it with "I won." His Obamacare "legacy" came about by strong-arming his own party base with thuggish Chicago-style tactics and garnered not a single Republican vote, rendering it a house of cards with the inevitable reaction. Like Chavez, he politicized the state and made it a one-party operation now known as the swamp. He targeted political dissidents through the good offices of the Internal Revenue Service and spied on reporters and world leaders. And the damage he did to homeland security, the military, and intelligence services pretty well assured that the U.S. had neither borders nor secrets, given his administration's hiring of the likes of Ed Snowden; Bradley Manning; Reality Winner; and, come to think of it, Hillary Clinton with her illegal, unsecured private server. All of these Obama hires were leftists who used their state offices to advance their politics, not safeguard the state  and on his watch, all of them got away with it.

So spare us when he puts his claims in as a champion of democracy with newfound great concerns about authoritarianism. He never cared about that when he was in power.

Obama gave a laundry list of all the beliefs and acts he had, all of which drove U.S. voters to elect President Trump.

He said low-civic engagement and a lack of belief in the average person's ability to affect change in government weaken democratic institutions and are responsible for the advance of "reactionary" politicians.

As if such "lack of belief" is baseless for people whose coal jobs and industry were something he vowed to destroy and did a good deal of damage to. Any talk of "average persons" from his storied jet-set bubble come off as pathetic, too  both out of touch and dripping with contempt  and voters know it.

Obama called on people, in the face of uncertainty, to stand by some of the very post-World War II economic and political institutions Trump has repeatedly called into question.

Notice that he doesn't seem to think anything is wrong with these institutions  unelected eurotrash bureaucrats calling the shots in the United Nations, at the World Bank, in the European Union, at the World Court and other international institutions, ruling over peoples' lives, living high on the hog, often tax-free, with zero accountability. He just defends them for the sake of defending them, because they share his left-elitist views. It's all about the rice bowl; it's all about the Chicago Way writ large.

"In periods like this, people looking for control and certainty  it's inevitable," Obama told the Canadian audience. "But it is important to remember that the world has gone through similar moments. ... Our history also shows there is a better way."

Aside from the Olde Marxist View of progress and inevitability, maybe he should just roll with it instead of resist it. No insight from him as to why people don't prefer chaos and "change" in the name of whatever progressive social engineering idea is on the menu for the day.

He said people should overcome fear and not listen to those who "call for isolation or nationalism" and those who "suggest rolling back the rights of others."

Fear? How about loathing from knowing these places all too well? And maybe he can specify these people more clearly? Deplorables? Seems he never has criticism for the ruling institutions he's so attached to  just the people who don't share his starry-eyed view of them or benefit from them in any way.

Naturally, he loves these multilateral institutions:

"We're also bound by the institutions that we built to keep the peace," Obama said, referring to the UN, NATO and NAFTA.

Laughable. The U.N. has kept absolutely no peace  it's best known for sending perverts out on peacekeeping missions to rape the locals. And NATO? Those people who don't pay their dues or allow us to use their airspace? Useless group. Didn't seem to do much for Georgia or Ukraine, either. NAFTA? Not a war and peace issue, or, for that matter, a border issue. (Hint: If you enforce the laws, you might have a border, NAFTA or no NAFTA.) Arguments about jobs and trade aren't a keep-the-peace issue.

"We're going to have to summon the same capacity to adapt to new circumstances that we saw after World War II," Obama said. "We're going to have to replace fear with hope. That's the spirit that we need right now."

Says the man who ran on a vague platform of "hope" and then showed us eight years of what he means by "hope." Want more Trump? Mouth that hoary old blather, and that's how you get more Trump.

He's trying to appear an elder statesman while jetting around in private planes to expand his carbon footprint. Anything new out of him is nothing but new packaging, not reflective thinking, not new ideas. Just more boring "narrative." He's still the same old manipulative authoritarian leftist Alinskyite he's always been. What's obvious now is that he's just out of ideas.
In his trademark well informed and lucid style, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy took just over four minutes to explain to Tucker Carlson's viewers why President Trump's dinner conversation with James Comey, bandied about as "obstruction of justice" by many on the left, was not improper.

But before you view the video below, consider the false notion propagated by Comey in his written introductory statement to his testimony today. Comey writes of the "independence" of the FBI and Justice Department from the executive branch:

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

This much is defensible, since he speaks of a "tradition," although sneaking in the word "status" suggests some official categorization of the FBI as independent of the Executive Branch. But, later:

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

This is still defensible.

But later in the document, he segues quietly into an assertion that the FBI is an independent agency:

I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.

Sorry! Nowhere in the Constitution is the FBI (or DoJ) defined as anything other than a part of the Executive Branch. The FBI didn't exist in 1787, and wouldn't for almost a century and a half.

This brings us to Andrew McCarthy, explaining why President Trump had full authority to say what he did without compromising any ethics or laws:

Rush transcript:

>> Tucker: That was James Comey a month ago telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that the president never tried to improperly influence him on this investigation with Russia. He's coming back to the Senate, and he may be telling a different story. We will to find out tomorrow. The hearing is not going to be on cable news. You may be watching tomorrow. What should you be looking for while and after James Comey's speech? A lot of people are interested in the story, but the complex sprawling story with more innuendo and than fact. What should we be looking for? McCARTHY: "I think the main thing that has really confused people about the discussion over the last week is the idea that pressure and obstruction of justice are the same thing. They are clearly not. Actually, if you look at what former Director Comey said in his testimony, the case that there was obstruction of justice is much worse today than it was yesterday. And I actually didn't think there was any case yesterday. What people need to understand is putting pressure on a subordinate is not obstruction of justice. The key element of obstruction of justice is corruption, so if you don't have pressure that is motivated by corruption, there is no obstruction. The president has as much authority or more to exercise. Prosecutorial discretion as any of the subordinates he has who are U.S. Attorneys or FBI agents across the country. I think the extent to which these two concepts have been inflated is important. Pressure is not obstruction." >> Tucker: So by discretion, you mean he does not have to sit passively by while people who work for him run these investigations? He can influence them? >> He certainly can, but what I mean by discretion is, in the United States attorney's office, every day, prosecutors dismiss cases even though they could be prosecuted for a variety of reasons. They way the facts and decide if it should be brought or not. If you look at what trump is alleged to have done here, he went to the process very much the way a prosecutor does in a Normal case. He says, this is what they are accusing the sky of, but on the opposite side of the ledger, he didn't do anything inappropriate with Russia. He has already been laid low, I had to fire him yesterday. Enough is enough. You may not agree with that, but it's not corrupt. It is the kind of calculus that happens all the time in the exercise of prosecutors. This whole business of whether trump [sic] sought a loyalty pledge from Comey or not. That, I think, is more complicated. To a certain degree, the FBI director is a subordinate, well, to a complete degree he is a subordinate to the president, and does owe the kind of loyalty that a an inferior officer owes to a superior officer. He has to obey orders and carry out policies and the like. What he really owes the president is honesty. And actually being honest, that is how you are best loyal to the president. So, the question is going to be, what did trump mean by it loyalty? I think to the extent that people say that loyalty is not a factor in these superior subordinate relationships. That is not the case. >> Tucker: I hate to editorialize, but I don't know a single person speaking on the behalf of the White House who can explain things as clearly as you can. Thank you for coming on. That was really interesting. >> Thank you.

I have to agree with Tucker.
Senator Warners welcome to Comey was more like a prosecutors opening statement than a greeting. Pure propaganda exploiting the big TV audience.

Comey's opening statement:

- Shifting explanations caused him to worry. Picks up on Warner -- Trump defamed him and FBI.

- In response to question from Sen. Burr, Comey refused to testify in open session about the Steele Dossier -- to protect an investigation, he says.

- Comey admits, All kinds of cyber-intrusion going on all the time. That tends to contradict Warners opening statement drama about Russia attacking us  as if its efforts werent part of ongoing cyber operations conducted by foes and not a few friends, too.

Sen James Risch (R-ID) takes over questioning

- Compliments Comey on his legal writing skills. Seems like a double-edged, if not back-handed compliment.

- Risch gets Comey to state that a NYT report was untrue. He is low key and very effective. A slight country lawyer flavor.

- Risch gets Comey to confirm Trump said that he hoped that Comey would act, did not direct him to act. Closes the trap by asking if Comey knows of a case of prosecution based on a persons expressed hope. Comey tries to dodge, but Risch pounces and gets it on the record that Comey knows of no prosecution over an expressed hope.

- Sen. Rubio, like Sen. Burr, comes across as no apologist for Trump. They both are trying to appear fair. Not like the Democrats.

- Rubio's positioning is paying off with his closing questions for Comey. He is getting solid admissions.

- Sen. Olympia Snow asked Comey what made him decide to memorialize his meeting. His first and final explanation was gut feel  and a need to protect the Bureau.

- Comey admits that he asked a good friend who teaches at Columbia Law School to leak his memo on the Flynn conversation to help prompt a special counsel

- Sen. Heinrich (D-NM) is a real piece of work. Led Comey through his paces with the most incriminating spin.

- Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is another propagandist, calling Fynn the central figure in the Russia probe.

- Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) just trapped Comey into admitting he was able to get copies of his previous memoranda back from Mueller investigators to prepare his testimony, thus opening the door for the Committee to obtain them.

- Comey admits AG Lynch "instructed" him to call the Clinton inquiry a "matter" not an "investigation" -- and he complied with a "queasy" feeling.

- In response to a question from Sen. Manchin, asking if Trumps actions amounted to obstruction of justice, Comey said, I dont know. This from a guy who decided Hillary Clinton shouldnt be prosecuted for negligence because there was no intent.

-Sen Kamala Harris (D-CA) just went very, very low. She likened President Trump to a gun wielding mugger. If such a criminal says he hopes that tyou give him your money, it is not idle. I bet she isreally proud of that. She's already thinking about the nomination for president.

- Comey just asserted that he was fired to affect the Russia investigation, responding to Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)

- Sen. McCain is trying to be helpful to Trump, but sadly, is not too sharp this morning. Having a hard time being fully coherent.
This week, Iran's newly re-elected president, Hassan Rouhani, will mark his first 14 days as president in his second term.

For the Western foreign policy elite, the main question is whether Rouhani is willing to curb the domination of the IRGC (Iran's Revolutionary Guards) and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's governing entities over Iran's economy. And would Rouhani be able to oppose Iran's disastrous wars in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq?

Are there any chances of economic growth in Iran after the victory of Rouhani?

To answer these questions, we have to follow the events, assertions, and internal and external power struggles, to follow the balance of forces in terms of political, social, and economic points of view.

Economy and power struggle inside

Rouhani has defended his economic record and called for further engagement with other countries as the key to economic growth. But Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the country's ultimate authority, has ruled out any further rapprochement with the West, with no interest in relying on foreign investment to revive the country's economy.

In Iran, the supreme leader controls much of economy through 14 major entities, including the IRGC, whereas Iran's president has no influence on government policies.

Iran's oil revenue gains after President Obama's nuclear deal led to the costs of the war in the Middle East, especially Syria.

On May 15, 2017, Masoud Khansari, head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, said:

It is not yet a safe environment for the private sector in Iran, and foreign investors are still wary of doing business in the country[.]

The International Monetary Fund reported that "[t]he rate of economic development in Iran was 6.5% last year while it will be reduced to 3.3% this year[.]"

Rouhani's rival in Iran's presidential debate said 250,000 small workshops have closed At least 14 of 31 Iranian banks have gone bankrupt.

A lid on oil prices will further pressure Iran's budget as Tehran hoped an oil price increase would partly balance the budget.

According to a government report, the unemployment rate rose from 10% to 12.5%. Independent sources say the real figure is 40%, meaning 10 million unemployed

Political and social unrest inside

During the month of May 2017, in 21 major cities in Iran, 441 protests were recorded. This is 91 more protests than April 2017, which included 155 workers' protests, 25 prisoners' hunger strikes, 19 prisoners' protests, 15 teachers' protests, 10 university student protests, and 216 other social strikes.

In the last week, widespread clashes took place in major cities in Iran.

On Sunday morning, May 28, depositors of a state-affiliated development financial institution protested in different parts of the city of Khorramabad in western Iran after the looting of their assets by the state. One of their protests was held in front of a governor's office.

According to reports, demonstrators were chanting "death to the governor." Take a look at the video clips regarding the protest.

On May 29, 2017, hundreds of victims of the Caspian Financial meltdown gathered in front of the Central Bank of Iran in Tehran and chanted in protest. Earlier, dozens of protesters on Sunday attacked a branch of Arman Financial with stones in Khorramabad.

Regional and foreign relations

"The Iranian nation has decided to be powerful[.] ... American officials should know that whenever we need to technically test a missile, we will do so[.] ... America's dream of ending Iran's missile program will never come true," Rouhani claimed on his first day of office.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Riyadh, U.S. secretary of state Rex Tillerson said he hoped newly elected Iranian president Hassan Rouhani would use his second term in office to end Tehran's ballistic missile program and end what he called its network of terrorism.

"Washington intends to intensify its efforts to deter Tehran in Syrian and Yemen," he added.

On May 17, 2017, the U.S. House of Representative passed the bill to crack down on financial supporters of the Syrian government, clearly targeting Iran. The bill requires President Trump to sanction countries or companies that do business with the Syrian government or Syria's central bank.

Meanwhile, at a recent Riyadh, Saudi Arabia conference, a NATO-style coalition against Iran, which all agree is at the heart of most of the Middle East's problems, has been established, with 34,000 troops now ready to fight terrorism in Syria and Iraq. The countries in this Riyadh coalition have expressed their enmity against Iran. They show every sign of being determined to condemn and curb sectarianism and the mullah regime's arms shipments to Iraq, as well as its unwelcome role in Syria and Yemen

In conclusion

It's important to understand that the dispute is not between Rouhani and Khamenei. The main confrontation is between 38 years of fanatical tyrannical rule on one hand and the Iranians, who want to see their tyrannical, ruthless, utterly corrupt dictatorship replaced by a secular, democratic government, on the other. The people of Iran are demanding an end to the status quo, of small minority rule over a large majority, which heralds regime change.

The National Council of Resistance has scheduled a rally of 100,000 Iranian exiles in Paris on July 1 during its annual grand gathering, to be addressed by a large group of leading politicians from across the world, most notably many senior figures from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Arab countries.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a human rights advocate, up to date with all current affairs, including political and economic issues, critics, and informative reports on Iran and the Middle East. He tweets at @hassan_mahmou1.
Are you sure Donald Trump will be president until at least the end of 2018? Are you really, really sure? If so, you can make money on it. Betting markets like Predictit.com allow you to bet on political topics.

The price of "Will Trump still be President at the end of 2018?" is only 60 cents as of this writing. That means if you buy 1,000 shares and Trump is still president at the end of 2018, you will make 400 dollars (minus the 10% Predictit.com fee). If you really, really believe that Trump will still be in office then, you have the opportunity to make a lot of money.

There are many other things you can bet on. "Will Trump be impeached in 2017?" is priced relatively highly at 79 cents, but if you are certain he won't be impeached, you can make an easy 20 cents on every 80 cents you invest.

Other topics lets users bet on the president's actions, such as how many times the president will tweet about Jared Kushner during a given week, or how many times he will tweet during Comey's testimony.

Will Trump move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in 2017? It's priced at 85 cents "no", but in my view, it's easy money  where else can you make a nearly 17% return on your money in just six months? (For math Nazis, it's a profit of 15 cents for every 85 cents invested, not counting the Predictit.com fee, or 15 divided by 85.)

You can also bet on whether Jared Kushner or Roger Stone will face criminal charges.

Curiously, there is no option to bet on whether a border wall paid for by Mexico will be built. I guess in order for there to be a competitive wager, you need people willing to bet on both sides, and perhaps no one believes that a Mexican-financed border wall is in the offing.

Do you feel confident enough to bet on any of the topics above? How much would you invest?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
The prosecutor assigned to the case of a Detroit-area doctor and her assistants, who are accused of practicing female genital mutilation on two girls from Minnesota, has stated that they may have performed the barbaric procedure on more than 100 female children.

Assistant U.S. attorney Sara Woodward made the disclosure in court as she tried to convince a judge to hold the suspects in the case without bail.

Detroit Free Press:

"Due to the secretive nature of this procedure, we are unlikely to ever know how many children were cut by Dr. (Jumana) Nagarwala," Woodward said, referring to the lead defendant in the case, later adding, "The Minnesota victims were not the first victims." Against Woodward's wishes, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman granted bond to two other defendants in the case: Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, of Farmington Hills, who is accused of letting Nagarwala use his clinic to perform genital cutting procedures on minor girls; and his wife, Farida Attar, 50, who is accused of holding the girls' hands during the procedure to keep them from squirming and to calm them. The government believes the three defendants, all members of a local Indian-Muslim sect, subjected numerous girls to genital cutting procedures over a 12-year period. To date, the government says it has identified eight victims  including the two Minnesota girls  though Woodward said the government estimates there could be as many as 100 victims. She said that's a conservative estimate, and that it's based on Dr. Attar's alleged admission to authorities that he let Nagarwala use his clinic up to six times a year to treat children for genital rashes. Attar's lawyer, Mary Chartier, scoffed at the claim. "I think the government has overstated so many aspects of this case and this is one more example of overreaching," Chartier said after the hearing, during which she and another lawyer convinced the judge to set the Attars free. The defense has argued that the Attars did not engage in any criminal act and that the procedure at issue is a protected religious rite-of-passage that involves no cutting, but rather a scraping of genital membrane. They also argued the Attars are not a danger to the society and have no reason or desire to flee, convincing U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman to release them on bond.

More than 100 little girls? You would have a hard time convincing me that, no matter how "secretive" the doctor was in performing FGM, the Muslim community in the area was not aware of what was going on. Even if most area Muslims refused to subject their daughters to the barbarity of FGM, given the close-knit nature of that community, it's hard to believe they didn't know where to get the procedure done.

That FGM happens in the U.S. is appalling. But the larger question also relates to terrorism  how to get devout Muslim communities to inform on those who would attack us?

Spengler:

The terrorists, in short, are winning the intelligence war, because they have shaped the environment in which intelligence is gathered and traded. But that is how intelligence wars always proceed: spies switch sides and tell their stories because they want to be with the winner. ISIS and al-Qaeda look like winners in the eyes of western Muslim populations after humiliating the security services of the West. As a result, western European Muslims fear the terrorists more than they fear the police. The West will remain vulnerable to mass terror attacks until the balance of fear shifts in the other direction.

I'm not exactly sure how police can put the fear of Allah into Muslims. The cops are constrained by the U.S. Constitution, while the terrorists are not.

But Spengler has a point. So far, walking on eggshells around Muslim communities has had only limited success. While appeals to patriotism work with some Muslims, the pressures placed on residents of Muslim communities not to cooperate with the FBI and other law enforcement authorities can be intense. Police and the feds are seen as the enemy, despite the fact that they are trying to protect Muslims as much as every other American.

Until there is a sea change in attitudes by Muslim communities toward the law, FGM will continue to be a problem in America, and terrorists will have an advantage over law enforcement.
Our media devote most of their attention to a phony story of Trump collusion with a rival, while actual collusion (by silence) between the Obama administration and an actual enemy, Iran, is largely ignored.

The entire media establishment is having paroxysms over a leak by a 25-year-old NSA contractor of an NSA report that the Russians carried out spear-phishing attacks just prior to the election. But evidence of an Iranian attack during negotiations of the secret side deals in the wake of congressional failure to stop the deal has been ignored. The Washington Free Beacon reports:

State Department officials determined that Iran hacked their emails and social media accounts during a particularly sensitive week for the nuclear deal in the fall of 2015, according to multiple sources familiar with the details of the cyber attack. The attack took place within days of the deal overcoming opposition in Congress in late September that year. That same week, Iranian officials and negotiators for the United States and other world powers were beginning the process of hashing out a series of agreements allowing Tehran to meet previously determined implementation deadlines. ... It is unclear whether top officials at the State Department negotiating the Iran deal knew about the hack or if their personal or professional email accounts were compromised. Sources familiar with the attack believed top officials at State were deeply concerned about the hack and that those senior leaders did not have any of their email or social media accounts compromised in this particular incident.

While the Free Beacon report relies mostly on anonymous sources, there is actual hard evidence provided that this happened:

State Department officials in the Office of Iranian Affairs on Sept. 24, 2015 sent an email to dozens of outside contractors. The email alerted the contractors that a cyber-attack had occurred and urged them not to open any email from a group of five State Department officials that did not come directly from their official state.gov accounts.

If the State Department or White House had acknowledged the attack to the public, it would have demonstrated the wrongheadedness of the Iran deal Congress had just punted on.

Where is the outrage of the left, obsessed with "collaboration" with Russia (a nation that, unlike Iran, has not launched terror attacks against the United States the way Iran has)? What about Obama's and Jarrett's collaboration with Iran?

After all, hacking during negotiations is a way to gain an unfair advantage, causing the opponent to give away far too much. Isn't that exactly what happened? And didn't the Obama administration cover it up?

Sooner or later, the time will come for a full frontal pushback against the phony fantasy story of Trump-Russia collaboration. How about congressional investigations of the Iran deal and Obama administration collusion?

Hat tip: Jack Hellner
President Trump is putting pressure on Senate Republicans to get Obamacare repeal done sooner rather than later, and it appears that his efforts are paying off.

Despite recent doubts by some senators, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell believes that the Senate can pass its own version of Obamacare.

Washington Times:

Senate GOP leaders said Tuesday they're "close" to settling on their own plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, as pressure mounts on them to deliver on their health promises before the August recess. It's been more than a month since House Republicans muscled their own repeal bill to passage. Senate Republicans have rejected that bill, but have struggled to come up with their own alternative that can win a majority vote in the upper chamber. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his negotiators are putting pen to paper to see where his troops stand as the effort moves into a do-or-die phase. "We're getting close to having a proposal to whip and to take to the floor," Mr. McConnell said. "We've had seven years to talk about health care." The GOP cleared a major procedural hurdle Tuesday, as the Senate's main referee  the parliamentarian  said the House template comports with fast-track budget rules Republicans are using to avoid a Democratic filibuster of their plans. Yet political obstacles remain. Rank-and-file Republicans claimed progress after yet another closed-door meeting Tuesday, yet hedged on whether they'll muster the votes for passage.

It's not going to be easy. GOP leaders briefed members of the caucus yesterday, but the proposal had a lot of holes in it.

The Hill:

Senators said a PowerPoint presentation at Tuesday's Senate GOP lunch meeting left some key decisions unresolved. While aides said some details are starting to take shape, conservatives are already raising red flags. Most importantly, staffers said the bill would allow states to waive ObamaCare rules requiring insurers to cover a range of healthcare services, known as essential health benefits. But the measure would not allow states to waive rules preventing people with pre-existing conditions from being charged more, a departure from the House-passed bill. That move pleased some moderates but has sparked frustration among conservatives who want to allow states to repeal all of the ObamaCare regulations. Speaking on background, an aide to a conservative senator said their office is "very disappointed" in the healthcare proposal as it currently stands and that its structure "absolutely" jeopardizes support on the right.

But the president is emerging as the "X" factor in the debate and appears poised to run political interference for Republicans by blaming Democrats for inaction.

The Hill:

President Trump on Wednesday blamed Democrats for the slow speed of congressional efforts to repeal ObamaCare. Speaking in Cincinnati, where he was flanked by two families who saw massive premium increases as a result of the healthcare law, Trump praised the House-passed ObamaCare repeal bill and charged that Democrats are the reason the process is taking so long. "We're having no help; it's only obstruction from the Democrats. The Democrats are destroying health care in this country," Trump said. House Republicans narrowly passed the American Healthcare Act in early May, after an earlier effort failed. An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 23 million people would lose insurance under the bill, prompting many Senate Republicans to back away from the House plan. The Senate is now working on its own version of the bill, but the GOP has been bogged down by intraparty disagreements over Medicaid, taxes and other key issues. Republican leaders haven't introduced legislative text, but are urging a swift vote, possibly before the July Fourth recess. They have openly admitted they don't expect any Democratic help as they work to repeal one of President Barack Obama's signature legislative accomplishments, which is why they are using the budget reconciliation process that only requires a simple majority to pass a bill. Still, Trump insisted Wednesday the Democrats were at fault. "If we gave you the greatest health plan in the world we would get no votes," Trump said "The Democrats are really in our way."

Despite the fact that Obamacare is clearly failing, Democrats are proceeding as if all were well and as if mean Republicans wanted to destroy a perfectly good health insurance program. That it doesn't comport with reality doesn't matter. Democrats are targeting their base with this nonsense, playing off the fears and paranoia of sick people.

For Trump, highlighting Democratic foot-dragging on Obamacare repeal and reform is good politics, but can he herd Republicans in the Senate and get them to back a plan that can be supported by all factions?

I think the key will be giving states control over coverage mandates as well as allowing states to keep Medicaid expansion if they desire. It will make the bill more expensive, but it's likely to garner majority support.

Repealing the pre-existing conditions mandate is probably not in the cards, but modifying it may be. The goal is to keep conservatives and moderates from totally rejecting the package. It may be difficult to see how that's possible at this point, but the same could have been said before the House vote on Obamacare repeal and replace. The president was able to twist enough arms and sweeten the pot enough so that an admittedly imperfect bill was successfully passed.

Trump is hoping to duplicate that effort in the Senate.
Slow-motion ethnic cleansing of Jews is underway in Manchester, escaping much notice by the outside world in the wake of the slaughter at the Ariana Grande concert. Anti-Semitism UK is the source for this report on the culinary terrorism underway:

JS Restaurant, the oldest kosher restaurant in Manchester has been gutted by fire following a suspected arson attack overnight at approximately 4:00.

As can be seen in the picture below, the second wave attack was successful, closing a business that also served as a community center, allowing observant Jews a place to gather and enjoy food together.

Two days ago, Ta'am, another kosher restaurant in the city, was firebombed for the second time, and CCTV captured images of two youths conducting the attack. Last year, the same restaurant was also set alight.

Once again, the only term used by police to describe te attackers who were photographed is "youths."

If Labor led by Jeremy Corbin is elected in today's voting, things will get much, much worse for the Jews of Manchester and the U.K. But they are only the first target of the conquerors.

Ht tip: Cheryl Jacobs Lewin
While the United Kingdom's election today carries great importance on a whole host of issues, it is a referendum on terrorism and rogue regimes. A vote for Theresa May is a vote for the U.K. and the free world, while a vote for Jeremy Corbyn is a win for terrorists and rogue regimes.

The stakes are very high for today's election in the U.K., and the choice could not be starker. The election is much more than choosing an individual as prime minister; it is about choosing whether the U.K. will ally itself with the Free World or with terrorists and rogue regimes. It is a referendum on whether the U.K. prefers a close alliance with the United States and NATO, or a close relationship with terrorist organizations and rogue regimes. The stakes are very high.

Theresa May is a reliable ally to the United States and many other nations of the Free World, as well as a strong partner in NATO. In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn has expressed his strong support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezb'allah and has allied himself with the rogue regimes of Iran and North Korea. Corbyn has also professed his strong opposition to NATO.

The U.K. is reeling from three terrorist attacks this year. If the United Kingdom's electorate chooses Corbyn, it would be an epic capitulation to the very terrorists who continue to attack them. Worse, it would be choosing to ally with those very organizations and countries that seek the downfall of the U.K. and of the free world.

Corbyn referred to Hezb'allah and Hamas as "friends," stating "it will be my pleasure and honor to host an event at Parliament where our friends from Hezb'allah will be speaking," adding that "friends from Hamas" had also been invited.

He also stated his support for the Iranian regime in 2014, saying, "I respect Iran's history. I respect what brought about the revolution in 1979." That same year, Corbyn referred to NATO as a "very, very dangerous Frankenstein of an organization." In 2011, he had also referred to NATO as "a danger to world peace" and a "major problem." And, with respect to North Korea, Corbyn described them as "not a rogue state." On the other hand, he referred to Israel as a "rogue state that is destroying the lives of so many people." At that same event he also decried U.S. funding for Israel's missile defense shield that protects its civilian population, and he called for a full halt to E.U. trade with Israel.

By contrast, although the British government's posture toward Israel in the U.N. has been lukewarm at best, May does speak enthusiastically in support of Israel. She listed the threats Israel faces from Hezb'allah, Hamas, Iran, and Syria, stating: "No democratic government could, in the face of such danger, do anything but maintain a strong defense and security capability and be prepared to deploy it if necessary. That is why I  and the whole British government  will always defend Israel's right to defend itself." Theresa May also secured a major commitment from President Trump to support NATO and successfully argued that NATO should become actively involved in the fight against the Islamic State.

Corbyn defended Hamas and its constitution in the wake of Hamas's 2006 victory in Palestinian elections, writing:

Hamas won the election both in the popular vote and constituency sections. It is a result that must be respected. However, the US and some of the European leaders seem to have some problem recognising this. Without any sense of irony, they have united in demanding that Hamas change its constitution and relinquish all claims to Israel.

He described Hamas as "an organization ... dedicated towards the good of the [Palestinian] people and bringing about long term peace ... in the whole region" and said that the U.K.'s labeling of Hamas as a terrorist organization "is really a big, big historical mistake."

However, Article 7 of Hamas's constitution calls for the wholesale genocide of Jews throughout the world. This is something Corbyn tacitly defends, despite his protestations that he and the Labor Party are opposed to anti-Semitism.

Similarly, Hezb'allah, an organization that Corbyn also calls his "friend," is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of U.S. peacekeepers in the Beirut barracks bombings. Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezb'allah, has stated his intent to wipe out all Jews.

Jeremy Goldberg, in The Atlantic, compiled a list of quotes from officials in the Iranian regime that call for the destruction of Israel.

None of this bothers Corbyn, who was also paid approximately $27,000 for multiple appearances on Iran's Press TV. Press TV was banned in the U.K. for filming the detention and torture of an Iranian journalist. It was on Press TV that Corbyn in 2012 referred to the killing of Osama bin Laden as a "tragedy."

Corbyn has been friendly with the IRA, a recognized terrorist organization responsible for many attacks on the United Kingdom, including the attempted assassination of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. His long friendship with the IRA runs deep, and Corbyn has not changed his stance; he has recently repeatedly refused to condemn the terrorist attacks perpetrated by the IRA.

Corbyn argued that the 7/7 London terrorist bombings were the fault of the U.K., claiming that the U.K. "is at risk because of the way [it] inflicts an insecurity on so many other people around the world." He condemned the U.K.'s use of drones, a weapon employed against the Islamic State, as an "obscenity." In line with this way of thinking, Corbyn wishes to make significant cuts to the U.K. military at a time of continued threats from terrorists, and he has opposed the U.K.'s "shoot to kill" policy for its military and police.

Corbyn supported calls for Theresa May's resignation in the wake of the London Bridge attacks and has attempted to sway public opinion in his favor, claiming he could better protect the U.K.'s security. Far from protecting the United Kingdom, a Corbyn premiership would be disastrous to its security and relationships with its allies and could prove a boon for terrorists and rogue regimes.

The U.K.'s electorate is not simply choosing a prime minister; the people are choosing a path forward. A vote for Jeremy Corbyn is a vote for insecurity and for an alliance with rogue regimes and terrorist organizations. Theresa May is a reliable ally of the United States, and whatever shortcomings she may have are a far cry from the radical extremism that Corbyn supports and represents. The choice could not be clearer. Choose wisely, U.K.
As a supporter of NAFTA over the last two decades, I read this with a bit of a shock:

Mexico agreed to demands from the United States to cut exports of refined sugar, striking a deal on Tuesday in a contentious trade negotiation that was closely watched as a prologue to talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement. The dispute stemmed from complaints by American sugar refiners that Mexico was taking advantage of unfair trade practices to dump refined sugar in the American market and at the same time limit the amount of raw sugar it exported to American refineries. The preliminary deal heads off the threat of punitive tariffs and maintains Mexico's access to the American market. Mexico was forced to make significant concessions, but the American sugar industry, which had pushed for much tighter restrictions on Mexican sugar, opposed the deal. Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross, speaking at a news conference in Washington alongside Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexico's economy minister, said, "We have gotten the Mexican side to agree to nearly every request made by the U.S. sugar industry to address flaws in the current system and ensure fair treatment of American sugar growers and refiners."

Again, let me react with a couple of questions. Wasn't NAFTA created to eliminate these trade issues? What other trade issues like the sugar dispute exist between Mexico and the U.S.?

During my time living and working in Mexico, I remember that the government was always under a lot of pressure to subsidize major foodstuffs, from tortillas to milk to sugar. My office was across the street from the U.S. Embassy, and there were frequent demonstrations about the cost of food. Picketing the U.S. Embassy was a sure way of getting in the news because it would cause major traffic problems.

I recall talking to a Mexican friend about subsidized tortillas in the upscale neighborhoods of the city. In other words, why are upper-class Mexicans with apartments in Houston consuming subsidized tortillas? He explained by saying "asi es en este loco pais," or, loosely translated, "that's the way it is in this crazy country."

Overall, the timing of this sugar dispute is absolutely horrible for NAFTA.

According to news reports, U.S. sugar producers protested the amount of cheap sugar pouring across the border. They argued that Mexico was subsidizing local producers, or dumping its exports, as we see in this report:

The dispute between Mexico and the US grew out of a collision between Washington's long-running and controversial support for sugar growers and its obligations under Nafta, which in 2008 required the US to remove restrictions on Mexican imports. Angered by what they claimed was a flood of cheap sugar, US producers responded by launching an anti-dumping case in 2014. Before punitive tariffs were introduced, a deal was negotiated that set a floor price and strict quotas for Mexican imports. But that deal collapsed last year after US producers accused Mexico of gaming the system. Under the 2014 agreement Mexico, which expects to send almost 1m tonnes of sugar to the US this year, was allowed to send 53 per cent of its exports to the US as higher-value refined sugar. The US is pushing for Mexico to be forced to send 85 per cent of exports as less profitable raw sugar to be refined in US mills. That has angered the Mexican sugar industry and prompted its own protectionist calls. In a letter last week Enrique Bojorquez, president of Sucroliq, Mexico's biggest liquid sugar producer, urged the government to crack down on imports of high fructose corn syrup from the US. "The US does well to defend its farmers. In Mexico, they are sacrificed," he says. US farmers and refiners still accuse the Mexican industry of mounting a state-subsidised assault on their livelihoods and communities, pointing to a 2001 government rescue of the Mexican industry that saw 27 sugar mills nationalised with the last two returning to private hands only last year.

It appears that the issue is settled for now. However, it is an important window into the contradictions of NAFTA, an agreement that I understood was passed to avoid issues like this.

Moral of the story: It is difficult to do "free trade" with countries that subsidize certain industries.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk), (YouTube) and follow me on Twitter.
The N.Y. Times has a story claiming that Breitbart's traffic is down 50% and its advertising base is down nearly 90%.

The site's visitor traffic has fallen 53 percent since November, from 22.96 million unique individuals to 10.76 million last month, according to ComScore, which tracks Web trends. Other news sites have seen a falloff since the election, too  The Washington Post and the New York Times are off 24 and 26 percent during this period, respectively  but Breitbart's losses are at roughly twice the mainstream rate. At the same time, an advertiser blacklist of Breitbart organized by an anonymous online group called Sleeping Giants appears to be biting hard. Only 26 companies had ads on Breitbart last month, down from 242 in March, according to the marketing-news site Digiday. It said the remaining advertisers were primarily smaller direct-response companies, although Amazon.com remains one of its sponsors, despite pressure from its employees to cut ties to the site[.]

Breitbart, for its part, denies that traffic is down:

It said its traffic has increased 59 percent on a year-to-year basis and that it ranks No. 60 among U.S.-based websites, according to the Alexa web-tracking firm.

So what's going on with Breitbart? Some possibilities:

1) It's all fake news. Breitbart is doing fine.

2) Breitbart has lost audience because people are souring on Trump, and Breitbart is strongly identified with him.

3) Breitbart has lost audience because Breitbart is souring on Trump, reporting on the lack of a border wall paid for by Mexico and the continuing influx of foreign refugees.

4) Breitbart lost traffic when Milo left, taking a certain constituency with certain proclivities with him.

or

5) Breitbart has lost traffic because it is no longer challenging P.C. assumptions:

The traffic and advertiser losses may be compelling a move toward a kinder, gentler Breitbart, says Will Sommer, who tracks conservative media in his newsletter Right Richter . Faced with an advertiser boycott and plummeting readership, Breitbart News has lately been trimming back some of its more extreme elements in what may be a bid for more mainstream respectability. Gone: Prominently displayed stories appealing to overt racial prejudice, such as reports and essays about crimes committed by African Americans. Articles such as "Five Devastating Facts About Black-on-Black Crime" and "Black-on-Black Crime: Blame it on the System and Ignore the Evidence" have all but disappeared from the site.

Breitbart also recently fired reporter Katie McHugh for stating that if not for Muslims in the U.K., there would be no terrorist attacks there. Her statement, while blunt, is certainly quite true.

Which of the above do you think is most correct? Let us know in the comments section!

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.
Sitting on top of a small natural hill, amidst the slums of San Agustin, in south-central Caracas, Venezuela, is a magnificent building with a spiraling ramp that coils onto itself becoming tighter and tighter, rising higher and higher, until it reaches the apex crowned by a geodesic dome, designed by none other than Richard Buckminster Fuller himself.

El Helicoide, or the Helix, is one of Venezuelas most important relics of the modernist movement. It was supposed to be the worlds first drive-through shopping mall with a 2.5 mile long spiraling ramp for cars to ascend, descend, and park directly in front of the shops they wanted to visit. There was space for more than three hundred stores, and would have included a 5 star hotel, a movie theater with seven screens, exhibition halls, a gym, a pool, a bowling alley, a nursery and a lot more.

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

The project was conceived in the late 1950s by architects Pedro Neuberger, Dirk Bornhorst and Jorge Romero Gutierrez, for the Venezuelan dictator and President Marcos Perez Jimenez. When the project was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, it was hailed by everyone as a triumph of modernist design. Nobel-Prize winning Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda declared it "one of the most exquisite creations to emerge from the mind of an architect", and Salvador Dali offered to decorate the inside.

The building was almost nearing completion when Perez Jimenezs dictatorship collapsed and the architects lost their funding. The new government showed no interest in completing the project because of its association with the former dictator. In 1961, one year before the project was due for completion, construction came to a halt. In 1975, after a lengthy bankruptcy process, the building became government property.

The first squatters began to move in in 1979. They were mostly victims of a recent landslide. But in just three years, the number of people illegally occupying the building rose to more than ten thousand, and the Helicoide became a den for trafficking in drugs and sex. In 1982, the squatters were evicted, and it was decided to turn the building into a Museum of History and Anthropology. This, of course, never happened. Instead, the building was taken over by the Venezuelan intelligence police in 1984 and turned into their headquarters. The buildings innumerable rooms, originally designed to display and sell products, became cells to hold detainees for questioning, torturing and more.

A new kind of darkness set upon the building, arising from its conversion into a detention center, writes cultural historian Celeste Olalquiaga. High-tech surveillance equipment was installed, officers delighted to be able to ride their cars to their offices a la James Bond. There were political prisoners, there was torture; SWAT teams would stop anyone taking a picture of the building from the surrounding highways.

Vicente Lecuna, a professor at Central Venezuela University, calls the place a contradictiona space that wanted to be a symbol of free commerce in the Fifties and Sixties would later become a jail, a jail for political prisoners.

According to a report published by an NGO, there were 145 cases of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, committed by the Venezuelan Government from January 2014 to June 2016 alone.

In 2012, the Inter-American Court on Human Rights examined the facilities at the Helicoide and concluded they were not fit to be a prison. Nevertheless, the Helicoide continues to hold prisoners and the only escapees from it are stories of horror and human rights violation.

Photo credit: Juan Carlos Montes/Panoramio

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Photo credit: Projecto Helicoide

Sources: CityLab / World Architects / Failed Architecture
About thirty kilometers to the north of Blumenau, a city in Brazil, lies the town of Pomerode, so named because its founders came from Pomerania, a region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, split between Germany and Poland. The town was founded more than 150 years ago, yet even today, ninety percent of the towns 25,000 inhabitants speak German with a distinct 19th century Pommersch accent.

Pomerode is probably one of the most German towns in Brazil. This is immediately apparent as soon as one enters the town through the arched gateway. Every cottage and building is built in the traditional German style characterized by exposed brick within a frame of exposed wood, that recalls a rural German setting from the 1900s.

Photo credit: Mathias Fingermann/Flickr

Pomerode isnt the only German town in Brazil. There are a lot of Germans living in the southern part of the country. Their ancestors had left home in successive waves of emigration beginning in 1824 and accelerating after the failed revolutions of 1848, settling in the United States and in South American countries such as Brazil. Immigration continued well into the 20th century, with another major influx occurring immediately after the First World War. Between 1824 and 1969, around 250,000 Germans emigrated to Brazil, where they constitute the fourth largest immigrant community to settle in the country, after the Portuguese, Italians and Spaniards.

Even though the immigration of Germans to Brazil was small compared to the numbers who went to the United States, it had a notable impact on the ethnic composition of the country, particularly in the south of the country. By the end of the 19th century, 13.3% of the population in Rio Grande do Sul was of German descent, and that figure rose to 21.6% in 1950.

In the book The Monroe Doctrine, T B Edgington explained the growth phenomenon:

The natural increase of the German population in southern Brazil is marvelous. As a rule they rear from ten to fifteen children in each family. Blumenau, a colony which was settled by the Germans over fifty years ago, more than doubles itself every ten years. Southern Brazil is now called Greater Germany, and the Germans exercise there a commercial and financial supremacy.

For a good part of the 20th century, the Brazilian government did not encourage people to speak German. During the days of Getulio Vargas's presidency, speaking German was actively repressed and prohibited. But over the years the government has become more tolerant of Brazilian Germans, acknowledging their existence and embracing the culture of the German population. Today, German is part of the curriculum in local schools.

Photo credit: Marinelson Almeida/Flickr

Photo credit: Marinelson Almeida/Flickr

Photo credit: Marinelson Almeida/Flickr

Photo credit: Juliano Mendes/Flickr

Sources: Wikipedia / Wikipedia / Failed Architecture
Times journalist calls everyone who doesnt vote Labour a c**t

Times journalist Caitlin Moran has reportedly tweeted: Obviously theres more nuanced take on this, but, broadly, voting Labour = not being a cunt.

In November 2016, the Sunday Times interviewed Conservative leader Theresa May  a non-Labour voter, like Tobias Ellwood, and millions more deplorables who dont agree with Labour and vote Conservative, SNP, Green, LibDem, Co-operative, Democratic Unionist, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, UKIP, Ulster Unionist Party or no-one. One section in Eleanor Mills story stood out:

A few weeks ago, I attended the Women of the Year awards lunch, where May spoke and presented an award to Margaret Aspinall, chairwoman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, whose son James died in the Hillsborough disaster. Margaret Thatcher once told Aspinall that the police were doing their job, my dear, their job. May, by contrast, paid tribute to the families in their long fight for justice. In the queue for the ladies after the lunch, I chatted to another Hillsborough mum and asked what she thought of the prime minister. Weve seen many politicians over the years, she said, raising her eyes to heaven. Theresas the only one who ever came through for us.

Morans comment is nasty. The unpleasantness of those who claim to be most caring is jarring. To present swathes of people as inferior beings  Untermensch  is not enlightened. We should have more faith in one another. Humanity is underrated. Of course, its not only voices on the moralising Left writing off people who disagree with them as trash.

One other thing about was noteworthy: it showed that the Times employs writers with differing opinions. You cannot abuse Moran for toeing the line. Yesterdays Times editorial backed the Tories: The Conservatives have fought a poor campaign. Their manifesto includes policies lifted wholesale from Ed Milibands Labour platform of 2015, and a headline strategy on social care that was brave in principle but botched in practice.

Mrs May has been pitched to voters as her partys strongest asset but she has proved wooden when she needed to show charisma. She has been inflexible when she needed to think on her feet and evasive when she needed to be honest. That she is nonetheless by far the best prospective prime minister on offer speaks volumes about the choice voters must make tomorrow.

In other news: Caitlin Morans tweet has been deleted.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, June 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
BRUSSELS - In the "exceptional circumstances" of the European refugee crisis EU Member States in which applications for international protection were first lodged are responsible for examining those applications even when these are not the country of first entry, Advocate General Sharpston said in a non-binding opinion to the European Court of Justice on Thursday. "The words 'irregular crossing' in the Dublin III Regulation do not cover a situation where, as a result of the mass inflow of people into border Member States, those countries allowed third- country nationals to enter and transit through their territory in order to reach other Member States," she added, proposing to the court to reject appeals presented by Slovenia and Austria.

These countries are claiming that the requests for international protection presented to their respective authorities should have been processed by Croatia. "If border Member States, such as Croatia, are deemed to be responsible for accepting and processing exceptionally high numbers of asylum seekers, there is a real risk that they will simply be unable to cope with the situation," the Advocate General said.
ANSAmed - Today's events in the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 8 - These are some of the main events scheduled for today the Euro-Mediterranean area: ROME - Maxxi Museum - Press conference to present events planned for #WithRefugees for World Refugee Day 2017.



VENICE - Giorgio Cini Foundation - ResetDOC seminars on the growth of populism and decline of diversity. LUXEMBOURG - EU, Council of the Ministers of Transport, Telecommunications and Energy (TTE) (also June 9).



PARIS - OECD, Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) on 'Making globalisation work: Better lives for all'.



ROME - Casa internazionale delle donne. Exhibition under the title 'To embroider - a life spent searching for the roots of Palestinian embroidery' (until June 8).



ROME - Courtyards of Tor Pignattara and Pigneto. The sixth edition of KarawanFest, a cinema event addressing issues of coexistence and the meeting of cultures (until June 11).



(ANSAmed).




Renault exports 1 million vehicles from Morocco Cars manufactured in Casablanca and Tangier plants

(ANSAmed) - TANGIER, JUNE 8 - French car manufacturer Renault has exported its first million vehicles made in Morocco, the Tangier Med port authority has said. Renault Group began production in the north African country at its Casablanca plant in 2007.



It subsequently opened a second production site in Tangier in 2012. These two plants respectively export 95% and 70% of production to foreign markets. In addition to automobiles, Renault also exports component parts manufactured in Morocco to its other production sites in India, Romania, Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. (ANSAmed).




ISTANBUL - Prosecutors in Ankara have issued 20 new arrest warrants against the employees of various banks on charges of links with the alleged coup-plotting network of Fethullah Gulen, Anadolu reported Thursday. At least 11 suspects were arrested in a morning police operation, the news agency added. The suspects include staff at the central bank of Turkey and Asya Bank and have also been dismissed.

They are accused of using the secure messaging app ByLock allegedly employed by the organisation suspected of being behind the failed coup attempt in July 2016 to exchange crypted messages.
ROME - The US-led coalition has bombed forces supporting the Syrian government again near the deconfliction zone in Al-Tanf, where a base of opposition fighters trained by the US and fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS) is located.



Reports were from coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon.



An armed drone was shot down and another vehicle was hit by coalition airstrikes.



Dillon added that the drone had intended to target US forces and that though the US does not want to target pro-government forces, it will defend itself from any threat. Moscow has called on the US-led coalition to use ''care'' when planning airstrikes against ISIS in Syria to prevent civilian deaths, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quoted by news agencies as saying. Zakharova noted that a June 3 airstrike on ISIS-held Raqqa had ''killed 43 civilians'', while ''over 30 people'' died on June 5 when the coalition hit a group of IDPs.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura have meanwhile underscored the need to strengthen UN-supported Geneva peace talks, especially as concerns the issue of a new constitution in Syria and the fight against terrorism.

The next round of talks in Astana, which had initially been scheduled for June 12, has been postponed to June 20, Interfax quoted Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying.
Israel panel greenlights another West Bank settlement 102 residential units for Amona evictees

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JUNE 8 - An Israeli defense ministry building panel on Thursday approved the building of 102 homes in Amichai, which will be first government-sanctioned Israeli settlement in the West Bank for the past 25 years. The settlement will be built between the Shiloh and Eli settlements north of Ramallah and will be used to house the former residents of Amona, an illegal outpost destroyed by Israel.



Amichai is part of a previously approved plan that has been put on hold but that would create about 2,600 residential units in the West Bank. The approval for the new Amichai settlement was announced by Arutz Sheva (Channel 7), the settlers' movement broadcaster. The project has yet to be fully planned.



The residents of the illegal Amona outpost - who will be moving into the new complex in line with commitments made by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in February when Among was demolished - have up until now been living in the nearby Ofra and Shiloh settlements in the West Bank. A spokesman for Amona residents quoted by Arutz Sheva said that the community was ''happy about the authorization to begin the work, though for now it is only infrastructure and not the buildings themselves''.



The overall plan for 2,600 residential units that Amichai is part of was approved last week. Local media said that most of them will be in the largest settlements that were previously frozen for various reasons, including US president Donald Trump's recent visit to Israel.



(ANSAmed).




TEL AVIV - Premier Benyamin Netanyahu has decided to recognise 200 illegal immigrants from Sudan's restive Darfur region as 'temporary residents' on conditions analogous to those granted to refugees. Newspaper Haaretz says the decision is unprecedented in the last ten years. Unlike other African migrants, the 200 from Darfur are now entitled to work, social rights and medical insurance and can enter and leave the country at will. However, their status could be annulled "if the political conditions change".

Social activists have organised a demonstration in support of African migrants in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

However, residents of working-class districts with a high concentration of immigrants have organised a counter-demonstration calling on the government to expel them if not from the country then at least from those neighbourhoods already afflicted by poverty.


BEIRUT - Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman vowed defiantly on Thursday in an interview with Al Jazeera that Qatar would not give in to pressure to change its policies despite isolation from surrounding countries.



''We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy,'' he said. The response was to accusations from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt of supporting terrorist groups and having relations with Iran. The minister, who will be visiting Moscow on Friday, added that Qatar is not afraid of a halt to ground, air and sea connections, underscoring that his government had taken all required measures so that the population would not suffer.

Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah al Ahmad al Sabah has said that he has initiated mediation efforts to seek a solution to the regional crisis but the minister said that his country had not yet received any request. The Saudi government recently called for Doha to cut its links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the organization's Palestinian branch.

On Wednesday, US president Donald Trump - who the previous day had taken the side of the anti-Qatar front - said he was willing to host the two sides at the White House to discuss an agreement. However, Sheikh Mohammad told AP that Qatari emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani would not leave the country as long as it was subjected to an embargo. .


Both aircraft were designed and completed in Basel, and are examples of the companys commitment to exceptional design, impressive technological advances and efficient production. The ACJ319 was completed within a downtime of 10 months, and the ACJ330 in 14.

We were delighted to be able to deliver these aircraft in October 2016 and February 2017, bringing our total collaboration with the customer to three aircraft, said Joshua Florio, project manager, Jet Aviation Completions. The customer engaged Jet Aviation Completions in Basel due to our reputation for superior process and techniques from design to delivery. This, combined with the speed with which the team brought together these beautiful aircraft, is a real testament to both the quality and efficiency of Jet Aviation Completions.
It was a treble celebration in Riyadh at the King Faisal Air Academy (KFAA) as the college celebrated its 50th anniversary, marked the graduation of its 91st course of students, and welcomed the first of the Boeing F-15SA tactical fighters developed for the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).

King Salman attended the celebrations with his son, Defence Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Omar Al-Bashir, president of Sudan.

The days ceremonial included a parade and a flypast, which featured one of the first four F-15SAs delivered, while two more aircraft were displayed on the ground.

The king and the other VIP guests were also shown a specially commissioned film marking the 50th anniversary of the KFAA, and another about the new F-15SA and its advanced technologies.

The F-15SA is a derivative of the two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle multi-role fighter, and is claimed to be the most advanced variant of the Eagle built to date, incorporating a host of features taken from the advanced F-15K Slam Eagle (used by South Korea) and the F-15SG (operated by Singapore), as well as some new-to-the-Eagle systems.

It features two additional outboard under-wing hardpoints (stations 1 and 9). Their use required the development and installation of a new digital fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system, which now features a disorientation recovery capability.

The aircraft is equipped with the Raytheon APG-63(V)3 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, BAE Systems digital electronic warfare system/common missile warning system (DEWS/CMWS), a joint helmet-mounted cueing system (JHMCS), and an AN/AAS-42 infrared search and track (IRST) system, as well as the Tiger Eyes third generation low altitude navigation and targeting infrared for night (LANTIRN) navigation pod.

Contrary to expectations, the aircraft does not feature the new large-area display used by the F-35 in either cockpit.

The F-15SA is powered by increased thrust General Electric F110-GE-129 engines and is able to carry a wide variety of weapons, including long-range AIM-120C7 advanced medium range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) and short-range AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, AGM-84 SLAM-ER air-to-surface missiles, AGM-88 HARM high-speed anti-radiation missiles and GBU-39 small diameter bombs (SDBs), as well as laser- and dual-mode laser/GPS-guided weapons of up to 2,000lb weight.

Saudi selection of the F-15SA reflected the kingdoms long-standing policy of dividing its major aircraft procurements between the US and Europe (mainly the UK).

Having ordered an initial batch of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon swing-role fighters, Saudi attention switched back to the USA, and to new derivatives of the F-15E, including the stealthy F-15SE Silent Eagle and other advanced F-15 configurations that were not low observable (LO) or stealthy, but did incorporate advanced targeting systems and new weapons capabilities.

The fighter offers little that the Typhoon does not already provide, though it does have an AESA radar (an as yet unfunded upgrade for Saudi Typhoons).

Though the F-15SA has a long-range and heavy-payload capability, the aircraft does not have a long-range stand-off weapon in the class of the Storm Shadow cruise missile, now being integrated on RSAF Typhoons.

The RSAF requested 84 new-built F-15SA jets and an upgrade package for the 70 surviving Saudi F-15S fighter-bombers (to bring them to the same standard) in 2010, and this request was notified to the US Congress in November 2010.

The resulting $29.4 billion contract for 154 advanced Eagles, plus logistics, spares, maintenance support and weapons, signed on December 29 2011, formed the biggest component in a $60 billion package that became the biggest-ever US arms sale to a foreign country.

Attrition of the RSAFs F-15S fleet means that there will now be no more than 68 aircraft available for conversion, reducing the total F-15SA force to a maximum of 152 aircraft, and likely fewer than that, with further attrition likely between now and the end of the conversion programme, and with the first three instrumented prototype aircraft unlikely to enter operational service.

A total of 144 F-15SAs would allow the RSAF to field six squadrons. The first of these will be the 55th Squadron, currently the F-15S training unit and slated to be the Formal Training Unit (FTU) for the F-15SA.

The 55th Squadron is part of the 5th Wing at King Khalid Air Base at Khamis Mushayt in southwest Saudi Arabia, along with the 6th Squadron, which is also due to convert from the F-15S to the F-15SA.

F-15SAs will also replace the original F-15S variant with the 92nd Squadron, part of the 3rd Wing at King Abdullah Aziz Air Base at Dhahran, on the Gulf coast, near Bahrain, and with an un-numbered Weapons & Tactics School (possibly known as the Fighter Weapons School) co-located at Dhahran, and probably forming part of the 11th Wing.

The remaining three F-15SA units are expected to include the 29th Squadron at King Faisal Air Base (KFAB) at Tabuk in the northwest of the country. This unit is not currently active, having last operated the Tornado ADV until disbandment in 2007.

Two more units could include the 15th Squadron (an inactive former F-5E unit previously based at Khamis Mushayt) and the 17th Squadron (an inactive former F-5E unit once based at Taif).

Other possible numberplates would be those of the 42nd and 66th Squadrons, former Dhahran-based units operating the F-15C/D and Tornado, respectively.

The full order was originally to have been fulfilled by 2019, but the programme has already suffered significant delays, mainly due to difficulties in the development and clearance of the new FBW flight control system, which held up delivery of the first aircraft by more than a year.

The first four F-15SAs arrived in Saudi Arabia on December 13 2016, supported by a USAF KC-10A Extender tanker and staging via RAF Lakenheath, a US Air Force F-15 Eagle base in the UK.

Two of the aircraft were new-build F-15SAs (the sixth and tenth off the line) while the remaining pair were the prototype conversions  existing F-15S airframes converted to F-15SA standards under the so-called F-15SR programme (though Arabian Aerospace understands that the F-15SR designation will not be used in service). One of these was converted by a Boeing team, the second by a Saudi team from the newly rebranded Alsalam Aerospace Industries, formerly known as the Alsalam Aircraft Company.

Alsalam is building new forward fuselage sections, wings and under-wing pylons for the remanufactured aircraft, which will be converted at its facilities in Riyadh.

All four aircraft were hastily repainted with Saudi national markings (having been ferried wearing USAF star and bar insignia), and also gained the RSAFs now obligatory God Bless You logos before joining the F-15SA Formal Training Unit at Khamis Mushayt Air Base. Interestingly, the RSAF painters seem to have overlooked the US star and bar marking above the port wing!

A second batch of three further new-build F-15SAs arrived in Saudi Arabia in early February (a fourth aircraft having returned to Boeings factory airfield at St Louis, Missouri, having suffered a technical problem). A third batch of five aircraft arrived in late March.

Initial plans for a US-based training unit were abandoned and, instead, the 55th Squadron, with a cadre of largely Boeing-employed US instructors, immediately began training experienced RSAF F-15S aircrew on the new type.

Ironically, on the same day that the first four aircraft arrived in Saudi Arabia, US media reported that the White House had stepped in to halt the sale of a $1.29 billion package of Paveway II, Enhanced Paveway II and Paveway III laser-guided bombs, unguided bombs, joint direct attack munition (JDAM) tail kits and other bomb components. These were intended to replenish the RSAFs current weapons supplies, which were becoming depleted due to the high operational tempo in multiple counter-terrorism operations, rebuilding war reserves and providing options for future contingencies. They were halted due to US concern over civilian casualties of Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen.


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TO THE EDITOR:

At the recent Eddy County Commission meeting, commissioners passed 3 gross receipts tax (GRT) increases that go into effect Jan. 1, 2018. These increases will place a burden on and an uneven playing field for our local business and industry, and our GRT rate will become the highest in Southeastern New Mexico.

I would first like to thank Commissioner Jon Henry for listening to his constituents and voting NO to all 3 gross receipts tax increases and Brienne Green of the Artesia Daily Press for her coverage of the meeting and the article that ran last Sunday informing voters of what took place at the meeting.

Speaking to the citizens who went to the meeting and reading the article in the Daily Press, its very clear; 4 out of 5 commissioners are tired of hearing from the voters of Eddy County and would rather tax our residents, business and industry to bail the County out from their reckless spending over the last number of years.

Commissioner Stella Davis is certainly no friend of Artesia with her threats of cutting county services and closing offices in Artesia if the Artesia voters continue voicing their concerns on increased taxes. She further believes the County is not required to provide such things as the DMV, satellite offices for the assessor, clerk and other services for the residents of Artesia. I believe with the taxes Artesia residents and our business and industry send to the county, we are justified in having these services provided to our community.

Commissioner Stella Davis goes further in saying, I can tell you, people in Artesia, if we continue to be hammered with comments opposing tax increases were going to have to look up there in Artesia to see where we can cut. You want cuts, we can make cuts. Im not threatening, Im just telling you a fact that its going to happen.

It seems as Eddy County voters, we need to keep quiet, keep our opinions to ourselves and not rock the boat or well get punished by having our county services taken away. We should all be thankful the Commissioners have a wonderful tool called increase the gross receipts tax to help the county overcome their deficiencies in balancing a budget and curbing their spending.

We as voters have elected each and every one of the County Commissioners based on the principle that the Commissioner we voted for in our district represented our beliefs and our vision for our county. Unfortunately we have 4 Commissioners that not only dont want to represent our values, but they dont even want to hear from us.

There is a group of concerned citizens who are seeking a referendum on the passage of these gross receipts tax increases. If enough Eddy County voters sign the referendum petition the gross receipts issue would go to a ballot for Eddy County voters to decide. I strongly support this effort and encourage all registered voters to come together in showing the power of the voters.

Richard Price
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Out Of Africa & Into Artesia is currently on display at the Artesia Historical Museum and Art Center.

The exhibit features the Ray and Helen Bartlett African Animal Trophy Collection, collected when the Bartletts went on an African safari in 1960. Included in the exhibit are mounted trophies plus several hides and a collection of objects from the Masai tribe.

The Bartletts, along with Morrison and Thelma Livingston, and James Allen, went to eastern Africa on safari in 1960. The party landed in Nairobi, Kenya, and proceeded to travel through parts of Kenya and Tanzania accompanied by two guides, 20 servants, five trucks, and two land rovers.

One highlight of the safari was camping at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where a rhino charged them (this happened more than once on the trip). The group also got caught in a Cape Buffalo stampede during the safari.

Another highlight of the trip was when the group encountered a group of Masai warriors traveling on a peace mission to another tribe, and the two groups traveled together for a short time. Ray was made an honorary king of the tribe after bagging a lion (his hide is included in the exhibit) during a ceremony that involved hoisting him onto the Masais shoulders during their Simba dance.

Ray Bartlett later told friends that the safari was a lot of fun  a bunch of country boys in Africa that could shoot. Their safari organizers were impressed that the group actually knew how to aim and fire their guns.

The collection on display includes the lion skin, a leopard skin, and a topi hide. Among the mounted trophies are an oryx, a wart hog, a wildebeest, gazelles, impalas, and many others.

The Bartletts also brought home many objects crafted by the Masai, including a shield and spear, jewelry, a mask, and a collection of carved animals. Ray used to invite school groups to tour his study, where he proudly showed off his collection.

Today, we continue the Bartletts tradition of sharing this collection with everyone in Artesia.

This collection will be on display in the Art Center June through August during regular museum hours: 9 a.m.  noon and 1-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and 1-5 p.m. Saturdays. For more information, call 748-2390.
Lee Camp, an acerbic left-wing comic, hosts a weekly show called Redacted Tonight on RT America, the Russian-funded cable network. Jason Zinoman looks at the show and its host  and at Camps visible discomfort when asked about the one American political issue that his counterparts make hay with but he doesnt touch.
In another seismic change for Washington theater, Howard Shalwitz, who in nearly 40 years at the helm has made Woolly Mammoth Theatre a national champion of the new  and frequently provocative  American play, will leave his post as artistic director in June 2018.
Amazon provides a lucrative platform for Indian sellers to engage with global audiences.

The workshop targets entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises and manufacturers to sell their products to consumers across the globe.

Mumbai: Global e-commerce company Amazon will conduct a workshop for small and medium businesses in the city on Friday, to focus on the company's global selling programme and educate sellers on enhancing business.

The workshop targets entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises and manufacturers to sell their products to consumers across the globe.

Modules educating SMBs on the global opportunity, brand building, documentation, listing methodology and Amazon services such as Fulfilment by Amazon and Sponsored Ads will be covered in the workshop. It is expected to be attended by close to hundred SMBs.

"Amazon's global selling programme helps Indian businesses take their 'Made in India' products to millions of active customers across the globe through 10 global Amazon market places.

We launched with a few hundred sellers in May 2015 and have over 20,000 sellers today from India selling over 45 million products," Abhijit Kamra, Head - Global Selling, Amazon India said.

To smoothen the selling experience for SMBs, Amazon offers fulfilment services that allows them to focus on the product and pricing, offers imaging and cataloguing support to sellers.

Amazon also has supporting content on its website on different international tax and custom processes to help sellers understand the processes clearly.

Furthermore, through its various spike sale events, Amazon provides a lucrative platform for Indian sellers to engage with global audiences.

Amazons global teams also help sellers understand the demand patterns in various countries, and gives guidance on how sellers can improve discoverability of their products on each marketplace.

Apart from independent sellers, Amazon has also enabled several brands to go global.
Lenovo is looking to invest in areas like marketing, expanding retail presence and building premium products for its 'Motorola' brand.

Panaji: Handset maker Lenovo will invest in areas like marketing, expanding retail presence and building premium products for its 'Motorola' brand as it looks to strengthen its position in the fiercely-competitive smartphone market in the country.

India is among the top three markets -- along with the US and Brazil -- for Lenovo's Mobile Business Group (MBG) that comprises both Lenovo and Motorola brands. Lenovo follows a dual-brand strategy in India, but offers just Motorola products in markets including the US.

"We will invest in India, more on building retail infrastructure and building the premium imagery of the brand (Motorola) and whatever has to be done in the business context, we will continue to do that," Lenovo MBG India Executive Director Sudhin Mathur told PTI. He, however, did not specify the quantum of investment to be made.

According to research firm IDC, Lenovo -- along with Motorola -- had a 9.5 per cent share of the Indian smartphone market in the January-March 2017 quarter. The overall smartphone market grew at 14.8 per cent in the said quarter to 27 million units compared to the year-ago period.

Asked about the impact of GST, which will come into effect from July 1, on smartphone prices, Mathur said he did not expect any prices to go up for consumers. Under the new

GST regime, smartphones will see a tax levy of 12 per cent, from the current over 13.5 per cent.

About the potential of the Indian market, Mathur said there is a large market for premium devices in India as the segment would grow 28 per cent this year. This segment is dominated by Samsung and Apple.

The premium segment is USD 2 billion market in India, which is set to increase to USD 5 billion within four years, he added. "India is poised to become the number two smartphone market globally, overtaking the US.

It will be bigger than Brazil, Japan and Indonesia combined... For us too, India is a very important market and is among the top three markets for Lenovo MBG in terms of volume and value along with the US and Brazil," Mathur said.

Over the past few months, Motorola has expanded its presence in the brick-and-mortar retail channel, moving away from its earlier online-only strategy. It has also added devices across affordable (Moto C) and premium (Moto Z) segments.

The company today launched the second generation of its Moto Z smartphone -- Z2 -- priced at Rs 27,999, which will go on sale both on Flipkart and through retail outlets. The company gets about two-thirds of its sales from the online channel.

The Moto Z2 features a 5.5-inch display, 2.2GHz octa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory (expandable up to 2TB), 12MP rear and 5MP front camera and 3,000 mAh battery.

For the premium category, Mathur said 'mods' will be a key feature for differentiation. Motorola introduced the Moto Z last year that allows users to attach a set of accessories called 'mods' to the back of the device to add various functionalities like enhanced sound or camera functions.

These mods are priced at about Rs 1,000 onwards. "Globally, Moto Z has seen huge success. We have sold about 3 million units and in India too, the response has been great. This year too, we will bring more mods to consumers," he said.
Less than 24 hours before the release, the court has finally thrown out the case filed by 'Magadheera' makers.

Mumbai: Instant parallels with the Telugu blockbuster 'Magadheera' were drawn, when the trailer of the Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon-starrer 'Raabta' had released.

Makers of Magadheera slapped a last-minute case on the makers of Raabta citing plagiarism.

With stress levels reaching new heights, and the producer of Magadheera, Allu Arvind, refusing to entertain any reasoning by the Raabta makers, there seemed no way out.

Our source divulges, They were was willing to show him (Allu Arvind) Raabta so he could compare it with Magadheera to ascertain its not a copy, but he wasnt interested. Then they offered to put the compensation being asked for into escrow with the esteemed court and if the court decided it was a copy, he could take the amount demanded. He wasnt even interested in entertaining this.

The only thing I can think of is that he had sold the rights of Magadheera to be made in Hindi and is concerned that since Raabta is also about reincarnation and unrequited love, after its release, no one will want to do a similar genre soon.

Continues our source, Maybe Im wrong but since the aim was to stop the release rather than fight the case correctly, this is the only reason that makes sense.

Going down to the last minute verdict, less than 24 hours before the release, the court has finally thrown out the case that was preventing the release of Raabta.

However, Allu Aravind, head honcho of Geetha Arts officially states, "Yesterday both the parties representing 'Magadheera' and 'Raabta' have settled the on-going legal dispute amicably outside the court. Hence, Geetha Arts has officially withdrawn the case."

Well, with so much drama off-screen, we seem to be in for a roller coaster of a movie. As planned earlier, the film will release on June 9.
According to the police, Ephedrine is a precursor chemical that used in making banned synthetic drugs.

Mumbai: The Thane police team has stuck notices on three flats belonging to Mamta Kulkarni in Versova, Mumbai and one house of the alleged narcotics trafficker Vicky Goswami in Ahmedabad. They are both wanted for their alleged involvement in the April 2016 case of seizing Ephedrine worth Rs 2,000 crore from a Solapur based pharmaceutical firm. According to the police, Ephedrine is a precursor chemical that used in making banned synthetic drugs.

According to the notices addressed to Kulkarni and Goswami, both have been asked to present themselves before the special court by July 10, failing which the police will seize their properties. ACP Bharat Shelke said that the accused duos non-compliance with the instructions might even make the police initiate proceedings for the issuance of Interpols Red Corner Notices against them.

Both Kulkani and Goswami have been declared proclaimed offenders in the Rs 2,000 crore drug bust case by the Sessions Court on Tuesday, following which the Thane police stuck the notices on Wednesday. It has been said that Mamta had bought these flats in Versova through a realty firm, Oscar Builders Pvt Ltd.

Vicky Goswami

On Tuesday, special public prosecutor Shishir Hiray said that the judge, HM Patwardhan has issued the standing warrant under the Section 82 of the CrPC, declaring the accused to be proclaimed offenders. Hiray said that this order would give the police the power to arrest the accused anywhere in India and other law-enforcing agencies in foreign countries, within 30 days from the date of the order. Police will also have the power to seize moveable as well as immovable properties of the accused and a warrant can be executed by affixing it on the last known address of the accused.

Last year, the Thane police had sealed eight of Kulkarnis bank accounts holding `93 lakh, at different branches of banks in Nariman Point, Parel, Dharavi and Malad in Mumbai; Kalyan and Badlapur in Thane; and Bhuj and Rajkot in Gujarat.
The 'Shahid' actor, who has teamed up with Shruti for the first time, says it was a delight working with her.

Mumbai: After having worked with his daughter Shruti, actor Rajkummar Rao now wants to meet her father, southern superstar Kamal Haasan, and talk about cinema.

"He (Kamal Haasan) is a legend, he has always been an inspiration. I admire his performances in several films, but I loved him a lot in 'Appu Raja'. I am big fan of Kamal Haasan sir and I have told Shruti that I want to meet him and talk about cinema. She has told me she will arrange it," Rajkummar told PTI.

The 'Shahid' actor, who has teamed up with Shruti for the first time in 'Behen Hogi Teri', says it was a delight working with her.

"She is a wonderful girl. She looks like a diva on screen. She is very committed to her work. We had great time working on the film and that chemistry will be visible to everyone on screen (through our film 'Behen Hogi Teri')."

Interestingly, Rajkummar's 'Behen Hogi Teri' and 'Raabta' are releasing on the same day - June 9.

The actor says even though both the films are love stories, they are different from each other.

"It is unfortunate that both the films are releasing on the same date; it's a decision taken by the producers. I hope both the films do well," the 'Citylights' actor says.

Rajkummar, 32, appears unrecognisable in 'Raabta' and he says he too was shocked and impressed at the same time when he saw himself in the avatar of a 324-year-old man.

"It required a lot of patience to be able to sit for six to seven hours everyday. When I looked in the mirror, I felt it was totally worth it. The kind of response I am getting for the look is overwhelming. It is very rare that you get to play a character like this that is so unique."

Rajkummar further says he is open to experimenting with his looks - be it shaving off his hair or playing a woman.

"I am ready to go to any extreme length for a role, provided it excites me, that's the fun of being an actor, to do something that one can't do in real life."
The two decided to pay their visits at a church in Mumbai. However, Salman cancelled his plans after the press got a whiff of it.

Iulia Vanturs plans of going to a church with Salman Khan went kaput. The Romanian model who is trying hard to get a foothold not just in Bollywood, but also in Galaxy apartments, wanted to visit the Mount Mary Basilica at Bandra, Mumbai with Salman Khan. So, she and Salman decided to drive there, but team Salman, whod reached their prior, found some media personnel waiting for the scoop.

How the media got a whiff about their visit remains a mystery. Mount Mary Church is located on a quiet hillock in Bandra and is not a paparazzi hotspot. So, naturally, when Salmans team found the shutterbugs there, they informed Bigg Boss, and he quickly turned the car around, dropped Iulia home and then returned to his pad.

Salman asked his staff if anyone had spoken to the press, but did not find any proper answers. Perhaps, Iulia could shed some light on Salman and the church connection. Do we hear wedding bells ringing?

Sanskriti Media
Fatima was pulled down by social media trolls for donning a swimsuit during the holy month of Ramadan.

While actors enjoy their fans love and adulation, the vitriolic trolls can prove to be traumatic. Deepika Padukone and Fatima Sana Sheikh were the victims of trolling for their latest photo shoot.

Deepika, in what could be her boldest photograph till date, posted a picture from her latest photo shoot. A vision in white, she is seen flaunting her long, toned legs wearing nothing but a jacket and high waist briefs. The sexist comments that followed were brutal, right from questioning her choice of clothing to the colour of her skin. However, Deepika chose to ignore the naysayers like a diva.

On the other hand, Fatima, who is currently in Malta shooting for Thugs of Hindostan was pulled down by social media trolls for donning a swimsuit during the holy month of Ramadan. Not only did they accuse her of not being a true Muslim, but also went a step ahead calling her unfathomable names.

How does one navigate the world of social media when such haters exist?
The Ulfa is also supporting the demand of changing the cut-off for granting citizenship from existing 1971 to 1951.

The peace-talks with Ulfa started after Ulfa chairman Arbinda Rajkhowa was arrested and deported from Bangladesh in 2009. (Representational image/File)

Guwahati: The ministry of home affairs on Thursday resumed the peace-talks with pro-talk faction of United Liberation Front of Asom and two factions of National Democratic Front of Bodoland in Assam.

Informing that former director of Intelligence Bureau and newly appointed interlocutor Dineshwar Sharma chaired the tripartite talks with Ulfa rebels in Guwahati on Wednesday, security sources said that discussion with two factions of NDFB started on Thursday.

Though, home ministry officials were tight-lipped about the issues being discussed in the meeting which was attended by Ulfa chairman Arbinda Rajkhowa, Anup Chetia and other senior leaders of the outfit, security sources said that Ulfa has been insisting on amending the constitution to protect the rights and identity of the indigenous people of Assam.

The ongoing peace-talks with Ulfa was kept on hold because of Supreme Courts impending judgment on the bunch of petitions (filed by many individuals and civil society organisations) seeking 1951 as the cut-off year for citizenship of people residing in Assam against what it is now  1971 according to the Assam Accord.

The Ulfa is also supporting the demand of changing the cut-off for granting citizenship from existing 1971 to 1951.

The peace-talks with Ulfa started after Ulfa chairman Arbinda Rajkhowa was arrested and deported from Bangladesh in 2009. In April 2010 Ulfa joined the peace-talks to resolve the conflict situation in state. Though another faction of the outfit led by its elusive military commander Paresh Baruah refused to join the peace-process.

The progressive faction of NDFB signed the ceasefire agreement with the government in 2005.

Pointing out that state government representatives were also present in the meeting, security sources said that NDFB chief Ranjan Daimary would also be attending the peace-talks. Mr Daimary was also apprehended in Bangladesh and deported to India. He was released from judicial custody in Assam to start the peace-process.

Meanwhile, security sources said that home ministry has also decided to keep the charter of demands by Ulfa and NDFB factions confidential. (EOM)
The Madhya Pradesh Government has been facing backlash from the opposition over the violence in the state.

The Madhya Pradesh farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met. (Photo: PTI)

Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh): As many as 62 persons have been detained in connection with the farmers' protest in Mandsaur's district of Madhya Pradesh.

"Total 62 people have been detained and some more people are being identified on the basis of videos and pictures," said O.P. Tripathi, Superintendent of Police (SP).

Earlier in the day, Tripathi said that continuous patrolling was on in the district and the situation was under control.

"We have managed the situation well; currently, the violence has been curbed. My team and I are trying our best to control the situation. Also, extra forces would be deployed in violence-hit Ujjain, Dewas, Mandsaur, Neemuch and Sehore areas. We are continuously patrolling and hoping that the situation does not worsen more," Tripathi told reporters here.

The Madhya Pradesh farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Tuesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

Internet services in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Ujjain were also suspended following the farmers' protests.

Apart from the loan waiver, the farmers are also demanding that they should be given Rs. 50 per litre of milk bought from them as they spend Rs. 37 per litre.

Taking cognizance of the issue, Chief Minister Chouhan on Tuesday announced a compensation of Rs. one crore each to the victims' families. The injured will get Rs. five lakh in compensation, he added.

In a video message, Chouhan also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

The Madhya Pradesh Government has been facing backlash from the opposition over the violence in the state with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accusing the Centre of waging war against nation's farmers.

Taking to social media, Rahul said, "This government is at war with the farmers of our country."
The man had a debt of around Rs 60,000 and had also taken loans from some private lenders, police said.

The deceased, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son in his family. (Representational image/File)

Pune: Amid the ongoing agitation by farmers in Maharashtra, a cultivator allegedly committed suicide at a village in Solapur district, leaving behind a note purportedly

stating that he should not be cremated till the chief minister visits his place and meets their demands.

Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil last night, Solapur Collector Rajendra Bhosale said on Thursday.

According to Karmala police, Jadhav's suicide note, addressed to his friends and relatives, said, "I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to village and do not cremate me till Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis comes here."

Bhosale also confirmed that the farmer's suicide note stated his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and announces a loan waiver for

farmers.

Solapur's Guardian Minister Vijay Deshmukh paid a visit to the village on Thursday.

The deceased, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son in his family. He possessed 2.5 acres of cultivable land.

He had a debt of around Rs 60,000 and had also taken loans from some private lenders, police said.

After the incident, the farmers' organisations resorted to a 'rasta-roko' (road blockade) and called for a bandh in Karmala tehsil.

The Solapur collector said he was on his way to the village.

Police teams have also been rushed to the spot to prevent the situation from spiralling into a law and order issue, he said.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and BJP's ally Shiv Sena over sustained protests by farmers across Maharashtra for last one week, resulting in sharp rise in agri commodity prices.

Fadnavis' recent statement promising a loan waiver by October 31 has failed to pacify the agitating farmers, who have continued with their stir.
The lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution.

Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals--the ruling LDF and the UDF-- on Thursday closed ranks in the state assembly to oppose the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

During the one-day session, convened exclusively to discuss the controversial cattle ban notification, members of the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front(LDF) and the

opposition Congress-headed United Democratic Front(UDF) condemned it as not only an "intrusion" into the rights of states but also an "infringement" on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution. Members of both the Fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer. It thus has to be withdrawn, they said.

The members also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

"The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political

gains," he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious 'adverse' consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and

meat export trade.

"The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens' choice of food," he said.

On the impact on state's meat trade, Vijayan said 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new rules would further add to their woes.

The chief minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another "surgical strike" by the Modi government "like the note ban", opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was "a sign of

arrival of fascism" in the country.

"Modi has transformed himself into 'abhinava Hitler' (neo Hitler)," he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an "indirect interest" behind the notification. CPI(M) veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Rajagopal said the coming together of LDF and UDF in the assembly was a sign of a "grand alliance" forming at the national level to take on the BJP.

He said the House has been "misused" for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre's notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

He has written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register

their protest.

The attack on CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury at party headquarters A K G Centre in New Delhi yesterday also had its echo in the assembly here with the party members alleging that the Sangh Parivar was trying to "silence" political rivals through "muscle power".
The Congress VP also said that the party is with the farmers and will take their demands to the Parliament.

Nimbaheda (Rajasthan): Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met the families of farmers killed in police firing on Tuesday during agitation in Madhya Pradesh, and vowed to press for farm loan waiver across the country.

The kin of four of the five deceased farmers were brought to Rajathan's Chittorgarh district by Congress workers to meet Gandhi after he was released along with 250 supporters on border by Madhya Pradesh police, which had kept them in preventive arrest for four hours after they tried to enter Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violent farmers agitation.

The Congress Vice President lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the police action during the stir for loan waiver, MSP rise among other demands.

"I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief....Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS?" he told reporters after consoling the bereaved families.

He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of "50 richest people" of the country.

"The farmers in the county are desperately crying for help but the government is not ready to hear them," he said.

He supported the farmers' demand for loan waiver and said that they were not getting their due.

Gandhi said that the loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh had come as he had mounted pressure on the BJP government on the issue.

"I will continue to press every government across the country to waive farmers' loans. I will keep raising the issue in Parliament," he said.

He accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of lying on the issue of farmers death in police firing.

Action should be taken against the security personnel involved in the firing incident. The farmers were not warned and were shot in the chest in violation of all standing operation procedures, he alleged

"This is barbaric. Those who have died should get martyr status."

He also slammed the BJP for saying that he had gone for a 'photo-op' there.

"I only wanted meet the farmers. What was the need for controversy?" Gandhi said.

He added that government can waive loans of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 50 rich people in the country, then why the loans of those farmers who feed the nation cannot be waived.

Earlier, Gandhi defied elaborate security arrangements and crossed Rajasthan border to enter Naya Gaon in Neemuch district of MP, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal. Mandsaur district borders Neemuch.

But he was detained and later arrested. Gandhi was taken to a guesthouse of a cement company, where he was kept for four hours.

"Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders, were under preventive arrest under under CrPC section 151. We had informed them that there is curfew in four police station areas and they should not go there. But despite this, they tried to move towards the area," SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said.

They were later released on the border, he said.
The Centre has hit back at Gandhi for publicizing the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt.

New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will be in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur on Thursday to meet the grieving families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing.

The Centre has hit back at Gandhi for publicizing the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt.

"Rahul Gandhi is going to that area where situation is very much tense. He should understand his responsibility. He should have talked about this first, but he is so fond of his publicity. That's why he is going there." Union Minister of Steel, Mines and Employment Narendra Singh Tomar told ANI.

Meanwhile, the Congress has rebuffed reports of Gandhi participating in the ongoing farmers protest in Mandsaur, saying such a plan was never on the card for the party.

"People who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Rahul Gandhi, were denied permission. Instead canards and rumours were spread that he wanted to go earlier to participate in the protest. There were never any plans, never any attempt," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a press briefing here.

Appealing for peace to the agitating farmers in the state, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of Rs. 1 crore to the kin of those killed in the violence.

Speaking to ANI, the Chief Minister asserted that his government stands with farmers and assured that various demands have been fulfilled in the past.

"In the past 11 years, there have been countless decisions made for the welfare of farmers. The various demands of the farmers have been fulfilled," he said.

However, Chouhan came down heavily on the Congress for giving a political tinge to the violence.

The farmers' agitation in Mandsaur district further intensified with protestors setting at least eight to ten vehicles on fire on Wednesday.

Demanding the presence of Chouhan, the protesting farmers, earlier on Wednesday got into a scuffle with the Collector and Superintendent of Police of Mandsaur district over them delaying their visit to the area.

Farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Wednesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

The protestors alleged that police fired at them. A judicial probe has been ordered in the matter.

Meanwhile, the SP and collector of Mandsaur district were transferred from their positions on Thursday.
A foul smell emanating from the asbestos roof of one of the houses led one of the residents to the body, police said.

Chennai: Residents of Tondiarpet on Tuesday night found the decomposed body of a 10-day-old baby on the roof of a house. A day later, police found that the baby had been born to a minor girl, who was impregnated by her neighbour, a 23-year-old man.

A foul smell emanating from the asbestos roof of one of the houses led one of the residents to the body, police said. The body has since been moved to the Government Stanley Medical College Hospital for autopsy.

Police traced the girl's family who claim innocence in the whole incident. But, preliminary investigations revealed that the girl is a class 11 student at a nearby government school.

The parents maintain that they were not aware that the girl was pregnant. They had taken her to a nearby clinic, where it was not diagnosed either. The parents were of the impression that she had menstrual health problems, an investigating officer said. The girl's father is a casual labourer and the mother a domestic help.

Police said the girl had an abortion and delivered the foetus in the bathroom on May 28. Ravi (23), a truck driver had sexual relationship with the girl and made her pregnant.

Tondiarpet Police have registered a case and arrested the man, Ravi, under the POCSO Act. He has been produced before a court and remanded to judicial custody. Police said that the parents of the girl would be questioned further.
SP, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra said that Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillon rider on a motorcycle.

Jaipur: Tensions continue to simmer for Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who was arrested by police on Thursday when he was on his to to Mandsaur to meet the family of deceased.

The Rajasthan police said that it will examine whether traffic rules were violated by Rahul Gandhi, who visited the state on way to Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.

SP, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra said that Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillon rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda to up to the Madhya Pradesh border.

At the border, Rahul had alighted from the bike and walked into Madhya Pradesh, he said.

The police official said that there were reports that at one point of time, there were three passengers including Gandhi on the motorcycle. The pillion rider also need to wear a helmet, he said.

"We will look into whether any traffic violation was committed," he said.

DSP Gopi Chand also said that the matter will be looked into.

Gandhi reached Udaipur by a chartered plane on Thursday morning and from there left for Chittorgarh. From Chittorgarh he entered Madhya Pradesh aiming to meet the families of farmers who had died during recent protests in Mandsaur.
Mr Lalu spoke to Mr Akhilesh and Ms Mayawati on phone recently and got their confirmation to attend the rally.

Lucknow: Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad Yadav is trying to build bridges between arch rivals Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav.

UP RJD president Ashok Singh said Mr Lalu had spoken individually to both the leaders and convinced them to shed egos and join his proposed rally in Patna on August 27.

Mr Lalu spoke to Mr Akhilesh and Ms Mayawati on phone recently and got their confirmation to attend the rally. He is now trying to convince Mulayam Singh Yadav to attend it.

Mr Mulayam, apparently, has no qualms about a grand alliance with like-minded parties but is still averse to the presence of the Congress and the BSP at the formation.

He has not only slammed Mr Akhileshs alliance with the Congress but even blamed the Congress for the Samajwadi Partys defeat in the Assembly elections in UP. Mr Lalu and Mr Mulayam share a warm rapport. Both are closely related too. We are confident that Lalu ji will convince Mr Mulayam to attend the rally, Mr Singh said.

According to RJD sources, Mr Lalu has been convincing Ms Mayawati and Mr Akhilesh to join hands with the Opposition parties to insulate them against possible action by the Modi government.

He has asked them to put aside leadership issues and unite for their own survival. He told them with leaders like Sonia Gandhi, Mamta Banerjee, M.K. Stalin and Sharad Pawar agreeing to come together, the leadership has to be collective, another RLD leader said.

Ms Mayawati and her brother Anand Kumar are already under the Income Tax and Enforcement Directorate scanner for their assets and deposits in the post-demonetisation period.
While rejecting the petition, Justice A.K. Menon accepted the CBIs contention and said that there is no merit in the case.

The Bombay high court, while rejecting the petition, observed that the amount of Rs 1.47 crore could be part of Benami transaction.

Mumbai: The Bombay high court has rejected Adarsh Societys petition to defreeze its two bank accounts having Rs 1.47 crore. The high court observed that this money could be a part of Benami transactions. The high court added that a few years ago, the Supreme Court had allowed the society to create a separate bank account to operate day-to-day affairs, so there was no need to defreeze these two accounts.

In 2011, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had registered FIR against 14 accused and had frozen the societys account for further investigation. In 2015, the Adarsh society moved special CBI court seeking defreezing of its account, but the court had rejected the application. The society then moved high court, stating that Rs 1.47 crore are lying in these banks account, which have nothing to do with the case. The society claimed that the two bank accounts were opened with the State Bank of Indias Cuffe Parade and Wodehouse Road branches, to bear legal expenses and day-to-day expenditure of the society.

The CBI counsel Hiten Venegaonkar argued that trial of Adarsh society scam is yet to begin and the accounts had been frozen because there were allegations that Benami flats were housed in the society. He further argued that the Supreme Court had given liberty to society to create a new bank account to carry out day-to-day affairs and so the petition should be rejected.

While rejecting the petition, Justice A.K. Menon accepted the CBIs contention and said that there is no merit in the case.

In the April 2016, the Bombay high court ordered demolition of Adarsh society and directed union environment ministry to seize the building. The court also directed state government and union government to take action against the officers who helped to construct the building.
BJP calls its bluff, says party had informed CM Devendra Fadnavis of its absence.

Mumbai: Dissatisfied with Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announcement of loan waiver to small land holding farmers, the Shiv Sena, which is the BJPs ally in the state government, on Wednesday, boycotted the weekly cabinet meeting. The party has been demanding a complete loan waiver for the farmers. In a bid to call its bluff, the BJP said that the Sena had already informed the CM of their absence.

The Sena was also unhappy as it had not been taken into consideration by the CM while handling the on-going farmers strike. After the boycott, Sena workers agitated in different parts of the state, shouting slogans against the government. In Beed, the protests took a very different form as two women party workers shaved their heads in a mark of protest.

Demanding complete loan waiver, Sena leader and industries minister Subhash Desai said that no decision on the issue could be taken without consulting party chief Uddhav Thackeray. We want the government to make the farmers 7/12 (land record document) clear. We want the CM to clear his stand on the loan waiver. We need a reply from the government on why the farmers are agitating today across the state. They will have to consider Sena while giving loan waiver. It cannot be given without consulting Uddhavji Thackeray, Desai said, after skipping the meeting.

However, finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said that the Sena ministers had informed the CM of their decision. There was no boycott by the Sena ministers. They informed the CM that they would remain absent in the cabinet. We had taken Sena into confidence on the GST implementation and will do so in the same manner on the loan waiver. Uddhav Thackeray has gone abroad and we will also ask him for his views once he comes back, Mungantiwar said.

BJP leader and revenue minister Chandrakant Patil too had much of the same to say. The Sena needed time to make a comment on the on going strike as their leader Uddhav Thackeray is out of country. Hence they sought the CMs permission to remain absent from the cabinet meeting. It is not correct to term it as boycott, he said.

However, sources in the Sena said that the party was not once asked by the CM to express its views. Many BJP ministers too are also not aware of the loan waiver properly. The Sena was not even invited to negotiate with the farmers and that has irked many senior ministers in the party, sources said. The CM alone was seen handling the crisis, right from the beginning, keeping away the other ministers from his party.
Refuses to change the reservation of 33 hectares land, which falls under NDZ.

Mumbai: Shiv Sena, the ruling party in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), has again stonewalled the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) ambitious plans of constructing a metro carshed at Aarey Colony. The party rejected the proposal to change the reservation of 33 hectares of Aarey Colony land, which falls under Non-Development Zone (NDZ).

The civic administration, acting on the state government's directives, has decided to exclude 33 hectares land of Aarey Colony from the NDZ for the construction of Metro-III carshed and workshop. The land will also be reserved for commercial use.

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) will be the authority for said reservation.

When the proposal for change of reservation was tabled before the BMC improvements committee for its approval last time, all parties barring the BJP had vehemently opposed the proposal, citing the loss of green cover. The panel members had also asked for the inspection of metro carshed site.

Even after the site visit, the Sena continued with its opposition to the project on Wednesday. Despite the BJP strongly backing the proposal, the ruling party members of Shiv Sena rejected it right away without any discussion.

Senior BJP corporator Prakash Gangadhare defended the proposal, saying that it was in city's interest. "The metro project is important for city's development. There should not be any politics while approving it."

However, improvements committee chairman Anant Nar said, "The metro car shed at Aarey colony means destroying its green cover. They should think of measures to prevent the large-scale cutting of trees required for this project."

The DP planning committee in its recommendations has also retained Metro carshed within the Aarey Colony despite marking it as a green zone. However, Sena members had registered their protests for providing land to the metro project, citing large-scale cutting of trees. The MMRCL has sought permission from the BMC to cut 3,891 trees along the project's alignment.
Ramashraya alias Raju Pal set on fire the victim on Tuesday after an altercation broke out between the two.

Thane: A man from Kalwa area in Thane was arrested for allegedly setting ablaze his live-in partner, police said on Thursday.

Ramashraya alias Raju Pal set on fire the victim on Tuesday after an altercation broke out between the two, a Kalwa police station official said.

According to police, the victim, a scrap collector, was married and had four children. She had moved out of her house in Jai Bhim Nagar area around six months ago after she was fed up with constant harassment by her husband, who was an alcoholic.

She later came in contact with Raju, also a scrap dealer, and moved in with him. But soon he too began to abuse her under the influence of alcohol, the officer said.

On June 6, Raju came home heavily drunk and had a scuffle with the victim. In a fit of rage, he poured kerosene on her to set her on flames, said police.

She was grievously injured and sustained around 70 per cent burn wounds, the officer said, adding Raju was booked under IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult).
Despite the twin terrorist attacks, Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate pushed ahead on a new set of sanctions against Iran.

The Trump administration has further emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence right after the country was faced with terrorist attacks on Wednesday, 2017. (Photo: AP)

Washington: President Donald Trump is suggesting that Iran shares some of the blame for twin terrorist attacks on its parliament and a shrine, insisting that those who sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Hours after conciliatory comments from his State Department, the president on Wednesday offered a seemingly contradictory statement, providing solace to the victims while delivering a broadside against Tehran.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The assaults killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," Trump said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Despite the attacks, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate pushed ahead on a new set of sanctions against Iran. The US has designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said the US is sending thoughts and prayers to the Iranian people following the attacks.

"The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world," said Nauert, who said the US is expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

The US statement of solidarity with the attack's victims is notable because of the deep distrust between the US and Iran. The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations, and the Trump administration has emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence.

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions on Tehran, including its elite Revolutionary Guards. The strong bipartisan vote was 92-7.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week of the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," Sen Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, said.

Sen Chris Murphy, D-Conn, also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

The bill is a "carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East," Sen Bob Menendez, D-N J, said.

In May, the Foreign Relations Committee backed the measure despite concerns from former Secretary of State John Kerry and several Democrats that it could nonetheless lead to the unravelling of the nuclear accord negotiated by the Obama administration.

Kerry cautioned lawmakers to tread carefully in pushing ahead with new sanctions against Iran in the wake of President Hassan Rouhani's re-election to another four-year term. Rouhani is a political moderate who scored a resounding victory over a hardline opponent.

Sen Bob Corker of Tennessee, the committee's Republican chairman and one of the bill's sponsors, said he recently reviewed top-secret intelligence that detailed Tehran's support for terrorism and other destabilizing actions.

"It is astounding what Iran continues to do around the world," said Corker, urging his colleagues to confront the threat Tehran poses.

In exchange of Iran rolling back its nuclear program, the US and other world powers agreed to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy. As part of the July 2015 multinational accord, Iran also regained access to frozen assets held abroad.

Israel and congressional Republicans have long assailed the agreement as a windfall to Iran. They've argued the deal only delayed Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and failed to allow the kind of inspections of its atomic sites that would guarantee Tehran was not cheating.

Lifting economic sanctions saved Iran's economy, GOP lawmakers added, and allowed the country to funnel more money to terrorist groups.

Yet the nuclear deal remains in place despite Trump's pledge during the presidential campaign to discard or renegotiate the pact. Instead, the State Department took a key step last week toward preserving the pact by issuing a waiver to keep the sanctions from snapping back into place. And the Trump administration notified Congress in May that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said that as the Iran legislation moves forward, lawmakers will have an opportunity to offer amendments that would authorize new sanctions on Russia.
In the video, Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane, Youssef Zaghba were seen cornering a victim and starting to stab him before the police arrived.

Police officials have said eight officers, who rushed to the scene fired about 50 rounds, killing the three attackers. (Photo: AP)

London: British police investigating the deadly attacks on London Bridge on Saturday said they had arrested three more suspects, as footage of the moment officers shot the assailants dead appeared online.

Counter terrorism officers, backed up by armed colleagues, and arrested two men on the street in Ilford, east London, late on Wednesday, while a third was arrested at a house nearby, police said in a statement.

Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were held on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism while the third was detained over suspected drugs offences.

Eight people were killed and 50 injured after three ISIS terrorists drove into pedestrians on London Bridge late on Saturday, then attacked revellers in nearby bars and restaurants with knives.

Closed circuit TV footage, which appeared online and in British media, showed the attackers - Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba - cornering a victim and starting to stab him before the police is seen arriving and opening fire.

Disclaimer: Graphic content in video; use personal discretion before watching.

Police have previously said eight officers, who rushed to scene fired about 50 rounds, killing the three attackers.

The Times newspaper also said it had obtained footage of the men laughing and joking five days before the attack as they met outside the Ummah Fitness Centre, a gym in east London where Butt trained.

Earlier this week the gym put a note on its door which read: "While Mr Butt did occasionally train here at UFC gym we do not know him well nor did we see anything of concern."

Police and the security agencies are facing questions about whether they missed chances to thwart the attack.

Butt had appeared in a television documentary called "The Jihadis Next Door", as one of a group of men who unfurled an ISIS flag in a park and who had connections with known radical preachers.

Zaghba, an Italian-Moroccan national, was identified as a possible militant threat after he was stopped at Bologna airport in 2016 as he tried to reach Syria. He was not charged, but local police monitored him carefully and said they had tipped off Britain when he subsequently moved to London.

The authorities have said Butt was known to police and the domestic security service MI5 but there was no intelligence that an attack was being planned. They said they were unaware of the other two men.

Police have made more than a dozen arrests in the wake of the London Bridge attacks, but most have now been released without charge.

In a separate investigation not linked to the London Bridge attacks, officers backed up by armed police arrested three men in east London on Thursday on suspicion of preparing for acts of terrorism.
The blast hit the mission located in central Kiev shortly after midnight, a statement said.

Kiev: An unknown assailant threw an explosive device into the US Embassy in Ukraine capital Kiev early on Thursday morning, but there were no casualties, the Ukrainian police said.

The blast hit the mission located in central Kiev shortly after midnight, a statement said. "Investigators found that an unknown person threw an explosive device on the territory of the diplomatic mission," it said.

According to reports, police said they are treating the incident as a suspected terrorist attack and immediately dispatched a rapid response unit to the embassy premises.

The US embassy was not immediately contactable for comment.
When Syrias conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011, Kurdish leaders largely kept out of the nascent uprising.

Syrias Kurds are now receiving direct US military support, and hold large swathes of the Kurdish-majority parts of the country they call Rojava. (Photo: AFP)

Beirut: Syrias Kurds were once a marginalised minority, but now they are leading the charge for the Islamic State groups Raqqa bastion and hoping to cement their gains in the war.

The surprise turnaround in their fortunes is the result of several factors, including the Syrian regimes decision to focus attention elsewhere and a key alliance with Washington against ISIS.

They are now receiving direct US military support, and hold large swathes of the Kurdish-majority parts of Syria they call Rojava.

But Kurdish gains remain vulnerable, experts say, because their alliance with Washington could prove fragile and they face the wrath of neighbouring Turkey.

The Kurds are an ethnic group with their own language scattered across Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, where they made up around 15 per cent of the pre-war population.

When Syrias conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011, Kurdish leaders largely kept out of the nascent uprising.

That angered the Opposition, but contributed to a Syrian government decision in mid-2012 to withdraw most of its forces from Kurdish-majority regions and focus attention elsewhere.

The Kurds began building semi-autonomous institutions in three cantons in north and northeast Syria, and revived their long-suppressed culture.

Their leaderships decision to calibrate its political ambitions more locally, below the threshold of regime change and its non-adversarial modus vivendi with the regime set the stage for its growing power, said Sam Heller, a Syria expert at the Century Foundation think tank.

The Kurds are betting that the capture of Raqqa will give them long-lasting international support to build Rojava, added Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute think tank.

The powerful Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG), became the effective government and security force in Kurdish-majority areas.

The YPG initially focused on local security and preventing Kurdish areas from being drawn into the conflict between rebels and the government.

But that role shifted with the emergence of ISIS, which in 2014 declared a caliphate in territory it had seized in Syria and Iraq.

With its competent, unitary command and generally reliable hostility to jihadists, the YPG established itself as the ground force of choice for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria, Heller said.

Together they won a series of hard-fought battles against ISIS, including the key recapture of the flashpoint town of Kobane in early 2015.

Syrias government has held off criticising the Kurds, but the YPGs rising profile has not been universally welcomed.

Some among Syrias Opposition have never forgiven the Kurds for failing to back the uprising, and their expansion into Arab-dominated areas in northern Syria has stoked existing ethnic tensions.

Neighbouring Turkey, meanwhile, has been infuriated by the growing power of the Kurds in northern Syria.

It calls the YPG an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey deems a terrorist group, and in August 2016 launched an operation inside northern Syria against ISIS and Kurdish fighters.

In October 2015, the Syrian Democratic Forces was formed, an alliance of Kurdish forces and Arab fighters created to tamp down tensions over the YPGs rising power.

But the alliance remains squarely under YPG command and wholly reliant upon the PKK-trained Kurdish fighters who form its backbone, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

With the SDFs creation, Washington stepped up military support, though it said it was channelling equipment to the Arab component of the alliance.

And in November 2016, the alliance announced an operation to recapture Raqqa city, ISIS most important remaining Syrian bastion.

Ankara remains fiercely hostile to the SDF, and had hoped to convince US President Donald Trumps administration to find an alternative force to capture Raqqa, an Arab-majority city and major symbolic prize.

But on May 9, Washington instead announced that it would begin directly arming the YPG, provoking Turkish fury.

And on Tuesday the SDF said it launched a final assault on Raqqa and that its fighters had entered the city.

Experts say there are significant threats to the gains made by Syrian Kurds, chief among them conflict with Turkey.

For now, the US role in supporting the YPG provides some degree of protection, said Noah Bonsey, a senior ICG analyst.

But we cant assume its permanent, it may not even last much longer than the immediate campaign, he told AFP.

Other challenges include the possibility that the Syrian government will seek to reestablish control over Kurdish-majority areas, and tensions within Kurdish-held territory over the PYDs political dominance.

The Kurdish leadership is going to have to show a capacity for some real strategic compromises, in which it would be giving up some of its ambitions to protect much of what its already accomplished, said Bonsey.

If its able to make compromises with external actors as well as do more to address internal pressures... I think it can protect much of whats achieved.
Dental studies graduate Abanoub Guirguis Naeem will complete his residency in the worlds most important Sunni university. After Pope Franciss visit, the university wants to show a face open to dialogue. For Fr Rafic Greiche, this is a positive step, but it will be important to monitor developments.

Cairo (AsiaNews)  Last month, Cairos al-Azhar University in Cairo officially admitted Abanoub Guirguis Naeem (pictured, in the middle), a student in dental science, for his residency at the Faculty of Dentistry.

Naeem is a Copt, a Christian minority that has recently been subjected to a series of attacks and acts of violence in the country. He is first known Christian to enter the largest Muslim institution in the Arab world.

The admission of a Christian student to al-Azhar University is a "positive" step that could have "interesting developments" not only for the university but for the country, said Fr Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church, who spoke to AsiaNews about the first known case of a non-Muslim admitted in his final year of training at the Sunni institution.

"Certainly, it will be important to monitor developments, he added, and see how it evolves in the coming weeks, and in the near future."

For more than a thousand years, al-Azhar has trained not only physicians, engineers, and scientists but also legal scholars and imams who will preach in mosques around the world. It is known for accepting, at least officially, only Muslim students.

Naeem graduated from Nahda University, Beni Suef, Upper Egypt. In order to practice in hospitals, he has to complete a two-month or a one-year residency in a public facility like Cairo University, Ain Shams University or al-Azhar University.

The regulations provide opening to receive applicants for the facultys residency program on May every year, said Dr Khalid Siddiq, dean of the Faculty of Dentistry at Al-Azhar University, Assiut Branch. The Christian student Abanoub Gerges Naeem applied to be enrolled in the facultys two-month programme. He was approved to spend the training period at the college.

Naeem welcomed the news, not only because he is the first Christian to be admitted at the university but also because this will improve his training.

The decision to admit him could reflect the universitys desire to show the world an open face, especially after the recent papal visit and the meeting between Pope Francis and al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmad Al- Tayeb.

Recently members of the Egyptian Parliament have called on the university to show greater openness to admitting Christian students.

Al-Azhar's spokesman Abbas Shoman responded by saying that nothing prevents Egyptian citizens from studying at al-Azhar, but the conditions for enrolment can only be met by Muslims. Will Christians memorise the Quran so they can study at al-Azhar? he asked. The education system at Al-Azhar is not suitable for Christians.

"Al-Azhar University has two sections: a theological one, where imams and Muslim scholars are trained; and one where other subjects like medicine, dentistry, science, maths are taught, said Fr Rafic. Officially at least, the university "says it does not discriminate" with respect to admission, but this has not been the case so far.

"Now we have the first Christian student, and that is a good thing, a novelty that we have to monitor carefully, the Catholic Church spokesman said. "This is a good starting point", he added, but we still have to see "if and how it will work over time.

Al-Azhar always wants to show the world a conciliatory face open to dialogue, opposed to terrorism, and this decision comes at a special moment. But before reaching a final judgment, let us see how things will evolve."
by Maria Zhao

The ordination was presided over by Msgr. Giuseppe Shen Bin. The new priests were ordained deacons the day before. Shanghai Seminary has been closed since 2012 and Bishop Ma Daqin is in custody. On 18 May, 17 sisters took their religious vows.

Shanghai (AsiaNews)  Four new deacons of Shanghai diocese have been ordained to priesthood at St. Peters Church, Shanghai city, on June 7. They were ordained by Bishop Shen Bin of Haimen, a neighboring diocese. The bishop of Shanghai, Msgr. Taddeo Ma Daqin, has been under house arrest since 2012 and is forbidden to have contact with the public and to exercise his episcopal functions.

A day earlier, June 6, the four priests were ordained deacons at the same church, also by Bishop Shen, vice president of bishops council and of Patriotic Association. Bishop Shen, ordained a bishop with a papal mandate, is recognized by the Chinese government. Assisting the liturgies were Father Wu Jianlin and Father Gu Zhangjun, both of Shanghai diocese.

It is highly unusual for deacons to proceed immediately to presbyteral ordination. But this is due to the fact that the Shanghai seminary has been closed by government order since 2012 and they young candidates have been waiting for ordination for some time. They had completed their studies in 2012 just before the seminary was closed.

The neo-ordinates are: Peter Ren Yaning, Joseph Wu Yongtao, Joseph He Xiangxi, Pius Wu Newly ordained priests are Peter Ren Yaning, Joseph Wu Yongtao, Joseph He Xiangxi, Pius Wu Zhiqiang. They were respectively originated from Zhaoxian (Hebei), Xianxian (Hebei) and Changzhi (Shanxi) dioceses.

The new priests will celebrate their first Mass at Sheshan Basilica at 9 am. They graduated from Sheshan Regional Seminary at the times when Shanghai diocese became unstable in 2012.

A source said that it was sad to see the seminarians of Shanghai suffer because of the difficult situations in the diocese, but happy to know that they persisted in pursuing priesthood, and amazing to see them become priests.

At the ordination Mass on June 17, more than 40 priests, including 30 from Shanghai diocese, concelebrated. Hundreds of Catholics, including the new priests families, attended liturgies of both days.

Sources said Bishop Xing Wenzhi and Bishop Ma Daqin were not at the liturgies of June 6-7.

The last priestly ordination of Shanghai diocese was in Oct. 24, 2013 in Haimen city, at which Father Xie Huimin was also ordained by Bishop Shen at his cathedral.

This was another major Church event in Shanghai diocese, after the vow-taking of 17 religious Sisters on May 18.
The faithful were beaten, thrown onto the ground and searched. At least 10 are still in prison. Among them is the community pastor accused of having assaulted the police. The community refused to pay an (illegal) tax on the use of the road to the church.

Shangqiu (AsiaNews / ChinaAid) - A Protestant church under construction was destroyed and 40 faithful were arrested in central Henan province. The episode happened in May, but news has come only emerged in these days.

According to local witnesses, on May 5, 300 policemen and city inspectors demolished the small Protestant church of the Shuangmiao community in Shangqiu, carrying away at least 40 of the 140 faithful who resisted the demolition.

During the operation, police officers beat dozens of members of the community throwing them to the ground and twisting their arms. Of the 40 arrested at least 10 are still in prison. These include Pastor Zhang Di and his deputy of the Church Liu Yuexia, whose cases have been transferred to the prosecutor's office, to decide whether or not to formalize the arrest.

The Order to demolish the church came from the Party, who billed the building as an "illegal structure". In addition to demolishing it, police officers inspected the documents and properties of the faithful and bricklayers, confiscating their phones, destroying offertory boxes and lockers, seizing computers, money and jewels.

The government admits that demolition was a punishment on the community for refusing to pay 4,000 yuan a year (about US $ 588), an unofficial tax imposed by the village for use of the street outside the Church. Before demolition, the community tried to negotiate with government representatives. But they called Pastor Zhang on May 2 and arrested him with the false accusation of having assaulted the police, having limited the freedom of others and having beaten a village representative.

Now the community wants justice and the government to punish the perpetrators of these abuses and to free the detained Christians.
by Nalini R Mohanty

Five farmers died in clashes with the police in Madhya Pradesh. Farmers action began in Maharashtra. Both states are governed by the BJP. Overproduction has led to the collapse of prices. Protesters throw milk, onions and potatoes in the streets. [W]hat the agriculture sector today needs are the long-term policy measures.

New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Millions of farmers have halted production in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Their reasons for doing so range from drought, lack of monsoon rains and climate change that cause food shortages to irrigation facilities that have led to overproduction, low prices, and excess debt that drive some to suicide.

In Maharashtra, many took to the streets on 1st June to demand the government cancel farm loan debts. In a desperate attempt to put the spotlight on their tragic conditions, they destroyed the product of their hard work in the fields, throwing onions, potatoes and milk in the streets. From there, the protest spread to Madhya Pradesh, where five people died in clashes with the police.

If at the beginning, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that that farmers demands had already been met, he recently took a step back saying that he would look into cancelling the interest on agricultural loans.

Politics is now playing games with farmers lives as suicide wreaks havoc among their ranks. Political parties see tremendous potential in terms of votes as farmers' champions. For this reason, some leaders, like Rahul Gandhi are riding the wave of discontent in an attempt to attract the public's favour.

Today the Congress Party vice president travelled to Mandsaur district (Madhya Pradesh), scene of deadly clashes, to lead protests. The latest reports note that he was in police custody when he tried to enter the state.

After all is said and done, millions of farmers represent more than half of the countrys workforce. To avoid escalating tensions across the country, long-term policies are needed. Otherwise, rural distress and farmer suicide would remain the recurring feature of Indian reality.

What follows is an analysis by Indian journalist Nalini R Mohanty that appeared on Firstpost, an Indian English-language newspaper.

After Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh has now been rocked by farmer unrest. At least six farmers were killed and eight others were critically injured on Tuesday when the police resorted to firing to subdue the protesting farmers in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

In both Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, the farmers demands are almost similar: they want complete farm loan waiver as a short-term palliative and secondly, institutionalised mechanism for getting better prices for agricultural produce.

Incidentally, both the states are ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); in Maharashtra, it is an alliance government with Shiv Sena, the latter, however, is a junior partner. It is therefore alarming for the BJP, which also rules at the Centre, to face the farmers wrath as the ruling party has made the ambitious plan to double the farmers income in the next five years.

It is all the more disturbing for the BJP as Madhya Pradesh under Shivraj Singh Chouhans stewardship has been hailed as the biggest success story for agriculture in the recent decades.

Barely a month ago, Ashok Gulati, an eminent agriculture expert, wrote in The Indian Express: "Several of these steps (like farm loan waiver, government purchase of wheat and potatoes and notice to sugar meals for clearing farmer dues, etc) highlight the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths concern for farmers who have been getting a raw deal for years. Should he intend to be in for the long haul, Adityanath would be better off taking a leaf from what we call the Shiv mantra. The mantra derives its name from Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who is in his third term as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh."

Gulati then goes on to state the achievements of the Shivraj government that created the golden era for agriculture in Madhya Pradesh. He gives the statistics for it: "Madhya Pradeshs agri  gross state domestic product (agri-GSDP) grew at 9.7 percent per annum  the highest ever achieved by any state  between 2005-06 and 2014-15. All-India agri-GDP growth during this period was 3.5 percent.

Why then have things gone so horribly wrong in Madhya Pradesh where farmers are out on the streets in thousands demanding justice? Chouhan has also tried to do what his Maharashtra counterpart attempted a couple of days ago  to break the unity of the farmers by inviting one farmer union group for talks to the exclusion of the other.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis conceded the farm loan waiver for the small and marginal farmers in his meeting with a farmers union which in turn announced the withdrawal of the strike. But other farmers unions were enraged at their exclusion from negotiations and vowed to continue the protest.

The same scenario was repeated in Madhya Pradesh when Chouhan called the leaders of one organisation for negotiations, which ended with those leaders calling off the strike, but other union leaders have refused to toe the line until Madhya Pradesh government declares a complete farm loan waiver.

Why has Gulatis golden state of agriculture turned into a farmers graveyard? It is not as if agricultural pot started boiling last week. The official data presents a dismal picture over a longer period. The Madhya Pradesh government also admitted on the floor of the legislature that between 1 July, 2016 and 15 November, 2016, 531 farmers had committed suicide in the state.

The home minister of the Madhya Pradesh government had to also put on record that between 16 November, 2016 and 27 February, 2017, 106 farmers and 181 farm labourers have committed suicide.

he official data for farmer suicide in Maharashtra is starker. The data compiled by the relief and rehabilitation department of the Maharashtra government has admitted that 639 farmers committed suicide in just three months, between 1 January and 31 March of this year. Last year, in 2016, on official count confirmed that at least 3,052 farmers committed suicide in the state.

This is a cause for worry for the BJP as Madhya Pradesh goes for election next year and Maharashtra is due for its next election the year after. No party can hope to win an election in a state by incurring the wrath of the rural community, especially the farmers. By a conservative estimate, more than 50 percent of Indian population are employed  or if you like, underemployed  in agricultural activity. A ruling party cannot afford to ignore their concerns.

What then ails Indian agriculture? And what can the government do to alleviate the conditions?

For quite some time, the common idea that was held was that agriculture in India faced a crisis because farmers were over-dependent on monsoons in the absence of adequate irrigation facilities. When the monsoon failed or was below normal, the drought condition prevailed and agricultural production took a hit.

So the states which wanted to take care of its farmers, prioritised irrigation facilities. Madhya Pradesh took the lead in this regard. "Between 2009 and 2014, over 1,400 minor irrigation projects were completed in MP, increasing the states irrigated area by 4.8 lakh hectares The irrigated area in MP, thus, increased from 30 percent of the cropped area in 2005-06 to 41.2 percent of such area in 2014-15."

The relatively good monsoon last year added to the bountiful production of food crops. Why is it then that the farmers in Madhya Pradesh are distressed?

The agricultural distress has turned on its head there. Food scarcity is no more the issue in the state. What plagues the farmer there is over-production. The Madhya Pradesh government, in its over enthusiasm, had implemented a policy of 10 percent bonus over and above the Centres minimum support price (MSP) during 2007-08 and 2014-15. It resulted in a glut  Madhya Pradeshs share of wheat production rose from 8.6 per cent in 2005-06 to almost 20 per cent in 2014-15.

The state has had to deal with the consequent problem of over-production. The state did not have the wherewithal to store the food grains in the warehouses. It did not make economic sense for the state to create additional warehouses to preserve the food grains only to rot.

When the state government tried to give away the food grains free to the people below the poverty line, the central government raised a red flag saying it would distort the market economy.

The rural distress today is largely on account of the falling prices. Madhya Pradesh today faces a glut in onion production. The MP government has announced the decision to buy onion from farmers at Rs 8 and sell at Rs 2 through the public distribution system. The Shivraj Singh government has also created Rs 1000 crore stabilisation fund to ride over the immediate crisis.

But clearly, these short-term measures have not assuaged the sentiment of the farmers. They are demanding complete bank loan waiver to get back on their feet. Even if the MP government concedes this demand  just as the Maharashtra government has partially done  it would be another short-term palliative.

The writing on the wall is clear: what the agriculture sector today needs are the long-term policy measures to shield the farmer from the consequences of both over-production and under-production of agricultural goods. Otherwise, rural distress and farmer suicide would remain the recurring feature of Indian reality.
by Melani Manel Perera

The girls study at the Holy Family Convent School in Bambalapitiya. The celebrations marking the end of Marian month were set for the end of May, but bad weather forced the school to postpone the event.

Colombo (AsiaNews)  This year, instead of offering only crowns flowers on the Marian feast day, pupils at the Holy Family Convent School in Bambalapitiya, Colombo, also donated food and products of first necessity to help flood victims.

After last weeks tragedy that left 170 people dead, the school administration decided to contribute in a simple but direct way. To do this, We asked all the girls to bring dry food, water bottles and clothes," said school principal Sister Deepa Fernardo.

Celebrations marking the end of the month dedicated to Our Lady took place yesterday. They are usually held at the end of May, but his year, the school was forced to postpone them due to the bad weather that badly affected the country.

When the school re-opened, Sister Principal proposed Less flowers to decorate the statue of the Virgin and more first aid items for those who has lost everything." The girls responded positively, Sister Deepa said.

Celebrations began with the Rosary whilst primary students started a procession carrying offerings, posters, and placards of "love for Mother Mary. All the other pupils followed singing lauds and praying until they reached the schools chapel.

"As we remember our brothers and sisters affected by bad weather, let us remember them in our prayer too, the prefect told the pupils. Let us remember them as we crown with flowers the One who gives us the strength needed to deal with situations in which She may protect them. Give to Her your personal spiritual crown. "

The prefect also wanted her fellow sister students "not to participate in the celebration only because it is a Church tradition. Do it because Mary is the Mother: Your Mother, my Mother, everyones Mother because She takes care of us every day."
Hundreds of thousands of refugees - Christians, Muslims and Yazidis-escaped from the Islamic State have been sheltering in the region. The area is rich in oil and natural gas and has long been contended between local authorities and central government. Turkey, Syria and Iran against the project for fear of internal secessions.

Erbil (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The autonomous Kurdistan region will hold a referendum on September 25th to decide on independence from Baghdad and the creation of an autonomous territorial entity. The Kurdish leaders in Erbil yesterday announced the vote despite the vast front opposition to dividing Iraq.

Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Christians have been sheltered in the region, as well as Muslims and Yazidis who fled Nineveh's plain after the arrival of the Islamic State.

The Kurdistan Presidency office issued a note confirming that "September 25, 2017 is the date for the independence referendum". The Iraqi Kurdistan region is formed by three provinces, which are entrusted with the guidance of a regional autonomous government and protected by local security forces.

Independent self-government has a large consensus among the local population but is opposed by most of the country and the international community because it could undermine the nation's instability.

The statement issued by the Kurdish regional presidency reminds one of the most controversial issues related to independence, saying that the referendum will be held "in the Kurdistan region and in Kurdistan areas not controlled by local government". The reference is to the northern territories claimed by both Kurdistan and Baghdad, rich in oil and natural gas. Among them is the area of Kirkuk, now mostly under the control of Peshmerga.

In recent times, both Baghdad and the Kurdish region are undergoing a profound economic and financial crisis, heightened by the collapse of oil prices; In fact, the proceeds from the sale of crude represent the vast majority of revenue.

In addition, despite a large movement favoring Kurdish independence, Iraqi Kurds are divided in their entirety; Splits and contrasts that risk paralyzing the unborn state immediately.

Adding to this is the opposition of some regional powers: Turkey, Syria and Iran have a large internal Kurdish community and are against the birth of a Kurdish independent entity, fearing  above all Ankara - that it can feed secessionists .

Other critical and opposing voices to the country's division include the Chaldean Church, which has long worked for the unity of Iraq in the face of internal problems and external threats (including the Islamic State). The opposition of the patriarchate is not just about the self-governing of the Kurds, but also the projects powered by some Christian groups which could lead to the creation of a "Christian ghetto" on the Nineveh plain.
The missiles launched today are not subject to the UN ban. They could hit "big ships". Further deployment of the US anti-missile system blocked for ecological reasons. Anti-Thaad protests in Seongju. Seoul is willing to continue intercultural relations with NGOs and charitable and religious organizations, but Pyongyang rejects them.

Seoul (AsiaNews) - North Korea launched several cruise missiles that landed about 200km east of its coast. According to southern military authorities, the launch took place from Wonsan City and the rockets were "cruise missiles", designed to hit large ships. They point out that these weapons are not banned by the UN, which a week ago increased sanctions against Pyongyang after several launches of ballistic missiles linked to its nuclear program.

South Korean military spokesman Roh Jae-cheon said the latest launch showed the North "likely wanted to show off its ability to precisely target a large warship" after recent military drills involving US aircraft carriers and South Korean troops.

The United States is pushing for a military escalation in the region and to install an anti-missile defense system called Thaad (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense System), also criticized by China. The installation was approved by Moon's predecessor, Mrs. Park Geun-Hye, and strongly criticized by the Catholic Church.

Just yesterday, President Moon Jae-in blocked any future deployment of Thaad units until their environmental impact is studied. There are indeed many questions regarding pollution caused by the batteries used by the system. Until now, the US has been able to place two anti-missile towers in Seongju province, where hundreds of residents have staged strong protests against Thaad's pollution (see photo).

Today in the early afternoon, for the first time as president, Moon chairs the National Security Council to investigate possible measures against the continued launch of missiles by North Korea. Moon and his government are seeking a way to stop Pyongyang's nuclear programs, but at the same time leave the doors open to dialogue. In contrast to Park, Moon relaunched the collaboration of religious charitable NGOs and institutions, including Caritas, with North Korea for food, building materials, medicines, etc.

But three days ago, Pyongyang refused to open doors to civil and religious civil society organizations, citing Seoul's adherence to the new list of sanctions voted by the UN last week.
The number of victims has now risen to 13, with 46 wounded. The attackers were between the ages of 20 and 25. For the Guardians of the Revolution American and Saudi involvement. Donald Trump prays for the victims, but reaffirms the accusation against Iran of supporting terrorism. Javad Zarif: "Repugnant Words".

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The six Daesh fighters who yesterday killed 13 people and injured 46 in the parliament and the Ayatollah Khomeini mausoleum were Iranians from different regions. All of them are now dead, while a group of five people planning a third attack were arrested.

Four assailants attacked the parliament in Teheran in the morning, two of which were suicide bombers and two of which were killed by security forces. They were between the ages of 20 and 25.

Daesh has claimed the attacks with a video shot from inside the parliament and threatened further aggression against Shiite Muslims. Despite its commitment both in Iraq and Syria, it is the first time that Iran has been hit by ISIS. In recent months, extremist propaganda of the Islamic State had taken in Iran.

The attacks in Tehran come at a time of deep tension in the region follwoing the trip of US President Donald Trump. In a meeting in Riyadh Trump and Saud accused Iran of being the base of international terrorism.

The Revolutionary Guards accuse the United States and Saudi Arabia of being involved in the attacks: "This terrorist act, just a week after the meeting of the United States President with the leader of one of the most reactionary governments of the region Saudi Arabia, showing that they are involved in this wild act. "

Both the US and Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks. However, Trump added that "states that sponsor terrorism are likely to fall victim to the evil they promote."

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded harshly to a tweet: "The White House's statements and Senate sanctions are repugnant as Iranians face the terror of US making. The Iranian people reject similar American statements. "

President Hassan Rouhani, re-affirmed in his second term last month, has appealed for unity because "fighting extremism, violence and terrorism" is "the most important necessity in today's world." Supreme leader Ali Khamenei commented on the attacks by saying that they "will not have the least effect on the will of the people."

Supporting messages came from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.

Several Iranians fear that these attacks may strengthen the wars of the Radicals and Revolutionary Guards, defeated in the presidential election.
by Joseph Nguyen Hung

The new Law on Beliefs and Religions will come in effect on 1st January 2018. Its ambiguities and contradictions will fuel the "system of asking and granting". The law interferes with the internal affairs of religious communities and establishes tight controls over their activities. The government's views about religion are inadequate. The authorities call on religions to work for the country's growth. The bishops differentiate the concept of nation from that of regime.

Hanoi (AsiaNews)  "The governments Law on Beliefs and Religions has some innovative and positive points. However, there are many aspects that worry us and alarm us," say Vietnams Catholic bishops in a statement that raises doubts about legislation set to come into effect on 1st January 2018.

Despite biases and distorted views spread by the government about the Church, Catholic leaders have reiterated their commitment to work with the authorities for the good of the country, but demand their independence from the state.

Last June, in a message to the speaker of the National Assembly, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and the 498 members of the legislative body, the Bishops' Conference expressed its views on the last draft of the bill.

The bishops also sent their official statement to the faithful in the countrys 26 dioceses, urging them to pray for the good of the nation.

On 18 November 2016, the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam approved the new law to regulate religious practice in the country, thus directly affecting the lives of Catholics.

The bill was first introduced on 22 April 2015, when the Bureau of Religious Affairs sent the fourth draft of the hitherto unknown bill to all religious groups.

In the weeks that followed, Caodaist and Catholic leaders heavily criticised the draft proposal describing it as a form of imprisonment for religions, and "a step backward compared to the Ordinance on belief and religion of 2004." However, the National Assembly decided to go ahead anyway.

The members of five Catholic religious institutes also criticised the new law, which "creates muddled procedures, stifling rules, and a series of constraints that make religious activity impossible."

In its letter on 1st June, the Bishops' Conference underlines certain positive aspects of the law, such as the recognition of the right to religion of inmates in prisons and reform schools (Article 6), foreigners (Articles 8 and 47), and foreigners studying at Vietnamese religious institutions (Article 49).

The law also recognises religious organisations approved by the appropriate state agency as non-commercial entities (Article 30).

However, the government's interference with religious organisations active in education and health raises doubts and concerns.

A previous draft law, dated 17 August 2016, established the right of religious groups to set up educational and health facilities, outpatient clinics, welfare bodies and shelters. The final version changes this, generically acknowledging the right of religious organisations to "take part" in educational, social and health activities.

"In what way can we 'take part' in these activities? wonder the bishops. To what extent can we 'take part'? Are we still guaranteed the right to establish outreach bodies or foundations? This last version of the law is a step backwards from the previous one," they lament.

According to the prelates, the ambiguities and contradictions in the law fuel the "system of asking and granting" through which the government can "approve or disapprove of religious organisations". This legitimises interference in internal affairs of religious communities and establishes tight controls over their activities.

"The bill shows the inadequacy of the government's views on religion and religious organisations. The authorities look to religions as purely political organisations, sometimes as an opposition force. Pastoral activities in the fields of charity, health and education are not adequately valued and pastoral activities are ostracised."

"In some government schools or training centres, some educators and teachers show strong bias against Catholicism, this according to some Catholic students who spoke to AsiaNews. They give a wrong account of the history of Catholicism in Vietnam. At the same time, some teachers or quasi-experts pass on disinformation about Catholicism, distorting the image that the younger generation may have of the Catholic Church."

For the Bishops Conference, "such visions and behaviours risk undermining the real identity of religions, dividing them and creating conflicts between believers and non-religious people. Such attitudes are forbidden by this law (Article 5)."

Bishops have responded directly to the government's call to work for the country's growth. "The government has invited religions to accompany the nation. We all agree to this, but we think that the concept of nation must be clearly distinguished from that of regime.

The history of the Vietnamese people in particular and the history of the world in general show that political regimes change over time, but the nation lasts forever. Religions inspire noble spiritual values in the human heart. This way, religion helps to promote the cultural traditions of the nation, engaging actively in building a just, democratic and civic society. "

Finally, the bishops turn to the National Assembly. "When there is a proper view of religion, this will be the premise for true respect for the religious freedom of the people. We hope that our honest and direct comments, due to our historical responsibility and our love of homeland, will be heard by the Assembly.

With respect to the guidelines to apply the law, we hope that the Government of Vietnam will follow new paths, creating conditions for religions to participate more actively in the building and development of the country. This is for the prosperity, democracy and happiness of Vietnam."
Japan Crate is a Tokyo-based candy and snack subscription service that offers its subscribers a taste of one of the most fun parts of Japanese culinary culture. Each box is curated and shipped directly from Japan each month to ensure maximum authenticity and freshness.

What Is Japan Crate?

Not your typical snack box, Japan Crate curates monthly boxes of snacks, candy and other Japanese fare and ships it all to you, directly from Japan.

Japan Crate was the brainchild of Hank Rao, who, after a business trip to Japan that exposed him to the wonders of Japanese treats, realized how limiting the Japanese snack scene was in the States. Not only that, but it was nearly impossible to order directly from Japan -- snacks would take forever to arrive and through all the shipping and handling would end up melted and crushed.

Not only did he want to facilitate a realistic and practical to delivers snacks to North America, Rao was also determined to take the excitement, bewilderment and happiness that [he] experienced from being in Japan and share that to you every month. Rao knew there had to be a better way and thus, in 2014, Japan Crate was born.

Unboxing Japan Crate

As someone who just returned from a trip to Japan, I was thrilled to see the bright red box land on my desk. Easily distinguishable from the rest of the kraft paper mail, it would be an understatement to say that the Japan Crate stands out from the rest.

Once I cracked open the box, I was pleased to see how neatly everything was arranged. You could tell a lot of care and contemplation went into packing the box -- it was as if I was looking into a candy-centric bento box, which I dont believe was a coincidence.

Everything was so neatly packaged, I didnt want to touch anything! But when I finally did decide to rummage through the box to see the contents, I was pleasantly surprised. To be honest, I was expecting a lot of jellies, Pocky, flavored KitKat and Pretz -- the typical, well-known Japanese fare. However, there wasnt a single item in my assortment that I recognized.

Since everything is shipped directly from Japan, all of the packaging on the products is, naturally, written in Japanese. Thankfully, for those subscribers who cant read Japanese fluently, Japan Crate also curates a monthly English language booklet that explains each product in detail -- so you know what youre biting into.

The Review

When I first found out I would be reviewing Japan Crate I was stoked. I had just gotten back from Japan and had just polished off the last of my Sakura flavored KitKats and rice crackers. Needless to say, I was already hungry for more Japanese goodies to snack on.

When the box finally arrived, I was happy to find a box full of snacks that I had never seen before and virtually had no idea what they were without reading the literature that came inside the box. As someone who loves trying new food, this was a huge bonus for me.

However, as a vegetarian, it was difficult to decipher which snacks were fully OK for me to consume. For example, there was a delicious looking bag of shrimp-flavored popcorn, but I was unable to tell if it was real shrimp or artificial, so unfortunately I had to pass that onto my boyfriend to enjoy.

Thats not to say that I didnt enjoy most of the treats that came in the box. Although I was slightly disappointed by the lack of sweets -- everything was mainly salty and I am a big candy person -- I started off with the bonus treat of the month: a box of chocolate covered gummies. They were so delicious that I polished off the entire box and moved onto a box of Disney-themed cookies. Although Disney is predominantly American by origin, I had never seen anything like these.

I received the premium box, so I had 15 delicious snacks to munch on at my desk over the next few weeks. The assortment included everything from the aforementioned gummies and cookies, to carrot-flavored rice puffs, to a DIY ice cream pack -- all of which were new and interesting (in the best way possible!)

All in all, I loved receiving my Japan Crate. I definitely think Hank Rao succeeded in his quest to capture the excitement of a first-time trip to Japan and send it in a subscription box. As someone who also loves snacks, I would not hesitate to order Japan Crate again (and again)

Cost

Japan Crate is available in three different sizes. The mini crate ($12/month) comes packed with 5 items, the original ($25/month) includes 10 items, and the premium ($30/month) includes 15 items per month.

The premium box would get you the best bang for your buck -- it comes out to about $2 per snack and always includes a surprise bonus snack. Based on the length of the subscription you choose, youll receive an extra discount. The most economical option is to subscribe for a full year -- which would only cost $27/month.

How To Subscribe

Subscribing is easy. Simply pick the crate youre interested in (Japan Crate offers other subscription services like Umai Crate and Kira Kira Crate if youre into other Japanese products), and hit subscribe.

Then, youll be taken to the terms page. Once you choose your length of subscription, youll be asked to fill out your postal address, billing information and to create a password to manage your Japan Crate account. Its that simple!

Managing Your Subscription

Managing your subscription is quite simple. Just sign into your account to access the next shipping date, the cut off date to suspend your account and the steps to cancel your subscription if you feel so inclined.

Is Japan Crate Worth It? THE VERDICT: Yes

Is Japan Crate worth it? If youre someone who likes to snack but who becomes easily bored with the same old grocery store selection, then definitely Japan Crate is worth the pricetag. Likewise, if you've recently gone to Japan or you often find yourself wishing you could, Japan Crate does a great job of bringing the essence and excitement of Japan into your home each month.

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The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, signed into law last month by governor Kay Ivey, complicates the process of changing the names of school facilities dedicated to a person, group, event, movement or military service  a move that complicates potential naming rights deals and facility projects.

The law, sponsored by representative Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, was promoted as a means to protect the states history at time when some southern cities were involved in removing prominent signs of the confederacy.

In a public statement, the Southern Poverty Law Center called out the law for protecting monuments that celebrate white supremacy and a time in which an entire race was enslaved and oppressed, according to Decatur Daily.

While the law does serve to protect confederate monuments, it also restricts the rights of local governments to change the names of streets or school buildings that have existed on public land for more than 20 years.

This becomes a problem when school districts hope to renovate, expand or repurpose aging facilities, as it ties the name to the physical building rather than to the purpose of the building. This opens schools up to the possibility of being stuck with two buildings of the same name.

In order to obtain a waiver to change the name of a building that falls within the parameters of the law, a school would have to petition an 11-person committee, providing a school board resolution and a documented facility history along with commentary and other facts.

Athens City Superintendent Trey Holladay told Decatur Daily that many school officials opposed the bill because it inhibits the dissolution of school facilities that have aged past usefulness. I want to save historical buildings, he said, but we need buildings for educational reasons.
The crossover shares its platform with Kia Rio; will be closely related to Hyundai Kona.

Kia has released design sketches previewing its new Stonic crossover ahead of its world debut at the Frankfurt motor show in September. The Nissan Juke rival will be closely related to the new Hyundai Kona, which is also due to be revealed at Frankfurt.

The design sketches reveal the Stonic's chunky, Rio-inspired look and intricate rear light clusters. The front-end design is far removed from that of the Sportage, suggesting a different aesthetic direction for the brand's future models.

Our sister publication Autocar UK had unearthed the 'Stonic' name in trademark filings earlier this year. Kia claims that the car offers a level of customisation options unprecedented on any Kia model before it, on both the interior and exterior.

The Stonic is tipped to share engines with the Rio, given the two cars' shared platforms. This means 1.0-litre three-cylinder, 1.25-litre and 1.4-litre four-cylinder petrol engines, and a 1.4-litre diesel for higher-end cars will be offered, with specs ranging from entry-level 1 to range-topping 3 and GT-line cars. It won't get four-wheel drive anywhere in its range.

After exploring an entry into India for several years, Kia Motors, the sister brand of Korean carmaker Hyundai, recently announced its foray into the country. Kia will build a manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 3,00,000 units in Andhra Pradesh starting later this year. It signed a memorandum of understanding with the state government for the construction of the greenfield plant. Read more on that here.
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Telogis and Fleetmatics are now part of Verizon Telematics. A representative from Verizon Telematics will be reaching out to you.

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BY THE NUMBERS

81,230 - Number of Kern County kids living in poverty

67,580 - Number of county kids who faced hunger at some point during 2014.

32 - Percentage point increase in poverty rates in Lake Isabella last year.

8 - Number of years childhood poverty has been increasing countywide

7 - Kern County ranks seventh worst statewide for childhood poverty. In 1990, it was 12th.
In a hearing with the Senate intelligence committee that lasted nearly three hours Thursday, James Comey declared that despite what he says was President Donald Trump's intentions for the former FBI director to drop his investigations into Russia, the country did interfere with the 2016 presidential election.



James Comey says that Donald Trump was never under FBI investigation while he was in charge

Comey 'honestly concerned' about Trump during their January meeting

Read James Comey's opening statement for the Senate intelligence panel

"There should be no fuzz on this whatsoever. The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle. ... It was an active measures campaign driven from the top of that government," Comey testified. "That is as unfake as you can possibly get."

Comey said he has no doubt that the Russian government interfered with the 2016 presidential election and confirmed that he believes Russian officials knew about the interference, but said that he saw no indication that the votes cast in the election were altered in any way.

Comey refused to publicly answer if a dossier about Russia trying to influence Trump or his campaign when he was the president-elect.

"Not a question I can answer in open sitting, Mr. Chairman," Comey replied.

During a meeting with the president-elect at Trump Tower regarding the Russian investigation in January, Comey said that he wrote down what was discussed because he was concerned with the type of person that Trump might be.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting," he said.

That was the start of a rocky relationship between Trump and Comey. In testimony, he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign's Russian ties.

Comey testified that he thought it was odd for the president to demand loyalty from him.

Sen. Marco Rubio, of Florida, asked Comey if he ever told the president that he was not allowed to ask him to drop an investigation.

"I didn't. ... I think the circumstances were such that I was a bit stunned and didn't have the presence of mind," Comey answered, adding that he was not sure if he could tell the president he was wrong.

However, Comey did say that Trump was not under the investigation by the FBI while Comey was director.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein pointedly asked Comey why he thought the president fired him. He answered that he believed it was because of the Russia investigation and how Comey was conducting it and that Trump felt it caused him political pressure.

In earlier testimony, Comey said that the "shifting explanations" of why he was fired were confusing for him because Trump said that he was doing "a great job and extremely well-liked by the FBI workforce." However, he added that the president defamed him.

Comey said he learned through a news story that the president said Comey was fired because of the Russia investigation. The former FBI director also continued, saying it was a lie that the FBI was in disarray.

"The FBI is honest, the FBI is strong and the FBI is and always will be independent," Comey said. He also issued an apology for not saying goodbye to his former colleagues.

Three days after Trump fired Comey on May 9, the president tweeted that Comey should hope there are "no tapes" of their conversations.

But Comey said on Thursday, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," of his conversations with Trump.

It was because of Trump's tweets about him, Comey said, that he asked a friend to leak the contents of his memo about meetings with Trump.

Comey said in his hearing before the Senate intelligence committee that he felt that releasing the details of his private conversations with the president might prompt the appointment of a special counsel in the case.

The hearing also turned to Hillary Clinton and the email scandal. Comey says that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch urged him to refer to the investigation into Clinton's emails a "matter" instead of an "investigation."

Comey also said he was confused by the request and it was one of the reasons he felt the need to publicly announce his findings in the Clinton email case.

Comey said the other major factor was Lynch's meeting with former President Bill Clinton on the tarmac of an Arizona airport. Comey says he had to announce his findings to protect the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department.

During the testimony, Comey was asked if ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was in any legal problems and if the president was trying to obstruct justice by asking the ex-FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn.

Comey replied there was an open FBI criminal investigation into Flynn, his statements and the Russian contacts.

"I don't think it was for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct, but I took it as a very disturbing thing and very concerning," Comey said.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has issued a Silver Alert for a missing Thonotosassa man.

Dennis Truluck, 80, was last seen on June 7 around 8:30 a.m., at his home on Morris Bridge Road taking out the trash, deputies said.

After an hour, Truluck's wife said she could not find him. Truluck's truck was also missing from their home, deputies said.

They believe he may be traveling to Brooksville or Lake City Florida.

Truluck drives a 2006 silver Chevy pickup truck, with a Florida tag #Y00FSK.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Hillsobrough County Sheriff's Office at 813-247-8200.
In the hours after the Pulse nightclub attack, thousands lined up on a Sunday, and the days after, to donate blood across Florida.

"If it wasnt for the blood that we received, a lot of us  including me  would not be here today," Angel Colon, a Pulse survivor, said last month.

When Colon was pulled from the nightclub by first responders, he was dragged over glass, which cut open wounds. He needed several blood transfusions to survive his injuries.

In the 24 hours after the attack, 300 pints of donated blood were used.

In honor of that unprecedented effort, OneBlood is hosting a blood drive at donor centers and "Big Red Bus" locations throughout the area over the next week.

Those who donate at any greater Orlando donor centers and select Big Red Bus locations between now and Wednesday, June 14, will get a special commemorative T-shirt along with a free wellness checkup, which includes blood pressure, pulse, temperature, iron count and cholesterol screening.

Those who donate at other OneBlood centers outside the greater Orlando area Friday through Monday will also get the T-shirt and wellness checkup.

For a list of donation locations, head to the OneBlood website.

After the Pulse attack, some 28,500 people stood in lines to donate blood, according to OneBlood. Of those, 33 percent were first-time donors. However, less than 10 percent of those donors have returned to donate again.

In May, several Pulse survivors joined with OneBlood to promote the need for donated blood in the community.

OneBlood alone sends their donations to 200 hospitals, with one unit of blood saving up to three people.
Oregon Coast Whale Watching: 6 to 20 Sightings a Day

Published 06/08/2017 at 6:03 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Depoe Bay, Oregon)  There isn't much that gets people more excited about visiting the Oregon coast than a good run of whale watching, and that's exactly what's happening right now. The official numbers on the central Oregon coast are an average of six to 20 whales spotted a day, in areas scattered all over that section. From Yachats up to Lincoln City (which includes Newport, Seal Rock, Waldport, Gleneden Beach and Depoe Bay), there have been lots of reports of gray whales wandering the region, and social media is filled with quite a few videos of whales spouting.

Luke Parsons, head of the Whale Watch Center in Depoe Bay, said it all started back during March's Whale Watch Week. The numbers were good then as the grays slowly swam their way up to feeding grounds closer to Alaska, and with a generally good run of weather conditions they seem to be sticking around.

We had a very busy and successful spring whale watch week, and it's just really kind'a continued on, Parsons said. We definitely have our summertime resident whales along the central Oregon coast, and we're seeing six to 20 a day, as long as the weather allows.

Parsons said plenty of reports have come in from all over Lincoln County. While those numbers of six to 20 sightings per day come from the Depoe Bay center, he said he's getting enough callers about whales in other areas that those numbers are likely steady up and down that geographic range.

They've been coming quite close to shore, according to many reports and videos. There have been numerous reports of them hanging out close to the Cape Perpetua Visitors Center near Yachats.





A good rule of thumb: if reports are this good from shore, you can bet the whale watch boat tours are riding high on even more whale encounters.

Last month we had a group of Bottlenose whales come through, and the Orcas were here for four or five days, he said. We're definitely gearing up for another good summer of whale watching.



The biggest factor is most often weather. If seas are rough and it's windy, the whale steer clear of near-shore activity. Large waves also create big gullies that makes the whales hard to see.

Every year, there are what officials call the resident whales along the central coast, attracted to this area because of lots of krill and mysid shrimp. They linger here, and often it's the same ones each year, sometimes year-round. But others come and go and are replaced by other cetacean loiterers.

These areas are full of this food source because of the thick kelp forests. Gray whales chomp on about 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds of the tiny creatures every day.

There are some special encounters that can leave witnesses breathless, however. Such as when the whales get real close. Often, this is because the mother whales are trying to keep their babies away from predators, such as Orcas. However, Parsons said gray whales can feel more comfortable in shallow water than Orcas or other whales, and that tends to chase the killer whales away.

Studies have shown these whales feel comfortable in as little as six feet of water, Parsons said.

Even more spectacular is when the grays are apparently quite curious about you. Sometimes a whale will do a maneuver called a spyhop, where they pop out of the water and then flop back in again, mostly to take a look around them. Parsons, along with many boat tour operators, believe this is when a real connection can happen.

There have been a few occasions when they spyhop in front of the visitor center, and I'm pretty sure they're staring right at us, he said. I do think they're curious. Especially the young ones. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours - More about Oregon Coast Whales.









Gray whale photos below courtesy Seaside Aquarium











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GALVESTON  Galveston County commissioners have approved a settlement agreement for the $1.75 million purchase of Rollover Pass, advancing plans to close one of Texas' most renowned fishing spots following a long legal battle.



Commissioners unanimously voted to accept the settlement after hearing emotional pleas to keep the pass open from anglers and residents of Gilchrist, the Bolivar Peninsula community adjacent to Rollover Pass.



"Please don't take my livelihood away," pleaded Nancy Bachman, owner of Miss Nancy's Bait Camp at the popular fishing spot.



The owners of the property, the Gulf Coast Rod, Reel and Gun Club Inc., agreed to the settlement last month. But the Gilchrist Community Association has refused to agree to the settlement and is pursuing a case in federal court.



"We did reject the settlement at the mediation," said Ted Vega, association president. Vega said he was ready to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"We're not done by a long shot."



Winston Cochran, the attorney representing the community association in the federal lawsuit, urged county commissioners to ignore their agreement to take possession of Rollover Pass and turn it over to the Texas General Land Office for closure.



"You don't have to be bossed around by the state; you don't have to do their bidding," Cochran said.

After the public testimony, commissioners voted 3-2 Tuesday evening against an agenda item that would have dropped the eminent-domain lawsuit and kept the pass open.



The dissenting commissioners then joined the majority in approving the deal to acquire the property.



The county sued the club at the behest of the Land Office, which has been trying to close the man-made canal linking the Gulf of Mexico with East Bay since receiving permission from the Legislature in 2009.



The state said Rollover Pass was accelerating erosion on the peninsula and dumping sand into the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway that had to constantly be removed at great expense.

Land Office studies also determined that closure of the pass would improve the environment.

The Land Office has no authority to use eminent domain to close the pass, but Galveston County does.

The county agreed to exercise its eminent-domain right to take Rollover Pass in exchange for the Land Office's promise to build a $6 million fishing pier.

County Court-at-Law Judge Barbara Roberts on April 19 ruled that Galveston County could exercise eminent domain to take possession of Rollover Pass. All that remained was a jury trial to set the amount of compensation the county would pay the Rod, Reel and Gun Club.

The commissioners' vote brings an end to legal proceedings in the state courts.



Land Office spokeswoman Brittany Eck said the settlement must be finalized before the agency takes steps to close the pass.



Once all the legal procedures are completed, the Land Office will complete the engineering and design and begin procuring contracts for closing the pass, Eck said.



Eck said the final design for the pier will be determined after the pass is closed.



Bachman, who said 87 percent of her business is generated from fisherman at the pass, is depending on the pier to keep her business open: "If they build a pier, it would be wonderful."
A former Groesbeck Independent School District sixth grade teacher was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine, according to the Temple Daily Telegram.

Stephanie Alfano, 49, was found sleeping and seemed to be under the influence of a substance in a white 2005 Nissan on what would have been her final day to teach at Groesbeck Middle School, according to police.
Former FBI Director James Comey faced the Senate Intelligence Committee in D.C. Thursday morning, where he discussed his conversations with the president prior to his firing.

Comey's prepared testimony was released Wednesday, in which he detailed five of his conversations with the president.
Like him or not, David Bradley made an impact on the State Board of Education that will not be forgotten soon. In many ways he was ahead of the political curve in Texas, standing out as a social conservative when other Republicans were focused on traditional party issues like business and taxes.

That's a mixed bag for the GOP, but it's where the party is at now. Most of these candidates win their primary races - which in Texas, means they usually win their general elections too.

So don't be surprised if a like-minded Republican succeeds Bradley, who announced this week that he would not seek re-election to his District 7 seat on the State Board of Education in 2018. However, we urge voters - and Bradley's successor - to keep a few things in mind going forward.

It's the Board of Education, not the Board of Politics.

Even though candidates run for it on a partisan basis, they are tasked with overseeing K-12 public education in Texas. The focus must be on the nuts and bolts of that mission - textbooks, teachers and curriculum.

The unfortunate reality today is that despite years of "reforms," many high school seniors graduate without the knowledge and skills they should have. It's gotten so bad that passing rates for much-criticized standardized tests are in the 60-percent range, and social promotion from one grade to another has returned.

We can do better; we must do better. The next District 7 board member must be passionately committed to that cause.

He or she can do that without a lot of the drama that has distracted the board in the past.

Bradley was a wartime general who won many of his battles. They don't need to be refought. Much of what he symbolized and sought has become ingrained in state education policy, including support for charter schools and an emphasis on basic academic standards over of trendy alternatives.

Even he and many of his compatriots on the board no longer regard the Texas Education Agency as the enemy. They realize they have to work with the Legislature, as it controls school funding and many of their responsibilities.

It all gets back to helping more kids learn more. That is the true measure of success in education. All board candidates should embrace it.

-----------------------------------

This is our opinion; what is yours? 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.
Stephanie A. Griffin, RN, was recently named Chief Compliance Office for MiraMed Global Services. In this role, Ms. Griffin will oversee the MiraMed corporate compliance program.

Here is what you need to know.

1. Ms. Griffin will work closely with senior executives and the board, as well as with other company stakeholders and external parties.

2. Certified in Health Care Compliance by the Health Care Compliance Association, Ms. Griffin is an attorney with over 14 years of legal and compliance experience.

3. Previously, Ms. Griffin served as both chief clinical operations officer and chief compliance officer & privacy officer at ConcertoHealth.

4. Michael O'Boyle, MiraMed president, said, "With her varied experience in compliance legal affairs and business ethics, Ms. Griffin will be an internal resource to whom concerned parties may communicate. Her dedication to operational excellence and business intelligence will benefit the entire MiraMed family of companies."
Planners broke ground on Cambridge (Md.) Marketplace June 6, according to Dorchester Star.

Here are four things to know:

1. University of Maryland Shore Regional Health has presented plans to build a new medical pavilion in the facility.

2. The plans include a building that would house an ASC in addition to imaging, X-ray, laboratory, rehabilitation and diagnostic services.

3. The medical pavilion would include care for orthopedics, diabetes, gynecology and other services.

4. Shore Regional Health CEO Ken Kozel said the health system ultimately aims to bring telemedicine services to residents through the facility.
Washington, D.C.-based Capital Digestive Care opened a new clinic in Glenn Dale, Md.

Here's what you should know:



1. Ann Marie Stephenson, MD, will be the clinic's primary provider. She is an American College of Gastroenterology and American Gastroenterological Association member.



2. The clinic was strategically placed in an underserved specialty medical area.



3. This is the 16th Capital Digestive Care Center. Capital Digestive Care has 13 hospitals and eight ASCs affiliates.
Walnut Hill Medical Center, a 100-bed for-profit hospital in Dallas, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Tuesday after abruptly closing just four days prior.

The hospital, which opened in April 2014, shut down June 2 without warning from hospital officials. Employees were told of the plan to shutter the hospital on the morning it closed, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Although officials did not provide specifics about what caused Walnut Hill Medical Center to close, documents filed in the bankruptcy case give a glimpse into the financial challenges the hospital is facing.

In its bankruptcy petition, the hospital listed its assets as between $10 million and $50 million and its liabilities as between $100 million and $500 million. The hospital said it has at least 200 creditors.

More details about Walnut Hill Medical Center's finances will be revealed as the bankruptcy case proceeds.

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One quarter of Americans say they or someone in their family has abstained from seeking necessary medical care because of high costs, according to a survey from Bankrate Money Pulse. Older millennials  those between 27 and 36  are the most likely to skip medical care because of cost, with about one in three American adults in that age range reporting they've chosen not to seek necessary care because they couldn't afford it.

More than half of Americans are worried about not being able to find an affordable health insurance plan, the survey found.

"My deductible is so high, it's not worth it to go to the doctor for most things," said Mandy Pullen, a 44-year-old single mom in Waltham, Massachusetts, according to the report. Ms. Pullen has healthcare coverage through her job as a food service manager. "I just tough it out," she added.

More than half (56 percent) of survey respondents said they're either very worried or somewhat worried they won't be able to afford healthcare coverage in the future. This is about the same level of concern as when Bankrate posed this question in August 2014, about a year after opening the health insurance exchanges under the ACA.

The Bankrate Money Pulse survey was conducted May 18-21 by Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationally representative sample of 1,002 adults living in the continental U.S.
The Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force released its long-awaited improvement report June 5, detailing more than 100 recommendations and action items to enhance poor security practices in the industry.

The 21-member task force  which HHS established in response to the Cybersecurity Act of 2015  held public meetings and consulted with experts about the state of cybersecurity in the healthcare industry. One of the members, David Ting, co-founder and chief technology officer of healthcare IT security company Imprivata, spoke with Becker's Hospital Review about the report and its key takeaways.

Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: What is the core takeaway you hope hospitals draw from this report?

David Ting: The best takeaway, for me, was that cybersecurity is about patient safety. If your system fails, then you are potentially compromising patient safety. To me, that's the start and that's the way that hospitals should look at cybersecurity.

This cybersecurity framework focuses on how a hospital builds an infrastructure. It really focuses on cyber-resiliency. Not how do you make it safe from being attacked, but how do you detect when something bad has happened so you can respond and recover from it. If you look at an attack like WannaCry, it was an attempt to shut down your hospital's ability to function. So, what you really want to focus on at that point is, "OK, an attack took place. How quickly can we get back to a normal state where every system is trusted? To a degree that allows the hospital to continue to function?"

Q: What would you say is the biggest cyberthreat hospitals should look out for today?

DT: The landscape of cybersecurity keeps changing. Best practices used to include detection, perimeter security, a firewall to isolate you from the network, end-point anti-virus  but those are known to fail. Why? Because there are people involved.

We know the threats keep morphing. To think that there is one magic bullet, that is a concern.

The best [approach would be to] make sure our staff in the hospital are educated around security, that we have the right approach segmenting and that if the system were to be attacked we could limit its damage. The kinds of threats we have seen are not only the theft of private patient health information  but also the kinds of threats that will take away the hospital's ability to function. The more malicious ones will be the alteration of patient data or the alteration of the way clinicians are providing care. Nothing is off the table these days.

Q: From your perspective as CTO of a health IT security company, how do you suggest hospitals lay the foundation for effective information security?

DT: The things we recommend really go back to the cybersecurity framework, and ... building a cyber-resilient system. There are really five main categories within that.

One, identify all those assets that are vulnerable. It could be data it, it could be systems, it could infrastructure  it could be all of those.

Two, create a strategy for how you would protect it. Protective control comes into that. How do you manage the control of the access of those systems? Do you have strong policy around password changes?

Three, detection, which is to understand when your system is operating normally and understand when  things are not running correctly.

Four, the ability to respond and contain an attack.

The final part of the strategy is: How do you recover? How do you get back to when everything is really trustworthy? You want everything in your system to be trusted.

Q: A core piece of technology in hospitals is the EHR. What is the No. 1 vulnerability EHRs face in today's cyber environment?

DT: To me, the most important thing about an EHR: data integrity. The EHR is your core data and patient financial information system, it is the basis by which clinicians make decisions about patient care, and it is the record of all their medical history  maintaining the integrity of that system is the most important thing when it comes to creating a safe environment for treating patients.

So, like any other application with a large associated database, what you really want to worry about is who has access, how did they get access, how do you back up the data, how do you ensure the security of the data. If [the data is] comprised [or] if it's been altered, you should have a means to detect that it's been altered and be able to recover from it.

Q: Any closing thoughts on the Health Care Industry Cybersecurity Task Force?

DT: If you look at how fast healthcare has evolved, [primarily] within the last five to seven years, we've gone from paper to electronics. In that time, we've accelerated the pace with which we can move information, but we've also made it easier for that data to be stolen.

Healthcare is extremely difficult to mature. It has a hyper-connected environment of multiple medical devices. It has multiple external applications as well as internal applications. It has legacy applications which are still running on [Windows] XP. It has the need to interconnect to other researchers, other hospitals. It has created a lot of challenges, simply because the need to take care of patients has expanded beyond the borders of your hospital. It's a challenging space and hopefully we're doing our piece by controlling access to and the policies of the systems.

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Fireball, a browser-hijacking malware, has infected more than 250 million computers worldwide as of June 1, according to a Check Point Software Technologies report.

The high-volume threat operation is run by a Bejing, China-based digital marketing agency, according to Check Point. The malware reportedly manipulates browsers into fake search engines to generate ad-revenue.

Here are 5 things to know.

1. Fireball is primarily spread through bundling, or the coupling of an unwanted malware with a wanted download.

2. Fireball is capable of running malicious code on any computer, but it currently only installs plug-ins and additional configurations to boost ad-revenue, according to Check Point.

3. Fireball's fake search engines reportedly use tracking pixels to harvest users' private information, creating security flaws in targeted machines and networks.

4. The majority of computer infections were seen in India (10.1%), Brazil (9.6%), Mexico (8.4%) and Indonesia (5.2%), according to Check Point.

5. The U.S. has witness roughly 5.5 million infections, encompassing 2.2 percent of computer infections throughout the globe, according to Check Point.

Click here to view the full analysis.

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Marketing Week, an industry magazine covering trends in advertising, media, public relations and marketing, has released its 100 Disruptive Brands 2017 list.

The list was curated by editorial teams at Marketing Week and Econsultancy, a digital market research firm, and with input from previous Disruptive Brand award winners.

The list is intended to identify young, up-and-coming brands using technology in creative and imaginative ways that break with convention.

Here are 10 healthcare companies included on this year's list, listed in alphabetical order.

AdhereTech  The company makes smart pill bottles that alert patients when it's time to take their medication.

Babylon Health  The app lets users book in-person consultations with physicians via smartphone or desktop computer. Patients can also check medical symptoms using an artificial intelligence engine, research medical conditions, monitor biometrics and access clinical records.

Benevolent AI  Benevolent AI develops and applies AI technology to health sciences data, "and by doing so unlock[s] science's 'hidden knowledge' and turn[s] highly fragmented unstructured and structured information into new insight and usable knowledge," according to the company's website.

Echo  The Echo app lets patients order prescriptions and get medication delivered to their doorstep, and it also alerts patients to remind them to take their medication.

Give Vision  Prototype versions of the company's SightPlus goggles aim to help the partially sighted see better. The goggles resemble virtual reality headsets and involve using a smartphone as the goggle screen. The phone relays live video of their surroundings, allowing users to customize contrast, color, magnification and so forth to obtain better visual detail.

Kaido  The app allows physicians to create more personalized preventive care for patients by aggregating a patient's health data from his or her wearables, apps and patient care records.

Thriva  The startup offers at-home diagnostic tests to identify early signs of high cholesterol or liver or kidney problems. The company aims to eventually offer diagnostic tests for energy levels, vitamin D deficiency and fertility.

Vida  Vida is a tech platform that enables patients and their families to search for caregivers and providers based on their specific skills, gender, culture and location.

Xbird  The Berlin-based mobile healthcare company uses artificial intelligence to help recognize or prevent diseases early on. It does this by using data captured from sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, built into smartphones and wearable devices.

Zebra Medical Vision  Zebra Medical Vision is building a database of anonymous medical images, including X-rays, CT scans and MRI scans, and applying machine and deep learning to help health professionals identify characteristics and make diagnoses in radiology departments across the world.
Two new bills presented to the Senate this week aim to loosen hospital residency regulations and address the physician shortage, according to KTVN.

Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) are co-sponsors of the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act and Advancing Medical Resident Training in Community Hospitals Act.

The first piece of legislation will raise the caps on Medicare-funded residency positions while the second will make it easier for hospitals that have previously had part-time residency programs to create full-time programs.

The Association of American Medical Colleges predicts that by 2025 the country will experience a shortage of 61,400 to 94,700 physicians.

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Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, the third biggest payer on Colorado's ACA marketplace, is weighing whether to leave the exchange in 2018. Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) may bar Anthem from Medicaid contracts if it does so, according to Colorado Public Radio.

Without Anthem on the ACA exchange, 14 Colorado counties would be without an insurer on the marketplace. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) pulled a similar move earlier this week, threatening the state Medicaid contracts of any insurer that left the marketplace.

Mr. Hickenlooper noted that the greater number of Medicaid participants in New York gives Mr. Cuomo more leverage in negotiations than he has in Colorado.

Representatives from Anthem say the company is still in talks with the state, and has not yet decided on a course of action. The deadline to submit their plan is June 19.

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The Massachusetts Nurses Association endorsed a proposal Tuesday that would cap the pay of hospital CEOs and redirect hospital operating margins over 8 percent to a health safety net plan, according to the Lowell Sun.

The group testified before the state Senate's Healthcare Financing Committee regarding the Hospital Profit Transparency and Fairness Act (S656/H602).

The legislation would redirect hospitals' excess operating margins  those over 8 percent  into a Medicaid Reimbursement Enhancement Fund to help Medicaid patients cover their medical bills. This applies to hospitals that accept funds from the state and have a less than 60 percent governmental insurer payer mix.

As part of the bill, hospitals that accept state funds and pay CEOs more than 100 times the lowest full-time employee salary in the organization would suffer a civil penalty equal to the excess payment.

The Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association did not endorse the legislation, and told the committee that operating margins alone do not tell the full story of a hospital's financial well-being.

The legislation applies to the teaching hospital of the University of Massachusetts medical school, licensed private or state-owned and state-operated general acute care hospitals, acute psychiatric hospitals, acute care specialty hospitals or any acute care unit within a state operated healthcare facility. oes not apply to rehabilitation facilities or long-term care facilities.

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New York City-based Icahn School of Medicine Dean Dennis Charney, MD, testified in court Wednesday against a former assistant professor who was charged with attempting to shoot him last summer, according to a News 12 Westchester report.

During the hearing, Dr. Charney testified to "hearing a loud boom and having blood on his shoulder" before running into Chappaqua, N.Y.-based Lange's Little Store & Delicatessen Aug. 29, 2016 seeking help. He claimed he spent five days in the intensive care unit at New York City-based Mount Sinai "fighting for his life," according to the report.

Officials speculated the attack was a form of retribution after Dr. Charney fired Hengjun Chao, a former assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai, in 2009 after incidents of "research misconduct." He pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to shoot Dr. Charney during a court appearance in October 2016.

During opening statements, Mr. Chao's lawyers attempted to discredit Dr. Charney's credibility, claiming he had acted as a "manipulator" in the past by "trying to hide the harmful effects of a drug used to treat depression in teenagers," the report states.

Mount Sinai issued a statement to News 12 on the case, stating: "We condemn this act of violence, and hope that justice is served. The baseless claim made by the defense in an effort to justify a criminal act by the defendant is offensive and disgraceful."
Becker's Hospital Review reported the following events related to hospital-union relationships  including unionization efforts, pickets, strikes and contract agreements  since May 18.

Boston could see its first nurses' strike in more than 30 years if Tufts Medical Center workers decide to walk off the job amid increasingly tense contract negotiations.

Presence Saint Joseph nurses reach tentative labor deal

Nurses at Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill., reached a tentative contract agreement with the hospital. 2.Nurses at Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill., reached a tentative contract agreement with the hospital.

'Best' contract offer not good enough for Berkshire Medical Center nurses

Nurses at Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Medical Center overwhelmingly voted down the "best and final" contract offer from the hospital. 3.Nurses at Pittsfield, Mass.-based Berkshire Medical Center overwhelmingly voted down the "best and final" contract offer from the hospital.

Akron, Ohio-based Summa Health CNO Lanie Ward, RN, sent a memo to nurses in an attempt to prevent possible unionization efforts.

Mee Memorial nurses hold informational picket about staff retention

King City, Calif.-based Mee Memorial Hospital nurses held an informational picket over recruitment and retention issues. 5.King City, Calif.-based Mee Memorial Hospital nurses held an informational picket over recruitment and retention issues.

Security union at Baystate Franklin files unfair labor charge after officers fired

The security union at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass., filed an unfair labor practice charge after the firing of multiple officers. 6.The security union at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield, Mass., filed an unfair labor practice charge after the firing of multiple officers.
A whistle-blower suit recently filed against Massachusetts General Hospital claims orthopedic surgeons at the Boston-based hospital kept patients under anesthesia longer than necessary so they could complete two or three surgeries simultaneously, according to The Boston Globe.

Lisa Wollman, MD, an anesthesiologist who used to work at MGH, filed the suit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Boston.

In the suit, Dr. Wollman alleges at least five surgeons put patients at risk while conducting concurrent surgeries from 2010 to 2015, when she worked at MGH.

This practice could cause patients to be left fully anesthetized "for longer than medically necessary, often in the care of trainees, without the backup of a properly qualified surgeon, despite legal requirements," the lawsuit reads, according to the Globe. Keeping patients under anesthesia for longer than necessary could increase the risk of complications and also lead to higher anesthesia bills.

Dr. Wollman first filed the suit in 2015, but the U.S. attorney and the Massachusetts attorney general declined to pursue it. The suit filed Wednesday is a revised version.

Concurrent surgeries are not a new issue at MGH. In 2015, a Boston Globe report brought the practice to the forefront and made the public more aware of how often this occurs in the industry.

In April 2016, the American College of Surgeons released guidelines on the practice, saying it is "not appropriate" for primary attending surgeons to be involved "in concurrent or simultaneous surgeries on two different patients in two different rooms."

However, the ACS did say that if the critical parts of one operation are complete and there is no foreseeable need for the surgeon anymore, that surgeon can leave while another clinician finishes up. Additionally, it is OK if the critical elements of one operation are done and the attending surgeon is in another room performing key portions of a second operation, the ACS decided. In both of those scenarios, though, the patient needs to be informed and it "should not negatively impact the seamless and timely flow of either procedure."

In this lawsuit, however, Dr. Wollman lists 16 dates in which patients were anesthetized longer than necessary.

A statement from MGH sent to Becker's reads: "The MGH continues to believe that its practices comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and the hospital will defend the claims accordingly."
Police warned a group of Bay Area oncologists to protect themselves after discovering a man with terminal cancer was plotting to kill them, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Yue Chen was arrested hours after police issued the warning May 31 about 20 miles outside of Palo Alto, Calif., on southbound Highway 101. He is currently being held at Santa Clara County Jail without bond, and has been charged with three counts of premeditated attempted murder.

Authorities found a white rubber mask, two loaded guns and a notebook with the names and addresses of several physicians in his car, according to the report. They also found a note titled "Why do I kill," which included Mr. Chen's justification for his plan to murder the physicians, suggesting that was the consequence for treating a person "like an animal," court documents say, according to the report.

The targeted oncologists include those who had treated Mr. Chen's Stage IV cancer the year before. While in custody, Mr. Chen told investigators that the physicians treated him like a "laboratory monkey" for experimentation. He believed the providers had damaged his spine to provide learning opportunities for physicians in training.

Mr. Chen's family reported him missing the morning of May 31. Police alerted people in the Bay Area after arriving at his home and discovering evidence of his murder plot. Such evidence includes a typed note that said Mr. Chen "had to kill these doctors today because they are evil," according to court documents cited by the Los Angeles Times.

If convicted, Mr. Chen could face life in prison with the opportunity for parole in 21 years, according to the report.
Law enforcement officials said a convicted murderer held a nursing assistant and a corrections officer hostage with a makeshift weapon at Joliet, Ill.-based Presence St. Joseph Medical Center Wednesday after the inmate was taken from an Illinois prison to the hospital, Chicago Tribune reports.

The Illinois Department of Corrections said Joshua Matthews, 32, was transported to the hospital Tuesday from the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Ill. He is serving a 100-year sentence for a murder in the state's DuPage County.

According to an IDOC news release obtained by Chicago Tribune, at roughly 3:35 a.m. Wednesday Mr. Matthews "displayed a makeshift weapon and informed the assigned correctional officer and a certified nurse's assistant that they were being held hostage." The department said police arrived at about 3:55 a.m., and secured Mr. Matthews and controlled the scene in less than an hour.



No injuries were reported, Chicago Tribune reports. Presence St. Joseph, Joliet police and IDOC are investigating the incident.
The mayor of Dayton, Ohio, filed a lawsuit Monday against physicians, drug manufacturers and drug wholesalers for allegedly contributing to the city's ongoing opioid crisis, according to a release.

The suit aims to recover costs to the community related to the increases in law enforcement, drug support programs and educational initiatives launched in response to the city's heroin epidemic. As policies have been put into play to crackdown on lax opioid prescribing, many people with opioid addiction have turned to cheaper street drugs. The national rate of heroin use has surged in recent years.

"The heroin epidemic was no accident," said Mayor Nan Whaley. "These big drug companies have destroyed too many lives, broken too many families and done so much damage to our communities  ever since this crisis was created, our community has been forced to focus our time, attention and your tax dollars on addressing the heroin epidemic."

The Dayton suit differs from the suit filed by Ohio's attorney general in May against drugmakers in that it also names drug wholesalers and individual physicians who allegedly advocated for the widespread use of opioid painkillers.

In addition to four out-of-state physicians, the Dayton lawsuit names Purdue Pharma; Teva Pharmaceuticals; Cephalon; Johnson & Johnson; Janssen Pharmaceuticals; Ortho-McNeilJanssen Pharmaceuticals; Endo Pharmaceuticals; Allergan; Watson Laboratories; McKesson Corp.; Cardinal Health; and Amerisourcebergen, according to a report from The Columbus Dispatch.

"The people of Cardinal Health care deeply about the devastation opioid abuse has caused American families and communities and are committed to helping solve this complex national public health crisis," Cardinal Health said in a statement emailed to Becker's Hospital Review.

"We operate as part of a multi-faceted and highly regulated healthcare system  we do not promote, prescribe or dispense prescription medications to members of the public  and believe everyone in that chain, including us, must do their part, which is ultimately why we believe these copycat lawsuits filed against us are misguided, and will do nothing to stem the crisis. We will defend ourselves vigorously in court and at the same time continue to work alongside regulators, manufacturers, doctors, pharmacists and patients to fight opioid abuse and addiction."

In Montgomery County, Ohio, where Dayton is located, the coroner's office has been forced to rent refrigerator trailers to store excess bodies due to recent surges in opioid-related deaths. The coroner has reported 348 drug overdose deaths this year. In 2016, the county reported 339 drug overdose deaths for the entire year, according to the Dispatch.

In 2016, Lorrain, Ohio, reported 132 fatal drug overdoses, which was double 2015's total, according to the Dispatch. Chase Ritenauer, Lorrain's mayor, said he plans to file a suit similar to Dayton's.

"It is time that the companies and distributers who started this epidemic take responsibility for the communities that have been ravaged as a result of the medications they produce," said Mr. Ritenauer. "It is my sincere hope that mayors across the state will join Mayor Whaley and me as we pursue justice for Ohio communities."

More articles on opioids:

Mystery opioid linked to dozens of overdoses, 4 deaths in Georgia

20% of weight-loss surgery patients still on opioids 7 years after surgery

New York county sees 22 opioid overdoses in 48 hours
The following drug companies made headlines this past week.

1. Mylan keeps EpiPen costs high despite intense public scrutiny

Despite immense public scrutiny, a CMS rebate scandal and several federal hearings all spurred by the product's price, a two-pack of Mylan's EpiPens maintains its $609 list price.

2. Lung Therapeutics completes $14.3M Series B financing to develop treatments for lung disease

Lung Therapeutics on Tuesday said it raised $14.3 million in a Series B financing.

3. Allergan to acquire Keller Medical

Allergan Sales  a subsidiary of drugmaker Allergan  will acquire the privately-owned devicemaker Keller Medical for an undisclosed amount.

4. Advocacy group calls for FDA action on Bayer's birth control device

A patient advocacy group is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to take action against Bayer Healthcare's Essure sterilization coils as women continue to be harmed by the product.

5. AstraZeneca divests migraine drug for $302M

AstraZeneca on Wednesday sold its migraine treatment Zomig to German drugmaker Grunenthal in a deal worth $302 million.

6. Pfizer makes 2nd price hike this year for nearly 100 drugs

Pfizer on June 1 increased the U.S. list prices for nearly 100 drugs in its second price hike of the year.

7. Eli Lilly CFO to retire at year-end

Eli Lilly CFO Derica Rice is retiring in December 2017, ending a 27-year career with the global pharmaceutical giant.

More articles on supply chain:

4 ways hospitals can lower inpatient drug costs

6 must-reads for supply chain leaders this week

AMA physicians: Pharma should be required to divulge drug prices in consumer-facing ads
At least five orthopedic surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston are accused of repeatedly double-booking surgeries, leaving patients under anesthesia longer than they would have been if the surgeon was only focused on one case, according to the Boston Globe.

Here are five key notes:

1. Lisa Wollman, MD, filed the lawsuit against Massachusetts General Hospital after witnessing surgeons perform simultaneous operations without the patients' consent.

2. Dr. Wollman alleges that the surgeons defrauded the government by submitting bills for surgeries in which the surgeons were not in the operating room for critical portions of the procedure.

3. On June 7, Massachusetts General Hospital released a statement saying, "The Massachusetts General Hospital continues to believe that its practices comply with all applicable laws and regulation, and the hospital will defend the claims accordingly."

4. University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, researchers found no increase in complications in operations that overlapped by 45 minutes.

5. The American College of Surgeons last year issued its first-ever guidelines saying concurrent surgeries are broadly permissible, within limits, recommend the surgeon tell the patient if they plan to run more than one operating room at a time.

More articles on pracitice management:

AMA, LexisNexis Risk Solutions unveil portal for updated provider info in real time: 5 things to know

Former Keystone Orthopedic Specialists partner receives $2M in contract breach and fraud case: 5 key notes

3 quotes on HHS Sec. Tom Price on healthcare in Nashville
Five spine surgeons share their thoughts on the ways in which private practices can thrive in the current healthcare landscape.

Ask Spine Surgeons is a weekly series of questions posed to spine surgeons around the country about clinical, business and policy issues affecting spine care. We invite all spine surgeon and specialist responses.





Next week's question: What are some common misconceptions patients have about spine surgery and how do you correct those assumptions?





Please send responses to Anuja Vaidya at avaidya@beckershealthcare.com by Wednesday, June 14, at 5 p.m. CST.

Question: What are some opportunities for maintaining a private spine practice?

Brian R. Gantwerker, MD. Founder of the Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles: Pressure to consolidate is palpable right now. Keeping your referring doctors close is key. Joining forces with other independent surgeons to control cost and share overhead is always a good idea. But, it is most important to keep your skill-set growing and refining. Carve out a niche, keep your reputation clean and don't compromise on doing what's right and what's indicated.

J. Brian Gill, MD. Spine Surgeon at Nebraska Spine Hospital (Omaha): Private practices are becoming few and far between. These practices need to diversify themselves and look at partnering with various local health systems creating joint ventures so that these practices are not replaced, but are a solution to local healthcare needs.

Kern Singh, MD. Co-Director of Minimally Invasive Spine Institute at Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush (Chicago): Maintaining a private practice is difficult, but rewarding work. For those looking into private practice, carefully selecting partners whom you work well with is extremely important. You must not only select a practice that strives to provide the best clinical care, but also has a detailed business and marketing plan in place.

Alden Milam, MD. Spine Surgeon at OrthoCarolina (Charlotte, N.C.): Introduce ancillary revenue streams as downward pressure on provider reimbursement continues. These ancillary services provide better continuum of care for patients as they occur under the direct supervision of the provider with ease of communication and access when problems arise.

Edward Rustamzadeh, MD, PhD. Spine Surgeon at Premier Brain and Spine Institute (San Jose, Calif.): Having made the decision to go from an academic practice to a private practice in the day and age of running for shelter under the umbrella of a hospital, university or a foundation, I can honestly say that being able to provide cutting edge surgical techniques and being able to deal with a vast range of spinal issues has allowed me to not only to survive but also to thrive.

Patients are increasingly becoming more educated about the healthcare system and their own condition. With social media and the internet, people are researching their doctors and choosing the one that is the best fit for them and their condition. The ivory tower model does not work for the current generation, and it will definitely not work for future millennium generations who have been brought up questioning everything and everyone.
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FCA rules suggest that companies looking to list on the London market should sell at least 25% of their shares

Oil giant Saudi Aramco must play by the rules if it picks the City for its two trillion dollar (1.54 trillion) flotation and any attempt to grant it special concessions would be "highly inappropriate", a top investment fund has warned.

Aramco, the world's biggest oil firm, is preparing to list around 5% of its shares and London is vying with other major financial capitals to secure the international side of the momentous deal.

However, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules suggest that companies looking to list on the London market should sell at least 25% of their shares, in order to warrant a "premium" status.

Ashley Hamilton Claxton, corporate governance manager at Royal London Asset Management, said the 25% threshold should be strictly enforced.

"Any attempt to bend the listing rules in order to facilitate the initial public offering of Saudi Aramco is highly inappropriate and flagrantly ignores the principles which the UK's listing rules were designed to defend," she said.

Although the listing would clearly be a "prize asset" for the London Stock Exchange, Ms Hamilton Claxton said that an attempt to list just 5% of the company "flies in the face of what is acceptable".

"(The rules) should not be tampered with, no matter how attractive the prize."

A London listing would be a major victory for the City, given the uncertainty created by the Brexit vote, and LSE boss Xavier Rolet no doubt had his eyes on that prize when he accompanied Prime Minister Theresa May on a recent high-profile trip to Riyadh.

The flotation, which could value Aramco at two trillion US dollars, would make it the largest IPO in history.

The FCA rulebook states that exceptions can be made to the 25% minimum level rule, provided liquidity is not impacted by selling a smaller stake.

In the case of Aramco, it could be possible to bypass the rules, given even a 5% slice could be worth as much as 100 billion US dollars (77.2 billion).

Speaking to the Press Association, Ms Hamilton Claxton said that she accepted the FCA has the power to make exceptions in certain circumstances.

But she argued that the 25% threshold is a norm established to maintain the integrity of the market, and that making special exemptions could lead to "a slippery slope".

She cited the case of Kazakhstani mining group ENRC, which was listed on the London Stock Exchange with a small free float - significantly below 25%.

The company ended up being delisted amid allegations of corruption in one of the worst corporate governance scandals to hit the Square Mile, with its ousted board member Ken Olisa describing the firm as "more Soviet than City".

Such cases demonstrate the need to comply with the rules, irrespective of the size of the company, Ms Hamilton Claxton said.

"If this deal is forced through without adherence to the UK's listing rules, there is a real danger further listings could emerge where large international firms are able to access UK capital markets without playing by the rules."

She also pointed out that given the size of Saudi Aramco, even a 5% listing would mean the stock would become a significant part of many passive equity funds.

"The pension funds of millions of British savers could end up holding Aramco shares without many of the governance protections usually available to UK investors," she added.

"We will be lobbying strongly against any concessions being granted."
Some potential home-buyers in Northern Ireland have adopted a 'wait and see' approach to purchasing a property in the run-up to today's general election, according to a new survey.

And according to the latest RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) and Ulster Bank Residential Market Survey, newly agreed house sales in Northern Ireland eased back during May, despite a rise in enquiries from potential buyers and new instructions from sellers.

It was the first time in nine months that the majority of surveyors didn't report a rise in newly-agreed sales.

But there were expectations that sales activity would pick up in the three months ahead.

And the majority of surveyors did report a price increase in the May survey.

RICS residential property spokesman Samuel Dickey said: "Surveyors are reporting an increasing number of potential buyers and potential sellers coming to the market, and expect this to translate into increased sales activity in the months ahead, despite an easing back in May.

"It is particularly encouraging to hear reports of more properties coming onto the market, which should help ease some of the supply issues that have long prevailed."

And Sean Murphy, managing director of personal banking at Ulster Bank, said it is continuing "to see a good flow of mortgage interest in line with the latest RICS figures which show a rise in new buyer enquiries".

"Buying or moving home remains an attractive option for many people, as, despite rising prices, buying in Northern Ireland remains relatively very affordable," he said.

"We see evidence that people retain a strong desire to own their own home."

Meanwhile, another fresh survey shows house price growth is running at around a third of the levels seen in spring last year.

Property values across the UK increased by 3.3% annually in May, the lowest annual rate since a 2.6% increase in May 2013, Halifax said.

The 3.3% increase is around a third of a 10% rise in March last year.

There has been "virtually no change" in house prices over the last three months, Halifax said.

Property values increased by 0.4% month-on-month in May, to reach 220,706 on average across the UK.

Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said May's Halifax data should allay concerns that house prices are on a downward spiral in the UK.
London's top flight index dropped back below the 7,500 mark as the market suffered a bout of jitters ahead of Thursday's General Election vote.

London's top flight index dropped back below the 7,500 mark as the market suffered a bout of jitters ahead of Thursday's General Election vote.

The FTSE 100 Index was down 46.33 to 7,478.62, as the leaders of Britain's biggest parties made last-ditch bids to secure votes as they entered the final furlong in the race to Downing Street.

However, sterling was enjoying a brighter session on the currency markets, lifting 0.4% against the US dollar at 1.295 and climbing 0.6% versus the euro at 1.151.

Elsewhere in Europe, Germany's Dax was marginally down at 0.1%, while the Cac 40 in France also dropped 0.1%.

London's blue-chip energy stocks suffered as the price of oil fell on concerns over Opec's production cuts amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Brent crude was down 3.5% - or 1 dollar and 73 cents - to 48.39 US dollars a barrel, with traders focussing on the decision by Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab countries to sever ties with Qatar over claims that the country has been supporting regional terror groups.

Royal Dutch Shell B and BP were down 21.5p to 2,115p and 8.1p to 456.8p respectively.

In UK stocks, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) surged after the lender avoided a lengthy courtroom battle with shareholder groups over a 2008 rights issue overseen by disgraced former boss Fred Goodwin.

The RBoS Shareholder Action Group, which brought the 700 million lawsuit and represents 9,000 retail investors and 18 institutions, accepted an 82p-per-share deal .

Shares in RBS rose more than 1%, or 3.4p to 255.1p.

Advertising giant WPP was down more than 2% after making a trading update at its annual general meeting (AGM).

The firm said reported revenues rose 16% to 4.8 billion in the first four months of the year, thanks to a boost from the Brexit-hit pound.

The firm was also dealt a bloody nose during the AGM, with a large tranche of shareholders voting against a 48 million pay package for chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell.

More than 21% of investors opposed or abstained when asked to vote on the remuneration report.

While the vote was not binding, the level of discontent will be embarrassing for the FTSE 100 firm, which cut Sir Martin's total pay to 48.1 million for last year, from 70.4 million for 2015.

However, the level of protest over WPP's new remuneration policy, which will hand executives lower long term incentive awards, was at a more modest 10%.

Shares in the firm were down 45p to 1,676p.

On the second tier, housebuilder St Modwen Properties pushed higher after a healthy trading update.

Shares rose 6%, or 20.8p to 353p, after reporting that its half-year performance was in line with expectations following "robust demand" for new homes.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 Index were Persimmon up 48p to 2,393p, Lloyds Banking Group up 1.14p to 70.1p, Standard Life up 5.9p to 381p and Taylor Wimpey up 2.8p to 181.8p.

The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 Index were Shire down 145.5p to 4,376.5p, WPP down 45p to 1,676p, Babcock International down 18.5p to 906p and Johnson Matthey down 60p to 2,979p.
The Digital DNA expo at St Georges Market attracted thousands of delegates over two days this week. Photo: Stephen Hamilton/Presseye

The Belfast software centre of a Japanese company is involved in finding new uses for blockchain, an event has heard.

On day two of tech gathering Digital DNA in Belfast, Fergal Downey and Marty Bell of Rakuten Blockchain Lab described how its Belfast centre  which opened this year  is growing.

It employs 10 people but is to double its workforce next year, revealed Mr Downey, the companys vice-president of engineering.

And Mr Bell, the labs principal software architect, said there had been a number of new uses of blockchain which the centre had been exploring.

Its the technology that underpins emerging digital, virtual or crypto-currencies such as bitcoin. Its made up of blocks that hold time-stamped batches of recent transactions which form a chain, with each block reinforcing those preceding it.

And the security around blockchain is intended to allow data to be shared completely safely.

In Denmark, research has been carried out on adapting blockchain for use in car records, and for the digitalisation of ship registration.

Mr Downey and Mr Bell were taking part in a discussion hosted by recruitment firm MCS Group in the fintech and security studio at Digital DNA.

But Mr Downey said he did not believe bitcoin would become a mainstream currency. Consumers are better protected by using bank cards and other payments rather than bitcoin.

The fintech studio at Digital DNA, which closed yesterday, also heard from Deloitte director Lory Kehoe. The business advisory firm has a centre in Dublin for developing blockchain. He described how blockchain could be adapted for know your customer (KYC) processes such as providing identification to open bank accounts.

Identification could be provided once through a particular form of identification to the blockchain and verified by a trusted third party  and wouldnt needed to be produced again. Mr Kehoe revealed that a client of Deloitte would go live with blockchain technology at the end of August.

Meanwhile, Shirley Finnerty, the Microsoft Ireland Windows and Devices Business Lead, discussed how companies should be readying themselves for the introduction of the EU-wide General Data Protection Regulation on May 25 next year.

The regulation imposes stringent requirements on companies and how they deal with data, and can impose fines of up to 20m, or 4% of global turnover, for breaches.

There is also a strict requirement on companies to audit their data trail, and to report any breaches within 72 hours.

But she said companies should not fear the change but treat it as an opportunity. Businesses shouldnt think of it as a tax as there is a positive side to all of this... data really is the oil of the second industrial revolution, she said.

Delegates asked Ms Finnerty if the UKs exit from the EU would affect GDPR. She said it was having no bearing on Microsofts preparations.

And another delegate pointed out that compliance would still be required, as the GDPR applies to all those who do business with entities or individuals in the EU.
The children from St Patrick's Primary School in Drumgreenagh, near Rathfriland have been in a whirlwind since getting through to the live semi-finals of Britain's Got Talent.

The school's junior choir impressed judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams when they performed Keane's Somewhere Only We Know during their audition, earning huge praise form the panel.

They then made it through to the semi-finals where they performed a rousing rendition of Katy Perry's Roar.

Speaking about their experience on the show, choir member Kara Williams said: "It was very extraordinary because we never thought we would be on Britain's Got Talent.

"We have watched it since we were really young and we never thought that we would be on it because there are so much more talented people who could win it."

"It was just an amazing experience and it was so good that we got to meet all the judges, it's an experience we will never forget," continued Thomas McGivern.

Expand Close St Patrick's Junior Choir performing on the Britain's Got Talent semi final ( ITV / SYCO) Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph / Facebook

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Asked about what it was like meeting presenters Ant and Dec, he added: "They were very funny and very generous to us."

John Paul McGreevey said: "To be in such a big and global competition when we are from such a rural and quiet area was just a complete change of scenery and it was fantastic."

Following their appearance on the show, the children are now finding themselves in big demand for concerts up and down the country.

Principal Socha Lyness and music director Patricia McCaughey said they were immensely proud of what the children had achieved and the positive publicity they had brought to the school.

"It has been the most phenomenal experience ever," she added.
My first vote was cast on February 28, 1974 - and there could hardly have been a more exciting time to cast it. Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath had called a general election to determine the question: "Who governs Britain?" Not you was the answer he got.

In Northern Ireland the UUP, DUP and Vanguard had created the United Ulster Unionist Council and, on the back of the slogan "Dublin Is Just A Sunningdale Away", campaigned to bring down Brian Faulkner and the power-sharing Assembly. They succeeded. It was a difficult first election for me, because I actually supported Faulkner.

And, because it was my first election, it was also the first time I sat up all night to watch the results roll in. I remember the wonderful Robert McKenzie with his Swingometer - it actually looked as though it had been built in the Blue Peter studio - explaining national swing and the implications for the make-up of the next parliament. His enthusiasm was mesmerising.

Apart from that, it was all rather pedestrian and sedate (although the result was actually a hung parliament). And that's because elections themselves still tended to be rather dull and sedate; 1974 was the end of that era. By 1979 - when Margaret Thatcher was first elected - everything was changing. It was the beginning of 24-hour news, when camera crews and journalists followed every step and campaign stop of the election, and candidates and leaders allowed themselves to be viewed in a more informal light.

Journalists were encouraged to show the slightly quirkier side of campaigning and there was a much more relaxed approach to vox pop interviews with focus groups and "ordinary" voters. The year 1959 was the first "television election", in the sense that we now understand it, but by 1979 the deference to politicians had gone altogether.

Elections were about viewing figures for the BBC and ITV (and that's even more so today, when there are so many more news channels), which meant they were also about "entertaining" the viewers.

But television - and its importance to political parties - has also changed the nature of the relationship between those parties and the voters they're chasing. For most people, television is the first point of contact with politics and elections.

In 1950, for example, just over 50% of the electorate claimed to have been canvassed at home by a political party. That figure has fallen to around 15%. In 1951, 30% said that they had attended a public meeting (hustings or party political event). That figure has fallen to just 2%.

There's also evidence to suggest that television has had an impact on party identification, partly because the constant exposure to politicians and the increasingly tough line taken by interviewers has shifted the reasonably benign/slightly deferential view that the general public used to have of them.

In 1964 a survey found that 90% of the sample admitted to a party identification and 88% of them said that they felt "strongly" or "fairly strongly" Conservative, Labour or Liberal. That figure is now down to 20%.

Turnout has also gone down from a 75% average to the low-60s, with some studies suggesting that a less-committed or alienated electorate may be more prone to sudden changes of mood.

The influence of television is beginning to lessen with the growth of social media, and the psephologist David Butler has noted: "The swiftly growing impact of Twitter and Facebook has still to be assessed. Amateur blogging may now be more influential than official literature. Parties have, with varying success, tried to improve their campaign performance by importing expertise in management, advertising and public relations from America and Australia. New words have become established in the electoral vocabulary: photo-opportunity, soundbite, battle-bus, spin doctor, focus group, rapid rebuttal - and many others."

Ironically, the most noticeable impact of social media, television, rolling news et al is that increasing numbers of people just don't trust politicians of any kind. And even when they do trust them, it's usually just one party or person they trust.

The deference of the early-1950s has been replaced with something approaching detestation, which is very bad for politics generally and particularly bad for the broad public support any government requires to underpin its authority.

And many television/radio journalists seem to think that their sole task - in the name of entertaining the viewer and bolstering the audience - is to roast or humiliate their political interviewee.

All of which means that election campaigns are very different in tone and nature to what they were when I first voted.

The fault, if that is the right word to use, can be traced to the "Americanisation" of election campaigns over the past 40 years.

The author Pippa Norris has summed up four major changes which have crossed the Atlantic: "The 'personalisation' of politics, as leaders and candidates rise in importance; the 'scientificisation' of campaigning, as technical experts like opinion pollsters, come to take decisions formerly exercised by party officials; the detachment of parties from citizens, as politicians come to be increasingly reliant upon opinion polls rather than direct contact with grassroots activists and voters; and the development of more autonomous structures of communications, as the modern news media are more determined to pursue their own interests, rather than to serve the needs of politicians."

Even though how elections are fought and reported has changed almost beyond recognition since 1974, it still strikes me that the gap between the political parties and the electorate has grown rather than narrowed.

Indeed, with the exception of a few weeks on the campaign trail (and even then more doors are knocked rather than answered and the candidate sees only a very small percentage of potential voters), and with the relatively small number of "real" people that a politician will see in his constituency surgery, the fact of the matter is that there is very little interface between voters and politicians. Most of them don't even do public meetings anymore.

Local constituency surveys indicate that around 70% of constituents cannot name their MP - although 45% are fairly confident of the party.

This may seem a radical thing to suggest, but I think politicians need regular contact with voters. It keeps them grounded. It takes them out of the sort of "bubble" that envelops them at Westminster, or Stormont for that matter. It allows them to present an alternative narrative to the constant negativity they complain about from the media.

The present gap between voter and political representative is doing huge damage to the most important relationship in a democratic society. In so doing, it is also doing huge damage to democracy itself.

Democracy is built on people, not just on opinion polls, focus groups, personality politics and cold-calling. We, the people, need to guard against being taken for granted by political machines.
A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

PSNI officers walk into the South Belfast Polling Station at St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives to cast her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow. Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Arlene Foster, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, leaving Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, having cast her vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A voter arrives at Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, to cast a vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A man photographs his dog outside a polling station at Lillington Gardens Community Centre in Pimlico, London, as people cast their votes in the General Election. Yui Mok/PA Wire

Leader of Traditional Unionist Voice Jim Allister and wife Ruth Allister pictured after voting at Connor Primary School in Kells. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves a polling station after casting his vote in north London on June 8, 2017, as Britain holds a general election. / AFP PHOTO / Daniel Leal-OlivasDANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave after casting their votes in the General Election at a polling station in the village of Sonning. Pic: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Voting begins in the Westminster General Election at polling stations across the UK open. Sinn Fein candidate for north Belfast John Finucane, son of murder solicitor Pat Finucane, and his mother Geraldine cast their vote at Rosemary presbyterian Church. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Voting begins in the Westminster General Election at polling stations across the UK open. Sinn Fein candidate for north Belfast John Finucane, son of murder solicitor Pat Finucane, and his mother Geraldine cast their vote at Rosemary presbyterian Church. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Arlene Foster, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, arrives at Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, to cast her vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill (right) with Westminster candidate Francis Molloy (centre) and MLA Linda Dillon (left) at St Patrick's Primary School in Clonoe, Co Tyrone before casting their votes in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill arrives at a polling station at St Patrick's primary school in Annaghmore, Clonoe to cast her vote in the General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives at a polling station to cast his vote in north London on June 8, 2017, as Britain holds a general election. As polling stations across Britain open on Thursday, opinion polls show the outcome of the general election could be a lot tighter than had been predicted when Prime Minister Theresa May announced the vote six weeks ago. / AFP PHOTO / Justin TALLISJUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Alliance Party leader and East Belfast candidate Naomi Long and her husband Michael pictured at St Colmcilles Parish Church in east Belfast where they cast their vote. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Pedestrians walk past election posters in west Belfast on June 8, 2017 as Britain votes in the general election. Polls opened in Britain today in an election Prime Minister Theresa May had expected to win easily but one that has proved increasingly hard to predict after a campaign shadowed by terrorism. / AFP PHOTO / Paul FAITHPAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images

Toby, a beagle cross waits for his master outside a polling station on the Glen road on June 8, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Voting in the general election is underway with Northern Ireland candidates contesting 18 seats. Counting will take place through the night at seven count centres in the province with the first results expected at around 1am. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow, at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day.Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow (not pictured), at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow, at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Pic: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

General views of the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

The ballot boxes are opened for West Tyrone at the election count in Omagh. Picture: Ronan McGrade/Pacemaker Press

Daniel McCrossan, SDLP candidate for West Tyrone at the election count in Omagh. Picture: Ronan McGrade/Pacemaker Press

DUP's Gregory Campbell at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

UUP Leader Robin Swan pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

TUV Leader Jim Allister pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Eamonn McCann pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim Alliance's David Ford. Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Barry McElduff, Sinn Fein candidate for West Tyrone at the election count in Omagh. Picture: Ronan McGrade/Pacemaker Press

The DUP's candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffrey Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Michelle Gildernew pictured at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone. Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Lady Sylvia Hermon (Independent) running in the North Down talking to Mike Nesbitt (UUP) during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

Clare Bailey, Green Party pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Emma Little Pengelly, Democratic Unionist Party pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Peter Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Former First Minister Peter Robinson and his daughter Rebekah pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Paul Maskey, left, with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Lady Sylvia Hermon (Independent) retains her seat in North Down. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffery Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition after being elected as the MP for the area. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Nigel Dodds, Emma Little-Pengelly and Gavin Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North.Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Pacemaker press 09/06/2017 General Elections in NI. Pictured are Nigel and Dianne Dodds of the DUP during tonights results. Picture Mark Marlow/pacemaker press

PACEMAKER BELFAST 09/06/2017 Gregory Campbell with his wife Frances after he was re-elected to represent East Londonderry

9 / 6 / 17 PACEMAKER PRESS Francie Molloy wins the Mid Ulster seat for Sinn Fein in the UK Parlimentary Election. PICTURE MATT BOHILL PACEMAKER PRESS

Pacemaker press 09/06/2017 General Elections in NI. Pictured is Gavin Robinson of the DUP. Picture Mark Marlow/pacemaker press

PressEye-Northern Ireland- 8th June 2017-Picture by Brian Little/PressEye Lady Sylvia Hermon (Independent) winner of North Down during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

PressEye-Northern Ireland- 8th June 2017-Picture by Brian Little/PressEye Jim Shannon (DUP) winner of Strangford with his electoral agent Simon Hamilton during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Barry McElduff celebrates at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone.Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Michelle Gildernew celebrates at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone. Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Tom Elliott pictured at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone.Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 Sinn Fein candidate for Newry and Armagh Mickey Brady pictured celebrating after he wins the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 The DUP's candidate for Upper Bann David Simpson pictured celebrating after he wins the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 SDLP candidate for South Down Margaret Ritchie pictured after loosing her seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 Sinn Fein candidate for South Down Chris Hazzard celebrates after winning the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffery Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition after being elected as the MP for the area. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim UUP Danny Kinahan Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim DUP's Paul Girvan Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim DUP's Sammy Wilson Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Elisha McCallion (Sinn Fein) pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Mark Durkan (SDLP) pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General election 2017 Ian Paisley pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim after keeping his seat. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Naomi Long pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Alasdair McDonnell with his wife and family pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Emma Little-Pengelly with Peter Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Paul Maskey, left, with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

DUP leader Arlene Foster (2nd L), DUP deputy leader and north Belfast candidate Nigel Dodds (L), former DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson (R) watch on during the Belfast count centre (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

A leading academic has said the present proxy voting system is nonsensical and needs to be examined after suspicions were raised about electoral fraud yesterday.

Legal challenges to results could follow if there are widespread suspicions over the legitimacy of results in close-run races, Professor Jon Tonge from the University of Liverpool suggested.

Describing the recent rise in proxy vote applications here as eyebrow-raising, he said: There is too much suspicion over proxy votes.

They are nonsensical in the 21st century.

If someone felt there was widespread abuse, results could be open to challenge.

Prof Tonge made clear his opposition to proxy voting, arguing that postal votes and the ballot box provided better checks.

Legal challenges could be most likely after very close results, especially if the number of proxy votes exceeds the margin of victory.

One potential candidate could be Fermanagh and South Tyrone, where in 2010, a legal challenge in one of the UKs tightest ever votes went all the way to the High Court.

The number of proxy applications in Fermanagh this year is 1,700 compared to 1,400 in 2015.

The law allows the result of an election to be challenged if there is a belief it wasnt run properly, for example if the votes werent counted correctly or a candidate broke the law.

A petition can then be issued to kick-start a legal proceess.

Calling for a full review of the proxy system  where someone votes on another persons behalf  Prof Tonge added: If cases start emerging, it leads to suspicion over the legitimacy of the result.

A surge in the number of proxy vote applications to from across Northern Ireland for todays poll has seen the figure more than doubled in some constituencies.

In Foyle the number of applications jumped from 330 in 2015 to 1,200 this year.

There are around 10,000 proxies eligible to vote on someone elses behalf today.

Prof Tonge, who has carried out detailed research into Northern Irelands political system, suggested that the checks provided by voting at the ballot box and postal votes were adequate and questioned the need for proxies to exist at all.

In May, DUP leader Arlene Foster expressed concerns over the rise in proxy vote applications.

A DUP spokesman said last night: If there are concerns of fraud, particularly over proxy votes, and if that had an impact on the election result, legal options would be considered.

Debate was sparked after a pensioner claimed that her vote had been stolen in Foyle by unscruplous canvassers who duped her.

The pensioner believed she had signed up for a postal ballot  only to find out later that someone she doesnt even know would be casting a vote on her behalf instead.

One woman in Foyle only became aware that an application for a proxy vote had been submitted for her without her knowledge when she received notification from the Electoral Office.

Wishing to remain anonymous, she said: I was on the understanding that I was getting a postal vote because both me and my husband had postal votes in the past.

These people knocked on my door said they would help me to apply for a postal vote.

No-one mentioned a proxy vote, I certainly did not want that.

I signed the form for postal votes, and while my husbands postal vote arrived, I got a vote by proxy.

I dont even know who the person is that is suppose to be voting for me, I dont know if they exist or not.

I am really angry at this because I think I have the right to decide which party I vote for.

The PSNI said: The PSNI are investigating a small number of reports of electoral fraud following referral from the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland.
Victims have reacted with fury after Sinn Fein defended using Shankill bomber Sean Kelly as a door-to-door election canvasser.

Yesterday, the Belfast Telegraph revealed Kelly has been leafleting and knocking doors for Sinn Fein in the constituency of families whose loved ones were killed in the 1993 bomb attack.

We also reported Sinn Fein's election campaign is being masterminded by press officer Sean Mag Uidhir, a former IRA prisoner.

Yet the party has been unrepentant. Picking up on our story about Kelly's canvassing in a televised election debate on Tuesday night, Sinn Fein's John O'Dowd said: "Sean Kelly is out canvassing to promote politics and the peace process."

He also lashed out at the DUP for associating with former loyalist paramilitaries.

The DUP faced criticism after an endorsement by a group backed by the three main loyalist paramilitary groups.

But families of those killed by Kelly (43) branded it a "joke" and "stomach-churning" that Sinn Fein were defending a bomber's involvement in an election campaign, especially in the wake of the terror attacks in the cities of Manchester and London.

Charlie Butler, who lost three members of his family in the Shankill bomb and who witnessed the aftermath of the attack, said it was "totally disgusting" Sinn Fein had given Kelly their blessing.

The 63-year-old, who lives on the Shankill Road, added: "The memories of that bomb and grief never go away. For somebody who destroyed lives to be campaigning in an election is disgusting.

"Sean Kelly is lucky I haven't seen him out and about."

Mr Butler added it was "outrageous" Kelly has mainly been campaigning for Sinn Fein candidate John Finucane, the lawyer running for a Westminster seat.

Mr Finucane's lawyer father, Pat Finucane, was killed in front of his family by loyalist paramilitaries at home in 1989.

Mr Butler insisted his hatred of Kelly was not based on religion, and said he was happy for people to choose to vote for whoever they wanted.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close The aftermath of the 1993 blast Thomas Begley was responsible for the Shankill bombing in October 1993 which killed nine people and himself / Facebook

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But he stressed convicted killers should not be campaigning for candidates.

He says he can still recall as if it was "minutes ago" the day he was shopping with his wife on the Shankill before it was shattered by Kelly's bomb.

Mr Butler said it was "total carnage", and when he joined people hauling rubble off victims, he found the body of 13-year-old Leanne Murray, who was killed in the blast.

His niece, Evelyn Baird, her partner, Michael Morrison, both 27, and their seven-year-old daughter, Michelle Baird, were killed in the explosion.

Other residents and unionists in north Belfast have seethed there was a "horrifying" and "sickening" disregard by Sinn Fein for the possibility families affected by the Shankill bomb could be confronted on their doorstep by the only man convicted of the atrocity.

DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson - whose cousins, Sam and Alex Donaldson, were killed in two IRA attacks in 1970 and 1985 -yesterday said it was hypocritical of Sinn Fein to criticise unionists of associating with former loyalist terrorists when they have Kelly as a canvasser. He said: "The fact Sean Kelly has been canvassing near areas where families of those killed in the Shankill bomb is horrifying.

"It's a horrific possibility they could find themselves face-to-face with a killer.

"It's so insensitive.

"And if Sinn Fein are going to defend people like Sean Kelly being involved in their campaign, they should not be attacking the DUP, when we are only trying to get some loyalists to move on from their past."

Kelly was one of the two-man team who carried out the Shankill bombing on October 23, 1993 - one of the most notorious atrocities of the Troubles.

The IRA's intention was to assassinate the UDA leadership, due to be meeting in a room above Frizzell's fish shop on the Shankill Road.

Instead, their bomb exploded prematurely, killing nine people in the shop, including Kelly's terrorist partner, Thomas Begley, and wounding 50 more.

Along with Leanne Murray, Evelyn Baird, Michael Morrison and their daughter, Michelle, the dead included John Frizzell (63), George Williamson (63), Gillian Williamson (49), Sharon McBride (29) and Wilma McKee (38).

Kelly was given nine life sentences for his role in the bombing, but was released early in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Earlier this week, the DUP came under pressure to clarify its stance on a pre-election endorsement from a body representing loyalist paramilitaries.

Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party demanded that party leader Arlene Foster distance herself from the public support of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC).

It is an umbrella group linked to the three main loyalist paramilitary groups - the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando.

The LCC had backed the DUP's Nigel Dodds, Gavin Robinson and Emma Little Pengelly in Belfast and the UUP's Tom Elliott in Fermanagh-South Tyrone.

Asked on the BBC Northern Ireland leaders' debate if his party would "unequivocally divorce" from the statement, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson replied: "Yes."

He added: "We don't accept support from anyone who is engaged in paramilitary or criminal activity."
A former Presbyterian Moderator has strongly criticised recommendations for liberalising abortion in the Irish Republic.

The Very Reverend Dr Trevor Morrow, based in Lucan, Co Dublin, and a member of the Republic's Presbyterian panel on the Council for Public Affairs, made his remarks at the General Assembly yesterday.

He said it went beyond the 1967 Abortion Act, introduced by former Liberal leader Lord Steel as a Private Member's Bill, which provided a legal defence for those carrying out abortions.

Mr Morrow said: "These proposals are so radical, they are beyond anything that David Steele introduced in the UK in 1967, with all its implications.

"The proposals even go beyond the Sinn Fein manifesto in the Republic of Ireland. It is an advocacy for 'abortion on demand'."

Mr Morrow urged members of the General Assembly to consider the distress that would be caused if such legislation were to be introduced in the Republic.

The report by the Citizens' Assembly suggests 10 different termination limits, ranging from 12 to 22 weeks gestation.

A joint committee of the Irish Parliament will consider the report, and present its own report to the Oireachtas within three months. Some elected representatives have suggested an amendment on abortion next year.

The General Assembly has expressed "deep concern" about the recommendation to widen abortion in the Republic, and has called on the Irish government to provide "the best possible care and support" for women with "crisis" pregnancies.

The Assembly also urged Presbyterians "to carefully consider the pro-life position of the Presbyterian Church in upholding the sacredness of human life".

Meanwhile, a senior Presbyterian cleric has described as "a scandal" the lack of a briefing document on Brexit for the people of Northern Ireland.

The Very Reverend Dr Norman Hamilton, a former Moderator, told the General Assembly yesterday that he had recently read a report on Brexit by a Dublin Senator, Mark Daly.

He said: "It is a seriously impressive document, not only in size but in scope. I find it staggering - even alarming - that nothing remotely similar has been made available to the people of Northern Ireland by our local Assembly.

"That is a scandal in itself. Given the uncertainties surrounding Brexit, it is essential that we have a working Executive that is actually capable of promoting a well-articulated position where it matters, at national and European levels."

The General Assembly backed a resolution "strongly expressing serious disquiet about the damage being done to the fabric of Northern Irish society by the current political crisis".
The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Michael and Marjorie Cawdrey found murdered in their home in Upper Ramone Park in Portadown takes place on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The joint funeral service has taken place for Michael and Marjorie Cawdery, the Northern Ireland elderly couple murdered in their home in a brutal attack.

Michael and Marjorie Cawdery, both aged 83, were found dead in their Portadown home on Friday, May 26 after being stabbed to death.

On Thursday a service was held in Drumcree Parish Church, Portadown conducted by Revd Gary Galway.

A large number of mourners attended the service along with members of the close family circle. Many travelled from as far away as America to attend the service.

Family members present included Michaels brother Paddy, his sister Sally and Marjories brother Ned, plus their three children Shirley, Wendy and Graham, son-in-laws Brian and Charles, and four grandchildren, Peter, Calum, Alex and Tasha.

The service included the hymn Abide with Me marking Michaels early education at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen and Morning Has Broken was also sung, which was a favourite of Marjorie.

Colin Wilkins, Marjories nephew, delivered her eulogy describing her as one of the most lovable people that I will ever know".

He said: "The best words to describe Marjorie are 'kind' and 'lovely'  and her greatest quality  loving kindness.

"Marjorie was an incredibly soft-hearted, patient and generous person. She was a delight to be around. She loved life and made everyone around her happy, with her positive sense of fun  and the fact that she was always more interested in other people rather than herself. Nobody who knew Marjorie will ever forget how special she was  we will carry memories of her in our hearts forever.

In his eulogy for his brother, Paddy said that Michael possessed a bright and inquisitive mind. To the end, he was engaged in using his skills to the benefit of others through the medical and veterinary communities in Britain and Ireland.

Expand Close Marjorie and Michael Cawdery Photopress Belfast / Facebook

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Rev Galway paid tribute to the couple in his address, he said: "A person once said that it is not words but actions that speak louder and to witness love in action is a beautiful thing.

"I have witnessed this love in action through the family, through friends, through the church and through the community and I have to say it is beautiful. No one can dispute that a horrible act was committed and the family have been devastated by such an act, but they remain resilient and continue to be such a comfort and strength to each other.

"My heart and the heart of this community goes out to the family and I know from speaking to many within our church and in the local community who are in faith, that they continue to uphold the family in their prayers.

Following the funeral, the committal was held at Roselawn Crematorium.

In a statement the family said: "We wish to express our gratitude to the community in Upper Ramone Park and throughout Portadown and wider afield for their expressions of gratitude and simple acts of remembrance such as the leaving of flowers. Support to the family has also been provided by members of Drumcree Parish Church which is attended by Shirley, the couples elder daughter and for this we are very grateful.

The family added: We are still deeply shocked by the terrible events of May 26 and it will take time to accept them. But we are pleased that so many people have contacted us to pay tribute to Michael, a man of enormous intellect and hands-on ability who never ceased learning, and Marjorie his devoted wife and partner for over 55 years. We remember her as a gentle, warm and humorous mother and grandmother.
Arrests followed two-car crash on the Upper Newtownards Road (Stock image)

Three men have been arrested after a two-car crash in the Upper Newtownards Road area of east Belfast.

The men in their 20s were arrested on suspicion of a number of offences including driving whilst disqualified, no insurance, allowing self to be carried and driving with excess alcohol.

A PSNI spokesperson said: "The men are currently in police custody assisting officers with their enquiries.

The arrests follow the report of a collision between a blue BMW car and a Renault Scenic."
Fionnuala Jay-O'Boyle CBE The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

Alasdair McDonnell and wife Olivia arrive The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

Leader of the DUP Arlene Foster The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

Leader of the DUP Arlene Foster The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

The Funeral of Professor Patrick Johnston takes place at St Brigid's church in Belfast on June 8th 2017 (Photo - Kevin Scott / Belfast Telegraph)

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Pacemaker Press Belfast 08-06-2017: The funeral of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston took place at St Brigid's Parish Church,in Belfast. Patrick will be laid to rest in Desertegney Cemetery in Buncrana. "Final Tribute" to the Vice-Chancellor as the cortege drives through Queen's passing the front of the Lanyon Building at the University. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

Pacemaker Press Belfast 08-06-2017: The funeral of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston took place at St Brigid's Parish Church,in Belfast. Patrick will be laid to rest in Desertegney Cemetery in Buncrana. "Final Tribute" to the Vice-Chancellor as the cortege drives through Queen's passing the front of the Lanyon Building at the University. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

The funeral of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston took place at St Brigid's Parish Church,in Belfast. Patrick will be laid to rest in Desertegney Cemetery in Buncrana. "Final Tribute" to the Vice-Chancellor as the cortege drives through Queen's passing the front of the Lanyon Building at the University. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye Thursday 8th June 2017

Funeral takes place of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston The cortege passing the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" at 1.30pm en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye  Thursday 8th June 2017

Pacemaker Press Belfast 08-06-2017: The funeral of Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Patrick Johnston took place at St Brigid's Parish Church,in Belfast. Patrick will be laid to rest in Desertegney Cemetery in Buncrana. "Final Tribute" to the Vice-Chancellor as the cortege drives through Queen's passing the front of the Lanyon Building at the University. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

The funeral has taken place for the late Professor Patrick Johnston who was Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast.

He passed away suddenly on Sunday at his holiday home in Co Donegal aged 58.

He had been a major force in overhauling cancer services in Northern Ireland, and was involved in establishing the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology.

Leaders from the fields of science, politics and business have spoken of their sorrow at Professor Johnston's death calling him the man who "put Belfast on the global research map".

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The funeral mass took place at St Brigid's Parish Church on Derryvolgie Avenue.

The cortege passed the Lanyon building at Queen's University so that staff and students could pay a "final and fitting tribute" en route to St Brigid's for Burial in Desertegney Cemetery, Linsford, Buncrana.
A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

PSNI officers walk into the South Belfast Polling Station at St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives to cast her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow. Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Arlene Foster, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, leaving Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, having cast her vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A voter arrives at Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, to cast a vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A man photographs his dog outside a polling station at Lillington Gardens Community Centre in Pimlico, London, as people cast their votes in the General Election. Yui Mok/PA Wire

Leader of Traditional Unionist Voice Jim Allister and wife Ruth Allister pictured after voting at Connor Primary School in Kells. Picture By: Arthur Allison: Pacemaker.

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves a polling station after casting his vote in north London on June 8, 2017, as Britain holds a general election. / AFP PHOTO / Daniel Leal-OlivasDANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave after casting their votes in the General Election at a polling station in the village of Sonning. Pic: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

Ulster Unionist party leader Robin Swan pictured with daughter Freya at Kells and Conor primary school as he casts his vote for this years Westminster Elections. Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 - Picture by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Voting begins in the Westminster General Election at polling stations across the UK open. Sinn Fein candidate for north Belfast John Finucane, son of murder solicitor Pat Finucane, and his mother Geraldine cast their vote at Rosemary presbyterian Church. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Voting begins in the Westminster General Election at polling stations across the UK open. Sinn Fein candidate for north Belfast John Finucane, son of murder solicitor Pat Finucane, and his mother Geraldine cast their vote at Rosemary presbyterian Church. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Arlene Foster, Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, arrives at Brookeborough Primary School, Co Fermanagh, to cast her vote in the 2017 General Election. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill (right) with Westminster candidate Francis Molloy (centre) and MLA Linda Dillon (left) at St Patrick's Primary School in Clonoe, Co Tyrone before casting their votes in the 2017 General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill arrives at a polling station at St Patrick's primary school in Annaghmore, Clonoe to cast her vote in the General Election. Liam McBurney/PA Wire

Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives at a polling station to cast his vote in north London on June 8, 2017, as Britain holds a general election. As polling stations across Britain open on Thursday, opinion polls show the outcome of the general election could be a lot tighter than had been predicted when Prime Minister Theresa May announced the vote six weeks ago. / AFP PHOTO / Justin TALLISJUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images

Alliance Party leader and East Belfast candidate Naomi Long and her husband Michael pictured at St Colmcilles Parish Church in east Belfast where they cast their vote. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Pedestrians walk past election posters in west Belfast on June 8, 2017 as Britain votes in the general election. Polls opened in Britain today in an election Prime Minister Theresa May had expected to win easily but one that has proved increasingly hard to predict after a campaign shadowed by terrorism. / AFP PHOTO / Paul FAITHPAUL FAITH/AFP/Getty Images

Toby, a beagle cross waits for his master outside a polling station on the Glen road on June 8, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Voting in the general election is underway with Northern Ireland candidates contesting 18 seats. Counting will take place through the night at seven count centres in the province with the first results expected at around 1am. (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow, at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day.Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow (not pictured), at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow, at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day. Brian Lawless/PA Wire

A voter arrives at the polling station in St Nicolas Parish Hall, Belfast, as voting gets underway in the 2017 General Election. Pic: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

General views of the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

The ballot boxes are opened for West Tyrone at the election count in Omagh. Picture: Ronan McGrade/Pacemaker Press

DUP's Gregory Campbell at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

UUP Leader Robin Swan pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

TUV Leader Jim Allister pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim and Mid Ulster. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Eamonn McCann pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim Alliance's David Ford. Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

The DUP's candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffrey Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Michelle Gildernew pictured at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone. Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Lady Sylvia Hermon (Independent) running in the North Down talking to Mike Nesbitt (UUP) during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

Clare Bailey, Green Party pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Emma Little Pengelly, Democratic Unionist Party pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Peter Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Former First Minister Peter Robinson and his daughter Rebekah pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Paul Maskey, left, with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffery Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition after being elected as the MP for the area. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Nigel Dodds, Emma Little-Pengelly and Gavin Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North.Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Pacemaker press 09/06/2017 General Elections in NI. Pictured are Nigel and Dianne Dodds of the DUP during tonights results. Picture Mark Marlow/pacemaker press

PACEMAKER BELFAST 09/06/2017 Gregory Campbell with his wife Frances after he was re-elected to represent East Londonderry

PressEye-Northern Ireland- 8th June 2017-Picture by Brian Little/PressEye Lady Sylvia Hermon (Independent) winner of North Down during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

PressEye-Northern Ireland- 8th June 2017-Picture by Brian Little/PressEye Jim Shannon (DUP) winner of Strangford with his electoral agent Simon Hamilton during the 2017 Westminster Election count at Aurora Leisure Complex, Bangor. Picture by Brian Little/PressEye

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Barry McElduff celebrates at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone.Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Michelle Gildernew celebrates at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone. Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017. Tom Elliott pictured at the election count at Omagh Leisure Complex Omagh for West Tyrone and Fermanagh & South Tyrone.Photo by John McVitty / Press Eye.

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 Sinn Fein candidate for Newry and Armagh Mickey Brady pictured celebrating after he wins the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 The DUP's candidate for Upper Bann David Simpson pictured celebrating after he wins the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 SDLP candidate for South Down Margaret Ritchie pictured after loosing her seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 Sinn Fein candidate for South Down Chris Hazzard celebrates after winning the seat at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition Centre Sprucefield for Lagan Valley, Newry & Armagh, South Down and Upper Bann. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye Belfast - Northern Ireland 8th June 2017 Westminster General Election 2017 DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffery Donaldson pictured at the election count at the Eikon Exhibition after being elected as the MP for the area. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye.com

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim UUP Danny Kinahan Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim DUP's Paul Girvan Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 9th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 The election count at Valley Leisure Centre Newtownabbey for East Antrim and South Antrim DUP's Sammy Wilson Photo by Matt Mackey / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Elisha McCallion (Sinn Fein) pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Mark Durkan (SDLP) pictured at the election count at Foyle Arena Derry for Foyle and East Londonderry. Photo by Freddie Parkinson / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General election 2017 Ian Paisley pictured at the election count at Seven Towers Leisure Centre Ballymena for North Antrim after keeping his seat. Photo by Stephen Hamilton / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Naomi Long pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Alasdair McDonnell with his wife and family pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Emma Little-Pengelly with Peter Robinson pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

Press Eye - Belfast - Northern Ireland - 8th June 2017 - Westminster General Election 2017 Paul Maskey, left, with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams pictured at the election count at Titanic Exhibition Centre Belfast for Belfast South, Belfast West, Belfast East and Belfast North. Photo by Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye.

DUP leader Arlene Foster (2nd L), DUP deputy leader and north Belfast candidate Nigel Dodds (L), former DUP leader and Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson (R) watch on during the Belfast count centre (Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)

There are early indications of a high voter turn out in one of the most hotly divided constituencies in Northern Ireland this polling day.

Belfast Telegraph survey of nine polling stations across East Belfast has revealed there was an average voter turn out of 16.7% by noon on Thursday as the UK votes in the snap General Election.

East Belfast is set to be one of the tightest races between DUP candidate Gavin Robinson and Alliance candidate Naomi Long.

<<< Follow the count live on the Belfast Telegraph results centre >>>

The other candidates running are Hazel Legge for the Ulster Unionist Party, Georgina Milne (Green Party), Sheila Bodel (Conservatives), Mairead ODonnell (Sinn Fein), Seamas de Faoite (SDLP) and Bobby Beck (Independent).

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Candidate's wedding via the ballot box

An Northern Ireland election candidate who cast her vote in her wedding dress - spent the last few days recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery on her hand following a "nasty" dog bite.

West Belfast hopeful Sorcha Eastwood (31) was left speechless on April 18 when Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election for her big day - but promised to make the two-minute trip from St Patrick's Church in Lisburn to Brownlee Primary School to cast her ballot.

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Roof collapse

Earlier, a roof collapsed at a Northern Ireland polling station.

It happened at the Holy Trinity and St Silas church hall in north Belfast.

Northern Ireland's chief electoral officer Virginia McVeigh told the BBC polling station staff were able to quickly move the ballot boxes to a minor hall and the incident has not affected Thursday's vote at the location.

"As an indicator of the rapid response and the pragmatism of our teams and all of the people who help us from the general public, they've been able to move into a minor hall," she said.

"That's the way people operate and I'm very grateful for the problem-solving approach that they take."

Polls open

More than 3,000 candidates are battling it out for 650 seats across the UK.

Polling is under way in Northern Ireland as voters cast a ballot for the seventh time in three years. There are 18 seats with 109 candidates vying for an 'X' to secure a seat.

In the 2015 general election, the DUP won eight seats, Sinn Fein four, the SDLP three, the UUP two, with one independent unionist returned.

Across Northern Ireland there are 619 polling stations and 1,380 ballot boxes. They are open between 7am and 10pm and if you are in the queue to vote by closing time, you will be allowed to cast a vote.

Come 10pm on Thursday, the 1,380 ballot boxes will be transported to counting centres at the Titanic exhibition centre, Eikon centre in Lisburn, and the leisures centres at Bangor, Foyle, Ballymena, Omagh and Newtownabbey.

An exit poll - based on 144 polling stations across the UK - will be published at 10pm and give the first indication of how the results night might pan out.

Houghton & Sunderland South is expected to be the first to declare at 11pm.

Northern Ireland predicted result times:

1am: North Antrim, Foyle

1.30am: Lagan Valley, Tyrone West, Upper Bann

2am: Antrim East, Belfast East, Belfast North, Belfast South, Belfast West, North Down, Strangford

2.15am: South Antrim

3am: Londonderry East

3.30am: Newry & Armagh, Mid Ulster, South Down

5am: Fermanagh and South Tyrone

You can follow all the count results as they happen with The Belfast Telegraph. We'll have up-to-the minute coverage of all the drama and the results as the ballots are counted through the night across the UK and we'll have a team of reporters at each of the count centres across Northern Ireland. As well as a brand new graphics system we'll bring you the key statistics and trends on how each of the parties fared and also the best analysis and reports for each of the 18 constituencies.
Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, arrives to cast her vote in the General Election

The polls have closed in the General Election in Northern Ireland.

Counting will commence at seven venues once ballot boxes have been collected from the region's 619 voting centres.

The first results are expected around 1am.

With much of the region having been drenched in rain through the day, all eyes will be on the turnout to see if the relatively high 64.8% of March's Assembly election will be replicated.

Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster avoided the rain as she voted near her home in Brookeborough, Co Fermanagh, early this morning, while Sinn Fein's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill marked her ballot paper close to her home village of Clonoe in Co Tyrone.

Ulster Unionist leader Robin Swann voted in Kells, Co Antrim, with SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and Alliance leader Naomi Long voting in Londonderry and Belfast respectively.

The election is the seventh time voters have cast a ballot in Northern Ireland in three years.

Election fatigue has been one of the explanations offered for what was a low-key campaign in the region.

For many local politicians, the snap general election was an unwanted distraction from efforts to restore the Stormont institutions.

Floundering negotiations to re-establish a coalition government in Belfast, which were put on ice during the campaign, will resume once the dust settles on Thursday's results.

The ongoing Assembly crisis blurred the lines between Stormont and Westminster issues on the campaign trail, with the blame game over the implosion of devolution spilling into the race for Westminster seats.

As in the rest of the UK, Brexit was a key campaign issue. While Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance all called for some form of special designated EU status for Northern Ireland after the UK exits, the Democratic Unionists and Ulster Unionists steadfastly opposed anything that differentiated the region from Great Britain.

Since last June's EU referendum, the Brexit debate in Northern Ireland has become increasingly intertwined with the constitutional question.

Nationalists and republicans claim the UK decision to leave the EU, in the face of a 56% remain vote in Northern Ireland, highlights the case for a united Ireland.

Unionists insist support for remaining in the EU cannot be interpreted as a swing in public opinion toward unification.

Those contrasting views were played out during the election, with the DUP urging voters to strengthen the Union and Sinn Fein encouraging supporters to add momentum to their campaign for a border poll.

In the 2015 general election, the DUP won eight seats, Sinn Fein four, the SDLP three, the UUP two, with one independent unionist returned.

A formal pact struck between the DUP and UUP two years ago was not replicated this time round, though both parties did step aside in certain battleground seats to maximise the pro-Union vote.

Meanwhile, a mooted "anti-Brexit" pact between pro-Remain parties such as the Greens, SDLP and Sinn Fein failed to materialise.

Despite the largely uneventful campaign, at least six of the 18 seats are set to be tightly fought.

Three Belfast constituencies - South, East and North - along with South Down, South Antrim and Fermanagh and South Tyrone could all go down to the wire.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said the leakage is very worrying given that the incinerator has only begun operations this week

Eleven workers were taken to hospital after an uncontrolled discharge at the Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin.

Covanta, the company which runs the recently opened waste-to-energy plant, said scaffolders were working inside the facility when the incident happened shortly before 11pm on Wednesday.

It is believed to have been a discharge of lime which is used in the treatment of waste.

The workers, who had been removing scaffolding inside the plant, were given first aid at the site and subsequently taken to St Vincent's Hospital in south Dublin.

Two of them were kept in overnight

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) said it was notified by Covanta at 6am on Thursday of an "uncontrolled release" at the plant.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was also alerted but the company said the workers were inside the plant and that there was no release of lime to the atmosphere.

A HSA inspector has been on site as investigations continue into the cause of the discharge.

"It was not an explosion," a spokesman said.

Covanta said: "A small amount of lime was inadvertently released inside the flue gas treatment area.

"Combustion Unit No 1, which was operating at the time, was shut down in an orderly and controlled manner. The lime was contained within the building and did not escape into the environment and the incident had no impact whatsoever outside the plant."

It is understood the incinerator was still undergoing commissioning and testing on Wednesday night when the incident occurred.

The energy company added: "The safety of our employees and contractors is of utmost importance to Covanta and we are investigating the incident thoroughly.

"We are investigating to understand what exactly occurred, but it appears from preliminary investigation that the release of the lime was due to a problem with a door seal in the fabric filter baghouse."

Green Party leader and TD for Dublin Bay South Eamon Ryan said: "This incident is extremely worrying, given the incinerator only began operations this week. Our thoughts are with the 11 people affected.

"We're calling for all activities at the site to cease while the investigation is carried out."

It is a week since Covanta described the Poolbeg incinerator as reaching its "important first fire milestone" where waste was burnt for the first time.

It is 20 years since the 600 million euro facility was first proposed.

The development was delayed by local opposition, environmental and safety fears, concerns about the level of bin truck traffic in nearby Ringsend and the amount of household rubbish that would be needed to feed the plant and make it viable.

Each year the incinerator will burn about 600,000 tonnes of waste that cannot be recycled. It will generate enough power for 80,000 homes.

According to Covanta's website, the use of lime is part of "s tate-of-the-art air pollution control" which states that acid gases from incineration are neutralised using lime.

The incident has sparked an outcry from opponents in Cork where the country's third incinerator is being planned for the harbour.

A decision on whether it should be given the green light has been delayed four times. The latest deferral gave the company behind the project, Indaver, time to address concerns about potential interference with helicopter flights using Haulbowline Naval Base.

Mary O'Leary, spokeswoman with Chase - the Cork Harbour Alliance for A Safe Environment - said: "It is time to put an end to the charade of safety touted by incinerator operators.

"There are hazards involved at every twist and turn in the process as last night's lime cloud incident illustrates."

Ireland has another waste incinerator, the Indaver plant near Duleek, Co Meath which began generating power in 2011.

The EPA said it was told the lime cloud was contained in the building and that the material was not released to the atmosphere.

"The EPA is satisfied that there was no danger to the public or local community from this release," it said.

The agency also said no rubbish was being fed into the incinerator following the incident and no burning has taken place since.

The EPA said Covanta will be compiling a report on the incident, including outlining the necessary corrective and preventative work to avoid a repeat of the incident.

"On foot of this report, and the EPA's own investigation, further action may be considered by the EPA," it warned.
Millwall fan Roy Larner became famous around the world after taking on attackers

The Irish mother of the man who shouted 'f*** you, I'm Millwall' as he charged at the perpetrators of last week's terrorist attack in London has said that her son is 'fearless' and will 'stand up to anybody'.

Roy Larner became famous around the world after getting stabbed eight times in an attempt to fight off the attackers, since named as Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba.

Larner was in the Black & Blue restaurant and bar in Borough Market when he took on the terrorists.

Speaking to the ITV evening news, Larner's mother Phyllis (78), originally from Sligo, has spoken with pride about her son's fighting spirit.

Well I said thats Roy," she said.

"If anyone has a go at him he just has a go back whether he gets the worst of it or not.

Thats just how he is. Roy is a Millwall fan, what do you expect? Hell stand up to anybody.

He doesnt care who it is, he says what he has to say. Hes not scared of anyone. Hes fearless, is Roy.

Even if he had died at least we could say he stood up and did the right thing. I just feel terrible for those families who have lost people.

A crowdsourced fund online has raised over 30,000 for Larner, who is recovering from his wounds in hospital, and a Millwall fan has offered to pay for his season ticket next season.
Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in the 2017 General Election, with her husband, Dale Shirlow, at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, still wearing her wedding dress after they were married earlier in the day (Brian Lawless/PA)

A Westminster candidate who got married on election day interrupted her wedding celebrations to cast her vote.

Sorcha Eastwood and new husband Dale Shirlow stopped off at a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, after tying the knot at a nearby church.

The inconvenient timing of the snap poll was not about to stop the young couple marking their ballots before joining guests at their reception.

Its been a lot to do and a lot to take in but my family have been absolutely fantastic and my husband Dale has been absolutely fantastic and so supportive throughout the whole process, said the Alliance Party candidate for West Belfast.

I hope it sends a strong signal to women out there that they can do it, they can get involved in politics.

If canvassing for votes was not enough of a distraction, the bride-to-bes plans were almost derailed entirely at the weekend when she was bitten by a dog on the campaign trail, resulting in a two-day stay in hospital.

That really hampered the wedding preparations, she said.

The couple brought their photographer along to the voting centre and posed for an unusual set of wedding day pictures beside the polling station signs.

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Groom Mr Shirlow said he had a feeling their big day might clash with an election.

I actually predicted it, he said. A few months ago I said I bet you any luck well have an election on the day of our wedding.

While the newlyweds took time out to vote, they said attending the overnight election count in Belfast would be a step too far.

We are going to give that a miss, said Ms Eastwood, who instead made preparations to keep in touch with the results during the reception.

We are going to get a big-screen TV and watch the results come in and hopefully it will be a long night.
The two met on Facebook

A British national charged with the murder of his Kenyan girlfriend has been acquitted.

Justice Hedwig Ong'udi said the prosecution had failed to prove the charges and freed 43-year-old Carl Gary Singleton.

Peris Agumbi, 22, died from diabetes-related complications soon after she reported to police that Mr Singleton had assaulted her in November 2014.

The prosecution attempted to show that Mr Singleton was responsible for her death by denying her medicine after the alleged assault by flushing it down the toilet.

The two met on Facebook two years before her death, and Mr Singleton flew to Kenya to spend time with her.
The Northern Ireland Assembly election in March was a wake-up call to unionists and that was true for both the unionist parties and the unionist people.

There was a need for some radical rethinking, there were lessons to be learned and there was work to be done.

As a result, there has been a general effort to ensure that as many unionists as possible are registered to vote.

The United Kingdom General Election campaign came much sooner than anticipated and meant time was short.

Nevertheless, the focus on registration was a clear indication that both the unionist parties and the unionist people have heard the wake-up call.

After the election, the work of organisation, communication, motivation and registration will have to continue. A good start is important, but its how you finish that matters.

Meanwhile, unionists will be looking at the election today as an opportunity to speak up for the Union and for Northern Irelands place within the United Kingdom.

Its an opportunity to say that the Assembly election result was a temporary aberration.

Of course, this time it is not a regional election, it is a national United Kingdom election and across the nation it has been overshadowed by the recent terrorist atrocities in England.

Those events have a particular resonance in Northern Ireland and, because of our own experience of terrorism, Ulster folk can genuinely empathise with the cities that have suffered.

The terrorist attacks have caused some difficulty for Jeremy Corbyn and several of his close allies, because of their former associations with militant Irish republicanism, and they have also impacted on the local political debate.

Sinn Fein representatives have been in the awkward position of condemning Islamist terrorism, but still refusing to condemn the murders perpetrated by the Provisional IRA.

This has certainly highlighted the inconsistency and hypocrisy of Sinn Fein  especially with the revelation that the Shankill bomber Sean Kelly has been out canvassing for the Sinn Fein candidate in North Belfast and that the overall Sinn Fein campaign across Northern Ireland has been overseen by former republican prisoner Sean Mag Uidhir.

The truth is that Sinn Fein politicians have wriggled and squirmed when challenged about the IRA campaign, which Sinn Fein used to report in glowing terms in the War News column of its newspaper, An Phoblacht.

Their problem is that you cant really distance yourself from IRA terrorism while you keep on glorifying the terrorists who carried out the terrorism.

Moreover, the atrocities in England have reminded everyone of the reality of terrorism, with the injuries, the deaths, the loss and the pain.

Northern Ireland will return 18 MPs to Westminster. At the last election, 11 of the 18 MPs from Northern Ireland were unionists, with the DUPs eight MPs forming the larger part of the pro-Union bloc.

The DUP will be hoping to retain their eight seats  and, potentially, add one or two more.

Meanwhile, those who are elected for Sinn Fein will refuse to take their seats in the United Kingdom parliament and will have no voice and no vote in the House of Commons. They take the money, but not the seats.

Unionists, however, will have many good reasons to turn out today and vote.

First of all, it will be a vote for the Union and there can be no doubt that republicans will be comparing the votes for pro-Union and pro-united Ireland candidates.

Secondly, during the course of the campaign, the Conservative lead in the opinion polls has reduced considerably.

Of course, such polls are notoriously unreliable. But a smaller Conservative majority could increase the significance and influence of unionist MPs. That could make the seats here in Northern Ireland all the more significant.

Meanwhile, will the pro-Union parties in Scotland, particularly the Scottish Conservatives and Unionists, claw back some seats from the SNP and will the DUP gain enough seats to push ahead of the Liberal Democrats and become the fourth largest party in the House of Commons?

Every election is important, but this one is especially so.
As well as your ticket and tent, a few carefully-selected gadgets can really pay dividends as the summer festival season gets into full swing. By Keeley Bolger.

Nokia 3310, 49.99, Carphone Warehouse

If a longer battery life, detachment from digital life and the chance to play Snake - now in colour - while distracting yourself in the queue for the loos sounds appealing, then the relaunched Nokia 3310 could be the gadget for you during this summer's festivals. Lighter than the original, which first appeared 17 years ago, this model offers up to 31 days' worth of battery power on standby - so you're looking at about a week of daily use - an LED torch and a two megapixel camera. Charging is via a micro USB and if needs must, you can access the internet on it, but it will be far less zippy than that of a smartphone connection.

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Solar Powered Butterfly Collector Tent, 195.95, notonthehighstreet.com

If pitching leaves you cold, this solar-powered tent could be the solution to camping woes. The four-person contraption comes with a solar panel and solar bank (which, depending on your levels of optimism, may be best to charge via a wall socket before you descend on the site) so phones, cameras, tablets and LED lighting can all be topped up.

Windcatcher AirPad 2+, 79.99, www.thefowndry.com

There's little joy to be had in pumping up an airbed, or even worse, going without one and sleeping on the clammy, bumpy ground. This airbed by Windcatcher, then, truly takes the faff and pressure off your lungs. All you do is lay the bed out, close the small valve, push the tag into the Windcatcher, enlarge the opening with both hands and allow a few puffs of air into it to inflate the mattress. The technology multiplies any breath by 10, so it's ready to be flopped upon within seconds.

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Bluetooth Selfie Stick, 15.99, Argos

The world is divided into those who are only too happy to use selfie sticks to capture festival sets, world famous pieces of art and monuments, and those whose hackles are raised every time a lens is lifted into the air to snap away. If you perch in the former group, this selfie stick could be a winner for snapping festival memories. Weighing 212g, it's compatible with all phones, has a 180-degree rotating head and can be charged via a USB port.

100 Lumen LED Head Torch, 22.99, Maplin

This isn't going to feature in any 'festival fashion' round ups, but wearing a head torch can be the all-important difference between finding friends and locating tents, and wandering aimlessly in a wet field. This waterproof torch offers four different modes of light; high, medium, low and flashing, to illuminate your search.

Belkin Mixit 6600 Portable Power Bank  Silver, 29.99 from 39.99, Currys

Heres a way of making friends at a festival  pack a portable charger with two ports, meaning two devices can be recharged simultaneously. This one by Belkin has two USB ports enabling a boost of battery to smartphones, tablets and cameras. At 229g its pretty lightweight too. Just plug in and recharge before making your way to the site.
On Monday evening at about 10:34 PM local time, an unidentified man set off an explosive device at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England. As of this writing, 22 people are dead and about 60 are injured.

(Reports vary as to the time of the explosion, from about 10:30 PM or shortly afterwards. Since the initial Manchester Police press release says just before 10:35 PM, Im going with 10:34.)

Regardless of the circumstances, the person involved, or his motives for blowing himself up in the foyer of a crowded concert venue, the chart for the explosion seems to almost insist that something bad, sudden, and violent would happen at that place and time. There was a Venus-Uranus conjunction, triggered by transiting Moon in Aries. Normally I would be hesitant to call that Venus-Uranus combination particularly strong: the two planets are about ten degrees apart. But the Moon was right in the middle of the two, both within conjunction range and right on the midpoint between the two planets  and that Moon was closely square Pluto.

Normally youd expect that combination to make for generally lively emotions, whether you were at an Ariana Grande concert or not. But these transits take on special significance when view from that particular place and moment in time. Venus was the ruler of the local Midheaven, which you could say represents the public purpose of the events there, and with the Moon and Uranus opposite that local Midheaven, it seems destined that the public purpose of that event was to be startling. Finally, in a chart, the Ascendant tends to represent me and the Descendant you (or perhaps better, others). And in the chart of the incident, theres Mars, the God of War freshly set in the West and close to the Descendant.

As weve seen in other cases of sudden and unexpected violence, even the local transiting Ascendant and Midheaven are players when it comes to the moment something terrible is unleashed.

***

So how does this affect Ariana Grande personally? Its natural that we should ask this, because odds are very good you and I dont personally know any of the victims  and I certainly dont have birth charts for any of them. Undoubtedly if I did, there would be much more to say. But its hard to imagine that, despite not being injured, Ariana Grande wont be affected by this. And Im afraid that her transits indicate that this is not something shell get past easily.

Ariana was born June 26 1993, 9:16 PM, in Boca Raton Florida. Shes a member of the Uranus-Neptune generation (a combination that seems to always result in strange talents and/or sensitivities, somehow), and that conjunction is sitting right on her Ascendant. This give her the charm and presence and general star quality that she has. But, as with all the Children of 1993, transiting Pluto is now right on top of that conjunction.

A conjunction from transiting Pluto to a natal placement often brings the terrifying, the unknown, and (in this case, literally) the explosive. But this is a slow transit, and for predictive purposes its not like one could look at that alone and say this is going to be a bad night for you. However, given that Aries pile-up at the time of the incident (squaring that Uranus-Neptune-Ascendant complex of hers, and given hat transiting Mars was nearly-perfectly quincunx that part of her birth chart), everything cosmically lined up the way they did.

Of course, we must never forget those who were killed and injured. But they were all there at that place at that time because of Ariana Grande. In no way can she be held the least bit responsible but imagine how you might feel if you were in her place. Sure, logically, you could tell yourself it was nothing personal and youd be exactly right. Personally, though? Im afraid shes not going to be able to talk herself out of feeling some sort of guilt or remorse very easily. After all, she is a Cancer with Moon in Libra, and in my experience that combination takes things pretty seriously when it comes to not wanting to cause harm to others. I hope shes able to put this all in perspective soon.

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Its been a rough week for comedians. On Tuesday, TMZ.com published a picture of her holding a bloodied Donald Trump mask as if she were waving his severed head around. Then, on Friday, Real Time host Bill Maher (in conversation with Senator Bill Sasee) in which Maher referred to himself as  oh, it involves the N Word, so you can look it up elsewhere.

(And, for the record? Ill be discussing four comedians here who have generated a lot of controversy because of their remarks. Im a fan of one of them, neutral on two of them, and cant stand one of them and no Im not going to tell you which is which, because thats not my point.)

Whats astrologically interesting about all this is not what youd first expect, looking at the birth chart of a comedian. Pretty much any astrologer, if asked where does humor come from in a birth chart? will mention Jupiter pretty early on in the conversation. But I have two thoughts about that

There is a big difference between jolly and funny, and Jupiter is definitely in charge of jolly.

Comedians, for the most part, arent happy people. More than one study has found that stand-up comedians tend to be more depressed than the average person.

This have led me back to a new appreciation of Sigmund Freuds theory of what humor is. Yes, I know: Freud is now considered something between completely unscientific and quaintly inaccurate in most circles. But Ive always suspected that there is a relationship between aggression/temper and producing humor. Perhaps not surprisingly, each of the four comedians Ill be talking about here all have pronounced (and problematic) Mars-Saturn combinations and when activated by transits, it has gotten them into a lot of trouble.

***

Kathy Griffin, born November 4, 1960, 6:00 AM, Oak Park Illinois: Mars (debilitated) In Cancer, opposite Saturn, both aspected by Mercury in Scorpio. This is a pretty blatant example (to me) of someone who blows off anger via communication. Prior to the Trump incident, she was dropped from an appearance on Hannah Montana (based on a bit of casual blasphemy at the Emmy Awards). That didnt make her any friends with The Catholic League either, by the way. She was also banned from the Apollo Theater for a crude joke about Octomom.

Bill Maher, born January 20 1956, 10:32 PM, New York New York: Mars conjunct Saturn in Sagittarius (which is not a Sign known for quiet, thoughtful diplomacy), with an out of quality square from Sags ruler Jupiter, which is conjunct Pluto. Hes often pegged as a liberal, but frequently speaks out against Islam and apparently owns a gun so much for easy labels. A controversial pronouncement about the 9/11 attackers ended up in the cancellation of his first major show, Politically Incorrect.

Daniel Tosh, born May 29 1975, time unknown, Boppard Germany. Mars in Aries (strong) opposite Pluto and square Saturn in Cancer (debilitated). In June 2012 he famously responded to a female heckler (who was reacting to his rape jokes) with Wouldnt it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now? Like right now?Also, a quote: Im not a misogynistic and racist personBut I do find those jokes funny, so I say them. Make of that what you will.

Michael Richards, born July 24 1949, 4:43 AM, Los Angeles California. Mars in Cancer (debilitated) conjunct Uranus, sextile Saturn in Virgo. He was best known for playing Kramer on Seinfeld, until November 17, 2006. At that time a group of black customers entered during his set, made a little too much noise for Michaels liking, which resulted in a long and embarrassing racist rant that made Bill Mahers n-word usage look like a quote from Martin Luther King by comparison.

***

Personally, Im a big fan of free speech  if nothing else, it makes it easier to spot the terrible people. And, to be honest: any comedian who consistently plays it safe is unlikely to leave that much of an impression. So, next time you hear someone say or do something totally ignorant, keep that in mind. Also, keep in mind that you too have the right to call that person out on their ignorance. Just dont get too Mars-Saturn with your response, okay? The world is ugly enough as it is

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Indian security forces killed six suspected Pakistani militants while foiling a series of infiltration attempts during a 48-hour span along the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, officials said Thursday.

An Indian soldier and three of the suspected militants were killed during a shootout in north Kashmirs Nowgam sector on Thursday, police said.

Three Pakistani militants attempting to infiltrate Indian territory near the LoC in Nowgam sector were shot dead by alert army soldiers. One Indian soldier was also martyred, Ghulam Jeelani, Indian Kashmirs superintendent of police, told BenarNews.

He was referring to the Line of Control, the de facto border. Both India and Pakistan claim the insurgency-ravaged Himalayan region in its entirety.

A war-like store, including three assault rifles, was recovered from the slain militants, whose identities are still to be ascertained, he said, adding the militants likely belonged to Pakistan-based militant outfits Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The shootout in Nowgam came a day after the Indian Army killed three suspected Pakistani militants along the LoC in Kupwara district.

The heavily armed Pakistani nationals were attempting to cross into the Indian side. They were eliminated during an exchange of fire that lasted about two hours, Kupwaras superintendent of police Shamsher Hussain told BenarNews.

Meanwhile, two soldiers were injured in a suspected militant attack near the LoC in Baramulla district, according to officials.

The soldiers were winding up a search operation in the districts Uri sector when they were fired upon by militants who fled into the densely forested area after the attack, an Indian Army official said while requesting anonymity.

Ongoing tensions

The foiled infiltration attempts came amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan since the Indian Army accused Pakistani troops of beheading two of its soldiers along the LoC on May 1. The two arch rivals have fought three full-blown wars over the ownership of Kashmir since the partition of the sub-continent in 1947.

A curfew remained in effect for a second day Thursday in South Kashmirs Shopian district following the killing of a 20-year-old civilian by Indian security forces during anti-India demonstrations on Tuesday. Adil Magrays death triggered violent protests in the region, which has seen regular street clashes between anti-India protesters and government forces since the killing of a top separatist leader last July.

The Indian side of Kashmir, which also is known as Jammu and Kashmir state, has been grappling with a separatist insurgency that has killed more than 70,000 since the late 1980s.

Pakistan Army blamed

The Indian Army on Thursday accused its Pakistani counterpart of backing infiltration attempts by militants into Indian Kashmir by providing them active support, including cover fire.

Indian Army units deployed along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir have foiled multiple attempts made by Pakistan army to push armed infiltrators across the LoC, an unnamed defense spokesman told the Times of India.

These armed intruder groups were being provided active support including cover fire by Pakistan army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Kashmir valley, the spokesman said.

India has on several occasions blamed Pakistan for backing militancy in Kashmir. But Pakistan repeatedly denied this charge, saying the decades-old violence in the region was a result of Indias oppressive rule.
Former Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama (center) talks to his lawyers after a local court convicted and sentenced him to two years in prison on blasphemy charges, May 9, 2017.

Prosecutors who tried ex-Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama for blasphemy said they withdrew their appeal of his two-year sentence, which means he must serve the full prison term unless he successfully appeals to the Supreme Court or seeks clemency.

On Thursday, North Jakarta Court spokesman Hasoloan Sianturi confirmed the prosecutors action, telling BenarNews they dropped the appeal earlier in the week.

Prosecutor Ali Mukartono said the action was taken because the prosecution team no longer saw a need to carry on with the appeal.

There is no benefit, the defendant has revoked his appeal, he told BenarNews. Why would we want to fight if it has been accepted by Ahok? If we appeal, we consider the certainty of the law and its benefit.

On May 22, Ahok, a member of Indonesias Christian and ethnic Chinese minority, surprised many of his supporters by deciding that he would not appeal the conviction and sentence handed to him by a bench of the North Jakarta court on May 9.

In a letter from Ahok read by his wife at a press conference, he said he dropped his appeal for the sake of the nation. He was concerned that prolonging the legal process would trigger bigger conflicts between his supporters and opponents.

Prosecutors who had called for a lighter sentence of two years probation followed by one year in jail if he committed a new offense, had filed a request for the court to review the case.

The prosecutors appeal claimed that the court erred in sentencing Ahok for blasphemy, and that it should have sentenced him for the lesser offense of conveying feelings of hostility, hatred or humiliation to any or several groups.

The court ruled that Ahok committed criminal blasphemy when he told an audience in September 2016 it should not be deceived by people citing a verse from Al-Maidah 51 from the Quran, which some interpret as meaning that Muslims should not have a non-Islamic leader.

The May 9 verdict ended a six-month trial held during the heat of a gubernatorial race in Jakarta and amid a series of massive street demonstrations staged by conservative Muslim groups who clamored for the governor to be convicted and ousted from office.

On April 19, Ahok was defeated in a run-off by a Muslim candidate, former Education Minister Anies Rasyid Baswedan, who was elected amid a wave of anti-Ahok religious fervor.

When his trial opened in December 2016, Ahok apologized for his remarks, saying he had never intended to offend Muslims and noting that he had been raised by adoptive Muslim parents.

Review or presidential pardon

Lawyer I Wayan Sudirta, who represents Ahok, said he was aware of the prosecutors decision to withdraw the appeal.

Do not know yet, Wayan told BenarNews when asked about what his client intended to do now.

With all appeals dropped, the former governor who resigned from office effective May 23, is officially a convict. As such, he is entitled to two steps to mitigate his sentence: he can file a judicial review to the Supreme Court or he can request clemency from his former boss, President Joko Jokowi Widodo.

Ahok served as vice governor of Jakarta when Jokowi was governor of the capital city before being elected president in October 2014. Over the course of the trial, Jokowi appeared to distance himself from his one-time deputy.

The decision will be Ahoks, Wayan said.

Abdul Fickar Fajar, a legal analyst at Trisakti University in Jakarta, said the two choices could prove positive for Ahok. Abdul pointed out that judicial review is allowed only when the verdict is official.

Another legal analyst, Muhammad Fatahillah, who teaches at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said either step was possible.

The verdict has been inkracht (has a permanent legal force). For clemency, the minimum requirement is a two-year sentence. So, Ahok has a chance, he told BenarNews.

Wayan would not comment on which step, if any, his client would take.

We will discuss it, he said without elaborating.
Malaysian activist Nisha Ayub talks about homosexuality in Malaysia during an interview in Kuala Lumpur, May 12, 2016.

Malaysias Health Ministry said Thursday that it had straightened out its video competition about sexual health by removing the term gender identity disorder from a category after an uproar from gay and lesbian groups in the Muslim-majority country.

The ministry said it had changed one of the categories for a video contest among young people and deleted the guidelines about preventing homosexuality, following a meeting between health officials and leaders of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community and other groups.

The meeting successfully cleared the misunderstanding and collectively improvements were made to the competition guidelines, Lokman Hakim Sulaiman, the ministrys deputy director-general, said in a statement.

Advertised on the ministrys website and Facebook page, the contest sparked indignation among activists who said it could spawn hatred and violence against the LGBT community.

On Thursday, the ministry said the categories have been changed to gender and sexuality, reproductive health and cybersex.

Officials said the contest was not aimed at discriminating against the LGBT community, but to explore views among teens and identify other health issues. The competition asked contestants aged 13 to 24 years old to submit video clips, and offered cash prizes of about U.S. $1,000.

Damage control

But the health ministrys latest move did not impress the LGBT community.

All that is just damage control, Neo Redzuan, an activist and member of the LGBT community, told BenarNews. There wasnt any confusion about the wording or terminology. It was very clear what they intended to do.

The news about the competition is all over the international news, so its a save-face measure at best, he said.

On Wednesday, a local filmmaker and a comedian launched a counter-competition to send positive messages on Malaysias LGBT community.

Jared Lee of Grim Film Productions and comedian Jason Leong called for contestants to create a three-minute video clip in Bahasa Malaysia, English or Chinese with the theme Pro LGBT.

We both believe in making a stand that it is not wrong to be in the LGBT community, Lee told The Malaysian Insight, an online news provider.

The LGBT community should not be segmented and that they should not fear, Lee said.

Malaysia has retained its colonial-era criminal ban on sodomy, broadly defined to include homosexual acts and punishable by prison sentences of up to 20 years or corporal punishment, such as whipping.

In March, Malaysian authorities postponed the release of Disney's Beauty and the Beast because of gay content. But Disney refused to bow to the governments demands to cut a scene of the gay character LeFou and the movie was eventually shown uncensored.
Updated at 6:42 p.m. ET on 2017-06-02

An attack on a popular casino-hotel in Manila left at least 38 people dead, including a gunman who had fired shots and set the place ablaze with gasoline before killing himself, police and hotel management said Friday.



The bodies of 22 guests and 13 hotel workers who died of apparent smoke inhalation and suffocation, according to police, were discovered as rescuers were clearing the Maxims hotel inside the Resorts World Manila, a top executive with the resort said.



Later in the day, Manila Southern Police District Chief Supt. Tomas Apolinario told reporters that the bodies of two other victims, women who were killed after a part of the ceiling fell on them, had also been recovered. At least 54 other people were injured, police said.



The discovery of dozen of bodies occurred hours after National Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa announced that the violence had been contained with the death of the gunman, who had yet to be identified.



It is with deep regret that we confirm that there were 35 casualties in this tragic incident, of which 13 are employees and 22 are guests. The identities of two employees and four guests are still being validated as of this time, said Stephen James Reilly, chief operating officer of the Resorts World Manila hotel, in sharing earlier death-toll figures given by police.



We are doing our very best to inform the families of the victims, Reilly said. We are extending all forms of assistance to the affected next-of-kin. We are one in mourning with the families of those affected by this tragedy.



The gunman, described by police as a tall Caucasian with a mustache and who spoke English, started the blaze after bursting into the hotel-casino near Manila International Airport and firing off shots in what authorities believed was a robbery attempt. The fire engulfed floors where guests were trapped.



The suspected gunman is shown in this screen grab from closed-circuit TV security footage as he stood near the fire exit of Maxims hotel at the Resorts World Manila, June 2, 2017. [AFP Photo / Southern Police District]

Terror act?

Throughout the rest of Friday, an array of senior police officers at the national and regional level, as well as the national security adviser, played down reports that this was a terrorist act carried out by an Islamic State supporter.



Police insisted that only one gunman was involved in the attack  the boldest one to date targeting a first-class hotel in the Philippine capital  but, as a precautionary measure, they said security personnel were deployed as the crisis unfolded to search the area for other possible gunmen, after reports emerged that IS had claimed responsibility for the incident.



Soon after the hotel was attacked, the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online communications of extremist groups, reported that an Islamic State (IS) Filipino operative who provides daily updates on the ongoing clashes in Marawi stated that the group is responsible for the attack at Resorts World Manila.



Later on Friday, according to SITE, the Amaq news agency affiliated with Islamic State posted a brief statement in Arabic on Telegram, saying Islamic State fighters carried out the attack in Manila in the Philippines yesterday.



But Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, spokesman for the Philippine Armed Forces, said that the IS claim of responsibility does not corroborate the facts on the ground.



As it is, the Resorts World incident has the signature of a criminal act that needs deeper investigation to ascertain the real motive behind, he said in a statement. It does not have the slightest signature of terrorism whatsoever.



The attack took place as government forces were locked in gun battles with IS-linked militants in the southern city of Marawi that were still going on after 10 days.



On Friday, President Rodrigo Dutere made no public comments about the hotel attack.



But his spokesman, Ernesto Abella, issued a statement saying authorities were looking into it as an isolated incident involving robbery.



This is a reminder that civilized society has no place for this kind of violence, Abella said.

The safety of citizens and the security of communities are our primordial concerns, and we hope to seek everybodys cooperation to achieve a peaceful and fear-free environment.

Fiery end

Police said the suspect made off with more than U.S. $2 million worth of gaming chips after bursting into the casino-hotel just after midnight Thursday (local time) firing his weapon. The chips were later found dumped in a hotel toilet, according to one report.

Witnesses said the suspect was armed with an M4 Baby Armalite  a shorter version of the M-16 assault rifle  and he carried a canister of gasoline. He shot out some video screens and then used the gasoline to set tables on fire, according to police.



According to Reilly, the resort executive, responding security personnel were able to shoot and wound the gunman that attacked the hotel early Friday (local time).



Severe blood loss from the gunshot wound significantly slowed the assailant down and resulted to his holing up in a room where he took his own life, he said, adding that one security staff had been wounded.



The suspect later committed suicide in one of the hotel rooms, police said.



He lay down on the bed, covered himself with a thick blanket, apparently poured petrol on the blanket and burned himself, Dela Rosa said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).



Among other casualties, 54 people were injured in the fire, of whom 18 were hospitalized, the police chief said.

Where is Hazel?

Gil Yongco, whose daughter Hazel worked at the hotel, reached the hotel grounds shortly after news of the fire broke out. But there was no one to confirm the whereabouts of his 29-year-old daughter.



Yongco said he had to fight off first responders because he was frantic to see his daughter alive, even though he suspected that she might be among the casualties.



Where is Hazel? he called out desperately to policemen while his wife, Cathy, sat quietly at the curbside.



A hotel employee later said she had grabbed Hazel Yongcos phone as they ran out because she had dropped it. When she turned back, Hazel Yongco, a table supervisor at Resorts World, was gone.

She was among those missing since early Friday, when a gunman who, police said, appeared to be crazy walked into the hotel with an assault rifle and started shooting and setting the place on fire.

Later in the day, Philippine authorities announced that Hazel had died, AFP reported.

Smoke billows from the Resorts World Manila hotel casino after a gunman set a fire inside, June 2, 2017. [Felipe Villamor/BenarNews]

Chaos everywhere

Like Gil Yongco, casino high roller Arianne Johnson, 39, was searching for some of the eight people she used to hang out with at the casino. She said she only knew her friends by their first names, but that she had grown fond of them on the slot-machine floor.



When the alarm sounded, she said people started running from the second floor, as bursts of gunfire rang out.



We were running, people were shouting. It was chaos everywhere, Johnson said.

On Friday morning, after the sun had risen but the smoke from the huge fire had not cleared and the dozens of bodies had not been found, police chief Dela Rosa spoke to reporters.

He told them that CCTV footage showed no evidence of the suspect having taken any hostages.

Up to this time, we cant say this is an act of terror. Why? Because he has done no other violent act inside, aside from stealing chips and shooting at a TV, Dela Rosa said.

He did not hurt anyone. If you were a terrorist, you want to sow terror. You would have gunned down people, he added.

Staff at the Resorts World Hotel in Manila light candles and offer flowers in memory of colleagues and guests who died in a blaze after a gunman allegedly attacked the casino-hotel, June 2, 2017. [Felipe Villamor/BenarNews]
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana holds a weapon as he and other officials inspect firearms seized by government forces from Islamic State-linked militants in Marawi, during a visit to the southern city, June 8, 2017.

Appeals were aired Thursday for more aid to thousands of people displaced by fighting between government forces and Islamic State-backed militants in the southern Philippine city of Marawi, as the military announced the arrest of a former mayor with suspected extremist ties.

Most of Marawis estimated 200,000 residents have abandoned the once scenic city, a center of the Islamic faith in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, since fighting began more than two weeks ago.

About 100 people, many of them hungry and needing medical assistance, were allowed to escape in a brief humanitarian corridor agreed to by both sides days earlier.

We need a lot more assistance from now. For the meantime, there are donors, but we may reach a point where we would need more, said Fe Salimbangon, coordinator at Iligan Citys Roman Catholic diocese, which is helping the evacuees.

Scores of Marawi residents, possibly hundreds, are believed to be trapped in the citys interior, including residents who were being used as human shields by the gunmen, the military said.

The onset of the rainy season could add to the plight of the evacuees, many of them children, and lead to a spike in cases of diarrhea, respiratory infections, hypertension and fever in packed evacuation camps, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned.

[A] Majority of the evacuees are temporarily seeking shelter with their relatives. On the other hand, thousands of them who have nowhere to go are cramped in evacuation centers, within and outside the city, for more than two weeks now, the ICRC said.

Jose Amigo, health coordinator for the ICRC in the Philippines, said those at risk were children and the elderly, adding sanitation facilities in the camps were a problem.

They also become prone to communicable diseases because of the limited space in evacuation centers, Amigo said.

We may have survived the fighting in Marawi, but Im still concerned for the children and old people like me, Alimpay Macaagir, 64, told Red Cross volunteers at an evacuation center in the town of Saguiran.

Now that were here at the evacuation center, everything seems so uncertain. The rains are so strong and many are getting sick, Macaagir said.

Ex-Marawi mayor picked up

Fighting broke out on May 23 when government troops and police moved in to arrest Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) leader Isnilon Hapilon, but they were met by a huge force that included members of the smaller Maute gang.

Isnilon, the acknowledged leader of the Islamic State (IS) locally, is believed to be in the area. The government has placed a bounty of 10 million pesos (U.S. $202,500) for the capture or killing of Hapilon.

Both militant groups have pledged allegiance to IS and, during the battles in Marawi, they have been backed by fighters from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, among others, the Philippine military said.

Earlier this week, Indonesian police announced they had arrested a citizen in Yogyakarta province on suspicion of funding four Indonesians so they could travel to Marawi to fight alongside members of the Maute gang.

Police identified the suspect by his initials only.

R.S. was arrested for providing funds for the departure of four Indonesians who are on the Philippines Police Wanted Persons List. The amount is about U.S. $7,500, Martinus Sitompul, a spokesman for Indonesias national police, told BenarNews.

In Marawi, intense fighting and successive aerial bombardments of rebel positions have destroyed much of the downtown area. But it has forced the gunmen into a section of the city where they are believed to be holding more than 200 hostages, including a Catholic priest who had earlier appeared in a video pleading for President Rodrigo Duterte to stop the fighting.

Fighting has left nearly 200 dead, including 39 soldiers and 20 civilians. The rest were militants.

But as the battles raged, many militants managed to slip through the tight security cordon by posing as civilians, officials said.

On Tuesday, the military arrested Cayamora Maute, the father of Maute militant group leaders and three others, while on Wednesday, former Marawi mayor Fajad Salic was also nabbed. Salic allegedly was a supporter of the Mautes.

Maj. Gen. Carlito Galvez, chief of the regional military command, on Thursday said troops were continuing to advance but were met by what he described as a waning rebel resistance.

We saw food, IEDs, mobility assets. Considering we have paralyzed logistics capability, we are looking at the possibility that the end will be near, he said.

The commander of the military task force in Marawi, Brig. Gen. Rolly Bautista, said troops were tasked with clearing at least three villages of gunmen and said he believed the captives were still alive.

Based on the reports, there are 230 local terrorists in the area. They are occupying strong points, he said. They are prepositioned at axis of advance of our troops. If we can break those barriers, it will be through and through toward the areas where we will neutralize them.

Security adviser Hermogenes Esperon inspects a firearm captured by government troops, during a visit to Kampo Ranao, in Marawi City, June 8, 2017. [Froilan Gallardo/BenarNews]

Rina Chadijah in Jakarta contributed to this report.
After an 18-year run in Goose Creek and unforeseen challenges presented by COVID-19, Dreamalot Books has gradually  but decidedly  gained a steady foothold in the Moncks Corner community as a welcoming haven of second-hand books for both area bibliophiles and those traveling in from Myrtle Read moreThe 'happy place' for used books: Dreamalot Books emerging as a go-to hot spot in Moncks Corner
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In a major series, BILD will expose the plight of the Venezuelan people and report on their hopes and dreams for their country.

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Tear gas grenades explode, sending fumes out onto the street. I can hardly see anything. Nonetheless, Ive got to run. The special unit is taking aim at anything that is moving during the demonstration in the capital Caracas.

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For Immediate Release, June 8, 2017 Contact: Matt Reed, High Country Conservation Advocates, (970) 349-7104, matt@hccacb.org

Allison Melton, Center for Biological Diversity, (970) 309-2008, amelton@biologicaldiversity.org

Thomas Young, Sierra Club, (719) 393-2354, thomas.young@sierraclub.org

Shannon Hughes, WildEarth Guardians, (630) 699-7165, shughes@wildearthguardians.org

Matt Sandler, Rocky Mountain Wild, (303) 579-5162, matt@rockymountainwild.org

Micah Parkin, 350 Colorado, (504) 258-1247, micah@350colorado.org

Shelley Silbert, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, (970) 385-9577, shelley@greatoldbroads.org

Ted Zukoski, Earthjustice, (303) 996-9622, tzukoski@earthjustice.org Trump Administration Pushes Coal Mining in Roadless Forest in Colorado Forest Service Pushes to Mine Next to West Elk Wilderness, Giving Arch Coal Access to More Than 17 Million Tons of Coal DENVER Just days after announcing the U.S. will exit the Paris climate agreement, the Trump administration today pushed ahead with plans for another damaging action: a plan to approve Arch Coal's proposal to lease 1,700 acres of roadless wildlands in the Gunnison National Forest for mining 17 million tons of coal. The plan, addressed in a draft environmental impact study, would greenlight exploratory drilling and road construction to expand the West Elk coal mine about 40 miles southwest of Aspen. Local, regional, and national conservation groups condemned the proposal. This coal mine expansion proposal brings Trump's dirty energy agenda to Colorado, said Matt Reed, public lands director for Gunnison County-based High Country Conservation Advocates. Pristine forests, abundant wildlife, clean water, and a healthy snowpack are the cornerstones of our local economy and quality of life, and this destructive proposal threatens all of these values. The Colorado mine expansion plan follows high-profile Trump actions to allow coal mines and coal-fired power plants to foul America's air and water, including killing rules meant to stop mines from dumping millions of tons of metal-laced waste rock into streams, rolling back measures limiting arsenic, lead and mercury pollution poured into rivers and lakes by coal-fired power plants, gutting protections that limit health-threatening air pollutants from such plants, and, last week, terminating America's commitment to reduce planet-heating climate pollution pursuant to the Paris Agreement signed by more than 190 nations. Under Arch Coal's plan, more than six miles of roads will be bulldozed and as many as 48 drilling pads with vents to release methane will be built in the Sunset Roadless Area, which is adjacent to the West Elk Wilderness. The area is a rolling landscape of aspen and spruce-fir forests that provide habitat for black bear, elk, lynx and cutthroat trout. Mining in this pristine area will create a spiderweb of roads and industrial facilities on 1,700 acres of public lands, similar to that already encroaching toward wilderness. Bulldozing aspen groves to mine coal is exactly the sort of senseless destruction we've come to expect from the Trump administration, said Allison Melton, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. But it's madness for the climate and a raw deal for the people of Colorado, and we're not going to sit still and let it happen. The Trump administration's latest action exploits Colorado's Roadless Rule loophole, reinstated last year after being thrown out by a lawsuit, which opened the door for road construction within about 20,000 acres of the Gunnison National Forest to subsidize coal mining. The lease that the Forest Service is poised to approve will give Arch Coal access to more than 17 million tons of coal, extending the life of the West Elk mine by about three or four years. The company already has an estimated 10-year supply of coal under lease. The West Elk mine was the single largest industrial source of methane pollution in Colorado from 2013 to 2015, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. Methane  an immensely potent greenhouse gas  has more than 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide over the short term and is a major contributor to climate pollution. The West Elk mine emits so much methane that it wipes out a significant chunk of the benefit from the state's trailblazing rule to limit waste methane from oil and gas wells. The impact of pushing more coal into the energy market at a time when the demand for coal has dropped could undercut efforts to transition to a clean energy economy. A 2016 Forest Service study concluded that opening Colorado roadless forests to coal mining would displace renewable energy from the grid. While Arch Coal and the U.S. Forest Service may feel the political winds have shifted in their favor recently with the Trump administration, the harsh reality of this polluting coal mining expansion proposal remains the same, said Jim Alexee, director of the Colorado Sierra Club. These coal mining operations and the associated road construction will cause irreparable harm to our local air quality, to our climate, and to the wildlife living in the Sunset Roadless Area. Giving away our western public lands to the coal industry isn't energy independence, it's a scheme to make executives and shareholders rich at our expense, said Shannon Hughes, climate guardian for WildEarth Guardians. Our future is clean energy and vibrant public lands, not more fossil fuel giveaways in our backcountry. Roadless areas are important for many of the wildlife species in our state including the federally threatened Canada lynx, said Matt Sandler, staff attorney for Rocky Mountain Wild. Sacrificing these areas to appease the interests of the coal industry is irresponsible public lands management. At this point in history when climate change is already causing devastating impacts in Colorado and worldwide, it is unconscionable to continue mining and burning fossil fuels, especially on federal and public lands, said Micah Parkin with 350 Colorado. We must begin leaving fossil fuels in the ground and transitioning rapidly to Colorado's abundant renewable energy if we are to have any chance of staying below the 1.5-2 degrees C global temperature rise that countries around the world have agreed to. It's shameless that our roadless public lands and prime wildlife habitat will now be leased to a coal company for its own profit, said Shelley Silbert, executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness. We need to transition to a future with clean energy jobs, clean air, and healthy communities, and not commit our public lands for more development that pollutes our water, air, and climate. The groups pledged to oppose the plan through public comments, which the Forest Service will accept through July 24. The public can submit concerns about the proposal through the agency's website: https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public//CommentInput?Project=32459. This proposal is the latest example of the Trump administration's apparent desire to ignore science, poison the air we breathe, and undermine our shared responsibility to be good stewards of the Earth, said Ted Zukoski, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm Earthjustice. We'll keep fighting Trump's damaging mining plan because we need to protect what Coloradans love best about our state: clean air, scenic mountains, healthy streams, and vibrant wildlife populations. Read more the roadless area and what's at stake. See photos of the roadless areas the Forest Service opened to bulldozing, as well as of damage from Arch Coal's ongoing mining operations to nearby forests. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, June 8, 2017 Contact: Wendy Park, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 844-7100 x 338, wpark@biologicaldiversity.org

Cyrus Reed, Sierra Club Lone Star Chapter, (512) 740-4086, cyrus.reed@sierraclub.org

Rita Beving, Clean Water Action, (214) 557-2271, rita.beving@gmail.com

Luke Metzger, Environment Texas, (512) 479-0388, luke@environmenttexas.org Feds Ignore Legal Protests, Hold Texas Fracking Auction

Oil, Gas Development Threatens Dams, Drinking Water CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas The Bureau of Land Management today plans to auction 4,300 acres of federal land for fracking and drilling in Texas and Oklahoma despite pending legal protests from the City of Corpus Christi and conservation groups concerned about public health threats. The oil and gas leasing auction also comes over the objections of the City of Brenham, state representatives and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). The fracking plans threaten drinking water, reservoirs and dams. It endangers public health and safety to frack dams, lakes and reservoirs. And it's reckless for the BLM to go forward with this sale knowing these dangers, said Wendy Park, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. When oil industry profits matter more than people and safe drinking water, our government is broken. Parcels targeted for fracking in Texas are near or underneath lakes and dams, including Lake Somerville, Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Texana. The reservoir and Lake Texana supply water to more than 440,000 residents of Corpus Christi and 17 other cities. Fracking-induced earthquakes could compromise the dams' integrity and drinking-water supplies. Corpus Christi can't afford to have two of its water supply lakes impaired, said Rita Beving, North Texas outreach coordinator for Clean Water Action. Runoff from drilling operations and increased pressures due to fracking pose an increasing threat to water quality and dam infrastructure. Legislators and city officials have made their objections to these parcels known as the BLM's upcoming auction approaches, but the BLM has turned a blind eye. The Bureau is moving forward with today's lease sale without responding to legal protests filed in February by conservation groups and Corpus Christi. The protests cite the potential for spills, water contamination and earthquakes that could jeopardize dam integrity. The protests also raise concerns that new fracking could spread pollutants along faults and fissures to existing wells, causing leaks. The Bureau has indicated that it will not enact leases until the protests have been resolved. In April, the Brenham City Council unanimously approved a resolution opposing the BLM's plans to allow fracking beneath Lake Somerville. The resolution cited concerns that contamination of the lake's water supply would be catastrophic for its residents. Lake Somerville is Brenham's sole drinking-water source. With unprecedented opposition to the proposal to lease lands under lakes utilized by both the City of Corpus Christi and the City of Brenham, proceeding with these leases is a slap in the face to the elected officials of these cities, and to the many Texans who expressed their view that these lakes are special places deserving of protection, said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Center filed a supplementary protest Tuesday over the Bureau's failure to analyze the risks of water contamination from leaking wells and the potential for new leaks due to increased fracking. Public records obtained by the Center in April revealed that four wells have been leaking into or near Choke Canyon Reservoir for years. Despite saying the leaks posed no risk, officials have begun to explore how to plug the wells and inspect them underwater. It's unclear whether such inspections have ever been conducted. Emails show that officials don't know who is responsible for re-plugging the wells or whether well owners can be identified. A map created by the Center, using Railroad Commission well data, shows more than 20 old plugged wells located in the reservoir, most less than 2 miles from the parcels in today's lease sale. More than 100 active oil wells and seven gas wells are within the reservoir  many within 2 miles of lease-sale parcels. There are also more than 100 unproductive wells scattered throughout the reservoir. Plugged or unused wells can increase water-pollution risks by offering additional pathways for fracking chemicals to spread underground. I can't believe the gall of oil companies trying to frack in and around drinking water supplies, said Environment Texas Director Luke Metzger, who spoke at a packed town hall meeting in Brenham about the issue last month. We can't risk ruining these lakes to let Big Oil make a few more bucks. The communities stand opposed to these dangerous lease sales, and BLM should withdraw them. Bureau of Land Management lease sale results will be posted here.

Download Corpus Christ's February legal protest here.

Download conservation groups' February legal protest here.

Download Tuesday's supplementary protest here.

View the map of existing wells and proposed lease parcels here. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, June 8, 2017 Contact: Randi Spivak, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org Secretary Zinke Undermines Greater Sage Grouse Conservation Plans Boon to Corporate Polluters Would Sacrifice Wildlife, Public Lands WASHINGTON Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced plans for a review that threatens to undermine efforts to protect the iconic greater sage grouse across 11 Western states. Zinke's plan could give big oil companies and other polluters new access to vital grouse habitat. Zinke's review' is clearly a pretext to push the sage grouse to extinction in return for short-term profits for his corporate buddies. They might as well form a shotgun posse to kill off the species directly, said Randi Spivak, public lands program director with the Center for Biological Diversity. "We'll do everything in our power to make sure this amazing bird and its habitat are protected. Background on Greater Sage Grouse Protection

The greater sage grouse, an iconic bird known and loved for its elaborate mating dance, is imperiled. As many as 16 million birds once ranged across 297 million acres of sagebrush grass lands, a vast area of western North America known as the Sagebrush Sea. Over the past 200 years, agriculture, oil and gas drilling, livestock grazing and development have reduced sage grouse range by nearly half, and sage grouse populations have steadily declined. Today sage grouse are found in 11 Western states: California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Protecting the greater sage grouse benefits a host of other species that depend on the Sagebrush Sea, including pronghorn, elk, mule deer, golden eagle, native trout and nearly 200 migratory and resident bird species. The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for managing about half of the remaining sage grouse habitat. After years of inaction and prompted by a 2011 decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service to list the bird for protection under the Endangered Species Act, the BLM initiated sage grouse protection planning. This unprecedented five-year effort, led by the Department of Interior, resulted in land-use plans with new measures to conserve sage grouse and potentially prevent the need to list the species as endangered. The Fish and Wildlife Service's decision not to list the greater sage grouse was predicated on the assumption that the public land management plans would be implemented and would reverse the decline of the greater sage-grouse. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, June 7, 2017 Contact: Brett Hartl, Center for Biological Diversity, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org

Denni Cawley, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, (385) 707-3677, dcawleyuphe@gmail.com Public Records Sought on EPA Delays in Reducing Dangerous Smog Pollution Pruitt Unilaterally Postponed Requirements for States to Cut Harmful Ozone WASHINGTON Public-interest groups filed a Freedom of Information Act request today seeking public records illuminating Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's decision to unlawfully delay, by a year, a Clean Air Act requirement for states to reduce dangerous ozone pollution. The records request was made by the Center for Biological Diversity and Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. Each year ground-level ozone pollution causes more than 1,000 premature deaths, millions of asthma attacks and billions of dollars in lost productivity. Despite these well-documented harms from ozone pollution, Pruitt announced this week that the EPA will delay until October 2018 the deadline for states to provide evidence they are complying with the healthier ozone level. The delay, which Pruitt asserts is needed to gather additional information, ignores the fact that all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and six tribal areas have already submitted all the information the EPA needs to make the determinations. Americans have a right to know why the EPA is obstructing these urgent, lifesaving measures recommended by the agency's own scientists, said Brett Hartl, the Center's government affairs director. Once all the facts are laid bare, we're likely to discover a trove of details about Pruitt's push to help polluters. And I bet we'll find virtually no mention of helping the millions of Americans struggling with life-threatening asthma attacks. Delaying compliance means another year where our families will face higher rates of disease and more premature deaths, said Dr. Brian Moench, a member of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment board. This is another example of the new EPA acting to protect polluting fossil fuel industries instead of public health. Before Pruitt's decision, states were required to submit information to the EPA this year on whether they were meeting the new 70 parts per billion ozone standards. Under the Clean Air Act, after providing this information, states must develop plans to reduce pollution and meet the new standards. Now states will have an additional year  with a new October 2018 deadline  prior to even beginning to take action to address ozone pollution. This repulsive decision by Pruitt is nothing more than a gift to polluting industries so his cronies can keep trying to undermine this critical safeguard, said Hartl. Pruitt's only been at the EPA for a few months, but he's already taken virtually every opportunity to sacrifice human health and the environment simply to inflate corporate profits. An EPA study found that Clean Air Act programs to reduce ozone pollution prevented more than 4,300 deaths and 3.2 million lost school days in 2010 alone. The Clean Air Act has also helped to keep the U.S. economy healthy by creating jobs, with more than 1.7 million Americans employed in the environmental technology industry helping to keep our air clean. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and supporters dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
For Immediate Release, June 7, 2017 Contact: Randy Serraglio, (520) 784-1504, rserraglio@biologicaldiversity.org Forest Service Issues Premature Approval of Rosemont Mine

Other Permits Required Before Mining Can Begin TUCSON, Ariz. The U.S. Forest Service today signaled its approval of the proposed Rosemont open-pit copper mine, despite the fact that key permits and reviews are lacking. The Coronado National Forest, where the mine would be located, gave preliminary approval to the controversial project three years ago. A final decision was withheld pending outstanding permitting reviews, including a Clean Water Act permit that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recommended for denial. The Forest Service issued a record of decision today approving the mine even though it still must complete more steps before mining can begin, including approval of a revised mine plan of operations and bonding for the project. The proposed mine would blast a mile-wide, 3,000-foot deep pit in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona and bury thousands of acres of public land in more than a billion tons of toxic waste.



The Forest Service's announcement is premature to the point of being meaningless, said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. This fake decision is motivated by politics and corruption. It's a hollow paperwork maneuver that will certainly be challenged. This huge mine is just too dangerous to get a free pass. The mine's footprint lies squarely in jaguar critical habitat, land that's been scientifically determined to be critically important for the survival and recovery of jaguars in the United States. The mine would destroy much of the home territory of the famous jaguar El Jefe, who was photographed more than 100 times in the Santa Ritas over three years. Forest Service officials have said repeatedly that they would approve the Rosemont Mine only if it complied with all other applicable laws, Serraglio said. Apparently, with the Trump administration, promises are meant to be broken. The American people, public lands and wildlife deserve better. More than a dozen imperiled species could be harmed by the mine, including ocelot that have been photographed immediately adjacent to the mine site and endangered fish and frogs living in nearby Cienega Creek. The creek could be dried up by the mine's vast groundwater pumping. The Cienega Creek watershed also provides up to 20 percent of the annual natural recharge in Tucson's groundwater basin, a vital resource that could be polluted and significantly diminished by the mine. Other than handing a PR coup to a foreign mining company, there's no reason for the Forest Service to issue this decision at this time, said Serraglio. It's a slap in the face to other agencies that are still carefully considering the devastating impacts of this proposal. There are still far too many unanswered questions about Rosemont and the dire threat it poses to our water, air, and wildlife. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
Starting your day with a cup of mushroom coffee can give a much-needed twist to your daily regimen. Many speak of its benefits, and some even prefer it to regular coffee. But given its unique
Veloxis will supply Envarsus XR to Chiesi for sale in China at a pre-specified transfer price.

Veloxis Pharmaceuticals announced that its U.S. subsidiary, Veloxis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has entered into an exclusive license, supply and distribution agreement with Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A. to register, commercialize and distribute Envarsus XR in the territories of China and Taiwan. Envarsus XR is a form of the anti-rejection drug, tacrolimus, for people who have had a kidney transplant.

This agreement greatly expands Chiesis investment and interests in Envarsus XR, which already includes the territories of Europe, Turkey and ex-CIS countries licensed through a previous agreement between Veloxis and Chiesi in October, 2012. Chiesi has launched Envarsus XR in 18 countries to date, resulting in over 5,000 patients on Envarsus XR as immunosuppressive therapy following organ transplantation.

Under the terms of this agreement, Veloxis will receive an up-front payment in the amount of USD 6 million and a milestone payment upon approval. Veloxis will supply Envarsus XR to Chiesi for sale in China at a pre-specified transfer price. The initial term of the agreement shall be for a period of 15 years from the effective date of the agreement.

Chiesi is an international company based in Parma, Italy, with over 80 years of experience and a strong focus on research, development, production and the commercialization of innovative medicines in the Respiratory, Neonatology, Rare Disease and Special Care Therapeutic Areas. With a turnover of more than EUR 1.5 billion sales, Chiesi is among the top 50 pharmaceutical companies in the world.
There are already some collaborations underway examining the structure of DNA, the development of cardiomyopathies, and pediatric brain tumors.

The Jackson Laboratory has signed a collaborative clinical genomics research agreement with three groups in China.

Specifically, the Jackson Lab has partnered with the Wenzhou Municipal People's Government, Ouhai District People's Government (WZ), and Wenzhou Medical University and its affiliated hospitals (WMU) to research genomic propensities for disease.

Under the terms of the agreement, WZ and WMU will form the Wenzhou Institute for Genomic Medicine (WIGM), which will conduct research under the scientific direction and management of the Jackson Lab. Jackson Lab scientists will also form medical genomics research collaborations with WMU investigators in the US and China. There are already some collaborations underway examining the structure of DNA, the development of cardiomyopathies, and pediatric brain tumors.

The Jackson Lab will initially establish a clinical research presence on the WMU campus and in the Life & Health Town of Ouhai District, where approximately 50 to 70 new staff in six research groups will conduct research and clinical genomics. Later, a standalone facility for the WIGM will be built in the Life & Health Town, where an additional 200 faculty and staff will be employed in 15 planned research groups.
The hope is that non-invasive PET-FDG imaging can be used to transform the assessment of new dengue treatments in clinical trials so that infections may be more effectively treated in the clinic.

A team from Duke-NUS Medical School (Duke-NUS) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) has found a new use for an 'old' technology in the field of infectious diseases research.

Using positron emission tomography (PET) paired with the glucose metabolism probe, fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) as an imaging tool for dengue infection in mouse models, the team has potentially uncovered a novel and non-invasive way to track the infection in real-time and more accurately assess the effectiveness of new treatments for dengue.

FDG is a radioactive version of glucose, which when injected into a mouse and absorbed by cells, can be seen using PET. Inflammation of the small and large intestines is known to occur in dengue-infected mice, and with it cellular uptake of glucose and FDG increases. Knowing this, the team set out to use PET-FDG to visualise inflammation as a marker of dengue infection in mice.

Professor Subhash Vasudevan from the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS explained that being able to visualise dengue infection in the body potentially transforms how the effectiveness of new dengue therapeutics is assessed. The team is looking forward to collaborating with academic and industry partners who are looking to validate their new dengue therapeutics using this novel approach.

The clinical study is currently recruiting dengue patients as volunteers. Ultimately, the hope is that non-invasive PET-FDG imaging can be used to transform the assessment of new dengue treatments in clinical trials so that infections may be more effectively treated in the clinic.
The exclusive program is designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of aspiring B. Pharm, M. Pharm, and Pharm D graduates & post graduates

Subject matter experts from Biocon and KGI faculty to impart real world insights and hands on training in the State-of-the-Art Facilities of Syngene and R&D Labs of Biocon

Biocon Academy has announced the introduction of a unique program in Clinical Development in collaboration with Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) in Claremont, California.

The exclusive program is designed to enhance the knowledge and skills of aspiring B. Pharm, M. Pharm, and Pharm D graduates & post graduates. The partnership will accelerate learning in the fast growing field of Clinical Development and enhance the employability prospects of students in biosciences.

The new program is designed to offer experiential learning in the areas of Clinical trial design, Execution, Clinical data management, Statistical analysis, Interpretation and Presentation through an intensive curriculum delivered by renowned faculty of KGI and Biocon Academy. The program also aims to equip students with industry assignments and hands on training in Syngene and R&D Labs of Biocon.

Commenting on the program, Bindu Ajit, Program Director of Biocon Academy said, This program provides a golden opportunity for science students to upgrade their skill in the Clinical Development domain. To ensure holistic picture, we have also collaborated with Narayana Hrudayalaya in Bangalore to give the students an industry perspective associated with clinical development. This is our third program in partnership with Keck Graduate Institute, first two are program in Biosciences and Bioscience Management. We hope students make the best use of the expertise KGI offers.

Biocon KGI Certificate Program in Clinical Development is a 16 weeks full time program aimed to empower pharmacist with application know-how of the design, implementation and statistical knowledge.
HR reward scheme provider Sodexo Group has signed a new partnership with Jumia Food Kenya to offer employers a seamless mobile solution dubbed M-Kula, which enables them to implement the tax-free food allowance. The new payment option allows employees access to Jumia Food delivery services, right at their office.

Jumia Food's Duncan Muchangi and Sodexo Kenya's Neil Ribiero.

Providing a solution that caters to both accountability and control will also go a long way in helping the Kenyan employer in implementing the 2014 amendment to the Finance Act, which allows employers to give their employees Ksh 48,000 of meals per year tax-free. According to the Act, the employer must be able to demonstrate the meals provided, cost and location of consumption, which renders the mobile app instrumental.

A recent survey by Sodexo reveals that 87% of Kenyans will skip lunch at least once a month, either due to demanding schedules or by generally keeping up with the workplace influence where meal breaks are seen as a waste of time. However, as the CEO notes, exerting ones brain on a non-stop eight-hour schedule can end up being more detrimental than beneficial to ones productivity.

With more than 80% mobile penetration in Kenya, continued reliance on mobile devices and emerging technologies calls for entrepreneurs to create innovative solutions for consumers. The new partnership between Sodexo and Jumia Food helps tackle the problems that employers face in providing meals, and allows meals to be delivered to the employees desks, said Neil Ribeiro, CEO of Sodexo Kenya.

Now available on both iOS and Android platforms, employers can now implement the staff meal process through the platform by handing out vouchers that the staff can redeem through M-Kula. This will allow consumers access to over 200 restaurants listed on Jumia Food website. All they have to do is go to the Jumia Food website or mobile app and order their meals, without moving an inch from their work desks, explained Duncan Muchangi, MD of Jumia Food.

Sodexos services such as the meal voucher (M-Kula) and gift pass provide employers with an avenue to implement incentive and recognition programmes easily, whilst creating a more satisfying work-life balance, as well as greater personal development and professional recognition.
#CannesLions: "What the fuk are we doing, man?"

The 64th International Festival of Creativity will take place from Saturday, 17 June to Saturday, 24 June in Cannes, France. During the Festival, young creatives from the world over will go head-to-head, working on a live brief and proving themselves on the world-stage in the process. Safaraaz Sindhi reflects on 2015 Cannes Young Lions experience...

In 2015, Ogilvy copywriter (back then still working for Network BBDO), Safaraaz Sindhi, together with Hanro Havenga, won the Cinemark Young Lions competition and went on to represent South Africa at the Cannes Young Lions competition at the Festival. SOUTH AFRICA South Africa's Cannes Young Lions are ready to roar! By Leigh Andrews 18 Jun 2015 While this years winners Amri Botha and Carina Coetzee are packing their bags to compete in the 2017 competition, we asked Sindhi to reflect on his experience and to tell us how attending the festival impacted him as a creative. GLOBAL SA winners of Cinemark 48-hour Cannes Young Lions competition announced By Juanita Pienaar 15 May 2017 In 2015 you won one of the 'golden tickets' after entering the Ster-Kinekor Cinemark 48-hour competition and attended and represented South Africa at the Cannes Young Lions event. How has this event influenced you as a creative? In 2015 you won one of the 'golden tickets' after entering the Ster-Kinekor Cinemark 48-hour competition and attended and represented South Africa at the Cannes Young Lions event. How has this event influenced you as a creative?

The Festival is a bit of a catch 22 in a way because youre in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and you want to explore and see everything but at the same time youve got some of the most influential and inspiring creative minds on a stage inside the Palais Des Festivals talking about the stuff that makes them tick. Its an incredible experience for a young creative, seeing the creators Safaraaz Sindhi Facebook page of YouTube, creators of Google, creators of shark detecting buoys, Julia Louis Dreyfus (oh em gee!), the cast of Slum Dog Millionaire and if youre really hungover and need to catch up on some sleep, Kim Kardashian. Its like being in a city with hundreds of gods showing off the cool sh!t theyve been creating to entertain, change and save the world. The most beautiful part of it all though is that theres a sense of pride amongst these creators, an unspoken promise and responsibility that the sh!t they put out there needs to be exceptionally great, otherwise its just litter and the world doesnt need any more of that.

You cant go home after experiencing something like that and write a long copy ad for an insurance company expecting to be satisfied  Pandoras box has been opened, and if youre not at least trying to create and add to the playlist of cool sh!t you see there then youve got to ask yourself, what the fuk are you doing, man?

So true. Since then how has your life changed? What have you been up to? So true. Since then how has your life changed? What have you been up to?

Well, Ive been making sh!t, sometimes I make a lot of sh!t, sh!t and sometimes I make okay sh!t. The okay sh!t usually ends up on my office walls to remind me that I can also add to the playlist of cool sh!t made by the inspiring individuals we all look up to. And in between it all when Im not making sh!t, I sit around sulky, asking myself, what the fuk are you doing, man?"

How do you think the industry has changed in the last two years? How do you think the industry has changed in the last two years?

The work has changed. And not in a good way. Weve started taking ourselves too seriously. We answer briefs instead of ignoring them. We give our clients exactly what they want instead of what they could have never imagined. We easily throw our work into research and develop clutter that consumers expect to see and were okay with it all. Account management protects the clients and manages the creative, it should be the other way around. Deadlines tighten and the respect, desire and love for really, really good, strong creative work just doesnt seem to be there anymore.

Whats worse is that weve started to specialise our creativity, give it a formula, a method and with it, titles like content creator and head of social engagement. Creativity isnt a department  I saw this tagged on a wall in an independent ad agency in Kenya and thought it to be true. You know, when the television was invented agencies didnt form breakaway TV-only specialised agencies called "Aqua On Television" and do their own thing, instead they embraced the new medium and then mastered it. Were outsourcing creativity when we have copywriters and art directors in our agencies that are talented enough to make great content for all the mediums at their disposal. Because these people know that content is more than just a linked canvas ad that links to YouTube, that links to your Instagram account, they know that sometimes content is as simple as a beautifully art-directed print ad for a pair of Diesel jeans on a billboard, or a well-crafted radio ad to celebrate genius men with simple inventions. They know that its everything insightful and everything relatable in an ad. They know that ultimately, the big idea is king and given half the chance, they can apply that thinking to the ever-growing and exciting medium known as online advertising, just like they do in other mediums.

Weve all got to take a long, hard look at the industry and ask ourselves what the fuk are we doing, man?

Definitely some food for thought. That said, what do you think of this year's winning ad? Definitely some food for thought. That said, what do you think of this year's winning ad?

I like the simplicity of it. Id like to see it brought to life as an app that plugs into other instant messaging apps and acts as a moral compass/conscience of the user because that will actually change behaviour.

What advice can you give this year's winners? What advice can you give this year's winners?

Go be inspired and when youre done, have a drink at the Gutter Bar for me, please.

Are there any exciting plans in the pipeline for you? Are there any exciting plans in the pipeline for you?

This month marks my one-year anniversary at Ogilvy Cape Town. Its a place where Im hoping to learn, grow and stay inspired but most importantly, its a place where Im surrounded by a very strange bunch of human beings, each very different and weird and smelly. Some are short and ugly, others look like mutated beasts from a radiation spill  one thing that's true about them though is, you wont find em sitting around asking themselves, what the fuk are you doing, man? too often.

Here's wishing this years winners, Amri Botha and Carina Coetzee all of the best competing in the Cannes Young Lions competition. Keep an eye on our Cannes Lions special section for all the latest updates.
#CannesLions: Mapping the importance of multi-channel marketing

With Cannes Lions just a few days away I chatted to South African Kyle Findlay, director of data science at the Kantar Global Innovations Team about his silver essay win at Admap, which will be celebrated during the international festival of creativity.

Findlay won silver at Warcs annual global Admap Prize for his essay titled Four tips for using TV with social, available online for a short while, on the overall set topic of how TV and social media should be used to maximum effect. SOUTH AFRICA Admap Prize 2017 winners announced Issued by Kantar 5 Jun 2017 As a result, hell attend the gala awards event, now in its sixth year and set to take place during the 64th edition of Cannes Lions taking place in just under two weeks time, having shone in the essay contest that encourages and rewards individual excellence in strategic thinking in brand communications  an important aspect of the Cannes Lions, as many of the worlds top brands are re-evaluating how traditional media and new media fit together in the marketing landscape. Kyle Findlay, director of data science at the Kantar Global Innovations Team. I chatted to Findlay about the Admap awards entry criteria, how he put his last minute essay together and the importance of omni- or multi-channel marketing for the future. Congratulations! Share the context of Warcs Admap Awards, the entry criteria and what appealed to you about entering. Congratulations! Share the context of Warcs Admap Awards, the entry criteria and what appealed to you about entering.

Admap is a long-running industry advertising and marketing publication that runs an annual essay competition. This is how they describe it: The Admap Prize is an essay contest that encourages and rewards individual excellence in strategic thinking in brand communications. Essays are judged by a panel of the industry's foremost thought leaders.

Anyone can enter so its very democratic in that sense, which was part of the appeal. I dont spend most of my day dealing with television or traditional marketing research, however, I realised that much of the work that we had done on measuring social media, especially during massive campaign events such as the annual Super Bowl Sunday in the US and Christmas retailers advert season in the UK, meant that I had inadvertently gained a wealth of knowledge in this area. Given the openness of the award criteria, I thought I would try my luck and it looks like it paid off!

Thats for sure! Talk us through how you put your silver-winning paper together on the entry theme of TV and social media should be used to maximum effect? Thats for sure! Talk us through how you put your silver-winning paper together on the entry theme of TV and social media should be used to maximum effect?

To be honest, I wrote it at the last minute. A colleague brought the awards to my attention the weekend before the closing deadline. I had most of the thoughts already bouncing around in my head given our past work in this area so it was just a case of synthesising it into a brief article, which I did on the Sunday night before the deadline. I almost didnt write it up but I thought it was a bit like the Lotto  you have to be in it to win it.

Let us in on the importance of omni- or multi-channel marketing for the future. Let us in on the importance of omni- or multi-channel marketing for the future.

From my perspective, multi-channel is the future and the now. None of the large, international brands that Ive worked with or measured would ever consider spending all that money on a television campaign, without also working out how to create and shepherd their content through an environment that is receptive to said content in order to maximise its possible effect. Marketing is more organic, interactive and complex than it used to be and youd be doing your content a disservice if you did not consider how it would interact with other channels.

Do you predict the demise of traditional TV broadcasting as digital channels become more popular? Do you predict the demise of traditional TV broadcasting as digital channels become more popular?

Now were stepping a bit out of my area of expertise. Im not sure that Im qualified to comment on this area, but I will anyway! I think there will be need for television as a public good, especially in South Africa, for a long time to come and it is still a particularly important marketing channel. Perhaps we will see the SABC evolve with the time by similarly moving over to digital, asynchronous content delivery methods.

Interesting. Will you be attending the prize ceremony during Cannes Lions later in June? If so, what are you most looking forward to from your time there? Interesting. Will you be attending the prize ceremony during Cannes Lions later in June? If so, what are you most looking forward to from your time there?

I will be attending the Admap prize ceremony but not the overall festival prize ceremony. The last time I was in Cannes I was a bright-eyed, 18-year-old backpacker with barely a cent to my name in a very expensive city. This time it should be very different as a corporate traveller! I really have no idea what to expect in Cannes Lions week but Ill only be around for a day or two before moving on to meetings in other parts of Europe.

Hopefully in that time Ill just stumble into a crazy, decadent industry party that just happens to be spilling out on to the road!

I have every faith that Findlay will do just that. All award-winning essays are published in the June edition of Admap magazine and the essay winners will be presented with their awards at an Admap event set for Wednesday, 21 June, which will focus on the marriage of TV and social as part of a brands overarching marketing strategy. Click here to register to attend the event if youll be in Cannes at the time  its a free one.

Click here for more on Findlay, here for more on the Warc AdMap prize and keep an eye on our Cannes Lions special section for all the latest updates.
The Board of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (Wan-Ifra) has called on the South African government to ensure an environment that better protects media freedom and the independence of journalists, notably in the face of proposed legislation that threatens a free press.

The board drew attention to the Cybercrime Bill as, an assault on the right to digital privacy and a threat to the protection of journalists sources, while it also supported on-going efforts to challenge the 2002 Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act.

The Board of Wan-Ifra denounced the draft Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, which would criminalise bringing contempt and ridicule onto figures of authority, as well as the Film & Publication Board Amendment Bill, which broadens state power to censor content.

The board also noted that the controversial Secrecy Bill could still be signed into law after Parliament recommended President Jacob Zuma give it his final approval, despite vigorous opposition from media and civil society groups.

Wan-Ifra has expressed its deep concern that the government is considering a range of measures that will intimidate the press, promote self-censorship and silence criticism. In order to address the shrinking space for independent journalism, Wan-Ifra has urged the South African authorities to adopt a more open, inclusive approach to dialogue and to work with media, legal and civil society organisations to craft legislation that seeks to enable, rather than restrict, a more positive environment for freedom of expression.

To view the full text of the resolution, click here.

Other resolutions

During its meeting in Durban on 7 June 2017 ahead of the 69th World News Media Congress, the Wan-Ifra Board also passed six other press freedom resolutions, calling on global solidarity for media facing extreme challenges in Botswana, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia, Mexico and Turkey.

The resolutions can be read at:
DAKAR, Senegal - A regional seminar on The Role of Journalists and Media in Preventing Violence, including Violent Extremism in West Africa and the Sahel is being held by the United Nations in Dakar, Senegal, this week.

Dakar, Senegal.  Dereje Belachew via 123RF

The United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Switzerland Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, will organise the seminar from 12-14 June 2017 in Dakar.

This meeting follows the conference organised by UNOWAS in partnership with the International Institute for Peace (IPI) and the Switzerland Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in Dakar, 27-28 June 2016, on: Investing on peace and preventing violence in West Africa and the Sahel: Conversation around the Plan of Action of the UN Secretary General. It also builds on existing initiatives of UNESCO to promote journalism education and a culture of peace.

This seminar aims at strengthening journalists and media capacities to better contribute to preventing violent extremism and will bring together some 30 journalists and experts from West African and the Sahel countries.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Business Unity SA (Busa) and the South African Sugar Association (Sasa) have agreed that the introduction of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages should be delayed as it will have a negative effect on employment in the industry.

 marcos calvo mesa 123rf.com

The three organisations argued in Parliament on Wednesday that the team set up by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) should be allowed to conclude its work and that a socioeconomic impact assessment study should also be undertaken. Busa said that time was needed for mitigation measures to be developed to counteract any negative effects of the proposed levy.

The Treasury has proposed the tax as a way to deal with obesity and the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases such as diabetes that plagues the country. It has proposed a tax of 2.1c per gram of sugar, which will kick in above a threshold of 4g of sugar per 100ml of liquid.

Sasa vice-chairman Suresh Naidoo told members of Parliament's finance and health committees during a public hearing on the proposal that the R14bn sugar industry was already "under siege" due to inadequate tariff protection, the country's drought, rising input costs and low international prices.

The tax would result in a loss of revenue and shrinkage of the industry, as well as a loss of jobs, Naidoo said. The association believed that "singling out" an individual ingredient in a particular product was unlikely to achieve the desired health outcomes. He urged that a proper assessment be made of the causes of obesity and noncommunicable diseases.

Cosatu highlighted the threat of job losses posed by the proposed tax and called for its implementation to be delayed so that Nedlac and parliamentary engagements could be concluded and a comprehensive transition and jobs plan be developed. This should include tariffs on sugar and sugarrelated imports, support for sugar exports and for emerging and vulnerable sugar farms and mills, and the fast-tracking of biofuels manufacture and the cogeneration of energy.

Cosatu's parliamentary liaison officer, Matthew Parks, said the Treasury had estimated that the introduction of the tax would cause 5,000 job losses.

The South African Cane Growers Association had estimated 5,817 jobs would be lost and that sugar farm incomes would fall by 15% to 30%. "The government estimates up to 3,000 emerging sugar cane farmers in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga are at risk of collapse," Parks said.

Global prices

"Industry estimates up to 20,000 emerging farmers are at risk. This follows ... approximately 15,000 previous job losses in the sugar sector due to lower global prices in the past few years."

Parks said that Cosatu did not have confidence in the government's ability to protect and save jobs. "The government's lack of a plan to save 5,000 jobs is clear evidence of this. It's shocking that government can go into great detail about how to raise billions of rand through the sugar-sweetened beverages tax yet it cannot produce a plan to save 5,000 farm workers' jobs," said Parks.

A further concern of the union group was that the government had not completed a socioeconomic impact assessment of the proposed tax.
There are a wide variety of socio-economic challenges affecting South Africa's urban infrastructure systems presently - electricity, water, sanitation, stormwater, solid waste and even transport. Water constraints are rapidly becoming the most pressing of these and are certainly one we all can't avoid. South Africa is arguably one of the few driest countries in the world that still flush down drinkable water - down the drain!

Riccardo Lennart Niels Mayer via 123RF

At this stage, we must conceive we all have a shared responsibility towards water conservation. The government cant be left with the sole responsibility to respond to these challenges. Also, it certainly does not have the manpower to do so alone. Instead what is needed is an integrated approach to resolving these current challenges.

South Africa and Cape Town, in particular, finds itself in the worse drought in the past 100 years (with water levels in Cape Town being 9.7%), and conditions are predicted to worsen as we approach a drier and hotter climate in the coming few years. It is said Cape Town alone will need at least two seasons of strong rainfall to recover from the current drought.

The current water infrastructure systems are struggling to keep up with the rapid increases in water demand services driven by a combination of economic activities and society's living requirements as a whole (WWF, 2013). As a first, citizens can accept the shared responsibility by adopting sustainable practices by changing our behavioural patterns through using grey water to flush the toilet and for irrigation as practical examples.

On an urban infrastructure basis government, academia and the private sector can combine planning efforts through effective Private Public Partnerships (PPPs) which can be used in the creation of sustainable state-owned assets and services. Although there is a national PPP framework in place, one must also look making it easier to understand and National Treasury must give insight on how this can be used to fast track the countrys National Development Plan objectives.

Carefully considered PPPs can help ensure the following:

1. Minimise the financial burden on government as the risk is shared with the private partner. PPPs should seek to achieve optimum risk transfer between the public and private sectors and also to subsequently allocate risk within the private partner or consortium. These risks may be associated with the investment, design, construction or operation of an asset, such as a public building or civil engineering works, or the provision of services, such as waste or water management which typically require a significant capital investment.

2. In some cases, there is minimal capital layout by the government department. Therefore, in the case of PPPs, the project funding can be provided by the implementing partner(s) thereby ensuring cost effectiveness and time management efficiencies.

3. During the implementation of the project, government can enforce that the following objectives are met by the infrastructure project:

a. Local enterprise development by procuring from local suppliers and businesses;

b. Capacity building of government staff since the skill set is in the private sector.

c. Partnering with a research partner such a university or TVET college to ensure that the peer-to-peer learning efforts are transferred successfully. An example is the accreditation of training and capacity building efforts provided by the private sector partner.

Economic transformation in PPPs

These integrated clean technology projects can be used strategically to meet wider environmental and social goals such as carbon emission mitigation, promoting resource efficiency, creation of green jobs and promoting innovation in planned infrastructure programmes.

Well considered PPPs also presents government with a major opportunity to promote its economic transformation programmes, namely through the training and upskilling of young, unemployed HDSA professionals on technical skills such as energy and water auditing, green design methods, conditional assessments, and Measurement and Verification (M&V). These skills are in high demand in the local green building industry and can be exported to the rest of the continent.

Examples of successfully implemented PPPs include the Gautrain project, Renewable Energy Independent Power Purchase Programme (REI4P), Richards Bay Desalination plant, and Environment House (a resource efficient building which is owned by the Department of Environmental Affairs), to name a few. The common thread between these infrastructure projects is their combined response to the needs of society and the need to lower carbon emissions, and have resulted in green job creation. This is the essence what a green economy entails.

Risk mitigation though green PPPs

It should be noted that infrastructure PPPs alone will not deliver value for money for the public purse in the absence of rigorous contracts, comprehensive feasibility studies and good governance by all contracting partners. The public authority must always be in a position to rigorously assess whether the proposed PPP contract is bankable in light of the surrounding market conditions. Water PPPs can also be problematic as water is widely regarded as a human right and many people argue that it is a core function of government and should not be privatised. South Africa would have to thread carefully as some of these have been badly executed in other countries where PPPs were used to supply water to poorer areas and water costs escalated. However, there are varying types of PPPs and this model can be tailored to fit into the local context (Gauge, 2017).

The private sector can also deliver these projects more efficiently than the government as it was demonstrated by the REI4P and Gautrain projects. In most cases, the private partner effectively owns the asset until they hand it back to the state after the contract period. In this contract period, the state can ensure that certain performance measures are in place to ensure that socio-economic targets are met in the process (the ones highlighted earlier).

These emerging opportunities will be reviewed in line with present challenges facing public infrastructure at the upcoming GGC2017 engagement platform in September with key decision makers in the government sector, with a focus on the public building sector.

PPPs in green buildings

Our platform looks at specific opportunities across building services and maintenance units to introduce green technology solutions across the public facilities (education, healthcare, and offices). Buildings are one of the largest consumers of water across the board - commercial and government. As a matter of fact, without water, the operational activities of organisations cannot function normally and often lead to revenue losses. If we thought we had challenges with load shedding, the water crisis will introduce new challenges to the operating activities of businesses and government facilities alike.

The GGC2017 will create a platform where the government can assess their high resource (energy and water) consuming facilities and work with green building experts to identify suitable interventions for reducing consumption levels.

Innovative approaches to infrastructure service provision can assist in managing the costs of resource inputs and waste treatment, making services more affordable to government and the public in the longer term whilst contributing to a greener economy. The local green building industry is also matured to a point to address these challenges in ways that are in line with government budgets.
MSC Cruises recently took official delivery of next-generation cruise ship MSC Meraviglia - at 171,598 GRT and with a guest capacity of 5,714 - at the STX France shipyard. MSC Meraviglia is both the biggest ship to ever be built by a European ship owner - MSC Cruises - and the biggest to come into service in 2017.

Image Source: MSC Cruises - Christening of MSC Meraviglia

She is also one of the six new ships due to come into service between 2017 and 2020 under the companys industry-unprecedented investment plan. Four of these six vessels will be built by STX France, further reinforcing a long-standing partnership that has already produced all 13 vessels in MSC Cruises fleet, allowing the company to grow by 800% from 2003 to 2013.

MSC Cruises estimates that its total investment at STX France from 2003 to 2020 will amount to over seven billion euros, effectively making the company the countrys number one foreign private investor (when it comes to export contracts.) Considering that the building of MSC Meraviglia required 1,700 workers per month (over 3,000 per month during peak periods) and nine million man hours, and that the construction work feeds into a network of over 400 suppliers and subcontractors, the economic effects of this investment are not only widely felt across the countrys geography but also multiplied several times over.

The realisation of our long-term vision

MSC Cruises Executive Chairman Pierfrancesco Vago said: MSC Meraviglias coming into service marks a key milestone in the history and future of our company. She represents the first realisation of our long-term vision for further significant growth, which, in its first phase, culminated with MSC Cruises becoming, two years ago, the number one cruise brand across all of Europe, while on its way to further global growth.

STX France's CEO Laurent Castaing also commented: Delivering a ship is always a time of great emotion for the shipyard: it is the culmination of three years of intense work for our employees and those of our partners, who have spared no effort to deliver on the exact date and in the quality conditions desired by our client MSC Cruises, this first ship of the Meraviglia class. Benefiting from our advances in R&D from the "Ship of the Future" programme supported by ADEME, this prototype is a great achievement that we can all be proud of and which allows us to look confidently at the next three ships.

MSC Meraviglia, the 13th cruise ship to join MSC Cruises fleet since its inception in 2003, is 315 metres long, 43 metres wide and 65 metres high, with 171,598 GRTs. She is able to travel up to 22.7 knots and has been designed to operate in all seasons and to be able to call in most of the worlds international cruise ports, offering the widest and most exciting range of marine as well as onboard features of any MSC Cruises ship to-date.

MSC Meraviglia set sail towards the Port of Le Havre for her christening ceremony on 3 June 2017. From there, she will begin her first sailing along the Atlantic coast, calling at Vigo (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), all the way to the Mediterranean, calling in Barcelona (Spain), Marseille (France) and eventually Genoa (Italy). She will commence the first regular seven-night itinerary on 11 June, sailing from Genoa on to Naples (Italy), Messina (Italy), Valletta (Malta), Barcelona, Marseille and back to Genoa on 18 June.

Image Source: MSC Cruises - MSC Meraviglia

MoU: Building MSC Cruises World Class

At the MSC Meraviglia Flag Ceremony the two companies signed a new memorandum of understanding firming up the order of two 200,000 GRT, LNG-powered mega cruise ships, with options for two additional vessels. The four ships will become MSC Cruises World Class. In connection with the signing, MSC Cruises and STX France also unveiled several key features of the World Class. Among other innovations, they will be equipped with a completely new generation of LNG-powered engines as well as a new generation waste water treatment system.

MSC Cruises World Class cruise ships will feature 2,760 cabins and a maximum occupancy of 6,850 guests, the highest passenger capacity in the global cruise fleet. The vessels, which will be delivered in 2022 and 2024  the options are for 2025 and 2026  will have a length of 330 metres and 47 metres of beam.

The World Class futuristic Y shape structure will enable panoramic sea views and increase the proportion of balcony cabins. The ships G bow (vertically positioned at a 90-degree angle) has been designed to improve stability, hydrodynamics as well as to enhance guest comfort. Other guest-centric innovations include family-friendly villages, a panoramic aft, and a glass pool lounge.

At the Flag Ceremony, Vago said: As we unveil MSC Meraviglia, a new vessel that marks the start of the next phase of our growth, we are delighted to confirm another key component of our ten-year investment plan: the World Class. These new vessels will further expand our partnership with STX France all the way to 2026, with up to seven additional innovative ships to be built during this period.
DETROIT, US: General Motors shareholders have rejected a proposal to divide company shares into two distinct classes, the company announced.

The vote at the auto giant's annual meeting came after GM chief Mary Barra said the proposal from hedge fund investor David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital was not in the stockholders' best interest.

Einhorn argued the company should boost its stock price and his proposal called for creating two classes of common stock, with one focused on dividends and the other on capital appreciation.

But 91% of shareholders voted against the proposal; 96% if Greenlight's own votes were discounted.

Also during the shareholders meeting, all 11 members of GM's board of directors were re-elected, each receiving between 84% and 99% of the vote.

Sales figures for GM, the biggest US carmaker, fell 1.3% last month compared to the same month in 2016.

Source: AFP
DURBAN: Recognised for his outstanding work in upholding the values of a free press along with his unwavering support for colleagues, some 150 of whom are currently in jail, Turkish journalist and former editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper, Can Dundar is the deserving recipient of the Golden Pen of Freedom.

Photographer: Vincent Peyregne @vincentpeyregne on Twitter

The annual press freedom award of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) was made in Durban during the opening ceremony of the 69th World News Media Congress and 24th World Editors Forum.

Journalists need courage because there is a cloud of fear hanging over them  fear is everywhere, and it is so powerful, said Dundar in his acceptance speech, delivered in front of over 700 publishers, CEOs and editors in chief from the global news industry. I come from the biggest prison for journalists in the world: currently 150 of my colleagues are behind bars in Turkey, and imprisoning one member of the press intimidates hundreds of others.

Following a July 2016 failed coup attempt, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has clamped down on an already stifling environment for independent media by using the penal code, criminal defamation legislation, and the countrys anti-terrorism laws to punish critical reporting. Journalists are facing growing violence, harassment, and intimidation from both state and non-state actors.

Along with unprecedented numbers of arrests and imprisonment, often for supposed breaches of national security laws or for collusion in anti-state activities (for which there is rarely any evidence presented), the Turkish authorities have also reportedly shut down some 150 media organisations since the coup attempt.

We are gathered here to celebrate journalism, honour a fearless, principled editor-in-chief, and denounce the appalling situation that has been unfolding for press freedom in Turkey, affirmed Dave Callaway, World Editors Forum president, editor and CEO of The Street.

Journalism is not a crime. Turkey must immediately and unconditionally free all journalists in jail because of their work, Callaway said.

Restoring media independence and guaranteeing press freedom should be an absolute priority for anyone with an interest in seeing Turkey succeed.

Can Dundar, a journalist for nearly 40 years, has worked across magazines, daily newspapers, and television. He was dismissed from his post at daily Milliyet in 2013 in a decision widely believed to have been a result of his critical commentary of the governments handling of the Gezi Park unrest. He was transferred to Cumhuriyet, Turkeys oldest newspaper, where he was named editor-in-chief in February 2015.

In November of the same year, Dundar was arrested together with his colleague, Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul, following the publication of an article alleging Turkey's intelligence services had attempted to send arms to Syrian rebel groups. President Erdogan had previously claimed the trucks were delivering humanitarian aid. Authorities revealed the two journalists had been arrested for "knowingly and willingly aiding an armed terrorist organisation," "membership of a terrorist organisation," and "obtaining and exposing secret state documents for means of political and military espionage. Had their cases gone to trial, they would have both faced life imprisonment. After spending 92 days in jail, the pair were released on 26 February 2016 after the Turkish Supreme Court decided that their detention was an "undue deprivation of liberty".

Since June of that year, Dundar has lived in exile in Germany; having survived an assassination attempt outside an Istanbul court  for which the gunman spent just five months in jail  he decided it was too dangerous to continue living in his homeland. There are currently six arrest warrants against him in Turkey.

As a leading member of the global freedom of expression movement, the voice of WAN-IFRA has been a constant, denouncing the attacks, the jailings, the closures and the lack of guarantees for journalists to carry out their profession unhindered, said Callaway. We cannot let up; our Turkish colleagues need our support now, more than ever.
BERLIN, Germany: Ailing German airline Air Berlin said on Wednesday that it was open to working with Lufthansa, as it struggled to stem heavy losses.

The Berlin-based airline booked losses amounting to 1.2bn ($1.3bn) for the last two years, and depends on cash infusions from key shareholder Etihad for survival.

"We need to find a partner in 2017, and Lufthansa is a possible one," said Air Berlin chief executive Thomas Winkelmann.

"I will look at everything that makes sense for Air Berlin and secures jobs in the long term," he told Die Zeit weekly in an interview.

Executives from Germany's second-largest airline presented a massive restructuring plan in late September that included renting 38 aircraft with crew to Lufthansa and slashing 1,200 jobs - or one in seven of its workforce.

Flight cancellations, delays

Amid its restructuring, it has also been hit by a string of flight cancellations and severe delays, including over the recent Whitsun long weekend.

Winkelmann apologised to his clients for the problems, saying: "I am sorry for the delays. I myself am furious when there is a delay of more than ten minutes."

But beyond the bad publicity caused by the delays, the airline would also have to pay a price.

According to Germany's biggest daily Bild, compensation payments over the Whitsun weekend alone are expected to reach more than half a million euros.

Source: AFP
Up to 6,000 African journalists will receive training in data journalism skills this year in a Code for Africa digital journalism initiative supported by Google News Labs and the World Bank.

Daniel Sieberg

Code For Africa is empowering journalists in Africa by giving them the necessary support to better understand the Web and how to use the tools available to them online.

The Code For Africa Digital Journalism initiative will take place over the next nine months (to February 2018) and see the 6000 journalists trained in 12 major African cities: Abuja, Lagos, Nairobi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Casablanca, Dakar, Freetown, Dar es Salaam, Kampala, and Yaounde.

Code For Africa is a data journalism and civic technology initiative operating across Africa that trains and supports journalists and civic activists to better understand and use web tools for news reporting and storytelling.

Training will take place in three formats.

Beginning June 15, in-person training sessions will be held in the cities mentioned above. In each city, training will be conducted in three newsrooms and will be held twice a month for the duration of the initiative.

Beginning August, a massive open online course (MOOC) will be made freely available online, covering a range of web concepts and practices for digital journalists.

There will also be monthly study group meetups in collaboration with Hacks/Hackers to provide more focused, in-person instruction. Monthly meetings will take place in Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.

Commenting on the initiative, Daniel Sieberg, head of training & development at Google News Lab said: The web and digital tools present an interesting array of options for journalists, but learning how to use these tools can be a daunting task for many media people.

While the global news industry faces a knowledge challenge with regards to digital tools, Africa, by virtue of its non-digital education systems, faces even greater odds in the battle for digital integration in news and storytelling. In Nigeria for instance, only a few of the journalism institutions offer training programs that focus on web tools, and many top news organisations lose out on stories due to their inability to utilise newer and more engaging digital techniques.

In 2016, Google announced its commitment to train one million African youth within one year to help them create and find jobs via the web. With the digital journalism initiative we want to contribute to the growth of Africas news and media ecosystem by training present and future practitioners on how to employ existing tools to tell stories, and support them to create locally-relevant tools that will reshape how Africans consume news, he added.
Is expanding into Africa the next logical step for a successful small business enterprise or should they rather be cautious and consider that expansion on the continent is not viable for all businesses?

 Matthias Ziegler via 123RF

Africa has long been regarded as the final frontier for investment  a region with untapped economic opportunity. Just last week, Ernst & Young released its Attractiveness Program Africa 2017 which stated that by 2030, Africa is set to be a $ 3 trillion economy, and that the long-term outlook for the continent remains positive, as many economies continue to experience growth, with some in excess of 5%.

For small business owners, expanding into other African regions seems a logical next step to meeting a business growth objectives and is an achievable goal for entrepreneurs committed enough to the task.

This is according to Mark Paper, chief operating officer for Business Partners International, a subsidiary of Business Partners Limited, who says that expanding into other African regions  while a natural growth progression for some  is not feasible for all businesses, as each economy is ultimately a different world and demands an entirely new set of rules and objectives.

Taking business operations across borders should neither be a question of how big a business is, nor in what growth stage the business finds itself. The quest should rather focus on which markets are necessary to target in order to achieve business goals, says Paper.

He warns though, that many entrepreneurs sometimes forget how big Africa is. There are 54 individual countries, each with their own unique economies, laws, languages and cultures. Entrepreneurs wishing to expand their local business operations should plan the expansion in detail, with a careful assessment of the identified regions strengths, weaknesses and potential opportunities and threats, he adds.

In making such assessments, Paper says that entrepreneurs should consider, among other things, the language barrier; availability of local skills; potential demand for the product/service, as well as the competitive landscape present in the market. Also important to consider is both the regions historic economic performance together with its forecasted future performance  as this should provide a good indication of growth prospects within the region.

Africa is open for business and all it takes is enough drive, passion and perseverance to tap into its growing markets.

Paper points to the Doing Business Report 2017 which ranks economies (out of 190) in terms of the ease of doing business therein. According to this report, Rwanda is the best performing African economy, ranked at number 56 with other sub-Saharan African countries where Business Partners International operates, ranking as follows: South Africa at 74; Kenya at 92; Zambia at 98; Namibia at 108; Uganda at 115 and Malawi at 133.

The report takes into account a number of factors when ranking these economies  including the level of regulations that enable businesses to start, operate or expand. Other factors considered include the ease of starting a business, applying for necessary permits, reliable electricity supply, registering property, access to credit, tax regulations, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and labour market regulations, among others.

Paper concludes, While there are a number of aspects to consider when expanding across borders, the list should not deter entrepreneurs from taking the leap, but should serve rather as a reminder of the amount of research that should be conducted beforehand.

Africa is open for business and all it takes is enough drive, passion and perseverance to tap into its growing markets.
If you don't know what aquaculture is, you're not alone: a 2009 survey found that a remarkable 85% of South Africans had never even heard the term, and most are still unaware of its importance. The situation hasn't improved much, more people have heard of it but few actually know what it is.

Morley Read via 123RF - Tilapia underwater at a fish farm

Aquaculture is the aquatic equivalent of agriculture. It involves essentially growing animals and plants that live in lakes, rivers or the sea, mostly for human consumption. It has been one of the worlds fastest growing industries in recent decades

In fact, today, youre more likely to be eating farmed fish than fish from the wild. But that is not true in South Africa, yet. In 2014 the supply of fish for human consumption from aquaculture exceeded that from wild-caught fisheries for the first time. This trend is continuing, as the amount of fish which can be supplied by the traditional fishing industry has reached a plateau, and aquaculture continues to expand at a rapid rate. Its increasing in those countries with a long tradition of aquaculture, but also in regions where it hasnt been done before.

As the supply of fish and seafood through fishing becomes less sustainable, the global challenge is to replace it sustainably through aquaculture.

The industry has grown slowly in sub-Saharan Africa. Freshwater fish aquaculture has recently expanded very rapidly in the region from a low base. Marine aquaculture has yet to take off, with only one or two successful examples. As fisheries become more depleted, theres a growing need and opportunity to develop aquaculture for food.

Shortage of suitable sea space may eventually limit expansion in South Africa, but there are many such sea areas around the continent where marine aquaculture could increase rapidly given the required input of investment and expertise.

Aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa

Most of the worlds aquaculture production takes place in Asia, with China (60%), and the top 6 countries  all in Asia  produce 86%. The rapid growth rate in aquaculture production over the last quarter of a century in Asian countries is being mirrored in the production of freshwater fish in sub-Saharan Africa.

Only 550 000 tonnes of aquatic animals were grown in 2014, which is less than 1% of the world production. Almost all of this is of freshwater fish  mostly catfish, Tilapia and Nile Perch. Nigeria and Uganda are the regions leading producers.

Marine aquaculture production in Africa is a more depressing story. Just 12 000t of animal production was reported in 2008, dropping to 10 000t in 2014. Most of this was made up of prawns in Madagascar and Mozambique, and molluscs like abalone, mussels, and oysters in South Africa. The drop in output was largely because of the White Spot Syndrome Virus in prawn aquaculture. This has decimated the industry in Mozambique and Madagascar since 2011.







Mike Stekoll





One long-term marine aquaculture industry in the region is the red seaweeds in Tanzania, with a figure of 13 000t in 2014. The seaweed is not eaten directly but is exported dry for overseas production of the colloid carrageenan. This is a type of jelly which is used mostly in the food industry as a thickening, gelling, stabilising and suspending agent in milk and water-based foods. The income from cultivation of these seaweeds is low from a global perspective, but makes a significant difference to household incomes in some areas, particularly in Zanzibar.

In South Africa, youre almost certainly eating aquaculture products if you order local oysters, mussels, and trout, or imported salmon, prawns, or seaweed in sushi.

South African marine aquaculture

The countrys main marine aquaculture success story is the local abalone Haliotis midae (perlemoen).

It began in the 1990s, and now around 1500t are produced annually representing over 90% of the value of South African marine aquaculture. South African abalone is not grown on ropes, rafts or in cages in the sea or sheltered bays/estuaries unlike most of the global marine aquaculture. Its a high-value product, grown by pumping large amounts of seawater into tanks on land.

A large abalone farm pumps over 10 million litres of seawater per hour, with electricity for pumping a major cost component. Such infrastructure is only economically feasible with a high-value product. Most South African farmed abalone is flown live or exported in cans to China.

The two main success stories in marine aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa are very different: seaweed grown attached to ropes in the sea and exported as low priced raw material, and a shellfish grown in land-based systems and exported as a high priced food. Both of them provide income and employment, but not food for Africans.

There have been numerous attempts to grow marine fish and prawns in South Africa in land-based systems. This works for abalone  does it often fail for fish because of a lower-priced product? Successful operations elsewhere involving sea-cage production of fish such as salmon operate as simpler systems, without large-scale water pumping.

South Africa has particular constraints for marine aquaculture having a very straight coastline with high wave energy, mostly unsuitable for rafts and cages. Most of South Africas offshore marine aquaculture happens in Saldanha Bay on the west coast, with plans to extend the area used, and there are a limited number of other feasible sites.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com.
Kristina: Lets start at the beginning  what is RCS?

Tim Fujita-Yuhas, Director of Product Management & New Product Strategy, OpenMarket: RCS stand for Rich Communications Services, which simply put translates to an enhanced messaging experiencethink text messaging 2.0. RCS gives the simple text message an upgrade in that its capabilities are more similar to enhanced messages sent through a third-party app. Think better group chat capabilities, high resolution photo sharing, video chat, along with the standard read receipts and typing indicators.

Kristina: Will RCS supplant traditional SMS?

Tim: While youll hear RCS being widely described as an upgrade to SMS, I prefer to refer to it as the next evolution of SMS. RCS builds off of SMSs technology to deliver users an enhanced messaging experience. RCS was developed as a direct response to the naysayers, those viewing the standard SMS text message as having hit its peak at 20+ years old.

In its old age, SMS has maintained its position as the most convenient, simple, and real-time form of communication in the digital age. In fact, it hasnt just held its ground, its gained steamas the majority of millennials prefer to communicate with businesses via textingover email, voice calls, and social messaging platforms.

So while SMS may have needed a dose of new, enhanced, digital experiences to compete in the ever-changing communication landscape, the idea behind it and the immediate benefits it enables will never go out of style. It will, however, continue to adapt with the times, as proven with RCS.

Kristina: Will we see a move to put RCS messaging across mobile devices or will this remain an Android option?

Tim: The goal for RCS is to ultimately exist on every phone, through every carrier, and allow consumers to connect with everyone in their networkwhether its brand to consumer, or person to person, communication. With the technology currently growing at a 15 percent monthly rate, universal adoption of RCS is not only soon, its inevitable.

More from Tim and OpenMarket tomorrow, including how brands can prep for an RCS campaign.
Assyrian Leader Voices Concern At EU-parliament Conference on Future of Nineveh Plain

Attiya Gamri (inset), the President of the Assyrian Confederation of Europe. ( AINA) Brussels (AINA) -- The President of the Assyrian Confederation of Europe (ACE), Attiya Gamri, voiced strong concerns on the treatment of Assyrians and Yazidis by Kurdish military and political groups in northern Iraq during a conference in the European parliament on June 6.

The Conference, titled Post-ISIS Nineveh: The European Response, was hosted by Ms. Ana Gomes and Mr. Elmar Brok, members of the European Parliament, organized by various entities, including the Institute for International Law and Human Rights (IILHR), the Multinational Development Policy Dialogue of Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), the Unrepresented Nations and People's Organization (UNPO), and Minority Rights Group International (MRG).

Several important questions still remain six months into the the military operation to retake Mosul from ISIS, with the most important being the issue of the political, social and economic conditions for the sustainable return of those who lost homes and livelihoods as a result of the conflict.

Speakers included Iraqi parliamentarians and civil society activists, MEPs, EU institutions and EU member states representatives. The president of the Assyrian Confederation of Europe asked EU-officials not to overlook the role of Kurdish political groups such as the peshmerga and the KDP political party of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani in the difficulties facing Assyrians and Yazidis in the Nineveh Plain and Sinjar. "During my visits to the region Assyrians and Yazidis have whispered carefully in my ear of the oppression they face from Kurdish groups. I'm glad that as an European living in freedom I don't have to whisper and that I can be their voice in this chamber today", she said.

The peshmerga has been accused of ethnic cleansing, arbitrary arrests and a range of other atrocities against non Kurds in reports from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organisations. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom in its recent report on the Kurdish region paints a dark picture of the reality on the ground. The report states that:

Kurdish authorities, parties, and security services have been accused of attempting to 'Kurdify' more ethnically diverse parts of the disputed territories, possibly as part of KRG policy to boost retention of the disputed territories once Baghdad turns its attention to its territories now occupied by Peshmerga following battles with ISIS. Although officials deny such a policy exists, a growing number of NGOs, activists, and reports have detailed evidence of the destruction of properties and attempts to prevent IDPs returning to their homes. In addition, some minorities are precluded from aid or support, or are even targeted, if they do not support or are critical of local Kurdish parties. This may be part of a long-term strategy to entrench control of the disputed territories." The report adds that not only have displaced Yazidis been pressured to identify as Kurds but Assyrians have "faced land appropriations by Kurdish landowners.

The Assyrian Confederation of Europe is an umbrella organization based in Brussels for Assyrian national federations and associations across Europe. The Assyrian diaspora in Europe is estimated to be half a million strong.
Of the school buildings that took a toll, around 30 have been completely destroyed, said U Khin Aung, a Maungdaw township education officer.

A total of 217 school buildings have sustained damaged according to the list we have received on June 3, he said. Seventy-five percent of the buildings have been moderately damaged. The remaining 30 percent need to be rebuilt. Schools located between the mountains may have been damaged as well.

The local schools are trying to work around the situation and keep classrooms functioning despite the havoc. Arrangements have been made at most schools to teach lessons in staggered shifts in the remaining functional buildings.

It may take a month to repair the buildings. At the Number 1 Basic Education High School Maungdaw, five or six out of eleven buildings have been damaged. The students will have to attend school in either morning or afternoon shifts as there are not enough school buildings, U Khin Aung said.

The storm has also damaged the roofs of student hostels in Nan Thar Taung Philanthropic School in northern Maungdaw township, which hosts over 500 students and 17 teachers.

All the roofs of the hostels and bathrooms have been ripped off so there are difficulties with the students living arrangements. Teaching has been halted as the students have to sleep in the classrooms, said U Nyar Ka, the chief abbot of Nan Thar Taung Philanthropic School.

The Maungdaw Township General Administrative Department has not yet visited the philanthropic school to report on the damages, but the Ministry of Border Affairs and the Education and Training Department have been notified about the schools condition.

Cyclone Mora lashed Bangladesh and Rakhine State on May 29 to 30. In a June 2 statement, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said parts of central Rakhine remain at risk of landslides and collapsing riverbanks, while Maungdaw is inundated with floods following the cyclone. Refugees and internally displaced people in Bangladesh and Rakhine State were among the worst affected by the storm, which included winds surging upward of 72 miles per hour. Reuters reported that in one refugee camp across the border in Bangladesh, about 70 percent of the makeshift shelters were damaged.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
Maungdaw District officials estimate more than 14,000 area homes were damaged or destroyed Cyclone Mora last month. (Photo  Facebook)

Houses in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships were hard hit when Cyclone Mora lashed the state at the end of May. According to the latest figures compiled by local administrators, more than 14,000 homes in the district sustained some amount of damage.

A total of 14,000 houses have been damaged or destroyed in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships under Maungdaw District. Four thousand houses collapsed and another ten thousand houses sustained some damage, said U Ye Htut, an administrator of Maungdaw District.

Collecting the list of damaged properties was initially hampered by transportation difficulties and a loss of telephone communication after the cyclone, he added.

Maungdaw Township Education Officer U Khin Aung told Narinjara News that 217 school buildings have been damaged in Maungdaw, with 30 completely destroyed.



Buthidaung Township Education Officer U Nyunt Pe said 194 schools in his township sustained damage, and among those, 14 were completely destroyed.

The Maungdaw District Administrator estimated repair costs could exceed K1.3 billion.

Last week, U Ko Ko Naing, director general of the Ministry for Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement visited the damaged areas of Maungdaw District, accompanied by U Ye Htut. They provided monetary aid to families whose homes were destroyed, according to state media.





Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
The controversial Buddhist organization formerly known as Ma Ba Tha has provided financial and food aid to cyclone victims in northern Rakhine State.

Infamous for staging anti-Muslim and pro-nationalists sermons and protests, Ma Ba Tha last month rebranded as a philanthropic group after the Sangha banned the Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion as it was officially called in English, from any further activity.

The newly renamed Buddha Dhamma Parahita Foundation joined other Buddhist organizations, including the Dhamma Wunthanu Rakhita Association, in donating K6.3 million and 3,000 viss of dried fish to cyclone-affected monasteries and to Rakhine residents in Maungdaw on June 6.

An additional K4.56 million and 3,000 tonnes of dried fish were donated for cyclone-affected monasteries and residents in Rathedaung township.

Im very happy to receive the donation for the 73 damaged monasteries in Maungdaw township, said Maungdaw District Administrator U Ye Htut, adding that over 140 Buddhist buildings in total were affected by the cyclone.

After receiving the donations from the Buddhist philanthropic groups, U Ye Htut said it is important to preserve the Rakhine ethnicity and the practice of Buddhism in the area.

Northern Rakhine State is majority Muslim.

Ma Ba Tha gained a reputation for stoking fears that Buddhism in Myanmar is under threat from an encroaching Muslim population, and for espousing such sentiment in conflict-riddled Rakhine State.

However, figures from the 2014 census show that the Muslim population has held steady at around 4 percent nationwide, comparable to the results from previous censuses.





Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
The K80 million proposal would support over 130 Mon national schools where the curriculum is taught entirely in Mon language. The program was previously supported by a grant from the UN childrens fund (UNICEF), according to Min Aung Zay, an officer leading the Mon National School project.

He said the Mon National Education Committee already submitted the proposal and request for a budget in February, but has not yet received a reply. He is nevertheless optimistic the program will be approved eventually.

We only need permission from the Presidents Office. We are likely to get the budget for the school fund and stationaries, he said.

More than 130 Mon national schools operate in southern Myanmar, with about 90 in Mon State, 24 in Kayin (Karen) State and 16 in Tanintharyi Region.

Both Mon children and non-Mon children who are interested can attend the schools.

Burmese, Karen, and Dawei children who are not Mon can also attend. In some villages, Karen and Dawei children do attend, Min Aung Zay said.

U Aung Naing Oo, deputy Speaker of the Mon State Hluttaw, expressed support for the project. He said the Mon national schools should be granted a sufficient budget and the government should assist with infrastructure, but he isnt as optimistic as Min Aung Zay that the program will get a green light any time soon.

We have been demanding [support for this] since the previous administration. But the Union government hasnt made any decisions because they are not state-run schools, he said.

The Mon national schools have over 800 teachers on the payroll.

The government should take responsibility for the schools requirements and health issues. The main difficulty is the teachers salaries. There are also difficulties with the school buildings, said Mi La Wi Han, a former high school principal from a Mon national school. The public has been trying its best to support the schools in the rural areas that are out of governments reach.

She called on the Union government to recognize Mon national school teachers as colleagues on par with teachers from the state-run schools.

High school students from Mon national schools have been allowed to sit the matriculation exam since 1996. Over 400 Mon national school students have passed the matriculation exam.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
On November 8, the coup council said that it would deactivate mobile SIM cards that did not match the information provided by the Ministry of...
African Bald Men Are Warned On A Serious Note Due To This! Pulse oi-Syeda Farah

Do you think that every bald man that you see on the street is a rich guy? Or the guy who is seen wearing a suit is a rich man? This is a misconception that people have, and this is thanks to the movies we all watch!

But have you ever wondered that this concept of bald men being rich can be a threat to them? Well, this is what is happening to men in Africa, where being bald is a threat! The witchcraft doctors are fooling people by stating that BALD MEN ARE RICH!

You May Also Like To Read: An Ad That Nailed Trump's Birth Prevention!

Read this bizarre piece of information on this weird reason of bald guys being at risk!

They Are The Latest Targets Of Witchcraft In Africa They have become the latest targets of witchdoctors in Mozambique, Africa. Their Body Parts Are Used For Police say that the body parts and heads of bald men are being traded across the borders to Malawi and Tanzania. They are believed to be of a great value in witchcraft. It Is Believed 'Their motivations of killing these bald men comes from the superstition and culture of what the local community here thinks. Apparently, they feel bald men are rich and that their parts can be used to enrich others and hence that is the soul reason to kill them. Hence, The Bald People Are Warned By Cops The police have sent an alert warning to the people in Africa who are bald, as this could stop unwanted murders. People Suffering From Albinism Are Also Killed For The Same Purpose! Even the people suffering from Albinism are killed with the same motive, as it is believed that their body parts are great witchcraft objects which can enrich the others. We wonder when will all these superstitions come to an end! Do share your thoughts in the comment section below on this.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 22:18 [IST]
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BRUSSELS (AP): The European Union on Wednesday unveiled a new defence fund to get better value for money on high-tech projects like drones or robotics as European allies at NATO come under US pressure to boost their military budgets.



The European Commission said the fund would provide a total of 500 million euros (US$ 563 million) in EU money in 2019 and 2020 to help buy and develop military equipment.



This would double to 1 billion euros annually from 2020.



The Commission says it expects the money to generate about five times that amount for developing defence capabilities, once member countries make their contributions.



The EU money would be used to finance the building of prototypes for cutting-edge technologies, the riskiest phase for investors when projects hang in the balance.



The money would only be granted if a minimum of three companies were taking part from a minimum of two EU member countries.



The executive Commission is also offering grants for defence research. EU countries spend around seven times less on defence research and development than the United States.



US President Donald Trump has demanded that NATO's European allies and Canada start spending 2 per cent of gross domestic product on military budgets.



Twenty-two EU countries are also members of the world's biggest military alliance.



But the Commission insists a big problem is that defence budgets are badly spent. It says more than 25 billion euros is lost annually through poor cooperation and estimates that around 30 percent of expenditure could be saved if nations bought equipment together.



"Two per cent of GDP spent separately provides less security than if part of the money is used jointly. As important as the amount of money, is how to use it,"



Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen told reporters.



Alongside its budget plans, the Commission also launched debate on what direction EU defence cooperation should take once Britain leaves in 2019.



While not going as far as to suggest the creation of an EU Army, the Commission does encourage countries to cooperate more closely and allow Brussels to have a bigger say in defence matters.




AX-5, the first Japanese-assembled F-35A was unveiled in Nagoya Japan on 5 June 2017. Photo: Thinh Nguyen, Lockheed Martin

NAGOYA, JAPAN (BNS): AX-5, the first Japanese-assembled F-35A was recently unveiled at a ceremony held at Nagoya, Japan.



The Japan F-35 FACO is operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) with technical assistance from Lockheed Martin and oversight from the US Government.



Approximately 200 people attended the ceremony including Japanese and United States government and defence industry leaders, Lockheed Martin said in a statement.



The ceremony held on Monday highlighted the strong partnership between the Japanese Ministry of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense, MHI and Lockheed Martin.



"Seeing the first Japanese built F-35A is a testament to the global nature of this program," said Vice Adm. Mat Winter, F-35 Programme Executive Officer.



"This state of the art assembly facility, staffed with a talented and motivated workforce, enables us to leverage industry's unique talents and technological know-how to produce the world's best multi-role fighter.



The F-35 will enhance the strength of our security alliances and reinforce long-established bonds with our allies through training opportunities, exercises, and military-to-military events," he said.



The Japanese Ministry of Defence competitively selected the F-35A as the JASDF's next-generation air defence fighter in December 2011, with a Foreign Military Sales programme of record of 42 F-35As.



The first four JASDF F-35As were previously delivered from the Fort Worth, Texas, production facility. Subsequent deliveries of 38 F-35A aircraft will come from the Final Assembly and Check Out (FACO), Nagoya, in Japan.



The F-35 Lightning II is a next-generation fighter, which combines advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility equipped with advanced mission systems.






ASTANA (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital Astana on Thursday on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.



India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.



Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO.



The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit on Friday and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.



If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.



India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the US$ 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).



There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.



However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.



President Xi arrived in Astana on Wednesday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital on Thursday.



Prime Minister Modi is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.



"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit.



The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July 2015 when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to both India and Pakistan.



SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.



Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.



The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.



India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.



India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.



India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.



India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.



Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.




A file photo.

SEOUL (AFP): North Korea launched a series of what appeared to be "surface-to-ship" cruise missiles on Thursday, South Korea's defence ministry said, in what would be the latest in a string of tests in defiance of UN sanctions.



"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the ministry said.



Seoul has stepped up surveillance against possible threats, it added.



This would be the fourth missile test by the nuclear-armed regime in less than five weeks, as Pyongyang continues to defy UN warnings and US threats of possible military action.



The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions.



However, North Korea on Sunday slammed the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and vowed to press ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.



Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP: "North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees.



"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea".



The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korea port of Busan on Tuesday.



The US has stepped up its muscle-flexing in recent months in response to what it sees as aggressive shows of strength by North Korea.



Two US aircraft carriers and their escort vessels have carried out naval manoeuvers in the Sea of Japan within the last two weeks in a show of force directed at Pyongyang, the US military has said.



Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach.



The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States  something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".



The US military "successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target" in a test conducted amid concerns over the North's weapons programme, it said.



The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of a US attack.



China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks  and not more sanctions  is its priority.



But the US has said it is willing to enter into talks only if the North halts its missile and nuclear tests.



Many analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.



But most agree that the country has made significant progress under the young leader, who took power after the death of his father and long-time ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.




Prime Minister Modi with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this file photo.

JERUSALEM (PTI): In a big fillip to an already robust bilateral relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to land in Israel on July 4 on a three-day visit, the first by an Indian Prime Minister to the Jewish state.



Informed sources in Tel Aviv told PTI that Modi would be arriving in Israel on July 4 and is likely to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the same day in the evening.



Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.



He would be addressing the Indian community in Israel the following day in Tel Aviv with preparations for the event in full swing amid massive enthusiasm with people expected to attend the event from all over the country.



The Indian community has launched a website in preparation of the much awaited visit of Modi. About 80,000 Indian Jews belonging to four different communities - Bene Israel, Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bnei Menashe - live in Israel.



The Indian Jewish community in Israel still maintain some of the cultural practices from India and take a lot of pride in their origin often mentioning that India is the only nation in the world where there was no trace of anti-semitism.



Modi's ascendance to power in New Delhi generated a lot of euphoria in Israel as he was popular here for maintaining close ties with Tel Aviv during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had also visited Israel in October 2006.



One of the things that have been particularly discussed widely in the Israeli media is the "close chemistry" between Modi and Netanyahu.



Netanyahu often calls Modi "my friend" and in a recent tweet said that people of his country were eagerly waiting for his "historic" visit.



The two leaders have already met twice on foreign soil on the sidelines of UN related events and are said to be constantly in touch with each other over the phone.



"I am happy that often we can talk easily on telephone, we can discuss everything. It has very rarely happened. In your case it has happened," Modi told Netanyahu during their meeting on the sidelines of Paris Climate summit in November 2015. The Israeli premier had then promptly responded saying, "in your case too".



India's abstention at a UNHRC vote in 2015 on a UN report critical of Israel's offensive in the 2014 Gaza war was described by many here as a sign of a "qualitative leap" in ties which had transformed into a "completely normal relations without any hang ups" with many crediting the closeness between the two prime ministers for the "change in heart".



New Delhi, however, later clarified that the vote was a "principled" stand in connection to the International Criminal Court that had reference in the resolution and does not mark "any shift in policy".



Modi's visit being limited to Israel in the region, skipping Palestine, has been pointed by some analysts as a "major statement", but the Palestinian Authority (PA) clearly stated that India has the right to build relations with Israel but it should not come at the "expense" of New Delhi's firm support for the Palestinian cause.



Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited India in May.



It was his fifth visit to New Delhi in the last 12 years and the third state visit underlining the importance of relations.



"India has the right to make relations with Israel and any other country but what we care about is that it should not be at the expense of its relations with Palestine," Dr. Majdi Khaldi, senior diplomatic Advisor to Abbas, had told PTI.



The defence ties between India and Israel have often drawn worldwide attention and acquired strategic dimensions.



It is being believed that Modi's visit would further solidify security ties as Israeli defence industries have shown greater inclination towards participating in joint ventures to give a boost to the NDA government's 'Make in India' campaign.



Israel's state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) last month announced that it has inked yet another major deal worth US$ 630 million with India, giving a boost to the 'Make in India' campaign in a project to be jointly executed with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).



The contract is related to the supply of LRSAM (Long Range Surface to Air Missiles) systems for four ships of the Indian Navy. The project will be carried out, for the first time, with Indian government owned BEL, which will serve as the main contractor in the project.



In April, Israel closed a US$ 2 billion defence deal with India with IAI taking the lion's share of it with contracts worth US$ 1.6 billion. It is the largest single deal in the history of the Jewish state.



LRSAM is an advanced air and missile defence system, a unique joint development by IAI and India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in collaboration with IAI subsidiary ELTA, RAFAEL, various Indian companies including BEL, L&T, BDL and other private Indian companies.



Prime Minister Modi's visit has been preceded by several other high-profile visits, including the trip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, several senior secretaries and Minister of State for Agriculture SS Ahluwalia-led 11 member multi-party parliamentary delegation. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba would be on a five-day visit to Israel starting June 11.



All these visits have laid the ground work for several MoUs that are likely to be signed during Modi's visit.



Netanyahu's government has taken several steps to boost Israel's exports to India, emphasising that "sky is the limit" as far as cooperation between the two countries goes across several sectors.



Starting with humble figures of US$ 200 million in annual trade in 1992, the two countries have registered bilateral trade of about US$ 4.5 billion last year. Cooperation in the field of agriculture and water management has also drawn a lot of attention with Israel setting up dozens of Centres of Excellence in India to boost India's farming sector.




The Chinook military transport helicopter.

HYDERABAD (PTI): Boeing and Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) on Thursday announced the delivery of the first crown and tailcone assembly for the Indian configuration of the CH-47F Chinook helicopter.



Manufactured by TASL in Hyderabad, the parts will be delivered to Boeing for final assembly of the 15 helicopters due for delivery to the Indian Air Force, TASL said in statement.



"This delivery is another significant step in our journey to increase defence capability and manufacturing capacity out of India with our strategic partners," Boeing India president Pratyush Kumar said.



"Tata Advanced Systems has demonstrated its ability to deliver high-quality components to the CH-47 Chinook programme on schedule, which in turn helps Boeing meet commitments to our customers," he said.



"We are clearly invested in leveraging the full potential of capability that exists in India to continue delivering greater value for less cost to our US and international customers," Kumar said.



TASL's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Sukaran Singh said the company is proud to deliver the first crown and tailcone assembly for CH-47F Chinook helicopter.



"Undertaking the responsibility of complete manufacture and assembly for Boeing gives us an excellent opportunity to display our capability of development and assembly projects in high technology areas to global quality standards," he said.



"Our endeavour is to significantly contribute to the Indian defence industry and demonstrate our commitment to the 'Make in India' initiative," Singh said.



India's Defence Ministry finalised an order with Boeing in 2015 for the production, training and support of 15 CH-47F Chinook heavy-lift helicopters to enhance the country's capabilities across a range of military and humanitarian missions.



Deliveries will begin in 2019.



TASL is already delivering crown and tailcones for CH-47 Chinook helicopters for the US Army and international customers.



The CH-47F Chinook is an advanced multi-mission helicopter which is being operated by the US Army and 18 other defence forces around the world.


Passengers have told of continued delays in receiving compensation after a British Airways system outage caused travel chaos for tens of thousands.

Almost two weeks after more than 670 flights were cancelled due to a power failure over the spring bank holiday weekend, several customers said they had struggled to get in contact with the airline and still had no idea when they would receive a payout.

A lawyer, who gave her name as Milly, said there were no BA representatives at Nice airport when she arrived for her return flight to Heathrow.

The 34-year-old and her eight-month-old child were forced to embark on a 14-hour train journey back to London.

She said she was still waiting for a refund as well as compensation for train and hotel expenses, adding that she can "never get through" on the phone, and has only had correspondence via Twitter.

Milly said: "I know that in the grand scheme of things, it's nothing and there are much much worse things going on in the world, but that's why people go on holiday isnt it? To escape all that. And you choose BA to have the security and easy travel.

"I just would have thought they would have more staff helping by now."

Terry Page, 28, from London, suffered delays at Heathrow and was left without his luggage for days after it failed to make the journey with him to Texas.

He was forced to pay out for replacement clothes and toiletries, and emailed BA chief executive Alex Cruz directly after receiving an apology sent to affected passengers.

He said he received a response from an airline representative who "asked for full details and said she would handle the claim personally and very quickly".

But he revealed that "a week later, nothing's happened" and he has "no idea" how much compensation he would receive.

Jodie Reichelt, 36, of Bracknell, Berkshire, was frustrated at waiting "several days" for BA to send her a direct message after the May 27 disruption led her to cancel her family holiday.

The social care worker and mother-of-three said: "It's insulting. The onus has totally been on the customer to resolve the matter."

She has received compensation for the cancelled flights to Montepellier, but was denied a payout to cover the cost of accommodation the family were unable to use.

Under EU law, passengers can claim compensation from BA for cancelled or delayed flights, worth up to 600.

They can also claim expenses for items such as hotels, meals and phone calls.

Alex Neill, managing director of home products and services at consumer group Which?, said: "BA's failure to make it easy for people to receive the compensation that they are owed shows that their response to this crisis continues to be absolutely woeful.

"They are in grave danger of letting down their customers again by failing to go beyond the legal requirements in reaction to flight cancellations and delays.

"BA should do the right thing and automatically issue statutory compensation to all eligible passengers."

A BA spokesman said: "We have put additional resources into our customer relations teams and thousands of payments have already been made to customers who have put in claims.

"Our aim is to authorise payment for all completed EU compensation claims within 14 days of receipt.

"We will fully honour our obligations and would encourage customers to submit their expense claims to us, and we will investigate on a case by case basis."

Willie Walsh, chief executive of BA owner International Airlines Group, said on Monday that the actions of an engineer who disconnected and then reconnected a power supply to the airline's data centre in "an uncontrolled and uncommanded fashion" may be central to an investigation into the incident.
Boston Scientific has today launched its new RoadRunner endoscopy design facility in Galway where it employs 3,000 people.

The company has committed to invest 17m in endoscopy research, a procedure in which a doctor uses specialized instruments to view and operate on the internal organs of the body without making a large incision.
Update 4.16pm: The EPA said it was told the lime cloud was contained in the building and that the material was not released to the atmosphere.

"The EPA is satisfied that there was no danger to the public or local community from this release," it said.

The agency also said no rubbish was being fed into the incinerator following the incident and no burning has taken place since.

The EPA said Covanta will be compiling a report on the incident, including outlining the necessary corrective and preventative work to avoid a repeat of the incident.

"On foot of this report, and the EPA's own investigation, further action may be considered by the EPA," it warned.

According to Covanta's website, the use of lime is part of "state-of-the-art air pollution control" which states that acid gases from incineration are neutralised using lime.

The incident has sparked an outcry from opponents in Cork where the country's third incinerator is being planned for the harbour.

A decision on whether it should be given the green light has been delayed four times. The latest deferral gave the company behind the project, Indaver, time to address concerns about potential interference with helicopter flights using Haulbowline Naval Base.

Mary O'Leary, spokeswoman with Chase - the Cork Harbour Alliance for A Safe Environment - said: "It is time to put an end to the charade of safety touted by incinerator operators.

"There are hazards involved at every twist and turn in the process as last night's lime cloud incident illustrates."

Ireland has another waste incinerator, the Indaver plant near Duleek, Co Meath which began generating power in 2011.

Update 2.45pm: The general manager of the Poolbeg incinerators managing company has said the plant is absolutely safe.

His comments came after an accidental leak of lime that left 11 workers in hospital.

Two of them remain in St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin, but are likely to be released this afternoon.

The HSA is carrying out an investigation on site and all testing of the facility has stopped.

Managing Director at Covanta Energy Ireland John Daly said the company is also investigating the cause of the leak, but that people should not be worried.

We are very good at what we do. We operate 40-off plants in the US and have a very good record there, he said.

We will get to the bottom of exactly what the issue is here and make sure it doesn;t happen again.

In response to a question as to whether the plant is safe, he responded: Absolutely.

Update 2.15pm: Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has said the release of lime at the Poolbeg incinerator needs to be fully investigated, and that operations should stop in the interim.

Early investigations suggest the incident late last night was caused by a problem with a door seal, and that a small amount of lime was accidentally released during testing inside the flue gas treatment area.

Eleven men who were removing scaffolding at the time were seen afterwards in hospital, with two remaining in overnight.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said the incident needs to be fully investigated. "We've had a concern about this incinerator since the beginning. It should not go into operation until it's found out what is happening hereWe have to make sure it's safe," he said.

Dublin City Councillor for the Social Democrats Cian O'Callaghan said the incident was not acceptable, adding: "This is not meant to happen at all."

Update 11am: It has been announced that the 'uncontrolled release' of a substance at Poolbeg incinerator that resulted in 11 workers being taken to hospital concerned a small amount of lime.

The lime was inadvertently released inside the flue during the testing of the new Dublin Waste-to-Energy plant at Ringsend. The plant started burning waste last Thursday after taking its first delivery at the end of April.

The operator Covanta said the lime was contained within the building and did not escape into the environment.

Eleven men were removing scaffolding at the time. They received first aid at the scene after complaining of breathing and vision difficulties.

They attended St Vincent's hosptial as a precaution. Two men were hospitalised overnight.

Health and safety authority inspectors are on site. However, as the area is now closed off, the Environmental Protection Agency has not been able to get its inspectors in.

A spokesperson for for Dublin Waste-to-Energy Ltd said combustion unit No. 1 was shut down in an orderly and controlled manner and the lime did not escape into the environment.

Earlier:

An uncontrolled release has occurred at Poolbeg Incinerator in Dublin.

Eleven men have been treated in hospital following the incident at 6am today.

The HSA says it is treating the incident as a dangerous occurrence. It is not yet known what substance was released.

First aid was administered at the scene and the men attended St Vincent's hospital. Nine men were released, and two are being kept under observation.

HSA and EPA Inspectors due on site and an investigation is underway.
Update 9.24pm: The executive council of the Teachers Union of Ireland has decided it will not recommend the new public pay deal to its members.

The Executive Committee unanimously decided to recommend rejection after their meeting tonight.

TUI President Joanne Irwin said that it would be unconscionable for the union to recommend acceptance of an agreement that effectively copper-fastened a system of pay inequality for its duration.

The union described the draft documents failure to properly address the "discriminatory, inequitable" two-tier pay system as completely unacceptable and said that the process of pay equalisation requires acceleration rather than further delay.

TUI has more than 17,000 members who will be balloted on the draft agreement in September.

Ms Irwin said: "We acknowledge the pay restoration elements in the proposed document.

"However, an unwinding of the unacceptable, unfair and inequitable two-tier pay system was the key priority for TUI on entering the recent negotiations. Wherever and whenever possible, we vigorously pushed the issue forward.

"It remains completely unacceptable to us that two colleagues, recruited within days of one another, are paid significantly different rates for carrying out the same work. TUI has prioritised and campaigned on this issue and some progress has been made.

"The draft proposed agreement would have the effect of blocking further progress for at least three years. At a time when schools are struggling to attract teachers for an increasing number of subjects due to more lucrative options in other employments, the process of full pay equalisation requires urgent acceleration, not delay.

"Regrettably, the draft agreements provision that new entrant pay be examined over a twelve month period in 2018, with application of any outcome no sooner than 2021 is wholly inadequate.

"The unions members will be balloted on the proposed agreement in September, and the Executive Committee will be strongly advocating that they reject it."

Update 6.28pm: The executive council of the Teachers Union of Ireland has said it will meet this evening to discuss the agreement.

The TUI General Secretary John MacGabhann said he cannot say for certain, but it is likely the union will recommend to their members to reject the new deal, because it does not address pay equality for new members.

Mr MacGabhann said: "The indications are very strong that the executive will, in line with the prioritisation we've given to this issue, take a very dim view of the absence of provision for this.

"And there is a likelihood, I can't pre-empt what the executive might decide, but there is a likelihood, a strong likelihood that their decision will be that it is not possible to recommend this agreement in those circumstances.

"Right now, I can speculate but I can't be certain in my speculation about the executive's decision."

Update 4pm: Sinn Fein has said the the proposed public sector pay deal is grossly unfair because it does not address a two tier pay structure amnd ensure equal pay for equal work.

If approved in its ballots of members public sector workers will get increases of up to 10% over three years from 2018, though the pension levy introduced during the recession will only be lowered rather than abolished.

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe insists the proposals are fair for workers and taxpayers.

But Sinn Feins David Cullinane says thats not the case and that not addressing the two tier pay structiure was a mistake.

"Its .. grossly unfair that those who came into system are being asked again to operate to a two tier pay structure as far as 2022"

Update 2.30pm: The Minister for Public Expenditure, Paschal Donohoe, has said the proposed new public pay deal is fair for both workers and taxpayers.

Paschal Donohoe said he hoped public workers would approve the new deal agreed overnight, which will increase the pay of some newer workers by up to 10% a year.

In exchange, the pension levy introduced during the recession will become permanent, although at a lower rate.

Minister Donohoe said the deal proved the value of entering talks to achieve a fair deal.

Update 12 noon: Siptus health division organiser Paul Bell has said the "key objective" of protecting jobs from being outsourced has been satisfied by the new draft pay agreement.

Speaking on RTEs Today with Sean ORourke, Mr Bell (pictured) said it was imperative that members have job security and no compulsory redundancies over the next three years.

He said this is important for all members, but especially low-paid workers.

"A key objective was to ensure the clause within the Landsdowne Toad agreement protecting members jobs from being outsourced was retained in full, which ensures our members have job security and no compulsory redundancy," he said.

"Thats very key for low paid workers because theyre the ones who always feel under pressure from budgetary cuts and where theres a situation where jobs can be outsourced."

Other key issues for Siptu were the removal of the majority of members from the effects of FEMPI legislation. He said this legislation has been used to cut members salaries since 2009.

He said: "You can now see a clear roadmap where we can dismantle such cuts for people (some of whom are on ) 30,000 euro or less, and up to 34,500, which over the course of the agreement will become fully exempt from that levy. Thats a big development."

Mr Bell added that the stability that comes from this draft agreement is very important for members. He acknowledged that not everything can be achieved in negotiations over public pay.

Update 9.30am: Unions have said no one is "high-fiving" over the proposed new public sector pay deal, but it is the best they could negotiate.

Talks between the Government and more than 30 unions ran into the early hours of this morning, culminating in agreement on a 880m draft pay deal which will now be put to members.

The unions say this deal would work out as around a 7% pay increase over the next three years, for three quarters of public servants.

It is scaled to benefit those on lower incomes more. The deal will also see the threshold for the pension levy rise.

The deal follows two and a half weeks of negotiations between unions and management.

Impacts Bernard Harbor said: "Nobody is doing high-fives, but I think its the best that we can achieve. It will see pay increases over the coming year in line with the better deals that have been done in the private sector."

There are no changes in a number of areas the Government had been targeting, such as outsourcing and Saturday working, but also no provisions on recruitment and retention issues, which a number of unions face.

Liam Doran from the Nurses and Midwives Organisation said the deal "is still being digested" and that further talks would have to take place.

"Progress has been made on pay restoration, but there is still work to be done on recruitment and retention initiatives, which is our other key issue," he said.

Earlier:

The Government and public service unions have reached a draft agreement on a pay deal to succeed the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

RTE reports that almost 250,000 public sector workers recruited before 2013 are set to receive pay hikes of between 6.2% and 7.4% over the next three years, and that about 50,000 recruited after 2013 will receive increases of between 7% and 10% over the same time period.

This latter group has less generous pension entitlements than their colleagues with longer service. Employees with smaller pensions will get the biggest pay increases.

The pension levy introduced in 2009 will also be abolished, with public sector workers instead making higher pension contributions on a phased basis.

The deal is reported to be worth more than 880m - 180m and a total of 887m over three years.

90% of all public servants will be out of emergency FEMPI pay provisions by the year 2020.

Talks continued late into the night at the WRC as government and trade union representatives sought agreement on a successor to the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

Discussions yesterday are believed to have centred on pay, pensions and the possibility of Saturday working hours.

The draft proposals will now be considered by union leaders before they are put to a ballot.
Update 3pm: Leo Varadkar has warned that there will be "more disappointments than appointments" as he puts together his cabinet.

But the new Fine Gael leader has said he is not yet considering ministerial appointments, because he is still focussed on securing the support of independent TDs for him as Taoiseach.

He says he is giving some thought to restructuring government Departments, but will not say which ones.

And he says he hopes his colleagues will understand that they cannot all get cabinet seats.

He said: "I'd hope that anyone who is not appointed does not think they have lost out forever."

Update 12 noon: Leo Varadkar has said he has no plans to speak to Michael Lowry to seek his support for the Government.

The new Fine Gael leader said there was no agreement with the Tipperary TD, and he did not plan to meet him.

He added he had made good progress in talks with the eight independent TDs who supported Enda Kenny's Government.

"What I've said that any understanding that existed prior to now with the outgoing Taoiseach I am happy to honour, but there's no formal agreement in place (with Michael Lowry)," he said.

Earlier:

Leo Varadkar is spending time garnering support ahead of forming his new administration next week.

He has been meeting with Independent TDs and Ministers, and Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin.

Independent TD Dr Michael Harty has met the Taoiseach-elect with Denis Naughten and Katherine Zappone to discuss national and local issues. They first met as a group, followed by a 10-minute individual session for each of the independent TDs.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone asked Mr Varadkar to speed up preparations for an abortion referendum.

Deputy Harty said that among other issues, including facilities at Ennis Hospital, "I also spoke to him in relation to a VAT refund scheme for charities, where charities collect money and buy equipment, but have to pay VAT on that equipment, which seems quite unfair.

"He was quite receptive to that."

Mr Varadkar has said the meetings are focused on legislation that needs to be prioritised, improving the working of the Dail, and accelerating the implementation of commitments in the Programme for Government.

He said: "All of the meetings were useful and I feel that we are going in the right direction."

He is expected to be officially named as Taoiseach when the Dail returns next Tuesday, June 13.
A bus travelling to Zambia has crashed in Zimbabwe, killing 45 people, police said.

The bus crashed on Wednesday night about 156 kilometres (96 miles) north of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said.

Ms Charamba said the bus driver failed to negotiate a curve, though a formal investigation of the crash is under way.

She said 43 people died at the scene and another two died of their injuries on Thursday.

Many Zimbabweans travel to Zambia by bus daily to trade in foodstuffs and clothes.

- PA
More than 96,000 people have been infected with cholera in an outbreak that has caused at least 746 deaths in Yemen since late April, a health official said.

Nasser al-Argaly, health undersecretary in the rebel-run government in Sanaa, blamed the outbreak on the two-year-old Saudi-led campaign against Houthi rebels. The fighting has damaged infrastructure and caused shortages of medicine.
Fishermen have joined navy and air force personnel in recovering bodies and aircraft parts from the sea off Burma, where a military plane carrying 122 people crashed a day earlier.

The four-engine Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft had left Myeik, also known as Mergui, heading for Yangon on a route over the Andaman Sea.

It was raining, but not heavily, at the time contact was lost with it at 1.35pm local time on Wednesday, when it was south west of the city of Dawei, formerly known as Tavoy.

By nightfall on Thursday, the bodies of 31 people - 21 women, eight children and two men - had been recovered, said military spokesman General Myat Min Oo.

All of the bodies were taken to a military hospital in Dawei, which was visited by some of the victims' relatives.

One of them, Ma Mon, said her 32-year-old daughter Zin Wai Aung had been married to a military officer but had gone on the flight without him.

"She went on the plane with her three-month-old son. Both of them died," she said. "That was my beautiful grandson."

More than 1,000 people, including volunteers from dozens of community mutual aid societies with their vehicles, had gathered on Thursday on the beach at San Hlan village in Laung Lone township, which served as a landing point for recovery operations for the bodies.

The bodies, fetched from the sea and taken aboard large fishing vessels and navy ships, had been transferred to smaller boats which hauled them into shallow water at the beach, where soldiers put the body bags on stretchers and carried them to waiting trucks.

The process had been delayed for several hours by heavy rain and choppy seas.

Local fishermen joined nine navy ships, five military aircraft and three helicopters in the search, the military spokesman said.

One of the first finds by the searchers was of two life jackets, bodies and an aircraft wheel in the sea west of Laung Lone, he announced earlier.

The plane carried 108 passengers - mostly military personnel and their families - and 14 crew members, according to an announcement on the Facebook page of military Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, which originally gave slightly lower numbers.

Fifteen of the passengers were children.

It is not unusual for such flights to carry civilians to offset transportation costs for military families stationed in the somewhat remote south.

The Facebook page, the main source of official information about the crash, said the plane, carrying about 2.4 tons of cargo in addition to the 122 people aboard, was received in March last year and since then had logged 809 flying hours.

It said the pilot and co-pilot both had more than 3,100 hours of flying experience.

The area is about 700 kilometres (440 miles) north of the last primary radar contact with Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished on a flight from Malaysia to Beijing on March 8 2014 with 239 people on board.

That plane is believed to have flown far off course and crashed into a remote area of the southern Indian Ocean.

AP
Update 12.30am: Fresh arrests have been made in the investigation into the London Bridge attack, including two men who were held in a swoop by armed officers.

Counter-terror police arrested the pair during an operation on a street in Ilford, east London, Scotland Yard said.

One of the men, aged 27, was held on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, while a 33-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs.

A third man, aged 29, was arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts at an address in Ilford during the operations late on Wednesday night.

All three men have been taken into custody for questioning at a south London police station while detectives search the residential address and a business premises in Ilford.

The arrests follow the detention on a 30-year-old man as detectives raided an address in Ilford in the early hours of Wednesday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Detectives investigating the London Bridge terror attack have made three more arrests and carried out two more search warrants in east London late on Wednesday June 7.

"From around 10pm, officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, supported by firearms officers, arrested two men on a street in Ilford, a third was arrested after a warrant was carried out at a residential address in Ilford."

Update 10.14pm: Footage has emerged of the dramatic moment that the London Bridge terrorists attacked people with knives on Saturday night.

The clip on Twitter shows the heart-stopping moment they lunged to stab a bystander just before they are shot dead by armed police.

It was the end of their rampage in which they had murdered eight people and injured dozens more by mowing them down with their vehicle on London Bridge.

Update 7.06pm: The family of London Bridge terrorist Khuram Butt have condemned the attack saying they are "shocked and appalled" by his actions.

Butt, 27, was one of three men who killed eight people, and injured dozens more, while wearing fake suicide vests.

In a statement, his family said: "As a family we are shocked and appalled by the actions of Khuram and his associates.

"We strongly condemn these actions.

"Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the victims and families at this time.

"Now more than ever we need to work together to stop the actions of the mindless few who claim to be acting in the name of Islam."

Update 11.43am: The death toll from the London Bridge terror attack has risen to eight today after police searching for a French man missing since Saturday recovered a body from the River Thames.

Xavier Thomas, 45, is thought to have been struck by the terrorists' van on the bridge and witnesses reported him being thrown into the water.

The body was recovered near Limehouse, downstream of London Bridge, at around 7.45pm on Tuesday by specialist officers from the marine police unit.

Scotland Yard said formal identification had not yet taken place, but Mr Thomas' next of kin had been informed.

James McMullan, 32, from Hackney, Canadian Christine Archibald, 30, Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, and Alexandre Pigeard, 27, have already been named among the dead.

Nathalie Cros Brohan, sister of Mr Thomas's girlfriend Christine Delcros, posted on Facebook this morning that the family "fear the worst".

Earlier:

A man has been arrested on suspicion of terror offences by detectives investigating the London Bridge attack following an early morning raid at an address in east London.

The 30-year-old was held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts during a search of a property in Ilford and taken for questioning at a south London police station, Scotland Yard said.

The arrest comes as security services face growing questions over their monitoring of the three attackers in the lead up to the attack.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "Detectives investigating the London Bridge terror attack have carried out a search warrant at an address in east London in the early hours of Wednesday June 7.

"Officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, supported by officers from the Territorial Support Group, entered the address in Ilford at around 1.30am.

"A 30-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts (contrary to section 5 Terrorism Act 2006) and has been taken into custody at a south London police station under the Terrorism Act 2000.

"A search of the address is ongoing."

Gardai are questioning a man arrested in Wexford yesterday.

A man arrested in Limerick in connection with the London terror attacks was released without charge yesterday afternoon.

He is understood to have been working as a chef in the city using a PRSI identity paper number issued in the name of terrorist, Rachid Redouane.

Yesterday the third attacker was named as Youssef Zaghba, an Italian national of Moroccan descent, who was living in east London.

Zaghba, Pakistan-born British citizen Khuram Shazad Butt, 27, and Rachid Redouane, 30, who claimed to be Moroccan-Libyan, launched a murderous rampage around London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday night.

According to the mother of 22-year-old Zaghba, he became radicalised online, echoing concerns raised by British Prime Minister Theresa May that the internet can be fertile ground for breeding extremism.

"We have always been checking his friendships and verifying that he was not trusting the wrong people, but he had the internet and from there he got everything," Valeria Khadija Collina told L'Espresso in Bologna.

Zaghba was stopped at Bologna's airport trying to fly to Turkey in March last year over concerns he was intending to travel on to Syria, according to reports.

The youngest of Saturday's attackers is said to have told Italian authorities "I'm going to be a terrorist", while officers reportedly found Islamic State-related material on his mobile phone when they intercepted him.

Counter-terror agencies are already facing intense scrutiny after it was revealed Butt had been known to security services.
The family of James McMullan, who was murdered in the London Bridge attack, have said his killers were "deranged and deluded individuals" as they paid tribute to him.

The 32-year-old has been confirmed by police as one of the eight people who died in the rampage on Saturday while on an evening out.

His family said in a statement: "While our pain will never diminish it is important for all of us to carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who would try to destroy us."

The family's statement in full said: "It is with the deepest regret and sadness that we have today been informed that our son and brother has been declared a victim of the terrorist attack on Saturday night.

"We would like to send our condolences to the relatives and loved ones of all the others who lost their lives, as our thoughts are with them at this time.

"We would like to thank all the members of the services who did their utmost to "serve and protect" the population of London from these deranged and deluded individuals.

"While our pain will never diminish, it is important for all of us to carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who would try to destroy us and remember that hatred is the refuge of small minded individuals and will only breed more - this is not a course we will follow, despite our loss.

"We now ask for privacy at this difficult time and trust that our wishes will be respected."

Mr McMullan, from Hackney, was last seen outside the Barrowboy And Banker pub.

His sister Melissa McMullan described him as "an inspiration" in an online tribute.
Update 10am: Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have greeters voters and members of the press as they arrived to cast their votes in the British general election.

Mr Corbyn smiled, waved and spoke to voters as he arrived at Pakeman Primary School in Holloway, north London, to cast his vote.

He told the press gathered outside: "Thank you very much, all of you, for coming here today. It's a day of our democracy. I've just voted. I'm very proud of our campaign. Thank you very much."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn after casting his vote in the General Election at a polling station in Pakeman school in Islington, north London.

Prime Minister May greeted reporters and photographers with a cheery "hello" as she arrived with husband Philip to vote at Sonning guide and scout hut on the outskirts of Maidenhead in Berkshire, England.

Polls remain inconsistent on the final outcome, but the majority report that the Tory party is likely to be returned to government; what's not clear is by how many seats.

Theresa May's refusal to show up to debate, her manifesto backtrack and the very serious security concerns emanating from the Manchester and London terror attacks cast some doubt over the assumption that the conservatives would sail back in to power with up to a 100-seat majority.

Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn appears to have been given a boost in spite of his own party's fractiousness.

Polls close at 10pm tonight for the 650 Westminster seats.

Voters arrive to cast their votes at a polling station at Notre Dame Primary School in Glasgow in the 2017 General Election. Picture:Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Earlier:

British voters are going to the polls today after one of the strangest General Election campaigns of modern times in the country.

Theresa May, who gambled by calling the snap election, issued a last-minute plea to non-Tory voters to lend her their support as she hopes to begin negotiations on a Brexit deal which will define the country for generations.

Jeremy Corbyn, her rival in the race to Number 10, used his final rally speech to claim his campaign had "changed the face of British politics" and Labour was preparing for government.

The election period saw two acts of horrific brutality disrupt the democratic process, with the Manchester Arena bombing and the London Bridge rampage changing the complexion of the campaign.

People will go to their polling stations amid heightened security as a result of the terror threat but Labour leader Mr Corbyn said voting on Thursday was a way to "honour the victims of these atrocities" by "showing democracy that will never be cowed by terror".

Before the terrorist attacks, Mrs May's campaign had suffered a setback of her own making, with an unprecedented U-turn on a key manifesto policy.

The unexpected proposal to scrap a planned cap on social care costs changed the momentum of the campaign. Almost immediately, the polls began to tighten, while Tory candidates found anxious voters raising the issue of what the opposition parties quickly dubbed the "dementia tax" on the doorstep.

Within days the Prime Minister had performed a U-turn, announcing that they would consult on a cap in a green paper after the election - effectively rewriting a central plank of the manifesto mid-campaign.

Despite the setback, Mrs May continued trying to fight the campaign on her chosen battleground of Brexit, using a final message to voters to urge them to back her ahead of the negotiations with Brussels.

She said: " If we get Brexit right, we can build a Britain that is more prosperous and more secure. A Britain in which prosperity and opportunity is shared by all. A Britain where it's not where you come from or who your parents are that matter, but the talent you have and how hard you are prepared to work. The greatest meritocracy in the world."

In a message directly aimed at wavering voters who may lean towards other parties, she added: "I can only build that better country and get the right deal in Brussels with the support of the British people. So whoever you have voted for in the past, if that is the future you want, then vote Conservative today and we can all go forward together."

The Labour leader, who claims to have addressed more than 100,000 people at campaign events, used a speech at his final rally in his north London stronghold to claim he had reshaped British politics.

He said: "A s we prepare for government, we have already changed the debate and given people hope. Hope that it doesn't have to be like this; that inequality can be tackled; that austerity can be ended; that you can stand up to the elites and the cynics.

"This is the new centre ground. The place where most people actually are. The policies the majority actually want, not what the establishment and its media mouthpieces insist they should want. This is the new mainstream, and we have staked it out and made it our own - together."

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron urged Labour supporters to vote tactically to keep out the Conservatives.

He said: "We will stand up for you on Europe, on schools and hospitals and to stop the heartless dementia tax. So stand up and make your vote count for the Liberal Democrats today."

The opinion polls continue to suggest a Tory lead, although the scale of the advantage in recent studies has ranged from a single point to a double-digit cushion for Mrs May.

Mr Corbyn's best hope may be a high turnout among young voters, especially in target seats.

The weather is unlikely to prove too much of a deterrent to voters, although rain is forecast to move north through the UK during the course of the day.
Portugal's public prosecutor has brought charges of espionage, disclosing state secrets and corruption against a Portuguese spy and a Russian secret service agent.

The prosecutor's office alleges the Portuguese Security Intelligence agent met with the Russian in Rome last year and handed him secret documents in return for 10,000.

The Portuguese spy was under suspicion and was being secretly followed in Rome by Italian and Portuguese officials, Thursday's statement said. It provided no details about the secret documents or the Russian's identity.

Portugal is a member of Nato and the European Union and the two men were arrested in Rome.

The Portuguese spy is in custody in Lisbon but an Italian court refused to extradite the Russian, who was freed, the statement said.

His whereabouts are not known.

- PA
Happy Friday Canberra!

Cloud cover has provided welcome reprieve from biting winter temperatures and that's continued today.

A 4 degree low is forecast to warm up to a maximum of 14 degrees. There's a chance of a shower mid-morning with weather due to clear in the early evening.

It's been a huge week with the ACT Budget, but we know you can't get enough. So here's a few more tasty news items.

Legal appeals against Centrelink debts soar
Segway riders could soon be pulled over for drink driving, according to a bill introduced into the ACT Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

Road safety minister Shane Rattenbury moved to extend the ACT road rules to apply to the drivers of trams as well as segway riders.

Road safety Shane Rattenbury rides a segway last year. Credit:Elesa Kurtz

The amendments would require tram drivers to hold a full Australian car licence and would allow police to breath-test them or fine them for speeding.

Like other passenger-vehicle drivers, tram drivers would have to adhere to a zero blood alcohol level when operating the vehicle.
The ACT government is releasing five more licenses for taxi drivers operating wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

Regulatory Services Minister Gordon Ramsay said the move would make it easier for those with disabilities to get around the city.

The ACT government is releasing five new licenses for disability-friendly taxis.

"The ACT government is committed to making Canberra an accessible, inclusive city and it is important we have on-demand transport options readily available," he said.

"This will ensure that everyone in our community has access to safe and effective travel."
A Canberra woman acquitted of trying to kill her elderly mother will remain behind bars after she was refused bail on separate allegations she failed to show up at court.

An ACT Supreme Court jury found Mary Ivanisevic, 45, not guilty of attempted murder and a lesser back-up charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm this week.

Not guilty: Mary Ivanisevic, 45, was acquitted of trying to murder her mother.

She was accused of stabbing her mother after the woman was found on the floor of her Curtin home with a gash to the chest.

Ms Ivanisevic maintained her innocence; her mother said she inflicted the wound herself.
The number of prisoners in Australian jails has surged by up to 40 per cent in the past five years, new figures have revealed, as the Turnbull government pushes state premiers to toughen up parole and bail laws at a meeting of federal and state leaders on Friday.

The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show there are now 11,000 more people in jails across NSW, Victoria and Queensland than there were in 2012, including a 35 per cent rise in NSW and 40 per cent in Victoria.

At the same time, the number of people being kept behind bars without a sentence has leapt by 87 per cent across the country.

The figures highlight the increasing strain on the nation's prison system as the Turnbull government calls for a hardening of bail and parole laws at Friday's Council of Australian Government's meeting in Hobart.
The long-awaited Finkel review of Australia's electricity market will promise lower energy prices for households and business under a new Clean Energy Target, compared to under an emissions intensity scheme or the current business-as-usual scenario.

Power generators looking to shut a coal-fired power plant would have to give three years notice before doing so, to avoid a repeat of the Hazelwood shutdown, which took place in just six months, and to ensure energy security.

Chief Scientist Alan Finkel's review will be released at a Council of Australian Governments meeting in Hobart on Friday. It will offer a path forward for the Turnbull government to end the political stand-off over climate policy, while finally delivering business and investors certainty on energy policy.

It lays out a trajectory that would see the power sector reduce its emissions by 28 per cent by 2030, against 2005 levels, in line with Australia's Paris Accord commitments. This implies the electricity sector merely do its "fair share" of cuts even though it's been widely expected generators would do more of the heavy lifting.
One Nation has won a temporary injunction restraining a former official releasing further secret recordings of party meetings, after the ABC aired explosive audio on its flagship 7.30 program.

Lawyers for Senator Hanson applied for an urgent injunction in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday after a damaging recording disseminated by former One Nation treasurer Ian Nelson raised questions about the party's conduct.

Senator Hanson initially sought orders against both Mr Nelson and the ABC restraining the publication of further recordings.

The orders were not pressed against the ABC once the broadcaster told the court it did not have any recordings beyond those already aired.
At least 2800 nursing and trades students and 143 staff at one of Australia's largest private colleges have been thrown a lifeline, a small portion of the 15,000 students and 1000 staff left in limbo last month after the collapse of Careers Australia.

The college, which operated 14 campuses across Australia before it was placed into voluntary administration, has sold its nursing business to Think Education, allowing more than 2300 nursing students and 143 staff to transfer their course data and accreditations to the new college.

Careers Australia has sold two of its divisions to other education providers, with about 2800 students thrown a lifeline. Credit:Eddie Jim

Career Australia's carpentry, painting and decorating divisions have also been sold to Everthought Education, with nearly 500 students able to transfer their studies to the new provider.

Fairfax Media understands these students will be able to resume their studies under the new arrangements in the coming weeks. It is also understood that sales of any other divisions are unlikely.
Adelaide: The "callous" and "cold-blooded" killer of beloved outback nurse Gayle Woodford has been jailed for at least 32 years.

Dudley Davey, 35, pleaded guilty to both the rape and murder of the 56-year-old who was found buried in a shallow grave three days after she went missing from her home in Fregon, in SA's north, in March last year.

Gayle Woodford's killer has been jailed for at least 32 year.

South Australian Supreme Court Justice Ann Vanstone jailed Davey for life on Thursday and set a non-parole period of 32 years.

"This was a cold-blooded killing of a woman who had worked with skill and compassion in your community," the judge told Davey.
The daughter of Australian Taxation Office deputy commissioner Michael Cranston will fight an order for compulsory questioning, saying she is eight months pregnant and has no money to her name.

Lauren Cranston, 24, is one of nine people charged over an alleged tax fraud scheme that skimmed $130 million in PAYG tax through a web of payroll administration companies.

Michael Cranston has been charged with attempting to access restricted information on behalf of his son, Adam, who allegedly masterminded the scheme.

The Australian Federal Police are attempting to claw back some of the money in a proceeds of crime civil suit against at least 60 people and companies connected to the alleged fraud.
Police in NSW will receive greater powers to shoot terrorists while riot squad officers will be armed with assault rifles under proposed changes announced on Thursday.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian and federal Attorney-General George Brandis said their governments would accept all recommendations arising from the inquest into the 2014 Lindt cafe siege.

The NSW government in the coming weeks will introduce legislation giving police officers extra legal protection to shoot during more prolonged incidents such as the Lindt siege, once they have been declared as terrorism by the police commissioner.

"We will have the strongest laws in the nation and possibly the world," Ms Berejiklian said in Sydney. The announcement came three days after the siege in Brighton, Melbourne in which gunman Yacqub Khayre killed Nick Hao before being shot dead by police.
Plans for a new inner-city high school - in the same catchment area as Brisbane State High School - will go out to community consultation before being set in stone.

On Thursday morning, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced two new schools for Brisbane's inner-city and an expansion of West End State School.

One of the new schools will be built on the site of the former Fortitude Valley State School and there are a "couple of options" for the location of the new school on Brisbane's southside - with a capacity of 1200 to 1500 each.

Deputy Premier and member for South Brisbane Jackie Trad said she was confident the additional site would be secured within the current catchment of Brisbane State High School, or just outside.
"It's an honour to recognise Eddie Mabo for his work campaigning for Indigenous land rights, which is particularly significant on the 25th anniversary of the landmark Mabo High Court decision," she said. "Eddie Mabo has become an important icon for reconciliation and his legacy continues to be relevant for all Queenslanders to this day." Ms Palaszczuk also recognised the LGAQ's efforts in the wake of Tropical Cyclone Debbie. "LGAQ was at the forefront of our disaster recovery efforts following Cyclone Debbie," she said. "It is fitting that LGAQ is being recognised for its tireless contribution to our state, including coordinating and supporting local councils following our recent natural disaster."

Queensland Greats are honoured with commemorative plaques displayed proudly at Roma Street Parkland, Brisbane. The citations for all the 2017 Queensland Greats are published below. The 2017 Queensland Greats citations Professor Perry Bartlett FAA Professor Perry Bartlett. Credit:Richard Briggs

Professor Perry Bartlett is the inaugural Director of the Queensland Brain Institute and holds the Foundation Chair in Molecular Neuroscience at The University of Queensland. His extraordinary scientific contribution has revolutionised many aspects of modern neuroscience and his visionary leadership has established QBI as one of the world's leading neuroscience Institutes. Professor Bartlett's pioneering discoveries include his detection and subsequent characterisation of neural stem cells that reside in the adult brain that have the capacity to produce new neurons throughout life. This discovery has transformed neuroscience research, and its importance continues to grow as Professor Bartlett and others show that brain functions, like learning and memory, are in part regulated by the production of new neurons. Drawing on these exciting discoveries, recent results have indicated that stimulation of stem cells in order to produce new neurons may overcome the cognitive loss that may lead to dementia during ageing. Clive Berghofer AM Clive Berghofer. Credit:Glenn Hunt Mr Clive Berghofer is one of Australia's greatest philanthropists. He has donated $80 million to date and has publicly pledged to "give away a lot more before I'm finished". Mr Berghofer currently donates an estimated $90,000 each week to charities, community and sporting groups, and emergency services. His generosity, particularly in the fields of health and emergency services, regularly saves lives, not just in Queensland, but worldwide. Mr Berghofer's support of crucial health and community services, including drug rehabilitation services and a hospice for the terminally ill has improved the lives of some of Queensland's most vulnerable citizens. Despite leaving school at the age of 13 and struggling with dyslexia for his whole life, Mr Berghofer became a highly successful property developer and through a lifetime of hard work went on to become one of Australia's wealthiest individuals. Mr Berghofer is committed to bettering his state and his beloved local community of Toowoomba. Professor Peter Coaldrake AO

Professor Peter Coaldrake. Credit:Glenn Hunt Professor Peter Coaldrake AO is Vice-Chancellor of Queensland University of Technology and a prominent international and national university leader. He spent his early childhood in a remote Aboriginal settlement and is well aware of the opportunities that come with education. Professor Coaldrake has been a driving force in extending those opportunities to all areas across Queensland, and particularly to those from disadvantaged backgrounds. He was Chair of the Board of the university sector's peak group, Universities Australia, and continues to play a leading role in national and state policy development on higher education and research that also extends into the international arena. Under Professor Coaldrake's leadership, QUT now features prominently in global university rankings. He continues to build extensive local and international networks across government, industry professionals and the wider community and is recognised for his ability to unite and lead people to bring about change. Phil Dickie Phil Dickie, pictured in Fortitude Valley in 1987. Credit:Peter O'Halloran Mr Phil Dickie was born in the bayside area of Brisbane in 1955. He began his career in journalism with the student newspaper at the Australian National University in Canberra while earning a degree in forestry, politics, economics, sociology and linguistics. Soon after returning to Queensland, Mr Dickie commenced work at The Courier-Mail returned to Queensland and in 1986 began an inquiry into Brisbane brothel ownership. This mushroomed into a series of articles that identified police, up to assistant commissioner level, with involvement in corruption and organised crime. Together with an ABC Four Corners program, these articles forced the government to call an inquiry that ran for two years and heard revelations of both police and political corruption. The inquiry changed the policing and political landscape in Queensland and across Australia. For the work leading to the Fitzgerald inquiry, Mr Dickie received Australian journalism's highest award, a Gold Walkley, and wrote the bestselling book The Road to Fitzgerald, long a staple of investigative journalism courses around Australia and since digitalised as part of the State historical record by the Queensland State Library. Mr Dickie contributed to the postFitzgerald reforms as Special Advisor to the Chair of the Criminal Justice Commission before returning to investigative journalism in 1994.

Professor Cindy Shannon FQA Professor Cindy Shannon. Credit:Glenn Hunt Professor Cindy Shannon is a descendent of the Ngugi people from Moreton Bay. As a passionate advocate for Indigenous health and education, Professor Shannon has played a key role in the development and implementation of Indigenous health policy both in Queensland and nationally. She is currently the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Engagement at The University of Queensland, and guided the development and implementation of Australia's first degree-level program that specifically targeted Aboriginal health workers. She has advised government and non-government groups on health and education issues, and serves on a number of advisory boards, including as Chair of the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Foundation, and the Queensland Ministerial Advisory Committee on Sexual health. She has also been a key player in creating a focus on urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations and contributed to the establishment of the Institute for Urban Indigenous Health. Her true passion lies in enabling people from all backgrounds to achieve their potential. She is known for her extraordinary commitment to mentoring students, employees, and colleagues, and continues her tireless work to enhance conditions for all. Eddie Koiki Mabo Eddie Mabo. Credit:Jim McEwan

The late Eddie Koiki Mabo was born on Mer (Murray) Island in 1936. Mr Mabo was exiled from the Island when he was 16-years-old and worked across Northern Queensland and the Torres Strait before settling in Townsville with his young family in 1962. Following his settlement in Townsville, Mr Mabo was elected president of Yumba Meta and established Australia's first Black Community School. In 1982, Mr Mabo and four other Islanders initiated legal action claiming customary ownership of their land on Murray Island, but their claim to land was rejected. Rather than appeal, Mr Mabo decided to proceed with the hearings before a full bench of the High Court. Before the Court's decision to overturn the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to no-one) was delivered in 1992, Mr Mabo had fallen ill and passed away. On the night of his burial, islanders performed the sacred Malo dance in his honour. Queensland Symphony Orchestra Queensland Symphony Orchestra is Queensland's largest performing arts company and the state's only professional symphony orchestra. In 2017, QSO celebrated its 70th anniversary as the centre of music-making in Queensland, presenting more than 180 live performances each year to more than 1.6million people. The Orchestra operates from its base in South Bank, Brisbane and employs more than 100 administration staff and musicians, in addition to many guest soloists and artists. QSO's ability to consistently perform at the highest level has earned it the reputation as one of the country's leading performing arts companies. QSO regularly supports many of the state's performing arts companies including Opera Queensland, Queensland Ballet, Brisbane Festival and Queensland Music Festival. As a champion of music education, each year the Orchestra tours regional Queensland and presents a range of specialised programs including master classes, workshops, and professional development for teachers, connecting with more than 30 000 people, from pre-school to university level. Local Government Association of Queensland The Local Government Association of Queensland is the peak body for local government in Queensland and a not-for-profit association setup solely to serve the state's 77 councils and their individual needs. In recent times LGAQ were at the forefront of disaster recovery as a result of Tropical Cyclone Debbie. The LGAQ coordinated and supported local councils as they prepared for, were impacted by, and are now recovering from Debbie. LGAQ has been advising, supporting and representing local councils since 1896, allowing them to improve their operations and strengthen relationships with their communities. LGAQ are being recognised as an honorary recipient of the 2017 Queensland Greats Awards for their tireless contribution to Queensland.

Previous years' Queensland Greats included: 2001 Dr Robert (Uncle Bob) Anderson

Professor Joe Baker

Diane Cilento

Sister Angela Mary Doyle

Ted Smout 2002 Wayne Bennett

Clem Jones

Olga Miller

Professor Lawrie Powell

Professor David Tudehope

2003 Professor Peter Doherty

David Malouf

Angelo Puglisi

Dr Evelyn Scott

Reginald Murray (RM) Williams 2004 Professor Julie H Campbell

Hugh Cornish

Dr Richard Lewandowski

William Robinson

Nick Xynias 2005

Bill Brown

Tony Gould

Terry Jackman

Dr Aila Keto

Rod Laver 2006 Professor Ian Frazer

Jim Kennedy

Greg Norman

Margaret Olley

Geoffrey Rush

Mater Misericordiae Health Services 2007 Ashley Cooper

Leneen Forde

Doug Hall

Emeritus Professor John Hay

Sir Leo Hielscher

Surf Life Saving Queensland

2008 Ian Brusasco

Pearl Duncan

Matthew Hayden

Professor Ross Homel

Dr Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James

Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (Queensland section) 2009 Philip Bacon

Bill Bristow

Kev Carmodu

Dr Robyn Rodwell

Anthony Ryan

Blue Care 2010

Mike Ahern

Sir Llew Edwards

Professor Michael Good

Ruth Hegarty

Eddie Liu

The University of Queensland 2011 Betty Byrne Henderson

George Chapman

Graham Jackson

Wally Lewis

Kerry O'Brien

Queensland State Emergency Service 2012 Emeritus Professor Ken Donald

Deborah Mailman

Daphne Pirie

Sir Sydney Schubert

Terry White

Queensland Meals on Wheels

2013 Stefan Ackerie

Dr Dimity Dornan

Tim Fairfax

Professor GQ Max Lu

Herb Wharton

Australian Red Cross Society 2014 Sallyanne Atkinson

Fred Conway

Patrick Corrigan

Professor Adele Green

Win Schubert

Endeavour Foundation 2015
Former senior Queensland racing bureaucrat Bill Shuck has briefly faced court over allegations he was involved in the fraudulent awarding of contracts.

Shuck, 52, a former Racing Queensland procurement officer, appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Wednesday, charged with five counts of misconduct in public office and five of fraud.

The former Racing Queensland procurement officer is charged with five counts of misconduct in public office and five of fraud. Credit:Jenny Evans

It's alleged he and Cashmere contractor Wayne Francis Solomon, also known as Wayne Francis Innes, misused information and rorted tendering systems between January 2014 and November 2015 to gain a financial benefit for Innes.

According to court documents, these included upgrades at the Gympie Racetrack and Brisbane's Eagle Farm.
An apparent kidnap victim is refusing to cooperate with Brisbane police after he was found safe at a service station hours after disappearing.

Police said Ren Zhi Liang was standing outside The Summit Apartments in Spring Hill with a female friend when he was forced into a blue Nissan ute about 11am on Thursday.

Police are searching for Ren Zhi Liang who was last seen on Thursday. Credit:Queensland Police Service

A search was launched for the man but about 12.30am on Friday two patrolling officers spotted him at a service station in Sunnybank, on Brisbane's south, apparently unharmed.

A police spokesman said the man was refusing to speak to police, who were yet to identify his abductor.
A toddler allegedly murdered by his parents was found covered in faeces and urine in the lead-up to his disappearance and referred to as "evil" by his father, a court has heard.

Baden Bond's mother, Dina Colleen Bond, 43, and father, Shane Arthur Simpson, 49, have both been charged with the 22-month-old's murder.

Baden Bond's mother, Dina Colleen Bond, 43, and father, Shane Arthur Simpson, 49, have both been charged with the 22-month-old's murder.

As Ms Bond applied for bail on Thursday, the Brisbane Supreme Court heard a visiting relative had seen the boy covered in urine and faeces in his cot, bathed and fed him and told both parents to look after him.

Baden's father described the child to the visitor as "evil", the court was told.
A man claiming to be one of the three people being sought over a daylight assault on conservative columnist Andrew Bolt has come forward to say he is "just a photographer" and not involved.

News Corp and Sky News commentator Bolt was attacked by two protesters outside a Carlton restaurant on Tuesday. He said the two men "jumped" him and sprayed him in the face and body with "sticky liquid with glitter and dye" as he posed for a selfie with a woman.

Victoria Police confirmed it was searching for three men: the two assailants and a third man who "appeared to be filming or taking photos".

But in a statement posted on his social media account, the photographer, who goes by the name of Nathan cc photography, said he was only a witness who went to the event in case trouble broke out.
Authorities are being urged to investigate the connection between Islamic extremism and drug addiction, with Brighton gunman Yacqub Khayre just the latest in a series of terrorists with histories of substance abuse.

Khayre had used methamphetamine for more than a decade, and had been linked to extremism since he was charged with plotting to storm Holsworthy army barracks in 2009.

It is believed at least two of his four co-accused in that case also had histories of substance abuse.

There has been other cases of extremists linked to drug use, most prominently former addict Khaled Sharrouf and Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash.
Victoria's homeschoolers will face routine audits and a tougher registration process under a dramatic crackdown.

The proposed changes, which have infuriated a group representing homeschoolers, will see one in 10 families targeted for an audit every year. As part of the check, families will have to prove they are teaching eight key learning areas in the Australian curriculum, and provide evidence of the child's learning progress.

Shae Reynolds with her homeschooled children (from left) Tannah, 12, Harper, 8, and Willow, 9, and Daisy the dog. Credit:Joe Armao

Many families do not teach the Victorian curriculum.

In order to register as a homeschool, families will now have to submit detailed reports about their lessons to the schools regulator, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Agency.
Brighton terror attacker Yacqub Khayre should have been denied parole for committing arson while in prison, the Victorian Opposition said.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy cited a key recommendation from a 2013 review that said parole should not be granted to anyone who had failed to behave "satisfactorily" for at least the second part of their sentence.

Yacqub Khayre was in a program designed to counter Islamic extremism in the six months before the Brighton siege. Credit:AP

The government confirmed the recommendation was considered implemented in April 2015.

Mr Guy said that measure should have rendered Khayre ineligible for parole.
A woman charged with the murder of her baby was turned away from a hospital's psychiatric unit three days before the death of the 13-month-old girl.

Meanwhile, residents of the quiet suburban street where the little girl was killed had never seen her before learning of her death.

Police attend the house in Reservoir on Monday. Credit:Luis Ascui

Umal Sharif Abdurahman, 28, is charged with murdering her baby girl at the family's Fordham Street home in Reservoir on Monday.

It has emerged that Ms Abdurahman sought help from a psychiatric registrar at the Northern Hospital on Friday, June 2, but was turned away.
US President Donald Trump walks into the State Dining Room of the White House on Thursday. Credit:AP Comey's testimony takes the Russia inquiry right into the White House and the Oval Office. According to his testimony, Trump had been badgering him to lift "the cloud over him" created by the Russia investigation - but the effect of Comey's three hours of testimony was to darken and intensify the cloud. After hundreds had queued for just 80 public seats in the Senate hearing room, and lines went around the block before early opening at many Washington pubs, Comey was allowed a hushed silence as he deferred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation to nail any wrongdoers. Former FBI director James Comey recounts a series of conversations with President Donald Trump. Credit:AP Yet there seemed little doubt that he reckons Trump should be among them.

Comey conceded that Trump's words on Flynn, during an Oval Office one-on-one after Trump had ordered all other officials from the room, weren't a clear order  but to the then FBI chief they constituted a presidential "directive". Democratic senator Kamala Harris questions former FBI director James Comey about a series of conversations with President Donald Trump. Credit:AP Republican senators lit on Trump's use of the words "I hope" as more of a wish than an order. But independent Maine senator Angus King asked Comey: "When a president of the US in the Oval Office says something like 'I hope' or 'I suggest' or 'would you?' do you take that as a directive?" "Yes, it rings in my ear as kind of, 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?'," Comey replied, using words attributed to England's King Henry II, which were interpreted by the king's men as an order to execute Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury with whom he was at odds. Republican senator John McCain questions former FBI director James Comey during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. Credit:AP

Comey was suspicious, too, at Trump clearing the room. "Why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office?" Comey said. "That to me, as an investigator, is a very significant fact." Idaho Republican senator James Risch persisted in trying to shield Trump. Risch: He did not direct you to let it go? Comey: Not in his words, no. Risch: He did not order you to let it go?

Comey: Again, those words are not an order. Risch: No; he said 'I hope.' ... Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice - or for that matter, any other criminal offence - where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? Comey: I don't know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying 'his words' is I took it as a direction. I mean, this is the President of the United States, with me alone, saying 'I hope this'. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it. Despite fears in the White House that Trump would be unable to restrain himself, he adhered to advice that he abstain from Twitter, though his son Donald jnr lashed out at Comey and the whole Russia investigation.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied Comey's implicit charge that Trump was a liar, saying: "No, I can definitively say the President is not a liar - it's frankly insulting that that question would be asked." And Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz cherry-picked the Comey testimony to craft a blanket denial of any presidential wrongdoing, saying: "it is now established that the President was not being investigated for colluding [with the Russians] or attempting to obstruct that investigation; the President never  directed or suggested that Mr Comey stop investigating anyone; the President never told Mr Comey, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty'." Trump too issued a blanket, non-specific denial. As Comey spoke on Capitol Hill, the President recited Isaiah 1:17 to a conference of the Faith and Freedom Coalition in Washington: "Learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed. Take up the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." He then told his audience: "The entrenched interests and failed bitter voices in Washington will do everything in their power to try and stop us from this righteous cause, to try to stop all of you. They will lie, they will obstruct, they will spread their hatred and their prejudice, but we will not back down from doing what is right. "Because as the Bible tells us, we know the truth will prevail. Nothing worth doing ever came easy  we know how to fight better than anybody, and we never give up. We are winners, and we are going to fight."

A New York Times editorial described Comey's testimony and the administration's full-throated denials as "a clash between the legal principles at the foundation of American democracy, and a venal, self-interested politician who does not recognise, let alone uphold, them". When Comey was asked if he believed Trump personally colluded in the Russian interference, he left the President dangling, and neither would he discuss the salacious content of the intelligence dossier by a former British intelligence agent, telling the panel these were questions he'd prefer to address in a closed session that took place on Thursday afternoon. Taking his sacking very personally, Comey explained his amazement on hearing on TV that he had been fired. "He had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay," Comey said. "He told me repeatedly he had talked to lots of people about me, including our current attorney-general, and had learnt I was doing a great job and was extremely well liked by the FBI. "It confused me when I saw the President on TV saying [later] he actually fired me because of the Russian investigation. I was also confused by the initial explanation offered publicly that I was fired because of decisions I'd made during the election [about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails]  That didn't make any sense to me."

This was the context in which Comey also revealed himself as the orchestrator of one of the "leak" stories that so infuriate Trump. As a private citizen after his ousting, Comey had a friend reveal the contents of one of his memos recording his encounters with Trump to The New York Times. Following a Trump tweet, which contained an intimidating reference to tapes of their conversations, Comey decided that planting a story in the Times would most likely force the appointment of a special counsel investigation - and it did. "My judgment was, 'I need to get that out into the public square'. I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons," Comey said. "I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." And Comey called Trump's bluff on the existence of any such tapes, saying: "Look, I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes; I hope there are and I'll consent to the release of them  The President surely knows if he taped me and if he did my feelings aren't hurt. Release all the tapes." Recounting the February 14 Oval Office meeting after Trump had cleared the room, Comey said he suspected Attorney-General Jeff Sessions and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner had lingered before being expressly ordered to exit by Trump, because they realised the President was being inappropriate.

"I knew something was about to happen which I should pay very close attention to," Comey said. Asked why he hadn't told Trump that the Flynn request was inappropriate, Comey responded: "Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. [But] I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in." Republican senators suggested that Comey might be exaggerating the significance of Trump's comments. Challenged by Florida Republican senator Marco Rubio that this was no big deal - because Trump's public defence of Flynn the next day superseded Comey's anxiety about his investigators being put off their stride by the President's request - Comey shot back that what had happened in the Oval Office was something more ominous. "There's a big difference in kicking superior officers out of the Oval Office, looking the FBI director in the eye and saying, 'I hope you let this go'. "I think if agents as good as they are heard the President of the United States did that, there's a real risk of a chilling effect on their work. That's why we kept it so tight."

Explaining why he immediately wrote memos on his meetings and phone calls with Trump, which he did not do with either presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama, Comey revealed that he came away from his first meeting with Trump deeply distrustful of the then president-elect. Asked why, he responded: "The nature of the person. I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting. "It led me to believe that I gotta write it down, and I gotta write it down in a detailed way  I knew that there might come a day where I might need a record of what happened, not just to defend myself [but also] the FBI and the integrity of our situation, and the independence of our function." Sure enough, at their White House dinner, having previously assured Comey that he could stay on as FBI director, Trump talked of many others wanting the job, which Comey interpreted as the President "looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job". Some Republicans came away from the hearing claiming there was no case against Trump or, as in the case of House Speaker Paul Ryan: "The President's new at this. He's new to government, and so he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between [the Department of Justice], FBI and White House. He's just new to this."

Former Obama White House ethics lawyer Norman Eisen and former federal prosecutor Noah Bookbinder beg to differ. Writing jointly in The New York Times, they argue: "We beg to differ. Mr Comey's sworn statement and answers  now provide strong evidence that President Trump committed obstruction of justice. But we have miles to go before that case is legally resolved one way or the other - if it ever is." And that's the rub for Trump, who is so desperate to get beyond "this Russia thing". Loading The Mueller investigation and the myriad congressional investigations will take months or longer - with aides and other White House staff lawyering up and constantly waiting for the investigator's call. And, as always in such investigations, the initial charge often gives way to charges of attempted cover-ups - and invariably, there's collateral damage.
London: Iran's Revolutionary Guard lashed out at Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, hours after at least 13 people were killed and 42 others were wounded in devastating attacks on two potent symbols in Tehran, the capital: Iran's Parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Islamic State group immediately said it was behind the attacks, the first time that the Sunni Muslim extremist group has claimed responsibility for an assault in Iran, which is predominantly Shiite Muslim. The group, which views Shiite Muslims as apostates, is battling with Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and in Syria.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted: "Terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland. Proxies attack what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy."

He did not explicitly blame any country but the tweet appeared to refer to comments made by Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman al- Saud, in May, saying that Riyadh would bring "the battle" for regional influence to Iran.
Mr Comey, surrounded by the press, at Thursday's hearing. Credit:AP "On May the ninth, when I learned that I was fired, for that reason, I immediately came home as a private citizen," he said. "But then the explanations, the shifting explanations confused me and increasingly concerned me." He said that though no explanation was required for firing an FBI director "the administration chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI, by saying the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader." People watch live television broadcast of Mr Comey testifying in a Washington DC bar. Credit:AP "Those were lies, plain and simple, and I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them and that the American people were told that," Mr Comey said.

Asked why he took detailed notes about his meetings with the president, Mr Comey said "I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document... it led me to believe I gotta write it down." President Donald Trump greets then-FBI director James Comey with a handshake back in February. Credit:Bloomberg Lawmakers scrutinised Mr Comey's account to determine whether Mr Trump crossed any legal boundaries. Mr Comey, 56, declined to say whether the president's request to end the Michael Flynn probe constituted obstruction of justice, saying he would leave a determination about that to Robert Mueller, another former FBI chief who is now special counsel leading the Russia probe and who is now in possession of Mr Comey's memos. While Mr Comey told senators he found the discussion with Mr Trump "a very disturbing thing," he added that "I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct." At one point in the hearing, Republican Senator James Risch pressed Mr Comey on whether Mr Trump had actually directed him to drop the Flynn investigation.

"He did not order you to let it go?" Mr Risch asked. "Again, those words are not an order," Mr Comey said. "I took it as a direction. If it is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying 'I hope this' - I took it as 'this is what he wants me to do.' I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it," Mr Comey said When asked later on whether he took Mr Trump's comments as a directive, Mr Comey said "Yes." In a lighter moment, Mr Comey referred to Mr Trump's apparent warning on Twitter that there could be recordings of their conversations that would undercut the former FBI chief's account of events. "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Mr Comey said. But he later said Mr Trump's comment prompted him to ask an acquaintance to leak portions of the memos he prepared on his conversations with the president in an effort to spur the appointment of a special counsel.

"The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I'd better hope there are not tapes," Mr Comey said. He said he woke up on Monday thinking that if there are tapes, there might be corroboration of Mr Comey's account. Mr Comey said he asked "a friend of mine to share" a memo he had written about his conversation with Mr Trump "with a reporter." Mr Comey said the memo was one he had written about his Oval Office conversation with Mr Trump in which the president had expressed a desire that the investigation of Flynn be dropped. He said the person he asked to share the information was "a good friend of mine" who is a professor at Columbia Law School. "I thought it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel." Asked why he felt he had the authority to do that, Mr Comey replied: "As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it was very important to get it out." Mr Comey said he used someone else to share the information because he was worried, with reporters camped out at his home, that giving the information to a reporter directly "would be like feeding seagulls at the beach."

The friend is Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who confirmed his role but declined further comment. The reporter is Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, who declined to comment. A special counsel was appointed - Robert Mueller, who is a former colleague of Mr Comey's - and Mr Comey has provided him with his memos, he testified Thursday. While President Trump stayed off Twitter during Mr Comey's testimony, his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, didn't. He repeatedly defended his father and attacked Mr Comey. Mr Trump Jr in particular seized on Mr Comey's assertion that he interpreted the president's statement that he "hoped" the FBI would drop its probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

President Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz said after the hearing that Mr Comey's testimony proved the president was not under any investigation and there is no evidence a single vote was changed as a result of Russian interference in last year's election. Mr Kasowitz denied Mr Trump ever told Mr Comey he needed and expected his loyalty, as Mr Comey said, and also slammed the former FBI chief for saying he leaked details of a conversation with the president. Mr Kasowitz added that "we will leave it the appropriate authorities" to determine whether Mr Comey's leak "should be investigated along with all those others being investigated." Following the public hearing, Mr Comey met with committee members for a separate closed-door hearing. This story has been updated with news from the hearing.
Jakarta: Just a few weeks ago she was a shy, bookish high school student from a small town in the Indonesian province of East Java who liked to raid her local library and pull books randomly from the shelves.

But last week the head-scarf-wearing student, Asa Firda Inayah, also known as Afi, 18, was standing on the stage of Rosi, a prominent national talk show, reciting one of her many famous Facebook posts on the importance of pluralism, as inspirational violin music played in the background.

Indonesian Asa Firda Inayah, 18, became a social media sensation for asking young people to be tolerant. Credit:Social Media/NYT

"By chance I was born in Indonesia to a Muslim family," Asa read in a squeaky voice. "If I had been born in Sweden or Israel, to a Christian or Jewish family, is there any guarantee that I would embrace Islam? There isn't."

That essay, Heritage, and dozens of other writings she has posted to Facebook have made her an instant celebrity in Muslim-majority Indonesia, which is still torn over the blasphemy conviction of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Christian governor of Jakarta known as Ahok, the capital, who was removed from his post and put in jail last month.
A US aircraft shot down a pro-Syrian government drone after it fired upon a group of US-led coalition forces in southeastern Syria Thursday, the Pentagon said.

Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the US-led coalition in Iraq and Syria told reporters that no coalition forces were injured in the attack and that the drone's munition struck "dirt."

The incident marks a significant escalation around the Tanf border crossing, a vital link that connects Iraq and Syria. Iran considers the area - mostly made up of scrub and desert - part of an integral supply route that connects Tehran with Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

In the same area, US-led Special Operations forces have been quietly training a small detachment of Syrian opposition fighters in anticipation of a broader campaign against the Islamic State in the Euphrates River Valley.
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Its a taste of Coney Island history!

Feltmans of Coney Island has returned to the Peoples Playground, where the restaurants founder invented the hot dog 150 years ago. Hot dog aficionados trekked from across the borough and the city to sink their teeth into a frank from Feltmans of Coney Island at the Surf Avenue restaurants grand opening on May 29. And it easily beat Nathans Famous for flavor, said one Feltmans fan.

It had a lot more flavor than the normal Nathans hot dog, said Bay Ridgite Carl DeSciura, who shelled out $4.25 for a frank with sauerkraut and mustard. It was just juicer, fatter. It has a nice flavor.

Made from uncured beef, the 8-inch dog is seasoned with Feltmans original secret spice mix from 1867, and the succulent sausage even comes in a smaller, skinless version for kids  to eliminate the choking hazard of a casing.

But frankly, even some grown-ups devoured the red hots with such relish that they may have risked a choking hazard of their own.

I kind of inhaled it. It was delicious, said Iris Bahr, who trekked to Coney for the first time from the distant isle of Manhattan just for a bite of the original hot dog. I ate it so fast its hard for me to recall what exactly it tasted like.

A century and a half ago, Coney Island vittles vendor Charles Feltman had the bright idea to wrap his sizzling sausage in a piece of bread so customers would easily hold it and nosh as they strolled the Boardwalk, thus creating one of the most iconic and convenient  items of American cuisine.

In fact, it was Feltman who taught a young Nathan Handwerker everything he knew about franks and buns, but Feltmans hot dogs never got quite as famous as those of his protege, and the original Feltmans restaurant closed in 1954.

Recently, a historian-turned-restaurateur, Michael Quinn, has revived Feltmans 1867 recipe and dedicated himself to returning the original red hot to the Peoples Playground.

Its really great to bring the hot dog back to where it all started, said Quinn, who has another location in Manhattan. I think sometimes you need to go back to square one  take the hot dog and bring it all the way back to Charles Feltman. It tastes way different.

And the franks are healthy to boot, or as healthy as a hot dog can be, claims Quinn.

Its a completely clean hot dog, no nitrates or fillers, said Quinn. If there were a healthy hot dog itd be Feltmans.

It has been a long haul, but this summer, Quinns resurrected Feltmans of Coney Island replaces the shuttered Cyclone Cafe and White Castle at W. 10th Street and Surf Avenue, which is operated by Luna Park.

Besides slinging Feltmans classic red hots, Quinn does more than imitate, and offers diversified dogs that play off of Feltmans place in the rich history on Coney Island.

For example, Quinn offers the Al Capone  a hot dog smothered in Michaels of Brooklyn vodka sauce and sprinkled with shredded Parmesan cheese in honor of the budding Brooklyn gangster who used to stop by Feltmans for a frank before heading to work as a bouncer at Coney Islands Harvard Inn, long before seeking his fortune in Chicago.

Feltmans doesnt need flashy frank gimmicks to sell dogs, but Quinn has joked with prolific Nathans hot dog eater Takeru Kobayashi about starting a Feltmans hot-dog eating contest up against the Nathans Fourth of July tradition, in which competitors eat as slowly as possible  to savor the sausage.

I joked with Kobayashi about doing the competition in reverse, said Quinn. We want to do our thing.

Reach reporter Caroline Spivack at cspiv ack@c ngloc al.com or by calling (718) 2602523. Follow her on Twitter @carolinespivack.
NJ Weedman got a license to sell NJ legal weed. He almost said no.
The long-awaited redevelopment of the Highbridge Hotel site is finally set to begin later this year, the owners have announced this week after submitting a brand new planning application.

YMCA Somerset Coast, the owner of the site since 2014, has submitted an application to demolish the remaining elements of the building, with a firm commitment to rebuild the facade in the style of the hotel prior to a huge fire in 2008.

The YMCA told Burnham-On-Sea.com this week it wants the new building to be an impressive gateway to Highbridge once again.

The YMCA wants to create an innovative community hub alongside 22 units of affordable supported housing at the site in a modern building, as pictured above.

A YMCA spokesman told Burnham-On-Sea.com: Having removed the scaffold and replaced with new, it became very clear that the shell of the building was too unsafe to remain and presented a significant risk of collapse, thus preventing any further investigation into the structure.

As a result of this, and with advice from Sedgemoor District Council, the rear elevation and the front first-floor elevations were dismantled by hand, with the bricks conserved, cleaned and stored on site.

This then allowed a further investigation into the foundations for the building and the methods of construction in the remaining facade.

These investigations uncovered little or no footings in parts, and that the building itself had been constructed in three parts, with again little evidence of the structural stability of these parts.

To this end we met on site with Historic England to discuss possible solutions, including underpinning the remaining elements and possible full dismantling of the remaining.

Further to these discussions and work with our architects and structural surveyors we identified that the costs of underpinning the remaining, would be extremely prohibitive and present significant challenges to the rebuild process.

As a result of this, YMCA Somerset Coast have submitted an application to demolish the remaining element, with a firm commitment as in the accepted planning approval to rebuild the facade in the style of the Hotel prior to the fire, so as the gateway to Highbridge can once again be impressive.

It is anticipated that the bricks removed by hand will be used as part of this redevelopment.

The delays have caused considerable costs to the YMCA, and frustration to our partners, however we feel that we are approaching this in the correct manner, and look forward to seeing the once great building emerging from the site in the later part of this year.

Further to the application we are about to commence on a competitive tendering exercise for the build and would hope to be in a position to award the contract in September, with activity commencing on the site shortly after and a completion date in December 2018.

Georgina Jones, YMCA Somerset Coast Sedgemoor Director, told Burnham-On-Sea.com: It has taken a long time to get to this point, however it is important that we approach the project in detail and with sensitivity, the team and I are excited and very much looking forward to working further in the community of Highbridge we are sure the Hotel will be an excellent resource for everybody.

She added that the YMCA would like to thank all those who have been supporting them during this challenging period, and would also encourage those who may wish to be involved to get in touch using info@ymca-sc.org.

How the building looked until it was partially demolished last year
The Chinese government has recently banned the sale of an award-winning novel, Soft Burial, written by Fang Fang about Chinas land reform in the 1950s.
Thousands of people have gathered in Verwada village in Barwani district to celebrate the newest festival in Madhya Pradesh  the festival of Rani Kajal Mata, an ancient, indigenous deity. The deity, a sacred rock, is the guardian goddess of the Pata tribe that resides in Barwani, the northernmost district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, bordering Rajasthan.
Despite global headwinds being experienced by the Indian outsourcing industry, the information technology (IT) space absorption has grown by 10 per cent at 16.81 million square feet (sq ft) area in 2016. More than 50 per cent of this pan-India IT space take up was recorded by Bengaluru and Hyderabad together, according to real estate consulting firm JLL.
moves London tribunal for stay on tax Three days ahead of a deadline to pay Rs 10,247 crore in tax, the international tribunal in London will on June 12 hear Cairns plea for an interim measure to restrain the government from recovering its dues.
The country's largest beverage maker, Coca-Cola, wants to be in every evolving drinks category, says T Krishnakumar, its president for India and Southwest Asia. As part of which, it will be taking Rimzim, available in the north, across India.

"We found an opportunity in ethnic sparkling drinks. We have Rimzim, which is now slowly getting across the country," he said. "We are wiring ourselves as an organisation to keep close to the ground in terms of trends that are cropping up, irrespective of the category."
Troubled times are far from over for the US-based car major General Motors' Indian subsidiary. After announcing an exit from the Indian domestic market in May, the carmaker has now run into trouble with its 100 odd dealers who are considering moving court against the measly compensation offered by the company.
US ride-hailing company Uber fired a senior executive who obtained medical records of a passenger who was raped by her Uber driver in India, on the pretext of investigating whether it was a ploy by competitor Ola to sabotage its India operations.
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The images are being used to enhance Street View, a component of the companys popular Google Maps app, as the firm searches for new features that will entice users
Infosys, Indias second-largest information technology (IT) services firm, seems to have dropped its ambitious target of increasing its revenue to $20 billion by 2020, as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Vishal Sikka, struggles to grow the business faster.
The Sajjan Jindal-led was the best contender for acquiring APM Terminals' 43.01 per cent stake in Gujarat Pipavav Port, sources close to the development said on Friday.
Private equity investment in the automobile component sector rose 607 per cent to $90.2 million in the first five months of this calendar year, over the same period last year.
With about 30 mobile manufacturing setting up bases in Noida and Greater Noida, the government wants to develop these areas as a hub of electronics manufacturing on the lines of Singapore.
Ethans Tech, a Pune-based start-up that provides training to software engineers, has seen a three-fold growth from people who want to upgrade their skills.
Kolkata-based Topaz Solar Power proposes to set up a solar module manufacturing plant in Odisha with an annual capacity to produce 500 megawatts (Mw) of solar panels.

This will be the first solar panel manufacturing facility in the state, which of late has identified renewable energy as a priority area.
Air India has kept prime properties owned by it with the banking consortium, the airline's mortgage document shows. But, according to the amalgamation document of Air India and Indian Airlines reviewed by Business Standard, it seems that the national carrier and the erstwhile Indian Airlines had a host of other properties across the world whose ownership status is presently unclear. None of these properties are pledged with banks owed money by Air India.
Amid the agitation of farmers in Maharashtra, at least four were reported in the state in the last few days.

Ramesh Ramdas Dalvi (26) hanged himself on his farm in Bhokardar tehsil of Jalna district yesterday, police said.

According to police, Dalvi had attempted to commit suicide a week ago too, but some alert neighbours had stopped him then.

In Nanded district, 40-year-old Parmeshwar Wankhade ended his life by hanging himself yesterday, said a police officer from Himayatnagar police station.

Sanjay Ghanwat (46), a farmer from Partapur village in Mehkar tehsil of Buldana ended his life due to loss of crop in his three-acre farm, police said.

In Yeola tehsil of Nashik district, Navnath Changdev Bhalerao (30) killed himself by drinking a poisonous chemical on the night of June 5.

Meanwhile, actors Nana Patekar and Makrand Anaspure expressed disappointment over farmers being forced to go on a strike in the state.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference here, Patekar said, "We started NAAM foundation to support the farmers. I think people from all sectors of life should come forward to support the farmers."



Anaspure said, "The recommendations of Swaminathan committee should be implemented on a priority basis. I also feel there should be some loan waiver like package for needy farmers.
Each year the Reserve Bank of India issues six bi-monthly statements on monetary policy. Given below are the highlights of the policy statement presented yesterday (7 June 2017) and last six preceding monetary policy statements.
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat, in an interaction with ANI, said that the Indian army is well prepared to face external, as well as internal threats to the country. Speaking to ANI General said, "Indian Army is fully ready for a two-and-a-half front war".

The Army Chief added that even though India is ready for a multi-front war, there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation. "Even the PM has stated that for the last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-China border," said General Rawat.

In a freewheeling conversation with ANI, General Rawat also informed that a new strike corps, 17 Strike Corps, is being raised specifically for mountain warfare. On asking about the delay in its raising Army Chief said a process as complex as this takes time. He said, "It is being raised from scratch. The recruitments are on. As it is, to prepare an army soldier it takes about three years from recruitment process to training and then orienting and finally their deployment."

General Rawat went on to discuss modernisation plans of the army, saying that the government is aware of our all needs and is supporting us in every manner. "Make in India is a good initiative, it will give results in two to three years," said General Rawat.

General Rawat added that all armies across the world maintain an inventory in the ratio of the 30:40:30. In India, 30 percent equipment is of state-of-art technology; another 40 percent is undergoing modernisation and the remaining 30 percent is obsolete, which requires an upgrade.

General concluded by saying that the Indian Army's preparations are not against any specific country.
After screening a record 18,000 applications, the US space agency has finally shortlisted 12 astronaut candidates - its largest astronaut class since 2000, and Indian-American Raja Chari, a Lieutenant Colonel with the US Air Force, has bagged a most sought-after seat.

The selected 12; eight men and four women, will be trained for missions into the Earth orbit and conduct key research for deep space missions.

Chari, who will report for duty in August this year, graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1999 with bachelor's degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science.

Hailing from the state of Iowa, he earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School as well as from US Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Chari, a father of three, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

He has accumulated more than 2,000 hours of flight time in F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18, including F-15E combat missions in 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula.

Chari has been awarded the Defence Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defense Service Medal and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal, among other citations.

After a two-year training like other candidates, Chari will be assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office till he gets a flight assignment.



On Wednesday, US Vice President Mike Pence joined leaders as they introduced the members of the 2017 astronaut class during an event at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery and who I know will inspire our children and our grandchildren every bit as much as your forebears have done so in this storied American programme," said Pence.

"And to this newest class of astronauts, it's my honour to bring the sincere congratulations of the 45th President of the US, Donald Trump. Your President is proud of you, and so am I," the Vice President added.

The astronaut could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including performing research on the International Space Station (ISS), launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies and departing for deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

"We look forward to the energy and talent of these astronauts fueling our exciting future of discovery," said acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot in a statement.

"Between expanding the crew on board the space station to conduct more research than ever before, and making preparations to send humans farther into space than we've ever been, we are going to keep them busy," he said.

With the addition of these 12 members, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959.

"These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations," said Ellen Ochoa, astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi might not be able to meet the victims of Tuesday's police firing in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh as the state administration has decided to stop him at Nayagaon in Neemuch, around 40 kilometre away from the epicentre.
Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has been using money collected from donation boxes set up by its agents at shrines in Rajasthan to fund terrorist activities in the state's border villages, the Times of India reported on Thursday while citing recently arrested ISI spy Deena Khan's interrogation.
Angry over Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis' statement that the government can not waive loans for all of them, Maharashtra's farmers, gathered in Nashik for protests, have demanded that all facilities, increments, and benefits of government officials, including chief ministers and even the prime minister, be cut immediately.
The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear on Thursday as Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.

Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like "Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad".

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. "He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonus, can't give compensation... He can only give them bullets."



Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district.

"Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres," IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.

"Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road... After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border," he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.




The QS Ranking 2018 suggests the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), a premier research-based institute in Bengaluru, has been slipping in the rankings of the worlds top universities for three years. was ranked 142 in 2016 and 152 in 2017. Its current ranking is further down at 190. An analysis by Business Standard suggests slipped in the rankings mainly on account of an alleged decline in academic reputation. The institute has been scoring less on academic reputation and faculty-student parameters. IIT-Bombay sprung a surprise by getting into the top 200 for the first time. Its scores on different parameters have remained almost the same, suggesting its ranking improved primarily because of poorer performance at other universities. Unlike other countries, Indian universities dont find place in the top 100 because they dont employ enough foreign faculty and admit students from abroad. A snapshot of the ranking of three premier institutes from India and also how one of the top ones in Asia was ranked.




Disregarding new environment regulations, the Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has given more than 300 two to five-year reprieve from adhering to the strict air pollution standards that come into force this year. The CEA has set in place a roadmap for the plants to install essential pollution abatement technology earliest by 2020 instead of doing so by end 2017.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today said nearly 83% of the currency has been remonetised so far and denied there was any shortage of cash in the system.

"According to our latest data, 82.67% of the currency has been remonetised and in volume terms, it is 108%," RBI Deputy Governor B P Kanungo told reporters here today.

The government had demonetised old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 9, junking nearly 87% of the currency in circulation.

In a reply to questions in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal on December 2, 2016, had said the day on which demonetisation was announced (November 8), there were 17,165 million pieces of Rs 500 notes and 6,858 million pieces of Rs 1,000 notes in circulation.

The data on the amount of demonetised notes returned back, however, continues to be elusive.

Kanungo further said it would be wrong to assume that there is any shortage of currency in the system.

Customers across the country have been complaining of the severe shortage of currency at the banks and ATMs.

Kanungo admitted that there could be the shortage in some areas but said RBI is monitoring the situation on a regular basis and has made enough arrangements to replenish cash.

"Yes, there could be the shortage of currency in some pockets but whenever such things come to our notice, we respond immediately through various measures including inter-chest remittances.

"I won't agree to the view that there is cash shortage on a longer term basis or persistent basis at any place," he said.

On shortage of cash at ATMs, the deputy governor said in an area where there are seven to eight ATMs, there is always one or two ATMs which would be dispensing cash.
U.S. President Donald Trump offered on Wednesday to help resolve a worsening diplomatic crisis between Qatar and other Arab powers as the United Arab Emirates invoked the possibility of an economic embargo on Doha over its alleged support of terrorism.
After a dull period, SEZ exports from Gujarat are back on track. They rose four per cent in financial year (FY) 17, after falling 20 per cent in FY'16 and FY'15, respectively. SEZ exports from the state, however, are likely to post double-digit growth in FY18, on the back of the finance SEZ at GIFT City and the Zydus Pharma SEZ, which are clocking robust growth numbers.
Office space absorption by the information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITeS) companies rose by 10% to 16.81 million square feet (sq ft) in 2016 over the previous year, with Bengaluru and Hyderabad together accounting for more than 50% of this space take-up, according to a report by JLL India.
Farming provides livelihood to about 50 per cent of the workforce in the country. The government wants to double farmers income by 2022. ITC is trying to help this by attracting the next generation of farmers to sustainable activities as an aggregator.
In a special session called on Thursday morning, the Kerala Assembly passed a resolution against the Centre's move to ban the sale of cattle for slaughter. The resolution said that the move went against the growth of agriculture, industry, labour, and the powers granted to a state under the Constitution.


Widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, were reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially Mandsaur and Dewas districts, on the seventh day of the farmers' agitation on Wednesday.

The Centre rushed 1,100 anti-riots police personnel to Mandsaur district where five persons were killed on Tuesday allegedly in police firing.

Though Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore each for the families of five farmers, it didn't seem to have mollified the protesters who are demanding better prices for their produce and a complete farm loan waiver.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government also announced a loan settlement scheme which it said will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore.

The government is contemplating a formula wherein it may waive interest on crop loans. Also, an Agricultural Costs and Marketing Commission to ensure better prices for farm produce would be set up, minister Archana Chitnis said after attending a meeting chaired by Chouhan.

The bandh called by the main Opposition Congress received a mixed response.

Curfew remained in force at Pipaliya Mandi area -- where five farmers were killed and six others were injured on Tuesday -- and in Mandsaur town. Prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC are still in place in the rest of the district, Inspector General of Police V Madhukumar said.

The six injured persons were out of danger while the slain farmers were cremated, Madhukumar told PTI.

Tension prevailed in Mandsaur town again on Wednesday, where all business establishments and offices remained closed. Police detained the former Mandsaur MP Meenakshi Natrajan who was not allowed to enter the district to meet families of the slain farmers.

Mandsaur collector S K Singh was heckled when he tried to persuade protesters to lift road blockade in Berheda Pant area.

Shops were torched in Suasara town in the district.

Inspector Shyambabu Sharma of Suasara police station received head injuries when the police were trying to bring a mob under control which was throwing stones at Guratiya Pratap square.

A warehouse was set ablaze in Badi Choupati area and the Mhow-Neemuch highway was blocked for hours in Mandsaur.

In Dewas district, protesters threw stones and set on fire four passenger buses running between Indore-Bhopal and eight other vehicles in Newari Fata area. Passengers in the buses got down and were safe, but Indore-Bhopal bus services were suspended.

A mob also torched vehicles parked outside the Hat Pipaliya police station in Dewas district.

Protesting Congress workers stopped a train in Dewas.

Shops and offices in Neemuch district adjoining Mandsaur also remained shut. Protesters set on fire a police outpost in Harkiya Khal Phanta area.

In Ujjain district, around 10 policemen, including Mahal Kal police station's inspector Ajeet Tiwari, were injured in stone-pelting.

Protesters threw vegetables and fruits on road in Sanwer and Simrol areas of Indore and emptied milk containers.

In Khargone district, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh workers led by Gopal Patidar burnt an effigy of state home minister Bhupendra Singh in protest of alleged police firing in Mandsaur.

In Sehore district, the car of the additional collector of Barwani district, Jayendra Kumar, was pelted with stones. Protesters blocked the Indore-Bhopal highway at Ashta.

Violence was also reported from Dhar, while other areas of the state remained peaceful.

Congress legal cell chairman and Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha announced that the party would extend legal help to 450-odd farmers against whom "false cases" have been registered during the agitation.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans stellar achievements in agriculture  successive years of double-digit growth since 2011-12  have turned sour. The same farmers whom the state feted not so long back are now questioning the states policies and their impact on the ground. The escalating protests resulted in police firing on farmers on Tuesday, killing five.
The All India Manufacturers'Organisation (AIMO) has asked the Centre to postpone the implementation of goods and services tax (GST) to October 1, as the industry has no time to prepare for the new tax regime.
The income tax (I-T) department has eased its safe harbour rules, the term for a mechanism to avoid litigation involving transfer pricing. The change is aimed at wooing multinational corporations.

Such rules, if agreed to by companies, would provide immunity to such taxpayers from transfer pricing audits. There are other methods to address disputes in this regard, too, such as advance pricing agreements (APAs) and mutual agreement programmes.
Kolkata-headquartered United Bank of India (UBI) battling swelling NPAs (non-performing assets) aims to prune them by 10 per cent each year. The public sector lender presently has a gross NPA of Rs 10,800 crore which is 15.6 per cent of its advances. Its net NPA stands at 10.1 per cent.
First Workshop on Accelerating Sagarmala Implementation Engaging with States" (in New Delhi) Tomorrow

The flagship programme of Ministry of Shipping  Sagarmala, has moved from the conceptualization and planning to the implementation stage. As a part of the programme, more than 400 projects have been identified across the areas of port modernization and new port development, connectivity enhancement, portlinked industrialization and coastal community development.

To create awareness about the Sagarmala programme among the stake holders and to engage with them, the Ministry is organising a series of workshops over the next 6  8 months under the aegis of the Sagarmala Programme.

The first workshop titled, Accelerating Sagarmala Implementation  Engaging with States is being organized on 9th June, 2017 in New Delhi at India Habitat Centre. The main objective of this workshop is to enhance the engagement among Ministry of Shipping, other line ministries and various maritime states of India for Sagarmala Programme. The workshop will be presided by Secretary (Shipping) and the key note address will be delivered by Shri. Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog.

The workshop is expected to be attended by Principal Secretaries of the maritime states, Chairmen of ports and officials of the line ministries.
Meeting of Union Home Minister with CMs of Indo Myanmar Border States The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh will chair a review meeting on Indo- Myanmar Border issues on June 12, 2017 at Aizawl, Mizoram. The Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram are attending the review meeting to discuss the status of border infrastructure along the Indo-Myanmar border, implementation of Border Area Development Programme (BADP) Projects, streamlining the Free Movement Regime (FMR) for better facilitation of movement of people across the border, works relating to boundary survey and other co-ordination issues between the States and the Border Guarding Force, Assam Rifles. The Chief Secretaries, Directors General of Police (DGPs) of the respective states and Director General, Assam Rifles including senior officials from the concerned central ministries will be present in the meeting.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United Arab Emirates carrier Etihad has broken off talks with German travel group TUI to jointly create a leisure airline, both companies said on Thursday.

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad and troubled Air Berlin, of which Etihad is a majority owner, had last October announced plans to form a new leisure airline by merging Air Berlin's Austrian subsidiary Niki with TUI subsidiary TUI fly.

But on Thursday TUI informed its employees in a letter seen by AFP that Etihad had "decided not to continue the negotiations with us ... This is unfortunate but can't be changed".

TUI then confirmed the collapse of joint venture talks in a statement in which it added that it generally "remains open to a partnership or the creation of joint ventures".

Etihad Aviation Group confirmed it had "terminated negotiations with TUI AG, in relation to a potential joint venture involving the leisure operations of Air Berlin Group and the German TUI fly company".

"Etihad has taken this decision following many months of negotiations, in good faith, during which time the parties have been unable to reach agreement on the final nature of such a joint venture.

"The leisure operations of Air Berlin group will now continue to operate as a separate business unit, under the NIKI brand. Further details of this structure will be announced in due course by Air Berlin."



The news raises fresh questions about the fate of loss- making Air Berlin, Germany's second largest airline, which depends on cash infusions from Etihad for survival.

The German airline booked losses amounting to 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) for the last two years and said Wednesday it was open to working with Germany's biggest airline, Lufthansa.

Air Berlin had presented a restructuring plan in September that included renting 38 aircraft with crew to Lufthansa and slashing 1,200 jobs - or one in seven of its workforce.
There are two places to visit if you want to know the human impact of Israels 50-year military occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory: an Israeli military court and the sitting room of a Palestinian family. I have been to both.
Iran experienced its first major ISIS attack on June 7, as armed men and suicide bombers targeted two symbols of the Islamic Republic in Tehran: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis mausoleum and the Iranian parliament. At least 12 people are reported to have been killed and 42 wounded.
"If we get Brexit right, we can build a Britain that is more prosperous and more secure, a Britain in which prosperity and opportunity is shared by all" - Theresa May UK PM, during her last election appeal to voters
More than 100 journalists in Myanmar gathered on June 6, 2017 in Yangon, the countrys capital, to plan their campaign against Section 66(d) of Myanmar's Telecommunications Law.
The wreckage of the Myanmar military aircraft, which went missing on Wednesday with 122 people on board, was found on Thursday with some dead bodies in the Andaman Sea off the country's Dawei town.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attended a reception and a gala show, marking the beginning of the two-day-long SCO Summit, even as speculation swirled over a possible meeting between him and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to defuse tensions in bilateral ties.

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It was not known whether Modi and Sharif exchanged pleasantries at the reception.

When asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull aside between the two leaders.

Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs, too did not respond to a query on a possible Modi-Sharif tete-e-tete.

India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

Both Modi and Sharif arrived in Kazakhstan's capital to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit which will tomorrow induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.

The events related to the got underway with a spectacular concert this evening.

Indian classical dance Kathak was the first to be featured after the host nation Kazakhstan's ensemble.

Eight dancers from Bengaluru-based NADAM put up 'Mahaganapathim' -- an ode to the god of auspicious beginnings, Lord Ganesha.

India was the only observer country to perform in the concert which featured traditional and western classical music and dance performances from China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apart from the hosts.
On June 8, Britain goes to the polls in a snap election unexpectedly called by Prime Minister Theresa May. Originally predicted to be a landslide victory for the Conservative Party, polls show the Labour Party, under Jeremy Corbyn, closing the gap. Could there be an electoral upset of Trump-like proportions?
The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two attacks that claimed at least 12 lives in Iran on Wednesday. With this, the flaring tensions between Sunnis and Shias are once again in the news.
Christopher A Wray was the governments top criminal prosecutor in 2004 when the FBI director, Robert S. Mueller III, and the deputy attorney general, James B. Comey, threatened to quit the Bush administration over a controversial surveillance program. He offered to join their protest.
Shares of steel companies were trading higher in an otherwise subdued market in early morning trade on the expectations of a revival in consumption during the current financial year 2017-18.
As many as 62 persons have been detained in connection with the farmers' protest in Mandsaur's district of Madhya Pradesh.

"Total 62 people have been detained and some more people are being identified on the basis of videos and pictures," said O.P. Tripathi, Superintendent of Police (SP).

Earlier in the day, Tripathi said that continuous patrolling was on in the district and the situation was under control.

"We have managed the situation well; currently, the violence has been curbed. My team and I are trying our best to control the situation. Also, extra forces would be deployed in violence-hit Ujjain, Dewas, Mandsaur, Neemuch and Sehore areas. We are continuously patrolling and hoping that the situation does not worsen more," Tripathi told reporters here.

The Madhya Pradesh farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Tuesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

Internet services in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Ujjain were also suspended following the farmers' protests.

Apart from the loan waiver, the farmers are also demanding that they should be given Rs. 50 per litre of milk bought from them as they spend Rs. 37 per litre.

Taking cognizance of the issue, Chief Minister Chouhan on Tuesday announced a compensation of Rs. one crore each to the victims' families. The injured will get Rs. five lakh in compensation, he added.

In a video message, Chouhan also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

The Madhya Pradesh Government has been facing backlash from the opposition over the violence in the state with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi accusing the Centre of waging war against nation's farmers.

Taking to social media, Rahul said, "This government is at war with the farmers of our country."

Rahul is also heading for Mandsaur today to take stock of the situation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been accused of being responsible for the prevailing Gulf crisis, has now offered to host a White House meeting to resolve it.

In a call with Qatari Emir Tameem Bin Hamad Al Thani on Wednesday, the President offered to help the parties resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary, according to a White House statement.

The statement said that Trump emphasised the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organisations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology.

"The President reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability," the statement added.

Recently, six Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as well as the Western-recognised governments of Yemen and Libya, abruptly cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, after accusing it of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist political movement that allegedly supports pro-Iran militias, and funding terror activities.

The Middle Eastern countries were later joined by the Indian Ocean island nation of The Maldives.

Following the crisis, Iranian officials accused the U.S. of setting the scene for the escalating Gulf diplomatic crisis during President Donald Trump's recent trip to the Saudi Arabia.

Two weeks ago, on his first foreign visit, Trump met the rulers of several Middle Eastern countries to discuss measures to limit Iran's power in the region, a gathering which he had hoped "may someday be remembered as the beginning of peace in the Middle East."

He also announced $110 billion-worth of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.

The present tension in the Gulf started right after Trump left the region. Tensions surged between countries closer to Saudi Arabia (such as Bahrain, and Egypt) and others, such Qatar, with ties to Iran.

Earlier, a Saudi press agency statement said the move was necessary because of "grave violations being committed by the authorities in Doha over the past years in secret and public," including giving shelter to various terrorist groups, some of them backed by Iran.

Qatar has maintained its diplomatic clout in part by being the home of U.S. Central Command and the U.S's largest air base in the region and hosting branches of prestigious Western universities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah arrived here on Thursday on a three-day visit to Chhattisgarh.

Shah will hold talks with BJP MPs, MLAs, office-bearers and workers and is expected to guide them on ways to strengthen the party's agenda ahead of next year's assembly polls and for the 2019 general elections.

A road map for the forthcoming elections is expected to be drafted.

Shah will also visit the birth place of Satnami saint Guru Ghasi Das in Giroudhpuri, which is approximately 130 kilometers from Raipur.

Another key objective of Shah's visit to Chhattisgarh is to consolidate the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste vote bank in favour of the BJP. Scheduled Castes constitute about 12 percent of Chhattisgarh's population of 2.5 crore.

These communities, once considered a Congress vote bank, sided with the BJP in the 2013 state assembly elections. The BJP then won nine of the 10 SC seats then.

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress party has said it will organise protests against the bribe giving culture of the BJP in the state during Shah's visit.

Shah will be attending and addressing 16 meetings. He will also inaugurate a "Modi Fest".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visiting Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur today to meet the grieving families of the farmers who lost their lives in the police firing, the party leaders on Thursday said that the BJP was an 'anti-farmer' government, adding the Centre was ignoring the genuine demands of the farmers.

"Rahul Gandhi will be most probably visiting the area, because now the farming community in India is totally against the Modi Government. It is an anti-farmer government. This has never happened before. There was an agitation in Maharashtra, now in Madhya Pradesh and this is happening because this government is ignoring the genuine demand of the farmers," Congress leader P. C. Chacko told ANI.

He further said that during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) rule, the Congress had increased the amount of the minimum support price to the farmers by six times.

"Since the last three years, the amount of the minimum support price has increased very little and that too only Rs. 50. Loan waiver is the farmers' right. The farmers in this country cannot pay their dues to the banks, so they deserve a loan waiver. The biggest loan waiver in the country was done by the UPA government. This government's policy should come out in front if there is any," Chacko added.

He asserted that the Congress would not allow the ruling government to continue the tirade against the farmers and the party leaders were fully in support with the farmers.

Meanwhile, another Congress leader Meem Afzal said that the Congress has been, since the beginning, saying that the farmers' loan should be spared by the government.

"The farmers are really frustrated and burden of loan can be seen on them. The government just knows to make promises, but does not want to implement an actual plan in this issue," he added.

The Centre has hit back at Rahul Gandhi for publicising the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt.

"Rahul Gandhi is going to that area where situation is tense. He should understand his responsibility. He should have talked about this first, but he is so fond of his publicity. That's why he is going there." Union Minister of Steel, Mines and Employment Narendra Singh Tomar told ANI.

Meanwhile, the Congress has rebuffed reports of Rahul participating in the ongoing farmers protest in Mandsaur, saying such a plan was never on the card for the party.

"People who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Rahul Gandhi, were denied permission. Instead canards and rumours were spread that he wanted to go earlier to participate in the protest. There were never any plans, never any attempt," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a press briefing.

Appealing for peace to the agitating farmers in the state, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan earlier announced a compensation of Rs. 1 crore to the kin of those killed in the violence.

Speaking to ANI, the Chief Minister asserted that his government stands with farmers and assured that various demands have been fulfilled in the past.

"In the past 11 years, there have been countless decisions made for the welfare of farmers. The various demands of the farmers have been fulfilled," he said.

However, Chouhan came down heavily on the Congress for giving a political tinge to the violence.

The farmers' agitation in Mandsaur district further intensified with protestors setting at least eight to ten vehicles on fire today.

Demanding the presence of Chouhan, the protesting farmers, got into a scuffle with the Collector and Superintendent of Police of Mandsaur district over them delaying their visit to the area.

Farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn yesterday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

The protestors alleged that police fired at them. A judicial probe has been ordered in the matter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the wake of a 12-hour bandh called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) over a proposal to make Bengali language compulsory in government schools, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has convened an emergency meeting at the Darjeeling Rajbhawan.

Around 30 ministers and delegates, including Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee, are participating in the meeting.

Violent protests erupted across Darjeeling earlier in the day after Mamata said Bengali would be compulsorily taught to students up to class 10 in schools.

Police vehicles and a government bus were set afire and the police were attacked with stones and bottles by the GJM protesters.

A protest rally was taken out by the protesters only 100 metres away from the venue of the meeting. The protesters shouted slogans and burnt effigies of the chief minister.

The army was later called in by the Mamata administration when the police failed to control the situation.

The GJM has been demanding Nepali as a language instead or can accept Hindi, but is strictly against the making of Bengali mandatory in all schools across the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former F.B.I. chief James Comey in his testimony admitted to leaking the contents of his memo documenting his meeting with Donald Trump during which the President allegedly asked him to drop the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, with the help of a 'close friend'.

Comey said that he was moved to act after the President tweeted a cryptic threat about the former "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

According to Comey, a few days after the tweet, he woke up "in the middle of the night" with the realisation that there might be a tape of his conversation with the President.

"I needed to get that out into the public square," he said.

Over Russian meddling in last year's presidential election, Comey said he had no doubt Russia attempted to influence the 2016 election but said no one asked him to end the investigation into meddling.

Comey said that he first became aware of Russian cyber intrusions in late summer 2015. He described the intrusion attempts as a "massive effort to target non-governmental and near-governmental targets."

He said that there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of attempted intrusions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
World N0. 3 Simona Halep will be facing Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia in what could be expected as an exciting French Open final on Saturday.

Halep defeated Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the last four context that lasted for two hours to reach her second French Open final on Thursday, thus taking her to within touching distance of a first Grand Slam title and the world number one spot.

On the other hand, unseeded Ostapenko, who became first Latvian to reach a Grand Slam decider, downed Timea Bacsinszky 7-6 (7/4), 3-6, 6-3 in another semi-final clash.

Crunching the ball off both wings and gliding assuredly across the red clay, the world No.47, who also celebrated her 20th birthday on Thursday, had the crowd on Philippe-Chatrier Court in awe as she ripped 50 winners past the Swiss.

"I am really happy. I love to play here, I love you guys, you're amazing. I'm just happy with the way I celebrated my birthday," said Ostapenko after the match.

The French Open champion will be a first-time major winner while victory will also crown the Romanian third seed as the new world number one, replacing Angelique Kerber.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat, in an interaction with ANI, said that the Indian Army is well prepared to face external, as well as internal threats to the country. Speaking to ANI General Bipin Rawat said, "Indian Army is fully ready for a two-and-a-half front war".

The Army Chief added that even though India is ready for a multi-front war, there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation. "Even the PM has stated that for the last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-China border," said General Rawat.

In a freewheeling conversation with ANI, General Rawat also informed that a new strike corps, 17 Strike Corps, is being raised specifically for mountain warfare. On asking about the delay in its raising Army Chief said a process as complex as this takes time.



He said, "It is being raised from scratch. The recruitments are on. As it is, to prepare an army soldier it takes about three years from recruitment process to training and then orienting and finally their deployment."

General Rawat went on to discuss modernization plans of the Army, saying that the Government is aware of our all needs and is supporting us in every manner. "Make in India is a good initiative, it will give results in two to three years," said General Rawat.

General Rawat added that all armies across the world maintain an inventory in the ratio of the 30:40:30. Here, 30 per cent equipment is state of the art technology, 40 per cent is undergoing modernization and the rest 30 per cent is obsolete, which requires an upgrade.

General Bipin Rawat concluded by saying that the Indian Army's preparations are not against any specific country.
The Islamic State has reportedly killed two Chinese nationals held in Mastung district of Balochistan, Pakistan.

The SITE Intelligence Group said that the ISIS, through its Amaq news agency, has claimed that its fighters in Pakistan have killed two Chinese nationals held in Mastung.

The development comes days after Pakistani forces said that they have killed a number of key commanders of the Islamic State group in an operation carried out in the mountainous Mastung district after intelligence reports said the group was holding the Chinese nationals kidnapped on May 24 from Jinnah Town of the provincial capital Quetta.

Jinnah Town is one of the affluent residential areas where Chinese NGOs teach Mandarin.

The Chinese presence in Pakistan has increased in the past few years due to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Pakistani government has deployed 15,000 military personnel to protect projects under the economic corridor.

Following the abduction, China had said it will spare no effort to rescue its kidnapped citizens while adding that it will also step up efforts to safeguard the security of Chinese citizens and agencies in Pakistan.

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Pakistan has urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to adopt an expedited timetable for hearing of the Kulbhushan Jadhav's case.

According to a statement issued by the office of the Attorney General of Pakistan, delegations of India and Pakistan on Thursday met ICJ president Ronny Abraham to discuss the timelines in the Jadhav case. The Registrar of the court and other court officials were also present in the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was only to discuss procedural matters including the timelines for submission of written memorials and to enable a hearing to be listed.

The delegation of Pakistan was led by Ashtar Ausaf Ali, the Attorney General for Pakistan, who urged the Court to adopt an expedited timetable with a view for an early substantive hearing. The Court will now announce the timetable shortly.

The Attorney General also informed the ICJ of Pakistan's intent to appoint a judge ad hoc, who will sit on the bench of the Court for all proceedings in this case, according to the statement.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty awarded to Jadhav by a Pakistan military court on May 8 for espionage.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

During the last trial on May 18, the ICJ had restrained Pakistan from executing Jadhav.

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Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday met with the kin of farmers, who died in police firing during protests in Mandsaur at Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border.

"I condemn this incident. I only wanted to stand with farmers and want to assure them that the Congress Party is standing with them. We demanded from the Centre to take strict action against the accused. We will raise this topic in parliament as well," Gandhi told media after meeting with the farmers.

"Prime Minister Modi waived money for the elite but he cannot waive farmer loans," he said.

The Congress vice-president claimed that the Uttar Pradesh Government waived off farmers loans due to his constant demand of the same and added that he will do the same in Madhya Pradesh as well.

He also assured that the Congress Party will help the kin in providing the honour of "martyr' to the deceased as demanded by the families.

"Kin of farmers' families are demanding 'martyr' honour and the Congress Party will support them on this demand," he added.

Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi was arrested in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch under Section 151 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

This comes after he was detained while he was on his way to Mandsaur to meet the families of the deceased farmers.

After being detained, Gandhi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi only knows to fire bullets at farmers and not to waive off their loans.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi neither waives off farmers' loans nor does he provide bonus. He only knows to fire bullets at the innocent farmers," Rahul told the media.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Rahul of indulging in 'opportunistic and cynical politics', adding the former should not do politics on unfortunate tragedy.

"Rahul is trying to create a scene and indulging in political tourism. He is trying to create a photo-op politics. The enquiry that has been ordered will bring out the real truth of the Congress party and its role in perpetrating violence in Mansaur. Rahul Gandhi should not do politics on unfortunate tragedy," BJP spokesperson G.V.L. Narasimha Rao told media.

Accusing the Congress Party of firing from the shoulders of the farmers, Rao further said that grand old party is responsible for giving a violent turn to entire Mandsaur incident.

The Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh has been facing a tense situation with farmers protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Tuesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in police firing

Internet services in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Ujjain were also suspended following the farmers' protests, and a curfew was reportedly imposed.

Chief Minister Chouhan on Tuesday announced a compensation of Rs. one crore each to the victims' families while Rs. five lakh for the injured.

In a video message, Chouhan also promised a government job to each of the victims' kin.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba on Thursday expressed his disappointment for drawing similarities with Major Gogoi's 'human shield' incident in Kashmir with that of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer actions at Jallianwala Bagh and termed it as a "sad comparison".

"I think it's a very sad comparison which is being made and not called for entirely," Admiral Lanba said.

Indian scholar Partha Chatterjee drew criticisms after he, in his article, wrote that Kashmir is witnessing its ' General Dyer' moment.

This article by Chatterjee came after Army chief General Bipin Rawat extended support to Major Gogoi over the human shield controversy in Kashmir.

"There are chilling similarities between the justifications advanced for the actions of the British Indian army in Punjab in 1919 and those being offered today in defence of the acts of the Indian army in Kashmir," Chatterjee wrote in his article.

Major Gogoi came to light after he tied a Kashmiri man to a jeep as human shield and was paraded through villages in Kashmir.

This incident was likened to General Dyer actions in Jallianwala bagh, where thousands of unarmed civilians were killed in 1919.

The Navy chief also promised full support to the family of former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been awarded death sentence by a Pakistani military court for his alleged espionage activities in Balochistan.

"We will provide all support which is required to the family and him and the country is providing all it can to get his release," he said.

Talking about a seven-day maritime exercise held by India and Singapore in the South China Sea in May, Admiral Lanba said, "We have an annual exercise with Singapore. It takes place once in our waters and once in the South China Sea and we are going to continue to follow this process."

Talking about his upcoming visit to Israel next week, Admiral Lanba said he would be meeting with the chiefs of Israeli Navy, Army and the Air Force. He is also likely to meet Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

"We will exchange notes. We have an in-depth defence relationship with Israel. We jointly developed systems and fitted them onboard on our ship," the Admiral said.

Admiral Lanba will visit Israel from June 11 to 15. The Navy chief's visit comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel in July, a first by an Indian Prime Minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan's media wing, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), on Thursday said that a successful military operation in Mastung-which left 12 'terrorists dead- has foiled establishment of an organised infrastructure of Islamic State (IS).

"The successful operation by Security Forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct / indirect ISIS organized infrastructure in Balochistan/ Pakistan," said an ISPR statement.

Divulging the details of the three-day long military operation in Mastung from 1-3 June, the statement said that there were reports of 10-15 terrorists of a banned outfit Lashrake-Jhangivi Al-Almi (LeJA) hiding in caves near Isplingi, 36 Kilometer South East of Mastung.

The said organisation was reportedly making efforts for communication with ISIS (Daesh) and intended to facilitate establishment of ISIS foothold in Balochistan.

"During exchange of fire, 12 hardcore terrorists including 2 suicide bombers were killed. The suicide bomber used against Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on 12 May was also sent by this group from same hideout," added the statement.

Five security forces personnel, including two officers, were also injured during the operation.

The security forces destroyed IED making facility inside cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kilograms of explosive, 3 suicide bomber jackets, 18 Grenades, 6 Rocket Launchers, 4 Light Machine Guns,18 small machine guns, 4 sniper rifles, 38 communication sets and huge ammunition of various types.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Kazakhstan's Astana for a two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

India is set to become a full member of the SCO during the two-day summit to be held at Astana.

Prime Minister Modi will also hold bilateral talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev for boosting ties in the fields of trade and commerce, education, tourism and other sectors.

Briefing media in Delhi last evening, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "India will be benefited in trade and economic activity after it becomes a full member. He said that trade, connectivity, energy, banking and fight against terrorism are the main areas of cooperation."

Joint Secretary, Eurasia, G. V. Srinivas said, "India is joining SCO with an open mind for peace and stability in the region. Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness, promoting cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture and other areas are the main goals of SCO."

India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 at Tashkent, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members.

Srinivasan said at the briefing, that India has signed a memorandum which is essentially a process through which an aspirant country has to go through before becoming a member of the group.

"So that process has been completed from our side - essentially entailing to a couple of agreements as per the calendar drawn by the memorandum of obligations - something which we have relayed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation secretariat in Beijing. They have also confirmed that India has completed this process," he said

"The indications are that the last leg of the entire membership process that is the confirmation by the heads of state of existing members of the SCO, is going to happen in Astana," he added.

Kazakhstan is India's largest trading partner in Central Asia and the total trade volume between the two countries rose from 120 million US dollars to around 900 million dollars in recent years. India's imports to Kazakhstan include pharmaceuticals, tea, tobacco, telephone equipment and construction machinery.

Its imports from Kazakhstan comprise oil, uranium, titanium, steel, copper among other things.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
August 22, 2022, Monday

Chief Minister Basavaraja Bommai said that there will be pro and anti-beliefs and arguments on noted personalities, but it must ...
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through his diplomatic skills, has been successful to bring international community onboard on terrorism.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi through his diplomatic skills has been successful to bring international community onboard on terrorism," Singh said during a press conference here.

Singh claimed that during three years of tenure, no major terror incidents took place except Gurdaspur and Pathankot attack.

"In three years of tenure, no major terror incidents took place except Gurdaspur and Pathankot. Our Prime Minister always raises the topic of terrorism on every platform," he said.

Singh also assured the nation that the Centre has decided to give integrated permanent solution to the problem of Kashmir.

"We have decided to give integrated permanent solution to the problem of Kashmir. With the support of Pakistan some disruptive powers are trying to create unrest in the valley. I am always open for discussions and dialogues. In healthy democracy, major problems can also be solved by dialogues and discussions," Singh further added.

On June 3, the Home Minister assured that a solution for the Kashmir unrest will be chalked out at any cost, while adding that all the impediments coming in between the better future of Kashmir will be removed.

"We will find a permanent solution to Kashmir. It might take some time because the problem which has been prevailing since 1947, the solution to it cannot be taken out with just a snap. We will remove all the impediments for a better future of Kashmir. The nature which has given talent in the hands of the people of Kashmir will be used for the development of the Valley and country. Nature has not given those hands to pelt stones," he said.

Rajnath reiterated the government's stand on Pakistan being behind those forces which are trying to bring disturbance in the Valley.

"We have always maintained that Pakistan is sheltering those forces which are trying to destabilise Kashmir. This won't go for long," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday leave for Kazakhstan's Astana for the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

India is set to become a full member of the SCO during the two-day summit to be held at Astana.

Prime Minister Modi will also hold bilateral talks with Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev for boosting ties in the fields of trade and commerce, education, tourism and other sectors.

Briefing media in Delhi last evening, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "India will be benefited in trade and economic activity after it becomes a full member. He said that trade, connectivity, energy, banking and fight against terrorism are the main areas of cooperation."

Joint Secretary, Eurasia, G. V. Srinivas said, "India is joining SCO with an open mind for peace and stability in the region. Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness, promoting cooperation in politics, trade, economy, research, technology and culture and other areas are the main goals of SCO."

India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 at Tashkent, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members.

Srinivasan said at the briefing, that India has signed a memorandum which is essentially a process through which an aspirant country has to go through before becoming a member of the group.

"So that process has been completed from our side - essentially entailing to a couple of agreements as per the calendar drawn by the memorandum of obligations - something which we have relayed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation secretariat in Beijing. They have also confirmed that India has completed this process," he said

"The indications are that the last leg of the entire membership process that is the confirmation by the heads of state of existing members of the SCO, is going to happen in Astana," he added.

Kazakhstan is India's largest trading partner in Central Asia and the total trade volume between the two countries rose from 120 million US dollars to around 900 million dollars in recent years. India's imports to Kazakhstan include pharmaceuticals, tea, tobacco, telephone equipment and construction machinery.

Its imports from Kazakhstan comprise oil, uranium, titanium, steel, copper among other things.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have bad days because he is "not a woman", and would rather not shower next to a gay man because he wouldn't want to "provoke him".

The Russian President's comments came in series of interviews with American film director Oliver Stone on topics ranging from geopolitics to gay rights and Edward Snowden.

"The Putin Interviews", a documentary comprised of conversations with the Russian president that took place between July 2015 and February 2017, show Putin musing on life and philosophy.

"Do you ever have a bad day?" Putin was asked during a tour of the Throne Room, and he said, "I'm not a woman so I don't have bad days." He then doubles down on the misogyny, explaining that, "There are certain natural cycles which men probably have as well, just less manifested. We are all human beings. It's normal. But you should never lose control," the Guardian quotes Putin, as saying.

On the question whether gays can serve in the military in Russia, Putin said, "If you're taking a shower in a submarine with a man and you know he's gay, do they have a problem with that?"

Putin even denied that there was any persecution of gay people in Russia, despite a law being passed against the "propaganda of homosexuality among minors" and recent reports of a "gay purge" in the Russian republic of Chechnya. When asked whether he would be comfortable showering next to a gay man, he said no.

"I prefer not to go to the shower with him. Why provoke him? But you know, I'm a judo master," said Putin laughing.

In the interview with Stone, Putin reveals that he once suggested to former U.S. president Bill Clinton that Russia may consider joining a Washington-led military alliance.

Commenting on U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, the Russian President said, "Snowden is not a traitor. He did not betray the interests of his country. Nor did he transfer any information to any other country which would have been pernicious to his own country or to his own people. The only thing Snowden does, he does publicly."

Putin also appeared to change the story of how Snowden ended up in Moscow.

"Our first contact with Snowden was in China. We were told back then that this was a person who wanted to fight against violations of human rights," Putin said.

At the time, however, Putin and other Russian officials gave the impression that the first Russia knew of Snowden was when he arrived in Moscow with the intention to transit to Latin America.

"Snowden arrived in Moscow, which was completely unexpected for us. He came as a transit passenger, so he didn't need a visa or other documents," Putin said then.

When asked if he was worried about assassination attempts, Putin said "They say those who are destined to be hanged are not going to drown."

Putin, an ex- KGB Foreign Intelligence Officer for 16 years, said "I remember one of our last meetings with President Clinton, when Clinton was still in office. He visited Moscow and during a discussion I said, 'So, what if [we] consider an option of Russia maybe joining NATO."

While Clinton replied that he "didn't mind," the rest of the American delegation became visibly nervous, Putin recalled with a smile.

Putin called NATO "an instrument of America's foreign policy," saying that the US-led alliance "has no allies, but only vassals."

According to the Russian leader, some member states find it hard to resist Washington's pressure, and thus, "anything can be easily placed" on their territories, including both anti-missile and offensive systems.

"And what are we supposed to do? Due to that, we have to take counter measures," Putin told his American interviewer.

Promoted as "the most detailed portrait of Putin ever granted to a Western interviewer," it will feature interviews between the director and the Russian leader that were made during several encounters over two years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the wake of former FBI director James Comey's testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, United States President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz has insisted that it was Comey, who lied when he detailed conversations between himself and the President, raising the suggestion that Comey committed perjury while testifying under oath.

Kasowitz said Comey's claims that Trump demanded loyalty during an Oval Office meeting were false.

"The President also never told Mr. Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty" in form or substance. Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration, and, from before this President took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers," he said, quoting Comey's account of a meeting between himself and the President in January.

Referring to Comey's admission that he made unauthorised disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President, Kasowitz said, "The leaks of this privileged information began no later than March 2017 when friends of Mr. Comey have stated he disclosed to them the conversations he had with the President during their January 27, 2017 dinner and February 14, 2017 White House meeting."

"Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified. He also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorised his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to 'prompt the appointment of a special counsel.' Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey's excuse for this unauthorised disclosure of privileged information and appears to entirely retaliatory. We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated."

?"In sum, it is now established that there the President was not being investigated for colluding with the or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events. As he said yesterday, the President feels completely vindicated and is eager to continue moving forward with his agenda with this public cloud removed," he added.

Accusations of lying whizzed across Washington on Thursday as Comey concluded his bombshell session on the Capitol Hill.

Comey himself suggested during his three-hour sworn testimony that President Donald Trump had a shaky commitment to telling the truth. The White House decried the accusation.

Comey has declined to comment on Kasowitz's accusations even as he departed Capitol Hill Thursday.

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Turkey's parliament has approved a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, an apparent move to support the Gulf Arab country.

The legislation was passed with 240 votes in favour. The bill focused on allowing troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, which was set up by Ankara as part of an agreement signed in 2014.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and nationalist opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Russia Today reported.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed disapproval of the diplomatic and trade isolation of Qatar by some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers,

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

Erdogan has slammed Arab states for turning their backs on Qatar, which has vehemently denied supporting militant groups.

Several countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, the Maldives, and one of Libya's that isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems, adding that Turkey

will do everything in its power to help end the diplomatic row.

The Turkish bill was drafted before the row between Qatar and Arab nations erupted.

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The north-east India joined the rest of the world to commemorate World Environment Day on June 5. Tree plantation drives and rallies were held across major cities in the region to mark the day. The theme for World Environment Day this year was 'connect with nature'.

Speaking at an event in Manipur, Chief Minister N Biren Singh said, "Nature does not require us, the hills, valleys, trees and rivers don't need us but we need nature for our survival. We need trees in our life because it provides us water and oxygen."

He also launched a 'Segregation at Source' campaign.

Dr. M Angamuthu, Deputy Commissioner, Kamrup Metropolitan District also spoke on the occasion and said, "To address the most important critical component, we are planning for at least five lakh tree plantation and we also wanted to do continues cleanliness, hygiene campaign in the city."

Similarly, World Environment Day was also commemorated in Assam's Guwahati and Jorhat. Over hundreds of saplings were planted at different places in Jorhat city. An awareness race was flagged off by Tripura's Environment Minister Bijita Nath from the Tripura Museum area as part of the World Environment Day.

Further, Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma also attended an event organised at Sangmein in Upper Shillong to mark the occasion where he administered the Green Pledge at the gathering and launched the 'Seasons Watch-Meghalaya Chapter' website.

The states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Sikkim and Mizoram also celebrated the day to mark the occasion.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tata Memorial Centre to manage the administrative control

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the following:

(i) Taking over Dr. B. Borooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati by Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and bringing it under the administrative control of Tata Memorial Centre, an Aided institution of DAE;

(ii) Augmentation of additional manpower of 166 posts in medical, paramedical and support positions.

The decision comes in the wake of the increasing instances of cancer, limited cancer treatment facilities and the need for a hospital support to carry out further research in North Eastern Region.

The approximate non-recurring expenditure for strengthening of institute is estimated at Rs. 150 crore and annual recurring expenditure is estimated at Rs. 45- 50 crore.

Background:

Borooah Cancer Institute was established in 1974 in Guwahati with the aim and objective of investigation, diagnosis and treatment of cancer in the North Eastern region of India by a voluntary organization. Government of Assam took over the institute with all its assets and liabilities in 1986 and entered into a tripartite agreement with the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and North Eastern Council for management of the institute. The institute is presently a 209 bedded hospital with 8 bedded ICU.

Tata Memorial hospital under DAE is a premier research institution in the field of cancer research and treatment. TMC under the aegis of DAE has been extending financial and technical support to the institute since 1989. Chief Minister of Assam in October 2013 had proposed that DAE should take over the institute to develop it as a center for excellence for cancer treatment, education and research for the entire North East.

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Cyient rose 1.35% to Rs 532.10 at 9:32 IST on BSE after the company said that its subsidiary has been qualified as an approved product supplier to UTC Aerospace Systems.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 31.46 points, or 0.10% to 31,302.74.

On the BSE, 9,273 shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 27,730 shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 549.95 and a low of Rs 531.60 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 564.40 on 3 May 2017. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 416.05 on 9 November 2016.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 7 June 2017, falling 1.33% compared with 4.47% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 12.69% as against Sensex's 8.10% rise. The scrip had underperformed the market in past one year, rising 6.09% as against Sensex's 15.73% rise.

The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 56.28 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5.

Cyient announced that its subsidiary, Cyient DLM, has been qualified as an approved product supplier to UTC Aerospace Systems. This expands Cyient's 15 years relationship with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) as a valued engineering service provider. Cyient and UTC also extended the master terms agreement through 2020, enabling Cyient to provide technical services to UTC company-wide. With the qualification of DLM, the portfolio of offerings to UTC now includes both services and product development.

Carrier International (Mauritius), a subsidiary of UTC, executed a trade yesterday, 7 June 2017, to divest a portion of its equity shareholding in Cyient. UTC first invested in Cyient in 2002 when the company was establishing itself as a global engineering services company. Since that time, Cyient has grown considerably and remains a trusted service provider to UTC with over 1,600 engineers engaged on UTC projects worldwide.

As per the bulk deal data on NSE, Carrier International (Mauritius) sold 16 lakh shares of Cyient at Rs 496.08 per share. As on 31 March 2017, Carrier International (Mauritius) held 1.52 crore shares, or 13.58% equity, in Cyient.

On a consolidated basis, net profit of Cyient rose 15.81% to Rs 78.40 crore on 14.48% rise in net sales to Rs 933.90 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016.

Cyient provides engineering, manufacturing, geospatial, network and operations management services to global industry leaders.

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Gujarat Pipavav Port rose 0.94% to Rs 145.70 at 12:24 IST on BSE on reports APM Terminals is looking to offload its stake in the company.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 46.03 points, or 0.15% to 31,225.25.

On the BSE, 1.29 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 1.79 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 150 and a low of Rs 145.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 197.35 on 9 September 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 121.20 on 26 December 2016.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 7 June 2017, sliding 10.20% compared with 4.47% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 6.81% as against Sensex's 8.10% rise. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one year, falling 9.72% as against Sensex's 15.73% rise.

The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 483.44 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

According to reports, APM Terminals, the controlling shareholder, manager and operator of Gujarat Pipavav Ports (GPPL), is looking to exit its 12-year flagship investment as it no longer fits in with its core global business strategy. It has mandated HSBC to run a formal sale process and find a new buyer.

Global and local rivals and infrastructure-focused conglomerates such as JSW Group, Adani Ports and Dubai's DP World are believed to have been approached, and initial diligence has begun, reports added.

Netherlands-headquartered APM Terminals is the independent ports and terminals arm of Danish maritime giant A.P. Moller-Maersk Group. It owns 43.01% of GPPL (as on 31 March 2017). As per rules, the buyer will also need to make a mandatory open offer to minority shareholders for an additional 26%.

Net profit of Gujarat Pipavav Port rose 28.12% to Rs 66.20 on 5.85% rise in net sales to Rs 156.74 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016.

Gujarat Pipavav Port is managed and operated by APM Terminals, the ports and terminals company of the maritime giant, the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group.

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Housing Development & Infrastructure lost 4.14% to Rs 89.20 at 12:44 IST on BSE on reports that the company has failed to repay loan worth Rs 144 crore to Central Bank of India.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 55.73 points or 0.18% at 31,215.55. The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 34.99 points or 0.24% at 14,835.84.

On the BSE, 22.28 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 22.66 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 92.30 and a low of Rs 88.30 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 108.75 on 12 July 2016 and a 52-week low of Rs 52.25 on 27 December 2016.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 7 June 2017, falling 4.22% compared with 4.47% rise in the Sensex. The scrip, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, surging 30.23% as against Sensex's 8.10% rise. The scrip, however, underperformed the market in past one year, falling 4.12% as against Sensex's 15.73% rise.

The mid-cap company has equity capital of Rs 434 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

As per reports, Central Bank of India has taken symbolic possession of HDIL's property in Kurla West. The property is a 10-acre portion of all pieces and parcels of land and premises admeasuring 2.13 lakh square metres. The bank is carrying out the procedures required under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, reports indicated. The bank had issued a public notice on 1 June 2017, asking HDIL to pay the loan amount, reports added.

Shares of Housing Development & Infrastructure (HDIL) had gained 4.23% to settle at Rs 93.60 on 5 June 2017 after a foreign fund Societe Generale bought 25.32 lakh shares of the company at Rs 92.04 per share in a bulk deal on NSE.

HDIL's consolidated net profit rose 28% to Rs 60.89 crore on 61.62% slide in net sales to Rs 129.51 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016.

HDIL is a real estate development company, with significant operations in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

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Key benchmark indices edged higher in early trade tracking firmness in Asian stocks. At 9:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 64.77 points or 0.21% at 31,336.05. The Nifty 50 index was up 18.55 points or 0.19% at 9,682.45.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.47%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 0.31%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On the BSE, 929 shares rose and 383 shares declined. A total of 46 shares were unchanged.

Overseas, most Asian stocks gained ahead of a number of news events with global implications. Later today, elections in the UK will get under way, the European Central Bank will hold its latest meeting and James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will testify on Capitol Hill.

Japan's economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an annualized pace of 1.0% from the previous three months, according to government data.

Banks and other financial companies led US stocks slightly higher yesterday, 7 June 2017, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market.

Back home, Tata Steel (up 2.87%), HDFC (up 0.96%) and Asian Paints (up 0.75%) rose from the Sensex pack.

Infosys dropped 0.54% after the company clarified after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that the news reports on pricing cuts seen by the IT industry being attributed to the Infosys chief operating officer (COO) are incorrect.

His comments have been misrepresented. The comments made in the media interview refer to cost take out efforts by clients towards reducing their program investments in the 'run' side of business, to reinvest them in newer technologies or the 'change' side of business. Cost take outs by clients do not necessarily translate into an impact on vendor pricing.

There are enough levers available to meet the client demand on cost take-outs without necessarily impacting the pricing. Infosys commentary on pricing is no different from what it had shared with the market earlier. Infosys reiterated that it is not seeing anything new on pricing. This has also been clarified in the webcast of the Morgan Stanley India Summit, the company said.

The clarification was issued after a media report quoted Infosys' COO Pravin Rao saying that the company's clients were asking for 20-30% cut in prices for projects.

Tata Power Company declined 0.63% after the company said that rating agency ICRA has revised lower long term rating of the company from AA to AA-, while the short term rating has been reaffirmed at A1+. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017.

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Key benchmark indices continued to trade with small losses in early afternoon trade after a rangebound and listless session of trade so far during the session. At 12:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 32.21 points or 0.1% at 31,239.07. The Nifty 50 index was down 7.97 points or 0.08% at 9,656. Indices hovered in a narrow range as investors maintained caution ahead of key global events of elections in the UK and the European Central Bank's monetary policy review.

Capital goods stocks were mixed. Cement stocks dropped.

Indices edged higher in early trade tracking steady Asian stocks. Stocks soon slipped into the red only to stage recovery in morning trade. Indices hovered in negative terrain after once again slipping into the red in mid-morning trade.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.23%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 0.24%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1,218 shares rose and 1,174 shares declined. A total of 104 shares were unchanged.

JSW Steel rose 1.97% to Rs 199.15 on reports that a foreign broker upgraded its rating on the stock to 'buy'. JSW Steel reportedly received a rating and target price upgrade from a foreign brokerage firm based on better outlook for the company going forward. The brokerage upgraded the stock from 'outperform' to 'buy' with a target of Rs 300 from Rs 185 earlier.

The broker reportedly said that JSW Steel will be a big beneficiary of improving pricing and demand-supply outlook in the steel industry for the coming years. The broker added that the anti-dumping duties on HRC (hot rolled coil) and CRC (cold rolled coils) steel getting extended until August 2021 is a signal of continuation of import protection for the industry.

Capital goods stocks were mixed. BEML (up 1.15%), Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel) (up 0.62%), Havells India (up 0.25%) and Siemens (up 0.97%) gained. L&T (down 0.37%), Bharat Electronics (down 0.41%) and Thermax (down 0.09%) declined.

Cement stocks dropped. Shree Cement (down 0.14%), Ambuja Cements (down 0.23%), and UltraTech Cement (down 0.32%) declined. ACC rose 0.23%.

Grasim Industries declined 0.98%. Grasim has exposure to the cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.

Tata Power Company fell 0.57% after the company said that rating agency ICRA has revised lower long term rating of the company from AA to AA-, while the short term rating has been reaffirmed at A1+. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017.

The rating from ICRA had negative outlook in view of the under-recovery of fuel costs at the 4000 megawatts Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project (UMPP) operated by the company's wholly owned subsidiary. The revision of long term rating takes into account the disallowance of any relief to Mundra UMPP under Force Majeure or change in law clauses as per the recent judgement of the Supreme Court.

Separately, the company's distribution arm TP Ajmer Distribution signed distribution franchisee agreement (DFA) with Ajmer Vidyut Vitran Nigam (AVVNL) to cater to the power requirements of customers in Ajmer for a period of 20 years. The announcement was made during market hours today, 8 June 2017.

Bharat Wire Ropes rose 4.65% after the company said that it has booked approximately Rs 37 crore exports and domestic orders to be executed mainly from new facility set up at Chalisgaon, Maharashtra. The announcement was made during market hours today, 8 June 2017.

Petronet LNG fell 3.36% on media reports that a France-based investor offloaded its entire stake in the company. According to reports, GDF International offloaded its entire 10% stake, comprising 7.50 crore shares, in Petronet LNG in block trades today, 8 June 2017. GDF sold the shares in a price range of Rs 417-440 a share with the deal size of up to $512 million. GDF International distributes and markets liquefied natural gas.

HealthCare Global Enterprises rose 0.59% after the company announced the launch of a comprehensive cancer center in Nagpur, Maharashtra. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017.

HCG NCHRI cancer center is a 125 bed dedicated comprehensive cancer hospital established in collaboration with the Nagpur Cancer Hospital and Research Institute (NCHRI), HealthCare Global Enterprises (HCG) said. The new center is based on a multi-disciplinary team, adherence to proven clinical protocols and quality norms and features advanced technology including the TrueBeam STxTM radiotherapy system, PET-CT as well as a Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, the company said.

Overseas, Asian stocks were mixed ahead of a number of news events with global implications. Later today, elections in the UK will get under way, the European Central Bank will hold its latest meeting and James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will testify on Capitol Hill.

China's May exports rose 8.7% from a year earlier, while imports expanded 14.8%, both beating expectations, official data showed. That left the country with a trade surplus of $40.81 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said.

Japan's economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an annualized pace of 1.0% from the previous three months, according to government data.

Banks and other financial companies led US stocks slightly higher yesterday, 7 June 2017, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market.

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Infosys clarified after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that the news reports on pricing cuts seen by the IT industry being attributed to the Infosys chief operating officer (COO) are incorrect. His comments have been misrepresented. The comments made in the media interview refer to cost take out efforts by clients towards reducing their program investments in the 'run' side of business, to reinvest them in newer technologies or the 'change' side of business. Cost take outs by clients do not necessarily translate into an impact on vendor pricing. There are enough levers available to meet the client demand on cost take-outs without necessarily impacting the pricing. Infosys commentary on pricing is no different from what it had shared with the market earlier. Infosys reiterated that it is not seeing anything new on pricing. This has also been clarified in the webcast of the Morgan Stanley India Summit, the company said.

The clarification was issued after a media report quoted Infosys' COO Pravin Rao saying that the company's clients were asking for 20-30% cut in prices for projects.

Reliance Capital announced after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that the board of Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management (RNAM) has approved the plans to list the equity shares of RNAM, subject to necessary regulatory and corporate approvals. RNAM is the asset manager to Reliance Mutual Fund and will be the first among the top 3 players in the asset management company (AMC) industry to list its shares on exchanges. Discussions with merchant bankers, lawyers and auditors for IPO process would be initiated soon. The percentage of dilution, which shall be subject to regulatory norms, is yet to be decided, the company said in a statement.

RNAM is a subsidiary of Reliance Capital (RCL), with Nippon Life Insurance Company as its strategic partner. RCL holds 51% of the total issued and paid-up equity share capital of RNAM.

Cyient announced after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that its subsidiary, Cyient DLM, has been qualified as an approved product supplier to UTC Aerospace Systems. This expands Cyient's 15 years relationship with United Technologies Corporation (UTC) as a valued engineering service provider. Cyient and UTC also extended the master terms agreement through 2020, enabling Cyient to provide technical services to UTC company-wide. With the qualification of DLM, the portfolio of offerings to UTC now includes both services and product development.

Endurance Technologies announced after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that it has planned expansion of its annual installed capacity for manufacture of aluminium die casting (high pressure) and machining components/parts at its plant in Chennai. The company said it will expand its annual installed capacity to 12250 M. tonnes from 8161 M. tonnes. It requires an investment of about Rs 9.12 crore.

Biocon announced after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that it has fixed 17 June 2017 as the record date to determine the eligible shareholders entitled to receive the bonus equity shares.

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Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could gain 6.20 points at the opening bell on firm global stocks.

Overseas, most Asian stocks gained ahead of a number of news events with global implications. Later today, elections in the UK will get under way, the European Central Bank will hold its latest meeting and James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will testify on Capitol Hill.

Japan's economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an annualized pace of 1.0% from the previous three months, according to government data.

Banks and other financial companies led US stocks slightly higher yesterday, 7 June 2017, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market.

Oil futures fell sharply after a report showed that US crude stockpiles grew 3.3 million barrels last week. Brent crude, used to price international oils, fell $2.06, or 4.1%, to settle at $48.06 per barrel in London.

Back home, key benchmark indices settled with modest gains in a volatile session of trade yesterday, 7 June 2017after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decided to keep the policy repo rate unchanged after a policy review meet yesterday, 7 June 2017. The Sensex rose 80.72 points or 0.26% to settle at 31,271.28, its highest closing level since 5 June 2017.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 61.16 crore yesterday, 7 June 2017, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) had also sold shares worth a net Rs 360.01 crore yesterday, 7 June 2017, as per provisional data.

Among corporate news, Infosys clarified after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that the news reports on pricing cuts seen by the IT industry being attributed to the Infosys chief operating officer (COO) are incorrect. His comments have been misrepresented. The comments made in the media interview refer to cost take out efforts by clients towards reducing their program investments in the 'run' side of business, to reinvest them in newer technologies or the 'change' side of business. Cost take outs by clients do not necessarily translate into an impact on vendor pricing. There are enough levers available to meet the client demand on cost take-outs without necessarily impacting the pricing. Infosys commentary on pricing is no different from what it had shared with the market earlier. Infosys reiterated that it is not seeing anything new on pricing. This has also been clarified in the webcast of the Morgan Stanley India Summit, the company said.

The clarification was issued after a media report quoted Infosys' COO Pravin Rao saying that the company's clients were asking for 20-30% cut in prices for projects.

Tata Power Company said that rating agency ICRA has revised lower long term rating of the company from AA to AA-, while the short term rating has been reaffirmed at A1+. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017.

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Key indices settled with small losses after rangebound trade as caution prevailed in global markets ahead of key global events of elections in the UK and the European Central Bank's monetary policy review. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex shed 47.67 points or 0.15% at 31,223.61, as per the provisional closing data. The Nifty 50 index declined 17.80 points or 0.18% at 9,646.10, as per the provisional closing data.

Indices edged higher in early trade tracking steady Asian stocks. Stocks soon slipped into the red and largely languished in negative zone near the flat line later during the session.

Among other indices, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index provisionally rose 0.21%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index provisionally advanced 0.3%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, turned negative from positive in late trade. On the BSE, 1,351 shares fell and 1,330 shares rose. A total of 175 shares were unchanged.

The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 7642.60 crore, higher than turnover of Rs 3517.38 crore registered during the previous trading session.

The Sensex gained 83.23 points or 0.26% at the day's high of 31,354.51 in early trade, its highest level since 6 June 2017. The index fell 77.51 points or 0.24% at the day's low of 31,193.77 in late trade. The Nifty gained 24.80 points or 0.25% at the day's high of 9,688.70 in early trade, its highest level since 6 June 2017. The index fell 22.40 points or 0.23% at the day's low of 9,641.50 in late trade.

IT stocks extended previous session's sharp losses on concerns over pricing pressure. HCL Technologies (down 1.4%), TCS (down 3.57%), Tech Mahindra (down 0.51%) and Wipro (down 0.06%) edged lower.

Infosys dropped 0.59% after the company clarified after market hours yesterday, 7 June 2017, that the news reports on pricing cuts seen by the IT industry being attributed to the Infosys chief operating officer (COO) are incorrect.

His comments have been misrepresented. The comments made in the media interview refer to cost take out efforts by clients towards reducing their program investments in the 'run' side of business, to reinvest them in newer technologies or the 'change' side of business. Cost take outs by clients do not necessarily translate into an impact on vendor pricing.

There are enough levers available to meet the client demand on cost take-outs without necessarily impacting the pricing. Infosys commentary on pricing is no different from what it had shared with the market earlier. Infosys reiterated that it is not seeing anything new on pricing. This has also been clarified in the webcast of the Morgan Stanley India Summit, the company said.

The clarification was issued after a media report quoted Infosys' COO Pravin Rao saying that the company's clients were asking for 20-30% cut in prices for projects.

Deep Industries slumped 10.98% after the company said it has received the show cause notice from ONGC pertaining to certain allegations made in respect of ongoing contracts. The company has sought various documents from ONGC based on which allegations are made. ONGC's response is still awaited on the same.

Deep Industries clarified that it is pioneer company in Indian oil & gas services business for last three decades and maintains highest level of integrity in its business conduct while serving clients across varied services both in public and private space.

The company said it believes that the allegations made in show cause notice are baseless. It is in process of replying to show cause notice and contesting all the allegations made therein. The announcement was made during trading hours today, 8 June 2017.

Overseas, European stocks edged higher as UK voting began and European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy takes center stage. Asian stocks were mixed ahead of a number of news events with global implications.

German industrial production growth beat forecasts in April as manufacturing output rose for the fourth straight month, underpinning expectations of robust economic growth in the second quarter. Industrial output in Europe's largest economy increased by 0.8% from March, adjusted for seasonal swings and calendar effects.

The voting for the general elections in the UK began. The ECB will hold its latest meeting later in the day and James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will testify on Capitol Hill.

Among global macro data, China's May exports rose 8.7% from a year earlier, while imports expanded 14.8%, both beating expectations, official data showed. That left the country with a trade surplus of $40.81 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said.

Japan's economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an annualized pace of 1.0% from the previous three months, according to government data.

In the US, banks and other financial companies led stocks slightly higher yesterday, 7 June 2017, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market.

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Moody's Investors Service says that its Asian Liquidity Stress Index (Asian LSI) fell month-on-month to 25.2% in May 2017 from 25.4% in April.

The Asian LSI measures the percentage of high-yield companies with Moody's weakest speculative-grade liquidity score of SGL-4, when speculative-grade liquidity appears to improve for Asian high-yield issuers.

"The 25.2% Asian LSI reading in May was the lowest since August 2015, but remains above the long-term average of 22.8%, highlighting that weak liquidity is still a concern for many companies in Asia, despite improvements over the last six months," says Brian Grieser, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.

Moody's report points out that the Chinese high-yield property sub-index fell to a record low in May 2017, registering 7.5% from 10.0% the month before; the lowest level since Moody's began tracking the sub-index in 2010.

The liquidity stress sub-index for North Asian high-yield companies dropped to 24.7% in May from 25.0% in April. Within this portfolio, the Chinese sub-index fell to 25.4% from 25.7%.

By contrast, the Chinese high-yield industrials sub-index rose to 48.4% from 46.7%.

As for the South and Southeast Asian sub-index, the index was unchanged at 26.1% month-on-month. And, the Indonesian sub-index remained at 22.7% over the same period.

Moody's explains that the strong high-yield issuance in 2017 continued to support improved liquidity for Asian issuers, with issuance totaling $3.1 billion for the month, bringing year-to-date issuance to $16.2 billion. The year-to-date issuance is already above the full-year issuance of $11.4 billion recorded in 2016.

Roughly two-thirds of the bond proceeds between January and May 2017 have been used for refinancing upcoming maturities.

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Petronet LNG fell 3.37% to Rs 425.25 at 10:59 IST on BSE on media reports that a France-based investor offloaded its entire stake in the company.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 45.69 points, or 0.15% to 31,225.59.

Volumes were high on the counter. On the BSE, 9.26 crore shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 1.28 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 437.40 and a low of Rs 421 so far during the day. The stock hit a record high of Rs 458.80 on 22 May 2017. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 269.25 on 13 June 2016.

The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 7 June 2017, rising 2.62% compared with 4.47% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 13.09% as against Sensex's 8.10% rise. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one year, rising 61.18% as against Sensex's 15.73% rise.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 750 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

According to reports, GDF International offloaded its entire 10% stake, comprising 7.50 crore shares, in Petronet LNG in block trades today, 8 June 2017. GDF sold the shares in a price range of Rs 417-440 a share with the deal size of up to $512 million. GDF International distributes and markets liquefied natural gas.

The Indian government owned 50% stake in the company as of 31 March 2017.

Petronet LNG earlier this week reportedly said that it did not expect any impact on gas supplies from Qatar after Saudi Arabia and six other Gulf nations severed ties with the nation, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Qatar is the world's largest producer and exporter of LNG. Qatar's diplomatic crisis with its Middle Eastern neighbors could force natural gas buyers to seek greater diversification in sourcing amid potential disruptions from UAE ports refusing ships from the country.

Petronet LNG's net profit surged 91.3% to Rs 470.78 crore on 20.9% increase in net sales to Rs 7191.99 crore in Q4 March 2017 over Q4 March 2016.

Petronet LNG was formed as a joint venture by the Government of India to import liquified natural gas (LNG) and set up LNG terminals in the country.

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Key indices were trading near the flat with tiny losses in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 3.27 points or 0.01% at 31,268.01. The Nifty 50 index declined 0.85 points or 0.01% at 9,660. Indices hovered in a narrow range so far as investors maintained caution ahead of key global events of elections in the UK and the European Central Bank's monetary policy review.

Indices edged higher in early trade tracking steady Asian stocks. Stocks soon slipped into the red and largely languished in negative zone near the flat line later during the session.

Among other indices, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 0.36%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index advanced 0.38%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On the BSE, 1,313 shares rose and 1,232 shares declined. A total of 157 shares were unchanged.

FMCG stocks were mixed. Tata Global Beverages (down 0.39%), Nestle India (down 0.16%), Britannia Industries (down 0.19%), Hindustan Unilever (HUL) (down 0.58%), Bajaj Corp (down 0.19%) and Dabur India (down 0.6%) declined. Marico (up 0.31%), Jyothy Laboratories (up 1.6%), Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care (up 0.19%), Colgate Palmolive India (up 1.06%), GlaxoSmithkline Consumer Healthcare (up 0.01%), and Godrej Consumer Products (up 1.35%) gained.

Pharma stocks were in demand on bargain hunting after the recent losses. Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (up 4.03%), Aurobindo Pharma (up 1.83%), Cipla (up 2.08%), Lupin (up 1.82%), Wockhardt (up 3.25%), Dr Reddy's Laboratories (up 4.29%), Divi's Laboratories (up 1.5%), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (up 1.18%) and Cadila Healthcare (up 0.29%) gained.

The S&P BSE Healthcare rose 2.04%, outperforming the Sensex. The index gained for the second day in a row.

Housing Development & Infrastructure lost 3.76% on reports that the company has failed to repay loan worth Rs 144 crore to Central Bank of India.

As per reports, Central Bank of India has taken symbolic possession of HDIL's property in Kurla West. The property is a 10-acre portion of all pieces and parcels of land and premises admeasuring 2.13 lakh square metres. The bank is carrying out the procedures required under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, reports indicated. The bank had issued a public notice on 1 June 2017, asking HDIL to pay the loan amount, reports added.

Overseas, European stocks edge higher as UK voting began and European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy takes center stage. Asian stocks were mixed ahead of a number of news events with global implications.

German industrial production growth beat forecasts in April as manufacturing output rose for the fourth straight month, underpinning expectations of robust economic growth in the second quarter. Industrial output in Europe's largest economy increased by 0.8% from March, adjusted for seasonal swings and calendar effects.

The voting for the general elections in the UK began. The ECB will hold its latest meeting later in the day and James Comey, the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will testify on Capitol Hill.

Among global macro data, China's May exports rose 8.7% from a year earlier, while imports expanded 14.8%, both beating expectations, official data showed. That left the country with a trade surplus of $40.81 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said.

Japan's economy grew at a slower pace than initially estimated in the first quarter. The nation's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at an annualized pace of 1.0% from the previous three months, according to government data.

In the US, banks and other financial companies led stocks slightly higher yesterday, 7 June 2017, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market.

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Thousands of angry Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists here on Thursday indulged in arson, fought pitched battles with the police and pelted stones at them, injuring 15 policemen, including a DIG.

Police lobbed tear-gas shells to quell the violence by GJM supporters, who torched at least five police vehicles and a traffic outpost, and broke through barricades even as the state Cabinet meeting was held here during the day.

The GJM claimed at least 45 of its supporters, including women, were injured in police action. Panicky tourists tried to rush out of this picturesque northern West Bengal hill town.

The police, who initially beat a hasty retreat, made repeated baton charges and tear-gassed the mob near Bhanu Bhawan on the Mall Road in Darjeeling town, that was virtually run over by the GJM workers.

The injured police officials included Deputy Inspector General of Police of Jalpaiguri range, Rajesh Kumar Yadav, who suffered a severe injury during the showdown with GJM supporters.

Morcha supporters also forced markets in neighbouring Kalimpong district to down their shutters.

The GJM workers, pressing for a separate state of Gorkhaland, also demanded a circular from the Mamata Banerjee government that it has no intention of "imposing" Bengali in the state's hill areas.

The cabinet meeting presided over by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday in Darjeeling town was the first in 45 years. After the meeting, the Chief Minister claimed the Morcha's agitation was based on a "non-issue".

"Every political party has the right to protest. So do they. But what is the issue on which this agitation is based? There are no issues at all. The Morcha is trying to gain political relevance by holding these protests," Banerjee said.

"We have no enmity with anyone. We want the hills and the entire state to do well," she added.

Later, the GJM called for a 12-hour shutdown in the north Bengal hills on Friday to protest what it said was "indiscriminate police action on peaceful demonstrators".

"The shutdown has been called in north Bengal hills, including Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and Mirik subdivision," GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri told IANS.

The political temperature has soared in north Bengal hills after the GJM -- the dominant force in the region for close to a decade -- seized on Banerjee's earlier announcement that Bengali would be a compulsory subject in schools across the state.

The GJM, itching for a confrontation with the ruing Trinamool Congress, which has emerged as its main political rival in the region, immediately hit the streets, dubbing the move as a bid to "impose Bengali in the hills" and revived the demand for separate Gorkhaland.

Banerjee on Monday tried to cool passions by announcing that "Bengali will not be compulsory in schools in Darjeeling hills and in certain areas of the Dooars and the Terai".

She claimed the GJM was spreading lies about her government's new three-language policy and threatened action against the Morcha-run Gorkhaland Territorial Administration's board members in case a special audit revealed that state grants had been misused.

The demand for Gorkhaland -- to be carved out of the northern Bengal hills -- was first raised by the Gorkha National Liberation Front in the 1980s. The GJM nudged out the GNLF around 2008. The movement has left many dead in three decades, besides affecting the region's economy based on tea, timber, and tourism.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three bodies were recovered on Thursday from the wreckage of a Myanmar military plane that crashed into the sea with 104 people on board, defence officials said.

The bodies of a man, woman and a child, as well as plane wheels, several life jackets and clothing were found about 22 km west of Kyauk Nimak, Efe news reported.

The Chinese-made Y-8F-200 aircraft left from Tanintharyi region's Myeik city on Wednesday for Yangon and disappeared from the radar near the city of Dawei after travelling for about 100 km.

The 104 on board included 90 members of soldiers' families and 14 crew.

The Y-8F-200 was delivered to the Armed Forces in March 2016 and had clocked up 809 flying hours.

At least six navy boats and three planes are carrying out a search and rescue mission to find potential survivors.

The military said the tragedy may have occurred due to bad weather but this could be confirmed only after the black box was found.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said a party delegation would visit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh on Friday where five farmers died in police firing during an agitation and hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence on the issue.

AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh Singh, announcing the decision to go to Mandsaur, said the reason for the farmers' agitation in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh was due to the "apathy" of the central and state governments.

Attacking the Prime Minister, he said: "If anything small happens in Europe, Afghanistan or Pakistan the first person in the world to tweet on it would be our Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

"But he (Modi) hasn't uttered one word on the death of six farmers."

The senior party leader said that on one hand farmers are shot down and on the other the country's agricultural Minister is giving advice: "Do yoga, everything will be fine".

"Even Prime Minister is asking people to do yoga," he added.

The AAP leader said that BJP is trying to divert attention from everything happening in the country with yoga.

Singh said that the reason for farmers' agitation in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh is the "apathy" of central and state governments.

"As far as I know the debt of farmers in Maharashtra is Rs 30,500 crore. When you can waive Rs 1,14,000 crore of loans taken by corporates, why can't you waive farmers' loans?" Singh asked.

The leader said that on June 10, AAP district leaders will meet districts officials with the problems of farmers of each district.

--IANS

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Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, accusing them of lying to the people.

Addressing a gathering of supporters and party workers from the youth wing at the party office here, the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said that all development work in Uttar Pradesh had come to a grinding halt under the watch of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and added that even under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the economy was in doldrums.

"The state government has ensured that the administrative system in the state has collapsed and graft is on the upswing," he added.

Accusing the BJP of turning its back on the youth, Yadav said the union government was snatching jobs while it promised to create two crore jobs in a year.

He also accused the BJP of trying to divert the attention of the people from real issues by stoking communal and casteist fires.

"BJP talks of farmers and then it opens fire on farmers in MP, farmers are committing suicide and the Prime Minister is talking of doubling their income in the next five years," the 44-year-old leader said.

--IANS

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Alstom Transport India Limited Managing Director Bharat Salhotra was conferred the insignia of Chevalier de l'Ordre national du Merite (Knight in the National Order of Merit) by French Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler here on Thursday.

Salhotra was appointed Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Merite by the French President in 2015 for his achievements in the field of business and his commitment to Indo-French relations, the Ambassador said during the ceremony.

The MD said that to be recommended for the French national award was a matter of great prestige for him.

"When my rendezvous with Alstom started four years ago, we were just 300 people with two projects in hand," he said, adding that in terms of number of employees, the company grew ten times in the last four years to 3,000.

"We succeeded because we didn't go after winning contracts but towards making impact on lives of people and contribute towards building the nation," he said

France-based Alstom develops and markets systems, equipment and services for the transport sector including high-speed trains, metros, tramways and e-buses.

--IANS

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The army was called in on Thursday after thousands of angry Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists demanding a separate Gorkhaland state indulged in arson and pelted stones at police, injuring 15, as around 45,000 tourists were stranded in the northern West Bengal hills due to the violence.

In Kolkata, a Defence Ministry spokesman said two army columns based in Darjeeling were being requisitioned.

The GJM has called a 12-hour shutdown in the north Bengal hills on Friday in protest against "indiscriminate police action on the peaceful demonstration" by its workers.

"Requisition from state government received. Two army columns based in Darjeeling moving out," said Wing Commander S.S. Birdi, Chief Public Relations Officer of Defence, at Kolkata.

One column comprises 43 personnel.

On a day Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held her cabinet meeting in Darjeeling - the first time in 45 years that the state cabinet had met in the hill district - the GJM workers went on rampage demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland.

They staged demonstrations, raised slogans against Banerjee and engaged in a pitched battle with the police, as panicked tourists tried to rush out. The GJM supporters broke through police barricades, damaging and torching five police vehicles, set fire to a traffic outpost and a state bus, and indulged in massive stone pelting at the police.

The police, who initially beat a hasty retreat, made repeated baton charge and lobbed tear gas shells at the mob to quell the violence that erupted near Bhanu Bhawan on the tourist hub Mall Road, that was virtually taken over by the GJM workers.

At least 15 police officers, including Jalpaiguri range Deputy Inspector General of Police Rajesh Kumar Yadav, sustained severe injuries, as shops and hotels downed shutters in fear.

The Morcha supporters also forced the markets in the neighbouring Kalimpong district to shut down.

Banerjee, after her cabinet meeting, claimed the Morcha's agitation was based on a "non-issue".

"Every political party has a right to protest. So have they. But what is the issue on which this agitation is based? There are no issues at all. The Morcha is trying to gain political relevance by holding these protests," Banerjee observed at the end of her Cabinet meeting. Banerjee and two other ministers have stayed back in Darjeeling after the cabinet meeting in view of the volatile situation and the plight of the tourists.

"We have no enmity with anyone. We want the hills and the entire state to be well," she added.

The GJM claimed that 45 of its supporters were injured in the police action.

"Our party has called for a 12-hour shutdown in the North Bengal hills, including Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and the Mirik subdivision, in protest against the indiscriminate police action on our peaceful demonstration," GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri told IANS.

"We condemn the police action on our supporters today in Darjeeling. At least 45 GJM supporters including women got injured in the police beating," he said.

State Tourism Minister Gautam Deb said around 15,000 tourists were stranded in Darjeeling town, and around 30,000 in the other parts of the hills.

Holding the Banerjee government responsible for the violence, the opposition Left Front urged the Chief Minister to take immediate steps to restore peace in the region.

"The situation in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Chief Minister's policy on the north Bengal hills is similar to the Prime Minister's policy on Kashmir. There should be discussions on peace, not provocation," said LF major Communist Party of India-Marxist state Secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra.

State BJP president Dilip Ghosh blamed Banerjee for "stoking the fire" in the hills with her repeated visits there. "Now she is trapped there, and seeking army help to return home," he said.

The political temperature soared in North Bengal hills after the GJM -- the dominant party in the region for close to a decade -- seized on Banerjee's earlier announcement that Bengali would be a compulsory subject in schools across the state.

The GJM, looking for a confrontation with the ruling Trinamool Congress which has in recent elections emerged as its main rival in the region, immediately hit the streets, dubbing the move as a bid to "impose Bengali in the hills" and revived the demand for Gorkhaland.

Banerjee on Monday tried to cool passions by announcing that Bengali would not be compulsory in schools in the Darjeeling hills and in certain areas of the Dooars and the Terai.
The army was called in on Thursday after thousands of angry Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists demanding a separate Gorkhaland indulged in arson and pelted stones at police, injuring 15, as 12,000 tourists were stranded in the hill station due to the violence.

In Kolkata, a Defence Ministry spokesman said two army columns based in Darjeeling were being requisitioned.

The GJM has called a 72-hour shutdown in the north Bengal hills on Friday in protest against "indiscriminate police action on the peaceful demonstration" by its workers.

"Requisition from state government received. Two army columns based in Darjeeling moving out," said Wing Commander S.S. Birdi, Chief Public Relations Officer of Defence, at Kolkata.

One column comprises around 80 men.

Demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland, the GJM workers engaged in a pitched battle with the police, as panicked tourists tried to rush out. The GJM supporters broke through police barricades, damaging and torching five police vehicles, set fire to a traffic outpost, and indulged in massive stone pelting at the police.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held her first state Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling in 45 years on Thursday.

The police, who initially beat a hasty retreat, made a repeated baton charge and lobbed tear gas shells at the mob to quell the violence that erupted near Bhanu Bhawan on the tourist hub Mall Road, that was virtually taken over by the GJM workers.

At least 15 police officers, including Jalpaiguri range Deputy Inspector General of Police Rajesh Kumar Yadav, sustained severe injuries.

The Morcha supporters also forced the markets in the neighbouring Kalimpong district to shut down.

Banerjee, after her Cabinet meeting, claimed the Morcha's agitation was based on a "non-issue".

"Every political party has a right to protest. So have they. But what is the issue on which this agitation is based? There are no issues at all. The Morcha is trying to gain political relevance by holding these protests," Banerjee observed at the end of her Cabinet meeting.

"We have no enmity with anyone. We want the hills and the entire state to be well," she added.

The GJM claimed that 45 of its supporters were injured in the police action.

"Our party has called for a 12-hour shutdown in the North Bengal hills, including Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and the Mirik subdivision, in protest against the indiscriminate police action on our peaceful demonstration," GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri told IANS.

"We condemn the police action on our supporters today in Darjeeling. At least 45 GJM supporters including women got injured in the police beating," he said.

The political temperature soared in North Bengal hills after the GJM -- the dominant party in the region for close to a decade -- seized on Banerjee's earlier announcement that Bengali would be a compulsory subject in schools across the state.

The GJM, looking for a confrontation with the ruling Trinamool Congress which has in recent elections emerged as its main rival in the region, immediately hit the streets, dubbing the move as a bid to "impose Bengali in the hills" and revived the demand for Gorkhaland.

Banerjee on Monday tried to cool passions by announcing that Bengali would not be compulsory in schools in the Darjeeling hills and in certain areas of the Dooars and the Terai.

The demand for Gorkhaland -- to be carved out of the northern Bengal hills -- was first raised by the Gorkha National Liberation Front in the 1980s. The GJM took centre stage from around 2008, by nudging out the GNLF. The movement has left many dead over the past three decades, besides affecting the region's economy which is based on tea, timber and tourism.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australia's New South Wales' (NSW) state announced on Thursday that it will ban sugar-based beverages in all hospitals in order to combat increasing obesity.

The move comes as part of NSW Health's "Make Healthy Normal" campaign, which aims to achieve a 5 per cent reduction in overweight and obesity rates in adults by 2020, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There's no better way to start than right here on our own doorstep," NSW Health chief health officer Kerry Chant said.

"By establishing this model we hope it shows how a workable strategy can be successfully implemented across any organization to assist healthier choices in any staffing environment," Chant said.

According to the NSW Heart Foundation, a health advocacy and charity group, "one in two adults and more than one in five children in the state are overweight or obese", which dramatically heightens the risk of a wide range of chronic health conditions including "type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and some cancers".

"Governments at every level have a role to play in making the healthy choice easy," NSW Heart Foundation's chief executive Kerry Doyle told Xinhua news agency.

"People visiting hospitals and patients should all have access to healthy foods and not have the temptation of sugar laden drinks confronting them at every corner."

--IANS

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A day after Indian shuttlers N. Siki Reddy, H.S. Prannoy and Summeth Reddy sought External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's intervention in getting their passports and visas from the Canadian High Commission, the Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Thursday said that the issue has been resolved.

The association said the way has been cleared for the trio to take part in the Canada Open Grand Prix, slated from July 11 to 16.

The shuttlers on Wednesday urged External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to help expedite the process as the players who had applied for the Canadian visas did not get back their passports from the High Commission even after 10 days.

"BAI hereby states that the issue relating to delay in acquiring visa of shuttlers N. Siki Reddy, H.S. Prannoy and Summeth Reddy has been resolved. The players can now travel for the Canadian Open to be held in Calgary from July 11," the BAI said in a statement.

"BAI got into action the moment it was brought to their notice and Anand Khare, senior official of the association, acted upon the matter... He got in touch with the Canadian High Commission and ensured that the visas of the players are granted in shortest possible time."

"The players have been informed about the development and BAI wishes them best for the upcoming tournament," the statement read.

The shuttlers will leave on Friday for the Indonesia Open, that will be played in Jakarta from June 12 to 18.

--IANS

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With pristine Darjeeling on the boil over a fresh Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) stir, leaving around 45,000 tourists stranded, travel operators on Thursday said the West Bengal government must ensure that teavellers remain a priority.

"Such political disputes should be between the government and the people, and tourists should not be affected," Anil Punjabi, Chairman (Eastern Region) of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), told IANS.

He said Darjeeling -- due to its vantage location in the Eastern Himalayas, straddling nature reserves and Buddhist sites, as well as proximity to northeast India, Nepal and Bhutan -- draws around 600 tourists per day during summer till July.

"Around 250 to 300 tourists arrive each day via air, and the rest through trains, etc. This time of the year, there is a steady inflow of tourists due to school vacations. The cheap hotel fares are a huge draw," Punjabi noted, on a day the army was called in Darjeeling after thousands of angry GJM activists demanding a separate Gorkhaland state indulged in arson and pelted stones injuring 15 police personnel.

Increasing the hardship for the tourists, the GJM has called a 12-hour shutdown on Friday protesting against "indiscriminate police action" against their workers.

He said many weekend travellers have postponed their travel dates till the unrest subsides, while those who are planning a trip to the hills are in a dilemma.

"We have received complaints and cancellations. We would advise those who are stuck in Darjeeling to remain calm, stay indoors and wait," Punjabi said.

Referring to the situation in the hills as "critical", state Tourism Minister Gautam Deb told IANS that according to government estimates, nearly 45,000 tourists are stranded in Darjeeling and the adjoining areas.

"We are not sure about the exact number, but according to our estimates nearly 45,000 tourists are trapped in Darjeeling and adjoining districts and sub-divisions. Nearly 15,000 tourists are trapped in Darjeeling alone. The situation is critical," Deb said.

The minister, who has reached Siliguri from Darjeeling along with most other state ministers and administrative officials, who attended the cabinet meeting in Darjeeling earlier in the day, assured that the government is doing its best to transport the panic-stricken tourists out from the hills.

"We will run 30 NBSTC (North Bengal State Transport Corporation) buses from various points of the hills, including the Tenzing Norgay Bus Terminus (in Siliguri) from tonight (Thursday night) to help tourists out of the area," Deb explained.

The minister said he is monitoring the entire situation from Siliguri under direct instruction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and taking necessary steps to ensure secure and smooth transport of the tourists who are stranded in the hills.

"Kolkata-bound NBSTC buses will ply tomorrow (Friday) as well from 6.00 a.m to 6.00 p.m at the interval of every two hours for the tourists," he added.

GJM chief Bimal Gurung has asked tourists to leave the hills before 6.00 a.m, as "they will not be given any safe passage during the shutdown and will have to wait till 6.00 p.m when the shutdown ends".

Amidst the fast-paced developments, Punjabi batted for a long-term solution.

"The state government is launching buses, etc., but that is not the solution. The tourists should be looked after. They are our guests and they become our ambassadors when they go back. When Thailand witnesses coups, tourism doesn't get affected. So, the state government has to ensure the same in Darjeeling," Punjabi added.

--IANS

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties worth Rs 31 crore of two businessmen in connection with its probe in the Rs 6,000-crore Bank of Baroda (BoB) money laundering case of 2016, an official said on Thursday.

The agency attached the properties of Manmohan Singh Sehgal and his son Gagandeep Singh Sehgal under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act for fraudulent remittances through BoB.

"We have provisionally attached movable and immovable properties having estimated value of Rs 31 crore belonging to Manmohan Singh Sehgal and his son Gagandeep Singh Sehgal found to be involved in money laundering," an ED official said.

According to him, the attached properties comprise land in Goa, some business premises and Hotel China Town in west Delhi's Karol Bagh, residential premises in a posh locality of the capital and some high-end cars.

The Sehgals were arrested by the ED on March 28 for allegedly illegally routing about Rs 245 crore funds to firms based in Hong Kong through shell companies.

The agency said the businessmen had hired two people who got opened accounts in west Delhi's Ashok Vihar branch of BoB "on the basis of fake identities in the name of the persons having no financial worth".

Investigations revealed that huge amount of cash was either directly deposited in the suspect bank accounts or parked in shell companies through RTGS (real time gross settlement) facility of transferring funds, the ED official said.

The ED said these firms did not import any goods but these remittances were sent "so as to aid under-invoicing of goods" for other companies and thus save import duties.

The case had emerged last year and is being probed both by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The entire scam has been pegged at Rs 6,000 crore.

The ED had earlier termed this case to be an alleged incident of trade-based money laundering, wherein accused traders evaded custom duties and taxes to generate slush funds.

With an increased thrust against shell companies, the agency considers this case to be a classic instance of using such firms to launder funds.

--IANS

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The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday said it has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to revisit the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) structures for key categories of mass consumption.

In a letter to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the traders' body said: "The trading community of India is one with the government's resolve to usher in GST from July 1, 2017. We believe it's a watershed mark in the taxation history of the country, a decision which will result in long-term positive socio-economic outcomes for the country."

"We are also delighted that no less than your good self-sir, a well-known reformist who is known to take up issues which affect the common man, will consider our humble request for revisiting tax structures on items consumed by the teeming millions in this country," the letter said.

According to the traders' body, "for the man on the street", a GST-triggered structural price spike may go against the grain of the government's concerted push towards inclusive progress.

"Recent rate fitment exercises have, however, perhaps inadvertently resulted in bracketing items important from a health point of view or from a mass consumption point of view in slabs which are higher than where they should be placed," the letter said.

The CAIT observed that this could augur well for revenues but could fly contrary to the government's larger public policy and health objectives.

--IANS

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Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, on Thursday pledged to boost bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative.

The two heads of state made the remarks during their meeting in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the 17th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, Xinhua news agency reported.

Hailing the good momentum of bilateral ties, Xi said that high-level interaction should play an important role in guiding China-Afghanistan relations and that exchanges on all levels should be intensified.

The Chinese President also called for closer cooperation on security and anti-terrorism, saying that China supports Afghanistan's efforts to maintain domestic security and will continue helping the Afghan side to improve relevant capabilities.

For his part, Ghani said Afghanistan cherishes the friendship with China, and is grateful for China's help in its peaceful reconstruction and reconciliation process.

Afghanistan is highly appreciative of the B&R Initiative and looks forward to aligning its own development with the B&R construction, Ghani said, adding that his country will actively participate in cooperation on transport connectivity.

--IANS

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China has dismissed a Pentagon report about Beijing's military development, saying the country is justified in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the media reported on Thursday.

"The report, regardless of facts, made irresponsible remarks on China's national defence construction, as well as justifiable activities to maintain territorial sovereignty and security. China is resolutely opposed to it, "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday.

The US Department of Defence released its annual report to Congress regarding developments in the Chinese military in 2016, reports the People's Daily.

Hua said China firmly adheres to peaceful development while resolutely pursuing a defensive military policy, and is a staunch force in safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"China's national defence configuration aims to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the justifiable right of a sovereign country."

"We hope that the US will abandon its Cold War mentality and take an objective and rational look at China's military development," she said.

The 97-page report predicted that China is likely to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has long-standing friendly relationships, such as Pakistan, the People's Daily reported.

The spokeswoman refused to specifically comment on such speculation, but said China and Pakistan are traditionally friendly neighbours and have benefited from long-term cooperation in every sector.

--IANS

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From working at a farm to taking up a bartending job while studying, Canadian actor Diego Klattenhoff says his journey into the world of glamour was not easy, and it was never meant to be.

He doesn't look back at his journey with any regret and feels all the nights he spent "clearing out the trash or dealing with drunk people" were worth it.

"I mean it is never easy (the journey). You have a goal in mind and that is the whole part of adventure... But you never know where it is going to take you. (I think) all those nights of cleaning up trash and dealing with drunk people was worth it," Klattenhoff told IANS over phone from New York.

Born in Nova Scotia, Canada, Klattenhoff spent his childhood in a rural neighbourhood working on farms. He moved to Toronto when he was 19 and started to work towards his acting ambition.

The actor asserts that it is easy to get wrapped up in the "superficial" world of glamour. Staying true to your roots is the key to escape it.

"It (key to survive) comes down to who you are, how you were raised and what your ideals are... I grew up in the country and spent a lot of time doing whatever work I could find. I grew up working in a farm and then worked in the woods.

"It is a trip though. Don't get me wrong... There are a lot of good things down there too... Just like anywhere there are a lot of great people."

He took up a bartending job while attending theatre workshops, and slowly made his way to Hollywood. He is best known as Shane Oman in hit "Mean Girls", and then went on grab attention with projects like "Pacific Rim", "Ice Princess" and "After Earth".

Klattenhoff made it big on the small screen with shows like "Homeland" and "The Blacklist", which is aired in India on Star World and Star World HD.

"Homeland" -- the story of action-filled spy life woven with the thrills of political drama -- made him a household name. The 37-year-old actor says "Homeland", which also featured Indian actress Nimrat Kaur, was an "amazing ride".

"It didn't hurt to have a show that a lot of people are watching and to be on people's radar. It was an amazing ride on 'Homeland' and couldn't have been better.

"It is funny I was talking to David Harewood (British actor), who was in 'Homeland' (about the impact the show had on their careers). He is in 'Supergirl' now... We were catching up few months ago about the experience of doing that show and where it has taken us."

A quick search will highlight several reports on Klattenhoff's professional life and work, but none about his family life.

Ask him how he guards his personal life and Klattenhoff just laughs off the question.

And just then his publicist intervenes with a reminder that the interview will be over soon and "now will be a good time to ask any other question" about his work.

Taking the focus back on the work front, Klattenhoff is on a hiatus at the moment, and plans to be back soon.

"I am on a hiatus right now. We had few close calls but the schedule didn't work out but I am happy and enjoying my time off. It is going to be a short little break and then will be back soon," he said.

(Sugandha Rawal can be contacted at sugandha.r@ians.in)

--IANS

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The Indian civil aviation regulator announced on Thursday that it has withdrawn the police complaint it had filed against some pilots earlier this week for making obscene remarks against its officials following the pilots expressing regret on the issue.

"Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had filed complaints against certain pilots for making obscene remarks against DGCA officials on social media on 6th June. In the meantime, concerned airlines and the pilots involved have expressed regret on the issue," the aviation regulator said in a statement here.

"Some of the parents of concerned pilots have met DGCA and requested for a solution so as not to impact their careers adversely. Airlines have also informed to put in place SOPs (standard operating procedures) on the issue and sensitise their personnel in this regard. In view of all above, DGCA has withdrawn the complaint filed in this regard," it added.

The Delhi Police said on Tuesday that the DGCA had filed a complaint against 34 pilots, of whom 13 were summoned for examining the veracity of the allegations.

"We have received a complaint by DGCA and are examining the matter. No arrest has been made yet," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal said adding that the questioning took place on Tuesday afternoon.

The 13 pilots, some of whom belonged to airlines like Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir, were let off after questioning. However, their mobile phones were confiscated for being examined by a team of IT experts.

Apart from the original complaint, the DGCA is said to have also submitted to the officers at Lodhi Road police station a "screen shot" of the usage of objectionable, obscene language.

--IANS

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The District Magistrates of three violence-hit Madhya Pradesh districts -- Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch, were transferred on Thursday morning amid growing agitation by the farmers.

A circular issued said Mandsaur DM Swatantra Kumar Singh has been replaced by Shivpuri DM O.P. Shrivastava, while B. Chandrashekhar has been replaced by Tanvi Sundriyal in Ratlam.

In Neemuch, Kaushlendra Vikram Singh was named the new DM replacing Rajneesh Shrivastava.

The farmers agitation entered its eighth day on Thursday. The peasants have been on strike since June 1, demanding loan waiver and fair price for their produce.

On Tuesday, the agitating farmers resorted to violence, pelting stones at police in Mandsaur district. In retaliation, police opened fire at the farmers' mob, leaving five dead, according to official count, and eight according to farmer leaders.

Violence erupted again on Wednesday as the protesting farmers indulged in arson with hundreds defying the curfew in Mandsaur.

A group of farmers also marched to a police station in Dewas district and set fire to vehicles parked there.

--IANS

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A 32-year-old gangster wanted in a triple murder in west Delhi's Mainwali and carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh has been arrested, the Delhi Police said on Thursday.

Police said the arrested, Naveen Khatri, is a close associate of Sonu Daryapur, the main conspirator in the triple murder in Mainwali on April 30 in which Monu Dariyapur, his PSO and Assistant Sub-Inspector Vijay Kumar, and his friend Arun Shastri were killed and two persons were injured in a shootout.

Khatri, a sharp shooter, was arrested on a tip off by Special Cell on Wednesday evening when he came to meet his associates near Rithala Metro Station.

He was carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, which was declared by Delhi Police Commissioner.

"On interrogation, Khatri confessed to have been involved in many criminal activities and gang wars in west Delhi, including the triple murder in Maniwali. He said that he is an active member of the Samunder Khatri Gang," Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said.

Born in Narela Village in west Delhi, Khatri fell in bad company during his school days and later started doing crimes in 2004. He joined the Samundar Khatri gang, Yadav said.

He along with Samundar Khatri on January 17, 2015, gunned down Jitender Khatri, a Delhi Police constable in Narela area. On July 2, 2016 he along with Sonu Dariyapur fired at the office of a cable operator in Multani Mohalla in Rani Bagh area, Yadav said.

On April 30, 2017, he along with Sonu Dariyapur and other gang members indiscriminately fired on Arun Shastri, Yogesh, Monu Dariyapur and his two Private Security Guards (PSO) - ASI Vijay Kumar and Constable Kuldeep, while they were having snacks in a car at Shokeen Chowk in Peeragarhi. Thirty-five empty cartridges were recovered from the spot," Yadav added.

Monu was previously a gang member of Sonu Dariyapur. They turned foes after Monu's cousin sister married Sonu Dariyapur. Sonu decided to eliminate him in 2006, Yadav said.

They had attempted to kill Monu Dariyapur in 2006 too, police said.

--IANS

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Ghaziabad police on Thursday arrested a fraudster who was running a fake call centre to mint money by making false promises about providing a job with Indigo airlines.

Superintendent of Police (City) Akash Tomar said that he received a mail from Pranav Tiwari, a resident of Allahabad, complaining that he received a mail from recruitment12@gmail.com followed by a phone call from mobile number 8377834952, providing a job in Indigo airlines.

The caller asked him to deposit Rs 2,000 in saving account number 36700145988 in State Bank of India as file processing charges. Tiwari deposited the said amount.

On Tuesday, he again received a call asking for an amount of Rs 6,500 to be deposited in the same account number. Becoming suspicious, he refused to deposit the money and mailed a complaint to Tomar.

On Tomar's instructions, police in Khoda area registered a complaint under Sections 420 and 466 of IPC, and Section 66 of the IT Act.

Acting on a tip off, the police raided a hideout in Deepak Vihar near Vishal Mega Mart and discovered that a call centre was being run from there. They arrested Santosh Kumar, a resident of Vaishali district in Uttar Pradesh, while his accomplice fled the spot.

The police recovered eight mobile phones, including the one from which the scam calls were made. A laptop, its charger and a register containing 84 names for their next victims were also recovered.

"Khoda police is conducting raids in Noida to nab the absconding suspect," Tomar said.

--IANS

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Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in India remained almost flat in 2016, but the nation is expected to emerge as one of the top FDI destinations, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The World Investment Report released by the UN agency in Geneva on Wednesday said that FDI rose by a paltry one per cent in 2016 to $44.486 billion from the $44.064 billion in 2015.

At the same time FDI by India elsewhere declined by about third from $7.572 billion in 2015 to $5.12 billion in 2016, the report said.

The signing of a tax treaty by the Indian and Mauritian governments in 2016 may be the reason for the fall in FDI outflows from India as it "might have contributed to reduced round-tripping FDI," it added.

Looking at the future, UNCTAD said that India would be the third top prospective destinations for FDI, after the US and China.

It said that in India "renewed policy efforts to attract FDI could contribute to an increase of inflows in 2017".

Twenty per cent of top executives of multinational enterprises (MNE) surveyed listed India as their top prospective host economy for 2017-19, it added.

UNCTAD, however added a note of caution: "Although new liberalization efforts continue to improve the investment climate in India, tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors."

The report did not give a specific figure for the brighter picture projected for India, but said that globally FDI was expected to rise moderately from $1.75 trillion in 2016 to 1.8 trillion in 2017 and $1.85 million in 2018.

After the two per cent slide in 2016, "the new, more optimistic projections for 2017 are attributed to higher economic growth expectations across major regions, a resumption of growth in trade and a recovery in corporate profits," it said.

However, according to UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi, "Although this report projects a modest increase for 2017, other factors such as the elevation of geopolitical risks and policy uncertainty may impact the scale of the upturn."

Analysing FDI into India, the report said: "Foreign MNEs are increasingly relying on cross-border M&As (mergers and acquisitions) to penetrate the rapidly growing Indian market."

It cited the $13 billion acquisition of Essar Oil by Russia's Rosneft and a consortium led by Singapore-based Trafigura as "the largest deal ever in the country".

Indian companies also made a big deal in the energy sector. Vankor India - a joint venture of Oil India Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp and Indian Oil Corp Ltd, headquartered in Singapore paid $2 billion to acquire 24 per cent of Vankorneft that is ultimately owned by Russian government's , Rosneftegaz. ONGC Videsh Ltd (India) paid $1.3 billion to get an additional 15 per cent of Vankorneft.

China is also an important source of FDIs in India going for "some large-scale investments in dynamic industries, such as smartphone production", it said.

OPPO, which set up a manufacturing facility in Noida in 2014, announced an investment of $216 million in Andhra Pradesh in 2016, according to the report.

Huawei and Xiaomi "have also started to invest massively in India," it added.

Chinese investment in other areas are also growing apace, the report said, citing heavy-equipment manufacturer Sany Group's plans to invest $5 billion in India.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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A fire broke out in north Delhi's Kinari Bazaar on Thursday afternoon.

Around 15 fire tenders were sent to the spot to douse the fire, which is of medium intensity, a fire services official told IANS.

Officials received a telephone call at 1 p.m. that a fire has broken out behind a Gurudwara in the Kinari Bazaar area.

What caused the fire is not yet clear and efforts are being made to douse the fire, the official said.

--IANS

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Fish and not beef is Goa's most preferred cuisine and therefore, the Centre's notification on cattle trade will have no impact on the coastal state's tourist inflow, state Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar has said.

In a written reply to questions fielded by IANS, Ajgaonkar on Wednesday also said that on date there was no impact on tourism in Goa, on account of the notification banning trade of cattle in animal markets for slaughter.

"Just as Goa is known for its sun, sand and surf, it is also known for its fish, curry and rice. Goa's cuisine is a big draw for tourists who love to relish the authentic Goan Axit kodi (fish curry) and sea food."

"The first choice is fish. Other non-vegetarian cuisine is generally the second choice. Hence Goa is not really affected by the Environment Ministry's notification in any way," Ajgaonkar told IANS.

There has been concern expressed by the tourism industry stakeholders, meat traders as well as the opposition that the curbs on animal markets could impact sale of beef in Goa.

Nearly 30 per cent of the state's population belong to minority communities who consume beef regularly, while Goan, Indian and European culinary renditions of the red meat are also a popular draw for the more than four million tourists who visit the state every year.

Ajgaonkar, however, said that there was no beef shortage in Goa and added that the notification had not resulted in a drop in tourism either.

"The supply of beef continues to remain the same as it was prior to the notification," he said.

--IANS

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Peter Altmann, a relative of the subject of Gustav Klimt's famous painting Woman in Gold, speaks about the 2015 film and how that compared to the reality his family faced followed by a special showing of the film.

Join us as Peter Altmann takes us "Behind the Woman in Gold." Peter is the son of Maria Altmann, who was the niece of Adele, the "Woman in Gold" in Klimt's famous painting, who took on the Austrian government to recover the artwork that was stolen from her family by the Nazis during WWII. He will speak on the difference between the Hollywood version in the 2015 film, "Woman in Gold," and the reality for his family along with a special showing of the film.

VIP tickets include a pre-talk reception with Peter at the Lensic with hors d'oeuvres and libations and General Admission includes the talk and the film. There will be a Q&A session so come with questions! This event is a fundraiser for ARTsmart New Mexico, a nonprofit organization that provides visual arts programming for schoolchildren in northern New Mexico.
The Hezb-e-Islami (Islamic Party) of Afghanistan, a former insurgent group, on Thursday announced it will take part in the country's parliamentary and presidential elections, nine months after signing a peace treaty with the government.

"Our decision is to participate in these elections," Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, nicknamed the "Butcher of Kabul" and who returned to the country around a month ago, told a press conference, reports Efe news.

Hekmatyar, who was the Prime Minister of Afghanistan in the 1990s, said that for the presidential elections in 2019 it would be better for them to support a proper candidate instead of their own "even if we are 100 percent sure" of our nominee's victory.

In this regard, he said the presidential candidate they will support should be acceptable not only to Afghans but to the countries in the region and the world as well.

"We think if we win through elections, there are still such forces in the region and world who cannot tolerate us and we don't want for our power the blood of our nation to be spilled," he said.

Hekmatyar, one of the warlords who fought the Soviet forces between 1979 and 1989, headed the government on several occasions in the 1990s. During the civil war, he bombarded Kabul, leaving behind an official death toll of 50,000 and the Afghan capital in ruins.

He expressed deep concern over the high expenditure incurred in elections, with presidential, parliamentary and local elections being held separately.

Hekmatyar said no group had the authority to change the government by force and his party would not allow anyone to weaken or overthrow the government led by Ashraf Ghani.

The legislative elections should have been held nearly two years ago, but have been repeatedly postponed because of violence, the high cost of elections and delayed reforms in the Election Commission.

--IANS

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The Goods and Services Tax (GST) system should first be implemented in select industries and service sectors to test it before rolling it out on a full scale across the nation, a top tax lawyer said on Thursday.

"It is not known whether the software has been tested. In order to avoid chaos, the GST regime should be implemented in phases. It should be first implemented for select industries and then expanded further," Arvind P. Datar, a noted tax and corporate lawyer, told IANS.

According to him, there should be an extensive trial run so that glitches could be sorted out.

Datar said it is not known whether the GST server can take the load as a huge number of returns will be filed on a single day across the nation by various business entities.

He said he has no issues with the GST if there is 'one nation, one tax rate' but adding up various rates and calling it GST is not actually GST.

Terming the GST in the current form a terrible thing waiting to happen to the country, Datar said: "The world over GST is VAT (value-Added Tax). But in India GST is not real GST."

He said State GST law in various states may or may not be uniform.

According to him, Article 246A of the Constitution permits states to levy taxes on goods and services, and hence there is nothing to prevent the states from levying additional GST.

Citing the example of Singapore, Datar said, a flat seven per cent rate is charged on all products.

Datar said uniform lower tax rate would actually widen the tax base as it will be a disincentive for evasion. On the other hand, a high rate will incentivise evasion.

"Bill-less purchase of goods and availing of services will continue to happen under the proposed GST system," he added.

He said the proposed GST system will increase the number of returns that a businessman has to file from two to 49.

A service provider, say a diagnostic centre, now has to file two service tax returns per year. But under the GST, he has to file three returns on the 10th, 15th and 20th of every month -- that is 36 returns per year.

In addition, the diagnostic centre has to file 12 tax deducted at source (TDS) returns and one annual return.

From two returns per year, the service provider has to submit 49 returns -- all online. The load on the system will be high as returns will have to be filed on the same day, Datar said.

Further, the Rs 20 lakh threshold for GST will result in mushrooming out-business entities to avoid tax and our country is not suited for national GST, Datar argued.

Datar said the existing system is good and the problem is in its implementation.

According to him, several consultancy firms and professional organisations are gearing up to make money out of consulting on GST.

He said the way the GST law has been drafted shows that the industry or the professionals like the lawyers were not consulted.

Terming tax revenue a by-product of economic growth, Datar wondered how people could say that the implementation of GST would increase the gross domestic product (GDP) by two per cent.

"The Indian tax system is highly complex and toxic. The tax administration is aggressive and unfriendly as it is target-based. There should not be target for tax collection," Datar said.

He reiterated that taxes are a by-product of economic growth.

The tax laywer said that while many other central government departments have turned people-friendly, the taxation department, owing to its target-based functioning, has not changed to being people-friendly.

Investors are bothered about the tax laws and how the provisions would be interpreted by the tax officials.

"While our words are Make in India, our taxes say Quit India," he remarked.

The tax lawyer said the government indulges in the practice of amending the law if there is a judgement in favour of an assessee.

"Seventy-seven per cent cases of the IT department are eventually held against the department. Most of the demands are raised knowing they are not sustainable. But the department raises the demand so that the assessee has to fight it out in the courts," Datar said.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS

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An Indian linguist and anthropologist who is globally revered for his work on dying languages, Ganesh Devy has researched and documented 780 living Indian languages. He says that offering reservation quotas alone will not solve the problem of social exclusion in the country's education system which is headed for "failure".

Devy's latest book, "The Crisis Within" (Aleph/Rs 399/130 pages), argues that it is of critical importance that the plight of educational institutions and the need to generate knowledge appropriate to India are addressed without any delay.

"Dalits and tribals are left out of higher education in a conspicuous way. We think that offering reservation quotas will solve the problem. We have never thought of making the tribal view of the world or the Dalit view of society as the core of education. Unless that happens, their inclusion will not be complete or satisfactory," Devy told IANS in interview ahead of the book's launch.

"Their exclusion affects our knowledge production as their unique 'memory traditions' do not feed into shaping our collective memory. Thus we need to look at the margins not merely as social sectors requiring justice and inclusion, but also as the substance of knowledge. This alone will make India a first rate producer of knowledge," said Devy, who led the People's Linguistic Survey of India.

The author, recipient the Sahitya Akademi Award for "After Amnesia" and the SAARC Writers' Foundation Award for his work with denotified tribals, lamented the fact that students in India are imparted skills instead of knowledge.

"I am not convinced that knowledge institutions in India today are imparting 'knowledge'. What they impart is skills. The ability to ask meaningful questions is not at the centre of educational processes, though a few exceptional institutions and individuals in the system do this. We require a major recasting of the role that school plays in the life of the children and in the life of the society," he said.

Devy said that globally we are in the bottom 30 percent in terms of expenditure on education and regretted that we belong to the tail end among the nations of the world in terms of access to high-school and higher education.

Noting that our research capacity and output are not yet seen as significant by the international community of researchers, he anticipated that if the situations continues as it is, we shall become the world's most prominent example of an "educationally failed nation".

Devy is widely known for his work on Indian languages but surprisingly he is not, in principle, against the use of English language as the mode of education in private schools.

"English is a powerful language. Yet, it is an established scientific principle that early education in the mother tongue helps in the proper development of cognitive faculties and the ability for abstraction. Besides, if education in English is economically unaffordable, the craze for sending children to those schools leads parents to adopt all means -- ethical or unethical -- for supporting the child's education. The cumulative effect of the rise of English schools in India on Indian languages is going to be negative.

"That would lead us into difficulties while conceptualising our cultural history. When a large number of such children get into positions of authority, their collective amnesia about cultural history can pave an easy way for false historical narratives and a fascist political environment," he added.

Matters related to education and knowledge in India can no longer be left entirely to the government bureaucracies to decide, he said. A lot many thinkers, educationists and citizens will have to dedicate themselves to provide experimental solutions that can be scaled up.

"We may be able to do this. But all present indications point to a probable failure," he contended.

"The Crisis Within" attempts to offer a clear picture of the mistakes that have been committed in the past, confronts the present decline of knowledge and education in the country, and offers a vision for the future.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in <mailto:saket.s@ians.in>)

--IANS

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday slammed US President Donald Trumps remarks on the Tehran terror attacks that killed 13 people.

"Repugnant WH (White House) statement and Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted on Thursday.

Trump condemned the twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday which were claimed by the Islamic State terror group, but stressed that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote", Efe news reported.

The minister added that Washington's allies, including Saudi Arabia, with whom Trump signed a multi-billion dollar arms agreement, are the real sponsors of terrorism.

"Terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland," he said in another tweet.

Zarif added the terrorists targeted "what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy".

--IANS

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Holding the Mamata Banerjee government responsible for the latest flare-up in northern West Bengal hills, opposition Left Front on Thursday urged the Chief Minister to take immediate steps to restore peace in the region.

"The state government should take immediate steps to restore peace in the hills. Normalising the situation in Drajeeling should be their priority," Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said.

He was referring to a clash between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters and police in Darjeeling district earlier in the day.

"The vengeful tactics of the Trinamool Congress government are responsible for the adverse situation in the hills," he said.

Bose asked the government to ensure security of locals and thousands of tourists left stranded in the hills.

Comparing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's policy vis-a-vis the Bengal hills with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Kashmir, Communist Party of India-Marxist state Secretary Surjya Kanta Misra said the government should look for scope for discussions and not provocation in the hills.

"The situation in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Chief Minister's policy on the north Bengal hills is similar to the Prime Minister's policy on Kashmir. There should be discussions on peace, not provocation," he asserted.

A big clash erupted between police and GJM supporters in Darjeeling, turning the famous hill town into a war zone.

Several police vehicles and a police outpost were torched by the mob and many police personnel were injured in stone-pelting. According to the GJM leadership, at least 45 of its activists were injured in police action.

--IANS

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West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that a new state Secretariat will be set up in Darjeeling district and the new building named after Mount Everest summitteer Tenzing Norgay.

"The government will build a new Secretariat for the development of the hill people. We will name it Tenzing Norgay Bhaban in memory of the famous mountaineer," Banerjee said here at the end of her government's first ever Cabinet meeting in the north Bengal hills.

"The new Secretariat will be functional within six months. Whenever any of my ministers or I visit the hills, we will work from there. I will hold the next Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling in the new building," she added.

Declaring a bouquet of developmental projects for the state's hills, the Chief Minister said a new skill development centre will be built in Mirik subdivision of Darjeeling district.

Around 3,500 youths will be given professional training to enable them a chance to appear for campus interviews in various sectors.

She also announced eight new state buses will be run from the picturesque hill town of Darjeeling to Mirik for the facility of tourists.

a new police commissionerate will be set up in Hooghly district's Chandanagar.

"Our government earlier set up police commissionerates in Durgapur, Siliguri, Howrah, Bidhannagar, and Barrackpore for better administration. Now, we are forming a new commissionerate in Chandannagar to manage the area separately from the Hooghly rural police," she said.

Claiming that the state government has undertaken several major "administrative reforms", Banerjee announced a new "West Bengal Higher Civil Service" that would enable West Bengal Civil Service officers to become promotee Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers within 8 to 10 years.

"There is a shortage of IAS officers in the state. We have told the Centre to send more IAS officers, because the number of districts have increased," she said.

--IANS

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Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh was calm on Thursday, two days after police shot dead five protesting farmers, but Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi's attempt to meet the deceased farmers' kin raised political temperature in the state.

Gandhi was arrested along with 29 other leaders including Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav when they entered the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh but were later released on personal bonds. The Congress leader then met some farmers and expressed solidarity with them.

After being prevented from entering violence-hit Mandsaur, Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi government of favouring the rich and giving farmers "only bullets". After Gandhi got bail, the curfew imposed on Tuesday evening was released in the area for two hours from 4 p.m.

"Modi waived off loans worth Rs 150,000 crore for the richest people in India," Gandhi said, "But they can't pay the right price to farmers for their produce, they can't give compensation either. They can give only bullets."

Asked who was responsible for the killing of the five farmers on Tuesday, Gandhi said: "(Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (Madhya Pradesh) Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan)".

Gandhi entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan and switched over to a bike in a bid to reach Mandsaur after seeing police deployment. But he could not go too far.

Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh as well as Sharad Yadav were also stopped from meeting the families of the dead farmers.

When they reached Neemuch near Mandsaur, Kamal Nath demanded to know why they were being stopped as they were only three in number and so not violating the prohibitory orders.

A former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh said: "This government is acting foolishly. Shivraj Singh Chouhan must resign."

He said the Congress and JD-U leaders didn't go to Mandsaur to ignite passions. "We have come here to ease the tension. We have come to talk to the farmers."

He said the Chief Minister had promised farmers 1.5 times return on the yield of crops. "Why hasn't he implemented his own promise?"

Amid the simmering tension, the Madhya Pradesh government transferred the District Magistrates of Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch districts. The Mandsaur Police Superintendent was also shunted out. All three places witnessed violence by farmers.

The BJP accused the Congress of instigating the violence and said Gandhi's conduct was irresponsible.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the Modi government would not do anything that breaks the faith of farmers and the common man.

"There is information that some people were involved in instigating violence," he said.

Chief Minister Chouhan urged the farmers to maintain peace and vowed to resolve the crisis through talks.

He said anti-social elements trying to inject instability would be dealt with strictly.

Meanwhile, Youth Congress workers organised a Rail Roko protest at Mumbai's Ghatkopar railway station over the farmers' protest.

Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu described Gandhi's visit as "another photo opportunity".

Another Union Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, dubbed Gandhi's decision to visit Mandsaur as "irresponsible".

The farmers agitation in Madhya Pradesh entered the eighth day on Thursday.

On Tuesday, police fired at farmers after they reportedly resorted to violence in Mandsaur district. The Madhya Pradesh government says five farmers were killed in police firing but the leaders of farmer groups claim eight died.

The farmers want their loans to be written off and their produce to be bought at a fair price by the government.

--IANS

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The district administration of Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday denied permission to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi to pay a visit to the violence-hit area where five agitating farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

After being denied permission, Gandhi decided to take the Rajasthan road route to enter Mandsaur. However, police have barricaded the routes from Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh, an officer said.

Gandhi's visit comes as the Madhya Pradesh farmers agitation entered its eighth day on Thursday. The peasants have been on strike since June 1, demanding loan waiver and fair price for their produce.

Gandhi reached Udaipur by flight. He planned to reach Mandsaur by road via Nayagaon, Congress State President Arun Yadav told IANS.

The Congress Vice President was earlier scheduled to reach Mandsaur via Indore.

Several areas including Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch, Bhopal, Jhabua, Ujjain have witnessed tension following the police firing on agitating farmers.

--IANS

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Two galaxy clusters are banging into each other at supersonic speeds and merging together to create a larger galaxy cluster and in the process have created a turbulent cloud of gas that is ten times hotter than the Sun.

It has been termed as one of the biggest bangs in the universe since the 'Big Bang', scientists say.

The two clusters, which are located some 2.4 billion light years away, would create a larger galaxy cluster dubbed by scientists as Abell 115.

"Energetically speaking, galaxy cluster merging events are the biggest bangs in the universe since the Big Bang. These are massive, very dynamic systems that continue to evolve to this day," said Jack Burns, Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, US.

The turbulent area of hot gas between the two clusters is about 300 million degrees Fahrenheit or 149 million degrees Celsius, the scientists said.

"That is roughly three times as hot as the two smaller cluster cores and 10 times hotter than the core of the Sun... We did not expect to see such very hot gas between the cluster components," Burns said.

"We think the turbulence is like a big spoon stirring up gases, converting the energy of motion from the merging clusters into thermal energy. It is a manifestation of them banging together like two giant pots, something we haven't really seen before," he added.

The findings were presented at the 230th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society being held in Texas, US.

The two merging galaxy clusters individually consist of hundreds of galaxies, each as large or larger than our own Milky Way galaxy, Burns said.

The team's computer simulations show regions of relatively cool gas near the cores of each merging cluster, indicating the two objects have encountered each other before -- perhaps circling a few times and stripping gas from one another before merging.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prevented by the administration from entering violence-hit Mandsaur, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Narendra Modi government of favouring the rich and giving farmers "only bullets".

"Narendra Modi waived loans worth Rs.1,50,000 crore for the richest people in India...," Gandhi said shortly before he was detained by Madhya Pradesh police in Mandasur where five protesting farmers had been shot dead on Tuesday.

"But they can't give right rates to the farmers, they cannot give compensation, or bonus, they can give only bullets to the farmers," he said.

"They detained me in Uttar Pradesh, they are detaining me here".

Asked who was responsible for the killing of farmers, Rahul Gandhi said: "Narendra Modi and Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chauhan)".

The Congress leader was denied permission by the local administration to visit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh where police shot dead five protesting farmers.

He entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan and then took a bike ride to reach Mandsaur, but was detained.

In a tweet, the Congress leader said: "I just wanted to meet the farmers' families. They did not give any reason, just arrested me."

--IANS

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Thursday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit and held his first bilateral meeting with Kazakhistan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

On Friday, India and Pakistan are expected to be granted full membership of the SCO which also includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India has been a observer to the SCO since 2005.

Soon after his arrival here, Modi called on Nazarbayev and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Summit.

However, there is no word yet on any such meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is also here to attend the Summit.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

Stating that once India becomes a full member of the SCO, the bloc "will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GD", Modi said in a pre-departure statement: " I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things."

He said India launched the process of full membership of the SCO in the Tashkent meeting last year.

Modi said that India has long-standing relations with SCO members and he looked forward to "progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our peopl".

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," the Prime Minister said.

According to G.V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs, India has signed 38 documents of accession to become a member of the bloc.

"There are broadly two legs of collaboration which are being pursued in the SCO platform," Srinivas said.

"One is trade, economy, connectivity, energy, transport, banking, that set of issues," he said. "The second thing is, of course, the fight against terrorism."

Srinivas said that while the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing, there is a sub-body called Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that has its office in Tashkent.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.

--IANS

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Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Thursday admitted that the police did fire at farmers on Tuesday killing five of them.

Singh told the media that both the Mandsaur District Magistrate and the Indore Superintendent of Police had been transferred.

"I admit that the farmers died due to police firing," said Singh, who had on Tuesday denied that the police opened fire.
There is no evidence that the Indian intelligence is to blame for the reported abduction of a retired Pakistani Colonel in Nepal, a minister has said.

Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch informed the Senate on Wednesday that the purported kidnapping of retired Lt Colonel Mohammad Habib could not be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the UN on the basis of assumptions.

It was yet to be established that Col Habib had been picked up by the Indian intelligence agencies, he said.

"No final report suggesting that the Indian intelligence agency or the Indian government was involved is available with the Foreign Office or the government," the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asked if the statement meant that the Foreign Office was exonerating India from the alleged kidnapping.

Baloch added: "We are hundred per cent sure that Indian intelligence agency RAW is behind the kidnapping but the evidence to this effect is not final."

But he said the Habib issue appeared to be linked with the conviction of alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav in Pakistan. "But material was required to legally prove" this.

He said the Foreign Office was trying to obtain "solid evidence" and Nepal had been asked to get in touch with three Indian nationals who had received Habib at the airport when he flew into Kathmandu.

He said it was unclear if the three were Indian government employees or civilians or working for a private firm. The matter had also been taken up with the Indian government.

The minister said the incident took place two months ago, but expressed his "helplessness" about what he alleged was non-cooperation from Nepal.

Opposition leader Aitzaz Ahsan alleged that Nepal, unlike in the past, was not cooperating on the issue of Habib.

Senator Rehman Malik of the Pakistan Peoples Party urged the government to take the issue to the ICJ and the UN.

Habib's disappearance from Nepal has been widely linked in the Pakistani media to the death sentence given by a Pakistani military court to Jadhav.

--IANS

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The Inter Services Public Relations, the Pakistan militarys media wing, on Thursday released details of an operation in Balochistan's Mastung area in which security forces killed 12 "hardcore terrorists".

Special commandos participated in the three-day operation to destroy a several-kilometre-long cave complex used by banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi (LeJA) group to plan attacks across Pakistan, Dawn reported.

The military said on Thursday that the successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect Islamic State-organised infrastructure in Pakistan.

The statement issued by ISPR said that security forces conducted an operation in Mastung based on reports that 10-15 terrorists of banned LeJA were hiding in caves near Isplingi, 36 km southeast of Mastung.

The said organisation was reportedly making efforts to communicate with IS militants and intended to facilitate establishment of IS's foothold in Balochistan.

The suicide bomber who targeted Senate Chairman Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on May 12 was also sent by LeJA group from the same hideout. Five security forces personnel, including two officers were injured in the offensive.

Operation for clearance of the target area, spread over 10 km, started on June 1 with landing of a heliborne force.

Terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance and a 250-metre-long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging.

Intelligence and security forces personnel cleared the hideout by June 3. During an exchange of fire, 12 terrorists, including two suicide bombers, were killed.

Security Forces destroyed an IED-making facility inside the cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kg of explosives, three suicide bomber jackets, 18 grenades, six rocket launchers, four light machine guns and huge ammunition of various types.

--IANS

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh will meet the Chief Ministers of four northeastern states bordering Myanmar here on Monday to review the security situation and will also visit the border areas by chopper, an official said.

The Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh (Pema Khandu), Nagaland (Shurhozelie Liezietsu), Manipur (N. Biren Singh) and Mizoram (Lal Thanhawla) will be attending the review meeting to discuss the status of infrastructure along the India-Myanmar border, a Home Ministry official said.

Issues like implementation of Border Area Development Programme (BADP) projects, streamlining the Free Movement Regime (FMR) for better facilitation of movement of people across the border, works relating to boundary survey and other co-ordination issues between the states and the border guarding force, Assam Rifles, would also be discussed.

Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, Chief Secretaries, Directors General of Police (DGPs) of the respective states and Director General of Assam Rifles Lt General Shokin Chauhan, including senior officials from the concerned central ministries, will also be present in the meeting.

"The Union Home Minister would be visiting Myanmar border areas by helicopter on Tuesday. The Minister would also interact with senior Assam Rifles officers on the prevailing situation along the India-Myanmar frontier," the official added.

Last month, around 280 people from Myanmar's Ralie village in Arakan took shelter at Lungpuk and Khalkhy mountainous villages in Saiha district of southern Mizoram.

Assam Rifles troopers posted along the Myanmar border areas and the Saiha district administration provided necessary aid and support, including food, to the refugees who were subsequently repatriated.

"The India-Myanmar unfenced borders along Mizoram are being frequently used by smugglers to smuggle drugs, arms and contraband from Myanmar," the official said.

Mizoram shares an unfenced 510-km border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh, providing infiltrators, terrorists and smugglers an opportunity to illegally move across the border.

There is a 16-km-wide free zone (8 km on either side of the frontier) along the 1,643-km unfenced India-Myanmar border.

Four northeastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Mizoram (510 km) -- share the 1,643-km mountainous border with Myanmar.

--IANS

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The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Thursday dismissed allegations of its involvement in the heckling of Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and flayed the Marxists for blaming it for the assault.

Yechury was on Wednesday manhandled by two activists of a pro-Hindutva outfit during a media conference in the national capital. The CPI-M had described the assault as "typical of the RSS methodology of seeking to browbeat and intimidate the opposition".

"It is matter of record that RSS does not support such anti-national elements nor such undemocratic method of subverting any lawful activity," said RSS Prachar Pramukh Manmohan Vaidya while condemning the "brazen attempt by undemocratic elements to disrupt the press conference".

"At the same time, RSS also condemns the baseless attempt of CPI-M to drag the name of RSS in this incident. This only indicates that CPI-M is scared and worried about the continuous and unabated growth and impact of RSS in Bharat," he said in a statement.

"On the contrary, RSS workers in Kerala are facing the brunt of communist style of undemocratic ways of subverting truth and communist style of hooliganism and lawlessness," he added.

--IANS

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Six Taliban militants were killed and eight others injured in clashes in Afghanistan's Kunduz province, an army official said on Thursday.

"The army launched a raid on Wednesday night in Imam Sahib that began the clashes," the official told Xinhua news agency.

"Clean-up and cordon operations are continuing," the official said.

Over 2,000 families fled their homes.

--IANS

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(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delayed by a week, the southwest monsoon has hit coastal and south interior Karnataka and is expected to cover the entire state in two days, the India Meteorological Centre - Bengaluru said on Thursday.

The Bengaluru Met Centre confirmed the onset of monsoon after assessing rainfall on Wednesday and the early hours of Thursday.

"The southwest monsoon has arrived in south interior Karnataka and coastal Karnataka. Some parts of north interior Karnataka received rainfall on Thursday," India Meteorological Centre - Bengaluru Director M. Sundar Metri said.

According to IMD sources, the southwest monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 30 and it was supposed to hit Karnataka on June 5 but got delayed due to the low pressure off the Arabian Sea.

Most parts of southern and coastal Karnataka experienced heavy rain. Coastal Karnataka received 27 mm rainfall on Thursday while north interior Karnataka received 26 mm rainfall. South interior Karnataka received 13 mm rainfall.

The IMD forecast generally cloudy sky with light rain or drizzle in Bengaluru for Thursday and Friday.

"Till now, the rainfall is normal. We will caution people when the rainfall crosses region-wise rainfall thresholds," Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre Director G.S. Srinivasa Reddy said.

--IANS

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The assailants who carried out the two deadly attacks in Tehran resulting in the deaths of 13 people were Iranians who were recruited by the Islamic State (IS) terror group, a top security official said on Thursday.

In an interview on state TV, Reza Seifollahi, deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the attackers "had joined the IS from a number of regions inside Iran", reports the BBC.

"These people were cooperating with the IS in Syria and Iraq, and following the recent losses of the IS in both countries, they returned," Xinhua news agency quoted Seifollahi as saying.

The IS, a hardline Sunni jihadi group, claimed the attacks and threatened further assaults on Iranian Shia Muslims.

Suicide bombers attacked parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini on Wednesday.

The twin attacks were simultaneously carried out at around 10.30 a.m.

All the attackers were killed. Five people believed to be planning a third attack were arrested, officials said.

Forty-three people were also injured.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards had earlier accused Saudi Arabia and the US of being behind the attacks.

The violence comes amid heightened tension in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states cutting ties with Qatar over alleged support for Islamist militants and closer ties with Iran.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three terror suspects were arrested in London but this was not connected to the June 1 attack in the UK capital that left eight people dead, the police said on Thursday.

The Metropolitan Police said two men, aged 34 and 37, were arrested in the neighbourhood of Newham and a third, aged 22, was detained in nearby Waltham Forest, Efe news reported.

"All three were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences," the Met Police said in a statement.

The arrests were made on Wednesday night and searches were ongoing at the properties.

UK security was on high alert following the attack at London Bridge, in which eight people were killed and over 50 others injured when three assailants mowed down pedestrians on the bridge and then launched a stabbing rampage at the nearby Borough Market.

Security measures were heightened on Thursday as millions headed out to vote in the general election.

--IANS

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Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that the central and state governments were "sensitive" to farmers' issues and was trying to address them with due seriousness.

He said the welfare of the farming community and agriculture topped the list of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre was willing to extend whatever help was required by the states.

"I am from a village and the son of a farmer. I have also been the agriculture minister. Let me assure you that the Centre and state governments are trying to do everything possible," Rajnath Singh told the media here.

The Minister's comments came a day after police shot dead five farmers at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

Rajnath Singh acknowledged that the farmers were "a big pillar of our society and are the biggest producers and consumers".

He said both Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were seized of the issue and were working towards providing succor to the agitating farmers.

Regarding the violence in Madhya Pradesh, he guardedly said: "I have received some information that some powers have attempted to instigate and the CM has assured a probe into it."

Singh is in Mumbai to address a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers as part of the three-year celebrations of the Modi government.

--IANS

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Amravati/Mumbai: A plentiful harvest in 2016 but imports drive some prices down 63 per cent. A shortage of cash because of demonetisation. Despite Rs 3.5 lakh crore -- enough to build 545 Tehri-sized dams -- invested on irrigation over six decades to 2011, more than half of all farms depend on rains. These are the three factors agitating Indians who depend on farming -- 90 million families, or 54.6 per cent of countrys 1.2 billion people.

As anger sweeps rural Madhya Pradesh after the death of six farmers in police firing, farm protests roil rural Maharashtra -- wholesale markets are shut, produce is being dumped on streets -- and governments of the debt-ridden states struggle to respond to demands for loan waivers, an IndiaSpend analysis and reportage from rural Maharashtra explores why farmers are both angry and desperate.

The primary reason farming is unviable is that farms here are now among the world's smallest (the global average land-holding size is 5.5 hectares). Since 1951, the per capita availability of land has declined by 70 per cent, from 0.5 hectares to 0.15 hectares in 2011, and is likely to decline further, according to Ministry of Agriculture data.

Such "small and marginal land-holdings", as they are called, now constitute 85 per cent of the number of operational farms in the country and have little access to credit.

Those are the larger issues. Here are the three reasons for the current turmoil:

1. After back-to-back droughts, a good harvest, but incomes fallAs 2017 rolled in, news from farms appeared good. After droughts in 2014 and 2015, a good monsoon in 2016 reversed two years of rural economic decline. Agricultural growth, which contracted 0.2 per cent in 2014-15 and grew no more than 1.2 per cent in 2015-16, rose by 4.1 per cent in 2016-17.

Across many states growing pulses, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat, markets were flooded with produce, especially tur (pigeon pea), which witnessed the highest growth among all pulses. India is the world's largest pulses producer.

However, an influx of pulses from Myanmar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi -- growing 20 per cent over two financial quarters, from September 2016 to March 2017 -- caused the price of Indian tur to plunge.

From Rs 11,000 per quintal (December 2015), the price of tur fell 63 per cent to Rs 3,800-4,000 per quintal -- 20 per cent below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 5,050 per quintal (including a bonus of Rs 425).

Production of pulses rose 29 per cent, from 17.15 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 22.14 million tonnes in 2016-17. Tur production increased 50 per cent, from 2.81 million tonnes to 4.23 million tonnes, over the same period.

2. How demonetisation -- and red tape -- left farmers short of cash

On May 18, 30-year-old Prashant Lande waited under a harsh summer sun to sell 800 quintals of tur at the Amravati agricultural produce market committee (APMC). Lande said he refuses to sell his tur to the government procurement centre, although the state buys tur at a higher rate. At the market, Lande could sell his tur at Rs 3,800 to Rs 4,000 per quintal, while the government buying centre offered Rs 5,050 per quintal.

"We don't sell to the government centre because the process of selling takes one month -- from standing in line for the token to the sale to finally when the payment reaches the account," said Lande. "Our fellow farmers who have sold their produce at the procurement centre on March 22, are yet to receive their payments and it is nearly June!"

It does not help that the effects of demonetisation continue to be felt across the rural economy.

Right after demonetisation, tomato farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and onion farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat, were the worst hit as prices fell by 60-85 per cent. With little respite more than six months later, the experiment has aggravated the circumstances leading to the current farmers' strike.

"By now we should have begun preparing our fields for the monsoons, but because of demonetisation and the unavailability of cash, we are still struggling to find money for sowing," said Lande.

At such a time, farmers like Lande turn to credit.

Up to 57 per cent of farm families in Maharashtra are indebted; the figure for India is 52 per cent, according to the National Sample Survey Organisation's 2013 situation assessment survey of farm households, the latest available data.

This indebtedness has widespread consequences. More farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra (4,291) in 2015 than any other state, rising seven per cent from 4,004 in 2014, followed by Karnataka (1,569) and Telangana (1,400).

Now, after Uttar Pradesh's new government waived Rs 30,792 crore of farm loans, pressure is building on the governments of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to do the same.

3. In an era of climate change, 52% of farmers without irrigation

The basic agri problem is that despite the spread of irrigation -- a sector plagued by unfinished projects and corruption - 52 per cent of farms still depend on the vagaries of rain, which is becoming increasingly uncertain in an era of climate change. Extreme rainfall events in central India, the core of the monsoon system, are increasing and moderate rainfall is decreasing.

The droughts of 2014 and 2015 in rural Maharashtra were mitigated by the plentiful rains of 2016, but many parts of the state also endured floods.

On July 1, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Prime Minister's Farmer's Irrigation Programme, with a budget of Rs. 50,000 crores over five years. In 2015-16, less than a third (Rs 312 crore) of Rs 1,000 crores set aside for micro-irrigation was released, reveals a government report. Of this, up to April 2016, no more than Rs 48.3 crore, or less than five per cent, was actually spent, according a micro-irrigation financial progress monitoring report. The government set Rs 1,763 as the 2016-17 micro-irrigation target, but no data on results have been released.

The micro-irrigation programme covers an area of 6,51,220 hectares, or 0.46 per cent of net cultivated area.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform, with whom Alison Saldanha is an assistant editor, and Prachi Salve and Vipul Vivek are analysts. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)

--IANS/IndiaSpend

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The Reserve Bank of India governor has said that because members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) did not wish to meet finance ministry officials before its credit policy meeting on June 7, the meeting did not take place.
As the fear of terrorist strikes in major tourist destinations grows, taking travel has become imperative. Recently, London suffered two terrorist attacks within a fortnight. At the beginning of the year, a similar incident happened in a nightclub in an Istanbul, Turkey.
The Opposition, emboldened by the continuing farmer protests in several parts of the country, is mulling a 'Bharat Bandh' on the issue. That idea is still in a nebulous state, but the unabated farmer protests on Thursday spurred the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to revamp its Kisan Morcha, or farmers' cell, by sacking half its existing members to include younger leaders from across the country.
On course to completing his first 100 days in the office later this month, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has already started to hard sell Brand UP to foreign and domestic investors.
Four farmers ended their lives in Maharashtra in the last two days, including one in Solapur district who left a note purportedly stating that he should not be cremated till the chief minister visits his place and meets their demands.

Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil last night, Solapur Collector Rajendra Bhosale said.

According to the police, Jadhav's suicide note, addressed to his friends and relatives, said, "I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to village and do not cremate me till Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis comes here."



Bhosale said the farmer's suicide note stated his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and announces a loan waiver for the farmers.

Solapur's Guardian Minister Vijay Deshmukh visited the village today.

Jadhav, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son of his parents. He possessed 2.5 acres of cultivable land and had a debt of around Rs 60,000. He also took loan from some private lenders, police said.

All the four farmers' suicides in the last 48 hours were due to non-payment of loans from banks and private money lenders, the police said.

A 48 year-old farmer, Hanumant Pandurang Shinde, reeling under debt, committed suicide by consuming poison at Gondavewadi in Pune district, police said.

Shinde was found dead in a field today, they said. Shinde had suffered losses and had no money to organise his daughter's marriage, the police said.

Shinde, who was allegedly depressed, went to his farm and consumed a poisonous substance, police said.

In Wardha district, farmer Ishwar Baliram Ingale (55) allegedly committed suicide by hanging from a tree in his farm, the police said.

Ingale, a resident of Brahmanwadi yesterday went to his farm. He had told his wife to bring breakfast after two hours, police said, adding when his wife went to the farm, she found him hanging from the tree.

Ingale had taken a loan of Rs 1.39 lakh from a nationalised bank and was unable to repay it. He was worried since the last few months, police said.

In Satara district of western Maharashtra, a 35-year-old farmer Suresh Shankar Sable ended his life by consuming poison on June 5 in Man tehsil, police said.

He had sought a job at a jaggery producing unit at Karad in the district as there was no produce in his own farm, police said.

Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and the BJP's ally Shiv Sena over sustained protests by farmers across the state for last one week, resulting in sharp rise in agri commodity prices.

The chief minister's recent statement promising a loan waiver by October 31 has failed to pacify the agitating farmers, who have continued with their stir.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh today extended full support to the state's dairy farmers, saying his government would adopt all possible measures to ensure that the business is not hit due the new central government rules.

Expressing solidarity with the dairy farmers, who have strongly opposed the 'tyrannical' rules in a recent notification issued by the environment ministry, he said dairy farming is a big business for the farming community in Punjab and could not be allowed to suffer as a result of the new regulations.

The new rules relate to a notification amending certain rules pertaining to 'Prevention of Cruelty to Animals'.

Terming the move as "anti-farmer", Amarinder in a release said -- for the farming community, already reeling under severe crisis as a result of massive debt burdens, these rules could prove "disastrous".

As one of India's leading states for cattle breeding and supply, Punjab has a flourishing Rs 2,500 crore dairy business, which it could ill-afford to lose, he added.

Dairy farming was a major source of income for the state's farmers, Amarinder pointed out, adding that his government is working towards further augmenting the business to make it even more lucrative for the farmers in the state.

With many landless farmers also engaged in dairy farming, any rule making it necessary for a person to possess farm land in order to buy and sell cattle would come as a huge setback to the business, the chief minister observed.

Given the "stringent "formalities being introduced by the new rules, it could also lead to corruption and 'inspector raj', as apprehended by the farmers, he said, asserting that his government had adopted a zero-tolerance policy to corruption.

The chief minister's statement came a day after he approved a series of incentives and measures to encourage farmers in Punjab to adopt allied sectors like dairy farming to supplement their income.

Amarinder, a strong advocate of crop diversification as the only real and long-term solution to the problems of the state's farmers, had on Wednesday called for strong steps to motivate the farmers to go beyond production into direct marketing of milk and milk products, fish and meat & meat products.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
iPhone maker Apple has sought modifications in the government's phased manufacturing programme (PMP) as it plans to set up a manufacturing unit in the country.

The objective of Electronics and IT ministry's PMP is to boost indigenous production of mobile phones by providing tax relief and other incentives on components and accessories used for the devices. The programme will be rolled out over a period of time.

"The department of electronics and information technology (DeitY) is looking at this. They want alignment of duty structures on the mobile components which it proposes to make here. In the current PMP, Apple's plan is not fitting," an official said.

The official added that DeitY is discussing the matter component-wise with the Cupertino-based technology major.

Under the PMP, benefits are extended to parts and sub- parts as the manufacturing ecosystem evolves. It also aims at increasing the domestic value addition for setting up a robust manufacturing ecosystem in India.

An e-mail query to Apple went unanswered.

Earlier this month, Apple Inc has indicated to the government that it is ready with a blueprint to begin manufacturing iPhones in India, but wants fiscal concessions, including Customs duty waiver on import of components.

Apple executives had made a detailed presentation on its road map for setting up a manufacturing unit in India to an inter-ministerial group headed by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Secretary Ramesh Abhishek.

With sales tapering off in the US and China, Apple is eyeing India -- the fastest growing smartphone market in the world -- and looking to set up a local manufacturing unit to cut costs.

It, however, does not manufacture devices on its own and rather does it through contract manufacturers. Besides exemption from the Customs duty on imports of components and equipment for 15 years, Apple wants relaxation in the mandated 30 per cent local sourcing of components.

The company sells its products through Apple-owned retail stores in countries like China, Germany, the US, the UK and France, among others. It has no wholly-owned store in India and sells its products through distributors such as Redington and Ingram Micro.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Since 2006, Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections has been an independent view of family history resources and developments seen from an Ottawa perspective.
A Lt Col of the Indian Army has been arrested by Rajasthan's anti-terrorist squad for allegedly extorting money from candidates of Army recruitment rallies to issue fitness certificates.

The ATS had unearthed a gang involved in extorting money from candidates appearing in army recruitment rallies by arresting four persons last month.

"During interrogation of the four middlemen, the involvement of medical officer Lt Col Dr Jagdish Puri came to light.

"Posted in Jodhpur, the officer was responsible for issuing medical fitness certificate for the candidates and this was the last process of the recruitment," Umesh Mishra, ADG-ATS and SOG, told PTI today.

He in connivance with the four accused allegedly issued medical fitness certificates to more than 2 dozen candidates in the last one and a half year.He used to take Rs 35-40,000 per candidate for issuing the certificate.

"His job was to issue the medical fitness certificate, which is the last stage of the recruitment," Mishra said.

"The officer was questioned in Jaipur and was placed under arrest yesterday with the permission of the Army authorities," he said, adding, that the Army authorities gave full cooperation in the investigation.

Puri, who has been booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy, will be produced before a local court today.

Commissioned in the Army in 2006, Puri has been posted in Delhi and Bairelly before Jodhpur.

He was a member in most of the medical boards constituted for Army rallies for recruitment of soldiers held in Jodhpur, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Sawaimadhopur, Alwar and Jaipur.

Following inputs from Military Intelligence, the ATS had arrested ArjunSingh, Nand Singh Rathore, Sunil Vyas and Mahendra Singh on May 23.

A sum of Rs 1.79 crore in cash and documents of four candidates attending a recruitment rally in Udaipur were also recovered from the house of Nand Singh in Jaipur.

"How many candidates in all were benefited by them is the part of ongoing investigation.Initially, the doctor has confessed to have benefited around two dozen candidates in one and a half year," he said.

The Army officer was produced before a local court in Jaipur where the magistrate remanded him to ten days of police custody.

"He will now be interrogated in detail," Mishra said.

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Bahrain today followed the United Arab Emirates in announcing that expressing sympathy for Qatar over sanctions imposed by its Gulf neighbours was an offence punishable by a lengthy jail term.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on Monday cut diplomatic ties with Qatar over accusations that the emirate is a champion of extremist groups in the region.

Qatar firmly denies the allegations.

"Any expression of sympathy with the government of Qatar or opposition to the measures taken by the government of Bahrain, whether through social media, Twitter or any other form of communication, is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine," a Bahraini interior ministry statement said.

The UAE yesterday announced a similar decision, warning that offenders could face between three and 15 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 dirhams (USD 136,125, 120,715 euros) should they criticise the decision to boycott Qatar.

Bahrain, home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

The authorities accuse Iran of backing the protesters and aiming to incite unrest in Shiite-majority Bahrain, a charge Tehran denies.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain's strict cyber crime law prohibits the expression of dissent online, including via social media.

Nabeel Rajab, one of the country's most high-profile activists, is currently on trial for a series of tweets criticising a Saudi-led Arab military campaign in Yemen.

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RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat today hit out at the US for its decision to exit the Paris climate deal.

"Those who talk about coordinating development with environment were recently seen exiting... When their country's selfish interests are affected, they move out..Like the Paris deal," Bhagwat said.

"The Hindu community and the Hindu nations pursue these roads even at the cost of their personal loss. India lives for the world. It is the guru (mentor) of the world. India should stand up take its responsibility, which it had left earlier," Bhagwat said.

US president Donald Trump recently announced that the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, saying the deal agreed by more than 190 nations unfairly benefited countries like India and China.

"Many countries can become super power. Even India can become a super power and it should strive to become a super power so as to become a vishwa guru (world leader)," he said.

The RSS chief said some elements, whose selfish interests were hit by the rise of the Hindu community across the world over, were creating obstacles, dividing the society, wreaking havoc in some way or the other.

Bhagwat was speaking at the concluding ceremony of the RSS training programme here.
Jelena Ostapenko became the first Latvian Grand Slam finalist after blasting past Switzerland's Timea Bacsinszky 7-6 (7/4), 3-6, 6-3 in the French Open semi- finals on Thursday.

Ostapenko, the world number 47, is the first unseeded player to reach the final at Roland Garros since Mima Jausovec in 1983.

The Latvian, who turned 20 on Thursday, is also the youngest woman to advance to the final of a major since a 19- year-old Caroline Wozniacki finished runner-up at the 2009 US Open.

"I am really happy. I love to play here, I love you guys, you're amazing. I'm just happy with the way I celebrated my birthday!" said Ostapenko as the crowd sang 'happy birthday' to her.

"I was always playing aggressive and hitting the ball when I have a chance. It probably helps me to win today."



For 30th-seeded Bacsinszky it was a second semi-final defeat in three years in Paris.

"Of course I'm disappointed. I'm a competitor, and it really annoys me not to be in the final," said Bacsinszky, who was beaten on her 28th birthday.

"I'm not ashamed to say that she played better. She was braver. She had more courage. She was more successful."



Ostapenko fell in the first round on her main draw debut in Paris last year but is one win away from becoming the first player since Gustavo Kuerten in 1997 to win their maiden tour-level title at a Slam.

Kuerten won that year's French Open -- the first of three Roland Garros titles for the Brazilian -- on the same day Ostapenko was born.

Bacsinszky, who was beaten in three sets by eventual champion Serena Williams on her previous trip to the last four, broke Ostapenko for an early 2-0 lead.

But the Latvian took the challenge to Bacsinszky with her aggression, nipping ahead at 4-3 before the Swiss called for the trainer.

Bacsinszky complained of a problem above her right knee after jarring her foot in the clay and resumed play with her leg heavily taped.

Ostapenko faltered when she tried to serve it out at 6-5, but the Latvian took the tie-break with a swinging backhand volley.

Ostapenko, whose average forehand speed of 76 mph this tournament has eclipsed that of Andy Murray (73), continued to let fly with a bombardment of winners and errors.

Bacsinszky pounced as Ostapenko's radar misfired to break for 4-3 in the second set before the Latvian gifted it to her with a double fault on set point.

But Ostapenko's fearless approach paid off after a series of breaks to start the decider, the Latvian landing the crucial blow to pull 4-3 ahead before sealing victory in two hours and 25 minutes.

Her successful all-or-nothing approach saw her fire 50 winners and 45 unforced errors against Bacsinszky.

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A special court would consider next month a charge sheet filed against two Delhi-based businessmen in a Rs 8,000-crore money-laundering and black money racket case allegedly linked to political entities.

Special CBI Judge Naresh Kumar Malhotra fixed the matter for July 3, the next date of hearing.

The court also extended the judicial custody of the accused -- Surendra Kumar Jain and his brother Virendra Jain -- till June 21.

The charge sheet was filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) which had arrested the accused on March 20, claiming that at least 90 shell firms were under its scanner and it had identified 26 of them for allegedly laundering around Rs 62.20 crore.

The case emerged after the ED filed a criminal complaint last month under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on a charge sheet of the Serious Fraud Investigation Office against certain individuals and firms.

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An Army jawan was today detained at the Srinagar airport after two live bullets were recovered from his baggage during checking, police sources said.

The jawan was identified as Ravindra Kumar, a sepoy in Army's 22 Rashtriya Rifles unit posted at Sopore in north Kashmir's Baramulla district.

Kumar was detained by the police at the airport after two bullets of an AK assault rifle were recovered during an X-ray check.

Kumar, a resident of Chhattisgarh, was going on leave and was to board an Air India flight.

He is under detention and is being questioned, the sources said.

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A gram panchayat president in Mysuru has been booked for allegedly forcing two civic workers to clean a clogged manhole in front of her house manually.

The video footage of the two civic workers entering the cloggedmanhole has gone viral.

The incident happened on June 6 at Tavarekatte village under Chamundi Betta gram panchayat limits in Mysuru.

The matter figured in the Karnataka Assembly today, forcing the government to make a statement.

Raising the issue during Zero hour, Opposition BJP Leader Jagadish Shettar said it was in clearviolation of Supreme Court orders, which prohibit such acts.

Calling it a "shameful" and "deplorable" act, he expressed surprise about such an incident having taken place inthe Chief Minister's home district.

Shettar said when civic workers initially did not agree to clean the manhole manually, the gram panchayat (GP) presidentGeetha threatenedthem that they they would lose their jobs.

She even called up the Panchayat Development officer Anand, who asked the workers to clean the manhole, headded.

Shettar wanted to know why such works should be performed manually when modern machines are available, and demanded that government take strict action in the matter.

In his reply, Rural Development Minister H K Patil said that the government strongly condemns such acts.

A team of senior officials led by MysuruZilla Panchayat CEO, which visited the spot, prima facie found that the incident had taken place.

The incident is inviolation of the Prohibition of Employment as ManualScavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, he said.

Patil said a case has been registeredagainst the gram panchayat president and PDO atKrishnaraja Police Station in Mysuru.

He said while PDO has been placed under suspension, pending inquiry, cases have been registered and necessary action will be taken against Geetha, under relevant sections of the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act.

Noting that the government has viewed the incident very "seriously", the minister said necessary action will be taken so that such incidents don't recur.

In March, three contract labourers had died of suffocation after they entered a manhole on a road in Bengaluru, without any safety equipment, to clear a block.

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Union Minister Kiren Rijiju today said that the NDA government at the Centre promotes and encourages good governance and discourages mis-governance and corruption.

Addressing the 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas Sammelan' organized by IOCL at Seppa in East Kameng district to highlight the achievements of the three years of Modi government, Rijiju, the Union Minister of State for Home, said that demonetisation is a historic event and a "one-front crusade" against black money, corruption, counterfeit currency, and terrorism.

The fruits of demonestisation will be reaped gradually and each and everyone would be benefitted, he was quoted as saying by an official release here.

Rijiju also urged the people to stat taking advantage of the digital payment system and exhorted the youth to promote and educate the general public about ways and means of digital payment.

Acknowledging that road communication was vital for other developmental aspects to make an impact, Rijiju said that not a single road project has been pending in Delhi till date. It was for the first time that 195 roads and 55 bridges projects had been sanctioned for Arunachal Pradesh on a single day under the NDA government at the Centre.

"This exhibits that the NDA government prioritizes inclusive development only," he added.

On Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, he requested the people not only to keep their surroundings clean and hygiene but also to change their mindset for progressive development.

About protection and special care for NE states, Rijiju said that many of youths of the region have been recruited in Delhi Police.

The union minister said that he has kept his promise by bringing in many development projects for Arunachal Pradesh like roads and bridges, IT, education, health, socio-cultural projects and urged the people, youth in particular to cooperate and become a part of the development.

The day is not far away when Arunachal Pradesh would become one of the most developed states of the country, he added.

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Delhi Police's Special Cell has arrested an aide of notorious gangster Chhota Shakeel.

Sources said that Junaid Chowdhry was arrested last night in east Delhi.

He was earlier arrested last year in June along with three others with arms and hawala money sent by Shakeel. They had been planning to kill a Hindu Sabha chief Swami Chakrapani at that time.

Chowdhry remained in jail for three-four months and was later released on bail.

He contacted Shakeel again but after his bail was cancelled and he was sent to Tihar. Later, he was again released on bail and once more got in touch with Shakeel.

Chowdhry then started carrying out the gangster's Delhi- based activities. He is currently being interrogated.

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Comparing Army chief Bipin Rawat to General Dyer, who had earned notoriety for ordering the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre, is a "sad comparison", his naval counterpart Admiral Sunil Lanba said today.

Academician Partha Chatterjee, in a piece published on a website, had drawn comparison between Rawat and Dyer after the former commended Major Leetul Gogoi's action of using a civilian as a human shield in Kashmir.

"It is a sad comparison and is uncalled for," Lanba said.

On April 13, 1919, Dyer had ordered firing on unarmed people gathered at the Jallianwala Baug in Amritsar.

The Navy chief was speaking on the sidelines of an flag- in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.

In an interview, Rawat had also said that the Indian Army is fully ready for a "two-and-a-half front (China, Pakistan and internal security requirements simultaneously) war".

To this, Lanba sought to buttress the point saying, "The Indian armed forces are always ready for any contingency."



Reacting to a report by US Department of Defence (DoD) that China is likely to establish additional military bases in Pakistan and other countries with which it has longstanding friendly ties and similar strategic interests, Lanba said the navy is monitoring the development.

In its annual report to the Congress on China's military build-up, the DoD said China's construction of military base in the strategic location of Djibouti is just the first of what will likely be an ongoing expansion in friendly foreign ports around the world.

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Along the 2000 block of West Waveland Avenue, large maple trees form a canopy over pristinely paved streets and sidewalks lined with large homes.

North Center is one of Chicagos most desirable neighborhoods, and home prices on this block reflect it. In October 2014, one 2,000-square-foot single-family home sold for $1.1 million.

Months later, when the Cook County assessors office sent out its estimate of the homes market value, the number matched perfectly: $1.1 million.

Still, the owners did what so many others do each year in Cook County. They hired an attorney to file an appeal and eventually won a reduction from the Cook County Board of Review, shaving $302,000 off the assessors estimated market value.

Under current Assessor Joseph Berrios, the number of residential appeals filed in Cook County has soared. In 2015 alone, residential property owners filed assessment appeals involving 370,000 parcels, winning reductions 80 percent of the time.

Appeals are a good thing, Thomas Jaconetty, deputy assessor for valuation and appeals, said in an interview. The goal here is fairness. We made the numbers. We can change them.

Theres just one problem with that argument: The Tribune analyzed appeals filed by Cook County homeowners and found the process makes the property tax system less fair  not more.

Working with the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicagos Harris School of Public Policy, the Tribune examined appeals on more than 2.7 million residential parcels and found that, in every year from 2009 to 2015, the industrys statistical measures of fairness got worse after the appeals process.

That inequity has placed a financial burden on those who can least afford to pay more, the U. of C. study found. On average, even after appeals, people who own homes in the bottom 25 percent of values paid nearly $500 more a year in property taxes than they would have if the system were fair, the research shows.

The reason: Wealthier neighborhoods appealed at much higher rates and regularly received significant assessment reductions even though homes in those areas were more likely to be undervalued. In poorer neighborhoods, homeowners not only are more likely to have their properties overvalued by the assessor, they are less likely to appeal.

Because of Chicagos housing patterns, that means white Chicagoans often benefited at the expense of the citys minorities.

Nearly half of the 28 homeowners on the 2000 block of West Waveland, for example, appealed their assessments in 2015, and all but one won reductions, though the assessor undervalued homes in the neighborhood by about 15 percent on average, the Tribune found.

You cant blame the people who appeal, said U. of C. professor Christopher Berry. They are just responding to the incentives that the system gives them. But that system effectively transfers the tax burden onto those who can least afford it while giving a break to those of greater means.

Its a textbook example of institutional racism.

Twitter

Facebook Its a textbook example of institutional racism. Christopher Berry University of Chicago professor

The Tribune interviewed Jaconetty in September, before the U. of C. study was completed. Contacted more recently for comment, the assessors office declined to make Jaconetty available again. In a written statement, the office said any homeowner can file an appeal and officials have worked hard to inform every community in the county about the process.

The office believes in equal opportunity and we respect personal choices to appeal or not appeal, the statement said. Of course, we have no control of choices made by free people.

The system doesnt just help those in higher-priced homes. It has created a lucrative business for tax attorneys and given a political boost to Berrios.

In 2015, when appeals hit an all-time high, records show that attorneys fees from residential appeals totaled roughly $35 million, triple the amount in 2003. Many of these lawyers have helped fill the campaign coffers of Berrios, who is also chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party and committeeman of the 31st Ward Democratic Organization.

As previously reported in this series, a Tribune analysis found that the countys assessments have been riddled with errors. Berrios had a chance to improve the property tax system by implementing a new computer model designed to produce more accurate assessments and reduce regressivity, or the tendency to overvalue low-priced homes and undervalue high-priced ones.

But he failed to do so  despite issuing a news release claiming he did.

Leaving the current system in place might work well for some, but it has hurt residents in already-struggling minority neighborhoods, where the assessors office regularly overvalued homes. These owners ended up paying a disproportionate share of the countys property taxes year after year, and the appeals process failed to rectify the situation.

Rozalyn Shelton owns a small stone house on West Cullerton Street in North Lawndale, where no trees line the block and the asphalt is worn and patched. She was the only person on her block who appealed her assessment in 2015. Though she won an $11,000 reduction in her homes estimated market value, that wasnt enough to make up for the assessors initial overvaluation, the Tribune found.

In the end, the property taxes she paid that year represented more than 2 percent of her homes value. That percentage, known as the effective tax rate, should be relatively the same for all, but Sheltons was about 60 percent higher than what people living on the Waveland block paid, according to the Tribunes analysis.

Shelton and several other homeowners on Cullerton took ownership of their parents homes after they passed away. Like many on her block, she said she has trouble paying her tax bills.

Were trying to honor our parents by keeping up with the property, she said. But the taxes are killing us.

Asking for appeals

Sitting on folding chairs and clutching their paperwork, about 100 homeowners gathered at the River Forest Community Center in February for a workshop on how to appeal their property tax assessments.

A few lashed out or muttered under their breath as officials from the Cook County assessors office fielded questions. Others stared ahead with befuddled expressions.

The assessors office holds dozens of these workshops every year, helping drive the number of appeals to levels not seen in any other large jurisdiction in the country.

Beth McBride and other attendees learn about the Cook County property tax appeals process during a February workshop at the River Forest Community Center. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

New York City, which has a larger tax base, saw just 53,000 applications for reductions in 2015. That is a fraction of the 166,000 applications filed in Cook County, where residential appeals tripled between 2003 and 2015.

The chances of winning a reduction increased as well. Appeals brought to the assessor or to the Board of Review, an elected three-member panel charged with ensuring assessments are fair, resulted in reductions on more than 292,000 parcels in 2015.

The changes gave homeowners more than $224 million in tax savings, the most ever, the Tribune estimated. Those tax dollars had to be paid by other property owners.

Elsewhere in the country, many jurisdictions are loath to grant appeals, seeking instead to defend their valuations. Some states, such as California, base assessments on actual sales and adjust those values based on market trends, a system that results in far fewer appeals.

We would prefer that we get the value right the first time, so that taxpayers dont have to go through the process of an appeal, said Carmen Chu, the assessor in San Francisco, whose office handled about 4,995 appeals in 2015.

Not so in Cook County, where the assessors office actively encourages people to appeal and provides various tools to make it easier, including a recently streamlined appeals process.

In its written statement, the office said it was proud of the increase in appeals and pointed out that most appeals are filed without an attorney.

These numbers represent the good our office does, the statement quotes Berrios as saying. Appeals give all communities a voice in the assessment process, and we reach out to them.

Despite its relatively low profile, the position of Cook County assessor is among the most powerful offices in the state, closely affecting the interests of real estate developers and investors, law firms and wealthy homeowners. Some of the states most influential political families have been tied to the office or the industry of tax attorneys that has grown up around it; Madigan, Burke, Hynes and Cullerton are among the most prominent.

Berrios got his start in politics as a precinct worker for legendary Ald. Thomas Keane, who was convicted in 1974 on federal mail-fraud and conspiracy charges.

Since then, Berrios has risen into the upper echelons of Illinois Democrats. A former state representative, he currently serves as chairman of the Cook County Democrats. In July, he joined Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where they stood side by side as Illinois delegates cast their votes.

The number of appeals filed in Cook County has soared under Assessor Joseph Berrios. In 2015 alone, property owners filed assessment appeals involving 370,000 residential parcels. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)

Berrios controls three active campaign accounts where hes raised more than $5 million since 2009, an unprecedented amount for an assessor. More than half of it came from tax attorneys and related businesses, a Tribune analysis of campaign data found.

In December 2015, for instance, state records show Berrios held a campaign event at the Lux Bar, spending nearly $5,400 to host a party largely attended by tax appeal lawyers. That same month, attorneys, appraisers and others tied to the industry contributed more than $79,000 to Berrios.

Under Berrios, the Tribune found, the assessors office is providing more reductions than ever before.

How the Tribune team analyzed appeals Reporter Jason Grotto worked with the University of Chicago to find out whether appeals make the countys property tax system more fair. Read the story

The Tribune examined appeals by year and tracked how many were granted and by which county entity: the assessors office, the Board of Review or, in some cases, both. In 2009, the year before Berrios was elected, 27 percent of successful appeals included relief granted by the assessor. In 2015, it was 61 percent.

Jaconetty, who oversees assessments and appeals for Berrios, said in September that the large number of appeals is a testament to the offices record of community engagement and argues the human element is essential to assessing property accurately in such a complicated and diverse community.

When pressed on how he knows that appeals lead to better valuations, however, Jaconetty couldnt point to any data or other evidence.

In partnering with the U. of C., the Tribune applied accepted industry standards set out by the International Association of Assessing Officers to test Jaconettys claim.

The analysis found that the assessors office violated standards on regressivity every year between 2009 and 2015  and that both measures got worse, not better, after the appeal process. The poorest parts of the county were hurt, not helped, by appeals.

One reason appeals failed to make the system more fair is that the owners of undervalued homes often received reductions. The U. of C. found that appeals were filed for more than half of the undervalued homes that sold between 2009 and 2015, and a reduction was granted in nearly a quarter of those cases.

No way to win

Joan Clark moved to the 4000 block of West Cullerton Street in 1962, when she was 3 years old. Like Shelton and a handful of others, she inherited her parents home after they died.

We all grew up together on this block, she said.

The small houses represent the bulk of their wealth, they told the Tribune, and some of them are straining to pay their property taxes. Clark said she worries about losing her home.

I got a letter in the mail saying if you dont pay on time, they can take your house, she said.

Joan Clark sweeps the sidewalk in front of her home on the 4000 block of West Cullerton Street. Like most people on her block, she has never appealed her property tax assessment. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

The Tribunes analysis of assessments found that since 2009 the assessors office overvalued homes in this part of North Lawndale by about 40 percent. In fact, a home six doors down from Clarks  an exact replica of hers  sold in 2015 for $75,000, but the assessor valued both properties that year at $105,250, 40 percent higher.

Another identical home two doors down sold earlier this year for $53,000. The assessor valued it at $133,080.

Like most people on her block, however, Clark has never appealed her property tax assessment.

I dont know anything about it, she said. But weve all been talking about how our homes are overtaxed.

In its statement to the Tribune, the assessors office said it has significantly increased the number of workshops and other outreach events it holds in low-income communities.

The office also questioned whether the home sales cited by the Tribune were valid, arms-length transactions.

But all of the Tribunes examples meet standards set by the International Association of Assessing Officers for arms-length sales. Among other things, the newspaper checked to make sure that the homes were advertised for sale, that the transactions werent foreclosures or other types of distressed sales, and that the buyers and sellers werent related.

Even when they appeal, homeowners in poorer areas can still end up paying too much in property taxes because of the way appeals in Cook County are decided.

Berry on regressivity and appeals

Comparing assessments to similar homes in the same neighborhood may work if the assessors valuations are generally accurate. But that isnt the case here, where the assessment system has been both regressive and error-ridden for years.

For example, though Shelton won a reduction in 2015 by filing an appeal, the assessors new valuation of $114,050 was still much higher than the $75,000 sales price of the similar house right across the street.

At the same time, people whose homes were already undervalued often succeeded in their appeals because similar homes in the same neighborhood were undervalued even more.

The skewed valuations mean Clark and her neighbors paid more in taxes as a percentage of their homes value than those living in wealthy city neighborhoods  even though the effective tax rate should be about the same for all residents in a taxing district.

Its a reality the homeowners on Cullerton Street have long suspected but felt powerless to do anything about.

Clark said she called the assessors office in October to ask how she could lower her tax bill but was told there was nothing she could do until the property is reassessed in 2018. In fact, according to the countys appeal schedule, Clark could have appealed her tax bill through January 2017.

Theyre short and nasty when you call, she said. Theyre not willing to do anything to help us.

The assessors office denied Clarks allegation, saying they couldnt find any evidence that she had called.

Identical homes line the 4000 block of West Cullerton Street in Chicago. The Cook County assessors office has often overvalued homes in this part of North Lawndale, according to a Tribune analysis. (Alyssa Pointer/Chicago Tribune)

New home, big break

Back on the 2000 block of West Waveland Avenue, a newly constructed luxury home exemplifies another way in which the countys appeals process favors the wealthy  many of whom have access to attorneys with inside knowledge of the arcane system.

Before the home was built on the site of a tear-down property, it had been listed for sale in 2014 at more than $2 million. The listing offered 3,000 square feet of living space, six bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, vaulted ceilings, top-flight appliances and a finished basement.

In March 2015, when the house was nearly complete, the assessors office sent out its estimate of the market value: $1.3 million.

Yet property tax attorney James Sarnoff, who had agreed to buy the home, filed an appeal on May 8 on behalf of the developer. And the assessors office granted the appeal later that year, decreasing its estimate of the propertys value by about 30 percent, to $914,482.

Thomas Jaconetty is Cook Countys deputy assessor for valuation and appeals. (Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune)

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Facebook Appeals are a good thing. The goal here is fairness. We made the numbers. We can change them. Thomas Jaconetty deputy assessor for valuation and appeals

Sarnoff is the son of Robert M. Sarnoff, a longtime property tax lawyer and former assistant states attorney in the real estate division. James works at his fathers law firm, Sarnoff & Baccash, which focuses on property tax appeals.

The firm, which employs eight attorneys, filed appeal applications covering more than 81,000 residential parcels between 2003 and 2015. Robert M. Sarnoff and his firm have donated $153,000 to campaign funds controlled by Berrios, campaign data show. James and his wife gave $8,000.

More than a week before James Sarnoff filed the appeal, the developer executed a deed transferring ownership of the property to the James B. Sarnoff Trust and Leslie S. Sarnoff Trust, records show.

State transfer tax stamps show the sale price was $2.15 million.

In appealing for a reduction from the assessor, James Sarnoff argued the property on Waveland should be treated as a vacant lot for part of the year because the home would not be completed and occupied until after May 18, 2015.

For decades, the assessors office has routinely given massive reductions to the owners of newly constructed homes based on a vague provision in the Illinois property tax code. The law says homeowners arent liable for newly constructed homes until the dwellings are inhabitable but provides no standard for determining when that threshold is met.

Records obtained from the assessors office show officials conducted a field inspection of the Waveland home in March, two months before Sarnoff filed the appeal. The inspection noted that the exterior construction and roof were complete and that the home had central air conditioning and heat, a finished basement and an enclosed porch.

The appeal included old building permits and undated pictures of a demolished home but nothing showing what the house looked like at the time of the appeal.

In a statement to the Tribune, Sarnoff said it was a routine appeal and he didnt receive special treatment.

He said he moved into the home on May 14. Until the date of our move, significant items of work remained incomplete and, while largely complete, the house was in fact unfit for occupancy; for example, the house did not have operable plumbing or safety railings on the front steps, and most lighting fixtures had not been installed, he wrote.

According to its website, the assessors office granted the appeal because of the partial occupancy of the home.

The key question under state law, however, is not whether a home is vacant but whether it is inhabitable. And though Sarnoff requested a field inspection in his appeal, the assessors office did not revisit the property before shaving $400,000 off its already low valuation.

The assessors office wrote in a statement to the Tribune that there was no reason for another field inspection, two months after the March 6, 2015 inspection. It also stated: It might be impossible to achieve 100 percent certainty as to when a structure was inhabitable.

The assessors office also said knowing the sale price of the home would have affected its estimate of the market value.

At any time, the homeowner could have and should have informed CCAO of the pending or closed sale price, the statement said. That information would have called for further analysis.

Had the property been taxed at a value of $2.15 million over the full calendar year, the Sarnoffs would have paid the county about $39,000 in taxes, the Tribune estimated. Instead, they paid around $17,000. The difference was spread among every other taxpayer in the city.

Every year, the Cook County assessors office holds dozens of workshops to educate residents about filing appeals. Joyce Tasch, left, and Katie Rauh attended one in February. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

In 2016, the assessors office increased the taxable value of the Sarnoff property back to $1.3 million. But Sarnoff appealed again, arguing that the price per square foot was not uniform with other properties in the area.

This time, the assessor denied the appeal. But the Board of Review granted it. That decision reduced the homes market value to $1.2 million.

After the Tribune raised questions about the 2015 appeal, the assessors office sent inspectors to the house, where they reported discovering an additional 1,300 square feet of living space in the attic.

The assessor said the new information has led to an increase in the estimated market value of the home to $1.8 million. That is still $300,000 less than what the Sarnoffs paid for it.

David Kidwell and John Chase contributed.

jgrotto@chicagotribune.com Twitter @Jason Grotto
Despite stagnant foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow of $44 billion in 2016, India will most likely remain most favoured destination due to its attractiveness among MNCs for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, a UN trade report has said.

On the flip side, it said there are tax related concerns that may pose as a deterrent to some foreign investors.

In South Asia, increased by 6 per cent to $54 billion in 2016, said the report by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

"Flows to India were stagnant at $44 billion (in 2016). Cross-border mergers and acquisitions deals have become increasingly important for foreign multinational enterprises to enter the rapidly-growing Indian market," said the UNCTAD's



'World Investment Report 2017'.

Despite a historically high number of announced greenfield projects in 2015, to India were flat last year with only 1 per cent up from 2015, the report said.

into developing Asia were down by 15 per cent to $443 billion in 2016, the first decline since 2012.

"This affected three sub-regions, with only South Asia spared. However, an improved economic outlook in major economies, such as ASEAN, China and India, will likely boost investor confidence, propping up the region's FDI prospects for 2017," it said.

FDI inflows to developing Asia are expected to increase by 15 per cent in 2017 to $515 billion, as an improved economic outlook in major Asian economies is likely to boost investor confidence.

"The favourite FDI destinations remain the US, China and India," UNCTAD said, adding "Although new liberalisation efforts continue to improve the investment climate in India, tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors".

In major recipients such as China, India and Indonesia, renewed policy efforts to attract FDI could contribute to an increase of inflows in this year, it said.

The foreign outflows from South Asia declined by 29 per cent to only USD 6 billion in 2016, as India's outward FDI dropped by about one third, it added.

On cross border mergers, the report cited USD 13 billion acquisition of India's Essar Oil by Rosneft (Russian Federation) as one of the significant deals during the year.

The report noted that signing of a tax treaty by India and Mauritius in May 2016 "might have" contributed to reduced round-tripping FDI.

"Foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly relying on cross-border M&As to penetrate the rapidly growing Indian market."



Pakistan's inflows increased by 56 per cent due to significant investment in infrastructure from China in support of the One Belt One Road initiative.

For the first time, China was the world's second-largest investor as FDI outflows surged by 44 per cent to USD 183 billion, a new high.

BRICS -- the economic group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - accounted for 22 per cent of global GDP but received only 11 per cent of global inward FDI stock in 2016.

FDI flows to the five BRICS countries last year rose by 7 per cent to USD 277 billion. The increase in inflows to Russia, India and South Africa more than compensated for the decline of FDI to Brazil and China.
President Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations said today the US will not allow the UN to "bully" Israel anymore.

Nikki Haley spoke today in Jerusalem a day after she berated the UN's top human rights body for ignoring countries with horrendous human rights records while focusing obsessively on Israel.

Israel has long complained of ingrained anti-Israel bias within the UN, where Israel and its allies are far outnumbered by Arab countries and their supporters.

Haley told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the approach toward Israel at the UN was a "habit." She said "the U.N was such a bully to Israel because they could."



In a meeting with President Reuven Rivlin, Haley said "I have never taken kindly to bullies and the UN has bullied Israel for a very long time and we are not going to let that happen anymore." She said "it is a new day for Israel in the United Nations."



Rivlin said Israel sees in her support a new era where "Israel is no longer the UN's punching bag." He added that "we have a long way to go" for change there and also at the Human Rights Council which he said "has been hijacked as a weapon against Israel" and in UNESCO "where they seek to rub out the history of the Jewish people."



Recent resolutions by UNESCO, the UN cultural body, drew outrage in Israel for diminishing the deep Jewish ties to Jerusalem.

Haley is in the region after speaking in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council which she rebuked as a "forum for politics, hypocrisy and evasion" that allows rights abusers to whitewash their images and foes of Israel to criticize the Jewish state unfairly.

Haley used an academic forum in Geneva to pinpoint two reforms sought by the United States: the use of competitive elections to choose the council's 47 members and removal of Israel as a permanent fixture on its agenda - the only country in the world that is.

Later today, Haley met with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in Ramallah, her office said in a statement. It said they discussed the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as well as the work of UNWRA, a UN agency that helps Palestinians.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top stories at 2215



hours today:



DEL89 MP-LDALL FARMERS



By Harshwardhan Prakash and M P Agrawal



Mandsaur: Authorities struggled to restore normalcy in violence-hit western Madhya Pradesh even as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today made an attempt to reach the epicentre of the farmers' agitation, Mandsaur, which was scuttled as he was detained before entering the district.

DEL91 FARMERS-LD DETAIN



Mandsaur (MP): At least 56 people have been arrested and over 100 detained in connection with violence during the farmers agitation here.

DEL80 KL-CATTLE-3RDLD ASSEMBLY



Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals-- the ruling LDF and the opposition UDF-- close ranks in the state assembly adopting a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move.

DEL68 JK-3RDLD INFILTRATION



Srinagar: The Army guns down three militants but loses one of its men as it foils an infiltration bid aided by the Pakistani Army in Naugam sector of north Kashmir.

DEL54 MLJ-COURTS-ADJOURNMENTS



New Delhi: The laid down procedure of allowing a maximum of three adjournments per case is not followed in over 50 per cent of the matters being heard by courts, leading to rising pendency of cases, a government panel has said.

DEL85 UP-3RDLD SAHARANPUR ARREST



Lucknow: Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar, the main accused in the Saharanpur caste violence, has been nabbed from Himachal Pradesh after having evaded arrest for nearly a month.

DEL92 WB-GJM 3RDLD VIOLENCE



Darjeeling: The Army has been deployed in the restive Darjeeling town after Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters indulge in violence and arson while attempting to march to the venue of a cabinet meeting presided by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee here.

LGD2 SC-LIQUOR BIHAR



New Delhi: The Supreme Court modifies its earlier order and allows liquor manufacturers from Bihar to export their old stocks of alcoholic beverages worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state till July 31.

FGN34 PM-SCO



By Manash Pratim Bhuyan



Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in the Kazakh capital on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

DEL61 BIZ-PETROL-RATES



New Delhi: Come June 16 and petrol as well as diesel prices across the country will be revised on a daily basis in sync with international rates as happens in most advanced markets.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top stories from the northern region at 2100 HRS



DES1 JK-CASO



Srinagar: Security forces are undertaking a cordon and search operation (CASO) in south Kashmir's Pahalgam - an area which is a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra commencing later this month - following information about presence of militants in the area.

DES3 NCR-JUDGE-FIRING



Gurgaon: Irked over frequent power cuts, a former judge allegedly opens fire at Haryana electricity board workers outside his house.

LGD8 DL-JUDGES GET DOMESTIC HELP



New Delhi: The Delhi High Court will provide domestic help to its former chief justices and judges at its expense.

DES10 JK-OPERATION-RADARS



By Sumir Kaul



Anantnag: Aiming to detect terrorists hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings, the Indian Army will now use 'through the wall' radar imaging during counter-insurgency operations in the Kashmir Valley.

DES38 PAK-SIKH-VISAS



New Delhi: 96 Sikh pilgrims have been issued visas to visit Pakistan to attend the Martyrdom Day functions of their spiritual leader Guru Arjan Dev.

DES13 JK-INFILTRATION-ARMY



Jammu: The Army accuses its Pakistani counterpart of providing active support,including cover fire, during infiltration bids by armed militants at the LoC



DES33 UKD-LD BUDGET



Dehradun: Laptops, smartphones for meritorious students, free Wi-Fi in varsities, residential schools in hilly areas and air ambulance facility to ferry the sick and the injured are among the highlights of the Uttarakhand state budget presented today.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A former executive was arrested in London this week to face US charges he conspired to fix the foreign exchange market, US officials said in court papers.

Stuart Scott, a British citizen and a senior supervisor in global foreign exchange cash trading, was arrested in London on Monday in connection with a US extradition request, US officials said in a court filing in New York yesterday.

Scott was released on bail by a London court yesterday and plans to fight his extradition, Bloomberg News reported.

"Our client strongly denies the allegations," said Anne Davies, an attorney at Gunnercooke representing Scott. "Given there are ongoing proceedings it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

Scott was released on bail by a London court yesterday and plans to fight his extradition, Bloomberg News reported.

declined comment on the case beyond saying that Scott left the firm in 2014.

US officials in July 2016 arrested another executive, Mark Johnson, in New York, who also was released on bail.

US officials have accused the two men of using inside information on a USD 3.5 billion foreign currency transaction to benefit the bank and themselves at the client's expense, generating USD 8 million in profits for the banks and USD 3 million for the two traders.

HSBC was one of six major US and European banks that were fined a total USD 4.2 billion by global regulators in a November 2014 crackdown for attempted manipulation of the foreign exchange market.
The Marathi textbooks of Class II published by Goa's Education Department carry incomplete national anthem, Congress party alleged today.

According to the opposition party, the Class II Marathi books titled 'Gomant Bharati' carry incomplete national anthem.

However, the education department authorities denied knowlege about the alleged printing error.

"The Class II Marathi books, published by the state education department, carry incomplete national anthem. The state government should fix the responsibility over the error," Goa Congress spokesman Sunil Kawathankar told PTI.

"The ruling BJP, which calls itself a patriotic party stands exposed. They have ignored such a grave error in the text-books," he said.

He demanded that the state government should initiate an inquiry to find out who was responsible for it.

"Such an error is an insult to the country. We condemn such lethargic attitude," Kawthankar said.

He demanded that these books should be immediately withdrawn and replaced with the ones that carry complete version of the national anthem.

When contacted, state Education Director Gajanan Bhat said that the department had no knowledge of the alleged printing error. He, however, said that they would inquire into it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao today lauded the Maharashtra State Election Commission for successfully conducting elections to various Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils, Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samitis and Gram Panchayats in the state.

He congratulated the Commission for undertaking various initiatives aimed at increasing the participation of young voters that resulted in increasing the overall voting percentage in the recent elections, a Raj Bhavan spokesperson said.

The Governor released the booklet 'Major Initiatives' brought out by the State Election Commission on this occasion, he said.

J S Saharia, State Election Commissioner briefed the Governor about various initiatives taken by the Commission such as voter registration, registration of political parties and voter awareness.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said the government is following a case with the US police about an Indian man who was shot at in California.

In a series of tweets, Swaraj said she has recieved a report from Indian Consulate in San Francisco that an Indian man identifed as Mubeen Ahmed, who was working at a gas station in California, was shot at by a gunman.

"I have received the report from our Consulate in San Francisco. The victim Mubeen Ahmed works at a gas station. A gunman demanded money from Mubeen and then fired at him," she tweeted.

"He is admitted in the Eden Medical Centre CA. Fortunately Mubeen is now out of danger. We are following up the case with the police," she said.

According to reports, 26-year-old Ahmed, a native of Telangana, had gone to the United States in February 2015, to pursue his Masters course in a university.

He had completed the course two months ago and was doing a temporary job at a private store.

Tweeting on a separate issue, Swaraj said the government has taken up with the Canadian High Commission the visa issue of Indian badminton players, who are scheduled to play in Canada at the Yonex Open.

"We took up the matter with Canadian High Commission. I am happy you will participate in the Yonex Canada Open," Swaraj tweeted after badminton player Sikki Reddy said the players were struggling to get a Canadian visa.

"Hi Mam, this is sikki reddy badminton player. We all players have applied canada visa for the yonex canada open," Reddy had tweeted yesterday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top stories from the northern region at 1800 HRS



DES1 JK-CASO



Srinagar: Security forces are undertaking a cordon and search operation (CASO) in south Kashmir's Pahalgam - an area which is a base camp for the annual Amarnath Yatra commencing later this month - following information about presence of militants in the area.

DES3 NCR-JUDGE-FIRING



Gurgaon: Irked over frequent power cuts, a former judge allegedly opens fire at Haryana electricity board workers outside his house.

DES8 HEALTH-NADDA-TOBACCO-WHO



New Delhi: Union Health Minister J P Nadda gets the WHO Director-General's Special Recognition Award for accelerating India's tobacco control initiatives



DES10 JK-OPERATION-RADARS



By Sumir Kaul



Anantnag: Aiming to detect terrorists hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings, the Indian Army will now use 'through the wall' radar imaging during counter-insurgency operations in the Kashmir Valley.

DES12 AVI-AIRLINES-SINHA



New Delhi: Air passengers will soon be required to share their unique identity details at the time of booking tickets, as the government looks to facilitate paperless travel.

DES13 JK-INFILTRATION-ARMY



Jammu: The Army accuses its Pakistani counterpart of providing active support,including cover fire, during infiltration bids by armed militants at the LoC



DES6 UKD-SCAM-SESSION



Dehradun: Multi-crore national highway scam rocks the Uttarakhad Assembly as the budget session commences today, with the opposition Congress demanding suspension of business listed for the day to hold a debate on the Centre's alleged reluctance to order a CBI probe into the case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Everything is being done to secure the release of former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, and he will be provided with all support, Navy chief Sunil Lanba said on Thursday.

Following his death sentence, India had approached the International Court of Justice at the Hague last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence to 46-year- old Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

"We will provide all support to him and his family. The country is doing all that can be done to secure his release," Lanba said, on the sidelines of a flag-in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.
I don't know how many young women come to this blog or how many are parents of teenage or young adult women, but here are some safety tips from Kelsey's Army:

T

I

P

S

1. Trust your instincts - If something feels wrong then something probably is wrong.2. Know your surroundings - know who and what is around you.3. Always have a plan for where you would go and what you would do if a situation arises.4. Be willing to make a scene in order to be noticed.5. Let someone know where you are going and when you will be back.Remember the acronym TIPS:ake Chargenform others of your whereaboutsrepare for any situationurvival Mentality (role play situations so you will respond should they happen)For more information, go to Kelsey's Army
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari today said the last three years have been important for the country with regard to development under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing a public meeting as part of the 'Modi Fest' here, Gadkari said since 1947 the Congress had ruled for 75 to 80 per cent, be it in the states, Centre or in the districts, and had always raised the slogan of 'Garibi hatao' (poverty alleviation).

"But poverty could not be eradicated, the unemployed could not get jobs and the country could not develop," Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping said adding, the poor only became poorer.

The special thing under the Narendra Modi government is how to eradicate poverty; how to give the poor some relief, and "I feel happy to inform you" that only 3.5 crore people had bank accounts since Independence, but under the Jan Dhan Yojana, it has risen by ten times with 29 crore people now having bank accounts - 60 per cent in the villages and 40 per cent in urban areas.

"Not only the poor opened accounts in banks, but deposited Rs 64,164 crore," the Minister said.

Describing unemployment as the biggest problem, Gadkari said to provide employment, industries have to come up.

Referring to the Make in India initiative, innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, research, use of science and technology, Gadkari said the government has laid emphasis on skill development.

Speaking about other schemes introduced by the Centre, he described irrigation as the most important one and said Jharkhand has the least irrigation facility in the country as the earlier governments did not pay attention to it.

"I feel happy that the Centre has made a provision - Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichai Yojana - to augment irrigation facilities," Gadkari said.

Speaking on roads, the Minister said his department has doubled the NH roads from 96,000 km to 2,00,000 km and during the UPA regime, road construction was only 2 km per day, while now it is 23 km per day.

"By March, 16,800 km road contract has been given. When I went to London, World Bank officials said no other country has done it. They said it is a record," Gadkari said.

On Jharkhand, Gadkari said he has approved a flyover at Ratu Road in Ranchi and promised more roads if the state government wanted.

He said Sahibganj will become a growth engine through waterways. LNG bunkers will be constructed in Jharkhand for filling up ships and 2.25 metric tonne cargo will be transported from Sahibganj.

In all, 1.5 lakh direct and indirect employment will be generated and the Santhal region of the state will have job opportunities, Gadkari said.

"What did not happen in 50 years, we have showed it in three years under the Modi government. We don't talk, we work," he said adding, by 2022 farmers' income will increase by 2.5 times.

"India will grow... People have belief in the BJP government. So, we are getting people's support in every election," Gadkari said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NASA has chosen 12 new astronauts, including an Indian-American, from a record number of over 18,000 applicants, who will be trained for missions into Earth orbit and to deep space.

The seven men and five women comprise the22nd class of American spaceflight traineessince 1959. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades.

It was selected from a record 18,300 applicants - more than NASA has ever had during an open astronaut call.

To get picked, people had to meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria - such as having a bachelor's degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

But it's clear that this new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills that NASA requires.

After completing two years of training, the new astronaut candidates could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

Vice President Mike Pencejoined NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly, in Houston, Texas to announce thenew astronaut candidates, or "ascans".

The event was set inside the Johnson Space Center's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which the newastronauts might fly in the coming yearson missions beyond low Earth orbit.

Pence said that President Donald Trump is "firmly committed" to NASA's mission in space and that "America will lead the way in space once again."



He said that NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to "make history" - even thoughthe president's budget request cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency.

He also mentioned that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.

While delivering the speech, Pence touted the merits of the new astronaut class.

"The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day," he said.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.

Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School. His father is from India.

Lt Kayla "Sax" Barron, 29, is a US Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the US Navy's first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old is a geobiologist who had done research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Her research was focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old department is the head for the US Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot is based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines hails from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. He attended the Air Force Test Pilot School for his Master's degree in flight test engineering. He has served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

Warren "Woody" Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley.

Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old Navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, is a quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps' Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral O'Hara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home.

Francisco Rubio, is a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. He earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. She has worked at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian American Raja Chari, a lieutenant colonel with the US Air Force, is among 12 new astronaut candidates selected by NASA who will take part in future deep space missions.

After receiving a record-breaking 18,300 applications to join the future of space exploration, the US space agency selected its largest astronaut class since 2000.

Chari, a 39-year-old lieutenant colonel of the US Air Force, hails from the US state of Iowa.

He graduated from the US Air Force Academy with bachelor's degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science.

He went on to earn a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.

Chari has been serving as the commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

"These are 12 men and women whose personal excellence and whose personal courage will carry our nation to even greater heights of discovery," said US Vice President Mike Pence, who joined NASA leaders who introduced the members of the 2017 astronaut class at Houston.

The other candidates include Kayla Barron, a 29-year-old from Washington serving the US Navy, Zena Cardman, a 29-year- old scientist from Virginia, and 35-year old Matthew Dominick,



Lieutenant commander with the US Navy from Colorado.

The astronaut candidates will begin two years of training in August.

Then they could be assigned to any of a variety of missions, including performing research on the International Space Station (ISS), launching on spacecraft built by commercial companies and departing for deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

"These candidates are an important addition to the NASA family and the nation's human spaceflight team," said NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot.

With the addition of these 12 members of the 2017 astronaut candidate class, NASA now has selected 350 astronauts since the original Mercury 7 in 1959.

"We here at NASA are excited to welcome them to the team and look forward to working with them to inspire the next generation of explorers," said Ellen Ochoa, Director of NASA Johnson Space Centre.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Islamic State group today claimed the killing of two Chinese citizens who were kidnapped last month by armed gunmen in southwestern Pakistan's restive Balochistan province.

According to the US-based SITE monitoring service, the claim was made in a brief Arabic message carried by the group's Amaq agency. There was no immediate confirmation from Chinese or Pakistan officials.

Hours earlier the Pakistan army issued a statement saying its forces conducted an operation against the IS group earlier this month, killing up to 15 militants from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi (LeJA) who were in communication with IS about establishing a base in Balochistan.

The two Chinese workers were abducted in Quetta where the pair had been studying Urdu at a language centre, according a Chinese envoy in the country.

Beijing is ramping up investment in its South Asian neighbour as part of a plan unveiled in 2015 that will link its far-western Xinjiang region to Gwadar port in Balochistan with a series of infrastructure, power and transport upgrades.

Pakistan has been battling Islamist and nationalist insurgencies in mineral-rich Balochistan since 2004, with hundreds of soldiers and militants killed in the fighting.

Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, it is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but the roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.

IS has been making inroads in the country through alliances with local militant outfits such as the sectarian Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar groups, though its presence is generally downplayed by the government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UN political chief says the Islamic State extremist group has reorganised its military structure, giving local commanders more power and inspiring attacks outside conflict areas.

Jeffrey Feltman told the UN Security Council today that the threat posed by the militant group is intensified by its use of the internet and social media, including in Europe.

Although the volume of IS messages has declined in the last 16 months, he said "the threat persists as supporters outside Syria and Iraq collect and redistribute this propaganda."



He said IS-affiliated groups in North Africa "pose a serious danger" and IS extremists are challenging established al-Qaida affiliates in West Africa. He said IS in Somalia and Yemen "represent an increasing menace" and the threat from the military group is increasing in Southeast Asia.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A group of students of Jamia Millia Islamia staged a demonstration outside the university today, demanding an apology from the vice-chancellor for allegedly subjecting some students to lathicharge and detention by police during a recent protest.

On June 5, a large number of students had staged a protest against the university for inviting RSS leader Indresh Kumar for an Iftar party organised by the RSS-affiliated Muslim Rashtriya Manch.

Allegedly, six students were detained and many were lathicharged during the protest.

The students wanted to submit a memorandum demanding an apology today, but all the gates of the university that led to the office of the vice-chancellor were closed.

"All the gates to the VC's office have been locked restricting entry of students of the varsity," said a student.

Videos of students being forcefully taken into police custody were on circulation on social media. The police, however, denied detaining anyone.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ruling CPI-M-led LDF in Kerala today condemned the attempt to 'manhandle' CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury in New Delhi.

In a resolution adopted at the Front meeting here, chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the LDF said the attack on the CPI-M leader at the party office amounted to denying the freedom to function granted to political parties.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Front convener Vaikom Viswam said the LDF would carry out a massive campaign against the "assault by sangh parivar activists."



"LDF has taken a strong stand against intrusion into the citizens' freedom of choice of food in the name of cow protection and denying freedom to ordinary people in Kashmir under the cover of animosity against Pakistan," the resolution said.

Two members of a fringe Hindutva outfit had barged into the CPI(M) headquarters in New Delhi yesterday and tried to "manhandle" Yechury.

On issue of ban on sale of cattle for slaughter, Viswam said the LDF would organise a march to Raj Bhavan here on June 22 and front workers would picket central government offices in other districts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Goa Suraksha Manch (GSM), floated by a former RSS functionary, has asked the BJP-led government to lift the ban on Sri Ram Sene chief Pramod Muthalik from entering the state.

The Goa government banned Muthalik's entry in 2015 after the state Home department submitted a report stating that his entry may create law and order problems.

The ban was imposed after Muthalik announced that he would stop 'pub culture' in the tourist state.

"Don't assume that there would be law and order problems with the entry of Muthalik in Goa. The ban imposed on him should be lifted. He is a citizen of India and free to travel to any part of the country," GSM president Anand Shirodkar told a press conference here yesterday.

GSM, the party formed by RSS rebel leader and regional language crusader Subhash Velingkar after the previous BJP government refused to withdraw grants to English medium schools, had contested the state polls held earlier this year in six seats in alliance with the MGP and Shiv Sena.

However, the party failed to make a mark at the hustings by securing only 1.2 per cent of the total votes.

To a question on the aggressive stand of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on the issue of cow slaughter, Shirodkar said it is not a "terror outfit."



"VHP is not a terror organisation. It is an outfit preaching good things and one should not forget that BJP is in power because of RSS and VHP," Shirodkar said.

The Goa Forward Party (GFP), an alliance partner of the ruling BJP, had earlier hit out at the VHP's claims on beef ban saying those who try to create communal disharmony will be dealt with strongly.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The first meeting of the new steering committee, comprising representatives of various farmers' groups, today resolved to amplify their protests across Maharashtra if their demands, including a complete loan waiver, are not accepted by the state government by June 11.

A number of farmer leaders, including Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna (SSS) president and MP Raju Shetti, Raghunath Patil, MLA Bachhu Kadu, Maharashtra Kisan Sabha (MKS) members Ajit Navle and Raju Desale, participated in the meeting held here in the afternoon.

Shetti, whose SSS is an ally of the BJP-led NDA government in Maharashtra and who led a "atmaklesh yatra" (repentance march) of farmers last month, has stressed the need to take farmers' struggle to the national level.

He sought support of all opposition parties for the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report.

Shetti alleged that only traders and middlemen profited from the "flawed" Tur purchase policy of the state government.

Shetti, who represents the Hatkanangle Lok Sabha seat in Kolhapur district, said he would be visiting Madhya Pradesh, where the ongoing agitation by farmers has taken a violent turn, with the death of five farmers in alleged police firing.

Farmers in Maharashtra launched an unprecedented stir on June 1 which has affected the supply of milk and vegetables in major urban centres including Mumbai. While refraining from selling their agricultural produce in many parts of the state, the cultivators took to the streets to disrupt the movement of vehicles carrying farm produce to cities such as Mumbai, Pune, Nashik.

Among prominent demands raised by farmers are a complete loan waiver, a guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce, and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report.

Earlier, a rift developed among agitators as a group of farmers decided to call off the protest after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a partial loan waiver for small and marginal farmers on June 3. The measure is to come into effect by October 31.

However, protests continued as another section of farmers stuck to its demand for a blanket loan waiver.

At the meeting, Navle said farmers will start holding "thiyya andolan" (sit-in protest) outside tehsil offices and district collectorates across the state from June 12.

"If our demands are not met by June 11, farmers will resort to 'thiyya andolan' June 12 onwards. Farmers will start holding protests like rasta roko, rail roko across the state on June 13 onwards," he said.

Farmers from Nashik district, which has emerged as the new epicentre of protests after Puntamba in Ahmednagar district, are demanding scrapping of the proposed 701-km Mumbai-Nagpur "Samruddhi" expressway project.

Meanwhile, agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs) in Nashik district have started receiving supply of vegetables and fruits from farmers, after days of shortage. Supply of milk has also become normal now.

Addressing the meeting, Bacchu Kadu said farmers will not let ministers in Maharashtra address meetings in the state during the second stage of agitation if their demands are not met.

"We will take our struggle to the national level," he said, adding that 70 leaders of various farmers' organisations participated in today's meeting of the steering committee.

Meanwhile, soaring prices of vegetables and fruits in Mumbai and some other cities are slowly getting plateaued with increased inflow of agricultural produce.

Substantial inflow of vegetables and fruits in Pune, Navi Mumbai and Vashi agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) has somewhat stabilised their prices in the last two days, according to official sources.

Yesterday, security was stepped up outside houses of legislators and MPs of the ruling BJP after agitating farmers put a lock outside the house of R T Deshmukh, the party MLA from Majalgaon in Beed district.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Maldives arrested one of the few vocal dissidents still in the country today, a day after facing censure at the UN Human Rights Council, the main opposition said.

Police seized Adam Azim, the brother of jailed former defence minister Mohamed Nazim, in a pre-dawn swoop on his home in the capital island Male.

There was no immediate word from the authorities, but local media reports said the Criminal Court had issued a warrant on the charge of inciting hatred against the judiciary.

The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) condemned the arrest of Azim, a key figure in the opposition's shadow cabinet.

"Adam Azim's arrest, on blatantly trumped-up charges, demonstrates once again President (Abdulla) Yameen's refusal to return to the path of democracy and good governance, and his obstinacy in the face of international criticism," the MDP said in a statement.

The arrest came a few hours after Britain, on behalf of over 30 nations, criticised the Maldivian regime at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"Legitimate opposition remains a vital component of a healthy democracy, and it is essential that the freedoms of assembly and expression are granted to all," Britain said in a statement.

It also urged President Yameen to ensure justice for the stabbing to death of a liberal blogger in April and restore the credibility of the tiny nation's judiciary.

Male has refused to accept a UN panel ruling that the March 2015 jailing of MDP leader and former president Mohamed Nasheed was politically motivated and that he should be paid compensation.

Since coming to power, Yameen has presided over a general crackdown on political dissent in the nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims raising fears over the country's stability and dented its image as a tourism paradise.

His former deputy and several former ministers are already in jail while other potential rivals are in self- imposed exile.

Nasheed was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial election run off in 2013. Nasheed became the country's first democratically elected president in 2008.

Yesterday, the Maldivian foreign ministry rejected the latest criticism.

"The statement (by Britain at the UNHRC) is unwarranted and unconstructive, misrepresenting the reality in the Maldives and unduly attempting to affect domestic politics in the country," the foreign ministry said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At the moment the normalization of relations between Iran and Turkey will have no impact on the Nagorno Karabakh issue, expert on Iranian studies Gohar Iskandaryan said at a press conference, adding that its necessary to view Iran-Turkey cooperation over Qatar and the Karabakh issue at different platforms.

June 8, 2017, 16:50 Iran and Turkey have different interests over Karabakh issue, expert on Iranian studies says

STEPANAKERT, JUNE 8 , ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: In reality they are different issues and at this stage its not necessary to link the normalization of Iran-Turkey relations with the Karabakh issue. I can surely state that as for the Karabakh issue, Irans interests differ from that of Turkey. Here Iran has no plans to make concessions in order to receive dividends at other platforms. The northern part is also very important for Iran, she said.

The expert stated that both countries at the moment cooperate over Qatar issue, but for instance, on the Syrian issue their stances are quite different.

One should not think that if Iran and Turkey cooperate, they are brothers. Quite the contrary, it is already more than 500 years each of them tries to become leader in the region, but there are issues over which the two countries constantly cooperate. The vivid example is the Kurdish issue, she said.

Foreign Minister of Iran Mohammad Javad Zarif paid an unannounced visit to Turkey where he met with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The sides discussed regional issues, in particular, the ongoing developments over Qatar.
China's iconic leader Mao Zedong's famous quote of "let a hundred flowers bloom" could also be applied to the media in a democracy where it could act as a countervailing power, Vice Chairman and Editor Emeritus of the ABP Group Aveek Sarkar said today.

"Nobody explained about fake better than former Chairman Mao Zedong of China, who said 'let a hundred flowers bloom'. The idea of media in a democracy is that hundred ideas bloom," Sarkar said speaking at the BRICS Media Forum being hosted by China's state-run Xinhua agency.

About fake news, he said, "It is possible to make a professional mistake but fake is something somebody consciously does for ulterior purposes."



"What does Mao's message mean. In India, as elsewhere, the media belongs to the civil society. By civil society we mean something which has nothing to do with the government," said Sarkar, who is also the Director of PTI.

"It is not news which is omnipotent. It is the state which is omnipotent. The media in a society like India is a counterfoil to the state. As the state becomes more powerful and assumes more and more authority, the media is the countervailing power and the judiciary is another countervailing power.

"These are the countervailing powers to the society. So each institution assumes power to countervail each other," he said.

"When one wing gets stronger, the other wing also gets stronger. When we speak about cooperation, we have a problem," Sarkar said.

He also said that the problem of providing a counterbalance to international media is difficult because people trust New York Times (NYT) more.

People trust an NYT report rather than a report in the Indian media, Sarkar said.

"I am sure this is true for everybody else. NYT has earned the reputation by trying to wield countervailing power," he said.

Today it is the effective voice against Donald Trump. NYT also was effective in opposing the America's involvement in the Vietnam war. So, it positioned itself away from the state and positioned itself as a correction to the state, Sarkar said.

This being the case, while media is state-owned in some countries and part of the civil society in countries like India, "there could be a theoretical difference in cost purpose at least the way we look at things, he said.

Editor of The Hindu Mukund Padmanabhan, who took part in the BRICS Media Forum, highlighted the theme of a BRICS-driven alternative media, saying that the international system which is undergoing a profound transformation, presented BRICS countries a serious opportunity for making a contribution to writing the rules for a more representative and a more inclusive global order.

He said the BRICS media should evolve a new revenue model in tune with the explosion of the digital media without compromising the basic values of quality journalism.

Media has a "duty and social responsibility" to ensure that "traditional values such as accuracy, fairness, truth, are not forsaken in the interests of speed, sensationalism, and more eyeballs", he said.

BRICS media must innovate, across multimedia platforms, in order "to remain unique and relevant so that people are willing to pay for what is produced rather than let some platform such as Google, Facebook or Twitter exploit its commercial value", Padmanabhan said.

"The BRICS, and the emerging economies could well be at the forefront of a new wave of industrialisation driven by the concept of sustainable globalisation, which is being currently abandoned by many, especially in the West," he said.

Despite diversity, the media in BRICS countries can cooperate, specially the media of India and China. There is information and perception deficit between the two countries, Padmanabhan said.

Media in the two countries has a role to promote people to people understanding by dramatically increasing the flow of news and information between the two countries from non- western media sources, he said.

Mahesh Daga, Director and CEO of news agency IANS, said despite the massive size of the media in India and China, there is a need for more correspondents in both the countries.

Leading writers of both the countries need to be invited to write for each other's media organisations for people to have a balanced and authentic news compatible with mutual sensibilities, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital today on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO.

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.

If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.

India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.

However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital today.

The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.

Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.

The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif tonight exchanged pleasantries at a cultural gala here, amid frosty bilateral ties, deadlocked talks and escalation of hostilities along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first encounter between Modi and Sharif after their last meeting in Lahore on December 25, 2015, when the Indian prime minister made a surprise stopover at the historic city.

Modi and Sharif are here to attend the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc tomorrow.

Official sources said Modi and Sharif were in the Leaders' Lounge at the Astana Opera tonight before the SCO concert where they exchanged greetings.

"Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's operation, PM Modi enquired about his health. He also enquired about Sharif's mother and family," a top source said. Sharif had undergone an open-heart surgery in June last year.

The brief exchange of words between the two prime ministers came at a time when bilateral ties have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and death sentence given to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying.

The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed rising tension.

In December 2015, Modi had made a surprise stopover at Lahore on his way back home after a day-long trip to Afghanistan which was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years.

However, positivity from Modi's visit was shortlived as Pakistan-based terror groups carried out an attack on Pathankot base of Indian Air Force base on January 2, 2016.

Earlier, asked whether there is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between Modi and Sharif, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Gopal Baglay said neither Pakistani side has requested for it nor India has any proposal for such a meeting.

He said there were couple of moments when leaders were at the same place, adding he was not aware whether they met.

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

At the cultural evening, both Modi and Sharif were sitting apart.

The cultural event had a Kathak dance performance by an Indian team. It was the only performance from a country which is not yet member of the SCO. Both India and Pakistan will be admited as full member of the bloc tomorrow.

Earlier in the day, when asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons, which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull-aside between the two leaders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The death toll in yesterday's fire at a cracker factory in Balaghat's Kheri village has gone up to 25 with two more persons succumbing to burn injuries today, police said.

"Two more persons have died (during treatment). With this, the death toll has climbed to 25. Among the deceased are 20 women and five men," Additional Director General of Police (Balaghat range) G Janardhan told PTI.

He said of the five other injured persons, three are being treated outside the state and two at a local hospital.

Fire had broken out in the cracker factory, located around 10 kms from the district headquarters in the Kotwali police station limits, yesterday afternoon when the workers were present there, the ADG said.

As per preliminary investigation, intense heat caused a spark during cracker assembling that ignited the fire, he said.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the next kin of the deceased. The state government would also bear the medical expenses of the injured.

According to Balaghat district Collector Bharat Yadav, the cracker factory is owned by Waris Ahmed and was being run legally.

The victims were factory workers, he said, adding that the mishap occurred when the production was on.

A magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
While curfew-bound Mandsaur district was relatively peaceful, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of Madhya Pradesh as protests spilled over to new places on the eighth day of the farmers' stir.

While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time.

District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting.

She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements.

Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur.

Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC.

In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district.

Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added.

A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district.

The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls. According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators.

In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's effigy to a tree near Sanodha village.

The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful.

In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterday's violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area.

Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans.

In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains.

Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today.

In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the party's state headquarters.

Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district.

In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said.

Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Madhya Pradesh government today conveyed to the Centre that five farmers were killed in Mandsaur in police firing, ending the confusion on who had fired at the protesters.

In a report submitted to the home ministry, the Madhya Pradesh government said the protesting farmers, demanding loan waiver, had allegedly set ablaze 25 trucks and two police vans along the Mhow-Neemuch highway on Tuesday.

The police tried to control the mob with a lathicharge and then by lobbing tear gas, it said.

However, the report said, when the farmers continued with the violence -- "arson, vandalism and destruction of public property" -- the police fired at them, killing five farmers and injuring eight others.

The confirmation that the five farmers were killed in police firing bears significance as the MP government had initially claimed that the police did not fire at the agitating farmers.

Earlier in the day, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh also told PTI that the five farmers had been killed in police firing.

In the factual report on the situation, the state government told the home ministry that after Tuesday's incident, seven people were arrested by the police for allegedly indulging in violence.

It said the violence had broken out in eight districts in Madhya Pradesh -- Mandsaur, Dhar, Jhabua, Neemuch, Ratlam, Dewas, Shajapur and Sehore -- and the state government was taking all possible steps to restore peace.

Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh are protesting since June 1 demanding higher crop prices and debt relief.

As the farmers' agitation turned violent, the authorities clamped curfew on the trouble-hit area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Myanmar's military today said it has found the wreckage of a plane in the Andaman Sea that went missing with more than 120 people on board, including children.

"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 AM (0725 IST)," a spokesman for the military's information team said.

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The press freedom in India "suffered a fresh blow" when the country's main investigative agency CBI raided homes and offices connected to the founders of NDTV, the New York Times has said, questioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment to media's independence.

In a strongly-worded article titled 'India's Battered Free Press', the NYT editorial board said the "raids mark an alarming new level of intimidation of India's media under Prime Minister Narendra Modi."



The government did not respond to a request by PTI for a reaction on the NYT editorial.

However, in the days after the raid, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu had said there were no raids on NDTV with the CBI not entering any office of the channel. He had dimissed allegations that the searches were an infringement on the press freedom.

The NYT editorial also cited remarks by the Central Bureau of Investigation that it "fully respects the freedom of press".

"Even if that's true, the question still outstanding is whether Modi does," the editorial said.

It said that since Modi took office in 2014, journalists in the country have faced "increasing pressures".

The editorial also criticised the government for going after media companies when it has failed to take action against big corporate defaulters, saying India's large corporations regularly default on debt "with nary a peep from authorities".

Journalists risk their careers and sometimes lives to report that is critical of the government or delves into matters that powerful politicians and business interests do not want exposed, the editorial said.

" outlets that run afoul of the government can lose access to officials. The temptation to self-censor has grown, and news reports are increasingly marked by a shrill nationalism that toes the government line," it said.

With India's state-owned banks holding bad debt of about USD 186 billion, Modi's government has "hesitated" to go after big defaulters, the paper said.

"But suddenly we have dramatic raids against the founders of an influential media company - years after a loan was settled to a private bank's satisfaction," it said.

The CBI on Monday carried out searches at the residence of NDTV founder Prannoy Roy for allegedly concealing a share transaction from the SEBI and causing a loss to a private bank, a move termed by the channel as a "witch-hunt" based on "same old" false accusations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Benchmark Nifty settled with small losses to end at 9,647.25 in range-bound trade today following selling in IT, PSU Bank, Energy and Infra stocks as caution prevailed ahead of elections in the UK and the European Central Bank's monetary policy review.

In overseas markets, European stocks edged higher as UK voting began and European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy takes centre-stage. Asian stocks were mixed.

The NSE 50-share Nifty index opened higher at 9,682.40 and hovered between 9,688.70 and 9,641.50 before finishing at 9,647.25, a fall of 16.65 points, or 0.17 per cent.

It saw an intra-day movement of about 47.20 points.

Sector-wise, IT dropped 1.41 per cent, PSU Bank 0.86 per cent, Energy 0.74 per cent, Infra 0.39 per cent, Realty 0.20 per cent and FMCG 0.18 per cent.

However, Pharma rose 2 per cent, followed by Metal 0.88 per cent and Finance Service 0.40 per cent.

The broader markets gained further, with the mid-cap and small-cap indices rising by 0.27 per cent and 0.21 per cent, respectively.

Major index losers were TCS, which fell by 3.58 per cent, followed by GAIL 3.48 per cent, IOC 2.01 per cent, Asian Paints 1.57 per cent and Hero Motoco 1.53 per cent.

Dr Reddy's rose 3.76 per cent, Sun Pharma 3.38 per cent, HDFC 2.14 per cent, Tata Motors DVR 1.92 per cent and Cipla 1.84 per cent.

A total of 836 scrips advanced, 825 declined, while 87 remained unchanged. The total securities that hit their price bands were 117.

Turnover in the cash segment fell to Rs 22,446.72 crore from Rs 23,043.67 crore yesterday.

A total of 9,717.45 lakh shares changed hands in 82,28,274 trades.

The market capitalisation of listed firms on the NSE stood at Rs 1,25,41,244 crore.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan today accused India of playing "devious games" in Afghanistan and using the country's soil to "sabotage" Islamabad's relations with Kabul.

Foreign Office Spokesman Nafees Zakaria also accused India of escalating tension at the LoC and the Working Boundary in order to divert international community's attention from the human rights situation in Kashmir.

"India is playing a devious game in Afghanistan. India is using Afghan soil against Pakistan and also to sabotage Pakistan-Afghanistan relations," he said at the weekly press briefing.

He said Pakistan has constantly raised its concern on the issue at all the related forums.

Zakaria alleged that India was escalating tension at the LoC and the Working Boundary to divert international community's attention away from Kashmir.

"While we have no desire to escalate the situation, Pakistani armed forces would respond effectively to any unprovoked violations. We have always exercised restraint.

"The Indian belligerence is a threat to regional peace and security. We have cautioned India from making any strategic miscalculation. It appears that India is seeking conflict with Pakistan," he warned.

He said Pakistan calls upon the UN Security Council and Human Rights organisations to call India to account for the human rights violations in Kashmir.

"We have strongly taken up the issue of grave human rights violations in Kashmir at the Council of Human Rights in Geneva at the 35th Session, yesterday," he said.

About the 2007 Samjhauta train blast, he said that there was a pledge made by India at the highest political level that they would share the findings of the investigations.

"Unfortunately, no such thing ever materialised. On the contrary, we have noted with deep concern that over the years, Indian Government has employed systematic strategies to exonerate those who had confessed their involvement, and those who were identified in those confessional statements to be involved in Samjhauta Express terrorist attack," he said.

He said Pakistan believes that all countries have an important and positive role to play to establish peace in the region and resolve disputes through peaceful means.

He said Pakistan achieved a significant milestone as it was joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during Astana Summit.

Regarding a meeting between leaders of Pakistan and India on the sidelines of SCO Summit, Zakraia said that "we have not received any request from the Indian side for a meeting on the sidelines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A company that provided software to the Cayuga County Board of Elections was targeted by Russian hackers prior to the 2016 presidential election.

VR Systems, an election management software supplier, has been named in documents linked to a case involving a National Security Agency contractor who allegedly leaked information to The Intercept, an online news outlet, about Russia's meddling in last year's elections.

The GRU, Russia's foreign military intelligence agency, targeted employees at VR Systems and at least one was compromised. That intrusion allowed hackers to target local government officials in several states.

Thomas Connolly, a state Board of Elections spokesman, said there's no evidence that malicious activity impacted any of New York's counties or election systems.

The software provided by VR Systems is known as EViD, which is an acronym for the Electronic Voter Identification system. Connolly said the use of EViD software in New York dates back to 2011. Two counties  Onondaga and Orange  launched pilot projects for electronic poll books, which allows inspectors to check voter registration information in a digital format instead of the traditional paper poll books.

The original provider of the software was Decision Works LLC. The elections management division of Decision Works was sold to VR Systems in 2014, according to Connolly.

Last year, four counties  Cayuga, Cortland, Onondaga and Orange  used a derivative of the EViD software at poll sites with multiple election districts. Connolly said the application "did not contain any information not already publicly available regarding voters, did not have access to voter signatures, did not collect information on individual voters looked up and was never connected to the official voter database in any of those counties."

Katie Lacey, the Democratic elections commissioner in Cayuga County, said there were eight laptops with the EViD software used at eight polling locations on Election Day. She noted that the electronic version of the poll books was a duplicate of the paper records.

The county's use of the software, Lacey said, is to ensure poll workers are prepared if the state shifts to electronic-only poll books.

While Cayuga County's elections board hasn't experienced any cyber-attacks, Lacey acknowledged that the attack on VR Systems and reports of Russian hacking is a concern.

"This has got to wake everybody up," she said. "It's certainly a threat."

The state Board of Elections has addressed cybersecurity issues with local county officials in partnership with federal and state law enforcement agencies. Information on potential threats was distributed to county agencies during last year's election.

Connolly said there's no reason to believe the state's election systems were compromised.

"Ensuring the integrity of elections and preserving citizen confidence in the democratic process in New York is part of the state board's mission and one which has grown to include cybersecurity issues," he said. "We stand ready to work with our federal, state and local partners to ensure that we stay vigilant in protecting elections and election systems from potential and existing threats."
Pakistan Army today said it has dismantled Islamic State's infrastructure in the troubled Balochistan province and killed 12 hardcore terrorists, including two suicide bombers, in an operation last week.

The security forces conducted an operation in Mastung area of the province from June 1 to 3 on actionable intelligence, said an army statement, releasing details of the three-day long operation.

"The successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect ISIS organized infrastructure in Balochistan (province of) Pakistan, also foiled terrorist incidents in Pakistan," it said.

It said that there were reports of 10-15 terrorists of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangivi Al-Aalmi (LeJA) hiding in caves near Isplingi mountains, 36 kms south east of Mastung.

"The said organisation was reportedly making efforts for communication with ISIS (Daesh) and intended to facilitate establishment of ISIS foothold in Balochistan," it said.

Operation for physical clearance of target area, spread over 10 kilometres, started early morning on June 1 and it continued for three days as terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance.

The army said 250 meter long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging but the intelligence and security forces personnel fought valiantly to clear the hideout by June 3.

"During exchange of fire, 12 hardcore terrorists including 2 suicide bombers were killed," it said, adding that five security forces personnel including 2 officers were also injured in the operation.

The suicide bomber used against Deputy Chairman of the Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on May 12 was also sent by this group from the same hideout.

During the operation, security forces destroyed a bomb making facility inside cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kilograms of explosive, 3 suicide jackets, 18 grenades, 6 rocket launchers, 4 light machine guns, 18 small machine guns, 4 sniper rifles, 38 communication sets and huge ammunition of various types.

Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa appreciated effort of Southern Command, intelligence agencies and the troops for the successful operation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice today for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated agency Network International (NNI).

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees.

Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation.

India had approached the world court last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

The 15-member bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.

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Pakistan on Thursday urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to adopt an expedited timetable for an early "substantive" hearing of the case as the "agents" of India and Pakistan discussed procedural matters with the court's President.

A meeting took place between ICJ President Ronny Abraham and the delegations of India and Pakistan to discuss the timelines in the Jadhav case, according to a statement from the office of the Pakistan Attorney General.

"This was not a hearing and no discussion on the substance or merits of the case took place," it said.

"The purpose of the meeting was only to discuss procedural matters including the timelines for submission of written Memorials and to enable a hearing to be listed," it said.

Indian Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage.

India on May 8 moved the ICJ against the death penalty. The next day, the global court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

During the agents' meeting at the Hague, the ICJ president sought the views of the parties as to the time required for the submission of their written pleadings and supporting evidence called Memorials, the statement said.

"The Pakistani Attorney General (Ashtar Ausaf Ali) urged the Court to adopt an expedited timetable with a view for an early substantive hearing," it said, adding that the court will announce the timetable shortly.

Attorney General Ali informed the International Court of Justice of Pakistan's intent to appoint a judge Ad Hoc who will sit on the bench of the Court for all proceedings in this case, including the substantive hearing.

"Pakistan's arguments on jurisdiction and merits will be considered by the Court at the full hearing, the statement said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today left for Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries.

Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement yesterday.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy".

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Millions of people across Britain voted today in one of the most contested general elections between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn being held under tight security after two deadly terror attacks by Islamists killed 30 people.

Voting was under way at more than 40,000 polling stations across the country. A total of 650 MPs will be elected. About 46.9 million people, including an estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters are registered to vote.

To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats. Polls close at 10 pm UK time (2.30 am IST).

May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britain's exit from the 28- member-bloc.

Britain last voted in a general election in 2015, when then Prime Minister David Cameron won a majority with 331 MPs for the Conservative party. Since then the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016 has meant a very different political landscape.

Brexit led to Cameron's resignation last year and May's selection by the Tories as their leader.

The ongoing voting is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

Police have increased security at polling stations, including patrols by armed officers in some areas, following the recent terror attacks.

A spokesperson for the UK's National Counter Terrorism Policing headquarters has said security around polling stations is "constantly reviewed and updated by local police forces".

There were two major terror attacks during the election campaign - a suicide bombing in Manchester on May 22 that claimed 22 lives and an attack by three terrorists who drove into pedestrians and then went on a stabbing spree in London Bridge, killing eight people, before being shot dead. The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for the attacks and warned of more attacks.

Political parties had called a halt to campaigning both times but Prime Minister May had said that terrorism must not be allowed to derail the democratic process.

May had decided to overturn the UK's Fixed Term Parliament Act, which would have seen an election being held after a fixed five-year term in 2020 and called a snap general election back in April with the aim of winning a strong mandate for Brexit negotiations.

The first results in today's poll are expected to pour in before midnight local time with the final results declared by tomorrow afternoon.

The shape the new government is likely to take is expected to emerge after midnight, with a steady trickle of results until about 2 am when declarations should start to come in from across the UK.

The main wave of results is expected to start at about 3 am with the overall picture likely to be clear by about 5 am on Friday.

The leader of the winning party traditionally waits for the leader of the losing party to concede defeat before claiming victory.

Many of the votes have already been cast through postal voting, which accounted for 16.4 per cent of the total electorate at the 2015 general election.

Overall turnout in 2015 was 66.4 per cent, up from 2010.

Counting will begin immediately after the polls close, with each vote counted and checked by hand.

The weather, which plays a major role in determining the turnout, is forecast for some rain in south-west England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales on Thursday, with south- east England remaining cloudy and dry.

The odds seem to be in favour of May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister who called for snap polls 52 days ago.

It remains to be seen if the Conservative party leader's decision to call a snap general election follows the forecast patterns of the latest opinion polls and betting odds or the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party is able to make a dent into her slim majority in the House of Commons.

Corbyn, 68, has focussed on his party's promise to spend more on health and education.

"Never before has there been a clearer choice between the parties... A choice quite simply between hope and fear," he said.

According to poll forecast, May's ruling Conservatives are believed to have an edge over the Corbyn-led Opposition Labour Party.

May's ruling Conservatives are on 44 per cent, Labour at 34 per cent, the Liberal Democrats at 9 per cent, with far- right UKIP at 5 per cent, the Scottish National Party (SNP) at 4 per cent and the Green Party at 2 per cent.

This forecast is echoed in the nearly 100 million pounds expected to be bet on the outcome of the polls.

"Generally, on average, the polls tend to point toward a fairly small Tory majority, whereas the betting is more optimistic of the prime minister landing a majority of around 70 seats," said a betting expert at Ladbrokes, one of the UK's leading bookmakers.

All the major parties wrapped up their campaigning yesterday with a last-ditch effort to swing undecided voters.

May focussed on her central message of the "strong and stable leadership" that she can provide for Britain's exit negotiations from the European Union (EU).

"Brexit is the basis of everything. We need to secure our economy for the future, we need to ensure we are getting more jobs, better paid jobs, more opportunities for young people in this country. We can do that if we get the Brexit negotiations right," she said in one of her final speeches.

The Liberal Democrats have been focused on their Remain- voting target seats, while the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) has stuck to its central message of ensuring there is no back-tracking on Brexit.

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Qatar's foreign minister today rejected interference in his country's foreign policy, ruling out a military solution to a crisis which has seen Riyadh and its allies cut ties with Doha.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told AFP.

"We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, he added.

A top United Arab Emirates official on Wednesday told AFP that the unprecedented measures against Qatar aim to pressure Doha into making drastic policy changes.

"This is not about regime change -- this is about change of policy, change of approach," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said, accusing the government in Doha of being in "denial".

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar denies having any ties to extremists.

The UAE's Gargash today told AFP the measures against Doha were limited to diplomatic and economic ties, but warned that no one could project the "dynamic of a crisis".

"Like any crisis, you cannot really control the dynamic... This is one of the dangers of any crisis. There is no intention for us to seek anything but what we look at as economic spheres of activities," he said.

The four Arab countries have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has also closed off Qatar's only land border, a crucial lifeline for food imports.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar could nonetheless survive "forever", adding that it respected international agreements and would continue supplying liquefied natural gas to the UAE.

Qatar is the world's largest exporter of natural liquefied gas.

The emirate is also home to leaders of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and the Afghan Taliban.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a pre-existing dispute which saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera said today that it was under a widescale cyber attack which had targeted "all systems", according to a statement released on social media by the broadcaster.

"Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms," it said on Twitter. The attacks was also confirmed by a source at Al- Jazeera.

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Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today left Delhi for Mandsaur where five farmers were killed during protests earlier this week even as the local police made it clear that he will not be allowed to enter the district.

Gandhi left this morning for the district and would enter Madhya Pradesh from Rajasthan.

However, Superintendent of Police of Neemuch Manoj Kumar Singh said the Congress leader will not be allowed to enter the violence-hit district where the situation remains tense.

If the Congress leader tries to enter the district, he will be detained, the SP said.

The Congress yesterday termed as "coldblooded murder" the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned the prime minister's silence over it.

The Congress accused the BJP of "acting as a curse of death for Indian farmers".

AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said yesterday that it was insulting and unfortunate that the BJP-led NDA government was in denial mode over the firing and accused it of spreading rumours and canards over who fuelled the farmers' protest.

He also hit out at the BJP for denying permission to people who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Gandhi.

The Congress vice president is visiting Mandsaur to meet the kin of the five persons who were killed in violence during the farmers' agitation.

Five persons were killed on Tuesday as the farmers' agitation turned violent in Mandsaur, prompting the authorities to clamp curfew in the trouble-hit area.

Mandsaur has been on the boil since the farmers' agitation in the district turned violent.

Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh are protesting since June 1 over various demands.

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The Railway Ministry's Twitter handle @RailMinIndia, which boasts of 2.7 million followers, has become an effective tool to redress passenger grievances, and acts upon 3,000 complaints daily, according to officials.

Also, the social media platform has become a contact point between the Railways and the commuters which has proved to be a big boon, said a senior Railway Board official in an interaction with a group of journalists from Mumbai, who were invited to Delhi on the initiative of the Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.

Soon after Prabhu took over as the Railway Minister in the Narendra Modi government, he initiated to set up a department to work exclusively on social media interaction in July 2015.

The Ministry's Twitter handle has logged 3.78 lakh tweets so far.

"Our team gets around 6,500 mentions per day in which around 3,000 mentions are in the form of complaints. We are immediately notified about the new tweet and our team chips in to address the complaints after the initial verification of the passengers. Then we forward the messages to divisions concerned for further action," said the official who did not wish to be named.

We have a dedicated team of 150 staffers across 68 divisions of the Indian Railways who not only keep a close watch on passenger messages on the social media round the clock but also ensure that passengers woes are solved within the stipulated time or say within 30 minutes, he said.

We do not only make sure that their problems are addressed but also try to reach the passengers to inform that what action has been taken on his/her complaint, he added.

Advocating this social medium, Prabhu too in a statement, said, "We were looking for a common and transparent tool to establish contact in real time with our passengers so that we can redress their grievances."

"Twitter has proved to be a powerful medium and met our needs. It gives me satisfaction when we are able to make journeys better by our intervention. I also keep an eye on the Twitter handle. This gives me a feedback on our services and helps us to improve," the minister added.
Eating may help fight cancer, say scientists including one of Indian origin, paving the way for a natural pill that can treat the deadly disease.

Onions activate pathways that encourage cancer cells to undergo cell death.

They promote an unfavourable environment for cancer cells and disrupt communication between cancer them, which inhibits growth, researchers from University of Guelph in Canada said.

Onions as a superfood are still not well known. They contain one of the highest concentrations of quercetin, a type of flavonoid, they said.

The team found that not only have high levels of quercetin, but also high amounts of anthocyanin, which enriches the scavenging properties of quercetin molecules.

"We found onions are excellent at killing cancer cells," said Abdulmonem Murayyan, post doctoral student at University of Guelph.

The team tested five onion types grown in Ontario and discovered that the Ruby Ring onion variety - that has hard, firm, tall globe-shaped bulbs with dark red colour features - has the strongest cancer-fighting power.

"The next step will be to test the vegetable's cancer- fighting powers in human trials," said Murayyan.

These findings follow a recent study by the researchers on new extraction technique that eliminates the use of chemicals, making the quercetin found in onions more suitable for consumption.

Other extraction methods use solvents that can leave a toxic residue which is then ingested in food, said Suresh Neethirajan, professor at University of Guelph.

"This new method that we tested to be effective only uses super-heated water in a pressurised container," he said.

"Developing a chemical-free extraction method is important because it means we can use onion's cancer-fighting properties in nutraceuticals and in pill form," he added.

While we can currently include this superfood in salads and on burgers as a preventative measure, the researchers expect onion extract will eventually be added to food products such as juice or baked goods and be sold in pill form as a type of natural cancer treatment.

The study was published in the journal Food Research International.
Some incoming and returning students didn't waste any time applying for aid through New York's new tuition-free college program.

According to Robert Mujica, the state's budget director, the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation received more than 3,200 Excelsior Scholarship applications from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.  the first five hours of the application period.

The state will accept applications from now through July 21.

The program is open to New York residents attending a two-year or four-year program at a SUNY or CUNY school. To be eligible for the Excelsior Scholarship, students must apply for federal and state financial aid. The tuition-free benefit will be used to offset the remaining tuition costs not covered by other forms of assistance.

Students whose families earn no more than $100,000 annually will be eligible for the scholarship in the 2017-18 school year. The income threshold will rise to $110,000 in the 2018-19 school year and $125,000 in 2019-20.

When fully phased in, the state will invest $163 million a year to fund the scholarships.

Once enrolled in the program, students must earn 30 credits per academic year and have an adequate grade point average. They must maintain on track to complete a two-year or four-year degree.

Mujica called the scholarship "a game-changer for tens of thousands of students."

Dan Fuller, assistant secretary for education, said the state has been conducting outreach to inform students about the program and the application process. Informational sessions were held at colleges throughout the state. Similar programs will be held at high schools.

With the launch of the application, Fuller said the state will contact 160,000 high school seniors who are eligible for the scholarship. This is in addition to previous outreach efforts targeting more than 220,000 high school juniors and seniors.

More than 90,000 students have expressed interest in the scholarship, Fuller said.

The Excelsior Scholarship is available online at hesc.ny.gov/excelsior. A telephone hotline has been established for questions about the scholarship. The phone number is (888) 697-4372. Questions may submitted by email to scholarships@hesc.ny.gov.
Two motorcycle-borne unidentified men allegedly looted Rs 2 lakh cash from a farmer, outside a bank branch here, police said today.

"Mohinder Singh was exiting the bank premises after withdrawing cash when two unidentified motorcycle-borne miscreants snatched his bag containing cash and made off," a police official said.

"A case has been registered and investigation started," he said.

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The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was today arrested from Himachal Pradesh.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5.

Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

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Three more persons have been arrested by Scotland Yard in connection with the London Bridge attack carried out by three men including a Pakistani-origin terrorist.

The arrests came ahead of the general election in which about 46 million eligible voters are expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the UK.

Seventeen people have now been arrested in connection with Saturday's attack and five remain in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.

"The Met's Counter Terrorism Command, supported by firearms officers, arrested two men on a street in Ilford, east London, a third was arrested after a warrant was carried out at a residential address in Ilford," the Met Police said.

Of the two men arrested on the street, one aged 27 was arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts and the second aged 33 was arrested for on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs. The third 29-year-old man was arrested from the residential address in Ilford on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts.

All three men have been taken into custody at a south London police station under the UK's Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Met said.

Eight people were killed when three men, Pakistan-born Khurram Shazad Butt, Moroccan-origin Rachid Redouane and Moroccon-Italian Yousef Zaghba, drove into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.

Today, the Met Police made three further terror-related arrests in London, which the force said were not related to Saturday's London Bridge attack.

"All three were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They have been taken into custody at a south London police station and are detained under the Terrorism Act," the Metropolitan Police said.

Searches being conducted at the addresses where the men were arrested.

The developments came as families of the London Bridge attackers expressed their disgust at the attack in London on June 3.

The relatives of Butt and the ex-wife of Redouane distanced themselves from the extremists, saying the atrocity had left them shocked.

Charisse O'Leary, who married Redoaunein Dublin in 2012, said she has "shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident".

"I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex-partner who has killed and injured so many innocent people. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that some day I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did," she said.

Butt's uncle Nasir Dar had earlier condemned his nephew's actions saying: "I condemn, first of all, this incident, this brutal action. Innocent people are killed in this action".

Their condemnation came as CCTV footage emerged online appearing to show the moment armed police gunned down the three knife-wielding terrorists.

The three terror suspects can be seen rushing at a passing pedestrian near Borough Market, raining down a series of blows while police cars approach and marksmen shoot down the three attackers.

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BJP president Amit Shah today asked the party workers in Chhattisgarh to aim for almost a three-fourths majority in the next year's Assembly elections.

Shah, who arrived here today on a three-day visit to the BJP-ruled state, held meetings with party leaders and workers.

"He exhorted workers and leaders to ensure victory in at least 65 seats while focusing on winning all 90 seats in Assembly in 2018 elections," a senior state BJP leader said.

Shah also asked BJP office-bearers to make extensive booth-level tours to take a stock of situation.

BJP, in power in Chhattisgarh since 2003 under the leadership of Chief Minister Raman Singh, it is now eyeing a fourth consecutive term.

Shah today first held a meeting with state BJP's core group, MPs, MLAs, general secretaries, Mayors, presidents of Zila Panchayats, etc.

Later he interacted with party's district unit presidents and asked them to focus on the polling booths where party had fared badly in 2013 Assembly elections.

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Senior Congress leader and former Union Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, today called for resumption of talks with Kashmiri leaders and also favoured dialogue with separatists for restoration of peace and normalcy in the Valley.

Talking to mediapersons, he recalled that during his tenure as home minister, the situation had improved in the Kashmir Valley and he could go to the Lal Chowk in Srinagar with the then chief minister of the state.

Accusing the NDA government of deviating from the dialogue process started by the previous governments for restoration of peace, he said since the BJP and PDP have formed a coalition government, they should work for improving the situation rather than openly criticising each other.

Stressing on his point for a need to start the dialogue process, Shinde recalled how former prime minister late Indira Gandhi held talks with the then Pakistani prime minister Z A Bhutto after creation of Bangladesh.

Dubbing the foreign policy of the NDA government a failure, Shinde said China has "turned against" India, Nepal, a friendly nation, too was also "not totally with India" and attacks on Indian soldiers had "increased substantially".

Militant attacks on army establishments have gone up in the past three years and Maoists violence has also taken heavy toll, he said.

He criticised the government for the farmer unrest in states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh and also for the use of "repressive means" on agitating farmers.

"When the government can waive loans worth thousands of crores of rupees of corporate sector defaulters why the farmers cannot be extended the same benefit," he said.

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Anti-riot paramilitary forces today moved into violence-hit areas of Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district, where farmers have been protesting for over a week demanding debt relief.

As contingents of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) fanned out into the troubled areas of the district, the state government shunted out Mandsaur collector Swatantra Singh and Superintendent of Police O P Tripathi.

Curfew, imposed yesterday after escalating violence, was relaxed for two hours from 4 pm, as officials said the situation appeared to be improving.

The police, however, said some areas were still tense.

In Naya Gaon, about 70 kms from Mandsaur, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by senior Congress leaders and the JD(U)'s Sharad Yadav, was detained by the police when the opposition leaders tried to make their way from the Rajasthan border to Mandsaur, the ground zero of the farmer protests.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Gandhi was released after over four hours of detention in the guest house of a cement company.

Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent.

The government has brought in Manoj Kumar Singh from Neemuch as the new SP of Mandsaur. The collector of Shivpuri, O P Srivasata, who took charge of the district, said he faced a challenging situation.

Divisional Commissioner M B Ojha told PTI, "For the last two to three days, farmers were stopping vehicles and setting them on fire."



Police said seven cases were lodged and 62 people detained in connection with the violence. Burnt vehicles were removed from the Mhow-Neemuch highway today, and traffic had resumed.

They said investigations found that "stone throwers and some anti-social elements" had also joined the protest.

Violence had also hit Dewas, Neemuch, Ujjain districts and some other parts of western MP.

While two companies of the RAF, each comprising 100 personnel, moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where the five farmers were killed, another two were posted in Garoth. Two RAF companies have also been deployed along the highway.

Besides the RAF, contingents of the CRPF have been deployed.

MP Home Minister Bhupendra Singh told PTI that the five farmers had been killed in police firing, a remark that assumes significance as the authorities had earlier claimed the police did not fire during the protests at Pipliamandi.

Outgoing SP Tripathi earlier told reporters some people had been detained for heckling the previous Mandsaur Collector S K Singh in the Berheda Pant area yesterday.

He said Pipliamandi Town Inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who had allegedly fired at the farmers causing casualties, had been removed from the field and sent to the Mandsaur police lines.

Just before he was detained by the police, the Congress vice president accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of waiving loans of the country's rich while ignoring farmers' debts.

"He (Modi) can't give the right rates for farmers' agriculture produce, can't give them bonus, can't give them compensation... He can only give them bullets," he said.

The Congress had yesterday described as "cold-blooded murder" the killing of the five farmers and questioned the prime minister's silence on it.

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a settlement scheme for cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of loans. The scheme will cover around 6 lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the state government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today strongly opposed the Centre's ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets at a special session of the Kerala Assembly convened to discuss the issue.

In a resolution moved at the special session, Vijayan said the ban had affected Kerala very badly and about five lakh people would be rendered jobless.

About 15 lakh cattle were brought to Kerala every year from others states and due to the ban, their movement was being affected, he said.

In Kerala about 2.5 lakh tonne meat, worth Rs 6,552 crore is sold annually. Meat export was a source of income to those engaged in the sector and this has also been hit, he said.

The state feels that cattle slaughter was not a subject which came under the purview of Parliament to frame regulations, Vijayan said.

On May 29, Vijayan had written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter and urge the prime minister to withdraw the new regulations.

"Unless we stand together and oppose this anti-federal, anti-democratic and anti-secular move, it may mark the beginning of a series of similar measures aimed at destroying the federal democratic fabric and secular culture of our country," he had said in the letter.

"The new notification was an attempt to encroach into a subject upon which Parliament has no right to frame laws and the state assemblies have constitutional powers," he had said.

Vijayan had also written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

Vijayan also decided to call a meeting of all chief ministers soon after he wrote to them against the Centre's notification.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three persons were arrested by Kolkata Police for allegedly duping a man of Rs 30 lakh by promising him that he would felicitate one of his relatives admission into the MBBS course, police said today.

The accused three - Sanchayan Dasgupta, Nayan Banerjee and Debashis Dalai were arrested late last night by Kolkata Police sleuths for their alleged involvement in duping one Subhendu Sekhar Mondal, resident of Murshidabad, of Rs 30 lakh promising to get his niece get admission for MBBS course at a Haldia-based private medical college, a senior officer of the force said.

The accused were running an office named 'IQ Educational Service' in south Kolkata, he said.

"On the pretext of arranging admission for the niece of the complainant in MBBS course at ICare Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in Haldia they took Rs 30 lakh in two instalments. After that they fled shutting down their office," the senior officer of Kolkata Police said.

The accused trio switched off their mobile phones and kept on changing their hideouts making it difficult for the sleuths to spot them. They were tracked down and arrested from different locations yesterday, he said.

When produced at a city court, the accused trio were remanded to police custody till June 19.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three more people were arrested in connection with London's weekend terrorist attack which left eight people dead, British police said.

Two men were arrested by police "supported by firearms officers" on a street in Ilford, east London, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement yesterday.

A 27-year-old was detained on terrorism charges while the second, 33, was arrested on drugs charges.

The third suspect, 29, was apprehended at a home in the same area of the British capital. He was also arrested on "suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts", police said.

Searches were underway at the residential property and a business address in Ilford, the latest in a series of raid since the weekend assault.

Three attackers were shot dead by police on Saturday as they carried out a stabbing spree in London's Borough Market, a warren of bars and restaurants, after mowing down pedestrians as they drove a van across London Bridge.

Eight people were killed in the attack, including a Frenchman whose body was found in the River Thames on Tuesday, and 48 people were hospitalised.

The latest arrests come on the eve of Britain's general election today, after a political campaign marred by the London attack and a suicide bombing in Manchester last month which left 22 people dead.

The Metropolitan Police said they had reviewed security ahead of the vote, putting in place a "specialist and highly flexible operation" which can be deployed as needed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top stories at 1815 hours today:



DEL 31 FARMER-3RD LD RAHUL



By Harshwardhan Prakash



Naya Gaon: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is detained briefly by police when he tries to force his way into Madhya Pradesh with surging crowds of Congress supporters.

DEL66 MP-LD FARMERS



By Harshwardhan Prakash and M P Agrawal



Mandsaur: Anti-riot paramilitary forces move into violence-hit areas of Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district, where farmers have been protesting for over a week demanding debt relief.

KL-CATTLE-2NDLD ASSEMBLY



Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals- the ruling LDF and the UDF- close ranks in the state assembly to oppose the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

JK-2NDLD INFILTRATION



Srinagar: Three militants and a jawan have been killed along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Naugam sector in north Kashmir's Kupwara district today, as the Army foiled yet another infiltration attempt.

DEL54 MLJ-COURTS-ADJOURNMENTS



New Delhi: The laid down procedure of allowing a maximum of three adjournments per case is not followed in over 50 per cent of the matters being heard by courts, leading to rising pendency of cases, a government panel has said.

DEL40 MHA-NAXAL-RECRUITS



New Delhi: As many as 743 candidates, including 242 women, have been recruited by the CRPF from the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, one of the worst Naxal-hit areas, for an 'all-tribal battalion' being raised to fight Maoists.

DEL38 MP-FARMERS-LD NAIDU-CONG



New Delhi: Union minister M Venkaiah Naidu accuses the Congress of "instigating violence and politicising" the farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed party leader Rahul Gandhi's visit to Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

LGD2 SC-LIQUOR BIHAR



New Delhi: The Supreme Court modifies its earlier order and allows liquor manufacturers from Bihar to export their old stocks of alcoholic beverages worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state till July 31.

FGN34 PM-SCO



By Manash Pratim Bhuyan



Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in the Kazakh capital on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

DEL61 BIZ-PETROL-RATES



New Delhi: Come June 16 and petrol as well as diesel prices across the country will be revised on a daily basis in sync with international rates as happens in most advanced markets.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
SKANEATELES FALLS  For a roadhouse with a pedigree such as Skaneateles Falls' Red Rooster Pub and Eatery, it's no surprise that an exerpienced restaurateur would be interested in taking over.

That's the case with new owner David DelloStritto, whose industry pedigree can be traced to Curley's Restaurant in Auburn. DelloStrittos grandfather was Curley.

Ive been doing this all my life; I can remember washing glasses at 10 years old behind the bar at Curleys to get a quarter to play Pac-Man, he said.

Red Rooster's point of difference is the people. Not just DelloStritto's people  the members of his personable staff of 12  but also the clientele who have humbled him with their welcome to the area and support of his enterprise. He said their input has been very welcome as he evolves the business.

Even though DelloStritto is going to maximize his bar trade at the pub with several new offerings on tap, it's his intention to really up his guest's experience with his dining operation that features a fun menu with many twists and turns  from a great burger to Osso Bucco to pickle fries, catfish, poutine, a Cuban sandwich and many more.

The Rooster is across the street from the former Welch Allyn Plant in Skaneateles Falls on the corner of Jordan and Stump Road. The business was founded by Charles Huxford in 1875. In the middle of the 20th century the Rodak family started a long run of nearly four decades as Rodaks until Skaneateles Chef/restaurateur Deborah Schneider reinvigorated the operation as The Red Rooster Pub.

When Schneider moved on in the 21st century to take over Onondaga Community Colleges hospitality departments kitchen as manager and instructor, Skaneateles' Tom Benedict took over the Rooster, instituting many fun nights and community-driven events such as a chili cook off and karaoke.

It was time, Benedict said of the sale to DelloStritto, noting he actually finds himself busier in his retirement.

Meanwhile, DelloStritto is having the time of his life. He has been operating restaurants for other people, such as some name brand chains including the Movie Tavern in Camillus, and is thrilled to have an operation he can really make his own.

Finalizing the sale last August, he liked the name along with its recognition, so he kept it. With an assist from his brother Dan DelloStritto, they updated the interior, lengthening and refinishing the bar. During this process they uncovered the face of an old wooden cooler that had been walled over and organized the traffic pattern for easier service to the handsome deck, which is attached to the north side of the building.

Expect a work in progress as DelloStritto is still updating and integrating his own design, looking to create more elements for summer fun inside and out. An update to the deck area will include a fire pit and lawn games.

By the way, don't look for a live Rooster, like the former Rocky, as DelloStritto said the live roosters that were the Pub's mascots didn't fare well with busy Jordan Road.

As DelloStritto wrote on his amusing website, "So hurry up and come on over before we get famous. You can say: 'I knew them when they were just ...'"
Donald Trump's eldest son today defended him on social media as the US President faced one of the toughest days of his presidency at the testimony of the fired FBI director James Comey.

Donald Trump Jr, 39, was live-tweeting as the Comey's testimony went along at the Capitol Hill. He responded to every allegations against President Trump either by the fired FBI director or any of the Senators at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

He was posting repeatedly during the closely watched testimony.

"The market has responded to James Comey. Dow is up! Why? Trump was vindicated today," Trump Jr retweeted a tweet of Adam D Brown, social and political commentator.

Donald Trump Jr, one of Trump's three sons, praised Senator Marco Rubio who asked Comey the only thing "that's never been leaked is the fact that "@POTUS was not personally under investigation."



"Solid point and seems rather convenient for the partisan nonsense we have seen play out for months," Donald Trump Jr said.

"Washington DC at its finest. This is what America rallied against, but the DC elite don't get it or know any other way," he wrote in another tweet.

Trump Jr, who played a key role in the last year's presidential elections and is now managing his business, has 1.64 million followers, as against more than 31 million of his father.

Trump Jr also asked whether it was "a joke" that Comey asked a friend to share a memo about his conversation with the president.

"Did I miss something or did Comey just say he asked a friend to leak information to the press? Is this a joke?" Trump Jr wrote posing a question to the statement of the former FBI director.

"We all know that there is no way anyone in the swamp would leak something favourable to #potus. Otherwise this whopper would be everywhere!," Donald Trump Jr wrote.

This prompted mockery from Trump Jr.: "So if he were a 'Stronger guy' he might have actually followed procedure & the law? You were the director of the FBI, who are you kidding?"



In a series of tweets, Trump Jr said: "Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well.

I hear "I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!" he said.

"Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do somethingthere is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means," he wrote in yet another tweet.

Fired FBI director James Comey has said that it was "very disturbing" that President Trump asked him to stop probing the Russia links of one of his top aide.

The statement which was meant as an opening statement of Comey during his Congressional hearing today was released ahead by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Comey was fired on May 9, when Trump expressed his deep frustration with the continuing probe into whether members of his presidential election campaign had tied up with Russian hackers against the billionaire tycoon's rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Supermodel Tyra Banks says she would love her 18-month-old son, York, to take up modelling as a profession.

The 43-year-old catwalk icon says she would support her child in every way possible like a doting parent, reported ET Online.

"I'd be like, 'Baby, of course you can model. You can do whatever the hell you want to do'", says Banks.

The "America's Next Top Model" judge feels men earn far less than their female counterparts in the business.

"Unfortunately, male models, you know, their success and their pay is not like what my pay was as a model. There's such a huge disparity," says Banks.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today expressed happiness over Aamir Khan starrer 'Dangal' earning praise from a top Chinese leader for being a "success story" in that country.

Dangal has scripted history in China by becoming the first top-grossing non-Hollywood film, attracting praise from Liu Yunshan, a high-ranking leader of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).

"Happy to see #Dangal receiving acclaim from a Chinese leader. A great example of cooperation among #BRICS nations!," Naidu said in a tweet.

Addressing participants of BRICS Media Forum in Beijing yesterday, Liu had said the movie has become very popular in a short time with record revenues -- even higher than the Chinese movies.

"I think this is a very typical example of a success story. We media groups need to give it more coverage. This will serve as a good example," Liu had said.

Dangal which raked up over Rs 1,100 crores since it was released in China on May 5 has created history by becoming only the 33rd film in China's history to cross RMB one billion. It continues to play in over 7,000 screens across China.

Editors and journalists from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are attending the forum being organised by China's Xinhua agency ahead of the BRICS Summit to be held in the Chinese city of Xiamen in September this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) today condemned the police firing on agitating farmers in Madhya Pradesh and urged the central government to "urgently" take measures like "total waiver of loans".

VHP international working president Pravin Togadia also said "the dream of Ram Rajya can not be realised if farmers continue to be debt-ridden and driven to suicide".

"We fail to understand what could have been the provocation behind opening fire on the protesters at Mandsaur. Our security forces have been lenient enough to use rubber bullets against even separatist mobs in Kashmir.

"In Madhya Pradesh, the farmers, including the ones who were killed, were our own people", Togadia told PTI over phone.

He said that at a recent meeting at Ayodhya regarding the Ram temple, it was discussed that the vision of Ram Rajya includes not just the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir but also the welfare of farmers, who form the backbone of the country's economy and society.

"We urge the Union government to take urgent pro-farmer steps like total waiver of loans. It must also pass a law making it mandatory to provide farmers with a minimum support price that is 1.5 times the cost of production. This issue must be addressed at the national level and not shrugged off as a state subject," the firebrand VHP leader said.

Togadia demanded that the government must implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission at the earliest.

He also said that care should be taken that fertile and cultivable land was not acquired from the farmers for infrastructure projects.

"Such misplaced economic priorities would make India dangerously dependent on other countries for its food requirement", the VHP leader said.

He also demanded that free water to every farm, subsidised power, financial support for education of children of farmers and marriage of their daughters, be provided.

The government, he said, must also act against the middlemen who create a situation wherein farmers are compelled to sell their produce at lower rates but the same is made available to buyers at a much higher price.

"The VHP is doing its bit to alleviate the agrarian distress. We have launched a Samruddha Kisan (prosperous farmer) campaign as part of which thousands of farmers have been trained in what we call zero budget farming.

"We are also distributing free of cost a special, scientifically developed powder which will come in handy in the event of deficient rainfall," Togadia added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As part of the party's Dalit outreach, BJP's top brass has asked Union ministers and senior functionaries to have a meal at a Dalit household while visiting different states as part of the Modi government's third anniversary celebrations.

"While they (Union ministers and party leaders) will talk about the achievements of the government and also ensure that they enrol as many people as they can with the party," a Union minister said.

BJP functionaries as well as ministers have been given a set of instructions as the party celebrates its three year at the Centre.

"They have been asked to pan out across the country, stay overnight in the northeast states, talk extensively about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, enroll members in the party and have at least one meal with a Dalit family," the minister said.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma shared a meal with a Dalit family today at Nuapada during his visit to Odisha.

He also registered 45 members of the household as BJP members.

Earlier, Union Power minister Piyush Goyal followed the party's diktat and paid a visit to a Dalit home at the Ambedkar Colony in Hongasandra, Bommanahalli of Karnataka, where he ate breakfast cooked by the lady of the house.

The leader later gushed about the food and the family's hospitality.

Karnataka BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa has also been seen having food with Dalit families since the last fortnight.

The trend begin with the party chief Amit Shah visiting a Dalit family and sharing lunch with them in Telengana during his visit to the state between May 22-24.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tamil Superstar Rajinikanth today said he would meet his fans again stepping up expectations about the possibility of his entry into politics.

After telling his fans last month that his entry into politics was in the hands of God even while asking them to prepare ground for a war, he said he will meet his fans in the coming days.

Arriving here after winding up shoot for the first schedule of his upcoming Tamil flick "Kaala," in Mumbai, he said he was very much satisfied about the work done so far.

Speaking to reporters at airport he said the next leg of the shoot for Kaala will begin soon.

Rajinikanth at the session with his fans last month had asked them to prepare the ground for a war, saying they would have to assemble when the battle was fought.

In the olden days, he said, kings seldom maintained standing armies but the men turned up when duty called, he said.

"When war comes they will come to the rescue of their motherland. I have a profession, work, duty and so do you. Go to your places, do your duty, take care of your vocation. Let us face the war when it comes," he had said.

The Kablai star had told his fans that joining politics was in God's hands. He had said that they should not be disappointed if he did not come to politics.

He had said that if he were to join politics he would keep at bay those eyeing politics as an avenue for making money.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman at a US department store allegedly made a racist rant against an Indian employee and a Latino family while in a queue, saying "you got an Indian waiting on an Indian".

The incident took place at the Sears store in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a city man videotaped the woman making bigoted comments.

Simoni Lovano, 27, said he recorded the video Sunday at the department store.

In the video, a woman can be heard making bigoted comments against an Indian employee and a Latino family, who she assumes are of Indian descent, Lovano was quoted as saying by NJ.Com.

"Send them back to their own (country) country," the unidentified woman can be heard saying in the video.

The woman was upset because the family was using coupons, which made the wait in the checkout line longer, Lovano said.

He said the woman was right to be frustrated with the lack of open cash registers, considering it took about 20 minutes to process the family's coupons.

Lovano said he started recording, however, when the woman began to blame the customers. She thought the family was receiving preferential treatment because she assumed they were Indian, he said.

In the minute-and-a-half video, the woman can be heard saying, "You got an Indian waiting on an Indian, that's what it is."



"They're not Indian," someone said to her.

"I don't know what the hell they are..." the woman says.

"That has nothing to do with anything," another person said, according to the video of the incident.

Lovano, whose family moved to the US from Sicily when he was a few years old, said Sears employees should have kicked the woman out of the store.

Lovano, who works at a biotechnology company in North Brunswick, said he hopes the video becomes viral so he can monetise it to raise money for social justice organisations that advocate for immigrants.

Lovano said he felt guilty for not standing up for the family at the time. He said he is glad he captured the incident on video, however, because "this is something that is happening right here in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a very diverse area.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Zee Media Corporation today said the NCLT has approved the demerger of its print media business into Diligent Media Corp Ltd (DMCL).

In October last year, the company had announced the demerger and also approved the proposal to independently list its print media business on the stock exchanges.

The company had also announced the consolidation of its print media entities Pri-Media Services Pvt Ltd and Mediavest India Pvt Ltd with DMCL. Both the entities are in the newspaper printing business.

The Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved the scheme of arrangement and amalgamation between Zee Media Corporation, Diligent Media Corporation, Mediavest India Pvt Ltd and Pri-Media Services, the company said in a filing to BSE today.

Zee Media Corporation operates Zee and Zee Business channels.

The proposed merger will enable more focused management and a greater visibility on the performance of individual business, the company had said.

The company had last year also proposed a merger of Maurya TV Pvt Ltd, which operates regional channel Zee Purvaiya, with Zee Media.

Merger of Maurya TV Pvt Ltd would accomplish reduction in administrative costs and achieving better operational and management efficiency, it had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
PARIS (Reuters) - About 70 countries launched a new international tax convention on Wednesday to prevent multinational companies from "treaty shopping" for jurisdictions most favourable to their tax bills.

Ministers from major economies signed the new tax pact at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, which said more countries were likely to join in the coming weeks.

The new agreement will replace more than 1,100 bilateral tax treaties, or about a third of the treaties signed by countries over the last century to avoid double taxation.

In the age of globalisation, multinational countries have increasingly sent cross-border transactions through third countries to take advantage of their low taxes in what has come to be called treaty shopping.

The new treaty sets minimum standards to avoid abuses and defines a company's taxable presence in a country, while also lays out plans for settling double taxation disputes between governments.

"It's going to kill treaty shopping," OECD tax policy director Pascal Saint-Amans told journalists.

Under the new pact, countries have to state which provisions they sign up to and which they do not. In the coming weeks, governments will have to match their positions with others'.

"This is something that companies are going to need to pay close attention to because the decisions countries make when they sign up to the MLI (multilateral instrument) will have very significant tax consequences," said Jesse Eggert, principal in the international tax group of KPMG's Washington National Tax practice.

Signatories include most major economies and countries known as treaty shopping hubs - such as the Netherlands, Belgium, the Seychelles and Singapore.

Mauritius, which is often used to route transactions with India because of its low tax, has also signalled that it will sign in the coming months, Saint-Amans said.

One notable absence is the United States. Saint-Amans said that was not a concern because its bilateral treaties were already of high quality.

The new pact is part of a broader OECD-led drive to prevent companies from taking advantages of differences between tax systems to cut their tax bills without outright breaking the law.

The OECD estimates that governments are missing out on tax revenues worth as much as $250 billion annually, or 10 percent of global corporate tax revenue, as a result of what it calls base erosion and profit shifting.

Countries that sign the new treaty now have to ratify it, which means that it will probably not start to affect companies directly until next year.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; editing by Michel Rose and Andrew Roche)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Traditional black and white silver prints by prominent Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti. Runs through 6/24.

ABOUT THE EVENT

photo-eye Gallery will host an Opening for the exhibition Friday April 28th from 5 7pm, corresponding with the Railyard Arts Districts Last Friday Art Walk. Warm Regards will remain on view through June 24th, 2017.

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

Pentti Sammallahti is a traveler and a visual poet. Endowed with an extraordinary 15-year grant from the Finnish government Sammallahti has travelled widely from his native Scandinavia, across the Soviet Republics through Siberia, to Japan, India, Nepal, Morocco, Turkey, throughout Europe, Great Britain, and South Africa. Meticulously well-seen, Sammallahtis photographs are imbued with a sense of wonder, delight, and reverence for the world at large while reflecting on both beauty and the human condition. He focuses on the people and animals of far off places recording the relationships between them and their environment. A master craftsman, Sammallahti is always in pursuit of the perfect means to communicate his intentions by subtly toning each of his rich silver gelatin prints. Over the years, photo-eye Gallery has had the pleasure to receive Penttis prints in treasured bundles signed with "Warm Regards".

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Inspired by his grandmother Hildur Larsson, a newspaper photographer, and viewing Edward Steichens seminal The Family of Man at Helsinki Art Hall in 1961 Pentti Sammallahti began making images at the age of 11. At 21, Sammallahti was featured in his first solo exhibition marking the beginning of a professional career that would come to influence an entire generation of Finnish photographers. Prior to receiving the Finnish States 15-year artist grant, Sammallahti taught at the Helsinki University of Art and Design, and has released thirteen portfolios and monographs since 1979 including The Russian Way and Here Far Away. In 2003, at the opening of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, France, Pentti was named one of Cartier-Bressons 100 favorite photographers, and works by Sammallahti where exhibited from Cartier-Bressons personal collection. Penttis work can be found at the Museum of Modern Art, the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France, Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia, among others, and he has received awards such as the Samuli Paulaharju Prize of the Finnish Literature Society, State Prizes for Photography, Uusimaa Province Art Prize, Daniel Nyblin Prize, and the Finnish Critics Association Annual.
This paper regularly provides Andrew Roblee the opportunity to present his personal opinion to the citizens of Cayuga County. At times, I agree with him. Today, I write in response to his recent column characterizing our congressman as a "liability."

Mr. Roblee claims our congressman has been inaccessible and laments U.S. Rep. John Katko remains overly cautious in addressing actions by President Trump. It takes only a quick read of the pages of The Citizen, beyond Mr. Roblee's tetchy remarks, to see otherwise. I find these criticisms ill-informed and misguided, and would like to take the time now to refute them.

The independent reporting of this paper shows Rep. Katko has pursued an aggressive and community-driven agenda in Congress and that he is willing to engage with all factions of his constituency. Just this week, he held a Facebook Live event with a reporter of this paper. The week prior, he spent time in Fair Haven meeting with constituents concerned about high water levels. He testified before an international commission in Washington on behalf of our hardworking neighbors employed at Nucor. From the start, he's been front and center on growing our local tourism-based economy, fighting to ensure that the Tubman home became a national park. He knows the heroin epidemic is hurting families across Cayuga County, and has been a leader on that front in Washington and at home. And he's been recognized as a national security leader in Congress, working to keep our country safe.

As for Rep. Katko's willingness to stand up to our president, I respect his positions he has taken. Perhaps the biggest opportunity for Mr. Katko to stand up for his district was his vote on the GOP healthcare plan. Katko promised voters he wouldn't support an Obamacare repeal without a replacement, and he stood by that promise. Moreover, Rep. Katko lauded the designation of a special counselor and has continuously underscored the need for the FBI to retain its ability to act autonomously in this investigation. Mr. Roblee admits on his own that many facts remain unknown surrounding the investigation into Russia  and I applaud Rep. Katko for his thoughtful position.

Despite the hyper-partisan environment in Washington, Rep. Katko remains the same independent-minded leader we have come to expect  unafraid to buck his party or the president when it is right for our district. I urge him to continue his important work.

Nancy M. Proper

Moravia
Soon after cab-aggregator Uber fired its Asia Pacific business head who had allegedly obtained medical records of a 26-year-old woman raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014, its local rival Ola hit out at the US-based ride-hailing company.

In a statement on Thursday Ola said, "It is a shame that the privacy and morals of a woman have to be questioned in an attempt to trivialise a horrific crime. It is despicable that anyone can even conceive an attempt to malign competition using this as an opportunity. If this report were to be even remotely true, this is an all-time low on morality and a reflection of the very character of an organisation."



Cab aggregator Uber on Tuesday fired its Asia Pacific business head who had allegedly obtained medical records of a 26-year-old woman raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014, according to a report in technology news website Recode.

Eric Alexander, who was serving as the President of Business for the Asia Pacific region, was sacked amid reports that the ride-hailing company had fired 20 employees over the last few months for harassment, discrimination and inappropriate behaviour.

"Alexander showed the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael. In addition, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group," the report said.

The report claimed that Alexander, along with Kalanick and Michael raised the prospect of its local rival Ola being behind the incident to sabotage Uber's India business.



Alexander's role in obtaining the medical records and conducting his own parallel investigation was among 215 claims reported to two law firms - Perkins Coie and Covington and Burling - doing investigations into widespread mismanagement issues at the company, including allegations of pervasive sexism and sexual harassment at Uber.

Alexander, who was in India during the incident, investigated the incident. However, it is unclear if he did this of his own or was asked to do so, the report claimed.

Uber's firing of employees comes after a series of events this year that have raised questions about Uber's business model and leadership.

In February, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler said in a widely read blog post that managers and human resources officers had not punished her manager after she reported his unwanted sexual advances.

In addition, Uber was caught using technology to avoid regulator crackdowns, a video surfaced showing Kalanick berating an Uber driver, and the company is caught up in legal battles around the world over the way its ride-services business operates.


The long-drawn suspense over update on allowances continues for now as the Union Cabinet did not take up the matter in its meeting yesterday. Central government employees' allowance structure was not part of the agenda for the meeting where a final decision on allowances was expected to be reached.



The topic of allowances for central government employees is now expected to be included in next Cabinet meeting's agenda. The approval for new allowance rates has been long overdue despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's instruction to pick up the pace in this direction.



Central government employees have been waiting for federal government to approve the reformed allowance structure under the 7th Central Pay Commission since. The pay panel recommendations related to pay, pension and related issues had already been approved by the Cabinet in June last year. Meanwhile, allowances are being paid at old rates mandated by the 6th Pay Commission.



The Cabinet had retained the percentage-based pension regime on recommendations from Ministry of Defence and revised the three pay matrices for defence forces. The Cabinet also approved modifications in methods for revision of pre-2016 pensioners and family pensioners. The modified pensions alone put a burden of Rs 1.76 lakh crores on the Central Government.



The 7th Central Pay Commission had suggested radical changes in the allowance structure - demanding that 52 allowances are scrapped and 36 other are subsumed with other allowances. The Cabinet had formed a Committee of Allowances under Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa to screen the recommendations.



The Lavasa Committee submitted its review report this year on April 27 to Finance Minister Arun Jaitey after factoring in representations from government department and agencies like the defence forces, railway staff, medical professionals, etc. The report was then taken up by the Department of Expenditure for examination, following which it was passed on to Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) set up to screen the 7th CPC recommendations and to firm up the proposal for approval of the Cabinet.



Reports suggest that the E-CoS report has already been submitted to the Finance Minister for his consideration and to be tabled before the Cabinet.

With allowance structure under the 7th Pay Commission, the Cabinet is expected to look into House Rent Allowance rates among other allowances, payment of arrears against revised allowance structures and hike in basic pay.



The HRA rates have been capped between 25 per cent and 27 per cent the Empowered Committee, something which can be changed by the Cabinet, if it intends to. Central government employees are demanding HRA rates to be pegged at 30 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent for Class X,Y and Z cities respectively.

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Bizarre claims on food habits by Indian politicians have often made headlines in India, and the latest one has come from the state of Jammu and Kashmir. A BJP legislator in Jammu and Kashmir has called for a ban on popular street food Momos (dumplings) alleging that the dish is more dangerous than alcohol and psychotropic drugs.

Ramesh Arora, member of the legislative council, believes that Ajinomoto (monosodium glutamate) used in momos' recipe is harmful to health and can even cause cancer.

"Momos have been found to be the root cause of several life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine," the Hindustan Times quoted him as saying. Arora, who has been on a mission to stop the sales of momos in his state, said that Ajinomoto could "convert a minor headache into migraine" in a person.

ALSO READ: India signs OECD pact to check tax evasion by MNCs

Call for ban on momos

Arora has repeatedly been part of public events in the state to spread awareness on the issue and stop consumption of momos - a delicacy much loved in most parts of India.

He also met the state's health minister Bali Bhagat to call for an action against the sale of dumplings on the streets. Health concerns over monosodium glutamate is long debated, but Arora's call for a ban still seems a bit stretched.

Momo - King of Street Food

Momos, a Tibetan dish, has evolved into many different versions from the original steamed momo, with Indians embracing it as perhaps the most-loved street food. From fried to steamed to tandoori, momos have become an intrinsic part of the Indian street food culture. Momos are sold on stalls and restaurants in both big cities and small towns across the country.

Considering the love for momos among Indians, Arora is likely to face a strong opposition and possibly from his own party. Jitendra Singh, a junior minister in the prime minister's office, was recently spotted gobbling down momos at a function.

ALSO READ: MP farmers' stir: Widespread violence; govt okays Rs 6,000-cr loan waiver

It's not about Ajinomoto

Arora's attention may be focused on Ajinomoto, but it's the fillings inside momos that matters the most. For those who are not sure about the safety of Ajinomoto, they can choose not to use it. Yes, momos can be made without Ajinomoto. It's not really the key ingredient, it is just a flavor enhancer. In fact, the health conscious can even avoid flour and have wheat momos instead. It's the filling that really matters. The filling can be of pork, chicken, goat meat, or even paneer and veggies.

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India on Wednesday signed the OECD multilateral convention that aims to check cross-border tax evasion by multinational companies.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley signed the multilateral convention in Paris to implement tax treaty- related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting.

More than 65 countries, including India, signed the convention. More countries are expected to sign the convention in coming days, a finance ministry statement said.

"The Convention will modify India's treaties in order to curb revenue loss through treaty abuse and base erosion and profit shifting strategies by ensuring that profits are taxed where substantive economic activities generating the profits are carried out and where value is created," the statement added.

The Multilateral Convention is an outcome of the OECD/G20 Project to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) which is resorted to by MNCs through tax planning strategies by exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules.

It helps them artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations, resulting in little or no overall corporate tax being paid. The BEPS Project identified 15 actions to address BEPS in a comprehensive manner, the statement said.

India was part of the Ad Hoc Group of more than 100 countries and jurisdictions from G20, OECD, BEPS associates and other interested countries, which worked on an equal footing on the finalisation of the text of the Multilateral Convention, starting May, 2015.

The Convention enables all signatories to meet treaty- related minimum standards that were agreed as part of the final BEPS package, including the minimum standard for the prevention of treaty abuse under Action 6.

The Convention will operate to modify tax treaties between two or more parties to the Convention.

The Convention will not function in the same way as an amending protocol to a single existing treaty, which would directly amend the text of the tax agreement.

Instead, it will be applied alongside existing tax treaties, modifying their application in order to implement the BEPS measures.
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders were detained at Neemuch on Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border today as they tried to reach Mandsaur where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

"I just want to meet the farmers. If your ideology is not that of the RSS, you are not allowed to enter Madhya Pradesh. Modi ji has waived loans of big corporate houses but he can give only goli (bullets) to farmers of the country," the Congress leader said.

The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear today as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.

Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like "Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad".

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. "He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonus, can't give compensation... He can only give them bullets."

Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district.

"Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres," IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava said.

"Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road... After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border," he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.

(with inputs from PTI)


Despite big telecos offering freebies and really cheap data in recent months, the user experience stays dismal with 4G speed in India much slower compared to other countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Even as India improved its 4G LTE availability rankings on the back of Reliance Jio's entry into the telecom sector last year, the average data speed of 4G in India was recorded at 5.14M bps.

According to the Open Signal report, India even ranks below Pakistan which recorded average data speeds of 11.71 Mbps.

The new report comes as a surprise as Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had earlier said that Reliance Jio topped the chart in 4G network speed for the month of April with an all-time high download speed of 19.12 megabit per second.

Though India has moved into the upper echelons of 4G availability thanks largely to Jio's nationwide LTE rollout. But while signals may be plentiful in India, capacity isn't. India has some of the slowest LTE speeds in the world, the report said.

However, India has moved up on the LTE availability rankings with Reliance Jio's entry last year. Jio's nationwide 4G launch in September attracted 100 million LTE subscribers, making 4G services far more accessible in India but at the expense of lower average speeds, the report pointed.

Singapore, South Korea and Hungary retained the top spot in LTE speed charts. Norway also joined these three in the list of countries that average LTE download connections of 40 Mbps or greater - speeds that rival wired broadband connections in most countries. The top average speed for 4G LTE data was measured in Singapore at around 46 Mbps.

In Costa Rica and India, where average 4G speeds are only marginally faster than the average global 3G connection, the drop in aveage data speeds was attributed to the abrupt increase in number of 4G users in the country.

OpenSignal data is collected from consumer smartphones and recorded under conditions of normal usage.

Earlier this week, TRAI had launched new mobile applications to obtain consumer feedback about internet services and call connectivity. TRAI MyCall and TRAI MySpeed applications are meant for crowdsourced data collection related to call quality and internet speeds. This will in turn be relayed to the telecommunication service providers so that they can enhance their services.
Known for her prompt replies on Twitter to Indians in distress, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday gave a witty reply to a Twitter user after he joked that he was stuck on Mars and needed help.



On Thursday, a Twitter user Karan Saini tweeted Sushma Swaraj, "I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent? @isro."



ALSO READ: MP farmers' stir: Widespread violence; govt okays Rs 6,000-cr loan waiver



Swaraj quickly responded, "Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you."



@SushmaSwaraj I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro - karan Saini (@ksainiamd) June 8, 2017

Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. https://t.co/Smg1oXKZXD - Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

And Mam Sushma Ji will continue to bedazzle us all with her wit, passion & energy to serve Indians wherever they are. You're an inspiration - Monica Jasuja (@jasuja) June 8, 2017

There are new lessons in commitment to work, sincerity & ability to delight the served I draw from you daily. - Sushil Kedia (@sushilkedia) June 8, 2017

A hardworking dedicated woman who has a sense of humour - what's not to love! - Prateeka (@PrateekaKamath) June 8, 2017

Sushma Swaraj's quick response prompted many Twitter users to praise herThis is not the first time Swaraj has earned applause for her humour on the social networking site. Last year, a Twitter user had tweeted her for help in getting a refrigerator dealer to replace a defective piece. Swaraj replied back with a tweet, "Brother I cannot help you in matters of a Refrigerator. I am very busy with human beings in distress."Swaraj is the most proactive foreign minister India has seen on the microblogging website Twitter.

In January this year, a Twitter user's request irked her. Pune-based software engineer tweeted to Swaraj requesting a transfer for his wife who worked in the Jhansi Railway Division. Swaraj tweeted back, "If you or your wife were from my Ministry and such a request for transfer was made on Twitter, I would have sent a suspension order by now".



In March, Swaraj had ensured the rescue of 29 Indian workers who were stuck in Saudi Arabia and arranged their flight tickets. Last year in December, the external affairs minister had started 'Twitter Seva,' a new service through which Indians would be able to get help from local Indian embassy.



The Twitter Seva is supported by over 200 social media handles - including those of 198 Indian missions abroad, 29 Regional Passport Offices and eight other handles such as @MEAIndia, @Indiandiplomacy and @MEAQuery.



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<em>Wellsville was given a special treat in July of 1924, when Lieutenant Russell L. Maughan of the Army Air Force, a grandson of Peter Maughan, landed his airplane in an alfalfa field above William G. Darleys barn. It was a small one-seated biplane, which was to become a museum piece. He had become a pioneer in his own right in the field of aviation when he made the first dawn to dusk flight from New York to San Francisco in twenty-two hours. When the aircraft landed on the flat ground near the hills, it was the immediate mecca of the citizens for miles around.</em>

Memorialized in the Windows of Wellsville, a 1985 publication of the Wellsville History Committee, Russell L. Maughan was one of Logans native sons who served valiantly in the U.S. Army during World War I. In 1990, Cache Countys Sons of Utah Pioneers placed a commemorative plaque at the home on Logans Center Street where he was born, and another monument sharing his courageous story has been erected on the south side of Utah State Universitys Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.

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The most recent tribute to Col. Maughan is a 5-minute biographical video recently contracted by the <a href=https://www.aerospaceutah.org/hill-aerospace-museum/utah-aviation-hall-of-fame/>Utah Aviation Hall of Fame</a>, where Maughan is celebrated both as a war hero and as an ambitious test pilot during times of peace. Decorated for his bravery in wartime, he also set several speed records in early aviation. In 1924, he was the first pilot to complete a transcontinental dawn to dusk flight, achieving the worlds greatest stride in aviation until Charles A. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic from New York to Paris in May 1927.

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I think its very cool to hear his story and see the video and just learn more about him, said Robb Alexander, executive director of the <a href=https://www.aerospaceutah.org/>Aerospace Heritage Foundation</a>. I think its great for Cache County to have a native son be in the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame with all these other people. You know, they all have cool stories. They all have families. Its interesting how they kind of got where they are.

Maughan is in good company within the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame. Some of the other people Alexander mentioned include <a href=http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=g000072>Senator Jake Garn</a>, Hinckley Institute Founder <a href=http://www.hinckley.utah.edu/robert-h-hinckley/>Robert H. Hinckley</a> and Medal of Honor winner <a href=http://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/494757/uncommon-gallantry-remembering-bernard-fisher/>Bernard Fisher</a>. There are 30 members of the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame to date, with the most recent, <a href=http://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/105848/lieutenant-general-marc-c-reynolds/>Lt. Gen. Marc C. Reynolds</a>, having been inducted on May 27, 2017. The prestigious corps was sanctioned in 1996 by Governor Mike Leavitt.

Like Maughan, each inductee into the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame is being honored with a life sketch video, complete with historical footage, newspapers clippings and vintage photos. Eric Temple, owner of <a href=http://hwy89media.com/>Highway 89 Media</a> in Ogden, Utah, is the producer of each piece.

Its been really my dream job because I love aviation and history and Ive learned so much about each of the battles that these men and women were in, said Temple, who has been working on the project for about two years. Ive been learning aviation history, and its just been the best of all possible worlds for me.

Prior to a recent renovation, the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame wasnt much more than a display of plaques on a wall, located inconspicuously between two hangars in the <a href=https://www.aerospaceutah.org/hill-aerospace-museum/>Hill Aerospace Museum</a> in Roy, Utah. It has since been revitalized and expanded to include four interactive kiosks, obelisk tributes to each inductee and screens for viewing the videos.

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It makes history come alive, said Temple. Anybody in todays world is more accustomed to looking at their phone than they are to reading a plaque on a wall, and these videos are a great way to bring a story to life. One of the best things thats happened to me since Ive been doing this is I went to the museum and just stood back and watched, and all four kiosks were full with kids watching different videos, and that just was great. That was the best positive feedback I could have gotten.

Based on his contributions to aviation history, Col. Russel L. Maughan is arguably one of Cache Valleys best kept secrets. Born in Logan on March 28, 1893, he graduated from Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University), served in both World Wars and followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, pioneer settler <a href=https://familysearch.org/patron/v2/TH-300-44372-974-25/dist.pdf?ctx=ArtCtxPublic>Peter Maughan</a>, making history not across the plains, but instead through the skies. Col. Maughan died in Texas in 1958. Alexander, himself a descendant of Peter Maughan, encourages the community to experience the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame firsthand.

The Utah Aviation Hall of Fame is unique, he said. For a history buff or somebody that might be related to these people somehow or that has an interest in aviation or interest in the history of Utah, its an interactive area that you can come learn about these wonderful aviation pioneers. I dont know what else to say. Its just a neat thing.

More information about the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame is available at <a href=http://www.aerospaceutah.org/hill-aerospace-museum/utah-aviation-hall-of-fame>www.aerospaceutah.org/hill-aerospace-museum/utah-aviation-hall-of-fame</a>. Videos of each inductee may be viewed at <a href=http://www.aerospaceutah.org/hall-fame-members>www.aerospaceutah.org/hall-fame-members</a>.
On an afternoon in late May, the voice on the other end of the phone line lays down a beat, inflecting between flickering, excited movements. Cody Dickinson is likely running around his house, starting in the kitchen studio at his home in South Haven, Miss. His percussive presence is tangible even from the other end of the country and all the way through the opening note on his bands brand new record, Prayer for Peace, where he and his brother, Luther Dickinson, collaborate with passion and innovation. Together, they nurture an eternal flame at the crossroads of heritage and innovation roiling ever forward into another phase of musical evolution.

These influential pathways are about to converge in Flagstaff where a slew of local suds and talent are waiting at the fifth annual Blues & Brews Festival. NMA is set to tear the house down in the summer sun alongside zydeco masters Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Victor Wainwright and the Wildroots, plus a host of local contributions.

Modern mind

As Dickinson speaks, hes in a mindset of welding both original and borrowed jams with beats and additions from different artists, including a cappella hymn-like covers of their own tunes courtesy of the Blind Boys of Alabama. Inside his aural laboratory, Dickinsons having a world of fun.

When asked how well this sort of mashup goes over in the South, Dickinson reminds us of growing up near Memphis, which inspired his combining the hip-hop turntablism he heard in downtown clubs in the late 90s with pathways he and his brotherthe sons of the late, iconic producer Jim Dickinsonlearned at the feet of the greats from R.L. Burnside to Otha Turner.

Since the Allstars first record, Shake Hands with Shorty (2000), hes combined his sensibilities as the bands drummer with a proclivity for electronic-inspired sounds, first manipulating tones dredged from the depths of his electric washboard with a dual drum pad and sampler. Now, he says technology has caught up with the forward-thinking insights hes lent to the bands aesthetic that manages to both honor the blues and propel the wily genre forward.

I understand how important it is to preserve  the history of blues music, Dickinson explains. You dont want to change it so much that things get lost. But the real magic in the North Mississippi Allstars is in the interpretation  I think if we were to try to perfectly recreate this music or be some sort of hard-core preservationists, so to speak, then we would get into trouble. The fun, exciting part is in the translation.

And between swaths of reverberating slide Luther is known for, Dickinson manages to match the beat with heavy percussion and electronics. Its clear the brothers are cut from the same cloth, but approach their crafts with disparate ears that converge with an appropriate amount of chaos.

Luther and I work real well together because our differences complement each other and come together as a strength, Dickinson says, noting his recent taste for modern DJs like Skrillex and the Chainsmokers. The musical concept of making an exciting remix is very similar to making an exciting drum part for a song. The approach for me makes sense.

Peaceful resonance

And since the brothers have embarked on solo journeysLuther most recently was nominated for a 2016 Grammy Award for Best Blues Albumthe Allstars reconvene when the mood strikes, creating music has become more cohesive since 2013s World Boogie is Coming opened the door for a whirlwind of experimentation between traditional licks that contribute to the Allstars own legacy.

World Boogie was big for us because that felt like, in a way, we got back on track, we found our voice again and got back on our message and where we should be creatively, Dickinson says, noting his video work during those days. That record was cinematic by design. Its post-modernism  Its like post-apocalyptic blues.

Prayer for Peace was cut at studios across the country, from their home to Brooklyn, and stars Luthers vocals that give Johnny Cashs tone a run, grounding the echoing guitar. It especially captures Codys ear for amalgamation that logic says should remain apart from tradition. Even he thought the electronic outbursts would put a target on his back for critics of the new record, but so far so good, he notes. From the collections title track to the heavy crescendo on their rendition of R.L. Burnsides Long Haired Doney to the albums closer Bid You Goodnight, their innovative spirit highlights a dichotomy: where the Dickinsons manage to stamp a foot in two eras at once.

But its the peaceful, inclusive messageone of the blues most common threadsthat draws listeners toward a much-needed focal point, too. Dickinson holds this inclusivity like a fragile creaturethe same flame he sees at festivals big and small, from Flagstaff to Fun, Fun, Fun Fest, and instills within him hope for the future of mankind and a sonic landscape where he hopes the Allstars can contribute to positive change.

Music festivals, in a way, are a microcosm of the whole world, and I see unity. I see us coming together, he says of what hes already seen at festivals spanning size and genres. I think these music festivals reflect the positive side of whats happening with people in a big way. Hopefully the North Mississippi Allstars can be a small part of that.

Catch the North Mississippi Allstars at the fifth annual Blues & Brews Festival on Sat, June 10 at the Continental Country Club Driving Range, 5000 E. Old Walnut Canyon Road. Gates open at 11 a.m., music turns up at 11:30 a.m., and NMA headlines at 7:30 p.m. Tickets to this all-ages, family-friendly event are $35. For more info, visit www.flagstaffblues.com.
Feeling at home with art, all around Europe

Published on June 8, 2017

Story by Safouane Abdessalem Translation by: Emily Spencer

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In the springtime, the network of artists at Hors Lits decided to tranform Parisian apartments into cosy performance spaces for the public. Established by dancers some 12 years ago, it has become a European phenomenon. Munich, Brussels, Barcelona and Lisbon have joined in on the dance. Here is our story of the Hors Lits from under the covers.

Musical chants radiate from a ground-floor apartment in Paris' 10th arrondissement. Two young Berliners are singing opera pieces, decorated in green and pink tutus. Neon lights illuminate the backside of a small living room, where about 30 spectators stand packed like sardines. The audience exchange amused looks, but rarely stray their focus from the performance of the BaroqueBitches.

This act is part of a series of events organised by the Hors Lits network which took place in April. Established in 2005 by dancers from Montpellier, the phenomenon became European when cities such as Munich, Brussels, Barcelona, Venice, and Lisbon started to get involved. The concept? "An ambulatory journey across town, during which audience members visit four apartment in succession while giving full permission to the performance artists," explains Matthieu Sparma, a member of the Ile-de-France network. As for the name Hors Lits, it stems from a solo dance piece that took place around a bed and was staged by choreographer Leonardo Montecchia, founder and manager of the team of artists. "It is an allusion to French idiosyncrasies like hors-murs and hors-series which can at times be rather bureaucratic," explains the 45-year-old Argentinian artist. Today, the Hors Lits artists perform in about 20 towns and cities all over France.

Re-thinking art forms

The second performance is a 10-minute walk from the first. "Walking from one Parisian apartment to another is great," Celica Corbet, a 23-year-old student, says while smiling. "Protest, protest!" people in the street shout while they watch the flock of spectators pass by. On the doormat of the fifth-floor apartment, the audience is asked to remove their shoes. The performance space, with its large and open floor, is home to a creative couple. She is a comedian and him, a violinist. Together they perform 'Ex-Nihilo', a philosophical inquiry enshrined in the style of "improvised and transient musical theatre," a 55-year-old musician explains. This is the duo's first attempt at a Hors Lit performance, as they were used to a more "conventional" scene. "The biggest challenge is the time constraints. Each performance must be no longer than 20 minutes," says the artist.

The rest of the action plays out in Parmentier in the 11th arrondissement. The scenery changes. Four people are sat in the main room of the apartment, facing the audience. Stirring music starts to play ("Blue Money" by the English rock band New Order). The protagonists want to get up from their seats, but something is holding them back. This scene reflects "those moments when you want to dance but you don't have the courage to get up and do it," the comedian Lucile Rey explains when describing her cathartic piece. "We try to make people see what they don't usually see," Roman Pichard, choreographer of the company, adds. The performance comes to an end. Actors and spectators get together and start to dance, watched discreetly by neighbours in their windows.

The Hors Lits audience continue their journey, making one last stop in the Saint-Ambroise neighbourhood in the 11th arrondissement. In the shadows, the flat is stacked to the ceilings with CDs and vinyls. As the audience gets settled, a young woman seats herself at a lunch bar, the office lamp softly illuminating her face. Dressed in formal office attire, she dives straight into a monologue. With robotic voices and bureaucratic vocabulary, the creative piece titled 'Everything that I am not' is a stream of consciousness. At the end of the piece the organisers, artists and audience members assemble in a bar. There is a convivial atmosphere, an almost familiar ambiance that embues the air. People make friends, exchange numbers and what they have to say about the performance.

From Europe to Mexico

A trained dancer, Leonardo Montecchia hopes to get a certain type of culture out of the current monopoly. He thinks that cultural policies focus "largely on politics, but not on culture itself." A mandatory contribution of 10 Euros per person is part of Hors Lits' charter. "The absence of a contract allows us to be entirely independent," Matthieu Sparma stresses. He believe that Hors Lits responds to a need, that of taking the audience away from the theatre. "We don't perform in theatres in order to make our shows more intimate for our audiences," he says, highlighting that "money needs to stay out of all that." The network is growing through word of mouth, but there is no real desire for it to become a massive phenomenon.

Starting with very little, Hors Lits has gotten bigger and bigger over the years. "There was little motivation when we first created the network," Leonardo recalls, alluding to his disbelief at how successful the project has become. "The idea was simply to create a performance, featuring a bed as a symbol of intimacy." Over the past five years, 18 towns in Europe have gotten involved as well as some cities in Mexico and Tunisia. Not wanting to let the popularity of his project get to his head, he tries to get feedback from everyone without giving them too much control: "I wanted the project to stay independent. In Barcelona, everyone wanted to get involved!" he concludes.

Today, Hors Lits responds to the varying needs of different countries. In Barcelona, the idea is to "provide an alternative space for non-Catalan artists to perform their work because there is a tendency for local artists to dominate the scene," Leonardo says. In Tunisia, Hors Lits has just launched its sixth edition. But this is a different setting. The art scene in Tunisia is expanding, especially when it comes to perfomances in public spaces. In a country that often uses art as a means of expression and political protest, the alternative space provided by Hors Lits offers more of an "act of being" rather than a political space.

Story by Safouane Abdessalem Du piano classique a la presse ecrite. Pour Cafebabel, je m'interesse particulierement aux questions sociales, economiques et culturelles, tout en gardant un il sur la politique etrangere. Biculturel, binational & bidouilleur.

Translated from Les Hors lits, l'art a domicile dans toute l'Europe
(Beijing)  China Citic Bank said it is planning to buy 60% of a major peer in the central Asian nation of Kazakhstan, as Chinese lenders heed Beijings call to participate in infrastructure development along the ancient Silk Road under the countrys One Belt, One Road initiative.

Citic Bank, a unit of the entrepreneurial Citic Group, said its board approved the deal to buy the stake in Altyn Bank, held by Halyk Bank, one of Kazakhstans largest lenders. Citic said it would purchase the stake in partnership with China Shuangwei Investment Corp., a wholly-owned unit of China Tobacco Corp., according to a statement issued late Wednesday.

No financial terms were given for the deal, which is still subject to regulatory approval. Citic Bank said it will make the purchase through public transactions on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, at a price to be determined on the day that such transactions occur.

Halyk Bank is publicly traded in Kazakhstan, and has a current market value of about $2.1 billion.

The investment could mark the first in a bank based in countries that are part of the former Soviet Union, said one analyst at a major Western brokerage who follows Chinas banking sector, speaking on condition of anonymity due to company policy.

This could mark the start of a new wave of investment in banks in connection with the One Belt, One Road initiative, he said.

One Belt, One Road has become one of the signature campaigns of Chinese President Xi Jinping, as he tries to raise Chinas profile and influence on the global stage. The program centers on infrastructure development along the old land and maritime Silk Roads. It is generally understood to cover most of Asia and Africa, but China has said it welcomes participation from countries as diverse as ones in Europe, Australia and even North America.

Last month China held a major One Belt, One Road conference for two-days in Beijing, where it touted more than 270 cooperation projects and agreements related to the initiative. The country is planning to hold another similar event in 2019.

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)
PHOENIX  Dena Wilson never doubted what she wanted to do with her life while growing up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Her mother worked at the Indian Health Service as a social worker, and aside from a brief desire to be a bird in kindergarten, Wilson knew she wanted to become a doctor.

Wilson attended Chadron State College in Nebraska and then the University of Washington for medical school. After that, she pursued a cardiology fellowship at the University of Arizonas medical center, and she worked for a native cardiology program in Northern Arizona before coming to Phoenix to work for the Indian Health Service.

Just growing up, receiving care in the Indian Health Service, knowing there was such a shortage, and never seeing any other native providers, this was something I wanted to do, Wilson said.

Wilson belongs to an exclusive club. Not only is she the lone cardiologist working for the Indian Health Service in Phoenix, but shes also Native American, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe.

Of the nearly 19,000 graduates of medical school last year in the U.S., only 31 were Native American. Here in Arizona, theres an estimated 13,542 physicians statewide, and only 107 were Native American  thats less than 1 percent, according to a database by the Association of American Medical Colleges using 2013 numbers.

Experts said the shortage of Native American doctors in Arizona  in which there are more than 350,000 Native Americans  is concerning because it impacts the effectiveness of health care delivery overall, as well as the research into health disparities.

Doctors advocate for diverse workforce

Historically, Native Americans have faced more health problems when compared with other Americans.

Native Americans die at higher rates in several categories, including chronic liver disease, diabetes and chronic lower respiratory disease, and they have a life expectancy rate 4.4 years less than all other U.S. races, according to the Indian Health Service.

The Indian Health Service, which provides health services to about 2.2 million of the nations estimated 3.7 million Native Americans, suffers from serious staff shortages. Earlier this year, the Government Accountability Office added it and other Native American programs to the high-risk list, meaning its viewed as highly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement.

But how do these disparities in health outcomes relate to a lack of Native American physicians?

A lot of people think why should that matter? said Dr. Lukejohn Day, the director of clinical gastroenterology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and an associate professor of medicine at the University California, San Francisco. Day also is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe.

What a lot of studies have shown is a diverse health care workforce supplies better provider patient communication, follow ups and treatment adherence, Day said. Also, what weve seen is the more diverse a workforce is, the more research there is on health care disparities.

And then theres the people part of the equation.

People tend to comply better when they feel their physicians have a better understanding of who they are and where they come from, said Dr. Mary Owen, director of the Center of American Indian and Minority Health at the University of Minnesota Duluth campus.

Owen, who also serves on the board of directors for the Association of American Indian Physicians, added that people from diverse backgrounds are more likely to go back and serve in those communities.

What I try to provide to my patients is a familiarity and understanding of their day-to-day challenges, said Wilson, the doctor from the Phoenix Indian Health Service. I grew up on the reservation, and I understand that just going to the grocery store to get healthy ingredients to make a healthy meal is a challenge sometimes.

Shortage isnt a new problem

From 2012 to 2016, of the nearly 55,000 medical school graduates in the U.S., only 101 were Native American, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Owen said there are a lot of reasons why Native Americans dont go into medicine.

To get into medicine requires so many different pieces of a puzzle to come together, Owen said. It requires a strong background in science and math, strong communication skills and societal awareness. Pulling all those together from a group of people that have had trauma as long as we have.  We dont have all the resources that other people take for granted in medicine.

Owen said officials and community leaders need to make improvements to elementary and high school education for Native Americans, and they need to reach out earlier to Native students.

Day echoed a similar sentiment.

If you are hitting them in college and medical school, it might be too late, he said. Reach out at the high school and junior high level, and I think that makes a much bigger difference.

Another challenge exists in the medical school selection process.

Owen said medical schools have a tendency to focus on things like test scores instead of recognizing what a candidate brings to the table thats not reflected on an application.

Wilson said while her medical school did a great job recognizing the strengths she cultivated through her upbringing, she said the fixation on test scores can be a real problem.

Its not just about knowledge, Wilson said. Yeah, you have to have knowledge, Im not saying everyone can get into med school and become a doctor. But just because you didnt score the highest on your MCATs doesnt mean you should be excluded.

Then theres the fact that just getting into medical school isnt enough. To survive, one needs a lot of support.

Wilson said one of her biggest challenges was dealing with loneliness. Not only was she a woman in a male-dominated speciality, but she also was a minority. She said running into another Native American was rare.

For me, sometimes just going home and being back home with my community, I needed that to recharge my batteries, Wilson said.

Despite the obstacles, Owen said she is optimistic that more Native American physicians will soon enter the fold, but she added that medical schools must look at students in a more holistic fashion.

All these states should have a much higher number, she said.

Locally, the University of Arizona is trying to do its part.

There are 23 American Indian students enrolled at the University of Arizonas two college of medicine programs in Tucson and Phoenix, according to the university.

Additionally, the school also has programs aimed at recruiting and preparing Native students for a career in medicine. These include a pre-admissions workshop with the Association of American Indian Physicians, the Indians Into Medicine grant from the Indian Health Service, and the Navajo Nation Future Physicians Scholarship Fund, which helps up to seven Navajo scholars per year pursue a medical degree from the university.
President Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement is the biggest failure of leadership in American history. But there are Republicans in Congress who previously demonstrated their willingness to lead on climate change, and the moment has arrived for them to step up again.

Last month, three GOP senators committed an act of political courage by putting environmental stewardship above partisan politics.

In the waning days of the Obama administration, the Presidents team issued a rule to limit the amount of methane released during oil and gas operations on federal land. Methane is a greenhouse gas with heat-trapping properties at least 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, and so the rule had the effect of mitigating climate change.

The House of Representatives had already repealed the methane rule. Swift repeal was anticipated in the Senate. What was not anticipated was the integrity of three senators who had previously taken action in the hope of preserving a stable climate.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, and John McCain of Arizona cast the deciding votes that prevented the repeal measure from moving forward. The turn of events caught both industry and environmental advocates by surprise, but this is not the first time these Republicans have stepped up where climate change is concerned.

In 2009, Lindsey Graham committed what many believed was political suicide when he collaborated with then-senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman to draft a Senate version of the cap-and-trade bill that had narrowly passed the House. He came under relentless attack back home in South Carolina and spent the next four years beating back challengers to retain his seat.

Susan Collins worked with Washington state Democrat Maria Cantwell to introduce the Carbon Limits and Energy for American Renewal (CLEAR) Act in December of 2009. The CLEAR Act was a simplified version of cap-and-trade, with most of the revenue returned to households, an approach that came to be known as cap-and-dividend. Like the Kerry-Lieberman bill, the CLEAR Act languished and died in the 111th Congress. Despite her leadership with the CLEAR Act, Collins received little acknowledgment or appreciation back home and has since refrained from any major initiatives on climate change.

And John McCain? He teamed up with Lieberman to introduce the Climate Stewardship Act in 2003, but his bill was defeated 55-43. Undaunted, he tweaked the bill and reintroduced it in 2005, though it fared no better. Any other politician would have cut his losses at this point, but McCain tried once more in 2007. It never got to the floor. Since then, McCain, like Graham and Collins, hasnt touched any significant legislation to deal with carbon emissions.

But with their vote to block repeal of the methane rule, Graham, Collins and McCain have stirred the embers of their once-burning passion to preserve a world that is hospitable to future generations. That is the legacy these three hoped to achieve years ago, a legacy that is still within their reach.

Support is growing within conservative circles for a simple, market-based approach to reducing carbon pollution, one that would make regulatory solutions unnecessary. Its called carbon fee and dividend, and it works like this:

Apply a fee to fuels based on the amount of carbon dioxide they will emit when burned. Increase the fee over time, thereby creating the price signal to transition to cleaner sources and uses of energy and to increase energy efficiency. To shield families from the economic impact of rising energy costs, return all the revenue from the carbon fee to every household as equal shares. To maintain a level playing field for American businesses  and to encourage other nations to follow our lead  apply an adjustment fee on imports coming from nations that do not have an equivalent carbon price.

Earlier this year, a similar policy was proposed by a group of conservatives under the Climate Leadership Council. The authors included former Secretaries of State George Shultz and James Baker, as well as former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, pretty good company for any Republican.

Graham, Collins, and McCain were once champions on climate change. With Trumps announcement to withdraw from the Paris Accord, its time for them to reassert their leadership on this issue by introducing and fighting for a revenue-neutral fee on carbon. They were ahead of their time years ago, but it appears their time has come.
Ayah Paul W. Musa

The now former Advocate General at the Supreme Court, Ayah Paul Abine has been sent on retirement, the Higher Juridical Council decided Wednesday June 7, 2017.

The now former Advocate General at the Supreme Court, Ayah Paul Abine has been sent on retirement, the Higher Juridical Council decided Wednesday June 7, 2017.

This is among other decisions taken at the Unity Palace during the meeting chaired by President Paul Biya. Ayah Paul Abine now imprisoned had reached the age limit but could have been given two additional years as the constitution specifies. He was replaced by Yap Abdou.

As Ayah Paul goes on retirement while in dungeon, his son AYAH AYAH Abine arrested Wednesday in front of the Military Court, he is accused of taking pictures of the court prohibited by law. AYAH AYAH Abine was arrested alongside his brother Etonong Christian and ferried to State Defense Secretariat. A family member confirms the arrest saying Yeah its true Ayah has been arrested. This is his cousin talking. We just delivered food to him few hours ago. He was arrested alongside his cousin.

The son of the detained Justice has been a strong critic of the regime especially when his father was arrested.

Reactions After AYAH AYAH

Reactions have been pouring on his facebook page after the arrest:

Ayah Ayah (the author of this post) in the picture has just been arrested by LRC gendarmes

The can arrest Ayah Ayah but they cannot broke our bones or kill our spirit.

You should kill to the last blood of an Anglophone especially the Always people whom you think one is more knowledgeable like you and but surprise from Akwaya but just live forever and see what will happen to your children in furture
| BY Ricki Green |

R/GA has today announced a number of key creative appointments including Bob Mackintosh in the role of VP executive creative director, APAC. He will be based at R/GA Sydney in the newly-created role, which will also include creative stewardship of R/GAs Singapore, Shanghai and Tokyo offices.

The multi-award-winning Mackintosh spent 11 years at Host Sydney before departing in November last year. Most recently Mackintosh was ECD, overseeing celebrated campaigns for Air New Zealand, Coca-Cola, LEGO, Pizza Hut, IKEA and Virgin Mobile. His work has been recognised by global and local competitions including Cannes Lions, One Show, D&AD and AWARD, where hes also served as a judge. Prior to Host, Mackintosh was digital creative director of Tequila / TBWA Sydney, overseeing global campaigns for New Line Cinema, Nissan, Absolut and Sony Playstation.

Says Jim Moffatt, EVP, managing director APAC: Bob epitomises the R/GA ethos  passionate about technology and storytelling in equal measure, and synonymous with work that brings the two together. He is the name consistently behind campaigns that create culture, rather than borrowing from it.

Says Mackintosh: Many network agencies talk the talk when it comes to being connected, but R/GA walks the walk. No politics. No bullshit. Just a collective desire to produce great work. The job is to build on this, and nurture a regional creative culture thats as modern and dynamic as the region itself  one thats equipped to serve the complex problems our clients face, with the sort of work R/GA is famous for. Im thrilled to be working with the many talented people across the region to achieve just that.

CD experience design, Robert Chalmers (left), has also been promoted to the role of joint-ECD of R/GA Sydney, leading its multidisciplinary creative teams with fellow ECD, Hamish Stewart.

Says Rebecca Bezzina, VP managing director, R/GA Sydney: Robs been instrumental to the growth and success weve experienced in the last two years. He has a wealth of experience and depth of systematic thinking that speaks for itself and is the perfect complement to Hamishs outstanding craftsmanship and storytelling ability.

Says Chalmers: Our clients are facing disruptions forcing them to reevaluate the type of work they need, so now more than ever they are seeking ideas at the intersection of communication and experiences. Working alongside Hamish is an opportunity to deliver that through the diversity of ideas R/GA is known for  work which serves both the consumer and business needs in a meaningful way and leaves a lasting impression.
| BY Ricki Green |

How will Australia perform at Cannes this year? In the lead up to the Festival, Campaign Brief will be showcasing the work we hope will impress the judges

TBWA\Melbourne, TBWA\ Auckland

ANZ Bank was entering its 11th year of support for Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and fifth as partner of Auckland Pride. After years of celebrating the events in a fabulously, fun spirit they wanted to do something that contributed to LGBTI equality in a different way. One that showed a deeper understanding and empathy. The work was based on a universal insight. Even in 2017, and even if youre out and completely comfortable with your sexuality, the simple act of holding hands in public can still be difficult for many couples. It can be awkward, tense, or even scary  sometimes making it easier to just let go. So ANZ encouraged people to #HoldTight. Making the most basic gesture of love mainstream conversation, and spreading a message to the community to stay strong, be resilient, equality is coming.

TBWA\Melbourne

Shot by Christopher Riggert (Finch), this is the story of a father taking his son on an epic adventure to dramatise the power and class-leading fuel economy of the Nissan Navara. They join a herd of wildebeest as they migrate across the wild plains of the African savannah. Problem was, the migration season didnt allow for filming of any real wildebeest in their environment. This epic adventure had to be brought to life without filming any actual wildebeest. Thankfully Blackbird created a few hundred for us. They were modelled, sculpted, rigged and lit. They employed dynamic interactive fur, male and female beasts with multiple variations of textured hides. Australia was made to look like Africa and every element was painstakingly crafted to work together seamlessly.

TBWA\Melbourne
| BY Ricki Green |

WPP AUNZ has announced the launch of Hogarth Australia, the latest market offering of the global advertising production group Hogarth Worldwide. Hogarth Australia will be led by newly appointed CEO Justin Ricketts (left) working alongside Hogarth Australias new COO David Fleer (pictured below), formally MD of One20.

Under the Hogarth Australia brand, WPP AUNZ has realigned its successful production agencies Agile, One20, Paragon and Carnival into one super production group, joining a global network of more than 2,500 employees and 25 offices worldwide.

Says Mike Connaghan, CEO, WPP AUNZ: Combining the global muscle of an iconic brand such as Hogarth with the local expertise and strength of four successful production houses represents a fabulous opportunity for us to lead the way in content production in Australia and further solidify our leadership position in the region.

This model is already proving highly successful for Hogarth in other markets, and will no doubt bring great benefits to local clients and agencies alike, whether they are part of WPP AUNZ or not. Hogarths global success has demonstrated it is a model that represents the future of production, and we cannot be more excited to be launching it here.

Says Kevan Thorn, joint CEO, Hogarth Worldwide: One of Hogarths key strengths is its ability to provide highly effective multi-brand, multi-market solutions to global clients, so building such a comprehensive partnership to serve the Australian market is a big advance for us. This is a great addition to our growing production network and we look forward to being the production backbone for WPP AUNZ agencies and clients.

Says Ricketts: In todays evolving media landscape, clients demand increasing amounts of content, and the time is right to disrupt old habits and evolve the production model. I believe at Hogarth Australia we have a way to make campaign assets better and faster and can provide our clients with a genuine end-to-end production offering, that will deliver higher quality marketing assets with better economics, while maintaining and enhancing creative integrity.

It is important to understand that our model offers flexibility to work with some of the best up-and-coming directors and production companies from both Australia and beyond, so dont think that working with Hogarth is creatively limiting  its creatively liberating.

Ricketts will lead the local operation that includes a team of over 80 staff, with the ability to access Hogarths global network. Hogarth Australia will offer a full service production capability across the entire spectrum of production including TV, radio, print, out of home, mobile and digital, supported by Hogarth Worldwides market leading production technology and processes.

Says Ricketts: Our talented local team is backed by Hogarths proprietary technology stack so content can be centrally managed, ensuring constant control of the production process, project costs and most importantly quality standards. The sole beneficiary of this is our clients, and its what makes our offering unrivalled in this market.

Hogarth Australia comprises teams specialising in seven key production disciplines including: design, photography, primary TV and post, web design and build, dynamic digital campaigns, social content, digital and print production and management. Each team will have an in-house capability to deliver primary production, campaign development and adaptation and trans-creation services.

Adds Ricketts: For our clients this means their team is located under one roof, meaning better resource utilisation and technology and therefore lower overheads so we can deliver better quality content, faster and more efficiently. Our clients  and our team  want more great work, better creative services, quicker turn-around, flexibility, and an innovative cross-functional way of working. Thats Hogarth in action.
| BY Ricki Green |

WiTH Collective has appointed its multi award-winning Kiwi creative team, Nicole Hetherington and Simon Fowler as new creative directors on the ASB account.

The announcement comes a week after the announcement of WiTH Collectives expansion into New Zealand, and the win of marketing services for ASB Bank, including direct, digital, and data.

Says Steve Coll, chief creative officer, WiTH Collective: We couldnt be more excited about this next chapter of WiTH Collective. Nic and Si have been recognised many times at the worlds biggest award shows. But I know the opportunity to work on a brand like ASB is a real career highlight for them. We have a very collaborative way of working in Sydney, and I know theyll want to make that a central part of WiTH Collective Auckland too.

Hetherington and Fowler will have oversight of the ASB account.

Says Hetherington: Its a massive privilege to work on ASB, especially as its a brand both Si and I have grown up with. Were also proud to be part of this new chapter of WiTH Collective opening in our home town.

Says Fowler: We learned our craft in our first gig in Auckland, and its wonderful to have the chance to apply it on a much loved brand like ASB.

WiTH Collective launched in Auckland on 1 June and is recruiting for a number of roles. Hetherington and Fowler will work closely with WiTH Collectives head of digital experience, Paul Kelly, to develop a team around the ASB business.
| BY Lynchy |

UNICEFs #NoFilter print campaign, developed by Happiness Saigon last year, has kept gaining notice. With the recent win at the D&AD Awards it now has become Vietnams most awarded creative idea at big international award events.

The list of awards won is:

 2 x Cannes Lions: Bronze Lion

 1 x Spikes Asia: Bronze Spike

 1 x London International Awards: Bronze

 4 x Eurobest: 2 x Gold, 1 x Silver, 1 Bronze

 1x The One Club: Bronze

 1x D&AD: Graphite Pencil

In 2014, when setting up Happiness Saigon our ambition was clear: lead the industry by leading the way. We established our mission statement as well: by 2017, Happiness Saigon will be worldwide regarded and respected as one of the agencies that brought Vietnam on the creative map. Being awarded at all international festivals of creativity, from Singapore, to Cannes, to London, to New York  through a variety of requirements is going beyond what we aimed for. Needless to add, Im extremely proud of Happiness, our team, UNICEF, and of Vietnam. says Happiness Saigons CEO and Co-founder Alan Cerutti.

#NoFilter draws attention to the importance of pure water in Vietnam.

The creative idea consists of a series of photographs of Vietnamese children developed in the traditional way, however with the polluted water from the river in their neighborhood. This idea demonstrates in a remarkable way the impact of polluted water on the life around the rivers of Vietnam.

This campaign, presented by UNICEF Worldwide, emphasizes an indisputable global issue. Through their program WASH UNICEF is active in more than 100 countries in order to improve water quality, and hygiene.

Credits

CEO: Alan Cerutti

Chief Creative Officer: Geoffrey Hantson

Creative Director: Paul Busschau

Creative: Sara West, Liza Geysens

Head of Art: Lennert Vedts

Account Manager: Livia Lancelot

Producer: Huynh Tram
'That's madam governor to you': Record 12 women elected to serve in 2023

Come 2023, 12th women will concurrently serve as a governor in the U.S., beating the record of 9 set in 2004.
Google seems to be reaching out to a younger crowd with the new pair of ads for Home, which come just in time for its launch later this month here. The clip we embedded here definitely feels like it's trying to appeal to younger users as it shows off its TV casting and music streaming capabilities. As for the second ad, which you can find in this link, it shows off more of what Home can do as a personal assistant.
The last time Samsung rushed to release a product before Apple released its iPhone, things didnt go well. In fact, this rumoured device is the predecessor of said disaster. And it seems Samsung wants to one up the upcoming iPhone with a launch around late August, which The Korean Herald points out is strategically ahead of the debut of the iPhone in September. Its been rumoured that Samsung has started work on the Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S9 earlier than scheduled to make sure product safety concerns are addressed. The Note 8, The Herald reports, is expected to have a look similar to the Galaxy S8 but with a dual camera setup at the back of the device.
"It's not like we don't have any contact with boys, I see plenty of my friends from primary school who are boys on the weekends ... and it's good to be in a classroom with just girls because you don't feel that pressure to kind of impress and not be too in the spotlight all the time."
Birthday wishes

Call 281-422-8302 or email sunnews@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

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There are other reasons why these rules are particularly applicable to public servants. APS employees must adhere to obligations found in the Public Service Act's code of conduct. It is unclear how these obligations might affect the general rule's application in this context. The code could be interpreted as a two-way street: if the public servant must perform work effectively, then the public service must provide work to be effectively performed. Alternatively, if a public service manager fails to give an employee work, the manager may breach the code by failing to ensure "effective performance from each employee". The employee could then lodge a code of conduct report against their manager.
Oregon Coast Red Blob Mystery Not a Mystery At All, Turns Out

Published 06/06/2017 at 8:53 PM PDT - Updated 06/06/2017 at 9:33 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  Early this winter and even through spring, weird reddish blobs that appear to have tentacles were popping up all over the Oregon coast. The rather striking sights were puzzling some of the best of science experts in the area: even the Haystack Awareness Program in Cannon Beach and Seaside Aquarium staff didn't really know what it was. (Photo above: courtesy Haystack Awareness Program in Cannon Beach).

Then an interesting plot twist: it seems the mystery creature wasn't really a mystery at all. It's quite common here, but its odd shape while bunched up on beaches threw everyone for a loop.



Above: the moonglow anemone as it normally looks in a tide pool, photo courtesy Ken-ichi Ueda and iNaturalist.org

It turns out it's a red anemone, according to scientist Cynthia Trowbridge, with Oregon State University and Newport's Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Yet another small mystery happens here, however. Trowbridge said it's one of two types of red anemone, as it's hard to tell from the photos taken by beachgoers. But it's more likely that it's one kind than the other

The more common one is the intertidal moonglow anemone (Anthopleura artemisia) which comes in many colors including red, Trowbridge said. It dwells on rocky shores inundated with sand and often gets detached. It can reattach on hard substratum if the water is calm enough. The other one is the subtidal crimson anemone (Cribrinopsis fernaldi). This is a bit far south for this species (based on its published range) but since Oregon Coast Aquarium has frequently displayed them, the range may well be wrong. Or the OCA may display out-of-range species.

Not all are bright red, by any means. They're not even necessarily red. Trowbridge said they can also be a drab gray or green. Thus, it's possible people have been seeing more than one type laying about.



Trowbridge said these are very common on the Oregon coast, so she admits she was surprised to hear so many people stumped by what they were. She sees them every year. The fact they are laying around on a beach and slumped over  in a much different shape than when seen in tide pools  probably confounds even more educated observers, however.

If you were to learn five Oregon anemones, this would certainly be one of them, she said.

These anemones manage to get pushed around by nature in some interesting ways.

The burrowing or moonglow anemone species is often on rocky shores that are periodically inundated by sand, she said. Sand often moves off these beaches during El Nino winters and then returns. The anemones stretch out taller and taller until they finally need to let go from the rocks (or be buried).

This could explain why so many were seen in recent months. All the sand scoured out in winter has been returning steadily since February, dislodging these creatures.

Do they pose any health risk? No, said Trowbridge. But they could wind up irritating to dogs. (Note: you should never let your dog eat anything it finds on Oregon coast beaches).

There are a lot of anemones, hydroids (e.g. by-the-wind sailors), etc. that wash in and all have stinging structures (nematocysts) on their surfaces, Trowbridge said. Letting dogs ingest them or walk across washed in accumulations of all such animals may irritate their mouths and/or paws. They are not dangerous per se as they are not known to have high levels of anti-predator chemicals. But they definitely could be irritants to dogs.- More Oregon Coast Science - Oregon Coast Hotels in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

Above: this shot of a beach-stranded anemone was found in Yachats by the owners of Deane's Oceanfront Lodge. Below: more from the Haystack Awareness Program. Below that more tide pool photos from the coast, courtesy Seaside Aquarium.











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Two Beatrice businesses have been nominated to compete to become the Nebraska Retail Champion.

Browns Shoe Fit and Deines Pharmacy were nominated for the award, handed out by the Nebraska Retail Federation, and are among 27 businesses across the state competing. Nebraska Retail Federation President Jim Otto was in town Wednesday morning to hand out plaques.

Three winners will be announced in the coming weeks. One will be chosen from each of Nebraskas three congressional districts, and will be selected to carry on to the Americas Retail Champion competition in Washington D.C. in July. Winners of the Nebraska Retail Competition receive a paid trip to the national competition.

The purpose, Otto said, is to recognize the impact local retailers have on their community. The Nebraska Retail Federation is an industry trade group lobbying to represent the interest of retail businesses in Nebraska to state and federal legislators.

Browns was nominated by members of the Beatrice Chamber of Commerce, NGage and Main Street Beatrice to make sure that Beatrice was represented in the competition, Michael Sothan, executive director of Main Street Beatrice said.

We sure appreciate everything you do for the community and for our downtown, Sothan told Browns Shoe Fit manager and owner Trevor Chadwick.

With members of Main Street Beatrice and NGage on hand, Otto presented Chadwick with a framed certificate Wednesday morning, which Chadwick said he would be displaying on the wall.

Thank you guys, he said. It's exciting.

Next, the group traveled up the street to Deines Pharmacy. Owner Mitch Deines was out of town, but pharmacy staff accepted the award and posed for photos with Otto.

One of the Nebraska Retail Federations projects at the moment, Otto said, is the passage of LB 44, that seeks to require large online retailers like Amazon to collect sales taxes, which would help even the playing field for brick and mortar retail outlets, he said.

I always say, I've never seen a local youth team with "Amazon" on their uniform, Otto said.
The Complex Presents

YNGWIE MALMSTEEN

World On Fire Tour 2017

With Special Guest

The Raskins

Tickets ON SALE NOW

https://www.showclix.com/event/yngwie-malmsteen/

Ticket Types

GA All Ages Floor: Access to the main GA floor area. Enter through rear all ages entrance.

GA 21+ Bar: Access to the main GA bar areas. May have access to the all ages GA floor. Enter through front main entrance.

21+ Mezzanine: Access to the 21+ Mezzanine. Private bar & restrooms. May have access to the all ages GA floor. Enter through front main entrance.

Yngwie Malmsteen was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on June 30, 1963. The youngest child in a household that included his mother Rigmor, sister Ann Louise, and brother Bjorn, Yngwie originally had no interest in music. However, on September 18, 1970, Yngwie saw a TV special on the death of guitar iconoclast Jimi Hendrix. Seven-year-old Yngwie watched with awe as Hendrix blasted the audience with torrents of feedback and sacrificed his guitar in flames. The day Jimi Hendrix died, the guitar-playing Yngwie was born.

About this time, Yngwie began playing in a number of bands built around his explosive guitar style, with long instrumental explorations. Around age 18, Yngwie and several friends recorded a demo set of three songs for Swedish CBS, but the cuts were never released. Frustrated, Yngwie began sending demo tapes to record companies and music contacts abroad. One such tape found its way into the hands of Guitar Player contributor and Shrapnel Music. Yngwie was invited to record with a new band Steeler--and the rest, as they say, is history.

From Steeler, Yngwie moved on to Alcatrazz, a Rainbow-style band, but it became clear that to fully develop his talents, Yngwie would have to go solo. Yngwie's first solo album, Rising Force (now considered the bible for neoclassical rock) made it to #60 on the Billboard charts, an impressive feat for a mostly instrumental guitar album with no commercial airplay. The album also gained Yngwie a Grammy nomination for best rock instrumental performance. He was voted Best New Talent in several readers polls, Best Rock Guitarist the year after, and Rising Force became Album of the Year. Rising Force blazed a trail on the concert circuit that established Yngwie as one of rock guitar's brightest new stars and added a new genre to the music lexicon: neoclassical rock.

With his place in guitar history firmly established, Yngwie's neo-classical compositions fueled the ears of fans and the ambitions of aspiring guitarists worldwide for over a decade with such powerhouse classic albums as Marching Out, Trilogy, Odyssey, Live in Leningrad / Trial By Fire (gold-selling concert video of Yngwies 1989 sold-out concerts in Moscow and Leningrad), Fire & Ice (which debuted in Japan at #1 and sold over 100,000 copies on the day of its release), The Seventh Sign, Magnum Opus, Inspiration (covering the music of Deep Purple, Rainbow, U.K., Kansas, Scorpions, Rush, and Jimi Hendrix), Facing the Animal, Alchemy, and Attack!!

In 1997, Yngwie proved that he was much more than a rock phenomenon. After months of intensive work, Yngwie produced his first completely classical work, Concerto Suite for Electric Guitar and Orchestra in Eb minor, Op. 1. This groundbreaking album was recorded in Prague with the prestigious Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and famed symphony conductor Yoel Levi. Several years later, in 2001,Yngwie found his first opportunity to perform the critically acclaimed Concerto Suite with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Tokyo. The DVD/CD/VHS package of this groundbreaking performance became Yngwie's first release of the year in January 2002.

In 2003, Yngwie joined the famous "G3" Tour in a lineup many guitar fans saw as the ultimate dream combination (Satriani, Vai, Malmsteen). The CD and DVD of the tour became instant classics and hot sellers throughout the year. Once the G3 tour ended, Yngwie took to the road again in support of his Attack album.

Taking most of 2004 to rest, recharge his creative batteries, and work in his studio at his leisure, Yngwie produced a highly acclaimed new album titled Unleash the Fury. Featuring some of his most impressive playing and songwriting in years, the album garnered rave reviews from fans and critics alike. Virtuosityone.com, a popular Internet hard rock music review site proclaimed, "Yngwie Malmsteen, the Neo-Classical king is back to Unleash the Fury with another bag of alchemy fuelled compositions... Overall Unleash the Fury is a welcome return to form from ... to deliver the goods." Reviewers on Amazon.com and CD Universe gave the new album 5-star ratings, with consumers proclaiming "Yngwie is the original, don't settle for cheap imitations!" and "it's a great year for shredders!"

In the summer of 2005, the Unleash the Fury World Tour kicked off in Ireland and headed across the globe, blazing new trails of glory. Malmsteen and his Rising Force lineup proved they were back with a vengeance by selling out the famed Hammersmith Apollo theatre in London and playing to rapt capacity crowds across the U.K., and garnering legions of new fans from Paris to Vienna to Madrid. Eager fans in the U.S. made the Unleash the Fury Tour a major event of the year.

By 2006, Yngwies career resurgence was in full gear. He attended the annual NAMM music-industry convention to promote his new strings endorsement with Dean Markley, then toured the U.S. a second time, then Asia, Australia, and Finland by the end of the year, igniting fans as never before. Yngwie explained it this way: Staying in good shape has a tremendous amount to do with it; I'm reaping the benefits this year. That year, Fender updated Yngwie Signature Malmsteen Model Strat, making small but important changes to the neck. Fender rules the universe. They treat me so good, and I'm so honored and proud to be working with them. Throughout 2007, Yngwie continued work on his next rock opus, and took a break in December to South America and Mexico, fulfilling the dreams of fans who hadn't seen him in their country in years.
Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has given a keynote address to the United Nations congress at the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.



His speech focused on autonomous driving technology and how it can improve the lives of countless people. Despite the upbeat tone of the address, Stadler mentioned a touchy subject that still hasnt been resolved: when can an autonomous vehicle kill or injure people?

Despite promises of a utopian future free of accidents, Stadler acknowledged some accidents are unavoidable even when autonomous technology is involved. This raises a number of tricky questions such as who would be liable for an accident and how should the car behave.

For example, imagine an autonomous vehicle is driving up a curvy mountainside. Suddenly, from around a bend, a handful of people on bicycles appear and the car cannot stop in time to avoid a collision. Does the car crash into the bicyclists or does it drive itself into a guard rail and possibly harm its passengers?

Thats a hard question to answer, Stadler said: We need a discourse in society that looks at the enormous potential of piloted and autonomous driving in relation to the ethical and legal questions. The executive went on to say the company takes concerns of the public seriously and the automobile industry cannot answer the ethical and legal questions of piloted and autonomous driving alone.

Despite having some issues that still need to be worked out, autonomous technology offers a lot of promise, as Stadler noted 90 percent of all accidents today are caused by human error and the use of autonomous systems can significantly reduce that figure.

Photo Gallery
Sales of electric vehicles have plummeted in Denmark, previously one of the worlds leaders in the adoption of EVs.



In the first quarter of this year, local sales of Electrically Chargeable Vehicles (ECV) in the nation fell by 60.5 per cent compared to the same time period in 2016. This comes despite EV sales increasing by an average of 30 per cent across the European Union and almost 80 per cent in Germany and Sweden respectively.

The dramatic shift in EV sales in Denmark comes down to one thing, a government promise to eliminate substantial tax breaks.

During Denmarks booming EV sales period of 2015, electric vehicles were spared the 180 per cent import tax that the country slaps on ICE vehicles.

The government originally intended on phasing out all EV tax breaks by 2020, but noticing the falling sales, has altered its plans. Under new rules, a post-subsidy era has been postponed until a minimum of 5,000 EVs are sold over the 2016-2018 period. Regardless of sales, the tax breaks will be slowly eliminated from 2019.

In a statement, Tax Minister Karsten Lauritzen said Its no secret electrical vehicle sales have been below what we expected a year and a half ago. The agreed phase-in has turned out to be hard and that likely halted sales.

In 2015, Tesla sold 2,738 Model 3 units in Denmark but following threats to phase out subsidies, sales slipped to just 176 units in 2016, Bloomberg reports.

PHOTO GALLERY
The 2018 Lexus LC just started arriving at U.S. dealers last month and a new report is indicating it may eventually be joined by a convertible.



Speaking at the cars Australian launch, LC assistant chief engineer Takashi Watanabe told Drive the cars GA-L platform could be used to underpin a convertible.

Lexus Australias chief executive, Peter McGregor, added the company is very aware of the importance of the convertible sector of this market. He went on to say Its been a while between convertibles for us.

Despite hinting at the possibility of a convertible variant, the model is far from official and McGregor said the vehicle would be a low volume even if approved. The latter statement isnt too surprising as the second-generation Lexus SC proved relatively popular at launch but sales dwindled towards the end of its lifecycle.

For now, the LC 500 coupe has a 5.0-liter V8 engine that develops 471 hp (351 kW) and 398 lb-ft (540 Nm) of torque. It is connected to a 10-speed automatic transmission which allows the model to run from 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds before hitting a top speed of 168 mph (270 km/h).

The company also offers the LC 500h which has a 3.5-liter V6 engine and two electric motors that produce a combined output of 354 hp (264 kW). It accelerates from 0-60 mph in 4.7 seconds and has a limited top speed of 155 mph (250 km/h).

Lexus LC Convertible rendering via X-Tomi

Photo Gallery
If youre a sucker for rare high performance cars, the Koenigsegg One:1 is as good a choice as any to sit atop your list.



The Swedish hypercar is definitely poster material thanks to its impressive output of 1,360 HP and 1,371 Nm (1,011 lb-ft) of torque, which enable the One:1 to hit 400 km/h (249 mph) in 20 seconds.

As for this particular Matte Blue example spotted in Monaco by Dphotographymc, its also packing a carbon fiber-infused interior with blue inserts and stitching everywhere to match the exterior.

Towards the end of the video, youll also hear what one megawatt of power sounds like when idling, and its surprisingly docile compared to some supercars who like to crackle and pop at the slightest touch of the accelerator.

Of course this doesnt detract from its outrageous performance: the One:1 it can do 450 km/h (280 mph) flat out, which means it sits right at the top of the automotive food chain.

H/T to Romain

VIDEO
WPP and Kantar Millward Brown have released their annual BrandZ Report, which examines the most valuable global brands by using brand perception and financial data to calculate a brands value.



According to this years analysis, Toyota is the most valuable automotive brand with a value of $28.6 billion. The company continued to hold onto the top spot, but its value declined three percent from last year thanks to tough currency challenges as well as increased investment and rising labor costs.

The second and three place finishers were also carryovers from last year, as BMW was second with a valuation of $24.5 billion and Mercedes came in third at $23.5 billion. The difference between the two companies narrowed this year as BMW dropped eight percent, while Mercedes climbed four percent. If that trend continues, Mercedes could find itself besting its German rival next year.

Tesla made the biggest jump in this years analysis as the brands value rocketed 32 percent to 8th place with a $5.8 billion valuation. The company was most likely helped by the massive anticipation that surrounds the Model 3.

The other movers and shakers include Land Rover and Porsche with values climbing by 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Land Rover claimed the 9th spot with a valuation of $5.5 billion while Porsche was one rung below at $5.1 billion
Photo: Contributed

Reliance on water-quality advisories isn't enough to keep the public safe, says Interior Health.

IH released a report Wednesday on the health region's 1,454 small and 133 large water systems. Each was reviewed over a 10-year period.

Nearly half of all the water systems in B.C. are located within Interior Health, said chief medical health officer Dr. Trevor Corneil.

The report looked at a variety of public health concerns, including water-borne illnesses.

The report concluded that while advisories can help alert the public to risks, reliance on them alone to keep people safe is not enough, with significant potential risks in the long term.

Among the reports recommendations is a more collaborative engagement process with water operators and First Nations to ensure sustainable improvements are in place by 2025.

This report should be viewed as an opportunity to renew and rejuvenate conversations between drinking water officers, water supply managers, municipal leaders and members of the community, said Corneil. An opportunity to ensure we are moving forward, together, towards a common goal  access to clean, safe and reliable tap water for all people at all times.

A full copy of the report, Drinking Water in Interior Health, can be found online.
Photo: The Canadian Press B.C. Green MLAs Sonia Furstenau, leader Andrew Weaver and Adam Olsen.

Three Green party members made history today as they were sworn in as members of the B.C. legislature.

Sonia Furstenau, Adam Olsen and party leader Andrew Weaver were elected last month, setting a record for the number of Greens elected to a legislature in Canada.

Weaver says he's looking forward to working with his two new colleagues after being the party's lone member in the house since 2013.

Weaver says the Greens are eagerly anticipating their enhanced status in the legislature after a close election did not produce a clear winner but led to the Greens signing an agreement with the New Democrats to support a minority NDP government.

The legislature has been recalled for next week, setting in motion a series of moves that could see the NDP and Greens vote to defeat Christy Clark's Liberal government.

Furstenau and Olsen, who both represent ridings on southern Vancouver Island, said the swearing-in ceremony was emotional and served to focus their political goals and aspirations.
Photo: Castanet Staff An errant bullet hit the Kelowna Art Gallery during the targeted killing of Jonathan Bacon in 2011.

It's amazing a stray bullet didn't hit a child or parent at the Kelowna Art Gallery during the 2011 slaying of gangster Jonathan Bacon.

Family Sunday events were in full swing when a bullet came through the front glass, ricocheted off a wall and came to rest in a hallway.

The Bacon murder trial continued in Kelowna Supreme Court Wednesday, with retired Cpl. Cora Malewski going through dozens of photos of shell casings, bullet fragments and bullet holes she took following the midday shooting outside the Delta Grand Hotel on Aug. 14 that year.

Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones were arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder 18 months later.

Witnesses described multiple men in black balaclavas shooting with automatic weapons into a white Porsche Cayenne about 2:30 p.m.

One of the bullets strayed across Water Street and into the art gallery  at eye level.

Nataley Nagy, executive director at the time, was called when the shooting happened. She made it to the scene within 30 minutes to find police across the street, and families huddled in the back of the gallery, away from any windows.

She says on an average Family Day, about 30 families will visit the gallery.

"It's one of those flukes, it could have gone terribly sour, she said.

Another bullet made its way into the bathroom at The Color Room, a hair salon where the Giobean coffee shop now sits. Photos in court showed the bullet's entrance hole into the unoccupied bathroom, near the toilet. Strangely, the bullet was never recovered by police.

Additionally, dozens of Malewksi's detailed photos of the white Porsche Cayenne, riddled with bullets, were shown in court.

The leather interior of the luxury vehicle was heavily stained with blood and littered with bullets and casings. A pair of sunglasses sat on the driver seat and a blackberry phone lay on the centre armrest.
Photo: Steve Heim No-wake lake enjoyment.

Rain, and a lot of it, seems to be all that will significantly push up the level of Okanagan Lake from here on.

Since Monday, the lake level has increased only slightly after several days of two to five centimetre increases.

The lake level late Wednesday afternoon was 343.249 metres above sea level.

And, as the upper elevation snowpack shrinks, the flow of Mission Creek has lessened to below normal flows for this time of year.

During a conference call Wednesday afternoon, Dave Campbell with the River Forecast Centre partially dismissed a June 1 snowpack report which showed a snow basin index of 228 per cent above normal in the Okanagan.

"I think that reflects the high conditions we've seen, more than being a predictor of future risk. That's an important point," said Campbell.

"We are getting the sense a lot of the mid elevation, and trickling into the higher elevation, snow is gone. So, despite seeing high elevation snowpack being above normal, we've lost a lot of the snow that is below that elevation."

He said it was that snowpack that was driving the higher-than-normal stream flows.

Shaun Reimer with the Ministry of Forests, Lands & Natural Resource Operations, said things look somewhat encouraging, as long as we don't see a lot of rainfall this weekend, and over the coming few weeks.

In speaking of the snowpack and rising lake levels, Reimer says it's having a reduced impact compared with a month ago, and, as we move forward, that will continue to diminish.

Both agreed it will take a significant rain event to have a big impact.

"If you look at precipitation over the last 60 to 90 days, Penticton has been 270 per cent of normal. If we got 270 per cent of normal for June, that starts to become a significant amount," said Campbell.

He added for a four to five centimetre jump in lake level, we would need to see 20 to 30 millimetres of rain in a single day.

Rain forecast for the next several days call for amounts of five to 10 millimetres Thursday and showers over the weekend, and into early next week.
Madison Erhardt

Residents along Gellatly Road are worried about their properties after a number of boaters have zoomed by their homes.

"We have had about six boaters and a Jet Ski rush by within 100 metres of our home in just the past two days," said Dan Deveau.

"One boater rode by on his boat and gave me the finger, said a nasty word and said that I could afford it," Deveau said.

He says all he wants is a little bit of compassion and respect for his home.

"It's bad enough that we have the lake at historic levels, but we also have a historic level of silliness with boaters coming by. People are not showing proper regard for the no-wake warnings and they are driving by at a high rate of speed and inundating us with water. The less traffic down here the better for everyone."

Mayor Colin Basran took to social media on Wednesday, stressing the importance of wake-free activities in the Okanagan.

"Erosion is having a serious impact not just on private property, but also on vital city infrastructure including City Park," Basran said.
Photo: Google Maps A crash has closed Highway 1 Wednesday night.

UPDATE: 6 a.m.

The highway was fully reopened east of Canoe just after 10 p.m., DriveBC reports.

ORIGINAL: 9:35 p.m.

Highway 1 has now been partially reopened to alternating, single-lane traffic.

ORIGINAL: 9:15 p.m.

A vehicle crash has closed Highway 1 in both directions, east of Salmon Arm, Wednesday night.

The crash occurred about seven kilometres east of Canoe, just before 9 p.m.

While Highway 1 is closed, Highway 97A, through Grindrod, can be used as a detour.

The nature of the crash or the condition of those involved is unknown at this time.

DriveBC has no estimate as to when the highway may be reopened.
Photo: CTV

A busy beaver is being blamed for some bridal blues, leaving a Saskatchewan couple in the dark on their wedding day.

The beaver chewed through a power pole, knocking out electricity on May 27 at Kim and Calum Martins wedding at The Resort at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park.

Kim Martin says the lights went out in the afternoon, shortly after the ceremony.

Staff brought out lamps and candles for the wedding, and used generators to keep the music and some lights going.

The outage affected much of the Cypress Hills and Maple Creek area, with power remaining out until about 1 a.m. the next day.
Photo: The Canadian Press A screen shows a news program in Tokyo reporting about North Korea's missile firing.

North Korea fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles Thursday, South Korea's military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.

The projectiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200 kilometres, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

The North's missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North's weapons activities.
Sometimes a teacher isnt simply an instructor.

Sometimes a teacher impacts students so much that even after hes gone, students gather to honor him.

That is the case with Greybull, Wyo., music teacher Charles Rutherford. A reunion of some the hundreds of students he worked with, most of whom are now in their 70s, is taking place in Greybull, Wyo., June 9 and 10. Most of the events are taking place at the Elks Club.

Rutherford taught in Greybull from 1951 to 1963. And even though he died in 2010, his students never forgot the lessons he taught them about life.

John Madsen, a former student who now lives in Boulder, Colo., said Rutherford believed in everyones potential.

I always thought I had a kind of special relationship with this fellow as a teacher and mentor. I valued so much what he had given to me. I found out during the process of putting this reunion together that everybody had that special relationship with him.

Longtime Billings music and art teacher, Wally Stadtfeld said Rutherford is the reason he became a teacher. When others didnt believe in him, Rutherford always did.

Stadtfeld was a seventh-grader when Rutherford discovered his secret.

He realized that I was not reading music. I had memorized what I was playing.

Stadtfeld's vision was so poor, he couldn't read. Rutherford made sure Stadtfeld got the glasses he needed and then Rutherford did something else to boost Stadtfelds standing at Greybull High School.

Mr. Rutherford, as we knew him, asked me if I would consider being the drum major of the band, which is quite an honor. He gave me that position, not because I was the best qualified person. He thought that would be the best position for me because it would benefit me.

During his senior year, Stadtfeld was told by his school counselor that he should get on at the local gas station because he wasnt college material. Rutherford thought differently.

He said, Give college a try, Stadtfeld said.

And Stadtfeld did, earning a masters degree and teaching in Billings for more than 30 years.

The Greybull reunion is being held over one of the towns biggest celebrations: Days of 49, in honor of the gold rush that helped found Greybull. Rutherfords band students will serve as parade marshals on Saturday, June 10, for the parade which starts at 10:30 a.m. Rutherford's widow, Marah, will attend the reunion.

There will also be a concert featuring GHS alumnus Dan Spangler, who is a retired federal judge from Cheyenne. Spangler, a concert pianist, will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 9, playing works by Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Rachmaninoff.

During Rutherford's tenure in Greybull, he built the band up to 120 members, which was significant since the high school only had 240 students at the time, Madsen said.

What it really was is he loved what he was doing, Madsen said. He loved it so much, you said to yourself, Gosh, it must be fun. Whenever you looked up and saw him, he was always happy to see you. He saw that you had potential.

Madsen went on to study music at the University of Denver and become co-owner in a Denver recording studio. He digitized the reel-to-reel tapes that Rutherford made of the Greybull band and made CDs for all of the former band students attending the reunion. The CD, A Tribute to the Greybull High School Band, will be played at 2 p.m. on June 9 at the Elks Club, where most of the events are taking place.

Rutherford earned a doctorate and became a well-respected music director at Orange Coast College, releasing several commercial jazz albums and performing jazz in California. The last time many of his former band students saw Rutherford was at the 100-year anniversary of Greybull in 2006.

There were pictures in the paper and all you could see was this big crowd of students gathered around him, eager to see him and to say thank you," Madsen said.
Photo: allafrica.com

Police in Zimbabwe say a bus travelling to Zambia has crashed, killing 45 people.

Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba said Thursday that the bus crashed on Wednesday night about 156 kilometres north of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

Charamba says the bus driver failed to negotiate a curve, though a formal investigation of the crash is underway.

Charamba says 43 people died at the scene and another two died of their injuries on Thursday.

Many Zimbabweans travel to Zambia by bus daily to trade in foodstuffs and clothes.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A small community on Newfoundland's eastern shore has been freed of the putrid smell of a rotting whale that was finally removed after washing ashore weeks ago.

Equipment moved into Outer Cove on Wednesday to lift the humpback's remains from the water and into a waiting dump truck that took it to the landfill in Sunnyside for disposal.

Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Mayor John Kennedy says he was very pleased it was finally over following a 12-hour operation to net it, remove it from the water and lift the 10-tonne carcass into the truck.

A local lab conducted recent testing on the beach in the area, and found no traces of harmful pathogens outside the norm.

Federal Fisheries Department boats helped in the removal of the large whale, which Kennedy said earlier had been stalled by bureaucratic red tape.

The bloated mess had been stinking up the town's shore since the May long weekend, leaving the picturesque cove with an oily sheen.
Dramatic video footage released Thursday shows the moment when armed British police swooped into a busy market area near London Bridge and shot dead three attackers after they killed eight people and stabbed dozens.

The surveillance camera footage shows the first police car rolling forward as the attackers lunge at a man to stab him late Saturday night. Within minutes, the attackers are shot dead and another police car arrives as people are seen running for their lives. One police officer is seen kicking the body of one of the dead attackers. Some 48 rounds were fired to stop the attack within eight minutes.

Meanwhile, six men were arrested for terrorism offences as voting began in Britain's national election.

Detectives from London police's counterterrorism command raided properties in east London on Thursday, detaining three people on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences.

The three, who were not connected to the weekend attack on London Bridge, are being questioned at a south London police station.

Separately, police investigating the London Bridge attack made three arrests in Ilford, also in east London, late Wednesday. Police are hunting any possible accomplices in the attack.
Photo: The Canadian Press Recovery of bodies in search for missing military plane in Myanmar.

Fishermen joined navy and air force personnel Thursday in recovering bodies and aircraft parts from the sea off Myanmar, where a military plane carrying 122 people including 15 children crashed a day earlier.

The four-engine Chinese-made Y-8 turboprop aircraft had left Myeik, also known as Mergui, heading for Yangon on a route over the Andaman Sea. It was raining, but not heavily, at the time contact was lost with it at 1:35 p.m. Wednesday, when it was southwest of the city of Dawei.

The military announced that the bodies of 29 people had been recovered by late Thursday afternoon  20 women, eight children and one man. In many cases, the bodies were not recovered whole, said a military officer involved in the recovery operation.

More than 1,000 people, including volunteers from dozens of community mutual aid societies with their vehicles, gathered on the beach at San Hlan village in Laung Lone township, which served as a landing point for recovery operations.

The bodies, fetched from the sea and taken aboard large fishing vessels and navy ships, had been transferred to smaller boats which hauled them into shallow water at the beach, where soldiers put the body bags on stretchers and carried them to waiting trucks. The process had been delayed for several hours by heavy rain and choppy seas.
Photo: SASSE

An usual story of adoption and survival is unfolding in a bald eagle's nest in Sidney, on Vancouver Island.

An eagle is raising several of its own young but has also hatched an egg left by a red hawk and is feeding and caring for it.

How the hawk egg got into the nest is a mystery, but bird experts suspect the mother laid it before being scared off or killed by the larger raptor.

David Bird with the Hancock Wildlife Foundation in Sidney says there are few examples of eagles adopting other birds.

But Bird says the hawk is half the age and one quarter the size of its adopted siblings and must survive another two weeks before it can fly away from nest mates that are likely to devour it if they get hungry.

So far, everyone seems to be getting along and Bird says in the 10 years the eagles have been using this nest in suburban Victoria, no one has seen the parents exhibiting adoptive behaviour.
Photo: The Canadian Press Former FBI director James Comey

Former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump administration Thursday of spreading "lies, plain and simple" about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing, in dramatic testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman and threatened to undermine Donald Trump's presidency.

Comey disputed the Trump administration's justification for his firing, declaring the administration "defamed him and more importantly the FBI," as he opened his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with Trump. Comey described discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," Comey said. "I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI."

Comey made his comments as the packed hearing got underway, bringing Washington and parts of the country to a halt as all eyes were glued on televisions showing the hearing. He immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

Comey also testified in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Comey also confirmed Trump's claim that he had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation.

The Republican National Committee worked to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Comey's credibility by pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up his testimony to Congress. And Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey's claims that he demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president's legal team who demanded anonymity because of not being authorized to discuss legal strategy.

Trump has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Comey's accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes'" of the conversations.
Photo: Mel Farrell Winds as strong as 50km/h could hit the Okanagan today.

Emergency crews are out again today fortifying flood barriers in anticipation of some strong wind gusts later today.

The forecast Thursday calls for south winds to 30km/h, with gusts as high as 50 this afternoon.

"Wind preparation is definitely the plan for today," said Tom Wilson, communications spokesman for the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations Centre.

Wind gusts to 50km/h are also forecast for this evening.

The wind will be accompanied by some rain, and the possibility of a thunderstorm. A severe thunderstorm watch has been issued for the Kootenays, however, such an advisory has not been issued for the Okanagan as of yet.

The level of Okanagan Lake continues to hold steady. At 5:25 this morning, the level was pegged at 343.249 metres above sea level, in the range of what it has been since Monday.

Mission Creek is flowing between 30 and 35 cubic metres per second, slightly below seasonal norms.

Wilson reminds people to fortify barriers where needed.

And, while the EOC works on a plan for deconstruction once the flood event is over, Wilson says people should keep barriers in place until that plan is announced.

He says people should not dump sand from sandbags into creeks. That, he says, will only cause problems the next time creeks run high.

While many creeks have gone down, Wilson asks that sandbags and barriers be left in place until a region-wide plan is developed.
Photo: Contributed Illicit drug deaths within the Interior Health region continue to climb

Governments need to do more to help stem the tide of deaths resulting from illicit opioid use.

That's the opinion of Interior Health chief medical officer Dr. Trevor Corneil.

Through the first four months of 2017, 76 people have died throughout the IH region from illicit drug use. That's on pace to far surpass the 2016 total of 159.

In Kelowna, he says, 32 people have died as a result of illicit drug use, a rate of close to one in every 20 people who use drugs in a year.

"Most people want treatment," he says. "What we really want to see in the context of this emergency, is a significant investment in substance use services. Every health authority is saying the same thing."

Corneil says it will take a shift in funding and in attitude.

This is not just a street person, or homeless issue  80 per cent of people who die from illicit drug use do so at home, he says. "That means your neighbours, your friends, your family, co-workers."

He says many have the attitude it's not relevant to them, and that users don't deserve support.

"That really does a disservice to a large group of people who are looking for a way out," said Corneil.

"People have jobs, who have families, but are using on a regular basis and have a substance abuse issue, but aren't telling people. They are unable to access services because of the perception of what a drug user is."
Photo: CTV

A lost key could cost a Surrey family their vehicle.

Maria and John Higgins were visiting Victoria when John lost the key to their minivan.

The problem is, the Toyota Estima was imported from Japan and is a model not available in North America.

John dropped his keys when he bent down to help his son tie his shoes.

"We went back and they werent there," he told CTV.

Most modern car keys have a chip inside, meaning even if you break in, the vehicle won't start. And it means a trip to the dealer to program a new key.

They've been told no dealer in North America can replace the key.

a"I got a call from a dealer in Bellingham who services imported Toyotas," John said. "And he said, the only way Toyota will cut you a new key is if your van is physically in a Toyota dealer in Japan."

They bought the van from importer Velocity Cars in Burnaby, which is trying to help them out.

Meanwhile, the family left the van parked in Victoria, and is offering a $500 reward for return of the key. Its finder can call them at 604-616-8384.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press A police officer watches over a polling station on the Isle of Dogs in London.

An exit poll has projected that Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party will win the biggest share of seats in Britain's Thursday election but could fall short of a majority in Parliament.

If confirmed, the result will be humiliating for May, who called a snap election in the hope of increasing her majority and strengthening Britain's hand in exit talks with the European Union. The plan appears to have backfired, and she could face pressure to resign.

The survey predicted the Conservatives will get 314 seats and the Labour Party 266. It projected 34 for the Scottish National Party and 14 for the Liberal Democrats.

A party needs to win 326 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons to form a majority government.

Based on interviews with voters leaving polling stations across the country, the poll is conducted for a consortium of U.K. broadcasters and regarded as a reliable, though not exact, indicator of the likely result.

During the last election, in 2015, the Conservatives did better than the exit poll predicted, and senior Conservatives said Thursday that they would take a wait-and-see approach.

"It's still very, very early in the evening," said Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire. "It's too early in the night to be drawing conclusions."

The forecast is much better than expected for the opposition Labour Party, which had been expected to lose seats under left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The poll was released after polls closed at 10 p.m., ending an unsettled national election held in the shadow of three deadly attacks in as many months.

Results will come in over the next few hours for all 650 seats in the House of Commons.
Indigenous stories told by indigenous people.

Why is this such a novelty, especially in the world of cinema? For years, Blackfeet visual artist Lauren Monroe Jr. has been observing the world using a lens to capture our stories and our understanding of life.

Now, its his turn.

He has written a script for a new short film, Kills Last, which tells the story of four Blackfeet hunters surviving 20 years after the apocalypse. Monroe calls it a fantasy adventure film.

He plans to shoot it in July on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and has recruited Blackfeet tribal members and others, some who are working on the international film scene. Eddie Roqueta, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker who received his MFA in filmmaking from Montana State University, will serve as director of photography. Another MSU film grad, Jennings Barmore, is producing the film.

Heres the most exciting part of the project  the dialogue is mostly in the Blackfeet or Piikani language with English subtitles. One of his four actors is Preston Spotted Eagle, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and a devout believer in his native culture and language.

Hes well versed in our tribal customs and history, and serves as a perfect example of our culture being passed down, Monroe said.

Trevor Spotted Eagle, who grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation and earned a filmmaking degree in Arizona, is camera supervisor.

Its up to us to tell an authentic and compelling story in our language, Monroe said.

Monroe grew up in Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation and is a celebrated Montana artist. He is co-creator of the Creative Indigenous Collective, an indigenous collective made up of visual artists in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. After graduating from the University of Montana, he returned to Browning where he is working on his MFA in screenwriting in a low-residency program at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, N.M.

Plans are to expand this 15- to 18-minute film into a feature film. His initial goal is get the short film in front of audiences and into film festivals, and build from there.

Monroe feels it's refreshing to have someone straight from his homeland tell a Blackfeet story that incorporates cultural elements.

This is reminiscent of our coup stories passed down through the generations, Monroe said.

Even though the script is fiction, the characters are authentic because Monroe said he worked to marry his "culture with what the Blackfeet world would look like after the apocalypse.

Its a nice combination of traditional imagery and language. You have these interesting conceptions and different combination of things that make you wonder how they can continue and regrow their culture.

Monroe has set up an IndieGogo campaign to raise $7,500 for the film. Investors who donate as little as $10 get a digital copy of the film and a copy of the script. The fundraising campaign expires on June 19.

Even though this is Monroes first film to write and direct, he has worked on several other films, most notably Winter in the Blood," which brought Blackfeet author James Welch's novel to the big screen.

Monroe's film takes storytelling to the next level with his artistic eye and penchant for authenticity.
Photo: Contributed

An Ontario woman serving a life sentence for the murder of an eight-year-old boy has once again been denied full parole after authorities found she continued to deflect responsibility for her actions.

Amina Chaudhary, 55, who married another inmate and had three children while behind bars, has been on day parole and living in a halfway house for a year.

The Parole Board of Canada last week rejected her application for full parole, saying she consistently blames others for her fate.

Chaudhary was convicted in 1984 of killing her former lover's nephew but maintains her innocence and is seeking a ministerial review of her case, having already exhausted other legal options.

She met her husband, Anees Chaudhary  also a convicted murderer  while in pre-trial custody, eventually giving birth to three now-adult children who were raised by friends or the state.

Documents show Chaudhary sought release to go live with her husband, who is already on parole and recently suffered a stroke, leaving him in need of care and unable to run his limousine business.

But in its decision, the board raised concerns about Chaudhary's enduring belief in her own innocence and her general evasiveness when confronted about her behaviour.
Photo: The Canadian Press B.C. Premier Christy Clark waits before officially being sworn into the legislature in Victoria, Thursday.

Christy Clark was officially sworn in today as the premier of British Columbia, leading the province's first minority government in 65 years.

Legislature clerk Craig James told members of the Liberal caucus that journalists reported on an air of mystery and excitement at the legislature in 1952, and the same can be said about today.

Voters elected 43 Liberals, 41 New Democrats and three Greens in a provincial election last month, leaving the Liberals one seat shy of a majority in the 87-seat legislature.

The NDP and Greens signed an agreement that would allow the New Democrats to form a minority government and defeat the Liberals in a confidence vote expected by the end of the month.

The Liberals have been in power for 16 years.

The B.C. legislature has been recalled for June 22.

The Liberals solemnly entered the legislature for the swearing-in ceremony, but at one point Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong lightened the mood with a few dance steps in the chamber.
Photo: Jen Murdock

Castanet readers report a semi trailer fire on the Okanagan Connector.

The fire apparently broke out about noon on Highway 97C, about 10 kilometres east of Merritt, at the top of Hamilton Hill.

The semi was able to unhook from the B-train style trailer, and the fire appears to have originated in the wheels of the trailer, which was fully engulfed.

Witnesses say the fire was spreading to grass on the side of the road, and there were no firefighters yet on scene.
Photo: CTV

Police are investigating the drowning of a two-year-old girl in a New Westminster drainage ditch.

New Westminster Police received a 911 call for help about 11 p.m. from a home on the 300 block of Stanley Street.

The child apparently fell into the ditch and could not be revived. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Weve given the family all the support that we have available to help manage this tragic time in their life, NWPD Sgt. Jeff Scott said in a press release. Our Major Crime Unit is currently investigating with the BC Coroner Service to determine the cause of death, and at this point foul play is not suspected.

"This tragedy affects us all, and our thoughts go out to the family.

The landlord of the home told CTV the drainage ditch filling up with water has been an issue for some time.

"The culverts get damaged and plugged up, and the city will not fix them," said Jan Pazurik.

The city's chief engineer is expected to address the incident this afternoon.

Pazurik described his tenants as "really nice people" with six children living in the home.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: The Canadian Press Hillary Clinton delivers the commencement address to Medgar Evers College graduates in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Losing the 2016 presidential election was "pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to," Hillary Clinton told graduates of Medgar Evers College on Thursday.

But Clinton said that setback "pales in comparison" to the heartbreak endured by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain black civil rights leader for whom the Brooklyn college is named.

Clinton urged the graduates to follow the example of Evers, who was assassinated in 1963, and of Evers-Williams, who has continued to fight for civil rights for more than 50 years.

"Never let anyone silence your voice," Clinton said. "Medgar Evers faced constant threats because of his work. His house was firebombed by white supremacists. But he refused to back down."

Medgar Evers College is part of the public City University of New York system, the largest urban university in the United States.

Clinton said she visited the Medgar Evers campus last year and was asked if she would come back and speak at commencement.

"I said yes," she said. "Now, I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I'm just as happy to be here anyway!"
Photo: Google Maps

Two Ontario residents have suffered minor injuries in the crash of an ultra-light aircraft in southeastern British Columbia.

Creston RCMP say the small plane went down late Wednesday afternoon near the community of Lister.

The unnamed victims were taken to hospital in Creston and police say they are expected to make a full recovery.

Officers say witnesses in the area heard what sounded like the aircraft's engine losing power, followed by the sound of a crash landing.

Transport Canada was contacted, but the RCMP says federal officials declined to conduct a further investigation.
Kelowna Gospel Mission thanked its volunteers and service partners for a job well done, Thursday.

The mission held its annual Well Done Barbecue, serving up burgers at the Leon Avenue agency to those who help feed and shelter the homeless.

This is our seventh annual ... and its a time to celebrate and get together with all the service providers and to recognize the good work that we do here in Kelowna," said executive director Randy Benson.

Kelowna Mission MLA Steve Thomson will be joining the Mission in thanking the community support providers.

Caseworker manager Chris Moffat said: We want to acknowledge and appreciate the wonderful community partners that we have the privilege to work with. Partners who work tirelessly to improve the lives of the vulnerable and disenfranchised.

"Last year presented Kelowna with many challenges, including a lack of affordable housing. Kelownas Gospel Mission is proud to work in a community that has been so creative and innovative in its approach to service delivery.
Capping three years of planning and work, Billings Clinic and Central Montana Medical Center in Lewistown formalized an affiliation partnership this week.

The partnership brings Lewistown's critical access hospital under the arm of Billings Clinic and allows the smaller hospital access to additional resources, training and support.

"Our whole purpose is maintaining our level of patient care and improving that," said David Phillips, chairman of Central Montana Medical Center's governing board.

Central Montana Medical Center began the process of looking for a partner four years ago. As a small, rural hospital it faces significant financial and staffing challenges to keep its doors open.

The list of small, rural critical access hospitals across the country that have closed keeps growing, Phillips said.

"We did not want to be one of those," he said.

The hospital sought proposals from various hospital systems and went through a process to winnow down the list. In the end, they selected Billings Clinic.

"It's a very important partnership," said Clint Seger, regional chief medical officer, for Billings Clinic.

Billings Clinic currently has regional partnerships with 12 hospitals or medical centers across eastern Montana and northern Wyoming. Medical services in rural communities, where major hospitals can be hours away, are oftentimes the difference between life and death if there's a serious accident on a farm or ranch, or even snake bite.

"We want them to be as successful as they can be," Seger said.

Seger has met with officials from out-of-state health care systems who talk about the rural communities they serve. Then they tour some of those systems in Montana and have to adjust their notions of what rural medicine really is, Seger said.

"It's beyond rural," Seger said. "This is frontier medicine."

Seger, who practiced medicine in Cody, Wyoming, believes in maintaining strong, local medical centers. A partnership with a larger, regional hospital can help communities keep their small medical centers open, he said.

Through the partnership, Central Montana Medical Center will adopt Billings Clinic's electronic medical records system. It will also have access to Billings Clinic specialists, staff training and professional services, like HR expertise. It will also tap into the Clinic's supply chain, which will reduce costs at the Lewistown hospital.

One of the biggest challenges for small, rural hospitals is being able to recruit doctors. Partnerships like these can make recruitment easier, Seger said.

Having the resources of a larger hospital on tap allow rural doctors to lean on support and expertise they wouldn't otherwise have, which can be an appealing notion, Seger said.

"They've got a colleague they know," he said.

Phillips is excited for the partnership. He said it's been a methodical and deliberate process and he feels confident it's been done the right way.

"We spent a lot of time with it and I'm glad we did," he said.
A man convicted of using an AK-47 to kill a woman and wound her boyfriend as they walked their dog in Denver has been sentenced to life in prison. A judge sentenced Michael Close on Friday to a life term without the possibility of parole in the death of 21-year-old Isabella Thallas and added an additional 48-year sentence for the attempted murder of her boyfriend. The Denver Post reported that Close yelled out the window at the couple as they urged the dog to go potty outside his apartment in June 2020 before getting the weapon and firing it 24 times.
PPC revenue growth supported by rest of Africa cement business

08 June 2017

PPC reported that group revenues for the year ending March 2017 rose by five per cent to ZAR9641m (US$750m). The growth was supported by the rest of Africa cement business where revenues rose by nine per cent, and the aggregates and ready-mix segment which saw revenues increase by 23 per cent.



Group EBITDA decreased by 13 per cent to ZAR2065m while the EBITDA margin achieved was 21.4 per cent (March 2016: 26 per cent). The decline was mainly attributable to the southern Africa cement segment where EBITDA was 19 per cent lower relative to the previous year. EBITDA margins in

this segment declined from 26.9 per cent to 21.,6 per cent. This was countered by the rest of Africa cement segment which saw a 19 per cent rise in EBITDA, and corresponding margins improving from 27.7 per cent to 30.5 per cent with Rwanda the major contributor to the increase. Lower EBITDA was also realised in the lime and aggregates and ready-mix segments.

Net profit attributable to PPC shareholders declined by 88 per cent to ZAR93m (March 2016: ZAR793m). On a normalised basis net profit declined from ZAR655m to ZAR512m for the year. In line withthis, earnings per share were 93 per cent lower at eight cents (March 2016: 117 cents) and headline earnings per share fell 93 per cent to seven cents (March 2016: 107 cents).

Revenue in southern Africa was flat, with cement volumes increasing by two per cent, offset by lower selling prices. In particular, PPC noted that the competitive landscape in Gauteng intensified, forcing cement prices down notably in the bulk market. Gauteng volumes were also negatively impacted by excessive rainfall in the first two months of 2017. Inland sales (excluding Gauteng) volumes

rallied well across all segments in a tough market to end flat for the year. All sectors in the coastal region again performed well, with double-digit volume increases for the year.

The Botswana operations, recorded flat volumes while selling prices were down nine per cent due to increased competition from imports from South Africa. Market leadership was maintained by focussing on brand, operational efficiencies and cost competitiveness. However, EBITDA dropped significantly in the reporting year.



Rest of Africa cement contributed ZAR645m to EBITDA, however it has not contributed to profit after

tax. This is attributable to operational ramp-up,depreciation and tax charges.



Zimbabwe operations, recorded volume declines of three per cent while selling prices, in US dollar terms, declined 10 per cent. The rand appreciated by nine per cent against the US dollar during the year, which also impacted profitability. Importation of cement declined slightly compared to the previous year mainly due to the introduction of cement import tariffs of US$100/t, effective 1 October 2016. PPC noted that the liquidity challenges in the domestic market continue to be of concern and management is working to diversify revenue streams, increase localised procurement and grow export volumes. The new Harare mill is expected to reduce outbound logistics costs while increasing accessibility to the northern markets.



Cimerwa in Rwanda sold 310,000t of cement in the year under review, increasing its contribution to group sales. Cimerwas priority is to grow volumes so that it can increase its plant capacity utilisation and continues to focus on venturing into new markets and finding new distribution channels.



Construction of PPC's plant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was completed on schedule, but hot commissioning was postponed until February 2017 due to the delay in the construction and commissioning of the overhead transmission line to supply power to the cement plant. The first cement and clinker was produced in March 2017 during the hot commissioning process while the plant went into production and first sales commenced in April 2017. PPC cautioned that the trading environment in the DRC continues to be challenging, due to surplus capacity coupled with lower pricing levels due to low-cost imports from neighbouring Angola. The local cement producers association continues to engage with government on local industry protection as it moves towards self-sufficiency.



In Ethiopia the 1.4Mta Habesha cement plant was delivered in early February 2017 when the bulk power supply to the plant was completed. Inaugurated by the country's Prime Minister in April 2017, the first saleable cement was noted the following month. Cement demand in Ethiopia matches supply and with imports into the country banned, this is expected to remain unchanged in the short term, PPC explained.

Overall group cement capacity increased by 33 per cent from 8.6Mta to 11.4Mta with the commissioning of the Harare plant in the year, and the Ethiopian and DRC cement plants delivered shortly after year-end.

Published under
Cemex Philippines sees 2H acceleration

08 June 2017

Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc is optimistic that its sales volumes will recover from the subdued first quarter and grow by three per cent by the end of the year from the 5.1Mt of cement it sold in 2016, the Manila Bulletin reports.



In an interview after the firm's annual stockholders' meeting, Cemex Vice President for Communications, Marketing and Investor Relations, Paul Vincent Arcenas, said they expect a rebound in sales volume in the second half of the year.



"The second half is (expected to grow) 11 per cent compared to the second half last year. Bearing in mind that, in the second half last year, there was no more election and spending had slowed down so it's a lower base. Unless there's some big typhoons in the second half of this year, I think we can do the 11 per cent," said Mr Arcenas.



Cemex reported that the domestic cement sales volume declined 8.6 per cent for the period due to adverse weather conditions that persisted from last year into January and February.



It also blamed the high base of comparison which was marked by strong construction activity prior to the 2016 elections.



Mr Arcenas said Cemex is now preparing for the expansion of its Solid Cement facility in Antipolo to double its capacity to 3Mt from the existing 1.5Mt. Last month it signed a contract with CBMI of China for construction of the new line.

Published under
Ecocem may get planning approval for grinding mill

08 June 2017

Ecocem may be allowed go ahead with a proposed 45m grinding mill in the US after a local council voted to stall a final decision on its planning application pending the outcome of a report.



Ecocems US subsidiary, Orcem Americas, is appealing a decision by planning commissioners in Vallejo, California, to refuse it permission to build a grinding mill on the citys waterfront on environmental grounds.



The Irish Times reports that Vallejo city council, which heard the appeal, voted to direct its staff to produce a final environmental impact report on Orcems plan. The move allows the council up to January next year to consider the issue and decide on the appeal. Stephen Bryant, president of Orcem Americas, told local media that the ruling would allow all the facts on the benefits of the companys plans for the area to come out.



Orcem and Vallejo Marine Terminal, whose application for a deepwater berth to serve the mill was also refused, are appealing the original ruling against the proposals on the grounds that they are subjective and arbitrary.

Published under
A Billings man charged in a meth conspiracy admitted to getting an estimated two pounds of the drug for distribution in 2016.

During a hearing Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy Cavan, Douglas Steven Griggs, 37, pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute as part of a plea agreement. Other charges are to be dismissed at sentencing if the judge accepts the deal.

Griggs is the last of three defendants indicted in a trafficking scheme to plead guilty.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Sullivan said Griggs distributed meth he got from co-defendant Sherry Lynn Murphy, whom he had met at the Lovers Playground in Billings earlier in the year. Griggs told law enforcement that he got meth from Murphy seven times, receiving about four ounces each time.

Overall, Griggs estimated Murphy supplied him between one and a half to two pounds of meth for distribution and that he paid $700 an ounce.

The investigation began in about September when an Eastern Montana drug task force, working with Wyoming law enforcement, got information about a group of people who were dealing meth in the Billings area.

Three people in a Wyoming drug bust identified Murphy as one of the distributors, Sullivan said.

A third co-defendant in the Billings case is Joshua Joseph Ostermiller, who pleaded guilty to charges in May. Ostermiller and Murphy are awaiting sentencing.

Cavan said he would recommend U.S. District Judge Susan Watters accept Griggs plea. Watters will set a sentencing date. Griggs faces a minimum mandatory five years to 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine. Cavan continued Griggs release.
Convicted Billings methamphetamine dealer Duane Timothy Smith Jr. will spend 25 years in federal prison on trafficking and firearms charges, a term that is five years longer than his brothers sentence.

U.S. District Judge Susan Watters on Wednesday said Smith, who was the leader of the ring and more involved than his brother, merited a longer sentence, but not the minimum 35 years he faced under his guideline range.

Smith faced 30 years to life on a conspiracy count and a consecutive mandatory five years for conviction on possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Last month, Watters sentenced Smiths brother, Thomas Dean Smith, 43, to a total of 20 years in prison for his conviction on the same crimes.

Smith apologized to the court, his family and friends and said he was an addict. I didnt want to become a drug dealer, he said.

The Smith brothers were indicted after an investigation led to a search of their home in September 2015 turned up almost 12 ounces of meth, 14 firearms and about $17,000 cash.

The residence, at 725 St. Johns Ave., was equipped with surveillance cameras that covered a 360-degree view of the outside of the house. And agents found by the door a sawed-off shotgun, which belonged to a nephew who acted as a doorman or guard at the house, the prosecution said.

After the September 2015 search, the Smith brothers moved and continued dealing meth and possessing firearms. The prosecution said the conspiracy involved pounds of meth being supplied to the Smiths from about September 2015 until April 2016.

Watters held each of the brothers responsible for 10 pounds of meth.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan McCarthy recommended a total sentence of 35 years for Smith, with 30 years on the drug count and a consecutive five years on the gun conviction.

McCarthy called the Smiths conduct brazen, noting the surveillance cameras, numerous firearms and drug quantity. Despite the September 2015 search of their home, the Smiths relocated and kept trafficking meth, he said.

The majority of the meth, guns and cash were found in Smiths area of the residence, McCarthy said.

Billings attorney Jay Lansing, who represented Smith, argued that a total sentence of 10 years, with five years on the drug count and five years on the gun conviction, was sufficient.

Smith is an untreated addict who got into trafficking to support his habit, Lansing said. And while Smith was more involved than his brother, he agreed to be interviewed by law enforcement and did not threaten not to go without a fight, as his brother did when arrested, he said.

Lansing argued that the guideline range of 30 years to life plus a mandatory consecutive five years placed him in a range that exceeded a sentence imposed on Dean LaFromboise, a Billings drug trafficker convicted in a notorious and violent meth case from the mid-1990s that involved running gunfights from vehicles and the death of a passenger.

LaFromboise initially was sentenced to 60 years in prison and through appeals had his sentence reduced to about 30 years.

Duane is not Dean LaFromboise, Lansing said.

Watters, noting the surveillance cameras, numerous guns, pounds of meth and his leadership role, said Smiths conduct was more than that of an addict simply selling meth to feed his addiction.

Nobody died, thank goodness, at your hands, Watters told Smith. But after the September 2015 search of his home, Smith started all over again at a new residence, she said.

Another reason for the sentence, Watters said, was Smiths violent criminal record, which included two felony convictions of partner or family member abuse.
After serving years in state prison, Raymond Lee Toulouse Jr. was released in 2015 to a half-way house in Billings where he was working and looking forward to moving into an apartment with his pregnant girlfriend.

Needing money, Toulouse, 32, of Billings, agreed to drop off a package to a person for Chance Dehart, another pre-release resident who had to go to a parole board hearing.

Toulouse didnt look inside the package or ask what it contained when he delivered it on May 19, 2015.

The delivery lasted less than 30 seconds and the communication amounted to, Here you go and Thanks for meeting me, said Toulouses lawyer, Palmer Hoovestal of Helena.

The package contained about a half-ounce of 98 percent pure methamphetamine, and the recipient was a confidential informant in a task force investigation into distribution activity by Dehart.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Watters of Billings sentenced Toulouse to a minimum mandatory five years in prison for the delivery. Toulouse pleaded guilty earlier to possession with intent to distribute as part of plea agreement in which other counts were dismissed.

Watters ran the sentence concurrent with Toulouses state term. Toulouse was sentenced in Great Falls in 2004 to 40 years with some time suspended for conviction on aggravated kidnapping and to 20 years for assault with a weapon. He was 18 at the time.

Both Hoovestal and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Sullivan recommended the five-year term, which took precedence over a shorter guideline range.

In addition to the federal sentence, Toulouse is facing a state parole revocation hearing.

Toulouse made no comments at his sentencing hearing.

Hoovestal said Toulouse seemed to have been born under an unlucky star. His parents separated when he was a boy and he had little contact with his father and no significant male guidance, he said.

Toulouse dropped out of high school and ended up in prison from 2004 until his release to the Alpha House in Billings in February 2015.

There, he met Dehart. Toulouse didnt know Dehart had been dealing meth, Hoovestal said.

Sullivan said task force officers investigating Dehart used an informant to make four meth buys from Dehart.

Dehart agreed to sell the informant a half-ounce on May 19, 2015, but had to go to a parole hearing instead and enlisted Toulouses help, Sullivan said.

Toulouse sold the meth to the informant for $1,200 in a recorded and monitored delivery, Sullivan said.

Dehart, who was indicted on drug charges and convicted separately, is awaiting sentencing on June 30.
RED LODGE  While Robert James LeCou drove west the evening after three people including his wife were shot dead, LeCou told a woman his wife had just died, according to testimony Wednesday.

Around 3 a.m. on April 6 of last year, Denise Grimm went outside the Wallace, Idaho, gas station where she worked to have a cigarette with LeCou, who stopped for gas.

Grimm testified that LeCou heard another patron ask about her sick husband. She said he tried to empathize.

He overheard me talking about my husband and he explained to me that he knew how I felt because his wife just passed, Grimm said.

LeCou is charged with three counts of deliberate homicide in the shooting deaths of his wife, Karen Hill-LeCou; sister-in-law Sharon Hill-Lamb; and brother-in-law Lloyd Lamb on April 5, 2016. LeCou's jury trial entered its third day Wednesday before District Judge Blair Jones in Red Lodge. LeCou has denied the charges.

Grimm also testified that LeCou learned that it was her birthday and mentioned a nearby hotel.

He asked me if I wanted a birthday present and there was a hotel next door," she said.

She didn't say what she thought LeCou meant. On cross-examination, defense attorney Edward Werner pointed out that the detail wasn't in the transcript of her June 2016 interview with law enforcement.

Prosecutors introduced witnesses in the Belfry triple homicide trial Wednesday to piece together the timeline of the day the three family members were killed.

Video surveillance shows LeCou was in two Belfry bars that afternoon, and his phone last registered in the Belfry area at 6:24 that evening.

From there, gas station clerks in Columbus; Butte; and Wallace, Idaho testified to seeing LeCou that night. Receipts showed purchases with his wifes credit card.

Brad Lane, who worked at a Butte station that night, said LeCou appeared drunk and mumbled about wanting snacks without actually buying any.

The receipt from the stop in Wallace, Idaho, showed about 3 a.m. Mountain Time.

LeCou was arrested near Spokane on the morning of April 8.

LeCous defense attorneys, Edward Werner and Clark Mathews, have been working to find holes in the investigation.

The defense will present its case in the coming days, and the trial is expected to continue through the week.
Americas National Park Service has become a workplace where bullying is rampant, sexual harassment goes unaddressed and top employees go unpunished, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., said Wednesday during a hearing sparked by a Yellowstone Park scandal.

As a son, husband and father of four, including two young women, this is completely unacceptable, Daines said. The senator was chairing a subcommittee hearing on National Park Service workplace problems, specifically Yellowstone National Park.

Federal investigators in April concluded there was credible evidence of unwelcome conduct toward female workers in Yellowstone for several years.

Alcohol, inappropriate contact and remarks that female employees said made them feel uncomfortable and degraded were revealed during a seven-month investigation into Yellowstones maintenance division. That report followed a 2016 investigation into male Grand Canyon employees demanding sex from female workers and retaliating against women who objected. The NPS Office of Inspector General has issued eight separate reports on employee misconduct since January 2016.

The National Park Service is working on workplace issues, said Michael T. Reynolds, acting director of NPS, but restoring employee trust will take work.

There are some park locations where these cases were allowed to fester, where employees felt reporting these conditions would change nothing and invite retaliation, Reynolds said. That was a wakeup call that we needed to make significant improvements to our workplace environment.

Reynolds said the National Park Service is acting as quickly as possible, conducting workplace surveys to examine the depth of the problem. There is now an ombudspersons office where complaints can be made in confidence. That office in four months has received more than 1,000 complaints, mostly about hostile workplace conditions.

And supervisors must take an online training course about harassment and creating a healthy workplace environment.

Daines said in his experience in the business world, online training courses are more often checklist items used to prove something is being done, though results might not follow.

Former National Parks employee Maria Burks of the Coalition to Protect Americas National Parks said many employees find online surveys ineffective.

Wyoming Republican Sen. John Barrasso said the volume of harassment reports is disturbing, but the NPS and its umbrella agency, the Department of Interior, have a plan.

Preventing future misconduct and harassment will require radical, immediate and lasting changes at both the National Park Service and the Department of Interior, as a whole, Barrasso said.

Whats needed, said Interior Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, is a change in National Park Service leadership at the hiring level. That change wouldnt be easy, she said.

Changing this culture will be arduous. NPS has a legacy practice of hiring family and friends. Favoritism and sexism abound, Kendall said. NPSs culture of silence and protecting its own kept harassment discrimination and retaliation in the shadows.

Both Kendall and Burks said the budget cuts for NPS suggested by Trump would make reforming the National Parks workplace difficult. There is talk of restructuring the organization, which could make reform hard, Kendall said.

Burks said the kind of face-to-face training that works best with workplace reform is going to be difficult as travel budgets are cut. Trump has suggested a $400 million cut to the National Parks budget, though Congress will ultimately determine federal government funding.

Burks said budget cuts made in the 1990s still hurt NPS. A lack of human resource workers in the field has made it difficult for harassed NPS employees to report workplace problems.

However, a thin ethics program was the biggest challenge facing the National Park Service, Kendall said.

NPS need to make immediate changes to its ethics program. It has only one full-time ethics counselor, making NPS the bureau with the worst ratio in the department, Kendall said.

The National Park Service has about 22,000 employees, full time and part time.

Kendall said the tone at the top of the National Park Service needs be a focus for change.
The Yellowstone River is running high and fast, and should near flood stage this weekend in Billings, according to the National Weather Service.

NWS issued a flood warning on Wednesday for southwestern Yellowstone County and south central Montana, with specific mention of bank erosion edging closer to Thiel Road in Laurel.

"Local law enforcement was reporting as much as 10 to 15 feet of the bank along Thiel Road has been eroded in spots and this could threaten homes and property," the warning says. "The Yellowstone River was still within its banks south of Laurel, but lowland flooding was occurring in isolated spots." Additional rises in water levels are expected to continue through the weekend.

NWS meteorologist Dan Borsum said that the flood warning in Laurel is mainly due to bank erosion and the issues it could cause.

"The river's trying to carve a new channel," Borsum said. "There hasn't been a lot of inundation in low-lying areas."

Near Edgar and Belfry, the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River was expected to peak at flood levels Friday.

The river hit just a touch over flood stage on Wednesday in Belfry but was expected to be a foot above that by Friday, hitting 9 feet.

Similarly the river evened out at flood levels in Edgar on Wednesday and was forecast go a foot above on Friday and reach 9.5 feet.

In Carbon County "we expect lowland flooding and some roads that are close to the river to possibly see some water get up to them," Borsum said. "I think the biggest threat that people need to be worried about is that with this water running really fast, there is a chance for the erosion factor to undercut banks."

Some water will probably reach Byam Road in Yellowstone County near the Clarks Fork, Borsum said.

"Equipment and people near the river banks could see some problems certainly," he said.

In Billings, the Yellowstone River will peak Saturday at 13 feet, about half a foot below flood stage. It will be the highest the river has run since 2011 when it reached 14.37 feet, according to Borsum.

The highest NWS records show the Yellowstone River running in Billings was in 1997, when the river reached 15 feet.

The Clarks Fork near Belfry will reach levels not seen since 1996.

Borsum said vigilance is important considering forecasts and current conditions in regional waterways.

"Debris can jam up against a bridge and all of a sudden things can change," he said. "Communicate with law enforcement, communicate with local folks and be ready to help neighbors."
The Senate labor committee chairman today praised the decision by Labor Secretary Acosta to withdraw Obama administration guidance that had instructed investigators with the Wage and Hour Administration  which is focused on worker protections  to instead ask questions to determine whether a franchisee and franchisor are joint employers.

"Secretary Acosta was absolutely right to withdraw this guidance and restore wage and hour investigators' focus on worker protections<" said Chairman Lamar Alexander. "The NLRBs joint-employer decision was the biggest attack on the opportunity for small businessmen and women in this country to make their way into the middle class that anyone has seen in a long timethreatening to destroy the American Dream for owners of the nations 780,000 franchise locationand that threat increased when the agency in charge of worker protections attempted implementing its own joint employer enforcement."

The National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, joint employer ruling is now being challenged in court. Chairman Alexander held a hearing on that decision in 2015.
Taking a transformative approach to functional materials, a UC Santa Barbara polymer chemist has created innovative results that feature new properties and new applications.

Now, his methods have earned him the Charles G. Overberger International Prize for Excellence in Polymer Research from the American Chemical Society. The prize is awarded every two years.

"I am delighted to congratulate Professor Craig Hawker for receiving the prestigious Overberger Prize from the American Chemical Society," said Rod Alferness, dean of UCSB's College of Engineering. "Craig is a brilliant and creative scientist who exemplifies the collaborative spirit that we value so highly at UC Santa Barbara. His contributions have significantly advanced polymer science, and he has served as a powerful mentor to a great many grateful alumni."

Charles Overberger was a pioneer in the field of macromolecular science, laying the foundation for modern polymer chemistry through groundbreaking work at the University of Michigan.

"It is a thrill and honor to receive the Overberger International Prize," said Hawker, a professor in UCSB's materials and chemistry and biochemistry departments. "He was an early giant in organic polymers who helped establish the field as a major subdiscipline in chemistry and materials. To even be mentioned in the same breath as Professor Overberger and the prior winners of this award is very special."

The award cites Hawker as "the world's foremost exponent of combining organic chemistry and polymer synthesis to create innovative materials having new properties and applications" and as someone who has "inspired a generation of scientists to develop transformative synthetic approaches to functional materials by breaking down the barrier between organic chemistry and material synthesis."

Hawker's innovative applications of fundamental organic chemistry concepts opened the field of macromolecular engineering, allowing researchers unprecedented control over polymer composition, structure and topology. Later, he took on one of the foundational challenges of polymers: developing a living free-radical polymerization process, which spurred previously unexplored areas of polymer chemistry. Hawker's group was instrumental in discovering that free-radical initiators could be attached to surfaces, which led to the controlled synthesis of polymer "brushes," now a major theme in materials science.

He has also made large contributions to the rapidly expanding field of "click" chemistry, which is based on mimicking the synthetic efficiency and orthogonality found in enzymes and other natural systems. The impact of this concept is seen in Hawker's work on preparing multifunctional and multivalent nanoparticles for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease. Ian Manners, a professor of chemistry at the University of Bristol in England, described that success as a "rare achievement of translating a highly functional polymer molecule from the laboratory to the clinic."

In addition to advancing fundamental polymer and materials science, Hawker's groundbreaking studies have contributed to technological and practical applications, forming the basis for more than 50 valuable patents and commercial products. That commercial success is matched by an outstanding citation record that firmly establishes the worldwide importance of the synthetic strategies developed in Hawker's UCSB lab.

Collaboration, Hawker said, is at the root of his success. "That's what has enabled an award like this -- being able to work not only with great students who are attracted to this combination of fundamental and applied research, but also with other UCSB research groups that complement and significantly expand our core competency in polymer synthesis," he explained. "One of the things I'm proudest of is that if you ask people beyond our campus what they think of when they think of UCSB, it's collaborative research."

Among his collaborators have been many students, whom Hawker described as "our ultimate product."

"The College of Engineering puts tremendous effort into creating an environment that allows them to shine and then go out and do great work," Hawker said. For them to look back and say, 'I want to thank you for allowing me to shine' -- it's better than anything."

Hawker is a fellow of the Royal Society, Director of the Dow Materials Institute and the California NanoSystems Institute and a member of the National Academy of Inventors.
In this Sept. 26, 2014 photo, smaller-dose pot-infused cookies, called the Rookie Cookie, sit on the packaging table at The Growing Kitchen, in Boulder, Colo. As it grows, Californias edibles market is diversifying, with companies adding healthy, organic, vegan and gluten-free options to the menu, and making low-dose edibles for new patients and people who want to medicate while at work or at home with their kids. (The Associated Press)

San Jose, Calif.  Adding cannabis to everything from iced coffee to breath mints, startups are jockeying for a bite of California's growing marijuana edibles market as the state gears up to allow recreational pot sales.

The industry that barely existed 10 years ago  apart from a few bakers making pot brownies in their home kitchens  now shows no sign of slowing down.

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"There's a brand boom going on right now, particularly in preparation for adult use legalization here," said Troy Dayton, CEO of The Arcview Group, a research and investment services firm focusing on marijuana businesses. "Not all of them are going to do well, but there's just so many different types of edibles hitting different market segments."

Arcview Market Research estimates California customers munched on about $180 million worth of edibles last year  comprising 10 percent of the state's overall marijuana sales. There appear to be dozens of medical marijuana companies in the state seeking to bring a gourmet flair to cannabis-infused treats that just a few years ago were merely "edible." And as early as next year, those companies will be able to expand sales to anyone over 21.

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The $1.8 billion Californians spent last in legal marijuana sales is expected to grow more than 25 percent annually to hit $5.8 billion by 2021, according to an Arcview report. And trends in other states suggest that the edibles market will continue to grow as California's recreational marijuana sales start. In Colorado, for example, sales of edibles more than tripled from $17 million in the first quarter of 2014  when the state first allowed recreational marijuana use  to $53 million in the third quarter of 2016.

As it grows, California's edibles market is diversifying, with companies adding healthy, organic, vegan and gluten-free options to the menu, and making low-dose edibles for new patients and people who want to medicate while at work or at home with their kids. But as California finalizes its marijuana regulations, edibles startups will face added food safety hurdles that their peers in other cannabis industries, and in the general foods market, don't have to navigate.

When 27-year-old Stephany Gocobachi  a long-time foodie  visited her first medical marijuana dispensary on her 18th birthday, she was disappointed. There were no edibles that tasted good, or that were clearly labeled with their content of THC  the chemical compound that gives marijuana its medicinal and mind-altering effects.

"I had bought edibles that were moldy, that were stale, that had pet hair in them," Gocobachi said.

Nine years later, Gocobachi runs Flour Child Collective, a San Francisco-based startup that sells organic, cannabis-infused granola and seasonal jam with flavors like blood orange and apricot-rose. She wanted to make products using fresh ingredients that would keep on the shelf of a dispensary while also providing a healthier alternative to pot brownies.

Now Gocobachi and her co-founder are working on expanding their 400-square-foot kitchen. But they're postponing leasing a new space because San Francisco's marijuana regulations are still in flux and it's unclear where the city will let them set up shop.

That's the type of uncertainty everyone in the marijuana industry faces as city and state officials figure out how to regulate both the medical and recreational marijuana industry. For now, California's edibles companies only sell to patients with a doctor's recommendation. But the market is expected to balloon further when regulators set up the state's recreational use framework  which could be as early as next year. And edibles makers expect to face extra scrutiny over how they prepare their products so they're safe to eat, and package them so they aren't appealing to children.

VCC Brands represents an extreme example of the risks associated with the industry  police raided the company last year, according to CEO and founder Kenny Morrison. He said the company wasn't doing anything illegal, but he decided to pack up and relocate the manufacturing operation that makes 100 cannabis-infused items, including cookies, tea bags, lemonade and hard candies, from Los Angeles to Oakland.

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Christopher Schroeder, who launched Somatik in Oakland in February, still isn't sure if it will be legal to sell his cannabis-infused cold brew coffee in its current form next year. State regulators have proposed rules that would ban the sale of edible products that contain more than 10 easily separated 10 milligram doses of THC  100 milligrams in all. The problem is a bottle of Somatik coffee currently has 15 milligrams of THC.

If that is not allowed, Schroeder will reluctantly reduce the dose of his cannabis coffee, which he says perfectly balances the benefits of caffeine and marijuana.

"It's a great after-lunch drink that allows me to stay focused and still get my work done but feel really positive and euphoric and in a really good mood," he said,

Oakland-based Kiva Confections was one of the early pioneers of a new trend known as microdosing, with its low-dose chocolate-covered espresso beans and blueberries containing just 5 milligrams of THC. When those became Kiva's best-sellers, the company decided to go even lower  coming out with 2.5 milligram mints in November. For comparison, a pot brownie at a Grateful Dead concert could have anywhere between 50 to 500 milligrams of THC, estimated Christie Strong, Kiva's marketing communications manager.

Robert Bradley, a student earning a bachelor's degree in music education from San Francisco State University, uses Kiva's mints three or four days a week to combat the sometimes overwhelming stress of school. They also help him sleep and give him an appetite when he's too anxious to eat.

"They're really nice and light," said 31-year-old Bradley. "So I can still be productive, but it takes a lot of the anxiety out."
Suit Camp Q&A with Bob Shields, director of forensic and investigative services at Sikich, an accounting and consulting firm. (Corilyn Shropshire / Chicago Tribune) (Corilyn Shropshire / Chicago Tribune/Videolicious - Chicago Tribune)

Robert Shields spent 20 years in the FBI hunting cybercriminals and cyberterrorists. When he started, criminals were snatching data off diskettes. Then crime went virtual. The job was intense. He loved it. He rose through the ranks and retired as special agent in charge.

Then he decided to take a break, do some fishing and get a new job.

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For the past six months, Shields, 57, has been using his cybersecurity expertise and investigative skills as director of forensic and valuation services at Sikich, an accounting and consulting firm. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Why did you choose the FBI? What led you down that path?

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A: I joined the FBI in 1995. I worked for two insurance companies before then, and I worked as a programmer. I had a friend who talked to me about applying for the FBI. I have to admit, at the time, I wasn't sure. I was a little older. I was 34.

Q: So why did you do it?

A: They were hiring. I thought I'll take the test. I went over to the test, and about a year later, I was hired to go to Quantico (training academy) to start as an agent. I wanted to make the switch because I always have enjoyed the cyber field, computers. I felt there was no better place to get some of the best knowledge of technology than the FBI.

Q: Was training at Quantico one of the hardest things you've ever done?

A: Yes. I think it's mentally (challenging). Knowing that you may not have a job at the end if you don't make it through these 17 weeks. I had never shot a firearm before I went to Quantico. Trying to learn to shoot a firearm, that really was something I had to work hard at to be able to qualify and be certified to carry a firearm.

Q: All those years in the FBI, what kind of cybersecurity issues were you dealing with? What kinds of cases?

A: If you think back to when I started, you were dealing with the diskettes and CDs. People were stealing software and copyrights. You would have had a computer intrusion, where somebody may have gone in and they destroyed files (inside) the machine. It might have been an employee. It might have been somebody from the outside.

Today, you don't see this. Everything is done in the virtual world now. Today, the intrusions have become much more significant along with, as you probably have heard about, ransomware. It's just growing. It's a crime.

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Q: Are we all vulnerable in the "cloud?"

A: We are, but security has gotten everyone's attention (so) we have better protocols in place. The insider threat is a growing concern, and what do we do about it?

Q: What are "insider threats" and should we be worried?

A: We let people into our companies and trust them, whether you're a contractor, an employee or whether you're somebody who has access from the outside because we gave it to you. If I had access to a hard drive that had all types of files out there and I just downloaded all those files, put them on a thumb drive or I send them to my email account, how do you prevent me from doing that?

Q: How do you do that?

A: The easiest answer is to make sure that you have the engagement of management, not just your cybersecurity managers but your managers across the organization to include your executives who are engaged and understanding: "What is my vulnerability inside?"

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Q: What kind of measures can an organization take in trying to prepare for an employee security breach?

A: As simple as it sounds, making sure you are providing proper training that talks about what you can and cannot do. It may prevent that person by (compelling them to think), "OK, I may not be allowed to do this or I know I can't do it." You're putting that  I don't want to call it fear  but you're putting that concern out there that, "Hey, these are our protocols." Like today, we all know we shouldn't download something, but we do.

Q: Where are the threats coming from more often? Internally or externally?

A: You're always going to have that outside threat, always. I really feel the internal (threat) is going to continue to keep growing until we address them more.

Q: What's your strongest skill set?

A: Probably being able to get a group of people together to try and work through a problem. On the technical side, there's a lot of people who know how to do it quicker and faster.

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Q: What's your take on what really happened with the Russians interfering in the election?

A: I'm not going to comment.

crshropshire@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @corilyns
Imagine waking up as the sun rises, heading out to the chicken coop to collect freshly laid eggs and returning to your kitchen to fry up the freshest breakfast around.

For many people, this fantasy is a possibility  communities including Batavia, Grayslake, Homewood, Elgin, Naperville and St. Charles in Illinois, and Valparaiso and Chesterton in Indiana, permit backyard chickens. Each town has limitations on the number of chickens allowed, amount of space needed and other issues.

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If you have ever entertained the idea of backyard chickens, Dave Barr is ready to show you a thing or two during one of his Backyard Chicken classes at Kline Creek Farm in West Chicago. The living history farm is part of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and features costumed interpreters showing farm life in the 1890s.

"Raising chickens requires commitment, like having any pet," notes Barr who serves as the agricultural specialist for the farm. Basically, chickens need food, water and shelter. "You can give them up to a 10-day supply of food because they only eat what they need but they have to have fresh water daily. Water is important for their digestion," he says.

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He suggests allowing a minimum of about five square feet of space for each chicken. A nesting box is also needed, but he notes that chickens will share nesting boxes. "You should have at least one nesting box for every five chickens."

There are different breeds of chicken used for eating versus egg laying. Chickens will not start laying eggs until they are about 20 to 26 weeks old and most chickens lay about five eggs per week. "Chickens lay eggs for five to seven years but they can live another 20 years. After they are done laying, it might be time for them to become chicken soup," Barr said.

Shelter for chickens is mainly to keep predators away. "The chicken coop doesn't need to be heated. The chickens roost close together and keep each other warm," explains Barr.

"Chickens pretty much poop wherever they are so some people make a small movable coop called a chicken tractor that they move around the yard." The chickens also dig in the lawn, so moving it around reduces lawn damage.

Kate Garrett is a heritage interpreter at Kline Creek Farm and often uses the eggs collected at the farm. "When the chicken lays the egg, there is a coating on it which keeps the egg fresh for two weeks without refrigeration," she notes.

"Once the egg is washed, it has to be refrigerated. The egg shell is permeable and air can pass into the egg. The fresher the egg, the less air is in the egg. If you put a fresh egg in water, it will sink. Some eggs float up a little because they have more air in them and they are older. If the egg floats on top of the water, throw it out.".

Garrett, who is from Batavia, says there is a flavor difference of freshly laid eggs. "Fresh eggs are great for scrambling or frying and have a very rich flavor. Fresh eggs aren't good to use for hard boiled eggs. If they are fresh, the shell won't come away from the egg because there is no air inside." She also notes that older eggs are better for baking.

Some of the chickens raised on the farm are for eating. These chickens are ready to cook at between six to twelve weeks and have more meat. On a recent day at the farm, Garrett was baking cornbread in the wood burning stove and had chicken and noodles bubbling on a top burner.

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She was finishing up a peach pie to go into the oven while another interpreter, Amy Caponigro of Naperville, was working on making egg rich custard that would be churned for about one hour to provide cold ice cream to go with the pie.

The farmhouse-perfect meal was being made for the musicians coming to perform at an evening barn dance. Watching them work in the tiny farm house kitchen was like stepping back two centuries ago to a time when pie crusts were rolled out by hand and the supply of eggs was just outside the door in the coop.

If you are ready to give back yard chickens a try, Barr is ready to show you how. Class participants will not only learn how to raise chickens for eggs, they will butcher and pluck a chicken to take home.

Kline Creek Farm is open Thursdays through Mondays and admission is free. A schedule of special activities can be found at www.dupageforest.org/klinecreekfarm.

Garrett shares two of her vintage recipes using eggs and chicken so others can try a taste of the past.

Judy Buchenot is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.

Chicken and Noodles

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5 pound whole chicken

2 pounds carrots

1 bunch celery

2 to 3 onions

1 pound dried broad egg noodles

2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme

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2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

salt and pepper to taste

Place chicken in a roasting pan. Add water until it just covers the chicken. Bring water to a boil, and then simmer the chicken until tender. Wash, peel and cut carrots, celery and onions into 1-inch pieces. Remove chicken and allow to cool.

Add carrots to the liquid in the pan and cook for 30 minutes. Add celery and onion and cook 20 minutes more. Remove skin and bones from chicken and cut into bite-sized pieces.

Add chopped chicken, noodles, thyme, chives, sage, salt and pepper to the pan with vegetables. If needed, add hot water, but remember that this is not a soup. All of the water is absorbed or evaporates to leave just chicken, noodles and vegetables.

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Cook 10 to 15 minutes and serve.

Makes 12 servings.

White Ribbon Frozen Custard

1 quart half and half

1 cup whipping cream

1 cup sugar

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1 teaspoon salt

6 egg yolks

1 teaspoons almond extract

Mix half and half and cream and heat until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat. In a double boiler, mix sugar, salt, egg yolks and almond extract. Slowly add one cup of hot half and half mixture a few teaspoons at a time while stirring. This is to temper the mixture without scrambling the eggs.

Add remaining half and half mixture and cook over medium heat for five minutes, stirring constantly. Strain mixture to remove any cooked egg. Cool mixture in a refrigerator.

Pour mixture into an ice cream churn and follow directions for making ice cream. Can be served soft from the churn or allowed to harden in the freezer.

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Kate's Culinary Cue

Farm women in the 1890s used a beaten egg to settle the coffee grounds in their morning brew.

Put 1 cups of water into an enamel kettle and set on high heat to boil. Measure  cup of coarse ground coffee into a small mixing bowl. Crack a raw egg directly into the coffee grounds and mix thoroughly until all the grounds look damp and are the consistency of wet sand. Toss the shell in too and crush it with your spoon.

Once the water reaches a boil, add the damp coffee grounds and crushed shell directly into the boiling water. Boil 5 minutes, or less for weaker coffee. Turn down the heat and add 1 more cups of cold water to the pot. This should settle the grounds down to the bottom of the pot where they will stay when you pour off your coffee.

Warm over medium heat until it reaches comfortable drinking temperature.

Kline Creek Farm

What: Backyard Chickens, a class on how to buy and raise chickens for eggs or meat

Where: Kline Creek Farm, 1N600 County Farm Road, West Chicago

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When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. June 24, July 29 or Aug. 26. Bring your own lunch. Registration is required.

Cost: $40

Information: 630-876-5900 or register at dupageforest.org, click register and enter 10876 in the search box.
Even if you've never danced, feasted and gawked your way through the spectacular celebrations of Caribbean carnival, you likely have some sense of the elaborately feathered headdresses and sequined bikinis, the exuberant soca bands, and the endless parades and merrymaking involved.

"En Mas': Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean," which opened two weeks ago at the DuSable Museum of African American History, includes just about none of this.

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Instead, brown cardboard cutouts, flower-patterned coffins and shields bearing photographs of London townhouses fill the small series of rooms along with a mysterious white geodesic sphere and a black-suited alien posed halfway up a metal ladder. A sousaphone plays mournfully in its lowest register, while a man whistles robin calls, and two people chat conspiratorially.

Co-curated by Krista Thompson, a professor at Northwestern University, and Claire Tancons, the exhibition, which debuted in New Orleans and has traveled to the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands, eschews an anthropological approach (though extensive wall labels inform about the finer points of masquerade, Junkanoo and other traditions). What's on view instead is the critical and creative take of nine contemporary artists commissioned to make projects during the official 2014 carnival season in cities including Port-of-Spain and Nassau, and diasporic ones like Brooklyn and New Orleans.

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Instead of flamboyant costumes, Bahamian artist John Beadle created towering wearable structures of cardboard shapes, patterned with the designs of concrete screen walls and iron fences. Though ironically no less decorative and sprawling than typical regalia, the drab materials and functional forms of "Inside-Out, Outside-In" are their opposite, referring slyly to the actual supports that form the undergirding of the most extravagant parade wear.

In contrast to the classist extravaganza of carnival in Kingston, with its pricey tickets and imported costumes, Ebony G. Patterson organized "Invisible Presence: Bling Memories," a defiantly handmade and working-class memorial to the victims of urban and police violence. Not surprisingly, parade organizers just barely permitted Patterson's group of 80 volunteers carrying 50 coffin-shaped sculptures covered in loud prints, tassels and plastic flowers to participate in the official road march.

Meanwhile, in London, a unit of foot soldiers marauded through the main hall of the Tate Modern, herding and harassing befuddled, iPhone-wielding visitors. Choreographed by Hew Locke, they wore masks printed with jerk chicken, peas and rice  popular carnival street food, but grotesque as facial decoration  and brandished town house-patterned riot shields and batons, drumming out a catchy beat while enacting a performance that spoke to the tensions on display across town at the Notting Hill Carnival, where the real police were at work protecting a now-posh neighborhood from revelers who decades ago, when the festival was founded, would have been right at home.

A bold alliance of popular and avant-garde culture, "En Mas" presents a number of curatorial challenges, some intentional and some not. The DuSable, venerable institution that it is, is also underfunded, cramped and unused to displaying multi-media contemporary art. And while it makes perfect sense for a museum of African-American history to host a show about Caribbean culture, it seems a missed opportunity on the part of mainstream art institutions to have embraced a non-Eurocentric history of performance art.

More thoughtful, though, are the ways in which some artists have approached the problem of re-presenting in a museum live art that was made for the streets. The tried-and-true solution of sharp video documentation and striking artifacts has been put to good use, but it has also been gotten beyond. Viewers of Charles Campbell's "Actor Boy: Fractal Engagement," don't just see photographs of what they missed  an uptowner's excursion to downtown Kingston involving a contortionist, a fire-eater and sci-fi masks  but something new besides: an animation by Oneika Russell that fancifully interprets the tour and a strange sparkly dome by Campbell that serves as a monument to a postcolonial utopia of the future.

Though carnival is all about public spectacle, living life to excess in the streets, two of the most magically immersive artworks in "En Mas" are decidedly intimate. Christophe Chassol composed a full-length film essay out of noises and images recorded during carnival in Martinique. "Big Sun" neither sounds nor looks as expected: Men play dominoes and blow conch shells in a provisions shop, the surf crashes on a beach, birds twitter, rain falls, a flautist plays in a concrete cemetery, creole is spoken. Overtop it all is Chassol's own startling instrumentation, jazzily harmonizing the fragments that make up the whole.

For "C Room," Nicolas Dumit Estevez filled the back room of a folkloric museum in Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic, with props ranging from potatoes and shopping bags to sparkly wigs and colorful umbrellas, and then invited friends and friends of friends to transform themselves into the weird and wonderful. I want to have been there, too, with a string of plastic pitchers for a necklace and a pink bra for a hat. That's my kind of festival.

"En Mas': Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean" runs through August 13 at the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Pl., 773-947-0600, www.dusablemuseum.org.

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Lori Waxman is a freelance critic.

ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @chitribent
Chicago nutritionist Caitlin Meade (right) battles for a spot in the top 20 on Wednesday's episode of "MasterChef." (Erica Parise / Fox)

Warning: Spoilers ahead

Chicago nutritionist Caitlin Meade got the taste of redemption she was looking for on Wednesday's episode of "MasterChef."

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Meade served a pan-seared salmon with potato and charred corn in rasam broth in a head-to-head battle to win a spot in the top 20 of the Fox cooking competition. She failed to reach this level last season.

"I have been waiting for this moment for the longest time, since last season, like blood, sweat, gallons of tears," Meade said. "It feels unreal to be standing here with an apron on."

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Meade said she "listened to everything the judges said to me last time, corrected it, studied and only came back stronger, bigger and badder than ever."

The 26-year-old Ukrainian Village resident faced Texas digital marketer Taylor Waltmon, another castoff from Season 7. They had 45 minutes to make a salmon dish for the judges.

"Skin is crispy, tastes delicious and sort of melts in your mouth. Broth is wonderful, touch too heavy on the tamarind because it's quite tart and sour," judge Gordon Ramsay told Meade. "Potatoes, tomatoes, corn, you know, it's overgenerous so take a little bit out, but what you've got in there is a strong work ethic."

Said judge Christina Tosi: "You clearly did a beautiful job butchering your salmon, cooking your salmon. You showed confidence in building flavor in this dish. That said, the dish is pretty large, it's a little clunky. There's a lot of other flavors that are competing with the star of the dish. I'm not sure the balance is good enough to win you that apron."

Season 8 of "MasterChef" airs 7 p.m. Wednesdays. The top 20, which also includes former South Side resident Eboni Henry, face a series of challenges to determine who wins the $250,000 prize and cookbook deal.

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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)
Grant Wood's "American Gothic" returned to the Art Institute of Chicago on June 8, 2017, after a monthslong trip to Europe. (Steve Johnson / Chicago Tribune) (Photos by Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

It is, on one level, matter-of-fact, the homecoming of a priceless treasure of American painting. Art moves in and out of the Art Institute of Chicago all the time, so there is a procedure, a protocol, a routine to minimize stress on the works and the workers and to maximize security.

Shipping specialists open a crate, curators examine the work  in this case, Grant Wood's beyond iconic "American Gothic"  and handling specialists wheel it through the galleries and hang it back up again. Ho and hum. Sort of like when your spouse decides the one original painting you own really ought to live on a dining room wall, for a change.

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On another level, though, it's a thrill. Not only was the painting returned to the Art Institute walls Thursday morning after almost nine months away on its first trip to Europe, it was done in time to form a brief, rare triumvirate: "Gothic," "Nighthawks" and "Whistler's Mother" will be on view in three roughly adjoining galleries.

"They are the three most famous icons of American art," said Sarah Kelly Oehler, the Art Institute curator who oversaw "Gothic's" return. "This is in some ways a curator of American art's dream, to have all three of these paintings on view at the same time.

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"It's a privilege to have 'Whistler's Mother' still here," she said, thanks to an extension of the French national museums' loan agreement that will keep it up in Chicago through Sunday. "It's a privilege to have 'American Gothic' and 'Nighthawks' in the collection."

The allure, she said, is of course the cultural resonance of those three works, under the same roof for the first time since 1954. But it is more basic, too: "It's the joy of having beautiful things to look at. Curators are not immune to that. In fact, we may be more susceptible," Oehler said.

The return of the prodigal beautiful thing began before the museum opened, with its specially built crate set up on low sawhorses in the middle of a room located amid the museum's many nondescript backstage corridors.

For security reasons, the Art Institute asks that visitors not photograph or describe the crates it builds for its art to travel in, and officials won't talk about such a work's travel arrangements beyond generalities: It was shipped to Chicago from London by airplane and arrived "this week," then spent acclimatization time in its crate.

On the walls surrounding the "Gothic" box hung a couple of Monets and a Toulouse-Lautrec waiting to be sent out. Using a cordless power drill, a worker removed the screws holding the crate's lid in place. Inside, in a bed of specially cut foam and wood for protection, lay the masterpiece that Grant Wood finished in 1930 and debuted at the 43rd annual Exhibition of American Painting and Sculpture at the Art Institute; it won a bronze prize, and museum donors immediately bought it for the Chicago institution (for less than $600, Oehler said), the same path to residing in Chicago followed more than a decade later by Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks."

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 20 Art Institute staff members Chris Shepherd, specialist for American art, left and Tim Roby, technician for American art, push a cart containing"American Gothic" from the basement to the gallery where it normally hangs at the Art Institute on June 8, 2017. Painter Grant Wood's famous painting has been on tour for several months buthas returned to the Chicago museum. (Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

"Gothic" was shipped home this week bearing hosannas from the Continent. "America after the Fall: Painting in the 1930s," with Wood's work as a kind of flagship, went up in Paris in October and London in February after a successful run last year at the Art Institute, where curator Judith Barter organized the exhibition.

"'America After the Fall' is not to be missed," said the Times of London. "For a start it brings us our first visit from the bald-pated, pitchfork-wielding farmer and his puritanical consort who provide the subject of Grant Wood's American Gothic  the most famous and frequently parodied image in 20th-century American art. You can't help but feel a flare of excitement as you meet these celebrities in person."

The reviewers also found echoes between the troubled America of the 1930s and the country today. The Guardian and the BBC were among those who also wrote specifically about the fame and meaning of "American Gothic."

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Part of the show's positive reception was due to American pre-World War II painters being little-known in Europe, Oehler theorized. "Gothic" has traveled in America and went once to Canada, in 1949, she said, but it hadn't been any farther.

Coaxed out of its crate, the midsized painting in the almost rustic, gold-tinted frame was placed flat on a nearby table, the man in the painting staring straight out, the woman, as ever, off toward something on the side. Conservator of Paintings Allison Langley examined the Condition Report that travels with the painting, filled out by an expert from each museum at each stop along the way.

"It's almost like a passport for the work," Langley explained.

With a small air bladder she blew along the bottom interior edge of the frame, where it meets the protective glazing, or glass, covering the image. With a cloth she wiped the dust that blew out and cleaned other spots on the glass.

Next she donned magnifying-glass headgear and, using a flashlight, examined the painting's surface in detail.

"So essentially we're looking for changes," said Oehler, whose title is Field-McCormick chair and curator of American Art. The two women talked in hushed tones over the work. The phrase "very solid" could be heard.

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It's a technical process, but it is not without emotion. Said Langley, "This is incredible for us to have it come home."

She pronounced it "good to go," and two specialists from the American art department moved in. Wearing blue plastic gloves, they lifted "American Gothic" and placed it on a dolly, leaning against a kind of wall. They then laid large cardboard sheets against the image side to protect it and hold it in place.

After two elevator rides, and a slight detour around a small forklift working in the Alsdorf Galleries of Asian art, "Gothic" was back in its home gallery.

There, the museum had hung a small wall card explaining the absence, which it does when its best-known works are traveling or otherwise off display. Oehler had chosen Peter Hurd's "El Mocho," a 1936 portrait of a guy who "looks like the Marlboro Man," she said, fitting in a gallery that shows mostly 1930s regionalist works leaning toward realism.

But "El Mocho's" time was over. The specialists made short work of swapping in the more famous painting. (How paintings are hung is another subject the museum likes to keep to itself.)

And as the artist's dentist and sister  his models for the old-fashioned farmer and his unwed daughter in the painting  stared back out again from their home wall, Oehler talked about the central question of "American Gothic," which was almost instantly controversial.

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East Coast critics saw it as confirmation of the heartland as "an outdated, severe place where no one has fun," she said. Meanwhile, Iowans who saw the image protested, "'No, this isn't actually how we live our lives. We use tractors. We don't look so severe'" Oehler said.

"I think it's in some ways both satire but also a loving, affectionate look at life in the Midwest, and Iowa in particular," she said. And one of the likely reasons for its renown, she added, is its inscrutability, its willingness to be read in whatever way the viewer chooses.

"Like 'Whistler's Mother,' it has the ability to become anything," she said. "You can do whatever you want to do to the painting."

One of those things includes putting it up on a wall again, then reattaching the label to the wall as if it had never been gone: "Grant Wood. American, 1891-1942. American Gothic. 1930. Oil on Beaver Board."

sajohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @StevenKJohnson

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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)
"I can make a much bigger impact on a scene from curating shows and getting people like me and very much unlike me on the stage," said musician, professor, writer and event organizer Lakshmi Ramgopal. "There's only so much I can do as a presence as the one woman of color on the bill, but there's a lot more I can do if I'm actually in charge of who's on a bill."

Ramgopal will test her music-curating skills with the launch of Ace of Cups, a two-part event that launches this month at Logan Square's Elastic Arts. Ramgopal, who performs as Lykanthea, aimed to create an event that is intentionally inclusive and representative of Chicago's eclectic and ever-expanding music scene. Most of the city's scene stays divided by genre and class, or geographically and racially. As a woman of color, Ramgopal wanted to curate an environment tackling that division head-on.

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"I think that Chicago has such a diverse music scene and so many different kinds of artists and so many people creating different kinds of things. But I just don't think there are enough curators," she said. "I think most of the curators in the city are white people, usually white men, but also white women. I've spent so many years publicly complaining about this that I decided, you know, I should actually do something about this."

The divisions within the city's music scene are rarely addressed. For most establishments, bookers, and artists, the musical divisions are an accepted fact of how Chicago has run and will continue to run. But Ramgopal is one of the few performers and curators actively speaking out and actually doing something about the booking practices that often leave marginalized artists behind. And after long periods of speaking out against widespread, discriminatory practices, Ramgopal has taken matters into her own hands.

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"I just don't see waiting on other people in the scene to make those kind of changes. I don't see waiting on white promoters and bookers and venue owners necessarily doing that," she said. "I want to hold myself accountable for the energy I put into criticizing these institutions."

Ace of Cups comes from a personal place for Ramgopal. On New Year's Day, Ramgopal pulled a tarot card for each season. "The overall spread was pretty intense," Ramgopal admits. But for spring, she pulled the Ace of Cups card. "It's actually one of my favorite cards because it's a really generous card about abundance and community and starting new things," she said. A fitting card, indeed.

Performers for Ace of Cups include local favorites Mykele Deville, Akenya, and Half Gringa. Each artist differs significantly from the other, such as Deville, whose vulnerable and fiery rap is a stark contrast to Half Gringa's Izzy Olive, who makes poignant tunes with a rustic, Midwestern twang. "I wanted to have them all in one place to create juxtapositions, even though I think they all intersect in really significant ways because they're all concerned with who they are and the mark they want to make based on their evolving identities," Ramgopal said.

In addition to the music, the lineup will include a reading by Jade T. Perry and tarot readings by Alia Ra'naa Walston. In a sense, the event will come full circle from Ramgopal's initial encounter with the Ace of Cups tarot card. "This isn't just about listening to music," she said. "This is about having a specific kind of emotional and psychological experience."

Britt Julious is a freelance writer.

onthetown@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @chitribent

When: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday

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Where: Elastic Arts, 3429 W. Diversey Ave.

Tickets: $5$10; http://win.gs/JuneChi

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Jason Hortin and Jacqueline Burnett in Georgia by Lou Conte, part of Hubbard Street Dances 40th anniversary celebration this weekend at Harris Theater. ( Hubbard Street / Todd Rosenberg photo )

In an emotional speech Wednesday night, Jason Palmquist, departing executive director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, told a story about Hubbard Street's Parkinson's Project. Palmquist described doctors telling him that Parkinson's disease does not so much compromise the patient's ability to move as undermine the voluntary decisions we all make to move through time and space.

Therefore, Palmquist said from the stage, the Hubbard Street dancers had been working to help Parkinson's patients come to movement through an involuntary impulse.

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You know. To move instinctively. Like a dancer.

Palmquist's words stuck with me Wednesday throughout the first performance of Hubbard Street's Summer Series at the Harris Theater, conceived for this weekend as a 40th anniversary celebration and reflecting work from every decade of Hubbard Street's existence. The program (Wednesday was slightly abbreviated) is set up roughly in reverse chronological order. Its impact, therefore, is not so much to show where Hubbard Street is going as whence it came. Early on in the night, there is the work of choreographers such as Crystal Pite and Lucas Crandall, active figures on today's Hubbard Street. The program ends with Lou Conte and "The 40s," a signature piece choreographed in 1978 and long noted for its good cheer.

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One can see the trajectory very much as reflecting the growth of the agency of the dancer.

In "The 40s," company dancers are consumed by the jazzy music, their limbs seemingly helpless to resist its impulses, which are optimistic and freeing of the human spirit. The dancer's bodies, you might say, are brought to life by something they cannot control.

Pite's "A Picture of You Falling," could not be more different: This is a work about the fragility of the human frame. It is not "A Picture of You Rising." Ultimately, it notes, we all move in one final direction. Toward the earth.

Survival of the dancer  and, by metaphor, all of us  depends on how much resistance we can muster over the years to this inevitable final collapse. "This is how it ends," says the voice in the piece. As you watch, you find yourself willing the dancers to stay upright. They feel like the last line of defense.

Seen next to Jim Vincent's "Palladio," "A Picture of You Falling" is a reminder of how much more empowered these dancers have become as the company has moved from Conte and Twyla Tharp to the work of Vincent, Pite and Alejandro Cerrudo, who gave Hubbard Street its first-ever full-evening work.

But even if Hubbard Street has explored the dancer's life and lot with remarkable frankness in recent years  for the record, an exploration of the health of the artist that has been an enormous service to its home city  all of this work of course, interacts with the involuntary dancers' impulses that Palmquist was talking about.

Agency and involuntary movement are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they represent the semiconscious gift of artistry and craft that teaches us all how to stay upright, avoid falling and keep on moving on.

CJones5@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @ChrisJonestrib

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago's Summer Series - 3.5 Stars

When: Through Sunday

Where: Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 200 E. Randolph St.

Tickets: $30-$102 at 312-850-9744 or www.hubbardstreetdance.com

Running time: 2 hours

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CHICAGO  Moises Martinez had never stepped foot on such a big stage when the spotlight shined on him for the first time at PrivateBank Theatre on Wednesday morning. He and two friends, Karim McIntosh and Juwan McClain, all juniors at DRW College Prep in Homan Square, needed a few rehearsals to get used to the space, the longtime home of Broadway in Chicago. But before long, they started to feel more comfortable.

"We were excited to perform," Martinez said. "And when it came to it, we just did the best we could."

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On May 31, about 2,000 high school students and teachers from 17 different Chicago Public Schools gathered downtown for a day of performance through the lens of history. The event was one of ten installments this year of the Hamilton Education Program, in which U.S. history students at low-income Title I public schools complete a week-long curriculum about Alexander Hamilton, the inspiration for the hit musical Hamilton, and then get to attend a performance of the show.

As part of the curriculum, each student crafts an original poem, skit or other piece of performance art set in the historic period when the show takes place. The spoken word poem that Martinez, McClain and McIntosh presented was one of 12 works chosen to be performed onstage in the morning, before a matinee production of Hamilton.

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Teachers participating in the program have access to teaching guides, video clips from the show, interviews with cast members and historians and a collection of essays and primary source documents, according to Director of Development for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Susan Zuckerman.

"The program started because Jeffrey Seller, the producer of Hamilton, and Lin Miranda had the vision of an education program for students who would not have access to the show," Zuckerman said.

Their goal is to reach 250,000 inner-city students over the course of five years, she added.

Together with the Gilder Lehrman Institute, Seller and Miranda developed a program that allows children to create their own Hamilton, incorporating research and historical artifacts to produce a work of art.

For Martinez, learning about history from textbooks doesn't often resonate with him personally.

"But once you start reading more into it, you realize that these were actual people fighting for their beliefs, fighting for what they thought was right," he said. "And it just blows me away thinking, 'I could know that person.' It could be any one of us who could write history."

In addition to its critical acclaim, Hamilton has sparked conversations about race and representation. Its cast, portraying the white Founding Fathers of the U.S., is made up almost entirely of minority actors. In a panel following the student performances, several ensemble members spoke about their experiences acting in the show.
A dance therapy group at Lincoln United Methodist Church in Pilsen provides a space for emotional expression for kids and teens whose family members and friends face the possibility of deportation. (Samantha Max/Chicago Tribune)

CHICAGO  When 13-year-old Katherine Carlin dances, the rest of the world melts away for a moment. All of the stress bubbling inside of her flows freely from her lanky limbs as she sways from side to side. Through a dance therapy group at her church, Katherine can channel her pent-up emotions into choreography.

"The dance, it helps show off your stress and everything that you want to show off without hurting anybody, but doing something that you're passionate about," she said.

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It hasn't always been easy for Katherine to find ways to alleviate her stress. Both of Katherine's parents are in this country illegally, and the fear that they might be taken away from her at a moment's notice weighs heavily on her. She suffers from depression and anxiety and has resorted to self-harm in the past. In fifth grade, she attempted suicide more than three times.

"I'm scared that one day when I come home, my parents  none of my parents are gonna be there," she said.

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Katherine Carlin, 13, fears that one day she will come home from school and her parents will not be there. (SAMANTHA MAX/HOY)

The uncertain fate of mixed-status families, in which one or both parents is in this country illegally while one or more children is a U.S. citizen, has caused distress among immigrants for decades. However, feelings of despair have heightened in recent months, since the election of President Donald Trump in November. Multiple sources reported that suicide hotlines had experienced a surge immediately after the results were announced. The charged anti-immigrant rhetoric and threat of widespread deportation that have dominated the national conversation since the election, often inspired by the president himself, have turned the lives of kids in mixed-status families upside down.

Nearly 6 million U.S. citizen children live with at least one family member in this country illegally, according to estimates from 2009-2013 census data. Between 2010 and 2012, ICE issued 200,000 deportation orders for immigrants with citizen children. For these kids, the threat of a loved one's deportation haunts them daily, impacting their schoolwork, their friendships and even their mental and physical health. A 2013 study by Human Impact Partners, an organization that aims to bring health research to policy debate, found that, at the height of deportations under the Obama administration in 2011-2012, the stress caused by fear of a family member's deportation puts kids and teens at a higher risk for poor mental health and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Harsh, inflexible immigration laws that threaten to tear families apart needlessly affect the health and well-being of children," said Lili Farhang, co-director of Human Impact Partners. "Those effects are physical, emotional and behavioral, and they can go on to last far longer than what the initial exposure might have been."

Rev. Emma Lozano of Lincoln United Methodist Church, the predominantly immigrant congregation in Pilsen that Katherine's family attends, created the dance therapy group as a space for stress reduction, in which participants could use movement as a means of expression. She explained that, for many of the kids and teens in mixed-status families in her parish, like Katherine, the dread of a parent's deportation can be crippling.

"The fear of having to live without a parent near you, or being alone, or just witnessing your parent being arrested and humiliated and then taken from you, and then having to figure out how you're going to fend for yourself has really put so much stress on some of the youth here," Lozano said.

'Living in fear'

On March 7, Britzy Lino waited nervously as her mother, Francisca, attended a routine meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an annual check-in that has become normal for the Lino family since Francisca's first supervision meeting 12 years ago. Lino was deported when she attempted to cross the Mexican border with the help of a coyote in 1999, but she returned several months later and has lived in the U.S. ever since. In 2001, she married American citizen Diego Lino, and the two now have six children, three together and three from respective previous relationships. All six are U.S. citizens.

Lino was arrested and informed that she would be deported during a hearing in 2005 when her husband applied for her legal residency. She was held in custody for four weeks. However, Lino was allowed to remain in the country as long as she attended regular check-ins with federal officials. But Britzy, 16, explained that things changed when Trump took office.

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At first, the March meeting seemed like any other visit. After speaking with the ICE officials, Francisca emerged with good news: She was free to stay in the country for yet another year. The family rejoiced outside of the federal building in Chicago. But as they prepared to leave, Francisca's husband received a call and nervously handed the phone to their lawyer. He told the Linos that Francisca had to go back inside.

The officials advised her that they had made a mistake. She would have to return on July 11 with a one-way ticket back to Mexico.

"My life just broke into pieces," Britzy said. "I started crying and couldn't control myself. I was  I didn't know what to say."

As Francisca Linos July 11 deportation date approaches, she and her family have to decide if they will split up or return as a family to Mexico. (SAMANTHA MAX/HOY)

The weeks since have been tough for Britzy. After suffering a panic attack at the ICE office the morning of her mother's check-in, she and her siblings started seeing a therapist, but stress looms over her. Even going to school has become a source of anxiety.

"I'm just living in fear," she said. "And I haven't been good with my school work. I don't want to go to school sometimes thinking about it. Like, what if I go to school today, and I come home, and my mom's not home, and I wasn't here to say goodbye or try to do something to stop it?"

Britzy isn't sure what will happen on July 11. Her family is considering taking sanctuary so that they can stay together in the U.S., but they're also weighing the possibility of moving the entire family back to Mexico. Britzy aspires to one day become a nurse, a dream that likely won't come to fruition if she doesn't finish high school and college in the U.S.

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"It's scary to think about," she said, "because, in one day, my life could just be over."

For now, Britzy's trying to live in the moment as best she can by spending time with loved ones. She likes to go out with her friends after class, though she avoids sleepovers, reluctant to be away from her mother for too long. Most days, Britzy is happy to just run errands or get a cup of coffee with Francisca.

"My mother and I are very close," she said.

Toxic stress in the face of uncertainty

According to researcher Lili Farhang, for kids whose parents face possible deportation, the most common mental health effects are stress, fear and anxiety. She noted that such feelings can also emerge as a result of exposure to heated immigration debates displayed in the media.

"Even if they haven't necessarily implemented many of those actions, the rhetoric of the administration is sort of sufficient enough to alter people's habits and behaviors," Farhang said.

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Dr. Julie Linton, a North Carolina pediatrician and co-chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Immigrant Health Special Interest Group, added that such prolonged exposure to serious stress, known as toxic stress, can harm developing brains and lead to negative impacts on short- and long-term health. She said that fear of a parent's deportation can result in issues with sleeping, eating and concentrating as well as mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. In the long term, it can lead to heart disease, diabetes and substance abuse. For each child, toxic stress manifests itself in slightly different ways.

"I had one little child come in who described nightmares that his parents would disappear or be taken away while he was sleeping," she said. Another patient started having panic attacks in school. "She lived with a single mom and worried that if her mother would be deported, she would be placed in foster care."

According to Linton, kids, especially young children, don't fully comprehend the circumstances surrounding their parents' immigration status.

"But when their parents are scared, they're scared too," she said. "And that threatens their health."

Isolated and afraid

John Gutierrez doesn't have many people to talk to about his father's upcoming check-in with ICE in June. He's 16, and he hasn't told any of his friends at school about his family's situation.

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"If I try to talk to them, they probably wouldn't really understand what I'm going through," he said. "They wouldn't really know what to say about it."

John Gutierrez, 16, has not told any of his friends about his fathers possible deportation. (SAMANTHA MAX/HOY)

John hopes to graduate from high school and go to college, but if either of his parents, both of whom are in this country illegally, were to be deported, he would have to start working to provide for his family. He tries to stay positive and focus on the support he receives from his church and his community. It's not always easy, though.

"If they were to leave, then maybe I wouldn't be able to finish school," he said. "I would have to take over and try to help my mom, my dad. And so, it's difficult. It's scary at the same time."

Ticking clock on immigration reform

According to Steve Cortes, a member of Trump's Hispanic Advisory Council, the administration hopes to carry out comprehensive immigration reform. However, he noted that such policies, which most likely would not be implemented until at least 2018, would come too late for kids whose family members currently face the possibility of deportation, like Britzy and John.

"They can't wait for our political calendar," he noted.

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Cortes explained that he planned to fight for a humane, though thorough, process for immigrants in this country illegally to attain legal status, expressing his sympathy for their children.

"The idea that any family would be broken up is terrible, right? Under any circumstances. So I have enormous empathy for that and particularly for the kids," he said. But, he added, "the adults chose to stay here illegally. I don't have as much sympathy on that side of it, frankly."

Cortes said that he hadn't heard any stories about citizen children being separated from their parents who are in the country illegally. He assumed that such cases must be "extremely rare."

"But again, that doesn't ease the pain among them," he added.

For the 5.9 million American citizen children living with relatives in this country illegally, the threat of a family member's deportation is a constant, even urgent source of stress.

An alternate form of therapy

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Lozano encourages kids like Katherine, John and Britzy to get involved with the church rather than succumb to such worry and fear. She explained that her ministry engages regularly in activism and also provides a range of resources for its mixed-status families. In times of uncertainty, her congregants stand together in solidarity.

"It's been a great way for them to express themselves and speak amongst themselves and build that unity and support that they need  family to family, young person to young person," she said.

Many of those kids and teens have come together through dance.

At Mother's Day Mass, Katherine, her two younger sisters and several other members of the dance therapy group assembled in front of the congregation  a formation of varying heights and ages, each with her own unique style. As "They Don't Care About Us" by Michael Jackson blasted from the speakers, the seven girls marched to the beat, and rhythmic clapping filled the sunlit sanctuary.

In the second row, Katherine waved her arms and mouthed the words to the song. Her curly, light-brown ponytail bounced from side to side and she waved her arms with the music. At times, her eyes focused intently in front of her, concentrating carefully on each movement. But during the final chorus, she caught the gaze of another dancer, and the corners of her lips tilted upward into a grin, her eyes now sparkling.

"You just put all of your feelings towards the dancing," she said, "and you just try your best and hope everybody sees it."

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Laura Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Larodriguez@hoyll.com
LGBTQ rights, safety and "full humanity" will be the focus Sunday of The Equality March for Unity and Pride in Washington, D.C., an event that is being echoed with similar marches and rallies around the world, including in Illinois.

A rally is scheduled for Chicago, while in Frankfort, Ill., a village roughly 60 miles southwest of the city in Will County, a rally and march are planned.

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"Mobilizing LGBTQ+ communities, our loved ones and our allies  with particular focus on those who have been actively silenced and neglected  in the fight to affirm and protect our rights, our safety and our full humanity," is the goal of the Washington march, according to the event website. (Use of the + sign is one way individuals and groups are signaling awareness that there are a number of communities included under the LGBTQ umbrella besides lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.)

The marches and rallies also will feature observances of the first-year anniversary of the June 12, 2016, attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, where a gunman killed 49 people, the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

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The Chicago Equality Rally will take place at 11 a.m. Sunday during the popular Andersonville Midsommarfest at the intersection of North Clark Street and West Balmoral Avenue. It is being billed as "a gathering of celebration, solidarity and mobilization to affirm and protect all members of the LGBTQ community's rights, safety, and full humanity."

"Speakers and performers will promote visibility, unity and pride," according to a news release from the Andersonville Chamber of Commerce, which is co-hosting the event.

Fawzia Mirza, an actor, writer and producer, is slated to be emcee at the rally, which will feature remarks from leaders of organizations active in the LGBTQ community, performances and appearances by elected officials.

Andersonville Midsommarfest will also donate $1 from each gate donation Sunday to three organizations, Equality Illinois, Center on Halsted and Ava's Change4Youth, according to the news release.

Meanwhile, in Frankfort, a group called Southwest Suburban Activists is sponsoring a rally, march and performance, beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday at Breidert Green Park.

The group began with the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, according to a news release, and members have "worked together to bring tolerance, empathy and solidarity to the Frankfort area." The group held a Women's March on International Women's Day, a vigil for Syrian refugees and a Nasty Woman Art Exhibit in Kankakee, Ill. The group predicts Sunday's Equality March will be the biggest event yet, with a turnout of 250 people expected.

"The Federal Government is turning their back on the LGBTQ+ community and the Southwest Suburban Activists will not stand for it," the group said in the news release. "This event is an opportunity to show support for the LGBTQ+ community and also to reach out to the youth in the area who may be feeling uncertain about where they stand in our current political climate. We demand equality for all."

"We are thrilled to be a part of this global movement," said organizer Emily Biegel. "Frankfurt was chosen because I live here, and it is my most fervent goal to make our community more inclusive."

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Biegel said the rally and march are ways to "show pride in our community, show pride in the LGBT community."

After the rally, there will be a march in downtown Frankfort. Details are available on the group's Facebook page.

The marches and rallies occur on the eve of the one-year mark since the tragic shooting at Pulse nightclub, and "aim to honor the victims and uplift the resilience of the Orlando LGBTQ+ community," according to the Washington march's website.

Chicago's rally will include a moment of silence for the Pulse anniversary, said Joelle Scillia, Andersonville Chamber of Commerce marketing director.

A separate event Monday marking the Pulse shooting is being planned by Center on Halsted, Chicago's LGBTQ center. This community vigil service is called "Pulse: One Year Later" and will take place 6-7 p.m. outside the center at 3656 N. Halsted St. A candlelight vigil will include speeches, performance and the tolling of a bell for each of the 49 victims, according to the center's news release.

The Frankfort rally, Biegel said, also will include a "remembrance or acknowledgment" of the first anniversary of the Pulse attack.

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Other Equality March-themed events are taking place Sunday in nearby Midwestern cities, including Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Madison, Wis. For a full list of participating cities and towns, go to the Equality March's website.

wdaley@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @billdaley

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Former FBI Director James Comey's testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Thursday changed my opinion about Donald Trump.

I am now convinced that Trump is not as clueless as some people think. In fact, he is deviously clever.

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The president knew exactly what he was doing when he invited the FBI chief to a private dinner at the White House and asked him to pledge his loyalty. And on Valentine's Day, when the president asked Comey to stay behind in the Oval Office, Trump was clearing the way for what he knew was an inappropriate conversation.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions surely realized what was going on. That's why he was reluctant to leave. So did Trump's son-in-law andadviser, Jared Kushner, who also lingered behind until the president excused him from the room.

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Trump wanted the investigation into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contact with the Russians to end. And he went straight to the man in charge to tell him to drop it.

Behind that closed door by the grandfather clock, Trump made his move. It will be up to others to decide whether he tried to obstruct justice.

Before the televised hearing, it was easy to dismiss Trump's conversations with Comey as the actions of a novice president, someone who naively believed that he could carry practices used in the corporate world over to the public sector.

It is not uncommon in the business world for a boss to demand loyalty from employees. And some would argue that Trump might have innocently considered his interaction with Comey as the equivalent to requiring top-level employees to sign a confidentiality agreement.

I don't buy it. Not anymore.

Trump's demands to Comey were well thought out and deliberate.

The president was smart enough to know that he couldn't verbally give Comey a direct order. He knew that by being vague, his comments would be open to interpretation. If this conversation ever came to light, as he likely suspected it could, his supporters would have room for a defense.

So he used phrases like "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go," and terms like "lift the cloud."

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Comey knew exactly what the president meant. So do we.

From the moment he won the presidency, Trump had been insecure about where he stood with the American people. Facing mounting suspicions that he had formed an alliance with Russia to cheat on American democracy, he set out to clear his name.

He needed someone with a stellar background to vouch for him, someone who had the power to put an end to those ugly rumors about Russia once and for all. He needed Comey on his team.

Comey was a dedicated FBI man, well respected and nonpartisan. Everyone didn't always agree with his decisions, but underneath, we knew he was an upstanding man.

If Trump could get Comey to pledge loyalty to him, the president would be free to run the country anyway he saw fit, not beholden to any laws.

Comey made it clear for the record Thursday that the Russians interfered with the presidential election in an attempt to get Trump elected. What we still don't know is whether Trump or anybody on his team collaborated with the Russians to make that happen.

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But what troubled Trump most wasn't that the Russians made an assault on our democracy; it's that the probe left a cloud of suspicion hanging over his presidency.

For Trump, that's all that really mattered.

He may have truly believed that Flynn, whom he reluctantly fired for lying about his conversations with the Russians, is a good guy. But Trump wasn't thinking about Flynn when he told Comey to "let this go."

Trump was considering only what this ongoing investigation meant for Donald Trump.

On three occasions, for reasons Comey did not clearly explain, he told the president that he was not personally the target of any investigation. That was a mistake on Comey's part, and it gave Trump ammunition to keep pushing for more.

Trump would not be satisfied until Comey said publicly what he had told him privately. He needed the world to know that he was not being investigated and that, in effect, he was an excellent president.

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We already knew that Trump only cares about Trump. We should be grateful that Comey took detailed notes. Otherwise, we might never have known how cunning our president is.

dglanton@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @dahleeng
MISSOULA  The U.S. Forest Services proposed 2018 budget presents its public and private observers with lots of rebuilding work to do.

On Wednesday, Montanas Democratic and Republican senators both challenged Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell to replace or re-energize programs slashed in President Donald Trumps preliminary budget plan. And more locally, Forest Service partners have started bracing for dramatic losses of funding.

This budget is a wreck, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, told Tidwell during a hearing before the Senate Interior Appropriations Committee. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, pressed Tidwell for stronger efforts to get national forest timber into local sawmills and maintain trails and roads.

Trumps budget proposes $4.7 billion for the Forest Service in fiscal 2018. Committee Chairwoman Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, noted the request was $880 million less than 2017, not counting a $342 million omission of supplemental wildfire funding Congress had added last year.

Congress has never looked too close at a presidents proposed budget since Reagan, said Julia Altemus of the Montana Wood Products Association. The secretary of agriculture (which oversees the Forest Service) doesnt even have his staff in place yet. The budget is going to be obviously less, and the Forest Service is going to have to figure out how to do more with less. Were going to have a culture shift.

A lot of cultures in Montana could feel direct effects of those proposals. The presidents budget calls for elimination of the $40 million Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), which has delivered several million dollars worth of work to the Southwest Crown of the Continent Collaborative in Montana. That got noticed by Gordy Sanders of Pyramid Mountain Lumber Co. in Seeley Lake, which is a major player in that collaborative.

A lot of industry folks will be weighing in to help balance that out, Sanders said. The CFLRP has accomplished a lot of great work for wildlife habitat, fisheries, legacy roads and some vegetation management and fuels reduction projects. It also expires in three years. Whether it would be extended down the road is very hard to tell.

It might also hit the Montanas scientific communities hard.

In Missoula, youre looking at significant cuts in Forest Service research spending, said Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Responsibility. That includes the Joint Fire Science Research budget that gets zeroed out. The one place thats not cut is inventory and monitoring  counting trees. We will just stop studying them.

State and Private Forestry spending takes a 50 percent cut, and loses 21 percent of its personnel. The Forest Services Landscape Scale Restoration program gets eliminated, saving $14 million. Likewise the Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program ($2 million), and Urban and Community Forestry ($28 million).

We run a number of financial, educational and technical assistance programs that make grants to landowners for hazardous fuels reduction and forest restoration on private land, said Angela Wells, stewardship program manager for the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. All of that funding is passed down through the Forest Services State and Private Forestry and Landscape-Scale Restoration programs. Montana has received about $3 million since 2008, when those programs started.

Wells said those dollars have had a big impact in eastern Montana, where theyve helped small towns maintain or protect trees on public parks and streets.

It may be just $500 or $5,000, but they leverage small amounts to make dramatic improvements, Wells said. East of the divide, theres a lot of green ash trees that are vulnerable to emerald ash borer. That money paid for inventories that establish how old their forests are and what succession plans they have in place. It helps for figuring out where to reduce hazard trees or plant new trees.

In Montana, the Forest Services $62 million Forest Legacy Program pays for conservation easements and purchases of former corporate timberlands that might be taken out of the timber base for urban development. Wells said examples include the recent easements on Trumbull Creek and Haskill Basin near Whitefish, which kept nearby forests available for both recreation and logging. The 2018 proposal eliminates that program.

Capital improvement and maintenance takes a 73 percent cut, from $363 million to $99 million. Deferred maintenance and infrastructure improvement and legacy roads and trails work would be completely turned off, for a savings of $43 million. The facilities program would drop 84 percent, from $59 million to $11.7 million. Thats the budget line that administers and maintains recreational and administrative facilities like ranger stations.

Trails work would drop 84 percent from $64.6 million to $12.7 million to maintain a staff level to address public safety needs according to the Forest Service budget document. Despite the funding reduction, the agencys performance target 2018 is the same as 2017: 55,000 miles of trail maintained and 1,300 miles improved.

Roads work would drop 56 percent from $171.7 million to $75 million, despite the agencys own analysis that it has a nearly $3 billion backlog of deferred maintenance on its 370,000-mile road network.

In his comments to Tidwell, Tester warned those cuts hinted at a larger policy threat.

There is a move in this country to sell our public lands, to privatize public lands, Tester told Tidwell. As we dont have access to trails, as roads arent being done, as trees arent being managed, it gives more ammunition to those shortsighted people who want to do away with our public land  who want to sell it. Keep that in mind.

No new money is allocated for land acquisitions in 2018. The program has been reduced from $63.4 million to $7 million, mainly to maintain staff to complete deals already underway. That includes the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

While many in the conservation community have decried the near-elimination of the Land and Water Conservation Fund from $450 million to $64 million, Montana Wildlife Federation Director Dave Chadwick saw a more subtle move coming. The fund has enjoyed strong bipartisan support over its 40-year existence. But recently some senators have proposed redirecting its dollars from land acquisition to maintenance and management of existing lands.

Everyone on the Hill said the presidents budget was dead on arrival, Chadwick said. But the thing that jumped out at me as troubling is this legislative language to change the LWCF. Thats a strong signal of a policy proposal the administration intends to pursue.

Forest products, including timber and firewood, would see no change from the previous $359 million allocation in 2017. However, it assumes an increase in the volume of timber sold from 2.9 billion board-feet to 3.2 billion board-feet. The budget document said it will continue stewardship contracting, but it doesnt specify an amount.

We cant get logs to the mills  it's a sad, sad state of affairs and it is because of these extreme environmental groups who are litigating many of our sales that we have right now in Montana, Daines told Tidwell. We arent taking care of the forest  then we see them burn. We can reduce the wildfire risk, as we know, by actively managing our forests.

Daines used the session to press for a bill he and Tester have introduced to overturn a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision requiring extensive inter-agency cooperation on Endangered Species Act decisions.

It would be one thing if we just needed to re-initiate consultation  wed be glad to be able to do that, Daines reported Tidwell saying. Our folks are working through that now, but the way this court decision came down  is it creates a continuous procedural loop and so they were never done.

Daines also asked for more support for the Secure Rural Schools program as a way of getting more federal revenue to county governments that arent receiving timber receipts. Trumps budget does not mention Secure Rural Schools, Daines noted.

I've been up here every year talking about the need to increase the pace and scale of restoration to be able to maintain and restore our nation's forests, so there's no question we need to do that part, Tidwell replied. I want to work with you to find ways to also provide some certainty, you know, for counties.

Zeroing out budget lines isnt the only worry. At DNRC, Wells said partial cuts can neuter a program.

An 8 (percent) or 11 percent reduction means the difference between that program continuing or being eliminated, Wells said. You cant afford to have the program if you whittle it down below a certain threshold. Im not convinced the people who voted for this administration knew these things were going to happen, Wells said. These are important to people across the political spectrum.
Surveillance photos show a man who robbed a Chase Bank branch, 550 S. Dearborn St. in Chicago, about 11:30 a.m. on June 8, 2017. (Surveillance photos via the FBI)

A man robbed a bank in the South Loop on Thursday morning, according to the FBI.



The robbery occurred about 11:30 a.m. at a Chase Bank at 550 S. Dearborn St., the FBI said. Authorities did not release any details about the robbery.

The robber was described as white, in his late 50s to early 60s, standing about 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-9, with black hair and gray-and-black facial hair.

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Surveillance photos show him wearing a T-shirt with a Geek Squad logo.

Anyone with information can call the Chicago office of the FBI at 312-421-6700.

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Check back for updates.
A woman is suing her south suburban plastic surgeons after they allegedly posted before-and-after photos of her breast augmentation surgery on their website without her consent.

In her lawsuit filed Wednesday in Cook County Circuit Court, the woman says she has a "highly distinctive freckle pattern on her chest which is highly recognizable by friends and family" and has been "humiliated" by the release of the photos, suffering "intense fear that her close family members" would discover them.

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The defendant is identified only as "Jane Doe." Her attorney, Kevin O'Brien, said the woman, a mother in her mid-40s who lives in the Chicago area, was "shocked" to find her photos online after she "specifically refused" permission for Dr. Rajendra Shah and his son Dr. Samir Shah to use the images for marketing purposes.

The surgeons removed the images from their A New You Plastic Surgery website after O'Brien and his client reached out, O'Brien said. Like many plastic surgeons, the two use before-and-after photos on their website as a promotional tool.

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In 2015, the woman went to the surgeons' Orland Park office for a consultation about tummy tuck and breast augmentation surgery and signed a waiver allowing photographs to be taken for medical use, according to the lawsuit.

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That same day, she was given a consent form to allow the surgeons to use the photos for public advertising but crossed out that section and wrote she did not give her consent, according to the lawsuit. She also told Rajendra Shah she did not agree to have the photos used in that way, according to the lawsuit.

Rajendra Shah then took photos of her exposed torso on an iPhone, the lawsuit says. Photos were later taken of the same areas after the surgical procedure in June 2015, the lawsuit says.

Despite her refusal to consent, before-and-after photos were posted on the surgeons' website sometime after December 2015, according to the lawsuit. O'Brien said they were up for nearly a year before his client discovered them.

The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages for violating Illinois' privacy law and for negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Rajendra Shah could not be reached late Wednesday.

sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
Two teens, each of them not 130 pounds, walked down Troy Street toward 47th and stopped next to a van where a man was talking through the window to his girlfriend and kids.



The weather was beautiful and they talked of going to the park. Up the street, a few kids were out front with their parents and grandparents.



One of the teens, a boy in dark gray and a black hat, asked the man what he was "about," or what gang he belonged to, according to police and several witnesses.



"I'm with my kids," the man told him.



The teen turned to the other and said, "Shoot that n-----, shoot that n-----."



"I'm with my kids," the man repeated. His girlfriend made the same plea: "He's with his kids."



But the other teen, who looked the younger of the two, raised a pistol and shot the man in the forehead. The man fell to the ground and the teen stood over him and fired two more times, police and witnesses said.



The man's 2-year-old son cried but his 5-month-old daughter didn't register what happened. The girlfriend kept screaming, "Wake up, wake up."



Her aunt rushed the kids inside, where she tried to calm the 2-year-old, who remained hysterical nearly an hour after the shooting Thursday afternoon in the 4600 block of South Troy Street in the Brighton Park neighborhood.



In the home, a kids' cartoon was on TV, loud enough to be heard outside.



A neighbor walked up the block to see what happened. He moved the man's head to see if he was responsive, then stepped back, made the sign of the cross and walked back home. His girlfriend asked him to do something and he shook his head.



The man on the ground appeared dead, but paramedics rushed him to Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he was initially listed in critical condition with wounds to the head, shoulder and back, according to police.

He later died. He was identified as Isaac Reed, 25, of the 1500 block of South Austin Boulevard in Cicero, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. No one was reported in custody.



Neighbors who talked to the Tribune asked that their names not be used because of the fear of living in the neighborhood. They did not want to draw attention to themselves.

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All of them described the erosion of a sense of community over the years as their neighborhood has grown more violent. The violence has become more frequent and intense as a gang conflict from neighboring Back of the Yards grew into Brighton Park and gangs have used rifles, wounding dozens over the last year.



"Right now, everybody is scared," said the man who attended to the victim. "Nobody on this block is going to let their kids go outside unless they're outside with them, and they're not going to let them out of their sight. No bikes, no park, because of the bull----."



Another neighbor, Olivia, described the problem parents have been facing over the last few years.



"Either you have your kid in the house, or you let them go outside and they join a gang," Olivia said. "We kept ours in the house."



For years, Olivia said she has organized the 4600 South Troy Avenue block party. She gathers signatures and files the paperwork. The tradition is one that children look forward to.



She gave instructions to others on the block to pull the permit, if they wanted, but nobody has yet. "It's too dangerous. I don't want something to happen," she said. "I don't want that on my conscience."



She and other neighbors call the police on the relatively minor transgressions  suspicious cars, drug sales  but the police seem unresponsive to their calls until something major happens.



Juanita sat on her porch with her husband, an American flag hanging from a flagpole and another on the front door. Her contribution to the block party is coffee, homemade pastries, juice for kids. Last Fourth of July, she rolled out a popcorn machine and hot dog cart.



"I've been a community person since I can remember," she said. She's considered the block's grandmother. "The block parties were good because in the winter the neighbors rarely see each other. They were a good time to catch up."

As officers worked, parents walked their kids home from an elementary school around the corner. Students in Chicago Public Schools khakis and blue polo shirts walked from Columbia Explorers Academy a few blocks away.



A boy lugging a green backpack was warned by two older women on the block: Go inside, lock your doors, stay away from the windows.



"And if I see you in the window," one woman warned, "I'm going to call your mom."



More than a dozen kids live on the block, but they all stayed inside when they got home.
House Speaker Michael Madigan talks to the media May 31, 2017, at the Capitol in Springfield. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

Welcome to Clout Street: Morning Spin, our weekday feature to catch you up with what's going on in government and politics from Chicago to Springfield. Subscribe here.

Topspin

The Illinois House on Thursday will hold its first budget hearing since leaving Springfield last week, a move by Democrats led by Speaker Michael Madigan designed to ratchet up the pressure on Republicans led by Gov. Bruce Rauner to cut a deal.

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Lawmakers are expected to take testimony in Chicago from people who say they have been hurt by cuts made during the state's historic budget impasse, including those who rely on substance abuse services, programs for the disabled and elderly, and HIV treatment.

The hearing is the first of several expected to take place this month, and it is reminiscent of similar panels House Democrats held throughout summer 2015. That's when Rauner vetoed an out-of-balance spending plan Democrats sent him. Illinois has operated without a complete budget ever since as the governor pushes for various economic and political changes as part of a deal.

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Rep. Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who heads the committee, said the stories of woe may sound familiar, but it's important to focus on "the human toll that continues to climb." He said much has changed in recent months, pointing to several changes pushed by Rauner that Democrats approved, including rules to make it easier for local governments to consolidate and an overhaul of state purchasing rules.

Harris said Rauner's list of demands, including term limits, would have little effect on the budget and services the state can provide.

"If you have a child who is struggling with opioid addiction and has lost their treatment, yeah, term limits and local consolidation will answer all your problems," Harris said.

House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs said the hearings are an attempt to generate headlines critical of Rauner and the GOP, contending those who are scheduled to testify are being used as "human shields."

"This is nothing more than lip service, they are not negotiating," Durkin said. "Going down this same path doesn't solve the problem at hand. We've had enough hearings."

Because lawmakers blew past their May 31 adjournment deadline to pass a budget, it will now take more votes to put a spending plan in place. That means Republicans would have to join in on a solution, including the possibility of an income tax hike to help dig out of the red.

The next key pressure point to have a spending plan in place is July 1, the start of the new budget year. (Monique Garcia)

What's on tap

*Mayor Rahm Emanuel will announce which groups are getting $3.2 million in developer fee funds (see "From the Notebook.")

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*Gov. Rauner wil appear at an Amazon jobs announcement in Romeoville, at his "Children's Cabinet" meeting at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, and at the Japan America Society of Chicago annual dinner in the Loop.

From the notebook

*Emanuel to dole out developer money: Mayor Emanuel is set Thursday to name the first recipients of payments from the "Neighborhood Opportunity Fund" as he tries to rebuild support in the city's African-American community.

The fund has collected $3.2 million from real estate developers who paid up in exchange for being allowed to put up bigger buildings in and around downtown, Emanuel said during a speech introducing city Planning Commissioner David Reifman on Wednesday at the City Club.

The city will announce bonus payments of around $100,000 to 32 businesses and property owners on the West, Southwest and South sides to help spur development in struggling neighborhoods. The money is "generally" meant to go toward "new construction or the rehabilitation of existing buildings" in projects that "lead to the development of new commercial spaces or cultural establishments," according to the city application for funds.

"As there is growth in our central business district, it becomes the seed capital for restaurants, grocery stores, cultural institutions that make up landmarks in our neighborhood economy throughout the city of Chicago," Emanuel said Wednesday.

The mayor set up a panel to review applications and make recommendations of who should get the money, but he ultimately gets to pick where the funds go.

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Asked about concerns the money will turn into a political slush fund of sorts for Emanuel to reward supporters and try to build new alliances, Reifman said there's a clear process in place. "It's not politics. These are areas we identified through objective criteria in advance  qualified investment areas  and we are picking projects that seem to have those types of criteria based on the funds we have available today, spread throughout many of those areas," he said. (John Byrne)

What we're writing

*The problem with appeals: The second part of a property taxes investigation.

*Trump's Justice Department: No agreement with City Hall on Chicago Police Department reform.

*ACLU: Emanuel's police agreement with Trump administration 'a non-starter.'

*Federal judge tells state to figure out how to pay doctors more quickly.

*Chicago attorney faces hearing for No. 2 Health and Human Services post.

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*Former Lake County cororner's one-time campaign foe joins the defense team in his perjury case.

What we're reading

*50 Illinois companies land on annual Fortune 500 list.

*United bumpings fall 79 percent following passenger-dragging incident.

*Is owning a home still essential to the American Dream?

Follow the money

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*Track Illinois campaign contributions in real time here and here.

Beyond Chicago



*Comey's prepared testimony says Trump asked for loyalty.

*Republicans revolt in Kansas.

*Islamic State claims attack in Iran.

*UK contenders trade blows on last day of election.
WASHINGTON  After fired FBI Director James Comey's explosive testimony Thursday, Illinois Democrats expressed outrage as one urged a House panel to launch an probe with the potential to trigger President Donald Trump's impeachment.

The prospect of an impeachment could be a long shot in a Republican-controlled Congress, where House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that Trump is "just new to this."

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Still, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, said allegations about disruption of U.S. elections and possible obstruction of justice necessitated a committee probe by the House Judiciary Committee, on which he sits.

"The (former) head of the FBI called the president a liar today," Gutierrez said. "If he lied to the head of the FBI, why should we believe he's not lying to the American public and everyone else?"

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Only the House Judiciary committee may begin impeachment proceedings. Rep. Brad Schneider, a Democrat from Deerfield, sits on the same committee but believes talk about impeachment is premature. "We should follow the facts wherever they lead us," Schneider said.

No Illinoisan is on the Senate intelligence committee, which heard from Comey on Thursday in a long, high-profile hearing and later behind closed doors. But a handful have supporting roles in the evolving drama. Away from the hot lights of the committee room, they caught the testimony any way they could manage  on phones, laptops or TVs, or via briefings by aides.

Rep. Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat on the House intelligence committee, is eager for his chance to question Comey. Quigley has been immersed in that panel's probe of possible collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives amid the foreign meddling in the 2016 election.

He was stuck Thursday in an Appropriations committee meeting, catching the end of the spectacle on his office TV with aides.

Comey's testimony "revealed key details about his interactions with President Trump, including that the President directed him to back off an active investigation into General Michael Flynn; demanded his loyalty; and repeatedly complained about the looming 'cloud' created by the Russian investigation," Quigley said in a statement.

No House Republicans from Illinois are on the congressional panels now in the spotlight. But Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Channahon is a national security hawk who has long cast a suspicious eye toward Russia.

"The continued meddling by Russia is unacceptable and damaging to our democracy," Kinzinger said in a statement. "Today's hearing is important in getting all correct information out there and I look forward to learning more."

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Schaumburg Democrat, sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform committee. He said that panel is focused on unreported contacts between Trump associates and foreign agents and overseas payments made to Flynn, a retired three-star Army general, that he did not flag in advance to the Pentagon.

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Krishnamoorthi questioned whether a Trump tweet saying Comey better hope there are no "tapes" of their conversations constituted intimidation. "I was chuckling," he added, "when Mr. Comey said, 'Lordy, I hope there are tapes.'"

Like Schneider, Krishnamoorthi thought it was too soon to talk impeachment. But he said he found Comey "very credible," particularly because he kept detailed memos. "And it's really striking that he says that he has to do this because he feared that the White House would misinterpret or lie about their interactions with him," he added.

Rep. Robin Kelly, a Matteson Democrat also on the oversight panel, noted its GOP members have refused to allow a hearing with Comey or any other witness. "It's important that Congress handle its business and get to the bottom of this matter immediately," she said in a statement.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said after Comey's testimony that no person, not even the president, should try to influence or stop a criminal investigation.

He is on the Senate Judiciary committee, which also is examining Comey's ouster and potential Trump campaign coordination with Russians. "The question for the American people is: Who do you trust?" Durbin said in a statement. Comey "kept extensive records of what the President asked of him, and agreed to testify publicly under oath. That speaks volumes."

kskiba@chicagotribune.com

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A federal judge on June 6, 2017, heard arguments over wheather Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, seen here on March 31, 2017, should be required to prioritize payments to some Medicaid providers during the state's budget standoff. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

A federal judge Wednesday ordered Comptroller Susana Mendoza to make a "substantial" dent in a $2 billion backlog of bills owed to Medicaid providers in order to keep doctors and hospitals from cutting off care for the low-income families that rely on the program.

The ruling came in response to complaints from patients who said the state was falling behind on the payments as it tries to manage its cash flow in the midst of a nearly two-year budget impasse in Springfield. Mendoza's office conceded in a filing with the court that the comptroller had prioritized payments for other expenses like state employee salaries, pension contributions and debt service  which are written into state law or required by state courts  over the Medicaid bills.

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U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow said in her ruling that "although the court means no disrespect to the comptroller, who faces an unenviable situation," putting state-mandated payments ahead of the Medicaid bills was a violation of federal consent decrees and court orders designed to ensure that poor people in Illinois have access to care.

Lefkow ordered the lawyers for the state and those representing Medicaid recipients to get together and "negotiate with the goal of achieving substantial compliance with the consent decrees." The judge gave them until June 20 to reach a deal. She noted that the patients are not seeking immediate payment of the pile of unpaid bills, just payments that would be "sufficient to sustain the services to members of the classes."

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"This is a reasonable position," the judge said.

Whatever the two sides decide is likely to force Mendoza to cut back on payments for other expenses, which could put her crosswise with state law and state courts and further delay other state payments at a time when Illinois is already sitting on $14.9 billion in unpaid bills.

In an affidavit filed with the court before the ruling, Assistant Comptroller Kevin Schoeben said that 90 percent of the money that comes into the state's main checking account is being spent on a "core priority category" that includes paying down state debt and making pension contributions, in addition to spending on elementary and high schools, paying state employee salaries and sending money to local governments. Debt payments, pension contributions and distributions to local governments are required under state law. A state court order requires state employee salaries to be paid in full and on time. Spending on elementary and high schools was approved by lawmakers and Gov. Bruce Rauner last year, but even those payments are behind by more than $1 billion.

The comptroller's office tries to spread the remaining 10 percent around. Mendoza said in a statement that her office would continue working with the lawyers who represent the Medicaid patients.

"The lack of a budget for the last two years has created a situation in which we now have more court-ordered and state-mandated payments than we have revenues to cover them," Mendoza said. "The real solution to this crisis is a comprehensive budget plan passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor. Now."

The ruling came as ratings agencies have been warning that the state's debt could be officially demoted to junk status if the budget impasse isn't solved by July 1, the start of the new financial year.

Also on Wednesday, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability projected that the state's pile of unpaid bills could reach a record $23 billion if the two-year stalemate between Rauner and Democrats who control the General Assembly is allowed to continue for a third year.

kgeiger@chicagotribune.com

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Illinois House lawmakers spent Thursday listening to people who've been affected by the ongoing budget stalemate, a public display meant to put pressure on Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has dismissed such hearings as a "sham."

The hearing in Chicago was the first since the Democrat-controlled legislature left town last week unable to agree on sending the Republican governor a spending plan.

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Speaking out were parents of disabled children, providers of services for sexual assault and domestic violence victims, people who receive services for substance abuse and mental illness, immigrant advocates and child health workers  all of whom complained that the lack of a state budget has caused instability and hardship in their lives.

"We are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and family members who can't sleep at night because the state has virtually abandoned our loved ones," said Kathy Hansen, an Elmhurst mother whose son with cerebral palsy relies on a state-subsidized program that provides assisted living for disabled adults.

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Joyce Coffee, who directs Family Rescue, a South Side organization that helps victims of domestic violence, said her not-for-profit had spent its reserves and was drawing on a line of credit to keep its doors open in the midst of the two-year budget stalemate.

"We have chosen deliberately to remain in operation because the alternative is that there would be few if any services for those thousands of victims," Coffee said. "We are saying to you that we are subsidizing the lack of decision-making at the state level. We can no longer afford to do that."

The testimony came as concerns about the state's financial health are rising. With the state sitting on a nearly $15 billion pile of unpaid bills, a federal court ruling directing the state to start paying down $2 billion in backlogged medical bills shook investors and tanked Illinois' bond prices. And ratings agencies are expected to downgrade the state's debt to junk status if a budget deal can't be reached by the end of the month.

While the complaints from the service providers and the people who rely on state services were delivered to lawmakers, the real target was Rauner, who many in the social services community regard as the cause of the budget holdup. Some even directed their testimony at him.

"Gov. Rauner, the consequences of indecision and failure to negotiate are not mere talking points," said Ines Kultleska, CEO at Guardian Angel in Joliet, another domestic violence services provider. "They are leaving scars on the already most vulnerable and harmed amongst us."

The few Republican lawmakers who attended the hearing pushed back.

"I'm not here to have a political bashing of one person, because we all know there are four leaders and there's 118 of us in the House and 59 in the Senate, and it's up to all of us to come up with that budget and give it to the governor," said Rep. Patti Bellock, R-Hinsdale.

Rauner, meanwhile, spent the morning touring an Amazon facility in Romeoville. He accused Democrats of using social service providers as "props," saying the harm caused by the impasse is well known and the focus should be on reaching a deal.

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"Instead of doing what they should be doing, negotiating a balanced budget in Springfield, they are going out and, I think, taking advantage of those who are being hurt," Rauner said. "We know, it's a tragedy. We know who's being hurt. My heart's broken by the human service agencies, the social service agencies, many of which my wife and I have been supporting ourselves for years, they are being hurt. Our universities are being hurt, our schools, so many people in Illinois are being hurt by no balanced budget."

Rauner called on Democrats to return to Springfield to "finish the job," saying he may summon them back for a special session.

"We need them back in Springfield, and if they don't come back we're going to need to force them back," the governor said.

Last year, Rauner dismissed such a move as a waste of time, but now he's in re-election mode and calling lawmakers into special session allows him to look like he's trying to get something done.

But that also comes with a cost: the 177 lawmakers get to collect $111 a day, plus 39 cents for every mile they drive. That tab could add up to nearly $20,000 a day for per diems alone. If Democratic leaders simply called the legislature back into session, lawmakers would not get per diem money because they would be in overtime.

Even as Rauner calls on Democrats to return to the negotiating table, his campaign has sent out mailers saying he's stood in the way of Democratic tax increases, something even the governor has acknowledged would be needed in order to help balance the books. Rauner also wants his economic agenda approved, including workers compensation reform and a property tax freeze that have failed to gain traction among Democrats in the form the governor desires.

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At the committee hearing, Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez, D-Cicero, asked a panel of sexual assault and domestic violence service providers if they would be willing to pay more in taxes in order to make the state solvent.

"Our governor needs to hear not only the desperate need of these services, but that there is a willingness, you know, to increase taxes to balance the budget. I think that needs to resonate more," Hernandez said.

Coffee replied, noting that the income tax was raised temporarily but allowed to roll back at the start of Rauner's term.

"While none of us love taxes, I was happy to pay it," Coffee said.

Garcia reported from Springfield.

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Theresa May, U.K. prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party, speaks at a general-election campaign event in Norwich, U.K., on Wednesday. May said she'd be willing to tear up human-rights legislation to combat terrorism in a move the Labour opposition said was an attempt to distract from her cuts to police, as security dominated the closing stages of the U.K. election campaign. (Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg)

LONDON  Britain's seven-week sprint to an election that few expected began in April with forecasts of a landslide victory for the Conservatives, and a Margaret Thatcher-esque grip on power as far as the political eye could see for Prime Minister Theresa May.

It ended Wednesday in a way that no one could have predicted - with a rattled May being heckled during one of her few and characteristically awkward attempts to meet voters, while her once-hapless opponent, Jeremy Corbyn, spoke to large and adoring crowds that were earning him comparisons to Winston Churchill.

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In between, the campaign was interrupted by two mass-casualty terrorist attacks, and May's seemingly insurmountable lead dwindled, in at least some polls, to a few points.

As the nation prepares to vote Thursday, few believe that the far-left Corbyn could actually win. If he did gain the keys to Downing Street, it would rival, and perhaps top, 2016's Brexit vote or President Donald Trump's November victory for most implausible political outcome of the past 12 months.

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But even a win for May, if it's insufficiently convincing, could leave her seriously damaged within her own party and hobbled going into all-important negotiations with European leaders that will determine whether the country's European Union exit is the success she has promised or a grievous mistake.

"She'll still win the election, but she'll be weaker for it," said Steven Fielding, a political-science professor at the University of Nottingham. "Jeremy Corbyn will lose the election, but he'll be stronger for it."

The irony of that outcome, if it comes to pass, will be heightened by the fact that May didn't need to hold the vote in the first place. With another election not due until 2020, May had repeatedly vowed to wait until then to face the voters after coming to power last year via a selection by her fellow Tory lawmakers.

But the temptation of her party's more than 20-point lead over Corbyn's Labour Party proved too great, and the normally cautious May gambled in April by calling an early vote.

At the time, the decision was hailed by observers as a masterstroke - one that could grow her slender parliamentary edge into a historically large majority, giving her the sort of one-woman authority that even Thatcher would have envied.

May would need that sort of endorsement, she insisted in her pitch to voters, so she could stand up to her European counterparts with the knowledge that the country was behind her. Only a strong majority, she argued, would give her leverage to drive the best possible bargain for Britain in the contentious talks to come.

Polls showing that voters admired her resolute and no-nonsense persona - she vowed to be a "bloody difficult woman" in the EU talks - suggested she would get what she sought.

But as the campaign has worn on, voters appear to be less convinced that they want to hand her such sweeping control.

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"Up until the campaign, events had played to her strengths," said Rosa Prince, author of a biography of May. "But she does have her frailties. And campaigning seems to have brought a lot of those out."

Among them: a need to micromanage, an inability to be spontaneous and a distinct absence of the common touch. Her campaign has been widely criticized for being stilted and soulless, with May ducking debates and rarely venturing beyond the friendly confines of scripted events with handpicked Conservative activists.

When she has, it hasn't gone well. After a nurse told the prime minister about the struggles of going eight years without a raise on BBC's "Question Time," May didn't bother to empathize and instead shot back that there was "no magic money tree."

Perhaps most damaging for May was the decision to adopt as official Conservative policy a plan to charge senior citizens more for social care. When the measure was derisively dubbed "the dementia tax," she quickly abandoned it - then denied that her position had changed.

On Wednesday, she was heckled by butchers during a brief visit to London's Smithfield Market before retreating to the safer confines of a lawn-bowling club in the countryside. There she sipped tea with elderly Tory voters and told reporters, somewhat implausibly, that she had "enjoyed the campaign."

Corbyn, by contrast, has campaigned as though he has nothing to lose - which in a way is true. His opinion ratings were abysmal going into the election, with not even a majority of Labour's supporters saying they would prefer him over May as prime minister. Last year, his fellow Labour lawmakers voted overwhelmingly that they lacked confidence in him as party leader.

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But Corbyn - for decades a bomb-throwing backbencher known to voters primarily for his vaguely Marxist views and scruffy beige suits - has been getting a second look as he has aggressively taken his underdog case to the public.

In a country where campaigning is traditionally low-key and door-to-door, the Labour leader has turned heads with large, open-air rallies packed with enthusiastic supporters who cheer his call for a "fairer Britain" after years of Tory austerity.

"They underestimated us, didn't they, seven weeks ago?" he asked one such crowd, on the streets of Glasgow. "They underestimated the good sense of ordinary people all over Britain."

The crowd roared.

"He's genuinely enjoyed campaigning because there's no pressure on him," Fielding said. "There's a very obvious contrast with May only engaging a small number of Conservative activists at an empty storage facility on the edge of town."

Corbyn has even managed to put May on the defensive on an issue that had been seen as perhaps her greatest advantage: security.

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With two terrorist attacks interrupting the campaign, May sought to capitalize by denouncing the "tolerance of extremism" that she said persisted in some quarters in Britain - remarks that amounted to an implicit rebuke of Corbyn, who has in the past expressed sympathy for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Irish Republican Army.

But Corbyn quickly pivoted the debate to police cuts that May had authorized during her six-year tenure as home secretary, the nation's top domestic security official.

The prime minister, he said, had tried to protect Britain "on the cheap" - a message that fit with his anti-austerity mantra and that resonated as details emerged of security services' failures to thwart the plots.

"One attack is unfortunate," said Joe Twyman, head of political research for the polling firm YouGov. "Two attacks is: 'Should we have been doing more? Is the government failing us?' "

Twyman said the attacks - one as recent as Saturday night - make it especially difficult to predict the outcome Thursday. Polls have varied widely, with some showing a double-digit Tory lead and others pegging the Conservative advantage at a single point.

What's clear, Twyman said, is that May's gamble in calling the vote has hardly gone according to plan - and that could hurt her in the long run, even if she wins.

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"Questions are being asked about her that weren't being asked before," he said. "Her image has taken a hit."
Attorneys for a detainee at Guantanamo Bay are suing the psychologists who created the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques used in the war on terror, aiming to compel them to provide information to Polish officials who are investigating a former CIA jail in that country.

The lawsuit was filed late last month in federal court in eastern Washington state and was announced Wednesday by the London-based human rights group Reprieve. The suit details what it describes as the torture of Abu Zubaydah, who was held in the CIA black site, or secret interrogation facility, in Stare Kiejkuty, Poland, from Dec. 5, 2002-Sept. 22, 2003.

Zubaydah, described in official U.S. documents as a "facilitator" for al-Qaida, has been held at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since September 2006.

The lawsuit says James Elmer Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, because of their role in the interrogation program and their presence at the site, have information relevant to the investigation being carried out by the Organized Crimes Division of the Regional Public Prosecutor's Office in Krakow, Poland. They are investigating whether Polish officials facilitated the existence or operation of the CIA black site.

Henry Schuelke, an attorney in Washington who represents Mitchell and Jessen, told The Associated Press over the phone that he was familiar with the lawsuit, but declined to comment on it.

Mitchell and Jessen ran a Spokane-based company that received $81 million from the CIA to develop methods to extract information that included waterboarding and sleep deprivation. President Barack Obama terminated their contract in 2009. A U.S. Senate investigation in 2014 found that Mitchell and Jessen's techniques produced no useful intelligence in the war on terror.

U.S. Justice Department officials have filed a statement with the court saying "the proposed subpoenas and categories of information sought in this action raise important and complex questions regarding the United States' national security and foreign policy interests."

Consequently, the U.S. government could file a statement of interest in the case by the end of June, or advise that it will not participate in the case, the officials said.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the psychologists in 2015 on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud and the estate of Gul Rahman, who died in custody. The men contend they were tortured using techniques Mitchell and Jessen designed. A trial in that case is set for early September.
SEOUL, South Korea  North Korea said Friday it has tested a new type of cruise missile that is a powerful means of attacking enemy warships, a day after South Korea's military detected projectiles fired from the eastern coastal town of Wonsan.

The missiles represent the fourth new missile system North Korea said it has introduced and successfully tested this year alone, sending a defiant message to its enemies that it will continue to pursue a weapons program that has rattled its neighbors and Washington.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observed the launches, according to the official Korean Central News Agency, which said the missiles "accurately detected and hit" floating targets at sea after making "circular flights."

The missiles, which the South said flew about 200 kilometers (125 miles), were tested in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

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"This new-type cruise rocket is a powerful attack means capable of striking any enemy group of battleships" attempting to attack North Korea and can be used "at will," the KCNA report said.

The North's missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has expressed a desire to reach out to the North. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North's weapons activities.

South Korean military spokesman Roh Jae-cheon said the launch was intended to show off Pyongyang's widening arrange of missiles and also its "precision strike capabilities" on ships in response to the joint drills.

Bolivia's U.N. Ambassador Sacha Llorentty Soliz, the current U.N. Security Council president, told reporters Thursday he had not received any requests for a meeting on the latest launches.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft condemned North Korea's "latest provocations" and said "we look forward to working with our council colleagues about the best way to respond to them." He added that it was possible the launches were "underneath a threshold to count as a violation" of U.N. sanctions against North Korea that ban certain nuclear and missile tests.

A screen shows a news program reporting about North Korea's missile firing from Wonsan on June 8, 2017, in Tokyo. (Eugene Hoshiko / AP)

The Security Council voted unanimously on June 2 to add 15 individuals and four entities linked to North Korea's nuclear and missile programs to a U.N. sanctions blacklist. That was in response to previous ballistic missile tests that violate U.N. sanctions.

North Korea's weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile program that can stand up to what it sees as U.S. and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. Analysts say the latest test appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Moon to wrest concessions.

Moon has sought to expand cross-border civilian exchanges as a way to improve ties, but North Korea on Monday rejected a Seoul civic group's offer to provide anti-malaria supplies to protest South Korea's support of fresh U.N. sanctions adopted last week.

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In what will likely become another source of animosities, Moon's government said it will let two of the four North Korean fishermen recently rescued at sea resettle in the South in accordance with their wishes. The two other fishermen who want to return home were repatriated on Friday.

Pyongyang is expected to demand the return of all four fishermen by accusing Seoul of enticing them to defect to the South.

Last month, North Korea premiered a powerful new midrange missile that outside experts said flew higher than any other missile previously tested by North Korea.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new "precision-guided" missile, which experts say is designed with a maneuverable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defense systems like the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense that is being deployed in South Korea.

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.
Former FBI Director James B. Comey s opening statement for Thursdays hearing at the Senate Intelligence Committee deepens President Trump s problems in at least three areas. One thing Comey said potentially helps Trump.

Comey really did tell Trump he wasnt personally under investigation

When he fired Comey, Trump noted that the FBI chief had assured him three times that he was not under investigation. Comey confirmed that in his statement.

Republicans quickly seized on that as a major talking point.

Does that mean Trump is now in the clear?

No, on several grounds. To begin with, until Trump made his remark, the idea that the president might personally be under scrutiny was never at the center of the controversy. The main focus had always been possible coordination between Russian agents trying to influence the 2016 election and people close to Trump, not the president himself.

Moreover, Trumps actions  especially his request, according to Comey, that the FBI drop the investigation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn  could be considered an effort to cover up wrongdoing.

And, of course, the investigation is continuing. We dont know what else special counsel Robert Mueller III and his staff may turn up. The impeachment of President Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinksy, for example, grew out of an unrelated investigation into the finances of a real estate deal.

The first problem area for Trump  interceding for Flynn

Comeys statement confirms widespread media reports that on Feb. 14, the president asked the then-FBI director to drop an investigation into retired Gen. Michael Flynn, the man Trump had just fired as national security advisor.

I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements.  James Comey statement

Comey did not share that request with anyone involved in the investigation, and theres no indication that it actually impeded the probe. But just the attempt to get a case dropped at minimum violated long-standing government policies.

Whether Trumps words also broke any laws is open to debate. Federal law makes it a crime to corruptly seek to obstruct or impede the due and proper administration of the law.

One question would be whether Trumps intent in asking Comey to drop that part of the FBI investigation was corrupt. The fact that Trump ordered everyone else out of the Oval Office  including Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions  before making the request of Comey could be evidence on that question, legal experts have said.

The second problem  the demand for loyalty

According to Comey, at a private dinner with Trump on Jan. 27, the president asked him if we wanted to stay on as FBI director and then declared that I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

That statement could bolster the case that the presidents decision to fire Comey was based on an improper motive  a desire for an FBI chief who would put loyalty to Trump ahead of the demands of the law.

The jeopardy on that point may be more political than legal. Polls show that while many Americans already have made up their minds on what they think of the firing, an important segment are still deciding, and Comeys personal account could be important to them.

The third problem  Trump seems unconcerned about his staff

Although Trump repeatedly asked Comey to say that he was not personally under investigation and insisted that the FBI should make that public, he seemed much less interested in the fate of others caught up in the probe.

According to Comey, he was told by Trump that if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadnt done anything wrong.

That comment may not sit well with those associates, some of whom are now confronted with grand jury subpoenas and need to weigh how much theyre willing to say to prosecutors.
Cliff Huxtable is dead and Bill Cosby killed him.

The jury's verdict in the current sex-assault case doesn't matter. Cosby's reputation is in the landfill, mixed with Huxtable's ashes. Cosby has traded designer-label sweaters for, possibly, the label of a sexual predator.

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The loss of reputation, what some cultures call "face," is enough punishment for the former Jell-O Pudding frontman, some believe. I am not one of them.

More than 50 women have come forward with accusations that suggest Cosby raped, sexually abused and humiliated women for decades. I wonder how many more women could not bring themselves to do that.

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He survived a smudge on his squeaky-clean image when Autumn Jackson identified him as her father; in 1997 he admitted he'd had an affair with Jackson's mother. That proved adultery he delicately framed as a "rendezvous." Things always sound pretty in French. His wife, Camille, did not attend the opening day of the trial.

Cosby is a unique case because his shield was not just "celebrity." Sometimes celebrity can work against you, as in the case of dunderhead Justin Bieber. Is any cop or prosecutor going to cut him a break?

Cosby's celebrity was burnished by his likability, a smiling mug many of us have seen all our lives  the totally acceptable, nonthreatening black male who comes across just as if he is one of "us."

Like O.J. Simpson.

If Cosby walks, there will be no riots.

If Cosby walks, will there be cheers, as followed Simpson's acquittal in his criminal trial?

If there are cheers, will they come from the black community or the white community? You think both? If Cosby walks, you could ask, as with O.J., how a man so much a part of the system can be cheered for beating the system?

Or if his race exacerbated the drama surrounding him. There may be some truth in that, but the furor is driven more by the moral failings of someone whom the media proclaimed "America's Dad." He's gone from paternal to predator in the minds of many.

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In the O.J. trial, prosecutor Marcia Clark said she made a big mistake when she failed to discuss race with the jurors, nine of whom were black. The jury had 10 women and two men, only two with college degrees, all Democrats, only one of whom regularly read a newspaper.

For Cosby, two of the 12 jurors are African-American, drawn from Allegheny County, in the western part of Pennsylvania. The prosecution had challenged some black jurors, and the defense challenged some female jurors.

Does jockeying over race and gender matter? When a single vote can prevent conviction, yes it does.

Many Americans believe that defendants are entitled to be judged by a jury of their peers. A peer is someone of the same legal class, according to one dictionary definition, someone equal to another in ability, qualifications, age, background, social status, possibly race and gender.

But a jury of peers is a myth, a concept that "some lawyers may have latched on to" from British law harking back to the Magna Carta, says Jules Epstein, law professor and director of advocacy programs at Temple University's Beasley School of Law.

In the United States, the Sixth Amendment guarantees "a public trial by an impartial jury," Epstein says. The system seeks "a fair cross-section of the community."

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If defined narrowly, the judgment-by-peers concept is foolish.

How do you select a panel of peers for cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer? Who are Cosby's peers  multimillionaire African-Americans with Ph.D.s?

If we had a jury of true peers for every defendant, it's hard to see how prosecutors ever would get a conviction.

That's why the Constitution stresses impartiality, Epstein says.

That presents its own problems.

It was hard to find jurors who were impartial about Cosby, who was one of America's best-loved entertainers even before he invented Cliff Huxtable and then killed him.

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The jurors are not truly Cosby's peers and are challenged to judge him on the facts of the case, not on the TV Emmys he won. Today, the words "The Cosby Show" have a malignant feel.

Tribune Content Agency

Stu Bykofsky is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.
President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he returns to the White House June 7, 2017, in Washington, DC. Trump traveled to Cincinnati today to address his administration's infrastructure plan. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)

Presidents have long been able to reach vast audiences by radio, television and, more recently, the Internet. But Donald Trump is the first one to insist on the ability to reach a global audience directly, unfiltered by aides, using his Twitter account. He boasts that social media allows him to bypass a news industry he claims to despise. It also allows him to bypass his own aides and a civil service skeptical of many of his policies.

Trump has thus far used social media to disrupt a centuries-old institution: the U.S. government. This is not a positive development - not even for Trump. In the long run, he will find that unfiltered tweeting will make it harder for him to accomplish anything. Other governments and his own officials alike will soon learn to discount rash statements that are not followed up by action or even lasting presidential attention. That will weaken U.S. influence abroad and degrade democratic oversight of foreign policy.

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There's long been a comfortable myth that presidents make foreign policy. We even name major foreign policies after the presidents who pronounce them: the Truman Doctrine, the Carter Doctrine and so on. In reality, those policies were rarely made by one person, and presidents only somewhat more often took a leading role. Most of the time, policy is designed by much larger groups of officials in a complex process of negotiation within the government.

Those processes can take months or years. They thwart presidents' desire for rapid action and make it harder for policy to respond to new developments. But they also result in policies that are broadly acceptable, easily understood and able to be defended by administration spokesmen and diplomats.

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Thanks to Trump's tweet-from-the-hip style, though, the romantic myth of a president making foreign policy has become reality. And it turns out things are not better this way. Trump's choice of Twitter to announce his support for a Saudi-led coalition against Qatar, the host of a base critical to U.S. operations against the Islamic State, suggests that his announcement wasn't driven by a careful, informed, interagency policy process.

The Qatar incident provides just one example of how Trump's tweets short-circuit institutions designed to ensure that U.S. policy is made deliberatively and communicated effectively.

As the past six months have shown, the results are alternately baffling and horrifying. No spokesman would have approved tweets critical of London's mayor, Sadiq Khan. The National Security Council and State Department would have killed his tweet bashing Germany for not paying enough for NATO. And we are still trying to figure out what his tweets on China and North Korea ("China is trying hard!") actually mean.

The whole point of institutions is to help systematize inputs and outputs to manage and understand a complex world. Wiring foreign policy to run through a single person begs for disaster -- even more so when that person had no relevant experience before Jan. 20.

For now, the Qatar tweets appear to be the only ones that had a direct policy impact. Most tweets prove embarrassing but seem to have little effect on formal government decisions. Some might argue that's good. No responsible government can change its foreign policy in 140 characters. And maybe it is healthier for the putative "adults in the room," like H.R. McMaster and Jim Mattis, to quietly deep-six the president's tweets and substitute a policy that works better. Yet democracy isn't supposed to work by the expectation that appointed officials will engage in routine insubordination.

The likeliest outcome for the medium term is more of the same. The White House insists that the president's tweets are presidential statements; the bureaucracy tries to clean up the messes as best as possible. That just ratifies the obvious: that the president has enough power to cause problems but not enough to impose his will on the government, let alone negotiating partners.

In the long term, the picture is grimmer. Ambiguity over who speaks for U.S. foreign policy and which presidential statements matter can only make it harder for other countries to ascertain what the United States will or won't do.

The underlying dynamics at play are not new. The Obama administration faced a years-long crisis in its diplomatic communications caused by an ambiguity over whether President Barack Obama had set a "red line" for intervention in Syria if the Assad regime used chemical weapons. Tellingly, that statement was informal and off-the-cuff statement, not one that had been vetted through established processes. Its consequences, and a perceived lack of follow-through, harmed U.S. credibility in the region.

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That was about the only time such a thing happened under the cautious Obama administration. For Trump's government, it's practically a weekly ritual. The dangers for miscommunication and misinterpretation scale accordingly.

All of these problems could be solved easily. Trump could impose some message discipline on himself and on his administration with relative ease. Giving up his iPhone, I stress, would be better for him. Rationing his words would make them more valuable and make it easier for aides to ensure his policies were being carried out.

But it's unlikely that he will do so. (Indeed, he might dismiss this column as just another attempt by the "FAKE MSM" to get him to give up his Twitter.) In the meantime, Americans -- and the rest of the world -- wait to see which statements matter and which end up as covfefe.

Paul Musgrave is an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Fired FBI director James Comey's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee about his conversations with President Donald Trump on Russia can be summed up in one word: Newsworthy.

Here are seven major takeaways from his testimony.

1) Comey is pretty sure Trump inappropriately interfered in the investigation  but Trump didn't ask the FBI to drop it entirely

The way Comey understood his conversations with the president, Trump asked Comey for three things:

--His loyalty while appearing to threaten his job security

--To "lift the cloud" of any perception the president was under investigation

--To drop the FBI's investigation into Trump's fired national security adviser Michael Flynn.

"The ask was to get it out that I, the president, am not personally under investigation," Comey said.

But, Comey testified, Trump did NOT ask him to drop the FBI's broader investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump's campaign helped.

Comey also declined to give a legal judgment on whether Trump obstructed justice or whether he colluded with Russia, saying that's up for the FBI and special counsel to investigate.

2) Comey thinks the president is a liar

The way Comey tells it, the first time he met Trump, Comey got the heebie-jeebies  for a whole bunch of small reasons but nothing in particular.

"I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting," Comey said, as to why he left Trump Tower, hopped in an FBI car, opened a laptop and started writing down every detail he could recall about his first meeting with the president. "It led me to believe that I gotta write it down, and I gotta write it down in a detailed way. ... I knew that there might come a day where I might need a record of what happened, not just to defend myself and FBI and the integrity of our situation, and the independence of our function."

Comey also said the president lied about why he fired him:

"The administration then chose to defame me  and, more importantly  the FBI by saying the organization was in disarray and that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple."

3) The way Trump handled Comey's firing is what prompted Comey to speak out

First, Comey found out he was fired by watching TV.

Second, Comey said he was confused about why he was fired. The president changed his narrative several times, ultimately settling on "that Russia thing." Then, Comey read in the press that the president told Russians Comey was a "nut job."

Finally, Trump tweeted this:

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

Up until then, Comey said he and senior leaders in the FBI had decided to "keep ... in a box" everything they had learned about the president's inappropriate questions about the investigation.

But after Trump's tweet, Comey said he couldn't stay silent.

"I woke up in the middle of the night Monday [thinking] that there might be corroboration for our conversation," Comey testified. "And my judgment was that I needed to get that out in the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of [my memos] with a reporter."

4) Democrats are pretty sure Comey's firing is the key to what the president did wrong

"I believe the timing of your firing stinks," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

Sen. Mark R. Warner, Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, called Comey's firing "ultimately shocking."

"As director of the FBI, Comey was ultimately responsible for conducting the investigation, which might explain why you're sitting down as a private citizen," Warner said.

Comey agreed that he thinks his firing was tied to the president's frustrations with how Comey was handling the Russia investigation.

"Something about the way I was conducting, it created pressure, and he wanted me to leave," Comey said.

5) Republicans aren't really trying to defend the president

As close as they got was one GOP senator trying to argue that: Okay, what Trump did was wrong, but is it really obstruction of justice?

"He said: 'I hope' [when he asked you to drop the Flynn investigation]," said Sen. James E. Risch, R-Idaho, a Trump ally. "You don't know of anyone that's ever been charged for hoping something?"

Comey said he didn't.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, made the point that the Trump's third ask  for Comey to "lift the cloud" by saying publicly the president was not under investigation  is a reasonable one.

Comey agreed but said that the president didn't seem to understand it could create a "boomerang effect" where if Trump ever was under investigation, the FBI would have to retract its public statement.

6) Republicans are critical of why Comey didn't speak up sooner

"The president never should have cleared the room," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, of a key Oval Office private meeting between Comey and Trump. "And he never should have asked you to let [the investigation into Flynn] go.

"But I remain puzzled by your response. Your response was: 'I agree that Michael Flynn was a good guy.' You could have said: 'Mr. President, this meeting is inappropriate, this response could compromise the investigation.'"

Comey testified that he was "stunned" the president was asking him to drop an investigation and, in retrospect, he probably should have been more firm with the president. But he just wanted to say something  anything  to end the "awkward" conversations.

And, Comey said, he doesn't regret keeping the president's conversations within a tight circle: "No action was the most important thing I could do to make sure there was no interference in the investigation."

7) No side comes off well in Comey's telling of events

To hear Comey tell it, when Republicans are in charge and the FBI was investigating Republicans, he was pressured by Republicans to shape his investigation.

And when Democrats were in charge and he was investigating Democrats, he was pressured by Democrats to shape his investigation. This is new  and significant. It suggests that no side was immune to meddling in the FBI's independent investigations.

Comey testified that when he was investigating Hillary Clinton's emails during the 2016 presidential campaign, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch (a President Barack Obama appointee) "directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter."

That, plus Lynch's private tarmac meeting with former president Bill Clinton ahead of the FBI's impending decision on whether Clinton may have criminally mishandled classified information, raised Comey's ethics radar and persuaded him to announce the FBI's findings ahead of schedule.

"That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude: I have to step away from the department if we're to close this case credibly," Comey said.

Washington Post
HILLSBORO, Ohio  As publisher and editor of the Times-Gazette, a small daily newspaper in this southwest Ohio town (pop. 6,600), I thought our endorsement of Donald Trump for president last year seemed innocuous enough. Then someone said to me, "Did you see that Rachel Maddow mentioned the Times-Gazette last night?"

Seriously?

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Next Politico called. I soon discovered that our two-sentence endorsement was being reported  and often ridiculed  far and wide. The nearby Cincinnati Enquirer produced a post headlined "This Ohio paper is one of only six to endorse Donald Trump." Not one of six in Ohio  one of six in the entire nation.

Hillsboro is the seat of Highland County, which has voted for the Republican candidate for president for decades but was particularly enthusiastic about Trump. He ended up winning 75 percent of the vote here, compared with 64 percent for Mitt Romney in 2012.

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Interestingly, the conservatives I speak with do not really consider Trump one of them. Rank-and-file Republicans tend to view Trump more as an independent who ran under the Republican banner.

But for the most part they're still with him. They appreciate Trump's "America first" agenda, not because they believe in isolationism, but because they believe the United States and its citizens should be the government's top priority.

The president's tweets can be as annoying to his supporters as to his opponents, and if there is a common criticism, it is that he should tweet less. But his inability so far to overhaul health care, enact tax reform, destroy the Islamic State or "drain the swamp" is largely blamed on overreaching courts and the open "resistance" that appears dedicated to opposing anything Trump wants.

What Trump's supporters also appreciate about him are the very attributes for which he is relentlessly criticized in the media. People here  a farming community supplemented by modest-paying retail jobs and a few factory opportunities  are frank and plain-spoken. They're weary of politicians whose every statement seems carefully crafted to say nothing and offend no one.

I understand that. Years ago, I took a break from journalism to work in politics. I know what candidates and politicians are supposed to say and how they are supposed to say it. I sometimes find myself cringing at things Trump says, wishing he would behave more like a typical politician. But then I remind myself that if he did, he would likely lose the support of the grass-roots movement that put him where he is.

The negativity that permeates Trump coverage is a frequent subject of conversation here. Matters that are not frequently discussed: James Comey, tax returns, the Paris climate accord and the Russians. Instead, we talk about the heroin overdose epidemic ravaging our community.

Yes, Hillsboro is a rural setting with a majority-white population. But that doesn't equate to its citizens or its Trump supporters being racist, homophobic or Islamaphobic.

Last weekend I covered the opening of an exhibit at our historical society that pays tribute to a school desegregation saga that unfolded here in the 1950s; the event honored surviving members of the African-American community who lived through a chapter in local history too long ignored. A big crowd, white and black, was on hand. Steps toward racial harmony happen even in Trump country.

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While Trump carried Highland County heavily, there are people here who did not vote for him and who do not care for him. But overall, despite the avalanche of negative news stories, Trump's support remains firm. Hillsboro's mayor mentioned recently that he has noticed Trump yard signs popping up again, either in a show of support or a sign of defiance.

I'm an editor who happens to be a conservative on most issues. But I'm not a conservative editor. I strive to practice and teach solid, unbiased reporting regardless of what we are covering, doing our best to demonstrate respect, accuracy and fairness to all sides. Our political leanings are reserved for the opinion page. I wish more of my liberal colleagues would acquit themselves similarly.

I'm still astounded that our brief endorsement of Trump garnered such attention. In the end, Trump won the state by a solid 8-point margin. Consider the fact that Trump won the popular vote in 30 states, but in most of those states not a single newspaper endorsed him. Could there be better evidence of the gulf that exists between what is called the "mainstream media" and millions of Americans?

After the election, some news media leaders pledged to re-examine their approach. If they are even slightly successful in retooling political coverage, perhaps by 2020 a small southern Ohio newspaper's endorsement of a major-party candidate for president won't qualify as national news, no matter which candidate it chooses.

Washington Post

Gary Abernathy is publisher and editor of the (Hillsboro, Ohio) Times-Gazette, a Civitas Media newspaper.
For once I would like to see one of these for the people Democrats challenge union leadership on their demands. But as the Chicago Way has taught us, you cant get votes by telling the truth.

Well Mr. Pritzker, I am intrigued by your salesmanship. You were obviously able to sell union leaders on protecting their futures and bowing to their demands. Its funny how a billionaire, who sabotaged his own property to get a reduced real estate tax bill, can appeal to the middle-class workers who pay their fair share of taxes. Like I said, you must be one heck of a salesman  or Rod Blagojevich has tutored you well.

Be careful what you wish for residents of Illinois.

 Mark Zavagnin, LaGrange
The bill that passed last week treats all districts fairly  including Chicago  distributing dollars based on the elements of a quality education and taking into consideration local factors like the number of low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities. No districts will lose money in this bill, one of the key challenges of prior attempts at reform. Students in Illinois have waited for years for a school funding bill to pass the General Assembly. That's why there was applause in the House last week when the bill passed. We adamantly agree that the General Assembly must pass a budget by June 30 and fund the new system. Gov. Bruce Rauner also must sign this bill. We cannot let another generation pass through Illinois schools without a formula that provides every student an opportunity at college and a career.

 John Edwardson, co-chair, Advance Illinois, and Marin Gjaja, co-chair, Advance Illinois
People groove to the music of Kaskade as streamers fly through the air at the Spring Awakening festival in Addams Park on Chicago's West side on Saturday, June 11, 2016. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

Fest season is in full swing this weekend, whether you want to celebrate blues music, local art or Chicago's many food trucks.

Midsommarfest

When: June 9, 5-10 p.m.; June 10-11, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Where: Andersonville, Clark Street between Foster and Catalpa avenues

How much: $10

The skinny: Head to this annual Andersonville street fest for music, dancing and all the fest food you can handle.

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Chicago Blues Festival

When: June 9-11, 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.

Where: Millennium Park

How much: Free

The skinny: Come see why Chicago is the "blues capital of the world" with this three-day festival stacked with five stages of world-class blues musicians, including Billy Branch, William Bell and Gary Clark Jr.

Chicago Vegan Fest

When: June 10, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

Where: Grant Park, Butler Field

How much: $15

The skinny: Sick of all of the jokes about your eating habits? Head to Vegan Fest to be among your people and nosh on the best 100 percent vegan offerings Chicago has to offer.

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Ribfest Chicago

When: June 9, 5-10 p.m.; June 10-11, noon-10 p.m.

Where: North Center, Lincoln Avenue at Damen Street and Irving Park Road

How much: $10

The skinny: Get your face dirty at this nationally-recognized festival celebrating all things barbecued and slathered in sauce.

Spring Awakening Music Festival

When: June 9-11, 1-10 p.m.

Where: Pilsen, Addams-Medill Park

How much: $79-$139

The skinny: Get your best glowsticks ready for a weekend of EDM and DJ sets from the likes of Diplo, Martin Garrix, Alesso and Afrojack.

Old Town Art Fair

When: June 10, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; June 11, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Old Town Triangle, 1763 N. North Park Ave.

How much: $10

The skinny: The original Old Town Art Fair takes place around the Old Town Triangle Association and features local artists and musicians.

Wells Street Art Festival

When: June 10-11, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

Where: Old Town, Wells Street between North Avenue and Division Street

How much: $7

The skinny: Yes, there's another art festival in Old Town on the same day. Check out six blocks of art from local vendors while listening to local bands and sippin' on craft brews.

Printers Row Lit Fest

When: June 10-11, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Where: Printers Row, between S. State and Clark streets and W. Congress Parkway and W. Polk Street

How much: Free-$50

The skinny: Celebrate literature with talks and signings from some of your favorite authors.

Pilsen Food Truck Social

When: June 10-11, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

Where: Pilsen, 18th and Allport streets

How much: $5

The skinny: Get the best grub on the go featuring Chicago faves like 5411 Empanadas, DonerMen and Happy Lobster.

Green Music Fest

When: June 10-11, noon-10 p.m.

Where: Damen Avenue between North Avenue and Schiller Street

How much: $10

The skinny: This environmentally friendly music festival features a people-powered bicycle stage and ecologically crafted Lagunitas brews.

@shelbielbostedt | sbostedt@redeyechicago.com
Ice cream, fro-yo, gelato, snow cones, popsicles or slushieswhatever your summertime vice may be, Chicago's ready (and willing) to indulge it. Beat the heat with a frozen dessert or boozy treat at these 20 city spots.

Broken English

Locations in Lincoln Park, River North and Old Town

After chowing on some authentic Mexican fare in the warmth of the summer sun, wash it all down with a glass of frose sangria ($10). Or, if you feel like sharing, you can split a pitcher ($45) of the frozen rose concoction with friends. If sangria's not your thing, take a house margarita ($10) for a sip.

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Commonwealth Tavern

2000 W. Roscoe St. 773-697-7965

The only thing better than a Chicago summer are the icy indulgences that ensue. Pick up one of Commonwealth's ice cream sandwiches ($8), which boast a creamy vanilla ice cream filling smooshed between two homemade chocolate cookies and served with a bourbon caramel dipping sauce.

Dos Urban Cantina

2829 W. Armitage Ave. 773-661-6452

This Logan Square eatery has created its very own Mexican-inspired version of an ice cream sundae. Be transported to an exotic oasis with a spoonful of the Banana Leaf Sundae ($7), a scoop of banana leaf-infused ice cream laid atop a bed of Masa Harina cookie crumble and topped with sweet corn cream.

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Income Tax

5959 N. Broadway 773-897-9165

Wine-centric Edgewater restaurant Income Tax is serving up a new house-made ice cream that pays tribute to the sherry-focused element of its beverage program. Cool down with the boozy Oloroso sherry ice cream ($4)a dry, Spanish variety sherry-infused ice cream, boasting a refreshing finish and garnished with candied orange peel and almond.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

Locations in Wicker Park, Lakeview and Lincoln Park

At Jeni's, you will be delighted to find an array of pretty unique (and delicious) ice cream flavors. Get a scoop of the Sweet Cream Biscuits & Peach Jam ($12 pint) or Queen City Cayenne ($12 pint). Or if you're feeling adventurous, order up the Goat Cheese with Red Cherries ($12 pint) or Middle West Whiskey & Pecans ($12 pint) flavors.

Jerry's Lincoln Square

4739 N. Lincoln Ave. 872-208-6264

This kitschy sandwich spot recently unveiled a new ice cream sandwich menu, which features Scooter's frozen custard. Have your pick from eight flavor combos ($4.50 each), and indulge in a sweet sandwich that houses creamy custard (Nutella, vanilla and black raspberry) between two house-baked cookies (sugar, chocolate chip, toffee crunch, white chocolate cranberry). Yum.

Joy District

112 W. Hubbard St. 312-955-0339

Get your frozen drink fix at this River North restaurant/cocktail bar/club. Snag a Pina Cola-Duh ($13), made with Cruzan spiced rum, Cruzan coconut rum, pineapple juice, lime juice and coconut cream, or a Spray Tan ($13), made with Red Bull orange, mango puree and Cruzan strawberry rum.

Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya

1482 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-270-4150

Fight the hot weather with Japanese Matcha ice cream ($4) served in a cone at this Wicker Park ramen spot. In the blazing summer heat, this ice-cold dessert will be Matcha-ppreciated. Also on offer are sangria popsicles ($9) on a weekly flavor rotation including Mega Kuwaii (fresh strawberry, shochu and lime), pomegranate (pomegranate, cranberry, sake, pinot noir), apple pineapple (pineapple, apple, pinot grigio, shochu) and cucumber (sake infusion cucumber, ginger beer, shochu).

MAD Social

1140 W. Madison St. 312-243-2097

Executive chef Mariela Bolanos is behind the housemade gelato churro sandwiches ($9) that are being served up at this West Loop eatery. The selection of these frozen gems changes regularly, but gelato flavors have included peanut butter Oreo, Wonder Woman, raspberry and sweet corn.

Original Rainbow Cone

9233 S. Western Ave. 773-238-7075

When it comes to Chicago novelties, nothing may be as iconic as Original Rainbow Cone. The Beverly neighborhood ice cream parlor, which opened in 1926, has a signature item as classic as the shop itselfan ice cream cone ($4.29 small, $5.39 large) piled high with five flavors, including chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House (New York vanilla with cherries and walnuts), pistachio and orange sherbet.

Punch House

1227 W. 18th St. 312-526-3851

Find some cool shade on a hot day at this Pilsen watering hole, located in the basement of Thalia Hall, and an even cooler drink. Punch House is offering its entire menu of boozy punch cocktails in snow cone form ($10). Gone are the days of chasing after the ice cream truck, so upgrade with an adult-ish version of the summertime treat.

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Presidio

1749 N. Damen Ave. 773-697-3315

Indulge your sweet tooth while also getting your caffeine fix at this Bucktown spot. Order up an affogato ($10), made with Sparrow coffee draft cold brew, house-made vanilla ice cream and a shot of Fernet. The coffee-based dessert is the perfect after-dinner indulgence on a hot day.

Raised

1 W. Upper Wacker Drive 312-795-3444

The Renaissance Chicago Hotel's indoor/outdoor rooftop lounge is the perfect place to soak up some rays and enjoy an adult take on a frozen childhood favorite. Ditch the orange sherbet for a Bailey's white chocolate espresso creme push pop ($14). How's that for nostalgia?

ROOF on theWit

201 N. State St. 312-239-9502

Mosey on up to this summer hotspot (located atop theWit Chicago) to cool down with a couple frozen cocktails. Try the Adult Spring Break ($14), a blend of aged white rum, pineapple, jackfruit, banana and ROOF's Coconut Cream of Broken Dreams, or sip on the Inigo Montoya Granizado ($14), made with tequila, mango cordial, raspberry, mint and Revenge.

Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. >

Saint Lou's Assembly

664 W. Lake St. 312-600-0600

Frose all day at Saint Lou's Assembly when you order up the frose cocktail ($10.75), made with raspberry-forward Paul D. Rose, Leopold Brother's gin and fresh squeezed grapefruit. The frozen pink drink is the perfect edition to rising temps and certainly as refreshing as it sounds.

Sugar Shack

630 W. 26th St. 312-225-6568

The funnel cake sundaes ($8) are a customer favorite (and dentist's nightmare) for a reason. Served atop the deep-fried dough is vanilla soft serve, a wet topping of your choice (hot fudge, anyone?), a dry topping of your choice, whipped cream and, of course, a cherry. You can also grab a root beer float ($4.50), frozen cappuccino ($4.25) or blizzard ($4.80) at this family-owned shop to cool off.

Tallboy Taco

325 W. Huron St. 312-488-4917

Nestled inside Nacional 27, you can stop into Tallboy Taco for an icy summer classic. On their house-made dessert menu, you'll find popsicles ($3) in a variety of rotating flavors, which include mango, strawberry and cucumber lime.

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The Promontory

5311 S. Lake Park Ave. West 312-801-2100

This Hyde Park, bi-level restaurant, bar and music venue is a great spot to chill out and enjoy yourself this summer. Get your hands on a Remy Washington Apple ($10), a boozy slushy made with Remy V.S.O.P, Crown Royal Regal Apple whiskey, lemon, apple cider, cranberry juice, tart cherry syrup and, of course, lots of crushed ice. Pucker up!

Wood

3335 N. Halsted St. 773-935-9663

In the heart of Lakeview, you'll find a cold and refreshing dessert at Wood. The relaxing American joint is offering rose popsicles ($5 each), a frozen rose base infused with strawberries. In addition to the rose flavor, Wood will have a different popsicle flavor to try each week.

Yogurt Square

4701 N. Lincoln Ave. 773-681-0104

This self-service yogurt station in Lincoln Square has 16 flavors of frozen yogurt goodness on tap. You pay by weight (an average cup is around $5), and can personalize your cup of fro-yo with any number of unique toppings from crushed candy bars to fresh cut fruit to sprinkles.

@RianneCoale | rcoale@redeyechicago.com
Residents and small business owners who buy electricity through North Aurora's aggregation contract might pay less through ComEd in the coming year, village trustees learned this week.

The lowest rate per kilowatt hour bid by electrical suppliers through the Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative for a 13-month contract starting in September is 7.244 cents from Dynegy, said Village Administrator Steve Bosco at the Village Board Committee of the Whole meeting.

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Traditionally village officials have signed up to pay a renewable energy support surcharge that would raise the base rate to 7.437 cents per kilowatt hour, he added. The surcharge, which adds up to $2.90 per month for a home that uses 1,500 kilowatt hours monthly, subsidizes alternative energy production facilities nationwide and does not guarantee that electricity from environmentally-friendly sources will be sent to North Aurora, Bosco explained.

"The (renewable energy charges) show that North Aurora supports renewable energy use throughout the U.S," he said.

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Beginning this month, ComEd residential customers will be charged a mandatory renewal energy support surcharge of 1.89 cents per kilowatt hour, which is included in its projected rate for September through next May, according to the Illinois Commerce Commission. While that base rate is 7.122 cents per kilowatt hour, it fluctuates by up to a half-cent higher or lower each month to adjust for the actual cost of producing power that month. If energy prices soar, homeowners could find themselves paying 7.622 per kilowatt hour, noted North Aurora Finance Director Bill Hannah.

"It looks like ComEd will be cheaper next year, but we don't know what their rates will be in the future," he observed.

The village buys electricity through Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Collaborative to power public facilities, including the water distribution system and Messenger Public Library. If officials decide to leave the collaborative, all residents would buy electricity from ComEd, even if they participate in the aggregation program now, said Bosco.

The Village Board is scheduled to discuss the issue at its June 19 meeting, after the collaborative provides updated rate projections from its suppliers.

Denise Linke is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
An Oswego man who failed to appear for his drug trial last month has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer in Aurora in 2012.

Rumaldo Anzaldua, 40, is currently wanted on a warrant after he did not show up for his jury trial that started May 22. Once apprehended, Anzaldua will be taken into custody by the Illinois Department of Corrections to begin his sentence. He must serve 75 percent of the prison term after receiving credit for 84 days spent in Kane County Jail following his arrest.

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According to prosecutors, Anzaldua and a co-defendant arranged to sell four ounces of cocaine for $3,500 to a buyer who was actually an undercover officer with the North Central Narcotics Task Force, a unit consisting of drug investigators from Kane, McHenry and DeKalb counties.

The meeting took place Dec. 12, 2012, outside a Spring Street home in Aurora. The co-defendant, prosecutors said, received crack cocaine from Anzaldua to provide to the buyer. When the drugs were handed over, officers arrested Anzaldua and the co-defendant, who has since been sentenced to six years in prison, in the driveway.

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Without Anzaldua present, a jury convicted him of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance after a two-day trial in May. His conviction was one of two within the same week that occurred during drug trials at which the defendant did not appear in court.

Speaking Tuesday, Kane County State's Attorney Joe McMahon praised the convictions while acknowledging such cases are a test to try for prosecutors.

"In absentia trials create some different challenges," he said.

Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Two men diedafter a fire spread to two mobile homesin the 9000 block of South Cicero Avenue inOak Lawn on June 8, 2017. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)

The death of one of the victims of a fire at a mobile home park in Oak Lawn on Thursday has been ruled a homicide by the Cook County medical examiner's office.

The victim, one of two men who died, has not been identified. But the medical examiner's office said his death was caused by thermal injuries from an incendiary fire and also by sharp-force injuries.

Oak Lawn officials said Thursday said that the fire was being investigated as possible arson.

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The blaze, which started around 12:43 a.m., engulfed two adjacent mobile homes at the Airway Manufactured Housing Community of Oak Lawn, 9001 S. Cicero Ave.

Oak Lawn police and fire crews responded to the scene after being notified of the blaze by a Hometown police officer who was in the area and arrived first on scene, officials said.

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A search of the scene after the fire was extinguished found two men  one deceased and the other in full cardiac arrest, Oak Lawn Fire Chief George Sheets said.

The second victim, who was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and later transferred to Loyola University Medical Center's Burn Center in Maywood, died Thursday afternoon, officials said. He was identified as Randy Chabala, 59, of Midlothian. The cause and manner of his death has not been released.

Oak Lawn mobile homes seen after a fatal fire early Thursday. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Both men had "originated" in the same mobile home unit, Police Chief Michael Murray said.

A third man  from a nearby unit, which also was consumed by the fire  went to the hospital briefly, for what neighbors said was smoke inhalation, but he has already been released, authorities said.

Officials would not disclose Thursday what led them to suspect foul play, but did confirm that the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force, which assists in death investigations of a suspicious nature, had been activated.

"Information that we've talked to with witnesses and other residents of the trailer court indicated that we should activate the Major Crimes Task Force," Murray told reporters at a morning press briefing about the fire. "We are looking at it as a possible intentional act."

Officials would not discuss the possible cause of the fire, where they believe it started or the relationship of the two victims.

Neighbors in the mobile home park said the men who were found in the same home were good friends who had been lodging together for about the past year. Both were middle-aged or older, they said.

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Mary Grochola, who lives in the trailer next to the one the victims occupied but whose home was not affected by the fire, said one of the men had celebrated his birthday on Wednesday.

She said nothing about the birthday gathering appeared concerning when she stopped by to close up the nearby laundry room trailer Wednesday night around 8 p.m. At the time, the party consisted of three men  the two men who lived there and another man who has lived in the park off and on over the years.

"They were all sitting on the porch, partying. It seemed OK. They weren't screaming at each other, they were being OK," Grochola said.

She said she was awakened just before 1 a.m. Thursday by loud noises and someone running down the walkway yelling, "911. Fire. Everybody get out!"

The view through a burned out Oak Lawn mobile home that caught fire in the early morning hours of June 8, 2017. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

Grochola said she grabbed her great-grandson, who lives with her, and evacuated her trailer immediately without getting much of a look at anything. Police did not let her back inside her home until around 7 a.m., she said.

Thursday's fatal fire is the second to strike Oak Lawn's Airway mobile home park in less than a month.

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Diane Lynch, 64, died May 10 shortly after emergency personnel pulled her from her burning trailer park home, officials said.

The preliminary cause of that fire is believed to be smoking, Sheets said, but the investigation into it is ongoing.

In the wake of both fires, the fire chief said the department had decided to offer free smoke detectors for residents of the Airway mobile home park who do not have them.

"We're offering them free of charge, all they have to do is report to one of our fire facilities and we'll have those smoke alarms available," said Sheets, adding that the department also performs home safety checks at residents' request and makes home safety brochures available at all fire facilities.

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Airway residents said they welcomed the village's assistance, but wished it had come sooner.

"I went to the fire department last year to see if I could get some (smoke detectors) for the park, and they weren't doing it," Grochola said. "They weren't giving out free ones."

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Oak Lawn Mayor Sandra Bury said she planned to meet with the owners of the mobile home park once everything calmed down to discuss safety issues.

When reached by phone, Mike Fiala, Airway's national community manager, said the mobile home operator already had "all kinds of safety precautions in place," and was cooperating with Oak Lawn officials in their fire investigation.

Oak Lawn Police Chief Michael Murray speaks during a press conference on June 8, 2017 at the Oak Lawn Emergency Operations Center about a fatal fire at a mobile home park earlier that morning. (Zak Koeske / Daily Southtown)

"The past month has been very hard for all of us," he said, noting that prior to the two recent fatal fires, it had been decades since there had been a fire at the mobile home community.

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Twitter @ZakKoeske
A Tinley Park doctor has won a nearly $2 million judgment against a former business partner in a federal case alleging fraud and breach of contract, according to the physician's attorney.

The jury verdict and monetary award Tuesday followed a two-week trial in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Robert Dow, said attorney Chris Gair, who represented Dr. Nicholas Angelopoulos in the case.

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A physician specializing in anesthesiology and pain management, Angelopoulos has a practice in Tinley Park and, from 2004 to 2007, had been a partner in Keystone Orthopedic Specialists in Hazel Crest, located near South Suburban Hospital.

Keystone and its president, Dr. Martin Hall, were named as defendants in the lawsuit, filed in July 2012 and later amended.

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An attorney for Keystone and Hall, Larry Byrne said Wednesday "we disagree with the verdict" and contends errors were made by the judge. He said those alleged errors would be addressed in a future court filing with the judge, but that an appeal to the appellate court is possible should the issues not be resolved.

Angelopoulos had alleged he was "cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars" in income and expenses allegedly related to maintaining the practice that he should not have been required to pay, said Gair, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago.

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In a court filing, Angelopoulos said he had been told prior to joining Keystone as a partner that his share of the practice's annual expenses would be $250,000, but in reality those expenses turned out to be about four times that amount.

The expenses consumed, on average, nearly 83 percent of Angelopoulos' income each year during the time he was a partner in the business, the filing stated.

Partners in the business were presented with "Bucket Reports" purporting to lay out the income and expenses allocated to each of Keystone's four partners, according to the filing. Partners didn't see any of the backup data supporting the income and expense entries, and that information was kept in the basement of Hall's home and "controlled exclusively" by Hall, his wife and Hall's brother-in-law, Angelopoulos asserted in the filing.

The doctor was defrauded "out of huge sums of money" while a part of Keystone, according to the filing.

Along with alleging breaches of fiduciary duty on the part of Hall and breach of contract by Keystone, Angelopoulos claimed that Hall had filed a fraudulent 1099 tax form with the government which resulted in the Internal Revenue Service auditing the doctor, according to Gair.

mnolan@tribpub.com

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One of the suspects in a crime spree that led to a standoff in Casper on Saturday exchanged gunfire with law enforcement during a chase and assaulted an elderly woman in Glenrock, newly filed court documents allege.

The details are included in court papers attached to three felony drug charges filed against another of the suspects, Santana Keener. She appeared in court Tuesday in Douglas.

The male suspect arrested in connection to the incidents in Glenrock and Casper  Christopher Eads  remained hospitalized Wednesday afternoon at Wyoming Medical Center, said Frosty Williams, deputy director of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. He said that Eads could be released soon and would then be booked into the Natrona County Detention Center.

Williams declined to specify what condition kept Eads in the hospital.

Eads is suspected of firing at officers during the pursuit. He's also alleged to have beaten the elderly woman, assaulted a Glenrock police officer and stolen a patrol vehicle.

Keener was charged Tuesday in Converse County Circuit Court with one count of possession of heroin, one count of possession of heroin with intent to deliver and one count of entering a building with intent to commit a felony, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

She made her first court appearance Tuesday in circuit court, where her bond was set at $25,000, authorities at the Converse County Detention Center said.

The court documents in Keener's case shed light on the events of Saturday night.

Agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation had been surveilling Keener and Eads since April because they believed the pair were trafficking heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs from Colorado to Casper, court documents show.

On Saturday, law enforcement located a Toyota Sequoia that the two had been known to use during their trips to Colorado. DCI agents as well as Wyoming Highway Patrol agents attempted to stop the vehicle about 9:30 p.m. as it traveled near mile marker 177 on Interstate 25 near Casper.

However, the vehicle refused to stop and led law enforcement on a pursuit "at a high rate of speed," the documents state. A man  later identified as Eads  began shooting a handgun toward a trooper's vehicle shortly after the chase began.

Troopers used road spikes a few miles down the interstate to puncture the Toyota's front tires. The Toyota continued down the interstate toward Casper for a time before the suspects turned off the Toyota's headlights and stopped in the median. They then turned and drove toward law enforcement down the median, the documents state.

Agents and troopers shot at the Toyota as it drove past them on the median, according to the documents.

Incidents in Glenrock

The Toyota then pulled back onto the interstate and drove east at speeds topping 100 miles an hour before taking exit 165 toward Glenrock. Law enforcement followed the vehicle at a "safer distance."

Law enforcement later located the abandoned vehicle at the intersection of Fourth and Fir streets in Glenrock.

During the search for Eads and Keener, law enforcement received a report of an elderly Glenrock woman bleeding from the head.

The woman told law enforcement that a man had come through the back door of her home in the 600 block of South Fifth Street and attacked her, the documents state. She said that the man, later identified as Eads, pushed her to the ground, then took her car keys off of her person.

The woman, who is in her 80s, was later found to have a broken rib, a broken toe and a laceration to her scalp that required 18 staples to close, the documents state.

Investigators found that someone had driven through the woman's garage door, completely destroying it. They later found the woman's car abandoned in a drainage ditch in northeast Glenrock.

Eads then stole a Glenrock police patrol vehicle after assaulting an officer and left the area of the drainage ditch, the court documents allege. Glenrock Police Chief Tim Hurd said Wednesday that the officer suffered minor injuries in the altercation and was back at work.

Keener, however, did not leave the area and law enforcement found her hiding in a field about 400 yards from the elderly woman's crashed car, the documents state.

Interview with authorities

In an interview with DCI agents, Keener admitted to being involved in the I-25 pursuit. She said she handed a pistol to Eads, who then shot at law enforcement while driving. She said that both drove the Toyota at different points during the pursuit.

Keener said she saw Eads grab the elderly woman, push her to the ground and take the keys. Keener said she never entered the woman's home but did ask if she was OK after the woman had been pushed down. She said she and Eads then took the woman's car before crashing it.

Keener said she saw Eads take a law enforcement vehicle and that he told her to get in as she hid near the ditch. However, Keener wasn't able to get in and fell back down into the ditch, at which point Eads drove off.

Details about the standoff in Casper and other events that happened after Keener's arrest were not available in the court documents filed in her case. Williams said those details would become more clear after charges are filed against Eads in Natrona County Circuit Court.

Williams said that agents with the Division of Criminal Investigation continue to look into the incidents and that additional charges could be filed against Keener as the case progresses.
Zena Ahmad, 17, Sawim Osman, 17, and Mai Ahmad, 16, speak on June 7, 2017 at the Council on American Islamic Relations-Chicago office, about their experience at Hickory Hills Pepe's restaurant when a customer hurled insults at the group. (Alexandra Wimley / Chicago Tribune) (Alexandra Wimley / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

On Monday night, a group of Muslim teen girls from the south suburbs decided to break their monthlong Ramadan fast at Pepe's Mexican Restaurant.

As they were walking out of the Hickory Hills restaurant, the girls paused after hearing an older man make a derogatory remark.

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"We're like, why would you say that?" said Sawim Osman, 17, of Countryside. "He said, 'If you don't like these comments leave  leave the country.' I said, 'It's my home too.' Another friend called him disgusting. And then I guess that really angered him because he got up in a real aggressive way."

Worried that the argument might turn physical, the girls left the restaurant, they said.

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"I was really scared what it might escalate to," Sawim said. "I said this wasn't fair. He shouldn't be discriminating against us. We belong here just as much as he does."

The confrontation was caught on video and posted to social media sites.

Pepe's President Robert Ptak issued a statement Wednesday apologizing to the teens and condemning the incident.

"Pepe's Incorporated and our entire franchise family offer our sincere apologies to the women who were harassed and insulted by another customer at one of our restaurants on Monday night," Ptak said in his written statement. "Pepe's condemns and rejects all discriminatory comments and actions directed to any of our customers and employees."

Pepe's Corporate Counsel Ed Ptak said restaurant employees were not made aware of the incident from the teens or any other customers Monday night and learned of it when video surfaced on social media.

Hickory Hills police are investigating the incident, Detective Adam Gulczynski said. He said police Tuesday were contacted by Pepe's and one of the teens.

Video shows a person at a Hickory Hills Pepe's restaurant hurling insults at a group of teenage Muslim girls. June 7, 2017. (CBS Chicago)

As upsetting as the confrontation was, Mai Ahmad, 16, of Oak Lawn, said she was also disappointed in those who looked on as the situation escalated.

"It was really saddening to see all the bystanders just watch," Mai said. "There were two teenage girls and a couple right next to us. They said nothing. There were like two employees working at the time, but, still, no one said anything."

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The encounter comes amid an upswing in hate crimes against Muslims nationwide. Annual data published by the FBI tallied 5,850 hate crime incidents nationally in 2015, up 6 percent from 2014, with the sharpest rise in attacks against Muslims and transgender people. Most notably, last month in Portland, Ore., three men were stabbed  two fatally  when they tried to come to the aid of two Muslim teens being harassed on a train.

Many blame the current political environment for stoking anti-Muslim sentiments. Critics point to President Donald Trump's immigration policies and his campaign call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" as ways he has emboldened anti-Muslim attackers.

A group called ACT for America has scheduled a series of rallies on Saturday nationwide, including one in downtown Chicago, dubbed the Chicago March Against Sharia, to spread the message that Islamic law "is incompatible with our Constitution and with American values," according the group's website. The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center have dubbed ACT for America an anti-Muslim extremist group.

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of Chicago's Council on American Islamic Relations, said the group is part of a larger "anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-minority" movement. Not recognizing that and allowing its rhetoric to pass as a form of patriotism could fuel more harassment and violence, he said.

Rehab called Monday's altercation another incidence of "hate lashes."

"This is not divorced from hate crimes, which are already on the rise," Rehab said. "We can no longer look at this as a force of nature. At what point do we make the connection? We need to move fast to do so."

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He attributes part of the problem to rancorous political rhetoric.

"There are a lot of people who share these sentiments but think better than to express them in public," Rehab said. "But when you see their role models or elected officials give them a green light that it's OK to come out of the woodwork, they just let it all out. It's not that it wasn't there before, but it was self-censored, managed."

Gulczynski said there was no physical contact between the man and the teens in Monday's incident. No charges or arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon. Police are still working to identify the man from video footage.

Two of the five girls have filed police reports, with the remaining teens expected to follow suit on Thursday, they said. Though police have told them they will investigate the incident, the man who appeared to berate them in the video still hasn't been identified, authorities told them.

Sawim's mother, Catherine Bronson, called the man's actions "totally unacceptable" but said such behavior is becoming more common.

"Part of it is the political climate has changed," she said. "People seem to be more crass and careless in their speech."

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For its part, Pepe's said the man who made the statements is no longer welcome. Ed Ptak said the man was described as a somewhat "regular" customer at the Hickory Hills location. Police have been asked to let the man know he cannot return to the restaurant.

"Pepe's has always worked hard to create a safe and welcoming atmosphere for our customers and will continue to do so in the future," Robert Ptak said in his written statement. "The customer who made the inflammatory comments to the women will not be allowed in our restaurants.

"The safety, comfort and welfare of all our patrons and employees is our utmost concern."

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

The girls, who all attend the private Islamic Universal School in Bridgeview, say that even though tensions have remained high in the Muslim American community with the spike in racially or religiously charged incidents, they have not endured anything of this caliber.

"We've gotten glances before but never screamed at in a public place," said Zena Ahmad, 17, of Bridgeview.

Rehab said he is calling for prosecutors to charge the man with assault or hate crime offenses. But even outside of this lone incident, he said CAIR is working with officials to implement broader policies to address the issue of discrimination and hate crimes.

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"This is not going to be defeated unless there's a cultural shift that, 'Hey, this doesn't belong here,'" he said.

Meanwhile, the teens said they have been broadsided by the attention the incident has generated. Though it has been traumatic, they hope something positive can come from it.

"We're really hurt by it," Sawim said. "But we're happy it got out there, because we don't want it to happen to other people. We want people to be aware of what's going on and that this isn't OK and that their words come with consequences."

Tony Briscoe and Manya Brachear are Chicago Tribune reporters. Alicia Fabbre is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
Creditors of a Tinley Park real estate brokerage who claim they are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars are trying to force the firm into bankruptcy.

Oak Park Avenue Realty Ltd. is an affiliate of Mack Industries, also based in Tinley Park, which filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in late March. Oak Park Avenue wasn't included in that bankruptcy filing.

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Mack Industries built its business purchasing homes that had been foreclosed on, fixed them up and then found renters for them. Homes were also sold to investors, and Mack in turn would guarantee them a steady income stream by finding renters.

Owners of the homes are owed at least $433,000 by Oak Park in unpaid rents and security deposits collected by the firm from renters, according attorney Brian Jackiw, who is representing them in the petition, filed May 31, seeking involuntary Chapter 11 for the company.

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Locally, one creditor, from Orland Park, is owed $153,000, and other property owners are from Frankfort and New Lenox as well as states, including California, Colorado and Virginia. Jackiw said he is being contacted by other property owners who may join the case.

A call left for Oak Park seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Forcing the company into bankruptcy could result in assets being identified that could be sold off to repay Oak Park's creditors, Jackiw said.

He said the investors he so far represents own, collectively, about 125 properties, mainly single-family homes.

Are the amounts as far as unpaid rents owed cover a specific time period?

Jackiw said some of the creditors are owed two months' rent and some are owed for four months. He said Oak Park would generally send property owners monthly account statements showing information, such as how much rent was collected and what management fees were charged by the company, but that, in most instances, Oak Park stopped sending out those reports about two months ago.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

In connection with Mack Industries' bankruptcy, allegations of fraudulent financial transactions have been aired against Mack and its founder and chief executive, James K. "Mack" McClelland, who is an owner of Oak Park Avenue Realty.

American Residential Leasing, the largest unsecured creditor in the case, had asked the court to name a receiver  a request since approved by the judge  to oversee Mack's operations, alleging there have been "several million dollars' worth of potentially fraudulent" fund transfers and distributions among Mack insiders and affiliated companies.

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Separately, lender Colony American Finance sued McClelland individually, alleging he owes more than $19 million to the company for defaulting on a December 2015 loan agreement, the proceeds of which were used to buy and rehab properties. In its complaint, filed just weeks after Mack Industries' Chapter 11 filing, Colony American states $9.8 million was advanced to McClelland for rehab work and alleges that some of that money was "misappropriated, misapplied and converted" for other uses.

The trustee in the Mack bankruptcy case recently won court approval to hire a forensic accountant who spent years as an FBI special agent investigating money laundering and fraud schemes.

In explaining in a court filing the need to bring on someone with specialized skills, the trustee noted a "complex history of opaque financial and business dealings" among Mack, its numerous subsidiaries and company principals.

mnolan@tribpub.com

Twitter @mnolan_J
Moraine Valley fitness center staff members credited with saving the life of Leonard Martz, center, of Worth, include, from left, Sgt. James Twohill of the Moraine Valley Community College Police Department, building manager Dan Ochenkowski, lifeguard Annie Rangel and entrance attendant Angel Rivera. Building manager Peter Herrera also helped, but is not pictured. (Moraine Valley)

Staff action saves life at MVCC fitness center

A Worth man in his 80s is alive because of the quick action of staff at Moraine Valley Community College's Health, Fitness & Recreation Center. Lifeguard Annie Rangel, of Palos Heights, noticed a swimmer, Leonard Martz, was having trouble in the pool and went to check on him. Martz was unresponsive by the time Rangel reached him, so she got him out of the pool and started CPR along with Sgt. James Twohill of the Moraine Valley Police Department. Building manager Peter Herrera use of an automated external defibrillator kept Martz going until emergency workers arrived.

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Chicago Ridge Lions Club collects clothes for charity

The Chicago Ridge Lions Club recently held a clothing drive and collected gently used clothing for Southside Pregnancy, St. Vincent DePaul, as well as other charities and local families. The group also collected $800 in cash donations for Almost Home, an organization that works with and helps the local homeless population.

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Free women's self defense seminar planned

State Rep. Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park, and state Sen. Bill Cunningham, D-Chicago, are hosting a free Women's Self Defense Seminar at 6 p.m. June 19 at Saint Xavier University's Shannon Center- back gym, 3700 W. 103rd St., Chicago. A trained law enforcement officer will lead the seminar, which will provide information and techniques for protection from assailants. Registration and information are at Burke's constituent service office, 708-425-0571, or by email at kburke@kellyburkerep36.org.

White Oak Library District celebrates Chicago history

The White Oak Library District will present the program Chicago Turns 180: From Frontier Outpost to World Class City from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. June 21 at its Lockport Branch Library, at 121 E. 8th Street. The program is part of the Reading by Design: Read Big! Summer Reading Challenge 2017 offered by the White Oak Library District through July 2. This year marks Chicago's 180th birthday. In 1837, the city of 4,000 people was created to be the transfer point for water transport between the Great Lakes and the new Illinois & Michigan Canal then under construction. Dave Clark, the Windy City Road Warrior, talks about all the changes the city has gone through, and the challenges that it faces now and in the future. For adults and teens age 13 and up. Registration is required. More information is at www.whiteoaklibrary.org or 815-552-4260.

Crisis Center stores mark 30-year anniversary

Neat Repeats resale shops in Orland Park and Worth have been owned and operated by the Crisis Center for South Suburbia since 1986 and will mark their 30th anniversary in business with a 50 percent off sale on from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 24. In fiscal year 2016, 28 percent of the center's total financial support to women and children affected by domestic violence came from resale store proceeds, and 100 percent of net proceeds from the stores assist victims of domestic violence with emergency shelter and other services. Neat Repeats are at 7026 W. 111th St., Worth, and 9028 W. 159th St., Orland Park.

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Tinley Park is doing away with a requirement that police officers live in the village. Officers who move outside of the village will not be allowed to take squad cars home with them.

A longstanding requirement that Tinley Park police officers live in the village would go away under a new union contract.

The issue of residency ultimately went to arbitration, with the Village Board at its meeting Tuesday agreeing with the arbitrator's ruling from last month that officers should be allowed to live within a 30-mile radius of the village rather than inside the village limits.

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The board is expected to vote on the full contract at its June 20 meeting. Terms of the agreement with Chapter 192 of the Metropolitan Alliance of Police, which represents the officers, are retroactive to last year and extend to 2020.

Many communities had long ago done away with rules requiring police to live in the municipality they serve, and at Tuesday's meeting, Mayor Jacob Vandenberg said that he was aware of Chicago and Rosemont as the only communities in the metro area that still had the rule.

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During contract negotiations, the union proposed officers be allowed to reside within a 55-mile radius of Tinley Park, while the village's negotiators sought a radius of eight miles.

In his May 10 decision on the issue, arbitrator Martin Malin noted that towns comparable to Tinley Park, such as Oak Lawn and Orland Park, do not have an in-town residency requirement, using the radius rule instead.

Malin also pointed out that there is evidence suggesting that allowing officers to live outside the community they serve provides a measure of safety for them and their families.

Tinley Park is doing away with a requirement that police officers live in the village. Officers who move outside of the village will not be allowed to take squad cars home with them. (Gregory Pratt/Chicago Tribune )

He noted that, during contract negotiations, the union agreed to revamping the officers' health insurance coverage, with police paying higher co-pays and deductibles, which provided "a significant economic benefit to the village."

Officers wouldn't be allowed to live in Indiana, and the center of the 30-mile radius is 183rd Street and 80th Avenue, just west of where the police station is located.

Police who choose to live outside of Tinley Park wouldn't be able to take squad cars home with them, Vandenberg said.

One resident who spoke at the Village Board meeting said he believed officers would be more devoted to their work or do a better job if required to live in the village they serve, while another resident called that argument "illogical and it makes no sense."

Trustee Michael Glotz voted "no" on approving the arbitrator's decision.

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An official with the police union said that MAP would have no comment.

Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Also at Tuesday's meeting, trustees approved annexing First Baptist Church, 7025 179th St.

The Daily Southtown wrote about the church's predicament last September, when it faced threats of fines for an alleged violation of Cook County building and zoning regulations. Located in a tiny island of unincorporated Cook County, the church is surrounded by Tinley Park.

The Rev. Harold Parsley said at the time that the church has been at the same location since the mid 1950s, but had never been paid a visit by the county for a building inspection prior to the summer 2016 visit.

He had said that battling the county could be a costly and protracted effort, and the roughly 100 members of the church agreed that seeking annexation to Tinley Park would be the best option.

Under the terms of the annexation agreement, the church would have six months to connect to the village's water and sewer system, and three years to install a fire sprinkler system.

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Twitter @mnolan_J
The cast of Town Square Players' "Rumors" includes, from left to right: Dave Gasior of Johnsburg, Trevor Wilson of McHenry, Ari Cohen of Lake Zurich, Jim Lundstrom of Elgin, Tania Joy Gibson of Fox River Grove, Angie Kells of Woodstock, Karen Cook of Crystal Lake and Elizabeth Zimmerman of Woodstock. ( TownSquare Players/HANDOUT )

Rumor has it that Neil Simon wrote his first farce, "Rumors," to cheer himself up during a difficult time in his life.

The TownSquare Players present "Rumors" June 16 to 25 at the Woodstock Opera House. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.

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Simon wrote "Rumors" in 1988 at the very height of his career, when he had a show on Broadway nearly every season, said director Roger Zawacki of Johnsburg.

"He had written some straightforward comedies like 'The Odd Couple' and 'Barefoot in the Park,' and then he had written some semi-autobiographical stuff that was a little more serious, and then he decided to write an out-and-out farce," he said. "It first appeared on Broadway and it  was very successful. And now it's a staple of college and community theaters."

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It's a staple because it's extremely funny, he said. People are put in ridiculous situations and there's a lot of running around and spreading rumors and lies, he said.

"The basic premise is, Charley and Myra Brock are having all their friends over for their 10th wedding anniversary," he said. "The couples arrive and Charley and Myra are nowhere to be found. Only one of the couples knows that Charley has accidentally shot himself. So he's bleeding upstairs. But because Charley is the deputy mayor of New York City, they don't want a scandal. So they're spreading rumors about where Charley is. Meanwhile, nobody can find Myra, his wife."

As more couples arrive, more lies are spread. By the second act, everybody knows everything and they're all worried about the police showing up.

"It's just a hysterically funny play," he said. "So we have four couples wearing tuxedos and evening gowns, dressed to the nines, and they are put in this ridiculous situation. It's very funny; it's the funniest show I've ever worked on. And I have a dream cast of probably the best people I've ever worked with in community theater."

He had 30 people audition for 10 parts, he said.

"It was very competitive and I could've easily double-cast it," he said. "I chose people and they're all perfectly suited for their roles. The cast ranges from veterans of many, many Opera House shows to three people who are making their Opera House debut."

Zawacki was the theater director at Johnsburg High School for 30 years and produced "Rumors" in 2003, he said. That's the only time he's worked with the play, but the experience helped him prepare for this round.

"I knew the characters and I knew the basic plot, and I knew what I was getting into as far as the running and the door slamming, and people who couldn't be onstage while other people were onstage because the secret was being told," he said.

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"These actors figured it out really quickly. The way the play is written is, an exit occurs through one door and immediately an entrance is through another door. So somebody just misses seeing somebody that they're not supposed to see right there. The whole (first act) is full of entering and exiting, until the second act when all the couples are onstage for the entire time."

That's because the cops have arrived and the deputy mayor is upstairs with a gunshot wound. (It's just a superficial wound to his earlobe, but still.)

"You never see the host or hostess," he said. "It's a really good ensemble show. It focuses on the entire cast, not just the lead."

He thinks audiences will love the play's humor.

"TownSquare Players has a very big following at the Woodstock Opera House," he said. "We are the oldest community theater in McHenry County and we have a very good following. People come to see our shows no matter what.

"But this particular show, they will see really good community theater acting. And it is one of the funniest shows that has ever been written. It's got the Neil Simon name. People know his work. They know his comedies."

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Annie Alleman is a freelance writer for The Courier-News.

'Rumors'

When: June 16-25

Where: Woodstock Opera House, 121 E. Van Buren St., Woodstock

Tickets: $13-$23

Information: 815-338-5300, www.woodstockoperahouse.com
Elgin High School has a new principal, School District U46 announced this week.

Krystal Thomas was announced as the new head administrator of Elgin High, beginning July 1. On Monday, she made her first public appearance during the U46 school board meeting.

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"I'm so excited to get started, I really appreciate this opportunity," Thomas told the school board and those in attendance Monday night. She received a round of applause when CEO Tony Sanders announced she was in attendance.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Thomas said initiatives like Elgin's involvement in IB (International Baccalaureate) courses and U46's interest in creating career academies caught her attention.

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"(Students) may think, 'I could never be a physician, I could never become an engineer,'" she said. "And then you introduce (career pathways) early, they see it as attainable."

Thomas spent the past two school years as principal of Bloom High School in Chicago Heights-based District 206. Prior to her stint at Bloom, Thomas was the principal of North Chicago Community High School from 2013-15.

Under Thomas, Bloom successfully adopted and incorporated a $4 million School Improvement Grant given out to under-performing schools, U46 said in a news release.

In North Chicago, Thomas similarly authored a turnaround of a school that was being monitored by the state, the news release said. The graduation rate at North Chicago improved by 6 percent to 88 percent, student misconduct fell 20 percent, and the average ACT scores at the school increased.

Thomas has worked at Chicago Public Schools in other school administrative positions. She was an assistant principal at Mount Vernon Elementary School in 2006-07, high school principal at School of Technology in 2007-11, and assistant principal at George Corliss High School from 2011-13.

She replaces Jerry Cook, who will take over as principal of Wheeling High School in the 2017-18 school year. Cook had been the Elgin principal since 2011.

Elgin High School has an enrollment of more than 2,400 students.

raguerrero@tribpub.com
North Shore School District 112 lacks the capabilities of some other school systems to use data to determine how students and schools are doing and if programs are achieving the desired results, an interim school superintendent said Tuesday.

"Currently, we don't have an easy, seamless way to track short-term and long-term how our individual students are doing over time, how a particular school is doing over time and how our district is doing over time," Co-Interim Superintendent Ed Rafferty told the school board.

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"Many districts have a pretty robust system that allows them to track (achievement)," Rafferty said.

As it stands, generating a report to assess a program based on achievement outcomes almost requires looking up each student individually, making sure they are correctly coded in the program and then tracking backwards, Rafferty sad.

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During the coming year, administrators will be investigating and purchasing a data warehouse system compatible with Township High School District 113, he said.

"For us to gather that type of information, it should be a push of a couple of buttons," Rafferty said.

Rafferty spoke of the district's data needs while outlining steps the administration will be taking to address school board and community concerns about lagging student achievement and program inconsistencies across schools.

Kevin Ryan, who will join District 112 July 1 as Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, will be leading a district-wide effort to create a culture of continuous improvement and a coherent instructional program, according to Rafferty.

For the past five years, Ryan has served as director of 21st Century Learning, Curriculum and Instruction for Kildeer Countryside School District 96, which serves mostly students from Buffalo Grove and Long Grove.

"He comes from one of the top-performing districts in Illinois and is committed to improving the teaching and learning that happens across all of our schools," Rafferty said.

Rafferty said he and Jane Westerhold, the other co-superintendent, have heard many concerns about the lack of consistency in curriculum, instructional approaches and programs across schools.

"We have also heard many concerns about the overall decline in our student achievement, especially in comparison to some of our neighboring districts," Rafferty said.

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The administration will be presenting a comprehensive report on student achievement in the fall that includes both the 2016-17 results of the state-required PARCC assessment and the MAP tests administered by the district. PARCC, which stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, has been Illinois' assessment for elementary school students since 2015.

MAP, which stands for Measures of Academic Progress, is a test from the Northwest Evaluation Association that is used by many school systems.

On the 2016 PARCC exams, 46 percent of District 112 students were considered ready for the next level when the results of the English language arts and math tests were merged. Results varied from 20 to 70 percent at the individual schools.

The plan will identify instructional priorities for the 2017-18 school year and establish measurable goals for student achievement. "We know there is a lot to be done and we can't tackle them all in one year," Rafferty added.

The district also will be looking at additional assessments that might help evaluate programs for students learning English and those in the Advanced Learning Opportunities program for gifted students.

Rafferty's candor was reassuring to some in the audience, who used the citizen comment period at the end of the meeting to express optimism about the path forward.

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Earlier in the meeting, parents and other community members articulated a variety of concerns about a perceived decline in student achievement and the lack of challenge for high-performing students.

"We are losing many of our brightest students to surrounding districts and private schools," said Julie Campbell, a Ravinia parent and former school board candidate who serves on the Reconfiguration 2.0 panel. She advocated for more consistency in implementing the district's Advanced Learning Opportunities program for high performers.

"While I understand the desire for each school to have the flexibility to implement the program in a way that works best for its students, the inconsistencies are remarkable and," Campbell added, "ultimately unfair in a district that boasts equality of educational opportunities."

kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com
This year I am looking for meaning and intellectual engagement as an anecdote to current events in my summer reading. The large, 57-year-old book club I belong to offers a reading list with so much breadth, depth and variety it will definitely satisfy my reading needs.

The list this year features two nonfiction books and seven novels, with the two nonfiction works having to do with history. In other years, we have covered biology, aviation and genetic, but I am happy to study history as a predictor of the future.

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One of the books is "Hero of the Empire: the Boer War, A Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill" by Candice Millard. In this examination of a specific historical period, Winston Churchill is a 24-year-old journalist covering South Africa. He is captured and escapes to tell his story. It is supposed to be riveting.

The other nonfiction work concerns a less well-known historical figure: Edith Wilson called "Madam President: the Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson" by William Hazelgrove. Edith Wilson and Woodrow were essentially still newlyweds, married only four years, when President Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919 shortly after the conclusion of World War I. His wife, who was not particularly well educated in the classic sense or even in the practical one, essentially ran the White House for the next 17 months.

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Our fiction list is stacked with prize-winning works, each and every one destined to become a classic if it is not already. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain, is on the list. I cannot wait to re-read this book.

Another classic is "Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather. In this 1927 novel, a Catholic archbishop leaves France to travel across the United States in an effort to spread Christianity. He meets all kinds of people and situations on his way to New Mexico in this book sent in the 1850s.

"The Underground Railroad," by Colson Whitehead is the book everyone raved about last year and which won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It is on our list and coincidentally on the list of my other book club.

Here we have young Cora, seeking to escape slavery on a Georgia plantation. She enters the fabled underground railroad, where she experiences an odyssey through time as well as space. Whitehead makes the terror real, though other plot devices  an honest-to-God railroad underground that transported the fleeing slaves  are not.

"Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles is also on my other book club's list. The year is 1922 and a count is sentenced to house arrest in a grand Moscow hotel where even though he is physically confined to a small room, he lives a big and "classy" life.

This is probably the "lightest" book on our list and it will be followed by the formidable "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mandel, a book I have owned for years but been too intimidated to crack. This Man Booker Prize-winning novel portrays Thomas Cromwell as a likeable abettor to King Henry VIII. This book is not light nor is it fluffy. It is the first of a trilogy

Donna Tartt's excellent  though perhaps too long  prize-winning novel "The Goldfinch" will be discussed. This coming-of-age novel is set in New York, Las Vegas and Amsterdam and features "a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart and the mind," said Stephen King, a man who might know a little about writing.

Several women groaned when they saw "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel on the list. I had to wonder why. This was a darn good story with distinct characters and an absorbing plot. In it a boy and a tiger are adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a smallish boat. They need to rely on each other, even though one of them is the absolute tops in the hunter kingdom.

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A truly surprising end makes this book even more appropriate for discussion, and I will say that this one of the few books with a corresponding movie I feel adequately represents the book.

Over the years, the group has put together an incredible list of books, with some entries, "Madame Bovary," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Catcher in the Rye" for example, making more than one appearance.

For light and breezy this summer, I will pick up essayist and memoirist David Sedaris' new book "Theft by Finding," which are his diaries from 1977 to 2002. I expect to be delighted and intrigued in the entries within as I almost always am by his pieces.
A 27-year-old Kenosha woman is being held on $3 million bail in Kenosha County Jail in a house party shooting in Waukegan early Monday.

Nicole M. Maise was named in a murder warrant from Waukegan on Tuesday, and she was picked up at her home in Kenosha that evening without incident, according to Cmdr. Joe Florip of the Waukegan Police Department. He added that she was awaiting extradition to Illinois on Thursday.

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A memorial for Ciera Q. Davis, 24, of the 2800 block of Glen Flora in Waukegan, was held Tuesday, the same night police from Waukegan and the Kenosha Police Department picked up Maise.

According to Lake County Coroner Howard Cooper, Davis died of multiple gunshot wounds she received as she started to drive her car away from a house party at 4:30 a.m. Monday in the 1600 block of 11th Street. Her vehicle was in the middle of the road, and both the passenger and driver side windows were shot out, according to police.

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When police arrived, there was no victim, but Vista Medical Center East personnel notified them a short time later that someone had just brought in a shooting victim and the woman had died, authorities say.

Florip said Thursday that investigators are "still piecing together the events of that evening, and it is still an active case."

fabderholden@tribpub.com

Twitter @abderholden
GRIL owner Paul Patricelli grills a sandwich while his mother, Barbara Patricelli, assembles the take-out boxes. We come from a Polish-Italian family, she says. We always cook for everyone. We take a lot of pride in our ethnic background. You grew up with homemade food." ( Shonda Talerico Dudlicek/News-Sun )

Yes, GRIL sells grilled cheese sandwiches and yes, the missing L on the name is intentional. That's because GRIL is an acronym for Gratitude, Respect, Integrity, Local.

These are the four pillars upon which owner Paul Patricelli built his sandwich shop, located in an industrial park in Mundelein, near a dog kennel and other small businesses. It's a hub, Patricelli said, that gets him out of the house and allows him to take on bigger jobs.

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As of today, GRIL is not yet zoned as an eat-in restaurant, "but the paperwork has been filed and we're waiting for the approval." There is a farmhouse table that Patricelli scored by trading sandwiches he made for a doctor and his staff. And GRIL's landlord is donating some picnic tables for outside. But most people eat in their cars outside or take the sandwiches home.

GRIL serves "sandwiches with a purpose." Similar to the business model of Tom's Shoes of one for one, for every sandwich GRIL sells, one is donated somewhere in the community, "to a person, family or child in need. We track how many sandwiches we sell and go to homeless shelters, schools or parties at organizations," Patricelli said.

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"It's simple for us to do. Food is a really powerful thing. It's temporary and it makes people smile. We're a family of faith and I do believe this is my calling.

"I always knew I had something with restaurants in me," said Patricelli, a former real estate agent. "God would find me the way."

Two years ago, Patricelli and his wife, Susan, were sitting on their couch with another foodie couple, making grilled cheese sandwiches and having a fun time. "And then I realized, this was a good business model: bread and cheese," Patricelli said. "I feed my friends for free. Why not start an onsite cooking experience, have fun and have relatable sandwiches?"

Relatable sandwiches would be the seven grilled cheese sandwiches on the menu. All GRIL's sandwiches have a story behind them: The Grayslaker is named for their hometown, The Nana is for the appetizers his mother made when he was a kid and The Antny is for his father, growing up in an Italian household.

Before opening GRIL, Patricelli cooked in a storage closet. "This is the same kind of concept like a food truck. But with onsite cooking, we could get into places they can't. There's a strategic upside to being mobile," he said.

"I think that GRIL can be any kind of food or sandwich and you focus on how you do it."

On the menu: Meatless grilled cheese sandwiches made with Colby, muenster, brie, Butterkase, white cheddar, baby Swiss, fontina and pepper jack. Meatless sandwiches mean no cross-contamination and less overhead, Patricelli said.

About the owners: The Patricellis opened GRIL in mid-May 2017 to make a difference. For every sandwich sold, one is donated to a community organization.

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Philosophy: Patricelli takes his inspiration from the Bible: "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:4." This is posted on a sign in the shop with the GRIL acronym.

"We liked the idea of a make-a-difference diner. You feed people and it's such a simple thing. I'm passionate about my ingredients. It's kind of selfish because it fills me up. I've got to make a difference and I'm driven to set an example for my boys," he said. Sons Andrew, 20, and Michael, 17, help their parents at GRIL.

Decor: "Farmhouse industrial. Lots of stuff was donated," he said.

Price range: Seven gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches from $7.95 to $8.95 and include chips and a dill pickle. Soup of the week for $3. Cole slaw and three-bean salad for $2. Build-your-own salad for $9.95. Dessert for $1.50. Soft drinks and bottled water also available.

Logistics: GRIL is at 403 Washington Blvd., Suite 11, Mundelein. Hours are 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday. Contact 224-304-4745 or www.grilcheese.com.

Shonda Talerico Dudlicek is a freelance writer for the News-Sun.
The University of Wyoming closed "the chapter of UW budget reductions," President Laurie Nichols said Wednesday, when its Board of Trustees approved the school's budget for the 2018 fiscal year.

The action, all but a formality after officials presented the budget to the board last month, ends a tough 12 months for the university. The state's sole four-year university lost roughly $42 million in funding as a result of the economic downturn in Wyoming; it laid off 37 staff members in mid-May and announced more than $29 million in current and future cuts.

UW is "moving forward as a leaner, more focused institution," Nichols, who took charge of the university a year ago, said in a press release.

Nichols has eliminated more than 300 positions during her time at the school, the majority of which were already vacant. Last summer, she declared a financial emergency when it became apparent the university's fiscal situation was dire but stopped short of declaring exigency, which would have allowed the administration to target tenured faculty for layoffs.

Over the past year, the university also implemented two rounds of buyouts for faculty and staff to cut costs. It's eliminated five programs and placed several more on hold while dismantling the Outreach School and shuttling its duties elsewhere on campus. Officials have said they don't anticipate more cutbacks in the coming fiscal year, barring reductions from the Legislature, which will meet in February 2018.

The budget approved expenditures totaling roughly $462 million for the 2017-18 fiscal year.

The board voted to use $49.7 million in funds left over from last year to create several "centralized reserve and sinking funds." Those funds include one to save money to replace UW's passenger aircraft, another for the replacement of UW's residence halls and a third to be used as a "permanent risk pool/litigation fund."

Though UW's fall 2016 enrollment was down compared with the previous year, the university expects the incoming freshman class will be the largest in the school's 130-year history. UW had previously announced tuition hikes.
The terrorist attack in London on Saturday night, June 3, and earlier attacks, aim at bloody murder of innocents, plus media exposure. London casualties now stand at seven killed and 48 injured.

Two weeks earlier, a bomb in Manchester killed 22 and injured 59, many of them young people, at a concert where the attack occurred. On March 22, another attack took place in London. Five people were killed, including a police officer, and dozens injured by an attacker who used a vehicle on Westminster Bridge, then knives on the grounds of Britain's Parliament at Westminster Palace. The attacks may have been coordinated.

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The impact of terrible violence has been magnified by the 24/7 global electronic media. Predictably, the grimmest, most gruesome information is emphasized, with endless speculation. The more alarming the possibility, the more of interest to the talking heads. This is not traditional reporting.

The antidote is to focus on hard facts, plus the context of contemporary terrorism. In reality, that context includes powerful assets in the war against murderers who seek justification through distorting Islam.

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First, British police and security services have in each case responded with remarkable speed and effectiveness, killing or capturing those responsible rapidly, and securing evidence and alleged accomplices. We can be confident that the judicial process will be fair and orderly in trying those charged.

Second, unfortunately, those same services obviously were not effective in learning of the attacks in advance and preventing them. This underscores the extremely vexing and frustrating nature of contemporary terrorism.

Third, the international anti-terrorist coalition contains impressive, strong leaders in Europe and beyond. Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May deserves praise for rallying her nation in clear and calm fashion, and taking specific steps to heighten security. She has avoided any emotional appeals to ethnic hatred, or melodramatic self-interested political gestures.

Similarly, new President Emmanuel Macron of France gives every indication of following the same tough but responsible approach to terrorism.

Previous President Francois Hollande and his government reacted firmly to the terror attacks in January 2015 on the offices of satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo." The attackers killed twelve people and wounded eleven. The magazine continues to publish, undeterred. Multiple coordinated attacks in metropolitan Paris in November of that year killed 130 people and injured 368.

Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday >

Germany has had fewer such incidents in recent years, though a history involving other types of terrorist groups, which created sustained severe violence in the 1970s. In an attack in December 2016, a terrorist using a stolen truck killed 12 people and injured 56 in Berlin.

Germany seems to be more effective in frustrating such attacks in advance. This may reinforce Chancellor Angela Merkel's influence as a leader of Europe. Status as the largest and strongest manufacturing economy on the continent provides powerful leverage within the European Union (EU). Germany has succeeded in securing greater financial discipline within the organization.

Fourth, as this implies, the terrorist danger provides opportunities to strengthen regional and international institutions. The November 2015 Paris attacks occurred just before a G20 economic summit held in Turkey, the lead nation in that year. Discussion focused on dealing with the terrorist threat.

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NATO likewise is important. Related Allied intelligence cooperation includes the "Five Eyes" group of Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. This dates from World War II, though trust of the U.S. is now at risk.

The Atlantic alliance and European leaders provide tools against terrorists.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of "After the Cold War."

emailto:acyr@carthage.edu
J. Herman Sitrick, pictured in the 1940s as a U.S. Army soldier serving in World War II. (Ron Sitrick )

A Morton Grove man's actions in Belgium during World War II will be honored by the French on Monday, some 70 years after he reportedly single-handedly captured 21 German soldiers during a snowstorm.

J. Herman Sitrick's son said the decoration for his 92-year-old father, to be presented by the consul general of France in Chicago, is "astounding and touching."

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Sitrick will receive the Legion d'Honneur, officials confirmed.

The Legion d'Honneur is the highest honor bestowed by the nation of France for military and civil actions. It was established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802, said Pascale Thome, a spokeswoman at the French consulate.

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Sitrick's recognition is one of a number bestowed on American World War II veterans who fought on French soil, "depending on the battles and what they achieved," Thome said.

France began honoring those fighters in 2004, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, she said.

Along with capturing the German soldiers in Belgium in 1945, Sitrick fought in Luxembourg and in Normandy and Brittany in France, among other European locations, he said.

Sitrick left the Army in 1946, he said, and to receive the high French honor more than seven decades later "came as a huge surprise to me."

"The man who contacted me about it, his father had been an infantry soldier too," Sitrick said.

He theorized that his colleague passed down the story about the day Sitrick captured the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge.

As the war veteran recalls, the episode started after Sitrick encountered a soldier who in German said to Sitrick as he approached, "Don't shoot! I have three children."

Sitrick spoke some German, he said, and the two sought refuge from the snow and cold in a bombed-out farmhouse. Sitrick put the soldier in the basement. Other Germans wandered in, seeking shelter, and Sitrick captured them as well, he said.

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The next morning Sitrick heard tanks, he said, and turned the prisoners over to the 3rd Armored Division before seeking to rejoin his own company.

After the capture Sitrick spent a week in the hospital for "frozen feet," he said.

When he rejoined his company, fellow soldiers told him reporters and photographers had been by looking for him, he said.

He never did the interviews.

Sitrick said he expects more than 50 family members, friends, coworkers and even the doctor who replaced his heart valve to turn out for the ceremony next week. He still goes to work "almost every day" at his business, Sitrick Advertising in Skokie.

The biggest absence at next week's event will be that of Sitrick's wife, Marcia, 89, who can't attend due to medical issues, he said.

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Sitrick met her "at a dance at a community center two days after I got back" from fighting in World War II, he said. He proposed the next day. A day after that she said yes. They married about six months later in July 1946.

"It was the best thing I ever did in my lifetime," Sitrick said.

Sitrick's son, Ron, described his dad as humble and reserved about his war experiences, "like most true heroes."

"What this award means to us more than anything is that his bravery, selflessness and service is not taken for granted at this stage of his life," Ron Sitrick said. "The outpouring of love and admiration for our father by so many is astounding and touching for all of us as a family."

gbookwalter@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @GenevieveBook
A 23-year-old Naperville man has been sentenced to three years in prison for stabbing a 14-year-old boy with a pocketknife last year.

Jason V. Yantz, with addresses listed in the 3600 block of Eliot Lane in Naperville and the 1400 block of Pioneer Road in Crest Hill, stabbed the teen in the left side of his abdomen during a fight on March 8, 2016.

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Will County sheriff's deputies arrested Yantz after stopping his car for speeding in unincorporated Joliet, a sheriff's office spokeswoman said. A second vehicle in which the teen was a passenger pulled into a nearby driveway and told police of the stabbing.

The attack was provoked after someone in Yantz's vehicle threw a bottle at the car in which the teen was riding, resulting in a fight, the spokeswoman said.

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Will County Judge Daniel L. Kennedy sentenced Yantz on May 31 to three years in prison for that crime as well as giving him an additional year for an unrelated charge of criminal damage to property, court records showed.

He began serving his prison term Tuesday at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.

According to court records, Yantz was sentenced to a year in prison in September 2012 on a charge of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.

wbird@tribpub.com
Emergency crews gather at the site where a car crashed into a block of gas meters attached to a condominium building at 941 N. Northwest Highway in Park Ridge. (Jennifer Johnson / Pioneer Press)

An Edison Park woman who allegedly crashed into a series of gas meters outside a Park Ridge condominium building was driving despite not having a valid license, police said.

Jeanine Marie Mannella, 40, of the 6800 block of Northwest Highway in Chicago, was charged with driving with a suspended license, driving a vehicle with suspended registration, driving an uninsured vehicle and failure to obey a stop sign in connection with the June 6 crash at 941 N. Northwest Highway, police said.

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Park Ridge Police Sgt. Rich Ryan said a Mitsubishi Montero was headed north on Shibley Avenue, approaching Northwest Highway, when the car crossed the intersection and crashed into a set of gas meters connected to a three-story building across the street.

Scott Sankey, battalion chief for the Park Ridge Fire Department, said the crash, which occurred around 12:40 p.m., severed a gas line that feeds the multiple gas meters attached to the condominium building.

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"There was free-flowing gas when we got here," Sankey said.

The fire department was able to clamp the gas line, and gas was shut off to the nine-unit building, which was evacuated, he said. A neighboring building to the east, housing a dentist and insurance office, was also evacuated as a precaution, Sankey said.

Gas to the condominium building remained shut off as Nicor crews arrived to make repairs and remove the gas meters following the crash. A portion of the building's brick was also noticeably damaged.

On Wednesday, Park Ridge Deputy Police Chief Duane Mellema said the cause of the crash remained unclear, but there was no indication that drugs or alcohol played a role.

Mannella was treated at the scene by paramedics and then taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.

For more than one hour, Northwest Highway was closed to traffic between Oakton Street and Seeley Avenue. It reopened shortly before 2 p.m.

jjohnson@pioneerlocal.com

Twitter: @Jen_Tribune
The man and woman found dead in a van outside a Chesterton convenience store Wednesday afternoon have been identified.

Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris identified the man, who was in the driver's seat, as Andrew Dicharia, 49, of Chicago. The woman in the passenger seat was Kimberly Raines, 29, of Bolingbrook, Ill., he said.

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Police were called shortly after noon Wednesday to BP, 525 Indian Boundary Road, after receiving a report that two people appeared to be dead in a van parked outside the gas station.

The preliminary investigation revealed the presence of controlled substances on Dicharia, and both he and Raines were known to be substance abusers, Chesterton police Chief David Cincoski said in a Thursday news release.

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"The type of controlled substances found at the scene preliminarily tested positive for methamphetamines, but confirmation will be pending laboratory testing," Cincoski said.

The cause of death has yet to be determined, pending the results of an investigation by Harris. The coroner said results of a toxicology report would be available in about six weeks.

Harris said Wednesday the case was "very possibly a drug overdose and a glimpse into Porter County's future."

Raines was "a known associate" of Dicharia's, Cincoski said, adding the investigation revealed that Dicharia was employed in the construction field and was supposed to be en route to an unknown address in Michigan.

Dicharia and Raines arrived in the Chesterton area around 4:10 a.m. Wednesday, Cincoski said.

Antwan Green, manager at the BP, said Wednesday that workers who pulled into the gas station for lunch noticed what they thought were two people sleeping in the van.

When Green went outside to investigate, he discovered the two people appeared to be dead and called police.

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Sherry Hunter, of Calumet Lives Matter, Sam Henderson, of the Hoosier Environmental Council, and the Rev. Cheryl Rivera, of the Community Strategy Group, lead a Tuesday night discussion on the proposed demolition plan for the West Calumet Housing Complex in East Chicago. (Craig Lyons / Post-Tribune )

East Chicago residents again are pushing for more oversight in the cleanup efforts at the U.S.S. Lead Superfund site, as plans are being circulated on the demolition of the West Calumet Housing Complex.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is now seeking public comments on the plans for the demolition of the West Calumet Housing Complex, but residents think the federal agency should grant more time for input and hold a public hearing.

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"Again, we have something that came out with no community input," said the Rev. Cheryl Rivera, a member of the Community Strategy Group and director of the Northwest Indiana Federation of Interfaith Organizations.

People are concerned about what impact the demolition might have on the neighborhood because of dust or water runoff, Rivera said, and what protections are in place for workers taking the complex down. Rivera said everyone knows how contaminated the soil is and want to limit any additional exposure.

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"We were very concerned," Rivera said.

A notice issued May 26 by HUD said the demolition of the complex would have "no significant impact on the human environment." The determination from HUD came after an application submitted by the East Chicago Housing Authority detailed the need for demolition to protect human health because of the lead and arsenic contamination found in the soil around the public housing complex.

East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland said in May the city asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean the site of the West Calumet Housing Complex to residential standards once demolition is completed. The mayor said once the site is cleaned to residential standards, the city will begin seeking input on potential future uses of the land.

The demolition plan will remove all residential and non-residential structures, foundations, pavement and sidewalks, according to a notice from HUD. The federal housing agency said the cost of the demolition will be around $6.8 million.

An attorney for the East Chicago Housing Authority did not respond to a request for comment.

"We're being left out of the formula," said Martiza Lopez, a leader of the East Chicago Calumet Coalition and We the People of East Chicago, but residents are the primary stakeholders in these decisions.

Sam Henderson, an attorney with the Hoosier Environmental Council, said there are two possible outcomes from the residents' perspective: trying to get HUD to recognize the potential environmental impact of the demolition or push for the remedial action plan to change to manage fugitive dust and groundwater runoff.

Henderson said people want more time to submit comments and are asking for a public hearing on the plans.

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"My concern is about the process," said Thomas Frank, a member of the Community Strategy Group. He said he thinks the housing authority should have a public hearing and present the plans.

Residents and interested parties have until June 13 to submit written comments to HUD.

"At this point, we don't expect that HUD will grant the extension," Henderson said.

Copeland, last July, sent a letter to residents of the West Calumet Housing Complex saying that because of elevated levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, they should move out of the complex.

Residents can't stop the complex from coming down, Rivera said.

"Now, it's how it's coming down," Rivera said.

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clyons@post-trib.com

Twitter @craigalyons
Gary compliance officer Tammi Davis explained to Common Council members the parts of her agreement with HMD Trucking Inc. that are meant to urge the company to hire Gary residents in exchange for city support of a new corporate facility. The company had previously been based in Chicago Ridge, Ill., for 19 years. (Gregory Tejeda / Post-Tribune)

A trucking company that has plans to relocate its Chicago Ridge, Ill., operations to Gary says it will hire many Gary residents when they move, but city officials were determined to put something to that effect in writing.

The Common Council on Tuesday gave final approval to a pair of measures that will encourage the HMD Trucking Inc. to build their new plant and administrative offices in Gary, with some financial help from the city in the form of $1.1 million in revenue bonds from the city to supplement the $5 million the company intends to spend on a new plant. The city's funds will be used to pay for improvements 15th Avenue so that the plant would have direct access to Interstate 65.

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Tammi Davis, a city compliance officer who spent several months negotiating with HMD officials, said the agreement for the city help includes clauses that call for financial penalties if it turns out that non-Gary residents wind up getting the bulk of the jobs created by the new facility.

The company is supposed to have a goal of 30 percent use of local contractors, and it will be hit with a $1,000 fine by the city for every 1 percent they fall short of that percentage.

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HMD also is expected to develop an in-house training program that would give priority to Gary residents in terms of preparation for jobs, and the agreement Davis worked out with the company calls for a $10,000 fine for each year they do not have such a program.

Davis also said the agreement she negotiated with HMD includes clauses restricting the ability of the company to use a Gary resident's criminal record as an issue for not hiring them.

"They won't be able to use that as a reason to not hire Gary residents," she said.

For his part, HMD founder and president Henry Malukas said complying with such rules will not be a problem; he thinks his company is better off if the bulk of its employees live in the area near the company  which plans to develop a facility at a site at 1350 Texas St.

"To me, it makes sense for us to hire all local people," he said. "That's our goal."

Malukas and city officials previously have said HMD intends to have about 500 employees within five years  half of whom would be truck drivers and the remainder of which would be administrative staff. The new plant would consist of about 17,000 square feet for trucking operations, with administrative offices taking up another 9,000 square feet.

Malukas said Tuesday he plans to transfer only five people from the existing plant in Chicago Ridge, with the remainder of the staff to be new hires.

The city was able to get HMD to work out deals by which Ivy Tech Community College in Gary, which has a program preparing people to qualify for a commercial driver's license, would gain priority for its students in terms of gaining employment.

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They also persuaded HMD officials to hold job fairs in coming months for both construction jobs and for the actual permanent positions to be created by the company.

"We'll see what the potential pool is for employment," Davis said.

For her part, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson urged Common Council members to approve the deal, saying she likes that it would bring a new company wishing to expand its operations to her home city.

The council wound up approving the measure with little resistance. Only councilwoman Ragen Hatcher, D-at large, voted against the ordinance, although even she voted to approve a matching resolution that specified how money from the tax increment finance district surrounding the site would be split up.

HMD has been in existence since 1998 in Chicago Ridge. Malukas has said the existing site does not offer sufficient space for the new offices and training facilities he wants to build.

Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Predicting elections isn't always easy, but the results of Monday's caucus in Hebron to replace a member of the Town Council may be easier to predict than most.

Mike Mantai, a Democrat who represents District 2, resigned May 21 because he moved outside his district.

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Contenders for the spot are Jamie Uzelac, Steve Dujmovich and Don Ensign, who formerly held an at-large seat on the council. After 12 years on the council, Ensign lost his last bid for re-election two years ago.

The four precinct committeemen who will select the council member at Monday's caucus are Ensign; his son, Shawn Ensign; William Sopko; and his son, Kyle Sopko.

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Should Ensign and his son vote for him, there's a good chance he could win the caucus and return to the Town Council, which has the other contenders for the spot concerned.

Don Ensign did not return a call for comment.

Uzelac, who's lived in Hebron her entire life and is the town's former clerk-treasurer, now works as a utilities inspector in Porter County's engineering department. She said she decided to try for the council because people approached her and asked her to give it a go.

"(Don Ensign) gets to vote so it's most likely he will vote for himself," she said.

Dujmovich, a Portage High School graduate who's from South Haven, moved to Hebron around 2006, he said. He's on the town's zoning board and works at ArcelorMittal's Burns Harbor plant. He's also a union official with United Steelworkers Local 6787.

He, too, was encouraged to run for the seat, and was the last to fill out the necessary paperwork in Porter County's Voter Registration Office, which he did Tuesday afternoon.

He said he knew what he was getting into when he filed, and the numbers in the last town election in which Don Ensign lost his council seat speak for themselves.

Dujmovich thinks Don Ensign should abstain from casting a ballot in the caucus, though Dujmovich knows he doesn't have to.

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"Rules are rules. I don't make the rules. Do I think it's a conflict of interest? Yes, but I will never say anything bad about anyone," he said.

Mantai was first appointed to the District 2 council seat, and then was elected to keep the seat two years ago. He would like to see someone new to the council take his seat.

"I think it's time for the town to move forward, not backward. It's for the best of the town and the best of the party," he said.

To an outsider, the system looks like it's rigged but it's not, said Jeff Chidester, chair of the Porter County Democratic Party. He understands the concerns.

He appointed Don Ensign and Kyle Sopko to their precinct spots because they were open, something he has the power to do as party chair. Don Ensign filled a post opened when the previous precinct committeeman moved, and no one ran for the seat now held by Kyle Sopko.

"At the end of the day, rules are rules and I can see how someone can look at this and say it's not fair," Chidester said.

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The county has 124 precincts and people representing each from both parties, and all of those spots will be open for a four-year term in the May 2018 primary. Chidester will fill any open seats after the election for his party.

"It's something that we wrestle with every time when there are precinct committeemen voting for things," he said. "This is one of the reasons we feel the precinct committee position is important."

Amy Lavalley is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
Guy Mikulich was called as the final witness Wednesday in his own disciplinary hearing before the Lake County sheriff's police merit board.

Right away, Mikulich, and his attorney, Christopher Cooper, said that Mikulich would not be able to testify because of his ongoing criminal case, and Mikulich invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

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But then Cooper asked Mikulich that if he could, would he have liked to testify today?

"Absolutely," Mikulich said, drawing out each syllable.

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Wednesday was the second day of the suspended Lake County officer's merit board evidentiary hearing to determine if there was any misconduct and if he should be fired, as Sheriff John Buncich previously requested.

Mikulich is accused of hitting Derrick Dircks, of Frankfort, Ill., on July 10 while in uniform and intoxicated in his unmarked black department-issued Ford Crown Victoria after working security at the Gary Air Show, according to a probable cause affidavit in Mikulich's criminal case. Mikulich was pulled over in the 5900 block of Hemlock Street, about 1 1/2 miles from where Dircks was hit, after reportedly fleeing the scene, the affidavit states.

In addition to the merit board case, Mikulich has pleaded not guilty to 13 criminal charges. In a May court filing, Mikulich's criminal case attorney, Paul Stracci, said that his client intends to raise an insanity defense.

Mikulich has also been named in a civil case raised by Dircks.

Cooper said that Mikulich "wanted to testify" at the merit trial, even though he couldn't because of the pending matters, but he let his client take the stand at the last minute. When the attorney representing the sheriff, John Bushemi, asked Mikulich whether he would answer any questions about the case Wednesday, Mikulich repeatedly replied, "I cannot answer any questions."

Before Mikulich, Buncich took the stand. There had been some debate between the attorneys whether the sheriff had been subpoenaed to testify Wednesday, and why he was not at the hearing. Bushemi called Buncich, who he said was out of the office and Buncich arrived at the hearing as the attorneys were debating the matter.

Bushemi objected to the majority of the questions Cooper asked the sheriff, which resulted in Cooper calling Buncich to the stand twice, before stating he had no further questions. Buncich did testify that Mikulich's father was one of Buncich's first partners, and he had known Guy Mikulich since "the day he was born."

Bushemi also asked newly appointed Lake County Chief of Police Dennis Matthew Eaton whether the incident in question had tarnished the department's reputation to the public. Eaton said that he believed it had "degraded" its reputation.

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After Bushemi finished presenting his evidence, Cooper called a few witnesses, including Lake County Sheriff Sgt. John Verbich.

Cooper focused his questions for Verbich on a portable breath test that Verbich reportedly gave to Mikulich. According to an interview with Indiana State Police, Verbich originally denied giving Mikulich a test before state police requested a Breathalyzer test from Mikulich, Cooper said.

Verbich later admitted to state police that he did test Mikulich multiple times after the first few tests didn't register, according to Cooper. But state Trooper Anthony Potesta, who was the chief investigator in the case and was also called to testify, said he did not know about Verbich's tests until the hearings Tuesday and Wednesday.

The board members also watched a video from surveillance cameras of the home of Wilma Washington, who lives in the 7700 block of Oak Avenue in Gary, across the street from where Dircks parked his minivan, she said. The board previously ruled Tuesday that the video would not be played at the hearing, but they changed that ruling Wednesday when Washington testified.

Washington narrated the video as the board members and Mikulich watched the screen. The timestamp showed that at 4:02 p.m., a person is seen walking to the back of a minivan and opening the trunk as a black car appeared from the ride side of the screen, she said. The car hits the man, who goes on the hood of the car, before landing in the road, she said. The car exits on the left side of the screen, and a woman, followed by neighbors and her children, is seen running to the man, she said.

An eyewitness, Katelynn Josey, of Gary, testified she was riding in a car with her fiance that day on Oak Avenue when she saw a black car coming in the opposite direction "going fast" before it "swerved" and hit the pedestrian, sending the man into the air, she said.

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"He wasn't moving. He looked like he was dead," Josey said. "We called 911 and then we looked around and saw everyone calling 911."

Both attorneys finished presenting their evidence Wednesday, and the merit board is scheduled to make a decision in the case at its July 20 meeting.

rejacobs@post-trib.com

Twitter @ruthyjacobs
Bishop Metropolitan Iakovos of Chicago blesses parishioners during a Mass in April 2006 at Annunciation Cathedral in downtown Chicago for the Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday service. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty)

As the longtime head of the Midwest Greek Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Iakovos was remembered by church leaders this week as a faithful steward and stable force who was attentive to the needs of church members.

Iakovos, 89, born Michael Garmatis in Athens, Greece, died Friday. His funeral is Friday in Chicago.

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As a bishop in the Chicago Archdiocese since 1979, he provided stability and a consistency for priests and parishioners, church officials said.

"It's an amazing legacy, because people today do not last in positions like that for so long," said the Rev. Christopher T. Metropulos, president of the Hellenic College in Boston.

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"Very few can (be in) the continuous position of integrity that brings stability not only to the church but to the lives of the people," Metropulos said.

"He was a priest's priest," he said. "He was a bishop's bishop."

Church leaders said Iakovos still was active in ministry when he died after an unexpected illness and surgery at a Chicago hospital. He oversaw 34 parishes in Illinois and two dozen others in northern Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, eastern Missouri and Wisconsin.

The Rev. Jim Greanias of St. Iakovos Greek Orthodox Church in Valparaiso said the Metropolitan partly inspired him to become a priest.

When his father  also a Greek Orthodox priest  died unexpectedly, Iakovos visited the family and personally conducted his 40th-day memorial  an essential spiritual milestone that Orthodox Christians believe marks the soul's journey into the afterlife.

"At 21 ... my world was upside down," Greanias said. "When (he) came, it was such a sign. It really felt like the presence of Christ."

The Rev. Ted Poteres of St. Constantine & Helen Cathedral in Merrillville said Iakovos was strict on how priests should conduct liturgy but would never embarrass a priest in the teaching process.

Iakovos was a kind man with whom he could share a joke, Poteres said. He was attentive to parishioners and often would ask them about their families over the several times he visited the church.

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His influence on his own family was vast, Poteres said. Iakovos ordained him, married him, baptized his children and eventually married them.

Iakovos served in the Greek Orthodox Church for nearly 50 years and was the first metropolitan of Chicago. He was born in 1928 and served in the church there until 1954 when he went to Boston for graduate studies.

Archbishop Demetrios of America will preside at Iakovos' funeral at 10:30a.m. Friday at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary in Chicago.

Associated Press contributed.

mcolias@post-trib.com

Twitter @meredithcolias
Climate change isnt a hoax  the Trump administrations declaration of war on the environment, notwithstanding. Sacrificing our ecosystems on the altar of the economy is a fools errand grounded in denial and myopia. Homo sapiens are threatening the continued existence of their only nest. That is not fake news. It is scientific fact.

Not Montanas problem?

Wrong. Montanans have a dog in this fight. Our States blue-ribbon fisheries, clean air, water, hunting, mountains, parks and plains support Montanas second largest industry, recreation, travel and tourism. We live here, and others come here, because of our environment.

Indeed, We the People begin our Constitution thanking God for the quiet beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains and the vastness of our rolling plains. These natural wonders are so important that every Montanan is guaranteed an inalienable right to clean and healthful environment in our Constitution, Article II, Section 3. No one can deprive us of this right.

So, we need not  and must not  support the administrations withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Montana and our cities and towns need to join the growing nationwide United States Climate Alliance to keep the Paris agreement intact. California, Washington and New York are leading the alliance; at least 180 cities, large and small, representing more than 51 million Americans in both red and blue States, have vowed to ignore the Presidents action. We should, too.

Unlike, Montanas Constitution, the federal Constitution does not contain a textual right to a clean and healthful environment. Yet, the highest courts of twenty-some other nations that, likewise, do not have an explicit environmental right, have ruled that the right to life implicitly includes the guarantee of a clean and healthful environment  because a clean and healthful environment is essential for our species survival.

To expect a similar ruling from our state and federal courts is probably a stretch. But, there is nothing preventing "We the People" from acknowledging the obvious. We must demand that our state and our cities and towns join the alliance to honor the Paris climate accord. Montanans have a constitutional right to expect no less from our governor and mayors.

We live in a planetary ecosystem. No politician has the right to proclaim that America is the peeing section in the global swimming pool. Our country is not, and, certainly, Montana, is not that place. We must protect and improve our environment. In the end, its the only one we have.

And, that, Mr. President, is no hoax.

Nelson is a retired Montana Supreme Court Justice.
Prosecutors will be able to delve into two 1970s sex-crime cases at the trial of a man accused of killing and sexually assaulting a 15-year-old DuPage County girl in 1985.

Judge George Bakalis ruled Thursday that prosecutors in the trial of Michael R. Jones can present evidence about a 1977 sex assault charge that concluded with a conviction and prison term for Jones, and a 1976 case in which Jones was charged but not convicted.

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Prosecutors intend to call the women from both cases to testify at the trial, which has not yet been scheduled. Jones is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated criminal sexual assault.

The judge said facts of the two 1970s incidents bore enough similarity to details of the 1985 death of Kristy Wesselman to be relevant evidence of intent, and of a distinct method or pattern Jones allegedly used. Their probative value, the judge said, outweighed the prejudicial effect such testimony can have on jurors.

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Bakalis, however, rejected some other testimony prosecutors sought to introduce, including allegations that Jones molested a young relative over a period of years, and a prostitute's charge that Jones drugged her and attacked her in 1994 after she accepted Jones' invitation for a ride on his motorcycle.

"I don't believe the factual similarities are sufficient," Bakalis said of those cases.

State's Attorney Robert Berlin argued for the inclusion of the incidents, focusing mainly on the two 1970s allegations.

"Our position is the facts are incredibly similar to the facts alleged in this case," Berlin told the judge.

Kristy failed to return to her home in Glen Ellyn on July 21, 1985, after she walked to a nearby shopping center, taking a well-established neighborhood path through a field. Her body was found the following day not far from the path. She had been stabbed to death and sexually assaulted, and there was a shoelace tied around her neck.

Police were unable to make an arrest, and over the ensuing three decades the search for her attacker grew cold. But the case was suddenly revived in 2015 when Jones, who had been living for many years in the Champaign-Urbana area, was required to submit DNA to a national database following his conviction on a domestic battery case. That DNA matched samples from the Wesselman case, authorities say, and led to his arrest.

By 1985, Jones, who is 64, had moved downstate but still returned frequently to visit the Schiller Park home where his mother and stepfather, who was a Chicago police officer, lived with Jones' sister.

Jones served a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a woman in August 1977. Authorities said he knocked her off her bicycle as she rode near her home on the Northwest Side of Chicago. He forced her into his car at gunpoint and drove her to the Schiller Park residence where he bound her and assaulted her.

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A year earlier, Jones was accused of forcing an 18-year-old woman, who was walking along Irving Park Road, into his car at gunpoint, bringing her to the Schiller Park home and sexually assaulting her.

In the 1970s incidents and the alleged Wesselman killing, Jones employed similar tactics, prosecutors argued in their motion, using ligatures or choking, abducting the victim from a public place or taking jewelry.

Jones' attorney, Assistant Public Defender Robert Gifford, argued that there were enough differences between the incidents to bar their admission at trial.

The case will be back in court July 13, and a trial date will be set then.

Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
Police ask public to help identify vehicle allegedly used in homicide
We have to tip our hats to the Laurel firefighters.

When faced with having a statewide monument to firefighters ripped away from the city, they stepped up to jumpstart the project that had languished for more than a decade.

Speaking of a tip of the hat, we believe folks should consider putting something in the hat that's being passed around for the project. The group still needs more than $150,000 to finish the memorial.

This is may be one of the department's most heroic rescues yet.

The memorial, located next to the city's safety complex at 215 W. First St., was originally approved in 2004 by the Legislature and then-Gov. Judy Martz.

For the next 13 years, the plans and the project stalled. The group received a small $1,000 grant from the state Department of Natural Resources Conservation in 2013.

Still, other than some trees, nothing doing, as they'd say.

During this year's Legislature, some lawmakers were frustrated with Laurel's tardiness and wrote legislation to remove it to another part of the state, more centrally located, the sponsor Sen. Jill Cohenour, D-Helena, proposed.

We understand that not much had happened and that lawmakers were frustrated, even though the attempt by Cohenour appears like a power grab for the state's capital city by one of its own lawmakers. We'd point out that Helena doesn't lack for monuments, memorials or tributes.

However, we also agree: Just setting some land aside for a memorial and 13 years of lag time doesn't really honor those firefighters who died in the line of service or gave more than 20 years of service. Laurel had not been exactly speedy or fervent.

That was then, this is now.

In an effort to keep the monument in Laurel and to revive the project, firefighters and volunteers came together on Memorial Day to give it a boost.

Initial plans in 2004 called for a memorial that would have taken $1 million. Today, the project is scaled back to a quarter of that amount. Thanks to River Ridge Landscaping the project is now more achievable.

We congratulate the Laurel firefighters and community for restarting the project when it could have been easier to let it go to some other Montana community.

Instead, the fire department redoubled its effort and dedication which will serve as a tribute to their brothers and sisters in the line of duty.

We also believe that Montana should have a place to honor fallen firefighters or those who gave an extraordinary portion of their lives in service. The daily responsibilities for fire crews routinely mean either putting their own safety in danger, or helping those whose lives are threatened.

We salute any firefighter for being willing to make those sacrifices. As such, it's only fitting that they have a permanent memorial.

Finally, we'd like to make a call for action for the rest of the community to rally around this very worthwhile project. This isn't just Laurel's project, it should be the entire community's, Billings included.

When people come to remember those whose names will be added to the memorial, they'll be coming to our community as guests. They'll be staying here, shopping here and eating here. This isn't just a memorial, it's also a positive attraction. Therefore, the support for this project should expand beyond the Laurel city limits.

We must realize that Laurel -- and by extension, our community -- must finish the project this time, or risk having it ripped away. That would be embarrassing and unnecessary because we've seen time and time again the tremendous generosity that happens when people in this community decide to rally behind a worthwhile project.
Sixty social media accounts will be shut down for disseminating commercial speculation, vulgar content and other reasons, according to a statement released by the Beijing Cyberspace Administration on Wednesday.

Seven social media platforms, including Sina Weibo, WeChat, Tecent and Baidu, provided the accounts, most of which dealt with celebrity gossipincluding the well-known China's No 1 Paparazzi Zhuo Wei, which has released information about celebrities' private lives and sex scandals many times.

Some of the other offenses listed by the administration included publishing fake information or releasing personal celebrity information to gain public attention. Some of the information had negative social impacts, it said.

The administration said internet service providers should increase their control of information released by users and immediately stop the spread of information deemed illegal based on the cybersecurity law that took effect on June 1.

The new law, adopted in November by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, aims to better shield key information infrastructure and citizens' personal information against hackers and data thieves.

The law will not infringe on privacy or restrict free speech online, the administration said, adding that it targets information made public by internet users, not personal communications.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sina Weibo released a statement that social media is an important platform for communications between celebrities and their fans. Accounts that spread rumors should be shut down to protect the rights of the celebrities and Sina Weibo users, it said.

In April, Sina Weibo account Liuyishou posted an article saying that two actorsLi Yifeng and Yang Mihad an extramarital affair. Li's studio released a statement rejecting the rumor.

Although Liuyishou posted an apology, the article had been reposted more than 100,000 times and had damaged the public image of both Li and Yang, the statement said.

In 2013, judicial authorities said for the first time that spreading rumors on the internet could be punished as a crime of provoking trouble. But that has not deterred some from starting and spreading rumors.

"Some rumors not only disturb public order but undermine the core values of society," said Qiao Xinsheng, professor of law at Wuhan-based Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.
The PLA Air Force will begin recruiting this year for a new generation of female pilots, the official PLA Daily reported on Wednesday.

Female pilots of the PLA Air Force. [File photo/Xinhua]



Sources with the Air Force's pilot recruitment bureau quoted by the paper said 35 candidates will be selected from high school graduates in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions.

The recruits who pass years of stringent training will go on to become the People's Liberation Army planned 11th generation of female pilots.

Applicants need to have been born between Aug 31, 1997, and Aug 31, 2000, and be between 165 and 185 centimeters tall. Acceptable weight is between 85 and 120 percent of the Chinese people's standard weight, which varies in accordance with age and height. There are also vision requirements, according to the report.

The last time the Air Force recruited female pilots was in 2013. The most notable differences between this year's recruitment and the one in 2013 are that the height ceiling has been raised from 175 cm to 185 cm, and the area where candidates are being drawn from has expanded to 31 provincial-level regions instead of 20.

Wang Ya'nan, editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told China Daily that the height restriction has been relaxed because Chinese women on average have gotten taller and the military does not want to narrow the field.

Applicants must take part in the national college entrance exam and their total scores must meet requirements set by local education authorities to qualify them for Air Force selection, which will start this month and end in July, PLA Daily said.

Fu Qianshao, an aircraft expert with the PLA Air Force, said the courses and training for female pilot candidates are the same as those for male candidates. They will learn from textbooks, take part in flight training on basic and advanced trainer aircraft and will graduate after at least six years at the Air Force Aviation University and flight academies.

China enrolled its first female pilots in 1951 and since then about 580 belonging to 10 generations have joined the Air Force. The first seven generations of female pilots flew only transport planes.

In the selection for the eighth generation in 2005, the Air Force began to open the post of fighter jet pilot to applicants and more than 200,000 female graduates from high schools around the country applied. A total of 35 were selected and sent to the PLA Air Force No 3 Flight Academy and 16 of them graduated and became fighter jet pilots.

The ninth generation of female pilots, also numbering 16, were taught to fly fighter jets, graduated in 2013 and also joined the Air Force's combat units.

The most recent generation, the 10th, including 40 women, joined the Air Force in 2013. By now, 13 have been disqualified in training while 27 completed their first solo flight in March, according to the Air Force.
Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense of China. [File photo by Chen Boyuan / China.org.cn]

China has resolutely opposed the latest U.S. military report that distorts China's legitimate development in military and security sectors and is meant to spread the so-called "military threat from China".

The U.S. Department of Defense recently published its Annual Report to Congress on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2017.

The report summarized the developments in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) organizational reform, highlighted China's new weapon's capabilities, China's regional maritime claims and presented its interpretation of the situation across the Taiwan Strait.

China's Ministry of National Defense (MOD) spokesperson Senior Colonel Wu Qian refuted late on June 6 the allegations in the Pentagon report. He said that China has resolutely adhered to its path of peaceful development and its defensive-orientated national defense policy.

"China will not seek military expansion or sphere of influence; China will remain a resolute power to preserve world peace," Sr. Col. Wu said.

The Pentagon report said that "China has continued construction at its military outposts" in the South China Sea islands. It also highlighted civilian passenger aircraft landings on newly built airfields on a handful of these islands and reefs.

Sr. Col. Wu said that China will resolutely safeguard its national sovereignty and security concerning the East China Sea and South China Sea while preserving regional peace and stability.

In comparison, "the United States wants to enhance military deployment in this region. The U.S. military frequently sends vessels and aircraft to conduct close-in reconnaissance along China's borders, resulting in regional tensions," said the MOD spokesperson.

The U.S. report stated that "China's published military budget omits several major categories of expenditure, such as R&D and the procurement of foreign weapons and equipment". Wu insisted China's defense budget had always been "transparent" and that China's military reform, ordnance development and construction of cyberspace defense capability was "legitimate and reasonable." He rebutted the accusations in the Pentagon report as "pure speculations."

The Pentagon report includes a chapter on "U.S.-China Military-to-Military Contacts", saying the "defense contacts and exchanges provide opportunities to explore and expand cooperation in areas of mutual interest and to manage competition constructively."

Sr. Col. Wu acknowledged that China was aware of the American special attention towards military exchanges between the two countries. He maintained that a healthy military-to-military relationship was in the "common interest" of both countries.

"We hope the United States will reasonably and objectively treat China's development in national defense and military, move toward China to enhance ties, carefully implement the major consensus reached by two heads of state, and facilitate the development of the ties between the two militaries," said the MOD spokesman.
The alpacas were selected by Chinese experts from one of the biggest alpaca farms in Australia. [Photo/Chinanews.com]



Seven hundred alpacas have landed in China in the biggest single order of the animals from Australia.

The chartered cargo flight filled with the alpacas worth 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) landed at the Wusu International Airport in Taiyuan, Shanxi province on Tuesday, chinanews.com reported.

"It's winter in Australia so we had been anxious that the woolen animals may suffer when they come into the sweltering air in Taiyuan. Luckily, the weather has been cooler here the last few days," an employee at the airport said.

The alpacas were selected by Chinese experts from one of the biggest alpaca farms in Australia. All the animals are bred from past champion alpacas and it's hoped they will be able to produce healthy, disease-resistant offspring in China.

These alpacas will be quarantined in Jinzhong for 45 days before settling down in Taiyuan for breeding, farming and scientific research.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in China has announced the six winners of this year's Climate Solver Award on June 7 to recognize the country's innovative solutions in tackling the ever-complicated issue of climate change.

WWF's displays climate solutions at the eighth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM8). [Photo/China.org.cn]

The six award-winners, unveiled at a sideline event during the ongoing eighth Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM8), are involved in solar energy, bio-fuel, motor systems, construction materials and seawater desalination.

Two special prizes were awarded to MetaSpace Corp for its low-carbon air dome technology and bike-sharing company MoBike for its low-carbon transportation model.

If the award-winning technologies can reach their expected market share by 2026, they are expected to cut annual carbon emissions by more than 206 million tons.

"China is the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter, and its actions will significantly affect the global response to climate change, said Chen Xin, WWF's director for climate and energy projects.

"The exciting new technologies we see this year are successful examples of low-carbon technologies, and we believe that they will be able to help the world move from a fossil energy era to a more sustainable future," she said.

The WWF Climate Solver program works in four regions in Northern Europe, China, India and South Africa, focusing on carbon innovation for small and medium-sized enterprises and helping them solve problems, barriers and challenges they face in the promotional process, as well as making them suitable for the market, explained Stefan Henningsson, senior adviser for WWF's Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

Our goal is to promote low-carbon innovation technology to achieve business models sooner and wider, attempting to achieve a more low-carbon future, he said.

The WWF Climate Solver Project was launched by the WWF Swedish office in 2008 and officially landed in China in 2011. As of 2017, a total of 25 Chinese low-carbon innovative technologies have obtained the title of climate solvers in total.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L front) is welcomed by Kazakhstan First Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin upon his arrival in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

From June 7 until 10, President Xi Jinping is engaged in a state visit to Kazakhstan, where he will also attend the annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, and Xi is now on his official third visit to the country, which will also promote the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its strategic link with the Eurasian Economic Union.

Xi's state visit to Kazakhstan ahead of the SCO Summit is aimed at deepening a strategic partnership as well as demonstrating Chinese support for Kazakh Belt and Road projects.

Given Astana's historic role as a witness to the birth of the Silk Road Economic Belt concept in 2013, it's no surprise that the two countries are cooperating under the China-initiated BRI as well as Kazakhstan's own "Bright Road" economic plan.

Bright Road was inspired by the BRI concept and designed to bring prosperity to Kazakhstan through transport and infrastructure projects.

While the visit will not get the attention it deserves among Western news media, Xi's state visit to Kazakhstan as well as his leading role at the SCO Summit is of particular geopolitical importance.

It signals the continued importance of the SCO as a counterbalance to Western political, economic, and military cooperative organizations and reinforces the deepening importance of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Additionally, Xi's visit to Astana will underscore China's success in leading the fight to combat terrorism, its interest in increasing regional cooperation, and its goal of achieving neighborly mutual win-win economic development.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the SCO Charter. China will likely stress the need to carry forward the "Shanghai Spirit" by calling for both solidarity and mutual trust among member states, as well as emphasizing the need for a comprehensive deepening cooperation as a way to drive regional success.

SCO members are also expected to show support for the BRI since all SCO member nations are already participating in the initiative and view it as both an instrument of economic cooperation and a security guarantee.

One of the top items on the agenda of the SCO Summit will be the formal admission of both India and Pakistan. With their membership, the two countries will expand the SCO's geographical coverage to nearly 70 percent of the Eurasian continent and comprise nearly half the world's population.

Of additional interest will be a discussion regarding Iran's membership. Last year, the SCO refused to accept Iran's application despite support from the Russian Federation. This year looks to be a different story due to China whose Ministry of Foreign Affairs has publicly come out in support of Iran's wish to become a formal member of the SCO and that will quite likely guarantee Iran's admission.

And, finally, to add yet another compelling story taking place at the SCO Summit is the meeting scheduled between President Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This will be the first time the leaders are meeting since India abstained from the Belt and Road Forum held last month in Beijing and is expected to encourage more stable ties between the two countries.

Dr. Jon Taylor is a professor of Political Science at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
The Mandan police officer, who fatally shot a man while responding to a domestic dispute in April, was cleared of wrongdoing on Thursday.

Sgt. Nick Pynnonen returned to full duty after the Morton County State's Attorney determined the shooting of Ivan Wilson, 24, of Mandan, was justified, according to a press release from the Mandan Police and Morton County State's Attorney's Office.

According to the release, Pynnonen fired his gun after Wilson refused to drop a knife. Pynnonen ordered Wilson to drop the knife, then tased the man, who then advanced towards him, leading Pynnon to shoot his gun, according to police.

Pynnonen fired his gun multiple times, according to the release. Wilson died on scene.

The incident occurred on April 14 at a residence on the 500 block of Fourth Avenue Northeast in Mandan.

According to a family obituary posted online, Wilson served in the United States Marine Corps from 2010 to 2013, including a tour in Afghanistan in 2012. When he returned home, he lived in Bismarck and New Town, helping his grandmother and doing some construction jobs. He is a graduate of New Town High School, according to the obituary.

The last officer-involved shooting in Mandan was in 2009 when a police officer shot an apparently suicidal man at a local hotel, who turned his gun toward police. Last year, Bismarck Police officers fired their guns in four separate incidents.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (L front) is welcomed by Kazakhstan First Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin upon his arrival in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

The 17th meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is being held in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 8-9, 2017, where all eyes are on the official endorsement of China's big ticket Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Importantly, the summit will also formally accept the inclusion of the two South Asian rivals  India and Pakistan, representing a mammoth 1.5 billion population. With their addition to the club, the SCO will roughly represent half of the world population, making it the largest regional forum in terms of population, thereby considerably enhancing its reach.

In addition, member states are likely to sign an Astana Declaration and adopt a SCO Convention supporting the global fight against terrorism and other security threats. To ensure these goals, there have already been numerous ministerial meetings and exchanges at senior official levels to firm up key areas of collaboration and cooperation among members representing diverse viewpoints and experiences.

Originally named the Shanghai Five, comprising of China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in 1996, its expanded version, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (so called since 2000) has evolved into a powerful regional block representing the geopolitically-vital Eurasia region.

The SCO has made visible progress in holding numerous dialogues, concluding vital agreements and conducting track-2 diplomacy on pressing issues involving regional conflict, trade, regional security, issues pertaining to regional connectivity, creation of energy groupings, and an SCO Bank among others.

While implementations remain somewhat patchy, there is, nonetheless, work in progress. With the presence of regional giants like China and Russia and the coming inclusion of South Asian heavyweights like India and Pakistan, the significance and legitimacy of the SCO can only grow further.

The Astana summit holds significance promise as it is expected to formally endorse China's mega infrastructure initiative  the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It needs to be recalled that the SCO has been one of the key motivators behind China's BRI idea. No wonder, with the sole exception of Tajikistan, all heads of SCO participated in the recent BRI summit held in Beijing.

With China pledging additional resources for Eurasian connectivity, the SCO is expected to give a big push to BRI development.

It will be interesting to watch India's response here, remembering that it did not participate in recent BRI summit citing sovereignty issue.

What are possible takeaways we can expect from the Astana meeting? While the BRI is going to bring about deeper economic cooperation, in regard to its traditional forte  regional security and terrorism  we can expect forward movement on security cooperation and adoption of tangible measures.

Nearly all member states, including those in Central Asia, face serious threats from radicalization, extremism, Jihad-inspired terrorism, drugs and gunrunning, and other threats from non-state actors. In this regard, what would come in handy is the work carried out by SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), run by more than two dozen security professionals analyzing vital intelligence and related inputs on terror outfits, their funding, drug-trafficking, cyber threats among other.

With terror groups using digital platforms and social media to enhance their reach and effectiveness, this information is extremely critical for member countries. Similarly, SCO-backed counter-terrorism drills and joint military combats should receive greater attention as recent attacks in Philippines and London are a timely reminder.

Further, the SCO provides a rare platform for the militaries of India and Pakistan to share multilateral tables, join anti-terror drills and military exercises under the SCO framework. This may have some sobering effect on Indo-Pak relations and regional peace.

In short, the Astana meeting is critically poised to transform the scope and purpose of the SCO that used to dabble only in regional security and terrorism issues. While the addition of new members would provide greater visibility and help cement better ties among members, the BRI project would bring greater economic cooperation and accrue tangible development benefits for SCO members.

Niranjan Sahoo is Senior Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on DPRK's east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into the DPRK'S eastern waters. South Korea and the United States were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The South Korean military has strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional DPRK provocation, while maintaining full defense preparedness, the JCS said.

The DPRK projectiles were not ballistic missiles. Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The test-firing by the DPRK came as the U.S. military dispatched nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The test-launches were immediately reported to South Korean President Moon Jae-in right after being detected, according to local media reports.

Pyongyang has conducted missile test-launches five times since Moon took office on May 10.
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People gather at a ticket office of Qatar Airways for consultation in Cairo, Egypt on June 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa)

U.S. President Donald Trump offered to help Qatar and the other Gulf nations resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary, the White House said Wednesday.

In a telephone conversation with Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar, Trump reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability.

He also emphasized the importance of all countries in the region to work together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology, according to a White House statement.

The telephone talk came after a diplomatic row erupted between Qatar and the other Gulf nations. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism. But Qatar has rejected the accusations as "unjustified" and "baseless."

On Tuesday, Trump seemed to claim credit for Gulf nations' decision to isolate Qatar, saying his recent visit to Saudi Arabia was "already paying off."

"They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" Trump said on Twitter.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a regular press briefing on Tuesday that the U.S. wants to see the diplomatic row between Qatar and the other Gulf nations "deescalated and resolved immediately."
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The assailants of the twin attacks against Iran's parliament and Imam Khomeini Shrine in capital Tehran on Wednesday were Iranians who had joined the Islamic State (IS), the secretary deputy of Iran Supreme National Security Council said.

"These people had joined Daesh (IS) from different parts of Iran," Reza Seifollahi was quoted as saying by semi-official ISNA news agency.

Six gunmen were involved in the attacks against the parliament and the Khomeini Shrine and all were killed in the operations.

These people were cooperating with the IS in the areas under the control of this group in Syria and Iraq, and following the recent losses of the IS in both countries, they had returned to their countries, Seifollahi said.

At least 13 people were killed and 43 people were injured in the twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday.

According to the reports, the IS has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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Leaders of 27 media organizations from BRICS countries Thursday promised to deepen cooperation and contribute to the BRICS framework at the ongoing BRICS Media Forum.

The forum, with the theme "Deepening media cooperation among BRICS countries, promoting equity and justice in international media," was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africa's Independent Media.

Liu Qibao, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the committee's Publicity Department, urged BRICS media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction while addressing the forum.

"Sharing a common destiny, BRICS countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions," said Liu.

"There are misinterpreting and misreading voices in international public opinion that are skeptical of the development prospects of BRICS countries and even BRICS itself," said Liu, urging BRICS media to maintain composure and consolidate confidence, and pass on the message of confidence in BRICS countries' development.

Liu called for pragmatic cooperation among BRICS media, including conducting joint interviews on major topics, promoting cooperation in information services, professional training, human resources and think tank exchanges, as well as sharing experiences in meeting the challenges of the Internet and promoting integrated media development.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency and executive chair of the forum, urged efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among BRICS media.

Cai said Xinhua will provide 1 million U.S. dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the Action Plan to Strengthen Cooperation Among BRICS Media and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The plan was passed at a presidium meeting of the forum Wednesday.

Cai said the participating media organizations all agree to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award, and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions.

"Xinhua would like to host the first event for selecting BRICS news reporting award winners, and help other BRICS media to prepare the second joint photo exhibition," Cai said.

According to Cai, participating media organizations agree to explore cooperation in areas such as integrative development, video, new media and social media.

Last year, Xinhua established the cooperative and sharing platform "On-Scene Cloud," which can offer its members media content, channels, technologies and other services. "We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge," he noted.

Cai said Xinhua is willing to provide funding to invite 20 BRICS media reporters every year to visit Chinese media and exchange views with them, and do news reporting in China.

Zenariah Barends, co-chair of the forum and chief of staff of Independent Media from South Africa, called for more efforts in developing solutions to the current narrative which focuses on the negative side of BRICS countries.

BRICS media have the huge role in telling the amazing stories, not only what the BRICS structures are doing, but also the important life-changing stories happening in these countries, said Barends.
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China strongly condemned the twin terrorist attacks in Tehran, Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Thursday.

Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran on Wednesday, killing at least 13 people and wounded 43 others, according to Iran's Interior Ministry.

"We extend our condolences to the victims and express our sympathy to the wounded and the relatives of the victims," Hua told a routine press briefing.

Stressing that China opposes terrorism in any form, Hua said China is willing to cooperate more with the international community to fight terrorism.

She added that there had been no reports of casualties of Chinese citizens in the attacks.
An outlet of China Galaxy Securities in Jilin city, Northeast China's Jinlin province, March 25, 2015. [Photo/VCG]

KUALA LUMPUR - China Galaxy Securities' recent tie-up with CIMB in the latter's stockbroking business is a win-win move for both parties, Malaysia's MIDF Research said on Wednesday.

CIMB is Malaysia's second largest banking group and the fifth largest in Southeast Asia.

It will give an opportunity for CIMB to have a toehold in the Chinese market, while China Galaxy Securities will benefit from CIMB's presence in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to the MIDF Research.

The opportunity includes facilitating clients doing business in China, especially with the acceleration of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, capitalizing on China-outbound merger and acquisitions, China-ASEAN cross-border investments and infrastructure funding.

China Galaxy Securities and CIMB announced on Tuesday that they had signed a share purchase agreement to formalize their strategic partnership across CIMB's stockbroking business - CIMB Securities International (CSI).

CSI is comprised of institutional and retail brokerage, equities research and associated securities businesses across Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, China's Hong Kong, India, United Kingdom and the United States.

CIMB's chairman Nazir Razak also told Xinhua earlier that he sees it as a win-win deal because stockbroking has become a low-margin, large-scale business and one cannot get real scale without the Chinese market.
Workers check packaged liquor at a workshop of Shuijingfang Group Co Ltd in Chengdu, capital of Sihuan province. [Photo/Xinhua]

Shuijingfang, a Chinese baijiu maker, aims to move upmarket to expand the brand with new investment and increased marketing.

John Fan, general manger of the Shanghai-listed company, told a shareholders' meeting on Tuesday that the premium baijiu, or rice liquor, sector in China was experiencing rapid expansion.

"We are targeting the brand at the very top of the market in line with the growth there," Fan said.

"We recently launched a product which is priced above 700 yuan ($103) per liter to tap into the premium market. If it works, we may launch products costing 1,000 yuan per liter," he added.

The company based in Chengdu was taken over in 2013 by Diageo Plc, a multinational beverage giant with its headquarters in London.

Shuijingfang had been suffering from falling sales and shrinking profits, as well as declining brand awareness.

But since 2015, the company has gradually been transformed. By Tuesday, its share price had climbed to 24 yuan compared with 15 yuan in June 2016.

"Shuijingfang has been recovering from a weak situation since 2015 with loss-making and brand problems," Fan said.

"We restructured the products, pricing, distribution and marketing. Now, we are realigning the brand," he added.

Shuijingfang will invest about 102 million yuan on marketing this year which is double the figure in 2016.

Plans are also under way to expand its nationwide distribution networks, particularly in key markets such as Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Tianjin and Fujian.

While China remains the company's core market, its products are distributed globally through Diageo's worldwide network and stocked at duty-free stores in more than 70 international airports.

Last year, Shuijingfang recorded sales revenue of 1.18 billion yuan, an increase of 37.61 percent compared to the same period in 2015.

Net profit was 225 million yuan in 2016, which was up 155.52 percent compared to the previous year.
It's not just that house in a leafy US subdivision that interests Chinese investorsthey may also be intrigued by a storefront in a shopping center, according to new report.

China was the top country of origin in both the buying and selling of US commercial real estate last year, according to the 2017 Commercial Real Estate International Business Trends report, which was released on Tuesday by the National Association of Realtors.

The top countries of origin for buyers were China (17 percent), Mexico (14 percent) and the United Kingdom and Venezuela (both at 7 percent), while sellers were typically from China (17 percent) or Brazil, Canada, France and Mexico (all at 10 percent).

George Ratiu, NAR's director of quantitative and commercial research and the author of the report, said the United States offers a stable environment of employment growth, strengthening real estate markets and high returns.

"For many global investorsincluding Chinese buyersUS real estate markets offer portfolio diversification, along with safety of capital and solid yields," Ratiu told China Daily.

"While top-tier cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles have been attracting investment for a long time, with a shortage of inventory in those markets, many investors have found favorable conditions in mid-tier and small-cap markets."

Ratiu said the past couple of years have offered a few headwinds to international buyers.

"One of them stemmed from the strengthening dollar, which has made US properties more expensive," he said.

"For Chinese investors, domestic capital restrictions have added another headwind to purchases of cross-border assets. Both of these are likely to impact purchases of real estate this year."

In an expanding economy like the US, demand for commercial space increases, which helps to attract Chinese and other foreign buyers, he said.

"US commercial properties are well diversified both across geography as well as the price spectrum. Moreover, given the various property types, investors gain exposure to various segments of the US economyindustrial trade and logistics, retail consumption and multi-family housing.

"In light of the current global low yield environment, US commercial real estate offers both accessible shelter and comparatively stronger returns," he said.
China Railway's high speed trains sit parked at Beijing South Railway Station in Beijing, March 11, 2015. [Photo/VCG]

A high-speed railway station will be constructed in Xiongan New Area, turning the planned megacity into an important transportation hub, The Beijing News reported citing a policy advisor on Thursday.

Xu Kuangdi, director of a council of experts for coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, made the remarks at a forum in Beijing on Tuesday.

Upon its completion, it will only take 41 minutes to travel from the Xiongan New Area to Beijing.

The government announced plans to establish Xiongan New Area in April as part of measures to integrate Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei development and cure "urban ills" such as traffic congestion and air pollution in the capital.

The overall planning program for Xiongan New Area is expected to be completed by the end of this month before submitting it to the central government to review, said Xu.

Xu said the construction of the new area should focus on a more efficient transport network, environmental protection, urban and rural integration and innovative urban planning.

Xiongan New Area plans to build an underground infrastructure network, putting urban transportation, water, electricity, gas, disaster prevention systems underground, Xu added.
SYDNEY - Exports to China helped Australia retain its trade surplus, according to new data released on Thursday, despite the devastating impact of cyclone damage on Australian trade for the month of April.

Australia exported a record-breaking $93 billion worth of goods to China in the year to April, according to Commonwealth Bank analysis, marking a 15 percent lift in imports to China since last year, and accounting for over 30 percent of Australia's total exports.

"China buys a third of Australian exports and around a quarter of our imports come from China, so a healthy Chinese economy is very much in our interests," Commonwealth Bank chief economist Craig James said in a statement.

Ongoing demand from China for Australia's biggest export, iron ore, is set to boost Australia's trade outlook for the coming months, according to ANZ senior economist Jo Masters, which has also been bolstered by a strong growth in farm exports.

"Iron ore exports into China are a significant export category for Australia, as well as many of our other resources that feed into the China economic cycle," Masters told Xinhua.

"So economic growth in China is very important for Australia, particularly in terms of iron ore."

Increased demand from the Chinese market could not have come at a better time for the Australian economy, which faced significant disruption in the wake of a category 4 tropical cyclone, Cyclone Debbie, which hit the state of Queensland in late March.

The Australian trade surplus fell to its lowest point in 6 months in April, which economists have attributed to the natural disaster; however the annual rolling trade surplus remains the biggest the country has experienced since 2012.

Australia recorded a trade surplus of A$555 million($419 million) for the month of April in the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released on Thursday, which fell short of analysts' expectations, who had forecast a surplus of A$2 billion.

Much of the drop-off has been attributed to Cyclone Debbie, with wind damage from the cyclone causing billions of dollars worth of damage throughout Queensland, hampering the export trade by 8 percent throughout April, and Masters said the Australian economy is still reeling from the devastation.
A worker monitors container operations at Zhoushan port in Ningbo, Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily]

Beijing, Astana to boost cooperation in energy, agriculture and infrastructure

China and Kazakhstan plan to further upgrade their bilateral investment agreement to promote more trade and investment deals in the key areas of energy, agriculture and infrastructure, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday.

Spokesman Sun Jiwen said the ministry will speed up efforts to cement economic and trade relations with Kazakhstan in a comprehensive way, such as broadening financing channels and expanding areas of cooperation.

Among the economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative, Kazakhstan is China's largest investment destination, Sun said at a news conference in Beijing.

According to the ministry, Sino-Kazakh trade exceeded $4.91 billion between January and April, up 45.6 percent compared with the same period last year. So far, China and Kazakhstan reached early agreements on 51 deals in capacity cooperation, which are worth more than $26 billion.

Kazakhstan is China's largest trading partner in the Central Asian region, and China's largest investment destination among Belt and Road economies.

China on Thursday posted a significant surge in exports and imports in May, with total volume growing 18.3 percent year-on-year to 2.35 trillion yuan ($345.92 billion).

China's exports increased by 15.5 percent to 1.32 trillion yuan in May from a year earlier, and imports rose 22.1 percent year-on-year to 1.03 trillion yuan, according to the General Administration of Customs. It produced a trade balance of 281.6 billion yuan.

In dollar-dominated terms, exports rose almost 9 percent year-on-year, while imports jumped nearly 15 percent. The data were far better than the 7.2 percent rise in exports and the 8.3 percent increase in imports in dollar calculation, predicted by analysts in a survey by Bloomberg News.

Wei Jianguo, vice-president of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said an import boom would not only meet China's growing domestic demand but contribute to growth in the rest of the world.

"The trend will continue in China this year, as the Belt and Road Initiative continues to advance," said Wei.

China will likely import more high-quality agricultural and industrial products, cutting-edge technologies, and luxury goods from countries and regions related to the initiative, he elaborated.

He said the forecast is based on an evaluation of the mutual benefits that all sides stand to gain from the initiative.
A technician inspects a terminal at the China-Kazakhstan gas pipeline in Horgos, the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. [Photo/Xinhua]

The ongoing visit of President Xi Jinping to Kazakhstan will ensure more cooperation opportunities for Chinese companies in Central Asia, especially companies in the energy sector, said Bian Dezhi, a senior official at China National Petroleum Corp.

The energy sector has been the main sector of cooperation between China and Kazakhstan for around 20 years, and such cooperation has expanded since President Xi proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt in Astana, the Kazakh capital, in 2013.

In June 1997, CNPC, the nation's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, bought a 60.34 percent stake in China National Petroleum Corp AktobeMunaiGas, known as CNPC AMG, and obtained production licenses for three oilfields and a contract for an oil exploration block in Kazakhstan.

The acquisition was the start of the company's investment in Central Asia, and the development of the Aktobe project is a prime example of China's oil and gas cooperation in Kazakhstan, said Bian, general manager of CNPC Kazakhstan Corp, a subsidiary established to oversee operations in the country.

He said the frequent visits by the presidents and close political relations provide a good environment for Sino-Kazakh energy cooperation, and will have a long-term effect on gas and oil cooperation.

CNPC now owns four more oil and gas projects in the country, along with two exploration projects and the Kazakhstan-China crude oil pipeline, the northwest oil pipeline and phase two of the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline.

Construction of the 1,454-kilometer-long western section of the Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline was completed in April. According to the company, the pipeline can now carry more than 5 billion cubic meters a year from Kazakhstan to China.

Bian said: "China is busy building the Silk Road Economic Belt throughout Central Asia, and we see these oil and natural gas pipelines as an 'energy Silk Road'."

Wang Junren, general manager of CNPC AMG, echoed Bian, saying the Silk Road Economic Belt has brought a better energy cooperation environment.

Wang said with better relations, Chinese companies are able to enjoy better and easier development in overseas markets.

But more work still needs to be done, said Xu Anping, deputy general manager of CNPC Aktobe branch.

"Some of our projects in Kazakhstan are at the period of the end of the last contract, and we get an extension agreement," Xu said.

"We hope to get a good agreement that meets the needs of both our company and the local government after the meeting of the two presidents."
A visitor shakes hands with a robot during a science and technology week in Beijing. [Photo/China Daily]

China is ramping up its efforts to develop artificial intelligence in manufacturing to boost its productivity as well as create new momentum in the future market, an official at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

The moves are part of the country's broad effort to integrate AI with the Made in China 2025 strategy, aiming to enhance efficiency and transform China into a global manufacturing powerhouse, according to Li Guanyu, deputy director of the information and software service division at the ministry.

The ministry plans to release a white paper to drive the development of AI and its application in industries, Li said at the China International Big Data Industry Expo last month in Guiyang, Guizhou province.

With its booming big data sector and mobile internet technologies, the nation has rapidly risen up the ranks of international AI research. The official said that now the country aims to use AI to drive the upgrade of its manufacturing, which is the backbone of the economy.

Zhou Ji, president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that AI technology now plays a key role in the new technological revolution and the transformation of industry.

Supported by AI technologies, smart manufacturing is set to become the core technology for the next round of industrial upgrading, Zhou said.

Terry Gou, founder and chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, said that AI and big data technologies would help reduce costs and improve efficiency, paving the way for factories of the future.

"The new wave of application and revolution for big data have brought opportunities for the transformation and reconstruction of the manufacturing sector," Gou added.

Apple Inc supplier Foxconn already has five factories that can operate smoothly without the monitoring of workers, because production lines have been automated, and it is set to build a new one in Guizhou, said Gou at the big data expo.

Employing AI and deep learning technologies, Foxconn aims to build not only a smart manufacturing system but also a reliable network for the industrial internet.

"Our smart factories will collect data in the cloud platform via automatic detection and remote monitoring systems, ensuring timely repairs when problems occur," he said.

Currently, the company has 50,000 robots at assembly lines in five factories.

China launched the Made in China 2025 strategy in 2015, a 10-year national plan to transform the country into a worldwide high-tech manufacturing power, which is also echoed in China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20). Smart manufacturing is deemed as a significant development area in the two documents, which provides numerous opportunities for domestic manufacturers.

Vice-Premier Ma Kai called for further innovation and application in big data and AI to speed up transforming the manufacturing sector.

"Big data has become a fundamental resource," Ma said during a big data expo."

"The development of big data is driving profound changes in numerous areas, including social and economic fields. As a key entity of the real economy, the manufacturing sector will become a main application area," Ma said.

In 2016, industries directly related to the big-data sector had a market value of 16.8 billion yuan ($2.47 billion), up 45 percent from the previous year, according to a survey by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.
Celebrity gossip, vulgarity, rumors among the reasons for shutdown

Sixty social media accounts will be shut down for disseminating commercial speculation, vulgar content and other reasons, according to a statement released by the Beijing Cyberspace Administration on Wednesday.

Seven social media platforms, including Sina Weibo, WeChat, Tecent and Baidu, provided the accounts, most of which dealt with celebrity gossipincluding the well-known China's No 1 Paparazzi Zhuo Wei, which has released information about celebrities' private lives and sex scandals many times.

Some of the other offenses listed by the administration included publishing fake information or releasing personal celebrity information to gain public attention. Some of the information had negative social impacts, it said.

The administration said internet service providers should increase their control of information released by users and immediately stop the spread of information deemed illegal based on the cybersecurity law that took effect on June 1.

The new law, adopted in November by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, aims to better shield key information infrastructure and citizens' personal information against hackers and data thieves.

The law will not infringe on privacy or restrict free speech online, the administration said, adding that it targets information made public by internet users, not personal communications.

On Wednesday afternoon, Sina Weibo released a statement that social media is an important platform for communications between celebrities and their fans. Accounts that spread rumors should be shut down to protect the rights of the celebrities and Sina Weibo users, it said.

In April, Sina Weibo account Liuyishou posted an article saying that two actorsLi Yifeng and Yang Mihad an extramarital affair. Li's studio released a statement rejecting the rumor.

Although Liuyishou posted an apology, the article had been reposted more than 100,000 times and had damaged the public image of both Li and Yang, the statement said.

In 2013, judicial authorities said for the first time that spreading rumors on the internet could be punished as a crime of provoking trouble. But that has not deterred some from starting and spreading rumors.

"Some rumors not only disturb public order but undermine the core values of society," said Qiao Xinsheng, professor of law at Wuhan-based Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.
Residents of Tianjin and Hebei province may soon not need to travel to Beijing to file lawsuits, as a cross-regional online platform is being explored.

A trial run of the platform in seven courts in the region was launched on Wednesday, including Beijing No 3 Intermediate People's Court, Wuqing District People's Court in Tianjin and Fengrun District People's Court in Tangshan, Hebei, according to a statement from the Beijing High People's Court.

"In the past, I had to drive to courts in Hebei to file cases, which cost me at least three hours," said Ma Wenjia, a lawyer based in Beijing. "But thanks to the platform, I can just go to the capital's No 3 intermediate court and take about 10 minutes to finish all procedures to file the case."

She applauded the efficiency and convenience of the platform, saying the service would save her time and energy.

Ji Luohong, vice-president of the Beijing High People's Court, said the platform will also speed up the handling of disputes brought by regional economic development, which have been increasing.

So far, only civil and commercial cases can be filed through the platform. "But I believe it will cover more disputes in the near future," he added.

Jiang Qibo, a chief judge of the Supreme People's Court, asked the seven courts on Wednesday to gain more experience in operating the platform and called on more lawyers to use it.

"Residents are not as good at computers or as familiar with legal procedures as lawyers, so if the platform can be popularized among attorneys, the speed and quality of case filings will increase," he said.

He encouraged the courts in the pilot program to learn about building the network, adding that he hopes that one day Chinese residents can file cases from anywhere and at any time.

Gao Zicheng, head of the Beijing Lawyers Association, gave the platform a thumbs up: "I'm looking forward to the day when I can help my clients file a case on the way back home or in my office," he said.

But Yan Baoping, a computer engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, expressed concerns.

"Attention must be paid to cybersecurity and preventing the system from being attacked," she said.

In addition, improving the network's capacity to handle a potential caseload boom should be also taken into consideration, she added.
Children enjoy free lunches in Hefeng county, Hubei province. [Photo/Xinhua]

A nonprofit organization started by an investigative journalist is raising money and funding philanthropic projects for the poorest children in society, as Liu Wei reports for Xinhua China Features.

Qiang Zi (not his real name) has to walk two hours to school in the mountain village of Xinhuang, a county in Hunan province. But the 7-year-old student enjoys schooland the free lunch he receives there.

Once, students like Qiang endured hunger and health problems because their families were too poor to afford to provide lunch. This meant no food for 10 hours, and most had to drink water to appease their grumbling stomachs.

Hunger caused malnutrition, which affected the children's physical and mental development. According to a report on nutrition and chronic diseases published by the National Health and Family Planning Commission in 2015, rural children age 6 and younger were two to three times more likely to be underweight and experience developmental delays than their urban peers.

The report troubled investigative journalist Deng Fei, who was researching rural problems across the country: "It shocked me. I couldn't believe that thousands of children were still struggling on one meal a day despite China's rapid economic growth. People say there's no such a thing as a free lunch, but why couldn't we make it happen?"

In April 2011, Deng started the Free Lunch for Children Foundation, with the help of 500 likeminded journalists, lawyers, professionals, low level officials and volunteers.

It is the first public initiative to offer free lunches to students in remote, poverty-stricken areas. In the past six years, it has raised 270 million yuan ($39 million) and fed 190,000 students a day at 738 schools in 26 provinces and regions.

The initiative inspired a government plan. Since 2011, the central government has earmarked 16 billion yuan to provide proper meals for impoverished students in rural areas, starting in their first year at school.

Students of different ages have become taller on average following the implementation of the Nutrition Improvement Plan. Those who have eaten school lunches for three or four years, especially students ages 11 to 15, are 5cm taller on average, according to the Report on Nutrition Improvement in Poor Rural Areas, published by the China Development Research Foundation on June 1.

For example, from 2012 to last year, 11-year-old boys and girls grew taller (boys averaged 137.8 to 143.5 centimeters, while girls were 138.7 cm to 144.3 cm). Boys and girls in the same age groups have grown by 5.7 cm and 5.6 cm respectively.

"We didn't believe the results of the data at first, but after repeated confirmations, we were convinced." said Lu Mai, the foundation's vice-president.

However, the 3 yuan it provides for a meal is not enough. Many schools cannot build a canteen or hire a cook, so they just provide bread and milk.
China's Chang'e 5 lunar probe is expected to land in the Mons Rumker region of the moon, and bring samples back to Earth at the end of the year, according to a Chinese space official.

Liu Jizhong, director of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration, disclosed the probe landing site, an isolated volcanic formation in the northwestern part of the moon's near side.

Liu also mentioned China's Chang'e 4 lunar probe in a report at the Global Space Exploration Conference, which opened in Beijing on Tuesday. He said China's Chang'e 4 lunar probe, which is expected to be the first unmanned probe to land on the far side of the moon, would be launched in 2018, carrying 11 scientific experiments, including four developed by other countries.

He said lunar exploration offers many opportunities for international cooperation and that constructing an international moon village or international research station, an idea proposed by the European Space Agency, was also a long-term goal for China.

"China is planning and designing its future lunar exploration program. We will focus on the south pole region of the moon. The research on water and the permanent shadow area of the lunar south pole region will bring greater scientific discoveries," Liu said.

He said that China would push forward international cooperation in exploring the south pole of the moon, constructing a lunar scientific research station, and establishing an energy supply and autonomous infrastructure.

Liu proposed jointly exploring the lunar polar region and constructing a scientific research station as a prototype or guide for the international moon village. He also proposed creating an open platform for cooperation in accordance with the principle of "sharing the risks and achievements", and to set up the International Union of Planetary Scientists and the International Union of Planetary Science College Students.

Wu Yanhua, deputy chief of the China National Space Administration, honored at the conference the international partners of the Chang'e 4 mission, which will carry payloads from the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

Since China first proposed international cooperation for the Chang'e 4 mission last year, it has received more than 20 plans from other countries.

"We support more international cooperation in China's future lunar and Mars missions, as well as exploration of the Jupiter system and asteroids that are still under discussion," Wu said.

"It is exactly what I was looking forward to," said Jan Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency. "It will fit perfectly with the moon village-ESA's vision for international cooperation on the moon."

Xinhua
Beijing dismissed a Pentagon report about China's military development on Wednesday, saying the country is justified in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"The report, regardless of facts, made irresponsible remarks on China's national defense construction, as well as justifiable activities to maintain territorial sovereignty and security. China is resolutely opposed to it, "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily news conference.

The US Department of Defense released its annual report to Congress on Tuesday regarding developments in the Chinese military in 2016.

Hua said China firmly adheres to peaceful development while resolutely pursuing a defensive military policy, and is a staunch force in safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"China's national defense configuration aims to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the justifiable right of a sovereign country," she said.

"We hope that the US will a band on its Cold War mentality and take an objective and rational look at China's military development," she added, asking the United States to take steps to maintain the stable development of bilateral relations between the countries and their militaries.

The 97-page report predicted that China will likely seek to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has long-standing friendly relationships, such as Pakistan.

Hua refused to specifically comment on such speculation, but said China and Pakistan are traditionally friendly neighbors and have benefitted from long-term cooperation in every sector.

Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the accusation from the US is one-sided, reflecting its misunderstanding of China's foreign policy.

Washington also believes Djibouti is an overseas military base for China, but China has clarified that it is only a base that provides supplies to Chinese naval ships that take part in peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in the Gulf of Aden and waters off Somalia, he said.

Zhou Jin contributed to this story.
Cai Mingzhao (right), executive president of the BRICS Media Forum and president of Xinhua News Agency, attends an exhibition featuring photos taken by media in the BRICS countries with representatives attending the forum at the National Museum of China in Beijing on Wednesday.Wang Zhuangfei / China Daily

Media in the five member countries of the BRICS should deepen their cooperation, tell great stories and inject more dynamism into the partnership, a senior leader in the Communist Party of China said on Wednesday.

Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks at a meeting with journalists attending the BRICS Media Forum in Beijing.

BRICS comprises five major developing countries-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The forum was a preparatory event ahead of the ninth BRICS Leaders Meeting in Xiamen, Fujian province, in September.

Liu told the attending media executives and veteran reporters that media cooperation is a key area for BRICS countries.

The group has existed for more than a decade (South Africa was added later, in 2010), and has become an important driver for boosting world economic growth, perfecting global governance and promoting democracy in international relations, Liu said.

China expects to work with other BRICS member countries to achieve more consensus and bring cooperation to a higher level, he added.

Delegates attending the media meeting said they hoped to use the forum as a chance to exchange their experiences to contribute more to BRICS cooperation.

On Wednesday morning, the BRICS Media Joint Photo Exhibition was opened at the National Museum of China in downtown Beijing to show the development and cooperation of BRICS. The exhibition displays more than 170 photos spanning a half century.

"As the BRICS cooperation enters its second decade, the launch of today's photo exhibition ... is our tribute to the decadelong BRICS cooperation, and symbolizes our best wishes for its future," said Cai Mingzhao, executive president of the BRICS Media Forum and president of Xinhua News Agency.

Motshwari Mofokeng, a photographer from Independent Media in South Africa, said the event is a good opportunity to strengthen partnerships between news agencies.

The BRICS Media Forum attracted leaders of 27 media groups from the five BRICS countries, including Correio Braziliense, Russia Today TV, the Hindu, China Daily and Independent Media.

The attendees will discuss topics including multimedia innovation, as well as the duties and social responsibility of media outlets.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Quarantine workers board the plane to check the conditions of alpacas at Wusu International Airport in Taiyuan, Shanxi province on Tuesday. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

Seven hundred alpacas have landed in China in the biggest single order of the animals from Australia.

The chartered cargo flight filled with the alpacas worth 10 million yuan ($1.5 million) landed at the Wusu International Airport in Taiyuan, Shanxi province on Tuesday, chinanews.com reported.

The alpacas were selected by Chinese experts from one of the biggest alpaca farms in Australia. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

"It's winter in Australia so we had been anxious that the woolen animals may suffer when they come into the sweltering air in Taiyuan. Luckily, the weather has been cooler here the last few days," an employee at the airport said.

The alpacas were selected by Chinese experts from one of the biggest alpaca farms in Australia. All the animals are bred from past champion alpacas and it's hoped they will be able to produce healthy, disease-resistant offspring in China.

The alpacas were selected by Chinese experts from one of the biggest alpaca farms in Australia. [Photo/Chinanews.com]

These alpacas will be quarantined in Jinzhong for 45 days before settling down in Taiyuan for breeding, farming and scientific research.
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Sichuan province's Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture signed 15 cooperative agreements with companies in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, on Thursday.

The projects, valued at more than 8.1 billion yuan ($1.21 billion), cover tourism, culture, agriculture, Tibetan medicine, new energy and food safety.

Liu Chengming, Party chief of Garze, said the prefecture has rich tourism and natural resources, and is expected to further expand cooperation with Guangdong in economic development.

He made the remarks during an investment promotion and agricultural product fair in Guangzhou on Thursday. More than 30 specialty products from Garze were on display.

"The cooperation with Guangdong companies is a win-win situation," Liu said.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Liu met with Ren Xuefeng, deputy Party chief of Guangdong and Party secretary of Guangzhou; Wang Weizhong, Party chief of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone; and Liang Weidong, mayor of Dongguan, to discuss economic cooperation between Garze and the prosperous cities in the Pearl River Delta.

Located in the southwest of Sichuan, Garze has a population of more than 1.16 million living in 18 counties.
The Belt and Road Initiative will increase cooperation between Shanghai and Hong Kong, bringing new momentum to the development of both cities, officials and experts said at a forum in Shanghai on Thursday.

The forum was held in the run-up to the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China on July 1.

"Hong Kong has a rich history of international services, wide connections in the international community and is familiar with international trade rules," said You Anshan, director of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Hong Kong and Macao Studies Center.

"Meanwhile, Shanghai, which leads the Yangtze River Economic Zone that includes nine provinces and two municipalities along the Belt and Road routes, far surpasses Hong Kong in terms of engineering construction and the manufacture of large-scale equipment  an important part of the initiative."

The key to deepening cooperation is for the cities to effectively integrate their resources and complementary advantages, he said.

"In the years ahead, the two cities will see cooperation and development in multiple areas, such as finance, trade, shipping, talent cultivation, information technology, scientific and technological innovation, and industrial upgrading, thanks to the initiative," said Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, a Hong Kong legislator and chairwoman of the New People's Party.
BEIJING - The BRICS Media Forum concluded Thursday after leaders of 27 organizations agreed on an action plan to promote media cooperation.

The forum, themed "Deepening BRICS Media Cooperation, Promoting Fair and Just International Public Opinion," was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India, and South Africa's Independent Media.

The action plan noted that the content, depth and breadth of BRICS media cooperation should be expanded and deepened in accordance to the needs of BRICS nations.

He Ping, editor-in-chief of Xinhua News Agency, said at the closing session the action plan shows BRICS media's determination to shoulder social responsibility and create a fair public opinion environment.

The action plan is sure to help speed up the development of media in BRICS countries, He said.

The participating BRICS media organizations agreed to jointly maintain balanced international public opinion and to jointly strengthen the media's social responsibility, according to the plan.

They also agreed to jointly boost people-to-people ties, expand cooperation fields among BRICS media organizations, develop digital media and provide financial information services.

The participating outlets unanimously agreed to carry out the action plan in the spirit of equity, pragmatism and mutual benefit.

Xinhua will provide 1 million US dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the action plan carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.
A federal agency plans to determine whether the oil industry owes royalties for flaring natural gas from federal and tribal oil wells, a review a North Dakota tribal chairman calls way overdue.

The Bureau of Land Management announced this week it plans to review about 2,500 requests to flare from wells the agency manages in North Dakota and determine whether the flaring was avoidable.

If the agency determines the companies could have avoided flaring natural gas as they produced oil, royalties could be due to the U.S. government, North Dakotas Three Affiliated Tribes or other beneficiaries for flaring on federal wells dating back as far as five years.

Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said Thursday the BLM has a responsibility to review requests to flare and called the agencys process grossly delayed.

Unnecessary flaring causes a significant loss of gas resources and income that mineral owners have a right to be paid for, including our tribal nation, Fox said.

The BLM requires operators to get authorization to flare natural gas from federal and Indian oil wells by submitting documents known as sundry notices. But the BLM stopped processing the sundry notices due to concerns that the agency didnt have an adequate environmental document, said Loren Wickstrom, manager of the BLMs North Dakota field office.

The agency announced this week it concluded that environmental assessment and will now move forward with processing the backlog of pending sundry notices, which Wickstrom estimated to be about 2,500.

Though the decision is called an environmental assessment, it wont have impacts on the environment because it relates to flaring that occurred prior to January 2017.

The reality is the gas has already flared. Its gone. Its in the atmosphere, Wickstrom said.

Questions remain about how long it will take the agency to review the backlog and what level of financial impact it could have.

This is going to be a huge undertaking, said Kari Cutting, vice president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

The industry group has long awaited BLM action on this issue and, in the meantime, has invested $13 billion in pipelines, gas processing plants and other infrastructure to capture natural gas, Cutting said.

Statewide, North Dakota natural gas flaring peaked in September 2011 with companies flaring 36 percent of all natural gas produced, according to the Department of Mineral Resources.

The North Dakota Industrial Commission established rules to reduce flaring, and the industry is exceeding the current target with a flaring percentage of 10.5 percent.

On the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, flaring is slightly higher at 15 percent, according to the latest figures.

Engineers with the BLM will consider factors, such as pipeline availability, pipeline capacity and the economics of capturing natural gas, when determining if the flaring was avoidable, Wickstrom said.

A lack of pipeline availability was a major challenge for operators in the beginning of the Bakken development, but today all but 2 percent of wells are connected to a natural gas gathering pipeline.

Most of the flaring that continues is due to pipelines that are not large enough to transport all of the gas or in cases where there are maintenance issues.

Cutting said the industry believes the decisions from the BLM should be that the flaring was predominantly unavoidable.

Were certainly hoping that after the $13 billion investment that industry has made in gas processing that weve already corrected the problem, Cutting said.

Initially, the agency will review 10 to 20 cases as it works to establish a consistent process, Wickstrom said. Until that initial review occurs, Wickstrom said he doesn't have an estimate on how long the process could take.

Fox said the lengthy process is unacceptable and the BLM needs to either fulfill its trust responsibilities or defer the responsibility to the tribe, which he said requires royalty payments on flared gas after one year.

In 2013, more than a dozen private mineral owners filed lawsuits claiming they were owed royalties on gas flared in violation of North Dakota statutes.

The courts did not rule on the merits of the cases, but said the owners need to first bring claims to the North Dakota Industrial Commission.

The difficulty is that its not very economical for a lot of royalty owners to bring these actions individually in front of the Industrial Commission, said Derrick Braaten, one of the attorneys involved with the cases.

Braaten said he still plans to pursue actions on behalf of royalty owners for flared gas.

Most of this flaring, theres really no argument that the company owes royalties, Braaten said. Theyve just made it non-economic for someone to recover.

Flaring from federal wells after January 2017 would be subject to the new BLM methane and waste prevention rule, the rule that Congress recently failed to repeal.
BEIJING - China's State Council published a guideline Thursday to improve the management of the government websites.

To establish a clean, innovative and service-oriented government ruled by law, websites should be open, clear, informative and convenient for the public, said the document issued by the general office of the State Council.

According to the guideline, ministries of the State Council and government offices above county level should each have one official website.

The guideline also stressed Internet security, urging government offices to set up stable, reliable and safe websites by having online security warning systems and emergency response systems.
The oldest female panda atthe Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding in Sichuan province hasdied.

Base chief Zhang Zhihe said the panda, named Su Su, was 34 years of age when she passed away on June 2.

"She was 34, the equivalence of 102-years-old in human terms, and has led an eventful life," he said.

Su Su was rescued in May 1986 when she was found in the wild with only one eye. Then, in an anesthesia-related incident in 1987, Su Sustopped breathing for three hours and further lost consciousness for25 hours.

"She first lived in the Chengdu Zoo after her rescue in 1986, and then moved to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding when it was established the next year," Zhang said.

During her time at the base, Su Su gave birth to five cubs; however, only three survived.

"She had suffered hypertension, as well as liver and heart failure, in recent years," Zhang said.

"Her conditions then worsened in May, which resulted in a drop in heractivity and appetite."

Zhang confirmed Su Su passed away at 6:26 pm on June 2.

"A dissection of her body showed she suffered from liver cirrhosis, and lungs and spleen atrophy," he said.
China is seeking a long-term mechanism to ensure the success of the nationwide poverty relief campaign and to prevent people from becoming impoverished by the high medical costs of major diseases.

China has 5.33 million households - 7.34 million people - stuck in poverty as a result of medical costs, according to data from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Roughly 3.3 million have severe medical conditions, such as cancer, whose treatment is expensive.

Li Bin, head of the commission, pledged on Thursday to ensure that every severely ill person gets appropriate treatment by 2020.

"No one will be left behind," she said in a speech at a national conference on poverty relief and health in Chengdu, Sichuan province. "That goal is crucial to the massive national poverty relief campaign."

The central government has vowed to lift all the country's rural poor out of poverty by 2020 to build a moderately prosperous society.

But the phenomenon in which people sink back into poverty because of major diseases continues to happen, "which is also the case in other parts of the world", said Zeng Yunguang, a divisional director of the commission.

In response, the commission is working closely with other government departments, such as the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development - which in general coordinates the campaign - and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which runs the nation's public health insurance programs, to devise and implement a sustainable and cross-departmental plan to avert poverty related to medical expenses in the long run.

Independent insurance protecting against the cost of major disease will be further fine-tuned to benefit as many patients struggling against poverty as possible, Zeng said.

To date, every person in poor regions is covered by the insurance, which complements the basic health policy for the rural population, widely known as the new rural cooperative medical scheme.

"The two policies work together to further relieve the economic burden of large medical bills," he said.

In many places, the premium for the major disease policy is substantially subsidized by local governments. Last year, under the twin policies, hospitalized patients can receive reimbursement for 76 percent of the costs on average, he said.

The percentage varies regionally but "will be further raised", he added.

Li encouraged local governments to try different approaches depending on local conditions. In Anhui province, for instance, the local administration has allocated money from a special fund to ensure medical treatment for the impoverished. Thanks to that, an annual cap of 3,000 yuan was introduced for out-of-pocket medical costs at county-level hospitals.

As of the end of May, more than 2.6 million people with major diseases have benefited from the concerted nationwide effort. But at the end of last year, China still had more than 43 million impoverished rural residents, according to government statistics.

To sustain future efforts, Li said, the health infrastructure and facilities in poor areas would be upgraded to better satisfy local health demands. Also, a family doctor program is being gradually introduced to make sure residents can access basic public health services and interventions, she said  particularly for chronic diseases.

Contact the writers at shanjuan@chinadaily.com.cn
Students of Maotanchang High School leave Maotanchang town in Anhui province on 28 buses for a nearby city on June 5, 2017, to take the national college entrance examination, known as gaokao, which starts on Wednesday. More than 10,000 residents, including parents, wave goodbye and wish the students luck on the all-important exam. [Photo by Xu Peng/CHINA DAILY ]




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The ship is named Zhiyin. PHOTOS BY LI JING/CHINA DAILY

A cruise ship along the Yangtze River is presenting a rare immersive show. Li Jing reports.

The moment a dock door opens, the audience begins to time-travel to the 1920s.

With music coming from afar, a long trestle leads up to a giant steamship, along which rickshaws and stands of street food are seen. A boy, coming up to passers-by, hands over old-fashioned papers printed with stories and information about a performance titled Zhiyin Cruise.

Opening to the public on May 19 in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, a rare immersive show on the Yangtze River has already sold out tickets for the month.

The name zhiyin, which refers to intimate friends in Chinese, comes from the legend of Yu Boya and Zhong Ziqi, which is believed to have happened here in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC).

Yu, a well-known zither player, found that no one could really understand his music until he met Zhong along the Yangtze. The encounter then started a lasting friendship between them.

Just as Yu came across Zhong, "the show depicts tales of the encounter", says Fan Yue, the director, who has teamed up with Zhang Yimou on the Impression series of live shows.
Director Wuershan is among the t hree major figures behind the upcoming Fengshen trilogy . Photos provided to China Daily

The man behind the hits Painted Skin: The Resurrection and Mojin: The Lost Legend, ethnic Mongolian director Wuershan recently unveiled his plan to make the Fengshen trilogy.

The 45-year-old filmmaker says he hopes this will be China's own fantasy franchise like The Lord of the Rings.

Adapted from Fengshen Yanyi (Creation of the Gods), a 16th-century novel, the trilogy will begin filming in 2018 and be released over 2020-22, producers of the films said in Beijing in May.

The budget will be around 3 billion yuan ($441 million), the most expensive Chinese film project in history.

Loosely based on the history of the Shang Dynasty (c. 16th century-11th century BC), the novel revolves around Zhou, the dynasty's last king who killed people just to please his favorite concubine. But the tale, penned more than 1,000 years later by Xu Zhonglin, is a mix of mythology, folklore and real history.

Wuershan says he got the idea for the trilogy in 2001 after watching The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Cypriot Education Minister Costas Kadis addresses the opening ceremony of the "Heaven on Earth, Sichuan in your eyes" photo exhibition of China's Sichuan province in Nicosia, Cyprus, on June 7, 2017. An exhibition of China's Sichuan province was inaugurated on Wednesday as a means of promoting contacts between China and Cyprus. [Photo/Xinhua]

An exhibition of China's Sichuan province was inaugurated here on Wednesday as a means of promoting contacts between China and Cyprus.

The event is part of a series of activities planned by the Chinese embassy with the aim of cultivating contacts and better understanding of the two peoples in the context of promoting the Belt and Road Initiative.

Cypriot Education Minister Costas Kadis said the Sichuan exhibition was timely, and in line with the goals of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation which he attended in Beijing in May.

He added that a wide variety of activities in the field of culture, including exchange of experts, training, information and the organization of cultural events is provided for by the 2014-2018 executive program of cultural cooperation between Cyprus and China.

China's Ambassador to Cyprus Huang Xingyuan said the exhibition deepens the friendly relations between China and Cyprus and strengthens the cooperation between China and Europe under the Belt and Road framework.

The Sichuan picture exhibition presented the province in three thematic sections: scenic beauties, cultural heritage, and its open and inclusive nature.
Dough sculptures Love Birds, by Wang Shuhai, an inheritor of Yimeng dough figurine making, are on display at the first Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo in Linyi, Shandong province, June 4, 2017. [Photo/VCG]

The making technique of Yimeng dough figurine has a 100-year-old history and was listed as an intangible cultural heritage last year. The dough is usually made out of flour and sticky rice which is then kneaded, steamed, shaped, dyed and dried in a 16-step process.

The first Intangible Cultural Heritage Cultural Expo was held in Linyi on June 3-5, in the lead up to China's first Cultural and Natural Heritage Day on June 10.
Chi Zi [Photo/Courtesy of Xiaoguo Culture Company]

You might not have heard of Chi Zi yet, but many certainly have  he's feverishly endorsed by more than 810,000 fans on his Sina Weibo blog.

For those who follow the current popular talk shows in China, this 22-year-old comedian is definitely a rising star in the field. Fast-paced, hilarious and carefree, he's often referred to in the Chinese media by two labels: "Furious of the Post-95 Generation" and "Talk Show Genius".

Roast is the show that has made him known to millions of Chinese people; the first season of his online talk show premiered in early January this year, ending up with 1.38 billion hits on its streaming platform, Tencent Video. Inspired by the American series Comedy Central Roast, in which celebrities are mercilessly mocked (in good humour) by a range of comedians, Roast features a designated guest enduring rounds of jokes and mockeries courtesy of a panel, which blends talk-show and stand-up-comedy elements.

With a second season of Roast in the works, in this exclusive chat with China Daily Lifestyle Premium, Chi Zi opens up about his profile  both public and private.

So why do they call you "furious"?

Maybe I seem a bit hyper-excited on shows, so they call it that.

How did you end up doing Roast?

My company discovered me when I was performing in comedy clubs in Beijing two years ago. They asked me to try record an episode of Roast, so I did, and they thought my performance was good.

How long do you normally need to prepare for an episode of Roast?

It depends  sometimes a week, sometimes rushed in two to three days. When we finish the initial scripts, we can revise them for two weeks or a month. I can even revise for more than half a year  there's no limit to making the scripts funny.

Are the scripts all written in advance or are some things spontaneous?

First I write it, then the staff revise it. On the show, it's basically according to that finalised version. Because improvisation is unpredictable, a performance can be hard to control. If I improvise on stage and the result is awkward silence, the following dialogue can be hard to carry out. It'd also influence the panel and the whole ambience  the audience. So basically, we all perform according to the script.

Do you prefer to write your own scripts for Roast?

Yes. Personal style is important on a talk show and my style is unique  others' scripts may be not suitable for me.

And do you watch your own shows?

Actually, no, it's quite embarrassing! Unless they say there's something wrong with it, then I'll watch. But normally I don't  it's quite silly.
A Film Cities Summit of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was hosted by the Qingdao government from June 6 to 8 to brainstorm ideas and cheer for Qingdao's application to be named a UNESCO City of Film.

More than 100 distinguished guests from the China Film Association, the China Film Group Corporation, CCTV Movie Channel, 1905 (Beijing) Network Technology Co, Qingdao West Coast Development Group Co, five UCCN film cities -- namely Bradford of Britain, Rome of Italy, Sydney of Australia, Santos of Brazil, and Bitola of Macedonia -- as well as China's Beijing and Shanghai, UCCN cities in design rather than film, took part in the event.

A Forum on Film and the Sustainable Development of Cities is held on June 6 at the 1907 Movie Club, the former Qingdao Seamen's Club. [Photo by Wang Yongsen/people.com.cn]

A Forum on Film and the Sustainable Development of Cities was held on June 6 to discuss issues related to the development of the global film industry, developments and trends in the Chinese film sector and the outlook of Qingdao's film and creative industry.

During the forum, all the film cities and the applicant city Qingdao jointly released the Qingdao Declaration of Film Cities, an initiative put forward in support of the goals set by the UCCN and to promote sustainable development of creative cities.

The Five Film Cities and the applicant city Qingdao jointly released the Qingdao Declaration of Film Cities on June 6 in Qingdao. [Photo by Zhou Guanghui/people.com.cn]

The UCCN was created in 2004 to promote cooperation between cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. It currently consists of 116 members from 54 countries, covering seven creative fields: Crafts & Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Music and Media Arts.

The 116 cities work together towards a common objective: placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.

To date eight Chinese cities have joined the UCCN: Shenzhen (2008), Shanghai (2010), and Beijing (2012) are in the catalogue of Design Cities; Hangzhou (2012), Suzhou (2014), and Jingdezhen (2014) are Cities of Crafts and Folk Art; Chengdu (2010) and Shunde (2014) are classed as Gastronomy Cities.

Eight cities so far have been named film cities: Bradford of the UK, Sydney of Australia, Busan of South Korea, Galway of Ireland, Sofia of Bulgaria, Bitola of Macedonia, Rome of Italy, and Santos of Brazil.
On June 1, the European Union's market regulator fined Moody's German branch 750,000 ($844,900) and British branch 490,000 for failing to abide by the EU's rating regulatory rules. The EU move, together with Beijing's rebuttal of Moody's downgrading of China's credit rating, reflects the controversial role rating agencies play in the global economy.

The European Securities and Markets Authority said in a public notice that Moody's German and British branches "negligently committed two infringements of the Credit Rating Agencies Regulation regarding their public announcement of certain ratings and their public disclosure of methodologies used to determine those ratings".

Late last month, Moody's downgraded China's credit rating for the first time in nearly 30 years, citing the country's expected erosion of financial strength in the coming years following slowing growth and debt pile-up. In response, the Ministry of Finance said Moody's overestimated the risks to the Chinese economy and the downgrading was based on "inappropriate methodology".

The two cases show rating agencies have become increasingly controversial thanks to the inapt methodologies they use and are facing more challenges from their rating targets.

In fact, this is not the first time a major rating agency such as Moody's has been questioned. Before the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis erupted, the three major rating agenciesMoody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitchfailed to sound alarm by downgrading the ratings of the concerned economies. Instead, after the crisis broke out, they promptly downgraded some Asian economies' ratings only to intensify the crisis and worsen the situation.

And before the global financial crisis broke out in 2008, the three major rating agencies had issued favorable ratings for securities backed by subprime loans, which in turn exacerbated the crisis.

Facing increasing questioning from the market, the rating agencies might attribute their misjudgments to technical inaccuracies in a bid to clear themselves of intentionally using their influence to mislead the market. Indeed, given the highly sophisticated nature of the rating business, it is almost impossible for anyone to technically accuse the rating agencies of trying to manipulate the market with the intention of harming certain economies or companies.

Still, since the three rating agencies have considerable influence on the financial market, they must painstakingly scrutinize facts and data and consider the changes in the real situation before making public their ratings.

In 1975, the three major rating agencies were recognized by the US Securities and Exchange Commission as "Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations". The commission also decided that a foreign company must be rated by an NRSRO before getting the go-ahead for financing in the United States.

Among the 10 NRSROs today, Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch account for more than 96 percent of the global ratings, which shows the monopolistic power they have in the rating market. This power helps them to exercise unparallel influence on the market, and their ratings, whether or not they reflect the real quality of the rated economies and companies, will have a major bearing on global trading and investment.

But as the financial market is becoming increasingly sophisticated, rating agencies have technically become incapable of obtaining and properly analyzing all the financial data of companies and products to be rated. At times, they have to rely on the information provided by other intermediaries to complete their rating exercise, which may affect the accuracy of the rating results, as was the case before the global financial crisis.

Therefore, even if we rule out the possibility of the three major rating agencies taking advantage of their position to mislead the market, they still have to be very cautious while adjusting their ratings of sovereign countries amid a turbulent world economy.

In 1996, US columnist Thomas Friedman said that there are two superpowers in the world. "There's the United States and there's Moody's bond rating service. The US can destroy you by dropping bombs, and Moody's can destroy you by downgrading your bonds."

A superpower should first be a responsible power.

The author is a senior writer with China Daily.

xinzhiming@chinadaily.com.cn
SHI YU/CHINA DAILY

Amid fears and confusion over the London Bridge terror attack, in which seven people were killed and 48 injured, the United Kingdom is set to go to the polls on Thursday. Undaunted by the three terror attacks in the UK in less than three months, Prime Minister Theresa May said her administration will step up the fight against Islamist extremism and complete the UK's divorce with the European Union on schedule.

Ideally, a victory in the snap polls she has called will make May a legitimately elected leader, rather than a makeshift choice by the Conservative Party. That might give her administration a bigger say in negotiating the UK's departure from the EU, grant her party more seats in the House of Commons, and instill in the public a sense of unity in the face of Brexit negotiations.

What the future holds for May and her party is not clear, though, because of the several outstanding challenges she faces. Since the two terror attacks within two weeks (Manchester Arena on May 21 and London Bridge on June 3) laid bare the security threat, May is right to press ahead with the election as planned and act tough against radical Islamism.

But the fact is, the country that managed to rein in terrorism-related crimes for more than a decade has been hit hard after she became prime minister. Which does not look good for the image of her party or her leadership and can add more uncertainty to the Brexit proceedings.

The task of alleviating the economic woes and the thirst for immigrant workers, too, looks daunting. The latest statistics show the UK's GDP growth hit a yearly low of about 0.2 percent in the first quarter. The decision to leave the EU could be responsible for that, and the ensuing economic plight could do yet more damage to the Brexit negotiations.

The departure of about 40,000 foreign citizens from the post-Brexit UK has caused a labor shortage and hit productivity in the country. Some enterprises are worried that the May administration's pledge to keep the annual quota for immigrants under 100,000 will lead to "catastrophic consequences", as the country needs at least 200,000 immigrants to tide over the foreseeable economic problems.

Tighter immigration policy may quell public fear over radical terrorism. But it could also shrink the UK's economy by 1.5 percent to 3 percent by 2025, adding nearly 15.6 billion ($20.13 billion) to public debt.

May's Conservative Party promises to pull the UK out of the EU single market and customs union regardless of how the negotiations work out. The opposition Labour Party argues Brexit proceedings can only continue when both sides come to an agreement. The Liberal Democrats hint at a second referendum, while the Scottish National Party says Brexit has endangered employment, investment and people's livelihoods.

On domestic affairs, May and her Labour rival Jeremy Corbyn also have different views. While May has vowed to grant workers more power and urge more seniors to cover their social security expenses in an attempt to attract young voters, Corbyn proposes to nationalize the railways and the energy sector and impose higher taxes on high-income families.

And no matter which party wins the election, the result will surely have a decisive impact on the UK's attitude toward Brexit negotiations and how it recalibrates its ties with the EU.

The author is a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China.
As always, the US Department of Defense's 2017 report on military and security developments involving China carries some of the all-too-familiar biased interpretations of China's actions and intentions.

Portraying Chinese moves regarding its South China Sea territories and approach to related disputes as "coercion", for instance, it ignores Beijing's endeavors to ease tensions, and its latest consensuses with the Philippines and Vietnam on dispute management and bilateral consultations. The accusation that China supports its modernization via "cyber theft, targeted foreign direct investment, and exploitation of the access of private Chinese nationals" to foreign technologies is also included as usual.

But that might well be all that can be said of the concerns China's growing presence elicits. Because although the Department of Defense openly identifies China as one of the US' "potential adversaries"along with Russia, Iran and Democratic People's Republic of Koreain its "Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Request", the report appears genuine about the nonaggressive nature of Chinese military progress.

Despite being obvious, though unspoken, worries about the logistics base the Chinese navy is building in Djibouti, and likely new ones elsewhere, it acknowledges: "A greater overseas naval logistics and basing footprint would better position the PLA to expand its participation in non-combatant evacuation operations, search-and-rescue, humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, and sea lines of communication security."

No country can afford to leave its economic lifelines unprotected. In China's case, these span from the East and South China seas through the Strait of Malacca and Indian Ocean to Africa and Europe. And to every country concerned, China's participation in antipiracy patrols and escort missions in the Gulf of Aden are an essential public service. As the report observes, "China's expanding international economic interests are increasing demands for the PLAN (PLA Navy) to operate in more distant maritime environments to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and critical sea lines of communication". And as the inclusive, expansive Belt and Road Initiative proceeds, further overseas security guarantees will be required.

One critical, yet oft-omitted or distorted, aspect of the narrative of Chinese military developments is about purpose. The drafters of the report conclude "China's leaders remain focused on developing the capabilities to deter or defeat adversary power projection and counter third-party interventionincluding by the United Statesduring a crisis or conflict." In other words, China's leaders are preoccupied with defense.

Since, as the report concedes, China's "military modernization program has become more focused on supporting missions beyond China's periphery, including power projection, sea lane security, counter piracy, peacekeeping, and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief", there is a question to be answered: Why is China considered a potential adversary?
Students prepare at the No 2 Middle School of Hengshui in Hebei province on June 6, 2017, ahead of gaokao, the national college entrance exam. According to the Ministry of Education, a total of 9.4 million high school students will sit the 2017 examination, which kicks off on June 7 and lasts for two days. [Photo/Xinhua]

A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT from Nanchong, Southwest China's Sichuan province, wrote a letter to the cleaners at her school, seeking their pardon and understanding for her classmates' ripping up their schoolbooks as a way of releasing their growing exam pressure. Yanzhao Metropolis Daily comments:

Tearing up schoolbooks has become a common form of catharsis for students about to sit the national college entrance exams, which increases the workload of school cleaners. The student writing the letter sincerely apologized to the cleaners at her school on behalf of all the students that chose to vent their feelings in this way, and implored the cleaners at her school to forgive her classmates for causing them extra work.

Those about to sit the national college entrance exams often live in a state of high anxiety and repression, because the exams remain quite competitive, even though China has markedly expanded college enrollments since the late 1990s.

However, tearing up schoolbooks and throwing the paper from the windows of school buildings is not a rational way to bid farewell to high school life, because it makes teaching buildings and campuses a total mess.

Worse, some students throw other things, such as bottles and garbage, directly out of the windows of their classrooms. This is quite a dangerous way of celebrating the ending of their high school life. Should anything more than paper hit someone below, the student that threw the object will be held accountable.

It is time to say goodbye to the trend of ripping up books to say farewell.

Schools should put an end to the practice by strengthening control of the students' unruliness before they walk out of the gates for the final time.
AS MORE URBAN RESIDENTS have become aware that illegal fundraising cheats them out of their hard-earned money, and the police have strengthened their enforcement to curb such fundraising, some of these confidence tricksters are reported to have expanded their "business" to certain rural areas. Legal Daily reports:

Those who illegally raise funds always invest the money in highly risky businesses or even spend the money on luxuries for themselves. In both cases, the money raised will be lost.

That loss is more painful for rural residents than for their urban counterparts. In some cases, rural residents handed over the money intended for buying next year's seed to those promising to invest it for them. When they lost their money they were helpless and hopeless.

Thus it is no exaggeration to say that illegal fundraising causes more harm in rural regions than in cities.

In order to fight the illegal fundraisers, it is necessary to know how they cheat. Some make use of family relation networks in rural regions and cheat rural residents by abusing their trust in relatives, which is harder to prevent.

Some illegal fundraisers make use of the lack of supervision over existing rural credit cooperatives to hold illegal fundraising activities. In April, Zhao Tieqiao, an official on agricultural economy at the Ministry of Agriculture, mentioned this, saying that there is no specific governmental department supervising rural credit cooperatives.

Thus, to sum up, the illegal fundraisers make use of either the lack of financial supervision in rural regions or rural residents' lack of caution against illegal fundraising. Therefore, the key to curbing such illegal activities lies in two aspects: First, strengthening supervision over rural credit cooperatives so that they won't be used for illegal activities; Second, increasing rural residents' awareness of illegal fundraising.

Besides, it is also advisable to combine the fight against illegal fundraising with the ongoing efforts to alleviate poverty in rural areas, so that the residents who have newly become better off won't be cheated into becoming poor again.
The Jiangsu provincial government released a local implementation measure for the Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women on Saturday for public opinions. Article 26 of its implementation measure stipulates that men are entitled to no less than 15 days extra leave when their spouse is on maternity leave in addition to the 15 days paternity leave granted by the law. This means that men in Jiangsu province can enjoy at least 30-days leave when their spouse is on maternity leave.

The Jiangsu Provincial Federation of Trade Unions and Jiangsu Provincial Women's Federation told the media that the joint paternal and maternal leave aims to promote the sharing of childcare between husband and wife.

The new regulations aim to enhance the public's awareness that raising children is not only the mother's responsibility. Male parental leave actually clarifies that men have a shared responsibility for raising children, said the officials of Jiangsu Provincial Women's Federation.

After the implementation measure takes effect, qualified male employees will be able to apply for the parental leave. If an enterprise refuses to approve the leave, the employee can complain to the trade union.
President Xi Jinping, foreign delegation heads and guests pose for a group photo at the Leaders' Roundtable Summit of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at Yanqi Lake International Convention Center in Beijing, May 15, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

When I first coined the term "Chiglobalization" in 2009, it was a visionary concept inspired by Niall Ferguson's concepts of UK-led Anglobalization and US-led Ameriglobalization along with the successful 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Eight years later, the concept of China-initiated globalization is materializing, and the definition is more valid and reliable than before.

The concept captures exactly what China's leadership has been doing since 2013, particularly with the vision of Chinese dream and the Belt and Road Initiative President Xi Jinping proposed.

Back then, I defined Chiglobalization as "the increasing global relevance, global presence, global influence, and global leadership of China in generating a fresh global vision for humanity, in creating a new model for economic development, in forging an alternative model of global and domestic governance, in creating a new model for science and technology development, and in creating a truly cosmopolitan culture characterized by multiculturalism, interculturalism and pragmatism."

Chiglobalziation also suggested that it "refers to a process of China-led global search for and a global enlightenment by an alternative mode of life for humanity on the basis of, but above and beyond, the Eurocentric model," or the Anglo/American-centric model, for that matter.

Consumer goods exported to all over the world helped deepen China's global relevance and defined her global presence as a world factory after the country joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. More than 500 Confucius Institutes and 1000 Confucius Classrooms spread out among some 130 countries/regions put "Cultural China" on the world stage engaging in face-to-face dialogue with the world.

China's initial effort to exercise global influence is subsequently solidified by the recent exponential growth of her outbound economic clout. China is conservatively reported as the world's second largest economy. With $4 trillion of foreign currency savings and domestic savings of 155 trillion yuan, equivalent of more than $22 trillion, China has been feverishly seeking in recent years to buy up properties and invest for corporate mergers and acquisitions around the world.

With a total of $1 trillion FDI, China has directly invested more than $150 billion around the world, second only to the US and around 10 percent of the total global FDI amount in 2015 alone. This is coupled with growing numbers of outgoing Chinese tourists who spend $1 trillion on their foreign tours around the world.

Take China's influence in the US, for example. While Chimerica was coined to describe the growing economic interdependence between the US and China, "Chinafornia" is used to illustrate this roaring dynamism: As an epicenter of the national trend, "Chinafornia is the fluid ecosystem of entrepreneurs, students, investors, immigrants, and ideas bouncing back and forth between the Golden State and the Middle Kingdom."

Moreover, discussions between the US and China are reportedly underway for China to invest in President Donald Trump's $1 trillion plans for infrastructure improvements across the country, likely part of China's Belt and Road Initiative. China's power in national defense, global influence and the cultural industry is narrowing the gap with the US. Yanzhong Huang, a fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, concludes that China is a superpower, but not yet a global leader.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say that China is on the path towards global leadership. Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, is a plan to invest $1 trillion as seed money and attract an additional $9 trillion for infrastructure construction around the world, particularly Asia. This can be interpreted as a game-changing exercise of China's global leadership, riding on a new wave of globalization with an aim of engineering better global governance. President Xi expressed such aspirations in keynote addresses at the World Economic Forum in Davos and at Europe's UN Headquarters in Geneva.

China has a core strategy. Instead of building military bases around the world like the US, China is relying on comprehensive strategies of communication and connectivity ranging from politics to finance, from infrastructure and trade to culture and religion to construct zones of economic cooperation and centers of cultural exchanges.

President Xi and President Trump may have ironed out an elite international design to facilitate dialogue and negotiations over US-China relations, the Asia-Pacific and global affairs at the Mar-a-Lago Resort in April, and the Belt & Road Forum might be viewed as more of a mid-level design to establish a global dialogical structure with middle and small powers for co-development and co-security. Such a two-tiered structure is indicative of and facilitates formation of a new global culture  a world community of a shared future.

Based upon the strengths of its predecessors such as the neoliberal world order, Chiglobalization could define and sustain a new wave of globalization and global governance with the Chinese accent in the 21st century as more benign, both more equal and equitable, more open and pluralistic, more peaceful and harmonious than its predecessors.

Given China's core value of groupism, Chiglobalization coincides with multilateralism, a kind of co-globalization, and even Chiglocalization  encompassing re-modernization and re-globalization in the form of infrastructure improvements for developed countries and brand-new modernization for developing countries.

Globalization has no endpoint and it cannot afford homogeneity either. Chiglobalization, like its predecessors, is making the phenomenon full, less partial and homogenous, and more diverse. Every nation should have a chance to ride this new wave of globalization.

Western leaders, including former President Barack Obama, and mainstream American media have criticized China for being a free rider in global governance. But now China is taking up the Belt and Road initiative, a new global public good to sustain globalization and global governance.

The Western world, particularly the United States, should have welcomed this initiative. In the meantime, China learned a lesson from the negative experience of rejecting Anglobalization and Ameriglobalization and the positive experience of embracing them later on.

The author is a professor with the School of Communication, Chapman University and a fellow with the National Academy for Development & Strategy, Renmin University of China.

The article was first published on Yale Global Online on June 6, 2017. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and don't represent views of China Daily website.
Foreign tourists in safari riverboats observe elephants along the Chobe river bank near Botswana's northern border where Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia meet, March 4, 2005. [Photo/Agencies]

GABORONE - Botswana's Health and Wellness Minister, Dorcas Magkato, Tuesday hailed the partnership between China and Botswana in the sector of health, saying it bridged the human resource gap in the country's health sector.

Magkato was speaking at a farewell dinner for the 14th Chinese medical team that was organized by Botswana's Health and Wellness ministry.

Magkato appreciated the Chinese government for its continuous support to Botswana.

She also commended the medics for the sacrifices they have made by being separated from their families and their country for the past two years.

Speaking at the farewell dinner, the Chinese ambassador to Botswana Zhao Yanbo, said medicine and health-care has been one of the top priority areas in China's assistance to Botswana.

He said cooperation in medical care and public health has brought huge benefits to African countries, making it a big plus to strengthen ties between China and Africa.

China began to dispatch medical teams to Botswana since 1981. So far, a total of 415 medical personnel of 14 Chinese medical teams have been sent to Botswana.
Top representatives from Britain's tourism and hospitality sector convened on Monday to discuss a potential slump in the number of visitors to the United Kingdom following Saturday's van and knife terror attack in London, which claimed seven lives and injured 48.

A police boat heads under Southwark Bridge on the River Thames towards London Bridge, the scene of the recent attack, in London, Britain June 6, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

The Tourism Industry Emergency Response Group met to coordinate the industry's response to the third UK terror attack this year.

Xu Xiaolei, a spokesman for travel agent China Youth Travel Service, said only a few Chinese clients had canceled or changed plans, but he anticipates a future reduction. Chinese people made 260,000 visits to the UK in 2016.

"Chinese tourists are mature and rational, and they have trust in the UK's security system," he said."However, the UK has witnessed several attacks recently. I think some Chinese tourists are likely to choose other destinations, and the number of Chinese tourists to the UK will be slightly reduced."

The industry's emergency response group is facilitated by UK tourism authority VisitBritain and comprises more than 10 members, including the Association of British Travel Agents and the British Hospitality Group.

It met after the attack on Westminster Bridge and following the London attacks on July 7, 2005 in which 52 people were killed and more than 700 injured.

A VisitBritain spokesperson said:"First and foremost, we extend our thoughts and deepest sympathy to those affected by the recent events in London  London is open for business and Britain continues to welcome the millions of visitors from around the globe."

The UK's tourism industry is worth 130 billion pounds ($168 billion) a year, contributing 36 billion pounds a year to London's economy. The sector maintained healthy numbers following the Westminster and Manchester attacks and it remains to be seen whether the third attack will result in fewer tourists heading to the UK. Last year, France saw a 7 percent drop in visitor numbers following multiple terror attacks there.

"There is the immediate impact and the question is how long that impact is sustained," said Ufi Ibrahim, CEO of the BHA."We've seen in France, in Paris and Nice, and in other countries where there have been terrorist attacks... that there is a sustained period. It takes months to be able to recover."

Flight bookings from China to the UK for June to August 2017 are up 37 percent compared to last year, according to data compiled at the end of May by flight monitoring company ForwardKeys.

Overall, there were a record 8.1 million overseas visits to the UK from January to March 2017, up 7 percent on the same period in 2016, according to Visit Britain. Overseas visitors to the UK spent 4.2 billion pounds from January to March, up 11 percent on the same period in 2016 and setting a new record for the first three months of the year.

Chen Yingqun contributed to this story.
A performer in a giant panda costume greets visitors to an amusement park in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Monday. The Astana World Expo 2017 opens on Saturday. Over 500 Chinese enterprises from more than 24 provinces, autonomous regions or provincial level cities are expected to participate, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. [Photo/Xinhua]
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, the Republic of Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on DPRK's east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into the DPRK'S eastern waters. The ROK and the United States were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The ROK militaryhas strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional DPRK provocation, while maintaining full defense preparedness, the JCS said.

The DPRK projectiles were not ballistic missiles. Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The test-firing by the DPRK came as the US military dispatched nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The test-launches were immediately reported to ROK President Moon Jae-in right after being detected, according to local media reports.

Pyongyang has conducted missile test-launches five times since Moon took office on May 10.
Britain's tourism and hospitality officials are expressing concern over the effect of recent terror attacks in the United Kingdom, though questions remain as to the size of any potential slump in visitors.

Top representatives convened as the Tourism Industry Emergency Response Group on Monday following Saturday's London attack, the third in three months, which killed eight and injured 48. The body of the eighth victim was found on Wednesday, police said.

Xu Xiaolei, a spokesman for China Youth Travel Service, said only a few Chinese clients had canceled or changed plans, but he expects a future reduction. Chinese people made 260,000 visits to the UK in 2016.

"Chinese tourists are mature and rational, and they have trust in the UK's security system, "he said. "However, the UK had witnessed several attacks recently. I think some Chinese tourists are likely to choose other destinations, and the number of Chinese tourists to the UK will be slightly reduced."

The emergency response group is facilitated by UK tourism authority Visit Britain and comprises over 10 members, including the Association of British Travel Agents.

"First and foremost, we extend our thoughts and deepest sympathy to those affected by recent events in London," a Visit Britain spokesperson said. "London is open for business and Britain continues to welcome millions of visitors."

The UK's tourism industry is worth 130 billion pounds ($168 billion) a year, contributing 36 billion pounds a year to London's economy. The sector maintained healthy numbers after the March 22 Westminster Bridge incident and May 22 Manchester bombing attack.

It remains to be seen whether the third attack will result in fewer tourist arrivals. Last year, France saw a 7 percent drop in visitor numbers following multiple terror attacks there.

"There is the immediate impact, and the question is how long that impact is sustained," said Ufi Ibrahim, CEO of the British Hospitality Association.

"We've seen in France, in Paris and Nice, and in other countries where there have been terrorist attacks ... that there is a sustained period. It takes months to be able to recover," Ibrahim said.

Contact the writers at angus@mail.chinadailyuk.com
Officials of NATO and representatives of its members pose for a group photo during a ceremony marking Montenegro's accession to NATO at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 7, 2017. NATO on Wednesday raised Montenegro's flag at its headquarters, marking the country's membership in the bloc. [Photo/Xinhua]

BRUSSELS - NATO on Wednesday raised Montenegro's flag at its headquarters, marking the country's membership in the bloc.

In the presence of Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a press conference: "Montenegro joins NATO as an equal, with a seat at our table, and an equal voice in shaping the future of the Alliance."

Montenegro became NATO's newest member on Monday, upon depositing its instrument of accession to NATO in Washington DC. "At that moment, Montenegro officially became the 29th member of our Alliance," Stoltenberg said.

Calling it is "a historic day," Stoltenberg stressed that Montenegro's accession to the Alliance sends a strong signal that NATO maintains its open-door policy.

Montenegro's flag will also fly over NATO's two strategic commands in Mons, Belgium and in Virginia, United States.

Montenegro's accession to NATO came despite strong opposition from Russia, which has said the step would harm stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole.
US President Donald Trump (L) speaks in Ypilanti Township, Michigan March 15, 2017 and FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., May 3, 2017 in a combination of file photos. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - The US Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday released a statement from former FBI director James Comey, which revealed five exchanges between him and US President Donald Trump since election day.

The seven page statement, which the former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director was due to formally deliver in a hearing on Thursday, offered the accounts of three one-on-one meetings and two phone calls Comey had with Trump since this year.

The exchanges, which took place on January 6, January 27, February 14, March 30 and April 11, focused mainly on the FBI's ongoing investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign, in particular former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and Russia.

According to Comey's recollection, Trump has asked the FBI to stop its investigation on Flynn, who resigned in February after his inappropriate contacts with a Russian diplomat came to light.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," the statement quoted Trump as saying in the February 14 meeting.

Comey said he had replied that "he is a good guy", but did not say that he would "let this go."

Another request from Trump was for the FBI to clarify that he was not under investigation himself, to which Comey voluntarily confirmed in the meetings but was reluctant to make public.

"He described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country," the statement said of Trump in the March 30 phone call, adding that Trump had asked how to "lift the cloud".

During their dinner on January 27, Trump asked Comey for loyalty, to which Comey pledged honesty. The two men later agreed that Comey would give "honest loyalty" to Trump, despite Comey admitting later that "it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently."

Comey also said all of the records were made immediately after each exchanges based on Comey's memory, implying that there were no recordings on Comey's side.

The White House has said it would not exercise executive privilege to prevent Comey from testifying in front of Congress.
BAGHDAD - Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Wednesday announced it has set a date to hold a referendum on independence on September 25, a move that expected to be opposed strongly by Baghdad central government.

Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdish region, announced the vote after a meeting with the Kurdish political parties in Arbil, the capital city of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, according to the Kurdish Rudaw media network.

The referendum will be held in the three provinces of Arbil, Dohuk and Sulamaniyah, in addition to the areas that are disputed by the Kurdish and Baghdad governments, which are currently under Kurdish military control, Rudaw quoted Hemin Hawrami, senior advisor to President Barzani, as saying.

"Referendum and independence are an inalienable and natural right, but it has to take place according to legal measures and within the context of the legitimate institutions and the Kurdistan parliament," Rebwar Hamad, the spokesperson of the Kurdish Islamic Party, told the Kurdish media.

So far, the Iraqi government has no reaction to the declaration and is expected to oppose the Kurdish move in protest to the timing as the Iraqi forces are in fighting against terrorism, including the Islamic State (IS) militant group, and because of the disputed areas outside the region.

Disagreements between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government have been high for years, as the ethnic Kurds consider the northern oil-rich province of Kirkuk and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arabs and Turkomans and by Baghdad government.

The Iraqi government will see the Kurdish move illegal, as the article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution calls for several steps to address the dispute over the ethically-mixed disputed areas, including a referendum.

However, problems raised among the conflicting ethnicities, as Arabs and Turkmen accuse the Kurds of carrying out demographic change in the disputed areas, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk in the years after 2003, while the Kurds are accusing Saddam Hussein's regime of displacing thousands of Kurds who were replaced with Arabs to make Kirkuk a predominantly Arab province.

On March 28, Kirkuk's council voted in raising the Kurdish flag alongside the Iraqi flag on the building of the provincial council despite the withdrawal of Arab and Turkoman council members, who argued that the move is a pre-decision that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan.

The independence of Kurdistan could be opposed also by neighboring countries of Turkey, Iran and Syria who will see that such a step would threaten their territorial integrity, as larger populations of Kurds live in those countries.
The Ministry of Defense has accused the US of speculation over China's military development, playing up the so-called China threat, and disrupting cross-Straits relations.

"China is committed to peaceful development and defense-oriented security policies," ministry spokesman Wu Qian said in an online statement on Wednesday.

The statement came in response to the United States Department of Defense's annual report to the US Congress on China's military development, which was published on Tuesday.

In recent years, Wu said, the People's Liberation Army has actively participated in peacekeeping, escorts, disaster relief and other overseas missions.

The Chinese military has also enhanced public safety and received universal praise from the international community, he said, adding that the country "neither seeks military expansion nor a sphere of influence, and will always be a firm force in maintaining world peace".

Regarding the East China and South China seas, Wu said China will resolutely defend its national sovereignty and security, as well as regional peace. However, he said, the US has "intensified the situation" by continuing to strengthen military deployment in the region, dispatching ships and aircraft to conduct close-up reconnaissance.

The PLA's budget is public and transparent, while China's military reform and the development of military equipment and cyberspace security are reasonable and justified, he said, adding that accusations made in the US report are "pure speculation".

At the same time, China has noted the report includes a chapter on China-US military relations.

"Healthy and stable military relations are of mutual interest ... and require both sides to work together," Wu said. "We hope the US will view China's defense construction and military development in a rational and objective manner."

Contact the writer at zhangzhihao@chinadaily.com.cn
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Solihull, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

LONDON - Prime Minister Theresa May is oncourse to increase her majority in parliament in Britain'selection on Thursday, opinion polls showed on Wednesday,suggesting her gamble to call the vote to bolster her positionin Brexit negotiations will pay off.

May has seen her once-commanding lead over the Labour Partyand its veteran hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn narrow sharplysince she surprised almost everyone by calling a snap election in April.

Of six polls published on Wednesday, two showed theConservatives widening their lead over Labour, two showed anarrowing and two were unchanged.

But they mostly suggested she would increase the smallmajority she inherited from David Cameron last year, shortlyafter the surprise referendum decision to take Britain out ofthe European Union.

Polling firm ICM said Conservatives' wide lead of 46 percentto 34 percent for Labour would give May a majority of 96 seats,up sharply from the working majority of 17 she has had until nowand bigger than any Conservative majority since the days whenMargaret Thatcher was prime minister.

The Independent newspaper said the 44-34 lead for theConservatives in a poll it commissioned from ComRes would giveMay a majority of 74.

YouGov, which found the Conservatives' lead had increased toseven percentage points from four during the weekend, also saidMay would bolster her power in parliament.

"The seven-point Conservative lead is the same as at theprevious election, but we think it is likely they willnevertheless be returned with an increased majority," YouGovDirector Anthony Wells said.

The polls were conducted after a deadly attack by Islamistmilitants in London on Saturday.

ICM and ComRes have tended to give the Conservatives biggerleads than other polling firms.

At the other end of spectrum, Survation said theConservatives' lead stood at just one percentage point, echoingtwo polls it published in recent days which called into questionwhether May would get a majority at all.

Polling experts have said the main difference between thepolls which give the Conservatives a big lead and ones such asSurvation which suggest a tighter race is largely down tovarying estimates of how many young voters, who typicallysupport Labour, are likely to actually vote on Thursday.

Investors took the latest findings as a sign May was likelyto emerge victorious, giving her a boost before the start ofBrexit talks this month. Sterling rose by nearly half acent against the US dollar after the ICM poll was published.

GAMBLE

ComRes Chairman Andrew Hawkins said May was in the clearafter securing the support of around 2 million voters - worthabout six percentage points in the polls - who backed theanti-EU UK Independence Party in Britain's last election in2015, and who have warmed to her tough stance on negotiatingBrexit.

"Despite Mrs May's ratings taking a hit during the campaign,older voters in particular have stuck with her party and itappears that the electoral gamble is about to pay off," he saidin a blog.

The big differences in the poll findings in the run-up toThursday's vote have added to scepticism among critics ofpolling who point to how the industry largely failed toaccurately predict the outcome of the 2015 election and lastyear's referendum vote to exit the EU.

REUTERS
Voters are outside a polling station to cast ballot after UK's general election kicks off on June 8 in London, UK. Photo by Yang Jing

Polling stations in the United Kingdom opened at 7:00 am on Thursday as voters choose a government to negotiate its departure from the European Union amid increased tension after a succession of terrorist attacks that have left 35 people dead.

Around 40,000 polling stations in churches, schools and other buildings opened, in some cases guarded by armed police. Police in London made three more arrests on Wednesday in connection with Saturday's attacks which left eight dead. The BBC reported that further arrests took place at dawn on Thursday in east London.

Rain is forecast in many northern and western parts of the country which some commentators believe could affect turnout. In fact, there is no data to show that rain has ever reduced turnout in previous general elections in the UK.
PARIS - Tyrannosaurus rex had scales, not feathers, said a study on Wednesday, which rescues the giant lizard's reputation as a fearsome killer with a rough-and-tough hide.

Recent research has claimed to provide evidence for feathers in ancestors of T. rex, and suggested the iconic carnivore may itself have sported birdlike plumage rather than reptilian scales.

Those findings challenged a long-held contention that large-bodied dinos had no feathers, requiring them for neither warmth nor flight.

For the new study, an international team of scientists tracked down museum samples of skin from T. rex and several of its cousins in the tyrannosaurid family, and compiled a database of fossilized hide impressions.

These included skin patches of the neck, pelvis and tail of a T. rex from the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as well as samples from four other members of the extended tyrannosaurid family.

That group roamed the planet during the Late Cretaceous, which extended from 99 million to 65.5 million years ago, when an asteroid slammed into Earth and wiped out all land-dwelling dinos.

'Compelling evidence'

The team concluded that "extensive feather coverings" in tyrannosauridswhich lived much earlierwere already lost in the common forefather of T. rex and its cousins about the time the Late Cretaceous began.

The data provides "compelling evidence" of an entirely scaly covering for T. rex, the team wrote in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

"Our discovery of fossilized scaly skin similar to that of modern reptiles on the bodies of a wide variety of tyrannosaur species (including T. rex) ... paints a more traditional scaly-skinned picture of these huge predators," they wrote in a press summary.

This suggested, in turn, "that most (if not all) large-bodied tyrannosaurids were scaly and, if partly feathered, these were limited to the dorsum (back)," they wrote.

The study begged the question of whyafter T. Rex's ancestors evolved feathers from an even more ancient scaly forebearthe giant tyrannosaurs reverted back to scales.

Paleontologists believe the first birds appeared 150 million years ago and were descendants of small feathered dinosaurs.

The first dino feathers were simple hollow shafts, which evolved over time into something resembling their modern shape, engineered for flight.

Agence France-presse
Recent military contracts 'raise risk of new spiral in arms sales'

BERLIN/DOHA - German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Tuesday accused US President Donald Trump of stirring up conflicts in the Middle East and risking a new arms race as Qatar's neighbors cut ties with Doha.

"US President Trump's recent giant military contracts with Gulf monarchies raise the risk of a new spiral in arms sales," Gabriel warned in an interview with the Handelsblatt daily to appear Wednesday.

"This policy is completely wrong and is certainly not Germany's policy," he said.

"I am very concerned with the dramatic escalation and the consequences for the whole region," Gabriel said.

Saudi Arabia and allies including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain announced on Monday they were severing diplomatic relations and closing air, sea and land links with Qatar.

They accused Doha of harboring extremist groups.

The UAE has banned people from publishing expressions of sympathy toward Qatar and will punish offenders with a jail term of up to 15 years, local media reported on Wednesday.

Qatari nationals will not be allowed to board Qantas flights to Dubai because the UAE has banned them from passing through its airports, an executive at the Australian airline has said.

The West African country of Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, also severed ties with Qatar on Tuesday, and OPEC member Gabon also condemned Doha.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for unity among Gulf states on Tuesday, saying he was ready to back "all initiatives to encourage calm".

Energy-rich Qatar has long had strained ties with its neighbors but the move by Riyadh and its supporters shocked observers, raising fears the crisis could destabilize an already volatile region.

$110b deal with Riyadh

The dispute comes less than a month after Trump visited Saudi Arabia and called for Muslim nations to unite against extremism.

Trump on Tuesday backed the regional efforts to isolate Qatar, supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies and suggesting that the key US ally - home to the largest US air base in the Middle East - has been funding extremism.

During his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Trump signed arms contracts worth $110 billion with Riyadh.

Gabriel warned against completely isolating Qatar and said the move is an attack on the Gulf state's very existence.

"Such a 'Trumpification' of relations in a region already susceptible to crises is particularly dangerous," Gabriel said.

He added that the nuclear deal agreed with Iran in 2015 had allowed just such an escalation to be avoided.

"A toxic conflict between neighbors is that last thing we need," Gabriel warned.

He was scheduled to meet his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir in Berlin on Wednesday. Jubeir said on Tuesday in Berlin that Qatar must "change their policies" and stop supporting "extremist groups".

Afp - Reuters - Ap
Twelve universities from the Chinese mainland and from Hong Kong and Macau - a record number- have made it onto the World's Top 100, making China the top country in Asia, and putting it hot on the heels of the United States and the United Kingdom, according to a new report.

File photo of Tsinghua University. [Photo/VCG]

Quacquarelli Symonds, a UK company that specializes in education and overseas study, released its QS World University Rankings on Thursday, in which 39 universities from the Chinese mainland were included, six for the first time.

Two of the new entries made it onto the World's Top 100 list.

The rankings included the universities of Tsinghua (at 25), Peking(38), Fudan(40), Shanghai Jiaotong (62), Zhejiang(87), and the University of Science and Technology of China(97).

China's top-ranked institution, Tsinghua University, outranked UC Berkley(27) and the University of Tokyo(28).

The company that compiled the listing said the rapid development of China's higher education sector can be attributed to the government's strategy of striving to create a group of world-class universities and disciplines by 2020.

Zhang Yan, China director at Quacquarelli Symonds's Intelligence Unit, said: "Chinese universities have experienced steady growth, with its top universities progressing quickly into the world's top 100. That is mainly due to the success of education reform and large government investment in the past 30 years."

The partnership between Chinese universities and business has helped Chinese graduates become more and more globally competitive, Zhang said, adding that"this helps to attract more global talents to come to China for study, internships, work, and setting up new business, in the long run to deepen the reform of Chinese universities".

The list showed that China is home to more top-100 institutions than any other Asian nation, ahead of Japan and South Korea, which each have five, and Singapore, which has two. Only two nations have more elite universities: the US has 31 and the UK has 16.

Hannele Niemi, a professor of education at the University of Helsinki, said: "The investments that China has allocated to higher education have had a high impact. China has also decisively made high efforts for promoting international cooperation."

This year's table provides a guide to the world's 965 top universities. The results are based on peer reviews from 75,000 academics and 40,500 employers from more than 100 countries during the past five years, in addition to the analysis of 12.31 million academic journals and 66.3 million citations.
KIEV - An explosion occurred in the US Embassy compound here early Thursday, but no one was injured, Ukraine's National Police said.

The blast took place after an unknown assailant threw an unidentified explosive device into the diplomatic mission's premises shortly after midnight local time (around 2100 GMT, Wednesday), the police said in a statement on its website.

The Ukrainian government is investigating the incident as a "terror act," the statement said.

In March, the Polish Consulate in Ukraine's western city of Lutsk was attacked by unidentified assailants, causing no casualties.
The European Community Shipowners' Associations and the International Chamber of Shipping have said they broadly support the decision by China and the European Union to press ahead with plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions from ships, despite the United States announcing its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

"The withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement should not jeopardize an ambitious global strategy to reduce the CO2 emissions of shipping," said Patrick Verhoeven, the shipowners' association's secretary-general. "We are therefore pleased that the EU and China appear to be working toward reinforced cooperation on delivering a climate agreement for shipping at the International Maritime Organization."

In Brussels last week, China and EU leaders agreed to intensify cooperation over a shipping deal, and will join Canada in hosting a ministerial summit in September to advance the Paris climate agreement, accelerating the transition to clean energy.

The shipowners' association and the shipping chamber are both working with the International Maritime Organization to produce an international proposal that will keep total global shipping's carbon dioxide emissions below the 2008 levels, before steadily cutting annual emissions to a percentage that is yet to be agreed by 2050.

But, the two shipping organizations said they were worried about unilateral measures being considered by the EU that would include making shipping a part of the European Emission Trading Scheme. China is also considering a national emission trading scheme that could eventually include shipping.

Emission trading schemes allow companies that join them to trade greenhouse gas emissions allowances, provided the overall cap set by the administrators is not exceeded.

"We remain firmly opposed to a patchwork of regional schemes that would distort international shipping markets, while doing little to tackle the reduction of the global industry's actual emissions," said Verhoeven.

Peter Hinchclife, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Shipping, agreed, adding: "We call upon the EU and China, and indeed all IMO member states, to support the industry proposals. The priority of governments should be to focus on the development of alternative, fossil-free fuels and the IMO should assess whether holding CO2 below 2008 can be achieved with technical and operational measures alone."
NINGBO -- More than 4,000 cargo train trips have been made between Chinese and European cities since start of their operations six years ago, a railway corporation manager said Thursday.



Of the trips 99.7 percent were on time, Han Shurong, of China Railway Corp., said at a meeting between China and countries of Central and Eastern Europe held in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province.



The transported items included IT products, such as mobiles and computers, to clothes, cars and auto parts, food, wine, coffee beans, timber and machines, he said.

"Unlike in the past when most trains returned to China empty because of a lack of goods, over half of the trains came back loaded last year," he said.



The rail network was launched in August 2011 with the opening of the Chongqing-Duisburg Line, which starts from the southwest China metropolis of Chongqing. The trains are currently operated between 28 Chinese cities and 29 cities in 11 European countries.
29 bodies from missing Myanmar military plane found at sea: defense office

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-06-08 18:19

YANGON - A total of 29 human bodies have been discovered at sea, according to a statement released by Myanmar's Defense Services Office Thursday afternoon.



With the use of naval vessels and local fishing vessels, rescue teams for a missing military airplane recovered the 29 bodies which belong to one man, 20 women and eight children so far, said the statement.



Search for the missing plane is continuing with the use of nine naval vessels, five aircraft and two helicopters of the Air Force as well as local vessels.
BEIJING - China on Thursday rejected a review of key developments in Hong Kong by the US State Department.

"We express strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to that document and the irresponsible remarks by the United States," foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Thursday at a daily press briefing.

Hua said that Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Hong Kong affairs fall within China's domestic affairs and no country has any right to intervene, she said.

She urged the United States to be prudent in its words and actions on affairs concerning Hong Kong.

It is undeniable that the principle of "one country, two systems" and the Basic Law have been comprehensively implemented, and Hong Kong residents have enjoyed their rights and freedoms in accordance with the law since Hong Kong's return to the motherland, according to Hua.

"The Chinese government's resolve to implement 'one country, two systems' and 'Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong' with a high degree of autonomy is unwavering, and will not be changed," she said.
A diamond that was snapped up at a junk sale for 10 pounds ($12) has sold at auction in Londonfor 656,750 pounds ($848,000).

The gemstone, which has been dubbed the 'tenner' diamond, was bought as a ring at a Sunday flea market in West London back in the 1980s, and then worn for many years by its oblivious owner, who had no idea itwas a genuine 26.27-carat cushion-shaped white diamond.

The buyer thought it was just a piece of costume jewelry due to its "filthy mount" and had no idea it was valuable.

After decades of wear, the true value of the stone became apparent when it was taken to Sothebys for a valuation after a jeweler said it might be valuable.

Jessica Wyndham, head of Sothebys London jewelry department said the owner wore the rock while carrying out everyday chores.

"The owner would wear it out shopping, wear it day-to-day," she said. "Its a good-looking ring. No-one had any idea it had any intrinsic value at all. They enjoyed it all this time."

The auction house originally valued the ring at 350,000 pounds, but it ended up going for nearly twice that amount when it went under the hammer at Sothebys Fine Jewels sale on Wednesday.

The successful final bid of 656,750 pounds was made by an international buyer.

The ring was recently confirmed as a genuine diamond by the Gemological Institute of America. It is thought to have been cut in the 19th century, but thestyle at that time was to cut to conserve weight, rather than show brilliance, so it is large but relatively dull.

"Many of us in our lifetime would never even dream of owning  a stone like this," Wyndham told a news program.

Another highlight of the sale was a Cartier diamond brooch worn by Margaret Thatcher on a number of high-profile occasions while she was prime minister, including on the day she offered the queen her resignation.

The brooch fetched81,250 pounds. The proceeds are being donated to charity.

Wyndham said: "It was a thrill to bring the hammer down on two objects which have been the subject of so much interest and attention over the last few weeks and to see that attention translate into such strong bidding competition."
Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "Russian Federation Efforts to Interfere in the 2016 US Elections" on Capitol Hill in Washington, US June 8, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

Former Director of Federal Bureau of Investigations James Comey said Thursday that he was confused over the circumstances under which he was fired.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing that the Trump administration had offered "shifting explanations" for his firing, which was confusing and concerning.

"It confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation," he said.

"I was also confused by the initial explanation that was offered publicly, that I was fired because of the decisions I had made during the election year," Comey said.

"The administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray," Comey said.

The high profile hearing is scheduled to find out the circumstances under which Comey was fired and if Trump had interfered with FBI investigations.

Comey was fired on May 9.

Xinhua
President Xi Jinpingspeaks with Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev in the capital, Astana, after his arrival on Wednesday for a four-day visit.Lan hongguang / XINHUA

Xi and Nazarbayev agree to bolster cooperation in a multitude of areas

China and Kazakhstan signed documents on Thursday to bolster cooperation in such areas as trade, finance, infrastructure construction and hydroelectric projects during President Xi Jinping's ongoing state visit.

Xi and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev witnessed the signing of the agreements and memorandums of understanding amid the two countries' efforts to connect the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative with Kazakhstan's Bright Road new economic policies.

The Chinese president is on a four-day visit to Kazakhstan that started on Wednesday. A joint declaration was issued after the meeting between the two presidents.

During their talks, the presidents agreed to link Kazakhstan's strategy of building an international logistics passage with China's efforts to build the new Eurasia Continental Bridge  a rail link to Europe  as well as a corridor that links China with West Asia via Central Asia.

The two sides also agreed to connect China's advantages in both land and maritime transportation with Kazakhstan's need for access to maritime transportation.

Xi said the two countries' political trust has reached an unprecedented high level. He added that the key to the rapid development of Sino-Kazakh relations has been that the two sides have adhered to the spirit of a friendly neighborhood, the principle of mutual respect and the view of joint development.

"The two nations should always be good neighbors, friends and partners," Xi told reporters after the meeting.

Kazakhstan would like to deepen cooperation with China in areas such as transportation, production capacity, industrial parks, finance and agriculture under the Belt and Road framework, Nazarbayev said. He added that the Belt and Road Initiative is highly significant.

During their talks, the leaders agreed to maintain close high-level exchanges, respect each others' efforts to safeguard their core interests, and jointly deal with challenges that may threaten regional safety and stability.

The two presidents also agreed to jointly build industrial parks, boost interconnectivity and deepen cooperation in areas like infrastructure, logistics, innovation, agriculture, forestry, finance, energy, science and environmental protection.

They pledged to maintain close communications on major global and regional issues; jointly fight terrorism, extremism and cross-border organized crime; and safeguard peace and stability.

The leaders spoke of the important role that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has played in international relations, and agreed to deepen cooperation in politics, security, trade and people-to-people exchanges within the SCO framework.

Xi praised the progress made during Kazakhstan's SCO presidency, which began last year. China, which assumes the rotating leadership next, will make joint efforts for all sides to cooperate in a more comprehensive, pragmatic and efficient way, Xi said.

On his visit to Astana, Xi will attend the 17th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO as well as the opening ceremony of the Astana Expo 2017 on Friday.

Zhang Xiyun, a former Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, said that Kazakhstan, the most prosperous country in Central Asia, has set an example in pragmatic cooperation with China in implementing the Belt and Road Initiative.

Kazakhstan's location provides a convenient gateway to Europe for Chinese goods and companies, while the Lianyungang seaport in Jiangsu province is a vital outlet for the products of inland Kazakhstan, he said.

Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that as Kazakhstan's largest trade partner, China is well positioned to strengthen ties in politics, economy, culture and security through Xi's trip, his third state visit to the country.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
Air quality monitoring authorities in Beijing and Paris renewed a pledge for further technological cooperation on Thursday, which could help China's capital combat smog, a senior official said at a forum on clean air.

Under the new agreement, researchers from the two cities will deepen technological cooperation in air quality monitoring, forecasting and emergency response, said Ming Dengli, head of international cooperation at the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, at the International Forum for Metropolitan Clean Air Actions.

The event, which gathered many environment officials and researchers from around the world, will conclude on Friday.

"The deal could help keep exchanges stable and smooth, showing the strong support from Beijing and Paris environmental authorities," she said.

The two air quality monitoring centers first inked an agreement three years ago, but "we started cooperation in 2000, when we learned about Paris' monitoring technologies", Ming said.

After years of practice tackling air pollution, Beijing has developed new forecasting models. Many measures have won praise from Paris and other cities.

Beijing has shut down or required changes at existing coal-fired power plants to reducee missions. The moves are "stricter than what New York City has done", she said.

But exchanges between Beijing and foreign cities with similar smog would help the capital move faster to curb pollution, said Li Xiaohua, deputy head of the bureau.

Beijing has also conducted research on measures like fuel taxes and low-emission zones, which have been implemented in Paris.

"If Beijing would set up the low emission zone like we did in Paris, the restriction should cover as many vehicles as possible, and build an efficient control system to guarantee the violators would be caught and get deserved punishment," said Jean-Loup Caruana, air quality adviser for the Paris region's environmental affairs directorate.

In Paris, diesel cars with high emissions are not allowed to run through the city, and face fines of 130 euros ($146) every time they are caught, he said.

But the restriction only covers 3 percent of all vehicles, which is "too small to make a huge difference", he added, suggesting that Beijing cover more vehicles and regions.
President Xi Jinping (L front) is welcomed by Kazakhstan First Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin upon his arrival in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Xi begins state visit to partner in Belt and Road

China and Kazakhstan will tap their great potential for cooperation, including jointly building the Belt and Road, President Xi Jinping wrote in a signed article on Wednesday.

The president arrived in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan on Wednesday. In a statement issued upon arrival, he said, "The Sino-Kazakh relationship has set an example of a friendly neighborhood, equal treatment and mutual benefits for the international community."

The two countries have strengthened political trust, pushed forward pragmatic cooperation in all areas steadily, and enhanced coordination in global and regional affairs in the past 25 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, Xi said.

The four-day visit to Kazakhstan is Xi's third trip to the Central Asian country. During the stay he will also attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual summit and the opening ceremony of the Astana Expo 2017.

Xi extended sincere greetings and best wishes to the Kazakh people. Xi also mentioned his frequent meetings in recent years with his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, saying that the two presidents have developed good working relations as well as a personal friendship.

In the article published in the Kazakh newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda on Wednesday, Xi said China will promote cooperation with Kazakhstan in jointly building the Belt and Road.

It was during his first visit to Kazakhstan back in 2013 that Xi proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt Initiative. Four years later, the idea that took root then has become a global public benefit.

"The general direction of the two countries' national development was determined during President Xi's visit to Kazakhstan in 2013, namely, the joint building of the Silk Road Economic Belt," Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan Zhang Hanhui said.

Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said enhancing cooperation between the two countries as part of the Belt and Road Initiative will serve as a convincing model for other parties.
Shakhrat Nuryshev, Kazakh ambassador to China

Ambassador expects cooperation will expand further on Belt, Road

President Xi Jinping's state visit to Kazakhstan will inject new energy in the further development of Sino-Kazakh relations, a diplomat from the Central Asian country said.

Shakhrat Nuryshev, the Kazakh ambassador to China, said Xi will meet with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and exchange opinions over issues under bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

"The two leaders will discuss further cooperation in the fields of trade, cross-border transportation, energy, investment, production capacity, innovation, technology and culture," the ambassador said.

He said China and Kazakhstan have close political links, as the two countries are a permanent member and a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and China is now taking up the presidency of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, which was initiated by Kazakhstan.

"China will also take over the presidency of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization after the coming summit in Astana," he said, adding that the agreements signed during the summit will enhance relations between the two countries, as well.

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, Nuryshev said China is one of the most important neighbors to have established a pragmatic and constructive dialogue since Kazakhstan gained independence in 1991.

The two countries celebrated the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations on Jan 3, and both leaders agreed that relations between China and Kazakhstan have reached their highest level ever, and the bilateral cooperation acts as a model to show-case, Nuryshev said.

Nuryshev said Kazakhstan can play a key role in the Belt and Road Initiative, which was proposed by China, as it has an important strategic Eurasian geographic location. Further, its vast territory makes the country a key bridge between Europe and Asia.

He said the cooperation continues to expand and bilateral trade increased this year while cultural cooperation is actively expanding.

The Astana World Expo 2017 in the Kazakh capital opens on Saturday, and over 500 Chinese enterprises from over 24 provinces, autonomous regions or provincial level cities are expected to participate, according to the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

The Kazakh expo organizers declared this past Monday as China National Pavilion Day. The China pavilion hosted various activities, such as a forum about China-Kazakh energy and tourism cooperation, an exhibition of Terracotta Warriors and many other cultural and commercial events.

Nuryshev said the Expo organization, along with the Kazakhstan Embassy to China and Chinese authorities have worked together to ensure the participating Chinese governments and companies have no problems.

"I hope by hosting the Astana World Expo 2017, Kazakhstan can become better understood by different regions in China, and then can establish direct contact with each other," Nuryshev said. "And by introducing the green technology from China and having more tourists, the comprehensive strategic part-ner relationship of China and Kazakhstan will continue strengthening."
Tulenov Ruslan of Kazakhstan gets ready to give blood at a donation center in Beijing in February. He's so far donated over 5,000 milliliters, more than is in a human body.Provided Tochina Daily

When President Xi Jinping made a speech at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013, he mentioned a young Kazakh man who was famous for donating blood in China.

Tulenov Ruslan, a postgraduate student at Beijing Science and Technology University, was praised by the president as "part of a Sino-Kazakhstan Friendship Epic".

In the past eight years, he donated more than 5,000 milliliters of blood in China, an amount that exceeds the average adult's blood volume.

Born and raised in Atyrau, an oil town in western Kazakhstan, Ruslan has been obsessed with Chinese culture since his childhood.

"I often watched Chinese movies and cartoons on TV then, and my favorite is Xi-youji (or Journey to the West)," he recalled.

In 2009, Ruslan came to Hainan University and started his studies in China. "I chose Hainan because I was originally attracted by its beautiful seaside scenery, and it turns out to be a paradise."

When he first saw his classmates donating blood on a blood donation vehicle, Ruslan recalled his mother's words. "Mom told me to be a helpful person, a good person." Without hesitation, he decided to join his classmates in donating blood.

Knowing that he has Type O, Rh negative blood - only three in every 1,000 Chinese have such a blood type and Rh factor - Ruslan decided to set up blood donations as a routine, and he has donated blood twice a year ever since.

"I regard it as one of my hobbies," he laughed.

Ruslan's O-negative blood, in the words of an old phrase, is "as rare as a panda". Thus it is called "panda blood" in China.

His legendary deeds have earned him the title of the "Panda Knight".
BEIJING - In ancient times, caravans trekked through the desert and took Chinese silk, chinaware and tea to Central Asia, facilitating trade via the Silk Road.

Now, freight trains have replaced the caravans, travelling across Central Asia and Europe, carrying commodities including wine, agricultural products and electronics.

As an important transit point on both the ancient Silk Road and today's Silk Road Economic Belt, Kazakhstan has historically played a vital role connecting China with the rest of the world. With the help of the Belt and Road Initiative, China-Kazakhstan cooperation is showing fresh vitality.

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, respectively, which later evolved into the Belt and Road Initiative.

A lot has been achieved since then. Less than a year after Xi's proposal of the Silk Road Economic Belt, the first phase of a logistics terminal jointly built by China and Kazakhstan went into operation in the port of Lianyungang in east China's Jiangsu Province, offering the land-locked country a means to send goods overseas.

In February 2015, the first cargo train carrying nearly 100 containers left Lianyungang bound for Kazakhstan's Almaty, reducing the transportation time and cost for both sides.

"We have a saying that landlocked Kazakhstan has no need for an ocean because China is the ocean for our nation," said Benedikt Sobotka, chief executive of Eurasian Resources Group, a natural resources producer.

According to Ning Jizhe, deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission, as of mid-May, China and Kazakhstan had signed cooperation projects worth 27 billion US dollars, set up a 2-billion-dollar cooperation fund and earmarked loans of 15 billion dollars for the same purpose.

Some 34 projects, including copper mines, aluminum smelters and cement plants, have been completed and put into operation in Kazakhstan, while another 43 are under construction.

These projects will "increase Kazakhstan's industrial development, create jobs and promote local economic development," Ning said.

During the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held around one month ago in Beijing, the two countries signed deals that will further boost economic cooperation.

China COSCO Shipping Corporation and Jiangsu Lianyungang Port Co. jointly bought 49 percent of the dry port located in the Khorgos-East Gate special economic zone, an inland port near the China-Kazakhstan border.

The cooperation between China and Kazakhstan has gone far beyond infrastructure and resources. Collaboration in fields including clean energy, agriculture, and tourism are also high on the agenda for top officials from both sides.

As Xi embarked on his state visit to Kazakhstan Wednesday, more deals benefiting both countries are expected.

During his visit from June 7 to June 10, Xi will attend the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the opening ceremony of the World Expo in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan.

The highly anticipated visit will inject new momentum into the development of bilateral relations between China and Kazakhstan and chart the future course for the SCO, analysts said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is paying a state visit to Kazakhstan from June 7 to 10 at the invitation of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

During his four-day tour, Xi will also attend the 17th meeting of Heads of State Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the opening ceremony of the World Expo in Astana.

This is Xi's first foreign visit after the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in mid-May and his third visit to Kazakhstan as a head of state.

The tour is of great significance and has received much attention and high hopes. In September 2013, Xi paid his first state visit to Kazakhstan, during which he put forward the initiative of building the Silk Road Economic Belt for the first time.

Building the Belt and Road together is also the theme of his current visit to the central Asian country that witnessed the birth of the B&R Initiative. The trip is highly anticipated in that it could inject new momentum into the development of the bilateral relations and advance cooperation among the countries along the Belt and Road.

In addition, this year marks the 15th anniversary of signing the SCO Charter. And the region where the SCO countries cover are the key areas of building the Belt and Road.

Xi's tour would further promote B&R cooperation among SCO countries and the spirit of the Silk Road would add new connotations to the SCO's development.

Xi's visit will set an example of building the Belt and Road together and promote the building of a community of shared future for neighboring nations.

The author is a researcher with the International Economics Department, China Institute of Contemporary International Relations; cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of China Daily website.
President Xi Jinping holds talks with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 8, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

China and Afghanistan should deepen cooperation under the Belt and Road framework and push forward the projects to boost interconnectivity, President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

Xi made the remarks while holding bilateral talks with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani in Astana, Kazakhstan during the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Hailing the good momentum of bilateral ties, Xi said that high-level interaction should play an important role in guiding China-Afghanistan relations and exchanges on all levels should be intensified.

China supports the Afghan government's efforts to maintain its domestic security, Xi said, adding that China will continue to help Afghanistan's reconstruction. The two countries should enhance anti-terrorism and security cooperation, he said.

Xi pointed out that China firmly adheres to the friendly policy toward Afghanistan. China would like to play a constructive role to support Afghanistan in conducting peaceful reconstruction and advancing reconciliation, he said.

Ghani expressed gratitude toward China's support to his country's peaceful rebuilding and reconciliation process, saying that Afghanistan cherishes its friendship with China.

President Xi Jinping poses for photos with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 8, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

The Afghan president said his country values China's important role in international and regional affairs, and is dedicated to cooperation with China in such areas as economic, trade and security.

Afghanistan is looking forward to connecting the country's development with the Belt and Road construction, he said, adding the country will proactively participate in cooperation with China to boost interconnectivity.

Chen Yurong, a senior researcher in European and Asian studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said that China has been dedicated to promoting the reconciliation process in Afghanistan by making use of the multilateral mechanism in the past years.

Afghanistan is located in the corridor that links the Central Asia with the South Asia, and the geographic location has provides huge potential for the two countries to cooperate on Belt and Road, Chen said.

Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that China and Afghanistan can strengthen cooperation on infrastructure construction under the Belt and Road framework.

Infrastructure in Afghanistan has collapsed under years of conflict, he said, adding that China can help Afghanistan to rebuild the railway, highways and hydraulic engineeringand cooperate in mining, agriculture and investment.
A 198-seat train numbered 9001 left Horgos, a border port in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwest China, for Astana, capital of Kazakhstan on Thursday morning. [Photo/Xinhua]

HORGOS, Xinjiang - A new passenger train route was launched on Thursday connecting China and Kazakhstan, the second between the two countries.



A 198-seat train numbered 9001 left Horgos, a border port in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in northwest China, on Thursday morning.



Departing from the regional capital Urumqi, the train number will change to 701 after entering Kazakhstan, where it will operate via a local train.



The train's destination is Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, via stations in Almaty, Sary Shagan and Karaganda.



It is the second passenger train route following one that travels via the Alataw Pass in Xinjiang.



The new route will reduce travel time between Urumqi and Almaty by eight hours, compared with the first route via the Alataw Pass, said Ma Yinong, chief of the Horgos Railway Station.



Located about 670 km from Urumqi and 370 km from Almaty, Horgos was once a busy passage used by traders traveling along the ancient Silk Road. The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, has injected new vitality into the land port.



The port saw border trade of more than 17 billion yuan (2.5 billion US dollars), and 16,000 visitors from Central Asian countries in the first quarter of this year, according to Wang Gang, Communist Party chief of Horgos city.
Astana Expo 2017 will begin in Kazakh capital amid anticipation

President Xi Jinping (R front) and his Kazakh counterpart Nursultan Nazarbayev (L front) inspect via videolink two key hubs of the cross-border transportation at the Chinese national pavilion of the Expo 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 8, 2017. Xi, accompanied by Nazarbayev, on Thursday visited the Chinese national pavilion of the Expo 2017 in Astana, and urged bilateral efforts to facilitate the China-Kazakhstan cross-border transportation. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping visited the China pavilion at the Astana Expo 2017 on Thursday, accompanied by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev during his state visit to the Central Asian country.

At the pavilion, the two presidents watched a video about the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative. They also had a look at exhibitions featuring intelligent energy of the future.

The China pavilion, covering an area of 1,000 square meters, focuses on energy of the future and presents the Belt and Road Initiative to global visitors.

Wang Jinzhen, vice-chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said the energy theme reflects China's ideas and practical implementation regarding the most effective use of traditional energy and the development of renewable energy sources.

The organizing committee of the China pavilion, approved by the State Council and led by the international trade council and National Energy Administration, was in charge of preparing and managing China's participation in the expo.

China included in the pavilion models of clean energy projects and equipment as well as a simulator cockpit of a high-speed train.

Domestic energy and power giants such as China National Petroleum Corp and the State Grid also are taking part in the expo's core exhibition, in which high-end technological achievements in fields such as extra-high voltage, solar energy, nuclear energy and wind energy are displayed and demonstrated via 3D movies, multimedia presentations and virtual reality technologies.
FARGO  Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., announced that President Donald Trump has nominated U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson to a seat on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Erickson was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2003 to the U.S. District Court here, the trial court level in the federal judicial system. Erickson previously served as a state district judge for the East Central Judicial District in Cass County.

Judge Erickson has served the people of North Dakota and the United States well on the U.S. District Court and I support his nomination to serve on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, Hoeven said in a statement Wednesday. Throughout his career, he has upheld the rule of law and shown deep respect for the Constitution. We look forward to moving his nomination through the Senate.

Erickson is a graduate of Jamestown College and the University of North Dakota School of Law. He practiced law in West Fargo from 1984 to 1994 before beginning his judicial career.

I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the people of the United States, and particularly North Dakota, as a judge over the past 23 years, Erickson said in a statement. I am humbled and honored by the confidence that President Donald J. Trump has shown in me and if confirmed I will do my utmost to faithfully perform my duties as an appellate judge.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who is a former North Dakota attorney general, also expressed support for Ericksons nomination.

Judge Erickson has proven through his decades of experience, record of impartiality, and devotion to his work that he is a judicious and thoughtful lawyer who continues to follow the rule of law, she said in a statement. I have known Judge Erickson for many years and he has a reputation for fairness and independence, and is highly respected by members of the North Dakota bar  and I look forward to supporting his nomination in the U.S. Senate.

If confirmed, Erickson would fill a vacancy left by the retirement of Circuit Judge Kermit Bye, who retired in September 2016 after taking senior status, or semi-retirement, in April 2015. Bye was nominated in 1999 by President Clinton.

President Obama nominated Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl, an assistant U.S. attorney in Fargo, to fill Byes vacancy on Jan. 28, 2016. Although Klemetsrud Puhl was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and had the backing of Hoeven and Heitkamp, the Republican leaders controlling the U.S. Senate never gave Klemetsrud Puhl a floor vote, dooming her nomination.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia who tracks federal judicial appointments, said Erickson is a solid nominee to the appeals court.

Chief Judge Erickson has lengthy judicial experience in the state and federal court systems, while he enjoys a reputation for being a fair, mainstream jurist who possesses great judicial temperament, Tobias said.

Erickson should win confirmation, he said, although it might take awhile in light of a backlog of circuit nominees in line ahead of him.

It is unfortunate that the Senate did not confirm Jennifer Klemetsrud Puhl last year because she was an excellent nominee, Tobias said.
(Photo : Lockheed Martin) SR-72 (concept).

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The United States continues development of the Lockheed Martin SR-72 hypersonic strike fighter capable of launching its payload of hypersonic missiles flying faster than Mach 5 (6,200 km/h) at enemy targets hundreds of kilometers distant.



The SR-72, which is scheduled for deployment by 2030, is the first hypersonic aircraft in the world being designed to unleash hypersonic missiles, which are also known as hypersonic glide weapons (HGVs).



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This hypersonic fighter was nicknamed "Son of Blackbird," in honor of its "father," the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft retired by the U.S. Air Force in 1998. During its heyday, the Blackbird was the world's fastest aircraft, achieving a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 (3,540 km/h) and having a service ceiling of 26,000 meters.



But unlike its unarmed "dad," the son can and will launch hypersonic missiles at Russian and Chinese targets in the event of a future war.



The son will also reach speeds in excess of Mach 6 (7,400 km/h), twice the speed achieved by its father. Unlike its father that carried two pilots, however, the son will be an unmanned robotic drone flown by computers.



Lockheed-Martin, specifically its famous fabled "Skunk Works"(officially the Advanced Development Programs or ADP), began development work on the SR-72 in 2013. It said the combination of high speeds generated by the SR-72 and its hypersonic missiles mean no enemy missile defense systems will be capable of stopping it.



It noted the SR-72 and its hypersonic missiles can penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour.



Lockheed Martin said a prototype of the SR-72 might take to the air before 2025. Development of the SR-72 is being guided by the aim that this aircraft will fly so fast that an adversary will have no time to react or hide.



"Hypersonic aircraft, coupled with hypersonic missiles, could penetrate denied airspace and strike at nearly any location across a continent in less than an hour," said Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin hypersonics program manager.



"Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades. The technology would be a game changer in theater, similar to how stealth is changing the battle space today."



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TagsUnited State, Lockheed Martin SR-72, hypersonic strike fighter, hypersonic missiles, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft, Skunk Works
Russia militarizing the Arctic.

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The cash-strapped Russian Navy recently received the last new warships for the Northern Fleet it's likely to get over the next decade following deep cuts in warship building announced by president Vladimir Putin last month.



Russian state-controlled media said the Northern Fleet, which operates the most number of submarines in the Russian Navy, "has received two nuclear-powered submarines -- the Yuri Dolgoruky and the Severodvinsk), a diesel-electric one (the Saint Petersburg) and the Yuri Ivanov medium reconnaissance ship."



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It also said the fleet's largest warship, the aircraft carrier RFS Admiral Kuznetsov (63), will be upgraded with advanced electronics, radars and onboard navigation gear. The fleet's flagship, the nuclear-powered, 20 year-old Kirov-class battlecruiser RFS Pyotr Veliky (099), or Peter the Great, will also be overhauled.



Both the Kuznetsov and Pyotr Veliky were part of the battle group sent by Russia to the Mediterranean Sea in October 2016 to provide combat support for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.



The Pyotr Veliky like the RFS Admiral Nakhimov (080), another Kirov-class battlecruiser, will receive multipurpose launchers capable of firing cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles. The Nakhimov is scheduled to return to service before 2020.



Russia said the strengthening of the Northern Fleet is intended to phase "NATO out of (the) Arctic."



The Northern Fleet is believed to have an inventory of 38 surface combatants and 42 submarines (diesel-electric and nuclear-powered)



The fleet won't be receiving any more new warships. Putin last in May admitted the economic sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States have forced Russia to officially postpone the development of a new aircraft carrier and a new class of nuclear-powered destroyers for the Russian Navy.



Putin announced the postponement of both flagship projects, making the navy the service hardest hit by the new and huge budget cuts.



Russian media describes the Northern Fleet as more than just a fleet since it comprises missile and artillery divisions; a motorized infantry brigade; an air-defense division and a number of other land-based units. It said the fleet controls the entire Arctic region, with the exception of its eastern part, which is dominated by U.S. forces based in Alaska.



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(Photo : US Army) Iron Curtain APS on an Oshkosh L-ATV.

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After dithering for years, the U.S. Army finally decided Chobham armor alone won't prevent the destruction of its expensive M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks (MBTs) and has gone ahead with installing the Israeli-made Trophy active protection system (APS) on this MBT.



The Army also aims to deploy the Iron Curtain APS on M1126 Stryker Infantry Combat Vehicles (ICVs) and the Israeli-made Iron Fist APS on Bradley Fighting Vehicles if field tests with these two systems prove successful.



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Trophy intercepts and destroys incoming anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) using "neutralizing agents," which are small metal pellets that fan out like buckshot fired from a shotgun.



The pellets are fired from two rotating launchers installed on each side of the tank or vehicle. Incoming rounds are detected by four flat panel antennas mounted on the vehicle.



APS systems add an additional layer of protection for the tank or armored fighting vehile and its crew.



Trophy was developed after a decade of cooperation between the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aircraft Industries' Elta Group.



"The one that is farthest along in terms of installing it is ... Trophy on Abrams," said Lt. Gen. John Murray, Deputy Chief of Staff, Army G-8.



"We're getting some pretty ... good results. It adds to the protection level of the tank. Trophy has an interesting capability, slew to cue. We're finding that we can incorporate that into the installation on the Abrams."



Gen. Bradley also said Iron Fist on the Bradley is "moving along."



The army's accelerated APS effort assesses the state-of-the art developments in APS technologies. This effort is being spearheaded by the United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development & Engineering Center, the research and development facility for advanced technology in ground systems.



Iron Curtain is designed by Artis, an American technology development and manufacturing firm. It uses C-band radar, a distributed optical sensor and a ring of ballistic countermeasures to neutralize incoming threats.



The countermeasure fires straight down or up, neutralizing the incoming threat within inches of the vehicle.



Iron Fist is a hard-kill APS designed by Israel Military Industries that senses incoming threats using a radar sensor.



The system launches an explosive projectile interceptor towards a detected threat. The interceptor explodes very close to the threat, destroying, deflecting or destabilizing it without detonating its warhead.



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TagsU.S. Army, M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, Trophy active protection system, APS, anti-tank guided missiles, rocket propelled grenades, Lt. Gen. John Murray, Iron Fist APS, Iron Curtain APS
(Photo : NASA) The 2017 NASA Astronaut Class: (from left) Zena Cardman, Jasmin Moghbeli, Jonny Kim, Frank Rubio, Matthew Dominick, Warren Hoburg, Robb Kulin, Kayla Barron, Bob Hines, Raja Chari, Loral O' Hara and Jessica Watkins.

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NASA yesterday named 12 new American astronauts -- some of whom might be among the first humans to travel to Mars in the next decade -- from among a record number of 18,300 applicants.



The 2017 NASA Astronaut Class consists of seven professional men and five women who are doctors, scientists, engineers, military officers and pilots. The ages of these astronaut candidates range from 29 to 42.



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The 18,300 people who applied for the job is more than double the previous high of 8,000 applicants established in 1978 when the Space Shuttles were close to launching.



The 12 astronaut candidates will join 44 astronauts already in the NASA Astronaut Corps. U.S. astronauts have not launched into space from the U.S. homeland since 2011 when the Space Shuttles were retired.



Since that time, America astronauts have traveled to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard Russian spacecraft.



NASA said the term astronaut candidate refers to individuals who have been selected by NASA as candidates for the NASA astronaut corps and are currently undergoing a candidacy training program at the Johnson Space Center.



After two years of training, the astronaut candidates stand a good chance of flying to the ISS or being chosen to be among the first crews destined for Mars.



This group of 12 is NASA's 22nd group of astronauts. The first group, the Mercury 7 astronauts, was chosen in 1959.



In total, 350 Americans have been selected to become astronauts. Requirements to become an astronaut include U.S. citizenship; degrees in science, technology, engineering or math and at least three years of experience or 1,000 hours piloting jets.



The 12 are:



*Navy Lt. Kayla Barron of Richland, Washington, a submarine-warfare officer and nuclear engineer.



*Zena Cardman of Williamsburg, Virginia, a graduate research fellow at the National Science Foundation with a specialty in microorganisms in subsurface environments such as caves.



* U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Raja Chari of Cedar Falls, Iowa, director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.



* Navy Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, department head for Strike Fighter Squadron 115.



* Bob Hines of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a NASA research pilot at Johnson Space Center.



* Warren Hoburg of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.



* Dr. Jonny Kim of Los Angeles, a U.S. Navy lieutenant who trained as a SEAL and is completing his residency in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.



* Robb Kulin of Anchorage, Alaska, who leads the launch chief engineering group for SpaceX at Hawthorne, California.



* U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli of Baldwin, New York, who tests H-1 helicopters and serves as a quality assurance and avionics officer for Marine Operational Test Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.



* Loral O'Hara of Sugar Land, Texas, a research engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.



* Dr. Francisco "Frank" Rubio of Miami, an U.S. Army Major serving as a surgeon in Fort Carson, Colorado.



* Jessica Watkins of Lafayette, Colorado, a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.



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(Photo : RCAF) Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 fighters.

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Canada will increase its annual defense spending by 73 percent over the next decade as it can no longer rely on the United States' military leadership under anti-NATO U.S. president Donald Trump.



The increase will also go to strengthening Canada's military presence in the Arctic Circle in the face of Russia's mounting militarization of this resource rich region. Ottawa wants to expand the defenses in its northern zone since incursions by Russian military aircraft require an interception by Canadian fighters.



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The new funding will see Canada's military spending rise from about 1.2% of the GDP to about 1.4%.



The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will benefit immensely from the huge jump in the defense budget to US$24.4 billion a year in 2026-27 from US$14 billion annually in 2016-17. Most of the new funding will be delivered after 2021.



The money will go to acquiring 88 McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet multi-role fighters (the Canadian version of the U.S. F/A-18E/F Super Hornet) for the Royal Canadian Air Force costing US$14 billion; new warships for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and to adding 5,000 new regular and reserve military personnel to the CAF.



The boost in funding will also go to building 15 surface warships for the RCN at a projected cost of up to US$44 billion. The new warships will replace the navy's existing frigates and retired destroyers, said Minister of National Defense Harjit Singh Sajjan.



"This plan fully funds for the first time the Royal Canadian Navy's full complement of 15 Canadian Surface Combatant ships," said Sajjan.



Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland urged Canada to resume its role on the world stage it once had during the First and Second World Wars.



She said Canada must be willing to expand its "hard power" since the country can no longer rely on American leadership.



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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill into law which bans dismemberment abortions in the state.



The Christian Post reports that the states House and Senate passed the bill last month before it went to Abbott for approval. Texas is now the eighth state to ban dismemberment abortion, which is the gruesome procedure of tearing an unborn child limb from limb from the mothers womb.



"A person may not intentionally perform a dismemberment abortion unless the dismemberment abortion is necessary in a medical emergency," reads the new law, known as Senate Bill 8.



Pro-life groups praised Abbotts signing of the law. "By signing SB 8, including the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Amendment, into law Governor Abbott has confirmed the most significant Pro-Life victory of the 85th Session of the Texas Legislature," stated Texas Right to Life.



"The Dismemberment Abortion Ban Amendment is a monumental step in protecting the most vulnerable among us and advancing Pro-Life legislation in our state and across the country, continued the pro-life group.



Pro-abortion groups denounced the law. "It is disgusting and shameful that Gov. Abbott is wasting taxpayer dollars to force through even more regulations on our reproductive freedoms, especially after signing such a harmful bill in SB 8," said Heather Busby, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.



The law will go into effect on September 1, 2017.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: June 8, 2017
Several hundred people gathered at Saddleback Church from June 2 to 3 to learn more about a nation known to be one of the most severe violators of human rights and persecutors of Christians: North Korea.

The current situation in the regime, and how activists and Christians could participate in restoring human rights in North Korea, were among the topics discussed at International Christian Concerns annual conference called The Bridge.

The conference, which was launched in 2016, focuses on the topic of persecution but spotlights different regions each year. In 2016, the conference highlighted persecution in the Middle East.

Though the topics of restoring human rights in North Korea, and bringing about reunification in the Korean peninsula, are often considered overwhelming, speakers at The Bridge conveyed a sense of hope that the borders of the nation will soon be open, and that the gospel would penetrate the country.

If I can ask you to retain one thing from this conference, its to grasp this simple truth: the fall of the North Korean government is not impossible, said Jeff King, the president of International Christian Concern (ICC). Its inevitable.

When North Korea falls, it will be very fertile mission ground for the gospel, said Mervyn Thomas, CEO of Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The conference featured speakers from a variety of sectors, including pastors, defectors, legislators, policy experts, and activists. Notable among them were Francis Chan, author and pastor; Congressman Ed Royce; Joseph Kim, a defector who authored his experiences and was featured in a TED Talk; and Suzanne Scholte, executive director of the North Korea Freedom Coalition. In late May, a policy day also took place in Washington, D.C. in which Senators Ted Cruz and James Lankford were also featured as speakers.

The increase in the number of defectors fleeing North Korea, and news that information from the outside have been penetrating the country more and more, are among some of the signs that speakers pointed to as evidence of an imminent opening of the reclusive country.

Congressman Royce recalled a conversation he had with a North Korean refugee who told him people [in North Korea] are watching soap operas and consuming other content from outside.

The number one thing they want to do is to watch whats happening in the outside world, Royce said. They are seeing what is happening and they see that North Korea is not necessarily the best country. The defector is trying to convey that there is an opportunity there.

The claim was echoed by defectors who said that they had learned more about the world outside of North Korea through media.

I saw on TV that the world outside had refrigerators and other things that were so much better than the ones in North Korea, said one defector. I began to doubt that North Korea was the best country in the world.

One defector said she heard the broadcast of Free North Korea Radio while in North Korea, and that all of the voices she had heard in the broadcast were defectors. Her curiosity about whether that was true, and if so, whether these defectors were doing the program voluntarily or by force, drove her to also flee the country and find out for herself.

Until the borders of North Korea are opened, however, speakers said, human rights violations must be addressed, and legislation to promote human rights in North Korea must continue to be advocated for.

Isaac Six, the advocacy director of the ICC, said world leaders and legislators must focus their discussion when it comes to North Korea on the issues of human rights. He added that bills have been introduced to enforce just that: HR 2061 and S 1118. If passed, the measures would require that all talks about North Korea must include discussion about its human rights violations, among other requirements.

World leaders must also increase pressure on China to compel it to stop repatriating North Korean refugees, said Suzanne Scholte.

What China is doing is illegal, inhumane, and barbaric, she said. The moment [refugees] cross that border, they fit the definition of an asylum seeker and have protections. Because it is a crime punishable by death to leave the North Korean regime, they are protected by international law.

Meanwhile, the conference also featured representatives from non-profits that engage in helping North Korean refugees, such as Crossing Borders, Liberty in North Korea, and Free North Korea Radio.
Terrorism will likely be a constant part of the news cycle for the foreseeable future. Less than two weeks after a suicide bomber killed himself and more than two dozen others at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, terrorists showed up in London. Last Saturday, three men killed seven people and wounded 48 others after driving a vehicle into a crowd on London Bridge, exiting the vehicle, and proceeding to stab people.

This month, the United States will sadly remember the one year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub attacks, where a gunman killed 49 people in Orlando.

Despite the rise of headlines about terrorism in recent years, these attacks on civilians arent new. In fact, we can find references to these types of atrocities throughout the Old Testament. Whats more, theyre often wrestled with at a visceral level in the largest book of the Bible.

One of the biggest issues in Psalms is warfare and the threat of violence from enemies, said Tremper Longman, the author of How to Read the Psalms.

In particular, the writers of the Psalms wrestle with their feelings of vindictiveness toward their enemies and desire of justice from God. At times, they even implore God to cause horror to befall their foes. However, there is one key distinction about imprecatory prayers that Christians sometimes miss, said Longman.

The psalmist isnt saying Give me the opportunity and resources and I will kill my enemies, he said. What hes doing is turning his anger over to God and saying God you take vengeance against my enemies.  Youre taking your anger and fear to God, and youre expressing hope that God will answer you.

Longman ...

1
Pastor Lively Files Challenge to Judge's Prejudicial Language Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit



SPRINGFIELD, Mass., June 8, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Earlier this week federal Judge Michael A. Ponsor ruled that he lacked jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit against Pastor Scott Lively by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Company that the federal Alien Tort Statute (ATS) does not allow a foreign citizen to sue a U.S. citizen in America alleging violation of some international law. Even though the court dismissed the case in favor of Lively, due to the prejudicial and immaterial findings and outrageous statements by Judge Ponsor, today Liberty Counsel filed an appeal to strike Judge Ponsor's language that was not necessary to the disposition of the case.



Judge Ponsor should have dismissed the case in 2013, when asked to do so following the Supreme Court opinion. Instead, he forced Lively to needlessly endure four more years of intense litigation and discovery by the army of lawyers working for the Center for Constitutional Rights, an organization that has received funding from George Soros.



Judge Ponsor had no choice but to follow clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent when he ruled this week the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. That should have been the end of the matter. But, Judge Ponsor, known for his support of the LGBT agenda, went on to appease the LGBT activists by making unlawful "findings," including that Pastor Lively violated international law of "crimes against humanity."



Judge Ponsor had correctly concluded that he lacks jurisdiction over the lawsuit brought under the Alien Tort Statute by the Ugandan homosexual activists, because SMUG had failed to bring forth any evidence that Lively did anything illegal in the United States. Judge Ponsor correctly found that Lively "supplied no financial backing," and "he directed no physical violence, he hired no employees and he provided no supplies or other material support" to alleged "crimes" supposedly committed by various people in Uganda.



However, Judge Ponsor improperly littered his Order with a prolonged tirade against Lively, badly distorting his Christian views and activism, and insulting him with such unbecoming epithets as "crackpot bigot[]," "pathetic," "ludicrous," "abhorrent" and numerous others. Even more egregiously, and even though he admittedly lacked jurisdiction to rule on SMUG's claims, Judge Ponsor purported to conclude, without even a pretense of legal or factual analysis, that Lively's Christian beliefs and pro-family activism violated "international law" and that Lively's peaceful speaking on homosexuality in Uganda somehow "aided and abetted" crimes supposedly committed by people Lively has never even spoken to or met.



"Judge Ponsor's vitriolic Order is clearly unlawful," said Horatio Mihet, Liberty Counsel's Vice President of Legal Affairs and Chief Litigation Counsel. "Once Judge Ponsor concluded that he lacked jurisdiction over SMUG's preposterous lawsuit, the only thing left to do was dismiss it. The Supreme Court, and many federal appellate courts, have repeatedly rebuked judges who inject unnecessary and prejudicial 'findings' in cases where they lack jurisdiction. We will defend Pastor Lively's name in the Court of Appeals and work to remedy this injustice," said Mihet.



Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, added: "It is improper for a judge who clearly lacks jurisdiction to hear a case to make legal findings unrelated to the disposition of the case. When a court lacks jurisdiction, its only job is to acknowledge that fact and end the case. Judge Ponsor allowed his support for the LGBT agenda to enter an opinion and make prejudicial findings laced with defamatory statements that are both illegal and unbecoming. The statements are so far outside the norm that we have filed an appeal to ask that these prejudicial and unnecessary statements be stricken. Judges may hold personal opinions like anyone else, but they should restrain themselves from lacing court rulings with them, especially when they admit they lack jurisdiction to hear the case," said Staver.



Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.

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home US Court dismisses lawsuit against pastor blamed for Uganda's 'kill the gays' bill

A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit that an LGBT advocacy group filed against an American pastor who was accused of engaging in "crimes against humanity" for his campaign against homosexuality in Uganda.

In 2012, the Kampala-based advocacy group Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG) filed a lawsuit against Pastor Scott Lively, alleging that he has been waging a "decade-long campaign" to persecute gay people in the country

Lively, the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, has been accused of playing an "unparalleled role" in fomenting a "climate of hate" that brought about Uganda's anti-gay law, which briefly made homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment but was later struck down in the judiciary.

On Monday, Judge Michael Ponsor of the United States District Court of Massachusetts dismissed SMUG's lawsuit, arguing that Lively did not provide financial or material support to the campaign, and he did not encourage physical violence.

According to WWLP, early drafts of the 2014 anti-homosexuality act called for the death penalty for those convicted of "aggravated homosexuality" before it was reduced to life imprisonment. Ponsor noted in his referendum that Lively had suggested a twenty-year prison sentence, instead of the death penalty.

Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group that represented Lively, argued that the case should have been dismissed back in 2013, based on a Supreme Court ruling that dealt with the Alien Tort Statute. The legal group noted that the ruling indicated that the statute was not intended to allow a foreign citizen to sue a U.S. citizen in America over violation of international law.

"Scores of pending cases around the country were dismissed following the 2013 Supreme Court ruling in Kiobel, but the one not dismissed was the SMUG case," the Liberty Counsel stated in a press release.

"Judge Ponsor has a long history of support for the LGBT agenda and said he considers judges 'the unappointed legislators of mankind.' Instead of dismissing the case in 2013, as it should have been, Ponsor opened the door for extensive and needless discovery," it continued.

Despite the dismissal of the case, SMUG's executive director, Frank Mugisha, considered the court's ruling as a victory because of the judge's statements that recognized the "dangers resulting from the hatred that Scott Lively and other extremist Christians from the U.S. have exported" to Uganda.

The pastor, on the other hand, thanked Posnor for "overcoming his clear ideological bias enough to acknowledge the legal deficiency of SMUG's case and bring it to a close."

Lively, who lost his bid for the governorship of Massachusetts in 2014, was the author of the book "The Pink Swastika," which alleges that homosexuals had an influence in Germany's Nazi Party.
WATFORD CITY  A woman accused of threatening the wife and children of then-Mayor Brent Sanford of Watford City turned herself in Wednesday, but argued that the accusations were false and possibly politically motivated.

Sanford is now North Dakotas lieutenant governor.

An arrest warrant for Alice Olson, 79, of Watford City, was issued in October. She was charged with terrorizing, a Class C felony. Her bond was set Wednesday afternoon at $5,000 by Northwest Judicial District Judge Daniel El-Dweek. She was in the process of posting bond Wednesday afternoon, according to the McKenzie County Sheriffs Office.

Olson said she thinks the charges came in retaliation for her complaints about tax increases.

I really feel Mr. Sanford is bringing this up because I went to the tax meeting, she said.

Sanford declined to comment through a spokesman.

According to an affidavit filed by the Watford City Police, Olson went to the home of Brent Sanford and his wife, Sandra, after she left an October 3 Watford City City Council meeting.

In the charging document, police cite Watford City resident Rita Hovet as saying Olson had been at the meeting and was reprimanded by Sanford for shouting and arguing.

Olson said that she had been at the meeting to protest because her taxes were going to increase and that the meeting was when the council approved its budget. She said she asked for documents, but wasnt given them, but denied arguing and said Sanford did not address her at all. Olson also claimed that she left before Hovet came to the meeting.

I feel she has a grudge against me, Olson said Wednesday.

After the meeting, Olson went to Sanfords house, where she met his wife, Sandra Sanford. The charging document alleges that Olson made threatening remarks and advised that the Sanfords children could be in danger.

On Wednesday, Olson disputed that account. She said she went to see Sandra Sanford because she thought Sandra Sanford knew a person who owed her $5,000 in rent. Olson said that she was greeted by the Sanfords son and daughter and waited with them for several minutes before Sandra Sanford came to the door.

At one point, Olson said, she advised Sandra Sanford that her children should not answer the door by themselves.

I told Mrs. Sanford, Dont open your door to strangers, Olson said.

Charging documents also claim that Olson was patting her side, which Andrew Eisenschenk, the officer who signed the affidavit, wrote was indicative of someone carrying a concealed firearm.

During an interview with police, a transcript of which Olson had on Wednesday, Sandra Sanford told officers that Olson had brought a gun with her to S&S Motors at one point earlier in 2016. She said employees had told her that Olson had been patting a pocket and appeared to be carrying something.

Olson said she has never owned a gun and that she never carried one anywhere.

After the incident at the Sanfords home, Olson left for Texas, where she was buying a house. She said police didnt contact her before she left, and that she first heard about the charges from a resident of the RV park she owns.

A preliminary hearing on the terrorizing charge is set for Aug. 3 at the McKenzie County Courthouse. If convicted, Olson could face up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
How Martha Longenecker brought Japans art of the people to the world

The founder of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego was inspired by Japanese ceramicists to become a passionate champion of folk art. Works from her collection, including pieces by major Japanese, American and European potters and designers, are offered in our online sale from 22-29 June

In Japanese mingei translates as folk art or art of the people. The term was coined in 1926 by the founding father of the Japanese arts and crafts movement, the philosopher Soetsu Yanagi (1889-1961), who saw beauty in ordinary and utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftsmen, describing them as being beyond beauty and ugliness. Martha Longenecker (1920-2013) was an artist, collector, educator and the founder of The Mingei International Museum in San Diego. Born in Oklahoma City and raised in California, she studied art at UCLA, and then at Claremont Graduate School, where she was tutored by the American painter Millard Sheets (1907-1989). After graduating, Longenecker set up her own ceramics studio in Claremont, and also embarked on her first research trip to Japan. She would return many times over the years, collecting mingei art and forging lasting relationships with Japanese artists.

Longeneckers first contact with mingei came before she had made her first visit to Japan, during the summer of 1952. Soetsu was on a world tour, accompanied by the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) and the British potter Bernard Leach (1887-1979), when the young Longenecker attended one of their lectures and pottery demonstrations. She was enthralled, as much with the art as with the mingei philosophy, and ceramics quickly replaced painting as her primary pursuit. Explaining this passion in a 1986 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Longenecker described the special energy you get from handling an object that has been beautifully made by someone.

In 1955 San Diego State University invited her to develop and lead the schools ceramics syllabus, and she remained as a Professor of Art for the next 35 years. It was while on sabbatical from San Diego State that Longenecker took her first trip to Japan, working and studying with Shoji Hamada, whom she had met in America, and Tatsuzo Shimaoka (1919-2007), a mingei potter known for his use of ancient processes.

Inspired by her Japanese trips, Longenecker arranged exchanges, which saw Japanese mingei potters invited to exhibit and lecture in San Diego. In order to facilitate these exchanges and to broaden knowledge of Japanese folk art in the United States, Longenecker decided to set up a not-for-profit public art foundation, Mingei International, which was incorporated in 1974. Four years later, and with an unprecedented gift of a 20-year leasehold provided by University Towne Centre and Ernest W. Hahn and Associates, Longenecker oversaw the design and construction of the first Mingei International Museum, which opened in San Diego on 5 May, 1978. Shoji Hamada had given his blessing to use the mingei name, believing Longenecker fully understood its meaning and importance. The museums collection comprises 17,500 objects from 141 countries, expanding the mingei philosophy far beyond Japan and the United States. It includes textiles and masks from Mexico, bronzes and wood carvings from India, Chinese jewellery and Pre-Columbian pottery and textiles. In 1996, Longenecker oversaw the museums move to a 41,000-square-foot home on the Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park.

Martha Longenecker dedicated her long life to furthering knowledge of mingei art, declaring, It is important that man not only make but continue to use objects that are an expression of the total human being  mind, body and soul. Her commitment never wavered and, in October 2013, the month of her death, she announced the establishment of her most recent non-profit organisation, the Mingei Legacy Resource Foundation, which is committed to creating lasting cultural exchanges.

Open a larger version of this image Martha Longenecker in Japan. Photo courtesy Martha Longenecker Estate
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Oil prices edged up a few cents early Thursday, but still languished below $46 a barrel after plunging the previous day on rising U.S. fuel stockpiles.

Market observers pegged Wednesday's 5-percent plunge on the unexpected increase in oil and gasoline storage tanks, which overshadowed tensions in the Middle East, the attack in Iran and disastrous economic conditions in Venezuela, an OPEC producer.

But some analysts note that even over the past few weeks, with U.S. oil inventories steadily declining  a bullish new development  oil prices had trouble staying above $50 a barrel for long. They're beginning to interpret the bearish sentiment as a broader message about rising oil production in the U.S. shale plays.

"If the market's telling you anything, it's saying, 'E&P guys, slow down,'" said David Pursell, an analyst at investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. "Investors are more worried about whether the market can absorb this slug of growth from U.S. shale."

Related: As OPEC cuts, U.S. exports surge

Tudor Pickering projects U.S. oil production will grow by 1.2 million barrels a day in 2018. But would the market prefer something more like growth of 800,000 barrels a day? "A lot," Pursell said.

At this point, with U.S. oil-production growth already baked in for 2017, it would take a sustained drop in oil prices in the range of $40 to $45 a barrel to slow next year's gains, the analyst said.

"That $10 makes a big difference," he said.

Related: OPEC production grew last month for first increase since October amid Nigeria, Libya recovery

In a note Thursday, Tudor Pickering analysts said its investor clients have become decidedly more bearish amid concerns about tepid demand for fuel and rising supplies. "Most investors feel like crude may need to breach $45 a barrel for an extended period of time to force operators to pump the brakes on growth," the analysts said.

Tudor Pickering still believes stockpiles of oil in the United States and OECD countries will return to "normal" levels by the end of the year.

"You'll continue to see better inventory trends, and that will put support under the market," Pursell said. "But that may only keep prices from falling. The question is, what makes it go up?"
Prominent community planner Johnson Development Corp. has purchased 1,619 acres in northwest Harris County near the Grand Parkway, according to an announcement from the seller, Rockspring Capital.

The property is off U.S. 290 and Katy Hockley Road. There are no immediate plans to develop the site, according to Rockspring's announcement. Johnson Development officials could not be reached Thursday morning.
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Braun Enterprises plans to redevelop the historic Heights waterworks, a city-owned property on 19th Street, into a collection of restaurants in the neighborhood near downtown.

The Houston-based company is under contract to acquire the site from Alliance Residential in late September, according to Zach Wolf, director of leasing for Braun Enterprises. It will purchase the property, which sits on 2.1 acres at the northeast corner of 19th and Nicholson, from the Phoenix-based apartment developer.

Alliance Residential is buying two catty-corner lots along Nicholson at West 20th streets from the city of Houston, and will in turn sell the lot with the waterworks buildings to Braun Enterprises.

"This is our 25th project in the Heights area," Braun Enterprises president Dan Braun said in an email.

"Our intent is to embrace the walkability and help continue to connect Yale to Shepherd along 19th Street," he said, adding that 19th "has always been the bull's-eye in the Heights for retail and by adding four freestanding restaurants, we hope to make this an area for the community to gather in the Heights."

The waterworks include a 1928 concrete and brick reservoir building recorded in the National Register of Historic Places; an Art Deco pumping station from 1939; and a pump building constructed in 1949. A proposed building along 19th Street would add 5,000 square feet to the project, which is being designed by Jerry Tipps and Jared Tipps of Tipps Architecture.

A lawn area would be created in the center of the existing buildings, which total almost 12,000 square feet. One of the buildings could be expanded by nearly 1,300 square feet.

"We are incorporating a considerable amount of greenery and outdoor space to make it very pedestrian friendly," Wolf said.

"The Heights Hike and Bike Trail runs adjacent to the western side of our property, and we expect to generate considerable pedestrian traffic off of the trail."

Braun Enterprises' area developments have attracted tenants such as Harold's Restaurant, Bar & Terrace and Torchy's Tacos at nearby Harold's in the Heights, Mellow Mushroom at 1919 N. Shepherd and Bernie's Burger Bus at 2200 Yale.

The site is directly across from another potential redevelopment site. Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase Bank put its two-story bank building and land on the market. It is reserving a portion as the site for a new modern building. Just north of that, Alliance Residential plans to develop a Broadstone apartment midrise.

Braun Enterprises would begin work as soon as the property purchase is final, with completion targeted in the second quarter, according to Wolf, who anticipates plenty of interest from both national and local restaurants.

The street, Wolf said, is "where everyone wants to be. There just hasn't been any space available."
On Tuesday night, June 6, Dayton city council members voted unanimously to hire Theogene Melancon as their new city manager to lead the city into the next phase of growth.

According to Dayton Mayor Jeff Lambright, it was enthusiasm he showed toward the job and the community that solidified the vote.

"His attitude, his experience - he just seemed like a good fit for our city and our area," Lambright said.

"He jelled with everybody. We all had the same opinion of him."

Faced with exponential growth within the next 10 years, the council was looking for someone who had the expertise to help navigate the waters.

"He's done a lot of the things that we're going to be facing. He's already had some experience with that. He was a really good fit for Dayton," Lambright said.

The new city manager was in Dayton and was able to see the city and make his own assessments.

"We toured Dayton and my wife fell in love with it almost immediately," he said. "The schools are good and we saw so many highways that feed into and out of Dayton that provide possibility. We saw very positive signs for economic development and for me it was a no-brainer to throw my hat in the ring. I'm just grateful for the opportunity that the city council believes in me enough to bring me in to lead the staff and the community forward."

He said his philosophy is to observe for a while and let the flow go on and then decide if there are any changes that need to be made.

"I like to make sure that I'm fully educated on things before I make any changes," he said.

Melancon has a diverse background having graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2008 with a degree in history. He also earned a law degree from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University and a master's in public administration, state and local government administration in 2012.

Following graduation, he went to work for LSU as a program manager where he helped develop the Student Financial Management Center and created a network of universities for knowledge sharing and feedback of student financial planning education.

In June 2010, he gained employment with the State of Louisiana in the Division of Administration for just more than two years where he advised state agencies and municipalities on legal matters concerning construction, employment and related legal work.

He returned to his beloved LSU after two years to accept a position as the Human Resources/SACS Manager where he managed the transition of faculty credentials from a paper format to electronic for SACS accreditation purposes. He also assisted the HR department with legal issues concerning Title IX, benefits administration, and requests for proposals.

But his heart was in city administration.

He left that spot two years later to take the position of city administrator at the city of Eldorado, Texas, a town with just over 1,900 residents. There Melancon learned the challenges facing small towns with aging infrastructure.

After nearly three years at Eldorado, he left the Central Texas town for the piney woods of northeast Texas and Gladewater where he has remained the city manager until his acceptance of the job in Dayton.

"He wants to be a city manager," Lambright said. "It's exciting to him."

Melancon, who lives in Gladewater, was selected from an applicant pool of 27 submissions.

"That's how many we received in the first round," the mayor said.

Some additional applications were submitted after the deadline, but Lambright said they really didn't need them and didn't consider them.

The city manager position attracted applicants mostly from Texas, but there were some from around the country, Lambright said.

"We had some from Oklahoma, two from California and even one from Maine," he said. "Two of them were from Texas and I guess they were looking for a way to get back to Texas now."

Most of the out-of-state applicants, he said, were in a similar pickle, taking a job out of Texas and looking for an opening to come home.

Melancon is currently serving as the city manager for the city of Gladewater.

Council seemed to share Lambright's hopes for the new city manager after hearing his ideas and visions for the growth of the city.

Councilman Josh Townsend jumped onto the Dayton News Facebook to say, "We are super excited to have this gentleman come and represent Dayton. He is exactly what this city needs with the growth expected. He is very energetic and a real go-getter with the mind set of forward-thinking. He has all the right experience and the tools needed to progress Dayton to the next level while keeping our small town charm which is exactly his goal as well as the current council. Once he gets on the job, I invite you to get to know this gentleman and his family, he fits right in with us."

Melancon has already signed a contract and will begin on July 3.

There is no length of time on the contract as it would violate the city charter.

"We're looking forward to him meeting the staff and getting started," Lambright said. "We're excited to have him."

Melancon has already informed his current mayor and city council of his intentions and has returned to Gladewater to pack his bags and tie up loose ends.

"We have a quick turn-around and we're excited to get there. There's a lot of things going on and I'm excited to be a part of it," he told the Dayton News.

The new city manager is married to Cecilia and they have a 2-year-old named Jeremiah.

The council also expressed their gratitude to Texas First Group, the hiring firm retained by council, and Interim City Manager Kerry Lacy for providing their services during the transition period and in assisting the city in the search.
Montgomery County Pct. 4 Constable Kenneth "Rowdy" Hayden has released his Neighborhood Watch Guide.

Hayden has been asked by the residents in his precinct how they can start, fix or polish a neighborhood watch. To assist in this, Hayden's office has created an easy to use and very informative Neighborhood Watch Guide.

The Montgomery County Pct. 4 area is approximately 232 square miles and is populated with over 95,000 people.

The Neighborhood Watch Guide is another part of Hayden's community policing initiative he began in 2016. The constable hopes the guide will assist residents in not only the newer neighborhoods, but also in rural areas of the precinct, to work together and form very effective neighborhood watches.

The neighborhood watch guide can be downloaded for free in both PDF and PowerPoint versions at www.mcco4.org/neighborhood-watch
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If good things are worth waiting for then Houston will be handsomely rewarded once the Hotel Alessandra finally opens in the fall. The Alessandra has been a long time coming: Announced in March 2014, the 223-room hotel in downtown's GreenStreet development was supposed to be completed in time for Super Bowl. Weather-related work disruptions and some logistical challenges prevented the hotel from opening before SBLI.

But now things are quickly falling into place as the hotel announced an October opening. And even more welcome news about the restaurant concept in the 20-story hotel that is in the final stages of construction.

According to hotelier the Valencia Group (which will design and operate the hotel in partnership with Houston-based Midway which will own it), the Alessandra's white-tablecloth restaurant will be called Lucienne and the lobby bar has been dubbed Bardot. Both the bar and full-service restaurant are located on the second floor.

Details about the dining and drinking venues have only recently emerged. The bar Bardot is styled after American cocktail bar that were popular in London at the turn of the century. Perched above the lobby atrium, Bardot serves as a chic getaway for cocktails and light bites.

Foodies will be excited to learn that Lucienne, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, will feature Mediterranean cuisine executed with French technique, said executive chef Jose Hernandez.

Designed by Gensler with interiors by Rottet Studio, the restaurant suggest a Viennese vaulted cafe (the long, narrow room has a rib cage ceiling). With walls of banquettes, plenty of natural light, and herringbone pattern floors, the space was designed to feel weightless in its perch above the GreenStreet complex. The restaurant will seat 66 with an additional 30 seats for private dining.

Hernandez, currently executive chef at Radio Milano in Valencia Group's Hotel Sorella, will transition to Alessandra in July. He shared with us some additional details about Lucienne, which he says will touch on foods from countries such as Portugal, Greece, France and Spain.

"We will have the freedom to play a little bit with all the Mediterranean countries," he said.

Hernandez, who will oversee all culinary operations at the hotel, said he is working with local farmers and purveyors to ensure that as much of the menu as possible is locally sourced. All the meat will come to the kitchens whole and butchered in house; the hotel will produce all its own artisan breads and pastry.

Lucienne, Hernandez points out, means "light": "We're going to try to bring that to the table  the brightness of the food of the Mediterranean."

Bright doesn't rule out rich, though. Hernandez said he plans to create a foie gras dish seen through the eyes of a Black Forest cake: Pan-seared fresh foie gras and fresh cherries wrapped in a crepe with a chocolate ganache. Another fascinating dish: Sea scallops glossed with white truffle butter mixed with scallop roe served in the shell and covered with puff pastry.

Even with just those two morsels to contemplate (Hernandez said he's still working on the menu), Lucienne sounds enticing. And the chef said he's itching to start delivering a full-tilt white-tablecloth experience.

"I cannot wait to start in the kitchen," Hernandez said. "It's going to be so exciting to start. It's going to be a lot of work but it's exciting to see it all coming from scratch. I'm ready for this to happen."
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Humble Area Assistance Ministries is calling upon community members to contribute to its annual Children's Summer Nutrition Program.

HAAM is an interfaith nonprofit organization that works to assist the basic needs of families living within the City of Humble.

Millie Garrison, executive director of HAAM, said the purpose of this program is to provide nutritional food for children from economically disadvantage homes.

"If the food runs out in August, then that's when it stops. We will push it to the very end, and put out 911 calls if we don't have enough," Garrison said.

This nutrition program falls in part of HAAM's comprehensive food operation, which is part of the food pantry.

The children's nutritional packs contain half a gallon of milk, one box of cereal, one jar of peanut butter, three containers of yogurt, two oranges, one package of sliced cheese and one pack of turkey lunch meat.

In 2016, HAAM was able to distribute 3,122 nutritional packs. Garrison said she hopes they exceed that number exponentially this year.

"We try not to run out, and we give what we get - that is kind of our guide," Garrison said.

The food pantry is open five days a week Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 12:30 p.m. for appointments only, and Monday through Thursday from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. it is open for walk-ins.

Economically disadvantaged families will be given items from the food pantry as well as children's nutritional packets if they have children in kindergarten to 16 years old.

HAAM collects non-perishable food and hygiene items that are unopened and have not expired.

A list of the recommended donations items as well as information on how to start a food drive ican be found on the agency's website, www.haamministries.org.
An Angleton man is facing 50 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty in a child pornography case, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Houston said Wednesday.

John Kevin Waldrip, 44, came to the attention of investigators last year after a computer in his home was found to be part of a plan to trade child pornography videos over the internet.
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The two people charged after a Conroe woman was found murdered in March were indicted Tuesday.

Christopher Stogsdill, 26, faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly shooting Shelby Trotnic, 22, in her home in the 12200 block of Sweet Bay Drive off FM 2854 March 7. Sierra Diaz, 20, was arrested with Stogsdill in Colorado on a state-jail felony child endangerment charge days after the shooting.

CONROE PARK KILLING: Capital murder charge dropped against suspect

A Montgomery County grand jury indicted both Stogsdill and Diaz on their respective charges Tuesday. If convicted, Stogsdill would face life in prison while Diaz is looking at a possible two-year jail sentence.

When arrested in Colorado, Diaz voluntarily came back to Montgomery County to face her charge.

Stogsdill, however, fought extradition, prosecutors said. Soon after Stogsdill's arrest, prosecutors filed for a governor's warrant, which is an interstate warrant forcing defendants in other states to return to the place of the crime for court proceedings.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the warrant April 20, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed it last week, sealing Stogsdill's fate of returning to Texas to face the charge. The suspect was booked into the Montgomery County Jail around 4 a.m. May 21.

'Gun to My Head'

Trotnic lived in her home with Stogsdill and Diaz, although she had recently told her neighbor she wanted to kick Stogsdill out soon before her murder.

The neighbor told MCSO detectives he heard a struggle and what sounded like gun shots during an argument between Trotnic and Stogsdill on the night of her murder. The neighbor then saw Stogsdill leave in his truck that night.

When he got back into his own house, he checked his phone and saw he missed two messages from Trotnic, one asking him to come over to her house immediately and the other saying "gun to my head," according to court documents.

The neighbor became curious the next morning when he noticed Trotnic was not out on her porch smoking her morning cigarette, and he also noticed Stogsdill left behind a beloved dog. The neighbor went up to the door and knocked, but no one answered.

He eventually got inside the home through Trotnic's window. That's when he found Trotnic laying on her back in a pool of blood, with stab wounds on her face and a blue plastic bag stuffed down her throat.

Diaz will be in Judge Lisa Michalk's 221st state District Court for an arraignment June 15. There is no court date made public for Stogsdill. Both are sitting in the Montgomery County Jail as of press time.
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As grieving family members prepared to bury 24-year-old John Hernandez, a Harris County sheriff's deputy and her husband were indicted Thursday on murder charges, accused of intentionally choking the Crosby man outside a Denny's restaurant.

Deputy Chauna Thompson, 45, and her husband, Terry Thompson, 41, also of Crosby, turned themselves in Thursday night. Bail was set at $100,000 each. The couple posted bail Friday morning and they were released. They could face up to life in prison if convicted.

"We grieve with the Hernandez family," District Attorney Kim Ogg said Thursday in announcing the indictment. "We believe that this grand jury true-bill is a reflection of our community's belief that a crime occurred and that crime was murder  and that it was participated in by Terry Thompson and his wife, Deputy Chauna Thompson."

The grand jury's decision to indict a law enforcement officer on a first-degree felony  a rarity in Harris County  came just a day after more than 150 protesters marched across downtown Houston proclaiming "Justice for John Hernandez" and "Brown Lives Matter."

"This is exactly what we wanted," said Jose Morales, a close friend of the family. "Thanks to all the attention, justice is going to be served."

The Hernandez family held a family visitation less than an hour after the indictment was announced, and another visitation and rosary are set for Friday. A funeral Mass will be held Saturday at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Houston.

After the family visitation, more than 100 people rallied late Thursday at the Denny's, as several community activists thanked the community for supporting the family.

"We have a little bit of hope," said Melissa Hernandez, a cousin who was joined at the rally by John Hernandez's father and sisters. "This is a small step in the right direction."

The rally ended with chants of, "No estan solos. No estan solos." You are not alone.

OFFICIALLY A HOMICIDE: Medical examiner rules exact cause of death

The indictment  announced jointly by Ogg and Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez  came after nearly a full day of testimony from more than a dozen witnesses before the grand jury.

Hernandez died of strangulation and chest compression on May 31, three days after he got into an altercation with Terry Thompson outside the Denny's restaurant. A 50-second cellphone video shows Thompson on top of a kicking and grunting Hernandez.

The dispute began after Thompson pulled up at the restaurant with his children and saw Hernandez urinating in public, according to the sheriff.

Chauna Thompson, who was off duty, arrived in a separate vehicle and called for assistance. She was charged as an accessory to murder, officials said.

Scot Courtney, an attorney for Terry Thompson, said prosecutors rushed the case without giving the grand jury time to consider all the evidence. He said Terry Thompson did not intentionally kill Hernandez.

"I'm extremely disappointed the grand jury chose to indict," he said. "I don't believe the evidence shows that."

Terry Thompson maintained that Hernandez took the first swing after the two men argued, he said.

"It's disappointing that citizens can simply march on the courthouse and demand somebody be indicted for murder," Courtney said.

Chauna Thompson's attorney could not be reached Thursday for comment.

The indictment capped an emotional day of testimony as Hernandez's widow, Maria Toral, and other witnesses told their stories in the secrecy of the grand jury's chambers.

Ogg said that every aspect of the case was presented to grand jurors, including the video. Both suspects were offered the opportunity to testify, but declined, she said.

"It is critical to our justice system that there be no rush to judgment," Ogg said. "This administration must never react in a way that denies due process to those accused."

Toral declined to comment as she left the grand jury room. Other witnesses, however, told reporters what they'd seen outside the Denny's, though they are prohibited by law from reporting what they told the grand jury.

Restaurant worker Melissa Trammell, who arrived at her shift as a server about an hour before the 11 p.m. altercation, held back tears as she talked.

"The man was turning purple," she said. "We begged him to get off the man and he wouldn't."

She said she tried to reason with Thompson as he straddled Hernandez and choked him.

"He looked me in the face and said, 'I'm not getting off him,'" she said.

The sheriff said Thursday he supports the grand jury's decision.

"I was committed from the beginning to making sure we had as fair and transparent a process as possible  maybe not as fast as some would have liked  but we were confident in our process," Gonzalez told reporters. "I think we've all worked very hard to try to do what was right and at the end that justice would prevail."

Earlier Thursday afternoon, as the grand jury met, Hernandez's family gathered on the front patio of their low-slung ranch house in Crosby, filling a row of white folding chairs and recalling the 24-year-old as a bright spirit who loved to dance the quebradita, perform karaoke and fire up a grill.

His four sisters smiled at the memory of their brother singing along to Vicente Fernandez songs. Morales described Hernandez's love of futbol and his fervid cheers for Chivas, his favorite soccer team. His mother talked about her son's unshakeable work ethic, the lawn-mowing business he started at 13, the auto glass repair shop he opened about a year ago.

Then their eyes darkened.

A few feet away, a photo of Hernandez was propped on a tabletop altar draped with rosary beads and adorned with a figurine of the Holy Family and a crucifix.

"My son is not going to come back," said Maria Elena Hernandez, her face sallow with grief.

Now, there was only one thing to ask for.

Justicia. Justice.

"Justicia," repeated Jamileth Hernandez, his 16-year-old sister.

"We want there to be justice," said Natalia Hernandez, one of John Hernandez's aunts. "For him, for all the families who go through something like this, for the community."

The call has been reverberating through the Latino community in Crosby and Houston since Hernandez's death, as many wondered why Thompson had not immediately been arrested.

On gray tee-shirts with the hashtag "#JusticeforJohn!" At vigils where supporters called on officials to file charges. On messages painted on the windows of cars parked in the Hernandez's driveway and throughout their neighborhood.

And behind the counter of a taqueria tucked in the back of the Shell gas station that shares a truck stop with the Denny's.

There, the lunch shift workers  many of whom had known Hernandez for years  expressed what many in the community wondered: What role did race play in the delay in Thompson?

"If a Mexican had killed a white man, he would already have been in jail," said Karen Velazquez. "No one had the right to take his life."

"We are Hispanic, but we are human beings too," said Alma Ochoa, whose children played with Hernandez when they were growing up.

At the Hernandez home, Ignacio Hernandez, too, called for justice for his son. He winced as he recalled accidentally seeing the video showing John Hernandez struggling for breath as Thompson pinned him to the ground.

But at that moment, a few hours before a scheduled viewing, Ignacio Hernandez's thoughts were on saying a final good-bye to his eldest child. On his son's many dreams of building his business, of carving out a good life.

"The dreams are finished," the father said. "Everything is changed."

Brooke A. Lewis contributed to this report.

Brian.rogers@chron.com

twitter.com/brianjrogers
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The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts is expanding its reach with area students this summer.

The museum is partnering with Klein Independent School District to offer art classes for middle school and high school students with autism and visual impairment.

Teachers from Klein ISD will teach the classes at the art camp, Art for Everyone. The art classes are also funded in part with a grant from the American Association of University Women, which will pay for the materials and supplies.

"Art is an expression beyond language," said Clara Lewis, the museum's director of development. "It's an expression of spirit that allows them to bring forward gifts they didn't know they had."

The camp is aiming to reach middle school students to fill a need in the community, Lewis said.

"There's a dearth of opportunities for that age student," Lewis said.

"Our hope is that their abilities can be defined and brought out through the arts," Lewis said.

The new art camp fits into the museum's expansion of its school of arts, said Calvin Cobb, chairman of the board at the museum.

The museum plans to eventually expand the program to other districts in the northwest Houston region, as well as private schools and homeschooled children.

The Pearl already works closely with area students and hosts many student field trips throughout the year.

Of the 25,000 visitors to The Pearl each year, half of them are children.

In addition to Art for Everyone, The Pearl also has summer art camps for high school juniors and seniors and workshops for adults.

The Pearl is working on a long-term plan to open a second museum at the intersection of Texas 249 and the Grand Parkway in Tomball. The new location will be larger, and will have it's own collection. Right now, The Pearl borrows art collections.

That new site is in the early conceptual stages, and it will not open until 2020 or beyond, Cobb said.

The new museum will not take the place of The Pearl, rather it will be a second museum. The current museum will continue to flourish and offer fine arts and education to the community, Cobb said.

The Pearl's main focus this year has been on its current museum, including continued fundraising and expanding arts opportunities for the community.

The Pearl will host a 1950s-theme fundraiser on June 17 called "Pearl in the Fast Lane," at Hemi Hideout in Brookshire. The evening will include barbecue and live music and feature restored cars from the 1960s and 70s, as well as vintage neon signs.

The Pearl opened in 2008 and was created within the shell of Harris County's former Cypress Creek library, which closed when the 32,000-square-foot Barbara Bush Library opened next door.

In 2006, the Fincher Family Trust made a major donation to the Museum of Fine Arts, Cypress Creek in honor of their mother, Pearl, and the museum's official name was borne.

The Pearl is a smaller-scale version of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The two museums have a cooperative relationship, but the Cypress Creek museum is independent from the downtown facility.

The Pearl

6815 Cypresswood Drive, Spring

Admission cost: Free

For more information, call 281-376-6322 or visit http://www.pearlmfa.org
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In two days, a single father in Houston is feeling the love after his community surrounded him following a plea for help on Facebook.

Craig Boncler is the owner and operator of Sicily Pizza & Pasta at 290 and Hollister in northwest Houston. His restaurant is in a "downward spiral" - partially thanks to 290 construction over the years. He says he isn't able to pay his bills, including the copay costs for his son's insulin, his home mortgage, and car loan.

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On Tuesday, June 6, Boncler posted his story on Facebook asking the community for help.

"I hate doing this... I'm in a lot of trouble. Due to various reason - some within my control, some not - my restaurant is in a downward spiral," he writes. "Like my employees, I take paycheck through our accounting office. I'm currently sitting on 9 weeks worth of paychecks that I can't cash."

Because he can't cash his restaurant's income checks, he is a week away from defaulting on his mortgage and is down to a two-week supply of insulin for his sons. Boncler's sons, Michael, 16, Christopher, 12, and Timothy, 10, have all been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and need insulin daily, according to his Facebook posts.

"I'm not asking for handouts, and sympathy/thoughts/prayers won't solve this problem, (No offense intended to anyone). I'm asking for help," the father of three writes. "If you live anywhere within driving distance, please consider having a meal at my restaurant."

HOMETOWN HELP: GoFundMe effort aims to raise money for WWII vet in Texas

He continues to ask for people to share the news with their friends and get food from the restaurant as often as you'd like.

"We have a huge menu to choose from, and it's all good food, at a reasonable price," he writes. "I'm more than willing to earn the money to pay my bills, and I firmly stand behind my product."

In less than 72 hours, the post was shared more than 5,300 times with over 1,000 comments - many of which are tagging other people asking if they want to get pizza.

Amber Hales and Sarah Zubair also rallied in support of the Boncler family to set up GoFundMe and YouCaring accounts in order to raise more money for the family. So far, the two pages have raised nearly $10,000 for the family.

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According to the Sicily Pizza & Pasta restaurant Facebook page, the response to the post has been so great from the community they are looking for volunteers to help serve the increase in customers. Some long-term positions may also be added to aid with the new demand.

Chron.com has reached out to Boncler for additional comment, but we haven't had the chance to interview him yet.

For more information about Sicily Pizza & Pasta, click here for their Facebook page, click here for their Yelp page and click the links above for the Boncler's GoFundMe and YouCaring pages.
A new judge will be chosen to preside over the securities fraud case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Wednesday rejected an attempt by Paxton's special prosecutors to keep the judge originally assigned to the case, which means the legal matter will be assigned a new judge out of Harris County in the coming days or weeks.

Without comment, the court denied the prosecutors' request Wednesday, essentially siding with Paxton and the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas that ruled Judge George Gallagher should no longer preside over the embattled attorney general's securities fraud and registration case since relocating it to Harris County.

The ruling marks a win for the first-term Republican attorney general who has been fighting to remove the judge from his case since Gallagher opted to move the trial out of Paxton's home of Collin County in April.

Gallagher, a judge from Tarrant County, moved the case to Harris County amid concern Paxton had friends in Collin County with strong political influence. After the judge moved the case, Paxton refused to sign off on paperwork required to keep the judge on the case as it moved across the state.

Special prosecutors argued the little-used mechanism to block a judge from following the case was not what the state Legislature intended, but the Dallas court of appeals disagreed and ruled last month Gallagher lost his ability to stay on the case.

Paxton has been accused of illegally recruiting investors from a North Texas tech company without telling the potential investors that he would get a financial kickback.

He faces 99 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines if found guilty of two charges of criminal securities fraud and one charge of failing to register with the state. He has denied any wrongdoing.
A Plano ISD employee Saturday was arrested after video surfaced of her knocking a mentally disabled child off a chair.

Anne Zoeller Fullerton, 53, is accused of injuring the 9-year-old student. The child reportedly fell "face first" on the ground from her standing position on a chair, according to an affidavit obtained by the Dallas Morning News.

Surveillance footage of the incident, which has not been released by police, allegedly shows the girl undressing as teachers work to keep other students from climbing onto their desktops.

HOUSTON-AREA DAY CARE INSPECTIONS: Children left unattended, unsanitary procedures found

According to the Dallas Morning News, school principal Kristin Bishop said the child was "known to take off her clothing in the classroom to urinate and defecate." Bishop also allegedly called the student a "tough kid" in court documents.

While it remains unclear when the incident happened, Plano police learned of it in February after a Child Protective Services report was filed.

ALSO IN PLANO: Plano day care worker caught on camera slamming child to the ground in an attempt to get him to nap

Fullerton was a teacher's assistant at Davis Elementary School. Plano ISD refers to her as a "former employee," but has not detailed if, or when, she was permanently dismissed.

Fullerton was booked in the Collin County Jail. Hours after her arrest. She was released on $2,500 bond.
A Philadelphia television reporter who was fired this week after her tirade on a police officer was caught on video said she's "ashamed and embarrassed" and feels "ruined," according to the NY Post.

The story began when former PHL17 reporter Colleen Campbell went to the Helium Comedy Club in Philly.

Wil Sylvince, the New York comedian who captured the cringe-worthy episode posted on his Facebook account that Campbell was "disturbing the show with her loud whispering. After 3 warnings and other customers were complaining she was asked to leave."

VIRAL VIDEO: Chair-throwing brawl at Bayou City Wings

"When she got kicked out she assaulted (kicking, punching, and eye poking) 3 of the employees in bar area right outside the showroom and then outside she mock spit in the managers face when a cop came," said Sylvince. "She verbally abused this poor cop who was trying to keep the peace at first."

That's where the five-minute video below picks showing Campbell standing outside of the club.

Campbell, 28, lost her job at PHL17 and issued a statement Wednesday morning apologizing to the police officer, "who bore the brunt of my outburst," as well as the Philadelphia Police Department and her former employers.

Campbell was charged with resisting arrest, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct and was released without bail. She is due to appear in court on June 13.
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WASHINGTON  Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn challenged former FBI director James Comey Thursday to explain how his firing by President Donald Trump could help end the probe into the Trump campaign's alleged contacts with Russian government officials.

"If you're trying to make an investigation go away, is firing an FBI director a good way to make that happen?" Cornyn said.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to me," Comey answered, "but I'm obviously hopelessly biased, given that I was the one fired."

"I understand that it's personal," Cornyn said.

Cornyn, a member of the Senate Intelligence panel conducting one of four government probes into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, also sought to turn the focus on the actions of Loretta Lynch, former President Obama's attorney general, who was criticized for meeting privately with former President Bill Clinton during the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton's emails.

Like other Republicans on the panel, Cornyn sought to stick up for Trump, getting Comey to agree that nothing in his testimony suggested that the FBI investigation had been impeded by the White House.

Cornyn also suggested that it was reasonable for a president who had been assured that he's not the subject of an FBI investigation to want the agency's director publicly announce it "so that this cloud over his administration would be removed."

"That's a reasonable point of view," Comey answered. "The concern would be obviously, if that boomerang comes back, it will be a very big deal, because there will be a duty to correct."

Despite his position as the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, Cornyn has long toiled in the shadow of the Lone Star State's more outspoken junior senator, Ted Cruz.

That changed on Thursday, when Cornyn took his place in a crowded hearing room to ask questions of Comey, whose testimony about his firing by President Donald Trump has cast a long shadow on the administration.

The hearing was built up as one of the most electric television events of Capitol Hill in modern times, recalling similar moments during the Iran-Contra and Watergate investigations. Local bars ran drink specials with Russian vodka, and spectators lined up around the Senate office buildings to get seats in the hearing room.

Cornyn's role on the committee has been particularly sensitive, since he was also interviewed as a top prospect to replace Comey at the FBI, until he removed himself from consideration last month.

Cornyn, a former Texas attorney general and judge, has consistently defended Comey's firing, backing up Trump's assertion that new leadership was needed at the FBI in the wake of the controversies surrounding Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe during the election.

Cornyn's questions came amid a broader Republican effort to discredit or undermine Comey, who testified that he was disturbed by the shifting White House accounts of his dismissal and worried that Trump might "lie" about their private conversations.

The attacks were led by members of a hard-right faction in the House, including Texas U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, who said on Fox News over the weekend, "I don't really care what Comey says  he can't be trusted."

The Republican leadership also expressed relief on the eve of the much-anticipated hearing, noting that nothing in Comey's opening statement suggested that Trump was "personally" under investigation in the FBI probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"Director Comey's statement reconfirmed what the president has been saying all along," said Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. "He was never under investigation."

Texas Democrats' echoed the concerns of their party leaders who have suggested that Comey's firing was an effort to head off or quash the FBI investigation of Trump campaign contacts with the Russians.

"Since the early days of his presidency, Donald Trump has inserted himself into the FBI's work, publicly commenting on an ongoing investigation and privately expressing his desire for the agency's leadership to clear his name," said San Antonio U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro.

Castro called for the public release of Comey's personal notes of his conversations with Trump. Comey has alleged Trump had pressured him to end the FBI probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired after revelations that he failed to report some of his contacts with Russia.

But few Democrats have followed the lead of Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green, who began preparing articles of impeachment on Tuesday alleging obstruction of justice.
AUSTIN -- Gov. Greg Abbott's planned special legislative session next month is bad news for Texas lawmakers who were looking forward to attending summer legislative conferences.

The session conflicts with all three of the big ones.

Abbott's announced July 18 start date comes just one day before the American Legislative Exchange Council will convene for its three-day annual meeting in Denver.

So, too, does it overlap the meeting of the Council of State Governments' conference in Biloxi, Miss., and the Aug. 6-9 convention of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston.

For years, the summer conventions have been a staple of state-paid travel for Texas legislators to learn about common issues with other states, attend panel discussions and party with lobbyists and colleagues in other states.

Lawmakers have often overlapped them with their personal vacations, which could also be affected by the special session.

On Wednesday, as the registration deadline neared, many lawmakers complained privately that Abbott's timing of a special session will probably mean they will have to stay home this year.

For their part, Abbott aides said the conference dates played no role in selecting the date for the special session.

In a memo issued Tuesday, shortly after Abbott made his announcement, House Administration Committee Chairman Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, notified House members that the lower chamber would not reimburse for expenses to the conferences while the Legislature is in session.

"If a cancellation fee is incurred, due to cancellation for the special session, the House will reimburse for the cancellation fee with proper documentation," Geren's memo states.

Senate officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but several senators said they had been given similar instructions.

Dozens of Senate and House members attend the conventions annually, some because they are officers in the organizations or because they are speaking on panels, at an average cost that has been calculated in years past as about $2,500, depending on the destination.

By contrast, the cost of a special legislative session has been estimated at well over $800,000 if it runs the full 30 days.
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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The kadadi is unlikely to comment on the set of many Nitrogen Minds. In addition, they are still in the religious tactics. There is no calm even in the net. Now the situation of Dangal fame Fatima Sana Shake is the same.

She shared a photo shoot in Maldives for the new edition of GQ Magazine. Fatima, who has never been so bad in her social media so far, has now come back to bikinis. She is a model and is now acting as a heroine on Aamir Khan. So it is not worth it to do it. But on the net she started posting this bikini photo. Some of the religious commentaries on her are stubbornly saying that the fatwa should be issued. In the past, Sania Mirza is harassing herself.

"Why are you doing these bikini photos in a holy month? Do not despise us. This is against our beliefs". one netizens posted a post. There was no big debate. In the original Holy month, you can see the photos of the heroines on the Internet that some people from his community also come to him. Dangal Beauti's controversy with the first hot photo shoot.
On Friday, May 27, Jeremy Joseph Christian accosted a Muslim woman, then stabbed three men in Portland. Two have died  one a 23-year-old, the other a veteran and father of four. The third victims injury reportedly missed being fatal by one millimeter. This morning at his arraignment, the grand jury returned a 15-count indictment that could grow longer  and could include the death penalty.

Some are surprised to learn that this white supremacist supports Bernie Sanders, opposes the free market, and hates Christianity. Those familiar with the teachings of fascism, or the modern racialist movement, should not be jolted.

Opposing free trade, supporting Sanders and Stein

Christian noted his support for Sanders and Green Party candidate Jill Stein on social media.

Bernie Sanders was the President I wanted. He voiced my heart and mind, Christian wrote on Facebook in December. The senator spoke about the way America should [have] gone. Away from the Military and Prison Industrial Complexes.

Before the election, he vowed to Odin, Kali, Bastet and all other Pagan Gods and Goddesses in my Aryan Theosophical Nucleus to kill Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. This is my duty as a Viking and Patriot. In Jesus name.I Feel The Bern!!!!

Despite that reference and his misleading surname, Christian despised the Christian faith, as well as other major world religions. He once called for a Monotheist Holocaust encompassing Jews, Christians, and Muslims. While most people understand a neo-Nazi prejudice against Judaism and Islam, fewer know of its anti-Christian teachings.

The view that Christianity renders Western men too timid to crush others for the sake of the volk is typified by Revilo P. Oliver, a onetime National Review contributor who drifted into racialism. Christianity has always been deleterious to our race, he wrote, a spiritual syphilis that has now reached the tertiary stage, paresis and insanity.

However, economic concerns motivated much of Christians activism.

The Oregonian paraphrased Shane Burley, the author of a new book on fascism, who concluded that the attacker supported Sanders because he was against globalization  that is, free trade. Christian also expressed solidarity with Standing Rock protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Christian shared both his antipathy toward Christianity and the free market with Holocaust Museum shooter James Wenneker Von Brunn. Von Brunn, who murdered a guard in 2009, wrote in his book, Kill the Best Gentiles, that WESTERN SOCIALISM, represents the future of the West, and the end of JEWRY on Western soil.  [A]ll wars and revolutions are financed by JEW CAPITALISTS. (Screaming capitalization in original.)

In the Nazi imagination, the free market is synonymous with perfidious Jewish merchants. Thus, it must be brought under the control of a pure Aryan superstate.

A few concrete economic policies may be found in the now-defunct neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations Platform for the Aryan National State, which calls on future fuehrers to (quoting their words):

[E]liminate the current practice of damaging and poisoning life and environment.

Provide honest aid to farmers and other business people, and shall restore to all citizens rightful land ownership.

Make the necessary provisions for the aged, who have been impoverished by fraud (inflation).

Confiscate all unearned wealth, stolen by fraud or usury and that which is gain from war.

Nationalize all monopolies and multi-national interest[s].

Immediately bring about land reform and completely prohibit land speculation and ownership of land and industry by racial aliens.

All of this echoed the original 25 Point Program of the Nazi Party. The 1920 document called for the abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes, the total confiscation of all war profits, the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts), a division of profits of all heavy industries, an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare, enabling every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, land reform, and the death penalty for usurers.

We demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich, it concluded.

In Nazi Germany, the state did not confiscate the means of production but instead had the government direct and control the production and distribution of industries, which remained in private hands. Princeton economist Otto Nathan, a friend of Albert Einstein, described Nazi Germany as a highly planned economy, in which a comprehensive planning mechanism was imposed, so that no institution  remained unaffected.

Once the individual is denied economic resources, the advancing State inevitably encroaches upon other rights and ultimately, the right to life itself. Adolf Hitler outlined his vision in 1937, saying, The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity, and to substitute therefore the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood.

Seeing the gathering threat, Ludwig von Mises became an outspoken critic of racial collectivism before fleeing the Nazis. He dedicated a chapter of Human Action to rejecting race-based philosophy (racial polylogism) alongside Marxist dialectical materialism.

The modern racialist movement has yet to forgive him. In 2010, The Occidental Quarterly offered a $1,000 prize for essays racial nationalist critiques of libertarian individualism.

In terms of fundamental moral principles, libertarian individualism and racial nationalist collectivism could not be more opposed, the website proclaimed. Authors were invited to answer the pressing question of whether libertarianism is a Jewish intellectual movement.

Different scapegoats, but the same savior

If the fascist corporatist state differs from orthodox Marxism, so does the platform of the contemporary American Left. Sanders did not campaign on nationalizing industries  merely comprehensively regulating them, taxing them, and redistributing their fruits.

And whether one believes the economy is rigged by an ethnic clique or a capitalist cabal, the ideologies are built upon the same envy and propose similar government interventionist policies to make things fair. It should come as little surprise that there is some overlap between the two movements now, as there was in the 1930s.

To be clear, nothing in this essay should imply that Bernie Sanders is a Nazi, or that Democratic Socialists like Sanders or Stein favor fascism. The two philosophies are distinct in their methodologies, platforms, and intended results.

However, neither Marxism nor fascism is possible without a massive concentration of power in the hands of the government, ideally at the highest possible level. Once the governmental apparatus is in place, its limits depend only upon its master  and the level of popular resistance it meets. Freidrich von Hayek wrote that National socialism  is simply collectivism freed from all traces of an individualist tradition which might hamper its realization.

On a practical level, the diffusion of power  between levels of bureaucracy, between the government and civil society, and between public and private economic resources  is the only way to preserve the right to life, freedom of conscience, the free exercise of religion, and freedom of expression.

On a deeper level, collectivist terror can only be fought only by recognizing the inherent human dignity of all people. Barbarism must be overcome with gentleness, which emanates from a heart illumined by the light of Gods presence.

The two fatalities in Portland are a tragic loss. They should remind us of the harm that could befall innocents were its perpetrators ideology armed, not with a folding knife, but with the full economic and military resources of the State.

(Photo credit: Robert Thivierge. This photo has been cropped. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
Autonomous vehicles with no human backup will be put to the test on publicly traveled roads as early as next year in what may be the first attempt at unassisted autonomous piloting.

Automotive electronics and parts maker Delphi and French transport company Transdev plan to use autonomous taxis and a shuttle van to carry passengers on roadways in France.

The companies on Wednesday said they plan to combine Delphis self-driving technology with Transdevs knowledge of mobility operations. Transdev operates trains, buses, ferries and other transportation services in 19 countries, including the U.S.

Two on-demand Renault Zoe autonomous taxis will be deployed in Rouen, Normandy, and a shuttle van will run between a rail station and campus in the university district of Paris-Saclay. Both will start with humans on board later this year, with the intent of going fully autonomous sometime in 2018. From the start, the shuttle van wont have a steering wheel or pedals, and humans will be inside solely to communicate with passengers, said Leriche, chief performance officer at Transdev Group.

But humans at a central dispatch center would still be able to take control of the vehicles, said Glen De Vos, Delphi Corp.s chief technology officer. Were confident that in the event they would need to intervene, they can, he said.

The companies also plan a similar test in North America and are scouting locations, De Vos said.

He believes theyll go through several iterations of self-driving software and systems before the French vehicles are fully operational sometime in 2019.

Transdev plans to gradually spread the technology throughout Paris and other cities that it serves, so the autonomous vehicles will be on roads along with human drivers.

It may take a while for people to trust the vehicles enough to use them, but Leriche said acceptance may not be that hard to get. Transdev has surveyed users in autonomous shuttle tests about the service and quality, and more than 90 percent were excited about the service. They were not afraid of the fact that there was no driver, he said.

The partnership comes less than a month after U.K.-based Delphi joined with BMW, Intel and Mobileye to develop autonomous vehicles. Delphi, which has U.S. operations just outside of Detroit, makes the computing platform that brings together information from the cars sensors, cameras and computers.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Courtney Love spent almost six years in litigation accused of libeling her former attorney in a Twitter post that was visible for less than 10 minutes. She paid a reported $780,000 in settlements as a result of two other defamation suits, both stemming from Twitter missives Love wrote about designer Dawn Simorangkir. Twitter should ban my mother, her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, once said.

Love, an actress and musician, and the widow of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, inherited the bands publishing rights. She can afford to take on defamation lawsuits. You probably cant, and given how much of our lives is spent venting on social media, especially now in the age of Trump, the more vociferous among us might want to consider libel insurance.

A longtime necessity for journalists, such policies are now being sold to the average American, bundled with more traditional policies covering homes and cars. For an extra couple bucks a month, you can buy yourself a little peace of mind, knowing someone else will foot the bill if youre hit with a defamation lawsuit for what you say online.

Its something that, because of where social media has gone, has made this a much different issue than it wouldve been however many years ago, said Laurie Pellouchoud, the vice president of homeowners insurance at Allstate Insurance Co. About 10 percent of the companys customers have a personal umbrella policy, which has an annual cap of $1 million for personal injury, including libel insurance. The countrywide average cost for this policy is $400 a year, or about $33 a month.

One of the key benefits of having the umbrella policy is our duty to defend, Pellouchoud said. We provide that defense for you to go through the specifics of the case, whether the suit is valid, what the damages might be or might not be.

Youre going to see more cases like this going forward. The potential exposure has increased.

Big insurance companies have offered libel protection for years, but the popularity of social media has lent more gravity to the coverage of late. In 2011, the Insurance Information Institute published a paper on the industrys role in social media liability. At the time, a third of businesses said they purchased insurance for cyber risks, which include libel and slander. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2015 added a cybersecurity consumer protection road map to its Bill of Rights. This amendment included libel and slander coverage for statements made on social media.

The fact that there are more of us online using various kinds of social media means there is greater risk of somebody being sued, said Claire Wilkinson, one of the papers authors. Youre going to see more cases like this going forward. The potential exposure has increased.

As for whether you need libel insurance, experts agree it depends on your personal risk levelhow mouthy and rich you are. More than anything, the insurance provides a sense of security. Allstate sees personal injury claims, which include libel, on less than 1 percent of their policies annually, compared with less than 10 percent for home and automobile claims.

That sliver of libel claims does, however, tend to cost significantly more.

Even in weak cases that get tossed by judges, attorneys fees can range from $10,000 to $20,000, said Darren Oved, a partner at Oved & Oved LLP and a First Amendment lawyer. A case that does make it to a jury can go into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so can a settlement, like those paid by Courtney Love.

Despite the rise of social media and the vitriol it brings with it, successful libel suits are still fairly rare, as the burden of proof rests on the plaintiff. To be victorious, the aggrieved has to prove not only that the statement false, but that it was made with malicious intent. The courts, in the social media context, give more latitude, Oved said. People are conditioned to take some of whats said on social media with a grain of salt.

In the case brought by her former attorney, Love won because she wasnt found to have acted maliciously, although a jury found her tweet to be false. (A publicist for Love didnt return a request for comment.)

Even if the case is dismissed or defeated, Oved said, it can still have its intended effect. It still managed to potentially chill your speech. Someone who has gone through that will think twice about posting.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.
Georgia DOI Busts 26 Suspects in Auto Fraud Ring

Arrest warrants were issued this week in connection with an automobile insurance fraud ring centered in the Columbus, Georgia area, according to an announcement by Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens.

The fraud ring, comprised of 26 suspects, allegedly staged automobile collision and filed false claims resulting in estimated payments of $155,925 from 12 different insurers.

The warrants, according to Hudgens, are the culmination of a 16 month investigation by the Georgia Department of Insurances Special Fraud Division. The suspects face 326 charges, ranging from insurance fraud, theft by deception, racketeering, identity theft and exploitation of an elderly person.

The investigation uncovered that the suspects were involved in an organized auto insurance fraud ring that submitted more than 50 suspicious claims to multiple insurance companies for damage to vehicles that occurred before the vehicle was insured. In addition, the suspects used multiple aliases and stole identities on the insurance claims to avoid detection by insurers. Fraud investigators allege that the ring attempted to get payouts totaling more than $500,000.

Insurers victimized by the scam included GEICO, State Farm, Nationwide, Safe Auto, Allstate, Progessive, USAA, Georgia Farm Bureau, Safeway, Everest National, Direct Auto and General Insurance.

Washington Man Fakes Boat Damage Claim

Mark DeGross, of Snohomish, Wash., faces one charge of first-degree attempted theft and one charge of insurance fraud, both felonies. A bench warrant for his arrest was issued on June 2 and bail is set for $5,000 cash, according to the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner.

According to the investigation, DeGross filed a $9,351 claim with Progressive Insurance for damage to his boat that he said occurred in January 2015 while he was wakeboarding at Lake Entiat near Wenatchee. Investigators determined that the accident actually happened in July 2014, before DeGross purchased a boat policy in September 2014.

New York Attorney General Announces Take Down of Luxury Auto Fraud Ring

New Yorks Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced a 42-count indictment, charging six individuals for their participation in an auto insurance fraud scheme in which the defendants allegedly cheated insurance carriers out of over $120,000 by submitting fake property damage claims for high-end vehicles. Four of the charged defendants, including the ringleader, were arrested and arraigned this week in Kings County Supreme Court.

According to the Attorney Generals indictment, between January 2014 and September 2015, members of this insurance fraud ring allegedly conspired to submit 11 fake property damage claims, which included multiple false misrepresentations, including the manner in which car accidents and purported damages occurred. The defendants also allegedly resubmitted claims for the same vehicles with preexisting damages multiple times. In order to maximize insurance payments, the defendants utilized high-end vehicles, including a Lexus, BMW, Audi, Mercedes, and Bentley. The defendants received payments ranging from $5,000 to over $20,000 for their property damage claims.

In addition, prosecutors allege that in three of the charged claims, the defendants used the stolen identity of a United States serviceman. As a result of their alleged conspiracy, the defendants fraudulently obtained a total of over $120,000 in insurance payments for their counterfeit claims and cashed insurance checks at two Pay-O-Matic check cashing branches in Kings County, New York.

The Attorney Generals 42-count indictment charges the defendants with Insurance Fraud in the Second Degree (a class C felony), Insurance Fraud in the Third Degree (a class D felony), Identity Theft in First Degree (a class D felony), Grand Larceny in the Third Degree (a class D felony), Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree (a class E felony), Scheme to Defraud in the First Degree (a class E felony) and Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree (a class A misdemeanor).

If convicted of the top count charged, ringleader Carlington Haye will face up to 5 to 15 years in prison, and the remaining defendants face up to 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison.

The charges against the defendants are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Today, voters across the UK went to the polls to elect Members of Parliament in the snap election called on April 18. American observers and people of faith should care about the results, because they could affect the transatlantic alliance in numerous ways.

First, the election could deepen, or chill, the special relationship between the United States and the UK. Prime Minister Theresa May and President Donald Trump have established a cordial relationship and share a symbiotic goal. May seeks the support of the nations majority Leave voters, and Trump hopes undermining the EU will realign Europe in a nationalist/populist direction. To encourage the process, Trump hopes to sign a transatlantic free trade deal as soon as the UK withdraws from the EU customs union in March 2019.

Although exceedingly unlikely, were Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn to become prime minister, it would dampen relations between the two nations. Corbyn wavered on whether he would meet with Trump during a foreign visit, and he asked London not to roll out the red carpet for the U.S. president. He later offered to show Trump around Finsbury Park Mosque in London, once home to the radical Islamist teachings of Abu Hamza, so [Trump] could understand multicultural society.

Second, the election will affect the balance of power in Europe. May called the election to secure a mandate for a hard Brexit, walking away with no deal rather than accepting a bad deal to stay in Brussels good graces. Labour Party MPs, who opposed Brexit but modified their position due to its popularity among their core voters, seek to limit the scope of that withdrawal. In the unlikely event that the Tory lead diminishes, members of the Labour Party and Scottish National Party (SNP) could tilt the UK back toward a continental Europe that increasingly sees itself as a rival to, or at least a strategic competitor with, the United States.

Third, the future of Americas closest ally is at stake. May campaigned on strong and stable leadership to lead the UK into a post-Brexit future. She envisions an era of independence, free trade, and deregulation after the UK slips the strictures imposed by EU bureaucrats. She has vowed to crack down on extremists, a point driven home as voters cast their ballots in polling places the government had to secure against a growing terrorist threat.

The Labour Partys mantra  for the many, not the few  promises a future of class warfare, tax and spending increases, and closer relations with the supranational EU. Corbyn has promised to fight any attempts to turn the UK into a low-tax haven. Corbyn has had overly kind words for terrorist organizations including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the IRA. This week, it was revealed that MI5 monitored Corbyn for 20 years, concerned that he may be a subversive.

People of faith should care whether the UK maintains its economic vitality and forges trade ties that could greatly benefit the developing world, potentially causing its agricultural sector (and hence, global food production) to flourish. They should care about maintaining a strong U.S.-UK alliance, which has fought for religious liberty and other transatlantic values for more than a century. And all people should be concerned about checking the spread of radical jihadist violence and securing the safety of the British people.

Despite a number of campaign missteps, polls still show May increasing the Tory majority in the House of Commons from 17 seats to 50. Pollsters underestimated the Conservative vote in the 2015 election and famously forecast that last Junes Brexit referendum would fail.

Polls closed at 10 p.m. local time, 5 p.m. Eastern. Most results are not expected be known until 2 a.m. UK time.

(Photo credit: John Keane. This photo has been cropped. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
A worker stands on piles of industrial products before exporting, at a port of Lianyungang, China

China reported stronger-than-anticipated exports and imports for May despite falling commodity prices, suggesting the economy is holding up better than expected despite rising lending rates and a cooling property market.

Concerns over China landed squarely back on global investors' radar after Moody's Investors Service downgraded its credit rating last month, saying it expects the financial strength of the economy will erode in coming years as growth slows and debt continues to rise.

Imports have been strong in recent months, driven largely by iron ore and other commodities used to feed a year-long construction boom, while exports have rebounded thanks to stronger global demand after several years of contraction.

Still, analysts had expected trade growth to cool in May, forecasting the economy will gradually lose momentum over the rest of the year as measures to cool heated home prices dampen property investment and a crackdown on riskier types of lending pushes up financing costs.

But growth in both exports and imports defied those expectations and accelerated from April. China's May exports rose 8.7 percent from a year earlier, while imports expanded 14.8 percent, official data showed on Thursday.

That left the country with a trade surplus of $40.81 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected May shipments from the world's largest exporter to have risen 7.0 percent. Exports rose 8.0 percent on-year in April.

Imports were expected to have climbed 8.5 percent, after rising 11.9 percent in April.

Analysts were expecting China's trade surplus to have widened to $46.32 billion in May from April's $38.05 billion.

China's trade surplus with the U.S. was $22.0 billion in May, up from $21.34 billion in April, according to data from China's customs bureau.

The world's two biggest economies have started their 100 days of trade talks, which was agreed by United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping when they met in Florida in April in an effort to reduce the massive U.S trade deficit with Beijing.

In a sign of progress, the two countries agreed in May to take action by mid-July to increase access for U.S. financial firms and expanding trade in beef and chicken among other steps.

China does not deliberately pursue a trade surplus with the United States, vice commerce minister Yu Jianhua told a news conference on May 12.

China's commerce minister Zhong Shan recently told new United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer the two sides should strengthen cooperation and manage disputes in trade, according to a statement on the website of China's Ministry of Commerce.
Qatar's diplomatic crisis with its Middle Eastern neighbors could spur natural gas buyers to seek greater diversification in sourcing amid potential disruptions from United Arab Emirates ports refusing ships from the country.

"Buyers will increasingly look to complement their contract-dominated import portfolio with more spot purchases, although these will be smaller in volume," said Peter Lee, BMI Research's oil and gas analyst.

Qatar is the world's largest producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is traditionally sold on long-term contracts spanning decades. Large buyers include Japan, South Korea and China, who in March banded together to secure more flexible supply contracts.

LNG buyers have already been increasing spot natural gas purchases since prices in the commodities complex crashed following crude oil's 2014 slump.

Yet despite concerns about disruptions to crucial supplies, the market is currently calm. Reports indicate, meanwhile, that Qatari ships passing through the key Suez Canal shipping route are not facing restrictions as it is an international water passageway.

Despite earlier concerns, gas shipments are also passing through the Strait of Hormuz between Oman and Iran before moving onto Asia.

What buyers may actually be more concerned about now is the chance of logistical hitches.

The diplomatic rift has hit gas tankers stopping at the port of Fujairah, a fuel hub, with ships sent to find new destinations as far as Singapore for the task, trade media report, potentially causing delays and adding to shipping cost.
Japan on Thursday said GDP for the first quarter came in weaker than expected with a 0.3 percent gain on quarter and at a 1.0 percent pace annually, with the year-on-year figure revised down from a preliminary estimate of a 2.2 percent growth

A Reuters poll of analysts saw quarter figures up 0.6 percent and the annual level at a gain of 2.4 percent. After the data, Japan's cabinet office said its view the economy is in moderate recovery remains intact.
An attendee at the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder's Meeting takes a 'selfie' with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Highly successful people aren't just born with all the tools they need to get to the top. Billionaire and legendary investor Warren Buffett took a class to conquer his crippling fear of public speaking. Bill Gates says reading has helped him learn more about the world. Real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran studied the tricks to making a big sale out in the field. If you're looking to join the ranks of the world's most successful individuals, consider five habits many of them have used to get ahead:

1. They keep track of how they spend their time

Billionaire entrepreneur and "Shark Tank" investor Mark Cuban calls time "the most valuable asset you have." "You can't buy it. You can't find it. You can't store it. You can't trade it," Cuban says.

Barbara Corcoran Donna Ward | Getty Images

Fellow "Shark" Barbara Corcoran agrees. The real estate mogul, who went went from waiting tables to running a $6 billion empire, says that a big part of her journey to success was making sure she spent every minute wisely. That's why every morning, she divides her schedule into three parts, A, B and C. Each represents a different priority, to ensure that she not only makes money, but takes care of herself as well.

2. They treat their colleagues with respect

Every employee knows they should treat the boss with respect. But not everyone prioritizes treating their colleagues and subordinates professionally, too.

Bloomberg

Multi-millionaire banker Bill Winters says the best advice he ever received was from his father, who told him that the best employees are kind to people at every level of an organization. "Make sure that you treat the next level down  whether it's the assistants or the PA, whatever  with just as much respect as you would anyone," says Winters.

3. They don't let setbacks stop them from growing

In "Option B," Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and organizational psychologist Adam Grant argue that successful people share one crucial trait: resilience.

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant speak at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco about their book "Option B."

Sandberg, whose husband Dave Goldberg died unexpectedly in 2015, and Grant say that the ability to cope with and grow from immense tragedy or failure can make or break someone's career. Grant says everyone can become more resilient by doing a few simple exercises. For example, he recommends keeping a journal of contributions you make to others to develop a better sense of how important your work is, something those struggling to overcome personal obstacles can forget.

4. They take their social media presence seriously

Serial entrepreneur and "Shark Tank" investor Daymond John says one of his best strategies for succeeding at work is to make sure your social media presence is authentic. It's easy to use social media as a simple means of self-promotion. But people who could help you in your career or end up providing you with new opportunities down the line aren't going to be impressed.

Daymond John David A. Grogan | CNBC

Instead, use social media to communicate who you are and engage with others in your field. "Be very honest with yourself, especially today with social media," John says. How do you know you're doing that right? If you can describe yourself in five words or less, you're onto something, John says.

5. They make time to work on projects they're passionate about

On a recent trip to a furniture "mega-store" in Nebraska, longtime friends Bill Gates and Warren Buffett talked about the ways success is enabled by passion. "Being successful at almost anything means having a passion for it," says Buffett.

Warren Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., left, stands with Bill Gates, chairman and founder of Microsoft Corp., as they play table tennis outside Borsheims Jewelry Company, Inc., in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., on Sunday, May 5, 2013. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
's annual investor day has Wall Street absolutely overjoyed.

Shares of the e-commerce company's stock soared more than 10 percent in early U.S. trading Thursday, after management upped its outlook for Alibaba's revenue growth for the full year.

The Chinese conglomerate is now forecasting total sales growth of 45 to 49 percent this year, a target that tops analysts' expectations by 10 percentage points. The new forecast on Wednesday from the CFO drew "gasps of wow" from investors at Alibaba's Hangzhou headquarters, The Financial Times reported.

"The company will continue building its ecosystem based on data technology with core businesses supported by payment, logistics, data management platform and cloud," Jefferies analyst Jessie Guo wrote in an updated note to clients.

Guo maintains a buy rating on Alibaba shares, with a price target of $122. The stock closed Wednesday at $125.64 a share.

As of Wednesday's close, shares of Alibaba had climbed more than 40 percent this year, and the stock is up a whopping 62 percent from a year ago.
Earlier this year, Dish introduced a new feature that let customers control their DVR using Amazon's Alexa. That meant being able to search for specific shows and load up apps like Netflix , all by using voice commands via an Echo or Echo Dot. Now, Amazon is offering up the same back-end functionality to all developers. Meaning  hopefully  that a lot more cable companies will add support for Alexa voice control in the future.

More from The Verge:

Drag and drop on iOS is more powerful than it's ever been on the desktop

Apple's HomePod looks like a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none

The 6 best new features in iOS 11

Per Amazon 's blog post: "Companies can now teach Alexa how to interface with their video content and services. This means you can now build experiences that allow your customers to easily find and consume video content without invoking a specific skill. For example, a customer could say, 'Alexa, play Manchester by the Sea' without specifying a provider or device. Through the Video Skill API, Alexa is aware of video devices and services your customer has or subscribes to."

It's potentially a very handy service, and offering skills like this shows why Amazon is ahead in the race to create the most functional digital home assistant. However, not many developers have taken the company up on the offer yet  just Dish in the US, and YouView and Netgem in the UK. Perhaps cable companies don't like the idea of the Echo acting as an intermediary with their customers?
James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee raises questions about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice by firing his FBI director, said former Assistant Attorney General John Carlin.

"Whether or not someone obstructs justice ... you look at their intent: Were they corruptly trying to influence an investigation?" Carlin told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.

During Barack Obama's administration, Carlin was assistant attorney general for national security and was chief of staff to Robert Mueller when the latter was FBI director. Last month, Mueller was appointed by the Justice Department as special counsel in charge of the investigation into allegations that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. Mueller is largely viewed as bipartisan since he also served as FBI director during George W. Bush's presidency.

Carlin described Comey's scheduled appearance before the Senate committee on Thursday morning is a "historical event."

In written testimony released Wednesday, Comey recounted an interaction with Trump in which the president allegedly said "I need loyalty." Comey also described a request from Trump to "lift the cloud" of the Russian inquiry. But the former FBI director also confirmed he told the president three times he was not under investigation.

"You got to look at it all together as a package," said Carlin. "All these acts together  including and most significantly firing the man in charge of the investigation  was [Trump] doing that because he wanted to influence the investigation because he didn't like the way it was going?"

Trump's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz said, "The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe." The statement also said, "The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."

"There's nothing wrong with the president meeting with the FBI director," said John Malcolm, a former deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush.
She served two years in the Israeli Defense Force and competed in high-stakes beauty pageants, but it was Hollywood that truly tested "Wonder Woman" Gal Gadot's resilience.

"This profession, the rejection, dude  it's tough," Gadot tells host Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on NBC's "The Tonight Show."

Before booking an audition for the movie, which has grossed over $300 million worldwide and set records since opening just over a week ago, the actress and one-time Miss Israel considered making a film project in her native country her last.

"I had so many 'almosts,' and another camera test, and it was almost mine, and another one and another one," she says to Fallon. "I was telling my husband, 'I'm not sure how long I can take it.'"

Then, during a trip to Los Angeles, she got a call from "Wonder Woman" co-writer Zack Snyder, who wanted her to audition for a "secret role." After Gadot returned to Israel, Snyder called her with the big reveal.

"Zack calls me two days later and says, 'I don't know if you have this character in Israel, if she's big or not, but did you ever hear of Wonder Woman?'"

Gadot, shocked, reinvested herself in the idea of landing another film role.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note edged higher at around 2.204 percent at 1:46 p.m. ET, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond was up at 2.857 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

U.S. government debt prices edged lower on Thursday, as investors digested political news from the U.S. and braced themselves for an election in Europe.

On Thursday, U.S. investors paid close attention to a testimony by former FBI Director James Comey, who spoke and answered questions in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee; marking the first time the former director will speak publicly since being dismissed by President Donald Trump.

In his testimony, Comey said he kept records of his conversations with Trump  something he did not do when Barack Obama was president  because he thought Trump might "lie."

Meanwhile in Europe, U.K. citizens are heading to polling stations Thursday, to vote in the British general election which was called earlier this year. Investors will keeping a close eye on moves in sterling over the next two days, to see how the currency reacts to the election outcome.

Earlier on Thursday, the European Central Bank's governing council kept interest rates unchanged, as was widely expected. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter that the central bank has held rates steady at 0.00 percent.
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The British pound has fallen sharply following results of the U.K. election which show the ruling Conservative party has failed to reach of a majority in the British Parliament. Cable (GBP/USD) fell from levels as high as $1.2977 on Thursday to a multi-month low of $1.2632 on Friday morning London time. The currency pair pared some of its losses to trade at $1.2742 at 11:15 a.m. London time in volatile trade, after fluctuating overnight during Asian trading hours. Earlier, the pound fell more than 2 percent against the greenback. The euro strengthened against the pound, with euro/sterling cross trading up 1.48 percent at 0.8770. As no party has secured an outright majority, Britain is facing a hung parliament. However, Sky News reported Friday morning that the Conservatives have already contacted the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) and agreed a coalition deal. U.K. leader Theresa May is expected to seek permission from the Queen to form a new government on Friday. Analysts have said that a hung parliament could see the pound fall further. Tapas Strickland, an economist at the National Australia Bank, said in a note that consensus was for "further downside risks to sterling with a median expectation of $1.2350 in the event of a hung parliament."

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Meanwhile, John Gorman, managing director of rates trading at Nomura Securities, said a hung parliament was the worst-case scenario, which could push the pound down to the mid-$1.20s. "That would obviously be something that nobody wants," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday. Gorman added: "At the end of the day, I think we're probably going to get some sort of a coalition or a majority, it's just going to be too slim. And then it questions: Is there going to be gridlock in the U.K. government? Is there going to be a change of leadership in the U.K. government? And that's not an ideal situation. But once the dust settles, there is going to be this idea that the markets are going to be pricing in a softer Brexit and that's going to be better for the sterling." Other analysts were also bearish on the currency. Elsa Lignos, managing director of foreign-exchange strategy at RBC Capital Markets, noted that the pound had priced in a premium since the snap election was called in mid-April, as markets assumed a Tory victory. "Effectively, markets moved very quickly to price in a Tory majority. Now, we've unwound about half of that," she told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday, citing the $1.2550 level it traded just before the election was announced as a target. But she noted that with a hung parliament, the pound would have further to fall. "It's very unclear where we go from there," she said, citing uncertainty over parties' ability to form a coalition. "Given that uncertainty, it's very difficult to aggressively jump in and buy sterling here."

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China's Google-backed artificial intelligence (AI) start-up , Mobvoi, could soon take on the world's leading smart voice assistant technologies, according to the firm's founder and CEO.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Shanghai, Mobvoi's Li Zhifei told CNBC that the firm could "absolutely" compete with the likes of Amazon in the digital voice assistant market space.

"We are just like Amazon's Echo  We are making our own device and putting the technology into this device but gradually we are also going to open this AI service into third parties so that we can empower more devices," Li Zhifei told CNBC on Thursday.

In Western markets, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Microsoft 's Cortana are the dominant voice assistants. Amazon has continued to push Alexa across numerous products, while Google has rolled out Assistant across Android devices and its own Google Home device. Even Apple came out with its own smart speaker called HomePod this week.

Though Mobvoi's CEO acknowledged his signature chatbot device still has long way to go in order to improve its sophistication and compete on a global scale, he stressed the company was making a "huge amount of progress" in its development.

The Beijing-based start-up was founded by a group of former Google research scientists five years ago and gained prominence after launching its flagship smartwatch, Ticwatch , in June 2015. The watch's success led to a direct investment from Google and by May 2017, Mobvoi unveiled Tichome , its Chinese language chatbot designed to facilitate human-machine interaction.

"In the last few years we have made a huge amount of progress in speaker recognition but we haven't made much progress in natural language understanding, which makes the device not that smart (yet)," he added.
Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that he kept records of his talks with President Donald Trump because he thought the president might "lie."

In Senate testimony, Comey said he wrote records of his conversations with Trump "immediately" after they took place  something he did not do with Trump's predecessor President Barack Obama  because he was concerned about Trump's conduct.

"I knew there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function," Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Comey's detailed statement to the Senate Intelligence Committee, largely based on those memos, alleges that Trump asked him for "loyalty" in a dinner shortly after he took office. Comey also said that he believed Trump was asking him to "drop" an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Comey also said he took steps to ensure he wrote the memos in a way that they would not be labeled classified.

That shows the former FBI chief thought seriously about the consequences when he met with Trump, according to Jeffrey Cramer, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

"Comey was thinking three steps ahead of the president by writing the memo and ensuring it couldn't be labeled classified," he said.

Trump abruptly fired Comey last month. The ouster came as he oversaw the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday slammed the White House's explanations for his firing last month and its criticism of the FBI that followed.

Comey said that the White House "chose to defame" him and the FBI, alleging that the bureau is in "disarray."

"Those were lies, plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and I'm so sorry that the American people were told them " Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey last month. The ouster came as he oversaw the FBI's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Comey said that the White House's "shifting explanations" for Trump firing him "confused and increasingly concerned" him.

The former FBI director said he was concerned by Trump's admission in an NBC interview that he was thinking of the "Russia thing" when he fired Comey. Comey flatly replied "yes" when asked if he thought Trump fired him because of the Russia probe.

"I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Comey said, while noting that he "could be wrong."

The former FBI chief said he was confused because Trump had told him that he hoped he would stay on the job. Comey started a 10-year term in 2013.

The White House's explanation that Comey was fired because of his decisions during the election year also baffled Comey because of "the time and the water that had gone under the bridge" since those events happened.
Jim Comey gave Congress more than enough grounds to impeach President Donald Trump on a charge of obstruction of justice, according to a top criminal defense lawyer who said the former FBI director's account of being pressured by the president to drop a probe is highly believable.

"I think he's probably the most credible witnesses that's ever appeared before that committee or any other congressional committee," said Gerald Lefcourt, a New York attorney, after Comey finished his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

"I can't think of anybody thought of as more credible," said Lefcourt, who defended people criminally charged by Comey when the former FBI director was the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan. "This is one of the straightest arrows you've ever seen."

Comey testified that Trump leaned on him to drop an investigation into the president's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, regarding his contacts with Russians. Comey also said he told other people about this pressure from Trump, and detailed his contacts with the president in memos written right after speaking with him.

Lefcourt said Comey's claims, combined with his memos and accounts to others, as well as Trump's own public words and tweets about Comey and the probe, means "there's more enough probable cause" to warrant Trump being charged with obstruction of justice.

"That's enough evidence to put it before a jury," Lefcourt said.

However, the Justice Department has a policy that bars sitting presidents from being criminally charged by that agency.

That would mean that Trump's vulnerability is with Congress, which has the power to impeach him, and try him in the Senate for high crimes or misdemeanors, if members of Congress see fit.

Lefcourt said, "I believe he [Comey] thinks" Trump should be impeached.

John Carlin, a former assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's national security division, said that "what we have here is testimony that the president of the United States had a private meeting with the director of the FBI ... [and] he pressured him to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn."

"That could rise to the level of an impeachable offense, and that will be up to the members of Congress to determine," Carlin said on CNBC's "Power Lunch."

Comey himself testified Thursday that "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning," when asked if he believes Trump's pressure on him qualified as obstruction of justice.

However, he added, "But that is a conclusion I am sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that was an offense."

Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, has been appointed special counsel in the probe of Russian influence in the presidential election.

Chris Swecker a former FBI assistant director who also appeared on "Power Lunch," noted "Mueller is looking into this issue, so, yes, it's going to lead to a potential obstruction of justice charge or an investigation."

Swecker said the obstruction of justice law is "a very difficult statue to work with" for prosecutors.

One major question is whether investigators would be able to prove that Trump intended to interfere with Comey's probe into Flynn, or whether he was just suggesting that Flynn deserved a break.

Watch: Entire Comey testimony
"It's not a close call. That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that."

Comey said that conclusion is "a high-confidence judgement of the entire intelligence community and the members of this committee have seen the intelligence."



"It's not a close call," he said. "That happened. That's about as unfake as you can possibly get. It is very, very serious, which is why it's so refreshing to see a bipartisan focus on that."

In the widely anticipated hearing, Comey recounted a series of conversations that he says made him deeply uneasy and concerned about the blurring of boundaries between the White House and a law enforcement agency that prides itself on independence.

In his testimony, Comey's first public statements since his May 9 dismissal, the former FBI director detailed demands for loyalty from the president, and requests to end an investigation into embattled adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned as head of the National Security Agency.

Comey told the panel the issue of Russian interference goes beyond party politics.

"We have this big messy wonderful country where we fight with each other all the time, but nobody tells us what to think, what to fight about, what to vote for except other Americans," he said.

"We're talking about a foreign government that using technical intrusion, lots of other methods tried to shape the way we think, we vote, we act. that is a big deal, and people need to recognize it. It's not about Republicans or Democrats. They're coming after America, which I hope we all love equally.

"They want to undermine our credibility in the face the world. They think that this great experiment of ours is a threat to them. So they're going to try to run it down and dirty it up as much as possible. That's what this is about, and they will be back."
Comey, a physically imposing former prosecutor who exudes moral rectitude and speaks with a persuasive eloquence, is slated to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday in what could be the most dramatic Congressional hearing since the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s  if not the Watergate affair of the 1970s.

The president is about to experience, yet again, the pitfalls of heeding their advice.

Two people familiar with the matter say it was Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , and chief of staff Reince Priebus who assured him the move would be hailed by Democrats still mad at how Comey handled the Hillary Clinton email probe.

He will stride into the hearing room one day after his prepared testimony was released at his own request, ensuring that his account of his interactions with Trump would dominate not just one news cycle, but two.

More from NBC News:

Comey to Testify He Assured Trump He Was Not Personally Under Investigation

My Dinner With Comey: Clapper, Others Dispute Trump Account of Meeting With FBI Director

Coats, Rogers Won't Discuss Talks With Trump About Russia Probe

In a dramatic and detailed written account, Comey said he told Trump that he personally was not under investigation, confirming an assertion by the president that many people had doubted.

But Comey also made a series of damaging allegations. Not only did Comey say that Trump pushed him to drop the probe into former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, but he also said Trump had called the FBI's whole Russia investigation a "cloud" on his presidency  and then pressured him to "lift the cloud." Comey stopped short, however, of accusing the president of obstruction of justice.

Comey's statement also refers to a previously reported one-on-one dinner he had with Trump in the White House, in which he says the president asked for his loyalty and that he replied he could only offer honesty.

According to Comey, the president said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

Comey wrote, "I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner."

Later, Comey said he explained "why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some presidents have decided that because 'problems' come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work."

Comey also confirmed an earlier news report that Trump pressured him into dropping the FBI investigation of Flynn, pressure Comey considered inappropriate.

"I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December," Comey wrote. "I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."

Comey said he and his aides at the FBI decided not to report the conversation to the Justice Department.

"After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed," he wrote.

However, Comey said he did report to the acting attorney general another conversation with the president, on March 30. In that conversation, Comey says Trump repeatedly asked him to get the word out that he was not being investigated. That came after Comey revealed to the public that the FBI was investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian election interference effort.

"He described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country," Comey wrote. "He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia."

Trump, Comey continued, "asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.' I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him."

Comey added that he "did not tell the president that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on president Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change."

Comey's last interaction with Trump came on the morning of April 11, when he says, "The president called me and asked what I had done about his request that I 'get out' that he is not personally under investigation.

"I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that 'the cloud' was getting in the way of his ability to do his job."

Comey has been "cleared for takeoff" by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to detail his interactions with the president, a former law enforcement official close to him says. One remaining question is whether he has any new information to share outside of his prepared testimony.

He said he had nine interactions with Trump, but his testimony describes only five.

Comey's testimony is not likely to sit well with lawmakers of either party, given that many Republicans, including Trump allies, expressed dismay over Comey's abrupt firing last month. Democrats were incensed.

What about the American public? It's one thing for people to read a story about a president allegedly violating the post-Watergate norms that the White House should not interfere in a criminal investigation. It's another to have a respected former public servant who has served Democrats and Republicans make the charge, in detail, on live television.

"I don't know if we're going to learn substantial new facts, but I think one thing we will certainly learn is how Jim Comey experienced this set of events as they unfolded," said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Comey friend. "If you're trying to understand how inappropriate the president's behavior was, this is one very important component."

The Republican response

Trump allies don't plan to let Comey's testimony go unrebutted. A source familiar with the planning told NBC News the Republican National Committee will lead a rapid response, and observers expect that Trump may tweet during the hearing. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and Trump backer, told NBC News he plans to ask Comey about actions he took related to Hillary Clinton's use of private email.

Comey also will no doubt be asked: If the president's requests to you were so unseemly, why did you not resign?

Some critics point to his May 3 testimony before the Senate, when he was asked if the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice could "halt that FBI investigation."

"In theory, yes," he replied, but said it hadn't happened "in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that  without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that 'we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it.' But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience."

Of course, Comey was not talking about the president. And even so, Wittes said he would be surprised if Comey accused Trump of having sought to obstruct justice. Not only would Comey be unlikely to willingly render such a legal conclusion, he said, it's not consistent with what Comey told him about how things unfolded from January 20th until his May firing.

Wittes and another Comey friend, who declined to be named, each said that Comey found many of his interactions with Trump to have been troubling and inappropriate, which is one reason he documented them in writing. Comey seemed to suggest as much in his prepared statement, noting that he did not feel the need to document his two one-on-one conversations with President Obama.

However, the sources close to Comey said, the FBI director concluded he could manage the situation and remain independent. Wittes said Comey felt after a time that he had "trained" the White House that certain requests of the FBI were out of bounds and that the president and his people should remain at arms-length from criminal investigations.

Obviously, Comey misjudged where things stood. He learned of his firing from a television news broadcast as he spoke at an FBI office in Los Angeles.

Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner had told the president Comey's sacking would be applauded by Democrats who reviled Comey for his treatment of Clinton prior to the election, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Instead, Democrats were apoplectic, accusing Trump of trying to impede the FBI's investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia. Even Republicans were upset.

"I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey's termination," Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, said in a statement.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, cautioned that it's possible that the Comey hearing could be a letdown.

Trump has behaved so grossly inappropriately on so many issues since he fired Comey, Turley said, that the public may in some sense be inured to more revelations.

What's more, he added, "obstruction of justice is made of something more than the grossly inappropriate. Making a prosecutable case for obstruction is difficult. This is still pretty thin soup for a criminal case."

The question, Wittes said, is whether Trump's interactions with Comey, plus firing him, plus allegedly boasting to the Russian foreign minister about doing so, adds up to a pattern of obstruction.

Add to that the president's requests to two senior intelligence officials that they state publicly that they have seen no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia  requests both NSA Director Mike Rogers and DNI Dan Coats are said to have found grossly inappropriate.

The bottom line, Wittes said, is that "for the fair-minded person who wants to understand the nature of the man we've elected to the presidency, hearing from Jim Comey about his interactions with Donald Trump is going to be a very important moment."
Comey: I took it as a direction when Trump told me to drop Flynn investigation 11:29 AM ET Thu, 8 June 2017 | 00:46

Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he believed President Donald Trump ordered him to drop the probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn when they spoke in February.

In his prepared testimony, Comey recalled that, at that Oval Office meeting, the president said: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

"I took it as a direction," Comey told the Senate hearing Thursday. "I mean, this is a president of the United States with me alone saying, 'I hope this.' I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it."

Responding to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who asked if he considered it a "order" to drop the investigation, Comey said yes.

Trump disputes that he asked Comey to let go of the probe into Flynn.

Comey did not drop the investigation into Flynn. Trump fired him on May 9.

Comey's testimony on Thursday, based largely on written records he made after one-on-one conversations with Trump from January to April, casts light on Trump's behavior with the former FBI director and the president's possible motives for firing Comey. Trump abruptly ousted Comey last month amid an FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.



Trump's outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz, said in a statement Wednesday that the president feels "completely and totally vindicated" and "is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda." And Kasowitz highlighted that Comey says he told Trump that the president was not personally under investigation.

Click here for the full testimony.
Former FBI Director James Comey is due to testify at a Senate hearing Thursday with this historical moment set to hurt the image of President Donald Trump, according to one political analyst.

Erik Jones, professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University, told CNBC that it is too early to assess the impact of Comey's testimony but it will certainly have an impact on how many Americans see their president.

"What we can guess for now is that it will damage the president's public image. It will also likely trigger another Twitter rant from Trump. There will be lots of questions about whether the Russia scandal will blow up into something like an obstruction of justice scandal as a consequence," Jones said via email.

Comey was fired at the start of May by Trump while he was leading an investigation into alleged interference by Russian authorities in the presidential election. Comey's detailed notes on his multiple conversations with Trump might raise questions on whether the exchanges could be seen as an obstruction of justice. However, many expect that would be a difficult charge to bring against Trump.
The "Mad Money" host picked these particular names because they were some of the best growth stocks of the time, and oddly, they remain some of the strongest performers today.

In fact, Cramer found that the CANDIES stocks  Chipotle , Apple , Netflix, Deckers , Intuitive Surgical , Express Scripts , and Salesforce.com  are up 281 percent on average since he formed the acronym in 2010, versus 121 percent for the index.

"Lately, I've gotten so sick of hearing about how FANG's finished, crushed, over, roadkill, all that other stuff ... that I decided to dust off the CANDIES in order to show how things really work with growth stocks. And you know what? I was pleasantly surprised to see that, seven years later, the CANDIES are still crushing it," Cramer said.

Before there was FANG, Jim Cramer's acronym for the stocks of Facebook , Amazon , Netflix , and Google, now Alphabet , the " Mad Money " host had another group of growth stocks to watch.

Chipotle shares have run up 209 percent since CANDIES' creation and is up nearly 22 percent for the year, a testament to the stock's strength despite its 2015 E.coli incidents.

Cramer chose the fast-casual chain because it was the most highly valued restaurant chain at the time, delivering the best same-store sales numbers of anyone in its class.

"There were never enough Chipotle's, and its highest quality problem? The lines were too long," he said. "It's been 15 months since the last outbreak and the stock's been doing, well, what we said it would be doing: rallying as people forget the past. But it's been a tough slog."

Apple's stock is up 312 percent since CANDIES formed, with a 34 percent rise in 2017 alone. And while some analysts knock the consumer tech giant's lack of innovation, Cramer is not so convinced.

"I am tired of reading about Apple's lack of innovation since Steve Jobs died. Jobs lived a little more than a year after the CANDIES were launched and the stock did go from $35 to $55 during that period, but that's a far cry from its total 312 percent gain, most accruing under the Tim Cook era," the "Mad Money" host said. "I think Apple's innovated well beyond what anyone else has done in the consumer space and the quality has only improved with each iteration [and] each product."

Netflix, the biggest winner and the only CANDIES stock that made it to FANG, ran up 938 percent since the first acronym's inception and has rallied 34 percent this year.

"I picked it seven years ago because my kids were cord-cutters from way back. They turned me on to the platform [as] something we could do together," Cramer said. "I wish I could say there was more thought was behind it, but there wasn't, just like with Apple."

Deckers was one of the more disappointing stocks, up only 35 percent since CANDIES' creation, though it has climbed 25 percent for 2017.

Cramer said Uggs brand parent has fallen out of relevance, even with Oprah Winfrey's endorsement, and that the stock is only up now on takeover rumors.

Intuitive Surgical has run 176 percent since CANDIES formed with a 47 percent run this year, and Cramer was surprised the stock did not run more given the strength of the business.

"Intuitive Surgical has parlayed its Da Vinci surgical machine into multiple markets and is beloved by hospitals as a selling point for patients who can choose where they want to go," he said.

Express Scripts, the most unfortunate of the bunch, is only up 17 percent since 2010 and is down 12 percent for the year. The pharmacy benefits manager, which Cramer called a "widely reviled" middleman, recently lost its biggest client, Anthem, and shares have since been weak.

Finally, there is Cramer-fave Salesforce, which has run 283 percent since 2010 and 33 percent for 2017.

The "Mad Money" host said Salesforce has consistently delivered under CEO Marc Benioff as the company seized on its pioneer cloud business and branched out to serve various sectors.

"Conclusions? First, this market, like all markets, has a fascination with growth, especially in the era of stifled economic activity. It never mattered how expensive that growth was  these were all super expensive  as long as the company in question didn't stop growing, as Deckers and Express Scripts did. Second, listen to your kids, but you've still got to do your homework," Cramer said.

Cramer said he got plenty of these ideas from his kids, from Chipotle to Apple to Netflix to Domino's , and that it is worth paying attention to the names that are staring you in the face.

"With the exception of Express Scripts, the CANDIES were all right in front of you, available to everyone," he said. "A buy and homework rap would've made you a killing. The moral? The CANDIES say don't be scared to buy the growth stocks you believe in, as long as you've got the temperament to stick with them long term."

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The global WannaCry ransomware attack was the talk of this years InfoSec trade show in London, U.K., 6-8 June, where 13,500 experts gathered. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The WannaCry ransomware cyber-attack that hit 300,000 victims in 150 countries recently was the talk of this week's huge information security (InfoSec) trade show in London, where 13,500 experts and 360 exhibitors gathered on June 6-8 to debate the latest threats and countermeasures in the on-going battle between cyber attackers and defenders. WannaCry is a particular type of malicious software (malware) that locks files on a computer and demands payment to unlock them, hence its ransomware sub-set name. The Europol European police agency described the recent attack as "unprecedented" and retired U.S. Admiral and ex-NATO commander, James Stavridis, told CNBC it was a "pandemic" and very "worrisome." Delegates at this week's InfoSec trade show in London talked to CNBC about what companies can do the protect themselves in future and the lessons that can be learnt from the WannaCry attack. How to protect a financial institution (FI), "where the money lives" and to institute an effective cybersecurity policy at a new financial technology (fintech) disruptor such as Bristol-based robo-advisor Hargreaves Lansdown are also discussed in these expert interviews. Adrian Asher, chief information security officer (CISO), London Stock Exchange (LSE) Group: "The best way to fight WannaCry, or indeed any ransomware, is to do the basic protection methods well. Have a good upfront anti-virus system, then patching and back-up procedures in place. Beyond that you also need to think about the 'three lines of defense' model that has traditionally been used to mitigate risk." "The Bank of England endorsed this 'three defensive lines' model last year in its Senior Managers Regime (SMR) update," continues Asher. "This requires risk responsibilities, including cyber risk, to be assigned to specific individuals within a clearly defined risk management structure." The 'three lines' are: A primary function that owns and manages everyday risk. According to Asher this "would be the IT development team and information security (infosec) team at an FI working together" to ensure secure coding, good practice and that the basics are being followed.

A secondary specialist supervisory risk management and/or compliance function that will check policy, oversee good practice and so on.

Finally, a tertiary function needs to deliver internal and external auditing of procedures and provide independent oversight. "It's important to have a multilayered, deep defensive posture and not to rely on a single perimeter approach," adds Asher. "This is the best way to protect your company."

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In regard to the specific cybersecurity demands on a chief information security officer (CISO) at a large FI or financial market infrastructure (FMI) as the London Stock Exchange (LSE) Group is, Asher says that "unique regulatory and custodial duties rightly apply when you are looking after people's money". This can mean, however, that you are a natural target for criminals or nation state actors that want to disrupt a rival country because it is "where the money lives". "It is good in some ways, however, because it means you always have the full support of the boardroom and cybersecurity is at the top of the agenda for FI directors and mentioned at every board meeting. This makes the job easier," says Asher, who was previously the CISO at Skype and other organizations where cybersecurity is of course mentioned but perhaps not supported as fully. Jonathan Kidd, CISO, Hargreaves Lansdown: "I agree that good patching and back-up procedures that you regularly test are important in the fight against WannaCry or any other malware," says fellow FI CISO Kidd of Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown, a fintech wealth manager that follows the robo-advisor model where machines suggest investments and manage accounts, rather than humans. "Good data hygiene is also important and everyday practices like, for instance, ensuring all ports and nodes are closed so that there isn't a 'back door' easy way for ransomware to get into your systems. If you need to rely on your back-up facilities then you've gone wrong already."

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"I should stress WannaCry didn't impact Hargreaves Lansdown and we were never at risk. A couple of days after the attack I had hundreds of our corporate clients checking to see if we'd been hit as part of their response procedure to check for any vulnerabilities in their financial supply chain. This is also good practice. I've been doing the same thing myself in the wake of the attack. Combine good practice like this, with doing the basics well and good threat intelligence, and your business should be safe." Fintech cybersecurity In regard to the role of an FI CISO, and if there are any differences between a fintech firm that wants to displace an incumbent financial services (FS) operator and established players, Kidd does admit there is a different threat landscape if you handle money. "You're naturally a target," he says and this necessitates "stronger than usual IT, cyber and risk procedures to fight back about fraud or data attacks", which are frequent against any FI. "Integrated systems that can share intelligence without being restricted by legacy IT that is siloed to particular departments, imprints or subject to any other restrictions is also important," says Kidd, in reference to how older large banks, wealth managers and other FIs that own several different brands under one umbrella often struggle to integrate alert systems across aging IT estates. "This legacy problem isn't something fintechs suffer from," he says. "As a new start-up company that want to use technology to offer a better service at a cheaper operational running cost we get to choose a new technology stack that is agile, so it can scale up or down to meet demand and new additions can be more easily added in the future." "We can also train our new employees in what good practice looks like from the get go. Retraining staff and encouraging good user behavior is always more difficult if you have to do it retrospectively."

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Hargreaves Lansdown plans to open a new technology hub in Warsaw, Poland, this summer with 50 people who will work on IT development projects in conjunction with colleagues at the Bristol, U.K. headquarters. "I need to educate them in our agile development techniques where continuous innovation is demanded, alongside a requirement to practice safe coding, follow best practice and always think about cybersecurity in any new development, without slowing down its delivery," says Kidd. He does admit that there is nothing to prevent good cybersecurity at an incumbent FI. Indeed most retail or investment banks, insurers or wealth managers have good cybersecurity because they are handling money. "A good security culture and boardroom backing are the key ingredients in protecting any firm, whatever its functions," he concludes. Frank Downs, senior manager, cyber & information security, ISACA, an international trade body: "I think you can learn lessons out of the reaction to WannaCry. There was a 'holier than thou' attitude from some companies that weren't caught out," says ISACA's Frank Downs. "Blame was almost placed on those affected because they simply didn't have good enough patching, data hygiene or back-up functions but that is wrong. People should be aware it may just have been a case of 'there but for the grace of god go I' and WannaCry could have hit them too." "Some firms, especially if they have older systems, might have had to run a patch overnight when it first hit because they couldn't have downtime during the operational working day. Or perhaps they were caught out due to old legacy IT systems? This isn't a failure of the information security (infosec) professional charged with protecting the company or of procedures. It's an old IT problem." Responsibility sits with the Board. Professor Angela Sasse, Director of U.K. Research Institute for the Science of Cyber Security: The ISACA viewpoint that old technology can be the problem is something that Professor Sasse agrees with. As she said during a keynote session looking at user behavior at the InfoSec 2017 trade show conference stream in London on 6 June: "Half of all security problems are due to crap IT! Invest in new systems." Speaking exclusively to CNBC afterwards, as the other interviewees did, Sasse added that her "key take-away from WannaCry was never to pay the ransom and always to back-up because at least then you can recover data, even if you do have to suffer disruption. No files are lost and it means you don't have to pay." In addition to her role as Director of the U.K. Research Institute for the Science of Cyber Security (RISCS), which is funded by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) that is part of GCHQ, the U.K. equivalent of America's NSA, Sasse is a Fellow of the U.K. Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). She is also Professor of Human-Centred Technology in the Department of Computer Science at University College London (UCL). The latter day job is focused on examining user behavior and its crucial role in ensuring cyber security.

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China's second largest e-commerce giant is developing a drone that can deliver packages weighing as much as one metric ton throughout rural areas of the country, according to JD.com 's Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

"So today, as you have seen in China, e-commerce is huge but in remote villages most people are not benefitting from e-commerce so to solve that problem we will develop our drone program," Chen Zhang told CNBC at the Consumer Electronics Show in Asia on Thursday.

Chen explained JD.com has seven different types of delivery drones in testing or operation across four provinces in China.

The company has drones that can fly up to 100km per hour, delivering packages weighing from 5kg to 30kg, and is testing drones which can carry as much as 1,000kg - or one metric ton. The maximum distance they can travel is approximately 100km before recharging.

While JD.com's drones are now able to carry heavier weights and travel further at a faster pace, Chen bemoaned the industry's persistent struggles with battery power. He explained, "The battery cost today is still very high it is a major issue we need to address."
Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:

Alibaba  Alibaba said it expected fiscal 2018 revenue to grow 45 to 49 percent. The China-based online retailer revealed that projection in an Investor Day presentation.

J.M. Smucker  The food producer earned an adjusted $1.80 per share for its latest quarter, eight cents a share above estimates. Revenue beat forecasts and the company announced an acceleration of its cost-reduction program, which is projected to save $450 million annually by fiscal 2020.

Vail Resorts  The resort operator reported quarterly profit of $4.40 per share, missing estimates of $4.82 a share; that number does include some one-time charges. Revenue also fell short of Street forecasts, although the company said it was pleased with its overall results. It did note that its lodging segment was impacted somewhat by variable late season conditions in Colorado.

Pandora  SiriusXM is considering an investment in streaming music service Pandora, according to Reuters, after prior talks about a possible takeover ended unsuccessfully.

Tyson Foods , Sanderson Farms  Mizuho Securities began coverage on both poultry producers with "buy" ratings. The firm said Tyson is in the process of an underappreciated reinvention, while noting five straight years of strong profitability and the potential for expanding margins at Sanderson.

Urban Outfitters  In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the apparel retailer said its current-quarter comparable sales are down in the high single digits, which is a bigger drop than analysts have been anticipating.

Energizer Holdings  The battery maker's chief financial officer, Brian Hamm, is leaving to pursue other opportunities. The company's chief accounting officer, Timothy Gorman, has been appointed interim CFO.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals  The drugmaker announced the sale of its iNova Pharmaceuticals unit to funds managed by Carlyle Group and Pacific Equity Partners for $930 million. Valeant will use the proceeds pay down debt.

Verizon  Yahoo shareholders are expected today to approve the deal to sell the company's core internet assets to Verizon. Recode is reporting that when those assets are combined with Verizon's AOL division, up to 1,000 layoffs may take place.

Amazon.com  Amazon has stepped up its lending program aimed at third-party sellers on the Amazon website. A company executive said more than $1 billion in loans has been made to sellers in the past 12 months, compared to more than $1.5 billion over a four year period from 2011 through 2015.

Honda Motor  Honda has laid out its autonomous driving plans for the first time, saying it plans to develop self-driving cars which can drive on city streets by 2025.

Verint Systems  Verint reported adjusted first quarter profit of 49 cents per share, beating estimates by 11 cents a share. Revenue was also above Street forecasts. The enterprise software maker saw particularly strong growth in its Cyber Intelligence unit.

Sciclone Pharmaceuticals  The drugmaker agreed to be acquired by a private-equity consortium led by GL Capital for $11.18 per share in cash or $605 million. That represents a 10.7 percent premium over yesterday's closing price of $10.10.

Nvidia  UBS increased its price target on the graphics chipmaker's stock to $168 from $148, citing increased confidence in Nvidia's ability to profit from its participation in the autonomous driving market.

Sherwin-Williams  The paint maker was added to the "Conviction Buy" list at Goldman Sachs, which said the company will be supported by a strong housing market, price increases, and benefits from the acquisition of coatings maker Valspar.
Ferray , an IT firm in Tokyo, has a unique cure for work stress: Since 2000, the company has been host to a revolving roster of office cats. Currently, nine felines call the office home during the day.

The policy was introduced by request from a staffer, but Hidenobu Fukuda, the head of the company, is fully on board.

"I also give 5,000 a month to those who rescue a cat," he told Agence France-Presse.

The Japan Times notes that Ferray isn't the only Japanese company to endorse office pets:
GOP senators hit James Comey on Thursday about a key part of his interactions with President Donald Trump: they asked why he did not take more action after what Comey understood as an order from the president to drop a probe into Michael Flynn.

In his prepared testimony, Comey recalled that, at a February Oval Office meeting, the president said of the former national security advisor: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Comey said he "took it as a direction."

Asked by Sen. Marco Rubio at Thursday's Senate Intelligence Committee hearing whether he interpreted the president's statements as an order to drop the investigation, Comey replied that yes, he did.

Senators jumped on that, pressing Comey about why he did not take more action after the request, which the former FBI director characterized as disturbing him.

"Why didn't you stop and say, 'Mr. President, this is wrong?'" Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Comey.

He replied that he was "stunned" by the request and should have done more in hindsight.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri also questioned why Comey "continued to show up to work" after Trump's statement.

The former FBI chief said "at some point" he would have briefed the team in charge of the case.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige has signed legislation supporting the Paris Agreement, making his state the first to enact measures to implement parts of the international accord to combat climate change.

On June 1, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement and start talks to re-enter or renegotiate a new accord. "This agreement is less about the climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States," he said at the time.



The bills signed Tuesday in Hawaii were SB 559 (Act 032) and HB 1578 (Act 033). The governor's office said that SB 559 expanded "strategies and mechanisms" to cut greenhouse gas emissions across the state "in alignment with the principles and goals adopted" in the Paris Agreement. HB 1578 establishes a Carbon Farming Task Force.

"Hawaii is committed to environmental stewardship, and we look forward to working with other states to fight global climate change," Ige said in a statement. "Together, we can directly contribute to the global agenda of achieving a more resilient and sustainable island Earth."

The state Senate majority leader who introduced SB 559 welcomed its signing. "The measure adopted relevant sections of the Paris Agreement as state law, which gives us legal basis to continue adaptation and mitigation strategies for Hawaii, despite the Federal government's withdrawal from the treaty," Sen. J. Kalani English said.



Hawaii recently joined the U.S. Climate Alliance, a group committed to upholding the Paris Agreement, which was signed by nearly 200 nations after years of talks. Other state members include Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, New York, Washington and California.
Huawei is considering bringing its own voice assistant to its home Wi-Fi routers as a way to compete with the likes of the Amazon Echo speaker in the smart home space, a top executive from the company told CNBC on Wednesday.



The Chinese technology giant has been working on its own voice assistant in China, Bloomberg reported in February, and it appears that Wan Biao, the chief operating officer for Huawei's consumer business division, confirmed its existence and plans to integrate it into its products.



When asked if Huawei would bring out a smart speaker such as the Amazon Echo, Wan said that the company already has a Wi-Fi router which it could boost with new artificial intelligence capabilities.



"Actually Huawei has already been exploiting in this field, for example, Huawei's Wi-Fi routers are very good products for homes. And we are considering to enrich the functions of these router products, to include such as voice searching and data storing functions," Wan told CNBC in a TV interview at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Asia.



It appears that this would be a product for the Chinese market. Wan said that with its smartphones that run Google's Android operating system abroad, it would continue to work together.



"We will focus on cooperating with Google," Wan said.



In Western markets, Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, Apple 's Siri, and Microsoft 's Cortana are the dominant voice assistants. Amazon has continued to push Alexa across numerous products, while Google has rolled out Assistant across Android devices and its own Google Home device. Even Apple came out with its own smart speaker called HomePod this week.



But these voice assistants mainly work with English. Amazon's Alexa does understand German too. English language voice search is a competitive market. But by focusing on China, Huawei could tap a market that the big U.S. technology giants can't get to as their assistants can't understand Chinese.



Of course, there is competition in the voice market in China from the likes of Mobvoi, which is backed by Google, and Baidu.



Still, rolling out the assistant across its devices could help the company build an ecosystem in the consumer device market. It recently launched a new laptop called the MateBook X, marking its first foray into personal computing. It is also now the third-largest smartphone maker in the world by market share, after entering the mobile market not too long ago.
Iran's foreign minister on Thursday rejected Donald Trump's condolences for deadly attacks in Tehran, calling the U.S. president's words repugnant.



Trump had said he prayed for the victims of Wednesday's attacks that were claimed by Islamic State, but added that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."



Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his Twitter account: "Repugnant White House statement... Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship."



Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, killing at least 13 people in an unprecedented assault that Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed on regional rival Saudi Arabia.



Islamic State claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran's majority Shi'ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics. Saudi Arabia said it was not involved.
More than a fourth of the worlds population shops in markets cleansed of animal-tested products and ingredients. Photo by iStockphoto

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We are in the midst of a global revolution to end the use of animals in cosmetics testing. In recent months, key countries have either banned this unnecessary and inhumane practice, or put in motion plans to do the same. More than a fourth of the worlds population already shops in markets cleansed of animal-tested products and ingredients.

The United States is, however, lagging. But that could be about to change, with the introduction of legislation in Congress this week to end animal testing of cosmetic products and ingredients in the United States, and to prohibit the import of cosmetics that have been tested on animals anywhere else in the world. Representatives Martha McSally, R-Ariz., Don Beyer, D-Va., Ed Royce, R-Calif., Tony Cardenas, D-Calif, Frank LoBiondo, D-N.J., and Paul Tonko, D-N.Y. introduced the Humane Cosmetics Act to achieve that purpose. Senator Cory Booker, D-N.J. and other senators are looking to introduce a similar bill in their chamber soon.

The cruelty animals are subjected to during cosmetics testing is unacceptablefrom lethal dose tests to irritation and force-feeding tests. Not only are these tests inhumane, but modern technology makes them unnecessary and overly expensive, Rep. McSally said in a press release. Rep. Beyer chimed in with a complementary message: American companies face no economic risk from this legislation, which would also show moral leadership.

Consumers today are demanding that corporations join the cruelty-free movement, and that demand has already led to more than 600 cosmetic companies in North America committing to develop safe, cruelty-free cosmetics by choosing from the thousands of safe ingredients already available, or by using advanced scientific alternative test methods and new technologies that provide results, are relevant to the human experience, and are cheaper and faster than animal tests. These methods are often more reliable predictors of safety than animal testing can ever be. The global in-vitro toxicology testing market is expected to reach $76 billion by 2023, and new and improved non-animal methods will continue to be developed, leading to safer cosmetics without harming animals.

Multinational cosmetic companies must already comply with laws in more than 30 countries that have banned the sale of cosmetics newly tested on animals. Over the course of just one year, Humane Society Internationals #BeCrueltyFree team has welcomed a ban on cosmetics animal testing in Guatemala and Taiwan and a prohibition on the sale of cosmetics tested on animals in Switzerland. Others with bans or limits on animal testing include India, Israel, Norway, the 28 states of the European Union, New Zealand, South Korea, Turkey, and five states in Brazil. And just last week, the Australian government introduced a bill that moves the country one step closer to ending the trade in cruel cosmetics. Similar legislation is under discussion in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere.

The Humane Cosmetics Act has been endorsed by more than 190 members and stakeholders of the personal care products industry, including Coty, Dr. Bronners, H&M, LUSH, Moroccanoil, Overstock.com, Paul Mitchell, Seventh Generation, and The Body Shop. The real question is that if all of the U.S.-based multinational companies are complying with bans in more than 30 countries, why are they not publicly supporting the Humane Cosmetics Act? It is time for them to come on board, and for Congress to pass legislation making the United States the next cruelty-free marketplace. You can help by contacting your federal lawmakers and asking them to cosponsor the Humane Cosmetics Act.
Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that he shared his record of an explosive conversation with President Donald Trump, thinking it may "prompt the appointment of a special counsel" to the FBI's Russia investigation.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he came away from the February meeting with the impression that Trump was ordering him to drop the ongoing investigation into ex-national security advisor Michael Flynn and his links to Moscow.

After Trump warned on Twitter that he may have "tapes" of that conversation, Comey passed along the memo to a friend at Columbia Law School. The content of the talk was subsequently reported in The New York Times.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday:

"The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I better hope there's not tapes. I woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night 'cause it didn't dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. And my judgment was I needed to get that out into the public square. So I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter. I didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel."

The Justice Department later appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and the extent of ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

Comey described the person he shared with as "a good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School."

Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor and professor at the school, confirmed to CNBC that he was the friend Comey described. Richman is listed on Columbia Law School's website as an adviser to Comey.

Trump's outside counsel Marc Kasowitz claimed later Thursday that it was an "unauthorized disclosure of privileged information" that "appears to be entirely retaliatory."

In Senate testimony, Comey said he wrote records of his conversations with Trump "immediately" after they took place  something he did not do with Trump's predecessor President Barack Obama  because he was concerned Trump might "lie."

Comey also said he took steps to ensure he wrote the memos in a way that it would not be necessary to label them as classified.

That shows the former FBI chief thought seriously about the consequences when he met with Trump, according to Jeffrey Cramer, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

"Comey was thinking three steps ahead of the president by writing the memo and ensuring it couldn't be labeled classified," he said.
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Britain's left-wing Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was dismissed by many as a political no-hoper but with the General Election on course for political deadlock he could conceivably become the U.K.'s next prime minister. While Theresa May, Britain's current premier and leader of the right-wing Conservative party, had been widely expected to win an overall majority, the official results show she has fallen short. The U.K. could be on the brink of a coalition government for just the fifth time in its political history, with Labour's Corbyn a possible but unlikely candidate for prime minister if the Conservatives fail to agree a deal with another party.



CNBC identifies some of his key pledges.

1. What are his views on Trump?

If elected U.K. prime minister, Corbyn has vowed to call U.S. President Donald Trump and urge him not to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Corbyn described Trump's decision to back out of the climate pact as both "reckless and dangerous." He also moved to criticize Prime Minister Theresa May of a "dereliction of duty" after she failed to sign a joint statement alongside other EU leaders condemning the U.S. administration. May expressed her regret with the decision and told Trump in a direct telephone conversation shortly after the announcement that she was "disappointed".

2. What are his views on Brexit?

Justin Tallis | AFP | Getty Images

Corbyn has said one of his very first acts as Britain's prime minister would be to call German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron and reset the tone of Brexit negotiations as well as working to guarantee the rights of EU citizens based in the U.K. May and Corbyn were both on the same side during the EU referendum in 2016  against Britain leaving the bloc  although they did not campaign together at any stage. Corbyn's critics have accused the Labour leader of conducting an insipid campaign for Britain to remain in the EU, especially given his euro-skeptic comments in the past. Corbyn has consistently said he wanted Britain to remain as an EU member. In short, Labour campaigned against Brexit but now says the EU referendum result must be respected and, while workers' rights is a top priority during formal talks with the bloc, a "close new relationship with the EU" should be targeted.

Where does Corbyn stand on security?

May and Corbyn frequently clashed over security in the wake of the London Bridge terror attacks at the latter stage of the election campaign. The Conservative leader accused Corbyn of opposing shoot-to-kill powers and claimed the Labour leader had "boasted" of consistently choosing not to support counter-terrorism legislation as a backbench member or parliament in previous years. In response, Corbyn urged May to resign given the number of police and firefighters who had lost their jobs in her time as prime minister and Home secretary. He also promised to reverse the cutting of around 20,000 police officers since 2010. One of the most sensitive British security issues is Trident  the U.K.'s Vanguard fleet of four submarines carrying nuclear missiles. Corbyn has been a long-standing opponent to nuclear weapons, however, in his party's manifesto; Labour has pledged to renew its support for Trident.

What are Corbyn's tax plans?

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks as he attends a rally in Whitchurch in the Cardiff North constituency on April 21, 2017 in Cardiff, Wales. Getty Images

If Corbyn were to enter Downing Street, he has said the U.K. income tax rate would increase to 45 percent for earnings above 80,000 ($103,544) and then to 50 pence in each pound for people with an income of more than 123,000. Labour has said the amounts raised from extra tax revenues would help the left-wing party fulfill the pledges made in its manifesto. While, Corbyn has stressed that such tax plans would only impact the top 5 percent of earners, the Conservatives said working families would be forced to "pay the price" for a collection of unfunded spending commitments from Labour.

And what else does he want to achieve?

The Labour leader pledged in the party's manifesto that he would abolish student tuition fees, end zero-hour contracts and bring the railways back into public ownership as franchises expire. Corbyn's foreword in the manifesto says, "Let's build a fairer Britain where no one is held back. A country where everybody is able to get on in life, to have security at work and at home, to be decently paid for the work they do, and to live their lives with the dignity they deserve." Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. Watch: Pound gets slammed on UK exit poll results
The Achill farm in Australia's New South Wales might not be where you'd expect to find a luxury brand, but this 2,500-hectare property is exactly where Ermenegildo Zegna wanted to be.

In 2014, the luxury fashion house bought a 60-percent stake in this family-run farm. For the company's chairman, third-generation member Paolo, it was a good opportunity to work closely with wool growers to develop the right fibers for its products.

Convincing farmer Charlie Coventry and his family to sell them a stake was a challenge, but in the end, both sides did find common ground in being family businesses.

"We certainly have a sense of family, commitment, seriousness, of how well you can do your job  whatever your job is. I think there are a lot of commonalities between us," Paolo said.

For Ermenegildo Zegna, the purchase completes the cycle of full vertical integration, widely referred to internally as a business that goes from sheep to shop. In today's digital age, however, that endpoint is also very much on the screen, and so it's important to connect to a new generation of digital-savvy customers.

"Digital makes a genuine company brand like I us even more real. It just speed up the process and I think I see this as an opportunity," said Paolo's cousin Gildo, who is the company's CEO.
"Obstruction of justice is an intent crime. If his intent was to impede, interfere or stop that investigation, that's obstruction," Ackerman said.

He recalled that the president said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

"The Comey testimony today makes that crystal clear," Ackerman said in an interview with " Closing Bell ."

There's "no question" President Donald Trump was involved in an obstruction of justice in his dealings with former FBI Director James Comey, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman told CNBC on Thursday.

What's more, he thinks there was a motive. He said he doesn't believe "for a minute" that Flynn had dealings with Russia on his own, without Trump knowing about it.

"The bottom line is the president is worried that Mike Flynn is going to turn into the next James McCord, the Watergate burglar who wound up getting a heavy sentence and then fingering the people in the White House," Ackerman said.

He believes it all adds up to "one big obstruction of justice."

Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment but released a statement earlier Thursday afternoon after Comey's testimony.

Kasowitz said Comey was lying and that Trump never "directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone."

Robert Ray, former independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation, believes the notion that Trump's actions amount to criminal obstruction of justice is "far-fetched."

"Whatever the president's hopes and intimations were, he didn't issue a directive or an order to the FBI director to end any investigation," Ray told "Closing Bell."

And even if it were true that the president actually ordered the FBI director to halt an investigation, it still isn't obstruction of justice, he added.

"The president is entitled to do that. You may not like it. The Congress might decide that is grounds for an impeachable offense, but it is not criminal obstruction of justice," said Ray.

To Ackerman he said, "Good luck trying to prove that corrupt intent."

CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
U.S. crude oil prices recovered to trade roughly flat on Thursday, after falling to levels that put the commodity on track for its lowest close in more than six months.

The West Texas Intermediate crude contract for July delivery dropped about 1 percent to a session low of $45.20 a barrel, below its close of $45.23 on Nov. 29, the day before OPEC agreed to cut output to support the market.

The price moved more firmly above this key line of support, recovering some of its losses to trade back above $46 a barrel in mid-morning trade. WTI was at $45.88 as of 12:53 p.m. EDT.

Prices could dip further and test $44 a barrel, but downside risk from current levels is limited, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at tanker-tracking firm ClipperData.

"I think we get too much buying interest coming in because there's demand coming through," he told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Thursday.

Some analysts had been watching the $43.76 level, where WTI traded on an intraday basis on May 5 during a minor flash crash.

Falling below that level could cause prices to drop to the November low of $42.20, John Kilduff, founding partner at energy hedge Again Capital, had warned on Wednesday.

Despite the rebound in oil prices, Kilduff said prices need to rise significantly higher to post a close that would signal oil bulls are in control of the market.

"Bulls need $46 to have a pulse, and $47.10 or higher to get back in the game," he said on Thursday.

Thursday's drop extended losses after a 5.1 percent plunge in the previous session, sparked by a bearish report on U.S. stockpiles of crude and gasoline stockpiles from the Energy Information Administration.

Oil stockpiles in the United States surged by 3.3 million barrels in the week ended June 2, the EIA said Wednesday, confounding analysts' estimates for a 3.5 million-barrel decline.

The report also showed a decline in gasoline demand, despite the onset of the summer driving season following the Memorial Day holiday.

Crude futures came under additional pressure on Thursday from signs of rising output in Libya and Nigeria, two OPEC members exempt from production cuts.
P.F. Chang's wants to change the way you eat Asian food, starting with your glass of wine.

The restaurant chain partnered with Washington state winemaker Browne Family Vineyards to create two wines to complement its menu of Asian-inspired cuisine.

The red wine, a blend of merlot, cabernet and syrah, was created to suit sweet, spicy or umami dishes, said Mary Melton, P.F. Chang's beverage director. It took the company more than a dozen tries to create the blend of flavors, she told CNBC.

The red wine needed to be low in tannins and alcohol so that it would complement the fatty flavors of the restaurant's Mongolian beef and northern style ribs and still be bold enough in its own right, she said.

For the white wine, the first blending attempt was successful, Melton said. It's a blend of riesling, sauvignon blanc, pinot gris , chenin blanc and roussanne . Melton said that the white wine pairs well with spicy food by balancing out the heat with sweetness. It also suits sushi and sweet dishes.

The red wine costs $12 per glass, while the white is $9 per glass.

Melton said it's a myth that Asian food doesn't pair well with wine. She said the restaurant decided to create these two blends so that servers would be able to easily point diners toward selections that would complement their meals. The restaurant chain already serves a wide variety of alcoholic beverages, including wine.

As the restaurant industry continues to feel the pressure of slowing traffic and rising labor costs, the new wines could help P.F. Chang's differentiate itself from competitors.

"Asian is one of the fastest growing categories," Chang's chief marketing director Dwayne Chambers told CNBC.

He said sales continue to increase for the chain.

"Wine lists can be a really good look at what the restaurant is doing, because the people who are pairing the wine are trying to show the food in the best possible light," Andrew McNamara, a master sommelier, told CNBC. "The experience is not just about the food, but about the wines that go with it."

While P.F. Chang's wine pairing focuses on flavor, McNamara said there are many ways to serve wine with food. He said chefs can pair the wine with the whole dish, one element of the dish, choose to contrast the dish instead of complement it and even use a temperature difference between the dish and the wine to enhance flavor.

He also said wine pairings aren't just for fancy restaurants. More full-service and casual dining restaurants are adding these wine suggestions to their menus. McNamara pointed to TGI Fridays as one such place.

"It seems in the last five to 10 years, as more and more people in the U.S. embrace wine, it has definitely become a revenue point for restaurants," he said.
Two Qatari LNG shipments, believed to be U.K.-bound, abruptly changed direction in the Gulf of Aden Thursday, raising speculation that the row between Qatar and its Mideast neighbors will spill more broadly into the global gas market.

U.K. natural gas futures spiked nearly 4 percent as the reports began to circulate. Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, and so far the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt has had little impact in energy markets. The two Qatar shipments were believed to have been headed for Britain's South Hook terminal, partly owned by Qatar Petroleum.

According to Kpler , the tanker Al Mafyar, carrying 262,000 cubic meters of LNG, was no longer heading toward the Suez Canal, and its destination was unknown. Kpler , a shipping intelligence firm, said the second tanker, Zarga , with the same capacity, made a U-turn and headed back in the same direction from where it came.

The report was surprising and raised questions about whether Qatar vessels were able to move through the Egyptian-controlled Suez Canal. About 7 percent of seaborne oil and 13 percent of the world's LNG is transited through the Suez, according to RBC's Helima Croft.

Croft said analysts believe that the Egyptian-controlled Suez is operating normally. If that were to change, "That would be a massive escalation. There's a huge amount of cargo that goes through Suez. If they started blocking shipments from one country, it would go to the sanctity of this as a reliable transit point," said Croft, global head of commodities strategy.

U.S. natural gas futures also were higher Thursday, despite a larger-than-expected increase in supply last week. Natural gas futures were up 0.2 percent at $3.02 per million British thermal units.

"Our market seems to be getting some support from this situation, even though we're obviously not a big exporter of LNG," said John Kilduff of Again Capital. "It does seem to be a rally in sympathy of what's going on in that market and in Europe.
Former FBI Director James Comey delivered his opening statement Thursday as he testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee, addressing his interactions with President Donald Trump.

What follows is a transcription of his statement:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ranking member Warner, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to testify today. I have submitted my statement for the record. I thought I'd just offer some brief introductory remarks. When I was appointed FBI director in 2013, I understood that I served at the pleasure of the president. Even though I was appointed to a 10-year term, which Congress created in order to underscore the importance of the FBI being outside of politics, an independent, I understood I could be fired by a president for any reason or for no reason at all. And on May the 9th, when I learned that I had been fired, for that reason I immediately came home as a private citizen. But then the explanations, the shifting explanations, confused me and increasingly concerned me.

They confused me because the president that I had had multiple conversations about my job both before and after he took office, and he had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay, and I said I did intend to stay and serve out the remaining six years of my term. He told me repeatedly that he had talked to lots of people about me, including our current attorney general, and had learned that I was doing a great job and that I was extremely well-liked by the FBI workforce. So it confused me when I saw on television the president saying that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation, and learned, again from the media, that he was telling privately other parties that my firing had relieved great pressure on the Russia investigation. I was also confused by the initial one offered because of the decisions had made during the election year that didn't make sense to me for a whole bunch of reasons, including the time and all the water that had gone under the bridge since the hard decisions that had to be made. That didn't make sense to me.

Although the law required no reason at all to fire the FBI director the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple. And I am so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them. And I'm so sorry that the American people were told them. I worked every day at the FBI to help make that great organization better. And I say help because I did nothing alone at the FBI. There are no indispensable people at the FBI. The organization's great strength is that its values and abilities run deep and wide. The FBI will be fine without me. The FBI's mission will be relentlessly pursued by its people and that mission is to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

I deeply miss being part of that mission, but this organization and its mission will go on long beyond me and long beyond any particular administration. I have a message before I close for the  for my former colleagues of the FBI. But first I want the American people to know this truth. The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong. And the FBI is and always will be independent. And now to my former colleagues, if I may. I'm so sorry that I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to you properly. It was the honor of my life to serve beside you, to be part of the FBI family, and I will miss it for the rest of my life. Thank you for standing watch, thank you for doing so much good for this country. Do that good as long as ever you can. Senators, I look forward to your questions.

Correction: This story was revised to correct the name of the committee where Comey testified. It's the Senate Intelligence Committee.
This June 2017 photo released by the Lincoln County (Ga.) Sheriff's Office, shows Reality Winner. Winner, is being held for federal authorities at the Lincoln County, Ga., jail.

The intelligence industry contractor who is accused of giving journalists a highly classified report about Russian interference in the U.S. election will plead not guilty, her lawyer told NBC News on Wednesday.

Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a government contractor who worked with the National Security Agency, has been charged with providing the "top secret" document to online news outlet The Intercept.

"My client is innocent until proven guilty, and we plan to enter a plea of not guilty," attorney Titus Nichols told NBC News Wednesday afternoon.

More from NBC News:

Iran's Zarif says Trump comments on deadly attacks are 'repugnant'

UK Election: Polls open after campaign dominated by Brexit, terror attacks

Comey testimony: Trump faces cost of listening to bad advice

Winner remains in a county jail in Lincoln County, Georgia, while she awaits a detention hearing on Thursday, officials said. The jail released Winner's booking photo to NBC affiliate WRDW and NBC News earlier Wednesday.

Winner was booked Saturday at around 8 p.m., according to her arrest report, but the Justice Department didn't announce that she had been taken into custody until Monday  barely an hour after The Intercept published its report.

Winner's mother told NBC News on Tuesday that Winner "would not jeopardize anybody's safety" and was "terrified" when she returned to her home in Augusta on Saturday to find federal agents waiting for her.

"Her words to me was that she was scared she was going to be ... they were going to make her disappear," Billie Winner-Davis said Tuesday.

Winner-Davis said that despite the allegations she remains "a proud mom ... I have every reason to be proud of that girl."

"I can't ever call her a traitor or even believe that," she added. "No, that is not Reality. That's not her."

The Intercept's report described new details about Russian efforts to hack voting systems in the United States a week prior to the 2016 presidential election.

While the document doesn't say the hacking changed any votes, the publication said it "raises the possibility that Russian hacking may have breached at least some elements of the voting system, with disconcertingly uncertain results."

The criminal complaint against Winner did not link the charges with the story, but a senior federal official confirmed to NBC News that Winner is the accused leaker of the document published by The Intercept. The NSA has a large facility in Georgia.

The Department of Justice has said Winner admitted to the accusations against her, but Nichols told the Associated Press, "If there is a confession, the government has not shown it to me."

Also on Tuesday, NSA leaker Edward Snowden said the law allowing Winner to be jailed was a threat to a free press.

Snowden said the Espionage Act left no room to consider the public benefit of the information leaked as opposed to leaking information with the intent to harm the country.

"This often-condemned law provides no space to distinguish the extraordinary disclosure of inappropriately classified information in the public interest  whistleblowing  from the malicious disclosure of secrets to foreign governments by those motivated by a specific intent to harm ... their countrymen," Snowden wrote on the Freedom of the Press Foundation website.

Snowden is living in exile in Russia and avoiding charges in the U.S. for leaking a huge cache of classified information about the NSA's global surveillance program to journalists in 2013.

Daniella Silva reported from New York. Kip Grosenick reported from Augusta, Georgia.
Rob Davis, an investigative reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive, has won this year's Bruce Baer award, the highest recognition for investigative reporting in Oregon. He won for "Toxic Armories," his groundbreaking series that revealed lead hazards in National Guard armories nationwide.

The judging panel cited Davis' "exhaustive research," which involved seeking public records from Oregon and 40 other states.

He received the award, which comes with a $1,500 prize, Wednesday at the local Society of Professional Journalists' awards gathering in Portland.

The judges also singled out two other stories for recognition, according to a news release from the Friends of Bruce Baer:

"Protesters Target Precision Castparts," a four-part series by Paul Koberstein in the Portland Tribune.

"Failing the Test," a four-part series written by Rachel Monahan and Beth Slovic of Willamette Week, which addressed unsafe amounts of lead in Portland schools' water system and the district's response.

-- The Oregonian/OregonLive
emographic factors are behind slower than expected economic growth since the last recession, but it's not certain whether or how strongly it will continue.

Baby boomers have been blamed for a long list of societal ills almost since the first member was born in 1946. A potentially decades-long decline in investment returns is one of the most serious charges to be laid at the generation's doorstep, and some experts think we may already be in the middle of it. Historical returns for a balanced portfolio have averaged about 8 percent annually. Between 2005 and 2050, according to a 2009 analysis, investment returns are likely to decline by about 0.9 percentage points. Economists generally agree on the driving force  the retirement and resulting change in spending and saving patterns of America's largest generation  but not the mechanism of the decline. The prevailing theory guesses retirees will depress returns by pulling money out of their 401(k) plans so they can spend it in retirement.

Pascal Broze | Getty Images

"The assumption is that our wealth does us little or no good after we're dead," said Steven Sass, a research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and author of a recent research brief on the effect of surging retirement on investment returns. However, Sass says these assumptions are too simplistic and also at odds with data on retiree spending. Rather than devoting their funds to traveling, buying second homes and otherwise further gilding their golden years, he says, retirees tend to be frugal. That's especially true of the wealthy who hold most retirement assets, but less-wealthy retirees worried about running out also restrain expenditures. "The elderly don't like to spend down," Sass said. So if retirees don't spend their savings, wouldn't that help returns? Not according to this model. In the short term, retirees who hang on to investments while younger folks are saving for retirement will see rising asset prices, Sass said. Long-term, however, the greater supply of savings will reduce returns. More from FA Playbook:

Investors brace for coming stock market correction

Retirement saving remains a challenge for many women

What Trump's economic agenda means to you This effect will be aggravated by minimal labor force growth as boomers stop working. A stagnant labor force will restrain economic activity and the need for money to fund roads, shopping centers and factories. And that, according to this model, which is gaining currency with economists, will further reduce returns. "The demand for investment dollars could ease at a time when a high level of savings is competing for investment returns," said Russell Price, senior economist at Ameriprise Financial in Minneapolis. "Ultimately, this scenario would lower the expected returns overall." Price says this scenario is already playing out, and that demographic factors are behind slower than expected economic growth since the last recession. However, it's not certain whether or how strongly it will continue. A key unknown is whether Social Security benefits will be reduced. "Innovation, productivity, structural factors and policies, as well as many other factors, can overcome demographic considerations over very long periods of time," Price added.

Assuming you buy into the low-return future, what should you do? Save more, is one popular recommendation by financial advisors. But savers may also be able to beat the overall downward trend of the markets by, for instance, savvy sector investing. Tim Estes, a certified financial planner in Fort Worth, Texas, likes industries that should prosper as the population ages. "One of the big ones is long-term care, nursing homes and assisted living," Estes said. "They can't build them fast enough." While advanced nations mostly also have aging populations, many emerging nations are at a point when more people are saving for retirement. So international investing may soften the blow, says Katherine Kraeblen, a certified financial planner with The PNC Financial Services Group in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I wouldn't be too terribly worried about the baby boomers depressing the stock market. Katherine Kraeblen certified financial planner with The PNC Financial Services Group

"Demand for U.S. equities isn't just coming from U.S. investors," Kraeblen said. "We invest in foreign stocks, and foreign investors invest in U.S. stocks." Another possible ace in the hole for U.S. markets is America's appeal to working-age immigrants. In 2015, more than 1 million people became lawful permanent U.S. residents, according to the Department of Homeland Security. "This is the kind of thing that helps keep the economy growing and the market strong," Kraeblen said. Retirees ultimately may cope effectively with lackluster market returns by tapping home equity, downsizing and wisely using long-term care insurance and annuities, suggests Sass at the Center for Retirement Research. Working longer before retirement is another promising solution, and PNC's Kraeblen said that today's retirees seem to be doing that, which might temper the effect of their mass retirement by spreading it over a longer span of years.
Other members emphasized Comey's own sense that Trump was not asking him to shut down the entire Russia investigation  just the inquiry into Flynn's involvement. Even if true, that would still mean Trump attempted to obstruct justice, just on a smaller scale. It is a sad day for the president's supporters when they have to fall back on the argument that he could have chosen to interfere with a criminal investigation even more aggressively than he did.

The president's effort to call off the Flynn investigation is disturbing for another reason: It is evidence of his profound indifference to the rule of law. Some have suggested that Trump may not have known his behavior was inappropriate, and it was up to Comey to educate him. This notion should set off immediate alarm bells. Ignorance of the law is no defense, and ignorance of the rule of law, in a president, is terrifying. Dictators put their enemies in jail and keep their friends out. Presidents don't  and they should come into office knowing that.

Trump's transgression cannot be shrugged off as an innocuous attempt to help someone Trump described as a "good guy." If Trump felt that Flynn was a decent individual who did not deserve to be prosecuted, the Constitution gives him a legal way to accomplish this goal: He could exercise his pardon power. But that power must be exercised openly, so that there is a political check on its misuse.

In any event, it is far from clear that the investigation into Flynn and the larger Russia investigation can neatly be separated. After all, Trump grudgingly fired Flynn (and then complained about his unfair treatment) because Flynn lied about conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In those conversations, Flynn engaged in improper discussions of the sanctions the U.S. had placed on Russia  sanctions the Trump administration is now in the process of rolling back. Flynn was a paid contributor to a Russia-owned news station, although he did not comply with his legal obligation to disclose these payments. He had extensive business ties with Russian firms and was seated next to Vladmir Putin at a gala in Moscow.

In short, it seems quite likely that Flynn is a critical figure in the larger investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And it is possible that Trump himself knows more about Flynn's involvement with Russian interests than the FBI does. Cutting Flynn out of the picture could potentially have a significant effect on how the investigation proceeds.

Members of Congress, regardless of party, should uniformly support the investigation into Russia's interference with the election, including any possible involvement by Trump campaign officials. There is no matter more important to our democracy and our security. If the president tried to shut down any part of this investigation  and the evidence strongly suggests he did  Congress should view this as a call to ramp up its own investigative efforts.

Those efforts should not stop at the narrow questions we heard today. Congress's jurisdiction is much broader than that of the special counsel. Regardless of whether a crime was committed, Congress should find out what conditions enabled the Russians to get a foothold in our election, and what can be done to protect ourselves in the future. And Congress should demand a full accounting of the nature and extent of the ties between Trump administration officials and the Russian government or other close Putin allies. If, in fact, the president and much of his inner circle are indebted  whether financially or otherwise  to a hostile foreign power, it is vital for lawmakers and the public to have that information.

The Comey show is over for now, but there is a tremendous amount of work to be done. Americans must call on their representatives to move forward with this work, and to do so with their eyes firmly fixed on the greater good of the country. We can defeat the forces that are working to undermine our democracy, but to do so, we must defeat partisanship first.

Commentary by Elizabeth (Liza) Goitein, the co-director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program at New York University's School of Law. She focuses on a range of issues at the intersection of national security policy and civil liberties, including the oversight mechanisms in place for intelligence activities. She has written about the implications of Comey's firing and the need for a robust congressional investigation, and has previewed Comey's testimony in various outlets. Follow her on Twitter @LizaGoitein.

For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter.
A spokesman for the trust's manager, Grayscale, said the firm is prohibited by law from commenting.

Almost on cue, the trust's price was tumbling Thursday, down more than 8 percent in afternoon trading even as bitcoin rose about 1.5 percent.

"For investors buying into the fund, such large premiums are a disaster waiting to happen," Sumit Roy wrote in an analysis for ETF.com .

GBTC holds 174,174 bitcoins, according to the most recent regulatory filing. Multiplying that by the current price of bitcoin and dividing that by the amount of shares outstanding suggests a price in the $250 range. Instead, the price closed Wednesday at $528.

The big problem is net asset value, or the price of a share compared with the underlying holdings.

Specifically, bitcoin 's price had surged a gaudy 170 percent in 2017 as of Wednesday's close. The trust, though, had jumped about 336 percent, raising alarms that investors trying to capitalize on the surge are taking on too much risk.

One investing vehicle is standing out  the Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC), which is designed to track the asset price but actually is trading at a significant premium compared with the underlying holdings.

Bitcoin's meteoric year is making owners of the digital currency rich while raising concerns that things could be getting out of hand.

GBTC resembles an exchange-traded fund in that it is passively managed and has been seeking to replicate bitcoin's movement. It's been around since May 2015 and is not listed on a major exchange, trading instead in the "pink sheets" or the over-the-counter market. The trust offers investors a rare chance to invest in digital currency without actually have to buy bitcoins.

However, the failure to replicate the price the way, say, the SPDR Gold Shares ETF accurately tracks the metal, is a problem that became especially acute earlier this year. Grayscale sought in January to make the trust a full-fledged ETF and was restricted from creating new shares.

"Why would anyone pay a premium for this? Clearly the product does not function incredibly well," said Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital and a former sell-side analyst who covered GBTC when it launched.

Bogart believes the answer to his question is largely because there are few if any other alternatives to investing in bitcoin without having to go through the process of actually buying the digital currency.

Twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been unsuccessful thus far in bringing a bitcoin ETF to market. Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission rejected an application for a fund that would trade under the ticker COIN. However, the commission has decided to review that decision.

"A lot of investment managers have a mandate that they must be invested in registered securities. Spot bitcoin is not a registered security," Bogart said. "Really, it's the best that we have available. This put a traditional wrapper around an otherwise esoteric asset. It was something people could touch. They really wanted exposure and this was the only way to do it."

If either the GBTC effort or the Winklevoss filing want to be successful, they likely will have to demonstrate a better ability to track bitcoin's price. ETFs for the most part successfully use a variety of techniques to make sure that the price represents the value of the underlying securities, whether it's a basic stock index, bond class or currency.

GBTC is billed as an open-end investment trust, meaning it can sell unlimited shares, unlike a closed-end fund. However, the fund is no longer issuing new shares or allowing redemptions since it petitioned to convert the fund into an ETF so it can resume normal operations.

Roy said the problems with the trust actually might help the Winklevoss case.

"The SEC can either help investors by allowing a regulated ETF that trades close to NAV come to market, or stand in the way and see those same investors hurt when they buy bitcoin directly from untested exchanges or through the flawed GBTC," he wrote.

As for investors looking to find their way into the bitcoin universe, they'll have to understand that buying the currency is risky but the trust looks even riskier.

"There's clearly a risk. Somebody could be right about the underlying move of bitcoin but still lose money," Bogart added. "To what extent do you value the features (of the trust)? It's really an individual question to answer."

WATCH: Mark Cuban explains why he thinks bitcoin is a bubble.
A White House press release announcing Joseph Otting's nomination to comptroller of the currency at the Treasury Department falsely implied that he has a Dartmouth degree, according to New England Cable News, a unit of NBC Universal.

"Mr. Otting holds a B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa and is a graduate of the School of Credit and Financial Management at Dartmouth College," says the White House release, dated June 5.

A spokeswoman for Dartmouth confirmed with CNBC that Otting is not a graduate of Dartmouth, nor does the university have a school of credit and financial management.

Otting did attend the School of Credit and Financial Management, though it is a continuing-education program run by the National Association of Credit Management, the New England Cable News reported. It is currently taught for a total of roughly 20 days over two years, according to the program's website, and no longer on the campus of Dartmouth.

The program was once held at Dartmouth College, the New England Cable News reported, but it was never affiliated with the school. It is now held at American University and is not connected with the institution, according to the program's website.

The White House emailed a statement to the New England Cable News acknowledging its error on Wednesday.

Read the full New England Cable News report here.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the nature of the exact statement that was issued by the White House.
Turkish army commandos seach for roadside mines on patrol at the area near the Turkey-Iraq border on October 27, 2007 in the Uludere district of Sirnak province, southeastern Turkey.

Turkey brought forward troop deployment to Qatar on Wednesday and pledged to provide crucial food and water supplies to the Gulf Arab country facing a worsening rift with its powerful Middle Eastern neighbors.

In the deepest split between Arab states for decades, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar on Monday and closed their airspace to commercial flights, saying it was funding militant groups.

Qatar vehemently denies the accusations.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems. Erdogan, who has long tried to play the role of a regional power broker, said Ankara would do everything in its power to help end the regional crisis.

Lawmakers from Erdogan's ruling AK Party and the nationalist opposition MHP were the main backers of the bill that allows troops to be deployed to Turkey's base in Qatar, but the main opposition CHP party said the timing sent the wrong message.

"With these agreements, Turkey is making a choice and by standing by Qatar it is taking on the other countries. This is a wrong policy," CHP deputy head and lawmaker Ozturk Yilmaz said. "How will you be a mediator if you are taking sides?" he said.
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Polls have opened in the U.K. General Election which is seen as crucial to the strength of the country's negotiating position as it nears an exit from the European Union. The ruling Conservative party, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, is looking to increase the 17-seat parliamentary majority that it currently holds in the House of Commons. The opposition Labour party is unlikely to win an outright majority, according to the polls, but could force a hung parliament where neither side holds more than half of the seats. If that was the case, it would be up to each side to try to form a dominant alliance with smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats or Scottish National Party. On April 18, May surprised onlookers by calling Thursday's snap election stating that "division risks the ability to make a success of Brexit."

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At that point the Conservative ruling government was polling as much as 22 points clear of the main opposition Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn. However, as the campaign progressed the polls narrowed sharply.



A burst of late polls on Wednesday gave the Conservatives a lead ranging from 5 to 12 percentage points over the Labour party, according to Reuters, suggesting that May would increase her majority. Polling stations opened at 7:00 a.m. London time Thursday and will close at 10:00 p.m. There will be an exit poll as soon as voting finishes and results will start to come in an hour after that. The main flurry of results are expected from 2.00 a.m. London time on Friday and there are 650 constituencies due to announce.



The Conservative campaign has attempted to focus on the withdrawal from the EU, repeating a mantra that only it can offer a "strong and stable" government as negotiations with Brussels heat up. This strategy has worked to an extent with polls on leadership consistently backing May over Corbyn as a more trusted leader.



Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has said he will honor Brexit but at the same time attempt to retain the benefits of the single market - a tariff free trading bloc for members of the European Union.

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Terror comes to the fore

The United Kingdom has suffered three separate incidents of "terror attacks" in just three months. After apparent lone wolf incidents in Westminster and Manchester, a group of men carried out a further attack in London on Saturday evening.



A combined death toll of 36 people on the streets of Britain has pushed the issue of security to the fore of the election with both main parties accusing the other of weakness. Corbyn was criticized in the media for appearing weak on a "shoot to kill" policy and has apologized for statements made in the past describing Middle East factions Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends". The Conservatives, meanwhile, have also felt a backlash over security. In her previous role as Home Secretary, Theresa May was responsible for the cutting of the U.K.'s police force numbers and she has had to answer tricky accusations that this has put the nation at a greater risk of terror.

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Postcards showing the British Union flag, also known as Union Jack, sit on display at a souvenir store near to the Elizabeth Tower, also known as 'Big Ben', in London, U.K. Luke MacGregor | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Britain is preparing to face a hung parliament for just the fifth time in its political history after the ruling right-wing Conservative party failed to secure an overall majority in the General Election. While Prime Minister Theresa May has faced calls to resign as a consequence of the inconclusive vote, the Conservative leader has sought permission from the queen in an attempt to form a new government on Friday.

What is a hung parliament?

A hung parliament occurs when no political party has been able to secure an overall majority. In the U.K., a party must secure at least 326 seats from a total of 650 in the House of Commons to form a parliamentary majority. The winning threshold is 323 in reality, as lawmakers from Northern Irish party Sinn Fein do not attend parliament. Britain has endured hung parliaments four times with the most recent example occurring in 2010; when the Conservatives went on to form an alliance with the center-left Liberal Democrat party. It took five days in May 2010 for that coalition government to be negotiated and formed.

What happens next?

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the Labour Party general election campaign launch at Event City on May 9, 2017 in Manchester, England. Anthony Devlin | Getty Images

All parties have stressed that they are not keen on forming a coalition. However, multiple parties joining together to form a parliamentary majority would be the most formal and stable way for the U.K. to be governed.



The Conservatives have reportedly held talks with the DUP overnight as it became clear that the incumbents would be unable to maintain their stronghold following a surge in popularity for Labour. Meanwhile, in the run up to the vote, the left-wing Labour Party and Scottish National Party (SNP)  which seeks to fully devolve Scotland from the U.K.  were rumored to be considering a "progressive alliance". Despite both parties formally ruling out a coalition deal before the election, SNP's leader Nicola Sturgeon confessed she would be willing to support a minority Labour government. The Conservatives had previously described the prospect of a Labour-SNP alliance as a "coalition of chaos".

Why are some investors worried about a hung parliament?
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With almost every seat accounted for in the General Election, no party has gained a clear majority and the U.K. is now faced with a government with a weakened majority. By 11 a.m. May's ruling Conservative party had won 318 seats  eight seats short of a majority  while the opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn had 261 seats. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party had won 35 seats, the Liberal Democrats were at 12 and the Democratic Unionist Party had 10. Voter turnout was at 68.7 percent, according to the BBC. Despite the bruising election result for her Conservative party , which previously had a 17-seat majority, U.K. leader Theresa May said she would form a new government in order to "provide certainty" and make sure the country is "safe and secure".



Having faced calls to resign, May's Conservatives and the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) are poised to work together in parliament. Speaking outside Downing Street on Friday afternoon, May insisted Brexit negotiations would stick to the same timetable as before.



"What the country needs now more than ever is certainty . Having secured the largest number of votes and greatest number of seats in the General Election, it is clear the Conservatives and Unionist party has the legitimacy to provide that," May said.

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Investors aren't thrilled about that situation as passing legislation can be difficult with two parties that each hold strong political priorities. The political deadlock is also expected to hurt upcoming Brexit negotiations as well as May's political future, according to strategists.



"We have seen two dramatic political miscalculations by two Conservative (U.K.) PMs in a short time span, it's incredible," said Heather Conley, director of the Europe program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Tweet 1 The British pound dropped sharply in Asian trade on Friday and slipped below the $1.27 handle to fresh multi-month lows. For Friday's session, it is now down around 1.6 percent against the dollar, trading at $1.2737 at 11:00 a.m. London time and continuing to fluctuate.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, speaks at his closing election campaign rally in London, June 7, 2017. Clodagh Kilcoyne | Reuters

'May should step down'

After winning his seat back in Islington, North London, early on Friday, 68 year-old Corbyn called for May to step down. "People have said they have quite enough of austerity politics," he said in a speech. "The PM called this election because she wanted a mandate. Well, the mandate she's got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence."



Later on Friday morning, the left-wing Labour leader said he believed Brexit talks must go ahead on June 19 despite the inconclusive election vote. Corbyn told Sky News, "(Talks) are going to have to go ahead because Article 50 has been invoked, the government in office in 11 days' time will have to conduct those Brexit negotiations."

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In a speech on Friday, May said it would be incumbent on her party to offer stability if Conservatives win the most seats. The Conservative leader is expected to deliver a statement at around 10 a.m. London time amid reports that she will not step down as leader . SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, meanwhile, called the early results "disastrous" for PM May and expressed disappointment over the SNP's performance, Reuters said. Tweet 2

'A big miscalculation'

On April 18, PM May surprised onlookers by calling a snap election  a decision aimed at strengthening her mandate to see the country through a hard Brexit. At that point, the Conservatives were polling ahead of Labour but as the campaign progressed, the polls narrowed sharply. The Conservative campaign attempted to focus on the withdrawal from the European Union, repeating a mantra that only it can offer a "strong and stable" government as negotiations with Brussels heat up. Corbyn has said he will honor the U.K.'s decision to leave but he's widely expected to push for a soft Brexit and retain the benefits of the single market, a tariff-free trading bloc for EU members.

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Britons head to the polls on Thursday to cast their vote in the country's second eGeneral Election in as many years. This election, widely dubbed the Brexit election, is an important one for European spectators as it will largely determine the country's direction of travel in upcoming negotiations with the EU. British Prime Minister Theresa May first called the election in a bid to increase her parliamentary majority and thereby strengthen her ability to implement a hard Brexit. However, the vote is also a momentous one for international spectators  not least in the U.S., where observers will be wondering what the future holds for U.S.-U.K. relations.

Conservative win: Continuing the 'special relationship'

A victory for the incumbent would no doubt be received with a sigh of relief on the other side of the Atlantic, as observers take comfort in the continuation of the status quo.

Though May has voiced concerns over some of President Donald Trump's hard-line views  most recently describing his criticism of London Mayor Sadiq Khan as "wrong"  she has indicated her commitment to maintaining the U.K.'s "special relationship" with the U.S. Her readiness to set aside political differences was most pertinently captured when she was photographed holding hands with the president in her first state visit.

Labour win: A clash of leaders

Her closest opponent, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, has been more vocal in his criticism of the U.S. president, however. The pair are ideologically opposed on most major political issues, including defense, climate change and business. Corbyn once described NATO as "a danger to world peace", and though he has since confirmed his commitment to working with NATO, his stance on defense is likely to be at odds with President Trump's staunch advocacy for increased military spending.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the Labour Party general election campaign launch at Event City on May 9, 2017 in Manchester, England. Anthony Devlin | Getty Images

Corbyn recently said the president's behavior risked making the world a more dangerous place. "The new U.S. president seems determined to add to the dangers by recklessly escalating the confrontation with North Korea, unilaterally launching missile strikes on Syria, opposing President Obama's nuclear arms deal with Iran, and backing a new nuclear arms race," Corbyn said during a speech on foreign policy in May. He added that under his governance the U.K. would no longer engage in "hand-holding with Donald Trump" and would distance Britain's foreign policy away from the U.S. and back to Britain. "We will not be afraid to speak our mind," he said. "Pandering to an erratic Trump administration will not deliver stability. Britain deserves better than simply outsourcing our country's security and prosperity to the whims of the Trump White House." Corbyn, who favors hiking tax rates for businesses and high earners, also hit out at the former business man in the wake of last week's London terror attacks. Coming to the defense of London's Labour Mayor, Corbyn dismissed President Trump's critique as graceless. "It is the strength of our communities that gets us through these awful times as London Mayor Sadiq Khan recognized, but which the current occupant in the White House has neither the grace nor the sense to grasp," he said.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

The president described Khan as "pathetic" after the Mayor said London residents had "no reason to be alarmed".

A close race
Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer delivers a keynote during the Yahoo Mobile Developers Conference on February 18, 2016 at The Masonic in San Francisco, California.

Verizon is set to cut thousands of jobs from Yahoo and AOL as the companies integrate, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC on Thursday.

Brands in the new combined media entity, to be named Oath, could lay off a total of about 2,100 staffers, or about 15 percent of the workforce, the source familiar with the matter said. The cuts are expected to be announced next week once the deal closes.

"Oath's strategy is to lead the global brand space. With access to over 1 [billion] consumers upon close, we will be positioned to drive one of the most important platforms in the consumer brand space. Consistent with what we have said since the deal was announced, we will be aligning our global organization to the strategy," an AOL spokesperson said.

Recode previously reported that up to 1,000 jobs could be cut, while Reuters and The Wall Street Journal reported a number closer to 2,000. The companies declined to comment on the reports at that time.

Yahoo shareholders signed off on Verizon 's proposal to buy Yahoo's core internet business on Thursday.

Verizon announced an agreement to acquire Yahoo in July, after a long bidding process. Now that it's approved, Yahoo expects to close the deal on Tuesday, a move that will bulk up Verizon's advertising efforts.

The shareholder vote  part of an annual meeting  wraps up an arduous sale process that was stymied by the revelations of two massive data breaches. The parts of Yahoo that were not bought by Verizon will become a company named Altaba.

 Reporting by CNBC's Deirdre Bosa, additional writing and reporting from Anita Balakrishnan.
Comey: Made notes after meetings because of concern Trump would lie 10:54 AM ET Thu, 8 June 2017 | 06:05

Former FBI Director James Comey made explosive statements about his interactions with President Donald Trump in highly-anticipated and potentially consequential Senate testimony on Thursday.

Comey's testimony, based largely on written records he made after one-on-one conversations with Trump from January to April, casts light on Trump's behavior with the former FBI chief and the president's possible motives for firing Comey.

The ex-FBI director said he kept records of his meetings with Trump because he thought the president might lie.

More from CNBC:

Comey testifies he believes Trump wanted him to 'drop' Flynn investigation

Ex-FBI Director Comey: I took it as an order when Trump told me to drop Flynn investigation

'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty'  read James Comey's explosive statement about Donald Trump

Comey says Trump never asked him about 'tens of thousands' of FBI investigations besides Flynn probe

Last month, Trump tweeted a suggestion that he had recorded their conversations, saying Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes'" of the talks.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he hopes his conversations with the president were recorded.

"I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said.

If there were, Comey said he thought there might be something that corroborated his account of events.

Read more:

Comey: I kept records on Trump because I thought he might 'lie'

'I thought he would lie'  Read Warner and Comey's exchange about why he started taking notes

'Those were lies plain and simple,' Comey says of White House's criticism of FBI

Comey on his talks with Trump: 'Lordy, I hope there are tapes'

In a detailed opening statement posted by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, the ousted FBI director said that he understood Trump to be asking him to "drop" the probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn when they spoke in February.

Trump abruptly fired Comey last month amid an FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

While he understood he "could be fired by a president for any reason or no reason at all," Comey said he was confused and concerned by the White House's shifting explanations of his firing.

The former FBI chief said he was confused because Trump had told him that he hoped he would stay on the job. Comey started a 10-year term in 2013.

Comey said that the White House "chose to defame" him and alleged that the FBI was in "disarray."

"Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Comey said in his statement that he interpreted the president's comment as a request that the FBI "drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December."

"I did not say I would 'let this go," Comey recounted in his written testimony.

However, the former FBI chief "did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign."
Its one of the bigger topics in federal education policy right now: What are the federal laws governing discrimination when it comes to private schools? And whats Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos position on the issue?

In a Senate budget hearing Tuesday, DeVos repeatedly told lawmakers that, Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal law, period. But she also said that the U.S. Department of Education wont be issuing decrees to schools about discrimination, leaving the future of LGBT students, for example, unclear under any federal voucher program.

But whats the lay of the land right now in state voucher programs? Weve got you covered . We took a look at those programs along with our colleague Arianna Prothero of the Charters and Choice blog in a story this week. The short answer? Aside from explicit prohibitions on racial discrimination, there arent many anti-bias guardrails in states vouchers. As we reported in the story, researchers have found that, Not a single state protects LGBT students within its voucher laws anti-discrimination language.

Defenders of DeVos position have argued that its not the job of the Education Department to make a legal determination of which groups of students are covered by federal anti-discrimination laws. During the hearing, for example, Sen. Roy Blunt, D-Mo., noted that its up to Congress and the courts to reach such a resolution.

In a House budget hearing last month, DeVos put the emphasis on state and parent prerogatives when it comes to how voucher programs handle discrimination . So the secretarys emphasis to the Senate earlier this week, its fair to say, changed from what she emphasized to House lawmakers in May.

DeVos had a particularly testy exchange about this issue with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., on Tuesdayyou can watch video of that at the top of this post.

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
Two of the biggest names in technology and education philanthropy are jointly funding a $12 million initiative to support new ways of tailoring classroom instruction to individual students.

The grant marks the first substantive collaboration of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic and investment arm of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan.

Their joint award was given in April to New Profit , a Boston-based venture philanthropy organization. New Profit will in turn provide $1 million, plus extensive management advising, to each of seven other organizations working to promote personalized learning.

We are pleased to work with CZI to strengthen the impact and sustainability of each of these organizations, Adam Porsch, a senior portfolio officer at the Gates Foundation, said in an interview.

Its 100 percent collaborative, Porsch said of his foundations burgeoning relationship with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Were looking for ways to work together and to coordinate when its appropriate.

In a statement, a CZI spokeswoman expressed similar sentiments.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is excited to partner with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support New Profits work, the statement reads. We share an interest in seeing significant improvement in education and are committed to learning from each other. We also share an interest in the promise of personalized learning to better engage students and improve learning outcomes.

Since 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given more than $300 million to support research and development around personalized learning, including past grants to New Profit totaling about $23 million. (Education Week has received support from the Gates Foundation in the past for the newspapers coverage of personalized learning.)

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, meanwhile, was launched in 2015. Zuckerberg and Chan said then they intended to give 99 percent of their Facebook sharesworth an estimated $45 billion at the timeto a variety of causes, headlined by the development of software that understands how you learn best and where you need to focus.

Read more: Mark Zuckerbergs big bet on personalized learning.

The groups early grants have gone to the state of Rhode Island , to a network of state and district leaders known as Chiefs for Change , and to the College Board , among others. CZI is also hiring its own engineers to help develop personalized-learning software tools.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is not a traditional nonprofit foundation. Instead, its an LLC. That organizational structure allows for direct investment in for-profit companies and political lobbying and donations, as well as philanthropic giving. It also limits the extent to which CZI is legally required to publicly report on its activities.

The new collaboration between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative reflects deep ties between the staffs of the two organizations, Porsch said.

The head of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives education division, former U.S. deputy education secretary Jim Shelton, previously worked as a program director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for more than seven years. Sheltons deputy at CZI, Jon Deane, also previously worked as a program officer at the Gates Foundation.

While both entities are going all-in on personalized learning, research supporting the concept remains thin.

Read more: Personalized Learning: What Does the Research Say?

In an interview, Trevor Brown, a partner at New Profit who will lead the organizations new Personalized Learning Initiative, said one of the goals of the new grant is to change that.

Were partnering to ensure that we are building that evidence base, Brown said. Personalized learning is a nascent field, and were thrilled to be on this journey with this new cohort [of grantees], as well as our funders.

The new round of New Profit grantees are:

The Highlander Institute

imBlaze (Big Picture Learning)

iNACOL

PowerMyLearning

The Learning Accelerator

Transcend

Valor Collegiate Academies

In addition to unrestricted capitala huge boon for any nonprofitthose organizations will receive hands-on organizational support around everything from strategy development to staff recruitment. The focus will be on scaling up.

Such support may be even more valuable than money, said Dana Borrelli-Murray, the executive director of the Providence, R.I.-based Highlander Institute, which helps schools implement personalized models and supports research and development around a range of related efforts.

Were still sort of figuring out who we want to be when we grow up, Borrelli-Murray said. Are we doubling down on our region? Or focusing on a specific area of expertise? Should we get more involved in policy? What does going to scale even mean when everything we create is open-source?

She applauded the notion of two major funders joining forces to support such work.

We all have to think more about networked giving, so were all in this together, rather than being asked to compete against each other for the same pot of funds, she said.

Not everyone is quite so enthusiastic, though.

The notion of large philanthropies teaming up to support a common education-reform strategy is nothing new, said Sarah Reckhow, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University who tracks philanthropic giving in education.

The Gates Foundation, for example, has previously coordinated with other foundations to support such issues as small high schools, charter school replication, and the Common Core State Standards.

For me, the concern is that its a powerful way of setting an agenda, and it can sideline other ways of doing things, Reckhow said.

That can cause problems, especially when the foundations move from one big bet to the next, she added.

This is a pattern weve seen before, and there can be unintended consequences, Reckhow said.

CZI and Gates also gave New Profit a separate $750,000 grant to support the creation of the Proximity Accelerator,  an effort to help build a pipeline of social entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities.

Photos:

Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and director at Berkshire Hathaway, is interviewed by Liz Claman of the Fox Business Network in Omaha, Neb., May 8. Photo by Nati Harnik/AP

Facebook CEO and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg delivers the commencement address at Harvard University commencement exercises on May 25, in Cambridge, Mass. Photo by Steven Senne/AP

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The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form
Implementing technology, large-scale, can be a herculean task for a district. Making sure tools are actually being used to support learning and determining the effect on student outcomes requires thoughtful planning, committed leadership, and engaging professional development.

In Learning Transformed: 8 Keys to Designing Tomorrows Schools, Today, advocates and former educators Eric Sheninger and Tom Murray attempt to provide a roadmap for that process. The book outlines research-backed strategies for integrating technology and implementing personalized learning.

Its really important for school leaders to know what the research actually shows does work, said Murray, the director for innovation at Future Ready Schools , a project of the Alliance for Excellent Education , and a former district tech director and teacher.

The simple fact that schools have devices for students doesnt tell us anything about learning, he said. Its how theyre being used.

Learning Transformed combines best practices from educational research with Murrays and Sheningers experiences working in schools and, in their current positions, with educators across the country. Sheninger, a senior fellow at the International Center for Leadership in Education , is a former principal and teacher. He is also the author of several books on leadership and technology in education.

Murray and Sheninger especially wanted to highlight districts innovating in instruction with tech and

bridging the digital divide, despite facing financial constraints. It was important to present district leaders solutions that were not only evidence-based, but that also seemed accessible and attainable, said Sheninger.

There is no more powerful way to convey a message to motivate and inspire people to change, he said, than by exposing them to those people that are doing it.

Education Week spoke with Murray and Sheninger about how districts can better evaluate instructional technology, personalize professional learning, and make smarter purchasing decisions.

The Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Before starting the purchasing process, what kind of evidence should districts require from vendors that the tool or device in question actually improves teaching and learning? And once technology is integrated, how should school and district leaders determine whether tools are being used effectively?

Murray: We cite, a couple of times [in the book], the report that the Alliance for Excellent Education did with Linda Darling-Hammond and her team at Stanford. It was a meta-analysis of ed-tech studies, on what actually workswhat instructional practices. Its important for school leaders to know, number one, that learning with ed tech needs to be interactive. Number two, [what works is] the use of technology to explore, to design, to create. Its not the digital drill-and-kill, or the electronic worksheetwhich is very prevalent.

School leaders really need to be asking and pushing vendors, What evidence and research do you haveparticularly independent evidence and research that you havethat your product can help support the work that were trying to do?

Sheninger: We talk about the concept of return on instruction. We spend all this money on technologyhow do we know its having an impact? We present multiple concrete areas to show that efficacy, such as looking at qualitative and quantitative data, using portfolios for students and for educators to show growth over time, to show change over time.

The book provides a 10-step strategy for districts making purchasing decisions, as well as tips for developing a refresh cycle": a check-in evaluation to make sure that, after a few years of use, tools are still functional and doing what they were purchased to do. What factors are most important for districts to keep in mind when selecting and evaluating technology?

Murray: That very first step of that 10-step process for selecting devices is your vision for teaching and learning. Quite often, what happens is, people focus [on the] device first, and then figure out how the learning can fit into the device.

Those who are in the classroom often have the least amount of voice in the purchasing process, and thats just a massive problem. Teachers need to be a vital part of that decision making, because theyre where the rubber hits the road. Purchasing is often left in the hands of a handful of high-level administrators, and it really needs to be a much more thorough process. Not just that were getting the best pricewere purchasing things that are reliable, sustainable, and solid investments in the longer haul.

The refresh piece was an important topic to cover, again from my own personal experience as a tech director. Eric and I will hear [from administrators], Were 1:1 in our district, this is wonderful! And then a teacher will whisper, Yeah, but my laptops are 8 years old and they take 26 minutes to boot. If we dont have a solid refresh plan in place, sustainability becomes a massive issue, and technology can start to impede learning when the devices start to get in the way.

You cite research that professional development, in its current form, doesnt necessarily improve teacher performance. A more effective approach, you argue, would embed PD regularly within the school day, give teachers a voice in deciding what learning opportunities would be most helpful for them, and focus on improving pedagogynot simply on how to use tech tools. How can districts implement these strategies, especially when it comes to PD around instructional technology?

Scheninger: When you look at professional development, a lot of it is structured how traditional education is. We get everyone together; districts have [educators] sit through PD sessions. Its not really authentically engaging and applicable to the needs of everyone in attendance.

When it comes to technology, we look at [professional development] this way. [The first step] is exposure to the tool. Number two is giving educators time to tinker, play around, learn how to use the tool. The third step is the most importantensuring that the tool is being integrated with purpose, that there is accountability for sound instructional design, and that it leads to evidence of improvement in professional practice.

By [exposing educators] to different pathways to learnutilizing webinars that are available, virtual PLCs, and the creation of personal learning networkseveryone can follow their own topic and work at their own time, path, and pace, to focus on areas that really have an impact on their prospective role.

Photos courtesy of Tom Murray and Eric Sheninger.

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Ben Roback is a Senior Account Executive at Cicero Group and a member of the US Embassys Young Leaders UK programme.

At face value alone, the aftermath from the London terror attacks looked like a momentary lapse in UK-US relations.

In a response that would not have been expected of previous presidents  and reflecting his own unique approach to the White House job and communication  President Trump tweeted his reflections on the incident to over 31 million Twitter followers.

Failing to acknowledge the incident and stand in solidarity with the UK, the President instead used the chance to double down on his own political positions, criticising Mayor Sadiq Khan and later linking the attack to his proposed travel ban.

The response from President Trump was curious, in treating Mayor Khan like one of the celebrity opponents he likes to bait after a red carpet rant or awards show monologue. With nothing obvious to gain and only the risk of creating distance between himself and a city with whom he already has a chequered past, the rationale for the response remains unclear. This was a city in mourning, not an enraged Meryl Streep.

Politically, the response may have done more short-term harm than good. Though appeasing the Presidents core support by reiterating his calls for a travel ban, the online clash only served to distract from the White Houses core message for this week around the launch of a new infrastructure plan.

Taking to President Trumps preferred platform for mass communication, the US State Department and Embassy in London tweeted messages of support with London from Charge dAffaires ad interim Lew Lukens. There were over 11,000 re-tweets and 29,000 likes in the message commending the strong leadership of Mayor Sadiq Khan. It was, in many respects, the real response from our closest ally.

President Trumps Twitter outburst and subsequent doubling down against Sadiq Khan proved the ongoing importance of the diplomatic relations that underwrite political relationships held between Westminster and Washington.

Whereas new administrations often result in a shift of political priorities and with that a change in the importance of relationships, diplomacy runs far deeper, and are better measured in generations rather than governments. Based on years of engagement, it forms the basis of relationships required at a political level by the government of the day.

In London, that relationship is fulfilled by the US Embassy and Foreign Office; they have built and continue the build the foundation on which the Special Relationship is based. Investing in relationships at an early stage, the US Embassy has prioritised future engagement by rolling out programs like Young Leaders UK, the brainchild and project of former US Ambassador Matthew Barzun.

Those relationships and programs should remain a source of optimism as the US and UK press ahead with what is set to be a period of even closer integration post-Brexit. We will need our most important ally just as they will need us. For that relationship to flourish, diplomacy will be continue to be paramount.
This snap election campaign began as a triumphal march by an imperious Prime Minister. Theresa May entered it almost as more than a mere party politician. Her Conservative Party had kept hold of its core voters and gained, because of Brexit, permission to be heard among natural Labour ones. She, Nick Timothy and her core team had crafted an appeal to win these over: an energy price cap, more council homes, new workers rights, an industrial strategy. The polls showed soaring Tory leads. Little was heard from Labour. Candidates reported from the doorsteps that the contest was a cakewalk. Britain was set for a Great Patriotic Election.

Team May then made a deliberate decision: to trade off part of this emerging majority for a mandate. The social contract between the generations is broken in Britain. Spending on richer older retired people has been protected at the expense of younger poorer working ones. The former turn out to vote at elections and are the Conservative Partys base in a country divided less by class than age when it goes to the polls. David Cameron and George Osborne was wary of offending it. The Coalition brought in a pensions triple lock, kept Gordon Browns winter fuel allowance, and ducked the problem of the rising cost of social care.

This Tory manifesto was made of sterner stuff. The triple lock has been abandoned. So has the Cameron-era pledge not to raise VAT, national insurance and income tax. The winter fuel allowance is to be means-tested. Above all, the value of the family home is to taken into account when paying for the costs of all social care. This last proposal was dynamite in a country with a primal attachment to home ownership  and sprung, too, with no notice or preparation. Its effect on the Conservative campaign is captured by Michael Caines famous line from the Italian Job: Youre only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

One can argue that the electoral damage will be deeper in blue seats with expensive houses and big majorities  and that the Tories will simply absorb the consequences today. But the harm seems to reached further: very crudely, the combined effect of the social care and winter fuel plan seems to have revived a primordial fear of some of those red voters further north (and in Wales): that while Labour gives you money, the Conservatives take it away. Furthermore, while the Tory manifesto was strong on a national appeal  Forward Together, it declares, in Churchillian tones  it was weaker on a retail offer.

This was not a mistake that Jeremy Corbyn and his claque intended to mirror. While Mays intention is to win a bigger majority today, his isnt to gain one at all: rather, it is to take a bigger slice of the vote than Ed Miliband gained two years ago, and use the rise to justify staying on as Labour leader. Corbyns manifesto has no national appeal at all  unless one is to confuse this with class war  but makes none the less a clear retail offer to natural Labour voters: a higher minimum wage, no more tuition fees, and end to the public sector pay cap. That swaggering Conservative poll lead fell in one case to a single point.

If having to tear up a major policy mid-campaign is ones measure, then this has been the worst Tory campaign in modern history. The air war never quite got back on track. Part of the reason for this has been the impact of two terror atrocities. One might have thought that May would have gained visible support in their wake. Instead, a media that long ago wrote Corybn off went for her jugular, projecting Labours attack on her record over police numbers. Ducking a TV debate that Corbyn decided to turn up to probably didnt help. The Labour leader travels light on numbers and dodges the awkward questions: none the less, he has had a good campaign.

Why, then, do the Steve Fishers and Matt Singhs and Chris Hanrettys and Ian Warrens agree that the Conservatives will win comfortably today? These are experts  apologies to Michael Gove  with impressive records: for example, Singh called 2015 right. His central projection is a Tory majority of 98. Hanratty says 100. Warren has gone for 124. Even YouGov has thrown in the towel today, and adjusted its methodology: it now gives May a seven point lead. Part of the reason is turnout expectation. Another part is that even if younger people do flock for the polls to back Corbyn, they are likely to do in seats where he is already strong.

Another still, stressed by this site, is that polls tell one only so much when target seats are nearly everything and much of the ground war is invisible. The effectiveness of the dark ads that the Crosby/Messina team are slapping up on Facebook may be exaggerated, but to track the progress of Theresa Mays battlebus, as Newsnights Chris Cook has done, is to see that CCHQ expects a mirror image election  to gain less in the blue south, let alone in London, than in the red-then-purple north. In one respect at least, the Conservative campaign has gone by the book. It has gained a big slice of the UKIP vote and kept it. No poll has shown the Tories dip below 40 per cent.

Perhaps the best explanation is the most simple. Voters face a choice today between the quirkily centrist May and Far Left Corbyn. Maybe all those experts and all the polls are wrong, and Labour will somehow pull it off today  as Leave did last summer and Trump did in America. Perhaps Syriza has come to Britain. But common sense suggests that given a choice between a a Far Left party and a non-Far Right one, the latter will win  especially in a contest which, as Mark Wallace pointed out yesterday, has seen the third party lose ground rather than gain it. This election has been a shot in the arm for two party politics.

Were Corbyn to gain even 35 per cent of the vote today, and the two big parties to scoop up 80 per cent of the vote between them  but, no, you can work it out for yourself. These are calculations that the sleeping lion of British public opinion will not have bothered to make. To those of us gripped by politics, elections are compulsive. Very many voters, by contrast, reach for the off switch. Today, the lion blinks, yawns, stretches itself  and is asked to pronounce. Only last summer, a referendum decided, by a narrow margin, to turn Britains post-war settlement on its head, and leave the European Union. That decision is the backdrop against which this election should be seen.

At the head of one party is May. She has lost one or two of her political nine lives during this campaign. Her response to Islamist terror is uncertain. But, more than any other senior politician, she grasps intuitively the scale of the decision made last year  and understands that, whatever they did last June, voters are resolved to put their best foot forward and make the most of it. At the head of the other is Corbyn  a man who has dedicated his entire political career cuddling up to Britains enemies: the IRA, Galtieri, the Soviet Union. In Labours great industrial heartlands, voters have heard the message. Now let the lion roar.
New York City has released its long-awaited plan to address school segregationa 13-page document that education officials say lays out their commitment to increasing diversity in schools and classrooms in the nations largest public school system. But critics and advocates say the plan falls far short of whats necessary to undo the deep segregation in most of the citys schools.

New York state, according to some research findings, is home to the most segregated public schools in the nation, an imbalance driven in large measure by the high levels of segregation in New York Citys schools. Other big cities face similar challenges. Dallas and Denver , for example, are coming up with plans to promote integration. Denver, specifically, is digging into how housing patterns are affecting schools, with an eye toward creating school policies around admissions, school choice, academic program offerings, that would help promote integration.

New York Citys plan, Equity and Excellence for All: Diversity in New York City Public Schools, aims to increase the number of students who attend more racially balanced schools by 50,000 over the next five years; reduce the number of students attending schools that are economically stratified (this can be a concentration of students in poverty on one end of the spectrum or a concentration of high-income students on the other end) by 10 percentor by 150 schoolsin the next five years; and increase the number of inclusive schools serving English-language learners and students with disabilities.

To achieve those goalswhich some critics say are far too modestthe city outlined a series of strategies, including:



Set up a school diversity advisory group, made up of city appointees, parents, experts, students, and community representatives, who will review the departments plan and propose changes. The group will submit recommendations to the mayor and chancellor by June 2018.

Expand diversity in admissions pilots, in which schools set aside a percentage of their seats for students who may be English-learners, low-income, or have family members who are incarcerated. Private early-childhood programs that are providers in the citys pre-K program will be able to participate. Middle schools can propose opening admissions to students boroughwide.

Remove some admission methods at high schools that give preference to parents who are able to attend school fairs and information sessions.

Create an online application for middle schools and high schools.

Expand programs to help poor, black, and Hispanic students prepare for the entrance exam required for specialized high schools and take the test during the school day.

The citys specialized high schools are predominantly Asian and white, and city programs introduced under Mayor Bill de Blasio to offer extra tutoring to low-income, black, and Hispanic students have done little to make a dent in the demographics at those schools. But city officials did say there has been an uptick in the numbers of students who took the admissions test when it was offered on a school day, and that black and Hispanic students who took the test-prep were more likely to get offers.

Thats a clear indicator that we are onto something positive there, said Josh Wallack, the citys deputy chancellor for strategy and policy.

Diversity considerations will be a central part of planning and developing new education programs, and city officials hope to open 15 new schools in the next three years that will specifically include diversity efforts, according to the plan.

I think we made some significant steps here, and I think its the beginning of a longer conversation that we are going to have to get at these issues, Wallack said.

An Inspirationally Deficient Plan to Integrate Schools

But critics said the long-promised plan failed to use the words segregation or integration, had modest goals for a system with about 1,800 schools and nearly 1 million students, and that many of the initiatives touted in the proposal were already underway.

The entire plan lacks urgency, said David Bloomfield, an education professor at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. The idea behind this is that childrens education is diminished by segregation, and there seems to be no recognition of that fact. This reminds me of the words in Brown v. Board of Education'with all deliberate speed, which allowed districts to drag their feet. This seems like more foot-dragging.

There is nothing here that is so groundbreaking that it could not have been suggested in the early days of the administration, said Bloomfield, who called the plan technically deficient as well as inspirationally deficient.

Two New York City councilmembers, Brad Lander and Ritchie Torres, said in a joint statement that setting concrete target s was a breakthrough, and they praised the city education officials for the creation of the school advisory group.

The plan reflects a change of approach that would not have happened without the insistent activism of students and teachers, parents and public officials, all with an eye toward recapturing the spirit of Brown v. Board of Education, they wrote. Segregated schools cannot teach inclusive democracy.

But they also said they were sorry that the plan did not use the words segregation or integration.

We will not break the cycle of segregation if we cannot even name it, they said.

Wallack said that he understood that there would be a range of opinions on how far or fast the city was moving, but the department was committed to the goal of diversity. The department used the word diversity as opposed to integration and segregation to make it clear that the plan intended to go beyond race and include economics, home language, immigration status, special needs, religion, gender expression, sexual orientation, housing status, and cultural background, he said.

You can read the full plan here.
CORNWALL, Ontario  On Monday, June 5, CogecoTVs Cornwall and the Cornwall Optimist Club held the annual Youth Achievement Awards at the Cornwall Legion.

I think its a chance to recognize youth in the community for things they might not get recognized for, said CogecoTVs Calvin Killoran.

This is the fourth year of the event and there were 18 awards in total given out to three different grade groups across three different categories.

The categories were Caring is Cool, At my Best and Difference Maker.

We partnered up with Cogeco and purchased the plaques for the finalists and semi-finalists, said the Optimist Clubs Ralph Brunton. Our mandate is friends of youth and this fits with us. Tonights slogan is Bringing out the best in youth.
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Medication of Marijuana has never been this delicious before. Get to know more about Marijuana pizza. A Massachusetts-based medical marijuana dispensary has started selling Marijuana medicated Pizza with flavourful delights.

Introducing Medicated Pizza

The facility, which originally started at the dispensary's Quincy unit three weeks back, has already witnessed a worthy amount of praise from the items' vast number of consumers. According to The Patriot Ledger, after offering Marijuana flavored chocolate bars, cookies, and muffins, South Shore's Ermont Inc. came up with the idea to cook up a Marijuana pizza.

The pizza is medically prescribed to patients of the state and could easily be consumed as their one-course meal. Seth Yaffe, the director of operations at Ermont Inc. said: "We wanted something really easy that they could throw in the oven and walk away from." He further said that the pizza is served by the dispensary to the customers in frozen format and it contains 125 milligrams of marijuana compound tetrahydrocannabinol,(THC) in the form of Tomato sauce.

More Details About The Medicated Pizza

WCVB noted that the Marijuana pizza is available for $38. It is made out of brown cheese and has a crispy crust. Moreover, buyers can add extra toppings, as per their choice as Yaffe notes: "If you want pepperoni, it's really easy - just put it on before you put it in the oven,"

The pan baked pizza is thin and could be complimented with hot fudge, apple crisps, and pub cheese. Yaffe feels that this new innovation made by him and his associates will heal the pain of direct medication of Marijuana to a majority of the patients.

Since the beginning, 200 units of the pizza have been sold by the company in just three weeks timeline. Although, each and every customer is not eligible to buy this. Only those having, state-issued medical marijuana ID cards can grab the Marijuana pizza.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
Two civil rights groups want a New Mexico judge to rule that the states education system is failing to meet its constitutional responsibilities for groups of students, including English-language learners, Native Americans, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities.

A nine-week trial begins Mondayand lawyers for the plaintiffs say the case could have ramifications well beyond the states borders. Thats because the lawyers for the parents and school districts says the state not only underfunds public schools, but essentially ignores the states longstanding bilingual and multicultural history.

State District Judge Sarah Singleton consolidated two lawsuits filed by the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty that allege that New Mexico does not provide sufficient funding or enrichment opportunities to all students.

More than two-thirds of students in the state are Latino or Native American, and 16 percent of students are classified as English-learners.

Officials with Republican Gov. Susana Martinezs administration have denied the allegations, saying more money is being spent on education in New Mexico than ever before.

Education Week could not immediately reach education department officials for comment on the upcoming trial. The states current education secretary, Hanna Skandera, is set to resign on June 20.

Originally filed a month apart in spring 2014, the lawsuits were brought by groups of parents across the state with several school districts signing on later.

Advocates argue that language in New Mexicos constitution mandates that state government provide an adequate public school education for all school-age children, and that the state has consistently fallen short of meeting that standard.

Santa Fe schools Superintendent Veronica Garcia, who served as the states first cabinet-level education secretary from 2003 to 2010, is among the witnesses expected to testify for the plaintiffs.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund has pursued similar cases in Texas and Colorado in recent years.

The New Mexico case will be one of the most comprehensive school funding lawsuits filed in the country, said Marisa Bono, southwest regional counsel for MALDEF. This is not just a landmark case for New Mexico, but a landmark case nationally.

While all sides have acknowledged that New Mexico is grappling with a budget crisis, the parents and school leaders still want a judge to pressure the state to develop a plan to address systemic problems in the states public K-12 schools and provide every student with an opportunity to succeed, Bono said.

New Mexico courts have never considered this question, Bono said, so an appeal is likely regardless of the outcome.

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Civil Rights Group Sues New Mexico Over Lack of Equity for ELLs, Poor Students

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Trump didnt say much about school choice during the campaign and, since the election, hes been so busywhat with blasting the mayor of London and Comey and allthat he hasnt much focused on the issue. But, with tax cuts on the ropes and health care reform on life support, the White House is apparently poised to launch a big school choice push. Theyre gearing up to put Trumps adroit political skills, powerful rhetorical chops, and 39% approval to work. This is exciting stuff. Enthusiasts hope that, with any luck, Trump will do for school choice what hes done for Sean Spicers career.

I can see the nationally televised Oval Office address now:

Good evening, my fellow Americans. I'd like to talk to you tonight about American carnage; our terrible schools; and the need for school choice. School choice is great, just fantastic. It will save so many victims of our awful, failing schools. Schools that can't get any worse. School choice, so very important. I'll tell you why. Let me tell you about Kip Charter. You're hearing more and more about him nowadays. A really high energy, impressive guy. He's opened thousands of schools across the country. Great schools; the best, believe me. I've told my people, we're going to get him in here to make sure all Americans get school choice. When the big hurricane hit New Orleanshurricanes, total losers by the way, just terribleKip didn't wait to act. He opened lots of great schools in New Orleans, a great, great city, love the beignets. Great food. He had hundreds of great schools going there, better schools than anywhere. Amazing schools. The experts, the top ones, all say so. Families in the city were knocking on his door, saying, "Please let me in your school, Mr. Charter." And he did. Now he's running 7,000 schools across the country. He serves three million students. Good for him. So much better than the losers at the failing New York Times, which keeps losing customers. Kip's a winner. His schools are very, very cheap. Very competitive prices. And they don't use the Common Core, a terrible, terrible idea, by the way. And now, whatever the fake media say, the Common Core is out, no more, finished, big timeand the Second Amendment is in! That's what'll make American schools great again. Parents and all the teachers and everybody getting together around a school to make it great. And doing their Second Amendment rights. So very, very important. Anyway, Kip wanted his school to be more local. He knew that there are some good people in Washington, yes, it's true, some good people, but that bureaucrats just want the money and don't really care that much about what they're doing. So his schools have a highly respected, tremendous track record. Another kind of school choice is choosing another school. Everyone should be able to be able to choose schools, in New York or Wisconsin or Pittsburgh. My kids have gone to great schools like the Hill School, St. Andrew's, Chapin, Choate Rosemary Hall, and Trinity. I chose them all. Great, great schoolsthe best. And look how beautifully they have turned out. Just look at Ivanka. Tremendous, just tremendous. When you talk to the really top minds about schools, and I mean the top minds, you learn things not in the fake news. Some families in Wisconsin or Pittsburgh don't get to choose Trinity or St. Andrew's. So very unfair. The fake news media says nothing, it's too busy writing about that terrible liar James Comey. Such a liar. Good schools teach people to tell truth from lies. So very important. If we can put a man on the moon or invent Uber or build skyscrapersand I know about skyscrapers, the biggest, the best, the classiestwe can make sure that everyone gets to choose a school. And those schools should be free. I'm a builder. I've built huge buildings, the best ones. Schools are so cheap, trust me. It's just pencils and chalkboards and desks and teachers. Easy. Now, some people are against school choice. Terrible people, just terrible. They're making lots of money and don't want anything to change. People like Crooked Hillary say children shouldn't get any choice. They want to tell everyone to send their kid to one school. That's pathetic. It's not American. It's just sad, low-energy thinking. Crooked Hillary and the teacher unions say we don't have the money for school choice. They're such liars. We're number one in terms of cost per pupil by a factor of, worldwide, by a factor of many, many times. Many times. Number two is so far behind, forget it. Such an embarrassment. We waste so much money on bad things, on dumb things. We spend money so badly that countries you've hardly heard of are ahead of us, and spending almost nothing. So, I'm telling Congress to pass a school choice plan. It should be the biggest, the best. For everyone. Whatever you like. Totally free. Total competition. It'll be tremendous. If you live in a neighborhood that doesn't have Trinity or Chapin, we're going to build you one. That's such a good idea. No obstruction. No bureaucrats. And if a state refuses to put kids first, it will pay. No federal funds. None. And I'm going to tell people: choose a side. You're for our plan to help kids or you're with the losers. That's so very true. May God bless you and God bless America. Good night.

Maybe its just me, but I suspect that Trumps energetic support is one of the worst things that could happen to school choice. After all, school choice has been making big, steady strides. The number of private school choice programs has tripled in the past decade; they now exist in half the states. Given his supersized megaphone, Trump could all too easily reframe the issue, complicating grassroots support, sideswiping thoughtfully articulated policies, and trampling carefully crafted appeals. This school choice supporter thinks that advocates would do themselves a huge favor by keeping the walking tsunami that is President Trump as far from their efforts as humanly possible.
Anyone watching U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos testimony Tuesday before a Senate education appropriations subcommittee heard some version of this statement secretary several times: Schools that receive federal funds must follow federal laws.

That was her response to questions about whether any school that receives federal money for vouchers would be allowed to discriminate by gender or by sexual orientation, for example.

My colleagues Arianna Prothero and Andrew Ujifusa have written about anti-bias provisions in state voucher programs more broadly, but I want to explore what federal law has to say about students with disabilities more specifically.

The answer, in a nutshell, as always: Its complicated.

Why this matters now is that the Trump administrations proposed education budget includes $250 million to pay for and to study private school vouchers . The program would not send federal dollars directly to private schools in the form of vouchers; instead, it would create a competitive-grant program for states to start voucher programs or expand the voucher programs they already have operating.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act

Currently, federal law states that parents who choose to enroll their children in private schools do not receive the Individuals with Disabilities Act protections that are granted to public school students. The IDEA is silent on vouchers, but many state voucher programs require parents to explicitly waive their rights to IDEA protections.

Private school students may be allowed to have publicly funded special education services, however. Thats because private schools are entitled to a proportionate share of the federal special education money that is sent to the school district where the private school is located. This is true even if the student lives outside the boundaries of that school district.

So, if private schools in a given district enroll 5 percent of all the identified disabled students, the district should spend 5 percent of its federal IDEA allocation on services for private school students with disabilities. That doesnt guarantee that any individual student would get services, but it means that private schools are entitled to a small slice of the federal IDEA pie.

(This isnt very much money, all told: The federal contribution to special education, about $12 billion, is around 15 or 16 percent of the estimated total cost. The rest of the money comes from local districts and states.)

As for the waiving of rights and protections, this troubles many parents and has been a rallying cry for advocates. If a private school cant or wont meet a childs needs, the parent has little recourse other than to leave.

But this is true of the public school system as well, other parents say. The IDEA does grant parents the right to advocate for a better educational plan for their children. Also, public districts can be forced to pay private school tuition if thats the only way that a students individual needs can be met. But many families say those protections guaranteed under the IDEA are not really available to them because dont have the time, money, or inclination to enter into a protracted battle with a school district. So they say accepting a voucher or using an educational savings account is a better choice.

The ADA and Section 504

The other major federal disability laws affecting students are the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The ADA requires private schools to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. This might include structural changes to a school building, or notetakers for students who need such services.

But religious entities are exempt from the ADA under federal law, as are schools operated directly by religious entities. Also, accommodations must not represent an undue burden on a school or a fundamental alteration of its program. (This Q&A document from the PACER center , a parent training and information center, goes into greater detail.)

Section 504 prevents schools that receive federal money from discriminating against students. But is a school that receives a voucher the recipient of federal funds? Or is the recipient really the family that takes the voucher and decides how to spend the money? The design of the program is key.

And some courts, such as the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, have found that school districts are not required to offer even a share of services to private school students under Section 504 . This makes Section 504 different from the IDEA. The school board need not serve up its publicly funded services like a buffet from which [parents] can pick and choose, the 4th Circuit wrote in its 2013 decision on D.L. v. Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners .



The pointed debate over vouchers and student rights is unlikely to end soon. Neither is the debate over the budget itself. But part of the murkiness of the issue comes from Congressand that is the body that could resolve some of these issues, if it chose to do so.
Internet of things News

GE Digital Urges Partners To Seek Opportunities In The Industrial Internet of Things

Lindsey O'Donnell

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In a world that is becoming rapidly digitized, 125-year-old GE has worked hard to reinvent itself from a company that sells lightbulbs and military engines to one that is known for providing the software that powers industrial control systems on manufacturing floors.

The Boston-based manufacturing conglomerate feels that it has a compelling enough story for its channel partners who work with operational technology to do the same.

"We've done this transformation ourselves internally at GE, so we're in a very unique position to help our partners and customers think through this digital journey," said Kevin Ichhpurani, executive vice president of global ecosystem and channels and corporate officer at GE Digital. "We know the questions like what the business model you're planning on getting at is, or what the implications are when you move to a new business model in terms of technology and the platform  we bring a unique perspective, having done it ourselves."

[Related: CRN Exclusive: GE Digital Executive VP Kevin Ichhpurani On Partner Opportunities in Industrial IoT And Channel Goals]

GE has long been one of the big brands in selling appliances, aviation systems, energy controls, and industrial solutions like circuit breakers and switchgears.

But in 2015, the company announced its first new business in 75 years  GE Digital  marking an official effort to bring together its software and IT capabilities.

At the center of GE Digital is the company's Predix cloud, which is designed specifically for industrial data and analytics as a Platform-as-a-Service, enabling operators to use machine data faster and more efficiently.

As GE continues to reinvent itself, the company hopes to work with its partners to help them transform their own companies and drive sales around manufacturing operations which, according to market research firm IDC, was the IoT use case that saw the largest investment, $102.5 billion, in 2016.

"Our goal is to co-innovate with the ecosystem," said Ichhpurani. "A first goal is to co-innovate on top of the platform, so we're doing a portfolio analysis in every industry, looking at where the significant spend is taking place, where the gaps are, where the highest market opportunity is, and proactively sharing that with the ecosystem so that we can co-innovate, build solutions in that area and jointly go to market  It's a really big opportunity for partners, because not only are we helping with the strategy of what we should build, and where the market opportunity is, but we are in many cases co-selling  and in some cases re-selling  the partner's solution."

Jim Gillespie, CEO of Pittsburgh, Pa.-based GrayMatter, said his company has been part of GE's ecosystem since 2004, when it partnered with GE to deploy automation and connectivity solutions on the plant floor.

Over the years, Gillespie said his company has been able to innovate at the forefront of IIoT thanks to GE's new products and array of modules, including Brilliant Manufacturing, an automation module, and an asset performance management module for oil and gas, which help partners build up services around IIoT applications.

"We've seen a radical increase in focus and investments around digital here in the past three years, which has been accelerating over the past 18 months," said Gillespie. "I think there's a ton of opportunities around digital transformation overall, but inside of that GE has many more opportunities around Brilliant Manufacturing, asset performance management, field service transformation, and cyber security. There's just a lot of great areas for partners."

After the launch GE Digital, GE also cut the ribbon on a formal channel program in 2016, appealing to system integrators, resellers, and independent software vendors to help sell solutions and services around its Predix platform.

Ichhpurani said GE's program for its partners includes enablement tools for IIoT like sales training, technical enablement, implementation enablement and developer landscapes.

"We're positioning [partners] to succeed by building a comprehensive enablement program, which allows them to think of not only the technical issues, but also think about the overall approach for driving business and digital transformation with the customer," said Ichhpurani. "Often when you're positioning a solution for the customer, it's not only about technology  it's about security, it's about the new business model you're creating with the customer."

GE will continue to face pressure to innovate in the industrial IoT market, particularly as more competitors  like Siemens and IBM  devote more resources to the space. However, partners like Gillespie remain confident that the company and its channel will continue to dominate the industrial IoT space.

"We really think GE will be the predominant player in the industrial IoT space," said Gillespie. "We think they're doing a lot of the right things and they're an early mover."
Hanna Skandera, New Mexicos hard-charging education secretary who, amid abysmal academic outcomes, took head on the states teachers union, said shell resign June 20, according to the Albuquerque Journal .

The announcement came as a surprise to many, including the states Democrats who in recent weeks have griped about Skanderas plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act, which kept in place the states controversial letter-grade accountability system and teacher evaluations tied to test scores (she reduced the weight of test scores from 50 percent to 35 percent, but the teachers union was still not pleased).

Skandera was once considered a prospect to serve as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos assistant education secretary of elementary and secondary education, but her name was taken off the list after Republicans pointed out that she was one of the lead champions of the Common Core State Standards.

Not too many people or professions weather this much change in a short amount of time, and our educators and our school leaders and our superintendents have, Skandera told the Journal yesterday. New Mexicans can be proud as they look across the nation that there is no other state, actually, that has embraced this much change, not rolled any of it back, pressed in and begun to see all their objective measures going up.

In a statement posted on its website, Mike Magee, the executive officer of Chiefs for Change, of which Skandera was a member, said, For more than six years, Hanna Skandera has been a bold and innovative leader of New Mexicos public school system, transforming it from one lagging behind the nation to one that is experiencing remarkable growth across every objective measure of student success.

Skanderas appointment by New Mexico Republican Gov. Susanna Martinez took more than four years because her supporters couldnt muster enough confirmation votes in the states Democratically controlled senate.

A replacement has not been announced yet. The position is appointed by the state governor. The state recently abolished its state board of education. A bill was proposed in the legislature to abolish the state secretary position and resurrect the elected state board of education.

Skandera told me two weeks ago that she was excited about this summers teacher summit in which she planned to roll out several new initiatives to improve teaching and learning under the state ESSA plan.

Our plan is New Mexicos plan, said Skandera, who has, in recent weeks, returned to many of the small towns where she and department officials spent two days engaging with parents, teachers and principals. Skandera said more than 2,000 people took part in the process, in addition to including leaders of several tribal communities.

We want to refine what we have in place, she said. We want to equip and empower educators more, and were rolling out 20 new teacher initiatives.

While she touted increased access to AP courses and an uptick in the states graduation rate, New Mexico ranks 49th in Education Weeks Quality Counts report for education success and the states schools have struggled financially in recent years with the downturn in the local oil industry.

Earlier this year, State Sen. William Soules, the Democratic chair of New Mexicos Senate education committee, told me that Skandera approached state leaders in August, several months after ESSA was passed, and said the state had to make only a few minor policy adjustments to comply with the new law. ESSA provides a key opportunity for the state to rewrite its education policies, Soules said.

This place has became unglued, he said in February, referring to the states education arena and the ESSA planning process. There are all kinds of problems. The pet is certainly driving the process. Theres lots of distrust and tension between the department, the secretary of education and the legislature. Im really concerned about the direction that were going in.

Photo: New Mexico Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera poses for a photograph in Albuquerque, N.M., on June 6. Photo by Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

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.
Security News

Webroot Keynote At DattoCon: Use Multilayer Security To Prevent Phishing, Malware Attacks

Joseph F. Kovar

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MSPs need to educate their customers, especially their SMB clients, about the importance of a multilayered security solution for protecting their businesses from cyberattacks, including ransomware.

That's the message from George Anderson, director of product marketing at Broomfield, Colo.-based security vendor Webroot, who on Wednesday addressed a large audience of MSPs during DattoCon 2017 in Denver.

Customers face a range of security issues, Anderson said. For instance, he cited a Verizon study that phishing now causes 90 percent of security and breach issues. He also cited a Webroot study that 94 percent of all malware is unique to a single endpoint, which makes it important for MSPs to take a careful look at the anti-virus tools their customers require.

[Related: Datto CEO Previews New Products, Tools To Help MSPs Reach SMBs]

There is a broad range of next-generation offerings from startups, but they mainly provide single-sector protection, Anderson said. "They're very good at protecting one layer, but they don't have a lot of layers behind it," he said.

Ideally, businesses require multi-vector protection, Anderson said. "You need to recognize that attacks come in different stages," he said.

That requires being able to prevent attacks, to detect attacks that were not prevented, and to remediate the impacts of detected attacks, Anderson said.

Analyst firm Gartner also adds predicting where an attack might come from as a fourth layer of protection, he said. "I think we need to add that," he said.

Webroot offers a multilayer protection which starts with Web Threat Shield which aims to stop phishing attacks by, for instance, not allowing suspicious emails reach their target users.

For when an email does get through, the company's Real-Time Anti-Phishing checks the URL in the email before the user clicks on it to test within milliseconds whether the URL leads to a phishing site.

If the user gets through to such a phishing site, Webroot's Realtime Shield looks for files and fragments of files that might cause a security issue.

For a potential attack missed by Realtime Shield, the company's Behavior Shield looks at whether malware causes any actions.

Webroot also looks at the execution layer of an application to determine if there is malware and, if so, contain the malicious software, Anderson said.

"You should be asking your AV [antivirus] providers what they are doing at each layer and how it works," he said.

Webroot is fortunate in that it has about 75 percent of retail consumer malware protection market, Anderson said. "We know that people are going to do stupid things at home," he said. "We take what we learn from the consumer side to the office because the same people go there."

Anderson also said security businesses have to be careful to consider whether information on a possible attack results in a false positive or a false negative report. He did not directly refer to a significant error in April when a Webroot upgrade accidentally flagged Windows system files as malware and marked several major websites as phishing sites.

In the end, stopping attacks before they start is the best protection, but that has to be done in real time, Anderson said. "If it's not real time, your chance of success drops significantly," he said.

The points raised by Anderson are the reason Hill Country Tech Guys partner with Webroot, said Whit Ehrich, owner of the San Marcos, Texas-based MSP and channel partner to both Webroot and Datto.

A lot of people think all antivirus software is the same, but it isn't, Ehrich told CRN. As a result, it is the responsibility of MSPs to ensure they have the right offerings to meet customers' needs, he said.

"Customers don't really ask about the details," he said. "We tell them we provide antivirus. They say, 'OK.' It's our problem if it doesn't work."
Security News

Microsoft Confirms Acquisition Of Security Automation Firm Hexadite

Kyle Alspach

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Microsoft Thursday said it has reached a deal to acquire Hexadite, a cybersecurity startup offering a security orchestration and automation platform.

The acquisition confirms a report in May that Microsoft was planning to acquire the Boston-based company.

[Related: CRN Exclusive: Hexadite Launches Partner Program, Names Former Carbonite Exec Couto As Channel Chief]

Microsoft did not disclose the terms of the acquisition agreement. The May report had put the acquisition price for the company at $100 million.

Hexadite's platform uses artificial intelligence technologies to investigate and respond to security alerts. The company's investors include Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TenEleven and YL Ventures, with its most recent funding coming from an $8 million Series A round in February, 2016.

Microsoft said the acquisition will help improve detection and response to attacks for commercial Windows 10 users. Hexadite's AI-based technology will be added into Microsoft's Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection, the company said.

"Hexadites technology and talent will augment our existing capabilities and enable our ability to add new tools and services to Microsofts robust enterprise security offerings," said Terry Myerson, executive vice president for the Windows and Devices Group at Microsoft, in a statement.

The acquisition is part of a broader push by the Redmond, Wash.-based company to "deliver a new generation of security capabilities" in the wake of the "constantly evolving" cybersecurity threat landscape, Myerson said.

Microsoft said in January that it will continue investing $1 billion into security research and development on an annual basis.

The strategy has included previous acquisitions of security companies, such as data protection company Secure Islands and cloud security company Adallom in recent years.

Hexadite, which was founded in 2014, had recently been pushing to increase its channel efforts with the launch of its first partner program in April. The company hired Jessica Couto, formerly the head of the channel program at Carbonite, as its channel chief at the same time.

Microsoft said it plans to strengthen its Advanced Threat Protection offering with AI-based automatic investigation and remediation from Hexadite, "making response and remediation faster and more effective," the company said. That will include endpoint security automated remediation, Microsoft said.
Making Moves

Telecom providers have been busy this spring acquiring new fiber and investing heavily in bolstering their wired and wireless networks as the race to 5G accelerates. At the same time, telecom executives were also on the move during May.

Here are six newsworthy items that happened in the telecom industry last month that solution providers should know about.
Some states are setting tighter definitions and more concrete goals than others in their plans for finding the least effective teachers and making sure theyre not disproportionately serving poor and minority students, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Among the bright spots nationally are New Mexico and Tennessee, says the group, which released today analyses of the federally required plans states have submitted under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

ESSA, the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind and goes into effect this fall, requires that states define ineffective and inexperienced teachers in their plans, and describe ways theyll ensure low-income and minority students arent being taught by them at higher rates than their peers. So far, 16 states and the District of Columbia have submitted accountability plans to the U.S. Education Department.

As my colleague Daarel Burnette II wrote last week, Civil rights advocates and teacher accountability hawks have expressed deep frustration with how some states ignored this portion of the law in the 17 plans submitted so far. ... State education officials, meanwhile, say they struggle to collect teacher quality information from districts, many of which have different evaluation systems.

NCTQ, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, released a guide laying out what it thinks states should have in their plans. It says states should:



Define an inexperienced teacher as one with two or fewer years experience.

Define an ineffective teacher that uses objective measures of student learning and growth (which, in practical terms, often means test scores).

Set clear timelines for eliminating educator equity gaps.

Calculate and report educator equity gaps at the school and student levels (rather than just at the district level).

To be clear, these points are not specified by ESSAthey represent NCTQs interpretation of an exemplary ESSA plan.

The guide lauds New Mexico because it includes in its definition of an ineffective teacher anyone who earns student growth ratings in the bottom decile (even if that teacher does quite well on a teacher evaluation overall, due to positive ratings on measures such as classroom observations and student surveys). New Mexico is really leading the pack, said Elizabeth Ross, the managing director of state policy at NCTQ.

Its worth noting that New Mexico has had one of the toughest, and most controversial, teacher evaluation systems in the country. Gov. Susana Martinez recently announced changes to the system, including reducing the percentage of a teachers rating derived from test scores from 50 percent to 35 percent . However, the teachers unions, which have sued the state several times over evaluations, are still unsatisfied.

In terms of calculating and reporting data, Tennessee is really doing the finest job among this set of plans, said Ross. The state will look at teacher distributions within schools, not just across districts and schools. This makes sure theres not a scenario where all high-income students in [Advanced Placement] classes are taught by experienced teachers and all low-income students in remedial classes are taught by inexperienced teachers.

NCTQ did an in-depth analysis for each state as well. You can find all of those here .

The Maine analysis shows the states definition of an ineffective teacher does not require an objective measure of student growth, and its definition of an inexperienced teacher includes teachers with zero to three years experience. NCTQ thinks this should be only zero to two years, since research shows teachers make strong gains in effectiveness in their first two years on the job.

Maine should take some time to think critically about tightening up some of its definitions, Ross said.

As you may remember, NCTQ is the same group that has reviewed and rated thousands of teacher education programs over the last few years, finding many of them well below par. Critics continue to assail its method for assessing programs, which relies heavily on document review. This report could kick up similar controversy, although for now the group decided not to use ratings. Thats because states will still have an opportunity to amend their plans before submitting them for final approval.

Our hope is that states that have significant room for improvement will take this opportunity to do so, so theyre ensuring theyre not systemically disadvantaging certain types of students, Ross said.

NCTQ plans to do another round of analyses this fall, when the other 34 states submit their plans to the Education Department.
When Benjamin Franklin said, Time is money, he gave the world an aphorism that would be quoted frequently by businesspeople for more than 200 years. For all his wit and insight, of course, Franklin could never have foreseen the many scenarios for which his pithy observation would come to apply. It turns out that among the most relevant applications of the quote in todays digitally driven world is in the realm of cybersecurity.

Why? Because for organizations that suffer a cyberattack, a slow response can prove very costly. In an early 2017 survey of more than 1,000 IT and business decision makers, nearly two-thirds of the respondents said they could lose $100,000 per hour or more if a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack were to disrupt their peak business periods.

On the bright side, 8 in 10 of the organizations responding to the Neustar-sponsored survey said theyve learned about new DDoS attacks from their internal security and IT teams  at least sometimes. Less encouraging is the fact that 40% also said they have, at times, received their first notification of attacks from their customers.

If your customers notice somethings wrong before your own security specialists do, youve failed on multiple levels. The ideal DDoS defense is to recognize an emerging threat and neutralize it before it even gains a foothold  and certainly before your customers experience any negative impacts. If customers start complaining about an inability to access your websites or other services, youve already started to lose money before youre even aware of the problem.

Beyond causing staggering monetary losses for many corporations, successful DDoS attacks can alienate customers and shake their confidence in the victims ability to secure its own systems. By extension, customer then worry about the security of their own interactions with the company, and about the safety of any customer data the company may hold. The resulting customer churn and reduced loyalty can result in additional financial consequences.

In this regard, another Franklin quote sadly holds true: It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.

Fortunately, there are many security tools and services available to organizations that decide to be proactive in their DDoS defenses. As is often the case when it comes to cybersecurity, the most effective defenses will leverage a layered approach. The first-level of defense for DDoS attacks ideally will be provided by the network or Internet service provider, which is often the first to see  and block  suspicious network activity.

For those attacks that still manage to get through, companies need their own DDoS identification and mitigation solutions. Some of those solutions may be on-premises appliances and other controls, while others may be provided by cloud-based or managed security services providers. Such security-as-a-service offerings are rapidly gaining in popularity, especially if an attacks scale exceeds the capabilities of the on-premises protections.

In short, theres little excuse to be reactive, rather than proactive, when it comes to DDoS defenses. And, yes, Franklin once again provides some sage advice to those who may be too cavalier in their attitudes about DDoS threat. By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
The recent WannaCry attack was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the speed and scale of the attack was impressive. Over the course of a couple of days, hundreds of thousands of systems were affected and disrupted.

Second, it also unveiled a disturbing trend. The attack malware exploited a known vulnerability that not only had been revealed through the highly public release of stolen cyber tools, but Microsoft had also released a patch for the targeted vulnerability over two months before. Which means that the scale of the attack was the direct result of poor security management, not only in terms of failing to patch a highly publicized vulnerability, but also failing to update existing security tools with signatures from a variety of security vendors that had been designed to identify and block the attack.

However, another interesting component to this attack was the wide variety of industries that were affected simultaneously, such as telcos, energy providers, and healthcare systems, all located across widely divergent geographic regions, from Spain and Turkey, to Russia, China, the UK, and the US.

The question is, how was this attack able to so quickly spread across these traditionally very different environments? The answer has a lot to do with the increasing hyperconvergence of networks, and growing similarities between the infrastructures of affected organizations.

Historically, threat trends have reflected the environments in which they occur. However, as organizations continue to adopt a variety of new, highly distributed network ecosystems, and access similar data, applications, and resources, we are beginning to document that threats are no longer being confined to a specific place or industry.

Understanding how information technologies, services, configurations, controls, and behaviors change over time is important to monitoring, anticipating, and preventing new exploits, malware, and botnets.

Over the past several years, Fortinet has been actively gathering threat intelligence and correlating infrastructure trends gleaned from a voluntary threat assessment program we conduct across the globe. While the length of the assessment and the demographic mix of participating organizations tends to fluctuate from quarter to quarter, we have managed to develop infrastructure usage trends that show that, increasingly, organizations that are considered to be from very different industries are becoming more similar than one might assume.

Infrastructure Profiles

Looking at the data has allowed us to determine and profile those industries that share closely related profiles when it comes to infrastructure usage. More importantly, it has helped us look at the underlying policies and practices that are related to, and alter security posture.

Each bubble in Figure 1 represents a separate industry, and the size of the bubble corresponds to the number of organizations within each industry. The profiles are based on normalized values (z-scores) for common infrastructure elements, such as the number and kinds of apps being used, bandwidth usage, the ratio of encrypted to unencrypted data, and the number and variety of websites visited on any given day.

Industries placed close together have very similar infrastructure profiles, while outliers, and clusters of industries distant from each other have very different infrastructure and usage patterns. As can be seen, the majority of industries reside in a loosely packed grouping toward the upper center of the chart, including such traditionally diverse industries as Manufacturing, Healthcare, and Energy.

Threat Profiles

Another way to analyze this data is to profile organizations and industries based on their shared threat characteristics. The main question were trying to answer is, do organizational threat profiles also cluster according to industry, and if so, which ones are similar?

In this dataset, weve taken the top 30 threats from our exploit, malware, and botnet datasets to create a common set of 90 data points that we use to formulate an organizations threat profile. Our clustering algorithm compares these 90 markers between organizations, and calculates a measure of how similar they are to each other. Figure 2 plots these organizations, with different industries assigned a unique color, and those plotted near each other exhibiting similar threat profiles,

The primary observation is that we do NOT see a series of distinct, unicolor clusters tying distinct industries together. Instead, we see a large, dense mass of organizations across a variety of industries in the upper left quadrant, with another loose grouping forming in the upper right. And we also see that organizations within the same industry are scattered all over the graph. A straightforward interpretation of these results is that organizational threat profiles do not necessarily cluster strongly according to industry, but instead to something else.

Figure 3 is a corollary of Figure 1, except its based on threat profile instead of infrastructure profile. As before, dots represent industries, size is based on the number of firms in that industry, and nearness of industries is equated to the similarity of their threat profiles.

The similarities between Figures 1 and 3 are striking. Many of the same industries fall within the nexus of the mega-cluster in each of those charts. It is interesting to also note that these charts also share many of the same outliers (e.g., Education, Telcos/Carriers, and MSSPs.) While we dont want to confuse correlation with causation, this analysis raises some interesting questions, such as whether an organizations infrastructure usage has a stronger relationship to its threat profile than to the industry it belongs to.

Convergence

Which brings us back to our original observation: organizations adapting to the new digital marketplace seem to be adopting very similar infrastructures, such as cloud infrastructure and services, highly mobile devices and workers, IoT, shadow IT, and distributed and highly elastic network and data resources. They also share similarities in terms of the type of Internet-savvy digital customers they are catering to.

While this data bears further research, it appears that as forward-thinking organizations, regardless of industry, adapt and expand their networks to embrace the new digital economy, they are also becoming increasingly similar. Which means they are not only potentially vulnerable to the same risks and threats, but similarly overtaxed IT personnel are clearly struggling to keep up with these changes (which seems to have also resulted in diminishing security hygiene), and the use of traditional security tools  which are poorly equipped to provide an integrated and adaptive approach to security  simply cannot adequately span this newly expanded digital footprint to correlate threat intelligence, or identify and respond to sophisticated threats targeting new and often highly distributed attack vectors.

As organizations continue to adapt to the demands of the emerging digital economy, they must rethink security. Rather than continuing to deploy isolated security devices at rapidly disappearing network perimeters, they need an integrated, architectural approach that enables a holistic security strategy. This approach can see and even anticipate threats across the entire shifting network ecosystem, adapt to network changes and follow critical resources, and automatically respond at machine speeds, regardless of where across their networked ecosystem they occur.

Data in this article is from the recent Fortinet Global Threat Landscape Report.

Information about the Fortinet Security Fabric, a security vision and framework designed to tie together traditionally isolated security devices into a holistic threat defense and response solution, can also be found here.
Contractor Arrested and Charged in NSA Leak

Reality Leigh Winner, a Georgia-based government contractor, was arrested on Monday and charged with "removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to a news outlet." Winner is believed to be the source of a document leaked to the Intercept which purported to demonstrate the Russian government's efforts to hack the 2016 presidential election.

Winner has been charged under the Espionage Act for transmitting NSA intelligence to the press, the first criminal leak prosecution under President Donald Trump.

Communicate and Transmit

18 U.S.C.  793 prohibits anyone with "unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document ... or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation" from communicating, delivering, or transmitting it "to any person not entitled to receive it."

Winner allegedly copied a May 5th intelligence document that detailed how the GRU, a Russian military intelligence unit, carried two cyberattacks aimed at influencing last year's election. The first attacks involved hacking into the software company that created devices used to maintain and verify voter rolls, while the second involved a phishing scheme targeting employees of government agencies. Rumors have long circulated about Russia's alleged efforts to influence or sabotage the last presidential election, and to many the leaked documents are a smoking gun proving those efforts, even if they don't prove whether those efforts were successful.

Copy and Paste

According to the Department of Justice, Winner printed the classified intelligence reporting, took it home, and then a few days later, sent the documents to the Intercept via a Gmail account she created on her work computer. Investigators, identifying creases and an invisible dot pattern on the document that identifies when and where it was printed narrowed their focus to Winner and five other individuals, and she was allegedly the only one who contacted the news outlet. FBI agent Justin Garrick also claimed that Winner "admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue" when interviewed at her home.

Violations of the Espionage Act carry 10-year prison sentences, and, according to one infamous leaker, their prosecution is a little different than for other crimes:

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WASHINGTON  As former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump White House of lying about the reasons for his dismissal, Connecticuts congressional delegation and all of Washington were watching.

Amid hours of testimony Thursday, they heard Comey tell the Senate Intelligence Committee he was clearly fired last month because of the bureaus investigation of links between Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russia.

Jim Comey was riveting (and) chilling in his portrait of a president abusing power and seeking to put himself above law, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who is not an Intelligence Committee member but sat in the audience throughout the hearing. As Comey said, Trump fired him to change the course of the investigation  which is actually putting the nation at risk.

Blumenthals Connecticut colleague in the Senate, Chris Murphy, said, Every day, it seems like the walls are closing in on this president. Whats most important is that investigators in the Senate and at the Department of Justice get all the facts and find the truth.

Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, added, If the White Houses account differs from what we heard today, the American people deserve to hear the presidents side of the story in a similar forum  under oath and open to the press.

Possible obstruction

Comey was by turns angry over his treatment by Trump and almost apologetic Thursday for not challenging the president more forcefully  especially when Trump asked about letting Flynn go, a reference to dismissed national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Comey told the Intelligence Committee that he started writing memos of his interactions with Trump from Jan. 6 this year through April 11, because I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting(s).

Much of the back-and-forth between senators of both parties focused on why Comey resisted Trumps effort to get the FBI to issue a statement that Trump himself was not under investigation, and why he tried to smooth over the presidents demand for loyalty.

Comey told senators he refused to issue such a statement because it might lead to a slippery slope of retraction if evidence were to implicate the president. And at his Jan. 27 dinner White House dinner where Trump asked for loyalty, Comey said he agreed to honest loyalty as a way of ending a very awkward conversation.

Blumenthal said he was stunned by Comeys statement that Russia would keep disrupting life in America unless measures are taken to stop it. And he said he would call for the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member, to bring Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to explain why they didnt do more to protect Comey and the FBI.

Other members of Connecticuts congressional delegation weighed in on Comeys testimony, often adding their own criticisms of the presidents conduct.

Jim Comeys testimony today is an important step forward in the investigation into Russias meddling in the 2016 Election, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. The information and testimony he presented suggests that the special counsel will have to consider possible obstruction of justice. While I am not a lawyer or a prosecutor, it appears that President Trump worked to impede the Russian investigation.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty said Comeys words confirmed many of the most troubling news reports about President Trumps conduct, including that President Trump may have inappropriately interfered with an FBI investigation into a former member of his administration.

Russian hacking

Rep. Jim Himes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee that is conducting a parallel inquiry into Russias connections to the Trump campaign, said his panel will continue in a bipartisan fashion to gather documents, interview witnesses and conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation. In cooperation with the Senate and the FBI, will get to the bottom of this matter.

Comey was emphatic in his testimony that the Russian hacking under investigation was real, and neither a hoax nor fake news, as Trump himself labeled it. The investigation is focusing on Trump campaign contacts with Russian intelligence as part of a wider probe of Russian efforts to swing the 2016 election to Trump.

They did it with purpose, they did it with sophistication, they did it with overwhelming technical efforts, and it was an active-measure campaign driven from the top of the government, Comey said in response to questioning by Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. There is no fuzz on that.

Comey said he concluded that Trump was making his continued service as FBI director contingent on short-circuiting the Russia investigation in general, and Flynns possible jeopardy in particular.

I took (Trumps words) as a direction, Comey said. It is the president of the United States with me alone  I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didnt obey it, but I took it that way.

He concluded that Trump fired him over the Russia probe because he saw the president say so.

Comey grew incensed when, after firing him on May 9, Trump suggested it was because the FBI was in disarray, Comey was a poor leader and the agencys rank-and-file had lost confidence in him.

Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said.
BRIDGEPORT  Mayor. Potential gubernatorial contender. And now, adjunct professor.

Mayor Joe Ganim has been moonlighting at his alma mater, the University of Bridgeport, for two semesters, co-teaching a government course. And he plans to return in the fall.

This has been a rewarding way to share my personal and professional knowledge of state and local government, Ganim said in a press release issued just before 10 p.m. Wednesday night. Real actions and real challenges of our municipality as they happen in City Hall are periodically brought to the students as part of the weekly discussion. This has also been a unique way to get to know these young residents of our city. There is such a positive energy and intellect on the UB campus.

Hearst Connecticut Media had been asking the mayor, his staff and UB for more details about the side job and what it paid since Ganim confirmed it late last week. The arrangement between the mayor and UB was never formally announced.

Ganim last Friday in a text wrote he taught once a week in the evening  government with a local angle.

On Thursday Ganims office said the mayor earned a nominal stipend. The position, according to a UB spokesman, typically pays $3,000 to $3,500 per semester. But that amount is split if two individuals are involved, as is the case with Ganim.

It is not surprising UB offered the mayor the opportunity. On the campaign trail in 2015 then-candidate Ganim, who was first mayor in the 1990s, pledged to embrace the South End-based educational institution. In contrast the man Ganim defeated in that years Democratic primary, then-Mayor Bill Finch, harbored a one-sided grudge against UB and refused to step foot on campus.

But the fact Ganim, who has plenty of influence over how City Hall partners with UB, has been receiving even a modest paycheck from the school raises ethical questions. Ganim originally ran Bridgeport from 1991 until he was convicted in 2003 of running a pay-to-play scheme out of his office, spending seven years in jail before 2015s shocking comeback.

The fact neither UB nor Ganim ever announced that he had joined the staff as an adjunct was odd given they have been otherwise quick to tout the improved relationship. And Ganim as a candidate had pledged to run a very transparent administration.

On Thursday Ed Adams, a mayoral adviser, said he just this week concluded there is no ethical issue. Adams is a retired FBI agent who helped topple Ganim in 2003, then campaigned for him in 2015 and was given a city job. Adams said in his view there is no quid pro quo between Ganim and UB.

Ganims office had not initially responded to questions about whether anyone in City Hall reviewed Ganims becoming a university adjunct. Wednesdays press release instead noted other mayors throughout the country ... have also enjoyed the opportunity to bring their political knowledge of government and policy to the classroom.

Leslie Geary, UBs communications director, said the teaching job arose after the mayor spoke at UB in April 2016. She said that the talk was so popular that inviting him to teach ... evolved naturally from that.

Geary did not respond to a question about whether outgoing UB President Neil Salonen, who was a chairman of Ganims transition team after he defeated Finch, played a role in the hiring.

Lisa Parziale, who helped champion Ganims return but is now a critic of the mayors, said she believes he is bored and likes the stimulation of teaching and also whatever extra money he can earn.

Opponents of Ganims have alleged the ex-mayor wanted to return to City Hall in 2015 because he needed an income after the state Supreme Court refused to reinstate the law license he lost upon his conviction.

Ganim has taken every opportunity he can to make a little extra cash beyond his $144,000 salary, be it maximizing his municipal benefits or, until he got in trouble with his condominium board, renting out a new condominium he had purchased last year.

On top of being mayor and his teaching duties, Ganim is exploring a run for governor in 2018 while simultaneously raising money for re-election in 2019.
BRIDGEPORT - Political insider, ex-journalist, author and blogger Lennie Grimaldi will discuss his latest book, Connecticut Characters: Personalities Spicing Up the Nutmeg State Saturday at the downtown library.

Though the soft cover publication includes locals like returned Mayor Joe Ganim and ex-Police Chief Joe Walsh, Grimaldi recounts writing about or working for others who called Connecticut home or passed through, from late Gov. Ella Grasso to actress Linda Blair to Manhattan developer-turned-U.S. President Donald Trump.
BRIDGEPORT  All lanes on Interstate 95 between exits 28 and 29 have re-opened after an accident earlier in the evening, according to a dispatcher for Connecticut State Police Troop G.

The left and center lanes between exits 28 and 29 are closed following an accident on I-95 northbound after a two-car motor vehicle accident around 9:19 p.m. Wednesday evening.
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ANSONIA  For decades Kirk Mike Weldon devoted much of his life to being a volunteer firefighterfirst in Ansonia with the Charters and then after moving to Seymour with Citizens Engine.

My mom would always say: Who did you marry me or the fire department? said Brianna Weldon, the only child of Kirk and Tina Weldon. That argument was never settled.

On Thursday morning row after row of Valley firefighters and EMTs filled a section of Assumption Church for Weldons funeral. The same was true Wednesday night at the Wakelee Memorial Funeral home. In addition to saying goodbye they told stories of the man known as Mike, Captain Kirk, Chief and the Budman.

It hasnt set in me for me yet, said Timm Willis, Seymours deputy fire marshal. He did so much for so many that no one realizes yet how much he is going to be missed.

Just hours after appearing at Citizens firehouse Saturday to ensure his company was ready for the towns June 4 Founders Day event, Weldons big heart finally gave out after 54 years. There would be no more surgeries, no more procedures, no more implants.

He had four open heart surgeries and nine pacemakers replaced, the Rev. James Sullivan, Assumptions pastor told those who attended Weldons funeral Mass. He lived a joyful life despite those scars.

He took pride in showing his collection of pacemakers, quipped Weldons daughter.

And those who knew Weldon said his health issues never stopped him from giving back to the Valley.

It never diminished his outlook and generosity, said former Ansonia Mayor Tom Clifford, who knew Weldon from the Charters. He fulfilled Jesuit teaching.

During the Mass, Sullivan said one of the truest marks of a Christian are service...when its not about me, its about someone else. Mike lived that beautiful life in so many ways.

While firefighting was a big part of his life, Weldon also spent 11 years delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service in Bridgeport and Stratford. After retiring he spent five years crossing school children in Seymour.

Every morning Mike would give me a big smile and wave when I dropped my kids at school, said Seymour First Selectman W. Kurt Miller. That was such a nice way to start a day.

He was given the first name Kirk at birth, but changed it to Mike some years later because there were too many other names starting with k in the family, and it got confusing, according to his daughter. His original name  and his natural leadership  led to the affectionate nickname, Captain Kirk.

Weldon grew up on Ansonias Roosevelt Drive not far from the Hales, where dad Lester Hale would become the citys mayor and sons Gary and Kevin would go onto become a state senator and police chief respectively.

Weldon quickly became best friends with the younger Kevin. They graduated Ansonia High together in 1980.

My brother is broken up  he couldnt be here today , said former State Senator Gary Hale. His son, Patrick is graduating from U.S. Army Ranger Selection School.

Gary Hale called the turnout at Assumption Church, an impressive display of honoring service and recognizing the basic decency and goodness of a fine man.

Volunteer firefighters have been the backbone of the Valley, the former state senator said.  I read somewhere that volunteer fire departments save municipalities across the country more than $140 billion in costs... But, their contribution to protecting the public safety is just part of their service.

Hale said the volunteers are first in line to march in parades, work on community projects, assist desperate families and help sick children.

Despite all the challenges Mike faced he still gave his life to community service, Hale said. It (Service) will make the Valley great again because that service reflected in its firefighters is an enduring strength that cannot be extinguished.

Weldon joined Charters at a young age and spent 25 years there rising to drill master. Duties included making sure proper lines were kept in parades.

We were so good we won awards, recalls Jay Fainer, now the Ansonia Assistant Chief supervising Charters.

When Weldon moved to Seymour, he joined Citizens Engine Co. No. 2. Although he couldnt enter burning buildings, he would stay outside directing traffic.

If we need help at a softball game, pancake breakfast or lobster bake Mike was there, said Willis, the deputy Seymour fire marshal.

But he kept dual membership, Fainer said. Whenever there was a parade I would ask which uniform he was going to wear.

On Thursday Weldon wore his Citizens Engine dress blues.
On June 7, Chief Minister U Aye Zan nominated U Min Kyaw Lwin, a Mon State native and engineer by training who has worked with the Yangon City Development Committee.

His educational background is suitable, U Aye Zan told the state Hluttaw. U Min Kyaw Lwin is from Chaungzone townships Ywar Lut Village.

I want to use my knowledge and skills to carry out urban and regional development. I want to pursue all-round development harmoniously without any waste, he said.

U Min Kyaw Lwin graduated from the Rangoon Institute of Technology with a degree in civil engineering in 1984. The resume submitted to parliament says that he is a professional engineer (construction) and a certified civil engineer recognized by the ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineers Coordinating Committee. He is also a member of the Myanmar Engineers Association, and holds a senior engineer license from the YCDC.

He applied for National League for Democracy membership in November 2015.

The states development and construction ministry was previous headed by Chief Minister U Min Min Oo, who resigned in February.

The Mon State cabinet currently has 13 members, including U Aye Zan who replaced U Min Min Oo as chief minister.

Translated by Thida Linn

Edited by Laignee Barron
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor does it necessarily reflect its views. It's that time of year again! If we don't pack on those extra layers (and we don't mean quirky nose warmers!) before slipping into bed at night, nightmares will be the least of our READ THE REST
Nearly 80 PA people have been charged for Jan. 6 riot. Three are dead.

news
The election, for Trump, will never be over, and today he's running against former FBI Director James Comey. Comey is testifying today that the president is (in brief) a lying weirdo who wanted him to ask for his job, to pledge loyalty, to clear him publicly, and to end the investigation into his Russian-entangled surrogates. The Great America Alliance, a pro-Trump political action committee, is running a campaign-style ad against Comey today depicting him as a showboater who struggles with the facts.
Entertainment / TV Guide

by Staff reporter

Zee Africa is proud to announce the launch of its global English news channel WION on Africa's dynamic new payTV network Kwese TV. WION will premiere to African audiences in Kwese TV's current satellite markets on channel 731.This will be the third channel from ZEE on the KWESE platform which already hosts Zee Bollynova ch #150 and Bollymovies ch #155 , both added on 30th January this year.With its head office in Delhi, WION, which stands for "World is One News" takes its name from the Group's motto, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World is One Family). The channel aims to bring global news with an Asian perspective.Headed by an international editorial team, WION has experienced journalists, researchers and analysts with global exposure examining global issues with in-depth analysis. With bureaus in 37 global locations, WION has international reach and multi-cultural staff adding local perspective to every global news story. WION is the first India based network to have its presence in regions like the UK, USA, China, Russia and Africa making it South Asia's first truly convergent, multi-media English News Network.Kwese TV will deliver this exciting new channel to viewers in Ghana, Zambia, Rwanda and Lesotho through its multi-platform broadcast offering which includes linear TV, the Kwese mobile app, and web streaming services delivering quality news to viewers on the move anywhere, anytime, on any screen."With WION, we commit to deliver to the African viewers, authentic information and a local perspective to what is happening in our world today." said Harish Goyal, CEO of Zee Africa."A premium news offering is one of the key things consumers look for on television. The addition of WION to our line-up not only grows our news and actuality offering but also adds further diversity to our bouquet," concluded President and Group Chief Executive Officer of Econet Media, Joseph Hundah.
Tomorrow we could wake up with a Marxist Prime Minister. And a Marxist Chancellor. I dont say it is likely, but it is certainly on the cards. That the possibility should even exist seems to me incredible.

For it is a commonplace that this country shuns extremes, and that general elections are usually fought around the political centre. There have been far-out politicians in the past, but none of them got a tenth as close to power as Jeremy Corbyn.

How this has happened is by far the most fascinating aspect of this election. Here is a man who gave succour to the IRA when it was at war with the British state, and associated with Middle Eastern terrorists whom he described as his friends.

Jeremy Corbyn refuses to sing the national anthem during the 75th anniversary Battle of Britain memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral in London on September 15, 2015

And while it is true that Corbyn has publicly disavowed these former allegiances  though one may reasonably doubt his sincerity  it remains the case that the Labour manifesto is an antediluvian document brimming over with wild and impractical measures.

It proposes (uncosted, of course) mass renationalisation, and higher taxes not just for the super-rich but those earning more than 80,000 a year. Millions of ordinary families would be clobbered by higher council tax and lower inheritance tax thresholds, which would entail a 40 per cent tax rate on the value of a deceased relatives home worth more than 425,000.

Thats not all. Corbyn has spent his political life campaigning against Britains independent nuclear deterrent, and has said that if he were prime minister he would never use Trident. In that case we might as well get rid of it. Whoever backs Labour today is voting for unilateral nuclear disarmament.

And yet many millions will do so, particularly among the young  even though Corbyn is regarded by most of the Parliamentary Labour Party as being unfit for office and, to put it bluntly, is not strikingly intelligent. Nor has he ever run so much as a whelk stall in his life.

MP Jeremy Corbyn with Gerry Adams at the Bobby Sands and James Connolly commemoration at Conway Hall, London

Why have we got to the point of imagining the victory of this wholly unqualified and unsuitable man? The answers, it seems to me, are to be found in the nature of the campaign. And also in the kind of country we have become.

Its no secret that the Tories have had a lamentable election, presenting themselves in a poor light. They spelt out badly conceived plans for funding social care which Theresa May was forced to retract. They seldom talked confidently about Brexit or their substantial economic achievements.

Meanwhile, Corbyn was for the most part successful in concealing his extremism, and looked cuddly and unthreatening. He also seemed, unlike Mrs May, relaxed and happy in his own skin. One might say that he has appeared genuine.

Without doubt he also tapped into some of the grievances against the established political class which Donald Trump cultivated in last years American presidential elections. Some of the same winds, born of disenchantment, which propelled Trump to the White House have blown Corbyn closer to the door of No 10.

John McDonnell, Gerry Adams, and Jeremy Corbyn at a meeting in June 2008

So the way the leaders conducted their campaigns does explain a lot. If the Tories had performed with greater confidence, and if Labour had been less adept, we would probably not be contemplating the (I hope distant) possibility of Jeremy Corbyn and his hard Left coterie forming the government of Britain.

But there are also deeper causes. Something strange is going on in this country. The British pride themselves on their moderation and common sense. Yet millions of perfectly sane people will today vote for a half-competent extremist whose policies would impoverish this country and make it vulnerable to its enemies.

It is of course possible that Corbyn will be routed in much the same way as Michael Foots Labour Party was in 1983. On that occasion its radical manifesto was memorably described by one of its MPs as the longest suicide note in history. Margaret Thatchers Tories won a 144-seat overall majority.

Actually, Foot was no Marxist. Moreover, he was a towering intellect compared to Corbyn, and a seasoned politician and former Cabinet minister. He was also a patriot who supported the Falklands War, described by Corbyn in 2015 as a Tory plot.

Ken Livingstone, left, Gerry Adams (centre left), Jeremy Corbyn walk on Westminster bridge

If the more extreme and far less able current Labour leader should do significantly better than Michael Foot, our old assumptions about how Britain is deep down a centre-Right country will have to be binned.

Let me offer a few possible explanations for Corbyns apparent acceptability. Its true that young people are traditionally more likely to vote Labour than older ones, but the tendency is markedly stronger this time. Polls suggest that nearly three-quarters of 18 to 24-year-olds intend to vote Labour. The main reason is surely that they have no memory of the socialist excesses which virtually brought Britain to her knees in the Seventies.

Its probable, too, that they have been educated in a more Left-wing environment than their parents and grandparents. A friend told me the other day that his teenage godson had shown him his homework about the Eighties. Thatcher was depicted in an unremittingly negative light.

Universities also have a far more Leftist complexion than 30 years ago. These days it would be impossible for a known Tory to be appointed head of an Oxbridge college. A poll by the Times Higher Education magazine before the 2015 election found that nearly half of university lecturers intended to vote Labour, and only 11 per cent Conservative.

This Left-wing preponderance doesnt only prevail in our educational establishments, I suggest, but throughout most of our public institutions  the NHS, the civil service, the judiciary and, of course, the BBC.

Corbyn attends The People's March for Climate, Justice and Jobs in 2015

A natural bias towards Labour among five-and-a-half million public sector workers has almost certainly grown because of widespread resentment about persistent wage restraint. Such people dont often reflect that most of those in the private sector havent had pay increases either. Nor do they enjoy guaranteed index-linked pensions.

As for the BBC, it has seemed more powerful than ever during this election, probably because of the relative decline of the printed Press. Scornful of Jeremy Corbyn during his two Labour leadership contests, Auntie has treated him indulgently as a mainstream left-of-centre politician rather than the dangerous revolutionary he really is.

One way and another, the political centre of gravity in British life has swung appreciably to the Left because of these and doubtless other changes. I dont dispute, by the way, that exhaustion with never-ending austerity has understandably made some people despair of the Tories.

Looking at the manifestly ill-equipped Labour leader, it sometimes occurs to me in my more irresponsible moments that the only way for his deluded admirers to discover the lunatic and misguided nature of his policies would be for them to experience a dose of him in No 10. Hard-core socialism would then be expunged from the national bloodstream for a generation.

But what a terrible price would have to be paid. I truly believe that five years of rule by Corbyn and his crew would be a catastrophe. Everyone would be poorer at end of it. The NHS  which even supposedly clever people on the Left wrongly believe the Tories wish to privatise  would be less well-funded.

So lets hope, despite the alarming trends I have described, that there are still enough sensible people in this country to resist the bogus allure of Corbyn. Lets pray he wont be prime minister. I still dont think he will be. But these are going to be anxious hours.
Most people thought Keith Harris and Orville were the last squeak of a dying art

When I was growing up in the Sixties, ventriloquism seemed a spent force.

On television, Ray Alan ruled the very small ventriloquist's roost, primarily with Lord Charles, who was posh and wore a monocle, but also with Tich and Quackers  a chirpy little boy and his equally irritating pet duck.

Occasionally, an American lady called Shari Lewis would appear on the scene with a winsome sock-puppet called Lamb Chop.

I also remember Terry Hall with Lenny the Lion, and Roger De Courcey with Nookie Bear. Keith Harris and Orville came a decade later, in what most people thought was the last squeak of a dying art.

As a child I attended birthday parties where a slightly seedy 'all-round family entertainer' might have a stab at ventriloquism, but even to us six-year-olds it all seemed a bit forced.

'I can see your mouth moving!' we would all chorus, while the poor ventriloquist pleaded: 'Now then, now then, let's have a bit of hush at the back, boys and girls!'

How surprising, then, that, half a century on, we should be living through a golden age of ventriloquism.

The week before last, I went to see Count Arthur Strong at the London Palladium. For those of you who have yet to make his acquaintance, Count Arthur Strong is  or at least appears to be  a veteran variety artiste, who enjoys a drop to drink, has a tendency to muddle his words, and is cursed with a memory that is not quite what it was.

After a refreshing glass of what he insisted was Lucozade, Count Arthur brought out two dummies.

King Tut is an Egyptian mummy so heavily bandaged that he can only answer 'Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!' to any question. Sulky Monkey is reluctant to talk at all.

A moment of comic genius came when Count Arthur forgot that he was the ventriloquist and waited for minutes on end for his dummy to say something.

He looked more and more exasperated as he put his head closer and closer to the monkey, unable to hear a thing.

One of my other favourite comedians, Tim Vine, has also come up with an entirely new take on this creaky art.

Tim Vine has also come up with an entirely new take on the creaky art of ventriloquism

First, he produces a doll called Clowny. 'What have you been doing today, Clowny?' 'Well, I've been doing ventriloquism!'

Clowny then brings out a puppet called Lamby. 'What have you been doing today, Lamby?'

It turns out that Lamby, too, is a ventriloquist, with a birdy doll called Robin. In turn, Robin produces his own doll, a little chick on a string called Ian.

By the end, Vine has assembled five puppets all in a row, each one performing a ventriloquist's act with the next. It's a comic tour-de-force.

Neither Tim Vine nor Count Arthur would consider themselves true ventriloquists  their incompetence is in fact an essential part of the joke  but Nina Conti is a technical expert, blessed with an almost supernatural ability to speak in an entirely different voice without moving her lips.

I have now been to see her show four times, and on each occasion I've been freshly impressed by the way she appears to be surprised, and often shocked, by what comes out of the mouths of her puppets.

They really do seem to have a life of their own.

Like Tim Vine and Count Arthur Strong, Nina Conti is also adept at playing new tricks with ventriloquism.

In recent years, she has taken to slipping masks on members of her audience, and, through a hand-held mechanism, making them say outrageous things. But she also does something much more ingenious.

At one point, her main puppet, a foul-mouthed monkey, tells her to put him back in the bag.

'Follow my instructions. I'm a comedy guru,' he says from within the bag. So she brings her hand back out, this time without the monkey on it.

'But her hand continues to speak with the voice of the monkey.

'Don't you like me naked?' it says. Nina looks non-plussed.

'I miss the monkey,' says Nina.

'I am the monkey,' growls the hand.

From there, the unseen monkey says he wants to enter her face. 'Here I am!' he says, and the words come out of Nina Conti's mouth, only in the monkey's croaky voice.

It's a strangely unsettling moment: until then, our brains have been content to go along with the illusion that there are two beings on stage, not just one.

Ventriloquism, once so tired and old hat, has now turned into one of the liveliest and most inventive of all the performance arts.

Lord Charles must be spinning in his suitcase.
Of Labours many lies during this election campaign, few have been more blatant than yesterdays claim by Sir Keir Starmer: Nothing in the Human Rights Act gets in the way of effectively tackling terrorism.

Oh, no? On Pages 6-7 today, the Mail lists just a few of countless cases of killers, hate preachers and foreign suspects with close links to terrorist groups who have been allowed to walk our streets freely thanks to Tony Blairs deeply discredited law.

They include Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza  ranting recruitment sergeants for murderers, whose extradition on terror charges was delayed for years as they claimed it infringed their human rights.

Of Labours many lies during this election campaign, few have been more blatant than yesterdays claim by Sir Keir Starmer: Nothing in the Human Rights Act gets in the way of effectively tackling terrorism'

Many others who pose a clear threat are still here. Among them are British-Algerian Baghdad Meziane, a convicted Al Qaeda terrorist allowed to stay in Britain to protect his family life.

Others include nine Afghan asylum-seekers who hijacked a plane 17 years ago, threatening to kill those on board. Theyve been here ever since, after successfully claiming they might face inhumane or degrading treatment if sent home.

Indeed, we could fill many pages with examples of dangerous men at large in Britain because of the HRA  costing taxpayers tens of millions of pounds in legal fees, benefits and police surveillance.

For Sir Keir to pretend otherwise is deeply unworthy of a former Director of Public Prosecutions and an insult to voters.

Theresa May deserves great credit for pledging to amend Mr Blairs charter for terrorists

But then what better can we expect of a campaigner for Jeremy Corbyn  that lifelong apologist for terrorists, who has voted 56 times against anti-terror laws?

This paper has long cherished Britains ancient civil liberties. But like everyone with a shred of a common sense, we accept a balance must be struck between the rights of citizens and their security.

With 3,000 jihadis on our streets, 20,000 more under suspicion  and EU rules letting killers breeze across our porous borders  the HRA has been a huge factor in tipping that balance in our enemies favour.

Theresa May deserves great credit for pledging to amend Mr Blairs charter for terrorists. In so doing, she gives those who care about our future another compelling reason to vote Conservative today.

Fair weather friends

A year ago this month, Lyn Brown resigned from Mr Corbyns team, saying: For the good of the party and the country, I believe that we should seek a new leader'

A year ago this month, Lyn Brown resigned from Mr Corbyns team, saying: For the good of the party and the country, I believe that we should seek a new leader.

Today she is back, filling the job left vacant by the hapless Diane Abbott  and urging the country to elect the man she rightly deemed unfit for office.

But then she is hardly alone. Of Mr Corbyns ramshackle crew, no fewer than 33 were among the 172 Labour MPs who called for his resignation last year.

Isnt it sickening how the faint possibility of jobs in government has sent these shabby opportunists slinking back to join the leader they tried to sack?

If Mr Corbyns own front bench dont have confidence in his ability to lead the Opposition, why on earth should anyone trust him to run the country?

Labours lousy maths

As polling day dawns, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that Mr Corbyns economically illiterate manifesto will cost the average household 750 a year, with those earning more than 56,000 stung for an extra 2,700.

Thats before businesses hit by his tax raids are forced to pass on extra costs to consumers (assuming such firms survive).

Rejecting the claim that only companies and the very rich will pay for extra spending of 75billion a year, IFS chief Paul Johnson says: It absolutely doesnt add up.

But then who but the seriously naive and deluded ever believed it did?
Whoever wins the election, what's to be done about the mooted visit of Donald Trump? Our ex-national security adviser Lord Ricketts, 64, calls for it to be postponed. With London mayor Sadiq Khan likely to snub an invitation to the state banquet, 1.8million signing a petition against the visit and Speaker John Bercow refusing to allow President Trump into Westminster Hall, predicted election winner Theresa May is in a bind.

Once she has fixed a date with the White House, the Queen issues an invitation in her own hand. Only HM can subsequently rescind it. 'No one can recall HMQ having to do so,' says my source. 'What usually happens is that the prospective visitor declines the invitation, citing illness, family or political issues. But would tricky Mr Trump comply?'

Whoever wins the election, what's to be done about the mooted visit of Donald Trump?

As David Dimbleby presents his tenth general election night show, a BBC source points out: 'His father, Richard Dimbleby, used his sharp elbows to get this top job in 1955 by ousting the favourite, Teddy Thompson, the BBC's first parliamentary correspondent.' Curious, isn't it, that Jeremy Paxman is being tipped for a knighthood when the more established David Dimbleby doesn't have one  unless Dimbleby has turned one down on the basis that his father didn't get one?

Chastising Damian Lyons Lowe, whose firm Survation has predicted a hung parliament, Paisley-born BBC presenter Andrew Neil warns him: 'As they say in Glasgow, 'Your jaiket's on a shoogly peg'  ie, your position is not secure. Pollsters are currently on a par popularity-wise with ambulance-chasing accident lawyers.

Comic Jimmy Tarbuck paid amusing tribute to Ronnie Corbett at his Westminster Abbey service of thanksgiving, recalling that the 5ft entertainer became an RAF officer during National Service, before adding deadpan: 'His uniform came from Mothercare.'

Actress Dame Penelope Keith, representing the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, swept into the Abbey regally, glad-handing church officials, as did Sarah Ferguson, pictured, appearing on behalf of her ex-husband the Duke of York. Tres raffine!

Comic Jimmy Tarbuck paid amusing tribute to Ronnie Corbett at his Westminster Abbey service of thanksgiving

ITV signs ex-chancellor George Osborne and his former Labour shadow Ed Balls as its 'star pundit duo' for tonight. It doesn't expect to inflate ratings much, I am told, but hopes it might deflate the self-esteem of its regular presenters, semi-royal newscaster Tom Bradby and self-absorbed political editor Robert Peston.

Re ITV News, isn't its relationship with Google too cosy? The search giant, which owns YouTube  a platform used by Islamic State for propaganda  is providing analysis on social media coverage of the election results during the night. Says ITV defensively: 'They're not sponsors, neither are they being paid. They'll be based outside of the studio in the atrium.'

Humourist Frank Muir called bossy TV arts presenter Joan Bakewell 'the thinking man's crumpet'. Was the old boy (without knowing it) a sapiosexual, defined by dating app OkCupid as one 'for whom sexual attraction is based on intellect and not necessarily on looks'?
A woman who saw a gap in the swimwear market for a 'sexy' version of the rashie has created one of the summer's hottest buys - and it's as popular with real women as it is with celebrities.

Recognising that some women are reluctant to expose everything on the beach, but still want to feel sexy, Australian-born Carly Brown created Une Piece - a swimsuit designed to contour the body with the added bonus of SPF 50 built in.

When the 110 ($195AUS) garment launched in Australia, it amassed a 500-strong waiting list and sold out within a week, and now Carly is unleashing it on the UK market.

The launch comes after the likes of Nigella Lawson and Nancy Shevell were spotted sporting burkinis and rashies on holiday, indicating a clear market for Carly's more modest alternative to the bikini, which she says is suitable for all shapes and sizes.

Une Piece is already proving so popular women have been taking to social media to share snaps of themselves in the swimsuit, which they say makes them feel 'unreal'.

It's a hit with celebrities and bloggers (like Marina Perry, pictured) as well as regular women

Not only is the swimsuit loved by celebrities like Ashley Roberts and Angela Scanlon, regular women are sharing body confident snaps donning the design on Instagram.

Ladies are sharing snaps of themselves wearing the swimsuits in various colours under the hashtag #unepiecewomen in the hope of showing other ladies that it can be empowering to bare your body on the beach.

Describing the garment online, Carly said: 'The shape-defining element is just one of the factors that sets the swimsuit apart- this one piece contours your body to perfection, creating enviable shapes and clean lines; a natural filter of your seamless form.

'It is also crafted with 28 pieces of high-quality Italian fabric, containing UPF 50+ and available in five chic shades, black, navy,red, white and blue.'

Women can't get enough of the 'original sexy rashie', which is praised for its body contouring effect and smooth lines

Nigella Lawson, left, and Nancy Shevell, right, have been spotted on the beach donning burkinis and rashies, meaning there's clearly a contingent of women who prefer to cover up on the beach

Ladies are sharing snaps of themselves wearing the swimsuits in various colours under the hashtag #unepiecewomen on their holidays

Celebrity fans of the range include Ashley Roberts, left, and Angela Scanlon, right, who have both shared sultry snaps of themselves in the garment on social media

It took about twelve months of optimising and testing until the brand came up with an 'amazing fit where you put something on and you just feel good with it'

The brand's founder claims that the piece suits women of all different shapes and sizes, and it's available in sizes 6 to 16

The idea for Une Piece came to Australian-born mother Carly Brown when she couldn't find a one piece she liked

'The seed was planted when I was living in Europe where summer was a really big deal,' the business woman and mother-of-one told Daily Mail Australia at the time of launch.

After growing up by the beaches of the Sunshine Coast with her surfer dad, Carly said she craved the ocean as an adult living overseas.

The idea for Une Piece came to her during a Christmas when she couldn't find a one piece she liked.

'They didn't quite fit right or look right.' And so the sexy rashie was born.

Carly Brown (pictured) was also born in Australia and inspired by the Mediterranean

There are 28 pieces that make up the Une Piece, making it 'incredibly contouring', says Carly

Carly said she was inspired by conversations she had with all types of women, especially mothers and pregnant women

There are 28 pieces that make up the Une Piece, making it 'incredibly contouring', says Carly, much more than other one pieces available on the market.

Carly claims that the piece suits women of all different shapes and sizes and ranges from a size 6-16.

Carly said she was inspired by conversations she had with all types of women, especially mothers and pregnant women.

'When they had kids and they had to wear rash vests, they didn't feel beautiful anymore and that's a real shame - just because they're mothers.'

It took about twelve months of optimising and testing until the brand came up with an 'amazing fit where you put something on and you just feel good with it'.




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The wedding party wore cowboy boots, the bride rode in on a Kenworth truck, and right in the middle of the majestic Outback is where these newlyweds tied the knot.

Ordinary is the last word one would use to describe Tara Fulwood and Jason Craige's wedding, which featured spectacular red cliffs and a night sky alight with the stars.

Tara and Jason said "I do" in Loves Creek Station, exchanging their vows as a spectacular mountain loomed in the background.

The wedding photos from Tara Fulwood and Jason Craige's spectacular wedding in the Outback have quickly gone viral

Tara and Jason said "I do" in Loves Creek Station, exchanging their vows as a spectacular mountain loomed in the background

The Northern Territory couple met four years ago after first meeting at a rodeo, where Jason was a bull rider

Tara, 31, rode to the aisle in style, coming in a Kenworth truck that has been in her family for decades and is lovingly called Bertha.

It was a fitting wedding for the Northern Territory couple, who met four years ago at a rodeo when Jason was a bull rider.

Tara was at the pub when Jason first caught her eye across the bar.

The pair got to talking and then went their separate ways. But the conversation lingered in both of their minds.

'Jason, being a country boy from the Bush, took a big leap to join Facebook and try and track me down - and he found me!' Tara said.

'And I happened to be searching for him as well.'

After their first date, Jason and Tara have been inseparable.

Both Tara and Jason dreamed of getting married somewhere that had a red cliff face and sandy creeks

They wanted their wedding to express their personalities, and give their guests a better sense of their remote home in Mataranka, where they run a training and employment program for young indigenous people

Tara made her grand entrance into the wedding on a Kenworth truck (pictured) that has been in her family for decades

Three years later, after asking permission from her father, Jason got down on one knee as they sat on their veranda under a full moon and asked Tara to marry him.

Both Tara and Jason knew they wanted their wedding to express their personalities and give their guests a better sense of their remote home in Mataranka.

'We wanted our friends and and family to be able to experience something that we do and the environment we live in on a daily basis,' Tara said.

'An experience that they could remember forever.'

The couple wanted a red cliff face and sandy creeks, and their friend knew just the spot.

When they saw Loves Creek Station, which is owned by another pal, Tara said it felt 'right straightaway'.

'We immediately started making plans about what could happen where and how we were going to do it.'

The couple tied the knot at Loves Creek Station, which is owned by one of their friends. Tara said the location felt 'right'

Strangers on Facebook wrote that they could 'see the love shine through' as they looked through Tara and Jason's pictures

The couple kept is casual for their wedding party, allowing the bridesmaids to walk in boots and the groomsmen to wear jeans

Tara and Jason had a 'rustic, country-style' wedding, with the ceremony taking place on one side of the creek bed and their outdoor reception on the other side.

The remote location was familiar to the couple, who run an employment program that mentors and trains young indigenous people for pastoral jobs in the Northern Territory.

But they admit that the setting was a bit of a shock to some of their guests, who had to get used to the fact that there was no phone reception.

'Once people realised the environment they were in, and that they were safe and surrounded by great people, they decided to relax and enjoy the atmosphere and take it all in,' Tara said.

Before the ceremony even began, there was some added excitement when Bertha the truck got stuck in a creek just as Tara was on the way to make her entrance.

'We actually got a bit bogged, and so our wedding guests had to put steel plates in the creek and help us get through!' she said. 'It was very exciting'.

Tara and Jason had a 'rustic, country-style' wedding, with the ceremony taking place on one side of the creek bed and their outdoor reception on the other side

They danced under the stars at the reception, letting the majestic Outback provide the main decoration for the night

The ceremony then began with a Welcome to Country, in which an Aboriginal or Toress Strait Islander elder from the local region welcomes people to the land.

'It was a new experience, and set the theme for people,' Tara said.

The reception also included a meal of an entire bullock, a gift from a few friends, that was cooked in the ground and was a 'highlight of the night'.

Photographer Lisa Hatzimihail's pictures captured the wedding's gorgeous setting, and it wasn't long before they caught Facebook's attention.

But Tara and Jason didn't have phone reception for days after their wedding. By the time the couple finally got to see their wedding photos, they had already received hundreds of shares and likes.

After dinner - an entire bullock cooked in the ground - was served, the couple cut their cake, also providing cupcakes

Tara said choosing a wedding photographer who was from the area was key to getting the most beautiful shots on her big day.

'Lisa was born and bred in Alice Springs, that's the countryside she's been looking at since she was a baby - and probably taking photos of since she was knee-high,' Tara said.

'It's evident in the photos that she really knows what she's doing.'

Tara said she is still in shock at how much attention her wedding photos have gotten, but has loved reading the 'beautiful comments'.

'People are saying, "Oh we don't even know this couple, but we can see the love shrine through,'" she recalled.

'That's what we really wanted to do - just share the love.'
An all-black wardrobe was once her uniform, but Victoria Beckham has been taking some sartorial risks in recent months.

Indeed, the pop star-turned-designer has been experimenting with neon brights, colour blocking and loud prints - and it seems she wants other women to follow in her fashionable footsteps.

The mother-of-four has just unveiled her pre-spring/summer 18 collection - and it's full of edgy leather trousers, ruffled skirts and some very vibrant neon shoes.

The 43-year-old, who runs one of the most successful fashion empires in the world, says that her new range 'is rooted in the idea of reality'.

Victoria Beckham has unveiled an edgy new collection full of sexy leather trousers and neon shoes that she says is 'inspired by reality'

'These are clothes that offer a sense of familiarity and assurance in dress,' she said of the collection.

Although her price tags arguably are not be in line with some women's concept of reality - with some pieces costing as much as 3,000.

So what will women be wearing next summer if Mrs Beckham has her say? Colour block leather trousers, clothes adorned with metallic chains and a lot of neon, it seems.

Victoria has also designed plenty of unstructured dresses with frills, tailored coats and razor pointed pumps with studded straps and low heels.

The 43-year-old says that her new range 'is rooted in the idea of reality'. However, some pieces will set shoppers back as much as 3,000

'These are clothes that offer a sense of familiarity and assurance in dress,' said the mother-of-four about her new range

Victoria Beckham has been taking some sartorial risks in recent months and experimenting with neon brights, colour blocking and loud prints

It seems that Victoria, who famously has a penchant for vertiginous stilettos, could well be hanging up her heels.

This season, the shoe offer is significantly closer to the ground than usual, with kitten heels and flat mules dominating.

The designer's new range is all about colour block leather trousers, clothes adorned with metallic chains and a lot of neon

Victoria recently collaborated on a range with Target. The 200+ collection for womens, girls, toddler and baby, ranges in price from $6-$70 (4.80-56), with most items under $40 (32) and offered in sizes XS-3X for women and NB-XL for girls, toddler and baby.

'Its sophisticated and chic [and] my goal was to create something people would enjoy and remember for years to come,' Victoria told Vogue.com.

The former Spice Girl's elegant collection was inspired by the Victoria, Victoria Beckham line, as well as being a mother and her everyday life with daughter, Harper.
Gender segregation in Australia is a leading cause in the pay gap between men and women, a new study suggests.

A new report conducted by the Finance and Public Administration References Committee has found that 60 per cent of Australian workers don't know what it's like to work in a gender-balanced industry.

According to the study, Australia has a highly gender segregated workforce, even by international standards.

A new report claims Australia's workforce is one of the most gender-segregated in the world (stock image)

'Occupational and industrial gender segregation are the second most significant contributors to the pay gap between men and women, after sex discrimination,' the report found.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) defines gender segregation in two ways, with horizontal and vertical segregation.

Companies with few female executives had a higher pay gap than those with an equal share of women and men

While horizontal segregation is under or over-representation of women and men in certain occupations or industries, vertical segregation is the imbalance between women and men in leadership categories.

It comes as no surprise that men dominate leadership categories, while women are concentrated in non-management roles.

'Occupational and industrial gender segregation are the second most significant contributors to the pay gap between men and women' (stock image)

The report suggests that men and women are given gendered career guidance while at school and when deciding what they want to do in life.

The Committee recommended the government provide mixed gender career guidance in schools, so as not to push men and women into particular jobs and sectors, which would keep the current gender disparity intact.

While a severe gender segregation is not apparent in every industry and workforce, the report suggests that when men and women do work 'side by side', women are more likely to be working for men and 'find themselves restricted to more junior or poorly paid roles'.

Regardless of whether women work in a female or male dominated workforce, they will earn AUD $40,000 less than men (stock image)

Regardless of whether women work in a female or male dominated workforce, they will earn AUD $40,000 less than men.

Additionally: 'Companies with few female executives had a higher pay gap than those with an equal share of women and men.'

The pay gap has fluctuated between 15 and 20 per cent for the last 20 years, according to the report.

Childcare responsibilities and whether women can find flexible working hours has contributed to certain industries becoming female-dominated, such as health care, education and social assistance.

The pay gap has fluctuated between 15 and 20 per cent for the last 20 years, according to the report (stock image)

The WGEA found only five per cent of workers in male-dominated industries are part-time, compared to 35 per cent of full-time workers female-dominated industries.

The Committee filed nine recommendations to the Australian Government and various bodies to help close the pay gap.

A national policy framework to achieve gender pay equity in Australia was suggested, including a pay equity target date and an address into the gendered workplaces in Australia.

While the pay gap remains today, positive changes have been put in place to see both woman and men as equals in the workforce.

The four major banks have set targets for women in management, with Westpac on track to achieve gender parity among its managers in 2017.

In 2015, the Australian Institute of Company Directors called for all boards, with particular emphasis on ASX 200 companies, to meet a target of 30 per cent female directors by the end of 2018.
News / Local

by Stephen Jakes

The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) will this Friday conduct a Pinnacle event which involves the Matabeleland Annual Business awards in Bulawayo, a dinner ceremony which will take place at the Rainbow Hotel.This was revealed in the latest council minutes.The Town Clerk Christopher Dube reported that the invitation had been received from the ZNCC."The Matabeleland chapter of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) will be hosting its pinnacle event, the Matabeleland Annual Business Awards (MABAs) Dinner and ceremony at a venue in Bulawayo on Friday June 09, 2017. The purpose of these Awards is to honour and recognize remarkable and noteworthy business performance for the 2016 calendar year. These Awards are aimed at fostering a competitive culture within industry. A culture founded on good workmanship, with prospects of ultimately translating to improved product and service delivery, thereby heightening the spirit of excellence in mundane business practice, hence our theme: "CONSOLIDATING THE NEW NORMAL ECONOMY THROUGH POLICY REFORMS," reads the invitation to council."As a nation, we strive perennially to grow from strength to strength with regards to the aggregate economic outlook. One sure way of attaining this endeavour is through amalgamating as oft as we possibly can in pursuit of business ideas that will culminate in the crafting of lasting solutions to our ubiquitous economic woes."The minutes states that it is therefore against this background that we extend this invitation to BULAWAYO CITY COUNCIL, keenly seeking your presence at this epic event."The MABAs provide a perfect opportunity for networking and expansion of one's business database in a serene dining environment," reads the minutes.
An Australian mother of two found a gap in the active wear market so decided to start a business from her spare room in Bondi.

Noa Ries, 33, launched business when she had a toddler, was four months pregnant and had gone back to her full time advertising job as she wasn't sure how successful her business was going to be.

'We were running our business from our spare room and we called it our global distribution and warehouse facility,' she told FEMAIL.

Noa Ries launched business when she had a toddler, was four months pregnant and had gone back to her full time advertising job

Ms Ries had always been into health and fitness but her passion for exercise grew after her dad passed away suddenly in 2007.

The reason Ms Ries was exercising quickly changed from vanity reasons to therapy and her brand Vie Active was born in 2013.

'We spent nine months in the spare bedroom - it was hard but it meant I could be present with my young family. My husband and I would take turns with our newborn baby. When we would take her for walks we would put parcels in the bottom of the pram'.

The reason Ms Ries was exercising quickly changed from vanity reasons to therapy and her brand Vie Active was born in 2013

Soon the walks became more frequent and they eventually realised they needed to hire someone to do it for them and before long they were shipping to David Jones in their first year of business from their living room.

'It was really hectic and not for the faint of heart but we knew every aspect of the business; where things were going, what customers wanted and what they needed. If someone wanted to know the inseam measurements of a pair of tights I could go and do it myself.

'I intimately knew every detail of our business. I didn't have any experience beforehand so it was an incredible learning curve. It showed me what my weaknesses were which meant later on I could hire people to fill those gaps'.

In 2011 Ms Ries had her first daughter and says she really needed to exercise to be functional and realised the impact being physical and active has on your state of mind.

'I intimately new every detail of our business. I didn't have any experience beforehand so it was an incredible learning curve,' says Ms Ries

When her daughter was six months old Ms Ries had an epiphany - she had just finished a work out and was feeling gross and unfashionable in what she was wearing.

'I work out intensely and sweat a lot and found that clothes were either functional and ugly or fashionable but not functional. I didn't think that active wear that was both functional and fashionable was out there.

'I wanted to push the envelope. I didn't have a background in marketing or business or anything, I just wanted clothes that were transitional'.

Ms Ries says the first year of business was tremendous as they managed to go from a spare bedroom to a million dollars in a short period of time. She puts down their success to passion and authenticity.

'I've always said to my team - if you wouldn't wear it, it won't get made, if we don't find an Instagram photo inspiring it doesn't get posted, if we don't like a recipe we're not going to share it. We put ourselves in customers' shoes'.

Ms Ries says the first year of business was tremendous as they managed to go from a spare bedroom to a million dollars in a short period of time

She wants to inspire women to be active, which she believes makes your relationships better as well as making you happier and more focused.

'Another reason we did so well is because globally there's a zeitgeist, a new breed of modern women trying to be Wonder Woman, they are Wonder Woman. She is juggling balls and wearing all these hats every day.

'They're proud of being strong confident but also empathetic. The label is designed and run by the same type of women. The staff is all females and it's amazing that the kids can come into the office and will never question the ability and power of women'.

At the beginning of the business Ms Ries and her husband decided that they would give themselves up to six months and if it was still fun by then, they would continue.

At the beginning of the business Ms Ries and her husband decided that they would give themselves yp to six months and if it was still fun by then, they would continue.

Before long they travelled to America for a road show and were stocked in the flagship stores of American gym Equinox. It was when they were standing there looking in the window that it didn't feel like a hobby anymore.

'I couldn't imagine doing anything else. If you create something as a hobby it'll only be a hobby. We set out our Mount Everest and our goals pushed us out of our comfort zones,' Ms Ries explained.

Within three months of their launch they started getting orders from America and launched an American website a year into the business and had a warehouse in Los Angeles so products could be shipped same day.

Ms Ries and her family have now been living in America since 2014, where they call Sun Valley, Idaho, their home.

'With two young kids I kept travelling to the US and it was difficult. My husband and I thought they're so young we can pack up and move and start a new adventure'.

Ms Ries and her family have now been living in America since 2014, where they call Sun Valley, Idaho, their home

Ms Ries says that Sun Valley is the definition of an active life as the people that live there don't just squeeze exercise into their day, but build it into the fabric of their lives which is what she wants the brand to try and inspire.

In Ms Ries eyes they've only just scratched the surface and are going to continue to grow, create innovating designs and listen to their community of women.

'We have plans to continue to grow our product line, grow our community world wide and also evolve our distribution model.

'I want to continue to empower and inspire women'.
When Tenille Taylor's mother tragically died after her car plunged into a Bunbury harbour in Western Australia on 11 March, the 22-year-old's life changed forever - and in more ways than most who lose a parent.

Not only was the young woman left without a mum, but she also had four younger siblings who still lived at home with their single mother up until then, to think about.

'I just love them and have always felt motherly towards them,' Tenille told Daily Mail Australia of her snap decision to take her younger siblings Shannon 20, Reef 17, Indigo, 13, and Kane, 12, into her own Perth home.

The 22-year-old is currently the carer for her four younger siblings, as well as Shannon's partner and her own newborn and toddler.

Pictured L-R: Reef, baby Lylah, Shannon, Iris (being held), Indigo (front row), Tenille (back row in black), Amber (being held), Ebony (green), Chayse (being held), Kane

The 22-year-old Tenille (pictured with her partner and newborn) is currently the carer for her four younger siblings, as well as Shannon's partner and her own newborn and toddler - after she lost her mother in a tragic accident

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia about her younger sister's decision, Ebony Taylor, 24, who lives in Darwin told Daily Mail Australia that it's very 'selfless':

'We always said that if anything ever happened to mum, one of us would take the kids,' she explained.

'Because I live so far away in Darwin, Tenille has them for now.

'But we've agreed that in the long school holidays in December and January that I will bring the siblings to mine to see if they like it.

'I've told my two young children, but they're too young to understand really.'

'We always said that if anything ever happened to mum, one of us would take the kids,' Tenille's older sister, Ebony, told Daily Mail Australia (pictured: Tenille with their mother)

Very quickly, Tenille's small family (pictured with one of her children and partner, Chris) has grown from four to nine

Ebony detailed how tough times have become since Tenille started caring for her younger siblings and her own young family.

Tenille - who had planned to study accounting at TAFE and was saving up for a house deposit with her fiance Chris Gunning - has now had to put any spare cash towards medical bills, school fees and increased water, power and grocery bills.

'The financial situation is tough - I know,' Ebony said.

'Their bills have more than doubled, and until very recently I know she was doing two runs to and from school - they have just got a bigger car which has helped.

'It's also sad as Tenille isn't getting the chance to enjoy her own small family.

'I get to be with my own two kids, but she's got nine people under the same rental roof. Every day is a challenge.'

One of Tenille's (pictured) closest friends, Ashleigh Needs, has set up a GoFundMe page to help to raise money for the tragedy-stricken siblings

A close friend of Tenille's, Ashleigh Needs, 22, has set up a GoFundMe page to help to raise money for the tragedy-stricken siblings:

'In one night two months ago, my best friend's life changed forever; Tenille and her six siblings lost their Mum, Shelley, in a shocking tragedy,' Ashleigh wrote on the page.

'Shelley was the much loved single Mum of Chantelle 30, Ebony 24, Tenille 22, Shannon 20, Reef 17, Indigo 13 and Kane 12.'

'In one night two months ago, my best friend's life changed forever; Tenille and her six siblings lost their Mum, Shelley, in a shocking tragedy,' Ashleigh wrote (pictured: Tenille and her mum)

'As if having a new born and toddler while mourning the loss of your own mother is not challenging enough, at 22 years old Tenille is now adjusting to being the carer of her siblings too,' the page writes (pictured: Tenille and one of her children)

'Tenille was one week away from having her second child when the tragedy happened,' Ashleigh continued.

'As if having a new born and toddler while mourning the loss of your own mother is not challenging enough, at 22 years old Tenille is now adjusting to being the carer of her siblings too.'

The family friend has set a goal of AUD $20,000 - to help Tenille and Ebony 'pay for schooling, counselling, medical and dental needs'.

'Although she had not planned on caring for her siblings, in the situation she found herself in, Tenille, with Chris' support, would not have had it any other way,' Ashleigh wrote.

'She is honestly the most selfless, courageous and hardworking person I know,' she added.

The family friend has set a goal of AUD $20,000 - to help Tenille and Ebony 'pay for schooling, counselling, medical and dental needs' (pictured: Tenille and one of her kids)

The $16,000 that has already been raised has helped with a family car for Tenille and her new 'household of nine'.

'We didn't want to ask for help, but we're so grateful for all of the help so far,' Ebony told Daily Mail Australia.

'To see so many anonymous donations, as well as friends and family, is incredible. We didn't expect anything of it.'

To visit the Taylor family GoFundMe page or to donate, click here.
A woman has spoken out about her phobia of holes - explaining that she is fearful of clusters of them in particular, like those you see in sponges and crumpets.

'If I can't get the image of something holey out of my head, I have to jump in the shower to feel better,' Brisbane woman Kudzai Dube, told that's life! magazine.

The 22-year-old, whose phobia is known as trypophobia, said: 'The perfect example of a trigger is a lotus pod, because of the holes on its surface.

'Trypophobes are also scared of sponges and even crumpets.'

Kudzai Dube (pictured) told that's life! magazine that she has a phobia of holes

Trypophobes can also be scared of crumpets because of the repetitive pattern in their surface

Ms Dube told the publication she had been wary around holes ever since she was a little girl.

WHAT IS TRYPOPHOBIA? Trypophobia, sometimes called repetitive pattern phobia, was coined in 2005

Although it is not officially recognised by some psychologists, thousands of people claim to be fearful of objects with small holes, such as beehives, ant holes and lotus seed heads

Sufferers have visceral reaction when they see everyday objects and animals with associated patterns, which can reportedly make their skin crawl, hair hurt, and even their stomach turn Advertisement

'I even felt anxious around drinks with bubbles,' she told the publication.

The Queensland woman said she thought her phobia may have been triggered by a film she watched with her family when she was five - that involved worms crawling into people's noses.

The university student, who is studying to be a geologist, also said she has to give rocks with holes in a wide berth when she attends field trips.

'I can't help it - they're so creepy and I just can't shake off the anxious feeling,' she said.

Ms Dube isn't the first person to experience such a severe reaction to clusters of objects.

Sponges can also bring on negative emotions in those who suffer from trypophobia

It has been suggested that humans have a natural aversion to repeated patterns as the brain associates them with disease or wounds

HOW COMMON IS TRYPOPHOBIA? The term trypophobia comes from the Greek words for 'hole' and 'fear' While the condition is not yet medically recognised, a study in Psychological Science previously estimated that 16 per cent of people suffer from it.

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Writing previously for The Conversation, Arnold Wilkins, a professor of psychology at the University of Essex said trypophobia was first described on the internet in 2005, although it is not yet a recognised medical diagnosis.

'The images responsible for the emotion include natural objects such as honeycomb or the lotus seed head, and man-made objects such as aerated chocolate or stacked industrial pipes viewed end-on,' he wrote.

Ms Dube shares her story in the current issue of that's life! magazine

'Despite their seemingly innocuous nature, images such as these (ideal for sharing on the internet) can induce a variety of symptoms including cognitive changes that reflect anxiety, bodily symptoms that are skin-related (such as itchiness and goose-bumps), and physiological changes (such as nausea, a racing heart, or trouble catching breath).'

He said the images involved would not normally be considered threatening, meaning that trypophobia differed from many other phobias.

Prof Wilkins suggested that the configuration of the images might hold the key - as they may cause 'visual discomfort, eyestrain or headache' to those looking at them.

It has also been suggested that humans have a natural aversion to repeated patterns as the brain associates them with disease or wounds.
Whether it's a perfect dream or an absolute nightmare, most of us would love to know what our dreams are trying to tell us.

From bumble bees and angels to a lighthouse and trees, the different symbols and pictures we see in our slumber hold various meanings.

Delphi Ellis, a qualified therapist and professional dream interpreter, spoke to Spirit and Destiny Australia magazine about the different symbols and signs to look our for in our dreams.

Most of us would love to know what our dreams mean and how we can make them happen (stock image)

BUMBLE BEES

According to Delphi, bees and bumble bees bring the 'sweetness' into the world.

They may be a signal to watch the company you keep, as bees work efficiently as a team.

If bees are a source of fear in the dream, Delphi suggests it may be a reference to a 'situation that caused you hurt and created a change you weren't expecting'.

'You're being told to embrace this change,' Delphi said.

According to Delphi Ellis, bees and bumble bees bring the 'sweetness' into the world (stock image)

THE SEA

Like our emotions and lives, the sea can be unpredictable.

If your dream includes the sea, Delphi said it could be a a suggestion that you are overwhelmed by recent events, or feeling out of your depth.

Take steps to build resilience and positive change, but not without thinking it through first.

Delphi said symbols of the ocean may also represent a need for a holiday and a restart, and endless possibilities.

Dreaming of the ocean may also represent a need for a holiday, a fresh start and endless possibilities (stock image)

PUPPIES

The old adage says you can't love others without first loving yourself, and dreaming of a puppy or baby animals can represent a need to take care of yourself.

Loyalty, good nature and a kind heart are found in puppies, and may be telling you that you're a good companion.

They might also represent quick thinking that could lead to stressful situations.

Dreaming of a puppy or baby animals suggests you are a loyal friend with a good heart (stock image)

'This symbol may suggest that, like a puppy, your thoughts sometimes run away from you, or you are easily distracted,' Delphi said.

Delphi Ellis revealed the dream meanings in Spirit and Destiny Australia

Puppies can also be fiercely protective, which may create conflict where it doesn't need to be.

PAIR OF SHOES

While it would come as no surprise that women will probably dream about shoes more often than not, they may hold more meaning than just a birthday wishlist.

'If you dream of shoes its a sure sign that you are, or need to be, grounded so you can be in touch with everything thats happening around you,' Delphi told the publication.

Seeing shoes in your dream may also be a telling sign that someone has been overly judgemental around you, which has caused tension.

As they say, you can't judge until you've walked a mile in another's shoes.

'If you dream of shoes its a sure sign that you are, or need to be, grounded,' Delphi said (stock image)

A CROWN

Dreaming of a crown may seem regal, but it symbolises a drama queen in your life.

Steer clear of their drama and focus on what brings you joy and remember that wealth and status will not bring long-lasting happiness.

They are, like history suggests, a symbol of success and victory also, and bring a message of positive times approaching.

Keep your eyes peeled for a great opportunity, but remember that great things come in time and not to let negative moments bring you down.

Crowns are a symbol of success and victory and bring a message of positive times approaching (stock image)

AN ANGEL

Dreaming of angels is often what we wish for, as they bring with them love and security.

They are messengers and may communications that are special only to you.

As signs of unconditional love and protection, they are a type of dream we all wish to have.

'Whether unconditional love is present or has been missing from your life, this is validation that it is all around you, especially if you take positive steps towards the life and love you deserve,' Delphi said.

As signs of unconditional love and protection, angels are a type of dream we all wish to have (stock image)

LILY FLOWERS

Lily's are a traditional symbol of grief and loss, and dreaming of the flower helps us to remember our loss, according to Delphi.

The lily represents loss that may not be physical either, such as losing a necklace of sentimental value or a relationship breakdown.

'The lily is not a prediction of loss, more a sign for you to acknowledge past hurt. Its time to let go of the hold the past has over you and start again,' Delphi told the magazine.

Lily's are a traditional symbol of grief and loss, and dreaming of the flower helps us to remember our loss (stock image)

The lily signals a time for rebirth and a much-needed change.

While there are countless signs and symbols in our dreams, it's important to keep track of what they mean and how they shape our lives.

'By analysing dream symbols and their meanings, we can make sense of the world around us, and positively influence the life journey ahead of us,' Delphi said.
A 10-year-old New Zealand girl was sent home from primary school because she was on her period, a public health sociologist has revealed.

Sarah Donovan said the girl was told not to attend her school, which has not been named, while she was menstruating because it didn't have a sanitary disposal unit.

Donovan said the principal even went so far as to suggest the child go on the contraceptive pill instead.

The girl's GP told Donovan, who is a research fellow at the University of Ontago's public health department, that they were 'very concerned' about the incident.

A 10-year-old New Zealand girl was sent home from primary school because she was on her period, a public health sociologist has revealed

Donovan told Radio New Zealand that the girl may not have been formally excluded from the school, but she was 'distraught' over the entire experience.

'Being 10, that's pretty young to get your period anyway and she was just kind of coping with the self-management of that,' she said.

'And then had the added stigma of being excluded from school.'

Donovan said the mother was also upset about the principal suggesting her daughter get on birth control.

It was only after the girl's family offered to donate a sanitary disposal unit that the school 'found one' for her to use, Donovan told 1 News Now.

But Donovan said the girl is sometimes still choosing to continue to stay at home while on her period because she feels ashamed.

Sarah Donovan said the girl was told not to attend her school, which has not been named, while she was menstruating because it didn't have a sanitary disposal unit (file photo)

'She doesn't feel confident with self-management, and feels a bit of stigma about using the bin at school now,' she said.

'It's been sort of a double stigma thing for her.'

And unfortunately the girl's story is hardly unique.

A Wellington secondary school student named Molly told RNZ that she would also go home while on her period, which she first got at the age of 10.

Molly said her primary school likewise didn't have sanitary disposal units, adding them only after her family and others requested them.

She said the teachers were 'aware of what was happening' but didn't seem to mind that she was missing so much school every month.

Donovan said the principal even went so far as to suggest the child go on the contraceptive pill instead and that both the girl and her mother were upset over the incident (file photo)

But after the bins were introduced, her and other girls' attendance rates increased.

Donovan is hoping that, by speaking out, she can motivate more primary schools to introduce sanitary bins and health education at an earlier age.

She has applied to New Zealand's Pharmaceutical Management Agency for funding for sanitary products for school-aged girls.

Donovan found that girls whose families can't afford sanitary products are often forced to use pages from the phone book or socks in their place.

She also found that a number of girls, like Molly, are missing school because of their period.
She's been hailed as the most beautiful member of the royal family, and Lady Amelia Windsor lived up to her unofficial title on the red carpet on Wednesday.

The 21-year-old University of Edinburgh student and fledgling model - who is 36th in line to the British throne - turned heads at the Royal Academy of Arts in a black dress layered over a white blouse.

Blonde Amelia, who has already walked the runway for Dolce & Gabbana and has a penchant for Chanel, looked suitably fashion forward at the VIP preview for the academy's summer exhibition, finishing her look with chunky black boots, an embellished bag, and a pair of fluffy pink earrings.

Lady Amelia Windsor looked stunning at Wednesday night's VIP preview of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts

The 21-year-old wore a black leather dress over a white blouse, with chunky black ankle boots

The RA's Summer Exhibition celebrates contemporary art spanning mediums including painting, printmaking, film and photography.

Far from the colour coordinated skirt suits and heels favoured by other members of the royal family, the granddaughter of the Duke of Kent, prefers to embrace a more contemporary red carpet look.

Her style credentials have made fashion houses sit up and take notice - Lady Amelia recently starred in a short film for shoe brand Penelope Chilvers, and after walking for Dolce & Gabbana in February, her future in modelling seems assured.

The fashion forward royal, who is 36th in line to the British throne, added a quirky embellished bag to her outfit

She finished her look with a chunky gold watch and fun, fluffy pink earrings

She's signed to Storm - the same agency that represents Kate Moss - and has hinted that her interest in fashion extends beyond appearing in front of the camera in previous interviews.

She told Vogue she wanted to understand 'every aspect' of a fashion house - down to how fabrics are made.
A mother-of-three told how she forgives the two men who violently raped her when she was just 13.

In a remarkable display of strength, Madeleine Black, now 51, from Glasgow said she 'doesn't feel any hate or anger' towards the two teenagers - who she will only refer to as Gerry and Randall - that brutally attacked her.

Afterwards, one held a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her if she told anyone and she stayed silent about the attack, believing their chilling vow.

But the psychotherapist is sharing her story, in a bid to help other survivors of sexual assault to find their voice.

'For years, I didn't want to believe what had happened. But Gerry and Randall had no idea I was angry, so holding onto hate was ultimately only hurting me,' she explained.

'Forgiveness is important, because it shows we transform pain into something positive.

'Now, I just wonder what happened in my attackers' lives and where things went wrong for them. By dehumanising me, they also dehumanised themselves, so they can't have liked themselves much to do what they did.'

Madeleine Black, now 51, from Glasgow was interviewed by Trevor Macdonald last October, about redemption after she forgave the two men who raped her when she was 13

Madeleine, who has three daughters  Anna, 24, Mimi, 21 and Leila, 15  with her businessman husband, Steven, 54, penned a memoir, Unbroken, about the experience that changed her life forever back in May 1979.

Then living in Hendon, north London, a friend's mum was away for the night, giving her free rein of her home.

She and a friend, named as Kelly, decided to go out drinking for the evening.

'It was the first time I'd ever drank,' said Madeleine. 'We got some vodka and orange juice and went to a cafe. We saw Gerry and Randall and my friend recognised them, so we went to sit at their table.

Madeleine (left) with her daughters (left to right) Anna, Leila, Mimi, and husband Steven, on holiday in Cuba, summer 2015

'For a time, everything was going well, but it didn't take long for the alcohol to affect me and I vomited all over the table. The boys were laughing loudly and none of them made a motion to help me.

'I felt humiliated, but worse than that, I felt a lack of control I'd never experienced before.'

After leaving the cafe, the group decided to go to Madeleine's friend's flat.

There, her friend went into her bedroom, leaving Madeleine alone with the two boys, who were originally from America and a few years older than her.

Madeleine on her 13th birthday (left). She was raped by two acquaintances later that year. Right: The teenager didn't tell her parents what had happened until several years after the attack

Placing her on the floor, they began to remove her vomit-stained clothes.

Before she could work out what was happening, one of them climbed on top of her and wrapped his hands around her throat.

Banging her head off the floor, he screamed at her to 'shut up.'

She continued: 'He eventually got up and went to sit back on the bed. Then the other boy got on top of me, pushing my shoulder against the floor, while he undid his trousers, before raping me.

Madeleine is now a psychotherapist and has written a memoir about her experiences

'It took many years to recall every detail of that night, as I'd repressed a lot of it, but I remember being terrified and thinking that nobody apart from the four of us knew I was in this flat.'

After the brutal assault, the boys said they'd kill Madeleine if she told anyone.

The next morning, she woke up feeling numb, scarcely able to believe the harrowing events of the night before.

Terrified her attackers would carry out their threat  and scared she would get into trouble for drinking  she didn't tell anyone what they'd done.

The mother-of-three with her family - Leila, Steven, Mimi and Anna

'I just went back to school that Monday on autopilot,' she recalled. 'I became withdrawn and really struggled to cope. My parents had no idea what was the matter. It wasn't until three years later that I finally told them.

'Even then, I couldn't quite find my voice, so I wrote it all down in a letter and left it on my pillow when I went to school. My dad wanted to call the police, but I was afraid nobody would believe me, so we never involved them.'

When she was 17, Madeleine's parents organised for her to go away to Israel for a year to volunteer.

There, she met her now-husband Steven, who was then a psychology student.

Keeping in touch when they got back to the UK, they began to date and eventually, Madeleine confided in him.

The mother-of-three has been able to come to terms with the past after coming across The Forgiveness Project, a charity that helps people move forward after trauma

'As it became apparent we were a serious item, I told him I never wanted children. In my mind, it'd feel like being raped all over again,' she said. 'He was very understanding, but would ask again from time to time.

'My answer was always no. Then, in 1991, we were in Thailand and he brought it up.

'I realised then that I had to live my best life, and that these men couldn't take motherhood from me. That'd allow them to take control again.'

As the years passed, Madeleine eventually welcomed her three girls into the world.

Undergoing counselling, she tried to work through the anger she had for her attackers.

Madeleine with her daughter Anna when she was a few weeks old. When Anna turned 13 she started to experience difficult memories of the attack

She added: 'When my eldest, Anna, turned 13, it brought up lots of memories for me.

'I talked to my counsellor about it and he asked if I ever thought about the fact that they weren't born rapists.

'At first, I was outraged, but then I realised he was right. Hurt people hurt other people. These boys can't have had the best start in life. We all come into the world as innocent babies, so something must've gone very wrong for them.'

Taking to the internet, Madeleine came across The Forgiveness Project, a charity that helps people move forward after trauma.

Madeleine, on her 21st birthday, with Steven who she met in Israel while volunteering

Reading through other people's stories, she said she was 'blown away' by the strength they showed and realised that she, too, wanted to forgive in order to heal.

She bravely wrote a guest blog about her experiences, sharing it on Facebook, where most of her friends had no idea what'd happened to her.

'I was nervous to share it, but from the moment I clicked 'post' I've had nothing but support,' she said.

'And I get messages all the time from other survivors. One was from a 17-year-old girl, who told me she'd never been able to put into words how she felt until she read my memoir.'

Madeleine's daughters (left to right) Mimi, Leila and Anna. Initially she didn't want children but realised she couldn't let her attackers take motherhood away from her

Working closely with The Forgiveness Project, Madeleine is now preparing to deliver a talk about sexual violence.

She also wants to help other victims realise that they needn't be ashamed.

'I used to think if people found out what I'd been through, they'd be disgusted. But now I know it wasn't my fault.

'It doesn't matter what you wear, how much you drink  it's not the victim that's to blame. It's the person that chose to rape.

'I want to show everyone that it's never too late to get support. Finding your voice doesn't necessarily mean speaking publicly, but you must find someone you can talk to.

'You're not what happened to you, but it's how you choose to respond to it. You're way more than that.'
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A plus-size model has stripped off for a candid swimwear shoot in a bid to encourage women to 'love their cellulite'.

Irish model Tia Duffy, from Dublin, bared all for the shoot which was featured in Vogue Italia, and has shared the stunning images with Femail in the hope that it will help to boost diversity within the fashion industry.

The 28-year-old posed alongside Karyn Inder in the stunning beach shoot by fashion photographer Maya Sherwood as part of her #BeBodyAware campaign.

Tia, a UK size 14 who has walked the runway for designers including Lesley Hampton, can be seen posing in a series of stripped-back shots wearing nothing but a skimpy black swimsuit and a loose-fitting shirt alongside Karyn.

Irish model Tia Duffy, from Dublin (left) bared all for a shoot alongside Karyn Inder. The pictures were featured in Vogue Italia, and Tia has shared the stunning images with Femail in a bid to encourage women to 'love their cellulite'

Twenty-eight-year-old Tia (back), posed alongside Karyn Inder in the stunning beach shoot with fashion photographer Maya Sherwood as part of her #BeBodyAware campaign which she launched last year

Explaining her decision to take part in the shoot, Tia told Femail: 'I myself have been photoshopped over the years to the point where I didn't even recognise myself.

'I created Be Body Aware to take that control back and educate all parties on a shoot from the stylist, to the photographer to the make-up artist.'

Speaking about her past experience with being edited in fashion shoots, Toronto-based Tia added: 'It was horrifying at times to see myself in an image with a different nose or a smaller waist.

'It is important for me as a model to have an organisation like Be Body Aware. We challenge designers and photographers to challenge themselves and in doing so everyone wins.'

Tia said of her latest shoot for the fashion bible: 'The images [that appear in Vogue Italia] are retouched as the photographer believes that retouching the images is part of the art of photography.

'[But] what she did do, however, was retouch the images in a way that didn't alter body shapes or hide our cellulite or body shapes. Which is very important to educate people on these days.

Tia, a UK size 12/14 who has walked the runway for designers including Lesley Hampton, can be seen posing in a series of stripped-back shots wearing nothing but a skimpy black swimsuit and a loose-fitting shirt alongside Karyn (right)

Explaining her decision to take part in the shoot, Tia (left) told Femail: 'I myself have been photoshopped over the years to the point where I didn't even recognise myself'

Tia (left) explained: 'I created Be Body Aware [campaign] to take that control back and educate all parties on a shoot from the stylist, to the photographer to the make-up artist'

'At Be Body Aware we are trying to encourage designers and photographers to come on board everyday. Although I do think images that are totally untouched are refreshing, the 100 photographers that we surveyed voiced their opinions and said that retouching can be done in a way that doesn't change the appearance of a model.

'These photographers are going to university for years and learning about the art of retouching and we must understand just as a painter uses different tools and brushes to paint, a photographers tool is photoshop.

'Having become very familiar myself with the photoshop app, I see the differences between using it to enchance light and using it to make models appear thinner.'

She added: 'It's our job at Be Body Aware to work between finding that balance and still making sure the images are as honest as possible yet they are still works of art and the photographer doesn't feel chained.

Speaking about her past experience with being edited in fashion shoots, Toronto-based Tia (right) added: 'It was horrifying at times to see myself in an image with a different nose or a smaller waist'

The plus-size stunner (right) said: 'It is important for me as a model to have an organisation like Be Body Aware. [The campaign] challenges designers and photographers to challenge themselves and in doing so everyone wins'

Karyn strikes a pose. Fellow model Tia said of their shoot which appeared in the fashion bible: 'The images [that appear in Vogue Italia] are retouched as the photographer believes that retouching the images is part of the art of photography'

'In doing so it encourages high fashion photographers to become involved and designers also. I think it's a more realistic way of pushing diversity forward.

'Most photographers think it's unfair to try push completely untouched images as it's a part of their art. That is something I'm only understanding recently.'

In an interview with Vogue Italia, Tia explained: 'In the beach editorial we did with plus size model Karyn Inder and photographer Maya Sherwood we demonstrated that the plus size model is capable of a high fashion editorial just as much as two straight size models.

'I want to keep going until I have most if not all world designers and brands on board. From what I have been able to achieve in one year I know that anything is possible.'
She may not have carried out an official investiture yet, but the Duchess of Cornwall was forced to 'knight' a farmer today - with a leek.

Camilla, 69, was waylaid by actor Callum Arnott she she toured the South of England Show today, who was dressed as his alter ago, Giles the Grumpy Farmer.

'I'm wearing my thigh high rubber for you today. Knight me, can you knight me please!' he shouted at the royal.

Camilla looked a little awkward but was game enough to oblige and tapped the kneeling man on one shoulder with the proffered vegetable.

'Is that all, just on the one shoulder?' He bellowed. 'Oh you're not the Queen, you can't do two?'

She laughingly demurred and placed the leek in a box.

He added: 'I come in my thigh high rubber just for you madam,' before showing her an onion and adding: 'Look a genetically modified apple there, thank you very much Madam.'

Giles the Grumpy Farmer approached Camilla brandishing the veg and requested a knighthood

One is not amused! Camilla looked alarmed as a large stick insect started crawling up her arm

The Duchess was introdcuded to a spiny tailed lizard called Solomon owned by Plumpton College

Camilla, 69, was waylaid by actor Callum Arnott she she toured the South of England Show today, who was dressed as his alter ago, Giles the Grumpy Farmer and 'knighted' him with a leek

The Duchess was much happier cuddling a newborn lamb than she was with a stick insect

Smiling Camilla then made her escape into a buggy to the show ring where she was due to watch and hand out prized at a horse jumping event.

Afterwards Arnott, 41, from Manchester said: 'I'm a roaming, performing artist. And I think I've just been papped. I'm obviously not a farmer but I did grow up in a farmhouse.'

Camilla was at the event in her role as President of The South of England Agricultural Society, which is celebrating its 50th year of supporting agriculture and countryside.

The event was taking place at the vast South of England Showground in Ardingly, West Sussex.

The duchess takes a peek into the pen of a rather large sow with her piglet

Although Camilla had no idea what she was in for, she took it all in her stride

Camilla looked a little awkward but was game enough to oblige the rather unusual request

Travelling in style! The Duchess takes a load off as she gets a lift in a golf buggy

Not the royal welcome she's used to! Camilla had the rather unusual experience of getting to grips with a giant stick insect

During her tour of the event Camilla visited a number of stands including the Young Farmers' Club and Discover Countryside and met pigs, sheep, cows and horses.

But there were plenty of more exotic offerings on show - including a giant stick insect, which the duchess gamely - and surprisingly confidently - let crawl up her arm.

'They are quite big,' she said, as the creature - which doesn't have a name as its owners can't tell the difference between it and the other ones they own - crawled rapidly up her arm and started heading towards her neck.

In addition to stick insects and a lizard, Camilla met some more traditional farmyard creatures such as sheep and pigs

The Duchess looks a little unsure as she's introduced to a large stick insect

The Duchess looked elegant in a blue linen skirt suit and a scarf in complementary shades

The insect, owned by students at Chichester College, was quickly returned to his aquarium before he broke royal etiquette.

She also met a spiny tailed lizard called Solomon owned by Plumpton College but declined to hold the very laid-back reptile.

'I think that's quite enough excitement for one day,' she laughed.

Pretty as a picture: The Duchess poses in a beautiful frame of yellow flowers as part of a floristry display

The Duchess is the President of The South of England Agricultural Society

Camilla gamely handles a giant stick insect owned by students at Chichester College

Before she left the show, Camilla visited a stand run by the charity Brooke, an international organisation dedicated to improving the lives of working horses, donkeys and mules, where she was given a knitted donkey. 'Sweet,' the duchess said.

Camilla became Brooke's first President in 2006 and has chosen it as the Agricultural Society's charity of the year.

She also got to to briefly cuddle a new-born black lamb, whose mother was bleating nervously nearby. 'Much better than a stick insect,' she laughed.

Get that thing off me! The Duchess looked a little scared as the stick insect made its way up her arm towards her neck

Camilla was at the event in her role as President of The South of England Agricultural Society, which is celebrating its 50th year of supporting agriculture and countryside
A furious mom has publicly bashed a dress designer who she says made an ill-fitting, unwearable prom dress for her teenage daughter.

Dee Lewis, an aesthetician from Rochester, New York, took to Facebook on Monday to post photos of her daughter Malexa Maeweather next to a searing caption.

'So [the designer] called my daughter the night before prom to pick up her dress, which she charges $300 for,' wrote Lewis in part. 'R u serious. Was I wrong for wanting my deposit back?'

Not happy: Dee Lewis, an aesthetician from Rochester, New York, has publicly bashed the designer who she says made an ill-fitting, unwearable prom dress for her teenage daughter

Sharing: Lewis, an aesthetician from Rochester, New York, took to Facebook on Monday to post photos of her daughter Malexa Maeweather next to a searing caption

Strange: It appears that the dress' short train isn't completely sewn to the rest of the garment, which is see-through in most places

The photos show the teenage girl in the long-sleeved gown made out of sheer material, with bizarre, fluffy applique elements.

It appears that the dress' short train isn't completely sewn to the rest of the garment, which is see-through in most places.

'My daughter was devastated and crying when she saw this dress,' Lewis told Yahoo Style.

Malexa, according to her mother, had originally seen a dress she loved on Instagram, but it wasn't available anymore, so the girl retained the services of designer Kia Wagner.

Happy ending: Ultimately, one of Lewis' friends saved the night by lending Malexa her daughter's gown from the previous year, which fit her beautifully

Disappointed: Lewis (pictured with her daughter) said the result was such a let-down she tried to obtain a refundin vain

'For a $100 deposit, Kia told my daughter that she would make her something nice with material she already owned and that she wanted to "play around with the design,'' ' Lewis added. 'Malexa didn't know anything about what the dress would look like.'

Malexa tried on the dress on the day of the prom. Lewis said the result was so disappointing the mom tried to obtain a refundin vain.

Ultimately, one of Lewis' friends saved the night by lending Malexa her daughter's gown from the previous year, which fit the teenage girl beautifully.
News / National

by Staff reporter

President Robert Mugabe could have given the biggest hint yet of his preferred successor after his first campaign event on Friday and a presentation by Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo, a day earlier where he put forward Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi as one of the most qualified people to take over from the 93-year-old ruler.Mugabe used a meeting organised by the Zanu-PF youth league in Marondera on Friday to berate ruling party factions jostling for his post, in remarks that appeared targeted at Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa's faction.He rejected the notion among Lacoste supporters that it was now time for Karangas to rule, which would derail Sekeramayi's ambitions. Mugabe insisted that the next leader would be chosen at congress.At the Marondera rally, Sekeramayi was uncharacteristically given the rare opportunity to give a vote of thanks, which is usually reserved for Mugabe's two deputies, Mnangagwa and his counterpart Phelekezela Mphoko.Zanu-PF youth chairperson Kudzanayi Chipanga also kept referring to the party's "Look East policy", in what insiders said meant the party's leader will come from the east. Sekeramayi is the most senior party leader from Mashonaland East.Analysts said Moyo's utterances and the events at the Marondera rally were a clear indication that Mugabe might be finally making a move about his successor as concerns mount about his failing health.Moyo - speaking in his personal capacity - at a Sapes Trust Policy Dialogue Forum on Thursday, said Sekeramayi was a far better candidate to succeed Mugabe than Mnangagwa who is linked to Team Lacoste.Political analyst and Sapes director, Ibbo Mandaza said the Zanu-PF strategist's utterances were not accidental."I am sure so. There has been no contradiction of his position so far except from the expected quarters," he said."It appears that they [G40] are fighting back and not that alone but maybe the succession issue is now resolved or is being resolved."G40, a Zanu-PF faction linked to Moyo, has been at the receiving end for the past two months, with one of its key members, Zanu-PF national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere under pressure from protestors who wanted him fired on allegations of plotting to overthrow Mugabe by allegedly forming parallel structures.Two other key G40 members, Bulawayo provincial affairs minister, Eunice Sandi-Moyo and Hurungwe East MP, Sarah Mahoka were forced to resign from the Zanu-PF women's league where they were deputy secretary and treasurer respectively.But Moyo, who has been quiet for the past few months, used the Sapes event to renew his attacks on Mnangagwa."The notion peddled by the so-called Team Lacoste that its leader is the only one who is above or senior to everyone else below President Mugabe is false and that falsehood should stop. There are others that are senior to the leader of the so-called Team Lacoste," he said."One of them, by way of an important example, is Dr Sydney Sekeramayi whose loyalty to President Mugabe, the party and country; whose liberation credentials, experience, consensus-style of leadership, stature, commitment to the nationalist project and humility have no match."Legal expert Alex Magaisa also said Moyo appeared to have the backing of Mugabe or first lady Grace for him to throw Sekeramayi's name into the ring."Sekeramayi has often been referred to as the 'dark horse' of the succession race. It is also important to consider the role of Mugabe's hand in the latest developments," Magaisa wrote on his blog yesterday."During his delivery, Moyo looked relaxed and confident, with the assurance of a man who knew what he was doing."He was ready and prepared to discuss the succession issue openly. It is hard to imagine that he threw in Sekeramayi's name by accident."He said Moyo was clever enough to have known, or anticipated, the implications of deploying Sekeramayi's name in the context of his stinging criticism and dismissal of Mnangagwa's presidential ambitions.Magaisa said there were striking similarities between Sekeramayi and Mnangagwa, both having been in influential positions since independence, including the ministry of and Defence.The two are war veterans who have been working hard to keep Mugabe in power.Youth and Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao, who has been linked to G40 despite his repeated denials, yesterday sprang to Moyo's defence on his remarks over the thorny Zanu-PF succession issue while berating the state media for "flagging a dead horse".Zhuwao said an editorial in the state media which described him and Kasukuwere as Moyo's cheerleaders for attending the Sapes forum was a childhood tactic meant to bully him into silence.He claimed to have started participating and presenting at Sapes events when he was still in Form 4, over 30 years ago."The Herald's editorial policy seeks to enforce an idiotic notion of command thinking under the foolishly mistaken notion propagated by the doomed successionist Team Lacoste's paper tigers who are seeking to cow Zimbabweans into being submissive cowards. Hatisi mbwende dzino vhundutsirwa nezizi risina nyanga [We are not cowards who can easily be intimidated by pretenders]," Zhuwao said.Zhuwao said he fully supported Moyo's exhortation that "The time has come for the silent majority to stand up and speak up. Silence must not be an option for those who support the president".He alleged the state media was employing the Blue Ocean Strategy that chronicled how Team Lacoste would wipe off G40.Zhuwao told The Standard that Moyo's remarks were very credible as an academic analysis.He said the state media, starting during the build-up to last year's One Man Million March, has been critical about the youth league activities.Zhuwao said he was surprised by another attempt by ZBC to try and tarnish Mugabe's Youth Interface meetings last week."Even as we went towards the run up of this major event which is testimony to the organisational capability of our young people, you also find that the ZBC of Monday edition actually attempting to have a story of trying to call youths a lost generation, which is entirely nonsensical."He accused the state media of trying to prop up Team Lacoste, which he described as a dead horse, adding the alternative media had proved more relevant and objective.In 2014, Mugabe saved Sekeremayi after he was identified as one of several senior ruling party officials that were sympathetic to former vice-president Joice Mujuru, who was accused of plotting to topple Mugabe.The Defence minister is also one of the few Zanu-PF leaders that have been consistently retained in Mugabe's Cabinet since 1980.
Meditation is just as effective as painkillers in alleviating discomfort, a new study has found.

Just 10 minutes of the trendy Buddhist practice could be used as an alternative to paracetamol, ibuprofen and aspirin.

Taking up the mindset, which has existed for centuries, improves someone's pain threshold, a small trial showed.

The findings bolster evidence that suggests mindfulness, which helps to calm the mind, does work in boosting the power of the brain.

While it also adds to the growing suggestions that painkillers are largely ineffective and that discomfort is just in the mind.

Taking up meditation, which has existed for centuries, improves someone's pain threshold, a small Leeds Beckett University trial showed

How was the study carried out?

Researchers at Leeds Beckett University used a group of 24 healthy university-aged students for the study.

They were randomly split into either a control group or a meditation group.

All volunteers experienced pain through a cold-pressor task in the form of putting their hand in warm water before removing it when they could no longer bare it.

They then either sat quietly for ten minutes or meditated for the same time frame before repeating the same experiment.

Five groups of data were then collected; anxiety towards pain, pain threshold, pain tolerance, pain intensity and pain unpleasantness.

What did they find?

There was no difference in pain reported by participants for the initial cold-pressor task, the study showed.

MINDFULNESS COULD BE BAD FOR YOU Mindfulness could be bad for you - causing insomnia, anxiety and hypersensitivity to light and sound. These were side effects discovered by Brown University researchers exploring the phenomenon of 'meditation sickness' by interviewing nearly 100 people. They found, while some experienced bliss from concentrating on their breathing and practising 'loving kindness', others were left in pain or struggling to return to normal life. Explaining the symptoms last month, the authors said meditation could cause problems by mimicking sensory deprivation. People who spend a long time with their eyes closed, very still in a silent environment, can then become hypersensitive to the noise and light of normal life. Advertisement

But for the second, those in the meditation group reported a significant increase in their pain threshold and tolerance.

Dr Osama Tashani, who was involved in the study, said: 'While further research is needed to explore this in a more clinical setting on chronic pain patients, these results do show that a brief mindfulness meditation intervention can be of benefit in pain relief.

'The ease of application and cost effectiveness of the mindfulness meditation may also make it a viable addition to the arsenal of therapies for pain management.

'The mindfulness mediation was led by a researcher who was a novice; so in theory clinicians could administer this with little training needed.

'Its based on traditional Buddhist teachings which focuses attention and awareness on your breathing.'

Previous findings

It comes after researchers last year also found that meditation is more effective than medication at easing chronic lower back pain.

The Group Health Research Institute study noted that the technique of quietening the mind could be used by some to help alleviate pain.

Training the brain to respond differently to pain signals may be an effective pain relief tool, the authors said.

The new findings also comes after leading doctors in the US warned that back pain should only be treated with painkillers as a last resort.

In a review of the evidence, the American College of Physicians said pills should only be used after physical therapies had failed.
Cancer patients could soon have their disease diagnosed by artificial intelligence, following the results of a series of trials in hospitals around the world.

IBM, the US computer firm, has revealed that its Watson artificial intelligence system is capable of accurately identifying tumours in up to 93 per cent of cases following tests on real cases.

The computer can examine medical images and patient records, comparing them to thousands of past cases and medical journals to come to a conclusion.

Doctors at 55 hospitals around the world have been using the system to help them diagnose patients for breast, lung, colorectal, cervical, ovarian, gastric and prostate cancers.

IBM claims the technology will be extended to detect a further five cancer types by the end of the year and will be rolled out to other hospitals worldwide.

IBM, the US firm, has revealed that its Watson artificial intelligence system is capable of accurately identifying tumours in up to 93 per cent of cases following tests on real cases

It is hoped the system will be able to reduce the amount of time it takes to screen patients and help improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

Not intended to replace doctors

Dr Andrew Norden, deputy chief health officer for oncology and genomics at IBM Watson Health, said the AI system is not intended to replace doctors.

Instead by being able to assess large numbers of images, doctors' notes and patient records quickly, it can help doctors and surgeons make better decisions by offering a second opinion.

He said: 'Watson technologies are helping physicians augment their own experience and expertise to deliver evidence-based care.

'As adoption of the technology grows globally, we are building on a growing body of data and evidence showing the value of Watson in cancer care.'

Trained by oncologists

Watson for Oncology is trained by oncologists at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center using patient data.

Watson is able to use its natural language processing abilities to learn how to recognise patterns that indicate whether a tumour is present.

It can also draw on guidelines and medical literature to produce a diagnosis.

HOW DOES IT WORK? The Watson artificial intelligence system, developed by US firm IBM, examines medical images and patient records. These are then compared to thousands of past cases and medicals journals to come to a conclusion. Doctors at 55 hospitals around the world have been using the system to help them diagnose patients for breast, lung, colorectal, cervical, ovarian, gastric and prostate cancers. IBM claims the technology will be extended to detect a further five cancer types by the end of the year and will be rolled out to other hospitals worldwide. Advertisement

The results from a series of trials of the Watson AI system were presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in Chicago, Illinois.

As accurate as experts

These include a study at a hospital in Bangalore, India, that showed Watson was able to produce a diagnosis for lung cancer was the same as that agreed by a multidisciplinary board of tumour experts in 96 per cent of cases.

It also achieved agreement rates of 81 per cent for colon cancer and 93 per cent for rectal cancer cases.

Similar tests at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, found the system agreed with a board of experts in 83 per cent of cancer cases.

Crunches through data

Nan Chen, senior director of research and development at Bumrungrad International Hospital, said the system's power was its ability to crunch through vast amounts of data quickly.

He said: 'Watson for Oncology is one example of the key technologies that will help clinicians harness the increasing amounts of data that is becoming available as both medicine and treatment become more personalized for each individual patient.'

IBM's AI system is also being used at the UB Songdo Hospital in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where general doctors often have to care for cancer patients without specialists.

'Doctors can rely on Watson'

The computer can examine medical images and patient records, comparing them to thousands of past cancer cases and medical journals to come to a conclusion

Dr Chen said: 'These doctors can now confidently rely on Watson for Oncology for helping them select treatment options that are supported by the high concordance rates observed.'

The system was also found to achieve 73 per cent accuracy in trials on colon cancer at Gachon University Gil Medical Centre in Incheon, South Korea.

Another study in Mexico saw doctors using the AI system to help them identify potential treatment options for patients.

Drug company Novartis and the Highlands Oncology Group in Arkansas used the computer to screen lung and breast cancer patients for their suitability in a clinical trial, cutting down assessment time from one hour 50 minutes to 24 minutes.

IBM said Watson for Oncology is currently being used in India, China, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Spain, Slovakia, Poland, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Canada and the US.

It is due to extend it to hospitals in Australia, Taiwan, Nepal and Bhutan. It is not clear when it may arrive in British hospitals.
Curvy models such as Ashley Graham and Candice Huffine are helping to shake up the fashion industry and our ideas of beauty.

Now science has confirmed that their refusal to conform to ideal body standards is actually good for us.

Women experience a boost in their mental health after seeing plus size models compared to underweight ones, new research has found.

And furthermore, women are more likely to pay attention to and remember models who reflect realistic body shapes and sizes too.

It's a point the fashion industry  criticised for pedalling unrealistic body images  should take on board, say researchers from Florida State University (FSU).

It also explains why body diversity activist Ashley Graham  who reignited the plus-size debate with her 'health at every size' message  has seen huge success after becoming 2016's breakout supermodel.

'We found overwhelmingly that there is a clear psychological advantage when the media shows more realistic body types than the traditional thin model,' said Russell Clayton, lead author of the study.

The research provides an insight into why plus-size models like Ashley Graham (left) and Candice Huffine (right) are so successful and liked by women

LOVE YOUR CURVES Graham promotes body confidence Graham's career took off  and she made history  after she became the first plus-sized model to grace the covers of American and British Vogue and Sports Illustrated. Now the 29-year-old from Lincoln, Nebraska, is on a mission to combat the self-loathing women feel about their bodies. She recently told Elle UK that 'size doesn't matter' as long as you 'take care of your body'. 'I really believe that women need to start looking up to other women, not for their exterior but for their interior and what they're doing in the world. Be you, be your own individual,' she said. Advertisement

Key findings

Researchers recruited 49 women who all wanted to lose weight, and showed them a series of images of thin, average and plus-size fashion models on a TV screen

The women's psychophysological responses, which is the interaction between the mind and the body, were measured.

After looking at each image, the women were asked to rate their own body satisfaction, and how much they had compared themselves to the model they saw.

The women made more comparisons with their bodies and the thin models, and had lower body satisfaction.

They also paid less attention and remembered less about the slimmer models.

The opposite was found when they viewed average and plus-size models  they felt much more satisfied with their own looks.

Challenging the cult of skinny

Jessica Ridgway, an assistant professor working on the study, said the fashion industry should take note.

She said: 'Women made fewer social comparisons, felt increased body satisfaction, paid more attention to and remembered average and plus-size models.

'Therefore, it might be a useful persuasive strategy for media producers to employ plus-size models if the goal of the campaign is to capture attention while also promoting body positivity.'

The study was published in the journal Communication Monographs.
A three-year-old Russian girl has been cruelly disowned by most of her family for being born with just half a face.

Darina Shpengler, who lives in Siberia, has no lips or chin and her face is covered in blood due to the unknown medical condition.

The prejudice against the toddler has been so severe that her parents have been forced to move to avoid some family and so-called friends.

But Elena and Yury, from the Krasnoyarsk region, refuse to hide their daughter away while surgeons attempt to rebuild her face.

Relatives have even informed police that the loving couple had purposely damaged Darina's mouth themselves, forcing the pair to explain themselves.

Darina Shpengler, who lives in Siberia, has no lips or chin and her face is covered in blood due to the unknown medical condition (pictured with her mother, Elena)

Mrs Shpengler told The Siberian Times: 'Darina does not have lips. Her mouth is constantly open and all the time in blood.

'Only my sister supported me, all other relatives just stopped any communication with us.

'My brothers, their children, my husband's mother - nobody wanted to accept Darina. We do not hide Darina from people. We take her everywhere with us.

'My husband Yury does not feel ashamed either. He takes Darina everywhere. People told us to put a mask on her but he replied: "If you don't want, don't look at her - but we accept her the way she is".'

Mrs Shpengler has since rejected advice from medics to quietly give up her child who would then disappear into Russia's grim orphanage system.

Darina has also been denied access to join a local kindergarten because other children 'would be scared', her parents claim.

Instead, social services send two teachers to visit Darina, who loves to sing, once a week to give her basic education.

Mrs Shpengler added: 'She is such a sociable girl. We have bought lots of toys for her but nothing can replace friends.

The prejudice against the toddler has been so severe that her parents (Elena and Yury pictured) have been forced to move to avoid family and so-called friends

'Our surgeons were shocked to hear all this. Of course, it will be sorted very soon but we are so nervous.

'And we need all our powers to help Darina. We need to raise and support her, she has a lot to overcome.'

Elena admitted that when Darina was born early - after seven months - she was so shocked that she 'lost consciousness'.

Darina does not have lips. Her mouth is constantly open and all the time in blood Elena Shpengler

She soon realised something was wrong after her daughter was born when the doctors began to worry and started calling somewhere.

Darina was wrapped completely, preventing her parents from getting a glimpse of their daughter.

Hours later, Mrs Shpengler begged nurses to let her see her daughter, but was asked if she was 'ready to see it'.

When she saw Darina's wide open mouth and 'fell into darkness'.

She was taken to intensive care where doctors suggested she left the baby in hospital, but she refused.

But Elena and Yury, from the Krasnoyarsk region, refuse to hide their daughter away while surgeons attempt to rebuild her face

Mr Shpengler was recovering from a car crash in another hospital at the time of Darina's birth.

But when he finally got chance to meet his daughter, who suffers from a 'serious genetic failure with eight mutations in her body', his love was unquestionable.

He told his wife: 'She is ours, our girl. The truth is this trouble has only brought us together.'

As Darina has developed, doctors have failed to support her, Mrs Shpengler claimed.

The couple have since raised funds to pay for medical treatment in Moscow where they have been told she will face major surgery every two years.

Darina is believed to be recovering well after the first successful surgery where her mouth was sewed to make it smaller.

Now they plan to make lips for her and to grow bones and muscles for her chin, Mrs Shpengler says.

Orest Topolnitsky, an oral surgeon who was involved in an operation to repair Darina's face, condemned the heartless attitudes.

He said: 'This girl is now in our hospital. It is a very rare case. Many charity funds refused to help saying that she would die soon anyway.

'We took a risk and operated her as a part of the free government insurance. But the girl needs more surgeries.

'We have done the first and the most difficult one. It was risky because the child is very small, any bleeding is a threat for her.

'We know that this family has problems with relatives who have not loved this girl from the very beginning. Some people have no hearts, it is so shocking.'
A medicine hailed as a 'miracle' drug that could eliminate hepatitis C may not actually cure the disease, a study claims.

Sick patients were offered hope with a new $40,000 direct-acting antiviral drug, which boasted it could clear the virus from the blood within 12 weeks.

The staggering price of the medicine was worth it to some because the contagious liver disease can lead to cancer and death.

Now researchers claim that although the drug may rid the blood of the virus there is no valid evidence that it completely rids the body of the infection.

There is no valid evidence that direct-acting antiviral drugs cure hepatitis C, a Cochrane Collaboration study found. The $40,000 medicine may rid the blood of the virus but experts weren't convinced it could prevent deaths

The research on direct-acting antiviral drugs (DAAs) was conducted by the Cochrane Collaboration, an independent global network of researchers.

The experts concluded: 'The lack of valid evidence and the possibility of potentially harming people with chronic hepatitis ought to be considered before treating people with hepatitis C with DAAs.'

In short, the scientists stated the drug may eliminate hepatitis C from the bloodstream but there wasn't evidence the medicine would actually save lives.

The study claimed the virus could still be in the body and lead to an end-stage liver disease.

WHAT IS HEPATITIS C? Hepatitis C is inflammation of the liver and there is no preventive vaccine. There are around three million people in the US and 215,000 people in the UK who are living with chronic hepatitis. Most aren't aware that they are infected, according to the CDC. Spread through contaminated blood, hepatitis C tends to develop into a chronic infection after six months. The infection attacks the liver, leading to cirrhosis or liver cancer. Symptoms include: Weight loss (without trying)

Loss of appetite

Feeling very full after a small meal

Nausea or vomiting

An enlarged liver, felt as a mass under the ribs on the right side

An enlarged spleen, felt as a mass under the ribs on the left side

Pain in the abdomen or near the right shoulder blade

Swelling or fluid build-up in the abdomen

Itching

Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice) Advertisement

The conclusion was made after a team of scientists compiled results of DAA trials from different manufacturers.

Experts said the trials done by these companies did not properly examine to see if the symptoms of hepatitis C or if mortality rates were impacted by the DAAs.

Janus Christian Jakobsen, chief physician at a clinical trial unit in Copenhagen, said to the Guardian: 'It is never possible to show that something does not work, but there is no evidence [that they do].

'Our results indicate [the drugs] may have no clinical effect.'

AbbVie, a company making DAAs, countered that they were not going to recognize the report's conclusions.

In a statement to the Guardian the company said: 'We do not recognize the conclusions of this report, as both controlled trials and real world experience contradict its findings.

'A cure in [hepatitis C] is defined as undetectable virus in the blood 12 weeks after completing treatment and, in the UK, fewer than one percent of people treated with AbbVies therapy did not achieve this.'

Hepatitis C is inflammation of the liver and there is no preventive vaccine.

It is spread through blood-to-blood contact such as sharing needles, razors and toothbrushes and can be passed on at birth by infected mothers.

The virus tends to develop into a chronic infection after six months and the infection attacks the liver, leading to cirrhosis or liver cancer.

The five-year relative survival rate for people with localized liver cancer - i.e. it has not spread - is about 31 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.

Around three million people in the United States are living with chronic hepatitis and most aren't aware that they are infected, according to the CDC.

In the UK, an estimated 215,000 people have the infection.

Rock legend Greg Allman died of liver cancer at the age of 69 years old on May 27.

It was 10 years after he was diagnosed with hepatitis C.

Deaths from liver cancer have doubled since the mid-1980s. One of the biggest drivers behind the rocketing rates is the high rate of hepatitis C infection among baby boomers - those born from 1945 to 1962.
There's another reason to be squeamish of ticks.

Maine is on alert after two people were bitten by ticks and were hospitalized in April after they contracted a potentially-fatal virus.

The Powassan virus, also known as deer tick virus, can cause long-term brain damage in humans.

Around 15 percent of people who contract the virus die and 50 percent of those who survive will have neurological damage, experts claim.

A single bite from the infected insect can transfer the illness to a person within minutes and leave them sick for days.

Although the virus is rare, with only 75 cases reported in the past decade, the recent infections have health officials on guard.

The CDC reported two cases of Powassan virus, or deer tick virus in Maine. The virus can cause long-term brain damage and memory loss in humans. Pictured: A deer tick

Dr Jennifer Lyons, a neurological infections expert at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said the disease is very serious.

She added to CNN: 'About 15 percent of patients who are infected and have symptoms are not going survive.

'Of the survivors, at least 50 percent will have long-term neurological damage that is not going to resolve.'

In addition to potentially causing brain damage, Powassan virus can cause fevers, headaches, vomiting, weakness, confusion, seizures and memory loss.

Symptoms can begin anytime from one week to one month after the tick bite.

Although the time period between the bite and infection is officially unknown, it is likely faster than 24 hours, a health official told the Boston Globe in 2013.

Fox News reported the infection time was much quicker - just a matter of minutes

The CDC reports the virus seems to be limited to ticks in the northeastern states and the Great Lakes region.

From 2006 to 2015, a majority of the 75 cases have been reported in New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Massachusetts.

HOW TO PREVENT TICK BITES Know where to expect ticks - areas of dense vegetation encourage the pest. Use a repellent - reapply regularly when the weather is humid or if you are swimming. Dress to deter ticks - choose clothes with elastic or drawstrings and tuck long trousers into socks. Take a walking stick with you - tap vegetation ahead of you to knock off any waiting ticks. Do the tick check - when you are out for the day, a quick inspection on clothing and exposed skin can help to detect ticks before they attach. Carry a tick remover - this helps to remove them sooner, lessening the chance of disease transmission. Dispose of ticks safely - wrap and squash it in a tissue and flush it or dispose of it in a bin. Protect your pets - tick-control products that are 'spot on' or 'spray on' are available. Deter ticks from your garden - ticks thrive in humid environments and avoid sunny, dry areas. Advertisement

Source: Borreliosis and Associated Diseases Awareness UK

Dr. Kent Holtorf, a Lyme disease expert and medical director of Holtorf Medical Group, said the increasing number of tick-borne illnesses may be linked to warmer temperatures.

He added that the bugs were likely developing mutated diseases because of the weather.

Dr Holtorf said to Fox News: 'These things are mutating and its becoming a scary world out there.'

Powassan virus differs from tick-borne Lyme disease because it isn't a bacteria and can't be treated with an antibiotic.

It is much more likely to get Lyme disease from a tick bite than Powassan virus.

There are more than 300,000 people infected with Lyme disease from ticks every year, according to the CDC.

Ticks that transmit Lyme disease can also pass along other viruses, including human granulocytic anaphlasmosis and babesiosis andvirus.

These ticks can also transmit several flaviviruses  which can cause hemorrhaging and inflammation in the brain and spinal cord.

Another potentially fatal tick-borne disease is believed to be the cause of death of a two-year-old girl from Indiana.

Kenley Ratliff passed away in hospital on Tuesday after a suspected case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors still need to carry out a post-mortem to confirm the cause of death, but were treating Kenley for the disease before she passed away.

The illness is caused by a bacteria which enters the body through the bite of an infected tick.

According to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, the disease affects six in a million people in the US every year and is most commonly caught in the summer months.

While incidents of the illness have spiked in recent years, deaths have fallen, with less than one percent of cases now ending in fatality.
SIR JOHN MAGILL'S LAST JOURNEY by Freeman Wills Crofts (Harper 7.99)

SIR JOHN MAGILL'S LAST JOURNEY

by Freeman Wills Crofts (Harper 7.99)

A wealthy Ulster businessman, living out his retirement in London, decides on a return trip to his native Belfast. But he never arrives. Somewhere, Sir John Magill disappears.

To unravel the mystery, Inspector French has to reconstruct the journey. Murder is established when a body is discovered in a shallow grave, but this serves only to raise more questions.

Why was the elderly victim out at night on a lonely road? And what had happened to the plans he was carrying for revolutionising the manufacture of Irish linen?

Of all the golden age crime writers, Freeman Wills Crofts is recognised as the master of plot construction. For those who are fascinated by convoluted puzzles, his novels remain highly readable.

MURDER ON THE PILGRIMS WAY by Julie Wassmer (Constable 8.99)

MURDER ON THE PILGRIMS WAY

by Julie Wassmer (Constable 8.99)

What with running an up-market fish restaurant and a detective agency, Pearl Nolan has been overdoing it of late.

This is the opinion of her mother who, in a misguided fit of maternal generosity, arranges for the two of them to spend a sybaritic fortnight in a country hotel.

But there is a catch. The holiday turns out to be an extended cookery course run by an egotistical Italian chef who is anathema to Pearl. And if that is not bad enough, a murder is slotted into the programme.

Julie Wassmer holds to the classic crime tradition of focusing on a closed community of suspects. But within the formula she rings the changes with snippets of culinary expertise and insider knowledge of rural pursuits, making the sudden descent to violence all the more shocking. A tried-and-tested crime recipe with Whitstable flavours that makes for a Michelin-starred read.

THE JUDGE AND HIS HANGMAN by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Pushkin Vertigo 4.99)

THE JUDGE AND HIS HANGMAN

by Friedrich Durrenmatt (Pushkin Vertigo 4.99)

Inspector Barlach has not got much going for him except gritty determination.

Terminally sick, he is set on solving one last case  the violent death of a fellow policeman on a mountain road where he had no business to be.

When his investigation threatens to break the closed circle of Swiss finance, Barlach finds himself up against an old enemy who is protected by wealth and friends in high places.

Best known as a dramatist, Durrenmatt is a disciplined writer whose talent for conveying spell-binding intensity depends on economy of language. The result is a short novel that will leave you gasping.
RED SKY AT NOON by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Century 16.99)

RED SKY AT NOON

by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Century 16.99)

Benya Golden is released from Stalins Gulag in 1942 in order to join a convict Cossack battalion. Mounted on his mare Silver Socks, he sets off to penetrate enemy lines, where he encounters Fabiana, an Italian nurse.

Meanwhile, in the Kremlin, Stalins daughter Svetlana is unwisely falling in love with a journalist. In this third volume of The Moscow Trilogy, the fate of combatants and civilians is often harsh. With his feel for vivid and immediate drama and impressive research, the author evokes the extreme turbulence and violence impacting on individuals.

Writing with passion, Montefiore makes the point that, up against the huge forces of war and change, the struggle for personal resolution can be tragic  but never wasted.

PRAGUE NIGHTS by Benjamin Black (Viking 14.99)

PRAGUE NIGHTS

by Benjamin Black (Viking 14.99)

Author of the Dublin-based Quirke crime novels, Benjamin Black is the pen name of Booker prize-winning John Banville.

The setting is Prague in 1599 when Christian Stern, a young German scholar, arrives in the city and stumbles over the body of the emperors mistress  which puts him in acute danger of being charged with her murder.

But the emperor asks him to find the killer. Why? The court seethes with tricksters, necromancers and the power-hungry. Its politics, alliances and vendettas are labyrinthine and often impenetrable.

Can Stern disinter the truth and keep the emperors trust?

The upside is the atmospheric evocation of a city frozen by winter and riddled with intrigue. The downside is the lack of that extra edge.

THE FLOATING THEATRE by Martha Conway (Zaffre 12.99)

THE FLOATING THEATRE

by Martha Conway (Zaffre 12.99)

Abandoned by her actress cousin and penniless, May Bedloe applies for a job as a seamstress on a floating theatre flatboat plying up and down the settlements on the Ohio river.

In 1838, the river marks the boundary between the increasingly hostile abolitionist North and the slave-owning Southern states.

Dogged by debt, May agrees to undertake the dangerous mission of rowing slaves across the water to freedom. If caught, the penalties are dire not only for her, but for the man whom she is growing to love.

An engaging story with lovely detail and moments of comedy, its quirky characters and love story work well in counterpoint to its grim subject.

May is no simpering heroine, in fact, shes quite snippy  but she is all the better for that.
The nephew of a legislator is alleged to be among the people police have arrested while blowing the lid off an international drug syndicate with underworld connections.

Authorities also seized five kilogram of party drug MDMA, sometimes known as 'ice', worth about Rs 40 crore in the international market.

Delhi Police special cell officers arrested Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi (43) - who allegedly identified his uncle as Samajwadi Party MLA Abu Asim Azmi - along with a business tycoon and courier company employees.

Special cell team along with four arrested international drug cartel members, including Abu Aslam Qasim Azmi (in black T-shirt). Police recovered five kilos of ice worth Rs 40 crore

Ice is the purest and most potent form of methamphetamine. The user is likely to manifest euphoria, excitement and a sense of well-being that can last from an hour to a full day, and they will seem alert and confident.

It comes as a powder or crystals that are usually snorted, injected or smoked.

Sources say Aslam was dancing to the tunes of Kailash Rajput - mastermind of the international syndicate - who is hiding in Dubai.

Initial probes also indicate Rajput may have links with the underworld. On his direction, Aslam supplied the drugs through couriers to France, Germany, the UK, Spain and the US, it is alleged.

Ice: Also known as 'molly', MDMA is a crystalline form of methamphetamine

The role of an inspector-rank customs officer, who went missing in mid-2016, is also suspected.

The officer's name cropped up after 1 kg of another party drug called 'meow meow' was recovered and eight people were arrested in August last year.

He is suspected to be the source of that consignment as well. Ice is commonly being used by youngsters, especially in rave parties in Mumbai, Delhi and other metropolitan cities.

It is also in demand in the UAE, UK, US and West Asia. But use of ice can bring with it paranoia, hallucinations and violent behaviour.

In addition, people smoking it are likely to neglect caring for their children, and they may abuse them or endanger them.

Aslam, who was staying in the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Santacruz in Mumbai, lured 40-year-old Amit Aggarwal, who operates a Chandigarh-based logistics business.

Two other accused, Avdesh Kumar (26) and Chandan Rai (31), worked at his Prefer Logistics Pvt Ltd office in Delhi's Mahipalpur. It is said Aggarwal would procure the drug consignment and then pack it in the courier parcels, often between layers of garments, to be sent abroad. Following a tip, the police laid a trap at Mahipalpur.

Avdesh was apprehended while he was opening the door to his office, and was questioned.

Around five kg of the drug was recovered from his possession. He gave up the details about Aggarwal and Chandan.

Aslam's name cropped up during the investigation. A team was sent to Mumbai and he was arrested on Tuesday. He was brought to Delhi the next day. Aslam told cops that he is the nephew of lawmaker Abu Azmi.

He also disclosed that he is the right-hand man of Kailash Rajput.

'He has revealed that he earlier worked in a cargo company in Dubai. He left the job and moved to Mumbai. Some of his friends were also close to Kailash Rajput. Abu Aslam and Kailash Rajput became friends,' said Sanjeev Yadav, DCP of the special cell.

'Abu Aslam then opened a restaurant in Goa and came in contact with drug traffickers of Goa. Kailash Rajput used to supply drugs to them. He and Abu Aslam then decided to work together and joined hands in the drug trafficking business.'

Aslam set up base in Mumbai and received and distributed the drugs according to Rajput's directions. He managed to carve out a large network of drug traffickers in metropolitan cities.

About three years ago when Kailash Rajput was arrested by Mumbai Police, Aslam helped him during his trial and hence became a close aide.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Astana, Kazakhstan, this week to attend the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) where it will become a full member of the grouping along with Pakistan.

Modis visit and Indias SCO membership will enhance Indias linkages with the region at a time when major powers are competing for influence in the five nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Russia is determined to restore some of its historic influence over the former Soviet empire, but it is China that is making a real splash in the region.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) talking with President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit

Though Russia and China are planning to enhance their engagement in Central Asia and have decided to coordinate their policies in the region, Beijings economic transformation of the lands west of its restive Xinjiang province has gathered pace in the last decade.

With China spending billions of dollars on infrastructure and energy projects to link up the disjointed region, it has emerged as the main trading partner of four of the five Central Asian countries that gained independence from Moscow in 1991.

Unlike China, which shares a border with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Indias transit to the region lies through Pakistan and Afghanistan, limiting Indias reach. Yet, Indias growing interests in Central Asia are well-recognised.

Narendra Modi (second right) upon his arrival in Astana for the SCO summit, where India has long wanted to play a larger role

There is a growing convergence between the United States and Indias interests in the region, especially their reluctance to see the region fall under the exclusive influence of Russia or China.

India was worried in the 1990s when Russian influence in Central Asia weakened substantially with the commensurate rise in Chinas influence.

This negatively impacted Indian threat perceptions which stabilised only after the growing US presence in the region since 2001.

Indias ties with the regional states are growing. India views itself as a stabiliser and security provider in Central Asia and, with its growing economic clout, it is an attractive economic power for regional states.

Indias interest in securing reliable energy supplies and trade through Central Asia remains substantial. Besides oil and gas, energy-hungry India is eyeing imports of uranium from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

India has long wanted to play a larger role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and has been seeking support from individual member states for quite some time. India was admitted as an observer at the 2005 Astana Summit along with Iran and Pakistan.

China has made significant headway in the region with $10 billion in grants and aid to SCO members

Though the 2010 Tashkent Summit lifted the moratorium on new membership, Indias role in the grouping has remained a marginal one so far.

Now with a full membership India will be hoping to play a larger role but given Chinas complete dominance of the SCO, it might remain a pipedream. Against this backdrop, Indian strategy has focused on developing strong bilateral partnerships in the region.

With Uzbekistan, India has signed a pact on the import of over 2,000 tonnes of uranium, much like the one India signed with Kazakhstan. India is also exploring with Uzbekistan the possibility of extending the Friendship Railway Bridge to Herat in western Afghanistan.

The requirements of energy security also postulate a continuing positive relationship with Moscow and friendly ties with all the Central Asian states. India must create firm ties among the energy exporting states of Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and, if possible, Turkmenistan.

But India has so far failed to invest the diplomatic capital that the region demands. India tried to open an air facility in Ayni, Tajikistan, in 2002, to guard against growing instability in the region, though nothing much happened on that front. And in 2010 the Tajik government officially made it clear that Russia is the only country likely to use the airbase in the future.

This happened despite India spending around $70 million (`449 crore) between 2002 and 2010 to renovate the Ayni base, extending the Ayni runway to 3,200 metres as well as installing state-of-the-art navigational and air defence equipment there. Meanwhile, China managed to win the competition for the Kashagan oilfield in Kazakhstan and the Dauletabad gas field in Turkmenistan.

The much-hyped Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, which is supposed to transport gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to India, is yet to get off the ground.

With a strategic approach towards Central Asia, China has made significant headway in the region with $10 billion in grants and aid to SCO members and developing regional linkages between Central Asia and its western regions.

Chinas trade with the Central Asian region crossed the $50 billion (Rs 32,000 crore) mark in 2013 whereas trade between Central Asia and India struggled to hit a paltry $2 billion (Rs 1,285 crore).

Central Asia is now central to Chinas much touted Belt and Road Initiative. Indias lack of direct overland access to the region due to Pakistans reluctance in allowing Indian goods to pass through its territory has constrained Delhis trade interests from growing in the Central Asian region and consequently, trade with the region remains far below potential.

Indias much touted International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), aimed at expanding Indias trade and investment links with Central Asia, remains a work in progress. It is time New Delhi gives the region the attention it deserves.

Otherwise, China will be able to claim the region as another of its backyards, despite Indias longstanding cultural links with the region.

The writer is a Distinguished Fellow at Observer Research Foundation and Professor of International Relations, Kings College London
News / National

by Staff reporter

PRE-commencement works on the $1 billion Beitbridge-Harare highway dualisation project have begun while actual construction of the road is expected to start within a month, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo has said.There are reports that the company contracted to dualise the highway, Geiger International of Austria, has agreed terms with a local financial institution for the handling of its funds.The Austrian company was contracted by Government to carry out the project under a 25-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) model at a cost of $998 million.Dr Gumbo yesterday said the contractor was busy with pre-commencement works following a ground breaking ceremony for the project by President Mugabe two weeks ago."They are busy on the project, setting up camping areas which will house workers as well as their equipment," he said."The road will be in segments, so there will be sub-camps with ablution facilities and other related facilities along the route and this is what is being set up. The main camp has already been set up and it is at the 40-kilometre peg along the Harare-Chivhu road," he told our Harare Bureau. "Another camp has also been set up where we launched the programme (Chaka Business Centre in Chirumanzu). All in all, they should have about six camps which will house the equipment. From our projections, work will be in full swing in about three to four weeks as there are no setbacks."The project, a boon to the Zim-Asset infrastructure and utilities cluster, is expected to be a game changer in the country's economic development.Thousands of jobs will be created with skilled and non-skilled personnel being hired while there would be business opportunities for local firms and citizens.Government has negotiated that 40 percent of the dualisation project benefits locals as part of empowering indigenous people.Dr Gumbo said Government was happy with the progress on the project."The contractor is also talking with locals who have equipment so that they hire out that equipment," he said."Moving equipment into the country through shipping takes long hence the decision to take that route. One billion dollars is not a joke by any standards, so they were working on how their funds will be moved. They have agreed terms with a local financial institution (name supplied) with which they will transact as they do their work. These issues take time but they have done that within a short period, setting the stage for actual construction."The dualisation of the highway is expected to reduce carnage and increase the flow of goods and tourists in and outside the country.Preliminary indications are that it will take three years to complete the dualisation.The project will be done in phases and the first phase includes the Beitbridge-Harare highway.The second phase, which is the Harare-Chirundu stretchwill then follow.Calls for Government to expedite the dualisation project got louder recently after 30 people perished at Nyamatikiti River Bridge near Chaka when a Proliner bus bound for South Africa was side-swiped by a haulage truck going in the opposite direction.
There is a valley in India where retired soldiers and their families pay Rs 200 for a kilogram of sugar and Rs 150 for an equal amount of salt, if it is available.

This desolated and isolated region is Vijaynagar, nestled in the Himalayas on the India-Myanmar Border in Arunachal Pradesh, which takes around seven to 10 days to reach on foot through dense forests.

Spread across 8,000 square kilometres, Vijaynagar is unique for many reasons. It was discovered by the Assam Rifles paramilitary force during an expedition named Srijit II in 1961 under Major General AS Guraya, IG of Assam Rifles.

Spread across 8,000 sqkm, Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh was discovered by the Assam Rifles paramilitary force during an expedition named Srijit II in 1961

The virgin valley was named by him after his son. Since it was an unexplored valley without India-Myanmar border demarcation at the time, around 200 families of ex-servicemen of Assam Rifles were inducted in this area on the line of duty through a settlement scheme which was exceptional in nature.

The border demarcation was carried out in 1972 after the completion of the settlement of Assam Rifles families in various batches.

The villagers, comprising families of ex-servicemen, complain of a lack of basic amenities such as medical facilities, education and health

The strategy was to settle the ex-servicemen who would retire by 1971 and remain in the valley for years to come. So the ultimate aim of colonising the area was to ensure security and stability in the remotest border part in national interest.

They were taken in good health and assurance to a place that had no roads, communication channels, electricity or school and instead had dense forests. Years later, the situation has not changed.

Z Ralte, an octogenarian Assam Rifles ex-serviceman in Vijaynagar since the Seventies said, 'I was serving in the Assam Rifles when the Indian government located us here in 1964, promising to give us 50 acres, but instead gave 11 acres.

They were promised good health and wealth, but have lost both and are living in hardship

'Since then, we have been working in farming activities here. Salt is a big problem in this area, we have to pay 150 rupees to purchase salt. Therefore we request the government to give supplies of salt, oil and other food products. It is difficult for old people to travel on foot any more.

'My family's expenses are met by the pension I get. Conditions have deteriorated since 1986.'

But this is the agony of just one of 300 families settled over the years in the valley. They were promised good health and wealth, but have lost both and are living in pain.

The women in the family have no option left but to live with the limited resources and double expenses. It is not just about the prices of essentials like salt and sugar but even when they have to make calls from local PCOs, it charges them Rs 5 per minute.

Their per day income is Rs 200 and they buy goods at Rs 150 per kg. The medical facilities are even worse.

The nearest hospital is 200 km away and the patients can reached their only via airways.

Utsav said, 'I would like to thank India Today and the team of Aaj Tak for reaching out to us, over the past 70 years, this is the first channel that has reached out to us and we are grateful to you.

'Poor transport, medical and food facilities are our major problems. Salt and other goods are very expensive. We are thankful to Assam rifles for their constant help. Pregnant or ill patients have to either wait or meet death.

'Education is a huge problem, my wife and i have started a school as an effort to overcome this problem by educating children.'

There is just one primary school which charges Rs 500 per student and sometimes even teaches for free only to serve for a social cause to the society.
In violence-riven Kashmir, Zakir Musa has emerged as a thorn in the side of his former organisation Hizbul Mujahideen.

The militant commander severed ties with the outfit last month after it denounced his statement that separatist leaders from the Hurriyat Conference would be beheaded if they became a hurdle in the road to the Valley becoming an Islamic state.

After setting up Taliban-e-Kashmir, Musa has been successful in poaching 12-15 cadres from Hizbul with his hardline Islamic appeal of waging jihad against India and using religion to attract more youth into his fold.

Due to his religious hardline and brutality against own people, Musa is not liked much by locals and known for his violent ways of dealing with people who dont offer help in their actions against security forces

The terrorist leader has also been successful in developing a following among the Kashmiri youth who are in the process of following more radical versions of Islam than mystical Sufism, which is losing influence in the state, sources in security forces in Kashmir said.

'Musa has been able to break away 12-15 of his former Hizbul Mujahideen cadres and take them with him to the Taliban-e- Kashmir, which is an attempt to attract more youth and give a push to militancy in the state,' they said.

On the Hizbul terrorists who have now joined Musa, sources said most of the jihadis are from Tral area, which is the breeding ground for local militants in the south Kashmir region.

Musa, who is an engineering dropout from a college in Chandigarh, also belongs to the same area and his father is an executive engineer posted there in the state government.

Musa is trying to take advantage of this rising fanaticism in the state and has been releasing video and audio messages to the youth on social media for joining his cause for Islam in the trouble-torn state, the sources said.

The messages spread on social media by the supporters of this new group are talking about the implementation of Shariah and other Islamic laws in Kashmir and reducing the status of women as was done by the original Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan after they conquered that country.

Kashmiri villagers carry the body of a civilian killed when government forces opened fire during a search operation to flush out Kashmiri rebels

Sources said for a long time in the history of militancy in the state, the religious fanatic terrorists coming from Afghanistan and Punjab were more radical and were tough to tackle due to their indoctrination and waging a war in the name of their god.

However, in recent times, it has been seen that the local terrorists have also become radicalised due to the rising influence of the Wahabi mosques in the state run by the Ahl al- Hadith and other fundamentalist groups.

'In one or two encounters, the terrorists could be seen offering their Islamic prayers in the middle of the action and before dying at the hands of the security forces,' sources said.

Following the propaganda machinery of the Pakistani ISI, Musa recently used a fake report about the rape of a Muslim woman in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district, saying, 'It is shameful that Indian Muslims are spineless and don't act against the perpetrators of such crimes.'

He also quoted religious scriptures of Muslims, talking about the call for Conquest of Hind (Gazwa-e- Hind).

'Our beloved prophet has assured jannat (heaven) to those who participate in the conquest of Hind,' he said.

Sources said due to his religious hardline and brutality against own people, he is not liked much by locals and is known for his violent ways of dealing with people who don't offer help in their actions against security forces.

Musa is also high on the hit list of the Army and other security forces who have now adopted a very aggressive approach against the jihadis, especially the terror leadership in the state, with all major leaders getting killed in a few months of their taking over.
Starting on June 23, a BJP taskforce of nearly 3,000 leaders will take to the streets as part of BJP's mass outreach programme on the lines of its ideological mentor RSS.

Similar to RSS' pracharaks, the BJP's vistaraks will go to over 13,000 polling booths in the national Capital.

The vistaraks will be tasked with strengthening BJP's ground in Delhi adding over 1.5 lakh new members to the party.

Around 3,000 leaders will take to the streets as part of BJPs mass outreach programme starting from June 23. (Pictured Manoj Tiwari during election campaign in 2014)

The program will continue for a fortnight, said Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari. Central BJP leaders, including party president Amit Shah, are already carrying out the exercise in different states.

In this connection, BJP national general secretary Arun Singh has also begun his two-day camp in the national capital wherein he will be interacting with Delhi BJP office bearers as well as the grassroot workers.

Based on the feedback collected from each booth, a comprehensive report will be submitted to the party high command. BJP national vice president and Delhi unit in-charge Shyam Jaju told Mail Today that each vistarak will be responsible for four polling booths in the city.

BJP candidate from North-east Delhi Lok Sabha constituency Manoj Tiwari again on the streets

'The vistaraks will interact with voters and create awareness about government policies and party's vision. They will also assess the functioning and popularity of the government on the lowest level,' Jaju said adding this was the first of its kind exercise initiated by any political party.

According to the plan, 3,000 vistaraks will be assigned a specific area comprising four polling booths. They will reach out to each household along with a team of local volunteers.

'BJP vistaraks will be the representatives of PM Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah. Each of them will be responsible for enrolling at least 50 new members for the party.

'Our vistaraks will explain the party ideology, life of Deen Dayal Upadhyay and work done in three years of Narendra Modi government at the center,' Tiwari said. All the vistarak's will be trained before start of the programme and will be given a kit containing literature on party and its ideologue Upadhyay, achievements of Modi government and people oriented scheme.

'At the end of programme, these vistarak will submit their reports about party activities at ground and also list of 50 new members with their address and mobile numbers. This is being done to avoid duplicity,' Tiwari added.

For successful roll out of the program, a meeting with all state office bearers was held at Delhi BJP headquarters on Thursday. BJP national general secretary Arun Singh held the meeting as he also interacted separately with a number of office bearers.

'This is an ideal opportunity for every office bearer to voice their opinion on party affairs. All leaders who usually cannot meet the top brass get an opportunity to put forward their views,' Jaju said.
The founder of crisis-torn oil and metals trader Noble Group has seen his 2billion stake in the company collapse as it fights for survival.

British tycoon Richard Elman, 77, set up the firm in Hong Kong in 1986 and turned it into one of the worlds largest commodity traders during 30 years at the helm.

But shares are down 88 per cent since February this year and 98 per cent since their peak in 2011 when Elman held a stake worth nearly 2billion.

The slump in the last 15 weeks has slashed the value of Elmans 18 per cent holding from 368million to just 44million  a loss of 324million, or 3million a day.

British tycoon Richard Elman, 77, set up Noble Group in Hong Kong in 1986 and turned it into one of the world's largest commodity traders during 30 years at the helm

Noble, which has been plagued by questions over its accounting and a slump in commodity prices on global markets, is now locked in talks with its banks as it battles to survive.

The crisis underlines the remarkable rise and fall of a company that at the peak of its powers was worth 11billion and was the biggest commodities trader in Asia, dealing in everything from oil and coal to metals and soybeans.

Elman, a father of four, left school in Brighton at 15 and took up work as a scrap metal trader in London before heading to Asia in the 1960s when he was in his 20s.

He spent a decade with commodities trading firm Phibro, where he was regional director of the Asian operations, and eventually set up Noble in 1986 in Hong Kong.

Noble listed its shares on the stock exchange in Singapore in 1997, helping Elman amass a fortune as commodity prices boomed in the 2000s.

Elman was just one of a handful of tycoons to reap the rewards of rising commodity prices, with his success compared to that of Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg and Vitol Group boss Ian Taylor.

NOBLE HISTORY Tycoon Richard Elman, 77, left school at 15 and started work in a scrap metal yard

He moved from the UK to Asia in his 20s and set up commodities trading firm Noble Group in 1986

Noble is based in Hong Kong and listed on the stock exchange in Singapore

Elman  who is married and has four children  had a stake in Noble worth 1.9billion

But questions over its account practices have sent shares down 98 per cent

Elman's current stake is worth 44million

By 2011, Elmans stake in Noble was worth around 2billion.

But the company has struggled in recent years on the back of a slump in commodity prices and has run up debts of 2.5billion.

Noble last year recorded its first ever annual loss and has been rocked by accusations of accounting irregularities, although it denies any wrongdoing.

In a letter to shareholders last month, announcing that he was stepping away from the day-to-day running of the business, Elman warned that Noble would not be back in profit until 2019.

It will be a long, hard slog with ups and downs along the way, until we regain profitability, he said in the letter.

With Elman taking on the role of chairman emeritus, and handing over the reins to a new executive chairman, Paul Brough, the hunt is now on for a white knight investor to inject cash into the business.

Noble was last night locked in talks with its banks in a desperate bid to secure more time to find the new investment and stave off collapse.

It wants lenders, who include HSBC, Societe Generale, ABN Amro, Citigroup and ING to extend a 1.5billion credit line, which provides vital funds for the company but is due to expire this month.

But if a deal cannot be reached it is feared that Noble could be forced to file for bankruptcy.

Sources close to Noble said it was a positive development that the banks have appointed advisers to look at their options.

But the company declined to comment yesterday.
Playing in the first team of the world's seven largest economies is not easy. Nevertheless, economics and household budgets have played little part in Britain's lacklustre election campaign, broken as it has been by the horrors of terrorism.

But when people do actually cast their votes today one suspects it will be 'the economy stupid' that will decide.

Why vote for the unknown and a throwback to the economic and financial chaos threatened by Labour's policies when you can opt for steady expansion with the incumbent Tories?

But if we were to end up with financial turmoil and fiscal profligacy Britons are not short of options. Among the easiest for the young, the ambitious and the entrepreneurial would be to make the same journey as 1.2m other Brits and go down under.

Fair dinkum: Our Aussie cousins have experienced 103 successive quarters, or just under 26-years of expanding growth

Having spent a few weeks in Sydney this year and seen directly the satisfying career choices of my nieces and nephews it is hard not to envy a more laid-back lifestyle alongside commercial achievement.

Being a second tier economy (in terms of size) is no bad thing when it is able to weather kinks in the economic cycle. The latest quarterly data from Australia shows that output expanded by a miserly 0.3 per cent in the first quarter.

That may seem unimpressive until one realises that our Aussie cousins have experienced 103 successive quarters, or just under 26 years of expanding growth.

There is some dispute as to whether this is a record and Australia may have been pipped to the post by Holland and possibly post-war Japan. It doesn't much matter.

Natural resources are central to Aussie prosperity and it has benefited enormously from the manufacturing boom in China. It has also been good for London-quoted miners including Rio Tinto and BHP.

But it is a mistake to think that it is the only source of prosperity. Mining accounts for 7 per cent of gross domestic product which, as in Britain, is dwarfed by services, which account for 73 per cent. Indeed, construction is larger than natural resources.

Looking ahead, a jump in mining investment, as an end to the commodity bust is sighted, and return to confidence among consumers augur well.

What is certain is that should our election produce an unfortunate result which demonises free markets, the queues outside Australia House on the Strand in central London will stretch around the block.

Pay gaffes

The silence of business in the election campaign has been deafening. One theory is that boardroom chieftains are none too happy about Theresa May's commitment to curb excess in the boardroom.

If we needed fresh evidence that greed is not yet defeated then look no further than 'Drastic' Dave Lewis's decision to happily accept a 142,000 allowance from Tesco for moving a few miles down the road as part of his 4.1million pay package.

Then there is the gift of 10million of shares to Burberry's sidelined chief executive Christopher Bailey.

It said Bailey's award was granted as part of the package of enhancements designed to keep him in post when his design skills were being poached by another luxury fashion marque.

One understood, however, that it was precisely because of that that he was promoted to the position of chief executive, a role that he has had to relinquish because of sub-optimal performance.

If May's reforms were in place Burberry accounts would show Bailey's earnings came to 294 times that of the average employee  a huge embarrassment for him and a gift to critics of free market capitalism.

Boardroom chutzpah has few boundaries. When US business broadcaster CNBC sought a business voice to comment on the UK election it turned to WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell.

As fine a global commentator as he may be he doesn't do FTSE 100 chiefs any favours with his 48million pay packet, which has raised the ire of many investors.

Own goal or what?

Selling UK plc

Is Anglo American, venerable owner of De Beers, putting up the 'for sale' sign?

The choice of Stuart Chambers as next chairman would suggest the answer is 'Yes'.

He has dispatched three FTSE companies into overseas hands  glassmaker Pilkington, packaging champion Rexam and, controversially, British tech innovator ARM.

Not a comforting record.
Happy shopper: Tesco's 'Drastic' Dave Lewis

Britain's biggest grocer faces a shareholder backlash over 142,000 it paid to relocate its chief executive just half an hour down the road.

Tesco boss Dave Lewis, 52, was handed the bumper benefits package to cover stamp duty and legal fees to move from London closer to the Hertfordshire head office.

But a report from the Pensions and Investment Research Consultants has advised shareholders to oppose the payout at next week's AGM.

It said the 179 per cent increase in benefits Lewis received to a total of 223,000 was 'not considered appropriate'.

And it said Lewis's long-term incentive awards of 200 per cent of salary was excessive.

Tesco declined to comment directly on the concerns but highlighted comments in its remuneration report which said 96 per cent of shareholders backed the policy in 2015.

It said it was important a significant proportion of rewards for executives were performance related.

Lewis took a 10 per cent pay cut last year but still took home 4.1million.

Since 2014, father-of-two Lewis, dubbed 'Drastic Dave' for his cuts at Unilever, has shut dozens of stores, slashed jobs and boosted Tesco's market share.

Shares in Tesco slipped by 1.8 per cent, or 3.25p, to 178.4p.
Escape: Disgraced ex RBS boss Fred 'the shred' Goodwin was spared his day in court

A courtroom battle between Royal Bank of Scotland and disgruntled investors was abandoned yesterday  allowing disgraced ex-boss Fred 'the shred' Goodwin to avoid giving evidence.

Angry shareholders had accused the NatWest owner of misleading them over a doomed 12billion fundraising drive in 2008.

Months after they handed over the cash, the lender was bailed out with 45billion of taxpayers' money and its stock price nosedived.

A civil trial had been due to start last month, but the case was postponed for talks on a 200million settlement.

Lawyers for the claimants yesterday told High Court judge Mr Justice Hildyard that they were ready to settle, and the trial was cancelled.

In total, 87 per cent of them were ready to settle, the court heard, with 13 per cent keen to see the trial go head, though many are expected to accept the offer.

In a crowing statement, RBS, which spent 1billion on settlements and legal fees to keep the case out of court, said it was 'a positive outcome for the bank and its shareholders'.

Shares rose 1.4 per cent, or 3.4p, to 255.1p.
Packaging firm RPC Group suffered its worst day in four years after a stellar set of results failed to convince investors of the company's health.

The firm, which makes packaging for products ranging from food to car parts, revealed a 67 per cent jump in revenues for the year ended March 31, to 2.7billion.

It also reported a 55 per cent increase in profit to 308.2million and a full-year dividend of 24p, up 50 per cent on the previous year. But this didn't stop 255.2million being wiped from the firm's value.

Nicholas Hyett, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said investors are worried the firm is using acquisition costs  it has bought nine firms just in its last year  to conceal poor performance.

Likewise, Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said seasoned investors will be put off by several red flags.

Packaging firm RPC Group, revealed a 67 per cent jump in revenues and a 55 per cent increase in profit but still saw 255.2m wiped from its value

He said: 'Warning signs include multiple acquisitions, frequent restatement of earnings figures and triggers for management bonuses.' Not everyone thought that  broker Panmure Gordon praised RPC's results and gave it a 'Buy' rating.

RPC shares fell 7.2 per cent, or 61.5p, to 788.5p, sending it towards the bottom end of the FTSE 350.

But it was online supermarket Ocado which took the mid cap index's bottom spot.

A dreadful week for the grocer continued, with shares falling another 7.9 per cent, or 24.4p, to 284p.

Its decline began on Monday, when investors criticised it for refusing to give the name or value of its first overseas deal.

Matters worsened a day later when British hedge fund Crystal Amber announced that it had put aside a 100m fighting fund in a bid to overhaul the company.

STOCK WATCH - DISTIL Spirits maker Distil will be nursing a hangover today after investors shrugged off its first annual profits. Among other alcoholic drinks, Distil markets and sells gin and vodka under the Blavod, Blackwoods and Diva brands. In the year ended March 31, the firm reported a profit of just 10,000. This was a marked improvement on the 97,000 loss it suffered last year. Meanwhile, revenues rose to 1.6million from 1.2million but shares fell 7.3 per cent, or 0.25p, to 3.2p.

The FTSE 100 continued to drift further from record highs hit last week, closing down 0.62 per cent, or 46.33 points, to 7478.62.

The index fell as the pound strengthened in afternoon trading, with investors believing the Tories will win a majority in today's general election.

Housebuilders were some of the strongest performers after mortgage lender Halifax said house prices rose 3.3 per cent year-on-year in May, despite a 0.2 per cent fall over the last quarter.

Taylor Wimpey was up 1.6 per cent, or 2.8p, to 181.8p, while Persimmon rose 2.1 per cent, or 48p, to 2393p, and Barratt Developments rose 0.8 per cent, or 4.5p, to 584.5p.

Drug maker AstraZeneca fell after selling the rights to its migraine treatment drug to Grunenthal  the company responsible for helping to develop the thalidomide morning sickness pill in the 1960s  for 233million.

Shares fell 1 per cent, or 53p, to 5302p. Losses were also seen at sugar giant Tate & Lyle, which was cut by analysts at Jefferies, who downgraded the stock to 'Hold' from 'Buy' and slashed its target price to 800p from 870p.

It said that the firm was likely to be soured by weak prices next year, and shares slipped 2.6 per cent, or 19.5p, to 734.5p.

Elsewhere, a decline in oil prices despite news of production cuts at Opec, the world's main oil cartel, sent Tullow Oil into the red.

Even a glowing review from analysts at Barclays couldn't push the Africa-focused exploration firm into positive territory. Shares fell 0.2 per cent, or 0.4p, to 170.6p.

Building regeneration firm St Modwen Properties, on the other hand, led FTSE 350 gains by a country mile.

The company, which manages more than 100 developments, committed to accelerating commercial development activity. It said it has continued to perform in line with expectations. Shares rose 6.3 per cent, or 20.8p, to 353p.
Shares in online fashion upstart Boohoo jumped more than 9 per cent today as investors saw an opportunity for rapid growth in the firm's 50million share placement to fund a new mega-warehouse.

Boohoo, which recently bought US retailer Nasty Gal and Pretty Little Thing, said it needs more warehouse capacity and is seeking 50million from investors to put towards the 150million required to build the new facility.

A company's share price usually falls when there's a placement as it increases the total number of shares, plus it can be an indication that a company is struggling financially. However, if the request for funds is to rapidly grow the business, this can push the share price higher.

Expansion: Boohoo is seeking to raise 50m from investors to fund the development of a blockbuster warehouse

The group said the new facility, scheduled to be completed by 2020, could generate 2billion worth of sales  in addition to the 1billion net sales provided at its Burnley base, which is also to be extended.

As a result, it issued an equity placing to raise 50million and said it expects capital expenditure to be 63million this year compared to previous guidance of 34million.

Shares in Boohoo rose 9 per cent, or 20p, to 241p in morning trading.

It came as the fashion firm, which has been growing heavily in the UK and abroad, boasted soaring sales and profits.

Sales across the group as a whole were up 106 per cent to 120.1million in the three months to May 31, compared to 58.2million in the same period the year before.

Boohoo sales increased 48 per cent to 86.4million while sales in Pretty Little Thing increased by 305 per cent to 30.7million.

Nasty Gal, which Boohoo acquired for 16million earlier this year, made 2.9million.

It now expects revenue growth for the full year to be around 60 per cent, ahead of previous guidance of 50 per cent.

Joint chief executives Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane said: 'Our performance in the first quarter has been very encouraging across all brands and geographic regions.

'While it is early in the financial year, Boohoo continues to perform well and Pretty Little Thing delivered exceptionally strong revenue growth in the first quarter as it continues to expand its young female customer base.

'Nasty Gal has made a promising start since we acquired the brand, with revenues growing strongly month-on-month, as we increased the product range.'

Last year, pre-tax profits rose 97 per cent to 30.9million, while revenue also soared 51 per cent to 294.6million.
NEW DIRECTOR Uranium miner Berkeley Energia has appointed former Rio Tinto executive Nigel Jones as a non-executive director.

The 51-year-old is replacing retiring Dr Jim Ross in the Spanish-focused business.

Jones left Rio Tinto as global head of business development and is head of private side capital markets at ICBC Standard Bank.

Berkeley's managing director, Paul Atherley, said: 'We believe his considerable experience in corporate development and marketing of uranium products will be of considerable value to the company.'

BUILDING BOOST Engineering giant Amec Foster Wheeler has won a contract to provide up to four years of public sector design and engineering work.

Ann Massey, president of its global environment and infrastructure division, said getting on to the Crown Commercial Service's 2.9billion framework was a 'key priority for our growth strategy'.

Amec is being taken over by rival Wood Group. Shares fell 2 per cent, or 9.9p, to 494.6p.

CHURCHILL DEPARTURE Troubled miner Churchill Mining is leaving the junior AIM stock exchange amid its ongoing row with the Indonesian authorities over revoked coal project licences.

Yesterday, bosses said their latest application to an international tribunal would not be decided in time for suspended shares to be readmitted within AIM's six-month timeframe.

Instead it has applied to the NEX Exchange Growth Market.

GOLDEN DEAL Scotland's emerging gold mining industry has signed its first deal with jewellers.

Australia-based Scotgold Resources said two of Scotland's main jewellers had agreed to buy gold produced at the Cononish mine.

The mine produced gold for the first time in August last year.

RENTERS' BLOCK Investment giant Legal & General has launched its first apartment block built specifically for renters in Salford, Greater Manchester.

Occupiers will start moving into The Slate Yard's 90 flats this week, with tenancy agreements ranging from six months to five years.

L&G is aiming to profit from surging house prices which put home ownership beyond the reach of most young people.

Shares rose 1.2 per cent, or 3p, to 254p.

CROSS JOINS Rural lender Folk2Folk has hired a chief marketing officer to boost its business.

Giles Cross was formerly head of the marketing team at wealth manager Sanlam UK.

CORPORATE CRACKDOWN The leaders of 70 countries have pledged to crack down on corporate tax avoidance amid growing public anger.

The UK and other European Union member states, as well as India, China and Australia, signed a deal in Paris yesterday which makes it harder for firms to shift profits to low-tax nations.

The US did not join the agreement, although it already has tough rules.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday urged the Ministries of Tourism and Hospitality Industry and Home Affairs to strike a balance between public safety and the convenience of tourists following numerous complaints of harassment at roadblocks.Mnangagwa said this in Harare yesterday at the launch of the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development."I am aware that the issue of roadblocks has been raised by a number of tourists. As Government, we remain committed to the free movement of tourists and the need to ensure their safety," said Mnangagwa."I therefore urge the two Ministries of Home Affairs and Tourism and Hospitality Industry to sit down together under one roof and further determine how the need for safety and movement of tourists can be guaranteed. In the same vein, I also want to commend the ZRP, the visiting public and tourists especially in the Victoria Falls area, for their cooperation," he said.In a Visitor Exit survey covering a 12-month period between 2015 and November 2016, 43,2 percent of tourists who said they would not visit Zimbabwe again, cited harassment by police among the reasons why they would not recommend the country as a destination to potential visitors.Home Affairs minister Dr Ignatius Chombo said the police would reduce the number of roadblocks by setting them between a radius of 10km. He said roadblocks were important for public safety and to curb crime.There have however been many complaints that too many roadblocks cause unnecessary delays to travellers, especially tourists who bring in foreign currency.Acting President Mnangagwa said this year's declaration was in line with the Zim-Asset economic blueprint."This year's declaration reverberates well with our Zim Asset blueprint under the value addition and beneficiation cluster where we seek to promote tourism products and diversification through the revival of community-based tourism enterprises, implementation and training programmes for communities through sustainable tourism eliminating poverty, as well as benchmarking products and opening visitors' bureaus (foreign tourism offices)," he said.He said Zimbabwe had a lot of tourism products with an unlimited potential for value addition, diversification and employment opportunities in different sectors such as accommodation, transportation, catering, and travel and tour services.Acting President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe received 2 167 686 tourists, earning $819 million and contributing in the process 10,9 percent to the GDP, 4,3 to capital investment and 7,3 percent to employment."On the continent, the decision to designate 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism Development resonates well with Agenda 2063 which encapsulates promotion of trade in services like travel and tourism and services in the hospitality industry. Locally therefore I urge the Ministry of Tourism and Hospitality Industry and stakeholders in the sector to embrace and aggressively market unique Zimbabwean cuisine and traditional foods," he said."Unique cultural, religious and village and community-based tourism products need to be used as tools to attract and guarantee repeat visits by tourists."The acting President said Zimbabwe recognised the need for sustainable tourism in development and was engaging in various initiatives that include a comprehensive clean-up campaign to encourage behavioural change on littering, running a schools' quiz show on sustainable tourism and a sustainable tourism symposium, among others.This year's celebrations are being held under the theme "Travel, Enjoy and Respect".Meanwhile, Acting President Mnangagwa commended Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Dr Walter Mzembi for marketing the country during his campaign for the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Secretary General's post."On behalf of His Excellency the President and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Mugabe, and indeed on my own behalf, I want to take the opportunity to thank him for a sterling job of putting the 'Brand Zimbabwe' on the international platform although he couldn't garner the votes needed to secure the post," he said.Dr Mzembi lost by 3 votes in the second round of voting to Georgia's Mr Zurab Pololikashvilli.
I'm worth it: WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell earned 48m for 2016

More than a fifth of WPP shareholders voted against the 48million pay packet of boss Sir Martin Sorrell, in the latest backlash over executive pay.

The advertising giant's bruising vote was followed by questions over who will step into the 72-year-old's shoes when he eventually retires.

Sorrell founded WPP in 1985 and has received 210million in the last five years.

Last year, 34 per cent of shareholders voted against the 70.4million he received for 2015 in what was one of the largest payouts in corporate history.

While yesterday's package was lower, it still drove 21.3 per cent of shareholders to vote against the pay, or abstain, and retains Sorrell's crown as the highest-paid boss on the FTSE 100.

Investors maintained that executive pay at WPP continued to look excessive.

Ashley Hamilton Claxton, corporate governance manager at Royal London Asset Management, acknowledged the reduction to bonuses and incentives was a step in the right direction, but added: 'The sheer scale of these remains exceptionally high, at over nine times the salary for the chief executive.'

The level of protest over WPP's new remuneration policy, which will hand executives lower long-term incentive awards, was at a more modest 10 per cent.

Some shareholders raised concerns over succession plans.

Deborah Gilshan, Standard Life Investments governance and stewardship director, said: 'We suggest that the board consider what lead time would be required to ensure an orderly succession and discuss this with Sir Martin.'

The vote followed a trading update for the first four months of the year.

Revenues rose 15.9 per cent to 4.8billion thanks to a boost from the fall in the pound since the Brexit vote.

Stripping out the impact of the slump in sterling, revenues were up 0.7 per cent. Shares fell by 2.6 per cent, or 45p, to 1676p.
The takeover of a stricken Spanish bank by Santander has worrying echoes of doomed deals during the financial crisis, a veteran City boss has warned.

Ailing Banco Popular was yesterday bought by Santander for just one euro as fears grew that it was about to collapse.

Santander will raise 6.1billion from the markets to pump fresh cash into Popular, which is struggling under the weight of 32.2billion of toxic property loans.

Takeover: Ailing Banco Popular was yesterday bought by Santander for just one euro as fears grew that it was about to collapse

The deal will create Spain's largest lender, with 17million customers in the country and another 4million in neighbouring Portugal.

But Martin Gilbert, head of investment giant Aberdeen Asset Management, said there were concerning parallels with Lloyds' 12.2billion acquisition of HBOS at the height of the financial crisis.

That disastrous deal almost destroyed Lloyds and forced taxpayers into a 20.3billion bailout.

'It smacks a bit of the HBOS and Lloyds deal, where you never know how much pressure is put on the biggest bank in Spain by the central bank,' Gilbert told CNBC. 'I'd be surprised if they had agreed to it under duress but that will come out.'

The acquisition will see Popular's shareholders suffer heavy losses. It is also a first test of the so-called CoCo bonds intended to improve banks' financial position after the Great Recession.

These are converted into shares if a lender's value drops below a certain level  relieving its pressure to pay off debts but hitting CoCo owners in the pocket, while other bondholders are protected.

The value of Popular's CoCo bonds plunged to almost zero.

Santander chairman Ana Botin insisted the deal was good for the country and Spanish economy minister Luis de Guindos said it meant taxpayers had avoided stepping in, and added that Popular had never posed a threat to the nation's financial system.

Santander has 14million UK customers, but its British operation is independently run and would be protected if there was any fallout from the deal
The new chairman of a FTSE mining giant was embroiled in a tech company that has collapsed amid a scandal.

Stuart Chambers, one of the City's biggest names, was yesterday appointed to take on the top job at Anglo American.

However, the Mail can also reveal he was made chairman of Ve Interactive, which was touted as one of Britain's fastest-growing tech firms, shortly before it fell into administration.

Ve is at the centre of a scandal over payments to staff and the role of ex-boss and founder David Brown.

Doomed: A few weeks after his appointment at Ve, founder David Brown, left, tweeted a picture of himself and Chambers, right, on what is claimed to be a business trip to Monaco

Chambers remained an adviser to the company even as investors tried to rescue it by pumping in cash and Brown was pushed out.

Administrators are now investigating the firm's financial dealings under Brown and have hired lawyers to help.

It is not clear how much Chambers knew of the company's financial situation. He could not be reached for comment yesterday.

One source close to Ve said: 'Chambers had a very lucky escape he has a very good reputation. He was brought in for a reason that didn't happen.'

Ve, which analyses internet data to help businesses target their adverts, was valued at more than 1billion and was feted as a 'unicorn' of the tech industry.

Boss who sold Britain Stuart Chambers, 61, was chair of ARM Holdings when it was sold for 24billion to Japan's Softbank He was chair of drinks can maker Rexam when it was sold to US Ball Corporation for 4.5billion Chambers was chief executive of glassmaker Pilkington when it was bought by Japan's Nippon Sheet Glass in 2016 He was appointed chairman of tech firm VE Interactive just before it went bust

Chambers was named chairman last November, in a coup for Brown, who described the hire as a 'powerful endorsement of Ve's business'.

Chambers had been chair of tech giant ARM Holdings before it was controversially sold to Japanese giant Softbank last year and his appointment was made just days after ARM was sold for 24.3billion.

He stood to make 670,000 from the deal which he negotiated while sailing in his yacht.

He was at the helm of Pilkington Glass and Rexam when they were sold to overseas investors.

A few weeks after his appointment at Ve, Brown tweeted a picture of the grinning pair on what is claimed to be a business trip to Monaco.

At the time Chambers said: 'I have rarely come across a company which is as rich in entrepreneurial spirit and innovation as Ve and which has managed to combine these so effectively to achieve such broad international and commercial reach.'

But Ve, which employed 256 directly and hundreds more through subsidiaries, had been loss-making from the beginning.

By the end of 2016 it had to pay staff salaries late. HMRC tried to have the company wound up in February 2017, according to documents filed at Companies House, and in April the taxman acted again, publishing a second winding-up petition.

Administrators were called in and investors, including billionaire Douglas Barrowman who had pumped in 3million in March, bought the company for 2million, renaming it Ve Global.

Chambers had been due to take up his role as chairman in January, but it was delayed. Then in March the company said he would not fill the post.

He is now set to replace Sir John Parker as chairman of Anglo American, earning around 700,000 a year. Brown could not be reached for comment.
Residents in the Chinese city of Yulin are expected to carry on eating dogs on the summer solstice despite the supposed new ban on the sale of canine meat, MailOnline can reveal.

Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant, a highly popular restaurant in Yulin, is said to be operating business as usual after the ban was reported in early May, according to an insider.

The restaurant bills itself as an 'internationally renowned' restaurant serving dishes made with 'healthy dogs carefully raised by farmers'.

However, multiple sources familiar with the matters have warned that excessive criticism on the annual Dog Meat Festival in Yulin - one of the many places where people eat dogs in Asia - could backfire and cause the locals to step up the celebration of their 'food tradition'.

Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant claims to sell 'big pot' dog stew and crispy dog meat. Above is a picture believed to show one of the restaurant's signature dishes

The restaurant was filled with eager diners on June 21 last year as Yulin celebrated the summer solstice, according to the picture provided by Animals Asia

A worker at a Yulin slaughterhouse hung up cooked dogs before selling them to local restaurateurs. The picture was taken by a contact of Humane Society International in 2016

It's been estimated that 10 million dogs are slaughtered for meat in China annually. Many of them are believed to be stolen pets.

WHAT IS THE YULIN DOG MEAT FESTIVAL? Some claimed that the consumption of dog meat has been observed in Guangxi Province, China, for hundreds of years. However, the activity had not been promoted and encouraged until around 30 years ago - first by the dog meat traders, then by the Yulin government for driving tourism. The annual Yulin Dog Meat Festival can be traced back to 2009. Lychee, a seasonal fruit, is often eaten too during the festival. That's why the festival is also known as 'Yulin Lychee Dog Meat Festival'. The event has drawn waves of criticism from media and animal lovers, with influential figures leading campaigns around the world in a bid to stop it. The local government has stopped organising the festival under pressure, as it is understood, but vendors continue selling dog meat and residents carry on eating it on the summer solstice. Advertisement

The animal is eaten in some other Asian countries, such as Vietnam and South Korea.

In Yulin, people celebrate the summer solstice by having dog meat and lychees.

It's the day to mark the end of the dog meat season in Yulin, according to Dr Peter J. Li, the Associate Professor of East Asian Politics at the University of Houston-Downtown and the China Policy Specialist from Humane Society International.

Dr Li has provided a picture to MailOnline, which shows the exterior of Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant on May 17.

The picture was taken by a local contact of Dr Li's.

It was taken about two weeks after the Yulin government was said to have informed the local vendors to stop selling dog meat in the lead up to the summer solstice, which falls on June 21 this year.

According to Dr Li, the new ban was informed to some restaurants and vendors orally by the local authority.

Apparently, the ban is set to prohibit the sale of dog meat in central Yulin between June 15 and 23, especially in major shops and markets, such as the Dongkou Market.

There seems to be no restriction on vendors selling dog meat in the suburbs or on people eating dogs at home.

In the picture taken by the local contact of Dr Li's, Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant has apparently removed the word 'dog' in its store sign, leaving the shop to be called 'Yulin No.1 Crispy Meat Restaurant'.

The dogs were killed, gutted, marinated and cooked with a blow torch by the slaughterhouse, according to Dr Li of Humane Society International. The above picture was taken in 2016

The Yulin government is said to have issued a ban in parts of Yulin, prohibiting vendors from selling dog meat between June 15 and 23 this year. However, various insiders have warned that the alleged ban would not stop all people in Yulin from selling and eating dogs

According to sources, the new ban was informed to some restaurants and vendors orally by the local authority. There seems to be no restriction on sellers and residents in the suburbs

'It's definitely selling dog meat and it has no signs of closing,' said Dr Li.

He added: 'Normally, Yulin people eat boiled or stewed dog meat.

'Crispy dog meat was a dish promoted in 2009 to be the main dish at the local food festival, which later turned into the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

'Slaughterhouse workers use a blow torch to shine the skin of the dog to make it crunchy and bright.'

'The price of crispy dog meat is about 60 yuan (6.8) per kilo, but it varies depending on the demand.

'In the market, the price of uncooked dog meat is about 17 to 25 yuan (1.9 to 2.8) per kilo.'

An activist in Yulin who doesn't wish to be named has provided a short video clip, said to be filmed at a dog meat market in Yulin on May 17.

The video shows two dog meat vendors selling canines whole at a stall. One of them is seen trying to cut meat off a dog, which had been killed, gutted, marinated and cooked with a blow torch.

The picture (above) of Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant was taken on May 17 this year. Dr Peter J. Li of Humane Society International said the place is operating with no signs of closing

Diners sat on plastic stools and enjoyed their food at Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant in 2016. Animals Asia said business was booming at the place around the summer solstice

Yulin, in southern China's Guangxi Province, is spread out and composed of a large rural area

The owner of Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant, Ms Ning, takes great pride in her establishment.

On what's believed to be the restaurant's website, the woman claims her restaurant, founded in 1981, is 'the most famous' restaurant in Yulin and a 'time-honoured' brand.

WHY CAN'T THE EVENT BE STOPPED? Various measures have been taken by the Yulin government to discourage canine banquets from happening on summer solstice. According to Dr Peter J. Li, an expert on the topic, the Yulin authority issued an internal order in May, 2013, prohibiting any traders or butchers from slaughtering dogs in the street. In May 2014, an internal written notice was distributed in Yulin, which banned government officials from eating dogs around the summer solstice. Dr. Li said that it would be hard for the government to ban the trade once and for all as it is the livelihood for the vendors who are less educated and largely unskilled former peasants. Dr Li also said that if the government did terminate the festival by force, it would have to provide means of livelihood for those affected. What the Yulin government tries to do now is waiting for the industry to die out on its own. Advertisement

The restaurant is said to serve 'big pot dog stew' and 'crispy dog meat' made with 'healthy' dogs which are carefully raised in the villages by farmers.

The dog meat is said to be 'not too chewy, not too tender, not too fat and not too lean'.

Locals told Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based animal welfare organisation, that the restaurant wasn't popular in the past.

However in the recent years, its business has gone through the roof due to the attention given to the Yulin Dog Meat Festival.

The restaurant not only expanded its space, but also started accepting franchises.

Now the restaurant occupies both sides of Jiangbin Road, which is also known as the 'dog meat street' in Yulin.

Pictures provided by Animals Asia to MailOnline show the restaurant filled with eager diners on June 20 and 21 last year. People are seen enjoying their dishes sitting on red plastic stools around square tables.

The restaurant usually has good business in the evening, but on and around the summer solstice, it's packed during lunch and dinner hours, said Animals Asia.

Dr Peter J. Li from Humane Society International said the new ban is not likely to stop the dog meat banquets in private homes or at private events on summer solstice.

He explained that Yulin, a city in the largely agricultural Guangxi Province, is spread out and composed of a large rural area, and it would be hard to restrict what the locals eat.

Apparently, the Yulin Dog Meat Festival was originally initiated by the local government, who hoped to use the event to help drive tourism. It could be traced back to 2009.

Dr Li stressed that the majority of Yulin people did not eat dog meat before the 1990s when the activity became 'popular' largely due to the promotion by the local dog meat traders.

Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant is founded by a woman known as Ms Ning, who claims to sell 'nutritious' dog meat dishes. The above picture was taken on June 20, 2016

Although some claim Yulin people have eaten dogs for centuries, others argue the practice has only been popularised in the recent decades. The above picture shows Yulin No.1 Crispy Dog Meat Restaurant on June 21, 2016

Apparently, years of international pressure has somehow created a rebellious attitude among Yulin residents, who think the western world has interfered with their privacy and their rights in choosing what they eat.

A Guangxi-born animal activist, who calls herself Kimi, said Yulin people's dog-eating practice wouldn't and couldn't be stopped by criticism or suppression.

She said Yulin locals have shown open hostility towards media and visitors.

According to Kimi, reporters were banned from entering the markets around the summer solstice in previous years; and anyone carrying a camera ran the risk of having their device smashed by angry traders.

'Officers from the Ministry of State Security and policemen were stationed by the entrance of the dog meat markets undercover to stop people from going in with cameras and phones to take pictures.'

On what's believed to be the restaurant's website , Ms Ning describes her business as 'the most famous' restaurant in Yulin and a 'time-honoured' brand on a flyer (above)

The restaurant also explains the benefits of eating dog meat along with pictures of the dishes

Hostility runs so high that after the latest ban was reported in May, even dog owners and those who don't eat dog meat in Yulin have shown aggression towards the decision on internet forums, according to Kimi.

'They feel media don't have the right to judge what they eat.'

Kimi, who is from nearby Liuzhou city, said the phenomenon of eating dogs has been observed in Guangxi and the neighbouring Guangdong provinces for hundreds of years.

However, people didn't gather up to celebrate and eat dog meat openly until around the 1980s when the activity was promoted by the dog meat vendors and the authority.

Vendors would give customers free lychees, a seasonal fruit, if they buy dog meat, which is why the festival is also known as the 'Yulin Lychee Dog Meat Festival'.

Kimi called the current situation in Yulin 'tense' and 'dangerous'.

She said a better way to stop pet dogs from being stolen, killed and eaten is to teach the Yulin people how to love dogs as companions - instead of blaming them for eating dogs.

Yulin people's dog-eating practice wouldn't and couldn't be stopped by criticism or suppression, said Kimi, a Guangxi-born animal activist. She said education is a better way

Jill Robinson MBE, Animals Asia's Founder and CEO, also warned that media shouldn't focus their attention on Yulin in order to stop the dog meat trade in China.

According to Ms Robinson, who has worked in the animal welfare industry for over 30 years, people should look at China as a whole, where some 10 million dogs are slaughtered every year, and many of them are poisoned and stolen from homes or snatched from the streets.

She cited South Korea as an example.

Prior to the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, the South Korean government urged its citisens not to eat dog meat in order to avoid bad publicity.

Knowing that the trade was being attacked internationally, students came out vocally against 'Western imperialism' and vowed to eat more dog meat.

Today Korea has changed dramatically, and there are many local groups and citizens completely against the practice, according to Ms Robinson.

Some said excessive suppression may cause a rebellious attitude among locals, who have already shown open hostility towards outsiders who visit the city with cameras

Around 10 million dogs are thought to be slaughtered every year in China, and many of them are poisoned and stolen from homes or snatched from the streets

Ms Robinson also said that animal welfare education is the key in China.

'While dog meat eating is legal within China, those wanting to eat in defiance of public opinion and any proposed moratoriums will find a way.

'What we need now is to make sure the message is heard outside of Yulin, on all the other days of the year when millions of dogs die for their meat.

'We need to continue working with the authorities, with Chinese organisations and with the public to change opinions and prove that dogs are friends, not food.'
A Japanese radical has been arrested more than 45 years on the run following the killing of a police officer.

Masaaki Osaka, 67, allegedly clubbed 21-year-old officer Tsuneo Nakamura with a metal pipe and set him fire with Molotov cocktail during violent street protests in Tokyo.

Osaka, once a high-ranking member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League, disappeared after the attack in November 1971.

Masaaki Osaka (centre), once a high-ranking member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League, arrives at Tokyo's Haneda airport after more than four decades on the run

A Tokyo Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed Osaka's arrest on Wednesday, but declined to give more details.

He was protesting the 1971 Okinawa Reversion Agreement between Japan and the US when the officer was killed.

He disappeared shortly after the attack in November 1971

The agreement saw the US relinquish its control of the Okinawa Prefecture, which was under US jurisdiction following the end of World War Two.

Local media said Osaka - who was arrested in the city of Hiroshima last month and then brought back to Tokyo on Wednesday - was identified by DNA following a raid on a building used by a radical group.

He was initially arrested on suspicion of obstructing police, according to investigators.

He had declined to comment since being taken into custody, police have said.

Osaka was able to stay hidden for so long thanks to the help of sympathetic associates, reports said.

Images of a bespectacled Osaka with short graying hair contrasted sharply with the young man pictured in black-and-white wanted poster photos from the early seventies.

The killing happened at a time when large street protests were happening in major cities around the world as anti-establishment groups clashed with authorities, sometimes violently.
A male high school teacher who had sex with two female students over four months told one of them she was the 'prettiest girl in school' before sending her explicit photographs over Snapchat, court documents reveal.

Corrimal High School teacher Kurt Majoor, 25, is now behind bars awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to having sex with two 17-year-old girls.

Court documents reveal Majoor had become friends with both young women before seducing them, the Illawarra Mercury reports.

Former Corrimal High School PE teacher Kurt Majoor has plead guilty to having sex with two students who were in his care

The teacher took both of his victims to a beach close to the school - before having sex with them - court documents reveal

The school teacher had gone for a drive with one of his victims in November 2016 - shortly after landing a permanent position at the school - before playing truth or dare with her at the beach where they later had sex.

The teacher told one student she was the 'prettiest girl in school' before sending her explicit images online

The teacher groomed his second victim online, befriending her on Facebook and Snapchat before sending her sexually explicit messages and pictures of his penis.

He told the girl she had a 'good bum' and was the 'prettiest girl in the school' before meeting her in the sand dunes before school one morning for sex.

The student and teacher were both questioned about the incident by the school when rumours began circulating but denied it.

Shortly after the young woman went to her parents and police to make a complaint.

Majoor pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual intercourse with a person under care in a Wollongong court on Wednesday.

He is expected to appear on Friday, June 16 so a date can be made for sentencing.

Majoor was a PE teacher at the school and had been recently promoted from a casual position.

Majoor was not present in court, appearing via video link from Silverwater jail in western Sydney.
Travel writer Sara Wheeler, 56, boasted of an affair to her husband during a row

A husband who broke his travel writer wife's arm after she boasted about sleeping with another man in their marital bed has been spared jail.

Peter Graham, 68, used both hands to twist Sara Wheeler's left limb, breaking it in three places during the row at the 1.5million home they shared at South Hill Park, Hampstead.

Ms Wheeler, 56, is a respected travel writer whose works include international bestseller 'Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica' and 'The Magnetic North: Notes on the Arctic Circle'.

Graham was 'repeatedly goaded' by his wife during the row about her affair, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Deepak Kapur said: 'She had taunted him by saying 'hit me, hit me, hit me' and then he gave her wrist a twist just to shut her up.'

Canada-born Graham admitted causing grievous bodily harm.

Judge Rajeev Shetty told him: 'The circumstances of this case I appreciate are sad and also embarrassing for both you and indeed Ms Wheeler.

'She had been having what appears to be a lengthy inter-marital affair and indeed on the day of the offence you were having an argument about it.

'It is accepted by the prosecution that this culminated in a sequence of events where she was screaming at you and confronting you when both you and her were in drink.

'She was blocking the door and repeatedly asking you to hit her.

'You grabbed her by the arm, intending no doubt to give her a Chinese burn.

Peter Graham, 68, was 'repeatedly goaded' by his wife during the row about her affair, Blackfriars Crown Court heard

'You twisted her arm forcefully and that had the effect of causing her to suffer a fracture to her wrist-slash-arm.'

The judge added: 'You were arrested and interviewed and during the course of that interview I appreciate you were very candid with the police.

'There had come a time in 2016 when she had been talking about infidelity which had occurred at your own address, indeed in your own bedroom.

'This led to both of you drinking and having an argument.'

Orla Daly, defending said it was 'not my intention on behalf of Mr Graham to embarrass' his wife before detailing the 'bizarre circumstances' of the incident.

'[Ms Wheeler] was terribly candid with the police on 27 February about the reasons behind the argument that led to that particular one-off incident of violence,' she said.

'She was very candid about the role she had played and went so far as to name the other individual involved.'

Graham is now barred from contacting Ms Wheeler, pictured, but is allowed to visit the family home on the condition he leaves before she returns

'There was nothing premeditated about the extraordinary events of that day.

'This was a heated argument about an extremely sensitive subject where Mr Graham was repeatedly being goaded and his feelings of unbearable hurt and humiliation have blown over in that split-second and he committed what he acknowledges more than anyone to have been a terrible offence.'

Ms Daly insisted the fracas was a 'one-off incident in the context of a 20-year relationship' and described the 'acute emotional and psychological stress' Graham was under at the time.

'Your Honour is not dealing with a bully,' she added.

When interviewed by officers, Graham 'blamed the incident down to alcohol, explaining that he had been drinking to excess to the extent of being an alcoholic in the past'.

He also 'explained the trigger being the incident of infidelity', added Mr Kapur.

The prosecutor added: 'The actual process of the criminal proceedings has had a devastating effect on the family, in particular the two children of the family.'

The court heard Graham has since moved out of the marital home but still sees his two teenage sons, regularly taking one of the boys to school.

The judge also ordered Graham to pay 535 costs as well as a court surcharge to Ms Wheeler, pictured

He is barred from contacting Ms Wheeler but is allowed to visit the family home on the condition he leaves before she returns.

Ms Wheeler previously described the home, a converted Victorian butcher's shop, as a treasure trove of souvenirs from her world travels.

Ms Daly described the new arrangement as representing 'a lasting punishment for him'.

Judge Shetty repeated the 'disastrous effect' a prison sentence would have on the family unit, particularly on Ms Wheeler's ability to travel for work without Graham around to look after their children.

The judge told him: 'You must realise, in case I have to spell it out to you, that assaulting a woman, even in circumstances of extreme stress, can never be excused.

'But I can reach the conclusion that you are not by your nature a violent man and, perhaps more importantly than that, you are not a bully.'

Graham, who is currently staying at Victoria Mansions on Holloway Road, was handed an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

He must also undertake a rehabilitative activity requirement spanning 25 days and abide by a curfew stipulating that he must be indoors between the hours of 9pm and 8am.

The judge also ordered him to pay 535 costs as well as a court surcharge.
The EU should be transformed into a 'military power' amid growing animosity between the bloc and Donald Trump, Brussels chiefs said yesterday.

Revealing proposals to create a Brussels-led defence force in the aftermath of Brexit, officials called for the bloc to 'act alone' in global conflicts.

The move comes just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the EU could no longer fully rely on America as a partner.

Brussels chief Jean-Claude Juncker  backed by countries such as Germany and France  has repeatedly called for closer defence cooperation to repair relationships within the bloc

It will also raise fears about the future of the NATO military alliance, which the vast majority of EU countries already belong to, as the UK cuts its ties with the bloc.

In a blueprint setting out its ideas for centralised defence co-operation within the bloc, the European Commission said member states could integrate their armies and weapon-buying programmes.

It said the military alliance could also involve 'fully synchronised' defence planning and intelligence-sharing amongst member states so troops are available for rapid deployment across the world.

Officials insisted that the proposals did not amount to the creation of an 'EU army' and would simply ensure that defence activities of individual countries do not overlap.

Brussels chiefs laid out the unprecedented move towards deeper military co-operation in a document containing a range of options.

The most far-reaching would involve troops from across the bloc undertaking 'high-end security and defence operations', including naval exercises and missions to tackle terrorists.

Brussels chief Jean-Claude Juncker  backed by influential countries such as Germany and France  has repeatedly called for closer defence cooperation to repair relationships within the bloc.

The EU should be transformed into a 'military power' amid growing animosity between the bloc and Donald Trump, Brussels chiefs said yesterday

Speaking earlier this week, he said: 'The EU must not only complement Nato but also react independently and appropriately to external threats.'

EU bosses believe the possibility of creating a centralised 'defence union' has been boosted by Brexit, after the UK's repeated dismissal of plans in recent years.

British officials have expressed fears that the plan could undermine NATO, which faces uncertainty after Donald Trump recently refused to offer his full backing.

During a visit to Brussels, the US president also castigated EU countries such as Germany over their defence spending, prompting a furious response from Miss Merkel.

Despite EU officials' claims that its defence plan will work alongside the NATO, the EU blueprint spells out how the move is needed to account for the 'evolving' relationship with Mr Trump.

'European security lies first of all in European hands,' it said.

Unveiling the plans, EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini also warned of how growing tensions with Washington were now at the forefront of the EU's defence strategy.

The move comes just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the EU could no longer fully rely on America as a partner

She said that other countries have expressed a 'growing desire to partner with the European Union' because of the 'unpredictability of positions on some issues our partners have seen in Washington'.

'We can encourage our American friends to stay engaged in the global scene - I know it sounds surreal to hear this from Brussels to Washington but that is the reality of facts,' she added.

German MEP Ska Keller yesterday criticised the moved, saying the proposals would turn the EU into a 'second NATO'.

'The European Union should remain a peace project, with a focus on crisis prevention, mediation and diplomacy. This is not a sensible project for the future of the European Union,' she said.

'While acting together with our partners will remain the EU's norm and reference, we should be able to act alone when necessary.'

The document setting out the new EU approach said: 'While acting together with our partners will remain the EU's norm and reference, we should be able to act alone when necessary.'

One of the plans contained within the blueprint pushes the need to enhance the EU's ability to 'project military power and to engage fully in external crisis management'.

As part of yesterday's announcement, the EU also unveiled plans to create a 1.3billion defence fund in coming years to finance the development of equipment and research programmes.
Former Labor leader turned political commentator Mark Latham has slammed the conventional wisdom of being nice to Muslims in the hope they will tip police off about a potential terrorist attack.

Mark Latham says the public is sick of having to 'be nice' in the wake of terrorist attacks this week in London and Melbourne.

'The public opinion now is at a real tipping point, a real tipping point where we've had enough of being nice. It's not working,' he told his Mark Latham's Outsiders program on Wednesday night.

Scroll down for video

Former Labor leader Mark Latham said the 'be nice' attitude towards Muslims had failed

Yacqub Khayre, a Somalian-born refugee, was inspired by ISIS to kill a man in Melbourne

'The evidence suggests the 'be nice' faction is in a state of delusion and they're not facing up to the realistic issues.

'We need to form a realistic faction. Be realistic about the problem of radical Islamic terrorism and confront it head on.'

Mr Latham said the idea that terrorists weren't real Muslims needed to be challenged, after Somali-born refugee Yacqub Khayre killed a man at a serviced apartment in Melbourne during a Monday night siege, which ISIS claimed responsibility for.

'The 'be nice' do gooders in the debate basically say that terrorism of this kind, they're not really Muslim, this is not really a reflection of Islam and you don't want to antagonise these communities because it will make them more dangerous, more radical and the security agencies worry about losing informants inside Islamic communities to tip them off about potential dangerous events,' he said.

Mark Latham said London Mayor Sadiq Khan was an 'imbecile' for saying London was the world's safest global city in the wake of Saturday night's terrorist attack

Emergency crews treat the injured on London Bridge following a terrorist attack on Saturday

'We've had the prevailing conventional wisdom from what I would call the 'be nice faction'.

Mr Latham, who has recently joined the libertarian Liberal Democrats, said the London Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan's declaration that London was the world's safest global cities was an example of the 'be nice' approach failing.

It came after three knife-wielding Islamist terrorists killed eight people in London on Saturday night.

'How can you talk about London as a safe city after people have been run down by these terrorists on London Bridge after the same terrorists have rushed into restaurants in Borough Markets with knives trying to murder people?,' Mr Latham asked.

Mark Latham said ASIO boss Duncan Lewis was 'delusional' for ruling out the link between terrorists and refugees

'There's nothing safe about London in those circumstances. This bloke is an absolute imbecile and I don't blame Donald Trump for a moment for getting stuck right into him.'

He also added Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation director-general Duncan Lewis to the 'be nice faction' list for telling a Senate committee there was no link between refugees and terrorism.

'How delusional can you be?,' Mr Latham asked.

'The 'be nice' faction is completely out of touch with reality.

'We need to have a hard-edged, vigorous response to Islamic terrorism.'
The teabag take its place in top ten along such essentials as the wheel and clock

Ask the British to name the most important inventions of all time and you can rely on them agreeing on one answer in particular.

Taking its place in the top ten alongside such essentials as the wheel, the clock and penicillin is ... the teabag.

Little wonder, perhaps, in a nation so addicted to the cuppa that we are said to brew 60billion a year.

Also on the list, which has been compiled in no particular order, are the plough, armour, sewers, light bulbs, the fridge and the internet.

The list was released by English Heritage, which surveyed 2,000 people and asked them to name the most innovative products from human history.

Matt Thompson, head collections curator at English Heritage, said: History has been built on ingenious inventions, big and small, and its fascinating today to hear what people find ingenious. The teabag was invented by accident but has stood the test of time.

Indeed, the first teabags were created in 1908 when New York tea merchant Thomas Sullivan sent samples to his customers in small silken bags. It was only after they told him that the gauze was too fine that Sullivan realised they had placed the bags in their pots, rather than empty out the tea first. He then began refining the bags.

By the 1920s the teabag was being commercially produced in the US, complete with a length of string and tab. Little has changed since, apart from some now being round or pyramid shaped.

The list was released by English Heritage, which surveyed 2,000 people and asked them to name the most innovative products from human history

On the list, which has been compiled in no particular order, are the plough, armour, sewers, light bulbs, the fridge and the internet (shown)

The oldest invention on the list is the wheel, which was used on carts as far back as 3500BC and is thought to have been part of potters equipment before that.

English Heritage has asked visitors to vote for their favourite invention from the top ten. The charity is staging a nationwide exhibition, called Ingenious!, featuring some of the 100,000 artefacts it holds at more than 400 locations.

They range from ground-breaking Roman armour at Corbridge Roman Town in Northumberland to a state-of-the-art 1930s vacuum cleaner at Eltham Palace in South-East London.

With the research revealing that the Victorian age is seen as the most inventive, the displays also include an ice-cream maker from the era at Brodsworth Hall in South Yorkshire and the Bell telephone at Queen Victorias Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
News / National

by Staff reporter

ZIMBABWE has paid US$10 million dollars out of the $43 million dollars it owes South Africa's power utility, averting potentially crippling power outages in the country, Energy Minister Samuel Undenge said Monday.The minister said Zimbabwe would not be plunged into darkness as the government was in the process of mobilizing more funds to settle the debt.Zimbabwe's power utility ZESA Holdings owes South Africa's Eskom $43 million dollars in power imports, and is struggling to pay off the debt due to foreign currency shortages in the country.ESKOM recently threatened to cut off supplies to Zimbabwe if the debt was not paid by May 31.Eskom supplies 300 megawatts (MW) of electricity to Zimbabwe daily to help the country offset a power deficit due to low generation capacity."We are trying our best to honor our debt and we have come to an arrangement with Eskom. So far, we have paid over the past one month 10 million dollars," he said.The minister urged consumers to pay their electricity bills to enable ZESA Holdings to honor its financial obligations."The revenue which ZESA is receiving is below the cost of its operations and there is that constraint," he said.Zimbabwe requires 1 400 MW of electricity per day but is only able to produce around 1 000 MW as generation capacity has been curbed by aged power plants.
The vast majority of parents fail to take young children to the dentist regularly, official figures reveal.

Some 80 per cent of one and two-year-olds in England did not visit an NHS dentist last year, national statistics show.

The figure was 60 per cent for children aged one to four, according to data from NHS Digital.

This is despite the fact that NHS dental care for children is free.

Experts say the earlier a child sees a dentist, the earlier any potential problems can be spotted

Experts say the earlier a child sees a dentist, the earlier any potential problems can be spotted.

Official guidance states youngsters should start having regular dental check-ups as soon as their first teeth appear  usually at around six months  and continue with appointments once a year.

The Royal College of Surgeons, which collated the statistics, said there was widespread misunderstanding among parents, and even health professionals, about when a baby should first visit the dentist.

In 2015/16, 9,220 tooth extractions were performed in hospitals in England on children aged one to four.

Experts say many of these cases are attributable to tooth decay, which is 90 per cent preventable through good oral hygiene.

Professor Nigel Hunt, dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, said: In a nation which offers free dental care for under-18s, there should be no excuse for these statistics.

Yet we know from parents that there is widespread confusion, even in advice given to them by NHS staff, about when a child should first visit the dentist. Every child should have free and easy access to dental care from the point when their first teeth appear  we cannot continue in this state of confusion.

He said many oral health problems were easily preventable, adding: The earlier a child visits the dentist, the earlier any potential problems can be picked up, so it is easier to prevent children having to go through the trauma of having their teeth removed under general anaesthetic.

Dental check-ups in early years are as much about getting children comfortable in a dental environment as it is about checking teeth. Simply getting a child to open their mouth for a dentist to look at their teeth is useful practice  First impressions are vital if we want children to have a long-term positive impression of dentistry.

If a first dental visit results in a stressful, traumatic experience, this could have a serious lifelong effect on a childs willingness to engage in the dental process.

Mothers are also entitled to free dental check-ups during pregnancy and the 12 months after they give birth.

Some 80 per cent of one and two-year-olds in England did not visit an NHS dentist last year, national statistics show

Mick Armstrong, chairman of the British Dental Association, said one in four parents were unaware NHS dentistry is free for under-18s.

Tooth decay is the number one reason for child hospital admissions, yet the overriding priority of successive governments has been keeping patient numbers down, he said. There are no public education campaigns, budget is set aside to treat just over half the population, while charge hikes are designed to make patients think twice about treatment.

The net result is even those who dont need to pay are put off by costs.

The fact millions of parents are unaware these check-ups are free of charge shows just how little energy the authorities have put into prevention.

The next government must focus on reaching out to patients of all ages, not erecting new barriers to care.
The mother of an accused killer called 'Pitbull' claims her son attracts trouble because of his facial tattoos.

Heidi Eitz, 38, has spoken out after her son James 'Pitbull' Alderton, 22, was allegedly involved in a deadly brawl in Murwillumbah, northern New South Wales, on Tuesday.

'He gets targeted because he has face tattoos,' Ms Eitz told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

James 'Pitbull' Alderton, 22, (pictured) is charged with murder after he allegedly fatally stabbed a father in Murwillumbah on Tuesday

Ms Eitz, who said she had not spoken to her son since his arrest, said he was a good person despite his appearance.

'You would be surprised at how much of a nice person he is just because he has tattoos all over his face. He's a very nice person,' she said.

Alderton, who lived with his mother, has been charged with the murder of a father who was reportedly trying to protect his son during the brawl in a Murwillumbah public park on Tuesday.

Alderton (pictured) has been charged with the murder of a father who was reportedly trying to protect his son during the brawl in a Murwillumbah public park

Heavily tattooed James 'Pitbull' Alderton, 22, has been charged with the murder of a father who reportedly died trying to protect his teenage son. Paramedics are pictured on scene performing CPR on victim at park in Mulliwumbah, northern NSW

Charlie Larter, 46, was killed and his 18-year-old son Zack was critically injured.

Police confirmed Alderton, who did not apply for bail in Tweed Heads Local Court on Wednesday, had only recently been released from jail and was on parole.

He was also charged with two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Horrifying footage has emerged of the moment a knife-wielding man attempts to slash another person after a deadly mass brawl broke out in a public park

Detective Inspector Brendon Cullen said Alderton knew at least one of the victims but refused to comment on speculation the brawl was drug-related.

'The motive and the cause behind what happened yesterday is something which we'll be focusing our investigations on today and going forward,' he told reporters in Tweed Heads on Wednesday.

Det Insp Cullen said despite the Murwillumbah police station being unmanned at the time of the attack, police had been on the scene within three minutes of being called.

He also denied such brawls were a frequent concern for residents of the town.

'There is no concern for crime in Murwillumbah. I'm assuring the people of Murwillumbah that they have a police presence there which is serving their community well,' he said.

Charlie Larter, 46, was stabbed to death on his birthday while trying to protect his son after a deadly mass brawl broke out in a public park

Emergency services raced to the scene at Knox Park about 12.30pm and arrived to find a vicious brawl involving up to 30 people had broken out

In mobile phone footage from the scene, a woman can be heard screaming: 'Get over here now, hurry up. My husband can't breathe!'

Mr Larter was taken to Tweed Heads Hospital but later died.

It was his birthday, according to his sister who posted on social media.

'Well your last words to me this morning were I love you and mine to you -I love you. Way too young to die on your birthday RIP little brother,' Cathy Larter wrote on Tuesday.

Mr Larter's 18-year-old son Zack was stabbed in the chest and taken to Gold Coast University Hospital in a critical condition.

After undergoing emergency treatment on Tuesday evening he is now listed as being in a serious but stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman told AAP on Wednesday.

A third stabbing victim, a family friend of the Larter's aged 29, suffered minor injuries during the attack, police said.

Alderton was arrested near the scene and charged with murder, two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and larceny on Tuesday night.

Alderton is due to appear in the Lismore Local Court on June 27.

Video captured at the scene shows the injured lying on the ground while they are assisted by paramedics and witnesses at the scene
A landlady who helped save dozens of drinkers during the London Bridge attack was barred from nearby hotels for the night because she refused to abandon her puppy.

Magdalena Antolak barricaded customers inside the Wheatsheaf Pub opposite Borough Market with beer kegs, preventing the three terrorists from entering.

She had to flee without any money and went to nearby hotels to ask for a stay, but they all refused because they did not allow pets.

Magdalena Antolak barricaded customers inside the Wheatsheaf Pub opposite Borough Market with beer kegs, preventing the three terrorists from entering

A friend told The Sun: 'This was despite explaining to the hotel reception staff her desperate situation. It was disgraceful of the local hotel staff.'

After the attack, which killed eight and injured scores more, Ms Antolak wrote online: 'My heart is with my brave team and all people involved.'

Her story emerged as dramatic images were released of the terrorists trying to enter the pub - but finding the doors were blocked by staff sheltering dozens of drinkers.

The men then spot a man in a dark shirt and light trousers crossing the road outside the entrance to Borough Market, and begin their assault just before police cars arrive at speed.

She had to flee without any money and went to nearby hotels to ask for a stay, but they all refused because they did not allow pets

Initially Khuram Butt, 27, Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, are seen walking calmly down the street on the CCTV.

But they had already murdered eight people and injured dozens after crashing their car on London Bridge and leaping out armed with knives.

The atrocity on Saturday night has brought out numerous stories of heroism among ordinary people.

One of the most notable was that of Roy Larner, a Millwall fan dubbed the 'Lion of London Bridge' for taking on three knife-wielding terrorists with his bare hands.

A friend said: 'This was despite explaining to the hotel reception staff her desperate situation. It was disgraceful of the local hotel staff'

He launched himself at Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba in the Black & Blue restaurant in Borough Market, yelling: 'F**k you, I'm Millwall.'

Other people distracted the terrorists by pelting them with glasses and plastic chairs.

A British Transport Police officer suffered injuries to his face, leg and hands as he took on the three knifeman with just his baton.

His Chief Constable praised the 'outstanding bravery' of the officer who is understood to be on probation having joined the force less than two years ago.

Life around Borough Market was slowly returning to normal today, with the market itself set to reopen at the weekend.

At the time of the attack, Will McConnell, 41, (pictured) was working at the Old King's Head, where punters taking refuge were given free pints

As the local businesses re-opened their doors, many of the returning staff members revealed the horrors they encountered on Saturday night.

At the time of the attack, Will McConnell, 41, was working at the Old King's Head, where punters taking refuge were given free pints as they waited for police to give them the all-clear to leave..

He told MailOnline: 'The first thing we knew something was up was when someone ran into the pub and said there was someone on the high street with a knife. I ran outside to see what was going on. I got to the top of the alleyway and I saw a group of people just sat there and I said to one "what's going on?" And he said there's a guy run past here with a knife. I said "did you see where he went?" And he said "to the Southwark Tavern and into Borough Market".

'I then phoned the police but got no answer. There were people running around. I then ran across the road, towards Borough Market, and there was a man outside Leon on the floor with a lady and the man was holding what looked like a tea towel against his neck as it was bleeding heavily. That stopped me in my tracks and I stepped back into the road and a police car went flying by, but it was going towards London Bridge not Borough Market where the knifeman had gone.

'I could see more police coming up the High Street and so I stood in the middle of the road and told them to go to Borough Market. a police woman got out of a car and asked me what I'd seen, so I said a man with a knife and a man on the floor needed help. So she helped the guy on the ground while her colleague went into the market.'

Mr McConnell said he directed police rushing to the scene towards the market, before running back to the pub to tell landlord Gregory Parker what had been happening.

Part of Borough Market remained closed today, and there was a heavy police presence

A wall was covered in posters and messages from the public paying tribute to the victims

Some of the messages of support that have been put up on the wall since Saturday night

'I said a guy had been stabbed and there were police everywhere,' he said. 'Then we heard the gunshots and I just thought to myself 'I hope that's the police.'

'There were about 20 or 30 customers in the pub and Greg closed the doors and keep them safe in there. We then decided to serve free pints, if people wanted them.

'We then turned on Sky News and everyone was watching what was happening, which was quite eerie. Police then came and checked if everyone was alright.

'The customers were then ushered by police down the alleyway towards Guy's Hospital. That was at around midnight.'

Mohammed Amir Ali, the head chef at Silka said the first he knew of the attack was when a family dashed into his restaurant to hide from the knifemen

Mohammed Amir Ali, the head chef at Silka said the first he knew of the attack was when a family dashed into his restaurant to hide from the knifemen.

'They were shaking,' he told MailOnline. 'They asked us to shut the door as some men might come to attack us. They said someone had been stabbed outside Leon.

'I gave them so water to try and calm them down as they were very shaken up. We were serving around two or three tables and the customers were still having their food.

'I went to the street by the fire exit and I saw that someone was being treated outside Leon - but at that time there was only one officer.

'But then lots of police cars came and an officer said we must all get inside the restaurant. So I locked the door. The woman from the group who had come in was crying because she had been seen what had happened with the stabbing.

'Then, around 15 minutes later, we heard the sound of firing and everything was like Oh My God and very alert. I went to go up and open the door and there were loads of armed police and ambulance. They were saying "get inside".

'Then an officer came in and said we must evacuate the restaurant - even though the gas was on, the air con was on, we hadn't even taken everyone's bill but we had to get out of the restaurant. I was just in my kitchen clothes. We were escorted across the road and police did their level best to help us. We went to Tower Bridge and then home back to Stratford.'
A surfer fought off a shark after it clamped its jaws around his leg in what is thought to be the first attack of its kind in British waters.

Rich Thomson, 30, was swimming off the coast of Devon when the three-foot beast grabbed his thigh and started thrashing wildly.

The teacher bashed the fish, thought to be a smooth hound, on the head and it swam away. But the terrifying encounter left him with extensive bruising and his hand cut to pieces.

Experts said it was the first incident involving a surfer in British waters, and one of only a handful of attacks in the last 100 years.

Rich Thomson, 30, was swimming off the coast of Devon when the three-foot beast grabbed his thigh and started thrashing wildly

Experts said it was the first incident involving a surfer in British waters, and one of only a handful of attacks in the last 100 years

Mr Thomson said his thick winter wetsuit was the only thing protecting him from more serious injury.

Describing the encounter off Bantham beach, he told the BBC: I turned round and saw this little shark was on my thigh and wriggling its head side to side. I hit it on the head and it swam off.

My hand was cut to pieces. I had quite a sizeable bruise about three inches across. I went home and told my wife I was late because I had been bitten by a shark. She said Ive heard that one before, but it was true.

It wont stop me going back in the water and it shouldnt stop anyone, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mr Thomson said his pupils at Kingsbridge Community College had bought him shark ties and dubbed him Sharkbait and Nemo.
Schoolchildren are being targeted by criminal gangs in online sextortion scams, experts have warned.

Young teenagers are increasingly being befriended by strangers online, convinced into sending explicit pictures of themselves and then blackmailed for money.

Teenage girls are being contacted by so-called model agencies who ask for revealing photographs.

Hundreds of young boys have meanwhile been tricked into sending explicit images, with some committing suicide after realising their mistake.

Four years after 17-year-old Daniel Perry, from Dunfermline, killed himself because blackmailers threatened to send his family and friends a webcam conversation, the problem is getting worse.

Cybersecurity expert Dr Jessica Barker told Cheltenham Science Festival about the disturbing tactics used by criminals in sextortion attacks on vulnerable children.

She said: This is where you receive a friend request from Facebook or LinkedIn, whatever it is, from someone who you dont know.

They look attractive, you strike up a friendship, you chat online and they convince you to send intimate pictures.

You do so, then you find out this is not the person you thought it was.

It is criminal actors who will attempt to extort money and threaten to release the pictures.

Almost 900 people were victims of webcam scams last year, according to the National Crime Agency, with at least four male suicides linked to the attacks.

Dr Barker, who runs online security consultancy cyber.uk, is seeing rising numbers of parents whose young children, male and female have been targeted.

Four years after 17-year-old Daniel Perry, from Dunfermline, killed himself because blackmailers threatened to send his family and friends a webcam conversation

Speaking after the event, she said: We are seeing an attack on (photo-sharing website) Instagram aimed at teenage girls, where a model agent or talent scout is looking for someone to star in the next movie and the girl is told they have just the look this person wants.

They encourage the girl to send more and more pictures of themselves, to the point where some are explicit.

The warning comes as new figures from the NSPCC, which show a third of schoolchildren have added a stranger as a friend online, were presented at the festival.

Nearly a quarter of children are very likely or likely to befriend someone they know on the internet, the childrens charity found.

A survey of nearly 1,700 found one in three have already done so in the last six months.

That is despite tragic cases like the death of Ashleigh Hall, the 17-year-old killed and dumped in a ditch after she went to meet someone she believed to be a 16-year-old boy.

But the Facebook profile was in fact a fake set up by 32-year-old drifter Peter Chapman.

The charity raised concerns that parents are not warning their children enough about the danger of strangers online.

Speaking at the festival, Amanda Azeez, the NSPCCs associate head of child safety online, said: To children, online friends are real friends. Online life is real life. There is no distinction.

Just like in real life, children need our help to stay safe online.

A survey of nearly 1,700 found one in three have befriended a stranger in the last six months. That is despite tragic cases like the death of Ashleigh Hall, the 17-year-old killed and dumped in a ditch after she went to meet someone she believed to be a 16-year-old boy

We believe talking to your child is the best way to help keep them safe  its normal to have conversations about crossing the road, bullying and talking to strangers.

But, with the digital world changing all the time, it can be hard to have conversations about staying safe online. The charity is calling for children to be protected by social media sites flagging content and suspicious accounts, and notifying young people where concerning behaviour is detected.

It wants the big online companies to be regulated, so they can be held to account after failing to protect children.

The NSPCC also found a third of children have seen violence and hatred online and one in five have seen sexual content.

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: Exposure to online violence and pornography can cause serious harm to children.

He added: Parents need to be vigilant and active at all times, and carefully supervise their childrens use of the internet, in order to protect them from damaging content.
Adnan Khashoggi was the Great Gatsby of the Middle East. His assiduously promoted image of himself as the richest man in the world was complicated by paradoxes.

Behind the colourful headlines which for six decades chronicled his successes and scandals, his extravagances and his eccentricities, his deal-making and his power-broking, there are many mysteries which can perhaps be illuminated by me as a friend with a family connection, as I will explain later.

To begin near the end: AK, as he was often called, departed from this world on Tuesday in peace at the age of 81. I know this because a few days ago I went to his London hospital to say my farewells.

He was dying of heart failure, comparatively poor in financial resources but abundantly rich in family love. Gathered around his bedside in his final days were the three women who had been Adnans wives at different times, his eight children, four grandchildren and a handful of old friends.

Adnan Khashoggi (pictured) was the Great Gatsby of the Middle East. His assiduously promoted image of himself as the richest man in the world was complicated by paradoxes

I felt privileged to have been invited to see him, particularly as our conversation turned out to be almost the last one while he was still fully conscious and alert.

I amused Adnan by recalling some old memories from the days when we first met in 1972. At that time he was hailed as a Saudi plutocrat, riding high on the crest of the quadrupled oil price wave.

I was a young investment banker working for an industrial firm called Slater Walker. My chairman, Jim Slater  who built a reputation as a ruthless asset stripper  and his partner, the financier Jimmy Goldsmith who later became a billionaire Eurosceptic, were keen to meet AK because he was the only identifiable Saudi businessman who had a profile in the West. He was known to be the trusted confidant of three powerful Saudi princes.

Adnan hosted his meeting in Paris with Slater and Goldsmith in an unusual style. He greeted his guests at the door flanked by eight Korean bodyguards who hovered around him as if they were secret service agents protecting the President of the United States. This was an absurdity in a secure and palatial office near the Champs-Elysees.

However, with true British sang froid we three visitors from London pretended we noticed nothing unusual about the Koreans, or about the Khashoggi afternoon tea menu. It consisted of Beluga caviar piled high on golden dishes, carried to our plates by exquisitely pretty girls in micro-skirts.

Khashoogi is pictured with his first wife Soraya

I recall how at that meeting Jim Slater produced a plan for cornering the market in the worlds uranium. Khashoggi nodded enigmatically, withdrew, and then his personal secretary appeared to say that The Chief liked the Slater plan, but would like to discuss it further with us on his yacht  which was anchored off Cannes.

Would we like to fly down with The Chief on his private plane? Youll find it very comfortable he said. Youve probably read about it in the new Harold Robbins novel The Pirate, which is all about The Chief [the book was indeed supposed to be based partly on Khashoggi].

It describes his planes interior very accurately.

Joined by the colourful City figure Tiny Rowland of the Lonrho mining conglomerate, once described by Edward Heath as an unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism  who also had plans for the worlds uranium market  we did fly to Nice in Khashoggis sumptuous private jet, and embarked for dinner on his battleship-sized private yacht.

It is a mark of the lifestyle of Adnan Khashoggi that another yacht he had built, and named after his daughter Nabila, was to feature in the James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, in which Sean Connery prowled its decks  hence the appearance of the words Thanks A.K. in the films end credits.

That 85-metre gin palace was eventually handed to the Sultan of Brunei to cover a loan Khashoggi had failed to pay back. The Sultan then sold it to Donald Trump in 1987 for a reported $29 million (22.3 million).

The same year his yacht was sold to the current president of America, Khashoggi appeared on the front of Time magazine under the headline Those Shadowy Arms Traders: Adnan Khashoggis High Life and Flashy Deals.

Certainly that was how many regarded him, and indeed when I found myself on Khashoggis yacht that day in 1972, the business discussions grew ever more complicated, and included a secondary plan for Khashoggi to buy a quarter stake in Slater Walker Bank.

However, these dreams foundered when AK asked Tiny Rowland if he could borrow the funds to buy both the Slater Walker shares and shares in a uranium company from a bank controlled by Lonhro.

My connection with Khashoggi started because I went out in the Seventies with his ex-wife Soraya. She later became the mother of our beautiful daughter Petra (shown left)

But youve already got a big unsecured loan from us, objected Tiny. Soon afterwards Goldsmith and Jim Slater  less than enamoured by his business credibility made their excuses and left.

I only recall these discussions because they reveal vintage Khashoggi in his prime as a high-rolling entrepreneur.

Borrowing to the hilt was the norm for him, as was creating an ambience so opulent that it seemed impossible to question the credit-worthiness of the Khashoggi empire.

Adnans financial credibility was often further strengthened by his charm, intelligence and natural good manners.

His technique in those early days was to get any of his loan problems solved by resorting to the purses of those three Saudi powerful princes, Fahd (later King Fahd), Sultan and Talal. All three of them trusted him as their Mr Fixit in the West, providing every service from buying their overseas houses to paying some of their debts. Adnans fortune was often said to have been built on arms dealing. He hated this description of his business.

But it was true, although not dishonourably so.

In the Sixties and Seventies, Saudi Arabias defences were perilously weak  in a region beset with rivalries and hostilities. Defence Minister Sultan was determined to modernise and re-equip his countrys army and air force.

The luxury yacht 'Kingdom 5KR', originally owned by Khashoggi, is pictured moored in the Port of Antibes in the south of France

He appointed Adnan as the go-between for purchases by his Ministry of Defence from U.S. corporations such as Lockheed and Boeing. Lockheed described him as our one man Middle East marketing department, and admitted to paying him more than $106 million (82 million).

Was Adnan Khashoggi taking large commissions on these defence deals? Inevitably yes.

But did the money stay in his own pocket, or end up in the pockets of someone else? Was he, at least in the defence field, much more of a front man than a businessman? The answers to those questions are secrets he has taken to his grave.

Adnan was certainly a lavish host, a party-giver on a gargantuan scale, and a supreme hedonist who loved creating pleasure for others as well as enjoying plenty of it for himself. In the mid-Eighties, an article in the New York Times talked of AKs 35 homes around the world, notably his retreat at Marbella in southern Spain, an entire mountain with seven villas, a 1,300-acre hunting preserve and what we are told is the worlds largest outdoor marble disco floor.

The piece also quoted a television documentary maker who described the 21st birthday party Khashoggi gave his eldest son in Vienna as the most extravagant event in European history.

Adnan was certainly a lavish host, a party-giver on a gargantuan scale, and a supreme hedonist (pictured with Paris Hilton)

The man himself also revelled in publicity. He drank deeply from the well of media juice. When building his colourful network of grateful guests, beautiful people and movie stars, he also acquired some enemies who were quick to pass judgment on him.

As the mood in the mosques of Saudi Arabia became increasingly puritanical, the AK image of extravagant bling and curvaceous blondes in bikinis became an embarrassment back home.

Yet even though he may have had his knuckles rapped once or twice for his excesses by both preachers and princes in Riyadh, he was not reined in.

This was because he was wise enough to turn away from the accumulation of wealth (after making at least $2 billion!) and to engage in the heavy lifting of international power broking which fascinated him far more.

One of Khashoggis unsung achievements was helping to organise and fund the top secret Operation Moses in 1984. This was the airlift of some 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel during the famine caused by the Ethiopian civil war.

Adnan hosted Israels Ariel Sharon and Sudans president at the Khashoggi ranch in Kenya, where the deal was struck.

The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, previously a friend of Khashoggis, was so enraged that he ordered his assassination. But AK requested a meeting with Arafat, challenging him to carry out the assassination personally.

The meeting ended with an embrace and a resumption of their friendship. So the large community of Ethiopian Jews now flourishing in Israel owe their lives to AK and other clandestine helpers.

Another surprising friendship was with President Nixon. AK contributed generously to Nixons presidential campaigns in 1968 and 1972, and attended both his inaugurations. As a result the two men met regularly. Nixon (whose biography I wrote), told me he found Adnan a highly intelligent and serious man who gave me many original insights into Mid-East politics.

George Hamilton, Elizabeth Taylor, Adnan Khashoggi and Jaime De Mora during a holiday in Marbella, Spain

Despite all these friends in high places, there is no doubt the Khashoggi career was often singed by scrapes and scandals. There was trouble from his peripheral involvement in the Iran-Contra debacle in the mid-Eighties.

Khashoggi was said to have brokered a secret sale of weapons by the American government to Iran when that Islamic nation was supposed to be under an arms embargo. The then President Ronald Reagans administration triggered the sale as part of a complex deal that led Iran to release U.S. hostages it was holding.

The money from the arms sales was then used by the Americans to fund the uprising by the Right-wing Contra rebels against the socialist government of Nicaragua.

Worse difficulties came with his arrest in Switzerland in 1989 and his subsequent extradition to the U.S. on charges of hiding assets of the deposed president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, and his shoe-loving wife Imelda.

Adnan always claimed to be innocent of any wrongdoing, and was vindicated when a New York jury cleared him of all charges in 1990. However, the negative worldwide publicity damaged him.

In his later years, Adnans fortunes declined. The rising generation of Western-educated Saudi royals did not share their forefathers admiration for AKs flamboyant style or wheeler-dealing skills. He had difficulties with bank debts and property investment failures in the U.S.

Adnan Khashoggi with his wife Lamia in 2008

Above all, the onset of heart and Parkinsons disease weakened his health. But Adnan regarded his greatest treasure as his family. With them he retained much of his old charm and sparkle, as I saw when I visited him in hospital.

My connection with Khashoggi started because I went out in the Seventies with his ex-wife Soraya. She later became the mother of our beautiful daughter Petra. But for the first 18 years of her life neither Petra, nor I, nor anyone else knew who her father was because Soraya declined to say.

The only certainty was that Petras paternity could not possibly be attributed to Adnan because they had separated.

Nevertheless, because he was such a patriarchal figure, he welcomed Petra into his family, gave her his surname and treated her throughout her formative and teenage years just as if she was one of his own children.

This was the situation until 1999, when I volunteered to take a DNA test which revealed that I was Petras father.

When Adnan heard this news, he rejoiced. Petra later told me that he took her for a walk around Cannes harbour and said to her: I am so happy that you have found your real father. Please know that nothing between you and me is going to change. I will always love you as a daughter.

When I saw Adnan in hospital for the last time a few days ago, I thanked him for the generosity of spirit that he had shown to Petra. This led to quite an emotional dialogue between Petras first father and her real father, as she called us.

Then Adnan and I walked down memory lane with much laughter about old scenes and characters we knew  from Jimmy Goldsmith to President Nixon and Mrs Thatcher, for whom I worked as an MP.

Eventually, he started to fade. One of his sons said: Baba prays a lot . . . would you pray for him?

So we two old sinners said our respective Christian and Muslim prayers and I took my leave.

There are those who will have less obliging things to say about this controversial billionaire. But as he is buried today in an unmarked grave in the holy city of Medina, I shall think of Adnan Khashoggi with affection as an iconic figure of his time.

And one who knew how to serve a tray of caviar with more than a little elan.
A kebab shop worker caught in the chaos of the London Bridge terror attack hunkered down above the takeaway for three days because he didn't think he was allowed to leave.

Birsen Sabri was on the first floor above Cafe Rossi when Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba went on a rampage in the capital just yards away.

He was filming from the window when the first gunshots were fired, causing him to stagger backwards in shock and hit his head on a fridge.

In the mayhem that followed, he told MailOnline exclusively he ended up staying inside waiting for the storm to blow over while the rest of the surrounding area was evacuated from the exclusion zone.

Birsen Sabri, pictured, hunkered down inside Cafe Rossi for three days after the terror attack

There were eight people inside Cafe Rossi, pictured, when terrorists struck at London Bridge

Below him in the Borough High Street restaurant, colleague Saban Aslam was bravely ushering customers into the back of his shop as the bedlam unfolded outside.

With riot police and frightened members of the public running from danger, staff and customers hid in a food storage room for safety.

Once they were certain the coast was relatively clear, they all ran away en masse, apart from Mr Sabri.

Still dazed, he hadn't joined his colleagues downstairs and stayed away from the windows as gunfire continued to ring around Borough Market.

By the time the attack was over, police had already set up a cordon, and the kebab shop worker thought he was stuck inside.

Speaking very little English, he was unable to negotiate his way out and with his co-workers unable to reach him because of the cordon, he stayed in his room for three whole days until the road was re-opened to the public.

Through a translator, he told MailOnline: 'It was a big shock. I didn't know what was happening.

'It was all over in 10 minutes, but I didn't want to move. So I stayed.'

His colleagues attempted to get food to him in the coming days, but police officers told them nobody could pass onto the crime scene.

Saban Aslam, pictured right, bravely ushered his customers away from danger Saturday night

Mr Aslam, who had been working on the ground floor just yards away from where the three terrorists were shot dead, said: 'He must've thought he was in a hotel with the whole place to himself.

'It was pretty scary. We had eight people in here and then the police and the people started running and they didn't know whether or not to go out or stay.

'One minute they ran to the door to go outside, but then they got scared and ran back in.

'That's when I got them into the back of the shop to try and stay safe.

'We heard all the gunshots. Lots of them. It was all done in less than ten minutes, which is just amazing.'

He added: 'Police were screaming at everyone to get outside, leave the door, we had to run, everyone was running to Borough tube station.

'My colleague had injured his leg so was struggling to run. There were lots of police and I have never seen anything like this before. There had been some customers in the shop and we shut the doors. Once outside there was loads of screaming and shouting. We feel very shaken up. It's good to be back but we feel badly shaken up. It's so sad, unbelivable and so scary.'
A former Muslim cleric has been found guilty of marrying off an under-aged girl to an adult man in Melbourne.

Magistrate Phil Goldberg said on Thursday he found Ibrahim Omerdic solemnised the marriage of the girl and a 34-year-old man.

Omerdic, who was an imam of the Bosnian Islamic Society and Noble Park Mosque, had fought the charge, claiming the 'marriage' was not subsequently formalised under Australian law.

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Magistrate Phil Goldberg said on Thursday he found Ibrahim Omerdic (pictured) solemnised the marriage of the girl and a 34-year-old man

'I'm satisfied the prosecution has proved all elements of the charge,' Mr Goldberg said on Thursday.

Video of the ceremony was screened previously in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court, and Omerdic could be heard telling the girl's mother and her betrothed that she was 'very young'.

'As a wife you have a duty to obey your husband,' he told the girl in the video.

Ibrahim Omerdic (pictured) solemnised the marriage of an underaged girl and a 34-year-old man

Omerdic is pictured in footage of the marriage which happened at the back of a Melbourne mosque

Omerdic was sacked after his arrest in November and his marriage licence certificate was revoked.

He told police he thought the girl was 17 and he did not consider the pair officially married as he had not seen their ID and proof of age.

Omerdic's bail was extended and the matter returns to court on June 21.

Omerdic is pictured in video of the marriage between the underage girl and the man 20 years her senior
Australia's most spiritual natural landmark has finally been added to Google's famous Street View service after two years in the making.

Engineers have been crafting the digital recreation of the sacred Aboriginal land for over two years with the help of the land's traditional owners.

The aim is to help educate an international audience of the story of Uluru and encourage people from around the world to experience its beauty.

Google were only allowed to capture certain parts of the site because the sacred areas are not allowed to be photographed.

Google have added sacred Aboriginal site Uluru to its famous Street View service

The internet giant spent more than two years crafting the digital recreation

Engineers used the Google 'tracker' to measure the 360-degree experience

'This Google thing what they want to do for visitors to come so they can have look, hear about the stories,' the traditional owner of Uluru, Sammy Wilson, said.

'We wanted to do it so visitors would get more understanding about this place when they come.'

Google Australia managing director Jason Pellegrino said the company joined forces with the Aboriginal owners of the land, NT Tourism and Parks Australia to ensure the proper protocol was adhered to.

Many parts of the area could not be recorded as it is forbidden to photograph sacred sites

Google have included traditional stories, songs and law into the online experience

Pellegrino said the two-year construction of the digital platform was necessary to support traditional 'stories, songs and traditional law.'

Google use a 'tracker' which captures a 360-degree reading of the area, creating a virtual world.

The Uluru project has extra layers to the picturesque views, as the internet giant have included indigenous stories, songs and interpretations into the experience.

'We wanted to just give a small amount of one of the stories here, so that would show people just the tip of the iceberg of things they can learn when they come here,' says Wilson.

'We hope it encourages them to want to come and learn more from the Anangu people out here.'

Google convened with traditional owners of the land to create the most appropriate portrayal
Uber was last night accused of exploiting a loophole to avoid paying millions in tax that helps it undercut rivals.

It was claimed that HMRC has missed out on about 40million in VAT from the controversial taxi app thanks to the legal but highly controversial tactic.

Ride-hailing apps are meant to pay 20 per cent VAT on booking fees they collect from drivers on each fare. But Uber avoids this by treating its 40,000 UK drivers as separate businesses, as most earn less than the 85,000 a year threshold for VAT registration.

This enables the American firm to offer cheaper fares than both traditional taxi firms and rival app-based services, while depriving the Treasury of millions of pounds in tax.

Uber was last night accused of exploiting a loophole to avoid paying millions in tax that helps it undercut rivals

In contrast, two of its main rivals in the UK  Gett and My Taxi  both said they do charge VAT on their fees and pass the money to HM Revenue and Customs.

As fresh revelations of sexual discrimination and bullying at Uber emerged in the US, politicians in Westminster called for multi-national companies to pay their fair share in tax.

Uber collects an estimated 1 billion a year in fares, meaning HMRC could be losing out on at least 40million a year in VAT, according to calculations by Reuters. Politicians claim that this is giving the firm  which also cuts its taxes by channelling profits to the Netherlands  an unfair advantage.

Charlie Elphicke, the Tory candidate for Dover and Deal and a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said: This is yet another example of unacceptable tax avoidance by a multi-national company seeking to get an unfair competitive advantage.

The same loophole is used by other multi-national companies, such as Google and Facebook, to avoid VAT on certain transactions involving small businesses, but the benefit is more important for Uber since the fees it charges drivers are its main source of income.

Uber is already facing a High Court battle over similar claims it has also failed to pay what could be hundreds of millions of pound in VAT because it classes itself as a technology firm rather than transport provider.

An Uber spokesman said: Drivers who use our app provide transportation services to passengers and are therefore liable to pay VAT in relation to their activities, including the service fee they pay to Uber, if they meet the thresholds set by the Government.
News / National

by Staff reporter

South Africa has immediately suspended all trade in live poultry, meat and table eggs from Zimbabwe over an outbreak of bird flu.The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) announced on Thursday that their veterinary service was notified last week of an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in one of the commercial chicken flocks in Zimbabwe.The virus has been typed as H5N8.In march this year South Africa, along with several other countries, also cracked the whip on some meat and poultry imports from Brazil over a rotten meat scandal.Brazil, which is the world's largest beef and chicken exporter, announced at the time that they were investigating evidence that producers bribed government officials to approve the sale and export of tainted meat.News24 reported on Wednesday that Botswana also banned poultry products from Zimbabwe, where 7 000 chickens died and 140 000 slaughtered from top poultry and egg producer, Irvine's, to curb the spread of the disease.Although South Africa imports very little chicken products from Zimbabwe, DAFF said all importers were immediately notified that their import permits should be returned to the department with immediate effect."We have heightened inspections of all consignments, including all private and public vehicles at all our ports of entry, especially in and out of Zimbabwe," said Minister Senzeni Zokwana' spokesperson, Bomikazi Molapo, in a statement.She cautioned that communities in areas of Limpopo, which neighbour Zimbabwe, must be extremely vigilant.Molapo said they should report any unusual mortality of chickens or other birds to the State Veterinary Services for samples to be collected."The Limpopo Veterinary Authorities are on high alert and have increased their surveillance especially in backyard chickens."Keepers of chickens, geese and ducks, including backyard farmers, are encouraged to observe minimum biosecurity measures to prevent this disease in their birds. These steps include:Limiting exposure to wild birds by providing feed and water indoors or at least well underneath a low solid roof;Care should be taken to prevent chickens drinking from common water sources where wild birds congregate.Commercial farmers have also been called on increase their biosecurity measures on farms, such as limiting access to people who might have had contact with birds and chickens outside the farm.The DAFF said clinical and serological surveillance should also be increased and any abnormal morbidity and mortalities must be immediately reported to State Veterinary Services.It added that no farmer should allow their chickens to be vaccinated.South Africa prohibits the vaccination of chicken against Notifiable Avian Influenza and no vaccine against this disease is registered in the country.
Counter-terrorism agencies lost track of a known terrorist sympathiser who took a woman hostage and murdered a Melbourne hotel worker in an 'ISIS-inspired' attack.

Yacqub Khayre also shot three police officers in the dramatic two-hour siege at a hotel in Brighton, in the city's south-east, on Monday.

A month before the attack, the Australian Federal Police wrote to the Victorian parole board asking for help to find the career criminal, The Australian reported.

Counter-terrorism agencies lost track of known terrorist sympathiser Yacqub Khayre, who took a woman hostage and murdered a Melbourne hotel worker in an 'ISIS-inspired' attack

Monday's incident began with locals reporting an 'explosion' inside the serviced apartments. Police believe this was the sounds of Khayre shooting dead his first victim

The embarrassing blunder comes amid revelations Khayre was on a terror watch list and in a deradicalisation program when he murdered Chinese-born Kai 'Nick' Hao.

Khayre also spent 16 months on remand before he was acquitted of a 2009 terror plot to attack the Holsworthy army barracks in Sydney.

He was released from a Victorian prison in December last year over an aggravated burglary he committed while high on ice in 2012.

The Victorian parole board says it should have been told Khayre was on a terror watch list before it let the soon-to-be killer free from prison.

Khayre spent 16 months on remand before he was acquitted of a 2009 terror plot to attack the Holsworthy army barracks in Sydney

At 5.40pm, some 20 minutes before he died, the gunman called up a TV newsroom to claim: 'This is for IS, this is for al-Qaeda' (Specialist counter terrorism police are pictured)

Monday's dramatic siege ended when the Somali-born 29-year-old left the Brighton apartment building and fired at police.

Three officers were wounded before the gunman was shot dead.

One Special Operations Group officer has shotgun pellets in his face and will need surgery, while another has had surgery for a serious injury to his hand.

The hostage, a 36-year-old woman, was tied up at one point during the siege, before she was rescued from the ground floor apartment.

Victoria's parole board chair, Judge Peter Couzens, said the board was not told Khayre was on any terror watch list or that he was any danger to the community or 'it would have acted'.

Khayre murdered one man, wounded three police officers and took a woman hostage in a two-hour siege in a hotel on Bay Street, Brighton, on Monday. An officer can be seen at the gates, moments before the exchange of gunfire (pictured)

'We were not told anything along those lines either at the time of making the order or subsequently,' Mr Couzens told 3AW on Wednesday.

Mr Couzens said such information should 'absolutely' be shared with the parole board and Corrections Victoria.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews now wants spy agencies to make submissions to parole boards about inmates on terror watch lists.
The 'cold blooded' killer who raped and murdered outback nurse Gayle Woodford before burying her in a shallow grave will be locked away for the next 32 years.

South Australian man Dudley David Davey, 35, had been on a three-day meth bender when he went to Mrs Woodford's Fregan home, killed her and stole her ambulance in March last year.

A court heard the murderer had launched a number of attacks on women over 20 years, including an 'eerily similar' assault of another nurse in 1998.

South Australian man Dudley David Davey, 35, will spend a minimum of 32 years in jail for the rape and murder of outback nurse Gayle Woodford

Mother-of-two Gayle Woodford was lured from her home in outback South Australia before she was murdered and buried in a shallow grave

The family of Gayle Woodford arrive at the Supreme Court of South Australia in Adelaide on Monday, her husband Keith picture

Davey lured the nurse outside telling her that his grandmother needed panadol before raping her, killing her and fleeing in her ambulance, the Daily Advertiser reports.

The mother-of-two was found three days after her death leaving her children and husband Keith devastated.

Justice Ann Vanstone jailed Davies for life on Thursday and set a non-parole period of 32 years, describing his offending as 'cold-blooded' and 'callous in the extreme'.

Davey's lawyer Nick Vadasz claimed his client went to the house to take the ambulance - that he hadn't planned on hurting the nurse.

But Justice Vancstone had 'trouble accepting' the man's story.

'If he just wanted the keys, he could have just taken the keys and the ambulance,' she said.

In 2012, Davey, who has a long record of crimes against women, was jailed for 20 months following a public sex attack on a woman who was asleep in Adelaide's CBD.

He was released on parole and returned to the dry zone of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, where Ms Woodford frequently worked.

The devastated family members sat in court as Mrs Woodford's murderer was sentenced

After Ms Woodford's death a review of the risks facing remote health workers found they should be accompanied on call-outs to clients

GAYLE WOODFORD'S DEATH March 23, 2016: Outback nurse Gayle Woodford, 56, is last seen on South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, with her disappearance prompting a search. About the same time as Ms Woodford goes missing an ambulance she used for work is driven from a local health clinic. March 24, 2016: Police use GPS data to track the ambulance and intercept it in Coober Pedy. The 36-year-old Mimili man behind the wheel, Dudley Davey, is charged with the theft of the vehicle and other driving offences. March 26, 2016: Ms Woodford's body is found in a shallow grave outside the remote SA town of Fregon where she lived. Calls emerge for greater safety provisions for remote health clinicians, with an online petition collecting more than 130,00 signatures. March 27, 2016: Davey is charged with Ms Woodford's murder. March 29, 2016: Davey makes his first appearance at the Port Augusta Magistrates Court, losing a bid to have his name suppressed. February 23, 2017: Davey pleads guilty to murder and rape charges and is committed to the Supreme Court. Advertisement

He raped and killed Ms Woodford only six months after his parole conditions had lapsed.

The murder sparked a major push to improve the safety of nurses working in remote communities with an online petition securing more than 132,000 signatures.

After Ms Woodford's death a review of the risks facing remote health workers found they should be accompanied on call-outs to clients.

The report, by peak body CRANA plus, also recommended upgrades to alarm systems and better training.

The murder stile Ms Woodford's ambulance after he killed her
Orange is the new uniform: Reality Winner is being held in Lincoln County jail as she awaits arraignment in federal court Thursday

Reality Winner's stepfather, Gary Davis, addressed her unusual name during an interview with DailyMail.com on Wednesday  and said that it had been bestowed on her by her late father, Ronald Winner.

'It's tough to see the vitriol and savagery from people who don't know who she is and don't know anything about it other than what they see in the government's filing or some story on her. They make assumptions because her name is something odd, that she's a crackpot,' Mr Davis said.

'It's not the case  her Dad named her. Reality is the youngest of all of our children.'

Reality Winner has an older sister, Brittany, from her mother's first marriage to Ronald Winner. She also has a half-sister, Sarah-Nicole Winner, from her late father's first marriage and three step-siblings , Cole, Lyndee and Ross Davis, from her stepfather's first marriage.

Mr Davis said that Reality's father had the honor of naming his second daughter.

'He always wanted to have a 'Real Winner' so he named her Reality Leigh Winner. It's just a beautiful name. The plan was to call her Leigh because Reality is kind of a strange name but everyone who knew her just loved the name Reality and it stuck with her. I forget sometimes that she has ever been called Leigh  she's always been Reality.'

Mr Davis said that she goes by her full name, Reality, which caused a few problems when she went to set up social media accounts.

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On Wednesday, her stepfather, Gary Davis (right), addressed her unusual name during an interview with DailyMail.com  and said that it had been bestowed on her by her late father, Ronald Winner. Also pictured is her mother, Billie-Winner Davis

Mr Davis said that she goes by her full name, Reality (pictured), which caused a few problems when she went to set up social media accounts. 'Some people try to pronounce it as something else  but it's Reality, that's all it is. Everyone who knows her, loves her,' he said

'Facebook would not let her use Reality until she contacted the administration of Facebook and sent them a copy of her driver's license before they allowed her. Then they got that straightened out.

'Some people try to pronounce it as something else  but it's Reality, that's all it is. Everyone who knows her, loves her.'

The alleged NSA leaker's parents also told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that they wanted her to receive a fair trial and not be judged in the court of public opinion as they revealed that she was already helping prison inmates by teaching yoga.

Billie Winner-Davis and Gary Davis, spoke inside their daughter's humble home in Augusta, Georgia, as they anxiously awaited the outcome of their daughter's hearing on Thursday, where a federal judge will decide whether she will be held or freed on bail ahead of her trial.

Reality was arrested at the property on Saturday on federal espionage charges after she allegedly leaked a report on Russian hacking to a news website.

Winner-Davis took a call from Reality at Lincoln County Jail during the interview and said that her daughter was urging her mother to stay strong.

At her home: Reality Winner's mother and stepfather are in Augusta to support their daughter, who is in a local jail awaiting arraignment Thursday

The 25-year-old is being held in general population, the parents said, but that she wasn't afraid for her safety - although it was becoming uncomfortable for her as people realized who she was.

'I don't think she's afraid,' her mother said.

'She said that everyone there is so nice and that the staff are wonderful. She's finding ways to work out and do yoga, and teach yoga because that's her passion.'

Davis said: 'She's been able to call a couple of times a day but it comes up with another name. I think the inmates who aren't using their call time are giving her the opportunity.

'She's said, "All these women are in here for assault but they are all really, really nice." One woman is a meth addict and she's been trying to teach her yoga to help her relax.'

Her parents said she had never been in any trouble with authorities  bar one food fight she once organized in middle school  and do not believe that she has done what she was accused of.

Fascination with religion: Reality Winner's home has a framed version of one of the Muslim religions' principal prayers, the Ayat al-Kursi

Faith: The Arabic-speaking linguist attended her local Episcopal church and had brought home a Palm Sunday cross before Easter. She also had a small statue of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed god

Pride: Reality Winner kept mementos of her time in the US Air Force including a picture of her time at linguistics school

Patriotic duty: Gary Davis, Reality's stepfather said: 'I want to talk about Reality and remind folks that she is a veteran who served her country for six years in the United States Air Force. She did it with distinction'

Bernie Sanders-supporting Reality Winner served as a linguist in the US Air Force since 2013 and spoke Pashto, Farsi and Dari. Pictured here in uniform with her mother Billie

They questioned the methods with which the government had released information about the allegations against their daughter.

'Nothing matches for me at this point,' her mother said. 'She's not in the Russian world, so why would she go looking for something and how would she know to look for something?

'None of that matches to me. She's smart  would she really do something that would be so obvious?'

Her mother said that Reality would not talk about the details of her job but was well aware of the protocols surrounding security at the NSA following the Edward Snowden leaks.

Mr Davis questioned the wording of the government's affidavit and suggested that it was misleading.

'It mentions that she had emailed The Intercept. She had emailed The Intercept to request a transcript of a podcast that had to do with climate change,' he said.

'Her second email to The Intercept was a follow-up, to find out what the status of her request [for the podcast] was. They are alleging that somehow this is connected and it's just not.'

Winner had also held a meeting with a U.S. representative for her district to talk about climate change and the North Dakota pipeline.

Davis added: 'What has been put out by the government isn't the complete story and it's serving the government's interests and what they are alleging.

'We just want all the facts to be brought forth and presented to the public and an unbiased jury.'

Reality Winner's small home reflects the interests of the 25-year-old Air Force veteran.

She often rose at 5am to workout at a local cross-fit gym, one friend told DailyMail.com today, and was in training for an upcoming weightlifting competition.

Comrades: Winner was photographed at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center with other students and instructors

Happy time: Winner's enjoyment of her time in uniform was evident in the photographs she kept as souvenirs

Pride: Gary Davis said that as well as her qualifications she received a commendation for her linguistics work which directly led to the elimination and capture of hundreds of enemy combatants

Devotion to Arabic: When she was in Maryland, Reality Winner spent time with an Arabic-speaking storekeeper practicing the language and he gave her this rug as a keepsake. It is now in the room she had used for yoga

Athletic: Reality Winner often rose at 5am to workout at a local cross-fit gym, one friend told DailyMail.com today, and was in training for an upcoming weightlifting competition. She competed in a 2015 half-marathon

One room of the small home lay almost empty for her yoga practice  apart from a rug which had been a gift from a store owner in Ellicott City, Maryland where she would spend time with him practicing her Arabic language skills in conversation.

Several sets of prayer beads and a book on peace were also in the room.

On one wall there is a framed version of the first 'surah' in the Koran, known as the Ayat al-Kursi, and often used by Muslims during prayers.

She was not a Muslim and in fact attended a local Episcopalian church - reflected in a crucifix on another wall, and a Palm Sunday cross.

Other religions are also represented, with a statue of Ganesh, the Hindu elephant-headed God.

Beatles albums decorated one wall and her parents said she was a super-fan of rock band, AFI.

A guitar case lay against one wall  her mother said she had taught herself to play.

An Olympic workout bar also lay on the floor. She was devoted to fitness and outside of her government contractor job, she worked as a yoga and spinning instructor.

And on the walls are memories of her time in uniform.

She received a commendation for her linguistics work which directly led to the elimination and capture of hundreds of enemy combatants, her stepfather said.

Hope for peace: The book on her floor was a copy of the work of the Japanese martial artist Morihei Ueshiba

Still doing yoga: Billie-Jean Davis said with pride that her daughter was doing yoga with inmates at the jail despite being from a radically different background

Winner's social media reveals she was a Bernie Sanders supporter who regularly tweeted her disapproval of the Trump administration

Winner taught at the Oh Yeah Yoga located in Augusta,Georgia

She also worked out and visited the Epic Ultimate Results gym Augusta

'She's gone above and beyond to serve this nation. That's really what I want to tell people who brand her as a traitor - they don't know her and all the great things she has done. She hasn't been convicted.

'This young lady signed up, put her life on the line, wanted to deploy to Afghanistan and serve but because she was a linguist, she didn't get to deploy.

'She contributed directly to the fight for the War on Terror and to the safety of Americans at home and her brothers and sisters on the front lines. She is a veteran of the United States Air Force and I want everybody to remember that.

'Everyone who knows her, loves her.'

Her stepfather had a message for people who had prejudged her. 'I want to talk about Reality and remind folks that she is a veteran who served her country for six years in the United States Air Force.

'She did it with distinction. She has never been in trouble. She did serve and she put her life on the line, she offered to give her full measure for this country and the job that she did was important.

'For her to be disparaged as a veteran, insults every veteran out there who has done their patriotic duty.

'The most important thing is that she gets a fair hearing, due process and not be convicted in the court of public opinion.

'She needs to have her day in court and a jury of her peers will determine if she has done anything wrong and at that point she will do whatever is required of her to do.'

Her mother added: 'We just ask that people not judge her, that we let all of the facts and the truth come out before people make up their minds. She hasn't been convicted of anything as of this point.'

THE ANTI-TRUMP SAYINGS OF COMRADE REALITY WINNER The alleged leaker used social media to make her views of the president clear - raising questions over exactly how she gained Top Secret clearance. Her postings included: She also posted a signed picture of CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, thanking her for her service Advertisement

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT HOW SHE MIGHT HAVE BEEN CAUGHT

A series of 'tracking dots' that were inadvertently published by The Intercept on leaked documents could have led to the arrest of the NSA contractor.

Now, blog Errata Security has revealed how a series of nearly-invisible yellow dots that appeared at the top of the leaked pages would have allowed security services to track the leaker down with ease.

The leaked documents seemed to show Russia carried out cyber attacks on companies which produce software used during elections.

According to analysis carried out in 2015 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, almost every modern printer secretly adds 'tracking dots' to every document.

The dots appear in a grid at the top of the first page and bottom of the last page, with some spaces filled in and others left blank.

Blog Errata Security revealed how a series of nearly-invisible yellow dots at the top of the pages which appeared on The Intercept allowed the leaker to be traced

The dots (made easier to see by inverting colors on the documents) are added by virtually every modern printer to the top and bottom of every document they print

The dots form a grid with some squares colored in and others blank. When flipped upside down and fed into special software, this reveals when the page was printed, along with the model and serial number of the printer

Once investigators had this information, it would have been a simple job of checking with the NSA where printer 29535218 was kept and who was using it at 6.20 on May 9

Once flipped upside down, that pattern can be fed into software which reads it.

The software will then tell the user the exact date and time the document was printed, as well as the model and serial number of the printer it came from.

In the case of the NSA documents, that was a printer with model number 54, serial number 29535218, and the document was printed on May 9, 2017, at 6:20, Errata writes.

Because the NSA almost certainly keeps a record of all its printer serial numbers, it would have been a simple job to track the machine to Georgia.

All agents would then have to do is check who was using the printer at 6.20 on May 9 - information the NSA almost certainly keeps on record.

According to the criminal complaint, agents identified Winner after ascertaining that six people had printed the leaked information.

Once those six people had been identified, agents checked the email accounts of those staff members and saw that Winner was the only one who had emailed an outside news source.

When confronted, the report says she admitted leaking the information.

'Exceptional law enforcement efforts allowed us quickly to identify and arrest the defendant,' the arrest document said.

Winner is the first person to be charged over leaking confidential documents after President Trump vowed a crackdown on informants.

'Winner is a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation assigned to a U.S. government agency facility in Georgia,' according to a government criminal complaint.

'She has been employed at the facility since on or about February 13, and has held a Top Secret clearance during that time.

'On or about May 9, Winner printed and improperly removed classified intelligence reporting, which contained classified national defense information from an intelligence community agency, and unlawfully retained it.'

'Approximately a few days later, Winner unlawfully transmitted by mail the intelligence reporting to an online news outlet,' according to the release.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto have vowed to try to save the vaquita marina porpoise, which could be extinct as soon as next year.

The pair had clashed briefly last month when DiCaprio promoted the cause online, leading to defensive tweets from Pena Nieto.

But two were all smiles on Wednesday as they shook hands and signed a deal in which Mexico promised to protect the marine ecosystems of the Gulf of California and in particular the vaquita, which is found only there.

Leonaro DiCaprio and Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto (both pictured shaking hands) vowed on Wednesday to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise

The vaquita is the world's smallest porpoise, and lives only in the Gulf of California. It is endangered due to illegal fishing of the totaba fish, which is used in Chinese medicine

In May, DiCaprio asked his millions of Twitter and Instagram followers to call on Pena Nieto to do more to protect the world's smallest porpoise, of which less than 30 remain.

The Mexican president responded with what was, for him, an unprecedented flurry of seven tweets in English defending his government's efforts to save the creature.

'Mexico's government is making a major effort, doing what should have been done decades ago to save the Vaquita Marina,' he said in one of the tweets.

Now the government is doing more, in a plan is backed by DiCaprio's foundation and that of Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim.

Slim - the world's sixth-richest person, according to Forbes magazine - also signed the deal.

'Now more than ever, the world is looking for bold leadership at every level to tackle climate change and environmental conservation issues,' DiCaprio said in a statement.

'This action is a critical step towards ensuring that the Gulf of California continues to be both vibrant and productive, especially for species like the critically endangered vaquita.'

There are only 30 of the porpoises - the smallest in the world - left. Pictured is a vaquita porpoise's fin

As well as banning gillnets, which the porpoises get caught up in, Mexico will develop new fishing gear and techniques for local communities

The Gulf of California, which was officially listed as a World Heritage site in 2005, is a source for half of Mexico's fisheries production.

Pena Nieto said Mexico 'understands its responsibility as one of the most biodiverse countries in the world' and would make a 'historic effort' to protect the vaquita.

Under the deal, Mexico will impose a permanent ban on gillnets in the vaquita's habitat.

The nets - used to catch another endangered species, the totoaba fish - have contributed to wiping out the vaquita.

Mexico also pledged to develop new fishing gear and techniques for local communities.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which has warned the vaquita risks going extinct in 2018, praised the 'landmark agreement.'

The threat is fueled by demand for totoaba swim bladders in China, where they are considered a delicacy and can fetch $20,000 per kilogram.

WWF called on Mexico to go further by launching coordinated efforts with China and the United States to end the illegal totoaba trade.
A 14-year-old boy has spent 24 hours in an intensive care unit after nurses mistakenly gave him 44 units of insulin instead of four, his mother claims.

Chris Walton, a diabetic, was treated for high sugar and ketones at Princess Margaret Hospital in Western Australia's inner-west on Sunday, when a nurse reportedly gave him eleven times the correct dose of insulin.

Chris's mother Maria Walton said the mistake could have been fatal for her son.

'He could have got brain damage he could have gone into diabetic coma and possibly died,' Ms Walton told WA Today.

'He could have got brain damage he could have gone into diabetic coma and possibly died,' Ms Walton said about her son Chris (pictured)

Ms Walton said the reported mistake almost went undetected.

She said hospital staff only realised what happened after she and Chris questioned it themselves.

'The nurse didn't notice, me and my son actually told them they panicked and then doctors and everything came out of nowhere,' Ms Walton said.

Ms Walton said she was 'disgusted' by the disregard she was shown by staff at the hospital after the potentially fatal mix-up.

'The doctor basically told me "accidents happen, no one's perfect" it's disgusting really,' she said.

Ms Walton said she was 'disgusted' by the disregard she was shown by staff at the hospital after the potentially fatal dosage her son Chris (pictured) was given

Chris was treated at the Prince Margaret Hospital (pictured) in Western Australia when he was given the incorrect dose

Princess Margaret Hospital executive director Michelle Dillon said the hospital launched a review into the incident.

Ms Dillon told WA Today the hospital provided support to Chris and his family throughout the ordeal.

She said the incident was undergoing an internal investigation.
Newly elected US Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana issued an apology letter Wednesday and said he plans to donate money to a journalism advocacy organization as part of a settlement agreement with a reporter he is accused of assaulting.

In exchange, Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs agreed not to sue Gianforte over the attack, and he will not object to Gianforte entering a 'no contest' plea to the misdemeanor assault charge the Republican faces from the May 24 encounter.

Jacobs tried to ask Gianforte about the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the Republican health care bill as Gianforte was preparing for a television interview.

Gianforte, according to Jacobs at the time, 'body slammed' him to the ground and broke his glasses.

Newly elected US Rep. Greg Gianforte (left) of Montana issued an apology letter Wednesday for body slamming Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs (right), who has agreed in turn not to sue

Gianforte's letter says he takes full responsibility for the encounter and that Jacobs was just doing his job

Gianforte then told Jacobs - a political reporter based in Washington, DC - to 'get the hell out of here,' according to an audio recording by Jacobs.

That night, Gianforte was charged with assault.

The next day, Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist to win the special congressional election to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as Montana's only congressman.

Gianforte is expected to be sworn in later this month.

The day after the incident, Gianforte (seen above celebrating with supporters) defeated Democrat Rob Quist to win the special congressional election to replace Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as Montana's only congressman

Gianforte's letter says he takes full responsibility for the encounter and that Jacobs was just doing his job.

'Notwithstanding anyone's statements to the contrary, you did not initiate any physical contact with me, and I had no right to assault you,' Gianforte's letter says.

The Gianforte campaign's initial statement the night of the encounter from spokesman Shane Scanlon blamed the 'aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist.'

Gianforte will contribute $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists as part of the settlement.

Jacobs said in a statement that he accepts Gianforte's apology.

'I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country,' Jacobs said in his statement.

Gianforte put out a statement that said he takes full responsibility for his actions and that he and Jacobs 'are both ready to move on.'

Gianforte is due in Gallatin County Justice Court by June 20 to face the assault charge.

He received an extension for that court appearance while the settlement was being worked out.

A 'no contest' plea would allow Gianforte to concede to the criminal charge without admitting guilt.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine upon conviction.
The owner of a luxurious waterfront home, which featured on hit cooking show MasterChef, has faced court over a long-running feud with his neighbour.

Aaron Parkhill, who owns the glitzy Campbell Point House south-west of Melbourne, and his neighbour David Collins have both admitted wrestling in the mud near their shared barbed-wire fence, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The men appeared in Geelong Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

Mr Parkhill was also accused of threatening to kill his neighbour's dogs and of firing shots at a drone flown by Mr Collins.

The owner of a luxurious waterfront home, which featured on hit cooking show MasterChef, has faced court over a long-running feud with his neighbour (home pictured)

Aaron Parkhill, who owns the glitzy Campbell Point House south west of Melbourne, (pictured) and his neighbour David Collins made bizarre allegations against each other

The Campbell Point House featured on an episode of the hit cooking show MatserChef

He denied those claims but admitted 'dancing like a gorilla' on another occasion when he caught his neighbour taking photos of him.

It was further alleged Mr Collins butted a cigarette on Mr Park hill's face, the court heard.

The claims were revealed in court on Wednesday when Mr Parkhill took steps to renew his shooters licence.

Mr Parkhill had his shooting licence removed after he and Collins took court orders out against each other.

Aaron Parkhill and David Collins have both admitted wrestling in the mud near their shared barbed-wire fence (stock image)

The claims were revealed in court on Wednesday when Mr Parkhill took steps to renew his shooters licence (house pictured)

'He's not a fit and proper person to be carrying a firearm,' Mr Collins said.

However Mr Parkhill said he was a law-abiding citizen and had never shot at anyone.

'I've never even had a speeding fine,' he said.

Magistrate Peter Mellas noted Mr Parkhill's clean history and granted his shooters licence application.
Six Indonesian ISIS fanatics have been jailed, fuelling fears that the sinister terror group is finding a foothold in South East Asia.

A Jakarta court heard the six factory workers pledged allegiance to ISIS, provided a safe haven for Islamist fighters and allegedly plotted a rocket attack on Singapore.

The men offered a transit point for Indonesians coming to and from taking up arms with the barbaric terror organisation in Iraq and Syria.

The revelations come amid grave concerns in Australia of battle-hardened ISIS militants returning after losing ground in the Middle East.

The six Indonesian terrorist suspects, (from right: Eka Saputra, Trio Syafidro, Tarmidzi, Gigih Rahmat Dewa, Hadi Gusti Yanda and Leonardo Hutajulu during their trial in Jakarta)

A Jakarta court heard the six factory workers pledged allegiance to ISIS, provided a safe haven for Islamist fighters and allegedly plotted a rocket attack on Singapore

Australia and other neighbouring nations are holding a summit in August to address the threat of homegrown militants returning from foreign battlefields.

A recent wave of violence from ISIS-linked militants in the Philippines, including the beheading of a police chief, has inflamed the threats to regional security.

The Indonesian men, with aliases including 'Hippopotamus', 'Awesome Criminal' and 'Paddy Field Eel', were sentenced to three to four years behind bars on Wednesday.

One afternoon in August 2015 on the busy port island of Batam - just a short boat ride from Singapore - the group gathered together to record what they believed was a very important message.

After months discussing the issues in Syria, they pledged allegiance to IS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Led by Gigih Rahmat Dewa, also known as Kuda Nil or 'Hippopotamus', the members went by a litany of colourful names, Jakarta's East District Court heard on Wednesday.

The men offered a transit point for Indonesians leaving to, and returning from, taking up arms with the barbaric terror group in Syria

The men were jailed for three years after they were found guilty by the East Jakarta District Court of a conspiracy to commit terrorism for their foiled plot to fire a rocket at Marina Bay in Singapore

Detained Indonesian militant Gigih Rahmat Dewa (L) arrives for a hearing at the East Jakarta court in Jakarta

One, Tarmiji was also known by Harimau Sumatera or 'Sumatran Tiger', Hadi Gusti Yanda's alias was Bandit Gokil or 'Awesome Criminal', while Trio Syafrido went by the name Belut Sawah or 'Paddy Field Eel'.

Two others - Eka Saputra and Leonardo Hutajulu had no known aliases.

The group called themselves the Katibah Gonggong Rebus or 'Boiled Snail Secretariat', in reference to a local delicacy from the Indonesian island.

The six men were arrested last August over an alleged plot to launch a rocket attack at Singapore's glitzy Marina Bay Sands.

Prosecutors alleged this was done at the behest of Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian fighting with IS in Syria - who has been linked to several attacks and plots in Indonesia and is said to have tried to set up a division for explosives and electronics.

A recent wave of violence from ISIS-linked militants in the Philippineshas heightened the threats to regional security. (Pictured, ISIS media shows an extremist waving the ISIS flag in the region)

One image put out by ISIS media purports to show militants rampaging through the southern city

A soldier smashes a door during a house-to-house clearing operation against Islamist militants in Marawi

But on Wednesday Gigih, 31, was the only one to be found guilty of the offence of preparing to commit an act of terrorism.

The other five men were found guilty of the lesser charge of facilitating perpetrators of terrorism.

Judge Nelson Japasar Marbun said the purpose of sentencing them was not 'merely about revenge'.

'The intention is to make the defendant realise and repent so that the defendants would not dare to commit such crimes in the future and in the end, peace and sense of justice in society would be achieved.'

Gigih was sentenced to four years while the others were sentenced to three years.

Prosecutors are deciding whether to appeal having asked for longer jail terms.
An aspiring model in Canada has turned herself into police to face first-degree murder charges.

Laurie Phan turned herself in to York Regional Police on Monday, the same day authorities issued a Canada-wide warrant for her arrest, CBC reported.

The 22-year-old, who once competed in the Miss Asia Toronto, is one of two people charged in the killing of 27-year-old Noel Williams.

Police say he was shot inside of a home in Markham on February 10 and died hours later at a local hospital.

Laurie Phan (pictured left and right in arrest photo), an aspiring model in Canada, has turned herself into police to face first-degree murder charges

The 22-year-old, who once competed in the Miss Asia Toronto, is one of two people charged in the killing of 27-year-old Noel Williams (left and right). Police say he was shot inside of a home in Markham on February 10 and died hours later at a local hospital

Authorities have already arrested and charged the second person accused in the crime, Jasper Atienza.

Phan's profile on the modelling networking site Model Mayhem says that she wanted to start her career in modelling after competing in the ATV Miss Asia Toronto.

'I don't have much experience but I'm a very motivated and determined person,' the profile reads.

York Police said the investigation is continuing. It's unclear how Phan (above) knew Williams

Phan's profile says she studied nursing, however, it has not been updated since July 2016.

York Police said the investigation is continuing and they have not released a motive for the crime.

It's unclear how Phan or Atienza knew Williams.

An obituary for Williams says he was a father to a little boy and that he had 'an infectious personality.'

'He carried with him big, charismatic and loving energy that often made him the comfort of his family and turned strangers into fast friends. He will be greatly missed,' his obituary reads.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Homicide Unit at 1-866-876-5423, ext. 7865, or or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
The New South Wales police force will be given the power to shoot dead suspected terrorists in the wake of the London terror attack.

Under current legislation, officers who use lethal force in hostage situations can be charged with murder.

The state government will introduce legislation within a fortnight to give officers 'shoot to kill' powers to combat the threat of terrorism.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the government 'accepted and supported' all 45 recommendations made by Coroner Michael Barnes in May following the inquest into the Lindt Cafe siege of December 2014.

The New South Wales police force will be given the power to shoot dead suspected terrorists

The announcement comes in the wake of the London terror attack. Emergency services are pictured attending to victims of the attack on London Bridge

'As we have seen as recently as this week in Melbourne, and on the weekend with the cowardly, evil acts in London, we need to be ever-vigilant to the emerging and evolving risks of terrorism,' Ms Berejiklian said in a statement.

Cafe manager Tori Johnson and Sydney barrister Katrina Dawson were killed as the Martin Place stand-off came to an horrific end in the early hours of December 16 2014.

Gunman Man Haron Monis was shot by specialist police who stormed the stronghold 17 hours after he walked into the building with a shotgun.

Mr Barnes found snipers had a 10-minute window during which they could have taken a 'kill shot' at terrorist Monis but they doubted their legal power to use lethal force as well as having concerns a visible head belonged to the gunman.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the government 'accepted and supported' all 45 recommendations made by Coroner Michael Barnes in May following the inquest into the Lindt Cafe siege of December 2014

Up to 100 police officers will be handed semi-automatic Colt M4 Carbine (pictured) weapons to use in the event of a 'probable' terrorist attack

The coroner recommended the police minister consider whether police power laws should be amended to ensure officers 'have sufficient legal protection to respond to terrorist incidents'.

The announcement comes after it was revealed riot squad officers will be handed military-style assault rifles to patrol Sydney's streets in the wake of a series of terror attacks across Europe.

Up to 100 police officers will be given semi-automatic Colt M4 Carbine weapons to use in the event of a 'probable' terrorist attack.

The provision of the US military's weapon of choice was expected to be announced on Thursday, The Daily Telegraph reported.

A hostage runs from the Lindt Chocolate cafe in Martin Place in December 2014

Gunman Man Haron Monis was shot by specialist police who stormed the stronghold 17 hours after he walked into the building with a shotgun

Police Commissioner Mick Fuller is reportedly pressuring the government for members of the Public Order and Riot Squad to be armed with the assault rifle following a series of terror attacks in Europe.

'The NSW Police Force has identified an appropriate firearm and advice has been forwarded to government,' Mr Fuller told The Daily Telegraph.

'In this increasingly dangerous and rapidly changing environment, I recognise the need to adapt our response model to be able to dispatch tactical police from multiple locations across Sydney.'

Mr Fuller said fully armed officers proactively patrol Sydney's streets instead of waiting to be called from their base.

'All NSW first responders are armed, unlike in the UK where they rely on rapid response teams,' he said.

More than 11,000 police officers have completed specialised training to tackle terror related incidents such as the Lindt Siege. Pictured: Police officers patrol the front of Parliament House in Canberra

Three terrorists were shot dead after they mowed down pedestrians and went on a stabbing frenzy in London on Saturday

More than 11,000 police officers have completed specialised training to tackle terror related incidents such as the Lindt Siege, the newspaper reported.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said community safety is her 'absolute priority' after the Police Association called for the issue of longarm weapons.

'I am committed to giving police the equipment they need to do their jobs, and keep people safe,' she said.

The M4 Carbine has been described by Colt as a reliable lightweight weapon with 'potent firepower capability'.

Australia's terror threat level remains at 'probable' - indicating individuals or groups have the intention and capability to perform an attack.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 29-YEAR-OLD Granary woman was fined $80 for ill-treatig and failing to provide adequate food for her step-son.Molleen Manyenyezero pleaded guilty when she appeared before Mbare magistrate Gladys Moyo charged with ill-treating or neglect of children and small persons.It was proved that since Manyenyezero became a step mother to the young 16 year-old, she was ill-treating him.She would not give him either care or food and she was now refusing to pay his school fees since she is the one always in possession of the banks cards for her husband who is also the complainant's father.Such kind of ill-treatment saw Manyenyezero being dragged to court where she could not admit to the offence but was later found guilty by the court.She was reeve $80 or 20 days in prison.Circumstances are that during the period from 2011 to March 22 this year the accused person failed to provide adequate food for the complainant whom she stays with.The court proved that in most cases the complaint goes to school without eating anything.Manyenyezero takes advantage of the absence of the complainant's father who is residing in Mwenezi where he is currently employed and sometimes returns home after three months.The court further proved that the situation at one point worsened to the extent that the complainant ran away from home.A complaint was lodged with the police leading to Manyenymero's arrest.
Shocking footage has captured the broad-daylight shootout between an armed robber and a squad of Baltimore County cops that ended with the criminal shot dead.

The recording shows the man - who has not yet been identified - unloading a pair of twin handguns on police, who return fire as civilians cower behind vehicles.

Witness Steve Outlaw, who uploaded the video to Facebook, said he had been on the bus before the robber got on board and police ordered everyone off - which was when violence erupted.

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A gunfight erupted on Wednesday when an unidentified robber tried to escape on a Baltimore County bus, and fired at cops who tried to stop him. Police then surrounded the vehicle

The criminal had robbed two people in the Logan Village Shopping Center at 2.49pm before trying to flee on the No. 10 MTA bus, police told the Baltimore Sun.

When police stopped the bus on Dundalk Avenue at around 3pm - just as schools in the area were closing - the man opened fire on them.

Outlaw's footage, mostly shot while he appeared to be lying on the ground, shows the suspect leaning out of the front and rear doors on the bus, firing in both directions.

Bystanders in the heavily populated area are heard screaming as cops return fire, punching holes in the windows.

The criminal then sprints from the rear doors, firing in both directions with his handguns - which appear to have extended clips - and hiding behind a white van.

The same white van that two other people are hiding behind.

The man then fled the bus, which had been emptied of passengers, while firing to either side (left). He then hid behind a white van (right) and continued the shoot-out

Two other people were hiding behind the van - a woman who ran off quickly (right) and a person hidden behind the wheel arch of the vehicle (center)

One of them runs off and another lies on the ground near the van's rear wheel arch while the criminal fires shots on both side of the van.

Outlaw flees as more gunshots erupt. Minutes later, police said, the criminal was shot dead.

The shooting also left one police officer in critical condition and a civilian, who had been on the street, injured.

Neither victim has yet been identified. The officer, a woman, was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, while the civilian was taken to a local hospital.

The criminal died on the lawn of Dave Barrett, who was watching TV when the shots rang out.

'I heard boom-boom-boom-boom-boom,' he said. 'You never want to hear that. By the time I came down, you could still see the smoke in the air from all the gunshots.'
Kerobokan prison, the long-time home of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine, has fascinated Australians for decades.

After years of speculation, an ABC TV crew has been granted a look behind its notorious walls for the first time.

Reporter Samantha Hawley, producer Matt Davis and cameraman Phil Hemingway spent one week inside the Kerobokan men's prison for Tuesday's episode of 'Foreign Correspondent.'

During their stay the team interviewed Bali Nine members Matthew Norman and Si Yi Chen, who are serving life sentences.

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An ABC TV crew recently spent a week inside Bali's Kerobokan prison - the long-time home of convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and Bali Nine members

The prison houses 1,300 inmates  four times the amount of people the prison was built for

The prison has previously been described by inmates as a 'hellhole' with frequent 'murders, rapes, drug overdoses and bashings'

The pair agreed to act as drug mules for $15,000 when they were arrested in 2005.

A suitcase containing heroin was found in the hotel room Norman and Chen were sharing at the time.

Norman, who was 18 at the time of his arrest, showed the ABC team his cell during filming.

'Yeah, this is my little piece of paradise,' he said.

'When those doors get shut and locked, you just think to yourself what have I done?'

'Get me home,' Chen emotionally added.

The prison houses 1,300 inmates  four times the amount of people the prison was built for - and has previously been described by inmates as a 'hellhole' with frequent 'murders, rapes, drug overdoses and bashings'.

Announcements and sirens on loudspeakers scream every day and inmates are constantly vying for space in the crowded cells.

The crew spoke with Bali Nine members Matthew Norman (right) and Si Yi Chen (left) while filming at the prison for 'Foreign Correspondent'

Kerobokan was home to drug smuggler Schapelle Corby (pictured) for almost a decade

Inmates could be seen vying for space inside the crowded prison

'When those doors get shut and locked, you just think to yourself what have I done?' Norman said of his cell

Prisoners move a metal fence inside of the Kerobokan prison

Rachel Dougall, who was sentenced to a year in the squalid prison for failing to report a crime, told Daily Mail Australia in March she suffered a nervous breakdown while inside after being locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians.

'Most of the women were on drugs virtually every day. If you had money the guards would get you anything you wanted,' she said.

New Zealander Paul Conibeer spent ten months inside Kerobokan and said it is overcrowded and flooding with crime and drugs

'Inmates in the men's prison next door even paid prostitutes for overnight visits.'

She claimed she was locked up with drug addicts, HIV-positive inmates and sexually aggressive lesbians.

She also said she was beaten several times before she was released in May 2013.

New Zealander Paul Conibeer spent ten months inside Kerobokan and said it is overcrowded and flooding with crime and drugs.

'One of the things that really upsets me about it is that you get the death penalty for drugs and yet the very place they've been housed for the past 10 years is full of drugs,' Conibeer said.
A Muslim imam who campaigns against extremism says Facebook deleted a post of his that paid tribute to an Australian nurse killed in the London terrorist attack.

Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi, a Shia imam from Adelaide, has told his followers the American social media giant had removed a post about a fellow South Australian, who died in the United Kingdom this week.

'Facebook team are deleting my posts, even the post about the Australian victim of London's terrorist attack Kirsty Boden and are now requesting selfies from me,' he said.

Adelaide Shia imam Mohammad Tawhidi believes someone in Facebook is silencing him

The sheikh told his followers Facebook had deleted a post about an Australian nurse who died

Australian nurse Kirsty Boden was killed during a terrorist attack in London on Saturday

'This cannot be an automatic censorship program.

'Someone is actually trying to silence me from within Facebook.'

While Facebook removes posts that breach its community standards, Sheikh Tawhidi, 34, received a message informing him of 'suspicious activity'.

'We want to make sure that your account is secure,' it said.

Kirsty Boden, 28, from Loxton, in South Australia, was attacked by the knife-wielding terrorists while coming to the aid of other injured people during a Saturday night rampage in central London.

Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi showed his followers a Facebook message he had received

Police and emergency services crews attend to victims of the London Bridge terrorist attack

Her family have paid tribute to her, saying: 'As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life.

'We are so proud of Kirsty's brave actions, which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was, not only on that night, but throughout all of her life.'

She is one of four people who have been named as victims of the horrific attack, which killed seven.

British business owner James McMullan, 32, from Hackney, died in the atrocity. Canadian Christine Archibald, 30, died after being hit by a van. And Frenchman Alexandre Pigeard, 27, was knifed in the neck while he was working at a restaurant.

So far, eight people have been confirmed dead after three knife-wielding terrorists drove a van over London Bridge before attacking patrons at nearby pubs and restaurants.

The Shia imam accused the United Kingdom's imams of being shady on their reasons for refusing to conduct a funeral services for the three London terrorists

Sheikh Tawhidi also took aim at the 100 United Kingdom imams who had refused to hold a funeral service for the three terrorists killed by London police.

'That is because 'a martyr's blood is pure' and only burial is required,' he said.

He pointed out this wasn't a religious disapproval of the terrorist atrocity, adding they had committed taqiyyah, the Arabic term for someone denying their religious connection to someone for political reasons.

'The conclusion is: 100 plus U.K. imams managed to fool British media,' he said.
A Sydney pub has been forced shut down a live music night because the bands playing had 'too many members.'

The gig at Nomads Brewery in Brookvale featuring bands The Vee Bees and COFFIN was set to go ahead this coming Friday.

But it has since been canned because both bands contained four members each, a number too high according to licencing police.

The event (pictured) has been canned because both bands contained four members each, a number too high according to licencing police

COFFIN took to Facebook on Thursday to express their frustration

COFFIN took to Facebook on Thursday to express their frustration.

'We're we are appalled to have to announce the show this Friday is CANCELLED after receiving the following message only yesterday (3 days out from the gig),' the band wrote.

This is the message the band received from the venue, Nomads Brewery:

'Hey from Nomad. I spoke to the licensing police on the weekend as they were at the rugby and they advised me that having your band play here on Friday is going to be an issue.

'They have imposed a rule on us that only 1-3 piece bands can play here so I'm sorry for the late notice but I am unable to have you play here as they will be here to enforce this and it will risk my liquor licence. Very sorry but my hands are tied.'

A spokesperson from Nomads Brewery said the venue was disappointed the event had to be shut down, but said in this case 'their hands were tied' by licencing restrictions.

The gig at at Nomads Brewery (pictured) in Brookvale featuring bands The Vee Bees and COFFIN was set to go ahead this coming Friday

'We do all we can for local music, but in this case a restriction was imposed on our liquor licence,' they said.

'Basically we need more live music venues in the area.'

This comes only a week after a live Vivid gig was shut down in Sydney's Kings Cross after neighbours complained it was too noisy.

Liquor & Gaming NSW said Nomads primary business was as a brewery and since 2014 it held a wholesale/producer licence that allowed for the tasting of products on the premises.

This comes only a week after live Vivid gig was shut down in Sydney's Kings Cross after neighbours complained it was too noisy (band pictured)

'The venue last year applied for an additional authorisation to allow the sale of alcohol on the premises at certain times,' it said.

'NSW Police requested the following condition: Any live music and/or entertainment is to be restricted to soloists, duos and trios, and low background music and/or TV screens.'

It said the Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority took this request into account when approving the authorisation with this condition and Nomad's didn't object.

'The licensee has the option of applying to have the condition amended on removed, or to seek a different type of licence,' Liquor & Gaming NSW said.
Rebel Wilson deliberately attempted to 'manipulate the public record' about her age to give the impression she was still in her 20s, a Melbourne court has heard.

Georgina Schoff QC, in giving her closing address to the jury on Thursday, said the Pitch Perfect and Bridesmaids star had also given a 'false impression' to journalists that her real name at birth was Rebel Wilson.

Wilson, 37, is suing Bauer Media for defamation for a series of articles published in May 2017.

She says the stories damaged her career by portraying her as a serial liar about her real name, age and childhood.

Australian actress Rebel Wilson appears at Victorian Supreme Court clutching a koala bag for the final day of her defamation suit against Bauer Media

The court heard Wilson deliberately attempted to 'manipulate the public record' about her age to give the impression she was still in her 20s

In the Supreme Court of Victoria, Ms Schoff said the star's mother did not name her Rebel at birth.

'When she was at school, nobody knew of Rebel Wilson,' she told the court.

Ms Schoff also argued Wilson had deliberately misled journalists about her real age and claimed to be younger than she actually was.

Wilson has asserted throughout the trial she never lied about her age, but simply deflected questions by answering: 'a lady never tells'.

However, Ms Schoff pointed to an email sent by Wilson's publicist to a Guardian journalist in April 2015 in which the publicist said the star was 29, when she was in fact 35.

She also reminded the jury of an incident in which Wilson contacted Fairfax CEO Greg Hywood asking him to remove her age from an online article.

Wilson says a series of articles published by Bauer Media damaged her career by portraying her as a serial liar about her real name, age and childhood

Wilson has asserted throughout the trial she never lied about her age, but simply deflected questions by answering: 'a lady never tells'

Ms Schoff said it showed Wilson wasn't just trying to administer a 'sense of mystery' about her age, but 'manipulate the public record' so people would think she was still in her 20s.

Ms Schoff said the matters raised in the articles were 'trivial' and nowhere claimed Wilson was a 'serial liar'.

Wilson claims her reputation was damaged following publication, leading to her being sacked from two DreamWorks animation and missing out on future lead movie roles.
The estranged husband of an NBC vice president has been arrested for suffocating their seven-year-old daughter at the family home he had just surrendered to his ex-wife.

Neil White, 47, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of his daughter Gabrielle.

The child's mother, NBCUniversal talent acquisition vice president Michelle Hord-White, had filed for divorce from White in April and was not at the home in New Rochelle at the time of the horrific incident.

Police say the girl's babysitter, Tonette Mahon, rushed to the home inside the Arbor Glen complex on Tuesday around 3pm after White had reportedly sent her several alarming text messages.

When she entered the home she didn't see anyone and noticed that the shades were drawn upstairs.

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Tragic: Neil White (above left in booking photo), 47, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of his seven-year-old daughter Gabrielle (right)

The child's mother, NBCUniversal talent acquisition vice president Michelle Hord-White (left), was said to be in 'hysterics' when she arrived to the horrific scene Tuesday. She filed for divorce from White (right) in April

The girl's babysitter, Tonette Mahon, rushed to the home in the Arbor Glen complex (above) in New Rochelle on Tuesday after the father had reportedly sent her several alarming text messages

'I went upstairs, and I kept calling, "Neil? Gabrielle?"' Mahon told news outlets.

The babysitter said White emerged bleeding and told her that Gabrielle was 'in her room resting.'

'She saw Mr. White had cuts to his wrist, saw some blood and then she checked on the girl and saw she wasn't moving and called us,' New Rochelle Police Captain Robert Gazzola told WCBS.

An autopsy will be performed, but police said they believe the girl, who was a second-grader at William B. Ward Elementary School, was asphyxiated.

The child's mother was said to be in 'hysterics' when she arrived at the horrific scene.

One day before the girl's shocking death, White had approved a deal to surrender the house to his estranged wife as part of an agreement.

Police say White (left) emerged bleeding from cuts to his wrist before she found his daughter in her bed not breathing or moving

The babysitter called 911 immediately and police who arrived to the scene (above) arrested White for the heinous crime that's left the community devastated

The couple were living in separate residences and shared custody of their daughter.

Mahon said she never saw this tragedy happening and said Gabrielle 'was beautiful'.

'I know the family, just  she was the light, she was the light of their lives,' Mahon told WCBS.

The girl's mother and her family issued the following statement: 'No words could sum up all that Gabrielle meant to us but she was our light.

'We are broken and devastated that our sweet little girl is gone but we're thankful that we had seven wonderful years with her.

'While we begin to mourn privately, we thank those friends, colleagues, neighbors and strangers for the tremendous support that we've already received.

Authorities say the estranged couple lived separately and shared custody of Gabrielle (pictured above with her mother). An autopsy will be performed, but police said they believe Gabrielle was asphyxiated

The girl's mother (above left) and her family issued a statement saying 'No words could sum up all that Gabrielle (right) meant to us but she was our light. We are broken and devastated...'

'In lieu of flowers, the family kindly request donations be made online at the hordfoundation.org, P.O. Box 4671 Danbury, CT 06813.'

White-Hord's pastor, the Rev. W. Franklyn Richardson, spent Tuesday night with the grieving family after the tragic discovery.

'She is a woman of great faith. I expect her to get through this. It will not be easy, and will never be over,' he told WCBS.

He added that there's 'no logic or reason' for this horrible crime.

'He lost himself and in that deep dark place he acted out. And there's no logic or reason,' Richardson said of White, who is a writer and political consultant.

'It pushes the boundaries of reason that a father could kill his daughter.'

The family's neighbors were also shocked and heartbroken over Gabrielle's murder.

Gabrielle was a second-grader at William B. Ward Elementary School (above). Officials at the school say grief counselors were on hand Wednesday

'Completely shocked. Disgusted,' one neighbor who did not want to be identified publicly told the television station.

'Everyone is so loving here, it's a quiet neighborhood. The kids just come out and play.'

'I'm devastated,' neighbor Derek Lewis stated. 'I have a son, like I said about her age, so, of course.'

'Nothing you can say but pray,' neighbor Evoni Legette said. 'Pray for the family, pray for the little girl. That's all you can do.'

Her funeral is being planned and will be held at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon.

Mayor Noam Bramson said Wednesday was 'an exceptionally painful day.'

'Our entire community mourns this tragic event,' the mayor said.

White appeared in court on Wednesday wearing a blue hospital gown and bandages on both forearms. He was arraigned on a charge of second-degree murder.

New Rochelle City Judge Anthony Carbone ordered him held and issued two orders of protection - for Hord-White and for another person. He's due back in court June 15.

Authorities say the couple's divorce comes after officers responded to the home in January over a domestic dispute, the New York Daily News reported.
A judge has described a man as a 'moronic bogan' after his car collided with a bike and he repeatedly punched a cyclist.

Angus Edgar Beirne believed the man purposefully swiped his car's side mirror and attacked him when he refused to apologise.

Magistrate Haydn Stjernqvist told Beirne, 29, a 'person of even temperament and good character would have jumped out of the car and said 'are you okay?' not immediately embarked upon a tirade like you did.'

A judge has described Angus Edgar Beirne (pictured) as a 'moronic bogan' after his car collided with a bicycle and he repeatedly punched a cyclist.

Police say Beirne turned his Nissan Cube into Mandin Street on the New South Wales north coast around 8am on January 10.

The road was more narrow than usual due to a construction site.

The cyclist told court Beirne had been driving on the wrong side of the road before the incident.

He said after the collision, Beirne confronted him before pushing him to the ground and punching him in the face, mouth and chest.

Beirne's solicitor told the court his client was not a violent man, instead had misread the situation.

'He wishes he could take it back but unfortunately he can not,' he said.

Magistrate Stjernqvist said Beirne had a duty to 'give way to everything' because of the danger to cyclists.

'Pedestrian versus driver, one loser. Bicycle versus vehicle, only one loser,'he said.

Beirne was fined $3000 and forced to pay an extra $500 to the cyclist for the injuries he sustained.
African Apex gang members reportedly broke into a north Melbourne home on Thursday and threatened two men by holding machetes to their throats.

The suspects demanded car keys from the men after entering the Wilson Mews home through the garage.

After the aggravated burglary the suspects fled from the scene.

Police were called to the home around 12.30pm are searching it for evidence, as well as a car parked on nearby Randall Lane, according toThe Herald Sun.

African Apex gang members reportedly broke into a north Melbourne home on Thursday and held machetes to the throats of two men while demanding their car keys (pictured is the Kensington shooting)

Just moments before around midday, a gunman who is also described as being of African appearance fired several shots outside of a housing commission block on Derby Street (pictured)

Just moments before around 12pm, a gunman fired several shots outside a housing commission on the corner of Derby St and Wolseley Pde - a 15 minute drive north from where the two men were later attacked.

The shooting suspects are also described as being of African appearance and are also on the run.

Police have not confirmed if the same suspect was responsible for both crimes.

No one was hurt during either incident.

Police are searching the Wilson Mews home for evidence, as well as a car parked on nearby Randall Lane (pictured)

The suspects from both incidents are still on the run. Police have not confirmed if the same suspect was responsible for both crimes

A woman who works at nearby Holy Rosary Primary School said it had gone into lockdown briefly after 'we had heard shots' and staff wanted to keep the students safe.

Kensington resident Matthew said it was usually a pretty quiet area.

'But you have a [housing] commission building, things happen around this area,' he said.

No injuries have been reported at this stage and police have closed off the street as they search for clues.
Huma Abedin stepped out solo for the second time this week as she joined Hillary Clinton at the Stephan Weiss Apple Awards.

Clinton was the recipient of the Urban Zens Stephan Weiss Apple Award on Wednesday night and her top trusted aide, Abedin, was there to support her.

Her husband and former president, Bill, who was no where in sight, has also received the honor in the past.

Although the pair arrived separately, Abedin and Clinton both stepped out in elegant white ensembles, with Clinton wearing a pair of black pants and heels.

Huma Abedin (right) stepped out solo for the second time this week as she joined her former boss, Hillary Clinton (left) at the Stephan Weiss Apple Awards

Clinton was the recipient of the Urban Zens Stephan Weiss Apple Award on Wednesday night and her trusted former aide, Abedin, was there to support her. Her husband and former president, Bill, has also received the honor in the past

Although the pair arrived separately, Abedin and Clinton both stepped out in elegant white ensembles

Clinton waved to a crowd of supporters as her security guard followed close behind.

The event took place at the Stephan Weiss Studio in New York and all of the proceeds raised will go to the Urban Zen Foundation, which seeks to collaborate to raise awareness and inspire change in areas like preservation of culture and education

Earlier on Wednesday, Abedin was seen heading off to Bergdorf Goodman, presumably to get glammed up for the awards.

Abedin flashed a smile as she wore a pair of dark shades and a grey jacket with matching pants.

Her appearance on Wednesday marked the second time this week she was spotted solo at an event.

She stepped out at the CFDA Fashion Awards on Monday as her disgraced husband Anthony Weiner was seen wearing his wedding ring on an outing with their son in New York - three weeks after Abedin filed for divorce.

Earlier on Wednesday, Abedin (pictured) was seen heading off to Bergdorf Goodman, presumably to get glammed up for the awards

Her appearance on Wednesday marked the second time this week she was spotted solo at a fashion or awards event. Abedin (left) stepped out solo at the CFDA Fashion Awards on Monday as her disgraced husband Anthony Weiner (right) took a stroll with their son in New York

Abedin donned a fuchsia pink shirtdress that was gathered at the center during her appearance at the awards, which she hasn't attended with Weiner since 2015

Glamorous Abedin donned a fuchsia pink shirtdress that was gathered at the center during her appearance at the awards, which she hasn't attended with Weiner since 2015.

Meanwhile, Weiner was spotted in Chelsea walking with their son, Jordan Zain Weiner, earlier in the day.

Weiner on Monday meanwhile was seen wearing khaki shorts and a green sweater as his son wore navy blue while carrying a cell phone in one hand.

The pair's outings on Monday come just a week after Abedin reportedly invited Weiner back home - two weeks after filing for divorce from the disgraced congressman.

Abedin renewed the lease on the couple's luxury $11,900-a-month Manhattan duplex and asked Weiner - who recently admitted to sexting with a 15-year-old girl - to move in, according to the New York Post.

Weiner, who has been sleeping at his mother's Brooklyn apartment, was supposed to move out last Tuesday, a source at the building told the Post. 'But they just signed for another year.'

It is not clear whether Abedin, 41, is on the lease alone or has signed with Weiner.

But a friend of the couple says that Abedin was concerned about their five-year-old son Jordan, who is mainly cared for by her husband.

'Huma is worried about her son,' the pal said. 'That's her priority, and Anthony plays a very strong role in raising him.'

Last week, Weiner was seen picking Jordan up from school in New York while still wearing his wedding band

Another source said that, despite the divorce rumors, Abedin 'still hasn't served him with the divorce papers'.

Weiner, 52, and Abedin had listed their three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot apartment at 1 Irving Place, near Manhattan's Union Square on May 19 - the day Weiner pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor in federal court.

Abedin filed for divorce that same day - nine months after Abedin announced the couple had separated in the wake of the disgraced politician's third sexting scandal.

The stylish and unique' duplex apartment was taken off the market on May 25.

Weiner had wept in court on May 19 while begging for forgiveness as he entered a plea of guilty to a single charge of transferring obscene material to a minor

'I have a sickness, but I do not have an excuse,' Weiner told the court, while agreeing to accept any prison sentence of less than 27 months and register as a sex offender.

Weiner's day in court came eight months after DailyMail.com revealed that the disgraced Congressman had been exchanging sexually-charged messages and explicit photos with a 15-year-old high school student in North Carolina.

The exchanges began in January of last year after the teenager reached out to Weiner on Twitter, and continued through late spring.

Weiner was 51 and still married to Abedin when he sent the texts and images to the minor female while Abedin was on the campaign trail (pictured left, the couple at the Met Gala in 2016, and right, Abedin on May 20)

Weiner had sent the texts and images to the minor female, during a time when his primary responsibility was the care of his son Jordan, while Abedin was on the campaign trail with Clinton.

It was the FBI's investigation into Weiner's inappropriate sexting that led to the discovery of classified emails forwarded by Huma to his computer - and the decision by FBI director James Comey to reopen the investigation into Clinton.

Weiner will have to register as a sex offender as part the plea deal with the Manhattan US Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors are recommending that Weiner serve a two-year sentence as part of the deal, with the charge carrying a maximum prison term of 10 years and maximum fine of $250,000.

He was released on bail and will be sentenced on September 8, four days after his 53rd birthday.
'Popular' PE teacher Kurt Majoor, 25, messaged one of his two 17-year-old victims on Instagram for weeks

A male high school teacher took a female student to the beach and played 'truth or dare' with her, where they both stripped off and had sex in the back of his car.

Corrimal High PE teacher Kurt Majoor, 25, had groomed the 16-year-old girl on Instagram for weeks and told her he 'would always be there for her'.

She was one of two students Majoor seduced on social media and pleaded guilty to having sex with at the Wollongong Local Court this week.

Court documents revealed the student had been absent from school, leading the teacher to drop her a message asking why she wasn't there.

The pair then began to exchange messages once or twice a week.

A police statement of facts said in November 2016, she became stressed and sent him a message asking to talk.

Former Corrimal High School PE teacher Kurt Majoor has plead guilty to having sex with two students who were in his care

He then picked her up and took her to a nearby beach, where they played 'truth or dare'.

The dares first involved them both removing their tops and, after the removal of several items of clothing, both were naked in his car and having sex.

Months later, in 2017, court documents said Majoor messaged another student he was teaching after she broke up with her boyfriend.

'Hi, hope everything is going ok, I'm here if you need me,' he said to the 17-year-old.

'Sorry I couldn't stop and chat yesterday.'

He then asked her to delete the message.

'Do me a favour and keep this to yourself and delete the message when you have read it so you don't get in trouble or anything.'

According to the police facts, these are the Facebook messages Kurt Majoor was alleged to have sent to one of his students. Pictured is a reproduction of the text messages

He later offered to 'sit and chat' with her and then began communicating with her on Snapchat, telling her she was the 'prettiest girl in school'.

Majoor later told her she had a 'good bum', sent pictures of his penis and told her he wanted to kiss her.

On February 13 this year, police facts alleged the pair met before school in the sand dunes at a nearby beach.

The teacher (pictured) took both of his victims to a beach close to the school - before having sex with them - court documents reveal

He asked her to perform a sex act on him and he later had sex with her - without wearing a condom.

'I want this to be really quick we need to go to school,' he said.

He told the victim: 'Keep this quiet and don't tell anyone'.

The girl later sent him a Snapchat message saying what they had done was 'wrong' and 'dangerous'.

After rumours began to circulate on February 20, the girl told her stepmother about the encounter and went to school to complain.

Majoor was arrested on February 21 but denied the allegations. The other victim went to police to complain the day after he was charged.

Majoor was not present at Wollongong Local Court on Thursday, instead appearing via video link from Silverwater jail in Sydney.

He will appear at court on June 16 for a sentencing date to be set.
News / National

by Staff reporter

A 22-YEAR-OLD tutor was on Wednesday arrested for faking a national identity of his student and writing her examination at Seke Mhuriimwe High School In Chitungwiza.Liberty Mathinga ran out of luck while sitting for an English Paper I exam after succeeding in writing Mathematics Paper I and Commerce Paper I for Tsitsi Chitima, 38, of Waterfalls.Police moved swiftly after Liberty, who was dressed in ladies' attire and wearing make-up and wig, was spotted by an invigilator Yvonne Mutsu Mawokomatanda who became suspicious and informed her supervisor leading to the arrest.Liberty and Tsitsi were taken to St Mary's Police Station where they are detained.Deputy Police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi confirmed the arrest urging members of the public not to break the law by engaging in criminal activities in order to achieve what they want."The Zimbabwe Republic Pol ice would like to confirm the arrest of a man in connection with misrepresentation to sit for an '0' level examination in Chitungwirs," said Chief Sum Nyathi."The man was dressed in a woman's attire and police were alerted by the examination supervisors leading to Ins arrest," said Chief Sups Nyathi.In an interview with 11-Metro, Tsitsi, accompanied by her husband, said she was not prepared for the examination and had to pay her tutor to sit for three examination papers."I was not prepared for the examination and I agreed to pay Liberty part payments until he finished writing all the three subjects for me," said Tsitsi."My husband was not aware of the deal, I failed the three subjects in 1997 and I decided to make this deal so as to apply for employment," said Tsitsi begging H-Metro not to publish the story.Liberty finished writing the examination before his arrest and the two are expected to appear in court tomorrow.
The daughter of a high-ranking ATO officer connected to an unprecedented payroll fraud is heavily pregnant, without a 'cent to rub together', a court has heard.

Lauren Cranston, 24, is one of several people facing charges over the alleged Plutus Payroll tax scam, which authorities say netted at least $130 million.

A civil directions hearing linked to the criminal case at the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday heard the daughter of the Australian Tax Office's deputy commissioner Michael Cranston was eight months pregnant and broke.

Lauren Cranston, 24, (pictured) is one of several people facing charges over the alleged Plutus Payroll tax scam, which authorities say netted at least $130 million

Ms Cranston (pictured right) and her brother, Adam Cranston, are among 65 defendants in the civil case brought by the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police

'This young woman has no money. She doesn't have a cent to rub together,' defence lawyer Greg Walsh, who said he would continue to help Ms Cranston in her legal fight, told the court.

'She's in an ever difficult and vulnerable position.'

Her father is due in court next week to face criminal allegations he abused his position by passing on information to his son.

Ms Cranston and her brother, Adam Cranston, are among 65 defendants in the civil case brought by the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), which relates to the restraining of assets.

Adam Cranston was also in court on Thursday.

The Supreme Court matter heard most of the defendants have or plan to apply to delay their examinations by the AFP, which were due to begin next week.

Justice Elizabeth Fullerton said she would not allow the difficult case to 'limp along'.

'There is a very considerable public interest ... in ensuring the matter is ... progressed,' she said.

ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston, the father of Adam Cranston

Adam Cranston, the son of ATO deputy commissioner Michael Cranston, arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney on Thursday

The AFP had first alleged the fraud was worth $165 million but a Senate hearing later heard the ATO had revised the figure to about $130 million.

Tax commissioner Chris Jordan told last month's hearing Michael Cranston was not suspected of being directly involved with the syndicate that allegedly attempted to defraud the Commonwealth.

Mr Cranston has been suspended without pay.

When charges were laid in mid-May, AFP deputy commissioner Leanne Close described the scale of the alleged fraud as 'unprecedented'.
A Sydney man who was initially sought by police for allegedly trying to pick up a child has been cleared for any wrongdoing.

New South Wales detectives investigating a report of a child being approached at a park in Darling Harbour, in the inner-city, on Tuesday have labelled the incident as a misunderstanding due to his inability to communicate in English.

The conclusion was made after a man had explained the situation clearly to officers at the Bankstown police station on Wednesday night with the help of an interpreter.

This man has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the NSW police after he tried to pick up a child

It was earlier reported the man of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance and aged about 65 had approached a 19-month-old boy at Tumbalong Park about 12.45 pm on Tuesday and was reported to have attempted to pick him up.

The father of boy had intervened but the man soon fled the playground with two younger men.

The matter was reported to the police and a CCTV photograph was issued to the public in a bid to find the man.

Detective Acting Inspector David Gates said the man went to the station to clarify the incident.

'With the help of an interpreter, the man explained the child looked unsteady on his feet, and he was simply trying to help him,' Det Acting Insp Gates said.

'When the boy's father approached him, he was unable to convey this due to the language barrier and left the area.

The family of the 19-month-old boy is happy with the outcome of the police investigation

'Police have reviewed CCTV that supports the man's explanation and are now comfortable there was no malice involved.'

NSW police said the boy's family had also indicated their relief from the outcome of the investigation.

'While in this case no offence was committed, police need to investigate all reports of this nature and treat them as serious until they are deemed not to be,' Det Acting Insp Gates said.

'We would like to thank the public, the media and most importantly the man for coming forward and helping us resolve the matter.'
A decapitated Theresa May features on the front cover of controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo on the day Britain votes for its next Prime Minister.

The satirical weekly also features cartoons of terrified Brits fleeing a terror attack near Big Ben, alongside the caption: 'Slimming tips from ISIS - run fast.'

Another cartoon, seemingly an homage to its notorious cover of the Prophet Mohammed, shows a British man saying: 'At least one never caricatured the prophet.'

In January 2015, two al-Qaeda terrorists forced their way into Charlie Hebdo's Paris office and gunned down 12 people over the magazine's depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.

Its latest controversial edition comes after an attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in which 22 were killed - and another on London Bridge where eight died this weekend.

A decapitated Theresa May features on the latest front cover of controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo

The satirical weekly also features cartoons of terrified people fleeing a terror attack near Big Ben as well as a stereotypically British man (right) saying: 'At least one never caricatured the prophet'

Today, millions will vote in a snap General Election called by Prime Minister Theresa May following a campaign shadowed by terrorism and fear.

May called the vote in April, when opinion poll ratings for her and her centre-right Conservative party were sky high, presenting herself as the strong leader to take Britain into Brexit talks.

But Islamist attacks in London and Manchester have put her under pressure over her six years as interior minister, while campaign missteps have dented her reputation as a safe pair of hands.

Security on voting day was reviewed following the London attack, with the city's Metropolitan Police force implementing a 'specialist and highly flexible operation' which it said could be deployed as needed.

Polling stations, many located in schools and community centres, opened at 7am and will close at 10pm, with 49.6million registered voters electing a total of 650 MPs to parliament.

Britain is still reeling from an attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester (pictured) in which 22 were killed

Parents and children were standing in the lobby of Manchester Arena following the Ariana Grande concert when an ISIS suicide bomber blew himself up

Only this weekend, another terrorist ploughed a white van into crowds of people on London Bridge (pictured) before getting out and stabbing bystanders

An exit poll will give an indication of the outcome, although final results will not emerge until early Friday.

As the Conservatives and Labour trade blows, the smaller pro-European Liberal Democrats and the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party (UKIP) have failed to gain much traction.

It is the third time Britain has gone to the polls in two years, twice for a general election and once for the EU referendum, and voter fatigue appeared to be an issue among the early voters.

Meanwhile, French police have begun questioning the Algerian who attacked a policeman outside Notre Dame cathedral in Paris with a hammer before being shot and wounded by another officer.

The 40-year-old man had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, it emerged earlier Wednesday, but his family voiced shock and officials said he was not known to intelligence services.

Today, millions will vote in a snap election called by Prime Minister Theresa May (pictured) following a campaign shadowed by terrorism and fear

The injured police officer meanwhile described how he thought he was going to die as he was assaulted in front of the world-famous landmark, before one of his colleagues shot the assailant.

'I see a face and I say to myself, this guy is determined, and if my colleague doesn't react, I'm going to leave my life here,' said the 22-year-old officer, who sustained minor neck injuries and left hospital a day after Tuesday's attack.

Video of the incident shows the Algerian suspect lunge at the officer with a hammer, in the middle of a square full of tourists in the shadow of the famous cathedral frontage.
Australia's left-wing race discrimination commissioner has described the idea of locking up Muslim terror suspects as 'divisive' after Pauline Hanson demanded they be placed in internment camps.

The One Nation leader hardened her call to lock up suspected Islamist extremists when asked about Somali-born terrorist Yacqub Khayre, who killed a man in Melbourne on Monday night.

It is an ideology and with these people, you know what? Intern them because I dont want to see one more Australian killed or one more person in fear for their life or their kids lives,' she told the Seven Network on Thursday morning.

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Pauline Hanson says Muslim terror suspects needed to be interned to protect Australian lives

The Race Discrimination Commissioner says Pauline Hanson's idea of internment 'divisive'

Tim Soutphommasane, a former Labor Party member, said the idea of internment 'concerning'

Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane, a former Labor Party member who was appointed by Labor, said calls for internment were 'concerning'.

'Internment would entrench division and violate liberty,' he tweeted.

Sunrise presenter Samantha Armytage had suggested to Senator Hanson that Khayre, a 28-year-old refugee with a meth addiction, hadn't committed the murder in the name of Islam because he had mental health issues.

However, Senator Hanson said it was Islam that motivated someone to kill and not drug addiction.

Pauline Hanson was asked about meth addict terrorist Yacqub Khayre who is now dead

'A lot of people in our society have mental issues, a lot of them are tied upon drugs  but people dont turn to violence and murder other people and thats the problem,' she said during a live cross from the southern Queensland town of St George.

The senator's call to lock up Islamist terror suspects comes only two weeks after Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir held a conference in Sydney asking if Muslims were likely to be locked up in concentration camps.

Australia had internment camps during World War II to lock up the Japanese and Germans.
A married minister has resigned over allegations he formed a 'close relationship' with another woman.

The Reverend Chris MacRae, known as 'Kiki', was put on forced leave of absence three weeks ago amid rumours he was spending time with the wife of another man.

A source said the father of three had initially offered 'pastoral support' to the woman in her mid-20s, who we have chosen not to name, to help her through marital difficulties, but the relationship had then developed.

Pillar of community: Minister Chris MacRae with wife Anna. MacRae, known as 'Kiki', was put on forced leave of absence three weeks ago amid rumours he was spending time with the wife of another man

The 54-year-old resigned from his position at Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland, in Caol, near Fort William, Inverness-shire, late on Tuesday.

Mr MacRae was yesterday said to be 'uncontactable'.

According to the church's website, he lives with his wife, church administrator Anna, 49, and their three children Mairi, Donald and Sine.

The revelations come two months after the Reverend Dr Iain D Campbell, 53, also a member of the Free Church, took his own life on the Isle of Lewis following accusations that he had affairs with seven members of his congregation.

In a statement on the latest scandal, the Free Church of Scotland, based in Edinburgh, said: 'We can confirm that the Presbytery of Inverness, Lochaber and Ross has accepted the resignation of Rev Chris MacRae.

'An interim moderator has been appointed temporarily.'

Suicide tragedy: Dr Iain Campbell with wife Anne. In March, the Scottish Daily Mail revealed that Dr Campbell, a former moderator of the Free Church General Assembly, killed himself after he was accused of seven affairs

Church leaders have so far refused to confirm the reasons for Mr MacRae's departure.

A spokesman for the church added: 'At the beginning of May, the presbytery became aware of allegations relating to one of our ministers.

'Presbytery is aware of the stress and hurt such rumours can have on the congregation, so we have set up a small group to provide pastoral support and guidance.'

Mr MacRae, a keen motorbiker, has been in the position since 2004 and is highly regarded locally. He was brought up on the Isle of Harris but spent most of his summer holidays in Fort William, only two miles from the village of Caol. Before studying theology at the Free Church in Edinburgh, he spent 17 years on the police staff in the town.

A source said his appointment had been successful until the woman approached him for support following troubles with her marriage. The mother has been criticised by locals for spending time at Mr MacRae's manse while his wife was out working.

The 54-year-old Chris MacRae resigned from his position at Kilmallie Free Church of Scotland (pictured), in Caol, near Fort William, Inverness-shire, late on Tuesday

A source said: 'He is a very good minister, the people in the community hold him in high regard.

'I'm sure there are a lot of grey areas in this situation but when it comes down to it, he's a minister and what he is doing is wrong.'

The woman's husband denied any affair when approached.

It is the second scandal to rock the church in as many months.

In March, the Scottish Daily Mail revealed that Dr Campbell, a former moderator of the Free Church General Assembly, killed himself after he was accused of seven affairs.

His church tried to keep the scandal quiet  but it emerged that his widow Anne reported his alleged infidelity to church leaders.

A church inquiry later saw ministers suspend one woman from receiving communion.
A two-year-old girl has died after doctors believe she contracted a rare infection from a tick bite.

Kenley Ratliff, from Indiana, passed away in hospital on Tuesday after a suspected case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Mother Kayla is now trying to raise awareness of the condition and is calling on parents to check their children for ticks.

Family friend Nichol Kirby told 24-Hour News 8 that Kenley contracted a fever last weekend, but was initially treated for strep throat and sent home.

Two-year-old Kenley Ratliff died in hospital on Sunday, a week after doctors believe she contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever from a tick bite

Mother Kayla (left) is now trying to raise awareness of the illness and is encouraging all parents to check their children for ticks

But she was admitted to hospital on Tuesday last week when the fever failed to break, before her whole body swelled and she developed a rash which covered her skin.

Heartbreaking images show the little girl hooked up to breathing machines in hospital as doctors battled to save her.

Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever What is it? A bacterial infection that affects one in 167,000 Americans every year How do you get it? Through the bite of an infected tick What are the symptoms? Sudden onset of fever several days after bite. Headaches, nausea, vomiting and in some cases a rash How dangerous is it? Less than one per cent of cases end in fatality, the CDC says How is it treated? Antibiotic called doxycycline. Other antibiotics may make condition worse. Doxycycline is most effective if administered within five days of symptoms starting Advertisement

Another image shows Kayla laying next to her daughter wearing a face mask and overalls to protect her from the infection.

They are covered by a leopard-print blanket and have some of Kenley's favorite stuffed animals with them.

Kirby told local reporters: 'Her mother was holding her hand her little two year old hand was just so swollen it was almost the size of her mothers.

'She had purple rashes splotches all over her body and un-uniform pattern just all over little tiny purple spots big purple patches.'

A GoFundMe page was set up to pay for Kenley's medical bills, saying the girl was suffering from brain swelling and had a fever of 104F.

But on Sunday the devastated family posted an update which read: 'We are very sad to inform everyone that Kenley has become an angel.

'They took out her breathing tube around 3am. She fought hard and long but she will no longer be suffering.

Family friends said Kenley fell ill last weekend with a high fever in what doctors initially believed was a case of strep throat

When the fever failed to break after two days she was admitted to hospital and placed on a breathing tube after developing a rash all over her body

Kenley's brain began swelling, putting pressure on her spinal chord, and the decision was made to remove her ventilator after her brain activity dropped to virtually nothing

'Thank you so much for the support, and the prayers, Kenley loves you all please take a second to share this post. Rest In Heaven Kenley Boo.'

Doctors still need to carry out a post-mortem to confirm the cause of death, but were treating Kenley for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever before she passed away.

The illness is caused by a bacteria which enters the body through the bite of an infected tick.

According to the Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, the disease affects six in a million people in America every year and is most commonly caught in the summer months.

While incidents of the illness have spiked in recent years, deaths have fallen, with less than 1 per cent of cases now ending in fatality.
Theresa May had her husband Philip by her side as she voted in the election today

Theresa May is on course for victory in the General Election with a majority of up to 96 seats, according to the final polls of the campaign.

A final model produced by Lord Ashcroft polls found that Tory support has 'hardened' in recent days.

It found that if all voters who said they would cast their ballots do, then the Tories will win 373 seats - giving Mrs May a healthy majority of 96.

This would be a substantial increase on the majority of 12 seats the Tories got in the 2015 election.

The latest figures from Lord Ashcroft are based on surveys carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday which showed that Tory supporters indicated that they were more likely to go out and vote than they had in previous surveys.

Although the pollsters also crunched the figures to look at how many seats the Tories will win if turnout is slightly lower.

They found that if turnout is the same as the 2015 election, the Tories would win an estimated 364 Conservative seats and have a majority of 78.

THE FINAL ELECTION POLLS OUT TODAY Modelling carried out by Lord Ashcroft Polls shows that the Tories could win as many as 373 seats  giving Theresa May a majority of 96. An Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard: Tories on 44%, Labour on 36%, Lib Dems on 7%, Ukip on 4%, Greens on 2%, Other on 1%. This would give the Tories a majority of around 40 seats. A YouGov poll for The Times: Tories 42%, Labour 35%, Lib Dems 10%, Ukip 5%. This, taken with YouGovs Scotland findings, translates into majority of 48 seats. An ICM poll for The Guardian: Tories 46%, Labour 34%, Lib Dems 7%, Ukip 5%, Others 8%, translating into an estimated Tory majority of 96 seats. Advertisement

And if everyone who claims to have voted in the EU referendum votes today the estimated number of Conservative seats falls to 351, giving Mrs May a majority of 52.

However, an Ipsos MORI poll for the Evening Standard - also published today - put the Tories on course for victory but with a smaller majority.

The survey put the Tories on 44 per cent - eight points ahead of Labour who are on 36 per cent.

If this is translated at the polling stations this would give Mrs May a majority of around 40 seats.

While a series of polls published this morning also pointed towards a hardening in Tory support during the dramatic closing stages of the campaign.

The findings are a boost for Mrs May, who arrived at her local polling station in Maidenhead this morning with her husband Philip by her side.

Despite the gloomy poll predictions, Jeremy Corbyn gave a thumbs up to reporters as he arrived to cast his ballot in Islington, north London.

The findings come after the two leaders yesterday crisscrossed in a final effort to drum up support for today's vote.

Mrs May last night urged voters to 'reignite the British spirit' and back her to steer Britain through Brexit.

Lord Ashcroft's polls suggest the Tories could be on course to win 373 seats -substantially increasing Theresa May's majority to 96 MPs

Theresa May arrives at the polling station in her constituency of Maidenhead this morning to cast her ballot - as the polls suggest her support has hardened in the closing days

Jeremy Corbyn cast his ballot at a local school in his constituency of Islington in north London

The Labour leader gave a thumbs up as he arrived at the polling station in North London. He has told his supporters that opponents underestimated him in the campaign

Theresa May, pictured arriving at the polling station this morning, is hoping to be returned as PM with an increased majority after today's General Election

The PM, pictured voting with her husband Philip today, has asked the British public to return her to Downing Street with an increased majority so she has a stronger hand in Brexit talks

In a post on his blog accompanying his polling figures, Lord Ashcroft wrote: 'The final results from the Ashcroft Model shows an increase in the estimated Conservative majority compared to Tuesdays figures.

'The new data is based on an updated survey conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, which found a hardening of the Conservative vote as Tory supporters gave a higher likelihood of turning out to vote than in previous rounds.'

A string of polls published this morning also mainly pointed towards a last-minute boost for the Tories.

A YouGov poll for The Times put the Tory lead on seven points, with the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour on 35 per cent  down three points from their last survey.

If the pollster is right, this would return Theresa May to No 10 tomorrow with an increased majority of nearly 50 seats.

In a post on its website explaining the findings, YouGov said it expects the Tories to be returned with an increased majority on Friday.

It added: The Conservatives still look set to secure a solid lead in votes and an overall majority. The question is how large.

It also predicts that the Tories will snatch a 'good handful' of seats from the SNP in Scotland - ending their decades of electoral decline north of the border.

Meanwhile, an ICM poll for the Guardian gave the Tories a bigger, 12-point lead  which if true would translate into a very healthy majority of 96 seats.

It has the Conservatives on 46 per cent, up one point compared to their poll on Monday, while Labour is unchanged on 34 per cent.

A ComRes poll for The Independent gave the Tories a 10-point lead over Labour, with Theresa Mays party on 44 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent.

An Ipsos Mori poll for today's Evening Standard put the Tories on 44% - eight points ahead of Labour on 36%. If this is translated at the ballot box Mrs May will have a majority of around 40

Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the polling station with her husband Peter Murrell in Glasgow this morning. The SNP face the prospect of having several of the seats snatched away by the Tories

Miss Sturgeon and her husband cast their ballots in a community centre. Scotland's First Minister has said a strong showing for the SNP in today's election will give her a fresh mandate to hold another independence referendum - despite holding one just three years ago

Nuns leave St John's Parish hall in central London, where they voted this morning. Britain goes to the polls today in what the PM has described as the most important election in her life

As Britain votes in the General Election today the final opinion polls point towards a hardening of Tory support in the closing stages of the General Election campaign

Today's ICM poll gives the Tories a 12-point lead as Britons head to cast their ballots today

A final poll of polls by the Press Association, which takes the seven day rolling average of all published polls, has the Tories with an eight-point lead on Labour

Collating predictions by different pollsters, the Press Association has projected that Theresa May will be returned to No 10 with a total of 348 Tory MPs

But the polls have varied wildly throughout the election campaign, and one survey has Labour and the Tories neck and neck.

Survation's final pre-election survey put the Tories on 41.3 per cent with Labour marginally behind on 40.4 per cent.

A final 'poll of polls' by the Press Association - which takes the seven day rolling average of all published polls, gives the Tories on an eight-point lead over Labour.

And translating this into seats, they predicted that Mrs May will be returned to No 10, with the Tories getting a total of 348 seats.

Mrs May shocked the the nation when she called the snap election in a surprise speech on the steps of no 10 in April.

She has described the election as the most important in her lifetime and stressed that only she can be trusted to stand up to Brussels and deliver Brexit.

But the campaign has been overshadowed by he terror attacks in Manchester and London.

Mr Corbyn has claimed that he has changed the face of British politics by putting forward a tax and spend manifesto which exerts said is the most left-wing in the party's history.
An airline passenger was barred from a flight and reported to police after an angry outburst that left a Ryanair boarding attendant in tears.

The man claimed he was a victim of 'mob tendencies by Europeans against dark skinned foreigners.'

The mobile phone footage, shot by the angry customer, shows him heckling a Ryanair staff member at Belgium's Brussels Airport.

The attendant, referred to as Sabrina in the clip, stopped the man from boarding the aircraft because he did not have a pre-printed pass and he didn't want to pay the 50 charge.

The man didn't back down and demanded to see the woman's supervisor to which Sabrina replied by telling the man she would call security if he continued his rant

A spokesman for Aviapartner, which manages the check-in at Brussels airport, said: 'A passenger who had failed to check-in on-line (as required) became disruptive during the boarding of this flight from Brussels to Berlin and refused to pay the Airport Check-in Fee due, distracting the gate agent from her duties and disturbing other passengers.

'The flight departed on-time, the passenger in question did not travel and has since been reported to the local police.'

The man, who is from Brooklyn, New York and currently lives in in Germany, didn't back down and demanded to see her supervisor to which she replied that she would call security if he continued his rant.

After a barrage of verbal attacks, which the attendant ignored, she smiled which only infuriated the man more.

He said: 'That's the only thing that's funny. It's your attitude and it stinks, you have a bad attitude. You have no business working here dealing with customers.'

The ordeal reached breaking point when Sabrina broke down in tears and other passengers jumped to her defence.

'You're disturbing everybody,' one onlooker tells the man.

However the good Samaritan is met with his own barrage of tailor made insults with the man calling him a 'fatso' and tells him to 'get on a treadmill.'

'You need a break, you donut eating bald piece of crap,' he added.

A sales manager on the scene named Philipp tried to deescalate the situation but after a few moments of calm conversation the angry man raised his voice again.

Philipp told the MailOnline that the accusations of racism the man made are false.

He said: 'Any no time there was a smell of racism against him. After I told him that I am an former cop he calmed down.'

The video was uploaded by the passenger to his YouTube channel 'Prince OfTheUniverse' earlier this week and has been viewed close to 150,00 times.

The good Samaritan (left) is met with his own barrage of tailor made insults with the man calling him a 'fats' and tells him to 'get on a treadmill.' Another passenger (right) tries to calm the situation

Despite the majority of comments being overwhelming in support for the airline employee 'Prince OfTheUniverse' maintains he was targeted by Ryanair staff due to his skin colour.

In a retort to the negative comments he garnered he said: 'All of troll comments are a perfect example of the Point this Video proves.'

A caption with his video read: 'Is it because I am 'black'? Mob tendencies by Europeans against dark skinned foreigners, especially so called 'blacks' are alive and well as evidenced by this video.'

One viewer wrote: 'I find it hard to believe that people like you actually exist. You are an awful, awful, awful human being. How do you wake up and deal with knowing that?'

Another simply said: 'Is it because I am 'black'? No, it's because you're an idiot.'

A Ryanair spokesperson told MailOnline: 'Our handling agent at Brussels Airport, Aviapartner, is looking into this matter. We will not tolerate unruly or disruptive behaviour at any time.'

In a video uploaded on to the YouTube channel in September 2016 the man accused German police of racism after they tried to remove him from busking on the street.
Iran has branded Donald Trump's reaction to ISIS attacks in capital Tehran 'repugnant' after the US president claimed the nation is reaping what it sows.

The attack claimed the lives of 13 people and a further 40 were wounded at the country's parliament complex.

Wednesday's attack, close to the shrine to revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is the first claimed by ISIS in Iran.

The US President has been accused of kicking the country while it is down by furious Iranians.

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The attack claimed the lives of 13 people and a further 40 were wounded at the country's parliament complex

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: 'Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients'

YEAH, YOU: Trump's unusually pointed statement followed a kinder sentence about praying for the Iranian people

Trump said the US would 'grieve and pray' for the victims, but added: 'We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.'

That was condemned by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: 'Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.'

The six attackers were Iranians who had joined IS, the deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Reza Seifollahi, said on state TV.

In Wednesday's statement, Trump wrote: 'We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times.'

Donald Trump let his sarcasm fly on Wednesday, lecturing Iran's leaders after an ISIS attack by saying they back terrorists themselves

The spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington, D.C. tweeted: 'Exactly.'

ISIS claimed its first ever terror attack in Iran on Wednesday after fighters stormed parliament and attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini (pictured, images released by the terror group claiming to show a fighter inside parliament)

While ministers continued sitting inside the main chamber, government workers were rushed from the building as security services engaged jihadis in a gun battle several floors above

But it then continued: 'We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.'

Aaron Sagui, a spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington, quoted that last sentence and tweeted: 'Exactly.'

Trump's comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government's offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

'Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy,' tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack, saying: 'This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US President Donald Trump and the Saudi backward leaders who support terrorists.

'The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they [Saudi Arabia] were involved in the brutal attack.'

Security surrounded parliament as oine jihadi blew himself up inside parliament while another three were shot dead

Anti-terror police exchanged fire with the attackers in a northern part of the building before a suicide bomb detonated on the fourth floor (pictured, the attackers)

ISIS earlier said fighters armed with AK47s and pistols stormed parliament through the civilian entrance while disguising themselves as women by wearing burkas, shooting security guards before detonating a suicide bomb, killing at least five and wounding 25.

The State Department condemned the deadly twin attacks, with spokeswoman Heather Nauert saying 'the depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world.'

Official American statements of solidarity with the victims are notable because of the deep distrust between the US and Iran. The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations and the Trump administration has emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence.

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in Congress acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions. The strong bipartisan vote was 92-7.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week in the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

Security forces stood guard as women and children were evacuated from the windows of the lower floors to rescuers below. Four jihadi fighters got into parliament through the visitor door while disguised as women in burkas before filming part of their rampage inside, including the body of a government worker

'Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation,' said Vermont's independent liberal senator Bernie Sanders.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

The bill is a 'carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East,' said Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

Police said they shot the second suicide attacker dead before he could detonate his device (body of dead attacker pictured)

Two suicide bombers targeted a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, with one detonating an explosive (pictured)

Iranian authorities have arrested five suspects.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister denied claims of the state's involvement and, like the US, condemned the attack.

Meanwhile two more suicide bombers attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of modern-day Iran, as another suicide device was detonated, killing at least two and injuring another 10.

The Guards' accusation dramatically escalates already-strained tensions on the Arabian Peninsula, coming after Saudi Arabia led a group of six nations in cutting ties with Qatar, saying the country supported 'Iranian terrorist groups'.
Voters descended on Britain's polling stations this morning with their pets in tow - with dogs, cats and even rats making an appearance.

Britons posted pictures of their beloved pets at polling stations up and down the country.

And while dogs at polling stations have become a familiar sight - trending on Twitter during recent elections - other pet owners refused to be left out.

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Phil Heard rides his horse Ranger away from a polling station in Devon this morning as he was one of many voters who arrived to vote with their animals

Phil Heard left his trusty horse outside when he popped into the polling station in Devon to vote this morning

Phil Heard had ridden his horse Ranger through the Devonshire countryside to arrive at Meldon Village Hall to vote

Some voters were posting pictures of their rats on Twitter along with hashtag #ratsatpollingstations.

While in Devon voter Phil Heard turned up on his horse to cast his ballot.

Twitter user @London_Ratties wrote: 'Here we are...ratsatpollingstations along with a picture of their furry friend outside the polling station.

While others posted pictures of cats sauntering past the polling sttaiopns.

Broitain is voting today in what has been described as the most important General Election in decades.

A voter takes hold on to her horse as she marks her ballot while voting in the village of Carlton in Cambridgeshire this morning

Rat owners took their furry friends to polling stations this morning

A dog looks less than impressed as they are taken to a polling station early this morning

One dog owner posted a picture of her pet pug Noodle as she went to vote this morning

Theresa may and Jeremy Corbyn have travelled the country during the seven week campaign to drum up support

Mrs May shocked the country when she called the snap election in a shock statement on the steps of No 10 April.

She told the country that she was calling the vote to ask for an bigger a majority to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations.

While Mr Corbyn has promised to hike taxes, borrow billions and go on a reantionalisation spree if he is elected PM.

The veteran leftwinger produced a manifesto which experts say is the most left-wing in Labour's history.

But the final stages of the election campaign has been overshadowed the two terror attacks in London and Manchester.

There was increased security at polling stations in the wake of the bloody atrocities, which killed dozens and injured over 100 more.

One woman arrives at a polling station with her dog in Croydon south London

A woman had her hands full with three dogs as she leaves the polling station at Burton Court pavilion in southwest London this morning

A dog arrives in Coulsdon where their owner was voting at a private garage which has been turned into a polling station for today's vote

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson joined in the fun by taking her pet dog Wilson along with her when she voted in Edinburgh this morning

A dog waits patiently outside a polling station at Chestnuts primary school this morning

A pooch wore a pink jacket as it eagerly led its owner away from the polling station in Congleton this morning

Terrier-cross George stands on his hind legs as he waits for his owner outside a polling station in Darlington this morning

The craze of voters taking their dogs to poling stations is now so widespread that the Dogs trust has partnered with Twitter to encourage local stations to have bowls of water on hand in case the pets are thirsty.

Polling stations that have taken part have been dubbed paw-ing stations.

Dogs Trust campaigns officer, Jon Gerlis said: 'We're delighted that everyone is as excited by #dogsatpollingstations as we are  and we want to show that with just a few simple steps, polling stations can become Paw-ing Stations, by keeping dogs happy and safe, giving the nine million dog owners peace of mind as they vote on polling day.

'We'd like to thank all the polling stations who have taken the lead to become dog friendly already.'
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Were prophets unique in Israel, or are there links between prophecy in Israel and the rest of the Ancient Near East ? (25)- The above question requires one to have deep knowledge, concerning the origins of prophecy, number of so many books have been authored by various authors, in other words this means that there is no excuse of failing to understand the origins of prophecy. I have also authored number of articles concerning origins of prophecy, you can make use of them. Any challenge which you will encounter, you can reach me through my WhatsApp number which will be displayed after the presentation. Teachers, can assist you as well to understand the origins of prophecy. The origins of prophecy has been an unending debate among scholars, so many different theories have been brought forward, still there is confusion. On this ongoing article the author seeks to answer the above question.- Prophets in Israel were unique, as they received calls, number of so many prophets in Israel received calls from Yahweh, this is true in the case of Samuel, who is believed to have received a call when the voice of Yahweh was rare. Samuel encountered a theophanic experience when he heard a voice, this is recorded in 1st Samuel 3:1. Some of the Israelite prophets, they are believed to have experienced calls. This was unique in Israel as it indicated that Yahweh was responsible for appointing his own prophets as it is documented in Deuteronomy 18:18. The extra-biblical sources, there are silent about the view prophets of surrounding nations received calls, hence, this indicates that prophets of Israel were unique.N.B There are so many points which can be added.- They were divinely inspired.- They were forbidden to use other methods.- In as much as it can be stated that prophets of Israel were unique, this should not be emphasized as there are links between prophecy of Israel and surrounding Ancient Near East Countries. For instance, Israelites experienced ecstasy, this idea was first experienced by the 70 elders during the exodus event, this is recorded in Numbers 11 :22-26. The type of ecstasy which they experienced has been interpreted by different scholars, some believe that it was contagious type of ecstasy. This has been supported by Constable in page 41, paragraph 4 in his NUMBERS notes who submitted that this type of prophecy was selective and temporary. This type of prophecy was also common in surrounding nations, this has been supported by Pritchard quoted by B.W.Anderson in his book entitled the "The Living World of Old Testament", who recorded the story of Wen -Amon [the story is well known ]The sons of prophets in Israel experienced absorption ecstasy; absorption ecstasy is whereby an individual prophesy ecstatically after being induced or absorbed by music, this is recorded in 1st Samuel 10:6-10 has been supported by J Lindblom quoted by Ewbank page 9, paragraph 6.Elisha summoned music in order for him to prophesy, this is recorded in 2rd Kings 3:15 [The point in this case is that Israelites experienced ecstasy]. Extra biblical sources proves that ecstasy was common in surrounding nations, it was common in Syria, this can be supported by the story of STELLE ZAKIR, who was answered by a seer who delivered the visions in trance. The story of Mt Camel Contest is well known by so many people, what cannot be noticed is that the Baal prophets which were exported by Jezebel from Phoenicia experienced ecstasy in 1st Kings 18:28,this type of ecstasy is also believed by B.W.Anderson in his book entitled "The Living word of Old Testament" to have existed in Asia -Minor (orges of Dionysus). All this, indicates that there is a link between prophecy of Israel and that of surrounding nations, as it evidenced by the above information which the writer fully highlighted.- The prophetic titles of Israel prophets, there believed to be similar to those of surrounding nations, Israel prophets named their prophets as man of God, this trend started with Moses, this is evidenced in Joshua 14:6,Samuel was also regarded as a man of God in 1st Samuel 9:7-9, Elijah the Tishbite was regarded as a man of God by the widow of Zerapath in 1st Kings 17:12-20.The young prophet from Judah is named as man of God in the bible (1st Kings 13:1) even though scholars like Josephus named him as Jadon. In surrounding nations they were prophets who were named as man of God, this has been supported by Martin North citing the story of Andrew Parrot the French archaeologist who discovered 20 000 tablets with names and inscriptions of prophets which were quite similar to those of Israel prophets [Sometimes the story is well known as the story of ZIMRI LIM ). Basing on this one will be left with no choice, but to suggest that there is a link between prophecy of Israel and that of surrounding nations considering the above similarities.- Advising Kings (Gad and Nathan ): Similar to the story of Balaam the Moabite who advised the King of Moab Baalak to offer the sacrifices [read Numbers 23 :1 to get full information]- Israel prophets experienced visions, the prophets of surrounding nations also experienced visions this can be supported by the story of Zakir.- The issue of sacrifices should not be neglected as Balaam the Moabite prophet offered sacrifices. [Read Numbers 22 and 23:1]Basing on the totality of the mentioned points, it can be concluded that prophets of Israel were unique to certain degree, when receiving calls and inspiration from the deity is concerned. However, totality of the raised points indicate that there is a great connection between prophecy of Israel and that of surrounding nations.
An Australian woman has revealed she was asked for her hand in marriage at the tender age of 14 - by a man and his family who had flown in from Turkey.

Dilvin Yasa says she was sitting at home watching television with her brother when a man and his family arrived at their front door.

Pushing through the doorway and settling themselves in the living room, the 27-year-old man and his parents immediately began to talk business, Ms Yasa wrote in an article for Nine Honey.

'The offer of livestock began soon afterwards with the parents calling out random farmyard animals like a bad nursery rhyme,' she wrote.

Dilvin Yasa says a Turkish family arrived at her doorstep when she was just 14 to ask her parents for her hand in marriage

The man's father had explained his son had 'heard good things' about the teenager, and offered '15 sheep' or '20 goats' for her hand in marriage.

Ms Yasa's parents did not take the deal. They kicked the Turkish family out of their home and threatened to call the police on the 27-year-old if they were ever approached again.

But for many, this is not the case.

Australian Federal Police figures released last month show there were 69 claims of forced marriage in Australia in 2015/16 - compared to 33 in 2014/15 and 11 in the previous period.

The family, who had flown from Turkey just for the unscheduled meeting, offered Ms Yasa's parents livestock in an attempt to sweeten the deal - but the woman's father kicked them out and threatened to call police instead

A forced marriage is when someone is married without freely and fully consenting and includes ceremonies involving children too young to legally wed.

According to a 2014 Plan International report, there are almost 70million child and adolescent brides in the world.

If current rates of child marriage continue, more than 140million girls will be married this decade.

The report found 14million married girls, aged 15-19 and living in the developing world, gave birth each year.

Complications in pregnancy and childbirth is the leading cause of death for girls in that demographic.

According to a 2014 Plan International report , there are almost 70million child and adolescent brides in the world

There are no concrete statistics on child marriage in Australia, but cases of Australian families preparing their daughters for marriage or forcing them into a family-approved wedding are not unheard of.

In 2010, a Victorian girl, aged only 13, was saved from being married when her school alerted authorities she had stopped attending school.

It was soon discovered her parents were instead preparing her for marriage - to a 17-year-old living overseas.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Act 2012, was passed through parliament in 2013.

It makes forced marriage a crime punishable by a jail sentence of four to seven years.
A Melbourne staffordshire terrier named Axle has gone viral for balancing a set of fidget spinners on his nose and paws.

The original video has received more than 14 million views in total and led to the proud pup being signed to Animal Extras agency.

But Axle's owner Belinda Shipp lost the rights to the original footage when she signed it over to a popular media website.

But Axle's owner Belinda Shipp lost the rights to the original footage when she signed it over to a popular media website

'It was 2am and they were asking if they could share the video so I agreed of course. But I didn't realise I'd given them the rights,' Ms Shipp told Daily Mail Australia.

But she didn't despair, instead choosing to re-upload a new video with Axle fidget spinning with safety glasses on.

'People had mentioned the fidget spinners were close to his eyes in the original video so we upgraded on the safety this time,' Ms Shipp said.

'People had mentioned the fidget spinners were close to his eyes in the original video so we upgraded on the safety this time,' Ms Shipp said

Axle has more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and almost 1,000 on Facebook but Ms Shipp almost didn't get the precious pup in the first place

Axle has more than 10,000 followers on Instagram and almost 1,000 on Facebook but Ms Shipp almost didn't get the precious pup in the first place.

'Originally I didn't want a dog. I didn't think much of staffies at the time. My son begged me for six months before I relented as long as he took care of it,' she said.

'But as soon as I saw Axle he melted my heart. He is loyal and there is an unconditional love there. I wish all people could spend time around a staffy - if they have mixed feelings about them that would change.'

The six-year-old dog started his steady rise to fame when Ms Shipp uploaded videos of her prized pooch to Melbourne Staffy Owners on Facebook

The six-year-old dog started his steady rise to fame when Ms Shipp uploaded videos of her prized pooch to Melbourne Staffy Owners on Facebook.

'He would be balancing a ball or wearing a hardhat in the workshop. Everyone loved it,' she said.

Ms Shipp worked with the Stafford Rescue Victoria group and would bring Axle to their fundraising sausage sizzle to take 'Stelfie's' with the locals.

'He would be balancing a ball or wearing a hardhat in the workshop. Everyone loved it,' she said

But it wasn't until she stumbled on a bunch of fidget spinners in a newsagent that everything changed.

'I didn't even know what they were but I'm always looking out for things Axle can balance. It really took off,' she said.

'The main reward for me is making people smile. And Axle does that.
On Saturday night eight people were killed and at least 48 injured in terror attacks in London Bridge and Borough.

This is the countrys second terrorist attack in less than two weeks, following the Manchester Arena attack last month.

On Friday, Douglas Murray, wrote for The Spectator, about the need to change our approach to Islamic extremism:

Last Sunday, I appeared on the BBCs Sunday Politics to discuss the aftermath of the Manchester attack. I said what I thought, and various Muslim groups promptly went bananas.

This was not caused by my suggestion that this country should finally crack-down on British officials who spend their retirements working as shills for the House of Saud. Nor by my ridiculing of that modern European tradition whereby someone blows us up and we respond by singing John Lennon songs (and now Oasis too).

Rather they objected to my simple two-word suggestion that we could all do with less Islam.

When a suicide bomber in Manchester blows up 22 young people as they leave a concert, the one thing nobody must say is that there is any connection whatsoever with Islam, writes Douglas Murray

On Saturday night eight people were killed and at least 48 injured in terror attacks in London Bridge and Borough (pictured during the final moments)

Politicians talk about how great it is that the violence has brought us together, so distracting attention from the bodies that have been blown apart, Mr Murray says

In a short film preceding the studio discussion, I mentioned that countries like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have very little Islam and very little Islamic terror. By contrast, France has a great amount of Islam and a great amount of Islamic terror.

To most people it would seem obvious  to co-opt the immortal words of Donatella Versace  that more means more. Because although many communities are capable of producing extremists, only Islamic communities produce Islamic extremists. Of course some people dont want to accept this fact. Not least because informed choices might result.

For instance, it might help us weigh up the ongoing cultural benefits of large-scale Islamic immigration versus the down-side of dozens of obliterated lives every now and then.

Has our society got zero interest in working out what might produce people like suicide bomber Salman Abedi?

If I were a Muslim I would like to think that I would be seriously ashamed about all this, and spend my time  like Sara Khan and a few other noble souls  trying to deal with my communitys problems rather than covering them over.

Sadly  for reasons about which I dare not speculate  many of the most vocal Muslim groups in Britain have other priorities.

Since last Sunday, various Muslim groups and individuals have made complaints against me, including promises to report me to the police.

My old friend Mehdi Hasan used Twitter to attack the taxpayer-funded impartial BBC for airing that and claimed that my two words were advocating ethnic cleansing.

Of course Mehdi works for the non-independent, Qatari government-owned Al-Jazeera. A broadcaster that thinks it perfectly acceptable to promote his programmes with the use of Nazi-style anti-Semitic images like this.

But so it is that various Muslims and Muslim groups who have spent recent years urging British Muslims not to cooperate with the UK authorities on counter-terrorism are now keenly urging Muslims to complain about me to any and all authorities. A telling set of priorities, I would say.

In any case, what I really wanted to open up in that short segment was an oddity of our now 16-year old response to Islamic terror.

For over that time we have essentially adopted the argument of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups for whom the answer to absolutely everything is Islam. You have a problem? The answer is Islam. Something good has happened to you? The answer is Islam. You have a problem with Islam? The answer is Islam.

For a decade and a half the West has adopted this reasoning. If a group of men fly planes into the Twin Towers all the leaders of the free world rush to the local Islamic centre to extol the wonders of Islam. When a group of British Muslims blow up the London transport system the citys police chiefs wave away the smoke and immediately extol the peacefulness of Islam. And when a suicide bomber in Manchester blows up 22 young people as they leave a concert, the one thing nobody must say is that there is any connection whatsoever with Islam. The problem cannot be Islam. Yet the answer apparently always is.

Personally I dislike this indecent over-compensation and would like rather less of it. I dislike the fact that before the victims bodies have been identified in the morgue the local police are at the local mosque for a group hug and photo.

I dislike the politicians who, only hours after another Islamist atrocity, talk about how great it is that the violence has brought us together, so distracting attention from the bodies that have been blown apart.

Of course it is a sickness of a sort  one which I have recently written about at some length. And all the symptoms are ongoing.

On last Thursday nights BBC Question Time programme, an audience member said he was given an anti-West leaflet at Didsbury Mosque, pictured on May 24

Consider the reaction last week on Question Time when an audience member, who happened to have the triple disadvantages of being white, male and not being young, waved an anti-Western leaflet he said had been handed out at an open day at the Didsbury mosque where Salman Abedi worshipped. This significant revelation mainly attracted awkward shuffling.

By contrast, a young woman in a headscarf in the audience immediately dismissed the mans leaflet as probably not from the mosque and in any case taken out of context. Along with the programmes chair, David Dimbleby, she implied it was possible the man had made the leaflet up himself, leaving the poor man spluttering, waving his leaflet and clearly wondering why he wouldnt be believed. Well he can join the rest of the non-Muslim nation (and the few actual reformers) in that club.

For the foreseeable future there remains little place for such people in the nations narrative. If the bomber is the problem, then his mosque has to be the answer. Its the same everywhere: Dont look back in anger, just forward in blind, bovine hope.

For instance, still nobody wants to ask what responsibility should be apportioned to Salford University where the Manchester bomber was recently a student.

There seems very little interest in the fact that the Vice Chancellor when Abedi entered the university (Martin Hall) was vocally opposed to the UK governments only counter-extremism strategy, which encourages people to report signs of radicalisation among students (see, for instance, here) Nor does anyone seem very interested in the fact that the current President of the Student Union  Zamzam Ibrahim  has a very interesting set of views. And not just that she has spent her time representing Salfords students by campaigning against the governments only counter-extremism strategy.

Ariana Grande appeared on stage at the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground after returning to the city for the first time after the May 22 attack outside her arena gig

Ms Ibrahim has spent recent days deleting and making private various of her online profiles. Though not fast enough. Among the questions this enlightened young woman was asked on her now-deleted ask.fm profile was Can there be friendship between a man and a woman. Her short answer: NO. More interesting is her answer to the question Whats the one book you think everyone should be required to read?

Her answer: The Quraan [sic], We would have an Islamic takeover!

All of which points to many specific questions and one overriding one: Why dont we want to know? Why must the man waving the leaflet be the liar, and the mosque be innocent and the activities of officials like Martin Hall and Zamzam Ibrahim be of no interest? Has our society got zero interest in working out what might produce people like Abedi?

The fact is  once again  that we may ask the question but we dont want to hear the answer. Because if what all these things suggest is true then we could be in serious trouble. Perhaps we are.

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray published by Bloomsbury 18.99
This is the shocking moment a rapper is sent flying across the stage during a concert in San Diego on Wednesday night, sparking a mass brawl.

XXXTentacion was in mid-flow when his assailant barreled into him with a brutal sucker-punch to the face, knocking the rapper to the floor and out of consciousness.

Security men piled in on the unknown attacker, while bystanders joined in to create a mass chaotic fray.

The rapper was apparently out cold for about a minute, but suffered no lasting damage.

He subsequently spoke to the crowd to show that he was alive and well.

The rapper, born Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy, 19, was performing at the Observatory in San Diego, the home city of one of his rivals, Rob $tone, whom some commentators have suggested may have been behind the brutal attack.

XXX later took to Twitter to accuse the venue of betraying him and allowing the attack to be carried out.

In combative mood, he also advised his enemies to finish him off next time.



Born in Plantation, Florida, in 1998, XXXTentacion is of Egyptian, Indian, German, Jamaican and Italian descent. In 2016, he released the EP Willy Wonka Was A Child Murderer.

His most famous song is Look at Me, which peaked at number 34 on US Billboard Hot 100 and the Top 40 of the Canadian Hot 100. The track has been sampled by Canadian hip-hop artist Drake.

Before the storm: XXXTentacion performs his first song at the Observatory in San Diego

Sucker-punched: An unknown assailant flies towards the unsuspecting rapper

Clean hit: XXX is sent flying across the stage by the force of the strike

Out cold: The rising teenage hip-hop artist lies supine as his enemy continues the attack

Help at hand: A member of the venue's security team attempts to wrestle the assailant away from the rapper

Piling in: Venue security team up to turn the tables on the attacker, laying into him with kicks and punches

Down and out: XXX remains out cold on the floor as his assailant is bundled away and angry members of the audience begin to mount the stage

Kicking off: Bystanders get involved as the mood in the venue turns febrile

In the fray: Punches fly left, right and center as security guards and concertgoers mingle in the melee

Out for the count: XXX is carried to safety by two members of the venue's security team

Back on his feet: The rapper speaks to the crowd after the attack




Jeremiah Regis-Ngaujah (pictured) was just two when he died after enduring more than 100 injuries at the hands of his mother's boyfriend, Chevaze McGregor

A little boy brutally murdered by his mother's evil boyfriend suffered more than a hundred separate injuries, it has been revealed.

Jeremiah Regis-Ngaujah, who was just two, was left 'broken and battered' at the hands of sadistic thug Chevaze McGregor.

The helpless child died as a result of a severe blow to his abdomen, possibly caused by a fist, a knee or by being stamped on.

Jeremiah - known as 'little smiler' - was just two years and nine months old when he was brutally beaten to death at his home in Wolverhampton.

McGregor, 30, who police described as a 'controlling, manipulative and violent individual', pleaded guilty to murdering Jeremiah yesterday at Birmingham Crown Court.

Jeremiah's mother, Sindyann Regis, 26, had previously admitted allowing the death ofa child. Her not guilty plea to murder was accepted by the prosecution.

Sally Howes QC, prosecuting, said Jeremiah was born in February 2014 but his parents had separated before the birth.

Sindyann was living in London at the time and had been brought up in the Pentecostal church where she met McGregor while six or seven months' pregnant.

They were initially just friends but it developed into a relationship, and her new boyfriend was present at the birth of Jeremiah.

But the relationship came to an end and Regis moved to an address in Wednesfield.

However, the couple stayed in touch and in June 2016 they rekindled their relationship.

Chevaze McGregor (left) pleaded guilty to murdering little Jeremiah, at Birmingham Crown Court yesterday. The two-year-old endured more than 100 injuries, including a fractured skull and ribs, injuries to his arms and legs - and even a bite mark on his chest. His mother, Sindyann Regis (right), had already admitted allowing the death of a child

The court heard how McGregor used physical chastisement to 'toughen children up'.

The thug used his fists, a belt and a rod to discipline Jeremiah and three other children.

Prosecutor Miss Howes said that an ambulance crew, responding to a 999 call, went to the Black Country address on November 20, 2016.

Sindyann had knocked on neighbours' doors at the flats where she lived, claiming her son was unwell and had been sick.

Killer McGregor approached the ambulance carrying little Jeremiah - but the child had not pulse and was not breathing.

Teh child was pronounced dead in the early hours of the next day, having undergone emergency treatment to save his life.

Doctors who examined Jeremiah's body became suspicious of the injuries he had suffered, and of other marks covering his small frame.

Police were alerted and a post-mortem examination revealed that Jeremiah died from peritonitis as a result of blunt force trauma to his abdomen.

It was a significant and heavy blow which could have resulted from a clenched fist, the point of an elbow or a knee, kicks or stamps.

It was also revealed that Jeremiah had endured more than 100 injuries, including a fractured skull and ribs, injuries to his arms and legs - and even a bite mark on his chest.

Sindyann told police that her partner had 'anger management difficulties'.

'He would get so angry and everyone was a bit scared,' she said.

Police have released further CCTV footage after the court case of McGregor flying into a rage just months before he killed Jeremiah

CCTV footage of an incident at the home of McGregor's father showed Chevaze having an uncontrollable outburst of temper.

He goes on to tear his own t-shirt from the neck to the waist - and then hurled himself face-down onto the floor.

Miss Howes said: 'This is a case of a callous, sustained regime of brutality against a defenceless two-year-old child in his own home.

Jeremiah was left broken and battered with life-threatening injuries.

'As his life ebbed away, moment by agonising moment, McGregor stood by and watched, knowing full well what he had done.'

Even the investigating police officers were shocked by the brutality inflicted uponlittle Jeremiah.

Speaking after the case, which was heard at Birmingham Crown Court (pictured) Detective Inspector Warren Hines, from the West Midlands Police homicide team, spoke of their horror. 'The death of one so young is always tragic,' he said.

NSPCC: 'JEREMIAH SUFFERED HORRIFIC CATALOGUE OF INJURIES'

An NSPCC spokesman said: 'It is deeply shocking that someone who should have protected and nurtured this defenceless young child could inflict such terrible pain and take his life. 'Jeremiah suffered a horrific catalogue of injuries, and it is only right his mother and stepfather face the full force of the law for the sickening crimes they have admitted. 'It is vital that people are alert to the warning signs that a child is being abused or neglected, and that they report their concerns - it could save a child from serious harm. 'They can call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000, text 88858 or email Advertisement

Speaking after the case, Detective Inspector Warren Hines, from the West Midlands Police homicide team, spoke of their horror.

'The death of one so young is always tragic,' he said.

'But it's horrifying to think of the amount of violence and suffering this child must have endured at the hands of someone he should have been able to trust.

'McGregor was a controlling, manipulative and violent individual.

'He believed in chastising children physically and used a belt, a rod and his fists to cause the terrible injuries to Jeremiah.

'We believe the fatal assault was inflicted a couple of days before, and Jeremiah was left in agony until he succumbed to peritonitis.

'Evidence shows that Jeremiah had defensive wounds to his hands and arms, which shows he tried to shield himself from the beatings.'

Detective Inspector Hines added: 'Evidence shows McGregor was prone to bouts of extreme loss of temper.

'Sindyann must have known what was happening - we have been told Jeremiah whimpered when McGregor was around - yet she allowed him sole charge and discipline of the toddler.

'Parents are duty-bound to care for children and to nurture them into adulthood.

'The home should be a sanctuary of safety, reassurance and happiness, not a place where they are brutalised and beaten.

'Jeremiah must have spent his short life absolutely terrified.'

Both Chevaze McGregor and Sindyann Regis will be sentenced on June 23.
A serious traffic crash near Mackay in Queensland has left a man fighting for his life.

An off-duty police sergeant, 44, was allegedly running across a road from a side street on Wednesday when he was hit by a 23-year-old woman, theCourier Mail reported.

The woman was on her way to work at Mackay Base Hospital when she hit the man on Glenella Richmond Road just before 8.30pm.

The man was taken to Mackay Base Hospital, and later flown to Townsville Base Hospital in a critical condition.

A 44-year-old off-duty police officer near Mackay in Queensland has been hit by a car and is now fighting for his life

Queensland Police released a statement saying the man has 'life threatening injuries'.

The woman behind the wheel was uninjured.

A spokesperson for QPS told Daily Mail Australia the woman had not been charged and investigations were ongoing.

Police are appealing for anyone with information to contact Policelink on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
A British Transport Police officer who was stabbed in the face during the London Bridge terror attack has said today he is 'truly moved and overwhelmed by all the support'.

The officer, who sustained 'life-altering injuries' while trying to take on the jihadis armed only with his baton, added: 'I'm so sorry I couldn't do more and I want you to know I did everything I could.'

He suffered injuries to his face, leg and hands as he tried to protect the public from three knife-wielding extremists who went on a crazed rampage along London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday evening.

In a statement from the force, he thanked members of the public for their support.

The officer, who has not been named, said: 'Like every police officer who responded, I was simply doing my job. I didn't expect the level of love and well wishes I have received.

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A British Transport Police officer who was stabbed in the face during the London Bridge terror attack has said he is 'truly moved and overwhelmed by all the support'. Above, police officers arrive to lay flowers near the scene of the attacks

The officer's Chief Constable Paul Crowther (pictured) has since praised the 'outstanding bravery' of the officer who is understood to be on probation having joined the force less than two years ago

'I feel like I did what any other person would have done. I want to say sorry to the families that lost their loved ones. I'm so sorry I couldn't do more and I want you to know I did everything I could.'

His Chief Constable Paul Crowther has since praised the 'outstanding bravery' of the officer who is understood to be on probation having joined the force less than two years ago.

The officer was one of the first on the scene as he responded to calls for help from the public after a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge.

He praised his BTP colleagues, who tended to him as he lay injured.

'I am so proud of my colleagues from BTP and everyone from the other emergency services who were on shift that night and did everything they could in the face of danger,' he said.

The rented van used by the attackers pictured at the scene, where it was abandoned shortly after 10pm on Saturday night during the terror attack

'I especially want to thank the officers who saved my life and kept me alive. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.

'Saturday night changed my life, like I'm sure it has for many others. My thoughts are with the people who died in the attack, but also with those that were injured and are recovering in hospital, including the three other officers that were injured, and all the members of the public who rushed to help.'

Fellow BTP officers Alfred Iswa, 51, and Lee Crook, who turned 36 on the night of the attack, previously described how they tended to their injured colleague.

Pc Iswa said: 'As soon as I got there, I could see blood was coming out of his face, near the eye.

The latest attack was the third terror attack in the last nine weeks on British soil

'I was trying to help him and he pointed his baton towards the attacker and said "Get him". Even when injured, he was trying to fight.'

Pc Leon McLeod, 29, ran after Youssef Zaghba, Khuram Butt and Rachid Redouane as they carried out their deadly knife attack, unaware of the condition of his fellow officer.

He said: 'I thought he was OK at first. I still wish I could have done a bit more. It is still quite surreal.'

The injured officer said he had received support from across the globe.

He said: 'I am truly moved and overwhelmed by all the support and comments that I've received, not only from people in this country but across the world.'

A friend whose husband works with the officer told The Daily Telegraph he sustained 'life altering but not life threatening' injuries and labelled him a hero who 'sets the example we should all follow'.

RUGBY FANS RAISE THOUSANDS FOR OFFICER Rugby fans have raised thousands of pounds for a heroic British Transport police officer who took on the three knifemen armed with just his baton. The jihadists left the BTP officer, who has not yet been named, in hospital from his wounds. He was said to be in stable condition but with life changing injuries after he was stabbed in the face, head, and neck when he was one of the first to respond to Saturday night's attack. Now, rugby website Ruck, Rugby Pass, and the Rugby Union section of popular social media site Reddit, have almost hit their goal of raising 5,000 for the officer. Today the Just Giving page had raised more than 4,500. Advertisement

Rugby fans have since raised thousands of pounds for the heroic British Transport police officer.

On a JustGiving page set up to raise money for a holiday to aid in his recovery, a friend has written: 'A colleague of mine from the British Transport Police was seriously injured as he went towards the danger in order to try and stop these terrorists in their tracks.

'Sadly he is currently in hospital and likely to be some time before he returns to work.

'As a police officer, myself and many colleagues have been affected by what has happened and devastated to hear that one of our own has ended up risking his life and shown an incredible amount of bravery attempting to stop these terrorists.

'He confronted them and played his part in trying to slow them down. He is likely to not be at work for some time and I would ask that we could raise a small amount of money so that he can use his time off effectively and treat him to an amount of money that could be used towards his rehabilitation by way of a holiday.'

His Chief Constable Paul Crowther said: 'Having visited the officer in hospital shortly after he was admitted for treatment, I was able to hear his account of what happened last night.

'It became clear that he showed enormous courage in the face of danger, as did many others who were at the scene and rushed to help.

'Although he is seriously unwell, he was able to recount how he faced the attackers armed only with his baton, outside London Bridge station.

'For an officer who only joined us less than two years ago, the bravery he showed was outstanding and makes me extremely proud.

'All of us at BTP wish him a swift recovery, and I know he will be touched by the hundreds of messages of support from across the UK and the world.

'Our thoughts are with all of those who died or were injured, and their loved ones as they try to come to terms with what happened.'

In another act of bravery, an off-duty police officer fought off the three knifemen with his bare hands as they rampaged through Borough Market.

The Met officer was having a drink with friends after work when he saw his uniformed colleagues and members of the public being 'severely assaulted'.

Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick, who worked in counter-terror earlier in her career, described the recent wave of attacks as 'unprecedented in my working life'

Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick said she was 'enormously proud' of the officer, who is in a serious condition in hospital.

She said: 'My understanding is that, without hesitation, wearing his normal clothes, he dived in and tried to assist, and he I'm afraid was himself severely injured but utterly heroic.'

Ms Dick also commended bystanders who stayed with the officer and administered first aid before he was driven to hospital.

Describing the police response as 'extraordinary', she added: 'I think those of us who weren't there are in awe of what both the police officers armed, the unarmed officers we've heard about and indeed the emergency services and members of the public - just extraordinary amounts of courage shown.'

Ms Dick commended bystanders who stayed with the officer and administered first aid before he was driven to hospital

Three jihadi terrorists were shot dead by armed police after killing seven people and injuring at least 48 more during the horrific knife rampage in central London

How police have foiled 18 terror plots since 2013 including five since Westminster attack 10 weeks ago Britain's counter-terror agencies are adapting to a 'new reality' with the threat of attacks now at an unprecedented level. It was revealed last month that police and security services have foiled 18 plots since 2013 - including five in just nine weeks after Khalid Masood's deadly rampage at Westminster in March. The sheer volume of activity being undertaken by MI5 and its partners to contain the threat was laid bare in the wake of the Manchester bombing last month. Figures show the agency is managing around 500 active investigations involving around 3,000 individuals at any one time. But in addition there are also a larger pool of as many as 20,000 people who have been considered at some point in the past but are not included in the live probes. Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick, who worked in counter-terror earlier in her career, described the recent wave of attacks as 'unprecedented in my working life'. Advertisement

Ms Dick has vowed that officers will 'step up a gear' in the wake of the London Bridge terror attack.

'Clearly there's a huge operation, both to make sure that we can keep people safe at that immediate scene, examine the scene and roll out proper protection across London for individuals, for events, for crowded places,' she told BBC Breakfast.

She described the recent attacks as 'unprecedented in my working life' and added: 'We in this country have faced a terrorist threat throughout my life - it changed and morphed and we will change and adapt to what appears to be a new reality for us.'

Police have foiled 18 terror plots since 2013 and arrest around one person every day in counter-terror raids, Ms Dick said.

'We have very good intelligence and we are frequently able to disrupt or indeed provide highly effective protection when we think an event or a particular place is at risk,' she added.

'But I understand people will be concerned and all I can say is we will be doing everything in our power and we will be stepping up a gear.'

She also said that the resources available to the police needed to be looked at, telling the BBC: 'We do have very extensive legislation, we do have very extensive powers - we need to look at whether we're using them to their full extent and we will be working with whoever is in the Government to see whether further powers would assist.

'As for more resourcing, every leader is going to ask for more resources of course they are, we do have a very, very, powerful counter-terrorist effort but as I've indicated the threat seems to be changing so we need to look at our strategy, we need to look at our resourcing, we need to look at the techniques we're using.

'We've always been able to sort-of step up our game and that I'm afraid is what we clearly need to do now, as do people in our communities.'

She added: 'The rhetoric that has been coming from Daesh and other organisations has been to encourage people to take action into their own hands, to use low-tech methods, and undoubtedly when people see something which appears from their perverted point of view to be successful some people will be inspired by that, so that is most certainly a possibility.'

Cressida Dick, with the London Mayor Sadiq Khan, near the scene of the terror attack
The husband of slain rural nurse Gayle Woodford said her 'cold blooded killer' should remain behind bars for the rest of his life for his beloved wife's horrific rape and murder.

South Australian man Dudley David Davey, 35, was on a three-day ice rampage when he murdered the outback nurse before burying her in a shallow grave in March 2016.

Grieving husband Keith Woodford made an emotional public statement after 14 months of silence and said: 'Dudley Davey should never, ever be allowed out of jail for the crime that he committed,' Nine News reports.

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Mother-of-two Gayle Woodford was lured from her home in outback South Australia before she was murdered and buried in a shallow grave

A tearful Mr Woodford (pictured) spoke outside court with his two children after Ms Woodford's killer was sentenced

South Australian man Dudley David Davey, 35, will spend a minimum of 32 years in jail for the rape and murder of outback nurse Gayle Woodford

A tearful Mr Woodford also thanked the people around him for supporting his family following Gayle's 'tragic, senseless death'.

'We will always mourn Gayle, there's so many people that have helped us to cope with [her death],' he said.

After Davey was sentenced a 32-year minimum term for murder, rape and the theft of the community ambulance, Gayle's family broke down and hugged outside court.

His non-parole period was one of the longest to ever be handed down at a South Australian court.

Following his wife's murder Mr Woodford has dedicated his life to advocating for greater protection of outback nurses and has pushed for a reform in legislation called 'Gayle's Law' to end solo call-outs.

A court heard the murderer had launched a number of attacks on women over 20 years, including an 'eerily similar' assault of another nurse in 1998.

The family of Gayle Woodford arrive at the Supreme Court of South Australia in Adelaide on Monday, her husband Keith pictured middle

Davey lured the nurse outside telling her that his grandmother needed panadol before raping her, killing her and fleeing in her ambulance, the Daily Advertiser reports.

The mother-of-two was found three days after her death leaving her children and husband Keith devastated.

Justice Ann Vanstone jailed Davies for life on Thursday and set a non-parole period of 32 years, describing his offending as 'cold-blooded' and 'callous in the extreme'.

Davey's lawyer Nick Vadasz claimed his client went to the house to take the ambulance - that he hadn't planned on hurting the nurse.

But Justice Vancstone had 'trouble accepting' the man's story.

'If he just wanted the keys, he could have just taken the keys and the ambulance,' she said.

In 2012, Davey, who has a long record of crimes against women, was jailed for 20 months following a public sex attack on a woman who was asleep in Adelaide's CBD.

He was released on parole and returned to the dry zone of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, where Ms Woodford frequently worked.

The devastated family members sat in court as Ms Woodford's murderer was sentenced

After Ms Woodford's death a review of the risks facing remote health workers found they should be accompanied on call-outs to clients

GAYLE WOODFORD'S DEATH March 23, 2016: Outback nurse Gayle Woodford, 56, is last seen on South Australia's Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, with her disappearance prompting a search. About the same time as Ms Woodford goes missing an ambulance she used for work is driven from a local health clinic. March 24, 2016: Police use GPS data to track the ambulance and intercept it in Coober Pedy. The 36-year-old Mimili man behind the wheel, Dudley Davey, is charged with the theft of the vehicle and other driving offences. March 26, 2016: Ms Woodford's body is found in a shallow grave outside the remote SA town of Fregon where she lived. Calls emerge for greater safety provisions for remote health clinicians, with an online petition collecting more than 130,00 signatures. March 27, 2016: Davey is charged with Ms Woodford's murder. March 29, 2016: Davey makes his first appearance at the Port Augusta Magistrates Court, losing a bid to have his name suppressed. February 23, 2017: Davey pleads guilty to murder and rape charges and is committed to the Supreme Court. Advertisement

He raped and killed Ms Woodford only six months after his parole conditions had lapsed.

The murder sparked a major push to improve the safety of nurses working in remote communities with an online petition securing more than 132,000 signatures.

After Ms Woodford's death a review of the risks facing remote health workers found they should be accompanied on call-outs to clients.

The report, by peak body CRANA plus, also recommended upgrades to alarm systems and better training.

The murder stile Ms Woodford's ambulance after he killed her
Diane Abbott broke cover this morning to vote in the General Election - after being asked to step aside from her frontbench position by Jeremy Corbyn.

The Labour left-winger was left humiliated when she was ditched from her post as shadow home secretary in the final hours of the campaign after she featured in a string of car crash interviews.

Mr Corbyn said his counter-terrorism chief was 'unwell' and would be temporarily replaced by Lyn Brown - a little-known politician who previously quit his frontbench complaining that his leadership was 'untenable'.

But Miss Abbott, who is defending her safe Labour seat of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was out this morning to cast her ballot.

It came as the Theresa May, Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Corbyn and the other party leaders all cast their votes in the today's election.

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Labour's Diane Abbott broke cover to vote in the General Election today, She was dramatically removed as shadow home secretary just days before Britain went to the polls, with senior Labour figures blaming her poor health for the decision

Diane Abbott looked grim faced as she arrived to vote in Hackney, east London this morning. While she has been ditched from Labour's top team she has tweeted her determination to get back into the political fray

Miss Abbott walked to the polling station with a fellow Labour supporter this morning after being ditched from the frontbench. The left-winger has come under heavy criticism after a series of car crash interview on television and radio throughout the campaign

The Hackney MP remained stony-faced as she got into her car after voting in the election this morning. She has sent dozens of tweets urging her supporters to vote Labour since being signed off sick

Miss Abbott leaves the polling station after voting in this morning's election. her dramatic removal from her post as shadow home secretary just days after a major terrorist attack and before a General Election shocked political commentators

Miss Abbott climbs into her car after voting in the General Election this morning. She was asked to temporarily step aside from her role as shadow home secretary, but it remains unclear if she will be made home secretary if Labour form a government after today's election

Mr Corbyn said he decided to ditch his longtime ally from his top team because she was unwell.

Senior Labour figures said Ms Abbott had been 'diagnosed with a serious, long-term condition'.

She tweeted this afternoon to thank supporters, saying she would 'rejoin the fray soon'.

And yesterday she sent dozens of tweets - despite being pulled off the campaign trail.

The dramatic move came after Ms Abbott was left floundering yet again when she was asked about a key report on terrorism in an interview on Monday night.

She also dropped out of an Evening Standard election hustings event just days before Britain went to the polls.

Mr Corbyn said: 'She's not well a couple of days and she's taking a break from the campaign.

'Of course Diane is somebody that works extremely hard and represents her community very well, and I have to say has received totally unfair levels of attack and abuse, not just recently, over many years.'



Under questioning from Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News, Ms Abbott - a long-standing ally of Mr Corbyn and one of his few cheerleaders in the parliamentary party - left long pauses and struggled to give answers about the content of the Harris report.

Diane Abbott was left unable to identify a single recommendation from a major report into terrorism during a crar crash interview on Sky News

Diane Abbott, pictured at the Labour Party's manifesto launch in Bradford last month, is a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. But she was asked to step aside form her shadow cabinet job in the wake of her disastrous television interviews

Miss Abbott was pulled from a Woman's Hour interview in the wake of her shambolic performance on Sky News with Labour citing illness. But she was spotted round the corner from the BBC offices shortly before the programme was due to start

In the wake of the meltdown, she pulled out of appearances on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour with just half-an-hour's notice.

A picture then emerged of her at Oxford Circus tube station - around the corner from the BBC's offices - fueling speculation she had been pulled by the Labour leadership team at the very last minute en route to the interview.

Shadow international trade secretary Barry Gardiner told LBC radio yesterday: 'I have been told that Diane has been diagnosed with a serious, long-term condition.

'I hope people will simply say 'Okay, fair dos, if that's the reason she's been under par, we should back off'.'

Miss Abbott herself tweeted: 'Touched by all the messages of support. Still standing! Will rejoin the fray soon. Vote Labour!'

Asked about Miss Abbott yesterday, Theresa May said: 'I just wish Diane a speedy recovery.'

Theresa May arrived with her husband Philip to vote at her local polling station in Maidenhead

Jeremy Corbyn gave a thumbs up as he arrived to cast his ballot in Islington, north London

Security has been stepped up at polling stations today in the wake of the terror attacks

Nicola Sturgeon arrived with her husband Peter Murrell bright and early at a polling station in Glasgow this morning. She is hoping the SNP can hold on to as many of their seats as possible

Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson arrived to vote in edinburgh with her partner Jen Wilson. The couple joined in with the #dogsatpollingstations' craze by bringing along their pet Wilson

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall cast his vote in Congleton this morning. The party have sunk in the polls as their support has ebbed away to the Tories and Labour

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas voted with her husband Richard Savage in Brighton today. She is the Green Party's only MP - and hopes the party will up that figure today

Miss Abbott has has a dire election campaign after being widely mocked for a string of car crash interviews.

ABBOTT'S STAND-IN QUIT LABOUR FRONT-BENCH IN PROTEST AT 'UNTENABLE' CORBYN Lyn Brown has been serving as Labour's MP in West Ham The politician who is standing in for Diane Abbott previously quit Labour's frontbench in a bid to oust Jeremy Corbyn. Lyn Brown is currently serving as a shadow minister - but quit the frontbench in June 2016 in protest at Mr Corbyn's dire leadership. Joining dozens of other in resigning in a bid to force the left-winger out, she said at the time that 'the situation is now untenable'. Her resignation came after the Parliamentary Labour Party voted by 172 to 40 that it had no confidence in Mr Corbyn. But despite the damning verdict Mr Corbyn refused to budge and was re-elected by activists. Ms Brown's temporary promotion means yet another Labour MP in the shadow Cabinet - as she is defending West Ham in the election tomorrow. Ms Brown was embroiled in controversy in 2011 when she barged into the back of blind journalist Sean Dilley and his golden retriever guide dog as he was walking in a corridor in parliament. Witnesses were shocked to see a clearly stressed Miss Brown bulldoze into the back of Mr Dilley before overtaking him, shouting: 'For ****'s sake, move out of my ******* way.' When the journalist demanded to know Miss Brown's name, as he could not see who had bumped into him, she was said to have replied: 'I am not giving it to you, **** off.' Advertisement

In an interview on LBC last month she was unable to say how much Labour's flagship manifesto promise to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers would cost - wildly speculating at the figure.

At one point during the notorious interview she suggested the plan would cost 300,000  meaning the officers would be paid just 30 each. She then said it would be 80 million. The actual forecast cost is 300 million.

She was left floundering again when she was unable to identify a single one of the recommendations of a key terrorism report.

And she came under fire yet again on Tuesday night after being fooled by a prankster pretending to be a top party adviser in an email hoax.

She replied to a chain of emails that she thought were from party spin doctor Seumas Milne following her withdrawal from Woman's Hour.

But they were actually sent from a fake account set up by a joker in a bid to prank the politician.

Despite her shambolic performances, Labour supporters including singer Lily Allen have claimed that criticism of her is down to 'racist sexist abuse'.

MPs on both sides say concern about Ms Abbott's competence have been raised frequently by voters on the doorstep, prompting the Tories to target her in the campaign.

Aides insisted she would not be 'talking about her health at this time'.

Miss Abbott has been tweeting dozens of times since being pulled from Mr Corbyn's front bench - urging voters to back Labour to scrap tuition fees.

She has been replaced on the Labour frontbench by Lyn Brown - who has previously called for Mr Corbyn to quit as Labour leader.

Ms brown quit Labour's frontbench last year as part of the wave if resignations by MPs who mounted a doomed attempt to oust Mr Corbyn from the top job.

But despite the damning verdict Mr Corbyn refused to budge and was re-elected by activists.

Ms Brown's temporary promotion means yet another Labour MP in the shadow Cabinet - as she is defending West Ham in the election tomorrow.

Ms Brown was embroiled in controversy in 2011 when she barged into the back of blind journalist Sean Dilley and his golden retriever guide dog as he was walking in a corridor in parliament.

Witnesses were shocked to see a clearly stressed Miss Brown bulldoze into the back of Mr Dilley before overtaking him, shouting: 'For ****'s sake, move out of my ******* way.'

When the journalist demanded to know Miss Brown's name, as he could not see who had bumped into him, she was said to have replied: 'I am not giving it to you, **** off.'

She smashed barriers but, oh, the hypocrisy: The first black female MP, Diane Abbott, enjoyed the privileges of grammar school and Cambridge. So why does she disdain Britain?

By Richard Pendlebury for The Daily Mail

Politics is a ruthless business and Diane Abbott's unprecedented replacement as Shadow Home Secretary, less than 24 hours before the General Election, was as unsentimental as it was probably overdue.

That it was overseen by Jeremy Corbyn, her former lover on whose motorcycle pillion she once toured East Germany, gave it a soap opera-style twist. Over past months, Ms Abbott's absences from key political events, and a number of 'car crash' media appearances, have drawn unwelcome attention.

There were whispers at Westminster that Corbyn's once ideologically sound talisman, whose status as Britain's first female black MP cemented her support among the core hard-Left, had become a lethal 'liability'.

Certainly, she has not looked well and in private she's no longer been her ebullient self.

Yesterday, the cause of her decline was articulated by one senior colleague as a 'long-term medical illness'. As yet, the condition is unspecified.

Diane Abbott, pictured outside parliament in April. She has made a series of toe-curling appearances on television during the General Election campaign

It was Monday night's toe-curling interview with Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News that proved to be a watershed. In the wake of the terrorist atrocities in Manchester and at London Bridge, the woman who would have been in charge of Britain's security following a Labour election victory today was quizzed about a key counter-terrorism review on how to protect the capital from an attack.

Confused

Ms Abbott, 63, was confused and out of her depth; clinging to the words 'preparedness' and 'resilience' over and over  neither qualities which she apparently possessed.

The following morning she pulled  or was pulled  out of a debate with her Tory counterpart, Amber Rudd, on Radio 4's Woman's Hour, citing 'illness'. No doubt it was a move that saved both Ms Abbott and the Labour Party from further damage.

But her credibility was again questioned after she was photographed at Oxford Circus Tube station, close to the BBC's Broadcasting House, which suggested she had been en route to the studios.

Leaked emails in which she expressed concern about 'telling untruths about my health' added to the confusion.

The criticism Ms Abbott has attracted over the past few days has not been rooted in 'sexism and racism' as singer Lily Allen and others on Twitter tried to suggest.

Few who saw her Sky News appearance could not help but conclude something seemed to be seriously amiss.

One hopes Mr Corbyn's decision is rooted in concern for the well-being of a close friend rather than a cynical move to shore up the Labour vote after it became clear that 'Diane Abbott' had become an issue on the doorstep.

Diane Abbott and Brian Sedgemore. In 1989, Ms Abbott signed a parliamentary motion calling for the abolition of conspiratorial groups like MI5 and Special Branch

Friends told the BBC last night that she was not consulted over her removal. Ms Abbott bravely insists she will be back. The Labour Party says her replacement is only a 'temporary' measure. We will see.

Some already view it as the beginning of the end of what has been one of the more remarkable and controversial careers in modern British politics.

While she has often railed against institutionalised prejudice (once describing Britain as a country that 'invented racism'), she was able to overcome a difficult childhood to enjoy an education afforded to the privileged few.

The daughter of Jamaican immigrants, she was brought up in suburban West London and won a place at the selective Harrow County School for Girls. The only black girl in her class, she worried about her weight, she recalls. But she shone academically, despite her parents' acrimonious divorce which saw her mother move to Yorkshire.

'I had to do all the cooking and cleaning while I studied for my exams  my father hadn't heard of modern feminism,' she said. 'It was all very stressful, very difficult.'

In the sixth-form she took part in amateur dramatics with counterparts from Harrow County School for Boys. Her circle of friends included the future barrister and broadcaster Clive Anderson, Nigel Sheinwald, who would become Britain's ambassador to Washington  and Michael Portillo, a future Tory Cabinet minister with whom she starred in Romeo And Juliet 'though not in the title roles'.

Ms Abbott secured a place to read history at Newnham College, Cambridge, where she was taught by the TV historian, Simon Schama. Once again she felt alone 'among these privileged white people,' adding: 'I thought at first I'd made a horrible mistake.'

In fact, she said, it proved 'the making of me'. On graduation, she joined the Civil Service as an administrative trainee at the Home Office; a post she held for three years and one, she has said, that gave her the inside knowledge necessary to run the whole department.

She left to become a race relations officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties, before working in breakfast TV and then entering political public relations.

She was a press officer for Ken Livingstone when he ran the hard-Left Greater London Council, and held a similar position at Lambeth Borough Council, before serving on Westminster City Council.

Diane Abbott outside Parliament last month. Friends told the BBC last night that she was not consulted over her removal as shadow home secretary

Her historic breakthrough came in 1987. Having failed to beat her old boss Livingstone to become the prospective candidate for Brent East, she was elected to the safe Labour seat of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, which she still represents.

In a decade that saw the Labour Party racked by internal strife and Marxist entryism, Ms Abbott occupied a place on the far-Left fringes.

Much of what she said and wrote then has come back to haunt her as she has repositioned in recent times. If she was not the terrorist's friend, she certainly proved to be their useful idiot.

In 1984, she told an Irish republican-supporting journal: 'I couldn't identify myself as British.' Of the armed struggle in Ulster, she declared: 'Every defeat of the British state is a victory for all of us.'

Abolition

Quizzed on this last month, she made matters worse by replying facetiously: 'It was 34 years ago, I had a rather splendid Afro at the time. I don't have the same hairstyle, I don't have the same views.'

In 1989, Ms Abbott signed a parliamentary motion calling for 'the abolition of conspiratorial groups like MI5 and Special Branch'. She has since explained that MI5 has been 'reformed' so she could now support it.

A decade later, the woman who would be Home Secretary, voted against the proscription of a number of terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda, later excusing herself by saying: 'I deemed them to be dissidents rather than terrorist organisations'.

But her speech against the 2008 Counter-Terrorism Act won her the Spectator's Parliamentary Speech Of The Year award.

Ms Abbott enjoys the limelight, but she had increasingly become a moth to its flame. No more so on than in her regular guest appearances on Andrew Neil's BBC1 politics show This Week, alongside her former teenage thespian sidekick, Michael Portillo.

On one occasion she caused mirthful incredulity by claiming Chairman Mao did 'on balance, more good than harm'.

For the record, the Chinese Communist leader's Great Leap Forward is reckoned to have been responsible for 45 million deaths.

She also struggled to justify a 2012 tweet saying: 'White people love playing 'divide and rule. We should not play their game'.

Miss Abbott had to listen back to her car-crash LBC interview during an appearance on the BBC's Daily Politics last month. MPs from both main political parties said her shambolic performances were being brought up by voters on the doorsteps

No, it was not racist, she insisted to Neil. She was simply 'referring to the history of the British Empire'. But Neil  like so many others  tackled her on her decision to send her son, from her brief marriage to an African architect, to the private City of London School. Fees are 17,000 a year.

Ms Abbott had previously lambasted Tony Blair and Harriet Harman for sending their children to selective state schools.

She admitted that her hypocrisy was 'indefensible', but explained that 'West Indian mums would go to the wall for their children' and she'd done it because 'in Hackney only 9 per cent of black boys get decent GCSEs'.

For many, this 'do as I say not as I do' approach left a stain on her socialist credibility.

Another quirk was her longstanding relationship with the patrician former Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken. They met in the mid-Eighties when both were working at TV-am.

When she joined Aitken in the Commons, their friendship flourished. He drove her to her dying mother's bedside and then arranged the funeral. He was also godfather to her son.

Both Aitken and Abbott have denied gossip that their relationship went beyond professional friendship. Last night, Aitken said: 'I wish Diane well. She is a good, brave member of Parliament and front-bencher.'

There is another significant male politician in her life, of course. Ms Abbott was one of only 36 Labour MPs to support Mr Corbyn's leadership nomination in 2015. After his victory, she returned to the Shadow Front Bench, having briefly served there under Ed Miliband.

It then emerged that Ms Abbott and Mr Corbyn were once more than just ideologically compatible. They enjoyed a sexual relationship in the late Seventies after Mr Corbyn split from his first wife.

Miss Abbott has been a close ally of fellow leftwingers John McDonnell - pictured together at the Labour manifesto launch in Bradford in May - and Jeremy Corbyn. But she was cut adrift by the leadership in the final stages of the election campaign

Friends described being invited to his bedsit during the 1979 general election only to discover Ms Abbott there wearing only a duvet.

One recalled: 'It was the late-Seventies, it was still a point of interest, a white man with a black woman, so he was slightly showing off: 'I've got a new girlfriend and she's black.'

In a 1985 interview, Abbott said her finest ever half-hour was spent romping with a naked man in a field in the Cotswolds, which, it was pointed out, is en route to the Wiltshire village where Mr Corbyns parents lived.

Ms Abbott was clearly one MP Mr Corbyn could trust. But her erratic, low octane performance as Shadow Home Secretary became a cause for concern.

In February, she attracted scorn from colleagues when she ducked out of the vote to trigger Article 50 to begin Brexit, by claiming a migraine. Shed claimed people who voted for Brexit wanted less foreign-looking people on their streets.

The anger was compounded by the fact shed been photographed drinking in a Westminster pub the night before.

The morning after, she was spotted in a park in East London in an over-sized coat and hat pulled low, looking bewildered and as if she was in disguise, according to an observer.

Then, last month, she mis-spoke, making a hash of a round of interviews  most memorably when quizzed by Nick Ferrari on LBC radio  on the cost of the 10,000 extra policemen she said Labour would provide.

And then the sorry events of this week. For Jeremy Corbyns faithful pillion passenger, it may be the end of the political road.
Horrifying footage emerged online showing a woman being hit by a taxi and left lying in the middle of a crossroad for more than two minutes.

Over 20 onlookers ignored the wounded pedestrian as they walked past her before an SUV ran her over for a second time.

She was killed after the second accident, said the police.

The woman stood in the middle of a road waiting to cross before being hit by a taxi in China

She was knocked to the ground by the taxi (left), which drove away without stopping (right)

About five pedestrians witnessed the accident, but none of them went to check the woman

A video of the incident was uploaded by web user 'Yuan Qicong' on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform , on June 7.

The post has been viewed more than 26 million times.

The footage shows the woman, in white top, waiting in the middle of the road as she tried to go to the other side.

A red taxi drove past the zebra lines without stopping and hit the woman.

She was left lying on the ground for over a minute, being ignored by over 20 pedestrians

About five onlookers stood near the woman and witnessed the accident. However, none of them went up to help the woman.

In the next minute, more than 20 onlookers crossed the road. They ignored the woman who appeared to be struggling.

Cars drove past her slowly, but none stopped to help her.

The woman lifted her head and appeared to be struggling to get up.

Another minute later, a silver SUV drove past the crossing and ran straight over the woman.

The video ends as a female driver came out form the SUV and looked at the victim.

There are no traffic lights at the crossing, according to Beijing Times, a Chinese newspaper,

None of the passersby stopped to check the wounded woman or call the ambulance

The woman tried to move her body, but she struggled to get up on her own after being hit

Henan police bureau posted a statement last night confirming the incident.

According to the statement, the traffic accident took place at the crossroad of Jiefang Avenue and Xueyuan Road in Zhumadian city, Henan Province, at 7:54pm on April 21.

The victim has been identified by her surname Ma.

Ms Ma was killed during the accident, said the statement. The two drivers, surnamed Zhang and Liu respectively, were found by the police on the morning of April 22.

Zhumadian police said they are still investigating the incident. The drivers are expected to face prosecution.

Another minute later, a silver SUV drove past the crossroad and ran over the woman

It remains unclear whether or not the SUV driver had seen the woman as she ran her over

The incident has sparked heated discussions online.

Many people condemned the passersby to be 'cold-hearted' and wondered how they could have watched a person die.

One web users questioned: 'What kind of society are we living in?

'If I were there, I would have stopped all the cars and called emergency services for the woman. I guess this is the basic principle of humanity, isn't it?'

Another user, with a screen name 'Li_naaa', said: 'How difficult is it to dial a number and call an ambulance?'

'Roleo' criticised: 'A country will never be a great country if their people have such disgracing personality.'

The driver stopped her car about a metre away and got out to check on the victim

Police said the woman was killed during the accident in a statement released yesterday

However, some people defended the passersby by saying they could be unsure of the authenticity of the accident.

One of them said: 'I guess most of the people there wanted to help, but they were scared. They didn't know if they should lift her up or not.'

There were comments blaming the police for posting a statement only after the video was revealed to the public.

'Two months later and they are still investigating?' One web user asked.

'Though the drivers have been tracked down by the police, what would happened afterwards? The statement did not explain anything,' said 'AudreyLiJiaJia'.
Opinion / Columnist

Dear Cabinet and Politburo membersCOMRADES, I am so disappointed by the ignorance displayed by our opposition. Their ignorance of global issues is inexcusable for people who harbour dreams of one day leading our people. If anything, it makes them a real danger to the very people they hope to lead.Surely, how could they  to a man  fall over each other to display their ignorance by questioning my participation at the Oceans Summit in New York, in the United States of America?First and foremost, that event was strictly by invitation. Did I invite myself to it? So they think the people who invited me there were so daft as not to know who qualified and who did not qualify to attend the summit? Has anyone at Harvest-(where-you-did-not-sow) House ever run a country, let alone a regional or international body for them to leap forward to proffer advice that no one had asked for? Do they even know how local authorities are run? Very foolish people they even started speculating that we could be having plans to invade one of our neighbours that have access to oceans! Ignorance is a curse indeed!We might not have an ocean of our own, but that does not mean we exist in isolation. Even in our African culture, a child belongs to the whole village, not just its biological parents. If our own Lake Kariba and the recently commissioned Tokwe-Muko-sea do not qualify for oceans, we still have oceans vicariously via many of our African brothers and sisters in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Africa as a whole.Whenever such an event is taking place, it is important that experienced leadership represents the continent, lest it is severely short-changed by the evil West, which is why my presence at this conference was an absolute necessity. Tell me just one other leader who can represent the continent better? Just one?I am actually made to understand that African leaders actually discussed this and agreed that their attendance was conditional upon my own attendance because I am the only leader who is capable of representing the continent on the global area.I am not surprised at all. You all heard the youths affirming my rare leadership skills last week, didn't you?Besides, if the West is allowed to continue running the show, as it has been doing for centuries, global warming will see sea levels rising, resulting in most of our neighbours losing vast swathes of land. Their people would end up seeking refuge in land-locked countries such as ours, so we can scarcely afford aloofness. That would be akin to ignoring a fire consuming a neighbour's homestead thinking it will end there, only to realise your costly folly when the entire village has been razed.If these basic truths escape Morgan & Co, they have no hope of grasping the arcane art of statecraft.Kindest RegardsYours SincerelyMEAND THE NOTEBOOKAnniversaryLast week  on June 2 to be exact  marked exactly 35 years after Dr CZ communicated his well-considered decision to dismiss himself from the ever-(mis)ruling ZANU-PF party, having done so on June 2, 1982, just two years into our independence when then Cde CZ realised, with a deep sense of disappointment, that the country was not going in the direction which tens of thousands of patriots died fighting for, and therefore, did not want to be associated with the disaster that was fast-arriving.This was one of the very few decisions that Dr CZ has ever made consciouslyfor most of decisions are made for him by other people or by circumstances (which is also called an accident of coincidence), and he, ergo, cannot be held personally accountable. Of the few decisions that Dr CZ has made, this is one he is immeasurably proud of and would repeat over and over again if he were to have another life on this side of the rainbow.ZANU-PF is nothing short of a cult and as a former member, Dr CZ can testify to this reality without a scintilla of regret.Dr CZ made this important decision decades ago, before Kudzanai Chipanga was even born. He therefore is not amused when Chipanga and those of his ilk queue up to outdo each other in the art of bootlicking.Last week, Chipanga was at it at a ruling party rally in Marondera: "Truly speaking, in heaven there is God and here on earth there is an angel called Robert Gabriel Mugabe. You are representing God here on earth."He did not end there: "But he is an angel. Who doesn't know that God's angels are called Gabriel? I promise you, people, that when we go to heaven do not be surprised to see Robert Gabriel Mugabe standing besides God vetting people into heaven. Gushungo, you are an angel. Amai Mugabe, you are a wife of an angel so when people enter heaven and when it's Zimbabwe's turn, you will be seated there, with secretary for administration (Ignatius) Chombo having names, while you will be vetting those whom you know."Dr CZ has heard too much of this moronic praise-singing over the years and it is exactly because of this that this country is in the shape that it is today. One cannot blame confused young Chipanga for carrying forward a tradition that he found deeply entrenched in the party. Blame lies squarely on the one and only person who actively encourages itthe one who benefits from this blasphemy. You and Dr CZ know that it is blasphemous even to think of remotely drawing parallels.This reminds Dr CZ of an incident in which British politician-cum-everything, George Galloway, had to profusely apologise to wolves after an unfortunate mix-up in which he had mistakenly described former United States President George W Bush as a "wolf," saying he had grievously defamed wolves: "No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."Anyway, Dr CZ is very sure that his former colleagues who remained in ZANU-PF would certainly love this Squealer character in George Orwell classic, Animal Farm."Comrades!" he cried. "You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depends on us. Day and night, we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples."CluelessDr CZ is still very sad and trying to recover from the grave disappointment he suffered when his name was dropped on the eleventh hour from the list of worthies that had been short-listed for positions on the notorious Censorship Board. Because of his vast experience in all things mischievous, natural candidate Dr CZ had been promised the position of deputy chairperson of the board, but it looks like someone went behind his back and ill-mouthed the one and only ISO-certified patriot in this country to the point where the appointing authority felt it dangerous to include Yours Truly on this important board, itself a relic of the dreary colonial days.What has since disappointed Dr CZ further is the fact that the new chairman of the board, Cde Aenias Chigwedere  who has been accused of witchcraft by his son  thought he was being clever by half when he decided to tell journalists that approached him for fulsome interviews that he had no clue as to what his job at the Censorship Board entails.Dr CZ is keeping his legal options open he might approach the courts to challenge his exclusion from this appointment of a lifetime!SpinningDr CZ's brother, Leader Luke Tamborinyoka, last week came out guns blazing in defence of Morgan Tsvangirai's daughter and her husband who some media outlets claimed had blessed themselves from a tender to supply water chemicals to the Harare City council."The false story in the latest issue of The Sunday Mail implicating president Morgan Tsvangirai's daughter, Vimbai, and her husband, Batsirai, fits snugly into a well-orchestrated plot to tarnish the Tsvangirai name ahead of the next election," fumed Tamborinyoka, whose job description includes fuming on behalf of Tsvangirai. "The newspaper lies, with neither shame nor compunction, that Vimbai and her husband were corruptly awarded a tender to supply water chemicals and were paid by the Harare City council"In the past, when journalists have approached the same Tamborinyoka about things that most Zimbos would want to know, like the former prime minister's status at that posh Highlands house  whether he is a tenant or owner  or that he was having challenges making good commitments to those women he had a dalliance with in his apprentice days in power, Tamborinyoka has stridently maintained that his brief as Tsvangirai's spokesman does not extend to his private life or family issues. Suddenly, he is now speaking on behalf of Tsvangirai's adult children as if they do not have mouths of their own.Best maidA house maidservant asked her madam to increase her salary. The madam asked her to give three good reasons showing cause why she felt she deserved an upward variation of her salaryMaid: I can cook better than you.Madam: Who told you that?Maid: Your husband told me.Madam: Okay, second reasonMaid: I can iron better than you.Madam: Who told you that?Maid: Your husband told me.Madam: Okay, last reason.Maid: I am also better than you in bed (Madam got furious, grab a stick to smash her head).Madam: Did my husband say that?Maid: No, the driver told me I'm better than you in bed.Madam: Shhhh! Lower your voice please! I will increase your salary by 100 percent backdated to the day you started working in this household. You are such a hard working girl!
A 15-year-old girl was at one of her first real parties when she was gang-raped by a group of older teenagers despite her pleas for them to stop, a Sydney jury has been told.

At one point, the girl heard a knock at the door and saw police officers through a window but couldn't call out, as one of her alleged attackers had his hand over her mouth, the NSW District Court heard on Thursday.

Christian Dickens, 22, Aaron Jensen, 23, and two 21-year-old men, who were underage at the time and therefore can't be named, have pleaded not guilty to a number of offences including aggravated sexual assault in company.

At one point, the girl heard a knock at the door and saw police officers through a window but couldn't call out, as one of her alleged attackers had his hand over her mouth

They are accused of attacking the girl at a Blue Mountains house party in 2012.

In her opening address, Crown prosecutor Belinda Baker said she expected the jury would hear evidence the girl had consumed a litre of wine, possibly more, at what was one of her first 'proper parties'.

The girl remembers waking in a dark room to find she was drenched in water and one of the unnamed boys was having sex with her, Ms Baker said.

The unnamed boy was soon joined by Jensen and they assualted the girl while she pleaded for them to stop, the court heard.

It's alleged that Dickens later tried to get the girl to perform a sex act on him while the second unnamed teenager tried to force her into oral sex.

Ms Baker said she expected the jury would hear that when the girl kept pleading with Jensen and the first unnamed teenager to stop, they 'laughed, saying words like "shut up, you love it s**t".'

The girl remembers waking in a dark room to find she was drenched in water and one of the unnamed boys was having sex with her, Ms Baker said

It's alleged that Dickens later tried to get the girl to perform a sex act on him while the second unnamed teenager tried to force her into oral sex

The girl was in the room with Jensen when police officers knocked on the front door but he allegedly covered her mouth and she was too weak to call out, the court heard.

Ms Baker said the sexual assaults continued until the girl regained enough control over her limbs to push Jensen and the first unnamed boy away, and they left the room.

Another partygoer checked if she was okay and called her mother, who came to pick her up, the court heard.

Meredith Phelps, the defence barrister for the first unnamed boy, told the jury her client did have sex with the girl but there would be a dispute over whether it was consensual.

Dickens' barrister Nicole Carroll also said her client believed he was acting with the girl's consent, and noted that alcohol and drugs were a factor for most of the people involved.

The trial continues.
An 11-year-old girl is in critical condition after her right leg was severed by freight train in Philadelphia.

The schoolgirl, who has not been named, was walking to a park with friends after being let out of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter on Wednesday.

Alayah Stephens, 12, and Fahimah Muhammad, 14, who go to the school, said the victim went down to the tracks with eight friends before the accident happened.

An 11-year-old girl is in critical condition after police say her right leg was severed at the thigh and her left leg was badly wounded when she was run over by a freight train (scene pictured)

Fahimah Muhammad (left) and Alayah Stephens (right) said the injured girl was walking to a park with friends after school on a route which took them past a train crossing

Alayah told Fox29: 'I told them don't go on the train tracks because my brother busted his head open back there because he was playing.'

The youngsters failed to heed the warning, however, and moments later all but one of them came running back in tears.

'They were screaming "her leg fell off, her leg fell off"', Fahima added.

Medics said the girl's right leg was severed at the thigh and she sustained critical injuries to her left leg after being run over by a CSX freight train.

She was rushed to hospital where she had surgery in an attempt to save her life.

The train did not stop because the conductor was not aware that anyone had been hit, police said.

Officers have launched an investigation into the incident and are reviewing CCTV footage from the scene.
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One of the holiest sites in North Korea could also be among the most dangerous, scientists have warned - with a volcano feared to be at risk of eruption because of despot leader Kim Jong-un's nuclear tests.

Mount Paektu, on the secretive state's border with China, is believed to be the site of the deadliest volcano eruption in history, and in the last 15 years has shown worrying signs that history could repeat itself.

It has taken on a mythological status, with North Korean history even being rewritten to claim Kim's father - dictator Kim Jong-il - was born on the mountainside.

The mountain is considered holy by North Koreans, with dedicated supporters of the Kim dynasty carrying out pilgrimmages on the 9,022ft mountain close to the border with China. The first stop of the pilgrimage is the Samjiyon Grand Monument, which is a statue of a buglar, the country's national monument

The view at the top of the mountain is breathtaking, and such is its symbolism in North Korea that the Kim dynasty has appropriated it for themselves

A monument carries a portrait of Kim Jong-Il - father of current dictator Kim Jong-un - and his father, Kim Il-Sung and mother on Mount Paektu. North Korean history even being rewritten to claim Kim's father - dictator Kim Jong-il - was born on the mountainside

Kim Snr was in fact born in Russia, but the mountain, shown in this fascinating series of new pictures, has long been integral to the country's identity.

Such is its symbolism in North Korea that the Kim dynasty has long appropriated it for themselves.

Two years ago images were released of Kim Jong-un purported to show the dictator having reached the peak of the 9,022ft mountain.

In 2015 Kim Jong-un was pictured being enthusiastically cheered by pilots at the top of the volcano, which he had purportedly climbed. But scientists are anxious that the dictator's nuclear weapons tests could put it at risk of a fresh eruption

A smiling Kim Jong-un was pictured surveying the landscape at the summit of Mount Paektu in April 2015. The volcano is considered one of the holiest sites in North Korea

North Korean visitors making a pilgrimmage to the holy site are given a lecture by a guide who tells them the legends of Mount Paektu

It is reputedly the birthplace of the earliest Korean leader ever recorded, Dangun, who according to legend founded the early kingdom of Gojoseon in 2333BC.

A thousand years ago it exploded so violently that ash fell as far away as northern Japan.

Such is the level of anxiety about a fresh eruption that the usually reclusive North Korea has allowed scientists from the UK and the US to carry out research on the volcano.

A North Korean troop is pictured standing in front of a wooden house where North Korean history claims Kim Jong-Il was born, even though official records show he was born in a Russian refugee camp

Mount Paektu is an active volcano which last erupted in 1903, and scientists are worried that weapons testing by Kim Jong-un's regime could cause future devastation

Mount Paektu is revered by North Koreans, who believe it is the birthplace of legendary leader Dangun and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il

Last month Bruce Bennett, a senior defence analyst at the Rand Corporation, sounded a stark warning about the volcano.

He told CNN that a big enough weapon test could have a catastrophic effect, stating: 'That could be an absolutely huge eruption, kill thousands - if not tens of thousands - of Chinese and North Koreans.

'We don't know if a bigger nuclear explosion will set it off, but it is certainly possible. The Chinese for years have been worried that he's (Kim Jong Un) going to cause a volcano to erupt.'

During big North Korean celebrations, the wooden house where the regime claims Kim Jong-il was born is applauded by citizens

Portraits of North Korean leaders line the route of the pilgrimage trail in Mount Paektu, close to the border between North Korea and China

Groups of workers are employed to keep the wooden hut, which the North Korean regime claims is the birthplace of Kim Jong-il, clear from snow

Fellow scientist Dr Amy Donovan, from King's College in London, said it would take an explosion of 50 to 100 kilotons to potentially cause damage - recent tests have been around 10 kilotons.

It is the latest warning about the volability of the volcano, with Stephen Grand, a seismologist at the University of Texas telling National Geographic last year: 'I think the risk of a destructive eruption here is very real.

'The subsurface structure can help with predicting the future, although not with any definitiveness. One would need to follow how the current situation changes with time going forward.'

A local guide greets foreigners along the route of the holy site, which scientists fear could be at risk of erupting, killing tens of thousands

The volcano is reputedly the birthplace of the earliest Korean leader ever recorded, Dangun, who according to legend founded the early kingdom of Gojoseon in 2333BC

The only way for foreign tourists to reach Paektu is by plane from Pyongyang to Samjiyon airport using an Air Koryo domestic flight

Mount Paektu volcano is a holy place for North Koreans. They consider it the place of their ancestral origin, and its history has been appropriated by the Kim regime

A report by international scientists published last year ruled that the biggest eruption of Mount Paektu, in 946AD, was likely to have been the largest the planet has ever seen.

The mountain is named in North Korean propaganda as the 'sacred mountain of the revolution'.

The country's official history claims Kim Jong-il - son of the first North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung - was born in a hut on the mountainside in 1945, although official records show his place of birth being a Russian refugee camp.

In April 2015 pictures were released of current leader Kim Jong-un - who became head of state when his father died in 2011 - being cheered by pilots at the summit.

The Korea Central News Agency claimed he visited the landmark to 'implant the revolutionary spirt of Paektu' in their hearts.

The state-owned news outlet wrote: 'He ardently called upon all of them to vigorously fight for the final victory in the building of a thriving socialist nation, cherishing deeper in their minds the revolutionary spirit of Paektu, the spirit of the blizzards of Paektu.'

Pictures released today show North Korean leader Kim Jong-un posing with participants during the 8th Congress of the Korean Children's Union (KCU)

The despot leader was cheered by young members of the 8th Congress of the Korean Children's Union in pictures released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was presented with flowers by a group of children in pictures released today by state media
A woman has had a child with her stepfather to grant her mothers wish to have another baby.

Jacky Edwards, 47, had been unable to carry a child after she suffered a traumatic pregnancy and had a partial hysterectomy 12 years ago.

At the time, the mother-of-five thought she didnt want any more children. She was widowed five years later, but in 2013 met Paul, a 48-year-old chemist.

Widowed at 40, Jacky Edwards (left) was unable to carry a baby naturally. When she married again, she and her new husband Paul wanted a baby and her daughter Katherine (right) offered to act as a surrogate, later giving birth to Caspian (also pictured) for them

Katherine drew up an agreement with a lawyer, agreeing that Jacky and Paul (also pictured) would pay her 1,000 a month in expenses. She was then artificially inseminated with Paul's sperm

Jacky has has written an account of her nursing and family life, 'The Sky is Not the Limit' and is working with Katherine on a book about the pregnancy

The couple married in Mauritius in 2014 and a year later decided they wanted to try for a baby. However, due to Mrs Edwards age, IVF clinics refused to take them.

They said there was no chance because she had gone through the menopause and was no longer producing eggs.

They were about to give up when Mrs Edwards eldest daughter Katherine, 30, offered to act as a surrogate after seeing how much it would mean to her mother.

Jacky, 47, of South Horrington, Somerset, pictured with Katherine, 30

Pictured, a newborn Caspian Edwards, who was born healthy at a birthing centre in Portsmouth in May last year

Mrs Edwards said they were having coffee when Katherine took her hand and revealed she and her husband Sam had been investigating the idea.

Katherine said she wanted to do it to bring some happiness back to the family after the unexpected death of their father seven years ago. It would also give her mother the DNA link she craved  and effectively mean Katherrine was giving birth to a brother.

My eyes just welled up with tears, Mrs Edwards said. The fact that she was willing to do this for me and Paul, it stopped my heart completely.

Once Caspian is old enough, Jacky will tell him how he was conceived and show him the memory box of photos she and Katherine have collected

Jacky said: 'Caspian was hard to get and we are all very proud. He will absolutely know where he came from. Four people created him in a circle of love'

Its a bit Jeremy Kyle, but Paul was jumping for joy. He was like, oh my God, it is going to happen. And there would be a genetic link with the baby. Such an arrangement is incredibly rare in Britain. Although Katherine could have donated her egg to be used by another woman, she was adamant that she was going to carry the baby herself out of pride for being her mothers surrogate.

They decided not to have IVF treatment because it is expensive and has a lower success rate than simply transferring her mothers husbands sperm to her body.

Lawyers and surrogacy experts agreed the arrangement was feasible, and in mid-2015 the family met over the kitchen table to draw up a formal contact.

Jacky had suffered a traumatic pregnancy with her fifth child 12 years ago and underwent a hysterectomy. After re-marrying, she decided she wanted another child. Above, Katherine and Caspian

Jacky (pictured right with Katherine) began dating husband Paul in 2013 and married in Mauritius in 2014

They discussed how the sperm would be transferred, how they would feel if Katherine miscarried, or if the baby was born disabled, and whether Katherine would be happy to have Paul in the room during her labour.

It was decided that Katherine, an admin worker, would be paid 1,000 a month in expenses for loss of earnings, maternity clothes and travel to doctors appointments.

Katherine and her husband Sam also agreed not to have sex to ensure there was no doubt Paul would be the father. The transfers of sperm would take place twice a day for a week in a hotel room in Portsmouth.

When Caspian was born, the little boy was handed straight to Jacky, who was delighted to meet her son

After making enquiries at various clinics, Jacky (right) and new husband Paul Edwards were told there was 'no chance' of success because she had gone through the menopause. Jacky's eldest daughter Katherine (left), already a mother-of-two, offered to act as surrogate after seeing how much it would mean to the couple

Because Mrs Edwards was too shy to buy a home insemination kit, the baby was conceived using plastic syringes and measurement pots from childrens medicine bottles.

Katherine said: Id then use the syringe to sort out the transfer, watching Disney films to blank out the reality of injecting my mums husbands modern-day surrogacy sperm into me. Then Id stay there for a few hours, chatting with mum about what the baby would be like. We did that 14 times in the space of a week and it was a precious time  although I was praying I was pregnant so that I didnt have to do it again.

Mrs Edwards added: As a nurse Im very used to being matter of fact, but it was gross.

The family drew up a contract in mid 2015 after seeking legal advice

Katherine (right), who lives in Holland with husband Sam, 27, who is in the Navy, added: 'I knew that if I didn't offer to be mum's surrogate, she would struggle to find one

Jacky (left) said: 'The fact that she was willing to do this for me and Paul, it stopped my heart completely'

Luckily, Katherine found out she was pregnant after the first rounds of attempts. Her mother and Paul then attended every single baby scan, but Katherine  already a mother of two  vowed she wouldnt become too emotionally involved. The baby would be treated like a nephew or niece, she said.

While her children were played UB40 songs while they were in the womb, the baby, who was named Caspian, was played Doris Day, her mothers favourite singer. During the pregnancy she suffered terrible morning sickness and had to give up her job. But on May 13 last year, Katherines waters broke at 37 weeks while she was in a Costa Coffee in Gosport, Hampshire, with her mother.

Baby Caspian was born 13 minutes later at a birthing centre next door. The couple were in the room when he appeared, and Paul arrived in time to cut the cord.

The family drew up a legal contract in 2015, which said Jacky would pay for Katherine's expenses and she agreed not to have sex with her partner until she conceived

Mrs Edwards, from South Horrington, Somerset, said: It was just the most amazing moment.

Caspian was handed straight to me because Katherine didnt want to bond with him and she wanted me to have those moments. It all fell into place. We are totally over the moon with him. We look at him and pinch ourselves because it seemed impossible that Paul and I would ever be able to have a baby together.

Katherine, who now lives in Holland with husband Sam, 27, a Navy engineer, added: I knew that if I didnt offer to be mums surrogate, she would struggle to find one. The artificial insemination was disgusting I just thought, Im making a baby in a different way, and blocked it out. There were times when I thought, have I made a mistake?. I was told that I was going to feel something for this baby. But when I actually gave birth he was handed straight to my mum. Then I looked over and saw the three of them together and it was amazing. I was at home two hours later, sipping champagne in the bath, while mum took on the role of new mother. Giving Caspian to mum felt so natural.

Katherine underwent 14 'transfers' over the course of a week and became pregnant

Jacky, who worked as an NHS nurse for 15 years but is now an author, had three sons and two daughters before Caspian, who are now aged between 12 and 30. Seven years ago, her husband Jason, 47, died of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.

Mrs Edwards said: It was devastating but I adapted to single life. I was happy  I got on with things. I didnt want another relationship, baby, nothing.

But my grown up children started worrying I was lonely and they put me on Plenty of Fish and Tinder, and I promised I would go on a few first dates. One of the men happened to be Paul.

The Edwards were advised by Nicola Scott, a solicitor with Somerset law firm Porter Dodson who was the first in the country to qualify in fertility and parenting law

What surrogacy law says When a child is born its mother under English law is considered to be the woman who carried the infant through pregnancy, in this case, Katherine If she is married her husband is considered the legal father  which means the intended father, in this instance, Paul, has no automatic claim to legal parenthood. If she is unmarried it is possible for the genetic father to be considered a legal parent The surrogate is responsible for registering the birth, so her name and that of the legal father will go on the birth certificate A parental order, made possible by the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, can then transfer full parental status to the intended parents This cannot happen until a child is six weeks old, but must do before they are six months, and strict conditions must be met One is that no money must be paid by the would-be parents to the natural mum or to an agency, except for legitimate expenses Applicants for the parental order must be husband and wife, a married same-sex couple, civil partners or in a long-term relationship Advertisement

She added: He loved me so much that he just really wanted to have a child with me. I was reticent at first but I knew Paul would always be a tiny bit sad if we didnt. The family revealed they were vilified by friends and colleagues who told them it was against nature and questioned how Katherine could give up her baby. But they brushed off any criticisms and pressed on with the pregnancy.

Mrs Edwards said Caspian will be told about how he was conceived once he is old enough.

Caspian was hard to get and we are all very proud, she said. He will absolutely know where he came from. Four people created him in a circle of love. Katherine is still Caspians sister, but there is a gold star attached.

The trio (picture) were vilified by friends and colleagues who told them it was 'against nature' and asked Katherine how she could give up her baby

Katherine said her husband was able to cope with the situation by staying out of the process as much as possible. She said: The thing that made Sam worry was that his name would be on the birth certificate until the parental order was issued and mum and Paul were recognised as the parents.

She added:The one odd moment I had was the day after, when I was out shopping. I thought to myself, No one knows I had a baby yesterday.

There was none of the recognition you usually get after the birth of a child. It was gone in a moment. My hormones were all over the place after my other pregnancies, but this time my body settled down really quickly.

Pictured, Katherine's growing baby bump as she was preganant with Caspian. Her waters broke at 37 weeks

Once Caspian is old enough, Jacky (pictured at her wedding) will tell him how he was conceived and show him the memory box of photos she and Katherine have collected

Many surrogates say they wish they could be friends with their surrogacy family, so I feel lucky. I get to see Caspian grow up.

Mrs Edwards was advised by Nicola Scott, a solicitor with Somerset law firm Porter Dodson, which was the first in the country to qualify in fertility and parenting law. Miss Scott said: Whilst this case may seem complicated by the fact that a daughter carried a pregnancy for her mother, it was actually no more legally complex than any other surrogacy arrangement.

The law always treats the surrogate as the legal mother, even if she is not biologically related to the child.

She added: I have heard anecdotes about this happening before but only a couple of times in the UK, if that.

Pictured, Caspian Edwards and his parents as they celebrated his birth in Portsmouth

But even though Katherine was Caspian's surrogate, the law regards her as his biological mother

I have been in this practice for more than ten years and its the first time Ive ever had clients come to me and say, we are thinking of doing this.

Its pretty rare. Looking at the detail it sounds a little bit strange, but in terms of the law it is just like any other surrogacy.

Surrogacy is an increasingly popular option for would-be parents in Britain. According to the Ministry of Justice Family Court, there were 394 parental orders last year  the transfer of legal rights from the surrogate to the parents. In 2011 there were just 117.

Jacky said Caspian is Katherine's sister 'with a gold star attached'. Pictured, the trio pose for a picture

It is not known how many women have acted as surrogate for their mothers, but it is certainly very rare. In 2015, Anne-Marie Casson, 46, acted as a surrogate for her gay son Kyle, 27, using a donor egg. And in July last year a 60-year-old woman won a landmark legal case to carry her dead daughters frozen eggs.

In December, Julie Bradford, 44, gave birth to her grandson after she agreed to be a surrogate for her cancer-stricken daughter.

Mrs Edwards has written an account of her nursing and family life, The Sky is Not the Limit, and is working on a new book about her surrogacy.
A Florida woman was jailed on Wednesday for threatening a man who lost his 6-year-old son in the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre.

Lucy Richards contended that the atrocity was a hoax, and accused Lenny Pozner of lying about the death of his son Noah in the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. She sent the bereaved father multiple messages threatening violence and death.

Senior District Judge James Cohn sentenced Richards, 57, to five months in prison, followed by five months of home detention, after she pleaded guilty to interstate transmission of a threat to injure in communications with Pozner.

Lucy Richards of Brandon, Florida, has been convicted of sending threatening messages to the father of one of the young victims of the Sandy Hook massacre. The judge sentenced Richards, who is house-bound with agoraphobia, to five months in jail followed by five months of home detention

Richards, seated in a wheelchair at the hearing, has significant mental health problems including agoraphobia - fear of leaving one's house - obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder, court documents show. But Cohn said he did not think mental illness triggered Richards' actions.

'You have the absolute right to think and believe as you so desire,' the judge said. 'You do not have the right to transmit threats to another.'

Cohn called Richards' actions toward Pozner 'disturbing' and slammed conspiracy theories surrounding the Sandy Hook massacre, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot twenty six- and seven-year-old children and six adult staff at the elementary school.

Lenny Pozner lost his six-year-old son Noah in the shooting, which led to renewed calls for tighter restrictions on gun ownership in the US

'I'm sure he wishes this was false and he could embrace Noah, hear Noah's heartbeat and hear Noah say "I love you, Dad",' Cohn told Richards. 'Your words were cruel and insensitive. This is reality and there is no fiction. There are no alternative facts.'

Investigators say Richards made four voicemail and email threats to Pozner on January 10 last year after viewing internet sites claiming the shooting was a hoax aimed at curtailing Americans' Second Amendment gun ownership rights. The messages said things such as 'you gonna die, death is coming to you real soon' and 'LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH.'

In a statement before she was sentenced, Richards apologized and said she could not account for her actions against Pozner that day.

Noah Pozner was one of twenty elementary schoolchildren massacred. Conspiracy theorists later alleged the shooting had never taken place, and badgered Noah's parents to provide proof of their late son's existence.

'I don't know where my heart and head were that day, but they were not in the right place,' she said. 'It was the worst mistake of my life and I am truly sorry.'

Others linked to the Sandy Hook massacre have complained of harassment by conspiracy theorists who insist the tragedy was a hoax.

Last year, Pozner and his wife Veronique alleged they had been harassed by James Tracy, a professor at Florida Atlantic University - whom they claim demanded proof that their child existed.

In fact, Richards' public defender Robert Berube said he had gotten calls from around the United States from people who think Sandy Hook was a hoax.

Adam Lanza, left, massacred 20 young children and six adult staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012.

Staff shepherd children away from the scene of the savagery at Sandy Hook. The tragedy has since been the target of conspiracy theorists who maintain the incident never happened.

'There were many people who told me it never took place,' he said.

In addition to the prison time and home arrest, Richards will serve three years on probation and is barred from accessing a list of conspiracy theory websites.

She had initially been scheduled to plead guilty in March but did not show up in court, leading to her arrest April 1 and time in jail since then. Those two months already served will count toward her five-month prison sentence.
A top Uber executive who has recently been fired carried around the medical records of a woman who was raped by a driver for months, even showing the documents to CEO Travis Kalanick, insiders claim.

Eric Alexander, Uber's former president of business in the Asia Pacific, was fired from the company after 20 others were let go as part of the car-hiring service's internal probe into workplace culture and sexual harassment.

Alexander's handling of the rape case was one of 215 claims reported to law firms Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling during investigations into Uber's workplace culture.

Uber executive Eric Alexander was fired from the company after 20 others were let go as part of the car-hiring service's internal probe into workplace culture and sexual harassment

Fifty-seven claims are still be investigated, 31 employees have been given counselling and seven have been given written warnings from Uber.

The terminated employees have not been named.

They were sacked for varying reasons related to harassment, discrimination and other HR-related matters.

Alexander was not part of the initial 20 who were fired, but was let go from the company after Recode contacted the company about his actions.

The former executive had illegally obtained the medical records of a 26-year-old woman in New Delhi, India, who was raped and assaulted by an Uber driver in December 2014.

The driver, who was already awaiting trial on other crimes, was arrested and has since been sentenced to life in prison.

Uber India president Amit Jain applauded the sentence in a statement following the trial.

'Sexual assault is a terrible crime and we're pleased he has now been brought to justice,' he said in a statement.

Alexander carried around the medical records of a woman who was raped by a driver for months, even showing the documents to CEO Travis Kalanick (pictured)

He added: 'Safety is a priority for Uber and we've made many improvements - in terms of new technology, enhanced background checks and better 24/7 customer support - as a result of the lessons we learned from this awful case.'

Shortly after the incident, Uber was banned in Dheli - a ban that wasn't lifted until June 205.

Alexander was in India at the time of the criminal investigation, and obtained the victim's medical records after several top executives said they had trouble believing the incident actually happened, sources told Recode.

It is unclear if Alexander obtained the records legally or illegally.

He shared the documents with Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael, and several other executives later read the documents or were told about the records.

Alexander, Kalanick and Michael, then speculated that Ola - Uber's main competitor in India - was behind the incident, sources claimed.

None of the three executives had any medical training, though they questioned the incident based on the medical report.

'Travis never should have looked at the report and he should have fired him immediately,' said one executive of Alexander.

Alexander's handling of the rape case was one of 215 claims reported to law firms Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling during investigations into Uber's workplace culture

Alexander continued to carry around the documents for a year before other executives destroyed his copy. It is unclear if Uber as a whole still has a copy of the document.

Uber announced on Tuesday that it had fired more than 20 employees as part of an internal probe.

The ride-sharing company announced the news to its 12,000 employees at a meeting at its San Francisco headquarters on Tuesday, Bloomberg reports.

Staff were told at the meeting that the company had investigated 215 claims of discrimination and harassment dating back to 2012 as part of its investigation.

Bobbie Wilson, an attorney at Perkins Coie, gave the Uber employees an assessment of the firm's investigation.

The company told its staff it would expand its employee relations unit to better investigate claims. It also said it would dramatically increase management training since most Uber managers were first-time bosses.

The company's CEO Travis Kalanick announced news of an investigation after former engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti wrote a viral blog post in February that detailed accusations of sexual harassment and discrimination within the company.

Kalanick hired former US Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and his law firm, Covington & Burling, to investigate the allegations made by Rigetti. Those findings have not yet been released and are separate to the ones announced on Tuesday.
Experts believe a painting found in the attic of an Arizona retiree is a long lost work-of-art by Jackson Pollock, the modern artist famous for his splatter paintings.

The painting was found last year among a treasure trove of modern art - including works by Kenneth Norland, Jules Olitski, an Cora Kelley Ward - that were bequeathed to the unnamed owner by his half-sister Jenifer Gordon, who ran in the same social scene as the artists in New York City in the mid-20th Century.

But the owner, who now lives in an assisted-living facility, had no idea of their worth. In fact, he originally hired J. Levine Auction & Appraisal LLC to value some Los Angeles Lakers memorabilia that he had signed by Kobe Bryant.

Experts believe that a painting found in an Arizona retiree's attic is a long lost work-of-art by Jackson Pollock

'We ended up signing a contract to auction the contents of the estate, and thats when we found many of the paintings stored away,' the auction house's owner and founder Josh Levine said in a press release.

The owner of the painting had no idea what he had. He said to me, 'I didn't even know who he (Pollock) was until you told me about him.' Josh Levine, owner of J. Levine Auction & Appraisal LLC

'The owner of the painting had no idea what he had. He said to me, "I didn't even know who he (Pollock) was until you told me about him,"'Levine told the Arizona Republic.

Levine started investigating the painting's origin in January 2016, going on to spend $50,000 on forensic reports and private investigators to trace the painting's lineage.

Levine was quite certain that the painting was a Pollock, because the rest of the artists whose work they found in the attic were connected to the same social circle as Clement Greenberg, a well-known American modern art critic who was an early promoter of Pollock's work.

Pollock (pictured), who died in 1956, was famous for his splatter paintings

The owner's half-sister Gordon was also in that same social circle, as was early Pollock supporter Peggy Guggenheim.

Levine also talked to an Australian artist who was friend with Gordon and Greenberg, who said she knew Gordon received a Pollock at some point in her life.

'I knew that Jenifer had a Pollock and, as confident as I could be, given that photographs are never as clear as seeing the painting in the flesh, that this is the original painting,' Barbara McKay said in an email to the Arizona Republic.

The forensics reports only firmed up Levine's opinion that the painting was authentic, since they found that the painting contained no pigments or bindings introduced after Pollock's death in 1956.

Based on the research and reports, Levine says he believes the painting 'was one of Pollocks missing gouaches in his catalogue raisonne or from the period of 1945 to 1949'.

'I'm brave enough to call it a Jackson Pollock and put my entire reputation on it,' he said.

However, Levine admits that he knows there is debate over the authenticity of lost Pollock paintings.

The unnamed painting is set to be auctioned off by Levine's firm on June 20 and is expected to sell for at least $10million.

Online bidding has already begun and live bidding is slated to start at 11am Pacific Time.

A private preview is available upon request and a public preview will take place on June 19 from 4pm to 7pm at the auction house, located at 10345 N. Scottsdale Rd. in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Bidders must be pre-qualified in order to place a bid. For more information visit www.jlevines.com/pollock or call 480-496-2212
Plans for an Islamic 'mega project' in Brisbane featuring a mosque, apartments and a childcare centre have been condemned by the community who have slammed it as a segregated Muslim enclave.

The development - which will provide cradle to grave care for Muslims - has sparked fury with residents at a nearby retirement village.

Those opposed to the master plan argue it promotes segregation and is incompatible with the area's multicultural values, but supporters claim it will not be exclusive to Muslims, A Current Affair reports.

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The Islamic 'mega project' will be an extension of the Australian International Islamic College in Brisbane

Sultan Deen (pictured) has denied claims the proposed development will be a 'Muslim enclave'

The Australian International Islamic College lodged plans to add a mosque, 120 residential apartments, childcare and retail space within its existing site at Durack, in the city's southern outskirts.

Muslim Sultan Deen has hit back at claims it will encourage a divide between the Islam community and the rest of the area.

He also denies it will be a Muslim 'enclave' and says it will welcome people of all religions.

'It's open to everybody, sure there will be facilities provided to Muslims but it won't be exclusively for Muslims,' he said.

'If the Muslims put out anything, it automatically gets stomped on.'

Residents of the adjacent retirement village say they do not oppose the plans because it will cater to Muslims, but because it will dramatically increase traffic and reduce privacy.

The sprawling Islamic development will feature 120 apartments, a mosque and a childcare centre

Locals have petitioned against the development and claim it is incompatible with the area

The Islamic school houses 600 students but will skyrocket to 2000 if the plans are given the green light.

Residents opposed to the plan for a Muslim community have lodged a petition with Brisbane City Council.

'The apparent exclusivity of the proposed development to a religious group will offer hardly any benefit to the community it is situated in as a whole and is inconsistent with the multicultural community that already exists in the suburb,' the petition, cited by the South-West News, stated.

Labor councillor Steve Griffiths said he was opposed to the development proposal for 724 Blunder Road, however he stressed this was on planning and not religious grounds.

'The impact on other local residents amenity appears well beyond that expected of its use as community facilities - educational purposes,' he said in a submission obtained by Quest Newspapers.

The plans, seen by Daily Mail Australia, include a proposal for a two-storey mosque covering 1,970 square metres.

Residents say the Australian International Islamic College's plans are incompatible with the area's multicultural values

A mosque is included in plans for a Muslim enclave on the site of the Islamic school

The plans lodged with Brisbane City Council feature a two-storey mosque

It would include a three-storey aged care and residential building, 3,000 square metres of retail space and 120 residential apartments, on top of new classrooms and a childcare centre.

The existing site is already home to the college, which caters for students from kindergarten to year 12.

It is near Inala, which is home to a large Vietnamese community, and the Wacol prison, which both fall with Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's Inala electorate.
A Muslim political leader denied tried to foil a police investigation into the illegal immigration services allegedly offered by his law firm.

Kamran Malik, 50, attempted to prevent a witness informing police about corrupt practices at KM Legal Advisory [KMLA] in Forest Gate, east London, it is claimed.

Malik and his secretary wife Humera Kamran 40, were being investigated for allegedly offering unregulated immigration services at the firm between November 2014 and October 2016.

They denied providing immigration advice and services when not qualified to do so when they appeared at Southwark Crown Court.

Kamran Malik, 50 (left), attempted to prevent a witness informing police about corrupt practices at KM Legal Advisory in Forest Gate, east London, it is claimed. Malik and his secretary wife Humera Kamran 40 (right), were being investigated for allegedly offering unregulated immigration services at the firm

Malik also denied trying to pervert the course of justice by pressuring a witness to retract their statement against him and to claim he had been bullied into submitting it in the first place.

Earlier prosecutor Alisdar Richardson said: 'This case involves a company of which Malik Kamran is the principal director.

'It provides immigration advice and services.

'Since 2001 it has been necessary to be qualified to provide immigration advice and services.

'But since 2001 this has been unregulated service.

'There are three ways to be qualified and if you are not one of those three things or supervised by someone who is, you are not qualified to practice in this country and it is an offence to do so.'

Malik hit the headlines last year over his failed bid to sue Donald Trump for 10m over the politician's claim that parts of London are so radicalised police fear for their lives.

The former Mayor of Newham candidate, who founded the Communities United Party in east London, promised migrants an 'excellent chance' to secure work visas through KMLA.

But he allegedly breached The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 repeatedly during a two-year scam at the company, which dissolved in May 2016.

LAWYER LOST LEGAL BATTLE WITH TRUMP OVER 'RADICALISED' MUSLIM AREAS COMMENT Muslim political leader Kamran Malik (left), had sought permission to sue US president Donald Trump (right) for saying parts of London are so 'radicalised' that police fear for their lives Kamran Malik, and his east London-based Communities United Party, sought 10 million damages against the would-be US President for allegedly defaming Muslims living in the Green Street and Romford Road area of Forest Gate. Mr Trump said parts of London and Paris were so 'radicalised' that police officers were scared. Mr Trump made the controversial comments speaking to American network MSNBC. Malik said that Mr Trump's comments had the potential to affect the trust and confidence that Muslims in his part of London had built with non-Muslim friends and business partners. But the Muslim leader's case was dismissed at the High Court, after he sought permission to proceed with his claim by serving Mr Trump out of the jurisdiction in the USA. The court ruled that there were breaches of procedural and legal requirements in how the defamation case was put and Mr Malik's claims under the European Convention on Human Rights, the Equality Act and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act also failed for legal reasons. Mr Malik, who was not in court, was ordered to pay 35,000 costs and refused permission to appeal although he can re-apply to the Court of Appeal. Advertisement

Malik then interfered with a witness to try to get them to withdraw their statement against him and submit a second which says the first was made under duress, it is claimed.

Malik and Kamran, both of St Clair Road, Plaistow, denied five counts of providing immigration advice and services when not qualified to do so.

Malik further denied one count of perverting the course of justice.

Michael Chambers, representing Humera Kamran and KMLA, entered not guilty pleas to all five counts of providing immigration advice and services when not qualified to do so on behalf of the company.

The pair will return to Southwark Crown Court on 5 March 2018 for trial.

Co-defendant Babar Bokhari, 54, who faces one count of perverting the course of justice, is currently at large and a warrant was previously issued for his arrest.
Robert Bryant Melson (pictured in this undated photo), 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday evening at a south Alabama prison

A man who shot and killed three people during a fast-food store robbery 23 years ago is set to be executed.

Robert Bryant Melson, 46, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday evening at a south Alabama prison.

State prosecutors said Melson and another man who used to work at the restaurant, robbed a Popeyes in Gadsden - about 60 miles northeast of Birmingham.

They said Melson opened fire on four employees on April 15, 1994. Nathaniel Baker, Tamika Collins and Darrell Collier were killed.

The surviving employee, Bryant Archer, crawled for help and was able to identify one of the robbers as the former worker. While he could not identify Melson, prosecutors said Melson told police he had been with the former employee that night.

A shoeprint behind the store matched Melson's shoes, they said.

Archer told Alabama.com he remembers the exact amount of money Melson and his accomplice, Melson and Cuhuatemoc Peraita, tried to make off with.

'For $2,100, they killed three people and shot me five times,' he said, before explaining how the two men led him and his three co-workers into the store's freezer.

The robbery and shooting took place at this Popeyes on April 15, 1994. The store is pictured recently

Melson (left) robbed the store with Cuhuatemoc Peraita (pictured) - who was also convicted of murder over the three deaths. He was sentenced to life in prison, but is currently on death row for murdering another inmate while behind bars

'I was the first one in, and the other three were behind me. The door shut and I thought they were running off, so I sat down. That's when the door opened and I saw the first blast.

'I could see what was going on, but it kind of went to a blur. I could still see but I couldn't move anymore.'

Melson's attorneys unsuccessfully asked appellate courts to halt the execution in order to review the constitutionality of Alabama's lethal injection protocol.

Melson and other inmates are appealing a judge's dismissal of lawsuits that argued Alabama plans to use the sedative midazolam has been linked to what they say were problematic executions.

Some states have turned to the sedative as other lethal injection drugs became difficult to obtain. They argue a federal judge prematurely dismissed their lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the state's death penalty procedures.

Midazolam is supposed to prevent inmates from feeling pain before other drugs are given to stop their lungs and heart, but several executions in which inmates lurched or coughed have raised questions about its use.

Tamika Collins (pictured) was one of the three people killed. Her mother posted these pictures on social media on Thursday morning

An inmate in Alabama coughed and heaved for the first 13 minutes of an execution held in December.

Melson's attorney argued that midazolam does not anesthetize an inmate, but they look still, because a second drug, a paralytic, prevents them from moving.

WHAT IS MIDAZOLAM? Midazolam is a sedative that has been used as a replacement substance in lethal injections as the chemicals used in the original formula created in the 1970s became harder to get. It first made headlines when Joseph Wood was put to death in Arizona in 2014, and the drug was used as part of a cocktail. Wood received 15 doses, but the execution took more than two hours and he 'gagged and choked the entire time', according to Newsweek. The drug was also used in Ohio in 2014 on Dennis McGuire, and while the execution lasted 20 minutes, he too gasped for air, choked, and tried to sit up during it. Advertisement

'Alabama's execution protocol is an illusion. It creates the illusion of a peaceful death when in truth, it is anything but,' Melson's attorneys wrote in the filing to the Alabama Supreme Court.

'It should not allow Mr. Melson's execution to go forward in the face of botched executions and significant challenges to the constitutionality of Alabama's execution protocol.'

The 11th Circuit did not rule on the merits of Melson's claim when it issued the first stay. Judges said they were issuing the stay to avoid prejudging the other inmates' appeals.

The Alabama attorney general's office has argued midazolam's use has been upheld by the Supreme Court and it has allowed multiple executions to proceed using the drug, including the execution of an Alabama inmate last month.

'If a stay were granted, Melson's execution would be delayed many months, if not years. The State, the victims' families, and the surviving victim in this case have waited long enough for justice to be delivered,' the attorney general's office wrote in a Wednesday court filing with the 11th Circuit.

Peraita was also convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is currently on death row for murdering another inmate while in prison.
Opinion / Columnist

Delegates sat for a disaster preparedness workshop at Ndlela Centre in Gweru in 2009. This centre is owned by the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe (MCZ). The workshop was steered by the MCZ Education Department then led by renowned educationist, Reverend Masala Masuku.The Methodist Church's disaster aptitude was inspired by the events of December 1995 which saw the death of 22 pupils from Moleli High School at Lake Chivero after the coxswain overloaded the boat they were sailing threefold. Accident stakeholders' reaction in this mishap was highly uninspiring leading to an avoidable surge in unwanted casualties. Had the students and the guiding teacher not taken active DIY assistance, the casualties could have surged beyond 22. In Zimbabwe there is a general ineptitude towards disasters as evidenced by public reactions at the most common road traffic accidents. Usually, bystanders jostle to catch a curious glimpse of dying victims without offering common first aid. Disappointing enough would be that the jostling bystanders retard the speed and efficiency of first aiders should they, however, arrive.Pro-action and reaction periods are most important in the accident cycle. Only a couple of days ago, President Mugabe was in Mexico attending the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction organized by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. This platform, which calls for participation at highest level from UN member states, is clearly an important international reaction to global problems.Member states reactions to this most important forum for disaster mitigation shows their commitment to work towards global efforts at reducing effects of disasters, natural or man-made. Efforts of the cooperating partners are useful in shaping the outcomes of disasters within their own territorial boundaries and beyond, even stretching into the territories of non-cooperating states, members or non-members because disasters do not respect man made boundaries.The biggest disasters threatening the world today are nature driven. Syria today is at the brink of collapse inside the six-year stretching war. There appears to be no solution in sight. What is evident is that the firms that supply weapons of war have well documented supply management chains to ensure efficient execution of the war by either side in the war. Global warming, resulting from industrial emissions spewed into the skies by the major producing nations of the developed world are the major culprits causing adverse weather conditions that are sponsoring the so called natural' disasters.It is at such global forums that outspoken world leaders like President Mugabe should speak out against the major polluters of the globe in order to squeeze a compromise plan from them. Sending a high school prefect to attend such an important multi-lateral cooperation meeting will be a mockery of the first order. It, therefore, was quite befitting for President Mugabe to go to Mexico to let Zimbabwe and Africa be heard. Is he not one of the leading stalwarts of African nationalism?It is essential that the world develops resilience mechanisms against avoidable disasters while efforts are made at minimizing the effects of man-made causatives. In this regard, a fund must be set to respond to these disasters which the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNODRR) said chewed a quarter of a trillion dollars globally per year. The major culprits must commit themselves both financially and politically to such efforts. Only this year, Sipepa Villagers of Tsholotsho North are still counting the heavy losses they suffered under cyclone Dineo induced rains. Nationally, the Department of Civil Protection accounted the financial reaction needed in the face of this disaster to be running towards two hundred million dollars. The figure was not reached.Away from Cyclone Dineo, the country has suffered heavy casualties on its roads that have become tricky to navigate due to expanding vehicle population and natural wear and tear. The most memorable such road horrors are the Mvuma bus disaster some of whose victims could not be told apart even in DNA matching attempts and the NUST/Bulawayo road haulage truck accident which claimed 14 funeral-bound relatives after hitting a flooded pothole.The Government has responded by fundraising $2.7 billion dollars to dualize the treacherous Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu road. Construction has already begun. It is expected to finish in 2020. Such are the reactions needed in protecting a country's most precious resource; human life.Also on the cards is a road traffic accident victim fund. Such a fund is already operational in neighboring countries, South Africa included. It is encouraging to see the country getting inspiration from its neighbors in matters of social protection. Scores of families have lost income and the potential to better lives after breadwinners are maimed or killed in accidents and getting no compensation at all from concerned parties. It is worth celebrating to see Government warming up to such ideas. With a Government that is disaster sensitive, so will be its citizens.
A doctor in a Detroit suburb performed genital mutilation on as many as 100 girls over 12 years, prosecutors claimed as they tried to convince a judge to keep a man and his wife who assisted the medical professional locked up on Wednesday.

Detroit-based doctors Jumana Nagarwala and Fakhruddin Attar, as well as Attar's wife Farida, have been charged with carrying out female genital mutilation, FGM, on young girls from Minnesota on February 3.

Attar, of Farmington Hills, Michigan, is accused of letting Nagarwala use his Livonia, Michigan, clinic to perform genital mutilation procedures on young girls as part of a religious rite of passage.

His wife is accused of holding the girls' hands during the procedures to keep them calm.

The charges against Nagarwala and the Attars, are believed to be the first case testing the US ban on the practice of female circumcision, which is also known as female genital mutilation or cutting.

In an attempt to keep the Attars behind bars as they await trial, Assistant US Attorney Sara Woodward claimed on Wednesday that Nagarwala, of Northville, performed procedures on up to 100 girls.

Detroit-based doctors Jumana Nagarwala (left) and Fakhruddin Attar (right), as well as Attar's wife Farida, have been charged with the female genital mutilation of two girls, 7, in February

'Due to the secretive nature of this procedure, we are unlikely to ever know how many children were cut by Dr. (Jumana) Nagarwala,' Woodward said, referring to Nagarwala. 'The Minnesota victims were not the first victims.'

And against Woodward's wishes, US District Judge Bernard Friedman granted bond to the Attars, according to the Detroit Free Press. The couple have been locked up since late April.

Fakhruddin Attar and Farida Attar must stay in their suburban Detroit home and be electronically monitored upon their release on Thursday.

The couple are not allowed to live with their eight-year-old daughter upon their release, as the state tries to end their parenting rights.

Nagarwala, meanwhile, will remain in custody through her pending trial, which is set for October 10.

If convicted, Nagarwala and Fakhruddin Attar face up to life in prison, while Attar's wife could be imprisoned for up to 20 years.

The Attars and Nagarwala belong to a Muslim sect called Dawoodi Bohra. They deny the charges and say a religious ritual was performed.

To date, the government has identified eight victims who were mutilated at the clinic, including the two girls from Minnesota.

Nagarwala, 44, an emergency room doctor at Henry Ford Health System, is accused of performing genital mutilation on the two young girls at the private Burhani Medical Clinic, Livonia, after hours in February.

An FBI child forensic interviewer who talked to one of the girls, said the child had described how she was brought to Detroit with a second girl for a '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.

FBI agents leave the office of Dr. Fakhruddin Attar at the Burhani Clinic in Livonia, Michigan, in April after completing a search for documents. The investigation is connected to the case of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, of Northville, charged with performing genital mutilation on two young girls from Minnesota

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.

The doctor, who was arrested trying to board a flight to Kenya, denies the charges claiming she scraped membrane from the girls' genitalia as part of the religious custom. But those claims do not align with severe injuries suffered by two girls who came forward to accuse her of carrying out the practice on them.

Doctors reports obtained by the Detroit Free Press indicate the children suffered more severe injuries including scarring, a small tear, lacerations and what appeared to be the surgical removal of a portion of genitalia.

Dr Attar's attorney says her client may have let Dr Nagarwala use his clinic but claims he had no knowledge of what procedures she was performing.

Nagarwala was arrested on April 12, just days after the two alleged victims identified her as the person who performed medical procedures on them. The girls had been brought into the clinic by their mothers but the parents have not been charged.

WHAT IS FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION? 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. A traditional razor blade used to perform female genital mutilation in parts of Africa 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

Authorities say Dr Nagarwala was never employed at the clinic where the alleged mutilation took place and that she was able to perform the procedures after hours.

Dr Attar and his wife, who works at the clinic as an office manager, were arrested on Friday morning. They allegedly arranged and assisted in the genital mutilation procedures by Dr Nagarwala, police claim.

All three are accused of trying to keep the practice secret within their Indian-Muslim community, according to the indictment.

Authorities claim the trio have been part of a female genital mutilation scheme since 2005 and there could be a number of other young victims. The trio have denied any wrongdoing.

Attar is accused of helping arrange the the Minnesota girls' visits to Michigan during more than 50 phone calls with a Muslim man in Minnesota.

His lawyer said her client was only talking to the woman because he was helping her memorize the Quran.

Prosecutors argue that the defendants knew what they were doing was illegal and tried to cover it up, citing a text message Attar's wife sent her on February 3 - the night the two Minnesota girls were allegedly cut at the clinic - to stay away.

They also allegedly told people in the local community to deny that the doctors carried out the procedure, and simply say it was a medical exam.

The procedure has roots in various cultures in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It's generally performed as a way of controlling a girl's sexuality, maintaining her purity or even making her more fertile as she grows into adulthood.

But it's difficult to gauge how often genital cutting occurs in the U.S. - a 2012 study from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 513,000 girls in the country had been subjected to or were at risk of undergoing genital cutting.
A glamourous fashion designer is sunning herself in Bali with a gaggle of famous friends while 80 creditors are owed $1 million from her failed business.

Jessica White's clothing company Shakuhachi Limited went into liquidation in May 2015 with a long line of suppliers left empty-handed.

But the blonde beauty does not look like a woman in mountains of debt as she sips cocktails, attends dress-up boat parties, and wears expensive designer clothes.

Glamourous fashion designer Jessica White (R) is living it up in Bali with a gaggle of famous friends like Lindy Klim (L) while 80 creditors are owed $1 million from her failed business

When A Current Affair's TV crew approached her in a beach club with some well-dressed friends to ask where all the money went, her mood suddenly soured.

Ms White abruptly got up and ran upstairs to the back of the club and hid in the men's toilet, ignoring questions liquidators and customers are still asking.

Shakuhachi is still operating as its assets and brand were bought from administrators by Loft HK Limited in 2015 - and Ms White appears heavily involved.

However, Ms White's old company Shakuhachi Limited - which contains all its debts - is still being liquidated by Andrew Spring of forensic accounting firm Jirsch Sutherland.

When a TV crew approached her in a beach club with some well-dressed friends to ask where all the money went, her mood suddenly soured

Ms White abruptly got up and ran upstairs to the back of the club

His report to creditors puts its debts at more than $860,000 - with Ms White personally owing $634,034.

The report says Ms White's lawyers disputed the debt but did not provide a statement of her assets.

'I have been advised that [she] has moved to Bali, Indonesia, and I anticipate there may be an issue with serving a statement of claim on her. My investigations in this regard are ongoing,' he wrote.

She was pursued by reporters but ignored questions liquidators and customers are still asking

Then she hid in the men's toilet and refused to come out or speak with media

Mr Spring told ACA he has been trying to get answers from Ms White about the missing cash and when she plans to return to Australia.

'We've put some demands on Jessica White in relation to those funds that appear to have been withdrawn for non-business purposes,' he said.

'We, as yet, have not heard her side of the story. So we would encourage her to make contact with us to be able to explain how these transactions arose.'

Mr Spring also believed Shakuhachi may have been trading while insolvent - a crime that can result in heavy fines and possible jail time, as well as claims by creditors.

Ms White relaxes in the sun at a Bali beach club despite huge debts in Australia

Ms White dances while wearing a crop top in balmy Bali weather

Her angry customers and creditors range from schoolgirls who never received their clothes to fabric makers, modelling agencies, and even a Sydney council.

NSW Fair Trading Minister Matt Keen said 155 complaints about Shakuhachi were lodged since January 2016.

'We will take no prisoners to get to the bottom of what's gone on and take action against Shakuhachi,' he told the program.

Woollahra Council, in Sydney's upmarket eastern suburbs, claimed to be owed $1,200 for cleaning up her Paddington store when the business closed.

'It's absolutely shocking. We've written it off. Which is rare, in our case. But we have, in this case, written it off,' Councillor Andrew Petrie said.

These three schoolgirls say they saved up to buy Shakuhachi clothes but never received them

Another customer, Annie McFarlane, finally got her order after four months but claimed they were poorly made and the wrong size

'It's just an impact again on our services. To services, things like Meals on Wheels, services for children. All those matters would impact on those services.'

High school student Scarlett said she saved up to buy Shakuhachi clothing thinking it would be high-quality, but never received it.

'It's hard to make enough money to get things that you really enjoy nad will last you a long time, and it's really upsetting when you never actually get it,' she said.

Her friend Bella said when she complained she was promised a refund and a gift voucher, but the code didn't work and she never received her items.

The address that is supposed to be Shakuhachi's factory in Bali but looks to be anything but

One of two villas owned by Ms White despite her substantial debts in Australia

All Australian outlets closed when the company went under, but business in Bali appears to be booming

Another customer, Annie McFarlane, finally got her order after four months but claimed they were poorly made and the wrong size.

'It was just a complete waste of money and in fact, the garments, I probably put them in some kids dress-up somewhere because I can't wear them,' she said.

'It just seems to be standard sale, shut website down, can't contact anyone, warehouse closes, office closes and when sale starts again, it all starts up again.'

Meanwhile, Ms White is frequently pictured with a glamourous clique of fashion designers and Instagram models who are either based in Bali or flit between the island and Australia

Ms White (R) attending a dress-up boat party in Bali with one of her friends

The blonde beauty does not look like a woman in mountains of debt as her social media shows her sipping cocktails and wearing expensive designer clothes

Meanwhile, Ms White is frequently pictured with a glamourous clique of fashion designers and Instagram models who are either based in Bali or flit between the island and Australia.

She was even spotted attending fellow Australian fashion guru Lindy Klim's 39th birthday party in December, with whom she is close friends.

The video posted to Ms White's Facebook page shows Instagram star and ex-wife of swimmer Michael Klim receiving a huge cake surrounded by friends.

Ms White (L) with Lindy Klim and another friend out and about in Bali

Ms White attends the Da Maria Bali restaurant with Ms Klim and another friend

The pair pop up on each other's social media frequently and Ms Klim even modeled for Shakuhachi on its Instagram page

The pair pop up on each other's social media frequently and Ms Klim even modeled for Shakuhachi on its Instagram page.

The Balinese princess also name dropped the label as three of her favourite fashion boutiques on the island in a 2015 interview with Escape magazine.

Michael Klim even made an emotional public appeal to raise money for Ms White's brother Nico after he suffered a brain injury in a motorbike crash in 2014.

Ms White appears on the catwalk at the Australian Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2011/12 in Sydney

Ms White eventually told ACA in a statement that her only involvement with Shakuhachi is consulting and advising on design.

'Since Shakuhachi was acquired by Loft HK Limited, I have not been involved in the day to day running of the business or any of the retail sites in either Australia or Indonesia,' she said.

'The online store is run exclusively by Loft HK Limited and I have no involvement with orders, purchasing or the fulfilment of any goods.

'I am not receiving any funds from the sale of Shakuhachi clothing either in-store or online.

'My understanding is that Loft HK Limited are working closely with all consumers and Fair Trading to resolve any complaints, provide a refund and/or fulfil all outstanding orders.'
Five teenage girls in Melbourne have been arrested after going on a wild shoplifting spree in the CBD that ended in a brawl with security guards.

The spree ended at Southern Cross station when the five girls of African appearance were caught stealing alcohol by two security guards at the BWS liquor store.

It is alleged they had already tried to shoplift at various Melbourne stores before being apprehended by police at 2.30pm, The Age reported.

It is alleged they had already tried to shoplift at various Melbourne stores before being apprehended by police at 2.30pm, The Age reported

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said two people had been treated by paramedics including one man who was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital with head lacerations

An Ambulance Victoria spokeswoman said two people had been treated by paramedics including one man who was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital with head lacerations.

A witness at Southern Cross station said that there was a mixture of male and female people involved 'throwing punches, screaming and fighting.'

The teenagers were dressed in Adidas tracksuit pants and hoodies.

CCTV footage from the scene shows the women running away from police before being halted in their tracks

It is not known if the women will be charged with theft or assault as police continue their investigations

Others still had their school uniform on.

CCTV footage from the scene shows the women running away from police before being halted in their tracks.

It is not known if the women will be charged with theft or assault as police continue their investigations.
A renowned scientist who dedicated his life to research killed himself by taking a lethal dose of chemicals from his own laboratory.

Peter Tomasec, 47, worked with a team of scientists at Cardiff University who had significant findings published in a leading world journal of science.

An inquest heard that the researcher, whose work was described as 'cutting edge', suffered from seasonal depression.

Slovakian-born Mr Tomasec was found dead after taking a lethal dose of a cyanide-like poison in March this year.

Peter Tomasec, 47, worked with a team of scientists at Cardiff University (pictured) who had significant findings published in a leading world journal of science

Husband Lee Chong, 47, who discovered Mr Tomasec at their home in Cardiff, said he would suffer bouts of depression in the winter months.

In a statement Mr Chong said: 'He told me about his depression and said it was seasonal. Peter and I went to speak to his GP and asked for help.

'The GP referred him to a psychiatrist. He had two sessions and he said they were very cold to him.

'I feel that Peter was desperately asking for professional help and he was dismissed.'

The inquest heard Mr Tomasec visited his GP in August last year and made numerous visits in the following months.

He was prescribed anti-depressants and referred to a psychiatrist. He was also diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

Pathologist Dr Dan Hopkins, who carried out the postmortem, said the chemical was found in Mr Tomasec's stomach.

Mr Tomasec's manager at Cardiff University, Dr Gavin Wilkinson, said the scientist had been researching the HCMV virus, which causes congenital abnormalities.

In a statement he said: 'His confidence grew and he made a series of significant findings. Peter was very selfless in his attitude and he was extremely well respected with his work.

'I was not aware [the chemical] could be used as a poison. If he did order [it] it would not have been flagged up.'

Coroner Philip Spinney recorded a conclusion of suicide.

Mr Spinney said: 'It is plain to me that Peter intended to take his life. He had prepared to do that and he had left notes indicating what his intention was.'
These are the final gasps of the jihadi in an Arsenal shirt shown today in new footage taken seconds after the London Bridge massacre ended in gunfire.

Khuram Butt died on his back with armed officers training their weapons on him eight minutes after he masterminded the murder of eight people and the maiming of 48 more.

New mobile phone footage shows him stop breathing and his legs twitch before he dies outside the Wheatsheaf pub at the entrance to Borough Market.

Seconds earlier Butt had charged armed police who shot him as he swung a giant knife that he used to stab anyone who came near him.

On the other side of the road his friends Rachid Redouane, 30, and Youssef Zaghba, 22, also lie dead.

Final moments: Khuram Butt died on his back with armed officers training their weapons on him - across the road his jihadi friends also lie dead

New mobile phone footage shows him stop breathing and his legs twitch before he dies outside the Wheatsheaf pub near London Bridge

It has also emerged that Butt's wife is so shocked and upset that she cannot bring herself to speak.

The terrorist trio's final moments came hours after another film showed the London Bridge terrorists carrying out their attack and being shot dead by police.

The footage shows the three fanatics stabbing a passer-by outside the Wheatsheaf pub just before police cars arrive at speed.

Initially Butt, 27, Redouane, 30, and Zaghba, 22, are seen walking calmly down the street on the CCTV.

But they had already murdered eight people and injured dozens after crashing their car on London Bridge and leaping out armed with knives.

The men try to enter the pub but find the doors are blocked by staff, who are sheltering dozens of drinkers. They spot a man in a dark shirt and light trousers crossing the road, and the trio begin their assault.

The first attacker, thought to be Zaghba, can be seen plunging a knife into the victims torso before he is joined by his two accomplices who also leap on the man.

The police car arrives a few seconds later and at least three officers jump out of the vehicle while it is still moving. The jihadis try to flee the scene but the footage shows officers immediately opening fire.

The trio began their killing spree just after 10pm when they ploughed into pedestrians in a white van on London Bridge

As many hid or barricaded themselves inside pubs and restaurants the jihadis stalked the area carrying large knives

Armed police arrived from all directions - eight minutes into the raid - and shot dead the killers within seconds

One of Gabriele Sciotto's photographs showed the face Butt, who wore an Arsenal shirt and combat trousers, lying dead

The car continues edging forward as one officer runs towards Butt, who can be identified by his Arsenal shirt. Butt tries to lunge at him with his knife before being shot down. The other two officers target Zaghba and Redouane.

Redouane is shot and falls on to the floor alongside one of the other officers, who gets back on to his feet before kicking the terrorist to ensure he is dead. At this point the victim gets to his feet and staggers away, 12 seconds after being stabbed.

It is not known who the man was or how badly he was injured. Shortly after he flees the scene, another squad car arrived with three more officers. They are quickly joined by two others, who together fired 50 rounds of bullets to kill the terrorists. All three terrorists were killed six seconds after the armed police arrived.

Butt's wife has been left so shocked and upset by her late husband's actions that she can barely speak, her cousin has told MailOnline.

Fahad Khan, 36, who used to go to the gym with killer Khuram Butt, said he saw the terrorists wife yesterday and she was unable to form words.

I said Im so sorry about what happened and how are you feeling now, but she just fell silent. I could feel her pressure, it was strong in her mind what happened to her.

She said, now Im OK, but I could see that she felt inside that she wanted to cry. She had her baby girl just three or four weeks ago and now the father is dead.

The bodies of Zaghba, left, and Redouane, right, lie in the road in Borough market after being gunned down

Fahad Khan, 36, who used to go to the gym with killer Khuram Butt, said he saw the terrorists wife yesterday and she was unable to form words

I told her hopefully God will make everything better for you.

The babys name was chosen by the terrorist, Mr Khan added.

The killer used to openly brag about his support for ISIS, he said, and had only been prevented from travelling to Syria to fight by his family who took away his passport.

About four moths ago, Mr Khan tried a lighthearted attempt to talk the killer out of his extremist ways.

I told him, if you go to fight in Syria, Al Baghdadi [the ISIS leader] will put you in his kitchen and force you to lay eggs, he told MailOnline.

Khuram said, are you making fun of me? I said, no Im not making fun of you. He said good, it is very serious. What ISIS is doing is totally justified, for a just cause, and the fighters will have a place in paradise.

He added: I could see from his body language that he was very serious.

The unemployed man said that he often used to see fanatic Butt at the Ummah Fitness Centre in Ilford, where he was caught on camera apparently plotting with the other two terrorists.

Police in control: All three men are left dead on the ground outside Borough Market after being hit by a hail of 50 bullets

Recently, Butt even introduced him to fellow terrorist Rachid Redouane. He showed him to me and he said this is my friend, Mr Khan said. I said hello, salam aleikum. He seemed like nobody special.

The last time Mr Khan saw Mr Butt was the day before he launched the attack. He seemed the same as always, related in the gym, he said. He disappeared immediately after his workout.

Counter-terror police investigating the attack arrested three men in Ilford, East London, late last night. Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were held on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts. The third, aged 33, was arrested on drugs allegations.

It was claimed last night that Butt was on police bail after his house was raided by officers earlier this year.

The raid was launched by Metropolitan Police during an active counterterrorism investigation, the Times reported.

Police have recovered the body of the eighth victim of the attack from the Thames. Xavier Thomas, 45, is thought to have been knocked into the river when he was struck by the killers van. He was visiting London from France with his girlfriend, who was seriously injured.
Sir Richard Dearlove today warns that Britain will be less safe if Corbyn becomes PM

The former head of MI6 today warned that Jeremy Corbyn would not be allowed to join Britain's security services - but could be put in charge of them in just 24 hours if he is elected PM.

Sir Richard Dearlove accused the Labour leader of 'hugging' terrorists and said he is 'unfit' to govern Britain.

And he pointed out that in a worrying quirk, Mr Corbyn could tomorrow be made the head of the security services which would never have allowed him in their ranks.

Sir Richard has launched a devastating attack on the Labour leader as the country goes to the polls in today's General Election.

And he warned that in the wake of three deadly terror attacks in less than three months, Britain cannot afford to gamble with it future by giving the left-winger the keys to No 10.

Writing in The Telegraph today, Sir Richard said: 'Today, Britain goes to the polls.

'And frankly, Im shocked that no one has stood up and said, unambiguously, how profoundly dangerous it would be for the nation if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister.

'So let me be clear, the leader of the Labour Party is an old-fashioned international socialist who has forged links with those quite ready to use terror when they havent got their way: the IRA, Hizbollah, Hamas.

'As a result he is completely unfit to govern and Britain would be less safe with him in No 10.

'I can give an indication of just how serious this is: if Jeremy Corbyn was applying to join any of this countrys security services  MI5, GCHQ or the service I used to run, MI6  he would not be cleared to do so.

'He would be rejected by the vetting process. Far from being able to get into MI5, in the past MI5 would actively have investigated him.

'And yet this is the man who seeks the very highest office, who hopes in just 24 hours time to run our security services.'

Mr Corbyn has been hammered during the election campaign over his soft stance on terrorism.

He has faced fierce criticism for inviting convicted IRA terrorists to the Commons for tea just weeks over the Brighton bomb.

And it has also emerged that he described the terror group Hamas 'friends' during a meeting.

Sir Richard said Mr Corbyn would not pass the vetting process to get a job in Britain's security services - so cannot be entrusted with the fate of Britain.

He wrote: 'Mr Corbyn will say that he sat down with people who were prepared to do violence, but in the name of pursuing peace.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured on his way to vote in Islington this morning, has spent his career 'hugging' terrorists and cannot be trusted to keep the UK safe, Sir Richard Dearlove said

May, pictured on her way to vote in her local polling station in Maidenhead this morning, has pumped resources into beefing up Britain's security services, Sir Richard Dearlove said

'And lets be clear, theres nothing automatically wrong with negotiating with terrorists who have political agendas.

'But Mr Corbyn wasnt negotiating with them, he was hugging them; supporting them. He was an enthusiastic encourager.

'That must count him out from running the country.'

The former top spy said Corbyn's left-wing allies are also compromised by their past, misguided views.

And at a time when the country is being targeted by terrorist killers hellbent on causing destruction, they cannot be trusted to keep Birtain safe, he sad.

He said: 'And at a time when we in this nation face a serious security problem, the idea that the security of the nation might rest in the hands of people like this makes me shudder.

'Its deeply shocking.'

He said that Labour claims that an extra 10,000 police officers will root out terrorism is a red herring.

And he praised Theresa May for pouring money into the security services to keep British streets safe.

Eight people died in the London bridge terror attack, which came shortly after 22 people were murdered when a suicide bomber blew himself up after a pop concert in Manchester

He added: 'All this, it strikes me, should make it perfectly obvious, startlingly obvious, that Mr Corbyn represents a clear and present danger to the country.

'The amazing thing is, there is a degree of vetting once youve joined the Cabinet. Were he to go through that, it would have an impact on the materials he could see. But you cant vet the Prime Minister.'

Sir Richard went on: 'Im afraid that the truth is that with him in power the country would be less safe. He doesnt have the experience or the credentials to inspire the confidence of the British people.

'And it is not just here that questions are rightly being asked.'

The prospect of Mr Corbyn as PM 'astonishes and frightens' him, the former spy chief warned.

He added: It is time that someone said, loud and clear: Come off it, this man isnt fit for the office.
A man has been arrested after a teenage boy was fatally shot over a pair of $140 Air Jordan sneakers in Detroit.

17-year-old Corey Harris-Thomas was killed just after 3pm on Tuesday near Loyola High School in the west of the city.

Police say Corey was in the area in his car trying to sell a pair of shoes to a man that he had met online when something went wrong. Shots were fired and the teenager ended up dead.

Scroll down for video

17-year-old Corey Harris-Thomas was killed after he was shot as he sold his sneakers

Air Jordans average around $140 (file pic)

Corey worked at a shoe store and would often buy Air Jordans at a discount in order to sell them for a profit, or to try to trade shoes with other people.

His parents insist they told him to stop selling the footwear and to keep them for himself.

The teen's mother Deidra says the incident is an important reminder for kids to listen to their parents.

His parents had warned him off selling the shoes, but the teenager didn't listen

Police were on scene trying to establish what happened in the 17-year-old's killing

'I love my son to death,' Deidra said to Fox 2. 'You try to do the best you can for them. He made a wrong turn and that's what happened yesterday.

'We told him not to sell the shoes, keep them for yourself. We show him these stories all the time and that would be my son,' she said.

The high school was placed on lockdown following the incident however Corey was not a student at the school.

The scene was cordoned off while a small crowd including grief-stricken parents and relatives began to was gather.

Shooting took place on Tuesday afternoon near Loyola High School in Detroit

Police say the suspect in custody is a 19-year-old man. No names have yet been released.

A 20-year-old man who was in the car with the teen was also shot although it is not clear what his condition is.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Corey's family pay for funeral expenses.
A Virginia man who traveled to Syria so he could become a suicide bomber for ISIS has been convicted for supporting the terror group.

Mohamad Jamal Khweis was convicted for 'providing material support', the Justice Department announced in a statement on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old spent about two months in early 2016 traveling with ISIS fighters in Syria and Iraq and participating in the group's religious training, the statement said.

While he was with the group, he completed 'medial' tasks for other fighters - including taking out rubbish, going grocery shopping, and making lunches, defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said.

Mohamad Jamal Khweis was convicted for 'providing material support' to ISIS after he traveled to Syria to fight with the group last year, the Justice Department said. He is pictured in this photo provided to a court this week after being captured by Kurdish forces in March 2016

He was then asked to become a suicide bomber because he had no other skills, and reportedly agreed because he feared he would be considered a spy and killed if he did not.

He was detained by Kurdish peshmerga forces in northern Iraq in March 2016 and turned over to US authorities.

The jury in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted Khweis of all three charges, which included providing and conspiring to provide support to Islamic State and a firearms count.

He faces a sentence of five years to life in prison when he is sentenced on October 13.

Khweis did not tell his family he was leaving to join the terror group and used encrypted devices to conceal his activity from authorities, the department said.

He traveled to Turkey in December 2015 and later crossed into Syria.

Mohamed Jamal Khweis is pictured as he was captured by Kurdish forces near Sinjar, in Iraq. The peshmerga general overseeing his surrender said his troops initially mistook him for a suicide bomber

Khweis (left), whose driver's license (right) states he is from Alexandria, Virginia, is believed to be the first American fighting for ISIS to surrender in the field

He agreed to be a suicide bomber when he joined the group, the department said.

In February 2017, the US military recovered his ISIS intake form, along with a camp roster that included Khweis' name with 19 other Islamic State fighters, the Justice Department said.

When he was caught last year, security experts described Khweis as a potential 'intelligence goldmine'.

'He could provide a window into the ISIS command structure. Who does he report to? What does his daily routine look like? And the most important thing - how did he get there?' former National Counterterrorism Center official Seamus Hughes told NBC News.

Major General Feisal Helkani of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces said when the 27-year-old was caught he was carrying a large amount of cash, three cell phones and three forms of identification, including a driver's license registered to Virginia.

Prior to leaving the US to join ISIS, Khweis worked as a bus driver and lived with his parents.

He flew from Baltimore to Turkey - making stops in London and Amsterdam - before catching a bus to a border town and contacting ISIS officials on Twitter, according to the Washington Post.
The mother of murdered baby Bella Doe testified against her ex-boyfriend, the man accused of killing the toddler, in Boston for the fourth day on Wednesday.

Rachelle Bond, 41, told a courtroom how Michael McCarthy was an avid follower of pro-Trump radio host Alex Jones and that he had become obsessed with conspiracy theories and the occult when he killed two-year-old Bella in June 2015.

McCarthy, 37, thought government workers were 'shape-shifters', she said and that he was pushing his 'off the wall' beliefs on to her.

Appearing in a smart blue shirt and suit jacket, Bond wept as she gave her testimony.

Rachelle Bond wept in court on Monday as she testified against her former boyfriend who is accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter Bella in 2015

'These were his conspiracy theories about the government. He was trying to make me believe this,' she said, according to The Boston Herald which reported from the trial.

Bella's body was found washed up on Deer Island, Massachusetts, in a plastic bag in 2015.

She was referred to as Baby Doe for months until a family friend identified her.

As part of a deal with the authorities, her mother is being spared jail in exchange for testifying against McCarthy.

She is currently behind bars but will be freed after the trial and under the condition that she pleads guilty to accessory after the fact.

If a jury however rejects her claims, she could face perjury charges and be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Bond previously told the court how McCarthy was 'obsessed' with the occult and believed Bella was a 'demon' before he killed her.

Michael McCarthy, 37, (left in court this week) is charged with murdering the toddler who police took two months to identify in 2015. After they found her decomposing body, they issued this computer generated image of her (right) to try to find her identity

Two months after she was found, a family friend came forward to identify Bella

She claims he took her life by punching her on the head, leaving her little body to go limp and gray.

Afterwards, she claims he told her: 'It was her time to go'.

Both she and McCarthy had been using heroin around the time of Bella's death. Giving evidence this week, the girl's mother said her memory of her death was clearer now that she is sober.

McCarthy denies killing the toddler and his lawyers insist that any sinister obsession with the occult was Bond's and not his.

They have consistently pointed to the diary Bond kept before her daughter's death. In it, she described her beliefs that politicians raped and killed children then drank their blood.

Bella's body was found by a walker in a trash bag on Deer Island on June 25, 2015.

Bella's mother is being spared jail in exchange for pleading guilty to accessory after the fact and testimony against McCarthy. Her appearance in court on Monday was vastly different from her arrest in 2015 (right)

She claims she went along with disposing of her daughter's body because she was afraid of her ex and was battling heroin addiction

Authorities found a duffel bag and weights which had been used to keep it in the water nearby.

McCarthy denies murdering the toddler

Without any indication of identity, authorities created a computerized image of what they believed she would have looked like before facial decomposition.

The photograph was circulated in Boston and she was referred to as Baby Doe.

Eventually, in September that year, a family friend who had been staying with McCarthy and Bond at their apartment, came forward.

They told how they'd witnessed the pair abusing Bella and said the child hadn't been seen for months.

Neither McCarthy nor Bond ever reported her as missing.

Bella's body was found in a tied-up plastic trash bag on Deer Island in Massachusetts on June 25
Queensland police are desperately searching for an Asian man who was taken in a car 'against his will' in broad daylight and hasn't been seen since.

Ren Zhi Liang, 44, was last seen at 11am on Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, entering a blue Nissan Navara dual cab ute in the car park of a hotel.

Witnesses who saw the abduction take place and the woman he was with reported to police he had been 'taken against his will,' The Brisbane Times reported.

Ren Zhi Liang, 44, was last seen at 11am on Leichhardt Street, Spring Hill, entering a blue Nissan Navara dual cab ute in the car park of a hotel

Witnesses who saw the abduction take place and the woman he was with reported to police he had been 'taken against his will' (pictured the car in question)

Mr Liang had stayed at the hotel on Wednesday night before being taken on Thursday in the blue ute.

The 44-year-old, who goes by the name Michael, hasn't been since or heard from since 11am and police hold grave concerns for his safety.

The ute has the registration number 111 XFV but members of the public are not to approach the vehicle if they see it, police said.

The ute has the registration number 111 XFV but members of the public are not to approach the vehicle if they see it, police said

Mr Liang is described as Asian in appearance, 160 centimetres tall with a slim build, black hair and brown eyes.

Police also believe there may have been up to three people in the car at the time of the incident.

It was unknown at this stage whether Mr Liang knew the people involved.
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President Donald Trump is watching his fired FBI director's testimony with rapt attention this morning.

His closest advisers and a team of lawyers at his side, the president is camped out in his personal dining at the White House, just off the Oval Office, ABC News reports.

Aides did not say whether the president, whose Twitter went dark on Thursday morning, would be rebutting James Comey in real time on social media.

Trump's first event of the day is at 12:30 pm - more than two hours after the hearing began.

President Donald Trump will be watching his fired FBI director's testimony with rapt attention this morning

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had promised a 'full day' that would eat up the president's time. The Trump spokesman brought up the mid-day speech the president would be delivering and a meeting with governors and mayors to discuss the president's infrastructure renewal proposal.

Both are on his Thursday schedule but take place after the first hours of the Comey hearing, giving the president plenty of time to scrutinize and tweet about the former law enforcement official's account of their private conversations.

The White House has said 'the president is the most effective messenger on his agenda.' It remains to be seen whether he will take on Comey directly on Thursday or let his press shop and lawyers do his bidding.

Comey's testimony Thursday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee could change the fate of Trump's presidency.

Although Comey is not planning to say that Trump intentionally obstructed justice, his account of their conversations about the FBI's investigation into Russia and Michael Flynn could cast a cloud over the White House and its 70-year-old occupant with especially thin skin.

Former FBI Director James Comey testimony Thursday in front of the Senate - his first on-the-record statements since he was abruptly dismissed - is being promoted as must-see TV that no one inside or outside Washington would dare miss - except maybe the president

Trump could have invoked executive privilege in a bid to keep Comey from revealing his secrets. He decided Monday that he would not make an attempt to keep the former law enforcement official quiet

The Washington Post's Robert Costa said Tuesday morning that he had two White House officials telling him Trump could be live-tweeting Comey's testimony 'if he feels the need to respond.'

Spicer said later in the day that Trump would be 'very busy,' a scheduling move that was seemingly designed to keep the commander in chief off Twitter.

'The president's going to have a very, very, busy day, as he does all the time, and I think his focus is going to be on pursuing the agenda and the priorities that he was elected to do,' his press secretary said.

Trump could undermine his counsel's legal strategy in the Russia case if he says too much off the cuff. Even the White House press office has been tossing inquiries to Trump's lawyers to avoid making a mistake.

Proving his ability to show restraint during a photo op with lawmakers, Trump told reporters asking about his fired FBI director on Tuesday afternoon, 'I wish him luck.'

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly advised Trump to cut back on the tweets that have served as a constant source of drama in the administration.

The White House rebuffed him on Tuesday and all the other critics of his social media use, noting that it predates his successful election.

Spicer pointedly said the 'same people who are critiquing his use of it now, critiqued it during the election, and it turned out pretty well for him then.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer suggested Tuesday that President Donald Trump would buck expectations and skip the blockbuster hearing, citing a 'fully day' that would conveniently keep the commander in chief off Twitter

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a trained litigator, urged Trump not to get over confident.

'You need to listen to your lawyers, Mr. President. I am trying to help you, but every time you tweet it makes it harder on all of us who are trying to help you,' he told Fox News on Tuesday. 'I dont think you did anything wrong. Dont get in the way of an investigation that could actually clear you.'

A prominent lawyer and Trump supporter, George Conway, husband to the president's senior counselor, argued this week that the president's tweets on his travel ban could similarly hurt him at the Supreme Court.

At his daily briefing Tuesday, Spicer admitted, in response to a question on the travel ban tweets that provided a set up for any comments Trump might make about Comey, that the messages the president sends from his personal account are official White House statements.

Trump could have invoked executive privilege in a bid to keep Comey from revealing his secrets. He decided Monday that he would not make an attempt to keep the former law enforcement official quiet, 'in order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee' the White House said.

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, had left the door open to an executive action that morning, telling a 'Today' show co-host: 'If Mr. Comey does testify, we'll be watching with everyone else.'

Comey is scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee at 10 am.

His participation was never in doubt, but Trump could have acted to keep a lid on their discussions about the FBI's Russia investigation into retired Gen. Michael Flynn and other associates of the president.

He did not accuse the president of obstruction of justice in an opening statement that senators released early on Wednesday but he did confirm that the president asked for 'loyalty' and promised his in return.

Trump fired Comey in May.
Charlie Gard's devastated mother broke down in tears and screamed as Supreme Court judges as she and her partner lost their legal fight to take their baby son to the US for treatment.

Chris Gard and Connie Yates, from Bedfont, west London, want a doctor in the USA to give experimental treatment to the ten-month-old who has a rare genetic illness.

He is on life support at Great Ormond Street Hospital where doctors believe his parents' wishes should be ignored and his life support switched off.

But today, after an emergency hearing, three Supreme Court judges ruled that the family would not have a full appeal hearing later this year.

Ms Yates wept as she was led from the court, where she and the little boy's father had argued that the state has no right to 'extinguish' their little boy's life.

Charlie Gard's devastated mother broke down in tears and screamed as Supreme Court judges as she and her partner lost their legal fight to take their baby son to the US for treatment

Both parents appeared to be in tears as they left the Supreme Court in London this afternoon

Ms Yates wept as she was led from the court, where she and the little boy's father had argued that the state has no right to 'extinguish' their little boy's life

Chris Gard and Connie Yates wanted permission to take son Charlie (pictured) to America for a therapy trial - and are begging the Supreme COurt to intervene

Outside court, the devastated mother cried out: 'How can they do this to us?

'They are lying. Why don't they tell the truth?'

The Supreme Court justices said doctors should continue life support treatment for Charlie for 24 hours to give the European Court of Human Rights the chance to consider the case.

In April, a High Court judge ruled against a trip to America and in favour of Great Ormond Street doctors.

Mr Justice Francis concluded that life support treatment should end and said Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity.

Three Court of Appeal judges upheld that ruling in May, and a panel of three Supreme Court justices today dismissed the couple's latest challenge after a hearing in London.

Prior to the decision, Richard Gordon QC, who leads the couple's legal team, had argued: 'Charlie is being deprived of his liberty at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

'Charlie's parents have made a decision, it's not a wish, it's a decision, to try to keep all options open and retain life for their child'.

Outside court, the devastated mother cried out: 'How can they do this to us? 'They are lying. Why don't they tell the truth?'

Campaigners gather outside the Supreme Court in London to give their support to the family of Charlie Gard

The Supreme Court justices said doctors should continue life support treatment for Charlie for 24 hours to give the European Court of Human Rights the chance to consider the case

Chris Gard and Connie Yates want ten-month-old Charlie Gard, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, to undergo a therapy trial

Thousands have donated 1.3million to Charlie's fighting fund that would pay for his treatment in America.

Charlie's parents have indicated that they will ask the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to consider the case if Supreme Court justices rule against them.

Mr Gard and Ms Yates have already lost in the High Court and Court of Appeal where judges agreed with doctors that he should be allowed to die.

Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where Charlie is being cared for, say therapy proposed by a doctor in America is experimental and will not help and life support treatment should stop.

Experts at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where Charlie is being cared for, say life-support treatment should stop

Lawyers representing Charlie's parents say parents should be free to make decisions about their child's treatment unless any proposed treatment poses a risk of significant harm.

Representing Charlie's parents Richard Gordon QC, said the couple were 'model parents'.

'They would not wish to do anything that would cause Charlie harm,' he added.

'The state is not entitled to cause a child's life to be extinguished.'

A High Court judge in April ruled against a trip to America and in favour of Great Ormond Street doctors.

Mr Justice Francis concluded life support treatment should end and said Charlie, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, should be allowed to die with dignity.

He heard that Charlie, who was born on August 4 last year, had a form of mitochondrial disease, a condition which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. Specialists in the USA have offered a therapy called nucleoside.

Charlie's parents have appealed for money on a GoFundMe page to cover doctors' bills in America.

More than 83,000 people have donated money and the fund has now topped 1.3 million.

Mr Justice Francis said Great Ormond Street doctors had considered the experimental treatment, but decided it would not help Charlie/ He said the case had never been 'about money'.

Three Court of Appeal judges upheld that ruling in May.

Lawyers representing Charlie's parents say they should be free to make decisions about their child's treatment

Charlie has a rare genetic condition which saps energy from his muscles, lungs and other organs and he is being kept alive by a ventilator

Katie Gollop QC, who led Great Ormond Street's legal team, said today the case was 'sad' but not 'exceptional'.

She said the couple seemed to be suggesting that 'parents always know best'. But she said the paramount interest in such cases was the welfare of the child.

Ms Gollop said the case was 'particularly sad' and 'particularly difficult for all those who care about Charlie'.

But she said there were children who had illnesses which could not be cured.

She said in such cases parents did not want to look back and think something else could have been tried and sometimes became embroiled in disagreements with doctors.

Ms Gollop said Great Ormond Street specialists had tried to work with the couple, had 'listened intently' to them and sought a number of second opinions from doctors at other hospitals.

'Fundamentally the parents don't accept the facts,' said Ms Gollop. 'They don't accept that nucleoside therapy will be futile.'

Nine-month-old Charlie Gards parents (Connie Yates and Chris Gard) have raised 1.3m in public donations for him to undergo experimental treatment, but the courts have repeatedly said they cannot take him to the US for the therapy

Ms Gollop said Charlie could not could see, hear, move, cry or swallow.

She added: 'He is on a machine which causes his lungs to move up and down because his lungs cannot go up and down.'

Ms Gollop said Charlie's condition 'affords him no benefit'. She said some doctors thought that Charlie felt pain and some thought he did not.

Barrister Victoria Butler-Cole, who is instructed by a guardian appointed to independently represent Charlie's interests, said a trip to the US was not in Charlie's best interests and said life-support treatment should stop.

Doctors have been continuing to provide treatment pending a decision by Supreme Court justices, headed by Lady Hale, the Deputy President of the Supreme Court and most senior female judge in British legal history.

A Great Ormond Street spokeswoman said the thoughts of staff were with Charlie and his parents.

'This is a very sad day for Charlie's parents and family,' she said.

'It is never easy when medical and judicial opinion goes against the wishes of the parents but our first responsibility at Great Ormond Street Hospital remains to put the interests of the child first and foremost.

'It is also hugely difficult for any clinically-trained professional to be asked to treat a child who has no chance of survival or even improvement in his quality of life.

'We are led by the legal process and when the time comes for a change in treatment, we will support the parents in every way that we can, aiding them through next steps. This would normally take place over at least a number of days.

'For now, our priority is to ensure Charlie remains well cared for and to offer our support to Charlie's devoted parents at this distressing time.'
A would-be armed robber got a nasty surprise Wednesday when a bystander tackled him as he attempted to rob a Wawa convenience store in Sicklerville, New Jersey.

The Good Samaritan said he acted instinctively to protect the store that he visits every day.

'Not in this Wawa,' Daryl, 52, who did not want to reveal his last name, told NBC10. 'We're not gonna have that nonsense. There are nice ladies in here that work here and they don't deserve it. Don't deserve it at all.'

The have-a-go-hero was in the store shortly before 2am Wednesday picking up a cup of coffee and a bag of donuts when the armed man entered.

The suspect, identified by police as Alexander Ray, 26, took out a handgun and ordered the store's staff and customers to lay on the floor, Daryl said. 'You know, aggressive voice. 'Get Down! Get down! Get down! Give me the money!'

Daryl acted immediately, wrestling Ray to the ground. The two continued to fight all the way out of the door of the convenience store, until Daryl gained the upper hand.

Have-a-go-hero: Daryl, left, tackles the would-be armed robber who dared to make an attempt on his favorite convenience store

Struggle: The two men tussle at the store in Sicklerville, New Jersey. Daryl says he was unconcerned that the suspect could be armed

Local pride: Daryl, 52, says he visits the Wawa store every day and that the staff don't deserve to be the subject of armed robberies

Taking it outside: The two men continue to grapple all the way out of the store. The suspect has been identified as Alexander Ray, 26

Tenacious Daryl: The Good Samaritan, who didn't wish to give his full name, says his main aim was to keep the store's staff and customers safe

Everyday bravery: Daryl managed to restrain the suspect until police officers arrive. The have-a-go-hero revealed that one of his own sons is a member of law enforcement

He wanted me to let him go, Daryl said. He asked me could he get up and go. Said he was sorry that he came here and can I let him go. And that wasnt happening.

Daryl, whose three children include one South Jersey police officer, managed to keep Ray restrained until police officers arrived - only to discover that the would-be robber's gun was not loaded.

The suspect was taken into custody, while Daryl was left with minor injuries from the struggle.
The Islamic Council of Victoria pulled out of a successful deradicalisation program after a review by its controversial former president.

Ghaith Krayem said the Community Integrated Support Program carried significant 'reputational risk' because the ICV had little control over it.

The council was involved with the program since 2010 but dropped out after outspoken anti-terror laws critic delivered his report last month, according to the Herald Sun.

The Islamic Council of Victoria pulled out of a deradicalisation program after a review by its controversial former president Ghaith Krayem, who said it carried 'reputational risk'

Vice-president Adel Salman said the council leaving the $6.8 million program did not reflect dissatisfaction with the its aims and outcomes.

'The ICV supports initiatives that seek to tackle extremism and radicalisation of any form,' he said.

He also said the ICV decided not to sign up to the next four years of the program 'well before' Monday's terrorist attack in Melbourne.

ISIS-inspired gunman Yacqub Khayre killed a man, took a woman hostage, and wounded three police officers before he was shot dead.

Mr Krayem was ICV president in 2014 and 2015 and while secretary earlier in 2014 refused to condemn a Muslim teenager (L) who stabbed two police officers

Numan Haider, 18, was shot dead in September of that year after the attack on officers from the joint terror task force during a scheduled meeting

He also said him holding the ISIS flag, a bad attitude and discontent with the way the government was running Australia did not necessarily make him a terrorist

Mr Krayem was ICV president in 2014 and 2015 and while secretary earlier in 2014 refused to condemn a Muslim teenager who stabbed two police officers.

Numan Haider, 18, was shot dead in September of that year after the attack on officers from the joint terror task force during a scheduled meeting.

Mr Krayem described the underlying factors behind his actions as social rather than religious and criticised police for taking an' enforcement' approach to the threat of terrorists at home.

'I'm not going to condemn what he did because I don't know what he did and I think it's wrong for anybody to be condemning this young man until the full investigation takes place and we actually understand what occurred,' he said.

'It is incumbent on us as a society not to forgo our own principals and values that make us who we are and one of those is the presumption of innocence, even for a deceased person.'

ICV Vice-president Adel Salman also said the ICV decided not to sign up to the next four years of the program 'well before' the terrorist attack by Yacqub Khayre (pictured) in Melbourne

The ISIS-inspired gunman Yacqub Khayre killed receptionist Kai Hao (R), took a woman hostage, and wounded three police officers before he was shot dead

He also said him holding the ISIS flag, a bad attitude and discontent with the way the government was running Australia did not necessarily make him a terrorist.

Since leaving the ICV he said Australia was full of 'hypocrites and racists' who wont fly the Syrian flag on public buildings because Middle Easterners were seen as barbarians.

In November 2015 Mr Krayem said forcing Muslims to sing the national anthem was 'un-Australian', though said it was not against Islamic teachings.

'No one, regardless of religion or ethnic background, should be forced to sing the national anthem. That's not what Australia is,' he said.

'We uphold national anthem and we give it the respect it deserves... [but] we are not America, we don't have this patriotism-on-steroids that Americans do.'

The scene at Brighton in Melbourne where Monday's terrorist attack took place

Officers take a body out of the serviced apartments where the siege took place

Ten years earlier Mr Krayem was banned from practicing law after being found guilty of professional misconduct on 15 separate grounds.

They included providing a false certificate of title, making a false statement to a client, not acting on clients instructions, delaying payments of debt to clients.

He also used thousands in client trust funds to pay personal debt and failing to honour a $4,000 compensation undertaking to the Supreme Court.

The ICV dropping out of the program comes after it said Muslim youth should be provided with taxpayer-funded 'safe spaces' where they can make 'inflammatory' and 'frank' comments.

The ICV dropping out of the program comes after it said Muslim youth should be provided with taxpayer-funded 'safe spaces' where they can make 'inflammatory' and 'frank' comments

In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into freedom of religion, Islamic leaders demanded government funding be used to create the religious sanctuaries.

'To create safe spaces urgently needed by Muslim youth to meet and talk about a range of issues in emotional terms, where they can be frank and even use words, which in a public space would sound inflammatory,' the submission reads.

'That they cannot express irony, humour, anger or joy in words and facial expressions that would make them a target for 'surveillance' is a cause for despondency leading to mental health issues among many.'

The Council also points out the inability for Muslim adherents to safely practice their religion without feeling subject to surveillance is a 'human rights issue'.
Joe Slavin, 45 (pictured), was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Carver Lake Park in Woodbury, Minnesota Wednesday morning

A father-of three middle school principal was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a Minnesota park Wednesday morning.

According to a police report, a visitor to Carver Lake Park in Woodbury, Minnesota found 45-year-old Joe Slavin unresponsive near his car Wednesday morning around 8:30am. He was then pronounced dead by emergency responders.

Slavin's suicide took place two days before classes at Skyview Middle School ended for the year. Counselors were on hand to held the mourning children after the news broke.

'This is a very difficult time for everyone that knew Mr. Slavin. The family is grateful for the outpouring of support,' Michelle Okada, a Woodbury police spokeswoman, said, according to the Star Tribune.

Slavin leaves behind a wife and three school-aged daughters.

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A visitor to Carver Lake Park (entrance to the park above) found Slavin unresponsive around 8:30am

Slavin was a married father of three. Slavin pictured on the right with his wife, left, and their three daughters

Her was set to start a new job as director of communications and technology innovation for his Oakdale school district on July 1. He had been working in the district since 1995.

'At this point, a lot of people are supporting each other as they digest the news,' Superintendent Christine Osorio said Thursday. 'It is such a loss, we were so excited for him to join our team.'

Slavin also served on the school board for neighboring District 833.

'It's something that I'd been thinking about for a while just because of my career in education, my passion for public education and wanting the ability to serve in the South Washington County Schools,' Slavin said in a 2015 interview when he joined the board.

Slavin had degrees in education from Winona State University.
A violin that was lost in mists of time for nearly a century has been played at a service dedicated to its original owner - who died during the First World War.

Pte Richard Howard lost his life on the first day of the Battle of Messines, on June 7 1917, in Belgium.

The British soldier, who was a luthier and music hall performer in Leeds, had hoped to complete his creation on his return from the Western Front.

But following his death, the partially crafted violin was lost for nearly a century.

Award-winning violinist Sam Sweeney (pictured) plays that very instrument that had only been partially crafted by Pte Richard Howarth, who died on the first day of the Battle of Messines, during the First World War

That was until Oxford luthier, Roger Claridge, bought the incomplete instrument at an auction and completed it in his workshop.

And it was later, in 2009, when it was acquired by award-winning violinist Sam Sweeney who set about trying to track down they mysterious violin's creator.

A label inside the violin dated 1915 - penned alongside the name of 'Richard S Howard' - sparked Mr Sweeney's curiosity, and prompted him and his father to discover the instrument's history.

Penned alongside the name of 'Richard S Howard' was the date 1915, which sparked Mr Sweeney's curiosity, and prompted him and his father to discover the instrument's history.

The violin, which has been lovingly restored to how its original craftsman might have envisioned the instrument once complete, was played at Pte Howarth's grave at a service attended by more than 100 people - including the war hero's family

Pte Richard Howarth, who died during the Battle of Messines, never got the change to finish his violin

'We found out where his grave was and found out exactly when he died and which battle,' Mr Sweeney told the Telegraph.

His research also led him to trace Private Howard's descendants, including the war hero's granddaughter.

Mrs Sterry said all she knew of her grandfather was that he had died during the First World War.

'People in those days didn't talk about it for fear of upsetting someone. My mother [Rose] was 11 when he died. I have to say the news when it got to me just blew me away, I was so excited', she added.

Mr Sweeny's detective work also led him to track down further members of Pte Howard's family.

Around 100 people, including Pte Howard's descendants, gathered at his graveside in Ypres, to listen to Mr Sweeney play his violin on the 100th anniversary of the soldier's death.

Mrs Sterry described the moving ceremony as 'fantastic' and that it allowed her to meet members of her family whom she had never seen before.

On Sunday, Mr Sweeney will take to the stage of The Stables, Milton Keynes, to perform Made in the Great War: Sam Sweeney.

A description of the upcoming show reads: 'The show brings the reality of the First World War vividly to life through the eyes of an ordinary man, his family and his comrades using story, music and film as well as playing the actual fiddle that Richard Howard started but never had the chance to finish.'
A married woman from Texas is accused of recording her lover repeatedly sexually assaulting an incapacitated teenage girl with the intention of using the videos in a blackmail plot.

Isabel Robinson, 41, and Judd Denley, 37, have been arrested in Houston and charged with trafficking of a child, child pornography, aggravated sexual assault of a child and compelling prostitution of a minor.

According to court documents filed in the case, the 15-year-old victim asked Robinson to lend her some money. The woman told her she did not have cash but claimed that if she had sex with her boyfriend, Judd Denley, he would pay her $200.

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Disturbing allegations: Isabel Robinson, 41 (left), and Judd Denley, 37 (right), have been arrested in Houston and charged with trafficking of a child, child pornography, aggravated sexual assault of a child and compelling prostitution of a minor

Robinson, who is married, has carried on a four-year extramarital affair with Denley, who worked as a chef with the food service provider Aramark.

On March 22, Robinson took the teenage girl after school to her father's apartment while the man was away, gave her some cheap fortified wine and marijuana, and told her Denley was on his way to have sex with her, according to the documents obtained by the station KPRC.

Cook: Robinson, who is married, has carried on a four-year extramarital affair with Denley, who worked as a chef with the food service provider Aramark at Minute Maid Park (pictured)

By the time Denley arrived, the high-school student was so drunk and high on pot that she threw up on herself.

The victim later told police that Denley offered her another drink that rendered her paralyzed, took off her clothes and asked her if she was ready. The girl replied that she was not ready, but he allegedly proceeded to have sex with her three times.

Meanwhile, Robinson stood in the corner of the room and captured two of the sexual assaults on her cellphone, according to the criminal complaint.

It was later alleged that the 41-year-old woman video recorded the sexual encounters so she could blackmail Denley if he ever decided to tell her husband about their affair, or end their relationship, which he had threatened to do.

Following the incident, Denley paid the victim $150, withholding the rest to cover the cost of the alcoholic beverages and marijuana.

After missing a week of school, the 15-year-old reached out to school officials and told them what happened. She also somehow got a hold of the cellphone that Robinson used to record the sex sessions and handed it over to the authorities.

Denley, pictured in court this week, allegedly sexually assaulted a 15-year-old three times in late March after Robinson gave her marijuana and fortified wine

Shakedown: Robinson allegedly recorded the sexual encounters so she could blackmail Denley if he ever decided to tell her husband about their affair

When police obtained a warrant to review the contents of the device, they reportedly found the two videos showing the sex assaults and also discovered text messages exchanged between Robinson and Denley that referred to the teenage victim as the man's special treat,' according to the complaint.

On May 17, police interviewed Robinson and she confessed to her affair with Denley, which they carried on while working in food services at Minute Maid Park, according to reporting by KTRK, and which at times involved multiple sexual partners.

Robinson and Denley were both arrested on Monday and ordered held at the Harris county Jail on $120,000 bail each.
Jonathan Hinkle, 28, was arrested and taken to Brevard County Jail on Tuesday night in connection to the incident

A Florida man wanted to go to Hooters so badly that authorities say he called 911 saying he needed a ride to the restaurant because his grandmother had suffered a stroke in the parking lot.

Jonathan Hinkle, 28, was arrested and taken to Brevard County Jail on Tuesday night in connection to the incident, which happened on March 5.

Upon receiving the 911 call to take Hinkle to a Hooters in Merritt Island, Florida, police searched searched for three hours for his grandmother, 79-year-old Gayle Strickland, before finding her in good health.

When they finally found her at another location, she said she hasn't had a stroke or asked anyone for help.

Strickland told officers that she had been released from the hospital a few days earlier and had asked Hinkle to pick up his belongings from the place she was staying.

Upon receiving the 911 call to take Hinkle to a Hooters in Merritt Island, Florida, police searched searched for three hours for his grandmother, 79-year-old Gayle Strickland, before finding her in good health

News outlets say Hinkle told the dispatcher that he was running to get help and that he would pay responders to take him to the Hooters on Florida's Atlantic coast.

Officers finally caught up with Hinkle in a Burger King parking lot in Cocoa helping his girlfriend fix her car, the Orlando Sentinel.

Hinkle was arrested on charges of misusing 911 and faces up to five years in prison for the crime.

He was released on bond Wednesday night and records don't list an attorney for him.
In these days of modern technology, it seems that nowhere is safe from prying eyes- not even a private yacht.

As reported in El Pais, a group of young women were forced to complain to the police after they noticed a drone flying over them last weekend as they sunbathed naked on a yacht belonging to one of them off the coast of Mallorca in Spain.

Noticing that the drone was hovering over their vessel with its red filming light illuminated, they cast around for the possible pilots, and saw another yacht around 20 metres from their own manned by a group of foreign young men.

Droning on: Two boatloads of young people were embroiled in a dispute over a drone recently, with a group of young women accusing a group of young men of using one of the contraptions to spy on them as they sunbathed in the nude

The men, they said, were watching the monitor and laughing at them.

When the furious young women ordered them to withdraw the drone, the men simply laughed; they eventually withdrew it after noticing that one of the women was filming proceedings on her mobile phone.

The women then followed the drone pilots back to port and alerted the police.

Dispute at sea: The furious young women followed the alleged perverts back to port and reported them to the police (stock photo)

Notified that the police had been called, the young men grew frightened and offered the women money 'to eat in a nice restaurant' if they didn't report them, the newspaper said.

They then admitted that they had taken footage of the women sunbathing, but claimed the footage had been immediately deleted.

Once the police arrived, they mediated between the two sides and investigated whether the drone pilots had violated the young women's privacy and if they had the correct licence to operate the drone.

Trouble in paradise: The incident occurred off the coast of Palma de Mallorca, a popular resort on the island of Mallorca in the Spanish Balearic islands

The increasing popularity of drones has led to fears they could be used by peeping toms and drug smugglers, as well as for other nefarious purposes.

And The Register reported in April that complaints made to police in the UK about drones rose sharply from just a few hundred in 2014 to more than 3,400 last year.
The BBC has been accused of censorship after Twitter uses suggested references to 'Allah' and the 'Koran' were edited out of a TV interview.

Karrien Stevens, who runs Little Diamonds Nursery in Hermon Hill, London said yesterday that a member of her staff was punched, kicked and slashed with a 'Stanley knife' by three 'Asian women' chanting about 'Allah' and the 'Koran'.

The televised interview, which was shared on Twitter, shows a cut at 17 seconds - the point where users suggested Ms Stevens would have gone on to make her comments about Islam.

At this point in the clip users say the interview skips, suggesting two pieces of footage were spliced together.

The reason some Twitter users believe that these comments were edited out is because Ms Stevens is quoted in a written BBC Online article saying the women 'shouted out "something to do with Allah and the Koran".'

A BBC spokesman admitted the television clip was edited to fit their news report, but would not confirm which comments made by Ms Stevens were removed from their broadcast.

Nursery manager Karrien Stevens (pictured) said a member of staff was stabbed by three women 'chanting Allah'

When she was interviewed by BBC TV cameras there was no mention of the attackers chanting and some of her words were clearly edited out

The Metropolitan Police is treating the assault as a 'hate crime' and not terror related.

Ms Stevens told journalists that the victim, identified only as Katie, was on her way into work at about 9.30am in Wanstead High Street when she was followed by three women 'dressed in black'.

She said: 'They pulled her to the ground, punched her, kicked her. One of them pulled out a knife and cut her arm from her wrist to her elbow.

She added the 'girls were behind her chanting the Koran, "Allah".'

Ms Stevens did not witness the assault herself but claimed she spoke to the victim after she was rescued and brought to the nursery by a passerby.

The victim, 30, was walking down Wanstead High Street on her way to the nursery (pictured), when she was set upon and knifed by three 'Asian girls', according to her boss

One viewer tweeted: 'Yep... at 17 seconds... Clip altered

Another Twitter user said: 'Sounds like biased reporting'

The 34-second clip was edited half way through as Ms Stevens talked about the attackers, causing speculation that the references were deliberately removed.

One viewer tweeted: 'Yep... at 17 seconds... Clip altered.'

Another said: 'Sounds like biased reporting.'

It was described as 'shameless censorship' by another Twitter user.

A BBC spokeswoman denied that the clip was edited to sensor the Allah comments.

She said that the TV interview needed to be edited to fit into a short news report for broadcast, but that the corporation's coverage of the story online and on Radio 2 included comments that Ms Stevens had given in other interviews, where she was more specific about what she heard.

The spokesman added: 'We reported this story accurately adding new information when we could, including reporting claims of what was being shouted.'

The victim was just a few minutes from work when she was allegedly dragged to the ground and knifed

Ms Stevens told reporters that the victim was 'very emotional' after the assault and sustained 'some cracked ribs' and had to have stitches.

She added that she believed the attackers were strangers and the assault was unprovoked.

The victim, described as a white woman, was attacked less than 10 minutes' walk from the nursery.

Paul Ashmore, 31, a mixing and mastering engineer in South Woodford, said his fiancee and child were held on lockdown at Wanstead Church School, a 30-second walk away.

The 30-year-old nursery worker was attacked from behind and then stabbed in the arm as her assailants chanted 'Allah' in the quiet, leafy street (pictured)

He said his fiancee called him to say the school was not allowing anyone to leave 'because there was a stabbing outside', and added that the police did not know 'where the persons who did it were'.

They were initially told it was gang-related, he said.

'My instant thought was to collect my fiancee and kid and get them to safety not knowing the full extent of what was happening. But I was thinking the worst.

'I instantly, after what has been happening regarding terrorists, thought the worst and informed her I will drive up to collect them,' Mr Ashmore said

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the attack was being treated as a hate crime.

The nursery boss, who did not see the assault herself, said the attackers were 'Asian girls' and that they ran off when a man came to the rescue and took the victim to her workplace

He added that the Met's Counter Terrorism Command was aware of the assault but is not investigating 'at this time'.

Officers drove the victim around the area in an attempt to find the perpetrators but no arrests were made.

A spokesman for the London Ambulance service said: 'We sent an ambulance crew to the scene, arriving in under six minutes.

'We treated a woman and the scene and took her to a hospital in east London.'
Qatar has called its tanks into action and warned neighbours that it will open fire on any ships that come into its waters.

The country's military has been put on its highest alert level after an economic and diplomatic blockade was placed on it by other Gulf State nations over its alleged support for terrorists.

The Qatari government has written to leaders in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE warning it will respond to any naval threat.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has reportedly ordered additional tanks be readied for possible action after an ultimatum by Gulf State neighbours

US President Donald Trump (pictured in Ruytadh last month with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani) has spoken on the phone to the Qatari leader

It has also bought 16 Leopard tanks out of storage in capital Doha, CNN reports.

The move comes after Saudi Arabia yesterday issued an ultimatum demanding that Qatar severs links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

US President Donald Trump has offered to host a White House meeting if necessary, in a change of heart from his initial support for the Saudi-led boycott.

A string of countries this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar strongly denies the allegations and has expressed a willingness to engage in talks to resolve the crisis.

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar, barred the emirate's planes from their airspace and ordered Qatari citizens out within 14 days.

A map showing the countries which have severed diplomatic relations with Qatar

The White House has said that in a conversation with Qatari leader Sheik Tamim, Trump has 'emphasized the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology'.

Qatar is home to the Al Udeid Air Base, which is the key regional centre for strikes against ISIS.

Its ambassador to Washington, Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani has said he still does not know why the Gulf State neighbours have cut links with Qatar.

Saudi's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (R) and Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah arrive for a meeting in the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday

He said: 'Until now, there have been no clear requests. We are working toward de-escalation.'

Kuwait - which unlike most of its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members has not cut off ties with Qatar - has been leading efforts to mediate.

Its emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah held talks on Wednesday with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, following talks with senior UAE officials and Saudi King Salman.

Trump, who had initially backed the measures against Qatar in a tweet, called Sheik Tamim on Wednesday with an offer "to help the parties resolve their differences".

French President Emmanuel Macron has also reached out to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bid to kick off negotiations

Qatar hosts the Al-Udeid military base, the largest US airbase in the Middle East. Home to some 10,000 troops, Al-Udeid is central to the US-led fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

French President Emmanuel Macron has also reached out to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bid to kick off negotiations.

Turkey, which works closely with Qatar in the energy sector, has walked a fine line between defending Qatar and abstaining from openly antagonising Saudi Arabia.

Ankara hosted Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif this week for talks, including on Qatar.

In a sign of support for Doha, Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved an agreement to expand the number of troops deployed to a Turkish base in Qatar. The agreement did not detail a timeframe or the number of troops.

Iran and Qatar share the world's largest gas field, an offshore site the Iranians call South Pars and the Qataris call the North Dome. Doha is the largest exporter of natural liquefied gas in the world.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a 2014 dispute, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Doha over Qatar's support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

A top Gulf official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a major concern was the influence of Sheikh Tamim's father, Sheikh Hamad, who had allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha and helped arm Syrian rebels before abdicating in 2013.

'The previous emir is a big supporter of this whole extremist agenda, so we do have an issue,' the official said.
A divorce lawyer who once represented a Real Housewives of Miami star and Hulk Hogan's former wife is suing a fellow attorney over unpaid fees.

Ray Rafool, a practitioner from Miami, has filed suit against criminal lawyer Alex Martinez after Rafool represented Martinez in his own messy divorce case.

Rafool's lawsuit claims Martinez owes him more than $22,000 for services during his prolonged split from wife Maria Ubarri.

Ray Rafool (right) who has represented Linda Bollea (left) in her divorce from Hulk Hogan, is now suing another lawyer over unpaid bills in that attorney's divorce case

Joanna Krupa, star of Real Housewives of Miami, and Linda Bollea - formerly Linda Hogan - count themselves among Rahool's other clients.

Miami-Dade County court records, seen by the Miami Herald, show Martinez and Ubarri held lengthy court battles over custody of their two children.

The divorce judgement became final in 2010, but the pair have been back to court several times since then, most recently in April this year.

Martinez didn't return calls for comment from the Herald.

Rafool told the paper: 'We're not in the business of suing clients and colleagues, but we did the work and expect to be paid. He understands our business better than anybody.'
Rebecca Brahier (pictured) has been sentenced to five years behind bars for shoving her one-year-old son's arm into hot coffee to 'teach him a lesson'

An Iowa mother has been sentenced to five years behind bars for shoving her one-year-old son's arm into hot coffee to 'teach him a lesson'.

Rebecca Brahier was sentenced after she pleaded guilty to child endangerment resulting in injury on Tuesday.

Police said the 36-year-old confessed while being interviewed by officers that she 'intentionally submerged the child's arm in hot coffee in an attempt to teach the child a lesson' on November 19, 2016, the Daily Nonpareil reports.

Brahier explained to police she was preparing an instant coffee using a cup of hot water beside he bed when her son tried to touch 'several times'.

Court records, according to the newspaper, stated the young child was taken to Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital with second-degree burns on his left arm.

Police said the 36-year-old (left) confessed she 'intentionally submerged the child's arm in hot coffee in an attempt to teach the child a lesson' on November 19, 2016. The boy was then taken to Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital (right) with second-degree burns

'The child had severe burns to his left hand and arm, which caused blistering and skin was sloughing off,' the report states.

Hospital medical staff called the police after seeing the injuries.

Her attorney, Peter Tenny, says 'the child's wounds are healing well', before claiming the fact the boy was wearing pajamas made the burn worse.

Brahier received credit for time served in jail since her November arrest.
A 23-year-old Peruvian man killed himself and left audiotapes behind for his loved ones in the style of Netflix's controversial suicide series 13 Reasons Why.

Franco Alonso Lazo Medrano jumped from the window of his apartment in Arequipa, leaving two suicide notes behind.

One was addressed to the woman who had rejected his romantic advances and the other included instructions for his family detailing where they could find the tapes, according to Peruvian news outlet El Popular.

It is not clear whether the man had ever watched the Netflix show or if it inspired him but his actions mimic its story line.

A 23-year-old Peruvian man killed himself and left tapes behind explaining his suicide in the style of Netflix's hit series 13 Reasons Why (shown above)

13 Reasons Why tells the story of Hannah Baker, a teenager who takes her own life after recording tapes for friends to listen to after her death.

In the tapes, she explains why she killed herself, just as Medrano did.

The series, which was co-produced by Selena Gomez and is based on a novel of the same name, launched on Netflix in March and has amassed global popularity.

It has also attracted criticism for not initially including advisories about its potentially upsetting content and offering viewers information about suicide prevention.

There was a reported rise in students at one school in Florida who said they'd been inspired by its dark themes and had become suicidal.

The streaming service took the controversy on board and added an advisory.

In a statement explaining the move, a spokesman said: 'There has been a tremendous amount of discussion about our series.

In the Netflix show, teenager Hannah Baker (played by Katherine Langford, above in character) takes her own life after recording audiotapes for friends and family to listen to afterwards

'While many of our members find the show to be a valuable driver for starting important conversation with their families, we have also heard concern from those who feel the series should carry additional advisories.'

Selena Gomez, who co-created the show, defended it this week

Co-creator Selena Gomez defended the show this week.

'I understood that we were going into something that is difficult, but these kids today are so exposed to things that I would never even have comprehended when I was eight.

'I feel like if this is what we are going to talk about, we might as well do it in a way that's going to be honest, it's going to be real, and it stays true to the book.

'I think that stuff is uncomfortable for people to talk about, but it is happening and hopefully it opened the door for people to actually accept what's happening and actually go and change it, talk about it,' she told The Elvis Duran Show.

For confidential help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit its website here.
Rosie O'Donnell donated $1,000 to an online fundraiser for alleged National Security Agency leaker Reality Winner that has already amassed $15,000.

The GoFundMe page for Winner has racked up $14,842 after the federal government filed a criminal complaint accusing her of removing classified material from a government facility and passing them off to an online news outlet.

The 25-year-old Winner, who O'Donnell hailed as a 'brave young patriot', was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday and faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

Rosie O'Donnell (left) donated $1,000 to an online fundraiser for alleged National Security Agency leaker Reality Winner (right)

The GoFundMe page for Winner has racked up $14,842 after a criminal complaint on Monday accused her of removing classified material from a government facility

O'Donnell, who has famously been locked in a feud with Trump for more than a decade, confirmed her $1,000 donation and called Winner a 'brave young patriot' on Twitter

Winner, of Augusta, Georgia, is being held in Lincoln County Jail after her arrest on Saturday in connection with leaks related to Russian's role in election hacking.

Winner worked as a contractor with Top Secret clearance at Pluribus International Corporation, an analytical and engineering service that provides its services to the federal, defense, security and the intelligence community.

'On or about May 9, Winner printed and improperly removed classified intelligence reporting, which contained classified national defense information from an intelligence community agency, and unlawfully retained it,' according to the criminal complaint.

A few days later, she 'unlawfully transmitted the intelligence reporting to an online news outlet', the criminal complaint states.

The Justice Department released information about her arrest on Monday, an hour after The Intercept published a report based on a top-secret NSA document stating Russian officials tried to hack into the US voting system before the presidential elections.

Winner, of Augusta, Georgia, is being held in Lincoln County Jail after her arrest on Saturday in connection with leaks related to Russian's role in election hacking

The Justice Department released information about her arrest on Monday, an hour after The Intercept published a report based on a top-secret NSA document stating Russian officials tried to hack into the US voting system

O'Donnell shared a link to the GoFundMe page on Twitter and expressed her support for the 25-year-old

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against leaks and the people behind them, many heralded Winner as a hero.

O'Donnell, who has famously been locked in a feud with Trump for more than a decade, confirmed her $1,000 donation to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and called her a 'brave young patriot' on Twitter.

Others like Dawn Schonwetter wrote: 'Thank you, Ms. Winner. I owe you so much more than I can donate. You are a patriot and a true friend of democracy.'

Cherie Fazekas said: 'This heroic young woman put her life on the line for US and this is how we repay her. I dont even have a job right now and I donated. Get it together people!'

The GoFundMe page, set up by Shirley Fink of Fairfax, Virginia, states: 'These funds will be able to assist with loss of wages, counseling from this traumatic experience and to be able to recover from this as Reality & her family rebuilds their lives.

'Possible expenses for travel for the family and anything they might need to help them through these troubled times.'

Winner's court hearing, due to begin at 4pm on Thursday, will determine whether she will be released from pre-trial confinement.

Her attorney said she will plead not guilty to 'willful retention and transmission of national defense information'.

While President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against leaks and the people behind them, many heralded Winner as a hero

Winner, who speaks four languages, may have used her linguistics skills to work at a government 'listening post' which collects intelligence from the Middle East and Europe, The Daily Beast reported.

The decorated former USAF linguist made multiple posts on social media attacking Trump and joking about Russia's influence in the election.

Under the alias Sara Winners, she made several tweets with the hashtag #NotMyPresident and #Recount 2016. She wrote that 'Trump is a c**t' and a 'piece of s**t' in a series of angry tweets over the past few months.

But her mother told Dailymail.com: 'She always does what's right. She served her country, she was in the Air Force for six years. She volunteers, she does whatever she can to make the community and the world better. That's what she wants to do.'

Her father hinted at her defense by saying people were using her for 'their own political purposes' and Winner may try to claim her prosecution is politically-motivated and that she was acting as a whistle blower.
Trafalgar Square was evacuated by armed police today after they were called to reports of a 'suspicious item'.

The tourist landmark in Central London was cordoned off this afternoon while the nearby Charing Cross Tube station was also closed.

One photograph appeared to show a man being led away by police. Officers said the incident was not being treated as terrorist related and there were no injuries.

Trafalgar Square in Central London was evacuated by armed police this afternoon

The cordon was later lifted and the station reopened after officers were stood down.

Police were already on heightened alert today as millions of people vote in the General Election between 7am and 10pm across the country.

The incident also comes five days after three attackers killed eight people by driving a van at pedestrians and then stabbing people in London Bridge on Saturday night.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Specialist officers are in attendance and cordons are in place. As a precaution Charing Cross train station has been closed.'

One photograph taken at the scene today appeared to show a man being led away by police

Later, its Twitter account added: 'Police called to reports of a suspicious item in Charing Cross. Not being treated as terrorist related at this time. No injuries.'

And a further tweet said: 'The incident in Charing Cross has now been stood down. Cordons will be lifted shortly.'

Earlier, Transport for London tweeted: 'Charing Cross Road is closed northbound between Trafalgar Square and Cranbourn Street due to a police incident.'

And the TfL Bus Alerts account added: 'Routes 6, 9, 11, 15, 23, 24, 29, 91, 139, 176 are subject to diversion and delays due to a police incident at Charing Cross Road WC2.'
Airport operations at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Alabama were suspended for a time on Wednesday after grenades were found in a passenger's luggage.

Checked baggage operations discovered four 40mm grenade rounds.

A TSA explosives specialist had to be called in after looking at the images.

Checked baggage operations were temporarily suspended at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth Airport after four grenade rounds were discovered in a passenger's bag according to the TSA

TSA Explosive Specialist Mario Medina notified the bomb squad of the four 40mm grenades on Wednesday morning. The Birmingham Police Department and the FBI were also notified

'We do not have the authority to arrest passengers or charge them, so we contact them and they take the investigation from there,' said TSA Regional Spokesperson Mark Howell.

Howell could not provide information about what happened with the baggage owner after the incident. He also said he could not confirm at the time of the interview whether or not the grenade rounds were live or inert.

The police were then called along with bomb technicians 'to ensure everyone's safety.'

The grenade rounds were removed from the checked baggage and operations resumed a short time later.

TSA Spokesman Mark Howell could not provide information about what happened with the baggage owner after the incident or confirm whether the grenade rounds were live or inert

Most passengers know weapons aren't allowed in carry-on bags, but some may not understand some weapons are allowed to be checked - unless they're things like grenade rounds

It's not known if the grenades were in fact live rounds. The FBI has since been called in to investigate.

Most passengers know weapons aren't allowed in carry-on bags, but some may not understand some weapons are allowed to be checked - unless they're things like grenade rounds.

A TSA spokesperson said all weapons must be kept in a checked bag, and if further inspection is necessary, it'll be looked at by hand - as was the case here.

'They opened it up, noticed rounds were in it and immediately notified the transportation security and explosive specialist who came down to verify what it was,' said the spokesperson to ABC News.

Tina Yovino, the mother of a passenger said 'it makes you feel a little more secure. I am thankful they do that and thankful for the job they do.'

'It's pretty scary, especially when my child is traveling,' she said.

Howell said finding the grenade rounds was unique, but officers do find other prohibited items on a regular basis.

Its more common up here at the checkpoint. We find prohibited items probably every few minutes, said Howell.

Surrendered items usually include liquids, aerosols and pocket knives, but they do find guns often as well.
The remains of a missing US Army Air Corps solider are returning home.

1st Lieutenant Robert Eugene Oxford went missing after he and seven fellow crewmen headed for Chabua, India, on a routine ferrying mission.

Their plane never arrived and, for years, no one could pinpoint where the crew had gone down until 2006 when a hiker in northeast India spotted a wing and panel sign inscribed with the bomber's name.

It wasn't until 2015 that the US Defense Department investigated the crash site and found Oxford's.

On Thursday, he will finally be returned home and then laid to rest this weekend with full military honors in his hometown of Concord, Georgia.

Photos of Oxford's seven crewmen, none of whom was ever found, will lie beside the coffin and then be placed inside it for burial.

More than 74 years ago, 1st Lieutenant Robert Eugene Oxford (pictured in 1944) went missing following an aircraft crash during a supply mission to India

Oxford's plane, dubbed 'Hot as Hell' (pictured, with Oxford back row, second from right), departed Kumming, China, on January 25, 1944, for Chabua, India

Officials were unable to pinpoint the site of the wreckage until a hiker spotted a wing and panel sign in the mountains in 2006 by Clayton Kuhles

'We were ecstatic that Eugene was found, but we feel guilty there are seven other men on that mountain top,' said Merrill Roan, the wife of Oxford's nephew.

'So we are honoring the other seven...We have to honor them as well, because they may never get any closure.'

Oxford's plane, dubbed 'Hot as Hell', departed Kumming, China, on January 25, 1944, according to Staff Sgt Kristen Duus at the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Agency. Oxford was declared dead two years later.

Oxford's family didn't know the wreckage had been found until 2007 when Merrill Roan saw a message on a genealogy website from a relative of another service member on the aircraft.

That relative wanted help persuading military officials to investigate the crash site, which was discovered by American Clayton Kuhles while hiking.

Duus's agency confirmed the crash site correlated with the missing aircraft in 2008. But harmful weather coupled with access issues and security delayed recovery operation efforts until late 2015, Duus said.

Officials say a DNA analysis of Oxford's remains matched his niece and nephew. Roan said the family was 'shocked and excited' when they heard the news.

Duus said Oxford is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. She said all service members are returned to the US for identification before the family is notified and the service member is provided a funeral with honors.

Eighty service members were identified in 2015, and that number more than doubled to 164 the following year, Duus said.

Oxford (pictured in unknown year) is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. All service members are returned to the US for identification before the family is notified and the service member is provided a funeral with honors.

Photos of Oxford's (pictured back row, far right) seven fellow crewmen, none of whom was ever found, will lie beside the coffin and then be placed inside it for burial.

The Missing in Action Agency website says there are more than 86,000 Americans still missing abroad from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

Advancements in DNA testing technology and partnerships with other nations have helped find and identify more missing service members than ever, Duus said.

Oxford's parents, siblings and any other relatives who saw him leave for World War II have all died since he went missing, said Terrell Moody of Moody-Daniel Funeral Home, which is handling burial arrangements. Still, the long-overdue homecoming of his remains won't go unnoticed.

A State Patrol escort will guide a hearse carrying Oxford's casket 50 miles (80 kilometers) south on Interstate 75 from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to the funeral home.

In late 2006, American Clayton Kuhles, hiking in northeast India, located a site containing aircraft wreckage near Damro Village, Arunachal Pradesh Province (wreckage pictured)

Kuhles located a wing and a panel, which correlated with a B-24J aircraft, call sign 'Hot as Hell' (wreckage pictured)

Upon inspection, it was clear that the aircraft experienced extreme instrument weather conditions and left the formation it was flying in. Cloud ceiling was at treetop level and visibility was less than 1 mi (wreckage pictured)

Post 197 historian Bryan Richardson (left) holds an American flag as Post 197 commander Bill Payton Sr (center) salutes it during a special flag raising ceremony in honor of Oxford in November 2014. The lieutenant's remains wouldn't be identified for another year

A funeral will be held Saturday in a school auditorium - the biggest venue in town, Moody said.

'It's just a huge historical event for our little town,' Moody said. 'The phone constantly rings from people wanting information.'

Oxford will be buried in the same plot on Sunday with his parents, Charles and Bessie Oxford, who had placed a memorial marker for their lost son at the gravesite after his plane went missing seven decades ago.
Making a Murderer's Steven Avery's lawyer asked for a new trial for her client on Wednesday.

In a 1,272-page document filed on Wednesday, attorney Kathleen Zellner claims that Avery's conviction was based on planted evidence and false testimony.

She argues that Avery deserves a new trial 'in the interests of justice' and because 'the real controversy was never tried'.

Avery, 54, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in the 2005 death of 25-year-old photographer Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.

Making a Murderer's Steven Avery's lawyer filed a request for a new trial for her client on Wednesday

In a 1,272-page document filed on Wednesday, attorney Kathleen Zellner claims that Avery's conviction was based on planted evidence and false testimony. She argues that Avery deserves a new trial 'in the interests of justice' and because 'the real controversy was never tried'

Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, confessed to detectives he helped his uncle rape and kill Halbach at the Avery family's salvage yard.

A judge overturned Dassey's conviction in August, ruling that investigators took advantage of the then-16-year-old Dassey's cognitive disabilities and tricked him into confessing.

Avery, 54, was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in the 2005 death of Teresa Halbach

State attorneys are appealing that decision.

Both Avery and Dassey maintain their innocence.

The case gained national attention in 2015 after Netflix aired 'Making a Murderer', a multi-part documentary examining Halbach's death.

Authorities who worked on the case say the series was biased. The filmmakers have defended their work.

In Wednesday's filing, Zellner contends that Avery's trial attorneys failed to prove that evidence had been planted because they lacked experts and they did not conduct a thorough investigation, according to USA Today Network-Wisconsin.

She also maintains that a spare key for Halbach's sport utility vehicle found in Avery's bedroom was planted by sheriff's deputies.

Officials involved in the case have denied any misconduct.

Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, confessed to detectives he helped his uncle rape and kill Halbach at the Avery family's salvage yard

Avery's (pictured in an early mug shot) case gained national attention in 2015 after Netflix aired 'Making a Murderer', a multi-part documentary examining Halbach's death

'Because the State did not need to establish motive, it did not spend any time trying to figure out why Ms. Halbach was murdered,' Zellner wrote.

She added: 'Both Mr. Avery and Ms. Halbach are victims of a justice system whose success depends upon the integrity, competence and devotion of judges, law enforcement, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

'Both Ms. Halbach and Mr. Avery have yet to receive justice.'

Dean Strang, one of Avery's trial lawyers, said he and Avery's other trial attorney, Jerry Buting, are glad that Zellner filed the motion and its supporting documents.

'All that really matters here, to us and we hope to everyone, is that we get closer to the truth in this case and to justice for everyone,' Strang said in an email to the AP.

In November, Zellner announced that an agreement had been signed to begin independent scientific testing on several critical pieces of evidence.

Avery and Dassey contend they were framed by law enforcement angry with Avery for filing a lawsuit against Manitowoc County over his wrongful imprisonment for a sexual assault he didn't commit.
A married elementary school teacher from Nevada has been arrested for allegedly having multiple sexual encounters with two male high school students over the course of two years.

Tennille Whitaker, 40, was taken into custody on Monday and charged with eight counts of sexual conduct between employee of school and pupil.

According to the Elko County Sheriff's Office, Whitaker's arrest came at the conclusion of an eight-month investigation that got under way last year based on a tip from a concerned parent.

Teacher charged: Tennille Whitaker, 40 (left), a fourth-grade teacher at Wells Elementary School in Nevada, has been charged with having sex with two male high school students

Whitaker is accused of having sexual relationships with two students, aged 16 and 18, from Wells Combined School (pictured) over a two-year span

Undersheriff Ron Supp told the Elko Daily Free Press the two alleged victims in the case were aged 16 and 18 and attended Wells Combined School at the time of the suspected incidents involving Whitaker.

Tipped off: The investigation into Whitaker (pictured with her husband) got under way in October 2016 after a concerned parent called in a tip

Whitaker, who lives with her husband and two children - a son and daughter - has taught fourth grade at Wells Elementary School and has been with the district for 11 years.

Elko County School District Superintendent Jeff Zander said in a statement that Whitaker has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation into the allegations.

Whitaker was released from jail on Tuesday after posting $160,000 bail.

According to the sheriff's office, in October 2016 they were contacted by a parent at Wells Combined School saying that Whitaker was seen behind closed classroom doors with a student, which was deemed inappropriate.

Supp said that the agencys investigation, which involved surveillance, has revealed that Whitaker made contact with the male high school students on social media in violation of the school districts policy prohibiting online communications between students and staff.

Whitaker, pictured with her husband, son and daughter, has been charged with eight counts of sexual conduct between employee of school and pupil, including on school grounds

Whitaker's suspected sexual encounters with the teenage boys occurred over the course of two years, including on school grounds, according to the authorities.

Supp said they believe there might be more victims out there, and he urged anyone with relevant information to come forward.
Michael Flynn took advantage of having no office to go to on Monday as he caught some waves with his sister.

The retired general and champion surfer Barbara Redgate headed over to Second Beach in Newport, Rhode Island for the day.

Michael Flynn Jr. posted a photo of his father and aunt in their wetsuits while carrying their boards on the beach, located near the family's home.

Flynn, 58, was all smiles in the picture, taken almost four months after he was forced to resign as President Trump's national security adviser over claims he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contact with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

That big smile also came just three days before James Comey faced the Senate Intel Committee on Capitol Hill, and testified that Flynn was still under criminal investigation by the FBI.

Endless summer: Michael Flynn was all smiles on Monday as he went surfing with his sister Barbara Redgate at Second Beach in Newport, Rhode Island (above)

The very model of a modern major-general: It has been four months since Flynn resigned from his post as national security adviser over claims he misled VP Mike Pence on his contact with Russians (Flynn and Trump above in December)

Cool customer: On Thursday, James Comey (above) stated under oath that Flynn was under criminal investigation by the FBI and may have lied to intelligence officers

Flynn has been an avid surfer for some time, having grown up in Rhode Island.

That fun fact was not known by many until this past February when he was profiled by the New Yorker in an interview done prior to his resignation but released after he had exited the White House.

His sister meanwhile is a retired teacher who lives in California and has also been surfing since she was a child, and competing since the age of 12 around the country.

Flynn looked the happiest he has ever been in the photo his soon posted on Monday, though that feeling may quickly be dissipating in the wake of Comey's testimony.

The most surprising thing to emerge on Thursday might have been the details of the nature of the investigation into Flynn.

Comey was asked by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas during the hearing if he believed that Flynn had 'attempted to deceive [him] or made false statements to an FBI agent.'

After initially saying he did not want to 'go to far,' Comey stated: 'That was the subject of the criminal inquiry.'

It was the first time if had been confirmed that there was a criminal investigation into Flynn, and Comney declined to give any further details.

Comey had already revealed in his opening remarks, which were submitted for the record on Wednesday, that he felt President Trump was asking him to drop any investigation into Flynn when he spoke to him on February 14 in private after a meeting.

'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,' President Trump told Comey according to the former FBI director's notes from the meeting.

That meeting came one day after President Trump asked for Flynn's resignation.

Comey explained in his written remarks that he was able to recount his conversation with President Trump on that day because he had taken notes.

Blue crush: Flynn's love of surfing was not known by many until a New Yoprker profile of the retired general in February (above in a photo posted by his son)

On Thursday, Comey stated that at the time of that meeting with President Trump Flynn was in 'legal jeopardy.'

He also said that after his first meeting with President Trump during the transition period he made a point of taking notes following each of their sessions.

When asked about that exchange during his testimony on Thursday, Comey went into more detail about his perception of the conversation.

'Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or for that matter any other criminal offense where thisthey said or thought they "hoped" for an outcome?' asked Senator Jim Risch of Idaho.

Comey responded by stating: 'I don't know well enough to answer. And the reason I keep saying his words is, I took it as a direction. It is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying "I hope this."

He then added: 'I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it.'

Flynn has not commented on the proceedings from Thursday, but his namesake did retweet the first comment made by President Trump's namesake, which said: 'Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well. I hear "I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job"'

He has been under scrutiny from the Justice Department since November, when the department's Foreign Agent Registration Act unit sent him a letter questioning whether he needed to register as a foreign agent for lobbying work he performed for a Turkish businessman.

Flynn signed a $600,000 contract last August with a Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin. The contract called for Flynn's company, Flynn Intel Group, to gather information on a Turkish cleric living in the United States with the aim of getting a criminal referral against him.

Flynn is separately being investigated by the Defense Department's inspector general.

That inquiry is looking into whether Flynn was fully forthcoming about his foreign contacts and earnings from organizations linked to the governments of Russia and Turkey.

The top Democrat and Republican on a House oversight committee have said Flynn likely broke federal law by failing to get approval from the U.S. government to accept foreign payments, including $33,000 in 2015 from RT, Russia's state-sponsored television network.

RT has been branded a propaganda outlet by US intelligence officials.
The man who tried to save Australian nanny Sara Zelenak as she was stabbed by terrorists in London has revealed he is haunted and cannot sleep after the harrowing attack.

Gerard Vowls, 47, had just left a nearby pub when he stumbled upon the young blonde girl being brutally stabbed by three men.

'She was crying out "Help me! Help me!" and I tried so hard, screaming to get them to look at me,' Mr Vowls recalls, The Australian reports.

Australian nanny Sara Zelenak (pictured) was confirmed dead after the London Bridge attack

Gerard Vowls, 47, (pictured) had just left a pub when he stumbled upon the knife-wielding terrorists

The construction worker says he spotted a hire bike and struggled to pry off parts in a vain attempt of throwing them at the crazed jihadists.

But as Mr Vowls went to throw it, one of the attackers turned towards him and lunged at him with a machete.

The heroic man nearly slipped on the wet London pavement as the terrorist pursued him but he then abruptly stopped and returned back towards Borough Market.

Mr Vowls held onto hope the 'blonde girl' had survived the frenzied stabbing, and was devastated to learn she was one of the eight victims of that tragic night.

'Something is pulling on my heart, I am empty inside: what I saw was the worst thing in the world,' he said.

'To Sara's family, I just want to say I am so very sorry for their loss. I really tried to help her and get them to chase me.'

Mr Vowls held onto hope the 'blonde girl' has survived the frenzied stabbing, and was devastated to learn Ms Zelenak (pictured right) was one of the eight victims of that tragic night

'To Sara's family, i just want to say I am so very sorry for their loss. I really tried to help her and get them to chase me,' he said. (Ms Zelenak pictured)

The 21-year-old Brisbane woman was confirmed dead after Saturday night's terrorist attack on London Bridge.

She had become separated from her friend Pri Goncalves who believed Ms Zelenak was right behind her as she fled from the attackers.

Her mother, who had flown to London to find her daughter, shared a post to the woman's Facebook on Wednesday to tell followers her body had been found.

'Sara Zelenak is confirmed dead, they found her body and has DNA tests confirmed. Thank you for all the overwhelming love and support from everyone,' she wrote.

The heroic man (pictured) nearly slipped on the wet London pavement as the terrorist pursued him but he then stopped and returned back towards Borough Market

Ms Zelenak's (pictured) mother, who had flown to London to find her daughter, shared a post to the woman's Facebook on Wednesday to tell followers her body had been found

Ms Zelenak and Ms Goncalves, both au pairs working in Herne Hill in south London, had met on the train.

That evening, they were out celebrating Ms Zelenak's new job in Westminster and had met at London Bridge station before going to dinner.

Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, was also confirmed dead after the terrorist attack.

Ms Boden was killed by the knife-wielding terrorists as she ran to help another victim of the barbaric attack on London Bridge and nearby Borough Market.
A Chinese couple have sold their two-month-old son for 19,000 yuan (2,166) after putting him up for an auction on social media, according to a report.

The couple, both said to be in their 20s, claimed in a social media post that they were 'too poor' to raise the baby and would 'give' him to the person who would pay them the most.

They spent the income on two new phones and clothes, the father said.

According to Jiangxi Broadcasting Station, the incident occurred in Ganzhou, China's Jiangxi Province, in late May.

The Ganzhou police were informed by people who saw the advertisement posted by the couple on WeChat, the Chinese equivalent to Whatsapp.

The police immediately dispatched officers to track down the couple.

After they found the father, he admitted that he had already sold the baby to a family living in a small village in Shashi Town, Ganzhou.

The father is identified by his surname Zou. His girlfriend is not identified.

Lai Taotao, an officer from the Ganzhou police, said the village is not accessible by car. He and his colleague found the boy after walking for more than an hour and asking around in the village.

Footage from a police camera shows that the baby was being looked after by a middle-aged woman when the officers found him.

The woman attempted to convince the officers that the baby had been given to her by an acquaintance.

After being interrogated, the woman admitted that the baby had been purchased from Mr Zou for 19,000 yuan (2,166).

Mr Zou admitted that the boy is his son. He also claimed that he and his live-in girlfriend didn't have money to raise their child.

The man said after they received the money, they spent 'several hundred yuan' on food.

He also said they spent more than 4,000 yuan (455) on two mobile phones.

He said he bought a phone for his girlfriend because she didn't have a phone, and he bought one for himself because his phone was old.

The couple also purchased one set of new clothes each, said the man.

Mr Zou has been arrested on suspicion of illegal buying and selling of babies.

It remains unclear whether or not his girlfriend would be arrested.
A British man at the centre of a Thai murder probe has been arrested in Ibiza.

Shane Looker, 47, from Stoke-on-Trent, is understood to have been held on the holiday island on an international arrest warrant.

He has been remanded in custody after appearing before a judge in a closed court hearing.

Looker is wanted for questioning by authorities in Thailand over the death of go-go dancer Laxami Manochat.

Her dismembered remains were found stuffed inside a suitcase thrown into a river near the capital Bangkok in November 2014.

Shane Looker (pictured right) said 'there is no way in the world that I'd ever hurt any woman let alone kill her' after being sought by Thai police in connection with the death of Laxami Manochat (pictured left)

Reports at the time said he owned a hotel in Ibiza. He is believed to have been arrested near the town of San Jose in the south-west of the island although the exact location has not yet been revealed.

National police in Bangkok said after Miss Manochat's body was discovered that she and Looker had been captured on CCTV leaving Nana Plaza, an area that attracts hundreds of foreign men every night in search of alcohol and sex.

Looker admitted paying a bar in Bangkok's red-light area to spend time with Miss Manochat soon after being named as a suspect.

But speaking through a lawyer to The Sunday Mirror, he insisted in February 2015 he did not kill her and was preparing to hand himself in to police.

He said at the time: 'Yes, I did know her. I'm happy to accept that I spent time with her.

'She is a bar girl that I knew previously and I accept that I paid the bar fine. There is no way in the world that I'd ever hurt any woman let alone kill her.'

The dancer's body was sliced into pieces before being stuffed inside a suitcase and thrown into the Mae Kong River in Kanchanaburi, 70 miles south of the Thai capital Bangkok.

It was found on November 9, 2014, seven days after Looker was last seen with the dead woman.

Looker was captured on CCTV (pictured) leaving Nana Plaza, an area that attracts hundreds of foreign men every night in search of alcohol and sex, with Manochet - but he has never denied being with her

Mr Looker's identity remained a mystery until a tip-off to Thai blog Stickboy which gave his full name, nationality and an address in Hua Hin, 90 miles south of Bangkok, along with a photo of his passport.

He had already left by the time police received the information and went to the address with a search warrant.

The shorts and T-shirt he was wearing when he was captured on CCTV with Miss Manochat were found at the property.

According to reports in Thailand, DNA tests on nail clippers and a toothbrush and skin under the dancer's nails also link him as a suspect.

In 2015, legal firm JaCogLaw said they were told by Looker (pictured on CCTV with Manochet) that he had 'absolutely nothing to do with' her death

Miss Manochat was reported missing after her mum failed to receive money she regularly sent her mum by Western Union transfer.

A legal firm advising Mr Looker said in February 2015 it had been contacted by the Brit and advised him to hand himself in to police.

Jason Coghlan, PR Director of JaCogLaw, which has offices in Thailand near to Mr Looker's home as well as in Spain, confirmed at the time: 'We have been contacted by Shane Looker in the last few hours.

'He has told me categorically he had absolutely nothing to do with this woman's murder.

'We have advised him he needs to hand himself in to the authorities but his concern and ours as his legal advisors are that that takes place in conditions which don't affect his ability and right to defend himself against these very serious accusations.

Parts of Bangkok are popular with foreign men looking for alcohol and sex. Above, a stock image of a Bangkok bar

'He's not saying he hasn't spent time with this woman.

'But the DNA that's said to have been found doesn't make him guilty of murder and nor does the fact he was with her shortly before she disappeared.

'I know this man personally through common friends and I can assure you he's no psychopath.

'There's an inherent unfairness in trying to defend yourself when you're in a Thai prison and haven't had a chance to get your financial affairs in order and that's something that needs to be addressed.

'Mr Looker is obviously aware that it's far better for him to hand himself in before he's caught.

'If the Thai authorities believe they need to arrest him so they can ascertain whether he played a role in this woman's murder, that's fair enough.

'But if an innocent man is arrested and thrown into prison without any access to money with which to properly defend himself, there is obviously a much higher risk of a miscarriage of justice.'
A world-renowned heart surgeon has been spared jail for molesting two women after a judge said it may be in the public interest for him to operate again.

Mohamed Amrani, 54, was found guilty of twice groping a woman's breasts through her clothes at the Harefield Hospital in west London between 2003 and 2004.

A decade later, in 2014, he smacked another woman's bottom at Bupa's private Cromwell Hospital in Kensington.

The consultant has performed a string of life-saving operations around the world and hit the headlines in 2007 when he performed the UK's first double heart valve replacement using keyhole surgery.

Mohamed Amrani, 54, (pictured at the Old Bailey) was found guilty of twice groping a woman's breasts through her clothes at the Harefield Hospital

Judge Anne Molyneux described him as an 'outstandingly good heart surgeon' as she sentenced him to six months imprisonment, suspended for a year, at the Old Bailey on Thursday.

She told Amrani: 'You have saved lives, you have done work others were not willing to do, you have shown commitment to the NHS, you have given time to work for charity.'

The court heard Amrani, of Harrow in west London, has been suspended since 2015, and now faces disciplinary action from his professional body, the GMC, where he could be struck off.

But his barrister, Stephen Vullo QC, said Amrani has been offered a job in Morocco, where GMC restrictions do not apply, adding he hoped he would receive a suspension with the prospect of returning to work in the UK.

The judge said 'the public interest may well be in favour of your operating again', as she concluded a suspended sentence could be imposed.

Amrani stood trial over accusations from five women between 2001 and 2014.

He denied all of the allegations, but last month a jury found him guilty of two indecent assaults and a sexual assault on two different women.

The court heard how the first had complained to the hospital about being indecently assaulted and was allegedly told 'just ignore him, he does it to everyone'.

Her husband described it as 'a pretty devastating event' in her life.

A decade later, in 2014, he smacked another woman's bottom at Bupa's private Cromwell Hospital in Kensington

He told the court she came home and was 'very, very upset', adding: 'My wife told me she had been groped and I understood that to be touching her over her clothing in a sexual manner.'

The judge described the attacks as 'workplace bullying of a sexual nature', adding: 'This was an abuse of power arising from the trust placed in you by the hospital and by those who worked with you. You had been given the power because of the trust.'

The court heard that when Amrani smacked his second victim on the bottom in an operating theatre she turned around to slap his face.

She told jurors: 'He looked surprised. He said "would you really hit me?" I said "yes I would"'.

Judge Molyneux told Amrani: 'This was a sexual assault. What the incident demonstrates is your sense of entitlement and your instinct to rely on your power to do as you pleased.'

The judge described Amrani's sex attacks in Harefield as 'fleeting, unplanned, spontaneous outbursts' which have left the vulnerable victim suffering from anxiety and difficulties sleeping.

Prosecutor Peter Clement QC suggested Amrani had 'abused his position'. Pictured, Harefield Hospital in west London

The woman said in a statement: 'I tried to put the whole incident behind me, but in time I realised Mr Amrani's behaviour towards colleagues was not isolated.'

Prosecutor Peter Clement QC suggested Amrani had 'abused his position'.

'What is plain is that this defendant held a position which brought with it not only a high seniority, but a high degree of responsibility and on one view offended in the belief that by virtue of his position his offending would not be reported, or if reported, his accusers would not be believed,' he added.

Amrani received concurrent four-month sentences for two counts of indecent assault and a consecutive two-month jail term for sexual assault. The six-month prison sentence was suspended for a year.

Amrani was acquitted of four further counts of indecent assault, two of assault by penetration and one of sexual assault.

Amrani's background... He was born in Morocco and qualified as a doctor in Belgium before coming to the UK in 1993. Ten years later the BBC reported that he had carried out the first heart bypass operation on a conscious patient. Then in 2006 he was again hailed for performing the UK's first double valve transplant using keyhole surgery. Amrani divorced his first wife the same year before marrying Clare Amrani, an aesthetic nurse practitioner he met on a trip to Egypt. Advertisement

After deliberating for 23 hours, jurors were discharged, having failed to reach a verdict on a charge of rape, and neither the complainant or prosecutors chose to seek a retrial. A not guilty verdict was entered.

Mr Vullo said Amrani was an 'exceptional person with a flaw', adding: 'Where somebody has extraordinary, if not unique, skills of course the public interest may be more in favour of allowing that person to work again.'

Amrani must sign the Sex Offenders' Register for five years and he was ordered to pay 8,000 in prosecution costs and carry out 25 days of rehabilitation activities.

His barrister Stephen Vulo QC, who represented disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris, said the GMC will have the option of suspending him for just 12 months - but they could also bar him from practise for five years or erase him from the medical register permanently.

The Trust may now face questions over whether they failed to take action because of Amrani's earning power.

Dr Ian McGovern, the Theatre Director at Harefield, admitted that Amrani was 'considered very important to the Trust.'

He added: 'The caseload he put through and the number of patients he operated on exceeded his colleagues by a country mile.

'Every case we do is money for the Trust, we are penalised if we don't get cases done. He was also very active privately and that also brings in a huge amount of money to the Trust.'

Amrani told the court that the rape complaint was 'pure fantasy' and that hospital records suggest it never happened.

He also claimed that he would have been wearing his suit in his office rather than scrubs because it was on a different floor of the hospital to the operating theatres.

Amrani said: 'I have said it before and I will say it again, this is pure fantasy.'

He also rejected the other allegations.
Jeremy Corbyn was photographed close to an Osama bin Laden placard at an anti-war march after 9/11, it was revealed today.

The photograph taken in Trafalgar Square shows the Labour leader protesting with thousands of others against the war in Afghanistan in November 2001.

Behind him a group of men with their faces covered have a sign emblazoned with bin Laden's face just weeks after his Al Qaeda henchmen brought down the Twin Towers, killing 3,000.

The sign also had the message: 'Make no mistake this is a war against Islam'.

Jeremy Corbyn (bottom right) was photographed close to an Osama bin Laden placard at an anti-war march after 9/11, it was revealed today.

The photograph taken in Trafalgar Square shows the Labour leader protesting with thousands of others against the war in Afghanistan in November 2001. Mick Jagger's former wife Bianca (centre in a red and grey striped scarf) was also at the protest

The sign which featured bin Laden's face read: 'Make no mistake this is a war against Islam'.

This week it was revealed that Jeremy Corbyn addressed a rally attended by 300 members of an extremist group linked to the leader of the London Bridge attacks.

He addressed an anti-Israel protest where Islamists from Al Muhajiroun chanted about their support for Osama Bin Laden and shouted slogans calling for Israelis to be gassed. Two were dressed in mock suicide bomber outfits.

Khuram Butt, one of the three Borough Market murderers, was a supporter of Al Muhajiroun and an associate of its leader Anjem Choudary, the jailed hate preacher.

It was also claimed yesterday that the security services are looking into a second attackers links to the preacher.

The now-Labour leader addressed an anti-Israel protest where Islamists from Al Muhajiroun chanted about their support for Osama Bin Laden and shouted slogans calling for Israelis to be gassed

Omar Bakri Muhammad (left), the leader of al Muhajiroun, is pictured addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square in 2002 alongside hate preacher Abu Hamza. Bakri fled the UK shortly after the 2005 London bombings and is on the run in Lebanon while Hamza is serving life behind bars in the United States for terrorism offences

Details of Mr Corbyns attendance at the infamous demonstration in May 2002 emerged just 24 hours before the polls open.

The Mail can also reveal that he and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell both voted against the counter-terrorism law used to ban Al Muhajiroun and criminalise its members and leaders.

Jeremy Corbyn, pictured today, addressed a rally in 2002 which was attended by members of the now banned terror group al Muhajiroun

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon claimed the revelations showed Mr Corbyn could not be trusted with power. He said: Jeremy Corbyn wants to be prime minister in just two days, but this latest revelation about his association with extremists shows exactly why he is unfit to lead the country.

He has a long track record of siding with people who want to damage and attack the UK and there can be no excuse for his decision to address this rally.

There is a very real risk that Jeremy Corbyn and his Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott will be in charge of our security and borders on Friday unless people vote for Theresa May and her Conservative team.

A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: Jeremy addressed a broad-based rally in support of Palestinian rights. It was a public event and he was in no way responsible for the views of all of the thousands of attendees. Jeremy condemns Al Muhajiroun in the strongest possible terms.

But the Labour leader has been exposed for calling terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas his friends, describing the death of Bin Laden as a tragedy, boasting of opposing anti-terror legislation in his 30-year career as an MP, and opposing powers stopping would-be terrorists travelling to fight with Islamic State.

Details of the demonstration were found on the communist Weekly Worker website. It described the ultra- reactionaries of Al Muhajiroun chanting Skud, Skud Israel and Gas, gas Tel Aviv , along with declarations of support for Al Qaeda.

Khuram Butt, pictured on the Channel 4 documentary The Jihadis Next Door, was linked to the terror group al Muhajiroun. He and two other terrorists killed seven people and injured dozens more in the London Bridge terror attack

Anjem Choudary, pictured at a rally outside Regent's Park mosque in 2015, was one of the ringleaders behind the now banned terror group al Muhajiroun. He is currently in jail for encouraging his supporters to join the terror group ISISin a series of lectures on YouTube

It added: Two would-be suicide posers were dressed in combat fatigues with a bomb strapped to their waists. This section accounted for no more than 200-300, but they made a noise far out of proportion to their numbers.

Mr Corbyn, then a backbench Labour MP, also addressed the rally, which police estimated was attended by around 8,000 people.

He made a speech in which he called for Israeli leader Ariel Sharon to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court and called for an end to trade with Israel.

Too many people have suffered for to long, too many young people have died as a result of this illegal occupation, he said.

Al Muhajiroun was set up by hate preacher Omar Bakri Mohammad, and sparked outrage when it described the 9/11 hijackers as the Magnificent 19.

Sadiq Khan stands with paramedics this morning to hold a minute's silence for those killed in the London Bridge terror attack. Seven were killed and dozens injured in the carnage

Mourners remember those killed in the terror attack at the floral tribute in London Bridge

He was exiled from the UK in 2005 in the wake of the July 7 terror attacks when leadership of the group passed to Choudary.

Yesterday the Mail revealed Butt joined Choudary on College Green outside the Palace of Westminster the day after the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. He verbally assaulted a moderate Muslim leader who had taken exception to Choudarys extreme rhetoric including the remark that one of the killers, Michael Adebolajo, was a practising Muslim and a family man who he was proud of.

In 2000 Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell voted against Labours Terrorism Act that made membership of proscribed groups a criminal offence. Al Muhajiroun was added to the list in 2010.
This is the terrifying moment an ISIS gunman stormed Iran's parliament building in an attack with left 17 dead and several others wounded.

CCTV footage showed people running and seeking cover as the gunmen strode through parliament's halls, firing their weapons and hitting at least one person.

Attackers also raided the mausoleum of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini in what was the terror group's first ever strike at the heart of the Islamic Republic.

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This is the terrifying moment an ISIS gunman stormed Iran's parliament building in an attack with left 17 dead

CCTV footage showed people running and seeking cover as the gunmen strode through parliament's halls

Attackers also raided the mausoleum of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini in what was the terror group's first ever strike in Iran

Iran's intelligence ministry today announced it had arrested more suspects linked to the attacks on top of six Iranians detained yesterday

Iran's intelligence ministry today announced it had arrested more suspects linked to the attacks on top of six Iranians, including one woman, detained on Wednesday.

Iran branded US President Donald Trump's reaction to the slaughter 'repugnant' after he claimed the nation was reaping what it sows.

The country's powerful Revolutionary Guards have accused regional rival Saudi Arabia of involvement.

Iran's intelligence ministry said five of attackers who died in the assault had been identified as Iranians who had joined ISIS on their main battlegrounds in Iraq and Syria.

'They earlier left Iran and were involved in the crimes of the terrorist group in Raqqa and Mosul,' the ministry said in a statement on state news agency IRNA.

It added: 'Last year, they returned to Iran ... to carry out terrorist attacks in the holy cities of Iran.'

Iranian police officers move in on Iran's parliament building after gunmen opened fire inside

The country's powerful Revolutionary Guards have accused regional rival Saudi Arabia of involvement

Iran's intelligence ministry said five of attackers who died in the assault had been identified as Iranians who had joined ISIS

There is now a heavy police presence across Tehran, particularly in the capital's busy squares

The attacks were the first ISIS fighters inside tightly controlled Iran, one of the powers leading the fight against the militants in Iraq and Syria

The attacks were the first ISIS fighters inside tightly controlled Iran, one of the powers leading the fight against the militants in Iraq and Syria.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said on of the wounded people had died in hospital, bringing the death toll to 17, two of whom were women.

There is now a heavy police presence across Tehran, particularly in the capital's busy squares.

Trump said the US would 'grieve and pray' for the victims, but added: 'We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.'

That was condemned by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: 'Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.'

The six attackers were Iranians who had joined ISIS, the deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Reza Seifollahi, said on state TV.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: 'Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients'

YEAH, YOU: Trump's unusually pointed statement followed a kinder sentence about praying for the Iranian people

Donald Trump let his sarcasm fly on Wednesday, lecturing Iran's leaders after an ISIS attack by saying they back terrorists themselves

The spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington, D.C. tweeted: 'Exactly.'

ISIS claimed its first ever terror attack in Iran on Wednesday after fighters stormed parliament and attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini (pictured, images released by the terror group claiming to show a fighter inside parliament)

While ministers continued sitting inside the main chamber, government workers were rushed from the building as security services engaged jihadis in a gun battle several floors above

In Wednesday's statement, Trump wrote: 'We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times.'

But it then continued: 'We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.'

Aaron Sagui, a spokesman for Israel's embassy in Washington, quoted that last sentence and tweeted: 'Exactly.'

Trump's comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government's offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

'Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy,' tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

Security surrounded parliament as oine jihadi blew himself up inside parliament while another three were shot dead

Anti-terror police exchanged fire with the attackers in a northern part of the building before a suicide bomb detonated on the fourth floor (pictured, the attackers)

Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack, saying: 'This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the US President Donald Trump and the Saudi backward leaders who support terrorists.

'The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they [Saudi Arabia] were involved in the brutal attack.'

ISIS earlier said fighters armed with AK47s and pistols stormed parliament through the civilian entrance while disguising themselves as women by wearing burkas, shooting security guards before detonating a suicide bomb, killing at least five and wounding 25.

The State Department condemned the deadly twin attacks, with spokeswoman Heather Nauert saying 'the depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world.'

Official American statements of solidarity with the victims are notable because of the deep distrust between the US and Iran.

The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations and the Trump administration has emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence.

Security forces stood guard as women and children were evacuated from the windows of the lower floors to rescuers below. Four jihadi fighters got into parliament through the visitor door while disguised as women in burkas before filming part of their rampage inside, including the body of a government worker

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in Congress acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions. The strong bipartisan vote was 92-7.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week in the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

'Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation,' said Vermont's independent liberal senator Bernie Sanders.

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

Police said they shot the second suicide attacker dead before he could detonate his device (body of dead attacker pictured)

Two suicide bombers targeted a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, with one detonating an explosive (pictured)

'WORSE THAN KUFFAR': WHY ISIS HATES IRAN Jihadist groups have clashed frequently with security forces along Iran's borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, but the country has largely escaped attacks within its urban centres - until now. As the seat of Shia Muslim power in the Middle East, Iran represents everything that the Sunni terror group detests. ISIS views Shia Muslims as apostates, effectively devil-worshipers, and considers them to be below even kuffar - or non-believers. Iran has also been lending support to Iraqi forces and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in fighting the terror group across its so-called caliphate. ISIS is under increasing pressure in Iraq and Syria, having lost significant territory in the face of offensives now targeting its last two major urban bastions, Raqa and Mosul. The terror group is now increasingly focusing its efforts on suicide attacks outside of the two countries. ISIS published a rare video in Persian in March, warning that it 'will conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before.' Militant groups are also known to operate in Iran's southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan and has a large Sunni community. Jaish-ul Adl (Army of Justice), which Tehran accuses of links with Al-Qaeda, has carried out several armed attacks inside Iranian territory in recent years. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that attacks by IS in Europe and elsewhere showed that Western policies in the Middle East have backfired. 'This is a fire that (Western powers) themselves ignited and now has backfired on them,' he told a gathering of senior officials in Tehran. Charlie Winter, of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence at King's College, London, said the attack will lead to a deepening of sectarian tensions in the region. He said a disproportionate response inside Iran would provide ISIS with propaganda and convince those on the fence to join the terror group. Meanwhile stepped-up efforts in Iraq and Syria will be manipulated to suggest Shia Islam is waging a war on Sunnis, which is a key part of ISIS ideology. The attack itself will also help ISIS propaganda efforts and boost morale at a time when it is defending its last strongholds in Mosul and Raqqa, he said. Lastly, increased counter-terror efforts by Iran are likely to cause tensions among the Arab coalition dedicated to fighting ISIS. Advertisement

The bill is a 'carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East,' said Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

Iranian authorities have arrested five suspects.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister denied claims of the state's involvement and, like the US, condemned the attack.

Meanwhile two more suicide bombers attacked a shrine to Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of modern-day Iran, as another suicide device was detonated, killing at least two and injuring another 10.

The Guards' accusation dramatically escalates already-strained tensions on the Arabian Peninsula, coming after Saudi Arabia led a group of six nations in cutting ties with Qatar, saying the country supported 'Iranian terrorist groups'.


Former FBI Director James Comey says that Michael Flynn was in 'legal jeopardy' when the president asked him to back off an investigation into the retired general.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee under oath that there was an open investigation into Flynn's contact with the Russian government when the ex-national security advisor resigned.

'There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves,' Comey testified.

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Former FBI Director James Comey says that Michael Flynn was in 'legal jeopardy' when the president asked him to back off an investigation into the retired general

A written statement Comey submitted to the committee said Trump pressured him to cease a probe into Flynn's conduct.

Trump fired Flynn for lying to the vice president but did not want him punished further because he's a 'good guy,' Comey testified.

'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,' Comey says the president told him.

Comey said in the statement that he agreed with the president's assessment of Flynn's character, but he did not say he'd call off the FBI.

Flynn told Vice President Mike Pence that he did not discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador in the transition. The Justice Department informed the White House counsel's office that Flynn was being untruthful shortly after Trump was inaugurated in January.

The retired general is also under federal scrutiny for payments he received from the Russian and Turkish governments that he did not disclose.

A day after Trump fired Flynn, Comey says the president confronted him about an FBI probe into his former adviser. Comey said in his written statement that he memorialized the conversation in a memo as soon as it happened because it was so 'concerning.'

Comey testified Thursday, 'General Flynn at that point of time was in legal jeopardy. '

He would not say whether the president's attempt to wave off investigators rose to the level of obstruction of justice, although Comey said he did consider it a directive.

'I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning,' he said. 'But that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense.'

That's up to Robert Mueller, the special counsel brought into handle the Russia investigation, to decide, Comey said.

Comey told senators that Trump was lying at a May 18 press conference when he said he did not urge his fired FBI director to end the bureau's investigation into Flynn.

Asked by Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, whether Trump's statement was accurate, Comey said, 'I don't believe it is.'

He would not say whether the president's attempt to wave off investigators rose to the level of obstruction of justice, although Comey said he did consider it a directive

Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho ripped into Comey during his timed questioning for suggesting that Trump tried to halt the investigation.

'I took it as a direction. I mean, it's the President of the United States, with me alone, saying, "I hope this." I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. Now, I didn't obey that, but that's the way I took it,' Comey testified.

Risch fired back, 'You may have taken it as a direction, but that's not what he said.'

'Correct,' Comey replied.

Risch implored him to confirm that Trump said, 'I hope.'

'Those were his exact words, I hope,' Comey affirmed.

Taking a sharp tone, Risch told the former law enforcement official, 'But you don't know of anyone that's ever been charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement?'

'I don't as I sit here,' Comey admitted.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Comey she could not understand why he told Trump that Flynn is 'a good guy' instead of standing up to him.

'You're big, you're strong, I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in, there is a certain amount of intimidation,' she told Comey, who towers at 6'8". ''But why didn't you stop and say, "Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?'

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Comey: 'You're big, you're strong, I know the Oval Office, and I know what happens to people when they walk in, there is a certain amount of intimidation. But why didn't you stop and say, "Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?'

Tweet beat: Don Jr. said that Comey's testimony about General Michael Flynn was 'BS in context' and 'very far from any kind of coercion or influence'

And there's more: 'Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak,' wrote Don Jr in another tweet

Comey told her, 'Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.'

'I've seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes,' Comey said of Trump's veiled threat. 'I remember saying, "I agree he's a good guy," as a way of saying, "I'm not agreeing with what you just asked me to do." '

Continuing, Comey told the California senator, 'Maybe other people would be strong in that circumstance, but that's how I conducted myself.

'I hope I'll never have another opportunity, maybe if I did it again, I'd do it better.'

Trump's eldest son and his namesake, Don Jr., tore into Comey over the exchanges with Risch and Feinstein on Twitter.

'Very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!' he said in one. 'Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means.'

Two minutes later he said, 'Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak'
The woman accused of leaking classified documents to a news outlet has been indicted by a federal grand jury.

Reality Winner, 25, was charged with a single count of 'willful retention and transmission of national defense information'.

It is the same charge she was accused of when she was arrested by the FBI at her home in Augusta, Georgia, on Saturday.

The six-page indictment, obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, states Winner worked at a government agency from February to June in Georgia. During that time she had top-secret security clearance.

Reality Winner has been indicted by a federal grand jury on accusation she leaked classified information to the media

It then states Winner printed on May 9 a report from four days earlier, which focused on: 'intelligence activities by a foreign government directed at targets within the United States'.

The 25-year-old faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines, as well as a further three years of supervised release and a $100 special assessment.

Titus Nichols, Winner's attorney, said his client will plead not guilty to the charge against her.

The FBI alleges Winner, who was in the Air Force for six years, was working as a government contractor last month when she copied a classified intelligence report containing top-secret information and mailed it to a reporter at The Intercept.

The website published a report on Monday based off a top secret NSA document that allegedly revealed efforts by Russian military intelligence to conduct a spear phishing cyber attack on a company and on local voter registration.

'Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate actors executed cyber espionage operations against a named US company in August 2016, evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions,' according to the document the Intercept published.

Winner (left and right), 25, was charged with a single count of 'willful retention and transmission of national defense information'

The six-page indictment states Winner (pictured) worked at a government agency from February to June in Georgia. During that time she had top-secret security clearance

'The actors likely used data obtained from that operation to launch a voter registration-themed spear-phishing campaign targeting US local government organizations.'

A judge scheduled a hearing for 4pm on Thursday to determine whether to allow Winner to be released from pre-trial confinement.

It comes after Winner's parents insisted their daughter is not a flight risk and should be released from jail before her trial.

Billie Winner-Davis said Wednesday she fears prosecutors will try to make an example of her daughter to show that they're not 'going to tolerate leakers.'

Gary Davis said his stepdaughter isn't a flight risk. He says she has never run away from anything and there's no reason to hold her.

Winner grew up in Kingsville, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force after graduating from high school.

Davis said she became a linguist, speaking Arabic and Farsi, and spent four years assigned to the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. During that time, he said, Winner provided real-time translation to Americans conducting field missions.

Davis said she received a commendation for aiding in the deaths of more than 100 enemy combatants and more than 250 enemy captures.

'If she made this mistake,' Davis said, referring to the leaked documents, 'it needs to be balanced against what she has done in the past and how she has served this country.'

Neither prosecutors nor Winners parents have identified the government agency where she worked at the time of her arrest. But the NSA has operated a $286 million complex in Augusta since 2012.

Winner has been jailed in neighboring Lincoln County since her arrest, according to a booking report released by the sheriff.
Jeremy Corbyn has refused to say what the naughtiest thing he has done was - but critics pointed out he should have pointed to his soft stance on the IRA.

The Labour leader was asked by a member of the public on camera what his naughtiest escapade was, but he flashed a smile and simply said 'it's far too naughty to talk about' before scarpering off.

His coy response comes after Theresa May revealed that the naughtiest thing she ever did was run through fields of wheat as a child - trampling the crops.

His coy response comes after Theresa May revealed that the naughtiest thing she ever did was run through fields of wheat as a child - trampling the crops.

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Jack Davis wrote on Twitter: 'Naughtiest thing May has done - ran through field of wheat. Naughtiest thing Corbyn has done - condemns the army but not the IRA.'

Damon Bannister wrote on Twitter: 'I heard the naughtiest thing Corbyn has ever done was to sympathise with terrorists in someone else's wheat field.'

Another Twitter user alluded to the Labour leader's far-left views in her response.

Rachey T wrote: 'Let's hope the naughtiest thing Jeremy Corbyn will ever do is #seizethemeansofproduction and #overthrowcapitalism.

Another Twitter user called Juliet Thurbin contrasted Mr Corbyn's questionable past and Mrs May's - a vicar's daughter.

She wrote: 'So what is the naughtiest thing May has done is run through a field of wheat. It's better than sympathising with the IRA like Corbyn.'

While another social media user mocked the Labour up to wear dark shades at a conference podium with the words 'damn it feels good to be a gangster'.

And another user jokingly referred to his past relationship with fellow Labour MP Diane Abbott.

The two left-wingers had a brief relationship back in the 1970s.

Jack Davis pointed out that the naughtiest thing Corbyn has probably done is condemn the British Army but not the IRA - who carried out a decades long bombing and shooting campaign

Twitter user Damon Bannister pointed to Jeremy Corbyn's soft stance on terrorism as he mocked the Labour leader's response

One Twitter user pointed out that while Mrs May's response might have been a little dull it was more reassuring than Jeremy Corbyn's history ion the IRA

Twitter user James jokingly referred to Mr Corbyn's past relationship with Diane Abbott. The two left-wing Labour MPs had a brief relationship in the 1970s

Twitter user Rachey T alluded to the Labour leader's far-left views as she said she hoped the naughtiest thing he would ever do is overthrow capitalism

Twitter Rachel Bennett mocked Jeremy Corbyn up to look like he is wearing dark shades with the caption 'damn it feels good to be gangster'

Mrs May was the first of the leaders to be put on the spot with the tricky question, which was put to her in an ITV interview earlier this week.

The PM, who is a vicar's daughter with a strait laced image, struggled to answer.

She said: 'Oh, goodness me. Well, I suppose... gosh. Do you know, I'm not quite sure. I can't think what the naughtiest thing...,' she said.

Pressed by the interviewer, she added: 'Well, nobody is ever perfectly behaved, are they?

'I mean, you know, there are times when... I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat.'

'The farmers weren't too pleased about that,' she added.

Mrs May and Mr Corbyn both hope to emerge as Prime Minister as Britain goes to the polls in today's General Election.

The final opinion polls suggest the Conservatives have strengthened their lead over Labour in the final stages of the campaign.
Donald Trump Jr. lashed out at former FBI director James Comey while he delivered his testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The oldest son of President Trump stayed quiet for on social media for most of the first hour of the Comey hearing, but then unleashed a sudden tweet storm shortly before 11am.

He even retweeted an individual whose Twitter handle is 'CNN is ISIS & Hitler' at one point, posting over 50 times in less then two hours.

It was Don Jr. flying solo for close to two hours, until his brother Eric jumped into the fray shortly after noon with two retweets meant to damn the fired FBI director.

Their father meanwhile watched the hearing from the White House dining room, where he resisted the urge to get online and comment on the events of the day.

President Trump then skipped out on watching the end of the testimony to deliver a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition at around 12:30pm.

Once all was said and done, Don Jr's final comment was a retweet of his father, who wrote back in April: 'The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers.'

Don Jr. added: 'Once again he's right way before anyone else sees it... and they found another leaker today.'

Donald Trump Jr went after James Comey on Twitter during his testimony on Thursday in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee

So nice he tweeted twice: Don Jr. hit out at the media as well, citing the information that was never leaked by intelligence sources (above)

Subtle: Don Jr also retweeted a comment made bu a user who compared CNN to ISIS and Hitler

Dealing with his own stuff: Eric Trump did not comment on the hearing at first and and was instead defending his foundation over payments they made to the Trump organization

He's arrived: Eric joined in the commentary shortly after noon with a retweet of GOP head Ronna Romney McDaniel (above)

The rest of President Trump's children took different approaches to dealing with Comey's damning testimony, which they were given a heads up on thanks to his decision to submit his opening remarks on Wednesday afternoon.

Ivanka was spotted driving into the White House early Thursday, sitting in the back seat of her chauffeured SUV while typing away on her cell phone.

She emerged from the seldom used side exit of her home, successfully avoiding the photographers as she got into her vehicle.

Ivanka's husband Jared Kushner had no need to hide, and jolted out the front door of the home much like he does every other morning, shooting a big smile at those camped outside the $5.5million residence before hopping into his SUV.

Eric began the morning defending his charitable foundation against a story published on Tuesday, which revealed he had made large sums of money to the Trump Organization.

He took to Twitter to thank a supporter and when asked to comment on the matter told another person: 'Respectfully, I have raised $16.3 Million for dying children with an expense ratio of less than 12.3%. Let's not politicize pediatric cancer.'

In another tweet he declared: 'Unfortunately, the only people who lose are sick kids receiving millions a year. In 2016 that was $3,600,310.00 to be exact.'

Eric then emerged with a comment on the proceedings shortly after noon, retweeting a comment made by GOP chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel.

'Can we go back to the fact that Comey leaked memos and shared them with the media before Congress for political impact? #ComeyHearing,' read the tweet.

President Trump's daughter Tiffany was completely silent meanwhile while Barron does not have social media and is busy with his mother planning their move to Washington DC later this month.

Phone a friend: Ivanka Trump (above on her phone in the backseat of her SUV) chose to sneak out a side exit of the home

Don't worry: Jared Kushner exited out the front door and smiled on his way to work on Thursday (above)

Eric tweeted after the hearing to say that it was time to get back to work, something he had also stated before the testimony began on Thursday

And there's more: 'Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak,' wrote Don Jr in another tweet

That left Don Jr to be responsible for most of the family outrage, which he continued to do throughout the hearing.

'Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well. I hear "I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job,"' wrote Don Jr. to start things off.

'Very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!'

He added: 'Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means.'

Then, just two minutes later, Don Jr. tweeted again, writing: 'Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak'

He was back again after another two minute break to keep going after Comey and his statements.

'So if he was a "Stronger guy" he might have actually followed procedure & the law? You were the director of the FBI, who are you kidding?' he wrote at 11am, scoffing at Comey's comments.

And when Senator Marco Rubio pointed out that the only thing which was never leaked was that President Trump was not under investigation, Don Jr. tweeted: 'Solid point and seems rather convenient for the partisan nonsense we have seen play out for months.'

That tweet even got a retweet from Don Jr 30 minutes after he first posted it on his account.

Don Jr. later added: 'We all know that there is no way anyone in the swamp would leak something favorable to @POTUS. Otherwise this whopper would be everywhere!'

Then, when Comey stated that he helped to get his memo leaked in hopes of gettign a special counsel to investigate, Don Jr. tweeted: 'Did I miss something or did Comey just say he asked a friend to leak information to the press? Is this a joke?'

He then wrote: 'Washington DC at its finest. This is what America rallied against, but the DC elite don't get it or know any other way.'

No worries: President Trump skipped out on the end of the Senate Intel hearing to deliver a speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition (above)

Through this all Don Jr also retweeted a number of other individuals, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Bill O'Reilly and the disgraced host's former employer Fox News.

He also earned a number of retweets from the son of General Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., who posted a number of Don Jr's comments to his own account.

Comey's admission that he had leaked information seemed to be the most bothersome bit of information to Don Jr. who tweeted: 'He was more than willing to leak something against @realdonaldtrump but not something that exonerates him? Classy guy.'

Don Jr. also made a point of posting the question asked by Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, writing: ' If you told Sessions you didn't want to be alone with Trump again, why did you continue to take his calls?'

That same question was almost asked verbatim the day prior at Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial by the defense to his alleged victim, Andrea Constand.
A former Essendon defender, who was one of the 34 Bombers banned for two years for doping, worries his daughter is suffering health problems due to the drugs injected into his body at the time.

Nathan Lovett-Murray, 34, fears his three-year-old daughter Harmony is suffering from a mystery chest growth and behavioural problems as she was conceived a year after the supplements program stopped.

Lovett-Murray was adamant the saga impacted his daughter's health.

Nathan Lovett-Murray,34, and his three-year-old daughter Harmony

Nathan Lovett-Murray fears his daughter may have suffered health problems as a result of the drugs injected into his body during the Essendon supplements program

'There's no doubt in my mind that the injection program we were put through has had some impact on my daughter,' the former Bomber told The Herald Sun.

The former AFL defender said his daughter had seen doctors over her chest and behaviour issues, but the bills were becoming expensive.

'There have been health concerns (with Harmony) and we have seen some specialists,' Mr Lovett-Murray said.

'There are some behavioural things that we are concerned about, and there was a hole in her chest that was leaking mucus, and we still don't know what it is. They've got to do more tests, but those tests cost more money.'

The club claim Nathan did raise concerns over his daughter's health and offered its ongoing support.

Nathan Lovett-Murray (pictured with his daughter Harmony) claims his name was tarnished in the Aboriginal community following the supplement saga

After 145 games in the AFL, Lovett-Murray was banned for two years following the use of peptide Thymosin-beta 4.

He claims he worked endlessly to build his name in the Aboriginal community, which has been tarnished through this ordeal.

Mr Lovett-Murray is set to take the club to court after his negotiations with the club for compensation failed over the doping saga.

He is preparing a $1 million Supreme Court damages claim alleging he suffered severe stress, anxiety and depression over the saga, according to the publication.
A teacher in Sydney has met with Education Minister Rob Stokes about claims she has seen children as young as five being radicalised.

The woman, known by the pseudonym of Mrs A, said she had been asked to read Muslim-specific teachings to students that encouraged an overthrow of the Australian government, reports Seven News.

'The worst enemies of mankind? Secularism, which divides religious and political roles, and nationalism,' one lesson at Islamic Punchbowl Public School allegedly said.

The woman, known by the pseudonym of Mrs A, (pictured) said she had been asked to read Muslim-specific teachings to students that encouraged an overthrow of the Australian government, reports Seven News

'Peace and stability and justice can be only achieved through the establishment of Islam and the rule of divinely appointed Imams... and nothing else,' another allegedly teaches.

She alleged that students had also threatened to behead her and had become increasingly violent as the school moved towards a supposed Islamist dogma.

'They can turn quite violent, quite aggressive towards teachers and each other,' Mrs A said.

She alleged that students had also threatened to behead her and had become increasingly violent as the school moved towards a supposed Islamist dogma

She claims the school met her reports of threats with a 'harden up' attitude and accepted the religious nature of their educational teachings

She claims the school met her reports of threats with a 'harden up' attitude and accepted the religious nature of their educational teachings.

This isn't the first time Mrs A has come forward about the sudden radicalisation in school children.

She told former federal Labor leader Mark Latham about the horror of being intimidated by students aged between ten and thirteen on the Outsiders program.

'I had students coming into class flying flags from overseas, be it the Syrian flag and possibly the ISIS flag. It looked to me like the ISIS flag,' she said.

'There was one occasion where a couple of boys had come to school wearing T-shirts that appeared to have the ISIS flag wording.'

The western Sydney teacher (pictured right next to Sydney psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed) has described the horror of radicalised schoolboys wearing ISIS shirts to class

On another occasion, a group of students circled her against a wall and began reciting the Koran, she claimed.

'That was quite scary and it wasn't only scary for me but it was also quite intimidating for the other students,' she said.

'The other students were quite frightened, non-Islamic and Islamic students.'

The incidents, involving students in Years 5 and 6, occurred in 2014 as ISIS gained territory in Iraq and Syria.

The teacher, who has taught in Western Sydney for the past decade, also endured students making threats to her with throat slitting gestures.

'Sometimes they would even make comments, "I can do this to you",' she said.

A spokesman for the Department of Education confirmed to Daily Mail Australia the incidents she described had taken place.

The teacher said the students' behaviour worsened after they had watched the ABC's children's current affairs program Behind The News.

Mrs A (pictured centre) with Mark Latham (pictured right) and psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed

'We would watch some programs at school, one of them being the ABC Behind The News program, which tended to have a bit of a sympathetic voice towards ISIS,' she said.

'If there was a segment about ISIS, or something to do with Islam, their behaviour seemed to have heightened. So I actually stopped watching it altogether.'

However, an ABC spokesman denounced the claim about Behind The News.

'Any such claim would be nonsensical and offensive,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
A shop owner in China has put a slide outside her window so she could deliver food to customers in no time.

Video uploaded on June 5 shows customers placing orders on their phones and waiting for a basket of food to slide down.

Web users have said that it's 'the country's fastest delivery service'.

Shop owner (pictured) sends out a basket of food down a slide to the customers in Beijing

The basket sends two portions of liangpi, or Chinese rice noodles, each time to customers

The shop, selling congee and Chinese rice noodles, is located in Zhaoyang district of Beijing, according to newspaper Beijing Times.

The restaurateur explained that the entrance of the shop had been blocked a year before. This means she could only serve her customers through a window.

'There used to be a door on this side of the wall, but now it's been turned into a wall and a window,' she said.

'Customers have to walk around the building to come in as there are shrubs separating the shop and the pedestrian road.'

To cut the delivery time and cost, she put a slide outside the window to allow customers to get their food.

A QR code sticker is attached at the end of the slide where customers scan and pay.

Footage shows how the restaurateur put the food on a basket, push it down to the slide and pull it up after customers picking up the order.

The woman told the reporters that she paid 5,000 yuan (570) a month for the shop, which measures 20 square metre (215 square feet).

The shop owner said the door of her takeaway store had been blocked by the authority, which led her to come up with the solution

The slide allows the customers to pick up their orders without walking around the building

Web users were impressed by the shop owner's idea. They said this could be 'China's fastest food delivery service'.

'You make an order, scan to pay and pick your food from a slide right after! This has to be the fastest food delivery ever,' said 'Ytbubu'.

But some commented that the slide had been removed by the urban police.

'The slide's gone. Chengguan (urban police) came and ordered them to take it off,' said 'paiyierdui'.

User 'Tangjie' suggested that the urban police had confiscated the slide because they claimed it had 'caused disturbance to the public'.
This is the dramatic moment a love struck young man was saved from a suicide bid from a high rise building by four quick-thinking policeman.

The 21-year-old from Lutsk jumped from the ninth floor of an apartment block, because of relationship problems with his girlfriend.

He feared trouble, too, because he had 'lost' around 45 from the cafe where he worked.

Jump: The man leaps out of the window with a policeman in hot pursuit

Got: The officer grabs the man's legs and drags him to safety

The police officers had tried to talk the 'confused' man out of jumping, but he suddenly stopped talking.

The officers anticipated his leap and rushed forward in the nick of time to grab his arms, as shown on a dramatic police video.

'As he jumped, they managed to grab him,' said Ukraine's interior minister Arsen Avakov.

The man tried to 'wriggle' to break free, but the policemen clung on.

'A second officer smashed the glass on the window on the floor below and successfully grabbed his legs.

Then they hauled him back through the window.

Close: The man tried to 'wriggle' to break free, but the policemen clung on

Despair: The 21-year-old jumped from the ninth floor of an apartment block, because of relationship problems with his girlfriend

'The guys risked their lives to save him, the danger being they could all fall together.'

The officers were cut by broken glass.

Avakov said he planned to award the officers for their 'courage and skill'.

Naming them as Sergei Liga, Igor Voronov, Victor Bubalo and Sergei Tsygulyov, he posted on social media: 'Thank you for your service.'

The rescued man was reported to be 'doing well' after his escape from death.
Former FBI director James Comey has dared Donald Trump to release any available recordings of their meetings, telling senators that he was well aware the president had boasted that tapes might exist.

'Well, all I can do is hope,' he said, referring to potential audio recordings. 'The president surely knows if he taped me. And if he did, my feelings aren't hurt: Release all the tapes. I'm good with it.'

'I've seen the tweet about tapes,' Comey said during a tense Intelligence Committee hearing. 'Lordy, I hope there are tapes!'

Former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara  who, like Comey, was fired by Trump  tweeted from his seat in the packed hearing room: 'We can all agree with Jim Comey that, Lordy, we hope there are tapes.'

Asked Thursday if the Oval Office has a taping system in place, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said she didn't know, and quipped: 'I'll try to look under the couches' to find out.

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Former FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday that he hopes there are tapes of himself talking with President Donald trump, because they might help corroborate his memos

Trump warned Comey last month that he had 'better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations'

Trump's veiled threat in May is said to have enraged Comey

Sarah Sanders (center), a White House spokeswoman, joked on Thursday that she would 'try to look under the couches' to find out if the Oval Office has an audio recording system in place

Comey also admitted on Thursday that he tried to orchestrate a press leak through a friend who is a professor at Columbia Law School, hoping to prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Trump-Russia links.

Comey's presidential chit-chat has been elevated to the level of national news, thanks to detailed memos he wrote after each of his meetings and phone calls with Trump.

Preet Bharara, a fired federal prosecutor, tweeted during the Comey hearing: 'We can all agree with Jim Comey that, Lordy, we hope there are tapes.'

The president hinted last month on Twitter that audio of some of his communications with Comey may have been preserved, tweeting that he had 'better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!'

Comey's friends later told CNN that the fired FBI director was 'not worried about any tapes.' One said that 'if there is a tape, there's nothing he is worried about.'

'He hopes there are tapes. That would be perfect,' a Comey confidant told NBC News.

Comey said Thursday that he asked 'a good friend of mine who's a professor at Columbia Law School' to leak information like that to the press.

Comey didn't name the friend. Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman, however, has been quoted in news reports as a close friend.

He confirmed to reporters, while Comey was still talking, that he was the leaker.

Bharara tweeted his snark from inside the hearing room

'The president tweeted on Friday, after I got fired, that I'd better hope there's not tapes,' Comey recalled in response to questioning from Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican.

'I woke up in the middle of the night Monday night, because it didn't dawn on me originally, that there might be corroboration for our conversation. There might be a tape. And my judgement was, I needed to get that out into the public square.'

'And so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of that memo with a reporter,' Comey said. 'Didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but I asked him to because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.'

White House press secretary Sean Spicer wouldn't confirm or deny in May that the White House records the president's phone calls or meetings

White House press secretary Sean Spicer wouldn't rule out the possibility of tapes during a press briefing on May 12.

'The president has nothing further to add,' he said several times. Asked directly whether the White House is taping Trump's phone calls , he wouldn't give a yes-or-no answer.

And when asked if it was proper for the president to threaten his former FBI director into silence, Spicer said the tweet was 'not a threat. He's simply stating a fact.'

It's also possible that the FBI or the Justice Department was openly recording, or secretly monitoring, Comey's calls. Request for information from the DOJ have gone unanswered.

Spicer was asked on May 12 whether or not the White House had a recording of a key dinnertime conversation between Trump and Comey, and replied: 'I'm not aware of that.'
Footage has emerged of a group of pigs ambling along a motorway after they managed to escape from a truck taking them to the slaughter house.

The pigs seized the opportunity to jump out of the open top truck after it collided with another vehicle parked on the side of the highway in Ikeda, western Japan.

Although 37 of the animals failed to make it out 19 hogs proceeded to escape to the road.

Although 37 of the animals failed to make it out 19 hogs proceeded to escape to the road

Some decided to trott up and down the hard shoulder taking in their odd new environment.

Others simply lazed and sniffed about on the verge.

Police officers were called into to block off their route, ensure the pigs did not stray into oncoming traffic and help in the rounding up of the animals.

Despite the police response it took five hours for the hogs to grabbed and put back in the truck causing miserable traffic for drivers trying to get past the scene.

None of the pigs were harmed in either the crash or the capture process, Japanese media reported.

It was unclear whether the pigs continued their journey to the butcher or back to the breeding farm after the incident.

Some decided to trott up and down the hard shoulder taking in the odd new environment
FBI Director James Comey knifed former attorney general Loretta Lynch on Thursday for asking him to publicly downgrade Hillary Clinton's classified email investigation, calling it only 'a matter.'

In a contentious Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Comey said the request 'concerned me' and made him 'queasy.'

'We were at the point where we had refused to confirm the existence  as we typically do  of an investigation for months,' he said, 'and it was getting to the place where that looked silly because the campaigns were talking about interacting with the FBI in the course of our work.'

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Former FBI Director James Comey (left) said that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch (right) wanted the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails only labeled as a 'matter'

Hillary Clinton's email investigation also came up during former FBI head James Comey's testimony Thursday, as he explained that he decided to hold a press conference after former Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with Clinton's husband Bill on an airport tarmac

'The Clinton campaign at the time was using all sorts of euphemisms  security reviews, matters, things like that  for what was going on,' Comey recalled.

And when he asked Lynch if he could confirm what everyone already knew, that there was an active 'investigation' of Hillary Clinton, she told him no.

'Don't call it that. Call it a "matter",' Lynch told him. 'Just call it a "matter".'

'It gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way a political campaign was describing the same activity,' Comey recalled.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Comey if there appeared to be a 'conflict of interest' between Lynch and the Clinton campaign.

'That's fair,' Comey replied. 'I don't think she could credibly decline that investigation, at least not without grievous damage to the Department of Justice and the FBI.'

Comey also said it was Lynch's infamous meeting with former president Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac that pushed him into going public last year about the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

North Carolina Republican Sen. Richard Burr raised eyebrows with a momentary flashback to Comey's July 5, 2016 press conference, in which he described a host of potential criminal offenses committed by Hillary Clinton.

Comey said former attorney general Lynch's private meeting with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac was the last straw that convinced him he had to come forward.

The FBI ultimately did not recommend criminal charges against Mrs. Clinton, who was running for president against Donald Trump at the time.

But Comey's public statements spelled the beginning of the end for her White House ambitions.

That tarmac meeting, which raised suspicions of collusion, influenced him 'in an ultimately conclusive way,' Comey testified.

'That was the thing that capped it for me, that I had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation,' he said.

Later in Thursday's hearing, the ex-FBI chief explained why he decided to hold the press conference, but not call publicly for a special counsel to be appointed to the emails case, which members of Congress were calling for.

'After former President Clinton met on the plane with the attorney general I considered whether I should call for the appointment of a special counsel and decided that would be an unfair thing to do because I knew there was no case there,' Comey said.

The FBI, he continued, had investigated Hillary Clinton's email use 'very, very thoroughly.'

'I know this is a subject of passionate disagreement, but I knew there was no case there and calling for the appointment of special counsel would be brutally unfair, because it would send a message "ahh, there's something here,"' Comey said.

Cornyn, the Republican from Texas, suggested that a special counsel would have come to the same conclusion.

'Sure,' Comey answered. 'But it woud have been many months later, years later.'
A gay man who sued a suburban Chicago Catholic parish after being fired from his position as music director when he became engaged to his same-sex partner has lost his case.

Colin Collette was the music director at Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Illinois, for 17 years before he was let go in 2014 after announcing he was engaged to another man.

He filed a lawsuit against the parish and the Archdiocese in Chicago in 2016, saying the church's conduct was discriminatory and violated county, state and federal human rights laws.

He was seeking reinstatement of his job, back pay and benefits, damages and attorneys' fees.

But a judge sided with church in April, saying that the law gives religious institutions more leeway than other employees in deciding who to hire and who to fire and why.

Colin Collette was the music director at Holy Family Catholic Community in Inverness, Illinois, for 17 years before he was let go in 2014 after announcing he was engaged to another man

He filed a lawsuit against the parish (pictured above) and the Archdiocese in Chicago in 2016, saying the church's conduct was discriminatory and violated county, state and federal human rights laws

While the ruling was made on April 18, it wasn't publicized until this week.

The judge said that Collette's former job as music director was 'critical to the spiritual and pastoral mission of the church'.

US District Judge Charles Kocoras determined that churches have some exemption from employee discrimination laws.

He wrote that the Supreme Court has 'recognized the right of religious organizations to control their internal affairs', and that non-ordained employees are still responsible for reaching faith, conveying a church's message and carrying out its mission.

The judge said that Collette's job description as music director fell into these categories.

Collette spoke out about the ruling on Wednesday, calling it a 'contradiction' to what's 'coming out of Rome'.

He said the decision 'flies in such contradiction to the wonderful things that are coming out of Rome'.

'The pope is speaking about unity and love, and here we are creating a church of fear and division,' he told the Chicago Tribune.

But a judge sided with church in April, saying that the law gives religious institutions more leeway than other employees in deciding who to hire and who to fire and why. Collette is pictured above with members of the parish supporting him after he was fired in 2014

Collette's attorney, Kerry Lavelle, said in a statement on Wednesday that the Catholic Church has 'chosen to stand behind its ministerial exception to discriminate against members of the gay community'.

'That someone of (Collette's) commitment and ability is prevented from pursuing their career in this day and age is a sign of how far some institutions have to go in accepting all members of society, and demonstrates that there are still many individuals who are not granted equal rights in the workplace,' Lavelle said.

In the lawsuit, Lavelle had argued that Collette's job with the church was not ministerial.

The former music director said church leaders knew he was gay, but it wasn't until after he made an announcement about his engagement on Facebook that he was fired.

He was initially urged to resign, but when he refused, the church fired him.

When he first filed his lawsuit, Collette said that at the time of his firing, he was told his same-sex relationship violated the tenets of the church.

He argued that many church employees were in non-sanctioned marriages.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says on its website that religious organizations can give employment preference to members of the faith but can't otherwise discriminate against protected classes of people.

The commission's position is that the definition of 'sex' contained in Title VII protects lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from workplace discrimination.

It says a number of federal court decisions support the view that sexual orientation is covered under prohibitions against sex discrimination.
A Connecticut man who spent two decades in prison for a 1991 murder shouted 'Freedom! Freedom!' as he walked out of a courthouse Thursday, after a judge dismissed his murder conviction and ordered a new trial based on new DNA testing.

Alfred Swinton, 68, was placed on home confinement and electronic monitoring after a judge released him on a promise to return to court on July 20. He also thanked lawyers with the Innocence Project in New York, who are representing him.

The decision by Judge Julia DiCocco Dewey in Hartford Superior Court angered relatives of Carla Terry, who was strangled during a night out in Hartford 26 years ago.

Shouting 'Freedom!' Alfred Swinton, middle, walks out of Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday with Innocence Project lawyers Chris Fabricant, left, and Vanessa Potkin, right, after a Superior Court judge approved a new trial in his conviction in the 1991 murder of Carla Terry

Swinton was convicted of murder in 2001 based, in part, on the testimony of a forensic dentist who said Swinton's teeth matched bite marks on Terry's body. But new DNA testing showed he wasn't the source of the bite marks and the dentist has recanted his testimony

'It's not right,' said Terry's twin brother, Curtis Terry. 'They let a killer get off.'

Terry's sister, LaVerne Terry, said she was confident Swinton would be convicted again.

Swinton also has been investigated, but not charged, in four other 1990s killings, authorities said. He has denied killing anyone.

Swinton was convicted of murder in 2001 based, in part, on the testimony of a forensic dentist who said Swinton's teeth matched bite marks on Terry's body. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

But new DNA testing showed he wasn't the source of the bite marks. And the dentist has recanted his testimony, citing new developments in the understanding of bite mark evidence.

Swinton also has been investigated, but not charged, in four other 1990s killings, authorities said. He has denied killing anyone. Above, Swinton in court on Thursday, before his release

The new testing also excluded Swinton from DNA found under Terry's fingernails and in a sexual assault evidence collection kit.

A murder charge remains pending against Swinton, and Hartford State's Attorney Gail Hardy intends to retry him.

Hardy, who agreed that Swinton should get a new trial, asked that bail be set at $500,000, saying Swinton still is charged with murder and has made incriminating statements to police and other people implicating him in Terry's death.

Hardy also said Swinton remains a suspect in the other homicides.

Referring to her agreeing to a new trial, Hardy said it was 'not a statement from the state's attorney that the defendant has been exonerated.'

Private attorneys and Innocence Project lawyers working for Swinton said that before the murder case, Swinton had no major criminal record. They also said he was not a flight risk and had the support of the 'faith community.'

'There is no evidence to support this conviction,' said Maura Barry Grinalds, a lawyer for a New York law firm. 'Mr. Swinton is actually innocent.'

Swinton will be staying with his sister, the Rev. Jessie White, at her home in Bloomfield. He is prohibited from leaving the home, except for court appearances, medical appointments and church.

'Awesome,' White said after the judge ruled. 'It is tremendous that the truth has prevailed after 20 years.'

Terry was 28 when she was killed in January 1991 during an evening out in Hartford. She was seen with Swinton at one point during the night, according to court records. Her partially dressed body was found wrapped in a plastic bag in a snow bank early the next morning.

Swinton was charged later the same year with murdering Terry, but a judge ruled that prosecutors lacked probable cause.

A 'cold case' investigative squad of the chief state's attorney's office reopened the Terry murder case, and he was arrested again in 1998. Prosecutors at the time said technological advances helped them link bite marks on Terry to Swinton.

John Massameno, the lead prosecutor in the trial, argued that Swinton killed Terry after she failed to follow through on promises of sex for cash.

But defense lawyer Norman Pattis contended the state just wanted to close a 10-year-old case and had the wrong man.
A Tennessee mother was arrested on Wednesday and charged with incest, while her husband was accused of helping her commit the crime.

Barbara Jo Tipton, 33, and her husband Bobby Gene Tipton, 44, were arrested at their home in Erwin after Unicoi County Sheriff's detectives carried out a search warrant on the house.

Barbara, who appears to be a mother of two according to Facebook, was arrested on the more serious charges of incest, statutory rape and soliciting sex from a minor. She is being held at the county jail in lieu of $150,000 bail.

Her husband was also booked into jail on charges of criminal responsibility for an act of incest, meaning he either helped or didn't do enough to prevent the crime from happening. He also faces charges of facilitating statutory rape and domestic violence and is being held on $100,000 bail.

Both are due back in court next week for a hearing.

Barbara Jo Tipton, 33 (left), was arrested for incest on Wednesday and her husband Bobby Gene Tipton, 44, was arrested for aiding in the crime

Further details about what led to the couple's arrest have not been not been released by the Unicoi County Sheriff's Department

No further details about what led to the Tiptons arrest have been released. DailyMail.com reached out to the Unicoi County Sheriff's Department Thursday afternoon for the arrest affidavit but did not immediately receive a response.

According to posts on Facebook, Bobby is from Erwin while his wife is from Wisconsin.

She posted that she 'met someone' in March 2006, and then five months later listed that she had moved to Tennessee.

'He just couldn't get that girl with the hat on, out of his mind...lol!' Barbara wrote in the post.

It's unclear how the two met. Public records indicate that she has been living at the home where she was arrested since she moved to the state.

Three months after she moved to Tennessee, the two got married.

Barbara (left, with her husband on the right) was charged with incest, statutory rape and soliciting sex from a minor

Bobby (right, with his wife on the left), was charged with criminal responsibility for incest, domestic violence and facilitating statutory rape

Barbara also marked the birth of two sons on the social media site.

Her first son, who has a different last name than her, was born in April 2000 - two years after she started high school in Boyceville. That child is now 17.

Four years after moving to Tennessee, she marked the birth of another son, who has Tipton for a last name. That son is six years old.

Facebook posts also indicate that Bobby has children from previous relationships, but it's unclear how many.

Other posts point to Barbara being religious. Next to a post about quitting smoking, she said she did it 'with God's help'. She also posted about an event at a local Baptist church.

Barbara lists that she graduated from high school in August 2002 - an unconventional five years after she started. But that may be due to the fact that her older son was born half-way through schooling.

The same months she says she graduated high school, she posted about starting accounting courses at WITC New Richmond. When she moved to Tennessee she started studying to be a licensed practical nurse at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, graduating in August 2015.

Facebook posts indicate that the couple met in March 2006, and that Barbara moved from Wisconsin to Tennessee to be with Bobby five months later
Australia's spy agency was ordered to pay thousands in legals costs for a suspected ISIS associate after he was locked up in immigration detention.

Mustapha El Ossman, a Lebanese man married to an Australian woman, had his bridging visa cancelled after an adverse security assessment by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.

The internal spy organisation suspected him of supporting Jund al-Sham, a Muslim extremist group fighting against Syria's government, according to The Australian.

ASIO was ordered to pay thousands in legals costs for suspected ISIS associate Mustapha El Ossman (pictured with wife Mariam Albaf) after he was locked up in immigration detention

The Lebanese man had his bridging visa cancelled after an adverse security assessment, without being told what he was suspected of

Known as Soldier of Syria, it has links to Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, and gained notoriety for terrorist attacks in Lebanon and fought alongside other rebels in Syria.

Mr El Ossman maintained he never supported or associated with terrorists and appealed his case to the Federal Court.

He argued he was denied procedural fairness when he was detained in September 2015 because he was never told what the allegations against him were.

Federal Court judge Michael Wigney on Tuesday agreed and ordered ASIO to pay his legal costs, in a case that finally revealed what the suspicions were.

ASIO suspected him (pictured with daughter Haffa Arwa Albaf) of supporting Jund al-Sham, a Muslim extremist group fighting against Syria's government

ASIO's adverse assessment alleged he was close to Jund al-Sham leader Khaled Riad Mahmoud (pictured), who was killed fighting in Syria

ASIO's adverse assessment alleged he was close to Jund al-Sham leader Khaled Riad Mahmoud, who was killed fighting in Syria.

It also claimed Mr El Ossman was an associate of the bodyguard of Australian-Lebanese terrorist Houssam El Sabbagh.

Justice Wigney found ASIO had information that 'led it to believe that Mr El Ossman was associated with terrorist groups Jund al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS'.

ASIO made four critical assessments- that he was involved in politically motivated violence, maintained associations with terrorists and extremists, harboured an extremist ideology.

Mr El Ossman was detained in Villawood Detention Centre from September 2015

The organisation also alleged he was using a different name and was an avoidable risk to security.

But Justice Wigney said when ASIO interviewed Mr El Ossman in 2014 it only questioned him in 'general terms' via an 'open series of questions'.

An ASIO spokesman told The Australian the organisation was 'considering the implications of the Federal Court's recent judgment'.
Al Jazeera is believed to have suffered a cyber attack after the news network vowed to maintain their independence.

The site tweeted: 'Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms.'

Even though the site said the attacks are 'gaining intensity and taking various forms', they say their service has 'not been compromised'.

Al Jazeera claimed their systems sustained a cyber attack after the network vowed to maintain their independence as Arab powers accuse it of supporting Islamist militants

It comes after the news network was accused of interfering in other countries' affairs through its reports and was banned by many Gulf nations.

The network's acting director-general Mostefa Souag dismissed allegations of interfering on Thursday.

He said: 'All this talk about Jazeera interfering in other countries' affairs is nonsense. We don't interfere in anybody's business, we just report.'

'If we bring (in) guests who are opposing certain governments, does that mean we are interfering in the countries' business? No. Al Jazeera's editorial policy is going to continue the same regardless of what happens with this event.'

The state-funded network is at the centre of the dispute in which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties and transport links on Monday with Qatar, which supplies natural gas to world markets.

The network's acting director-general Mostefa Souag dismissed allegations Al Jazeera has been interfering in other countries' affairs through its reports

Diplomatic tensions emerged after Qatar was accused of financing Islamic terrorism, which the country denies.

Yemen, Libya's eastern-based government and the Maldives also cut ties with Qatar later.

Qatar says the moves to isolate it are endangering stability in the Gulf region.

Foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said his country was being isolated by their neighbours, 'because we are successful and progressive', according to the BBC.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has reportedly ordered additional tanks be readied for possible action after an ultimatum by Gulf State neighbours

US President Donald Trump (pictured in Ruytadh last month with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani) has spoken on the phone to the Qatari leader

He added: 'We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy.'

They vowed they would 'not surrender' as other Gulf nations broke their ties.

Al Jazeera was founded in 1996 as part of Qatar's efforts to turn its economic power into political influence.

The network won millions of viewers across the Arab world by offering uncensored debate rarely seen on other local broadcasters in the region.

A map showing the countries which have severed diplomatic relations with Qatar

Its talk shows hosted guests who challenged the wisdom of Arab rulers and adopted the role of supporter of the dispossessed. Reporters broke with a widespread taboo of the Arab news media by interviewing Israeli officials.

Earlier on Thursday Qatar called its tanks into action and warned its neighbours that it will open fire on any ships that come into its waters.

The country's military has been put on its highest alert level after an economic and diplomatic blockade was placed on it by other Gulf State nations over its alleged support for terrorists.

The Qatari government has written to leaders in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE warning it will respond to any naval threat.
A man accused of molesting his New York roommate's model girlfriend while she slept claims he did not know he was doing it because he was sleepwalking.

Nick Liu, 27, is charged with one count of forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse over an incident that took place in the Manhattan apartment he shared with Shane Payne on September 11, 2015.

Payne had flown his girlfriend, who has not been named, from Florida to New York for a romantic weekend. When she arrived, they went out for drinks at a bar on the Lower East Side, according to the New York Post, before they went home to have sex.

Payne told the Manhattan Criminal Court Wednesday his girlfriend fell asleep in bed after they had sex, at which point he left the bedroom and went to read a book on his couch in the living room.

Nick Liu (pictured in court on Thursday), who is accused of molesting his New York roommate's model girlfriend while she slept, claims he did not know he was doing it because he was sleepwalking

Payne's girlfriend then testified she woke up to find Liu kissing her neck and molesting her, according to the Post.

She told the court she shouted, 'Stop, Stop!' as she pushed the 27-year-old away.

Payne's testified picked up on what happened immediately after the alleged incident.

'The next thing I remember is being violently shaken by [my girlfriend], and shes screaming, "Nick fingered me!"' he told the court.

Nick Liu (left) is charged with one count of forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse over an incident that took place in the Manhattan apartment he shared with Shane Payne (right) on September 11, 2015

Nick Liu, left, who says he sexually abused a woman because he was sleepwalking, with his father at New York court on June 8, 2017

'She's in hysterics. I wake up and storm into Nick's room.'

Payne then said his roommate said to him: 'I'm so sorry, I cant believe I did this.'

Traumatized by the alleged incident, Payne's girlfriend then flew home to Florida.

Lisa Philips, Liu's mother, then told the court her son had a sleep disorder since he was a boy and was asked by the prosecution to describe any incidents she could remember.

Philips, who is a kindergarten teacher in New Jersey, said: 'His dad and I would wake up and he'd be in our room lost, staring off into space'.

However, the upset mother then broke down during an intense cross-examination from Assistant District Attorney Mimi Mairs.

Liu is seen hugging his father while at court in Manhattan over the charges he abused his roommate's girlfriend in 2015

Lisa Philips, Liu's (left and right) mother, told the court her son had a sleep disorder since he was a boy

Liu's mother, Lisa Philips, is pictured at the Manhattan court on Thursday for her son's appearance

'Was there ever a time when your son was sleepwalking that he put his fingers in your vagina or your daughter's?' Mairs asked.

Philips broke down in tears, saying: 'Thats awful... What's wrong with you?'

Liu's girlfriend, Alexandra Berg, then spoke to the jury about experiences she had with his sleep issues over their five-year relationship.

Berg explained twice every month or so Liu would grab her breasts and vagina while he was asleep.

'The first few times it happened, I didnt know he was asleep,' she told the court, according to the Post.

'He woke up during it, and you could see his eyes going from unconscious to confused.'

She then said her boyfriend called her immediately after the incident in September 2015.

'He felt horrible about what happened,' she said, before going on to say he moved out of the apartment the next week.

'(He) wanted to live alone to ensure nothing like this would happen again.'
The White House had very little to say after former FBI director James Comey delivered blockbuster testimony today sullying the president's character.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly told reporters to direct their questions to the president's outside counsel.

She was clear on one point, though - President Trump is not a liar.

'No, I can definitively say the president's not a liar, and I think it's frankly insulting that that question would be asked,' she staed.

The White House had very little to say after former FBI director James Comey blockbuster testimony today. A spokeswoman was clear on one point, though - President Trump is not a liar

Comey accused Trump and his administration of offering 'lies, plain and simple' about the state of affairs at the FBI and 'shifting explanations' for why he was canned.

The ex-law enforcement official also testified that he believed the president asked him to halt a probe of national security advisor Mike Flynn and said he kept copious notes because he feared Trump would be untruthful about their interactions.

'I knew that there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution,' Comey said.

The president fired him on May 9 after asking for his 'honest loyalty.'

Comey would not say whether the president's attempt to wave off investigators rose to the level of obstruction of justice, although he said considered it a directive.

'I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning,' he said. 'But that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense.'

His recollection is that Trump fired Flynn for lying to the vice president but did not want him punished further because he's a 'good guy.'

'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,' Comey says the president told him.

Comey said in written and oral statements that he agreed with the president's assessment of Flynn's character, but he did not say he'd call off the FBI.

He told senators this afternoon that Trump had not told the truth at a May 18 press conference when he said he did not urge his fired FBI director to end the bureau's investigation into Flynn.

Asked by Sen. Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats, whether Trump's statement was accurate, Comey said, 'I don't believe it is.'

Comey accused Trump and his administration of offering 'lies, plain and simple' about the state of affairs at the FBI and 'shifting explanations' for why he was canned

Huckabee Sanders declined to comment on Comey's remarks throughout an off camera briefing that took place while the former fed was giving testimony.

'Anything specific to the hearing again, as I said in my opening, I would refer you to the comments that Marc Kasowitz will make following the conclusion of the hearing,' she said, name dropping Trump's personal lawyer in the investigation.

She said she had not talked to the president and did not know if he had been watching the Senate Intelligence Committee's star witness.

Trump was in meetings with his Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster the 'majority of the morning.'

'I don't know if he's seen much of it,' she claimed.

Trump made no direct mention of the hearing in remarks at a conservative political conference. He did not tweet about it, either.

The closest he came to discussing it at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's conference in Washington was a claim that they were 'under siege.'

'You didn't let me down, and I will never every let you down, you know that,' he told conservative activists. 'As you know, we're under siege, you understand. But we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever, you watch.'




President Donald Trump's lawyer Marc Kasowitz took a victory lap Thursday following the blockbuster testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey, saying the much-anticipated Senate hearing proved what the White House has been saying for months.

And he hammered Comey for releasing information about his conversations with the president to reporters in an attempt to force the appointment of a special-counsel inquest into Russian election interference.

'Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the President,' Kasowitz said in a statement.

And 'contrary to numerous false press accounts leading up to today's hearing,' he added, 'Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the President privately: The President was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference.'

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Marc Kasowitz, the personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, delivered a walloping statement Thursday aimed at fired former FBI director James Comey

Comey admitted in his Senate testimony on Thursday that the president was never an investigative target, and said he had asked a friend to leak portions of his notes to the press

'Mr Comey's testimony also makes clear that the President never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election,' Kasowitz claimed.

Kasowitz, the president's outside counsel who is responsible for looking after his personal interests  not those of the presidency  delivered his statement in writing and orally following the former FBI director's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The smallish gathering at the National Press Club who heard him speak in person was an unconventional coda to an unprecedented day that saw the White House forced to deny Trump is a liar.

Kasowitz instead called Comey a liar, calling into question the memos that comprised the bulk of his testimony.

Trump 'never pressured Mr. Comey,' he insisted.

And 'the President also never told Mr. Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty" in form or substance.'

Both claims were part of Comey's written and oral presentations.

Kasowitz read his statement and left the podium without taking questions.

Trump kept a low online profile Thursday, not tweeting at all, but delivered a speech to a Christian evangelical group in which he never mentioned Comey

Kasowitz said 'the appropriate authorities' would have to determine if Comey's own orchestrated press leak should be investigated

Comey declared Thursday that the White House defamed him, and that he wrote detailed memos about his conversations with the president as a hedge against Trump lying about their discussions in the future.

'I can definitively say that the president's not a liar, and I think it's frankly insulting that that question would be asked,' White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Her short press briefing was sandwiched in between Comey's public hearing and a private classified session with the senators.

Also in the lunch hour, Trump himself delivered a speech to a Christian evangelical group, declaring that Americans 'don't worship government  we worship God.'

Kasowitz sought to place blame on Comey, especially for his embarrassing revelation that he leaked parts of a private memo on a conversation with Trump to reporters through a third party  a law professor friend.

He referred to Trump's talks with Comey as 'privileged' four times, without acknowledging that the White House declined to assert a claim of executive privilege over any of those conversations before Comey testified.

Comey testified, Kasowitz recounted, 'that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to "prompt the appointment of a special counsel".'

The fired former FBI director called the White House and the president liars on several occasions Thursday

Kasowitz left a small briefing room at the National Press Club in Washington without taking questions from reporters

'Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to entirely retaliatory.'

'We will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether this [sic] leaks should be investigated along with all those others being investigated,' he said.

Kasowitz had already weighed in Wednesday evening, after the Senate committee released Comey's written testimony a day ahead of his public hearing.

That account confirmed that Comey had told Trump on three separate occasions that he wasn't the target of any FBI investigation.

'The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russia probe,' Kasowitz wrote Wednesday.

'The president feels completely and totally vindicated.'

Thursday's statement began less confidently, with Kasowitz misspelling the word 'president.'

'I am Marc Kasowitz,' he wrote, 'Predisent Trump's personal lawyer.'

Kasowitz also misspelled the last name of Dan Coats  his statement rendered it 'Coates'  who is the director of national intelligence.
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A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Arizona that the famed architect designed for his son was donated Thursday to a school years after it was saved from demolition.

On the architect's 150th birthday, owner Zach Rawling announced that he would give the David and Gladys Wright House to the School of Architecture at Taliesin, which was formerly known as the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.

Nestled at the base of Camelback Mountain, the house spirals up from the ground and bears a striking resemblance to the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which opened seven years later.

A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix that the famed architect designed for his son was donated Thursday to the School of Architecture at Taliesin. Pictured, the house covered in balloons on Thursday to celebrate the announcement

Built in 1952, the building is considered a precursor to the iconic Guggenheim, which came seven years later, according to Aaron Betsky, the school's dean. The house spirals up from the ground, offering 360-degree views

The David and Gladys Wright House is considered one of Wright's late career masterworks. Pictured left, the curved kitchen, and right, a fireplace with a custom March Balloons designed carpet

David Wright lived at the home until he died in 1997 at the age of 102. When his wife Gladys passed away 11 years later, their children sold it in 2009 hoping the new owners would restore it

But the recession hit and the property was sold to developers who planned to demolish the building before Rawling bought it in 2012 for $2.4million

The David and Gladys Wright House is considered one of Wright's late career masterworks with a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains, according to Victor Sidy, the architect in charge of the home's renovation.

The house was Wright's attempt to 'make a new model of community for America', Sidy said.

Built in 1952, the building is considered a precursor to the iconic Guggenheim, which came seven years later, according to Aaron Betsky, the school's dean.

David Wright lived at the home until he died in 1997 at the age of 102. When his wife Gladys passed away 11 years later, their children sold it in 2009 hoping the new owners would restore it.

But the recession hit and the property was sold to developers who planned to demolish the building before Rawling bought it in 2012 for $2.4million.

Rawling hoped to turn the home into an educational center that would engage the community and continue the school's mission.

But not everyone was sold on the idea - neighbors complained it would generate excessive traffic in the well-heeled residential Arcadia area where the house is located.

On Thursday, Rawling donated the building to the architecture school, where the student body has dwindled from 60 to 12 in recent years, threatening the financial viability of its operation

The home will be transformed into a guest house for visiting professors, while architecture students can gain experience with hands-on restoration and renovation projects

On Thursday, Rawling donated the building to the architecture school, where the student body has dwindled in recent years, threatening the financial viability of its operations.

'I've always admired the school and its fellowship and what better way to inspire future generations on school field trips than a tour by a brilliant, enthusiastic architecture student?' Rawling told Architectural Digest.

Wright is considered one of the best architects in American history

The home will be transformed into a guest house for visiting professors, while architecture students can gain experience with hands-on restoration and renovation projects.

They'll work on projects like correcting leaks in the ceiling and corrosion in some metal work. Students will also restore an old pool.

The school, which hopes the new building will attract fresh talent, plans to have 24 students at the house starting in the fall.

Visitors will be allowed when the school holds educational tours and lectures.

'It's definitely one of those buildings that is worth visiting to truly understand,' Sidy said.

The architect designed more than 1,000 architectural works, 532 which were built, and Wright is regarded by many as one of America's best architects.
Women who sunbathe topless at a Maryland resort town used to get a scolding from beach patrol officers, but that has changed.

Captain Butch Arbin, head of Ocean City Beach Patrol, said in a memo Tuesday that workers should document complaints of toplessness, but they shouldn't approach topless women - even if beachgoers request it.

Taking effect since May 20, Arbin told WBOC that there was a specific incident that prompted the decision, which he said differed from the Ocean City Beach Partol's past policy.

Capt. Butch Arbin, head of Ocean City Beach Patrol, said workers should document complaints of toplessness, but they shouldn't approach topless women - even if beachgoers request it

'For the 44 years I've been guarding the beach in Ocean City, when we'd see people topless on the beach we would just tell them, 'Hey, you can't do that,'' Arbin told WBOC.

'But since this formal request from someone, and since the Maryland Attorney General's Office hasn't issued their opinion on it, we don't feel like we can tell people not to sunbathe topless.'

Chelsea Covington, an advocate for normalizing toplessness, asked Worcester County's state's attorney last year to examine the law. He, in turn, asked Maryland's attorney general for an opinion. Officials haven't heard back.

Arbin (left) added: 'But since this formal request from someone, and since the Maryland Attorney General's Office hasn't issued their opinion on it, we don't feel like we can tell people not to sunbathe topless'

Chelsea Covington, an advocate for normalizing toplessness, asked Worcester County's state's attorney last year to examine the law. He, in turn, asked Maryland's attorney general for an opinion. Covington lives on Eastern shore and advocates for 'top freedom'

Covington, who WBOC interviewed in October, lives on the Eastern shore and has been an advocate for 'top freedom' for some time.

'At its core, the topfreedom movement is about equality under the law,' she told WBOC.

For years, Arbin says the beach patrol would just tell topless women 'Hey, you can't do that.' But without an opinion from the attorney general, he says they don't feel like they can tell women not to sunbathe topless.
Parents are pleading with a Michigan school to change a policy after their teenage son committed suicide.

Last year, on October 10, when classes let out, Evan Thompson, 13, walked to train tracks half a mile away, stepped in front of an oncoming freight train and ended his life.

Evan's mother and father, Patty Morley and Eric Thompson, learned after his death that he had been distraught throughout the school day but that they weren't notified until classes were close to being let out.

Now they're asking that Haslett Middle School to mandate suicide prevention training for all teachers so that a similar situation doesn't occur again.

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Last October, Evan Thompson, 13 (pictured), committed suicide at the end of the school day by stepping in front of a train. Students and teachers say he was distraught and crying all day at school

Evan's parents, Patty Morley and Eric Thompson, say no one from Haslett Middle School (pictured) called to tell them about Evan's situation, despite Morley conveying a request for a call if something was wrong to the associate principal. She said: 'A phone call would have saved our sons life'

Morley says her son was a polite and sincere person, who'd recently joined the lacrosse and soccer teams, and was just trying to fit in with his peers.

Twelve days before Evan's death, she spoke with Mona Kay Woodhams, associate principal at Haslett Middle School.

Evan had received an in-school suspension for making fun of another student's pants, and, during a phone conversation, Morley told Woodhams she'd noticed Evan had started spending time with friends his parents weren't used to seeing him with.

'I said, "I just want you to know where he's at right now, and, if you ever have any questions or problems with him, I want you to call me",' Morley told the Lansing State Journal.

Morley and Thompson say they've since learned Woodhams never shared Morley's concerns with any of Evan's teachers.

A teacher of Evan's sent an email that day about his emotional state, but Morley didn't see it and Thompson only read it around 2:15pm - an hour before Evan died.

'A phone call would have saved our sons life,' she said.

At 3:20pm, about an hour after classes ended for the day, Morley got a text message from Evan.

'This is goodbye,' he wrote. 'You probably have already heard by now. Not all of it's true. I'm sorry for being such a disappointment.'

Evan's mother said police told her and her husband that a text message exchange found on the teen's cell phone indicated he had used marijuana recently, and believed that both his parents and police.

He may have been worried about his father, who coached Haslett Middle School's lacrosse team.

'Were pretty convinced he thought he was in legal trouble, and that he was going to be expelled and Eric would never coach again,' Morley said.

That night, classmates told Evan's parents that he had started crying at the start of the school day, wept in every class, and that they voiced their concerns about Evan to teachers.

Morley said administrators told her staff decided to give Evan a day-long 'hall pass' to use at his discretion 'to compose himself,' but he wasn't sent to see a counselor.

Steven Cook, Haslett schools superintendent, did not comment on how staff interacted with Evan or if any staff were disciplined after Evan's death.

Haslett has 'no written policy' that dictates when staff should call a student's parents with concerns during the school day, according to Cook.

'We deal with any student on a case-by-case basis,' he told the Lansing State Journal.

Morley said administrators told her staff decided to give Evan (pictured) a day-long 'hall pass' to use at his discretion 'to compose himself,' but that he wasn't sent to see a counselor. Steven Cook, Haslett schools superintendent, did not comment on how staff interacted with Evan

This year, after Evan's (pictured) death, staff took part in workshop training on 'signs of suicide' through the Eaton Area Intermediate School District - but school officials say more needs to be done

Teachers only receive sporadic training in suicide prevention, according to districts polled by the Journal. In some districts, social workers and counselors receive regular suicide prevention training.

And this year, after Evan's death, staff took part in workshop training on 'signs of suicide' throughout the Eaton Area Intermediate School District.

The need for better mental health support and suicide prevention training is real, say several school officials, but several constraints  including funding and time available for teacher training - hinder that ability.

Suicide prevention training should be mandatory for teachers, said Michigan State Senator Curtis Hertel, who is drafting a proposal requiring school districts to make sure staff are regularly trained in suicide prevention.

'If we save just one kid, it would be well worth it,' Hertel told the Lansing State Journal.

Eric Thompson said he never got a chance to reach out to his son the day of his death because school staff deprived him of it.

'Evan wasn't bullied,' he said. 'Evan was ignored.'
A Californian grandmother has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing her 18-month-old granddaughter to death.

Nicole Yanick Darrington is accused of killing Damoni Trouter at her home in San Bernadino on Monday.

Prosecutors say she also stabbed Damoni's five-year-old sister Arleya and her own daughter, the girls' 22-year-old mother Gloria Clark but they both survived.

Darrington was institutionalized after stabbing her 14-year-old son and throwing Gloria out of a moving minivan when she was just 10 in 2005.

Nicole Yannick Darrington, 43, (left) is accused of murdering her 18-month-old granddaughter Damoni Trouter and injuring Damoni's five-year-old sister Arleya (right)

When she was institutionalized, a judge said she would likely spend a long time receiving treatment but she spent just five years at the facility before being released.

In 2015, she was deemed sane by a jury in 2015, The Los Angeles Times claims, meaning she was no longer required to undergo psychiatric treatment.

It is not clear what prompted her to carry out the stabbing on Monday.

Police say she appeared at her daughter's home in Colton at around 9.10am.

She attacked her daughter first. Gloria fled to a neighbor's apartment and begged them to call police.

She stayed there as the neighbor went into the home to check on the girls. He told KTLA he found Damoni lying face-down on the sofa with stab wounds in her back.

The girl's five-year-old older sister was hiding in the closet.

After stabbing the two girls and their mother, police say Darrington fled in her car.

She was arrested in the vehicle at 4.15am on Tuesday morning.

In 2005, she admitted attempted murder but was sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino to be treated.

The girls' mother, 22-year-old Gloria Clark (above), was also injured but survived

A neighbor who Gloria sent into the home in panic found Damoni (left) face down with stab wounds in her back

Darrington was institutionalized in 2005 for trying to kill her own children but was released in just five years

Local media reports from the time indicate that her children wanted her to get better. In 2007, The Sun News reported that she believed wrongly that she had AIDS and had gone to doctors for help before attempting to kill her own children.

She first attacked her then 14-year-old son by stabbing him several times at a San Bernadino hotel.

Then, she tossed Gloria from her moving minivan on the freeway. Another motorist picked her up. She was just ten at the time.

Authorities are refusing to clear up why she was released from hospital in 2010, claiming they cannot comment on individual cases.

Darrington is now being held on $1million bail at West Valley Detention Center. She faces one murder charge and two attempted murder charges.
James Comey quoted an angry English medieval king in the course of his bombshell testimony on President Trump - and made the archbishop whose death he caused trend on Twitter.

In the course of an exchange with Maine senator Angus King, the ex-FBI boss was asked how he took it when the president said 'I hope or I suggest' - 'Do you take that as a directive?'

Comey replied: 'Yes. It rings in my ear as, well, will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest.'

Apparently prepared for precisely that analogy, King replied: 'I was just going to quote that, in 1179, December 27th, Henry II said, who will rid me of the meddlesome priest, and the next day, he was killed.

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Senator Angus King told former FBI director James Comey he was also going to make the reference to the murder of archbishop St Thomas a Becket at the hearing Thursday. Comey was explaining how President Trump did not directly tell him to stop investigating Michael Flynn

Martyrdom: The king blurted out 'will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest' - and four knights went to Canterbury and killed the cleric. This medieval book of hours, a prayer book, depicted the moment and showed Becket with a halo, indicating his sainthood

'Exactly the same situation. We're thinking along the same lines.'

The exchange may have puzzled many who were watching - but refers to one of English history's most dramatic moments.

King Henry II was the Plantagenet king of the powerful medieval kingdom, which included not just modern England, but vast swathes of modern France.

He had nominated Becket, a brilliant administrator and diplomat, as Archbishop of Canterbury, the kingdom's most powerful religious position, even though he was not a priest.

There was no separation of church and state in medieval England and the appointment was confirmed in 1162 by a council of nobles and bishops.

Henry hoped that Becket would be personally loyal to him, but it was not to be: the newly-ordained archbishop became fanatically religious, giving up rich living for an ascetic lifestyle.

Close: King Henry II expected loyalty from newly-ordained archbishop Thomas Becket. But it didn't work out well - in fact his former friend became the leading opponent in the kingdom

Doesn't get worse than this: Thomas a Becket's death at the hands of the four knights who had listened to the king was a strategic disaster for Henry as it made him a martyr.

Henry pushed ahead with a plan to make the church more subordinate to his authority, but was fiercely opposed by Becket and eventually had the archbishop put on trial.

Becket fled to France, spending two years in an abbey, then tried to have the king and the whole of England excommunicated for the challenge to the church's power.

Such a punishment was the worst sanction available in medieval Europe, guaranteeing not only that those excommunicated would go to hell, but that their political power and riches had been deemed open for seizure.

The dispute rocked medieval Europe and the Pope eventually intervened, and a compromise ended the dispute, allowing Becket to return to take up his archiepiscopal throne in Canterbury in 1170.

Holy place: Canterbury Cathedral became a medieval place of pilgrimage and is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Thanks to the reformation he is now the leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican communion

Rest in peace: Becket was buried in the nave of the cathedral after the monks of the church initially hid his body in case it was carried away by the king's men. His tomb is a medieval masterpiece

Cultural impact: Becket was played by Richard Burton in the eponymous 1962 movie which also saw Peter O'Toole as Henry II

But the stormy relationship with Henry was hardly over. Shortly after Becket's return, the king had his son Henry crowned heir apparent by three other bishops.

Becket reacted with fury, excommunicating the trio and then more church opponents.

When he heard of it, Henry is said to have said: 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?'

His exact words are lost to history, although 'turbulent' rather than 'meddlesome' has been the more traditional version.

In any case they were almost certainly not uttered in English as Norman French was the language of court, but they prompted four knights to head to Canterbury.

Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton reached Canterbury shortly after Christmas 1170 - the day is usually recorded as December 29 not 27, making Senator King seven years and two days out - and confronted Becket.

They demanded he go with them to see the king in Winchester, a town west of Canterbury and south west of London which was a seat of church and royal power, but Becket refused.

Instead he went to vespers, the night prayers, and the four went back outside the cathedral to get their swords and returned to kill Becket in his own church.

One of the other clerics wounded in the attack recorded Becket's dying words as the knights hacked him with their long swords: 'For the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death.'

As Becket lay dying, the top of his skull separated from the rest of his head, one of the knights said: 'Let us away, knights; this fellow will arise no more.'

Lasting fame: St Thomas a Becket became one of Medieval Europe's pre-eminent saints, and Canterbury a place of pilgrimage, inspiring Chaucer (left) to write the Canterbury tales. On Thursday he was trending on Twitter - almost a millennium after his martyrdom

If it looked like a tactical triumph, it was a strategic disaster for the four; Henry did not congratulate them and the Pope excommunicated them.

They had created a martyr and pilgrims flocked to the cathedral.

Sensing political advantage, the Pope canonized Becket in 1173, and settled the underlying dispute with Henry, whose own sons were by now in rebellion against him.

The cult of Becket grew and grew and he quickly became one of medieval Europe's best-known saints; the earliest known holy image of him is in Sicily, while monuments to him were established as far afield as Hungary.

In England, Canterbury became the preeminent place of pilgrimage, and almost 300 years later Chaucer wrote the Canterbury Tales about a group of pilgrims going to pray at the shrine of the saint.

Becket's death has prompted books and movies, most prominently Becket in 1962, in which Richard Burton played the martyr and Peter O'Toole the king.

Now he has an unlikely footnote in U.S. political history, a well as Twitter fame almost a millennium after his death.

However Comey might want to be careful of pushing the analogy too far; in 2006 an online poll for BBC History magazine named him 'second worst Briton' of the previous millennium after being nominated by an historian as the 'founder of gesture politics'.
More than a dozen elementary school kids in a San Francisco Bay Area school district had to be tested for HIV and hepatitis after they were pricked with a needle, a school district official said Thursday.

The student, from Cabrillo Elementary School in Fremont, discovered a needle used by diabetics to test their blood on May 26 in front of the school, and brought it onto campus.

In total, 14 children were pricked before a teacher caught the offending student and sent him to the principal's office.

Bryan Bullock, eight (pictured), was stabbed, along with 13 other schoolmates, by a fellow student with a needle

The incident occurred on May 26 at Cabrillo Elementary School (pictured) in Fremont, California. Parents did not come forward with reports of their children being stabbed until a week later

The student found a diabetic lancet (file image), a small blade used to prick skin and test blood, on campus. One student and one employee at Cabrillo Elementary School are diabetic, but they have confirmed the lancet was not theirs

He was asked if he stabbed anyone and said he hadn't.

It was only one week later, around May 31, that parents started coming forward with reports of their children being pricked.

'We understand this incident has caused stress and anxiety for the families involved and we will continue to support them however we can,' Fremont Unified School District spokesman Brian Killgore said in a statement.

One student and one employee at Cabrillo Elementary School are diabetic, but they have confirmed the diabetic lancet was not theirs, Kilgore said.

Bryan Bullock, eight, was walking in school when he was stopped by another student.

'He said: "Do you like stamps?" and I said: "Yeah".

'He said: "Stick out your arm and look away" and I did, and I felt something poke me.'

'That was the most disturbing news I'd ever gotten,' said Bullock's grandfather, Bud Lofton.

Lofton said he took his grandson to the doctor immediately to be tested for HIV and Hepatitis, and was still waiting on test results as of Wednesday.

Bud Lofton, Bullock's grandfather (pictured right, with Bulllock) said he took his grandson to the doctor immediately to be tested for HIV and Hepatitis, and was still waiting on test results as of Wednesday. 'I'm stressed, you know. I'm just thinking: "What if something happens to him?" he said

Fremont Unified School District spokesman Brian Kilgore (pictured) said the district has been assisting the 14 families with getting the help they need. He also said school officials disciplined the student who found the needle, but could not comment on the specific discipline that was handed down

'I'm stressed, you know. I'm just thinking: "What if something happens to him?" he said.

'You know? And that's really scary because he's a healthy little boy.'

School officials disciplined the student who found the needle, though Killgore said he could not comment on the specific discipline that was handed down.

Kilgore said the district has been assisting the 14 families with getting the help they need.

'Being in constant communications with those families and also with the department of public health, we believe we have the situation contained,' he added.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says Donald Trump's unusual interactions with and requests of James Comey were the result of his newness to government.

The New York native had never held an elected office. He did not know that it was improper for him to reach out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's head, Ryan suggested.

'The presidents new at this. Hes new to government,' Ryan said, according to The Washington Post, 'and so he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses.'

'He's just new to this, 'Ryan stressed.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says Donald Trump's unusual interactions with and requests of James Comey were the result of his newness to government

Trump reached out to Comey nine times in four months, testimony the former law enforcement official submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

Comparatively, Comey says he talked to Barack Obama twice in a three-year period.

Among the things that Comey said he was asked by Trump to do was to look into the leaks coming out of the administration. He also asked Comey to find a way to set the record straight that he was not personally under investigation.

Comey says he immediately called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente to pass on the president's request. He did not hear back from him before the president called to follow up.

In written testimony, Comey says he told Trump then to speak to the acting deputy attorney general.

'I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.'

Comey admitted he told Trump repeatedly that he was not under investigation - a revelation that was cheered by the president's lawyers.

'The presidents new at this. Hes new at government,' Ryan said. 'Hes not steeped in the long running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses,' Ryan, seen Tuesday at the White House said

At his traditional Thursday morning, Ryan held that the president's direct contact with his FBI director came from a place of ignorance about the proper channels of communicating and a desire to clear his name.

'When the FBI director tells him on three different occasions he is not under investigation, yet the speculation swirls around the political system that he is, thats frustrating,' Ryan said.

Pressed, the GOP leader said, 'Im not saying its an acceptable excuse. Its just my observation.'

Ryan acknowledged that there 'of course there needs to be a degree of independence' between the Department of Justice, FBI and the White House 'and a line of communications established.'

His comments echoed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's excuse for Trump's actions Wednesday afternoon MSNBC. Christie said Trump's awkward exchanges with Comey were 'normal New York City conversation.'

'They elected an outsider president,' said Christie, who was a Trump surrogate during the campaign and briefly chaired his transition organization after the November election. 'They elected someone who had never been inside government, and quite frankly hadn't spent a lot of time interacting with government except at the local level.'

'And so the idea of the way  the tradition of these agencies  it's not something that he's ever been steeped in,' Christie said on MSNBC.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's excuse for Trump's actions Wednesday afternoon MSNBC: The exchanges were 'normal New York City conversation'

The Republican politician claimed, 'What you're seeing is a president who is now, very publicly, learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation.'

The president's eldest son came to Trump's defense Wednesday, as well, saying in a slew of tweets that Comey's characterization of their Oval Office conversation concerning former national security advisor Michael Flynn was 'BS.'

Comey says he felt the president was directing him to drop an investigation into Flynn, even though he did not explicitly tell him to call the feds off.

The president said Flynn was a 'good guy' and he hoped Comey could let Flynn's misdeed go. Comey says he agreed that Flynn was 'a good guy' but made no such assurances.

'Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well. I hear "I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job" very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!' Don Jr. wrote in response.

'Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means ... Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak'

The White House declined to comment on Flynn's testimony today, other than a statement that 'the president's definitively not a liar.'

Trump's personal lawyer said, 'The President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey let Flynn go.

'As he publicly stated the next day, he did say to Mr. Comey, General Flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot and also asked how is General Flynn is doing," lawyer Marc Kasowitz said.
French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his 'Make our planet great again' website in a thinly-veiled dig at Donald Trump.

The initiative was first mooted by Macron after the US President pulled his country out of the historic Paris climate deal.

Macron, 39, said the US had made an historic error by abandoning the accord and announced his intention to launch a website raising awareness of climate issues.

In a cheeky nod to Trump and his campaign slogan during the US Presidential election, the website has been called www.makeourplanetgreatagain.fr

France's President Emmanuel Macron, left, and his wife Brigitte stand on the door step after a meeting with the President of Guatemala Jimmy Morales at the Elysee Palace, in Paris today

French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled his 'Make our planet great again' website in a thinly-veiled dig at Donald Trump

In a cheeky nod to Trump and his campaign slogan during the US Presidential election, the website has been called www.makeourplanetgreatagain.fr

Macron, 39, said the US had made an historic error by abandoning the accord and announced his intention to launch a website raising awareness of climate issues

The site is aimed at attracting researchers, entrepreneurs and others to France to pursue efforts to combat climate change.

In a message on the site, Macron says: 'The planet needs your innovative skills. So, are you IN to change (literally!) our daily lives and make our planet great again?.

Clicking through the site, users are asked to choose if they are researchers, business people, teachers, students or others.

They are also asked to say which country they come from, and are able to fill in their details with a promise they will be contacted within three days.

'You are the new actors of this fight. Your commitment can inspire many others,' it said, asking them to share their stories on Twitter.

'This is the only way we can spread the word: Something is happening. Our planet is about to be great again.'

World leaders mostly reacted with anger after Trump announced the United States, the world's second biggest carbon emitter, was quitting the deal.

Led by Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel, they branded Trump's decision as misguided and vowed to defend the accord.
A criminal has been caught using a stolen backhoe to try to crack open an ATM.

The bungling thief was filmed trying to use the vehicle to break into the cash machine on June 1 at 4.30am in District Heights, Maryland.

He tried to use the backhoe's bucket to tear the ATM open in the hope that all its contents would spill out.

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The thief brought the backhoe's bucket down on the machine repeatedly to try to crack it open

He plowed through the machine, causing $10,000 of damage without finding a single bank note

Instead, he caused $10,000 damage to it without seeing a single dollar.

Police are now hunting for the thief who they believe may also be responsible for an ATM theft last year.

In that robbery, they say he broke into a tobacco store on the same street with two accomplices.

The trio raided the store, stealing cash and the ATM inside but were never arrested.

The main suspect was caught on surveillance footage in that incident too.

Prince George's County Police Department is now appealing for anyone with information to come forward.
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Theresa May has finally apologised to the Tory MPs who lost their seats overnight but refused to say if her election disaster had weakened her hand in Brexit negotiations

A humbled Theresa May has finally apologised to defeated Tory MPs and pledged to stay for five more years - but is now too 'weak' to sack rivals including Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson, it was revealed today.

The Prime Minister's political career is hanging by a thread after she promised to offer 'certainty' for Britain as PM - despite the Tories suffering humiliating losses when her election gamble backfired.

She will now rely on the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland to prop her up when she had hoped for a landslide victory.

Mrs May has said Chancellor Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Brexit Secretary David Davis and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon - five favourites to replace her as leader - will keep their jobs.

The Chancellor and Foreign Minister could have been 'goners' but she is now 'too weak to sack them', a source said, while another expert suggested she has has been 'taken prisoner' by her Cabinet colleagues.

Earlier Mrs May stood in Downing Street and declared her determination to carry on for a full five-year term after getting permission from the Queen to form a government, even though she spectacularly lost her Commons majority overnight.

Incredibly she failed to mention that she had humiliatingly lost seats to Labour after calling the election three years early in a bid to capitalise on sky-high poll ratings.

Around two hours later she appeared on TV again and apologised to defeated Tory MPs after she was accused 'lacking humility'.

Mrs May acknowledged that she had called an election three years early hoping for a 'large' majority, adding: 'That was not the result that we secured'.

She said: 'As I reflect on the result, I will reflect on what we need to do in the future to take the party forward.

'I am sorry for those candidates and hard-working party workers who weren't successful but also particularly sorry for those colleagues who were MPs or ministers who had contributed so much to our country and who lost their seats and didn't deserve to lose their seats.'

Mrs May today refused to say if her election disaster has killed off Britain's chances of a good deal to leave the EU - with former Chancellor George Osborne saying: 'Hard Brexit went in the rubbish bin last night'.

Senior MPs such as Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan have openly called for Mrs May to step aside - with the latter suggesting she should go within 'weeks or months' because her credibility is shot.

One senior Tory MP told ITV News: 'We all f***ing hate her. But there is nothing we can do. She has totally f***ed us'.

Mrs May declared her determination to carry on in Downing Street after going to see the Queen to request permission to form a government - even though she has lost her Commons majority

The PM was flanked by husband Philip on the steps of No10 as she delivered her statement after seeing the Queen today

Mrs May was welcomed back into Downing Street by staff after the Queen gave her permission to form a new government

But the Tory leader looked slightly awkward being clapped by No10 staff after her poor showing in the general election

How Theresa May could be deposed in the stormy weeks and months ahead Humiliated Theresa May is hoping to cling on to power with the backing of a small band of Northern Ireland unionists in Parliament - but she could still be toppled from government. And while the likelihood of Jeremy Corbyn leading his far-left party into a minority government have faded, it could still be on he cards. While Mrs May has declared her intention to stay on in Number 10, the coming weeks and months pose a series of challenges that may yet see her toppled. The 1922 Committee : Mrs May's first major test is just days away, with Conservative MPs due to assemble for a meeting of the influential 1922 Committee, which is expected on Tuesday night. It is here where she will come face to face with her angry backbenchers who will want answers over how she lost a 20 point lead to lead them to electoral disaster. Some have already broken cover and demanded that Mrs May axe her top aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill - the PM's closest confidants. Under Tory Party rules, if 15 per cent of Conservative MPs send a letter to the Graham Brady, chairman of the 22, demanding she goes then vote will be called. This means just 48 MPs would be able to trigger a vote of no confidence and potentially oust her. The Queen's Speech: If Mrs May survives her own MPs in the initial post-election fall-out, she still faces major hurdles when they return to Parliament next week. Her first major challenge will be getting the Queen's speech passed at the end of June - which sets out the government's legislative plan and essentially amounts to a vote of confidence for the administration. Mrs May will be hoping to get hers over the line with the support of the DUP, but Labour will table wrecking amendments to try to stop it. The Queen's speech is treated as a vote of confidence - if it fails the PM has to resign and Mr Corbyn would be invited to form a government. John McDonnell, will try to table amendments asking MPs to approve Labour's legislative programme rather than the Tory one. While this will probably fail, the votes should prove interesting to flush out how many allies Labour has among the smaller parties, like the SNP and the Greens. Without a formal coalition which gives them a working majority in the Commons the Labour government would be unlikely to last long. And it would point towards another General Election on the horizon. Budget: The next major challenge for Mrs May come in Autumn when the Chancellor will put forward the Budget. Nearly always controversial, this is when Mrs May will be particularly vulnerable to the threat of backbench rebellions over unpopular policies. And Labour will try to do all they can to encourage other MPs to vote against it as a means of toppling the government. Like the Queen's Speech, the Budget is a vote of confidence and if she loses it the PM would have to resign - opening the door once again to the possibility of a Labour government. Advertisement

Fully 23 hours after polls closed across the country, Labour finally took Kensington after three recounts meaning the final tally remained at 318 seats for the Conservatives and 262 for Labour.

The painstaking counting process ended up revealing Emma Dent Coad won by just 20 votes, claiming 16,333 against Tory's Victoria Borwick's 16,313.

Earlier, following an audience with the Queen, Mrs May said she would seek to lead a minority government supported by the Democratic Unionists (DUP).

'What the country needs more than ever is certainty, and having secured the largest number of votes and the greatest number of seats in the General Election, it is clear that only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons,' she said in a statement on the steps of No 10.

'As we do, we will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Democratic Unionist Party in particular.

'Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years, and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom.'

Her frontbench team including Chancellor Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon have been silent since the election disaster and a jubilant Jeremy Corbyn demanded she make way for him to become PM.

Boris Johnson publicly refused to back her as PM and some MPs said the Foreign Secretary, who has long harboured leadership ambitions, was out 'on manoeuvres'.

Brexit Secretary David Davis is the only one to have made a clear declaration that she should stay, insisting he would fight 'tooth and nail' to keep her in post.

But her closest aides Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill could be sacked as MPs lined up to blame them for several of her campaign catastrophes including the dementia tax that played so badly with voters. One source said Timothy was not with Mrs May in Downing Street today.

South Cambridgeshire MP Heidi Allen said: 'I don't think Theresa May can stay any longer than six months. If the leader picks people who advises them so badly - it's not the leader that we need.'

Tory MP Philip Davies said the party made 'a pig's ear' of the campaign and backbencher Nigel Evans said: 'We didn't shoot ourselves in the foot, we shot ourselves in the head'.

Evans added: 'The campaign was going swimmingly well until we launched our own manifesto, when we did the triple assault on our core vote, the elderly. And quite frankly, from then on in people were not interested in the Labour partys manifesto. All they wanted to know was were they going to lose their winter weather payments and what the impact of the so-called dementia tax was going to be.

'We hijacked our own campaign and from then on it was an absolute disaster.'

Mr Evans also took aim at the Prime Ministers tightly-controlled style of government, saying: Had some of the Cabinet ministers seen that policy beforehand then surely that never would have featured in our manifesto.

But there was also concern about the dysfunctional nature of the campaign.

Right-winger Philip Davies said it was time to accept people are tired of austerity. But he also attacked the campaign, saying: I think its fair to say we made a bit of a pigs ear of the national campaign really, to be honest.

The manifesto wasnt very good, particularly in terms of social care. Dropping a policy on people a few weeks before an election that seemed to come out of thin air was clearly a bad mistake.

Sarah Wollaston, Tory chairman of the Commons health committee, added: I cannot see how the inner circle of special advisers can continue in post. It needs to be far more inclusive in future.

Former Tory chancellor Lord Lamont said there have been a lot of complaints about Mrs Mays inner circle. He added: I think it is definitely the case that the Prime Minister has got to pursue a collective style of government, consulting ministers and not relying just on special advisers.

One minister said Mr Timothy and Miss Hill should be taken out and shot. Another said: Fiona and Nick will have to go  the Prime Minister might try to protect them but the party will not wear it.

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan said Mrs May was right not to resign, but called for sweeping changes to the way she governs. I think theres real fury against the campaign, and the buck stops at the top, she said.

Mrs May relies heavily on her two most senior aides, with whom she has worked closely for years. They are blamed for helping persuade her to gamble on an election to take advantage of Labours weakness in the polls.

They have also taken the flak for tactics and the shambolic manifesto.

Criticism focused on a trio of policies hitting the partys core older supporters  scrapping winter fuel allowance payments for most, ending the triple lock protecting the state pension and leaving them open to potentially huge social care costs.

Former Chancellor George Osborne called the manifesto the worst in history and said that the poor result meant that 'Hard Brexit went in the rubbish bin'.

A surge in seats won by the Scottish Tories from the SNP saved her skin - but using her growing influence leader Ruth Davidson said Mrs May must listen to non-Tory voters and pursue 'an open Brexit not a closed one'.

Former minister Rob Wilson, who was booted out in the election, took a swipe at the PM's closest aides Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy saying the government could not be run by such a 'small group'.

Even the DUP, whom Mrs May must now rely on to keep her in Downing Street, said it would be 'difficult' for her to cling on. Meanwhile, it is not yet clear what price the party will extract in return for propping her up as premier.

The only thing saving Mrs May from utter disaster overnight was the Tory performance in Scotland. The party's leader north of the border, Ruth Davidson, inspired a 12-seat surge that ousted the SNP's former First Minister Alex Salmond in Gordon and Westminster leader Angus Robertson in Moray.

The Conservatives wound up with 318 MPs, Labour 262, the SNP 35 and the Lib Dems 14.

For an absolutely majority a party needs 326 seats out of the 650 in the Commons - although taking into account the impartial Speaker and the fact that Sinn Fein does not take up its seven seats, 320 is enough.

Support from the DUP, which is in line with the Tories on most issues, pushes her over the threshold. Ironically, it means that her effective majority is 17 - exactly the same figure as when she triggered the election six weeks ago.

Looking uncomfortable as she delivered a statement on the steps of No10 this afternoon, Mrs May defied the reality of her wafer-thin majority by insisting she is still determined to serve five years in office.

And she vowed to lead a government that would crackdown on terrorism and 'keep our country safe' in the wake of the atrocities in London and Manchester - despite painful questions about the number of chances missed by the police and MI5 to stop the murderers.

'What the country needs more than ever is certainty and having secured the largest number of votes and the greatest number of seats in the general election, it is clear only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons,' she said.

'As we do, we will continue to work with our friends and allies in the DUP in particular. Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years.

'This gives me the confidence to believe we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole UK.

'This will allow us to come together as a country and challenge our energies toward a successful Brexit deal that works for everyone in this country, securing a new partnership with the EU that guarantees our continued prosperity.

Theresa May was accompanied by husband Philip as she left Downing Street for an audience with the Queen earlier today

The Prime Minister arrived at Buckingham Palace earlier where she might well have faced some pointed questions from the monarch in private

As he walked into his Islington North count this morning, Mr Corbyn said: 'Welcome to the Labour parliament.' He later demanded that Mrs May quit so that he could try to form a government

Theresa May left No 10 with her husband Philip by her self to make the short car journey to Buckingham Palace, where she asked the Queen for permission to form a government - even though she has not won an outright majority

The PM is under the nation's glare after she led the country in a snap election which massively backfired for her party

'That's what people voted for last year. That's what we will deliver. Now let's get to work.'

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, DUP leader Arlene Foster said she spoke with Mrs May this morning to 'explore how it may be possible to bring stability to our nation'.

In yet another rollercoaster ride of political drama overnight:

London was a horrorshow for the Conservatives, with Education Secretary Justine Greening only just hanging on in Putney and Treasury minister Jane Ellison losing in Battersea after a 10 per cent swing to Labour. But Zac Goldsmith squeaked back in Richmond Park by just 45 votes.

In total eight ministers have been ousted, including Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer from Ipswich, Gavin Barwell from Croydon Central, Nicola Blackwood from Oxford West, Rob Wilson from Reading East, Simon Kirby from Brighton Kemptown, Edward Timpson in Crewe & Nantwich, and James Wharton from Stockton South.

The SNP endured a dreadful night with their numbers at Westminster forecast to plummet from 54 to 34. The party's former First Minister Alex Salmond lost Gordon, and Westminster leader Angus Robertson was defeated in Moray.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he would have 'absolutely no choice' but to return to active politics if the result meant Brexit was under threat. 'We may well be looking down the barrel of a second referendum,' he said.

The Liberal Democrats are set to get 12 seats, up from nine, despite widespread expectations that they would be put to the sword after a dire campaign. Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg lost Sheffield Hallam to Labour - but former business secretary Vince Cable fared better as he made a comeback in Twickenham and Ed Davey is returning in Kingston and Surbiton.

The pound tumbled dramatically against the US dollar and the euro as markets had priced in a solid Tory victory.

President Donald Trump reacted to the news his British counterpart had been humiliated at the ballot box by saying the result was 'surprising'.

Mr Corbyn today repeated his demand for Mrs May's resignation, adding he and party were 'ready to serve' and were preparing to form a minority government. He insisted: 'That's what we fought the election for.'

He said: 'We are offering to put forward the programme on which we fought the electon. We are there as the Labour Party everyone can see the huge increase in our support.'

Mr Corbyn said Parliament should meet on schedule and MPs would then have a vote  but refused to concede Mrs May had the right to present her Queen's Speech as the leading party and the incumbent, as constitutional convention demands.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW AFTER THE TORY ELECTION SETBACK? 12.30pm: Theresa has gone to see the Queen to seek permission to form a government. The monarch might have asked some pointed questions - but will agree. Despite losing their overall majority in the election, the Tories are still the largest party. The support of 10 DUP MPs should allow them to pass a Queen's Speech and Budget. 1.30pm: Mrs May made a statement in Downing Street on her return from the Palace. This evening/tomorrow: The PM will conduct what is expected to be a very limited reshuffle - if only to replace ministers who were ousted overnight. Prior to the election there were strong signs she would replace Chancellor Philip Hammond, but she might not now have the political capital to push through such a move. June 13-16: New and returning MPs will be sworn in at the House of Commons. On the Tuesday the powerful Tory 1922 committee is likely to meet - giving clues as to whether backbenchers are happy to stand by her. June 19: The Queen's Speech will outline the new government's ambitions for the parliament, but they are likely to be very limited given Mrs May's tiny working majority. It is set to be a busy day - as formal negotiations between Brexit Secretary David Davis and his Brussels counterpart are also due begin. Advertisement

The Labour leader could force a vote on his own plans by tabling an amendment to Mrs May's Queen's Speech.

In a victory speech after winning Islington North for the ninth time, Mr Corbyn said: 'This election was called by the Prime Minister to gain a large majority in order to assert her authority.

'The election campaign has gone on for the last six weeks, I have travelled the whole country and you know what: politics has changed.

'Politics is not going back into the box where it was before. What has happened is people have said they have had quite enough of austerity politics, they have had quite enough of the underfunding of the health service, underfunding our schools and education service.'

He added: 'I am very proud of the results coming in around the country tonight, of people voting for hope, hope for the future and turning their backs on austerity.

'If there is a message from tonight's result it is this: the Prime Minister called the election, she wanted a mandate.

'The mandate she has got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence.

'I would have thought that was enough to go and make way for a government that will be truly representative of the people of this country.'

But speaking at her own count in Maidenhead, a clearly shaken Mrs May said: 'As we look ahead and wait to see what the final results will be, I know - as I say - the country needs a period of stability and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfil our duty in ensuring that stability so that we can all, as one country, go forward together.'

DUP leader Arlene Foster made clear that her party was ready to prop up Mrs May in power, although it is expected to be an informal arrangement rather than a coalition.

However, despite signalling support for the Tories she predicted it would be 'difficult' for the Prime Minister to continue in her role.

'I certainly think that there will be contact made over the weekend but I think it is too soon to talk about what we're going to do,' she said.

The DUP and Conservatives have been in close touch throughout Mrs May's year in power, and contacts are believed to have continued as election results came in this morning.

The Northern Irish party is thought to have been cautious about committing itself to an arrangement because of uncertainty about the future of the Tory leadership.

Asked if she thought Mrs May would be able to stay in her job, the DUP leader told the BBC: 'I don't know', adding: 'I think it will be difficult for her to survive.'

East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson made clear the DUP would be demanding a quid pro quo for shoring up the Tory government. 'I think that puts us in a fantastic position to deliver for Northern Ireland,' he added.

Meanwhile, there was no sign of the big beasts in Mrs May's cabinet as she came to terms with an election result that took both main parties by surprise. Even as the polls closed last night, senior Labour sources were still telling MailOnline they were 'not optimistic' and expected to lose at least 30 seats. In fact they gained nearly as many.

The PM arrived at Buckingham Palace where she was given permission, as the leader of the biggest single party, to form a government

In contrast Tory MPs and officials were notably upbeat about their chances, even after the exit poll was published indicating they would take a hit.

As the scale of the debacle emerged last night, Mr Johnson was asked if he believed Mrs May should carry on as Prime Minister.

But the ambitious Foreign Secretary would only say 'it's early days'.

He also stayed silent when a reporter suggested that the Tory leader was 'fatally wounded' - and then appeared not to hear when another journalist asked him: 'Does your party need a new leader? Is it you?'

Cabinet Office minister Mr Wilson told the Guardian the Tory manifesto was like an 'exocet straight through the heart of our main supporters, older people'.

WHO ARE THE DUP AND WHAT WILL THEIR ROLE BE? The DUP is a socially conservative unionist party in Northern Ireland, led in Westminster by Nigel Dodds. It has long been an ally of the Tory party in London - but never have the two been so closely linked as they are now. The two parties believe in many similar things but there will be bumps ahead in the road. The 10 DUP MPs will fiercely stand up for their manifesto - particularly protection for pensioners. The DUP will protect the triple lock on pensions, winter fuel payment and oppose the Tory social care reforms - likely dooming all three proposals. The involvement of the party in running Westminster will also complicate power sharing in Northern Ireland as the DUP is locked in a dispute with Sinn Fein restoring the Assembly. Advertisement

'The party cannot have a situation whereby things are done within such a small group of people because there were too many huge mistakes - the manifesto was a huge mistake in the way it was presented. There always needs to be proper testing of ideas before they are launched,' he said.

Despite Tory hopes they would be the biggest winners from a massive Ukip collapse, the exit poll at 10pm last night indicated Labour had hoovered up a big chunk of the vote. It said the Conservatives were on track to lose 16 seats, leaving them on 314 and well short of a majority - while Labour was up from 232 to 266.

However, things quickly looked even more grim for Mrs May, with Education Secretary Justine Greening barely clinging on in Putney and Treasury minister Jane Ellison losing Battersea amid a London meltdown.

Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer was defeated in Ipswich, and there has also been a miserable showing in Wales, while Home Secretary Amber Rudd barely survived by 300 votes after a recount in her Hastings seat. Canterbury - which has been Tory for a century - also went to Mr Corbyn's party.

There are fears that a hung parliament could throw Britain into chaos barely a week before negotiations with the EU are due to get under way.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage said he was ready to return to politics, warning that he feared a second referendum on Brexit.

The exit poll was greeted with disbelief on social media, with Gary Lineker branding it the 'biggest own goal' in history. Piers Morgan said the PM was 'toast'.

Mr Osborne said the numbers were 'catastrophic' and cast doubt on Mrs May's future.

The Evening Standard editor, who was brutally sacked from the Cabinet by Mrs May when she took office last July, lambasted the PM for her 'terrible manifesto' and 'wooden campaign'.

But he added that Mr Corbyn might have been the Conservatives' saving grace as another Labour leader could have won.

Mrs May was guided into Conservative HQ by husband Philip this morning after her humiliation in the election

Prime Minister Theresa May addressed Tory activists in CCHQ after saying the party would try to cling on in government this morning despite losing its overall majority. She is pictured leaving the offices with husband Philip

An ashen-faced Prime Minister insisted the country needed a 'period of stability' and claimed her party was still on track to have the most MPs

The SNP's former First Minister Alex Salmond was humiliatingly ousted from his Gordon seat by the Conservatives

Security seemed to have been stepped up outside Mr Corbyn's London home today in the wake of his surge in the polls

'Theresa May is probably going to be one of the shortest serving prime ministers in our history,' he told ITV.

Mr Osborne also raised the prospect that the Brexit process could now be totally different due to the results. 'Hard Brexit went in the rubbish bin tonight,' he said.

EU WARNS WEAKER PM WILL UNDERMINE BREXIT PROCESS The EU's Budget Commissioner has warned that a weakened UK government could undermine the Brexit process. Gunther Oettinger told German radio station Deutschlandfunk that in negotiations, 'a weaker partner weakens the whole thing'. If both sides in a negotiation were strong, 'you get results more quickly.' Mr Oettinger said that the European Union was ready for Brexit talks which are due to begin on June 19. But he warned that time was running out to reach an agreement which could be approved by all 27 remaining governments within the two-year deadline set out in Article 50. Theresa May's decision to hold a snap election had delayed matters, he said: 'There is only 15 or 16 months left.' Advertisement

His point was underlined by former Cabinet Secretary Lord O'Donnell, who said he believed the EU would simply ignore Mrs May because she was not likely to last long.

'The prime minister has to stay as prime minister for now,' he told the BBC.

'I think those negotiations on Brexit will be non- existent. It takes two sides to negotiate. The EU will say 'who are we negotiating with? Is this a prime minister who is going to be around for very much time. What's their position?'

Ms Soubry made no effort to conceal her anger at Mrs May when asked whether she should resign.

'That's a matter for her. It's bad. I think she in a very difficult place. She's a remarkable woman and a very talented woman but she now has to consider her position,' she said.

She added: 'Theresa did put her mark on this campaign and she takes responsibility, she always does and I know she will, for the running of the campaign as well.

'It was a tightly knit group and it was her group who ran this campaign'

Katie Perrior, Mrs May's former director of communications at 10 Downing Street, said it would be 'incredibly difficult' for her former boss to stay as Conservative leader.

She told Sky News: 'It depends whether or not the Conservative Party says 'Look, we're 10 days away from the start of the Brexit negotiations, what we need right now is a stable leader to rally around but we will look at this in a month or two and come back to it'.

'But that is whether or not they're willing to do that.

'There are a lot of bruised people out there this morning ... they're bruised because they may have had lower majorities or indeed they've got friends who have lost their seats.'

Ms Perrior said it was 'damaging' for Mrs May not to take part in the televised debates, adding: 'I think the communications for the campaign have been pretty awful.'

THE PM'S BLUNDERS THAT COST HER THE ELECTION Theresa May's disastrous election campaign was dominated by blunder and failure: Calling the election at all: May called the poll three years early and did so for political advantage, annoying voters Backing fox hunting: In an early sign of complacency in the Tory campaign, May not only personally backed fox hunting but promised a repeal vote Social care U-turn: The Tory manifesto included a bold but controversial overhaul of social care funding that would have hit most home owners after death. Worse, she failed to defend the policy Failure to engage: May's brittle, boring campaign led to claims she was hiding from voters at tightly controlled events Swerving the TV debates: May refused to go head to head with any of her rivals on TV irritated voters further in the final stages of a dreadful campaign Advertisement

But Brexit Secretary David Davis said he would 'fight tooth and nail' to keep Mrs May in post, and dismissed suggestions he might be a contender to replace her.

'The simple truth is we have a Prime Minister, she is a very good leader, I'm a big supporter of hers,' Mr Davis said.

'I'll fight tooth and nail to keep her in place.'

In his victory speech as he was re-elected MP for West Bromwich East, deputy Labour leader Tom Watson said: 'Theresa May's authority has been undermined by this election.

'She is a damaged Prime Minister whose reputation may never recover.'

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said Mrs May needed to stay in office for the national interest.

He told BBC Question Time: 'Not only must she not resign, she has to not resign in the interest of the country because we need to move forward, we have got to go into the Brexit negotiations.'

Asked if Mrs May should lead the Tories into the next election, Mr Grayling said: 'The next election is a question for her. My view is we need her to stay as Prime Minister and stay as Prime Minister for the foreseeable future.'

Labour's John McDonnell said the result would 'change the nature of politics' in the UK.

'I tell you why  if you listen to what people are saying, Theresa May promised on seven different occasions that she wouldn't go for a snap general election,' he told the BBC.

'And she went for it on the basis that she wanted to secure a mandate that she already had. People just saw through that.

'They saw this as an election which was for party advantage rather than the interests of the country. And it looks as though they've rejected her as a result.'

Mrs Thornberry went on the attack, saying: 'Just think only seven weeks ago the hubris of the Prime Minister who was 20 points ahead, who wanted to have a blank cheque, she wanted to do whatever she wanted with the country with Brexit, with the economy, with our National Health Service and we said no and we meant it.

'And we put forward a popular manifesto with a leader of the party who has withstood the most extraordinary personal attacks, and has actually shown if anybody was strong and stable it was him.

Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's political humiliation was completed when he lost his Sheffield Hallam seat today

Nicola Sturgeon had a bruising election with the SNP losing more than a dozen MPs, mainly to the Tories

The blue surge north of the border was driven by Ruth Davidson, who has managed to revive the Tories' fortunes after decades in the doldrums

As the EU reacted to the news, German MEP Manfred Weber said Mrs May had 'brought chaos' to the UK (left) while the EU parliament's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said she had scored 'yet another own goal'

The pound slumped on the bombshell news overnight (left) as markets had priced on a Tory victory. The Conservatives finished on 318, with Labour on 262, the SNP on 35 and the Lib Dems on 12 (pictured right)

'And this is a great result, if it's true.'

Ms Thornberry said Mrs May should 'consider her position' as she will have 'manifestly failed' if the exit poll turns out to be correct.

On what Labour would do, she added: 'We will see what happens next but if the Labour Party is called on to provide the next government, we will do so and do it in a unified way under a popular manifesto... with a leader who is strong.'

TURNOUT UP FOR GENERAL ELECTION Reports indicate that turnout is up by three points on the General Election in 2015. By the end of the night, it may hit pre-1997 levels, of around 70 per cent. After 131 results, the turnout stood at 67.31 per cent, an increase of 2.28 per cent. Total turnout for 2015 was 66.1 per cent. Some constituencies reporting a high level of turnout include: Tooting, 74 per cent, up from 70 per cent in 2015 Macclesfield, 72 per cent, up from 69.5 per cent Oxford West and Abingdon, up 79.6 per cent from 71.8 in 2015 Advertisement

Mr Osborne told ITV he doubted that any party would be able to form a stable government.

'If the poll is anything like accurate this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May,' he said.

'It's difficult to see, if these numbers are right, how they would put together the coalition to remain in office.

'But equally it's quite difficult to see how Labour could put together a coalition.

'It's on a real knife-edge.'

He added: 'Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she I doubt will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader.'

Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, appearing alongside Mr Osborne on ITV tonight, predicted 'another general election soon'.

Ed Miliband, who stood down as Labour leader following election defeat in 2015, says: 'We know Theresa May can't now negotiate Brexit for Britain because she told us losing a majority would destroy her authority, and it has.'

As the results flowed in, it soon became clear that both Labour and the Tories had gobbled up votes from the smaller parties.

But in defiance of expectations, Ukip support did not appear to have flowed wholesale to Mrs May. Instead the picture was highly localised.

In Newcastle Central, Labour's vote was up 9.9 per cent and the Tories' 5.7 per cent, while Ukip fell 10.9 per cent. That equated to a 2.1 per cent swing from the Conservatives to Labour

But bafflingly, in Houghton & Sunderland South there was 3.5 per cent swing from Labour to Tories.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES IN POLITICS: THERESA MAY'S TUMULTUOUS 12-MONTH TENURE HAS LEFT HER LOOKING WORSE FOR WEAR Theresa May and husband Philip John May enter 10 Downing Street on July 13, 2016 in London (left) after she became the UK's second female Prime Minister after she was selected unopposed by Conservative MPs to be their new party leader. Today, she posed for a far more glum picture looking pale and haggard after a disastrous general election shocked the Conservatives who lost their majority July 13, 2016: Theresa May assumes office as she runs unopposed for the position of leader of the Conservative Party after David Cameron resigned in the wake of the Brexit referendum. July 20: May attended her first Prime Minister's Questions since taking office, then afterwards made her first overseas trip as Prime Minister, visiting Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel January 21, 2017: Following the inauguration of Donald Trump as US President, the White House announced that May would meet the President on 27 January, making her the first foreign leader to meet Trump since he took office on 20 January. She came under intense pressure not to invite her American counterpart for a return visit in the light of his stance on immigration in particular. April 18: May announced that she would call a parliamentary vote to hold an early general election on 8 June, saying that it was the 'only way to guarantee certainty and security for years ahead'. She had previously ruled out an early election on five occasions over nine months. May 18: Unveiling the Conservative manifesto in Halifax on 18 May, May promised a 'mainstream government that would deliver for mainstream Britain'. It proposed to balance the budget by 2025, raise spending on the NHS by 8bn per year and on schools by 4bn per year by 2022, remove the ban on new grammar schools, means-test the winter fuel allowance, replace the state pension 'triple lock' with a 'double lock' and require executive pay to be approved by a vote of shareholders. On Brexit it committed to leaving the single market and customs union while seeking a 'deep and special partnership' and promised a vote in parliament on the final agreement. June 8: The number of Conservative seats fell from 330 to 318 and they were forced to make a deal with the Northern Irish DUP in order to stay in power. Advertisement

In Sunderland Central there was a 2.3 per cent swing towards the Tories, and in Sunderland West the figure was 2.1 per cent. All four were ultra safe seats for Labour.

In Sunderland South there was a 3.5 per cent move from Labour to the Conservatives  the opposite to what the exit poll found. In Sunderland Central there was a 2.3 per cent swing to the Tories.

RECORD 192 FEMALE MPS ARE ELECTED A record high of 192 female MPs have been elected. There were 191 women in the last parliament, accounting for 29.4 per cent of MPs. And that was a big improvement on 2010, when 143 women were elected - at the time a record high. Advertisement

The Conservatives held Swindon North, but their majority was reduced as Labour picked up votes.

The swings raised Tory hopes that they could outperform the exit poll.

But as time went on, it became clear that they had not won any of the crucial seats - like Darlington or Wrexham - they needed to secure an overall majority.

They also lost key battlegrounds like Bury North and Enfield Southgate.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd survived by the skin of her teeth in Hastings, winning by 346 votes after a full recount. But Canterbury fell to Labour for the first time in a century.

London was a horrorshow for the Conservatives as the Remain-backing city turned on a slew of MPs.

Education Secretary Justine Greening only just managed to hang on in Putney, and Treasury minister Jane Ellison lost in Battersea after a 10 per cent swing to Labour.

Ruth Davidson inspired a huge surge for the Tories north of the border that effectively saved the party from an even worse election night

The shock exit poll flew in the face of research during the campaign that consistently gave the Tories a big lead

Labour's Bridget Phillipson won the Houghton & Sunderland South seat in one of the first results to declare, as ominous signs emerged for the Tories

Sunderland is traditionally one of the earliest seats to declare its results. It is a safe Labour constituency

Former chancellor George Osborne , pictured acting as a pundit for ITV alongside former political foe Ed Balls last night, said the forecast appeared to be 'catastrophic' for the Tories

In total eight minister have been ousted, including Cabinet Office minister Ben Gummer from Ipswich, Gavin Barwell from Croydon Central, Nicola Blackwood from Oxford West, Rob Wilson from Reading East, Simon Kirby from Brighton Kempton, Edward Timpson from Crewe and Nantwich, and James Wharton from Stockton South.

CURTICE'S EXIT POLL PROVES RIGHT AGAIN The exit poll commissioned by the BBC, Sky and ITV is a vast, secretive exercise overseen by elections expert Professor John Curtice. It was carried out by NOP/Ipsos MORI and asked 30,450 people at 144 polling stations how they voted in today's general election - far more than the normal 1,000 person sample. The data was all filtered back to an election centre in London. In recent elections exit polls have been close to the result - getting it almost exactly right in 2001, 2005 and 2010. The exit poll stunned Westminster in 2015 by showing David Cameron as on course for victory after a campaign thought to have been neck and neck. Historically the record is more mixed. In 1992 it pointed to a hung parliament, but the result was a slim Tory majority. In October 1974, the exit poll predicted a majority of 132 for Harold Wilson - he actually secured a majority of 3. There was no exit poll after the EU referendum last year - one of the reasons the final result was a shock. Advertisement

Mrs May called the election seven weeks ago while enjoying record-breaking advantages and was never thought to be behind during the campaign.

The loss of seats will raise immediate questions about who is best placed to take the country forward.

There could now be days or even weeks of political horse-trading before the final form of the next government is settled.

With 650 MPs in Parliament, 326 seats are needed for an absolute majority in the House of Commons.

But in practice, a working majority requires just 320 MPs, as the Speaker does not vote and Sinn Fein has so far declined to take up its seats.

Mrs May would be able to pass this crucial figure with the support of the DUP but the Ulster party will demand significant concessions in return for propping up her administration.

The Brexit-supporting party has boosted its number to 10 with two gains, giving it a potentially pivotal role.

If that cannot be made to work, Mr Corbyn could seek a 'rainbow coalition' with other parties like the Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party's sole MP in an effort to secure numbers.

But in sharp contrast to 2010, a whole series of parties have already forsworn any involvement in a formal coalition.

Other arrangements short of a coalition could involve a 'supply and confidence' agreement under which smaller parties would pledge to back the Government's budget and programme without taking up ministerial positions in the new administration.

Failing those options, the Tories or Labour could attempt to form a minority government and win support on a vote-by-vote basis.

The first big deadline is the Queen's Speech on June 19, when the sovereign will unveil a new legislative programme.

Key Brexit events that have delivered a hung parliament May 2009 - Cameron withdraws from grouping in European parliament As the Conservative leader launched his campaign for the election, the Tories held their final meetings in Strasbourg as part of the EPP-ED grouping. All Conservative candidates had signed a form agreeing to join a different centre-right grouping after the election, allowing them to leave the fiercely pro-European EPP-ED group. It was criticised at the time as a sign that the Conservatives were drifting away from Europe and becoming isolated. As the Conservative leader launched his campaign for the election, the Tories held their final meetings in Strasbourg as part of the EPP-ED grouping January 2013 - Cameron lays the groundwork for the Brexit Referendum Cameron made trailblazing speech at Bloomberg about the future of the European Union. He told the crowd: 'The map of global influence is changing before our eyes. And these changes are already being felt by the entrepreneur in the Netherlands, the worker in Germany, the family in Britain.' While Cameron wasin favour of the remaining in the EU, in the speech he clearly expressed his belief that the the institution needed to be reformed. Cameron made trailblazing speech at Bloomberg about the future of the European Union May 2015 - Cameron stormed to victory in the 2015 General Election During May's 2017 election campaign, after a series of disastrous manifesto promises support for May starts to dwindle Conservatives outperformed the exit polls and gained 331 seats. Only once before in recent history had an incumbent government increased its majority - and that was Mrs Thatcher in her prime in the 1980s. In his manifesto the Prime Minister had included a promise of a referendum on Europe  not expecting to win a majority and having to deliver on it. February 2016 - The referendum campaign was launched Cameron announced that the Government would recommend that the UK should remain in the EU, but allowed ministers to vote and campaign in whatever way they saw fit. The Tories were the most split party with 185 MPs declaring they would vote remain and 138 backing leave. Big Conservative names, such as Boris Johnson, Zac Goldsmith and Michael Gove, throwing their support behind the leave vote gave the campaign weight. June 2016 - Britain votes to leave the EU On referendum night even the faces of the leave campaign, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, did not believe they would win. As the counting began Farage even told reporters that he had heard remain would 'edge it'. But, by 3am it became clear that outside London the leave vote was stronger than most had imagined. June 2016 - Cameron quits When the results came in Cameron was toppled, and the question everyone was asking was who would succeed him? Boris was the obvious choice, but when Gove appeared to stab his campaigning ally in the back, the paving was laid for Home Secretary May to succeed as PM. July 2016 - May becomes Prime Minister Business owner Gina Miller (pictured) led the High Court campaign against Brexit After Angela Leadsom withdrew from the the Conservative Party leadership race, May was elected leader of the party. Despite supporting remain during the referendum, May adopts a hard Brexit stance, suggesting she will remove the UK from the free market. November 2016 - High Court Brexit battle The High Court of Justice rules that Parliament has to legislate before the Government can invoke Article 50. The Brexit spirit remains strong and the group bringing court action, led by business owner Gina Miller, are branded 'remoaners'. March 2017 -Article 50 Triggered The Government fights further court action and May triggers Article 50. April 2017 - Election called May's refusal to take part in live television debates lead rivals to brand her 'scared' With the Labour party seemingly in turmoil while being led by ultra left-wing Jeremy Corbyn May announces an election, despite promises she would not call one. She is some 20 points ahead of Corbyn in most opinion polls and the Conservatives hope that the party can win up to 50 more seats, strengthening May's Brexit negotiating position. April - June 2017 - Support for May starts to dwindle After a series of disastrous manifesto promises, including the dementia tax, a reversal of the fox hunting ban and the removal of free school meals support for May starts to dwindle. Her refusal to take part in live television debates lead rivals to brand her 'scared'. Advertisement

Even though Brexit talks are looming and the timetable for getting a deal is fixed, the nation could be forced to head back to the polls within months.

There has already been a major backlash about Mrs May's campaign - which was widely regarded as the party's worst since 2001.

CENTURY OF TORY RULE IN CANTERBURY IS OVER The snap election caused a stir in Canterbury today after a non-Conservative MP was elected to the seat for the first time in 100 years. The constituency as it is known today was formed in 1918 after the narrow parliamentary borough (which existed from 1295) was widened to form the Canterbury County constituency. Prior to this, Canterbury had been under Conservative control since 1841. Between 1295 and 1841, the seat was held by both the Conservatives, Whig and the Liberal Democrats. Ronald McNeill was the first Conservative MP to hold the seat of the newly-formed Canterbury county seat. From then, it was classed as a Tory 'safe' seat. More recently, Sir Julian Brazier was elected as the MP for Canterbury in 1987 and has held the seat for the past 30 years. However, today Labour candidate Rosie Duffield was elected as the MP for the constituency by a tiny margin of just 187 votes. Advertisement

The Conservative manifesto backfired after measures to curb costs of social care were branded a 'Dementia Tax', forcing Mrs May to perform a painful public U-turn.

There was also significant fallout from the PM's decision to refuse to take part in televised debates.

Meanwhile, she was ridiculed for her robotic repetition of the phrase 'strong and stable' and refusal to answer questions directly.

Meanwhile, Mr Corbyn was seen to have performed above expectations, with the Labour manifesto being relatively well received and the leader even managing to dress more smartly.

As a result the polls narrowed dramatically over the course of the past three weeks, with some showing the gap down to as little as a single point.

But Tories had pinned their hopes on the veteran left-winger's track record of supporting the IRA during the 1980s, refusal to back the nuclear deterrent, and soft stance on terrorism continued to dog him.

There were also a series of car-crash interviews by shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, ending when he was forced to sideline her from the post citing 'illness'.

Just yesterday a final model produced by Lord Ashcroft suggested Tory support has 'hardened' in recent days and Mrs May was on course for a majority of 96.

This would have been a substantial increase on the majority of 12 seats the Tories got in the 2015 election.

The latest figures from Lord Ashcroft were based on surveys carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday which showed that Tory supporters indicated that they were more likely to go out and vote than they had in previous surveys.

Mrs May shocked the the nation when she called the snap election in a surprise speech on the steps of no 10 in April.

She described the election as the most important in her lifetime and stressed that only she can be trusted to stand up to Brussels and deliver Brexit.

But the campaign was overshadowed by the terror attacks in Manchester and London.

Mr Corbyn has claimed that he has changed the face of British politics by putting forward a tax and spend manifesto which exerts said is the most left-wing in the party's history.

Former YouGov chief Peter Kellner (pictured right) initially raised doubts about whether the exit poll was right but it ended up being very close to the final result

MAY LED A 'DREADFUL' CAMPAIGN, SAYS EX MINISTER Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry (pictured on the BBC this morning) led the charge against Theresa May Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry led the charge against the embattled Theresa May this morning as she condemned a 'dreadful' Tory campaign. Ms Soubry slammed the Tory campaign for sending out negative messages on key policies like free school meals and social care. Ms Soubry added: 'Theresa did pit her mark on this campaign and she takes responsibility, she always does and I know she will, for the running of the campaign as well. 'It was a tightly knit group and it was her group who ran this campaign' Criticising the Conservative manifesto, Ms Soubry said: 'When you talk about the changes we're going to make to school lunches, you start with the plan that says children from poorer families will now get two free meals a day, you don't start from the basis that some children will lose a free school meal. 'All the way along those of messaging were appalling. And then you had the change of heart on social care deeply flawed Theresa May. 'She didn't look the strong and stable leader Prime Minister and leader she said she was and that was a very difficult and very serious blow in terms of her own credibility.' Advertisement

Brexit is at risk: Farage warns UK faces second referendum

Nigel Farage today warned Britain is 'staring down the barrel' of a second Brexit referendum if Jeremy Corbyn pulls off an unlikely election victory.

The former Ukip leader claimed the mission of getting Britain out of the EU could prove to be 'unfinished business'.

Mr Farage told the BBC he was reluctant to return to the political front lines but that he was prepared to do so if needed to defend Brexit.

Ukip's vote evaporated tonight as the results emerged but split between Labour and the Tories in defiance of expectations it would flood to Mrs May.

Brexit talks are due to begin in Brussels in just 10 days time.

If Labour do seize power, they plan to scrap all the work done on Mrs May's Brexit mission and push for a softer deal on quitting the EU.

Nigel Farage (pictured in London tonight) vowed to make a shock return to the political front line if Jeremy Corbyn pulls off an unlikely election victory

Mr Farage told the BBC: 'What a huge error to pick a Remainer to lead a Brexit party at a Brexit election.

'Massive mistake, but I think that if we do get Corbyn coalition then Brexit is in some trouble.'

Asked whether he would return to the fray if Brexit was in trouble, Mr Farage added: 'I would have absolutely no choice but to do exactly that.'

He added: 'He's not going to be able to build a government on his own, but if we get a coalition with the SNP and whoever else we may well be looking down the barrel of a second referendum.'

He added: 'I think let's say the other result happens, May scrapes through with a majority or forms a minority government, I'm not sure her credibility is going to be very strong in Brussels.

'The timetable, whatever happens here, is likely to get pushed back.'
Courtney Love has slammed a pro-Palestinian activist and accused her of being an 'anti-American fraud' in a Twitter tirade.

Love fired off a series of messages at Linda Sarsour - who helped organize the anti-Trump Women's March earlier this year - on Wednesday morning.

The 52-year-old's outburst was in response to Sarsour's campaign raising money for a Somalian mother who claims she was attacked by a white man in a hate crime and was racially abused.

But police have said it is not a hate crime, while her alleged attackers say they stepped in because they saw another Somali woman hitting a young child in the face with a shoe.

'You're a vile disgrace to women and all mankind @lsarsour,' Love tweeted to Sarsour.

'I worked my a** off my entire life to defend women, I didn't create fake stories and lie about them nor rip people off financially.

Courtney Love has launched a bizarre attack on a women's rights activist, accusing her of being a 'anti-American fraud' in a Twitter tirade. Love is pictured on May 1, 2017

'Now I believe she's nothing less than a fraud.. she appears to be a anti American fear mongering fraud.'

Sarsour was raising money for Rahma Warsame, a 45-year-old mother who lives in Columbus, Ohio, who claimed she was attacked in a hate crime on Saturday night by a white man.

'We must unite against hate. Please support Rahma who was brutally beaten in an alleged hate crime in Columbus, OH,' Sarsour tweet on June 4.

In the days since, more than $110,000 has been raised to support the 45-year-old.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Columbus chapter called for police to investigate the incident and arrest Ricky Boyce, the man accused of punching Warsame.

However, police have since said the incident is not a hate crime.

Boyce also claimed he was defending his girlfriend, Samantha Morales, during a brawl.

Witnesses say that Warsame, who is Somalian, was hitting a young boy in the face with a shoe, sparking Boyce and his girlfriend to step in.

Morales said another Somali woman, 28-year-old Muna Warsame, was swinging a stick at her.

So she told Warsame if she struck her with the stick, she would hit back, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Morales called 911 and accused Muna Warsame, who is not related to Rahma Warsame, of confronting her and threatening to break windows to her home.

Muna Warsame called 911 and accused Morales of kidnapping the boy, which Morales denied.

Warsame claimed she had a stun gun for protection and she was going to confront Morales apartment at her apartment.

Morales said Muna Warsame stunned her hand.

Morales screams can be heard on a 911 call obtained by The Dispatch.

She said other Somali neighbors began attacking Boyce.

Love (left) fired off a series of messages at Linda Sarsour (right) - a Palestinian-American activist who helped organize the Women's March earlier this year - on Wednesday morning

Love attacked the activist in a number of tweets she sent throughout the day on Wednesday

Responding to Love on Wednesday afternoon, Sarsour tweeted: 'Welcome to America where a white woman "celebrity" uses her platform to deny that a Black immigrant Muslim woman was brutally assaulted.

'Where people of color and Muslims must prove their humanity in order for them to be seen as a victim of a brutal crime.

'Thank God I never knew who @Courtney was before today and that was a great thing.'

Love then chimed back in, saying: 'I'm sorry Linda but I feel you're a fraud and you're inciting anti American rhetoric. I have zero faith in you and your plight. very fishy.'

Sarsour shot back: 'Don't apologize for ur veiled anti-Muslim rhetoric. I will always fight for my country to be a better nation that respects all its citizens.'

But Love couldn't let it go, replying: 'That's my point, I never mentioned any religion. you just confirmed to me you're an anti-semite (sic) anti American fraud. Goodbye, I'm done with u (sic).'

Sarsour has been heavily involved in protests against the Trump administration since he went into office.

Sarsour has been heavily involved in protests against the Trump administration since he went into office

She was arrested along with 12 others during Day Without a Woman protests outside Trump's International Hotel in New York.

The 13 women were arrested for civil disobedience after reportedly blocking traffic outside the hotel, an NYPD spokesman told DailyMail.com at the time.

According to the New York Times, Sarsour was raised in Brooklyn by Palestinian immigrant parents.

She had an arranged marriage at the age of 17 and then had her first of three children at 19.

She got her start as an activist defending the civil rights of American Muslims after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and in recent years, protesting against surveillance of Muslim communities.

In June, she sparked protests when the City University of New York's Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy chose her as their commencement speaker.

They were angry at her opposition to Israel. The graduates gave her a standing ovation when she said: 'We in this room together must commit to never being bystanders to poverty, lack of jobs and health care.'

Love was seemingly upset by Sarsour raising money for a woman who claimed to be subject to a hate crime attack - but police have not deemed it one

Critics of Sarsour who don't like her views on Israel had spoken out against her being the keynote, but the school administration stood behind the decision, with the dean saying it was important to listen respectfully to differing ideas.

Pro-Israel critics have spread false internet reports claiming she supports Islamic State militants and Sharia law.

Sarsour also has put her activism toward other causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement, and she was one of four national chairs for the Women's March that led to massive turnouts in Washington, D.C., and around the world.

But a higher profile has also brought more opposition. Her critics have sent around a photo of her with one finger up and saying it was her making a gesture in support of ISIS, when she has called it a global cancer.

Other false accusations include that she supports Islamic law being put in place of the U.S. legal system, based on a sarcastic tweet from 2015 that actually was about ridiculing conspiracy theories around Muslims and the Sharia system.

Sarsour says those accusations are ludicrous.
A marred couple from Pennsylvania were found overdosed on heroin in their bathroom littered with drugs and paraphernalia, after their sons' screams for help alerted a neighbor who called police.

The incident took place Wednesday evening in the 7000 block of Greenwood Avenue in Upper Darby.

The parents, 32-year-old Sean Dolhancryk and 31-year-old Sandra DiCianno, were taken to a hospital for treatment and later booked into jail on charges of possession of a controlled substance, endangering the welfare of children, recklessly endangering another person, and related offenses.

Spared death: Sean Dolhancryk (left),32, and Sandra DiCianno (right), 31, were found overdosed on heroin in their Pennsylvania home after their sons were heard screaming for help

Police were summoned to the family's home in the 7000 block of Greenwood Avenue in Upper Darby (pictured) by a neighbor who heard the boys' cries

Officers who were dispatched to the scene were met at the door by two boys aged four and one. This photo shows the couple with two of their three kids

According to the Upper Darby Police Department, at around 8pm they got a call from a local resident reporting children's scream coming from DiCianno and Dolhancryk's apartment.

Officers who were dispatched to the scene were met at the door by two boys aged four and one.

Mommy and Daddy are up in the bathroom and they are sick, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood quoted the older child as telling the officer, according to Philly.com.

When the officer went upstairs to investigate, he was only able to open the bathroom door a crack and found Dolhancryk passed out against the door. The mother was lying unconscious on the floor next to the toilet.

Lights out: DiCianno (left and right) was lying unconscious next to the toilet. Her husband of nine years (right) was passed out against the bathroom door

Dolhancryk (pictured with his children) and DiCianno were taken to a hospital for treatment and later booked into jail on multiple charges

The officers called for backup and were eventually able to force open the bathroom door, discovering inside three empty bags of heroin, seven full bags, hypodermic needles and a bent spoon.

DiCianno and Dolhancryks sons were initially taken by the Delaware County Children and Youth Services and were later released into the custody of a family member.

According to DiCianno's Facebook page, she and Dolhancryk have been married for nine years. Family photos suggest they also have an older son.
A lawyer for Roman Polanski says his sex crime victim will directly appeal to a judge to end the case against him.

Attorney Harland Braun said the victim, Samantha Geimer, will appear Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court to help make the case that Polanski has served his time for the 40-year-old crime.

'She's tired of this case,' Braun said. 'The judge is just playing games with him.'

The Oscar-winner has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor.

Polanski feared the judge was going to renege on the plea agreement and send him away for more time than the six weeks he served in prison prior to sentencing.

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Roman Polanski's (left) lawyer says his sex crime victim, Samantha Geimer (right), will directly appeal to a judge to end the case against him. Geimer will appear Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court to help make the case that Polanski has served his time for decades old crime

Polanski attacked Geimer, whose surname at the time was Gailey, back in 1977 when she was just 13 years old.

The rape occurred at Jack Nicholson's Mulholland Drive home during a photo shoot. Polanski had picked the ten-13-year-old schoolgirl up, plied her with champagne and drugs after photographing her and forced himself on her.

He makes no denial of it, accepting it was 'morally and legally wrong', according to his lawyer.

Geimer has long supported Polanski's bid to end the case and has forgiven the director. However, she has never appeared on his behalf in court.

His lawyers have been fighting for years to end the case and lift an international arrest warrant that confined him to his native France, Switzerland and Poland, where he fled the Holocaust.

The warrant prevented Polanski from collecting his Academy Award for best director for his 2002 film 'The Pianist.' He was also nominated for 1974's 'Chinatown' and 1979's 'Tess.'

Polanski, 83, is trying to get the Interpol warrant lifted so he can move freely among nearly 190 countries in the global policing network. If that happened, the California warrant would still be valid.

Polanski contends he is the victim of judicial misconduct because the now-deceased judge who handled the case suggested in private remarks that he would not honor a plea bargain agreement.

It called for no more time behind bars for the director after he spent 42 days in a prison undergoing a diagnostic screening.

The Oscar-winner has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 after pleading guilty to having unlawful sex with a minor. Polanski (above in 1977 appearing in court) attacked Geimer, whose surname at the time was Gailey, back in 1977 when she was just 13 years old

The hearing Friday is an effort by Braun to get the court to unseal testimony by the now-deceased prosecutor in the case, who is believed to have testified in a closed session about backroom sentencing discussions.

Braun wants to use the transcript to show Polanski has served his time so the international warrant is dropped. Braun also argues that Polanski served an additional 10 months under house arrest during a failed extradition effort from Switzerland in 2010.

Deputy District Attorney Michele Hanisee wouldn't comment on the case Thursday but was expected to file a response to Polanski's brief.

Prosecutors have vigorously opposed any efforts to end the case without Polanski appearing in court - a position upheld by a state appeals court.

Judge Scott Gordon has rejected Polanski's efforts to resolve the case in the director's absence or with a promise that he wouldn't be sentenced to more time or be arrested if he voluntarily returned for a sentencing hearing.

Back in April she sent a letter to prosecutors in Los Angeles demanding they grant his request to unseal vital testimony which could secure his return to the US.

Deputy Los Angeles District Attorney Michele Hanisee was forced to read her scathing words aloud in court after being compelled by a judge in April.

'You and those who have come before you have never protected me, you have treated me with contempt using a crime committed against me to further your own careers,' Geimer said in her letter.

Polanski lives in Paris with his family, but has been unable to travel to see some of his children due to the outstanding arrest warrant.

Braun told DailyMail.com that 'his daughter is in London but he's unable to get to her.'
The president 'absolutely' has confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions and everyone else in his cabinet, the White House asserted on Thursday.

After two days of dodging, the White House finally cleaned up the latest Trump staffing controversy with an off-camera statement in support of Sessions, who was said this week to have offered his resignation after he infuriated the president.

'The president has confidence in all of his cabinet, and if he didn't they wouldn't be here,' deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Sessions is the fourth official Donald Trump's aides have said the president has confidence in. Two - Michael Flynn and James Comey - were subsequently fired.

The president 'absolutely' has confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions and everyone else in his cabinet, the White House asserted on Thursday

Sessions is the fourth official Donald Trump's aides have said the president has confidence in. Two - Michael Flynn and James Comey (pictured today on Capitol Hill)- were subsequently fired

Trump dismissed Flynn on February 13 following a determination that he'd lied to the vice president. He's seen at the White House three days before at a press conference

The White House left Sessions hanging in the wind this week after a pair of reports revealed a falling out with Trump.

Trump is said to be angry over Sessions' recusal from all election investigations.

ABC News said it had been told by multiple sources that Sessions' 'recusal is one of the top disappointments' of Trump's presidency and he remains 'fixated' on it.

A New York Times A New York Times article likewise said that Trump had 'soured on' Sessions over the recusal and the Department of Justice's appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.

Trump's fury at Sessions was apparent. He assailed DOJ in a series of tweets for the way it was litigating his travel ban.

Trump complained Monday that DOJ sent a 'watered down travel ban' to the Supreme Court.

'The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.' he wrote. 'The Justice Dept. should ask for an expedited hearing of the watered down Travel Ban before the Supreme Court - & seek much tougher version!'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was unable to say Tuesday whether the president was still confident in Sessions' ability to do his job.

'I have not had a discussion with him on the question,' Spicer said. 'I dont, If I haven't had a discussion about a subject, I tend not to speak about it.'

Huckabee Sanders was unable to provide an answer on Wednesday to the same question.

She said Thursday that she was sure the president had confidence in Sessions after speaking to him Wednesday evening.

The 'confidence' question has been a somewhat ominous indicator of where Trump officials stand.

Trump had confidence in Comey and Flynn, until he didn't.

Spicer said last week that Trump 'absolutely' has confidence in Jared Kushner after a spate of reports on his contacts with the Russians in the transition. The Trump son-in-law has been seen at the White House since and the reports have died down.

Trump is said to be angry over Sessions' recusal from all election investigations

A hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday with Comey was all about his claims that Trump repeatedly bothered him to make pronouncement he believed to be inappropriate.

Trump fired Comey on May 9 after losing confidence in him for reasons that are disputed by both parties.

He dismissed Flynn on February 13 following a determination that he'd lied to the vice president.

Kellyanne Conway had proclaimed the president's 'full confidence' in Flynn just before Spicer told reporters that he was under evaluation. Trump asked for his resignation that very same night.

Trump told Maria Bartiromo he had confidence in Comey three weeks before he fired him - although he suggested at the time that he may well fire him.

'No, its not too late, but, you know, I have confidence in him, Trump said. 'Well see what happens. You know, its going to be interesting.'

Spicer repeated the statement of support on May 3, less than a week before Comey was canned.

'The president has confidence in the director,' Spicer had said.

By May 9 he was gone.

Kushner is the only administration official to have survived the confidence kiss-of-death, aside from Sessions.
Not for the first time in the past seven weeks, Tim Farron attracted a fracas.

It happened when the Lib Dem leader went to cast his vote in Kendal, Cumbria.

Photographers craning for a shot became involved in argy-bargy at the polling station entrance.

One of them went flying and words were uttered that you will not find in the Old Testament.

Photographers craning for a shot of Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron became involved in an argy-bargy at the polling station entrance in Cumbria

After trying to regain his position by the door the photographer is floored by the cameraman after his shoulder was yanked down

Typical snappers. Semi-housetrained, many of them. Crossness, angry elbows, bruising: thats general elections for you.

If this one seemed unusually acidic it was perhaps because it pitted the far-Lefts rent-a-gob Momentum movement against the Tories control-freak Aussie campaign manager Sir Lynton Crosby.

Mobbers versus cobbers. Hysteria and hard obstinacy. Shading, humour and English understatement were eclipsed.

Tim Farron attracted a fracas when he went to cast his vote in Kendal, Cumbria. Quentin Letts writes: 'Crossness, angry elbows, bruising: thats general elections for you'

The pattern was set from the first days of the campaign.

Mrs May did an early event in Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, and robotically uttered the slogan strong and stable some 30 times. Local Conservative activists were not exactly overwhelmed.

Jeremy Corbyn, for his first big event, chose Church House at Westminster and similarly spoke to an audience of the converted.

But one Labour figure who caught the eye during the campaign was Geordie ex-miner Ian Lavery, a loyal MP who repeatedly acted as Mr Corbyns warm-up man.

Despite Mr Laverys authenticity, the Corbyn Labour Party avoided the traditional issue of class. Why? Because many working-class voters were palpably repelled by Mr Corbyn!

Knocking on doors in Wrexham with Tory candidate Andrew Atkinson (a professional window cleaner), I heard working-class voters say time and again, weve always been Labour but not this time  not with that Corbyn.

Calm and dignified May was at her most impressive in Downing Street after the Manchester bomb (pictured)

I was in marginal seat Eastbourne with Boris Johnson one day and he was being harangued by a middle-class Remainer in shorts and Panama hat.

A few elections ago, anyone in a Panama hat would have been a Tory. This man was a moaning Leftie. As he was ranting, a gang of builders on some nearby scaffolding spotted Boris and started cheering and shouting their support for him.

In the 2001 election I accompanied Tony Blair to a building site and the hard-hat guys were Labour to a man. Maybe Brexit (and the disappearance of Bullingdon Clubbers Cameron and Obsorne) has finally liberated the Tories from that toxic toff label.

All campaigns take a personal flavour, for politician and reporter. During this stressful period I lost my 59-year-old sister Penny. She died the morning Labour unveiled its (tiny) battle bus and we had the funeral on the day Mrs May had her difficult interview with Andrew Neil. Those events will never leave me as a result.

On Channel 4, Corbyn tamed Jeremy Paxman by joshing with him (like tickling a lion's tummy)

Most impressive moments from the leaders: May, dignified and calm in Downing Street after the Manchester bomb; Corbyn taming Channel 4s Jeremy Paxman by joshing with him (like tickling a lions tummy).

Funny moments: Gordon Brown fleeing like a scalded ferret when I asked him what he thought of Mr Corbyn, and the wonderful dead-sardine stare I earned from Prime Minister May when I asked her if she was perhaps coming across as a bit of a glumbucket.

Whatever the result, the Tories had a poor campaign. One minister texted me, thanking me for NOT mentioning that he was at one May rally, it was so dire an event.

The Corbynites, meanwhile, have work to do rebuilding relations with white working-class ex-Labour voters.

Quentin Letts's funniest moment was when Gordon Brown fled 'like a scalded ferret when I asked him what he thought of Mr Corbyn'

Over pints of Yard Dog bitter I listened in astonishment at the Merry Monk pub, Bishop Auckland, as former Labour activists, including one of Co Durhams best-known Labour agents, Billy Neilson, said they were intending to vote Tory.

And it was not just Brexit. Landlord Chris Burns, 57, a long-standing Labour man and Remainer, was fed up with the party for having so long taken working-class votes for granted.

My voters are finding it difficult to tick the blue box, he admitted, but theyre so peed off, they just might.
In almost three hours of riveting testimony, James Comey offered an unvarnished account of his dealings with Donald Trump.

Inside the chamber he answered questions from a panel of senators whose own political fortunes were changing as he spoke.

He named named, damaged some careers, revived others - and even paid a loving tribute to his wife.

Outside it was not just politicians who were affected, and some of the reputations he boosted weren't even alive.

Here we examine who won and who lost - from England's King Henry II to the New York Times.

WINNERS

James Comey * (see losers)

The polished career FBI man kept his composure, got hailed for his reputation of integrity, and carefully described interactions with the president that troubled him.

Comey, who President Trump has blasted for showboating, dominated the news Thursday

Vladimir Putin

U.S. intelligence says the Russians interfered in the U.S. elections in part to sow divisions, and those were fully on display as major U.S. institutions clashed.

The presidency, the parties, major alliances, the FBI, and other institutions have all been rocked by what the intelligence community says was Russian election interference

Sen. Richard Burr

The Intelligence panel's Republican chairman solicited important information about how Comey perceived a Trump encounter, and displayed non-partisan interest in the truth.

Committee Chairman Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.)

Special counsel Robert Mueller

The former FBI director has already got his hands on Comey's memos, and now has a roadmap to pursue an obstruction investigation.

King Henry II

The late British monarch got a new round of attention for his not-so-subtle encouragement to get rid of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket in 1170 when Comey quoted him  'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?'

Henry II and Thomas a Becket. Henry (1133-1189) became King of England in 1154. Here he is disputing with Thomas a Becket (1118-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury. The two men clashed almost incessantly over the question of the independence of the Church from the authority of the state. The mailed figures represent the four knights who murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170

Comey's wife Patrice Failor

Comey noted that he had to blow off a date with his wife when President Trump unexpectedly asked him to a one-on-one dinner. Now she has a makeup date coming to her, and her husband has plenty of free time.

DATE NIGHT! Comey's wife, Patrice Failor (r) has a date coming to her, since her husband acknowledged to blowing her off on the night Trump wanted to press him about the Mike Flynn investigation

Donald Trump, Jr.

The president's eldest son became a hero for the right by taking shots at Comey while he testified, and no endangered animals were harmed in the process.

Donald Trump, Jr. live-tweeted the event

Investors

The Dow soared 80 points in the afternoon after Comey failed to produce bombshells, and ended up slightly for the day.

Marco Rubio

Rubio explored the limitations of Comey's thread of presidential pressure, on a week when the senator, too, dined with Trump

SMOOTH OPERATOR: Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) expored the limitations of Comey's narrative during his questioning of the witness

Dianne Feinstein

Engaged in sharp questioning of Comey  and got attention online for sporting a seersucker suit.

Nothing says Senate political corruption probe like a seersucker suit, which Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) displayed as part of a 'seersucker Thursday' tradition

D.C. bar owners

Cashed in on the Comey spectacle with watch parties

DRIVEN TO DRINK: People wait in line to get in to watch Former FBI Director James Comey testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill at Shaw's Bar in Washington, DC, USA, 08 June 2017

LOSERS

President Trump

When the former head of the FBI is testifying on live television that you fired him to squelch an investigation into Russian meddling in your election, it's not a good day.

Comey testified that Trump fired him for his handling of the Russia investigation, which isn't the president's preferred talking point

Marc Kasowitz

The president's personal attorney got some facts wrong in his first major statement  and misspelled his client's job title: President.

The president's lawyer Marc Kasowitz misspelled 'president' in the first line of the most prominent statement of his career

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

The deputy White House press secretary channeled Nixon and made a PR blunder when she asserted that 'the President's not a liar'

Huckabee Sanders repeated the premise of the question when she said President Trump wasn't a 'liar'

New York Times

Comey revealed the source of the paper's leak  and now it may have to battle a government requests to hand over documents.

Jeff Sessions

Comey said the attorney general 'knew he shouldnt be leaving' when Trump asked Comey for a one-on-one meeting after an Oval Office confab  and said there were reasons he knew Sessions would have to recuse from the Russia investigation that couldn't be discussed in an unclassified setting.

THAT'S CLASSIFIED: Comey indicated there were things about Sessions he couldn't disclose in public, and clearly decided he wasn't comfortable sharing conversations with the president he had found troubling with his boss

Loretta Lynch

Comey said the Obama attorney general asked him to refer to the Hillary Clinton investigation as a 'matter' instead of a criminal investigation, which it was at the time.

TURBULENCE: Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch delivers her farewell address at the Justice Department on January 11, 2017

Hillary Clinton

Comey's testimony focused on her email scandal instead of her preferred narrative of late  blaming Comey and the Russians for her defeat.

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? Comey spoke about the email investigation that was going on before July of 2016

John McCain

The Russia-hawk and Trump critic's line of questioning was so confusing that even he admitted afterward he didn't know what he was trying to say.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tried to probe mysterious language at the end of Comey's written testimony but didn't get far

James Comey * (see winners)

Although he carried himself well, Comey didn't deliver a new bombshell  and now he must answer for his disclosure that he had his own memos leaked.
A man has been arrested and an imitation shotgun uncovered during co-ordinated counter-terrorism raids in Melbourne linked to Monday's deadly Brighton siege.

About 150 state and federal police raided properties in Ascot Vale, Glenroy and Gladstone Park about 5am on Friday.

They took a 32-year-old man into custody and interviewed two others, aged 31 and 51.

Police say the raids are related to the investigation into how Somalian-born Yacqub Khayre obtained the weapon he used to kill a hotel clerk and wound three police officers on Monday night.

A police officer is seen carrying a laptop in a sealed bag during co-ordinated counter-terrorism raids in Melbourne linked to Monday's deadly Brighton siege

A 32-year-old man has been arrested and an imitation shotgun uncovered during the raids

'They are not persons of national security interest,' Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton told reporters.

'They are, however, persons who are known to us through their criminal history,'

'I want to make perfectly clear, we haven't yet uncovered anybody with links to terrorism who are associated with the offender from the Brighton attack.'

At least half a dozen officers remain at the Ascot Vale unit bagging items as evidence, while AFP officers are at a property in Flemington.

At least five officers are inside the home on Churchill Ave, putting evidence into bags.

Police say the raids are related to the investigation into how Somalian-born Yacqub Khayre obtained the weapon he used to kill a hotel clerk. (There is suggestion the people in the picture have anything to do with the raids or the Brighton attack)

Five people were found in the second unit police searched, including the 32-year-old man who was taken into custody (There is suggestion the people in the picture have anything to do with the raids or the Brighton attack)

At least half a dozen officers remain at the Ascot Vale unit bagging items as evidence

Police officers conduct a raid in housing commission apartment in Ascot Vale on Friday

A crime scene has been established around a black Toyota Celica without number plates and a blue Mazda 3, while a police helicopter hovers above Flemington.

Mr Patton said officers entered the first unit, in Ascot Vale, by force but no one was present.

Five people were found in the second unit police searched, including the 32-year-old man who was taken into custody.

Mr Patton said: 'He's being interviewed by the joint counter-terrorism team.'

A third search warrant was carried out at Gladstone Park, where police located the imitation firearm

Earlier, a witness said at least 20 police were 'running around' on a major road, including Special Operations Group officers

Police say the raids are related to the investigation into how Somalian-born Yacqub Khayre obtained the weapon he used to kill a hotel clerk and wound three police officers on Monday

Residents also reported seeing federal and Victorian officers searching rubbish bins

A witness said at least 20 police were 'running around' on a major road, including Special Operations Group officers

A third search warrant was carried out at Gladstone Park, where police located the imitation firearm, he said.

Police are speaking to a 31-year-old man and his father at that property.

'As it stands, the searches are still very active at this stage,' Mr Patton said.

'As I say, these are in follow-up to the investigation. The purpose of it is to ensure there is no continued threat to the Victorian public in regards to terrorism.'

Earlier, a witness said at least 20 police were 'running around' on a major road, including Special Operations Group officers.

About 150 state and federal police raided properties in Ascot Vale, Glenroy and Gladstone Park about 5am on Friday

A counter-terrorism operation that is under way in Melbourne related to Monday's deadly ISIS-inspired Brighton siege

Residents also reported seeing federal and Victorian officers searching rubbish bins before 6am around Ascot Vale, Fairfax Media reported.

'They are running around like mad,' a caller to 3AW said.

'They're in transit but they must be close because they're running.'

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews earlier confirmed the Friday morning raids are connected to Monday night's Brighton siege.

Khayre (pictured) killed Chinese-born Kai Hao and held an escort hostage before dying in a hail of bullets

Khayre was on parole at the time, shot and killed Chinese-born Kai Hao and held an escort hostage before dying in a hail of bullets.

'A number of warrants are being executed in Melbourne as we speak,' Mr Andrews told Sky News on Friday morning.

'We're obviously limited in what we can say, we don't want to put any of our operational staff in harm's way by speaking about these matters, but they are in connection with the terrible tragic events of Monday in Brighton.

'Terror is not half a world away, there are very real threats in communities right across our nation and there are some practical things we can do and need to do.'
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams claimed on Thursday that when President Donald Trump fingered the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar as a possible state sponsor of terrorism, he wasn't aware the U.S. has its largest regional military base there.

Trump specifically mentioned Qatar as a military ally that hosts the U.S. Central Command when he spoke to the Arab Islamic American Summit two weeks ago in Saudi Arabia.

NBC News suspended and demoted Williams two years ago for fabricating portions of at least 11 separate news stories. He also lost the 'Nightly News' anchor desk as a result of the scandal.

MSNBC host Brian Williams (left) claimed Thursday, based on on anonymous source, that President Donald Trump wasn't aware the U.S. had military bases in Qatar when he sided against the tiny nation in a regional squabble over support for terrorism

Trump said during a May 21 speech in Saudi Arabia that Qatar 'hosts the U.S. Central Command' and 'is a crucial strategic partner'  and a National Security Council official now says he's heard the president discussing Qatar-based U.S. forces with foreign leaders

A National Security Council official told DailyMail.com on Thursday that Williams' report is wrong.

'It's false,' the official said, noting that he has been in the room when Trump spoke to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar.

'I was in the room and heard the whole thing. They discussed the bases and the welfare of US troops,' the official said of one call, adding that the president had also discussed America's Qatar-based military installations with at least one leader of the United Arab Emirates.

Al Udeid Air Base is a gigantic U.S. facility in Qatar that hosts about 10,000 U.S. military personnel. The U.S. Combined Air Operations Center is based there, commanding U.S. and allied air force operations over Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

In addition, the nearby As Sayliyah Army Base is used largely as a warehouse and pre-positioning facility for war materiel on its way to Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Trump tweeted about the effort to isolate Qatar on Tuesday, setting off concerns about fragile alliances in the region as Saudi Arabia and other nations cut off diplomatic ties

This aerial view shows just one area of the sprawling Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, a section known as 'Ops Town'

United States Army troops walk across a compound filled with weapons warehouses at As Sayliyah military base in Qatar

Despite the presence of those bases near Doha, Qatar's capital, Trump sided with Saudi Arabia on Twitter this week and took credit for a bloc of four Arab nations staking out 'hard line' positions against the Qataris for funding terror groups and siding with arch-enemy Iran.

Qatar does have strong relations with Iran, which backs Hezbollah and other terror groups. The tiny nation supports rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar-al Assad, and has backed the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

'During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!' Trump tweeted Tuesday.

'So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!' Trump added.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain announced on Monday that they had cut all diplomatic ties and closed air, sea and land links with Qatar. The four nations also pulled their ambassadors out of Doha, ejected Qatar's diplomats and gave Qatari nations two weeks to leave.

Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud became close during the Arabic Islamic American Summit in Riyadh last month

Williams, the NBC News veteran who appeared Thursday with co-anchor Nicolle Wallace (right), was suspended from his job for sic months in 2015 for fabricating parts of at least 11 news stories

Williams on Thursday painted Trump as a bumbling stumbler who waded into a global crisis without understanding America's national interests.

'I would love to know what the president's dealing with the situation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia was today,' he said Thursday alongside co-anchor Nicolle Wallace, 'because he almost set the region on fire on Twitter.'

'A person familiar with his thinking told us both yesterday they're not sure the president knew there were Americans stationed in Qatar.'

Williams did not say who that person was, if he or she works in the White House, or how close his source is to Trump.

Wallace cautioned that the president was not likely to blame for Qatar's sudden pariah status in the Persian Gulf region, but suggested that Commander-in-Chief Trump isn't up to speed on where his military assets are.

'I don't have any reason to suspect that he is the cause of what's happening in Qatar,' she said, 'but I think it is fair to say that if there is a crisis, this would be the first time he was briefed on exactly where our bases are in the region.'

Trump and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani took part in a bilateral meeting in Riyadh on May 21 but Trump later criticized his nation for supporting terrorism

During his Riyadh speech on May 20, Trump mentioned a number of regional alliances that he hoped to draw on to fight terrorists globally.

'Every country in the region has an absolute duty to ensure that terrorists find no sanctuary on their soil,' he said, noting that 'many are already making significant contributions to regional security.'

After describing anti-ISIS help from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates, Trump declared: 'Qatar, which hosts the U.S. Central Command, is a crucial strategic partner.'

The NBC News channel on YouTube features a complete video of the speech.

Williams, at one point considered the future of NBC News, saw his career nearly end after his false reporting and lies came to light.

'I said things that weren't true,' he admitted to 'Today' show co-host Matt Lauer in June 2015. 'I own this, I own up to this.'

'This was clearly ego driven, the desire to better my role in a story,' he said then.

Williams had previously been the most-watched nightly news anchor and signed a lucrative five-year contract reportedly worth about $50 million.

The spectacular crash of his fortunes earned him the nickname 'Lyin' Brian' in some corners of the Internet and the news business.
420 or bud (marijuana), coke (cocaine), Molly (MDMA) and smack (heroin) are all commonplace slang terms that people are familiar with in the United States.

But a report produced by the Drug Enforcement Administration from May 2017 includes a comprehensive list of bizarre and whacky list of slang names used to name drugs.

And while the average person may be familiar with every day street terms, words like wacky tobacky, cabbage, ghana, muggle and rainy day woman - all to call marijuana - are definitely not ones you here everyday.

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A report produced by the Drug Enforcement Administration from May 2017 includes a comprehensive list of bizare and whacky list of slang names used to name drugs

Molly is actually called MDMA and is called dance pills out at circuit parties

Even pop culture references like Beyonce (heroin), Scooby Snacks (MDMA, Yellow Submarine, Top Gun and Rocky III (crack) and Yale (crack) are included on the list.

But the DEA Houston branch - who created the report - does list an important disclaimer in their list.

All the single doses! Pop culture is a huge influence as to what drugs are named according to the list. Beyonce is commonly used to mean heroin

Movies anyone? Top Gun and Rocky III are common names for crack

Even schools! Ivy League schools even have room on the list with Yale being used as a cover for crack

The report said: 'Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information presented,

'However, due to the dynamics of the ever-changing drug scene, subsequent additions, deletions, and corrections are inevitable.'

The DEA said: 'Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information presented, 'However, due to the dynamics of the ever-changing drug scene, subsequent additions, deletions, and corrections are inevitable'

Tech companies are also listed throughout the report with Facebook and Yahoo standing for fentanyl mixed with heroin in pill form and the latter as crack cocaine.

There is a good portion of the list in Spanish which suggest that drug traffickers are attempting to confuse agents.

For example, words like lechuga (lettuce) and ditto mota stand for marijuana and weed while Muchacha (girl), pollito (little chicken), ventanas (windows), and pinatas are said to be words for meth.

But it is important to note that while a lot on the list does seem very surprising, some words are outdated and simply aren't used by the mainstream anymore.

And in the case of a good portion of the marijuana list - including Girl Scout Cookies, Blue Cheese and Maui Wowie - some of the words weren't slang at all but are actually popular weed strains.

But the list is detailed nonetheless and the words used to describe different drugs will surely come as a surprise.

Page 1 of the report list different types of drug by their name

Names used for cocaine: Angel Powder, Audi, Azucar, Pez, Pillow and Baby Powder

It is hard to imagine that singer Beyonce would be a fan of her name being associated with heroin

A lot of the marijuana list seems to include popular strains of weed; Girl Scout Cookies and Blue Cheese are two favorite strains among user

LSD is commonly known as acid but black acid, teddy bears and purple hearts are other names

Alice, boomers, buttons and caps are common slang terms that are associated with mushrooms
Horrifying footage showing 'Middle Eastern' men beating a beachgoer with bats covered in 'nails' at Bondi's famed north beach has been released to the public in a bid to identify those responsible.

The 34-year-old victim, Michael Nicholas, was allegedly set upon by the attackers over his romantic involvement with a girl.

The attack happened about 1pm on Thursday February 16 at Bidigal Reserve at North Bondi in front of dozens of witnesses including young children in broad daylight.

The attackers remain on the run.

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The video shows at least three men wielding poles and sticks attacking another man just metres away from shocked onlookers

The victim suffered significant lacerations to his head and abrasions to his body.

He was treated by paramedics as blood ran down his face in front of shocked onlookers.

The perpetrators were described as being of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance and of 'solid build'.

Bondi Rescue star Anthony 'Harries' Carroll was pictured on the scene helping the wounded man as he was put on to a stretcher.

Man beaten and poddy after an attack by at least three men with iron bars at North Bondi

The 34-year-old victim, Michael Nicholas, was treated at the scene as shocked beachgoers looked on

Bondi Rescue star Anthony 'Harries' Carroll was pictured on the scene helping the wounded man as he was put on to a stretcher

A witness, who spoke to Daily Mail Australia on condition of anonymity, said: 'I heard a bit of noise and looked up to see a man running down the steps of north Bondi.

'Three big guys were right behind him with a round piece of wood with nails in.

'They set on the guy and hit him all over his head and body. In front of kids and families. Then they walked back up the steps very calmly.

'The guy who was attacked then walked down to the path and slumped on the floor covered in blood.

NSW paramedics treated the victim at North Bondi beach for lacerations to his head and abrasions to his body

Police believe the men escaped in the white mercedes sedan, which was last seen travelling south along Campbell Road, North Bondi following the attack

New South Wales police released a picture of a car involved, described as a white Mercedes sedan.

Police believe the attackers escaped in the car, which was last seen travelling south along Campbell Road, North Bondi following the attack.

Anyone who may be able to help identify the men or assist police with their investigation is urged to make themselves known to police.

The man is tended to following the attack which happened in front of onlookers in broad daylight

The attack happened about 1pm on Thursday February 16 this year at Bidigal Reserve at North Bondi

The perpetrators of the attack were described as being of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance and of 'solid build'
After a shaky start the shock exit poll appears to accurate as Britain is heading for a hung Parliament.

At 10pm last night the exit poll, commissioned by the BBC, Sky and ITV, suggested shock Tory losses that would wipe out Mrs May's majority and reduce her to 314 seats from the 330 won in 2015.

It was carried out by NOP/Ipsos MORI and asked 30,450 people at 144 polling stations how they voted in today's general election - far more than the normal 1,000 person sample.

As the first real results rolled in from around the country, a chaotic picture emerged with some results still showing strong Tory votes around midnight.

The BBC's David Dimbleby admitted the broadcasters could be 'hung, drawn and quartered' after producing an exit poll forecasting Tory losses that might be wrong

Former YouGov chief Peter Kellner (pictured analysing the results tonight) has suggested the exit poll could be 'wrong' and the Tories could even get a majority of 100

The BBC's David Dimbleby admitted the broadcasters could be 'hung, drawn and quartered' after producing an exit poll forecasting Tory losses that might be wrong.

Former YouGov chief Peter Kellner said the poll could be so wrong the Tories still get a majority of 100.

Even the man behind the exit poll, Professor John Curtice, admitted his forecast of a hung parliament could turn out to be a Tory majority of 30.

But as the night went on, Labour gained more seats than was ever predicted before this snap election.

And by 3am the exit poll even appeared to underestimate the power of the Labour surge.

Several of Theresa May's ministers were expected to lose their seats. One of her manifesto authors, Ben Gummer lost his seat to Labour's Sandy Martin in Ipswich.

Treasury minister Jane Ellison was the first casualty  losing Battersea in South London in a disastrous night for the party in the capital.

Meanwhile, the pre-election pollsters face another inquest into their performance after missing the extent of the Labour surge last night.

The final poll from ICM suggested that Theresa May was on course for a substantial 12-point lead over Jeremy Corbyn.

It put the Conservatives on 46 per cent and Labour on 34 per cent  indicating a majority for Mrs May of about 60 seats.

Mrs May expected to increase her majority but has presided over embarrassing results

Theresa May could be deposed as both Prime Minister and Conservative leader after her election gamble looked to have dramatically backfired

And yesterday afternoon, a survey by Lord Ashcroft predicted a majority for Mrs May of around 76 seats.

In its final poll, ComRes put the Tories ahead by ten points, Panelbase by eight points and YouGov and Opinium by seven points. It amounts to yet another disaster for the polling firms, which failed to predict Brexit last year.

Only two companies indicated the Tories would be short of an overall majority.

Kantar said the Conservatives were ahead of Labour by five points, suggesting they would be short of a majority by four seats. And Survation said the Tories were only ahead by one point, which translated as being short of a majority by 16 seats.

But while the final polls got the result wrong, last nights exit poll  commissioned by the BBC, ITV and Sky News  was far more accurate. The survey, carried out by GfK and Ipsos MORI, was based on interviews with 20,000 voters at 144 polling stations.

Former Conservative minister Anna Soubry (pictured on the BBC this morning) led the charge against the embattled Prime Minister as she condemned a 'dreadful' Tory campaign.

The early results suggested a chaotic picture where the country could have changed so much the techniques used in the exit poll simply no longer work.

One theory is that localised turn out surges could be dramatically overturning expectations - suggesting a post code lottery of results.

As the early results came in, the picture in the election became more confused:

I n Sunderland Central, there was a swing of 2.3 per cent from Labour to the Tories - in defiance of the exit poll.

But in neighbouring Newcastle Central, the result was a swing of more than 2 per cent against the Tories and in line with the exit poll.

The first result in the south saw Swindon North held by the Tories - but on a swing of 3.7 per cent to Labour. This beats the exit poll in Jeremy Corbyn's favour.

In Kettering the Tories again held a safe seat but the swing was against them by 2.6 per cent - despite it being strongly Brexit territory.

In Scotland, the SNP vote collapsed in Rutherglen. Labour won the seat but the Tory vote surged - hinting at gains for Mrs May north of the border.

Within minutes of the exit poll being published at 10pm former YouGov chief Peter Kellner suggested the exit poll could be 'wrong' and the Tories could even get a majority of 100.

Professor Curtice played this down on the BBC tonight but said a Tory majority of 30 was possible.

As the shocking exit poll was published, Mr Kellner told the BBC: 'The exit poll expectation was a swing of 3.5% towards Labour. What we have seen is the exact opposite.

'So these two results unquestionably will be cheering the Conservatives up after a pretty grim hour.

'But whether that cheer will carry on in the seats that really matter, we will have to wait and see.

'These very early declarations are the exception, everywhere else it will take a far longer.'

He added: 'If the exit poll is as wrong everywhere as it has been in these first two results then you could have an 80 or 100 Conservative majority.

'But even if you dial that down you could still have a majority as 30 or 40.'

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said it was still 'entirely possible' the Tories would finish the night with an overall majority.

It was carried out by NOP/Ipsos MORI and asked 30,450 people at 144 polling stations how they voted in today's general election - far more than the normal 1,000 person sample - but the early results suggest it could be wrong

Former Chancellor George Osborne told ITV News: 'On the EU night it was these early north east seats that began to tell you that what we expected would happen wasn't going to happen.

'Although they are safe Labour seats if they show a consistent swing towards Labour and that Ukip are splitting towards Labour that reinforces the exit poll.

'All the Conservatives have to do is bring the Ukip votes over. If that hasn't happened tonight that will be quite a revelation.'

International Development Secretary Priti Patel played down the exit poll and said: 'It's not what we are seeing already.'

Conservative Defence Secretary Michael Fallon cautioned against reading too much into projections 'before we have had a single actual result'.

Labour's John McDonnell agreed that it was too early to call the result, but added that if the poll was correct it would 'change the nature of politics' in the UK.

A Labour source said: 'This would be, by miles, the largest increase in popularity for a party during an election campaign.'

SNP Deputy Leader Stewart Hosie said it would be an 'extraordinary thing' for Theresa May 'to call this election for narrow party advantage and then, if these numbers are correct, to blow it incredibly'.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel played down the exit poll and said: 'It's not what we are seeing already.'

Former Chancellor George Osborne (pictured on ITV tonight) told ITV News the exit poll suggested the night's results could be a 'revelation'

Former Labour foreign secretary Jack Straw said the exit poll result would be of 'great personal credit' to Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell, who he said had run a vigorous campaign in the face of Mrs May's 'weak and wobbly' leadership.

He told BBC News: 'The Labour Party as a whole has been very disciplined in this election.

'It's got behind Jeremy Corbyn, it's got behind the manifesto and, if this exit poll is anything to go by, it would suggest we have done better than most people thought.'

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: 'If the exit poll is true then Theresa May has put Brexit in jeopardy.

'I said at the start this election was wrong. Hubris.'

Mr Nuttall's predecessor Nigel Farage also questioned Mrs May's position, saying: 'Whatever the true result, the Conservative party needs a leader that believes in Brexit.'

In recent elections exit polls have been close to the result - getting it almost exactly right in 2001, 2005 and 2010.

The exit poll stunned Westminster in 2015 by showing David Cameron as on course for victory after a campaign thought to have been neck and neck.

Historically the record is more mixed: In October 1974, the exit poll predicted a majority of 132 for Harold Wilson - he actually secured a majority of 3.

There was no exit poll after the EU referendum last year - one of the reasons the final result was such a shock.
Emily Thornberry has called for the Prime Minister to quit after she showed 'hubris' in calling an election to get a 'blank cheque' for Brexit.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary criticised Theresa May for her pride in calling the election and acting like 'she could have a coronation'.

Her comments comes as an exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats - down from 330 - with Labour on 266, the SNP on 34 and Lib Dems on 14.

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Emily Thornberry has called for Theresa May to stand down after she showed 'hubris' in calling an election to get a 'blank cheque' for Brexit

The Shadow Foreign Secretary criticised Theresa May for her pride in calling the election and acting like 'she could have a coronation'

Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry at the Islington North count

She told Sky News: 'Just think only seven weeks ago the hubris of the Prime Minister who was 20 points ahead, who wanted to have a blank cheque, she wanted to do whatever she wanted with the country with Brexit, with the economy, with our National Health Service and we said no and we meant it.

'And we put forward a popular manifesto with a leader of the party who has withstood the most extraordinary personal attacks, and has actually shown if anybody was strong and stable it was him.

Ms Thornberry said Mrs May should 'consider her position' as she will have 'manifestly failed' if the exit poll turns out to be correct

'And this is a great result, if it's true.'

Ms Thornberry said Mrs May should 'consider her position' as she will have 'manifestly failed' if the exit poll turns out to be correct.

On what Labour would do, she added: 'We will see what happens next but if the Labour Party is called on to provide the next government, we will do so and do it in a unified way under a popular manifesto... with a leader who is strong.'

But when the Shadow secretary was asked what her next movements would be, she said: 'Let's see I'm not even an MP I would really like to be elected tonight. I would like real results.'

When she appeared on Channel 4's alternative election night, Ms Thornberry looked confident as she was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman.

She said: 'We haven't had a single result yet but, it looks pretty good.

'Seven weeks ago, Theresa May went to the election thinking because she was 20 points ahead she could have a coronation, that she could do whatever she wanted with the country and the country said no.

When Paxman asked, 'What do you think Theresa May herself should do?', the Shadow minister replied, 'She should go', to deafening applause from the Channel 4 audience.

She added: 'It was hubris. He [Corbyn] has put up with the most extraordinarily amount of personal abuse with such grace and has not indulged in personal attacks and has run a positive campaign that we've all been able to unite around.

'We excelled what anyone would have thought.'

'Let her try [to form a minority government]. And when she fails we will put together a Queen's speech and a budget and we will ask other MPs to vote for it and if they don't then they will have to explain to their constituents how they've let the Tories back in.'

Jeremy Corbyn cast his ballot at a local school in his constituency of Islington in north London

In an ITV interview, she said that a high turnout could help the Labour vote.

She said: 'All I can tell you is that exit polls have largely been right since 1992, so I think it's probably a good baseline.

'I can't tell you what has been going around the country because I have been working hard at getting people out to vote in my constituency.

'I have heard from my friends that the turnout has been high which could help the Labour vote, particularly if young people come out to vote.'

Ms Thornberry told ITV News: 'I suspect that if the Tories are the largest party they will try and form some sort of minority government'

Asked if Jeremy Corbyn would be the next Prime Minister, she said: 'We will have to wait and see. I suspect that if the Tories are the largest party they will try and form some sort of minority government.

'But if they aren't able to then we are prepared to be the next government, we look forward to implementing a highly popular manifesto that will transform this country.'

The Shadow Foreign Secretary's appearances provoked a mixed reaction on Twitter.

While some gushed about the Labour politician, others labelled her as 'smug'.

Nick Clegg has backed Tim Farron's claims that he will not make any deals with either the Labour or Conservative party.

He said: 'I've seen in Sheffield a resurgance in the Labour vote.

'Whatever happens its clearly a complete boomerang election for the Conservatives. They were treating it close to a coronation.

'There's absolutely no way the Liberal Democrats should endorse that by putting Jeremy Corbyn or Theresa May in number 10.

'One of the reasons we've got to this sorry pass is because the Conservatives had the extraordianary arrogant assumption that the referendum would be a breeze.

'Now we have a general election come from the hubris.

'When is the Conservative party going to stop treating the country like a plaything.'

Former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said: 'If this is correct we'll have another general election soon.'

Harriet Harman tweeted: 'Holding my breath! Hardly daring to hope! Theresa May/feet of clay! Downing st removal vans for her!'

Tory Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told the BBC: 'This is a projection, it's not a result.

The pound slumped on the bombshell news tonight, as markets had priced in a solid Tory win

'These exit polls have been wrong in the past.'

Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell also warned against reading too much into the prediction, saying: 'We have to have some scepticism about all polls at the moment.'

Sir Craig Oliver, former director of communications at Downing Street for David Cameron, told Sky News: 'If this is true, if this is accurate in CCHQ there will be deep and lasting shock.

'It was the biggest gamble a politician has taken for a long time and if that exit poll is right, it's failed.'

Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg told ITV: 'When is the Conservative party going to stop treating the country like a plaything?'

Award-winning filmmaker Ken Loach, a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, added: 'If this is true, it's an extraordinary result for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, starting so far back and written off.'

He said it would be recognition of Mr Corbyn as a 'man of principle' rather than Mrs May's 'robot' persona.

George Osborne said: 'This is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and Theresa May.

'It is early days, it's a poll, if the poll is anything like accurate this is completely catastrophic for the Conservatives and for Theresa May.

'It's difficult to see, if these numbers are right, how they would put together the coalition to remain in office.

Emily Thornberry told Channel 4: 'Theresa May went to the election thinking because she was 20 points ahead she could have a coronation'

'But equally it's quite difficult to see how Labour could put together a coalition.

'It's on a real knife-edge.'

He added: 'Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader.'

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said: 'If the exit poll is true then Theresa May has put Brexit in jeopardy. I said at the start this election was wrong. Hubris.'

Twitter users have criticised Emily Thornberry for acting too smug in her interviews after the shock exit poll. One user wrote: 'I would love for the exit poll to be catastrophically wrong just to wipe the smug face off Emily Thornberry'

Another wrote: 'I literally love Emily Thornberry so much she's my favourite politician by far'

Another Twitter user wrote: 'Just love it if that smug grin is knocked off Emily Thornberry's face'

Mr Nuttall's predecessor Nigel Farage also questioned Mrs May's position, saying: 'Whatever the true result, the Conservative party needs a leader that believes in Brexit.'

In private, Labour activists were jubilant.

One senior party source pointed out Mrs May had said repeatedly during the election campaign that if she lost six seats she would no longer be Prime Minister, adding: 'If this exit poll is correct, her credibility is completely shot.'

Lord Ashcroft tweeted: 'Labour figures told Laura Kuennesberg the exit poll 'feels unbelievable'. Will start to see soon.'

Losing seats would be an unprecedented setback for a Prime Minister who called a snap election while riding high in the polls.

The estimate was greeted with disbelief on social media, with Gary Lineker branding it the 'biggest own goal' in history. Piers Morgan said the PM was 'toast'.

Theresa May arrives at the polling station in her constituency of Maidenhead this morning to cast her ballot - as the polls suggested her support has hardened in the closing days

However, the exit poll - which interviewed 30,450 people as they exited from 144 polling stations across the UK - appears to have found that dozens of constituencies are too close to call, suggesting the picture could change.

Alan Clarke, head of European fixed-income strategy at Scotiabank, said: 'If this result is confirmed, Theresa May will have thrown away a bigger majority of 17 seats.

'There has got to be a good chance that she stands down as Prime Minister in this environment.

'The betting websites have Boris Johnson as 2:1 to be the next prime minister after Theresa May.'
Stanford lecturer Mark Veregge has been charged with prowling after he allegedly stalked his former student

A Stanford lecturer has been accused of stalking the home of his former student while dressed in women's underwear.

Mark Veregge, would allegedly visit his victim's home in San Francisco, California, in the middle of the night- sometimes in just a bra and heels, but always in women's underwear, CBS San Francisco reports.

He would then allegedly creep up to his student's car and check to see if it was unlocked, before heading back to his car and driving off.

The victim's family captured his many alleged visits - which apparently began in 2015 - on their surveillance camera but are confused about why Veregge singled out this classmate.

The once-reputable music lecturer - who graduated from Julliard and has performed with the California Symphony - has now been charged with prowling, which under California law could have him jailed for up to nine months and fined for $1000.

Police are still investigating the case, but Veregge is scheduled to appear in court later this month, CBS San Francisco reported.

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An Indiana high school has barred a graduate from accepting his diploma with his classmates after he showed up at a ceremony wearing a Marine Corps uniform, it was reported on Thursday.

Jacob Dalton Stanley arrived at his Crown Point High School senior class graduation ceremony at Star Plaza Theatre on Tuesday night in Crown Point, Indiana.

Unlike his classmates, however, Stanley arrived in full dress blue Marine uniform, according to The Times of Northwest Indiana.

After graduating in December, Stanley had joined the Marines and completed the corps boot camp on Friday.

He then flied home over the weekend to take part in graduation ceremonies.

Stanley participated in rehearsals with his classmates before the ceremony.

An Indiana high school has barred a graduate, Jacob Dalton Stanley (above), from accepting his diploma with his classmates after he showed up at a ceremony wearing a Marine Corps uniform, it was reported on Thursday

Stanley arrived at his Crown Point High School senior class graduation ceremony at Star Plaza Theatre on Tuesday night in Crown Point, Indiana. Unlike his classmates, however, Stanley arrived in full dress blue Marine uniform

During preparations, he was told by the school principal, Chip Pettit, that he would not be permitted to wear his uniform.

When school officials noticed that Stanley ignored the principal's warning and came to the ceremony in military dress, they turned him away.

Stanley's name was also not read during the traditional handing out of diplomas.

Pettit told The Times that he was following longstanding policy in enforcing a uniform dress code at graduation.

Students are required to appear in standard cap and gown. Those who have earned special distinctions such as exceptional academic achievements or enlistment in military service wear stoles or chords over their gowns.

'This practice has served us well as it has allowed the class to show unity by dressing the same, but also allowing for individual accomplishments to be recognized by wearing stoles and chords,' Pettit said.

When school officials noticed that Stanley ignored the principal's warning and came to the ceremony in military dress, they turned him away. Stanley's name was also not read during the traditional handing out of diplomas. Crown Point High School is seen above

'Last night, at our 135th graduation ceremony, students in all of the aforementioned groups wore their gowns, stoles and chords with great pride.

'We have continued wearing the traditional gown as this is the last formal event of the year and a celebration of the time our graduating seniors have spent at Crown Point High School.

'This tradition is not intended to be disrespectful to students, parents, or our community, but as a source of pride for our students.

'It is also not intended to be disrespectful to our students choosing to serve in the military, our active duty servicemen and women and our veterans.

'We are forever grateful for the sacrifices that they make on a daily basis for our freedom,' Pettit said.

The decision by Pettit angered Stanley's classmates.

Leann Tustison, a fellow Crown Point graduate, said it was 'absolutely ridiculous.'

'He's in the military putting his life on the line for us,' she said.

'It's unacceptable that he was not allowed to walk across the stage. If he wants to walk across the stage in his uniform that he worked so hard for and earned, he should have the right to do that. That's his achievement. They honored other people's achievements whether they were in triathlon or other activities,' she said.

Just a few miles away in nearby Hobart, a high school graduate who had also enlisted in the Marine Corps was permitted to wear her military uniform during commencement ceremonies on June 1.

Just a few miles away in nearby Hobart, Ana Kritikos (seen above), a high school graduate who had also enlisted in the Marine Corps was permitted to wear her military uniform during commencement ceremonies on June 1 (left)

Marine Private First Class Kritikos (seen standing in the center), who, like Stanley graduated early so she could enlist, said that she had received full support from high school administrators when she informed them she wanted to wear her uniform

Marine Private First Class Ana Kritikos, who, like Stanley graduated early so she could enlist, said that she had received full support from high school administrators when she informed them she wanted to wear her uniform.

'They have been absolutely amazing. It is OK with the Marines for us to wear our uniforms at high school graduation,' Kritikos said.

'I know the School Board, the principal and superintendent talked about it and were in agreement that I could wear my Marine uniform.'

The school board's superintendent, Peggy Buffington, said that Hobart goes out of its way to recognize graduates who join the military.

'They have been absolutely amazing. It is OK with the Marines for us to wear our uniforms at high school graduation,' Kritikos said. 'I know the School Board, the principal and superintendent talked about it and were in agreement that I could wear my Marine uniform'

The school board's superintendent, Peggy Buffington, said that Hobart High School (above) goes out of its way to recognize graduates who join the military

'We recognize audience members and future military in our graduates by having them stand. It is always a very special and patriotic moment where the audience roars with applause,' Buffington said.

'This year was especially nice, because Ana Kritikos graduated midterm and landed just in time for the graduation ceremony.

'We did recognize her and the achievements she has made in the Marines, already.

'She is a Private 1st Class Military Occupation Specialist. She is currently serving in Virginia in their specialist class involved with intelligence and started her training in January. We are extremely proud of her accomplishments,' Buffington said.

A spokesman for the US Marine Corps. said the military does not get involved with the dress code for graduations.

'The Marine Corps does not dictate what specific high schoolers can or cannot graduate in,' said Marine Corps Maj. Clark Carpenter.

'That decision is up to school leadership.'
Nicola Sturgeon (pictured today) refused to resign after the SNP took a battering in Scotland and admitted her dogged pursuit of a second independence referendum had cost seats

Nicola Sturgeon could face the sack after admitting her dogged pursuit of a second independence referendum cost the SNP seats.

The First Minister's party lost a staggering 21 MPs north of the border - down to 35 from 56 in 2015 - after Ruth Davidson's pro-Union Tories made huge gains.

An SNP source told MailOnline there would be 'questions' over Ms Sturgeon's leadership.

Her deputy John Swinney has also conceded they may have to look again at demanding Indyref2 after losing so many seats.

Speaking today Ms Sturgeon said SNP plans for another independence referendum were 'undoubtedly' a factor in the election result - but refused to admit it was 'dead'.

She said: 'It is an inescapable fact we suffered bitterly disappointing losses last night. The independence referendum was undoubtedly an issue in this election but it was not the only issue'.

When asked if she'll now dump Indyref2 she suggested it could be postponed - not scrapped - and said: 'I'm going to pause and reflect carefully on the result and move forward in the best interests of all of Scotland'.

She added said her party had 'clearly won the election in Scotland' and secured more seats than the other parties combined with a second vote at the heart of their manifesto.

SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson and former first minister Alex Salmond were both dumped out of office by the Conservatives yesterday.

The Tories' seats are up from one to 13 and Ms Davidson is now being urged to take a 'leading role' in London - and is among the favourites to replace Theresa May after her election nightmare.

Labour won seven seats in Scotland  up from the one they had left following their 2015 election wipeout.

Scottish Conservative leader Davidson said plans for a second independence referendum were now 'dead' and Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said the issue must 'disappear'.

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Nicola Sturgeon said she was 'disappointed by the SNP losses', but she added the result was the second best ever for the party

Elated Tory leader Ruth Davidson, pictured this morning with her partner Jen Wilson

Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson were among the SNP big hitters to lose their seat

Nicola Sturgeon is facing massive backlash against her renewed bid to break up Britain.

The loss of 21 seats is the worst electoral reversal suffered by an SNP leader in nearly 40 years.

Ms Sturgeon explained it by saying: 'I strongly suspect there were independence supporters amongst those who voted for Jeremy Corbyn yesterday,' she said, stressing that 'rushing to overly-simplistic judgments' about the election was 'not the right thing to do'.

Deputy first minister John Swinney said earlier: 'Clearly the focus on the message of saying no to a second independence referendum gained very significant traction.

'We saw that and we felt that.'

Nationalists who lost their seats to the Tories In an astonishing night of political upheaval in Scotland, seats lost include: SNP Mike Weir lost his seat of Angus to Tory Kirstene Hair SNP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik lost Ochil and South Perthshire to Tory Luke Graham SNP Margaret Ferrier lost Rutherglen and Hamilton West to Labour's Gerard Killen SNP Anne McLaughlin lost Glasgow North East to Labour's Paul Sweeney SNP John Nicolson lost East Dunbartonshire to Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson SNP Kirsten Oswald lost East Renfrewshire to Tory Paul Masterton Advertisement

Ms Sturgeon also slammed Theresa May for calling election and said she must now abandon her 'reckless' plans for Hard Brexit and 'keep the UK in the single market'.

Sturgeon also said the prime minister had 'lost all authority and credibility,' and should resign.

Ruth Davidson is being talked about as a possible replacement.

Lord Ashcroft, a former deputy chairman of the Conservatives, said: 'Increasing calls even at this stage for Ruth Davidson taking a leading role in the national Conservative Party and rightly so.'

It is now highly unlikely that the nationalists will be able to hold a second referendum with just 35 seats.

Before the polls opened, Ms Davidson warned of the dangers of further 'constitutional wrangling'

She said: 'Every seat the SNP takes, will on Friday be hailed as a ringing endorsement of independence.

'As ever, she will try claim that Scotland has spoken with one voice. Her voice.

'I want that claim to ring hollow. I want to silence it once and for all.'

Ms Sturgeon insisted her party had won the election in Scotland - returning more MPs than its rivals combined.

The SNP leader added: 'It is an inescapable fact that we also suffered some bitterly disappointing losses last night.'

She paid tribute to Mr Robertson, who had been MP for Moray since 2001, describing him as a 'politician and parliamentarian of immense stature, who week after week held the Prime Minister to account, providing the scrutiny that the official opposition in the House of Commons failed to do'.

Ms Sturgeon continued: 'I want to also make particular mention of Alex Salmond, my friend and mentor for almost 30 years, and without a shadow of a doubt the giant of modern Scottish politics - someone who has devoted his life to serving this country.'

Before yesterday's election, the SNP was in control of all of Scotland apart from a few seats - the picture has changed completely today

The 2015 result, in which the SNP won all but three of the seats in Scotland, was an 'exceptional, perhaps once in a century' achievement, she said.

'Traditionally in Westminster elections, the SNP is squeezed by the main UK parties.

'Indeed in this campaign we have seen the return of a dominant two-party system in England.

The Conservatives won former First Minister Alex Salmond's seat of Gordon in Aberdeenshire

'This makes the SNP's achievement of winning a clear majority of seats in Scotland all the more remarkable.

'However, as we do after all elections, we will reflect on these results, we will listen to voters and we will consider very carefully the best way forward for Scotland, a way forward that is in the interests of all of Scotland.'

With the Tories having lost their majority, she said the SNP would 'work with others, if it is at all possible, to keep the Tories out of government'.

Ms Sturgeon stated: 'We've always said that we would work in alliance with others to promote progressive policies to build a fairer country.

'We stand ready to play our part in that alliance.'

She criticised Theresa May, who called a snap election in a bid to boost her party's slender majority at Westminster - a gamble which spectacularly backfired on the Conservative leader.

The Prime Minister had now 'lost all authority and credibility', Ms Sturgeon said.

She added: 'The damage the Tories have done to the stability and the reputation of the UK cannot be overstated.

'In less than a year they have caused chaos on an industrial scale.

Angus Robertson was ousted from Parliament by Conservative Douglas Ross and Salmond lost his seat of Gordon in Aberdeenshire to Tory Colin Clark.

There was a wave of victories including a win for Douglas Ross (left) in Moray where he swept aside SNP depute leader Angus Robertson (right)

Other prominent nationalists who lost their seats include Mike Weir who was defeated by Tory Kirstene Hair, and Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik who lost the Ochil and South Perthshire seat to Tory Luke Graham.

The success of Ms Davidson's Tories in Scotland is in stark contrast to the situation south of the border, where Theresa May (pictured today) has lost seats and is struggling to maintain her authority

The success of Ms Davidson's Tories in Scotland is in stark contrast to the situation south of the border, where Theresa May has lost seats and is struggling to maintain her authority.

Ms Davidson said her party had enjoyed an 'historic night'. She told BBC Scotland: 'Indyref2 is dead, that's what we have seen tonight.'

Sturgeon refused to accept criticism over her party's losses, insisting it was Theresa May who took the biggest hit.

She told BBC Scotland: 'She [Mrs May] called an election clearly very arrogantly thinking she was going to crush the opposition, sweep everybody aside and cruise to a landslide majority.'

Ms Sturgeon added: 'I've always said the SNP would want to be part of a progressive alternative to a Tory government.

'I'm disappointed at the SNP losses but I'm pleased that we've won the election.

After losing his seat, Mr Salmond said: 'The SNP has lost a number of fine parliamentarians this evening, that is a grievous blow for us.

'But overall results show the SNP will win a majority of the seats in this country and a majority of the votes.'

The former nationalist leader, who was first elected as an MP 30 years ago in 1987, was defeated by Tory Colin Clark.

Mr Salmond vowed: 'You've not seen the last of my bonnet and me,' quoting a Jacobite song.

After winning 56 of the 59 Scottish constituencies in 2015, this time round the SNP lost seats to the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats

First Minister and SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon was mobbed by SNP supporters as she arrived at the counting hall

Jubilation: Ruth Davidson, whose Scottish Conservatives ejected Mr Salmond from Gordon and Mr Robertson from Moray, said her party is enjoying an 'historic night'

SNP depute leader Angus Robertson, 47, pictured with his wife Jennifer, 35, has been spectacularly ousted from Parliament by the Tories, as the nationalists saw their share of the vote slump

Conservative candidate Douglas Ross and his wife Krystle arriving at the Elgin Town Hall

After winning 56 of the 59 Scottish constituencies in 2015, this time round the SNP lost seats to the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats

Ruth Davidson's party swept aside Nationalists across the country and by 4am this morning had won 11 seats, with several key targets still to declare

Sturgeon said: 'This has been a disaster for Theresa May. She called an election clearly very arrogantly thinking she was going to crush the opposition, sweep everybody aside and cruise to a landslide majority'

The SNP lost the first seat of the night north of the border to Labour, with Gerard Killen winning Rutherglen and Hamilton West with 19,101 votes, beating Margaret Ferrier who polled 18,836 votes.

Labour also won Glasgow North East from the nationalists, ousting Anne McLaughlin, and defeated the SNP in Midlothian and East Lothian.

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale told BBC Scotland, 'the reality is the SNP vote is crumbling in their urban heartlands'.

She added: 'I've got a few fantastic new generation of Labour MPs going down to the House of Commons next week.'

SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson was ousted from Parliament by Tory and football referee, Douglas Ross. The Conservative secured 22,637 votes, defeating Mr Robertson, who was the SNP's Westminster leader, on 18,478.

Pete Wishart, who was the chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee in the last parliament, held on to his Perth and North Perthshire seat by just 21 votes, with Tory MEP Ian Duncan coming close to ousting him.

After the devastating loss of his Gordon seat, Salmond left the count with his wife Moira

Labour's Paul Sweeney celebrates with his mum Anne, after winning the Glasgow North East seat

Glasgow North East candidate Paul Sweeney (centre) at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow

Elsewhere, Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Renfrewshire East, Stirling and Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk also turned from yellow to blue.

In East Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson regained the seat from the SNP's John Nicolson.

Ms Swinson had held the seat for a decade before being ousted by Mr Nicolson in 2015.

And the SNP also lost out in East Renfrewshire, this time to the Tories.

Paul Masterton took the constituency - which 20 years ago had been the safest Tory seat in Scotland - from the SNP's Kirsten Oswald.

The results came after an exit poll suggested the SNP could lose 22 seats across Scotland.

Conservative Scottish Secretary David Mundell told BBC Scotland: 'It's becoming increasingly clear the SNP bubble has burst.'

Labour celebrated another victory after winning the seat in Edinburgh South

Despite the losses, Sturgeon said: 'I've always said the SNP would want to be part of a progressive alternative to a Tory government'

But in Paisley and Renfrewshire South, the SNP's Mhairi Black was re-elected with 16,964 votes - although the party's support in the seat fell by 10 per cent.

Ms Black became the youngest MP when she won the seat in 2015 at the age of 20, ousting then Labour shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander.

Gavin Newlands has held the neighbouring Paisley and Renfrewshire North seat for the SNP.

Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser saidit was an 'astonishing decline'.

The Scottish Tories enjoyed their best result in 25 years following a remarkable resurgence thanks to their staunch opposition to independence.

Under charismatic Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson the party has been enjoying a revival. Since 2001, the Tories have only held one seat in Scotland.

Any improvement at all would mark their best result since 1992 when it had 11 Scottish MPs. All were swept away in Labour's 1997 landslide.

ALEX SALMOND LOSES SEAT AFTER 30 YEARS IN PARLIAMENT In happier times: Alex Salmond, then SNP MP for Banff & Buchan, celebrating election an win with his wife Moira Salmond in June 1987 Alex Salmond bounced back to a prominent role in the SNP as foreign affairs spokesman after stepping down as first minister and party leader after defeat in the Scottish independence referendum. He was elected to the Gordon seat in 2015, ending decades of Liberal Democrat rule by deputy party leader Sir Malcolm Bruce who stood down ahead of the election. Mr Salmond joined the party in 1973 while at St Andrews University and was elected MP for Banff and Buchan in 1987, gaining prominence when he was suspended for a week for disrupting the chancellor's Budget speech the following year. He said later the incident - in which business in the Commons was suspended while Mr Salmond was expelled from the chamber - took him from 'total nonentity to notoriety'. He took over the leadership of the SNP for the first time in 1990 and remained at the helm in 1997 when the SNP increased its tally of MPs to six and played a key part in the successful campaign for a new Scottish Parliament. The first Holyrood election took place in 1999, with Mr Salmond becoming MSP for Banff and Buchan. He stood down as SNP leader in 2000 and left the Scottish Parliament the following year, and despite refuting speculation he would return to the top job, saying - 'If nominated, I'll decline; if drafted, I'll defer; and if elected, I'll resign' - he stood on a joint ticket with Nicola Sturgeon marking the start of a decade-long partnership. In 2007, he returned to Holyrood as MSP for Gordon and the new first minister, a position he held for seven years making him the longest serving. Four year later, his party won an unprecedented overall majority at Holyrood and secured a referendum on the long-held SNP dream of Scottish independence. Advertisement

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon lost more than 20 seats as Scots rejected her plans to hold a second referendum
The infamous 'dirty dossier' of supposedly compromising material the Russians held on Donald Trump got a new shot of attention when fired FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday he couldn't discuss it in public.

Comey referenced 'salacious' charges against the president high up in written testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee  which brought on questioning about the document during his blockbuster in-person testimony on Thursday.

Some of the allegations in the document compiled by an ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele have been discredited.

Republican Senate Intelligence chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina was among those trying to probe the dossier and its allegations at Thursday's Comey hearing.

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Former FBI Director James Comey testified repeatedly Thursday he could only discuss certain things, including the dirty dossier, in closed session

'In the public domain is this question of the Steele dossier, a document that has been around out in for over a year. I'm not sure when the FBI first took possession of it, but the media had it before you had it and we had it. At the time of your departure from the FBI, was the FBI able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the Steele document?' Burr wanted to know.

Mr. Chairman, I dont think thats a question I can answer in an open setting because it goes into the details of the investigation,' Comey replied, leading to a long pause from Burr.

Comey also referenced in written testimony that Trump had called him up and specifically rejected a charge that he had anything to do with 'hookers' in Russia.

In a March 30 phone call, according to Comey, Trump called and said he 'had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia.'

Intelligence Committee Chairman Senator Richard Burr asked Comey questions about the dirty dossier

According to an article in Bloomberg News, Comey could have introduced the Russia statements to give special counsel Robert Mueller an avenue to explore the veracity of Trump's statements.

Comey brought up the dossier in the first page of his written testimony, writing: The [Intelligence community] leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.'

The dossier also contains an unverified claim about an offer by a Putin ally to offer Trump hundreds of millions of dollars through a sale of a stake in Rosneft.

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who set-up Orbis Business Intelligence and compiled a dossier on Donald Trump, in London where he has spoken to the media for the first time

'And when you read the dossier, what was your reaction, given that it was 100 per cent directed at the president-elect?' Burr persisted.

'Not a question I can answer in open setting, Mr. Chairman,' Comey responded.

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked: 'In regard to [Trump} being personally under investigation, does that mean that the dossier is not being reviewed or investigated or followed up on in any way?

Comey responded: 'I obviously can't comment either way. I talk in an open setting about the investigation as it was when I was head of the FBI. It is Bob Mueller's responsibility now. I don't know,' he said.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak speaks during a chess tournament at the Russian embassy May 13, 2017

U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) asks questions at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in Washington, U.S., June 7

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., confer as former FBI director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 8, 2017

He also wouldn't say whether fired national security advisor was a central figure in the FBI's Russia investigation.

'Now, on the Flynn investigation, is it not true that Mr. Flynn was and is a central figure in this entire investigation of the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Russians?' King asked.

'I can't answer that in an open setting, sir.'

'Certainly, Mr. Flynn was part of the so-called Russian investigation? Can you answer that question?' King pressed.

'I have to give you the same answer,' said Comey.

'Did you ever come close to closing the investigation on Mr. Flynn?' asked Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

'I don't think I can talk about that in open setting either,' Comey responded.

CNN reported that during a closed session that followed the public hearing, Comey said attorney general Jeff Sessions may have had a third undisclosed meeting with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

Comey said in the open hearing regarding Sessions: 'We considered whether to tell -- the attorney general ... we believe rightly he was shortly going to recuse,' but didn't say why.

Sessions ultimately recused himself from the Russia probe after contacts with Kislyak were revealed.
Sporting fans may be unable purchase get full-strength beer at Perth's new state-of-the-art $1.5 billion stadium if the Western Australia Premier gets his way.

Mark McGowan has been criticised for the decision to approach the Liquor Licensing board to prevent customers from purchasing their favourite beer.

The ambition has been met with swift outrage by other politicians who described McGowan's efforts as 'peak nanny state.'

Western Australia Premier is attempting to ban full-strength beer in Perth's new $1.5 billion stadium

Mark McGowan wants a blanket full-strength beer ban on the stadium, including corporate boxes, members and premium guests

Perth Stadium is due to open early 2018 and will be home to both the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers in the AFL

The new stadium, due to open early 2018, would be the first in Australia with a blanket full-strength ban.

Some arenas in Australia, including Sydney's ANZ Stadium, only have mid-strength beers available at certain events, but there are always full-strength options for members, premium guests and corporate boxes.

'I don't think it should be a two-tiered system,' McGowan told The Daily Telegraph.

However, he says wine and spirits should be allowed because they are served in smaller cups.

'The beer, in my experience, you go through it pretty quickly.'

The idea has been met with widespread disapproval, with Liberal MP Aaron Stonehouse labelling the idea as 'peak nanny state.'

Mark McGowan has been criticised for the decision to approach the Liquor Licensing board to prevent customers from purchasing their favourite beer

'You can't market a stadium as a world class venue and then refuse to serve full-strength beer in corporate boxes.'

Stonehouse instead wants the stadium to employ a larger security staff and implement better procedures to tackle alcohol-related behaviour.

'Even some dry-as-a-bone countries in the Persian Gulf know better than that.

Thinking that just because something has the potential to deliver a bad outcome, we must ban it.'
Hyperloop One, the firm hoping to build Elon Musk 760mph 'floating pods', has revealed a shortlist of routes .

A proposed nine routes across Europe announced at a meeting held in Amsterdam, including three in the UK, will join 11 previously outlined for the US.

The main north to south branch in Britain would see journey times from London to Edinburgh slashed to just 50 minutes.

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Hyperloop One set on an idea laid out by billionaire Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind electric car company Tesla and private space exploration endeavour SpaceX. It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum (artist's impression pictured)

The plans include 11 lines across the US and nine lines across Europe, including three in the UK. The main north to south route (pictured) in Britain would see journey times from London to Edinburgh slashed to just 50 minutes

HYPERLOOP EUROPE Until recently, Hyperloop One had the only working testing facility in the world, the DevLoop track in the Nevada desert. But in recent weeks, it was announced that a Dutch team has constructed their own version ahead of its own proposed Amsterdam to Paris route. The US start-up behind Hyperloop has already released a list of 35 routes in locations around the world vying to put the near-supersonic rail transit system to the test. And the company hopes to have three functioning routes by 2021. Representatives from groups behind the planned lines in the UK and Europe met with Hyperloop One on Tuesday to make their cases for the best option. In the UK, three routes have been picked. These will face competition from six other routes across the continent. Advertisement

The Hyperloop One system will see pods rocket along rails through reduced-pressure tubes at speeds of up to 760 miles (1,200 kilometres) per hour.

By the end of this year, Hyperloop One will have a team of 500 employees dedicated to bringing the technology to life.

The US start-up hoping to create Hyperloop has already released a list of 35 routes in locations around the world vying to put the near-supersonic rail transit system to the test.

The proposed routes will connect over 75 million people in 44 cities, spanning 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometres).

Representatives from groups behind the planned lines in the UK and Europe met with Hyperloop One this week to make their cases for the best option for the continent.

In the UK, three routes have been picked, that could see lines built from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow to Cardiff and a third route connecting cities in the North to Scotland.

These will face competition from six other routes across the continent, including Corsica to Sardinia in France, Tallinn in Estonia to Helsinki in Finland, an Autobahn route in Germany, the Dutch Loop in the Netherlands, Warsaw to Wroclaw in Poland and Madrid to Tangiers in Spain.

THE PROPOSED EUROPEAN ROUTES Route Name Route Length Corsica to Sardinia 280 miles (451 km) Estonia to Finland 56 miles (90 km) Germany 1,237 miles (1,991 km) Poland 258 miles (415 km) Spain to Morocco 391 miles (629 km) The Netherlands 266 miles (428 km) UK North to South 414 miles (666 km) UK Northern Arc 339 miles (545 km) UK Scotland to Wales 657 miles (1,060 km)

Executives from Hyperloop One announced nine planned lines in the UK and Europe when they visited Amsterdam this week. Under Dubai's scheme (artist's impression) there would be several stations throughout the city connecting the hyperloop system to Abu Dhabi

In the UK, three routes have been picked (pictured), that could see lines built from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow to Cardiff and a third route connecting cities in the North to Scotland

'Europe embraces new ideas in transportation like no other region in the world and is uniquely positioned to take the next great leap in transportation with Hyperloop One,' said Shervin Pishevar, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Hyperloop One.

'Our vision is to, one day, connect all of Europe with our Hyperloop One system, networking the entire continent.'

Josh Giegel, the co-founder of Hyperloop One, added: 'We're looking forward to showcasing our technology and believe that Europe is the perfect region for one of the world's first Hyperloop systems.'

The London-Edinburgh scheme was led by an Edinburgh University team that has plans to take the route via Birmingham and Manchester.

The 30-metre (98 ft) test tube for the hyperloop is seen in Delft, where a Dutch team is setting up a full-scale testing centre for the superfast hyperloop technology (stock image)

UK ROUTES In the UK, three routes have been picked, that could see the following lines built: - A North to South route, connecting London to Edinburgh via Manchester and Birmingham. The total journey time would be 50 minutes. - A 'Northern Arc' from Liverpool to Glasgow, via Manchester, Newcastle Leeds and Edinburgh. The total journey time would be 47 minutes. - A Scotland to Wales route, running from Cardiff to Glasgow. The total journey time would be 50 minutes. It seems likely that these three routes will interconnect, to allow passengers to transfer between lines. Advertisement

If selected, it would mean travelling between the two capital cities would take just 50 minutes, compared to current train journeys of 4.5 hours, and the journey from London to Manchester would take around 26 minutes.

The Hyperloop One Grand Challenge was first launched in May 2015, and received 2,600 entries.

Viable submissions had to be condoned by government agencies that would likely be involved in regulating and, ideally, funding the futuristic rail.

The three UK bids will also battle it out with other international semi-finalists, inlcuding Sydney to Melbourne, Shanghai to Hangzhou and Mumbai to Delhi.

There is also a number of US teams in contention.

Eleven semi-finalist teams from the Hyperloop One Global Challenge presented their routes on April 6, which would connect 35 states across more than 4,200 miles.

This includes some of the most heavily trafficked regions in the US, such as Los Angeles to San Diego, Miami to Orlando, and Seattle to Portland.

And, the longest route connecting Cheyenne to Houston, would run 1,152 miles through four states and cut the trip down from 17 hours by car to just an hour and 45 minutes.

According to Rob Lloyd, CEO of Hyperloop One, the technology will 'move passengers and cargo faster, cleaner, and more efficiently.

He added: 'It will transform transportation as we know it and create a more connected world.'

Hyperloop One set on an idea laid out by billionaire Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind electric car company Tesla and private space exploration endeavour SpaceX.

Hyperloop One currently has the only working testing facility in the world, the DevLoop track in the Nevada desert (pictured). It allows pods to rocket along rails through reduced-pressure tubes at speeds of up to a theoretical maximum of 760 miles (1,200 kilometres) per hour

The hyperloop is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes

A number of designs have been submitted for how the pods themselves would function, including for the LA to San Francisco line (artist's impression pictured). The construction cost has been estimated at between $16 billion (10 billion) and $100 billion (65 billion)

Hyperloop One says the system offers better safety than passenger jets, lower build and maintenance costs than high-speed trains, and energy usage, per person, that is similar to a bicycle.

It was unveiled by Musk in 2013, who said it could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes a plane.

It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum.

This is what the Hyperloop One could look like if it gets given the go-ahead in the UK. The pods would carry passengers and cargo between the cities (artist's impression pictured)

The near supersonic train could take you from London to Manchester in just 18 minutes. There are currently 35 proposed routes around the world, including one in Dubai (artist's impression pictured). In the UK, four routes have been picked (stock image)

They also envisage a 360 defree terminal that, called a portal. All departure gates are immediately visible upon entering the building, and a simple numbering system allows passengers to quickly identify them

The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes.

Passengers would sit in either individual or group pods, which would then be accelerated with magnets.

Capsules carrying six to eight people would depart every 30 seconds, with tickets costing around $20 (13) each way.

The cost of building a line from LA to San Francisco has been estimated at $16 billion (10 billion) - although critics say it would be nearer $100 billion (65 billion).

Dubai announced last year its plans for building a line linking it to the Emirati capital of Abu Dhabi within the next five years.
It is the most detailed glimpse of bird life 100 million years ago ever seen.

Researchers have revealed a stunning hatchling trapped in amber, which they believe was just a few days old when it fell into a pool of sap oozing from a conifer tree in Myanmar.

The incredible find shows the head, neck, wing, tail and feet of a now extinct bird which lived at the time of the dinosaurs in unprecedented detail.

The 'most complete hatchling specimen' ever to be seen has been unearthed by scientists. An international team of experts made the stunning find, which has been encased in this 3-inch piece of amber, in China

THE OPPOSITE BIRDS The hatchling belonged to a group of birds known as the 'opposite birds' that lived alongside the ancestors of modern bird. Archaeologists say they were actually more diverse and successful  until they died out with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. They had major differences from today's birds, and their shoulders and feet had grown quite differently to those of modern birds. Advertisement

Researchers have nicknamed the young enantiornithine 'Belone', after a Burmese name for the amber-hued Oriental skylark.

'It's the most complete and detailed view we've ever had,' Ryan McKellar of the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Regina, in Canada, a member of the team that described the find, told New Scientist.

'Seeing something this complete is amazing. It's just stunning.'

The hatchling belonged to a group of birds known as the 'opposite birds' that lived alongside the ancestors of modern birds and , archaeologists say, were more diverse and successful  until they died out with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

'We report on the most complete bird preserved encased in Amber uncovered to date, including most of the skull and neck, a partial wing and hindlimb, and soft tissue of the tail, the morphologies of which refer this specimen to the Enantiornithes,' the researchers wrote in Gondwana Research.

While it looks as if the actual skin and flesh of the bird are preserved in the amber, the amber shows a very detailed impression of the animal. Amber miners who found the specimen thought that they had found a 'strange' lizard's claw until they realised it was a bird

Researchers have nicknamed the young enantiornithine 'Belone', after a Burmese name for the amber-hued Oriental skylark. Pictured here are preserved feathers that show that the hatchling died during its first feather molt

'The proportions of the bird and morphology of the plumage indicate a very young individual, adding the mounting data that the Enantiornithes were highly precocial; however, the scarcity of body feathers represents a distinct departure from living precocial birds.

The amber even preserve some of the feather colours, although the researcher admit they are a boring brown.

Previous fossil finds have led researchers to believe the 'opposite birds' hatched with flight feathers making them able to fend for themselves.

The hatchling had a full set of flight feathers and was growing tail feathers, but lacked body feathers.

The amber even preserve some of the feather colours, although the researcher admit they are a boring brown

'The plumage includes filamentous body feathers that resemble proto-feathers, scutellae with distal bristle-structures, mature remiges, and erupting ornamental rectrices, revealing an unexpected diversity of primitive and derived feather morphotypes present in the plumage of early birds,' the team wrote.

They probably hatched on the ground and climbed into trees, says McKellar, making them particularly likely to get stuck in sap.

Birds are believed to have evolved around 150 million years ago, when a group of meat-eating dinosaurs spread their wings and took to the skies.

They then split into two distinct groups: the lineage that led to modern birds, called the ornithuromorphs, and the opposite birds, or enantiornithines - of which this bird belongs.

In appearance, opposite birds likely resembled modern birds, but they had strange shoulder bones.

The area where the shoulder blade met the shoulder girdle was convex.

This means they had a socket-and-ball joint in their shoulders where modern birds have a ball-and-socket joint. The difference led to their name.

They also had claws on their wings, and jaws and teeth rather than beaks, which had not yet evolved in any birds.

The amber containing the bird was collected by a museum in China several years ago.

When it realised what it had, the museum contacted Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, who led the team that described the find.
Japanese carmaker Honda spelled out for the first time its plans to develop autonomous cars which can drive on city streets by 2025, building on its strategy to take on rivals in the auto market of the future.

Unveiling its mid-term Vision 2030 strategy plan, Honda said it would boost coordination between R&D, procurement and manufacturing to tame development costs as it acknowledged it must look beyond conventional vehicles to survive in an industry which is moving rapidly into electric and self-driving cars.

The firm has already revealed plans to market a vehicle which can drive itself on highways by 2020, and the new target for city-capable self-driving cars puts its progress slightly behind rivals like BMW.

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Japanese carmaker Honda spelled out for the first time its plans to develop autonomous cars (stock) which can drive on city streets by 2025, building on its strategy to take on rivals in the auto market of the future

HONDA'S TIMELINE 2020: Market a vehicle which can drive itself on highways. 2025: Plans to develop autonomous cars which can drive on city streets by 2025. At this time, the Japanese carmaker also said it will these vehicles will be equip with 'level 4' standard automated driving functions. This means the cars can drive themselves on highways and city roads under most situations. 2030: Develop electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its long-held goal for lower-emission gasoline hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to account for two-thirds of its line-up. Advertisement

'We're going to place utmost priority on electrification and advanced safety technologies going forward,' Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo said.

Developing new driving technologies, robotics- and artificial intelligence-driven services and new energy solutions also would be key priorities for Honda in the years ahead, the company said.

Honda established a division late last year to develop electric vehicles (EVs) as part of its long-held goal for lower-emission gasoline hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) to account for two-thirds of its line-up by 2030, from about 5 percent now.

By 2025, Honda plans to come up with cars with 'level 4' standard automated driving functions, meaning they can drive themselves on highways and city roads under most situations.

Achieving such capabilities will require artificial intelligence to detect traffic movements, along with a battery of cameras and sensors to help avoid accidents.

BMW has said it would launch a fully autonomous car by 2021, while Ford Motor Co has said it will introduce a vehicle with similar capabilities for ride-sharing purposes in the same year. Nissan Motor Co is planning to launch a car which can drive automatically on city streets by 2020.

Honda has been ramping up R&D spending, earmarking a record 750 billion yen ($6.84 billion) for the year to March.

By 2025, Honda plans to come up with cars with 'level 4' standard automated driving functions, meaning they can drive themselves on highways and city roads under most situations (pictured is Honda's self-driving car concept)

The Japanese carmaker's goal for 2030 appears to be in line with a report released by Goldman Sachs Economics Research last month that had suggested autonomous vehicles will take 25,000 jobs a month away from US drivers.

'Our auto analysts distinguish three phases of autonomy, namely the automation of some functions (e.g. adaptive cruise control with lane centering), semi-autonomy (i.e. a driver is only required under certain traffic or weather conditions), and full autonomy,' Goldman Sachs shared in the report.

SIX LEVELS OF AUTOMATION Level Zero - The full-time performance by the human driver of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even when enhanced by warning or intervention systems Level One  A small amount of control is accomplished by the system such as adaptive braking if a car gets too close Level Two  The system can control the speed and direction of the car allowing the driver to take their hands off temporarily, but they have to monitor the road at all times and be ready to take over. Level Three  The driver does not have to monitor the system at all times in some specific cases like on high ways but must be ready to resume control if the system requests Level Four  The system can cope will all situations automatically within defined use but it may not be able to cope will all weather or road conditions. System will rely on high definition mapping. Level Five  Full automation. System can cope with all weather, traffic and lighting conditions. It can go anywhere, at any time in any conditions. Advertisement

'Our colleagues expect the market shares of semi- and fully autonomous cars sales to exceed 20% around 2025 and 2030 respectively, as social acceptance and regulation are likely to remain substantial barriers to adoption for a while. '

The analysis has suggested that drivers will slowly begin losing their jobs over the next few years, but come 2042, there will be a massive increase in autonomous cars replacing human workers - the job loss is predicted to occur at a rate of 25,000 per month, or 300,000 a year.
A tiny clipping from a New Zealand newspaper more than 100 years ago predicts the effects of global warming 'may be considerable in a few centuries'.

The author links the burning of coal and warming of the atmosphere - describing it as a 'blanket' for the Earth.

The snippet is only ten lines long and was probably just a 'filler' for a newspaper - but it suggests people understood the effects of burning coal earlier than thought.

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The four-sentence article (pictured) was sandwiched between an article on a skipping machine and another about a Russian tunnel that would connect the Black and Caspian Sea

THE 1912 CLIPPING The author links the burning of coal and warming of the atmosphere - describing it as a 'blanket' for the Earth. The snippet was is only ten lines long and was probably just a 'filler' for a newspaper. The 'greenhouse' effect was officially first discovered in 1824 by a French mathematician and physicist, Joseph Fourier. He calculated that if take into account the size of the sun and Earth and the distance between them then the earth should be far cooler than it actually is. The finding suggests people knew about global warming and the impacts of burning coal earlier than originally thought. Advertisement

The clipping from 14 August 1912 was published in the Rodney and Otamatea Times and found online at the National Library of New Zealand.

The four-sentence article was sandwiched between an article on a skipping machine and another about a proposed Russian tunnel that would connect the Black and Caspian Sea.

The piece had also appeared in Australian newspapers - on 10 July 1912 in the Shoalhaven Telegraph and then in the Brainwood Dispatch on 17 July of the same year.

'The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year', the unknown journalist wrote.

'When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly'.

'This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the Earth and to raise its temperature', he said.

The article finished with the prophetic line; 'The effect may be considerable in a few centuries'.

The finding suggests people knew about global warming and the impacts of burning coal earlier than originally thought.

And its predictions appear to be coming true.

Today, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere are at their highest for at least the last 800,000 years.

Fourteen of the sixteen warmest years on record have occurred since 2000, with 2015 confirmed as the warmest year globally on record.

'Such a run of high temperatures is extremely unlikely to have occurred in the absence of human-caused climate change,' it says.

The author links the burning of coal and warming of the atmosphere - describing it as a 'blanket' for the Earth (stock image)

The 'greenhouse' effect was officially first discovered in 1824 by a French mathematician and physicist, Joseph Fourier.

He calculated that if take into account the size of the sun and Earth and the distance between them then the earth should be far cooler than it actually is.

This lead him to believe there was some sort of blanket mechanism which was keeping the Earth warm.

That figure is now known to be around 33C colder than it would be otherwise.

In 1859 John Tyndall, an Irish physicist, shows the greenhouse effect is created by the accumulation of gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour.

'We've known about CO2 and warming for about as long as we've known about evolution, or continental drift, or the age of the Earth,' said Dr Cameron Muir at the Research centre for the National Museum of Australia in Canberra told Stuff.co.nz.
Yesterday, a shocking report suggested that Samsung phones were using technology that could spy on users through a technique called 'beaconing.'

Claims suggested that the creepy technology could monitor everything you're reading and watching online, including personal emails and even porn.

But Samsung has dismissed the claims, and reassures that 'ultrasonic beacon technology is not embedded in devices.'

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Samsung has dismissed the claims, and reassures that 'ultrasonic beacon technology is not embedded in devices' (stock image of the Galaxy S8 smartphone)

HOW YOUR PHONE COULD BE SPYING Inaudible signals could be tracking your TV and web surfing habits more closely than ever before. Hundreds of apps and websites are embedded with ultrasonic cross-device tracking technology that pick up inaudible 'beacons' emitted from advertisements. This allows marketers to create personalised ads based on your interests, as they are able to determine your location and what activities you may be engaged in. These signals can be picked up by a range of devices, including phones and TVs. Signals are sent without the user's permission or knowledge. Advertisement

The shocking claims were made by Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, while speaking with The Sun Online.

Mr Killock told The Sun: 'Samsung want to get to know you  but they are behaving like a peeping Tom.

'Samsung have taken spying on their customers to a whole new level.

'What you can't see, and can't hear, won't worry you  or so it hopes.

'It needs to own up and switch it off before their customers wise up and ditch them.'

Hundreds of apps and websites are embedded with ultrasonic cross-device tracking technology that pick up inaudible 'beacons' emitted from advertisements.

This allows marketers to create personalised ads based on your interests, as they are able to determine your location and what activities you may be engaged in.

And while beaconing is mentioned in the firm's privacy policy, this is in reference to the use of beacons on websites, rather than in the phones themselves.

The privacy policy states: 'We, along with certain third parties, also may use technologies called beacons or pixels that communicate information from your device to a server.

'Beacons can be embedded in online content, videos and emails and allow a server to read certain types of information from your device, know when you have viewed particular content or a particular email message, determine the time and date on which you viewed the beacon and the IP address of your device.'

While beaconing is mentioned in the firm's privacy policy, this is in reference to the use of beacons on websites, rather than in the phones themselves

But Samsung has reassured that beacons are not used in its phones.

A spokesperson for Samsung told MailOnline: 'Samsung takes consumer privacy very seriously and our products are designed with privacy in mind.

'We would like to assure our customers that ultrasonic beacon technology is not embedded on Samsung mobile devices.

'Our privacy policy on beacons applies to the use of web beacons, a technology that is widely used across the industry and differs significantly to that of ultrasonic beacons.

'There is no relation between ultrasonic beacons and the functions embedded on our mobile products.'

The claims come just weeks after Google banned an army of Android apps that use beacons to spy on users.

Researchers revealed that hundreds of Android applications are embedded with ultrasonic cross-device tracking technology that pick up the inaudible beacons emitted from advertisements.

'A recent practice embeds ultrasonic beacons in audio and tracks them using the microphone on mobile devices,' reads a study from Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany.

'This side channel allows an adversary to identify a user's current location, spy on her TV viewing happens or link together her different mobile devices'.

While conducting their investigation, the team found 234 Android apps were made using the publicly available tracking software.

Hundreds of apps and websites are embedded with ultrasonic cross-device tracking technology that pick up inaudible 'beacons' emitted from advertisements (stock image)

And these apps were found to listen 'in the background without the user's knowledge'.

The researchers from Braunschweig University of Technology found many of the apps that contain the code were developed for large companies such as McDonald's and Krispy Kreme.

Instead of tracking the user with the smartphone's GPS it uses the audio beacon emitted from the loudspeakers positioned at the entrance of a store to determine whether the consumer had walked into the store.

Game apps were also found to partake in this 'threat to privacy'.

ZDNET reported that games, such as Pino Henyo, are designed to open a user's smartphone microphone without them knowing and listen for ultrasonic tones.

Google announced that all the apps discovered in the study have been either suspended or updated to meet privacy policies.
If predictions of melting Antarctic sea ice through 2100 are correct, we may be at risk of losing emperor penguins.

While some species are able to adapt to climate change, melting Antarctic ice will strip emperor penguins of their breeding and feeding grounds, putting their numbers at risk.

New research predicts that by the end of the century, emperor penguin populations could decline by up to 99 per cent.

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By the end of the century, Antarctica's emperor penguin populations could decline between 40 and 99, research by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has found.

The new research, conducted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, reports that while penguin dispersal may help sustain their populations for a limited time, as sea ice conditions continue to deteriorate, the 54 colonies of emperor penguins that exist today will face huge reductions in numbers by the end of the century.

'We know from previous studies that sea ice is a key environmental driver of the life history of Emperor penguins, and that the fifty-percent declines weve seen in Pointe Geologie populations along the Antarctic coast since the 1950s coincide with warmer climate and sea ice decline,' said Dr Stephanie Jenouvrier, WHOI biologist and lead author of the study.

Melting Antarctic ice will strip emperor penguins of their breeding and feeding grounds, putting their numbers at risk, the researchers say

'But what we havent known is whether or not dispersal could prevent or even reverse future global populations.

'Based on this study, we conclude that the prospects look grim at the end of 2100, with a projected global population decline as low as 40 percent and up to 99 percent over three generations.

EMPEROR PENGUINS LIFE CYCLE The emperor penguin is the largest species of penguin, reaching heights of around four feet (1.2 meters) tall, and weighing between 49 pounds (22 kilograms) and 99 pounds (44 kilograms). They are recognisable due to their distinctive black back and head, white breast and yellow patches on their necks. The flightless birds inhabit the Antarctic, huddling together to keep warm in the icy climate, where temperatures reach as low as -90C. Emperor penguins breed and raise their young almost exclusively on sea ice, with the females laying eggs before heading off to hunt for food, leaving the males to incubate the egg. If there's too little sea ice, it reduces the availability of breeding sites and prey for emperor penguins, but too much ice means longer hunting trips for adults, which means they can't feed their chicks as frequently After the chick is born, parents take turns foraging at sea and caring for the newborn within the colony. The birds' diet consists primarily of fish, but they will also eat crustaceans, such as krill, and cephalopods, such as squid. To facilitate hunting the penguins can remain underwater for up to 18 minutes, diving to a depth of 1,755 ft. The relationship between Emperor penguins and sea ice is fragile. If there's too little sea ice, it reduces the availability of breeding sites and prey, but too much ice means longer hunting trips for adults, which means they can't feed their chicks as frequently. Advertisement

'Given this outlook, we argue that the Emperor penguin is deserving of protection under the Endangered Species Act.'

The relationship between Emperor penguins and sea ice is fragile.

If there's too little sea ice, it reduces the availability of breeding sites and prey, but too much ice means longer hunting trips for adults, which means they can't feed their chicks as frequently.

In the past few years, however, researchers have become aware of the penguins' ability to migrate to places with more optimal sea ice conditions.

'Before 2014, our studies of the impacts of climate change on these animals hadnt factored in movement among populations,' said Dr Jenouvrier.

'But between then and now, a number of satellite imagery studies and genetic studies have confirmed their ability to disperse, so this was an important new variable to work into the equation.'

To find out if migration will ultimately help Emperor penguins defend against population decline, Dr Jenouvrier worked with a team of mathematicians to develop a population model of penguin colonies, based on data collected at Pointe Geologie, a location in south-east Antarctica where long-term emperor penguin studies have been conducted.

The model works by tracking population connectivity between penguins as they move to new habitats with better sea ice conditions.

The 54 colonies of emperor penguins that exist today will face huge reductions in numbers by the end of the century, the report predicts

The new research finds that while penguin dispersal may help sustain their populations for a limited time, as sea ice conditions continue to deteriorate, the 54 colonies of emperor penguins that exist today will face huge reductions in numbers by the end of the century

'Its like weve added roads between the cities the penguins live in and now get to see what happens when they travel between them,' said Dr Jenouvrier.

The model takes into account penguin behavior, their dispersal distances and also factors in end-of-century sea ice forecasts to predict what will happen to each penguin colony.

According to Dr Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Center for Bioloigical Diversity, the new modelling technique is key to informing policy around 'much-needed protections' for the emperor penguins.

'Based on this study, we conclude that the prospects look grim at the end of 2100, with a projected global population decline [of emperor penguins] as low as 40 percent and up to 99 percent over three generations,' said Dr Stephanie Jenouvrier, a biologist who led the emperor penguin study

'Dr Jenouvriers research has been at the forefront of advancing our understanding of how climate change is impacting these animals now and into the future,' she said.

'Emperor penguins capture our imaginations because they are devoted parents and tough survivors.

'This work is another wake-up call that we need to make rapid cuts in carbon pollution if emperor penguins are going to have a future.'

According to Dr Jenouvrier, a surprising aspect of the study was the wide range of penguin responses to different dispersal scenarios in the model - in some cases, dispersal increases populations, but in others, it led to severe declines.

'We saw sustained populations through 2036, at which point there was an "ecological rescue" that reversed the anticipated decline expected without dispersion for about a ten-year period,' she said.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution biologist Dr Stephanie Jenouvrier holding a young emperor penguin, says the study's findings conclude that the Emperor penguin is deserving of protection under the Endangered Species Act - a US environmental law to predict endangered species from extinction

'During that time, the penguins made wise choices in terms of selecting the highest-quality habitat they could reach.

'But the "rescue" was only short-lived, and started plummeting in 2046.

'When we averaged out all the scenarios, the model painted a very grim picture through 2100, regardless of how far penguins travelled or how wise their habitat selections were.'

The researchers concluded that while dispersal can help populations survive in response to climate change, the speed at which ice is melting in Antarctica makes for a tricky dynamic.

According to Dr Jenouvrier, a surprising aspect of the study was the wide range of penguin responses to different dispersal scenarios in the model - in some cases, dispersal increases populations, but in others, it led to severe declines.

Climate change isn't stationary, so even if Emperor penguins move location with better sea ice conditions, those conditions could change.

The research will help inform a scientific status review launched in 2014 by the US Fish and Wildlife service to decide if the emperor penguin should be protected under the Endangered Species Act - a US environmental law to predict endangered species from extinction.

Climate change isn't stationary, so even if Emperor penguins move location with better sea ice conditions, those conditions could chang

Dr Jenouvrier says that adding emperor penguins to the Endangered Species list could help accomplish more than just protecting the penguins.

She says it's likely to trigger new fishing regulations in the Southern Ocean, and may also help increase public awareness and 'sensitize people to the impacts of climate change,' which could reduce greenhouse gas emissions - and it may lead to the need for more studies on emperor penguins.

'While weve learned that dispersal doesnt change the ultimate fate of these animals, we need to better understand the dynamics of what happens when they disperse,' said Dr Jenouvrier.

'To do this, well need to tag penguins from several colonies and monitor them.

'Eventually, we also want to understand if populations may eventually adapt to sea ice change, and more generally, how they will respond to the changing landscape in terms of breeding and other life history stages.'
A new study has revealed that the major culprit behind Earth's polluted oceans are the world's river systems.

Researchers at the Ocean Cleanup Project have estimated up to 5 trillion pounds of plastic is floating in the sea, and two-thirds of it comes from the 20 most contaminated rivers - 67 percent of the global total.

It was found that the Yangtze 'is the largest contributing catchment', dumping some 727 million pounds of plastic into the East China Sea each year.

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Researchers at the Ocean Cleanup Project has estimated that there is up to 5 trillion lbs of plastic in the sea, and two-thirds of it comes from the 20 most contaminated rivers - 67% of the global total. Map highlights the areas the contribute the most plastic to the ocean

POLLUTION IN NUMBERS The Ocean Cleanup Project has estimated that there is up to 5 trillion pounds of plastic in the sea, and two-thirds of it comes from the 20 most contaminated rivers - 67% of the global total. The team had also noted that the pollution costs at least $8 billion (7.1 billion euros) in damage to marine ecosystems and killing an estimated one million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and untold numbers of fish. The Yangtze, the world's third-longest river, 'is the largest contributing catchment', dumping some 727 million pounds of plastic into the East China Sea each year. Other than the Yangtze, the Ganges River in India with 98 million lbs per month. A combination of the Xi, Dong and Zhujiang Rivers (233 million lbs per year) in China as well as four Indonesian rivers: the Brantas (85 million lbs annually), Solo (71 million pounds per year), Serayu (37 million lbs per year) and Progo (28 million lbs per year), are all large contributors. The rest of the world shared the remaining 14 percent of plastic pollution via rivers, researchers said. Advertisement

The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch foundation developing new technologies for ridding the oceans of plasticsay rivers carry an estimated 2 trillion to 5 trillion pounds of plastic into the sea every year, an amount that needs between 48,000 to over 100,000 dump trucks to be carried away.

'It has been estimated that between 10 and 27 trillion pounds of plastic enters the ocean every year from coastal populations worldwide,' reads the published study in the journal Science.

'Plastics within coastal areas however do not only enter the oceans through rivers. It can also reach oceans by other processes such as direct littering near beaches, followed by tidal or wind transport.'

The team had also noted that the pollution costs at least $8 billion (7.1 billion euros) in damage to marine ecosystems and killing an estimated one million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and untold numbers of fish.

In the study, the researchers had revealed that a majority of the 20 rivers feeding plastics into the sea reside in Asia.

Other than the Yangtze, the Ganges River in India with 98 million pounds per month.

The rest are from a combination of the Xi, Dong and Zhujiang Rivers (233 million pounds per year) in China as well as four Indonesian rivers: the Brantas (85 million pounds per year), Solo (71 million pounds per year), Serayu (37 million pounds per year) and Progo (28 million pounds per year), are all large contributors.

The rest of the world shared the remaining 14 percent of plastic pollution via rivers, researchers said.

'Most of this river plastic input is coming from Asia, which emphasizes the need to focus on monitoring and mitigation efforts in Asian countries with rapid economic development and poor waste management,' they said.

The Yangtze (pictured), the world's third-longest river, 'is the largest contributing catchment', dumping some 330,000 tonnes of plastic into the East China Sea each year

The Ganges River and a combination of the Xi, Dong and Zhujiang Rivers in China as well as four Indonesian rivers: the Brantas, Solo, Serayu and Progo are all also major contributors. Map shows there are different times of the year where plastics making their way out to sea the most

The researchers however issued a disclaimer that stated 'there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model.'

'Yet, the relatively high concentrations of ocean plastic found at the surface of the North Pacific Ocean where buoyant plastics originating from Asia can accumulate, suggest that our assumptions are plausible,' they said.

OCEAN CLEANUP PROJECT The Ocean Clean up estimates that their passive ocean cleaning method would remove half the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a huge area in the ocean where swirling currents concentrate trash - in 5 years, at the fraction of the cost of traditional methods such as vessels and nets. The system uses floating hard-walled barriers made of a durable, recyclable material. Together with a solid screen to catch debris beneath the surface, the system uses currents to passively ensnare waves of garbage It's already been tested in Dutch lakes and off the coast of the Netherlands in the North Sea. Barriers will be shipped to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between California and Hawaii in the first half of 2018, two years ahead of the organization's earlier schedule. Advertisement

The study comes against the backdrop of the UN's first ocean conference opening in Miami on Monday, where plastic pollution was singled out as particularly harmful.

The five-day conference, which began on World Environment Day, is the first major event to focus on climate since U.S. President Donald Trump announced last week that the United States will withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement - a decision criticized by Bolivian President Evo Morales and other speakers

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said competing interests over territory and natural resources have blocked progress for too long in cleaning up and restoring to health the world's oceans, which cover two-thirds of the planet.

The researchers however issued a disclaimer that stated 'there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model' (stock photo)

WELCOME TO PLASTIC ISLAND An uninhabited Pacific island thousands of miles away from civilization has become the most polluted place on Earth as thousands of bits plastic rubbish wash up on its shores. Henderson Island, a coral atoll in the south Pacific, is just 14.5 square miles (37.5 square km), and the nearest cities are some 3,000 miles (4,800 km) away. Besides going out to sea, plastics from around the world have made a home in an uninhabited Pacific island (pictured). More than 37 million bits of plastic junk  weighing some 34,000 pounds (17 tonnes) - have washed up on its shores More than 37 million bits of plastic junk  weighing some 34,000 pounds (17 tonnes) - have washed up on its shores, threatening the island's wildlife. In all, every square mile of beach has hundreds of bits of plastic  including toothbrushes, buoys, old fishing nets, plastic bags and cosmetic pots mostly produced in the last few decades and dropped by people thousands of miles away. While the surface is cluttered with plastic junk, it is just the tip of the iceberg. Sixty-eight percent of the plastic was buried under 4 inches (10cm) of sand. Researches of the University of Tasmania and Alexander Bond of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Advertisement

'We must put aside short-term national gain to prevent long-term global catastrophe,' he continued.

'Conserving our oceans and using them sustainably is preserving life itself.'

Guterres also cited a 2016 World Economic Forum report on 'The New Plastics Economy,' which said the best research estimates there are over 150 million tons of plastics in the ocean.

'In a business-as-usual scenario, the ocean is expected to contain 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish by 2025, and by 2050, more plastics than fish (by weight),' the report said.
Court of Appeals of North Carolina. GWENDOLYN PARMLEY, Individually and as ADMINISTRATRIX, ESTATE OF JOHN PARMLEY, JR., DECEASED, Plaintiff, v. EVERETT BARROW, JOHNATHAN BRENT FULCHER, B&J SEAFOOD CO., INC., B&J CONTRACTING, LLC, B&J SEAFOOD, LLC, B&J CONTRACTING, and B&J CONTRACTING, INC., Defendants. No. COA16-1258 Decided: June 06, 2017

Couch & Associates, PC, by C. Destine A. Couch and Finesse G. Couch, for Plaintiff-Appellant. Teague, Rotenstreich, Stanaland, Fox & Holt, PLLC, by Kara V. Bordman, for Defendant-Appellees B&J Contracting, Inc. and B&J Contracting. Teague, Rotenstreich, Stanaland, Fox & Holt, PLLC, by Kenneth B. Rotenstreich, for Defendant-Appellees B&J Seafood, LLC, B&J Contracting, LLC, B&J Contracting, Inc. and B&J Contracting. Midkiff, Muncie & Ross, P.C., by William T. Kesler, Jr., for Defendant-Appellees Everett Barrow, Johnathan B. Fulcher, and B&J Seafood Co., Inc. Wheatly, Wheatly, Weeks, Lupton & Massie, P.A., by Stevenson L. Weeks, for Defendant-Appellees B&J Seafood, LLC, and B&J Contracting, LLC.

Gwendolyn Parmley, individually and as Administratrix of the Estate of John Parmley, Jr., (Plaintiff) appeals from the trial court's 30 June 2016 order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Defendants Johnathan Brent Fulcher, B&J Contracting, LLC, B&J Seafood, LLC, B&J Contracting and B&J Contracting, Inc. Subsequently Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed without prejudice her claims against remaining Defendants Everett Barrow and B&J Seafood, Inc., creating a final judgment and jurisdiction for her appeal. However, Plaintiff then filed a second lawsuit against the Defendants whom she dismissed voluntarily. In doing so, Plaintiff's appeal of the original lawsuit became interlocutory. We dismiss Plaintiff's appeal without prejudice, so should she decide to do so, Plaintiff may refile her appeal at the conclusion of her second lawsuit.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

The Plaintiff's forecast of evidence tends to show on 29 August 2014, John Parmley, Jr. (Parmley) drove a roll-back commercial truck from Craven County, North Carolina, to Newport News, Virginia. Defendant B&J Contracting, Inc. owned the commercial truck. Parmley delivered a propeller to Wildcat Propellers in Chesapeake, Virginia, on his way to Newport News. On the same day, Defendant Everett Barrow (Defendant Barrow), an employee of Defendant B&J Seafood Co., Inc., drove a pickup truck for Defendant B&J Seafood Co., Inc., from New Bern, North Carolina to Newport News. Defendant Barrow met Parmley in Newport News where their job was to take possession of a scallop dredge, and have a crane load it onto the commercial truck. Neither Defendant Barrow nor Parmley operated the crane. After the crane lifted the dredge and placed it on the commercial truck, Parmley and Defendant Barrow strapped down the dredge. Parmley and Defendant Barrow decided Parmley would drive the pickup truck back to New Bern, and Defendant Barrow would drive the commercial truck with the dredge.

Approximately five minutes after securing the dredge, Defendant Barrow began backing the commercial truck out of a gate. Defendant Barrow then felt the [dredge] shift and pulled over. Defendant Barrow waved for Parmley to also pull over. Parmley then exited the pickup truck and walked over to Defendant Barrow's truck. Defendant Barrow and Parmley walked around the truck to make sure all the straps were intact. Just as Defendant Barrow came around the truck and got beside Parmley, the dredge fell off the truck and pinned Parmley to the ground. The dredge crushed Parmley, and he died.

On 30 April 2015, Parmley's wife, Gwendolyn Parmley, individually and as Administratix of Parmley's Estate, filed a wrongful death action and a survival claim against Defendants Barrow, Johnathan Brent Fulcher (Defendant Fulcher), B&J Seafood Co., Inc., B&J Contracting, LLC, and B&J Seafood, LLC in Durham County Superior Court. On 28 September 2015, the parties, through a consent order, changed the venue to Pamlico County. On 18 November 2015, Plaintiff filed an amended complaint naming two additional Defendants, B&J Contracting and B&J Contracting, Inc. On 17 May 2016, Defendants Fulcher, B&J Contracting, LLC, B&J Seafood, LLC, B&J Contracting, and B&J Contracting, Inc. moved for partial summary judgment on the grounds they are not necessary and proper parties to this litigation and there is no genuine issue of material fact or law as to liability.

On 27 June 2016, the trial court heard arguments for partial summary judgment. Defendants' counsel contended B&J Contracting and B&J Contracting, LLC are non-existing entities. Specifically, Defendants' counsel presented affidavits alleging B&J Contracting is not an unincorporated association or partnership to the knowledge of the parties, and B&J Contracting, Inc. is not an existing corporation. Defendants' counsel also presented evidence showing Defendant Fulcher dissolved B&J Seafood, LLC on 2 September 2010. Defendants' counsel asserted B&J Seafood Co., Inc., employed Barrow. Finally, Defendants' counsel argued Defendant Fulcher was in New Bern, North Carolina, at the time of the accident and corporate officers and owners are not necessary or proper parties to a suit against a corporation.

Plaintiff responded there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether any of the Defendant corporations employed Parmley on the day of the accident. Plaintiff also made various arguments stating there was conflicting evidence as to the involvement of Defendants B&J Contracting, B&J Contracting, Inc. and B&J Seafood, LLC. The Court asked if Plaintiff inquired with the Secretary of State's office as to the existence of Defendant corporate entities, and Plaintiff responded, Yes, sir. We checked to find out whether or not there was really an Inc., and there was not an Inc.

On 30 June 2016, the trial court entered an order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Defendants Fulcher, B&J Contracting, LLC, B&J Seafood, LLC, B&J Contracting and B&J Contracting, Inc. The trial court found there was no genuine issue of material fact and those Defendants were not necessary and proper parties to the action. Plaintiff appealed the trial court's order on 19 July 2016. On 25 July 2016, Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed without prejudice the actions against Defendants Barrow and B&J Seafood Co., Inc.

On 1 March 2017, Defendants collectively filed a Rule 9(b)(5) supplement to the record on appeal. This supplement contains a copy of a complaint filed by Parmley's estate in Durham County and names Defendants Barrow and B&J Seafood Co., Inc. as Defendants. This new complaint, filed one month after Plaintiff's voluntary dismissal, contains allegations which are substantially similar to the allegations contained in this action's original complaint. In a motion filed on 16 March 2017, Plaintiff requested this Court to strike Defendants' Rule 9(b)(5) supplement to the record which references Plaintiff's new cause of action. We deny Plaintiff's motion to strike.

II. Jurisdiction

An order is interlocutory if it does not fully dispose of a case and leaves it for further action by the trial court in order to settle and determine the entire controversy. Veazey v. City of Durham, 231 N.C. 357, 362, 57 S.E.2d 377, 381 (1950). A grant of partial summary judgment, because it does not completely dispose of the case, is an interlocutory order from which there is ordinarily no right of appeal. Curl v. American Multimedia, Inc., 187 N.C. App. 649, 652, 654 S.E.2d 76, 78-79 (2007) (quoting Liggett Group v. Sunas, 113 N.C. App. 19, 23, 437 S.E.2d 674, 677 (1993)).

When a trial court grants partial summary judgment in favor of a defendant, and the plaintiff thereafter voluntarily dismisses its remaining claims, the trial court's order serves as a final judgment. Combs & Assocs. v. Kennedy, 147 N.C. App. 362, 367, 555 S.E.2d 634, 638 (2001). This Court held:

Ordinarily, an appeal from an order granting summary judgment to fewer than all of a plaintiff's claim[s] is premature and subject to dismissal. However, since the plaintiff here voluntarily dismissed the claim which survived summary judgment, any rationale for dismissing the appeal fails. Plaintiff's voluntary dismissal of this remaining claim does not make the appeal premature but rather has the effect of making the trial court's grant of partial summary judgment a final order.

Curl at 652-53, 654 S.E.2d at 79 (quoting Combs at 367, 555 S.E.2d at 638). In such an instance, there is nothing left for the trial court to determine or resolve until Plaintiff commences a new action against Defendants.

Here Parmley's estate has commenced a new action by re-filing its claims against the remaining Defendants in a new action in Durham County. The rights of Parmley's Estate, Defendant Barrow and Defendant B&J Seafood Co., Inc., are still pending in the trial division. In these circumstances the trial court's order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Defendants is no longer a final judgment.

Because the appeal is interlocutory we must dismiss the appeal unless it falls within one of the two exceptions allowing a party to appeal from interlocutory order. Jeffreys v. Raleigh Oaks Joint Venture, 115 N.C. App. 377, 379, 444 S.E.2d 252, 253 (1994). First, a party may appeal from an interlocutory order when the order is final as to some claims or parties and the trial court has certified pursuant to Rule 54(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure there is no just reason to delay the appeal. Currin & Currin Constr., Inc. v. Lingerfelt, 158 N.C. App. 711, 713, 582 S.E.2d 321, 323 (2003). Second, a party may appeal from an interlocutory order when the order deprives the appellant of a substantial right that would be lost in the absence of an immediate appeal. Id. at 713, 582 S.E.2d at 323.

Here, the trial court did not include a Rule 54(b) certification in the summary judgment order. Plaintiff is therefore only entitled to pursue this appeal if the trial court's order deprives her of a substantial right that would be lost if this Court dismissed her interlocutory appeal. The appellant bears the burden to establish the existence of a substantial right. Embler v. Embler, 143 N.C. App. 162, 166, 545 S.E.2d 259, 262 (2001). Plaintiff presents no argument the dismissal of this appeal would deprive her of a substantial right. Plaintiff fails to meet her burden.

Since this interlocutory appeal does not qualify for an exception to our rules prohibiting interlocutory appeals, we must dismiss it.

DISMISSED.

FOOTNOTES

. In his deposition, Defendant Barrow states B&J owned the scallop dredge. Plaintiff's complaint alleges the remaining Defendants (Defendants other than Barrow) owned the scallop dredge.

. The record does not indicate who owned or operated the crane.

. Fulcher is the president of B&J Seafood Co., Inc., and the managing member of B&J Contracting, LLC.

. Plaintiff contended Defendant B&J Contracting, Inc. was the only registered owner of the commercial truck and Defendant B&J Contracting and Defendant Fulcher owned the pickup truck. Plaintiff also contended Defendant Fulcher's answer to an interrogatory indicated Defendant B&J Contracting was the insurer of the commercial truck. Plaintiff asserted Defendant Fulcher told Plaintiff that Defendant B&J Seafood, LLC drove the pickup truck, even though a LLC cannot actually drive a vehicle.

. Case No. 16 CVS 004159

. Both complaints allege wrongful death under N.C. Gen. Stat.  28A-18-2 (2016) and a survival claim under N.C. Gen. Stat.  28A-18-1 (2016) as well as negligence, imputed negligence, and willful and wanton negligence. Both complaints allege the same facts in support of their claims.

. Plaintiff argues Defendants' 9(b)(5) supplement violates our Rules of Appellate Procedure since it contains evidence not originally before the trial court. However, because Plaintiff's estate filed a new law suit after the trial court entered its order granting summary judgment, and because the existence of this new action is a determinative fact in our analysis as to whether this Court has jurisdiction over Plaintiff's appeal, we take judicial notice of Plaintiff's current suit in Durham County pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat.  8C-1, Rule 201 (2016).

. See Noblot v. Timmons, 177 N.C. App. 258 (2006), where this Court decided the merits of an appeal from an order granting summary judgment dismissing claims against some, but not all, defendants to an action after the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed claims against remaining defendants without prejudice.

HUNTER, JR., Robert N., Judge.

Chief Judge McGEE and Judge ZACHARY concur.
If you close your eyes and imagine a planet far from our own, chances are theres already a well-formed picture waiting in your mind  is it barren, with cracks cutting through the surface, or is it covered in sprawling oceans?

In many ways, our visions of alien worlds are shaped by the artists who breathe life into troves of scientific data, piecing together the most plausible depiction of their landscapes.

A pair of artists known for their breathtaking concept images of exoplanets, including the recently discovered Trappist-1 system, have revealed a bit of insight on the extensive process of creating visualizations that both captivate the public and satisfy scientists stipulations.

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As the experts explain, the job comes with a lot of responsibility as they transform numbers and squiggles on charts into believable representations of real planets.

Visualization scientist Robert Hurt of Caltechs IPAC center, and multimedia producer Tim Pyle have together created some of NASAs most memorable images based on data from the Spitzer Space Telescope and other observatories.

Our artists concepts are going to be the public face for some of these objects, Pyle explained in a recent video from NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, acknowledging at the significance of the task.
Although the US sits in the top tier for most mobile internet users, it falls short when it comes to speeds.

A new report has revealed that the nation ranks 28th in the world, lagging behind the top country by 15.3 Mbps.

The UK was found to have the fastest speeds with 26 Mbps, followed by Germanys 24.1 Mbps and Finland offers 21.6 Mbps to its users.

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A new report has revealed that the US ranks 28th in the world, lagging behind the top country by 15.3 Mbps. The UK was found to have the fastest speeds with 26 Mbps, followed by Germanys 24.1 Mbps and Finland offers 21.6 Mbps to its users

The numbers were shared by Akamai Technologies, a cloud delivery platform, in its First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet Report.

The study surveyed 62 countries and regions around the world and gathered data from the first quarter of 2017.

MOBILE INTERNET OF THE WORLD The numbers were shared by Akamai Technologies, a cloud delivery platform, in its First Quarter, 2017 State of the Internet Report. The study surveyed 62 countries and regions around the world and gathered data from the first quarter of 2017. Akamai had placed the global mobile average at 7.2Mbps, which is 15 percent faster than last years findings. 1. U.K. (26 Mbps) 2. Germany (24.1 Mbps) 3. Finland (21.6 Mbps) 4. France (17.4 Mbps) 5. Norway (17.3 Mbps) 6. Denmark (16.6 Mbps) 7. Belgium (16.2 Mbps) 8. Romania (15.9 Mbps) 9. Australia (15.7 Mbps) 10. Japan (15.6 Mbps) 11. Netherlands (15.0 Mbps) 12. Slovakia (14.0 Mbps) 13. Spain (13.8 Mbps) 14. Kenya (13.7 Mbps) 15. Austria (13.5 Mbps) 16 (tie). Ireland (13.2 Mbps) 16 (tie). Sweden (13.2 Mbps) 18 (tie). New Zealand (13.0 Mbps) 18 (tie). Taiwan (13.0 Mbps) 20. Indonesia (12.8 Mbps) 21. Italy (12.4 Mbps) 22. Egypt (12.2 Mbps) 23. Hungary (12.0 Mbps) 24. South Korea (11.8 Mbps) 25. Greece (11.4 Mbps) 26. Slovenia (11.3 Mbps) 27. Estonia (11.1 Mbps) 28. United States (10.7 Mbps) Advertisement

Increases in connection speeds and broadband penetration have helped enable the Internet to support levels of traffic that even just a few years ago would have been unimaginable, said David Belson, editor of the State of the Internet Report.

One need only look to Januarys U.S. Presidential Inauguration, which broke traffic records for live coverage of a single news event delivered by Akamai, largely thanks to the combination of more viewers watching at increasingly higher levels of video quality

The experts had found that the global average connection speeds was 7.2 Mbps, which is an increase of 15 percent year over year.

The US isnt just behind in mobile internet speeds, as the report had noted that a majority of Americans average 18Mbps downloads via broadband  sitting it at 10th in the world

And it was also learned that the global average peak connection speed had increased 28 percent year over year to 44.6 Mbps in the first quarter.

The US isnt just behind in mobile internet speeds, as the report had noted that a majority of Americans average 18Mbps downloads via broadband  sitting it at 10th in the world.

However, South Korea again had the highest average connection speed globally at 28.6 Mbps in the first quarter and Singapore had the highest peak connection speed at 184.5 Mbps in the first quarter.

Although all of the countries in the top 10 had seen speed increases or decreases, the US had the second-largest gain at 8.8 percent, which is what brought it to the top, pushing the Netherlands out of the its rank.

But it does hold the highest average Mbps for countries in the Americas  followed by Canada with 16.2Mbps and Uruguay with 9.5Mbps.

FORGET WI-FI, EXPERTS REVEAL LI-FI THAT IS SAID TO BE FASTER Lab tests have shown that Li-Fi can hit speeds 100 times faster than current Wi-Fi systems. Speed is not the only advantage of Li-Fi. The system uses visible light communication between 400 and 800 terahertz to transmit messages in binary code. Visible light cannot pass through walls, making Li-Fi a much more secure system, and less susceptible to interference. While the system seems promising, it won't likely replace Wi-Fi entirely, at least not anytime soon. Instead, at Eindhoven University of Technology are now looking to retrofit devices with Li-Fi to use the two wireless systems together to optimize speed and security. It would also have a huge capacity, of more than 40 Gbit/s per ray. It would rely on direct rays of light from an optical fiber, and as it has no moving parts, it would be a maintenance free system that requires no power, the researchers explain. Several light antennas could be set up in a given area, each equipped with a pair of gratings that beam light rays at different wavelengths and angles. Advertisement

Just as in the previous quarter, all the top 10 countries/regions saw yearly increases except for South Korea, which posted a modest 1.7% decline, the report shared.

Gains ranged between 9.2% in Sweden and 23% in Singapore. Worldwide, year-over-year improvements in average connection speeds were seen in 114 countries/regions, compared with 138 in the preceding quarter, and increases ranged from 0.3% in Greece (to 7.9 Mbps) to 189% in Libya (to 2.1 Mbps).

Yearly declines were seen in 35 countries/regions, with decreases ranging from 0.1% in Gabon and Congo (to 1.8 Mbps and 3.5 Mbps, respectively) to 56% in Liberia (to 1.8 Mbps).

With a 24% quarterly decrease to 1.0 Mbps, Yemen remained the qualifying country with the lowest average connection speed in the first quarter.

Paraguay had the next lowest speeds at 1.4 Mbps, followed by Gabon, Liberia, Syria, and Venezuelaall with average connection speeds of 1.8 Mbps in the first quarter.
Fear of crime isnt the only thing driving handgun ownership in the United States; instead, the worries may go much deeper, according to a new study.

A series of surveys including hundreds of male gun owners and non-owners across the country found that apart from the more tangible threats, there are also vague, general ideas guiding many gun owners behaviour.

The study found that the belief in the right to shoot and kill in self-defense, as well as a persons adherence to 2nd Amendment rights, is often tied to the idea that the world is dangerous and unpredictable, and society is at the brink of collapse.

A series of surveys including hundreds of male gun owners and non-owners across the country found that apart from the more tangible threats, there are also vague, general ideas guiding many gun owners behaviour. A stock image is pictured

WHAT THEY FOUND In the study, published to the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers conducted three surveys in May and June 2016, accounting for 839 men in total: 404 gun owners and 435 non-owners. This revealed that there are dual layers of threat at play. The researchers found that fear of crime alone did not, in fact, explain why some people buy guns. Fear of crime tended to be linked to past crime victimization, the researchers say. But, they found more general sense of threats were more strongly influenced by a person's (conservative) political beliefs than by past experience with crime victimization. Advertisement

In the study, published to the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers conducted three surveys in May and June 2016, accounting for 839 men in total: 404 gun owners and 435 non-owners.

This revealed that there are dual layers of threat at play, the researchers say.

When it comes to human behaviour, it is not just concrete, specific threats that change our behaviour, but also vague, general ideas about threat, the authors wrote.

Even if we cannot pinpoint exactly why we feel threatened, the fact that we are threatened at all can lead us to want to own handguns for self-protection and advocate for more expansive rights to carry and use them.

While the first survey compered the beliefs of gun owners and nonowners, the following two focused only on the gun owners survey.

They then analyzed how well their two-component theory applied to these people.

And, they found that fear of crime alone did not, in fact, explain why some people buy guns.

Different forces are making people feel threatened in different ways, and yet these different types of threat both correlate with increased handgun ownership and stronger beliefs that people have a right to kill in self-defense, said Wolfgang Stroebe, of University of Groningen, Netherlands.

Fear of crime tended to be linked to past crime victimization, the researchers say.

The researchers say the findings apply to handgun ownership, and not as much in the case of long guns. Long guns such as bolt-action rifles, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, are linked to hunting and not really linked to a sense of threat, says Stroebe. Stock image

But, they found more general sense of threats were more strongly influenced by a person's (conservative) political beliefs than by past experience with crime victimization.

The surveys came shortly before last years shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.

Following the tragic event, the researchers conducted another survey a week later with a new group of male gun owners, to see if the shooting had influenced the way they felt about guns.

But, they found there was little correlation.

We expected the Orlando mass shooting to move the needle on the belief systems of gun owners, so we were surprised that there was practically no effect, Stroebe says.

The researchers also say this particular belief system is likely unique to the United States, as a result of the countrys long history with guns. A stock image is pictured

For the most part, the researchers say the findings apply to handgun ownership, and not as much in the case of long guns.

Long guns such as bolt-action rifles, semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, are linked to hunting and not really linked to a sense of threat, says Stroebe.

Although the gun owners in our sample owned an average of 4 guns each, we saw no evidence that any of our findings apply to owners of long guns only  that is, those who do not own a handgun.

The researchers also say this particular belief system is likely unique to the United States, as a result of the countrys long history with guns.

Guns have been part of the US history since the American frontier and the right to own a gun is enshrined in the Constitution, says Stroebe, which may change the way Americans think about guns relative to people who live in other countries and cultures.
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At first glance, it looks like the Batmobile.

But in fact, this radical vehicle was designed to scour Mars in search for alien life.

The radical concept has been unveiled by NASA at the at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, and could be the inspiration for future rovers for the first manned missions to the red planet.

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A full-sized Nasa Mars rover has been in development since late 2016, and it looks a lot like the Batmobile. The angular concept vehicle has six wheels, is made entirely of carbon fibre and aluminium, and is battery-powered

NASA'S BATMOBILE Measures 28 feet (8.5m) long, 13 feet (4m) wide, and 11 feet (3.4m) tall Estimated weight of 5,000 pounds (2,250kg) Rear area is a detachable lab, while the front area is a cockpit for scouting Made entirely of carbon fibre and aluminium Six wheels that measure 50 inches (1.3m) tall, 30 inches (75cm) wide Battery powered using solar panels Top speed of 60-70 miles per hour (95-110kph) Advertisement

The full-sized Nasa Mars rover has been in development since late 2016, and it looks a lot like the Batmobile.

The angular concept vehicle has six wheels, is made entirely of carbon fibre and aluminium, and is solar-powered.

It was designed to accommodate four astronauts and has its own detachable laboratory.

'While this exact rover is not expected to operate on Mars, one or more of its elements could make its way into a rover astronauts will drive on the Red Planet.' NASA says.

The builders of the scientifically-themed Mars rover concept vehicle, Parker Brothers Concepts of Port Canaveral, Florida, incorporated input into its design from NASA subject matter experts.

It rover operates on an electric motor, powered by solar panels and a 700-volt battery.

The rover separates in the middle with the front area designed for scouting and equipped with a radio and navigation provided by the Global Positioning System.

The back section serves as a laboratory which can disconnect for autonomous research.

Following several weeks on display at Kennedy's visitor complex, the Mars rover concept vehicle will be displayed at several locations.

From July through August, it will be displayed at several locations during a tour along the East Coast.

The Mars rover concept vehicle will then return to the visitor complex to be part of the new Astronaut Training Experience attraction opening in the fall of this year.

According to Rebecca Shireman, assistant manager of public relations for the Kennedy visitor complex, the 'Summer of Mars' program will provide a survey of NASA's studies of the Red Planet.

'It's an all-encompassing effort to review the history of our efforts to explore Mars and look ahead to what is being planned,' she said.

'We hope this will encourage young people to want to learn more about being a part of the effort to go to Mars.'

Its six wheels are 50 inches (1.3m) tall, 30 inches (75cm) wide, and are specially designed with air ducts to let the coarse red sands of Mars slip through, Business Insider reports.

The 28 feet (8.5m) long, 13 feet (4m) wide, and 11 feet (3.4m) tall vehicle has not been officially weighed, but its developers estimate it reaches 5,000 pounds (2,250kg).

The rover looks similar to the Batmobile from Batman Begins

Marc Parker, a designer and builder of the new rover, told Business Insider that the buggy is a six-wheeled, all-electric vehicle that was created 'with every intention' of overcoming rocky obstacles on Mars.

He said that the rover could hit top speeds of 60-70 miles per hour (95-110kph), but would not disclose its cost.

'What we actually came up with was a dual-purpose vehicle. It actually separates in the middle,' he said.

'The rear section is a full lab, the front area is a cockpit for going out and doing scouting.

'The lab section can actually disconnect ... and be left on its own to do autonomous research.

The rover separates in the middle with the front area designed for scouting and equipped with a radio and navigation provided by the Global Positioning System.

The rover was designed to accommodate four astronauts to explore the surface of Mars and acts as a portable laboratory. Its six wheels are 50 inches (1.3m) tall, 30 inches (75cm) wide, and are specially designed with ducts to let the coarse red sands of Mars slip through

'That way the scout vehicle can go out to do its thing without the fuel consumption and extra weight, then come back later.'

Unfortunately, the sci-fi concept will never touch down on the red planet.

Nasa is taking it on a cross-country tour of the US for the agency's upcoming 'Summer of Mars' event, Mr Parker said.

The educational programme is designed to inspire the public about space exploration.

Mr Parker and his brother Shanon started work on the rover in November after Nasa approached them with the idea.

Their company, Parker Brothers Concepts, normally builds 'outlandish' vehicles for movie and TV productions.

But Nasa did not fund the rover, Mr Parker said, which instead relied on financing from a private company involved in the project.

'We're also filming for a reality television series that's going to be coming out about this build,' Mr Parker said.

It took the Parker brothers around five months to construct the vehicle from late November 2016 through to early April 2017.

The back section serves as a laboratory which can disconnect for autonomous research.

The builders of the scientifically-themed Mars rover concept vehicle, Parker Brothers Concepts of Port Canaveral, Florida, incorporated input into its design from NASA subject matter experts.

The small team consisted of the company's two owners plus a few of their employees, as well as a number of suppliers they deal with.

'Me and the guys, we averaged about 80 to 100 hours a week, each,' Mr Parker said.

'We worked 10-, 12-, 14-hour days, seven days a week since late last year.

'If I thought about how many hours we put into this thing, I'd probably cry. It's way too many.'
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Life in Lebanon is like drinking champagne at the top of a volcano there is chaos all around us but at least we have a good time.

These were the words of wisdom from my tour guide during a long day of sight-seeing in Beirut and after five hectic but enjoyable days in the city, I had to agree - the Lebanese know how to enjoy themselves.

Bordering Syria and Israel, but nestled on the Mediterranean coast, Lebanon is a hotbed of culture, history and politics and as soon as I saw the twinkling lights of its capital, Beirut, I knew I was in love.

Lebanon's capital Beirut is the perfect place in which to enjoy a city break

The ancient city of Byblos (pictured), just along the coast from Beirut, boasts beautiful beaches and a fascinating history

The Phoenicia Hotel is the most exclusive place to stay in Beirut and is an opulent oasis of calm in a frantic, bustling city

Beirut is a city teeming with culture, from the traditional Lebanese art in the Sursock museum to the vibrant graffiti-covered streets of Hamra (pictured)

A great way to spend an evening in Beirut is to walk along the Corniche promenade to Raouche where you can sip tea while gazing across the bay at the iconic Pigeon Rocks as the sun goes down

Beirut is dirty, loud and frantic - but its ancient architecture, stylish bars, fantastic food and charming people will leave you head over heels.

I flew into the city with Pegasus Airlines, via Istanbul. At first I was concerned about missing connections or enduring a long, tedious journey, but in fact it was simple, efficient and stress-free.

However, while I was quietly proud of myself for making my flights without getting lost in the terminals of Istanbul airport, just moments after arriving in Lebanon I was to get my first real lesson in Middle Eastern travel.

Lesson Number One  excitedly admitting to a streetwise Beirut cab driver, yes, it is my first time in Lebanon will ensure you get taken for a ride in more ways than one.

But any angst caused by my expensive opening foray into Lebanese travel was to evaporate as soon as I laid eyes on my accommodation.

I was lucky enough to be staying at the most exclusive hotel in town, the Phoenicia.

The Phoenicia is the epitome of luxury with an elegant pool area to soak up Lebanon's sunny weather or take a quick dip, before enjoying a cocktail at the hotel's bar

The rooms at the Phoenicia are stylish and comfortable, with many boasting spectacular views of the Mediterranean coastline

Meals at the Phoenicia are a thoroughly enjoyable affair, with an array of restaurants staffed by expert chefs offering international cuisine and delicious traditional Lebanese food

Staff at the Phoenicia pander to the whim of all their guests and by staying at the hotel, reporter Alex Matthews followed in the footsteps of celebrity travellers including popstar Shakira and former Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki Moon

Staying at the Phoenicia is a luxurious experience, where guests can enjoy five-star treatment during every second of their visit to the Lebanese capital

While narrow streets and ancient architecture offer an insight into Beirut's past, the yacht-filled marina and stylish sky scrapers of Zaitunay Bay are certainly all about the city's future

If Beirut is a city dominated by hustle and bustle, then the Phoenicia is an opulent oasis of calm.

By checking-in I joined a list of celebrity guests, including popstar Shakira and former Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki Moon, and during every second of my stay I received nothing but the A-list treatment.

The Phoenicia is a truly spectacular hotel, with modern art draping from the walls, a luxurious spa, an array of restaurants to cater to any palette and staff who happily pander to the every whim of their guests.

The hotel suggested a tour company that set up excursions around Beirut and into the countryside where I could see for myself the true beauty of Lebanon. I jumped at the chance and I urge you to do the same.

I was picked up by minibus and shown around the city by my fantastic tour-guide, Nouchka, along with a group of fellow wide-eyed tourists.

Beirut is packed with stores, from designer labels to high street brands, and the city's handsome Souks offer tourists the opportunity to shop until they drop

Perched on a steep mountainside, the enchanting palace of Beiteddine is split across three main courtyards, with an impressive collection of beautiful Byzantine mosaics and luxuriously decorated and domed hammams (bathhouses)

The palace of Beiteddine is about an hour outside of Beirut and is well worth the trip, with ornate stained glass windows, opulent furnishings and beguiling examples of 19th-century Lebanese architecture

I gazed at the impressive Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque in Martyrs Square before visiting the National Museum of Beirut and meandering past the citys many charming coffee shops and bakeries.

I later ventured into the Chouf Mountains before visiting the impressive Beiteddine Palace.

Shaped by a plethora of rulers and civilisations over its rich history  not to mention quite a few serious earthquakes  Lebanon is a country steeped in heritage, so any chance you get to learn about its history should be grasped with gusto.

Another site worth visiting is the Basilica at Harissa, which is a short drive into the hills.

Its unique architecture makes it a place of worship like no other and a cable car up and down the hillside offers great views of the city and the surrounding coastline. I went at night, which made Beirut look all the more magical.

It is hard not to be spellbound by the breathtaking beauty of the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque (left) in Beirut's Martyrs Square and the eye-catching architecture of the basilica (right) nestled in the hills at Harissa

The basilica at Harissa is a place of worship like no other and a cable car up and down the hillside offers great views of the city and the surrounding coastline

Believed to be the oldest populated city in the world  its earliest settlers landed around 8,000 years ago  visiting Byblos is like stepping onto the set of a historical Hollywood epic

VISITING BEIRUT: FROM CURRENCY TO CABS Money: The currency in Lebanon is the Lebanese Lira, but US dollars are also accepted pretty much everywhere. Often you will receive Lira back in change when paying with dollars. Public transport: This basically does not exist in Lebanon. The only way to get around is on foot or by taxi. There are cabs everywhere in Beirut, but there are also plenty of drivers looking to take advantage of wide-eyed western tourists. Speak to your hotel or hostel and they should point you in the direction of a trustworthy agency. But be vigilant and confident and hopefully your journeys will be reasonably inexpensive. Oh and barter for your life! Safety: Lebanon and Beirut are perfectly safe places to visit and enjoy yourself. The country has experienced its fair share of conflicts, with a civil war ending in 1990 and fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. But the Lebanese are keen to show tourists that their country has changed and as long as you're sensible, you should have a fantastic stay. Culture: Beirut has a thriving arts scene, from graffiti and street murals in Hamra to the beautiful Sursock Museum in the city centre. There is so much to enjoy and typically the people in Beirut are more than happy to point you in the direction of a gallery, museum or heritage site - so don't be afraid to ask. Food: Lebanese food is absolutely delicious. If you get a chance to try some, you should tuck in. Dishes to look out for include kibbeh, fattoush, tabbouleh, and others you'll recognise - like mixed grills, halloumi, pitta and humus. Religion: Lebanon has two dominating religions, Islam and Christianity. But like most modern cities, Beirut is tolerant of those of other faiths. However, acting and dressing appropriately is always good advice when visiting a country in the Middle East. Be respectful and you will be respected. Advertisement

However, personally, I felt the historical jewel in Lebanon's crown was the ancient city of Byblos.

Believed to be the oldest populated city in the world  its earliest settlers landed around 8,000 years ago  visiting Byblos is like stepping onto the set of a Hollywood historical epic.

Strolling along its narrow cobbled streets, visiting its various ruins or popping into Lebanese restaurants for fattoush, kibbeh and chicken kebabs, is a delightful way to spend a day.

Plus, Byblos boasts sensational beaches. In case you feel like soaking up some rays.

Lebanon is a history lovers dream, but if your idea of a holiday is sun, sea and a dancefloor, well never fear  Beirut has got you covered.

Beirut is all about new beginnings and there is a youthful exuberance to the city that is both captivating and contagious.

So it is no surprise that when it comes to having fun, they know what theyre doing.

Beirut is the perfect place to dance and drink the night away and the uber trendy district of Mar Mikhael is packed with hipsters and beautiful people looking to have a good time. These painted steps brighten up the Christian Armenian neighbourhood there

Mar Mikhael is also a great place to stop for a coffee or tuck into a meal with an array of restaurants lining its narrow streets. It's also home to this amazing classical fresco

TRAVEL FACTS Pegasus Airlines operates double daily flights from London Stansted and London Gatwick to Beirut via Istanbul. Return flights start from 199 including taxes and charges. Visit www.flypgs.com/en for detailed information and the whole range of affordable travel services from seat selection, online check-in, extra baggage allowance, in-flight meal choices to hotel bookings, car hire and airport transfers. For more information on the Phoenicia visit www.phoeniciabeirut.com. Advertisement

Whether you want to surround yourself with beautiful people dancing to blaring house music or sip a beer in a cramped bar while listening to The Beatles, there is no need to go to bed early.

I enjoyed visits to the uber trendy neighbourhoods of Mar Mikhael and Hamra where the hipster-filled drinking holes and art inspired cafes, flanking narrow streets, reminded me of my favourite places to get up to mischief in London.

Basically Beirut has it all, if you want to sit on a beach and sunbathe the hours away, you can. If you want to dance and drink until you drop, you can. And if history and the arts is your cup of tea, then there is plenty to enjoy.

So visit, eat, drink, be merry - but watch out for the cab drivers. You won't regret it, you'll just wish you had visited sooner.

Special thanks to Sarah Howayek, who was a wonderful guide around her beautiful home city of Beirut.
He reportedly inked a five-year radio deal worth over $30 million last year.

But Kyle Sandilands fears he's losing money after forking out 'thousands of dollars' for hired help.

On Thursday's edition of The Kyle and Jackie O show, the radio shock-jock revealed he hired a houseboy Nima Syeh to do 'all the sh*t I hate' and be a 'stand-in husband' to his girlfriend Imogen Anthony - but he doesn't actually do anything.

Useless: On Thursday's edition of the Kyle and Jackie O show, Kyle Sandilands revealed he hired a houseboy Nima Syeh to do 'all the sh*t I hate' and be a 'stand-in husband' to his girlfriend Imogen Anthony - but Nima doesn't actually do anything

'I'm paying thousands of dollars to drag this little bastard around for nothing... He doesn't clean... [he] stands around looking bored, checking Instagram,' Kyle said.

'... He's also like half a boyfriend to Imogen... So he's a stand-in husband, he does all the sh*t I hate - which is nearly everything except for the sexual part I'm always raring to go for that.

He added: 'I've got the wrong staff ... I want him to smell like lavender and I want him in white linen and know what I want before I know what I want - you know what I mean it's not too much to ask.'

Lazy? 'I'm paying thousands of dollars to drag this little bastard around for nothing... He doesn't clean... [he] stands around looking bored, checking Instagram,' Kyle said of Nima (pictured)

Instagram obsessed: Kyle later called Nima (R) live on-air and accused him of constantly browsing social media instead of working. Also pictured Imogen Anthony and stylist Marc James

Kyle later called Nima live on-air and accused him of constantly browsing social media instead of working.

'Why didn't you answer [earlier]?' Kyle's radio co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson asked after their initial calls went unanswered.

As Nima tried to explain that his phone had been charging, Kyle interjected and said: 'You know why his phone was charging? Because he's Instagramming pictures of himself all day.'

Working hard or hardly working? Nima denied Kyle's claims that he 'Instagrams pictures of himself all day'

The houseboy insisted that was not the case, saying : 'honestly that's not true.'

It appears that Nima isn't the only one with 'lazy' tendencies, with KIIS FM host Kyle admitting earlier this year that he simply can't be bothered when it comes to intimacy with Imogen.

'I just lay back there. I don't care, I don't even mind that I'm selfish,' Kyle said on-air.

'I used to put a big effort in, but now, no effort. Nothing.'
She recently revealed that she wants to marry Ben Cohen in a 'romantic hotel' in front of their loved ones.

And Kristina Rihanoff certainly seemed smitten with the sportsman as they strode hand in hand into the 'Together for Short Lives' Midsummer Ball in London.

The former Strictly Come Dancing star, 39, dazzled in a royal blue gown as she cosied up to the rugby player, 38, on Wednesday night.

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Sweet: Kristina Rihanoff certainly seemed smitten with Ben Cohen as they strode hand in hand into the 'Together for Short Lives' Midsummer Ball in London

Kristina, who shares a one-year-old daughter Milena with Ben, looked chic in the slim-fitting gown.

Boasting a demure floor-skimming hemline and an opulent diamond collar, the garment was perfect for the charity bash - which was held to help raise money for the UK's sickest children.

Injecting a dose of sparkle to her look, Kristina added a pair of towering metallic peep-toe platforms and carried a silver clutch.

Smitten: The former Strictly Come Dancing star, 39, dazzled in a royal blue gown as she cosied up to the rugby player, 38, on Wednesday night

Injecting a dose of sparkle: Kristina added a pair of towering metallic peep-toe platforms and carried a silver clutch

She styled her blonde locks in preened waves and framed her features with a heavy application of make-up.

Meanwhile, Ben looked every inch the dapper gent in a sharp black suit teamed with black patent brogues.

The couple met in 2013 when they were partnered up on Strictly Come Dancing -while Ben was still married to Abby Blayney.

Awkward: The couple met in 2013 when they were partnered up on Strictly Come Dancing -while Ben was still married to Abby Blayney

Looking good: Kristina, who shares a one-year-old daughter Milena with Ben, looked chic in the slim-fitting gown

Polished: Kristina framed her features with a heavy application of make-up

Since their divorce was cemented, Kristina revealed what their potential wedding could be like.

'I just want to have my loved ones next to me. It doesn't matter where it is or what we do,' she told The Sun.

'If I had to choose, it's be a nice hotel, somewhere small and romantic. It would be amazing to have all my friends and family together.'

Speaking about her daughter, who she gave birth to last June, she added: 'I love waking up in the morning and seeing Mila's face. Her little smile is the best.'

Glam: She styled her peroxide blonde locks in preened waves that effortlessly framed her face

Big plans: Since their divorce was cemented, Kristina revealed what their potential wedding could be like

Exciting: 'If I had to choose, it's be a nice hotel, somewhere small and romantic. It would be amazing to have all my friends and family together,' Kristina said

Ben already has two daughters, Harriet and Isabelle, with his ex-wife Abby.

The couple, who met in 1995 when Ben was just 17, split in September 2014

On their first Christmas Eve spent apart in 2014 Abby tweeted: 'Don't want to get up!! feeling very broken today.'

She later said that if it wasn't for Kristina, the couple would still be together.'

'I'm Ben Cohen's ex-wife. If it wasn't for that woman me and Ben would still be married. But so what? I'm moving on,' she told The Mirror last year.

'I don't want to talk about being the ditched wife. Ben's getting on with his life. I wish him well with his new family.'
Brad Pitt delivered a grim weather forecast on Tuesday's debut edition of The Jim Jefferies Show on Comedy Central.

The 53-year-old actor, an outspoken environmentalist, made the comedic cameo at the end of the show, as Jefferies introduced him in a short segment in response to President Donald Trump last week taking the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

'Of course, the world is still reeling from Trump withdrawing from the Paris Accord. And we wanted to address it one more time before we say goodnight,' said Jefferies, a 40-year-old comedian from Perth, Australia.

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Stay classy: Brad Pitt, 53, made a cameo on Tuesday's debut edition of The Jim Jefferies Show on Comedy Central, participating in a bit on climate change

He continued, 'To help us understand climate change and what it means to the world, here's our own Jim Jefferies show weatherman - how's it looking out there, weatherman?'

Pitt - clad in a retro beige suit with a loud tie - then appeared in front of a weather map dominated with red and orange colors and blazing suns, indicating serious heat on the horizon.

'So things are going to be getting warmer in this area here and this area here,' the Fight Club star said, spanning the entire world with his forecast.

First foray: The perennial A-lister's appearance was a coup for Jefferies, 40, in his show's debut

Looking the part: Pitt went a bit retro for the comedic cameo, as he wore beige suit with a loud tie to deliver the grim forecast

Hot hot hot: Pitt's forecast called for searing international temperatures in the wake of President Donald Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Accord, with the fiery weather illustrating the ill effects of climate change

Ouch: Asked about future weather temps, Pitt deadpanned, 'There is no future'

Jefferies asked Pitt about future forecasts, to which the Inglourious Basterds star responded, 'There is no future.'

Pitt has past made clear he's passionate about addressing climate change, a cause also championed by celebs such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Backing his beliefs: Pitt's made clear he's passionate about addressing climate change, a cause also championed by celebs such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Leonardo DiCaprio

Not a fan: Pitt has past said of the current president, 'What brings us together is good, and what separates us is bad'

Rare outing: The Fight Club star has kept a relatively low profile in the near-year since his split from Angelina Jolie

He's admittedly not a huge fan of the current commander-in-chief, as he supported Hillary Clinton in last fall's presidential election.

The Moneyball star told The New York Times' T magazine in September, two months before Trump's shocking victory, that he couldn't bring himself 'to think that Trump will be in charge.'

The Oklahoma-born entertainer said of Trump's politics: 'In the simplest terms, what brings us together is good, and what separates us is bad ... coming from Oklahoma, southern Missouri, which leans more toward a Trump voice, I try to understand it.'
She's the breakout star of controversial dating series Married At First Sight, amassing an impressive 166,000 Instagram followers.

But in a rather embarrassing turn of events for Cheryl Maitland, photographer Jayden Seyfarth has exposed a series of text messages with the buxom brunette coordinating a staged paparazzi shoot.

Jayden, 20, captioned the exchange to his Instagram Story: 'When they need to stay relevant'.

'When they need to stay relevant': Photographer Jayden Seyfarth exposed a series of messages with Married At First Sight's Cheryl Maitland, 26, coordinating a staged paparazzi shoot

The exchange began with Cheryl telling Jayden her movements: 'Hey I'll be in Melbourne this weekend'.

'Yo! Why Melb come to Sydney ahah! I can organise someone down there if you like,' Jayden responded.

'Would it be good for airport shots of me arriving as my partner will be there. Or dinner?' Cheryl continued.

Exposed: Jayden's text message exchange with the reality star saw Cheryl coordinating her upcoming paparazzi shots

Response: Following the embarrassing incident, Cheryl told news.com.au : 'He (Jayden) messages me all the time to see where I am'

Following the embarrassing incident, Cheryl told news.com.au: 'He (Jayden) messages me all the time to see where I am.

'I'm frankly getting annoyed with paps taking photos of me when I don't know and it makes me on edge every day.

'I mentioned to him I would be in Melbourne and if he wanted to meet me there that was fine...The paps are going to take photos of me no matter what, so if I already know I won't be so stressed out and they won't be following me as much,' she continued.

'On edge': 'I'm frankly getting annoyed with paps taking photos of me when I don't know and it makes me on edge every day,' the buxom brunette continued

Cheryl continued: 'I mentioned to him I would be in Melbourne and if he wanted to meet me there that was fine...The paps are going to take photos of me no matter what, so if I already know I won't be so stressed out and they won't be following me as much'

The Married At First Sight star has been known for making headlines.

Shortly after the series premiere, details of her past life emerged - including her visits to the Playboy mansion and association with tobacco tycoon Travers 'The Candyman' Beynon.

A video of Cheryl wearing a bikini and snorting white powder off her breast also resurfaced on social media, but she later dismissed the footage as a regrettable 'joke'.

Notoriety: The Married At First Sight star has been known for making headlines. Shortly after the series premiere, details of her past life emerged - including her visits to the Playboy mansion and association with tobacco tycoon Travers 'The Candyman' Beynon

New romance: After filming Married At First Sight, Cheryl began dating Melbourne-based plumber Dean Gibbs

After filming Married At First Sight, Cheryl began dating Melbourne-based plumber Dean Gibbs.

But within hours of debuting the relationship on Instagram, Dean's past life also made headlines as it emerged he was a convicted drug trafficker.

In 2014, Dean was handed a one-year suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to trafficking and using cocaine, as well as possessing steroids and ecstasy.
She's the Australian star who stuns on the red carpet.

And Margot Robbie looked just as stylish when she stepped out in a casual frock in California on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old actress flaunted her trim pins in a summery star print dress by Realisation Par as she left Beverly Hills' Sasabune Sushi.

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Spot on! Margot Robbie flaunts trim pins in a summery star print frock during sunny California lunch outing on Wednesday

In high spirits, it's believed Margot had popped out for a business lunch meeting with her talent agent.

Wearing a short thigh-skimming number with frilled hemline, the Suicide Squad star showcased her toned legs as she left the venue.

Keeping her look casual, she partnered the flirty long-sleeve design with crisp white sneakers.

All smiles! Spotted in high spirits, the Suicide Squad star showcased her sculptured legs as she left the venue in a flirty frilled-hemline dress

Natural beauty! Margot's makeup was flawless, as she applied a minimal coverage of foundation with a light dusting of blush and lashing of mascara

The blonde stunner placed half of her long locks into a top knot, while her lower layers fell over her slender shoulders.

Margot's makeup was flawless, as she applied a minimal coverage of foundation with a light dusting of blush and lashing of mascara.

The wrap dress was tied in a bow around her svelte waistline, while the low-cut design left her decolletage exposed.

Slender star! The wrap dress was tied in a bow around her svelte waistline, while the low-cut design left her decolletage exposed

The Wolf Of Wall Street actress was glued to her phone as she threw a mahogany-coloured tote over her right shoulder.

Margot was pictured conversing with a man, believed to be her agent, as she walked towards an awaiting vehicle.

She accessorised her look with gold hoop earrings, a two-tiered necklace and her diamond wedding ring.

Nice to see you! Margot was pictured conversing with a man, believed to be her agent, as she walked towards an awaiting vehicle

Keeping it casual: She accessorised her look with gold hoop earrings, a two-tiered necklace, her diamond wedding ring and crisp white sneakers

Newlywed! Margot tied the knot with British assistant director beau Tom Ackerley back in December during a secret, low-key ceremony in Byron Bay

Margot tied the knot with British assistant director beau Tom Ackerley back in December during a secret, low-key ceremony in Byron Bay.

Last month OK! Magazine claimed that the couple were making 'baby plans'.

The publication reported Margot had cut back on her acting projects in order to start a family by the end of the year.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit. MAINE COUNCIL OF THE ATLANTIC SALMON FEDERATION; NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL OF MAINE; KENNEBEC VALLEY CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED; and MAINE RIVERS, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE (NOAA FISHERIES); BROOKFIELD RENEWABLE SERVICES MAINE, LLC; BROOKFIELD POWER U.S. ASSET MANAGEMENT, LLC; BROOKFIELD WHITE PINE HYDRO, LLC; MERIMIL LIMITED PARTNERSHIP; and HYDRO-KENNEBEC, LLC, Defendants, Appellees. No. 16-2155 Decided: June 07, 2017

Before Kayatta, Circuit Judge, Souter, Associate Justice,* and Stahl, Circuit Judge. Russell B. Pierce, Jr., with whom Norman, Hanson & DeTroy,LLC, and Charles Owen Verrill, Jr., were on brief, for appellants. Kevin W. McArdle, Attorney, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Env't & Natural Resources Div., with whom Ellen J. Durkee and Robert P. Williams, Attorneys, U.S. Dep't of Justice, Env't & Natural Resources Div.; John C. Cruden, Assistant Attorney General; and John P. Almeida, Attorney Advisor, U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, were on brief, for appellee National Marine Fisheries Service. Matthew W. Morrison, with whom Pillsbury Winthrop ShawPittman LLP was on brief, for appellees Brookfield Renewable Services Maine, LLC; Brookfield Power U.S. Asset Management, LLC; Brookfield White Pine Hydro, LLC; Merimil Limited Partnership; and Hydro-Kennebec LLC.

This appeal is from the district court's dismissal for lack of jurisdiction of an action brought by the Plaintiff-Appellants under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). They sought review of two biological opinions issued to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by the National Marine Fisheries Service evaluating requested modifications of licenses to operate hydropower dams. We affirm.

I.

Defendant-Appellees power companies (Brookfield Renewable Services Maine, LLC; Brookfield Power U.S. Asset Management, LLC; Brookfield White Pine Hydro, LLC; Merimil Limited Partnership; and Hydro-Kennebec, LLC) sought to modify the terms of existing licenses to operate four hydropower dams on the Kennebec River in Maine, which are subject to licensing by FERC, acting under the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C.  791a et seq. Because the river is a traditional waterway for spawning Atlantic salmon, a protected species under the terms of the Endangered Species Act, FERC was required to obtain biological opinions (called BiOps) from the Fisheries Service, on whether operating the dams under the proposed license modifications would jeopardize survival of the salmon species or degrade its environment. See 16 U.S.C.  1536(a)(2), (b)(3); 50 C.F.R.  402.14(a), (g), (h). The Fisheries Service found no jeopardy to the species from the proposed modifications and no threat of degradation. It did, however, find that the changes proposed would result in the incidental taking of individual fish among the protected population. See 16 U.S.C.  1538(a)(1)(B) (prohibiting the take of an endangered species); id.  1532(19) (defining take to include harm and kill). Consequently, it issued an incidental take statement, setting forth measures to minimize the take and providing a safe harbor for those (including FERC and its employees) who act in accord with such measures and whose actions might otherwise violate the Endangered Species Act. See id.  1536(b)(4), (o)(2); 50 C.F.R.  402.14(i).

The BiOps, with their incidental take statements, drew immediate objection from the Plaintiff-Appellants environmental organizations participating in the licensing proceedings (Maine Council of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, Natural Resources Council of Maine, Kennebec Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, and Maine Rivers). They challenged the statements in this district court action against the Fisheries Service and the power companies, brought under the provisions of Section 10 of the APA, 5 U.S.C.  701-706, claiming that the BiOps were arbitrary and capricious agency actions, id.  706(2)(A), which violated Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C.  1536. While the case was pending, FERC granted the license modifications by orders adopting the terms of the BiOps. The district court then dismissed the case for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, relying on section 313(b) of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C.  825l(b), which vests jurisdiction of appeals from such FERC orders in the courts of appeals. This appeal followed, as did the Appellants' filing for review of the FERC orders in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

We agree with the district court that time and events have eliminated whatever claims of district court jurisdiction to review the BiOps the Appellants might have raised, whether sound or not, when this action was filed. So far as the appeal concerns the BiOp with respect to the Hydro-Kennebec dam affecting Waterville, Winslow, and Benton, Maine, the action is moot by virtue of the terms of the BiOp itself, which expired on December 31, 2016. As for the BiOp addressing the other three dams, FERC's decision to modify the licenses by terms that incorporated that BiOp changed the relevant facts as alleged when the district court action was filed.

Once issued, the FERC order was unquestionably subject to the Federal Power Act's provision for direct appellate jurisdiction of the courts of appeals, 16 U.S.C.  825l(b). The Supreme Court has made it clear that the jurisdiction provided by  825l(b) is exclusive, not only to review the terms of the specific FERC order, but over any issue inhering in the controversy. City of Tacoma v. Taxpayers of Tacoma, 357 U.S. 320, 336 (1958). Thus, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where the Appellants have filed their petition for review of FERC's orders, has exclusive jurisdiction over the attacks on the BiOps, on two separate and independently sufficient grounds: as it was free to do, FERC incorporated the BiOps in its own orders, and the BiOps were by any measure inher[ent] in the statutory process for consideration of the license modifications. The Appellants accordingly have nowhere else to go but to the courts of appeals, where they are afforded the opportunity to litigate just what they claimed in their attempt to proceed in the district court.

The Appellants try to avoid this conclusion by pressing two arguments, neither of which avails them. They say, first, that the scope of appeal under  825l(b) is narrower than the review that would be afforded on a district court action under the APA: that the reach of the court of appeals goes only as far as considering whether FERC was arbitrary or capricious in accepting the BiOps as recommended by the Fisheries Service, whereas in review under the APA the district court could examine the BiOps directly for arbitrariness or capriciousness on the part of the Fisheries Service in issuing them. The former, they say, is not an adequate counterpart of the latter. See 5 U.S.C.  703 (providing that [t]he form of proceeding for judicial review is the special statutory review proceeding relevant to the subject matter in a court specified by statute, so long as that specified review proceeding is not inadequa[te]); id.  704 (authorizing judicial review of final agency action under the APA where there is no other adequate remedy in a court).

The argument for inadequacy fails. Not only have the Appellants found no case with reasoning that supports them, but the cases that have considered the scope of review in a court of appeals under the special Power Act provision have come down against the Appellants' argument, seeing no good reason to read limited into the Supreme Court's understanding of exclusive jurisdiction. See City of Tacoma v. FERC, 460 F.3d 53, 76 (D.C. Cir. 2006); Cal. Save Our Streams Council, Inc. v. Yeutter, 887 F.2d 908, 911-12 (9th Cir. 1989); City of Tacoma v. Nat'l Marine Fisheries Serv., 383 F. Supp. 2d 89, 92-93 (D.D.C. 2005); Idaho Rivers United v. Foss, 373 F. Supp. 2d 1158, 1161 (D. Idaho 2005). The first of these cases is, of course, from the court in which the Appellants have filed their appeal of the FERC orders. In any event, their argument is simply precluded here by the Fisheries Service's agreement that the scope of any court of appeals review of the BiOps will be what the APA would provide in a district court if the Fisheries Service's BiOps could be challenged directly there. That agreement was unequivocally confirmed in open court by the Fisheries Service's counsel in arguing this case.

The Appellants' second argument for preserving an opportunity to challenge the BiOps directly in the district court goes to timing. To be adequate, an appeal must not only cover relevant substantive ground, but be available in a timely fashion, which the Appellants deny that court of appeals review provides: here, they say, APA review in the district court was readily invoked, whereas access to the court of appeals had to wait for the necessary action by FERC, amounting to 164 days from the date of the BiOp in the case of the Hydro-Kennebec dam, and 1035 days with respect to the BiOp for the three other dams. During those time periods, the Appellants contend, the incidental take statements could have allowed harm to occur. But we need not decide whether a sufficiently long, ongoing delay could render the review provided by  825l(b) inadequate. In the present case, FERC has acted and a petition for review is pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Not only is review in that court adequate in these circumstances, it is probably the Appellants' quickest route to resolving their challenge to the BiOps.

Finally, Appellants contend that their position finds support in Dow AgroSciences LLC v. Nat'l Marine Fisheries Serv., 637 F.3d 259 (4th Cir. 2011). In Dow, the Fourth Circuit held that a BiOp issued by the Fisheries Service to the Environmental Protection Agency was reviewable in district court under the APA. Id. at 261. [D]eferring judicial review of the [BiOp] until the EPA acts, the court said, would not provide the [plaintiffs] adequate review of the [BiOp]. Id. But this case is not the same, for FERC, unlike the EPA in Dow, has acted on the BiOps in question, and a petition for review of that action is pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

II.

The judgment of the district court dismissing this action for lack of jurisdiction is affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

. The National Marine Fisheries Service has been renamed NOAA Fisheries. We follow the parties' lead and use the former title, which applied when the biological opinions were issued.

. Section 825l(b) provides, in relevant part:Any party to a proceeding under this chapter aggrieved by an order issued by [FERC] in such proceeding may obtain a review of such order in the United States Court of Appeals for any circuit wherein the licensee or public utility to which the order relates is located or has its principal place of business, or in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, by filing in such court, within sixty days after the order of [FERC] upon the application for rehearing, a written petition praying that the order of [FERC] be modified or set aside in whole or in part.  Upon the filing of such petition such court shall have jurisdiction, which upon the filing of the record with it shall be exclusive, to affirm, modify, or set aside such order in whole or in part.

. At argument, counsel for the Fisheries Service stated that [s]ince the biological opinion was adopted into the FERC order, it's an inherent part of that order, so in exercising its jurisdiction over  plaintiffs' petition in this case, the D.C. Circuit can review not only FERC's reliance on the biological opinion, but the substantive validity of the biological opinion itself. Oral Argument 20:15-21:00. Although the Fisheries Service made clear that its concession came with the caveat that the Fisheries Service might not be granted intervenor status in the case pending before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, that condition is no longer of concern, since the request to intervene has been granted. See Order, Maine Council of theAtlantic Salmon Fed. v. FERC, No. 17-1003 (D.C. Cir. Mar. 3, 2017) (order granting the Fisheries Service's motion to intervene); Motion of the Department of Commerce for Leave to Intervene, Maine Council of the Atlantic Salmon Fed. v. FERC, No. 17-1003 (D.C. Cir. Feb. 2, 2017) (the Fisheries Service's unopposed motion to intervene).

. The Supreme Court's decision in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., 136 S.Ct. 1807 (2016), is also inapposite. In that case, there was no reasonable alternative procedure by which the aggrieved party could seek review of the agency action in question. If an aggrieved party did not wish to obtain judicial review by risking civil and criminal penalties for defying the agency's determination, the proposed alternative, which had not been invoked, could be arduous, expensive, and long. Id. at 1815.

SOUTER, Associate Justice.
A very dressed-down Millie Bobby Brown attempted incognito as she caught a flight out of LAX on Wednesday.

The 13-year-old SAG Award winner - who relies on stylist Karla Welch - paired a black Ivy Park hoodie with matching studded Birkenstocks, grey sweatpants, and a yellow purse.

The Stranger Things scene stealer's Louis Vuitton luggage was hauled by chaperone Mel Greene, whom she describes as 'my 2nd mother, my consultant, and my friend.'

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Jet setter: A very dressed-down Millie Bobby Brown attempted incognito as she caught a flight out of LAX on Wednesday

Beyonce fan: The 13-year-old SAG Award winner - who relies on stylist Karla Welch - paired a black Ivy Park hoodie with matching studded Birkenstocks, grey sweatpants, and a yellow purse

Chaperone: The Stranger Things scene stealer's Louis Vuitton luggage was hauled by Mel Greene, whom she describes as 'my 2nd mother, my consultant, and my friend'

On Tuesday, Millie donned a pink halter dress for the Netflix FYC Emmy event at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills alongside her 'brothers for life.'

'The Upside Down plays a major role in the upcoming season,' Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer told THR.

His twin brother Matt added: 'The gate to the Upside Down in the last season was not closed, it is still there.'

The Spanish-born, Florida-raised Brit is a rumoured frontrunner for an Emmy Award nomination (announced July 13), which would make her the youngest minor to ever receive one.

Castmates: On Tuesday, Millie donned a pink halter dress for the Netflix FYC Emmy event at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills alongside her 'brothers for life'

Stranger Things co-creators Ross & Matt Duffer told THR: 'The Upside Down plays a major role in the upcoming season. The gate to the Upside Down in the last season was not closed, it is still there'

Announced July 13! The Spanish-born, Florida-raised Brit is a rumoured frontrunner for an Emmy Award nomination, which would make her the youngest minor to ever receive one

Last weekend, Millie officially wrapped her role as Jane 'Eleven' Ives in the binge-watching favorite's nine-episode second season.

'Last night of shooting!' the precociously talented tween - who boasts 4.6M social media followers - wrote Friday.

'Sadie [Sink] I love you with all my heart. Finn [Wolfhard] thank you for making me laugh! Gaten [Matarazzo], thank you for being there for me throughout everything. Caleb [McLaughlin], my older brother thank you for protecting me no matter what!

'And Noah [Schnapp], thank you for being my partner in crime. Can't wait for everyone to see this season as it's epic! This wouldn't have happened without the crew!'

'Can't wait for everyone to see this season as it's epic!' Last weekend, Millie officially wrapped her role as Jane 'Eleven' Ives in the binge-watching favorite's nine-episode second season

Sacrifice: It's unclear precisely how Brown's traumatized psychokinetic character - who's based on E.T. - will return after vanishing into ash with the Demogorgon monster in the finale

It's unclear precisely how Brown's traumatized psychokinetic character - who's based on E.T. - will return after vanishing into ash with the Demogorgon monster in the finale.

On May 3, TV Line reported that Nashville's Will Chase will play a 'pivotal recurring role' likely Neil Mayfield, the father of newcomers Sadie Sink and Dacre Montgomery.

Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, Linnea Berthelsen, and Brett Gelman are also new additions to the ensemble in the hit show set in fictional Hawkins, Indiana.

The Madmax, The Storm, and The Brain are just three of the titles for season two - set a year later in fall 1984 - which begins streaming October 31 on Netflix.

California family? On May 3, TV Line reported that Nashville's Will Chase (L) will play a 'pivotal recurring role' likely Neil Mayfield, the father of newcomers Dacre Montgomery and Sadie Sink

Behind the scenes: Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, Linnea Berthelsen, and Brett Gelman are also new additions to the ensemble in the hit show set in fictional Hawkins, Indiana

Set a year later in fall 1984: The Madmax, The Storm, and The Brain are just three of the titles for season two, which begins streaming October 31 on Netflix

Millie can next be seen on the sixth season of Variety Studio: Actors on Actors, which premieres next Tuesday on PBS SoCal KOCE.

'If you look at the message boards and the insults and things, it just makes me stronger,' the fidget spinner enthusiast explained to fellow former child star Evan Rachel Wood.

'That is like compliments to me. I'm playing on their minds, clearly. So that's my mentality, I never really take it personally because I think. I clearly annoy them, which is my goal. I made an impression.'
They both found fame on reality dating shows last year.

So it's no wonder Katie Salmon and ZaraLena Jackson teamed up to attend the Ezili swimwear launch in Manchester on Wednesday night.

The Love Island star, 21, flashed her cleavage in a lace-up camouflage dress while Ex On The Beach's ZaraLena opted for a more demure look in checked trousers.

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Double trouble! Katie Salmon and ZaraLena Jackson teamed up to attend the Ezili swimwear launch in Manchester on Wednesday night

Katie showcased her slim frame in the khaki dress, which flashed a peek of her caged bra underneath.

She added height with some lattice knee-high sandals and added a red suede chain-trim bag,

ZaraLena, meanwhile, rocked a bizarre pair of cropped checked trousers cinched in at the waist with a wide belt, teamed with gold sandals.

Revealing: The Love Island star, 21, flashed her cleavage in a lace-up camouflage dress while Ex On The Beach's ZaraLena opted for a more demure look in checked trousers

Taking the plunge: Katie showcased her slim frame in the khaki dress, which flashed a peek of her caged bra underneath

ZaraLena, who is a fashion designer, made an explosive impact on the last series of Ex On The Beach, after enjoying a night with Aaron Chalmers as soon as he entered the villa.

Her decision to leave the show was the result of a love triangle with Aaron and his ex-girlfriend Becca Edwards, atop a mutiny with Geordie beauty Zahida Allen.

Following a series of furious rows, she explained: 'Aaron clearly still has feelings there for Becca and I feel like piggy in the middle, so I need to get out of this situation. I think it's time I left. I've made a decision that I will go tonight'.

Meanwhile, Katie is reportedly 'in talks' to make a big return to this year's hotly anticipated series Love Island, after impressing producers with her fiery nature and headline-grabbing antics.

Strike a pose: Katie worked her best angles for the camera when she arrived at the event

Party people: Katie arrived with her male pal as they coordinated their looks

'New hair don't care': Katie showed off her new coiffed blonde waves in an Instagram snap from the night after ditching the waist-length braids

The glamour model was embroiled in a love triangle after catching the eye of Sophie Gradon - who was already coupled up with Welsh hunk Tom Powell.

And as a source revealed to The Sun, fans may be able to expect to see Katie onscreen sooner than they may have anticipated.

'Katie was only in the house for five minutes but was caught up in two of the most dramatic twists in the entire series.

Leggy! The reality star joined some of the gorgeous swimwear models for a snap

Making her entrance: Katie showed plenty of skin in her racy outfit as she strutted around

'Its no secret that ITV are hoping for more sex, drama and tensions this year, and they know that Katie would be the perfect instigator.

'Shes already spoken to producers who seem to want her to return to the Villa for the whole stint rather than arriving later than the others.'

Katie's brief dalliance with fellow beauty Sophie - creating the first female couple - revved up the drama of last year's series, while her confession of feelings for Irish wrestler Adam Maxted caused another shockwave.

New horizons? Katie is reportedly 'in talks' to make a big return to this year's hotly anticipated series Love Island, after impressing producers with her fiery nature and headline-grabbing antics.

Cheeky: The glamour model was embroiled in a love triangle after catching the eye of Sophie Gradon - who was already coupled up with Welsh hunk Tom Powell.
She received a British Soap Award earlier this week for her stillbirth storyline on Corrie - and left fans in tears when she dedicated the gong to her late son Archie.

So after an overwhelming week, it is no wonder Kym Marsh was keen to spend an evening relaxing with her nearest and dearest on Wednesday night.

The actress, 40, swapped her red carpet gown for a casually glamorous leather jacket and heels combo, as she joined boyfriend Matt Baker, son David and daughter Polly at the opening of the Purple Lounge Indian restaurant in Manchester.

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Relaxed: Kym Marsh, 40, joined her boyfriend Matt Baker (R), daughter Polly (centre) and son David (L) at the opening of new Indian restaurant Purple Lounge in Manchester on Wednesday

Kym appeared more than comfortable as she headed out for a tasty curry with her oldest child David, 22, and youngest Polly, 6 - although daughter Emilie, 19, did not join them.

The soap star looked effortlessly stylish in black jeans and a sleek leather jacket, which she teamed with striking burgundy court shoes as she posed at the launch.

First joingin her beau of two years Matt in front of cameras, the Coronation Street star then cut a completely relaxed figure as she cosied up to her brood for a sweet family photo, ahead of their meal.

Trendy: The soap star looked effortlessly stylish in black jeans and a sleek leather jacket, which she teamed with striking burgundy court shoes as she posed at the launch

Comfortable: First joingin her beau of two years Matt (above), the Coronation Street star then cut a completely relaxed figure as she cosied up to her brood for a sweet family photo

Kym was no doubt looking forward to an intimate evening with her family, following an exciting weekend at the British Soap Awards.

Beaming widely at the eatery the star, who plays Michelle Connor on the ITV soap, was no doubt still on cloud nine - after receiving endless compliments from viewers about her 'beautiful' and 'moving' acceptance speech at the bash.

Kym had left fans in tears on Tuesday night, after she dedicated her win to her late son Archie, who was born prematurely at 21 weeks in February 2009.

Viewers of the soap flocked to Twitter to praise her words - which touched on the difficulties of playing a woman who has lost a child, after suffering the same tragedy in her personal life.

Moving: actress Kym Marsh left her fans in tears on Tuesday, as she dedicated her win to her late son Archie, who was born prematurely at 21 weeks in February 2009

Kym has tugged on the heartstrings of Corrie viewers in recent months, after her character Michelle and her husband Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson) lost their baby son Ruari to a stillbirth.

Receiving recognition for her heartbreaking portrayal at the awards on Saturday, Kym was then seen dedicating the gong to her son Archie, who was also a stillbirth.

Fans immediately took to Twitter to praise her words, and express their admiration for her bravery in portraying such a storyline - which she admitted was 'the most difficult thing' she's ever had to do in her career.

Devastating: Kym tugged on the heartstrings of Corrie viewers after her character Michelle lost her baby to a stillbirth (above) - with Kym sadly suffering the same tragedy in 2009

Brave: Receiving recognition for her heartbreaking portrayal (above), Kym was then seen dedicating the gong to her son Archie, who was also a stillbirth, in her speech aired on Tuesday

Posting on the site in their hundreds, one fan first wrote: 'Your speech for your soap award was absolutely beautiful, and I am sure it has moved many to tears who can relate you.'

Others then agreed by adding: 'Such a beautiful speech by @msm4rsh at the soap awards. Brought me to tears' and 'Wow! Not a dry eye in the house, you should be so proud of yourself and everything you've accomplished.'

Another chimed in: 'That was a brilliant acceptance speech. Very heartfelt and touching. And it was a well deserved win too.'

Heartbroken: Viewers immediately flocked to Twitter to praise her 'moving' speech - which saw her confirm the scenes as 'the most difficult' of her career

While another praised: 'Such a beautiful speech & so well deserved. So glad that a taboo subject has raised much needed awareness for our angel babies x x'

Meanwhile others acknowledged how brave she is to portray a plot so personal to her, writing: 'Absolutely deserved this award such a heartbreaking story line so close to her heart! outstanding performance.'

Others agreed, adding: 'So pleased @msm4rsh you got your award you were so brave to highlight it especially going through it yourself xxx' and 'kym marsh breaks my heart in every way and knowing that it's real life to her just cripples me.'

Admirable: Others acknowledged how brave she is to portray a plot so personal to her

Deserving of more: A further fan even called for the actress to receive more recognition for the role

Emotional: She explained in her speech: 'It was perhaps the most difficult thing Ive ever had to do in my career. It took us back to places that we never really wanted to go to again'

A further fan even called for the actress to receive more recognition for the role, writing: 'Well done to @msm4rsh for her award, she has been exceptional & deserved her award, should have got best actress too #JustSayin'

The former Hear'Say star had moved both viewers and guests at the ceremony with her emotional speech, which touched upon the tragedy of losing her own son.

She said as she accepted her award: 'Thank you so much, this means so much to me.

Thrilled: However she was still overjoyed at the prize, declaring as she accepted her award: 'Thank you so much, this means so much to me'

'It was perhaps the most difficult thing Ive ever had to do in my career. It took us back to places that we never really wanted to go to again but we did because we wanted to tell the story.

'As we are sitting here enjoying ourselves someone is losing their baby. Im so proud of the show for telling the story in its entirety, reaching out to people and breaking the silence and the taboo.

'To my partner Matthew, thank you for putting up with my moods. My wonderful children, David, Emily and Polly youre the reason I smile everyday. Id like to dedicate this to my son Archie.'

True to life: She continued: 'As we are sitting here someone is losing their baby. Im so proud of the show for telling the story, reaching out to people and breaking the silence'

Proud: Holding back tears, Kym proudly lifted up her trophy after beating the likes of fellow Corrie actress Lucy Fallon (Bethany Platt) to the win

Holding back tears, Kym proudly lifted up her trophy after beating the likes of fellow Corrie actress Lucy Fallon (Bethany Platt) to the win.

Kym proved that family was close to her heart as she arrived at the ceremony earlier in the evening with son David.

Walking the red carpet at The Lowry Theatre in Manchester, the actress was a vision of beauty as she posed for snaps.

Blue-tiful! Walking the red carpet at The Lowry Theatre in Manchester for the British Soap Awards on Saturday, the 40-year-old actress was a vision of beauty as she posed for snaps

Clad in a navy lace gown, Kym looked sensational in the figure-hugging garment.

Featuring a lace neckline, the gown was short sleeved to show off her toned physique, whilst the tight material clung to her every curve.

Flashing her tanned and toned pins, the gown also featured a racy thigh high split which offered a look at her towering silver heels.

Train trouble: The star appeared to be struggling with her gorgeous gown's flowing train as she sashayed into the awards ceremony

Family first: Kym arrived with her son David, putting in a rare appearance together

Sweeping her brunette locks away from her face, the star rocked a vintage hairdo, with her glossy tresses in tight curls.

Beaming broadly, she joined son David - who looked dapper in a fitted blue suit as he posed for pictures with his mum.

Speaking about her tough Corrie storylines on Lorraine last month, she revealed: 'Obviously at times I was transported back to a place I was trying to get away from.

Cheeky: Flashing her tanned and toned pins, the gown also featured a racy thigh high split

Hair-raising look: The brunette teased her locks into a curly updo and went heavy on the eye liner and mascara

'I was told there was no way I HAD to do the stillbirth storyline. But I chose to do it because it might help someone who went through something similar. And so many people said it helped.'

Of her character Michelle, who is finally coming out the other end of the trauma on the soap, she said: 'I think shes lost some of her spark. Ive had a lot of comedy to play which I think is great.'

The annual Soap Awards ceremony launched in 1999 and this year will mark its 19th successive year on TV.

Stepping out: Kym and David, 22, are rarely seen together in public

Celebrating the best of British soaps, fans will see some of their favourite TV stars from Coronation Street, Hollyoaks, EastEnders, Emmerdale and Doctors walking the red carpet in Manchester.

Although taking place on Saturday June 3rd, the ceremony will be broadcast on Tuesday June 6th after show bosses respectful postponed the program ahead of Ariana Grande's One Love tribute concert for the Manchester bombing.

Hosted by This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield, tensions will reach fever pitch as soaps nervously wait to find out who has bagged the coveted title of Best Soap - which went to Emmerdale for the first time last year.
She stars in the upcoming movie Girls Trip with Queen Latifah and Regina Hall.

But on Wednesday, Jada Pinkett Smith made a solo trip to the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee to present at the country music ceremony.

The 45-year-old beauty chose a figure-hugging lilac Carolina Herrera gown for her trip down south for the awards show.

Flower power: Jada Pinkett Smith walked the red carpet at the CMT Music Awards in a lilac-colored gown with floral embellishments

Her hair was worn in a sleek bob and her eye shadow mirrored the feminine flair of her pastel frock.

The floor-length dress featured floral embellishment that began at the top and crossed her body.

The CMT Awards celebrate the best music videos of the year in the country music genre.

Sleek: The 45-year-old beauty wore her hair in a straight bob for the annual awards ceremony

Keith Urban, Kelsea Ballerini and Thomas Rhett each have four nominations at Wednesday night's ceremony, making them the most nominated of the night.

Carrie Underwood is close behind with three nominations with selections from her 2015 album Storyteller.

Florida Georgia Line, Lauren Alaina and Luke Bryan also have three nominations each.

Elegant: The Magic Mike 2 star's flirty, feminine gown was designed by Carolina Herrera

Recently, Jada opened up on Jimmy Kimmel Live about planning family vacations with her 48-year-old husband Will.

Jada had previously talked about how hard it is to plan these trips and make everyone happy until they let the Men In Black star take the reins on a recent one.

She said: 'We had a beautiful summer vacation. I told you I don't like boats and he took the family on the boat. And it was great, it was fantastic!

Peek-a-boo: The gown put emphasis on her cleavage with it's strapless, low cut neckline

'So we as a family have decided to give Will all the power to make decisions about where the family goes on summer vacation, but he gets one strike.'

Jada went on to explain that essentially if he messes up once then he loses that privilege.

As for their next trip, the Gotham star said that Will decided that they will be going to Vietnam.
Roxy Jacenko has marked her 37th birthday by reflecting on her tumultuous past 12 months.

The PR queen started her birthday off on Thursday by exchanging gifts with her children - Pixie, 5, and Hunter, 3, - humbly thanking the two tots for getting her through the past year.

The last 12 months have seen Roxy battle breast cancer, her husband Oliver Curtis jailed for insider trading, and the married PR queen busted kissing her ex boyfriend Nabil Gazal in April.

'Never would have dreamt of the challenges I would face in the past 12 months': Roxy Jacenko reflects on tumultuous year as she marks 37th birthday with children Pixie and Hunter

'Happy Birthday to our beautiful boss!' PR maven Roxy Jacenko enjoyed a lavish 37th birthday treat this Thursday after her Sweaty Betty employees threw a decadent party for the blonde

In a surprisingly serious Instagram post, Roxy labels her past year difficult and thanks her two children for sticking by her.

'Never would have dreamt of the challenges I would face in the past 12 months - these two made it manageable - the best present I could have wished for,' she wrote.

The accompanying social media photo shows a makeup free Roxy in bed with Hunter and Pixie.

Tough times: Last June, Roxy's husband Oliver was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment

Difficult: Roxy opened up on her husband's trial and her health battle during an interview with 60 Minutes last year

Pixie holds up a handmade birthday card to the camera which reads: 'I love you mum. I hope you have a very nice birthday.'

Last June, Roxy's husband Oliver was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.

A month later she was diagnosed with breast cancer, documenting her radiation treatment and cancer removal during an interview with 60 Minutes.

Health crisis: A month later she was diagnosed with breast cancer, documenting her radiation treatment and cancer removal

Faced turmoil: Roxy said her business took a hit following the 'shocking' publicity surrounding her husband's trial

Roxy was also faced with a fight in the business arena, telling Daily Mail Australia in April that her business took a hit following the 'shocking' publicity surrounding her husband's trial.

The only way she got past it was by keeping her head down and ignoring the bad publicity and focusing on her children, the businesswoman explained.

'My only focus was my kids and trying to keep my business going so that come 2017 I could put a rocket up it and get it back on track,' Roxy said.

'Because it nearly crashed and burned - no doubt.'

Kept her focus narrow: The only way she got past it was by keeping her head down and ignoring the bad publicity and focusing on her children

Speculation: This year Roxy was also been forced to deny on multiple occasions that she has split from husband Oliver

This year Roxy was also been forced to deny on multiple occasions that she has split from husband Oliver, insisting she was 'still married' during an interview with Nova's Fitzy and Wippa in April.

However later that same month explosive pictures were published showing the PR queen kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal on a balcony.

While neither Roxy or Nabil have commented publicly on the images, sources told The Sydney Morning Herald in May the photos have hurt their respective families.

The publication claimed their relationship has also caused strain between Nabil's family, mentioning his mother has been most affected.

Exposed: in April explosive pictures were published showing the PR queen kissing her ex-boyfriend Nabil Gazal on a balcony. Pictured together last December

Living the luxe life! She was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce during her 37th birthday celebrations

Someone's popular! Several of Roxy's staff-members also took to their personal Instagram pages to wish Roxy a happy birthday

'All trained not to miss an Instagram moment': A photo of the event depicted a sea of staff-members holding up their phones in an attempt to capture the action for their social media accounts

For her birthday she was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce during her 37th birthday celebrations.

And the PR maven later enjoyed a lavish birthday spread as her Sweaty Betty employees threw a decadent party for the blonde at the office.

The official Sweaty Betty Instagram page shared several snaps of the sprawling feast, which included endless plates of canapes, cakes, cheese and dried fruit.

She also posted a picture of herself in a swimsuit, with the caption: 'Euro ready' hinting that she may be heading to Europe for a winter break.

It's unclear whether she will be in Australia to welcome her husband home after he is released from jail later this month.

'When we tell her it's compulsory to have a slice not a sliver': Roxy was also pictured holding her extravagant birthday cake

Fit and fabulous! Earlier in the day, Roxy posted a picture of herself getting ready for the gym, looking super slender
She's staying active during the final months of her pregnancy.

And Lauren Conrad, 31, revealed exactly what it takes to keep fit while expecting her first child with husband William Tell in July's issues of Fit Pregnancy & Baby.

The former Hills star shared her revised routine, saying ever since entering into her second trimester, she has felt good about getting active again.

Lauren Conrad, 31, is revealing exactly what it takes to keep fit while expecting her first child with husband William Tell.

'In my second trimester I returned to my exercise routine,' Conrad told the magazine. 'Now I hike with girlfriends and I do classes using weights, tailoring moves to my body so that I'm not lying on my back or doing stomach exercises.'

She reveals she had had to change a few things, saying she still does the same things she used to, just with a few modifications.

'I still do the treadmill, but I push the power walking instead of running.'

The June cover girl, who revealed she battled intense nausea during her first trimester, looked gorgeous in a teal satin dress that showed just a hint of her growing baby bump.

Staying active: She reveals she had had to change a few things, saying she still does the same things she used to, just with a few modifications

She smiled pleasantly as she looked away from the camera while lying on her side.

The entrepreneur and lifestyle expert also divulged what she misses most about her pre-pregnancy life: happy hour.

'I must have been eating more cheese and wine than I realized, because I've really been missing them,' she said. 'I haven't had crazy cravings, but I've had some food aversions. For a while I couldn't eat meat.'

Glowing: Lauren appeared to glow on the cover of Parents magazine in a white maxi dress that showed her bump

She also appeared on the cover of the July edition of Parents magazine and explained that she's not scared of giving birth.

'Last night I ordered a book on putting together a birth plan. My main concern is doing whatever's right in the moment.'

She continued: I'm not worried about the pain that comes with giving birth. Maybe I'm just naive, but it's pretty low on my list of concerns. I feel like women have been doing this forever.'

The former reality star recently revealed that she is expecting a boy with a cute Instagram post.

'It's a guy!': The former reality star recently revealed that she is expecting a boy with a cute Instagram post

The Laguna Beach, California native shared a photo to Instagram of a card that said 'It's a guy' with a baby in a powder blue car. It appeared to be a paper announcement.

The Hills star made her baby announcement with a sweet sonogram picture on Instagram on New Years Day.

She captioned the snap: 'Happy New Year! I have a feeling 2017 is going to be the best year yet...'

Showing off her bump: She recently revealed her growing belly in a red bikini while announcing her new beach collection

She recently showed off her bump in a red bikini while announcing her new beach collection.

Her caption read: 'It's finally here! I'm so excited to announce that my @lclaurenconrad beach collection just launched,' she began.

'The collection has all the swimsuits, coverups and beachy outfits you'll need to get ready for summer.

'Up until now we only had sample sizes so I wasn't able to squeeze into a bikini for my baby moon, but I lived in the pretty coverups like the one above!'

Cute couple: Lauren has been married to musician and lawyer William Tell since September 2014

Lauren has been married to musician and lawyer William Tell since September 2014.

When asked previously how many kids she wants, she replied in a Q&A on her website last year: 'Maybe two... That way we aren't outnumbered.'

She also revealed she is very happy in her relationship with William, writing: 'My favourite thing about being married is knowing that I have a partner in life that I get to do so many wonderful things with.
He's the professional wrestler who made his debut on the WWE main roster in 2002.

And John Cena has openly voiced his opinion on the presidency of Donald Trump, who was inducted into the 'Celebrity Wing' of WWE's Hall of Fame in 2013.

The 40-year-old spoke about the 'extremely abrasive' Trump with KIIS FM's The Kyle & Jackie O Show on Thursday, ahead of his speaking tour in Australia next month.

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Critical: John Cena has openly voiced his opinion on the presidency of Donald Trump, who was inducted into the 'Celebrity Wing' of WWE's Hall of Fame in 2013

Co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson asked the film star about his views on the presidency of Mr. Trump, a 'WWE Hall of Famer'.

The wrestling icon declared: 'That is a very, very difficult question.'

He described America as being 'at a point of expression' and how he thought Mr. Trump was 'really finding his way'.

Opinion: Co-host Jackie 'O' Henderson asked the film star about his views on the presidency of Mr. Trump, a 'WWE Hall of Famer'

Contemplative: He then described America as being 'at a point of expression' and how he thought Mr. Trump was 'really finding his way'

'At times he is extremely abrasive. I know that's kind of his campaign, but I think time will tell,' he added of the 45th President of the United States.

'He's already locked up in some controversial business and it certainly doesn't speak proudly for America that the person who sits in the Oval Office is involved in controversy, so that's never a good thing,' he offered.

'But time will tell,' he continued. 'A man's legacy is defined by time.'

'At times he is extremely abrasive. I know that's kind of his campaign, but I think time will tell,' he added of the 45th President of the United States

'He's already locked up in some controversial business and it certainly doesn't speak proudly for America that the person who sits in the Oval Office is involved in controversy,' he offered

The Massachusetts-born star then explained how fans and critics never 'pegged' him to be at the highest level he is at now in the WWE 'after a few months'.

'It took years for me to establish the fact that I was going to be where I was at,' he stated of his career.

'So we'll see, time will tell,' he finished.
Petra Nemcova was a heavenly vision as she headlined a gala for her charity Happy Hearts Fund on Wednesday night.

The stunning beauty, who's 37, looked sensational in a halter neck red gown with peek-a-boo bodice and thigh-high slit.

The Czech model showed off her toned limbs in the number that featured a wide matching leather belt with gold buckle that cinched in her waist.

Heavenly: Petra Nemcova looked sensational in a halter neck red gown with peek-a-boo bodice and thigh-high slit at a gala benefit for her Happy Hearts Fund charity Wednesday night in NYC

Petra's gown fell in gentle pleats to the floor and had a wide cape that provided a short train that pooled around her feet.

She stepped out in gold strappy sandals with stiletto heels and sported red polish on her toe nails.

Her long blonde hair was loose in voluminous soft curls and she accessorized with large patterned hoop earrings.

Flirty and flighty: The backless number flattered her super-toned figure and featured a large cape and her waist was cinched with a matching leather belt with gold buckle

Having fun: Petra's long blonde hair was loose in voluminous soft curls and she accessorized with large patterned hoop earrings

Good cause: The Czech model, who founded Happy Hearts Fund after she survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, now helps build safe schools in areas impacted by natural disasters

Petra founded the Happy Hearts Fund in 2006 as a way to give back after surviving the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed her fiance Simon Atlee.

The nonprofit builds safe schools for children in areas of the world impacted by natural disasters.

Canadian model Coco Rocha came out to support the cause Wednesday night, wearing a showstopping off-the-shoulder gown.

The 28-year-old's black and white patterned outfit featured frills across the bodice and a fishtail skirt.

Looker: Canadian model Coco Rocha, 28, wore a showstopping off-the-shoulder black and white patterned gown with frills across the bodice and a fishtail skirt

Busty move: Actress and model Casrol Alt, 56, showed off her cleavage in a strapless purple number that hugged her curves and was decorated with a large silver dragon motif

Petra personally welcomed her celebrity guests who turned out for her charity event.

She was seen squatting down on the red carpet to say hello to the very petite renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth.

The 89-year-old media personality wore a brightly-colored flower-themed jacket over black slacks.

She added an untucked white blouse and carried a black crocodile skin purse.

Give me a hug: Petra squatted down on the red carpet to greet celebrity sex therapist Dr. Ruth who showed up to support the charity event

Catching up: The diminutive media personality and the model appeared to be great friends as they exchanged pleasantries in front of the cameras

Ready to party: Dr. Ruth, 89, wore an untucked white blouse under a brightly-colored flower-themed jacket paired with black slacks

On her side: The beauty also posed for photos with motivational guru Tony Robbins
It's the childhood game that sees people having only five seconds to jump onto the closest surface.

And Jackie 'O' Henderson, a fan of the latest social media phenomenon, was seen panicking as KIIS FM producer Pedro called out on several occasions 'The Floor is Lava'.

A clip shared to the station's Facebook page on Thursday, saw the 42-year-old hurling onto stairwell railings, tables and cupboards.

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She's a big kid at heart! Jackie 'O' Henderson, 42, panicked during 'The Floor is Lava' segment in a clip shared to Facebook on Thursday, that saw the radio co-host hurling onto railings, tables and cupboards

The beginning of the clip saw Jackie in casual clothing making her way down an office stairwell.

KIIS FM producer Pedro called out to an unaware Jackie 'The Floor is Lava,' that saw the personality going into a frenzy and yelling out 'Oh Pedro'.

Holding onto a coffee cup, the mother-of-one quickly placed the beverage on the ground, before throwing herself onto a metal railing.

A later clip saw Jackie jumping onto a large boardroom table, while another saw the blonde clinging to the door of what appeared to be a stationery cabinet.

In good fun: The childhood game sees people having only five seconds to jump onto the closest surface. Jackie is seen here hurling herself onto a large boardroom table

Holding on for dear life: Jackie is later seen clinging onto the door of what appeared to be a stationery cabinet

Notoriety: Jackie stars as a co-host alongside Kyle Sandilands on KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show. Pictured with daughter Kitty

And Jackie was not the only one getting in on the action, with her KIIS FM colleagues also finding themselves in on Pedro's prank.

The clip comes just a day after even Prince Harry found himself at the centre of the same scenario.

KIIS FM's 'Intern Pete' Deppeler made a fool of himself as he tried introducing the royal to the childhood game, Hot Lava.

Sorry, who are you? Even Prince Harry (left), 32, could not escape notorious red carpet prankster 'Intern Pete' Deppeler (right) during his visit to Sydney, Australia on Wednesday

Prince Harry, 32, awkwardly laughed as Intern Pete repeatedly shouted, 'The floor is lava!' at him.

It was clear Harry had absolutely no idea what Intern Pete was talking about.

In a video shared by KIIS FM on Wednesday night, the polite Prince was seen staring at Pete, who counted down from five to zero.

He then laughed before making light of the situation by telling a bystander: 'He's a friend of yours'.

Afterwards, Pete attempted to get the Prince's attention for a second time, but failed.

Keep calm and carry on! Prince Harry awkwardly laughed as Intern Pete repeatedly shouted, 'The floor is lava!' at him, before walking away

'He didn't get the joke' said the disappointed 'intern' as Harry continued to walk away.

Harry arrived in Sydney to launch the 2018 Invictus Games, an Olympic-style event for wounded veterans.

During his visit, Harry paid tribute to the Manchester terror attack victims alongside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Governor General Peter Cosgrove.
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. TRENT S. GRIFFIN, SR., Plaintiff - Appellant v. AMERICAN ZURICH INSURANCE COMPANY; WALGREENS COMPANY; GREG WASSON, Chief Executive Officer; JIM REILLY, SR., Director Human Resources; CHESTER STEVENS, District Manager; JANUARI LEWIS, Pharmacy Supervisor; JERRY PADILLA, Pharmacy Supervisor; FELICIA FELTON, Store Manager; JERLINE WASHINGTON, Pharmacy Manager; VANESSA STRONG, Store Manager; MIRANDA MARTINEZ, Pharmacy Technician; DARAVANH KHANMANIVANH, Pharmacy Technician; TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE, Division of Workers' Compensation; RYAN BRANNAN, Texas Workers' Compensation Commissioner; ROD BORDELON, in his individual capacity; GREG ABBOTT, Governor, State of Texas and in his individual capacity; RICK PERRY, in his individual capacity; KEN PAXTON, Attorney General; HENRY WHITMAN, JR., Commissioner C.P.S.; STEPHEN MCKENNA, Child Support Officer; MARK IVERSON, Authorized Agent; WELLS FARGO BANK; ANDREW COLE, Designated Doctor; NICOLE BUSH, Market Scheduler; VALERIE RIVERA, Ombudsman; THOMAS HIGHT, Hearing Officer; TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY AND PROTECTIVE SERVICES, Defendants - Appellees No. 16-10695 Decided: June 06, 2017

Before REAVLEY, HAYNES and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

Pro se Plaintiff Trent S. Griffin appeals the district court's dismissal of his claims against various defendants stemming from an alleged conspiracy which resulted in, inter alia, a foreclosure on his home and the garnishment of his veteran's benefits. We AFFIRM.

I.

Plaintiff Trent S. Griffin, proceeding pro se, initially filed suit to assert claims of violations of his rights, inter alia, under: the First, Fourth, Firth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; and 38 U.S.C.  5301. These claims are made against four groups of defendants: (1) American Zurich Insurance Company; (2) Walgreens Company and various employees (collectively, Walgreens); (3) Wells Fargo Bank; and (4) the Texas Department of Insurance, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, and various employees of the state of Texas (State Defendants). Griffin's claims appear to stem from various events, including: (a) a determination by American Zurich concerning an injury suffered during his employment at Walgreens, (b) alleged discrimination, retaliation, harassment, and a hostile work environment during his employment at Walgreens, (c) Wells Fargo's foreclosure on his house and garnishment of his veteran's benefits, and (d) some sort of dispute over custody and child care payments ordered by the State Defendants.

Griffin's complaint generated a flurry of activity, with the defendants filing motions to dismiss, Griffin filing out-of-time amended complaints and motions for summary judgment, and the defendants filing motions to strike in response to these amended complaints. The district court eventually denied most of these motions and re-set the litigation process by ordering Griffin to file a new amended complaint. Once Griffin filed his new amended complaint, American Zurich, Walgreens, and the State Defendants filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, while Wells Fargo filed an answer and then subsequently filed a motion to dismiss. The district court individually granted all four motions to dismiss and entered final judgment in favor of each of the groups of defendants. Griffin filed motions for new trials against each of the groups of defendants, which were subsequently denied in an electronic order. Griffin now appeals.

II.

We review de novo a district court's dismissal for either lack of subject matter jurisdiction or failure to state a claim. Ctr. for Biological Diversity, Inc. v. BP Am. Prod. Co., 704 F.3d 413, 421 (5th Cir. 2013). When evaluating a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, we accept all well-pleaded facts as true and view those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Priester v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A., 708 F.3d 667, 672 (5th Cir. 2013). We will deny such a motion if the complaint contains sufficient factual matter which, if accepted as true, states a plausible claim for relief. Id. (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). As for a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, a district court can resolve factual disputes to the extent necessary to determine jurisdiction and, based upon such facts, we then determine whether the district court correctly applied the law. See Smith v. Reg'l Transit Auth., 756 F.3d 340, 346 (5th Cir. 2014).

Griffin's appeal also challenges the manner in which the district court handled the various motions filed in his case. The management of a district court's docket is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. Fin. Acquisition Partners LP v. Blackwell, 440 F.3d 278, 291 (5th Cir. 2006).

III.

Griffin's sprawling, ninety-seven page appeal attempts to revisit most of the decisions of the district court in dismissing his claims. Our review, however, finds that the order appealed must be affirmed for substantially the same reasons given by the district court. We briefly address the discernable arguments made by Griffin both as to the district court's general handling of his case and to the specific claims against each group of defendants.

A. The District Court's Management of Griffin's Case

Griffin lodges two types of arguments against the district court's management of his claims. First, Griffin repeatedly argues that, as a pro se plaintiff, the district court was under an obligation to liberally construe his complaints and failed to do so. Griffin is correct on the law, but we conclude that the district court here liberally construed Griffin's amended complaint. We hold pro se plaintiffs to a more lenient standard than lawyers when analyzing complaints, but pro se plaintiffs must still plead factual allegations that raise the right to relief above the speculative level. Chhim v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin, 836 F.3d 467, 469 (5th Cir. 2016) (per curiam), cert. denied, 137 S. Ct. 1339 (2017). Griffin's amended complaint, even under a liberal construction, failed to raise anything more than speculative claims. The district court was correct to grant dismissal even granting a liberal interpretation of Griffin's amended complaint.

Griffin also argues that the district court abused its discretion in managing his case. Griffin alleges that errors by the district court include: not allowing Griffin to initially amend his complaint, not requiring defendants to respond to his motion for partial summary judgment, not converting motions to dismiss his amended complaint into motions for summary judgment, forcing Griffin to respond to untimely motions to dismiss his amended complaint, and ultimately granting these untimely motions. We disagree. The district court did not abuse its discretion when it gave Griffin leave to file an amended complaint. Once filed, that amended complaint rendered all earlier motions, including Griffin's motion for partial summary judgment, moot. See King v. Dogan, 31 F.3d 344, 346 (5th Cir. 1994). Similarly, Griffin's claims that the motions to dismiss his amended complaint were untimely also fail given his request to refile his amended complaint. The subsequent motions to dismiss were all timely based on this refiling. See FED. R. CIV. P. 12(a)(1)(i). The district court did not abuse its discretion.

B. Claims Against American Zurich

Griffin's appeal argues that the district court erred when it dismissed his claims against American Zurich based on res judicata. Griffin is incorrect: res judicata bars his claim. We note that Texas, not federal, res judicata applies to Griffin's claim before the district court, as the preclusive opinion comes from a state court. See Cox v. Nueces Cty., 839 F.3d 418, 421 & n.3 (5th Cir. 2016). But even though the district court incorrectly applied the federal res judicata standard, its analysis nonetheless supports a finding of res judicata under Texas law.

In Texas, res judicata requires: (1) a prior final judgment on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) identity of parties or those in privity with them; and (3) a second action based on claims that were raised or could have been raised in the first action. See Cox, 893 F.3d at 421. The district court determined that the parties were identical, that a court of competent jurisdiction rendered a final judgment on the merits, and that Griffin based both actions on the same nucleus of operative facts. These determinations support a conclusion that res judicata barred this claim under Texas law, and we therefore affirm the district court as to Griffin's claims against American Zurich.

C. Claims Against Walgreens

Griffin's appeal as to Walgreens appears to only challenge the district court's determination that his ADA claim failed because he failed to identify any major life activities that are substantially limited by an impairment. Griffin raises no new arguments to this issue, however, and our review of his complaint reveals that his pleadings on this specific point contain no facts about how his impairment affects him major life activities. Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (citing Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007)). Without pleading facts of how his major life activities were limited, Griffin cannot state a sufficient claim to a claim under the ADA. Hale v. King, 642 F.3d 492, 499501 (5th Cir. 2011) (per curiam). Griffin raises no other issues on appeal as to Walgreens. We therefore hold that the district court correctly dismissed all claims against Walgreens.

D. Claims Against Wells Fargo Bank

Wells Fargo was the only party to file an answer to Griffin's amended complaint before filing its motion to dismiss. Griffin argues in his appeal that the district court improperly handled Wells Fargo's motion, but the district court correctly converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for judgment on the pleadings and ruled on that motion. See Jones v. Greninger, 188 F.3d 322, 324 (5th Cir. 1999).

Griffin's substantive arguments as to Wells Fargo on appeal concern (1) the procedure surrounding Wells Fargo's placement of child support liens on his accounts and (2) the foreclosure of his home. None of these arguments is persuasive. Griffin provides no law to support his allegations that Wells Fargo was required to provide notice before placing the liens on his accounts, and our review of potentially applicable law reveals that Griffin's complaint is devoid of factual allegations that could potentially support a claim. As to Griffin's foreclosure claim, wrongful foreclosure in Texas requires a plaintiff to plead that there was (1) a defect in the foreclosure, (2) a grossly inadequate selling price, and (3) a causal connection between the two. See Villarreal v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 814 F.3d 763, 76768 (5th Cir. 2016). Assuming arguendo that Griffin's complaint pleads a defect in the foreclosure, Griffin pleaded neither that the selling price was inadequate nor that the inadequate selling price was caused by that defect. See Martins v. BAC Home Loans Serv., L.P., 722 F.3d 249, 256 (5th Cir. 2013) (per curiam). Accordingly, the district court was correct to grant Wells Fargo judgment on the pleadings on all claims asserted by Griffin.

E. Claims Against State Defendants

Griffin's appeal as to the State Defendants attacks various aspects of the district court order dismissing his claims on the basis of, inter alia, sovereign immunity, qualified immunity, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, and Griffin's failure to state a claim. None of his arguments on appeal is persuasive.

As an initial matter, Griffin offers no response to the district court's determinations on immunity. We discern no error in the district court's analysis of this matter. Griffin repeats his claims that, under 38 U.S.C.  5301, the State Defendants improperly garnished his veteran's benefits. But the Supreme Court has stated that  5301 does not protect veteran's benefits from order or garnishment based on a failure to pay child support. See Rose v. Rose, 481 U.S. 619, 63034 (1987); see also Mansell v. Mansell, 490 U.S. 581, 587 (1989) (Because domestic relations are preeminently matters of state law, we have consistently recognized that Congress, when it passes general legislation, rarely intends to displace state authority in this area.). Griffin's arguments as to the applicability of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine also ring hollow: Griffin's complaint merely attempts to challenge a state court decision under the guise of federal claims. See Richard v. Hoechst Cleanese Chem. Grp., Inc., 355 F.3d 345, 35152 (5th Cir. 2003).

As a final matter, Griffin repeatedly argues on appeal that the district court improperly set aside a default against one individual State Defendant, Valerie Rivera. Griffin is incorrect. Rivera was not properly served with Griffin's original complaint, a fact the district court noted when it granted Griffin leave to amend his complaint. Griffin fails to demonstrate that he served the amended complaint on Rivera: the summons he relies upon for his claim that service to Rivera was completed was returned months before Griffin filed his amended complaint. This summons therefore could not have included the amended complaint. As such, the district court did not err in dismissing all claims against the State Defendants.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. These defendants are Greg Wasson, Jim Reilly, Sr., Chester Stevens, Januari Lewis, Jerry Padilla, Felicia Felton, Jerline Washington, Vanessa Strong, Miranda Martinez, and Daravanh Khanmanivanh.

. These defendants are Ryan Brannan, Rod Bordelon, Greg Abbott, Rick Perry, Ken Paxton, Henry Whitman, Jr., Stephen McKenna, Mark Iverson, Andrew Cole, Nicole Bush, Valerie Rivera, and Thomas Hight.

. Griffin also alleges that the district court incorrectly interpreted his claims by not considering his allegations of a greater conspiracy by all four groups of defendants. Griffin's statement appears to be in reference to his claims under 42 U.S.C.  1985. But that statute does not create any substantive rights and requires a separate violation of Griffin's rights to support a conspiracy claim. See Miss. Woman's Med. Clinic v. McMillian, 866 F.2d 788, 794 (5th Cir. 1989). Because the district court found that Griffin failed to plead any violation of his substantive rights, it naturally follows that Griffin failed to plead a conspiracy to violate those rights, and the district court was correct to dismiss this claim.

PER CURIAM:*
Her gruelling fitness regime has seen Roxy Jacenko shed just over 10 kilograms.

And the Sydney PR queen showed off the impressive results in a high-cut swimsuit, in a clip shared to her Instagram Story on her birthday on Thursday, while hinting at a European vacation.

The 37-year-old's post comes just days ahead of husband Oliver Curtis' release from prison, having served a year inside for conspiracy to commit insider trading.

Gym-honed: Roxy Jacenko, 37, showed off her slender frame in a high-cut swimsuit, and hinted at a European vacation, in a clip shared to her Instagram Story on Thursday

Someone's popular! Roxy was pampered with a lavish birthday spread by her Sweaty Betty staff-members and later was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce

Taking a mirror selfie in her North Bondi apartment, Roxy highlighted her enviable figure.

Sporting a high-cut khaki swimsuit, the mother-of-two showed off side boob, her flat stomach and toned legs.

Roxy's short blonde locks fell effortlessly around her toned shoulders, and delicate gold jewellery added a touch of bling.

While tagging the brand in her post, Roxy also hinted at an upcoming European vacation, adding: 'euro ready'.

Time inside: The post comes just days ahead of husband Oliver Curtis' release from prison

Found guilty: Oliver has been serving time at Cooma Prison after being found guilty in June last year, of conspiracy to commit insider trading

The post comes just days ahead of husband Oliver Curtis' release from prison.

Oliver has been serving time at Cooma Prison after being found guilty in June last year, of conspiracy to commit insider trading.

While her partner has remained behind bars, the entrepreneur has remained focused on the well being of the couple's children, Pixie, five, and Hunter, three.

Roxy has remained private as to her husband's incarceration, however she did humbly take to Instagram on Thursday on her 37th birthday, to thank her precious offspring.

Her main priority: While her partner has remained behind bars, the entrepreneur has remained focused on the well being of the couple's children, Pixie, five, and Hunter, three

Precious: Roxy humbly took to Instagram on Thursday on her 37th birthday, to thank her precious offspring: 'Never would have dreamt of the challenges I would face in the past 12 months - these two made it manageable'

'Never would have dreamt of the challenges I would face in the past 12 months - these two made it manageable - the best present I could have wished for,' she wrote.

The caption went alongside a photo of a makeup-free Roxy in bed with Pixie and Hunter.

It has certainly been a trying time for Roxy over the past year.

Cancer diagnosis: It has certainly been a trying time for Roxy over the past year. A month after Oliver's imprisonment, the Sydney notable was diagnosed with breast cancer

Documenting the journey: Roxy documented her radiation treatment and cancer removal during a highly-anticipated interview with Channel Nine's 60 Minutes

A month after Oliver's imprisonment, the Sydney notable was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Roxy documented her radiation treatment and cancer removal during a highly-anticipated interview with Channel Nine's 60 Minutes.

The publicist was also faced with a fight in the business arena, telling Daily Mail Australia in April that Sweaty Betty PR and Ministry of Talent, took a hit following the 'shocking' publicity surrounding her husband's trial.

Challenges: The publicist was also faced with a fight in the business arena, telling Daily Mail Australia in April that Sweaty Betty PR and Ministry of Talent, took a hit following the 'shocking' publicity surrounding her husband's trial

Focused: Roxy kept her head down, focusing on her children: 'My only focus was my kids and trying to keep my business going so that come 2017 I could put a rocket up it and get it back on track'

The only way she got past it was by keeping her head down and ignoring the bad publicity and focusing on her children, the businesswoman explained.

'My only focus was my kids and trying to keep my business going so that come 2017 I could put a rocket up it and get it back on track,' Roxy said.

'Because it nearly crashed and burned - no doubt.'

'Happy Birthday to our beautiful boss!' PR maven Roxy Jacenko enjoyed a lavish 37th birthday treat this Thursday after her Sweaty Betty employees threw a decadent party for the blonde

'All trained not to miss an Instagram moment': A photo of the event depicted a sea of staff-members holding up their phones in an attempt to capture the action for their social media accounts

While Oliver was away for her birthday, the PR maven was thrown a decadent party with a lavish spread of food by her Sweaty Betty employees.

The official Sweaty Betty Instagram page shared several snaps of the sprawling feast, which included endless plates of canapes, cakes, cheese and dried fruit.

Another photo depicted a sea of staff-members holding up their phones in an attempt to capture the action for their social media accounts.

'When we tell her it's compulsory to have a slice not a sliver': Roxy was also pictured holding her extravagant birthday cake

Making room for cake? Earlier in the day, Roxy posted a picture of herself getting ready for the gym, looking super slender

This image was captioned with: 'All trained not to miss an Instagram moment'.

Roxy was also pictured holding her extravagant birthday cake while sitting cross-legged on the table, alongside the caption: 'When we tell her it's compulsory to have a slice not a sliver.'

During the day she was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce during her 37th birthday celebrations.
She's enjoying a drama-free trip in Australia after her 2015 visit ended in controversy.

But despite having a new man in her life and shooting a major movie role Down Under, Amber Heard still misses her pooch.

The 31-year-old shared a snap of one of her dogs to Instagram on Thursday, lamenting the animal's absence after it was kicked out of Australia for breaking quarantine laws in 2015.

'Missing my baby': Amber Heard bemoans separation from dog as she films Aquaman in Australia

In the black and white throwback photo, Amber is seen cuddling one of her dogs while out on a walk together.

'Missing my baby,' the actress captioned the picture, shared with her 307,000 Instagram followers.

Amber has been in Australia since April, filming scenes for forthcoming superhero flick Aquaman on the Gold Coast.

Down Under: Amber has been in Australia since April, filming scenes for forthcoming superhero flick Aquaman on the Gold Coast

Left behind: Amber has been forced to leave her dogs behind after she breached Australia's strict quarantine laws in 2015

In between spending time on set, she has also been spotted out and about with her new beau Elon Musk.

The couple only confirmed they were an item in April after months of speculation.

The couple were first linked last July when Amber and Elon were spotted leaving each other's hotel rooms.

New romance: In between spending time on set, Amber has also been spotted out and about with her new beau Elon Musk

Controversial visit: Amber was last on the Gold Coast in 2015, visiting then-husband Johnny Depp as he filmed a Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel

Amber was last on the Gold Coast in 2015, visiting then-husband Johnny Depp as he filmed a Pirates Of The Caribbean sequel.

But her trip ended in controversy when it was discovered she had brought along her pet dogs Pistol and Boo without going through Australia's strict quarantine procedures.

In April 2016, she pleaded guilty to falsifying quarantine documents and was handed a one-month good behaviour bond and fined $1000.
She was recently criticised for posting sexually provocative photos following her mother Olivia Newton-John's breast cancer diagnosis.

And after dramatically quitting Instagram (only to return nine hours later) Chloe Lattanzi posted yet another racy social media snap on Thursday.

Striking a bizarre pose, the 31-year-old explained she uses dance 'to be present' after calling mother's health issues the 'greatest struggle a daughter could go through'.

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Strike a pose: Chloe Lattanzi, who announced one week ago that she was quitting Instagram only to return nine hours later, posted a new selfie to social media on Thursday

The aspiring pop star struck a pose similar to a ballerina's croise devant stance as she outstretched her lithe arms and legs.

She stood on the balls of her feet and flaunted her impossibly tiny waist and ample chest in a white crop top and black mini-shorts.

'I use dance to clear my mind. To be present,' she declared in the photo's caption.

Emotions: The 31-year-old described how she uses dance 'to be present' after saying her mother's medical condition was the 'greatest struggle a daughter could go through'

'To feel the power and grace of my human body,' she continued.

'You have always been in great shape! You look amazing!' wrote one follower in the comments section.

'Damn your curves really pop in this picture! Good luck and my prayers for your mom and her battle,' offered another fan.

'Damn your curves really pop in this picture! Good luck and my prayers for your mom and her battle,' offered another supporter

The busty blonde said she was quitting Instagram one week ago after receiving criticism for too many 'happy-looking selfies' while her mother battles cancer.

She returned nine hours later to share an adorable throwback snap of herself as a disgruntled toddler being held by her doting mother.

Olivia Newton-John revealed last week she was battling breast cancer again, saying in a statement she was 'touched by the worldwide outpouring of love and concern'.
She gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Amalia, in February.

And on Wednesday, Natalie Portman took her three-month-old daughter out for some fresh hair and got a helping hand from her mother Shelley.

Natalie, 35, opted for comfort for her casual day out wearing a blue plaid button-front shirt and jeans with sneakers.

Mommy duty: Natalie Portman made her way to a Los Angeles park with her three-month-old daughter Amalia and her mother Shelley on Wednesday

Still, she looked trendy wearing a pair of mirrored cat-eye sunglasses on the outing.

Her husband, French choreographer Benjamin Millepied was not along for the family day.

Together, they also have a son, Aleph, who was born in 2011 before they married.

Baby love: The 35-year-old Oscar winner kept a tight grip on her bundle of joy

Natalie and Benjamin met on the set of 2010's Black Swan, in which she played a ballet dancer named Nina, which he choreographed.

The role won Portman her first and only Oscar to date for Best Actress at the 2011 ceremony.

She was nominated for Best Actress again at this year's show for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the movie Jackie.

Casual: Portman wore a baggy plaid shirt with blue jeans and sneakers for their trip to the park

Portman did not attend the ceremony as she had given birth to Amalia four days prior, though news of her birth did not break until March 3.

Natalie has returned to work, attending events for luxury brand Dior, of which she is the face of their fragrance Miss Dior.

She has two movies currently in post-production, Annihilation and The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, according to IMDb.
She was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce during her 37th birthday celebrations.

And PR maven Roxy Jacenko enjoyed another lavish birthday treat on Thursday after her Sweaty Betty employees threw a decadent party for the blonde.

The official Sweaty Betty Instagram page shared several snaps of the sprawling feast, which included endless plates of canapes, cakes, cheese and dried fruit.

'Happy Birthday to our beautiful boss!' PR maven Roxy Jacenko enjoyed a lavish 37th birthday treat this Thursday after her Sweaty Betty employees threw a decadent party for the blonde

In one photo, Roxy is seen standing in front of a collection of letter balloons that spelled out her name.

'Happy Birthday to our beautiful boss,' read the caption.

Another photo depicted a sea of staff-members holding up their phones in an attempt to capture the action for their social media accounts.

'All trained not to miss an Instagram moment': A photo of the event depicted a sea of staff-members holding up their phones in an attempt to capture the action for their social media accounts

'When we tell her it's compulsory to have a slice not a sliver': Roxy was also pictured holding her extravagant birthday cake

This image was captioned with: 'All trained not to miss an Instagram moment'.

Roxy was also pictured holding her extravagant birthday cake while sitting cross-legged on the table, alongside the caption: 'When we tell her it's compulsory to have a slice not a sliver.'

Several of Roxy's staff-members also took to their personal Instagram pages to wish Roxy a happy birthday.

Someone's popular! Several of Roxy's staff-members also took to their personal Instagram pages to wish Roxy a happy birthday

'Euro ready': Roxy hinted that she may be heading to Europe for a winter break to celebrate her birthday, despite her husband due to be released from jail later this month

Earlier in the day, Roxy posted a picture of herself getting ready for the gym, looking super slender.

She also posted a picture of herself in a swimsuit, with the caption: 'Euro ready' hinting that she may be heading to Europe for a winter break.

It's unclear whether she will be in Australia to welcome her husband home after he is released from jail later this month.

Living the luxe life! She was treated to a ride in a $746,000 Rolls-Royce during her 37th birthday celebrations

Fit and fabulous! Earlier in the day, Roxy posted a picture of herself getting ready for the gym, looking super slender

The PR queen started her birthday off on Thursday by exchanging gifts with her children - Pixie, 5, and Hunter, 3, - humbly thanking the two tots for getting her through the past year.

The last 12 months have seen Roxy battle breast cancer, her husband Oliver Curtis jailed for insider trading, as well as the married publicist busted kissing her ex boyfriend Nabil Gazal in April.

In a surprisingly serious Instagram post, Roxy labeled her past year difficult and thanked her two children for sticking by her.

'Never would have dreamt of the challenges I would face in the past 12 months - these two made it manageable - the best present I could have wished for,' she wrote
Scott Disick was spotted Wednesday with yet another cute girl, but this time it was his sweet daughter Penelope.

The 34-year-old reality star carried his four-year-old daughter after they enjoyed lunch together in Calabasas, California.

The father of three kept it casual for their outing to a sushi restaurant wearing a dark T-shirt, tan hoodie and faded blue jeans.

Father and daugher: Scott Disick carried his daughter Penelope on Wednesday after they had lunch together in Calabasas, California

He completed his outfit with white sneakers and accessorized with sunglasses.

Penelope also looked comfortable in a striped T-shirt, grey fatigue pants and dark blue Vans sneakers.

Scott last month embarked on a Lothario lark while partying in Cannes on the French Riviera.

He was seen with a string of women including 19-year-old Bella Thorne, 18-year-old Sofia Richie, 23-year-old model Chantel Jeffries as well as model Maggie Petrova and ex-girlfriend Chloe Bartoli.

Casual outing: The 34-year-old reality star and his daughter kept it casual for their sushi lunch

Scott's ex-girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian, 38, also was in Cannes last month with her 24-year-old rumored model boyfriend Younes Bendjima.

Kourtney and Scott also have seven-year-old son Mason and two-year-old son Reign together.

Scott and Kourtney started dating in 2006 after meeting at a house party in Mexico hosted by Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis, 44.

Father of three: Scott also has seven-year-old son Mason and two-year-old son Reign with ex-girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian

Their tumultuous relationship has been thoroughly documented on the family's reality shows including their 2010 split and reconciliation.

Scott and Kourtney separated in July 2015 after Scott was photographed canoodling with Chloe in Monte Carlo.

Kourtney reportedly had banned Scott from seeing their young children until he 'cleans up his act', according to a May 28 article by TMZ.
She landed a role on the CMT hit show Nashville.

And on Wednesday, Rachel Bilson showed her support for the country music scene while attending the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee.

The 35-year-old actress cut a stylish figure in a patterned blouse with a coordinating flared leather skirt - both by Rodarte.

Stylish lady: Rachel Bilson showed her support for the country music scene while attending the CMT Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Wednesday

The former OC star tucked her black and white flared sleeve top into a voluminous skirt, adding a chunky belt.

Rachel paired the flirty frock with pointed black heels, which featured a tie detail.

The mother of one kept her brunette locks loose, opting for a half up, half down look.

Rachel finished off her stylish ensemble for the country awards show with cat eyeliner and mauve colored lip gloss.

Pretty lady: The 35-year-old actress cut a stylish figure in a patterned blouse with a coordinating flared leather skirt - both by Rodarte

Rachel presented the awards for Group Video Of The Year with Dustin Lynch at the televised broadcast.

The Hart Of Dixie star shared a picture of herself to Instagram while backstage at the show - pretending to answer a phone call.

She captioned the playful photo: '#cmtawards @rodarte #multitasking.'

Natural beauty: Rachel presented the awards for Group Video Of The Year with Dustin Lynch at the ceremony; pictured on Wednesday at the awards show in Tennessee

Having a blast: The mother of one kept her brunette locks loose, opting for a half up, half down look; seen with Dustin Lynch on stage at the CMT Music Awards

Season five of Nashville returned to TV screens earlier this month; prior to the mid-season premiere, an explosive trailer was released featuring an appearance by Rachel.

The actress joined the show this year as a marketing executive brought in by record label Highway 65.

Nashville's season five kicked off on June 1st on the CMT network; the next episode will air on Wednesday.

Having some fun: The Hart Of Dixie star shared a picture of herself backstage at the show while pretending to answer a phone call

In the mix: Season five of Nashville returned to TV screens earlier this month with an explosive trailer - featuring an appearance by Rachel Bilson
She had a big night of partying at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards on Tuesday.

And a day later, Myleene Klass showed no sign of slowing down as she was spotted leaving the Graduate Fashion Week Gala 2017 looking a tad worse for wear.

The star covered her face in a pair of dark shades, despite the late hour, as she headed home from the event at The Old Truman Brewery in London.

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Party queen: Myleene Klass was spotted leaving the Graduate Fashion Week Gala 2017 on Wednesday night looking a tad worse for wear

The super chic star seemed very keen to keep her statement sunglasses on as she climbed in her car.

At one point the fun-loving star put one hand to her head after her second night out in a row.

Myleene managed a graceful entrance into her car in her tight strapless dress before speeding away to her bed.

Time to call it a night? The star covered her face in a pair of dark shades, despite the late hour, as she headed home from the event at The Old Truman Brewery in London

Handy accessory: The super chic star seemed very keen to keep her statement sunglasses on as she climbed in her car

Earlier in the evening the 39-year-old presenter looked the picture of elegance in her strapless pale yellow dress, which featured a whimsical bow belt.

Boasting a sweetheart neckline and a modest midi length, the garment perfectly offset her glowing tan.

Letting her outfit do all the talking, Myleene wore her caramel locks in a simple side-parting that effortlessly framed her face.

Check out the dress! Myleene managed a graceful entrance into her car in her tight strapless dress before speeding away to her bed

Chic: Myleene opted for a demure ensemble a day after her racy appearance at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards

Taking the plunge: She had bared all in a revealing white dress at the Glamour Awards a day earlier

Simply stylish: Boasting a sweetheart neckline and a modest midi length, the garment perfectly offset her glowing tan

Sitting pretty: The 39-year-old presenter looked the picture of elegance in her strapless pale yellow dress, which featured a whimsical bow belt

Letting her outfit do all the talking: Myleene wore her caramel locks in a simple side-parting that effortlessly framed her face

She plumped her pout with an understated slick of taupe lipstick and framed her eyes with lashings of mascara.

Accessorising delicately with simple charm jewellery, the brunette beauty added height with a pair of black block heel suede sandals.

Myleene, who was a judge at the Graduate Fashion Week Gala shared an Instagram snap of her pretty outfit.

She wrote alongside it: 'A real privilege to be asked to speak and judge at @officialgfw. Thanks for having me.'

Preened to perfection: She plumped her pout with an understated slick of taupe lipstick and framed her eyes with lashings of mascara

Having a whale of a time: She flashed her pearly whites as she posed at the gala

Fashion expert: Myleene, who was a judge at the Graduate Fashion Week Gala shared an Instagram snap of her pretty outfit

Humbled: She wrote alongside it: 'A real privilege to be asked to speak and judge at @officialgfw. Thanks for having me'

Meanwhile, a day earlier Myleene went for an altogether more revealing look at the Glamour Women Of The Year Awards.

She flashed her bust in a plunging halterneck pink frock, which cut all the way to her navel to display plenty of cleavage and smooth skin to all.

Formed of soft silk, the pastel number's skirt then skimmed her slim frame all the way to the floor - with a saucy side split teasing at her leggy figure underneath.

Walk the line: The mother-of-two cut an impressive figure as she strode across the Graduate Fashion Week billboard

Shady lady: She shielded her peepers behind a pair of classic black sunglasses

Hot couple alert: Alesha Dixon was also in attendance with her long-term boyfriend d Azuka Ononye

Life in the fast lane: The Britain's Got Talent judge wore a red cropped motorcycle jacket

Glowing: She scraped her raven tresses into a polished topknot and framed her eyes with lashings of mascara

Sweet: The 38-year-old singer held hands with her boyfriend as they made their way inside

Keeping all eyes on her show-stopping look, Myleene, 39, slicked her hair back into a tight bun and accessorised with minimal silver hoops.

It comes after Myleene, who is mother to daughters Hero, six, and nine-year-old Ava, enjoyed a getaway in Spain last week.

Clearly enjoying the sun, she shared a number of bikini-clad snaps during a scorching holiday.

The mother-of-two absolutely sizzled as she showed off her gym-honed figure in a skimpy turquoise bikini which flaunted her golden glow.

Stylish: Olivia Cox wore a graphic print minidress while Olivia Abren opted for a floral silk jumpsuit

On the FROW: Manuela Ravalli and Xenia Tchoumi ruled the front row at the Istituto Marangoni Graduate Fashion Week Catwalk Show at Christ Church
Hard up Stephen Belafonte's quest for spousal support from Mel B has been delayed again after a judge pushed back their hearing until the end of the month.

Stephen, 42, who currently has no income, is said to have racked up $60,000 in credit card debts and is in desperate need of support from the former Spice Girl, 42.

But Mel's lawyers argued that coming to a financial agreement was premature because of the money she spent getting a restraining order against him - which Stephen may have to cover part of, TMZ reports.

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Messy divorce: Hard-up Stephen Belafonte's quest for spousal support from Mel B has been delayed again after judges pushed back their hearing until the end of the month

Unfortunately for Stephen, who is said to be homeless at the moment, the judge agreed and rearranged the hearing until the end of June.

TMZ previously reported that the film producer was kicked out of his family house following the break-up, while the messy divorce has cost him $500,000 in earnings.

On Friday, Stephen Belafonte took to Instagram to share posts which appeared to break his silence on the latest in his divorce from Mel B - as he claimed: 'The most dangerous liars think they're telling the truth'.

Debts: Stephen, who currently has no income, is said to have racked up $60,000 in credit card debts and is in desperate need of support from the former Spice Girl

Following the reports, Stephen took to the photo-sharing site to post an array of quotes, shortly before sharing an image of his daughter Madison, with whom he is only allowed supervised visits following a ruling earlier this month, as she hugged a TV baring his image.

In March, it was announced that Stephen and Mel were splitting after 10 years of marriage, after which a messy and acrimonious divorce is publicly playing out.

Earlier this month, it was revealed Stephen has been granted supervised visitation rights to see his five-year-old daughter Madison, following his split with Mel - a fact he hinted at in his influx of posts, his first social media activity since April 2.

Cryptic: On Friday, Stephen Belafonte took to Instagram to share posts which appeared to break his silence on the latest in his divorce from Mel B

Mel B had previously obtained a restraining order against Stephen, claiming he was 'dangerous' due to his connections with criminals and the porn industry.

A judge ruled that he can see Madison but only in the confines of a counselling centre with a court monitor present.

The shot he posted saw the tot squeezing her face up and hugging a screen showing his image while he added a caption on the shot reading: 'Sometimes you stay quiet for obvious reasons!! #thequietbeforethestorm'.

Atop his picture on Madison, he also took to Instagram to share posts including: 'Id rather be an honest a**hole, than a well liked LIAR...#facts #thequietbeforethestorm #truth #wow #mustbetwotruths.'

Yearning: Stephen's snap of daughter Madison was undoubtedly a dig at the recent visitation rights imparted on the star

Another note stated: 'The most dangerous liars are those who think they are telling the truth... #facts #thequietbeforethestorm.'

Earlier in the day, the plot thickened as TMZ claimed Stephen's divorce papers have given insight into his spousal demands.

He has reportedly claimed: 'We lived a very comfortable, upper-class lifestyle. Money was never an obstacle.'

The site claims the producer claims to have a $60,000 balance on a credit card which he is struggling to pay off.

Stephen claims Mel is making '$220,000 and $250,000 a month' after making a whopping $1.587million from her America's Got Talent contract.

Additionally he claims she makes $300,000 a year from her contract with nutrition company Jenny Craig.

It is reported that the furore around the divorce has cost him half a million dollars in contracts. He is said to be seeking $200,000 for his divorce lawyers.

MailOnline has contacted a representative for Mel B for comment.

While he was granted access to Madison, Stephen lost his battle to regain contact with Mel's daughter Angel, who was born three months before the pair's wedding in 2007.

Following the hearing in late April, Mel's lawyer Larry Bakman immediately opposed giving Belafonte visitation rights, as he branded him a 'convicted domestic violence offender' with an 'extensive criminal history'.

He went on to claim that Stephen had been 'involved in adult pornography' and the 'importation of women from other countries' to work in the industry as well as 'possible money laundering'.

Mel had filed for divorce on March 20 and had said in court papers that she was the victim of 'multiple physical beatings' at the hands of her husband.

Way back when: While he was granted access to Madison, Stephen lost his battle to regain contact with Mel's daughter Angel

She also claimed he threatened to 'destroy' her career by releasing sex tapes of her. Lawyers for Stephen have branded the allegations 'outrageous and unfounded', and 'nothing more than a smear campaign'

Meanwhile, Mel has also secured a five-year restraining order against the couple's former nanny Lorraine Gilles.

She claims Gilles had an affair with her husband and Stephen and got pregnant by him, so filed a declaration in court saying the nanny had 'harassed' her, according to a report by TMZ .

Gilles, 26, has alleged she had regular sexual encounters with Melanie Brown and Belafonte over a seven-year period after being hired to care for their children.
George Clooneys dad Nick Clooney spoke exclusively to Good Morning Britain to share his delight at the arrival of his grandchildren.

Speaking of George and Amals twins Ella and Alexander he said: 'Theyre absolutely beautiful.

'Im supposed to be a reporter, therefore observant, but I really dont know how to describe one beautiful baby from another beautiful baby - these are two beautiful babies.

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'He certainly married up': George Clooney's dad shed light on his union with Amal... as he revealed he will be 'hands-on with nappy duty' to newborn twins on GMB on Thursday

Blessed: Speaking of George and Amals twins Ella and Alexander he said: 'Theyre absolutely beautiful' during a phone call with the show

'George will be an absolutely wonderful father, Amal will be - and already is - a magnificent mother.

'Im constantly amazed by her. She is an incredible woman. George certainly married up!'

Speaking of nappy duty, Nick said: '[George] will be hands on entirely and he will do it with humour and with joy.'

Speaking of nappy duty, Nick said: '[George] will be hands on entirely and he will do it with humour and with joy'

He continued: 'George will be an absolutely wonderful father, Amal will be - and already is - a magnificent mother'

Speaking of nappy duty, Nick said: '[George] will be hands on entirely and he will do it with humour and with joy'

He added: 'My wife would be the one youd have to talk to as to whose nose looks like grandpas nose or grandmas nose. They are perfect.'

Nick also sent his thanks to the couples fans: 'They have sent good wishes, they have kept attentive watch on this event as it unfolded and we have been aware of that and we have really been very, very grateful, thank you.'

The human rights lawyer, 39, gave birth to a girl, Ella, and a boy, Alexander, on Tuesday morning in England.

Aww: 'This morning Amal and George welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney into their lives,' a spokesperson for the 56-year-old actor said in a statement, as the couple are pictured together in Berkshire back in March

WHAT'S IN A NAME? According to Nameberry.com: 'Ella rose from Number 265 in 2000 to a high of Number 15 in 2013 and is at Number 17 this year. Iconic singer Ella Fitzgerald adds a jazzy edge. One other appeal of Ella: It sounds both vintage and modern at the same time. John Travolta, the Warren Beatty, Ben Stiller, Eric Clapton Alex Rodriguez, and Mark Wahlberg all have daughters called Ella.' 'Alexander has been in the Top 25 since 1991, and is still at a high Number 11. According to Greek legend, the first Alexander was Paris, who was given the nickname Alexander by the shepherds whose flocks he defended against robbers. He was followed by Alexander the Great, aka Alexander III, who conquered much of Asia. A royal name in Scotland, it is still highly popular there. Among the many notable Alexanders in history, standouts are Hamilton, Graham Bell, Fleming, Pope and Haig.' Advertisement

'This morning Amal and George welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney into their lives,' a spokesperson for the 56-year-old actor said in a statement on the day.

'Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine.'

The announcement ended with the quip: 'George is sedated and should recover in a few days.'

The couple welcomed the two new bundles of joy at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

On Wednesday, Nick told Fox 19 Now: '[Amal] was telling us last week that she is as big as a house. Of course, for her, thats a very small house.

He also said of his daughter-in-law: 'She is just amazing. She was guiding the narration, this is two hours after the babies were born, and she was in charge of the conversation. She was just great.

'George, well, his eyes were glazed so Im not sure that he was sober. Well figure that out. That was a joke!'

Days before giving birth, Nick said 39-year-old Amal joked to he and Nina about being 'as big as a house'.

'Of course, for her, thats a very small house. But shes great.'

Meanwhile, Amal's mother Baria Alamuddin was also spotted shopping in London, no doubt buying some gifts for new arrivals Ella and Alexander.

The stars are believed to have paid up to 8,520 ($11,000) for a private suite in the Kensington Wing according to a Tuesday report from Daily Mirror.

According to the publication, the women who stay in that section of the hospital can expect one-to-one midwife support as well as 24-hour consultant care.

The facility also boasts an 'exclusive postnatal maternity suite' for the 'ultimate birthing experience' according to the hospital's site .

In addition the Kensington Wing boasts that it is the only private maternity hospital in London to be fully-accredited in the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative.

The program acknowledges maternity units which adopt internationally recognized standard of best practice in care for both mothers and the children.

Stunning:The couple welcomed the two new bundles of joy at London's Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

Quite the set-up: The stars are believed to have paid up to 8,520 ($11,000) for a private suite in the Kensington Wing according to a Tuesday report from Daily Mirror

Touch of class: According to the publication, the women who stay in that section of the hospital can expect one-to-one midwife support as well as 24-hour consultant care

The proud new parents also seemed to pick out some very popular names as Ella - Norman form of Germanic name Alia - is the 17th most popular name for a female in the United States and 6th ranked in the UK.

Alexander - A Latinized form of the Greek name Alexandros - is the 11th ranked name for male in the US and the 22nd in the UK.

George skipped a humanitarian event last week while waiting for the birth.

The actor joked that if his human rights lawyer wife had their twins while he attended the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity ceremony in Yerevan, Armenia on Sunday, he would not have been able to show his face at home.

Explaining his absence in a video message, George joked: 'I really would have been [in Yerevan] but if I came there and my wife had twins while I was there, I could never come home.'

This is a hospital? The facility also boasts an 'exclusive postnatal maternity suite' for the 'ultimate birthing experience' according to the hospital's site

Nice duds: In addition the Kensington Wing boasts that it is the only private maternity hospital in London to be fully-accredited in the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative.

Lounging: Pictured is one of the chairs in the ritzy wing

The pair are currently based in Berkshire, England, where they own a home.

It was announced back in February that the happy couple were expecting twins together. They are both first-time parents.

They reportedly met in 2013 and were engaged in April 2014.

George and Amal then married in September 2014 in Venice, Italy.

George's best friend Rande Gerber was among the first to offer his congratulations, sharing a video on the Instagram page for the duo's tequila company on Tuesday.

The 55-year-old businessman uploaded a video of himself wheeling a trolley with three boxes of diapers and two boxes of the pair's Casamigos Tequila through the office to mark the arrival of the twins.

Captioning the video, he wrote: 'Special delivery. #HouseOfFriends (sic)'

Sprawling: The pair are currently based in Berkshire, England, where they own a $14 million home

Diaper delivery: George's best friend Rande Gerber was among the first to offer his congrats, sharing a video on the Instagram page for the duo's tequila company on Tuesday
United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. HIGHER SOCIETY OF INDIANA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. TIPPECANOE COUNTY, INDIANA, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-1089 Decided: June 07, 2017

Before MANION and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and COLEMAN, District Judge.*

The Higher Society of Indiana, a non-profit advocating for the legalization of marijuana, wants to hold a rally on the steps of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse in Lafayette, Indiana. Under County policy, the group was required to get its event sponsored by the County Board of Commissioners before it could take place on the grounds. Since the Commissioners didn't want to sponsor Higher Society's event, the County denied the group permission. The organization successfully sought a preliminary injunction in the district court, and the County appeals. For the reasons stated below, we agree with the district court's thorough opinion that the County's policy likely violates the First Amendment. Therefore, we affirm the grant of the preliminary injunction.

I. Background

In 1999, in response to controversy over a nativity scene on the courthouse grounds, the Tippecanoe County Board of Commissioners voted to declare the grounds a closed forum. The Board approved a policy, still in effect today, that provides:

Only displays and events sponsored and prepared by a department or office of county government will be allowed in the windows of the Tippecanoe County Of-fice Building or on the grounds of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse. Said displays and events shall be scheduled through the Board of Commissioners of the County of Tippecanoe.

Under the policy, groups seeking to hold an event on the courthouse grounds must seek the Board's sponsorship. The County says that it seeks to sponsor only events that essen-tially echo the County's views.

After it enacted the closed forum policy, the Board passed a resolution that permitted the annual Round the Fountain Art Fair to take place on the courthouse grounds. Consistent with the policy, the County sponsors the fair, and County Commissioners and the maintenance department help with preparation and logistics. In recent years, the Board has also sponsored other events. One was a rally celebrating the 95th anniversary of the League of Women Voters in 2015, held just after the close of business on a weekday with about 100 people in attendance. The Fraternal Order of Police also held a sponsored event to pay respects to fallen police officers. That event took place at lunchtime on a weekday. Finally, the Board has issued a proclamation for Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month in 2015 and 2016, which included events held at lunchtime on a weekday each year led by the court-appointed Special Advocate and the Tippecanoe Child Abuse Prevention Council.

However, several groups ended up making use of the courthouse grounds without the County's permission. First, a group known as Eyes on Lafayette was too late to get author-ization for its planned candlelight vigil against bullying. De-spite being told that it would have to hold the event on the sidewalk, the group made use of the courthouse steps and more than 50 people attended. Second, about 60 people attended a rally in support of Planned Parenthood that spilled over onto the grounds during the day on a Monday in 2015. There was also a daytime march in support of Syrian refugees during a workday in 2015 that attracted about 70 people and made some use of the grounds. And finally, a June 2016 rally of the Greater Lafayette Moms in favor of Gun Sense spilled over onto the courthouse steps despite not being sponsored.

Because of a misunderstanding involving a County offi-cial, Higher Society also held an event on the steps during this time. Someone apparently was under the mistaken belief that Higher Society's event had been sponsored, and so told the group it could hold its rally. At the event, speakers used a po-dium located on the balcony above the courthouse door and addressed a crowd of around 40 people. Higher Society also hung banners from the balcony and used an amplifier until a Commissioner asked the group to stop.

After its first rally, Higher Society sought permission from the Board to hold a second event on the courthouse steps. The Board declined to sponsor the event, citing the closed forum policy and indicating that no Commissioners were interested in referring the matter to the full Board. Higher Society then sought a preliminary injunction in the Northern District of Indiana, which Chief Judge Simon issued on December 19, 2016. Higher Society of Ind., Inc. v. Tippecanoe Cty., 4:16-CV-00043, 2016 WL 7367791 (N.D. Ind. Dec. 19, 2016). The County timely appealed.

II. Discussion

A. Preliminary Injunction Standard

To be entitled to preliminary relief, Higher Society must establish that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits, that [it] is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of the equities tips in [its] favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest. Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). However, this is a free speech case, and in First Amendment cases, the likelihood of success on the merits will often be the determinative factor.  Am. Civil Liberties Union of Ill. v. Alvarez, 679 F.3d 583, 589 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting Joelner v. Vill. of Washington Park, 378 F.3d 613, 620 (7th Cir. 2004)). That is because even short dep-rivations of First Amendment rights constitute irreparable harm, and the balance of harms normally favors granting preliminary injunctive relief because the public interest is not harmed by preliminarily enjoining the enforcement of a stat-ute that is probably unconstitutional. Id. at 58990. So the analysis begins and ends with the likelihood of success on the merits of the [First Amendment] claim. Korte v. Sebelius, 735 F.3d 654, 666 (7th Cir. 2013).

B. Likelihood of Success

There are two ways that Tippecanoe County could plausi-bly defend the use of its policy to bar Higher Society's event from the courthouse grounds. First, it could argue that the courthouse grounds are a nonpublic forum and its speech reg-ulations are viewpoint-neutral and reasonable. See Ander-son v. Milwaukee Cty., 433 F.3d 975, 979 (7th Cir. 2006). If not that, the County could assert that its sponsored events are government speech to which the First Amendment is inappli-cable. See Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 469 (2009).

The County has concededin the district court, in its brief, and at oral argumentthat its policy is not viewpoint-neutral. This concession means that its policy would be unconstitutional even under the most restrictive forum analysis. Therefore, as the County acknowledged at oral argument, the only way it can win this case is if the events it sponsors on the courthouse grounds are government speech.

The Free Speech Clause restricts government regulation of private speech; it does not regulate government speech. Id. at 467. Governments may speak for themselves and are not required simultaneously to express an opposing viewpoint. Id.; Walker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2239, 2246 (2015). Yet it may be difficult in many cases to draw the line between government speech and private speech. In Summum and Walker, the Supreme Court has care-fully explained the proper analysis in such cases. A brief dis-cussion of those cases will be instructive.

In Summum, the Court considered whether a permanent monument donated by a private party to be placed in a public park constituted government speech. A religious organization sought to erect a stone monument to be included in a display alongside several others, including the Ten Commandments and a September 11 memorial. Summum, 555 U.S. at 465. When the city council rejected the request, the organization sued, arguing that the city park was a traditional public forum and the denial of the monument thus violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that [p]ermanent monuments displayed on public property typi-cally represent government speech. Id. at 470.

The Court based its conclusion primarily on three obser-vations. First, it noted that government entities have long used monuments to speak to the public. Id. Second, monuments commonly play an important role in defining the identity that a city projects to its own residents and to the out-side world. Id. at 472. Third, governments exercise control over the messages presented by the monuments. Id. at 47172. In general, accepted monuments are meant to convey and have the effect of conveying a government message, and they thus constitute government speech. Id. at 472.

In Walker, the Court considered these factors and con-cluded that the design on a license plate is government speech, even if it is submitted by a member of the public through a state program encouraging such submissions. The Court noted that, like monuments in public parks, states have traditionally used license plates to convey a government message. Walker, 135 S. Ct. at 2248. Second, it observed that a per-son who displays a message on a Texas license plate likely in-tends to convey to the public that the State has endorsed the message. Id. at 2249. And third, as in Summum, the government retained the final approval authority over the designs, making sure that it did not display messages with which it disagreed. Id.

In short, the relevant factors are: (1) whether governments have traditionally spoken to the public in the manner at issue; (2) whether observers of the speech at issue would reasonably interpret it to be that of the government; and (3) whether the government maintained editorial control over the speech. See id. at 2247. Contrary to Walker and Summum, all three factors in this case indicate that events on the courthouse grounds contain private speech, not the expression of Tippecanoe County.

First, the record does not indicate any history of the courthouse grounds being used for government speech, nor is there any history of governments using events conducted by private groups to deliver their own messages. Second, unlike permanent monuments and state license plates, reasonable people would not attribute to the government the views ex-pressed at protests and rallies on government property. As the district court correctly put it, reasonable observers know that people who want to protest will find symbolic public property to do it on, and that, in many cases, the First Amendment guarantees them the right to march peacefully and make speeches there, even if the government doesn't like what they are saying. Higher Society, 2016 WL 7367791, at *5. Finally, the County maintains no editorial control of individual speakers (or individual pieces of art at the Round the Fountain Art Fair) at each event. Presumably, an individual speaker or art-ist could express her views on any topic, and the County may not share those views. Without such control, it is hard for the County to maintain that the private speakers are really the County's alter ego.

Because the events on the courthouse grounds are private speech, Tippecanoe County's policy violates the First Amendment. While a full record probably won't change the outcome on this question, at this point we hold only that Higher Society is likely to succeed on its First Amendment claim.

C. Other Preliminary Injunction Factors

As we noted above, likelihood of success on the merits is usually the determinative factor when a preliminary injunction is sought on First Amendment grounds. That is true here. Therefore, we hold that the district court did not abuse its dis-cretion when it issued the preliminary injunction.

III. Conclusion

We understand that the County is in a difficult position. It would like to open the courthouse grounds to some events that it believes add cultural or civic value to the community, yet it doesn't want to create a public forum for everything under the sun. It may still be possible for the County to accom-modate some of its concerns (such as maintaining the Art Fair) while closing the grounds to Higher Society's rally and not violating the First Amendment, but the current policy will not suffice. Because the County's policy restricts private speech and it is not viewpoint-neutral, it violates the First Amendment. Higher Society was entitled to a preliminary injunction. We affirm the district court's well-reasoned opinion.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. The Round the Fountain Art Fair has been held in Lafayette each spring since 1973. Its website describes the fair as an annual destination location that features up to 100 artists from around the nation, showcasing their talent and works in a variety of pieces and media. Round The Fountain Art Fair, About the Fair, http://www.roundthefountain.org/about/ (last visited May 2, 2017). It has become known as one of the premier juried fine art fairs in the Midwest. Id. The Round the Fountain Art Fair committee purchases a piece of art each year to continue the permanent collection exhibited in the halls of the Tippecanoe County Courthouse, which is a work of art in itself. Id.

. For example, were Higher Society permitted to hold its event on the grounds, we seriously doubt that reasonable citizens of Lafayette will be-lieve, solely based on the rally's location, that their County government has endorsed marijuana legalization.

. Our decision in Illinois Dunesland Society v. Illinois Department of Nat-ural Resources, 584 F.3d 719 (7th Cir. 2009), is not to the contrary. In that case, we held that a state park did not have to display pamphlets intended to criticize the park or scare people away from it. The pamphlets that a state park chooses to display are quintessential government speech. Pam-phlet racks at state parks aren't traditional public fora or places where one would expect to see messages not endorsed by the park service. To that end, the park service controls the content of the brochures. Tippecanoe County does not do the same with the content of the speeches on its courthouse grounds.

MANION, Circuit Judge.
They have kept their relationship status under wraps.

And Hailey Baldwin did little to quash rumours of romance as she hit the town with her actor beau Cameron Dallas on Wednesday night as they headed to an IGM Model Party in Hollywood.

The 20-year-old model looked sensational in a hot pink slip dress with a matching shirt pulled over the top as she borrowed from the Nineties in her chic style.

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Pretty in pink: Hailey Baldwin did little to quash rumours of romance as she hit the town with her actor beau Cameron Dallas on Wednesday night as they headed to an IGM Model Party in Hollywood

Hailey oozed sexy style in her ensemble which made the most of her endless legs and slender frame by hanging loosely off her physique.

The perilously high rise hemline on the mini meant her supermodel legs were on full display as she strutted out of the bash in her hot pink finery.

Coordinating her shirt to her mini, she nailed the Clueless style - which appeared to be the exact aim of her flirty look.

Pairing the look with a pair of champagne coloured barely-there strappy heels, she shunned any other accessories bar her huge hoop earrings.

Strutting their stuff: The 20-year-old model looked sensational in a hot pink slip dress with a matching shirt pulled over the top as she borrowed from the Nineties in her chic style

Legs eleven: Hailey oozed sexy style in her ensemble which made the most of her endless legs and slender frame by hanging loosely off her physique

Having a laugh: The perilously high rise hemline on the mini meant her supermodel legs were on full display as she strutted out of the bash in her hot pink finery

Stunner:Clearly proud of her getup, she shared a snap of the outfit on Instagram while giggling and pulling the shirt off her shoulders

Can't stop smiling: She dropped her trademark pout as she headed to the car

She scraped her blonde tresses into a high ponytail with loose waves worked through the body while the style added to her Nineties style.

Clearly proud of her getup, she shared a snap of the outfit on Instagram while giggling and pulling the shirt off her shoulders.

She also got up close and personal with fellow model Joan Smalls as she kissed her on the cheek in a sexy snap.

Kiss, kiss: She also got up close and personal with fellow model Joan Smalls as she kissed her on the cheek in a sexy snap

Off we pop: As they departed the party they climbed into a waiting car - which undoubtedly added fuel to their dating rumour fire

Giggles: After a night on the town the pair were giggling and playing

Pals: Rumours soon began to swirl that the two have become more than friends

Cameron meanwhile was equally stylish in a red bomber jacket with a white T-shirt and light wash jeans paired with white trainers.

As they departed the party they climbed into a waiting car - which undoubtedly added fuel to their dating rumour fire.

Rumours soon began to swirl that the two have become more than friends.

Hailey has previously been linked to Justin Bieber, and Cameron has only had one girlfriend in high school, according to a video posted on his Youtube channel. I've been in one relationship and that was my junior year, so it's been a while,' he confessed.

Heading off: The happy couple headed out of their night out

Pink to make the boys wink: Hailey was totally at ease with her beau

Natural beauty: Joan Smalls stole the spotlight in an understated ensemble
Love blossomed for them at the beginning of the year, in spite of their five-year age-gap.

And Anwar Hadid, 17, and girlfriend Nicola Peltz, 22, looked to still be in the first flushes of romance as they cosied up during a day of shopping in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.

In a tender PDA, Anwar - the younger brother of supermodels Gigi and Bella - was spotted gently adjusting his love's sunglasses as the pair gazed into each other's eyes.

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First flush of love; Anwar Hadid, 17, and girlfriend Nicola Peltz, 22, cosied up during a day of shopping in Beverly Hills on Wednesday

The Transformers actress pulled off a rock chick look perfectly in a knitted charcoal sweater, paired with skintight matching leggings which revealed her long legs.

Scarlet nails added a splash of colour to the moody ensemble, with dainty gold crucifix earrings dangling from her ears.

Nicola's platinum locks were worn in a sleek style parted in the middle.

The beauty slipped on patent stacked leather ankle boots and accessorised with a silver miniature rucksack and a Barney's New York bag.

Perfect gent: The model chivalrously opened the car door for his actress girlfriend, who was toting a Barney's New York bag after some retail therapy

Anwar, who is making waves in the world of high-fashion, rocked a throwback look in his oversized denim jacket with green panelled sleeves.

Keeping with the 90s theme, he donned a black Nirvana t-shirt which he matched with fitted black jeans.

Adding a quirky edge to the outfit, he sported plimsolls in two different colours.

The Vogue cover star's chocolate brown locks were worn in a tousled style while a solitary earring sparkled in his earlobe.

Young love: Anwar - the younger brother of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid - and Nicola keep their Instagram followers regularly updated with social media snaps

Getting cheeky: Nicola flashed her derriere in tiny hot pants to plant a kiss on her fashion model boyfriend in an Instagram snap in May

Californian clotheshorse Anwar proved that as well as good looks, he is also the perfect gentleman as he chivalrously opened the car door for his stunning girlfriend.

The hot new couple have been keeping their Instagram followers updated at every step of their blossoming new relationship and regularly post loved-up snaps.

New York-born beauty Nicola even proudly flaunted a sizable love bite on her neck in a March Instagram snap.

In January, Nicola spilled about her blossoming relationship with the young male model to WWD.

Californian clotheshorses: Nicola has previously praised Anwar's relationship with his supermodel sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid (pictured in New York in October 2015)

'We're hanging out. Honestly, he is an angel. He's such an amazing person,' she said.

'He comes from such an amazing family. Gigi and Bella are so, so sweet. I just love his family so much. They're feminine, strong girls. To have that around is amazing.'

In addition to their flourishing romance, both young talents are also enjoying robust careers.

Nicola is currently filming the pilot for the TV thriller When the Street Lights Go On which is being produced for Hulu.

The young couple are not shy about showing their affection for one another.

And on his part, the youngest Hadid was just named the face of Hugo BossMenswear's HUGO line in January and the handsome Angeleno walked in several high-profile shows during Men's Fall 2017 fashion week.
Married At First Sight's Cheryl Maitland was exposed for staging 'candid' paparazzi photos on Wednesday, after a Sydney photojournalist leaked their private messages.

The former reality TV star later told News.com.au she only negotiated staged photos with Jayden Seyfarth because she is 'annoyed' with other photographers.

But now, Seven Year Switch star Kaitlyn Isham has publicly told Cheryl to stop trying to 'fool herself' into thinking she isn't desperate for the media's attention.

Tough talk! Kaitlyn Isham (L) has told Cheryl Maitland (R) to stop trying to 'fool herself' into thinking doesn't want attention - after the MAFS star was exposed staging paparazzi photos

On Thursday, Kaitlyn shared a screenshot of Daily Mail Australia's article about Cheryl's text message exchange with Jayden, 20.

The Florida native then posted a video of herself speaking directly to the camera before criticising Cheryl, 26, for her attention-seeking antics.

Kaitlyn said: 'I love Cheryl but don't fool yourself. We all want attention or we wouldn't have gone on TV.'

She encourages Cheryl, a former topless waitress, to stop pretending she doesn't like being in the tabloids, saying: 'Come on, just admit it!'

'Come on, just admit it!' Kaitlyn, who has said she only signed up for Seven Year Switch with boyfriend Mark (left) to become famous, told Cheryl to just admit she likes the media spotlight

But it wasn't all tough love from Kaitlyn, who appeared on Channel Seven's controversial TV series Seven Year Switch with boyfriend Mark Pisani.

'I loved your shot in Maxim by the way. So hot, I'm so jealous,' she cheekily added.

It comes after photographer Jayden Seyfarth leaked an extraordinary text message exchange with Cheryl, which confirmed they negotiated a staged paparazzi shoot.

'I love Cheryl but don't fool yourself. We all want attention or we wouldn't have gone on TV': Kaitlyn admitted she was a fan of Cheryl's but criticised her hypocritical attitudes

'When they need to stay relevant': It comes after Jayden Seyfarth leaked an extraordinary text message exchange with Cheryl, which confirmed they negotiated a staged paparazzi shoot

And just hours later, Jayden - who started his paparazzi career while still in high school - also exposed former Big Brother star Skye Wheatley for the same behaviour.

He posted a screenshot of a private exchange with Skye, believed to be from May 2016, which showed the Instagram model demanding 'a cut of the photos'.

Jayden appeared to hint at a business relationship gone wrong, as he captioned his Instagram post: 'Don't f**k me over lol'.
They have been married for over 13 years, having tied the knot in 2003.

Although together for well over decade, Ola, 34, And James Jordan, 38, made sure to put some passion back into their relationship as they enjoyed a glitzy date night at the Together for Short Lives Midsummer Ball in London on Wednesday night.

The couple - who fell in love after becoming ballroom dance partners - were dressed to the nines in their finery with Ola commanding attention in figure-flaunting gown for the worthwhile festivities.

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Loved-up: Ola, 34, And James Jordan, 38, made sure to put some passion back into their relationship as they enjoyed a glitzy date night at the Together for Short Lives Midsummer Ball in London on Wednesday night

The Strictly star looked sensational as she slipped into the glamorous floor-grazer which featured waist-cinching gold bead detailing that highlighted her hourglass figure.

Former I'm a Celeb alum Ola's sizzling look boasted daring sheer mesh panelling in the midst of her cleavage that teased at her ample bust with similar beading accents.

Skimming her thighs, the halterneck garment featured mesh cutout detail around her narrow torso while she worked her blonde locks into a straight style.

Going for gold: The Strictly star looked sensational as she slipped into the glamorous floor-grazer which featured waist-cinching gold bead detailing that highlighted her hourglass figure

Fancy feet: The couple - who fell in love after becoming ballroom dance partners - were dressed to the nines in their finery with Ola commanding attention in figure-flaunting gown for the worthwhile festivities

She added inches to her diminutive height with her pointed stiletto while accessorising her red carpet ensemble with a leather clutch, silver cuff and warmth-inducing burgundy faux fur cropped jacket.

Holding hands with his leading lady, former Strictly star James complemented his wife in a sharp tuxedo, crisp white shirt and bow-tie.

The pair have been happily married since 2003, after they fell in love while becoming professional dance partners.

Walk this way: She added inches to her diminutive height with her pointed stiletto while accessorising her red carpet ensemble with a leather clutch, silver cuff and warmth-inducing burgundy faux fur cropped jacket

Picture perfect: Wrapping his arm around with his leading lady, former Strictly star James complemented his wife in a sharp tuxedo, crisp white shirt and bow-tie

The outspoken couple have never been ones to remain tight-lipped about their sex life, with Ola previously admitting there was no shortage of passion between them.

Discussing their trysts, she told the Daily Star: 'Its always short but sweet. And hes as fiery as youd expect. Its a natural thing to do when you have five minutes here and there.'

However back in January, the blonde admitted the couple are now keen to expand their brood, after many years of married life.

Glam gal: Skimming her thighs, the halterneck garment featured mesh cutout detail around her narrow torso while she worked her blonde locks into a straight style

Sensational: The blonde bombshell looked sensational in her figure-hugging number

She explained on a previous episode of Loose Women: The clock's ticking, the time is now. We aren't getting any younger. We've been married 13 years. James would be a great dad. I want mini James Jordans.'

The Polish born beauty also revealed she found it hard watching James waltz other women around the dancefloor during their time on Strictly in her autobiography.

Ola said: 'I used to get jealous when James danced with other women. I think thats natural. Whoever says they dont get jealous when their other half dances with someone else is lying.'
The country was rocked last summer when The Great British Bake Off was bought by the Channel 4 and presenters Mel & Sue quit.

But Mel Giedroyc has told Lorraine Kelly that there's definitely benefits to not being on the mega-popular cooking show any longer.

'You're looking tiny!' Lorraine remarked, of Mel's petite frame.

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'I ate cake solidly for 5 months of the year!' Mel Giedroyc is GLAD she's left Bake Off for the sake of her waistline... and reveals Noel Fielding 'kept it very, very quiet' that he was replacing her

'Well it's because I don't have cakes in my life anymore, Lorraine,' Mel explained. 'I'm not doing Bake Off anymore. I was eating cake solidly for five months of the year.

'So I had three birthday cakes last week for my birthday. One was full of custard!'

Elaborating on the fact that, had she stayed with Bake Off, she'd be filming the latest season currently, Mel said: 'Im thinking of them, wondering whats going on, who the bakers are.

'It will be different!'

Cake lite: 'I don't have cakes in my life anymore, Lorraine,' Mel explained. 'I'm not doing Bake Off anymore. I was eating cake solidly for five months of the year'

The exceptionally popular cooking show lost Mel, her comedy partner Sue Perkins, and judge Mary Berry when it went to Channel 4.

Paul Hollywood - the other judge - went with the series to its new broadcaster, however.

Mary was replaced with Prue Leith and Mel & Sue swapped with Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig.

'I worked with Noel Fielding recently,' Mel explained. 'He kept that very very quiet,' she added, of his appointment as the Bake Off's new host.

As they were: The exceptionally popular cooking show lost Mel, her comedy partner Sue Perkins, and judge Mary Berry when it went to Channel 4. Paul Hollywood - the other judge - went with the series to its new broadcaster, however

New look: Mary was replaced with Prue Leith and Mel & Sue swapped with Noel Fielding and Sandi Toksvig

Affirming that she is happy he has the job, she said: 'I am extremely fond of Fielding. I love the idea of him being in the Bake Off tent. It makes me laugh. He is great.'

'Itll be good to see how he deals with a croquembouche,' she added, referring to the intricate French dessert consisting of choux pastry balls piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel.

Lorraine remarked that Noel, who is very tall and slender, could risk ballooning up from being on the show.

Oh, Lorraine! Lorraine remarked that Noel, who is very tall and slender, could risk ballooning up from being on the show

Partners in crime: Asked whether she is set to work with Sue on anything again soon, Mel said - 'I saw the old girl last night. We have chats about doing stuff but we end up just larking around. We were singing 80s songs all night last night. We will do something soon though'

But Mel has already shared her pearls of wisdom with him.

'I said to him, "Noel, two words: Elasticated Trousers",' she joked.

Asked whether she is set to work with Sue on anything again soon, Mel said: 'I saw the old girl last night. We have chats about doing stuff but we end up just larking around. We were singing 80s songs all night last night. We will do something soon though.'
She's been celebrating her birthday on a sun-soaked break to Barbados.

And Chloe Khan ensured all eyes were on her once again as she slipped on a tiny string bikini for a day at sea on Wednesday.

The busty former webcam model, 26, looked curvaceous in sparkling white swimwear as she took a jet ski ride through the waves.

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Fun in the sun: Chloe Khan ensured all eyes were on her once again as she slipped on a tiny string bikini for a day at sea on Wednesday

The plunging crystal embellished bikini showed off the model's pert bust, lean, toned legs and thigh tattoo.

Confident Chloe also gave onlookers a clear view of the results of her recent Brazilian butt lift, displaying her pert derriere in thong-style bottoms as she clambered onto the jet-ski.

The buxom mother-of-one looked confident and carefree as she soaked up the warm Caribbean sunshine and took a spin around the sea.

Proving that safety comes first, she donned a silver life jacket aboard the motorised vessel.

Seas the day: The busty former webcam model, 26, looked curvaceous in sparkling white swimwear as she took a jet ski ride through the waves

Chloe channelled Bond girl Ursula Andress as she emerged from the crystal clear waters in the string bikini, which looked like it was struggling to contain her ample assets.

Seemingly afraid of a wardrobe malfunction, the former CBB star clutched onto her bountiful chest as she made it safely onto dry land.

The bombshell enjoyed a departure from her usual glamour girl make-up for the occasion, opting for a natural look as she got wet and wild in the sea.

Getting an eyeful: The results of the star's recent Brazilian butt lift were on full display in her skimpy thong bikini as she climbed aboard her jet ski

Chloe has been keeping her followers captivated with a string of revealing snaps from her birthday break.

In one sizzling snap she posed up on a jetski, exhibiting her petite figure while in another jaw-dropping shot she rocked waist-length braids.

Last month, the former X Factor hopeful shocked her legions of fans by jetting to Turkey for the controversial Brazilian butt lift.

The already petite star opted to have fat taken from her waist and injected into her derriere in a bid to get the ultimate booty.

'Pocahontas': Chloe compared herself to a Disney character when she rocked waist length plaits and a surprised expression in an Instagram post earlier this week

Sunkissed: The former Big Brother star kept her followers captivated in a stunning floral maxi dress which showed off her pert bust and lean thighs

A Brazilian butt lift is designed to improve the appearance of lift and contour on the derriere.

Ahead of her journey, Chloe said in a video: 'I'm on my way to Elite after care, it is in Turkey so I'm going to jump on a quick flight, to go and get a Brazilian butt lift.

It's not implants, they actually take all the fat from your own body that you don't want and they put it all in your booty, to give you that fat a**e.

'So for someone who isn't that fat, or wasn't, I've been stuffing my face on Dominoes and loads of munchies all week to pack on the pounds.'

Chloe is far from a wallflower; last year the celebrity Big Brother contestant shocked viewers with her x-rated antics with Stephen Bear.
She lost her husband Steve Irwin in 2006, in a fatal stingray attack.

And this week, Terri Irwin paid tribute to man she loved on what would have been their 25th wedding anniversary.

Terri, 52, posted a black-and-white snap of the couple kissing with a lizard perched upon their heads, as she spoke of her grief on Twitter.

Missing Steve: This week, Terri Irwin (left) paid tribute to her beloved late husband on what would have been their 25th wedding anniversary

'Today would have been our 25th wedding anniversary. I miss you so very much, and I am grateful every day for the time we had together,' she wrote.

Terri, from Oregon, USA, met fellow conservationist Steve in 1991 when she was visiting wildlife rehabilitation facilities in Australia.

She happened to stop by Australia Zoo, which was then called the Crocodile Environmental Park.

And it didn't take Terri long to fall madly in love with Steve, who was running the centre with his parents Bob and Lyn at the time.

Emotional: 'Today would have been our 25th wedding anniversary. I miss you so very much, and I am grateful every day for the time we had together,' she wrote on Twitter

It was a whirlwind romance and the couple were engaged just four months after they first met.

Terri and Steve married within a year of being introduced - on June 4, 1992 - in her home state of Oregon.

The pair took over Steve's crocodile park together, renaming it Australia Zoo, and had two children - daughter Bindi, 18, and son Robert, 13.

Whirlwind: Terri and Steve married just a year after they met, on June 4, 1992, in Oregon, USA

Family: They took over Steve's crocodile park together, renaming it Australia Zoo, and went on to have two children - daughter Bindi, 18, and son Robert, 13

Terri has recently claimed she and Steve were hoping to have a third child before he tragically passed away.

Steve was killed in September 2006 when a stingray struck him in the heart as he was snorkeling in shallow water at Batt Reef, near Port Douglas, Queensland.

The proud father had been shooting scenes for the TV series Ocean's Deadliest and his daughter Bindi's program, Bindi the Jungle Girl.

Tragic end: Steve was killed in September 2006 when a stingray struck him in the heart as she was snorkeling in shallow water at Batt Reef, near Port Douglas, Queensland

On duty: The proud father had been shooting scenes for the TV series Ocean's Deadliest and his daughter Bindi's program, Bindi the Jungle Girl

Last year, the grieving widow revealed she still holds a torch for her lost husband.

'I haven't been on a single date since Steve died,' she told The Australian Womans Weekly.

If I hadn't met Steve, I probably would never have married because I wasn't looking for love when I met him. What we had was incredible, she said.

Holding on: Last year, the grieving widow revealed she still held a torch for her lost husband, telling The Australian Womans Weekly: 'I haven't been on a single date since Steve died'

'If you've found your soulmate you don't really want to move on, and mum had her soulmate': Bindi told Access Hollywood she believes her mother is 'still married to dad'

Terri has in recent months been linked to actor Russell Crowe, however both she and daughter Bindi have denied the romance.

Bindi told Access Hollywood she believes her mother is 'still married to dad'.

She explained: 'If you've found your soulmate you don't really want to move on, and mum had her soulmate.'
She left Home and Away earlier this year to pursue other work opportunities.

And Philippa Northeast made a stylish arrival at the Sydney Film Festival at the premiere of Ellipsis on Thursday.

The 22-year-old actress kept her look casual chic in a green high-neck sweater and a leather jacket.

Casual chic: Former Home and Away star Philippa Northeast, 22, opted for a relaxed look at the premiere of Ellipsis at the Sydney Film Festival on Thursday

She wore washed-out black jeans, a brown belt and pair of brown leather boots.

Philippa styled her brunette hair sleek and straight and kept her make-up look simple.

Her effortlessly chic look was completed with a pair of hoop earrings and silver rings.

No more Summer Bay! Philippa played Evelyn MacGuire in Home And Away for almost four years. Her final scenes were aired on Channel Seven last month

Philippa played Evelyn MacGuire in Home And Away for almost four years.

She departed the soap with on-screen husband Matt Page, played by Alec Snow, after the couple's romantic wedding.

Their final scenes were aired on Channel Seven last month.

Home girl! Philippa recently became the face of skincare company Wotnot, and she told The Daily Telegraph she was in no rush to leave Australia for acting roles overseas

Philippa recently became the face of skincare company Wotnot, and she told The Daily Telegraph she was in no rush to leave Australia for acting roles overseas.

'I love Australia and I love what we are producing here and I think there are great initiatives in place to have females in more diverse casts,' she said.

But she still hasn't ruled out following in the footsteps of ex-Home and Away stars like Chris Hemsworth and Isla Fisher, who moved to Hollywood to great success.
After losing a vegetarian feast challenge in the last episode of MasterChef Australia, seven cooks were fighting to stay in the competition on Thursday.

With guest judge Yotam Ottolenghi - who is famous for the clever way he mixes ingredients - still on the scene, the contestants were tasked with guessing ingredients by looking only at their cross-sections.

Samuel Whitehead, Tamara Graffen and Arum Nixon were the first to flounder on the challenge and, as a result, were forced to go head-to-head in a cook-off.

Hot in the kitchen! Samuel Whitehead, Tamara Graffen and Arum Nixon went head-to-head on Thursday's episode of MasterChef after failing to correctly guess ingredients in a challenge

And as the numbers left in the show continue to dwindle, the contestants were pulling out all stops to keep their place in the competition.

South Australian Samuel, 26, decided to take on a puff pastry tart with caramelised onion, while 34-year-old Arum wanted to whip up an apple-heavy dish.

Dubbed 'backyard apple crumble', the dish was to feature apple chips, smoked apple puree and apple caramel syrup with some ice cream.

Race against time: Tamara (pictured) hoped to impress with a dish out of her comfort zone but struggled to get it cooked in time

Unusual combination: Tamara's dish featured a strange mix of flavours - including lime, nectarine, apple and caramel

Tamara, a 28-year-old civil engineer, was also hoping to impress with an unusual mix of flavours. She delivered a grilled nectarine with a tart that contained a combination of lime, nectarine, apple and caramel.

But it's never smooth sailing in the MasterChef kitchen and it wasn't not long before the cooks ran into dramas that had the potential to derail their journey.

Arum's apple dish almost went pear-shaped when the apple chips came out of the oven seemingly over-cooked - just as the judges arrived to check up on his progress.

The amateur cook decided to fake it 'til he makes it and told them he had the situation well under control.

'I haven't actually tried them, but I'm gonna put a brave face on it, pretend they're exactly how I wanted and hope that that's how they've turned out,' he said.

Are the chips down? Judges Yotam Ottolenghi (left) and Matt Preston (centre) were worried that Arum's apple chips might be burnt

Just winging it! 'I'm gonna put a brave face on it, pretend they're exactly how I wanted,' Arum (pictured) said of his apple chips

Elsewhere, Tamara and Samuel were dealing with their own issues as Tamara raced against the clock to get her tart to cook in time, while Samuel realised he might not have enough filling to put into his tarts.

As it came time to plate up, the judges had a hard time picking which person to send home, noting that usually one dish has a massive flaw but this isn't the case tonight.

However, they were unanimous that Arum had the top dish of the night.

Despite the judges being impressed with Samuel's 'wonderful' tart, the lack of filling ultimately sent him home and left Tamara to cook another day.

Headed home: Despite gaining praise for his dish, 26-year-old Samuel (pictured) was eliminated from MasterChef
She won the heart of 'Australia's most hated man' Blake Garvey after The Bachelor in 2014, just weeks following his disastrous engagement to Sam Frost.

But over a year after confirming her split with Blake in a bizarre 'break-up photo shoot' in New Idea magazine, Louise Pillidge appears to have embraced a new look.

The 29-year-old lifestyle blogger revealed her dramatic transformation on Instagram this Thursday, as she debuted a notably darker hairstyle.

Louise, is that you? The Bachelor's Louise Pillidge looked remarkably different compared to her appearance on TV dating series in 2014, as she debuted a new look on Instagram on Thursday

Looking happy and confident in a pink dress, the former reality TV star was almost unrecognisable compared to her appearance on The Bachelor three years ago.

She appears to have permanently swapped her light blonde hair for a more conservative brunette look, perhaps in a bid to move on from her past relationship.

In the social media snap, Louise is shown flaunting her fit and fabulous physique as she smiles for the camera in front of a picturesque oceanview backdrop.

She radiated a classic elegance while posing in her figure-hugging flock, which she paired with nude strappy heels and a designer clutch.

New hair, don't care! During her blonde days, Louise won the heart of Perth auctioneer Blake Garvey on The Bachelor 2014 - despite not actually 'winning' the show

She kept her makeup minimal with just a touch of foundation and blush to highlight her flawless complexion and a natural-looking tone of lipstick to finish the look.

Louise's accessories also reflected her more laid back style, especially compared to the glamorous evening gowns and sparkly jewels she wore on The Bachelor.

She opted for a stylish silver bracelet on her right wrist and classic studs for earrings and nothing more.

Mistakes? He's had a few! Blake Garvey (left) infamously proposed to Sam Frost (right) during The Bachelor's series finale, only to dump her a few weeks later and start dating Louise instead

Louise first shot to fame when she competed against 29 other women for the heart of Perth auctioneer Blake Garvey on The Bachelor in 2014.

She eventually placed third, with Blake instead proposing to Sam Frost in the series finale, which was filmed in South Africa.

However, Blake infamously ended their engagement just a few weeks later, dumping Sam during a meeting with The Bachelor producers.

He was later branded a 'love rat' and 'Australia's most hated man' after immediately starting a relationship with Louise, his second runner-up.
They're the comedy duo who love pulling pranks on one another at every opportunity they get.

But Hamish Blake may have taken things a little too far when he gatecrashed Andy Lee's high school reunion on Thursday, as he was being honoured with an award.

After initially laughing at the surprise appearance, Andy escorted Hamish from the premises, leaving him to make an awkward retreat in the limousine he had hired.

That's awkward! Hamish Blake (pictured) was left embarrassed after comedy partner Andy Lee threw him out of a special event at his old high school on Thursday night

The chaotic scenes unfolded in a series of hilarious videos posted to Hamish And Andy's Instagram Story.

In the first video, Hamish, 35, explained his radio partner Andy, 36, was being entered into the 'hall of fame' at his old high school.

Andy attended the Camberwell Grammar School, in Canterbury, Melbourne and it appears that's where he was receiving the honour.

'He's mentioned to me so many times, I'm pretty sure what he's saying (is) "I want you to come along!"' Hamish explained.

You have to leave! Andy bursts into laughter upon seeing Hamish, but the warm welcome is short lived as he then begs, 'Please go home, please go home!'

The funnyman then makes his way to the event alongside Cacklin' Jack Post, the former 'work experience kid' at the Hamish & Andy radio program.

The pair form a 'surprise crew' to capture Andy's reaction, and, dressed in tuxedos, hire a limousine to take them to the event.

Along the way, the limo is involved in a minor car accident, sending glasses and champagne bottles flying and resulting in a small cut to Hamish's hand.

Out you go: 'I will have you escorted out,' Andy concludes, and does just that

Finally arriving at the venue, video camera at the ready, Hamish and Jack storm inside the high school.

When Andy's girlfriend Rebecca Harding spots Hamish walking through the crowds, she covers her mouth in surprise.

Upon seeing Hamish himself, Andy bursts into laughter and grabs hold of Hamish's arms - but the warm welcome is short lived.

'Please go home, please go home,' Andy begs, clearly embarrassed.

'I got your hint!' Hamish jokes, but Andy isn't amused.

Accident: Along the way, the limo is involved in a minor car accident, sending glasses and champagne bottles flying and resulting in a small cut to Hamish's hand

'I will have you escorted out,' Andy says - and does just that.

Hamish, perhaps naively, believes he's being given a tour of the school - but is instead forced to leave the building.

In the last video, Hamish appears genuinely embarrassed as he stands outside alone, and explains to his limousine driver, Steve, that he is back sooner than expected.

Testing their friendship? In the last video, Hamish appears genuinely embarrassed as he stands outside alone, and explains to his limousine driver that he is back sooner than expected

'Andy threw us out,' he says somberly, and returns to the vehicle to leave, appearing to be dejected.

The comedy duo will no doubt quickly recover from their latest prank, but it's not the only bump in the road they've experienced of late.

Their new show True Story, is currently on airwaves, has had mixed reviews from viewers.
Their convoluted romance has left fans confused and concerned.

And Stephanie Davis' relationship with Jeremy McConnell has suffered yet another blow as The Sun report the temperamental couple have had a shocking row after which he returned to his native Ireland when she chucked him on the street.

Sources tell the publication that the row between the pair, who share five-month-old son Caben Albi, was so severe that Stephanie threw his clothes into the street - shortly after sharing cosy snaps together.

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Finally happy: Stephanie Davis' relationship with Jeremy McConnell has suffered yet another blow as The Sun report the temperamental couple have had a shocking row after which he returned to his native Ireland when she chucked him on the street

Stephanie and Jeremy's love story began when they starred together on Celebrity Big Brother in January 2016 before becoming embroiled in a toxic romance which ended in April - a month before she announced she was expecting.

After persistently denying the paternity, Jeremy vowed to step up when he discovered he was the father although his arrest and subsequent court appearance left fans aghast yet kind-hearted Stephanie vowed to stand by the star.

Yet the latest twist in the tale appears to allude to the fact they are downward headed once again after the source claimed she was throwing in the towel.

Insiders said: 'They had a blazing row in the street and Steph was chucking all his clothes out. It looked pretty serious and Jeremy wasnt handling it well.'

No worries: Insiders said: 'They had a blazing row in the street and Steph was chucking all his clothes out. It looked pretty serious and Jeremy wasnt handling it well'

Defiant: Yet the latest twist in the tale appears to allude to the fact they are downward headed once again after the source claimed she was throwing in the towel

Hitting back: Stephanie shunned her woes when she arrived in London on Wednesday

Grand arrival: Just hours before news of the row erupted was spotted in Euston Station as she sported a new dark blonde hair style

MailOnline has contacted a representative for Stephanie for comment. Jeremy's management declined to comment.

Just hours before news of the row erupted was spotted in Euston Station as she sported a new dark blonde hair style.

The television personality has joined the Big Brother's Bit On The Side as a regular reporter for the show this summer, and so appeared to be happy as the parts of her life seem to be slotting into place - just before the latest news arose.

She took it upon herself to lash out at Jeremy's ex-girlfriend for using her 'name for fame' after she recently branded their relationship 'toxic'.

Hot to trot: She finished the look with nude heels and a black necklace, and carried a black leather bag over her shoulder

The former Hollyoaks actress could not be held back after she found out the Irish hunk's former flame Savannah Kemplay, who he dated on and off for two years, had been bad mouthing her.

Taking to her Twitter account on Tuesday, Stephanie posted, in a series of tweets: 'Hi chick, @MissKemplay can I ask who u are? I got told u were fame hungry and would take any show as it comes, but seriously commenting on my life...

'Darling, u wanna give that big head a wobble. Please stop using my name for fame. Pity u honey. Love Steph x. (sic)'

Savannah - who starred on Beauty School Cop Out in 2013, alongside Jeremy and Scarlett Moffatt - had claimed her ex was only being amicable with Stephanie so that he could see their son Caben-Albi.

Stepping out: The television personality has joined the team as a regular reporter for the show this summer

She told Closer magazine: 'Jeremy's trapped in a toxic relationship because of a child. I don't know if his feelings for Steph are genuine - or whether he's keeping her sweet so he can be in Caben's life.

'Steph got pregnant after knowing a guy for three months. She makes everyone feel sorry for her, but it's Jeremy I feel sorry for.'

Stephanie and Jeremy have had a very public relationship, which has had its ups, downs, highs and lows.

Since leaving their time inside the CBB house - during which Stephanie had a boyfriend on the outside world and consequently cheated on with Jeremy on national TV - their relationship had been plagued with blazing rows until they finally called it quits in May last year.

Up and down: Stephanie and Jeremy - who met in the Celebrity Big Brother house in January 2016 - have had a very public relationship, which has had its highs and lows

The dust's settled: After learning that he was indeed Caben's father, Jeremy decided to give things another go with Stephanie and the pair now live as a family at her home in Liverpool

The brunette soap star then found out she was pregnant, but Jeremy refused to believe the baby belonged to him and didn't want to have anything to do with her.

The reality TV star reached out to the actress a few weeks after Caben was born and she later agreed to have a paternity test conducted.

After learning that he was indeed Caben's father, Jeremy decided to give things another go with Stephanie and the pair now live as a family at her home in Liverpool.

However, even in recent weeks, the drama continued, with Stephanie suffering a panic attack, Jeremy attended court on assault charges and an array of are they/aren't they speculation running rife through the headlines.

Meanwhile, Savannah is trying her hand at more TV fame, and will appear on the seventh season of Ex On The Beach.
She enjoyed a romantic baby-moon in Koh Samui, Thailand, with her handsome husband Adi Ezra last week.

And Bar Refaeli seemed to be pining for her exotic break in the sunshine as she posted a throwback snap on her Instagram page on Thursday.

The Israeli model, 31 - who is expecting her second child in a mere matter of weeks - looked incredible as she showcased her beautiful baby bump in a tiny teal bikini.

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Baby-moon: Pregnant Bar Refaeli seemed to be pining for her exotic break in the Thai sunshine as she posted a throwback bikini snap on her Instagram page on Thursday

Raising her arms high in the air, the catwalk queen grinned from ear-to-ear as she posed in front of an idyllic background of palm trees and a swimming pool.

Bar wore a chic straw hat and went make-up free for her pool day, wearing her long blonde locks loose around her shoulders.

The mother-of-one posed for a series of striking snaps during her Thai beach break, showing off her beautiful bump and ample cleavage as she slipped into a nude lace-up swimsuit last week.

Model mama: The Israeli model, 31, enjoyed a romantic baby-moon in Koh Samui, Thailand, with her handsome husband Adi Ezra last week

Keeping the scorching sun at bay, the beauty covered up in a flowing white linen kaftan, which trailed behind her as she walked along.

Alongside the striking shot, the mother-of-one simply wrote: 'Island life.'

Bar wore her long blonde locks in loose and opted for natural make-up as she strolled along, before cheekily revealing a glimpse of her peachy derriere in another social media snap.

The model showed off her bump once again as she slipped into a teal string bikini while cooling off in the ocean in another snap.

Fun in the sun: The mother-of-one posed for a series of striking snaps during her beach break

The catwalk queen covered up in a cream linen shirt and matching skirt to sensibly keep her skin protected from the Thai sun.

Bar sheltered her face with a large straw hat and accessorised with a long string beaded necklace and multiple bracelets.

The beauty later posted a close-up snap, looking utterly radiant as she showcased her glowing make-up free complexion.

The mother-of-one - who raises daughter Liv, nine months, with businessman husband Adi Ezra - displayed her playful personality as she posed alongside a pregnant mannequin.

One hot mama! The mother-of-one showed off her bump as she slipped into a teal string bikini while cooling off in the ocean

That pregnancy glow: The beauty also posted a close-up snap, looking utterly radiant as she showcased her glowing make-up free complexion

Cupping her baby bump with her hands, the model showed off her changing shape in a royal blue bikini as she posed for the hilarious shot.

Bar - the ex-girlfriend of Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, 42 - confirmed the couple's pregnancy news by posting a sweet snap of her growing bump on her Instagram page on March 28.

It was just eight months after the pair - who tied the knot in their native Israel in September 2015 - welcomed their baby daughter Liv in August 2016.

Bar playfully wrote alongside the shot: 'Something's cooking'.

In an interview with Hello! Fashion Monthly in 2015, the model admitted family is everything to her and she's planning to have a large brood.

Mum's the word: Bar displayed her playful personality as she posed alongside a pregnant mannequin in one fun snap from her break

Proud parents: The model and her businessman husband Adi Ezra tied the knot in their native Israel in September 2015, before welcoming daughter Liv the following August

'I think this will be a decade of family... I come from a family of four children,' she told the publication.

'A lot of mums could read this and think, "Yeah, try having one first". Hopefully, Ill have a big family, but I'll take it one by one.'

Bar prides herself with balancing her work and personal life and added to HELLO!: 'I feel like my job is my alter ego; its a different me and I love it. Im a Gemini!

'Behind the camera, Im totally different. I dont wear make-up, I dont wear heels and Im very basic. But I love the fact I have this job and it gives me the opportunity to dress up.

Ive never done catwalk because I was never skinny or tall enough. I was more of a sexy type of model and catwalk models arent so sexy.'
She's the Australian supermodel who is also a proud mother to two teenage sons.

And Elle Macpherson, 53, was glowing at 14-year-old Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson's middle school graduation last week.

In her Instagram post, Elle revealed she attended the ceremony in the same Gucci pantsuit she previously worn to Cy's baptism in 2005.

Proud mumma: Elle Macpherson brought out her 15-year-old Gucci pant suit for her son's middle school graduation

She captioned her post: '(Throwback Thursday) to last week - graduation flashback same Gucci suit I wore to his christening 2005.'

In the photo, the former catwalk model stands proudly behind her handsome son Cy as they both smile for the cameras.

The Gucci outfit highlighted Elle's long, runway-ready legs as she struck a stylish pose with a jacket slung over her shoulders.

Lookalikes! Elle and her youngest son share a striking resemblance. Pictured in January 2014

Elle wore a low-cut blouse tucked into her trousers and accessorised her look with a pair of aviator-style sunglasses.

Meanwhile, Cy looked dapper in a black suit and matching tie, a white shirt and dress shoes.

Several fans commented on the family resemblance, with one writing: 'You both have the same smile.'
She was left 'raging' after her best friend Ellie Young reportedly entered the Big Brother house without her.

But Hayley Fanshaw defiantly brushed her friendship woes aside as she soaked up the sun on the beach in Magaluf without her former pal.

And while Ellie has already set tongues wagging after sharing a late-night kiss with housemate Lotan, the Ibiza Weekender star, 19, grabbed her own headlines in a sizzling red swimsuit.

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Defiant: Hayley Fanshaw, 19, brushed her friendship aside as she soaked up the sun on the beach in Magaluf instead

Hayley, who stole the limelight with her fiery tongue and amorous antics on the latest series of Ibiza Weekender, looked utterly body confident in the one-piece.

Featuring a white contrast lining, the scarlet swimsuit boasted a plunging neckline and high cut.

Letting her swimwear do all the talking, Hayley kept her accessories to a minimum, wearing just a hairband on her wrist.

Cheeky: The Ibiza Weekender star grabbed her own headlines in a sizzling red swimsuit after her best friend Ellie Young reportedly entered the Big Brother house without her

Sizzling: Hayley, who stole the limelight with her fiery tongue and amorous antics on Ibiza Weekender, looked utterly body confident in the one-piece

Making a splash: Featuring a white contrast lining, the scarlet swimsuit boasted a plunging neckline and high cut

She shielded her eyes behind a pair of classic black shades and wore minimal make-up.

Boasting a deep golden tan, the teenager from East Yorkshire wore her long dark tresses swept off her face.

Her defiant outing comes after claims that her best friend and fellow Ibiza Weekender rep Ellie, 23, ditched her in Magaluf to enter Big Brother in secret.

Letting her swimwear do all the talking: Hayley kept her accessories to a minimum, wearing just a hairband on her wrist

Shady lady: She shielded her eyes behind a pair of classic black sunglasses and wore minimal make-up

Revealing: The scarlet swimsuit featured a low back and was cut in a tiny thong style that showed off Hayley's toned body

According to The Sun, the pair were supposed to enter the show as a pair - but their plans were ruined after Ellie went into hiding and reportedly did not tell Hayley she was going in alone.

'She is raging. Ellie didn't tell her she was flying back to Britain to go into hiding without her,' a source close to Hayley told the paper.

'She said she was going home to do promotional appearances. Hayley only found out this weekend and she is furious that she got left behind.

Looking good: Boasting a deep golden tan, the teenager from East Yorkshire wore her long dark tresses swept off her face

Living the life: The model seemed to be in relaxed spirits as she lounged around on the idyllic beach

Down time: The brunette beauty is currently working at a bar in Magaluf - so the trip to the beach no doubt came as a welcome break

Surf's up! Her poise was momentarily interrupted when a wave splashed over her

'They are sure to have a big fight when they eventually meet up again.'

Hayley is reportedly on standby now and could still be brought into Big Brother later in the reality show.

Ellie hit the headlines on Wednesday night when she canoodled with Dreamboys star Lotan Carter and later kissed him in bed.

Ellie revealed to Mandy earlier in the show that she likes Lotan and said: 'He can do better than me, he's stunning!'

Awkward: Hayley was reportedly left 'raging' after her best friend Ellie was believed to have left her in Magaluf to enter the Big Brother house alone - despite alleged plans for them to appear on the show together

Oh dear: 'Ellie didn't tell her she was flying back to Britain to go into hiding without her,' a source close to Hayley claimed

She then joined Lotan in the smoking area and declared: 'You get good looking girls!'

He replied: 'People assume I'm arrogant! Looks don't mean jack to me for starters  I'm not saying you're not beautiful because you are, your eyes are re-donk-culous!'

In the kitchen, Kayleigh revealed to Lotan that Ellie fancies him.

Cheeky! Ellie hit the headlines on Wednesday night when she canoodled with Dreamboys star Lotan Carter and later kissed him in bed

Taking her man: Ibiza Weekender star Ellie kissed Lotan after a day of flirting with him

He said that he wouldn't 'bang' Ellie, but he does 'like her', adding: 'I turn women f**king crazy! The best advice for her is to stay away from me.'

But ignoring the Lothario's advice, Ellie headed into Lotan's bed, where the pair shared a hug and kiss.

'I just want someone to like me for just been me,' she said, grinning at Lotan.

Getting closer: Ellie wrapped an arm around the dancer as they got steamy in the hot tub
She welcomed her second child, son Arthur, into the world in March, providing a younger brother for her two-year-old daughter Nelly.

And on Thursday afternoon, Billie Faiers gave her 1.4million Instagram followers a glimpse into her blissful life of motherhood as she shared a shot of herself snuggling with her newest bundle of joy.

Wearing a snakeskin-print halterneck bikini and gold-framed aviator sunglasses, the 27-year-old former TOWIE star is seen cuddling her sleeping offspring in one arm while angling her camera lens in the other as they lounge together in the sunshine.

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Proud mother: Billie Faiers took to Instagram to share a shot of herself snuggling with her newborn son Arthur on Thursday afternoon

'Snoozing with my bubba,' she captioned the image, in which she also showed just how quickly her physique has bounced back since the birth of her son.

Her snapshot comes weeks after she treated her fans to a scintillating image of herself wearing a sizzling red bikini.

Billie appeared to be proud of her slimmed-down frame in the sexy crimson two-piece as the snap was the second of its kind - shared two weeks apart - although this time she opted to bare her taut stomach.

Hot stuff: Her shot comes weeks after she illustrated the success of her post-baby body in a sizzling red bikini

In the latest of the shots, Billie pulled her very best pose for the camera while peeling on a pair of huge sunglasses and slicking back her blonde locks.

Displaying her eye-popping assets, she sported a sexy wraparound bikini top which displayed all the best elements of her stunning frame.

The stunning star has since been quizzed about how much weight she has lost since giving birth in March, proudly remarking: 'I'm back in my skinny jeans.'

Billie confessed in an interview with new! magazine that she isn't sure exactly how much weight she has lost since welcoming Arthur, but can tell she is definitely starting to regain her shape by fitting into her pre-pregnancy wardrobe once more.

'I'm back in my skinny jeans': The former TOWIE star, 27, was clearly proud of her frame in the sexy crimson two-piece as the snap was the second of its kind - shared two weeks apart

Falling pregnant with Arthur had seen the reality star go up a dress size from a size 8 to a size 10 and she admits that while she's on her way to regaining her shape, she still has a bit of a way to go until she is happy.

Billie claimed: 'I'm not 100 percent confident yet, I'm not as toned on my tummy as I would like to be.'

Following the weight loss she has seen already, although she admits she was 'lucky' enough not to have put on many pounds while expecting, Billie has credited her slender frame to breast feeding.

Post-baby figure: Billie has been flaunting her svelte shape on social media and has confessed she doesn't know exactly how much weight she has lost, but she is already fitting back into her pre-pregnancy wardrobe

Sensational: The former TOWIE star looked just incredible in a series of holiday snaps she uploaded to Instagram during her recent trip to Dubai

She had decided against breast feeding her eldest child, daughter Nelly, now two, as she had struggled with it.

But with the help of her sister Sam Faiers - who is a huge advocate of breast feeding and is currently trying to wean her son Paul, one, off of breast milk - Nelly has been able to do so with Arthur.

The Essex native revealed she was 'so glad' to have given breast feeding a go after becoming a mother for the second time round.

'I'm not 100 percent happy': Despite quickly regaining her shape, Billie has confessed she doesn't feel like her tummy is 'as toned' as she would like it to be

Slender: She insists she was 'lucky' enough not to put on much weight when expecting, only going up a dress size from a size 8 to a size 10

And revealing it has its perks, she added to Closer: 'You can feel your tummy almost contracting while you breastfeed.

'It's funny, but I think it'#s definitely helped me slim down.'

Now with two young children vying for her attention, Billie admitted that she is finding it 'more challenging' being a family four.

Although, she claims daughter Nelly is 'such a good big sister' and said: 'Arthur is lovely, we're getting on really well and Nelly loves him too.

'I think she thinks he's her little doll.'

Hands full: Now with two young children vying for her attention, Billie admitted that she is finding it 'more challenging' being a family four

Billie shares her two children with her fiance and long-term partner Greg Shepherd.

Her businessman beau had popped the question during Billie's first pregnancy in 2014 while the duo were holidaying in the Maldives.

And despite having their hands full with their two babies, the couple are now turning their attentions to their wedding and are hoping to set a date for their big day later this year.

Speaking to TV Life magazine, Billie divulged that the couple's wedding plans are 'coming along well' and teased that she would love to tie the knot on a beach.
Brad Pitt was seen leaving the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening after taking in a performance by Valerie June.

And the 53-year-old Fury actor made it obvious he had abstained from alcohol as he held a can of energy drink which looked to be Red Bull Yellow Edition.

This sighting comes a month after he told GQ Style he could drink a Russian under the table but decided to get sober after his messy September split from Angelina Jolie, with whom he shares six children.

There he is! Brad Pitt was seen leaving the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening after taking in a performance by Valerie June

No booze: And the 53-year-old actor made it obvious he had abstained from alcohol as the Fury actor held a can of energy drink in his hand

The Legends Of The Fall actor wore a black zip-up jacket over a white shirt with jeans and a newsboy cap.

The icon added light brown suede boots.

The star - whose longtime friends Brad Grey and Chris Cornell died this spring - seemed to be solo even though People has reported the actor is already dating again after his split from Jolie nine months ago.

Pitt standard attire: The Legends Of The Fall actor wore a black zip-up jacket over a white shirt with jeans and a newsboy cap

Pitt was seen heading toward his black SUV with the drink in hand.

The star has said he is in therapy and there have been several reports he is in AA in LA.

In a bombshell GQ Style interview last month he said his split with wife Jolie was like a death and he suggested his drinking was the problem.

Honest man: In a bombshell GQ Style interview last month he said his split with wife Jolie was like a death and he suggested his drinking was the problem

'Truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good.

'I was boozing too much. It just become a problem. And Im really happy its been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but Ive got my feelings in my fingertips again.

'I mean, we have a winery. I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground. I had to step away for a minute.

The end of an era: He had a messy September split from Angelina Jolie with whom he shares six children; pictured November 2015

'But me, personally, I cant remember a day since I got out of college when I wasnt boozing or had a spliff, or something.

'I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know - things I wasnt dealing with.'

He said he prefers cranberry juice and fizzy water.

Family: Together the stars have Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox

'I've got the cleanest urinary tract in all of LA,' he joked.

Later he told the Associated Press he was 'figuring out the new configuration of our family.'

'Kids are everything,' Pitt said, of his six children with Angelina. 'Kids are your life. They're taking all the focus, as they should anyway.'

And he directly addressed his own mental health, stating: 'I'm not suicidal or something.'

He added: 'There's still much beauty in the world and a lot of love. And a lot of love to be given. It's all right. It's just life.'

A hint: Jolie wrote the film By The Sea in which Pitt co-starred; she made his character a nasty alcoholic

The star then said: 'I've got no secrets. I've got nothing to hide. We're human and I find the human condition very interesting. If we're not talking about it, then we're not getting better.'

The star also said that all that time on the couch has made him realize he is 'emotionally retarded.'

'I just started therapy. I love it. I love it. I went through two therapists to get the right one,' said the Allied star. He added the last six months since his marriage ended has been a 'weird time.'

Together the stars have Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and eight-year-old twins, Vivienne and Knox.

New: Pitt plays a four-star Afghanistan commander in the upcoming Netflix war satire War Machine

The team: (L-R) Scoot McNairy, Alan Ruck, Topher Grace, Emory Cohen, Jeremy Kleiner, David Michod, Ted Sarandos, Lakeith Stanfield, Pitt, Meg Tilly, Griffin Dunne, Scott Stuber, and Anthony Michael Hall in May

'It's hit me smack in the face with our divorce: I gotta be more. I gotta be more for them. I have to show them.

'For me this period has really been about looking at my weaknesses and failures and owning my side of the street. I'm an a**hole when it comes to this need for justice. I don't know where it comes from, this hollow quest for justice for some perceived slight. I can drill on that for days and years.

'It's done me no good whatsoever. It's such a silly idea, the idea that the world is fair. And this is coming from a guy who hit the lottery, I'm well aware of that. I hit the lottery, and I still would waste my time on those hollow pursuits.'

Funny and trying to make a point: Brad played a weatherman on Comedy Central, saying the planet it heating up and we have no future

'I say that as someone who's let the work take me away. Kids are so delicate,' he explains. 'They absorb everything. They need to have their hand held and things explained. They need to be listened to. When I get in that busy work mode, I'm not hearing. I want to be better at that.'

After the split he says he stopped drinking and slept on the floor of his friend David Fincher's small bungalow.

'It was too sad to be here at first, so I went and stayed on a friend's floor, a little bungalow in Santa Monica. I crashed over here a little bit, my friend [David] Fincher lives right here. He's always going to have an open door for me, and I was doing a lot of stuff on t

He and Angelina are now working out their divorce privately.

Clean in white: The star in Tokyo in late May for War Machine

He also has a new film - Pitt plays a four-star Afghanistan commander in the upcoming Netflix war satire War Machine.

And he joked that he found a surprising connection with his character: a swollen ego, and the damage done.

'Hubris is a trap and it's the trap of every great nation that has been number one for too long. You start believing your own stink,' Pitt says. 'Anytime I've gotten in trouble, it's because of my own hubris.'
Ariel Winter's estranged mother Chrystal Workman made some harsh comments about her actress daughter.

Earlier this week she spoke to InTouch Weekly about the Modern Family star's dressing habits saying she needs to 'grow up' and 'dress properly.'

The Sofia The First actress took to Twitter the next day to respond and without using her mother's name said: 'What's sad is that you lie consistently. Also, why is it that you only choose to talk to me through the press? I'm doing just fine. Toxic.'

Mom does not approve: Ariel Winter's mother Chrystal Workman told InTouch Weekly she thinks her daughter should wear more clothes but the star turned around and called her mom 'toxic' on Twitter; here they are seen in 2012.

Painful: The Sofia The First actress took to Twitter the next day to respond and without using her mother's name she said: 'What's sad is that you lie consistently'

Winter added a red circle with a line through it which is the sign for stop.

Workman also told the magazine: 'I feel sad that she feels the need to expose herself when its not necessary.'

Workman then addressed the teen's standing in Hollywood: 'Ariel is smart, beautiful and talented. She is a legitimate actress. She does not need to do this. She is beautiful with her clothes on.'

Drama: When she posted several racy bikini photos to Instagram on Memorial Day weekend, some of her followers blew up; Ariel has said she does this to promote body confidence

Shaming: Workman is not a fan of the Disney star's moves. 'I would not do that,' said Chrystal

Ariel is known for showing off her figure in skimpy bikinis on the beach and with daring cut-out dresses on the red carpet, but she is only doing what other stars her age - Kylie Jenner, Bella Thorne - are doing.

The beauty has argued she does so to promote body confidence in young women.

The 19-year-old has also said that she loves her figure now after getting a breast reduction from a size F to a D in 2015 and should be able to dress however she wants.

Another slam: 'Ariel is smart, beautiful and talented. She is a legitimate actress. She does not need to do this. She is beautiful with her clothes on,' said the mother

Harsh: The mother also said: 'She needs to grow up. I would tell her to dress properly, be the beautiful person she is'

Workman's public criticism is alarming as she does not have a relationship with her successful daughter.

Ariel became emancipated in 2015. She accused her mother of abusing her physically and emotionally.

And these new comments would seem to promise they will not make up anytime soon, especially since Ariel accused her mother of trying to 'sexualize' her when she was very young.

Winter started acting in Hollywood in 2005 - she was only seven at the time - when she landed a role on TV's Listen Up.

She went on to star on So Notorious, ER, Phineas And Ferb, Jake And The Neverland Pirates and Sofia The First (which she is still on). She is also now a regular on the mega successful Modern Family.

More words: She added: 'I feel sad that she feels the need to expose herself when its not necessary'

Winter's way of dressing her not only shocked her mother, but also several trolls online.

When she posted several racy bikini photos to Instagram on Memorial Day weekend, some of her followers blew up.

Some criticized her for showing off her breasts and bottom during a weekend celebration meant for the men and women who sacrificed themselves for our country.

Her love: The beauty is living with her boyfriend Levi Meaden

A night out: Earlier this week they enjoyed a friend's birthday party

But instead of bickering, Ariel shared another post that read: 'Could not be more grateful to all of the men and women who risk their lives to protect ours and our freedom, We are all forever indebted to your service. Thank you.'

The young star was also slammed for wearing a risque cut-out dress to a Modern Family daytime event in May.

Her co-stars dressed casually and covered up. She responded with: ''Why TF does anyone care that I didn't dress casual like everyone else for the panel? Why do I have to be like everyone else? Why can't people just let other people feel good about themselves and do what they want?'

In October Ariel addressed the ugly remarks that have been hurled at her. Turns out she has been body shamed for years.

Cherries: The Jake And The Neverland Pirates star and a female pal

Fun time: Ariel modeled a white tank top as she posed with her buddies

'I was called every name in the book: fat, a slut, trashy, ugly,' she told Stylish.

'Right after I started developing, I automatically started getting all this hate. I developed these boobs and a butt, and everything changed. And as I got older, it only seemed to get worse.'

Winter has also credited her sister Shanelle Workman - whom she moved in with at just 14 - with helping her confidence.

And she also gave props to Modern Family co-star Sofia Vergara.

'I read a lot of the stories young women will send me about their body positivity and their body journeys, and that really helps me,' she said.

'There are a lot of young women who are going through the same thing that I went through, and I think it's important that we all empower each other. It makes it easier.'
She appears more smitten with boyfriend Chris Zylka every day.

So perhaps it's no surprise that Paris Hilton clutched her significant other's hand quite securely as they made their way through LAX airport together on Thursday.

The 36-year-old socialite was dressed to impress for her flight.

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Jet-setters: Paris Hilton, 36, clutched her significant other's hand quite securely as they made their way through LAX airport together on Thursday

Black leather trousers revealed her lithe limbs, while her low cut black top provided a glimpse of her bra and generous cleavage.

A blue jacket with red stripes on the wrists and at the collar provided a dash of color.

Meanwhile, high-heeled, black textured booties added some height to her 5ft8in frame.

Accessories included a distinctive black choker, a massive pair of two-tone shades and a purse covered in metal rivets.

Flaunting it: Black leather trousers revealed her lithe limbs, while her low cut black top provided a glimpse of her bra and generous cleavage

Edgy: Accessories included a distinctive black choker, a massive pair of two-tone shades and a purse covered in metal rivets

Ready to em-bark! She also carried one of her favorite canine companions, Diamond Baby, in her arms as she walked

She also carried one of her favorite canine companions, Diamond Baby, in her arms as she walked. The Chihuahua even appeared to be wearing its own stylish garment, a red striped number with a blue skirt element.

Her famous blonde tresses were parted on the right and fell down past her shoulders.

Of course her pout featured a slick of her trademark light pink lipstick.

Boyfriend Chris, 32, chose a more demure look for their excursion.

Low-key: Boyfriend Chris, 32, chose a more demure look for their excursion

The Leftovers actor sported a baggy black sweatshirt, dark wash jeans and converse sneakers.

He also wore a black ball cap and some classic-style shades.

Back in March, Paris admitted to E! News that the actor a model seems to be 'the one.'

I've never been surer of anything in my life,' she told the outlet, 'he's so incredible in every way... I don't know what else I could ask for. He's perfect for me.'
'This summer, a legend returns... and a legend arrives.'

So says the first trailer for the newly revived Gong Show, referring to the iconic enormous gong, and host Tommy Maitland, respectively.

The 30-second teaser gives a first glimpse into the 'legendary host making his American debut', who is really an unrecognizable Mike Myers is disguise.

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'We're just here for funsies!': Mike Myers is unrecognizable in first trailer for revived The Gong Show released on Thursday

'Maitland' is fronting a brand new revival of the famous 70s talent show, which is set to debut on ABC on Thursday June 22.

He will be joined by a rotating panel of celebrity judges, with the likes of Will Arnett, Courteney Cox, Ed Helms, Elizabeth Banks, Ken Jeong and Zach Galifianakis all spotted in the clip.

Also spotted are brief flashes of some of the quirky talent on show, including a pole-dancing tyrannosaur, an alien-themed upside-down drum troupe, and what looks like a death metal ukulele performance.

Yeah baby! The 30-second teaser gives a first glimpse into the 'legendary host making his American debut', who is really an unrecognizable Mike Myers is disguise (pictured with contestant)

Rita Repulsa: He will be joined by a rotating panel of celebrity judges, including Elizabeth backs

The likes of Will Arnett (R), Courteney Cox, Ed Helms (L), Ken Jeong and Zach Galifianakis all spotted in the clip.

Not impressed: Grumpy Jeong tells a performer offscreen: I hate it, I gave it a one'

Helms seems easy to impress, dishing out a 10 to an act unseen, while grumpy Jeong tells a performer offscreen: I hate it, I gave it a one.'

Meanwhile it's hard to determine whether Galifianakis is impressed or disgusted when he tells another act: 'You put this together last night!'

Maitland however seems to be having a ball in his new role, asking the audience: 'Who's a cheeky monkey?' and receiving a 'You are!' roared in unison back.

Even with those tiny arms: Also spotted are brief flashes of some of the quirky talent on show, including a pole-dancing tyrannosaur

Out of this world: There's also an alien-themed upside-down drum troupe

Losing my religion? There's also what looks like a death metal ukulele performance

Time's up: The timeless format will see acts competing to try and impress the judges without being 'gonged off'

'We're just here for funsies,' he signs off.

The timeless format will see acts competing to try and impress the judges without being 'gonged off'.

The show is produced by Arnett himself, Dancing With The Stars' Conrad Green, Black-ish's Peter Principato, and Den Of Thieves.

They also brought on board showman and Beacher's Madhouse founder Jeff Beacher as a producer; his old vaudeville partner - and Courteney Cox's ex - David Arquette is rumored to be one of the special guest performers who will appear on the first season.

Will be involved: The show is produced by Arnett himself, as well as Dancing With The Stars' Conrad Green, Black-ish's Peter Principato, and Den Of Thieves

Jeong bong: Ken seemed to take great pleasure in informing an act their time was up
The next EnVision Bus Read more [...]
On Wednesday night, she proved to be the leading lady of the red carpet, when she stepped out in glamorous style at the London premiere of her film My Cousin Rachel.

And Rachel Weisz stayed true to form for her appearance on the latest instalment of The Graham Norton Show, turning heads in a plunging flowing ivory gown.

But it wasn't all sweetness and innocence from the Oscar-winning actress, as she revealed she was a wild child at school.

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'I was very badly behaved!' Rachel Weisz reveals she was EXPELLED from school after doing 'multiple bad things' during glamorous appearance on The Graham Norton Show

'I was very badly behaved and was expelled from school, although my mother likes to say, "They asked you to leave," which is an important distinction,' she recalled.

'I didn't do just one bad thing it was multiple things. I had an authority problem and was very disruptive.'

Rachel, 47, was on the show to promote her new film, the gothic romance My Cousin Rachel.

'When I first read the script I asked the director about my character and did she or didnt she murder her husband? He said, "I don't know. It's a mystery." So I had to make a decision on what she was up to in order to play her but I didnt ever tell anyone on set.

'She could be a misunderstood modern woman or a manipulative femme fatale poisoner.'

On her impressive riding skills in the film, she said: 'I learnt to ride astride as a child so galloping side saddle in a corset and a big frock isnt un-challenging. It was a bit of a balancing act.'

Taking the plunge: The 47-year-old actress looked sensational in a deeply plunging ivory gown

Revealing the stallion she rode had been trained on Game of Thrones, she said: 'It had been taught to "die" when the left rein was pulled, so when I finished a scene and pulled on the left rein he did an elegant collapse on top of me.

'It wasnt un-painful! It was okay but there was a horrible silence on set until everyone realised I was alright.'

Rachel got political while chatting to Graham - alongside co-guests Anthony Joshua, Martin Freeman, Greg Davies and Shawn Mendes - and, as a duel US/UK citizen said of President Trump: 'It's really bizarre. Its good for comedy and satire but not much else  poor planet earth, womens rights and health care.'

The actress, whose interview with the Irish funnyman airs on Friday night, looked effortlessly stylish as she graced the famous red couch in the sleeveless asymmetrical number.

Glam: The mother-of-one allowed her voluminous wavy brown tresses to rest about her shoulders, while deep pink lipstick added a flourish of colour to her polished look

The mother-of-one, married to British actor Daniel Craig, allowed her voluminous wavy brown tresses to rest about her shoulders, while deep pink lipstick added a flourish of colour to her polished look.

Rachel and Sam Claflin are the stars of the new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's classic novel My Cousin Rachel.

The mystery-romance, written in 1951, follows young Englishman Phillip (Claflin), who plots revenge on his cousin Rachel, who he believes killed his guardian.

Big unveiling: On Wednesday night, she attended the world premiere of her latest film, My Cousin Rachel, held at Picturehouse Central Cinema in London's Piccadilly district

However, after inviting her to stay with him in Cornwall, his feeling towards her soon become confused, after he is captivated by her mystery and beauty.

The film, which also stars Iain Glen and Holliday Granger, is directed by Roger Michell of Notting Hill fame, and is set for release on Friday.

Rachel and Sam had appeared on Lorraine on Wednesday to discuss their movie.

Co-stars: She was joined by her co-stars (l-r) ) Sam Claflin, Holliday Grainger and Iain Glen

Addressing what drew him to the role, 30-year-old Sam explained to host Lorraine Kelly: 'The ambiguity of the script is what I loved. My character [Philip] is a naive young man. The beautiful thing is that you usually see a boy turning into a man.

'But for him, he believes hes a man - but then he becomes a boy when Rachel walks into life. She calls him a little puppy dog.'

Rachel then chimed in that getting to take on roles foreign to her own personality is what she loves most about acting.

Guest: Martin Freeman was also among the guests who made an appearance on the show

Laugh: Anthony Joshua, left, and Greg Davies shared a laugh as they shared the red couch

Dapper gents: The stars looked dapper on the show, donning smart blazers over white shirts

You want a piece of me: Comedian Greg engaged in a staring match with the boxing champ

She explained: 'We get to tell stories and pretend to be other people. But dressing up and going to red carpets is a fantasy as well.

'Its make believe. To stay normal you need to know its pretend.'

The Graham Norton Show - also featuring guests Martin Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Joshua and Greg Davies - will air on BBC One on Friday at 10.40pm.

Strike a pose: During the taping, the stars posed for a shot with host Graham Norton, rear, and singer Shawn Mendes, right

Perform: As the show drew to a close, Shawn picked up his guitar to perform for the audience

Smash hit: The Canadian singer enjoyed a huge hit in the UK with his smash single Stitches

Quick chat: Following his performance, Shawn sat down for for a quick chat with Graham
He is the quintessential English actor, known for his charm, wit and age-defying good looks.

But Hugh Grant, 56, participated in a typically Australian tradition over the weekend as he enjoyed a wild night out with New College, Oxford University rugby players.

Footage has emerged of the Notting Hill star doing a 'shoey'- a Down Under drinking tradition that sees the participant gulp down a drink from their own shoe.

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Hughey does a shoey! Hugh Grant, 56, participated in a typically Australian tradition over the weekend as he enjoyed a wild night out with New College Oxford University rugby players

In the short clip, Hugh is seen sitting at a table surrounded by rowdy revelers chanting: 'I have never seen Hugh Grant do a shoe!'

Clad in a slick suit and tie, the father-of-four is seen obliging his pals by downing the drink from his leather dress shoe.

Hugh also appeared in another video taken during the wild night out, showing the actor drinking from two bottles while being cheered on by students.

Classic: The quintessential English actor is known for his charm, wit and age-defying good looks

Doubling his fun? Hugh also appeared in another video taken during the wild night out, showing the actor drinking from two bottles while being cheered on by students

The dashing actor, a former Oxford University himself, made sure to pose for photos with the student rugby players during the wild night out.

Hugh and his girlfriend Anna Eberstein are proud parents to son John, born in 2012, and a second child whose name is not yet known, born in December 2015.

He also has two other children - a daughter Tabitha, four, and son Felix, two, with Chinese beauty Tinglan Hong.

Back to his beginnings: The actor, a former Oxford University himself, made sure to pose for photos with the student rugby players during the wild night out

Family man: Hugh and his girlfriend Anna Eberstein are proud parents to son John, born in 2012, and a second child whose name is not yet known, born in December 2015

Hugh isn't the only celebrity to have been filmed doing a 'shoey' - the maneuver has been performed by the likes of actor Gerard Butler.

Local Australian celebrities who have participated in the challenge include comedian David Hughes, Daniel Ricciardo, David Reynolds and Bachelorette star Dave Billsborrow.

This week, footage surfaced of former Australian Idol star Shannon Noll helping a blonde woman drink a 'shoey'.

Former flame: Hugh and Liz Hurley famously dated for 13 years

Cheers to that! Red Bull Racing's Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo drank champagne out of his shoe during the Formula One Grand Prix of Germany last year

In a video posted to Instagram over the weekend, the 41-year-old father-of-three appears shirtless and wide-eyed while assisting the young woman drink out of a shoe.

On Monday this week, the star's promoter hit back at fans claiming Shannon was 'cooked' in the now-infamous Instagram video.

Rick Szabo told News.com.au the clip was filmed after his performance at the Parkwood Tavern on the Gold Coast on Friday night.

Getting in on the action: Australian comedian David 'Hughesy' Hughes also did a 'shoey' live on air during his poular KIIS FM radio show

Footwear fun? This week, footage surfaced of former Australian Idol star Shannon Noll helping a blonde woman drink a shoey
She's the ex-wife of murdered Melbourne mobster Carl Williams.

And despite her past links to the underworld, Roberta Williams has no shortage of male suitors, telling the Kyle and Jackie O Show on Friday: 'I've got men messaging me bloody all day!'

Roberta's radio appearance comes as she filmed a pilot for reality TV series Mob Wives, rubbishing claims the show glorifies violence.

'I've got men messaging me bloody all day!' Carl Williams' ex-wife Roberta reveals she has inundated by male suitors asking her out on dates

Roberta, 48, was married to convicted Melbourne gangland killer Carl until their divorce in 2007, the same year he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of Lewis Moran, Jason Moran and Mark Mallia.

Both featuring in the 2008 series of Underbelly and Carl was later murdered in prison in 2010.

Speaking to Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson on Friday, Roberta confirmed she has since split from her latest boyfriend.

Former husband: Roberta, 48, was been married to convicted Melbourne gangland killer Carl (right)

'I'm just guessing here, but do you find it hard to meet new men that are romantically interested?' Kyle asked.

But Roberta disagreed with the shock jock, revealing it was in fact the opposite.

'I've got men messaging me bloody all day everyday, driving me nuts!' She complained.

'[Men such as] pilots on huge airlines to - oh my god it drives me insane, they just don't leave me alone - there's no shortage there believe me!'

Roberta said she wasn't on dating apps like Tinder, instead preferring to focus on being a grandmother.

Promoting her show: Roberta was on Kyle and Jackie O on Friday promoting new pilot Mob Wives

Family minded: Roberta said she wasn't on dating apps like Tinder, instead preferring to focus on being a grandmother

'I'm definitely not looking for anybody no,' she said.

'There's always somebody out there for somebody, and you don't go searching for it, it comes at the right time, that's what I always tell my friends.'

A convicted drug trafficker, Roberta confirmed they had just finished shooting the pilot for Mob Wives and there would be plenty of drama to interest viewers.

But she rubbished claims the series, which also stars underworld socialite Lisa Candido, would be glamorising crime and violence.

'That's one thing we won't be doing on the show is glorifying those days and stuff like that,' Roberta said.
India faced international scrutiny over levels of violence against women following the fatal gang-rape of a medical student in New Delhi in December 2012

An Indian court Wednesday granted bail to four men accused of raping and drugging an American tourist at a New Delhi hotel, the Press Trust of India reported.

A judge said the four accused could no longer contribute to the police investigation and served no purpose in custody, PTI reported. They have been ordered not to leave the country.

The victim told police she was part of a tour group visiting India in April last year when her local guide gave her a spiked bottle of water and raped her with acquaintances inside her hotel room.

Four men were later charged with her rape.

The woman returned to New Delhi in December to record her testimony in court and identify the suspects.

She told investigators she had no memory of the assault for nearly three months after she returned from India.

"The first two nights I was drugged, physically assaulted and sexually assaulted," she told an Indian news network at the time.

"I had no memory of what happened to me while I was in India. I regained my memory three months later around the end of July and that's when I took action," she said.

The tour guide, a driver, a cleaner and a hotel employee were arrested after police received her formal complaint through an American charity.

Early last year a German tourist accused two men of taking her captive and raping her in southern India. A 35-year-old Japanese tourist was also raped in India last December.

India faced international scrutiny over levels of violence against women following the fatal gang-rape of a medical student in New Delhi in December 2012.

India introduced tough laws against sex offenders in wake of the fatal gang-rape but high levels of sexual violence against women continues.
People walk past a television screen broadcasting live footage of a parade to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founder Kim Il-Sung and showing North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, at a railway station in Seoul on April 15, 2017

North Korea launched a series of what appeared to be "surface-to-ship" missiles on Thursday, South Korea's defence ministry said -- in what would be the latest in a string of tests in defiance of UN sanctions.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the ministry said.

It would be the fourth missile test by the nuclear-armed regime in less than five weeks, as Pyongyang continues to defy UN warnings and US threats of possible military action.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions.

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile yet tested, in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Donald Trump has vowed "won't happen".

The US military has said it has "successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile target" in a test conducted amid concerns over the North's weapons program.
North Korea has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States

North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, Pyongyang's fifth test in less than a month in defiance of global pressure to rein in its weapons program.

The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Kim Jong-Un's regime in response to recent ballistic missile tests.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles," the defence ministry said, adding the short range missiles flew some 200 kilometres (124 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan.

Pyongyang has ordered three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile, and Thursday's cruise missile tests since the South's President Moon Jae-in took power in early May.

Moon advocated reconciliation with Seoul's isolated, unpredictable neighbour but has taken a more stern position in the wake of the missile tests, which pose a policy challenge to the left-leaning leader.

"The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the National Security Council Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-Hyun.

Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people," Moon said, according to his spokesman.

Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability," a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions.

North Korea missile launch

Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns".

Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions.

"North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations... but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US President Donald) Trump," he added.

Thursday's launch is also aimed at pressuring Seoul and Washington ahead of a planned summit between Moon and Trump late June, said Hong Hyun-Ik, analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank.

"The North is trying to flaunt its presence... and to pressure Moon to offer a big favour in order to ease tension, like the resumption of a joint economic project," Hong said.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, a move Pyongyang said was "mean".

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks -- and not more sanctions -- is its priority.

"Talks deserve another chance and peace is still within our grasp," Beijing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday.

The new tests come a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile shield -- an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

- 'Provocative actions' -

"North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea".

The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.

The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Trump has vowed "won't happen".

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, but analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.

But most agree that the country has made significant progress under Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.
The Islamic Council of Victoria said the rise of right-wing extremist rhetoric had a created 'a culture of surveillance for our families' and leading to serious mental health issues for many Muslims

An Australian Islamic council has called for taxpayer-funded "safe spaces" so young Muslims can express "inflammatory" views without fear in a move slammed Thursday as troubling and wrong.

News of the request comes just days after a fatal shootout in Melbourne claimed by the Islamic State group, which is being treated as a terrorist incident.

In a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into freedom of religion, the Islamic Council of Victoria demanded funding for federal counter-terrorism and anti-extremism programmes be diverted to create the refuges.

"Existing ... funding re-allocated to create safe spaces urgently needed by Muslim youth to meet and talk about a range of issues in emotional terms," it said.

"(A space) where they can be frank and even use words, which in a public space would sound inflammatory."

Victorian state Premier Daniel Andrews said he was "very troubled" by any suggestion for safe spaces where Muslim youth "could be radical".

"There is no safe way to rail against the West," he told reporters. "There is no safe way to rail against the values that we hold dear.

"I am very troubled by the suggestion that we might have a space where people could be radical as part of a de-radicalisation programme. That makes no sense to me whatsoever."

He ruled out any funding for such an initiative.

The council argued in its submission that the rise of right-wing extremist political rhetoric had a created "a culture of surveillance for our families".

"Muslim youth especially are watched everywhere, every day, and this 24/7 surveillance is becoming internalised and leading to serious mental health issues for many Muslims and increasing family tensions," it said.

The council added that words were frequently seen as "more of a crime than actions" and this limited young people's freedoms "to express themselves in ways that do not apply to non-Islamic faith youth".

In Melbourne on Tuesday a man of Somali background was killed in a gun battle with police when he opened fire following an hour-long standoff after taking a female escort hostage.

It is alleged 29-year-old Yacqub Khayre, linked to a 2009 terror plot targeting an Australian army barracks, had first murdered a Chinese-born Australian man.

Australian officials have grown increasingly concerned over the threat of extremist attacks and have prevented 12 on home soil since the threat level was raised in September 2014.
Another student death in clashes in Indian-administered Kashmir has heightened tensions in the disputed territory and worsened India's worries about a foe that it cannot control -- youths who do not carry guns

Another student death in clashes in Indian-administered Kashmir has heightened tensions in the disputed territory and worsened India's worries about a foe that it cannot control -- youths who do not carry guns.

The teenager was fatally shot in the chest during an exchange of fire between troops and suspected militants in Shopian, south of Srinigar, late Tuesday, sparking further violent protests.

Students have taken the lead in protests, hurling stones at soldiers tracking militants who want Kashmir to break away from India.

More than 100 young men and women have been killed over the past year in the demonstrations.

The deaths have increased anti-Indian sentiment in the part of the Muslim-majority Himalayan region it has controlled since 1947. Pakistan has the other chunk.

India is also worried about how to handle the anger. It considers the battle with armed militants to be a fair one but its leaders are unnerved about students whose only weapons are stones.

Indian army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat said he wished "instead of throwing stones at us, (they) were firing weapons".

"Then I would have been happy. Then I could do what I want," he told Press Trust of India.

Bedridden in a dimly lit room of his village home, Mohammad Younis, 18, is eager to join the protests.

Indian soldiers shot the 18-year-old in the thigh in February. He had been walking through paddy fields to attend the funeral of a rebel killed by troops.

"If I wasnt stuck in this bed I would also go out to protest," Younis told AFP at his home in Quimoh.

His father, Mohamamd Akbar, said the students were "not afraid of bullets and soldiers".

"We were timid," he added. "But this generation has to fight."

- Student anger -

The rebel, a former student known to Younis, was killed just ten days after joining the separatists.

About 100 young Kashmiris are believed to have joined the armed militants since rebel commander Burhan Wani was killed by security forces last July.

Wani, a media savvy leader, took up the armed cause at the age of 15, galvanising Kashmiri youth by providing a new face for the militant movement.

The mother of Kashimiri college student Adil Farooq Magray, who was reportedly shot when Indian government forces opened fire to disperse protesters, cries during his funeral

Student unrest intensified again in April when government forces raided a college in the southern town of Pulwama to arrest suspected protest leaders.

The army's use of a Kashmiri man as a 'human shield' tied to the front of a military jeep as it drove away from stone-throwing protesters set off even greater controversy.

Wasim Ahmed Bhat, a student, said he has been detained seven times since July and was not allowed to attend his fathers funeral.

"Each time I was tortured," he said.

In nearby Shopian, students in school uniform waited outside their campus on a recent day before classes, their teacher unable to coax them inside.

The students had heard the army was approaching and within minutes were hurling stones at the vehicles as they whizzed past, horns blaring. "Go India, go back," they shouted.

"I understand their anger. Six of those killed last year were my students," said the teacher, speaking on condition of anonymity.

- Crisis not abating -

Kashmir police deny allegations of widespread arbitrary detentions and torture. They say there are strict orders that government forces must not enter campuses.

"We have been very lenient towards the students. In most cases we dont even register cases against them in order to save their future careers," Kashmir police chief Muneer Khan told AFP.

Kashmiri students walk past Indian government forces standing guard in central Srinagar

Speaking on condition of anonymity a top police officer conceded that during protests after Wanis death nearly 3,000 students were detained.

He said security forces were more wary of the protesters who come out in support of the militants when trapped in military cordons than the rebels themselves.

Students have always been a part of protests against Indian rule. Many helped an armed rebellion that erupted in 1989 despite tight controls on education institutions. But campus protests were rare until the college raid in April.

Analysts say there is a growing political consciousness linked to the new anger and the spread of Hindu nationalism in India after Prime Minister Narendra Modi won an election in 2014.

"They can read and see through what is happening inside Kashmir as well as in India. And, the lack of strategy from the resistance leadership at home has left them directionless and looking into the abyss," said professor Sidiq Wahid, a historian and a former university vice chancellor in Kashmir.

"We cant deal with this generation in this way," a top police officer told AFP. "The crisis we see today is not going to go away soon."
Japanese director Naomi Kawase says streaming giant Netflix can help liberate the country's film industry from the grip of conservative sponsors

Japan's Cannes prodigy Naomi Kawase believes Netflix can help unleash the creativity of her country's film industry, despite the eruption of a row over the American streaming giant that marred the French film festival.

Kawase, a regular at the world's most prestigious film festival since winning the Camera d'Or in 1997, said she "has not filmed a single movie with 100-percent Japanese funding" for at least a decade.

"Japan's film industry is getting tougher and tougher for directors," the 48-year-old told AFP in an interview.

"Sponsors are being so cast-centric," she added, accusing Japanese studios of putting style before substance. "They want to use actors who can guarantee big enough audiences so that they can recover money they have invested."

Her latest work, "Hikari" (Radiance), a love story centred on a cameraman whose eyesight begins to fail, which was nominated for this year's Palme d'Or, was mainly funded by French sponsors.

Asked if she would want to work with Netflix, Kawase said: "That would be a place for me to express myself freely. I wouldn't deny that at all."

Netflix has been lauded by directors for giving them freedom to create the kind of work they want to produce without having to worry about whether it will make money

Kawase cited South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, whose Netflix-funded work "Okja" was booed at Cannes, as crediting the streaming giant for giving him total creative freedom.

"Netflix gives him as much money as he needs and doesn't intervene," she said. "He's said it's a great environment for film-makers and I'd say he has a point for sure."

The Cannes Festival declared war on Netflix, accusing the $70 billion movie and television streaming service of ignoring the big screen and threatening to ban it from entering films in the future.

- Scathing criticism -

French exhibitors have slammed it for by-passing cinemas to show films direct to television, but without Netflix investment, many obscure and art house films would be in danger of collapsing.

Cannes jury president Pedro Almodovar was scathing in his criticism but fellow juror Will Smith defended Netflix at a heated press conference.

"Netflix brings a great connectivity," said the Hollywood A-lister. "In my house, Netflix has been nothing but an absolute benefit."

In a heated press conference at Cannes, festival juror Will Smith defended Netflix from charges it was ignoring the big screen. "In my house, Netflix has been nothing but an absolute benefit," he said.

Kawase, known for meticulous attention to detail in her movie-making, said Japanese film-makers are hamstrung by commercial constraints.

"It's such a struggle to sell an original script," said Kawase, who writes her own screenplays, adding that sponsors prefer novels or works that have already made a splash in the market.

Last year, 610 homegrown movies were screened in Japan, and over 70 percent of the 40 top-selling ones were based on successful mangas, cartoons and novels.

"Film-makers here are not really able to create what they want," said Kawase. "The reality is that we have to work with foreign sponsors with a screenplay that doesn't require only Japanese actors. But then they might not be commercially successful in Japan -- it's tough."

Fellow Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda also criticised Japanese cinema -- known to the world for film-making greats such as Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa -- for pandering to profit.

"There will be more directors who want to work with Netflix or Amazon, players outside of Japan's film industry," he told AFP recently.

"The entire sector will only sink if it stays like this."
The $50 million action flick starring Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton was one of two Netflix-backed movies to premiere at Cannes this year and competed unsuccessfully for the Palme d'Or at the world's top film festival.

A top South Korean cinema chain said Thursday it would not screen a Netflix-backed blockbuster if the US streaming giant insists on releasing the film online simultaneously.

The movie, "Okja," directed by South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, sparked controversy at this year's Cannes film festival and triggered a similar row over distribution between Netflix and French cinema owners.

The $50 million action flick starring Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton was one of two Netflix-backed movies to premiere at Cannes this year and competed unsuccessfully for the Palme d'Or at the world's top film festival.

Netflix wants to screen the film in cinemas in the US, South Korea, and Britain from late June and release it online simultaneously.

But CGV -- the South's top cinema operator -- said it would not screen the highly-anticipated film unless Netflix agrees to not immediately offer the movie to its online subscribers.

"If Netflix wants to screen its project in movie theatres, it has to respect the rules and values of the film industry's ecosystem," a senior CGV official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The chain, which runs nearly 1,000 theatres, or about 40 percent of cinemas across the country, notified Netflix of its position, he said.

"We are still waiting for their answer, but the prospect of screening Okja in our theatres looks slim for now if Netflix sticks to its original stance," he said.

Other South Korean cinema chains have not publicly said whether they plan to screen the film.

Netflix has a policy of releasing its films online on the same day that they start showing in cinemas -- which triggered the row in France, which does not allow online streaming until three years after a film's release in theatres.

Angry protests by French cinema owners even forced Cannes to change its rule to require every film in competition to be shown in French cinemas afterwards -- a rule that will apply from next year, potentially preventing future Netflix films from competing for prizes.

The move angered Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who slammed what he called the French cinema establishment for "closing ranks" against the US streaming service.

Netflix is also locked in a similar battle against big US cinema chains. In 2015, most major multiplex chains refused to screen the long-awaited Netflix-made sequel to martial arts blockbuster "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Cleveland began a new greenway section on Wednesday with a groundbreaking ceremony for the Casteel Connector.

The connector is named for former City Manager Janice Casteel. She was present with her family as city, county and greenway officials helped launch the new Cleveland/Bradley County Greenway feature.

The connector will link the North Ocoee Street sidewalk system to Tinsley Park, and merge with the existing greenway at the pedestrian bridge that crosses Mouse Creek in the park.

City Councilman Bill Estes, vice chairman of the Greenway Board, said, "Janice has a long history with this project, starting in 2003 even before she was city manager. The name Casteel Connector is appropriate, because Janice Casteel connects people and entities. Like the greenway itself, Janice Casteel is an asset to the community."

Bradley County Mayor D. Gary Davis said the greenway is "the most popular project, I think, in Bradley County." He said he looks forward to more extensions in the future.

Cleveland Mayor Tom Rowland thanked Mrs. Casteel for her service to the city. He thanked Parks and Recreation Director Patti Petitt and her department for maintaining the greenway and city parks. He also thanked the Greenway Advisory Board and Chairman Cameron Fisher for their work.

To Mrs. Casteel, Mayor Rowland said, "Thank you for what you have meant to the city. This connector is going to remind us every day what you still mean to the city."

Mrs. Casteel introduced her family. She also thanked her "city family" and "county family" present for the ceremony including City Council and County Commission members. She thanked the city and the Tennessee Department of Transportation for funding the connector.

The greenway, she said, "is one of our greatest assets for all our people."
Concerned neighbours tipped off authorities to Myat Noe's abuse after noticing livid red burns on her body

Playing with a tiny kitten is the only thing that stops 13-year-old Myat Noe crying as she lies in a Yangon hospital, flesh peeling from where she says her employers burned her with irons and boiling water.

She was rescued last weekend from a house south of Myanmar's commercial capital where she was sent to work as a live-in housemaid earning less than $10 a week.

Her story is one many child domestic helper abuse cases to emerge since the country's first freely elected government in half a century took power last year.

Lawmakers, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, have vowed to strengthen protection for child workers.

But new laws appear distant while the culture of abuse persists in a country where poor children are routinely pressed into jobs.

"It hurts," Myat Noe whispered to an AFP journalist from her hospital bed after finally stroking her kitten to sleep, tears stifling her voice.

"They did this because I forgot to tell them the water had boiled. I do not want to go back," added the girl, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

Myat Noe's story is one many child domestic helper abuse cases to emerge since Myanmar's first freely elected government in half a century took power last year

The girl was sent by her grandmother to work for a couple who were family friends.

But concerned neighbours tipped off authorities after glimpsing her back, shoulders and chest covered in livid red burns.

Police have arrested the couple, who are accused of branding her with burning irons, beating her and pouring boiling water over her skin.

"When we found the girl, there were many injuries on her whole body," said local ward authority Myo Tint Naing, who brought the charges.

"The child was locked up to stop her having any outside contact... (She) has been so afraid since we took her. She doesn't want to go back."

- 'Many unknown cases' -

A female police officer stood guard near the girl as a harried doctor told AFP he had seen six cases of abused child servants at this hospital alone.

All were left with severe psychological damage from their ordeals.

"What we need in this country is a law to protect child (domestic) helpers in particular," he said on condition of anonymity.

Myo Tint Naung, the plaintiff for Myat Noe, said she was locked up to stop her having any outside contact

"There are many unknown child abuse cases happening."

Experts say tens of thousands of youngsters work as house servants in Myanmar, rated as the world's seventh-worst country for child labour by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

Vulnerable and invisible, with no legal protections, they are at high risk of abuse.

Protecting them has become a test issue for Suu Kyi's government since last year, when the case of two girls who suffered horrendous abuse during five years held captive in a tailors shop in Yangon came to light.

Their story shocked the country and the president ordered an investigation into how it was handled, but little substantive action has been taken since.

Lawmakers have announced the formulation of a five-year action plan to eliminate child labour.

They are also expected to amend the 1993 Child Law to cover anyone under the age of 18, rather than 16, and enshrine the minimum working age at 14 in the next session of parliament.

But experts say specific legal protections for child servants remain a pipe dream.
The Gia Lam train factory in Hanoi was the first in the then-French territory established to bolster the expanding rail network of the time

Built by the French to fix trains for their fast-developing Vietnamese colony, the Gia Lam factory later churned out weapons to fuel the country's independence fight, and then survived the onslaught of American bombers during the war.

But the storied Hanoi plant is now in decline, a victim of the rising consumer power of Vietnam's middle classes as passengers turn from trains to planes.

The storied Hanoi plant is now in decline, a victim of the rising consumer power of Vietnam's middle classes as passengers turn from trains to planes

"In the past, I was proud to work here because this factory was the biggest in Indochina," repairman Au Duy Hien told AFP.

Opened in 1905, Gia Lam was the first train factory in the then-French territory, which spanned modern-day Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Mechanics used the base to first fix and then assemble the engines and carriages that served the region's rapid push toward industrialisation.

The factory was taken over by the Vietnamese in the 1940s, expanding production to make bazookas and grenades for revolutionaries fighting the colonial rulers who were finally thrown out in 1954

The factory was taken over by the Vietnamese in the 1940s, expanding production to make bazookas and grenades for revolutionaries fighting the colonial rulers who were finally thrown out in 1954.

And then it continued to make weapons during the Vietnam War -- even as it was bombed by US planes targeting Communist-backed revolutionaries in northern Vietnam.

- Running out of steam -

Output at the factory is down more than 90 percent since its 1990s heyday and it is now mostly used to repair old trains, with little demand for new carriages on the country's vast but outdated rail network

But today, output is down more than 90 percent since its 1990s heyday.

It is now mostly used to repair old trains, with little demand for new carriages on the country's vast but outdated rail network.

The industry is struggling to keep pace with the lure of low-cost air travel.

For many, the choice between a clanging, slow-moving train or a quick -- and cheap -- plane is a no-brainer.

In 2015, 31 million people travelled by air, more than double the number in 2010, according to official statistics.

Train use remained steady at 11 million for the year.

Today, some companies are seeking to revive the colonial romance of rail travel, offering first-class trips, wood-lined cabins with restaurant car.

The air travel industry in Vietnam has taken off in recent years, aided by the launch of low-cost airlines offering cheap tickets. In 2015, 31 million Vietnamese took to the skies, more than double the number who flew in 2010

"If rail transportation isn't developed, then the railway industry cannot be revived," union boss Nguyen Anh Tuan told AFP.

Some lawmakers recently called for private investment into the state-controlled sector, and the country's parliament is currently considering revising the law.

But unless the industry sees a major upturn in fortunes, Gia Lam employees fear it will soon run out of steam.
Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation run by Apple employees selling computer and phone users' personal data.

Chinese authorities say they have uncovered a massive underground operation run by Apple employees selling computer and phone users' personal data.

Twenty-two people have been detained on suspicion of infringing individuals' privacy and illegally obtaining their digital personal information, according to a statement Wednesday from local police in southern Zhejiang province.

Of the 22 suspects, 20 were Apple employees who allegedly used the company's internal computer system to gather users' names, phone numbers, Apple IDs, and other data, which they sold as part of a scam worth more than 50 million yuan ($7.36 million).

The statement did not specify whether the data belonged to Chinese or foreign Apple customers.

Following months of investigation, the statement said, police across more than four provinces -- Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian -- apprehended the suspects over the weekend, seizing their "criminal tools" and dismantling their online network.

The suspects, who worked in direct marketing and outsourcing for Apple in China, allegedly charged between 10 yuan ($1.50) and 180 yuan ($26.50) for pieces of the illegally extracted data.

The sale of personal information is common in China, which implemented on June 1 a controversial new cybersecurity law aimed at protecting the country's networks and private user information.

In December, an investigation by the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper exposed a black market for private data gathered from police and government databases.

Reporters successfully obtained a trove of material on one colleague -- including flight history, hotel checkouts and property holdings -- in exchange for a payment of 700 yuan ($100).
A small community of blind students in Malaysia is attempting to learn the entire Quran, a formidable task that requires them to read each sheet of the holy text up to 40 times and memorise close to two pages a day.

A small community of blind students in Malaysia is attempting to learn the entire Quran, a formidable task that requires them to read each page of the holy text up to 40 times.

It may be the fasting month of Ramadan but the group of eight students in the central state of Selangor show no sign of fatigue as their fingers race across thick copies of the religious book.

It may be the fasting month of Ramadan but the group of eight students in the central state of Selangor show no sign of fatigue as their fingers race across thick copies of the religious book.

The students, who were all born blind, are among a group of 1,000 at the Darul Quran school learning and memorising Islam's holy text.

They depend on made-in-Malaysia copies written in Braille, which come in six thick volumes.

"They must try to memorise one to two pages a day. You usually have to read a page 30 to 40 times to help you memorise," Quran teacher Ahmad Qusairi Mat Zizi, who is also blind, said.

The students, aged between 19 and 21, are currently in the midst of a four-year course, memorising the holy text as well as studying Arabic and other Islamic subjects.

The students, who were all born blind, are among a group of 1,000 at the Darul Quran school learning and memorising Islam's holy text.

"My motivation to come here, first of all, is for my family and for myself, and because I like to memorise the Quran, and that is one of my ambitions," said blind student Nur Basyirah Azhar.

Once they finish their course, they can opt for further Islamic studies at university level.

Teachers at the school said there were other Malaysian institutions offering classes with the Braille Quran, while similar Braille copies can also be found in countries such as Indonesia.

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told local media this week he hoped the country would have 125,000 people who had memorised the Quran by 2050, saying this was key to building harmony and prosperity.

-- This story accompanies a photo essay and video by Mohd Rasfan --
Hundreds of people gathered solemnly on a beach in southern Myanmar awaiting news of their loved ones as rescuers worked to pull bodies from the Andaman Sea after a military plane crashed with more than 120 people on board

Hundreds of people gathered on a beach in southern Myanmar on Thursday desperately waiting for news of their loved ones as the first bodies arrived from the wreck of a military plane that crashed with more than 120 people on board.

Navy ships and air force planes have been scouring the waves since Wednesday afternoon, when the aircraft disappeared en route from the southern city of Myeik to the commercial hub of Yangon.

By mid-afternoon the commander-in-chief's office said 29 corpses -- 20 women, one man and eight children -- had been retrieved from the sea after a navy vessel discovered wreckage from the plane off the coastline near Dawei town.

Hundreds of locals, relatives and NGO workers clasping umbrellas watched as a fishing boat laden with the dead pulled up to San Hlan beach, where they were unloaded by NGO workers and uniformed soliders wearing masks and gloves.

An AFP reporter counted 29 corpses of different sizes, wrapped in black and white plastic bags, being brought onshore from the boat.

"My cousin's sister's family was in the plane crash -- her husband, her child and herself," said Kyaw Swar Myint, 44, from Dawei.

"We heard news that the helicopter was now transporting about 20 dead bodies to the beach, so we are waiting here."

A military officer said strong currents has made it hard for boats to reach the shore, so many of the bodies may have to be airlifted to land.

Myanmar plane disappears

The Chinese-made Shaanxi Y8 plane was carrying a total of 122 people when it disappeared on Wednesday afternoon during a routine flight, according to the army chief.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief's office said in a statement.

Some were travelling for medical check-ups or to study in Yangon.

The office of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi posted a statement expressing condolences to the victims.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered to help in recovery efforts, while the US embassy sent sympathies to the families of those lost in the "tragedy".

It is monsoon season in Myanmar, but there were no major storms reported along the aircraft's flight path on Wednesday afternoon.

- Poor safety record -

Myanmar soldiers in Sanhlan village prepare to unload dead bodies recovered at sea after a plane crashed with more than 120 people on board

The military said the plane was flying at over 18,000 feet (5,486 metres) when it lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 pm (07:05 GMT) on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

Gerry Soejatman, an independent aviation expert based in Jakarta, said the information indicated something went wrong "not long after or just before reaching cruising altitude".

The military named the captain as "seasoned" pilot Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

He was flying the Chinese-made, four-engine Y8 turboprop -- a medium-range transport plane based on the Soviet Antonov An-12, which has had numerous crashes over the decades.

Myanmar's former junta bought several Y8s during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions.

The plane's maker, China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation, in a statement pledged to assist with investigations into the crash.

The military said the plane that crashed was delivered in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

The debris -- including two tires presumed to be from the plane were brought to shore before search efforts wrapped for the day -- was found in the Andaman Sea, north of the last known location of Malaysia Airlines flight 370.

That plane went missing in March 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, but no wreckage has ever been found.

Myanmar's military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

Myanmar's former junta bought several Chinese-made Shaanxi Y8 planes during their 50 years of isolated rule, when they were squeezed by Western sanctions

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
Gunmen and suicide bombers killed at least five people in twin assaults on parliament and the tomb of the country's revolutionary founder in Tehran

Iran said Thursday that five of its nationals who killed 17 people in twin attacks in Tehran were Islamic State members who had been to the group's strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Wednesday's attacks on Tehran's parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which also wounded more than 50 people, were the first claimed by IS in Iran.

"The five known terrorists... after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the intelligence ministry said in a statement.

It suggested there were only five attackers rather than the six originally reported.

An official said previously that those who attacked the parliament complex had been dressed as women.

The ministry released their photographs and first names.

It said they were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of "high-ranking Daesh commander" Abu Aisha intending to carry out "terrorist operations in religious cities".

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee the country, the statement said. It was unclear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of Wednesday's attacks.

Map of Iran locating the parliament and Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum, targeted by gunmen and suicide bombers on Wednesday

IS on Thursday released a video of the five attackers before the assault, via its Amaq propaganda agency.

"Allah permitting, this is the first brigade that was established (in Iran) but it will not be the last," one said in the video message, as the group sat masked in a circle with their weapons.

The jihadist group had earlier released footage of the attackers from inside the building, also via Amaq -- a rare claim of responsibility while an assault was still going on.

- 'The evil they promote' -

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech to Iranian students in the capital Tehran

Following the attacks, US President Donald Trump said the United States would "grieve and pray" for the victims, but added: "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

The statement was condemned by foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: "Repugnant WH (White House) statement... as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients."

Trump was also criticised on social media by Iranians, who recalled their government's offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

"Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy," tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

The US president has long accused Iran of backing terrorism and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

Even as Washington expressed its condolences on Wednesday, the US Senate advanced legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran, partly for what the bill described as the regime's "support for acts of international terrorism".

Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard secure the area outside the Iranian parliament during an attack on the complex in the capital Tehran on June 7, 2017

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have pointed the finger at regional rival Saudi Arabia -- a close US ally -- which Tehran accuses of funding extremism and groups including IS.

IS has threatened to step up recruitment within Iran, releasing its first Persian-language video in March in which it threatened to "conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before."

The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iranians to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.

- Khomeini shrugs off attacks -

The attackers were armed with rifles and pistols and at least two blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police said a further five people were arrested around Khomeini's shrine on suspicion of involvement.

In the midst of the unfolding attacks, the intelligence ministry said a third team had been stopped before the attacks started, but no further details have since been given.

Sunni Gulf Arab states are in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis after Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with Qatar on Monday over claims it supports extremism and has fewer tensions with Iran.

Iranian leaders sought to play down the attacks, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: "These firecrackers that happened today will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people."
German troops load armoured vehicles destined for Lithuania onto a train in Grafenwoehr, southern Germany, on February 21, 2017

Lithuania's defense minister on Wednesday warned that a Russian military exercise later this year may serve as cover for an aggressive troop buildup on NATO's eastern flank.

Raimundas Karoblis is in Washington to lobby US officials and lawmakers for support as the exposed Baltic states modernize their defenses to deter Kremlin interference.

In an interview with AFP, he said he was grateful for and confident in US support for NATO, despite President Donald Trump's recent criticism of the alliance.

But he made it clear he would like to see a permanent US troop presence on Lithuanian soil as a "multiplying presence for deterrence" alongside European allies.

"Europe needs the presence and leadership of the United States as a defense system, but on the other hand we believe that the United States need allies also," Karoblis said.

Russian soldiers march during a Victory Day parade in Moscow's Red Square

Trump alarmed European capitals during his campaign by deriding NATO as obsolete and demanding that US allies take on a greater share of spending on mutual defense.

Since he came to office in January, his senior aides have repeatedly attempted to reassure the allies that Washington will honor its treaty commitments.

But again last month at the NATO summit, Trump failed to publicly reaffirm Article 5 of the alliance's treaty, which states that an attack on one ally is an attack on all.

Karoblis, who recently hosted US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in his homeland close to the Belarus border, said he remained positive about Washington's commitment to NATO.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis (right) meets troops stationed in Lithuania on May 10, 2017

"It's not obsolete, definitely," he said. "That was said only once, by the way, during the campaign. But NATO needs changes, that is clear to us also."

Karoblis said Trump had been right to demand that European allies increase their defense spending towards the agreed target of two percent of their GDP.

His own country, he reported, has more than doubled its spending over two years to 1.8 percent of national output, and will hit the target next.

But he was clear that greater European commitment can never replace the United States' role in the alliance it dominates -- particularly when it comes to Russia.

"Russia has more tanks on the Ukrainian border than Britain and Germany have altogether," he warned.

Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia have had tense relations with Russia since they won their freedom in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

- Huge exercise -

Fears have increased in recent years after President Vladimir Putin deployed Russian troops, agents and proxy forces to seize chunks of Georgia and Ukraine.

The Baltics worry they may be next to face pressure from the Kremlin, perhaps in the wake of September's "Zapad 2017" -- a huge Russian military exercise.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis and Lithuanian counterpart Raimundas Karoblis (left) review an honour guard in Vilnius on May 10, 2017

"Putin would like to test NATO... and probably the best area for him to test is the Baltics," the minister told AFP at Washington's Army and Navy Club.

Karoblis said his government estimates that 100,000 Russian troops will be involved in the exercise, deployed in Lithuania's southern neighbor Belarus.

The exercise itself will be intimidating for Belarus' southern neighbor Ukraine, which has already lost Crimea to Russian occupation and part of its east to rebellion.

But Vilnius is concerned that Putin will leave many of the soldiers behind after the operation, to effectively position a new force right on NATO's flank.

From Belarus, only the 50-mile (80-kilometer) "Suwalki Gap" along the Polish-Lithuanian border separates these forces from Russia's Kaliningrad enclave.

Any Russian overt or covert incursion to close the gap could encircle the Baltic states by land -- and Kaliningrad's missile batteries could harass shipping.

NATO has responded. There is now a 1,000-strong German-led multinational battle group in Lithuania, a similar British-led unit in Estonia and Canadians in Latvia.

But American forces deploy in the Baltic states on a rotational basis, operating out of Poland and conducting training and exercises across the region.

Mattis was clear last month that Washington will step up its involvement in the event of Russian provocation -- but Vilnius would still like to see a permanent force.

"We Lithuanians can't imagine security without the support and guarantees from the US side," Karoblis said.
US President Donald Trump has entered this political battle armed with a street-fighting temperament that has proven as much a liability as an asset for his presidency

Donald Trump has faced down a litany of scandals in his nearly 71 years, surviving bankruptcy, divorce, lawsuits and vulgar exposes.

But less than six months into his White House tenure, he finds himself locked in his toughest fight yet -- the battle to save his presidency.

On Thursday, former FBI director James Comey will appear in the Senate and testify under oath that, before he was fired, Trump urged him to shelve a major counter-espionage investigation and demanded his "loyalty."

That has opened the door to allegations the president may have obstructed justice, which could possibly lead to impeachment charges.

Pundits and punters will argue the legal merits of those allegations long after Comey's must-see testimony.

But the ultimate judgment will be political and for now, the odds are stacked in Trump's favor.

Only Congress can prosecute a sitting president and Republicans -- even those who reluctantly backed Trump and decry him in private -- are loath to commit political fratricide and oust a democratically-elected president without a cast iron reason.

Trump seems determined to put that support to the test.

- Story of a Renegade -

Former FBI director James Comey will appear in the Senate and testify under oath that, before he was fired, Trump urged him to shelve a major counter-espionage investigation

He enters this political battle armed with a street-fighting temperament that has proven as much a liability as an asset for his presidency.

For the last 150 or so days, Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis, tweeting away his public support and increasingly alienating allies who hold his political fate in their hands.

According to a Morning Consult poll, 69 percent of voters say Trump uses Twitter too much.

Inside the White House, aides describe a miasma of frustration, anger and resentment as Trump undermines his staff and rips up plans with unscripted remarks or Twitter outbursts.

That tendency was on display Wednesday, just hours before Comey's written Senate testimony was released a day before his appearance.

At 7:44 am, Trump announced the nomination of Christopher Wray to replace Comey as his FBI director.

No one was surprised that the Twitter-loving president made his "big reveal" on the social media platform.

What did surprise his staff and lawmakers -- who must now guide his nomination through Congress -- was that they did not get a heads-up.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer and his deputy Sarah Huckabee Sanders were kept in the dark, officials said, and it took them hours to catch up and make the case for Trump's pick.

Top Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate leader Mitch McConnell were not told of Wray's nomination when they visited Trump at the White House the day before, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

To Washington watchers, the steadily ebbing loyalty among those in the West Wing and on Capitol Hill is almost palpable.

The chaotic nature of the Trump administration means that spokespeople are frequently sent out to face the media with minimal information, unable to say, for example, whether Trump believes in climate change or has confidence in his attorney general.

"I have not had a discussion with him about that," Spicer said in a recent response to questions.

He is not alone. Just this week, a string of early morning tweets from Trump put in peril a major US military base in Qatar, which his Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis once ran.

Another Twitter outburst questioned the performance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions's Justice Department in handling Trump's proposed ban on travelers from some Muslim countries, currently frozen by the courts.

On a recent trip to Brussels, Trump stunned European allies and his entire foreign policy team by removing a line from his speech that highlighted US support of NATO's collective security.

Trump believes his bareknuckle style plays to his base -- something that is much needed with a recent poll showing his approval rating hovering just above 30 percent.

It remains to be seen whether that will be enough. Through unpopular outbursts, and by bucking his staff and Republicans allies during a crisis, he may be kicking away a pillar holding up his increasingly fragile presidency.
Bank of the Philippine Islands is the country's third biggest bank by assets and has eight million customers

A major Philippine bank shut down online access and its cash machines for a second day Thursday because of a glitch that drained some accounts but added money into others, creating at least one instant "billionaire".

Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), the country's third biggest bank by assets and with eight million customers, was forced to deactivate electronic transactions just hours after saying the problem had been fixed and online services restored.

"I had to borrow from a friend just to eat," university student John Daniel Villanueva, 21, told AFP after heading to cash machine Thursday morning and finding it offline.

"It's really a hassle. I don't have any cash and I need to pay some bills."

Bank customers were shocked Wednesday morning to find unauthorised withdrawals and deposits from their accounts, triggering fears the bank had been hacked and social media erupting with complaints against the 166-year-old lender.

There has been global concern about hacking following the world's biggest ransomware attack last month that struck hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide.

BPI blamed an "internal data processing error" for the glitch that led to unauthorised credits and debits on customers' accounts, without explaining the nature of the problem or how it occurred.

The central bank said it accepted BPI's explanation that no hacking was involved but would still carry out its own investigation.

As BPI scrambled to fix the error Wednesday, it closed its ATMs and suspended online transactions.

The bank early Thursday said it had fixed the problem and that access to all its electronic channels had been restored, only to deactivate it again as complaints about wrong balances continued to pour in.

"In the process of rectifying balances of accounts with mis-posted transactions, we have noted that certain accounts still reflect incorrect balances," the bank said.

While many clients reported money missing from their accounts, one customer was reported to have become an instant peso billionaire.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported Thursday that Jocelyn Reyes was surprised to find her account surge to more than 12.4 billion pesos ($250.08 million) overnight but she and her husband merely laughed off their newfound "fortune".

Reyes, who did not use her real name, told the Inquirer she would not touch the money. BPI has said that people who received extra money could not keep it.

Others though were not laughing.

Customers continued to vent their emotions online, with BPI's latest statement eliciting more than 3,000 comments on Facebook by mid-afternoon Thursday.

"We demand a compensation for this BPI.... this is really hassle and very inconvenient for us," wrote customer Danica Roldan Beltran.
Mounted police patrol the popular Souq Waqif market, in the Qatari capital, Doha

Qatari investigators have said that a cyber attack which saw the publication of explosive fake news last month that helped trigger a crisis with Gulf neighbours was prepared in April.

In a preliminary report published late on Wednesday, the investigators did not say who they held responsible for the hack but said that both Britain and the United States were helping with their inquiry.

The comments attributed to Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on incendiary issues such as Israel, Iran and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas were one of the reasons cited by Saudi Arabia and its allies on Monday for imposing a diplomatic and economic blockade on Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain gave Qatari citizens 14 days to leave and closed their airspace to all Qatari flights. Saudi Arabia also closed Qatar's only land border.

Diplomatic crisis in the Gulf

"The investigation team confirmed that the hack was carried out using innovative technological methods by exploiting an electronic gap on the website of the Qatar News Agency," the report said.

"The team confirmed that the hacked file was installed last April, which was later exploited in the publication of the fabricated news on 24/5/2017, at 12:13 am (2113 GMT May 23)."

CNN reported on Tuesday that US officials believed Russian hackers were behind the planting of the fake news.

Moscow dismissed the allegation on Wednesday. "It's a stale claim and, as ever, there is zero evidence," said Andrei Krutskikh, a Kremlin adviser on cyber security.

Qatar says it intends to take legal action against those responsible.
Nonprofit regional blood center Blood Assurance has announced the high school senior recipients of the organizations 2017 Crystal Green Memorial Scholarship, in memory of Dade County High School graduate Crystal Green. The students will be awarded $1,500 each that will be paid directly to each students college or university for tuition, fees, and other educational expenses as may be required.

Crystal Green Memorial Scholarship recipients include the following:

 Brooke-Anne Celina Crews, Fannin County High School

 Samantha LeAnn Donde, Tullahoma High School

 Alexis Pettengill, Towns County High School

 Hannah Green, Towns County High School

 Breanna Stone, Dade County High School

 Ashton Smith, Calhoun High School

 Dylan Vagts, Central High School

 Haleigh Isanhart, Boyd Buchanan School

 Kimberly Jenkins, Armuchee High School

 Nathan Tucker, Gordon Lee High School

 Sidney Pierce, Gordon Lee High School

 Nicole Locker, Riverside Christian Academy



We are honored to present the Crystal Green Memorial Scholarships to these students because of their dedication to creating a greater awareness of the constant need for blood, said Mindy Quinn, marketing manager for Blood Assurance. High schools students represent a large portion of our blood supply, and we thank the scholarship recipients for creating that awareness within their high schools. We wish them the best in all of their future endeavors.



The scholarship program was established in 1999 in memory of Crystal Green, a graduate of Dade County High School. Ms. Green was a student at Georgia Southern University before suffering a setback with aplastic anemia, a blood disorder. After hundreds of hours of platelet transfusions and a bone marrow transplant, Ms. Green passed away in 1998 shortly after turning 21 years old. Each year, 12 scholarships for $1,500 are awarded to selected scholarship applicants judged on a written application, high school transcript, school and community service, letters of recommendation, and a marketing plan for a blood drive.



For more information about the Crystal Green Memorial Scholarship, visit www.bloodassurance.org/youth-programs.

For more information on Blood Assurance, donating blood or hosting a blood drive, call 800-962-0628 or visit www.bloodassurance.org.
A record 370,000 Afghans left Pakistan last year, up from 55,000 the year before

The number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan returning to their homeland is expected to decrease this year, UN officials said Thursday, after a record number of repatriations in 2016 sparked fears of a humanitarian crisis.

Some 32,000 registered refugees have returned from Pakistan since April 3, when repatriations for the year began following the winter, the body said.

A record 370,000 Afghans left Pakistan last year, many of whom were second or even third generation migrants of people fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan during the 1980s, surging from 55,000 the year before.

Observers said the exodus was compounded by a hardening of Pakistani attitudes towards Afghans over accusations the community was responsible for harbouring militants and criminals.

But what appears to be an improving environment in Pakistan, coupled with perceptions the Afghan government has failed to uphold pledges of assistance towards returnees, has now slowed the rate of return.

"The environment in Pakistan is very different today from this time last year. There were more palpable push factors in Pakistan for Afghans to return home last summer," said Dan McNorton, a spokesman for the UN refugee agency.

In February, Islamabad announced a new policy for the management of Afghan refugees which included the registration of undocumented Afghans, adopting a refugee law and a new visa regime for Afghans.

Such measures in turn have encouraged Afghans to continue living in Pakistan rather than risk leaving for Afghanistan where fighting rages between government, Taliban and Islamic State group forces.

Security in Kabul, where many returnees seek refuge, has deteriorated in the last week, as anger grows after a massive bomb in the city's diplomatic quarter killed more than 150 people.

Assistant packages from the UNHCR have also been scaled back to $200 per person, officials said. Last year they had been upped to $400, which observers said also acted as an incentive for the flood of returnees.

Some 4.2 million Afghan refugees have returned to Afghanistan voluntarily under the UNHCR-funded Voluntary Repatriation programme since 2002.

But UNHCR and Pakistani officials have said some 1.34 million registered refugees still live in Pakistan. Estimates say there are a further half million undocumented refugees in the country.

Indrika Ratwatte, the UNHCR country representative for Pakistan, said some degree of fatigue had set in after 37 continuous years of hosting one of the largest refugee populations in the world.

But rights group HRW had been scathing of Pakistan's "coercive" approach towards repatriation in the past, accusing the government of arbitrary detentions and other violations.
Talks co-sponsors Russia, Iran and Turkey are still negotiating "de-escalation" zones aimed at limiting fighting in four areas across Syria

Russian-backed peace talks on Syria in Astana have been pushed back, organisers said Thursday, as key players wrangle over the future of fragile safe zones in the war-torn country.

Moscow earlier said that it was calling a fresh round of negotiations in Kazakhstan's capital for June 12-13 to try to shore up four "de-escalation zones" agreed in May between the talks' co-sponsors Russia, Iran and Turkey.

But deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Russian news agencies that Moscow was now looking to start the talks "around" June 20 as the various delegations had "turned out to not be ready".

Kazakhstan's foreign ministry said it had been told representatives from the three powers would meet in their separate capitals in the "upcoming days and weeks".

"The sponsor countries intend to inform Kazakhstan in the future about the timeframe, level, attendees and agenda they agree for the next round of Astana talks," ministry spokesman Anuar Zhainakov was quoted as saying by Russia's RIA Novosti.

There was no immediate confirmation from Turkey or Iran on any new date for talks.

At the last round of negotiations in May attended by Syrian government and rebel delegations, regime backers Moscow and Tehran and rebel supporter Ankara agreed to establish four "de-escalation zones" to ease fighting in opposition areas.

The zones -- where aerial bombardments were supposed to stop -- have ushered in a marked decrease in fighting on the ground, but there remain key outstanding issues to negotiate.

Despite pledging to agree on definitive boundaries by June 4, the sponsors are still arguing over the outlines and which countries should send in forces to police the safe zones.

Moscow has spearheaded the Astana talks since the start of the year as it tries to turn its game-changing military intervention on the ground into a negotiated settlement.

The tetchy negotiations -- seen as a complement to broader UN-backed talks in Geneva -- have involved armed rebels and government officials and have focused mainly on military issues.
China says it will not issue permits to foreigners wishing to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan side this autumn, forcing mountaineers to try the ascent from the Nepal side, shown here.

China will bar foreigners from climbing the Tibetan side of Mount Everest during the coming autumn season after a Polish traveller was accused of illegally crossing into Nepal last month.

The China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) declared in a notice on Wednesday that it will suspend climbing permits for all of Tibet, including other popular summits such as Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.

The association said the ban was decided after Polish climber Janusz Adam Adamski "illegally scaled (Everest) from the north side" and entered Nepal in the south.

The notice, issued in English, said rules and regulations must be "adjusted and improved" following Adamski's trek.

"In order to solve the series of above problems in time, and provide a good condition to all expeditions in 2018 ... the climbing permits will not be granted in autumn 2017," the association said.

While the notice did not specify that the permit freeze only applies to foreigners, an association spokesman told AFP that Chinese climbers will not be affected.

Two large climbing operators confirmed that authorities have indicated permits will not be given for the coming season, though one noted that the situation is often fluid.

"Sometimes they are very quick with their decision and can change it as well," Mingma Sherpa, a renowned Nepali mountaineer and the managing director of Seven Summit Treks, told AFP.

Climbers online bemoaned the news, with one blogger blaming Adamski for his "selfishness."

Durgal Dutta Dhakal, a spokesman for Nepal's tourism department, told AFP that the Pole has been banned from climbing in Nepal for 10 years and faces possible deportation.

"The government took a light stance because in his statement he said that he was alone and unwell when he reached the summit and feared for his life if he descended by himself from the north side," Dhakal said.

But Adamski told the Himalayan Times last month that he considered the Tibet-Nepal traverse the "fulfillment of (his) lifetime dream."

"I am ready to face any legal challenge in Nepal to safeguard the greatest achievement of my life," he said.

He was the second foreigner to land himself in trouble with Nepali authorities on the world's tallest peak last month.

South African Ryan Sean Davy was caught on Everest two weeks ago attempting to climb the mountain without paying the $11,000 permit fee.

Davy was given a 10-year climbing ban but a $22,000 fine, which he said he could not pay, was waived.
Nearly 200 people have been reported killed since militants flying the black flags of the Islamic State group went on a rampage in Marawi

One local politician has been arrested and others are wanted for supporting Islamist militants who have taken over parts of a southern Philippine city, authorities said Thursday.

Nearly 200 people have been reported killed since militants flying black flags of the Islamic State group went on a rampage in Marawi, the main Muslim city in the predominantly Catholic Philippines, on May 23.

While much of the focus has been on the hundreds of gunmen reportedly involved, authorities said Thursday that they had been receiving support from local politicians and residents.

"It's a combination of names of politicians, private citizens and members of Maute, the leaders," military chief of staff General Eduardo Ano said on ABS-CBN television as he discussed a list of about 200 people wanted for helping the gunmen.

Maute is one of the main militant groups, named after brothers with that surname who are from the region and are believed by the military to be among those still holed up in pockets of the city protected by human shields.

Conflict in southern Philippines

In what the military said was a significant development, ex-Marawi mayor Fahad Salic was arrested on charges of rebellion on Wednesday in another part of the southern Philippines.

"Even before the Marawi crisis, there were reports that he was a staunch supporter, he's providing logistics and finances during the formative years of this Maute-ISIS group," regional military spokesman Brigadier General Gilbert Gapay told reporters.

The military also hailed the capture on Tuesday of the father of the Maute brothers in the southern city of Davao, President Rodrigo Duterte's hometown about 190 kilometres (120 miles) from Marawi.

"As the patriarch of the Maute clan, Mr Cayamora Maute is considered as one of the brains of the Maute-ISIS terror group," Gapay said.

The elder Maute was brought to Manila, more than 800 kilometres (497 miles) from Marawi, on Thursday because of the possibility militants may try to break him out of jail in the south, Gapay said.

The unrest prompted Duterte to declare martial law across the entire southern region of Mindanao, home to about 20 million people, to quell what he said was a bid by IS to establish a caliphate there.

Mindanao has been plagued for decades by a Muslim separatist insurgency, which has claimed more than 120,000 lives and condemned many parts of the region to be ruled by corrupt warlords.

The main rebel organisations are seeking to broker a final peace accord with the government.

But the Maute and other small hardline groups are not interested in peace and have in recent years sought to unite under IS.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, which are seen as a major obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians

Israel has advanced plans for a further 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, Peace Now said on Thursday, the second such announcement in a week.

More than 3,000 units have been advanced this week, a spokeswoman for the NGO that tracks settlement building in the Palestinian territory told AFP.

On Tuesday, Israel advanced 1,500 units, with the potential to add around another 900, Peace Now said.

Those 900 were confirmed on Wednesday by an Israeli defence ministry planning committee, it added.

In a separate process, 688 homes were advanced by the committee late on Wednesday and will now go out for a 60-day public comment period during which objections can be filed.

Peace Now's Hagit Ofran told AFP a total of 3,178 units were advanced this week.

The plans are at various stages in the process and the units are located in a number of settlements across the West Bank.

Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, which are seen as a major obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

They live alongside some three million Palestinians.

- New settlement -

On Tuesday, Israel advanced plans for 1,500 homes in Jewish settlements, with the potential to add around another 900, NGO Peace Now said

While the majority of the planned homes are in pre-existing settlements, some will be built in the first new official settlement in some 25 years, Peace Now said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged to build a new settlement for around 40 families from a wildcat Jewish outpost in the West Bank known as Amona, who were evicted under court order in February.

The developments come as US President Donald Trump seeks to restart peace negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians -- stalled since talks collapsed in 2014.

Trump has called on Netanyahu to hold back on settlement building as he seeks to build momentum.

Netanyahu however faces political pressure from the settler movement, which wields heavy influence in his right-wing governing coalition.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu told settlers he would keep building across the West Bank and that no one would be "uprooted from his home".

It was unclear if Netanyahu was suggesting no further settlements would be dismantled in any peace deal with the Palestinians, which would mark a significant change and raise further doubts over future possibilities for a two-state solution.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's spokesman called Netanyahu's comment a "challenge" to Trump and the international community.

"It is a challenge to (Trump's) efforts to create an appropriate atmosphere for a serious political process, and a blatant challenge to the international community as a whole," a statement said.

Netanyahu has said he still supports a two-state solution, but peace advocates say his actions show otherwise.

Israel seized the West Bank in the Six-Day War of 1967. It later annexed east Jerusalem in a move never recognised by the international community.
A fighter of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces guards a position in the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa as they try to advance further into the Islamic State group bastion on June 7, 2017

An international coalition pounded Raqa with air strikes Thursday, with a monitor saying at least 17 civilians had been killed in the bombardment as US-backed fighters pushed further into the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said US-led coalition forces had hit the city and its suburbs with at least 25 strikes, warning that dozens had been injured and the death toll could rise.

One of the strikes hit an internet cafe in the western suburb of Jazra where most of the dead were found, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based monitor.

The air strikes came after US-backed fighters with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battled deeper into Raqa, two days after finally entering following a months-long struggle to surround a city that has become synonymous with IS atrocities since its capture by the jihadists in 2014.

On Wednesday, an AFP journalist entered the city with SDF fighters and witnessed heavy clashes in the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood, with IS firing mortar rounds towards the advancing forces.

The battle for Raqa

The SDF did not allow journalists to return to the city on Thursday where fighting was continuing.

"Our troops are advancing in Al-Meshleb and control parts of it," said SDF spokesman Talal Sello.

"The international coalition forces are working with us on the ground in the battle for Raqa in a highly effective manner," he told AFP.

On Wednesday, the US-led coalition said it had carried out 22 strikes near Raqa, hitting IS fighting positions and vehicles as well as a weapons cache and a training camp.

The Observatory said the SDF now controlled around two-thirds of Al-Meshleb and was some 400 metres (yards) from the neighbouring Al-Senaa district.

"IS has snipers monitoring Al-Meshleb neighbourhood and has laid mines extensively throughout it," the monitor said.

- US special forces -

Fighting was also continuing on the western outskirts of the city, it added, saying US special forces were actively participating in battles on several fronts.

On Wednesday, an AFP correspondent saw coalition armoured vehicles parked among olive trees in the desert east of Raqa, covered with camouflage fabric.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said "hundreds" of US military personnel were taking part in the Raqa offensive. It was unclear how many were US special forces, and Pahon said the role of such troops remained unchanged.

"They are still advising and assisting" the SDF, he said, saying US troops were accompanying SDF units moving into the city but "the SDF have the lead in the fight".

Pahon said up to 2,500 IS fighters were still holed up in Raqa.

- 'Human Shields' -

SDF male and female commanders, dressed in fatigues and sporting colourful printed scarves wrapped around their heads, pored over maps on tablet devices to pinpoint targets.

A Syrian woman waves a white flag towards fighters of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces as they approach the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa in their assault on the Islamic State group bastion, on June 7, 2017

Raqa has become infamous for IS atrocities including beheadings and public displays of dead bodies, and also emerged as a hub for planning attacks abroad.

An estimated 300,000 civilians were believed to have been living under IS rule in Raqa, including 80,000 displaced from other parts of Syria.

But thousands have fled in recent months, and the UN humanitarian office estimates about 160,000 people remain in the city.

Raqa is Being Slaughtered Silently -- an anti-IS group -- has said conditions in the city are deteriorating, describing continuous bombardment and water and electricity outages.

Civilians who have escaped have described harrowing journeys and being targeted by IS as they fled.

The International Rescue Committee said this week it was "deeply concerned for the safety of civilians in Raqa," noting a drop in the numbers leaving the city.

That decrease could indicate IS intends to use remaining civilians "as human shields," the aid group said.

Civilians trapped in Raqa also face the risk of heavy coalition air strikes.

- Pro-regime drone -

Smoke rises from buildings in the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces press their assault on the Islamic State group bastion on June 7, 2017

The number of reported civilian casualties in the coalition's strikes has swelled as the SDF offensive has intensified.

Along with Mosul in Iraq, Raqa was one of the twin pivots of the self-styled Islamic "caliphate" that IS declared nearly three years ago.

Iraqi forces backed by the coalition are also battling IS in Mosul, where the jihadists are now confined to a few neighbourhoods.

The Syrian military has so far been absent from the battle for Raqa, though state news agency SANA said Thursday that the air force had targeted IS positions in the west of Raqa province.

The Observatory said these strikes were carried out by Syria's ally Russia.

Elsewhere on Thursday, US forces shot down a pro-regime drone in southern Syria after it fired at US-led coalition forces, said coalition spokesman Ryan Dillon.

No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred near the coalition's At-Tanaf garrison.

"It was armed and still had weapons on it when it was fired upon by US forces from an aircraft," Dillon said.
Malaysian soldiers were locked in a long stand-off with Filipino militants who invaded part of Borneo in 2013, in an episode that left scores of people dead. Nine Filipinos were sentenced to death over the invasion

Nine Filipinos who were part of an armed group that invaded and occupied part of Malaysian Borneo in 2013, in an episode that left scores dead, have been sentenced Thursday to hang.

The bloody incursion by some 200 Islamic militants from the southern Philippines was inspired by a self-proclaimed Filipino sultanate's claims of historical dominion over the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo island.

The assault, Malaysia's most serious security crisis in years, led to a siege between the militants and the country's armed forces who were sent to root them out.

At least 70 people were killed, mostly militants, over the six-week ordeal.

The episode eventually fizzled out when some of the militants fled the palm oil plantation where they had been holed up and returned to the Philippines.

The nine had initially been handed life sentences last year but prosecutors appealed for a stiffer penalty.

"With this current sentence, I am satisfied," Deputy Public Prosector Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told AFP.

"Hopefully this will deter other alien nations from intruding into Sabah and Malaysia."

He added that technically the nine Filipinos were sentenced to death for "waging war against the King of Malaysia" and jail sentences of 13 to 18 years were handed out for "being a member of a terrorist group".

The Philippines said it would ask Malaysia to reconsider the death penalty.

Government official Raul Dado said Philippine officials in Malaysia are "meeting immediately with embassy lawyers".

A total of 800,000 Filipinos live in Sabah, making up about a quarter of the population of the state, which is just a short boat ride from the southern Philippines.

The crisis at the time embarrassed both the Philippines and Malaysia, shining the spotlight on a porous border and locals' complaints of rampant illegal immigration and lawlessness.

The sentencing comes as Philippine troops continue an offensive to dislodge militants flying the Islamic State group flag who seized the southern city of Marawi more than two weeks ago.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte imposed martial law in Marawi and the rest of the southern region of Mindanao shortly after the rampage to crush what he said was a rising threat of IS in the country.
A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) looks at smoke rising from the al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa as they try to advance further into the Islamic State (IS) group's Syrian bastion, on June 7, 2017

The battle by US-backed forces to oust the Islamic State group from its Syrian bastion of Raqa will solve one problem but create another: who will then govern the city?

The Syrian Democratic Forces Kurdish-Arab alliance backed by Washington is leading the fight for majority-Arab Raqa.

But the strategic city is also coveted by Bashar al-Assad's government and its northern rival, Turkey.

- Who lives in Raqa? -

Located 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the border with Turkey, Raqa is believed to be home to some 300,000 residents, including about 80,000 who have fled there from other parts of the country since Syria's civil war began.

Most of its pre-war population were Arabs, but about 20 percent were Kurds, "concentrated in slums in the city's north", according to French geography expert Fabrice Balanche.

But in 2013, two years into Syria's conflict, rebels and fighters from an Al-Qaeda affiliate seized Raqa. A year later, it fell into the hands of IS and most minority residents fled.

Map locating Raqa in Syria, including zones of control on the ground on June 6

At the time, Syria's Kurds were setting up "autonomous administrations" in territory abandoned by government forces while fighting IS jihadists in the north and northeast.

"Clashes with the Kurds were multiplying, and IS began suspecting that the Kurdish minority in Raqa was some kind of fifth column," Balanche said.

With the departure of Kurds and Armenian and Syriac Christians, "the population of Raqa is today 99 percent Arab Sunni", Balanche said.

- Who will rule Raqa? -

In mid-April, the SDF announced the creation of a "civilian council" that would be in charge of running Raqa once IS was defeated there.

The council would comprise people originally from Raqa province.

"The council will be in charge of several files, including judicial affairs, healthcare, education, women's and youth affairs, and other public services including security," said Omar Alloush, the council's communication head.

A woman waves a white flag towards members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as they approach in the al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa in their ongoing bid to advance further into the Islamic State (IS) group's Syrian bastion, on June 7, 2017

"We have not yet discussed whether Raqa will join the (Kurdish) federal system. This will be decided by the residents after liberation," Alloush told AFP.

But the SDF's hand in creating the council has not reassured adversaries of the Kurds -- including Arab rebel groups and their ally Turkey.

Formed in 2015, the SDF is backed by US-led coalition warplanes and special forces advisers.

The coalition is dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which the US recently decided to arm directly for the first time.

That infuriated Turkey, which considers the YPG a "terrorist" group because of its ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had previously insisted that Ankara take part in the Raqa offensive, on the condition that the Kurds were excluded.

"The US has asked Erdogan to be patient, and to wait for the city to be taken by the Kurds," said Balanche.

Syria's government has taken an ambiguous position, concerned about the increasing territory held by US-backed forces, but also recently describing the SDF's fight against IS as "legitimate".

A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, scans the sky for shells in Raqa as they try to advance further into the Islamic State (IS) group's Syrian bastion, on June 7, 2017

- Could ethnic conflict erupt? -

In Raqa, Balanche said, Kurdish forces are hoping for a repeat of events in Manbij, once a major IS bastion in Aleppo province.

After the SDF overran Manbij in August 2016, it handed over the Arab-majority town to a civilian council.

Adversaries have complained that the council is simply a fig leaf for SDF control, but Manbij's Kurdish minority continues to support it.

"This is not the case in Raqa," said Balanche. "The tribes in Raqa are not ready to accept Kurdish domination."

Faysal al-Sibat, a Syrian member of parliament and a leading member of Raqa tribe Al-Welda, said the SDF fighters "do not have popular support".

"The tribes in Raqa do not recognise this civilian council. And tribal members that are in the council are there in an individual capacity," he told AFP.

- What about the regime? -

Syria's government has long insisted that its forces would lead the fight to recapture Raqa.

But on the ground, "Syria's army doesn't want to lose any soldiers to take Raqa if the SDF can do it themselves", Balanche said.

Syrian soldiers seized the key town of Maskana from IS on June 4, and are now on the boundary between Aleppo and Raqa provinces.

"The army is positioning itself nearby, waiting for the inevitable problems between Kurds and Arabs -- and among Arabs themselves -- so that it can play the role of a stabiliser," Balanche told AFP.

Government authorities would prefer to "enter the city under a deal" instead of by force, he said.

But SDF spokesman Talal Sello did not rule out the possibility of the Syrian army joining the offensive itself.

"The participation of the Syrian army in the battle depends on agreements between the (Washington-led) coalition and the Russians," Sello told AFP.
Myanmar's Rakhine state has become a hotbed of violence again after the military launched a bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims to a crush a small uprising

Myanmar's censors have barred a documentary on festering religious tensions between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state, a film festival organiser said Thursday, highlighting deep sensitivity over a conflict that has bedevilled Myanmar's new civilian government.

The 18-minute documentary, titled "Sittwe" after Rakhine's state capital, follows Buddhist and Muslim teenagers affected by the unrest that rippled through the region in 2012, displacing more than 100,000 people, mostly stateless Rohingya.

Northern Rakhine become a hotbed of violence again in October 2016 when the military launched a bloody crackdown on Rohingya to a crush a small uprising.

"They said this film could not be screened in public because of cultural and religious issues," Min Htin, the founder of the Human Rights Human Dignity International Film Festival, told AFP.

"But I have watched the film and I don't see how it could make any conflict between religions," he added.

Myanmar's new civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi has faced global pressure to investigate accusations of rights abuses by the army and carve out a solution for the Rohingya, who are denied citizenship.

But she has shied from discussing the subject publicly and rejected a UN probe of allegations that soldiers raped, tortured and murdered Rohingya during their recent crackdown.

The festival, which was founded in 2013 as the country was just emerging from decades of brutal junta rule, will kick off on June 14.

The ruling was issued by a 15-member review board in Myanmar's Information Ministry and is likely to disappoint the country's budding film community, who had hoped for a new era of artistic freedom under Suu Kyi.

Limits on free speech have lingered under her administration, with the army still controlling much of the bureaucracy.

The Rohingya, a group reviled by many Buddhist nationalists, remain an especially volatile subject.

"I understand the subject of Rakhine state is highly sensitive," said Jeanne Hallacy, the American director of the banned documentary.

"But it's actually a film about peace building," she told AFP. "It was meant to create discussion."
Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema faces a treason trial in the High court

Zambia's opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema will face a High Court trial over treason charges and remain in police custody, a magistrate ruled on Thursday.

Hichilema was arrested in April for allegedly failing to give way to President Edgar Lungu's motorcade and has so far been held in detention for nearly two months.

The incident led to the leader of the United Party for National Development being accused of endangering Lungu's life and treason charges followed.

"I am in court because of hatred. This has everything to do with hatred," Hichilema told journalists inside the courtroom.

His lawyers asked the court to throw out the treason charge, arguing it was baseless, but the magistrate referred the case to the High Court with the date for the hearing yet to be announced.

Treason suspects are not eligible for bail in Zambia and, if found guilty, Hichilema could face a possible death sentence.

Hichilema said he hoped the trial would start soon and criticised the police, accusing them of failing to properly investigate the case.

"We need a dedicated judge to deal with our matter expeditiously," he said.

Zambia is considered one of the most stable countries in Africa and Hichilema's arrest and detention has been widely criticised by human rights groups.

In a show of support, the leader of South Africa's main opposition party, Mmusi Maimane, also tried to visit Hichilema in Zambia last month but was barred from entering the country.

The treason case comes after Hichilema made a fifth unsuccessful bid for the presidency last year.

He refused to recognise Lungu as president and has challenged the narrow poll defeat in court.
Senator Bob Corker on Wednesday joined members of the committee in approving the nomination of William Hagerty to serve as U.S. ambassador to Japan. The nomination will now be considered by the full Senate.

There is no one more well-suited to fill this important role than Bill Hagerty, said Senator Corker. Our nation will benefit from his leadership and experience as he carries on the tremendous legacy of U.S. ambassadors to Japan, and I look forward to his confirmation very soon.
Iraqi security forces patrol an area in western Mosul recaptured from Islamic State group jihadists in March 2017

The choice of weapons by the Iraqi security forces and its allies from the US-led coalition is endangering the lives of civilians in Mosul, rights groups said on Thursday.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and a number of other rights groups issued a joint statement warning that some air strikes and unguided munitions used against the Islamic State group in the northern Iraqi city were inappropriate.

The statement listed recent occurrences of civilian deaths as a result of explosive weapons being used in anti-jihadist operations in Mosul, and urged all sides of the conflict to spare the estimated 200,000 people still stuck in the IS-held Old City.

"Iraqi and coalition forces should recognise that in the crowded Old City, using explosive weapons with wide area effects puts civilians at excessive risk," HRW's Middle East director Lamah Fakih said.

The statement said that large air-dropped bombs as well as mortar rounds, unguided artillery rockets and improvised rocket-assisted munitions used in Mosul are "inaccurate and can be unlawfully indiscriminate if used in heavily populated areas".

The office of United Nations human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement on Thursday that 50 to 80 civilians were killed in an air strike on an IS-controlled Mosul neighbourhood on May 31.

In March, at least 105 civilians were killed when a US aircraft carried out a strike on a building in the Mosul al-Jadida area that triggered IS explosives, an inquiry found.

The bomb used was a GBU-38, a munition that weighs 500 pounds (225 kilos).

The statement said the use of air-dropped bombs weighing 500 pounds and up in densely populated areas may violate international humanitarian law, which prohibits "disproportionate military attacks".

The high civilian casualties in the Mosul battle are mostly a result of the jihadists' human shield tactic, which consists of hindering anti-IS operations by preventing the population from fleeing and sheltering in its midst.

The jihadists have on several occasions killed civilians who were attempting to flee or were even just suspected of planning to do so.
A conservationist was killed in Rwanda by a black rhino while working to reintroduce the animals

A conservationist who was training rangers to track and protect black rhinos in Rwanda has been killed by one of the animals, the organisation he worked for has said in a statement.

Information about the exact circumstances of Hungarian Krisztian Gyongyi's death on Wednesday morning in Akagera National Park is "still being gathered", said Peter Fearnhead, the chief executive of Africa Parks.

"(This is) a huge loss for all who knew Kris and for rhino conservation across the continent," said Fearnhead, who sent condolences to Gyongyi's family.

Gyongyi, a married father of one, had been helping reintroduce the black rhino into Akagera National Park while also working on a PhD on the conservation of the animals in Liwonde National Park in Malawi since 2012, the park said.

Black rhinos disappeared from Rwanda in 2007 due to poaching but were reintroduced into the country in May after 20 animals were sent from South Africa to Akagera National Park.

Only about 1,000 East African black rhinos live in the wild, out of a total population of less than 5,000, according to African Parks.

"This is a tremendous loss for all of us, especially for rhino conservation efforts in Africa" said Fearnhead, paying tribute to Gyongyi.

Gyongyi's wife and daughter have been informed of his death.
First Lady Melania Trump is appealing to supporters to sign a birthday card her husband, President Donald Trump, will "never forget"

On the same day as President Donald Trump's actions were under intense and unflattering scrutiny in the US Senate, his wife Melania urged supporters to sign a birthday card for her husband that he will "never forget."

"I need your help to make it a birthday my husband will never forget," Melania Trump wrote in an email to supporters. Her husband turns 71 on Wednesday.

"Our celebrations always include family and close friends. You have certainly proven yourself to be a loyal friend of my husband through your support of his positive vision to Make America Great Again and your unwavering commitment to the Republican Party," the first lady's email added.

"Friend, Donald will be glad to hear from friends like you who have meant so much to his and our Partys success."

Former first lady Michelle Obama also used to ask supporters to help celebrate her husband Barack's birthday.

But the first lady's appeal came just as ousted FBI chief James Comey was accusing her husband's administration of lies and defamation at a hearing into Russian interference in the US elections.
Yemeni children suspected of being infected with cholera receive treatment at a makeshift hospital in Sanaa on June 5, 2017

A cholera outbreak of more than 100,000 cases has erupted in war-ravaged Yemen, killing nearly 800 people, in just over a month, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

The UN health agency said that since the end of April, 101,820 suspected cholera cases had been registered across 19 of the country's 21 governorates, including 789 deaths.

WHO has warned that a quarter of a million people could fall sick with cholera by the end of the year in Yemen, a country where two-thirds of the population are on the brink of famine.

British charity Oxfam also voiced alarm Thursday at what it described as "a runaway cholera epidemic" in Yemen, pointing out that the disease is currently killing nearly one person every hour.

Cholera is a highly contagious bacterial infection spread through contaminated food or water.

Reining in the disease is particularly complicated in Yemen, where two years of devastating war between the Huthis and government forces backed by a Saudi-led Arab military coalition has left more than half the country's medical facilities out of service.

Yemen's conflict has killed more than 8,000 people and wounded around 45,000 since March 2015, according to the WHO.

"Yemen is on the edge of an abyss. Lives hang in the balance," Sajjad Mohammed Sajid, Oxfam's Yemen country director, said in a statement.

"Cholera is simple to treat and prevent but while the fighting continues the task is made doubly difficult," he said, insisting that "a massive aid effort is needed now."
The San Francisco headquarts of Uber, which is conducting a far-reaching investigation into workplace misconduct

Uber has parted ways with another top executive, in the latest dent to the reputation of the ridesharing giant as it prepares to release the results of a probe into workplace misconduct.

The executive, Eric Alexander, read and discussed medical information about a woman raped in India in 2014 during an Uber ride, according to reports in the New York Times and Recode.

Alexander, who headed Uber's Asia-Pacific operations, showed the records to Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick and others, the reports said.

An Uber spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday that Alexander is "no longer with the company," but declined to comment on the reasons for his departure or on the reports on his handling of the India rape case.

In the case, a 26-year-old woman was assaulted after hailing an Uber ride.

An Indian court in 2015 sentenced the Uber driver to life in prison in a case that inflamed fears over sexual violence in the capital.

The reports about Alexander come amid a far-reaching investigation into misconduct and workplace practices at Uber, which operates in dozens of countries and is valued at some $68 billion.

Earlier this week, Uber said it had fired 20 people following preliminary results of the investigation.

The on-demand ride service said the terminations came as it looked into a total of 215 claims of discrimination, harassment, unprofessional behavior, bullying, retaliation and "physical security."

A report containing recommendations for changes inside Uber to cure workplace ills was to be released next week.

Uber has seen a shake-up in its executive ranks as it works through a series of scandals that included disclosures about a culture of sexism, cut-throat workplace tactics, and covert use of law enforcement-evading software.

Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson referred to the incident involving the Uber executive in India as a "notable and damaging" revelation, calling it "absurd" that an internal probe depicted by the company as far-reaching seemed to have spared the executive.

"Overall, plenty more evidence here of both the nasty culture and the difficulty of turning it around," Dawson said in a blog post.

- Stolen secrets? -

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick speaks at an event in New Delhi on December 16, 2016

In addition to the workplace investigation, Uber faces a potentially damaging lawsuit over trade secrets allegedly stolen from Alphabet's self-driving car unit Waymo.

Uber fired executive Anthony Levandowski, who came from the unit previously known as Google car, for failing to meet a deadline to turn over information for an internal investigation.

Waymo's lawsuit contends that Levandowski in December 2015 downloaded files from a highly confidential design server to a laptop and took the data with him to the startup.

Uber has lost other key executives this year and one report said it is the subject of a criminal investigation.

Top engineering executive Amit Singhal resigned in February after the ride-sharing titan learned he ended his career at Google after a sexual harassment complaint, reports said.

In March, Uber's p president, Jeff Jones, resigned after just six months.

The woes so far have not hit Uber's growth trajectory, but some analysts say Uber's problems won't fixed without a change in leadership.

"Firing 20 people is just a Band-Aid to act as if they are doing something," analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said of Uber.

"Nothing will change" as long as Kalanick, "who seems to be the source of many problems" remains on top, the analyst argued.

Kalanick, who was also embarrassed this year for a video where he berates an Uber driver, has said Uber is seeking a number two executive as part of an effort to restore confidence.

Uber's biggest problem may be that it is "bleeding out cash," according Enderle.

Uber said that its revenue during the first three months of this year rose some 18 percent to $3.4 billion, but the company logged a loss of $708 million without taking into account stock compensation for employees.

Uber cited the numbers as progress, given that losses in the preceding quarter totaled $991 million.
A picture from June 5, 2017 shows a displaced Iraqi girl swinging her baby brother in a makeshift hanging crib in their tent at Khazir camp between Arbil and Mosul

They survived the fighting in their home town but displaced Mosul residents now face the threat from snakes and scorpions infesting some of the tented camps they are crammed into.

In Khazir camp, one of the largest for civilians displaced by the battle against the Islamic State group in Mosul, the searing Iraqi summer has arrived and reptiles and insects are multiplying.

Some 32,000 people who fled the tyranny of the jihadists live in a sea of around 7,000 tents, but a recent spike in cases of scorpion stings and snake bites is spreading a new kind of paranoia.

Luai Mohammed Yusef used a plastic crate and some string to build a cradle for his six-week-old daughter and suspended it in the centre of his tent to keep creepy crawlies and other such creatures at bay.

A displaced Iraqi woman bakes bread at Khazir camp between Arbil and Mosul, on June 6, 2017

"I couldn't provide her with a real bed because I can't afford it. So I made this," said Luai who arrived in Khazir with his wife and newborn baby a month earlier.

"She stops crying when I put her in it to sleep," said the 22-year-old.

According to the Iraqi government, more than 800,000 people have been forced from their homes since a huge offensive was launched in October 2016 to dislodge IS from Mosul, a city the jihadists took three years ago.

Most of them were displaced since an operation on the western side of the city began on February 19.

A picture taken on June 5, 2017 shows some of the 7,000 tents in the Khazir camp for the internally displaced, located between Arbil and Mosul

Luai's daughter Siham slept peacefully in her makeshift cot, dangling from the tent's frame.

"At the beginning she would sleep on the floor, but one day I got scared when I saw some kind of centipede crawl up to her," he said.

"I panicked at the idea she could be bitten by a reptile."

- Hundreds of scabies cases -

Panic started to grip the camp recently when searing temperatures, already hovering around 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius), descended on the region.

The tents where Iraqis sheltered from frost just a few months ago have now become like ovens, and the arid summer has brought with it a proliferation of snakes, scorpions and other undesirables.

Iraqi children are silhouetted on tarpaulin as they collect water from a tank at the Khazir camp between Arbil and Mosul, on June 6, 2017

Mohannad Akram, a paediatrician working at a clinic run by the International Medical Corps charity inside Khazir camp, said he had observed a spike in the number of bites and stings among the children he examined.

Nawar Hussein, another 22-year-old camp resident, said he couldn't sleep at night because he worried that his six-month-old daughter sleeping on the ground would get bitten.

"My daughter also suffers from the heat and since there is no electricity the air cooler provided by the camp administration is useless," he said.

Akram, who treats dozens of children every day, said the extreme heat was causing hygiene to deteriorate in the camp and had led to cases of scabies being reported.

"We have hundreds of cases of this disease. We responded with specialised care and advice because it is contagious," he said.

Scabies is a skin infestation caused by a parasitic mite which spreads more easily in areas that are crowded and have limited access to water.

Dastan Mansur, a Khazir camp official, said awareness campaigns had been organised to curb the spread of such diseases.
SDF fighters unload boxes of ammunition supplied by the US-led coalition in a village north of Raqa on June 7, 2017

Chorche was like a kid in a candy store in front of crates packed with US weapons to help an Arab-Kurdish alliance take the Islamic State group's Syria bastion Raqa.

"We're going to rain these sophisticated weapons down on Daesh (IS)," said the member of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters.

The SDF entered Raqa on Tuesday after seven months of fighting to cut off the jihadist stronghold in northern Syria.

Since then, fierce fighting has rocked parts of the city, where an AFP correspondent saw SDF fighters armed mostly with light weapons and mortars battle the jihadists.

SDF fighters unload boxes of ammunition supplied by the US-led coalition in a village north of Raqa on June 7, 2017

In May, US President Donald Trump approved the arming of the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), who dominate the alliance, to support the assault on Raqa.

In the village of Shanine, seven kilometres (four miles) northeast of Raqa, young fighters wearing camouflage with a yellow badge and the red YPG star as shoulder patches emptied a truck laden with green crates.

The boxes, packed with mortar rounds and other equipment, were then stored in a warehouse where one fighter inspected them carefully "to make sure nothing is missing".

Soldiers from the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and neighbouring Iraq sat in armoured vehicles in an olive grove in Shanine.

Their vehicles were covered in camouflage tarp, and the soldiers shielded their eyes behind sunglasses.

- Tough battle ahead -

Another group of coalition soldiers was positioned on the rooftop of a nearby house to monitor the combat in Raqa using binoculars.

On Wednesday, an AFP journalist entered the city with the SDF and saw heavy clashes in the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood in the east of the city.

Some 500 US military personnel, not all of them special forces, are believed to be participating in the battle for Raqa.

"We send our fighters to train with the (US-led) coalition and once they are done they will be able to use the arms we have received in the battle for Raqa," said SDF female commander Engizek Khalil.

"They also supplied us individual weapons and other types of weapons," she said, adding that more is expected to be delivered.

The battle for Raqa is expected to be tough.

The jihadists have dug in since they captured the city in 2014.

If they lose Raqa, their dream of a "caliphate" straddling the border with neighbouring Iraq will disappear.

Ever since the SDF launched their offensive on Raqa, they have learned to master the methods that their enemies use.

"Their methods are always the same in every battle. They lay mines and use snipers and drones equipped with explosives," Engizek said.

- 'A good weapon' -

SDF fighter Jekdar Kobani proudly held up a 60 mm mortar round.

"It's a good weapon. The American forces trained us," he said.

"It was tough at first because these are modern and sophisticated weapons, but now we know how to use them and they are very useful in combat."

Heavy clubs are also prized on the battlefront, and several were piled up against the wall of a house.

Fighters use the clubs to knock through the interior walls of houses so they can advance through buildings without being spotted by snipers or drones.

Closer to the battlefield of Raqa, the scene is one of destruction.

Bridges have been knocked out by US-led coalition air raids to prevent IS from using them as a way of sending suicide bombers.

Two kilometres from Raqa, the SDF occupied a house to use as a staging point for fighters going up the line or returning from combat, as well as a weapons distribution centre.

A wounded SDF fighter receives treatment after combat near the Al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa on June 7, 2017

One man who had been hit by a shrapnel in the leg was being treated there by a fellow fighter.

"Our comrades move slowly, step by step," said female commander Zaghros Qamishlo.

"The main difficulties we face are walls and other obstacles that our enemy has built. They also use mortar fire to stop our vehicles from advancing.

"But coalition aircraft help us and hit them relentlessly. Since Tuesday they've carried out 50 air strikes on their positions," she added.

The SDF took a group of journalists inside Al-Meshleb aboard a pick-up truck.

"Hurry! Get inside the house! There's incoming," shouted one fighter, after hearing a projectile being fired.

Seconds later the mortar round hit near the building.
Ethiopia shut down internet access even to diplomatic installations last week in a move the government said was necessary to keep students from being distracted during annual exams

Ethiopia re-activated cellphone data services and unexpectedly allowed access to social media sites that had been blocked since a wave of anti-government protests last year, a government spokesman told AFP on Thursday.

Africa's second most-populous country shut down internet access even to diplomatic installations last week in a move the government said was necessary to keep students from being distracted during annual exams.

Deputy communications minister Zadig Abraha confirmed the lifting of the ban but declined to say why social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have been blocked for months, are now freely accessible.

"This is an open country and everything is open," Zadig said.

Ethiopia had restored broadband internet access over the weekend and allowed the African Union headquarters and the UN's Economic Commission for Africa to get back online shortly after the initial shutdown last week.

Mobile phone data networks -- which the majority of businesses and people rely on to get online -- only returned around noon on Thursday, an AFP journalist witnessed.

Social media was also accessible, unlike before the shutdown.

Ethiopia last year restricted access to Facebook, Twitter and other sites after the country was rocked by anti-government protests that left hundreds dead and resulted in more than 11,000 arrests.

The government has blamed dissidents for inciting the protests via social media postings.
The attack was also confirmed by a source at Al-Jazeera, whose newsroom in Doha is seen in 2006, who said the broadcaster was attempting to repel the hack

Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera said Thursday that it was under a widescale cyber attack which had targeted "all systems", according to a statement released on social media by the broadcaster.

"Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms," it said on Twitter.

A later statement from the broadcaster said the attack occurred after a fortnight of increased cyber activities, aimed at its network.

"Today, we've noticed a significant increase in cyber attempts targeting our users and systems," read the statement.

"Our teams have been working diligently to ensure all of our users are protected and systems are operating normally."

Following the initial reports of a cyber attack, some viewers in the region said they could no longer receive Al-Jazeera television.

Al-Jazeera, one of the largest news organisations in the world, has long been a source of conflict between Qatar and its neighbours, who accuse the broadcaster of bias and fomenting trouble in the region.

The alleged cyber attack comes during a time of heightened tensions in the Gulf, which has seen Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and other allies cut ties with Qatar.

They severed relations over what they said is Doha's alleged financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Long-running tensions broke out into the open last month after Qatar claimed its state news site was hacked by unknown parties who posted "false" statements attributed to the emir in which he speaks favourably of Iran and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

The remarks were widely reported as true across the region.

Earlier this month, Qatar said the FBI was helping it investigate the source of the alleged hacking.

Subsequently there was a media report suggesting that Qatar had been targeted by Russian hackers -- a claim dismissed by Moscow.
Ousted FBI director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017

Fired FBI director James Comey withheld judgment Thursday on whether President Donald Trump's requests that he drop an investigation into his former national security advisor amounted to obstruction of justice.

Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump's actions amounted to obstruction, but what does the charge mean, and how might it potentially lead to impeachment?

- The felony -

Obstruction of justice requires proof that a person has "corruptly influenced, impeded, or endeavored to influence or impede, the due administration of justice," says Ohio State University law professor Joshua Dressler.

It is not one crime but a family of overlapping federal crimes set out in statutes, says Brandon Garrett, professor law at the University of Virginia.

It is not necessary to try to end a pending, federal proceeding, only that someone tried to influence it, says Garrett.

- Establishing intent -

Intent -- defined as "corrupt" motive -- must be established and can be difficult to prove.

Acting improperly is not enough. The question in this case is whether Trump crossed the line "fully aware that he was acting wrongly or whether he was oblivious to proper, established protocol," Dressler cautioned.

- Case against Trump -

It is up for debate whether an FBI investigation even qualifies as a federal pending proceeding.

"The weight of the authority is that it is not... but a prosecutor could reasonably take a different view," Harvard University law professor Mark Tushnet told AFP.

That could change if a grand jury investigation had started.

"If the president knew of such an investigation and did what he did, then at least we're in the territory of an obstruction of justice proceeding," Tushnet said.

Tushnet said that evidence provided by Comey, at least prior to his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, did not establish obstruction.

"I think any responsible prosecutor would want to know a lot more than what we have from Comey. It's not that he's vindicated the president, but these are pieces of evidence that together might add up with other things to obstruction," he said.

- Punishment -

In the courts, basic obstruction is punishable by not more than five years in jail, but a sitting US president has never been indicted and it remains an open question as to whether that is even possible.

But obstruction was the basis of impeachment proceedings against president Richard Nixon in the 1973-74 Watergate scandal and Bill Clinton in 1998 over his affair with an intern.

- What is impeachment -

Ousted FBI chief testifies

Impeachment is political recourse against a president at the hands of the House of Representatives with no legal indictment necessary.

Lawmakers only have to believe a president is guilty of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," to initiate articles of impeachment.

It is a two-step process.

A first vote takes place in the House, where a simple majority is needed.

In the event of impeachment, the case shifts to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is needed for conviction in the 100-member chamber.

If that happens, the president is ousted -- with no recourse for appeal. Should the Senate fall short of conviction, the president is acquitted and remains in office.

No US president has been ousted from office under impeachment proceedings. Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 but acquitted in the US Senate. So was Andrew Johnson in 1868.

Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 to avoid impeachment.

- Not there yet -

Given that the House is currently controlled by the Republican Party, few expect it to proceed against Trump as things stand.

That might change should the Democratic Party win back control of the House in the 2018 mid-term elections.

But even senior Democrats say it is too early to call for impeachment, and that the facts of the case must first be established.
To the People of Chattanooga and Hamilton County,

From the very bottom of my heart, and on behalf of St. Luke UMC, I offer heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies to those who knew and loved Booker T. Scruggs, especially to his family and his close friends. He was an amazing and remarkable man. Booker was a true role model, living out of his passions and his gifts.

He was no stranger to St. Luke. He made his first recording here and performed for many plays and concerts, often performing for our senior Prime-time ministry. Booker and his ensemble were a natural choice for our final Earl Miller and Sandy Sandefer Memorial Concert Series.

On Sunday, June 4, no one knew what was about to take place as we gathered for the concert. The air was ripe with anticipation and the church brimmed with energy and excitement as folks settled into pews, old friends reconnected and new friends greeted one another. So many people from all corners of the Chattanooga area gathered in the sanctuary to indulge in some of the finest music this city has to offer. The church was buzzing with a certain Spirit.

As we know now, that joy and excitement quickly turned to tragedy. Fear and sadness filled the room in place of the beautiful music for which everyone had gathered. However, in the midst of this traumatic experience, God remained faithful. Three nurses in attendance quickly sprang into action. The audience stayed calm and collected. Several firstresponders arrived and gave prompt assistance.

As Booker was rushed to the hospital, the remaining trio played to allow the ambulance space to leave without the interference of a flood of cars. Nancy Westmoreland, singing and playing in that angelic way of hers, brought most of us to tears for our dear friend. Even in his sudden illness, Booker unknowingly led a crowd to worship, just as he often did.

On behalf of St. Luke UMC, I want to offer our most sincere gratitude. Thank you to all who assisted with such immediacy and action. Thank you to the first responders who gave aid and rushed Booker to the hospital. Thank you to the audience who remained calm and steadfast in prayer and to the trio who had the grace and professionalism to play music that calmed the crowd while their dear friend got the help he needed. What an impossibly difficult task that must have been. Thank you to the many folks who have called to check on Booker following Sundays event. And thank you to everyone who has offered up prayers, positive energy, good thoughts, and blessings.

As we all mourn our dear friend, we acknowledge our very real and human loss. Please join the congregation of St. Luke UMC in continuing to pray for all who loved Booker T. Scruggs, especially his family and close friends. Booker has left this world, but he has not left us. For all of him that remains in each of us, we give thanks. For all of him that has made us and shaped us into who we are, we give thanks. Before he was ours, he was and always will be Gods beloved child. And now he has gone home. And one day we shall meet him again, by Gods great grace.

Sincerely,

Rev. Evelyn Harris

Pastor, St. Luke UMC
19 countries are banding together to fight piracy on the high seas

A total of 19 African countries on Thursday launched an EU-funded network to tackle piracy, high seas robbery, kidnappings and human trafficking in the strategically important Gulf of Guinea.

The Gulf of Guinea interregional network (GOGIN) officially began operations after a ceremony in the Cameroon capital Yaounde.

"Nineteen African coastal nations, from Angola to Senegal, have begun working together to combat criminality at sea," said an official statement from the group.

The 9.2-million-euro ($9.8-million) four-year initiative is designed to clamp down on maritime crime in a region where trafficking in both human beings and drugs is rife.

Adding to a raft of problems to solve in a zone stretching across some 6,000 kilometres (3,750 miles) are illegal fishing and oil theft.

Heading the GOGIN taskforce is retired French vice-admiral Jean-Pierre Labonne, who said the agreement followed "several months of fine-tuning with my African colleagues.

"Our long-term aim is to support peace, stability and economic and human development throughout West and Central Africa," said Labonne, who vowed to spare no effort to ensure the project achieves tangible results.

He added that GOGIN would provide participating states with technical and logistical assistance to fight crime and to better exchange information among themselves.

The African states will also benefit from academic training modules and training exercises at sea with the goal of eventually overseeing such activities themselves.

The project will be implemented by Expertise France, a French international cooperation agency specialising in technology.

GOGIN has emerged from the Yaounde Process, a code of conduct adopted in 2013 following a regional summit on how to tackle illegal maritime activities in west and central Africa.

The GOGIN initiative adds to existing operations, including an interregional coordination centre in Yaounde to monitor the Gulf of Guinea, whose strategic position is bolstered by an abundance of natural resources.
The Islamic State's black flag being taken down by a Syrian rebel in the town of Tabqa in April as the extremist group faces setbacks in Syria and Iraq

Despite defeats in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State group has reorganized and is now "more focused than ever" on attacking Europe and other areas outside that conflict zone, a senior UN official said Thursday.

"ISIL, despite continuous military pressure, continues to resist, particularly in Mosul and Raqa," said UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, using an acronym for IS.

"At the same time, ISIL has reorganized its military structure, giving more power to local commanders and is more focused than ever before on enabling and inspiring attacks outside of conflict zones."

Speaking before the UN Security Council, Feltman cited recent attacks in Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden and Turkey.

The group has posted fewer messages on social networks in the past 16 months, but "the threat persists as supporters outside Syria and Iraq collect and redistribute this propaganda."

The total number of IS fighters and the group's revenues have also dropped during the same period, Feltman added.

But IS can count on tens of millions of dollars per month from oil sales, extortion, ransom kidnapping, antiquities trafficking and mining exploitation in territories they control.

While the number of foreign fighters recruited by IS has also decreased, "returnees and the relocation of fighters from the conflict zones to other regions now present a considerable threat to international peace," Feltman said.

He called for reinforced ties between the UN system and regional actors to support Sahel G5 states -- Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger -- in their counterterrorism efforts.

On Tuesday, France asked the UN Security Council to authorize the deployment of a five-nation African military force to fight violent extremists and drug traffickers in the Sahel.

The Sahel G5 states agreed in March to set up the special counter-terrorism operation of 5,000 troops for the region.

"It is important that the Security Council gets united behind this draft," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said.

"Again, on terrorism, there is no place for disunion. So we cannot imagine that the council doesn't bring its full support behind our draft."

Diplomats say the United States has resisted financing this force during initial discussions.
Syrian government forces secure a road for a military convoy in May 2017

A US warplane shot down a pro-regime drone in Syria on Thursday after it fired at coalition forces, officials said, marking a new escalation of tensions in the war-torn country's south.

No one was hurt in the incident, which occurred near the coalition's At-Tanaf garrison close to the Jordanian border, spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon told Pentagon reporters.

"It was armed and still had weapons on it when it was fired upon by US forces from an aircraft," he said.

Although the weapon the drone deployed had hit only dirt, the action was nevertheless "clearly meant" as an attack, he added.

At-Tanaf, on the key highway connecting Damascus with Baghdad, has been menaced by a surge of Iran-backed troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Coalition forces use the area -- just northeast of the Jordanian border -- as a training and staging area for attacks against the Islamic State group.

The drone was about the same size as a US MQ-1 Predator. Dillon said it was not immediately clear who owned the aircraft or whether it may have been Iranian.

"Regardless of what kind of drone it was, it fired upon our coalition forces, and therefore showed hostile intent, and it was perceived as a threat," he said.

The coalition has established a "de-confliction" zone, extending 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the garrison, in which pro-regime and Russian forces are not supposed to operate.

Dillon said the drone had fired on coalition forces patrolling outside the zone.

The shoot-down came after another incident earlier Thursday, when coalition forces struck "technical vehicles" advancing toward At-Tanaf and threatening coalition and partner forces, US Central Command said in a statement.

It was the third time the coalition has struck pro-regime forces near At-Tanaf in less than a month.

On Tuesday, coalition forces "destroyed" a pro-regime unit that was moving into the area with a tank, artillery, anti-aircraft weapons and armed technical vehicles, the coalition said.

And on May 18, coalition planes struck a convoy that had apparently been headed toward At-Tanaf.

Despite repeated communications between the US and Russian militaries, a "platoon-sized" group -- about two dozen men -- of pro-regime forces remains inside the deconfliction area and has ignored requests to leave.

"We have seen how clear we are about the threat that has been presented and posed to us, and we'll continue to push to have them vacate that area," Dillon said.

The coalition's focus remains on fighting the Islamic State group, he added, saying it does not want to battle the Syrian regime.
Protesters face security forces during a demonstration against corruption and employment in the northern Rif region, June 8, 2017 in Al Hoceima, Morocco

Police fired tear gas as clashes erupted Thursday between them and demonstrators in the Moroccan city of Al-Hoceima, epicentre of a protest movement that has shaken the northern region for months.

The tear gas was fired as dozens of young people threw stones at the riot police in the alleys of Sidi Abed neighbourhood, where demonstrations have been held for days without any violence.

The northern port city of Al-Hoceima, in the neglected Rif region, has been rocked by social unrest since the death in October of a fishmonger.

Mouhcine Fikri, 31, was crushed in a rubbish truck as he protested against the seizure of swordfish caught out of season and his death has sparked fury and triggered nationwide protests.

The demonstrations have snowballed, giving way to a wider protest movement demanding more development and railing against corruption, repression and unemployment.

In Sidi Abed on Thursday, groups of young people gathered again for a surprise demonstration in the alleys of the neighbourhood.

Police responded by forcefully pushing them back to a square where several of them began throwing stones, an AFP correspondent reported.

At least two people were injured: a policeman hit in the jaw by a stone and a demonstrator who had been struck with truncheons.

Two hours after it started the violence subsided.

"A group of teenagers and minors wanted to occupy the streets, the police intervened and now everything is back to normal," a local official told AFP.

Demonstrators have rallied in Al-Hoceima for more than a week after the arrest on May 29 of protest leader Nasser Zefzafi following three days on the run.

Security forces have carried out 87 arrests in the past 10 days, official figures show, including Zefzafi, who is the head of the Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, or "Popular Movement".

The Rif has long had a tense relationship with the central authorities in Rabat, and it was at the heart of the Arab Spring-inspired protests in Morocco in February 2011.

King Mohamed VI relinquished some of his near-absolute control through constitutional reforms following the 2011 protests.
Rapper Ice Cube performs in Las Vegas, Nevada in May 2017

Nearly three decades after shocking America with "Fuck tha Police," rap legend Ice Cube is back with what he calls a 2017 version -- an appeal to "good cops" to lead.

The gangsta rap pioneer, now also the star of Hollywood action films, is releasing the song on a 25th anniversary edition of his album "Death Certificate" which comes out on Friday.

"Good Cop Bad Cop," one of three new tracks on the reissued album, salutes the Black Lives Matter movement that has emerged in recent years in response to several high-profile killings of unarmed African Americans by police.

"Good cop, good cop, where is your dignity? Where's your empathy? Where is your sympathy? Bad cop -- where's your humanity?" Ice Cube raps over a mid-tempo bass-line interspersed with horn climaxes.

"Fuck tha Police," released in 1988 by Ice Cube's former band N.W.A., caused a sensation at the time and remains highly controversial with US police groups objecting to its blunt message.

The song comes from the perspective of young African American men in impoverished parts of the Los Angeles area who are angered by police harassment.

"Good Cop Bad Cop" revives lines from "Fuck tha Police" that single out for criticism African American police seen as giving cover to white officers.

Ice Cube, 47, said he wanted to create a contemporary version of "Fuck tha Police" after seeing the box-office success of the 2015 biopic about N.W.A., "Straight Outta Compton."

"We realized that it's still the same thing that's going on, so to me we needed a more up-to-date version of the community talking to the police and to authorities," he told Apple Music's Beats 1 radio.

"The first line of defense for us is for good cops to get these bad apples out the bunch, because they're sucking all the respect that the police used to have," he said.

Released in 1991, "Death Certificate" again raised controversy with Ice Cube facing accusations of racism.

The track "Black Korea" took aim at Korean American business owners and their sometimes tense relationship with black customers, while "No Vaseline" was a heated dis track against fellow N.W.A members and manager Jerry Heller.
US writer and former actress Samantha Geimer (L), allegedly raped as a 13-year-old girl by French-Polish film director Roman Polanski (R), will appear before a Los Angeles judge Friday to appeal for an end in the case

The woman raped by filmmaker Roman Polanski decades ago when she was a teen is set to appear before a Los Angeles judge on Friday to appeal for the court to end the case.

Polanski's attorney Harland Braun told AFP that Samantha Geimer will appear with her husband at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court to buttress the filmmaker's case that he had served time for the 1977 crime and that the matter should be settled once and for all.

"She is coming with her husband because she is tired of this case going on for 40 years," he said. "She wants it over."

Braun said it was up to the judge to decide whether to take into account Geimer's request in the long-running saga.

He added that he had spoken with the Oscar winner on Thursday to inform him of the new twist in the case.

"He thought it might help," Braun said, referring to Geimer's first appearance in court on Polanski's behalf.

The 83-year-old director of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Chinatown" was accused of drugging Geimer when she was 13 before raping her at the film star Jack Nicholson's house in Los Angeles in 1977.

He admitted statutory rape after a number of more serious charges were dropped, and spent 48 days in custody to undergo psychiatric evaluation before being released.

According to court documents filed by Braun, Polanski was promised by the judge overseeing the case that the seven weeks he spent in custody would be the only time he would serve.

But in 1978, convinced the judge was going to scrap his plea deal and send him to prison -- possibly for decades -- to avoid a public backlash, he left for France.

The director -- who is married to French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children -- has since refused to return without assurances that he would not serve additional time in prison.

- 'Corrupt judicial system' -

"What Mr Polanski faces, if he were to return to Los Angeles, is a dishonest legal system which will ignore the facts and the law, and attempt to impress and demonstrate to the public that it's 'tough on crime,'" Braun wrote in a court filing.

The attorney argues that Polanski "took an understandable escape because he fled from an unbelievably corrupt judicial system."

Geimer, who has long supported Polanski's efforts to put an end to the case in a bid to move on with her life, wrote a scathing letter to the court earlier this year in which she accused prosecutors of seeking to further their careers rather than resolve the matter.

"Celebrity cases should not be misused by those like yourselves for some limelight and career advancement," she said in the letter addressed to Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and her deputy Michele Hanisee.

"You and those who have come before you have never protected me, you have treated me with contempt, using a crime committed against me to further your own careers," she added.

Polanski's film career has continued to flourish since he fled to France, where many consider him an icon.

However, the decades-old rape case has continued to dog him and he was forced in January to abandon plans to preside over the French equivalent of the Oscars -- the Cesars - following outrage by feminist groups and France's women's rights minister.

Polanski has won eight Cesars over his career and one best-director Oscar for the Holocaust drama "The Pianist."

While living in the United States, he was married to the actress Sharon Tate, who was murdered in 1969 by members of the Charles Manson family when she was eight months pregnant.
Smoke rises from buildings in the al-Meshleb neighbourhood of Raqa as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up of an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, try to advance further into the Islamic State (IS) group's Syrian bastion, on June 7, 2017

At least 17 civilians were killed Thursday night in US-led coalition strikes on the Islamic State group's Syrian bastion Raqa and the surrounding area, a monitor said.

"At least 17 civilians were killed during the night in US-led coalition strikes on Raqa city and its suburbs," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Tens of people were injured and the death toll could rise higher, he warned.

The monitor said there were at least 25 strikes, with most of the civilians killed as the planes hit an internet cafe in the western suburb of Jazra.

The deaths come as US-backed fighters try to push further into Raqa, two days after finally entering the northern city.
Arrivals in the United States from the six mostly Muslim countries in President Donald Trump's travel ban have plunged despite a legal freeze on the ban's implementation.

Government data received Thursday showed that arrivals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen were down by nearly half in March and April from a year ago -- 6,372 for the two months compared to 12,100 in 2016.

Arrivals were little changed in the first month after the rollout of the original January 27 travel ban, which also included Iraq.

Government data received Thursday showed that arrivals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen were down by nearly half in March and April from a year ago

Banned ban: The Trump travel restrictions are being challenged in court and on hold as a result

That ban was quickly blocked in a legal challenge by immigration rights advocates that was supported on appeal. The courts ruled that in its focus on Muslim-majority countries, the Trump administration was violating the Constitution's ban on religious discrimination.

At the time, however, many in those countries with legal US travel documents rushed to travel or return to the US in fear that a revised ban would pass the courts and they would be locked out.

The result was 4,277 arrivals from the six countries in February, slightly slower than a year before, according to the Customs and Border Patrol data. Iraq data was not immediately available.

On March 6 a new version of the travel ban was announced, with Iraq removed. Again implementation was blocked by two court orders, which the Trump administration last week said it will appeal to the Supreme Court.

But in the meantime visa processing in the six countries has slowed and arrivals have fallen sharply: 3,462 in March and just 2,910 in April, mostly from Iran and Syria.
People inspect a hospital, damaged following an air strike a rebel-controlled town in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on May 1, 2017

Health care workers, clinics and hospitals were attacked more than 400 times last year in Syria's civil war, according to data gathered with the mobile phone application WhatsApp, a medical journal reported Friday.

A total of 402 such attacks -- many of them fatal -- were registered between November 2015 and December 2016, researchers reported in The Lancet.

Nearly half of hospitals in non-government controlled areas were hit, a third of them more than once, during that period.

"The so-called weaponisation of health care -- the purposeful use of violence to restrict or deny access to health care as a strategy of war -- has reached unprecedented levels in Syria," the authors said.

The country's civil war, now in its seventh year, has claimed more than 320,000 lives. More than 800 of those killed since early 2011 were health care workers, The Lancet reported in March.

In the period covered by the new study, nearly 700 people were injured in attacks on health care-related targets, and 261 were killed.

The data was collected using a WhatsApp group with 293 members spread across some 350 health care facilities in Syria, supported by a World Health Organization (WHO) team based in Turkey, which coordinates humanitarian work done by the United Nations and dozens of NGOs.

When incidents occur, members post short messages in real time, and later fill out anonymous and confidential forms providing details such as location, type of attack, and the number of injuries and deaths.

Every month, data is verified by checking the WhatsApp alerts against other reports.

"Until now, there has been no standardised method of collecting robust data," the study's authors said in a statement.

With more health care facilities targeted, nurses and doctors on site have had to become resourceful in trying to keep patients out of harms way, said Alaa Abou Zeid, emergency coordinator for the WHO team.

Measures taken include "dividing facilities -- such as operating theatres and post-operative care -- among locations to reduce the risk that all services are affected" in case of an attack.

Another was to move "entire services underground," he said. "Our challenge now is to convince our colleagues on the ground to continue collecting and verifying data."

The study is part of a larger evaluation of how health care data is gathered during humanitarian crises such as those in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen.

Worldwide, an estimated 172 million people are affected by armed conflict, including 59 million people displaced -- the highest number since World War II.
MONTREAL (AP) - The Paris climate agreement still has a chance despite the "temporary absence of American leadership," Barack Obama said Tuesday, adding that he was cheered that U.S. states, cities, corporations and others have decided to carry on with the Paris commitments.

The former U.S. president made the remarks in a speech to the Montreal Chamber of Commerce and got a round of applause from the business crowd for mentioning the Paris accord.

President Donald Trump announced last week he would pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement. Trump argues the climate agreement has disadvantaged the U.S. and benefited other countries, leaving American businesses and taxpayers to absorb the costs.

Former President Barack Obama speaks at the convention center in Montreal, Quebec, Tuesday, June 6, 2017. (Paul Chaisson/The Canadian Press via AP)

"Obviously I'm disappointed with the current American administration decision to put out of Paris," Obama said. "We're going to have to act with more urgency. I'm looking forward to the United States being a leader and not just on the sidelines going forward."

Obama said many jobs have been created in clean industries over the last decade. "For all those jobs that were lost in coal, many multiples of jobs were gained in the solar industry but those didn't get advertised," he said.

He said costs of clean energy have become comparable to "dirty" energy and that has changed the economics of investment in industry.

"All that work that we did is now embedded by decisions by companies around America and around the world," he said. "It's not as if Walmart is now going to suddenly reverse itself. They are going to continue to build on the clean energy they've invested in because it's going to save them money."

Obama said he is hugely invested in dealing with climate change because he has daughters and he will at some point have some granddaughters.

"This won't likely affect me as much as it will affect them," he said. "If we don't act now then it is going to be that much more difficult for the next generation to deal with the warming of the planet."

Obama did not mention Trump by name in his speech and in a question and answer session afterward. But the former president said that while such instincts of retrenchment are understandable and tempting, they must be avoided.

"History also shows there is a better way," he said. "Canada shows, the United States, Europe, Japan show it is possible for us to overcome our fears and to reach across our divides."
The City of East Ridge and CARTA transportation services want to hear from the residents and business owners of East Ridge to see if expanded services to the area are wanted and needed. Several months ago, East Ridge hosted CARTA for a public input meeting in hopes to gain more information about what the citizens, visitors and businesses owners desired in their bus and disabled transportation services.

A short presentation by CARTA, followed by time to visit informational gathering stations, allowed participants to ask questions and to share their opinions and concerns regarding broader services from CARTA.

For those that werent able to attend the meeting, City and CARTA staff want to give those citizens an opportunity to express their opinions on expanded services to East Ridge. Staff has created a Survey Monkey survey, which is accessible on the Citys website (www.eastridgetn.gov) and social media pages. Here is a direct link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r /ER_CARTA

The survey will be available until July 9, and a workshop will be held on July 13, at 5:30 p.m., which is before the regularly scheduled City council meeting. CARTA will review the gathered information and discuss pricing and funding options for the additional services.

For those citizens who do not have internet access at home, they are welcome to take the survey at the East Ridge City Library during normal operating hours. For a listing of those hours, call the East Ridge City Library at 423-867-READ (7323) or visit www.eastridgetn.gov.
NEW YORK (AP) - The name of the new hotel chain is American Idea. It was inspired by stories heard in small towns on the campaign trail. The owner is now president of the United States.

That said, the Trump Organization wants to make something perfectly clear: It is not exploiting the presidency for profit.

The suggestion is "pure, unadulterated nonsense," said Eric Danziger, CEO of the company's hotel division, Trump Hotels. "I'm sure you've heard of American Express. I'm sure you've heard of American Airlines. ... We didn't invent the word 'American.'"

Eric Trump, left, and Donald Trump Jr., executive vice presidents of The Trump Organization, pose for a photograph at an event for Scion Hotels, a division of Trump hotels, Monday, June 5, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

President Donald Trump has been criticized for raising membership fees at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, boasting of his new Washington hotel that has become a favorite spot for foreign diplomats, and benefiting from trademark approvals from China for possible future business there.

Now comes his company's latest venture: a hotel chain.

The American Idea chain was unveiled Monday night in New York at a Trump Tower party hosted by the president's two adult sons, Eric and Don Jr., and featuring a video showing the Washington Mall.

The first family plans to franchise the mid-market hotels, taking a cut of revenue, and leaving the management and ownership of the buildings to other developers. The first three are planned for Mississippi.

"They're cashing in on the red states," said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert and law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "I'm not surprised that the Trump family would look to opportunities to commercially exploit his political success."

Ethics expert Edwin Williamson, a former State Department legal adviser, isn't so bothered by the new chain. He noted that the president is not bound by the federal ethics laws that limit other public officials from pursuing business interests while in office, and said he thinks Trump critics and the media are too fast to see conflicts of interest where there are none.

"There may be people who want do business with them because they are the president's sons. But I don't know what you do about that," Williamson said. Anyway, he added, the deals struck will probably be "normal business transactions that meet the standard of the marketplace."

The first outside partners for American Idea were introduced Monday and quickly established their appeal as embodiments of the American dream. Sons of a refugee from India, Suresh and Dinesh Chawla spoke of an America full of promise and profit, if you work hard enough - and maybe get advice from a real estate mogul along the way.

Suresh told the story of how his late father, founder of Chawla Hotels of Cleveland, Mississippi, was brazen enough to call Donald Trump looking for money for his new hotel chain more than quarter of a century ago.

Trump turned the immigrant down, calling his venture "small fry." But he did spend time on the phone, said Suresh, giving advice on ways to secure a loan elsewhere. Chawla Hotels now owns 17 hotels.

As a franchising fee, Trump Hotels CEO Danziger said he expects to earn less than the typical 9 to 12 percent cut of revenue charged by others, at least initially while the chain is rolled out.

The Chawla brothers plan to convert three Mississippi hotels now under other franchisee names to the American Idea brand, one each in Cleveland, Clarksdale and Greenville. Danziger wouldn't say how many American Idea hotels he hopes to build, but he talked big in an interview.

"It can go anywhere in the United States, anywhere there is an extended stay or mid-scale (hotel), that can be an American Idea," he said.

The Trump Organization is also opening a fourth property with Chawla Hotels under its Scion brand, a more upscale, boutique chain launched last year. That one will open in Cleveland, Mississippi. Danziger said in March that he hoped to open as many as 100 Scion hotels in three years.

Washington University's Clark said the new chains raise many conflicts of issues questions: Do the developers have other motives in striking a deal with the president's company, perhaps to influence public policy? Will local governments help the developers in securing zoning changes or permits to curry favor with the president?

The new chains are "problematic for the same reason all his other businesses are problematic: It provides opportunity for people to influence him by sending business his way," Clark said.

The rollout of the Scion chain hit a snag earlier this year because of just such conflicts issues. A Dallas developer who had signed a letter of intent with the Trump Organization revealed that he planned to raise money for a Scion hotel in the city from unnamed investors from Turkey, Qatar and Kazakhstan.

The Trump Organization canceled talks with the developer after several news articles raised questions about whether the foreign investors might try to use their investments to influence the new administration.

Danziger said the Dallas developer would never have gotten past his company's vetting, which had only begun as the media got hold of the story.

Before Trump took the oath of office, he announced a series of steps to help address concerns that his sprawling business holdings could lead to conflicts. He handed management control of his company to his two adult sons, vowed to make "no new foreign deals" while president and hired an outside council to vet any new deals his sons would strike in the U.S.

Danziger has expressed confidence that these steps can help avoid any ethical trouble.

As far as the Chawlas are concerned, Danziger said, they've been vetted fully. Their company, he said, is 100 percent owned by the two brothers. And he suggested they were perfect partners for a company under scrutiny.

"I wish I had their clean background," he quipped. "It was easy to approve."

Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of The Trump Organization, discusses the expansion of Trump hotels, Monday, June 5, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Eric Danziger, CEO of Trump Hotels, left, joins Eric Trump, center, and Donald Trump Jr., both of whom are executive Vice Presidents of The Trump Organization, as the trio poses for a photograph during an event for Scion Hotels, Monday, June 5, 2017, in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

President Donald Trump's sons Eric Trump, left, and Donald Trump Jr., executive vice presidents of The Trump Organization, chat with guests during an event Monday, June 5, 2017, in New York. The Trump Organization is launching a new mid-market hotel chain called "American Idea." (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Chawla Hotels CEO Dinesh Chawla speaks as Donald Trump Jr., executive vice president of The Trump Organization listens, Monday, June 5, 2017, during an event at Trump Tower in New York. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger, left, speaks as Donald Trump Jr., center, and Eric Trump glance around the room during an event Monday, June 5, 2017, at Trump Tower in New York. The Trump Organization is launching a new mid-market hotel chain called "American Idea." (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
HAYWARD, Calif. (AP) - A Northern California city is apologizing for using a taco pun in an official tweet to promote a council meeting to discuss sanctuary protections.

The City of Hayward issued a tweet with an illustration of a taco, urging the public "Let's Taco Bout It."

City spokesman Chuck Finnie says the meme was not related to the topic of sanctuary status. He says city officials are "upset and embarrassed" by the inappropriate tweet and tweeted an apology .

The meme was developed by the city's social media team to promote city council meetings, which are held on Tuesdays, and is a play on the phrase "Taco Tuesdays."

The Hayward City Council will consider Tuesday whether to formally declare itself a "sanctuary city" for people in the country illegally. Many are from Mexico.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump and choice for new FBI director (all times local):

3:30 p.m.

The top Republican in the Senate says the "impressive credentials" of President Donald Trump's pick for FBI director make him more than ready for the "sober task" of leading the FBI.

In this Jan. 12, 2005 file photo, Assistant Attorney General, Christopher Wray speaks at a press conference at the Justice Dept. in Washington. President Donald Trump has picked a longtime lawyer and former Justice Department official to be the next FBI director. Trump said on Twitter Wednesday that he will be nominating Christopher Wray, calling him "a man of impeccable credentials." (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement Wednesday that the job of FBI director is difficult, but he's confident that Christopher Wray "is more than qualified and quite capable of shouldering this important responsibility."

Trump announced Wednesday that he was nominating Wray to replace James Comey. Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9.

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1:45 p.m.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it has concerns about President Donald Trump's pick for FBI director.

The group's national political director, Faiz Shakir, says he questions Christopher Wray's ability to be independent, given his representation of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Christie is a Trump ally and informal adviser.

The White House touted Wray's involvement following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the Justice Department and FBI were shifting their focus to counterterrorism. But the ACLU says that means Wray was also involved in legal memos on Bush-era torture programs. The group urged the Senate to press him on those connections.

Shakir says he questions whether Wray can lead the FBI with the "even-handed judgment, and commitment to the rule of law that the agency deserves."

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1:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump is expressing confidence in his pick for FBI director.

Speaking to reporters in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Trump said that Christopher Wray is "gonna be great."

Trump announced his plans to nominate Wray, a former Justice Department official under George W. Bush, earlier in the day on Twitter.

In a White House press release, Trump called Wray an "impeccably qualified individual." Trump said he knows Wray will "again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity" if confirmed by the Senate.

Wray, in the same statement issued by the White House, said he was honored to be selected.

He said he looked forward to leading "an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country."

Wray works at the King & Spalding law firm. He served as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's personal lawyer during the George Washington Bridge lane-closing investigation

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12:58 p.m.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee says President Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI is a "suitable candidate."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, praised Christopher Wray's legal credentials and law enforcement background. He noted that Wray was confirmed unanimously by voice vote to lead the Justice Department's criminal division in 2003.

"If confirmed, this experience would serve him well at the helm of the FBI," Grassley said.

Grassley said it could take "a couple weeks" to receive all of Wray's nomination paperwork, and the committee will then begin considering his nominations. After this week, Congress is only in session for six weeks before the five-week August recess.

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12:40 p.m.

A Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee says he's encouraged that President Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI has law enforcement experience.

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons says Christopher Wray "is a serious and experienced attorney" - and Coons notes Wray's experience at the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration.

Coons says he's encouraged that Wray is a veteran of law enforcement "rather than a career in partisan politics, as was rumored over the past several weeks."

Wray headed the department's criminal division in the Bush administration and oversaw investigations into corporate fraud.

Coons says it's critical at this moment for the FBI to have "have strong, respected, and independent leadership."

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12:02 p.m.

Former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia is praising President Donald Trump's pick for FBI Director.

Nunn said in a statement Wednesday that Christopher Wray is an "outstanding lawyer who is known in the legal community for his integrity, his commitment to the rule of law, and his independent thinking."

Wray is a partner in the law firm King & Spalding. Nunn was a former partner at the firm.

Nunn said he has known Wray for many years and "his commitment to fairness and justice gives me confidence that he will put the country first in every decision that he makes."

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11:14 a.m.

The top two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee weren't told ahead of time that President Donald Trump would announce his pick to lead the FBI, lawyer Christopher Wray.

A spokesman for Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said his office found out when Trump tweeted the news Wednesday morning.

The panel's top Democrat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, also wasn't told. She told reporters she needs time to review his credentials.

The Judiciary panel oversees the FBI director's nomination. A senior member of the committee, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, immediately praised Wray, saying he has "impeccable credentials, vast experience, and strong support across the board."

Another GOP senator was more cautious. Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said in a statement that "we will evaluate Christopher Wray's qualifications" in the coming weeks.

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11:09 a.m

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is congratulating President Donald Trump on nominating Christopher Wray to lead the FBI.

Sessions says Wray, a former Justice Department official under George W. Bush, is a "leader of proven skill, independence and integrity." He says all Americans can have confidence in Wray.

Sessions says Wray "combines a brilliant legal mind, outstanding accomplishments and a proven record of public service," having prosecuted cases alongside FBI agents as a U.S. attorney.

Wray headed the department's Criminal Division in 2003, when that division handled national security matters. Sessions says he worked closely with the FBI as it shifted its focus from violent crime to counterterrorism after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Sessions says Wray has "tremendous respect" for FBI employees, and they respect him too.

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11:10 a.m.

An association of FBI agents says it is looking forward to meeting with FBI director nominee Christopher Wray.

Thomas O'Connor, president of the FBI Agents Association, says in a statement that the group's leadership hopes to meet with Wray very soon.

He says it's important the organization representing more than 13,000 agents "understands his views on the FBI, special agents, and the criminal and national security threats that agents combat daily."

President Donald Trump announced Wray as his pick early Wednesday.

Wray served in a leadership role in the George W. Bush Justice Department, rising to head the criminal division and overseeing investigations into corporate fraud. With a strong law enforcement background, Wray is a traditional choice for the job. Trump had entertained current and former politicians for the role.

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10:40 a.m.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says President Donald Trump didn't consult him before announcing that he wants former Justice Department official Christopher Wray to lead the FBI.

But Ryan says Wray seems like "the perfect kind of person" to succeed fired FBI Director James Comey.

The Wisconsin Republican says he favored a "career person" to take over the FBI. And Ryan says that Wray - a lawyer who served in the Justice Department under former President George W. Bush - "certainly seems to fit that bill."

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10:05 a.m.

House Republicans say President Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI seems like a good choice.

Lawmakers attending Wednesday morning's closed-door caucus said they had no early word of the president's selection of Christopher Wray, a former Justice Department official who served as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's personal lawyer during the George Washington Bridge lane-closing investigation.

Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas said, "At first blush, he seems like a great choice to lead the FBI." Conaway he wasn't given a heads up and told reporters: "you all surprised me on the way in."

Rep. Pete King of New York said, "I assume it's a good choice."

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8:05 a.m.

President Donald Trump says he'll nominate a former Justice Department official as FBI director.

Trump's tweets that his choice - lawyer Christopher Wray - is "a man of impeccable credentials."

There's no more information in the two-sentence tweet that ends, "Details to follow."

Wray emerged from a list of former prosecutors, politicians and law enforcement officials interviewed by Trump since the president fired FBI Director James Comey last month.

Wray works at the King & Spalding law firm. He represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane-closing case. Two former Christie aides were convicted of plotting to close bridge lanes to punish a Democratic mayor who wouldn't endorse the Republican governor.

Wray worked for the Justice Department under President George W. Bush.
NEW YORK (AP) - Supermodel Iman has paid tribute to late husband David Bowie on what would have been their 25th wedding anniversary.

Iman posted a photo of Bowie kissing her forehead on Twitter on Tuesday. The post included the words, "I would walk forever, just to be in your arms again." She tweeted, "June 6th #BowieForever," with the picture.

Bowie and Iman officially married in Switzerland in April 1992, but held a church ceremony in Italy on June 6 of that year. They had one daughter together, who's now 16.

FILE - In this June 6, 2005, file photo, singer David Bowie and his wife Iman pose at the 2005 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York. Iman remembered the late singer with a social media post on June 6, 2017, which would have been their 25th wedding anniversary. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson, File)

Bowie died last year at 69, following a battle with cancer.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles Thursday, South Korea's military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.

The projectiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200 kilometers (about 125 miles) while reaching a maximum altitude of about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles), South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where U.S. aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

The North's missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North's weapons activities.

A screen shows a news program reporting about North Korea's missile firing from Wonsan, center, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Tokyo. North Korea fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles off its east coast Thursday, South Korea's military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seoul's military, said the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its "precision strike capabilities" on ships in response to the joint drills.

North Korea's weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile program that can stand up to what it sees as U.S. and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. Analysts say the latest test appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Moon, who convened a National Security Council meeting in Seoul over the launch.

The launches Thursday were North Korea's fourth missile test in as many weeks as the country continues to speed up its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the projectiles, which showed longer range than North Korea's previously known KN-01 anti-ship cruise missiles that can travel up to 160 kilometers (99 miles), were likely from a new cruise missile system North Korea displayed during a massive April 15 military parade. The improved range indicates the North is pursuing weapons capable of reaching U.S. aircraft carriers that operate from deeper positions, he said.

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after Thursday's launch that Tokyo has not detected any "flying objects" that headed toward Japan or landed inside the country's maritime economic zone.

North Korea on May 14 premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new "precision-guided" missile, which experts say is designed with a maneuverable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defense systems like the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense that is being deployed in South Korea.

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

People watch a TV news program showing a file footage of a missile launched by North Korea, at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 8, 2017. North Korea fired several projectiles believed to be short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, South Korea's military said, a continuation of weapons tests that have rattled Washington and the North's neighbors as Pyongyang seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Clooney's father says he is looking forward to meeting his new grandchildren in person but is waiting for the greenlight from his son and Amal Clooney before he packs his bags.

Nick Clooney told The Associated Press Wednesday that he has seen the twins, Ella and Alexander, who were born Tuesday morning in London.

He and his wife Nina are at their home in Kentucky and got their first look their grandchildren via Skype.

FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2017 file photo, actor George Clooney, left, and Amal Clooney arrive at the 42nd Cesar Film Awards ceremony at Salle Pleyel in Paris. George and Amal Clooney have welcomed twins Ella and Alexander Clooney. The pair was born Tuesday morning, June 6, 2017, according to George Clooney's publicist Stan Rosenfield. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

The longtime newsman admitted that all he could muster were cliches to describe the newborns, who he says are wonderful, shocking and beautiful. After all he's speaking as a grandfather, not a journalist.

He said that they are thrilled and will be there "with bells on" to congratulate the new parents and hug their grandchildren - once they get permission.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has conducted four missile tests in the month since new South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office, testing his stated desire to reach out to Pyongyang. Here's a look at developments since Moon's election:

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MAY 10: Moon, a liberal, is inaugurated as South Korea's president, ending nearly a decade of conservative rule.

People watch a TV news program showing a file footage of a missile launched by North Korea, at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 8, 2017. North Korea fired several projectiles believed to be short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, South Korea's military said, a continuation of weapons tests that have rattled Washington and the North's neighbors as Pyongyang seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

MAY 14: North Korea fires a newly developed Hwasong-12 missile that it says can carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Moon expresses deep regret about the test.

MAY 21: North Korea tests a solid-fuel Pukguksong-2 missile that is harder for outsiders to detect before launch.

MAY 26: South Korea says it will allow a civic group to contact North Korea to help fight malaria in the first government approval of a cross-border civilian exchange since January 2016.

MAY 29: North Korea fires a short-range ballistic missile that lands in Japan's maritime economic zone.

JUNE 5: The South Korean civic group says the North has rejected its offer of anti-malarial supplies because of the South's support of new U.N. sanctions on the North.

JUNE 8: North Korea fires several projectiles believed to be short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Philippine officials say they have arrested a German man wanted in his country for attempted murder of a compatriot more than a decade ago.

Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said Thursday that 52-year-old Lothar Gunter Bebenroth was apprehended in central Bohol province on the German Embassy's request. He says the fugitive has an arrest warrant issued by the Potsdam district court for repeatedly evading hearings in his court case.

He says Bebenroth will be deported and blacklisted as an undesirable alien. The German was arrested Wednesday after hiding in the country since May 1, 2014 as a tourist.

The immigration bureau says the Potsdam court earlier sentenced Bebenroth to two years in prison after he confessed to stabbing a male victim in the abdomen, nearly killing him, in December 2006.
BOSTON (AP) - A man accused of killing two engaged doctors in their luxury Boston condominium is due back in court in July.

A hearing was held Thursday in the case against 30-year-old Bampumim Teixeira. The Chelsea man has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

Teixeira is due back in court July 6.

FILE - In this May 8, 2017 file photo Bampumim Teixeira, accused of murdering two engaged doctors in their South Boston penthouse condominium, lies in a hospital bed at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Teixeira was wounded when confronted by Boston police inside the condo where he allegedly murdered the doctors. A court hearing is scheduled June 8 for Teixeira. (David L Ryan/The Boston Globe, Pool, File)

Police found the bodies of 38-year-old Dr. Lina Bolanos and 49-year-old Dr. Richard Field in May while responding to a report of a man with a gun. Police also found a black bag filled with Bolanos' jewelry.

Teixeira was shot by police at the scene.

Authorities first reported that Teixeira had opened fire when police confronted him at the door. They later said that Teixeira did not open fire on police, but a fake gun was found at the scene.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Five of the men who launched an attack in the heart of Iran's capital previously fought for the Islamic State group, the country's Intelligence Ministry said Thursday, acknowledging the first such assault by the extremists in the Shiite power.

The attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 17 people and wounded over 40, stunning its people.

The ministry issued a statement on its website with bloody pictures of the men's corpses. It identified them by their first names only, saying they didn't want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

Police officers stand guard as vehicles drive past Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017. Police increased their patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran on Thursday, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

It described them as "long affiliated with the Wahhabi," an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion Iran's regional rival had a hand in the attack.

The men had left Iran to fight for the extremist group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria - the group's de facto capital, the ministry said. It said they returned to Iran in August under the command of an Islamic State leader and escaped when authorities initially broke up their extremist cell.

The ministry did not identify the men's hometowns, nor say how they were able to evade authorities. A woman suspected to be involved in the attack was arrested Wednesday.

Commuters in the Iranian capital noticed police on street corners and motorcycles, more than usual as dawn broke. That came after Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, a deputy Interior Minister, told state TV that "law enforcement activities may increase."

"We are focused on intelligence" gathering, he said.

The state-run IRNA news agency also reported Thursday that the death toll in the attacks had risen to 17 people killed, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

The attack Wednesday as lawmakers held a session in parliament and at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shocked Iranians who so far had avoided the chaos that has followed the Islamic State group's rise in Syria and Iraq. Iranian forces are backing embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad while the Shiite power also is supporting militias fighting against the extremists in Iraq.

The attack came as emboldened Sunni Arab states - backed by U.S. President Donald Trump - are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

The comments sparked anger from Iranians on social media, who recalled the vigils in Tehran that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet on Thursday called the White House comments "repugnant" and accused the U.S. of supporting terror.

"Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including the Islamic State group, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action."

The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged," the Revolutionary Guard statement said.

Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "the Iranian government should not use the attack in a very polarized situation against Saudi Arabia or claim that Saudi Arabia is somehow linked to the attack, because it isn't."

On the streets of the capital Thursday, Iranians said they remained suspicious that Saudi Arabia had a hand in the attack. Some pointed to comments in May by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the King Salman and the kingdom's defense minister, who said his country would "work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia."

"I am sure Persian Gulf Arab countries are behind this," said Nahid Ghanbari, a 21-year-old university student studying accounting. "They have been angry about Iran's power in the region. They look for a way to destabilize our country."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles.

"The Iranian nation will go forward," he added.

The violence began in midmorning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran's state TV.

Images circulating in Iranian media showed gunmen held rifles near the windows of the complex. One showed a toddler being handed through a first-floor window to safety outside as an armed man looked on.

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

Iran's state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was slain by security guards. A woman was also arrested. The revered shrine was not damaged.

Police on Thursday said they now held six suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks.

Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.

Tehran's stock exchange fell nearly 2 percent Thursday after the attacks.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

A motorcycle repairman reads a newspaper at his shop near Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A police officer stands guard as vehicles drive in front of Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017. Police increased their patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran on Thursday, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, June 7, 2017. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a pair of stunning deadly attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad, telling the students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses a group of students in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, June 7, 2017. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a pair of stunning deadly attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad, telling the students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
As baby boomers grow older, and women continue to outlive their husbands, the Christian church will soon be faced with the needs of the largest widowed population since Social Securitys inception. Andy Mendonsa, founder of Widows Harvest Ministries, addresses this abject neglect of widows by the church in Spiritual Widowhood.

The books chief aim is to present what Mendonsa believes to be a Scripturally-based litmus test for determining the condition of the church based on truly worshiping God in spirit and in truth, the way Scripture prescribes and Jesus modeled.



At this point in my life/walk, I have a deep concern for the future leadership of the church, Christs bride, said Mr.

Mendonsa. Current church leadership has done almost nothing to prepare future leaders to care for widows in general, much less their own widowed wives when they are left behind.

The book is not solely based on his 25 years of research and study of James 1:27, which directly calls us to better serve widows. Serving with Widows Harvest Ministrieswhich Mr. Mendonsa helped found in 1987 to assist low-income Chattanooga widows with home repairsalso helped him gain an understanding for their care in the context of worship.



I realized God was telling me to start a ministry for widows, and that he was showing me the need for all churches to specifically serve widows, said Mendonsa. Widows need a place to both serve and receive help from church members.



Since its founding in 1987, the ministry has seen 30 years of promoting and providing prayer group opportunities for widows, helping them with home repair and lawn care needs, and helping widows realize their new identity in Gods eyes, in terms of their own value, worth, and purpose in the church.



The goal is that widows will no longer be invisible, Mr. Mendonsa remarked. This will only happen when the church begins to comply with the mandate in James 1:27 for visiting the widow and the fatherless in their distress. When widows truly know they are not forgotten, the church will begin to resemble the bride that God desires her to be.



Spiritual Widowhood



By Andy Mendonsa

ISBN: 978-1-51276-844-2 (softcover); 978-1-51276-845-9 (hardcover); 978-1-51276-843-5 (e-book)

Available at the Westbow Press website and Amazon




BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union says that it will keep a close eye on Turkey's treatment of an Amnesty International leader who was detained early this week as part of a wider crackdown on people suspected of links to a cleric accused of orchestrating last year's failed coup.

The EU on Thursday called on Turkey "to clarify the charges swiftly" and reminded Ankara to "fully respect the presumption of innocence."

The human rights advocacy group said its chairman in Turkey, lawyer Taner Kilic, was detained at his home in the western Turkish city of Izmir along with 22 other attorneys.

In this late Tuesday, June 6, 2017, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses foreign ambassadors at a Ramadan dinner in Ankara, Turkey. Erdogan has voiced support for Qatar in its dispute with Saudi Arabia and other nations, saying no one will benefit from the policy of isolating the oil-rich nation. (Presidential Press Service, Pool photo via AP)

Amnesty said it was not clear why Kilic was suspected of having ties to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen's movement.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - The Latest on the fallout from attacks in Iran claimed by the Islamic State group (all times local):

3:30 p.m.

Egypt has condemned Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and a shrine to its revolutionary leader in the "strongest terms."

A motorcycle repairman reads a newspaper at his shop near Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Egypt's Foreign Ministry offered its condolences to the families of the deceased on Thursday and called on the international community to intensify its efforts to fight terrorism and its sources of funding.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed the attacks, which killed at least 17 people and wounded over 40, on its regional rival Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Egypt.

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2:40 p.m.

Authorities have raised the death toll in a pair of Islamic State group attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader to 17 people killed.

The state-run IRNA news agency reported the increase Thursday, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

Shojaei earlier told state television that "three of the victims are women." He did not elaborate.

Iranian authorities have said assailants were Iranian nationals, adding they have arrested six suspects, including one woman, since the attack Wednesday in Tehran. Over 40 people were wounded in the attack.

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2:30 p.m.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has confirmed that five of the men involved in terror attacks in Iran had fought for the Islamic State group.

A ministry statement issued Thursday said the men had left Iran to fight for the extremist group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria - the group's de facto capital.

It identified the men only by their first names, saying they didn't want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The ministry also published pictures of their corpses.

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2:15 p.m.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has condemned the twin extremist attacks in Tehran, vowing the Iran and Syria would emerge victorious in their fight against "terrorism."

Iran is a key backer of Assad amid his country's six year long civil war. The Syrian president spoke to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani by phone on Thursday.

Rouhani affirmed his support for Assad's government and promised to carry out the fight against "terrorists and their supporters," according to a report on Syrian state media.

Iran blamed the Wednesday attacks on Saudi Arabia, casting them in the context of a broader regional conflict that encompasses the war inside Syria. Both Iran and the Syrian government portray the Syrian war as a conflict against Western- and Gulf-sponsored terrorism.

The Islamic State group claimed the Tehran attacks; no link has emerged of Saudi Arabia's involvement.

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1:30 p.m.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has condemned the twin extremist attacks in Tehran, describing them as part of an "international, destructive plan" backed by various regional governments.

Hezbollah is seen as a proxy to Iran in Syria and Lebanon and has aligned itself with Tehran amid mounting regional tensions with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Iran blamed the Wednesday attacks on Saudi Arabia, though no link has been established. The Islamic State group claimed the attacks.

Hezbollan and Iran are locked in twin military conflicts in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State jihadists and Gulf- and Western-backed local opposition forces.

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1:15 p.m.

Authorities have raised the death toll in a pair of Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader to 16 people killed.

State television reported the increase Thursday, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

Shojaei told state TV that "three of the victims are women." He did not elaborate.

Iranian authorities have said assailants were Iranian nationals, adding they have arrested six suspects, including one woman, since the attack Wednesday in Tehran.

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10:30 a.m.

Iran's foreign minister is rejecting U.S. statements about the attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader.

Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet on Thursday called the comments on the attack in Tehran a day earlier "repugnant" and accused the U.S. of supporting terror. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, which authorities on Thursday said killed 13.

President Donald Trump in a statement suggested that Iran bears some culpability for attacks in its capital.

Trump tweeted that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." He also said the U.S. was grieving and praying for the victims of the attacks.

Zarif tweeted: "The Iranian people reject such U.S. claims."

Police officers stand guard as vehicles drive past Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017. Police increased their patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran on Thursday, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

A police officer stands guard as vehicles drive in front of Iran's parliament building in Tehran, Iran, Thursday, May 8, 2017. Police increased their patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran on Thursday, a day after a pair of stunning Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded over 40. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A female prison guard gunned down her New Jersey Transit bus driver boyfriend after he dumped her, before turning the gun on herself.

Ryon Reynolds, 45, of Sicklerville, was fatally shot by his ex-girlfriend Piacenta Jackson, of Woodbury, as he arrived at the NJ Transit garage in Washington Township on Tuesday afternoon.

Jackson, 44, then fled the scene in her car with the police in pursuit.

Ryon Reynolds, (right) was fatally shot by his ex-girlfriend Piacenta Jackson (left) on Tuesday afternoon

Police cordoned off the scene after a bus driver was shot as he arrived at the NJ Transit garage in Washington Township on Tuesday afternoon

Witnesses say that cops caught up with her in Mantua Township and surrounded her, blocking in her car. At that point she turned the gun on herself, ABC News reports.

Autopsies showed Jackson died of a gunshot to the head while Reynolds died from a gunshot wound to the back.

'They were coming in both directions and they blocked (her car) in,' Mantua resident Jeff Gellenthin told the NJ.com. 'I heard one pop ... and the door was open and (the police) all gathered around.'

The victim's aunt, Rose Reynolds, said the family were still reeling from the news of his death.

Family described Reynolds as a 'great guy' and a hard worker and former high school football star

'I still can't believe it,' she said. 'I can't get it in my head yet. Ryon was the best. Everybody loved him.'

She explained that Reynolds and Jackson had been dating but he had recently chosen to end their relationship.

'She went to his job and killed him,' she said.

Rose Reynolds described her nephew as a 'great guy' and a former high school football star.

'He worked so hard for so many years,' she said.

A colleague of Reynolds, Rick Bucci, added that the victim was a 'good man with a crazy girlfriend.'

Authorities are continuing to investigate the shooting.

Jackson, who worked for the Department of Corrections for 14 years, was a corrections officer at Southern State Correctional Facility.

DailyMail.com has reached out to NJ Transit for comment.
ISLAMABAD (AP) - A recent military operation foiled an attempt to set up an organized Islamic State group base in the country's southwest, the Pakistani army said Thursday.

The Taliban-linked Sunni sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi was working to establish the IS foothold, the army said in a statement.

The three-day operation was conducted in a rugged mountain range near Mastung district in southwestern Baluchistan province and left 12 militants dead. Five soldiers were wounded, the army said.

In this May 12, 2017 photo, Pakistani investigators collect evidence at the site of a deadly suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamic State group, in the Mastung district of Pakistan. The Pakistani army said Thursday, June 8, 2017 that a recent three day operation, in the rough terrain of the southwestern Baluchistan province, had broken up an attempt to set up an organized Islamic State group base in the country's southwest. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

An IS group claimed a suicide attack targeting a Pakistani lawmaker last month in the same district, which killed 25 people.

The military released images and video footage of the base spread over 10 kilometers (6 miles), which has a 250 meter (273 yard) long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves where the operation was started with an air-born commando force landing there first. Tough resistance resulted in a prolonged three-day fight, the military said.

A bomb-making facility in the base was destroyed by the army, which also seized 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives, three suicide bombing vests, hand grenades, rocket launchers, machine guns, sniper rifles and communication systems, the army said.

The suicide bomber who targeted the lawmaker had been sent from this base, said Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor. The sectarian group was making efforts to develop a communication system with the Islamic State group and facilitate establishment of its foothold in the country, he said. The operation has denied establishment of any direct or indirect IS group organized infrastructure, Ghafoor said.

Pakistan has denied any organized presence of IS in the country, but says some local militant groups have started using its brand name. Some Pakistani sectarian groups have in recent months partnered with the IS group in spectacular attacks, including a shrine bombing that killed 90 devotees.

The southwestern province of Baluchistan where the base was dismantled borders Afghanistan and Iran.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Swedish authorities say a 38-year-old man suspected of four rapes last month in Sweden has been arrested in Thailand.

Prosecutor Karl-Erik Antonsson says they will now start the process of having the man, who was not identified, extradited to Sweden.

Antonsson said the fugitive was arrested Thursday on an international arrest warrant, and that he was suspected of rapes that took place in several locations in Sweden on May 17-19.

Swedish media say the man had earlier been convicted twice of sex crimes and added that he was arrested at the Bangkok airport.

Thai officials said they had no immediate information about the arrest.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The United Nations refugee agency is expressing deep concern at reports that Turks seeking asylum in Greece have been forcibly returned to Turkey by Greek authorities.

The UNHCR said Thursday it is "of vital importance" that Greek authorities comprehensively investigate the allegations.

While the statement failed to specify what reports it was referring to, UNHCR officials said they included recent allegations concerning Turks fleeing a government crackdown in their country after last year's failed coup.

A Greek human rights watchdog said it received a complaint that Greek police last week delivered a group of Turkish asylum-seekers to masked gunmen, who returned them to Turkey.

The Hellenic League for Human Rights said the asylum-seekers were a couple with four children, and two more men.

Greece's left-led government denies the claims.
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - The first ever tanker with liquefied natural gas from the United States arrived Thursday in Poland as part of the country's efforts to diversify its energy sources and cut dependence on Russia.

It was the first delivery of U.S. gas to eastern and northern Europe. Last year, Poland opened its first terminal for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, in Swinoujscie, on the Baltic Sea coast, to be able to receive such gas from distant suppliers like the U.S. or Qatar, which has already made some deliveries.

During a ceremony welcoming the U. S. tanker "Clean Ocean," Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said it was a historic moment that improves the region's energy security.

"Today Poland can say that it is a safe and sovereign country, also because we have such wonderful investments" like the LNG terminal, Szydlo said.

She urged the U.S. to develop "further and more efficient cooperation."

The region is trying to cut its reliance on Russia, which has occasionally used its gas exports to exert political pressure. It is planning to bring in gas from the North Sea and also to boost its own production.

The U.S. State Department said in a statement that LNG exports "support American jobs, lower energy prices for our partners abroad, and contribute to Europe's energy security goals using a reliable, market based supplier."

Officials did not reveal the size of the delivery or the cost of the deal, which was made with Houston-based Cheniere Energy, Inc.

The U.S. is rich in shale gas and has been exporting the fuel to southern European nations such as Spain and Turkey, but not yet to nations in the continent's north.

Another U.S. delivery to Poland is expected this summer.

Polish officials have also indicated that the current gas supply deal with Qatar has not been disturbed by recent developments in which some Middle Eastern nations cut diplomatic ties with the country.
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - The Latest on the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby (all times local):

9:20 p.m.

The jury at Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial has heard from the comedian without him actually taking the stand.

Bill Cosby, arrives with supporters, from left, Joe Torry and Lewis Dix, for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Prosecutors on Thursday read into the record his decade-old testimony about what he said were several sexual encounters with Andrea Constand that culminated in him giving her pills and then reaching into her pants.

Cosby said she did not resist; Constand says the pills left her paralyzed, unable even to tell him to stop.

A portion of the testimony was read aloud by a detective Thursday, with more expected Friday, including Cosby talking about giving quaaludes and alcohol to women he wanted to have sex with.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

___

5:50 p.m.

A detective is on the stand in Bill Cosby's sex assault trial, reading excerpts from a deposition he gave about his relationship with the accuser.

Jurors are riveted and taking notes as they hear Cosby say he was romantically interested in Constand but never told her so.

He says he instead tried to test the waters by touching her body, moving his hand "into the area that is somewhere between permission and rejection."

Cosby also says in the deposition he gave Constand three blue pills to help her relax and get some sleep. She says she was drugged and molested.

Detective James Reape says prosecutors in suburban Philadelphia reopened Constand's police complaint over the encounter in July 2015, a week after a judge unsealed his deposition excerpts on a motion from The Associated Press.

___

3:05 p.m.

Bill Cosby's lawyers are seizing on a pair of phone calls his chief accuser made to him on Valentine's Day, just weeks after she says he drugged and violated her at his suburban Philadelphia home.

In court Thursday, Cosby's lawyers tried to show that Constand continued to have contact with Cosby and was in a romantic relationship with him.

Constand previously testified she simply was returning Cosby's messages. She has said she felt compelled to do so because she was director of women's basketball operations at Temple University and he was a powerful trustee there.

Constand has said the calls pertained only to Temple women's basketball and stopped once she left the university at the end of March 2004.

Evidence presented Thursday shows the team had a game on Feb. 14, 2004. Phone records presented also showed Constand called the team's coach between calls to Cosby.

___

12:30 p.m.

Jurors at Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial have heard from a police interview in which the entertainer admits fondling a woman's breasts and genitals after giving her pills at his suburban Philadelphia home.

A transcript of the January 2005 interview has been read into the court record during testimony Thursday.

In the interview, Cosby says Andrea Constand showed no ill effects from the one-and-a-half Benadryl pills he gave her to help her relax, and that she never objected to his behavior.

Constand testified Tuesday that she hadn't given Cosby permission to touch her and that the pills had left her paralyzed and unable to fight him off during the January 2004 encounter.

Cosby told investigators he had a social and romantic relationship with Constand and that they'd engaged in petting-type behavior with her before, but never intercourse.

___

12:20 p.m.

A former neighbor of Bill Cosby's chief accuser says she became distant and withdrawn in the months after she says the entertainer drugged and violated her at his suburban Philadelphia home.

Purna Rodman Conare testified on Thursday at Cosby's sexual assault trial.

He says accuser Andrea Constand's open, easygoing personality changed drastically in early 2004, and that her March 2004 departure from her job with Temple University's women's basketball team seemed abrupt.

Constand says Cosby assaulted her in January 2004 after giving her three blue pills he said were an herbal remedy to help her relax.

Rodman Conare, who now runs a charity in New Jersey, lived in the same Philadelphia condominium complex as Constand in the early 2000s. He says he saw himself as an older brother or father-type figure for Constand and that they're still friends. He says he wasn't aware of the alleged assault at the time.

Constand didn't go to police until January 2005. A police detective who testified Thursday says investigators interviewed Rodman Conare and other neighbors after Constand came forward, but one woman in the building lobby refused.

Cheltenham Township Sgt. Richard Schaffer says that woman told investigators, "Temple University told her not to speak to police."

Temple didn't respond to a request for comment.

___

8:50 a.m.

Bill Cosby has arrived at a courthouse in suburban Philadelphia for the fourth day of his sexual assault trial.

The 79-year-old actor was accompanied Thursday by fellow actors and comedians Joe Torry and Lewis Dix. On Wednesday, actress Sheila Frazier and her hairstylist husband, John Atchison, arrived with Cosby. Earlier in the week, Cosby was supported by Keshia Knight-Pulliam, who played the youngest daughter, Rudy, on "The Cosby Show."

The bulk of Wednesday's session was taken up by the defense's cross-examination of primary accuser Andrea Constand. She says Cosby fondled her breasts and genitals after drugging her at his suburban Philadelphia home in January 2004.

Cosby's lawyers scoured Constand's police statements for inconsistencies and her phone records for evidence she'd continued to interact with him.

Constand's mother, Gianna, also testified.

___

12:40 a.m.

A jury that heard seven hours of testimony from a woman who says Bill Cosby drugged and assaulted her may soon hear from Cosby himself - even if he doesn't take the stand.

Prosecutors are expected to show jurors the candid statements he made about giving accuser Andrea Constand three unmarked pills in 2004 before engaging in sex acts with her.

The 79-year-old Cosby answered questions for four days about Constand and other accusers in the deposition he gave in her 2005 lawsuit. Cosby was arrested after it became public in 2015. He says he had a romantic relationship with Constand.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

Jurors are expected to get the case next week.

___

For more on Cosby, including trial updates, historical photos, videos and an audio series exploring the case, visit: www.apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial

Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Andrea Constand arrives during Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Wednesday, June 7, 2017. Cosby is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004 (Mark Makela/Pool Photo via AP)

Bill Cosby, center, with supporter Joe Torry, left, and publicist Andrew Wyatt, right, arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Pool Photo via AP)

Bill Cosby's defense attorney Brian McMonagle arrives for Cosby's sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Pool Photo via AP)

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele arrives to the courtroom for Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Pool Photo via AP)

Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Pool Photo via AP)
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel says seven Arabs were arrested over a plot to kill army officers for Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers to avenge the killing of one its members.

The Shin Bet security service said Thursday one of the suspects was asked to avenge Mazen Faqha, a senior Hamas figure, killed in March.

Hamas blamed Israel for his killing and last month put to death three Palestinians it said were involved after a week-long trial.

Israel sentenced Faqha to nine terms of life imprisonment for directing suicide bombing attacks. He was freed along with more than 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier in 2011.

Arabs in Israel enjoy full rights but face unfair treatment in some areas. Many identify with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
SHANGHAI (AP) - Ivanka Trump's fashion brand sought to distance itself from a Chinese manufacturer that has come under scrutiny after activists investigating labor conditions there were detained, saying the company last made its products three months ago.

In a statement released Wednesday, the brand's president, Abigail Klem, said Ivanka Trump shoes, which are made by licensing partner Mark Fisher, have not been produced since March at the Huajian Group factory where alleged labor abuses occurred. She added "our licensee works with many footwear production factories and all factories are required to operate within strict social compliance regulations."

But it is unclear whether that was really the end of the relationship.

In this Tuesday, June 6, 2017, photo, Chinese, American, and other international flags fly as women walk past a Huajian Group shoe factory, the one time shoe maker for the Ivanka Trump brand, in Ganzhou in southern China's Jiangxi Province. With Beijing's sweeping crackdown on human-rights lawyers and labor activists, many of their extended families are left with no source of income. Even beyond the financial suffering, the government has many ways of making life miserable for those left behind. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

China Labor Watch, a New York nonprofit, began scrutinizing Ivanka Trump supply chains more than a year ago, according to Li Qiang, the group's executive director. Three China Labor Watch investigators went into Huajian Group factories undercover posing as workers in March, April and May of this year and found Ivanka Trump merchandise inside, Li said.

He said the investigators also found evidence of planned production, namely an April production schedule indicating pending orders for nearly 1,000 pairs of Ivanka Trump shoes due by the end of last month.

Now all three men are in jail, accused of using illegal recording devices to disrupt Huajian's business. The U.S. State Department and Amnesty International have spoken out against the arrests. So far, Ivanka Trump and her brand have not.

China Labor Watch laid out its initial allegations in an April letter to Ivanka Trump. It said workers regularly put in more than 15 hours a day, with just two days off a month. It said most were paid by the piece, taking home just $363 a month for 300 hours of work, and that managers verbally abuse workers.

"China Labor Watch expects you, as an assistant to the president and an advocate for women's rights, to urge your brand's supplier factories to improve their conditions," Li wrote in the letter. "Your words and deeds can make a difference in these factory workers' lives."

The Huajian Group says the undercover activists were out to steal trade secrets and denies the allegations of poor working conditions.

Some argue that the arrest of independent monitors threatens to hamper the ability of global companies to adequately monitor their Chinese suppliers. China has rebuffed the State Department's request to release the activists, saying the men will be dealt with under China's own sovereign laws.

China has swept up hundreds of human rights lawyers and labor activists in recent years and has scrutinized groups with foreign ties, like China Labor Watch, much more closely.

Alicia Edwards, a State Department spokeswoman, said this week that the U.S. is concerned by "the pattern of arrests and detentions." Labor activists, she added, are instrumental in helping American companies understand conditions in their supply chains and holding Chinese manufacturers accountable under Chinese law.

___

Associated Press researcher Fu Ting in Shanghai contributed.
Nancy Schurr, assistant professor of History at Chattanooga State Community College has been selected to serve as a member of the 2017/2018 DPLA (Digital Public Library of America) Education Advisory Committee. The Education Advisory Committee helps assemble and examine primary source sets for education users and plan education projects. Applicants are selected from a highly qualified pool and come from a vast array of disciplines across the United States, officials said. Dr. Schurr was one of seven new members to be selected to be on the Education Advisory Committee.



I am thrilled to be a part of DPLA, where I will be working with other educators to bring more primary sources into classrooms around the country, says Dr. Schurr.



Dr. Schurr has taught history for 15 years. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 2004. Between the years of 2010-2014 she was scholar instructor for the Teaching American History (TAH) grant where she taught public school history teachers how to teach.



In the past, Dr. Schurr has presented numerous lectures for Teaching with Primary Sources Program, a teaching program sponsored by Library of Congress. She is a member of the Tennessee Council for History Education Board of Directors where she acts as the academic historian for East Tennessee.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - A Kenyan court has acquitted a British national charged with the murder of his Kenyan girlfriend.

Justice Hedwig Ong'udi said Thursday the prosecution had failed to prove the charges and freed 43-year-old Carl Gary Singleton.

The 22-year-old Peris Agumbi died from diabetes-related complications soon after she reported to police that Singleton had assaulted her in November 2014. The prosecution attempted to show that Singleton was responsible for her death by denying her medicine after the alleged assault by flushing it down the toilet.

The two met on Facebook two years before her death, and Singleton flew to Kenya to spend time with her.
KENEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) - Former first lady Barbara Bush is celebrating her 92nd birthday on the Maine coast.

She and former President George H.W. Bush are planning a low-key day Thursday in Kennebunkport, where they spend their summers. A family spokesman says several family members were with them.

Her husband, the nation's 41st president, also is celebrating a birthday soon. George H.W. Bush turns 93 on Monday.

FILE- In this March 8, 2017, file photo, former President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush attend an awards ceremony hosted by Congregation Beth Israel after the Mensch International Foundation presented its annual Mensch Award to the former president in Houston. The former first lady Barbara Bush is celebrating her 92nd birthday on Thursday, June 8, 2017, on the Maine coast. (Steve Gonzales/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

The Bushes spend most of the year in Houston, but return each summer to their home on Maine's rocky coast.
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - A Swedish tourist has been arrested in Bulgaria after being accused of kicking a hotel maid in the head.

Surveillance camera footage taken June 3 shows him talking to the maid before she bends down to clean the floor. It then shows him kicking her.

Local media report that the 65-year-old woman was knocked unconscious and received injuries to her jaw.

The man was arrested and released but detained again after a public outcry. A district court on Thursday ruled that he should remain in jail until trial.

He is charged with assault and hooliganism and faces up to three years' imprisonment if found guilty in the incident at the Black Sea resort Sunny Beach.

"We cannot allow behavior that humiliates Bulgarian citizens," chief prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov told reporters.
TIRANA, Albania (AP) - Edward Lear, the English artist now known mainly for "The Owl and the Pussy-cat" and other literary nonsense, has been selected by Albanian authorities to promote tourism along the ancient Via Egnatia linking East to West.

The National Coastline Agency on Thursday opened an exhibition of sketches made by Lear during an 1848 visit to Albania.

Agency head Auron Tare said they were seeking to revitalize the Via Egnatia, constructed by the Romans in the 2nd century B.C. The ancient route crosses territory that is now part of Albania, Macedonia, Greece and European Turkey.

CORRECTS THE LEAR QUOTE In this photo provided by Albania's National Coastline Agency shows a sketch drawn from Edward Lear, the English artist known mainly for "The owl and the pussy-cat" and other literary nonsense, put at an exhibition in the Tirana. The National Coastline Agency on Thursday, June 8, 2017 opened an exhibition of Lear's sketches made in 1848 during his first trip to Albania. (National Coastline Agency via AP)

"Lear was the last of the big names to travel along the Via Egnatia to see the influence of Albania dating back to ancient times," said Tare.

Lear's sketches are preserved at Harvard University's Houghton Library of rare works.

They depict scenes Lear witnessed in towns such as Manastir and Ohrid in Macedonia, or Elbasan and Tirana, 72 years before it became Albania's capital.

They also show central and eastern Albania's rugged mountains and form an important record of folk costumes worn at the time in Albania.

Abaz Hado, a painter and art manager, said Lear's works are of "documentary and artistic value, giving views of the period that have since been transformed or no longer exist. From an artistic point of view, they present clear lines and accurate depictions of the 19th-century way of life."

Promoting tourism from the coastline to the mountains has been a top priority of post-communist Albania's governments.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - Germany and Argentina have agreed on fostering multilateral trade and protecting the environment from climate change, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday during a visit to the South American country.

Merkel is visiting Latin America through a series of trips ahead of July's G-20 summit in Germany. The chancellor has criticized the U.S. protectionist stance and called President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate pact "extremely regrettable."

In a press conference with President Mauricio Macri, Merkel said both nations want to be part of an "interconnected world" and are committed to defending the Paris accord.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri meet at the government house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is on a official visit to Argentina.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

"No one is alone in this world - no individual and no country - can solve all the problems alone," Merkel said. "We must all work together and we both advocate ... a free, open world in which we want to shape globalization in a humane way."

Merkel praised Argentina's potential for the development of renewable resources and said Germany could use its experience to help develop them. She also said the European Union should commit to reaching a trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries.

Last year, Germany ranked as Argentina's fourth-biggest trade partner after Brazil, China and the U.S. Merkel noted that her visit to Argentina comes after Macri helped Argentina end a legal dispute that returned it to international credit markets after nearly 15 years.

Argentina lost the World Cup soccer final to Germany in Brazil 2014. Macri, a former businessman and president of the popular Boca Juniors soccer club, said he hopes both nations meet again at the World Cup final in Russia 2018 "and I hope this time Argentina wins." Merkel chuckled and replied that so far they had agreed on everything, but not that.

The German leader also acknowledged Latin America's largest Jewish community, recalling the "terrible attacks" on the Israel Embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in the 1990s. She said Argentina offered a new home to many Jews fleeing the Nazis. Merkel visited a synagogue and said afterward that its organ, recently restored with German financing, symbolizes a bridge between the two countries.

__

Associated Press writers Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stands during the national anthems, at a ceremony to pay homage to Argentina's national hero General Jose de San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is visiting Argentina as part of a series of trips ahead of July's G-20 summit in Germany. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and Argentina's President Mauricio Macri arrive at the government house in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is on a official visit to Argentina.(AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

CORRECTS FROM FOREIGN MINISTER TO DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER PEDRO VILLAGRA DELGADO - Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Pedro Villagra DelgadoGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, walks with Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, right, and Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Pedro Villagra Delgado towards the monument of Argentina's national hero General Jose de San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is visiting Argentina as part of a series of trips ahead of July's G-20 summit in Germany. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

CORRECTS FROM FOREIGN MINISTER TO DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER PEDRO VILLAGRA DELGADO - German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, stands for the national anthems during a ceremony to pay homage to Argentine independence hero General Jose de San Martin in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Also in the photo, Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, left, and Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Pedro Villagra Delgado. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a visit to the Templo Libertad synagogue in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is on a two-day trip to Argentina. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a visit to the Templo Libertad synagogue in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is on a two-day trip to Argentina. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, talks to Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta after receiving the keys to the city in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Merkel is visiting Argentina as part of a series of trips ahead of July's G-20 summit in Germany. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A website that touts itself as the world's largest source of information about charities has added a new feature: a warning label on tax-exempt nonprofits accused of spreading hate.

GuideStar, a self-described "neutral" repository for data on more than 2 million charities, recently flagged 46 nonprofits for being labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A banner atop each nonprofit's GuideStar profile includes the law center's logo and a link to its home page.

GuideStar's president and CEO, Jacob Harold, said the new feature reflects a "broader shift in how we imagine our role in the (nonprofit) field." Adding new data sources is part of that shift, but Harold also framed the warning labels as a response to the recent rise in "hateful rhetoric" in the U.S.

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2016 file photo, Richard Spencer, who leads a movement that mixes racism, white nationalism and populism, speaks at the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas. GuideStar, a website that touts itself as the world's largest source of information about charities has added a new feature: a warning label on tax-exempt nonprofits accused of spreading hate. GuideStar, a self-described "neutral" repository for data on more than 2 million charities, recently flagged 46 nonprofits, including Spencer's Virginia-based National Policy Institute, for being labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

"It's unique in that it's highly politicized in a highly politicized moment in history," he said.

Several leaders of flagged groups said they will contact GuideStar and demand the removal of the banners from their profiles. Some of the groups have accused the Alabama-based law center of using its hate group label to smear organizations that don't share its ideology by lumping them in with overtly hateful groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan.

"This is defamation. GuideStar is an accomplice to this defamation now," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

One of the red-flagged groups is a modestly funded nonprofit operated by white nationalist Richard Spencer, who popularized the term "alt-right" to describe a fringe movement blending racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigration views. The list also includes several organizations with multimillion-dollar budgets, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.

Harold said GuideStar relied on the law center's list and didn't conduct its own analysis of whether a nonprofit deserves to be labeled a hate group.

"But we are making a judgment to trust that third party," he said. "We feel that's quite defensible."

However, Harold said the site is reevaluating its "design choice" to prominently feature the warning label atop each group's profile page.

"It conveys a degree of certainty that doesn't reflect our own certainty," he said.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said GuideStar is damaging its reputation as "neutral arbiters of information."

"It's a breach of their obligation for impartiality, and they ought to take it down," he said.

The warning labels say GuideStar believes the law center's analysis of hate groups is "strong enough to share" despite disagreement over some of its choices.

"We leave it to you to come to your own conclusions," it states.

Tax experts doubt the groups' donors will be scared off by the banners on GuideStar, which is primarily known for keeping a massive database of IRS tax returns for nonprofits.

"My guess is if you're a donor to the American Family Association, whatever the SPLC says about the organization is not going to make a difference. You're either in or out," said Marcus Owens, a Washington-based attorney and former IRS official.

GuideStar's profile on Richard Spencer's Virginia-based National Policy Institute also notes that the IRS automatically revoked its tax-exempt status for failing to file tax returns for three consecutive years. Spencer said he isn't surprised by GuideStar's use of the SPLC warning label but called it "completely unfair."

"The SPLC itself is a highly politically charged organization," he said. "The very fact that they're granting authority to the SPLC as a neutral observer is not really credible."

SPLC spokeswoman Wendy Via said the law center thoroughly analyzes and researches groups before including them on its list.

"Hate comes in a lot of different forms," Via said.

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This story has been edited to correct the style of the company's name: GuideStar.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - The Latest on the trial of a Minnesota police officer in the fatal shooting of motorist Philando Castile (all times local):

4:45 p.m.

A use-of-force expert has testified that a Minnesota police officer was right to use deadly force in the fatal shooting last July of a black motorist who had informed him he was carrying a gun.

FILE - In this May 30, 2017, file photo, St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez stands outside the Ramsey County Courthouse while waiting for a ride in St. Paul, Minn. Opening statements are expected to begin Monday, June 5, 2017, in the trial for officer Yanez, who is charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of Philando Castile during a traffic stop in the St. Paul suburb of Falcon Heights in July 2015. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP, File)

Joseph Dutton testified Thursday for the defense. Dutton is convinced that Officer Jeronimo Yanez saw a gun before he shot Philando Castile during a traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb.

Prosecutors argue Yanez acted unreasonably in shooting Castile. Yanez is charged with manslaughter.

Dutton was a police officer for 31 years and now teaches classes on use of force. He says he reviewed videos and police reports. He says he's convinced by Yanez telling investigators he saw Castile's hand form a C-shaped grip of the sort that would be used to grab a thick-gripped pistol.

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3 p.m.

A toxicology expert says he believes a black motorist who was shot to death during a traffic stop in Minnesota was under the influence of marijuana.

Glenn Hardin, a former supervisor of Minnesota's state toxicology lab, testified Thursday as a witness for Officer Jeronimo Yanez. Yanez is charged with manslaughter in the death of 32-year-old Philando Castile last July in a St. Paul suburb.

Defense attorneys have argued Castile was stoned at the time of the shooting, which happened in the seconds after he informed Yanez that he was carrying a gun. Hardin said he examined autopsy reports showing Castile's blood levels of THC, the substance in marijuana that gives a high.

Prosecutor Jeff Paulsen attacked Hardin's testimony by citing studies he said show there's no way to determine marijuana intoxication from blood samples.

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10:55 a.m.

A Minnesota police chief is testifying in the manslaughter trial of his officer in the shooting death of a black motorist.

Chief Jon Mangseth was one of the first witnesses as the defense began its case at the trial of St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez. Yanez is charged in the death of 32-year-old Philando Castile during a traffic stop last July in a St. Paul suburb.

Yanez shot Castile five times barely a minute after he approached the car and Castile informed the officer that he was carrying a handgun. Key issues are where Castile's gun was and whether Yanez saw it.

Attorney Paul Engh asked the chief whether it would be proper to shoot a person who had his hand on a gun and refused commands.

Mangseth said such a situation would be "very concerning" and said he would expect "action to be taken."

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12:10 a.m.

Prosecutors may wrap up their case Thursday against a Minnesota police officer charged with manslaughter in the death of a black motorist.

Officer Jeronimo Yanez is accused in the July death of 32-year-old Philando Castile, an elementary school cafeteria worker, during a traffic stop in a St. Paul suburb.

Castile was licensed to carry a handgun and told Yanez he had one when the officer approached his car. Prosecutors say the officer acted unreasonably in shooting Castile.

Yanez's attorneys argue that his actions were reasonable in the presence of a gun. The officer is expected to testify when the defense presents its case.

Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of Philando Castile, who live streamed his shooting on Facebook, arrives in court to resume her turn on the witness stand during the trial of police officer Jeronimo Yanez, Tuesday, June 6, 2017, at the Ramsey County Courthouse in St. Paul, Minn. Yanez is charged in the July 6 death of Castile, a 32-year-old elementary school cafeteria worker, in a St. Paul suburb. (David Joles/Star Tribune via AP)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura says he hasn't been able to find work since his highly-publicized defamation lawsuit against the estate of "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, so he will work for Russian TV with a new commentary show.

Ventura told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has personal assurances from Russian President Vladimir Putin that "The World According to Jesse" won't be censored by the government-funded RT network.

Ventura, 65, lost his health insurance with the Screen Actors Guild union last year because he wasn't doing enough work in the industry. The former governor said finding work has been a challenge because of the publicity generated by his lawsuit against Kyle's estate.

FILE - In this Oct. 20, 2015, file photo, former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler Jesse Ventura talks to reporters outside the federal building in St. Paul, Minn. Ventura has a new commentary show on Russian state television called "The World According to Jesse." It's expected to being airing soon on RT America, the Washington arm of the international network RT. (Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via AP, File)

"I can't get a job in the U.S. No one will touch me," Ventura said. "My United States union throws me in the dirt and who comes to the rescue? Russia."

RT has provided the health insurance he lost with the actors guild, the Star Tribune first reported. Ventura said he signed a contract last fall for 32 shows, but hasn't yet filmed an episode, which he'll do in Minnesota. The first installment was to air in the next month or so, he added.

Ventura's 2015 show "Off the Grid" was produced by Ora TV, the on-demand network launched by TV host Larry King, and was carried by RT America, the U.S. channel of the Moscow, Russia-based RT network.

A federal jury in 2014 awarded Ventura $1.8 million in his lawsuit against his fellow Navy SEAL, Chris Kyle, who Ventura sais defamed him by alleging he made derogatory remarks about the special operations force. The jury award was overturned by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2016.

The subject matter in Ventura's new show will be broad based.

"It'll be my viewpoint on what's happening around the world," Ventura said. "I want to do it. But, in some ways I was forced to do it."

Ventura served as Minnesota governor from 1999 to 2003 as a member of the Reform Party.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts high school senior who plans to study journalism in college to "elevate us to a more well-informed and conscientious society" has received the 2017 Daniel Pearl Berkshire Scholarship.

Carli Scolforo is scheduled to graduate from Pittsfield's Taconic High School on Sunday and will attend Siena College in New York.

The $1,000 scholarship honors the former Wall Street Journal writer who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in January 2002 while researching a story on Islamic extremism.

It was established by The Berkshire Eagle and the North Adams Transcript, the Massachusetts newspapers where Pearl started his career. It is awarded to a student planning to major in journalism or music, Pearl's two passions.

Scolforo is a member of the National Honor Society, ran track and cross country, and participated in dance and theater.
Erlanger Health System hosted the Southern Surgeons Travel Club with a series of lectures. Leaders from within the medical community presented their experiences, innovative technology, and procedures to surgeons from throughout the region.As a teaching facility and affiliate of University of Tennessee College of Medicine, representatives from Erlanger and UTCOM discussed ways in which medical professionals can facilitate more effective treatment to patients due to historical practices and new technology.Topics of discussion ranged from management of rib fractures to surgery during the civil war.Dr. L. Richard Sprouse II, endovascular surgeon and UTCOM professor, spoke about his success with office-based minimally invasive endovascular procedures. As one of the first surgeons in the region to perform office-based endovascular procedures, Dr. Sprouse is considered a medical pioneer. Dr. Sprouse said that in addition to providing the same medical care that is offered in a traditional facility-based center, in-office procedures offer patients continuity of care, reduced costs, and more time-effective treatment options when compared to a traditional surgical procedure.Our ability to work with Erlanger allows us bring contemporary procedures and technology to patients, said Dr. Sprouse. Most people dont realize Erlanger vascular procedures are world-class, there is truly no reason to go anywhere else.The Southern Surgeons Travel Club travels to different hospitals and universities for their annual meetings. The meetings consist of a scientific day and a few days of sightseeing in the area all while building relationships within the community.
LENEXA, Kan. (AP) - The Latest on Kansas Trump Adviser-Governor (all times local):

11:55 a.m.

Kansas Democratic Party Chairman John Gibson says the Republican Party would continue to endorse "the failure of Sam Brownback" if Kris Kobach becomes the party's next nominee for governor.

Kobach, the current Kansas Secretary of State, announced Thursday that he plans to run to replace Brownback.

Gibson said in a statement that the Democratic Party's responsibility is to elect a governor who is "grounded in reality and represents the interests of all Kansans."

He says Democrats look forward to a vigorous debate on the state's direction with whoever Republicans choose as their candidate.

Kobach is leading President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud and has led national efforts to enact tough voter identification laws.

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11:30 a.m.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is helping lead President Donald Trump's commission on election fraud, says he is running for governor.

The Republican was announcing his 2018 bid Thursday in Lenexa, Kansas.

Kobach has helped draft laws and ordinances in several states aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration, and he has a national reputation for championing tough voter identification laws. He has been advising Trump since before the election.

Kobach's announcement comes just two days after Kansas legislators enacted a law rolling back income tax cuts championed by current Republican Gov. Sam Brownback. Lawmakers did so by overriding Brownback's veto. Kobach strongly criticized the move.

Kobach is also a strong abortion opponent and gun-rights advocate.

The 51-year-old has been Kansas' secretary of state since 2011.
NEW YORK (AP) - Verizon has a simple goal in buying Yahoo: It wants to challenge Google and Facebook in the huge and lucrative field of digital advertising. But Verizon faces its own challenge in doing so, given that it will be competing against a slew of other companies also looking to break in.

Verizon wants to become a strong third choice for advertisers by adding Yahoo's popular sites and billion users worldwide to its own media business, which includes AOL and Verizon's home-grown go90 video service. It can place ads on those sites, and can also combine data from visitors to those sites with AOL's ad technologies and sales teams, and possibly also personal data from Verizon mobile customers such as location and other information, in order to better target ads at individuals.

Verizon has programs that use mobile-customer data for targeted ads and may combine that with data gathered by AOL and Yahoo. Verizon says customers can choose whether to participate.

FILE - This Monday, July 25, 2016, file photo shows Yahoo and Verizon Wireless logos on a laptop, in North Andover, Mass. Verizon is buying Yahoo in hopes of challenging Google and Facebook in the digital advertising market by combining ad technologies and user profiles from Yahoo and the AOL business it already owns. But Google and Facebook are so much better at this that it'll be tough for Verizon to do more than tread water. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola, File)

Yahoo's shareholders on Thursday approved the $4.5 billion sale of its key businesses to Verizon. The deal is expected to close by Tuesday. The combination of AOL and Yahoo will cut 15 percent of its 14,000-person workforce, or about 2,100 jobs, said a person familiar with the matter who requested not to be identified discussing details of the cuts.

Yahoo and AOL are "positioned to do better together than apart," Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said.

But he is setting the bar low. While Verizon talks of growth from the deal, Wieser said "not declining would be a success. Five years from now, if the combined entity were the same size as it is today, I would consider that to be successful."

THE VISION

Verizon sees online ads - particularly targeted ads - as a potential new source of growth as the wireless industry fights for U.S. users with lower prices and other discounts. Verizon has "essentially turned into a no-growth business," said CFRA Research's Angelo Zino. The ad business would be a "big deal" for Verizon if it goes well, he said.

Tim Armstrong, the former Google executive who joined AOL as CEO in 2009, has for years wanted to combine AOL with the long-declining Yahoo. Although AOL has big-name properties such as HuffPost and Engadget, it hasn't been as big of an online destination as Yahoo's mail, finance, sports and other properties.

The combined business, to be called Oath, will expand its news, sports, entertainment, finance and lifestyle coverage. Like everyone else, Oath will focus on video and mobile, where consumers increasingly spend their time online.

Armstrong says he wants Oath properties to be a place consumers "come and visit every day" and predicts users growing to 2 billion from 1.3 billion by 2020, with annual revenue of $10 billion to $20 billion from roughly $7 billion today.

Lowell McAdam, CEO of New York-based Verizon, teased last month that this could set the stage for a new streaming video service, competing with the slew of internet-TV services already out there. Verizon already has a free mobile video service, go90, that isn't well known.

ALTERNATIVES TO THE DUOPOLY

Facebook and Google together draw about half the world's spending on digital ads, and in the U.S., they're even more dominant. They're also where the majority of mobile-ad dollars go, eMarketer data show.

The sway Facebook and Google hold for advertisers isn't expected to change in the next few years. They had a head start on mobile. Yahoo has poured billions into acquisitions that have helped Yahoo make some leeway in mobile - but not enough. It's gotten better at doing mobile ads, but it has had no major hit apps.

Still, AOL and Yahoo together provide a much-smaller No. 3 in the U.S. for advertisers looking to reach lots of people. But even if Verizon's goal is to just be happy at No. 3, there are several much smaller players that also draw advertisers.

Snapchat is a niche hit with young people. Amazon has an under-the-radar ad business that supports its e-commerce dominance. Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, is expected to grow its piece of the ad pie; Microsoft will be just behind the combined AOL-Yahoo in the U.S. once the deal closes. Twitter, although it's sorting out its ad business, is a significant smaller player. Globally, several Chinese companies also rake in ad dollars.

And the combined company will also have to compete for people's attention, and not just with other services that rely on ad dollars to survive. Popular sites like Amazon or Netflix also suck up time spent online, said eMarketer analyst Martin Utreras.

"They've acquired these two dinosaurs and you kind of wonder, can they be successful?" Zino said. That will depend on Verizon being able to convince marketers that they know more about consumers than anyone else, he said.

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AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this story.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Violinist and restaurant owner Henry Helyong Lee, whose now shuttered Korean restaurant in New Orleans was known for operatic waiters and performances by Lee and other musicians, is dead at age 76.

Lee died Wednesday of heart failure. A memorial service is planned at 5 p.m. Saturday at Jacob Schoen and Son , funeral director Kevin Hasson said Thursday.

For 28 years, Lee ran New Orleans' first Korean restaurant, called Genghis Khan, which closed in 2004.

Dressed in his concert tuxedo, Lee would often switch roles from food provider to violinist, delighting diners with classical pieces.

Or "another performer would sit down at the piano and serenade the dining room for awhile, with a few duets with Henry Lee sprinkled in for contrast," restaurant critic Tom Fitzmorris wrote in a 2011 remembrance on his website, The New Orleans Menu. "Or it might be a guitarist or a flautist or some other deft local musician. ... And now you'd hear voices raised in song. ... A few diners with trained voices would sometimes join in."

"Which was better: the food or the music? Both were first-class," Fitzmorris wrote.

Lee was born Oct. 9, 1940, in Chun Ju, South Korea and grew up in Seoul, Hasson said.

According to Lee's website , he graduated in music performance from Seoul National University and was first violinist for KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul before being invited to study in the United States.

He was 25 when he came to the United States in 1965.

After graduate studies in performance and conducting at Louisiana State University, he played for 20 years with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and its predecessor.

Lee moved to Houston after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but continued to visit New Orleans and to perform into his 70s, Fitzmorris wrote.
APPLETON, Wis. (AP) - Prosecutors say there's no merit to a request for a new trial for a Wisconsin man who was the subject of the hit Netflix series "Making a Murderer."

Steven Avery's attorney filed a nearly 1,300-page court document Wednesday asking for a new trial, arguing Avery's conviction was based on planted evidence and false testimony.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice later released a statement saying it was confident Avery's motion would be rejected.

FILE - In this March 13, 2007 file photo, Steven Avery listens to testimony in the courtroom at the Calumet County Courthouse in Chilton, Wis. A lawyer is asking for a new trial for Avery, a Wisconsin man convicted in a case profiled in the "Making a Murderer" Netflix series. Attorney Kathleen Zellner filed a document Wednesday, June 7, 2017, claiming Avery's conviction was based on planted evidence and false testimony. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool, File)

Avery was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in the 2005 death of photographer Teresa Halbach in northern Wisconsin.

Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, told detectives he helped his uncle rape and kill Halbach in the Avery family's salvage yard. A judge overturned Dassey's conviction in August. State attorneys are appealing that decision.
HONOLULU (AP) - A magnitude-5.3 earthquake shook Hawaii's Big Island early Thursday, but no damage was reported.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was centered about 11 miles (18 kilometers) southeast of Volcano town on the state's southernmost island at a depth of 5 miles (8 kilometers.) That's on the south flank of Kilauea volcano, which has been erupting continuously since 1983.

The scientist in charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Christina Neal, said the earthquake didn't appear to affect Kilauea's eruptions.

Marie Onouye, a part owner of the Volcano Store, said she felt one large jolt. She said the temblor didn't cause anything to fall to the ground and she didn't see any damage.

The south flank of the Kilauea volcano has had 29 earthquakes measuring magnitude-4 or higher over the last 25 years, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said in a statement.

Most have been caused by the settling of lava built up over time and the abrupt movement of the south flank over the earth's crust as magma pushes into Kilauea's East Rift Zone.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says no tsunami was expected as a result of the earthquake.
NEW YORK (AP) - Losing the 2016 presidential election was "pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to," Hillary Clinton told graduates of Medgar Evers College on Thursday.

But Clinton said that setback "pales in comparison" to the heartbreak endured by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain black civil rights leader for whom the Brooklyn college is named.

Clinton urged the graduates to follow the example of Evers, who was assassinated in 1963, and of Evers-Williams, who has continued to fight for civil rights for more than 50 years.

Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Dr. Rudolph Crew, president of Medgar Evers College, arrive for commencement at Barclay's Center, in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

"Never let anyone silence your voice," Clinton said. "Medgar Evers faced constant threats because of his work. His house was firebombed by white supremacists. But he refused to back down."

Clinton, a Democrat who served as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, did not mention Republican President Donald Trump by name but criticized his policies including the travel ban affecting citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.

She noted that graduate Yahya Mused worked in a deli across the street from Medgar Evers College after arriving in New York from Yemen, one of the countries targeted by the travel ban.

"He made sandwiches for students and professors. And today he's graduating with honors," Clinton said. "I'm certainly glad he wasn't banned from America."

Clinton spoke as former FBI director James Comey was telling Senate members in sworn testimony that Trump had fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia's role in the election. Clinton made no mention of Comey.

Medgar Evers College is part of the public City University of New York system, the largest urban university in the United States.

Clinton said she visited the Medgar Evers campus last year and was asked if she would come back and speak at commencement.

"I said yes," she said. "Now, I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I'm just as happy to be here anyway!"

Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Dr. Rudolph Crew, left, president of Medgar Evers College, say the Pledge of Allegiance during commencement at Barclay's Center, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Hillary Clinton receives her honorary degree from Medgar Evers College presented by James B. Milliken, Chancellor of The City University of New York, at Barclay's Center, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thursday, June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Mike Pence is traveling to Milwaukee on Saturday for a listening session and speech on former President Barack Obama's health care law.

The vice president's office says Pence will meet with business leaders and families in Wisconsin to discuss the "adverse effects" of the law. Pence will be joined by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Pence has been holding Obamacare events as the Senate works on its own version of a health care bill passed by the House. The legislation faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

President Donald Trump has urged the Senate to send him a health care bill and criticized congressional Democrats as "obstructionists."
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - Radiation warning alarms sounded Thursday at a former plutonium production plant in Washington state, prompting a take-cover order that sent about 350 workers seeking cover indoors during the demolition of a plant that for decades had helped make nuclear weapons.

The order was lifted about four hours later after low levels of radiation were detected at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the site of a massive cleanup.

The Energy Department said no injuries were reported, and workers had applied an adhesive product to the contamination to prevent it from spreading from locations on sidewalks and near a vehicle access gate at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

FILE--In this May 9, 2017, file photo, an emergency sign flashes outside the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. Radiation warning alarms sounded about 7 a.m., Thursday, June 8, 2017, outside the Plutonium Finishing Plant, prompting about 350 workers at the Reservation to seek cover indoors. (AP Photo/Manuel Valdes, file)

Workers were continuing to monitor the air for any further contamination. No other details were provided about the incident.

"Air monitoring alarms during demolition are not unexpected," the Energy Department said in a news release, noting the alarms are used to ensure demolition of the plant proceeds safely.

The incident followed the collapse last month of a tunnel at the facility that contained nuclear waste, prompting another evacuation. The Energy Department has said no injuries or contamination was reported as a result of the collapse.

The alarm Thursday rang as crews were removing outdoor equipment at the highly contaminated 580-square-mile (1,502 square kilometer) facility near Richland, Washington.

Hanford made about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal, and now is engaged in cleaning up the huge volume of resulting radioactive waste at the site established by the Manhattan Project during World War II.

The tunnel collapse occurred on May 9 in a 360-foot long (110-meter) rail tunnel built in 1956 from timber, concrete and steel. Radioactive waste was stored inside, and the entrance was sealed in 1965.

The tunnel contains a mixture of radioactive and chemical waste and irradiated equipment, including eight contaminated rail cars.

The ground above the collapse has been entirely covered by a huge tarp and will be filled with a cement-like grout to prevent future problems.

The cleanup at Hanford is expected to last until 2060 and cost $100 billion more than the $19 billion already spent.

In his current spending plan, President Donald Trump has proposed cutting about $120 million from the cleanup budget.
ROME (AP) - Southern club Benevento beat Carpi 1-0 in a playoff Thursday to win promotion into Serie A for the first time in its 88-year history.

Romanian forward George Puscas, who is on loan from Inter Milan, scored in the 32nd minute by redirecting a cross.

The first leg ended 0-0 and Benevento could have won even with another draw, since it finished ahead of Carpi in the standings.

Ferrara-based SPAL and Hellas Verona had already been promoted.

Benevento beat Spezia and Perugia in the previous rounds of the playoffs after finishing the regular season in fifth place.

It's the second consecutive promotion for Benevento, which was playing in the third division last season.

Benevento is located near Naples.
NOTICE: The Hamilton County Registers Office did not publish this data. All information in the Registers Office is public information as set out in T.C.A. 10-7-503. For questions regarding this report, please call Chattanoogan.com at 423 266-2325. GI numbers, listed when street addresses are not available, refer to the location of transactions (book number and page number) in Hamilton County Register Office records.
DALLAS (AP) - Nobody at Southwest told Louis Freeman he would be the first black pilot in the airline's history when he was hired in 1980.

"It never occurred to me," Freeman says, "but when I got here I was the only pilot of color - it didn't take long to figure out."

Freeman went on to become the first black chief pilot - a management job - at a major U.S. airline. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks to her final resting place. The NAACP had asked the airline to put together an African-American crew.

Cristopher Goods, 10, right, offers congratulations to Southwest Airlines captain Louis Freeman before Freeman piloted his last flight for the airline before his retirement in Dallas, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Freeman was the first African-Americansto become a chief pilot at a major U.S. airline and is retiring after a 36-year career that saw big changes in aviation. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Freeman made his last flight as a Southwest Airlines captain on Thursday, a few days before turning 65, the federal retirement age for airline pilots.

As he strode toward the gate at Dallas Love Field, Freeman donned his captain's cap for the last time and reminisced about joining Southwest after six years flying for the Air Force.

On Freeman's first flight as co-pilot, he had a moment of panic when the captain gave him a routine command. The weight of being an airline pilot had suddenly hit him. It went beyond that first flight.

"I put a whole lot of pressure on myself because I had to get it right," Freeman says. "I had to be perfect because I wanted them to hire more of us."

The color barrier in airline cockpits wasn't broken until the mid-1960s. Southwest was less than a decade old when Freeman joined and had just 20 planes and fewer than 200 pilots.

Southwest didn't immediately say how many of its current pilots are black. Nationally, it's 3 percent, according to the Labor Department. Blacks make up 13 percent of the U.S. population.

"It used to be 1 percent. It has increased, but it's been awfully slow," Freeman says. Part of the problem, he says, is the high cost of learning and gaining the required 1,500 hours of flight experience to qualify as a co-pilot for a small regional airline.

Freeman believes that signing bonuses, better pay and help with training costs will address the pilot shortage and help raise the number of black pilots.

Maybe Christopher Goods of Frisco, Texas, will be one of them. As Freeman talked to a reporter at Love Field, the 10-year-old stopped to shake his hand. Freeman chatted briefly with the boy and waved to his parents.

"That kind of thing happens all the time," Freeman said, "because young black kids, they don't see black pilots very often."

Freeman said he never had problems with white pilots, but some passengers seemed surprised to see him.

Particularly if the co-pilot was a woman, Freeman liked to position her where passengers boarding the plane would see her, and he would hang back near the cockpit door.

"They're looking for some older white guy to make sure he's keeping her out of trouble," Freeman said. "When they turned to look, there's big old me standing there, grinning. You should have seen the looks. To me it was a game."

In 1992, Southwest named Freeman its chief pilot in Chicago - the first black to hold that job at any major U.S. airline. It's a management job that meant fewer flights for Freeman, "but I got to use my brain for other stuff."

In 2005, Freeman flew the plane that carried the body of Parks, the black woman who in 1955 refused an order to give up her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger, an act that became a touchstone of the civil rights movement. He took his daughter and son on the trip to impress upon them the importance of Parks' act.

Freeman's son may keep up the family's aviation tradition - he is a flight instructor gaining flight hours until he can apply for an airline job.

___

David Koenig can be reached at http://twitter.com/airlinewriter

Southwest Airlines captain Louis Freeman waves before boarding a jet to fly his last flight for Southwest before his retirement in Dallas, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Freeman was the first African-American to become a chief pilot at a major U.S. airline and is retiring after a 36-year career that saw big changes in aviation. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Southwest Airlines captain Louis Freeman, right, gets a hug from flight attendant Gisela Alvarez before he boards a jet to pilot his last flight for Southwest before his retirement in Dallas, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Freeman was the first African-American to become a chief pilot at a major U.S. airline and is retiring after a 36-year career that saw big changes in aviation. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Southwest Airlines captain Louis Freeman talks on a cell phone as he waits to board a jet to pilot his last flight for Southwest before his retirement in Dallas, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Freeman was the first African-American to become a chief pilot at a major U.S. airline and is retiring after a 36-year career that saw big changes in aviation. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. (AP Photo/LM Otero)

Southwest Airlines captain Louis Freeman, right, gets a hug from flight attendant Gisela Alvarez before he boards a jet fly his last flight for Southwest before his retirement in Dallas, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Freeman was the first African-American to become a chief pilot at a major U.S. airline and is retiring after a 36-year career that saw big changes in aviation. His most memorable flight carried the body of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
WASHINGTON (AP) - For three hours, former FBI Director James Comey leveled an unrelenting attack on the credibility of the president of the United States.

The White House's statements were "lies, plain and simple." Comey took notes on their conversations because he worried the president "might lie" later. After a while, he said, he so distrusted the man running the country that he did not want to be left alone with him.

It was a riveting, televised portrait of President Donald Trump, one unrivaled in recent memory for its potential to undermine a presidency. Comey's message, delivered in meticulous detail, amounted to a challenge to lawmakers, the public and the special counsel now investigating possible links between Trump's campaign and Russia: Whose account do you believe - the nation's former top law enforcement official testifying under oath or a president with a record of skirting the truth on issues big and small?

Formed FBI director James Comey recounts a series of conversations with President Donald Trump as he testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 8, 2017. Comey alleges Trump repeatedly pressed him for his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaign's Russia ties. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The answer to that question ultimately may not impact the outcome of the FBI and congressional Russia probes, and it may not move Republican lawmakers any closer to a dramatic break from their party leader. But it could leave the president in a perilously weak political position not yet five months into his term.

"A president cannot communicate effectively if their trust tank is full of holes and credibility has leaked out all over the political landscape," said Matthew Dowd, who served as chief strategist for President George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

A Gallup poll conducted in April found that just 36 percent of Americans found Trump "honest and trustworthy" - down from 42 percent in February.

The White House and the president's personal lawyer vigorously vouched for Trump's integrity, saying he did not try to get the FBI to end the Michael Flynn investigation and also did not seek a loyalty pledge from Comey. Both were quick to note that Comey validated one Trump claim: that Comey had told him three times that he was not personally the target of the investigation.

"I can definitively say the president is not a liar, and I think it's frankly insulting that question would be asked," spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Comey himself is a controversial figure. He outraged Democrats last year with his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices, including the decision to publicly disclose the potential of new information 10 days before the election. During his final appearance on Capitol Hill as FBI director, he vastly overstated the number of emails that were uncovered late in the campaign, prompting the bureau to correct his testimony.

Still, it was telling that few Republicans who don't work for Trump stepped in to defend the president's version of his contacts with the former FBI director. The toughest questioning of Comey by GOP lawmakers on the Senate intelligence committee focused more on whether the interactions he described amounted to legal trouble for Trump than on whether he was telling the truth about the nine meetings and phone calls he had with the president.

Instead, some supportive GOP lawmakers simply argued that Trump's action were a result of well-meaning inexperience or dedication to his aides.

"I'm frankly proud of him for standing up for someone who was as loyal as Mike Flynn was throughout the campaign," Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., said of Comey's dramatic depiction of an Oval Office meeting in which Trump allegedly said he hoped the FBI would let the Flynn investigation go. Collins spoke after the prepared text of Comey's opening statement was released Wednesday.

House Speaker Paul Ryan also did not dispute Comey's assertions. He vouched for the importance of the FBI's independence, and excused Trump's blurring of that line as missteps by a man who isn't "steeped in the long-running protocols" that govern the relationship between the White House and the law enforcement agency.

"The president's new at this. He's new at government," Ryan told reporters on Capitol Hill as Comey's dramatic testimony unfolded. "He's learning as he goes."

Yet Trump's own track record - as president, a candidate and private citizen - make the questions about the veracity of his own words impossible for the White House to avoid. He memorialized his approach to accuracy in his 1987 book "The Art of the Deal," writing: "People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole."

Trump's shift from real estate mogul and reality TV star to political powerhouse was driven in part by his campaign to spread the lie that President Barack Obama was born outside the United States. He spent his first full day occupying the world's most powerful office inflating the size of the inaugural crowd and demanding that his advisers do the same. Last month, he created a voter fraud commission to investigate "millions of people who voted illegally," despite there being no proof of such fraudulent voting.

The president's abrupt firing of Comey on May 9 - and the White House's bungled handling of the controversial move - has intensified questions about Trump's credibility. At first, the White House cited a harsh memo about Comey's performance from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as the justification, though Trump later said he would have fired Comey regardless of what the Justice Department recommended.

When Comey allies began fighting back with negative stories about Trump in the press, the president issued a startling warning on Twitter: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

The White House has avoided all questions about whether such tapes exist. But Comey confidently asserted that if there are recordings, they will back up his testimony.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE - Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

___

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks to a Faith and Freedom conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) - Australian police on Friday raided homes in Melbourne and took three men into custody as part of their investigation into a siege earlier this week in which a gunman killed an apartment building receptionist and wounded police officers, officials said.

Gunman Yacqub Khayre, 29, was killed by police in Melbourne's suburb of Brighton during the two-hour siege in which he also took a woman hostage.

Three men were taken into custody for questioning and a replica shotgun was seized in the early-morning raids on three homes carried out by more than 150 police and secret service agents, Victoria state Police Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said.

A 32-year-old man had been arrested but not yet charged. A 31-year-old man and his 51-year-old father had been detained for questioning, a police statement said.

The men were suspected of supplying Khayre with the sawed-off shotgun he used in Monday's violence and were not suspected of posing a national security threat, Patton said.

"We do not have any links between them and terrorism," Patton told reporters.

The raids aimed to "ensure there is no continued threat to the Victorian public in regards to terrorism," he added.

Police have called the violence a terrorist act but said there was no evidence Khayre had planned the violence or had accomplices.

Two of the three police officers shot by Khayre remained in hospital on Friday, Patton said. Their injuries were not life-threatening.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the violence.

Khayre, a Somali-born refugee, was acquitted in 2010 of plotting a suicide attack at a Sydney army base a year earlier.

___

This story has been corrected to show Khayre was acquitted in the Sydney case in 2010, not 2005.
Five-time Ballon dOr winner Lionel Messi has reiterated his desire to see out his career with Barcelona.

The 29-year-old, who moved to Spain aged 13 to join Barca, has won eight league titles and four Champions League crowns with the Catalan club, and has no plans to go anywhere else.

Its what I always dreamed and what I always wanted. I would like to finish my career at Barcelona, Messi said in an interview with ESPN, shown on Barcelonas website.

Lionel Messi is Barcelona's best player

Leo #Messi: "I would like to end my career at FCBarcelona"

Full story: https://t.co/hODbvoslCc pic.twitter.com/3G7tOxINn8  FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) June 8, 2017

Messis contract expires next summer, although reports in Spain suggest he is close to agreeing a three-year extension. Barca finished second in LaLiga in the 2016/17 campaign, surrendering their crown to arch rivals Real Madrid, and were knocked out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage by Juventus.

Messi, currently away on international duty with Argentina, added: We would have liked to have achieved more. We play to win titles. We want to be in the Champions League final and to win LaLiga. This year it wasnt to be.

We tried, but it didnt happen. We ended up with the Copa del Rey and we hope next season will be better for us as far as titles go.
Danushka Gunathilaka was only called up as a late replacement but his superb knock helped Sri Lanka keep their Champions Trophy bid alive with a shock seven-wicket win over India.

Gunathilaka may not even have played had it not been for an injury to Chamara Kapugedera but the stand-in became the star, hitting 76 in 72 balls from the top of the order as Sri Lanka cruised past Indias target of 321.

Kusal Mendis also made an excellent 89 and captain Angelo Mathews an unbeaten 52 as Sri Lanka hauled themselves back into contention for qualification to the semi-finals and in doing blew Group B wide open.

Sri Lanka's Kusal Mendis during the ICC Champions Trophy, Group B match at The Oval, London (Nigel French/PA)

India were strong favourites to all-but secure their own progress with a victory here at the Oval but defeat leaves all four teams on two points with one match still to play.

Sri Lanka will face Pakistan on Monday, 24 hours after India go up against South Africa on Sunday.

Earlier, Shikhar Dhawan had scored 125 along with strong contributions from Rohit Sharma (78) and MS Dhoni (63) but few would have predicted Sri Lanka recording their second highest chase in one-day history.

They made a stuttering start when Niroshan Dickwellas leading edge popped up to Ravindra Jadeja at point and after a heavy defeat to South Africa last week, an Indian win looked certain.

Instead, Gunathilaka and Mendis put on a partnership of 159, riding their luck at times, but also with smart and subtle batting that confounded Indias bowlers.

Gunathilaka steered Hardik Pandya for six to bring up his 50 from 47 balls and Mendis followed suit soon after by launching Ravindra Jadeja over the boundary.

In between, Yuvraj Singh had misjudged a high Mendis shot he should have caught and Gunathilaka was fortunate too when a scrambling Rohit let another spill through his fingers.

But just as Sri Lankas hopes were rising their task became more difficult, two run-outs spelling the end for each of their established batsmen.

Neither can we!



Cancel your plans cricket fans, because #CT17 is about to kick it up a gear! 



Saturday: #ENGvAUS

Sunday: #INDvSA https://t.co/Afow9aKelS  ICC (@ICC) June 8, 2017

Gunathilaka called an ambitious second run, only to watch Dhoni divert Kedar Jadhavs pin-point throw on to the stumps and then bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar reacted fast to crack the bails again, this time leaving Mendis sprawled with his face in the turf.

But if India hoped that would spark a change in momentum, they would soon be disappointed as Mathews, returning from a calf injury, and Kusal Perera continued to crank up the pressure.

Perera was forced to retire hurt in the 43rd over after pain in his hamstring but not before adding an unbeaten 47 to the total, with Sri Lanka now needing 51 off 42 balls.

Mathews was also taking treatment between overs but he and Asela Gunaratne (34 not out) showed no signs of weakness.

Gunaratne swept Jasprit Bumrah for six off one knee before Mathews drove down the ground to bring the score level and then nicked a single to seal a stunning win with eight balls to spare.

For Danushka to walk into a game knowing he wasnt even in the 15 until after Chamara got injured is impressive. He had to step in against a very strong opposition and I was very impressed with how he batted. He and Kusal played with a lot of freedom and that set us a platform and made it so much easier for myself and the middle order batters. Aselas little cameo as well really won us the game at the end so it was a fantastic batting effort.

I personally thought we had enough on the board. You have to give credit to the opposition as well. We are not invincible. We are playing against a champion side. These are the top eight teams in the world so there are no guarantees. We have to consolidate and then explode at the end, thats how we play. Were not a side that always plays explosive cricket for the 50 overs.
Chiles Felipe Aguilar carded his best round on the European Tour for 17 months to take a two-shot lead on first day of the Lyoness Open in Austria.

The world number 399s seven-under-par 65  his best effort since the Joburg Open in January 2016 - took him clear of the chasing pack at the Diamond Country Club in Atzenbrugg outside Vienna.

South Africas Jaco van Zyl, Swedens Johan Carlsson and Englands former Walker Cup winner Ashley Chesters are in joint second with two other Englishmen, Graeme Storm and Oliver Wilson, a further shot behind in a tie for fifth with Frances Joel Stalter.

Chile's Felipe Aguilar took a two-shot lead on first day of the Lyoness Open in Austria (Adam Davy/PA)

No-one could match the form of the 42-year-old Aguilar, whose last win came in 2014, on the front nine as he raced to five under after just seven holes and a birdie at the 10th put him in the outright lead only for him to bogey the next.

However, he responded with birdies at 13 and 14 but failed to capitalise on the back-to-back par fives and the par-three last but still had enough to pass clubhouse leaders Zyl and Carlsson, later joined by Chesters.

Van Zyl, still searching for his maiden European Tour victory after five runners-up finishes, carded two birdies on the front nine and three after the turn.

15/18 



The number of greens @jacovanzylgolf hit in regulation during today's opening round.#LyonessOpen pic.twitter.com/CvQlrvgsws  DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) June 8, 2017

A number of players out on the course briefly joined him at the top of the leaderboard but none other than Carlsson of the morning starters could maintain their position.

The Swede had two bogeys and seven birdies, the last at the 18th giving him a share of the lead.

Home favourite and 2012 champion Bernd Wiesberger, who admitted pre-tournament he has eyes on next weeks US Open, suffered from a loss of concentration having taken a share of the early lead.

A run of five birdies in six holes from the 15th, having started on the back nine, was ruined by a lost ball off the tee at the fourth and a double-bogey on the eighth after a poor greenside bunker shot saw the Austrian, one of only two players inn the worlds top 100 in the field, finish two under.

Luiten fared even worse with a one-over 73 which included an eagle, three birdies and a double-bogey.
This General Election campaign has thrown up its fair share of funny moments alongside the political debate.

Here is a summary of the most memorable moments that made us chuckle.

Chancellor Philip Hammond got the cost of HS2 wrong (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

This election campaign will be remembered for senior politicians coming unstuck on their figures. Jeremy Corbyn went on Womans Hour to launch a childcare policy without knowing how much it would cost, while Chancellor Philip Hammond underestimated the cost of HS2 by 20 billion. But the major miscalculation of the campaign came from Diane Abbott, who during a car crash interview with LBC said Labours plan to hire 10,000 extra police officers would cost anywhere between 300,000 and 80 million. Ms Abbott has since stepped down from shadow home secretary duties due to ill health.

Bear takes voting seriously. He likes Corbone's Labowow but Farron's spaniel smelling policy swung it for Lib Dogs.#dogsatpollingstations pic.twitter.com/tVEOaioxvv  Ben Holden (@thatbenholden) June 8, 2017

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron came up with arguably the catchphrase of the campaign when out meeting voters in Cambridge. A video clip captured Mr Farron telling one voter to smell my spaniel, maybe as he fussed over their dog. The Lib Dem leaders pet dog Jasper makes regular appearances on social media, and Mr Farron later tweeted another picture of Jasper, saying: He wants you to know that his family are standing by him at this difficult time.

Prime Minister Theresa May having some chips in Cornwall (Dylan Martinez/PA)

The Prime Minister had what was dubbed an Ed Miliband moment while out campaigning in Cornwall. A series of photos of Mrs May eating takeaway chips captured an array of awkward facial expressions as the Prime Minister munched her way through the meal, evoking memories of Mr Miliband eating a bacon sandwich in the run up to the 2015 election.

The lawnmower story has a happy ending...#VoteLabour2017 pic.twitter.com/zCX4XFXe3x  Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) June 7, 2017

The former Labour leader had a much more low-key campaign this time around, as he went back to campaigning in his constituency rather than attempting to lead his party into Downing Street. Mr Miliband was filmed calling numbers at a bingo night in Doncaster, while the moment he stepped in to mow a constituents lawn was captured on Twitter. This good deed appeared to pay dividends  a visit to the same house later in the campaign appeared to confirm they were voting Labour.

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall (right) and Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood (left) (ITV/PA)

The Ukip leader called Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood Natalie twice in 20 minutes during a leaders debate on ITV. Social media speculated that Mr Nuttall was confusing the Plaid leader for Natalie Bennett, the former leader of the Green Party, or Hollywood actress Natalie Wood. Mr Nuttall later explained: Even during prep that day, I kept calling her Natalie. Everyone was saying to me: Her name is Leanne and I went on to the platform saying: Leanne, Leanne, Leanne, and it just came out wrong.

Mr Corbyn has stepped into the spotlight in this campaign, facing bruising questions about things like his stance on security and terrorism. However, Mr Corbyns cat El Gato has also come into focus at various stages of the election, with questions over how it would fit in among the other felines at Downing Street. Mr Corbyn revealed that El Gato would have no problems settling into Number 10 because of his socialist tenancies, having already made friends with a stray cat that visits the Labour leaders home.

The former Conservative Party leader and work and pensions secretary is not someone you would usually associate with rap star Eminem. But in an unusual appearance on Good Morning Britain, Mr Duncan Smith cited lyrics from Eminems hit Lose Yourself to poke fun at Labours Diane Abbott and her grasp of figures. Its halfway down, and he says he opens his mouth, but the words dont come out, hes choking now, everybodys joking now, and the clocks run out, said Mr Duncan Smith. I thought Diane had been checking that one out, actually.

Boris Johnson is never short of a colourful description (Owen Humphreys/PA)

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is renowned for his turn of phrase, and his description of Mr Corbyn will go down as his most colourful language in this campaign. Lib Dem leader Mr Farron gave Mr Johnson a run for his money on the quips front, though, as he criticised Theresa May for not attending a televised BBC debate. The Prime Minister isnt here  she cant be bothered, Mr Farron said at the close of the debate. So why should you? In fact, Bake Off is on BBC2 next. Why not make a brew? Youre not worth Theresa Mays time  dont give her yours.

The Conservative veteran and candidate in East Yorkshire brightened up the final days of campaigning with a bizarre campaign video posted online. His uncertain entrance into shot and printed graphics were unusual enough, but it was the music at the end of the video which really made it stand out, promising accountability with Conservative delivery. The video has been likened to something Alan Partridge would produce, and Sir Greg told The Mirror: Im not sure how I should take it being compared to Alan Partridge. I guess if I ever leave politics, I could get a job down the local radio station.

Blocking the vitamins? (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Among Ukips most controversial policies was to ban the burka and other face coverings in public places. The party said such a move would help integration by allowing better communication, while face coverings also meant people could not be identified on CCTV. But Ukip also backed the policy by saying such garments prevents intake of essential vitamin D from sunlight.
Sale flanker Tom Curry will become Englands youngest debutant for 19 years when he wins his first cap against Argentina on Saturday.

Curry, who will make his international debut five days before his 19th birthday, is one of four new faces in Eddie Jones starting line-up for the first Test against the Pumas in San Juan, with another seven uncapped players on the bench.

Curry, whose twin brother Ben was ruled out of contention through injury, was not born when Jonny Wilkinson, Englands current youngest debutant, played against Ireland in April 1998, at the age of 18 years and 341 days.

Tom Curry, second right, is set to earn his first senior cap against Argentina (Ben Birchall/PA)

BREAKING | Your England team to take on @lospumas in San Juan on Saturday, LIVE on @BBC 2 at 20:15 BST



Preview: https://t.co/9jucxpKIIC pic.twitter.com/02WVPmqps6  England Rugby (@EnglandRugby) June 8, 2017

Jones is forced to field one of the youngest England teams on record after being denied the services of no fewer than 30 players through injury, suspension and British and Irish Lions calls, but he insists the newcomers are ready.

My principle has always been that, if a player is good enough, you play him whether he is old or young, Jones said. Some players at 18 are much more mature than players at 28. There were no qualms at all about throwing him (Tom Curry) in.

Im really excited about this England team. I have selected a group of experienced players across the spine of this team as well as four young players who will be eager to go out and play well on their debuts for England.

Those players have worked extremely hard to get selected over the last few weeks but I have been impressed with the way the whole squad has trained and gelled together in a short amount of time.

They all realise the opportunity that they have to be involved in this England side and Im sure they will show that commitment on Saturday.

We are here to win this series 2-0 but we know Argentina will be extremely tough opposition. After a mixed year of results, there will be pressure on them to play well and win in front of a partisan crowd.

We know Argentina are a very good side having played them earlier this season and they will be desperate to win against us.

Saracens centre Alex Lozowski, Exeter prop Harry Williams and Newcastle flanker Mark Wilson are the other new faces in the starting team, while among those waiting on the bench are cross-code winger Denny Solomona and Northampton fly-half Piers Francis, who joined up with the squad on Monday from Auckland.

We've exclusively spoken to Tom, read what he's had to say on our website: https://t.co/sHbdZGaPMt #JoinTheHunt  Sale Sharks  (@SaleSharksRugby) June 8, 2017

Wilson got the nod after fellow flankers Chris Robshaw and Sam Underhill were ruled out with ankle and neck injuries respectively but Jones is happy with his back-row combination.

We have got one fetcher in Curry, one grafter in Wilson and one runner in (Nathan) Hughes, Jones added.

Wilson is a good tough player, quite similar to Robshaw. Hes a hard worker, he makes his tackles, makes his clean-outs and does all the unseen work. He is a very tough player. He has impressed since he has come into camp and really deserves his opportunity.

Jones expects Robshaw and Underhill both to be available for the second Test in Sante Fe on Saturday week.
By Olesya Astakhova and Oksana Kobzeva

MOSCOW, June 7 (Reuters) - Talks over new routes for gas supplies to China from Russia have stalled while Beijing rethinks the balance of its energy needs, including how much liquefied natural gas (LNG) it might use, two Russian sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Gazprom, which is already building a gas pipeline from Eastern Siberia to China - the Power of Siberia - was in talks over two more routes: the so-called western gas route and a gas pipeline from the Pacific Island of Sakhalin.

"The Power of Siberia-2 (the western route) and the Sakhalin pipeline - there are no moves. There are a lot of factors and they (China) are not yet ready to take any decisions," a source familiar with the Russia-China energy talks said.

A Gazprom source also said there were no developments on the two pipelines, whose combined capacity, if built, is seen adding up to another 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) in possible gas supplies from Russia to China per year.

The Power of Siberia pipeline, expected to be launched by the end of the decade or in the early 2020s, should bring 38 bcm to China per year. Gazprom managed to clinch the Power of Siberia deal after ten years of painstaking talks with Beijing.

Neither Gazprom nor state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) immediately responded to requests for comment.

According to BP's energy outlook to 2035, the share of pipeline gas supplies to China, including from Russia, will remain largely unchanged over the ten years from 2025, with the share of LNG and China's own gas output significantly rising.

"We don't see a room yet for (additional) pipeline gas from Russia to China except from the already signed Power of Siberia contract (before 2035)," Vladimir Drebentsov, head of Russia & CIS economics at BP, told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Aizhu Chen in Beijing; Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Mark Potter)
MARAWI CITY, Philippines, June 8 (Reuters) - The siege of Marawi City in the southern Philippines could be over soon because the logistics of the Islamist militants holed up there have been disrupted and they have been reduced to a "small resistance".

Major General Carlito Galvez, head of the military command in Western Mindanao region, told a news conference in Marawi City that troops had entered three areas from which the pro-Islamic State fighters had pulled back.

"We saw food, IEDs, mobility assets. Considering we have paralysed logistics capability, we are looking at the possibility that the end will be near," he said.

He added that the military believed "more or less 100" civilians were still being held hostage by the militants.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Writing by John Chalmers)
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SOFIA, June 8 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Thursday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

-- Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said he would try to improve the relations between the European Union and Turkey after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (Sega, Standart, Trud)

-- Bulgaria is considering different models to finance and build a nuclear power plant with the two reactors it had to pay to Russia after an arbitration decision, a senior official from the ruling GERB party said. (Sega, Trud)

CAPITAL DAILY - The European Bank for Reconstruction and development will provide 20 million euro ($22.51 million) to Turkish car parts maker Teklas to expand its operations in Bulgaria. ($1 = 0.8883 euros)
KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) - Ukrainian state energy firm Naftogaz is prepared to attend talks with Russian gas giant Gazprom provided negotiations are not held in Russia, Naftogaz said on Thursday.

Gazprom and Naftogaz have been locked in a bitter legal dispute since 2014, a byproduct of worsening relations between Kiev and Moscow since Ukraine's pro-European uprising and Russia's annexation of Crimea.

Gazprom Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev said this week the Russian company was ready for talks with Ukraine on gas transit to Europe beyond 2019, when the current contract expires.

He did not say where any talks should be held.

"The Russian Federation is an unacceptable location for negotiations between Naftogaz of Ukraine and Gazprom," Naftogaz said in a statement.

"Naftogaz remains open for discussions with Gazprom in Brussels or other city of the European Union," it said.

The two companies lodged multi-billion-dollar claims against each other with a Stockholm arbitration court, which resolves commercial agreement disputes.

In two separate cases Kiev has demanded a higher tariff for the transit fee it charges Russia to transit to Europe and to cancel the requirement "take or pay" for the gas supply deal signed in 2009.

Last week, Naftogaz said the court had ruled in its favour regarding the "take or pay" clause, although Gazprom said the ruling was an interim stage in the court process and the decision was positive for Gazprom "on balance."

Since 2014, Ukraine has been weaning itself off reliance on Russian energy supplies and has not bought gas directly from Russia since November 2015, relying instead on purchases from European Union member states and its own supply.

But Ukraine remains a major route for Russian gas supplies to Europe, pumping 82.2 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in 2016, 23 percent more than a year earlier. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Edmund Blair)
By Neil Jerome Morales

MARAWI CITY, Philippines, June 8 (Reuters) - The Islamist militants holed up in the southern Philippines town of Marawi have been reduced to a "small resistance" after troops crippled their logistics and some fighters have fled from the battle, military officials said on Thursday.

"In a few more days it could be over," armed forces Chief of Staff General Eduaro Ano told ANC television on the 17th day of a siege by hundreds of militants who have sworn allegiance to the ultra-radical Islamic State group.

The battle for Marawi City has raised concern that Islamic State, on a back foot in Syria and Iraq, is building a regional base on the Philippine island of Mindanao that could pose a threat to neighbouring Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore too.

Officials have said that, among the several hundred militants who seized the town on May 23, there were about 40 foreigners from Indonesia and Malaysia but also fighters from India, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Chechnya.

The seizure of the town suggested to many that pro-Islamic State factions wanted to establish it as a Southeast Asian "wilayat" - or governorate - for Islamic State, a fear reinforced by video footage the military found last week showing the fighters plotting to seal the town off completely.

Major General Carlito Galvez, head of military command in the region, said government troops had entered three neighbourhoods from which the militants had pulled back after two weeks of defence that relied heavily on snipers.

"We saw food, IEDs, mobility assets. Considering we have paralysed logistics capability, we are looking at the possibility that the end will be near," he told a news conference in Marawi, referring to improvised explosive devices, or bombs.

With their ability to fight "degraded", some of the militants have fled, military spokesman Restituto Padilla said in a radio interview, adding that nine had surrendered and were providing "good intelligence".

PEACE CORRIDORS

The government has said several times that it is close to retaking the town from the Maute group. A relatively new rebel faction, it joined forces with Isnilon Hapilon, who was last year proclaimed by Islamic State as its "emir" of Southeast Asia.

But the fighters prepared for a long siege, stockpiling arms and food in tunnels, basements, mosques and madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, military officials say.

The Philippines is largely Christian, but Marawi City is overwhelmingly Muslim.

The military said 138 militants had been killed, and the death tolls for security personnel and civilians stood at 39 and 20, respectively.

Galvez said the military believed that "more or less 100" civilians were still being held hostage by the militants. Earlier this week, officials put at several hundred the number of people being held as human shields or trapped in their homes.

Catholic priest Father Teresito "Chito" Soganub and about a dozen of his parishioners were abducted on the first day of the siege when militants burst into the town's cathedral and then set it on fire.

Task force head Brigadier General Rolly Bautista told reporters that, according to information passed back through emissaries, the priest was still alive.

The government has been setting up "peace corridors" to allow civilians from the lakeside town to move away from the battle and to deliver food and medicines.

Government-appointed negotiator Irene Santiago said that a religious leader who had been acting as an emissary to seek a corridor for civilians held hostage had taken ill and the authorities were waiting for him to get better. (Additional reporting by Karen Lema, Enrico Dela Cruz and Manolo Serapio Jr in MANILA; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)
By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSASO, Somalia June 8 (Reuters) - Al Shabaab militants killed 20 soldiers in an attack on a military base in Af Urur, a town in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region on Thursday, an army officer said.

Puntland military retook the town, which Bari region Governor Yusuf Mohamed told Reuters earlier on Thursday had been attacked by the al Shabaab fighters.

"It was heavy fighting. We lost 20 soldiers and 14 of our military cars were burnt. We have now retaken the town," Major Mohamed Abdi, a Puntland military officer, told Reuters by phone.

The assault came days after Puntland sentenced to death five al Shabaab members who were arrested as they drove a vehicle carrying three barrels packed with explosives into Bosaso, Puntland's capital, on April 26.

Af Urur lies about 100 km (60 miles) south of Bosaso, near the Galgala hills, an area controlled by al Shabaab. It fighters have attacked and captured the town several times.

The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab said it had killed 61 soldiers after overrunning the military base. The numbers given by officials and al Shabaab often differ.

"They have not retaken the town, but we just left it peacefully after killing 61 soldiers and capturing 16 military cars," said Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaabs military operation spokesman.

Al Shabaab regularly launches attacks in Somalia, but tends to focus on the capital Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government. It aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.

Attacks are comparatively rare in Puntland, where the security forces are relatively regularly paid and receive substantial U.S. assistance.

The region is also home to a splinter group of al Shabaab that has sworn allegiance to Islamic State. Security sources say a small contingent of foreigners is there as well. (Reporting by Abdiqani Hassan, Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Editing by Larry King; Writing by George Obulutsa, Editing by)
By Rozanna Latiff and Emily Chow

KUALA LUMPUR, June 8 (Reuters) - Malaysian investigators spent nearly eight hours at the headquarters of Felda Global Ventures Holdings (FGV) on Thursday, collecting documents and interviewing company officials following allegations of corruption and abuse of power at the world's third-largest palm oil operator.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) is looking into several officials at FGV, following the suspension of the firm's chief executive officer, chief financial officer and two other executives earlier this week.

An FGV source said MACC investigators visited various offices in the building, including the legal, finance, procurement and supplier departments, but was not able to provide details on which company officials were interviewed.

The investigators declined to comment on their way out of the building.

An MACC spokesman had said earlier on Thursday that the agency was at FGV's offices in Kuala Lumpur "to collect supporting documents" following a meeting with FGV Chief Executive Zakaria Arshad on Wednesday.

The investigators could seize laptops and computers as well, he said, declining to give details on what was discussed with Zakaria.

The FGV crisis unfolded on Tuesday when a letter was leaked from Zakaria to Chairman Mohd Isa Abdul Samad in which he refused to step down as instructed by the chairman.

FGV's board then suspended Zakaria and three others. The CEO has denied wrongdoing and called on MACC to conduct its own investigation into FGV, but did not provide any details.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Isa said he was willing to meet the anti-corruption investigators if asked. He added that FGV was continuing its own investigation into transactions at a subsidiary that led to the suspensions of the FGV executives.

The FGV board has said a deal with Dubai-based palm oil buyer Safitex was at the heart of the company's internal investigation and Safitex owes an FGV unit about $11.7 million as of 2016.

Isa was a former chief minister of Negeri Sembilan state and a former vice-president of Malaysia's ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation.

PRIME MINISTER STEPS IN

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's office stepped into the boardroom spat on Wednesday, asking a former cabinet minister to look into the suspension of FGV's top executives.

Turmoil at FGV -- whose biggest shareholder is the state-owned Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) -- could hurt Najib, who government sources say is expected to call elections later this year. FGV's shareholders, many of them small landowners, form a key vote bank for Najib's ruling alliance in battleground states.

Felda "settlers", or land owners, are the majority voters in at least 54 of the 222 seats in the parliament. They own shares in FGV, which raised over $3 billion in one of the world's biggest listings of 2012.

The shares have dropped 70 percent since that stock market launch, hurting settlers. They have also complained about delayed payments from Felda, which buys the palm fruit the settlers produce in their land.

FGV's shares fell 0.6 percent on Thursday to 1.65 ringgit per share, valuing the company at 5.91 billion ringgit ($1.39 billion). The shares have lost about 6 percent of their value since Tuesday's suspension of the top executives. ($1 = 4.2610 ringgit) (Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Greg Mahlich)
By Duncan Miriri

NAIROBI, June 8 (Reuters) - Kenya will convert its $243 million in loans to Kenya Airways into equity, the government has said, as part of a broader restructuring to nurse the ailing airline back to financial health.

The government owns a 29.8 percent stake while Air France KLM has a 26.73 percent stake in the airline, which slumped into the red five years ago following a downturn in tourism after a spate of attacks by Islamist militants.

The airline has failed to record a pretax profit since then and the losses have compounded the huge debts the airline took on to buy a fleet of new Boeing planes, pushing it into negative equity territory.

The government has previously said it planned to convert its loans into equity but did not give an amount. The figure of $243 million was contained in a government paper submitted to parliament on Wednesday seeking approval for the overall deal.

Kenya Airways warned in a statement on Thursday there was a risk of "significant" dilution of existing shareholders as it offers new equity in the restructuring exercise.

The airline has said the financial restructuring will help dig it out of its negative equity position and get a better balance between cash flow and debt repayments.

The restructuring is expected to reduce the airline's debt to about $1.2 billion from above $2 billion, the government said in its submission to parliament.

Parliament's term ends next week ahead of an August election the deal will need to be approved quickly.

The government is also seeking to guarantee $750 million worth of the company's current debt with international and local lenders as part of the restructuring.

Some local creditors will convert some of their debt into equity too, a source at the airline said, without providing a figure of the amount.

The restructuring is conditional on all creditors and shareholders agreeing to it, the government said in the document submitted to parliament.

"There is a business case for a restructured Kenya Airways," the government said, citing a study by an unidentified third party contracted to look into the issue.

Kenya has spent billions of shillings upgrading the country's main airports and views the airline as a strategic asset, supporting other industries such as tourism and encouraging investment from abroad.

Kenya Airways flies 12,000 passengers a day on its fleet of Boeing and Embraer planes. It cut its pretax loss in the year to the end of March and reported a modest operating profit as it carried a record number of passengers despite a smaller fleet. (Editing by David Clarke)
MOSCOW, June 8 (Reuters) - Russia's Sberbank said on Thursday that the Commercial Court in Zagreb has rejected its claim asking to bar Agrokor from entering into new financing agreements under a roll-up option.

"This effectively means that, according to the judges who considered the applications, the current version of Lex Agrokor does not provide any protection for creditors against unreasonable and illegal actions of the company," the bank said.

Earlier on Thursday, Sberbank said it was filing a lawsuit trying to prevent new loans at a roll-up option, which allows new creditors to claim superiority to their previous debt to Agrokor, Croatia's heavily indebted food producer and retailer.

(Reporting by Elena Fabrichnaya; writing by Katya Golubkova; editing by Vladimir Soldatkin)
By Eric Gaillard and Emmanuel Foudrot

NICE/LYON, France, June 8 (Reuters) - French voters handed power to a young, untested president a month ago, some hoping he can reboot the country, others simply judging that his far-right opponent was a worse prospect.

Damien Canizares, who runs a butcher's shop with his son in the Mediterranean coastal city of Nice, holds neither of those views.

Matching what a third of voters did in the May 7 presidential election, he will put the name of the candidate representing the National Front (FN) and its leader Marine Le Pen in his parliamentary voting envelope on Sunday.

Le Pen rejects the closer European ties, the embrace of globalisation, and the liberalised rules for businesses that centrist President Emmanuel Macron says can bring prosperity.

She does advocate tax cuts for companies, but she would also tax imports, restrict trade, protect workers rights, and close borders to migrants to keep jobs in France and combat Islamist militant attacks.

For voters like Canizares, she is a conduit for anger, and will be again on Sunday.

"(Macron's) a young president, and there's plenty of hope, but sadly nothing will change. Nothing. Because if you don't change the mentality of people, you change nothing. It's the people who need to change, not the president, sadly," he told Reuters.

"I'll vote Marine, because, sadly I am angry, and if she doesn't make it, I don't care, because I'm angry."

The 58 year-old -- who says he left school at 13 to start a life of hard work -- believes no government can fix his main concerns.

These are the high tax and social charges he says prevent people from enjoying the fruits of their labour, and the fear of more attacks like the truck rampage that killed 86 people on the promenade 100 metres (yards) from his shop last summer.

Le Pen may well get elected as a lawmaker in the northern constituency she is fighting - but Canizares is right to doubt her chances of having a significant force in parliament.

Opinion polls show her first round vote nationally will be below a fifth, while electoral pacts among the other parties aimed at keeping FN candidates out could keep a party that won only two seats in 2012 but hoped for many more this time in single figures.

GIVING HOPE A CHANCE

Despite anger from voters like Canizares, poll surveys show Macron's new centrist party and its allies will wind up with a thumping majority in the 577 seat National Assembly. Some predict the biggest since Charles De Gaulle's conservatives won over 80 percent of seats in 1968.

Stay-at-home father of three Jerome Busson Girie is among those who want that outcome for Macron's Republic on the March (LREM) party.

At 39, he is the new president's age, and is on the hunt for a job in a country where unemployment sits around 10 percent.

Macron says he can get that rate down to seven with measures including a corporation tax cut, limits on layoff costs, and more flexible working hours.

"If all goes according to plan he can quickly give businesses back their confidence," Busson Girie told Reuters at his home in Genas, near France's third largest city, Lyon.

"The big ones yes, but also the small ones, which all too often hesitate to hire people."

The former financial controller also favours Macron's plans for special educational investments in depressed areas and investment in training aimed at sectors that face a skills shortages.

The hope is tinged with caution, however.

Florence Lapica, 42, a general practice doctor in Soucieu-en-Jarrest, another Lyon satellite town, is concerned about France's creaking public healthcare system, and says it is "too early to tell" whether Macron's plan to invest 5 billion euros there will go to the right places.

For some, though, it is just a question of giving Macron a shot.

Back on the south coast, Patrick Macquerel is willing to give the new president the benefit of the doubt.

"It all offers hope," he said from his newspaper kiosk in Marseille.

"You have to go with the flow of the presidential election and give this new government a chance to apply its reforms."

(Additional reporting by Jean-Paul Pelissier in Marseille; Writing by Andrew Callus Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (Reuters) - Egypt on Thursday called for the United Nations Security Council to launch an investigation into accusations that Qatar paid a ransom of up to $1 billion to "to a terrorist group active in Iraq" to release kidnapped members of its royal family.

"This violation of the Security Council resolutions, if proved correct, shall definitely have a negative bearing on counter-terrorism efforts on the ground," senior Egyptian U.N. diplomat Ihab Moustafa Awad Moustafa told the council.

Qatar has denied trying to pay ransom money to secure the release of 26 Qataris, including members of the country's ruling royal family, abducted in Iraq by unidentified gunmen.

Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and several other countries severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-foe Iran, charges Qatar says are baseless. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By Abdiqani Hassan

BOSASO, Somalia, June 8 (Reuters) - Al Shabaab militants killed 38 people, mostly soldiers, in an attack on a military base in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region on Thursday, an army officer said.

The killings took place when the Islamists attacked and took over the town of Af Urur.

"Now we confirm 38 people, mostly soldiers, died and 18 others were wounded. I believe some were captured alive and taken away," Major Mohamed Abdi, a Puntland military officer, told Reuters.

"Numerous, heavily armed al Shabaab fighters attacked us from every direction and after hours of fierce battle I was among those who ran for their lives."

Bari regional Governor Yusuf Mohamed told Reuters the Puntland military had recaptured the town.

The assault came days after Puntland sentenced to death five al Shabaab members arrested on April 26 as they drove a vehicle carrying barrels packed with explosives into Bosaso, Puntland's capital.

Af Urur lies about 100 km (60 miles) south of Bosaso, near the Galgala hills, an area controlled by al Shabaab. Its fighters have attacked and captured the town several times.

"Al Shabaab fighters killed local residents of the town including elders, women and children. It is the norm of al Shabaab to kill civilians when they are defeated," a statement from the Puntland president's office said.

"Al Shabaab will regret killing civilians. We shall eliminate the fighters who hide in Puntland areas."

The al Qaeda-linked Islamist group said it had killed 61 soldiers after overrunning the military base. The numbers given by officials and al Shabaab often differ.

Abdiasis Abu Musab, a spokesman for al Shabaab, said the military had not recaptured Af Urur by force. "We just left it peacefully after killing 61 soldiers and capturing 16 military cars," he said.

Al Shabaab more often launches attacks on the capital Mogadishu and other regions controlled by Somalia's federal government. It aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple the Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam.

Attacks are comparatively rare in Puntland, where the security forces are relatively regularly paid and receive substantial U.S. assistance.

The region is also home to a splinter group of al Shabaab that has sworn allegiance to Islamic State. Security sources say a small contingent of foreigners is there as well. (Additional reporting by Feisal Omar in Mogadishu; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Andrew Roche)
Ethan Hargraves has joined Massey and Associates law firm as an attorney.

He has served clerkships at the Tennessee Supreme Court and Alabama Supreme Court.

Mr. Hargraves was born and bred in Chattanooga. He spent his childhood on his familys farm in Harrison. He attended Bryan College in Dayton, on a theatre scholarship. Because he always intended to go to law school, he earned his bachelors degree in English.

He is married to his high-school sweetheart, Alanna. They have two children, William Eugene and Minnie Pearl, and another one on the way.
DUBAI, June 8 (Reuters) - A senior United Arab Emirates (UAE) official on Thursday accused Qatar of escalating a row with its Arab neighbours by seeking help from Turkey and Iran in the dispute.

"The great escalation from the confusing and confused brother country and the request for political protection from two non-Arab countries and military protection from one of them could be a new tragic and comic chapter," Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, wrote on Twitter, referring to Iran and Turkey. (Reporting by Stephen Kalin; editing by Andrew Roche)
By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (Reuters) - The United States is wary of a French push for the U.N. Security Council to authorize a West African force to combat terrorism and trafficking in the Sahel region because it does not want the world body to help fund it, diplomats said on Thursday.

France circulated a draft Security Council resolution on Tuesday to the 15-member body that would approve the force using "all necessary means" and ask U.N. chief Antonio Guterres to report on options for U.N. support to the operation.

Closed-door negotiations began on Wednesday, and diplomats said the United States would prefer the council give its blessing in a statement instead of a resolution and encourage bilateral support for the West African force.

The European Union has already committed $56 million to the Sahel force.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States is a council veto power along with Russia, China, France and Britain.

The vast, arid Sahel region has in recent years become a breeding ground for jihadist groups - some linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State - that European nations, particularly France, fear could threaten Europe if left unchecked.

"The African Union and the secretary-general have asked the council to authorize this Sahel force," France's U.N. ambassador, Francois Delattre, told reporters on Thursday. "It is important that the whole Security Council gets united behind this draft."

The United States is currently trying to cut the cost of U.N. peacekeeping and is reviewing each of the 16 missions as they come up for Security Council renewal. Washington is the largest contributor, paying 28.5 percent of the $7.9 billion peacekeeping budget.

President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2018 proposed budget would cut $1 billion from the U.S. contribution to U.N. peacekeeping, although Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, and Democrats have said they do not support drastic cuts.

Last year, the Sahel nations - Niger, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania - proposed establishing special units, each of around 100 well-trained soldiers, which would be deployed in areas where jihadist groups are known to operate.

They would complement the efforts of regular armed forces, a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali and France's Operation Barkhane, which has around 4,000 troops deployed across the five Sahel countries.

France intervened in 2013 to drive back militants who had seized northern Mali a year earlier. However, militants continue to attack in Mali and its neighbors.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Leslie Adler)
BERLIN, June 9 (Reuters) - Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos urged German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble not to let domestic politics influence his decision on providing debt relief to Greece.

Pavlopoulos told Die Welt newspaper in an interview published Friday that Greece had implemented pension cuts and tax reforms as promised, and Germany should also keep its promises and approve some debt relief.

"I appeal to Wolfgang Schaeuble not to let the German election influence his decision (on debt relief). This is about something bigger; it's about Europe," the Greek president said.

Greece this week urged European lenders to offer incentives that would boost growth and help break an impasse between the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund on the size of relief the country needs to make its debt sustainable.

During a meeting of euro zone finance ministers last month, Greece, its euro zone lenders and the IMF failed to agree on the debt relief measures to be implemented after its current bailout expires in 2018, mainly because of different growth assumptions. They are now aiming for a deal at a June 15 Eurogroup meeting.

Germany and some other European countries are worried that any concessions could affect the pace of economic reforms in Greece and want any debt relief put off until 2018. The IMF has said it will not participate financially in the country's latest bailout unless the issue is clearly addressed.

Pavlopoulos told Die Welt he had worked closely with Schaeuble when they were both interior ministers and believed the German minister would find a way to enable some debt relief.

"I know that Mr. Schaeuble is a role model when it comes to sticking to the rules ... Now my chance has come to demand that the German finance ministry sticks to the rules," he said. "Wolfgang Schaeuble is strict, but just, and that is why he will find a formula that allows us to reduce the mountain of debt."

He said Greece's request would not result in any problems for Germany, noting that German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a member of the Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition, also believed Greece had lived up to its reform promises and was acting in good faith.

He said he did not believe that German voters would cast their election votes on the basis of Greece debt relief, noting that perhaps the German government should remind its citizens that Greece had made huge sacrifices to get a grip on the debt crisis, and it had not cost Germany a single euro. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
June 9 (Reuters) - China is "gravely concerned" about the reported killing of two kidnapped Chinese nationals in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province late last month, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday.

Islamic State killed two Chinese teachers in the province last month, the militant group's Amaq news agency said Thursday. A Baluchistan government spokesman had said officials were trying to confirm if the report was true.

"We have taken note of relevant reports and we express our grave concern. We have been trying to rescue the two kidnapped hostages over the past days," Xinhua quoted Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying as saying.

"The Chinese side is working to learn about and verify relevant information through various channels, including working with Pakistani authorities," Xinhua quoted her as saying. (Reporting by Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)
BEIJING, June 9 (Reuters) - China's foreign minister has told his Iranian counterpart that maintaining peace and stability in the Gulf is best for everyone, after several Arab states cut off ties with Qatar accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and Iran.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with the small Gulf Arab state on Monday. Qatar has denied the charges levelled at it.

Meeting on the sidelines of a regional security summit in Kazakhstan, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that peace and stability in the Gulf accords with the common interests of the region and the international community.

"China upholds that the relevant countries should appropriately resolve the disputes between them," the Chinese foreign ministry cited Wang as saying on Thursday.

The brief statement gave no other details of their talks over what the Chinese foreign ministry described as "the present situation in the Gulf region".

China has traditionally played little role in Middle East conflicts or diplomacy, despite its reliance on the region for oil.

However, it has been trying to get more involved in efforts to end civil wars in both Syria and Yemen, casting itself as an honest broker without the historical baggage of the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

In March, China played host to the Saudi king and Israeli prime minister in quick succession. China has close ties with Iran too.

The coordinated move against Qatar dramatically escalates a dispute over its support of the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest Islamist movement, and adds accusations that Doha backs the agenda of regional arch-rival Iran. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Richard Pullin)
This is pretty interesting-and frustrating too-when we look back on what they keep philosophising with messages.



Few days ago in his World Environment Day message President Sirisena says, .at present, due to the frequent occurrences of natural disasters, we have to admit that humans cannot survive without a sustainable environment. Nature reminds us of its message through landslides, devastating floods.



PM Wickremesinghe issuing a similar message on World Environment Day says, We need to rediscover the manner in which our ancestors were able to co-exist in harmony with nature.



One is head of State according to the 19 Amendment of the Constitution and the other is the Head of Government. One is in charge of Environment and the other is in charge of the economy and development planning.



To begin with, can they both tell how serious they were about Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) on revised the Colombo Port City Project and the Hambantota Port expansion programme?

The urban middle class opinion makers who claim the right to represent society therefore champion issues that are irrelevant for actual change.

If they were ever done the right way, can they both be transparent and accountable to the people and organise a good and open public discourse on the EIAs to honour their World Environment Day messages?



Can the President release the Experts Report by the Japanese team on the Meethotamulla dump handed over to him?



They simply cannot. Not in this unrestricted free market economy, where everything is decided on bigger and bigger private profits. This therefore is nothing new for political leaders. It is just customary they issue messages on all and every internationally and nationally important days.

Can they both tell how serious they were about Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) of Colombo Port City Project.. and the Hambantota Port expansion programme?

We have thus over the past 40 years reduced State machinery to facilitate and work with massive private investments for profit



Their messages being messages only, in practical life we were thrown into devastating tragedies one after another. First the landslides in Aranayake that killed 127 people and then the Kelani river floods in the Colombo low lands in May 2016 that accounted for 92 deaths. Next was the Meethotamulla waste dump disaster that accounted for over 23 deaths and now is almost forgotten. The collapse of a multi storey building in Wellawatte, Colombo accounting for three deaths and over nine seriously injured, compelled UDA to accept there are over 1,000 illegally constructed buildings in the city. Now the Southern and Sabaragamuwa landslides and major floods taking the death toll to over 300 and around 75 persons missing, with epidemics predicted.



From the 2014 October Koslanda Meeriyabedda landslide to the present Southern landslides and floods, both the previous Rajapaksa Government and the present Yahapalana Government tend to blame nature, calling them natural disasters. Environmentalists nevertheless blame successive governments for unplanned development causing environmental degradation. JVP is back with their old Indian expansionist theory, blaming plantations in hill country.



Its a I blame you. You blame me game that takes us nowhere except through increasing tragedy.



Yes! Politicians are to be blamed. They are elected to Govern and Govern properly. To improve the quality of life of all citizens. Development should mean just that. If they dont govern to establish socio political stability and peace with development for improved quality life, they have to take responsibility for their irresponsibility, their incapability and mismanagement. And they have to be voted out.



Voting out a Government needs a general election and people in this country have been changing governments at elections. Since the first parliamentary election for an independent Ceylon in 1947, people have changed governments at 10 out of 13 parliamentary elections held. Changed the political party at two Presidential Elections to elect a different President. Once they retained the same parliament through a Referendum in 1981.



Once elected, people have to live through the mess they create during five years. Unless, the people decide to oust the Government on street power.

But that is a different scenario. If there is actual social space, the elected Government can be kept in check in a politically aware society.



How politically aware is our society? In Sri Lanka, Governments have not been changed for want of better Governance, for better accountability and transparency. Governments were always changed on a protest vote against the incumbent.



So, was it in 1956, in 1970 and in 1977. It was so, even in electing Presidents in 1994 and again in 2015 January. In all such changes, it was just ousting the incumbent to bring another and nothing more.



There was no serious development alternatives offered even at both 2015 elections. Only promises to eradicate corruption, abolish the executive presidency and to change the electoral system based on proportional representation and the preference vote.

There are two major reasons for this sorry and miserable lapse. We dont dialogue and discuss the need to change the economic model that for 40 years out of almost 70 years had brought us no peace, no rule of law, no good governance and no holistic improvement in the quality of life of the citizenry. We dont discuss the economic foundation on which political leaders promise to construct a clean and decent house for all, but cannot. A rickety foundation does not allow for secure construction of a decent house for quality life for all, whatever the shape, size and colour the construction takes.

Massive constructions and the greed for large infrastructure projects is for big contracts through direct political affiliations.



Over the past 40 years with the massive Mahaweli development programme, Samanalaweva Project, FTZs, Sri Lanka has not gained any significant development in the lives of the people. Education and health have been wholly neglected with private investments allowed to encroach without any planning and regulating. Funds committed by IBRD and IDA from 2013 to now for numerous projects total 1,642 million US dollars. In rupee terms it would roughly be 229,880 million. Where have they gone? What have we gained?



The answer lies with political parties that gain a stake in governments. All mainstream political parties are no more independent and democratic entities with alternate political programmes. Within this neo liberal market economy, they have all become partners of big business, funded by big time businesses for business interests. Political leaders are dependent on and are part of the business life. Over the past few decades, fast growing corruption into mega unaccountable plunder that this government promised to eradicate is directly related to political parties getting entrenched in big business funding.



That could be an interesting subject for social research. This inter-marriage between big profits accrued with political patronage and political parties living off a share of it is a politico-economic necessity in any neo-liberal free market economy. It is especially so in countries like ours where democracy is only procedural and not functional.



We have thus over the past 40 years reduced State machinery to facilitate and work with massive private investments for profit. The bureaucracy at the top where policy is defined and implemented is thus a corrupt lot working with politicians sitting in Ministries. In sum, we are being left at the mercy of big private business. They accrue and usurp wealth and profit. We are governed by political leaders who are funded more by those big businesses than by tax payers money.



The second major issue is the intellectual impotency of the utterly corrupt urban middle class, which has settled well within the free market economy.



It is always the city that creates new knowledge and new thinking. It is always the urban middle class that drives political opinion. The rural society is canvassed for what the urban middle class decide as answers.



But within this free for all market economy the urban middle class dont need a change. All what they need are reforms that may provide a more comfortable living.



That allows them to remain as lofty opinion makers to sustain the neoliberal economy. The urban middle class opinion makers who claim the right to represent society therefore champion issues that are irrelevant for actual change.This is now quite apparent from all their anti-corruption demands and proposals for Constitutional reform. All with personal political agendas like the call to abolish the Executive Presidency. This fraud, the proposal to abolish the Executive Presidency, has no logic and no rational in a neoliberal economy. While mega-corruption during Rajapaksa rule is credited under the powerful Executive Presidency, mega-corruptions including the Bond Scams and very many others under this Yahapalana Unity Government have to be credited under the Head of Government in Parliament.



Corruption under this Government run by the PM during these two-and-a-half years surpasses corruption under the first three years of Rajapaksa, making the call for abolition of the Executive Presidency another political fraud.



All blame therefore for all that is going wrong in Sri Lanka has to be borne by the politicians, who promised a neat and a clean government after Rajapaksa is ousted and those Colombo middle class pundits, who campaigned for a hybrid rule, promising a decent, civilised rule if Rajapaksa is voted out. They usurped the right to represent people to promise all things nice and refused to accept ousting Rajapaksa with a hurriedly collected corrupt and opportunist cabal serves no purpose in ousting Rajapaksa.



It is now time to dump them in the bin for nondurable waste and begin a new discourse for a more people oriented development model-an alternate to this neoliberal free market that can be inclusive and more democratic; a development model that provides a level playing field for all and one where crude competitions are not the means for survival.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who hosted Foreign Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake, has said that he is glad to see Sri Lanka improving in every sector.

On his maiden official trip abroad as Foreign Minister, Minister Karunanayake met the Indian Prime Minister Modi at his official residence on Wednesday (7).

Issuing a statement, the ministry said the main focus of the meeting was drawn to broadening commercial activities between the two countries in the tourism and cultural sectors.

Sri Lanka's tourism promotional campaigns in India are gaining much popularity and emphasized the importance of strengthening tourism related activities between the two countries. The two countries had also discussed the measures to be taken with regard to trade in future, it said.

The Indian Premier and the minister had also discussed the Indo-Lanka fishermen's issue.

Minister Karunanayake informed the Indian Premier that 142 Indian fishing boats are presently in the custody of the Sri Lankan Government and that 42 boats were due to be released after completing due legal process.

Meanwhile, he praised the Indian Government for sending relief assistance to Sri Lanka swiftly following the recent floods and landslides that occurred in the country.

Responding to the minister, Indian Premier Modi has said that India is always ready to help Sri Lanka at any given moment.

Afterwards, Foreign Minister Karunanayake met Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi. They discussed ways and means to strengthen diplomatic ties between the two countries. (Lahiru Pothmulla)
The joint opposition said yesterday the Central Bank should make it compulsory for banks to accept Qatar Riyals for conversion into SL rupees, in the wake of several Middle Eastern countries servering diplomatic relations with Qatar.

JO member Prof. Tissa Vitharana told a news briefing that more than 150,000 Sri Lankans were employed in Qatar and that they were paid in Qatar Riyals.

Either they can exchange Qatar Riyals to Sri Lankan Rupees in Sri Lanka or else they have to exchange them to US Dollars in Qatar. These migrant workers will face a huge issue if the banks in Sri Lanka refuse to exchange Qatar Riyals in future, he said.

Prof. Vitharana said those workers could be considered as a main source of foreign exchange to the country and as such, the government should immediately intervene in resolving this matter. (Kalathma Jayawardhane)
What is all the controversy about?

Social media was abuzz this week over a video claiming that Lanka Sathosa was responsible for the sale and distribution of a variety of rice dubbed plastic rice. The viral video claimed that a type of rice labelled Imported Basmati Rice, purchased from a Sathosa outlet in Pitakotte did not stale even after 24 hours had lapsed since its preparation. The highlight of the video however, was when the lady appearing in the video made a ball of the cooked rice and dropped it on the floor. The rice ball which hit the floor with a thwack, did not crumble and appeared to remain in the shape of a ball.

Local social media users are already divided into camps, with a majority convinced that this particular variety of rice was indeed made of plastic. Some online gurus on the other hand assert that the campaign was a hoax, as cooked rice starch can create adhesiveness similar to glutinous rice, better known as sticky rice. After the initial video, several more videos have emerged showing bouncing rice balls, which some users argued was an effect caused by the volume expansion and air entrapment in cooked rice.



Following these reports, the sale and distribution of the controversial consignment of rice imported from Pakistan was suspended with immediate effect on Monday. Lanka Sathosa Chairman T.M.K.B. Tennekoon who appeared to be convinced that the campaign was launched by a group with vested interests, said a complaint would be filed at the Criminal Investigation Department to probe the matter. The samples of rice were sent to the Medical Research Institute for further testing. It will take a minimum of two weeks to receive the report. Until then we will not sell the Basmati rice imported from Pakistan, he said.



Meanwhile the Ministry was compelled to issue a statement in response to the online uproar. It held that the recent consignment of Basmati rice imported from Pakistan by the state retail giant was suitable for consumption. The statement added that 20 metric tons of rice was imported on May 15, which had been processed through stipulated protocols of quality assurance prior to its release to the market.



Following the heated public debate on food security, the Daily Mirror spoke to several individuals of varied expertise to query the progress of investigations into the matter.

Test reports by the end of the weekChairman, Consumer Affairs Authority

- W.Hasitha Tillekeratne

Over the past five days, we have received many complaints over the sale of plastic rice. Accordingly, our officers have collected seven or eight samples of rice alleged to contain plastic from the places where we received complaints.

These samples have been sent for testing and we will continuously monitor the process. We will receive the reports of the tests conducted on a priority basis and we expect them by the end of this week.

Meanwhile, we have ordered commercial outlets which were selling the suspected stocks of rice to suspend the sale of that particular type of rice.

Rumours may attempt to disrupt sale of imported ricePresident, National Movement for Consumer Rights Protection

- Ranjith Withanage

A sample of the suspected stock of plastic rice has been sent for lab testing by the CAA. We will have to deliberate the matter further once the report comes through. For the moment, we cannot afford to cause alarm among consumers.



We are doubtful of these rumours as they might be an attempt to disrupt the sale of imported rice or might even be a story fabricated with the intention of increasing wheat flour consumption in the country. Therefore, we will await the results of the lab test to decide our course of action.



If we are not satisfied with the test results, we will proceed with alternative testing methods following discussions. For now, we wanted to suspend the sale of the particular stock of rice until we ascertained the truth.



Meanwhile in a statement released yesterday the NMCRP demanded the Director General of Health Services to declare his stance on the controversial stock of rice issued by Sathosa outlets. It said only the Sathosa Chairman has made his views clear adding that the silence by the authorities of food security poses an ethical question. The movement called for the immediate investigation of the plastic rice controversy in order to guarantee the health and wellbeing of Sri Lankan consumers, a service which falls under the purview of the Director General of Health Services.

Three ways to identify plastic riceCMC City Analyst

 R.M.G.B. Rajanayake



"Plastic rice is lighter than organic rice. This is not in terms of weight but if a handful of rice is put into a bowl of water, organic rice will sink, while plastic rice will float. Another way of identifying it is to crush and boil the rice. This solution has to be cooled. A drop of iodine or Betadine added to this solution would make an organic rice solution blue. Only starch gives the blue colour to iodine. If the solution does not turn blue, it is not organic rice."



You can also test the rice at home by burning it. Burning rice will give it the familiar smell of burnt rice, while plastic rice will smell of burnt polythene or plastic. These are a few methods that can be used at home to test the rice. We also have facilities to identify plastic rice, as there is a special characteristic structure for organic rice."



Asked how the public may seek assistance to identify rice, Mr. Rajanayake said those who were suspicious of a particular variety of rice could lodge a complaint with their respective Public Health Inspector or food inspector. "Residents of Colombo can also lodge a complaint with Colombo Municipal Council Central Food control Unit or Inform to the Food Authority of the Local area of Colombo Dr. Ruwan Wijayamuni, Chief Medical officer of Health, Public Health Department, he said.

Creators of video not willing to make an official complaintDirector General, Health Services

- Dr. Jayasundara Bandara



We have not received an official complaint thus far. We attempted to contact the individuals who created the video and asked them to lodge an official complaint in order to solve this issue. But these groups have not come forward and are hesitant to give us a statement. We are now under the impression that this is a false report.



Since reports of a sale of plastic rice surfaced this year, we have taken samples from every imported stock of rice to verify the quality of rice. Our Food and Drugs Inspectors release rice from customs only after conducting three tests and issuing a certificate. The samples are subjected to three tests, first soaking the rice in water and then crushing and heating before being given a quality assurance.



The samples from the Sathosa stock will be evaluated by the Medical Research Institute, where they will validate the substances. We are not sure if the rice contains plastic. But it is important to note that imported rice varieties are not of the same texture as locally grown rice. Some people are unnecessarily worried over the texture, which does not necessarily mean the rice is made of plastic.

The matter has to be looked into

Former Head of the National Poisons Information Centre, National Hospital

- Dr. Waruna Gunathilake



We have no reports concerning the consumption of plastic rice so far. Without verifying the chemical ingredients of this particular type of rice, we cannot comment on the matter. However it is a matter that has to be looked into, as it is a serious issue in food safety. If there are complaints, we should look into them to identify the substance.

He added that consumers who were concerned about the safety of this type of rice could seek the assistance of the National Poisons Information Centre. Consumers who suspect that the rice contains plastic can contact us at the NPIC, where we can help in identifying scientific details of rice samples.

Plastic rice an international issue

Sri Lanka is not the first country to fall victim to the plastic rice controversy. Snopes, the internet reference source has been investigating misinformation since early 2011 along with social media rumours, which have asserted that plastic rice was being manufactured in China and exported and consumed by people in other countries. A simple search for plastic rice on Facebook will reveal dozens of videos from a number of countries, showing the alleged manufacturing of plastic rice, its preparation and even people tossing balls of rice around.



Neighbouring countries such as India, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia have also reported accounts of the purported plastic rice controversy; unfortunately their claims were not substantiated. In response, governments countered the statements with official laboratory tests revealing no traces of plastics. Of course, the consumption of any faux food will pose grave danger to ones health. Since the appearance of plastic rice rumours in 2011, no substantiated reports that successfully passed off plastic rice have appeared. However, in Sri Lanka the controversy appears to be here to stay and it is always advisable to rely on our own instincts to ascertain if the rice we buy is fit for our well-being.

Screengrabs of a video which allegedly shows the manfucturing of plastic rice

Social media divided into camps over the plastic rice issue

Ministry refutes allegations as an attempt to damage public trust of Sathosa

Many samples of rice collected by CAA following complaints

Consumer rights group to proceed with alternative tests if reports not found to be satisfactory

Imported rice samples usually subject to three tests prior to their release

The video showing a quantity of cooked Basmati rice
Foreign Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake, who was in India, defended Sri Lankas move to join Chinas One Belt One Road (OBOR) infrastructure initiative, stating that it was a considered decision taken on the basis of its foreign policy, Indian news agency Livemint reported on Thursday.

Minister Karunanayake said India had discussed the subject of Sri Lanka joining the OBOR project with Sri Lankas president Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. We are a small country and our foreign policy is friends with all, enemies with none, he said.

He said Sri Lanka has been a key point in international shipping routes that have been criss-crossing from east to west for several hundreds of years and joining OBOR was a natural consequence of this.

Chinas OBOR project aims to put billions of dollars in infrastructure projects including railways, ports and power grids across Asia, Africa and Europe.
The weekend of June 16th, the Chattanooga Film Festival will screen the new 4k restoration of Monterey Pop, a rockumentary about the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival.

On a June weekend in 1967, at the height of the Summer of Love, the first and only Monterey International Pop Festival roared forward, capturing a decade's spirit and ushering in a new era of rock and roll. Monterey would launch the careers of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, but they were just a few among a diverse cast that included Simon and Garfunkel, the Mamas and the Papas, the Who, the Byrds, Hugh Masekela, and Ravi Shankar. With his characteristic verite style, D. A. Pennebaker captured it all, immortalizing moments that have become legend: Pete Townshend destroying his guitar, Jimi Hendrix burning his.

Before the Monterey Pop screening, cinephiles will be treated to a documentary short about legendary guitarist Dick Dale, made by students at the STEM School in conjunction with Songbirds Guitar Museum.

Multiple screenings will be held from Friday, June 16, through Sunday, June 18, at the Palace Picture House, at 818 Georgia Ave. Tickets are $10, and proceeds will benefit the fifth annual Chattanooga Film Festival, to be held in April of 2018.

For screening times and to purchase tickets, please visit chattpalace.com.

This event is sponsored by Kelly Subaru.




The TV stations are reluctant to point out the shortcomings of the main player in this endeavor, the State

In a way media neglecting their duty by doing meritorious acts

Out of the hundreds of pictures taken by journalists during the recent floods and landslide disasters and published in newspapers many would still specially remember pictures of four politicians helping disaster victims.



In one picture former President Mahinda Rajapaksas son, Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa was seen carrying an old woman trapped in a house marooned in the flood water, and in another former prime Minister D.M. Jayaratnas son Parliamentarian Anuradha Jayaratne carrying apparently some food stuffs on his shoulders while in another President Maithripala Sirisenas son Daham talking to former Minister Pavitra Wanniarachchi while providing relief to the victims.

Peoples attitude towards Palitha Thewarapperuma is different as he had engaged in similar acts several times in the past

These three pictures were treated with scorn in the social media as publicity stunts while a fourth one depicting Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, Cultural Affairs and Wayamba Development Palitha Thewarapperuma wading through flood waters with a gunny bag on his shoulders carried full of praise, as he has been recognized as a down to earth politician who personally intervenes in times of distress faced by the ordinary people.

These pictures have opened up a debate over the role of the politician during disasters in the social media along with another similar debate over the role of the media following almost all TV stations including the State owned ones having engaged in disaster relief activities.



Many people are of the view that politicians are not supposed to carry out manual work during disasters as they have a bigger role of managing the effects of the disasters by playing an administrative role.

Political culture is such that many like to believe that it was a stunt

The very nature of TV stations doing relief works, caretes a situation of conflict of interest ...

Parliamentarian Namal Rajapaksa, who was questioned during a TV interview on Monday about the picture portraying him carrying an old woman said that he couldnt ignore helping people, when they were in distress, despite him having gone to that area to assess the situation after the floods.



In fact had he been involved in those activities out of emotions he has to be commended. But the political culture of the country is such that many people like to believe that it was a stunt and many politicians do this kind of things just for cheap publicity. Were there no other person around to carry that elderly woman to a safer place, leaving the politician to do what he was supposed to do, one may ask.

However, the peoples attitude towards Palitha Thewarapperuma is totally different as he had engaged in similar acts several times in the past as well. Recently he climbed down into a five-meter-deep well in the Ittapana village in Matugama, and brought out a human body floating in it when everybody refused to do the task.



In another incident he had broken a leg in a daring chase in Beruwala where he nabbed two cattle rustlers and saved the lives of six oxen stolen from a dairy farm in Matugama. Yet the question remains whether politicians should do manual work during disasters when they are supposed to manage the effects of the disasters with an overall perspective.

Also they seem to be reluctant to point out the shortcomings of the main player in this endeavor, the State.

However, people like politicians of their political party (and not others) to visit them when they are in need of help, in spite of the fact that no politician would be able to visit all his supporters, leave alone all affected, who had been hit by a flood or any other tragedy.

At the same time, being mindful of peoples mindset politicians too prefer to visit the disaster sites and perform some stunts, apart from getting some amount of firsthand knowledge on the magnitude of the tragedy.



Controversy has begun to surround the role of the media, especially the television channels, as they are involved in relief activities for the disaster hit people apparently competing with each other.



Although some private television stations first engaged in these activities State television channels too had entered the fray this time. They collect relief items such as food, water bottles and medicine and distribute the items themselves and conduct medical camps for the victims, independent of the government relief mechanism.

Some television channels seem to take more time than what they take for their news bulletin for the propaganda of their charity work, sometimes irritating the viewers. They sometimes try to say that they were the first to visit the victims of a particular place.

This has triggered a debate in the social media over whether media should help the authorities to manage the effects of disasters by providing them information on the needs of the victims and carrying the messages of the former to the latter, without involving themselves in relief activities or whether they too can join in relief activities. At a time when many voluntary organizations and religious groups are involved in relief works, one cannot reject the involvement of media institutions in those activities.

Besides, media institutions, especially the television stations as organisations with a huge capacity to address the masses can perform better than any other organization, except for the State mechanism, in these activities. Also with their network of correspondents they have a larger capacity than other voluntary organisations have to identify the needy and assess the needs.



Sometimes journalists have been accused of just heartlessly doing their job without helping the victims of disasters. Journalists who covered the accident that killed Princess Diana in France on Aug. 30, 1997, were accused by French Prosecutors for standing at the scene and continuing shooting rather than helping the injured. Kevin Carter, the South African photojournalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club, who received a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of a famine hit girl stalked by a vulture, depicting the 1993 famine in Sudan was also accused of spending much time for taking the picture rather than helping the girl. However, due to the very nature of TV stations doing relief works, arising of a situation of conflict of interest cannot be avoided. Their excessive coverage on their own charity works incontrovertibly might and would undermine others good work, especially the relief work done by the government entities, including the armed forces.



Also they seem to be reluctant to point out the shortcomings of the main player in this endeavor, the State.



That is, in a way media neglecting their duty by doing meritorious acts. What a tricky issue!
Speech by the Leader of the Opposition Rajavarothiam Sampanthan made in Parliament on UN Human Rights Council Resolutions

Mr. Presiding Member, this Resolution has been moved by the Joint Opposition.

The objective of the Resolution is the attempted repudiation of the Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and also the Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council.

I do not want to approach this matter in a spirit of confrontation. I want to approach it from the perspective of what would be in the best interests of the country and all its people while ensuring truth and justice

What happened to unarmed civilians in violation of human rights and humanitarian laws must not be confused with legitimate actions taken by the State against armed combatants carrying on an armed struggle against the State.

No one should be allowed to confuse the execution of legitimate duties by a government and the wanton killing of unarmed civilians in furtherance of the political agendas of persons holding high office



Unfortunately, I do not think such steps are within the competence of this honourable House and I might, perhaps, safely say that it is not the will of the present House. I might say very clearly that the Sri Lankan State is bound by the Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council and that it is the bounden duty of the Sri Lankan State to implement that Resolution. We should really work towards how that can be achieved without any harm being done to this country. That should be our objective.



I do not want to approach this matter in a spirit of confrontation. I want to approach it from the perspective of what would be in the best interests of the country and all its people while ensuring truth and justice.



The causes and events that led to this situation, to this Resolution being adopted, occurred during the tenure of the former Government. The present Government took over when conclusions, decisions, had been arrived at by the UN Human Rights Council. Not having been able to contain the situation despite being given every opportunity from 2012, the former Government could not have contained the situation when decisions had been arrived at in 2015 by the UN Human Rights Council.

The former Government was given every opportunity to implement its own LLRC recommendations

It was the policy of confrontation and refusal to participate that led to the Resolution adopted in 2015

What happened in the South from 1988-1989 and in the North from 2008-2009 are crimes against humanity.

I do not think all war heroes were engaged in committing violations of humanitarian laws but some of them undoubtedly committed such

crimes



The former Government was given every opportunity to implement its own LLRC-Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission- recommendations and conduct its own domestic investigations in 2012 and 2013 up to 2014. It was the policy of confrontation and refusal to participate that led to the Resolution adopted in 2015. This is undeniable and the former Government must accept responsibility for that situation.



This Resolution is frequently referred to as a Resolution against Sri Lanka. I do not agree with that view. It is a Resolution dealing with violations of human rights laws and humanitarian laws committed by both parties to the conflict, the State and the armed rebel group, the LTTE. It is not a Resolution against Sri Lanka. It is a Resolution pertaining to certain acts, not all acts, committed by the two parties to the conflict.

One must not forget that this whole process commenced when the then President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, gave a commitment to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, on the May 26, 2009 when the Secretary-General visited Sri Lanka, to the effect that Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President and the Sri Lankan Government would address the question of accountability. That was a commitment very clearly made by the then President to the Secretary-General of the UN when the Secretary-General came here. Mahinda Rajapaksa undoubtedly knew what he was doing because he himself had gone to Geneva in the late 1980s - in 1988 and 1989 - to seek the intervention of the UN Human Rights body when there were grave violations of human rights and humanitarian laws in the South of this country, when Sinhala civilian youth and Sinhala people were being slaughtered in their thousands, indeed tens of thousands, at that point of time. The only difference is that what happened in 2008-2009 happened in the North.



Nobody is complaining on behalf of the armed combatants. Mahinda Rajapaksa did not complain on behalf of armed combatants when he went to Geneva in 1988 and 1989. He only complained about what happened to civilians. The UN Human Rights Council is also dealing with what happened to civilians. In fact, simultaneously investigations have been conducted against the armed combatants about their own violations of human rights laws and humanitarian laws also against civilians. This culture of impunity should not continue. It should come to an end. What happened to unarmed civilians in violation of human rights and humanitarian laws must not be confused with legitimate actions taken by the State against armed combatants carrying on an armed struggle against the State. The distinction between these two situations is clearly defined in humanitarian laws and human rights laws and the standards of judgement pertaining to the applicability of the said two laws are clearly recognized internationally. I found my friends, in the course of the speeches they made earlier the day, referring to war heroes. I do not think all war heroes were engaged in committing violations of international humanitarian laws and human rights laws but some of them undoubtedly committed crimes against both those laws.



Can the cases pertaining to journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda, five students murdered in Trincomalee when they were standing on the beachfront or the 17 aid workers killed in Muttur be swept under the carpet merely because the persons accused of those crimes are members of the armed forces; so called war heroes? If those crimes cannot be swept under the carpet merely for the reason that those acts were committed by war heroes, how can violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law which are crimes against humanity committed in 2008-2009 be swept under the carpet? This was impunity at

its zenith.



Sir, no one should be allowed to confuse the execution of legitimate duties by a government and the wanton killing of unarmed civilians in furtherance of the political agendas of persons holding high office. Unless this culture is brought to an end, it will continue and that must not be allowed.



What happened in the South from 1988-1989 and in the North from 2008-2009 are crimes against humanity. No country, Sir, can continuously disregard such crimes.



As a result of its short-sighted policies and not being inclusive in exercising powers of governance or in sharing sovereignty vested in the people of this country, our country has faced catastrophic situations. We need to retrieve ourselves from this dire situation.

Full and expeditious implementation of the UN Human Rights Council Resolution will be the first step in that direction. Engaging in devious tactics to delay or deny the process will - I respectfully submit - be positively harmful to the future of this country.
the Profound Historic Message

Mihintale, believed to be the site of a meeting between the Buddhist monk Mahinda and King Devanampiyatissa

Poson Poya marks the arrival of Arahat Maha Mahinda Maha Thera in Sri Lanka along with the message of the Sakya clans Great Son Gotama Buddha.



By admiring with respect and following the Buddhas impeccable words, Emperor Asoka who governed Maha Bharata -- ancient India, profoundly launched a Dhamma missionary programme in many countries.



After the successful accomplishment of by his considerable numbers of enlightened disciples, the Blessed One, the Buddha compassionately advised and guided thus:

Go forth, O Bhikkhus, for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the good, benefit and happiness of divine beings and human beings. Let not two go by one way: Preach, O Bhikkhus, the Dhamma, excellent in the beginning, excellent in the middle, excellent in the end, both in the spirit and in the letter. Proclaim the Holy life, altogether perfect and pure.

Whether one believes it or not, the Law of Kamma will pave the way to ones own destination which one designs by oneself



The Son of Emperor Asoka  the great disciple of the Fully Enlightened One, Arahant Maha Mahinda Maha Thera was requested by his preceptor the Ven. Moggaliputta Tissa MahaThera to visit Sri Lanka to introduce and establish the incomparable message of the Gotama Buddha.



Poson Poya or the Full Moon Day in June is a very significant event for Sri Lankan Buddhists who vibrantly commemorate it with many colourful, spiritual and cultural activities.



Some 2,325 years ago, King Devanampiyatissa was a Head of State. There was a national festival attended by the people and the king at Mihintale which is situated in the vicinity of Anuradhapura.

The Dhamma State or Dharmarajya has perilously become a state of injustice



In the present, all ruins around Mihintale and Anuradhapura witness and testify, how the people of that era were prosperous and united. It was called and named the, State of Reservoirs and Island of the Dhamma



After meeting and listening to Arahant Mahinda Maha Thera, King Devanampiyatissa placed unwavering confidence in the refuge of the Triple Gem. He was a very pious and devout Buddhist leader who governed our country without hatred and prejudice. Not by words and lip service but genuinely by deeds, he helped establish and safeguard the Buddha Sasana in Sri Lanka.



Above mentioned facts were very visible and evident in our history, but in the present, most of them have dramatically eroded and turned topsy-turvy because most people have embraced and obsessively follow so called Party Politics which dangerously and atrociously have changed the whole atmosphere in our human society. Human values and value of human life are degraded. Antagonism and animosity are vivaciously and lively visible. The Dhamma State or Dharmarajya has perilously become a state of injustice. The paramount part of the Buddhas teaching merely has become only a lip service. Corruption and injustice are the driving and governing forces in our society today. However, it is not too late to re-establish the righteous way to lead our society to be united in peace and harmony.



Unfortunately those who do not understand the benefit of wholesome kamma and repercussion of unwholesome kamma will never refrain from wrongdoing and immoral activities.



When mental impurities such as anger, jealousy, craving and so on are conceived in the mind one can feel and experience dissatisfaction, suffering, misery, pain, and discomfort, etc. When kindness, compassion, generous or pure thoughts are conceived in the mind one can feel, perceive and experience innermost tranquility, calmness, peace, serenity and inner silence.



The Dhamma says that if it is to be immediately effective it has to be experienced by the wise by themselves.



Whether one believes it or not, the Law of Kamma will pave the way to ones own destination which one designs by oneself.



The Teaching of the Buddha is completely based on the mind. In his first and foremost discourse he clearly and explicitly explains about suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering and the way to cessation of suffering. No one can understand this till one treads this path. Where words are concerned, anyone can endlessly argue with the various information and numerous facts but in reality till one eradicat ones own defilement he or she wont be free from suffering. One should be a genuine human being, not in form but with innermost qualities.



This is the great message that we received 2,325 years ago and the compassionatel Ven. Maha Mahinda Maha Thera delivered to us.



The Ven. Maha Thera introduced the culture of inner peace and remarkably revealed the true danger in the culture of violence.



The great Master the Buddha is our impeccable and incomparable role model. As Sri Lankan Buddhists, Arahant Mahinda Maha Thera is our leader. Specially all monks should reflect upon this remarkable character. Unfortunately most so called monks disgracefully involve in party politics.



Some so called politicians have donated and contributed millions of rupees and other materials, now some monks work for them. Monks are not able to escape from it. They are very partial to donors and create violent atmosphere with their blind followers.

Unfortunately in order to preserve and secure their political hidden agendas our politicians have influenced and manipulated Buddhist monks to engage in politics after we won our independence. From the beginning of becoming independent from Great Britain we began to divide and separate.



What is the purpose of being a Buddhist monk? What is the prime role and responsibility as a monk? If someone examines though the whole teaching of the Buddha no one can find any advice or word that he has asked monks to engage in party politics. Now they have completely changed the Buddhas words as they wish. This is the disaster in our country now.



The following is how monks should behave if they are to be true disciples of the Buddha:



Good is restraint in the body; good is restraint in speech; good is restraint in thought. Restraint everywhere is good. The monk restrained in every way is freed from all suffering(The Buddha)

He who is friendly amid the hostile, peaceful amid the violent, and unattached amid the attached  him do I call a holy man. (The Buddha)

Ones own introspection is the profound examination and analysis. If someone honestly examinies ones own inner behaviour can change the manner which mostly disclosed in words and deeds, and walk on the righteous path that leads to true peace and happiness.



Though so called Buddhists observe and promise themselves not to violate the precepts and rules, in front of their own children and parents and along with some parents and children they absurdly and imprudently violate and showing their own disgraceful act, contrary to what they articulate and advise.



Now the time has arrived to look inward for every one of their own mentality, thoughts, feelings, how they treat others, what refined language they speak with others, how they address others, how polite you are, do you verbally hurt or physically harm others, are you jealous of others, are you happy about others achievements and accomplishments, are you strong enough to tolerate others mistakes, do you discriminate others, do you tolerate others beliefs, faiths and culture, and so on.



This is the time for you to take into consideration of your own life. You may be young or healthy and wealthy but unpredictable contingencies and unavoidable circumstances will inform you that your life ends one day at any moment. That will be a crucial moment for anyone who is healthy or wealthy or influential and powerful. That moment should not be on of regret or repentant. To have delightful inner feeling, one definitely must tread on a path which is compassionately elaborated by the great Master the Buddha.

You are completely responsible for yourself. One is utterly accountable for oneself. Therefore, ones every single verbal, mental and physical action should be purely and exclusively virtuous and righteous.



Be kind and wise to concentrate on your own duties and responsibilities rather than the Head of State or any other.



Reflection must be thoroughly focused on ones own family. Not materially but emotionally.



Then you will be happy to say that I am kind and generous. I am virtuous and righteous.

Watchful of speech, well controlled in mind, one should not commit evil with the body. Let one purify these three courses of action, and win the path made known by the Great sage  the Blessed One



Overcome the angry by non-anger; overcome the wicked by goodness; overcome the miser by generosity; overcome the liar by truth. (The Gotama Buddha)
Four days before June 1, when Rahul Gandhi was to scheduled to arrive in Hyderabad and proceed to Sangareddy, 66km away, to address a public meeting in the evening, a Telangana Congress leader called me.

"The plan is to drive from old Hyderabad airport to Sangareddy in a procession, with about four to five stops in between, including one to garland the Rajiv Gandhi statue at Somajiguda. It is bound to create a huge traffic jam. Do you think it is a good idea or will we get lot of brickbats from Hyderabadis on social media?" he asked.

For those not familiar with Hyderabad's geography, the old airport at Begumpet is in the heart of the city and Somajiguda, about 3 km from there is a busy commercial area.

I told him that Hyderabad's already stressed-out and shrunk road space (thanks to the Metro Rail construction) would not be able to take the pressure of a Congress party motorcade and I, as a Hyderabadi, won't be amused, getting caught in an artificially created jam. The leader said he will convey the feedback to the party leadership. But on 30 May, he messaged to say the party had decided to go ahead with the convoy route because the aim was to create an impact.

Politicians obviously think differently from the common public. That any visibility is good publicity and Rahul Gandhi, belatedly, seems to have realised that his approach of wanting to first reform the party from within, will not work in Indian politics. When he is up against a consummate political rival like Narendra Modi, he cannot be the good boy who always listens to the monitor in the classroom.

Which is perhaps why if the last 10 days are anything to go by, Rahul Gandhi seems to be trying to reinvent himself. In a space of 10 days, he has been seen more outside Lutyens' Delhi, a term now almost synonymous with a disconnect with the rest of India.

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

He started with Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, went to Sangareddy in Telangana, Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, and now Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

But with Rahul Gandhi, hope is an untrustworthy word. Going by past experience, this could just be one of those "bharat darshan" phases that he often gets into, only to take off on a foreign holiday soon after.

It is that tag of a political tourist that has been associated with him, someone non-serious, someone who just enjoys the attention of being a Gandhi kid and feeling self-important. And he has only himself to blame for it.

But look closely at the last five outings and they seem to convey a sense of purpose, that of correcting old mistakes and putting some energy into a party that has gone into comatose in many states in India.

Uttar Pradesh is a big election his party lost recently, but he has realised that despite the drubbing, he needs to stay engaged in the state as an opposition leader.

Telangana is an important constituency for the Congress that lost the state despite delivering statehood to the region. His speech in Sangareddy served the purpose of galvanising the rank and file even though his comments criticising K Chandrasekhar Rao's promotion of his dynasty only provoked jibes at his own self and family.

Image: Twitter/@INCIndia

But his presence in Hyderabad meant the Congress, which was being challenged by the BJP even for the opposition space, now plans to build up on the gains made in Sangareddy.

Chennai was an occasion to make amends. Rahul Gandhi during the UPA days, never bothered to call on Karunanidhi when he toured Tamil Nadu even though he was an ally.

When J Jayalalithaa was in hospital, the Congress vice-president, goaded by his Tamil Nadu PCC chief S Thirunavukkarasu, flirted with the idea of dumping the DMK for the AIADMK. Now chastened by the political developments in Tamil Nadu since Jayalalithaa's demise, the Chennai trip on Karunanidhi's birthday was his way of establishing a political relationship with MK Stalin.

Rahul Gandhi is clearly the junior partner to the DMK, but it would hope that the alliance results in a decent harvest of Congress MPs in 2019.

The Congress has for the past three years, written itself off in Andhra Pradesh ever since it bifurcated the state. The 2014 elections saw it drawing a blank and it now does not have a single MP or MLA in the state, quite a comedown for the party that ruled it for 10 years from 2004.

Guntur was getting into political enemy territory as both the TDP and the YSR Congress are rivals. While N Chandrababu Naidu is a BJP ally, YS Jaganmohan Reddy by extending support to the BJP candidate in the presidential elections, is cosying up to Narendra Modi. The Congress has, therefore, a vague anti-BJP space to occupy if it plays its cards well.

The public meeting where he promised special category status to Andhra Pradesh, if the Congress comes to power in 2019, is just the first step. The party has a long way to go before it can even hope to recover the lost ground in Andhra.

Mandsaur is guerilla political warfare. And here he is not just up against the BJP, but the mainstream media as well, a significant section of which lampoons him for trying to get into prohibited area on a bike and trying to play politics over the death of farmers in police firing.

He has drawn from the Aam Aadmi Party book on how to be a disruptive force, to make his voice heard when the majority in the media and social media, are determined to paint him a "Pappu".

It is still too early for anyone to laud Rahul Gandhi. For the Congress vice-president, to get his hands dirty on the field in the next two years, leading from the front is very important. Decisiveness of the manner he exhibited when he immediately suspended the Youth Congress workers who slaughtered a cow in public in Kannur is needed all the time.
Union minister Rajyavardhan Rathore, while addressing BJP party cadres in Jaipur on June 6, disclosed that Wahhabism has now made its way to Jammu and Kashmir. Such a remark coming from a minister, known more for his sports-related statements, surprised many.

But Rathore is not off the mark. Saudi Arabia, the principal patron of Wahhabism, has been in the news in recent days for trying to take on Shia-dominated Iran and other non-Wahhabis, damning them as infidels.

Meanwhile, to reinforce the Wahhabi agenda, Saudi Arabia very recently offered a huge sum of money amounting to billions of dollars to Bangladesh for construction of nearly 540 mosques.

South Asia remains a target for Wahhabis to proliferate their Islamic agenda in the region, perceived to be a "soft target" and easily vulnerable. A pattern is clearly visible due to recent disturbing developments in Indonesia, Bangladesh and the Philippines.

Coincidentally or otherwise, we see an emboldened Saudi Arabia in its posturing after Donald Trump's much trumpeted visit to Riyadh last month. Two developments merit attention.

One is the fresh crisis in Qatar, where Saudi Arabia is playing a lead role in an attempt to target Iran and to send a signal to the Gulf countries that Saudi Arabia is the "one and only" boss in the region whose writ runs and others are irrelevant. The second development is the shooting in Tehran that claimed 12 lives and injured over 50.

Although the ISIS was quick to take responsibility for the blasts at Iran's parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, some experts on Islamic terror assess that it was an act conceived and executed by Saudi Arabia to teach Iran a lesson, or to pre-empt Iran's plans to flex its muscle based on nuclear capabilities.

To buttress their argument, they assert that it's normally not an ISIS modus operandi to target a mausoleum or a site when it's empty. Incidentally, last Sunday was Ayatollah's anniversary and thousands had congregated. Why didn't the ISIS strike then?

It could have caused huge casualties, bringing massive publicity to the terror group. The attack on the parliament also does not bear the ISIS hallmark.

Going by ISIS terror strikes occurring in the past in Europe and adjoining areas, we see all attacks happening in crowded places, ostensibly for maximum propaganda. Be it Paris, Brussels, Ankara or the Istanbul airport.

By implication, therefore, analysts point their fingers to Saudi Arabia for carrying out the terror blasts in Tehran.

Lightning strikes over the Jeddah skyline, Saudi Arabia. Photo: Reuters

Another argument they put forward in support of their theory are the aggressive and belligerent statements against Iran emanating from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi foreign minister Abdel Al Juber recently remarked "Iran must be punished for its interference, support for terrorism in the region". It was perhaps a kind of veiled warning. The Saudi defence minister too sometime back spoke in the same vein, adding that Iran was unsafe. Judging by their utterances, it's clear the tenor in their remarks is menacing.

Meanwhile, some reports from Tehran indicate that a few terrorists responsible for the mausoleum attack were caught alive before they could detonate themselves. Possibly, their sustained interrogation will shed light in tracing the handlers of the perpetrators.

Assuming that there really is a Saudi hand in the terror acts, Iran is unlikely to sit quietly. It will seize this opportunity to retaliate and come back with ferocity to teach Saudi Arabia a lesson. Its prestige is at stake. It wants to remain a leader of the Shias. It has been watching Shia Houthis being targeted by the Saudis in Yemen. It also nurtures helplessness due to excesses on Shia brethren in Bahrain.

The Qatar issue has further escalated tension in the region. It's now Saudi Arabia versus Iran. Or Shia versus Sunnis. Thus, the next episode seems to be a decisive one, with the Gulf as the likely theatre.

Back home in India, the Shias are disturbed with terror attacks in Tehran. They remain sympathetic to Iran as they are vehemently opposed to any kind of Wahhabism thrust on by Saudi Arabia. They are also against ISIS, their doctrine and any radicalisation in India.

Like the Shias, who reside in large numbers in Lucknow and Hyderabad, Muslim Students Organisation of India (MSO) is reported to be very active in the deradicalisation programme as well as to contain the rise of Wahhabism in India. Such an outfit and its agenda in national interests deserves patronage by liberals and intellectuals to check growth of Islamic fundamentalism in India.

Encouraged by Wahhabism and the Saudi fillip to inject Islam with fundamentalism, Kashmiri activist Zakir Musa recently called upon the Muslims in India to rise and resort to kill the infidels as part of the assertion of Islam by shedding their "cowardice".

Not many reacted or rebutted what Musa said, except perhaps Shujat Quadri of the MSO who, while criticising Musa's comments, said such pan-Islamic plans in South Asia would never succeed.

Musa was dubbed as a Pakistani agent with his agenda funded by the neighbouring nation. We hear a voice on part of the MSO, on a note of optimism, silencing the voice of anti-nationals and those trying to spread Wahhabism.
The Iran-Saudi proxy war that has played itself out in West Asia ad nauseam has reached a critical mass, with Iran dropping all pretence and hinting at Saudi Arabia's influence in the "ISIS attack" that left 12 people dead in Tehran.

Iran and Saudi Arabia are enmeshed in no less than three proxy wars which are panning out simultaneously in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, among other flashpoints.

Some of these are at a tipping point, with the Islamic State's desperation increasing as it has ''lost almost a quarter of the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria over the past one year''.

Despite Iran's proactive role against IS in both Iraq and Syria, the Sunni jihadists had not thus far carried out any attacks inside Iran.

But Tehran was apparently on IS radar and according to western media reports, it had even released a rare video in Persian in March, warning that it ''will conquer Iran and restore its status as a Sunni Muslim nation''.

Incidentally, IS has strong Wahabbi roots - a fundamentalist sect that has been allegedly patronised by the Saudis.

The Americans, of course, are a permanent fixture in all these battle zones and willing accomplices of the Saudis.

Matters escalated when a crusader named Donald Trump came along, patted the Saudis on the back and muddied the waters.

Even though most perpetrators of 9/11 were Saudis, Trump, the orange knight in the shining armour, is convinced, or at least he is out to convince the world, that Iran is responsible for all that is going wrong in West Asia - from Lebanon to Iraq to Yemen.

The declaration that emanated from Riyadh after Trump's visit had stated as much and even discussed the possibility of creating a joint force - ostensibly to fight terror - in the first sign of a formal Sunni gang up against Iran.

Tehran, of course, is no babe in the woods: it had upped the ante recently, blaming Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam and its funding for most terror strikes in Europe, including the attack in London.

Curiously, this all-encompassing dirty war - that has played havoc with the destinies of several nations in West Asia - has a lot to do with the "paranoia" of the Saudis who have a chronic mistrust of the Iranians.

The most recent example of this is Qatar, which Saudi Arabia is trying to "fix" for its "bonding" with Iran. In a bid to isolate Doha in the Arab world, a motley group led by the Saudis even snapped all diplomatic links with Qatar and accused it of funding the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The move had Trump's blessings and the US president spilled the beans when he announced that Qatar's isolation could be "the beginning of the end of the horror of terrorism". This, unmindful of the fact that the US has one of its largest air bases in Qatar, but Trump cares little for such niceties.

According to some West Asia experts cited in the western media, it was the uprooting of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq that disturbed the equilibrium in the region. Photo: Reuters

The Islamic State, by carrying out the terror strikes in Tehran, hopes to draw the entire Shia-Sunni world into the simmering sectarian fires. No wonder it chose to strike at the Iranian parliament and the shrine dedicated to Ayatollah Khomeini, both potent symbols of modern day Iran.

Given the Wahabi roots of the IS, that is understandable - they have a pathological hatred for the Shia Iranians whom they consider infidels or apostates.

But the IS has more than just pathological or theological reasons for wanting to square up with the Iranians. Tehran is proving to be a kill joy in both Iraq and Syria: its support to Iraqi forces and Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria could trip the IS in its dream run to the Caliphate.

In fact, some media reports suggest the IS is finding the going extremely tough in both Mosul and Raqqa, which possibly manifested in the terror strikes in Tehran.

Interestingly, Iran and Saudi Arabia have a lot in common: both are theocracies, both are trying to wrest control of the region, both wish to control the oil cartels, and both accuse each other of being the fountain head of terror.

Both also have a Sunni and Shia minority, respectively, which complicates matters. The Saudis are again extremely paranoid about their Shia minority, ever more so after the Iranian Revolution.

Or at least the Saudis want that the sectarian fires keep smouldering so that they have a tenacious grip on the region.

Shia Iranians are less pensive about the Sunni minority getting restive but may have reason to worry now, if it is established that the IS is behind the attack.

There have been other face-offs too but Saudi Arabia and Iran have stopped short of engaging each other directly. All that might change, now.

Sometime back, protesters in Tehran had stomped through the Saudi embassy, indulging in acts of vandalism and arson. Iran had then looked the other way and the Saudis had retaliated by snapping diplomatic ties.

Predictably, the Saudis decided to pay back and not necessarily in kind. There was a mass execution and among those slain was one Nimr-al-Nimr, a prominent religious leader from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority.

Nimr's arrest in 2012 and subsequent execution in January 2016 perhaps escalated the Saudi-Iran tensions which later manifested in the two other theatres of war: in Syria and Yemen.

According to some West Asia experts cited in the western media, it was the uprooting of the Saddam regime in Iraq that disturbed the equilibrium in the region and led to both Saudi Arabia and Iran rushing in to ''fill the vacuum''.

Since then, both sides have spared no effort - overt and covert - to court tottering regimes, adding to the chaos in the region.
The Reliance Jio revolution has seen India making it to the list of top 15 countries in terms of 4G LTE network availability; however, when it comes to download speeds, the country is far from where it would like to be.

For all the claims by the telecom industry and TRAI's efforts, India has been ranked 74  even below countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka. A quick look at the report published by OpenSignal on the state of mobile internet across the world, reveals that the average download speed in the country  5.1 Mbps  is less than a third of the global average and slightly better than the global average 3G speed of 4.4 Mbps.

Jio to blame?

Although the report highlights the entry of Jio into the telecom sector as the driving force behind the increased availability of LTE network in the country, it cannot be ignored that it has also led to a decline in speeds. As pointed out in a report by The Economic Times, download speeds in India have dropped more than one MBPS in the last six months after Reliance Jio entered the market.

The telecom operators entry into the market has coincided with a period of increased competition, and aggressive pricing which has resulted in an increased demand for data across the board.

The report further goes on to add that while India may have improved on connectivity, it still lacks in terms of the amount of data capacity.

Slow 4G speeds Jio's bane

OpenSignal in its report has termed Jios expansion as a double-edged sword, claiming that the flood of new users it has invited with its free offers has overstretched its network capacity, ultimately leading to sluggish 4G speeds.

However, what's clear is that the rest of the telecom industry is set to gain from Jio's loss. Airtel and Vodafone which OpenSignal claims provide better service, already look to be profiting from Jio's woes.

There is no denying that Jio's "sustained predatory pricing" is bleeding its competition dry. The country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel last month reporting its lowest quarterly profit in four years, but things still look to be on the up for the company. Latest numbers hint at consumers finding their way back to the arms of older telecom players who look to be on the brink of turning a corner post a difficult period of losses.
Applications for the next Causeway Challenge will be open from June 28-July 31, seeking ideas that address the question: How can we use creativity to increase civic engagement in Chattanooga?

The goal of the Causeway Challenge is to empower individuals to solve problems in their own communities. Since 2014, Causeway has awarded nearly $200,000 to grassroots leaders who have made Chattanooga more connected, pushed to be a more inclusive city, shown the power of play, inspired more parents to get involved in their childrens education, and empowered youth to create safer communities, said officials.

For its sixth Challenge, in partnership with Mozilla Foundation, Causeway is focusing on the intersection of creativity and civic engagement. Civic engagement is defined as, promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes.

We know that design, art, and creative thinking can make complex processes more approachable, digestible, and enjoyable, all leading to more lasting involvement," said Abby Garrison, Causeways executive director. "We also know that civic engagement comes in lots of forms. See many examples of projects that have inspired this challenge on Causeways Pinterest page.

To further explore creativity applied to civic engagement, Causeway will host a kickoff event called Reclaiming Civic Engagement on June 28 at The Camp House. The inspiration event will feature three projects from across the country that use creativity to get people engaged in cities both politically and non-politically:

Marc OBrien with Hey, What's Good In _________? from The Determined in San Francisco, Ca; Ingrid Haftel with Making Policy Public from The Center for Urban Pedagogy in New York, N.Y.; and Brian Phillips with Gray Area from Interface Studio Architects in Philadelphia, Pa.

Following the kickoff event, applications will be open from June 28 through midnight on July 31 at causeway.org/challenge. After the open application period, a group of community judges will select up to 10 projects who will receive up to $3,000 each to implement their project. Winning projects will be announced on Aug. 18, and projects will be implemented between September and December.

The Causeway staff and their network of community partners will be available to offer feedback and hands-on help as the winning projects work toward their launch. All winners will be required to go through CO.STARTERS for Causes, a 9-week planning course that will be taught at Causeway on Tuesday nights from 6-9 p.m. The classes will begin on Aug. 23 and will run until Oct. 25. Project leaders will also be required to administer surveys and collect data to assess the impact of their pilot. Each project will be required to submit a final report by Jan. 15, 2018 outlining the impact their project had, what the money was spent on, and more details about the outcome of the effort.

Causeway will host open office hours every Thursday from 11:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m. while applications are open (July 6, July 13, July 20, July 27) to answer questions from potential applicants. Anyone who can not make it downtown during that time can email challenge@causeway.org or call the office to set up an appointment at a more convenient time. Causeway will also be doing extensive community outreach during the application period.

Si te gustaria solicitar en espanol, por favor, envienos un correo a challenge@causeway.org.






The Tennessee Department of Education released the Dyslexia Resource Guide, which offers assistance to schools for identifying and supporting for students showing characteristics of dyslexia. This guide provides districts with information related to screening procedures for dyslexia, specific interventions, professional learning resources, and reporting requirements.

For all students to make academic gains, we must make sure that we are recognizing areas of need and providing relevant and focused supports, Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen said. This resource guide provides districts a comprehensive view on the characteristics of dyslexia and how to appropriately align interventions that are tailored to individual student needs.



The resource guide provides the tools needed to support students showing characteristics of dyslexia through Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2), the states framework designed to meet the needs of all students through increasingly intensive interventions. For example, schools implement procedures for identifying characteristics of dyslexia through the screening process required by the existing RTI framework.



Department leaders worked in partnership with the Dyslexia Advisory Council to develop the resource guide over the past year. The advisory council, which was established in fall 2016, includes a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including educators, parents, and school psychologists with expertise in dyslexia from across the state. A draft guide was released in March, and through rounds of internal and public feedback, the guide was revised to be more specific and actionable as school teams work to align interventions in a way that responds to individual student needs.



Moving forward, the department will work with the council to provide professional learning for educators, as well as more guidance for districts and families. Additionally, the advisory council will annually submit a report to the General Assembly with their findings and associated recommendations as they continue to review and monitor dyslexia screening and intervention practices across the state.



The guide came to fruition through Public Chapter 1058, which was sponsored by Sen. Dolores Gresham, R-Somerville, and Rep. Joe Pitts, D-Clarksville, and was approved by the Tennessee General Assembly during the 2016 legislative session. In addition to the creation of the resource guide, the law also established the advisory council and requires all students to be screened for the characteristics of dyslexia and provide appropriate interventions for students who are identified as having those characteristics.



The full Dyslexia Resource Guide is available on the departments website here. To learn more about Public Chapter 1058 and the Dyslexia Advisory Council, visit the departments website here.


The Latino Leadership Awards is an annual La Paz Chattanooga initiative that brings together members of the community in order to recognize and honor Latinos who have made a significant impact in Chattanooga. In addition to the Latino Leader recognition, La Paz also honors five individuals for the following special awards:



- Latino Leader of the Year & Chattanoogas Choice:

Of those selected as 2017 Latino Leaders, two will be given an additional recognition. The most prestigious honors at the ceremony recognize two local Latino's individual career achievement and community impact. A selection committee will determine who will receive the Latino Leader of the Year Award, and the general public will vote for the person to be honored as Chattanooga's Choice.



- Community Champion:

Recognizing those who have championed services for and/or made a significant impact on Chattanoogas Latino population over a series of years. This recipient does not have to be Latino in heritage.



- Emerging Latino Leader:

Recognizing the emerging influence and accomplishments of a Latino young adult who is under the age of 25 years.



- La Paz Volunteer of the Year:

Recognizing the outstanding dedication and volunteer service of one individual's commitment to the work of La Paz Chattanooga.



Nominations for the 2017 Latino Leadership Awards, scheduled for Sept. 18 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Chattanooga Convention and Trade Center, are open and will close by end of business on July, 10. All nominees must be over the age of 18 and live within a 25 mile radius of the greater Chattanooga area. Nominations can be submitted online at www.lapazchattanooga.org/awards.



For more information regarding the Latino Leadership Awards, contact Christian Patino at cpatino@lapazchattanooga.org or call the La Paz office at 423-624-8414.








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The relevant parties at the 16th Shangri-La Dialogue, particularly China, on Sunday urged the adoption of diplomatic means instead of military or economic punishment to finally solve the nuclear threat on the Korean Peninsula.

The crux of the nuclear crisis is Washington and Pyongyang's mistrust to each other, pointed out He Lei, head of the Chinese delegation to the dialogue who also serves as vice president of the Academy of Military Science of the People's Liberation Army of China (PLA).

The United States should become more open-minded and exert more wisdom in dealing with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), he suggested.

According to Koh Chin Yee, CEO of the Singapore-based Longus Institute for Development and Strategy, the two adversaries continuously increase their chips to intimidate each other before finally threading on each other's bottom lines.

At the invitation of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) that initiated the event, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis delivered a speech Saturday, saying that Pyongyang constituted the most urgent and dangerous threat to the region.

The Trump administration has made it clear on several recent occasions that the United States is losing "strategic patience" and all options are on the table, indicating that the largest military power in the world might resort to the use of force in dealing with his long-time rival. America's recent military attacks on Syria and Afghanistan were interpreted as a strong warning against the disobedient Asian country.

It's better for the concerned parties to argue at the negotiation table than to cross fire at the battlefield, suggested Zhao Xiaozhuo, an attendee and research fellow from the Academy of Military Science of the PLA.

The use of force could terminate one problem for the time being, but it would generate 10 more problems, he warned.

In addition to military means, Mattis pledged in his speech to continue to increase diplomatic and economic pressures, until Pyongyang finally and permanently abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Putting economic pressures on Pyongyang, according to the Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2017 published by IISS ahead of the security forum, is largely ineffective.

What's worse, the chance looks remote for Washington and Pyongyang to sit down to talk. An arduous task it surely would be, but if one side takes concrete steps toward that direction, there is always room for diplomacy.

The only way out of the nuclear mire lies in the endeavor in the field of diplomacy, as China has always advocated. China firmly supports a denuclearized and peaceful peninsula, and has all along called upon the relevant sides to return to the negotiation table, according to the Chinese delegation.

The three-day Shangri-La Dialogue organized by the IISS gathered senior military officials, diplomats and experts from over 30 countries.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Astana Wednesday for a state visit to Kazakhstan and the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Chinese President Xi Jinping (L front) is welcomed by Kazakhstan First Deputy Prime Minister Askar Mamin upon his arrival in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 7, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

During his stay in the Central Asian country, Xi will also attend the opening ceremony of the Expo 2017 in Astana.

"I am glad to come to the beautiful country of Kazakhstan. I have been deeply impressed by the magnificent Kazakh steppe, vibrant rivers, the racing horses and most of all, the warm-hearted and sincere Kazakh people," Xi said in a written statement released upon his arrival at the airport.

"China and Kazakhstan, friendly neighbors bound by mountains and rivers, have been committed to consolidating our political mutual trust, strengthening cooperation in all areas, and promoting our coordination in international and regional issues since they established diplomatic relations 25 years ago," he noted.

"The booming China-Kazakhstan relationship has brought concrete benefits to the two countries and their peoples," he said. "I look forward to engaging in deep-going exchanges with my old friend, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and chart the course of our bilateral relations together."

The Chinese president also expressed his readiness to exchange ideas with other top leaders of the SCO members, and wished the Expo 2017 in Astana a full success.

The trip marks Xi's first visit to Central Asia this year. The Chinese leader had visited Kazakhstan twice since taking office, respectively in 2013 and 2015.

"Over the past quarter of a century, our bilateral relations have withstood the test of time and the ever-changing international situation," Xi said in a signed article published earlier Wednesday in the Kazakh newspaper Aikyn Gazeti. "Our two countries are not only good neighbors, but also comprehensive strategic partners."

Xi proposed the Silk Road Economic Belt, part of his Belt and Road Initiative, at the Nazarbayev University on Sept. 7, 2013. The country has since then been committed to aligning its development strategy of "Nurly Zhol," or "Bright Path" in the Kazakh language, with the China-proposed initiative.

"Over the past four years, the Belt and Road Initiative has gradually developed from a proposal to actions, and from a concept to practice," said Xi in the article. "We need to synergize our development strategies in a faster pace."

Xi's presence at the Expo 2017, with the theme "future energy," not only shows China's full support to Kazakhstan, but also the importance China attaches to new energy, said Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Huilai on Monday.

The highlight of this year's SCO summit will be the formal accession of India and Pakistan to the SCO and China's assumption of the bloc's presidency upon conclusion of the meeting, according to Sun Zhuangzhi, secretary-general of the SCO Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The joining of New Delhi and Islamabad, the first ever expansion of the SCO, will make it an eight-member regional organization that covers three-fifths of the Eurasian continent with nearly half of the world's population.

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said earlier that the membership of India and Pakistan, both regional heavyweights, will enhance the SCO's role in combating cross-border terrorism and promoting free trade.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, pledged on Thursday to boost bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative.

The two heads of state made the remarks during their meeting in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. Xi arrived here Wednesday evening for a state visit to Kazakhstan and the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Hailing the good momentum of bilateral ties, Xi said that high-level interaction should play an important role in guiding China-Afghanistan relations and that exchanges on all levels should be intensified.

Xi voiced the hope that the two sides will actively implement their memorandum of understanding on jointly promoting the B&R construction and other related deals, deepen bilateral practical cooperation, and carry out connectivity projects between them.

Xi proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, respectively, in 2013, which later evolved into the B&R Initiative.

The Chinese president also called for closer cooperation on security and anti-terrorism, saying that China supports Afghanistan's efforts to maintain domestic security and will continue helping the Afghan side to improve relevant capabilities.

Xi reaffirmed that China firmly adheres to an Afghanistan-friendly policy and will play a constructive role in Afghanistan's process of peaceful reconciliation and reconstruction.

China supports Afghanistan's push to play a bigger role in promoting regional economic integration and interconnectivity, Xi added.

For his part, Ghani said Afghanistan cherishes the friendship with China, and is grateful for China's help in its peaceful reconstruction and reconciliation process.

The Afghan president said his country values China's important role in international and regional affairs, and is committed to closer economic, trade and security cooperation.

Afghanistan is highly appreciative of the B&R Initiative and looks forward to aligning its own development with the B&R construction, Ghani said, adding that his country will actively participate in cooperation on transport connectivity.
If it involved anybody but Donald Trump, news that the White House will push for a massive infusion of funding into infrastructure updates likely would be met with almost universal approbation.

We support the infrastructure goal  but remain a bit skeptical over its accomplishment.

President Trump says he wants to energize investment of $1 trillion, in a combination of public and private funding, to overhaul the countrys roads, bridges, railways, the air traffic control system and other transportation options.

Thats an impressive sum  and an impressive goal.

Over and over again, this newspaper has highlighted a slew of transportation problems that need addressing.

Near the top of the list are aging and outdated bridges. Charlottesvilles Belmont Bridge is only one example of these deteriorating structures. (Plans already are underway to replace the local bridge.)

Highways also are crumbling or need expansion in many parts of the country, while new technologies need to be added to accommodate a changing industry  everything from better automatic readers at toll booths to smart roads capable of interfacing with driverless cars.

Also close to the top of the list are railways, which need improved capabilities for moving both freight and passengers. Currently, there isnt always enough track capacity to handle both passenger and freight traffic  or even to ensure that the freight trains arent bottlenecked by congestion, without adding passenger trains to the mix. Trackage must be added to resolve these conflicts. Technological upgrades are needed both to help schedule the trains more efficiently and to improve train and track safety.

Faster travel and faster transport of goods would by themselves boost the national economy by improving productivity. But in addition to that is the economic gain to be had from the jobs that would be directly created by the infrastructure work.

And of course theres no way to measure the safety impact of the upgrades, in preserving property and human life.

Despite these positive goals, the Trump plan is running into trouble already, in part because American voters and Washington lawmakers alike are distracted by the series of crises emanating from the Trump administration.

We hope leaders can find the ability to focus on the need to upgrade infrastructure and concentrate on the proposals merits, even as they struggle with a flood of other concerns.

A second problem is more specific to the proposal itself. In his budget, Mr. Trump proposed tax breaks to stimulate the infrastructure upgrades, resulting in a predicted $1 trillion impact. But the budget may not be reliable or his predictions accurate; math errors already have been discovered that call into question his promises to improve growth and balance spending.

Additionally, the budget cuts transportation funding in other areas, including Amtrak and the Highway Trust Fund.

Finally, weve seen from other presidencies just how difficult it is to deliver on promises to improve infrastructure, generate jobs and fuel the economy. The hopes may be high, but the reach might not be long or strong enough.

Still, its a debate worth having and an effort worth making.

We hope Washingtons leaders can focus on the merits of the plan, winnow through the chaff, and approve a workable strategy for fixing Americas many infrastructure needs.
I wrote Congressman Thomas A. Garrett Jr. about my concern that Donald Trump had shared highly classified information with the Russians in the Oval Office on May 10. The following was part of his reply:  [S]tories about President Trump allegedly sharing classified information with Russian Officials and its (sic) subsequent viral spread is another attempt by the Democratic Party to delegitimize President Trump.

My concern is that the press is being delegitimized, not Trump.

I do not share Mr. Garretts view that the spread of this strategic information was an effort to delegitimize the president.

I find the disclosure to the Russians concerning. An Israeli spy may well have been endangered by sharing this information with the Russians, and it is possible that valuable information about laptop bombs and future threats will no longer be available from this source.

No American reporters or photographers were in the Oval Office during this meeting, only Russians. Doesnt this seem suspicious to you?

And the photographs of Donald Trump showed him looking the happiest since his November victory. Has Trump made other disclosures of Americas secrets to his Russian friends?

I was born in Orange County during the 1950s. I remember the nuclear bomb scare while I was in elementary school, when we cowered under school desks to prepare for war.

I am aware that Vladimir Putin, whom Mr. Trump greatly admires, was a member of the KBG, an organization well-known for abusing power and killing people.

I am deeply concerned about the news that many members of the Trump administration, past and present, have proven or suspected ties to Russian oligarchs and officials, including Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort. We have heard about meetings with Russians that people forgot to mention on their security clearance forms. If they have nothing to hide, why the secrecy and the apparent efforts to set up a back channel to Russia?

The phrase Russia is our Friend, as spouted by the Tiki-torch-carrying crowd at Lee Park on May 13, gives me the creeps. I hope we soon learn the truth about why some people think this slogan is true.

Janet Dix, Charlottesville

References:
As a local employee of the solar industry and a lifelong progressive activist, I write today to debunk the claims by the Del. David Toscanos challenger in the Democratic primary that David "doesnt believe solar energy is ready for investment.

Davids work has directly led to over $2 million in private solar investment in Albemarle schools alone, and has expanded solar access across the state. One undoubted result of his leadership in favorable solar policy was the 65 percent increase in Virginia solar jobs last year, my job included.

In 2016, I worked on the installation of 1.1 megawatts of solar power across six Albemarle schools, enough to power over 125 average U.S. homes. These solar installations would not have been possible without Davids support of changes to Virginia law allowing power purchase agreements in Dominion Energy's service territory, allowing pilot projects such as the school installations. This year, David sponsored a bill that, had it passed, would have expanded this solar access law across the state.

Further, as the House minority leader, David is the glue that holds the progressive delegates of Virginia together.

For a full description of his progressive record  from supporting an increase to the minimum wage to his opposition of offshore oil drilling  follow this link: davidtoscano.com/politics/lets-set-the-record-straight.

I want to be sure voters have the right information to make their decision on June 13. Speaking from both my experience in clean energy and my knowledge of his solid progressive record, I wholeheartedly endorse David Toscano.

Amory Fischer, Albemarle County

References:
Mumbai: Naresh Goyal-promoted private carrier Jet Airways today said it has partnered with Mexican flag carrier Aeromexico for codeshare flights and frequent flyers programme.

The two airlines have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to give effect to the partnership, Jet Airways said in a release here. The MoU, signed by Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Aeromexico Chief Executive Officer Andres Conesa on the sidelines of the IATA Annual General Meeting in Cancun (Mexico), outlines cooperation in the areas of enabling codeshare flights and frequent flyer programmes, it said.

As part of the arrangement, both carriers will code on each other's services between India and Mexico via common gates in Europe (London Heathrow, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Amsterdam). Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless travel to destinations where it has no presence.

To begin with, Jet Airways will place its marketing code '9W' on Aeromexico flights from London Heathrow to Mexico City, the release said adding that in turn , Aeromexico will place its marketing code on Jet Airways' direct services from London Heathrow to Mumbai and Delhi.

The initial codeshare flights via London Heathrow will open for sale as well as travel later this year, subject to government approvals, Jet Airways said in the release. The codeshare partnership will offer passengers enhanced connectivity and seamless access to the combined networks of both the airlines, with convenient connections via

Jet Airways' European gateways, it said. The comprehensive MoU signed between the two carriers, also includes cooperation in the area of reciprocal frequent flyer benefits for members.

At the MoU signing ceremony, Goyal said, "We are delighted to announce our partnership with Aeromexico which will significantly enhance the international reach of both airlines bringing increased benefits to all our guests." "We are confident that this new codeshare partnership will stimulate the demand for business and tourist travel between India and Mexico," he said. "The new relationship between Jet Airways and Aeromexico illustrates our commitment as well as strategic efforts to continuously strengthen our network, connecting India with the rest of the world as well as providing opportunity and convenience to our guests who can now connect to Mexico from India via our European gateways and vice versa," Goyal said.

Conesa said, "It is a great pleasure for us to settle this code share partnership with Jet Airways that will build new bridges and connect Mexico to India more easily." "This achievement is a manifest of our will to continuously offer new flight destinations to our passengers. Also, by connecting with an important country as India, Aeromexico creates new cultural bonds and tourism exchange between both nations," Conesa added.
Panaji: Handset maker Lenovo will invest in areas like marketing, expanding retail presence and building premium products for its 'Motorola' brand as it looks to strengthen its position in the fiercely-competitive smartphone market in the country.

India is among the top three markets -- along with the US and Brazil -- for Lenovo's Mobile Business Group (MBG) that comprises both Lenovo and Motorola brands. Lenovo follows a dual-brand strategy in India, but offers just Motorola products in markets including the US.

"We will invest in India, more on building retail infrastructure and building the premium imagery of the brand (Motorola) and whatever has to be done in the business context, we will continue to do that," Lenovo MBG India Executive Director Sudhin Mathur told PTI. He, however, did not specify the quantum of investment to be made.

According to research firm IDC, Lenovo -- along with Motorola -- had a 9.5 per cent share of the Indian smartphone market in the January-March 2017 quarter. The overall smartphone market grew at 14.8 per cent in the said quarter to 27 million units compared to the year-ago period.

Asked about the impact of GST, which will come into effect from July 1, on smartphone prices, Mathur said he did not expect any prices to go up for consumers. Under the new

GST regime, smartphones will see a tax levy of 12 per cent, from the current over 13.5 per cent.

About the potential of the Indian market, Mathur said there is a large market for premium devices in India as the segment would grow 28 per cent this year. This segment is dominated by Samsung and Apple.

The premium segment is USD 2 billion market in India, which is set to increase to USD 5 billion within four years, he added. "India is poised to become the number two smartphone market globally, overtaking the US.

It will be bigger than Brazil, Japan and Indonesia combined... For us too, India is a very important market and is among the top three markets for Lenovo MBG in terms of volume and value along with the US and Brazil," Mathur said.

Over the past few months, Motorola has expanded its presence in the brick-and-mortar retail channel, moving away from its earlier online-only strategy. It has also added devices across affordable (Moto C) and premium (Moto Z) segments.

The company today launched the second generation of its Moto Z smartphone -- Z2 -- priced at Rs 27,999, which will go on sale both on Flipkart and through retail outlets. The company gets about two-thirds of its sales from the online channel.

The Moto Z2 features a 5.5-inch display, 2.2GHz octa-core processor, 4GB RAM, 64GB internal memory (expandable up to 2TB), 12MP rear and 5MP front camera and 3,000 mAh battery.

For the premium category, Mathur said 'mods' will be a key feature for differentiation. Motorola introduced the Moto Z last year that allows users to attach a set of accessories called 'mods' to the back of the device to add various functionalities like enhanced sound or camera functions.

These mods are priced at about Rs 1,000 onwards. "Globally, Moto Z has seen huge success. We have sold about 3 million units and in India too, the response has been great. This year too, we will bring more mods to consumers," he said.
FDI inflows to India were flat last year with only 1 per cent up from 2015.

New Delhi: Despite stagnant foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow of USD 44 billion in 2016, India will most likely remain most favoured destination due to its attractiveness among MNCs for cross-border mergers and acquisitions, a UN trade report has said.

On the flip side, it said there are tax related concerns that may pose as deterrent to some foreign investors.

In South Asia, FDI inflows increased by 6 per cent to USD 54 billion in 2016, said the report by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

"Flows to India were stagnant at USD 44 billion (in 2016). Cross-border mergers and acquisitions deals have become increasingly important for foreign multinational enterprises to enter the rapidly-growing Indian market," said the UNCTAD's 'World Investment Report 2017'.

Despite historically high number of announced greenfield projects in 2015, FDI inflows to India were flat last year with only 1 per cent up from 2015, the report said.

FDI inflows into developing Asia were down by 15 per cent to USD 443 billion in 2016, the first decline since 2012.

"This affected three sub-regions, with only South Asia spared. However, an improved economic outlook in major economies, such as ASEAN, China and India, will likely boost investor confidence, propping up the region's FDI prospects for 2017," it said.

FDI inflows to developing Asia are expected to increase by 15 per cent in 2017 to USD 515 billion, as an improved economic outlook in major Asian economies is likely to boost investor confidence.

"The favourite FDI destinations remain the US, China and India," UNCTAD said, adding "Although new liberalisation efforts continue to improve the investment climate in India, tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors".

In major recipients such as China, India and Indonesia, renewed policy efforts to attract FDI could contribute to an increase of inflows in this year, it said.

The foreign outflows from South Asia declined by 29 per cent to only USD 6 billion in 2016, as India's outward FDI dropped by about one third, it added.

On cross border mergers, the report cited USD 13 billion acquisition of India's Essar Oil by Rosneft (Russian Federation) as one of the significant deals during the year.

The report noted that signing of a tax treaty by India and Mauritius in May 2016 "might have" contributed to reduced round-tripping FDI.

"Foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly relying on cross-border M&As to penetrate the rapidly growing Indian market."

Pakistan's inflows increased by 56 per cent due to significant investment in infrastructure from China in support of the One Belt One Road initiative. For the first time, China was the world's second-largest investor as FDI outflows surged by 44 per cent to USD 183 billion, a new high.

BRICS - the economic group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa accounted for 22 per cent of global GDP but received only 11 per cent of global inward FDI stock in 2016.

FDI flows to the five BRICS countries last year rose by 7 per cent to USD 277 billion. The increase in inflows to Russia, India and South Africa more than compensated for the decline of FDI to Brazil and China.
New Delhi: India continues to be a favourite FDI destination though tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors, an UNCTAD report said today.

It also said that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to developing Asia shrank by 15 per cent to USD 443 billion in 2016, the first decline since 2012. This affected three sub-regions, with only South Asia spared. However, UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2017 said an improved economic outlook in major economies, such as ASEAN, China and India, will likely to boost investors' confidence, propping up the region's FDI prospects for 2017.

"The favourite FDI destinations remain the US, China and India," UNCTAD said, adding "Although new liberalisation efforts continue to improve the investment climate in India, tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors".

In South Asia, FDI inflows increased by 6 per cent to USD 54 billion. Flows to India were stagnant at USD 44 billion. FDI inflows to developing Asia are expected to increase by 15 per cent in 2017 to USD 515?billion, as an improved economic outlook in major Asian economies is likely to boost investor confidence.

In major recipients such as China, India and Indonesia, renewed policy efforts to attract FDI could contribute to an increase of inflows in 2017, it said. The foreign outflows from South Asia declined by 29 per cent to only USD 6 billion in 2016, as India's outward FDI dropped by about one third, it added.

Cross-border merger and acquisition deals have become increasingly important for foreign multinational enterprises to enter the rapidly-growing Indian market, the report said.

In 2016, there were a number of significant deals, including the USD 13 billion acquisition of Essar Oil by Rosneft (Russian Federation). The report noted that signing of a tax treaty by India and Mauritius in May 2016 "might have" contributed to reduced round-tripping FDI.

It further noted that despite a historically high number of announced greenfield projects in 2015, FDI flows to India were largely flat at about USD 44 billion in 2016, up only 1 per cent from 2015.

Foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly relying on cross-border M&As to penetrate the rapidly growing Indian market. Pakistan's inflows increased by 56 per cent due to significant investment in infrastructure from China in support of the One Belt One Road initiative. For the first time, China was the world's second-largest investor as FDI outflows surged by 44 per cent to USD 183 billion, a new high.

BRICS - the economic group comprising Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa accounted for 22 per cent of global GDP but received only 11 per cent of global inward FDI stock in 2016. FDI flows to the five BRICS countries last year rose by 7 per cent to USD 277 billion. The increase in inflows to the Russian Federation, India and South Africa more than compensated for the decline of FDI to Brazil and China.
Its been a whirlwind, absolutely packed visit to Bengaluru for Amish Tripathi, bestselling author of the Shiva Trilogy and the Ram Chandra Series that have sold about 3.5 million copies. His latest book, Sita: Warrior of Mithila, the second in the Ram Chandra Series, hit the stands in May.

A non-linear addition to the Ram Chandra Series, Sita: Warrior of Mithila, overturns the prevailing conceptions about the Ramayanas female protagonist just as much as it sidesteps the traditional feminist narrative. The story doesnt attempt to see things from the point of view of a woman craving representation; it deals instead with her evolution as a human being of character: a woman of unremarkable birth who went on to become queen at a time when blood meant everything. She was an adopted child who went on to rule the land. In a royal family, where blood is everything, it takes immense strength of character to achieve all she has. Sitas story at the pinnacle of her strength needed to be explored, said Tripathi.

Attempting to thrill his readers as always, the second novel is a non-sequitur addition to the Ram Chandra Series  Its a different story, I started it from scratch, Tripathi announces mischievously. Unlike the earlier series, this is a multi-linear plot; Sita is one of the main characters in the Ramayana and its only fitting that we talk about her journey, he adds. The first book, Scion of Ikshvaku talks about Rams childhood, his apprenticeship followed by the politics that led to his exile and stops at the abduction of his wife Sita.

Still, it would be reductive to call this a tale told from Sitas point of view, Tripathi adds. This is the story of a crusader who wins against all odds. The story traces the beginnings of the adopted offspring of King Janak of Mithila and the ups and downs she goes through as she transforms from an orphan girl to a sword-wielding warrior, breaking barriers to become a supreme force in the land.

With recent block buster releases like Wonder Woman and Tripathis own book, both of which show women as more than pretty sidekicks, are we finally progressing? Absolutely! exclaims Tripathi, who identifies himself as a feminist. Lets look at the Ramayana in particular  our idea of it is based on the television series and its portrayal through the Amar Chitra Katha. These scripts were written in the 60s and reflect the society of those times. Ancient original texts, Tripathi says, breaking politically dominant notions in one fell swoop, always had empowered women. We seem to have forgotten that. Its resurfacing once more, though. Racism and colour divides had no place in the Vedas, Tripathi explains, referring to the portrayal of asuras as dark-skinned demons and Devas as fair-skinned Gods. There were colours on both sides, he says, amused. In fact, the Yajur Veda describes Shiva, who is believed to be a dark, Dravidian God, as being fair-skinned!

All of Tripathis books so far have been based on Hindu mythology, often confused with modern-day, Hindutva-infused politics. To unfamiliar eyes, he may be seen as a right-wing supporter. He laughs and shakes his head, Im firmly at the centre. I think we need conversations in a democracy instead of nonsensical shouting. I support LGBTQIA rights, I am all for equality in terms of caste, gender, race and religion and I am proud to be an Indian, but if something is wrong in my motherland and needs to be expressed, I will do so. Remaining blind to our flaws wont bring us any closer to development.

Tripathi will be launching a collective of his essays and speeches in August later this year. It will revolve around the Freedom of Speech in the country, about issues that I feel strongly for, like womens rights and homophobia among other things. If you believe in it strongly, you must be willing to fight for it.

The next book in the Ram Chandra Series, Raavan: Orphan of Aryavarta will hit bookstores in 2018. This one will have the nuances of Raavans life that we dont hear about; the musician in him, the scientist in him and the ego in him, completely out of control that led to his downfall he says, and as usual, I will leave clues like I always do for what is to happen in book four, see if you can figure it out! he grins.

Title: Sita: Warrior of Mithila

Author: Amish Tripathi

Publisher: Westland Press
Lucknow: The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was arrested on Thursday from Himachal Pradesh.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured on May 9.

Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

The Uttar Pradesh police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrasekhar had shot to limelight after holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur.

He had earlier said that he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had told PTI.

"Instead of arresting the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence, the police has arrested innocent people and put them behind bars. This has resulted in growing anger among the dalits," he had said.

The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village.

The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly.

On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur.

BSP leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the district's border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area.

The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region.

Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan', a young Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression.

Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

Though the mission of the Bhim Army was to educate the community's children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpur's Bhado village, it came into limelight in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs.

Chandrashekhar's strength became visible when thousands of Dalits staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against police action and atrocities by the upper castes and emerged as the new champion of Dalit cause.

The sudden rise of the Bhim Army under the leadership of Chandrashekhar has unnerved BSP supremo Mayawati, making her all the more worried after he succeeded in mobilising Dalits in western Uttar Pradesh.
The arrested person has been identified as Ramesh, a resident of Rajagopalnagar and an employee of a factory. According to police, Ramesh was sexually assaulting his daughter when his wife was away at work.

Bengaluru: A 44-year-old man has been arrested by the Rajagopalnagar police on charges of sexually assaulting his 14-year-old daughter for more than a year.

The arrested person has been identified as Ramesh, a resident of Rajagopalnagar and an employee of a factory. According to police, Ramesh was sexually assaulting his daughter when his wife was away at work.

He had even threatened to kill her and her mother if she opened up about the incident with anyone. He even blackmailed her saying that if her mother finds out about the incident, she would commit suicide.

Ramesh would sexually assault his daughter under the influence of alcohol. On many occasions, neighbours have said to informed Rameshs wife about her husbands indecent behaviour with the daughter, but out of fear the daughter denied of any such act by her father. Recently, when Rameshs wife found her daughters behaviour to be unusual, she took her to a temple thinking that her problem would be cured. But later her daughter told her that she was being sexually assaulted by her father, following which she questioned her husband in front of his relatives.

At first, the relatives of the accused denied the allegations and later took her to a temple to swear on God. When the girl swore on God and maintained that she was being sexually harassed by her father, her mother filed a complaint at the police station.

Police have registered the case under Pocso Act and investigations are underway.
Bulandshahr: A day after arresting two accused in Manesar gangrape case, Gurugram police on Thursday nabbed the third accused in the incident. The arrest of the third accused was confirmed by a joint team of Gurugram and Uttar Pradesh police. He was arrested from Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr district.

Two other accused were arrested by Gurugram Police on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, one of the arrested informed the sarpanch of Bas Kusla village in Manesar about the crime and the people involved in it.

"Crime teams used every resource to get information and a very sustained investigation was carried out. This was made possible because of intelligence inputs. The one accused, who is absconding, has also been identified and will be apprehended soon," Gurugram Police Commissioner Sandeep Khirwar told ANI on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, sketches of the three accused of gang raping a woman were released by the police.

A 22-year-old woman was travelling to her parents' house in Khandsa village around midnight on May 29 with her infant daughter when she was gangraped by the three men. The accused threw her nine-month-old daughter out of the auto rickshaw, leading to her death.

The victim, who was not identified, told the police that the accused started molesting her as soon as she sat in the auto rickshaw.

When the woman started shouting, the infant began crying. The three men threw the girl child out of the auto rickshaw and took turns to rape her.

The woman filed her complaint a couple of days after the incident at the Manesar Police Station.
According to police, a detailed medical report a month later had indicated that there were several injuries on the childs body, most probably inflicted by another person.

Chennai: Police on Thursday arrested an advocate on charges of murdering his four-year-old adopted daughter, who was earlier suspected to have died after slipping in the bathroom a year ago.

The advocate, Gerald, was arrested by Chintadripet police after viscera tests revealed that the child had died of inflicted injuries.

According to police, Gerald and his wife, Sangeetha, a professor at Government Law College had adopted a 3-year-old girl child from a home in Madurai in June 2016. A month later, on July 7, Gerald admitted the girl to a private hospital in Nungambakkam.

He had told the hospital authorities that the girl slipped and fell in the bathroom, a police officer said. The child was subsequently shifted to the Childrens hospital in Egmore where she died without responding to treatment. Police had then filed a case of suspicious death and let it off.

According to police, a detailed medical report a month later had indicated that there were several injuries on the childs body, most probably inflicted by another person. However, the probe never took off.

Meanwhile, recently the case gained attention among officials and a probe was initiated. Investigations with the family members of the lawyer suggested that there are chances that he could have killed the child as he was unhappy over the child having a speech disorder, police said.

Police said that on the day of the incident, the advocate was alone at his home while his wife was away at Madipakkam to visit her mother.

Chintadripet Police altered the case to section 302 IPC (murder) and arrested the advocate. He was produced before a magistrate in Egmore and remanded to judicial custody. Further investigations would be conducted in the case, police sources said.
Plastic rice being openly sold at markets in Haldwani district in Uttarakhand. (Photo: ANI Twitter)

Haldwani: The food retailers in Uttarakhand's Haldwani district are openly selling plastic rice in markets.

When the Pal family bought rice from a confectionery, they found a variation in the taste.

The matter came to light when a video of children playing with a ball made up of plastic rice went viral.

"A team has been constituted and along with officials of food security department and municipal corporation, we will conduct raid. Strict action will be taken," City Magistrate K K Mishra said.

This comes months after a case of artificial eggs in Kolkata came into light after a woman filed a police complaint.

Anita Kumar had discovered that the eggs were artificial when she cracked open a few of them.

Kolkata was hit by a mass production of artificial eggs, allegedly made of plastic, which has led to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to order an investigation into it.
Srinagar: At least, seven militants have been killed in a series of clashes with the Army troops along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara districts during the past two days. One Army jawan has also died while fighting the infiltrating militants, officials in Srinagar said.

The Army said it has foiled multiple attempts made by Pakistan army to push armed infiltrators across the LoC. In the last 48 hours, infiltration attempts have been foiled at Gurez, Machael, Nowgam and Uri sectors after eliminating seven armed intruders, so far, Udhampur-based defence spokesman Colonel NN Joshi said.

He added that large quantity of arms, ammunition and war like stores have been recovered. Operations are in progress at Machael, Nowgam and Uri sectors, he said adding These armed intruder groups were being provided active support including covering fire (heavy calibre artillery) by Pakistan army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Kashmir Valley.

The spokesman said that during this year, so far, as many as 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled and 34 armed intruders killed by the Indian Army along the LoC. Relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramadan, he asserted.

The Army sources said that three militants and an Army jawan were killed in a fire fight with the infiltrating militants in Nowgam sector on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, three militants were killed in a similar clash with the Army in Machael sector. The Army officials here had said that the trio was part of a heavily armed group of infiltrators which had sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir from PoK overnight but was confronted by the Army troops deployed in the frontier region.

The soldiers from the Army 56 Rashtriya Rifles engaged the militants during a cordon-and-search operation launched in Sardari Nad forest area of Macheal after they learnt about the infiltration. The militants hiding in the woods opened fire, triggering an encounter which is still underway.

On May 26, the Army had claimed killing two members of Pakistan Armys Border Action Team (BAT) in Baramullas Uri sector whereas six militants were gunned down in the same sector a day later.
The Centre has hit back at Gandhi for publicizing the entire matter through his visit, and branded it as a publicity stunt. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi will be in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur on Thursday to meet the grieving families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing.

"Rahul Gandhi is going to that area where situation is very much tense. He should understand his responsibility. He should have talked about this first, but he is so fond of his publicity. That's why he is going there." Union Minister of Steel, Mines and Employment Narendra Singh Tomar told ANI.

Meanwhile, the Congress has rebuffed reports of Gandhi participating in the ongoing farmers protest in Mandsaur, saying such a plan was never on the card for the party.

"People who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Rahul Gandhi, were denied permission. Instead canards and rumours were spread that he wanted to go earlier to participate in the protest. There were never any plans, never any attempt," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a press briefing here.

Appealing for peace to the agitating farmers in the state, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of Rs. 1 crore to the kin of those killed in the violence.

Speaking to ANI, the Chief Minister asserted that his government stands with farmers and assured that various demands have been fulfilled in the past.

"In the past 11 years, there have been countless decisions made for the welfare of farmers. The various demands of the farmers have been fulfilled," he said.

However, Chouhan came down heavily on the Congress for giving a political tinge to the violence.

The farmers' agitation in Mandsaur district further intensified with protestors setting at least eight to ten vehicles on fire on Wednesday.

Demanding the presence of Chouhan, the protesting farmers, earlier on Wednesday got into a scuffle with the Collector and Superintendent of Police of Mandsaur district over them delaying their visit to the area.

Farmers hit the streets protesting over their demands for remunerative prices for their produce and a farm loan waiver not being met.

This unfortunately took an ugly turn on Wednesday when five farmers were killed and eight others were injured in two separate incidents of firing in Mandsaur.

The protestors alleged that police fired at them. A judicial probe has been ordered in the matter.

Meanwhile, the SP and collector of Mandsaur district were transferred from their positions on Thursday.
Srinagar: Three militants and a jawan were killed as the Army foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in Naugam sector in north Kashmirs Kupwara district on Thursday. The Army also recovered weapons from the deceased militants.

This is the second successful anti-infiltration operation by the Army in the last 24 hours and the fourth such along the LoC in less than a fortnight in north Kashmir.

Alert troops foil another infiltration bid in Naugam sector. Two terrorists have been killed, while one soldier has been martyred," an Army official said.

He said the operation was on and further details are awaited.

On Wednesday, three heavily-armed militants were killed in a gunbattle in the district as Army foiled a major infiltration bid along the LoC.

On May 26, the Army killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate into Uri sector in Baramulla district to carry out an attack on the soldiers.

Six more militants were killed in the same sector next day when they attempted to sneak into the Valley from across the border.
A scene after violent clashes between farmers and the police at Pipliya in Mandsaur district of MP on Tuesday. At least five farmers were killed and four others injured in firing by police on farmers, who have been protesting for a week demanding loan waiver and fair price for their produce. (Source: PTI)

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Thursday said that the five casualties during farmers' agitation in Mandsaur occurred during police firing.

"Five persons were killed in police firing," Singh told PTI over phone.

The minister's remarks assume significance as the authorities had been claiming that the police had not fired during protests at Pipliamandi in Mandsaur district in which five farmers were killed two days ago.

Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur Collector SK Singh had told PTI that the police told him categorically that "neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire".

Asked what provoked the police to fire, the home minister said it is being probed in the magisterial inquiry. However, he said the situation was now peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were on Thursday deployed in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the violence two days ago.

Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi, the police said. While two companies of RAF have been posted in the district's Garoth area, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.

The situation is tense but under control. 62 persons were detained on Thursday in connection with the protests, the police said.

DIG Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders on Wednesday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.

Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.

The situation in western Madhya Pradesh is posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

The Shivraj Chouhan government had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals -- the ruling Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front  on Thursday closed ranks in the state assembly to oppose the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

During the one-day session, convened exclusively to discuss the controversial cattle ban notification, members of the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and the opposition Congress-headed UDF condemned it as not only an "intrusion" into the rights of states but also an "infringement" on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution. Members of both the Fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer.

It, thus, has to be withdrawn, they said.

The members also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

"The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political gains," he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious 'adverse' consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and meat export trade.

"The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens' choice of food," he said.

On the impact on state's meat trade, Vijayan said 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new rules would further add to their woes.

The chief minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another "surgical strike" by the Modi government "like the note ban", opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was "a sign of arrival of fascism" in the country.

"Modi has transformed himself into 'abhinava Hitler' (neo Hitler)," he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an "indirect interest" behind the notification. CPI(M) veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Rajagopal said the coming together of LDF and UDF in the assembly was a sign of a "grand alliance" forming at the national level to take on the BJP.

He said the House has been "misused" for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre's notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

He has written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

The attack on CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury at party headquarters A K G Centre in New Delhi yesterday also had its echo in the assembly here with the party members alleging that the Sangh Parivar was trying to "silence" political rivals through "muscle power".
New Delhi: Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat, in an interaction with ANI, said that the Indian army is well prepared to face external, as well as internal threats to the country. Speaking to ANI General Bipin Rawat said, "Indian Army is fully ready for a two and a half front war".

The Army Chief added that even though India is ready for a multi front war there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation. "Even the PM has stated that for the last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-China border," said General Rawat.

In a freewheeling conversation with ANI, General Rawat also informed that a new strike corps, 17 Strike Corps, is being raised specifically for mountain warfare. On asking about the delay in its raising Army Chief said a process as complex as this takes time. He said, "It is being raised from scratch. The recruitments are on. As it is, to prepare an army soldier it takes about three years from recruitment process to training and then orienting and finally their deployment."

General Rawat went on to discuss modernization plans of the Army, saying that the Government is aware of our all needs and is supporting us in every manner. "Make in India is a good initiative, it will give results in two to three years," said General Rawat.

General Rawat added that all armies across the world maintain an inventory in the ratio of the 30:40:30. Here 30 percent equipment is state of the art technology, 40 percent is undergoing modernization and the rest 30 percent is obsolete, which requires an upgrade.

General Bipin Rawat concluded by saying that the Indian Army's preparations are not against any specific country.
Baramulla: Two Indian Army soldiers were injured in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district on Thursday.

Indian Army troops moved into the Doba Sardar area of the Baramulla-Uri sector near the Line of Control on receiving intelligence about the movement of five to six militants who had infiltrated from across the border.

When the militants opened fire on the troops, two of the soldiers were injured. They have been identified as Vijay Sharma and Firasat Ali and are presently being treated in hospital.

The remaining militants are suspected to be hiding in a dense forest area near the Line of Control. The army has confirmed the recovery of six bags belonging to the militants. Details of the contents in these bags has not been revealed till now.
Further procedure will be discussed by the ICJ president with both the parties, sources said. (Photo: Screengrab))

New Delhi: International Court of Justice (ICJ) president Ronny Abraham will discuss further procedure with both India and Pakistan on Thursday in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

According to sources, India will be represented by its agent who appeared during the last public hearing on May 18. Ministry of external affairs joint secretary in- charge of Pakistan division, Deepak Mittal, represented India during the hearing.

Further procedure will be discussed by the ICJ president with both the parties, sources said.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on May 8. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.
Naya Gaon (Madhya Pradesh): Congress vicepresident Rahul Gandhi, who was arrested earlier by police on Thursday, has been allowed by the administration to meet the families of farmers killed in Mandsaur.

"After a long struggle, the administration has finally ageed to allow Rahul Gandhi to meet the families of those who were killed in police firing," former Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan told reporters outside the guesthouse where scores of Congress leaders and workers were being kept.

"We will try and meet them near the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border," she said.

Earlier, Rahul Gandhi had spoken to the family members of deceased farmers' on phone from inside the guest house which acted as an ad-hoc jail, according to reports.

As crowds swelled outside the guesthouse of a cement company where the Congress members were taken, amongst those waiting outside the gates were the families of some of the five killed in the firing in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

Gandhi was detained when he was trying to go to Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmer protests, from Rajasthan. Along with him are leaders like Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Sachin Pilot.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury hits out at Centre over farmers' agitation in MP. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday attacked the Centre over the violent stir by peasants in Madhya Pradesh. The Left party asked if people are paying Krishi Kalyan cess so that the government could buy bullets to be shot at farmers.

The Left party's criticism of the government comes after five protesting farmers were killed, allegedly in police firing, in Mandsaur district of the state.

The cess concerned is a tax imposed by the government since June 1, 2016 on all services at the rate of 0.5 per cent for financing betterment of agriculture sector and farmers' welfare.

Taking to Twitter, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury also suggested the Centre was "shying away" from taking questions on the stir from media, sarcastically saying the "brave" government is not taking question on the issue.

Yechury also referred to certain reports claiming Union Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh cancelled his scheduled press briefing on his department's three-year achievements to drive his point.

The media conference post-weekly cabinet meeting too was cancelled for the same reason, Yechury sought to underline.

"Are we all paying the Krishi Kalyan Cess to the Central government so that it can buy more bullets to fire on farmers? he tweeted.

Are we all paying the Krishi Kalyan Cess to the Central government so that it can buy more bullets to fire on farmers? pic.twitter.com/PyZVG1kX1Y  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 8, 2017

In his another tweet, Yechury said, "Such a brave govt, takes no questions. Its agri minister cancels 3-year "celebration" press meet. No briefing after cabinet meeting either (sic).

Such a brave govt, takes no questions. Its agri minister cancels 3-year "celebration" press meet. No briefing after cabinet meeting either. pic.twitter.com/3GlTvOIjBR  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 8, 2017

The farmers in western Madhya Pradesh, particularly Mandsaur and Dewas districts, have been protesting for a week now demanding debt relief and better crop prices.

The protest, however, has been marred by violence and killings of peasants allegedly in police firing.
Union Home minister Rajnath Singh addressing a press conference held at Rang Sharda in Bandra on Thursday during his visit in Mumbai. (Photo: DC/Shripad Naik)

Mumbai: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through his diplomatic skills, has been successful to bring international community onboard on terrorism.

"Prime Minister Narendra Modi through his diplomatic skills has been successful to bring international community onboard on terrorism," Singh said during a press conference in the commercial capital of the country.

Singh claimed that during three years of tenure, no major terror incidents took place except Gurdaspur and Pathankot attack.

"In three years of tenure, no major terror incidents took place except Gurdaspur and Pathankot. Our Prime Minister always raises the topic of terrorism on every platform," he said.

Singh also assured the nation that the Centre has decided to give integrated permanent solution to the problem of Kashmir.

"We have decided to give integrated permanent solution to the problem of Kashmir. With the support of Pakistan some disruptive powers are trying to create unrest in the valley. I am always open for discussions and dialogues. In healthy democracy, major problems can also be solved by dialogues and discussions," Singh further added.

On June 3, the Home Minister assured that a solution for the Kashmir unrest will be chalked out at any cost, while adding that all the impediments coming in between the better future of Kashmir will be removed.

"We will find a permanent solution to Kashmir. It might take some time because the problem which has been prevailing since 1947, the solution to it cannot be taken out with just a snap. We will remove all the impediments for a better future of Kashmir. The nature which has given talent in the hands of the people of Kashmir will be used for the development of the Valley and country. Nature has not given those hands to pelt stones," he said.

Rajnath reiterated the government's stand on Pakistan being behind those forces which are trying to bring disturbance in the Valley.

"We have always maintained that Pakistan is sheltering those forces which are trying to destabilise Kashmir. This won't go for long," he said.
While two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said. (Photo: PTI)

Mandsaur: Contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were on Thursday deployed in Madhya Pradesh's violence-hit Mandsaur district where the situation remained tense.

Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, the site of Tuesday's shooting of five farmers, police said.

While two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.

The situation is tense but under control, police said. DIG Ratlam range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders on Wednesday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.

Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.

Farmers on Wednesday had resorted to violence and arson in western Madhya Pradesh despite prohibitory measures, posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

In view of the volatile situation, the Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of RAF to the violence-hit state where the farmers have been agitating for loan waiver and better crop prices.

The Chouhan government had sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6000 crore, according to the government.
Jaipur: Tensions continue to simmer for Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who was arrested by police on Thursday when he was on his to to Mandsaur to meet the family of deceased. The Rajasthan police said that it will examine whether traffic rules were violated by Rahul Gandhi, who visited the state on way to Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.

SP, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra said that Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillon rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda to up to the Madhya Pradesh border.

At the border, Rahul had alighted from the bike and walked into Madhya Pradesh, he said.

The police official told PTI that there were reports that at one point of time, there were three passengers including Gandhi on the motorcycle. The pillion rider also need to wear a helmet, he said.

"We will look into whether any traffic violation was committed," he said.

DSP Gopi Chand also said that the matter will be looked into.

Gandhi reached Udaipur by a chartered plane on Thursday morning and from there left for Chittorgarh. From Chittorgarh he entered Madhya Pradesh aiming to meet the families of farmers who had died during recent protests in Mandsaur.
Raipur: As many as 18 naxals allegedly involved in the deadly attack on the CRPF personnel in April, were arrested on Thursday from two places in the insurgency-hit Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, an official said.

"While 10 cadres were apprehended from Chintagufa police station area, eight others were caught from Chintalnar police station limits by separate joint teams of security forces," Deputy Inspector General of Police (Dantewada range) Sundarraj P said.

The composite squads of District Reserve Guard (DRG), district force and CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) were out on a search operation in the forests of Chintagufa and Chintalnar, around 450 km away from here.

Podiyam Kosa (28), Kawasi Joga (28), Madvi Aaytu (23) and Oyam Sukka (22) are some of the key rebels among those held, he said.

Kosa and Joga were active as Maoist janmilitia commander and deputy janmilitia commander respectively.

Similarly, while Aaytu was active as commander of Chetna Natya Mandli (CNM)- a frontal wing of Maoist, Sukka was CNM deputy commander.

Rest of the 14 arrested ultras were associated with Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisaan Mazdoor Sangthan (DAKMS), janatana sarkar and other lower rung squad of Maoists, he said.

All of them were allegedly involved in the attack on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, belonging to 74th battalion, on April 24, in Burkapal area under Chintagufa police station limits, in which 25 troopers were killed, the DIG said.

Besides, they were also allegedly involved in the attack on a police party in Minpa area (Sukma) in 2013 and other naxal incidents, including loot, arson, murder, and triggering IED blasts, the DIG said.

They were produced before a local court which sent them to jail on judicial remand, he said.

With Thursday's arrests, the total number of arrested rebels in connection with the Burkapal attack has gone up to 47, the official said.
Due to increased training facilities, the number of men the Marine Corps may enlist this month from the state of Wisconsin...

 Wednesday, June 10, 1942

Sgt. Connolly pointed out that married and single men between the ages of 17 and 34 were able to enlist. The eye requirements had been lowered to 15-20 and height requirement have been limited from 63 inches to 75 inches. Eighteen sound teeth and only one pair of opposing molars were required. Men who had been ordered to report for physical examinations and induction into the Army may have enlisted in the Marines after they had received their orders of report but they must have enlisted before the day they were to report for induction.

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

The congregation of St. Pauls Lutheran Church welcomes the arrival of its new pastor. Aaron Schulz will soon join Pastor Brett Voigt. Schulz is a 2016 graduate of the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon. He grew up in West Bend and attended Kettle Moraine Lutheran High School in Jackson. His wife, Alissa, grew up in Hortonville and attended Fox Valley Lutheran in Appleton. While still in high school, they met at Camp Phillip in Wautoma doing some volunteer work with Jesus Cares Ministries. Schulz is a graduate of Martin Luther College and Alissa earned her special education degree at UW-Eau Claire. Before his graduation from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, they spent a summer in Farmington, N.M. doing some multi-cultural ministry.

Wednesday, June 10, 1992

While the average number of dairy cows in a Dunn County herd is around 52, Chimney Rock Farm, Rt. 2, Boyceville, and owners Jim and Joanne Upthall are making a pretty good go of it with 30 registered Holsteins. The couple have been tending the family farm of Jims since 1973 when they were married, and have made a number of changes on the farm, including adding onto the barn to make room for more cows and milking pipeline. Jims father had milked about 20 cows, and Jim said he started out with 20 milk cows, but saw a need for more about 10 years ago. As the farm goes now, the two, plus children, can handle the farm work nicely for the 185 acres. They rent about 100 more acres to bring their total of tillable acreage to 200. The farm averages 20,000 pounds of milk, 800 pounds of butterfat and 680 pounds of protein.

Wednesday, June 7, 1967

Items that Menomonie City Employees Local No. 734 desire as part of the 1968 work agreement were revealed at Mondays council meeting. The items are: 1. City to participate 100 percent in the retirement fund premiums including the employees part. 2. All employees to work 40 hours per week with the same gross pay as now paid. 3. Employees to be guaranteed two hours pay when reporting to work, and four hours pay once employee starts work. 4. All employees to be covered by unemployment compensation. 5. Arbitration clause be added to the grievance procedure. 6. A negotiating time table to be established. 7. The employee classed as police department custodian-dog catcher street painter to receive the labor rate of pay. 8. Any other request that may come up prior to signing a 1968 agreement. Negotiations between the council and union representatives will be conducted in the near future.

Wednesday, June 10, 1942

The second time in seven days, Tiffany Creek, that flows through Boyceville, overflowed its banks and again filled basements to a depth of from six inches to two feet of water. Last Friday evening a week ago, water rose to a height of nine feet. This Friday nights downpour of rain raised the river about seven feet. Several bridge approaches have been washed away to the extent of closing off the bridges. The railroad between Boyceville and Downing held up train service until the tracks had been repaired. Homes built on lower levels were surrounded by water early Saturday. However, no great amount of property damage was caused.

Due to increased training facilities, the number of men the Marine Corps may enlist this month from the state of Wisconsin has been increased from 200 to 230, Staff Sergeant Wm. Connolly in charge of the Eau Clare Recruiting Office today.

Thursday, June 7, 1917

Menomonie stands a good chance of securing a condensed milk factory to be operated upon a large scale and employing many hands. Whether the prospective industry will materialize here will, it is expected, be positively known within ten days. Two of the general officers of the John Wildi Evaporated Milk company of Columbus, O., one of the largest concerns of the kind in America, were here the four days ending Sunday, looking over the ground and interviewing farmers in this vicinity with a view to establishing a branch here. The conditions were found to be most encouraging. If the company located here it will erect a plant costing with equipment $150,000 and giving employment at the outset to about sixty hands. From thirty to thirty-five milk haulers would be employed. The company would keep in close touch with the farmers and work with them to maintain a high standard of dairy conditions.

Friday, June 10, 1892

We advise all our readers who can possibly do so to visit this week the Stout Manual Training School, where an exceedingly creditable display of the handiwork of the pupils is on exhibition. The wood-work department and mechanical drawing, in charge of Mr. Mason; the sewing and cooking department, in charge of Miss Coburn; and the pencil and pen drawing and crayon work in charge of Miss Coulter  make displays that would reflect credit on expert workmen and artists. The exhibit is an afterthought on the part of the teachers, and not being prepared for the occasion is valuable in that it shows the actually every day work of the pupils.

The attention of stock-raisers is directed to the advertisement of Highland Stock Farm in this paper. Mr. J. E. Glover the proprietor of the farm is a well-known wealthy citizen of St. Croix and we have no doubt his representations in regard to the stock for sale can be depended upon.

Saturday, June 8, 1867

The wheelbarrow controversy is settled; and we take pleasure in announcing Mr. Potter as the lucky man. He owns that historic thing. Whether he intends to clean out all competitors is not known. Yesterday we noticed, in addition to all former competitors, Dr. Langrell, Esq Hunt, and Byron Wells, with their cuts off and sleeves rolled up, running the machine. See what a heap of industry we have inspired among the young men by industrious examples!

Someone tells a good story on a young editor about a days journey east of us. John had some teaming done by a stranger, and something going wrong in the settlement, Jehu dared John out to settle the matter by slight o hand. Putting himself on his hauteur, John replied: My little man, it strikes me you are out of the ring. I fight with none but Congressmen, and those who expect to be such. My barn servant might condescend to take a hand with you. Just send your card around to the stable, Thus ended hostilities.
Tamil Nadu: The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Egmore on Thursday framed charges against All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (Amma) faction leader T T V Dinakaran in connection with a Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) case registered against him.

When Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate S Malarmathy read out charges against him, Dinakaran refuted all the charges, saying they are 'false'.

Dinakaran is facing two cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against him for alleged violations of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA).

The court had framed charges against him for illegally routing 1.04 dollar in foreign exchange without taking permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and deposited it in the current account of Dipper Investments Ltd., a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with Barclays Bank, Sutton, United Kingdom.

The second case pertains to the transfer of 44.37 lakh pounds through West Bank Ltd, Ireland, allegedly breaching FERA provisions.

The case will now be heard on June 22.
Lucknow: Issuing a stern warning at the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government, a farmer leader from the northern state on Thursday said the basic problems of farmers must be addressed at the earliest or prepare to face a "Mandsaur-like situation".

Taking a dig at the crop loan waiver scheme announced by Yogi Adityanath at his first cabinet meeting, Shekhar Dixit, National President of the Rashtriya Kisaan Manch, said the basic issue is of minimum support price that most farmers are unable to get.

"If the Uttar Pradesh government is really serious about addressing the problems and plight of the farmers, then it must start resolving their problems lest a Mandsaur-like situation grip the state and unrest fans out," Dixit told PTI, referring to the violence in Madhya Pradesh where five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

Loan waiver was no solution to the problems, which plague the farming community in the state or in the country, he added.

"The basic issue is of minimum support price, which a large section of farmers are unable to get. This virtually pushes them into the vicious cycle of poverty, and it takes several years for them to break this vicious cycle and embark on the path of prosperity."

Dixit, 33, was also of the view that farmers would not benefit till decisions pertaining to their welfare are taken from the confines of air-conditioned cabins.

"The clarion call of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisaan (Hail Soldier, Hail Farmer), which was given by former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, has been reduced to a mere slogan. Time has come for us to redress the grievances of the farmers of the farmers at the earliest in order to thwart an impending disaster," Dixit said.

In August 2016, the farmer leader had demanded a separate commission for farmers with constitutional powers and representation of farmers in it.

"Like Nirvachan Aayog (Election Commission), the Kisaan Aayog would have constitutional powers with representation of farmers in it."

Dixit had also highlighted the need for construction of more cold storage facilities across the state.

The Rashtriya Kisaan Manch was founded by former prime minister V P Singh in 1989.

Reacting to the forum's criticism, the state BJP said the Yogi Adityanath government was responsive to farmer needs.

"Unlike the previous governments, the Yogi Adityanath government is sensitive to the feelings of the farmers. The work done for the farmers by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has not been done by any government (either at the Centre or at the state) in the last 70 years," said state BJP spokesperson Manish Shukla.

"This could be best exemplified by the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana and waiver of crop loans by the Yogi government. There has been record wheat purchase after the Yogi government came to power. The Mandsaur incident is unfortunate, and soon the faces of the culprits will be unveiled," he added.
Kanpur: As the reports of farmers agitation pours in from various parts of the country, the newly sworn in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday asserted that the country's problems can and will be resolved only when farmers become part of the political agenda.

Addressing a press conference in Kanpur, Adityanath said, "Welfare of farmers is welfare of the country."

Speaking on the closure of sugar mills, Adityanath said the state government has already paid Rs 22,000 crore to cane growers during the present crushing season.

In April, the Uttar Pradesh government waived off Rs 30, 729 crores worth of loans of small and marginal farmers of the state.

Along with this, the government also decided to forego Non-Performing Assets (NPA) worth Rs 5,630 crore of eight lakh farmers.

The decision of waiving off loans will benefit 2 crore, 15 lakh farmers of the state.

The Cabinet, chaired by the chief minister, took up several key decisions, including a loan waiver for farmers.

During the assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised to waive off agricultural loans of farmers in the first cabinet meeting after coming to power.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared at an election rally that he would ensure the BJP Government in its first Cabinet meeting takes decision to waive off the farmers' loan.
Christened the Green Line, the last stretch of this line extends for over 10.5 kilometres and connects Sampige Road and Yelachenahalli metro stations providing Metro connectivity to South Bengalureans.

Bengaluru: Bengalureans are elated by the announcement made by Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George that the Metro first phase has been completed and will be inauguration by President Pranab Mukherjee on June 17.

Christened the Green Line, the last stretch of this line extends for over 10.5 kilometres and connects Sampige Road and Yelachenahalli metro stations providing Metro connectivity to South Bengalureans.

According to reports, the Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) K.A. Manoharan handed over the final authorisation letter late on Wednesday evening.

The letter was then eventually handed over to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) on Thursday.

The Green Line will be 24.20 kilometres long and cover various stations including Chickpete, Krishna Rajendra Market, National College, Lalbagh, South End Circle, Jayanagar, Rashtreeya Vidyalaya Road, Banashankari, Jaya Prakash Nagar and Puttenahalli.

According to Arjun K, who studies at National college, Basavangudi and commutes daily from his paying guest accommodation in Jayanagar, the metro is set to be a boon.

I can hop on at Jayanagar and get off at the National college stop. This will save me considerable amount of cash which I spend daily on autos.

Pratima Kumar, who works at a hospital near LalBagh and stays at Banashankari, said, It cost me nearly `50 by auto for my daily commute one way. I hope the Metro is soon operational so people like me will be able to use it and save money, fuel and time.

The much anticipated Green Line will be the second operational line of the Metro and it connects Nagasandra in the north to Yelachenahalli in the south. The line has 24 stations and is partly elevated, while the rest is underground.

The whole of Metro Phase I comprises two lines (purple and green) spanning a length of 42.30 kilometres, of which about 8.82 kilometres is underground and about 33.48 kilometres is elevated.
Chennai: A city court on Thursday framed charges against TTV Dhinakaran, leader of AIADMK (Amma) in a case registered? in 2001 by the Enforcement Directorate for violation of provisions of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (Fera).

S. Malarmathy, the additional chief metropolitan magistrate court, Egmore, on the Allikulam campus read out the charges when Dhinakaran appeared along with his lawyers. Dhinakaran, who is also deputy general secretary of the AIADMK party, denied the charges.

He has been facing two cases filed by the ED in the court. The court on Thursday had framed charges against him in the case relating to illegal transaction of $1,04,93,313 in foreign exchange without permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and deposited it in the current account of Dipper Investments Ltd, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, with Barclays Bank, Sutton, United Kingdom.

The court is yet to frame charges in another case relating to illegal receipt of foreign exchange to the tune of $36,36,000 and 1,00,000 and payment for the credit of a person residing outside India without the general or specific exemption of the RBI for starting a hotel in the UK. Both the cases were adjourned to June 22.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao on Thursday said that farmers associations to be set up by Telangana government will have special powers to decide the minimum support price for crops.

He said farmers should sell their produce if they are offered more than the MSP or else the associations will be given permits for milling the produce.

Mr Rao said that the government will allocate Rs 500 crore in the next Budget to the State-level Farmers Federation, which will be an umbrella organisation of village, mandal and district-level farmers associations.

He said the farmers federation will be further financially strengthened with capital funding and by raising loans from banks.

The federation will ensure that the farmers get MSP for their produce and also sell the crop at a higher price.

Addressing leaders from Mahbubabad district at Pragathi Bhavan, the CM said the government is taking a slew of measures for the welfare of farmers and to make agriculture profitable.

He said agriculture extension officers were conducting survey in the villages to prepare foolproof data on farmers to extend financial assistance of `8,000 per acre per year from May 2018.

Data on farmers and lands should be recorded. After the survey, farmers associations will be formed at the village, later at mandal, district and the state level. At every level, Farmers Association will intervene and help the farming community. Farmers Association will help the government in framing policies and coordinate with farmers. The government will give `8,000 per acre for two crops which will help farmers from falling fall into a debt trap, Mr Rao said.

Next year water from Godavari will be drawn from the Kaleswaram pump houses. Through Lower Manair dam and Mid Manair dam water will be supplied to Warangal district, he said.

Spice crops should also get MSP, says Pocharam

The TS government has sought minimum support price for spice crops.

Agriculture minister Pocharam on Thursday said that farmers cultivating spices were suffering huge losses due to absence of MSP.

He demanded the Centre announce MSP for spice crops along the lines of paddy and other crops.

Mr Reddy said the survey of farmers being taken up by state government to extend financial assistance of Rs 8,000 per acre per year would be completed by June 10. The scheme would be launched in May 2018.

The minister said that about 50 lakh of the estimated 65 lakh farmers have been surveyed so far.

The deadline to complete the survey is June 10. We are confident of meeting the deadline. If needed, we will extend the deadline by one week, he said.
New Delhi: The much-awaited bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to take place today on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.

PM Modi reached Astana on Thursday to participate in the Summit at which India is expected to become a member along with Pakistan. Modi is likely to pitch for a concerted global action plan to contain terrorism at the summit which is also being attended by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. No formal bilateral meeting has been scheduled between PM Modi and Pakistan PM Sharif.

The Modi-Xi bilateral meeting however will be keenly watched after India's recent boycott of the recent One Belt One Road (OBOR) conference in Beijing amid China's intransigence on refusing to give the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) the green signal to admit India as a member.

The meeting follows tension in Sino-Indian ties, with China continuing to back Pakistan against Indian interests,The SCO currently has 6 members. With the addition of India and Pakistan, the number of members will become eight. On the SCO Summit that will take place on Friday, PM Modi on Wednesday had stated, "At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full Member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40% of humanity and nearly 20% of global GDP.
In a retaliatory move TS GENCO has threatened AP GENCO with power supply stoppage if the dues to the tune of Rs 1676.46 crore are not paid up soon.

Hyderabad: In a retaliatory move TS GENCO has threatened AP GENCO with power supply stoppage if the dues to the tune of Rs 1676.46 crore are not paid up soon. Two days back AP GENCO had threatened TS DISCOMs by saying that power supply would be stopped if dues were not paid.

In a letter to AP GENCO on Thursday TS GENCO CMD, D. Prabhakar Rao said that the letter may be treated as regulation notice of TS GENCO to AP DISCOMs. He said that on several occasions TS power utilities have requested AP to settle the issues affably by adjusting the AP GENCO power bills against the dues payable by them to TS power utilities.

He said that it was painful to note that the AP power utilities have not responded to the requests of TS power utilities to adjust the dues payable to TS DISCOMs. He said that the state had been bifurcated three years back. While APGENCO is insisting on settlement of their dues, TS DISCOMs are of the view that the settlement of dues between the two power utilities should be done at the state level for a permanent and amicable solution to this vexed issue.
NEET, the pan-India examination for medical admissions, was introduced to eradicate the confusion caused by multiple agencies conducting entrance tests across the country. With the delay in results, however, medical seat aspirants who dont want to risk the wait choose engineering seats through CET allotments and are forced to cover the tuition fee for all four years if they want to switch streams, with original documents held ransom by colleges to ensure payments. Filling medical, IIT and IIIT seats before CET admissions begin willmake things easier for students and colleges. So whats standing in the way, asks Shrinivasa M.

Manoj Kumar (name changed) graduated from a reputed PU college in Bengaluru with scores that deemed him eligible for entry into the top colleges in the country. Like most other students, Kumar has spent his summer attempting a battery of entrance exams. With a perfect score (400/400) in his core subjects  Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Biology and an overall percentage of 97.2, Kumar is understandably confident of bagging an MBBS seat or gaining admission into one of the citys best engineering colleges through his CET score.

His academic achievements, however seem to have landed him in a quandary: he must accept the engineering seat allotted to him through the CET counselling process or await his NEET ranking at the risk of losing a year. If he does decide to accept an engineering seat and switch streams later, he will, in all likelihood, be made to cover tuition costs for four years, to compensate for the loss the college will face.

My rank doesnt worry me as much as the way in which counselling is conducted, he admitted. If NEET results are delayed and the Karnataka Examination Authority starts the allotment process, I need to select a seat quickly because I dont know where I stand in the medical rankings. If I do get a medical seat later, I will have to pay the engineering college the four-year fee in full to get my original documents. For a student placed through CET, this amounts to about Rs 2 lakh.

The delay in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), which regulates admissions to medical colleges across the country, will cost thousands of students dearly. NEET was introduced in 2013 to eradicate the confusion and stress caused to students by various exam agencies and to regulate admissions to undergraduate and postgraduate courses in medicine.

However, they will now begin counselling for medical seats, the most sought after in the country, only after thousands of engineering seats have already been allocated through CET, by the Karnataka Examination Authority (KEA) and scheduled to begin by the third week of June. Meritorious students who accept admission into engineering colleges are forced to cover the tuition fee for all four years if they want to switch back to the medical stream.

Officials from the Karnataka Examination Authority and the State Higher Education Department are aware of the problem too. The only option is to conduct all the counselling together, said an officer from the Higher Education Department. Colleges, he explained, cant be blamed for demanding compensation for a seat abandoned after the admissions process is complete will remain vacant for the next four years. One solution is to extend the BE admissions process upto July 30 to ensure that those who switch to the medical stream after obtaining a seat dont face any difficulties. That way, colleges wont suffer losses either.

Sharath Gowda, a II PUC student

The state government must direct both KEA and COMEDK to hold off on the allotment of engineering seats atleast until the first round of MBBS / BDS counselling is complete. CBSE, which conducts NEET, must coordinate with state-run agencies to ensure that this happens. Every year, thousands of students are affected by poor coordination between state and central agencies involved in holding examinations and allotting seats.

Official, State Higher Education Department

The state government is doing its best to ensure that students are not affected by the delay in the NEET results. We have already proposed holding a final round of counselling at the end of July to ensure that seats which fall vacant after medical / dental allotments are filled up too, so that neither students nor the colleges concerned face untoward difficulties. The state has also moved the Supreme Court with respect to the counselling procedure for engineering seats.

L Sharatraju, academician

Floating a single national level examination authority is the way forward. Else every year these kind of confusions hit the admission process.

Heera a gamechanger, must be implemented

The empowerment of higher educational institutions seems to top the government's priority list, with the proposal of the Higher Education Empowerment Regulation Agency or HEERA. If the proposal is brought into effect, HEERA will replace the MHRD-run University Grants Commission and the All India Council of Technical Education, after which it will work to curb superfluous regulatory provisions and grant institutions the autonomy they deserve. The proposal has been widely lauded by industry experts, who feel that HEERA should also encompass the Medical and Dental Council of India.

Speaking to this newspaper, an official from the Ministry of Human Resource Development said that HEERA could potentially bring revolutionary changes to the higher education sector, which has been reeling under several issues related to poor governance. "Today, everything is controlled by the UGC, including payscales of non-teaching faculty. On the other hand, nothing has been done on frontiers like research, improving the gross enrollment ratio or building world class universities," he said. "There is an urgent need for quality intervention. HEERA is expected to attract experts from across sectors to revamp the higher education system."

Despite its merits, the move is a bold one and academics argue that the decision should have been taken after debate and discussion. And implementation is key. A retired Vice Chancellor saiid that scrapping UGC and AICTE, although bold, may negatively impact the higher education sector. "When the UPA II came to power in 2009, the then higher education minister, Kapil Sibal, proposed radical changes. Most of those, however, remained on paper. I hope HEERA doesn't meet with a similar fate. Academic researcher Krup Gurukiran, the central government should bring the MCI under the ambit of the proposed body. "The demand for reforms in the UGC and AICTE has existed for years. It's surprising that the central government and NITI Ayog have left MCI and DCI untouched. Reforms are crucial in both these sectors as they directly impact the quality of healthcare available in India."

Fill medical, IIT seats before CET admissions: Prof. K Balaveera Reddy, Former Vice Chancellor, VTU

The central government introduced the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in the hope of eliminating the many evils associated with admissions to medical and dental colleges. NEET ensured the elimination of problems like multiple admission tests and the counselling associated with them, seat blocking, to name a few.

States, however, should have ensured, that NEET counselling doesnt clash with that offered by local agencies like KEA. Ideally, counselling for CET and COMEDK admissions should be conducted only after the medical and dental admissions, which means that top-ranking medical aspirants will be placed first and not have to undergo the hassle of sitting through counselling for courses they would prefer not to choose! If local authorities believe this is too long a wait, they should atleast allow the first round of NEET counselling to be completed before they begin their own.

The method followed in Karnataka is not correct, for students bear the brunt of the confusion that ensues if CET counselling is completed before the NEET results. Students who then get MBBS / BDS seats are forced to pay the full tuition fee at the engineering colleges to which they have been given entry, if they want to switch streams. The centre and the state must work together to intervene and protect the interests of the students.

NEET is conducted by the CBSE board and seats are allotted by the various state governments, which means that the centre and state are both stakeholders. I suggest that the state government issue directions to both the Karnataka Examination Authority and COMEDK, asking them not to conduct counselling for engineering seats until the first round of NEET counselling is done. This is a simple solution and the need of the hour.

NEET medical and dental counselling must happen first, as these are the most sought after seats and cater largely to top-ranking students who specifically wish to study medicine. The IIT admission process should be carried out next, followed by the IIITs, to ensure that meritorious students take their pick from the top layer of institutions, leaving the rest, who dont aspire to any of these facilities, to compete through CET and COMEDK. This will protect the students interests and deprive engineering colleges of the chance to make a quick buck as they mitigate their own losses.
If Damien Adamski hadnt come to fully appreciate the applied aspect of his applied social science major at University of Wisconsin-Stout, he did by late January when he returned from Ecuador.

Heading into his final semester, Adamski, of Eau Claire, and Associate Professor Tina Lee went on a special research trip with a team of engineering students from UW-Madison. The UW-Madison students were finishing installation of a clean water system in the village of Tabuga, on the northwest coast.

As anthropologists, Adamski and Lee joined the engineering team to document the impact of the project, in part because UW-Stout engineering students are working on a similar project with villagers in Nicaragua. The UW-Stout project is part of National Science Foundation grant; money from that grant funded the Ecuador trip.

This was a chance to get some real fieldwork experience and use the skills that Ive learned here at UW-Stout, said Adamski, who has an anthropology focus within his major and is minoring in economics.

It was nice to see this group form a lasting connection with the locals. We spent most of our time going to houses interviewing them. I did one-on-one interviews with the Madison students on ethics issues and transcribed and coded them to develop some common themes.

Adamski said that the value of the project became clear on the final night of their trip. We went to what was like a closing ceremony. The gifts that were given to us and the kind words really hit home for me. These people were really thankful for what had been done, Adamski said.

Taking field notes

Lee and Adamski were impressed with the water system, which was designed and installed over several years, but their interest was specific to the relationship the engineers developed with the villagers.

They observed as the UW-Madison students went house-to-house in the village and interviewed residents. The group hiked about a half-mile daily from a lodging site in a preserve through the jungle to the village of about 350 people.

We wanted to see how students interacted with the community and what their relationship was with community members, Lee said.

UW-Madison students, all in engineering plus one political science major, tested the water for E. coli and tested water pressure before turning over the system to the village.

Residents had been hesitant to drink the water until the students arrived in the village and provided proof that it was free of E. coli. Students showed them the E. coli test. We were drinking the water very conspicuously in front of each other, Lee said.

Its a pretty amazing thing  everyone had clean water. The system they installed was very impressive. They designed an entire water system for a small town. Thats something governments normally do, Lee said.

The Ecuador project, through Engineers Without Borders, provided invaluable field research for Lee and Adamski, who will pass on their experience to Associate Professor Devin Berg, head of an ongoing water project in Nicaragua, also through Engineers Without Borders.

Lee, with Berg and Elizabeth Buchanan, director of the Center for Applied Ethics and acting director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, also is working with the national Engineers Without Borders organization to develop a guide to best practices on how to measure the social impacts of such efforts.

We can give advice to Devin and to Engineers Without Borders on how to do this well and make sure its clear what the community needs and wants, Lee said.

Engineers are not always trained at how to look at the human impacts, Lee said. It helped (in Ecuador) to have someone trained in social science to pull apart the impacts. We helped them work through the survey, said Lee, who also did some translating.

The goal is to have a really good relationship with the community youre working with. The UW-Madison students did an awesome job, she said, adding that they also trained villagers how to use, maintain and expand the system.

Adamski is a paid research assistant for Lee on the UW-Stout grant. He has conducted interviews, catalogued Engineers Without Borders projects and gathered and analyzed data. He will graduate in May.

Learn more about UW-Stouts applied social science major at www.uwstout.edu/programs/bsass.
Thiruvananthapuram: The state Assembly has flayed the new central notification on the cattle trade and said it was unconstitutional and an infringement on the rights of the people. A resolution passed at the special Assembly session on Thursday said cattle trade is a state subject and does not come under the central purview. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who moved the resolution against the notification issued on May 23, said, the centre has issued this notification to impose the Sangh Parivar agenda and it has affected the farmers. About 15 lakh cattle were being brought to the state from other states every year. This movement has been affected by the ban. About 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was being sold annually, Mr Vijayan said.

The resolution was passed without voting as only Mr Rajagopal of the BJP opposed it. This is for the first time that a state Assembly convened a special session to protest against the central notification. Mr Rajagopal termed the special session as a misuse of the Assembly to target the centre. It is the launch of a Mahagatbandhan of parties comprising both fronts against the BJP and the centre, he said. The session was convened to discuss a non-issue by creating confusion for getting cheap political gains, he added. Though Kerala Congress (M) leader K.M. Mani did not oppose the resolution, he asked why the Assembly should discuss the issue which did not affect the state. It was under the consideration of the High Court and need not be discussed, he said.

MLAs C.K. Asha and Prathibha Hari eat beef at Assembly canteen in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

Former chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan, who started the discussion on the motion, wanted the state government to make legislation against the notification. He suggested the setting up of modern slaughter houses in the cooperative sector as the state has a strong cooperative movement. Pooh-poohing the notification as a national tragedy, he alleged that it was to prepare the ground for creating a monopoly for Adani and Ambani in cattle trade. Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala described the restriction as an infringement on the personal freedom of individuals to choose the food of their choice. The notification was coated with poison and part of the agenda to impose RSS-BJP agenda, he said.
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Zoo officials heaved a sigh of relief after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday that the state would not implement the beef ban. Every day 130 kg beef is required for the zoo here including the bones. While the vet ensures the quality, the superintendent ensures quantity. The meat contractor who has been chosen after winning the e-tender supplies beef six days a week except for Monday when the big cat family has a dry day. Apart from tiger, lion and leopard, beef is also provided to jackal and jungle cat. Currently, a kg of meat is supplied at Rs 264.10.

A top Zoo official told DC that they are providing the price of the beef only for 700 grammes per kilo as the remaining would be bones for the big cats to bite and chew. When people buy beef from the market, they have to give the price of the bones as well. The meat contractor has to cut and clean it in front of us here every day under CCTV surveillance where the waste would be taken away. On Thursday being district hartal, the contractor didn't turn up. So we decided to observe it as dry day instead of coming Monday, said a top official.

The contractor has to do the skinning and remove the intestine and stomach parts. A senior veterinary surgeon will examine all the organs and certify whether it is deemed fit to consume. But there have been days when the contractor has brought carcasses which have been found not edible. We will land in the soup if cattle slaughter is banned as the animals are used to the taste of beef. Of course, we used to provide chicken to one of our old Tigers, 19-year-old Karishma who had died two years ago. We will be forced to feed them with mutton which is costly and also on chicken, said another official.
BJP MLCs led by K.S. Eshwarappa protest during the Council session in Bengaluru on Thursday. (Right) Chief Minister Siddaramaiah gestures during the session. (Photo: DC)

Bengaluru: For a while on Thursday, the Legislative Council witnessed an animated discussion between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and leader of Opposition K S Eshwarappa on the political scenario, post 2018 Assembly elections in Karnataka.

Mr Siddaramaiah claimed that the Congress would return to power in Karnataka next year while replying to a preliminary submission made by Mr Eshwarappa.

He said that the BJP leaders initially spoke of how the outcome of by-polls to Nanjangud and Gundlupet would indicate the result of elections in 2018, but the ruling party won both seats.

Mr Eshwarappa, however, reminded of the setback for Congress candidates in by-polls to Hebbal and Deodurga constituencies.

The Chief Minister countered Mr Eshwarappa saying the leader should not bank on history but keep in mind the victory of ruling party candidates in Nanjangud and Gundlupet.

On the issue of waiver of farm loans, Mr Siddaramaiah spoke of the state governments willingness to write off farm loans released by commercial banks. His government would waive `10,000 crore crop loans of farmers released by co-operative banks immediately provided the Union government waived loans of commercial banks. The previous UPA Government headed by Dr Manmohan Singh had waived farmers' loan of commercial banks. BJP leaders raise this demand in the Legislative Assembly and the Council but would not speak up in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The previous BJP government headed by Mr Jagadish Shettar had waived Rs 3,250 crores loans of co-operative banks at the end its tenure, and the new Congress government had to repay that amount to the bank.

Irked by Mr Siddaramaiahs statement, Mr Eshwarappa said the state government was anti-farmer and officials were not touring drought-hit districts to mitigate the impact of scarcity conditions. Even district-in-charge ministers were not chairing meetings to review projects.

The video conference addressed by the Chief Minister with deputy commissioners was a waste of time since the bureaucrats were not visiting villages. The bureaucracy would wake up only if the Chief Minister initiates disciplinary action against a couple of officers.

The ruling party members sought to know what 17 BJP MPs were doing in Lok Sabha without pressuring the Union government to waive farmers loans.

Besides, five union ministers from Karnataka were also silent on this issue, they alleged.
Hyderabad: TS Telugu Desam leaders on Thursday stepped up their attack on the state government in connection with the Miyapur land scam, asking Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao why the name of Goldstone Prasad, the alleged kingpin of the scam, was not included in the FIR lodged by the police.

The TS TD charge comes at a time the party, which is in power in AP, is facing embarrassment over the recently unearthed land scam in and around Visakhapatnam city, in which its leaders are accused of being involved.

TS TD president L. Ramana, working president A. Revanth Reddy and other leaders addressed a media conference in Hyderabad and accused the Chief Minister, Governor and the Chief Secretary who holds the additional responsibilities of the Chief Commissioner Land Administration, of shielding the main culprit Prasad.

They said that this was the reason the government was not taking any follow-up action like taking steps to protect the lands or and following up the investigation in the case, the TD leaders charged.

They said despite several requests, Chief Secretary S.P. Singh did not meet them to receive their representation and did not bother to initiate any action on the representations filed with his office so far.

When we tried meeting Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan to represent the matter and request him to take action into the scam by bringing the main culprit Prasad booked, he refused to give us an appointment. We suspect the Chief Minister may have exerted pressure on the Governor not to entertain us, but as per Section 8 of AP Reorganisation Act, its the Governors duty to protect government lands in the capital city, Mr Revanth Reddy said.

He said TD delegation would meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the CBI director with a request to entrust the investigation to CBI to unearth the real persons involved in the Rs 15,000 crore land scam in Miyapur.

The TD leaders said that the arrested accused  P.S. Pardhasarathy, P.V.S. Sarma and Srinivasa Rao  have already filed a petition in the Supreme Court but it is strange that state government did not bother to engage senior lawyer or advocate-general to argue the case.

Instead, it appointed a small-time lawyer to defend the government which only indicates that the government is not serious about pursuing the investigation, Mr Revanth Reddy said.
The BJPs effort to expand the partys support base in states like West Bengal, Odisha and Tripura in the east and Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the south is clearly aimed more at marginalising the Congress in these states than winning elections. The partys support base has been low in these states. Even when the BJP registered a massive victory, winning 282 Lok Sabha seats, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the party only managed to win seven of the 166 Lok Sabha seats which these six states account for. The BJP may find it impossible to win the next Assembly elections in these states, Odisha being the only exception, where it could pose a serious challenge to the Naveen Patnaik-led Biju Janata Dal, but the BJP is hoping to occupy the space of main Opposition replacing the Congress, which eventually would pave the way for the partys expansion in these states. There is hardly any doubt that the BJP is gaining popularity among the people of Odisha. Trends from the local body election clearly indicate that the BJP cannot be ignored as a marginal player in state politics. For the first time in many years, the BJD faced stiff competition in the local body polls. While the BJD led in the civic polls, the BJP stood second by winning 297 of the 853 zila panchayat seats, with the Congress becoming a distant third, winning only 60 seats. These results seem to indicate that the BJP has already replaced the Congress as the principal alternative to the BJD in the state, at least in local body elections. In 2019, the BJD is expected to face greater anti-incumbency and public resentment amidst allegations of corruption against Mr Patnaik and his government.

Another state where the BJP is making a serious effort for its expansion is West Bengal. It may not be easy for the BJP to defeat the Trinamul Congress in the next Assembly elections (2021), but the BJP is hoping to occupy the place of main Opposition since the Left Front has already declined and there is hardly any sign of revival of the Congress. The Left Front polled only 30 per cent votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 26 per cent during the 2016 Assembly elections when it contested these elections in alliance with the Congress. The Congress performance was no better; it polled 10 per cent votes in 2014 and 12 per cent in 2016 Assembly elections. The BJPs voteshare did decline to 11 per cent in 2016 Assembly elections, compared to 17 per cent during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but the party is hoping to capitalise on the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the state. It is not surprising to see the BJP working hard for the partys expansion in another Left-ruled state, Tripura. The Left Front has been in power in Tripura for 24 years, the Congress being the main Opposition. In Tripura, it may be difficult for the BJP to dream of forming the next government defeating the Left Front, but what the party aims is to dislodge the Congress and at least occupy the space of main Opposition party in the state.

The southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala have witnessed bipolar contests when various smaller political parties align with the two fronts. In Tamil Nadu, we have the DMK and AIADMK-led alliances, while in Kerala we have the LDF and UDF as the two dominant alliances. The Congress still remains a dominant player in Kerala, but in Tamil Nadu it is already a marginal player. The Congress polled six per cent votes in Tamil Nadu during the 2016 Assembly elections and four per cent during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP could not perform as well as it may have imagined; it polled three per cent votes in 2016 Assembly elections and six per cent during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but it is hoping to expand its support base and push the Congress behind it even in Tamil Nadu. The BJP managed to form a third front in Tamil Nadu during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, which collapsed before the 2016 Assembly election. It received three per cent votes contesting alone, but the party is still hoping to make further inroads, specially after the split in the AIADMK.

The BJP may have remained far behind the UDF and the LDF with only 11 per cent votes during the 2016 Assembly elections in Kerala, but it managed to open its account in the Legislative Assembly. The BJP has also managed to increase its voteshare in Kerala from six per cent in 2009 to 11 per cent during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party may find it extremely difficult to replace the Congress in Kerala, but is still trying hard to expand its support base amongst urban voters. Like in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where the BJP is trying to expand with the help of forming an alliance, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the BJP is making an effort to expand its support base in alliance with regional parties. In AP, the party contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the N. Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party; it polled 7.2 per cent votes and won two Lok Sabha seats. Similarly in Telangana, the party contested the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in alliance with TDP; it polled 10.5 per cent votes and won one Lok Sabha seat. The BJP may not have performed very well but there are reasons for the BJP to feel happy about it, since it performed better compared to the Congress in AP (Congress polled 2.9 per cent votes), which was once the ruling party in the united AP. The BJP is trying hard to fill the vacuum created by the Congress in these two states and occupy the position of main Opposition as well. The choice of these states for the partys expansion is clearly aimed at marginalising the Congress than capturing power in these states.
Terrorism returned to Iran after two decades on Wednesday when its Parliament was attacked in Tehran and the mausoleum of the founder of the revolutionary Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was hit in the southern part of the capital, suggesting a meticulously executed operation. Twelve people were killed and around 40 were injured in the attacks. Women terrorists were involved along with men, and a strike at a third location was averted, according to Iranian official sources. The attackers used assault weapons and suicide vests. The spectacular choice of targets presages retaliation from the Iranian side. This could conceivably take the form of strikes by irregulars inside Saudi Arabia and Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq. ISIS claimed responsibility as the Parliament attack was in progress.

However, the Iranian authorities have not minced words in directly accusing Saudi Arabia, noting that (Sunni) terrorists hit (Shia) Iran exactly a week after US President Donald Trump endorsed an ideological and strategic line targeting Iran as the source of terrorism. Such a US-Saudi characterisation of Iran is both selective and self-serving, but it was energised right away. Riyadh and some Gulf states announced a diplomatic and economic blockade of Qatar (also a Gulf Arab Sunni monarchy) which has posited that a bleak view of Tehran was not necessary. As a background to the Trump visit, Saudi Arabia had created a military alliance of Sunni states ostensibly to fight terrorism, but aimed at Iran and Syria in reality. The force is headed by former Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Raheel Sharif. Officially, Pakistan is not taking sides between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The former is a huge benefactor, while Iran an immediate neighbour. But it is on the cards that Sunni terrorist outfits in Pakistan will rev up activity against Iran. Tehran had recently warned Islamabad that its forces will cross the border to deal with terrorist groups if Pakistan was unable to do effective border management. In India too, the authorities will need to be on guard to take preventive action over Sunni-Shia clashes. In this country, these are far from common but still not wholly unknown. If the scenario unfolds in an ominous direction, the West Asia-North Africa region could remain more strife-torn than ever. In that event, there could be difficulties in expecting any meaningful steps towards a resolution of the Palestinian issue. Israel will be emboldened as Iran is sought to be corralled simultaneously by Riyadh and Washington. Coordination between the United States and Russia even to fight ISIS could also suffer.
It did not come as a surprise when President Donald Trump announced that the United States was pulling out of the Paris Agreement. Weve had our fingers crossed for a while now. In a 30-minute-long speech, Mr Trump said: So were getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal thats fair. And if we can, thats great. And if we cant, thats fine. His main argument is that the deal is unfair to the US and will result in loss of jobs and decline in economic growth. He has also argued that while the deal prevents the US from building coal power plants, it allows China to build hundreds of coal plants, and India to double its coal capacity by 2020. He adds that even if the Paris agreement were implemented fully, it would lead to only 0.2 degree Celsius reduction in global temperatures by 2100. It will take a detailed report to examine and comment on the various claims made by Mr Trump. The silver lining of his speech is that he did not junk the science of climate change. During the presidential campaign, he had famously claimed that climate change was a hoax.

It is important to put in context Mr Trumps worry about China and Indias plans for coal-based power. The US coal-based power generation capacity is 305 GW as against Indias 186 GW. China towers over both India and the US with a whopping 940 GW. Even if India was to double its coal generation, it would barely surpass that of the US and would still lag behind China. China has committed to peak its emissions in 2030. Therefore, in theory Mr Trump is correct; China could possibly continue to expand its coal-based generation for the next 13 years. However, there are signs that Chinas emissions may soon be plateauing given its push for renewables and nuclear power. The US ranks the highest in cumulative historic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It is also the worlds second-largest emitter at 6.2 gigatons of CO2equivalent (GtCO2e) in 2012. Therefore, the US withdrawal is a setback to the Paris agreement. The US had committed to reduce its emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2025 from 2005 levels. As per this, the US would have reduced its emissions to about 5 GtCO2e by 2025.

It will require some analysis to estimate the precise impact of Mr Trumps announcement on the future of US emissions. Its commitment in Paris mainly depended on the clean power plan (CPP) and vehicle emission standards. If the CPP is rescinded, the emissions would likely increase by 365 MtCO2e in 2030. However, on the positive side, the federal decision will not deter state actions on clean energy. There is hope as more than 30 US states, including large states such as California, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan and Ohio, have announced mandatory renewable energy standards. The UNEP Emission Gap report has asserted that to limit warming to two degrees Celsius by 2100, global emissions would have to be reduced to 48 Gt CO2e in 2025 and 42 Gt CO2e in 2030. As per various estimates, the Paris agreement, if implemented fully, would have limited global aggregate emissions to 56 Giga tons (Gt) CO2e in 2030. This would have restricted global surface temperature rise to 2.7-3.7 degree Celsius by 2100. The US withdrawal is likely to increase this by about 0.3 C. Therefore, other countries will have to compensate for the US non-action.

So, what are Indias options? It is no way responsible for global warming. In fact, India is among the worst sufferers of the impacts of climate change. India has a huge population living below the poverty line, which still relies on conventional biomass for energy needs. It is the worlds fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. However, its emissions at two tonnes per capita are well below those of the US (19) and China (8). In this background, Indias nationally determined contributions (NDC) are a firm statement of intent of an alternate growth pathway. India announced its intent to reduce its carbon intensity to GDP by 33-35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels. India is relying on a combination of renewable energy and energy efficiency measures. The cost of clean energy has reduced dramatically in the last few years.

The most recent solar power project has projected a cost of Rs 2.44 per kWh, which is even cheaper than coal-based electricity. Similarly, the price of LED bulbs has reportedly reduced to Rs 38 per bulb. It is important to realise that these cost reductions are not because of scientific or technological breakthroughs. It is because of the innovative business models, and the fact that India provides a large-scale market for adoption of technology and innovations. India also has ambitious plans for electric vehicles to reduce dependence on oil imports and reduce local air pollution. Therefore, what India is attempting is a historic and unprecedented experiment. In most developed countries, economic growth came hand-in-hand with a surge in consumption of cheap fossil fuels. Their emissions reached a peak and now they are trying to decarbonise and reduce emissions. Many of these countries paid a heavy environmental and ecological price in terms of air and water quality. India never went through such a fossil-intensive growth phase. Therefore, India is attempting an alternate growth pathway, to achieve quality of life for all by relying on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

This could be an excellent model for other developing countries as well. Should we abandon these plans because the worlds biggest carbon dioxide emitter has walked out of the Paris agreement? Most definitely not. In fact, the US withdrawal has only increased the responsibility on other countries, notably China and India. This global development presents India with an opportunity to take a leadership position in fighting climate change. The danger of anthropogenic climate change is very real. Considering that even a sceptic like Mr Trump has not questioned this fact, it is imperative to step up and take leadership.
Careful! The cute stories you tell your baby today may create international embarrassment 50 years later, like the story of the tearfully procreating peacock, which we heard from a somewhat elderly high court judge last week. The peacock is our national bird because it is very holy, said the judge as he retired from service, so holy in fact that it does not have sex, it sires babies through its tears. The peahen just needs to swallow the peacocks tears, and voila! Her tummy is full of little baby pea people! Now that is truly revolutionary. Not only does the peacock  known for his spectacular struts showing off magnificent feathers all fanned out for maximum display to attract the rather plain Jane peahen  skip the real thing after the elaborate courting ritual, but he also breaks a big taboo, proving that real men do cry, and they cry powerfully potent tears. This is also revolutionary because it proudly tramples over lowly scientific realities, like the fact that peacocks, like most birds, dont shed tears, or that in secular life they procreate the way most big birds do.

But Justice Mahesh Chandra Sharma of the Rajasthan high court had reason to bring in the national bird. He had delivered a judgment urging that the cow be made Indias national animal, replacing the tiger. The, holy cow, he believes is very special and deserves the post. For one, the cow is the only animal that exhales oxygen. You get the picture? So just as the chaste, holy peacock is the national bird, the magical, holy cow needs to become the national animal. Sadly, as teary peacock jokes popped up all around, you were ready to burst into tears yourself. The justice system is our strength  it was till recently perhaps the strongest among our four pillars of democracy. And for the sake of our nation and its people, for the sake of our sanity, we need to see that the judiciary stays strong and faithful to the Indian Constitution. Justice Sharmas judgment reveals the kind of brahmanical prejudice that threatens the delivery of justice as required by our Constitution. We are human, of course  we bring to any post our childhood beliefs and prejudices, our loves and hates. But we are expected to consciously set all that aside when we act as public officials, solely guided by and faithful to the Constitution and the law of the land. Natural justice demands that judges be completely unbiased and impartial, that they depend only on the evidence and not on preconceived notions. If this basic principle of justice is absent, it shakes our confidence in the justice system.

Like the bizarre acts of Justice C.S. Karnan of the Calcutta high court does. Because of his curious behaviour he was barred by the Supreme Court from discharging his duties. Undeterred, the judge, who belongs to a scheduled caste, swiftly ruled that the seven Supreme Court judges involved  including Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar  had insulted him and were offenders under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and summoned them to his home, which would be a residential court. In turn, the Supreme Court sentenced Justice Karnan to six months in jail for contempt of court. But he has been absconding for a month, and is to retire next week. The curious case of Justice Karnan only muddies the waters further for SC/ ST judges, who frequently face terrible discrimination. In fact, such brahmanical prejudice is still so strong among the lower courts, that a judge can cleanse not only his chamber but also the entire courtroom with holy Ganga water when he takes over from a dalit judge. Similarly, our personal prejudices very often influence not only our behaviour but also legal judgments. And issues of human rights involving religion, caste, class, community, gender or sexual preference are often determined by chance. So a raped woman is asked to marry her rapist because the judge believes he is saving her from social stigma, and the rapist gets away with a light sentence for rescuing the woman whose life would otherwise be destroyed. Or, the court can rule that a dalit woman has not been raped because the accused are upper caste men and would not touch a dalit. In fact, rape cases as well as cases tried under the SC/ST law have very low rates of conviction.

And the Supreme Court, the last refuge of the desperate justice-seeker, can claim that Hindutva goon Dara Singh must not be hanged for burning alive missionary Graham Staines and his two little sons because the intention was to teach a lesson to Graham Staines about his religious activities, namely, converting poor tribals to Christianity. Under pressure, the court later replaced these words with a less prejudiced mitigating factor. Or, the Supreme Court can reverse the progressive 2009 Delhi high court order on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, decriminalising consensual homosexual acts. And later, dismiss the review petition because it affected only a minuscule fraction of the countrys population. Reportedly, the Madras high court has recently released five prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and looting in Kanchipuram because the district sessions judge had concluded that the accused must have committed the crime as they were Irulars, a denotified criminal tribe. Any finding of guilt based on no evidence but on communal considerations is unconstitutional, stated the court. Prejudice can ruin our justice delivery mechanism and rob us of our greatest strength as a robust democracy. At a time when the other three pillars of democracy are wobbling dangerously, we need our judiciary to be sturdier than ever.

The executive, or the government, is close to becoming a dictatorship with no space for debate among ministers. It also does not rein in violent Hindutva activists who have little respect for the Constitution. The legislature is weakened by a frequently disrupted, frequently dysfunctional Parliament, a rudderless Opposition and a bickering tribe of mostly opportunistic regional parties. The media is either bowing to corporate interests or cowering before the government. Only a small segm-ent attempts to live dangerously as independent media. The World Press Freedom Index (2017) by Reporters Without Borders now ranks India at 136 out of 180 countries. Quite shameful for the worlds largest democracy that once boasted a vibrant, free press. At this stage, we need the judiciary, the last court of appeal, to be really strong. We cannot let our prejudices cloud our judgment. We must be guided only by the Constitution and the law. And it is our duty as aware citizens to meticulously debate every uncomfortable judgment, and laud every judgment that goes against prejudice to uphold the spirit of the Constitution.
Scientists have confirmed one of Albert Einstein's century-old theories by witnessing with the Hubble Space Telescope a phenomenon he thought would never be possible to see, researchers said Wednesday.

Astronomers have now glimpsed for the first time a distant star's light bending and revealing its mass when an object passes in front of it, known as "gravitational microlensing," said the report in the journal Science.

"Einstein would be proud. One of his key predictions has passed a very rigorous observational test," wrote Terry Oswalt of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, in an accompanying Perspective article in Science.

This gravitational microlensing was seen in 1919, when starlight curved around a total eclipse of the Sun.

At the time, the discovery offered some of the first convincing proof for Einstein's theory of general relativity -- a law of physics that describes gravity as a geometric function of both space and time.

"When a star in the foreground passes exactly between us and a background star, gravitational microlensing results in a perfectly circular ring of light -- a so-called 'Einstein ring,'" said Oswalt.

But Einstein believed it would not be possible to see the phenomenon with stars other than our Sun.

In a 1936 article in the journal Science, he wrote that because stars are so far apart "there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly."

Of course, Einstein could not have predicted that the Hubble Space Telescope would be launched in April 1990 which offers unprecedented views of faraway stars and planets.

Fossil of a star

Using this NASA telescope, an international research team directed by Kailash C. Sahu of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, focused on a distant star as its light was deflected around a nearby white dwarf star called Stein 2051 B.

A white dwarf is the remnant of a star that has completed its hydrogen-burning life cycle, and is a fossil of the prior generations of stars in our galaxy.

Stein 2051 B is the sixth-closest white dwarf star to the Sun, and researchers discovered it has a mass about two-thirds that of the Sun.

The deflection of the background star's light is directly related to the mass and gravity of the white dwarf.

Sahu and colleagues saw the two objects were slightly out of alignment, and an asymmetrical version of an Einstein ring formed, allowing the mass to be calculated.

"This part of Einstein's prediction is called 'astrometric lensing' and Sahu's team was the first to observe it in a star other than the Sun," said Oswalt.

He said the finding is important because it "provides a new tool for determining the masses of objects we can't easily measure by other means," and opens a new window to understanding "the history and evolution of galaxies such as our own."

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NASA named 12 astronauts on Wednesday to the US space agency's first new class of space fliers in five years, chosen from a record 18,300 applicants, for a new era of space travel.

US Vice President Mike Pence welcomed the five women and seven men, aged 28 to 42, during their introduction at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Pence said the White House planned to form a council to advise President Donald Trump on space policy and strategy, relaunching a body that has been inactive for more than 25 years.

Trump is "firmly committed to NASA's noble mission  leading America in space," Pence said, noting that only 338 Americans have served as NASA astronauts.

The trainees include a scientist working with the Mars robotic rover Curiosity, a SpaceX engineer, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and an Army surgeon.

NASA is developing a heavy-lift rocket and Orion capsule for travel to the moon and eventually Mars. It is also working with Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, and Boeing Co (BA.N) to develop commercial space taxis that can ferry crews to and from the International Space Station, a $100 billion research lab that flies about 240 miles (400 km) above Earth.

"Hopefully one day I'll get to fly on a vehicle that has components I've actually designed," said Robb Kulin, 33, a doctor of engineering and Fulbright Fellow who is joining the astronaut corps from SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.

Since the shuttle program ended in 2011, NASA has been dependent on Russia for rides to the station, a 15-nation project.

Jessica Watkins, 28, a post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology, joins the class after serving on the science team operating the car-sized Curiosity rover which has been exploring Gale Crater on Mars since August 2012.

"We intend to send her to Mars one day," said acting NASA Administrator Robert Lightfoot.

The astronauts have two years of training before they are eligible for flight assignments. They are scheduled to report for duty at the Johnson Space Center in August.

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The companies on Wednesday said they plan to combine Delphi's self-driving technology with Transdev's knowledge of mobility operations. (representational image/autoevolution)

Detroit: Autonomous vehicles with no human backup will be put to the test on publicly traveled roads as early as next year in what may be the first attempt at unassisted autonomous piloting. Automotive electronics and parts maker Delphi and French transport company Transdev plan to use autonomous taxis and a shuttle van to carry passengers on roadways in France.

The companies on Wednesday said they plan to combine Delphi's self-driving technology with Transdev's knowledge of mobility operations. Transdev operates trains, buses, ferries and other transportation services in 19 countries, including the US.

Two on-demand Renault Zoe autonomous taxis will be deployed in Rouen, Normandy, and a shuttle van will run between a rail station and campus in the university district of Paris-Saclay. Both will start with humans on board later this year, with the intent of going fully autonomous sometime in 2018. From the start, the shuttle van won't have a steering wheel or pedals, and humans will be inside solely to communicate with passengers, said Leriche, chief performance officer at Transdev Group.

But humans at a central dispatch center would still be able to take control of the vehicles, said Glen De Vos, Delphi Corp.'s chief technology officer. "We're confident that in the event they would need to intervene, they can," he said.

The companies also plan a similar test in North America and are scouting locations, De Vos said.

He believes they'll go through several iterations of self-driving software and systems before the French vehicles are fully operational sometime in 2019.

Transdev plans to gradually spread the technology throughout Paris and other cities that it serves, so the autonomous vehicles will be on roads along with human drivers.

It may take a while for people to trust the vehicles enough to use them, but Leriche said acceptance may not be that hard to get. Transdev has surveyed users in autonomous shuttle tests about the service and quality, and more than 90 per cent were excited about the service. "They were not afraid of the fact that there was no driver," he said.

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who tracks self-driving cars, said the Delphi-Transdev project would be among the first to carry passengers on roads without human backup drivers. Similar projects are ramping up in California and the Netherlands, he said.

The partnership comes less than a month after UK-based Delphi joined with BMW, Intel and Mobileye to develop autonomous vehicles. Delphi, which has US operations just outside of Detroit, makes the computing platform that brings together information from the car's sensors, cameras and computers.

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Technology allows governments and citizens to communicate faster and more effectively. In the age of digital diplomacy, the ability to harness digital platforms effectively to engage people, exchange ideas and deliver key messages is more important than ever.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi provides a great example of digital diplomacy done well by a head of a state. His use of digital tools has been central to his success both as a politician and Indias global advocate-in-chief.

The Prime Minister has made greater access to digital technology a priority. His government is using digital platforms as a means to deliver better public services and inspire citizen participation in new civic and public health initiatives.

- From Global diplomacy to economic issues like explaining digital transactions to the masses the Prime Minister has used these platforms as integral tools for direct dialogue with millions of citizens of our country.

- With his 3 year anniversary, we take at some of his major milestones on Facebook: sharing the infographic highlighting PM Narendra Modis 3 Years on Facebook since he took office.

The infographic covers the following:

- Prime Minister Modi on Facebook

- Key initiatives of Government on Facebook

- Top 10 Ministers on Facebook

- Top 10 Ministries on Facebook

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Reliance Jio is long been rumoured to be working on a new 4G VoLTE feature phone. If reports are to be believed then the firm is planning on launching its speculated devices soon. It appears like Reliance Jio will introduce its speculated feature phone in two processor variants: Qualcomm and Spreadtrum chipsets.

According to a new online report, the Reliance Jio VoLTE-enabled feature phone will be available with Qualcomm or Spreadtrum chipsets and the prices will start at $27 to $28 (approximately Rs 1,740 to 1,800).

As for the specifications, the upcoming Reliance Jio 4G VoLTE feature phone is expected to pack a 2.4-inch screen with 512MB RAM, 4GB of internal storage with an optional expansion support provided through its microSD card. Camera wise, the device will come with a 2MP rear camera and a VGA front snapper.

The device will come with support for the Jio SIM with 4G connectivity along with other options like Wi-Fi, NFC and GPS.

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In the minute-and-a-half video recorded by another customer, the woman can be heard saying that an Indian is waiting on another Indian. (Photo: Youtube Screengrab)

New York: A woman at a US departmental store allegedly made a racist rant against an Indian employee and a Latino family while in a queue, saying "you got an Indian waiting on an Indian".

The incident took place at the Sears store in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and a city man videotaped the woman making bigoted comments.

Simoni Lovano, 27, said he recorded the video on Sunday at the department store. In the video, a woman can be heard making bigoted comments against an Indian employee and a Latino family, who she assumes are of Indian descent, Lovano was quoted as saying by NJ.com.

"Send them back to their own country," the unidentified woman can be heard saying in the video. The woman was upset because the family was using coupons, which made the wait in the checkout line longer, Lovano said.

He said the woman was right to be frustrated with the lack of open cash registers, considering it took about 20 minutes to process the family's coupons. Lovano said he started recording, however, when the woman began to blame the customers. She thought the family was receiving preferential treatment because she assumed they were Indians, he said.

In the minute-and-a-half video, the woman can be heard saying, "You got an Indian waiting on an Indian, that's what it is." "They're not Indians," someone said to her. "I don't know what the hell they are..." the woman said.

"That has nothing to do with anything," another person said, according to the video of the incident.

Lovano, whose family moved to the US from Sicily when he was a few years old, said Sears employees should have kicked the woman out of the store.

Lovano, who works at a biotechnology company in North Brunswick, said he hopes the video becomes viral so he can monetise it to raise money for social justice organisations that advocate in favour of immigrants.

Lovano said he felt guilty for not standing up for the family at the time. He said he is glad he captured the incident on video, however, because "this is something that is happening in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a very diverse area."
Los Angeles: A 46-year-old Indian-American lawyer has been killed in the US after being hit by a train at a crossing in California.

Kirtee Kapoor, who was born in Bangalore, was a partner in the law firm Davis Polk, The Mercury News reported.

Kapoor, who lived in Menlo Park city, was killed by a southbound Caltrain on Monday at the Watkins Avenue crossing in Atherton town, the San Mateo County Coroner's office said.

Thomas McGovern, fellow at the coroner's office, said the death is still being investigated.

Kapoor is survived by his wife and daughter, the report said. According to the website legallyindia.com, Kapoor inspired a generation of Indian lawyers who went abroad". It said he was the head of the India group at the firm Davis Polk, "one of the first of a new generation of India-trained lawyers to make partner at top international firms".

Kapoor earned an LL.B. from the University of Delhi, a BCL from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and earned an LLM at New York University School of Law, a statement on the Davis Polk website said.

"Kirtee joined Davis Polk's New York office as an associate in 1999 and over the next 18 years spent time in several of our offices advising clients on significant M&A matters and in investments and other transactions around the world. He was elected to the partnership in 2007 and moved to Hong Kong later that year. In 2015, he joined our Northern California office," the Davis Polk statement said.

"Kirtee was a truly wonderful man. His optimism, warmth, honesty and wisdom were inspiring. He will be remembered as a great partner of the firm, a beloved colleague and adviser, and a steadfast friend to so many," it said.
The report said Alexander was not among the group of 20 people fired by Uber as part of an internal investigation into its workplace culture after employees made allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work environment. (Photo: YouTube Screengrab)

New York: Ride-hailing company Uber has fired a top executive who had allegedly obtained medical records of a 26-year-old woman raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014, according to a media report.

Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, was fired on Tuesday, just as the company announced that it had fired 20 employees over the last few months for harassment, discrimination and inappropriate behaviour.

Alexander had obtained the medical records of the woman, who was raped and assaulted by Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav in New Delhi in December, 2014, a report in the technology news website Recode said.

The report quoted sources as saying that Alexander had showed the medical records to "Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior Vice President Emil Michael".

Further, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group and sources said Alexander had carried around the document for "about a year" before other executives, "presumably the legal department, obtained the report and destroyed his copy".

The report said Alexander was not among the group of 20 people fired by Uber as part of an internal investigation into its workplace culture after employees made allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work environment.

Alexander's handling of the situation was among the over 200 claims reported to two law firms which were conducting the investigations into widespread management issues at the company, the report said.

The news website contacted the company about Alexander's actions, it was told that he was no longer employed there. It quoted an Uber spokesperson as saying that Alexander was no longer with the company.

The 2014 incident had triggered scrutiny into Uber by the Indian government and the company was banned from operating in Delhi till June 2015. A Delhi court sentenced Yadav to life imprisonment for raping the woman in 2015.

It said while the company was publicly apologetic, "some top executives apparently had trouble believing that the incident was entirely true", including Alexander, who was already in India at that time and investigated the claims.

Alexander then brought the files to Kalanick and Michael, who read them, the report said, adding that soon all three began to consider the prospect whether Uber's main rival in India, Ola, was behind the incident to sabotage the company.

"Travis never should have looked at the report and he should have fired him immediately," said one executive. Though Kalanick, Michael and Alexander have no medical training, they questioned the incident based on the medical report, the report said.

At the time Kalanick had condemned the New Delhi incident, saying the company will do "everything to help bring this perpetrator to justice and to support the victim and her family in her recovery".
Accusing the White House of defaming him with lies, fired FBI director James Comey on Thursday said it was very disturbing that US President Donald Trump asked him to stop probing the Russia links of one of his top aide.

Those were lies, plain and simple, and Im so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and Im so sorry the American people were told that, he said in his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Asked about a dinner he had with Trump on January 27, just days after his inauguration, Comey said the US president was trying to establish a patronage relationship. Describing that dinner, he said, My common sense told me that what was going on is, either he thought or someone told him, you have already asked Comey to stay, and you did not get anything for it. And the Trump had demanded my loyalty.

What the president whispered in my ear was, I really look forward to working with you...Im sitting there thinking, three times weve already talked about me staying. My common sense told me, hes looking to get something in exchange... Comey said.

When senator Dianne Feinstein asked Comey why he didnt stop and say, Mr president this is wrong over the Flynn probe, Comey said maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.

When he was asked how his colleagues reacted when Trump asked him to let it go (about the Flynn investigation), Comey said: They were shocked, and they were very concerned.

Responding to a question from Senator Burr, Comey said he has no doubt that the Russians attempted to interfere in the the 2016 elections.

Trump, Comey said, told him repeatedly that he had talked to lots of people about him, including his current attorney general, and had learned that he was doing a great job.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan closes his eyes as he joins London Ambulance workers in observing a minute's silence at the London Ambulance Service headquarters at Waterloo, central London, in honour of the London Bridge terror attack victims, Tuesday June 6, 2017. (Photo: AP)

London: Anti-Muslim crimes in the British capital have increased fivefold since the London Bridge terror attack, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on Thursday, warning that police would take a zero-tolerance approach.

"Provisional statistics for 6 June show a 40 per cent increase in racist incidents, compared to the daily average this year, and a fivefold increase in the number of Islamophobic incidents," the mayor's office said in a statement.

It said 54 racist incidents were recorded on Wednesday, compared to a daily average of 38 so far in 2017. Twenty of them were anti-Muslim incidents, well above the 2017 daily average of 3.5.

"This is the highest daily level of Islamophobic incidents in 2017 to date," the statement said, adding it was higher than levels reached after the November 2015 attacks in Paris in which 130 people were killed.

On his Facebook page, Khan called on Londoners "to pull together, and send a clear message around the world that our city will never be divided by these hideous individuals who seek to harm us and destroy our way of life".

He also warned that "just as the police will do everything possible to root out extremism from our city, so we will take a zero-tolerance approach to hate crime."

Eight people were killed on Saturday when three Islamist extremists mowed down people on London Bridge before going on a stabbing spree in nearby Borough Market wearing fake suicide vests. The three attackers, Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba, were then killed by police. The Islamic State jihadist group later claimed responsibility.
People across Britain voted in large numbers on Thursday in the crucial general election, being held under the looming shadow of the two terror attacks, that is predicted to boost Prime Minister Theresa Mays majority in Parliament and add muscle to her Brexit negotiations.

Conservative party leader May and Labour chief Corbyn were among the early voters as they cast their votes at the end of a frenetic 50-day campaign that suffered breaks due to terrorist strikes in Manchester and London.

May was joined by husband Philip at her Maidenhead constituency in south-east England, while Labour partys Corbyn cast his ballot at Holloway in London  the two main choices before the electorate to take over as the new PM after the snap poll announced on April 18.

Voting was underway at more than 40,000 polling stations across the country. A total of 650 MPs will be elected. About 46.9 million people, including an estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters are registered to vote. The Conservatives had as much as a 24 point lead when the snap election was called by the Prime Minister.
In a preliminary report published late on Thursday the investigators did not say who they held responsible for the hack but said that both Britain and the United States were helping with their inquiry.(Representational Image)

Qatari investigators have said that a cyber attack which saw the publication of explosive fake news last month that helped trigger a crisis with Gulf neighbours was prepared in April.

In a preliminary report published late on Thursday the investigators did not say who they held responsible for the hack but said that both Britain and the United States were helping with their inquiry.

The comments attributed to Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani on incendiary issues such as Israel, Iran and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas were one of the reasons cited by Saudi Arabia and its allies on Monday for imposing a diplomatic and economic blockade on Qatar.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain gave Qatari citizens 14 days to leave and closed their airspace to all Qatari flights. Saudi Arabia also closed Qatars only land border. CNN reported that US officials believed Russian hackers were behind the planting of the fake news.
The political climate in the U.S. lately has been defined by back-biting partisanship. However, if there is one thing politicians on both sides of the aisle can agree on, its that we need to help the Christians in Iraq and Syria facing genocide before there is no one left to help.

On June 6, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan bill H.R. 390, also known as the Iraq and Syria Genocide Emergency Relief and Accountability Act of 2017. The house had no qualms passing it unanimously.

The bill, spearheaded by Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA), is focused on helping Christians, Yezidi, Armenian, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. The Armenian Assembly of America strongly supported the bill. Armenians, having been targeted for annihilation in the twentieth century, are deeply troubled that 100 years later descendants of genocide survivors in Iraq and Syria are facing similar genocidal atrocities, Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny told Public Radio of Armenia.

H.R. 390 will direct the supply of emergency relief to survivors of genocide in Iraq and Syria as well as accountability for the perpetrators of genocide (namely, ISIS). Practically, the bill directs the Secretary of State, working with the Attorney General, Secretary of Homeland Security, Director of National Intelligence and Director of the FBI, to identify and prosecute individuals guilty of war crimes and genocide, as well as encourage foreign governments to do the same.

As far as aid to survivors is concerned, the bill authorizes the Secretary of State and Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide assistance to NGOs and the like as they address the needs of the people facing genocide.

The bill acknowledged Secretary of State John Kerrys declaration in 2016, when he called the atrocities committed by the Islamic State genocide. Religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria are persecuted groups, and the Secretary of State of State declared on March 17, 2016, that Daesh, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), was responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and other atrocity crimes against several of these groups, including Christians and Yezidis.

Moving forward, the bill has been received by the Senate and awaits a vote. If passed in the Senate, it will move on to the White House, where it can be signed into law if President Trump approves. One thing is certain: The genocide in Iraq and Syria is so evident no one is questioning the need to do something about it.
Islamabad: Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated news agency News Network International (NNI).

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees.

Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation. India had approached the world court in May seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

The 15-member bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 in 2016 after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.
Myanmar's military said today it has found the wreckage of a plane in the Andaman Sea that went missing with around 120 people on board, along with several bodies.



"We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 AM (0725 IST)," a spokesman from the military's information team told AFP.



The country's Commander in Chief confirmed in a Facebook post that the wreckage had been found off the coast of Launglon, in southern Myanmar, by a navy search team this morning.



Nine navy ships and three air force planes had been dispatched to search for the aircraft, which disappeared yesterday as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.



There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.



More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief's office said in a statement.



"Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school," said a spokesman from the military's information team.



It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.



Sources told AFP that debris had been found in the sea off the coastal town of Dawei, which lies an hour's flight southeast of Yangon.



The commander-in-chief's office said the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 PM (local time) yesterday, about half an hour after takeoff.



The military named the captain of the Chinese-made Y-8F- 200 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.



The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.



Myanmar's military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.



A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.



Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear today as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests.



Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.



Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like "Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad".



Hundreds of Congress workers, as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh, also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.



Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.



He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. "He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonus, can't give compensation... He can only give them bullets."



Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.



There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.



Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.



Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district.



"Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres," IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.



"Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four-wheeler by road... After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border," he said.



There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.
Contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were today deployed in Madhya Pradesh's violence- hit Mandsaur district where the situation remained tense.



Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, the site of Tuesday's shooting of five farmers, police said.



While two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.



The situation is tense but under control, police said.



DIG Ratlam range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders yesterday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.



Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.



Farmers had yesterday resorted to violence and arson in western Madhya Pradesh despite prohibitory measures, posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.



In view of the volatile situation, the Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of RAF to the violence-hit state where the farmers have been agitating for loan waiver and better crop prices.



The Chouhan government had sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.



The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6000 crore, according to the government.
Three militants and a jawan were killed along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Naugam sector in north Kashmir's Kupwara district today, as the Army foiled yet another infiltration attempt.





According to the Army, four infiltration bids, aided by Pakistani forces, have been thwarted along the LoC in north Kashmir in the last 48 hours, in which seven militants were killed while a jawan also lost his life.





The Army has foiled multiple attempts made by the Pakistan army to push armed infiltrators across the LoC, the Army's Northern Command said in a statement today.





"In the last 48 hours, infiltration attempts have been foiled at the Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors. Seven armed intruders have been eliminated so far," the statement said.





Large quantities of arms, ammunition and war-like stores have been recovered, it said.





According to the statement, three militants were killed in the Naugam sector today, while four were killed in the Machhil sector yesterday.





The statement said that an anti-infiltration operation was in progress in Uri sector, while in Gurez, armed intruders ran back leaving rucksacks behind.





The Army statement said the intruders were being provided active support, including covering fire (heavy calibre artillery) by Pakistani army posts on the LoC to assist them to enter the Kashmir valley.





With these four operations, the Army has thwarted six infiltration attempts along the LoC in less than a fortnight in north Kashmir.





On May 26, the Army had claimed to have killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate into the Uri sector in Baramulla district to carry out an attack on the soldiers.





Six more militants were killed in the same sector, the next day, when they attempted to sneak into the valley.





The Northern Command claimed that in the current year, 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled and 34 armed intruders have been eliminated along the LoC.





"Relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramzan," the statement said.
Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh today said that the five casualties during farmers' agitation in Mandsaur occurred during police firing.



"Five persons were killed in police firing," Singh told PTI over the phone.



The minister's remarks assume significance as the authorities had been claiming that the police had not fired during protests at Pipliamandi in Mandsaur district in which five farmers were killed two days ago.



Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur Collector S K Singh had told PTI that the police told him categorically that "neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire".



Asked what provoked the police to fire, the home minister said it is being probed in the magisterial inquiry.



However, he said the situation was now peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.



Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were today deployed in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the violence two days ago.



Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi, the police said.



While two companies of RAF have been posted in the district's Garoth area, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said.



The situation is tense but under control, the police said.



DIG Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders yesterday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson.



Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.



The situation in western Madhya Pradesh is posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.



The Shivraj Chouhan government had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.



The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital today on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.



India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.



Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO.



The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.



If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.



India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).



There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.



However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.



President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital today.



The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.



"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.



The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.



SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.



Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.



The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.



India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.



India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.



India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.



India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.



Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.
The main accused in the Saharanpur caste clashes, which left two dead and scores others injured, and founder of the dalit outfit 'Bheem Army' Chandrashekhar was arrested on Thursday from Himachal Pradesh by the Special Task Force (STF) of UP police.





According to the police sources here, Chandrashkehar was arrested from a hotel in the hill resort of Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh.





Sources said that Chandrashekhar, who carried a reward of Rs.12,000 on his head, had been absconding after being booked in the violence that had shaken Saharanpur last month. ''He will be brought to Saharanpur on transit remand,'' said a senior police official here.





Chandrashekhar is likely to be produced before a Saharanpur court on Friday, sources said.





Two persons were killed and over two dozen others injured when members of thakur and dalit communities clashed following a dispute over taking out a procession at Shabbirpur village in the district last month.





It was alleged that the 'Bheem Army' members had instigated the dalits to resort to violence. Chandrashekhar was booked for inciting violence and attacking police after which he absconded.





The authorities imposed a ban on the internet services for two days in the district after reports that 'Bheem Army' members might hold demonstration to protest Chandrashekhar's arrest. Security in and around the district court has also been strengthened.





The clashes had triggered concerns within the Yogi government, which also faced flak from the opposition for failing to check the violence.
The situation in Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmer unrest where five people were killed, was "almost normal" today and curfew might be relaxed by evening, a senior official said.



Internet services that had been suspended might also be restored, Divisional Commissioner M B Ojha told PTI.



"For the last two or three days, farmers were stopping vehicles and setting them on fire. No such incident has been reported today. The situation is almost normal," he said.



If the situation continued to be quiet, curfew, imposed in four police station areas, including Pipaliya Mandi where the firing took place, might be relaxed.



Vehicles that were burnt had been removed this morning from the highway and traffic had resumed.



Asked to comment on the post-mortem report of the five people who had been killed in firing on Tuesday, the official said the matter was under investigation. Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were both at the spot. However, he didn't divulge any details.



The investigations, he indicated, revealed that the stone-pelters included boys between the ages of 16 and about 22. Some "anti-social elements" had joined in.



Farmers in the area have been protesting since June 1 demanding a higher minimum support price (MSP) for their produce amongst other issues. However, the situation escalated on Tuesday when five people were killed.



The Shivraj Chouhan government has stepped up security in areas witnessing protests and transferred the two top officials of the district.



The Congress yesterday termed as "coldblooded murder" the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence on it.
The "kidnapping" case of a retired Pakistan army officer in Nepal could not be taken to the ICJ or the UN on the basis of "assumptions" as there is no "concrete evidence" suggesting India's hand in it, a minister has told Parliament.



Minister for States and Frontier Regions Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch said it was yet to be established that Muhammad Habib Zahir had been picked up by the Indian forces, Dawn reported.



"No final report suggesting that the Indian intelligence agency (RAW) or the Indian government was involved is available with the Foreign Office (FO) or the government," he said while winding up a discussion on an adjournment motion in the Senate yesterday.



Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asked if the statement meant that the Foreign Office was exonerating India from the kidnapping of Habib as the minister had admitted "absence of concrete evidence".



Baloch replied in negative, saying: "We are hundred per cent sure that Indian intelligence agency RAW is behind the kidnapping, but the evidence to this effect is not final".



The issue appeared to have a link with the conviction of Kulbushan Jadhav, he said, but stressed that material was required to legally prove it.



Baloch told the Senate that the issue of "kidnapping" of Habib in Nepal some two months ago could not be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the United Nations "on the basis of assumptions", the report said.



The FO was trying to obtain solid evidence and the Nepalese government had been asked to get in touch with three Indians who had received Habib at the airport, Baloch said.



He said it was still not clear whether the three people were Indian government employees or civilians or working for a private firm. The matter has also been taken up with India.



The minister said the incident took place two months ago, but expressed his helplessness about non-cooperation from Nepal, saying no sovereign country could be pressured.



The Senate chairman directed Adviser on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz to brief the house on the steps taken by the government on the mysterious disappearance of Habib, the current regional situation with a reference to Qatar crisis among others.
In a big fillip to an already robust bilateral relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to land in Israel on July 4 on a three-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state.



Informed sources in Tel Aviv told PTI that Modi would be arriving in Israel on July 4 and is likely to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the same day in the evening.



Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.



He would be addressing the Indian community in Israel the following day in Tel Aviv with preparations for the event in full swing amid massive enthusiasm with people expected to attend the event from all over the country.



The Indian community has launched a website in preparation of the much awaited visit of Modi. About 80,000 Indian Jews belonging to four different communities - Bene Israel, Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bnei Menashe - live in Israel.



The Indian Jewish community in Israel still maintain some of the cultural practices from India and take a lot of pride in their origin often mentioning that India is the only nation in the world where there was no trace of anti-semitism.



Modi's ascendance to power in New Delhi generated a lot of euphoria in Israel as he was popular here for maintaining close ties with Tel Aviv during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had also visited Israel in October 2006.



One of the things that have been particularly discussed widely in the Israeli media is the "close chemistry" between Modi and Netanyahu.



Netanyahu often calls Modi "my friend" and in a recent tweet said that people of his country were eagerly waiting for his "historic" visit.



The two leaders have already met twice on foreign soil on the sidelines of UN related events and are said to be constantly in touch with each other over the phone.



"I am happy that often we can talk easily on telephone, we can discuss everything. It has very rarely happened. In your case it has happened," Modi told Netanyahu during their meeting on the sidelines of Paris Climate summit in November 2015. The Israeli premier had then promptly responded saying, "in your case too".



India's abstention at a UNHRC vote in 2015 on a UN report critical of Israel's offensive in the 2014 Gaza war was described by many here as a sign of a "qualitative leap" in ties which had transformed into a "completely normal relations without any hangups" with many crediting the closeness between the two prime ministers for the "change in heart".



New Delhi, however, later clarified that the vote was a "principled" stand in connection to the International Criminal Court that had reference in the resolution and does not mark "any shift in policy".

Modi's visit being limited to Israel in the region, skipping Palestine, has been pointed by some analysts as a "major statement", but the Palestinian Authority (PA) clearly stated that India has the right to build relations with Israel but it should not come at the "expense" of New Delhi's firm support for the Palestinian cause.



Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited India in May. It was his fifth visit to New Delhi in the last 12 years and the third state visit underlining the importance of relations.



"India has the right to make relations with Israel and any other country but what we care about is that it should not be at the expense of its relations with Palestine," Dr. Majdi Khaldi, senior diplomatic Advisor to Abbas, had told PTI.



The defence ties between India and Israel have often drawn worldwide attention and acquired strategic dimensions. It is being believed that Modi's visit would further solidify security ties as Israeli defence industries have shown greater inclination towards participating in joint ventures to give a boost to NDA government's 'Make in India' campaign.



Israel's state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) last month announced that it has inked yet another major deal worth USD 630 million with India, giving a boost to the 'Make in India' campaign in a project to be jointly executed with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).



The contract is related to the supply of LRSAM (Long Range Surface to Air Missiles) systems for four ships of the Indian navy. The project will be carried out, for the first time, with Indian government owned BEL, which will serve as the main contractor in the project.



In April, Israel closed a USD 2 billion defence deal with India with IAI taking the lion's share of it with contracts worth USD 1.6 billion. It is the largest single deal in the history of the Jewish state.



LRSAM is an advanced air and missile defence system, a unique joint development by IAI and India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in collaboration with IAI subsidiary ELTA, RAFAEL, various Indian companies including BEL, L&T, BDL and other private Indian companies.



Prime Minister Modi's visit has been preceded by several other high-profile visits, including the trip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, several senior secretaries and Minister of State for Agriculture SS Ahluwalia-led 11 member multi-party parliamentary delegation. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba would be on a five-day visit to Israel starting June 11.



All these visits have laid the ground work for several MoUs that are likely to be signed during Modi's visit.



Netanyahu's government has taken several steps to boost Israel's exports to India emphasising that "sky is the limit" as far as cooperation between the two countries goes across several sectors.



Starting with humble figures of USD 200 million in annual trade in 1992 the two countries have registered bilateral trade of about USD 4.5 billion last year. Cooperation in the field of Agriculture and water management has also drawn a lot of attention with Israel setting up dozens of Centres of Excellence in India to boost India's farming sector.
Amid the ongoing agitation by farmers in Maharashtra, a cultivator allegedly committed suicide at a village in Solapur district, leaving behind a note purportedly stating that he should not be cremated till the chief minister visits his place and meets their demands.



Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil last night, Solapur Collector Rajendra Bhosale said today.



According to Karmalapolice, Jadhav's suicide note, addressed to his friends and relatives, said, "I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to village and do not cremate me till Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis comes here."



Bhosale also confirmed that the farmer's suicide note stated his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his place and announces a loan waiver for farmers.



Solapur's Guardian Minister Vijay Deshmukh paid a visit to the village today. The deceased, survived by wife and two children, was the eldest son in his family. He possessed 2.5 acres of cultivable land.



He had a debt of around Rs 60,000 and had also taken loans from some private lenders, police said.

After the incident, the farmers' organisations resorted to a 'rasta-roko' (road blockade) and called for a bandh in Karmala tehsil.



The Solapur collector said he was on his way to the village. Police teams have also been rushed to the spot to prevent the situation from spiralling into a law and order issue, he said.



Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and BJP's ally Shiv Sena over sustained protests by farmers across Maharashtra for last one week, resulting in sharp rise in agri commodity prices.



Fadnavis' recent statement promising a loan waiver by October 31 has failed to pacify the agitating farmers, who have continued with their stir.
Three more persons have been arrested by Scotland Yard in connection with the London Bridge attack carried out by three men including a Pakistani-origin terrorist.



The arrests came ahead of the general election in which about 46 million eligible voters are expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the UK.



Seventeen people have now been arrested in connection with Saturday's attack and five remain in custody, the Metropolitan Police said.



"The Met's Counter Terrorism Command, supported by firearms officers, arrested two men on a street in Ilford, east London, a third was arrested after a warrant was carried out at a residential address in Ilford," the Met Police said.



Of the two men arrested on the street, one aged 27 was arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts and the second aged 33 was arrested for on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs. The third 29-year-old man was arrested from the residential address in Ilford on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts.



All three men have been taken into custody at a south London police station under the UK's Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the Met said.



Eight people were killed when three men, Pakistan-born Khurram Shazad Butt, Moroccan-origin Rachid Redouane and Moroccon-Italian Yousef Zaghba, drove into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market.



Today, the Met Police made three further terror-related arrests in London, which the force said were not related to Saturday's London Bridge attack.



"All three were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism offences under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. They have been taken into custody at a south London police station and are detained under the Terrorism Act," the Metropolitan Police said.



Searches being conducted at the addresses where the men were arrested The developments came as families of the London Bridge attackers expressed their disgust at the attack in London on June 3.



The relatives of Butt and the ex-wife of Redouane distanced themselves from the extremists, saying the atrocity had left them shocked.



Charisse O'Leary, who married Redoaune in Dublin in 2012, said she has "shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident".



"I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex-partner who has killed and injured so many innocent people. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.



"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that some day I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did," she said.



Butt's uncle Nasir Dar had earlier condemned his nephew's actions saying: "I condemn, first of all, this incident, this brutal action. Innocent people are killed in this action".



Their condemnation came as CCTV footage emerged online appearing to show the moment armed police gunned down the three knife-wielding terrorists.



The three terror suspects can be seen rushing at a passing pedestrian near Borough Market, raining down a series of blows while police cars approach and marksmen shoot down the three attackers.
The National Green Tribunal on Thursday allowed an NGO to file a detailed application after it alleged that the Karnataka Government was not following the green panel's order on preventing pollution in Bellandur lake in Bengaluru.





When the lake pollution matter came up before the green bench headed by Justice Raghuvendra Singh Rathore, an advocate representing Namma Bengaluru Foundation, an NGO from the IT city, said the state government was not implementing its order as several establishments continued to discharge effluents into the water body. However, the Karnataka Government advocate said the Government was complying with all directions given by the bench.



The Bench directed the NGO to file a written application mentioning details and posted the matter for next hearing on July 13.



Meanwhile, automobile dealers located in vicinity of Bellanduru lake withdrew their application as they said a joint inspection team gave clearance to continue normal functioning. On the NGOs plea, the Bench however denied those dealers any liberty to file fresh application in the future if the joint inspection team found them to be discharing effluents into the lake.



Earlier, they had approached the tribunal saying that the joint inspection team constituted by the state government had ordered the closure of their showrooms alleging that they were discharging effluents to lake.



The green panel had earlier ordered the Karnataka Pollution Control Board to close down 76 polluting industries around the lake and directed them to set up an effluent treatment plant. Besides this, the bench also directed the state government to constitute a joint inspection team for spot verification of all establishment including industries, residential and commercial establishments whether they have set up treatment plants.



On February 20, the NGT had taken suo motu cognizance of media reports and photographs of the incident in which fire broke out in the Bengaluru lake and issued notices to the Union Environment Ministry and different agencies of the Karnataka government in the case asking them to submit report about the steps taken to prevent such things.




A vacation bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta passed the order on the application in which the manufacturers had contended that the apex court's May 29 order spoke about time to destroy the stock but it did not indicate anything about its "export" outside the state.





The manufacturers had told the bench that there were two issues -- destruction of old stocks and export -- in the plea filed earlier and the apex court's May 29 order mention only about time to destroy the stock.





After the brief hearing today, the bench said "sufficient grounds have been made out to allow the application" in terms of the prayer seeking clarification of the earlier order.





In the May 29 order, the court had said, "Time to destroy /drain the stocks is extended up to July 31, 2017. It is made clear that no further extension will be granted in future."





Earlier, the court had extended till May 31 the deadline of April 30 for disposing of old stocks, including raw material, fixed by the Nitish Kumar government which had imposed a ban on liquor in the state from April 1 last year.





The apex court had on March 31 granted time till May 31 to dispose of the old stocks and directed them to follow the resolution passed by the Bihar government on disposal of stocks following the imposition of prohibition in the state.





The Bihar government, which has prohibited consumption, stocking and sale of liquor in the state had on March 30, had passed a resolution by which it has allowed the companies to export their old stocks to other states.





The state government had granted time to export excisable and non-excisable articles till April 30, after which they will not be able to do so.





On October 7, 2016, the apex court had stayed the operation of Patna High Court judgement quashing the state's law banning sale and consumption of all types of liquor, saying liquor and fundamental rights "do not go together".





Bihar government has challenged the high court verdict of September 30, 2016, which had quashed the notification banning consumption and sale of liquor in the state.





However, after the law was set aside, Bihar government had come out with a new law banning sale and consumption of liquor which was notified on October 2, 2016.





It had notified the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 to ensure that the ban on sale and consumption of alcohol including Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well spiced and domestic liquor, continued in the state.

The Supreme Court today modified its earlier order and allowed liquor manufacturers from Bihar to export their old stocks of alcoholic beverages worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state till July 31.




"After a long struggle, the administration has finally ageed to allow Rahul Gandhi to meet the families of those who were killed in police firing," former Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan told reporters outside the guesthouse where scores of Congress leaders and workers were being kept.





"We will try and meet them near the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border," she said.





As crowds swelled outside the guesthouse of a cement company where the Congress members were taken, amongst those waiting outside the gates were the families of some of the five killed in the firing in Mandsaur on Tuesday.





Gandhi was detained when he was trying to go to Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmer protests, from Rajasthan. Along with him are leaders like Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Sachin Pilot.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who was detained by police today, has been allowed by the administration to meet the families of farmers killed in Mandsaur.
A day after five farmers died in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and eight farmers committed suicide during a strike in Maharashtra, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday assured that the government was sensitive to the issue and is trying to address it seriously.



I am the son of a farmer, I had been the agriculture minister also, I am from village...let me assure that the Centre and the state government are trying to do everything possible, Singh told reporters in Mumbai.



He said agriculture and welfare of farmers is top in the priority list of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre would provide all possible help to the states. Both the chief ministers - Devendra Fadnavis of Maharashtra and Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh are sensitive to the issue and are working towards providing succour to the farmers.



To a question whether someone has fulled the problem in Mandsaur in MP, he said: I have received some information...some powers have attempted to instigate....the chief minister has assured a probe, he said, refusing to elaborate further.



Singh said that farmers are a big pillar of the society. They are the biggest producers and biggest consumers, the senior BJP leader said.




Staffordshire-based Drayton Manor Theme Park, popular with Coventry and Warwickshire families, denied entry to the children's birthday party after the adult refused to remove the small Sikh ceremonial dagger.





A friend of the man described herself as "disgusted" and "saddened" at the reaction of staff and accused the Staffordshire attraction of religious discrimination.





The party, who had spent hundreds of pounds on tickets for a six-year-old's birthday, encountered problems over the kirpan worn by the primary school teacher who is from a respected family in Coventry, the Birmingham Mail reported.The group was left disappointed last Friday after being told that the kirpan would not be allowed in the park for health and safety reasons.





The families' case has been picked up by the Sikh Press Association, which is seeking discussions with Drayton Manor to resolve the issue.





"In this day and age where the kirpan can be taken into Parliament, it is disappointing to see an amusement park ban this article of faith from their grounds," the association's spokesman said.





"After recent events which have made public news, people across the UK have seen what the Sikh community stands for. We were shocked to be treated in the way we were by Drayton Manor and it is something the Sikh community as a whole was surprised at," he said.





A spokeswoman for the attraction said, the Drayton Manor Park is a family run business which operates within a multi- cultural society enriched with different creeds and beliefs and its staff welcome and embrace this. Kirpans have not been allowed to be worn in the park for a number of years as they pose a health and safety risk to members of the public."





"To this end, Drayton Manor Park offers an alternative to the Sikh Community which has been acceptable -- a necklace worn next to their skin in exchange for the kirpan, which is handed over for safe keeping for the duration of their visit," she said.





"It is regrettable that a group of Sikh visitors who came to the park on Friday 2nd June declined to take up the offer of the alternative to their kirpans and they were therefore denied access to the park," she added.

A Sikh children's group was denied entry into a UK theme park after an elder accompanying them refused to remove the kirpan, an article of faith for the Sikhs, prompting accusations of religious discrimination.




According to the Army, infiltration attempts have been foiled at Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors in the last 48 hours, in which seven armed intruders have been eliminated.





"In the current year, 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled and 34 armed intruders eliminated on the LoC," a senior Army officer said today.





"The relentless operations by the security forces have defeated the desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramzan," he said.





As compared to this, 28 infiltration attempts took place in 2015 and 88 such attempts in 2016.





Minister of State for Defence, Subhash Bhamre had said in the Parliament that 116 cross-border infiltration attempts were made in the Valley in 2015 and 2016, including 88 last year.





A total of 59 Army personnel have been killed in counter-terror operations in the state since 2016.

Thirty-eight armed militants have been killed as the Army foiled a total of 22 infiltration bids along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir this year.
Even as the Trump administration is restricting the flow of H-1B visas to IT workers in India, the Mexican government has come forward to extend its support to Indian tech companies.



According to sources in the embassy of Mexico in India, the Bengaluru-based IT giant Infosys is looking for expansion in Mexico. The company already has significant presence in the Latin American country.



Indias second largest IT services company will be holding active discussions in this regard with Jaime Rodriguez Calderon, governor of Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, who is visiting Bengaluru between June 14 and 16, sources in the Mexican embassy revealed.



Infosys is in discussion with the Mexican government to expand its operations in the country. The company already has operations in Mexico sources told DH. Infosys, through its fully owned subsidiary, Infosys Technologies S de Rl de Cv, has two offices in Mexico  one in Mexico City and another in Monterrey.



Monterrey is capital of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, whose governor is Calderon. As part of its third region-specific subsidiary after Australia and China, Infosys started its Mexican operations in the year 2007 in Monterrey.



The companys line of business includes providing computer programming services. The subsidiary provides business consulting and information technology services for clients in all industries, including banking, financial services, retail, consumer packaged goods, energy and utilities.



The IT company has one of its largest investments in Latin America right there in Nuevo Leon, the sources divulged.



As per the Infosys annual report for 2016-17, the fixed investment of Infosys into its Mexican subsidiary stood at Rs 65 crore (17,49,99,990 fully paid-up equity shares worth MXN 1 each).



The subsidiary constituted Rs 128 crore of the companys net assets on March 31, 2017. The total share of the subsidiary in the companys net profit stands at 0.3% translated into Rs 41 crore.



If the US does enforce some of its harsher immigration proposals, for instance, regarding H-1B visas on which Indian IT companies are heavily dependent, we will be more than happy to have Indians relocate to Mexico, the Mexican ambassador to India Melba Pria had told media earlier.



The company, however, declined to comment on the issue, when contacted by DH.



Recently, top seven India-based IT companies in the US collectively experienced a humongous 37% drop in approved H-1B visa petitions in 2016, when compared with the previous year.



For Infosys, the number declined by 16% (454 petitions), with 2,376 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY16, compared with 2,830 in FY15.
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Ainul Ansari, a resident of Murahdih village, was on his way home on a scooter when he was caught by a group of persons near Loharbarba village on the Dhanbad-Tundi road and beaten up for allegedly carrying beef.





Dinesh Singh, the police officer investigating the incident, said it occurred around 8 am on Tuesday.





The police reached the spot after getting information and rescued Ansari.





The policemen searched the scooter at the insistence of the villagers and recovered the beef.





Both the vehicle and the meat were taken to Barbadda police station, Singh said.





Ansari was admitted to Patliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH) where the doctor attending to him at the emergency ward said he had received minor injuries.





He was released on Wednesday.





With the villagers alleging that Ansari had been trading in beef despite the ban, the police called in a veterinary doctor from the animal husbandry department to identify the seized meat.





The doctor took away a sample for testing in a Ranchi laboratory.





Ansari's family members denied he was trading in beef and said he was bringing mutton for an Iftar party at his home. "Meat is available at a cheap rate in Dhanbad and that is why villagers bring it for Iftar party from there," they said.





Villagers mistook mutton for beef and assaulted Ansari, the family said.





The man's wife, Sahida Begum, told the media that the attackers had snatched his mobile and Rs 1,500 during the assault.





No FIR was filed by anyone after the incident, the police said.

A man was thrashed by villagers for allegedly carrying beef for an Iftar party in Jharkhand's Dhanbad district, police today said.
Ousted FBI chief James Comey accused the White House of lies and defamation on Thursday, in an explosive testimony that painted US President Donald Trump as dishonest and operating far outside presidential norms.



During almost three hours of blockbuster sworn testimony to a Senate panel, Comey described himself as stunned by Trumps very disturbing and very concerning behavior during several private meetings.



Expanding on the bombshell statement released on the eve of his appearance, Comey said the president asked him for loyalty during a White House dinner and to lay off former national security advisor Mike Flynn  who is under criminal investigation  imploring Comey to let this go.



Its my judgement that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, he told senators. I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal.



Detailing private talks with a sitting president, which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day, Comey said he took painstaking notes of the extraordinary encounters for fear Trump might lie about the meetings.



Comey indicated that it was now up to a high-powered special prosecutor to determine whether the president's behavior constituted an obstruction of justice, a potentially impeachable offense.



Trump avoided directly responding to the explosive accusations, defiantly telling supporters at a religious event in the capital: We are going to fight and win. But the White House hit back angrily at Comey. I can definitely say the president is not a liar and frankly am insulted by that question, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.



No probe on Trump

Easing months of speculation Comey did confirm that Trump was not personally the subject of a counterterror or criminal probe. The probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election has ensnared close aides of the president and has vast-ranging political and geopolitical implications.



After solemnly raising his right hand and vowing to tell the whole truth, a visibly aggrieved Comey kicked-off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight. Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organisation was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader, he charged. Those were lies plain and simple, Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senates Hart building, which stood silent.



Democrats are intent on determining whether Trumps actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have zeroed in on Comeys admission he assured the president he was not personally an FBI investigation target. Republicans also pounced on Comeys admission that he leaked personal notes on his meetings with Trump to prompt the naming of a special prosecutor to lead the Russia probe.



In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in one-on-one encounters and in phone calls to press him on the probe into Trump campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republicans favour.



At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to create some sort of patronage relationship with him. The president said, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed, Comey said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi exchanged pleasantries with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at a reception here tonight amid escalating Indo-Pak tensions over a range of issues.



Official sources said Modi and Sharif exchanged greetings when they were in the leaders' lounge for the reception at the Astana Opera organised to welcome the leaders who are participating in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit.



Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's heart surgery, Modi enquired about his health, the sources said.



Modi also enquired about Sharif's mother and family, they said. Earlier, asked whether Modi and Sharif will have a bilateral meeting, External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "Our position has not changed. There is no proposal from their side. There is no proposal either from our side."



India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.



Both Modi and Sharif arrived here today to participate in the SCO Summit which will tomorrow induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.



Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.



The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.
The 24-year-old demand for dividing Bangalore University (BU) into three smaller varsities to ensure better administration is set to be fulfilled soon.



The stage is all set for the formation of BU (Central) and BU (North) from the parent university which would become BU (South) hereafter.



The trifurcation was approved at a meeting chaired by Minister for Higher Education Basavaraj Rayareddy in the first week of May. The process to recruit vice-chancellors, registrars, members of the syndicate and affiliation of courses for the two new universities has begun, a senior official in the Education Department said.



The two new universities will be given grants in the special budget next year as the government didnt allocate any funds for them in the 2017-18 budget, the official added.



The administrative office of BU (North) will come up at BUs existing postgraduate centre in Kolar, while BU (Central) will operate out of Central College in the heart of the city. BU (South) will have the Jnanabharathi campus as its base. The permanent campus of BU (North) will be built at Amaravathi near Devanahalli. Around 57 acres of land has been sanctioned for it. Rayareddy has promised to sanction an additional 115 acres for the varsity.



The two new universities will get new logos which will be finalised by a committee from the 14 shortlisted logos, T D Kemparaju, Special Officer, BU (North), told DH. Each university requires at least Rs 200 crore. A proposal has been submitted to the government seeking Rs 15 crore for BU (North) and Rs 10 crore for BU (Central) for infrastructure and manpower.



For the time being, there is a plan to depute 100 employees from BU (South) to BU (North) and BU (Central) to get them going.



For this academic year, undergraduate students will be registered under BU (South) and later distributed among BU (North) and BU (Central) once the affiliation of colleges to these universities is worked out.

DH News Service



A demand is fulfilled

1993: Demand for trifurcation of BU

2009: Government seeks report from former vice-chancellor N Rudraiah

2012: Government decides to trifurcate the university

2015: Cabinet approves trifurcation



Who gets what?

Areas under BU (South): Vijayanagar, Padmnabhanagar, Bommanahalli, Anekal, Bengaluru South, Yeshwantpur, Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Dasarahalli, Mahalakshmi Layout, Govindarajanagar, Nelamangala, Magadi, Ramanagaram, Kanakapura and Channapatna.



Areas under BU (Central)

Shanthinagar, Byatarayanapura, Yelahanka, Malleswaram, Hebbal, Shivajinagar, Gandhinagar, Chickpet, Basavanagudi, BTM Layout, Jayanagar and Rajajinagar.



Areas under BU (North)

Kolar, Malur, KR Puram, Pulakeshinagar, Sarvagnanagar, CV Raman Nagar, Mahadevapura, Gauribidanur, Bagepalli, Chikkaballapur, Shidlaghatta, Chintamani, Devanahalli, Hoskote and Doddaballapur.



It takes at least five years for a new university to become fully functional. It has taken five years for the government to effect the decision of trifurcation. If this is the pace of the process, what about quality?

K R Venugopal, Principal, University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering



Two new universities may not become functional this year. Each university needs at least 200 members of staff while the recruitment process takes up to six months. It is doubtful the government will grant Rs 400 crore in the special budget.

Dr N Prabhu Dev, former VC, BU


Namma Metros Sampige Road-Yelachenahalli stretch (Green Line) will be open for public from June 18, Bengaluru Development Minister K J George informed the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.



As members greeted the announcement by thumping the desks, George said President Pranab Mukherjee will

inaugurate Namma Metros Sampige Road-Yelachenahalli stretch (Green Line) on June 17. The Commissioner of Railway Safety (CRS) has given his certificate, clearing the line for operations, he added.



The CRS had previously told DH that he will approve commercial operations with some suggestions. When asked about the CRS report, Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) Managing Director Pradeep Singh Kharola said that the safety commissioner was satisfied with the work and suggested fixing minor problems.



We have been told to address a minor seepage inside the station at Chickpet station, improve the ramp for physically challenged at one or two places, fix doors and a few other works. We will complete them by Saturday, he said.



Kharola said the state government is yet to decide on the venue for inauguration.

The BMRCL has suggested three options, including the National College station and the Vidhana Soudhas banquet hall.



Officials said the President is likely to inaugurate the stretch from the Vidhana Soudha through a video link.



Security aspects



The security aspects will not allow the programme to be held in Metro stations, they said. The Namma Metro ridership is expected to jump from the present 2.2 lakh to more than 5 lakh once the Sampige Road-Yelachenahalli stretch operationalises the entire Phase 1.



The BMRCL faces an uphill task of moving increasing number of passengers in 50 trains, each with three cars with a capacity of carrying 2,500 people. Kharola, however, said the Corporation will get two trains with six cars by December.

DH News Service

Extension of timings likely

BMRCL MD Pradeep Singh Kharola said the timings of Namma Metro can be extended till 11.30 pm. There are, however, limitations. We need five or six hours for maintenance of trains as well as tracks. We will consider extending the deadline based on the demand, he said.
Tech giant Apple has introduced a Kannada keyboard in the latest version of its operating system, iOS11.



That marks a triumph of sorts for users who had campaigned at least for five years to be able to write Kannada on their Apple devices.



The latest release means iPhone and iPad users can now write notes and send text and email messages in Kannada. Malayalam is the other Indian language included in the latest iOS.



The decision to include Kannada and Malayalam keyboards in iOS11 is part of the companys policy to support Indian languages. We try to add as many languages as possible, from across the world, with each update, an official in Apples India division told DH. The company is headquartered in Cupertino, USA.



Apple added Tamil in its iOS7 back in 2013. In iOS9, it added Hinglish (converting English to Devanagari script), Telugu, Punjabi and Gujarati. Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Urdu are the other languages supported on its operating system.



On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled iOS11, which incorporates the Kannada and Malayalam keyboards, in San Jose. Apple has not announced a release date yet. However, if iOS10 release dates are any indication, then the beta version of the latest update should be available within a month. The final release is expected in September.



The languages are available on devices that can update to the latest release. (The company cuts off support as it phases out older devices)



Thousands of users had written to the Apple support group on Twitter, Facebook and email, demanding a Kannada keyboard. The Apple insider acknowledged the campaign, but attributed the inclusion to an internal process.



Including more and more languages is a continuous process. Kannada and Malayalam are part of the latest iOS because work on those keyboards was completed, he said.



The updated keyboard allows third party developers to come up with Kannada apps. So, is a Kannada user interface coming up for the operating system? At the moment, its just keyboard support, the Apple insider said.

DH News Service

Sustained campaign

Kannada Grahakara Koota, a forum of Kannada consumers, has used Twitter and Facebook since 2012 to seek a Kannada keyboard.



It was a consumer-driven campaign. Google and Microsoft came up with Kannada support ages ago, but not Apple. We sent hundreds of mails and messages to them, said Koota member Babu Ajay Kumar.



Google recently expanded support for Kannada, offering more services in the language. It placed the language second-best among all Indian languages to adapt to the internet. Kannada is spoken by a little over five crore people, according to the 2001 census.



Were happy with the inclusion in the latest iOS, said Ajay Kumar. Better late than never.
Congress MLA S T Somashekar vented his anger at the tourism department headed by Priyank Kharge for not providing basic amenities to visitors at the Big Banyan Tree in Ramohalli, Bengaluru Urban district.



Somashekar, in whose Assembly constituency the tree is located, had tabled questions in this regard in the Legislative Assembly, on Thursday.



The MLA said Dodda Alada Mara (Big Banyan Tree) is nearly 400 years old and during weekends, not less than 50,000 to 60,000 people visit it. There are no toilets, drinking water and seating arrangements for visitors.



He said he has been trying to get in touch with the officer in charge of the tree to request him to take up development of the area for the past for years.



But I have failed to trace him. I have handed over a letter to the minister too. I had suggested to the government to acquire land in a three km radius around the tree for taking up development activities, Somashekar said.



In his reply, Kharge said there is no exclusive officer in charge of the Big Banyan Tree. The tourism department itself takes care of it. The Tourism Advisory Committee would prepare a master plan for its development this year, he added.



The MLA said, Allow me to develop it. I will spend from my MLAs fund. However, the minister did not react.

DH News Service
A day after history-sheeter and former corporator V Nagarajs 14-day custody with the Hennur police ended, the Kengeri police on Thursday took him into their custody for eight days over one of the three cases of robbery filed against him, his two sons and three others in their jurisdiction.



Nagaraj, his sons Gandhi and Shastri and three other associates  Jayakrishna, Saravana and Soundharyaraj  were produced before a lower court which remanded them in the custody of the Kengeri police. The six men are accused of abducting a transport businessman, a mobile phone dealer and a realtor, and robbing them of Rs 8 crore in demonetised currency on the pretext of getting it legalised.



Three separate cases were registered at the Kengeri police station with regard to the robberies.



Chandrakumar, a transport businessman from Vijayanagar, knew Biappa, an associate of Nagaraj. On December 10, 2016, Biappa took Rs 2.5 crore from Chandrakumar by promising to get it exchanged for a 20% commission but went back on the promise. In the second case, Muniraju, a mobile phone dealer from Ullal, was abducted to a desolate place on Kengeri main road near Uttarahalli and robbed of Rs 1.75 crore in scrapped notes.



The third case was of Kalyan, a realtor from Nagarabhavi, who was abducted by Saravana and robbed of Rs 3.8 crore in old notes in Kengeri Satellite Town on December 28, 2016.
Three militants and a soldier were killed in an encounter as the army foiled a second infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir's Kupwara district on Thursday.



Sources said the armys 4/1 GR and 20 Dogra on Wednesday night noticed a group of militants along the LoC fence near Pika 1 and Pika 2 posts at Nowgam after which they were challenged. The militants then opened fire which was retaliated, they said.



The intermittent firing continued till Thursday morning, in which three militants and a soldier were killed while a trooper was injured, sources said. The slain trooper is Rifleman Rara Bahadur Ruka and the injured is identified as Naik Jeet Bahadur Tahapa.



An army official said the infiltrating militants were given cover fire by the Pakistan army. The Indian Army has recovered bodies of all the slain militants along with some arms and ammunition.



In a separate incident, two soldiers were injured in a militant attack near the LoC in Uri sector of Baramulla district late on Wednesday. Police sources said the soldiers of 4 JAKLI came under fire from militants near Kikkar Post and Anil Post at Gohalta Top as they were concluding a search operation in the area. Two soldiers, Farhat Ali and Sepoy Vijay Sharma, were injured.



In 2015, militants made 28 infiltration attempts along the LoC, while last year, the number rose to 88. A total of 59 army personnel lost their lives in counter-terror operations in Jammu and Kashmir since 2016, as per records.

DH News Service
BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari on Thursday issued a 10-day ultimatum to Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to vacate her bungalow.



The legislators ultimatum came just a day after he filed a complaint against his partys media cell for maligning his image.



The senior BJP leader warned that Raje would face protest by Deen Dayal Vahini a group he founded- if she fails to vacate her current residence of 13 Civil Lines and moves over to the official Chief Ministers residence at 8 Civil Lines.



"Raje wants to occupy her present residence which is worth Rs 2,000 crore . There is no other reason for her to not shift to the official CM residence, Tiwari told a press conference at his house in Shyam Nagar. Tiwari has also been vehemently opposed to the Rajasthan Ministers Salaries (Amendment) Bill, 2017, passed in the last budget session of the Assembly.



The Bill proposes that a former chief minister would continue to occupy the bungalow even if she were appointed to other positions.



The BJP leader also accused Raje of occupying both the current residence and the one earmarked as official and threatened the state government.
A man in his mid-20s was shot dead in Bhagalpur after the local panchayat ordered him to be killed for marrying his niece.



The victim, Himanshu Yadav of Gaurichauki village, used to conduct tuition classes for Soni of the same village. Both developed love for each other and around eight months ago they fled from home and tied the nuptial knot.



When the couple returned to Bhagalpur last month, Sonis father Parmanand Yadav lodged a case of

kidnapping against Himanshu, who was also a distant kin of Soni. Himanshu was arrested.



The girl, when produced before the local court, said she was not a minor and had married Himanshu on her own after which the court released Himanshu.



Parmanand then moved the local panchayat for justice. A panchayat meeting later rebuked Himanshus mother for marrying her son with a blood relative, said a source.



How could he marry his niece? the source quoted panchayat members asking Himanshus mother.



When the boys father did not turn up for the meeting held, the girls family demanded stern action against the accused.



The panchayat will continue the meeting till the boy is killed, the members as believed to have said.

An hour later, Himanshu was shot dead.



Bhagalpur senior police officer Manoj Kumar ordered the arrest of the assailants. Prakash Yadav and Raja Yadav have been arrested after an FIR was registered against 21 people at the Kajraili Police station, said the source.

DH News Service
The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Bihar liquor manufacturers to export their old stocks worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state by July 31.



A vacation bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta modified the previous order of May 29, which allowed manufacturers to destroy the stocks within the state.



On a plea by the manufacturers, the court said there were sufficient grounds to allow their plea for clarification on the order passed on May 29.



The applicants contended that there were two options of destruction of old stocks and export, but the May 29 order only spoke about destruction.



Court had earlier extended the deadline for disposing of the stocks from May 31 to July 31.
Mounting pressure on the BJP, the Shiv Sena on Thursday said it might take an independent stand on the Presidential elections.



However, it reiterated the candidature of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat as the countrys next President. We may take an independent stand over casting our vote in the Presidential election, Shiv Sena spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said, adding that Bhagwat was capable for fulfilling the dream of Hindu Rashtra.



Going against the NDA view, the Shiv Sena founder late Balasaheb Thackeray had supported Congress nominees Pratibha Patil and Pranab Mukherjee  in the Presidential elections in 2002 and 2012. While Pratibha got the support on the ground that she was a Maharashtrian, Mukherjee had personal relations with the Thackeray family.



Of the 48 MPs, the Shiv Sena has 18 MPs. As far as the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly is concerned, it has 63 MLAs, and in the Council, it has nine members. The support of Shiv Sena would be crucial for the NDA candidate to register an easy victory.



Given the relations of the Shiv Sena-BJP, it would take some time for things to settle.

DH News Service




Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Thursday said he was not hurt by the comparison with the infamous British army officer General Reginald Dyer, who was responsible for the 1919 Jallianwalla Bagh massacre.



I am an army officer. Just anything cant affect me. You have to be prepared to face such comments. People can misinterpret (my comments), Rawat said in an interview.



The comparison was made by historian Partha Chatterjee from the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences in Kolkata.



Chatterjee wrote an article for a website in which he drew parallels between General Dyer and General Rawat, and argued against the army chiefs support for Major Leetul Gogoi, who had used a Kashmiri man as a shield from the unrest in the Valley.



There is no need to react. It should not bother me. He (Chatterjee) was trying to draw a reaction from somewhere else, the army chief said.

DH News Service
A 26-year-old youth from Telangana was shot at by unidentified assailants of African-American origin in the early hours of Sunday in California, the US, critically injuring him.



The victim, Mubeen Ahmed, went to the US in 2015 and completed his Masters degree from Lewis University two months ago. He recently took up a part-time job at a convenience store a few miles away from California.



Mujeeb Ahmed, the victims father, said, I was told that assailants demanded cash and a mobile from my son, but he resisted. He was shot at, resulting in a rupture in his stomach and damage to the

liver.



Mubeen was rushed to the Eden Medical Centre in Castro Valley where he underwent a surgery. His condition, however, is critical.



A source in Telangana Irrigation Minister T Harish Raos office said all necessary arrangements will be made to help Mujeeb reach the US at the earliest. Mujeebs relatives, who live in Chicago, have reached California and are taking care of him.



In February, a techie from Telangana, Mamidala Vamsi Chander Reddy (27), was shot dead by a fugitive who was trying to flee after robbing a woman in California, a place considered safe for Indian software engineers.

DH News Service
Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat on Thursday said his force was ready for a two-and-a-half-front war.



This war, Gen Rawat explained, suggests the armys ability to successfully engage with China and Pakistan, besides being able to undertake internal security duties in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.



The army chief said though India was ready for a multi-front war, there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation.



Even the prime minister has stated that for the last 40 years, not a single bullet has been fired on the Indo-Sino border, Gen Rawat told ANI in an interview.



The army chief blamed Pakistan for spreading misinformation on social media to mislead the youth in Kashmir, but hoped that the situation would improve soon.



On the issue of modernisation of the army, he said it would take two to three years for the Make in India initiative to show results.



Armies around the world maintain an inventory in the ratio of 30:40:30, in which 30% equipment is state-of-the-art technology, 40% undergoing modernisation and the remaining 30% is obsolete, which requires an upgrade. The Indian Army follows this trend.



On the raising of a new mountain strike corps (17 Corps), he said the delay was due to the complex process.
The army was deployed in Darjeeling on Thursday after Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters clashed with the police, protesting against the imposition of Bengali language in the schools in the hills.



West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was holding a Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling at the time of the protest. The police fired tear gas shells and baton-charged GJM supporters, who tried to march to the Raj Bhavan, the venue of the Cabinet meeting.



Darjeeling, which is at present full of tourists, was peaceful for several months as the GJM-spearheaded agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland had taken a backseat.



Fresh violence erupted on Thursday afternoon with the Bimal Gurung-led party calling a protest march towards the Raj Bhavan. The GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled bricks at them. They even damaged police vehicles, setting a few ablaze. A source said some security personnel were injured.



A requisition from the state government was received. Two army columns (each consisting of around 80 personnel) based in Darjeeling have moved out, an army spokesperson said.



This is the first time that Mamata is holding a Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling. She said the state government would set up a new secretariat here.



The GJM supporters staged a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister. Shopkeepers downed shutters, while traffic came to a halt, causing inconvenience to tourists.



GJM has accused the Trinamool Congress government of trying to disrupt peace in Darjeeling by its divide and rule policy, and called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills on Friday.



The TMC is systematically trying to use police and its goons to disrupt peace in the hills. Today (Thursday), the police resorted to unprovoked baton charge and firing of tear-gas shells, said Roshan Giri, GJM general secretary.




Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and party MLA from Rajasthan, Dheeraj Gujjar, were spotted riding a bike without helmets, a clear violation of the traffic rules.



The Rajasthan Police is examining the issue after people on social media pointed out a photograph in which Rahul is seen riding pillion without a helmet.



Rahul Gandhi travelled a few kilometres as a pillion rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda in Rajasthan up to the Madhya Pradesh border. Even a pillion rider in Rajasthan has to wear a helmet... we will look into the traffic violations, said Superintendant of Police, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra.



Meanwhile, the BJP on Thursday described Rahuls Mandsaur visit as a photo opportunity, and accused the Opposition of fueling violence under the garb of farmers protests that had spread to others parts of Madhya Pradesh.



Cong politicising issue

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also said in Mumbai that the issue of some forces stoking the agitation at Mandsaur was under investigation.



It is unfortunate that the Congress is politicising the issue. It is instigating and fuelling violence. Its vice president now wants to visit the place as part of his photo opportunity yatra, which he undertakes on a regular basis, Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said.



The Congress vice president was arrested as he tried to reach Mandsaur district, which is on fire after five people were shot dead by local police.



Dismissing the Oppositions demand for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhans resignation over the Mandsaur violence, Naidu recalled two dozen farmers had died in police firing in Betul district on January 12, 1998, when Congress leader Digvijay Singh was the chief minister. But Singh never resigned, Naidu added.

DH News Service
The Madhya Pradesh government struggled to restore normalcy in violence-hit areas of the state, even as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday made an attempt to reach Mandsaur, the epicentre of the farmers agitation.



Rahul travelled by air, car, motorcycle and foot from Delhi to Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan before he was detained and arrested in Naya Gaon, about 70 km from Mandsaur.



He slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the problems being faced by the farmers, evoking a sharp response from the BJP, which termed his visit a photo opportunity.



Amid the increasing political slugfest, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government shunted out the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district, two days after five farmers were killed during the violent protest.



State Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said that the five farmers were killed in police firing, a remark that assumes significance as the authorities had earlier claimed the police did not fire.



In a report submitted to the Centre, the state government said the protesting farmers set ablaze 25 trucks and two police vans along the Mhow-Neemuch highway on Tuesday.



Besides Mandsaur district, violence has spread to Dewas, Neemuch and Ujjain districts and some other parts of western Madhya Pradesh. The Rapid Action Force was deployed in Mandsaur. The police said stone throwers and some anti-social elements had also joined the protest.



Rahul, accompanied by a few senior leaders of the state and JD(U)s Sharad Yadav, tried to make their way to Mandsaur through the Rajasthan border.



There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts. When the police tried to push Rahul, he ran into a field from where he was detained.



Neemuch SP Manoj Kumar Singh said, Rahul Gandhi and around 250 Congress leaders were kept under preventive arrest under Section 151 of CrPC. We had informed them that there is a curfew and they should not go there. Despite this, they tried to move towards the area.



They were later released at the border, Singh added.




Fathers become more stressed over a one-year period looking after a child with type 1 diabetes, but mothers become less stressed, research suggests.

Scientists at Tilburg University in the Netherlands suggest that fathers assume more responsibility for care of their child with type 1 diabetes as they grow up.

While mothers were found to be more stressed at the beginning of this study, their stress levels reduced over the course of a year.

This study indicates that mothers initially report higher level of pediatric parenting stress than fathers, but that the burden of care increases in fathers and decreases in mothers over the course of a year, suggesting that fathers start assuming more responsibility for the care of their children, the researchers wrote.

The researchers compared levels of pediatric parenting stress in 112 parents (56 mothers) of young children, aged 5 years old on average, who had type 1 diabetes.

The parents completed questionnaires with scores calculated to determine a total difficulty stress score. Seventy-nine per cent of mothers and 55 per cent of fathers then completed the questionnaire again one year later.

Mothers had higher stress scores for communication frequency and difficulty, and emotional distress frequency at the first measurement. At the second measurement, fathers reported increased stress for these measures.

We recommend that health care providers should collect information about stress levels in both parents periodically, because fathers and mothers seem to perceive pediatric parenting stress differently, said the researchers.

This would enable healthcare providers to determine whether one or both parents are in need of support not only to reduce pediatric parenting stress, but also to improve the functioning of the family as a whole.

The findings were published in the journal Diabetic Medicine.
Up until now, we have written and rewritten extensively about how autonomous driving and connected vehicles are the way forward for the automotive industry. Technology companies are working extensively on automotive projects driven by powerful processor boards, artificially intelligent and increasingly complex algorithms, imaging components and elaborate services, to bring forth vehicles that will redefine in-car luxuries, alter the way we drive and give automobile giants a new industry altogether.

With research going on internationally, the Indian automotive industry has so far had a quieter time in terms of the innovation and research. Popular consensus points at Indian roads not being ideal for self-driving vehicles, with unclear lane demarcations, narrow alleys and difficult traffic situations. But, with the volumes that the Indian auto industry produces, companies are bound to focus more on this market. Development, as it seems, has already been progressing.

The important role of tech giants

There are a lot of obstacles still to be overcome, and a lot of processes yet to be developed further before we attain the levels of autonomy as certified by the Society of Automobile Engineering. To attain this point, technology and auto companies must coexist. As Dr. Timothy Leverton, President and Head of Advanced and Product Engineering of Tata Motors tells us, The execution of autonomous vehicles is a hugely complex task which places demands on OEMs and their suppliers and development partners as well as regulators. We can expect the emergence of autonomous technologies to begin with increasing use of driver assistance systems into vehicles, collection of traffic data and its analysis, and the definition of initially small dedicated areas and routes for autonomous vehicle function. These small, dedicated areas of focus is where technology companies are stepping in. The new role of tech companies will not be to just outsource secondary elements in vehicles. Instead, technology will be the primary driver in our future vehicles, which is where these companies will play a significantly more intrinsic role.

There will also be definite partitions in this synergy of auto companies. Radha Rajappa, Services Head at Microsoft India, clearly states, Microsoft is not building its own connected car. Instead, we want to help automakers create connected car solutions that fit seamlessly with their brands, address their customers unique needs, competitively differentiate their products and generate new and sustainable revenue streams. Our customers have shared that they want to work with a partner that not only offers the right tools, but also allows them to keep their data, has a secure and compliant cloud platform, and operates at a truly global scale (given that most automotive brands operate in more than one country).

85 percent of Fortune 500 companies already rely on Microsofts cloud for these reasons.

Prakash Mallya, Managing Director, Sales & Marketing Group India at Intel Technology India Pvt. Ltd., subsidiary of Intel Corporation, has an objective answer to the question of tech and auto companies being on a collision course. He highlights the importance and states, The autonomous driving industry requires multiple levels of expertise, and our acquisitions and collaborations are in line with that understanding. For instance, Intels mapping and infrastructure assets in data centers, artificial intelligence and machine learning, complements Mobileyes assets in hardware and simulators. By putting all of that together we are able to provide an end-to-end solution for autonomous driving  from car to data center.

From each of their explanations, there is a clear trait - the objective is too large for tech companies to make their own production vehicles. Similarly, auto companies will have to rely on technology innovators rather than developing their own infrastructure from ground. Not only does this save a lot of investment, but the fields of autonomous driving involve neural networks, deep learning, advanced imaging and sensing and cognitive science, all of which are well beyond the purview of car makers. On top of that, technology companies already have established networks for autonomous driving technologies to evolve on. For instance, the Microsoft Azure cloud network is an existing infrastructure that auto companies are already working on to power the connected car ecosystem. With Intels data center prowess and AI achievements, using the existing data rendering technology in cars make operations more reliable, and it is this that is the way forward for the entire industry of autonomous vehicles.

Shifting to autonomous vehicles

While it is evident that work on autonomous vehicles has been going on extensively, we also tried to explore the possible rate of adoption of the new technology. The key here, it seems, is to give riders the first taste of autonomous cars to rid them of concerns surrounding how efficient these machines will be. As Dr. Leverton says, There will continue to be a mix of autonomous and conventional vehicles for many years yet. Having personally experienced riding in several autonomous vehicles in the USA the sense of confidence in the technology builds up quickly to give an enjoyable experience.

This further highlights how autonomous driving will remain a niche for the premium segment of automobiles, at least for the next few years. The initial experiences will remain reserved mostly for the first movers - investors, engineers and patrons along with a select few consumers. It is with the target of breaching the privilege barrier that companies, particularly the technology innovators, are pursuing partnerships with multiple car makers. For instance, as Rajappa elucidates, Microsoft is already working with global car makers like Renault  Nissan as well as India car giants like Tata Motors to power next-generation, connected vehicles with advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring of car features and more. It has also partnered with Volvo to integrate Skype for Business in Volvos 90 Series cars, which will enhance productivity and make joining conference calls from the car a cinch. Another partner is BMW on BMW Connected, the automakers personal mobility companion service, to develop a scalable platform based on Microsoft Azure technologies to deliver in-car productivity services through Office 365, as well as intelligent personal assistance for drivers.

The shift also involves building the necessary roads that support such an ecosystem, along with other factors in mind. The network infrastructure needs to grow manifold if connected cars are expected to thrive. Dr. Rishi Bhatnagar, President of the IET IoT Panel, India, explains the way forward:

Bandwidth connectivity is growing and we are seeing a spike in per capita bandwidth availability. With the arrival of 5G, things will get even better. Connectivity technology is also improving and we will have more connectivity options available in the near future. This could mean connectivity at various levels for instance at a smart city level, at a block level (with hotspots) or street level.

Dr. Bhatnagar is also the President of Aeris Communications, a leading provider of AI solutions in the field of in-car autonomy. Looking beyond the need for connected cars, there is also the notion of electric vehicles coming up as mandatory in the horizon, something that India is notably behind at. With all of these technologies in play and the number of companies coming together, the technology-automobile synergy is also providing one major lifestyle upgrade that has not been majorly focused on. That is...

Making luxuries affordable

Over time, it has been evident that cutting edge technology of the present will gradually trickle down to commonplace implementation, become affordable, and eventually make way for newer advances in a particular field. That, pretty much, has been the law of progression. In the field of autonomous driving, meanwhile, the very first thing that comes to mind is how this service is a luxury.

Owing to higher costs of engineering, autonomous technology will first be fit into premium segment cars (which are more expensive at the first place). This, in turn, will lead to commonplace luxury technology, and the trickle-down will follow. Remember seat ventilators in cars?

But, around when do we expect to see the average salaried individual buying a car with all passenger seats? Will technology truly displace all drivers one day? What, alongside, are the challenges to the autonomous dream? Rajappa says, Today, the car is more than just a ride between two places  it is a hub of activity for daily life. People are looking to have truly connected experiences in their cars so that they can get more done, save time and make life easier. Today, India is already among the largest automobile markets in the world, and it will only continue to grow. In addition, India also has one of the largest mobile and internet user base. With technologies like 4G becoming mainstream  seamless connectivity is a matter of time. And we will see these benefits trickle down to the automotive sector as well.

Using IoT, AI and machine learning technologies, Microsoft will provide vehicle owners in India and across the world with a safe, productive and fun driving experience. Tata Motors are using Microsofts connected vehicle technologies on Azure intelligent cloud to bring the digital lives of their customers into the cars they drive.

Tata Motors, one of Indias leading auto makers, is bullish, but acknowledges that it will take time to spread mass awareness. It is very clear that self driving cars will become an increasing part of our mobility experience. However, the proportion of self driving vehicles will increase gradually and around specific applications and locations. The demonstration and public experience of safe use of autonomous vehicles over some years will re-assure people that the technology can be relied upon. One of the key arguments for autonomous control is the expectation that fewer accidents and risks will be faced by people when the majority of vehicles are controlled this way, says Dr. Leverton.

Safety concerns

Yet another area where the synergy of technology and automobiles will be of tantamount importance is in safety. Connected vehicles wired to Cloud services and having the necessary powers to drive itself can be a deadly hazard in the hands of a malicious user, which has led to companies like Toyota exploring blockchain as a possible security standard to be undertaken. But, while possible routes are an avenue yet unexplored, a lot of silent work has already been put in to the field of security for connected vehicles.

Sanjay Gupta, Vice President and India Country Manager at NXP Semiconductors, has an elaborate explanation behind the security standards being deployed presently. He says:

The automotive industry is rapidly evolving and cars are slowly transforming from a simple mode of transport to a personalized mobile information hub. Until recently, cars have been isolated from their environment and from the internet, but the Connected Car will soon feature various wireless technologies like V2X communications, telematics, Near Field Communication (NFC) and multi-standard digital broadcast reception, complemented by ADAS systems that implement autonomous driving features.

Modern vehicles are gradually turning into smartphones-on-wheels, which continuously generate, process, exchange and store large amounts of data. Their wireless interfaces connect the in-vehicle systems of these Connected Cars to external networks such as the internet, which forms entry point for hackers, opening the door for remote attacks. Hence, the rapid increase in electronic complexity is potentially making them more vulnerable and giving rise to a new range of threats and hacks.

The big challenge for vehicle manufacturers is therefore to implement solutions that block hackers, with different motivations, resources and skill levels, and using many different attack vectors, in a cost-effective way. NXP is world leader in crypto- and authentication solutions, and has been working towards bringing banking-level security into the automotive world.

Since the potential threat of hacking does exist, security solutions that prevent network compromise and establish user identity have already been successfully applied in areas such as banking and e-identity, and are now available to the automotive market. Hence, NXP put together a framework, consisting of 4 security layers that lead to a highly secure vehicle network:

4 layers in the new age cars:

-Secure interfaces, which connect the vehicle to the external world

-Secure gateway, which provides domain isolation (separating interfaces, infotainment, safety-critical systems etc.)

-Secure network, that provides secure communication between control units (ECUs)

-Secure processing units, that implement all the features of the connected car

Each connected component has its own specific security challenges. The 4+1 framework provides the right level of protection and countermeasures to individually address the security needs for each one. This structured approach delivers multiple levels of defense, from the vehicles perimeter to the individual electronic control units (ECUs), eliminating vulnerabilities. The 4 layer security framework provides a holistic approach for securing the complete vehicle architecture, using a defense-in-depth strategy.

The India story

India is still one step behind the advanced nations in terms of autonomous driving technology. But, with technology giants putting heads together globally and working extensively, car makers are also putting more emphasis. The first Indian company set to undertake self-driving tests in India is Tata Motors, under its younger and more experimental TaMo sub-brand. Dr. Leverton affirms, Tata Motors is actively undertaking R&D work on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) as well as full vehicle autonomy. The ADAS features will appear in our vehicles in the next 3 years. We will use the TAMO sub-brand to prove out such features in the market first.

Advancing the Indian landscape for advanced vehicles also has a lot to do about improving the available infrastructure in our country, which includes improving traffic rules, creating better roads, establishing charging networks, and more importantly, for all the infrastructure to be sustained and promoted into smart cities, the need of better networks. Dr. Leverton echoes the same, stating, The major challenge to take forward autonomous vehicle technology in India is the availability of data characterising the traffic and infrastructure conditions. The data collection is underway but will take some years. Even the creation of relevant driver assistance systems depends on robust data regarding the application conditions. However, there are already situations where a controlled use of an autonomous vehicle can be imagined for example the BRTS systems being implemented in cities around India.

Gupta, meanwhile, acknowledges that work is under way, but is still some way from its goal. A growing economy and rapid urbanisation need a robust urban infrastructure for domestic growth of the automotive sector, which has been boosted by the Smart Cities Mission. One major components of Smart Cities initiative is creating and developing an efficient urban mobility and public transport system that provides a variety of transport options. Connected cars provide seamless connectivity between different electronic systems such as infotainment, control systems, safety features and navigation features through internet within the car as well as with outside systems through Internet of Things (IoT). Connected cars would encourage collaborations between manufacturers of electronic devices used in cars, mobile devices, wearable devices, IT systems integrators as well as ISPs. Therefore, connected cars will play an instrumental role in catalysing the envisaged smart transportation and smart infrastructure leading to further increase in the economic activity in automotive sector in the next decade, he concludes.

It is evident that the possible innovations in advanced locomotion in India will first roll out to commercial vehicles, while personal commuting with connected, autonomous vehicles is quite some time away. Technology companies, in this space (globally), are playing a significantly more important role than ever before. While automobile companies will continue to make cars, the hearts and nerves will be provided by technology, where algorithms will soon be deemed more important than the engine itself.

Our cars will soon get to see, learn, react and talk, every necessity of a human driver, and it is the synergy between technology and automobile giants that is making this possible.
OnePlus 5 was launched in June 2017 & runs on Android 7.1.1 OS. The Smartphone is available in three color options i.e. Gunmetal, Soft Gold, Midnight Black & 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. The phone is available with 64 GB of internal storage.

The Smartphone is powered by 2.45 GHz Octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Processor. A 6
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This Digitimes Research Special Report examines the China AMOLED industry, focusing on the expansion capacity of the makers, the current implementation plans of major smartphone vendors in the market and the technological hurdles faced by China's makers.

Abstract

One of the hottest areas of investment in the display panel industry in 2017 is coming from the AMOLED sector, with China being ground zero for capacity expansion. According to Digitimes Research, seven China-based panel makers have been expanding existing or setting up new AMOLED production capacities, with the total annual capacity estimated to increase from 272,000 square meters in 2016 to 1.584 million square meters in 2018, 4.464 million square meters in 2019, and 7.864 million square meters in 2020, representing an overall CAGR of 131.9% from 2016-2020.

In 2020, BOE Technology will be the largest China-based AMOLED panel maker, accounting for 35% of the countrys annual production capacity, while Tianma Micro-electronics will have a 17.6% share and Visionox will account for 14% of the capacity.

However, this dramatic growth for China makers is coming from a trailing position from its peers in South Korea. For example, Samsung Display and LG Display had a combined annual production capacity of 4.945 million square meters for AMOLED panels in 2016 and the total capacity will increase to 15.130 million square meters in 2020 at a 2016-2020 CAGR of 32.3%.

It should be noted that these two makers are relatively focusing their expansion on flexible AMOLED panels, with the proportion for flexible models to increase from 46.1% in 2016 to 72.6% in 2020. It may be difficult for China-based AMOLED panel makers to obtain orders from Apple and other international smartphone vendors at least in the next five years, as they are technologically inferior to Samsung Display, but their products are likely to be adopted by local smartphone vendors whose global market share is rising, according to Digitimes Research.

China AMOLED makers face two major barriers in the development of their products: increasing resolution and harnessing plastic substrate technology. Samsung Display is significantly superior to China-based makers in these two areas.

For the two key technologies, China-based EverDisplay Optronics (Shanghai) in 2017 is expected to attain the level that Samsung Display reached in 2014. EverDisplay is lagging three years behind, while other China-based makers are behind even further by 1-2 more years.

In manufacturing AMOLED panels, yield rates for evaporating light-emitting materials are a bottleneck and the yield rates decrease as resolution increases. Among China-based makers, only EverDisplay and Truly Opto-Electronics are capable of producing Full HD AMOLED panels currently, and Kunshan Go-Visionox Optoelectronics, BOE Technology and Tianma may be able to do that by the end of 2017 and/or mid-2018.

Moreover, Samsung Display began production of flexible AMOLED panels using PI (polyimide) materials in the second half of 2014. China-based makers have unveiled such panels but cannot start volume production until 2018.

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Trump vows first-class' infrastructure

The White House says spending $200 billion in public funds over nine years could leverage $1 trillion worth of construction.



By JILL COLVIN and DARLENE SUPERVILLE

Associated Press

CINCINNATI  Dogged by allegations in Washington, President Donald Trump traveled to friendlier territory Wednesday and promised to create a first-class system of roads, bridges and waterways by using $200 billion in public funds to generate $1 trillion in investment to pay for construction projects that most public officials agree are badly needed and long overdue. America must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure anywhere in the world, Trump said, pushing his infrastructure plan in middle America as Washington geared up for Thursday's appearance before Congress by fired FBI Director James Comey.



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NEW YORK (AP)  Authorities say an man has been killed in a 10-story fall while working at a construction site on Manhattan's West Side.

The New York Police Department tells the Times Herald-Record of Middletown that Roger Vail, of Montgomery in Orange County, was on a platform on the 16th floor of a building at Ninth Avenue and West 33rd Street when the platform collapsed around 6:40 p.m. Monday.





. . .
Examining the themes of awareness, imagination and profession, Nicola Di Battista concludes the cycle talking about freedom to construct a design theory and define for architects today a new way of working. Freedom inteded as a pause between one project and another, the right reward for a job well done and a premise for the next to come.

The Congress Centre in Palma de Mallorca is an imposing building facing the sea that highlights Francisco Mangados capacity to relate to a large scale site, while devoting great care and intensity to the interiors. Austrian architects Jabornegg&Palffy designed a country house in Slovenia where the flexibility of living spaces is matched by advanced bioclimatic interior comfort control.

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Jabornegg&Palffy, Casa v.d.K, Slovenia, 2016. Photo Hertha Hurnaus



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RH2518-0233 Francisco Mangado, Congress Center and hotel in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2016. Photo Roland Halbe



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Central hallway perspective toward entrance Designed in 1967 by Paulo Mendes da Rocha (1928), Casa Masetti lies on a wooded hill in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The imposing block of concrete, lifted off the ground by columns, seems to levitate, and on the inside, contrasts with colourful floors paved with azulejos



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Francesco Faccin, Green chair for Billiani, 2017



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Ron Gilad, Surface+Border no.1 for Danese, 2017



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an exhibition of models by first-year students from the Ecole Nationale Superieure dArchitecture de Paris-Belleville



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The Italian movie director selected eight outfits for Domus Moda, for the new season



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In the course of a conversation with Domus held during the past Milan Design Week, designer and artist Ron Gilad talked about his new adventure as the creative director of Danese Milano, explaining how he is building a future on top of the past. This months school is the Ecole Nationale Superieure dArchitecture de Paris-Belleville, which focuses on the architects social responsibility, highlighting the cultural, symbolic, practical and political sides of architecture. Manolo De Giorgi offers a selection of projects as an alternative to home living trapped in ideological schemes, looking for open-plan spaces.
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Irelands largest windfarm officially opened this morning following a 145m investment by Energia at Meenadreen in south Donegal.

The new windfarm was formally opened by Ian Thom, Group Chief Executive of Energias parent company Viridian Group and Peter Bailie, Managing Director of Energia Renewables, together with the Mayor of Donegal Town, Patricia Callaghan.

Over 250 children from local primary schools will today tour the new facility marking Global Wind Day 2017.

The new Meenadreen windfarm is among the most technologically advanced generating facilities in the world with 38 turbines producing 95 Megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Each turbine stands 115 metres high with a rotor diameter of 90 metres generating power from strong wind pathways in the area. As Energias newest windfarm, Meenadreen alone can power up to 50,000 homes using wind energy which will reduce Irelands carbon dioxide emissions by up to 100,000 tonnes each year.

Energia has announced the funding of 95,000 for a third phase of its Meenadreen Community Fund, which has already invested 45,000 to date in projects of benefit to local communities throughout the surrounding region. The fund is independently administered by Community Foundation Ireland.

Energia has also successfully completed a pilot project for autonomous drone inspections through predetermined flight paths around the turbines. The new drone capability has the potential to automatically identify snags or defects and helps to enhance overall efficiency and safety on site.

"Green electricity"

Energia will use power from Meenadreen to supply green electricity to homes and SMEs all over Ireland. The company is now also one of the countrys leading providers of sustainable green energy and 25% of all wind generated electricity in Ireland is provided through Energia. Energia has invested over 500m in wind farms since 2008.

The Meenadreen windfarm has 38 Nordex N90 2.5MW turbines. Taking just over 2 years to complete, its development by Energia Renewables was financed by loans from NordLB supported by Euler Hermes. Construction was carried out by Denis Moriarty The Kerries Limited and electrical works by Kirby Group limited. Engineering services were provided by Wind Prospect and Jennings ODonovan, with legal support from Arthur Cox.

Ian Thom, Group Chief Executive of Viridian, said Energia is helping to achieve Irelands renewable energy targets through our major renewable energy portfolio where we provide electricity from wind farms all over Ireland.

We are proud to bring Irelands largest windfarm onto the national grid to power homes and businesses all over the island with naturally and sustainably produced electricity.

Peter Baillie, Managing Director of Energia Renewables said,This is an internationally prestigious development which is contributing to economic growth and the wellbeing of communities across the island of Ireland through the clean and efficient production of renewable energy. We look forward to our continuing partnership with our neighbouring communities through the Meenadreen Community Fund. We will also be a continuing contributor of local authority rates for the lifespan of the windfarm which will be a minimum of 25 years.

Energia expressed its strong appreciation to the local community for their support and co-operation with the company as it set about developing the new windfarm.

**Pictured above: At the official opening of Energia's new 95 megawatt windfarm at Meenadreen, County Donegal are, Left to right, The Mayor of Donegal Town, Patricia Callaghan, Peter Baillie, managing director, Energia Renewables and Ian Thom, Group CEO, Viridian Group. Energia has invested 145 million in the new wind farm and also announced a 95,000 investment in a third phase of the Meenadreen Community Fund.
The 'boil water' notice for those using the Fintown water supply remains in place.

This afternoon Irish Water issued a statement confirming to consumers that the notice, first issued on June 2nd for the Fintown Public Water Supply and Meenmore  Meentinney group water scheme remains in place.

The Irish Water statement confirmed that a routine water sample detected cryptosporidium in the treated water coming from the Fintown Water Treatment Plant and as a result the boil water notice was been put in place following consultation with the HSE to protect consumers.

A rigorous water sampling programme has been put in place by Irish Water in partnership with Donegal County Council which has showed reduced levels of contamination since the first detection last week.

While there has also been an absence of any related illness in the community as advised by the HSE who are liaising with local GPs, Irish Water would like to remind all consumers that the boil water notice remains in place and that the actions outlined below remain in place until the notice is lifted.

Irish Water and Donegal County Council would like to assure consumers that they are continuing with their investigations to determine the source of this contamination and are striving to have the boil water notice lifted as soon as possible.

Donegal County Council, on behalf of Irish Water, has delivered boil water notifications to all customers in the Fintown area and the HSE has also been in contact with consumers offering advice.

Water must be boiled for:

- Drinking

- Drinks made with water

- Preparation of salads and similar foods, which are not cooked prior to eating

- Brushing of teeth

- Making of ice

- Discard ice cubes in fridges and freezers and filtered water in fridges. Make ice from cooled boiled water.

What actions should be taken:

- Use water prepared for drinking when preparing foods that will not be cooked (e.g. washing salads).

- Water can be used for personal hygiene, bathing and flushing of toilets but not for brushing teeth or gargling.

- Boil water by bringing to a vigorous, rolling boil (e.g. with an automatic kettle) and allow to cool. Cover and store in a refrigerator or cold place. Water from the hot tap is not safe to drink. Domestic water filters will not render water safe to drink.

- Caution should be taken when bathing children to ensure that they do not swallow the bathing water.

- Prepare infant feeds with water that has been brought to the boil once and cooled. Do not use water that has been re-boiled several times. If bottled water is used for the preparation of infant feeds it should be boiled once and cooled. If you are using bottled water for preparing baby food, be aware that some natural mineral water may have high sodium content. The legal limit for sodium in drinking water is 200mg per litre. Check the label on the bottled water to make sure the sodium or `Na' is not greater than 200mg per litre. If it is, then it is advisable to use a different type of bottled water. If no other water is available, then use this water for as short a time as possible. It is important to keep babies hydrated.

Great care should be taken with boiled water to avoid burns and scalds as accidents can easily happen, especially with children.

Irish Water and Donegal County Council wish to apologise for any inconvenience caused by this announcement.

Further information and additional advice for customers is available on www.water.ie or by calling 1850 278 278.
Full throttle up a slippery, bumpy, muddy track instils newfound appreciation for Jeep's latest off-road hero, the Grand Cherokee Trailhawk.

Not long before we'd been comfortably slicing through corners on New Zealand's north island before heading for the hills and attempting something more ambitious in the muscled-up version of the updated MY17 Grand Cherokee.

The $74,000 Trailhawk  now a full-time member of the revised Grand Cherokee family, rather than a shortlived limited edition - is the most capable of the bunch, at least in tough terrain.

Based loosely on the leather-lined Limited, the Trailhawk is kitted out with ventilated Nappa leather and suede seats, a powered tailgate, punchy nine-speaker sound system, heated steering wheel and navigation built in to the 8.4-inch touchscreen.

But it's what's beneath the skin that endows it with its rock-hopping aptitude.

As well as chunkier underbody protection, there are bits borrowed from the more luxurious Overland, including a smarter Quadra-Drive dual-range four-wheel drive system and air suspension that can boost the ride height from 205mm to a towering 260mm.

While it only runs at that height up to 40km/h, the additional clearance is a bonus as we build momentum up a particularly chopped up section, something that would pose a traction challenge for any genuine off-roader.

Only when the Kevlar-reinforced 18-inch tyres fill with slimy mud does progress teeter, all four wheels spinning as the Grand Cherokee finally reaches its natural limits.

Prior to that, it was an admirable demonstration of a car that is clearly designed to head a long way from the bitumen.
An Tain in association with Access Cinema, are showing an interesting film next Tuesday 13th June at 2 pm, that looks at the Irish pub.

Directed and produced by Alex Fagan, The Irish Pub is a celebration of the greatest institution in Irish society, the pub or more specifically the traditional Irish publicans who run them.

The characters in the film all run and own pubs that have been in their families for generations.

Visiting every corner of Ireland to find some of the more famous public houses, as well as some of the better regarded hidden gems, The Irish Pub is a love letter to a cornerstone of Irish personality, and one of our nation's most loved past-times.

Tickets are 5 and complimentary tea/coffee will also be served after the movie.
United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz on Tuesday apologized to the United States Congress for his company causing a passenger to be dragged off a UA flight last month.

United failed its customers and failed as a company in that incident, and this has to be a turning point for the airline, Munoz told the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation Committee at a hearing into airline industry practices.

United should not have called on law enforcement to drag the passenger, David Dao, off the plane, Munoz told the committee. It also should not have rebooked crew at the very last minute, which led to its requesting passengers to deplane voluntarily and switch flights. When none did so, Dao was selected at random to give up his seat.

Dao informed the crew that he was a doctor who needed to see patients, and refused to comply. Law enforcement officers then dragged him off the plane by force, bloodying his face in the process.

United should have offered more compensation to persuade passengers to give up their seats, Munoz said, acknowledging that the companys protocols detracted from customer service.

Committee chairman Bill Shuster warned the industry that the committee will take action if it does not see meaningful results that improve customer service, and that companies would not like the outcome.

Committee members discussed the level of competition in the industry.

They said they were looking into what Congress could do to get airlines to address customer service issues better, and warned they would hold airline executives accountable.

In addition to Munoz, United Airlines President Scott Kirby and senior executives from Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines attended the hearing. William McGee, aviation consultant with the Consumers Union, also appeared.

Room for Improvement

Uniteds apology to Dao and its settlement of his threatened lawsuit out of court is probably enough to put this particular incident to rest, suggested Wayne Plucker, director of aerospace and defense research at Frost & Sullivan.

However, overall, theres still much to be done, he told CRM Buyer.

Most seats are filled on flights, making passengers irritable, Plucker said, so any additional inconveniences can spark overreactions.

Both ground and air crews have little guidance and even less experience with handling these situations, he said.

The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA submitted written testimony to the hearing, noting that crew are overworked, flights are understaffed, and the airlines have reduced seat size and increased the number of seats in the cabins.

Further, respect for authority, as well as decency and decorum, are lacking, the letter states, which can lead to dangerous working conditions for flight attendants, whose work increasingly includes de-escalating conflicts.

The Overbooking Problem

Southwest pledged to end overbooking altogether. However, Munoz defended the practice, saying it leads to better service, and American Airlines said it would not stop overbooking either.

We recommend the airlines not sell more confirmed reservations than they have seats, and if they want to overbook in anticipation of no-shows, let people know theyre buying standby tickets, said Douglas Kidd, executive director of the National Association of Airline Passengers.

The situation with Dao arose because United wanted to fly crew members for another flight to their destination. Airlines should reserve a row of seats for employee use on all flights, and sell them only with the understanding that the passengers who buy them may have to relinquish their seats if needed, he recommended.

That way, no one needs to be volunteered the way Dr. Dao was, Kidd told CRM Buyer.

Better training would have helped avoid the situation with Dao, he said.

The Pain Felt by Passengers

Pasenger abuse is a growing problem, but there are many other problems with air travel in general, said Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights.org.

FlyersRights.org has had a proposed Airline Passenger Bill of Rights 2.0 on its Website since 2012, with 30 proposals, but none have been enacted, and no member of Congress is even willing to introduce them, he told CRM Buyer.

The congressional investigation will put United Airlines on the rack, and the industry as a whole could see changes to the passengers bill of rights, which is certain to cost it money and flexibility, suggested Frosts Plucker.

However, the legislative process is slow, cumbersome and unwieldy, and Congress already has a lot on its plate, Kidd observed. I do not expect much to change any time soon.
Except for those folks living under rocks (sounds uncomfortable), everyone knows about or at least has heard of bitcoin. However, not everyone understands the technology of bitcoin, which extends well beyond Internet-based currency.

For the rock people, bitcoin is an Internet-based currency that allows for transparency with respect to each transfer of the currency through the use of a distributed database. Each transaction is locked in a block, and blocks are connected to form a blockchain.

What Is Blockchain?

Blockchain is an open source technology that facilitates creating each block, locking each block, and connecting the resulting string of blocks. Because it is a write-only database that never can be edited or deleted, the blockchain gives integrity to the complete history of the transaction.

For example, if we purchase a new tablet online using bitcoin, the seller wants certainty that the purchaser actually owns the bitcoins used to purchase the tablet. Also, the seller wants to be certain that the bitcoins have not already been spent by the purchaser for other goods.

The blockchain shows the ownership history of the bitcoins used before the purchase of the tablet. As a result, blockchain makes it difficult for a dishonest person to break the law by stealing some elses data.

We are now entering a time when blockchain is expanding to wider, nonmonetary activities  at least since earlier this year, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration signed an agreement with IBM to explore Watson, famous from Jeopardy!, and blockchain to protect electronic health records.

As a matter of fact, the use of Watsons artificial intelligence recently has expanded beyond the FDA deal to other important areas. For instance, IBM earlier this year began offering Watson/Blockchain as a Service, so we likely will see even more AI interfacing with blockchain.

Where Are We With AI?

AI is hardly new  it has been a part of the IT world for about 50 years. However, it was not until 2011  when Watson became a public success in on Jeopardy!  that most people began to understand AI as more than just something from a science fiction novel.

Today, one only has to acknowledge the recent and extensive media coverage of driverless cars to realize just how ubiquitous AI has become.

Back in 1955, James McCarthy of Dartmouth College and a team of researchers defined AI as follows: the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves.The process of self-improving computers, AI, or machine learning has an inherent legal risk if the process violates a law in one or more countries.

For example, if an AI system learns that it is acceptable to alter true facts (for the rock people, we are referring to lying), what is to stop it from altering something like a financial report made to the SEC to make a company look profitable, when in fact it is not, or a contract for the sale of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York as being executed by the true owner of the property?

Follow the Data Trail

Combining AI with blockchain allows for the secure, transparent review of data that is changed or moved over time, giving both the buyer and seller confidence in the validity, title and transfer of that bridge in Brooklyn.

The Federal Trade Commission last year issued report entitled Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion? The report focuses on privacy for citizens, since many companies rely on big data for AI to provide help with strategic business decisions without understanding the validity of the data.

The use of big data has distinct concerns for electronic medical records. The Federal Trade Commission earlier this year held its third FinTech Forum, which included a discussion about blockchain payment systems and smart contracts to ensure consumer protection.

Blockchain and Electronic Medical Records

The FDA agreement with IBM/Watson will explore the exchange of owner-mediated data from several sources, such as electronic medical records, clinical trials, genomic data, and health data from mobile devices, wearables and the Internet of Things.

Initially, the project will explore the use of blockchain to share oncology-related patient data for research.

As the use of EMRs has expanded, the quantity of data has exploded. The mass of medical data tied to an individual gives medial researchers and professionals a complete view of the individual. The data, though, must be accurate and complete. Blockchain technologies keep an unalterable audit trail of all the medical data.

As the use of blockchain expands, it is reasonable to see its use not only in medical research, but in real and intellectual property transactions, contracting and auditable file storage.

Arizona Adopts Blockchain Laws!

Arizona recently recognized blockchain as legal, when the governor signed HB2417 into law. Among its provisions:

A signature that is secured through blockchain technology is considered to be in an electronic form and to be an electronic signature.

A record or contract that is secured through blockchain technology is considered to be in an electronic form and to be an electronic record.

Smart contracts may exist in commerce. A contract relating to a transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity or enforceability solely because that contract contains a smart contract term.

As more states adopt laws recognizing the legality of blockchain, more lawyers will need a full understanding of this disruptive technology.
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S P Jain School of Management to have new campus in London

The new campus will also be helpful in easy access to part-time jobs and internships in the UK




Germany dislodged as China's biggest pork supplier

German pig meat exports to China suffered with the suspension in mid-February of the licenses of two major German processors, as reflected in export figures for February and March. The suspension of the licenses of Tonnies and Boseler Goldschmaus by China has since been restored, though.

German export data showed that shipments of pork to China were more than halved in February and March as the interruptions for the two companies took hold, according to AHDB Pork.

Trade was down from nearly 21,000 tonnes in January to 8,300 tonnes in February and 9,400 tonnes in March, although the reduction was not felt in China's import statistics until April.

Germany had been the largest supplier of fresh and frozen pork to China and was also the second-largest supplier of offal. But the suspension of the two export firms left Spain as China's largest supplier by volume (close to 21% of China's total pig meat imports in April), having overtaken Germany in March. However, the pork division of the UK Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board added, it would appear that the main beneficiary might have been Canada, as rapidly rising prices inside the EU have impaired other member states' competitiveness on the global market.

"Canada received a double boost from an interruption in German supplies and the reduced ability of other European nations to fill the gap, either through their lack of ability to respond on price, or a paucity of supplies for export", AHDB Pork said.

It noted that Canadian exporters were able to increase volumes to China to 20,300 tonnes in April, 64% more than the same month in 2016 and around 5,000 tonnes more than in March. "Overall Canada did not fully replace the lack of German product, as China took in less pork in April, as supplies also fell slightly from the US and Denmark".

AHDB Pork said the lifting of the restrictions should enable German trade to build up substantially again and improve market returns on the key German market, the largest in the EU.

"The extent to which trade returns to normal will partly depend on the competitiveness of German product both compared with both other EU exporters and global exporters", it said.
Sending a big thank you to Camp Lebanon for welcoming our family to a fun-filled weekend at Camp!

Has your family ever tried out Summer Camp together? If youve been following along with my Camp Lebanon Series, you can see that our family had a fantastic time attending a camp in Minnesota. This camp welcomes campers from all over the state of Minnesota as well as other states and is known as home of the funnest fun. After attending this past Memorial Weekend, my entire family is in full agreement that Camp Lebanon truly does offer it all.

Being a Christian, Bible focused camp, daily Chapel is always on the schedule. {Dont forget that all denominations are welcome to attend camp!} This is something that I remember looking forward to as a child and this past weekend reminded me why. Chapel is full of energy, love, and learning. Jim Hinson, the guest speaker from Palisade Baptist in Silver Bay, shared with us each day. Since the Bible is full of parables as that was the way that Jesus shared his teachings most often, Jim started by explaining what the word parable means. The Greek translation of para means to come along side and ble (ball) means to throw. This means that Jesus parables carried a story along side a truth. While many of the parables in the Bible may be confusing to us, they made perfect sense to those Jesus was teaching as he used common, every day examples for those times. (So the parables that Jesus would have used in todays world would have looked quite a bit different as the world has changed drastically from 2000 years ago.) I loved the way Jim walked us through this as it really made me look at the parables in the Bible in a whole new light.

Then I just wanted to touch base on a few more highlights from the weekend as I wrap up my Camp Lebanon Series. One tradition thats been carried on over the years is the Camp Lebanon Polar Dip. Each morning at 7:45, campers can jump in the lake, (must get wet head to toe), to complete this challenge. If they participate every day of their camp session, they are rewarded with a prize at the closing Chapel Rally. Our family only had two brave souls but there was a different family this past weekend where everyone, including mom and the toddler, completed this challenge!

Every morning and every evening, campers gather for flag raising and lowering. Treating our country, flag, and God with respect is a big focus during this time and we were honored to be chosen to help with flag lowering Sunday evening. On Memorial Day, Camp Lebanon honored all service members, past and present, and they were our color guard for that raising.

Most camp events and happenings are noted by a bell ringing seven times. Bobber Bill selects campers that are nearby to have the privilege of sounding the bell throughout the day and several of our kids got that opportunity throughout the weekend.

Camp Lebanon also celebrated his 70th Anniversary Celebration this Memorial Day with a Historic North 40 Rally, Camp Photo, Picnic, Legends Field Dedication & Inaugural Game, and fun activities. It was amazing to hear from some of the people behind this camp and those who have dedicated many years to its success and the sharing of Gods Word.

10 Reasons Families Love Camp Lebanon:

Cedar Lake Therapy: Swim it, Fish it, Boat it.

Swim it, Fish it, Boat it. Great Food: Fresh, nutritious, and delicious.

Fresh, nutritious, and delicious. Beautiful Facilities: Buildings are well maintained and comfortable.

Buildings are well maintained and comfortable. The Funnest Fun: Zip Line, Paintball, Octoball, & More!

Zip Line, Paintball, Octoball, & More! Relaxed Pace: No TV, No Cooking, No Dishes, No Hurry.

No TV, No Cooking, No Dishes, No Hurry. Time To Play: Daily options with safe free time to do what you want to do.

Daily options with safe free time to do what you want to do. Spiritual Nurture: Inspiring worship and Bible teachings.

Inspiring worship and Bible teachings. Lasting Friendships: New friends, old friends, and lots of fun.

New friends, old friends, and lots of fun. Affordable: Free watercrafts and family maximum payments to make it affordable for everyone.

Free watercrafts and family maximum payments to make it affordable for everyone. Gods Creation: Explore, hike, and be awed.

Our Family Camp experience at Camp Lebanon was absolutely amazing. The staff was always helpful and kind, the activities offered kept us plenty busy, and the environment was safe and welcoming. It was an amazing time that was spent together, building on our Faith, and enjoying the company of others. We are excited to send our older kids back to kids camp later this summer and I know we will also be back for another family camp adventure in the future too!

If you want to check out my entire series, here are the links to my previous posts:

~Camp Lebanon ~ An Amazing Weekend At Family Camp! {Post 1}

~Camp Lebanon ~ An Amazing Weekend At Family Camp With LOTS To Do! {Post 2}

~Camp Lebanon ~ An Amazing Weekend At Family Camp With Amazing Food! {Post 3}

Learn More: Head over to the Camp Lebanon to learn more and start planning today!

Connect: Dont forget to like Camp Lebanon on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Instagram for all the latest news and promotions.

Im a city girl turned country by my awesome husband and we have three busy boys and two darling daughters. I love spending time with my family, reading Karen Kingsbury novels, and catching up with friends while our kiddos have play dates. Im blessed beyond measure and cant wait to see what God has in store.

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COLUMBUS  One of three men will become the citys next fire chief.

A battalion chief in Omaha, captain in Papillion and assistant chief from Virginia are finalists for the Columbus position.

About 20 people applied for the full-time fire chief job, including a current and former Columbus firefighter, and seven candidates were interviewed Tuesday by the Civil Service Commission, which narrowed the list to three.

I thought it was an extremely qualified group, Mayor Jim Bulkley said of the candidates, who went through testing before this weeks interviews.

The finalists  Daniel Miller of Yutan, Aaron Anderson of Ralston and Joseph Grainger of Fredericksburg, Virginia, who conducted his interview Tuesday via Skype  will now be scheduled for in-depth interviews with the mayor and City Administrator Tara Vasicek. Bulkley said hell also invite city council members and representatives from the police and fire departments to sit in on the final interviews.

There isnt an exact time frame to finalize the process  that depends on how quickly the interviews can be scheduled  but Bulkley expects a decision to be made fairly soon.

Theres no reason we couldnt have a fire chief selected in three to four weeks, said Bulkley, who will submit his choice for fire chief to the city council for approval.

City council members voted in April to create the full-time fire chief position to oversee the department of 15 career firefighters and rescue personnel and 55 volunteers.

Dean Hefti, who has been with the local fire department for 45 years, including 25 as the volunteer fire chief, plans to retire in January. Hes currently paid an annual stipend of $21,075.

City officials estimated the annual salary and benefits costs for a full-time chief would be $100,000 to $134,000, based on figures from comparable-sized Nebraska cities. The three finalists currently earn between $72,750 and $120,000 per year, according to their applications.

Heres a look at the fire chief finalists, according to their resumes:

Aaron Anderson

Education: Graduated from Omaha Westside before earning an associate degree in fire protection technology from Southeast Community College in Lincoln, certificate in fire and emergency services management from Southeast and bachelors degree in management from Bellevue University.

Experience: Volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician in Ralston from August 2007 to March 2008; firefighter and EMT in Hastings from March 2008 to August 2013. Anderson has been employed by the Papillion Fire Department since August 2013, becoming a captain in April 2015. He also works as an adjunct instructor for firefighter and hazardous materials instruction at Southeast Community College.

Daniel Miller

Education: Graduated from Yutan High School before earning associate degrees in electronic technology and fire science technology from Metropolitan Community College in Omaha.

Experience: Miller has 36 years of firefighting experience, starting in 1980 with the Yutan Volunteer Fire Department, where he has served as chief, assistant chief and on the board. He joined the Millard Fire District in 1991, advancing to captain before that department merged with Omaha in 1998. Miller has been with the Omaha Fire Department since 1998, serving as a captain, chief of training and special operations and battalion chief. He runs his own business, Training Under Fire, which teaches firefighting, technical rescue, command and leadership skills, and previously served as an instructor with the Nebraska State Fire Marshals Office and adjunct instructor in fire science at Metropolitan Community College. Miller was named the Nebraska Veterans of Foreign Wars Firefighter of the Year in 2000 and Nebraska Society of Fire Service Instructors Instructor of the Year in 2012.

Joseph Grainger

Education: Graduated from Fairfax County Public Schools before earning a bachelors degree in fire science administration from Waldorf University in Forest City, Iowa, and paramedic certificate from Northeastern University in Boston.

Experience: Grainger served with the Evergreen Volunteer Fire Department from 2001 to 2009 and has worked for the Stafford County Fire and Rescue Department in Virginia since 2004, advancing to deputy chief/chief of training and safety and currently assistant fire and EMS chief/chief of operations.
COLUMBUS  The number of people who participated in a recent housing study shows how important the topic is.

More than 900 people took the online housing survey and another 800-plus filled out a workforce survey aimed at people who work here, but dont necessarily reside in the city.

I think that speaks to the level of concern in so many communities that were seeing with the housing issue. Its really resonating with a lot of residents, said Amy Haase of Omaha-based RDG Planning and Design, which conducted the local housing study.

Haase presented the results during Monday nights Columbus City Council meeting and there were few surprises.

Columbus residents believe there arent near enough houses or rental units available, and whats there is often perceived as being overpriced for the market.

Rentals in Columbus are extremely high for the quality that is being offered. I have numerous employees that cannot find housing and are traveling from smaller communities that can offer reasonable housing, one respondent stated.

Columbus is a growing and vibrant city; however the availability of housing is very tough ... oftentimes (homes) are on the market for less than 24 hours before offers have been made, another commented.

The numbers compiled by RDG back these comments up to an extent.

A survey of local real estate agents showed there were fewer than 50 houses for sale in Columbus and, the study noted, A shortage of housing often leads to additional issues with the affordability.

Haase said there are affordable houses in Columbus, but those are older homes that dont open up often.

We have a very good supply of affordable housing today in Columbus, she said. The problem is its not on the market.

A concern noted in the survey is lower-income families are often forced to bid against higher-income buyers for whats available, which drives up housing prices.

Haase said the city will need more affordable and entry-level housing to recruit workers to fill the jobs currently open and replace aging baby boomers as they retire.

From 2010 to 2016, developers built an average of 68 new homes a year in Columbus, according to the study, which predicts that number will need to double to keep up with demand through 2030.

The key, Haase said, is offering a variety of housing  condos, townhomes and both small and large houses  that appeal to a mix of potential buyers, from young families to senior citizens, and fill a gap in the market.

She also noted that local homebuilders are near capacity, so its important to recruit new developers and subcontractors and get youths excited about trade programs.

The citys rental market also must improve.

A survey of 28 landlords representing 877 rental units showed only nine were available. RDG described the 1 percent vacancy rate as incredibly low, with a number closer to 5 percent being healthy.

Of the nearly 9,500 housing units in Columbus, 32 percent are rentals and 68 percent are owner-occupied, according to the study.

Haase said housing availability is at a record low across the state.

The study did show that the median household income here  $52,579 in 2015  is higher than in Norfolk, Fremont, North Platte, Kearney, Lincoln and Omaha.

The median rental price of $543 per month was in the middle of the list of comparable cities, giving Columbus the best ratio when comparing rental rates to median income. Columbus was second-best to North Platte when comparing the median home value ($122,500) to household income to determine affordability.

The study noted that a strategy may be to develop more higher-end homes in hopes that higher-income families will upgrade and open lower-cost houses for others. However, a recent trend has shown people are less willing to move into larger homes than in decades past.

The study also emphasizes the need to take advantage of amenities such as parks, recreational trails, playgrounds and schools for developments.

Haase said homebuyers are looking for neighborhoods where they feel connected to the community.

An immediate response to the study focuses on ensuring the current housing is properly maintained.

City Administrator Tara Vasicek said a new property maintenance code and updated nuisance ordinances will be presented to the city council, potentially at the June 19 meeting.

Those are the first two tools we need in order to address some maintenance issues in the city of Columbus, she said.

Mayor Jim Bulkley also acknowledged that theres a lot of room for improvement when it comes to maintaining properties.

A local housing task force will also use the study, which was paid for by the city, Nebraska Investment Finance Authority and Columbus Area Future Fund, as it develops ideas to improve the local housing market.
In a sequence that suggests cloud services may be more vulnerable than many think, Proofpoint researchers have demonstrated how hackers could take over Microsoft 365 accounts to ransom files stored o...
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A Chelmsford psychiatric hospital situated close to the scene of a fatality has confirmed that none of its inpatients are missing.

Earlier today (June 8), British Transport Police issued a statement that a person had been killed after being struck by a train.

The emergency services attended the bridge on Stump Lane, in Springfield, to attend to the scene of the incident on Arbour Lane .

The death is not being treated as suspicious and a file is being prepared for the coroner.

British Transport Police are currently working on the identity of the victim and informing their next of kin.

The Priory Hospital, which specialises in the treatment and management of adults and adolescents with a range of mental health problems, is close to the scene of the victim's death.

A spokeswoman for the Priory has told Essex Live that the hospital has not reported any of its inpatients as missing.
The EUs financial support for Turkey is going to be scrutinized by the European Court of Auditors. Turkey is the single largest beneficiary of the EUs financial assistance covered by the EU Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), with more than 40 % of all IPA allocations. In 2007-2013, Turkey was allocated 4.48 billion and since 2014, a further 1.65 billion has been allocated but not yet paid out. The aim of the IPA funding was to support Turkeys accession process and the associated reform process in the country. However, the accession process is currently frozen and reforms have been backsliding in recent years.

Turkey is the EUs largest beneficiary of external aid and a strategic partner in the key policy areas of foreign affairs, defense, migration, the fight against terrorism and trade. But up to now, we have never audited the effectiveness of the EU Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance to Turkey, said Mr. Hans Gustaf Wessberg, the Member of the European Court of Auditors responsible for the audit. The audit will evaluate whether EU pre-accession financial support to Turkey has been well-managed and effective. It will focus on three priority areas: rule of law and fundamental rights; democracy and governance; and education, employment and social policies. The results of the audit will be released in the first half of 2018.

Turkey-EU relations have been governed by an Association Agreement since 1964 and a customs union was established in 1995. Since 2006, only 14 out of the 35 chapters in the membership negotiations between both sides have been opened. One of these 14 chapters was tentatively closed in 2006 and, following the agreement finalized in mid-December 2015 between the EU and Turkey on the migration crisis, preparations started for the opening of chapter 17  economic and monetary policy. Currently no new chapters are being considered for opening.
The European Union has unveiled its proposal for a new European defense union. Following the Commissions White Paper on the Future of Europe, yesterdays (7 June) reflection paper outlined different plans on how to address the increasing security and defense threats facing the old continent and how to address Europes own military capabilities by 2025. The discussion will make an important contribution to deciding on how the EU will strengthen its protection and security. The proposed European Defense Fund is poised to support more efficient spending by member states on joint defense capabilities.

Since the UKs Brexit and the election of Donald Trump as the US President, Brussels has stepped up its efforts to tackle the anti-EU sentiments and move forward with the defense union. EU progress on this front in recent months has focused on establishing an EU defense fund and aiming to centralize procurement strategy. A possible future defense union would go further  it could necessitate a joint, centralized defense industrial strategy, sharing of member state strategic defense assets, and perhaps even a level of autonomy from NATO, Aarti Shankar, political analyst at Open Europe, commented.

Analysts generally believe that the EUs decision to move forward with its plans of the defense union will not affect funding for NATO. Donald Trump said during a leaders summit at the end of May that 23 out of 28 EU members were being unfair towards US taxpayers. Over the last eight years, the United States spent more on defense than all NATO countries combined. If all NATO members had spent just 2 percent of GDP on defense last year, we would have had another $119 billion for our collective defense, he said.
Things are stirring in Malaysias banking industry. So far in June, two of the biggest banks in the country have set about merger talks, and another has agreed to sell half of its international brokerage business to a mainland Chinese securities house.

On June 1, RHB Bank and AMMB Holdings, better known as AmBank, announced they were discussing a merger and had received approval from the central bank to move forward. They have signed an exclusivity agreement, which will expire on August 30, and are moving towards an all-share merger.

Its an easy deal to understand, all about scale. Public Bank, CIMB and Maybank are all stronger; combining two of the banks on the rung below makes for a strong top-four bank.

Dato Khairussaleh

Ramli, RHB

RHB group managing director Dato Khairussaleh Ramli says it will create a stronger fourth largest banking group, creating scale and market leadership across key business segments, while Dato Sulaiman Mohd Tahir, group CEO of AmBank, speaks of our goal of becoming a formidable banking group.

Analyst opinion suggests the deal, which would create an institution with total consolidated assets of RM368 billion ($86 billion) based on March 2017 financials, is sensible but a better outcome for AmBank than RHB.
The Pound to Euro exchange rate today: +0.23% at 1.15439, Best 24hr rate 1.15466.

The Pound to Dollar exchange rate today: -0.16% at 1.29425, Best 24hr rate 1.29779.

GBP/USD weakens slightly ahead of Election results

UK heads to the polls with Conservatives seen as strong favourites Deutsche Bank outline their four key election points

GBP risk skewed to the downside on Labour shock

GBP/USD weakened slightly on Thursday as currency markets were quiet ahead of the UK election.

Down 0.2%, cable faced both the election and the testimony of Former FBI Director James Comey but volatility remained low as of 17:50 GMT.

The FTSE 100 fell for the second straight day as markets likely took some profits ahead of such a key risk event as an election.

With 46.9 million people registered to vote, the United Kingdom heads to the polls on June 8th. The decision by Theresa May to call a snap election was an initial shock to the GBP as Sterling rallied strongly, as markets interpreted this as a chance for the Conservatives to gain a greater political clout (through an increased majority) and thus have a more effective position from which to negotiate the best possible deal for Brexit.

The polls, at the time of the decision to call the election, demonstrated a dominating lead for the Conservative government, which called many to describe the upcoming election as a non-event. Over the course of the campaign-trail Labour would increasingly close that gap and force markets to take notice of the potential for an upset. One leading poll saw a 17% lead crumble to just 4% at its lows, as Jeremy Corbyn led a revolution of sorts, forcing citizens and investors alike to see him as a viable candidate capable of garnering sufficient support to at least give him a chance of being elected Prime Minister.

Deutsche Bank released a note to investors on Thursday in which they focus in on four key issues as Great Britain goes to the polls on June 8th.

Their first issue focuses on their belief that the real possibility of Labour winning and forming a government is very low. With the Conservative seats needing to fall below 300 and a Labour minority needing to form a coalition with other smaller sympathetic parties, the German bank do not think that Conservatives will lose this election barring some big upsets.

The second key point that they make is in regards to just how big the Conservative majority may be. Based on a model of their own design they broadly see between a fifty and sixty seat majority (specifically 57 seats). The bank notes that their prediction is lower than some projections from other electoral forecasters because they dont foresee that the Conservatives will fare as well in London as some polls believe.

The third key point they make is that they believe that this view for a Conservative majority is well and truly entrenched into market prices with volatility well below levels for the Scottish independence referendum, 2015 general election and Brexit referendum.

The final point is that they still see an overarchingly bearish view of the GBP as the fundamentals are significantly bearish that even a stronger majority for the Conservatives will likely fail to increase Prime Minister Theresa Mays chances of reaching a successful compromise with the EU,

Even under an increased majority, May will find compromise with the EU27 over the Brexit bill and ECJ challenging. GBP fundamentals remain bearish, with this weeks services PMI doing little to alter a picture of slowing UK growth, leaving the Bank of England on hold as the ECB and Fed tighten.

Anything other than a strong Conservative showing will be a shock, but after Brexit and Trump, confidence in Polls may be unnecessarily high.

The election remains a very live risk event for the GBP.
Crude oil prices are struggling to sustain above the $50 per barrel levels.

Therefore, Russia, which is heavily depended on crude oil prices is looking at a new technology to reduce its dependency on oil.

In this regard, the recent meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum assumes significance.

The digital economy isnt a separate industry, its essentially the foundation for creating brand new business models, Putin said at the event, discussing means to boost growth long-term after Russia ended its worst recession in two decades, reports Bloomberg.

Though many large companies have voiced support to the Ethereum technology by forming an Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, it is yet to be adopted aggressively by any government or a central bank, though many are said to be testing the waters.

Russia is testing adoption of Ethereum in many sectors

As a pilot project, the Russian central bank is testing the Ethereum platform to verify customer data and process online payments, said Deputy Governor Olga Skorobogatova.

Additionally, the Russias state development bank VEB and Steelmaker Severstal PJSC are said to be testing the technology for various other functions. Buterin has said that the Ethereum technology can be used in the government sector in Russia, which can help in rooting out corruption.

If Buterin can convince President Putin about the advantages of the technology, we should see a speedier and a vast scale adoption in Russia.

Blockchain may have the same effect on businesses that the emergence on the internet once had -- it would change business models, and eliminate intermediaries such as escrow agents and clerks, said Vlad Martynov, an adviser for The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization that backs the cryptocurrency. If Russia implements it first, it will gain similar advantages to those the Western countries did at the start of the internet age, reports Bloomberg.


More young people from the United States are to be given the opportunity to study in New Zealand with additional grants being offered from both nations.Education New Zealand, which raises awareness of the country as a study destination is providing US $50,000 over the next two years to support the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Programme and the same amount will come from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the US Department of State (ECA).It will provide more US students with the opportunity to experience New Zealands high quality education system, when they wouldnt otherwise be able to, said Paul Goldsmith,Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister.He described the Gilman as a prestigious, competitive, and selective scholarship, aimed at students who might otherwise not have the opportunity to study abroad. It is promoted across the US, and more than 10,000 students apply for the 2,800 scholarships each year.This arrangement will support our shared goal of growing the educational relationship between our two countries, and will also be invaluable in raising the profile of New Zealand as a world class international education destination, Goldsmith added.New Zealand is currently the 22nd most popular destination for US students and they made up just 2% of international students coming to New Zealand in 2016. Since its inception in 2001 more than 78,000 US students have applied for one of 22,000 Gilman Scholarships to study abroad.The scholarship allows students from poorer backgrounds studying at college or university on a tow year or four year course to spend time studying overseas and is administered by the Institute of International Education.The students need to be accepted by an institution in New Zealand for at least four weeks or up to a year in a single academic year.The new partnership was announced during the opening session of the NAFSA annual conference in Los Angeles. NAFSA is the worlds largest association dedicated to international education and exchange, and its annual conference is an important event for higher education institutions, stakeholders and governments from over 110 countries.The Gilman Education New Zealand partnership is an affirmation of the strong cooperation between our two nations, said acting US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Mark Taplin.Through this partnership, American students who otherwise would likely not study or intern abroad will now have a deeper understanding of the global economy and global challenges that we face together. People to people interactions between Americans and New Zealanders promote cooperation with one of our closest allies, he added.The Gilman scholarship has enabled over 24,000 economically disadvantaged American students to study or intern abroad, benefitting Americans from diverse backgrounds and institutions. Of the nearly 3,000 American undergraduate students supported in this exchange program each year, almost half are the first in their families to attend college.
Dear All,



I am trying to initiate process for applying for PR in Australia. I have done some homework on my own and know a few things, but still I have a few queries, so bear with me.



Points breakdown:

Age: 30

Qualification: 15

Language (IELTS=8 overall, Writing 7.5): 10

OVERALL POINTS: 55



As per my background, I have a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering (2013) and Masters in Industrial Engineering(2016). I will be getting married next month (JULY) and my wife is a social scientist. I do not have any strong relevant experience in my field except a few internships. Now I will list down my questions:



1) Skillselect result of 10th May, 2017 showed that 70 points were required for electronics engineer. Does this point requirement stay the same throughout the year or will it reset to 60 points after 1st July, 2017?



2) I am preparing my CDR, so can I portray myself as an Electrical Engineer rather than Electronic, as Electrical Engineering is not in pro rata poll and is set for 60 points fixed requirement. In other words, can EA asses my degree as Electrical Engineer? For my Career Episodes, I am including:

i) My Final year project of Bachelors degree

ii) My Masters Thesis

iii) A project I did during my internship



3) Can I get an additional 5 points for my wife's occupation as a social scientist. She has studied a number of courses and have some experience in social work (which is present in the required skills list). If yes, then does she have to get her degree assessment too? (I would be grateful if details are provided for this question)



4) At the moment, my overall IELTS band is 8, but 7.5 in writing. In order to gain extra 10 points, increasing my overall points to 65, should I give the PTE-A test rather than reappearing for IELTS? I have heard PTE-A test is easier.



5) Can I apply for visa subclass 190 for 5 additional points? If yes, then what is the procedure?



6) What are my chances to get the PR (according to your knowledge and assessment)



I would be grateful for your response. I am unable to gain any information on the posted queries and hoping for a full response here.



BR,



Jasim
0:03 0:15 Sponsor Message Millions of little girls and young women have been subjected to a painful rite of passage that involves cutting their genitals  often without anesthesia  for centuries in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Detroit Free Press

(Photo: Jerry Lemenu, Special to the Free Press)

A federal prosecutor dropped a bombshell in court Wednesday, telling a federal judge that the government estimates that as many as 100 girls may have had their genitals cut at the hands of a local doctor and her cohorts.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward disclosed the information while trying to convince a judge to keep a doctor and his wife locked up in the historic case . It involves allegations that two Minnesota girls had their genitals cut at a Livonia clinic in February as part of a religious rite of passage and were told to keep what happened a secret.

"Due to the secretive nature of this procedure, we are unlikely to ever know how many children were cut by Dr. (Jumana) Nagarwala," Woodward said, referring to the lead defendant in the case, later adding, "The Minnesota victims were not the first victims."





Against Woodward's wishes, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman granted bond to two other defendants in the case: Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, 53, of Farmington Hills, who is accused of letting Nagarwala use his clinic to perform genital cutting procedures on minor girls; and his wife, Farida Attar, 50, who is accused of holding the girls' hands during the procedure to keep them from squirming and to calm them.

The government believes the three defendants, all members of a local Indian-Muslim sect, subjected numerous girls to genital cutting procedures over a 12-year period. To date, the government says it has identified eight victims -- including the two Minnesota girls -- though Woodward said the government estimates there could be as many as 100 victims. She said that's a conservative estimate, and that it's based on Dr. Attar's alleged admission to authorities that he let Nagarwala use his clinic up to six times a year to treat children for genital rashes.

Attar's lawyer, Mary Chartier, scoffed at the claim.

"I think the government has overstated so many aspects of this case and this is one more example of overreaching," Chartier said after the hearing, during which she and another lawyer convinced the judge to set the Attars free.

The defense has argued that the Attars did not engage in any criminal act and that the procedure at issue is a protected religious rite-of-passage that involves no cutting, but rather a scraping of genital membrane. They also argued the Attars are not a danger to the society and have no reason or desire to flee, convincing U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman to release them on bond.

Friedman, who stressed that he believes the case involves "serious" charges, issued the following conditions in granting bond to the defendants:

They have to surrender their passports.

They will be on house arrest, on GPS tethers, and are not allowed to communicate with anyone except family members or their lawyers.

They will only be allowed to leave the home to visit their lawyers or for doctor's visits -- both of which have to be approved first.

"I think he is thrilled," Chartier said of her client, Dr. Attar. "He is anxious to fight this case and clear his name."

The Attars will likely not be released from jail until Thursday, when their lawyers surrender their passports to authorities. At issue for the Attars is their parenting rights. Currently, they are not allowed to live with their minor daughter as the state is trying to terminate their parenting rights.

Join for as low as $0.56/wk Learn More

Chartier said a hearing is scheduled on the parenting-right issue for next week, and she is hoping that the Attars will be allowed to live with their daughter again.

The Attars have been jailed for more than a month since getting charged in April in an explosive case that has captured international attention and planted a bull's-eye on a small Muslim sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra.

The Attars are Bohras, along with the lead defendant in the case, Dr. Nagarwala, 44, of Northville, who is accused of performing the cutting procedures on the two Minnesota girls.

Nagarwala, meanwhile, remains locked up pending the outcome of her trial. Her attorney, Shannon Smith, was in court Wednesday. She declined comment on allegations that her client subjected up to 100 girls to genital cutting, but noted that she, too, will seek to have her client released on bond.

If convicted, Nagarwala and Dr. Attar face up to life in prison; Attar's wife faces up to 20 years. The two physicians face the most serious charge in the case, transportation of an individual with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, which carries a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison.

A trial is set for October 10.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, often called the militarys eye in the sky, has quietly opened a new outpost in San Antonio and has been scouting out other locations to help recruit talent and better work with the private sector.

Go where the talent exists. Go where the innovation is happening. Dont wait for them to come to you, NGA Director Robert Cardillo told the Express-News Monday afternoon, after speaking that morning at the GEOINT Symposium at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. The agencys first outpost was set up last year in San Francisco.

The NGA  the multibillion dollar spy agency youve never heard of  may not make front-page news like the National Security Agency. But it is the biggest provider of geospatial intelligence, also called GEOINT, to the Defense Department and the intelligence community. It uses drone data, satellite imagery and geospatial information to find, describe and analyze locations, people, buildings and activities around the globe. Its mission spans everything from monitoring the nations biggest threats, like North Korea, to disaster relief.

Think the guys in the black vans spying on Will Smith in the 1998 conspiracy thriller Enemy of the State. (But even that portrayed a fictional NSA, not NGA.)

The little-known agency was instrumental in bringing down Bin Laden, pinpointing his compound, determining the number of people living there and creating a 3-D replica of the building used by Special Forces to plan their attack. The agency generally operates in the background of its more well-known peers: the CIA, NSA and FBI. But its profile is on the rise and its branching out beyond its headquarters about 23 miles outside of Washington, D.C. and its other facility in St. Louis.

San Antonio was an attractive choice for its newest outpost, in part, because of its military ties, said Ben Tuttle, who runs the new offices. He spun out NGAs first outpost in San Francisco, and was later put in charge of all of the agencys outposts as it branched out.

Theres a strong community here with the military background, right, it lends a nice bit to people wanting to work with us and understanding that theres some government folks in the neighborhood that are worth us being able to take advantage of talking to from time-to-time, Tuttle said of San Antonio.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, who also spoke at the conference Monday, said the citys ties to the intelligence community are deep and long-standing. Tuttle and other agency officials, including Cardillo, attended the symposium this week.

The San Antonio outpost is currently a staff of one that was set up in December, but the agency is working to build out the team, Tuttle said Tuesday in a phone interview. The local NGA official spends most of her time working out of a co-working space, he said, but also checks in on occasion to other government facilities in Texas.

We want to be part of the community, not a leech or a sideshow, Tuttle said.

Typical of a spy agency, the NGA didnt announce its new office here. Tuttle said its trying to avoid appearing to come in with a lot of bravado to the community and talk about how great we are.

The goal, Tuttle said, is to: get into communities and start to become partners, and then announce ourselves more fully once we actually have some local credibility.

The first outpost for the agency was established last year in San Francisco and now has a staff of five, which will eventually become six, Tuttle said.

We are trying to take slow, deliberate steps to make sure that we get this right and to make sure the communities see us as someone they want to welcome, not just somebody whos in there for their own ego, he said.

The agency got such a good return on a pretty small investment, with its outpost in San Francisco, said Cardillo. He noted that the staff is just a handful of people.

But not all private companies want to work with the agency and some take more convincing than others.

Obviously there are people out there that are turned off by this, and dont want anything to do with it, but theres also people that just dont understand, Tuttle said. Thats why the outposts are important at educating the broader tech community about the agencys goals, he said.

One of its contractors originally said it wouldnt work with the military or intelligence community when Tuttle first met with them three years ago, he said.

But after hanging out with them for awhile, they started to learn more about the wide range of missions that we do cover in disaster response, in humanitarian assistance and all of these things, he said. And once they started to learn there was more to it they actually got really excited and now theyve decided to work with us.

There are companies that might not return calls or steer clear, Cardillo said.

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.

Its not easy, we dont get flower petals showered on us every time we stop in, Cardillo said. Because lets face it, the country has been going through a rather broad debate about the balance between liberty and privacy, right? Or security and privacy.

Tuttle said San Antonio is a great fit because it has a strong military community and work being done in cybersecurity, analytics and drones.

Theres quite a few things going on, part of it is just sort of the co-working community around here, its just a very vibrant hub, he said, adding that, our ability to sit with folks in the Geekdom space, the CyberTexas Foundation and Bunker Labs are all sort of interesting.

While Austin is considered the main tech hub in Texas and is of interest to the NGA, Tuttle said San Antonio was a better fit.

San Antonio made more sense as our starting point because of the large military community and growing presence in cyber security, Tuttle said. The 24th Air Force Cyber Command facility is located at Joint Base San Antonio - Lackland. Its the Air Forces main operation center supporting U.S. Cyber Command and has fueled the growth of a burgeoning private cybersecurity sector here.

The NGA is also looking at Boston and New York for possible NGA outposts, Tuttle said. For now, San Antonio may play a role in a public-private partnership effort Cardillo announced Monday.

The agency wants to create a data brokerage, a private-public partnership where NGA would share data with companies, think tanks or academia in the hopes of developing technology that would advance innovation at the agency, Cardillo said in his keynote address.

Its a bold idea with many challenges  from authorities to declassification to licensing  and it falls into the category of taking a risk, Cardillo said.

sehlinger@express-news.net

Twitter: @samehlinger
EDINBURG  A former priest accused of murdering a McAllen beauty queen in 1960 will stand trial in Hidalgo County, after all.

State District Judge Luis Singleterry denied a motion to transfer the blockbuster murder case out of the border county amid widespread media coverage.
Political scandals in Brazil, like much in the fast-growing, global food giant, are so bold and so far out bounds that calling them outrageous slanders their perpetrators.

JBS

Moreover, the scandals occur so frequently that it seems Brazil requires political chicanery and bribery to even function.

The latest evidence involves JBS SA, the Brazilian meatpacker that dominates global poultry and beef exports and is a huge player in the highly integrated U.S. poultry and beef markets.

Surprisingly though, JBSs global reach and financial power arent the main drivers behind its rapid rise; sharp knives are.

Politics

By its own admission, JBS has skinned nearly as many Brazilian politicians as it has American cattle.

In late April the companys key leaders, Chairman Joesley Batista and his CEO brother Wesley, struck a deal with government prosecutors over their decade-long scheme that paid more than $150 million in bribes to nearly 2,000 politicians, including  allegedly  Brazils current president, Michel Temer, and his two predecessors.

What the Batista boys got for all that fatty tallow was more than enough dough to buy their way into the most lucrative meat market in the world, the U.S.

The key ingredient was the cozy ties to politicians (that) gave the company cheap credit and friendly regulation, noted the May 27 Wall Street Journal.

Both led to the U.S. and trouble.

Deals

The credit came from BNDES, Brazils development bank.

For a decade, BNDES gave JBS billionsin subsidized loans (that) left JBS with a sprawling business empire.

Most of that new empire  JBS grew from $1.8 billion in revenue in 2007 to $49 billion in 2016  was located in the U.S.

With almost unlimited access to subsidized loans, JBS bought Swift Foods, the third-largest U.S. beef packer, in 2007; then Smithfield Beef Group, the fifth-largest U.S. beef packer in 2008; and, a year later, Pilgrims Pride, Americas second biggest poultry processor.

According to the brothers plea deal, the cheap government money was available because they agreed to send a share of it to offshore bank accounts tied to Brazilian politicians.

Those implicated deny any role but the Batistas say they have recordings to prove many of their claims.

Bribes

That scheme came on the heels of another red meat-hard cash scandal in March when several Brazilian meatpackers, including JBS, topped the news for allegedly doling out bribes to inspectors to certify meat that was either rotten or tainted with salmonella as fit for sale.

The meat was later sold both in Brazil and abroad.

JBS denied any involvement but key beef importing nations like Japan, Mexico, the European Union, and China suspended Brazilian meat purchases until all gained assurances on quality and safety.

COOL

And yet theres another, ongoing scandal; this one as homegrown as it is stupid.

With no country of origin labeling, or COOL, for most of the beef and pork sold in the U.S., no American eater knows if the beef they had for dinner or the bacon they had for breakfast came from South Dakota or southern Brazil, Oklahoma or Sonora.

The reason we have no COOL here, claims Big Meat, involves complicated World Trade Organization (WTO) rules meant to facilitate global trade, not market knowledge or personal choice.

True enough, but influential U.S. commodity groups like the National Cattlemens Beef Association use their money and political clout to keep the rules  and deep financial ties to global meatpackers like JBS  in place and consumers in the dark.

Of course, American eaters could join other, less-flush, less influential American farm and food groups to challenge President Donald America First Trump to change the ignorance-peddling WTO labeling rules to empower buyers, not sellers.

Corruption

Short of that challenge, though, dont expect any change in COOL because Capitol Hill, like the scandal-ridden Brazilian government, now runs more on money than integrity.

The only difference is that in Brazil the bribery is usually under the table; here its usually on the table. We just call it campaign contributions.

By either name, its still corruption and livestock growers and the meat-buying public here and there are the losers.
Britains market regulator charged a former UBS Group AG compliance officer with five counts of insider trading.

Fabiana Abdel-Malek, 34, allegedly passed tips to a London man between June 2013 and June 2014 who traded on the information, Bloomberg reported.

Walid Choucair, 38, was also charged with five counts of insider dealing.

The Financial Conduct Authority filed the charges.

Abdel-Malek worked as a compliance officer at UBS since 2007, Bloomberg said, and has a law degree.

The defendants are scheduled to appear in Magistrates Court in London next week.

They face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

_____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
Responding to persistent corruption in countries around the world takes more than a commitment to a Convention and adoption of sweeping legislation to achieve meaningful progress. A broad view, an innovative approach and a willingness to look across a wide spectrum of solutions are all critical.

When we hear of corruption, we think a criminal offense. And indeed there is no stronger deterrent than fear of losing ones freedom and spending quality time behind bars. But criminal justice is hard. The stakes are high and the commensurate legal protections provided criminal defendants are justifiably strong. And then you have the crime itself. It is  by its very nature  extraordinarily hard to prove and at times even to detect.

As a result, using the sledge hammer of criminal justice as the primary tool to combat corruption leads too often to frustration and very unsatisfying resolutions. The culpable do not get their just desserts. Worse yet, prevention, always based on deterrence and a well-founded fear of punishment, may be undermined. If history shows that you are likely going to get away with it, then carry on.

We dont have to look far for some compelling examples. Recently, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, on the grounds that, although the Governor received loans and lavish gifts from a local businessman, the quid pro quo he received did not, in the view of the Court, involve official acts, that is there was no promise to help secure a favorable decision from the government. As a result, the conviction was overturned.

Another example emanates from a World Bank investigation into allegations that SNC-Lavalin was negotiating to pay bribes to officials in Bangladesh for a $50 million contract in connection with the construction of the Padma Bridge. Based in part on information supplied by the World Bank, Canadian authorities got judicial authorization for a wiretap and search warrants. The investigation culminated in charging several senior SNC Lavalin employees with criminal violations.

At a preliminary hearing the prosecution presented evidence of the corrupt acts by those charged. The transcript of that hearing, now publicly available, confirms that substantial evidence of the corrupt scheme had been collected by Canadian authorities. But the criminal case hit procedural challenges.

First, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the applicability of the World Banks privileges and immunities and reversed the trial courts order that the Bank open up its internal files for review. Then the trial court concluded that an earlier court decision to permit the wiretaps had been improperly granted on procedural grounds. That resulted in the exclusion of the critical evidence of corruption that had been described at the Preliminary Hearing;including the notes of the meetings with government officials. Facing a substantially weakened case without this evidence, the prosecutors dropped their criminal charges. Although the technical challenges of a criminal prosecution proved to be too high, the bountiful evidence of corruption remains.

While we must ensure criminal defendants rights are protected and they get the process they are due, we must also make sure that when evidence points to corruption there are appropriate consequences, be they criminal or administrative. In the case of SNC-Lavalin, the administrative process of the World Bank did ultimately succeed in adjudicating the misconduct. Long before the wiretap evidence was thrown out, SNC-Lavalin voluntarily agreed to a ten-year debarment for the company for corruption.

These cases demonstrate that reliance on criminal prosecutions is simply not enough. While it may be the sharpest of arrows in the quiver, it is too likely miss the mark or simply fall short. Thus, it is critical that we look to alternative outcomes and innovative mechanisms to keep raising the cost of corruption. A range of administrative penalties can often be imposed with greater efficiency and face fewer obstacles while still creating huge disincentives for corruption.

The World Banks sanctions system is but one example. The World Bank has created the first global administrative mechanism, designed to investigate and adjudicate violations of the Banks own anti-corruption policies in order to help mitigate integrity risks, while still helping our member countries fight poverty.

The most severe sanction that can be imposed is debarment but resolutions can also include conditional non-debarment whereby a party can remain eligible to receive Bank-financed contracts  but only if they fully meet certain conditions. In our experience, conditional non-debarment is extremely useful for making Bank sanctions proportionate to both a firms misconduct, while also addressing risks still facing the Bank. But it is reserved for select cases; that is where a company chooses to voluntarily reform and proactively disclose misconduct that would otherwise go undiscovered.

To tackle corruption effectively, we must expand our toolkit of alternative remedies that can work in parallel or as alternatives to the traditional criminal justice system. Fortunately, there are a growing number of examples of the use of administrative systems, in addition to the World Bank.

For example, this year Mexicos new law on Administrative Accountability will go into effect. It requires public servants to make public declarations of assets; creates a hiring protocol and an integrity policy that imposes administrative sanctions for administrative violations that include bribery, influence peddling, use of false information, obstruction and collusion.

Criminal convictions for corruption are notorious and usually much more well publicized than administrative remedies that remain the poor step-sister, often known only to the parties and the administrative agency that has gone to the trouble of imposing the penalty.

But were these administrative penalties more widely known they can create just as much of a ripple in the pond as a criminal conviction. Procurement officers would certainly be interested in learning of penalties imposed by colleagues around the world for integrity shortcomings on a firm being considered for a public contract.

To this end, the Bank is creating a Global Information Sharing Mechanism on Administrative Remedies against Corruption (ARC). We are collecting and organizing a range of data relating to nationally imposed administrative penalties for corruption. Our intention is to make this database a global good, available to any that are interested. A team of data scientists is now developing a methodology and algorithm for collecting and aggregating the data from around the world, and a prototype will be ready for testing later this year.

To take the fight against corruption forward in an era where technology has given us the tools for radical transparency, we must look outside the box and continue to add new arrows to our quiver. Broadening the use and impact of administrative remedies is just one idea among many, but shows great promise in promoting proper incentives and raising the bar of integrity.

_____

Stephen Zimmermann is the Director of Operations at the World Bank Integrity Vice Presidency.
Yoga is an ancient form of exercise that has contributed in the holistic living of individuals in the most natural and trusted way since years. Yoga is like a spiritual route to a relaxed mind and healthy body. Practicing yoga for the very first time can seem quite intimidating however. Take a cue from these common rookie mistakes and how to avoid them

Be aware of medical conditions

Be mindful of any medical conditions that you have. If you suffer from high blood pressure, for example, you should be careful about the form of yoga that you choose.
Mafatlal Industries, which has been a leader in textiles for over 100 years in the Indian market, is aiming to regain its past glory by foraying into apparel business. A part of Rs 1,300 crore Arvind-Mafatlal Group, Mafatlal Industries has textile manufacturing units in Nadiad (set up in 1913) and Navsari (establised 1931), both in Gujarat.

We want to make a strong foray into the apparel business and for this we have identified three-four anchor categories, Aniruddha Deshmukh, MD and CEO of Mafatlal Industries, told media persons in Chandigarh.

Mafatlal countrywide is known for its whites and we want to bring it in readymade, Deshmukh said. Another anchor category would be denims, as Mafatlal has been manufacturing denim fabric for nearly 20 years now. T-shirts would also be a focus of Mafatlals readymade clothing, according to Deshmukh.

Mafatlal Industries, which has been a leader in textiles for over 100 years in the Indian market, is aiming to regain its past glory by foraying into apparel business. A part of Rs 1,300 crore Arvind-Mafatlal Group, Mafatlal Industries has textile manufacturing units in Nadiad (set up in 1913) and Navsari (establised 1931), both in Gujarat.#

Explaining the strength of the company, he said, Our main strength is fabrics. We are one of the large manufacturers of denim in the country, and we also supply to domestic brands and international brands.

The other large business we have is textiles, where we do basically shirting fabrics, whites and prints ... we are also doing school uniforms and the size of this business is about Rs 300 crore.

Elaborating further on the decision to foray into garments, he said, As a fabric company, at some point of time it will need to make an entry into the readymade segment. It is sort of a re-launch for us because the brand has been around for some time, but somehow never got the traction or momentum Our intention is that we convert our expertise and skill in fabrics into readymade.

Mafatlal has good retail presence in the western India. But we are now going to expand into regions including north, where we see a good scope, said Deshmukh. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Sweden based Lindex has launched 'WE Women' to take action for gender equality in supply chain and create more equal and inclusive workplaces. The project is part of Lindex ambition to improve the lives of women in the fashion companys global supply chain. It is a three-year project that will start with 33 Lindex suppliers in Bangladesh.

WE Women by Lindex' is a partnership between Lindex and GIZ, and in cooperation with BSR and other local non-governmental organisations. The project also includes 10 non-Lindex suppliers in order to promote the concept to the industry in Bangladesh. The suppliers included in the project employ around 82 000 workers, of which more than 50 per cent are women. The ambition is to scale the project to cover the entire Lindex supply chain in the future.

"It is the women that keep our business moving at Lindex. The majority of the textile workers who make our clothes are women and we are committed to improving their lives. For many years we have worked to drive change in our supply chain through worker engagement and training. Now we will add a top-to-bottom approach, where we work to change the leadership and management style in factories to become more inclusive for women and aware of gender equality issues," said Anna-Karin Dahlberg, production sustainability manager at Lindex.

With WE Women by Lindex, the company will work to integrate gender equality into supplier management systems. Suppliers will receive training and support needed to plan, execute, monitor and evaluate business operations from a gender equality perspective. The performance on gender equality will be included in Lindex assessment of the suppliers. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Picking up the baton from March's Spring Edition, the 2017 Autumn Edition of Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics, the most influential industry trade event of the year, is on track to exceed last years sourcing options, with around 80 per cent of the available exhibition space already booked. The event will take place in China from October 11-13.

This year the hall layout will make it easier to navigate around the fairground. All international exhibitors will be located on level 2 including in the International Halls (5.2 & 6.2), Beyond Denim (hall 7.2) and Accessories Vision (hall 4.2)  the latter two shared with domestic exhibitors. The International Halls will host overseas exhibitors covering a diverse selection of quality products from around the globe, and include various pavilions and product zones to streamline buyers sourcing experiences.

International highlights of the fair include SalonEurope featuring Italys Milano Unica Pavilion, France Pavilion, Germany Pavilion and numerous exhibitors from Belgium, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and elsewhere, which will gather an impressive range of premium European-made fabrics and accessories. Asian Pavilions from Hong Kong, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand will expand the sourcing options on offer.

Picking up the baton from March's Spring Edition, the 2017 Autumn Edition of Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics, the most influential industry trade event of the year, is on track to exceed last year's sourcing options, with around 80 per cent of the available exhibition space already booked. The event will take place in China from October 11-13.#

Industry leaders and organisations including DuPont, Hyosung, Invista, Korea Textile Trade Association (KTTA), Lenzing and Oeko-Tex will organise Group Pavilions to feature their worldwide partner mills and members. There will also be six product zones to accommodate current market demands. All About Sustainability, Functional Lab, Premium Wool Zone and Verve for Design in hall 6.2, Accessories Vision (hall 4.2) and Beyond Denim (hall 7.2) will gather the foremost suppliers from those product sectors.

Meanwhile, apart from denim, accessories and one of the two ladieswear fabrics halls on level 2, all domestic exhibitors can be found on level 1, and will be categorised by product end-use such as casual wear, functional and sportswear, ladieswear, lingerie and swimwear, shirting as well as suiting.

"The whole industry knows Intertextile as a fair where you can find everything youre looking for given its size and product range, but look a little closer and its clear that the fair has become much more than that in recent years. It is also a hub for the latest fashion, particularly the trendy options available in the Japan Pavilion, the cutting-edge patterns in Verve for Design, as well as the new Chinese talents beginning to emerge, to name just a few. Being in the heart of Asia, the fair is also a focal point for fabric innovations, best evidenced in the Korea & Taiwan Pavilions, Functional Lab and Group Pavilions, as well as increasingly from Chinese exhibitors also," said Wendy Wen, senior general manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd, the organiser of the fair.

Intertextile's well-attended fringe programme is the ideal way to ensure exhibitors can stand out from their competitors, both before and during the fair. This comprehensive programme includes Intertextile Directions Trend Forum envisioned by top trend forecasters from France, Italy, Japan and the US, this popular forum will reveal the Autumn/Winter 2018-19 international trends through exhibitors products

Fabrics China Trend Forums will focus on the China market. Various forums will explain the upcoming trends in different consumer markets. Seminars & panel discussions will also be held by worldwide industry associations, leading experts from different fields and trendsetters, including many exhibitors themselves, to share and discuss the latest trends as well as the hottest industry topics.

The event will be a valuable platform for exhibitors to present their latest products and innovations. Innotex-Space, which is a display zone, will be set up for innovative textile applications and technologies. China International Fabrics Design & Fabrics Creation Competition, one of the most authoritative competitions in the Chinese textile market, will be held to recognise the design talents and innovators in the local market. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama urged leaders from the Pacific region to unite to present a strong case at COP23, the UN Conference on Climate Change, in Germany in November.

The Prime Minister held talks this morning with Pacific Leaders at the margins of the UN Oceans Conference currently underway at the UN in New York, where he updated them on Fiji's preparations for the COP 23 negotiations. He also encouraged the leaders to use COP23 as an opportunity to advance awareness on the impacts of climate change in the region.As incoming president of COP23, I want you by my side all year at the big events leading up to Bonn in November. This is not just about Frank or about Fiji but every Pacific leader, every Pacific nation, every civil society group, every private sector body, everyone who represents the ordinary men, women and children in the Pacific who look to us for leadership on this issue of critical importance to our collective future."In his remarks, the Prime Minister stressed the importance of the collective voice and commitment from the Pacific to make COP23 a success."I very much see this as a Pacific presidency  an inclusive process in which I ask you all to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Fiji as we give voice to the concerns of our own countries, our own region. And because we are among the most vulnerable to climate change, to also lead the fight on behalf of every vulnerable person on earth.""The Pacific cannot afford to drop the ball on climate action. We need to work together as a team to persuade the world to get points on the board if we are to ensure our own security and the security of generations of Pacific Islanders to come."At the meeting, Pacific leaders also congratulated the Prime Minister for strong his leadership on the issue of climate change and for advancing the interests and struggles of the Pacific on the global stage.-ENDS-
HON PM VOREQE BAINIMARAMA REMARKS AT SPREP SIDE EVENT: THE PACIFIC VOYAGE  OUR OCEAN, OUR PEOPLE, OUR PACIFIC





Your Excellencies, my fellow Pacific leaders,

Your Excellency, my Ocean Conference Co-chair, the Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden,Your Excellency, the UN Assistant Secretary-General and Director of UN Environment,The Director General of SPREP,Distinguished delegates,Ladies and Gentlemen,There is a very clear message coming through at this conference and that is the critical importance of integrated ocean management, not only in the Pacific but for all the seas and oceans of the world.The challenges we face to ocean quality are so comprehensive that only solutions that are practical and holistic should be considered. And it has become abundantly clear this week that we must redouble our efforts, especially in the Pacific, because of the urgency of the situation we find ourselves in.We have all spoken at length about the challenges we face  the crisis that the whole world is facing because of the continual degradation of our oceans and seas. But the challenge we face in the Pacific is even more daunting because, as coastal communities, we rely so much on our seas for sustenance  our food security  as well as a means to make a living. The economic foundation of so many ordinary men and women and their families.Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, as we have said repeatedly, the threat to the quality of our oceans and seas is a global one. No nation with a coastal boundary is immune. We look to the global community as a whole to deal with this crisis in a practical and holistic way. And what we have achieved in New York this week has been to galvanise the global community into a renewed determination to tackle this crisis head on.But while we in the Pacific await this global response, we must do what we can ourselves. And the point that I want to make today is that we must make a much greater effort to work together among ourselves to confront the challenge we collectively face.We have done a great deal together through organisations like SPREP to ensure that our own management of our seas and oceans is integrated. But I think a lot more can be done. And I am very pleased that we have so many Pacific leaders at this session because much of this is a question of political will. At every stage we must use our influence as leaders - our mana - to push this agenda forward. And to marshal our people to do what they can to improve the management of our oceans.Youll have heard me make the point several times this week that governments alone cant solve this crisis. Governments working with civil society cant solve this crisis. We need ordinary men, women and children to make a personal commitment to join the fight to save our seas and oceans. And that means changing some of the things we do in the Pacific and adopting a more enlightened approach to ocean management.There is no point is continually saying that something must be done if we expect others to do it for us. We must all take responsibility for it ourselves. Yes, there are some things that are beyond our ability to influence, like the greedy nations and greedy commercial interests that are stripping our ocean of the bounty that is rightfully ours. Invading our economic zones in the knowledge that we lack the means to adequately defend them.I said this week how much Fiji appreciates the assistance we are getting from the navies of New Zealand, Australia, the United States and France to defend our own economic zone. Their occasional deployments are an effective deterrent. When they take place. The rest of the time, we are largely at the mercy of these invaders. And I would encourage all these friendly nations who understand the importance of this to consider doing a lot more to enable us to be better protected.We can also do little about the rubbish  the plastic bags, plastic bottles and refuse of all kinds  that is drifting down to our waters and shores from the nations of the Pacific Rim. Any one of you in this room can attest to the appalling deterioration of the state of our waters and seas from this foreign rubbish. This foreign invasion.I spoke at the start of the week about my own experience as a Fijian Navy man and the pain I feel about the steady deterioration of our own waters during my lifetime. I honestly fear that unless the whole world comes to terms with this crisis  and especially certain countries with a propensity to generate more rubbish than others  my own grandchildren may not have the pleasure of experiencing healthy seas at all.We all know from bitter experience as Pacific Islanders that this is a crisis because we can see the evidence with our own eyes. So the kind of collective global response that we have seen in New York this week is critical.But I also want to address some very pointed remarks to our own people  Fijians and other Pacific islanders. Because you simply cant blame outsiders unless you are doing the right thing yourselves. And in so many instances, we are not.It is for other leaders to address this issue in relation to their own countries and the behaviour of their own people. But Im not at all happy with the way so many Fijians are treating our own environment with contempt. Im sorry, but there is no other word for it.We can blame the bigger countries around the Pacific Rim as much as we like  and God knows they need to clean up their act. But we also need to clean up ours. In far too many parts of Fiji, the Fijian people are rubbishing their country in a way that they would never rubbish their own homes. Too many people think nothing of throwing their food wrappings out of the car or bus window. Too many people think nothing of dumping their own rubbish  whether it is an old mattress or a broken piece of furniture  by the side of the road.So we have a situation in Fiji where large parts of the country are strewn with litter. Just take the Queens Road from Suva to Nadi and look at all the litter than has been left behind at Deuba or all along the Coral Coast.We go the world advertising our pristine image and yet this is how we treat our precious surroundings. Well guess what? So much of this litter, this rubbish, ends up in the sea. It is swept down storm water drains and creeks into our rivers and then makes its way into open waters.We have some of the best beaches in the world in Fiji. Yet because of our carelessness, our thoughtlessness, they are often strewn with plastic bags and bottles. Fortunately, we have responsible citizens who take it upon themselves to occasionally clean it up. But the point I want to make is that we all have a responsibility to preserve our surroundings. And I want more people to take that responsibility in the interests of protecting our environment on land and at sea.Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, others can speak about the technical challenges we face. But we cannot talk about integrated ocean management without highlighting the responsibility of every Pacific Islander to assist us in this process.Fortunately, there are also lots of success stories, of communities that have banded together to protect their surroundings. I am greatly encouraged by the number of island communities in Fiji that have coral regeneration programs. We must assist their environmental activism at a local level by working as leaders with the rest of the world on the big picture. Because the threat that climate change poses to our reefs and the health of our communities can no longer be ignored.Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your attention and I look forward to hearing the contributions of other participants.Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you.
Megastar Amitabh Bachchan and veteran actor Rishi Kapoor-starrer 102 Not Out, directed by Umesh Shukla, will release on December 1 and will be clashing with Vidya Balan-starrer Tumhari Sulu.

The film features Amitabh as a 102-year-old and Rishi as his 75-year-old son. The makers aim to wrap up the shoot by July, read a statement.

102 Not Out is based on writer-director Saumya Joshi's successful Gujarati play by the same name. The film is a sweet story between a father and a son and the duo will also speak a few lines in Gujarati in the film!

Talking about the movie, director Umesh Shukla told a leading daily, "In the film, there is a man in China who is 118 years old, and Amitji's character wants to break his record as the oldest living man, and live to be 120 years of age."

Amitabh and Rishi, who will be seen sharing screen space after two decades, have previously worked in films like Amar Akbar Anthony, Naseeb and Kabhi Kabhie.
What Anushka Has Said..

According to a leading web portal, Anushka Shetty has told the media houses in Hyderabad that she is not dating Prabhas. She also warned her fans to stop spreading fake rumours.

Rumours Can Rest Now

So it is confirmed that Anushka Shetty is not dating Prabhas and their marriage rumours can rest now.

How These Stories Started

Actors are often linked together when they work in a film; the same happened with the two stars. And All thanks to Anushka Shetty and Prabhas' beautiful chemistry in Baahubali 2, many thought that the link-up rumours are true.

However, The Two Are Really Good Friends

It must be noted that Prabhas and Anushka Shetty have previously worked in Billa and Mirchi and are really good friends.

Anushka Shetty Shares A Great Rapport With Him

During the promotions of Baahubali 2, Anushka Shetty had said that she would love to work with Prabhas again.

On The Work Front

As per reports, Anushka Shetty and Prabhas will soon fly to China with the team of Baahubali 2 for the promotions.

Her Next Film

After Baahubali 2, Anushka Shetty is busy with her next film Bhagmati.

Here's What She Had Revealed About It

''I know a lot of people have been thinking that this is a period film on the historic Bhagmati of Hyderabad. But that's not true. It's a modern day thriller,'' she had told a daily.

Anushka In Saaho?

There are also reports that Anushka Shetty has been approached for Saaho opposite Prabhas.
BROOKFIELD, NEWS -- (Marketwired) -- 07/26/17 -- Brookfield Business Partners L.P. (NYSE: BBU)(TSX: BBU.UN) ("Brookfield Business Partners") together with its institutional partners (collectively "Brookfield"), announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire 60% of Teekay Offshore Partners L.P. (NYSE: TOO) ("Teekay Offshore"), a leading global provider of marine services and solutions focused on production and logistics to the offshore oil industry. Teekay Offshore is a publicly traded subsidiary of Teekay Corporation (NYSE: TK), one of the world's largest marine energy transportation, storage and production companies.

Brookfield's total investment is expected to be approximately $750 million. As part of the transaction, Teekay Corporation will be co-investing alongside Brookfield and will retain a 14% ownership of Teekay Offshore.

Brookfield will invest $610 million for newly-issued common units of Teekay Offshore and will acquire a $200 million loan to Teekay Offshore from Teekay Corporation at discount to par. Brookfield will also acquire 49% of Teekay Offshore GP L.L.C. (TOO GP), the general partner of Teekay Offshore, and Teekay Corporation will continue to hold 51% of TOO GP. As part of the transaction, Brookfield has the option to acquire an additional 2% of TOO GP subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions.

"Teekay Offshore has established itself as a global leader in the provision of marine services to the offshore oil production industry," said Cyrus Madon, CEO of Brookfield Business Partners. "Our investment represents an opportunity to acquire a high quality, highly contracted business with presence in attractive markets, and we look forward to supporting Teekay Offshore with its continued growth".

Upon closing of the transaction, Brookfield will appoint four of nine directors to the Board of TOO GP.

Business Overview

Teekay Offshore provides a wide range of marine services including transportation, oil production, storage, towing and offshore installation and maintenance and safety services to the oil industry, primarily focusing on the offshore oil regions of the North Sea, Brazil and the east coast of Canada.

Teekay Offshore has consolidated assets of $5.6 billion and its fleet of 62 offshore vessels provides critical services to its customers.

Business Highlights:

-- Annual Adjusted EBITDA(1) of approximately $590 million -- Average contract duration of 4 years with strong prospects for contract extensions -- Strong relationships with global exploration and production companies -- Control of approximately 40% of the world's shuttle tanker fleet, specialized vessels that transport crude oil and condensates from offshore production sites to onshore terminals and refineries -- The world's fourth largest portfolio of FPSO units (floating production, storage and offloading) which Teekay Offshore leases to global exploration and production companies in the North Sea and Brazil -- A diversified portfolio of high-quality FSO units (floating storage and offloading) and high-spec, long distance towage vessels

Teekay Offshore has a substantial portfolio of medium to long-term, fixed-rate contracts with high quality, primarily investment grade counterparties. The existing portfolio is comprised of several growth projects in late stages of completion which are expected to provide significant near and longer-term cash flow growth. As a fee-based business focused on critical transportation and production services, Teekay Offshore has limited direct commodity exposure.

Funding

Brookfield Business Partners will fund the investment from existing liquidity.

Prior to or following closing, a portion of Brookfield Business Partners' investment may be syndicated to other institutional investors.

Transaction Process

Closing of the transaction remains subject to customary conditions, including, among others, regulatory approvals. Closing of the transaction is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2017.

Brookfield Business Partners is a business services and industrial company focused on owning and operating high-quality businesses within Brookfield's private equity group that benefit from barriers to entry and/or low production costs. Brookfield Business Partners is listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges. Further information is available at http://bbu.brookfield.com. Important information may be disseminated exclusively via the website; investors should consult the site to access this information.

Brookfield Business Partners is the flagship listed business services and industrials company of Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $250 billion of assets under management. For more information, go to www.brookfield.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INFORMATION

Note: This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian provincial securities laws and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, "safe harbor" provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and in any applicable Canadian securities regulations. The words "will", "would", "future", "growth", "expect", "believe", "should", "may", derivatives thereof and other expressions which are predictions of or indicate future events, trends or prospects and which do not relate to historical matters will tend to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this news release include statements regarding an investment by Brookfield Business Partners in Teekay Offshore, the closing of this transaction and the expected future growth prospects of this business.

Although we believe that the forward-looking statements we make are based upon reasonable assumptions and expectations, the reader should not place undue reliance on them or any other forward-looking statements or information in this news release. The future performance and prospects of Brookfield Business Partners are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are beyond our control. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated or implied by forward-looking statements in this news release include, but are not limited to: the impact or unanticipated impact of general economic, political and market factors in the countries in which we do business; the behavior of financial markets, including fluctuations in interest and foreign exchange rates; global equity and capital markets and the availability of equity and debt financing and refinancing within these markets; strategic actions including dispositions; the ability to complete and effectively integrate acquisitions into existing operations and the ability to attain expected benefits and in particular completion of the acquisition referred to in this news release, which cannot be assured; changes in accounting policies and methods used to report financial condition (including uncertainties associated with critical accounting assumptions and estimates); the ability to appropriately manage human capital; the effect of applying future accounting changes; business competition; operational and reputational risks; technological change; changes in government regulation and legislation within the countries in which we operate; governmental investigations; litigation; changes in tax laws; ability to collect amounts owed; catastrophic events, such as earthquakes and hurricanes; the possible impact of international conflicts and other developments including terrorist acts and cyber terrorism; and other risks and factors detailed from time to time in our documents filed with the securities regulators in Canada and the United States.

We caution that the foregoing list of important factors that may affect future results is not exhaustive. When relying on our forward-looking statements, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and potential events. Except as required by law, Brookfield Business Partners undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether written or oral, that may be as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Notes: (1) 2016 Adjusted EBITDA per Teekay Offshore Partners L.P.'s 2016 form 20-F.

Contacts:

Media:

Claire Holland

(416) 369-8236

claire.holland@brookfield.com



Investors:

Courtney Jardine

(416) 369-2629

courtney.jardine@brookfield.com




LONDON, June 8,2017 /PRNewswire/ --Chubb Global Markets, theLondon-based wholesale insurance division of Chubb, today announced the promotion of Dominique Largeron to the role of Delegated Underwriting Authorities Manager, Chubb Global Markets. Dominique currently serves as Delegated Underwriting Authorities Assistant Manager.

Dominique will have responsibility for overseeing Chubb Global Markets' significant portfolio of third-party delegated underwriting arrangements internationally. She will further develop the strategy for this business, ensuring the continued delivery of well-managed, compliant and mutually beneficial arrangements that place brokers and their clients at the heart of the relationship. She will continue to report to Peter McAdams, Head of Delegated Underwriting Management, in her new role.

Dominique will continue to be based in London and the appointment is effective immediately.

Dominique brings to the role some 20 years of experience in the London insurance market, gained in both the Lloyd's and company markets. She began her career in insurance in 1996, as Insurance Technician at Whittington. In 2011, she took up her first delegated authority role at Hiscox and, since then, Dominique has held a variety of positions, principally in the areas of delegated authority and audit. She held senior audit roles at Munich Re, Sagicor (now Am Trust) and Reinsurance Group of America before returning to the area of delegated authorities in 2014 to work as Delegated Underwriting Authority Manager for Allied World. She joined Chubb Global Markets in June 2015 in her current role.

Matthew Shaw, Division President, Chubb Global Markets, said:

"This promotion underlines the importance of delegated authorities to our underwriting strategy and broker proposition at Chubb Global Markets. With her extensive market experience in both delegated authority management and audit, Dominique is perfectly placed to help us further strengthen and grow our portfolio and I wish her well in her new role."

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: chubb.com/uk

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To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chubb-global-markets-promotes-dominique-largeron-to-delegated-underwriting-authorities-manager-300470536.html
NEC Seiichiro Toda s-toda@cj.jp.nec.com +81-3-3798-6511

TOKYO, June 8, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - NEC Corporation (TSE: 6701) will outline keys to 5G network security at 5G World 2017 during the Network Security Focus Day on Tuesday, June 13 at the ExCel, London.Dr. Anand R. Prasad, Chief Advanced Technologist, Executive Specialist at NEC Corporation and Chairman of 3GPP SA3, is chairperson of the Network Security Focus Day, where he will speak about "Progress in standardization to enhance and support 5G security development" at 9:00 a.m. Dr. Prasad has been the chairman of 3GPP SA3 since 2013 and has played an important role as an expert on 5G security.The speech outlines the architecture and protocols for 5G network security, with a presentation covering the impact of 5G security on different parts of networks, services and businesses. Also, the speech will touch on the implications of 5G security on people and society. Dr. Prasad will also provide an update on 3GPP 5G security activities.Moreover, Dr. Prasad will moderate a panel on "Turning network security into business opportunities" on 13 June at 10:30 a.m.For more information about 5G World 2017, taking place from June 13 to 15, please see the following:https://tmt.knect365.com/5gworldevent/About NEC CorporationNEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company's experience and global resources, NEC's advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society. For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.Based on its Mid-term Management Plan 2015, the NEC Group globally provides "Solutions for Society" that promote the safety, security, efficiency and equality of society. Under the company's corporate message of "Orchestrating a brighter world," NEC aims to help solve a wide range of challenging issues and to create new social value for the changing world of tomorrow. For more information, please visit http://www.nec.com/en/global/about/solutionsforsociety/message.html.Source: NEC CorporationContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Quintiq, a Dassault Systemes brand and global leader in supply chain planning and optimization (SCP&O), has been selected by Dubai Airports to plan and schedule its fixed resources at Dubai International and Dubai World Central. The Quintiq solution will automate the planning process for airport stands, gates, baggage belts and check-in counters to increase overall efficiency, reliability and passenger satisfaction. The solution went live at Dubai International on April 18, with implementation at Dubai World Central to follow soon.

Dubai International is the world's busiest airport for international passengers. It serves 90 airlines flying to more than 240 destinations across six continents; in 2016, it served 83,654,250 passengers. Dubai World Central, slated to be the region's airport of the future, launched cargo operations in 2010 and passenger flights in 2013.

"We aim to deliver a world-class experience to the airlines that use our airports and the passengers that they carry," said Frank McCrorie, SVP Operations at Dubai Airports. "Quintiq will enable us to maximize utilization of our current fixed resources and prepare for future expansions."

Quintiq enables automated planning of all of Dubai International's fixed resources. From its 260 airport stands to 143 gates, 561 check-in counters to 28 baggage belts, airport planners will have full visibility of resource allocation. They adapt this allocation to fit specific airline preferences and further streamline passenger flow.

Improved passenger flow means that the two airports can now handle increasing traffic without sacrificing passenger experience. A positive experience ensures that passengers and airlines continue to choose the airports for their needs within the region, resulting in increased revenue for the company.

Quintiq was the clear choice, according to Abdul Razzak Mikati, Managing Director at Dubai Airports' implementation partner, DTP. He said: "The cost of investing in new infrastructure can be prohibitively high. The customer needed a future-ready, industry-proven solution to efficiently manage the capacity of its current airport resources. With Quintiq, the need for manual planning has been eliminated, resulting in enhanced flexibility and agility of operations."

Abdul Razzak added that the Quintiq solution is also able to handle calculations for 40 flights per second and take advantage of information from multiple sources to improve its automation process. These capabilities are crucial as Dubai International saw a 7.4% increase in traffic in the first quarter of this year, while passenger traffic went up 29.5% at Dubai World Central in the same period. These upward trends are expected to continue.

According to Maarten Hendriks, Business Unit Director of Transportation at Quintiq: "This planning puzzle gives us the opportunity to showcase Quintiq's capabilities in the aviation sector. With 1,100 flights each day, optimal efficiency is crucial in maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction. Quintiq's automated planning capabilities will drive the customer's commitment to guaranteeing a world-class passenger experience."

Rob van Egmond, Quintiq CEO, commented: "Dubai Airports' trust in us is a testament to Quintiq's excellent track record in aviation. We will support it in maintaining its industry-leading standards and we are confident that this partnership will be the first of many in this region."

About Dubai Airports

Dubai Airports delivers a world-class experience to its customers by providing safe, secure and environmentally responsible airports. Working in partnership with airlines and stakeholders to drive the growth of Dubai, its vision is to always go further and be the world's leading airport company.

Established as a commercial entity in April 2007, Dubai Airports owns and manages the operation of both of Dubai's airports Dubai International (DXB), the world's number one airport for international passengers and third for international freight, and Dubai World Central (DWC).

For more information, visit dubaiairports.ae.

About DTP

Established in 2004 in Dubai, DTP is a system integrator with a broad portfolio of solutions and services designed to support the aviation industry across the GCC region. We offer our clients cutting edge technology, including airport operation monitoring and forecasting solutions, cloud-based multi-airport management system, Airlines Hub Management, Special Airport Systems such as Airport Operational Database (AODB), Flight Information Display System (FIDS), Resource Management System (RMS), and Business Intelligence and Predictive Analysis solutions.

In addition, DTP has partnered with leading technology companies, such as Quintiq, SAP, IBM, and XOVIS to deliver outstanding services, as well as with major aviation solution providers.

For more information, visit: dtpaviation.ae.

About Quintiq

Every business has its supply chain planning puzzles. Some of those puzzles are large, some are complex and some seem impossible to solve. Since 1997, Quintiq has been solving each of those puzzles using a single supply chain planning and optimization software. Today, approximately 12,000 users in over 80 countries rely on Quintiq software to plan and optimize workforces, logistics and production. Quintiq is part of Dassault Systemes (Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) and has headquarters in the Netherlands and the USA, and offices around the world.

For more information, visit quintiq.com or follow Quintiq on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170607006093/en/

Contacts:

Quintiq

Sophie Waterfield, Weber Shandwick (EMEA)

Tel: +44 (0)207 067 0728

quintiq@webershandwick.com

or

Katie Kennedy, Gregory FCA (North America)

Tel: +1 610 228 2128

katiek@gregoryfca.com
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 2017-06-08 08:00 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Constellium N.V. (NYSE:CSTM) (Euronext Paris:CSTM) celebrates today the 50th anniversary of its world-class research and technology center, C-TEC, in Voreppe, France. C-TEC, Constellium's innovation engine, has greatly contributed to position Constellium as a global leader in aluminium transformation, by developing high value-added products and solutions for today and tomorrow.



During the last 50 years, C-TEC has been the birthplace of more than 600 patent families and trademarks, including breakthrough innovations, among which: the game-changer aluminium-lithium Airware technology for the aerospace market, a new generation of advanced alloys and solutions such as SecuralexHS for the automotive market, and Aeral, a new solution for the aerosol market. C-TEC also constantly monitors and evaluates the megatrends that are shaping the next generation of materials, such as the 'aluminization' of the automotive market or 3D printing, and the advent of Industry 4.0.



"Innovation is at the core of Constellium's strategy as it creates competitive advantages for both our business and our customers," said Jean-Marc Germain, CEO of Constellium. "For aluminium to remain the material of choice, constant innovation in close partnership with our customers is required. C-TEC is the driving force to deliver on this innovation."



C-TEC brings together more than 200 high-level specialists from over 20 nationalities, with industry-leading resources and facilities.



"Our C-TEC teams work closely with Constellium's International Scientific Council, gathering several of the world's top material scientists, and in partnership with over 40 renowned universities worldwide. Together, our skilled and experienced scientists focus on harnessing the benefits of aluminium and developing innovative solutions in the shortest possible time to market," indicated Peter Basten, Executive Vice-President Strategy, Business Development and R&D at Constellium.



The celebration of C-TEC's 50th anniversary is taking place in the R&T campus in Voreppe, France, in the presence of customers, scientific partners, as well as political and regional leadership. The campus will showcase some of Constellium's innovative technologies and products.



About Constellium



Constellium (NYSE:CSTM) (Euronext Paris:CSTM) is a global sector leader that develops innovative, value added aluminium products for a broad scope of markets and applications, including aerospace, automotive and packaging. Constellium generated 4.7 billion of revenue in 2016.



www.constellium.com



Christel des Royeries - Communications Phone: +33 1 73 01 46 73 christel.des-royeries@constellium.com Media relations Constellium Corporate Emilie Humann Phone: +33 (0)7 77 26 24 60 emilie.humann@clai2.com Delphine Dahan-Kocher - Communications Phone: +1 (212) 858 9963 delphine.dahan-kocher@constellium.com Hill+Knowlton Strategies (Media) Peter Poulos Phone: +1 (212) 885-0588 peter.poulos@hkstrategies.com

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Destatis is scheduled to release Germany's industrial output for April in the pre-European session on Thursday at 2:00 am ET. Economists expect production to rise 0.5 percent on month, reversing a 0.4 percent drop in March. Ahead of the data, the euro showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the euro rose against the pound, it fell against the yen. Against the U.S. dollar and the Swiss franc, it held steady. As of 1:55 am ET, the euro was trading at 0.8688 against the pound, 1.0859 against the Swiss franc, 1.1257 against the U.S. dollar and 123.27 against the yen. 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.
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd. ("Eco Atlantic" or "Company") (TSX VENTURE: EOG)(AIM: ECO) is pleased to announce that Eco Atlantic and its Operating Partner, Tullow Oil ("Tullow"), have approved a circa 2,550 km2 seismic survey on the Company's Orinduik Block offshore the Co-operative Republic of Guyana ("Orinduik"). The survey is anticipated to commence in the next two weeks. The survey will be completed by Schlumberger Guyana Inc. (Western Geco).

Eco Atlantic (Guyana) Inc, a subsidiary of Eco Atlantic, holds a 40% Working Interest in Orinduik, and Tullow, the Operator, holds the remaining 60%. The Orinduik Block is located up dip and just a few kilometers from Exxon's recent Liza and Payara discoveries confirming, by Exxon's estimates, in excess of 1.5 Billion Barrels of recoverable oil. The Company and Tullow have completed the first phase of exploration including evaluating all existing and regional 2D data. Following the results of this study and the ongoing regional success, both parties have agreed to accelerate and significantly increase the originally proposed 1,000km2 3D survey commitment on the block to circa 2,550 kms2, thus covering the entire block area, fully overlapping current prospective 2D leads and downdip trends. As part of its agreement with Tullow, Tullow will carry the Company's share of the originally proposed 1,000 km2 of the survey, at a cap of US$1.25mm, with the balance of the program being funded by both parties on a pro-rata basis. The additional cost of the enhanced seismic program to Eco is well covered by existing cash resources following the Company's over-subscribed Placing of GBP5.1M announced in February 2017 in conjunction with its dual listing on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Colin Kinley, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Eco Atlantic commented: "We are excited to embark on this very significant 3D survey which is substantially greater than the originally planned survey. In addition to de-risking the existing two defined targets, the survey will hopefully generate additional targets on the Orinduik Block, thereby increasing the prospective oil in place and adding leads for future work programs. We were keenly interested in this region of the Guyana-Suriname Basin even prior to Exxon's highly successful drilling program, applying for the Orinduik block in 2014 because of its highly prospective Cretaceous canyon and fan plays. We have since been excited to see Exxon continue to successfully prove out the region in its ongoing drilling program and look forward to results from our own 3D survey, which are expected to come in the next couple of months".

"The 2D interpretation has led to at least two significant reservoir leads on the Orinduik block that both we and Tullow believe may hold significant oil comparable to the world class regional discoveries identified by Exxon. Eco Atlantic expects to confirm a number of drilling targets with this increased 3D Survey, ahead of drilling of the first well in Orinduik, hopefully in 2018."

Grant of Options and RSUs

Additionally, the Company announces that, in compliance with its stock option plan (the "Plan"), it has granted a total of 250,000 stock options (the "Options") to Mr. Derek Linfield, a Non-Executive Director of the Company as part of his compensation package for his services to the Company. Terms of the Options include an exercise price of $0.36 per common share in the Company ("Common Share"), and a vesting schedule allowing for the vesting of the Options in three equal installments, with 1/3 vesting June 8, 2017; 1/3 vesting June 8, 2018 and 1/3 vesting June 8, 2019. The Options expire on 7 June 2022. Subsequent to this grant, the total number of stock options outstanding is 7,870,000.

The Company has also granted 3,500,000 Restricted Shares Units (the "RSUs") pursuant to the Company's Restricted Share Units Plan of which 3,350,000 RSUs were granted to Directors of the Company as compensation and success fees in relation with the AIM admission and Company's portfolio and operational developments. Tables showing further details in respect of the RSU grants are listed below.

The Company is also happy to advise that it has engaged Mr. Finlay Thomson of Oaks Energy Advisory Ltd., as the Company's representative in the United Kingdom. Mr. Thomson will be responsible for the Company's UK presence, liaising with the Company's NOMAD, UK Brokers, and other regulators in the United Kingdom and will work with management to develop and execute a program that will enhance the Company's business presence in the United Kingdom with an emphasis on increasing the Company's network of contacts within the United Kingdom investment community.

Furthermore, and in connection with the Company's previous disclosure regarding its financing and listing on the AIM (see the Company's press release dated February 8, 2017), the Company would like to advise that 62,500 common shares were issued to a financial adviser as compensation for placing services provided to the Company ("New Common Shares"). Application has been made to the London Stock Exchange for the admission of the New Common Shares to trading on AIM, which is expected to take place on 12 June 2017 ("Admission"). Following Admission, the Company will have 118,312,333 Common Shares with voting rights in issue.

Additionally, as a result of the last-minute increase to the proceeds of the UK placing associated with the Company's admission to AIM, and in accordance with the Company's contractual obligations to Strand Hanson Limited, an additional 17,813 warrants were issued to Strand Hanson Limited. These warrants are issued on the same terms as those set out in the Admission Document dated 2 February 2017.

For more information, please visit www.ecooilandgas.com or contact the following:

Eco Atlantic Oil and Gas +1 (416) 250 1955 Gil Holzman, CEO Colin Kinley, COO Alan Friedman, VP Finlay Thomson, UK and IR manager +44 (0) 7976 248471 Strand Hanson Limited (Financial & Nominated Adviser) +44 (0) 20 7409 3494 James Harris Rory Murphy James Bellman Brandon Hill Capital Limited (Joint Broker) +44 (0) 20 3463 5000 Alex Walker Jonathan Evans Robert Beenstock Peterhouse Corporate Finance (Joint Broker) +44 (0) 20 7469 0930 Eran Zucker Duncan Vasey Lucy Williams Yellow Jersey PR +44 (0) 7768 537 739 Felicity Winkles Harriet Jackson

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014.

Notes to editors

Eco Atlantic is a TSX-V and AIM listed Oil & Gas exploration and production Company with interests in Guyana and Namibia where significant oil discoveries have been made.

The Group aims to deliver material value for its stakeholders through oil exploration, appraisal and development activities in stable emerging markets, in partnership with major oil companies, including Tullow and AziNam.

In Guyana, Eco Guyana holds a 40% working interest alongside Tullow Oil (60%) in the 1,800 km2 Orinduik Block in the shallow water of the prospective Suriname Guyana basin. The Orinduik Block is adjacent and updip to the deep-water Liza Field, recently discovered by ExxonMobil and Hess, which is estimated to contain as much as 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, making it one of a handful of billion-barrel discoveries in the last half-decade.

In Namibia, the Company holds interests in four offshore petroleum licences totaling approximately 25,000 km2 with over 2.3 billion barrels of prospective P50 resources in the Wallis and Luderitz Basins. These four licences, Cooper, Guy, Sharon and Tamar are being developed alongside partners, which include Tullow Oil, AziNam and NAMCOR. Significant 3D and 2D surveys and interpretation have been completed with drilling preparations expected to begin in 2018.

Contacts:

Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd.

416 250 1955

416 361 6455 (FAX)

www.ecooilandgas.com




LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Aerospace & Defense company Ultra Electronics Holdings plc (ULE.L) Monday said its Maritime Systems business, based in Dartmouth, Canada, has received a contract from the Indian Ministry of Defense to supply for the Indian Navy Defense Systems. Under this contract, Maritime Systems, backed by Command and Sonar Systems in Greenford, United Kingdom, and Mahindra Defence Systems in Delhi, India, will deliver systems based upon Ultra's highly successful Sea Sentor product in current operation around the world including the UK Royal Navy. The contract will be executed over the next three years with a greater weighting to the second half of this period as production deliveries are made. 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.
Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has opened a Liquid Studio in Stockholm, Sweden to help Nordic clients speed innovation and software development cycles. At the Liquid Studio, clients can work side-by-side with highly skilled Accenture professionals to turn ideas into applications and solutions with speed and agility.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170613005210/en/

Clients experience mixed reality technology demo at the Accenture Liquid Studio in Stockholm. (Photo: Business Wire)

Aligned with the Swedish government's recently announced digitization strategy, which is focused on driving digital innovation in the local economy, the Accenture Liquid Studio in Stockholm helps clients experiment with disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and serverless architectures. At the Liquid Studio, clients can reduce development time from months to days by applying rapid development approaches including Agile methodologies and DevOps to quickly generate business impact.

"We are very pleased to contribute to Sweden's vibrant technology innovation ecosystem with the launch of the Accenture Liquid Studio in Stockholm," said Sven-Bertil Carlsson, Nordic Liquid Studio Lead, Accenture Technology. "Building, testing and delivering software with speed and agility is essential to compete in today's dynamic marketplace. By combining cutting-edge technologies with our digital expertise, we have created a start-up-like environment that equips our Nordic clients with new ways to creatively and quickly solve real-world problems using techniques such as rapid prototyping and design thinking."

In addition to serving clients, the Liquid Studio will be used by Accenture professionals to build knowledge in new technical areas, develop prototypes for Accenture industry groups, write extensible software code that can handle growth and change, and apply automated testing capabilities to speed-up the delivery of applications to clients.

Liquid Studios are an integral part of the Accenture Innovation Architecture, which brings together capabilities from research, ventures and labs to studios, innovation centers and delivery centers to develop and deliver disruptive innovations for clients, and to scale them faster.

The Stockholm site will collaborate with Accenture Liquid Studios in Silicon Valley, Paris, Milan, London, Kronberg, Singapore and other locations, and with the Accenture Labs, where Accenture incubates and prototypes new concepts through applied R&D projects.

Accenture works with 80 percent of the largest companies in Sweden and 90 percent have been clients for more than ten years.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions underpinned by the world's largest delivery network Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 401,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170613005210/en/

Contacts:

Accenture

Anna Markelius, 46730513452

anna.markelius@accenture.com
NANJING, China, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Sasol Limited (JSE: SOL; NYSE: SSL), a leading integrated chemicals and energy company, formally began construction of its new alkoxylation plant in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Ushered in by a ground-breaking ceremony on June 8th at the Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park (NCIP), the new plant is expected to be fully operational in early 2019.

The ceremony was presided by Fleetwood Grobler, Executive Vice President of Chemicals Business, Sasol, and attended by Miao Ruilin, the Mayor of Nanjing; Dolana Msimang, the South African Ambassador to China; representatives from South African diplomatic missions in China and NCIP officials.

The new production unit will modernise and expand Sasol's current alkoxylation capacity, research and development facility and technical support capability in Nanjing. Through this strategic investment, Sasol will strengthen its position in China and better meet the growing demand for specialty chemicals in this important growth market.

This project entails the construction of an alkoxylation plant with a capacity of approximately 150 kilo tons per annum (ktpa), with the option of using either branched or linear alcohols to meet differentiated customer requirements in applications, such as detergent, personal care, textiles and leather, metal working and lubrication, paper inks and coatings and the oil and gas recovery markets.

"With China's economy forecast to represent 40% of the world chemical demand by 2020 and its on-going shift towards high value and differentiated segments, China is an important market for Sasol," said Fleetwood Grobler, Executive Vice President of Chemicals Business, Sasol. "The new production unit will more than double Sasol's alkoxylation production capacity and Sasol's state-of-the-art technology offers our business partners significant benefits in terms of safety, reliability and flexibility."

The new site, to be located in NCIP, occupies about 35 acres representing a significant expansion of the existing footprint. Through this project, Sasol will be able to offer a range of diversified products to optimally serve this growing market by combining a unique portfolio of building blocks and extensive global experience. Sasol will continue to comply with the highest standards of environment, health and safety and is committed to a sustainable development in China.

About Sasol:

Sasol is an international integrated chemicals and energy company that leverages technologies and the expertise of our 30,300 people working in 33 countries. We develop and commercialise technologies, and build and operate world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product streams, including liquid fuels, chemicals and low-carbon electricity.

Forward-looking statements: Sasol may, in this document, make certain statements that are not historical facts and relate to analyses and other information which are based on forecasts of future results and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. These statements may also relate to our future prospects, developments and business strategies. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding exchange rate fluctuations, volume growth, increases in market share, total shareholder return and cost reductions. Words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "seek", "will", "plan", "could", "may", "endeavour" and "project" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there are risks that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. If one or more of these risks materialise, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. You should understand that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed more fully in our most recent annual report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on Form 20-F filed on 27 September 2016 and in other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The list of factors discussed therein is not exhaustive; when relying on forward-looking statements to make investment decisions, you should carefully consider both these factors and other uncertainties and events. Forward-looking statements apply only as of the date on which they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
TAMPA, Florida, Nov. 1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Summit EMEA, hosted by Dynamic Communities Inc., a business management organization that develops and supports technology-centric user groups, announces registration is now open for Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX and CRM users and partners. Summit EMEA will take place 24-26 April 2018 and is located at the Convention Centre Dublin in Dublin, Ireland.

Summit EMEA is the User Group conference that brings Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX and CRM users, industry experts and software development vendors together to discuss important issues, to learn about product updates, and to find genuine solutions that suit your business needs.

"My objectives were to learn more and have the opportunity to network and meet fantastic people - all three of these were achieved with the fantastic, well-structured agenda, the time given to network and interact with subject matter experts and to talk and get to know liked minded people within the industry and the CRM Community," said a D365UG/CRMUG Summit EMEA 2017 attendee.

In 2017, Summit EMEA was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands with over 1,100 attendees from multiple European countries. In addition to the conference, the Executive Program, which originated and has been running in Europe for years, was also held during this time. This program offers executives from different industries to enhance organizational leadership teams while allowing the ability to network with like-minded individuals. The Executive Program will again be held at Summit EMEA in Dublin.

"We are excited to once again deliver top-quality programming and authentic networking opportunities to Microsoft Dynamics 365, AX, and CRM users and partners located in the EMEA regions," said Andy Hafer, Dynamic Communities, Inc. Founder. "This conference is designed for users by users, and this standard of educational is what attendees find value in year after year."

Those interested in attending Summit EMEA can learn more and register at: www.summitemea.com.

Dynamic Communities, Inc.

Summit EMEA is hosted by Dynamic Communities, the world's largest community of Microsoft Dynamics users and the parent company of User Group for Dynamics 365 & AX (D365UG/AXUG) and User Group for Dynamics 365 & CRM (D365UG/CRMUG), View more user groups. These User Groups specialize in the delivery of user-led education, community-driven knowledge generation and enriched networking - bringing users to the forefront of technology problem-solving.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/594475/DCI_logo.jpg
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. ("Volcanic") (TSX VENTURE: VG) is pleased to report on the progress of exploration drilling at its Mandiana Project ("Mandiana"), as well as at the contiguous lands recently acquired under option from West African Mining Associates SARL ("WAMA") in Guinea. A total of almost 3,000m of reverse-circulation and diamond drilling, and over 6,000m of air-core drilling have now been completed at these projects. A high-resolution airborne magnetic survey over the projects, to be flown at 50m line spacing and low sensor clearance, is expected to commence during the month of June. The purpose of this survey will be to provide important targeting information associated with known mineralized trends.

Volcanic's reverse-circulation and diamond drilling is being conducted both within, and in the immediate surroundings of, the Inferred Mineral Resource (the "Mineral Resource") at the Yagbelen deposit at Mandiana, as previously defined by Sovereign Mines of Africa plc ("Sovereign"). As well as serving to infill the Mineral Resource, the purpose of drilling is to gain vital information on the geological controls on mineralization, as a basis for targeting further resource drilling activities later in 2017.

Reverse-circulation drilling of the Farabakoura target at the WAMA Project has also been advanced, its purpose being to confirm the high grade historic results announced by Volcanic on April 18, 2017 and described below. Air-core drilling is also ongoing at the WAMA Project, and has to date been deployed in exploration of strike and lateral extensions to mineralization to the north, east and south of the Yagbelen Resource, and in a similar fashion along a north-south axis characterized by artisanal working and high grade historic drilling intervals at Farabakoura. Drilling is being performed in a series of "fences" established at 100-200m intervals, along which inclined holes are drilled at 40-50m spacings. This rapid, low-cost approach to exploration has been designed to provide detailed and accurate information on near-term resource targets.

Drilling results are awaited, and will be reported upon in due course.

About the Mandiana and WAMA Projects

In January 2017, Volcanic acquired a 75% interest in the Mandiana Project. The remaining 25% interest in the Mandiana Project is held by SOGUIPAMI, a Guinean government-owned business entity formed to conduct mineral exploration projects. In April 2017, Volcanic entered into a binding letter agreement to earn-in to an 80% interest in the WAMA Project which adjoins the entire length of the southern boundary of, and lies within the same mineralized trends as the Mandiana Project.

The Mandiana and WAMA Projects are underlain by geology comparable to that of many other Birimian-age volcano-sedimentary sequences in West Africa, in which gold mineralization typically exhibits a strong relationship with major structural and hydrothermal zones. At both the Mandiana and WAMA Projects the gold mineralization associates with a network of quartz veins which appear to relate to such zones, and is located at major lithological and structural breaks. In the near vicinity and of very similar geological character is AngloGold Ashanti's Siguiri Gold Mine (Measured and Indicated Resources of 3.37 Moz Au and Inferred Resources of 2.14 Moz Au). Other significant gold deposits and mines in the neighbouring area include Hummingbird Resources' Yanfolila project, Avnel's Kalana property, and Avocent's Tri-K project.

Of key importance at the Mandiana and WAMA Projects is the presence of shallow but extensive artisanal workings in the project area, which are seen to follow the north-south mineralized trend common in known deposits in the vicinity. Limited drilling beneath such working by both Sovereign and WAMA led to the identification of bedrock gold mineralization. Many kilometers of artisanal workings on these trends remain to be drill tested.

Prior to cessation of work activities due to a shortage of market funding in 2013, Sovereign drilled 119 RC and diamond drill holes for a total of 16,624 meters at Mandiana, includingthe four zones (Yagbelen, Foulouni, Damantare and Woyondjan) that form the basis of the Mineral Resource calculation, as well as at other features. Results of Sovereign's drilling programs completed between 2011 and 2013 include:

-- RCY07 - 28m @ 1.66 g/t Au from 103m -- RCY36 - 30m @ 3.15 g/t Au from 35m -- RCY37 - 40m @ 4.49 g/t Au from 150m -- RCY88 - 18m @ 1.93 g/t Au from 144m -- RCY89 - 12m @ 2.89 g/t Au from 73m, and 19m @ 2.58 g/t Au from 104m -- RCY114 - 28m @ 6.44 g/t Au from 168m with a top cut of 30 g/t Au

One of the most notable mineralized occurrences within the WAMA Project is the Farabakoura deposit. During 2014 and 2015 WAMA drilled 89 inclined RC holes beneath lateritic artisanal workings at Farabakoura, results(1 ) of which include:

-- FKRC003 - 7m @ 28 g/t Au from 64m (visible gold observed in RC chips) -- FKRC005 - 12m @ 39.1 g/t Au from 68m (visible gold observed in RC chips) -- FKRC006 - 6m @ 13.8 g/t Au from 74m -- FKRC035 - 4m @ 5.2 g/t Au from 52m and - 6m @ 13.9g/t Au from 68m -- FKRC037 - 3m @ 8.1 g/t Au from 77m -- FKRC071 - 7m @ 102.5 g/t Au from 62m (visible gold observed in RC chips) -- FKRC074 - 6m @ 16 g/t Au from 71m -- FKRC075 - 6m @ 5.7 g/t Au from 69m -- FKRC076 - 6m @ 17.2 g/t Au from 81m -- FKRC087 - 6m @ 64.8 g/t Au from 43m

The weathering profile at the property extends in places to depths in excess of 200m from surface, producing friable, oxides material which beneath the lateritic profile is very easy to dig.

(1)The reader is advised that the above results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

About Volcanic

Volcanic brings together a deeply experienced and successful mining, exploration and capital markets team focused on building a multi-million ounce gold resource in the underexplored West African country of Guinea and its neighbouring countries. Through the strategic acquisition of mineral properties with demonstrated potential for hosting gold resources, and by undertaking effective exploration and drill programs, Volcanic is seeking to become a leading junior gold resource company.

Qualified Person

Mr. Simon Meadows-Smith is a Qualified Person as defined by "National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects" and has approved the disclosure of the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. Mr. Meadows-Smith holds a BSc degree in geology from Nottingham University, England, and has been involved in mineral exploration since 1988, including 20 years of experience working in West Africa. He is a Fellow in good standing of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining in London.

Volcanic Gold Mines Inc.

Jeremy Crozier, President

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the Company's exploration plans for its projects. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "estimate", "estimates", "estimated", "potential", "open", "future", "assumed", "projected", "used", "detailed", "has been", "gain", "upgraded", "offset", "limited", "contained", "reflecting", "containing", "remaining", "to be", "periodically", or statements that events, "could" or "should" occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, whether the Company's exploration work on its projects will proceed as intended; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the Company's stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Volcanic Gold Mines Inc.

Alex Langer

VP Capital Markets

604-765-1604

www.volgold.com




LONDON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Andrew Rossiter will be committed to driving innovative GFT technology offerings, engaging with new customers and enhancing relationships with existing partners and clients seeking to embrace technology solutions

GFT , the leading provider of business, design and technology consulting to the financial services community, has appointed Andrew Rossiter as Head of Technology Services across the GFT Atlantic Region, a senior hire that marks a key milestone in GFT's strategy to provide clients with innovative solutions that drive efficiency and improved performance.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150616/223614LOGO )



Andrew brings with him a wealth of experience across financial services and technology spanning a 25 year career. He joins from ADS Securities where he was Chief Technology Officer for the Abu Dhabi based financial services start-up, seeded with investment capital of $400m. During this time, Andrew oversaw the 'build out' of their technology offering for institutional and retail clients during a period of significant growth that saw volumes doubling each year.

Prior to this, Andrew spent eight years at Barclays Capital, working within the Equities IT division. The first four years were spent managing the BARX platform for exchange products reengineering the platform to handle more than 2 million orders per day. The final four years were spent running the European Equity Derivatives IT area during the Lehman acquisition. A large part of this time was spent working with GFT's nearshore teams in Poland, introducing agile development to Barclays on major projects.

Andrew also co-founded an Internet start-up in 2000, building an online cross asset trading and risk platform taking advantage of a career covering many asset classes including FX, Equities, Rates, Credit, FI, Exchange products and OTC Derivatives with a particular focus on ecommerce platforms.

Andrew is passionate about new technology; from early development work on the Mosaic web browser and one of the first web servers known as 'Purveyor' in 1995, through to funding the original Oculus Rift via its Kickstarter, and building a virtual reality trading room. The latest cloud and machine learning technology will again revolutionise the way IT is delivered and built, and Andrew will help GFT become recognised as a leading technology engineering company in these areas, specialising on the financial services sector.

Andrew Rossiter, Head of Technology Engineering Services at GFT commented: "I am excited to join the global management team at GFT where I look forward to continuing growing and pushing the financial services business forward. Having recently led a project to change and develop the technology platform for a leading financial services player, I am eager to bring the skills that I have gained, and the experiences that I encountered in this process, to continue GFT's progression as the largest scale consultancy focused on financial services."

Gareth Richardson, Managing Director at GFT commented: "We are thrilled to have Andrew on board and we are eager to utilise his broad range of technical skills, gained from his wide experience in the financial services sector. Having played a key role in a number of leading financial services firms, it is clear that Andrew's drive will perfectly complement our Atlantic Management team, and I am sure he will be a great asset to GFT."

About GFT

GFT Technologies SE (GFT) is a business change and technology consultancy trusted by the world's leading financial services institutions to solve their most critical challenges. Specifically defining answers to the current constant of regulatory change - whilst innovating to meet the demands of the digital revolution. GFT brings together advisory, creative and technology capabilities with innovation culture and specialist knowledge of the finance sector, to transform the clients' businesses.

Utilising the CODE_n innovation platform, GFT is able to provide international start-ups, technology pioneers and established companies access to a global network, which enables them to tap into the disruptive trends in financial services markets and harness them for their out of the box thinking.

GFT plans to generate consolidated revenue of around EUR 450 million in its financial year 2017. Founded in 1987, the company is now represented in twelve countries with a global team of almost 5,000 employees. The GFT share is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the TecDAX (ISIN: DE0005800601).

http://www.gft.com
DUBLIN, August 18, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Heavy-duty Trucks Market 2017-2021" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The global heavy-duty trucks market to grow at a CAGR of 1.41% during the period 2017-2021.

Global Heavy-duty Trucks 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. To calculate the market size, the report considers the new unit sales and exclude used vehicles sales and market sizing in terms of value.

According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is Increased adoption from rental service for construction and logistics business. The rental equipment industry is capital intensive. Funds are required for acquisition and maintenance of equipment fleets, secure storage facilities, work on the fleets, and for operating the business. Cash inflows from business, equipment utilization, time utilization, and higher prices contribute to the positive growth of this service market.

The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Alternative fuel HD trucks. The growing concerns about vehicle emissions and environmental pollutions have made many major countries to introduce emission regulations in order to cut down the greenhouse gases (GHG) and other pollutant emissions from vehicles, especially from the commercial vehicles. The more tightening of such regulations during and after the forecast period has pushed manufacturers to find alternative fuel solutions for the trucks that are environment-friendly or help in reducing emissions. This has started the trend of biofuel, electric, and hybrid HD trucks.



Further, the report states that one of the major factors hindering the growth of this market is Chinese low-cost market can threaten global players' existence. The Chinese government largely supports the local players to grow in the market, which has helped these local players to establish regional low-cost markets for vehicles and their components. Most Asian countries depend on the Chinese market in the automotive industry. This has helped the Chinese players to improve their geographical presence globally, giving major international truck OEMs a tight competition.

Key vendors



Daimler Trucks

MAN

PACCAR

Scania

Volvo Trucks

Other prominent vendors



Ashok Leyland

FAW Group Corporation

ISUZU MOTORS

Iveco

Mack Trucks

Scania

Tata Motors



Key Topics Covered:



Part 01: Executive summary



Part 02: Scope of the report



Part 03: Research Methodology



Part 04: Introduction



Part 05: Market landscape



Part 06: Market segmentation by GVWR class



Part 07: Geographical segmentation



Part 08: Decision framework



Part 09: Drivers and challenges



Part 10: Market trends



Part 11: Vendor landscape



Part 12: Key vendor analysis



Part 13: Appendix



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/mqr6rm/global_heavyduty

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
WARSAW, Poland, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The expert institution operating under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe will contribute to the development of new methods of capturing and use of methane as a valuable energy source.

The newly opened International Centre of Excellence on Coal Mine Methane in Katowice was founded by the Central Mining Institute in Katowice, Polish Oil and Gas Company (PGNiG), Polish Geological Institute and Oil and Gas Institute. The Centre will operate under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

The Centre's main objective is to develop technologies for capturing and utilizing coal mine methane. New solutions are to increase mining efficiency and safety of the miners as well as to reduce methane emissions and the carbon footprint of the coal mining sector.

UNECE and its Group of Experts on Coal Mine Methane have worked over many years to develop best practice guidance for managing accumulation of methane in operating coal mines. The inauguration of International Centre of Excellence is an important step in the dissemination. UNECE applauds this initiative by the government of Poland and founding organisations -emphasised Scott Foster, Director of the UNECE Sustainable Energy Division.

We are fully committed to development of new technologies for methane extraction. We want to share our experience in this area but also benefit from expertise of the Centre's specialists. Our experts will join the ranks of its scientific base - said Aukasz Kroplewski, Vice-President of PGNiG Management Board, Development.

Through its commitment to the Centre PGNiG will gain access the latest research on the use of methane contained in coal seams. The company is currently testing the possibility of extracting methane from coal seams by fracking.

CONTACT:

PR Department

tel.: +48-22-5894143

e-mail: media@pgnig.pl






HKTDC Communication and Public Affairs Department Agnes Wat Tel: +852 2584 4554 Email: agnes.ky.wat@hktdc.org

HONG KONG, July 14, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - The 24th Hong Kong Fashion Week for Spring/Summer, organised by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), came to a close yesterday. More than 12,000 buyers from 71 countries and regions attended the four-day fair (10-13 July), where buyer attendance from Japan, the Philippines, the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and Russia recorded considerable growth. Twenty fashion events, including fashion shows, trend forecasting seminars, buyer forums and a networking reception were held during the fair, which explored the latest topics of interest in the fashion industry while generating more business opportunities for industry professionals."In addition to being a premier sourcing platform for the industry, Hong Kong Fashion Week is also an important marketing channel for exhibitors promoting new products and fashion projects; and provides an opportunity for industry professionals to gather the latest market intelligence," said HKTDC Deputy Executive Director Benjamin Chau."Although the Internet and social media are gradually becoming mainstream promotion channels, fashion trade fairs are still a dominant platform for conducting face-to-face business negotiations, exchanging market intelligence and showcasing new collections. The HKTDC will continue to offer its unique 4-in-1 integrated marketplace, consisting of trade fairs, the HKTDC Online Marketplace (hktdc.com), product magazines, and mobile app, for promising fashion companies to reach global buyers anytime, anywhere."Italy uses Hong Kong Fashion Week as a promotion platformWith buyers coming from around the world, Hong Kong Fashion Week is a major platform for international corporations to promote fashion-related activities. During the fair, the Italian Trade Commission Hong Kong and Assocalzaturifici (Italian Footwear Manufacturers' Association) jointly organised an exhibition titled "The Seduction of footwear: Italian Glamour," displaying 50 styles of classic Italian women's shoes and leveraging Hong Kong Fashion Week to introduce visitors to the aesthetics of Italian footwear.Annarita Pilotti, President of Assocalzaturifici, explained that Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland together represent Italy's fifth-largest export market in terms of value. Last year, Italian export volumes to the mainland rose 2.3 per cent; while the total value of exports to Hong Kong increased by 3.5 per cent. It was also found that the average export prices of the two markets were higher than other countries and still continues to rise. "It is because both Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland are such important markets for Italian-made goods that we are keen to stage our promotional road shows in Hong Kong, which allow us to bring the excellence and quality of Italian footwear to the attention of international buyers," said Ms Pilotti.Fashion trends mirror social issuesOn the first day of the fair, international trend forecasting group Fashion Snoops presented "The Visionary Trends for Autumn/Winter 2018/19 for Women's and Men's Wear." The group pointed out that fashion trends are often closely related to both society and everyday life issues, such as environment protection and immigration."The identity crisis brought on by the refugee crisis is a pressing global concern," said Michael Leow, Asia/Pacific Sales & Marketing Head at Fashion Snoops. "Climate change and world trade have caused an influx of refugees. Although many may not want to approach this subject, we as fashion designers, should explore the issue, let our voices be heard, and galvanise people into action towards a brighter tomorrow."To embrace diversity, "Engineered Identity" will be one of the major trends, according to Mr Leow. Each piece of clothing will integrate fashion elements from different countries, alongside sharply contrasting colours and conflicting elements, presenting a world of harmony and one without borders.The Woolmark Company unveils new fabricApart from unveiling fashion trends, the latest technologies were also discussed at other seminars. At the "New Generation of Merino innovation - Wool Denim Wear & Wool Sneakers" seminar, the Woolmark Company introduced its latest denim fabric and its related application techniques.Brenda Yang, Technical Manager of Dyeing and Finishing at the Woolmark Company, explained that the wool's anti-perspiration, breathable, anti-odour and warmth-keeping qualities make the fabric ideal for use in sportswear. The high external wear-resistance of the wool also makes it suitable for sports shoes. "It is currently a trend to produce the vamp by weaving, thus many styles can be created," said Ms Yang. Some manufacturers have even incorporated far-infrared properties into the wool/nylon to relieve post-exercise muscle fatigue.Ms Yang added that using wool as the principal material for shoes, such as adding it into the sole for warmth or stitching leather with it to create a thick wool-knitted leather or wool-blended fabric, are new trends in shoemaking.Enthusiastic buyers from US and ThailandThe four-day Fashion Week generated many business and sourcing opportunities for the industry. US buyer and first-time visitor Kakoli Chakraborty Mehra said she was looking for products from Asian suppliers and found exhibitors from Hong Kong, the Chinese mainland, Korea and India matching her needs. She said "I have already placed an order for 5,000 pieces of ladies' wear from a Hong Kong supplier at the fair," adding that she plans to place orders worth US$10,000 to US$50,000 each.Another buyer from Thailand, Thanulux, a garment manufacturer and wholesaler, also identified new suppliers at the fair. Sukanya Sutthivisetpong, Brand Manager for Ladies' Wear at the company, indicated that she was in the process of negotiating with six suppliers from India, Korea, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland for women's casual wear, sportswear and some children's collections, with initial orders estimated at US$50,000.Hong Kong exhibitor attracts buyers with a range of silk productsDespite improving global trade conditions, downside risks remain for the global economy. Yet Hong Kong businesses that can offer a wide selection of products can still stand out. Hong Kong company MsEnvy is a regular exhibitor at Hong Kong Fashion Week. Its Managing Director, Jun MK Wong, said that the company showcased a variety of ladies' collections in silk with 230 styles this year, and met new buyers from Switzerland, Germany, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Australia."There are buyers exploring cooperation with us to develop new product lines based on their specific requirements and styles. An Australian company approached us to collaborate in manufacturing high-end evening wear. We also met returning customers who placed new orders on the spot."New Fashionable Sportswear and Urban Clothing zones attracted buyersThe Hong Kong Fashion Week has been keeping its finger on the market pulse; two new zones have been launched in this edition to cater to market demand. Taiwanese exhibitor, Hyperbola Textile Co, Ltd, from the Fashionable Sportswear zone, branched out to the manufacturing of sportswear, yoga wear and functional wear under its own brand. The company exhibited at Fashion Week for the first time and met with serious buyers from Thailand and Taiwan who were keen to source their lightweight down, windproof jackets and water-repellent outwear on the first day of the fair, and expect to conclude deals in a couple of months.Meilishuo.com, a fashion e-commerce platform in the Chinese mainland came to the fair for the first time to source stylish women collections for their fashion brand. Its senior Operation Director, Liu Ding, said she negotiated with a Korean exhibitor to source activewear and beachwear, and expected to place orders of 100-500 pieces per style.In view of the demand for sourcing in small amounts, the show once again set up the hktdc.com Small Orders zone, featuring nearly 100 showcases and garment racks with about 400 products available for orders in minimum quantities of between five and 1,000 pieces. During the four-day event, around 2,700 buyers visited the zone and nearly 4,700 business connections were established.Hong Kong Fashion Week for Spring/Summer featured some 1,100 exhibitors from 20 countries and regions. The second edition of CENTRESTAGE, a platform for Asian fashion brands and designers specifically to promote their brands and launch their collections, will be held 6-9 September. Details will be announced soon. Please visit the website www.centrestage.com.hk/ for more information.Fair WebsiteHong Kong Fashion Week for Spring/Summer: http://www.hktdc.com/hkfashionweekss/YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/hktdctradchiPhoto download: http://bit.ly/2tRItPcAbout HKTDCEstablished in 1966, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body dedicated to creating opportunities for Hong Kong's businesses. With more than 40 offices globally, including 13 on the Chinese mainland, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a platform for doing business with China, Asia and the world. With 50 years of experience, the HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to provide companies, particularly SMEs, with business opportunities on the mainland and in international markets, while providing information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels including the media room. For more information, please visit: www.hktdc.com/aboutus. Follow us on Google+, Twitter @hktdc, LinkedIn.Google+: https://plus.google.com/+hktdcTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/hktdcLinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/hong-kong-trade-development-councilSource: HKTDCContact:Copyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/21/17 -- Rich Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC PINK: RCHA) ("Rich" or the "Company"), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapies in oncology announced today its principal doctor, Dr. Tontanai Numbenjapon, will commence clinical trials in Phramongkutklao Hospital in Thailand.

Dr. Numbenjapon specializes in medical oncology, hematology, and stem cell transplantation. He has over 14 years of experience in Hematology and Oncology.

"We are confident that Dr. Numbenjapon is the best and most qualified physician to head our research abroad, and look forward to his guidance as we embark on the next phase of our clinical studies," said Ben Chang, CEO.

Now that Rich Pharmaceuticals has filed an IND (https://youtu.be/0CCtXc43a0I) with the FDA and received approval to start phase I/II (https://youtu.be/1WvlzbzKGqE), operations have progressed to the site level at Phramongkutklao Hospital and a full package has been submitted to the hospitals IRB (Review Board). "Rich Pharmaceuticals is pleased to have reached such a milestone and we look forward to patient enrollment at Phramongkutklao Hospital with the help of Dr. Numbenjapon," stated Mr. Chang.

About Rich Pharmaceuticals:

Rich Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative therapies in oncology, with initial concentration in treating Acute Myelocytic Leukemia (AML), Hodgkin's Lymphoma (HL) and other blood related diseases. It is currently in Phase 1/2 clinical trials for the treatment of AML and HL. Rich Pharmaceuticals' goal is to extend refractory patients life expectancy and increase quality of life. Rich Pharmaceuticals' primary development stage product candidate, RP-323, is being designed to treat blood and cancer related diseases through non-evasive outpatient facilities. RP-323 is a phorbol ester, which induces differentiation and/or apoptosis in multiple cell lines and primary cells, activates protein kinase C (PKC), and modulates the activity of multiple downstream cell signaling pathways, including mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathways. RP-323 induces PKC to produce NF kappa, which then produces NF kappa B that has the ability to regulate cellular responses by entering into the nucleus of cells. NF kappa B binds to DNA and changes the nature of the cell and (1) induces differentiation; (2) induces proliferation; (3) cytokine induction; (4) and/or apoptosis. Find out more at www.richpharmaceuticals.com

Forward-Looking Statements:

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in Section 27(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, references to novel technologies and methods, our business and product development plans, our financial projections or market information. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with developing new products or technologies and operating as a development stage company, our ability to raise the additional funding we will need to commence clinical trials and to continue to pursue our business and product development plans, our ability to develop and commercialize products based on our technology platform, competition in the industry in which we operate and market conditions. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in the reports and other documents we file with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov.

Investor Relations:



9595 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 900

Beverly Hills, CA 90212

424-230-7001 ext. 147

IR@richph.com




EDMONTON, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/14/17 -- Liquor Stores N.A. Ltd. (the "Company" or "Liquor Stores") (TSX: LIQ), North America's largest publicly traded liquor retailer, today advised shareholders that a second independent proxy advisory firm, Glass Lewis, advises shareholders to vote only the WHITE management proxy. Glass Lewis' recommendation follows an earlier recommendation from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) to vote only the WHITE proxy.

In making its recommendation that shareholders vote the WHITE proxy, Glass Lewis made the following points:

-- PointNorth "has failed to make a compelling case for significant changes to the Board and the full implementation of an alternative strategic direction that its nominees seek to effect at Liquor Stores" -- PointNorth's plan to replace a majority of the Board is "unjustified and ill-advised" and PointNorth advocates "a potentially inferior strategy." -- Liquor Stores' Board and management's action to improve performance has "yielded encouraging results" and that the Company's plans have a "more methodical and measured pace" than PointNorth's strategy -- Liquor Stores Board "refreshed its members and hired new management just prior to and since the development of the Company's existing plan"

Glass Lewis stated: "Following a full consideration of the differing aspects of the Dissident's alternative plan, we're inclined to recommend that shareholders continue to endorse the Company's existing plan and the majority of the members of the board that developed and are in the process of overseeing the execution of that plan."

Glass Lewis criticized PointNorth for rejecting Liquor Stores' compromise offer of two board seats, for refusing to identify candidates, and for presenting no alternative strategy before PointNorth launched the proxy fight. Said Glass Lewis: "Based on the Dissident's actions and statements, PointNorth has not exhibited interest in a potentially more constructive compromise with respect to board composition or overall strategy."

Vote only the WHITE management proxy

Liquor Stores recommends that shareholders vote the WHITE proxy for the Board's eight experienced and qualified incumbent nominees. It is not possible for shareholders to split the ballot. The only way that shareholders can ensure that PointNorth does not take control of the Board is to vote only the WHITE proxy.

Shareholders who wish to change their vote to align with Glass Lewis' and ISS' recommendations to vote only the WHITE management proxy can do so. A later dated WHITE management proxy will cancel an earlier vote on the dissident proxy.

Vote today.

For a brief explanation regarding the danger of PointNorth's plan, please see our June 8 letter to shareholders at this link: http://www.liquorstoresna.ca/Portals/5/documents/proxycontest/Jun-8-17-LIQ-LTS.pdf

For more detailed information regarding PointNorth's flawed thinking and the destruction of $2.65 per share in value that would occur if PointNorth's plan is implemented, please read our May 25 letter to shareholders at this link:

http://www.liquorstoresna.ca/Portals/5/documents/proxycontest/FightLTS_25May2017_printready.pdf

For more information about how the current Board and management is creating value, please read our Management Information Circular, available on the Liquor Stores website at http://www.liquorstoresna.ca/investors and under the Liquor Stores profile at www.sedar.com.

Meeting Details

Shareholders are advised to vote only the WHITE form of proxy today, or no later than 10:00 a.m. (Mountain Time) or Noon (Eastern Time) on Friday, June 16, 2017. The record date for the Annual Meeting was the close of business on April 21, 2017 (the "Record Date"). All registered shareholders of record as at the Record Date are invited to attend the Meeting which is taking place at Meeting Place 1 at the Hyatt Place Edmonton-West located at 18004 100 Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, on Tuesday, June 20, 2017, at 10:00 a.m. (Edmonton time).

If shareholders have any questions or require any assistance in executing your proxy or voting instruction form, please call D.F. King Canada at:

-- North American Toll Free Number: 1-800-301-9627 -- Outside North America, Banks, Brokers and Collect Calls: 1-201-806-7301 -- Email: inquiries@dfking.com -- North American Toll Free Facsimile: 1-888-509-5907 -- Facsimile: 1-647-351-3176

ABOUT LIQUOR STORES N.A. LTD.

The Company operates 251 retail liquor stores in Alberta, British Columbia, Alaska, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Liquor Stores' retail brands include: Liquor Depot, Liquor Barn, and Wine and Beyond in Alberta (177 stores); Liquor Depot and Liquor Barn in British Columbia (34 stores); Brown Jug in Alaska (22 stores); Liquor Barn "The Ultimate Party Source" and Liquor Barn Express in Kentucky (15 stores), Joe Canals Discount Outlet in New Jersey (2 stores), and LQR MKT in Connecticut (one store). The Company's common shares and convertible subordinated debentures trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "LIQ" and "LIQ.DB.B", respectively.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward looking statements or information (collectively "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the "safe harbour" provisions of applicable securities legislation. All statements and information other than statements of historical fact contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. In particular, this press release contains forward-looking statements with respect to among others: the anticipated outcomes of PointNorth's actions and strategy for Liquor Stores and the potential consequences to Liquor Stores and its business and share price of the election of PointNorth's director nominees and the implementation of its strategy; the purpose and effect of Liquor Stores' Soliciting Dealer arrangement; and matters with respect to the upcoming Meeting, including the scheduled date and time of the Meeting and the cut off time for voting. Forward-looking statements reflect our current plans, intentions, and expectations, which are based on management's perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. Our plans, intentions, and expectations are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and other uncertainties and contingencies regarding future events and as such, are subject to change. There is no assurance that the plans, intentions, or expectations upon which these forward-looking statements are based will occur. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, but not limited to, those discussed elsewhere in this press release and our other filings made with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

Although Management believes that the expectations represented in such forward-looking statements are reasonable there can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements should not be unduly relied upon. Some of the factors that could affect future results and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements contained herein include, but are not limited to: risks relating to government regulation and changes thereto (whether by court decisions, citizen referenda, or otherwise); competition; the state of the economy including general economic conditions in Canada (including Alberta) and the U.S.; the unpredictability and volatility of Liquor Stores' common share price; restrictions on potential growth; availability of sufficient financial resources to fund the Company's capital expenditures; changes in commodity tax rates and government mark- ups; risks relating to future acquisitions and development of new stores; the ability of management to execute the Company's business and strategic plans; Liquor Stores' ability to locate and secure acceptable store sites and to adapt to changing market conditions; poor weather conditions; dependence on key personnel; labour costs, shortages and labour relations including Liquor Stores' ability to hire and retain staff at current wage levels and the risk of possible future unionization; supply interruption or delays; dependence on suppliers; reliance on information and control systems; income tax changes; leverage and restrictive covenants in agreements relating to current and future indebtedness of Liquor Stores; and credit risks arising from operations. These factors should not be construed as exhaustive. The information contained in this press release, and as disclosed in other filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities and available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com, identifies additional factors that could affect the operating results and performance of Liquor Stores. Readers are cautioned that this list of risk factors should not be construed as exhaustive. The forward-looking statements contained herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date hereof and Liquor Stores assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances except as expressly required by applicable securities law.

Contacts:

Investors

Matthew Rudd

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Liquor Stores N.A. Ltd.

(780) 702-7389



Media

Louise Kozier

Longview Communications

(604) 694 6033




Hitachi Ltd Corporate Communications Tel: +81-3-3258-1111

TOKYO, June 9, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Ansaldo STS has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Metroselskabet to develop a Proof of Concept for a new Dynamic Headway solution leveraging Hitachi technologies for the Copenhagen Metro M1/M2.The new Dynamic Headway solution will be designed using both Ansaldo STS's train control systems and Hitachi's digitalization and IoT (Internet of Things) technology to detect congestion through sensors at stations in order to analyse demand. And based on the demand analysis, the number of trains can be optimized automatically, responding dynamically to sudden change in passenger numbers.This is particularly useful during increases in demand due to events along the route. A dynamic solution will help resolve congestion before it impacts on passengers, thereby increasing passenger satisfaction. For the operator, this highly responsive solution, which adapts the number of trains to real-time demand, means saving energy and operation costs by increasing utilisation of services.Quote from Metroselskabet spokesperson: Henrik Plougmann Olsen CEO of Metroselskabet said "Exploring ways to optimise delivered capacity to make it as efficient as possible is critical to minimising the cost of provision of public transportation. Metroselskabet is keen to encourage and participate in activities that can yield economies to our services. We are happy to contribute to this initiative with Ansaldo STS that will combine the latest advances in data management and control systems to create a solution that could improve the services we provide."Quote from Alistair Dormer, Chairman of the Board, Ansaldo STS and Group CEO of Hitachi Rail said: "Hitachi's Dynamic Headway Solution combined with Ansaldo STS's driverless technology is developed based on our joint Digitalisation strategy by utilising Hitachi's IoT platform "Lumada". In the long term, we plan to integrate the Dynamic Headway technology in our CBTC offering. As a global technology provider, we bring innovative solutions like this to our customers, combining the world-class know-how of Ansaldo STS and its majority shareholder Hitachi."Quote from Andy Barr, CEO of Ansaldo STS, said: "Having worked closely with Metroselskabet for 18 years now, we are delighted to sign today's MoU for the provision of a new, passenger-focused system. With automation technology such as the Dynamic Headway Solution, both passengers and operators benefit from timely trains automatically adapting to demand. We are delighted to continue our close partnership with Metroselskabet to keep Copenhagen Metro on the forefront of passenger-friendly travel."A prototype solution will be available on site by the end of 2017, potentially followed by full development and implementation targeting Copenhagen M1/M2 and Cityringen project.Copenhagen's driverless metro system became operational in October 2002, and Ansaldo STS has managed the system ever since. This partnership has been highly successful: the metro system won the awards for "Best metro in the world" and "Best metro in Europe" by the International Metrorail 2008 Conference, as well as being named "Best driverless metro" in 2009.The Copenhagen Metro line consists of 21 km of double track (10 km underground and 11 km of elevated track) and passes through 22 stations connecting the various parts of the city centre, the area of slashed o restad and the airport. Its 34 unattended trains travel at a maximum speed of 80 km/h, ensuring that passengers have two minutes to wait during peak hours, and are guaranteed a 24-hour service.About Hitachi, Ltd.Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges with our talented team and proven experience in global markets. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2014 (ended March 31, 2015) totaled 9,761 billion yen ($81.3 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes power & infrastructure systems, information & telecommunication systems, construction machinery, high functional materials & components, automotive systems, healthcare and others. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.Source: Hitachi, Ltd.Contact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Lithium Americas Corp. ("Lithium Americas" or the "Company") (TSX: LAC)(OTCQX: LACDF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Wang Xiaoshen and Jonathan Evans as independent directors.

"We are very pleased to welcome Xiaoshen and Jon to Lithium Americas, and believe that they will add considerable value as the Company transitions into a producing specialty chemical company with a global mandate. Xiaoshen and Jon bring a wealth of knowledge and lithium industry experience," commented George Ireland, Chairman of the Board of Lithium Americas.

Mr. Wang was appointed to the Board of Lithium Americas as the nominee of Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co. Ltd. ("Ganfeng Lithium"), which has a board nomination right pursuant the strategic financing with the Company that closed yesterday.

Mr. Wang is currently Vice Chairman and Executive Vice President of Ganfeng Lithium. Mr. Wang has a strong understanding of the lithium industry and market through his experience in sales and marketing of lithium products in China and around the world. Mr. Wang graduated from the North China University of Technology in Beijing in 1990 and holds executive MBA from the China Europe International Business School in 2002.

Mr. Evans has more than 20 years of operations and general management experience across businesses of various sizes and industry applications. Previously, he served as Vice President and GM for the Lithium Division at FMC Corporation. Mr. Evans is currently the Chief Operating Officer of DiversiTech Corporation, a US$350 million revenue portfolio company of the private equity group, Permira. Mr. Evans has also held executive management roles at Arysta LifeScience, AMRI Corporation and General Electric. He holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Clarkson University and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Coincident with the addition of the two new directors, Lenard Boggio and Nicole Adshead-Bell have voluntarily stepped down as directors of the Company. Mr. Ireland further commented: "On behalf of the Board of Lithium Americas, we wish to thank Len and Nikki for their very significant contributions to the Company over the past year."

Ganfeng Investment in Lithium Americas

As further described in the press release dated June 7, 2017, Lithium Americas and Ganfeng Lithium have completed the closing of the Investment Agreement between the parties, which included the issue and sale of 63,750,000 common shares at a price of C$0.85 per common share for gross proceeds of approximately C$54 million (US$40 million). When combined with the 11,250,000 common shares issued at the same price on January 27, 2017 pursuant to an initial equity instalment under the Investment Agreement, Ganfeng Lithium now holds 75,000,000 common shares of the Company representing approximately 19.7% of the issued and outstanding common shares of the Company and an aggregate of approximately C$64 million (US$47 million) subscription amount.

Ganfeng Lithium entered into the Investment Agreement for the purpose of providing funds to the Company for the further development of the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project and for general corporate and working capital purposes. Ganfeng Lithium will hold the common shares in the Company for investment purposes and may acquire or dispose of common shares of the Company in the future depending on circumstances and conditions at such time. The board nomination right of Ganfeng Lithium arises pursuant to an Investor Rights Agreement between the parties executed as part of the Investment Agreement closing.

An early warning report will be filed by Ganfeng Lithium in respect of the transaction set out in this press release. A copy of the early warning report will be available on the Company's profile at www.sedar.com or by contacting David Shen at 86-021-61681925.

About Lithium Americas

Lithium Americas, together with SQM, is developing the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project, located in Jujuy, Argentina, through its 50% interest in Minera Exar. In addition, Lithium Americas owns 100% of the Lithium Nevada project (formerly Kings Valley project), and RheoMinerals Inc., a supplier of rheology modifiers for oil-based drilling fluids, coatings, and specialty chemicals.

Contacts:

Lithium Americas Corp.

Investor Relations

778-656-5820

ir@lithiumamericas.com

www.lithiumamericas.com




Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has opened a new Liquid Studio in Helsinki to help clients accelerate innovation and become built for change by applying new skills, technologies and ways of working. Located at Aleksanterinkatu 46 A in the heart of Helsinki, the Liquid Studio helps clients experiment with disruptive technologies and services that have the ability to transform their operations and customer experiences.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005136/en/

Accenture Liquid Studio in Helsinki (Photo: Business Wire)

"The next wave of growth and competitiveness for our Finnish clients will come from continuous, agile innovation. The Liquid Studio is a great example of how Accenture is helping clients imagine and invent the future," said Frank Korsstrom, country managing director for Finland and managing director for the Nordic region. "We are committed to helping our local clients quickly innovate at scale and adapt to changes driven by digitalization, evolving customer expectations, emerging technologies and disruptive competition."

By applying rapiddevelopment approaches includingAgile methodologies and DevOps, Accenture professionals at the Liquid Studio help to bring innovative concepts to life for clients, turning ideas into prototypes in just days and weeks instead of months.

"Leading digital businesses understand the need to leverage innovative technologies and the importance of moving quickly when changes are needed," said Konsta Saarela, director of the Accenture Liquid Studio in Helsinki. "With our agile teams, a startup culture, rapid prototyping capability and lean architecture, the Liquid Studio is helping our clients to quickly see more business value."

The Liquid Studio in Helsinki will collaborate with Accenture Liquid Studios in Silicon Valley, Paris, Milan, London, Kronberg, Singapore, Sydney, Houston, and Riga, Latvia, among other locations.

Liquid Studios are an integral part of the Accenture Innovation Architecture, which brings together capabilities from research, ventures and labs to studios, innovation centers and delivery centers to develop and deliver disruptive innovations for clients, and to scale them faster.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions underpinned by the world's largest delivery network Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 401,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005136/en/

Contacts:

Accenture

Camilla Lindfors, 358 408386686

camilla.lindfors@accenture.com
OKLAHOMA CITY, OK -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Shipt, the fastest growing online grocery marketplace, today announced that it will begin delivering fresh groceries to Oklahoma City residents beginning on June 15, 2017. The service will begin with deliveries from local Walmart stores, with additional retailers added at a later date. At launch, more than 400,000 households in the Oklahoma City metro area will have access to grocery delivery from Shipt.

Founded in 2014, Shipt is committed to simplifying the lives of its members by offering a new, convenient grocery shopping experience. Delivering grocery stores' full selection of items, Shipt's marketplace lists products by aisle, and features categories such as healthy ingredients, seasonal selections, and inspiration for quick, easy meals.

"Oklahoma will be the twelfth state in which we have launched Shipt and with this launch in Oklahoma City, we are one step closer to bringing the convenience of online grocery shopping to cities across the nation," said Bill Smith, founder and CEO of Shipt. "Each city and state where Shipt is available is unique, but one thing remains the same -- our members can always expect a great shopping experience so instead of worrying about getting the groceries, they can spend that time on the things that matter most to each of them."

As a special offer to Oklahoma City area residents, Shipt annual grocery memberships purchased prior to the June 15th launch will cost $49. After launch day, memberships will return to the normal rate of $99 per year. Through the Shipt app, members can shop the full selection of groceries offered at local Walmart stores, note any preferences, choose a one-hour delivery window, and pay for their order. Shipt connects members with a community of shoppers who hand pick their items and deliver them as soon as one hour after the order is placed, or up to 24 hours in advance.

Shipt members have access to unlimited free delivery for orders over $35. To sign up for Shipt, learn more about the service and availability, or redeem the new member special offer, visit Shipt.com/okc.

Shipt displays a commitment to each of the communities it serves and plans to work closely with local charities to help eliminate hunger and food insecurity in and around Oklahoma City. To kick off the launch and celebrate the hard work of some of Oklahoma City's most dedicated charities, Shipt will donate $10 for each membership sold prior to July 14 (up to $50,000) to the member's choice of the following organizations: Meals on Wheels of Oklahoma City or the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma.

Leading up to the launch, Shipt plans to grow their network of shoppers, who are responsible for ensuring complete, accurate fulfillments of each order. To apply to be a Shipt Shopper, visit Shipt.com and click "Get Paid to Shop."

About Shipt

Shipt, the nation's fastest growing online grocery marketplace, partners with leading retailers to deliver groceries via a community of shoppers and a convenient app. Since its founding in 2014, Shipt has been rapidly expanding and now offers quality, personalized grocery delivery to over 25 million households in 49 markets across the country. Shipt offers unlimited grocery deliveries to members for $99 per year. The company currently has offices in Birmingham, AL, and San Francisco, CA. For more information, visit Shipt.com.

Shipt sources groceries from local Walmart stores, however, the company is not endorsed by or affiliated with Walmart.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Email Contact

(415) 625-8555




MONTREAL, QC --(Marketwired - June 08, 2017) - Siyata Mobile Inc. (the "Company" or "Siyata") (TSX VENTURE: SIM) (OTCQB: SYATF) is pleased to announce that it has signed a vendor agreement and receives a Purchase Order from a leading global two-way radio vendor.

Siyata will provide the vendor with both rugged devices as well as commercial vehicle devices with Push-to-Talk Over Cellular ("PoC") capabilities. These devices will be sold to the vendor's enterprise and government customers.

Marc Seelenfreund, CEO of Siyata Mobile, commented, "This is a very large-scale opportunity for Siyata which demonstrates our innovative approach in the PoC market. Major two-way radio vendors are now aggressively moving into the PoC arena to assure that they participate in this emerging market. We are confident that Siyata will be an important player in this space as we are the only company with a commercial in-vehicle cellular based technology platform and appropriate devices for the millions of trucks that need this capability."

Push-to-Talk Over Cellular allows users to replicate two-way radio features with a simple push of a button. The PoC application presents an opportunity for users to access communication features that two-way radio provides like dispatch, instant chat, data applications and more, directly from their cellular based devices and over nationwide networks.

According to the United States Department of Transportation, in 2015 there were over 12 million fleet vehicles in the United States. Siyata aims to be the leading provider of connected vehicle and mobile hardware solutions as these commercial fleets upgrade their communication platforms to be compatible with next generation networks, PoC solutions and other software applications.

About Siyata

Siyata Mobile Inc. is a leading global developer and provider of cellular communications systems for enterprise customers, specializing in connected vehicle products for professional fleets, marketed under the Uniden Cellular brand. Since developing the world's first 3G connected vehicle device, Siyata has been a pioneer in the industry, launching the world's first 4G LTE all-in-one fleet communications device in 2017. Incorporating voice, push-to-talk over cellular, data, and fleet management solutions into a single device, the company aims to become the connected vehicle communications device of choice for commercial vehicles and fleets around the world.

Siyata also offers rugged phones for industrial users and signal boosters for homes, buildings, and fleets with poor cell coverage. Siyata's customers include cellular operators, commercial vehicle technology distributors, and fleets of all sizes in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and the Middle East.

Visit www.siyatamobile.com and http://www.unidencellular.com/ to learn more.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of:

SIYATA MOBILE INC.

Marc Seelenfreund

CEO and Director

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

Investor Relations:

Arlen Hansen

Kin Communications

1-866-684-6730

SIM@kincommunications.com



Sales Department:

Glenn Kennedy, VP Sales

Siyata Mobile Inc.

416-892-1823

glenn_kennedy@siyatamobile.com
TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 08, 2017) -

Prime and Super Prime originations through exclusive national vendor programs

Originations of C$1.5 Billion expected in 2018

Exceptional management team, led by Mark Berch

Immediate accretion to adjusted EPS and ROE

Originations purchased by FDIC insured US financial institutions and managed with no recourse

ECN Capital Corp. (TSX: ECN) ("ECN Capital" or the "Corporation"), one of North America's leading commercial finance companies, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Service Finance Holdings, LLC ("Service Finance"). Under the terms of the agreement, ECN Capital will pay C$410 million (US$304 million) in cash for Service Finance. In addition, ECN Capital has agreed to a deferred purchase price earn-out plan with the founders that will be based on the achievement of prescribed return on average equity (ROAE) over the next 5 years.

Founded in 2004, Service Finance originates and services prime and super-prime installment contracts to finance home improvement projects in the U.S. Originations are sourced through exclusive national vendor programs with top manufacturers and dealers.

"In over 25 years I have not encountered a business model like Service Finance with leading vendor finance relationships, superior credit, proven growth, scalability, and a robust partnership with U.S. banks," said Steven Hudson, ECN Capital's CEO. "Mark, Steve, Ian and Eric and their team need to be commended for the dominant business that they have built. We'd also like to recognize the role of Flexpoint Ford as an owner and advisor. We look forward to a long-term partnership with Mark and his team", added Mr. Hudson.

On a pro forma basis, the acquisition will be immediately accretive to adjusted earnings per share (EPS) and return on equity (ROE) in 2017 and beyond. "The Service Finance acquisition continues ECN Capital's strategic redeployment of capital and is a significant step to becoming a high return originator and asset manager", said Steven Hudson.

As part of the transaction, ECN Capital will acquire the employees, systems, intellectual property, operations, offices, agreements, and other assets of Service Finance.

The transaction, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2017, is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Transaction Advisors

BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets and Macquarie Capital acted as financial advisors to ECN Capital in connection with the transaction. Baker & Hostetler LLP acted as legal counsel to ECN Capital.

Analyst Briefing

The Company will host an analyst briefing to discuss the transaction at 8:00 am. (Eastern Time) on Thursday June 8, 2017. Investors may access the conference call and presentation slides as outlined below:

http://services.choruscall.ca/links/ecncapitalcorpanno Live Webcast uncement1201706.html North American toll-free: call 1-800-319-8560 passcode 47234 International toll-free: call the appropriate Conference Call number from webpage below and enter passcode 47234 http://services.choruscall.ca/public/accessnumbers.htm l Slides will be available in the webcast and at Presentation Slides http://www.ecncapitalcorp.com/investors/presentations

The webcast will be available until September 8, 2017. A recording of the conference call may also be accessed until July 8, 2017 by dialing 1-855-669-9658 in North America or +1-604-674-8052 and entering the passcode 1485.

About ECN Capital Corp.

With total owned and managed assets of more than $4.6 billion, ECN Capital Corp. (TSX: ECN) is one of North America's leading commercial finance companies. ECN Capital operates across North America in three verticals of the commercial finance market (Rail Finance, Commercial & Vendor Finance, and Commercial Aviation Finance).

Non-IFRS Measures

The Company's audited consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards ("IFRS") as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board ("IASB") and the accounting policies we adopted in accordance with IFRS. In this press release, management has used certain terms, including adjusted operating EPS and ROAE, which do not have a standardized meaning under IFRS and are unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other organizations. The Company believes that certain Non-IFRS Measures can be useful to investors because they provide a means by which investors can evaluate the Company's underlying key drivers and operating performance of the business, exclusive of certain adjustments and activities that investors may consider to be unrelated to the underlying economic performance of the business of a given period.

Forward-looking Statements

This release includes forward-looking statements regarding ECN Capital and its business. Such statements are based on the current expectations and views of future events of ECN Capital's management. In some cases the forward-looking statements can be identified by words or phrases such as "may", "will", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "intend", "potential", "estimate", "believe" or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release include those relating to the acquisition of the Service Finance business, including expected timing for closing of the acquisition, obtaining of the necessary regulatory approvals and the timing thereof, and the expected benefits and financial impact of the acquisition on ECN Capital's business, the future financial and operating performance of ECN Capital, including the expected impact on ECN Capital's EPS and originations, the strategic advantages, business plans and future opportunities of ECN Capital and the ability of ECN Capital transition to a high return originator, asset manager, and servicer of assets. The forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this release may not occur and could differ materially as a result of known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties affecting ECN Capital, including risks regarding the equipment finance industry, economic factors, and many other factors beyond the control of ECN Capital. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed. Forward-looking statements and information by their nature are based on assumptions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements or information. A discussion of the material risks and assumptions associated with this outlook can be found in ECN Capital's Annual Information Form dated March 30, 2017 and ECN Capital's March 31, 2017 MD&A each of which has been filed on SEDAR and can be accessed at www.sedar.com. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements or information. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and ECN Capital does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

John Wimsatt

647-649-4634

jwimsatt@ecncapitalcorp.com
THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- MEXICAN GOLD CORP. (the "Company" or "Mexican Gold") (TSX VENTURE: MEX) is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Roca Verde Exploracion de Mexico, S.A. de C.V. ("Roca Verde"), has entered into a definitive purchase and sale agreement (the "Purchase Agreement") to acquire a 100% interest in the Pepe, Pepe Tres and San Jose concessions (the "Concessions") at its Las Minas property from the current owners (the "Owners"). The Concessions form the core of the Las Minas property and encompass six highly mineralized zones, including the El Dorado/Juan Bran and Santa Cruz zones. An initial mineral resource estimate is currently underway for these two zones and is scheduled for completion in July, 2017.

Pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement, Roca Verde has agreed to acquire the Concessions in consideration for the following payments to the Owners:

-- an initial payment of US$433,333 plus Value Added Tax, payable upon execution of the Purchase Agreement (the "Initial Payment"); -- six equal payments of US$22,000 plus Value Added Tax, payable monthly commencing on December 5, 2017 with the final payment due on May 7, 2018 (the "Monthly Payments"); and -- a final payment of US$866,666 plus Value Added Tax, payable on or before December 5, 2018 (the "Final Payment" and, together with the Initial Payment and the Monthly Payments, the "Consideration").

The Initial Payment has been paid in full. If the Final Payment is made prior to the date on which any of the Monthly Payments are due, any Monthly Payment that would have been due after the date upon which the Final Payment is made shall no longer be payable. Upon payment of the Consideration, ownership and full title to the Concessions shall be automatically transferred to Roca Verde.

Pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement, upon the transfer of the Concessions, the Owners shall retain a 1.5% NSR royalty (the "Royalty"), of which one third may be purchased by Roca Verde for US$500,000 plus Value Added Tax. Roca Verde has a right of first refusal on the Royalty in the event that the Owners intend to transfer all or part of the Royalty.

Brian Robertson, President and CEO stated, "This agreement, which secures Mexican Gold's right to acquire ownership of these key core concessions, marks a major milestone for Mexican Gold. I wish to thank the property owners for their kind co-operation and unwavering support for Mexican Gold. We now look forward to the initial mineral resource estimate for the El Dorado/Juan Bran and Santa Cruz zones and the continuing advancement and development of this highly mineralized property."

About Las Minas

The Las Minas Project hosts near-surface gold, silver and copper skarn mineralization and high-grade gold-silver epithermal vein deposits. The project is comprised of six mineral concessions covering approximately 1,616 hectares (3,995 acres), with numerous small scale, past-producing mines and a number of untested targets.

The district is host to one of the largest under explored gold-silver copper skarn systems known in Mexico, and has a production history that extends back to the Aztec era. The Las Minas granodiorite intrusive measures approximately 10 kilometres in diameter and underlies the Las Minas concessions. The mineralization controls and association with magnetite appear to be similar to the Guerrero Gold belt, which is the site of the Los Filos and Morelos gold deposits.

About Mexican Gold Corp.

Mexican Gold Corp. is a Canadian based mineral exploration company committed to building long-term value through ongoing discoveries and strategic acquisitions of prospective precious metals deposits in Mexico. Mexican Gold is exploring the Las Minas Project, which is located in the core of the Las Minas district in the Veracruz State, Mexico. The district is host to one of the largest under-explored skarn systems known in Mexico and has a strong production history that dates back to the Aztec era.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain information that may constitute "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements about the structure, terms and timing of the acquisition, whether the acquisition will be completed, the timing for completion of a mineral resource estimate, the magnitude or quality of mineral deposits, anticipated advancement of mineral properties or programs, future operations, results of exploration, prospects, commodity and precious metals prices, future work programs, anticipated financial and operational results, capital expenditures and objectives and the completion and timing of mineral resource estimates. Forward-looking information is necessarily based upon a number of estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable, are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which may cause the actual results and future events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including the risks identified in the Company's disclosure documents available at www.sedar.com. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. All forward-looking information contained in this press release is given as of the date hereof and is based on the opinions and estimates of management and information available to management as at the date hereof. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

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:

Brian Robertson

President & CEO

807-474-4270 or 807-251-1816

807-474-4272 (FAX)

info@mexicangold.ca

www.mexicangold.ca




MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Sama Resources Inc. ("Sama" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: SME) announces that the Company has signed a Technology License Agreement ("License") with Canadian-based CVMR Corporation ("CVMR" or the "Licensor"). Under the terms of the agreement, CVMR grants Sama use of its technology to refine the mineralized material from the Samapleu property in Ivory Coast, West Africa, to produce nickel and iron powders. At present, prices payable for nickel powders treated using CVMR's technology are at a significant premium above the current LME prices for nickel, providing Sama with a market advantage and growth opportunity not previously available.

CVMR initiated a pilot program in March 2017 with a 260-gram concentrate of mineralized material from Samapleu. The concentrate graded 3.01% copper, 2.30% nickel and 25.90% iron. Preliminary results indicate a 91% and 92% recovery rate for the nickel and the iron, respectively.

"The partnership with CVMR will enable Sama to complete technical studies for a proposed open pit operation at Samapleu with higher returns compared to a simple flotation process," said Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Sama Resources. "We expect to complete the Samapleu feasibility study by year-end 2017."

"The geological formation of the Samapleu deposit is ideally suited to CVMR's nickel and iron powder production technology. The manufacture of metal components and additives has undergone a paradigm shift in the past ten years as 3D printing and metal injection moulding are replacing many other manufacturing methods. Accordingly, the demand for nickel and iron powders is increasing more rapidly than most optimistic forecasts. Sama Resources is well positioned to take advantage of this major shift in the manufacturing industry," said Kamran M. Khozan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, CVMR (http://www.cvmr.ca).

The Licensor authorizes Sama to use CVMR's patents and technology to operate nickel and iron powder manufacturing plants in the Ivory Coast (the "Plants"), to be built, commissioned and delivered on a turn-key basis by CVMR, following a positive feasibility study. The Plants will be dedicated to the production of metal powders used in a variety of products and manufacturing processes, including: 3D printing (additive manufacturing), aerospace and automotive parts manufacturing, medical instruments, computer and electronic parts, super alloys, sophisticated net shapes for use in the defence and space industries, metal injection molding (MIM), anti-seize lubricants, chemicals and catalysts, etc.

In consideration of the License, Sama has agreed to pay CVMR CA$5,000,000 either in cash or, subject to approval from the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"), through the issuance of an equivalent value of common shares of Sama within 90 days of the granting of the mining license. Share price will be based on the average closing price of those shares on the Exchange for each day during the three months of trading prior to issuance. In addition, CVMR will receive a royalty equal to 15% of the sale price of metal powders produced by the Plants in excess of the London Metal Exchange price of the elements contained in such powders.

Sama and CVMR will negotiate a project construction agreement with respect to the Plants.

Sama has also retained CVMR to perform a detailed technical study to confirm the commercial viability of producing nickel and iron powders from nickel-iron concentrate obtained from the flotation of the mineralized material of the Samapleu deposits. Sama will apply to the Department of Mines in Ivory Coast to transform the current exploration permit #123 ("PR123") into a mining license.

A Proven Process with In-Demand Products

Global nickel carbonyl powder production capacity is approximately 37,000 metric tons per year, with the main producers being Vale (Inco) in Canada and Wales, Jilin Jien and Jinchuan in China and Norilsk in Russia. Iron powder production capacity is reported to be around 29,000 metric tons per year, with BASF of Germany being the largest manufacturer followed by Ashland in USA, Sintez in Russia, CVMR in Canada and Jilin Jien in China.

About Sama Resources Inc.

Sama is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company with projects in West Africa. For more information about Sama, please visit Sama's website at http://www.samaresources.com.

About CVMR Corporation

CVMR Corporation is a privately held multinational, multi-disciplinary, organization operating in four continents, with offices in Canada, US, UAE and Turkey, and representative offices in Indonesia, Australia, and a number of Latin American countries. The company specializes in manufacture of metal powders, nano-powders, alloys, super alloys and net shapes based on its proprietary vapour metallurgy. It designs mineral processing plants, constructs and commissions the plants on behalf of its clients. It conducts metallurgical tests and piloting of various minerals.

CVMR's vapour metallurgy processes and technologies have been developed over 20 years and are continuously upgraded and improved as new complementary technologies evolve. CVMR's refining/manufacturing processes are capable of producing pure metal products with very high degree of purity.

Such high-purity metal was used by CVMR to produce nickel tubes for the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), through the Canadian Department of Defense. These tubes are the only nickel tubes with minimum radioactive emission needed to be used for the detection and measurement of neutrinos being emitted from the sun.

CVMR Corporation was one of the very few privately held corporations to have contributed to this scientifically valuable project in partnership with the governments of Canada, US and UK. The SNO project was the precursor to the European Organization for Nuclear Research, at CERN, in Switzerland, which is probing the fundamental structure of the universe.

Readers are invited to visit CVMR's website at: http://www.cvmr.ca.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

The technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet, P.Geo and President and CEO of Sama, and a 'qualified person', as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may be forward-looking. Such statements include those with respect to the constructions of the Plants and the anticipated benefits of the Licensor to Sama. Although the Company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurances that its expectations will be achieved. Such assumptions, which may prove incorrect, include the following: (i) the parties will successfully negotiate a project construction agreement, (ii) the construction of the Plants will not encounter any legal, technical or other obstacle that will delay or otherwise make that construction unfeasible, (iii) Sama will obtain any required TSXV approval for the issuance of common shares to CVMR, (iv) the patents licensed to Sama are in good standing and will remain so, (v) CVMR will at no time be unable or unwilling to perform its contractual obligations under the License or any other agreement entered into between the parties, (vi) the technology licensed to Sama will produce the desired results and perform as anticipated, and (vii) the price of nickel will remain sufficiently high and the costs of advancing the Company's projects sufficiently low so as to permit Sama to implement its business plans in a profitable manner. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations include (i) CVMR's inability or unwillingness to fulfill its contractual obligations, in whole or in part, (ii) the failure of the construction of the Plants, for technical, legal, logistical, labour-relations or other reasons, (iii) deficiencies arising in the patents licensed to Sama under the License, (iv) the licensed technology failing to perform as anticipated for whatever reason, (v) the Company's inability to obtain any necessary TSXV approval for the issuance of shares to CVMR, (vi) a decrease in the price of nickel below what is necessary to sustain the Company's operations, (vii) an increase in the Company's operating costs above what is necessary to sustain its operations, (viii) accidents, labour disputes or the materialization of similar risks, (ix) a deterioration in capital market conditions that prevents the Company from raising the funds it requires on a timely basis and (x) generally, the Company's inability to develop and implement a successful business plan for any reason.

A description of other risks affecting Sama's business and activities appears under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" on pages 31 to 33 of Sama's 2016 annual management's discussion and analysis, which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. No assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking information in this press release will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits that Sama will derive therefrom. In particular, no assurance can be given as to the future financial performance of Sama. Sama disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in order to account for any new information or any other event, except as required under applicable law. The reader is warned against undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Sama Resources Inc.

Dr. Marc-Antoine Audet

President and CEO

(514) 726-4158



Sama Resources Inc.

Mr. Matt Johnston

Corporate Development Advisor

(604) 443-3835 or Toll Free: 1 (877) 792-6688, Ext. 5




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Corvus Gold Inc. ("Corvus" or the "Company") (TSX: KOR)(OTCQX: CORVF) announces results from initial drill testing of four new targets and follow-up drilling on the North Jolly Jane and Cat Hill targets (Figure 1). Follow-up drill holes from the Cat Hill and North Jolly Jane targets have continued to return broad zones of low-grade mineralization with a few narrower zones of +0.5 g/t gold (Table 1). Results from four other new targets only returned low-grade mineralization over moderate to wide widths.

To view Figure 1. Map of 2017, Phase I, New Discovery drill targets and current deposits, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure1_Corvus.pdf

Jeff Pontius, President and CEO of Corvus said: "The New target drilling at the North Bullfrog project has outlined several areas of broad low-grade gold and silver mineralization across the District. Although we have yet to intersect a YellowJacket-like new vein system, the results continue to demonstrate the extensive nature of gold mineralization over a large area of the District, with only less than 25% of the prospective areas having been drilled. Corvus will be integrating this new scout drilling into the District exploration model to target further new exploration work in the fall. The immediate focus of the Corvus exploration team will be its new Mother Lode project, announced on June 6, 2017, which we believe has potential for a high-grade gold system larger than the company's current YellowJacket deposit. Work has already begun on the Mother Lode project and initial drilling permits will be submitted in the next two weeks. 2017 will see a very active drilling program at Mother Lode with a goal of adding the deposit into the North Bullfrog production plan and revised PEA in 2018."

Table 1

Phase II Drill Results - North Jolly Jane, Cat Hill & Other Target Results

(Reported drill intercepts are not true widths. At this time, there is insufficient data with respect to the shape of the mineralization to calculate its true orientation in space.)

Cat Hill Target

Length Silver From (m) To (m) (m)(i) Gold (g/t) (g/t) ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-435 254.51 262.13 7.62 0.11 0.22 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-45 ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-436 77.72 83.82 6.10 0.16 0.05 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-47 ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-437 36.58 42.67 6.09 0.13 0.04 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-50 103.63 105.16 1.52 0.27 0.06 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-438 27.43 32.00 4.57 0.14 0.05 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-50 68.58 100.58 32.00 0.28 0.25 ------------------------------------------------------------ 117.35 141.73 24.38 0.22 0.13 ------------------------------------------------------------ 158.50 166.12 7.62 0.41 0.41 ------------------------------------------------------------ 233.17 243.84 10.67 0.24 1.33 ------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Dandy Target

------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-439 12.19 22.86 10.67 0.12 0.19 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 085 dip-55 38.10 51.82 13.72 0.13 0.19 ------------------------------------------------------------ 150.88 155.45 4.57 0.23 0.16 ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-440 266.70 269.75 3.05 0.12 0.25 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 105 dip-45

Savage East & Deep Targets

NB-17-441 No significant results AZ 095 dip-45 ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-442 135.64 137.16 1.52 0.13 1.24 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 100 dip-45 ------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-443 118.87 128.02 9.15 0.12 0.20 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 100 dip-70 161.54 172.21 10.67 0.24 0.19 ------------------------------------------------------------ 196.60 320.04 123.44 0.14 1.27 ------------------------------------------------------------

Western Zone - Sierra Blanca

------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-444 108.20 129.54 21.34 0.26 0.88 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-50 135.64 185.93 50.29 0.35 1.08 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 149.35 164.59 15.24 0.69 1.18 ------------------------------------------------------------ 211.84 245.36 33.52 0.21 0.77 ------------------------------------------------------------ 251.46 262.13 10.67 0.12 0.37 ------------------------------------------------------------

North Jolly Jane Target

------------------------------------------------------------ NB-17-445 167.64 173.74 6.10 0.24 0.26 ------------------------------------------------------------ AZ 090 dip-50 181.36 210.31 28.95 0.40 0.53 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 192.02 196.60 4.58 1.29 0.68 ------------------------------------------------------------ 216.41 281.94 65.53 0.24 1.24 ------------------------------------------------------------ inc 219.46 222.50 3.05 0.58 1.21 ------------------------------------------------------------ 329.18 390.14 60.96 0.22 2.12 ------------------------------------------------------------ (i) Mineralized thickness calculated @ 0.10 g/t Au cutoff with internal intervals calculated @ 0.5 g/t Au cutoff.

North Jolly Jane Target

Follow-up drill hole NB-17-445 to the higher-grade zone at the North Jolly Jane target also intersected higher grade mineralization with 4.6m @ 1.29 g/t Au. As with earlier drill hole NB-17-432 (NR-17-4, April 4, 2017, 4.6m @ 0.77 g/t Au and 12.2m @ 0.76 g/t Au) this higher-grade mineralization is associated with stockwork quartz veining along the West Jolly Jane fault zone. The North Jolly Jane target is a very large, zone of low-grade mineralization with higher grades related to large fault systems. Further work is needed in this area to identify and test the feeder structures for this large gold system.

Cat Hill Target

The Cat Hill target hosts a large deeply oxidized low-grade gold system. Results to date have intersected widths and grades above cutoff for run of mine oxide material over a broad area but have yet to intersect mill grade material. The size of the mineralized system at Cat Hill is encouraging and further work is needed to identify the feeder structures for this system.

Results from the Cat Hill, North Jolly Jane, Jim Dandy and Savage target have demonstrated wide spread distribution of gold across the western side of the District. This extensive area of gold mineralization covers approximately 25 square kilometres and hosts three deposits. The eastern side of the District which is covered by a thin layer of high level barren alteration and is comparable in size and of similar age to the west and may host several new discoveries when further explored.

About the North Bullfrog Project, Nevada

Corvus controls 100% of its North Bullfrog Project, which covers approximately 72 km2 in southern Nevada. The property package is made up of a number of private mineral leases of patented federal mining claims and 865 federal unpatented mining claims. The project has excellent infrastructure, being adjacent to a major highway and power corridor as well as a large water right. The company also controls 65 federal unpatented mining claims on the Mother Lode project which totals 522 hectares which it owns 100% of.

The North Bullfrog project includes numerous prospective gold targets at various stages of exploration with four having NI 43-101 mineral resources (Sierra Blanca, Jolly Jane, Mayflower and YellowJacket). The project contains a measured mineral resource of 3.86 Mt at an average grade of 2.55 g/t gold and 19.70 g/t silver, containing 316.5k ounces of gold and 2,445k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 1.81 Mt at an average grade of 1.53 g/t gold, and 10.20 g/t silver, containing 89.1k ounces of gold and 593.6k ounces of silver and an inferred resource of 1.48 Mt at an average grade of 0.83 g/t gold and 4.26 g/t silver, containing 39.5k ounces of gold and 202.7k ounces of silver for oxide mill processing. The mineral resource for the mill process was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.52 g/t gold. In addition, the project contains a measured mineral resource of 0.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.25 g/t gold and 2.76 g/t silver, containing 2.4k ounces of gold and 26.6k ounces of silver, an indicated mineral resource of 22.86 Mt at an average grade of 0.30 g/t gold and 0.43 g/t silver, containing 220.5k ounces of gold and 316.1k ounces of silver and an inferred mineral resource of 176.3 Mt at an average grade of 0.19 g/t gold and 0.67 g/t silver, containing 1,077.4k ounces of gold and 3,799.2k ounces of silver for oxide, heap leach processing. The mineral resource for heap leach processing was defined by Whittle optimization using all cost and recovery data and a breakeven cut-off grade of 0.15 g/t.

Qualified Person and Quality Control/Quality Assurance

Jeffrey A. Pontius (CPG 11044), a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), has supervised the preparation of the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Pontius is not independent of Corvus, as he is the CEO & President and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

Carl E. Brechtel, (Nevada PE 008744 and Registered Member 353000 of SME), a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has coordinated execution of the work outlined in this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Brechtel is not independent of Corvus, as he is the COO and holds common shares and incentive stock options.

The work program at North Bullfrog was designed and supervised by Mark Reischman, Corvus Gold's Nevada Exploration Manager, who is responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control/quality assurance program. On-site personnel at the project log and track all samples prior to sealing and shipping. Quality control is monitored by the insertion of blind certified standard reference materials and blanks into each sample shipment. All resource sample shipments are sealed and shipped to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, for preparation and then on to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, or Vancouver, B.C., for assaying. ALS Chemex's quality system complies with the requirements for the International Standards ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 17025:1999. Analytical accuracy and precision are monitored by the analysis of reagent blanks, reference material and replicate samples. Finally, representative blind duplicate samples are forwarded to ALS Chemex and an ISO compliant third party laboratory for additional quality control.

For additional information on the North Bullfrog project, including information relating to exploration, data verification and the mineral resource estimates, see "Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for Combined Mill and Heap Leach Processing at the North Bullfrog Project, Bullfrog Mining District, NYE County, Nevada" dated June 16, 2015 as amended and restated May 18, 2016 which is available under Corvus' SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

About Corvus Gold Inc.

Corvus Gold Inc. is a North American gold exploration and development company, focused on its near-term gold-silver mining projects at North Bullfrog & Mother Lode, Nevada. In addition, the Company controls a number of royalties on other North American exploration properties representing a spectrum of gold, silver and copper projects. Corvus is committed to building shareholder value through new discoveries and the expansion of those discoveries to maximize share price leverage in a recovering gold and silver market.

On behalf of

Corvus Gold Inc.

Jeffrey A. Pontius, President & Chief Executive Officer

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and US securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the potential for new deposits and expected increases in a system's potential, the timing for a revised preliminary economic assessment, the Company's believe about the potential size of new deposits, anticipated content, commencement and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the potential to develop multiple YellowJacket style high-grade zones, the Company's belief that the parameters used in the Whittle pit optimization process are realistic and reasonable, the potential to discover additional high grade veins or additional deposits, the potential to expand the existing estimated resource at the North Bullfrog project, the potential for any mining or production at North Bullfrog, are forward-looking statements.

Information concerning mineral resource estimates may be deemed to be forward-looking statements in that it reflects a prediction of the mineralization that would be encountered if a mineral deposit were developed and mined. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, the Company's inability to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's 2014 Annual Information Form and latest interim Management Discussion and Analysis filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and the Company's most recent filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings in Canada may be accessed via www.sedar.com and filings with the SEC may be accessed via www.sec.gov and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

Cautionary Note Regarding References to Resources and Reserves

NI 43-101 is a rule developed by the Canadian Securities Administrators which establishes standards for all public disclosure an issuer makes of scientific and technical information concerning mineral projects. Unless otherwise indicated, all resource estimates contained in or incorporated by reference in this press release have been prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 and the guidelines set out in the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (the "CIM") Standards on Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves, adopted by the CIM Council on May 10, 2014 (the "CIM Standards") as they may be amended from time to time by the CIM. United States investors are cautioned that the requirements and terminology of NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards differ significantly from the requirements and terminology of the SEC set forth in the SEC's Industry Guide 7 ("SEC Industry Guide 7"). Accordingly, the Company's disclosures regarding mineralization may not be comparable to similar information disclosed by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Without limiting the foregoing, while the terms "mineral resources", "inferred mineral resources", "indicated mineral resources" and "measured mineral resources" are recognized and required by NI 43-101 and the CIM Standards, they are not recognized by the SEC and are not permitted to be used in documents filed with the SEC by companies subject to SEC Industry Guide 7. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability, and US investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource will ever be converted into reserves.

Further, inferred resources have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence and as to whether they can be mined legally or economically. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of the inferred resources will ever be upgraded to a higher resource category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of a feasibility study or prefeasibility study, except in rare cases. The SEC normally only permits issuers to report mineralization that does not constitute SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves" as in-place tonnage and grade without reference to unit amounts. The term "contained ounces" is not permitted under the rules of SEC Industry Guide 7. In addition, the NI 43-101 and CIM Standards definition of a "reserve" differs from the definition in SEC Industry Guide 7. In SEC Industry Guide 7, a mineral reserve is defined as a part of a mineral deposit which could be economically and legally extracted or produced at the time the mineral reserve determination is made, and a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves, the three-year historical price is used in any reserve or cash flow analysis of designated reserves and the primary environmental analysis or report must be filed with the appropriate governmental authority. U.S. investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our latest reports and registration statements filed with the SEC. You can review and obtain copies of these filings at http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml. U.S. Investors are cautioned not to assume that any defined resource will ever be converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant reserves.

This press release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States.

Contacts:

Ryan Ko

Investor Relations

1-844-638-3246 (toll free) or (604) 638-3246

info@corvusgold.com

www.corvusgold.com




Chiltern, a leading global contract research organization, has announced the release of its new Medidata Rave Value Accelerators, a system of tools designed to capture, manage and report clinical research data. The tools streamline the clinical trial process and help trial sponsors cut the time, cost and effort of bringing a new device to market.

"Our partnership with Medidata and its industry-leading platform aligns with our strategy providing an exceptional customer experience around best-in-class technologies," said Mark Penniston, executive vice president, clinical analytics, and general manager at Chiltern. "Currently our Data & Analysis team leads the field in providing the latest platforms and technologies and the Medidata Rave Value Accelerators support our stronghold in the technology space."

Included are three accelerator tools: the Chiltern EC Reviewer for Medidata Rave, Chiltern EC Detector for Medidata Rave and Chiltern EC Analyzer for Medidata Rave. They are designed to create flexibility for users, helping them accommodate their workflow environments, and they are scalable from one study to hundreds and from Phase I to global Phase IV studies.

The tools function in any type of study requirement from simple to complex out of the box or customized to our customer's process. Not only can sponsors select which tools are appropriate for their needs but they can be used anytime and anywhere, and by multiple users during the setup and conduct of the trial.

Over the course of the next year there will be more tools available. To learn more about Chiltern's services and technologies, visit Chiltern.com or request a demo at the Drug Information Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, June 19-21, in booth 1807.

About Chiltern

Chiltern, a global contract research organization, is a leading provider of clinical services and solutions in a variety of therapeutic areas with engagement models for biopharmaceutical and medical device industries. Chiltern's team of more than 4,300, located across 47 countries, provides comprehensive Clinical Development, Medical Scientific Affairs, Data Analysis, Pharmacovigilance and Strategic Regulatory services using a collaborative approach for more efficient clinical trials. Visit Chiltern.com to learn more about how Chiltern is Designed Around You

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005248/en/

Contacts:

SCORR Marketing

Lea Studer, 308-237-5567

lea@scorrmarketing.com
FRANKFURT, Germany, September 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

More functionality, emotion and freedom of design in interiors

Yanfeng Automotive Interiors (YFAI), the global leader in automotive interiors, is a pioneer in the development of new materials for vehicle interiors. At the IAA, with the activeSkin concept, the company presents its vision of integrating intuitive controls into vehicle interiors, which blur the boundaries between the digital and analog worlds. This new development concept enables the display of data on soft surfaces. Functional and decorative surfaces in vehicle interiors will increasingly merge in the future.

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/554187/Yanfeng_Active_Skin.jpg )



"The future generation of surface is more intelligent than ever. We can simply move our hands over a fabric-covered surface in the car and an interactive surface or dynamic ambient decorative lighting appears. The surfaces interact with us," said Han Hendriks, Chief Technology Officer for YFAI. "This is impressive technology."

activeSkin from YFAI maximizes freedom of design

New levels of design freedom for interiors can be realized with activeSkin. The old design principle "form follows function" will be completely redefined with this new concept development. In the future, car interiors will increasingly have the atmosphere of a Next Living Space, with surfaces which are not only decorative and have a pleasant feel, but are also fully interactive.

"We offer functionality on demand, which is only visible when it is needed. With this, we have the possibility of personalization functions into interior surfaces," said Hendriks. The activeSkin technology enables a freedom on interaction design. The quality and elegance with which the imaging and data transfer is implemented is convincing. "With activeSkin, we can achieve a 3D effect with a surprising sense of depth," explained Hendriks.

What was recently a vision for the future could become part of our mobile reality by 2022.

The detailed press text is available in our Media Center at http://www.yfai.com.

Please visit our IAA microsite or follow us online:

http://www.yfai.com/the-next-living-space

YFAI Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YFautointeriors

About Yanfeng Automotive Interiors:

Yanfeng Automotive Interiors (YFAI) is the global leader in automotive interiors. YFAI is redefining how people relax, work and play in their vehicle interiors today and decades from now. Headquartered in Shanghai, the company has approximately 110 manufacturing plants and technical centers in 20 countries and more than 33,000 employees globally. They design, develop and manufacture interior components for all automakers. Established in 2015, Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is a joint venture between Yanfeng, one of the largest automotive suppliers in China and Adient, the global leader in automotive seating. For more information, please visit http://www.YFAI.com.

For more information please contact:

Yanfeng Automotive Interiors

Jagenbergstrae 1

41468 Neuss

Germany

Astrid Schafmeister

Tel.: +49 2131 609-3028

E-Mail: astrid.schafmeister@yfai.com

Internet: http://www.YFAI.com
DANVERS, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 07/11/17 -- MobiCard Inc., fka Peer to Peer Network (OTC PINK: PTOP), has executed an exclusivity re-seller license agreement with Vision Consulting LLC specific to a segment of the market that includes political campaigns and candidates, trade associations, and non-profit organizations.

The agreement between the two parties consists of a revenue share arrangement and the potential for the re-seller to be awarded up to 10% ownership in the Company in the form of stock warrants that is achievable based on a 1% issuance for every $1,000,000 generated in gross revenues. Therefore, if consultant achieves the maximum issuance, MobiCard would have generated $10,000,000 in gross revenues. Furthermore, the agreement details specific milestones to maintain exclusivity.

"We believe that the increased functionality of MobiCard 2.0 coupled with our new partnership agreement with Vision Consulting LLC will be a monumental game changer for our Company going forward," says Christopher Esposito, Director of Business Development.

Esposito went on to say, "We enable associations to leverage their existing membership base to incite new member sign ups and reach back to their base to encourage political support and drive event attendance, campaign donations and ultimately votes."

The value proposition to the Association:

Associations are able to leverage their existing membership to promote the association every time an existing member shares their MobiCard

The Organization will build a valuable database of new leads to target market by text and/or email and drive new membership

Exponentially Increase the associations digital and social media footprint

Attract new members by providing a value add member benefit to help them promote their business

Increase loyalty of existing members and reduce attrition

Push messaging to reach a captive audience to increase donations, promote new programs, political events and candidate support

The Association gains trust and credibility as it is shared by existing members to their personal connections and networks

Association members are able to leverage their existing contacts and exponentially reach new ones to increase leads, referrals and overall business generation. Users are able to reach prospects instantly and scale to a broader base of previously inaccessible connections.

The Mobicard platform provides instant text alerts to users every time their card is viewed and shared identifying new prospects in real time while validating the referral source. It's knowing who and when to follow up that optimizes new business opportunities.

Register for your own MobiCard here https://www.cardsmobi.com/register.php and enjoy all of the existing benefits of new lead and referral generation, and never miss a business opportunity again.

About MobiCard Inc.:

MobiCard Inc. fka Peer to Peer Network ("PTOP") owns and markets its core technology, a SaaS mobile solution branded C2A MobiCard, a scalable mobile business card software platform that enables users to create a customized web based personalized mobile app that is sharable by text sms, email, digital and social media. Subscribers are able to track card opens, views and shares all while validating and analyzing new leads and referrals in real time, thereby knowing who and when to follow up https://freemobicard.com/

Safe Harbor Statement

This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company invokes the protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategies, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include those set forth in our filings at www.sec.gov. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

MobiCard Inc.

Chris Esposito

Director of Business Development

click here http://bit.ly/2rXjNGK to request my MobiCard

(978) 335-4066

chris@freemobicard.com




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 07/25/17 -- Five Star Diamonds Limited (TSX VENTURE: STAR) (the "Company" or "Five Star Diamonds") is very pleased to provide the following update on its 100% owned Jaibaras Diamond Project (the "Jaibaras Project" or "the Project") in Para State, Brazil.

Highlights

-- Construction of the 0.5tph bulk sampling plant at Jaibaras is completed. -- A 20t bulk sampling has commenced on the J3 kimberlite target. -- On completion of bulk sampling at J3 kimberlite, the Company will process similar sized samples from J1, J2 and J4 kimberlite pipes. J5-J8 kimberlite pipes remain under assessment. -- The Company has two diamond core drilling rigs operating on the Jaibaras Diamond Project. Initial drilling results from the J1 and J2 kimberlite pipes are meeting the Company's expectations. -- A total of 34 diamond core drill holes have now been successfully completed on the J1 and J2 kimberlite pipe. -- Both drilling rigs are currently operating on the J2 kimberlite pipe and 14 holes have been completed.

JAIBARAS DIAMOND PROJECT, PARA STATE

The Company has commenced its bulk sampling and continues its drilling programme at the Jaibaras Diamond Project. The Company maintains two drilling rigs on site and has commenced a 20t bulk sampling on the J3 kimberlite target. Similar samples will be processed from the J1, J2 and J4 kimberlite pipes. A total of eight kimberlite pipes (J1-J8) have been identified and continue to remain under assessment and evaluation at Jaibaras. Previous mini bulk sampling of the J1 and J2 kimberlite pipes has already resulted in the recovery of gem quality macro diamonds from clay weathered kimberlite.

Construction of the 0.5tph bulk sampling plant is now completed and will commence processing a 20t sample from the J3 kimberlite pipe. The bulk sampling plant is a 0.5tph mobile wash and jig concentrate sampling plant which recovers diamonds above 1.5 mm in size. As observed from recently completed programmes the kimberlite pipes at Jaibaras occur on or very close to surface which allows the Company to quickly test the diamondiferous quality of the pipes. Initial results from the bulk sampling programme should be available in the coming month.

To view the photos associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Bulk-Sampling-plant-at-Jaibaras.pdf.

Diamond core drilling focusing on the J1 and J2 kimberlite pipes is well underway with 20 drill holes completed at the J1 kimberlite pipe and 14 drill holes completed at the J2 kimberlite pipe. Initial results are meeting the Company's expectations with a total of 1,064 meters completed to date.

The key objective of the drill programme is to cross cut the clay weathered zone and penetrate approximately five metres into the fresh rock. This has been successful to date and will allow the Company to delineate the lateral boundaries of the pipe and the vertical depth extent of the clay weathered zone. Once completed this will then provide the necessary data to conduct a tonnage estimation of the J1 & J2 clay weathered zones.

The 5tph Pilot Plant wash and rotary pan concentrate plant, used to complete the pilot programme at the Company's Catalao Diamond project, has been dismantled and is awaiting granting of the trial mining licence prior to mobilisation to the Jaibaras Project.

To view the images associated with this press release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/J1-Kimberlite-Diamond-Core-Drilling-Programme.pdf.

ABOUT FIVE STAR DIAMONDS

The Company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker symbol STAR.

The Company controls a dominant and highly enviable position in the Brazilian kimberlite diamond sector owning 23 diamond kimberlite projects comprising an aggregate of 72 exploration licences and applications across 123,667 hectares.

Five Star Diamonds is focused on acquiring and developing advanced staged diamond projects in Brazil. Since it was established, it has pursued an accelerated growth strategy and aims to be one of the first producers of diamonds from kimberlite deposits in Brazil. The Company is focused on the development of sustainable kimberlite pipes and is not involved in alluvial diamond mining with its associated environmental issues. The Company works closely with local, state and federal authorities in Brazil to foster an open, transparent and legal diamond industry in Brazil.

This release is an update by the Company on its 100% owned Jaibaras Diamond Project. The Company is also running active programmes across its 100% owned Catalao, Riacho, Verissimo and Caiapo Diamond Projects. It is expected that the company will be able to provide further updates over the coming months and we look forward to keeping shareholders informed of our progress as we move towards building a truly unique Brazilian Diamond Company.

Qualified Person

Mr Paulo Ilidio de Brito, BSc Geology

Mr. Paulo de Brito is a geologist based in Brazil, has over 30 years of experience in the mining industry, dealing primarily with gold, copper, nickel, iron, industrial minerals and more recently diamonds. Mr. Brito is a Principal of consulting group Brasgeo and was until recently Exploration Manager of Paringa Resources Limited. Previously, he worked as a senior geologist with WMC Resources Ltd for 18 years until the closure of their activities in Brazil in 2002.

The exploration activities and their related results included in this announcement were directly supervised and managed by Mr. Brito. According to Mr. Brito, all exploration work carried out to date on the Projects mentioned in this release follow clear mining industry standards.

Mr. Brito, is a member of AIG (Australian Institute of Geoscientists), a member of AusIMM (The Minerals Institute) and a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Brito reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information contained in this press release.

On behalf of the Board

Five Star Diamonds Limited

Matthew Wood

Chairman of the Board, President and CEO

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, many of which are beyond the Company's control. Such factors include, among other things: variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, significant downward variations in the market price of any minerals produced, the Company's inability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities, to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

Contacts:

Five Star Diamonds Limited

Joe Burke

GM Marketing

jburke@fivestardiamonds.net



Rajan "Raj" Rai

rrai@fivestardiamonds.net

+1 778 835 9200






NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - Tesla joins other 19 companies to be in Fortune magazine's annual list of America's top 500 companies for the first time. Of these 20 new companies, six were the result of recent splits or spinoffs, while three were founded more than 100 years ago. Two others were created just last year.



Elon Musk's electric car startup finally made to the list with a rank of 383 after growing sales by 73% last year. Tesla is worth more than both General Motors and Ford in stock market value, but it still makes far less in sales than the traditional automakers.



Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the data center and cloud services business split from Hewlett-Packard, was ranked at 59, while Alcoa, which produces aluminum since 1888, reached at 300. Alcoa's core smelting and aluminum refining business was spun off last year from the parent company, now called Arconic.



Synchrony Financial, spun off from General Electric in 2015, lands on the list at No. 185. Nvidia, which makes graphics chips used in everything from Apple computers to Tesla's self-driving car technology, is at 387.



Walmart tops the Fortune 500 list, which has been a measure of the country's most valuable businesses since it first came out in 1955. The retail behemoth has been holding the spot for five years in a row. Berkshire Hathaway comes in the second spot, and Apple is in third.



Meanwhile, 15 companies fell from the Fortune 500 this year, while some others including Baxalta and Time Warner Cable were acquired by other companies. This year's bar was of at least $5.1 billion in annual revenue.



This year, the combined total revenue of all 500 companies in the list reaches $12.1 trillion, 65 percent of the U.S. GDP.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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MOSCOW, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Startup Village 2017, Russia's largest innovation and technology conference, was held on June 6 and 7 at the Skolkovo Innovation Center. Over 5,500 startups and worldwide investors were brought together to discuss innovation collaborations and trends in language, big data and artificial intelligence (AI). During the conference, Global Tone Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (GTCOM) demonstratedits products such as YeeSight, a cross-language big data analysis platform, and YeeCloud, a language big data platform, and organized the "AI+Language & Big Data Cooperation and Innovation Forum", sharing the latest research findings and applications in AI and big data with all the participants.

GTCOM Vice President Zhang Xiaodan delivered a keynote speech "AI+language & Big Data, the Driving Force of Innovation and Development" at the main forum of the conference. She noted that removing language barriers and increasing the capacity to acquire knowledge were essential to a company's innovation, development and global operations. GTCOM has developed YeeSight and YeeCloud- two platforms that integrate AI, language and big data - to serve worldwide companies and drive innovation and development.

At the "AI+Language & Big Data Cooperation and Innovation Forum" sponsored by GTCOM and organized by Skolkovo Foundation, Yan Guoqing, Director of International Business Department of GTCOM, delivered a keynote speech "Cross-language Big Data, Industrial Integration & Innovation". According to Mr. Yan, cross-language big data is a new factor of production and the YeeSight has been applied to drive growth in a wide range of fields including finance, tourism, news media, and precision marketing. It is expected to reach more fields in the future.

Yury Saprykin, Vice President of Skolkovo Foundation, Nikolay Garbovskiy, President of the School of Translation and Interpretation, Lomonosov Moscow State University, and Kirill Petrov, Managing Director of i-Free, also spoke at the conference, talking about the significance of YeeSight, their respective practices in big data and AI, as well as the possibilities of combining the Internet of Things (IoT) and language and big data.

During the conference, GTCOM signed strategic cooperation agreements with Skolkovo Foundation, Lomonosov Moscow State University and i-Free. Startup Village 2017 provided GTCOM great opportunities to connect and bond with prestigious international businesses in the AI and big data field. For the next phase, GTCOM would like to work closer with the local partners to develop the Eastern Europe market.

Photo - http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521305/GTCOM_ZhangXiaodan_speech.jpg
GOTEBORG, Sweden, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Doctrin and Capio are taking the next step in their joint ambition to create the future of healthcare. Along with KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Lund University, they are developing AI decision support tools helping healthcare professionals to prioritize, diagnose and treat patients.

Doctrin develops digital tools to support healthcare providers, and the company has already developed a system that allows for the patient to summarise his or her own medical history. The patient answers questions about their symptoms on their smartphone or computer, which helps healthcare providers to deliver the appropriate care. The tool has been developed together with Capio.

As a next step, Doctrin and Capio will jointly develop a decision support tool based on artificial intelligence (AI). Based on the medical history of the patient, along with medical guidelines, the tool will make suggestions to the healthcare professional on how to prioritize, diagnose and treat the patient. The purpose is to support healthcare professionals to improve quality and ensure all patients receive the right care, at the right care level at the right time.

- This is a natural step in our ambition to improve healthcare. There is great value in capturing the patient's medical history in a structured way. If we can facilitate the work of care professionals even further with AI, it is a big step towards the future of healthcare, says Magnus Liungman, CEO at Doctrin.

The tool is developed together with KTH Royal Institute of Technology, providing expertise in AI and machine learning, and with the Medical Faculty at Lund University, conducting the scientific evaluation of the tool. Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency is co-funding the development with a contribution of SEK 1.9 million.

- Developing intelligent tools improving patient care and supporting our healthcare professionals is one of our most important priorities. We believe that this initiative has the potential to significantly improve the way we provide healthcare, says Daniel Olsson, deputy CEO, Capio Proximity Care.

Doctrin AB was founded in 2016 and has 15 employees. The CEO is Magnus Liungman.

For information, please contact:

Daniel Olsson, deputy CEO, Capio Proximity Care

Telephone: +46-706-22-72-21

Magnus Liungman, CEO Doctrin AB

Telephone: +46-735-06-39-00

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/capio-ab/r/doctrin-and-capio-proximity-care-to-develop-ai-together-with-kth-royal-institute-of-technology-and-l,c2284325

The following files are available for download:
BENGALURU (dpa-AFX) - Infosys Limited (INFY) said Friday that Vishal Sikka has resigned as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Meanwhile, U. B. Pravin Rao has been appointed as Interim Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. The company also said that Sikka has been appointed Executive Vice Chairman effective today, and will hold office until the new permanent Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director takes charge, which should be no later than March 31, 2018. In his notice of resignation to the Board, Sikka reiterated his belief in the great potential of Infosys, but cited among his reasons for leaving a continuous stream of distractions and disruptions over the recent months and quarters, increasingly personal and negative as of late, as preventing management's ability to accelerate the Company's transformation. Infosys said, 'The Board understands and acknowledges Dr. Sikka's reasons for resignation, and regrets his decision. In particular, the Board is profoundly distressed by the unfounded personal attacks on the members of our management team that were made in the anonymous letters and have surfaced in recent months. As the Board has previously stated, a series of careful investigations found no merit to the unsubstantiated and anonymous allegations that had been asserted.' The Board denounces the critics who have amplified and sought to further promote demonstrably false allegations which have harmed employee morale and contributed to the loss of the Company's valued CEO. 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.
TEMPE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / June 8, 2017 / Lithium Exploration Group Inc. (OTC PINK: LEXG) announced today that it would be holding meetings next week with its partners at Sonic Cavitation Ltd. and White Top Oil and Gas in Houston. They plan to discuss deploying Sonic Cavitation Ltd. units at a new oilfield in Louisiana for field demonstration, as well as using the facility for ongoing R&D purposes. Representatives from LEXG and Sonic Cavitation Ltd. will be there for a period of two weeks meeting with all of the vendors working on the development of the market-ready technology unit, as well as making approvals for all of the final design of the unit and ongoing testing protocols.

"We are excited to have a stake in the field in Louisiana and to have a location just two hours from Houston to use as a future R&D facility for the next generation of units and other high-end applications for the Sonic Cavitation Ltd. technology," commented CEO Alex Walsh. "Timing is everything, and when this opportunity came up, we could not pass on it. The team from White Top have been instrumental in assisting us over the past year in sourcing testing oil and they are very familiar with what we are collectively trying to accomplish with the proliferation of this game-changing technology."

About Lithium Exploration Group

Lithium Exploration Group is a US-based exploration and development company focused on the acquisition and development potential of lithium brines and other precious metals that demonstrate high probability for near-term production. Currently the company is focused testing its SonCav Technology and the acquisition of oil and gas related assets in the US and Canada. Lithium Exploration Group is traded on the OTC Markets under the symbol LEXG.

Website: www.lithiumexplorationgroup.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This news release contains "forward-looking statements". Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future testing of the ultrasonic technology.

Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with mineral exploration and difficulties associated with obtaining financing on acceptable terms. We are not in control of lithium prices and these could vary to make development uneconomic. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements.

Although we believe that the beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our most recent annual report for our last fiscal year, our quarterly reports, and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contact Info:

Shanon Chilson

480-641-4790

info@lithiumexplorationgroup.com

SOURCE: Lithium Exploration Group Inc.
BRUSSELS, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Real life benefits for citizens and businesses must be the benchmark of progress towards the European Energy Union, urged the EESC in an opinion adopted at its last plenary. The EESC also called on the EC to open up the European electricity market to industry, business and local prosumer communities.

Assessing the second annual report on progress towards the European Energy Union, the EESC urged the European Commission to "go back to basics": "We must remember why we are doing all this. We are doing it for citizens, for businesses and for the benefit of the whole of society." said opinion rapporteur Tellervo Kyla-Harakka-Ruonala (Employers' Group - FI).

The Energy Union is a complex construct, with several pillars, many objectives and numerical targets, but progress monitoring should primarily focus on practical indicators - energy prices, industrial production figures, jobs created, emission cuts, the opinion rapporteur insisted: "As the saying goes, you get what you measure, so if you measure benefits, action will focus on these. The energy system, the physical infrastructure, the functioning of the market are important, but let's also measure the benefits which accrue to companies, workers, consumers. If we were to do that, we would actually see the linkage with what is happening in reality and what the Energy Union means in Europe on the ground."

The EESC also called on the Commission to assess low-carbon policy instruments holistically, focusing on tackling taxes and charges that raise consumer prices and subsidies that distort energy markets and investment signals. This was crucial to attract investment, the rapporteur underlined.

The Committee further encouraged the EC to take measures to strengthen the EU's carbon handprint - a positive indicator which, in contrast to the carbon footprint, refers to the combination of all the good impacts of one's action on the environment. Europe's emissions currently account for about 10% of global emissions and are expected shrink to approximately 5% in the coming decade. "So we are still left with 95% of world emissions", pointed out Ms Kyla-Harakka-Ruonala, "To maximise its positive impact, Europe strives to export its low-carbon systems and products to the rest of the world. This will allow us to fight climate change not just in Europe, but across the globe."

The new rules proposed by the European Commission to make the electricity market in Europe compatible with renewable energy were the focus of another opinion adopted at the EESC's May plenary. While welcoming the package as a whole and the idea of placing consumers at centre stage, the EESC underlined that more needs to be done to open up the electricity market to all players: "European consumers must be able to take part in the whole of the electricity market. The EESC supports the right of all consumers - industry, business and private households - to generate, store and trade energy themselves. Local communities should also be given the right to set up, develop or rent local networks. But more specific rules are needed to make it possible to assert these rights." said opinion rapporteur Alfred Gajdosik (AT - Various Interest Group): giving access to the grid, bringing down grid charges, removing legal and administrative barriers and setting up local venues where small quantities of electricity could be traded were some of the measures the EESC pointed to.

Decarbonisation was also a main concern. A strategic objective of the Energy Union, decarbonisation means that the external costs of conventional energy generation, such as climate change and health damages, need to be factored into prices. Failure to "internalise" these costs puts renewable energy at a competitive disadvantage. Still, "no effort is made in the entire winter package to rectify this distortion in the market," said the rapporteur. An appropriate system of taxation would be the best way to steer investments towards green electricity.

Finally, as one way to tackle energy poverty the EESC recommended helping vulnerable consumers to become prosumers. But for this, access to public loans or help from local or regional authorities was essential, the EESC stressed.

Both opinions were part of the EESC's articulated response to the Commission's "winter package" on energy - a set of legislative and non-legislative documents for a total of over a thousand pages. A first instalment appeared last month, when five opinions on the "Clean Energy for All" measures were voted. A further chapter of the EESC's response is in the pipeline for July, when the plenary will discuss an opinion on energy costs and prices.

To read the EESC's opinion on the State of the Energy Union see: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.ten-opinions.41362

The EESC's opinion on the electricity market design will be available as of 13 June at http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.ten-opinions.41141

Contact: gesa.winkens@s-f.com +32-25-04-07-96
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Canada House Wellness Group Inc. ("Canada House" or the "Company") (CSE: CHV)(CSE: CHV.CN)(CNSX: CHV), which provides guidance towards an improved quality of life through restorative alternatives to conventional treatments, is pleased to announce its new Cannabis Patient Management software.

The new Cannabis Patient Management (CPM) software that will be utilized by Marijuana for Trauma, a division of Canada House, will improve service to patients while doing so in a more efficient manner. The software which was designed by Knalysis Technologies, also a division of Canada House, includes brand new Physician Services capabilities and an improved service to patients in Ontario with 48-to-72-hour response time for all prescriptions and renewals.

Resulting from these improved functions, not only will Marijuana for Trauma be able to better serve current clients, there is now the capacity to serve more than 1,000 new clients per month in Ontario alone. Clients of MFT's remaining eight clinics outside Ontario will benefit similarly.

In addition, Canada House is also pleased to announce that all five of their Ontario clinics now have a Licensed Practical Nurse providing Cannabinoid Therapy Education to all clients. The capability of the new CPM software along with the new Physician Services features and the staffing of Licensed Practical Nurses are all an integral part of the Canada House vision in offering better health outcomes to those seeking alternative treatment towards an improved quality of life.

Canada House Wellness Group Inc.

Canada House is the parent company of Marijuana for Trauma Inc., Knalysis Technologies and Abba Medix Corp. The Company's goal is to become a marketplace leader through strategic partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions to create a fully integrated medical cannabis marketplace. For more information please visit www.abbamedix.com, www.mftgroup.ca and www.knalysis.com.

Notice: Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information. Certain statements within this website and related documents pertaining to the Company constitute 'forward-looking statements", within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, business plans and/or objectives, sales programs, forecasts and projections, assumptions, expectations, and/or beliefs of future performance, are 'forward-looking statements". Such 'forward-looking statements" involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the anticipated effects of the Acquisition, regulatory changes, timeliness of government approvals for the granting of permits and licenses, including the final approval to resume trading on the CSE, changes in medical marijuana prices, actual operating performance of facilities, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the medical marijuana industry generally, including those set out in the Listing Statement. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Boom Capital Markets

Steve Low

647-620-5101

steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com






WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Job openings in the United States have reached at their highest levels since the turn of the century, a non-profit fact tank reported citing Government data.



States such as Utah and Colorado are experiencing shortage of employees to fill all the available jobs, according to PEW Research Center.



The unemployment rate in Utah fell to 3.1 percent in March, among the lowest figures in the US.



Colorado's unemployment rate dropped to 2.3 percent in April, a mark recorded only four other times by any state in recent U.S. history.



Seasonally adjusted data from the government's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) shows that at the end of April, non-farm employers reported more than 6 million job openings.



With the U.S. economic expansion well into its eighth year, the report doesn't say if the Trump administration's declared policy to create and bring back tens of thousands of jobs to America has helped the trend.



Trump's call on US corporate firms to invest more to bring back jobs to America, and warning of heavy tax if they shifted jobs abroad, received positive response recently.



Companies such as Ford, Amazon.com Inc., General Motors Co., Lockheed Martin, Exxon Mobil and Hyundai Motor Co. unveiled plans to invest further in its U.S. manufacturing operations or create more U.S. jobs jobs this year.



Although there are still more people without jobs than the employed, the monthly estimate of open positions has been above 5.5 million for all but one month since the start of 2016, a sign of the U.S. economy's relative health. It is a vast improvement from the situation in 2009, just past the trough of the Great Recession.



Nationally, workers appear to be in shortest supply in mainly two service sectors: professional/business services and health-care/social assistance.



The lowest openings rate was in state and local public education, according to the JOLTS data.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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HAUPPAUGE, NY -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 --



Highlights:

Expanded network will provide 100% global coverage of all major shipping routes

Increased maritime traffic leads to extended coverage in South Indian Ocean

Network will address new market demands, including Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) services

Globecomm announced today the further expansion of its Ku-band VSAT network, serving enterprise, maritime and government markets around the world. Globecomm's Ku-Band VSAT network -- which includes a footprint over the Barents Sea, North of Scandinavia -- will be extending its coverage by adding the South Indian Ocean passage between the southern tip of Africa and Australia.

Globecomm VSAT customers have increased transit to these areas in recent months, leading the company to invest in the extended coverage. The expanded network will provide 100% coverage of all major shipping routes to address new market demands.

"Customer demand for high-availability services is driving this growth as we strive to provide all our clients with 100% uptime everywhere they need to operate," said Chief Commercial Officer Bryan McGuirk. "With this expansion, Globecomm will offer the most-extensive Ku-band geographic coverage for VSAT services in the industry."

The growth of Industrial Internet of Things services through Globecomm's previously announced partnership with AT&T is another factor that led the company to commit to expanded coverage, according to Mr. McGuirk.

Globecomm's international network consists of multiple teleports connected by high-capacity, redundant fiber to the world's major telecom points of presence. The company's C and Ku-band capacity covers the major land masses and shipping lanes to provide seamless global coverage for media, telecom, government, maritime and enterprise applications. For maritime customers, Globecomm VSAT provides hardware (purchased or leased), systems integration, satellite bandwidth and lifecycle support services.

Access to broadband coverage brings vessel operators unlimited access to applications that improve performance, reduce costs and maintain crew welfare. Email, Web browsing and phone service maintain management communications and allow the crew to stay in touch with friends and family. Online training and telemedicine improve shipboard life. Remote management services -- such as asset tracking, engine data exchange, electronic navigation and remote IT management -- enable vessel operators to run their operations more efficiently. Globecomm's application-triggered quality of service system can assign dedicated capacity to each individual application instead of assigning a single block of capacity for all services.

Globecomm VSAT also integrates with other broadband systems including Inmarsat FleetBroadband, Iridium OpenPort and land-based wireless networks. It automatically switches between satellite beams and from VSAT to other services to maintain reliable connectivity at a lowest cost, without manual re-pointing of antennas or any other intervention by the crew.

About Globecomm

Globecomm is the leading engineering-driven, global connectivity provider serving media, maritime, enterprise and government markets in over 100 countries. We develop smart connectivity solutions to address customer issues across a broad spectrum of areas, including system design and integration, managed communication services including mobile and IoT, media services and mission critical networks. We are known for our unique ability to provide robust connectivity to the most remote locations under the most treacherous conditions. Globecomm is dedicated to improving communications and leverages its world-class, global network to offer end-to-end, managed service communications solutions worldwide. Based in Hauppauge, New York, Globecomm also maintains offices in Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Germany, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan. For more information, please visit www.globecomm.com

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3146677


NEW YORK, NY and CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwired - June 08, 2017) - (IRCE) -- dotmailer, a leading email and cross-channel marketing automation platform, announces today at the annual Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition that they are joining the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program. Now, merchants that use Shopify Plus and dotmailer can scale their marketing efforts while supported by connected data, easy-to-use dotmailer platform functionality and dedicated support and services.

"Shopify Plus and dotmailer have a strong connection: both of our offerings are perfect for high-growth, high-volume merchants because they are innovative, powerful, and easy to use. Our expert teams are accessible and easy to work with whenever merchants need us. By utilizing the data available from the Shopify Plus platform, merchants can engage in conversation with their shoppers by sending highly personalized messages that are laser targeted based on a shopper's buying behavior and engagement with their brand," said Steve Shaw, Chief Technology Officer, dotmailer.

Using dotmailer's Commerce Flow, Shopify Plus merchants can automatically synchronize customer contact information and purchase history to send relevant, compelling emails. Commerce Flow enables more personalized interactions with the ability to segment campaigns based on product and purchase data and a better view of customer engagement. dotmailer offers a full team of customer success experts that are available to support merchants in doing this.

Features:

Simple Setup: Start the flow of data by connecting your Shopify Plus and dotmailer accounts in just a couple of clicks, and begin harnessing your data for email campaigns.

Advanced Automation: Build and automate email programs to engage or re-engage your customers and drive revenue, such as welcome or loyalty series. The drag and drop automation Program Builder in dotmailer makes it easy to visualize the route you want to send your customers on.

Better Segmentation: Build targeted segments based on Shopify Plus transactional data or any customer data for more relevant emails that generate store traffic and convert.

Showcase your products: Syncing your product catalog to dotmailer lets you add them to your email campaigns easily.

"We are thrilled to welcome dotmailer to the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program," said Jamie Sutton, Head of Technology Partnerships, Shopify Plus. "This partnership recognizes the important role email marketing plays in the rapid growth and innovation possibilities of today's modern merchant."

The dotmailer platform is built to allow merchants to move from batch and blast mailings to smarter marketing. Through the dotmailer App Directory, clients can add functionality when they need it, without the need for expert coders and with support on hand. dotmailer's App Directory includes more than 92 integrations, aimed at enabling marketers to create their own marketing cloud around the powerful and cost-effective dotmailer platform.

About dotmailer

dotmailer is the email marketing automation platform of the dotdigital Group PLC (LSE: DOTD). It currently enables more than 80,000 marketers in more than 130 countries around the world to use transactional and behavioral data to design, test and send powerful automated campaigns. Established in 1999, dotmailer is a global company with more than 200 employees and B2C and B2B enterprise and SME clients.

Contact:

Shannon Wojcik

dotmailer - Communications

shannon@galvanizeworldwide.com

(585) 831-6267
IRVINE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- With rifle shot accuracy, Ascendiant Capital Markets, LLC targeted Dallas, Texas-based Good Sportsman Marketing ("GSM") as an ideal strategic buyer for Bullseye Camera Systems, LLC ("Bullseye") in an acquisition just recently completed.

Founded by software developer, serial entrepreneur, and outdoor enthusiast Nick Skrepetos, Bullseye has set out to radically change the target shooting industry. Consisting of both a hardware component with camera and internal wi-fi transmitter, as well as Bullseye's integrated proprietary software application, shooters can view their targets from long distances on their phone or tablet devices. Professional, military, and recreational shooters alike can also utilize many interactive features of the software to provide a truly unique experience at the range.

GSM, a portfolio company of Detroit-based private equity firm Huron Capital, became a leader in the hunting and shooting accessories market seventeen years ago when it pioneered the trail camera market with the launch of StealthCam. Since that time, GSM has expanded its comprehensive portfolio of products, and the addition of Bullseye Camera Systems is an important component of its continued growth.

Nick Skrepetos is no stranger to the merger & acquisition process having sold his previous business SUPERAntiSpyware to a public company. "Working closely with Paul Fejtek at Ascendiant, Sean Roberts at Huron, and Eddie Castro at GSM, along with their respective teams, has been a true pleasure," said Skrepetos. "These individuals are experienced professionals, and have made the transaction process smoother and faster than I could have ever imagined," he added.

Ascendiant Capital Markets, LLC, based in Irvine, California, is a full-service investment banking, equity research, market making, and securities trading firm focused on public and private companies, and strategic and institutional investors. During their careers, Ascendiant's Managing Directors have successfully completed more than 250 mergers & acquisitions across a broad range of industries. Ascendiant Capital Markets is registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a broker-dealer, and is a member of the FINRA and SIPC.

For more information, please visit www.ascendiant.com.

This announcement is for informational purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or other financial instrument or to provide any investment advice or service.

Ascendiant Capital Markets, LLC

Paul Fejtek

Managing Director

949.259.4919

pfejtek@ascendiant.com



Bradley J. Wilhite

Managing Partner

949.259.4949

bwilhite@ascendiant.com




LONDON, September 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Dynamo PR today launched the industry's first dedicated team focused on serving Artificial Intelligence tech clients. The new team will specialise in servicing clients that are using machine learning to improve their product offerings.

The team has already signed two big players in the machine learning space with Speechmatics, a leader in automatic speech recognition technology, and Stratagem, a company that uses AI to analyse the sports betting market.

The team have already been supporting Speechmatics and Stratagem by focussing been on introducing press to the capabilities of speech recognition and machine learning as part of a roundtable for Speechmatics, as well as raising the company's profile for Stratagem through feature pieces in publications including Business Insider and the Financial Times.

Paul Cockerton, co-CEO at Dynamo PR explains: "Artificial intelligence and machine learning have an immense potential to transform and improve our lives as well as unveil new horizons. Until recently, they were a mere subject of sci-fi films and tech of distant future, but now we're seeing AI and ML impacting a myriad of industries from medicine to data security.

It's a pleasure and an honour to be working with such progressive companies and as an innovative, disruptive agency we're proud to launch the first team dedicated to AI."

Speechmatics CEO, Benedikt Thuengen commented: "Dynamo understand that AI will shape every aspect of how we work with technology in the future. Our technology is helping make speech communication more accessible and widely adopted and will play a huge role in the voice activated future. Dynamo are the perfect partners to communicate our new technology in this space."

Stratagem Technologies CEO, Charles McGarraugh commented: "Our PR partner has to fully understand our technology, the journey our business is on and, importantly the communication strategy we need to get there. Dynamo's strong work driving our PR strategy is a direct result of the efforts they've made to really get to know our organisation, products, and vision."

About Dynamo

Dynamo is an award-winning consumer, technology and digital communications agency offering PR, social and SEO services for clients that range from ambitious start-ups to international brands. With offices in London and Silicon Valley, Dynamo was launched in January 2011 and now has 26 staff based worldwide.

Dynamo focuses on generating creative responses to clients' needs, providing strategy and tactics focused to achieve client results. Having won 10 industry awards in the past 2 years, including picking up awards for PRMoment's Best Tech Agency and CIPR's Outstanding Mid-Sized Agency.

Dynamo UK has recently moved to 158-160 North Gower Street, London, NW1 2ND.

About Speechmatics

Speechmatics is a leading provider of automatic speech recognition technology.

Founded in 2006, the Cambridge-based company has developed some of the most accurate and deployable real-time speech recognition solutions available.

Speechmatics technology is used across a variety of industries including voice analytics, transcription services, language assessment, and is embedded into OEM solutions. Use cases range from data predictive analytics to language assessment and content discovery.

Speechmatics solutions can be delivered from the cloud embedded on device or on-premise, making it easy to integrate with other applications to provide complete solutions to your needs.

About Stratagem

Stratagem is a machine learning based financial services company which is focused on establishing sports trading as an asset class. Founded in 2012, the business employs more than 65 analysts with experience in mathematics, science and sport who evaluate and interpret leagues all over the globe. Using unique machine learning and AI methods, they apply qualitative analysis to make predictions and determine inefficiencies in the sports trading markets.

Stratagem's core platform, StrataBet is an advanced sports trading platform which utilises the research and analysis to provide users with access to trade opportunities, in-depth betting recommendations and deep market liquidity.
A.M. Best has affirmed the Financial Strength Rating of A- (Excellent) and the Long-Term Issuer Credit Rating of "a-" of Enel Insurance N.V. (EINV) (Netherlands), a captive of Enel S.p.A. (Enel Group), a multi-national electric utility company based in Italy. The outlook of these Credit Ratings (ratings) remains stable.

The ratings reflect EINV's strong risk adjusted capitalisation, solid, albeit volatile, operating performance and strategic importance as a risk management tool for the Enel Group.

EINV's risk-adjusted capitalisation strengthened materially in 2016. This was driven mainly by excellent operating results, which bolstered retained earnings and shareholders' equity. In addition, following the sale of high risk assets and a reduction in Italian government bonds holdings, EINV increased its investment allocation to fixed income securities with excellent credit quality. An offsetting rating factor is the captive's high reliance on reinsurance, which is mitigated partially by the good credit quality of its reinsurance panel, along with its close relationship with its reinsurance partners. A.M. Best expects EINV's risk-adjusted capitalisation to remain strong, supported by internal capital generation and a conservative capital management policy.

EINV's underwriting performance was excellent in 2016, demonstrated by a combined ratio of 60%. The material improvement from 2015 (103% combined ratio) was driven largely by reserves releases following an actuarial review. A.M. Best expects modest underwriting profits to be achieved in future years, with minimum volatility.

EINV is well-integrated within the Enel Group and plays an increasingly important role in managing the group's risk exposures. Following the sale of its subsidiary, Compostilla Re S.A., in February 2016, EINV is the only captive providing insurance cover to the group's operations.

A.M. Best remains the leading rating agency of alternative risk transfer entities, with more than 200 such vehicles rated throughout the world. For current Best's Credit Ratings and independent data on the captive and alternative risk transfer insurance market, please visit www.ambest.com/captive.

This press release relates to Credit Ratings that have been published on A.M. Best's 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. Best's Recent Rating Activity web page. For additional information regarding the use and limitations of Credit Rating opinions, please view Understanding Best's Credit Ratings. For information on the proper media use of Best's Credit Ratings and A.M. Best press releases, please view Guide for Media Proper Use of Best's Credit Ratings and A.M. Best Rating Action Press Releases

A.M. Best is the world's 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/20170608005822/en/

Contacts:

A.M. Best

Filippo Novella

Associate Financial Analyst

+44 20 7397 0304

filippo.novella@ambest.com

or

Tim Prince

Director, Analytics

+44 20 7397 0320

timothy.prince@ambest.com

or

Christopher Sharkey

Manager, Public Relations

+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5159

christopher.sharkey@ambest.com

or

Jim Peavy

Director, Public Relations

+1 908 439 2200, ext. 5644

james.peavy@ambest.com
LOS ANGELES, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Citing an announcement by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Record/County Clerk Dean C. Logan that an estimated 10,460 ballots have yet to be counted, along with irregularities in the April primary and in the general election vote, the Robert Lee Ahn campaign committee urged the registrar's office to ensure every ballot cast is preserved and every vote counted.

"In light of the anomalies that plagued the primary, the unprecedented share of vote by mail ballots and provisional votes cast in support of Robert Lee Ahn in the primary, and the failure of the registrar's office to provide over four hundred Korean language voters their requested vote by mail ballots in time for mailing in the general election, we believe it is critical that every vote cast now be counted," said David Meraz, Ahn campaign manager.

In the April primary, ballots cast in predominantly Asian neighborhoods were not counted until the last canvass, eliciting a vote margin of over 90 percent in favor of Ahn. In the general election, a similar situation with large numbers of vote by mail and provisional ballots appear to have not been counted yet.

"The number of uncounted ballots and the margin of the election night count means that if these ballots produce margins of only 70 percent in favor of Ahn, Robert Lee Ahn is the duly elected Representative for the 34th District," Meraz added. "That is a margin well within how we performed during the April primary and consequently we are asking for every ballot to be preserved and counted."

The 34th District represents all of Koreatown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Little Bangladesh, as well as parts of Historic Filipinotown, Hollywood, Hancock Park, Downtown, Eagle Rock, Boyle Heights, City Terrace, Echo Park, El Sereno, Glassell Park, Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, Mt. Washington, Montecito Heights, and Westlake/Pico Union. For more information, go to www.AhnforCongress.com.

Contact:

David Meraz

Campaign Manager

(661) 443-4842

Email Contact




TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- The Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario (PBCTCO) indicated its support for recently introduced legislation by Attorney General Yasir Naqvi that updates and modernizes the Construction Lien Act. "We are pleased to see the government is listening to the industry in addressing important issues we have raised over the past several years," said Patrick Dillon, Business Manager.

"We have been advocating for changes that require prompt payment on construction projects. This new legislation finally addresses those concerns", noted Dillon. Under the proposed legislation contractors will have a defined schedule to claim money owed under invoices. They in turn will be required to pay their sub-contractors within seven days after receiving payment.

Among the other changes proposed in the act is language that clarifies a worker's lien rights continue until 60 days after the final worker of that union provides services to a site. In addition, the proposed legislation introduces a more streamlined dispute resolution system while continuing to recognize the union's priority to the Statutory Holdback as provided in section 81. The proposed changes also recognize new financing and ownership models of public projects.

"Minister Naqvi is to be congratulated on his efforts to modernize provincial construction laws and to address key issues which will improve the efficiency and competitiveness for construction businesses in Ontario," said Dillon. "We will continue to work with the Minister and government to tackle the issues that affect Ontario's construction workers."

The Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario represents 150,000 trades workers throughout the province.

Contacts:

Patrick Dillon

(416) 347-8245

patrick@ontariobuildingtrades.com




DUBLIN, November 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Global Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market Analysis & Trends - Industry Forecast to 2025" report has been added to Research and Markets' offering.

The Global Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market is poised to grow strong during the forecast period 2017 to 2025

Some of the prominent trends that the market is witnessing include increasing demand for semi-autonomous technologies and rising demand for comfort and convenience vehicles in developing countries.

This industry report analyzes the market estimates and forecasts of all the given segments on global as well as regional levels presented in the research scope. The study provides historical market data for 2014, 2015 revenue estimations are presented for 2016 and forecasts from 2017 till 2025.

The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies for the existing players, new entrants and the future investors.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Market Outline



2 Executive Summary



3 Market Overview



Increasing Demand for Semi-autonomous Technologies

Rising Demand for Comfort and Convenience Vehicles in Developing Countries

Recent Technological Developments in Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars

Growth Opportunities/Investment Opportunities

4 Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market, By End User



Healthcare

Third party or law firms

Government

Transportation

5 Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market, By Automation Level



Level 2

Level 3

Level 1

6 Autonomous Cars/Driverless Cars Market, By Geography



7 Key Player Activities



8 Leading Companies



Uber

Mercedes-Benz

Alphabet Inc. (Google)

Nissan

Toyota

Volvo Car Corporation

Tesla Motors

General Motors

Honda Motor Corporation

Audi

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW)

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/kft9vx/global_autonomous





Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
Regulatory News:

Transgene's (Paris:TNG) shareholders held their Combined General Meeting (ordinary and extraordinary) today, chaired by Philippe Archinard, Chairman and CEO, to approve the company financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2016 and to vote on the other resolutions submitted to their approval.

At the Combined General Meeting, the shareholders have:

renewed the mandates of the following board members Philippe Archinard (who continues as Chairman of the Board), Benoit Habert, Alain Merieux and TSGH SAS;

appointed Marie Landel and Maya Said as independent board members; and;

voted the other resolutions submitted, in accordance with the recommendations of the Board of Directors.

Following the Combined General Meeting, the board of directors is composed of 10 members, including six independent directors.

Marie Landel, Independent Board Member

Marie Landel founded Marie Landel Associates, now Axelia Partners, a consultancy based in Cambridge (Massachusetts) specialized in advising European companies on the creation and development of US subsidiaries. Marie has significant experience supporting French and European biotechnology companies in the United States. In her 27 years of practice, she has built an extensive network in the financial community focused on this sector. Marie is a French CPA (Expert-comptable), and she holds an MBA from the European Business School (Paris, Frankfurt and London).

Marie also sits on the Boards of TxCell, Safe Orthopaedics and Cellnovo.

Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, Marie was also a Foreign Trade Advisor to the French government (CCEF or Conseillers pour le Commerce Exterieur de la France for 10 years).

Maya Said, Independent Board Member

Maya Said brings more than 15 years of international strategic, operational and research experience working across academia and the healthcare industry. She is the President and CEO of Outcomes4Me, a private company headquartered in Cambridge (Massachusetts), focusing on providing patients with personalized treatment options and outcomes information. Previously, she was Senior Vice-President, Global Head of Oncology Policy and Market Access at Novartis, and Vice President, Head of Strategy, Science Policy External Innovation, Global R&D at Sanofi. Her career started within the healthcare and strategy practice of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Maya has a Doctor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science & Systems Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), two Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering Computer Science and in Toxicology, as well as two Bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and in Biology. She has also studied finance and healthcare systems excellence at the Harvard Business School. Maya is the author of more than 20 publications in refereed journals such as Nature and PNAS.

About Transgene

Transgene S.A. (Euronext: TNG), part of Institut Merieux, is a publicly traded French biotechnology company focused on designing and developing targeted immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Transgene's programs utilize viral vector technology with the goal of indirectly or directly killing infected or cancerous cells. The Company's two lead clinical-stage programs are: TG4010, a therapeutic vaccine against non-small cell lung cancer and Pexa-Vec, an oncolytic virus against liver cancer. The Company has several other programs in clinical and preclinical development. Transgene is based in Strasbourg, France, and has additional operations in Lyon, as well as a joint venture in China. Additional information about Transgene is available at www.transgene.fr.

Follow us on Twitter: @TransgeneSA

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. The occurrence of any of these risks could have a significant negative outcome for the Company's activities, perspectives, financial situation, results, regulatory authorities' agreement with development phases, and development. The Company's ability to commercialize its products depends on but is not limited to the following factors: positive pre-clinical data may not be predictive of human clinical results, the success of clinical studies, the ability to obtain financing and/or partnerships for product manufacturing, development and commercialization, and marketing approval by government regulatory authorities. For a discussion of risks and uncertainties which could cause the Company's actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to the Risk Factors ("Facteurs de Risque") section of the Document de Reference, available on the AMF website (http://www.amf-france.org) or on Transgene's website (www.transgene.fr). Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and Transgene undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005892/en/

Contacts:

Transgene:

Lucie Larguier

Director Corporate Communications IR

+33 (0)3 88 27 91 04

investorrelations@transgene.fr

or

Media contacts:

Citigate Dewe Rogerson

David Dible Marine Perrier

+ 44 (0)20 7638 9571

transgene@citigatedr.co.uk
For the second consecutive year, all global sites met certification standards in Leadership, Ethics, People, Community and Environment

Regulatory News:

Teleperformance (Paris:RCF), the global leader in outsourced omnichannel customer experience management, announced that it has earned Enterprise-Wide Social Responsibility Standard (SRS) Certification, the greatest possible SRS achievement awarded by Verego.

For a second consecutive year, all Teleperformance's global sites met the requirements of the exacting Verego Social Responsibility Standard for full certification in five key categories, defined by Verego as "AREAs": Leadership, Ethics, People, Community and Environment.

Each Verego AREA measured essential components of social responsibility within Teleperformance:

Leadership recognizes the company's commitment to stakeholder, government and legal transparency.

recognizes the company's commitment to stakeholder, government and legal transparency. Ethics highlights the conduct and processes used by to procure goods and services.

highlights the conduct and processes used by to procure goods and services. People focuses on human rights protection, and handling of critical employment policies and stakeholder issues.

focuses on human rights protection, and handling of critical employment policies and stakeholder issues. Community measures engagement and investment in the local districts where it operates.

measures engagement and investment in the local districts where it operates. Environment illustrates the ability to effectively measure, report and improve its impact on the planet.

"Teleperformance continues to integrate new practices and expand upon existing processes to further establish itself as a global leader in corporate social responsibility, said Carole Kerrey, Lead Certification Assessor at Verego. The 2016 SRS Enterprise-Wide Re-Certification reinforces Teleperformance's industry-leading social responsibility practices worldwide at the corporate level all the way through local site implementation."

"Teleperformance is committed to a people strategy which guides all of our programs, processes and procedures, including our successful social responsibility initiatives, said Paulo Cesar Salles Vasques, Worldwide Chief Executive Officer, Teleperformance Group. Our Verego SRS Certification recognizes the scale of the accomplishments across Teleperformance's global footprint. I'm very proud of the entire team for ongoing progress worldwide to protect the environment and further our commitment to human rights, corporate citizenship and anti-corruption principles across our Group."

ABOUT TELEPERFORMANCE

Teleperformance (RCF ISIN: FR0000051807 Reuters: ROCH.PA Bloomberg: RCF FP), the worldwide leader in outsourced omnichannel customer experience management, serves companies and administrations around the world, with customer care, technical support, customer acquisition (Core Services), as well as with online interpreting solutions, visa application management services, data analysis and debt collection programs (Specialized Services). In 2016, Teleperformance reported consolidated revenue of 3,649 million (US$4,050 million, based on 1 $1.11).

The Group operates 163,000 computerized workstations, with 217,000 employees across 340 contact centers in 74 countries and serving 160 markets. It manages programs in 265 languages and dialects on behalf of major international companies operating in a wide variety of industries.

Teleperformance shares are traded on the Euronext Paris market, Compartment A, and are eligible for the deferred settlement service. They are included in the following indices: STOXX 600, SBF 120, Next 150, CAC Mid 60 and CAC Support Services. They also have been included in the Euronext Vigeo Eurozone 120 index since December 2015, with regard to the Group's performance in corporate responsibility.

For more information: www.teleperformance.com

Follow us on Twitter: @teleperformance

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608005984/en/

Contacts:

PRESS RELATIONS

MARK PFEIFFER

Tel: 1 801-257-5811

mark.pfeiffer@teleperformance.com

or

INVESTOR RELATIONS

QUY NGUYEN-NGOC

SVETLANA SAVIN

Tel: 33 1 53 83 59 87/ 59 15

investor@teleperformance.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- AlarmForce Industries ("AlarmForce") (TSX: AF) will release its second quarter results for 2017 on Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 after market close. The Company will subsequently hold a conference call on Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 10:00 AM Eastern Time hosted by Graham Badun, Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Lynch, Chief Financial Officer. A question and answer session will follow the corporate update.

CONFERENCE CALL DETAILS Date: Thursday, June 15th, 2017 Time: 10:00 AM Eastern Time Participant Dial-in Numbers: Local - Toronto: 647-788-4919 Operator-Assisted Toll Free - North American: 1-877-291-4570 Conference ID: 37075567 ENCORE REPLAY A digital recording of the conference call will be available for replay two hours after the call's completion. To access the recording: Local - Toronto: 416-621-4642 Toll Free(Canada/US): 1-800-585-8367 Passcode: 37075567 Expiry Date: 29/06/2017 at 23:59 ET

About AlarmForce

AlarmForce provides security alarm monitoring, personal emergency response monitoring, video surveillance and related services to residential and commercial subscribers throughout Canada and the United States. More information about AlarmForce's products and services can be found at www.alarmforce.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information which is not comprised of historical facts. Forward-looking information involves risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance and opportunities to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Forward-looking information contained or referred to in this press release includes, but may not be limited to, AlarmForce's future enhancement and development of products, AlarmForce's proposed write down and possible other write downs of assets or investments (and the timing thereof) and other actions which may impact financial performance.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the inability of AlarmForce to reach an agreement with one or more specialty manufacturers, the inability of specialty manufacturers to meet the demands and requirements of AlarmForce, the actual amount of the proposed write down being different than the estimated amount, a change in AlarmForce's decision to complete the proposed write down, as well as certain other risks set out in AlarmForce's public documents, including its annual information form dated January 27, 2015, filed under AlarmForce's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The forward-looking information in this press release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of AlarmForce based on information currently available to AlarmForce. In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this press release, AlarmForce has made assumptions about: AlarmForce's business, the economy and AlarmForce's industry in general. AlarmForce has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of AlarmForce's normal course of business. Although AlarmForce believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, AlarmForce disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise.

Contacts:

News Media:

Hugh Mansfield

(416)-599-0024/(212)-370-5045

hugh@mansfieldinc.com



Securities Analysts:

Chris Lynch

(416) 445-2414

clynch@alarmforce.com




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."
EQS Group-Ad-hoc: Leclanche SA / Key word(s): AGM/EGM/Financing Leclanche SA: Leclanche shareholders approve all Board proposals at Annual General Meeting 26-Jul-2017 / 18:43 CET/CEST Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 KR Leclanche shareholders approve all Board proposals at Annual General Meeting - The Company has secured fresh investment of CHF 18.5 million from existing investors Golden Partner and Bruellan - Creation of authorized and conditional share capital to enable Leclanche to raise funds for growth plans - 2017 funding and growth strategy update, including confirmation of 450 MWh of qualified pipeline - Three new directors elected YVERDON-LES-BAINS, Switzerland, 26th July 2017: Leclanche SA (SIX Swiss Exchange: LECN), one of the world's leading energy storage solution companies, announced today that its shareholders approved all of the proposals of the Board of Directors at its 2016 Annual General Meeting held this morning. Shareholders approved all the resolutions relating to the creation of authorized and conditional share capital in connection with the 2017 operating and growth plans of the Company. Three new members were elected to the Board of Directors. The Company welcomes Mr. Pierre-Alain Graf, a well-known industry leader in Switzerland and Europe, as an independent director. The Company also welcomes Mr. Tianyi Fan and Ms. Cathy Wang from Golden Partner, both top-class finance professionals, to the Board. The shareholders also approved the proposals of LECN Co-Invest and ACE EE to readopt article 5 of the Articles of Association with regards to opting-up moving from 33 to 49 percent. Anil Srivastava, CEO of Leclanche, provided a comprehensive overview of 2016's key achievements, including 56 per cent increase in revenue, more than 2.5 times 2014's figure; 16-fold increase in order intake; steady-state EBITDA loss reduction by 54 per cent, year-on-year; and off-balance sheet USD 23 million in project finance. Srivastava also provided an update on the Company's funding and growth strategy. Despite the success in 2016, Leclanche's growth strategy faced a temporary blip in the first half of 2017. This was driven by accumulated losses from the past and Leclanche's delay in raising new equity, which led to a very short term balance-sheet based technical insolvency under Swiss CO725.2, known to the Board since 31st May 2017, and negotiating an extension of the Convertible Loan provided by ACE and Jade Group, due on 30th June 2017. Leclanche solved these issues and its trajectory to profitable growth remains unaffected as it secured fresh investment of CHF18.5 million in July from existing shareholders Golden Partner and Bruellan. Leclanche is planning to raise a further CHF 30 million in October and is reviewing the options of a rights issue, private placement with institutional shareholders and an asset sale. In addition, Leclanche is reviewing a potential second listing on a North American exchange and the possible acquisition of a target energy management storage software company, which is expected to generate an additional 3.5 per cent margin. Jim Atack, Chairman of Leclanche, said: "We are delighted to receive the continued support of our shareholders and their approval of all the Board's proposals. We are very pleased to welcome Tianyi Fan, Pierre-Alain Graf and Cathy Wang to the Board. We are also very grateful to have received the investment commitments from our long-term shareholders Golden Partner and Bruellan, which will enable Leclanche's management to take the Company to the next stage of its growth story. We thank ACE and Jade group for their constructive work with Golden Partner and the Company to extend the convertible loan." Mr. Tianyi Fan and Ms. Cathy Wang representing the interests of Golden Partner said: "Leclanche is at the forefront of the transformation of the global energy industry to a focus on renewables and we are delighted to have the opportunity to invest further in the huge opportunities ahead for the Company." Antoine Spillmann, partner and CEO of Bruellan, a major shareholder of the Company, said: "We are very pleased to increase our investment in Leclanche. I congratulate Anil and his world-class management team for their work in transforming the Company. Leclanche is one of the most innovative organizations in a sector that is set for long term high growth." Leclanche's resumed fast-track growth strategy for the second half of 2017 is focused on completing its utility scale stationary storage projects in progress, including Marengo project in the USA and IESO project in Canada, two of the biggest projects of their kind in the world; and finalising contracts in eTransport following the Company's global agreement with Skoda Electric to provide battery packs for the Company's electric buses packaged solution; the launch of Leclanche's Marine Rack System, the world's first system approved under revised DNV-GL requirements; and the agreement with eCAMION and SGEM to build and operate a network of 34 electric vehicle fast-charging stations along the trans-Canada highway. In total, Leclanche has a confirmed order book of 95 MWh through 2018, equivalent to more than USD 50 million in revenue, and a qualified pipeline of more than 450 MWh. In eTransport, Leclanche is expecting to generate over 150 MWh per year, equivalent to more than USD 45 million in revenue, from 2019. The markets in which Leclanche operates continue to experience very high growth. According to Navigant Research, in the four years to 2020 utility-scale generation and micro grids will experience a Combined Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 48 per cent; commercial and industrial battery systems, 58 per cent CAGR; and eTransport, 37 per cent CAGR. About Leclanche Leclanche is one of the world's leading fully vertically integrated energy storage solution providers. It delivers a wide range of energy storage solutions for homes, small offices, large industries, electricity grids, as well as hybridization for mass transport systems such as bus fleets and ferries. Established in 1909, Leclanche has been a trusted provider of battery energy storage solutions for over 100 years. Founded in the tradition of Georges Leclanche, the inventor of the dry cell battery, Leclanche today has a rich portfolio of Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) that include bespoke battery systems from industry leading lithium-ion solutions. Leclanche is listed on the Swiss stock exchange, and is the only listed pure-play energy storage company in the world. SIX Swiss Exchange: ticker symbol LECN | ISIN CH 011 030 311 9 Disclaimer This press release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to Leclanche's business, which can be identified by terminology such as "strategic", "proposes", "to introduce", "will", "planned", "expected", "commitment", "expects", "set", "preparing", "plans", "estimates", "aims", "would", "potential", "awaiting", "estimated", "proposal", or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding the ramp up of Leclanche's production capacity, potential applications for existing products, or regarding potential future revenues from any such products, or potential future sales or earnings of Leclanche or any of its business units. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of Leclanche regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that Leclanche's products will achieve any particular revenue levels. Nor can there be any guarantee that Leclanche, or any of the business units, will achieve any particular financial results. * * * * * Leclanche Media Contacts: Europe/Global: Desiree Maghoo T: +44 (0) 7775522740 E-mail: dmaghoo@questorconsulting.com Simon Barker T: +44 (0)7866 314331 E-mail: sbarker@questorconsulting.com U.S. and Canada: Rick Anderson / Henry Feintuch T: +1 (718) 986-1596 / +1 (212) 808-4901 E-mail: leclanche@feintuchpr.com Leclanche Investor Contacts: Anil Srivastava / Hubert Angleys Tel.: +41 (0) 24 424 65 00 E-mail: invest.leclanche@leclanche.com # # # End of ad hoc announcement Language: English Company: Leclanche SA Av. des Sports 42 1400 Yverdon-les-Bains Switzerland Phone: +41 (24) 424 65-00 Fax: +41 (24) 424 65-20 E-mail: investors@leclanche.com Internet: www.leclanche.com ISIN: CH0110303119, CH0016271550 Valor: A1CUUB, 812950 Listed: SIX Swiss Exchange End of Announcement EQS Group News Service 596045 26-Jul-2017 CET/CEST

(END) Dow Jones Newswires
OTTAWA, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/08/17 -- Today, the Canadian Commercial Corporation announced it has signed a contract to deliver Canadian potash from Canpotex Limited, with a potential value of $46 million USD, to the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC).

This is the fourth contract that CCC has signed with BADC. The contract was negotiated by the Canadian Commercial Corporation, the Government of Canada's international government-to-government contracting organization, and finalized in April.

Quick Facts

-- Potash is a critical item for Bangladesh's agricultural industry and is a driver for their continued domestic development. -- The potash will be mined from Canpotex's members' mines. -- As one of the world's largest producers of potash, Canada accounts for 30 percent of the mineral's total global production. -- In 2016, Canada's potash exports were worth $4.7 billion. -- Canada holds 46 per cent of the world's potash reserves, with the Prairie Evaporite Deposit, which lies beneath the southern plains of Saskatchewan, accounting for a significant portion of these reserves. -- Canada's potash industry employs approximately 5,000 Canadians. -- In 2015-16, the Canadian Commercial Corporation was active in 90 countries around the world, working with 129 Canadian companies, to sign export contracts worth over $1.6 billion.

Quotes

"We are thrilled to be helping Canadian exporters access international markets through our International Commercial Business line. By working with CCC, Canadian exporters can take advantage of a unique government-to-government contract that includes a Government of Canada guarantee of contract performance to help grow their international business."

Martin Zablocki, President and CEO, Canadian Commercial Corporation

"Canpotex is pleased to work with the Canadian Commercial Corporation. As one of Canada's largest overseas exporters, Canpotex ships about 10 million tonnes of potash each year, which is used to improve both crop quality and yield, making a significant contribution to global food security."

Ken Seitz, President and CEO, Canpotex Limited

"We are extremely pleased to once again be working with the Government of Canada and Canpotex in securing these important deliveries of Canadian potash".

Md. Nasiruzzaman, Chairman, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation

Associated Links

- Canadian Commercial Corporation

- Canpotex Ltd.

- Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation

Contacts:

Contacts

CCC Communications

communications@ccc.ca




Industry leaders from Cision, CIPR, Mischief, Telefonica UK and The Future Laboratory outline the future of PR

LONDON, June8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Communicators finally have the opportunity to proveto company executiveshow great they are,and how important their work is,communications expertstold a packed audience at theCision's World TourLondon eventon Tuesday(June 6).

A range of speakers, including Nicola Green,DirectorofCorporateAffairsat Telefonica UK;Chris Sanderson,co-founder, The Future Laboratory; and Lucy Hart,HeadofInfluence, Mischief, talked about the future of PR and a new era of modern communicationswithPRs and communicators at the prestigious Ham Yard Hotel in Central London.

CisionCEO KevinAkeroydkicked off theeventby discussing how the time is right for earned media - including PR and media relations - to take its rightful place in the marketing mix and get its rightful share of marketing budgets."Consumers love trusted third parties, so that recognition that businesses have under-invested in earned media is happening now. We've got a great opportunity right now, but we can't keep doing the same thing. We've got to invest in data, tech and measurement."

Duringthe event'spanel Q&A session, which is part of a series exploring the future of communications with leaders and influencers in the industry,Telefonica UK'sGreen saidthe development ofnewindustryinnovations meansPR professionals now have the opportunity to demonstrate the impact their work has on a company's business objectives.

"When we can deliver against our business objectives then, I can guarantee, that's the one time a board sits up and listens," Green explained.

Mischief'sHartsaid she was seeing how clients were increasingly coming to Mischief with bigger PR spend available as support for influencer marketing continued to rise.

Hartadded that innovation will help the communications industry grow."We have to loosen up a little bit and be willing to be more innovative and pushier and take our slice of the pie, Hart added. "Because what we do a brilliant job of is creating dialogue, conversations and creating content that people actually sit back and watch!"

CIPR President JackMacKenzieagreed, saying,"Weneed to stop being hung up on what we call what we do. You can call it influencer relations, you can call it PR, you can call it strategic communications. The client, or your boss, doesn't care. They want results."

The Future Laboratory co-founder Chris Sandersonmade a series of bold predictions about the challenges consumer brands are facing and how technology will continue to shape the future ofcommunications, arguingthat the way consumers engage with content is continually changing. Many people now prefer to consume content in silence, Sanderson said. The majority of videos in Facebook newsfeeds are viewed with the sound off and communicators must be aware of trends like this to create effective PR campaigns.

CisionCMO Chris Lynchexplained how brands, includingbig-name corporations, are finding that combining great storytelling with data scienceis uncovering the right influencers to share their stories, craft content that gets read, and, ultimately, link coverage with customerbehaviour.

The2017CisionWorld Tour is a series of events exploring the future of communications withindustryleaders and influencers.After the U.S.leg of the tour launched in April, with"events in Chicago, San Francisco and New York, Londonmarkedthe first European event"on June6, 2017."Next stop on the tour is Paris on"June 8."For more details on the next event nearestyou, visitworldtour.cision.comand be sure to join the conversationon Twitter@Cisionusing the hashtagCisionWorldTour.

AboutCision:

Cisionis a leading media communication technology and analytics company that enables marketers and communicators to effectively manage their earned media programs in coordination with paid and owned channels to drive business impact. As the creator of theCisionCommunications Cloud', the first-of-its-kind earned media cloud-based platform,Cisionhas combined cutting-edge data, analytics, technology and services into a unified communication ecosystem that brands can use to build consistent, meaningful and enduring relationships with influencers and buyers in order to amplify their marketplace influence. For more information, visit"www.cision.com or follow @Cisionon Twitter.

Contact:"

cisionpr@cision.com

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521432/Cision_CEO_Kevin_Akeroyd.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521433/Cision_World_Tour_London.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/467136/cision_logo.jpg
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 8, 2017) - Monarca Minerals Inc. (TSXV: MMN) ("Monarca" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it anticipates completing the second and final tranche its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing (the "Financing") over the next couple of weeks. The TSXV has granted a 30-day extension of its conditional approval of the Financing in order to permit the closing of the second tranche. The total proceeds to be raised under the second tranche has not yet been determined.

As announced on May 10, 2017, under the first tranche of the Financing, Monarca issued 13,232,182 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.13 per Unit for gross proceeds of $1,720,183. Each Unit was comprised of one Common Share and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one Common Share at a price of $0.18 per share for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance. The Company may raise additional proceeds under the Financing and complete one or more closings.

Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation which is beneficially owned by him, acquired 3,077,000 Units under the first tranche of the Financing for total consideration to the Company of $400,010.

Grant of Stock Options

The Company has granted an aggregate of 2,075,000 stock options pursuant to its 2016 Incentive Stock Option Plan to directors and officers of the Company. The options vest immediately, are exercisable at a price of $0.14 per share and have a term of 5 years.

About Monarca Minerals Inc.

Monarca is a Canadian company focusing on the exploration and development of silver projects along a highly productive mineralized belt in Mexico. The Company has a portfolio of silver projects including a mineral resource of 27.8 million ounces of silver (19.8 million tonnes at 45.0 g/t Ag) at its Tejamen deposit.

For further information, please contact:

Allan Folk

Interim Chief Executive Officer

Monarca Minerals Inc.

E: Afolk.bb@gmail.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Forward-Looking Statements:

The above contains forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause such differences include: changes in world commodity markets, equity markets, costs and supply of materials relevant to the mining industry, change in government and changes to regulations affecting the mining industry. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements regarding future exploration programs, operation plans, geological interpretations, mineral tenure issues and mineral recovery processes. Although we believe the expectations reflected in our forward looking statements are reasonable, results may vary, and we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

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.

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/
FT. MYERS, FL / ACCESSWIRE / June 8, 2017 / Ray and Jessica Higdon recently spoke at the Association of Network Marketing Professionals annual convention that was held on June 1st through the 4th, 2017 in Dallas, Texas. Specifically, they discussed how to get started in network marketing using social media. Ray and his wife were both top income earners in their last company, and have since then built a training and consulting business that was featured in the INC 5000 as one of America's fastest growing companies. They offer a number of network marketing products and resources to train people on how to be successful in the business.

During Ray's talk, he hilariously compared the new network marketer to a socially awkward consumer buying a cup of coffee stating: "It seems like whenever someone joins a network marketing company, they instantly forget all the social graces they've been taught and treat every able body like a piece of meat. They stutter, trip over their words and ask people to look at their 'ground floor opportunity'."

He then made the powerful point that network marketers are supposed to be professionals. Thus, they should be proud of the profession they represent and act like human beings, both face to face and on social media. He adds: "This means providing valuable content on your social media profiles vs. all company logos and commercials, reaching out to people asking the right questions vs. pitching, and thinking long term by growing your network every day."

For those who would like to see what really transpired during the convention, they can watch the live stream of the event. Meanwhile, Jessica gave some tips on how to grow a network on social media as well. She pointed out that instead of just pitching the business to everyone encountered, businesses should go into groups and pages that resonate with the business and its products on Facebook, and ask great questions. These are questions that discover the needs and desires of people to see whether the products and opportunity are right for them.

It should be noted that the Association of Network Marketing Professionals has been raising the standards of the industry and is doing a fantastic job of providing the right training for all reps in all companies. People can also see pictures from the event on the Association of Network Marketing Professionals Facebook page.





Contact Ray Higdon:

Ray Higdon

support@RayHigdon.com

RayHigdon.com PO Box 07028 Ft. Myers, FL 33919

SOURCE: Ray Higdon


WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Former FBI Director James Comey made his highly anticipated appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, addressing numerous issues related to his private conversations with President Donald Trump.



The questioning of Comey came after his statement released by the committee on Wednesday appeared to confirm some recent reports about his interactions with Trump.



The statement included details of a conversation during which Trump seemed to ask Comey to drop an investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contact with Russian officials.



'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go,' Trump said, according to Comey.



Comey told the committee he took the comment from Trump as a directive but said the determination of whether the request amounted to obstruction of justice would be up to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.



'I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,' Comey said. '



He added, 'I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's something I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that's an offense.'



The former FBI Director suggested he did not previously reveal the conversation about Flynn to higher level officials amid concerns about interference in the investigation.



Comey also discussed his firing during his testimony, saying he was confused by the White House's explanations for his dismissal.



While the White House initially cited Comey's actions during the election, Trump later suggested in an interview that the decision was related to the Russia investigation.



'The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI, by saying the organization was poorly led,' Comey said. 'Those were lies, plain and simple.'



Comey said he believes he was fired because something about the way he was conducting the Russia investigation created pressure on Trump that the president wanted to relieve.



The ex-FBI chief was also asked about a tweet from Trump suggesting that there are recordings of their conversations.



In an apparent expression of confidence in his version of events, Comey said, 'Lordy, I hope there are tapes' and indicated he would consent to their release.



Comey noted that he decided to write memos regarding the conversations amid expectations that his view could be challenged.



'I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function,' Comey said.



Many Republicans on the committee focused on why Comey did not disclose the conversation regarding Flynn and frequently turned the conversation to the investigation of Hillary Clinton.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - June 8, 2017) - BTV-Business Television explores high performing companies that made the TSX Venture 50 List: Full Episode





Cannot view this video? Visit:

http://www.b-tv.com/btv-ep-317/

On BNN Sat June 10 & Sun June 11, 2017 - on national TV, BTV-Business Television highlights industry experts and companies who earned a spot on the TSX Venture 50:

Michael Kousaie, Head of Business Development Technology, TMX Group, on how the Top 50 TSX Venture List is broken down. Video

Cordoba Minerals (TSXV: CDB) (OTCQX: CDBMF) - high grade copper-gold mineralization in Colombia with Robert Friedland. Video

Peeks Social Ltd. (TSXV: PEEK) (OTCQB: PKSLF) - reinventing social media by combining it with live streaming and e-commerce. Video

Victoria Gold Corp. (TSXV: VIT) - transitioned from gold exploration to full on development in the Yukon. Video

Golden Arrow (TSXV: GRG) - their silver discovery attracted a joint venture partner with mining major Silver Standard. Video

Nexoptic (TSXV: NXO) (OTCQB: NXOPF) - proving up their one of a kind lens technology. Video

Gerardo Del Real, Editor, Resource Stock Digest Premium on positioning yourself well to capture gains. Video

BTV, a half-hour weekly investment news program, profiles emerging companies across Canada and the US to bring investors information for their portfolio. With Host Taylor Thoen, BTV interviews experts, top analysts, plus features companies at their location for an insightful business perspective.

BTV BROADCAST TIMES:

CANADA: BNN - Saturday June 10 @ 8:00pm, Sunday June 11 @ 9:30pm EST

Bell Express Vu - Saturday June 10 @ 8:00pm, Sunday June 11 @ 9:30pm EST

Air Canada: TV seatback Business Channel

U.S. National: Biz Television Network - Sun June 18 @ 10:00pm & 4:30pm PST, Sat June 24 @ 9:00pm PST

To Be Featured on BTV - Business Television

Contact: (604) 664-7401x 3 info@b-tv.com

To receive news click here to Subscribe.
BURLINGTON, MA--(Marketwired - June 08, 2017) - Genesis HR Solutions, the largest accredited Professional Employer Organization (PEO) headquartered in New England announced today that it has been designated as a Certified Professional Employer Organization (CPEO) by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Notification was made on June 1, 2017 and is effective retroactive to January 1, 2017.

The IRS established this program as directed by the enactment of the Small Business Efficiency Act (SBEA) in 2014. Specifically, the SBEA provides the following regulations:

CPEOs are required to submit ongoing audits and bonding requirements to the IRS.

The CPEO becomes solely liable for the payment of client federal payroll taxes.

The CPEO is codified as a successor employer, which eliminates double taxation of FICA and FUTA taxes for businesses who partner with a CPEO after January 1 of a given tax year.

Businesses in a CPEO relationship are guaranteed access to specific federal tax credits.

"This designation is an important milestone for Genesis, the PEO industry and more importantly for our client business partners," said Robert Burbidge, Genesis Chief Executive Officer. "The PEO industry has been an important business service for the small business community for more than 30 years and passage of the SBEA is very significant."

About Genesis HR Solutions

Since 1991, Genesis HR Solutions has been a proven, regional HR partner that cares deeply about their client businesses and their employees. The company offers a complete range of solutions for businesses with 20 to 200 employees to manage human resources, control costs, retain good people, cope with regulation and achieve solid growth. Genesis' mission is to be an ideal HR partner and trusted advisor -- caring, responsive, expert, and integral to your success. Genesis HR Solutions strives to be the obvious choice for New England-headquartered small and medium sized businesses. Genesis also serves clients with employees in all 50 states, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union. The company has been accredited by the Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC) since 1996.

The Internal Revenue Service does not endorse any particular certified professional employer organization. For more information on certified professional employer organizations, go to www.IRS.gov.

Contact:

Diane Stevenson

781.314.1126

dstevenson@genesishrsolutions.com
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is not happy with the White House response to Wednesday's terrorist attack in Tehran, going so far as to describe a statement by President Donald Trump as 'repugnant.' 'Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship,' Zarif said in a post on Twitter. The comment from Zarif comes as Iran blames U.S. ally Saudi Arabia for the attack by gunmen and suicide bombers that killed at least 13 people in the Iranian capital. Following the attack, a statement from Trump said the U.S. grieves and prays for the victims but pointed to Iran's alleged sponsorship of terrorism. 'We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times,' Trump said. He added, 'We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
According to the Complaint, throughout the Class Period, Asanko made false and/or misleading statements, and/or failed to disclose that: Asanko Gold's Mineral Resource Estimates are flawed; that some of the Company's resources models exhibit signs that they have been "smeared," which would cause estimates of their ore contents to be inflated; and that as a result of the above, Asanko's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On May 31, 2017, research firm Muddy Waters published a report asserting, among other things, that: Asanko made investments based on flawed geology in Nkran, its satellite pits, and Esaase that Muddy Waters believes "will never be recovered;" and that there are indicia that some of the Company's resources models have been "smeared," which would cause estimates of their ore contents to be inflated. Upon the release of this news, Asanko shares decreased in value, which caused investors harm according to the Complaint.

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 8, 2017 / Lundin Law PC, a shareholder rights firm, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Asanko Gold Inc. ("Asanko" or the "Company") (NYSE MKT: AKG) for possible violations of federal securities laws between October 24, 2014 and May 31, 2017, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Investors, who purchased or otherwise acquired shares during the Class Period, should contact the firm prior to the July 31, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline .

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.
Phoenix Footwear Group, Inc. (OTCMarkets.com: PXFG) announced today the expansion of its brand portfolio with the addition of Bueno

Founded in 1950 in Istanbul, Turkey, Bueno is one of Europe's leading women's brands. Distributed in over 30 countries including Italy, Germany, France, Australia and Canada, Phoenix has exclusive rights to market and sell the brand in the United States.

Known for style and comfort, Bueno's luxurious supple leathers and signature color palette offer consumers attainable fashion footwear. James Riedman, Phoenix Footwear's CEO, commented, "Bueno is a natural fit with our existing brand portfolio. In addition to expanding our consumer demographic and retailer base, Bueno's European sizing business model is a logical complement to our size and width business."

With the first deliveries planned for late Holiday 2017, Phoenix will be introducing the Spring 2018 line over the upcoming months. Interested retailers can see the product at industry shows including: FN Platform, Atlanta Shoe Market, TRU Show, Northwest Market, BSTA and other regional shows.

About Phoenix Footwear Group, Inc.

Phoenix Footwear Group, Inc., headquartered in Carlsbad, California, specializes in quality comfort women's and men's footwear with a design focus on fitting features. Phoenix Footwear designs, develops, markets and sells footwear in a wide range of sizes and widths under the brands Trotters and SoftWalk, These brands are primarily sold through department stores, leading specialty and independent retail stores, mail order catalogues and internet retailers and are carried by approximately 829 customers in over 1,391 retail locations throughout the U.S. Phoenix Footwear has been engaged in the manufacture or importation and sale of quality footwear since 1882.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which are intended to be covered by the safe harbors created thereby. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding Phoenix Footwear's ability to repay its bank debt in a timely manner, future growth and performance of its individual brands, expected financial performance and condition for fiscal 2016 and/or statements preceded by, followed by or that include the words "believes," "could," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "projects," "seeks," "exploring," or similar expressions. Although Phoenix Footwear believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any of the assumptions could be inaccurate, and therefore, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements included in this press release will prove to be accurate. In light of the significant uncertainties inherent in the forward-looking statements included herein, the inclusion of such information should not be regarded as a representation by Phoenix Footwear or any other person that the objectives and plans of Phoenix Footwear will be achieved. All forward-looking statements included in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on Phoenix Footwear's current expectations and projections about future events, based on information available at the time of the release, and Phoenix Footwear expressly disclaims any obligation to release publicly any update or revision to any forward-looking statement contained herein if there are changes in Phoenix Footwear's expectations or if any events, conditions or circumstances on which any such forward-looking statement is based.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608006225/en/

Contacts:

Phoenix Footwear Group, Inc.

Greg W. Slack

Chief Financial Officer

760-602-9688
JERICHO, NY--(Marketwired - June 08, 2017) - Aer Lingus, Ireland's national airline, is providing summer travelers with a unique opportunity to experience its Skytrax rated 4-Star Economy and Business Class services on summer flights to Dublin, Ireland. Guests from Boston, Hartford, New York (JFK) or Newark can travel eastbound to Dublin in Economy Class and return home from Dublin in Business Class for one low price of $1,348, including taxes and fees.

To avail of this special offer, customers must book via Aerlingus.com by July 14 (7:00 p.m. ET) and travel between July 1 and August 22, 2017.

"We're excited to provide this chance for guests to avail of our economy and business class services in one trip," said Helen Maguire, Director Consumer Sales, Aer Lingus North America. "The mix is tailored perfectly for guests on a budget. They can take advantage of a more economical fare by flying in economy class on the eastbound, overnight flight to Dublin and enjoy the full service amenities Business Class offers during their daytime return flight."

To take advantage of this limited time offer and for more information, please visit the Aer Lingus website at aerlingus.com.

About Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus is the national airline of Ireland, founded in 1936. We operate 63 aircraft on routes to destinations in the UK, Europe and North America and carry 12 million guests per annum. We are Ireland's only 4-Star airline, awarded by Skytrax, the international air transport rating organisation. Our mission is to connect Ireland to the world and to become the leading value carrier operating across the North Atlantic. Our home base is Dublin Airport. Dublin Airport is the only major airport in Europe to offer U.S preclearance, which enables passengers to save time on arrival in the U.S by completing all the necessary immigration and customs checks prior to departure. Our guests can choose from over 100 routes in Europe and 11 North American destinations with more than 100 onward connections across the U.S and Canada, available with our partner airlines. Aer Lingus is a member of International Airlines Group (IAG), one of the world's largest airline groups.

Rosemarie Curran

Aer Lingus

Rosemarie.Curran@aerlingus.com
NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 8, 2017 / 4 out of 5 Hispanic households have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, according to a recent report by the National Institute on Retirement Security. While many American workers find themselves financially unprepared for retirement, among ethnic groups, Latinos have been reported as being the least prepared. The wealth gap in America is often blamed for the retirement struggles faced by minority groups living here, but for the second-largest ethnic group in the United States totaling some 52 million people or 17% of the national population, Latinos don't want to be left behind any longer.

With little or no savings, the majority of Latinos here face an uncertain future with two main hurdles to saving for retirement: Many Latinos hold low-wage jobs in the private sector, and they are the group least likely to have access to retirement planning resources.

So how can they overcome these barriers? Access to financial planning information and choosing the right location to live in.

As younger generations of Latinos enter the workforce, they are feeling the pains of living paycheck to paycheck, and providing for not only themselves but for their baby boomer parents - the older Latino group that first immigrated to the US. With less money, and more people to care for, they want solutions.

Aquiles Larrea, Founder of NYC-based Larrea Wealth Management, says, "Latinos want to be better educated financially, however they often feel overwhelmed with the information out there." As a firm that specializes in advising Latino entrepreneurs and executives on financial and retirement planning, they have found that Latinos could immensely benefit from both self-education and reaching out to a qualified financial advisor who might help shift their mindset and thus change their outcome.

Furthermore, relocating to a state that is less financially taxing would benefit Latinos. States with the lowest taxes are a selling point for any retiree, but for a Latino it can make the difference between straddling poverty and living comfortably. Traditional 'gateway' cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are becoming less appealing to Latinos as they are finding better home prices across state lines. Accessible home ownership coupled with Social Security exemptions in states like Delaware, Florida, Tennessee, or Louisiana, as well as exemptions for other retirement income, such as pensions and withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement plans, are shifting immigration patterns among the Latino population.

Tools like eRetirement's Personal Retirement Assessment calculate ideal retirement destinations based on an individual's current financial position and personal preferences. They use metrics like cost of living and affordability, public transportation options, access to health care, among almost 60 other data points, to determine the best city and state for someone to relocate to.

Identifying where Latinos should go to live comfortably and save sufficiently is critical not just for them but for future generations. There are few resources available online to help aging minority groups find where best to retire, considering their personal, financial, and medical needs. Provided with proper financial guidance and retirement resources, Latinos will be armed with a holistic approach to solve how and where to retire.

ABOUT ERETIREMENTS

www.eretirements.com eRetirements provides the most user friendly retirement location information on the internet. The millions of retirees across the US deserve to find the best retirement place that is suited to their needs so eRetirements built personalized tools to evaluate ones's unique situation and offer recommendations tailored to those preferences.

ABOUT LARREA WEALTH MANAGEMENT

http://www.larreawealth.com/ Larrea Wealth Management bridges the knowing-doing gap with regards to financial planning, wealth management and retirement savings for Latinos in America. Larrea Wealth Management is based in New York City.

CONTACT

Aleksandra Marcotte

alex@eretirements.com

305-562-4260

SOURCE: eRetirements
DETROIT, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --The Word Network, the leading and most popular African American religious network in the world, told the FCC that Comcast violated its obligations codified in the FCC's Order approving the merger between Comcast-NBC Universal when it unilaterally removed The Word Network from nearly 7 million homes in January.

PDF - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521551/The_Word_Network_FCC_Complaint.pdf

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/445532/The_Word_Network_Logo.jpg

The FCC's Order prohibits Comcast from discriminating against networks such as The Word Network based on affiliation or non-affiliation with Comcast. At the same time as Comcast decreased distribution for The Word Network - the leading network in its category - it has given networks Comcast owns better distribution and financial terms even for Comcast's poorly performing networks. This is not the first time Comcast has flaunted its commitments in the Comcast-NBC Universal merger.

In addition, denying millions of African Americans access to religious programming on which they rely belies Comcast's public commitments to diversity, which it very publicly promoted at the time it was seeking approval of the merger with NBC Universal.

The Word Network is confident that the Commission will see through Comcast's transparent actions to promote the NBC Universal networks they now own, while making harmful and discriminatory actions against minority networks such as The Word Network.

In the complaint to the FCC, The Word Network tells the Commission: "Comcast's treatment of [the independent, unaffiliated Word Network] is precisely the behavior about which the Commission was concerned during its review of the Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal."

MEDIA CONTACT, MORT MEISNER ASSOCIATES,

MORT MEISNER, 248-545-2222
Regulatory News:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) today announces that it has purchased, through PSH's agent, Jefferies International Limited ("Jefferies"), the following number of PSH's ordinary shares of no par value (ISIN Code: GG00BPFJTF46) (the "Shares"):

Date of purchase: 8 June 2017 Number of Shares purchased: 13,177 Shares Highest price paid per Share: 1,222 pence 15.81 USD Lowest price paid per Share: 1,216 pence 15.74 USD Average price paid per Share: 1,218.87 pence 15.77 USD

PSH intends to cancel these Shares. The net asset value per Share related to this Share buyback is USD 18.86 GBP 14.61 which was calculated as of 6 June 2017. After giving effect to the above Share buyback, PSH has 239,474,930 outstanding Shares. The prices per share in USD were calculated by Jefferies.

The number of PSH Management Shares and the 1 special voting share (held by PS Holdings Independent Voting Company Limited) has not been affected.

About Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd.:

Pershing Square Holdings, Ltd. (LN:PSH) (NA:PSH) is an investment holding company structured as a closed-ended fund that makes concentrated investments principally in North American companies.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170608006185/en/

Contacts:

Media:

Maitland

James Devas, +44 20 7379 5151

Media-pershingsquareholdings@maitland.co.uk
Oleochemicals are becoming widely accepted in several industries across the globe because they are a perfect substitute for the petrochemicals. Oleochemicals are made from animal and plant fats and have gained popularity because of their performance, functional efficiency, and sustainability. Infiniti Research notes that the growing adoption of the oleochemicals in the US will result in the downfall of the petrochemicals market in the up-coming decade.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170621006277/en/

Infiniti Research helps companies identify new market opportunities. (Graphic: Business Wire)

View the study: https://www.infinitiresearch.com/thoughts/can-oleochemicals-reduce-americas-dependence-petrochemicals

Infiniti Research says, "Modern industries are highly dependent on petrochemical and allied products. Application of petrochemicals are extensively used for fuel production and in the plastic industry, medical sector, and fertilizers. On the other hand, the usage of petrochemicals is highly criticized as the release of petrochemicals into the ground, air, and water adversely effects the environment and human life."

Side effects associated with the usage of petrochemicals are allergies, hormonal disorders, asthma, and congenital disabilities. The occurrence of side effects is due to the high absorbing capacity of the petrochemicals into the skin.

Market opportunities

Oleochemicals are biodegradable, pollution free, and very low in toxic levels. These chemicals are used for producing biodiesel, bioplastics, and lubricants. The advantages associated with the use of oleochemicals have resulted in their quick adoption in the textiles, personal care, pharmaceuticals, and food beverage industries.

In a recent study on the oleochemicals market,Infiniti Research found that the US is one of the biggest producers as well as consumers of petrochemicals.

"Owing to its commitment to green energy and reducing carbon emissions, policymakers in the US are encouraging industries to adopt oleochemicals. Emery Oleochemicals and Vantage Specialty Chemicals are some of the popular names associated with the oleochemicals market in the USA," says Infiniti Research. "Changes in US regulations and the outlawing of trans fats, along with levying of tax incentives to encourage biofuel consumption are the major factors responsible for driving the market for oleochemicals in the USA."

Have questions about this study? Request more information on this report

About Infiniti Research

Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies.

With 14 years of experience and offices across three continents, Infiniti Research has been instrumental in providing a complete range of competitive intelligence, strategy, and research services for over 550 companies across the globe.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170621006277/en/

Contacts:

Infiniti Research

Jesse Maida

Media Marketing Executive

US: +1 630 333 9501

UK: +44 208 123 1770

www.infinitiresearch.com

Contact Us
On June 26, 2017, the Department of Justice, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State of Colorado, on behalf of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, filed a civil complaint in federal court in Denver alleging violations of the Clean Air Act. The complaint alleges that PDC repeatedly violated clean air regulations intended to address the release of volatile organic compounds at 86 storage tanks which PDC owns and operates in Colorado.

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.
New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today sought support from members of Parliament and state legislatures to create mass awareness about the Goods and Services Tax that is scheduled to be rolled out from 1 July.

In a letter to the presidents of various political parties, Jaitley thanked them for their cooperation and contribution in making the GST a reality.

He underscored the role Members of Parliament (MPs) and Members of Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) can play in creating mass awareness about the new tax law.

"It is important for them to understand the finer points of the new tax regime in order to explain the same to the people. If trade and industry face any difficulty during the implementation phase, the representatives of the people should be better equipped to handle the same if properly trained in this regard," Jaitley said.

Stating that GST is the most important tax reform since independence, he said it is going to make doing business substantially easy and promote new investment and contribute to the overall GDP growth.

"GST will also help in removing the cascading effect of taxation and give relief to the common man by leading to reduction in prices, especially of essential consumer goods," Jaitley said.

He said that with the cooperation of all the political parties, the Constitutional Amendment Act for GST was passed by Parliament. Besides, three laws -- CGST, IGST and UTGST -- have already been passed by Parliament while the SGST law has been passed by the 25 state legislatures.

The GST Council, chaired by Jaitley and having state representatives as members, met 15 times since September 2016 and have approved all the draft laws and rules and GST rates for all the commodities.

In his letter, Jaitley also requested the different political parties to consider organising workshops and training sessions for all the MPs/MLAs of their respective party for which the Union Government can provide expert resource personnel.

He asked them to contact his office or the office of the Revenue Secretary, Hasmukh Adhia, for further assistance.

GST will unify 16 different taxes, including excise, service tax and VAT, and make India a common market for seamless movement of goods and services.
India's education system has been often found wanting compared to its global peers, but the recent development offers an encouraging sign, at least, for some of the country's top-rung universities.

Making it to the world's top 200 educational universities, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)- Bombay has been ranked 179 in the latest edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings'. It improved its ranking by 40 position -- was ranked 219 last year, The Indian Express report said. IIT-Bombay, thus, joins IIT-Delhi and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, in this group. This is for the first time that three universities from India are ranked among top 200 universities in the world in a single year.

Of the three, IIT-Delhi emerged as the top ranking Indian institution in the world, improving its ranking to 172 from 185 last year. It replaced IISc, Bengaluru, which fell over 30 places from 152 to 190. In fact, IISc has been losing its ranking for the second straight year.

Despite ceding its position over the past two years, IISc is still rated the sixth best institution in the world in terms of QSs citations per faculty metric.

This metric measures the research intensiveness and research impact of a university by dividing the number of citations that a universitys research acquires by the number of faculty members at that university. QS notes that IIScs research papers were cited nearly 82,000 times over the five-year period QS used for this metric, the IE reports states citing the QS press release.

Leading the table, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the rankings for the sixth consecutive year, followed by Stanford University and Harvard University, California Institute of Technology and University of Cambridge, the UK-based ranking agency QS said.

This years results indicate that India is home to three of the worlds top 200 universities for the first time since QSs inaugural rankings of 2004. Furthermore, IIT Delhi replaces IISc Bangalore as Indias highest-ranked university for the first time since both universities were ranked together, Mint report said citing the email by QS.

Among the world's 959 top universities, 20 Indian institutions featured in the list this year, six more than last year. The six new entrants were Jadavpur University (ranked in the 601-650 band), University of Hyderabad (601-650), Anna University (651-700), Manipal University (701-750), Aligarh Muslim University (800-1000) and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (800-1000), IE report added.

Entering the top 500 group, Delhi University moved up from its position to the 481-490 category over 501-550 category. Among others, IIT-Kharagpur's ranking came in at 308 from 313, IIT Kanpur rose to 293 from 302 rank last year and IIT-Guwahati moved from 481-490 band to 501-550 band, the report said.

However, there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially in the employers reputation indicator, suggesting that a closer collaboration between the corporate world and the leading universities is essential. India is also less competitive than other countries in the international students and faculty indicators, which makes perfect sense giving the huge internal demand for higher education, Mint report said quoting Ben Sowter, research director at QS.
The Finance Ministrys push for a detailed probe into allegations of unfair practices at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) could throw up many red-faces within the bourse and delay its much-hyped IPO planned for this summer.

On Wednesday, 7 June top bank officials who met to discuss investment plans for a host of corporate entities, were unanimous that the alleged scandal and the subsequent probe against 14 top officials could trigger many uncomfortable moments within NSE and push the IPO till the end of year, maybe early 2018.

The listing can happen only after a thorough clean up, the top resignations at NSE are indications that serious violations happened with total knowledge of some higher ups. Some heads are likely to roll. People are discussing how to save their skins, no one is talking about the IPO, said a senior bank official in know of developments in the bourse.

In its IPO papers NSE said that revenues from the co-location services since September 2016 are placed in a separate account. But Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the market regulator, has already made it clear that it will not release the funds currently frozen in the escrow account till its investigation is complete. It means NSE may need to restate its financials because the co-location server facility stream accounted for nearly 35-40 percent of NSEs core revenues.

Now, the investors aren't excited about the exchanges public offering, a big chunk of its revenues are under dispute, said the bank official.

Two top NSE bosses have resigned within a gap of five months, decisions unprecedented in the Indian stock markets. Ravi Narain, one of the founding members of NSE and current Vice Chairman, submitted his resignation to NSE Chairman Ashok Chawla on the night of 2 June amidst rumours that he was on the verge of being removed by Sebi if he had continued even for a day.

Chitra Ramakrishna, resigned in December 2016, when she was MD and CEO of NSE. Her resignation came 15 months before the end of her term, triggering widespread speculations and a demand for CBI investigation.

The two resignations were directly linked to manipulation in the algorithmic trading platform and co-location facility, says a top Mumbai-based broker.

The Finance Ministry is keen for a thorough probe of the alleged scandal, more importantly, whether the top officials of the bourse violated market guidelines because of their proximity to Finance Ministry officials during the two term UPA regime.

The ministry probe into the bourse, which once proudly carried the tagline Stock of the nation, follows the 350-page show cause notice slapped on 14 top management officials of NSE by Sebi. Besides Narain, notices have also gone to Ravi Varanasi, present Chief of Business Development, Suprabhat Lala, present Chief of Regulation, Ravi Apte and Umesh Jain, both former Chief Technology Officers, and Subramanian Anand, former NSE CEO.

Interestingly, the Sebi notice came almost seven years after an anonymous whistle blower listed examples of mismanagement in NSEs algorithm (Algo) or high frequency trading (HFT) segment without the regulatory clearances.

Co-location in a stock exchange refers to trading members locating their servers on the premises of the exchange. It reduces the time it takes for an order to travel to the exchange, giving them a speed advantage over those farther away.

The 14 officials slapped with the show cause notice are charged with failure to ensure fairness, transparency and equitable dealing, without fixing responsibility even after two detailed investigations by Sebi's technical advisory committee (TAC) and a forensic audit by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India.

The Sebi notice is the tip of the iceberg. NSE is now under the scanner, the resignations of top officials does not mean they will escape the probe, says Aman Aggarwal, director of Delhi-based Indian Institute of Finance (IIF). Aggarwal, a seasoned tracker of financial markets, said Ravi Narains resignation as vice chairman of NSE looked to many in the markets more like an eye-wash because he should have resigned in 2015, when the probe for co-location had started.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Finance, Arjun Meghwal told the Lok Sabha last year: The architecture of NSE with respect to dissemination of tick-by-tick through transmission control protocol (TCP) or internet protocol (IP) was prone to manipulation or market abuse. And this system has been discontinued by NSE from 3 December, 2016.

Preferential access was given to stock broker(s), wherein it was possible for stock broker to log into multiple dissemination servers through multiple internet protocols assigned to him. It was also possible for a single member to have multiple logins to a single dissemination server through multiple IPs assigned to it. It was observed that stock broker(s) had multiple advantages by logging in first or even second and third," Meghwal said, quoting a Sebi report.

Sebis technical advisory committee (TAC) examination and a forensic audit by Deloitte India of the NSE trading systems showed that its algorithmic trading platform and co-location facility were prone to manipulation and allowed potential preferential access to some brokers. The NSE admitted it in its draft prospectus.

Narain is under the heat. So are his confidants.

Days after the Sebi notice was served to the 14 top NSE members, it was revealed that Narain, as head of a NSE sub-committee, had chosen Deloitte for the forensic audit of NSE, knowing very well that Deloitte was doing a huge project for NSEs disaster recovery centre. The decision to award Deloitte was a total conflict of interest, claimed Finance Ministry sources in Delhi.

The probe, claim those in the know, will look into Narains proximity to top officials in Sebi including former chairman CB Bhave, the previous Finance Minister of the UPA regime, P Chidambaram and KP Krishnan, the longest serving Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary for the Capital Market.

Market observers claim policy makers often turned a blind eye to some big buck lapses at NSE, while punishing the other exchanges heavily. And it happened because of some strong political patronage. The observers cite the example of the 2001 stock market scam resulting in the entire Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) board being sacked and the NSEL payment crisis in 2013 resulted in forced sale of multiple exchanges of the FT group. But dealings in the Automated Lending and Borrowing Mechanism (ALBM) segment at NSE were never probed thoroughly. The ALBM started as a pure stock lending scheme, and then tweaked to incorporate features of a carry forward system like the Badla on BSE. The Sebi approval for modification came nine months after NSE informed the market regulator. Worse, the mechanism carried on uninterrupted even when it was awaiting the green light.

It reflected NSE prowess with both Sebi and the Finance Ministry, said the former Sebi chairman.

Interestingly, Sebi has already listed in its probe how NSE officials had installed dark fibre through non-ISP private entities between the two exchanges  BSE & NSE - with the purpose of giving privileged information and facility to its select members. There are charges that for long, the NSE top brass managed to get away because of its proximity to Sebi and Finance Ministry officials, and this needs to be investigated, it is happening. Worse, Sebi once investigated major wrong doings in NSE but buried the report at some ones pressure, added the former Sebi chairman.

NSE insiders claim top officials of the board were cooperating with the market regulator. They also argued that the allegations of installed dark fibre for the purpose of giving privileged information and facility to its select members was untrue. The difference was less than two micro seconds and it did not help anyone as mentioned in the investigations and forensic reports, said top NSE sources.

But people tracking the case in the Indian Capital claim charges will not die overnight. Gopal Aggarwal, economic affairs head of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), says the law will take its own course. There have been reports of mismanagement in NSE during the previous regime and the law will take its own course, Sebi is on top of the issue.

Among those in the dock for alleged violations is OPG Securities, a broking firm whose name is in the forefront of getting the preferential access. Interestingly, it is now revealed that the technology in OPG Securities was offered by Infotech Financials where one of the directors was Sunita Thomas, wife of Lala, NSE Surveillance head. For sometime, the address of Infotech Financials was allegedly same as the residence of Lala, claimed the whistle blower.

When contacted, Sanjay Gupta, head of OPG Securities, said he had no comments to offer in the case.

The management of NSE data centre was been done by one Omnesys Technologies in which NSE had a 26 percent stake and Chitra Ramakrishna was a member on the board of Omnesys Technologies despite the parent of Omnesys being a broker of NSE. Worse, NSE reportedly got 26 percent stake at a huge discount for unknown reasons, which now could be up for investigation by Sebi.

Preliminary investigations have revealed that Sunita is the sister of Susan Thomas, the wife of one Ajay Shah, who, along with Susan Thomas, got a hefty royalty every year from NSE of a certain percentage out of income generated of Nifty trading. NSE officials said Shah and Thomas are academicians/researchers and their association with NSE was purely professional which existed many moons ago. But investigators claim it is unprecedented in the Indian stock markets to give such annual royalty in form of research. This crucial piece of information has been suppressed from the Red Herring prospectus of NSEs forthcoming IPO, they claim.

Investigations are on to check whether Shah, also associated with the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), lobbied for NSE because of his clout in the Finance Ministry and whether he benefitted by influencing FIIs and Participatory (PN) Note activities on NSE. And also, whether he had profit sharing contracts with OPG Securities and Omnesys.

Also being investigated is the whistle blowers charge that the Finance Ministry gave a project of minimum value of Rs 1 crore per year to NIPFP for Ajay Shahs group since KP Krishan became the Joint Secretary for Capital Markets.

Repeated attempts to reach Shah proved futile.

On paper, it is estimated that the NSE co-location scandal, allegedly benefited a handful against the whole market - it had a trading volume of roughly Rs 2-3 lakh crores a day - for a number of years. This, in turn, allegedly affected brokers, investors as well as listed companies on NSE who were allegedly robbed of the opportunity to get transparent price discovery.

NSE on Tuesday, 6 June, said it was keen to settle any issues, without admitting a wrong-doing and accept a penalty tied to the disclosure that some brokers may have been given unfair access to NSE servers, and move on.

It is now for Sebi to respond. The crisis is, arguably, big.
Online learning startup, Coursera has raised $64 million in a Series D funding round, taking the company's total capital raised to date to $210.3 million.

The latest round will be used to fund efforts in its enterprise business to expand its masters degree portfolio, and to accelerate product innovation.

The majority of the funding for this round came from existing investorsGSV Asset Management, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB) and Learn Capital. The Lampert Foundation also participated as a new investor, the company said in a statement.

As the industry leader in online higher education, we have a massive opportunity ahead of us in preparing people, companies, and governments to respond to the changing nature of jobs and to take on the urgent challenges of workforce transformation. This round of funding enables us to continue innovating across our platform to deliver better learner outcomes, and to accelerate the momentum we have in our new initiatives  enterprise and degrees, said Rick Levin, CEO.

The online education portal has begun offering fully-accredited online masters degrees in order to serve the full spectrum of educational needs. Encouraged by the success of the first two degrees it launched in 2015, it recently announced two more degreesa Masters in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OMIE) from HEC Paris, and a Masters of Accounting (iMSA) from the University of Illinois.

In a global marketplace and knowledge-based economy, education makes the difference not only for how well an individual does, but for companies, and for that matter, countries, said Michael Moe, Founder and CEO of GSV Asset Management.

In January of this year, Coursera also launched Coursera for Governments and non-profits, joining forces with government and local institutions to prepare their communities for the jobs of the future. These partnerships have quickly scaled to cover efforts in a number of countries, such as the US, Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, and Singapore.
New Delhi: Consumer electronics major Samsung will invest Rs 4,915 crore to double its manufacturing capacity for smartphones and refrigerators at its Noida plant. Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who inaugurated the new unit at the facility, said that the manufacturing expansion plan will create 15,000 jobs. "Inaugurated new Samsung mobile manufacturing unit at Noida. New facility can produce 10 crore phones per year and create 15,000 jobs," he tweeted.

The Korean chaebol said that the investment would position the Noida plant as a major production hub. As a result of the investment spread over the next two years in the Noida factory, the production capacity of smartphones will rise to 1.2 crore units a month or 14.4 crore a year from the existing 50 lakh, a Samsung official said. The capacity for refrigerators would double to 30 lakh units per annum (against 15 lakh at present), and for TV panels to 26 lakh units (from 13 lakh), the official added.

"The investment reaffirms Samsung's commitment to Make-in-India and Make-for-India and to the state of Uttar Pradesh," a company statement said.

The Noida plant was was set up in 1996 and is the first of two manufacturing units in India for the company. The plant started with the manufacture of televisions way back in 1997, and mobile phone manufacturing unit was added in 2005.

"The expansion of the plant on an additional 35 acres of land adjacent to the current facility will double the production capacity of both mobile phones and refrigerators...," the statement said.

The company's investment proposal was recently approved by the UP Government under its Mega Policy. "The expansion of the plant will act as a catalyst for the development of a robust electronics manufacturing ecosystem and is expected to generate thousands of new jobs, both direct and indirect, across the country," the statement added. The groundbreaking ceremony was held at the new site on Wednesday in the presence of Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

Speaking on the occasion, HC Hong, President and CEO of Samsung Southwest Asia, said, "A bigger manufacturing plant will help us cater to the growing demand for Samsung products across the country". Besides the factory in Noida, Samsung also has a production unit in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, five R&D centres and one design centre in Noida, employing over 70,000 people.
Too fat.

Too thin.

Overdressed.

Under-dressed.

Staid.

Provocative.

Un-ladylike.

Too ladylike.

No matter what they do, it seems women celebrities on social media can't catch a break.

It was not too long ago that the online brigade was allied against Priyanka Chopra for "showing her legs" during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin.

The incident prompted this thinkpiece on Firstpost: Priyanka Chopra meets Narendra Modi: What 'sanskaari' trolls tell us of battle over women's bodies.

However, another week, and we launch into another controversy.

This time, it's Fatima Sana Shaikh who's in the crosshairs.

While her Dangal co-star Zaira Waseem is (we imagine) somewhat inured now to attention from trolls, Shaikh just got a taste of it when she uploaded a photo of herself sitting by the beach in a maillot, to her Instagram account. Shaikh has been shooting in Malta for her upcoming film Thugs of Hindostan, the photo was presumably taken there.

This is the image in question:

The next part isn't really a surprise.

Trolls piled onto the actress for uploading the swimwear photo during Ramzan.

For the purpose of brevity, we're paraphrasing them here: Thode aur chhote kapde pehen leti-Against Islam-Sharm naam ki cheez nahi hai kya-If you don't want to observe roza that's your business, but you could have at least refrained from putting up such a shameless photo during ramzan-bad Muslim-I love sexy b**bs of Fatima Sana Shaikh.

Etcetera. You get the picture.

Soon the comments section of her Insta post looked like a battle zone, with some commenters taking it upon themselves to educate their brethren about why hating on Shaikh was wrong, and disparaging Islam in the bargain .

While that exhausting exchange raged, Fatima Sana Shaikh would have found company in Deepika Padukone, who was fending off trolls of her own.

Deepika's Instagram account had an image from her photo-shoot for a magazine, and it depicts the actress seated on a couch in high-waisted white bottoms and crop top, bold red lip colour, and Louboutin heels.

Here's the pic:

While one commentor felt compelled to inform all and sundry that he was masturbating to the photo, others chimed in with 'Sharam aurat ka gehna hai' and 'Apni maryadaein bhool rahe hain kuch log'.

Writing yet another feminist manifesto as a rebuttal to these incidents would be tiring  and repetitive.

There are far too many of these incidents  each, more mind-numbing than the last.

So we're just going to end with the words of a Pakistani starlet who was killed because men thought she had brought 'dishonour' on them with the way she dressed and acted. Over to Qandeel Baloch:
Four years after Ashi Dua's debut production Bombay Talkies, which was made to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema, was released, she has confirmed that there will be a second anthology of films similar to it.

Dua has revealed that the title will not be Bombay Talkies 2, and that Love and Lust was the tentative name for the film. This is also the theme of the upcoming project. She also said that none of the films in this anthology are sequels of the ones in the first installment.

The second anthology is expected to hit screens at the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018. Bombay Talkies released in 2013, and it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival two weeks later. In this anthology were featured films directed by the same quartet.

"I went back to all the four directors but I was ready to asked other filmmakers had any one from the original line-up had turned me down. But they immediately agreed and I couldnt be happier," said Dua to Mumbai Mirror. In January, she and co-producer Ronnie Screwvala sat down with each of the directors to finalise the theme of each film, following which the directors soon wrote their films. Akhtar and Banerjee have already shot their 30-minute long projects over six to eight days. Karan Johar's film will begin shooting in September or October, and he is currently scripting it.

Zoya Akhtar's film wrapped up its shoot on 11 March, and it stars Bhumi Pednekar and Neil Bhoopalam, who star alongside Rasika Duggal, who plays a domestic help. Dibakar Banerjee's film will feature Manisha Koirala in a never-seen-before look and character. Talking about how she cannot pick a favourite from among these films, Dua said that the film must be enjoyed as a whole, like Paris Je T'aime or I Love New York.

Like the last time, the directors have been given evenly distributed shoe-string budgets to work with. Dua says that Johar and Akhtar are used to working on big-budget films, but were understanding of the limitations of making a film for an anthology. She says that they agreed to work on the second installment because they found the first professionally and personally gratifying. Despite the relatively smaller budgets, the films will be marketed well, she added.

The first to agree to take up the project was Anurag Kashyap; this is not surprising since Dua worked with him on Dev.D, and Kashyap was convinced then itself that she would make a good producer. It was at this time that the idea for an anthology came to her, she said, and she asked Kashyap if he would like to be part of it. His film is still at the writing stage and the casting is yet to be done.
Actress Taapsee Pannu who is riding high on action after Baby and Naam Shabana is reportedly all set to star in the movie adaptation of Shiv Aroor's book Operation Jinnah. Like her previous two films, she will be donning the spy's avatar yet again in the adaptation, reports Mid-day.

As per the synopsis of the book on Amazon, the story revolves around a girl who has been kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists in Kashmir.

"A girl is kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists in Pahalgam, Kashmir. But this is no ordinary girl And her kidnapper is no ordinary man. In Delhi, Admiral Nirbhay Rana, Indias most strong-willed naval officer, watches as the consequences of a lethal operation from his past crash into the present, holding both his daughter and his country hostage. In New York, as the Indian prime minister plays a delicate game of politics with Pakistans prime minister and the US president, Admiral Rana must assemble the only team he trusts to get his daughter back  the very same group of commandos he had led into the heart of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir years ago. Will they make it back alive this time?" the synopsis reads.

According to Mid-day, there are speculations that a big production house has approached Aroor as well as the publishers, Juggernaut Books, to secure rights to Operation Jinnah. The studio is also reported to have got in touch with Pannu to be a part of the film. She has apparently given a nod as well for the same.

However no official announcements have been made either by the author or the production house. Pannu has not yet responded to any of the above mentioned developments.
We got a glimpse of Salman Khan's camaraderie with child actor Matin Rey Tangu in the behind-the-scenes video of Tubelight that was released a few weeks go. Now it has been revealed that apart from Tangu and brother Sohail, Salman has also spent time on the sets with his other co-star, Chinese actress Zhu Zhu, in the capacity of a Hindi teacher.

Tubelight marks Zhu Zhu's debut in Bollywood, and she underwent special Hindi classes so that she could learn her dialogues in the film. With limited time to prepare, the actress would sometimes take longer to get the language right, despite working very hard at her diction. To help her learn faster, Salman Khan explained the meanings of the dialogues to her. Before takes, he would go over the lines with her and come up with easy ways to remember them, too.

Tubelight is directed by Kabir Khan, and the film marks the third collaboration between the director and Salman after Bajrangi Bhaijaan and Ek Tha Tiger. In the film, Salman will be seen playing the role of a misfit. The film recently created buzz when details of its third song 'Tinka Tinka Dil Mera' were released. This song, sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, will explore the themes of brotherly love, separation and heart break.

Speaking about how he prepared for the role, the actor told Firstpost, "I am not smart at all; I am a tubelight. When you are growing up, you are naive, innocent, but at the age of 51-52, when you have seen the world, then its difficult to play something like this. I was wondering where should I get that innocence from, but this character allowed me to do everything. I had to dig deep into my childhood."

Tubelight is slated to release on Eid, 23 June.
On Friday, 9 June 2017, half a dozen movies are slated to hit theatres near you. From Bollywood to Hollywood to Kollywood  there are several releases, and that too, from diverse genres.

Be it the Tom Cruise high-adrenaline action adventure The Mummy to the new-age Bollywood romcom Behen Hogi Teri to the quintessential Tamil romantic action-thriller Rangoon and the reincarnation thriller Raabta  there's something for every kind of movie buff.

-BOLLYWOOD-

Raabta

What is it about: Being a romantic thriller, it is certain that the elements of love and suspense will be present in this Sushant Singh Rajput-Kriti Sanon film. The lead characters are shown to share an inseparable bond that has sustained reincarnation. The protagonists lead ordinary lives, until they meet and then the romance from their previous life takes them on an adventure in their current one.

Who is in it: Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon, Jim Sarbh, Varun Sharma and Deepika Padukone (reportedly in a cameo, hopefully something more than the smouldering 'Kuch To Hai Tujhse Raabta').

Why it may work: The controversy around the film for its uncanny similarity to the Telugu blockbuster Magadheera aside, the fast-paced, high-tension plot and the chemistry between the lead pair should work in Raabta's favour.

The film is directed by Dinesh Vijan.

Behen Hogi Teri

What is it about: Set in a typical middle-class Indian neighbourhood aka "mohalla", this romantic comedy claims to depict the angst of every guy who's threatened to be 'bro-zoned' by the girl he likes.

Who is in it: Rajkummar Rao, Shruti Haasan, Gulshan Grover and Gautam Gulati.

Why it may work: Of late,in Bollywood, the stories set in middle-class neighbourhoods have worked really well. Be it Fukrey, Delhi Belly, Queen, Tanu Weds Manu (1 and 2) to name a few  all of these have been able to strike a chord with the masses. Plus, it will be a nice change to see the fresh pair of Rao and Haasan.

The film is directed by Ajay Pannalal.

-HOLLYWOOD-

The Mummy

What is it about: For every Hollywood movie lover, this should be a no-brainer. Like all its predecessors, this movie too begins when an evil and monstrous mummy Ahmanet, comes back to life to raise hell. Ahmanet is an Egyptian princess who was interred alive, deep in the desert thousands of years ago, wants vengeance post-resurrection. The hero of the film (Tom Cruise) who also is the reason for the return of the monster, must do whatever it takes to stop it.

Who is in it: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Anabelle Wallis and Russell Crowe.

Why it may work: Reason No 1 - It's The Mummy (all the past ventures have enjoyed a great audience attention) and Reason No 2 - It's Tom Cruise! The trailers, posters and action clips have received high viewership and has been able to build up an excitement around the film.

The film is directed by Alex Kurtzman.

My Cousin Rachel

What is it about: The film is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name. This is a story based in old England where a gentleman seeks revenge against his cousin's widow  a beautiful young woman  who he believes has murdered his cousin. But when he meets her, he gets completely drawn towards her beauty and supposed innocence.

Who is in it: Sam Claflin, Rachel Weisz, Holliday Granger and Iain Glen.

Why it may work: The novel adaptation is shouldered by the phenomenal performance by the Academy-award winning actress Weisz. It will be nice to see the new version of the film which has earlier been adapted for the screen and the stage. Most importantly, the story is a big plus point for the film, with just the right dose of passion, fear, suspense and drama.

The film is directed by Roger Michell.

Megan Leavey

What is it about: It is a biographical drama based on the true life story of a young US Marine Corporal (Megan Leavey) who shares a special bond with her military combat dog (Rex). Both of them have saved numerous lives as a team in their military operations in Iraq. In one of their missions, due to an untimely IED explosion, both of them get injured and are separated. After the incident, when she returns to her home, she finds it very difficult to adjust in the new surroundings especially sans her mate. This is a tale of her pursuit to reunite with her canine pal and see what their fates take them.

Who is in it: Kate Mara, Edie Falco, Common, Ramon Rodriguez and Tom Felton.

Why it may work: Since it is based on a real-life story, the connect with the audience becomes even easier. And it is essentially a dog story which has always been a favourite among viewers  who doesn't love to watch films about man's most "loyal" friend?

The film is directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite.

-KOLLYWOOD-

Rangoon

What is it about: It is a film based on Burmese expatriates in the northern part of Chennai  and how they deal with their lives in the city. It is based in the early 2000s, and revolves around the lives of three friends who have been betrayed during a massive gold deal in Burma (previously called Rangoon).

Who is in it: Gautham Karthik, Sana Maqbool, Daniel Annie Pope and Siddique.

Why it may work: The plot seems very intriguing. Gautham Karthik, who debuted with Mani Ratnam's Kadal, is an actor to look out for. The film is being helmed under the banner of AR Murugadoss who is known for his action flicks, and should definitely pull cinegoers into the theatres.

It is being directed by Rajkumar Periasamy.
If one were to ask how many of us have heard the name of Justice Pal, chances are that very few would answer in the affirmative. It is another entry from the long list of names in the records of Indian history which has now been conveniently forgotten. It takes books and documentaries to revive such revered figures; chances are Tokyo Trial might just do the trick for this name. Tokyo Trial, a mini-series from Netflix, is about a small but significant episode of international history after World War II. This particular episode is about an event and an Indian figure unknown to Indian public, but which played a pivotal role in defining the victors justice.

The four-part mini-series talks about a panel of judges (also known as the International Military Tribunal for The Far East) who were appointed by US Chief of Staff, General Douglas McArthur in 1946. These judges were to try the leaders associated with the Japanese empire on the charges of war crimes and fueling crimes of aggression. This panel, which comprised eminent judges from across the world, discussed and debated the charges and sentences for roughly 600 days. More commonly known as the Tokyo Trials, it had its foundation in the Nuremberg Trials.

On this panel of eleven judges was an Indian too (a late appointee), making this series a must-watch for all those who care about our countrys role in shaping global politics. Irrfan Khan, who essays the role of Justice Radhabinod Pal, looks eerily similar to him and plays him to perfection. Justice Pal was a judge at the Calcutta High Court, and there is not much mention of him in Indian history archives and textbooks when it comes to Indias participation in the World War II. The series throws light on Justice Pal, as he was the lone voice of dissent when the panel of judges was awarding verdicts. He harboured a diametrically opposite view when it came to awarding sentences related to crimes of aggression, and exonerated all those who were charged.

The series, brilliantly executed by Rob King and Pieter Verhoeff, is guaranteed to remind viewers of Sidney Lumets 12 Angry Men sans the aggression and Stanley Kramers Judgment at Nuremberg. The eleven actors cast in the series perform their respective roles with perfection. Though the first episode shows only a cursory glance of Irrfan Khan, it is the second episode where the momentum picks up and the plot centers solely on his character after he becomes a dissenting voice. Though theatrical in nature and slow paced at times, this treatment of the subject is apt considering that the story was required to be told in such a manner.

It is apparent that after World War II, the allied powers were a lobby, which reflected in the creation of cliques as the proceedings continued during this long trial. In such an environment, full marks must be awarded to the makers of Tokyo Trial for being non-judgmental and not compromising the way they portrayed the representation of India and the Philippines. Its also marks a subtle attempt by NHK, one of the producers, to reinforce the fact that the injustice meted out to Japan was a result of the label 'victors justice'.

In a very subtle way it also shows the racist and colonial mind set that prevailed during this phase, such as the fact that Irrfan Khan is made to stay at a hotel which is few notches lower in quality than the hotels where judges from Canada, England, France, The Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand are lodged. Irrfan Khans subtle remark about this, which he delivers with a smiling face, just wins you over.

The nonchalant posture that Irrfan adopts for this series is a commendable, and it sets him apart from rest of the judges. Irrfan Khan does full justice to the character of Justice Pal, who showed courage by telling the tribunal of his assessment based on the established legal framework. He told the panel that war is no good, point blank. He stayed put on his core argument that punishing Japanese military officials was an unequal balance of justice, as war and violence were waged by all nations, including the Allied Powers. In hindsight, it is difficult to think of any other actor who could have played this role like Irrfan did, sinking his teeth into the character and bringing Justice Pal alive onscreen for posterity.

Irrfan shines in the sequences that feature him and Justice Bert Roling together. Irrfan and Dutch actor Marcel Hensema translate the real life camaraderie on screen. The respect the two had for each other owing to their deep knowledge of the subject, as portrayed on screen, makes for excellent viewing. There is another sequence in the series when Justice Pal is asked about Indias independence by a fellow judge, and the way Irrfan tackles this question, with a tinge of confidence, is a clincher.

It is also heartening to know that after Justice Pal delivered his dissenting verdict, he became a hero in Japan and a memorial was erected in his honour. The respect that he still enjoys in the country is evident from the fact that when ex-PM Shinzo Abe visited India in 2007, he made sure to meet his son.

But the real tragedy lies in this: despite being a world-class product, this series was hardly watched by people. Irrfans anger was apparent when in an interview to Mid-Day, he lamented about India's inability to weave together such a great story on a digital platform. He said, They are neither passionate nor have the understanding of a good story. We will not be able to deliver a world-class web series since such projects are born purely from passion. Judging by the stuff thats currently being churned out, we couldnt have agreed more.
For a long time now, the film Veere Di Wedding, has been in the news and has been garnering much attention. There's major buzz around this all-girls movie starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania in lead roles.

According to a report by Mid-day, director Shashanka Ghosh and his team have extensively researched for places where the film would be shot. The team along with the cast is scheduled to travel to Bangkok for the first schedule. The film is reportedly a road trip, hence there will be multiple locations ranging from Thailand to Malaysia, and four Indian cities.

The report also adds that while the film was initially slated to go on floors in October 2016, due to Kareeena Kapoor Khan's pregnancy, the plans had to be postponed. Finally Rhea Kapoor was reported to have clarified that the film shoot will begin only in August.

A report by Mumbai Mirror also claims that actor Sumeet Vyas, of TVF's Permanent Roommates fame, is most tentatively supposed to play Kareena's romantic half. It is reported that conversation between the filmmakers and actor has been going on for a long time now and a final confirmed deal is on the way.
By Tetsushi Kajimoto

| TOKYO

TOKYO Japan's economic growth in the January-March period was severely revised down from the original estimate because of a downward adjustment in business inventories, the Cabinet Office said, underscoring the fragility of its export-led expansion.Japan's economy, the world's third largest, expanded at an annualised rate of 1.0 percent in the January-March period, less than half the preliminary estimate of 2.2 percent growth, Cabinet Office data showed on Thursday.The revised gross domestic product (GDP) data compared with the median forecast of a 2.4 percent expansion in a Reuters' poll of economists.The Cabinet Office data follows a recent run of indicators that suggests continued economic growth in the current quarter because of solid exports and factory output, although wage growth and household spending remain lacklustre, despite a tight job market.

The weaker-than-expected GDP data will likely worry the Bank of Japan, which is expected to stand pat at its next rate review on June 15-16. A majority of the economists projected in a Reuters poll last month the BOJ's next move would be pulling back its stimulus.Analysts say that to sustain economic growth, the export-led recovery must spread to domestic demand especially given the risk of potential slowdown in overseas economies, particularly the U.S. economy, which some see in a late stage of expansion.On the quarter, the Japanese economy grew a revised 0.3 percent in real, price-adjusted terms, against a preliminary reading of a 0.5 percent increase and the median estimate of a 0.6 percent expansion.

Capital expenditure, a key component of GDP, rose 0.6 percent for the quarter, versus the preliminary estimate of a 0.2 percent increase.Inventories shaved 0.1 percentage point off growth, revised down from a 0.1 percent point contribution originally posted.

Private consumption, which accounts for roughly 60 percent of the economy, rose 0.3 percent, down from the preliminary 0.4 percent gain. Tame wages and consumer spending have kept Japan from beating deflation, posing a key challenge for the BOJ in meeting its 2 percent price goal via a massive bond buying programme.Taken together, domestic demand contributed 0.1 percentage point to growth, versus the initial 0.4 percentage point recorded. Net exports added 0.1 point to growth, unchanged from the preliminary estimate.(The story has been refiled to remove extraneous word from second paragraph) (Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Editing by Eric Meijer)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Tom Finn

| DOHA

DOHA Qatar said on Thursday fellow Arab states' move to isolate it in a row over alleged ties to terrorism is endangering stability in the oil-rich Gulf region but it was not ready to change its foreign policy to settle the dispute and would never compromise.Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani spoke as would-be mediators ranging from U.S. President Donald Trump to Kuwait's ruling emir struggled to ease a crisis that Qataris say has led to a blockade of their nation."We have been isolated because we are successful and progressive. We are a platform for peace not terrorism ... This dispute is threatening the stability of the entire region," Sheikh Mohammed told reporters in Doha."We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy."Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar had not yet been presented with a list of demands by countries that cut off diplomatic and transport links with it, but insisted the matter be solved peacefully. "There cannot ever be a military solution to this problem."Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed relations with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-adversary Iran - charges Qatar calls baseless. Several other countries later followed suit.Sheikh Mohammed said Iran had told Doha it was ready to help with securing food supplies in the emirate, an investment powerhouse and supplier of natural gas to world markets but tiny and reliant on imports.Normally guarded about politics, Qataris expressed outrage."It is a blockade! Like that of Berlin. A declaration of war. A political, economic and social aggression," a Qatari diplomat said. "We need the world to condemn the aggressors."Saudi Arabia's closure of Qatar's only land border sparked fears of major price hikes and food shortages for its population of 2.7 million people, with long queues forming as some supermarkets began running out of stock.With supply chains disrupted and anxiety mounting about deepening economic turbulence, banks and firms in Gulf Arab states were seeking to keep business links to Qatar open and avoid a costly firesale of assets.Turkey has brought forward a planned troop deployment to Qatar and pledged to provide food and water supplies to its Arab ally, which hosts a Turkish military base. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems.The UAE's national postal service, Emirates Post Group, suspended all postal services to Qatar, state news agency WAM said, the latest in a series of measures degrading commercial and communications links with Doha.

The Abu Dhabi Petroleum Ports Authority also reimposed a ban on oil tankers linked to Qatar calling at ports in the UAE, reversing an earlier decision to ease restrictions and potentially creating a logjam of crude cargoes.Trump initially took sides with the Saudi-led group before apparently being nudged into a more even-handed approach when U.S. defence officials renewed praise of Doha, mindful of the major U.S. military base hosted by Qatar that serves, in part, as a launchpad for strikes on Islamic State jihadists.In his second intervention in the dispute in as many days, Trump urged action against terrorism in a call with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a White House statement said, suggesting a meeting at the White House "if necessary".It said that Trump, in a later call with Abu Dhabi's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan, called for unity among Gulf Arabs "but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism".Officials from Qatar and its Arab neighbours in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were pursuing shuttle diplomacy, with the Qatari foreign minister due in Moscow and Brussels and Bahrain's king visiting his ally Egypt for talks on the crisis.The Qatari ambassador to Washington, Meshal Hamad al-Thani, wrote on Twitter that a key pillar of Doha's foreign policy was mediation. "Open channels of communication means venues for conflict resolution," he said. The foreign minister of Oman met Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwait's ruler, for talks. The Kuwaiti emir also went to the UAE and Qatar on Wednesday for more consultations.

But a diplomat in Kuwait briefed by foreign ministry officials said the emir's diplomacy had been about damage control and had yet to produce tangible results, with personality clashes playing a big role in the impasse."The feeling here is that it is going to take a while to fix. It is more about preventing things from getting worse ... Kuwait is trying to get everyone around the table and stop things from escalating further," the diplomat told Reuters.SAUDIS SAY OUTSIDE MEDIATION UNWANTED

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help."We have not asked for mediation, we believe this issue can be dealt with among the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)," he told a news conference on Wednesday during a visit to Berlin, broadcast on Saudi state television.In an interview with BBC radio, UAE Ambassador to Russia Omar Saif Ghobash said Qatar had to choose between supporting extremism or supporting its neighbours."We have all kinds of recordings taking place where they (Qatar) are coordinating with al Qaeda in Syria," he said.

"Qatar needs to decide: Do you want to be in the pocket of Turkey, Iran and Islamic extremists? They need to make a decision; they can't have it both ways. The Saudi newspaper al Watan published what it called a list of eight "extremist organisations" seen as working to destabilise the region from Qatar, including Qatar's al Jazeera news channel, that were targeted by Gulf Arab states.State-funded al Jazeera's acting director general, Mostefa Souag, dismissed accusations that its reportage is pro-Islamist and amounts to meddling in the affairs of other Arab states. "We don't interfere in anybodys business, we just report," he told Reuters in an interview at Al Jazeera's Doha headquarters."If we bring in guests who are opposing certain governments, does that mean we are interfering in the countries' business? No. Al Jazeeras editorial policy is going to continue the same regardless of what happens with this event."Jubeir declined to confirm a list of 10 demands published by Al Jazeera, which included shutting down the widely watched, Doha-based satellite network. But he added that Qatar knew what it needed to do to restore normal relations.Qatar has backed Islamist movements but vehemently denies supporting terrorism. It provides a haven to anti-Western groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Palestinian Hamas and Algerias Islamic Salvation Front. Qatar says it does not accept its neighbours' view that any group with an Islamist background is terrorist. Qatar's emir has said such a view is a big mistake. In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al Awsat newspaper, Bahraini Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa laid out conditions for a resolution of the crisis."NUMBER ONE ENEMY IRAN"

"Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy Iran," Sheikh Khalid said. In a sign of the economic damage from the dispute, Standard & Poor's downgraded Qatar's debt on Wednesday as the country's riyal currency fell to an 11-year low amid signs that portfolio investment funds were flowing out because of the rift.Regional tensions have been aggravated by the worst dispute for years among Gulf Arabs and were ratcheted up further on Wednesday after militants attacked targets in Tehran, killing at least 12 people.Shi'ite Muslim Iran blamed Sunni Muslim arch-rival Saudi Arabia for the attack, which was claimed by the Sunni Islamic State. Riyadh denied any involvement. (Additional reporting by Reem Shamseddine, Aziz El Yaakoubi, Sylvia Westall, Sami Aboudi and Andrew Torchia, Writing by William Maclean, Editing by Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
New Delhi: Around 4,000 Indian students appeared for interviews on Thursday to secure the American visa to pursue higher education in the US, brushing aside fears of hate crimes in that country.

The interviews were conducted at the US embassy in New Delhi and the Consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Arunima Sharma, who is looking for a MS in the management science programme in Columbia University, says she is not apprehensive of hate crimes despite reading about them in the media.

"I have been to the US earlier for a fellowship programme. At that time, I was a little sceptical but things turned out to be great and I felt very safe," Sharma told IANS.

"I never became a victim of racial discrimination and there was support from fellow students and others in and around the campus," she said.

Changam Meenakshi Rajagopal is entering a Ph.D programme in astrophysics at Clemson, South Carolina. Going by what she has heard from her friends, who have studied in the US, she feels assured about her safety and security.

"I have had many friends pursuing various courses in the US. They have never complained about the safety situation," she said.

In an interview to IANS, a former Stanford don had said that the violent attacks against Indians  and other ethnic groups  in the US were not indicative of the whole country and students should not take them into account while deciding to apply to US universities.

"There is no denying there has been sporadic and random violence against Indians in the US. These incidents were tragic and disturbing, but they are not indicative of the country as a whole," Martin Walsh had said.

For Karan Raina, who will be studying for an MS in quantitative finance at Rutgers University, the steps the US institutes take to ensure the safety of the students are satisfactory.

"They place the same kind of value on international students that they place on US students in the educational programme. They take proper security measures for the foreign students," Raina told IANS.

As per US official data, there are some 166,000 Indian students in that country, second to China. Two years ago, this number was roughly about 100,000.

"Today, every sixth international student in the US is from India and they are contributing enormously to every aspect of life at the university and in the surrounding communities," US Ambassador Charge d'Affaires Mary Kay L. Carlson told the media.

"We are celebrating Indian students who are not only taking an exciting step in their higher education but are also furthering the strong people-to-people ties between the two countries," she said.
Darjeeling : The Army was deployed in the restive Darjeeling town after Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters clashed with police, damaged police vehicles and set some of them ablaze as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

Police earlier fired tear gas shells and lathicharged GJM supporters who tried to march to the venue of the cabinet meeting to protest "imposition" of Bengali language in schools in the hills.

The hill town, which is at present full of tourists, had remained peaceful for several months as the GJM-spearheaded agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland had taken a backseat.

Fresh violence erupted this afternoon with the Bimal Gurung-led party calling a protest march towards the Raj Bhavan, where the cabinet meeting was taking place.

The GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled bricks at them. They also damaged a number of police vehicles and set some of them on fire, police sources said, adding that some security personnel were injured.

An Army spokesperson said, "A requisition from the state government was received. Two Army columns (each consisting of around 80 personnel) based in Darjeeling have moved out."

The GJM supporters were protesting among other issues alleged "imposition of Bengali language in the schools in the hills".

This is the first time that the chief minister is holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling. Banerjee said the state government would set up a new secretariat here.

The GJM supporters staged a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister.

Shopkeepers at some places, including the mall, downed shutters while the traffic came to a halt, causing inconvenience to tourists.

The GJM has accused the TMC government of trying to disrupt peace in Darjeeling by its "divide and rule policy" and called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills on Friday.

"The TMC is systematically trying to use police and its goons to disrupt peace in the hills. On Thursday the police resorted to unprovoked baton charge and firing of tear gas shells," GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told PTI.

"We condemn the state-sponsored violence. We have decided to call a 12-hour shutdown in the hills on Friday. If the situation deteriorates further, then we may go for an indefinite shutdown," he said.

Giri said the GJM would never compromise on the fight for the identity of the people of the hills.

Asked about the GJM's agitation programme, the chief minister said, "They have the democratic right. Let them do it. They have no issue. Let there be competition for development."

On the GJM's opposition to the alleged "imposition of Bengali language" in schools in the hills, she said that Bengali was not made a compulsory subject.

"Rather, we gave recognition to Nepali language," she said.

"The people in the hill areas have been demanding development. Nothing had happened during the Left rule of 34 years, but things have changed after our government took over.

"We have done so many development works here. I am proud to say that I am the first chief minister to visit the hills for more than 100 times," she said.

CPM state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra said, "The condition in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Darjeeling policy of our chief minister is just a replica of the Kashmir policy adopted by our prime minister."

The Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Adbul Mannan, accused Banerjee of betraying the people of the hills through false promise.

"What the chief minister has been doing in the hills for the last two years is nothing but a political gimmick. The Gorkhas are our brothers, they fight for the nation and sacrifice their life. She is using a divide and rule policy in the hills," he alleged.
June is usually the hottest month on the 740-kilometre Line of Control (LoC) as snow starts melting on the mountains dividing the Kashmir region, and the tracks become visible. But this year, a spike in gun battles between intruders and the Indian security forces, and an increasing cross-border activity in the first two weeks of the month have left many wondering if this could the worst months in terms of infiltration attempts in recent years.

Despite a steady effort by the Indian Army to curb infiltration and neutralise militants  including employing modern technology  before they reach the actual LoC, there has been no fall in infiltration attempts. Instead, they have only increased, not in just in Kashmir, but in the Pir Panjal range in Jammu, too.

In the last 48 hours alone several infiltration attempts have been foiled in four sectors in Kashmir region, in which seven armed militants have been killed so far, Colonel NN Joshi, PRO (Defence) based in Udhampur, said in a statement.

"These incidents were reported from Gurez, Machhil, Nowgam and Uri sectors. A large quantity of arms, ammunition and war-like stores have been recovered. Presently, operations are in progress in Machhil, Nowgam and Uri sectors, the statement added. Joshi also said that the Pakistan Army posts along the LoC are assisting the militants to infiltrate into the Kashmir Valley.

As guns roared along the LoC, army chief General Bipin Rawat said in New Delhi that the condition in Kashmir will be normal soon.

But in the Nowgam sector of Kupwara, the Indian Army fought a fierce gun battle before neutralising two militants. One soldier also lost his life in the fight that started early morning Thursday.

Defence sources claim that there has been a surge in the activities of Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) along the LoC not just in Kupwara area  which is prone to infiltration and remains hot throughout the year  but in Uri in north Kashmir as well, which has largely remained peaceful in recent years.

Barring a dramatic attack on an Indian Army base in the main town of Uri that left 19 soldiers and four attackers dead in September last year, few intrusions have been reported from the area. But on 26 May the Indian Army said that it had killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members, who were trying to infiltrate into the Uri sector to carry out an attack on the soldiers.

"Six militants were killed in the same sector next day when they attempted to sneak into the Valley from across the border, Indian Army spokesperson Rajesh Kalia had said.

Last month Firstpost had reported that security forces were expecting more encounters and gun fights in the Valley as militants, waiting across the LoC, gear up for the snow to melt so that they can infiltrate into the Valley

Lieutenant General JS Sandhu, Commander of Srinagar-based 15 Corps had conformed it. He had said that there are more militants waiting at launch pads in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) facing the Kashmir Valley as well as in areas facing Poonch and Rajouri district in Jammu as well.

"About 150 militants are waiting near the LoC in PoK to sneak into the Valley, Sandhu said.

This year, despite heavy snow and sloppy tracks and the use of modern technology to stop infiltrators, the Indian Army says 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled and 34 armed intruders have been eliminated on the LoC in the first six months.

It is huge considering the amount of work that has gone into preventing infiltration in the last six months in the Valley, a senior army official, told Firstpost in Srinagar.

If you go by these numbers, the summer is going to be very hot on LoC this year, he added.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday modified its earlier order and allowed liquor manufacturers from Bihar to export their old stocks of alcoholic beverages worth over Rs 200 crore outside the state till 31 July.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan and Deepak Gupta passed the order on the application in which the manufacturers had contended that the apex court's 29 May order spoke about time to destroy the stock but it did not indicate anything about its "export" outside the state.

The manufacturers had told the bench that there were two issues  destruction of old stocks and export  in the plea filed earlier and the apex court's 29 May order mention only about time to destroy the stock.

After the brief hearing on Thursday, the bench said, "sufficient grounds have been made out to allow the application" in terms of the prayer seeking clarification of the earlier order.

In the 29 May order, the court had said, "Time to destroy /drain the stocks is extended up to 31 July, 2017. It is made clear that no further extension will be granted in future."

Earlier, the court had extended the deadline for disposing old stocks from 30 April to 31 May. This will include raw material, fixed by the Nitish Kumar government which had imposed a ban on liquor in the state from 1 April, 2016.

The apex court had on 31 March granted time till 31 May to dispose of the old stocks and directed them to follow the resolution passed by the Bihar government on disposal of stocks following the imposition of prohibition in the state.

The Bihar government, which has prohibited consumption, stocking and sale of liquor in the state had on 30 March passed a resolution by which it has allowed the companies to export their old stocks to other states.

The state government had granted time to export excisable and non-excisable articles till 30 April, after which they will not be able to do so.

On 7 October, 2016, the apex court had stayed the operation of Patna High Court judgement quashing the state's law banning sale and consumption of all types of liquor, saying liquor and fundamental rights "do not go together".

Bihar government has challenged the high court verdict of 30 September, 2016, which had quashed the notification banning consumption and sale of liquor in the state.

However, after the law was set aside, Bihar government had come out with a new law banning sale and consumption of liquor which was notified on 2 October, 2016.

It had notified the Bihar Prohibition and Excise Act, 2016 to ensure that the ban on sale and consumption of alcohol including Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well spiced and domestic liquor, continued in the state.
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's bitter political rivals  the ruling LDF and the UDF  on Thursday closed ranks in the State Assembly to oppose the Central Governments notification on sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

During the one-day session, convened exclusively to discuss the controversial notification, members of the ruling CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the opposition Congress-headed United Democratic Front (UDF) condemned it as not only an "intrusion" into the rights of states but also an "infringement" on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution.

Members of both the fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer.

It thus has to be withdrawn, they said.

The members also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

"The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political gains," he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious 'adverse' consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and meat export trade.

"The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens' choice of food," he said.

On the impact on state's meat trade, Vijayan said 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new rules would further add to their woes.

The chief minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another "surgical strike" by the Modi government "like the note ban", opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was "a sign of arrival of fascism" in the country.

"Modi has transformed himself into 'abhinava Hitler' (neo Hitler)," he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an "indirect interest" behind the notification.

CPM veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Rajagopal said the coming together of LDF and UDF in the assembly was a sign of a "grand alliance" forming at the national level to take on the BJP.

He said the House has been "misused" for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre's notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

He has written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

The attack on CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury at party headquarters A K G Centre in New Delhi on Wednesday also had its echo in the Assembly with the party members alleging that the Sangh Parivar was trying to "silence" political rivals through "muscle power".
New Delhi: As many as 743 candidates, including 242 women, have been recruited by the Central Reserved Paramilitary Force (CRPF) from the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, one of the worst Naxal-hit areas, for an 'all-tribal battalion' being raised to fight Maoists.

The youths have been recruited for the post of constable in the CRPF from tribal-dominated Sukma, Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bijapur districts and will join the 'Bastariya' battalion.

"743 scheduled tribes candidates, including 242 women, have been recruited," a home ministry official said.

Bastar region comprises Sukma, Dantewada, Narayanpur and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh.

The 'Bastariya' battalion in CRPF is a unique initiative to enhance local representation in security forces and also provide employment to youths, the official said.

The year 2016 witnessed maximum Naxal violence in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh  68.5 percent of the total incidents and 69 percent of the deaths.

The situation in Bastar region is considered to be critical due to unabated violence perpetrated by the Maoists.

While giving its approval for raising the Bastariya battalion, the Cabinet Committee on Security, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had made it clear that all recruits would have to be from Bastar region.

The concept of 'Bastariya' battalion was considered useful as the recruits, mostly local tribals, would help address local unemployment issue, provide a tactical advantage to CRPF in operations, intelligence collection and language benefits.

Tribal candidates joining the force are also given a 4.5 cm relaxation in minimum height, which is 160 cm for others.

Besides, a 10 percent relaxation in weight, which has to be proportionate to height and age, is given to them.

Once the training of the recruits in the 'Bastariya' battalion is completed, they will be deployed in Chhattisgarh for at least five years.

The CRPF, which played a pivotal role in curbing militancy in Punjab during 1980s and in Tripura during 1990s, works under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

More than one-third of the CRPF is deployed in Naxal-affected regions to control left-wing extremism.
Balaghat: Twenty-three workers were charred to death and seven others were injured in a fire at a cracker factory in Kheri village in Balaghat district on Wednesday afternoon, an official said.

The blaze started at around 3 pm in the factory located around 10 km from the district headquarters in the Kotwali police station limits, Additional Director General of Police (Balaghat range) G Janardhan told PTI.

According to Balaghat district collector Bharat Yadav, out of 10 workers injured in the incident initially, three died on their way to Nagpur, taking the toll to 23.

"Of the seven injured, five have been rushed to Nagpur (in Maharashtra) for treatment, while two are being treated at a hospital in the district," he said.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each to the next of kin of the deceased. The state government would also bear the medical expenses of the injured.

The cracker factory was owned by one Waris Ahmed and was being run legally, Yadav said.

He added that the victims were workers of the factory and the incident took place when the production was on.

According to Yadav, the blaze has been completely doused and the rescue operation is also over.

"Exactly what triggered the fire is yet be known. It is possible that someone might have thrown a burning beedi," he said.

A magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the incident.

Yadav said the factory was located away from the human settlement.
Two jawans were injured on Thursday in an encounter with terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.

According to NDTV, the army foiled an infiltration bid as five to six terrorists were trying to infiltrate across the LoC in Uri.

On Wednesday, three heavily-armed militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Kupwara district as the army foiled the third major infiltration bid in less than a fortnight along the LoC in north Kashmir.

Troops guarding the LoC had noticed a group of militants trying to sneak into the valley under the cover of darkness in the Machil sector.

On 26 May, the army had killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate into the Uri sector to carry out an attack on Indian soldiers.

Six more militants were killed in the same sector next day when they attempted to sneak in from across the LoC.

Meanwhile, army chief General Bipin Rawat told ANI that the "condition in Kashmir will improve soon."

With inputs from PTI
Ranchi: Former Bihar chief minister Jagannath Mishra appeared in a special CBI court in Ranchi on Thursday morning in connection with two fodder scam cases, officials said.

Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad, also a former Bihar chief minister, would also appear in the court in a fodder scam case on Friday.

Mishra appeared in two fodder scam cases related to fraudulent withdrawal from Dumka and Doranda treasury of Jharkhand.

Lalu, who has been summoned by the CBI court, would arrive in Ranchi on Thursday to appear in the court on Friday.

Lalu has been issued summon in connection with a case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 95 lakh from Deoghar treasury.

The summon has been issued after the Supreme Court in May set aside Jharkhand High Court ruling and said Lalu and others made accused in different cases would have to face the cases separately.

Lalu has been convicted and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in one of the five cases of fodder scam for which he was tried.

The Rs 900 crore fodder scam surfaced in early 1990s when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister. Most of the cases cropped up in the Jharkhand region of the then undivided Bihar.
New Delhi: India is constantly monitoring the situation in Qatar, which is facing diplomatic isolation by four major Arab countries that have also closed air, sea and land links with it.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain announced on Monday they were cutting diplomatic ties and closing all connectivity links with Qatar, giving Qataris within their borders two weeks to leave.

"...We are constantly monitoring the situation in Qatar," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.

This is just not correct. We are constantly monitoring the situation in Qatar. https://t.co/TX3XDcacSu  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

She was replying to a tweet seeking the government's help to bring back a few Indians stuck in Qatar. "@SushmaSwaraj My brother wid other Indians stuck in Qatar wid storage of basic enmities ,they need our govn help. Plz hlp to bring dem back (sic)," a Twitter user posted.

@SushmaSwaraj My brother wid other Indians stuck in Qatar wid storage of basic enmities ,they need our govn help. Plz hlp to bring dem back  ankita shakya (@ankitashakya046) June 8, 2017

The four countries have suspended all flights to and from Qatar, pulled their ambassadors from Doha and ordered Qatari diplomats to leave.

The dispute has sparked the worst diplomatic crisis in the Arab world in years and raised fears it will cause further instability in an already-volatile region. There are around 6.5 lakh Indians living and working in Qatar, according to the latest data.

Immediately after the development, Swaraj had said India's "only concern is about Indians there".

She had said the government was trying to find out if any Indian was stuck there and hoped things would get better soon.
The Indian Certificate of Secondary Education (ICSE) council will organise board examinations for students of Classes V and VIII from the next academic year, it has been announced.

Within hours of the announcement, made by ICSE council CEO Gerry Arathoon, the move came in for criticism, with parents and teachers all lambasting the board, and saying it will add to students' pressure in an already over-competitive environment.

Arathoon said the idea behind holding the two board examinations, which will be in addition to the ones held for Classes X and XII, is to bring about uniformity in evaluation and to judge students on the same parameters as those used by those from other schools.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, he added that the exams will be conducted by the board at a national level only to bring about uniformity, and won't involve passing and failing of candidates. "It will just be a periodical evaluation exercise to have an idea on the progress of the students learning after a particular level," he said.

Another unique feature being introduced this year, is a parallel assessment of teachers. A report in The Telegraph said that if a student scores extremely poor grades, the teacher concerned would also be graded accordingly. The board will also suggest "remedial measures" to schools whose students were found wanting.

However, the move was met with criticism, with academic experts saying it will add to students' stress levels. "The exams will be too frequent for children and we cannot deny that every board exam in India has a connotation of stress. Why can't it be addressed at the school level without the council conducting a centralised exam?" psychiatrist Jai Ranjan Ram was quoted in the report as saying.
The Hague: Pakistan on Thursday urged the International Court of Justice to adopt an expedited timetable for an early "substantive" hearing of the Kulbhushan Jadhav case as the "agents" of India and Pakistan discussed procedural matters with the court's President.

A meeting took place between ICJ President Ronny Abraham and the delegations of India and Pakistan to discuss the timelines in the Jadhav case, according to a statement from the office of the Pakistan Attorney General.

"This was not a hearing and no discussion on the substance or merits of the case took place," it said.

"The purpose of the meeting was only to discuss procedural matters including the timelines for submission of written Memorials and to enable a hearing to be listed," it said.

Indian national Jadhav was sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court for alleged espionage.

India on 8 May moved the ICJ against the death penalty. The next day, the global court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

During the agents' meeting at the Hague, the ICJ president sought the views of the parties as to time required for the submission of their written pleadings and supporting evidence called Memorials, the statement said.

"The Pakistani Attorney General (Ashtar Ausaf Ali) urged the Court to adopt an expedited timetable with a view for an early substantive hearing," it said, adding that the court will announce the timetable shortly.

Attorney General Ali informed the International Court of Justice of Pakistans intent to appoint a judge Ad Hoc who will sit on the bench of the Court for all proceedings in this case, including the substantive hearing.

"Pakistans arguments on jurisdiction and merits will be considered by the Court at the full hearing, the statement said.
Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday accused India of promoting "state-sponsored terrorism" in Afghanistan to sabotage the Islamabad-Kabul ties.

"Pakistan and Afghanistan need to closely coordinate with each other for overcoming the scourge of terrorism," Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said during a weekly media briefing.

Zakaria said Afghanistan had been in turmoil for over 40 years and this had given space to terrorists.

"Afghans have suffered a lot due to terrorism, so have we," Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

"An instable Afghanistan has affected Pakistan more than any other country," he said, adding that Pakistan believed in an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process.
Srinagar: The army on Thursday gunned down three militants but lost one of its men while foiling an infiltration bid aided by the Pakistani Army in Naugam sector of north Kashmir, raising to seven the number of infiltrators killed on the Line of Control (LoC) in the last 48 hours.

The army said infiltration attempts were thwarted in Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors during the last two days and a large cache of arms, ammunition and "war-like" stores have been recovered.

All the four infiltration bids were aided by the Pakistani forces who provided active support, including cover fire using heavy calibre artillery, the army's Northern Command said in a statement.

"Alert troops foiled an infiltration bid in Naugam sector. Three terrorists have been killed, while one soldier has been martyred," an army official said.

The statement said that an anti-infiltration operation was in progress in Uri sector, while in Gurez, armed intruders ran back leaving rucksacks behind.

The Northern Command statement said the army has foiled multiple attempts made by the Pakistan Army to push armed infiltrators across the LoC.

"In the last 48 hours, infiltration attempts have been foiled at the Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors. Seven armed intruders have been eliminated so far," it said.

With these four operations, the army has thwarted six infiltration attempts along the LoC in less than a fortnight in North Kashmir, it said.

On 26 May, the army had said that it had killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate through the Uri sector in Baramulla district to carry out an attack on the soldiers.

Six more militants were killed in the same sector, the next day, when they attempted to sneak into the valley.

The Northern Command claimed that in the current year, 22 infiltration attempts have been foiled and 34 armed intruders have been eliminated along the LoC.

"Relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramzan," the statement said.
An infiltration bid has been foiled in Naugam sector in Kupwara district in Jammu and Kashmir, ANI reports. One soldier lost his life while three terrorists were killed. Weapons were recovered from the terrorists and the operation is still underway.

#UPDATE One more terrorist gunned down by security forces in J&K's Naugam sector, taking the total to 3. Weapons recovered, ops continue.  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Alert troops foil another infiltration bid in Naugam sector. Two terrorists have been killed, while one soldier has been martyred," an Army official said. This is the second infiltration incident in the state in less than 24 hours as two jawans were injured in an encounter with terrorists along the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector too.

According to NDTV, the army foiled an infiltration bid as five to six terrorists were trying to infiltrate across the LoC in Uri. On Wednesday, three heavily-armed militants were killed in a gun battle in the Kupwara district as the army foiled the third major infiltration bid in less than a fortnight along the LoC in north Kashmir. Troops guarding the LoC had noticed a group of militants trying to sneak into the valley under the cover of darkness in the Machil sector. On 26 May, the army had killed two Pakistani Border Action Team (BAT) members who tried to infiltrate into the Uri sector to carry out an attack on Indian soldiers. Six more militants were killed in the same sector next day when they attempted to sneak in from across the LoC. Meanwhile, army chief General Bipin Rawat told ANI that the "condition in Kashmir will improve soon." With inputs from PTI
The surrender of a militant who showed up at the funeral of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Sabzar Ahmad Bhat recently, in Tral, has revealed that an increasing number of youths in the Valley are being drawn towards militancy by joining social networking sites run from Pakistan.

A number of WhatsApp groups with administrators in Pakistan and social networking sites run from across the border are being used to draw youths towards militancy. A recent police report noted that the use of social networking sites by militants and locals remains a major challenge in Kashmir and that it had employed to aggravate the unrest in the Valley last year, after the killing of Hizbul militant commander Burhan Muzafar Wani.

Director General of Police, SP Vaid, said that there were a number of such WhatsApp groups and social media account pages. "We have detained many youths who were trying to foment trouble," he said.

A top official said that at least 250 members can be added to such WhatsApp groups and that there were over 1,000 such groups with administrators in Pakistan.

Police are also investigating the role of local youth in hacking the website of National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Srinagar recently, on which a message saying Kashmir should be "freed'' from Indian occupation was splashed.

A security official said that they had come across at least 15-20 complaints at the cyber cell in Srinagar about Facebook pages and personal accounts being used to aggravate the unrest in Kashmir. "Besides the cases registered at the cyber cell, there are people who have been booked under the IT act at different police stations. We are reporting the URLs to the officials at Facebook and other networking sites to get them blocked," a senior police official said.

Due to the increasing use of social networking sites propagating anti-India activities, security agencies recently suspended certain social networking sites after getting a nod from Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti at a security review meeting held in Srinagar.

Mobile internet services were snapped in parts of South Kashmir on Wednesday as well. The volatile region has erupted over the killing of a student and injuries sustained by several other youths who had thronged to an encounter site in Shopian, to help militants escape the security forces. Though people have reacted sharply, terming the suspension of mobile services as a gag, top security officials said that this was also done to prevent the sharing of videos posted by militants as well as to stop rumours from spreading.

"The internet is being suspended but we can't suspend WhatsApp groups that are run from Pakistan," a senior police official said.

Recently, when United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, had sought feedback from Kashmiris over the impact of internet gag on them, his timeline was swamped with tweets on how the "gag was affecting students and businessmen". Several people also shared videos "highlighting the brutalities by the government forces on the students."

According to police, militant Danish Ahmad, son of Farooq Ahmad and a resident of Kulan Gam village in Handwara, had appeared at Bhat's funeral in his hometown Tral. Police said that he was drawn into militancy because of social networking sites.

Police officials said that Danish was studying BSc (third year) at Doon PG College of Agriculture Science and Technology, Dehradun, and had been previously involved in stone-pelting incidents at Handwara last year, during the protests triggered after Wani was killed.

Superintendent of Police, Handwara, Ghulam Geelani, said that Danish had been in touch with Hizbul militants via social networking sites before he joined militancy. "There are some other youths as well who are involved in this case... we will make more arrests shortly," he said.

"Once it was learnt that Danish has joined militancy, Handwara police and 21 RR Army got in touch with his parents and impressed upon them to counsel their son to surrender. His parents were convinced that if he surrenders, he would be dealt with fairly under the law. Efforts made by security forces yielded results and Danish surrendered," a police official said.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Danish was in touch with militants of South Kashmir region via social media sites "and it was at their instigation that he had decided to become a militant.

"According to police officials, Danish was tasked by Hizbul commanders to "activate" some local youth in North Kashmir and pull them into militant ranks.

The revelation of Danish's entry into militancy through the use of social networking sites comes days after Mufti was informed at a security review meeting that a number of WhatsApp groups, who have members in Kashmir, are being run from Pakistan.

Top security officials said that cases have also been registered against people using the networking sites to incite stone-pelting in Kashmir. A number of Facebook pages have also been blocked by the police after they posted messages that "were perceived to be fanning the unrest in Kashmir." According to security officials, people were also eulogising militants on these networking sites.
New Delhi: President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Ronny Abraham will discuss further procedure with both India and Pakistan in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case on Thursday.

According to sources, India will be represented by an "agent", who also appeared during the last public hearing on 18 May.

The Ministry of External Affairs joint secretary in-charge of Pakistan division, Deepak Mittal, represented the case during the hearing. Further procedure will be discussed by the ICJ president with both the parties, sources said.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on 8 May. The next day, the global court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.
Kolkata: Holding the Mamata Banerjee government responsible for the latest flare-up in northern West Bengal hills, opposition Left Front on Thursday urged the chief minister to take immediate steps to restore peace in the region.

"The state government should take immediate steps to restore peace in the hills. Normalising the situation in Drajeeling should be their priority," Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said.

He was referring to a clash between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters and police in Darjeeling district earlier in the day.

"The vengeful tactics of the Trinamool Congress government are responsible for the adverse situation in the hills," he said.

Bose asked the government to ensure security of locals and thousands of tourists left stranded in the hills.

Comparing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's policy vis-a-vis the Bengal hills with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Kashmir, Communist Party of India-Marxist state Secretary Surjya Kanta Misra said the government should look for scope for discussions and not provocation in the hills.

"The situation in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The chief minister's policy on the north Bengal hills is similar to the prime minister's policy on Kashmir. There should be discussions on peace, not provocation," he asserted.

A big clash erupted between police and GJM supporters in Darjeeling, turning the famous hill town into a war zone.

Several police vehicles and a police outposts were torched by the mob and many police personnel were injured in stone-pelting. According to the GJM leadership, at least 45 of its activists were injured in police action.
Let me begin by stating that Professor Partha Chatterjee's recently published essay, drawing similarities between Major Leetul Gogoi's "human shield" incident in Kashmir and Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer actions at Jallianwala Bagh, is a remarkable meditation on the historical politics of violence, even as it ignores the critical question of complicity implicit in the making of imperialism.

As critique ceases to be critique and disagreement becomes merely ideological, let me also take this opportunity to declare my protest against the theatrical treatment of the essay on national television and the vociferous branding of its author as "anti-national".

My disagreement with the essay is primarily intellectual, but also potently ideological. What is attempted in this piece, therefore, is a qualification against the imagination of colonial violence as personalised and episodic  in other words, the configuration of violence, whether colonial or of the Indian state, in the manner of "moments" that present themselves rarely and regrettably without unsettling the cardinal core of their structures.

Chatterjee, in his distinctive eloquence, argues that a careful and detached reflection will show chilling similarities between justifications advanced for the actions of the British Indian Army in 1919 and those being offered today, nearly a century later, in defence of the army's acts in Kashmir. It is difficult to disagree with Chatterjee here, but also difficult to miss the shrinking of the discursive field in that the acts of the British Indian Army in 1919 and that of the Indian Army in 2017 become so epochal that only sparse imagination is possible both within and between them.

This weight of chronology is significant, as both Dyer and Gogoi acted in "innovative" ways for the establishment of temporarily disquieted order and restoration of political rule. The tactical strength and parallel brutality of their innovative ways render the two worthy of special consideration  this consideration, it is clear, locates the violence in their individual dispositions and idiosyncrasies, not in the structures for whose maintenance they employ their so-called ways.

In this framing of history, colonial violence is the work of memory around individual events, such as the massacre that Dyer orchestrated, remembered now by "every schoolchild in India (who) knows the momentous effect this incident had on the course of nationalist politics" in the subcontinent.

Yet, to see colonial violence in the momentary affairs of individuals is a slide unto the erasure of its sheer pervasiveness, its pernicious quotidian nature, both in British India and contemporary Kashmir. Indeed, we would do well to remember that although lauded by the imperial metropolis in Britain, Dyer was condemned by the British government in India and eventually dismissed. British dignitaries, notably Winston Churchill, carefully distanced themselves from Dyer's actions in Amritsar, marking the massacre as a colonial excess and valourising the empire as intrinsically glorious.

Official condemnation, writes historian Kim Wagner, ought not to be mistaken "for an outright disavowal of colonial violence as such, but rather an attempt to maintain the conceit of rule of law". Major Gogoi may have received official commendation, but to let the framing of the "chilling" moment of strapping Farooq Ahmad Dar to the bonnet of an army jeep remain uncontested silences the performative ubiquity of violence in the Valley and cloaks state repression in the unwieldy guise of exceptionalism. Dyer and Gogoi may have both employed exceptional ways, but they ultimately did the unexceptional ideological work of violence.

In the course of historiographical turns, Wagner and Elizabeth Kolsky have illustrated that "the history of violence in British India cannot be understood by traversing from one cataclysmic event to the next as the micro-moments betwixt and between those macro-events are where the violence central to the workings of empire can be found" (Kolsky, 2011).

Wagner has suggested that far from being a gathering of apolitical, even pre-political, civilians celebrating the baisakh festival, the gathering at Jallianwala Bagh was a political meeting of the Punjabi population disillusioned by repressive British measures in the interwar period. "Where popular depictions show a peaceful crowd of locals quietly listening to a political speech," writes Wagner, "Dyer instead perceived a defiant and murderous mob, which had only days before run rampant through Amritsar and which still had the blood of Englishmen on its hands."

Dyer's act of political violence was thus both fairly conterminous in the "long century (of colonial violence) from the 1850s to the 1950s" and not simply a response to anti-colonial resistance, making it but essential to imagine both the mutiny of 1857 and the Amritsar massacre on a wider historical and political canvas.

"There are times when one looks in the mirror," begins Chatterjee movingly, "And is shocked to see a face one doesn't recognise  the repulsive face of a nasty stranger. Most Indians will find it hard to believe that as a nation state, we have just arrived at our own General Dyer moment."

If it is Major Gogoi who resurrects in contemporary Kashmir the spirit of the infamous General Dyer, how do we negotiate the Dyer who never left? What of the regime of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), quotidian human rights violations, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, rape, torture, and the multifarious forms of everyday humiliation? Is this repulsive face really the face of a stranger one doesn't recognise, or have we made ourselves familiar, even laudatory, in the recognition of its repulsion?

The stranger is no stranger and the reaching of this epochal moment, however ephemeral, represents no difficulty of acceptance by most Indians. Dyer and Gogoi, after all, are caricatures of a violence that prefigures their innovative ways  in them is the repulsive history of a nasty friend who recognises himself, with them runs the tardy trajectory of violence and its many happy witnesses.

Not only do we accept that we are as Dyer was, but we take in it the pride of postcolonial worship.
Islamabad: There is no evidence that the Indian intelligence is behind the reported abduction of a retired Pakistani colonel in Nepal, a Pakistan minister has said.

Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch informed the Senate on Wednesday that the purported kidnapping of retired Lt Colonel Mohammad Habib could not be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the UN on the basis of assumptions.

It was yet to be established that Col Habib had been picked up by the Indian intelligence agencies, he said.

"No final report suggesting that the Indian intelligence agency or the Indian government was involved is available with the Foreign Office or the government," the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asked if the statement meant that the Foreign Office was exonerating India from the alleged kidnapping.

Baloch added: "We are hundred per cent sure that Indian intelligence agency R&AW is behind the kidnapping but the evidence to this effect is not final."

But he said the Habib issue appeared to be linked with the conviction of alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav in Pakistan. "But material was required to legally prove" this.

He said the Foreign Office was trying to obtain "solid evidence" and Nepal had been asked to get in touch with three Indian nationals who had received Habib at the airport when he flew into Kathmandu.

He said it was unclear if the three were Indian government employees or civilians or working for a private firm. The matter had also been taken up with the Indian government.

The minister said the incident took place two months ago, but expressed his "helplessness" about what he alleged was non-cooperation from Nepal.

Opposition leader Aitzaz Ahsan alleged that Nepal, unlike in the past, was not cooperating on the issue of Habib.

Senator Rehman Malik of the Pakistan Peoples Party urged the government to take the issue to the ICJ and the UN.

Habib's disappearance from Nepal has been widely linked in the Pakistani media to the death sentence given by a Pakistani military court to Jadhav.
As the farmers' protests rage on in Madhya Pradesh, authorities have issued entirely contradictory statements in the space of 24 hours regarding the violence occurring in the area.

The protest had turned violent on Tuesday when firing took place on Mandsaur-Neemuch highway. Five protesters were killed according to ANI. While a probe was initiated into the same, Home Minister Bhupendra Singh had insisted that neither the local police nor CRPF had opened fire on protesters.

He had further gone on to praise the police for showing remarkable resilience despite there being attempts to intensify the stir during the last week reported The Indian Express. He had claimed that some anti-social elements were engaging in loot and arson while pretending to be farmers. The report further stated that the deaths had resulted in the BJP cancelling the programme organised to facilitate Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur collector SK Singh had also said that the police told him categorically that "neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire".

Just the next day however, the Inspector-General of Police (Law and Order) Makrand Devaskar told the media that the police had resorted to firing to gain control of the rioting mob during the protest. Zee News quoted him as saying that "After a preliminary investigation, it is now clear that the police opened fire at the protesting mob. However, it still remains unclear that under what situation police opened fire at the people. The investigation is still underway and therefore, I am unable to reveal much on the matter."

The IGP's statement was then clearly contradictory of what the home minister and the district collector had said the previous day. The matter came to an uneasy conclusion on Thursday, as Singh too admitted that the five casualties during in Mandsaur had occurred during police firing.

When he was asked what provoked the police to fire, he said that it is being probed in the magisterial inquiry. However, he said the situation was peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.

That statement was further supplemented by the police saying that the situation was tense but under control.

The situation in western Madhya Pradesh is posing a major challenge for the BJP government and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

The Chouhan government had sought to cool tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier. The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.

With inputs from agencies
New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday condemned the detention of party vice president Rahul Gandhi while he was on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh and said it reveals the cowardice of the Modi government.

"The arrest of Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi by Madhya Pradesh police on his way to visit the victims of police violence at Mandasaur is highly condemnable. The arrest of Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders reveals the political cowardliness of the Modi government," party general secretary KC Venugopal said.

He said the Congress vice president was supposed to visit the relatives of farmers who lost their lives in police firing, to register his moral support to the farmers' agitation and ensure justice to the deceased.

Instead of meeting the demands of agitating farmers, the state government with the full support of central government is even trying to silence the voices of opposition leaders who stood for the farmers, he said.

"The arrest of Rahul Gandhi reveals the inability of the ruling dispensation to face tough questions on the farmers' distress across the country," he said, adding that ever since the government came in to power, farmers are agitating against the policies of the Modi government.

Venugopal said the government uncompromisingly upholds the interests of corporate sector and lends a deaf ear to the plight of farmers.

He said Gandhi has been raising his voice inside and outside Parliament against the anti-people and anti-farmer policies of the government.

The Congress vice president and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests, as the farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear.

The police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch in Rajasthan, about 400 kms from state capital Bhopal.
Chandigarh: Amid protests in Madhya Pradesh, farmers in Punjab have decided to launch a statewide agitation on 12 June to press for debt waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Commission's report.

Seven outfits, including the Bharti Kisan Union (BKU)-Ugrahan, the BKU-Dakunda, the Krantikari Kisan Union, Kisan Sangharsh Committee, will stage sit-ins at all district headquarters of the state.

"The farmers' organisations on Thursday decided to stage dharnas outside the offices of all the deputy commissioners in the state in support of their demands on 12 June," BKU (Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh said on Thursday.

Farmers in the state have been demanding debt waiver from the Congress government since it came to power.

The Congress in its poll manifesto had promised to waive farm loans, eliminate loan and auction and give complete payment for crops.

"We want the state government to announce debt waiver as soon as possible," he said, adding that the state should take steps to make farming profitable.

The Amarinder Singh-led dispensation had formed an expert group to assess the quantum of agricultural debt and suggest ways and to waive it.

Farmers have also been demanding the implementation of Swaminathan Commission report that had recommended fixing the minimum support prices (MSP) for crops at levels of 50 percent more than the weighted average cost of production, the general secretary said.

"We also want the state to fix a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the family of a farmer who has committed suicide because of the debt burden," Sukhdev said.

On Wednesday, the Punjab chief minister had urged the central government to intervene to resolve the "crisis" gripping the farming community across the country.

He had reiterated that the Congress demanded farm debt waiver in all the states, with urgent steps to fix the MSP of crops in line with the recommendations of the Commission's recommendations.

The outfits also announced to give a memorandum to the Centre through the district administrations on 12 June to seek dismissal of the Madhya Pradesh government for the death of five farmers in alleged police firing during the agitation in MP's Mandsaur district.
New Delhi/Mandsaur: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi left Delhi for Mandsaur on Thursday where five farmers were killed during protests earlier this week even as the local police made it clear that he will not be allowed to enter the district.

Gandhi left Thursday morning for the district and would enter Madhya Pradesh from Rajasthan.

However, Superintendent of Police of Neemuch Manoj Kumar Singh said the Congress leader will not be allowed to enter the violence-hit district where the situation remains tense.

If the Congress leader tries to enter the district, he will be detained, the SP said.

The Congress yesterday termed as "coldblooded murder" the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned the prime minister's silence over it.

The Congress accused the BJP of "acting as a curse of death for Indian farmers".

AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said on Wednesday that it was insulting and unfortunate that the BJP-led NDA government was in denial mode over the firing and accused it of spreading rumours and canards over who fuelled the farmers' protest.

He also hit out at the BJP for denying permission to people who wanted to go and express solidarity with the bereaved farmers, including Gandhi.

The Congress vice president is visiting Mandsaur to meet the kin of the five persons who were killed in violence during the farmers' agitation.

Five persons were killed on Tuesday as the farmers' agitation turned violent in Mandsaur, prompting the authorities to clamp curfew in the trouble-hit area.

Mandsaur has been on the boil since the farmers' agitation in the district turned violent.

Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh are protesting since 1 June over various demands.
Bhopal: As western Madhya Pradesh reels under violent protest by farmers over loan waiver and better price for their produce, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday said the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.

"The state government is always ready for talks with farmers. I appeal to the farmers to maintain calm. Only talks can end the differences," he said in a press statement.

"The state government is of farmers and public. I will continue to work for them," he said.

The chief minister said the state government has taken a slew of measures in farmers' interest like procuring one kg of onion for Rs 8.

"We (state government) are going to start buying tur and urad pulses from farmers at minimum support price from 10 June," he said.

Chouhan said some "anti-social elements" wanted to push the state into deep trouble.

"Such people will be dealt strictly," he added.

He appealed to the agitating farmers to ensure the nefarious designs of the anti-social elements do not prevail.

"I appeal to the farmers to join hands to work for the state's development," Chouhan said.

Widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, have been reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially in Mandsaur and Dewas districts, during the week-long farmers' agitation in the state.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were deployed on Thursday in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the past two days.

According to police, two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where five farmers were killed.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Ratlam Range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi, where the agitating farmers defied prohibitory orders, beat up officials and policemen, and resorted to violence and arson yesterday.

The state government, in a bid to cool tempers, has already announced certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan.

The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.
By Prachi Salve, Alison Saldanha and Vipul Vivek

Amravati / Mumbai: A plentiful harvest in 2016 and imports drive some prices down 63 percent. A shortage of cash because of demonetisation. Despite Rs 3.5 lakh croreenough to build 545 Tehri-sized dams invested over six decades to 2011, more than half of all farms depend on rains. These are the three factors agitating Indians who depend on farming  90 million families, or 54.6 percent of Indias 1.2 billion people.

As anger sweeps rural Madhya Pradesh after the death of six farmers in police firing, farm protests roil rural Maharashtra  wholesale markets are shut, produce is being dumped on streets  and governments of the debt-ridden states struggle to respond to demands for loan waivers, an IndiaSpend analysis and reportage from rural Maharashtra explores why farmers are both angry and desperate.

The primary reason farming is unviable in India is that farms are now among the worlds smallest (the global average land-holding size is 5.5 hectares)  too many people are dependent on shrinking farms.

Since 1951, the per capita availability of land has declined by 70 percent, from 0.5 hectares to 0.15 hectares in 2011, and is likely to decline further, according to ministry of agriculture data.

Such small and marginal land-holdings, as they are called, now constitute 85 percent of the number of operational farms in the country, according this 2015-16 report on the state of Indian agriculture.

It is hard to use modern machinery on small farms, the owners of which are often too poor to afford farm equipment. Manual labour increases costs, but labour too has been in short supply, as workers migrate to cities. Further, their size and output limits access to loans and institutional credit.

Those are the larger issues. Here are the three reasons for the current turmoil, gleaned by IndiaSpends analysts and reporters:

1. After back-to-back droughts, a good harvest, but incomes fall

As 2017 rolled in, the news from Indias farms appeared good.

After droughts in 2014 and 2015, a good monsoon in 2016 reversed two years of rural economic decline. Indias agricultural growth contracted 0.2 percent in 2014-15 and grew no more than 1.2 percent in 2015-16, because of the back-to-back droughts. In 2016-17, the agricultural economy grew 4.1 percent.

Across many states growing pulses, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat, markets were flooded with produce, especially tur (pigeon pea), which witnessed the highest growth among all pulses, an important source of protein for a majority of Indians. India is the worlds largest pulses producer.

However, an influx of pulses from Myanmar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawigrowing 20 percent over two financial quarters, from September 2016 to March 2017, The Business Standard reported on March 3, 2017caused the price of Indian tur to plunge.

"Local tur isn't in excess this year. This is "bumper crop" because the govt. signed a 5-yr contract to import tur" pic.twitter.com/YkB7OR043r  Alison (@bexsaldanha) May 17, 2017

From Rs 11,000 per quintal (from December 2015), the price of tur fell 63 percent to Rs 3800-4000 per quintal  20 percent below the minimum support price (MSP)the price at which government buys farm produceof Rs 5,050 per quintal (including a bonus of Rs 425) since December 2016 as Indiaspend reported on 12 April, 2017.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture

The table above explains how production of pulses rose 29 percent, from 17.15 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 22.14 million tonnes in 2016-17. Tur production increased 50 percent, from 2.81 million tonnes to 4.23 million tonnes, over the same period.

The MSP for tur should be increased to Rs 6,000 per quintal in 2017 and Rs 7,000 per quintal in 2018, a government committee headed by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian recommended in September 2016.

Minimum Support Price For Pulses For Kharif (July to October) Crops 2016-17 and Rabi (October to March) Crops 2017-18

Source: Food Corporation of India

As on March 2017, the minimum support price for tur was Rs 5,050 per quintal, nearly 20 percent (18 percent) lower than the prices recommended by the committee on pulses.

As these prices crashed, farmers found it harder to find money to store their produce and prepare for the next season because demonetisationthe withdrawal of 86 percent of Indias currency, by value, on November 2016 left them starved of cash.

2. How demonetisation  and government red tape  left farmers short of cash

On 18 May, at around noon, 30-year-old Prashant Lande waited under a harsh summer sun to sell 800 quintals of tur at the Amravati agricultural produce market committee (APMC), 664 km east of Indias financial capital, Mumbai.

From Kinhala village in Amravati districts Ashti taluka, in Maharashtras eastern region of Vidharbha, Lande said he refuses to sell his 800 quintals of tur to the government procurement centre, although the state buys tur at a higher rate.

At the market, Lande could sell his tur at Rs 3,800 to Rs 4,000 per quintal, while the government buying centre offered Rs 5,050 per quintal.

We dont sell to the government centre because the process of selling takes one month  from standing in line for the token to the sale to finally when the payment reaches the account, said Lande. Our fellow farmers who have sold their produce at the procurement centre on March 22, are yet to receive their payments and it is nearly June!

It does not help that the effects of demonetisation continue to to be felt across the rural economy.

Right after demonetisation, tomato farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and onion farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat, were the worst hit as prices fell by 60-85 percent, IndiaSpend reported on January 18, 2017.

With little respite more than six months later, the experiment has aggravated the circumstances leading to the current farmers strike.

By now we should have begun preparing our fields for the monsoons, but because of demonetisation and the unavailability of cash, we are still struggling to find money for sowing, said Lande.

At such a time, farmers like Lande turn to credit.

Up to 57 percent of farm families in Maharashtra are indebted; the figure for India is 52 percent, according to the National Sample Survey Organisations 2013 situation assessment survey of farm households, the latest available data.

This indebtedness has widespread consequences. More farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra (4,291) in 2015 than any other state, rising 7 percent from 4,004 in 2014, followed by Karnataka (1,569) and Telangana (1,400), as IndiaSpend previously reported in January 2017.

Now, after Uttar Pradeshs new government waived Rs 30,792 crore of farm loans, pressure is building on the governments of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to do the same. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been reluctant to do so, but with his governments coalition partner, the Shiv Sena, and other parties preparing for a political agitation, he may find it hard to exercise fiscal prudence.

3. In an era of climate change, 52 percent of Indian farmers without irrigation

The basic problem across most of rural India is that despite the spread of irrigationa sector plagued by unfinished projects and corruption  52 percent of Indias farms still depend on the vagaries of rain, which is becoming increasingly uncertain in an era of climate change.

Extreme rainfall events in central India, the core of the monsoon system, are increasing and moderate rainfall is decreasing  as a part of complex changes in local and world weather  according to a clutch of Indian and global studies, as IndiaSpend reported on 15 April, 2015.

The droughts of 2014 and 2015 in rural Maharashtra were mitigated by the plentiful rains of 2016, but many parts of the state also endured floods. Uncertain weather affects the ability of government extension systems to provide accurate advice to farmers.

The government encouraged us to grow more tur in the kharif (July to October) season, since these crops consume less water and are in high demand, said Lande, the Vidarbha farmer. We would not have faced so much loss over the last three years, had there been a proper system of canals.

Despite six decades of irrigation, less than 50 percent (or 66 million hectares of Indias net-cultivated area of 140 million hectares) as irrigated, according to the 2015-16 State of Agriculture report. Groundwater provides water for two-thirds of Indias irrigated land, but those levels are falling from overuse.

From the first five year plan (1951-56) to the eleventh (2006 to 2011), the central government has spent a total of Rs 3.51 lakh crore, as we said, on major irrigation and flood control projects characterised by time and cost overruns, shows this 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) report.

On July 1, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY)or the Prime Ministers Farmers Irrigation Programmewith a budget of Rs. 50,000 crores over five years (2015-16 to 2019). The motto of the PMKSY is "Har Khet Ko Pani (water to every field) and More crop per drop.

In 2015-16, less than a third (Rs 312 crore) of Rs 1,000 crores set aside for micro-irrigation was released, reveals this government report. Of this, upto April 2016, no more than Rs 48.3 crore, or less than five percent, was actually spent, according this micro-irrigation financial progress monitoring report. The government set Rs 1,763 as the 2016-17 micro-irrigation target, but no data on results have been released.

The micro-irrigation programme covers an area of 6,51,220 hectares, or 0.46 percent of net cultivated area.
Its now the farmer Vs the Narendra Modi government, ironically a government which has, for long, put farmer welfare at the top of its agenda and wanted to double their income in the next five years.

Farmers of major agrarian states -- Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh -- are on an aggressive war course with the same government, which was originally supposed to emerge as their saviour.

The Tamil Nadu farmers went to the extent of staging naked protests and threatening to eat human faeces in the national capital only to bring their problem to the attention of the elected government. A few lives have been lost already in Madhya Pradesh, one of Indias biggest agrarian states, when security forces allegedly opened fire on the agitating farmers. In Maharashtra, the farmers are so angry against the government that they want Raj Thackeray to steer their agitation.

Remember, Thackeray is not known for leading peaceful agitations earlier.

How did the present situation come about? Look at the irony. Ever since the Modi government came into power in May 2014, it has been chanting the sabka-saath-sabka-vikaas mantra and has put the kisan at the top of its priority list. Record amount of loans are being given to the farm sector under the target fixed by the Union Budget and to fulfill the mandatory lending requirement under the priority sector lending norms stipulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Kisan has always found place as a dominant figure in Modis election speeches. Despite all these, the farmer is up in arms against the same government. Is there a political script behind this? Are farmer protests in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh a job of the Congress and other opposition parties?

If not, what made the Modi government the enemy No. 1 of the farmer, particularly at a time when the country is not facing a drought situation and monsoon this year is predicted to be good?

The reason, clearly, is the failure of the government to understand the needs of the farmer beyond bank loans and forgetting the fundamental links connecting the farm economy in the rural India.

The government failed to understand how the farm economy works on the ground and what has sustained it for long. The Modi government did four major mistakes in dealing with the farmer community.

For one, the government failed to foresee the lasting damage of the Uttar Pradesh farm loan waiver on farmers, the banking sector and the government itself. It used the loan waiver plank as a convenient political tool to win votes in the run-up to the UP elections, but it later boomeranged.

As this writer has repeatedly pointed out in the earlier columns, crop loan waiver is like a harmful tranquiliser administered in a weak body. It causes the pain to vanish only for a short while. But, the pain will inevitably return unless the wound is healed with proper medicine and care.

Any farmer will be happy the moment a waiver is announced and will stop repaying bank loans instantly. Even the farmer, who have been repaying or has the wherewithal to pay back, will stop repayment. But the reasons that led to high indebtedness do not change. The banker will be double-cautious to give a fresh loan to this defaulted farmer next time. The credit culture goes for a toss. Banks see rise in NPA and the governments fiscal management face trouble. Unless the fundamental reasons that led the farmer to a crisis are not solved, the farmer will return to the government with a begging bowl every season, seeking a waiver.

In fact, the ongoing agitations in Maharashtra and MP can be mainly attributed to the loan waiver announcement in Uttar Pradesh by the Yogi Adityanath government following an election promise of the prime minister. This triggered similar demands in other states. Even Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who initially spoke against the idea of loan waiver, was forced to backtrack. The onus of the ongoing economic/political implications of the agitation thus lies with Modi and Yogi Adgityanath.

Second, steps like ban of cattle sale for slaughter in livestock markets created a negative sentiment among farmers and meat traders, who are employers of large number of people in meat trade and related industries such as tanning and leather works. While the stated intention of the law was to bring in discipline, hygiene and legality in cattle trade, the rule on market place came as a shocker to farmers and meat traders since 90 percent of the trade for slaughter-cattle normally takes place in livestock markets.

By banning this, the government jolted the rural economic structure, where the farmer sells his old, unfit cattle to the neighborhood market for slaughter and invest that money in buying a new one or other farm equipment. With strict documentation, the government also made the process of sale-purchase of cattle difficult for an illiterate farmer. Only large scale, organised meat traders could manage to procure cattle travelling across the hinterland on a regular basis to procure slaughter-cattle while the poor farmer was left to shell out Rs 60-80 per day to maintain his unused cattle. Instead, the government could have retained the livestock markets for slaughter-cattle trade by making rules more stringent.

Third, there was a huge communication gap between the government and the farmer all along. The Modi government failed to engage with the agitating farmers and sensitise them instead of offering a farm loan waiver, the better alternative is to invest in building long-term infrastructure and technology for the farmer to get warehouse facilities, better pricing for products and easier access to fertilisers and farm equipment. Instead, the prime minister publicly offered the farm loan waiver bonanza hoping to win the support of the farmer.

In the hindsight, that didnt appease him. Instead, this will likely put additional debt burden on state governments cracking their already constrained balance sheets. According to a PTI report in February, every citizen of Madhya Pradesh bore a 'debt' of Rs 13,853 as the state government had a liability of Rs 1.11 lakh crore at the beginning of current fiscal (2016-17). "The debt of the state government increased to Rs 1,11,101.10 crore in March last year from Rs 77,413 crore in March 2014. So the average debt of every citizen of Madhya Pradesh was Rs 13,853 as of 31 March, 2016," the report quoted state finance minister Jayant Malaiya as saying.

Arguably, the government failed to study the results of the 2008 farm loan waiver sponsored by the UPA government on the farmer and the government  it didnt do much good for both parties. Without learning from the past, the Modi government chose to throw the same card on the table in the form of UP loan waiver.

Fourth, one cant rule out the possibility that demonetisation too has had its share in adding to the farmer distress as this is one segment where cash transactions were highly dominant. When the tap was closed overnight, it sent shock waves to the rural farmer, the impact of which is yet to become visible fully. The impact on informal economy will reflect in the macro-numbers with a lag.

To calm the protesting farmers, Madhya Pradesh government has now offered some sops, Maharashtra has offered a Rs 30,000 crore loan waiver promise. But, none of these will solve the fundamental problems that have set the farmer community on a collision course with the government. Clearly, the Modi government failed to learn from the past.
Mumbai: Amid the agitation of farmers in Maharashtra, at least four farmer suicides were reported in the state in the last few days.

Ramesh Ramdas Dalvi (26) hanged himself on his farm in Bhokardar tehsil of Jalna district on Tuesday, police said.

According to police, Dalvi had attempted to commit suicide a week ago too, but some alert neighbours had stopped him then.

In Nanded district, 40-year-old Parmeshwar Wankhade ended his life by hanging himself on Tuesday, said a police officer from Himayatnagar police station.

Sanjay Ghanwat (46), a farmer from Partapur village in Mehkar tehsil of Buldana ended his life due to loss of crop in his three-acre farm, police said.

In Yeola tehsil of Nashik district, Navnath Changdev Bhalerao (30) killed himself by drinking a poisonous chemical on the night of 5 June.

Meanwhile, actors Nana Patekar and Makrand Anaspure expressed disappointment over farmers being forced to go on a strike in the state.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference here, Patekar said, "We started NAAM foundation to support the farmers. I think people from all sectors of life should come forward to support the farmers."

Anaspure said, "The recommendations of Swaminathan committee should be implemented on a priority basis. I also feel there should be some loan waiver like package for needy farmers."
Its 3 am and Im losing sleep over this negative covfefe about my beloved home state. #Kerala, Nirupama Menon Rao, the Kerala-born former foreign secretary of India tweeted, using the Trump neologism.

She was reacting to a far-right Hindu groups' social media campaign against the Muslim-dominated Malappuram district, where she was born. She retweeted a joke Shashi Tharoor shared on Times Now about penchant for confusing Pakistan with Kerala.

There were all sorts of stories doing the rounds and concerted efforts to drive the point that Kerala was fast going the Kashmir way and non-Muslims, mainly Hindus, were being driven out of Malappuram.

Rao is now a public policy fellow at Washington-based think tank Wilson Centre, ranked among the top 10 in the world. She had taken to Twitter on Wednesday to debunk the campaign that only Muslims are allowed to buy land in Malappuram. That is an outright lie. I am from Malappuram and my family owned land there for over a hundred years. You are spreading hate, she wrote, opening a floodgate for hatemongers.

Twitteratti from the state also came in her support. Some from the district were ready to sell their land, and others offered to help Hindus to buy land. Rao has also been making a series of tweets against the growing intolerance. She also tweeted a link to a newspaper report on a Hindu temple in her district offering iftar to some Muslim villagers.

Murderous vigilantism in the name of cow protection only unites the regressive and lumpen within us. Cribbed, cabined, confined India? No! she tweeted four days back.

Minority Muslims and Christians constitute 45 percent of Keralas 33.4 million population, and it has no history of communal riots that the northern states are familiar with. Malappuram is 70.25 percent Muslim, 27.6 percent Hindu and 1.98 percent Christian. Malappuram-born historian MGS Narayanan, the former chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR), was also surprised at the claims and wild comparisons.

I have been here for many years, and I dont think theres any such discrimination, said Narayanan, who lives in the nearby Kozhikode, the second most Muslim populated district in Kerala.

There is no such restriction (on non-Muslims buying land) there. This is not a truthful statement, he told Firstpost, adding that he does not follow the social media.

The hate campaigners point out atrocities against Hindus in the district during the 1921 rebellion against the British crackdown on the Khilafat movement, which ended up in the Wagon tragedy in which 67 of 90 Muslim prisoners bundled into a freight vehicle suffocated to death on the way to Coimbatore Central Prison. Narayanan says that the campaign for the restoration of Khilafat was started by Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress as a movement against the British regime.

"But here the government servants employed to protect law and order were mostly Hindus. Naturally, they were at the receiving end. Its true; the movement had such a transformation. I think there were few conversions as well, but not much. That was not its intention. But it happened to be like that, and the British also wanted to make it a Hindu-Muslim divide.

History apart, there are many shining examples for the strong bond the communities enjoy among them from the district. Last week, Shree Lakshmi Narasimha Murthy Vishnu Temple hosted iftar for some 200 Muslim families in Punnathala village on the premises of the centuries old temple.

It was sort of thanksgiving for the help they were rendering to the temple renovation and deity restoration. Since its their fasting month, they decided to cancel a mass feast they planned as part of the temple celebrations. The temple authorities said that it was a tradition the villagers inherited from their ancestors.

We want to pass on this culture to the next generation as the youngsters are increasingly getting exposed to the hate campaign, says Cherussery Unnikrishnan Nair, the temple committee president.

Fringe elements in the Muslim community also exploit every opportunity to destroy this harmony. But the elders make timely interventions to thwart attempts at any communal flare-up.

In May, the extremist elements on both sides came face-to-face when the Villwath Mahakshetram temple in Pookkottumpadam village was ransacked and three idols inside its sanctum sanctorum were disfigured.

There were demonstrations by the Hindu Aikya Vedi and counter-demonstrations by Muslim groups. There was also a call on the social media for Hindus to get ready to open refugee camps across the southern districts. But it lasted only for a day until the police arrested a Hindu man, Mohanakumar, hailing from the remote southern district of Thiruvananthapuram, where he had committed similar offences including murder.

The incident happened on the first day of the fasting month of Ramadan, coinciding with the Union environment ministrys new restrictions on sale of cattle for slaughter. Many had feared deliberate attempts at creating communal violence.

But the police has not explained if it was done by him alone, which temple authorities doubt given the extent of destruction. The (ruling) CPM also supports Muslim extremists aiming at a consolidation in its favour, which is equally dangerous, says social critic Hameed Chennamangaloor. Their overreaction against the slaughter ban is to make political capital out of it. The party is careful not to oppose the closure of eateries in some Muslim areas during their fasting month. The BJP is benefiting from this, he told Firstpost.

In 2016, the police arrested a dozen RSS men for the killing of neo-convert Faisal, 32, in Kodinhi village where more than 90 percent of the families are Muslims. The reason: he switched his faith while working in Saudi Arabia as a driver and took his wife and children to his new faith. The arrested people included his brother-in-law.

At his funeral, hundreds of workers of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), the political arm of the right-wing Popular Front, a breakaway group of the Jamaat-e-Islami, drawn from distant places gathered provocatively chanting "Allahu Akbar". But the timely intervention of the Juma Masjid saved the situation. It called a meeting of families from both the communities who vowed to stand together to thwart such attempts at creating a communal frenzy.

They were living in harmony for centuries, and the Koorba Bhagavati Temple in the village stands on the land donated by the Kodinhi Juma Masjid, which follows the Sufi tradition.

The last time Kodinhi village was in the news internationally was for its mysteriously large number of twins, 250 in all, and they knew no hatred. The hate campaigners also claimed that the district had prospered disproportionately with the political patronage and the remittances from West Asia. But the states latest economic review says its per capita income is the lowest (Rs 85,575), far below the state average of Rs 112,343. At 13.45 percent, the districts decadal population growth rate is far higher than the state average but much below the national average of 27.64 percent.

Keralas human development index is always compared with that of the developed nations and Malappuram is no exception.

Some even shared a footage of workers of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), the key ally of the Congress party in the state, with a caption in Hindi and English: Muslims hoisting Islamic flags on Independence Day in Kerala.

Others claimed only Muslim candidates get elected from the district. But that's not true. The election of speaker P Sreeramakrishnan from Ponnani and Congress leader AP Anil Kumar, a two-time minister, from Wandoor are examples of that. Kerala's first chief minister EMS Namboothiripad and Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the father of Malayalam language, were also from the district.

"I am a Hindu, and I get overwhelming support from all communities," says AP Unnikrishnan, president of the district panchayat and a leader of Dalit League, a feeder outfit of the IUML. "From IUML alone there are two block panchayat presidents, 10 gram panchayat presidents and 68 members of civic bodies from the Hindu community. We don't mix our faith with politics," he told Firstpost.
Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj has always been known for her promptness on the social media. Several people have shared their tryst with the Union minister who often went out of her way to address grievances on Twitter. However, on Thursday, when Twitter user Karan Saini decided to have a bit of fun with the Union minister's proactiveness on the social media site. Swaraj in her usual diplomatic way took it in her stride and responded accordingly.

@SushmaSwaraj I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro  karan Saini (@ksainiamd) June 8, 2017

Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. https://t.co/Smg1oXKZXD  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

The conversation made way for a barrage of criticism with people slamming Saini for not respecting the minister who tries to provide assistance for genuine problems on Twitter. However, Saini later clarified that his tweet was in pure humour and he did not intend to offend anyone.

While most advised Saini to look for humour in other things and not waste a minister's time, a few appreciated Swaraj's graceful reply. Another lot made a joke out of the Saini's tweet.

When someone truly does a great job, the least you can do is 'respect' the person ! Mocking them will get you attention but not respect.  Ranjitha Kashyap (@RanjithaKashyap) June 8, 2017

My and our respect for @isro and foreign affairs team is sky-high, my tweet was purely humorous in nature #NationFirstNoCompromise  karan Saini (@ksainiamd) June 8, 2017

The pblm is tht those seeking serious help frm Sushmaji might miss out if we swarm her on Twitter, IMO better not 2 tag her unnecessarily,  Shashank Trivedi (@coolshashank13) June 8, 2017

OMG ! My dear, who send you to mars, pls be there, we'll send u an appointment letter for d post of chowkidar to look after our satellite  Sazl Dvroy  (@sazldvroy) June 8, 2017

Swaraj's Twitter account is full of people's tweets on different problems and most of them have her quick response.

On 2 June, Ken Sid, a Pakistani national, reached out to Swaraj through the social media platform for a medical visa for his son, who has a heart complication which cannot be treated in Pakistan. The family had been trying to get a visa for three months.

Swaraj's intervention came after the infant's father brought the matter to her notice on Twitter.

An official at the Indian High Commission said that a four-month medical visa has been issued to the family so that the boy could undergo heart surgery in India. There was another time when a woman had tweeted her photo on a trip saying that her husband could not make it since he did not get a visa and soon Swaraj ensured that the husband joins her abroad on the trip.

In December 2016, despite undergoing treatment for kidney failure, Swaraj kept addressing grievances on Twitter.
Protests by Madhya Pradesh's farmers continued to rage for an eighth straight day on Thursday, even as proceedings took a political turn after Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi announced his decision to visit Mandsaur.

Farmers had resorted to violence and arson on Wednesday despite prohibitory measures, posing a major challenge for chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

In view of the volatile situation, the Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of RAF to the violence-hit state where the farmers have been agitating for loan waiver and better crop prices.

The Chouhan government had sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier. The scheme was said to cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore, according to the government.

Protests spill over to Rajasthan

However, even before the Madhya Pradesh government's efforts could bear fruit, protests have begun in neighbouring state, Rajasthan.

A report in The Tribune had said farmers from Rajasthan's Pratapgarh district had stopped the supply of milk and vegetables on Wednesday. A farmers body, Kisan Mahapanchayat, was planning to hold a dharna at Mandi Bandh in Pratapgarh on Thursday. "We will be meeting farmers in Tonk, Sawai Madhopur, Kota Bundi, Bhilwara, Chhittorgarh, Pratapgarh and Ajmer in the next three days to decide future course of action," said Rampal Jat, president of the body.

Former MLA and All India Kisan Sabha state president Pema Ram said the Rajasthan farmers will launch a state-wide agitation if the government fails to meet their demands. "Problem of farmers in Rajasthan are the same as that of those in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. We also want higher prices for milk, hike in minimum support price (MSP) and loan waiver. Farmers would submit memorandum to district collectors and the state government should take our ultimatum seriously," he said.

All eyes on Maharashtra farmers' meet in Nashik

The farmers' protests owes its genesis to Maharashtra, and it was here that the stir initially began on 1 June. On Thursday, Maharashtra's farmers will hold a meeting to decide on the future course of action. Villagers of Puntamba, in Rahata taluka of Ahmednagar district, where the movement originated, said they will take a decision on whether to resume supplies of produce. Committee member Hansraj Wadghule was quoted by saying in The Indian Express that said farmers in Nashik will continue with their boycott until a fresh decision is taken.

Punjab farmers to discuss future course of action

The Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) has announced that it will hold protests at all district headquarters in Punjab on Friday demanding a loan waiver, and the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report. A key recommendation of the report is that the government must offer a 'Minimum Support Price', which will be at least 50 percent more than the total input cost.

As per a report in The Indian Express, the Amarinder Singh government in Punjab has promised a loan waiver for farmers and set up an expert panel. The government has also abolished kurki, the practice by cooperative banks of auctioning land mortgaged by farmers to recover loans in cases of default.

With inputs from agencies
The situation in Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmers' unrest, where five people were killed, was "almost normal" and curfew might be relaxed by Thursday evening, a senior official said.

Internet services that had been suspended might also be restored, said divisional commissioner MB Ojha. "For the last two or three days, farmers were stopping vehicles and setting them on fire. No such incident has been reported today (Thursday). The situation is almost normal," he said.

If the situation continued to be quiet, curfew imposed in four police station areas, including Pipaliya Mandi where the firing took place, might be relaxed, he said. Vehicles that were burnt had been removed by morning from the highway and traffic had resumed.

Asked to comment on the post-mortem report of the five people who had been killed in firing on Tuesday, the official said the matter was under investigation. Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were both at the spot. However, he didn't divulge any details.

The investigations, he indicated, revealed that the stone-pelters included boys between the ages of 16 and about 22. Some "anti-social elements" had joined in. Farmers in the area have been protesting since 1 June, demanding a higher minimum support price (MSP) for their produce among other issues. However, the situation escalated on Tuesday when five people were killed.

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government stepped up security in areas witnessing protests and transferred the two top officials of the district.

The Congress had termed the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's silence on it.
New Delhi: Nearly five years after the 2012 Delhi gangrape incident shook the nation's conscience, women continue to be vulnerable on the streets, if the recent string of brutal sexual assaults on them are to go by.

The shocking 16 December, 2012 case had triggered a massive public outcry and it culminated in awarding of death sentence to four of the accused on 5 May this year, but similar incidents continue to haunt women, from neighbourhood's dark alleys to desolate highways, as they go about their daily lives.

On 29 May, a 23-year-old woman was allegedly gang raped by three men in the industrial area of Manesar, a short distance away from the bustling 'millennium town' of Gurgaon, after they fatally flung her nine-month-old baby out of a moving vehicle.

The trio had given her a lift and taken her to a secluded spot in Manesar, where they took turns to rape her on the ground, Gurgaon Police said.

Yogendra, one of the two accused held on Wednesday, told police they had been drinking beer and were inebriated when they came upon the young woman  of the same age as the physiotherapy student, who was picked up on the fateful night of 16 December, 2012, from a bus stop in Delhi.

But, this horrific episode has been preceded by several bone-chilling incidents related to sexual assaults on women.

On 11 May, the decomposed and mutilated body of a woman, who had gone missing from Sonepat on 9 May and was gang raped and brutally murdered, was found near the Industrial Model Township in Urban Estate, Rohtak. Stray dogs had bitten off the face and lower portion of her body.

The autopsy of the victim had shown that the bones of the woman's skull were shattered into pieces and "some sharp-edged objects may have been inserted in her private parts", again an eerie reminder of the infamous 2012 Delhi gangrape case.

And, on 25 May, it was a highway to hell for four women who were allegedly raped by a group of five criminals at gunpoint in a field off the Yamuna Expressway and one of the four men travelling with them was shot dead when he objected to the assault.

The shocking incident had taken place at night when eight persons of a family were travelling to Bulandshahr to meet a relative at a hospital.

A 27-year-old woman was allegedly gang raped in front of her husband, who was tied to a tree and gagged, in Sahaswan area of Uttar Pradesh's Badaun district.

The incident took place on 22 May evening when the woman was returning home from a health clinic, along with her husband.

But it is not just women who face terror from preying men. Young girls and even children continue to be subjected to sexual assaults.

A 7-year-old girl was allegedly gangraped in a remote village of Allahabad on 25 May.

The ghastly incident took place in Ghurpur police station area of the district's trans-Yamuna region, about 40 km from the city in the morning.

"The girl was picked up from her house in Amreha Budawan village while she was asleep besides her mother. She was brought back home by villagers who found her lying in a pool of blood in the nearby fields, where the assailants appear to have dumped her after the sexual assault," according to Sandeep Tiwari, Public Relations Officer of the Senior Superintendent of Police of Allahabad.

On 20 May, a minor girl was allegedly raped by her 70-year-old next-door neighbour at Khanna area, about 45 km from Ludhiana.

Cases of sexual assault and rape of minor girls have also been reported in the last month from Haryana's Yamunanagar and Jewar area of Greater Noida, Sikar district of Rajasthan, among other places.

A 30-year-old woman was shot at when she had resisted an alleged molestation and rape attempt by two youths in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district on 24 May.
Among the 12 astronauts chosen by NASA for its 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees is an us Iowa native Indian-American Raja Chari, 39.

A father of three, US Air Force fighter pilot Colonel Chari is the first Indian-American after Kalpana Chawla to join NASA for its 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class.

An experienced pilot with more than 2,000 hours of flight time under his belt, Chari has flown in F-35, F-15, F-16, and F-18, including F-15E combat missions in 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and deployments in support of the Korean peninsula.

A distinguished pilot, Chari has been awarded the Defence Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal, an Iraq Campaign Medal, a Korean Defence Service Medal and the Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal.

Presently a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California, Col Chari will report for Astronaut Class in August this year for two years training as an Astronaut Candidate.

Upon completion, he will be assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office while he awaits a flight assignment.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Chari was raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where his mother still lives. Chari has a Masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and bachelors degrees in astronautical engineering and engineering science from US Air Force Academy.

The seven men and five women comprising the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees is the largest group Nasa has selected in almost two decades.

It was selected from a record 18,300 applicants  more than Nasa has ever had during an open astronaut call.

To get picked, people had to meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria  such as having a bachelor's degree in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) field or have accumulated up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

After completing two years of training, the new astronaut candidates could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on Nasa's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

With inputs from agencies
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set off on a two-day visit to Kazakhstan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday.

Modi's visit is particularly important because India, who was an observer state until now, will become a full member of the organisation. "India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 percent of humanity and nearly 20 percent of global GDP," said Modi in his pre-departure statement.

"We have long-standing relations with SCO members and look forward to progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people," his statement read.

While Modi hopes that this new engagement will open opportunities to redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising India's full potential, the SCO membership might also give a platform to New Delhi and Islamabad to talk through their bilateral differences.

"The SCO will also become an ideal platform for members with disputes to solve their problems bilaterally based on the Shanghai Spirit," The Global Times said on Wednesday quoting Li Wei, an anti-terror expert at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

Experts believe that SCO members will support India and Pakistan and offer help if needed but they won't internationalise the dispute. "In short, the SCO is not a place for India and Pakistan to quarrel, but a platform for members to settle their disputes," said Lin Minwang, a professor at the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University.

New Delhi will also be working closely with Central Asian countries for the first time. India is one of the largest energy consuming countries in the world and relies on imports to meet half of its natural gas meets. Central Asian countries have abundant natural and energy resources, according to this DailyO article. The gateway to Central Asia's massive energy fields will open up for India.

Further, India will also be able to access trade and transit routes between Russia and China, which pass through Central Asian countries.

With SCO member countries considering changing Iran's position from observer to permanent state, India can consider reviving the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, a Parliamentary panel has said. India had abandoned the ISI pipeline following sanctions on Iran over its suspected nuclear programme. "The government should examine the idea of reviving the (IPI) project as international conditions have become favourable following lifting of sanctions against Iran," the Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Gas said in a report.

The IPI pipeline was proposed with the aim of transporting natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India. With all the three countries coming together at one platform, the SCO might provide an opportunity to New Delhi, Islamabad and Tehran to revive the long standing project.

Transnational pipelines are important elements of national energy security and they need to be pursued vigorously, according to the Committee report. SCO can possibly act as a guarantor for projects such as the TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India), according to The Hindu.

India's membership will also be in line with its 'Connect Central Asia' policy. "In the past few decades, we have been struggling to build economic links that match our political and cultural interaction. Our trade with the whole region is at a relatively low level of around $500 million. We face some natural obstacles like limited land connectivity and the limited size of the Central Asian markets," minister of state E Ahamed had said at the first India-Central Asia dialogue.

India hopes that its active presence in the region will contribute to stability and development in the entire Central Asian region, said Ahamed. New Delhi also hopes to convert Afghanistan into a hub for trade and energy, connecting Central and South Asia. The SCO will give India the chance to engage with Afghanistans neighbours and make this possible.

Central Asia also possesses large cultivable tracts of land and India sees the potential of cooperating with the countries in production of profitable crops. Apart from this, India hopes that its membership in the SCO would bolster India's renewed linkages with the region, said Ahamed.

The SCO members are also expected to endorse China's One Belt, One Road initiative during the summit. India has expressed concerns primarily because of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) passing through the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. New Delhi will have to devise an effective plan to articulate its concerns while not defying the initiative openly.

With inputs from agencies
Jerusalem: In a big fillip to an already robust bilateral relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to land in Israel on 4 July on a three-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state.

Informed sources in Tel Aviv told PTI that Modi would be arriving in Israel on 4 July and is likely to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin the same day in the evening.

Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. He would be addressing the Indian community in Israel the following day in Tel Aviv with preparations for the event in full swing amid massive enthusiasm with people expected to attend the event from all over the country.

The Indian community has launched a website in preparation of the much awaited visit of Modi. About 80,000 Indian Jews belonging to four different communities  Bene Israel, Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bnei Menashe  live in Israel.

Modi's ascendance to power in New Delhi generated a lot of euphoria in Israel as he was popular here for maintaining close ties with Tel Aviv during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had also visited Israel in October 2006.

One of the things that have been particularly discussed widely in the Israeli media is the "close chemistry" between Modi and Netanyahu. Netanyahu often calls Modi "my friend" and in a recent tweet said that people of his country were eagerly waiting for his "historic" visit.

The two leaders have already met twice on foreign soil on the sidelines of UN related events and are said to be constantly in touch with each other over the phone.

"I am happy that often we can talk easily on telephone, we can discuss everything. It has very rarely happened. In your case it has happened", Modi told Netanyahu during their meeting on the sidelines of Paris Climate summit in November 2015. The Israeli premier had then promptly responded saying, "in your case too".

Modi's visit being limited to Israel in the region, skipping Palestine, has been pointed by some analysts as a "major statement", but the Palestinian Authority (PA) clearly stated that India has the right to build relations with Israel but it should not come at the "expense" of New Delhi's firm support for the Palestinian cause.

President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas visited India in May. It was his fifth visit to New Delhi in the last 12 years and the third state visit underlining the importance of relations.

Prime Minister Modi's visit has been preceded by several other high-profile visits, including the trip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, several senior secretaries and Minister of State for Agriculture SS Ahluwalia-led 11 member multi-party parliamentary delegation. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba would be on a five-day visit to Israel starting June 11.
The exact date of Narendra Modi's impending Washington DC visit has not been announced yet (officially or unofficially) but it's largely taken to be around 25 to 27 June. This will mark the prime minister's first meeting with the newly elected US president Donald Trump and the dynamics of this engagement may far outstrip the strategic importance of India-US relationship. That is not to say that India should or should not look forward to a positive outcome but to imply that Modi and Trump's first face-to-face interaction may set the tone for future engagements.

This is a tad unusual. Meetings between heads of state take place within immaculately laid paradigms governed by strict protocols of officialdom, where even shaking hands or turning to the camera is carefully rehearsed. This is done to take unpredictability away from diplomatic pow-wows and to control, to the extent possible, the outcomes.

This theory is useless when it comes to Trump because he is the very epitome of unpredictability. During the Cold War, US reporters in Kremlin beat would have given an arm and a leg to get even a shadow of an idea of what the Russian leaders were up to. The current US president tweets his strategies and musings while watching television, sometimes keeping even his staff members and spokespersons in the dark. During the recent NATO summit in Brussels, Trump deviated from his speech and omitted a key line pledging support to US allies in the event of an attack, leaving European leaders and even his own delegation aghast.

During the campaign for US presidential election, author and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore had described Trump as a "human Molotov cocktail" whom his angry supporters may lob inside the Oval Office just to take revenge on the 'broken' system. Moore's contention, that Trump's ideologies "do not fall under capitalism, socialism or even democracy" turned out to be prescient. "His ideology is called Donald J Trump. He believes in Donald J Trump. If it's good for him, then it's a good thing. Not good for him, it's a bad thing."

It is impossible, therefore, for India to settle on an agenda when Modi eventually meets the mercurial leader. The prime minister may be required to improvise  like French president Emmanuel Macron did while shaking Trump's hands to not let himself be bullied  to grab opportunities or control fallouts. Media reports indicate that the visit may be a Spartan affair, and Modi may not go beyond a one-on-one with Trump and some engagements with top CEOs. There might not be any glitzy events with the Indian Diaspora.

The Times of India's Chidanand Rajghatta writes from Washington that "New Delhi is quite happy to sacrifice the thrills and frills, as long as there are no spills," and adds that "vacancies in the administration's US State Department or Foreign Affairs set-up (and the administration's inability to fill them quickly) has made life difficult for foreign diplomatic setting up visits for leaders from their home countries."

The bar of expectations is being set very low, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Trump is forcing nearly everyone  allies, strategic partners and even foes  to hit the reset button in the bilateral relationship and in some cases, swap sides, as Qatar found out to its surprise. The Indian effort might be restricted to controlling the controllable and reducing the unknowable. The key, as foreign secretary S Jaishankar had eloquently put it recently, is not to "demonise" Trump but to "analyse" him.

New Delhi must be prepared to accept that India is not among the focus areas for a Trump administration that is beset by domestic and international worries. On the domestic front, less than six months into his stint, Trump is already running the risk of exposing himself to impeachment proceedings. As an AFP report points out, if deposed FBI director James Comey testifies before the Senate that Trump tried to derail a counter-espionage probe, it might pave the way for allegations of the president obstructing justice and the door for impeachment might be made ajar.

The numbers are still heavily loaded in Trump's favour but it is evident that the US president will have more pressing concerns in his mind than Modi's visit right now. On the international front, a combination of his own immaturity, North Korea's belligerence and China's hard-boiled realism has resulted in a previously antagonistic Trump eating off Xi Jinping's hands, significantly increasing India's unease.

The recent headlines around Trump's assertion that India tried to sponge "billions and billions of dollars" off the US to join the Paris Climate Agreement and India's forceful rejection of the charge do not make for a happy ambience. There is also the deepening uncertainty over H1B visa programme where the Trump administration and Modi government are on opposite poles. It would seem that decades of careful investment in a mutually beneficial bilateral, strategic tie is going to be undone under Trump.

However, the theory of unpredictability states that we cannot even take a negative outcome for granted. India enjoys bipartisan support in the US Congress and the Indian-American community has grown in influence and is beginning to sway US policy decisions. There are also structural insurances in place in military-strategic affairs. The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) under which both militaries will use each other's bases for repair and restocking of supplies, the co-development and co-production of military technologies under the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI) are all in place. The arms trade is also a strong adhesive.

Keeping these in mind, and be shorn of the hype, Modi might get exactly the opportunity that he needs to set the course of a very transactional India-US relationship under Trump that is based not just on common strategic imperatives but on quid pro quo. And, we might need to show some "strategic patience" with Trump. For instance, both leaders have a very specific agenda in reviving manufacturing jobs. Instead of hampering ties, 'Make America Great Again' and 'Make In India' may be complementary initiatives to fit both nations' interest.

There will also be strategic convergence on terrorism. Trump has taken a strident line on terrorism and has often been politically incorrect on this subject. Modi may find a willing listener in the US president on cross-border terrorism, India's pet peeve.

The crux for India will be to go into negotiations with an open mind, expecting the unexpected.
A few opening disclosures may be in order. In an increasingly black and white world, dominated by binary arguments, it is important to specify the terms of reference and engagement. Otherwise, the risks of getting boxed even before one starts running are high.

On the NDTV raids, I admittedly do not have enough details at my disposal to pronounce a judgment either way, as so many others have been quick to do. Though I am a qualified Chartered Accountant, I lack the insights that some seniors in the profession seem to have on NDTVs financial structural engineering. I am also not privileged with inside information on how NDTV's editorial policy is decided. Therefore, my comments are entirely on the basis of what is available in the public domain for a lay observer.

Like many of our generation, my television viewing habits evolved with NDTV, as state owned Doordarshan began to slip and look jaded. To that extent, I compare NDTV with Jet Airways that gave us the first real experience of a professional private airline, as Air India (then Indian Airlines) went on a terminal decline. While other airlines have come and gone, Jet has held on to its ground. Similarly, NDTV has maintained its identity in the cacophonic TRP bazar of Indian news channels.

What I do still admire about the editorial line of NDTV is consistency. While many of their peers have perforce joined the pack of hyenas, as it were, NDTV stuck to its style. The channel seems to have got the marketing logic right that, they would lose their core constituency if they tried to change the product positioning.

Besides, honestly, they lacked the capacity and competence to do so. A Nidhi Razdan could gently rap a Sambit Patra on her show, but you cannot imagine her in combat gear like Navika Kumar or Anjana Kashyap. A mild Vikram Chandra can never be a match for the nation's (nay, Republic's) self-appointed conscience keeper and his several clones on other channels.

In my professional capacity as a marketer, I have put money on NDTV even for some of my recent advertising campaigns. This was based on the advice of the media agency and objective assessment of their viewership profile vis-a-vis my target audience.

Enough disclaimers. Having said all that, I have not been able to reconcile with certain elements of the last couple of days developments. Let me answer why.

First, raids on promoters and industrialists by tax or investigative authorities are common. Often, there is strong reason to suspect that there may be political axe at work, such as proximity to previous regimes or favours denied to current powers that be. In almost all such cases, the employees and professionals in the company are kept out of the picture. Owners generally fight their own wars leaving the staff to run the business as usual.

It is not that in the history of Indian Media, there have not been instances of investigation against media houses and those were not just during the Emergency as some are trying to insinuate. Generally, the trigger of such action has been alleged financial irregularities.

Two recent examples that come to mind are those of Eenadu and Deccan Chronicle. But, in neither of these instances does one recall the journalist community instantly jumping into the fray accusing the government of vendetta and assault on the freedom of press.

In the NDTV case, the CBI was at pains to clarify that they did not raid the newsrooms or studios of the TV channel but only the residences of its promoters. The CBI also put up the entire 80-page FIR on the net and held a press conference to present their side of the story. But, such minor details were of no interest to those who had already made up their mind that this was a premeditated attack against independent media.

Some even simplistically suggested that the raid was a fall out of a studio spat between a ruling party spokesperson and NDTV anchor a few days ago. A lady, known for her anti-BJP views, tweeted that she had distinctly heard the spokesperson muttering dekh loonga, when asked to leave the show. However, she may be giving more credit to the clout of the junior politician than he deserved.

Since parallels are being drawn with attacks on the media during the Emergency (when by all accounts the so called witch hunt were decidedly ruthless and vicious) one does not recall the owners or management of the media houses fielding their editorial staff to bat against tax enforcement authorities. The doyens, be it Goenkas, Jains or Sarkars, usually fought their own battles keeping the editorial and news teams insulated, so that they could carry on with their jobs undeterred.

A story still fresh in the media circles is about a vernacular newspaper that had taken a very confrontational position with the state government. The government cut its revenue streams by stopping all state advertisement to the paper and there were murmurs about an arrest warrant against the owner-editor. To his credit, the iconic personality decided to step down rather than be cowed under pressure.

The golden tenet of media operations is the traditional Chinese Wall between management and editorial to ensure content integrity. Therefore, to put editorial staff in front to bat for the management or promoters goes against that very same principle.

A Bengali historian from Columbia University obviously stretched a point by comparing the army chief with General Dyer responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. But, putting journalists in front  for charges of financial impropriety against promoters  does appear a bit unbecoming of a channel that has been a vocal critic of the army using civilians as shields.

It may also be argued that, by allowing themselves to be drawn into a legal fight that ought to be left to the promoters and management with the authorities, the journalists are running the risk of diluting their own professional standing, personal brand and credibility.

It is entirely possible that, nothing will come out of these investigations and the NDTV promoters will come out squeaky clean after the probe. That will be the real moment of vindication for them and the channel.

Before this, NDTV had raised similar alarm about freedom to report, when the government had pulled them up for their coverage of the Pathankot Attack. They were successful in making the ministry backtrack on their order. However, reactions of the British government to unauthorised leaks after the Manchester concert tragedy, underscores that the concerns of the government were not totally misplaced.

The NDTV has so far been seen to be in the media race for the long haul. But, by protesting too much and too early they are showing signs of being jittery and nervous. That may not suit the otherwise cool as cucumber persona of its founders and the dignified image of the channel that it had assiduously cultivated over the years.

If NDTV is confident of their position both legally and morally, they should let the law take its own course and continue on their chosen editorial path leaving it to posterity and the viewers to decide on their innocence and commitment to fearless journalism.

The author tweets @SandipGhose
Tuesday at the AAS was a trip through a number of different astronomical fields, from stars to galaxies and back to the solar system we call home.

The day kicked off with a press conference on inconstant stars. Rodolfo Montez from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory spoke about work charting R Aquariis X-ray jets. The R Aquarii system contains a white dwarf and a red giant star, whose volatile stellar relationship has resulted in a breathtaking nebula thats been shaped by outbursts from the white dwarf. Now, thanks to the Chandra X-ray observatory, astronomers can watch hot material moving through the nebula and wind back the clock to determine when these blobs were first generated.

The next presentation, by Thomas Kirkman of St. Johns University, outlined the pulse acceleration of a Cepheid variable star in a binary system with a smaller, cooler star. Rather than behaving as expected, the period of this variable star is changing by minutes per decade  much more quickly than other systems. Then, Lorne Nelson of Bishops University described the discovery of the shortest-period pre-cataclysmic variable. What does all that mean? Basically, Nelsons team has found two stars circling each over every 71.22 minutes. One is a white dwarf, while the other is a brown dwarf about 67 times the mass of Jupiter. The white dwarfs radiation is responsible for heating one side of the brown dwarf, but the cooler side of the companion falls below current detection limits. The system is pre-cataclysmic because no mass transfer is taking place yet  but because the two objects are spiraling inward, eventually (in about 250 million years) theyll be close enough that the white dwarf will suck matter from its companion, causing it to flare.

The final presentation covered a new database of flaring m dwarfs created with gPhoton, a project led by Chase Million of Million concepts. Million explained that finding these flares has immense implications for planets that might be circling these stars, as flares might hinder  or help  a planets habitability for Earth-like life.

The days second press conference moved us from galactic stars to intergalactic astronomy, covering a plethora of discoveries that have far-reaching implications for our universe and our understanding of it. Jason Chu from the University of Hawaiis Institute for Astronomy highlighted the importance of the European Space Agencys Herschel mission. Although now deactivated, data from the orbiting observatory has played a key role in providing astronomers with a previously unattainable look at galaxies in crucial infrared wavelengths. James Lowenthal of Smith College spoke about how gravitational lensing has brought us the brightest infrared galaxies in the universe, allowing astronomers to peer closely at these objects to determine just why theyre forming so many stars  a currently unanswered question, if you recall Caitlin Caseys Monday plenary talk. Jack Burns of the University of Colorado, Boulder, explained how the kinetic energy released as galaxy clusters form is the biggest bang since the Big Bang. Looking for shocks that occur in the gas surrounding smaller protoclusters as they fall together to create larger galaxy clusters helps astronomers learn more about this vital process, which has built the universe into the one we see today. And yet, he said, his current work characterizing the gas in these clusters has raised more questions than answers, showing just how much we still have to learn.

Benjamin Hoscheit of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, rounded out the press conference speaking about the large local void that appears to surround the Milky Way (and, indeed, our Local Group). Galaxies throughout the universe tend to fall into either clumps or voids; while this information is well known, whats not well known is how living in a void might affect our view of the universe. Hoscheit explained that the tension we currently observe in the Hubble constant, which tells us how fast the universe is expanding, could be explained if were observing from inside a large void. The effects of this void, and of the mass beyond it, might contribute to the reason astronomers get different values when they measure the Hubble constant using nearby and faraway indicators.

I ended my Tuesday at the meeting by attending two plenary talks. The first, Planet Nine from Outer Space, was a fantastic overview by Konstantin Batygin of Caltech on our theorized-but-not-yet-found ninth planet. He opened by taking the audience through the history of discovering planets by means other than the naked eye  which, admittedly, has happened only twice. Then he went on to describe the discoveries of Sedna, 2012 VP113 (nicknamed Biden), and several other Kuiper Belt Objects whose orbits are suggestive of the presence of a ninth planet in the solar system with a mass equal to or greater than 10 Earth masses. This planet  Planet Nine  remains speculative, but evidence is mounting for its existence as more and more objects are found with orbits that indicate, at least through modeling, that theyve been affected by not only Neptune, but by a large body much farther out in the solar system as well. Im definitely glossing over lots of the details, here, but the talk was both well executed and, I admit, extremely convincing.

As an aside, if you live within driving distance of Chicago, I highly recommend the Planet Nine show at the Adler Planetarium, which I was lucky enough to catch during my last trip there. The show includes much of the data and animations Batygin included in his talk, as well as commentary from his fellow planetary scientist, Mike Brown, who led the team that discovered Sedna.

The last plenary talk I attended was Flows and Flares Around the Nearest Supermassive Black Hole  Sgr A* by Daniel Wang from the University of Massachusetts. My most recent work had focused on supermassive black holes, albeit ones much more active than the one in the center of our Milky Way. Nonetheless, Wangs talk on the behavior, past and present, of Sgr A* (the shortened version of Sagittarius A*, by the way, the name of the Milky Ways 4 billion-solar mass supermassive black hole), discussed how our observations of the closest supermassive black hole to Earth can help us understand the evolution of our galaxy and the behavior of both active and quiescent black holes in other galaxies. He discussed the X-ray and infrared flares seen from Sgr A*, as well as astronomers best guesses for their cause: magnetic events like the ones that cause flares on the Sun, or possibly even asteroids or planets around those stars that are unlucky enough to fall within the black holes sphere of influence and disrupt its accretion disk in the process.

In addition to the talks and press conferences, I even managed to catch up with some people you'll know from the pages of the magazine: Martin Ratcliffe and Liz Kruesi. All in all, it was a successful day filled with amazing announcements and fascinating science!
New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government over reports of the plight of patients at state-run hospitals due to "shortage of doctors".

The NHRC, taking cognisance of the case, has expressed serious concern over the situation, and issued notices to the Chief Secretary and Health Secretary of Tamil Nadu government and sought a report within eight weeks.

The commission on Wednesday said as per the report, out of 7 crore population, 80 percent depend upon government hospitals for treatment.

"Reportedly, going by the Medical Council of India regulations and the recommendations of World Health Organisation, one lakh doctors are required as against 18,000 working in the state."

"The non-availability of the doctor results in thousands of patients waiting in queue everyday. Even for a surgery, patients have to wait for months leading to a situation of confrontation and clashes among them and medical and para-medical staff," the rights panel said.

The commission has observed that the content of the media report, carried on 5 June, is "disheartening". In its notice, it has asked for the total number of hospitals run by the government and functioning in the state, including hospitals and health care facilities at district headquarters, taluks, primary health centres.

It has also sought to know, "The total sanctioned strength of doctors and para-medical staff in all the government hospitals and health care facilities."

Besides, it has also asked them to furnish the number of vacant posts of doctors and paramedical staff and steps taken by the government to address the issue of shortage of doctors and paramedical staff in all the hospitals and health care facilities.

"The state would be failing in its duty and responsibility, if it does not provide timely and qualitative health care to people, which it can make possible by providing the required number of doctors and paramedical staff," NHRC said, while underlining that it understands the physical and mental stress borne by doctors and paramedical staff working with depleted strength.
Jammu: The army on Thursday accused their Pakistani counterpart of engineering infiltration of armed militant into Kashmir, saying these groups were being provided active support, including covering fire, during their infiltration bids at the Line of Control.

"Indian Army units deployed along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir have foiled multiple attempts made by Pakistan army to push armed infiltrators across the LoC", Defence spokesperson of Northern Command said on Thursday.

He said that in the last 48 hours, infiltration attempts have been foiled at Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri Sectors.

"Seven armed intruders have been eliminated so far," he said.

He further said that a large quantity of arms, ammunition and war like stores have been recovered and operations are in progress at Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors.

The army blamed Pakistan army for providing heavy artillery support by giving cover firing to infiltrating terror groups along the LoC.

"These armed intruder groups were being provided active support including covering fire (heavy calibre artillery) by Pakistan army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Kashmir Valley," the spokesperson said.
Ahmedabad: Quota agitation leader Hardik Patel on Thursday condemned the alleged police action against protesting agriculturists in Madhya Pradesh and is likely to visit Mandsaur - the epicentre of the farmers' stir  on 12 June.

Hardik told reporters in Surat that the Patidar community of Gujarat was in full support of MP farmers and their agitation.

"Whatever happened in MP is highly condemnable. It is shocking to see that farmers, who feed the country, are getting bullets in return. This is really shameful. If needed, I am planning to visit Mandsaur on 12 June," said Hardik, who is facing two sedition charges in Gujarat.

"Patidar community of Gujarat is always in support of farmers of Madhya Pradesh. We are with them in this fight," said the firebrand leader, who is currently out on bail.

The farmers in Western Madhya Pradesh, particularly Mandsaur and Dewas districts, have been protesting for a week demanding debt relief and better crop prices.

Five persons were killed on Tuesday as the farmers' agitation turned violent.

Taking a dig at the prime minister on the issue, Hardik said though Narendra Modi always finds time to tweet on various issues happening across the globe, he is yet to find time to tweet about the 'firing' on farmers in Madhya Pradesh.

"When shots are fired at farmers, I wonder how our PM could not find time to tweet that issue," he said in a sarcastic tone.

"There is huge difference between what Modi says and what he actually does," said Hardik.
The Election Commission announced on Wednesday that if elections are required to choose the next President of India, they will take place on 17 July. The nomination process for the same will begin from 14 June, with the issuance of a notification; 28 June is the deadline day for submitting nominations, while candidates have until 1 July to withdraw their names. If there is consensus among parties over the choice of president, there may not be an election.

The EC also said that if there is no consensus among the ruling NDA and the Opposition parties, the number of serious candidates in the fray will be clear by the evening of 1 July. Counting of votes will take place in New Delhi on 20 July.

Incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee's term will end on 24 July.

NDTV reported that BJP and its allies are positioned to have their pick after Prime Minister Narendra Modi secured the support of regional parties like TRS, which makes up for the shortfall in votes that the ruling coalition needed.

The names being considered include Cabinet ministers M Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Jharkhand governor Draupadi Murmu.

The report further added that Congress president Sonia Gandhi has been negotiating with other opposition parties to decide on a joint candidate.

The process

The post of president is a constitutional one, and the presidential election is governed by articles 54-59 of the Constitution.

Article 54 lays down that the president will be elected by an electoral college. This is made up of the elected members from both Houses of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies of all states. Therefore, all members of the central and state legislatures are part of the electoral college except the following: Nominated members of Parliament, nominated members of the Legislative Assemblies, and members of the Legislative Council.

Article 58 of the Constitution puts in place certain qualifications on who can become President of India. In order to be eligible to become president, one must:

Be a citizen of India

Be over 35 years of age

Be qualified to be a member of the Lok Sabha

Must not hold an office of profit

The election itself is held by the system of proportional representation by means of single transferable vote. There are two things to understand in this:

- Firstly, proportional representation: The value of votes of different members of the electoral college will also vary. For an MLA, it is dependent on the population of their state and the number of elected members in the state's Legislative Assembly. The value is fixed for each state, and varies from Uttar Pradesh (208) to Goa (8) as per a report in The Financial Express. For an MP, it depends on the total value of the votes of all MLAs and the number of elected MPs. Currently the value is fixed at 708.

This year, a total of 4,896 voters  4,120 MLAs and 776 MPs  are eligible to cast their ballot.

- Secondly, the system incorporates preferential voting. This means that the electors don't just choose the best candidate but also indicate their preference regarding the others. Thus, even if an elector's first preference does not win, the rest of their ballot influences the election.

This is done by the system of vote quota. In order to win, the candidate must obtain a certain number of votes, which is determined by the total number of valid votes cast. Thus, for the 2017 presidential election, the winning candidate must obtain (4,896/2)+1  2,449 votes. In case no candidate reaches this number, the one with the minimum number of votes will be eliminated.

But preferential voting ensures that another vote is not required. The votes received by the eliminated candidate are distributed to the others on the basis of the voter's second preference. The process continues till one of the candidates achieves the required number.

Finally, the election is held by a secret ballot in which no one knows who has voted for whom. This also means that parties cannot issue whips to their members and electors are free to vote for whoever they want.

With inputs from PTI
Mumbai: The CBI has been used in what appears to be a private dispute, former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan has alleged, with regards to the raids being carried out on NDTV founder Prannoy Roy's residence. Chavan said what was happening was like an "undeclared emergency".

The CBI on Monday searched Roy's New Delhi residence and three other locations, for allegedly causing losses to a private bank, a move termed by the channel as a "witch-hunt" based on false accusations. The agency has also registered a case against Roy, his wife Radhika and RRPR Holdings for allegedly causing loss of Rs 48 crore to ICICI Bank.

"CBI has been used in what appears to be a private dispute," Chavan said at the Press Club Mumbai's RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism. "Emergency was a dark chapter in India's democracy. What is happening today is an undeclared emergency."

"Not many believe it, but the CBI functions fairly independently. I can say this because I have handled the Union ministry under which the CBI operates," said Chavan, who served as the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office from 2004 to 2010.

"Orders are coming right from the top," the Congress leader said, speaking about an Enforcement Directorate probe against a former Cabinet colleague in Maharashtra government. However, he described the Emergency and action against The Indian Express during the previous Congress rule as "aberrations".

During a panel discussion on "credibility of the news media", NDTV's Sreenivasan Jain said there was "unanimity" among domestic and foreign media organisations that the action against the channel's founder was an assault on freedom of media. However, he added that not everything was bleak.

Journalist Bachi Karkaria decried social media trolls, describing them as the "backup army" for the government.

Veteran journalist Vinod Dua, who received the 'Lifetime Achievement Award' from Maharashtra chief minister Devendra

Fadnavis, asked journalists to shun the "vicarious sense of power" which comes from proximity to politicians.

The Indian Express chief editor Raj Kamal Jha received the 'Journalist of the Year' award. "The award doesn't belong to me but to The Indian Express," he said, adding, "Our fundamental job is to tell stories."

Jain received the RedInk award for best political reporting (TV media) for his reportage on cow vigilantes. He brought along Sanjay, his cameraperson, on stage, saying the latter had got beaten up during the reportage. Rahul Kulkarni of ABP Majha was selected for the 'Special Impact Award', while Govind Tupe of Marathi newspaper Sakaal got the 'Mumbai Star Reporter' award.
Chennai: Puducherry lieutenant governor Kiran Bedi, caught in a tussle with the V Narayanasamy-led Congress government in the Union Territory, on Wednesday said she is "not a rubber stamp" and that she is performing her duties as an administrator.

Her assertion comes amidst her stand-off with the elected government.

The Lieutenant Governor said it was her "duty" to see files related to the Union Territory.

"I will examine the files because as an administrator it is my responsibility to ensure that there is financial prudence, fairplay, justice and (that) everything is within the budget," she told reporters at the airport in Chennai.

Bedi alleged that the Puducherry government wanted her to be an "endorser" of their files and a "rubber stamp," but, she said, she would not be so.

"They just want an endorsement (but) I am not an endorser. I am not a rubber stamp. I am fulfilling my duties as a responsible Lieutenant Governor," she said, adding, she would be failing in her duty if she didn't do that.

She said people of the Union Territory have a "right to seek justice" and were therefore approaching her and she was holding regular grievance redressal meetings for them.

"The Lieutenant Governor's office is there to see there is administration and financial prudence," she added.
New Delhi: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Naidu also dismissed the Congress' demand that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Targetting the opposition party, he recalled an incident in the state's Betul district on 12 January, 1998, where 24 farmers died allegedly in police firing ordered by then chief minister and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

"The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there," Naidu said.

He dubbed the party vice president's planned visit to Mandsaur, the hotbed of the ongoing farmers' agitation, as "yet another photo opportunity".

On Chouhan's resignation, Naidu questioned whether Singh had resigned from the post of chief minister after the farmers, who were seeking compensation after a hailstorm, were killed.

"Did they seek resignation of Singh when the 24 farmers were killed? Did the Congress vice president visit the victim farmers then?" Naidu asked.

The minister described Chouhan as the most farmer-friendly chief minister and listed welfare measures taken by the BJP-led Centre and state government.
The Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE) will announce the results for the Class X board examination 2017 on Thursday. The candidates can check their grades on the official result website, rajresults.nic.in.

To track the updates from the Rajasthan board, candidates can visit RBSE's official website, rajeduboard.rajasthan.gov.in.

According to News18, the RBSE will declare the Class X results by 4 pm on Thursday.

The notification on the date of declaration of the Class X 2017 results came from RBSE chairman BL Chaudhary. "The results will be announced by Rajasthan School Education Minister Vasudev Devnani on 8 June," the chairman told NDTV.

If the students are unable to visit the official websites due to increased web traffic, they can visit alternate result portals like examresults.net and indiaresults.com.

About 10.99 lakh students appeared for the Class X exams which were conducted from 9 to 21 March, 2017.

The RBSE had recently released the results for Class XII 2017 examination for the Arts, Commerce and Science streams on 27 May.

Steps to obtain results:

Log on to the official result website: rajresults.nic.in

Click on the appropriate link for Class X Results 2017.

Enter your roll number and click 'submit'.

Download the result and take a printout for future reference.

As has been observed over the course of the past few weeks, the dates and times of result announcements have been frequently changed. The information above has not been independently verified. However, this article will continue to be updated to reflect official updates as and when they come in.
The curfew in Mandsaur has been lifted from 2 pm to 4 pm but the situation remains tense in Madhya Pradesh even as areas reel under violent protest by farmers over loan waiver and better price for their produce. Widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, have been reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially in Mandsaur and Dewas districts, during the week-long farmers' agitation in the state. Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were deployed on Thursday in Mandsaur which has been on the boil since the past two days.

Madhya Pradesh: Curfew relaxed in #Mandsaur from 4 pm to 6 pm today pic.twitter.com/oG948l7LqC  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

During a press conference in Mumbai, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh came to Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh's defence, who was seen doing yoga with Baba Ramdev at a public function in Bihars Motihari. After questions were raised about the minister doing yoga at a time of crisis, Singh it wasn't wrong, reported CNN News18.

"The government is supporting farmers by all means; I appeal to farmers that they should support the state government,' said Singh.

Government is supporting farmers by all means; I appeal to farmers that they should support the State Government: Rajnath Singh (file photo) pic.twitter.com/5FZ1qMNA6E  News18 (@CNNnews18) June 8, 2017

Singh also said that the NDA-BJP government will never do anything to hurt or break the trust of farmers and the common man. He also said that information bout the instigators is being gathered and the investigation will start after report arrives.

NDA-BJP ki sarkaar koi aisa kaam nahi karegi jisse kisaan aur aam aadmi ka bharosa tute: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh pic.twitter.com/VS6RpjzKpM  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Jankari mili ki kuch takten jinhone instigate karne ki koshish kari,puri jaanch ho rahi hai,report ki prateeksha karni chahiye: HM #Mandsaurpic.twitter.com/bCg0va94IB  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Singh, according to CNN News18, said that he was a farmer too and the farmer is India's biggest treasure. Farmers are the biggest producers and consumers of the country. If the farmer has enough money, other jobs can function. He understands the unrest and that the state government is handling the situation well, he added. Speaking about the recent GST Bill, Singh said that the implementation of GST Bill will put an end to 'tax terrorism,' according to ANI reports.

GST laagu hone se tax terrorism bhi khatam hoga: HM Rajnath Singh in Mumbai pic.twitter.com/1U74qRiAI6  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi's diplomatic skills, Singh said that the international community is onboard with the government's plan to combat terrorism. He said the BJP government has got success on Left-Wing Extremism front. "We are extending full support to states on this," he added.
A Special Task Force (STF) team of the Uttar Pradesh police arrested 30-year-old Chandrashekhar, founder of the Bhim Army group, and key accused in the Saharanpur riots case, on Thursday from Himachal Pradesh's Dalhousie.

Chandrashekhar, who had been evading arrest since riots took place in Saharanpur in May this year, had said he was willing to surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits are released on bail. The Uttar Pradesh police had declared a Rs 12,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

CNN News 18 qouted Ravi Kumar Gautam, leader of the Bhim Army's youth wing as saying, "Chandrashekhar was in Himachal Pradesh, where he was arrested by a team of UP police. They came to Himachal Pradesh in civil clothes and took him away."

On 5 May, members of Thakur and Dalit communities clashed in Sharanpur district's Shabirpur village, after members of Bhim Army had objected a procession of Rajput king Maharana Pratap to pass through Dalit-dominated areas. The Dalits had asked the percussionists to turn off music blaring out of loudspeakers as they passed by a Ravidas temple. After the Rajputs declined, it soon snowballed into a violent clash, with both throwing stones and bricks at each other.

In the violence, 5-20 Dalit houses were torched and many vehicles including those of the police were also set on fire. One man, Sumit Rajput, 35, was killed, and 16 persons, including a police officer, were injured.

Following the clashes, Chandrashekar had called for a "mahapanchayat" on 9 May in Saharanpur which triggered violent protest. The mahapanchayat was called to collect donations and demand compensation and relief for those affected.

But after the district administration refused to grant permission and arrested several Dalit leaders, a police chowki was burnt, and over 20 vehicles were torched while several instances of stone pelting and clashes were reported.

A report in Financial Express said Chandrashekar was accused of circulating messages on WhatsApp and other social media platforms, wherein he appealed Dalits to join the protests.
It saddened me he to learn of the death of Holy Bull, and brought back a flood of memories, especially with my daughter Mandy, who had her photo taken with Holy Bull on numerous occasions and became very close to him. I am reprinting my column on the story behind this remarkable racehorse, who was a joy to be around.

Holy Bull peered out his stall at Keeneland at the steady stream of visitors from around the country, many with their children, who had come to trainer Jimmy Croll's barn to get a glimpse at racing's newest sensation and hot favorite for the Kentucky Derby.

As he cocked his ears and posed for photos, he was greeted with a series of oohs and aahs.

"He's a real ham and loves the cameras," Croll said. "Whenever he sees a photographer, he'll stop and pose. He's getting smarter by the day."

One woman from Iowa asked a question to no one in particular, hoping someone in earshot could provide an answer: "What do people look for when they breed Thoroughbreds? What is the perfect racehorse?"

Holy Bull's groom, Bob Coffey, pointed to the gray colt looking out his stall. "Right there," he said. "There is the perfect racehorse."

No one could argue with him. Holy Bull had just dazzled everyone with a spectacular 5 3/4-length victory in 1:47 2/5 in the Florida Derby, earning a lofty 115 Beyer Speed Figure, and then followed that up by coasting home to an easy 3 1/2-length score in the Blue Grass Stakes, earning a 113 Beyer figure.

The Florida Derby was Holy Bull's breakout performance, coming off a dismal effort in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, in which he displaced his palate, and was gasping for air by the half-mile pole, according to jockey Mike Smith. That, of course, brought out the critics, claiming Holy Bull was nothing more than a sprinter. He had won the seven-furlong Futurity Stakes, upsetting heavy favorite Dehere in the slop, and had to come again in the stretch after being passed by the speedy Patton to win the seven-panel Hutcheson Stakes by three-quarters of a length in 1:21 1/5. But in his only two-turn race he did romp by 7 1/2 lengths in the In Reality division of the Florida Stallion Series.

So, it was important that Holy Bull silence the doubters in the Florida Derby. He proceeded to run his opponents off their feet with a :46 flat half and 1:10 three-quarters

"The most exciting thing I ever saw was him alone on the lead Saturday," Croll said. "After the race, he cooled out in 15 minutes and was screaming for his dinner. He cleaned out every oat and the following morning was as bright as the sun."

Croll was expecting a huge effort from Holy Bull when the colt tuned up for the Florida Derby by working five furlongs in :59 1/5, coming home his final quarter in a sensational in :22 1/5.

"I've timed over 25,000 horses in my life and I've never seen a horse do that," Croll said.

Holy Bull had bounced out of his Fountain of Youth debacle by working seven furlongs in 1:23 flat, coming home his final eighth in :11 1/5, galloping out a mile in 1:36 2/5.

"During his gallops, he goes in his eighths in :14, while most horses will go in :16 or :17," Croll said. "When he was young, we didn't have any babies who could keep up with him, so we had to gallop him by himself."

We all know by now that Holy Bull flopped in the slop in the Kentucky Derby and was never in the race. To the day he died, Croll insisted that someone had gotten to the horse, citing the fact that he had acted unusually lethargic leading up to and including Derby Day. He'd never done that before or since.

When Holy Bull came back and annihilated a top-class field of older horses in the Met Mile, earning a spectacular 122 Beyer figure, it began a run of six straight brilliant victories not seen in many years.

I'm sure many people who have read this column over the years are familiar with the story of Holy Bull and Croll, but with the Florida Derby coming up, and the favorite, Cairo Prince, being out of a mare sired by Holy Bull, I will tell it again for those who are not familiar with it and those who only know parts of it. It's another one of those racing stories you can't make up and never get tired of hearing.



First off, we must begin with Holy Bull's impact on the Sport of Kings. To his multitude of fans he was known simply as "The Bull," and in 1994, Thoroughbred racing was the proverbial china shop. The Bull ran roughshod over any foe who dared to stand in his path. By the end of the year he had created more havoc than any bovine since Mrs. O'Leary's Cow.



Holy Bull metaphors, like the feeble one above, became commonplace in newspapers and trade journals and he was a headline writer's dream. The images people had of the horse were depicted on gray T-shirts designed by Daily Racing Form caricaturist Peb, which showed a raging, snorting bull with a paradoxical halo above his head. His name conjured up heavenly images, but on the racetrack he was hell on wheels. By early 1995, in addition to the T-shirts, there were Holy Bull caps and trading cards, an influx of fan mail, and several public appearances. People came from as far away as Alaska to see him.



The story of Holy Bull began some 20 years before he was even born. Trainer Warren A. "Jimmy" Croll, a veteran on the New Jersey circuit, had made only one journey on the Kentucky Derby trail, with A.I. "Butch" Savin's Royal and Regal in 1973. Two years earlier, Savin had sent Croll to the Keeneland July yearling sale with the specific purpose of finding a horse who had the potential to become a top-class stallion. After checking out a number of yearlings, Croll called Savin and told him he had found the horse he was looking for. Determined to buy him, Croll went to $220,000 for the son of Raise a Native out of Gold Digger, whom Savin named Mr. Prospector.

Brilliantly fast on the racetrack, Mr. Prospector was sent to Florida to stand following his retirement, but a short time later was moved to Claiborne Farm in Kentucky, where he became arguably the most influential stallion in the history of American breeding.



Around the time of the colt's purchase as a yearling, Croll, who was stabled in Florida for the winter, was approached by Everett House, the live-in companion of Croll's longtime client Rachel Carpenter. House informed Croll that Carpenter had re-written her will.

"Jimmy, I want you to know that if anything happens to the two of us, all the horses belong to you," House said.



It was something trainers never hear and owners never do. A dumbfounded Croll always thought of the spunky Mrs. Carpenter as the type of person who would live forever, so he never gave it a second thought.



Some 20 years passed. In 1992, Croll's son and assistant, Bill, went down to Bonnie Heath Farm in Ocala, Fla., to look at the yearlings. Croll wasn't able to get down there that year, so he sent Bill instead. Bill watched the yearlings parade and gallop through the stretch, one of whom was a colt that his father owned, so the farm pushed him in a big way. They had videotaped all the gallops, and when they told Bill his father's horse was a pretty nice colt, he replied, "You're out of your mind. What about the gray horse? He's the best one you've got. He's a standout."



House died in the early 90s, which deeply affected Carpenter. Each year, she would make it a point to go to Monmouth Park to visit with friends and family and see her horses. In 1993, she went to Croll's barn on the last day of her visit. One of the horses he showed her was a homebred colt by Great Above out of the Al Hattab mare Sharon Brown, whom she had named Holy Bull. This was the same colt who had impressed Bill the year before.

"You know, this gray colt could be something special," Croll told her.



Carpenter had been ill when she visited Croll's barn that summer in 93, and two weeks later, on Aug. 14, she died in her sleep. Croll received the news later that morning from House's daughter, Even Tehan, who was Carpenter's secretary. Ironically, Croll had entered Holy Bull for his career debut that afternoon. He assured Tehan he would scratch the horse.

"Oh no, don't scratch him," she said. "She wouldn't want you to do that."



So, Croll ran Holy Bull, who won easily by 2 1/2 lengths in a sharp 1:03 4/5. Three days later, Croll received a call from Carpenter's lawyer, who said, "Jimmy, I just want to tell you that when that horse won the other day he belonged to you." As did six other horses owned by Carpenter.

At first Croll had no idea what he was talking about, but then he remembered what House had told him 20 years earlier. Croll had felt that over that long a period of time Carpenter could have easily changed her will numerous times. But she hadn't, so Croll, at age 74, became the owner of one of the most exciting young prospects he'd ever trained. This was someone who had bought his first horse in 1940 for $50.



Croll, of course, had no way of knowing the gift he had just unwrapped was actually Aladdin's lamp in the form of a big, battleship gray colt. By the end of the following year, the genie had granted Croll two wishes: Holy Bull was named Horse of the Year and Croll was the latest inductee into the Hall of Fame. Seven years later, a third wish was granted when Holy Bull joined his trainer in racing's pantheon of greats. But the genie wasn't finished. In 2005, Croll watched Holy Bull's son, Giacomo, do what his sire was unable to - win the Kentucky Derby. Now he has a chance to become the sire and broodmare sire of a Kentucky Derby winner.



Holy Bull's career was extraordinary. Following his debut victory, he won 12 of his next 14 starts, with six of them coming in grade I stakes and three in grade II stakes. His only two losses came in the Fountain of Youth Stakes, in which he displaced his palate and lost his air, as mentioned earlier, and the Kentucky Derby, when he turned in an uncharacteristically lifeless performance that Croll always said he could explain, but "can't talk about." Years later he began talking about it more and more. Until the day he died in 2008 at age 88, Croll was convinced that Holy Bull had been drugged. He wasn't the only one who was suspicious. Many at the time commented how listless he seemed leading up to the race.



By the end of 1994, Holy Bull had done it all. He demonstrated extraordinary brilliance against older horses, easily winning the Met Mile and Woodward Stakes in blistering times. He annihilated 3-year-olds in the Blue Grass Stakes, Florida Derby, and Dwyer Stakes. He displayed the courage of a champion in the Travers Stakes, digging in and holding off the furious late charge of eventual Breeders' Cup Classic winner Concern, despite the presence of a rabbit to soften him up and a brutal three-quarters in 1:10 2/5. He showed the will to win by coming again to defeat the swift Patton in the Hutcheson Stakes. And he demonstrated his ability to concede weight to top-class horses by defeating graded stakes winners Meadow Flight and Concern in the Haskell Invitational Handicap, giving them eight pounds.



Of the horses he defeated in 1994, Devil His Due, Colonial Affair, Cherokee Run, Concern, Go for Gin, and Tinners Way all came back to win grade I stakes, while Tabasco Cat, Bertrando, and Meadow Flight won grade II stakes in their next start. In all, Holy Bull defeated the winners of the grade I Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Belmont (twice), Breeders' Cup Classic, Breeders' Cup Sprint, Jockey Club Gold Cup, Whitney, Woodward, Pacific Classic (twice), and Suburban. Not many horses have shown the versatility to defeat a Breeders' Cup Classic winner and a Breeders' Cup Sprint winner, and in the same year.



In his eight victories that year, his average Beyer Speed Figure was over 115, which is remarkable for a 3-year-old. Here was a Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male who, during his career, defeated a champion older horse, champion sprinter, and champion 2-year-old male, not to mention three classic winners and two Breeders' Cup winners.



Although the Travers was Holy Bull's narrowest margin of victory, it was the race that stamped his true greatness. No Travers winner other than Man o' War had run three-quarters faster than Holy Bull, as he had to put away Tabasco Cat's rabbit, Commanche Trail, after a half in :46 1/5 and the three-quarters in 1:10 2/5. When Concern, 22 lengths off the pace early, charged up almost on even terms with Holy Bull in the stretch, even Croll was convinced Holy Bull was beaten. Concern was a true mile and a quarter horse who would win the Breeders' Cup Classic later that year. But the tenacious Bull dug in and refused to let Concern pass him, winning by a neck. To show how brutal the pace was, Tabasco Cat, racing in third, five lengths back, finished 17 lengths behind Concern in third.

Concern's trainer Dick Small said afterward, "That was a race for the ages. I had to get out of there quick or I would have broken into tears. My horse was fresh and I really thought we had it. For Holy Bull to dig in and fight back like that after all he had to do early in the race showed that he's really something special."



What made Holy Bull such a fan favorite was that he ran as hard, as fast, and as far as he could race after race. He looked the best horses in America in the eye and left them for dead. The way he rated in the Woodward before blowing away a star-studded field by five lengths in 1:46 4/5 was nothing short of spectacular. Just try to imagine racecaller Tom Durkin's voice as he bellowed in a tone of disbelief, "Holy Bull winning like a champion...with devastating ease! Holy Bull toying with the best horses in training."



His rider, Mike Smith, put it best when he said after the race, "I'm in awe of him. I thought he grew wings at the quarter pole."



Everyone expected Holy Bull to point for the Breeders' Cup, but Croll could see some wear and tear after a long, hard year. He knew that making the Breeders' Cup would force him to miss the entire Gulfstream meet.

"I took a little heat for the decision to put him away for the year," Croll said. "But I race every year in Florida, and I felt I owed it to them to run the horse there."



Holy Bull was assigned 130 pounds on the Daily Racing Form Free Handicap, the first 3-year-old in 15 years to be weighted that high. He arrived in Florida a national hero. A headline in the Form read: "Bullmania Sweeps the Nation."



Croll brought Holy Bull back in the seven-furlong Olympic Handicap at Gulfstream and he easily defeated the classy grade I-winning sprinter Birdonthewire. Then came the Donn Handicap and a battle with an upstart named Cigar, winner of three straight, including the NYRA Mile (now the Cigar Mile). One can only speculate what would have happened had Holy Bull not pulled up on the backstretch with a career-ending injury just as he was moving up to challenge Cigar for the lead.



Racing's Gray Goliath was retired to Jonabell Farm (now Darley at Jonabell) in Lexington, Ky. For Croll, he had received the greatest gift of all - literally. It's been 18 years and people who saw him race still talk about the colt with reverence. They still utter superlatives when they recall his heroic feats. And if you've never seen this brilliant horse in action, be assured none of it is bull.



Nibbling on my daughter's hair






India is expected to have a greater say in pushing for effective action in combating terrorism and on issues relating to security when it becomes a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at the annual summit of the grouping, seen as a counterweight to NATO.

India, one of the largest energy consuming countries in the world, is also likely to get greater access to major gas and oil exploration projects in Central Asia once it becomes part of the SCO. Many of the current members of the six-nation grouping have huge reserves of oil and natural gas.

The SCO summit is taking place in the Kazakhstan capital os Astana in the backdrop of a series of major terror attacks in a number of countries including Iran, Britain and Afghanistan and ways to combat terrorism effectively are likely to be deliberated upon extensively by the grouping.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the summit on Friday and he is likely to flag the issue of terrorism and the need for concerted efforts to combat it.

India and Pakistan will formally be admitted as members of the SCO, capping a three-year-long process.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in Russia in July 2015 when the administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June, 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for an expansion of the grouping.

India feels as SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things," Modi said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 percent of humanity and nearly 20 percent of the global GDP, he said.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia has been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for the induction of Pakistan.
Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attended a reception and a gala show, marking the beginning of the two-day-long SCO Summit, even as speculation swirled over a possible meeting between him and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to defuse tensions in bilateral ties.

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

It was not known whether Modi and Sharif exchanged pleasantries at the reception, but they were seated far apart from each other in a horizontal row.

When asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull aside between the two leaders.

Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs, too did not respond to a query on a possible Modi-Sharif meeting.

India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

Both Modi and Sharif arrived here on Thursday to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit which will on Friday induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.

The events related to the SCO Summit got underway with a spectacular concert this evening.

Indian classical dance Kathak was the first to be featured after the host nation Kazakhstan's ensemble.

Eight dancers from Bengaluru-based NADAM put up 'Mahaganapathim'  an ode to the god of auspicious beginnings, Lord Ganesha.

India was the only observer country to perform in the concert which featured traditional and western classical music and dance performances from China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apart from the hosts.
New Delhi: As part of the party's Dalit outreach, BJP's top brass has asked Union ministers and senior functionaries to have a meal at a Dalit household while visiting different states as part of the Modi government's third anniversary celebrations.

"While they (Union ministers and party leaders) will talk about the achievements of the government and also ensure that they enrol as many people as they can with the party," a Union minister said.

BJP functionaries as well as ministers have been given a set of instructions as the party celebrates its three years at the Centre.

"They have been asked to pan out across the country, stay overnight in the northeastern states, talk extensively about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, enroll members in the party and have at least one meal with a Dalit family," the minister said.

Culture and tourism minister Mahesh Sharma shared a meal with a Dalit family on Thursday at Nuapada during his visit to Odisha.

He also registered 45 members of the household as BJP members.

Earlier, Union power minister Piyush Goyal followed the party's diktat and paid a visit to a Dalit home at the Ambedkar Colony in Hongasandra, Bommanahalli in Karnataka, where he ate breakfast cooked by the lady of the house.

The leader later gushed about the food and the family's hospitality.

Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa has also been seen having food with Dalit families since the last fortnight.

The trend begin with the party chief Amit Shah visiting a Dalit family and sharing lunch with them in Telengana during his visit to the state between 22-24 May.
New Delhi: Undeterred by criticism from politicians and commentators, Indian Army Chief general Bipin Rawat says use of human shield by the Indian Army is not a norm but individual officers are entitled to decide the tactic depending on circumstances.

He also dismisses criticism that the army is trigger-happy, but says the level of violence in Jammu and Kashmir needs to be brought down for any meaningful dialogue with stakeholders. "Dialogue and violence cannot go together," Rawat said.

The army chief maintains that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media and dismisses a perception that people of the state are against the army.

"It (human shield) is not a general norm. As a practice it is not supported. But situations would dictate. Under the circumstances he (Major Leetul Gogoi) took a decision independently. He can't look back at that stage and wait for orders. I think in his own wisdom he took the action," Rawat said.

"If somebody has any other ideas as to how to tackle such a situation, then he can pass it on to us. We will take a look at it," he said.

Rawat was asked to comment on a string of criticisms about his earlier remarks defending Major Gogoi's action of tying a civilian to the bonnet of an army jeep when facing a crowd of stone pelters in the Valley.

He was then criticised for justifying the Major's action that was described as unprofessional and damaging to the reputation of the Indian Army and being violative of the Geneva Convention that lays down rules of warfare.

Replying to a question on the comments by CPI-M leader Prakash Karat over his reported remarks that stone pelters should rather use guns as amounting to instigating them to take to guns, General Rawat maintained that he was misquoted on the issue.

"In a proxy war situation like this the enemy cannot be identified. He is not wearing a band or a uniform that can identify him as a terrorist. Only when he fires then you know what to do in such a situation. The army cannot throw stones, that is not my pattern. I can't throw stones."

Asked about the absence of any dialogue with stakeholders in Jammu and Kashmir and whether there can be a military solution that can be lasting, Rawat said it should be an "integrated" solution.

"Military has to bring the violence level down. We have to bring peace for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After all, it is the poor people like daily wagers, pony walas, shikaras, and others who depend on tourism like hotels. Students are also affected as schools and colleges are shut.

"They have already seen one bad (tourism) season, another bad year will affect them worse. Why are we doing, what we are doing? We are doing it to bring peace in the Valley," he said.

He rejected reports of local people in the Kashmir Valley being "angry" with the army, saying it is not as bad as projected in the media. At the same time he asserted that there was nothing wrong with the killing of militants like Burhan Wani.

"I don't think there is that kind of resentment. Of course people are angry about issues like unemployment. That is an issue even in the rest of the country, but for that you do not take to guns. Look at the way the youth are coming to join the army in large numbers," he said.

Rawat said Kashmir with its rich resources could be a leader in so many fields, but economic development was not taking place because of violence.

"Violence had come down after 2011-12. What have the army or security forces done (to evoke anger)? Army cannot be faulted for the killing of Burhan Wani. Something is happening behind the scenes, someone is instigating people," he said.

Asked about absence of dialogue at present in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the violence level has to come down.

"You say I am not going to indulge in violence, then we will talk. If people want to have a dialogue, then dialogue and violence cannot go together. You can't say army and civilians will be involved in a gun battle and say let's have talks. A semblance of peace and tranquility is essential, then we can talk."

Asked about the criticism that the army chief's view was reflecting the government's views, Rawat said in a democracy the army has to work under a democratically elected government.

"We take directions from the government Are we supposed to work away from the government? Directions are always given by the government," he said.

He said the government gave the army a free hand in executing its directions. Similarly the army gave freedom to units to execute its directions.
CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury was roughed up by a member of a right-wing group at a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday.

One of the two protestors were beaten up and the duo were later handed over to the police. Both were reportedly activists of the Hindu Sena.

#WATCH One of the 2 protesters who tried to manhandle Sitaram Yechury during his press conf. in Delhi, later beaten up;handed over to Police pic.twitter.com/NRUcrljB2W  ANI (@ANI_news) June 7, 2017

Yechury described the attack as an attempt by the Sangh Parivar "to silence the voices of dissent".

We will not be cowed down by any attempts of Sangh's goondagardi to silence us. This is a battle for the soul of India, which we will win. https://t.co/FdPmtoq1Ky  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 7, 2017

Speaking to Firstpost, Hindu Sena leader Vishnu Gupta said that the attack was in protest against an article written by CPM leader Prakash Karat in the Left party's weekly newspaper People Democracy where he had criticised Army Chief General Bipin Rawat for his comments on the use of a 'human shield' in Kashmir.

"Delhi Police has detained two Hindu Sena activists Upendra Kumar and Pawan Kaul at Mandir Marg police station for protesting against Karat's article against the Indian Army," Gupta said.

With inputs from IANS
Kolkata: The West Bengal Clinical Establishment Regulatory Commission has served a notice to private clinical establishments seeking their suggestions on the fixing of rates for treatment and other procedures.

It has also sought their suggestions for improving patient care services and redressal of grievance, the notice said.

"The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Regulation, Registration and Transparency) Act 2017, empowers the panel to make regulation with regard to fixing of rates/charges for indoor and outdoor treatment, including diagnostics and also advise and make suggestions regarding measures to be adopted under this act for improving patient care services and grievance redress," the notice said.

"There is a huge discrepancy in charges for similar kind of services in different private corporate hospitals. Moreover, these hospitals are also having hidden costs for providing services to the patients. This cannot go on and the commission is responsible in making quality healthcare services affordable for everybody.

So to have an uniform rate for treatments and services we have sought suggestions from the private hospitals," a senior member of the Commission said.

While seeking suggestions from private hospitals, the Commission in its notice, has listed the charges for different types of treatment as well as surgeries, as per the state government's Swasthya Saathi Scheme.

"They (private hospitals) have been asked to send their suggestions to the commission by 16 June. And after that we will deliberate and fix the rates for different services as per the grade of the hospital," the member said.

It was just a matter of time before the rates come under regulation, the member said.
Washington: An international team of astronomers has used the Hubble space telescope to measure the mass of a star by employing Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Researchers with NASA'a Space Telescope Science Institute (STSCI) in Baltimore, Maryland, measured the mass of a white dwarf star by analysing how much it bent the light of a more distant star, just as Einstein asserted could be done more than a century ago, Efe news reported.

The study was presented on Wednesday in Austin, Texas, at the 230th American Astronomical Society conference, where scientists from research centres and universities are discussing their latest discoveries.

Specifically, the team observed a white dwarf star known as Stein 2051B located about 17 light years from the Earth just as it passed in front of a more distant star.

During the alignment, the gravity of the white dwarf bent the light from the farther star, thus making the latter appear to shift approximately two thousandths of an arc-second from its original position, a movement so small that it's equivalent to the size of an ant spotted from more than 2,400 kilometres away.

By measuring the deflection of the more distant star's light, the astronomers calculated that the white dwarf star has about 68 percent of the Sun's mass, a result that coincides with theoretical predictions.

The method was proposed in 1915 when Einstein made public his General Theory of Relativity, which  among other things  described how objects deform space according to their mass.

The theory was verified experimentally four years later when a team headed by British astronomer Arthur Eddington measured how the Sun's gravity shifted the image of a distant star whose light just grazed the solar surface on its way to the Earth during a solar eclipse, thus proving that Einstein's microlensing idea was valid.

Astronomers nowadays use this effect to magnify images of distant galaxies and to measure small changes in the apparent positioning of nearby stars in the sky.

However, researchers had to wait for a century to build a telescope that was powerful enough to detect the gravitational lensing phenomenon caused by a single star outside the solar system.

The amount of deflection is so small that only the ultra-sharply focused Hubble telescope could detect it and the team had to wait for about two years before the two stars came into the proper alignment.
Lucknow: Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, accusing them of lying to the people.

Addressing a gathering of supporters and party workers from the youth wing at the party office in Lucknow, the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said that all development work in Uttar Pradesh had come to a grinding halt under the watch of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and added that even under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the economy was in doldrums.

"The state government has ensured that the administrative system in the state has collapsed and graft is on the upswing," he added.

Accusing the BJP of turning its back on the youth, Yadav said the Union government was snatching jobs while it promised to create two crore jobs in a year.

He also accused the BJP of trying to divert the attention of the people from real issues by stoking communal and casteist fires.

"BJP talks of farmers and then it opens fire on farmers in Madhya Pradesh. Farmers are committing suicide and the prime minister is talking of doubling their income in the next five years," the 44-year-old leader said.
Darjeeling (West Bengal): Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters on Thursday clashed with police which used baton charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the agitators who tried to march to the venue of the state cabinet meeting in Darjeeling.

GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled brickbats. They also damaged some police vehicles and injured some security personnel, police sources said.

They were protesting among other things "imposition of Bengali language in the schools in the hills".

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and most of the cabinet ministers were present in the hill town apart from chief secretary, home secretary and other high officials.

The GJM supporters held a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister.

Shopkeepers at some places, including the Mall, downed their shutters while the traffic came to a halt, causing inconvenience to tourists.

Meanwhile, Banerjee said after the meeting, "The people in the hills were neglected for a long time. We will try our best to usher in development for them."

"The people in the hill areas have been demanding development. Nothing had happened during the Left rule of 34 years, but things have changed after our government took over. We have done so many development works here. I am proud to say that I am the first chief minister to visit the hills for more than 100 times," she said.

Making a dig at the GJM, which opposed her party the TMC, she said, "Let there be competition for development."

Asked about the GJM's agitation programme, she said, "They have the democratic right. Let them do it. They have no issue."

On the GJM's opposition to the alleged "imposition of Bengali language" in the schools in the hills, she once again made it clear that Bengali was not made a compulsory subject.

"Rather, we gave recognition to the Nepali language," she said.
It is a miracle that farmers in India still continue to grow crops when it is clear that it ultimately leads to their ruin and, sometimes, even their death.

India is not a country for farmers and the current unrest in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh is yet another reminder of the misery farming has become.

The average household income of farmers, according to the last survey of farm households conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), is just Rs 6,426 per month. And just half of it comes from cultivating crops. In 17 Indian states, the average household income is just about Rs 18,000 per month, with crops contributing to around Rs 9,000.

But that is just half the story of their misery. The survey also suggests that 50 percent of Indian households that depend on farming are in debt. And since 90 percent of Indian farmers have very small land holdings  less than two hectares  they remain trapped in a cycle of debt, defaults and rising interest burdens because of their inability to earn enough from farming.

The 2011 Census shows that 11.87 crore Indians are cultivators and 14.43 crore are agricultural labourers. This means that more than half (nearly 55 percent) of the 48.17 crore total working Indian population survives on agriculture. With so much penury and misery around, how does one expect India's rural masses to live in peace?

The agrarian crisis was always a ticking time bomb. But, successive governments offered only slogans and promises to mislead the farmers. The unrest in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh is just the beginning of the crisis. If not addressed immediately, it will turn the Indian economy and polity upside down.

Why are farmers in these two states protesting? The answer is simple. They feel cheated by the government, mislead by pre-poll rhetoric and ad-hoc policies that are framed only with electoral gains in mind. They have realised that politicians have brought them to the verge of ruin.

During the 2014 election campaign, Narendra Modi, who was the BJP's prime ministerial candidate then, promised that he will ensure that farmers get 50 percent profit on the crops they produce. "If NDA comes to power it will ensure remunerative prices to the farmers by adding 50 percent profit into the peasants' input cost," he had said.

"We will fix the MSP (Minimum Support Price) of crops incorporating 50 percent profit in farmers cost of production including seed, irrigation, manure, labour  he had promised at rallies.

"Today, the MSP is being hiked in the range Rs 200, Rs 250, Rs 300... your produce keeps rotting," he said.

The trigger for the current round of protests is the farmers' inability to sell their crops at rock bottom prices  lower than the support price fixed by the government. In Maharashtra, the government could not buy Tuar (gram) at the Rs 5,050 per quintal it announced as MSP. Unable to find buyers, farmers had to sell it below Rs 3,500 per quintal. Similarly, other crops like soybean and onions had to be sold at rock-bottom prices.

One of the reasons for the crash in prices is the bumper harvest this year. Across India, the food grain production has been nearly 6.5 percent more than the average of past five years. Compared to 2015-16, the yield has been nearly 8.5 percent higher.

When one farmer has a bumper harvest, he becomes rich. But, when all farmers have bumper harvests, they all become poor. In addition to this thumb rule of rural economics, what hurt farmers this year was the lack of liquidity because of the demonetisation drive. When farmers took their crops to markets, they discovered that there was just not enough cash available for buying. After a long wait, they had to sell their produce for whatever price they were offered in a market where demand was low and supply was a record high.

It is obvious that from a country that once hailed the jawan and the kisan, India is fast turning into a graveyard for farmers. Their debts are increasing, profitability is falling, land holdings are decreasing and suicides are rising.

A trigger for the current round of protests in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh is also Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath's announcement to waive off farmer loans worth Rs 36,359 crore in his state. So, the protesting farmers are right in asking why a similar waiver scheme can't be extended to them, especially because of the effects of demonetisation and the government's inability to procure crops at a price that helps farmers make a decent profit. They are justified in feeling that political parties use farmers as a vote bank and lure them with need-to-please schemes.

It is ironic that violent protests have broken out over the past few months in many states ruled by the BJP  the Patidar agitation in Gujarat, the Jat stir in Haryana and the current crisis in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Obviously, there is a lesson for the BJP to learn: Anger is simmering below the surface and every electoral promise can return to haunt the party some day.
By J. Keeler Johnson ("Keelerman") Twitter: @J_Keelerman

On Saturday, Belmont Park will host a spectacular day of racing highlighted by the $1.5 million Belmont Stakes (gr. I), the third and final leg of the Triple Crown.

The last-minute defection of champion Classic Empire due a foot abscess has left the Belmont Stakes without a clear favorite, and has also removed one of the most prominent speed horses from the race. In fact, among the twelve horses that remain in the race, only a handful have shown a desire to race on or near the early lead. Since the twelve-furlong distance of the Belmont Stakes already has a tendency to result in a modest pace that favors speed, it appears that closers could be at a disadvantage in this year's edition of the race.

With this in mind, let's take a look at the entries!

Twisted Tom: A winner of three straight races for trainer Chad Brown, Twisted Tom has a strong pedigree and was clearly best in the nine-furlong Federico Tesio Stakes at Laurel on April 22nd, but his speed figures are on the slow side and this is a major class test. While you have to respect any colt that is winning with regularity, I'll side against Twisted Tom in the Belmont Stakes.

Tapwrit: Even though Tapwrit has been beaten by double-digit lengths in his last two starts, I view him as one of the primary contenders to win the Belmont. After flashing excellent form in Florida during the winter, including a 4 -length romp in the Tampa Bay Derby (gr. II), Tapwrit finished fifth in the Blue Grass Stakes (gr. II) without an obvious excuse, but his rebound in the Kentucky Derby was impressive, though a bit unnoticed. After a troubled start, Tapwrit found himself 14 lengths off the early lead (much farther back than usual), but gradually threaded his way through the field and rallied up the rail to finish a solid sixth, a little more than a length behind Classic Empire.

Tapwrit's form is very similar to that of Destin, another Todd Pletcher-trained runner that ran second by a nose in the 2016 Belmont Stakes after winning the Tampa Bay Derby and finishing sixth in the Kentucky Derby. Since the Derby, Tapwrit has been training steadily at Belmont Park, where he worked five furlongs in 1:01 2/5 in company with Patch, easily besting his workmate and galloping-out another quarter-mile in about :26 flat. This was a solid breeze from a horse not typically known for being impressive in the mornings, and from all appearances Tapwrit is coming into the Belmont ready for another big run.

It's also hard to ignore Pletcher's overall record in the Belmont Stakes, which includes two winners (Rags to Riches and Palace Malice) plus five seconds (Bluegrass Cat, Dunkirk, Stay Thirsty, Commissioner, and Destin) and two thirds (Ready's Echo and Sunriver), all since 2006. Drawing post two will give Tapwrit an opportunity to save ground on the turns, which could be a big advantage. Is this the year that Pletcher picks up a third Belmont victory?

Gormley: Although his ninth-place finish in the Kentucky Derby isn't impressive at first glance, I thought Gormley actually ran a huge race. Breaking from post eighteen, Gormley was caught very wide throughout the Derby and seemed to react to the muddy kick-back early in the race, causing him to drop back early on before making a sustained mid-race move to rally into fourth place around the far turn. Considering that he was under pressure to advance from a long, long way out, I was surprised that Gormley stayed on well enough to finish ninth despite some bumping in the homestretch.

Gormley's best efforts have come when he's been able to settle into a rhythm and stay out of trouble, so the longer distance (and presumably modest pace) of the Belmont Stakes should help him achieve that comfortable rhythm. His pedigree is strong, and his 8-1 morning line odds are solid for a two-time Grade 1 winner. I view him as an intriguing contender to win or hit the board at a big price.

J Boys Echo: After defeating future Preakness Stakes winner Cloud Computing by 3  lengths in the Gotham Stakes (gr. III), J Boys Echo seemed like a major contender for the Kentucky Derby. However, he faltered when fourth in the Blue Grass Stakes (gr. II) and was subsequently beaten 23 lengths in the Derby, failing to contend at any point following a troubled start. Perhaps he didn't care for the wet track, but while his pedigree holds promise for the Belmont distance and he's training well, his overall form suggests that this level of competition might be a little too steep for him. I view him as a contender to round out the trifecta or superfecta.

Hollywood Handsome: Dallas Stewart has achieved a reputation in recent years for finishing second in Triple Crown races with major longshots like Macho Again, Golden Soul, Commanding Curve, and Tale of Verve. You can make a case that Hollywood Handsome could be Stewart's latest live longshot, for the son of Tapizar recently won an 8.5-furlong allowance race at Churchill Downs with an impressive late run, closing into slow fractions to win by a neck while running the final five-sixteenths of a mile in a quick :30.16 according to Trakus.

However, as a closer without much early speed, Hollywood Handsome's running style might not be ideal for the generally speed-favoring Belmont Stakes, and his pedigree appears geared toward shorter distances than a mile and a half. While I think Hollywood Handsome is one to consider at a big price for the trifecta or superfecta, I'll look at others for the top couple of spots.

Lookin at Lee: He's been a picture of consistency since last summer, peaking with a runner-up effort in the Kentucky Derby, but he rode the rail with a perfect trip that day and is still 0-for-8 in graded stakes company and in route races. He'll pick up the services of top jockey Irad Ortiz, Jr., who won the Belmont last year with a perfect ride aboard Creator, but Lookin at Lee's deep-closing style probably isn't well-suited to a race like the Belmont.

Irish War Cry: Thus far, the career of Irish War Cry has been comprised of explosive victories and disappointing defeats, with nothing in between. On his best day, Irish War Cry is a force to reckon with-he won the Holy Bull Stakes (gr. II) by 3  lengths and the Wood Memorial (gr. I) by 3  lengths, earning a pair of 101 Beyer speed figures while defeating the likes of Classic Empire, Cloud Computing, and Gunnevera. In between those two victories he finished seventh in the Fountain of Youth Stakes (gr. II), beaten 21 lengths, and tenth in the Kentucky Derby, beaten 16 lengths.

However, I believe that Irish War Cry's Derby effort was considerably better than it appears at first glance. Racing over a wet track that seemed to be favoring the inside paths, Irish War Cry was caught wide every step of the way while tracking a solid early pace. Rounding the final turn, he moved up to challenge for the lead and appeared to have a lot left in the tank-jockey Rajiv Maragh even looked over his shoulder, a sign of confidence, and later said he thought Irish War Cry was going to put in a big run. Instead, Irish War Cry faltered turning for home and faded in the stretch, though he was eased up a bit late and might have finished a bit closer if urged.

If you forgive Irish War Cry's Derby finish, then it's not hard to make a case that he can win the Belmont Stakes. As a son of Curlin, who sired 2013 Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice, the twelve-furlong distance should be within Irish War Cry's reach. In terms of peak speed figures, he's one of the fastest horses in the race, and his ability to win while on the lead or tracking the pace is perfect for the Belmont Stakes.

I'm also encouraged by the fact that trainer Graham Motion elected to run Irish War Cry in the Belmont after seemingly removing him from further Triple Crown consideration following the Kentucky Derby. I have the feeling that Irish War Cry is sitting on a big rebound, especially in a race that lacks any serious speed on paper.

Senior Investment: Having crossed the wire first in four of his last six starts, Senior Investment certainly knows how to win. Following a narrow victory in the Lexington Stakes (gr. III) at Keeneland, Senior Investment tackled the Preakness Stakes and unleashed a big rally to finish third. However, in both of those races Senior Investment benefited from fast pace fractions that enhanced his late run; he might not get such an ideal setup in the Belmont. The time to play him was probably the Preakness, where he was 31-1-while he warrants respect, the value may be gone this time around.

Meantime: After breaking his maiden third time out by 7  lengths over a sealed track at Keeneland, Meantime caught another sealed track in the Peter Pan Stakes (gr. III) at Belmont Park, in which he set the pace but was passed in the stretch to finish second, beaten 3  lengths in a strung-out field. He figures to be a prominent pace factor, but if the track is dry, he might be at a disadvantage while facing a field of this caliber.

Multiplier: After rallying to win the Illinois Derby (gr. III) by a nose, Multiplier was sent off as a longshot in the Preakness Stakes, where he dropped thirteen lengths back early on before rallying mildly to finish sixth, though beaten only a length for third place. But as a deep closer, Multiplier is another that could be at a disadvantage in the Belmont Stakes, especially since his pedigree seems geared toward shorter distances.

Epicharis: This Japanese shipper will attempt to improve on the solid form of his compatriot Lani, who finished third in last year's Belmont Stakes. In a general sense I believe Epicharis is a much stronger contender than Lani, as he went 4-for-4 in Japan (winning by an average of nearly 6  lengths) before finishing second by a head to the talented Group 1 winner Thunder Snow in the UAE Derby on March 25th. However, whereas Lani ran in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness prior to his Belmont effort (improving each time he ran), Epicharis has not run since the UAE Derby and will be making his U.S. debut this Saturday. While it would come as no surprise if Epicharis runs well, this looks like a tough task and the value might not be enough to warrant a wager.

Patch: He had his fair share of trouble in the Kentucky Derby, breaking from post twenty and receiving a rough trip en route to finishing fourteenth, beaten 21 lengths. I would draw a line through that performance and judge him off his previous form, which includes a late-running second-place finish in the Louisiana Derby (gr. II), in which he capitalized on a quick pace and a ground-saving trip. His pedigree suggests that the Belmont distance won't be an issue (his sire and dam sire both won the Belmont), but Patch was clearly out-worked by stablemate Tapwrit in a five-furlong breeze on June 2nd at Belmont, and since Tapwrit's form overall has been superior, it's hard to side with Patch over his stablemate.

To condense this all into something shorter, I view Gormley, Irish War Cry, and Tapwrit as the main contenders in the Belmont Stakes. If I had to pick one horse to win regardless of odds, I would side with Irish War Cry, though in a wide-open race where it's difficult to predict how the odds will unfold, I would keep an eye on the tote board to determine which horses offers the best value. Judging strictly from the morning line odds, I am drawn to Tapwrit at 6-1, though I wouldn't be surprised if he goes off at a shorter price. For the bottom of the trifecta and superfecta, Epicharis, Hollywood Handsome, and J Boys Echo are the three that interest me most, with the latter two being of particular interest since their morning line odds (30-1 and 15-1) are significantly higher than the odds assigned to Epicharis (4-1).

Now it's your turn! Who do you like in the Belmont Stakes?

*****

J. Keeler Johnson (also known as "Keelerman") is a writer, blogger, videographer, handicapper, and all-around horse racing enthusiast. A great fan of racing history, he considers Dr. Fager to be the greatest racehorse ever produced in America, but counts Zenyatta as his all-time favorite. He is the founder of the horse racing website www.theturfboard.com.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi can waive loans of the country's rich but can't do the same for farmers, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi said on Thursday just before he was detained by the Madhya Pradesh police at Naya Gaon.

Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, Gandhi said that both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan were responsible for the deaths of farmers in Mandsaur.

Gandhi told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. "He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonuses, can't give compensation... he can only give them bullets."

Hundreds of Congress workers, as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh, also courted arrest while trying to make their way to Mandsaur. They were taken to a guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

The Congress on Wednesday had termed as "coldblooded murder" the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned the prime minister's silence over it.

The Congress had accused the BJP of "acting as a curse of death for Indian farmers".
Going by Indian National Congress's perspective Rahul Gandhi succeeded in getting what he wanted when he set out for Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh. He and other party strategists knew in no way they would be allowed to reach this trouble-torn area where curfew is in place and several contingents of Rapid Action Force have been deployed to maintain law and order. The state authorities had denied him permission to go there. Thus their purpose seemed clear: get maximum mileage in the media out of a tragedy that happened two days ago (five farmers had died in firing during an agitation).

Rahul tried to play a hide and seek game with the Madhya Pradesh administration and police without realising he was an SPG protectee and his movements inside the country could be easily tracked by various security and intelligence agencies. He took a flight from New Delhi to Udaipur and from there he drove in a car, freshened up at a dhaba on the way to Madhya Pradesh border, rode a pillion on a motorbike, rode 'triplicate' (three persons riding a single motorbike), again changing the vehicle to drive in an open jeep and finally allowed himself to be detained by the Madhya Pradesh Police.

While riding as pillion on a motorbike for a photo op, or when he sat in the middle for a triplicate ride he and rest of his high-profile companions forgot that there was a rule that one has to wear a helmet while riding a bike. Besides, riding three persons on a single bike was illegal, with or without a helmet.

But before he climbed inside the 'vajrayan', anti-riot police bus, he gave a brief sound bite  his usual diatribe against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Having served his political purpose he got into that police bus, knowing it very well that he would be made to travel some distance in that van and then kept comfortably at some decent place for a while and released to take a flight back to Delhi or wherever else he wanted to go.

"You are not allowed to enter Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh if you don't follow RSS ideology. Modiji can't waive loans of farmers, give them a bonus and right compensation, can only fire bullets at them." Rahul said, adding that Modi government cared only for the richest of the rich.

Rahul was all over television new channels and digital media in the first half of Thursday. He had hit the headlines and made into debate shows for some television channels. Under Rahul's leadership, Congress may have lost vote and popular support but since he is Gandhi-Nehru scion and soon to be party president as per the dynastic succession norms of Congress, he still has newsworthiness and his actions make great visuals.

But Rahul was not alone in vying for a good photo op. He had in-house competition from the likes of Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath and Sharad Yadav. Soon after Rahul was detained these three leaders got into an argument with senior police officers who stopped them in Neemuch from going towards Mandsaur. Digvijaya threw his weight around at police officers: "I had been chief minister (Madhya Pradesh) for 10 years. He (Kamal Nath) has been a Union minister. He (Sharad Yadav) had been Union minister. We know the law. You can't stop us. We are here to douse the fire." Singh negated the charge that the violence was instigated by Congress, instead, he said that it was a result (of conflict) between two affiliates of the RSS.

As for Sharad Yadav, no one is quite sure as to what was he doing in a Congress' show in a state where JD(U) does not even have a presence. Since the time Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar removed him from the post of JD(U) president, Yadav has been trying hard to keep himself relevant. Getting himself accommodated in photo frames either at Congress-sponsored protests in the Parliament House or outside the doors of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Gilani in Srinagar or in Neemuch is, perhaps, the best way for him to be in public memory.

Rahul's riding a pillion on a motorbike reminded the author of the Bhatta Parasaul event. In summer of 2011, Rahul reached Bhatta Parasaul in Uttar Pradesh, about 50 kilometres away from New Delhi where farmers were agitating against land acquisition. Then Congress-led UPA was ruling at the centre. Rahul had ridden pillion on a bike to reach the venue. Digvijaya Singh had accompanied Rahul. Today again, Digvijaya Singh and a host of other Congress leaders were part of Rahul's aborted drive to Mandsaur.

Six months after Rahul Gandhi's high-pitched political visit to Bhatta Prasaul, Congress badly lost in the February 2012 UP elections. The party couldn't win even a single seat in the region Congress vice president had gone on a padayatra. In 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election, Dhirendra Singh, Congress worker who drove Rahul to Bhatta Parasaul villages quit Congress and joined BJP. Rahul's month long Kisan Yatra ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly election ended in as flop show with Congress managing to win only seven seats in the 403-member UP Assembly.

In Madhya Pradesh, BJP and Congress are pitted head to head. The BJP is in power in the state for the last 14 years. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan appears to be going strong. From Congress's point of view three of its prominent leaders  Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia  are from Madhya Pradesh. The Congress senses political capital in the current farmers' unrest. The party leaders think that Rahul's photo op, being seen riding a motorbike and getting inside a police van would give the required fillip to party's fortunes.

They would be hoping that the history of Bhatta Parasaul in Uttar Pradesh does not repeat itself in Madhya Pradesh.
In communist China, faced with continuing glut in corn production and crash in prices, the government stopped a price support system for the crop last year and asked farmers to cut down production this year. The worlds second largest producer of corn after the United States, China, has found desperate but ingenious ways to convert its official corn stockpile into ethanol, sweeteners and even biodegradable plastic that can be used to make carry bags and tableware. The government says a solution may be in sight.

In capitalist United States, with no socialist pretensions, also faced with a corn glut, farmers are dumping their produce on airport tarmacs of decommissioned air bases, parking lots and empty fields and are bracing for a steep fall in incomes this year.

In capitalist India, with socialist pretensions, the governments of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, this week, have come up with populist, quick-fix, temporary solutions after excess production of pulses, onions, tomatoes etc led to a slump in prices: they have partially waived off farmers loans and are promising to strengthen the market price support systems.

The crisis of bumper crops  the problem of plenty as against crop failures during drought  sparking price crashes is not unique to either India or any one part of the world.

Last week, there were fears of a civil war in Ivory Coast after prices of cocoa nosedived nearly by half compared with last year. The West African nation, which accounts for about 40 percent of the worlds cocoa production, is still looking for a way out.

Farmers of Russia, Australia, Brazil and Argentina, to name a few, too are suffering from falling prices and inadequate storage places after reporting bumper crops that include corn, wheat, soya beans and barley.

Petty politics makes it worse in India

Even the situation prevailing in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh right now is, of course, not unprecedented. In recent years, farmers of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana dumped tomatoes on roads because prices were less than the cost they would incur by taking them to the market for selling. Many of them killed themselves.

In April this year, chilli farmers of Telanganas Khammam district went on a rampage, setting on fire tables and chairs in the local agriculture market yard after prices fell.

Though demand-supply mismatch in agriculture leading to price crashes is a global phenomenon  the world is reeling under it right now  petty politicisation of the farmers' plight with an eye on making newspaper headlines and luring vote banks is an Indian speciality.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of the Telangana Rashtra Samithi party squarely blamed the opposition Congress and Telugu Desam for the violence by chilli farmers in his state.

BJP too is not innocent

And the BJP, which rules Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, is accusing the Congress of engineering farmers' protests. The Congress may well be resorting to some cheap tricks in Madhya Pradesh, but the BJPs outbursts lead to an inevitable impression that it's more perturbed by what the Opposition is doing than by the farmers' suffering.

The Congress, on its part, is reacting to the situation as if prices are falling for the first time in Indias history and as if the BJP, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is solely responsible for the current plight of farmers.

The BJP too is not innocent of politicising farmers' troubles. In Karnataka, the partys state president and the chief ministerial candidate, BS Yeddyurappa, is threatening to hold a rally of "lakhs of farmers" in Bengaluru if the Congress government does not waive their loans. If held, the rally will help neither farmers nor the BJP, though it's guaranteed to turn traffic in the Karnataka capital from pathetic to insufferable.

Rahul Gandhis bike stunts wont help

How Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi imagines he can help the farmers of Mandsaur by resorting to stunts like going on a motorbike to dodge a police barricade and getting himself arrested beats us. Far from mitigating the farmers' genuine grievances, it can only add to the law and order mess. But Gandhi, of course, feels compelled to live up to his reputation as a "disaster tourist".

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Gandhi was nowhere in sight in the worst drought-affected areas of Congress-ruled Karnataka, where this year alone so far, according to official figures, 520 farmers have committed suicide.

Left must remember Nandigram massacre

Are we all paying the Krishi Kalyan Cess to the Central government so that it can buy more bullets to fire on farmers? pic.twitter.com/PyZVG1kX1Y  Sitaram Yechury (@SitaramYechury) June 8, 2017

The Left leaders and intellectuals, who are trying to shed tears over Mandsaur killings, must remember how the police, accompanied by armed goons of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist), massacred 14 agitating farmers in Nandigram in West Bengal in March 2007.

Politicisation of issues won't help farmers, but long-term strategies might. The central and state governments of India must find why farmers, in the first place, produce more than they should, though there are no easy answers and surefire solutions, as even developed nations are finding out.

Perhaps we need "ground-truthers" as researchers and aid workers  who visited farmers, farms, markets and households to track supply, demand and prices in Ethiopia on a continuous basis in the late 1990s  were called. Not that their warnings about record harvests leading to record low prices were taken seriously. At least they were warning farmers and authorities. The states in India must find ways to link agricultural production to price trends, though it's not an easy job.

In India, that actually is the job of the lakhs of field staffers of the agriculture departments of the states across the country. But they focus more on seeds, plant varieties and fertilisers than market possibilities for their produce. And agriculture is not all about subsidies and bank loans either, as the politicians would have us believe. It's about the market, and the states must clean up the mess in the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) network.

The Narendra Modi government's move to minimise risk in agriculture by expanding insurance cover is laudable, though it takes more time to produce results even if it does. And right now, Modi's talk of doubling farmers' income by 2022 makes little sense to the agitators. All that the farmers of Mandsaur and elsewhere in India want right now is to be able to sell what they have produced at prices that will help them make ends meet.

Expert management based on sane advice may help resolve the immediate problem. Political consensus, not political score-settling, will help matters.

Author tweets @sprasadindia
Jaipur: The Rajasthan police said that it will examine whether traffic rules were violated by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who visited the state on his way to Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.

Superintendent of Police, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra said that Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillon rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda to up to the Madhya Pradesh border.

At the border, Rahul had alighted from the bike and walked into Madhya Pradesh, he said.

The police official told PTI that there were reports that at one point of time, there were three passengers including Gandhi on the motorcycle. The pillion rider also needs to wear a helmet, he said.

"We will look into whether any traffic violation was committed," he said.

Deputy Superintendent of Police, Gopi Chand also said that the matter will be looked into.

Gandhi reached Udaipur by a chartered plane in the morning and from there left for Chittorgarh. From Chittorgarh he entered Madhya Pradesh aiming to meet the families of farmers who had died during recent protests in Mandsaur.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that the central and state governments were "sensitive" to farmers' issues and was trying to address them with due seriousness.

He said the welfare of the farming community and agriculture topped the list of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre was willing to extend whatever help was required by the states.

"I am from a village and the son of a farmer. I have also been the agriculture minister. Let me assure you that the Centre and state governments are trying to do everything possible," Rajnath said.

The minister's comments came a day after police shot dead five farmers at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

Rajnath acknowledged that the farmers were "a big pillar of our society and are the biggest producers and consumers".

He said both Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis were aware of the issue and were working towards providing succour to the agitating farmers.

Regarding the violence in Madhya Pradesh, he guardedly said: "I have received some information that some powers have attempted to instigate and the chief minister has assured a probe into it."

Singh is in Mumbai to address a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers as part of the three-year celebrations of the Modi government.
Chennai: DMK working president MK Stalin on Wednesday condemned the attempt to manhandle CPM leader Sitaram Yechury in Delhi, saying it "proves the threat to democracy and freedom of expression in the BJP rule."

"The fact that the incident happened during a press meet proves the threat to democracy and freedom of expression in the BJP rule," he said.

He alleged that Sangh parivar outfits were behind the incident and accused the BJP of promoting such groups.

The Centre should crush groups taking law into their hands with an "iron fist," he said in a statement.

Demanding arrest of those behind the incident, Stalin, also opposition leader in the state Assembly, said such episodes should not recur.

Two men, who said they were members of a group called the Hindu Sena, barged into the CPM head office in Delhi and tried to manhandle CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday.

The CPM, whose workers thrashed the two men before handing them over to the police, blamed the RSS for the incident.
Thiruvananthapuram: Two unidentified persons on a two-wheeler on Wednesday hurled a 'petrol' bomb at the BJP's district office in Thiruvananthapuram, police said.

No one was in the office when the incident took place.

A chair in front of the office was found in a burnt condition, police said.

BJP district president S Suresh alleged that CPM was behind the attack and said the incident happened at about 8.30 pm. He said police came to the spot very late.

Suresh said the party has called for a 12-hour shutdown from 6 am to 6 pm in the district.

The attack comes in the backdrop of the attempt to manhandle CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury in New Delhi by two men who claimed they were members of a group called Hindu Sena.
New Delhi: Leaders of at least nine non-NDA parties are part of the sub-group constituted to arrive at a consensus Opposition candidate for the 17 July presidential poll.

According to sources, the sub-group will be meeting next week to start deliberations among the Opposition parties on the crucial poll.

They said leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav and RJD supremo Lalu Prasad among others are part of the sub-group.

The group would comprise leaders of prominent parties like Left, TMC, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party besides the JD(U), RJD, NCP and DMK as well as the main Opposition party  the Congress.

The sources said the possible names for the Opposition candidate will only emerge after 15 June i.e. after a formal notification will be issued by the Election Commission on 14 June.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi is instrumental in forming this panel after she hosted a luncheon for the Opposition leaders on 26 May which was attended by leaders of 17 parties.

"It was suggested at the 26 May luncheon that a sub-group of non-NDA parties be formed who could deliberate and bring consensus among the Opposition parties on the matter," said a senior leader.

It was also stated at the luncheon that as per the tradition, the ruling party should take the lead in suggesting a consensual candidate for the president's post.

In case it does not do so, the Opposition parties will come out with its own candidate after reaching a consensus among the Opposition ranks, the sources said.

With the ruling BJP yet to initiate efforts for a consensual presidential nominee, the Congress has said the non-NDA parties will make every possible attempt to find "the best person" for India and it has many "deserving" candidates.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the Opposition has made it clear that the BJP-led NDA cannot take the country for granted on the issue, but he refused to come out with any specific name.

The CPM, on its part, said that it was in discussion with other parties for a person with "impeccable secular credentials who can discharge the responsibility as a custodian of the Constitution."

A number of leaders of Opposition parties had already met Sonia Gandhi in May after she stepped up discussions for forging Opposition unity on the issue.

Gandhi has held parleys with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, DMK leader M K Stalin, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav, Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD's Lalu Prasad, among others.

The Congress chief has been at the forefront of efforts to evolve a consensus among Opposition parties for putting up candidates who are "acceptable to the country" for the posts of president and vice-president.

The names of former West Bengal governor Gopal Krishan Gandhi and former speaker Meira Kumar have so far emerged as the Opposition's choices for the top post.

The presidential election will be held on 17 July and the counting of votes is slated for 20 July. The tenure of incumbent President Pranab Mukherjee ends on 24 July.
A week after more than a hundred office-bearers and workers of the Nagaland unit of BJP took to the streets demanding the ouster of state chief Visasolie Lhongou, BJP national general secretary and in-charge of the North East region, Ram Madhav, visited the state to pacify the dissident groups on Wednesday. The national leader met the dissident groups and asked them to be patient assuring that "action will be taken in due course".

Ram Madhavs visit to Nagaland to pacify dissent in BJP's Nagaland comes months before the Assembly election, scheduled to be held early next year.

Significantly though, the recent govt notification that restricts the sale of cattle for slaughter has caused much debate in the state units of the saffron party in the North East region. But the BJP unit in the Christian state Nagaland saw a different political discourse where several leaders and workers agitated against party's state chief Visasolie Lhongou for his alleged anti-party activities.

Informing the details of the meeting, a source in the Nagaland BJP, who chose to remain anonymous, told Firstpost that Ram Madhav sat in meetings with office-bearers, dissident group and MLAs separately, where he was briefed about the recent imbroglio faced by the party in the state.

Ram Madhav assured that everything will be sorted out by August this year, the source said, adding that BJP president Amit Shah is likely to visit Nagaland in August.

Speaking with Firstpost, IK Sema, a leader in the dissident group said, "He advised us to have patience. He also said that the party will decide on our grievances in due course."

We hope that we will come to know of the final outcome of the meeting in time. We are waiting for that," he added.

When asked whether he will continue to work for BJP, Sema said, "We are BJP and we will work for the party. Disagreements occur in a family too."

Sema, an adviser of Nagaland BJP, was suspended with two others after a demonstration against the state president of the party on 31 May. Sema had alleged the state president (Lhongou) was working in favour of the ruling Naga Peoples Front rather than BJP.

But Sema said that nothing was known to them whether the national general secretary had issued any order to revoke the suspension of the office bearers.

"If any such order was issued, it will be known only to Lhongou. We are waiting eagerly for a decision from our leaders," he added.

Sources in BJP's Nagaland unit told Firstpost that Wednesdays meeting was seen as a moral victory for the dissident groups.

"They are happy. It is because of their demonstration and the demand for the ouster of Lhongou that the national general secretary paid his second official visit to Nagaland. It is a sort of moral victory to them," a source said.

Firstpost tried to contact Lhongou more than once, but he did not respond.

Dissidence in the Nagaland unit of BJP came to the forefront on 31 May when more than a hundred leaders and workers of the state unit demonstrated demanding the ouster of Lhongou. The agitating party members alleged that the state president is sabotaging the party to politically benefit the ruling Naga Peoples Front.

NPF, that has been in power in Nagaland for the last three consecutive terms is an old ally of NDA. The saffron party with only four MLAs in the state, has a share of power in Nagaland by dint of this alliance, which makes central leadership soft to the NPF.

A press release signed by IK Sema had alleged that on August 2016, the state president had leaked a document of decisions made by the BJP leadership in Nagaland to the then chief minister, who is an NPF leader.

The release also alleged the state chief of dictatorial functioning. It said that he dropped six office bearers of the party without any consultation with the advisers, senior colleagues or legislators.

Lhongou had been dismissing all the allegations claiming, that the state BJP had been functioning as per the directives of the central leadership.
New Delhi: Two members of a fringe Hindutva outfit barged into the CPM headquarters in New Delhi on Wednesday and tried to "manhandle" party general secretary Sitaram Yechury. The Left party blamed the RSS for the incident.

The two men were subsequently put under arrest, the police said, adding that they were booked under sections 451 (house-trespass) and 504 (intentional insult) of the IPC.

Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta said the two men, who entered the CPM office posing as journalists, wanted to "express their anger" over the Left party's alleged criticism of the Army in an editorial in its mouthpiece, People's Democracy.

The CPM, however, has maintained that the editorial criticised army chief Bipin Rawat for defending the recent act of an Army Major, who used a "human shield" against stone-pelters in Jammu and Kashmir, and not the armed forces.

Reacting to Wednesday's incident, the Left party said it will not be cowed down by the "Sangh's goondagardi (hooliganism)" aimed at silencing its leaders and that it will win the "battle for the soul of India".

Top opposition leaders, including Congress president Sonia Gandhi, vice-president Rahul Gandhi, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, JD(U)'s Sharad Yadav and CPI national secretary D Raja, condemned the incident and expressed solidarity with Yechury, sources in the CPM said.

The incident took place as Yechury was about to enter the Central Committee Hall on the first floor of AK Gopalan Bhavan, the CPM headquarters, to address the media on the conclusion of the party's two-day politburo meeting in New Delhi.

The two men, Pawan Kumar Kaul (30) and Upender Kumar (24), shouting "CPI(M) murdabad (down with CPI-M)" and "Hindu Sena zindabad (long live Hindu Sena)" slogans, tried to get close to Yechury.

Kaul worked as the driver of a city-based lawyer, while Kumar was a cook at the canteen of a private hospital, the police said.

"They tried to manhandle Comrade Yechury, but we came in their way and he was safe," a CPM worker said.

The two men were thrashed by the party workers before being handed over to the police.

Speaking to reporters, Yechury said the two men would have got "an adequate response" had they reached close enough to manhandle him.

"Without violence, without terror, the RSS has never been able to spread its political influence. These tactics have been answered by the people of India in the past and we will give them an answer again," he said in a video message.

On Twitter, the Left leader wrote, "We will not be cowed down by any attempts of Sangh's goondagardi to silence us. This is a battle for the soul of India, which we will win (sic)."

The police said they had received a complaint from the CPM regarding the incident and the matter was being probed.

Kaul and Kumar told the police that they were associated with the Hindu Sena.

Reacting to the incident, JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav said the opposition will not allow these "efforts to stifle" their voice.

CPI's D Raja described the incident as an "attack by the right-wing forces on the country's communist movement", which, he alleged, had become "aggressive" under the NDA regime.

"We urge the police to take appropriate measures to get to the root of the matter as there could be a sinister design behind the incident," he said.

Delhi Police had deployed heavy security around AK Gopalan Bhavan in view of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's presence at the CPM politburo meeting, anticipating protests by cow vigilante groups.

The two-day meeting had begun on Tuesday.

Vijayan has been facing flak from right-wing outfits for his criticism of the Centre's recent notification banning the sale and purchase of cattle at the animal markets for the purpose of slaughter.

Kerala has witnessed numerous incidents of political violence involving the workers of the CPM and BJP-RSS in the recent past.
Islamabad: The Inter Services Public Relations, the Pakistan military's media wing, on Thursday released details of an operation in Balochistan's Mastung area in which security forces killed 12 "hardcore terrorists".

Special commandos participated in the three-day operation to destroy a several-kilometre-long cave complex used by banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi (LeJA) group to plan attacks across Pakistan, Dawn reported.

The military said on Thursday that the successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect Islamic State-organised infrastructure in Pakistan.

The statement issued by ISPR said that security forces conducted an operation in Mastung based on reports that about 10 to 15 terrorists of banned LeJA were hiding in caves near Isplingi, 36 kilometres southeast of Mastung.

The said organisation was reportedly making efforts to communicate with Islamic State militants and intended to facilitate establishment of Islamic State's foothold in Balochistan.

The suicide bomber who targeted senate chairman Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on 12 May was also sent by LeJA group from the same hideout. Five security forces personnel, including two officers were injured in the offensive.

Operation for clearance of the target area, spread over 10 kilometres, started on 1 June with landing of a heliborne force.

Terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance and a 250-metre-long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging.

Intelligence and security forces personnel cleared the hideout by 3 June. During an exchange of fire, 12 terrorists, including two suicide bombers, were killed.

Security forces destroyed an IED-making facility inside the cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kg of explosives, three suicide bomber jackets, 18 grenades, six rocket launchers, four light machine guns and huge ammunition of various types.
Beijing: China's state news agency Xinhua on Thursday announced it will set up $1 million BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) media fund to support journalists of member countries.

The state-controlled outlet will work for the integrated development of the new media and establish liaison offices with media in BRICS countries, president of Xinhua news agency Cai Mingzhao said.

He was speaking on the final day of the BRICS media summit. The BRICS summit will take place at Xiamen in Fujian province in September.

Cai said Xinhua will also give reporting and photo exhibition awards.

Xinhua was founded in 1931, to disseminate information for the Communist Party of China.

Cai said there was a need for cooperation among the media of BRICS members countries.

Journalists from member countries attended the summit where challenges and the constructive role of media was discussed.
By Stephanie Nebehay

| GENEVA

GENEVA China accused a United Nations human rights investigator on Thursday of overstepping his mandate and interfering with China's "judicial sovereignty" by raising the case of a high-profile activist detained after they met.Philip Alston, U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, made an official mission to China last August and included a plea for the release of lawyer Jiang Tianyong in his report to the U.N. Human Rights Council at a two-day debate.Chinese diplomat Jiang Yingfeng told the Geneva forum that Alston's report was "objective and fair" but also rebuked him."The special rapporteur referenced certain human rights defenders in his report and in so doing he has overstepped his mandate and meddled with China's judicial sovereignty," Jiang said.China's government would not tolerate any individual or group "using the banner of human rights" to cover up their activities, he added.

Alston had praised China for its "extraordinary achievement" of lifting up to 700 million out of rural poverty over the past 30 years, but said that inequality is "high and is rising". He also decried the "very rapidly shrinking space for the expression of views that differ from those of the (Communist) Party" and made a "special plea for the Government to release human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong, with whom I met in Beijing".Chinese authorities formally charged Jiang with subversion of state power on Tuesday, after holding him incommunicado for six months.

Alston, an international law professor from Australia, called the charge "extremely serious" and "the equivalent of a legal sledgehammer". Jiang defended high-profile dissidents and practitioners of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, before being disbarred in 2009. He continued to speak out against government crackdowns on rights lawyers before disappearing last November.Alston said: "I of course do not agree that there is something called judicial sovereignty which would lead a Special Rapporteur or this Council not to reflect on cases that appear to violate human rights, appear to be unjust, even if they are part of the judicial process."

Activists denounced as a missed opportunity the fact that representatives of France, the European Union and the United States did not refer to Alston's criticism of China in their comments. "These are governments that claim to care deeply about human rights in China and this is a venue in which to raise those concerns," Sophie Richardson, China director of the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters at the debate."They are undermining themselves, the U.N. human rights mechanisms, and independent Chinese civil society which is trying to use these institutions to solve problems," she said.In a speech, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) called on the council's 47 member states to demand his release, saying China had intensified its "targeting" of independent civil society including Jiang Tianyong. (Editing by Tom Heneghan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Beijing: China will bar foreigners from climbing the Tibetan side of Mount Everest during the coming autumn season after a Polish traveller was accused of illegally crossing into Nepal last month.

The China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) declared in a notice on Wednesday that it will suspend climbing permits for all of Tibet, including other popular summits such as Cho Oyu and Shishapangma.

The association said the ban was decided after Polish climber Janusz Adam Adamski "illegally scaled (Everest) from the north side" and entered Nepal in the south.

The notice, issued in English, said rules and regulations must be "adjusted and improved" following Adamski's trek.

"In order to solve the series of above problems in time, and provide a good condition to all expeditions in 2018 ... the climbing permits will not be granted in autumn 2017," the association said.

While the notice did not specify that the permit freeze only applies to foreigners, an association spokesman told AFP that Chinese climbers will not be affected.

Two large climbing operators confirmed that authorities have indicated permits will not be given for the coming season, though one noted that the situation is often fluid.

"Sometimes they are very quick with their decision and can change it as well," Mingma Sherpa, a renowned Nepali mountaineer and the managing director of Seven Summit Treks, told AFP.

Climbers online bemoaned the news, with one blogger blaming Adamski for his "selfishness."

Durgal Dutta Dhakal, a spokesman for Nepal's tourism department, told AFP that the Pole has been banned from climbing in Nepal for 10 years and faces possible deportation.

"The government took a light stance because in his statement he said that he was alone and unwell when he reached the summit and feared for his life if he descended by himself from the north side," Dhakal said.

But Adamski told the Himalayan Times last month that he considered the Tibet-Nepal traverse the "fulfillment of (his) lifetime dream."

"I am ready to face any legal challenge in Nepal to safeguard the greatest achievement of my life," he said.

He was the second foreigner to land himself in trouble with Nepali authorities on the world's tallest peak last month.

South African Ryan Sean Davy was caught on Everest two weeks ago attempting to climb the mountain without paying the $11,000 permit fee.

Davy was given a 10-year climbing ban but a $22,000 fine, which he said he could not pay, was waived.
"If a US President wanted to stop an investigation, is firing the FBI chief the way to get it done?"

"Why were you fired?"

"Youre a big and strong man, why didnt you say no?"

"Tell us how you ended up going to Trumps house for dinner? Did he call you?"

The big bang Comey testimony that consumed America Thursday June 8 was more about Comey the upright professional and less about obstruction of justice, more about the coarseness of Trump's methods and less about legality. Most legal scholars come around to the view that you cant indict a sitting President. For now, that's where it's at.

Trump hit back via his personal lawyer for all things Russia- Marc Kasowitz: "Contrary to numerous false press accounts leading up to todays hearing, Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told the President privately: The President was not under investigation as part of any probe into Russian interference. He also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any Russian interference.Mr Comeys testimony also makes clear that the President never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election, and in fact, according to Mr. Comey, the President told Mr. Comey it would be good to find out in that investigation if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong. And he did not exclude anyone from that statement,"the statement said.

Upside for those who are rooting for Comey and still thinking this is impeachment territory - All the memos Comey wrote about conversations with Trump are with special counsel Robert Mueller.

Generously seasoned with deeply personal commentary, wry humor, a steady gaze and charming colloquialisms, Comeys answers to all these questions in the 160 minute public testimony on Russias interference in the US 2016 elections was the strongest case he could possibly make that Trumps actions amounted to obstruction of justice, without actually saying it out loud. Since the US President is above law, these revelations are still in wide arc of politics at a time when Republicans control the Congress and the mid term elections are coming up next Fall. Impeachmint is a real cocktail at a bar on #ComeyDay, impeachment will need a 2/3rd majority in Congress and Democrats are anxious to see Trump gone but dont have the numbers yet.

Also read: Revenge of the persistent notetaker

The Comey testimony, as it happened

Comey knocked Trump right from the start calling him a liar for his accusation that Comey was not running the FBI efficiently. Late in the testimony, Comey said directly that Trump fired him because of the Russia probe and the Republicans asked questions more to keep their voters warm for the midterms.

Unless Republicans abandon Trump, the US President is going to stick around and if the right wingery is successful and quick, well be seeing Comey the leaker stories very soon - Comey said he leaked material after he was fired in the hope that it would prod lawmakers to appoint a special prosecutor.

Comeys testimony has a knuckle rap for news stories based on anonymous sourcing - just as the story Comey leaked ( which we now know) through a Professor at Columbia Law School about his conversations with Trump which had specificity and another story by NYT on the Trump campaigns contacts with Russia did not have them and Comey dismissed it as bogus.

The challenge, and Im not picking on reporters, about writing stories about classified information is the people talking about it often dont really know whats going on and those of us who actually know whats going on are not talking about it, Comey during questioning from Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho). And we dont call the press and say, Hey, you got that thing wrong.

By lunchtime, Comey also served up a rich mix of metaphors and localese - "feeding seagulls at the beach" in reference to why he leaked a story through a friend, Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest? while on the subject of Trump's appeals to Comey's loyalty, no fuzz (ambiguity) on Russia. Merriam-Webster reported that searches for a number of words Comey used had spiked.

The ex-FBI chief called Trump a liar at least 5 times in his public testimony and revealed that the so-called NYT scoop that led to lawmakers calling for Comey's testimony was scripted by Comey from end to end - the notetaker is an awesome journalist.
Washington: Fired FBI chief James Comey has confirmed that Donald Trump urged him to drop a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, in a preview of hotly awaited testimony Thursday that could rock the foundations of the presidency.

Comey's bombshell claim Wednesday fueled fresh allegations that Trump illegally tried to obstruct an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In a written statement ahead of his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey detailed how Trump repeatedly raised the Russia case with him earlier this year, asking him to go easy on Flynn, who is accused of improper links to Moscow.

Trump complained the investigation was a "cloud" over his administration that needed to be lifted, Comey said.

And at a private White House dinner on 27 January, just days after the Republican billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him.

"The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said.

Comey did not say whether he thought the president's actions amounted to obstruction, a serious crime that could lead to impeachment.

But he called Trump's approaches "very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency."

He also described trying to insulate himself and the Federal Bureau of Investigation from political pressure in the weeks before Trump fired him on May 9, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labeled it "fake news."

US capital riveted

Comey's seven-page statement added volatile fuel to Washington's political tensions ahead of Thursday's testimony. Democrats said they would press the issue of obstruction while Republicans hedged their comments.

Cable news stations set countdown clocks to the 10 am (1400 GMT) hearing, and a number of bars in Washington will open early and tune their TVs to live broadcasts of the hearing.

A pub near the Capitol offered free drinks every time Trump tweets about Comey.

Analysts said Comey, an intensely by-the-book, non-political law enforcer whose handling of a separate investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton last year nevertheless may have cost her the presidential election, was studiously avoiding accusing the president of a crime.

But Comey was not the only one to suggest pressure from Trump. The Washington Post reported that the president also approached Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers about the Flynn probe.

Both Coats and Rogers, testifying Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said they never felt "pressure" to intervene in the investigation.

But neither denied the Post stories and nervously dodged loaded questions from senators about whether Trump had asked them to intervene.

Trump 'vindicated' by Comey

Despite the allegations, Trump's personal lawyer said Wednesday that the president was "pleased" with Comey's statement that he himself was not under investigation.

"The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda," said Marc Kasowitz, recently hired by Trump to deal with issues linked to the Russia investigation.

Republicans though were uneasy about Comey's statement and other emerging allegations.

Asked if Trump had acted appropriately, Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr said: "I don't think that from what I've read there's anything of wrongdoing, but I will match that with his (Comey's) verbal testimony, and weigh it against the evidence of our investigation to date."

Democrats compared the testimony to the Watergate scandal, when president Richard Nixon, facing impeachment for obstruction of justice, was forced to resign in 1973.

"Comey confirms that Trump asked him to end that investigation into Flynn," Senator Ron Wyden told CNN Wednesday.

"That by itself is almost a Watergate-level effort to interfere with an ongoing investigation."

"The question really is not whether the president has obstructed justice," said Congressman Al Green. "The question really is whether the president can obstruct justice with impunity."
Washington: Seen in the kindest light, legal experts say conversations attributed by the fired FBI director to President Donald Trump were clumsy and inappropriate. In the worst light, James Comey's recollections could provide enough evidence to build a case that the president tried to interfere with a criminal investigation.

Released Wednesday, a day ahead of Comey's highly anticipated testimony to a Senate committee, the remarks detail a series of conversations between the men about the investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Comey's discomfort with the interactions.

Experts say the most damning statement in Comey's written testimony concerns former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who was under investigation for making false statements about contacts with Russian officials.

Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top government officials to leave the Oval Office on 14 February before urging Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn. "I hope you can let this go," Trump said, according to Comey's testimony.

Ryan Goodman, a New York University law professor, called that statement "the most devastating revelation" in Comey's testimony. The former director "is now on record saying that the president tried to impede the investigation of Flynn," Goodman said.

Julie O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Georgetown University's law school, said Trump's decision to clear the room before talking to Comey is evidence that suggests that Trump "was aware that what he was doing was a problem."

Trump has previously denied that he told Comey to end the investigation.

Obstruction of justice is a federal crime, though it's an open question whether a sitting president can be prosecuted. It's also an impeachable offense, though Republicans who control Congress are extremely unlikely to go after a president of their own party.

But a former FBI official and a prominent Washington, DC, law professor said they don't see a crime in what Comey reported that Trump said. Instead, the document reveals a president woefully ignorant of standard protocol and of the historic wall of independence between the FBI and the White House, an inexperience that could work in his favor and make his actions simply improper instead of actually illegal.

"I think the request is inappropriate," said Andrew Arena, a retired senior FBI official. "Whether it crosses that threshold to being criminal, I'm not there yet."

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said nothing he read in Comey's statement convinces him that Trump violated the law by interfering with a federal investigation. "Sounding like Tony Soprano does not make you Tony Soprano," Turley said. "We do not indict people for being boorish or clueless."
By Patricia Zengerle

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year's election.Some legal experts said Comeys testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but U.S. markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures.To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with "corrupt" intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation.While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment.Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president.Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus.Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt "completely and totally vindicated" by Comey's account."The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe," Marc Kasowitz, Trump's attorney, said in a statement.'AWKWARD SILENCE'

Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November's election in Trump's favor, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion.Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation's probe, on May 9.Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony.Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on Jan. 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.""I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence," Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create "some sort of patronage relationship."

On Feb. 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counterterrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door."When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, 'I want to talk about Mike Flynn,'" Comey said in his testimony.Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.Comey quoted Trump as telling him: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what "we could do to lift the cloud" of the FBI's Russia investigation."He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia," said Comey, who had briefed Trump on "salacious material" that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation.

LEGAL FALLOUT?

Some legal experts said Comeys written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice.It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation, said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School. Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn's character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said.Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe."It's certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It's certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation," the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN.Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump's request for loyalty from Comey, said it was "very, very critical" that FBI directors remain "independent."But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump's request."I don't think it's wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration," Burr said. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Jeff Mason, Eric Beech, Mohammed Zargham in Washington and; Jan Wolfe in New York; Writing by Alistair Bell and Roberta Rampton; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Peter Cooney)

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By Patricia Zengerle and Susan Cornwell

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON James Comey said on Thursday he was disturbed by President Donald Trump's bid to get him to drop a probe into the former national security adviser, but the FBI's fired former director would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.Comey told U.S. lawmakers in the most eagerly anticipated U.S. congressional hearing in years that the Trump administration had told lies and defamed him and the FBI after the president dismissed him on May 9.Comey has said Trump asked him in February to drop an FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election."I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning," Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee.The Russia issue has dogged Trump's first months in office, distracting from Trump's policy agenda such as overhauling the U.S. healthcare system and making tax cuts.Comey's accusations could further mire Trump's administration in legal difficulties, as special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees investigate alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow.Russia has denied such interference and the White House has denied any collusion. Trump triggered a political firestorm when he dismissed Comey, and Democrats accused the president of trying to limit the Russia probe. The former FBI head said Trump's administration had defamed him in comments made after his firing by saying that the bureau was in disarray and that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.

"Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey said.LOYALTY?

Comey said Trump did not attempt to get him to drop the overall Russia investigation, just the part of if that related to Flynn, who the president fired in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations last year with Russia's ambassador to the United States.As Comey was testifying, a White House source said Trump disputes two key points in Comey's testimony: that he asked the FBI director to let go of the Flynn probe, and that he asked for Comey's loyalty.Trumps son Donald Trump Jr. fired off a series of tweets attacking Comey but the president himself stayed off social media while the drama played out in Congress.

Trump critics say that any efforts by the president to hinder an FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice. Some legal experts said Comey's testimony could strengthen any impeachment case in Congress to remove Trump from office built on an allegation of obstruction of justice. Laura Donohue, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center said Trump may have broken the law, adding, "If the president directed Comey to drop the investigation, with an improper purpose, then it is a violation of the law." Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, said, "Nothing I've heard so far changes my view that the president did not obstruct justice."While a sitting president is unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice is an offense that could trigger the impeachment process in Congress.

Stocks were little changed as Comey's testimony kicked off, as investors continued to see it as unlikely that Comey's testimony would lead to an end to Trump's presidency.At one point in the hearing, Republican Senator James Risch pressed Comey on whether Trump had actually directed him to drop the Flynn investigation. "He did not order you to let it go?" Risch asked."Again, those words are not an order," Comey said. "I took it as a direction. If it is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying 'I hope this' - I took it as 'this is what he wants me to do.' I didn't obey that, but thats the way I took it," Comey saidWhen asked later on whether he took Trump's comments as a directive, Comey, "Yes." Comey said he did not know if there are tapes of his conversations with Trump but said he hoped there were and that they should be made public. "Release all the tapes. I'm good with it," Comey said.Comey testified that he kept notes after meeting with Trump because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document."The White House has given shifting explanations on why Trump fired Comey. Trump has called Comey a "showboat" and a "grandstander" and said he was thinking of "this Russia thing" in dismissing him. (Additional reporting by Jan Wolfe in New York, Doina Chiacu, Eric Walsh, Roberta Rampton and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by)

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Doha: Qatar's foreign minister rejected attempts to interfere in the country's foreign policy on Thursday, defying calls from the emirate's Gulf neighbours despite an escalating crisis.

In an interview with AFP, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said calls for a change in Qatari policy from Saudi Arabia and its allies, which cut diplomatic ties with Doha this week, were unacceptable.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed said.

He also rejected "a military solution as an option" to resolving the crisis, and said Qatar could survive "forever" despite the measures taken against it.

The sheikh's remarks came as efforts intensified to resolve the feud pitting Saudi Arabia and allied Arab nations against Qatar.

As Kuwait's emir shuttled between Gulf capitals for talks, US president Donald Trump offered to host a White House meeting if necessary, in a change of heart from his initial support for the Saudi-led boycott.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar strongly denies the allegations and has expressed a willingness to engage in talks to resolve the crisis.

Kuwait emir leads efforts

The Arab countries closed air, sea and land links with Qatar, barred the emirate's planes from their airspace and ordered Qatari citizens out within 14 days.

The feud has raised fears of wider instability in an already volatile region that is a crucial global energy supplier and home to several Western military bases.

Kuwait  which unlike most of its fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members has not cut off ties with Qatar  has been leading efforts to mediate.

Its emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah held talks on Wednesday with Qatari counterpart Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, following talks with senior UAE officials and Saudi King Salman.

Trump, who had initially backed the measures against Qatar in a tweet, called Sheik Tamim on Wednesday with an offer "to help the parties resolve their differences".

Qatar hosts the Al-Udeid military base, the largest US airbase in West Asia. Home to some 10,000 troops, Al-Udeid is central to the US-led fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

French president Emmanuel Macron has also reached out to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Iran in a bid to kick off negotiations.

Turkey, which works closely with Qatar in the energy sector, has walked a fine line between defending Qatar and abstaining from openly antagonising Saudi Arabia.

Ankara hosted Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif this week for talks, including on Qatar.

In a sign of support for Doha, Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved an agreement to expand the number of troops deployed to a Turkish base in Qatar. The agreement did not detail a timeframe or the number of troops.

Iran and Qatar share the world's largest gas field, an offshore site the Iranians call South Pars and the Qataris call the North Dome. Doha is the world's largest exporter of natural liquefied gas.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a 2014 dispute, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recalled their ambassadors from Doha over Qatari support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

A top Gulf official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a major concern was the influence of Sheikh Tamim's father, Sheikh Hamad, who had allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha and helped arm Syrian rebels before abdicating in 2013.

"The previous emir is a big supporter of this whole extremist agenda, so we do have an issue," the official said.

Foreign policy 'gone wild'

Doha has for years forged its own alliances in the region, often diverging from the politics of the six-state GCC and taking in leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and members of the Afghan Taliban.

A senior Emirati official told AFP this week's decision was not aimed at a change of regime in Qatar but to pressure the country to reshape its policy.

"This is a foreign policy that has gone wild," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash told AFP. "We need to put everything in check," he added.

Gargash said the four Arab states seek a "political commitment to change course" by Qatar, including ending its support for the Brotherhood and Hamas.

Qatar's satellite news giant Al-Jazeera has also emerged as a point of contention in the Gulf.

Gargash said "not using the formidable media ownership in promoting an extremist agenda" was a condition for negotiations.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have banned Al-Jazeera from the airwaves and closed the channel's offices.

Bahrain on Thursday followed the UAE in announcing that expressing sympathy for Qatar over the sanctions was an offence punishable by jail.
India is not the only victim of Pakistan's "nurturing" of terrorism, it told the United Nations Human Rights Council on Wednesday, saying the effects of this are felt in south Asia and beyond, and that Pakistan should refrain from sponsoring terrorism against India.

In exercising its second right of reply (RoR) to a Pakistani statement, India said that Pakistan for years has "with complete impunity, channelised billions of dollars from international aid, to training, financing and supporting terrorist groups as militant proxies against it neighbours".

"We demand that Pakistan lives up to its public commitment to refrain from supporting and sponsoring terrorism against India," New Delhi told the HRC.

There were about 450 ceasefire violations by Pakistan in 2016, and the number of terrorists killed in Jammu and Kashmir increased by 50 percent over 2015. "Internationally proscribed terrorist entities and their leaders continue to thrive in Pakistan with state support, even raising funds openly, in flagrant violation of its international obligations," Alok Jha, counsellor (political) at the Indian mission in Geneva told the council.

"We would like to iterate that India is not the only victim of Pakistan's preaching, practicing, encouraging and nurturing terrorism. The deleterious impact of Pakistan's irresponsible and short-sighted approach of terrorism as State policy has started showing in other countries of South Asia and beyond. Internationally proscribed terrorist entities and their leaders continue to thrive in Pakistan with State support, even raising funds openly in flagrant violation of Pakistan's international obligations, India told the council," Jha said.

India welcomed the introduction of a US Congress bill to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism  countering such terrorism that "has turned out to be the most acute violator of human rights"  and said that shutting down the country's "terror factories" is the only way to achieve peace in South Asia.

In the first RoR made earlier in the day, India raised the issue of Balochistan, stating that Pakistan "has systematically abused and violated the human rights of its own citizens, including in Balochistan, as well as of the people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir".

"While advocating restraint to others, it has no hesitation in using air power against its own people. Pakistan also continues to provide sanctuary to UN-designated terrorists," India said.

Pakistani people as well as people in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir have become victims of sectarian conflict, terrorism and extreme economic hardship due to Pakistan's "authoritarian and discriminatory policies in complete disregard of human rights", India added.

Pakistan also used both of its RoRs to respond to India at an interactive dialogue held at the 35th session of the HRC.

Pakistan has shown its willingness for the UN team to visit 'Azad Kashmir', together with a mission in tandem to the "Indian-occupied Kashmir", Pakistan said in response to the UN human rights chief's request on Tuesday to India and Pakistan to grant him access to "India-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir".

It is in "sharp contrast to India's outright denial for access", Farukh Amil, the new Pakistani ambassador and permanent representative of UN offices in Geneva said.

Amil urged the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to present the "complete picture" in front of the Council.

The war of words has become a constant feature in council sessions since India restarted the practice in 2015 of using its RoR to respond to Pakistani statements at the HRC.
Tehran: Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Thursday slammed US president Donald Trump's remarks on the Tehran terror attacks that killed 13 people.

Zarif expressed his distaste to the White House in a tweet on Thursday:

Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship  Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 8, 2017

Trump condemned the twin attacks in Tehran on Wednesday which were claimed by the Islamic State terror group, but stressed that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote", Efe news reported.

The minister added that Washington's allies, including Saudi Arabia, with whom Trump signed a multi-billion dollar arms agreement, are the real sponsors of terrorism.

"Terror-sponsoring despots threaten to bring the fight to our homeland," he said in another tweet.

Zarif added the terrorists targeted "what their masters despise most: the seat of democracy".
Tehran: The assailants who carried out the two deadly attacks in Tehran resulting in the deaths of 13 people were Iranians who were recruited by the Islamic State (IS) terror group, a top security official said on Thursday.

In an interview on state TV, Reza Seifollahi, deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said the attackers "had joined the IS from a number of regions inside Iran", reports the BBC.

"These people were cooperating with the IS in Syria and Iraq, and following the recent losses of the IS in both countries, they returned," Xinhua news agency quoted Seifollahi as saying.

The IS, a hardline Sunni jihadi group, claimed the attacks and threatened further assaults on Iranian Shia Muslims.

Suicide bombers attacked parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini on Wednesday.

The twin attacks were simultaneously carried out at around 10.30 am.

All the attackers were killed. Five people believed to be planning a third attack were arrested, officials said.

Forty-three people were also injured.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards had earlier accused Saudi Arabia and the US of being behind the attacks.

The violence comes amid heightened tension in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states cutting ties with Qatar over alleged support for Islamist militants and closer ties with Iran.
Washington: President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered solace to the victims of the twin terrorist attacks in Iran while suggesting Tehran bears some culpability, saying "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Hours after conciliatory comments from his state department, the president said in a one-paragraph statement that the United States grieves and prays for the innocent victims of the assault against Iran's Parliament and the shrine of Iran's revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that killed at least 12 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Trump added his broadside against Iran, which the US has designated as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984.

"We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote," he said.

State department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said the US is sending thoughts and prayers to the Iranian people following the attacks.

"The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilised world," said Nauert, who said the US is expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

The US statement of solidarity with the attack's victims is notable because of the deep distrust between the US and Iran. The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations, and the Trump administration has emphasised the need to counter Iran's influence.

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in Congress acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions on Iran, including on its elite Revolutionary Guards. The strong bipartisan vote was 92-7.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week of the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said.

Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

The bill is a "carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East," Senator Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said.

Last month, the Foreign Relations Committee backed the measure despite concerns from former Secretary of State John Kerry and several Democrats that it could nonetheless lead to the unravelling of the nuclear accord negotiated by the Obama administration.

Kerry cautioned lawmakers to "tread carefully" in pushing ahead with new sanctions against Iran in the wake of President Hassan Rouhani's re-election to another four-year term. Rouhani is a political moderate who scored a resounding victory over a hard-line opponent.

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the committee's Republican chairman and one of the bill's sponsors, said he recently reviewed top-secret intelligence that detailed Tehran's support for terrorism and other destabilising actions.

"It is astounding what Iran continues to do around the world," said Corker, urging his colleagues to confront the threat Tehran poses.

In exchange for Iran rolling back its nuclear program, the US and other world powers agreed to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy. As part of the July 2015 multinational accord, Iran also regained access to frozen assets held abroad.

Israel and congressional Republicans have long assailed the agreement as a windfall to Iran. They've argued the deal only delayed Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and failed to allow the kind of inspections of its atomic sites that would guarantee Tehran was not cheating. Lifting economic sanctions saved Iran's economy, GOP lawmakers added and allowed the country to funnel more money to terrorist groups.

Yet the nuclear deal remains in place despite Trump's pledge during the presidential campaign to discard or renegotiate the pact. Instead, the state department took a key step last week toward preserving the pact by issuing a waiver to keep the sanctions from snapping back into place. And the Trump administration notified Congress last month that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that as the Iran legislation moves forward, lawmakers will have an opportunity to offer amendments that would authorise new sanctions on Russia.
Tehran: The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Wednesday for a pair of stunning attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

Tehran Police Chief General Hossein Sajedinia announced late Wednesday night that five suspects had been detained for interrogation, according to a report in the semi-official ISNA news agency. Sajedinia did not offer any further details.

Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the independent Shargh Daily as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.

The bloodshed shocked the country and came as emboldened Sunni Arab states  backed by US President Donald Trump  are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

In recent years, Tehran has been heavily involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq against the IS, but had remained untouched by IS violence around the world. Iran has also battled Saudi-backed Sunni groups in both countries.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including the Islamic State group, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action."

The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged," the Revolutionary Guard statement said.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles.

"The Iranian nation will go forward," he added.

The violence began in midmorning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran's state TV.

Images circulating in Iranian media showed gunmen held rifles near the windows of the complex. One showed a toddler being handed through a first-floor window to safety outside as an armed man looks on.

The IS' Aamaq news agency released a 24-second video purportedly shot inside the complex, showing a bloody, lifeless body on the floor next to a desk.

An Associated Press reporter saw several police snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings. Police helicopters circled the parliament and all mobile phone lines from inside were disconnected.

Shops in the area were closed as gunfire rang out and officials urged people to avoid public transportation. Witnesses said the attackers fired from the parliament building's fourth floor at people in the streets.

"I was passing by one of the streets. I thought that children were playing with fireworks, but I realized people are hiding and lying down on the streets," Ebrahim Ghanimi, who was around the parliament building, told the AP. "With the help of a taxi driver, I reached a nearby alley."

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed Shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

Iran's state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was slain by security guards. A woman was also arrested. The revered shrine was not damaged.

The Interior Ministry said six assailants were killed  four at the parliament and two at the tomb. A senior Interior Ministry official told Iran's state TV the male attackers wore women's attire.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani called the attacks a cowardly act.

Conflict with Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia and Iran regularly accuse each other of supporting extremists in the region. Saudi Arabia has long pointed to the absence of IS attacks in Iran as a sign of Tehran's culpability. For its part, Iran has cited Saudi Arabia's support for jihadists and its backing of hard-line Sunni fighters in Syria.

Trump's first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia in May positioned the US firmly on the side of the kingdom and other Arab states in their stance against Iran. His assurances of Washington's support emboldened hawkish royals in Saudi Arabia, which is at war in Yemen against Iranian-allied rebels.

The attacks are likely to deepen enmity and sharpen the regional battle for power between the two rivals. Tensions are running high this week following a cut in ties between key Arab powers and Qatar over accusations that the energy-rich nation supports terrorist groups and is aligning itself too closely with Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been a target of numerous lethal attacks by IS affiliates who see the kingdom's Western-allied leadership as heretics. The group has also targeted Shiites in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. IS militants are fighting Iranian-backed forces in Syria and Iraq, and they view Shiites as apostates.

Nelly Lahoud, an expert on extremism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Bahrain, said IS leaders may be looking to rally supporters through the attacks in Iran as they lose ground in Syria and Iraq.

"Now that they are unable to maintain the promise of territory, attacking Iran is to their advantage," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if this were planned for a long time."

IS posted video threatening Iran

On 27 March, IS posted a 37-minute video in Farsi threatening Iran. The Clarion Project said the speakers claimed to represent various Iranian Sunni ethnic groups, such as the Baluchis and Ahvazis, and encouraged Iranian Sunnis to join the group.

Wednesday's attacks, during the holy month of Ramadan that is observed by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims, came as the Islamic State is competing with Al-Qaida for jihadi recruits.

Arab separatists are active in Iran's southern city of Ahvaz, where they killed two policemen three weeks ago. Though most Iranians are Shiite, including separatists in Ahvaz, the eastern Baloch region is majority Sunni, although there are no recent census figures available. There is also a significant Sunni population in southern Hormozgan province.

The attacks drew condemnation from Iran's allies  and also from the United States. That was notable because of the deep distrust between Tehran and Washington, which don't have diplomatic relations.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the US expressed condolences to the victims and their families.

"The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world," Nauert said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences and confirmed Moscow's willingness to aid its ally. Syria's Foreign Ministry also condemned the attacks, which it said were backed by various governments that it did not specify.

IS often claims attacks around the world, even when links to the group cannot be confirmed. Iranian security officials have not said who might have been behind the attacks, although state media called the assailants "terrorists."

There are concerns that a doubling down on security could lead to a wider clampdown on the opposition in Iran. Rights group Amnesty International urged Iranian authorities to carry out impartial investigations into the attacks.

Charlie Winter, a senior research fellow at King's College London, said the attacks could provoke a disproportionate counter-terrorism response in Iran.

"Iranian officials will be called upon to step up intervention in Iraq (and) Syria big time," he said, adding that Wednesday's attacks will significantly boost IS morale amid battlefield defeats.
Ousted FBI chief James Comey accused the White House of lies and defamation Thursday, in explosive testimony that painted Donald Trump as dishonest and operating far outside presidential norms.

During almost three hours of blockbuster sworn testimony to a Senate panel, Comey described himself as "stunned" by Trump's "very disturbing" and "very concerning" behavior during several private meetings.

Expanding on the bombshell statement released on the eve of his appearance, Comey said the president asked him for "loyalty" during a White House dinner and to lay off former national security advisor Mike Flynn  who is under criminal investigation  imploring Comey to "let this go."

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," he told senators. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal."

Detailing private talks with a sitting president, which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day, Comey said he took painstaking notes of the extraordinary encounters for fear Trump might "lie" about the meetings.

Comey indicated that it was now up to a high-powered special prosecutor to determine whether the president's behavior constituted an obstruction of justice, a potentially impeachable offense.

Trump avoided directly responding to the explosive accusations, defiantly telling supporters at a religious event in the capital: "We are going to fight and win."

But the White House hit back angrily at Comey.

"I can definitely say the president is not a liar and frankly am insulted by that question," said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.

Easing months of speculation Comey did confirm that Trump was not personally the subject of a counter-terror or criminal probe when he left the FBI last month.

The probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election has ensnared close aides of the president and has vast-ranging political and geopolitical implications.

'Lies, plain and simple'

After solemnly raising his right hand and vowing to tell the whole truth, a visibly aggrieved Comey kicked-off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight about the state of the bureau he led until he was sacked last month.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader," he charged.

"Those were lies plain and simple," Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senate's Hart building, which stood silent except for the shutter clicks of a phalanx of photographers, there to capture this moment of pure political theater.

Thursday's hearing started with a call for unity of purpose.

"We are here because a foreign adversary attacked us right here at home. Plain and simple," said Senator Mark Warner, the ranking Senate Intelligence Committee, in opening remarks.

"Not by guns or missiles, but by foreign operatives seeking to hijack our most important democratic process  our presidential election."

But the pretense of bipartisanship soon fell away.

Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump's actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have zeroed in on Comey's admission he assured the president he was not personally an FBI investigation target.

Republicans also pounced on Comey's admission that he leaked personal notes on his meetings with Trump to prompt the naming of a special prosecutor to lead the Russia probe.

That prompted Trump's son Donald junior to describe Comey sarcastically as a "classy guy."

'Very disturbing'

Trump abruptly fired Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 9, admitting later that the Russia probe was on his mind at the time.

In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in one-on-one encounters and in phone calls to press him on the probe into Trump campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republican's favor.

At a private White House dinner on 27 January, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him.

"The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said.

In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month Comey said Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about his unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador.

The road to former FBI chief James Comey's Senate testimony played out over months of firings, leaks and shock moves https://t.co/0ynulbYQq1 pic.twitter.com/F3MhUatzkd  AFP news agency (@AFP) June 8, 2017

And he described trying to insulate himself and the FBI from political pressure in the weeks before Trump fired him, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labeled it "fake news."

Trump vindicated by Comey

Networks and cable news stations provided blanket coverage of the hearing, and a number of bars in Washington were opening early, with TVs tuned to live broadcasts of the hearing  one of them offering free drinks every time Trump tweets about Comey.

At Shaw's Tavern where the menu featured an FBI breakfast of French Toast with maple syrup, hundreds watching fell silent as Comey entered the hearing.

'There's been so much media hype, it's good to actually hear this from the source,' said Sadie Cornelius, 33. "It's good to hear the facts."

Democrats have been quick to draw parallels with the Watergate scandal, when president Richard Nixon, facing impeachment for obstruction of justice, was forced to resign in 1973.

But the White House and Trump's allies have sought to put a positive spin on Comey's revelations.

"The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda," said Marc Kasowitz, hired by Trump as his personal lawyer to deal with issues linked to the Russia investigation, after Comey's statement was released.
Washington : Twitter users have latched on to former FBI director James Comey's use of "lordy" during his Capitol Hill testimony about his interaction with US President Donald Trump.

Comey told senators on Thursday morning, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," in referring to his meetings with Trump.

The term quickly became a trending topic on Twitter.

Former New York City U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was also fired by Trump, echoed Comey's statement , writing, "We can all agree with Jim Comey that, Lordy, we hope there are tapes."

We can all agree with Jim Comey that, Lordy, we hope there are tapes.  Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 8, 2017

"Captain America" actor Chris Evans quickly weighed in , saying he wanted Comey's phase on a T-shirt.

I need 'Lordy, I hope there are tapes' on a t-shirt  Chris Evans (@ChrisEvans) June 8, 2017

For those unaccustomed to hearing the word, dictionary maker Merriam-Webster tweeted a definition and joked Comey still had time use old-fashioned terms like "gadzooks" or "gramercy."
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In a written statement ahead of his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey detailed how Trump repeatedly raised the Russia case with him earlier this year, asking him to go easy on Flynn, who is accused of improper links to Moscow.

Comey's bombshell claim Wednesday fueled fresh allegations that Trump illegally tried to obstruct an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Fired FBI chief James Comey has confirmed that Donald Trump urged him to drop a probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, in a preview of hotly awaited testimony Thursday that could rock the foundations of the presidency.

No works getting done on Thursday in Washington DC. Wear your doggie chain to office, clock in and make a dash for the nearest bar. Even better, convert your corner office into one - in national interest. Wordsmiths are working overtime to coin fancy names for house specials and they dont have to look far. Impeachmint cocktails, Covfefe sandwiches, FBI breakfast special ( French toast, bacon and ice cream), and Testimony have split Twitter and put wide grins on Washingtons wonkery circuit well before the weekend arrives. All this while the President is stone cold sober - Trump does not touch alcohol.

Look out for Indian origin Senator from California Kamala Harris grilling James Comey. A former prosecutor, Harris, after reading Comeys testimony, said Trump asking Comey for "loyalty" is "completely inappropriate. Barely 24 hours ago, in the same Capitol Hill location, Harris pressed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over whether he would sign a letter to give Special Counsel Robert Mueller full independence from the Justice Department in his Russia probe. Im not going to back down, says Harris about the Comey hearing. A Democrat in a blue state that would rather secede than deal with Trump, Harris is certain to get outsize media spray for her star turn on #ComeyDay.

Comeys testimony shows why he deserved to be fired, reads The Wall Street Journal editorial while Left-leaning magazines are calling for hurrying up and turning the knives into the Trump camp even more. Today, Washington DC is not just Super Bowl for hacks; its a gift that will keep on giving for a town crawling with lawyers. Does what Comey said or is about to say amount to obstruction of justice? Will any or all of the 19 senators who question Comey be able to connect the dots and say that Trump's request for loyalty and that Comey not promising to drop the Flynn investigation led to Comey's firing? Choose your favorite opinion and choose a section of Comeys testimony to match. Despite all the unsavory details in the Comey statement, Comey has gone on record and said what Trump has been pushing him to say - that Trump is not personally under investigation by the FBI.

Long before he was fired, Comey allowed a years permission for a film crew from USA Network inside the FBI New York office. In April 2017, the network rolled out the six part series titled - Inside the FBI, New York from the Emmy-winning Dick Wolf and Mark Levin. Comey is seen in several episodes. In one of the deleted scenes, he is known to have said: We are never on anyones side. Sometimes, in a polarized world, its hard for people to even conceive of that. Is it any surprise that Washington needs a drink this early on a Thursday morning?

"The President is pleased that Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda," Kasowitz said in his first and only statement since getting appointed while Trump was still on his Arabian excursion and deeply worried about the coming Comey bombshell.

Whats Trumps going to do when all cameras are on Comey? Watch or hit back? Most likely the latter, reports Washington Post. So far, Trumps Twitter feed is eerily quiet on showboat Comey. Trumps engagements for Thursday begin two hours after Comeys hearing begins and hell be watching the Super Bowl with his legal team. So, technically, Trump is free when Comeys speaking but will Russia-only lawyer Kasowitz be able to rein in his client from his beloved 140 character pastime? Trumps view of Comey has swung wildly in the last year, from high praise to calling him a showboat and then firing him. Connecting the dots now that Comeys testimony teaser is out in the open, it figures that Trump lost his cool when Comey refused to pledge loyalty to Trump which Comey says Trump explicitly asked for.

What are the salacious, unverified and personally sensitive details that Comey shared with Trump in the very first meeting on January 6 at Trump Tower? These were unsubstantiated reports on romps with prostitiutes, real estate deals ( or the promise of those) and planning the hacking of Democrats computers in partnership with the Russians. Like Comey says clearly in the prepared remarks, these were unverified but the fact that Trump and Comey met and this dossier was discussed became the basis for its media splash.

Breitbart claims that the dossier about hookers and frolic in Russia is reportedly a ploy by the anti-Trump camp to malign the President and little else.

Seven pages of Comeys testimony that are already public have all the ingredients for parallel universes to flourish in Washington, a dream town for lawyers. The Rights favourite rag Breitbart has already punctured the Comey balloon nice and proper. Unless Comey is keeping the best for later when 19 Senators grill him, whats already out is making one thing absolutely clear: Flynn, not Russia, is what Trump spoke to Comey about. Trump wanted Comey to probe the origins of the salacious, unverified dossier, Comey did not follow through - is Breitbarts lead story after the Comey papers were outed ahead of the curve.

This is not the first time Comey will be testifying in Senate, hes been doing this a a decent clip in recent months. He testified about the same Russians before a Senate Committee in March, he testified before a Judiciary Committe in May - all that was in the realm of the ordinary, when Comey was not the shiny bling who could possibly bring a Presidency to its knees. He was still FBI chief and and Trump had not fired him yet. After Trump kicked out Comey, two things happened that has made todays Comey testimony the stuff of history - the New York Times and Washington Post scooped stories saying Trump asked Comey to let the investigation go. Everything changed. America was suddenly in Watergate territory, Nixons America of the 70s became the new small talk.

And I have lived my entire career by the tradition that if you can possibly avoid it, you avoid any action in the run-up to an election that might have an impact, whether its a dog-catcher election or President of the United States. But, as I sat there that morning, I could not see a door labelled no action here. I could see two doors, and they were both actions. One was labelled speak and the other was labelled conceal.  - from a 2 May hearing on why Comey decided to open a probe into a Clinton camp computer 11 days before the election.

It's on! Comey looks relaxed - he's a veteran of such high profile hearings. Important to note here that in the opening remarks, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee said clearly that there are multiple investigations already on, in parallel, on the same issue - Russia, Russia, Russia. "We must find out the full story, what the Russians did and why they were so successful", the committee said. They're saying what Comey has not said so forcefully. "The way you were fired by the President is shocking!", says the vice-chair of committee, Mark Warner. All gloves are off, less than five minutes into the hearing.

Couldn't be a better start for Comey. The Senate Intelligence Committee vice-chair has done a virtual PR job, repeating almost each word of the Comey testimony. Bring on the popcorn.

"The FBI is honest. The FBI is strong, and the FBI is and always will be independent," Comey added on Thursday.

"I was confused by the initial explanation. It didn't make sense to me. The administration defamed me. Those were lies, plain and simple. And i'm sorry FBIhad to hear them and american people were told them," Comey said.

Attorney general told me not to call it an investigation and instead call it a "matter": Comey on the Clinton email investigation.

Comey said that the Obama administration was looking for ways to fight the cyberattack.

He said in late 2015 or early 2016 he became aware that data had been exfiltrated. The FBI undertook an effort to notify victims of the massive spearfishing campaign.

Comey said Russians targeted hundreds, I suppose it could be more than a thousand entities in an attempt to crack the US election.

Comey said that there were a lot of Russian cyberattack and that he noticed them in late summer 2015.

They couldnt be farther from the precise quality that has brought Comey so far - the doggedness of a clerk.

Comeys note taking is not a new love, its an old habit. When he moved from a law firm to government service, he kept notes of conversations with seniors as a routine safety check. During his time with the Bush Administration, he wrote notes on his views against torture which set him apart from the conservatives. Trump called him a showboat, its a word that Trumps side has latched on to - in their communications ahead of the Thursday hearing - showboat.

From whats going on so far, one thing is clear. Comey have saved a lot for this moment, not wasted it all on the teaser out ahead of schedule.

This question had to mark attendance today - why did Comey feel he needed to write stuff down? Circumstances I was aloneI was uncomfortableI felt the need to put it down, says Comey, a persistent notetaker whose resistance to the worlds most powerful office has made him the hero of the biggest news day since the US Election 2016.

Comey the notetaker tells us why he wrote it all down

"The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, He is a good guy and has been through a lot. He repeated that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that he is a good guy. (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would let this go.

Notice something? Comey's getting praise from across the aisle at the hearing. Also, a lot of the senators have been prosecutors so after the pleasantries, it's quickly gotten down to nit picking. "Did the President order you to do that or did he say he "hoped" you could?" "What's wrong with hoping"? are the kind of questions Comey is being asked on this part of his testimony:

The nit-picking has begun:"Did he order you or did he say he hoped you could let it go?"

But Comey added at his Senate hearing: "I took it as a direction," and noted that the remark came during a one-on-one meeting with the president of the United States.

Republican Senator James Risch of Idaho asked if Comey was aware of anyone being charged with obstruction of justice because they expressed hope for a certain outcome to which Comey said he wasn't.

Former FBI director James Comey said he took "as a direction" President Donald Trump's remark that he hoped Comey would drop an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Its only if the Comey hearing gets Republicans scared about their own prospects that it becomes dangerous. Right now, its high entertainment, publishers are lining up at Comeys door for his book on Trump and one ominous note for Trump baiters in a hurry for the quick-fix impeachment delusion. When Trump is criticised, nearly 80% of his supporters hear an attack on people like me ( according to a YouGov/ CBS poll).

The preoccupation with fact checking is one thing - this Comey hearing is something else entirely. It scars the image of the US President even more than it already is, but it also gives a four-year career extension for legal teams willing to prove the lexicon is so vague and problematic that obstruction of justice is just a liberal media fantasy.

So you think the "cloud" the President referred to meant the entire Russia investigation and not only the Flynn probe?" Yes, says Comey. There you have it. This thing is going to drag forever, interpretation of the Comey testimony is the sexiest job in Americas capital city after the laughs subside over that awkward thing Comey was told: Youre big and strong, why didnt you tell the President he was wrong?

'Why should we believe you?', they asked him and Comey gave the best answer he probably could in the high pressure circumstances: "Why should the US President kick out the Attorney General to speak to me alone in a room?"

Putin recently brushed aside all talk of Russian interference in US Elections, making the distinction between the Russian state and patriotic hackers. Comey. however. is warning during the hearing that "they (the Russians) will be back. They will go at everything."

Russian state TV is making putty of the Comey hearing, starting its news bulletins with a 5 minute story on Washingtons big story - US senators are dreaming about the Kremlin, they are apparently still worrying about the topic of its alleged interference in the US election campaign," the anchor said.

Three days after Trump fired Comey, the president had tweeted that Comey should hope there are "no tapes" of their conversations.

Fired FBI Director James Comey said, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," of his conversations with President Donald Trump.

Kislyak is not just another career diplomat - he trained as a nuclear scientist, was spotted for his powerful intellect and pulled into foreign service in 1977. Even if we ignore all the years from 2008 to 2015, the extraordinary closeness of the Russians via Kislyak with the Trump campaign is not very secret - a lot of those photos are in public domain. "We do not interfere into internal affairs of the United States," both Putin and Kislyak have said. The question then becomes: Did Kislyaks incidental entanglement help Trumps campaign folks  mentioned as "satellite associates" in Comey's testimony  collude with the Russians on the fly?

Kislyak is the fourth Russian Ambassador posted to the U.S. after the breakup of the Soviet Union, his appointment coming during the crash of 2008, a news item that got buried and stayed there. Only until 2010. A full two years after he came to the US, Kislyak pulled out all stops to host a black-tie benefit for the Washington National Opera at a location that recreated haunting images of Russias past glory and cost at least half a million dollars.

Comey puts an official stamp on what is well knownRussia runs a very robust intelligence op in America and makes a crucial note that Sergey Kislyak, Russian Ambassador to the US at the centre of the Russia-Trump probe, is a diplomat and aware of the intelligence ops but not part of it.

President Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz -appointed less than a month ago - will make a statement following James Comey's testimony. Trump hasnt tweeted throughout Comeys testimony. The Trump reset has begun, its inescapable after a hearing like this.

Even as Donald Trump has maintained his silence on social media, the details on the nomination of Christopher A Wray are awaited.

California senator Kamala Harris begins with a touch of humor and sarcasm: If a robber holds a gun to your head and says I hope you will give me your wallet, the word hope would not be of much relevance." (Laughs). You dont have to answer that, she tells Comey, hammering away at Republican senators who had button-holed Comey about the word hope when Trump spoke of how he hoped Comey would let it go.

Comey has not said if Trumps conversations with him amount to obstruction of justice but he has repeatedly left the door open. Similarly, on the other side, there's enough meat in this hearing for them to slam the door shut on the "cloud". This is where special counsel Robert Mueller comes in, it's why being a fly on the wall in the closed door briefing is the bling of the day.

"I was not fired because of the Russia investigation, I think I was fired so that the Russia investigation can be changed in some way," Comey on why Trump got rid of him.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed Comey's testimony when asked about it during an off-camera briefing at the White House, saying "I can definitely say the president's not a liar."

In his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, Comey said that he hopes there are tapes, adding the president should "release all the tapes." He says he's "good with it."

Comey was asked about the possibility that Trump may have recorded their conversations. The president alluded to that possibility in a tweet after he fired Comey in May.

Trump spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference at the same time as former FBI Director James Comey's was testifying before Congress.

President Donald Trump said that he and his supporters "are under siege" but "will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever."

President Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz -appointed less than a month ago - will make a statement following James Comey's testimony. Trump hasnt tweeted throughout Comeys testimony. The Trump reset has begun, its inescapable after a hearing like this.

I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.

Even as Donald Trump has maintained his silence on social media, the details on the nomination of Christopher A Wray are awaited.

California senator Kamala Harris begins with a touch of humor and sarcasm: If a robber holds a gun to your head and says I hope you will give me your wallet, the word hope would not be of much relevance." (Laughs). You dont have to answer that, she tells Comey, hammering away at Republican senators who had button-holed Comey about the word hope when Trump spoke of how he hoped Comey would let it go.

Comey has not said if Trumps conversations with him amount to obstruction of justice but he has repeatedly left the door open. Similarly, on the other side, there's enough meat in this hearing for them to slam the door shut on the "cloud". This is where special counsel Robert Mueller comes in, it's why being a fly on the wall in the closed door briefing is the bling of the day.

"I was not fired because of the Russia investigation, I think I was fired so that the Russia investigation can be changed in some way," Comey on why Trump got rid of him.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed Comey's testimony when asked about it during an off-camera briefing at the White House, saying "I can definitely say the president's not a liar."

James Comey calls on Donald Trump to release any tapes of their meetings that might exist https://t.co/KX5QTFED44 pic.twitter.com/UytTtMwQcH

In his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony, Comey said that he hopes there are tapes, adding the president should "release all the tapes." He says he's "good with it."

Comey was asked about the possibility that Trump may have recorded their conversations. The president alluded to that possibility in a tweet after he fired Comey in May.

Pres. Trump has not directly addressed Comeys testimony but described his administration as being under siege and vowed not to back down. pic.twitter.com/rGLC1oN5to

Trump spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference at the same time as former FBI Director James Comey's was testifying before Congress.

President Donald Trump said that he and his supporters "are under siege" but "will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever."

Assurances to an incoming president that he was not under federal investigation. A president's unprecedented request for loyalty from an FBI director. A "very concerning" request from the president to end an investigation into a devoted presidential appointee. Lawmakers hungry for answers and frustrated by the reticence of national security executives to provide them.

It's been a month of extraordinary drama since President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey, rife with leaked details of private memos detailing awkward interactions with the president and the rare appointment of a special counsel to alleviate concerns of White House interference in an ongoing investigation.

A day before Comey's much-anticipated testimony before the Senate intelligence committee, the former FBI director's prepared remarks were officially released, bringing into public view new details in the Trump-Comey saga.

Here's how we got to this point, and here are some things to expect from the most anticipated congressional hearing in recent memory:

The backstory

The testimony, Comey's first public comments since his 9 May firing, unfolds against the extraordinary backdrop of an FBI investigation that has shadowed the Trump White House from the outset and threatens to cripple its agenda.

At the time he was fired, Comey had been overseeing the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign for months.

The White House's stated reasons for firing Comey were contradicted by the president himself, raising questions about whether Trump had fired Comey to derail the Russia investigation.

The White House initially said Trump was acting on the recommendation of Justice Department leaders, citing as justification a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that lambasted Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation. But Trump gave a different explanation when he said in an NBC News interview that he had already decided to dismiss Comey and was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he did so.

Trump's actions and justifications presented the possibility that Trump's intention was to obstruct justice.

Comey's testimony

Comey, a skilled raconteur who generally tilts in favor of openness, is well-accustomed to the spotlight and in particular to sensational congressional hearings, including one 10 years ago in which he revealed a dramatic hospital room clash with Bush administration officials.

Thursday's testimony before the Senate intelligence committee is expected to be his most dramatic yet.

The official release of Comey's remarks on Wednesday afternoon came shortly after the conclusion of testimony from Comey's former national security peers who refused to answer senators' questions about their own interactions with Trump. There have been reports that the president tried to pressure NSA director Mike Rogers and director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to publicly push back on the investigation.

The former director's prepared remarks answered many of the looming questions:

 Did the president ask Comey for his loyalty? Yes. "I didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said in his written testimony.

 Did the president ask Comey to stop investigating his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn? Yes. "I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December," Comey said.

 How often did Trump and Comey communicate with each other before he was fired? Nine times, Comey said. "Three in person and six on the phone."

 After one of these encounters, did Comey actually tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he did not want to meet with the president alone again? Yes. "I took the opportunity to implore the attorney general to prevent any future direct communication between the president and me," Comey said.

But Republicans are likely to press Comey on why he did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign. Some may attempt to divert attention from Comey's remarks about Trump by focusing on two issues they've repeatedly seized on: Leaks and revealing the names of Americans in intelligence reports.

Any limits?

The White House said Monday it would not invoke executive privilege over Comey's upcoming testimony  officials predicted it would look bad otherwise.

Comey, who is used to not answering lawmakers' questions about ongoing investigations, is not likely to say anything on Thursday that could interfere with, or undercut, the ongoing federal investigation into Russia ties. That investigation is being led by Robert Mueller, Comey's predecessor.

Mueller was appointed as a special counsel by the department last month. The two former FBI directors are known to have warm feelings and respect for each other. A Comey associate has said he obtained Mueller's permission to testify.

On Tuesday, Trump was asked what his message for Comey would be. He said, "I wish him luck."

With inputs from AP
Jottings in a notepad  thats what it's taken to drag Donald Trump's presidency to the edge of a cliff.

Note taking, no spin. Like what good clerks do. Like beat reporters. Like James Comey.

Thursday morning in Washington DC will be like no other in the last few decades. A fired FBI chief will testify before the United States Congress about whether the president of the United States told him to drop an ongoing investigation  an action that many legal scholars interpret as obstruction of justice. The prepared remarks portion of Comey's testimony is already out; it's sensational and is just the beginning of what promises to be a morning of explosive revelations beyond what's already public.

The lowest point in Trumps still new presidency is already here because of one man, who wrote down every single detail of what transpired between him and the president, and two newspapers, that scooped the contents of those memos; papers which have doubled down on an army of reporters, not to burst melons on livestream video but to go after the political establishment, which brands all criticism as fantasy spun by liberals.

Think about it, when was the last time we heard 'memo' and thought of a presidents doom?

From America's coast to coast, in bars and homes, on television screens across the world, people wait to hear what the 6'8'' tall man sitting across a table from the United States president jotted down after meetings and phone calls. Notes he did not lose or misplace; notes he did not take screenshots of and post on social media; conversations that still remain insulated and protected from the slings and arrows of instant judgement, valued because it is rare; minus hashtags, likes, retweets, trends, graphics, GIFs or A/B tests.

Comeys testimony on Thursday has nothing to do with Trumps political elan or foreign policy, everything that follows will be a legal danger for the White House until the matter is closed; it will decide the fortunes of Trump and his cronies, and it may change the minds of his defenders.

From the day Trump announced his bid to contest in the Republican primaries, on a cold morning in 2016, till his shock win in the United States Presidential Election in 2016 and beyond, nothing bad has stuck to him  an inexplicable quality that has left in its trail enemies wringing their hands in utter disbelief.

Some even found a way to justify Americas spasms  a random good jobs report, stock market uptick, unemployment numbers at record lows  as disparate data that proved Trumps rough style a triumph.

The Muslim ban, travel ban, bragging about grabbing and groping women, racist slurs, the unhinged tweeting  no amount of coarse communication or ill temper has shaken Trump from his perch.

Many newspapers now have graveyard shifts just to monitor his online stream; they make for great reads and keep the news desk busy and little else. In Trumps White House, all major announcements are always "coming in a fortnight", the only goods delivered unfailingly are fired from Trumps pocket phone.

Until Comey, that is.

So, how come the Comey memos are haunting Trump? Whats different this time that the Dow sank nearly 400 points for the first time since last year?

Trump, while meeting with Russian officials, called Comey "crazy, a real nut job", adding that firing him had relieved a "great pressure". Trump has said similar things about others, insulting men and women and even the disabled.

Trump has fired many White House staffers, but they just evaporated from the scene or at least didnt make trouble. For that matter, even Comey did not.

Exemplary journalism did. Professionals who carved a niche in their chosen fields did. Beat reporters did  National Security reporters Greg P Miller and Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post, and The New York Times Justice Department reporter, Michael Schmidt.

Not spin, not analysis. They did it with the gold standard of newspaper writing  forceful, simple, investigative stories which told Americans what they did not already know, leaving the spin to cable news networks.

The reportage that has delivered the Comey testimony to America is everything that Trumps twitter timeline is not  the specificity of information and sources in The New York Times and The Washington Post stories after the Comey firing made it impossible for Republicans to brush it aside; even channels like Fox, that regularly flail The New York Times as fake news, went ahead and confirmed the story.

None of this rooted for Trumps demise, the story was dug out and served, minus flourish or analysis. They reported and they waited, they reported on the political fallout after it happened, they did not bay for it  that was left to television.

Now on to the source side. Comeys note taking is not a new love, its an old habit. When he moved from a law firm to government service, he kept notes of conversations with seniors as a routine safety check. During his time with the Bush Administration, he wrote notes on his views against torture, which set him apart from the conservative gaggle. Trump called him a "showboat", a word that Trumps side has latched on to with relish ahead of the Thursday hearing.

They couldn't be farther from the precise quality that has brought Comey so far  the doggedness of a clerk.

From the moment Comey was fired on 9 May, politicos have been waiting for his side of the story. Based on The New York Times and The Washington Post scoops, Trumps own party members called on Comey to testify.

With every word Comey says (in those memos), every man and woman in the Republican Party will gradually attain a certain power over Trumps fate.

Yet, until they pull the plug, Trump will stay on and rage on.

After Richard Nixon resigned, the newly inaugurated Gerald Ford said to his country: My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over our Constitution works.

In reality, it was slightly different though - it was only when the party pulled the plug that Nixon resigned.

It was 7 August, 1974. Three Republican politicians went to the White House to meet Nixon. They had come to tell him they were dumping him. Nixon announced his resignation the following day.

Trump will survive until the Republican Party abandons him. Until now, its been mostly muted support, sometimes silence or even full-throated praise.

A scruffy Twitter feed that comes from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC may be a national embarrassment to some, but it is not (yet) a Constitutional crisis.

Also read: Comey, Mueller, Kushner, Kislyak - next weeks primetime star cast
Washington: Fired FBI director James Comey withheld judgment on Thursday on whether President Donald Trump requests that he drop an investigation into his former national security advisor amounted to obstruction of justice.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning," he said, speaking before the Senate Intelligence Committee in a hearing broadcast live around the world.

"But that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to find out the intention and whether that's an offense," he added, referring to the independent prosecutor placed in charge of the FBI's Russia probe.

Despite Trump's request that he drop the probe into former national security advisor Michael Flynn Russia ties, Comey said no one in the administration ever asked him to drop the FBI's overall investigation into whether anyone in the Trump campaign collaborated with a Russian bid to interfere in the 2016 election.

Asked specifically if Trump made such a request, Comey replied, "Not to my understanding, no."

But he said he took "as direction" the president's words on the Flynn probe when he said "I hope you can let it go."

"He's the president of the United States, with me alone, saying 'I hope this'  I took it as this is what he wants me to do."
Violence in Afghanistan and its bordering nations seems to be getting competitive. Even as Afghanistan suffered one of the worst attacks in its already violent history, terrorists hit Iran's Parliament in a severe attack. While the so-called Islamic State claimed the latter, it is still a puzzle as to who committed the outrage in central Kabul on 31 May, when a tanker filled with explosives killed more than a hundred and injured many in the heart of the city.

Officials estimate that over 1,500 kilogram of explosive was used inside a sewerage tanker. The truck was stopped by police before it could enter the diplomatic area. Though there is no clarity as to who was the target of the attack, its timing, severity and the aftermath clearly weakened President Ashraf Ghani and his objectives in various ways.

First, the attack occurred days before the president was to inaugurate the 'Kabul Peace Process', an attempt by the government to "own" negotiations with the Taliban, that threatened to be in everyones hands but their own. The launching of such an initiative would also have taken into consideration important allies in the neighbourhood and beyond. While the conference did take place amid a virtual lock down in the capital, the message that Kabul was in no position to demand anything of the Taliban  or even their supporters  was clear enough. Negotiations are not carried out over dead bodies of one side alone.

A second weakness of the government was spelt out by the President himself. Earlier, reports had indicated that the explosive-filled tanker had been spotted in Kabul in the early hours of the morning, indicating that security by the Interior Ministry had been lax, if not outright deficient.

In his speech at the conference attended by representatives of more than 20 countries, Ghani appealed for help to stabilise the Interior Ministry and all the organs that it controls, including the police. Corruption is rife, but this is not the first time that the Interior Ministry has been accused of indifference or worse. In July 2016, over 30 police cadets were slaughtered in a training camp on the outskirts of Kabul.

Third, the violent incidents which followed the attack were not part of a typical post-terrorism action-reaction cycle. An outraged crowd gathered to protest and observe a vigil at the attack site without however any untoward incident. The next day, individuals from other organisations joined in with their own agendas. According to reports, flags included those from the Jamiat-e-Islami, those of an earlier government, the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and groups linked to various politicians or former officials.

Protests in Afghanistan do not always turn violent, but this one did, leading to firing on the crowds by an unnamed security force, possibly elements from the Kabul garrison. The resultant death of a reported five persons, predictably channelled anger against the government, and Ghani in particular. The call from political leaders to institute an inquiry against those who fired upon the crowd will have to be considered by the government, in order to appease a (politically-led) crowd that continues to hold vigils at different parts of the city.

Fourth, matters got even more complicated when a day later, suicide bombers attacked a funeral for one of the protestors killed in firing, the son of a prominent Jamiati. Though the mourners included not only Jamiat leaders but also Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and former intelligence head Amrullah Saleh, accusations soon emerged that the attack was a deliberate effort to assassinate Jamiati leaders.

Governor Atta Mohammed Noor was openly accusative while the reported absence of interim Jamiat Leader and Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani from the first day of an international conference indicated the partys disgruntlement. The Jamiat itself has hardly been a united body. Just days earlier, on 23 May, it had increased its Interim Leadership Council from nine to 64 in a bid to accommodate competing ambitions, and with a view to strengthening its base for elections.

Prominent names within the expanded Council were Balkh governor Atta Mohammad Noor, former Herat governor Mohammad Ismail Khan, a former envoy of Ahmad Zia Massoud, and former vice-president Mohammad Younus Qanooni among others. Though squabbling over the appointments broke out almost immediately, the Jamiatis are united on one point  that the National Security Advisor Haneef Atmar be sacked.

Post attack, this view has been cloaked in the justification that all officials responsible for Kabuls security  including the minister of Interior, the national directorate of security, and the defense minister  be dismissed forthwith. As of the time of writing, the government has refused their demands, leading to a higher decibel of confrontation between the Jamiat and the Presidential Palace. Meanwhile, just who launched the attack at the funeral is unclear, given that suicide bombers seem to be available to almost every group with a hand in the conflict.

Fifth, the president's plaintive call for support for his own peace initiative will flounder unless he gets the backing of a substantial number of countries, prepared not only for development assistance but also to pressure Pakistan. After his Interior Ministry squarely blamed the Haqqani group and Pakistani intelligence for the attack, Ghani rather poignantly queried the assembled dignitaries at the conference  including the Pakistani representative  that the puzzle was what Islamabad wanted to achieve in Afghanistan.

Since no one, least of all Pakistanis themselves could have had an answer to his question, the president then offered the Taliban a nationally mandated dialogue at any location and recognition of an office where both sides could meet in safety. In tandem was an appeal to the so-called "international Community" not to talk over the heads of the Afghans, as Russia, China and Pakistan had attempted.

Finally, there was a clear message to neighbours  including India  for recognition that they have a stake in what was no longer an "American war" but Afghan fought and led. In other words, it was an appeal to walk the talk, and assist Afghanistan.

Here, the problem is severe, though hardly unusual given that the phrase "The Great Game" was virtually invented for Afghanistan a century ago.

Russia is once again trying to extend its influence in the region by engaging with the Taliban, whom it had once decried as terrorists. China is supporting that bid, using Pakistan as a forward negotiator. Neither Moscow or Beijing have any love for the Islamists. But both are suspicious of United States' intentions in Afghanistan, even while neither wants to commit their own troops into what is probably the world's worst quagmire.

Both are therefore are willing to swallow a Taliban with 'Russo-Chinese characteristics', in an attempt that is based on false, not to say absurd, assumptions. An increase in United States troops  even the mercurial US president Donald Trump agrees  will be followed by demands that other countries contribute more. After berating Europe for not contributing fully to NATO, the Trump administration and its camp followers are unlikely to pull punches in Asia.

The problem with this approach is that it remains a two-step waltz. Even if all regional countries were to increase financial aid substantially to Afghanistan, Pakistan can simply increase its own assistance to the Taliban at a fraction of the cost. So far, as reports from Pakistan are available, the military believes that it can "win" in Afghanistan.

More practically, the continued reimbursement of funds by the United States for the costs that Pakistan incurs in 'supporting' its operations in Afghanistan, provides a key support to the economy by boning up Foreign Exchange reserves. So, to answer Ghanis question, a part of Pakistan wants the Afghan war to continue, until the time Islamabad can dominate the country. Nobody of course asked the other half, the people of Pakistan, what they want.

Most long time Afghanistan watchers are calling for a bigger role for China in reining in the Pakistanis. Certainly, it has a huge influence in the country and has its own motivation in terms of the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese projects may not benefit Afghans to the extent that is imagined but thats another story. The problem is that this undoubted influence does not seem to have been used effectively. So far, it is Islamabad that jogs Beijings elbow.

Chinese and Indian objectives in Afghanistan are not dissimilar, particularly in ensuring that the present Afghan government is not toppled and replaced by political infighting. India has immense influence in Afghanistan that it may use to fulfil Chinese objectives  for a price. The core of that would be built around an effort to reduce the "all weather" Pakistan-China relationship to one that operates only during the sunshine hours. Trade across parts of the Asian continent in return for a retreat from the darkness of covert war. Surely that is fair game.

The author is former director of the National Security Council Secretariat
Kabul: Afghan authorities warned anti-government protesters of legal action on Thursday as demonstrators set up new sit-in camps around Kabul, raising security alarm after a week of deadly bombings and street clashes.

Tensions are high in Kabul since a truck bomb last Wednesday killed more than 150 people and wounded hundreds in Kabul's fortified diplomatic quarter, in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.

Protesters enraged by spiralling insecurity have established sit-in camps in at least six locations around Kabul, including one near the bombing site, demanding the resignation of President Ashraf Ghani's government.

Ghani has roundly rejected the demand, including calls to sack his powerful national security advisor Hanif Atmar, while demanding an immediate end to the protests.

"We ask our countrymen to end their protests which have caused problems considering the sensitive security situation and open the roads for traffic", the presidential palace said in a statement.

"If the protests continue, the government will take legal action against the demonstrators to ensure security for our people."

But the protesters are refusing to give in despite insurgent threats still looming on the city.

"We must clearly say that any use of force against our civil protest will lead to catastrophe," protest leader Asaar Hakimi warned on Facebook.

"We will continue our protests until our demands are met."

Last Friday at least four people were killed when hundreds of protesters clashed with police, prompting officials to beat them back with live rounds in the air, tear gas and water cannon.

The attacks have exacerbated tensions between rival ethnic groups and raised the prospect of a political crisis.

Foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani, who heads the mainly Tajik Jamiat political group, also called on Ghani an ethnic Pashtun to dismiss Atmar.

Rabbani survived an attack at the funeral of one of the protesters on Saturday where suicide bombers tore through a row of mourners. He blamed "terrorists within the system" for the blasts, suggesting it was an inside job.

The government has accused the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network of Wednesday's bombing and said the funeral was targeted by bombers trained at a religious seminary in Pakistan.
Islamabad: Pakistan will recommend three names to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case filed by India for stay of the death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, a media report said.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan, Ashtar Ausaf will present the names to the court.

A meeting of "agents" from India and Pakistan is to be held with the ICJ's president Ronny Abraham on Thursday to discuss future proceedings in the case.

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali have been recommended as ad-hoc appointees at the United Nations court, Dunya News reported.

The Pakistani team that will meet the ICJ president includes the attorney general and director general (DG) of South Asia affairs, Dr Faisal. Pakistan's counsel, Barrister Khawar Qureshi along with two senior lawyers is also part of the Pakistani delegation at the ICJ, the daily said.

India approached the United Nations court last month seeking stay on the execution of Jadhav, which the court granted.

Counsel for Pakistan Khawar Qureshi maintained that responsibility to punish terrorists lies with all the countries. Qureshi had told the court that the issue revolved around national stability of Pakistan and the ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to rule over such case.

Pakistan will not be deterred in the fight against terrorism and those sponsoring terror can not shake its resolve, the counsel said.

Qureshi said that India has acknowledged Jadhav as its national. Jadhav was tried by a military court in Pakistan in April and awarded death sentence on charges of spying and posing a threat to national security.

Pakistan has said that Jadhav will not be executed till he "exhausts all his mercy appeals", which include one with the president of Pakistan.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on 8 May. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on 3 March last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.
Yangon: Myanmar's military was on Thursday scouring the waves for more than 120 people missing after their plane vanished flying over the Andaman Sea.

Nine navy ships and three air force planes have been dispatched to search for the aircraft, which disappeared as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update, the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chief's office said in a statement.

"Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school," said a spokesman from the military's information team.

Fears are growing that the aircraft may have crashed into the Andaman Sea. It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.

Sources told AFP that debris had been found in the sea off the coastal town of Dawei, which lies an hour's flight south-east of Yangon.

The commander-in-chief's office said the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 1.35 pm on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

The military named the captain of the Chinese-made Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

Myanmar's military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
Seoul: North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, the latest in an accelerating series of tests defying global pressure to rein in its weapons program.

The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Pyongyang in response to recent ballistic missile tests.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the defence ministry said.

The short range missiles flew for some 200 kilometres (124 miles) at an altitude of two kilometres before falling into the Sea of Japan, the ministry added.

Thursday's launches are the North's fifth round of tests  three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile and now the cruise missiles  since the South's new president Moon Jae-in took power in early May.

"The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-Hyun.

Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people," Moon said, according to his spokesman.

Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability," a spokesman for South Korea's joint chiefs of staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions.

Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns".

Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions.

"North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations, but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US president Donald) Trump," he added.

The UN Security Council on last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to the recent tests.

North Korea described the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and warned they would not stop its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks  and not more sanctions  is its priority.

The new tests come a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile defence system  an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

'Provocative actions'

"North Korea has been stepping up missile tests in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea".
Islamabad: Pakistan Army Thursday said it has dismantled Islamic State's infrastructure in the troubled Balochistan province and killed 12 hardcore terrorists, including two suicide bombers, in an operation last week.

The security forces conducted an operation in Mastung area of the province from 1 to 3 June on actionable intelligence, said an army statement, releasing details of the three-day long operation.

"The successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect ISIS organized infrastructure in Balochistan (province of) Pakistan, also foiled terrorist incidents in Pakistan," it said.

It said that there were reports of 10-15 terrorists of banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangivi Al-Aalmi (LeJA) hiding in caves near Isplingi mountains, 36 kms south east of Mastung.

"The said organisation was reportedly making efforts for communication with ISIS (Daesh) and intended to facilitate establishment of ISIS foothold in Balochistan," it said.

Operation for physical clearance of target area, spread over 10 kilometres, started early morning on 1 June and it continued for three days as terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance.

The army said 250 meter long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging but the intelligence and security forces personnel fought valiantly to clear the hideout by 3 June.

"During exchange of fire, 12 hardcore terrorists including 2 suicide bombers were killed," it said, adding that five security forces personnel including 2 officers were also injured in the operation.

The suicide bomber used against Deputy Chairman of the Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on 12 May was also sent by this group from the same hideout.

During the operation, security forces destroyed a bomb making facility inside cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kilograms of explosive, 3 suicide jackets, 18 grenades, 6 rocket launchers, 4 light machine guns, 18 small machine guns, 4 sniper rifles, 38 communication sets and huge ammunition of various types.

Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa appreciated effort of Southern Command, intelligence agencies and the troops for the successful operation.
Washington: Pakistan's top diplomat in the US was laughed at by a Washington audience when he repeatedly insisted that there are no safe sanctuaries for terrorists in Pakistan and that the Taliban leader, who reportedly died in a hospital in Karachi, never left Afghanistan.

"What is there funny about (sic)?" a visibly irritated Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the Pakistan Ambassador to the US, told a Washington think-tank audience which burst into laughter when he repeatedly argued that there is no terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and that Mullah Omar never left Afghanistan to visit Pakistan.

The reality is, however, different, argued former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as his country's ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN.

"We have very firm evidence of his (Mullah Omar) presence in Pakistan, where he went, lived," he said, adding that for a long time, there was the idea that bin Laden never left Afghanistan.

"There is ample evidence that while the operation was going on, Haqqani network was being evacuated to safer location," the former US Ambassador to Pakistan said during a panel discussion on 'Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan', at the Atlantic Councils South Asia Center.

Chaudhry appeared to be isolated as two other panelists  the former Indian minister Manish Tewari and top American think-tank expert Ashley Tellis  joined Khalilzad to say that terrorist safe havens continues to exist in Pakistan and there is level of support from the Pakistani establishment.

"What sanctuaries you are talking about? If you want to live in the past, you cannot solve the present. Haqqani and the Taliban are not our friends. They are not our proxies. What Quetta Shura you are talking about? What Peshawar Shura?" the Pakistani Ambassador questioned to an amused Washington audience, who was witness to sharp debate between him and Khalilzad. The panel discussion had an abrupt end as the two exchanged words.

Tellis said while the safe havens continue to exist in Pakistan, a great deal of financial and personnel supply does come from Afghanistan. But there is no denying that the Taliban leadership are based in Pakistan, he said.

Tewari said it is time that Pakistan should introspect as to why the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who went to Rawalpindi to meet the Pakistan Army Chief has turned against Pakistan. Ghani is actually constrained to say Pakistan is having an undeclared war with Afghanistan.

"Those are extremely strong statements coming from the head of state," he said.

During the question and answer session, a Afghan diplomat, Muhammad Asad, and an Afghan woman journalist Nazira Karimi of Ariana television joined the three other panelist to challenge Chaudhry's assertion about terrorist safe haven.

"Our allegation is evidence based," Asad said adding that while the carrot formula has not worked, it is time for the US to look the other way around. Karimi referred to the allegations of US lawmakers about continued terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which he dismissed.

The Pakistan Ambassador said his country wants a peaceful, stable, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan.

"Afghan soil should not be used against Pakistan. Other than that, we want to facilitate reconciliation...Just blaming Pakistan all the time will not help. What will help is recognise what Pakistan has done for Afghanistan," he said.

Chaudhry also accused India of being a part of a "double squeeze strategy".

Asserting that India has a "strategic" interest in Afghanistan, he alleged that this is part of the "double squeeze strategy" of New Delhi against Islamabad.

"India does have strategic interest in Afghanistan. It could be part of the double squeeze strategy against Pakistan. To that end an Afghanistan that is not stable would serve India's purpose and that's why India is opposing reconciliation with Taliban of any kind," Chaudhry told a Washington audience.

Participating in a panel discussion on "Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan", at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, Chaudhry accused India of trying to be a "hegemonic" power in the region.
Paris: French president Emmanuel Macron has urged the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Qatar to engage in dialogue and defuse the crisis which has pitted Doha against its Gulf neighbours.

Macron spoke on Wednesday separately with Qatari ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Saudi King Salman and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and "invited all parties to pursue dialogue," Macron's office said.

Saudi Arabia and allies including the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on Monday cut diplomatic ties with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council member Qatar over claims that Doha supports extremism.

Qatar strongly denies the allegations.

The Saudi-led alliance has imposed an economic blockade on Qatar and called on the small gas-rich state to change its policies and to halt its alleged support to extremist groups including the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Hamas movement.

Macron on Wednesday assured the Gulf leaders he spoke with of "his wish to maintain stability in the region" and to keep up the fight "against terrorism and the financing of all terrorist movements".

The French president had already talked with the Qatari emir on Tuesday, as well as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who backs Doha, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan.

A presidency spokesman said Macron would continue his mediation in coming days.

During his discussion with Iranian leader Rouhani on Wednesday, Macron offered his condolences to the families of the 13 people killed by gunmen and suicide bombers in Tehran, the first attack in Iran by the Islamic State group.
Washington: US president Donald Trump has proposed to convene a summit to resolve the crisis caused by the decision of Saudi Arabia followed by several other countries to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.

Trump spoke by telephone with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, on Wedmesday and offered to host the meeting if it would help them resolve their differences, the White House said in a statement.

"The president emphasised the importance of all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organisations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology in his call with the Qatari ruler," the White House said.

The White House did not specify if the meeting proposed by Trump would include just the member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council  Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia  or also other nations which have joined the diplomatic boycott of Qatar, Efe news reported.

So far, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Mauritania and the Maldives have broken diplomatic ties with Qatar, while Jordan has announced that it will reduce its diplomatic representation in that country and Senegal has called its envoy to the emirate home for consultations.

The rupture is based on the accusation that the Qatari government finances terrorist organisations, including the Islamic State, Al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood, an accusation that Qatar has denied.

Kuwait is trying to mediate in the conflict and US secretary of state Rex Tillerson on Monday offered Washington's help in resolving the dispute, but Trump himself had not offered to become involved as a mediator until now.

Trump's call to the Qatari emir comes a day after the president spoke by telephone with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdelaziz and expressed to him the importance of unity against terrorism in the Persian Gulf.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set off on a two-day visit to Astana, Kazakhstan ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit to take place on Thursday and Friday.

Delhi: PM Narendra Modi departs for Astana (Kazakhstan) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. pic.twitter.com/gpDuyJef9J  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement on Wednesday.

The SCO  that was founded in 1996 with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, China, Tajikistan as founder members  is set to welcome India and Pakistan as permanent members of the body at this year's summit.

Here is what else will be taking place at this year's edition of the summit:

- Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Modi, following their arrival in Astana on Thursday, will attend a banquet hosted by Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

- Modi will also attend the World Expo 2017, an international expo in Astana.

- A meeting between Modi and Chinese president Xi Jinping is likely to take place on Friday.

- At the SCO Council of National Coordinators meeting the representatives of SCO member states will address issues on how to further the progressive development of cooperation of SCO member states and observer states.

Ahead of the summit, a meeting of the SCO Business Council's board took place on Wednesday with Kazakhstani representatives chairing the event.
New Delhi: India and Kazakhstan on Thursday discussed ways to expand their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties. pic.twitter.com/S8dNSCLo6A  PMO India (@PMOIndia) June 8, 2017

Modi arrived in Astana earlier in the day to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit on Friday, during which India is expected to be granted full membership of the group. India has an observer status at present.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the SCO Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the organisation after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.

However, according to external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, there has been no request from either side for a bilateral meeting between Modi and Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif who is also in Astana for the summit.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Astana: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join leaders of China, Russia and leading Central Asian countries in deliberating ways to contain terrorism and boost trade at the SCO Summit in Astana on Friday in the backdrop of a series of major terror strikes in several countries.

Modi is likely to pitch for a concerted global action plan to contain terrorism at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit which is also being attended by Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Russian president Vladimir Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani are among the prominent leaders who will participate in the Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the grouping, in its first ever expansion.

The Summit is also likely to deliberate on granting full membership to Iran. It is taking place in the aftermath of a series of terrorist strikes in London, Tehran and Afghanistan.

Diplomatic sources said combating terrorism will be discussed at length by the leaders apart from deliberating on boosting trade among member countries.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focuses mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.
Iran said on Thursday that the five Iranians who killed 17 people in twin attacks in Tehran were Islamic State group members who had been to its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks on Wednesday at Tehran's parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded more than 50 people and were the first claimed by Islamic State (IS) in Iran.

"The five known terrorists... after joining the IS terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the ministry said in a statement.

It suggested there were only five attackers rather than the six originally reported.

The ministry released their photographs and first names, and said they were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of "high-ranking IS commander" Abu Aisha intending to carry out "terrorist operations in religious cities".

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee the country, the statement said. It was not clear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of Wednesday's attacks.

Iran denounced Donald Trump's reaction to the attacks as "repugnant" after the US president said the nation was reaping what it sowed.

Trump said the United States would "grieve and pray" for the victims, but added: "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

That was condemned by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: "Repugnant White House statement... as Iranians counter-terror backed by US clients."

'Terrorist network'

The attackers were armed with rifles and pistols and at least two blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police said a further five people were arrested around Khomeini's shrine on suspicion of involvement.

In the midst of the unfolding attacks, the intelligence ministry said a third team had been stopped before the attacks started, but no further details have since been given.

"The network of this terrorist group has been identified and some of its members have been arrested," Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi said.

"We still cannot judge that Saudi Arabia has had a role in this terrorist incident," he added.

Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have pointed the finger at regional rival Saudi Arabia  a close US ally  which Iran accuses of funding extremism and groups including IS.

IS has threatened to step up recruitment within Iran, releasing its first Persian-language video in March in which it threatened to "conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before."

The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iran to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.

'Counter-productive'

Trump's comments brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government's offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 in the United States.

"Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy," tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

The US president has long accused Iran of backing terrorism and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

Trump's statement is "counter-productive and further narrows the opportunity for engagement between the US and Iran on countering a common enemy," said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Even as Washington expressed its condolences on Wednesday, the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran, partly for what the bill described as the Iranian regime's "support for acts of international terrorism".

Sunni Gulf Arab states are in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis after Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with Qatar on Monday over claims it supports extremism and has fewer tensions with Iran.

Iranian leaders sought to play down the attacks, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: "These firecrackers that happened today will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people."
Ankara: Turkey's Grand National Assembly on Wednesday approved draft bill allowing the deployment of troop to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

According to Xinhua, the bill includes two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military officer training cooperation.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday expressed disapproval of the sanctions imposed on Qatar by several Arab countries.

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AKP Party and nationalist opposition MHP.

The new move appears to support Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, claiming it of "terrorism support."
London: Following the Second World War, Britain raised a call for immigrants of good stock to aid in the rebuilding efforts in the country. The demand, however, was aimed at white immigrants from areas in Eastern Europe that had been equally devastated by the war, such as Poland and the Baltic states.

Instead what occurred, much to the horror of the government, was the arrival of migrants from former colonies, such as the West Indies and India. Because of their status as citizens of the Commonwealth, such migrants enjoyed unrestricted access to the country.

The arrival of the Empire Windrush, in 1948, bearing 492 immigrants from the West Indies to London symbolised the change in migration patterns in the UK, as well as solidifying fears about coloured migrants coming into the country.

The first real influx of people from the Indian subcontinent began in the 1950s and 1960s, however. The 1948 Nationality Act had granted the right of free entry into Britain to all former imperial subjects, but that did not mean they were welcome.

In 1955, a draft White Paper was produced by the Colonial Office which argued that policies aimed at restricting entry into the UK would be inherently racially biased, given that the majority of migrants were not coloured but in fact Irish. Nonetheless fears motivated by the presence of the outsiders continued to grow, exacerbated by a perception that new migrants from Pakistan and India were unskilled and unable to speak English.

These fears led to the first major set of restrictions in the form of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigration Act. The Home Secretary of the time, Richard Rab Butler, a Conservative minister who first made a name for himself by helping to pass the 1935 Government of India Act, oversaw the establishment of three distinctions of work visas for those who did not possess British passports. This was also the first time a cap was established, limiting the number of migrants to 30,000 per year.

Despite their vociferous opposition to the Act, once a Labour government was formed in 1964 the popularity of the Act meant they were reluctant to abolish it. On the contrary, it was strengthened a year later by reducing the number of visas that would be granted per year to 8,500, as well as tightening entry requirements.

It is important to note that the fears of immigration, inflamed by racist rhetoric at the highest levels of Whitehall that Britain was being invaded by non-Whites who would steal jobs and housing from God-fearing Englishmen, were utterly incorrect. By the end of 1966, less than 2 percent of all immigrants to the UK were non-Whites; and data collected by the Runnymede Trust showed that the total population of coloured migrants in the UK was 1.6 million in 1951, and 3 million in 1971.

But the inflammatory remarks at the highest echelons of political office would continue, culminating in several further pieces of restrictive legislation specifically aimed at stopping Indian migrants from entering the country: even those seeking refuge.

In 1967, the Kenyan government, which had achieved Independence under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta four years earlier, announced an aggressive Africanisation policy towards communities which resided in the country but still retained their British citizenship.

This adversely targeted the Indian Kenyan population who were deemed to be disloyal and faced severe economic and political discrimination in favour of the native black population. Because of this many decided to take advantage of their citizenship, and left to seek their fortunes in Britain.

The British government had been closely monitoring the situation in Kenya. The decisions of the Kenyatta administration alarmed them greatly, because these were non-White citizens returning home; and there existed no legislation that could be used to stop British passport holder. Yet.

In 1986 the Second Commonwealth Immigrants Act was passed in just three days of Parliament. Expressly aimed as a response to the East African Indian exodus, the new Act made all British passport holders subject to immigration controls unless they, a parent, or a grandparent had been born or naturalised in the UK.

More than 200,000 Indians from Kenya were affected by the Bill, which in one fell swoop violated both their rights as British citizens and as refugees.

The Times of London at the time called the move by the Harold Wilson government the most shameful measure that Labour members have ever been asked to support by their whips.

Home Secretary James Callaghan publicly refuted all claims that the Bill was racialist in origin or concept. In private however, as declassified documents in 1999 revealed, a desire to keep non-White British citizens out of the country was the major impetus behind the act.

A reasonable case could be put up in reply to international criticism on the ground that the Asian community in East Africa are not nationals of this country in any racial sense and that the obligations imposed, for example, by the European Convention on Human Rights do not therefore apply, wrote cabinet secretary Sir Burke Trend in a confidential memo dated 14 February to the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Ever the cautious one, Wilson had ordered Callaghan to further research Trends argument and ensured that it was airtight before the bill was debated in the Parliament.

British hysteria and racial prejudice, already galvanised by the Labour governments act, would culminate barely two weeks later in the infamous Rivers of Blood speech by hard-right Conservative MP Enoch Powell.

Opening with an allusion to the Latin epic The Aeneid, Powell went on to say that the British government had to put their own kind  White, Christian, English  ahead of any migrants; perhaps the most blatant articulation of racism that post-war Britain had seen.

We must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependents, who are for the most part the material of the future growth of the immigrant descended population, he said. It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.

While he was lambasted by members of his own party, Powell, who has since become a figurehead for the assorted far right organisations in contemporary Britain, ranging from fringe parties like UKIP and the British National Party to Neo-Nazis, captured public sentiment perfectly. Indeed, his comments indirectly led to a surprise victory by the Conservative party in the 1970 General Elections.

Zealous in their responsibility to stop this imagined flood of immigrants, the Heath government would pass the last of the great restrictive acts in the 20th century: The 1971 Immigration Act. Carrying on from its predecessors, this piece of legislation eliminated the right of permanent migration for workers from the Commonwealth, instituted new work permits which form the basis for the current work visas, and expanded on the rights of patrials as defined by the 1968 Act.

This Act would face its first challenge in 1972, when the President of Uganda, Idi Amin, ordered the expulsion of the countrys Indian community which numbered around 80,000 at the time. While Amins decision was motivated by a backdrop of Indophobia, similar to the actions of Kenyatta a few years earlier, his methods were far more brutal: denouncing them as bloodsuckers, the dictator warned that Indians who remained in Uganda after 8 November would be imprisoned in military camps.

Recognising the very real threat to their lives, the British Government established the Uganda Resettlement Board despite criticism, and through it helped permanently resettle 28, 165 members of the Uganda Asian community by 1973.

British immigration restrictions would begin to ease as the new millennium approached, as multiculturalism and EU mandates on freedom of movement began to play a role in policy decisions.

The rhetoric employed during the Brexit campaign, playing on fears of outsiders and blaming immigrants for a lack of economic growth  effectively articulating a return to the old position of Britain for the British  may have played a part in the recent restrictions on immigrants to the country, particularly from India.

Given their history, perhaps that isnt so surprising, however. In the wake of the collapse of the Empire, British legislators concealed their uncertainty, concerns, and discriminatory behaviour towards those they once ruled over under a thin veneer of English tolerance.

And depending on which party triumphs on Thursday, that veneer, already weakened by the decision to exit the European Union, may crack.

This is the second and final part of a series on British immigration policy towards Indian immigrants. The first part looked at current legislation and the proposed changes in the manifestos of the three major parties.
Britons streamed to the polls for the third time in two years on Thursday after a campaign dominated by terror attacks and the uncertainty of Brexit.

Prime Minister Theresa May called the snap vote in April, when opinion poll ratings for her and her centre-right Conservative party were sky-high, presenting herself as the strong leader to steer the country through tough negotiations to leave the EU.

Although polls make her favourite to win, Islamist attacks in London and Manchester have put her under pressure, while campaign missteps have dented her reputation as a safe pair of hands.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner deemed unelectable by three-quarters of his own lawmakers, has run an energetic campaign, promising change and an end to austerity.

Security was heightened as millions cast their ballots in polling stations ranging from schools and public buildings to churches, pubs and even a windmill and a launderette.

An exit poll at 2100 GMT (2.30 am IST) will give an indication of the outcome, although the final picture will not begin to emerge until early Friday.

Pollsters wary

Polling experts  many of whom failed to predict the historic referendum vote to leave the European Union last year  are somewhat wary of calling the outcome.

But predictions of her expected margin of victory vary widely, and one shock model even predicted May could lose her working majority of 17 in the 650-seat House of Commons.

A final projection published Thursday by pollster Michael Ashcroft predicted a Conservative majority of 76 seats, gaining ground as Labour and the Scottish nationalists slip back.

A final poll by YouGov on Wednesday put the Conservatives seven points ahead of Labour, while ICM gave May's party a 12-point lead over its rivals.

Such predictions stand in stark contrast to a Monday poll by Survation, which gave a narrow one-point gap.

While May has been touring target seats around the country, delivering slogan-heavy speeches in workplaces, Corbyn has drawn large crowds to open-air rallies.

May, 60, has presented herself as uniquely qualified for the Brexit talks starting on 19 June and said her 68-year-old rival would be "alone and naked in the negotiating chamber".

"Get those negotiations wrong and the consequences will be dire," she said on a final campaign stop on Wednesday.

Corbyn, a veteran socialist who has never held ministerial office and defied the odds to win the Labour leadership two years ago, urged supporters in Glasgow to think big on his last day of campaigning.

"Wouldn't it be great if on Friday we woke up to... a Labour government that will be a government for all of our communities across the whole of the country," he said.

During polling hours, the London stock market and the pound slid.

The FTSE 100 index, which initially rose and then eased back, ended the day with a loss of 0.4 percent. While the pound dipped, it was still holding on to gains made after May called the election.

'Exhausted by government'

It is the third time Britons have been called to vote since 2015, twice for a general election and once for the EU referendum, and voter fatigue appeared to be an issue for some.

In Halifax in northern England, voter Alicia Milner, 20, said: "A lot of my family aren't voting, which I'm shocked at, just because they're tired of, exhausted by government."

The election is May's first since taking office after Britons voted by 52 percent to leave the EU after four decades of membership.

"I want another five years of stability, and a stronger hand in Brexit negotiations," said Dave, 29, in the London neighbourhood of Hackney.

"The main issue for me is getting along with Brexit," added Fabrizio, 42, in the wealthy London district of South Kensington.

But Labour has pounced on the Conservative government's spending cuts to bring down the budget deficit.

The Conservatives were also damaged by a manifesto plan for elderly care that would see some pay more.

The campaign was hit by a suicide bombing at a Manchester concert on 22 May, which killed 22 people, followed by Saturday's knife and van attack in central London, which left eight dead.

Campaigning was twice suspended in the aftermath of the attacks, which May blamed on "evil" Islamist ideology.

Uncomfortable questions

The Conservatives are traditionally strong on defence and security, and have sought to exploit Corbyn's anti-nuclear stance and his links to Irish paramilitaries.

But May also faced uncomfortable questions over cuts to police numbers during her years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016.

May and Corbyn both cast their votes in their respective constituencies of Maidenhead, southern England, and Islington, north London.

In a frequently ill-tempered campaign, there was light relief as thousands of voters brought their pooches to the polling stations, posting their pictures on Twitter using the hashtag #dogsatpollingstations.

One voter near Reading in southeast England turned up to cast her ballot on her horse, Splash.
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Millions of people across the UK are set to vote in the general election under the two deadly terror attacks that rocked the country in the past three weeks. Voting will begin at 7 am UK time (11.30 am IST) in over 40,000 polling stations across the country, the BBC reported.

To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats.

A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote. Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting. A handful of seats will be declared by Thursday midnight, with the final results expected on Friday afternoon.

Theresa May's ruling Conservatives are on 44 percent, Labour at 34 percent, the Liberal Democrats at 9 percent, with far-right UKIP at 5 per cent, the Scottish National Party (SNP) at 4 per cent and the Green Party at 2 percent.Betfair, another leading bookmaker, also views the Tories as the odds-on favourite to winthe general election, with odds of 1/12.

The final pre-poll survey done by Comres for the Independent newspaper gives the Tories a 10-point lead over the Labour part.

Polling Stations are usually set up at public buildings and schools and the easiest way to find out your polling centre is by checking the election card that you may have recieved by post. You can also visit About My Vote website to find out more details. Since the polling will start at around 7 am (EST) and remain open till 10 pm, there would be plenty of time to caste your vote.

The Liberal Democrats have been focused on their Remain-voting target seats, while the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) has stuck to its central message of ensuring there is no back-tracking on Brexit.

Brexit is expected to be the central factor behind voting patterns, including for the estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters.

Britain's election this year appears tighter than expected, as Brexit negotiations draw closer and threat from terrorism looms large over the country. Even polling experts  many of whom failed to predict the referendum vote to leave the European Union last year  are now wary of calling the outcome.

According to a report in Independent a record numbers of people registered to vote on the final day (Wednesday), with almost 600,000 names added to the electoral roll within 24 hours.

The Scottish Nationalists (left), Welsh nationalists Plaid Cymru (left) and four parties from Northern Ireland also won seats at the last general election in 2015.

The main parties across the whole of Britain are the Conservatives (centre-right), led by Theresa May, and Labour (left), led by Jeremy Corbyn, followed by the Liberal Democrats (centre-left), the UK Independence Party (populist) and the Greens (left).

Tim Farron has launched a last-ditch plea for Labour voters to back the party in it's strongholds, touring cities like including London, Bath and Oxford that have traditionally voted for the party, The Guardian reported.

It's 7 am (EST) and the polling stations have opened as much remains at stake in the tight race competition. The outcome of the polls will determine who gets to negotiate Britain's departure from the EU over the next two years, and the strength of mandate that the government will have in parliament for five years.

Theresa May, said "enough is enough" and vowed to clamp down on extremism, even if that means watering down human rights laws. Corbyn has promised to fund an extra 10,000 police officer jobs.

The deadly terror attacks just weeks ahead of the elections have pushed national security to the top of the agenda in Britain's snap election, which anyway entailed high-stakes owing to the Brexit negotions facing the country. The key candidates have all vowed to take a tough stance in uprooting terrorism.

Of late, with the rise of the social media, British citizens have given rise to a unique trend by posting pictures of their dogs at the polling station. It's now a staple part of any election or vote in the country since the general elections of 2015. The trend also reappeared during the EU referendum, and today it's again doing rounds as Britishers walk their dogs to the polling stations.

Barely an hour after polling stations opened in Britain, more people were reading about Singer Shania Twain's concert than about election related news. News of twain throwing a surprise concert in London topped Google trends, while election related keywords ranked at the third spot.

"I have little confidence in anybody," added voter Simon Bolton, 41. "I think we lack quality in terms of who we can choose, it is very limited."

"I don't think it has really been a campaign, we don't know anything about what they are going to do about Brexit, it's been pointless really," said Joe Kerney, 53, at a polling station in Hackney, east London.

It is the third time Britain has gone to the polls in two years, twice for a general election and once for the EU referendum, and voter fatigue appeared to be an issue among the early voters.

With no policy change expected, market players are focusing on how the central bank may alter its economic assessment and policy guidance in light of a strengthening euro zone economy.

Asian stocks benchmarks were fairly steady Thursday as investors parsed economic data and awaited market-moving events in Europe, including Britain's general election and a European Central Bank meeting. "MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS was little changed, through China edged up on unexpectedly solid trade data, while Japan's Nikkei .N225 dropped 0.4 percent," according to Reuters.

May and her Brexit minister David Davis have repeatedly warned that "no deal is better than a bad deal", particularly when it comes to a 100-billion-euro exit bill that Brussels is demanding.

"A big punch-up or blow-up is not unlikely" after Brexit negotiations formally start, an EU source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

While many in Brussels still bet on Prime Minister Theresa May's return to power, despite a fading poll lead, the real focus is on British threats to walk out when the talks start.

The EU is steeling for a possible collapse of Brexit negotiations whoever wins Britain's increasingly close general election this week, officials and analysts say.

According to a report in Mirror , "one brave Paddy Power punter placed a cool 75,000" bet on the Conservative party emerging as the single largest party in the poll outcomes. The massive bet was made at odds of 1/14, meaning a potential return of just over 80,000, the report said.

According to The Guardian , early voters in Northern Ireland braced bad weather to cast their votes. Heavy showers, possibly hail and thunder was reported in many regions this morning, however, the bad weather is likely to moderate later in the day.

Follow this space for the profiles of all the key candidates.

In Britain's one of most crucial general elections, the country will be be choosing its leader who will steer it through the Brexit negotiations. In a Tory vs Labour war, adds are favouring Conservative Theresa May. However, Labour Jeremy Corby is perceived to be the strongest Labour contender in recent times.

Terrorism: "I'm clear: if human rights laws get in the way of tackling extremism and terrorism, we will change those laws to keep British people safe," May said. She has said "enough is enough" and vowed to clamp down on extremism, even if that means watering down human rights laws.

Brexit: May has already outlined her negotiating demands, saying she will seek a departure from the European Union's single market and an end to free movement of people.

Immigration: May has promised that Britain will end freedom of movement with European citizens following Brexit.

In the blue corner  traditional color of the Conservative Party  is Theresa May, a 60-year-old lawmaker known in her party as a quietly effective operator. A former advocate of remaining in the EU, she now promises to press forward with Brexit, taking Britain out of the bloc, reducing immigration and forging a new relationship with the UK's European neighbors. Here's what her stand has been on key issues.

"I'm very proud of our campaign," he said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn grinned broadly and gave the thumbs-up to reporters and party workers as he voted in Islington, north London.

A smiling May did not speak to media as she and her husband Philip voted in the village of Sonning on the River Thames in her Maidenhead constituency.

A flurry of opinion polls on Wednesday gave Theresa May's Conservatives a lead ranging between one and 12 percentage points over the main opposition Labour Party, suggesting she would increase her majority - but not win the landslide foreseen when she called the election seven weeks ago.

May unexpectedly called the snap election seven weeks ago to increase the slim majority she had inherited from predecessor David Cameron and strengthen her hand before launching into arduous divorce talks with the European Union, set to start in just over a week.

The exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats in the 650-member parliament and the leftist opposition Labour Party 266 -- a "hung parliament" with no clear winner.

Theresa May spectacularly lost her electoral gamble, according to an exit poll that suggested her Conservatives would fall short of a majority in parliament, throwing her Brexit plans into disarray.

May unexpectedly called the snap election seven weeks ago to increase the slim majority she had inherited from predecessor David Cameron and strengthen her hand before launching into arduous divorce talks with the European Union, set to start in just over a week.

The exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats in the 650-member parliament and the leftist opposition Labour Party 266 -- a "hung parliament" with no clear winner.

Theresa May spectacularly lost her electoral gamble, according to an exit poll that suggested her Conservatives would fall short of a majority in parliament, throwing her Brexit plans into disarray.

The main opposition Labour party, led by leftist Jeremy Corbyn, was on course to increase its number of seats from 229 to 266, according to the joint exit poll by Sky, the BBC and ITV.

The exit poll published as voting closed late Thursday projected May's party could fall from 330 to 314 seats, short of an overall majority in the 650-seat House of Commons.

The pound fell sharply amid fears that the Conservative leader will be unable to form a government and could even be forced out of office, after a troubled campaign overshadowed by two terror attacks.

"It is exactly the opposite of why she held the election and she then has to go and negotiate Brexit in that weakened position."

"It if turns out as the exit polls are suggesting then Theresa May is going to have no parliamentary majority or a tiny one," said Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics.

Theresa May is now facing questions over her judgment in calling the election three years early, risking further upheaval as Britain negotiates a complicated exit from the European Union, the first country to leave the bloc.

Jeremy Corbyn is all smiles as he arrives at the counting centre

So how did it all go wrong for the punters yet again? To read more, click The Economist's coverage here

In the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential elections, betting markets and punters all got the outcome wrong. But they seem to not have learnt their lesson. Ahead of the 2017 Britain snap election, markets were again confident Theresa May would retain her majority. But the status quo was wrong yet again.

As the possibility of a hung Parliament looked increasingly likely, analysts warned this is the "worst possible outcome for Britain". Even as reports were still coming in, the Pound Sterling fell sharply. It fell over 1.5 percent, to $1.27 following the poll. Against the Euro, the Pound plummeted over 1 percent to 1.13 euros.

Labour's Jeremy Corbyn has retained his Islington seat by a massive margin, winning 40,086 votes as against second-placed Toby Clarke of Conservatives who got 6,871 votes.

Jeremy Corbyn made his acceptance speech on Thursday, after being elected as MP from Islington for the ninth time. "This election was called in order for the prime minister to gain a larger majority to assert her authority. The campaign has gone on for the past six weeks, I have traveled all over the country, and politics has changed. Politics is not going back into the box where it was before. Voters have had quite enough of cuts in public expenditure, underfunding in the NHS and in our schools. I am proud of the results that are coming in tonight across the country  voting for hope in the future and turning their backs on austerity," he said.

Prime Minister Theresa May won 37,718 seats, to retain her Maidenhead constituency, even as questions over her future as leader of the Conservative party and her position as British PM continued to circulate.

After clinching her victory from Maidenhead constituency, prime minister Theresa May said, "It is a huge honour and a privilege to be elected as the MP for this constituency. I pledge that I will continue to work for all my constituents. As we look more widely across the country, returns are still coming in. We are yet to see the full picture emerging. This country needs a period of stability. If the Conservative Party has won the most seats, it will be incumbent on us to deliver this period of stability."

The Telegraph has put together a detailed report on the possibilities in case there is a hung Parliament. To read the full report, click here

If no party manages to cross the magic figure of 326 required to have a majority in the House of Commons, the incumbent prime minister  in this case, Theresa May  stays in office until it is decided who will attempt to form a new government.

Counting day is getting worse for the Scottish National Party, which has seen Angus Robertson lose from Moray. The seat had been a key target for the SNP in Scotland. Speaking from Glasgow, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said the result will be a "big loss" for the party. She explained there is "clearly uncertainty" around Brexit and Scottish independence, which played a factor in the party's performance. She added that the SNP has a "lot of thinking to do". Sturgeon also stressed that this is still the second-best result the SNP has enjoyed in a Westminster election.

Election night headlines in Britain pointed on Friday to looming political turbulence and an uncertain future for Prime Minister Theresa May. "Britain on a knife edge," headlined the pro-May Daily Mail, while the conservative The Sun described the situation as "Mayhem," saying there was fear of a "coalition of chaos" led by the opposition Labour party.

Scotland National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has claimed a victory for the SNP, saying losses were inevitable given the high watermark of 2015 when it went into the election with just 11 seats. "One of the biggest issues tonight UK-wide is the fact this is a disaster for Theresa May. She called this election...tonight she has had an absolutely disastrous performance," Sturgeon said, adding that she said she was "not going to make any rash decisions at 4am in the morning".

Former Scottish National party leader Alex Salmond has lost his Gordon seat, the second major setback for the SNP, after Angus Robertson lost from Moray. The Conservatives now have 10 Scottish seats, and are likely to demand SNP drops its quest for a second independence referendum. Speaking after his defeat, Salmond said his parliamentary career had been the privilege of my life". "Im grateful for these times. For the activists in the SNP who have made the many electoral successes possible," he said, adding that "the public had not seen the last of him".

A late surge from the Conservatives has given the party 282 seats, giving the party a solid 40-seat advantage over Labour which has 240. Until recently, the latter was enjoying a 20-seat lead of its own.

An incredible late surge by Theresa May's Conservatives has given the party a firm advantage heading into the home stretch. The party has now 294 seats, with 40 still to be counted. The magic figure of 326 needed to pull off an absolute majority is looking a realistic possibility once again for PM May.

BBC has reported that the word from Tories' headquarters may be to ask Prime Minister Theresa May to soften her approach, or to adopt a more inclusive working style, as it has been felt that her reach is limited to a tiny group of close aides. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg wrote that the PM is "famed for her stubbornness", which could have worked against her.

Tories may let PM Theresa May continue, but ask her 'to soften approach'

The Press Association has reported that there are now 192 female MPs in the British House of Commons, which is a record high, one more than the 191 number achieved in 2015. That again was a big improvement on the 2010 figure, when only 143 out of 650 MPs were women.

And even though there is no deadline, the government is expected to be formed by 13 June, which when the new Parliament meets for the first time.

The Labour Party does not need to wait for May to exhause all her options to form a government.

In case of a hung parliament, the Conservative government remains in office until it is decided who will form the new government or unless Theresa May decides to resign.

According to BBC , it is possible for the Labour Party to form the government in this case with the support of other parties.

What happens if no one wins the election?

Since Theresa May's Conservatives emerged the single largest party in the House of Commons, the prime minister will get first shot at stitching together a coalition. However, given her tough stance on Brexit, she may find it hard to secure allies ready to back her.

Results from Northern Ireland are coming in, and it looks like 10 seats for the Democratic Unionist Party and seven for Sinn Fein, the latter still boycotting Westminster. This leaves the DUP in a very strong position, and could potentially help form the next government.

But May had been in office for just around 10 months when she called for elections. She had not taken any major decisions during this period to capture the attention of the voters. Throughout this period, she was largely preoccupied with setting in motion the process of Britains withdrawal from the European Union, as mandated by the British citizens in a referendum last year.

Why then has May failed where Thatcher or Gandhi succeeded? It could be because when Gandhi or Thatcher called for early elections by a year, they had already been in power for four years and had taken some policy decisions and implemented certain astute programmes that had captured the imagination of the voters. Voters had no hesitation in reinforcing their faith and hope in these leaders.

When Theresa May took what she thought was a bold decision in April this year to call for elections long ahead of schedule, and opinion polls then predicted a landslide victory for her Conservative Party, there was a general feeling that she was carving a path just as Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher had done before her.

Theresa May gambled on snap polls, but failed to do an Indira or Thatcher

More realistically, however, to get the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party, UKIP, Plaid Cymru, and the Democratic Unionist Party on the same page regarding legislation will be a near impossibility.

If neither Conservatives nor Labour is able to conjure together the numbers required to cross the 326 figure, they can technically form a "minority government", but it will be unable to pass legislations or laws without support of the other parties. For example, Labour could be a minority government with Jeremy Corbyn as prime minister  but would likely require the votes of the Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrat MPs to get things done.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which has 10 MPs in Northern Ireland, may offer support to the Tores, which could help give the party a wafer-thin majority. This could also be a boost for Prime Minister Theresa May, who may get to retain her post. But it will be an uncomfortable alliance, given the narrow margins.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has stood by his earlier demand seeking Prime Minister Theresa May's resignation, saying he is "ready to serve" his country. He also said the Brexit negotiations will have to go ahead, and that he wants a "job first Brexit". According to The Guardian, Corbyn said delaying negotiations is out of Britains hands. He also repeated his call for Theresa May to resign, and said it was pretty clear Labour won the election on a "strong and hopeful" programme.

Foster said any discussions about an informal agreement with the Scottish National Party would be taken over the weekend. Its too soon to say what we are going to do yet, we need to see the final make-up of parliament and we need to reflect on that, she said. There will be contact made over the weekend but it is too soon to work out what we are going to do.

Arlene Foster, leader of Northern Ireland's DUP, has hinted she expects British Prime Minister Theresa May to stand down. "It will be difficult for her to survive given that she was presumed at the start of the campaign, which seems an awfully long time ago, to come back with maybe a hundred, maybe more, in terms of her majority, she told BBC Radio Ulster. "Now were in the position we find ourselves in tonight, so it will be an incredibly difficult evening for her.

There's still no result in West London's Kensington seat despite two recounts. The Conservatives have said they will not concede the polls, instead keep asking for further recounts, according to the BBC. As such, there's going to be a third recount, which will take place in the next day or two. But before that can happen, the officials would need to find replacement staff for the count, and may even need another venue.

As leader of the largest party in the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet the Queen at 12.30 pm local time, and will stake her claim to forming a government.

DUP's deal with the Conservatives is now official, and with help from 10 MPs the Northern Ireland party brings, Tories can cross the magic figure of 326.

After spending about 15 minutes with the Queen, Theresa May has left the Buckingham Palace, The Guardian reported.

Standing in front of 10 Downing Street, May said her Conservatives and the DUP will work together to "fulfill the promise of Brexit."

After a brief meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, May said the new government will guide Britain's exit talks from the European Union, which are set to begin in just 10 days.

Speaking on Friday after Theresa May lost her majority in Parliament, Sturgeon said the prime minister had "lost all authority and credibility," and should resign.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon said that the Conservative Party's "reckless" approach to Brexit should be abandoned.

He said, in the letter, that the March 2019 deadline left them with no time to lose to begin the talks on Brexit.

"Our shared responsibility and urgent task now is to conduct the negotiations on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union in the best possible spirit, securing the least disruptive outcome," he wrote.

European Union President Donald Tusk took time to write British Prime Minister Theresa May in the wake of the elections.

German EU commissioner Guenther Oettinger has turned the timetable screws even more on Britain, saying negotiations on its exit from the European Union must actually be finished by October 2018, instead of March 2019, to allow the 27 remaining nations to approve the deal.

"Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years, and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom," May said.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which won 10 seats in Thursday's voting, has emerged as the most likely partner to form a coalition government. May said Friday she looks forward to working with "our friends and allies" in the DUP.

The count for UK election's last seat in London's Kensington will resume at 6pm (1pm ET) after two failed attempts https://t.co/crHxLUKcMm pic.twitter.com/epJoAznXG0

After spending about 15 minutes with the Queen, Theresa May has left the Buckingham Palace, The Guardian reported.

Standing in front of 10 Downing Street, May said her Conservatives and the DUP will work together to "fulfill the promise of Brexit."

After a brief meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, May said the new government will guide Britain's exit talks from the European Union, which are set to begin in just 10 days.

. @NicolaSturgeon warns hard #Brexit "must be abandoned" & urges MPs to help her keep UK in single market https://t.co/CVzlEK3svs #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/XPvlimUi9G

Speaking on Friday after Theresa May lost her majority in Parliament, Sturgeon said the prime minister had "lost all authority and credibility," and should resign.

Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon said that the Conservative Party's "reckless" approach to Brexit should be abandoned.

'No time to lose' on Brexit talks warns @eucopresident , President of the EU Council. Here's the letter: pic.twitter.com/mVGzNGtsFQ

He said, in the letter, that the March 2019 deadline left them with no time to lose to begin the talks on Brexit.

"Our shared responsibility and urgent task now is to conduct the negotiations on the UK's withdrawal from the European Union in the best possible spirit, securing the least disruptive outcome," he wrote.

European Union President Donald Tusk took time to write British Prime Minister Theresa May in the wake of the elections.

German EU commissioner Guenther Oettinger has turned the timetable screws even more on Britain, saying negotiations on its exit from the European Union must actually be finished by October 2018, instead of March 2019, to allow the 27 remaining nations to approve the deal.

"Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years, and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom," May said.

The Democratic Unionist Party, which won 10 seats in Thursday's voting, has emerged as the most likely partner to form a coalition government. May said Friday she looks forward to working with "our friends and allies" in the DUP.

The odds seem to be in favour of Theresa May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister as voting is set to begin across the UK this morning under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that rocked the country in the past three weeks.

A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote in the country. It remains to be seen if the Conservative party leader's decision to call a snap general election follows the forecast patterns of the latest opinion polls and betting odds or the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party is able to make a dent into her slim majority in the House of Commons.

The final pre-poll survey done by Comres for the Independent newspaper gives the Tories a 10-point lead over the Labour party.

May's ruling Conservatives are on 44 percent, Labour at 34 percent, the Liberal Democrats at 9 percent, with far-right UKIP at 5 percent, the Scottish National Party (SNP) at 4 percent and the Green Party at 2 percent.

This forecast is echoed in the nearly 100 million pounds expected to be bet on the outcome of the polls. "Generally, on average, the polls tend to point toward a fairly small Tory majority, whereas the betting is more optimistic of the prime minister landing a majority of around 70 seats," said a betting expert at Ladbrokes, one of the UKs leading bookmakers.

Betfair, another leading bookmaker, also views the Tories as the odds-on favourite to win the general election, with odds of 1/12. However, there are some pundits who point out that the pre-poll patterns are following similar trends as for the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016, the outcome of which had taken most pollsters by surprise.

The betting odds being offering for a hung Parliament have also narrowed after some recent opinion polls had indicated the possibility of such an outcome.

Officially, it takes 326 seats for an overall majority in the House of Commons. In the 2015 general election, then Prime Minister David Cameron led Conservatives had won 331 seats, giving the Tories a small but significant majority, and the Labour party won 232 seats.

The official exit poll at the close of voting at 10 pm local time on election night is traditionally expected to give an indication of which way the vote is likely to go.

The constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South in north-east England has a history of being the first to declare the results, with the complete results expected to be clear by early on Friday morning.

Sunderland is a traditional Labour party stronghold and the vote-share with which the party holds on to the seat in the region is often seen as a sign of things to come.

Brexit is expected to be the central factor behind voting patterns, including for the estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters.

All the major parties wrapped up their campaigning on Thursday with a last-ditch effort to swing undecided voters. May focussed on her central message of the "strong and stable leadership" that she can provide for Britain's exit negotiations from the European Union (EU).

"Brexit is the basis of everything. We need to secure our economy for the future, we need to ensure we are getting more jobs, better paid jobs, more opportunities for young people in this country. We can do that if we get the Brexit negotiations right," she said in one of her final speeches.

Corbyn, on the other hand, focussed on his party's promise to spend more on health and education. "Never before has there been a clearer choice between the parties... a choice quite simply between hope and fear," he said.

The Liberal Democrats have been focused on their Remain-voting target seats, while the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) has stuck to its central message of ensuring there is no back-tracking on Brexit.

The UK was recently rocked by two terror attacks. Seven people were killed on Saturday when three men aboard a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and went on a stabbing spree before being shot by police.

The second attack took place on 22 May when 22 people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.
Tunkhannock (Pennsylvania): State Police says four people are dead in a murder-suicide in a northeast Pennsylvania supermarket.

Troopers responded to a report of someone shooting people inside Weis Market in Eaton Township, about 25 miles northwest of Scranton, just before early Thursday morning.

Troopers found the bodies of two men and two women inside, along with one witness.

Authorities believe one of the males opened fire on the others before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities believe it is a contained incident and the public is not in danger.

The investigation is ongoing.


 :     ,   ,   

  ,        , -     28         .
State Police at Chambersburg are searching for a stabbing suspect after an incident in Southampton Township, Franklin County, early Tuesday morning.

Police Thursday reported that they are looking for Tony Grant, 29, of Hagerstown, Maryland, on aggravated assault and criminal attempted homicide charges.

An assault suspect, Anthony Tyler Naples, turned himself in to police at 10 a.m. Thursday, in relation to the incident at 1:20 a.m. Tuesday in the 2500 block of Stillhouse Hollow Road, Southampton Township.

Police said the two men and others met for an exchange of drugs, when an argument turned into a physical fight. Both men kicked and stabbed a person, and police said Grant then stabbed the same person multiple times in the torso with what was believed to be a knife.

Everyone then left the victim at the scene. The man was later taken for medical attention. Police did not list his condition or name.

Police ask anyone with information regarding Grants whereabouts to contact them at 717-264-5161.
President Donald Trump possesses a style described by friends as virile and intuitive, and by foes as oafish and oblivious. Some see him as a breath of fresh air, with a disarming directness, while others consider him a blustering bully with the grace of a pile of crumbling cement blocks cascading off a flatbed truck. Passionate versus fool-hardy. Eager slash hasty. Swift or rash.

But these are principally domestic arguments. The international community is not so divided. They view our new chief executive as a brutish barbarian whose goal is to antagonize not just the other nations of the world, but Mother Earth herself.

45s first overseas trip initially dropped him successfully in Saudi Arabia and Israel, where he mostly just antagonized his wife. Then the reality TV star traveled to a NATO meeting where he scolded its members, and demonstrated how to put America first by shoving the Prime Minister of Montenegro to the side in order to rush to the front of a photo shoot. Out of the way, pal.

Arriving home, Trump leaped back onto the Twitter Train, shooting out a midnight tweet ending with the words press covfefe. He either spelled the word coverage wrong or was rhapsodizing about the java coming out of his french press. Or both.

What happened after that, nobody knows. Perhaps he drifted off, confident that he had rallied the troops. Or maybe he realized his mistake and tried to correct the spelling but was betrayed by his undersized digits and ended up hitting send.

Weve all done it. Most of us would have stopped, deleted and started over. But President Golden Canopy not only left aloft this incoherent muddle, the next day he doubled down with another incomprehensibility, Who can figure out the true meaning of Covfefe ??? Enjoy!

Unable to resort to his usual lame obfuscation: the tweet speaks for itself, because it didnt, spokesperson Sean Spicer insisted the president and a small group of people knew what the post meant but couldnt keep a straight face when saying it.

The president is incapable of admitting a mistake. Ever. Not even a misspelled word. Simply put, the malignant orange narcissist is purposefully messing with us. Trump is screwing with his constituents over a typo. Hes 12.

Later, Trump told Planet Earth to take a hike, announcing America was pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. His reasoning for joining Syria and Nicaragua to stand against 194 signers of the pact is it would handicap our country economically. And with him in charge, the fewer handicaps, the better.

Trump is intent on fulfilling his campaign promise to Make America Jurassic Again, even though over forty major U.S. corporations including GM, GE, Chevron, Shell, Apple, Exxon- Mobil and BP favor the agreement, because they have come to the opinion that the extinction of the human species might not be good for business.

Liberals fear a hidden agenda of the GOPs Plan is to step up global warming to raise ocean waters, thereby flooding California coastline cities turning the states 55 electoral votes reliably red. Then again, maybe, when the President mentioned that he doesnt want other countries laughing at us anymore, what he was really saying is hes ready to step down. Fingers crossed.

Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former short haul truck diver of plaster molds.
Dear Editor:

I read the article on the Ashland Cemetery dispute with disbelief. It is inconceivable that a cemetery owner could treat a grieving family with such disrespect, even threatening to ban a father from visiting his sons grave.

At issue is the Capozzi familys right to grieve their child, Vinny, in their own way. The family decorates his grave with seasonal items and American flags. In a WHTM interview, Mr. Ewing said, I have no idea how all that stuff on that thing would help anybody grieve. Mr. Ewing believes the decorations are disrespectful to the veterans buried there, and that they pose a danger to mowers.

I believe the men who fought for freedom would uphold a familys right to decorate their childs grave as they see fit. If the decorations pose a threat to mowers, they should stay outside the perimeter of the Capozzi plot and the family could tend it.

When Vinny was too ill to go to school, I was his in-home teacher during the last two years of his life. Vinny was a radiant soul, full of life and love, and even as he lost the ability to talk, eat, and use his arms and legs, he remained positive and joyful.

When I drive by the cemetery and see the decorations on Vinnys grave, Im happy to know that Vinny continues to be loved and celebrated. Ive placed decorations there, too, and it helps me feel close to him. I can only imagine how his family feels.

According to the Ewing Brothers website, Mr. Ewing is honored to serve the greater Carlisle community with the same traditional values, compassion, and integrity that his family has represented since 1853. I hope that this compassion will be extended to the Capozzi family as they express their love and grief for their child.

Dee Dombach

Lower Frankford Township
The House of Representatives passed the Financial Choice Act Thursday, a bill that would significantly roll back a multitude of financial regulations implemented under an Obama-era financial law called Dodd-Frank.

Republicans, including the Trump administration, believe Dodd-Frank inhibits U.S. economic growth through burdensome regulation that prohibits lending. The Choice Act, introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), would free up banks by gutting many of the provisions put in place in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

While the bill still requires Senate approval, something that could prove much more difficult to attain without Democratic support, here are some of the changes consumers can expect if the GOP begins to unravel Dodd-Frank.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau overhaul

Republicans have long criticized the watchdog agency, which was created under the 2010 law, for having too much power in its current form. Under the Financial Choice Act, President Trump will have the freedom to fire the head of the agency. Additionally, it will be subject to the appropriations process, meaning Congress would have ultimate authority over its budget. As it stands, the CFPB is solely answerable to its director, which some believe renders its existence unconstitutional.

Further, the Choice Act will repeal the CFPBs supervisory authority, eliminating its ability to investigate bank practices and instead would return that power to banking regulators. Some argue the unchecked authority of the bureau has stifled progress and innovation at banks.

[This bill will] make [the CFPB] more accountable to the administration and to Congress. That is probably the core of the Financial Choice Act, J.W. Verret, former chief economist at House Financial Services Committee, told FOX Business.

Increased business lending & innovation opportunities

Under the new bill, banks would be able to maintain higher levels of capital reserves in exchange for less rigorous regulation. Having more capital in the economy is something Republicans believe will lead to increased lending, particularly among community banks. Strengthening capital formation is another major goal of the Trump administration, especially Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who says it is key to spurring U.S. economic growth. The Choice Act repeals sections of Dodd-Frank, including the Volcker Rule, that are believed to be preventing the net accumulation of new assets. With that extra capital stock, businesses may be more likely to take risks or innovate.

New solution to too big to fail

The Choice Act relaxes regulators authority to wind down a financial institution perceived to be on the brink of failure  Orderly Liquidation Authority  a reform that Republicans have called a way to prevent taxpayer bailouts. It replaces that process with a new way to accommodate the failure of large financial institutions. Additionally it will repeal the Financial Stability Oversight Councils ability to identify an institution as a risk to the health of the economy.

Stress test consistency

Federal stress tests on banks would only be conducted once every two years, a reform that Verret said could increase lending and invoke a little more consistency for financial institutions.

Federal Reserve transparency

The Choice Act explicitly states that it intends to demand greater accountability and transparency from the Federal Reserve, both in its conduct of monetary policy and its prudential regulatory activity. It also stipulates the Fed adhere to the FORM Act, which requires Fed policymakers to more thoroughly explain, and be held accountable for, their monetary policy decisions  a move intended to make more information available to investors.

Save taxpayer dollars

The Congressional Budgets most recent analysis of the Choice Act estimates that it will reduce deficits by $33.6 billion over the 2017-2027 period.
The European Central Bank took small steps Thursday toward phasing out its extraordinary support measures for the economy, but made it clear the recovery still needs backing from the bank despite its growing strength.

The bank's president, Mario Draghi, was careful not to give a clear signal about when it will start withdrawing stimulus  a measure of the bank's caution about the potential impact such an announcement could have on financial markets.

The bank kept interest rates and its bond purchase stimulus program unchanged at a meeting of its 25-member governing council.

The council made a small concession to the improving economy in the 19 countries that use the euro by dropping from its statement wording that it could lower interest rates further. Draghi made another tweak by saying risks to growth are now "broadly balanced"  a change from the April meeting when risks were "tilted to the downside."

Analyst Carsten Brzeski at ING-DiBa described the bank's statement as "a very first baby step toward tapering" the stimulus effort.

The bank left its bond purchase stimulus program unchanged at 60 billion euros ($67 billion) per month through at least the end of the year and longer if necessary. The measure pumps newly printed money into the economy in an effort to raise inflation toward the bank's goal of just under 2 percent, considered best for the economy. Right now inflation is an annual 1.4 percent.

Analysts think the bond purchases will be tapered next year, but the bank has moved gingerly in indicating when it might be ready to announce a schedule for reducing and then ending them.

Ending the bond purchases and raising interest rates could have wide-ranging effects, such as a stronger euro and higher interest costs for heavily indebted governments. It would also raise returns on savings accounts and bank CDs and make them more attractive relative to stocks and riskier investments.

ECB officials are concerned that markets would respond to a premature announcement that the stimulus is coming to an end by sending interest rates higher, blunting its effects.

Evidence is piling up that growth in the eurozone has kicked into a higher gear and the region is recovering from the Great Recession and the ensuing crisis over high debt that pushed some eurozone countries, notably Greece, to the brink of bankruptcy. Earlier Thursday, the Eurostat statistics agency revised figures for first-quarter growth up to 0.6 percent from 0.5 percent.

Draghi conceded that recent data suggest "a stronger momentum in the euro-area economy, which is projected to expand at a somewhat faster pace than previously expected."

The sticking point is inflation, which remains weak. Unemployment is falling, but wages aren't picking up as many people take part-time or lower-wage jobs. Draghi said inflation indicators "have yet to show convincing signs of a pickup."

Draghi said that the brighter outlook is largely a result of the bank's efforts and the economy still needs central bank support. Thanks to the bond purchases, "five million jobs have been created in the eurozone in the last three and a half years," he said. "More jobs than anywhere else in the world, I think, certainly more than in the United States."

Though inflation in the eurozone is higher than it was for much of the past two years, that's largely because of a pick-up in oil prices. The ECB doesn't expect a big increase in inflation over the coming two years. On Thursday, the bank lowered its forecasts for eurozone inflation this year to 1.5 percent from 1.7 percent, and for next year to 1.3 percent from 1.6 percent.

The central bank's statement kept important wording that its bond-buying stimulus program could be stepped up if the economic outlook worsens. While few expect that to happen, the words underline that the bank is not yet willing to call time on the stimulus program.

The bank kept its short-term benchmark rate at a record low of zero. It is also charging banks negative interest of 0.4 percent on excess cash parked at the ECB. That is in effect a tax aimed at pushing them to lend the money instead of hoard it.

The ECB is the monetary authority for the countries that use the euro, the shared currency launched by the European Union in 1999. It held Thursday's meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, one of the occasional meetings held away from the bank's Frankfurt headquarters to underline its identity as a multinational institution.

___

Pan Pylas reported from London.
Seven U.S. coal miners died in accidents so far this year, most of them with less than a year of experience at that particular job and mine, according to federal officials. In all of last year, eight miners died.

Tim Watkins, deputy administrator for Coal Mine Safety and Health, said Thursday they're launching an initiative as soon as possible to talk to miners and try to determine if there are training deficiencies.

"Our intent is to talk to every single one of them, every miner who falls into one of these categories," Watkins said. "We'll need a great amount of assistance from mine operators."

Six of the seven miners had worked at the respective mines for less than one year, according to the Mine Safety and Health Administration report. Five had less than one year experience in the particular job they were doing.

"With the market the way it is, people are moving around, they are having to move people, people are doing different jobs," Watkins said at a stakeholder meeting in southern West Virginia.

Three deaths occurred at surface mines, three at underground mines and one at a surface mine processing facility, federal officials said.

In a January accident, a 42-year-old miner was positioned between a conveyor belt drive and its safety guard when he came in contact with the drive roller and was fatally injured, federal officials reported. In May, a miner hit his head on the mine roof or roof support when he was traveling in a trolley-powered supply locomotive.

Four deaths this year were in West Virginia, two in Kentucky, one in Montana.

Last year's total of eight coal miner deaths was a historic low, Watkins said.

Other MSHA data show 931 miners were injured over a recent nine-month period had with less than one year experience at that mine, dropping to 418 injured with two years' experience at a particular mine and only 83 with a decade of experience.
Sirius XM Holdings, the U.S. satellite radio company controlled by John Malone's Liberty Media, is seeking to invest in internet music provider Pandora Media, people familiar with the matter said.

Sirius XM is negotiating a private investment in public equity (PIPE) after talks about Sirius XM acquiring Pandora in its entirety ended unsuccessfully over price disagreements, the sources said on Wednesday.

If the negotiations between Sirius XM and Pandora come to fruition, the deal would come after private equity firm KKR & Co LP agreed last month to invest $150 million in Pandora.

KKR's agreement gave Pandora a 30-day-period to look for an alternative deal. This period expires on Thursday, and so Sirius XM was racing late on Wednesday to beat that deadline and clinch its own investment in Pandora, the sources said.

The terms of Sirius XM's proposed PIPE investment could not be learned, and sources cautioned that the latest negotiations between Sirius XM and Pandora could still fall apart. Liberty Media may also object to any deal, the sources added.

The sources asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. Pandora declined to comment, while Sirius XM and Liberty Media did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Any partnership between Sirius XM and Pandora would be a boon to both companies, given that they target a common audience. Pandora is seeking to become more popular with drivers, many of whom subscribe to Sirius XM, while Sirius XM is looking to expand its internet and mobile presence.

A PIPE deal involves the sale of a company's shares in a private offering, as opposed to a public secondary offering. Pandora shares ended trading on Wednesday at $8.48, giving the company a market capitalization of around $2 billion.

Pandora's stock is down 30 percent in the last 12 months, as the company faces stiff competition from services such as Sweden's Spotify, Apple Inc's Apple Music, Alphabet Inc's Google Play Music and Amazon.com Inc's Music Unlimited, which dominate the on-demand music service market.

KKR's $150 million investment gives it preferred Pandora stock that can be converted into common stock, cash, or a combination, at a conversion price of $13.50 per share.

Pandora had been urged to explore a sale by Corvex Management LP, an activist hedge fund run by Keith Meister, a protege of activist investor Carl Icahn. Corvex owned 8.6 percent of Pandora as of the end of March.

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in San Francisco and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Additional reporting by Julia Love in San Francisco; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
Embattled Canadian drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals said on Thursday it would sell its iNova Pharmaceuticals business for $930 million in cash as it looks to pay down debt.

The unit will be bought by a company jointly owned by funds advised and managed by Pacific Equity Partners and The Carlyle Group, Valeant said.

INova markets a diversified portfolio of prescription and over-the-counter products for weight management, pain management, cardiology and cough and cold.

As of March 31, Valeant's long-term debt was $28.54 billion.

(Reporting by Divya Grover in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
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Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) shareholders on Thursday gave the final go-ahead for Verizon to acquire most of the Internet pioneer.

The $4.48 billion deal between Yahoo and Verizon is on track to close on June 13. Verizon, which received a discount on the original buyout price following the massive data breach at Yahoo, will combine the companys digital assets with AOL under a new subsidiary called Oath. Yahoo will rename itself Altaba Inc., a holding company with a stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE:BABA).

Shares in Yahoo rallied 8.5% to $54.84 in recent trading, reacting to Alibabas new outlook for sales growth of nearly 50% this year. Alibaba was up 11.4% at $139.90.

Also on Thursday, multiple reports suggested that Verizon would cut around 2,000 jobs once the Yahoo deal closes, or 15% of the combined Yahoo-AOL workforce.

Once Verizons takeover is complete, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will step down. Mayer will receive a severance package worth up to $23 billion, according to a company filing.
President Trump and his private attorney Marc Kasowitz were planning to go to war with James Comey, but they now feel totally vindicated after reviewing the former FBI directors opening remarks about the governments probe of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, FOX Business has learned.

Kasowitz held a meeting with Trump earlier Wednesday to review Comeys prepared statements for Thursdays scheduled Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on interference by Russian operatives in the election. The text of Comeys remarks was released publicly Wednesday and Kasowitzs meeting with Trump took place just before the president left the White House to give a speech in Cincinnati on his health care reform plans, and efforts to rebuild the nations infrastructure.

People close to Kasowitz say the feisty New York Attorneywho has for years handled some of Trumps most contentious legal matters when the president was a private businessmanwas preparing a public relations assault on Comey by attacking the former FBI directors credibility.

Comey became a focal point of the 2016 election with his controversial public statements about the FBI inquiry into the use of a private email server by Trumps democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. Comey has received bipartisan criticism for inserting himself into the presidential election through public comments about the probe since FBI officials are normally reticent about discussing details of investigations. Clinton has stated publicly that she believes his remarks -- where he closed, opened, and then closed the probe--cost her the election.

Indeed Trump used those public statements as a predicate for firing Comey in Maya move that ultimately backfired on the president because it came just as the FBI was expanding its probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign operatives and Russians officials.

But at least for now, Kasowitz has dropped going after Comey directly after reviewing the text of his opening statement for the Intelligence Committee hearing, people close to Kasowitz tell FOX Business.

Instead Kasowitz plans to embrace some of Comeys statements, particularly those that confirmed that Trump is not the focus of the probe, and that he didnt directly call for the FBI chief to end the inquiry, thus obstructing justice, these people add.

As first reported by FOX Business, Kasowitz was retained two weeks by Trump after the appointment of Robert Mueller as a special prosecutor to investigate whether Trump campaign operatives colluded with Russian spies to tilt the election in Trumps favor. The controversy over Russian meddling into the election has already forced the resignation Michael Flynn as Trumps national security adviser.

In a statement, Kasowitz said: The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.

Comey was abruptly fired by Trump as FBI chief on May 9, after a series of strained meetings with the president over the FBIs handling of the probe and its focus on Flynn, a key Trump associate and campaign adviser. Flynn is said to have misled the White House on his interaction with Russian officials during the campaign. Flynn said hes done nothing wrong.

The burgeoning probe into Russian influence of the 2016 election has been a major distraction for the president in pushing his economic agenda through Congress. White House officials worried Comeys testimony on Thursday would inflame the situation even further by inciting the volatile Trump to make a public remark, particularly through his Twitter account, that could be used as evidence to build a possible obstruction case against the president.

In his prepared remarks, Comey confirmed published reports that Trump, during one meeting regarding his probe of Flynn, stated: I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comey said in the text of his opening remarks that he reconstructed his conversations with Trump in memos and then shared them with senior FBI officials.

But Kasowitz believes Comeys own words will exculpate Trump from any potential charge of obstruction of justice that the special prosecutor will certainly look into. Thats because in Comeys own recollection, he told Trump he wasnt the target of the inquiry and Trump didnt directly order him to close the probe into Flynn, these people say.

As for Trumps firing of Comey, Kasowitz believes Trump has the legal authority to do so as president as long as he didnt obstruct the overall investigation; Comey in his prepared remarks stops short of calling Trumps actions an obstruction of his investigation.

Of course Kasowitz could change course and go on the attack against Comey, depending on what the former FBI chief says under questioning from lawmakers on Thursday. But as of now, one person with direct knowledge of Kasowitzs legal strategy says hes trying to figure out what we should do next. The FBI director told the president that he wasnt the subject of the investigation. There might be a special counsel investigation into other things but it shouldnt be with the president.

Some legal experts believe Comeys testimony could still be damaging to Trump even if the legal grounds to bring obstruction charges lack precedent. Comey said at one point Trump discussed with him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI chief, remarking I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

While the FBI director is appointed by the president, the agency is considered an independent investigative arm of the Justice Department. John Coffee, Columbia Law School professor, said that such remarks Arguably, could show obstruction of justice, but the real question on which you should focus is: Can a sitting President be indicted.

Coffee said most legal experts believe that the president, given his role as commander-in-chief under the Constitution, probably cant be indicted. Instead he must be impeached through an act of Congress.

All of this is relatively uncharted legal territory, he added.
Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray discusses former FBI Director James Comey's upcoming testimony before Congress, telling the FOX Business Networks Maria Bartiromo, I dont think there will be any bombshell testimony.

Despite not expecting anything new from the testimony, Ray said all the noise around the issue was due to impeachment talk by the Democrats.

The Democrats are pushing the impeachment line, I think, you know, I agree with, you know, people who are responsible who have looked at this that there is not an obstruction case to be made.

Ray hoped the testimony would allow investigators to move on to the allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Investigators ought to get on with the task and determine one way or another whether there is any evidence of collusion which is really the whole purpose of the investigation to begin with.

Ray then responded to concerns about James Comeys communications with President Trump while FBI director, telling Bartiromo, The notion that the FBI director doesnt have any communications or shouldnt have any communications with the President of the United States is a rather recent historical development, that was not historically true. The FBI director works for the president.

When asked if Comeys account of Trump would prevent talented people from wanting to work in the Trump administration, Ray said, Given an opportunity to serve the country at the highest levels, who wouldnt want to do that really? You dont think theres enough qualified people in this country who would like to serve? Heck, Id like to serve.
NASA has selected 12 new astronauts including an Indian-American, Lt Col Raja Grinder Chari, from 18000 applications, Lt Col Raja Grinder Chari, 39, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron as well as the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He belongs to Iowa. His father is from India. He has obtained his Masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and has graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.

In total, NASA has selected seven men and five women who will comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This is the largest group of astronauts NASA has selected in almost two decades. The 12 candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.

To get selected as astronauts, the candidates must meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria. They should hold a bachelors degree in a STEM field or have up to 1,000 hours of experience in piloting jets.

After the completion of two years of training, the selected astronauts will be assigned various roles like performing research on the International Space Station (ISS) and flying on deep space missions.
Some cars stand the test of time, while others don't fair so well. However, when it comes to this pair of Mercedes-Benz 300SLs tucked away in a garage somewhere, they've been kept in meticulously good shape. They aren't just any old pair of sought after Mercedes-Benz either.

So the story goes, the first car is a 1955 300SL Gullwing coupe acquired by an individual. Two years later, the owner added the 1957 300SL roadster. Since their original purchase, both have remained under the family's ownership and have been cared for. Six decades later, the coupe has just 16,000 miles; the roadster has garnered only 38,000 miles.

TWIN 1987 BUICK GRAND NATIONALS PARKED FOR YEARS UNCOVERED IN DIRTY GARAGE

What makes the coupe more interesting is the fact it was ordered in British Racing Greenan intriguing color for a prestigious German vehicle. Inside, the green hue is complimented by a tan interior, making this combination unique among all 300SLs. The roadster is finished in a more traditional blue-silver with gray leather and a light tan top.

Today, some 60 years on, it is almost impossible to find another pair of 300SLs still in their original family ownership and unrestored, said Gooding & Company's Garth Hammers.

The auction house, which will offer up the cars in August during the 2017 Monterey Car Week, expects each car to fetch between $1 million and $1.3 million, especially since they both house incredibly low miles.

Gooding & Company's auction will run from August 18-19 at the Equestrian Center in Pebble Beach, California. For Monterey Car Week coverage, head to our dedicated hub.
Lauren Alaina fought back tears as she accepted an award for breakthrough video of the year at the CMT Awards Wednesday.

"I'm not good at this, I don't know what to do," the "American Idol" alum said through tears. "Reba McEntire just gave me an award, so that's pretty crazy."

The 22-year-old was clearly overwhelmed as she struggled to compose her thoughts.

She thanked her fans and then quickly added, "And Jesus! Sorry God, that should've come first."

Alaina recently opened up about being scared she would lose her reconrd deal after coming in second place to Scotty McCreery on "Idol" in 2011.

"I was really fearful that I was going to lose my record deal," Alaina told the Associated Press. "It's really scary as a female to not have that success early on in your career, 'cause you don't know how many chances you are going to get."


Courtney Love had a few choice words for pro-Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour.

Love called Sarsour an "anti-American fear mongering fraud" and a "vile disgrace to women and all mankind" in a series of tweets Wednesday.

Love hardly stopped there.

The 52-year-old asked her followers to "research more about [Sarsour] ripping people off" and said, "She's a fraud...an anti-Semitic fear mongering liar" and "a rat."

Love's tweets came after Sarsour raised more than $100,000 for a Somali woman named Rahma Warsame, who claims to have been the victim of a hate crime. However, police said there is no evidence to support Warsame's claim that "the incident involved any type of bias which would constitute the incident being investigated as a hate crime," the Columbus Dispatch reports.

Love asked, "Where is the money now? Sorry but shes a criminal."

Sarsour fought back on Twitter accusing Love of "veiled anti-Muslim rhetoric." She said, "Thank God I never knew who @Courtney was before today and that was a great thing."

She added, "Welcome to America where a white woman celebrity uses her platform to deny that a Black immigrant Muslim woman was brutally assaulted."
For many Costco members, a visit to the popular warehouse store isnt complete without a trip to their food court. Whether its a gargantuan slice of saggy, cheesy pizza, a somewhat mysterious chicken bake, or an ice cream sundae, the food here always seems to taste amazing after an hours-long jaunt through the Costco gauntlet. But what exactly is the deal with the prepared food Costco sells?

Weve got the answers to all your Costco food court questions.

The food court at Costco can trace its roots all the way back to its predecessor, Price Club. That chain, which was one of the pioneers in charging members an annual fee to be able to buy bulk products at rock-bottom prices in a no-frills environment, was actually founded by a guy named Price (Sol Price, to be exact). Price Club merged with Costco in 1993. Today, there are Costco locations outside the U.S., in countries including Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Australia, and the U.K., and nearly all of them have their own food court.

Visit any Costco in America when you travel and itll look just like the one in your own city, right down to the food court (a couple locations inexplicably dont have one, and we feel for shoppers at those). Some food courts are inside and some are outside, but the menu will be essentially the same: chicken Caesar salad, hot dog or Polish sausage, pizza, sundaes

The only surprise tends to be the price, which is astonishingly low and never seems to increase, especially for the $1.50 hot dog and soda combo. Theres something comforting about knowing that the jumbo-size slice of pizza you rewarded yourself with after walking at least five miles around the store will still be there the next time you visit.

Whether no trip to the chain is complete for you without a chicken bake or youve never ventured to see what the pizza is really all about (its limp but somehow still delicious in a greasy kind of way), after you read this, no trip to Costco will ever be the same.

1. It's one of America's largest pizza chains.

Costco has around 400 locations in the United States, and with all but a few selling pizza, this officially makes it the 15th largest pizza chain in America in terms of number of units, with more locations than chains including California Pizza Kitchen, Foxs Pizza Den, and Jets Pizza.

2. The prices rarely change...if ever.

You will rarely, if ever, notice a change in the prices at the Costco food court. Pizzas cost $1.99 per slice and $9.99 per pie, chicken bakes cost $2.99, and a hot dog and soda combo will always cost $1.50.

3. You don't always need to be a member to eat there.

If the food court is located inside the Costco, then its sadly reserved for just members. (You can always ask the doorman to let you in, but good luck.) But if its located outside, as it is in some warmer-climate locales, then its open to the general public.

4. The pizza and chicken bake are very unhealthy.

According to the company, a slice of cheese pizza from Costco contains 700 calories and 28 grams of fat, and the chicken bake contains 770 calories and 25 grams of fat. You might want to take half to go.

5. One menu spot is kept open for rotating items.

While the menu may be dependable, it isnt always exactly the same as it was years ago. The options may be limited, but the company likes to mix it up by keeping one spot open for rotating items. These have included a turkey wrap, carne asada bake, hot turkey and provolone, and barbecue beef brisket sandwich.

Learn more about the food court at Costco stores.

More from The Daily Meal

10 Facts You Didn't Know About Coca-Cola

10 Things You Didnt Know About Pizza

9 Things You Didnt Know About Tropicana

10 Things You Didn't Know About Turkey
A truck full of Bud Light flipped over on a highway ramp in Tempe, Ariz., on Wednesday, and perhaps no one was more excited to report on this news than the states Department of Transportation.

Following the accident, which occurred on an onramp commecting US- 60 to the Arizona State Route 101, the Arizona DOT pulled out just about every joke in the book.

TRUMP BEER FOR SALE AT A BREWERY IN UKRAINE

No crying over spilled beer, wrote the Arizona DOT before advising drivers to take caution in the area. Its a little foamy there, they added.

Minutes later, the DOT sent out another tweet  albeit more serious in tone, to inform drivers that the roadway had been closed altogether.

Luckily, several concerned Twitter users picked up right where the DOT left off:

According to KTRK, the accident resulted in thousands of cans of Bud Light being strewn across the shoulder of the ramp. No motorists were seriously injured.

The driver of the truck, however, was reportedly hospitalized for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

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A later tweet from the Arizona Department of Transportation reveals that the ramp had been reopened as of 6:46 p.m. on Wednesday evening. But this tweet was a little more serious in tone, as the DOT was somehow able to refrain from writing that they had cracked open the ramp.
Former FBI Director James Comey made it clear during Thursdays Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that he wasnt too thrilled with the outcome of his one-on-one dinner with President Trump.

But aside from the awkward silence[s] and Trumps repeated requests for loyalty, Comey revealed that he had another, more personal reason to be miffed: He was forced to cancel a previously planned dinner date with his wife.

During Comeys testimony, Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) asked the former FBI director if he in any way initiated his and Trumps Jan. 27 dinner at the White House, to which replied that he did not.

BARS OPENED EARLY FOR COMEY TESTIMONY, OFFERED THEMED EATS

No. [President Trump] called me at my desk at lunchtime and asked me, was I free for dinner that night, said Comey.

[President Trump] called himself and said, Can you come over for dinner tonight? And I said, Yes sir. He said, Will 6 work? I think he said 6 first. Then he said I was going to invite your whole family, but well do that next time. I want you to come over. Is that a good time? And I said, Sir, whatever works for you. And then he said, How about 6:30? And I said, Whatever works for you, sir.

According to Comeys testimony, he and Trump eventually agreed to meet at 6:30 p.m. and ended their phone call.

Comeys next call, however, may not have gone as smoothly as the one before it.

I had to call my wife and break a date with her, Comey told the Senate panel. I was supposed to take her out to dinner that night.

TRUMP REPORTEDLY ORDERS COCA-COLA AT THE PUSH OF A BUTTON

King, not missing a beat, chimed in to assure Comey he was probably justified in canceling his dinner date with wife Patrice Failor.

Thats one of the all-time great excuses for breaking a date, joked King, eliciting laughter from the room.

In retrospect, I wouldve  I love spending time with my wife. I wish I had been there that night, said Comey.
These Russian mobsters were cuckoo for cocoa-- and puffs.

Nearly three-dozen organized crime members were busted by federal authorities in New York City Wednesday for an odd mishmash of crimes  trafficking five tons of stolen chocolate as well as hordes of illegal cigarettes. The feds also accused the 32 men of a murder-for-hire conspiracy, an illegal poker operation in Brighton Beach, and of trying to convince a female associate to chloroform someone in Atlantic City, N.J. so he could be robbed.

The men were accused of trafficking in tens of thousands of dollars worth of stolen cigarettes, in addition to an astounding 10,000 pounds of chocolate confections, court papers say.

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Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon Kim called the spectrum of alleged racketeering charges a dizzying array of criminal schemes.

The FBIs Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force in New York arrested 25 of the men, the feds said, while seven remained at large. Twenty-seven of the men charged are tied to the so-called Shulaya Enterprise, an organized crime group operating under the direction Razhden Shulaya and his alleged co-boss Zurab Dzhanashvili, the feds said.

Wednesdays action marks one of the first federal racketeering charges ever brought against a Russian vor, or mob boss, Kim said.

This story originally appeared on NYPost.com.
Free alcohol is great, but just how far would you go to get a drink at no charge?

Mong Bar in Ko Lanta, Thailand is offering visitors free shots if theyre willing to partake in an extreme version of the famous knife game.

For those who arent familiar, the terrifying activity involves someone moving sharp objects back and forth between a persons fingers at rapid speed.

TOKYO RESTAURANT OFFERS ALL-YOU-CAN-DRINK ALCOHOL FOR LESS THAN $1

In a YouTube video taken at the bar, the bartender uses various tools, including an axe, butchers knife and power drill, to stab between a persons fingers as he waits to earn his reward.

The video, posted by Emil Walas, has become increasingly popular, with over 73,400 views as of Thursday afternoon.

Threatening to cut off customers fingers isnt the only unusual thing happening at Mong Bar.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

On its Facebook page, one person posted a photo of an alcohol bottle with a snake inside. Another shared video of a fire-dancer whose flaming baton slips out of his hand and goes flying toward the audience.
The second I felt the jolt, I raced to take up slack line. Id always dreamed of hooking a big coho salmon on the fly, and nowwading knee-deep in the Egegik River, which feeds Alaskas Bristol Baymy rod was bowed deeply.

Around my feet, swarms of crimson sockeyes moved upriver, but my fish was farther out, in dark water. I tried to gain line, but the salmon hardly budged. I was stunned that Id already hooked a fat coho, much less without the help of bait.

To my surprise, though, the fish made no big charges for open water. After a five-minute struggle, I eased the salmon into the shallows, where I could get a decent look, and saw that the big coho I knew Id hooked had transformed into a midsize humpy, the ugly sister of the salmonid family. The fish bobbed in the current, my fly snagged through one of its fins.

David Stumph, one of our guides, couldnt keep from laughing. Another fisherman joked that he wouldnt serve a humpy to his mother-in-law. I turned the fish loose with a pang of defeat and watched it disappear into the Egegik.

This was my first trip to Alaska, and five fellow anglers and I had hit the salmon run at its peak, in mid August. The cohos, or silvers, were pushing up the Egegik by the thousands to reach their spawning grounds in the tributaries of Becharof Lake, the second-largest freshwater body in Alaska. A storm had crept over the tundra the night we arrived, bringing with it rain and sharp winds, but wed set out that first morning undeterred and eager. Wed fished baits and spoons early in the day, and Id landed four nice keepers. But Id lugged a fly rod some 3,000 miles from home and was determined to put it to use. After a lunch of fresh salmon chowder, wed fanned out in the shallows along the bank, where, late in the day, Id hooked the humpy.

RELATED: Alaska Salmon Fishing on 25 Dollars a Day

We began our second morning at the mouth of a feeder creek. I quickly caught three cohos on bait and spoons. Fooling them wasnt difficult on conventional tackle, I learned, but it was fun. Still, after landing those first few cohos that morning, I committed to using my fly rod until I landed a real slab.

Although coho salmon are threatened or endangered throughout much of their historic range in the contiguous U.S., their numbers have held strong in the Egegik, as well as in Bristol Bay, the worlds largest salmon fishery. The Egegik district is also home to the worlds second-largest run of sockeye salmon; and chum, kings, and pinks are also bountiful. All told, the river and its tributaries contribute north of 10 million adult salmon to the Bristol Bay fishery each year, securing its place among the worlds premier salmon rivers.

On our third morning, Stumph suggested that I tie on a purple leech pattern, an old favorite of his. I soon fell into a trance of stripping and casting, stripping and casting, as I scanned the tundra. This part of the Alaska Peninsula isnt what you find on postcards. Sand flats and shallow ponds pock the landscape, dispersed among an endless, rolling plain of sedge and shrub. But this desolate vastness is why the region remains one of the wildest places on earth, and explains why its been so fiercely defended against development, such as the proposed Pebble Mine.

After an hour or so, the leech fly suddenly stopped on its downriver swing, and my line shot tight. The fish ripped through the water, darting right to left. Id never hooked anything so bent on breaking off.

After a solid fight, I brought the salmon to handa respectable 8-pound coho, lean and strong. I was proud. But now I wanted a fish to really remember.

We slipped into a rhythm during our week on the Egegik. Wed wake up and look for fresh grizzly tracks in the mud around camp. After breakfast, wed catch a couple dozen fish among us, and then cook a few keepers on the shore for lunch. In the afternoons, if we got tired, we napped on the soft tundra moss. If we got thirsty, we drank river water from our hands. One afternoon, we nymphed for Arctic char; on another, we explored an abandoned trappers cabin. At night, we poured buckets of hot water, heated by woodstove, over our heads to rinse off.

By the final morning, I could have returned home more than content, having landed another seven or eight decent cohos on the fly. I had failed to hook a true trophy but had mostly resigned hope of doing so.

Another fisherman and I wandered down to a small point upriver a quarter mile. I was casting and stripping but not giving it my full attention. After a dozen or so casts, my line stopped and I thought Id snagged another humpy; the fish had the same sort of dead weight to it. Annoyed, I began to strip in line hard. But the fish wouldnt give. Then, slowly, it began to cruise along the bottom. Each time I eased the fish to shore, it would dart toward deeper water, unzipping the line Id just reeled in. This was no humpy.

Id fought the fish for 30 minutes when it made its biggest push, charging toward the middle of the river. After a bit more give-and-take, the coho finally surrendered. Stumph netted the fish and handed it over to me16 pounds of pure, muscled silver. The purple leech fly dangled from the corner of its big crooked kype, right where it should be.

A good egg cure starts with an intact skein, or membrane, says Scott Haugen, author of Egg Cures, who leads a fishing school on the Egegik. First, lay the fish on its back to settle the skein, he says. Then insert the knife into the vent and begin slitting up the belly. As you cut, slip two fingers into the cavity along opposite sides of the blade to lift up and push apart the skin. This will guide the knife and help avoid nicking the eggs.J.R.S.

To book a coho trip, contact Becharof Lodge.

This story appeared in the JuneJuly 2017 issue with the headline Searching for Silver.
Some imported frozen tuna cubes and steaks are being recalled after testing showed they could be contaminated with the hepatitis A virus.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says Hawaii-based Hilo Fish Company told the agency in May it had recalled yellowfin tuna that tested positive for the virus. Hilo says the fish was sourced from Sustainable Seafood Company in Vietnam and Santa Cruz Seafood Inc. in the Philippines.

Some products were distributed to retail locations and restaurants in California, Texas and Oklahoma.

The FDA said Thursday no reports of illness have been linked to the fish.

Hilo Fish Company's recalled products include 8-ounce steaks with label code 627152, and tuna cubes in 15-pound cases with label code 705342.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hepatitis A is a liver disease that can be transmitted through food or skin-to-skin contact.
There are five public hearings on the tentative agenda before the start of regular session for tonights Farmington City Council meeting.

The first hearing is for the annexation of 1542 Ste. Genevieve Ave. into the city limits with a proposed zoning of C-2 General Commercial Zoning. The request was submitted by Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health. A first reading by title only on this matter is on the tentative agenda for administrative items in regular session.

The second and third public hearings were submitted by the Farmington IDA  the first for a final record plat of property located at the intersection of New Perrine Road and Air Park Drive and the second for an amendment to the IDA Residential Subdivision Final Record Plat on Route H. A first and second reading and council action is on the tentative agenda for administrative items in regular session on both these hearings.

The final two public hearings are for proposed amendments to Title IV: land use, Chapter 405 regarding zoning applications and maximum height. A first reading by title only on these two items is on the tentative agenda for administrative items in regular session.

Under consent agenda, the council will consider a resolution for a contract with Bloomsdale Excavating Company, Inc. for the Hillsboro to Karsch sanitary sewer upgrades, as well as a resolution to enter into a contract to purchase an easement from Thomas and Rosalie Benz.

A second reading and council action is also scheduled on deleting a section of the municipal code regarding the Farmington IDA to appoint a committee.

Committee reports will also be heard, as well as the finance director report and city administrator report.

The public hearings begin at 6:30 p.m. in council chambers, located at 110 W. Columbia St. The regular session begins immediately after the hearings are closed. Both are open to the public.
The reigning orthodoxy among public health officials is that the more government spends on sex education the fewer teen pregnancies there will be. Now, however, British researchers have found empirical evidence that appears to demonstrate the exact opposite.

In findings published in the Journal of Health Economics, Nottingham University Business School Professor David Paton and Liam Wright, a research assistant at the University of Sheffield, found budget cuts to sex education classes may have contributed to lower rates of teenage pregnancy in England.

Patons study compared changes in the rate of teen pregnancy with the change in the annual funding of teenage pregnancy services for 149 English local authorities between 2008 and 2014.

To their surprise, the researchers found that after sex education budgets were slashed, teen pregnancy rates fell by 42.6 percent.

There are arguments to suggest that the impact [of budget cutbacks] on teenage pregnancy may be not as bad as feared, conclude Wright and Patom in the study.

For teens under 18 years of age, the conception rate in Britain declined by nearly 50 percent between 2007 and 2015. While the United States compiles data on the number of births, the United Kingdom counts conceptions, including those which end in abortion. They do not factor in conceptions that end in miscarriages.

Like their U.S. cohorts, British sex education advocates attributed the decline to increased government investment through the 1999 Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, which boosted funding to initiatives that expanded access to birth control and sex education courses.

If the programs which were cut had been successful in delaying sex, this would likely have fed through to pregnancy rates. So our findings suggest that they were not doing so and, by implication, that cutting some of these programs led to a reduction in teen sexual activity, Paton tells Fox News.

Paton makes clear their research does not argue that budget cuts reduce teen pregnancies. The key lesson for policymakers, he says, is that it would be more productive to focus on the underlying causes (poverty and levels of education) of teen pregnancy, rather than on sex-prevention programs and providing minors access to birth control.

The publication of Patons study comes at a time when the debate over U.S. funding for prevention programs is heating up after the Trump administration released its budget, which eliminates the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention program. That program received $101 million from the government in the 12 months ending Sept. 30.

According to its budget justification, the Department of Health and Human Services argues that the teenage pregnancy rate has declined significantly over recent years, but it does not appear this program has been a major driver in that reduction.

Patons findings have garnered little media attention while a study co-authored by Dr. Julie DeCesare of the University of Florida's OB-GYN residency program has been widely seized upon by proponents of more government funding for sex education.

The researchers analyzed county-by-county teen birth rate data and found clusters of cities that saw a slower rate of decline in teen pregnancies.

Three of the top 10 teen birth rate clusters were in Texas, which commentators attributed to a lack of access to sex education and birth control.

The researchers found that after sex education budgets were slashed, teen pregnancy rates fell by 42.6 percent.

However, DeCesare said her study simply identified the areas where the clusters were present and did not  as many journalists reported -- identify a cause for the higher-than-expected birth rates. She tells Fox News the findings should prompt a discussion in the communities about how best to reduce teen births.

Paton says his study is a reminder that well-intended programs can have opposite effects and reflects results from earlier studies.

In a 2013 study, Paton and his colleague Sourafel Girma examined the impact of parental consent requirements on pregnancy rates in Texas. After the state passed a mandate in 2003 requiring parental consent for state-funded birth control for minors, many predicted it would lead to an increase in teen pregnancies. Instead, they found there was a decrease in attendance at family planning clinics but no increase in underage pregnancies.

Bill Albert, spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, agrees multiple factors have contributed to the historic decline in teenage births in the U.S., but argues comprehensive sex education should continue to receive federal support.

I think it is reasonable to conclude that [sex education and access to birth control] has had a positive effect and if those investments stopped, it is reasonable to assume that it might have a negative effect, says Albert.

In the United States, the teen birthrate peaked in 1991, but saw a significant decline in the subsequent years.

My feeling is why mess with success? he adds.
A Texas boy died of "dry drowning" nearly a week after he went swimming on a family trip, his family said.

Frankie, 4, was on a family trip during Memorial Day weekend when he went swimming in the Texas City Dike, his father, Francisco Delgado Jr., told KTRK-TV.

Delgado said his son started showing symptoms of a stomach bug for several days after the swim, but the family didn't think much of it. Then on Saturday, nearly a week later, the boy woke up after complaining about shoulder pain earlier that morning.

TODDLER BRAIN-DEAD AFTER CAREGIVER ALLEGEDLY PUT HIM IN CAR SEAT IMPROPERLY

"Out of nowhere, he just woke up. He said ahhh," Delgado told KTRK. "He took his last breath and I didn't know what to do no more."

Paramedics and doctors tried saving the boy by performing CPR, but it was too late.

"When she came in, she told us it's what's called dry drowning. His lungs were full of fluid. There was nothing else they could do for him," Tara Delgado, the mother, told the news station.

INDIANA TODDLER DIES FROM SUSPECTED TICK BITE INFECTION, FAMILY SAYS

Dry drowning, also known as secondary drowning, is a rare condition when water fills a person's lungs. It usually occurs with children and only takes a "few gasps" of water through the mouth or nostrils, according to USA Today.

The Delgado family created a GoFundMe page to help cover for funeral expenses. The campaign has raised more than $22,500 as of Thursday.
Two weeks before mom-of-three Brittany Zurn was set to begin a new job in 2014, she learned her husband, Aaron, had fallen nearly 20 feet out of a helicopter while deployed overseas as part of a special-forces unit in the U.S. Marine Corps. The traumatic brain injury (TBI), along with numerous other injuries he suffered during his 10 and a half years in the military, has left 31-year-old Aaron with the mental capacity of a 13-year-old.

While singlehandedly caring for Aaron and their three children  ages 4, 6 and 7  Zurn, 29, dealt with starts and stops in her endeavor to become an elementary school teacher. But thanks to assistance from an organization for military families called Hope for the Warriors, she was able to find the time and funding to achieve her goal.

I really needed my own thing, Brittany Zurn, who teaches first grade in Hampstead, North Carolina, told Fox News.

DEPLOYED SERVICE MEMBER PHOTOSHOPPED INTO WIFE'S MOVING MATERNITY PHOTOS

Hope for the Warriors was founded in 2006 to help retired service members better transition into civilian life and be seen as more than only their medical diagnoses, Robin Kelleher, the co-founder, president and CEO of the nonprofit, who is also a former military spouse, told Fox News.

Our mission at the end of the day is to ensure that service members and their family, and those family members of the fallen, are restored with a sense of hope, said Kelleher, whose organization has served 13,000 families since its inception on the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

In the Zurns case, Aarons TBI led to significant brain and behavioral changes that affected his daily life. TBIs are caused by an external force that strikes the brain or body, leading to physical damage to the brain and potentially death, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Aaron's role in the special-forces unit MARSOC also caused him emotional trauma. Certain war experiences  like watching fellow Marines get blown up by rocket-propelled grenades in Iraq when he was newly deployed at age 19, and sacrificing himself to save his fellow service members atop a mountain in Afghanistan in 2012  led him to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and an eventual addiction to alcohol.

PTSD occurs when an individual has stressful reactions that cause distress, and interrupt home and work life, for longer than three months after the traumatic event, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Symptoms include having flashbacks, avoiding situations that may refresh memories of the traumatic event, experiencing negative feelings, dealing with sleep and concentration problems, and getting startled by loud noises. PTSD can increase the risk of depression and suicide, according to the VA.

PTSD: WHAT IT IS AND HOW TO SPOT IT

Brittany developed secondary PTSD as her husband leaned on her for emotional support and she dealt with the realities of being a military wife. That included not being able to use her real name on Facebook, and sending photos and hand-drawn pictures by their children to Aaron while he was deployed, only to have him burn them so the insurgency could not access them.

I went through a lot of therapy and had postpartum depression every time I got pregnant because I was alone, added Zurn, whose family is in Dayton, Ohio.

Meanwhile, Zurn was trying to finish her education, which was initially interrupted when she relocated from Dayton to Jacksonville, North Carolina, two years after Aaron was deployed during her senior year of high school.

I couldnt live without him, said Zurn, who explained the two grew up about 1 mile away from each other and were middle-school sweethearts.

In 2013, Zurn ended up graduating with a bachelors degree in elementary education from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), but because she needed to tend to Aaron during his recovery, she was never able to complete her student teaching and earn her teaching license.

MILITARY VETERANS SUFFERING PTSD GET BACK ON COURSE WITH GOLF

While raising their children, she fought for Aaron to receive the treatment he needed for PTSD, which he was officially diagnosed with in 2014. While Aaron insisted on staying in MARSOC, Brittany pushed for him to get treatment. In April 2016, he ended up retiring for medical reasons. Now, he is 100 percent disabled.

With help from Hope for the Warriors, which they began working with in 2015, the Zurns were able to better manage the 50 percent loss in income from Aarons retirement, as well as covering the upwards of $800 needed to take Aaron to and from his doctors appointments each month. And, in 2014, Brittany received a scholarship through the organization to help her finish school.

Being a caregiver can be very difficult  especially on young families, Kelleher said. It really changes what your hopes and dreams were for your future. So to be able to say, Hey, this is my family. Im standing strong with them, but Im going to go back to school because that is self-fulfilling for [Brittany]  thats the one piece of advice all caregivers need to hear. You have to take care of yourself.

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Brittany said she continues to attend therapy and helps her husband adhere to his own treatment plan, which involves using their service dog, Maddy, a 4-year-old golden retriever and Labrador mix, for emotional support, and fishing near their home. But shes still prioritizing herself in her pursuit for higher education, as she is working on her masters degree in curriculum and instruction at UNCW.

I needed this recovery process so badly  to have my own thing outside of being a military wife and a mom, Zurn said. [Those are] wonderful things to be, but theyre also very taxing. And being a teacher is also taxing, but its given me a sense of self-worth that Im helping cultivate someone elses mind and helping them grow.
Inside the Beltway, the lions of media and politics have wound themselves to a state of near hysteria over former FBI Director James B. Comeys appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday morning. But those expecting explosive political revelations may be disappointed if Comey follows the law and the rules and regulations governing his testimony.

Various Justice Department and FBI officials have said their investigation of possible Russian involvement in our election is ongoing. [Note: to date, no one has produced any evidence that anyone in the Trump administration engaged in any type of collusion with Russian officials. Moreover, former Obama Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has stated that DHS saw no evidence that hacking by any actor altered the ballot count or any cyber actions that deprived people of voting. So it seems there was no actual interference with the election process.]

But, everyone should understand that as the former head of the FBI, Comey cannot reveal the details of an ongoing investigation. That rule is in place to prevent testimony that might damage an investigation and potential prosecution as well as the reputations of individuals who are being targeted by the government.

All of these exemptions mean that Comey would be committing a serious breach of the rules if he reveals the kind of details about the Russian investigation that the press is apparently hungering for.

That is why, for example, the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552, has a huge exemption that allows the government to avoid publicly disclosing any records or information compiled for law enforcement purposes if such disclosure (A) could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings, (B) would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication, (C) could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, or would reveal confidential sources or law enforcement techniques and procedures.

All of these exemptions mean that Comey would be committing a serious breach of the rules if he reveals the kind of details about the Russian investigation that the press is apparently hungering for.

The key issue that has the news media salivating over Thursdays hearing is the question of obstruction of justice: Did President Trump violate the law and order James Comey to end the investigation of Michael Flynn?

The New York Times reported on May 16 that Comey had written a memorandum to the file (known in Washington circles as a CYA memo) claiming that in a February meeting in the Oval Office, Trump asked Comey if he could let this go, referring to the Flynn investigation. Comeys written testimony, released on Wednesday, claims that Trump told Comey at a dinner in January that he needs loyalty.

Of course, the problem with the New York Times story is that Comey was asked under oath in a Senate hearing in early May whether any higher ups had asked him to halt his FBI investigation. His answer to Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) was that it had not happened. In fact, Comey said, It would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something. That had never happened in his experience.

If Comey now suddenly claims that he was asked to stop the investigation, he has a real problem: his new sworn testimony would contradict his previous sworn testimony. That would be difficult to explain away.

Reporters and others are also throwing around the term obstruction of justice without apparently knowing very much about it. The federal code contains 22 different statutes banning various types of behavior considered to be obstruction of justice. They range from attempts to influence jurors to witness tampering.

The only provision that comes even marginally close to the conversation that the New York Times describes is 18 U.S.C. 1503. The second half of this statute prohibits anyone from corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication from attempting to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice.

While that is very broad language, paraphrasing James Comey when he closed the Clinton email investigation, I dont think any reasonable prosecutor would take this case. While this entire episode may well cause the president political problems, it is quite a stretch, at least at this point, to claim that this constitutes obstruction of justicea crime that is usually accompanied by explicit threats or bribes or by the willful destruction of evidence.

To begin with, it would be the presidents word vs. the FBI directors word on what happened in the Oval Office. Even if true, the president telling Comey he hoped the director could let it go is not an order to drop an investigation. It can be reasonably construed as the president thinking there is no reasonable basis to believe that there had been a violation of the law and therefore no basis for the FBI continuing its investigation. Given the ambiguity of this, any good defense attorney would likely tear the prosecution to shreds. And Comey would have to explain why he changed his story when he was testifying before Congress.

And loyalty? Presidents ask for and should get loyalty from all of their subordinates in the executive branch. A general conversation about the importance of loyalty does not come even close to being an attempt to obstruct or impede the administration of justice.

All this could change if more evidence is produced about what actually happened. But based on what we know now, there does not seem to be enough evidence that a prosecutor could take to court. And Comeys testimony Thursday is unlikely to change that.
So after all this time, what the Comey testimony comes down do is the presidents request for honest loyalty. I cant get very upset about that. Thats not the same thing as a request for dishonest loyalty, which by definition is criminal. Importantly, its not the same thing as honest disloyalty.

Theres a lot of honest disloyalty in Washington, with all the leaking thats going on. The State Department staffers who rush from a meeting with Trump to phone the Washington Post might report honestly on what was said, but theyre disloyal all the same. Then there are decisions that come down to judgment calls, where an official has some discretion about what to do. If hes a partisan Trump hater, the decision will come out differently than it would from a Trump loyalist. And everybody knows this.

The members of an administration charged with enforcing the lawthe Attorney General, the FBI Directorhold their offices in a dual capacity. Theyre officers of the law, and theyre members of the administration and dismissible by the president. If I had to summarize in two words how they could honorably satisfy the joint duties of their offices, I couldnt do much better than honest loyalty.

Loyalty was especially needed, given the fake news that was surrounding the administration and interfering with its policy objectives. The Russian reset, which every administration has sought since the fall of communism, was on hold until the falsehoods could be knocked down. And remember just how salacious those stories were, and how eagerly a partisan press hallooed them.

These stories, incidentally, were alluded to in the statement Comey released Wednesday, thereby ensuring that theyd be all over the press Thursday, the day of his testimony. Even if you assume that Comey has a duty to testify before Congress, that couldnt conceivably include the need to mention such stories. Unless it was payback time for Comey. But even as a private citizen, Comey retains some duties to the president who appointed him, and in this respect his testimony is the very definition of honest disloyalty.

If you read Comeys testimony carefully, with some insight into how a normal person in Trumps shoes might have regarded the FBI Director, youll see just how painful the interview might have been. Even without Comeys strange history  the sad story of his interventions in the 2016 campaign, his seeming eagerness to hog the limelight  its easy to imagine the FBI Directors uncomfortable visual cues. Have you ever had the sense, when meeting with someone, that he wanted to rush away and transcribe everything you just said, to be leaked publicly at a future date? Thats how it very plausibly must have seemed to Trump. Not without reason, I expect that he was simply creeped out by Comey.

Well hear a lot about Comeys feelings Thursday. I expect hell say he felt pressured to drop the investigation of General Flynn. But with a person who so much resembles an emotional basket case as Comey, his feelings arent all that important. Instead, what matters is whether a reasonable person would reasonably have felt pressured. And the evidence just doesnt seem to be there. Or anywhere close.

For that, we have the evidence of James Comey himself. A month ago, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience. The Russian investigation went on, and even after Comey was fired, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe (a Comey loyalist) testified that there was no interference in the FBIs Russia investigation.

Finally, is it just possible that Flynn deserves to be cleared? I have some problems with his ties to Erdogans Turkey, but thats another matter. As for Russia, all weve seen is a report of a transcript with a Russian ambassador that sounded pretty innocuous to everyone who wasnt a member of an anti-Trump lynch mob.

The discussion about honest loyalty was prompted by Comey himself. Im not reliable in the sense that politicians use that word, he told Trump. But hed always tell Trump the truth, he added. He didnt need to go there. If anything became clear during the 2016 campaign, when Comey first absolved Hillary Clinton, then rapped her knuckles, then reopened the investigation, then closed it two days before the election, we learned that reliable wasnt Comeys middle name. Which was a pretty good reason to fire him.
Former FBI Director James Comey's written statement, which was released in advance of his Thursday testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, does not provide evidence that President Trump committed obstruction of justice or any other crime. Indeed it strongly suggests that even under the broadest reasonable definition of obstruction, no such crime was committed.

The crucial conversation occurred in the Oval Office on February 14 between the president and the then director. According to Comey's contemporaneous memo, the president expressed his opinion that General Flynn "is a good guy." Comey replied: "He is a good guy."

The president said the following: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this thing go.

Comey understood that to be a reference only to the Flynn investigation and not "the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to the campaign"

Comey had already told the president that "we were not investigating him personally."

Comey understood "the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December."

Comey did not say he would "let this go," and indeed he did not grant the presidents request to do so. Nor did Comey report this conversation to the attorney general or any other prosecutor. He was troubled by what he regarded as a breach of recent traditions of FBI independence from the White House, though he recognized that "throughout history, some presidents have decided that because 'problems' come from the Department of Justice, they should try to hold the Department close."

That is an understatement.

Throughout American history -- from Adams to Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Kennedy to Obama -- presidents have directed (not merely requested) the Justice Department to investigate, prosecute (or not prosecute) specific individuals or categories of individuals.

It is only recently that the tradition of an independent Justice Department and FBI has emerged. But traditions, even salutary ones, cannot form the basis of a criminal charge.

It would be far better if our constitution provided for prosecutors who were not part of the executive branch which is under the direction of the president.

In Great Britain, Israel and other democracies that respect the rule of law, the Director of Public Prosecution or the attorney general are law enforcement officials who, by law, are independent of the Prime Minister.

But our constitution makes the attorney general both the chief prosecutor and the chief political adviser to the present on matters of justice and law enforcement.

The president can, as a matter of constitutional law, direct the attorney general, and his subordinate, the Director of the FBI, tell them what to do, whom to prosecute and whom not to prosecute. Indeed, the president has the constitutional authority to stop the investigation of any person by simply pardoning that person.

Assume, for arguments sake, that the president had said the following to Comey: quot;You are no longer authorized to investigate Flynn because I have decided to pardon him." Would that exercise of the president's constitutional power to pardon constitute a criminal obstruction of justice? Of course not. presidents do that all the time.

The first President Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger, his Secretary of Defense, in the middle of an investigation that could have incriminated Bush. That was not an obstruction and neither would a pardon of Flynn have been a crime. A president cannot be charged with a crime for properly exercising his constitutional authority

For the same reason President Trump cannot be charged with obstruction for firing Comey, which he had the constitutional authority to do.

The Comey statement suggests that one reason the president fired him was because of his refusal or failure to publicly announce that the FBI was not investigating Trump personally. Trump "repeatedly" told Comey to "get that fact out," and he did not.

If that is true, it is certainly not an obstruction of justice.

Nor is it an obstruction of justice to ask for loyalty from the director of the FBI, who responded "you will get that ('honest loyalty) from me."

Comey understood that he and the president may have understood that vague phrase -- "honest loyalty" -- "differently." But no reasonable interpretation of those ambiguous words would give rise to a crime.

Many Trump opponents were hoping that the Comey statement would provide smoking guns.

It has not.

Instead it has weakened an already weak case for obstruction of justice.

The statement may provide political ammunition to Trump opponents, but unless they are willing to stretch Comey's words and take Trump's out of context and unless they are prepared to abandon important constitutional principles and civil liberties that protect us all, they should not be searching for ways to expand already elastic criminal statutes and shrink enduring constitutional safeguard in a dangerous and futile effort to criminalize political disagreements.
If you believe the news media, todays hearing with former FBI director James Comey was the Super Bowl of scandals. Major media outlets organized pregame coverage with CNN pushing the idea that the day should have been a national holiday. Fans even set up watch parties, or worse, yoga watch parties.

The humor site Babylon Bee cut through the left-wing/right-wing narratives better than most in the press. Breaking: Comey Hearing Confirms Whatever You Already Wanted To Believe. That couldnt be more true.

Journalists and pundits on both sides worked hard to prove Babylon Bee correct. Conservatives criticized both the press for getting facts wrong, Comey for blatantly leaking and the media for the ceaseless feeding frenzy. At least three outlets have had stories proven wrong from this one event. At one point, Comey referred to the press in classic terms, saying he didn't share a memo with the media because, "I was worried it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach." Seagull photos briefly flocked to Twitter, providing one of the days few lighter moments.

The traditional press went after President Trump and, of course, conservatives. Former-conservative-now-CNN-attack-dog Oliver Darcy tweeted criticism of conservative media, saying Breitbart going full Breitbart today for Comey hearing coverage. He clipped an image of the top Drudge headlines with a snarky summation. DRUDGE just updated his headlines -- this is a good rundown of what narrative in pro-Trump universe will be like. He didnt note that his new employer CNN certainly gave a good rundown of what narrative in anti-Trump universe was like.

But despite the press celebrations of doing what they perceived was harm to Trump, some of the damage fell squarely on them, especially The New York Times. Comey directly contradicted a February Times story that was headlined, Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.

Early in the hearing, Comey said, that report, is not factual. When the issue was raised again later, he called it, almost entirely wrong. The Times gave the most generic of statements: We are looking into James Comey's statements, and we will report back with more information as soon as we can. Imagine the outrage if this had been a conservative outlet.

Later, a Times spokesperson stood by the story: "Subsequent reporting by The Times and other media outlets has verified our reporting," reported NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.

Comeys testimony confirmed that he was incredibly focused on massaging the press -- even leaking information to a friend who is a law school professor. HuffPost senior media reporter Michael Calderone reported that, Columbia law professor Daniel Richman confirmed to me he was the Comey close friend who shared contents of memo with reporter.

Even by D.C. standards where leaking is a religion, it was shocking. Times chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, admitted, Cant remember the last time someone in DC openly acknowledged orchestrating a leak  and without any senator having even asked.

CNNs take was  to blame conservatives. The networks anti-conservative media attacker Brian Stelter wasted no time in saying how Putin had won the day. Russian propaganda outlets are loving this today, he argued. Why? Because Stelter says leaks are good and worrying about them is a talking point for conservative media.

CNN also had to correct a previous report of its own. According to The Hill: CNN has corrected a Tuesday report after the release of former FBI Director James Comey's opening statement for his Thursday testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee contradicted the report's sources. The Hill said ABC had produced a similar report but hadnt yet corrected it.

The network acted like a 2-year-old before Christmas, devoting more than 10 hours of coverage to testimony before it happened. It even featured a "Comey Countdown logo three days before the hearing. Maybe next time theyll get a beer company to sponsor it.

Like all big media events, the Comey testimony was filled with bias big and small. In one of the most ridiculous media moves, Axios (dont worry, only insiders read it) put the image of President Trump on all three corners of a fidget spinner and had it spinning away under the provocative headline: 1 big thing: Comey truth bomb.

But for all of Axios writer Mike Allens hyperbolic writing style, there was onebig thing about Comeys pre-released statement: But it presents no new information that proves a crime.

Axios left out the obvious. Then why are we having this stupid hearing? Oh yeah, because the media are working in concert with the most-radical elements of the Democrat Party to overturn the election result. Even if they fail, they hope to kneecap his administration and prevent anything from getting done, hiding it beneath a cloud of supposition and allegation.

When it comes to wild-eyed speculation, there were few worse than disgraced CBS anchor Dan Rather. He went on MSNBCs "Hardball" before the hearing, calling the event a code red situation for the United States. For a man who couldnt handle the truth like Rather, its hilarious to see him invoke A Few Good Men.

The fact that the media have tried to resurrect Rathers career to attack Trump shows more about the embarrassing state of journalism than the state of Trumps America.
Former FBI Director Jim Comeys hearing on Thursday made one thing abundantly clear: Russian President Vladimir Putins influence in the 2016 American elections is undeniable.

Comey emphasized that Russian cyber-attacks may only be expected to continue, that they are not isolated to either political party, and that Russia will be a threat as long as the U.S. does not assertively address the threats.

This is not a conspiracy theory. Russian influence is a real and tangible threat.

As for President Trump, Comey said in his opening statement that he was personally shocked when he learned the president had fired him, saying, the shifting explanations confused me and increasingly concerned me.

Comey continued even more strongly: And although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led. That the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.

This was not the only moment during his testimony that Comey expressed his doubts in the presidents honesty. When asked why he felt the need to carefully record details of his meetings with President Trump, he replied, I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting so I thought it important to document.

Senators questioned Comey on everything from his personal relationship with the president to the status of investigations into the campaign. Many senators focused on Comeys language in his meetings with Trump and the chain of command Comey had to follow.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., asked why Comey did not inform Trump that their meetings were inappropriate. Comey responded by saying, Maybe if I were stronger, I would have.

Comey continued, saying that he was shocked the president would ask him to let things go and was never sure of how to respond. As he confirmed for Senator Angus King, I-Maine, however, Comey was firm in his belief that the presidents suggestion to drop the Russian investigation was a directive.

Comey acknowledged that, upon reflection, he could have been more explicit with the president in his unwillingness to discuss the Russia investigation throughout the first four months of 2017.

Despite this, Comey remained confident that he acted appropriately.

And as for the seriousness of the Russian threat, Comey made it clear that Vladimir Putin will remain determined to influence U.S. elections in 2018, 2020, and beyond.

Unequivocally, and on multiple occasions, Comey stressed that the Russian government remains a threat to our national security and our national sovereignty.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked Comey if he had any doubts that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election. The former FBI director replied with an emphatic, None. He then said he had no doubt that officials of the Russian government were fully aware of these activities. That is eerie.

Answering Senator King as to whether Russian interference was a one-off proposition, or...part of a long-term strategy, Comey stated that it is a long-term practice of [the Russians]. Theyll be back, he added.

As Comey asserted, the entire U.S. intelligence community holds the high confidence judgement that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 US election.

This systemic aggression carried out by Vladimir Putin must not stand. These attacks will be, at the very least, a distraction for our government going forward -- both domestically and in terms of foreign policy.

And this should not be a partisan matter. Its not about Republicans or Democrats, Comey said. Theyre coming after America, which I hope we all love equally.

I could not agree more.

As investigators, both in Congress and under the director of Special Counselor Bob Mueller, reach a conclusion on the Trump campaigns role in Russian meddling, we must continue to work toward a broad public consensus that Vladimir Putin is an intolerable threat to our nations future.
In his testimony former FBI director James Comey echoed a view that I alone have been expressing for several weeks, and that has been attacked by nearly every Democratic pundit.

Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available: the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute. The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.

As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct. As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidentsfrom Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama  have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.

Yet virtually every Democratic pundit, in their haste to get President Trump, has willfully ignored these realities. In doing so they have endangered our civil liberties and constitutional rights.

Now that even former Director Comey has acknowledged that the Constitution would permit the president to direct the Justice Department and the FBI in this matter, let us put the issue of obstruction of justice behind us once and for all and focus on the political, moral, and other non-criminal aspects of President Trumps conduct.

Comeys testimony was devastating with regard to President Trumps credibility  at least as Comey sees it. He was also critical of President Trumps failure to observe the recent tradition of FBI independence from presidential influence. These are issues worth discussing but they have been distorted by the insistence of Democratic pundits that Trump must have committed a crime because they disagree with what he did politically.

Director Comeys testimony was thoughtful, coherent and balanced. He is obviously angry with President Trump, and his anger has influenced his assessment of the president and his actions. But even putting that aside, Comey has provided useful insights into the ongoing investigations.

I was disappointed to learn that Comey used a Columbia law professor as a go-between to provide information to the media. He should have has the courage to do it himself. Senators must insist that he disclose the name of his go-between so that they can subpoena his memos and perhaps subpoena the professor-friend to provide further information.

I write this short op-ed as Comey finishes his testimony. I think it is important to put to rest the notion that there was anything criminal about the president exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and to request  hope  that he let go the investigation of General Flynn. Just as the president would have had the constitutional power to pardon Flynn and thus end the criminal investigation of him, he certainly had the authority to request the director of the FBI to end his investigation of Flynn.

So lets move on and learn all the facts regarding the Russian efforts to intrude on American elections without that investigation being impeded by frivolous efforts to accuse President Trump of committing a crime by exercising his constitutional authority.
Dr. Kent Medlin is known around Willard, Missouri, as one of those guys who speaks from his heart.

For the past 14 years, he's been the superintendent of schools. He's a good man, a Christian man.

Click here for a free subscription to Todd's newsletter: a must-read for conservatives!

Last May, Dr. Medlin delivered an address during commencement exercises at Willard High School. And being a Christian man, it was not all that surprising when he referenced the Bible and the Lord and invited folks to join him in prayer.

The Springfield News-Leader reported on the superintendent's remarks. He used an acronym, GUTS - for grit, understand and teamwork. It was the "s" that got him in trouble.

To continue reading Todd's column form ToddStarnes.com, click here.
James Comeys public testimony exonerates President Trump of obstruction of justice.

To put it simply, hoping that something happens is not a crime. The law demands much more than that. Felony obstruction requires that the person seeking to obstruct a law enforcement investigation act corruptly. The statute specifically defines what that includes: threats, lies, bribes, destruction of documents, and altering or concealing evidence. None of that is alleged by Comey.

Instead, the fired FBI Director recounts how President Trump expressed compassion for the man he dismissed as his National Security Adviser, calling Michael Flynn a good guy who has been through a lot. Comey agreed. Then the president said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.

The presidents statement is not an order or mandate. It is not even a request, though Comey insists he understood it to be. But even if we construe it as such, it is not enough to constitute obstruction. Not even close. There must be a corrupt act that accompanies the directive.

For example, if the president had said, Bury whatever incriminating evidence you have, exonerate Flynn, and terminate the investigation of him entirely or I will fire you. That is, arguably, obstruction. It includes two corrupt elements a threat and concealing evidence. However, this is not what happened.

Comey knows all this. Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, posed the key question: Do you know of any case in which someone has been charged with obstruction based on the word hope? Comey answered, I dont. On that point, Comey is correct.

Hoping or wishing for an outcome bears no resemblance to the crime of obstruction as defined not just by statute, but by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2005 case of Arthur Anderson v. United States.

Intelligence Committee Chairman, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked Comey quite directly, Was the president trying to obstruct justice? As expected, Comey demurred by claiming, Its not for me to say. While there is no legal basis for declining to answer the pivotal question, Comey dodged it for a reason. If he said, under oath, that he regarded the presidents words as obstruction, Comey would have incriminated himself in a crime known as misprision of felony.

As explained in an earlier column , the law imposes an affirmative duty on federal officials, like Comey, to immediately report knowledge of a felony such as obstruction to a person in authority. In the case of an FBI Director, his superior is the Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Comey admitted he did not tell anyone at DOJ. His excuses were legally vacuous.

Thus, one can conclude that Comey either did not believe the president obstructed justice (and, therefore, had no duty to report it) or he did not want to put himself in legal jeopardy.

Comey was pressed on the issue. Unbelievably, he claimed he did not know whether FBI agents have a duty to report a crime that has been committed:

Question: Youre unsure whether they would have a legal duty?

Answer: Thats a good question. Ive not thought about that before. (pause) There is a statute that prohibits misprision of a felony -- knowing of a felony and taking steps to conceal it. But this is a different question.

No, Mr. Comey, it is not a different question. It is a fundamental legal obligation for all people who serve in law enforcement. The head of the FBI should know that.

Regardless, the entire question of obstruction was rendered moot and meaningless by Comey himself when he endorsed what constitutional scholars, including Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz, have long maintained. That is, the president has the constitutional authority to stop investigations and prosecutions.

Im not a legal scholarbut as a legal matter, the president is head of the executive branch and could direct, in theory, that anybody be investigated or not be investigated, admitted Comey.

Comey Leaked His Memo

Obstruction aside, one of the more stunning moments during the hearing came when Comey confessed that he deliberately leaked to a friend the contents of the memo memorializing his conversation with Trump so that it would then be leaked to the media. Comey said it was his personal property. Wrong.

Under the Federal Records Act and the FBIs own Records Management regulations, any document that is made in the course of business is the property not of the person who authored it, but the property of the U.S. government. And so are its contents. It matters not whether the document, as this one, is unclassified.

Comey improperly and, perhaps, unlawfully leaked a government document involving an FBI investigation. Comey admitted he did it to prompt the appointment of a special counsel who is now tasked with examining Russias interference in the presidential election. At the very least, Comey violated government rules by converting government property for his own use. It does not matter, legally, that he was no longer employed by the FBI. Is it a crime?

Under 18 USC 793 (Leaking Non-Classified Information), it is a crime punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment to willfully communicate or transmit national defense information, even though it is not classified. While the contents of the memo do not deal directly with national defense matters, the overall investigation does. So it is debatable whether Comey could be charged.

If nothing else, Comeys leak appears to be a rather sleazy tactic designed to harm the president. How can he justify publicizing his own self-serving narrative while admitting in his testimony that he resisted all attempts by the president to publicize the truth that Trump was not personally under investigation? He cannot.

It is equally disgraceful that Comey appears to have purposefully written his memo as an unclassified document so that he could later use it to his advantage by leaking it to the public without committing a serious crime. Making it classified, he told the committee, would tangle it up. In other words, he manipulated the classification system to exploit the political damage his document might cause.

Comeys testimony did manage to put to rest the constant accusation that President Trump attempted to quash the Russian investigation. Sen. Burr inquired, Did the president at any time ask you to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections? Comey replied, Not to my understanding, no.

As anticipated, Comey trashed Trump in a manner that is typical of an angry or disgruntled former employee who lashes out at the boss who fired him. But his venomous attack seemed shrill and unbecoming of his stature. He branded Trump a liar and claimed the president defamed him when Trump described the FBI as poorly led and in disarray under Comeys leadership.

As a lawyer, Comey well knows that the president was expressing an opinion which is protected speech under the First Amendment. Hence, it is not defamation at all. Moreover, truth is a complete defense. Given Comeys mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email case, in which he contorted the law and usurped the authority of the Attorney General, the presidents description may be the truth.

And so, the much anticipated Senate Intelligence Committee hearing did not provide what President Trumps antagonists yearned for  evidence of guilt.

The only guilt rests with the presidents critics, especially many in the media, who have leveled wild and baseless assertions that he committed a crime during his now infamous conversation with the fired FBI Director on February 14th.

Through ignorance and malevolence, they have laid bare their contempt for facts and the law in pursuit of a political mugging. Its a shame that is not a crime.

Jails would be overcrowded with politicians and journalists.
Last weekend, the FBI arrested an employee of a corporation in Augusta, Georgia, that had a contract with the National Security Agency and charged her with espionage. Espionage occurs when someone who has been entrusted to safeguard state secrets fails to do so. In this case, the government alleges that the person to whom state secrets had been entrusted is 25-year-old Reality Leigh Winner, who had a top-secret national security clearance.

The government claims that Winner downloaded and printed a top-secret NSA report, removed the printed version of the report from her employers premises, and then mailed it to The Intercept, a highly regarded international media outlet that exposes government wrongdoing.

The government says it learned of this when folks from The Intercept called the NSA and told agents what they had received and what they planned to publish. After hearing agents describe the potential harm to their work if the full report were to be released, The Intercept agreed to redact certain portions, though it published the bulk of the report.

The report is startling, as it reveals that the NSA discovered that Russian hackers in late October and early November 2016 planted cookies (attractive, uniquely tailored links) into the websites of 122 American city and county clerks responsible for counting ballots in the presidential election. This means that if any employee of those clerks offices clicked onto any cookie, the hackers had access to -- and thus the ability to interfere with -- the tabulation of votes. This NSA report is at sharp odds with the denials of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election made last year by President Barack Obama and made last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it is profoundly more detailed and alarming than anything the federal government has thus far revealed.

Doesnt the American public have the right to know what the Russians did in the election? Is it necessarily criminal to make such things public? Isnt the NSA supposed to protect us from foreign hackers who are attempting to interfere with the core American electoral process -- the election of the president -- and not keep us in the dark if it fails to do so?

Here is the back story.

I have argued since 2013, when we first learned from the Edward Snowden revelations that the NSA has gathered too much data about too many innocent people since 2005, that it does so in violation of the Constitution and federal law and that it suffers from information overload -- meaning it has more raw data than it has resources to examine in a timely and effective manner.

The result of all this is liberty lost -- as innocents have their privacy invaded and, as we know, sometimes even revealed to the public for political purposes -- and our safety compromised, since the NSA repeatedly discovers that it had all relevant communications of killers before the killings but does not connect the dots until too late, as in Boston, San Bernardino and Orlando; and the same can be said for our British partners in Manchester and London during the past two weeks.

The stated purpose of all this suspicionless bulk spying on all of us all the time is to keep us safe. Yet we know that the NSA has failed at that, and we know from a recent judicial condemnation of the NSA that it has failed to protect our liberties. Now we know that it has failed to protect our presidential election.

Is it a crime to reveal what the FBI says Winner revealed? In a word, yes. Yet I argue for understanding the full picture here. If she did as the FBI alleges, she committed a violation of federal law. However, it appears she did not do so for petty, political, financial or venal reasons; rather, she may have done so for the American people to know that the spies who have failed us would keep us ignorant and vulnerable.

Can The Intercept be prosecuted for revealing top-secret material to the public? In a word, no. The Supreme Court made clear in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971 that a media entity may freely publish matters that are material to the public interest, notwithstanding the source of the matters or the behavior of the source that delivered the matters to it. This is grounded in the essence of personal liberty in a free society. In matters of material interest to the public, the publics right to know what the government is doing or has failed to do constitutionally trumps the governments right to secrecy.

Where does all this leave us? Reality Winner may very well be a patriot who risked her career and freedom to warn the American public of what the government was afraid to acknowledge -- that mass spying keeps us neither safe nor free.

No doubt the government doesnt see it that way. This case has embarrassed the government, and she will most likely be prosecuted.

I hope the judge in her case lets her lawyers argue that because we live in perilous times, the people are entitled to know what the government does and fails to do in our names to address the peril so we can change the government when it fails.

The remedy for the revelation of truth should consist in the truth's ability to flourish in the marketplace of ideas rather than in the punishment of the revealer.

The core principle of democracy is that the people have consented to the government. When the government keeps vital secrets from us -- particularly secrets that embarrass it, secrets that cause us to view it differently, secrets of failure -- we end up with a government that we do not know or trust. And one that ultimately lacks our consent.
Those who preach tolerance and equality are normally the least tolerant and least equal of all.

Thats why I was not terribly surprised to learn that organizers of a gay pride parade in Charlotte, North Carolina, banned a group of pro-Trump gays.

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Gays for Trump had submitted an application to display a float during this years Charlotte Pride parade.

It was going to support Donald Trump, group spokesman Derek Van Cleve told me. It was going to be a patriotic float with American flags and a few Make America Great Again flags.

He also said the float would be populated with a number of drag queens  dressed as Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty.

We wanted to have a couple of drag queens on the float dancing in Make America Great Again dresses, he said.

All we wanted to do is let the community know the gay community does not speak for every single gay  just like the mayor of Pittsburgh does not speak for every single person in Pittsburgh, Mr. Van Cleve said.

Nothing controversial, just patriotic.

Not every single lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender citizen is anti-Trump, he said. Some of us love him and some of us support him  including myself.

Mr. Van Cleve told me he was surprised when Charlotte Pride rejected their application.

To be clear, the organization did not explain why they rejected the Gays for Trump entry.

However, a spokesperson for Charlotte Pride issued a statement to Fox 46 defending its right to decline participation at our events to groups or organizations which do not reflect the mission, vision and values of our organization.

In the past, we have made similar decisions to decline participation from other organizations espousing anti-LGBTQ religious or public policy stances, the statement read.

Charlotte Pride went on to say they envision a world in which LGBTQ people are affirmed, respected and included in the full social and civic life of their local communities, free from fear of any discrimination, rejection, and prejudice.

Its just unfortunate that Charlotte Pride does not practice what it preaches.

"For a group of people to claim to want tolerance, acceptance, and give it to every single person you can imagine to give it to, for them to sit back and judge me for exercising my right as an American to choose my leader without judgment is hypocritical," Gays for Trump organizer Brian Talbert told Fox 46.

Mr. Van Cleve told me theres not all that much diversity in the local LGBT organization.

Ive been to many pride festivals in the past and its pretty much a big DNC convention, he said. Its extremely liberal.

Charlotte Pride has a right to pick and choose who they wish to parade with  that issue is not in dispute.

But their decision to ban Gays for Trump smells of narrow-minded political bigotry.

Charlotte Pride should be celebrating diversity. Instead, it appears they are shoving gay Republicans back into the closet.
President Trump's former campaign manager claimed Wednesday night that Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to confirm his loyalty to America, not to Trump personally.

Comey, who was fired by Trump last month, will claim in prepared testimony that the president told him, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty" during a Jan. 27 dinner. Comey will also say that when Trump said he wanted "honest loyalty," he answered, "You will get that from me."

COMEY TO TESTIFY THAT TRUMP SOUGHT 'LOYALTY,' ASKED TO LIFT RUSSIA 'CLOUD'

Lewandowski told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that Trump was only trying to ensure "that the American people have the justice system that they want. That's not unheard of. That's not uncalled for."

The former campaign manager reiterated that Comey had acknowledged telling Trump that he was not under investigation "in any way, shape, or form" in connection with alleged collusion between Trump's transition team and Russian officials.

Lewandowski also noted that Trump had met with or spoken to Comey nine times as president and president-elect, compared to just two such encounters under former President Barack Obama.

"This president is hands-on [and] wants to make sure that we have the best Justice Department available," he told host Tucker Carlson, "and he made the decision as commander-in-chief to relieve a person from duty who was no longer capable of running the FBI."
Fifty people already have lined up outside Union Pub in downtown Washington, and its not even 9:30 a.m.

While the crowd chats outside, the staff is scrambling. At last, the doors open  and the dozens of eager day drinkers surge inside for the show.

This was the scene at just one of several Beltway bars Thursday where James Comeys testimony was transformed  and aggressively marketed  into a Super Bowl-like event.

At Union Pub just steps from the Senate hearing room where the former FBI director was speaking, manager Ashley Saunders made the shrewd decision to open early and dangle an attractive drink special: Free rounds of beer every time President Trump tweets.

We wanted to go above and beyond, Saunders said Thursday morning, as the bar opened. I would be disappointed if [Trump] didnt tweet at least once, we want to show everyone here a good time, I want to give them at least one round on the house.

As it turned out, Trump didnt tweet. But it didnt matter.

Comey-watching, beer-swilling patrons filled the inside bars and outdoor patio. After opening at 9:30 a.m. ET, the pub reached capacity by noon.

'This ... combines three of the things that young professionals in D.C. love to do anyway, which is get together, talk about politics, and drink craft IPAs.'  James Faeh, Comey watch party enthusiast

Most patrons skipped work to witness (on wall-mounted televisions) what many described as a historic moment. The pub aired Fox News live coverage of the hearing on 18 TVs inside the bar/restaurant, and on three TVs and two projectors outside.

Union Pub also set up a monitor that exclusively showed Trumps Twitter feed, which turned out to be uncharacteristically inactive.

Im still waiting for Trump to tweet for these free beverages, said Thomas Casey, a 22-year-old Maryland resident who had heard the bar was offering free beer per-tweet.

Still, he said, Its always fun to see Comey testify and talk before the Senate. He has really great composure as well as truthful demeanor.

The crowd watched intently and reacted with laughs, awes, and boosparticularly when Comey rebuffed senators questions by saying he could not discuss classified information.

People wagered bets on Comeys responses with alcohol. Budweiser was the most popular beverage of choice.

A D.C. gamea sporting event, is how 34-year-old D.C. resident Ryan Rhodes described the scene.

The full house  before lunchtime even hit  presented its challenges.

At 10:48 a.m., the Pinot Grigio was tapped.

Then, the bar experienced a shortage of water glasses.

But the show went on, and political opinions ran over even if the Pinot didnt.

Its an opportunity to drink and watch the [Comey] testimony, said Matt Gang, 22. Its looking pretty rough for the president today. Theres a lot of smoke -- the question is if there is fire. The smoke is the asking for loyalty The fire would be obstruction of justice.

Geoff Snowman, 55, took the day off to enjoy drinks and watch the testimony with a crowd.

Im optimistic we will eventually get this terrible president out of here, Snowman said, a beer in hand. But I dont think were going to see the smoking gun today.

On the other side, D.C. resident Joseph Cortese said he thinks Comey helped clear Trumps name.

It just goes to show that President Trumps done nothing wrong. The media doesnt like to say this but Trump was never under investigation, so I just think it goes to show that the media wanted the hype this up, blow a lot of smoke where theres really nothing there  no obstruction of justice, he said.

James Faeh, a 31-year-old who previously worked for the Obama administration, was pleasantly surprised by the lively scene, in the bar he usually heads to for a relaxing brew after work.

This is exactly what I would expect from D.C. in the best kind of way. It combines three of the things that young professionals in D.C. love to do anyway, which is get together, talk about politics, and drink craft IPAs, he said.

Despite Trumps Twitter silence throughout the hearing, the bar took mercy.

At the end of testimony, Union Pub handed out free shots on the house.
Political junkies weren't the only ones riveted to ex-FBI Director James Comey's testimony Thursday, as the much-hyped event also drew a wide swath of viewers who normally aren't entrenched in Washington politics.

The long-awaited Senate Intelligence Committee hearing pulled in eyes from bars, cubicles, airports and homes across the nation, after constant media coverage of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and whether Trump campaign associates colluded with Russia.

I think that it is very telling that people are so interested in thispeople are skipping work, using social mediapeople are talking, Merideth Turner, a 25-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, told Fox News. I think that stems from concern for our country and our future.

One New York City bar hostess told Fox News the venue was packed for the hearing.

We had a full house, people stayed until the very end, said the hostess from SideBar, in New York Citys Union Square.No one was drinking much, people were really listening to the testimony.

A bar in New York Citys Midtown also showed the hearing, but drew less of a crowd.

I dont think people came with the intent to watch the Comey hearing, but people ended up lingering at the bar, a hostess from Langans Pub said. But one patron asked the bartender to switch to sports.

The hostess told Fox News that patron said, Im fed up with this stuff.

People at Miami International Airport crowded in the bar there due to flight delays.

There was a big crowd here until it ended, one man at the airport said. Everybody was really engagedthey kept asking them to turn it up so everyone could hear it.

But regarding Comeys long-awaited testimony, Americans across the nation are split over whether it would have a positive or negative impact for President Trump.

I think it was definitely good for President Trump, with the only exception being Comeys points about Trump lying about his character, Chris Jones, a marketing executive from Redding, Conn., told Fox News.

Comey testified that Trump had lied about his inability to lead the FBI, and said the president defamed him. The take-away was that there was no obstruction of justice," Jones said, "but the news isnt as good for Loretta Lynch, although we likely wont hear about her shenanigans in the mainstream media.

Comey testified that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch told him not to call the probe into Hillary Clintons private email server an investigation, but to refer to it as a matter.

The thing I walked away from in Comeys testimony is theres nothing to it, Bob Pena, a Republican from El Paso, Texas told Fox News. I dont see where theres any smoke, much less fire.

Watching the hearings, I couldnt help but think of the felonies and scandals of Hillary and the Obama administration where Comey found nothing wrong, Steve Hall, a small business owner from Zebulon, Ga., told Fox News. He seemed to be intimidated by Trump, and seemed to be playing the victim card.

But others thought Comeys testimony was somewhat of a nothing burger.

I dont think it was as incriminating and detrimental as people expected it to be, but none of this is good for Trump overall, Alexa Lamanna, a 21-year-old from New Jersey, said.

But Lamanna added that she was left even more confused on the timeline of Comeys firing. I want a transparent release of information on what happened up to Comeys firing.

A recent Fox News poll surveyed a sample of 1,000 Americans, and asked them what they felt was the real reason President Trump fired Comey. Sixty percent said that they believed Comey was fired because his investigations were harming Trump, and 29 percent said that it was because Comeys actions were harming the FBI.

A South Carolina woman, Rachel Bostic, told Fox News that Comeys testimony could be end up being an issue for the president.

Hes relatively ignorant of the way things work in Washington, so he probably didnt realize that what he was doing was inappropriate and people are going to cut him slack for italthough its his job to know what actions are and arent appropriate for the president, Bostic said. I think there's still so much that we don't know, especially because so much of what Comey knows is classified, it's nearly impossible to predict how this entire situation will play out.

And some Americans are just fed up with Russia talk in general.

I wish theyd end the whole thing and get down to business and do away with the Russian deal, a North Carolina man, John Sanders Sr., told Fox News.

Its constant garbage day in and day outeach side hates the other, Eddie Murphy, a 25-year-old from Los Angeles, said. You cant tell whats lies or truth.

Im ready to put it behind me and not hear about Comey again, a Florida man told Fox News. I think everybody knew that Russia was interfering with the election before Trump was elected and now just another way to consume our time and keep us busy with news that really isnt important.

One man from Miami, Fla. told Fox News the testimony really doesnt matter at all.

In the end, it boils down to a he said, he said situation, and whatever happens with this hearing is not necessarily the most important thing, explained.

Fox News Erin ODonnell, Rob Demetrious, Kaitlyn Schallhorn, Ray Bogan, and Willie Inman contributed to this report.
Senators have had hours to pick apart the first taste of former FBI Director James Comeys upcoming testimony  and both sides of the aisle will have plenty to chew on.

The seven-page written opening statement released ahead of the 10 a.m. ET Thursday hearing shows the fired FBI boss affirming prior reports that President Trump once sought his loyalty and help lifting what he called the cloud of the Russia investigation. Democrats are poised to use those details to accuse Trump of trying to strong-arm the top law enforcement official in the weeks and months before he fired him.

At the same time, Comey is expected to stop short of accusing Trump of obstruction of justice. His written testimony also confirms that he assured Trump he was not personally under investigation. The Republican National Committee and Trumps attorney already have cited this detail as a victory for the president, confirming what hes been saying for months.

The president's personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz said Trump feels "completely and totally vindicated."

And without a specific allegation of a crime from Comey, GOP allies are likely to view Comeys testimony as reason to move past the controversy.

Further, Comey could take heat for his curious account of Trumps apparent effort in February to get him to lay off former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Comey said in prepared remarks he did not report this to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, since they expected him to recuse himself from any Russia-related investigations  though its unclear how Comey would have known this.

But with so much salacious detail on the table Thursday, both sides may feel emboldened.

In prepared remarks, Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., slammed Trump for apparently trying to pressure Comey regarding Flynn.

He added, In further violation of clear guidelines put in place after Watergate to prevent any whiff of political interference by the White House into FBI investigations, the President then called the FBI Director on two separate occasions  March 30 and April 11 - and asked him to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation.

According to the remarks, Comey also plans to say that Trump told him during a private White House dinner in January that, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.

Comey said, in response, he didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.

There could be a silver lining for Trump supporters regarding the Flynn conversation.

Comey said that when he and Trump were alone, Trump told him Flynn is a good guy and, I hope you can let this go. Comey said he later understood Trump to be referring only to Flynn and not the broader Russia investigation.

I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign," Comey said.

If Comey stops short of alleging obstruction of justice, it could lend credibility to Trumps case that the Russia controversy and allegations of a cover-up are overblown.

For Eric Beach, co-chair of the Great America Alliance, it would mean case closed.

If there is no evidence, this will certainly allow Trump to move on, Beach told Fox News. If the leaks are true and Comey does not allege obstruction of justice, the rest is rhetoric.

Scottie Nell Hughes, national spokesman for the Committee to Defend the President PAC, also told Fox News they are weary of Comey using testimony as an opportunity to continue to engage in spreading unsourced rumors or as a chance for revenge at President Trump for his dismissal.

The FBI has refused to hand over Comeys memos to Congress, citing an ongoing investigation. Comeys testimony could shed light even more on what exactly was written in the documents.

Comey also is likely to be pressed on the FBIs underlying investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia as well as Moscows meddling in the U.S. elections.

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers had their thumb on the scale in Trumps favor during the 2016 presidential campaign. What lawmakers will want to know is if anyone from the Trump campaign aided the effort.

Trump and his team all along have denied any collusion, and denied any efforts to pressure Comey on the case, which is now being overseen by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Fox News' Barnini Chakraborty and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.
Former FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers Thursday that he deliberately leaked a memo from a key meeting with President Trump to a friend after he was fired in order to prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

The eyebrow-raising statement came during testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, under questioning from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

When she asked whether Comey shared his memos with anyone outside the Department of Justice, he first referenced Trump's tweet last month about the possibility there could be "tapes" of their conversations.

"It didnt dawn on me that there might be a tape," he said.

He then revealed, "I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporterI thought that might prompt the appointment of special counsel.

Comey described Trump's threat about tapes as a critical driver in his decision to leak. He said he woke up in the middle of the night after Trump tweeted about that and realized there might be corroboration about their meeting -- spurring him to leak his notes to his friend, who he said is a professor at Columbia Law School.

During Comeys testimony, Columbia University Professor Dan Richman confirmed to Fox News that he was, in fact, the friend to whom Comey was referring. Richman declined, however, to be interviewed.

When pressed as to why Comey didnt share the contents of the memo with the media himself, Comey said it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach.

I was worried that the media was camping at the end of my driveway, my wife and I were going away, Comey said. I was worried it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach if it was I who gave it to the media, so I asked my friend to.

The New York Times first published the report on May 16, revealing the contents of Comeys memo which said the president asked him to shut down the federal investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting. The New York Times cited the memo penned by Comey, which, the fired FBI chief acknowledged during his testimony Thursday.

Robert Mueller later was appointed as special counsel in the Russia investigation.

In prior congressional testimony on May 3, Comey said that he never acted as an anonymous source for the media about the Russia probe or Clinton email investigation. Comey also formerly testified that he had never authorized anyone to speak anonymously on his behalf.

The presidents tweet regarding the tapes wasnt posted until May 12.

When asked about the tapes, Comey said "I hope there are tapes."

"I hope there are -- all I can do is hope," Comey said. "The president surely knows if he taped me -- my feelings aren't hurt, release all the tapes!"

When pressed by Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., about whether Comey would release his memos to the public, Comey replied: "Sure."

Thursday afternoon, Trump's outside counsel Marc Kasowitz released a statement noting Comeys admission and saying: We will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leak should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.

Fox News Catherine Herridge, Christopher Wallace, Wes Barrett contributed to this report.
Former FBI Director James Comey revealed in Senate testimony Thursday that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch directed him to describe the Hillary Clinton email probe as a "matter" and not an "investigation."

He also said that the directive, combined with Lynch's unusual Arizona tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton, led him to make his independent announcement regarding the Clinton email probe last July.

In his closely watched Senate Intelligence Committee testimony otherwise devoted to discussing the circumstances of his firing, Comey said that tarmac meeting was a "deciding factor" in his decision to act alone to update the public on the Clinton probe -- and protect the bureau's reputation.

"There were other things, significant items," he added, citing how "the Attorney General directed me not to call it an investigation and call it a matterwhich confused me."

That was one of the bricks in the load that I needed to step away from the department, Comey said, later adding he was concerned Lynch was trying to align the DOJs comments with the way the campaign was talking about the probe. That gave me a queasy feeling, he said.

Lynch and former President Bill Clinton met on a tarmac in Phoenix, Ariz. on June 27, 2016, which immediately raised questions about whether sheor the Justice Departmentcould be impartial in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Days later, Comey called Hillary Clintons actions extremely careless but declined to recommend charges.

Comeys statements on Thursday could potentially damage Lynchs reputation as an impartial, leading top law enforcement officer.

Yes, that was the thing that capped it for me, Comey said. I needed to protect the investigation and the FBI.

Comey added: There were other things that contributed to that one thing ... but the committee has been briefed on classified facts.

But Comey told lawmakers he wouldnt have done things differently with regard to his decision on the Clinton email case.

You have been criticized on your Clinton email decision. Did you learn anything that would have changed how you chose to inform the American people? Chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked the fired FBI director.

Honestly, no, Comey answered. It caused a lot of personal pain for me  I think it was the best way to protect the justice institutionincluding the FBI.

Fox News' Catherine Herridge and Jennifer Bowman contributed to this report.
The first sentence always hooks them.

Consider E.B. White in Charlottes Web: Wheres Papa going with that axe? said Fern to her mother as they were setting the breakfast table. Or George Orwells 1984 curtain-raiser: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Try the simplicity of Herman Melvilles Moby Dick: Call me Ishmael.

An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story, says horror master Stephen King. It should say Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.

Its doubtful former FBI Director James Comey burned any midnight oil drafting todays boilerplate, congressional salutation: Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today.

But dont be fooled  his testimony at Thursdays Senate Intelligence Committee hearing is a page-turner.

Comeys seven-page opening statement released the day ahead of his appearance pitched Washington into a tizzy. Comeys missive knocked much of the news from another hearing before the intelligence panel off the front pages. People scoured through Comeys words for details about his firing, interactions with the President, suggestions of impropriety and anything about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Comeys screed had it all.

There was President Trumps request that Comey back off investigating Flynn. A dramatic scene where the president told Comey he expected loyalty. An awkward moment where Trump and Comey looked at each other in silence, the former FBI Director noting he didnt move, speak or change by facial expression in any way. Granular details about a door in the Oval Office opening and closing beside a grandfather clock.

Comey hints the intelligence community had unverified and salacious information that the president may have been compromised. He wonders if the then president-elect worried he might be under investigation. Theres talk of turning someone into a double-agent. Trump speaks of a cloud looming over his presidency.

And we havent even gotten to the part about the Russian hookers yet.

Could you put down a thriller like this?

Comeys statement was a didactic tale crystallizing the essence of Washington: Machiavellian power struggles. The possibility of foreign, covert operations. Dubious requests. Concrete, almost cinematic scenes which capture the tension.

To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting.

[Trump] sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. I was directly facing the President.

It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others. It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone

Finally theres Comeys spare yet dramatic closing line: That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

A startling sentence because we know what happened next.

Comeys narrative aims to follow the basic tenets of clear writing. His verse portrays himself as a first-person narrator. Attention to detail paints specific images. He describes scenes with the placement of furniture. Comey characterizes the uneasy emotions coursing through him. He concludes with a pithy, foreboding sentence.

But some lawmakers familiar with Comey interpreted much of the former FBI directors narrative as purple prose.

Multiple congressional sources from both sides of the aisle privately tell Fox News they werent surprised at Comeys effort to gin up drama and imagery with his statement. Several sources familiar with closed-door Comey sessions said the opening statement was laced with theatrics in an effort to make certain events appear more dramatic than they were.

Its too cute, said one source whos had multiple, private dealings with Comey. I have never been so angry at a witness as I was at him.

Maybe so. But despite the flowery language, Trump immediately latched on to one element of Comeys writing.

The President is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The President feels completely and totally vindicated, said Trumps attorney Marc Kasowitz.

Considering the intrigue, theres little surprise Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., wanted Comeys galley proofs distributed ahead of time.

Im glad to have it early on and posted, said Burr to a throng of reporters before a closed Intelligence Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon. Im sorry I took away from all of you guys your ability to find a source to leak it to you.

Comey doesnt have a literary agent. But Fox News confirmed that Comey closely coordinated his statement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Still, theres one Comey manuscript Burr is still pursuing.

Id love to see the Directors memo, but I dont think I will, said the North Carolina Republican.

Thats a memorandum Comey is believed to have penned immediately after the president requested the then-director lay off Flynn.

Fox News confirmed the existence of that memo. But few in Washington have seen it. Burr says its up to the Justice Department to release the document.

The literary world exploded a few years ago about an unpublished manuscript by Harper Lee and the discovery of short stories from J.D. Salinger. The release of a previously unseen Comey epistle could excite official Washington just as much  if the prose of the sequel holds up to the original.

Capitol Attitude is a weekly column written by members of the Fox News Capitol Hill team. Their articles take you inside the halls of Congress, and cover the spectrum of policy issues being introduced, debated and voted on there.
CAPE GIRARDEAU (AP)  A man already serving 20 years in state prison for killing his estranged wife in Missouri is seeking to have a related federal indictment thrown out, saying that case would violate constitutional protections against being tried twice for the same crime.

The indictment accuses James Clay Waller II of violating the interstate domestic violence act for moving Jacque Waller's body to Illinois, where it was found buried near an island. The federal charge carries a possible life sentence.

The Southeast Missourian reports Waller's St. Louis-area lawyer, John Lynch, filed a motion late last week in Cape Girardeau to have the indictment dismissed.

Waller pleaded guilty in 2013 to a state charge of second-degree murder, admitting he killed his estranged wife in 2011. After telling authorities where his wife's body could be found, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Former FBI Director James Comeys testimony before a Senate panel on Thursday could have President Trumps legal team breathing a sigh of relief since he stopped short of alleging obstruction of justice  but his otherwise scathing comments guarantee the political controversy and Russia-related investigations are far from over.

"This is nowhere near the end of our investigation," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said moments after the hearing's conclusion.

Comey, in his high-profile appearance before the committee, accused the administration of defaming him and said comments made about his competency were lies, plain and simple.

Comey also told lawmakers he decided to document meetings he had with Trump because he was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of their discussions.

I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI, he added.

Comey also said bluntly he believes he was fired because of the Russia investigation -- and that in a now-famous February meeting, Trump directed him to ease off an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump's team denied the claims. I can definitively say the president is not a liar, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Trumps personal attorney Marc Kasowitz directly disputed the account of the Flynn discussion and the former FBI officials claim that Trump demanded loyalty from him.

At the same time, Comey told lawmakers that Trump did not ask him to end the Russia investigation as a whole -- a key piece of testimony that Kasowitz seemed to flag when he said Comey affirmed Trump never sought to "impede" the probe.

Not to my understanding, no," Comey testified, when asked by Burr whether Trump tried to get him to end the investigation. He also said he could not say whether Trump's conversations with him amounted to obstruction of justice.

Asked again if Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, Comey said, I dont know. Thats Bob Muellers job to sort that out.

The Justice Department appointed Mueller, a former FBI director, as special counsel in mid-May to oversee the investigation into Trumps campaign and Russia.

Comey didn't reserve his criticism just for Trump. He also took a shot at former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, revealing she had told him to describe the Clinton email probe as a "matter," not an investigation. He suggested she was trying to align the DOJ's comments with those of the Clinton campaign.

Comey had not spoken publicly since his dismissal on May 9. He was four years into a 10-year term when Trump fired him. The timing fueled claims that Trump was trying to kill the investigation into Russia and obstruct justice.

Comey was asked Thursday why he thought Trump fired him. The former FBI director said he didnt know for sure but added, I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. Comey was referring to an interview Trump had given NBC News in which he contradicted the narrative his aides had floated as to why Comey was let go.

Comey later added he believed he was fired to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

Surprisingly, Comey also admitted he helped orchestrate a media leak of his private conversations with Trump because he thought that by doing so, it would put pressure on the administration and result in the appointment of a special counsel.

The public got its first glimpse of Comey's side of the story Wednesday after the Senate committee released his written statement. The seven-page statement provided details about uncomfortable conversations and silent standoffs between the former FBI director and Trump.

Comey not only laid out details about the Russia investigation but also took aim at Trumps preoccupation with having his name publicly cleared as well as the president asking him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Flynn.

Comey claimed the conversations became so awkward that he took steps to avoid any one-on-one time with Trump.

Comey said he spoke directly with Trump a total of nine times -- three in person and six over the phone. According to his written testimony, Comey felt compelled to keep a detailed log after each conversation, something he hadnt done with former President Barack Obama.

Comey's dramatic statement detailed five separate exchanges he had with Trump, beginning with a meeting at Trump Tower in New York before Trump was sworn in as president. That briefing focused on the investigation into Russias election meddling as well as lascivious claims Trump had been involved with prostitutes in 2012  a claim the White House has strongly denied.

The second meeting took place Jan. 27 at the White House. According to Comey, during a one-on-one dinner, Trump asked him if he wanted to keep his job  a question that the former FBI director found strange because in two prior conversations he had had with Trump, Comey assured him he intended to stay.

At that same dinner, Comey says Trump demanded loyalty from him.

I need loyalty. I expect loyalty, Comey recalled Trump saying.

During a Feb. 14 face-to-face meeting at the White House, Comey said Trump asked him to drop the FBI investigations into Flynn. Comey said the president told him: "'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."
Former FBI Director James Comey testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday, one month after being fired by President Trump. The highly anticipated testimony addressed the Russia investigation, Comeys leaked notes on his conversations with the president, his decision to speak out on the Clinton investigation and more.

Here are seven highlights:

COMEY LEAKED NOTES, HOPING FOR APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL

Comey took meticulous notes following interactions with Trump on several occasions. Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri asked Comey to clarify whether he felt as though those writings were personal, or property of the government. Comey responded that he felt they were personal documents. "I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president," he said. "As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I felt [it was] very important to get it out."

Comey said in his testimony that after Trump tweeted about possible tapes of their conversations, he woke up in the middle of the night, realizing that he may have some corroboration in the form of his notes. He asked a friend, a professor at Columbia Law School, to get his notes to the media. When asked why he didnt take them directly to the press, Comey said it would have been like feeding seagulls at the beach and he hoped to get away for the weekend with his wife, to hide.

Comey admitted that he didnt feel the need to take notes following conversations with former Presidents Barack Obama or George W. Bush. He said he documented his conversations with President Trump because he feared the president might lie about the nature of their meetings.

COMEY DIDNT TELL THE WHITE HOUSE HE THOUGHT THE CONVERSATIONS WERE INAPPROPRIATE

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican from Florida, asked whether Comey ever alerted anyone at the White House to the fact that he was troubled by the presidents conversations with him. "I don't know, Comey replied. I think the circumstances were such that I was a bit stunned and didn't have the presence of mind."

Rubio also asked why Comey didnt tell Trump directly that he felt it was inappropriate for a president to ask the FBI director for information about an ongoing investigation. Comey replied that he tried to avoid answering the questions at first by telling Trump, Ill see what I can do. He later advised Trump that those requests should be made through the White House counsel.

COMEY COULD SHARE HIS MEMOS

Comey was asked if he prepared his written testimony based off of his personal notes, to which he said he had. He revealed that he then turned over the memos about his talks with the president to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and did not retain a copy.

Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, asked Comey if his friend, the Columbia professor, might still have original copies of the notes.

"It's a good question," Comey replied. "I think so, I guess I can't say for sure sitting here.

"So the question is, could you ask them to hand that copy right back to you so you can hand them over to this committee?" Lankford asked.

"Potentially," Comey replied.

"I would like to move that from potential to see if we can ask that question so we can have a copy of those. Obviously, those notes are exceptionally important to us," Lankford said.

COMEY CHIDES LYNCH ON CLINTON INVESTIGATION

Comey said that his decision to make a public statement last July on the FBIs probe into Hillary Clintons email server was, in part, prompted by former President Bill Clintons surprise meeting with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an Arizona tarmac.

He said he made the decision to protect the credibility of the investigation, which he said meant protecting the reputations of the FBI and the Justice Department.

Comey also told the Senate Intelligence Committee he was "troubled" when his boss, Lynch, asked him to refer to the probe of Hillary Clinton's secret email server a "matter" and not an "investigation." He said he pushed back on the language, but admits that perhaps he should have resisted further.

TRUMP WASNT PERSONALLY UNDER INVESTIGATION AT THE TIME OF COMEYS FIRING

Comey confirmed in his written testimony and in Thursdays hearing that he had assured then-President-elect Trump that he was not personally under investigation by the FBI, back in January. He further clarified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that at the time he left the FBI, the President was not under investigation personally.

Was the president under investigation at the time of your dismissal on May 9? asked Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine.

No, Comey replied.

COMEY BELIEVES HE WAS FIRED OVER THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

Though there are various theories about why Comey might have been fired, Comey told the committee: I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation.

Something about the way I was conducting it, the president felt created pressure on him that he wanted to relieve. Again, I didnt know that at the time. But Ive watched his interview. Ive read the press accounts of his conversations.

COMEY STOPS SHORT OF OBSTRUCTION CLAIM

Even though Comey said he thinks he was fired over the Russia probe, he said he cannot say whether Trump was guilty of obstruction of justice. He also said Trump did not specifically ask him to stop the Russia investigation as a whole.
Alan M. Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard, wrote on FoxNews.com Wednesday that President Trump has the constitutional right to direct his FBI director to stop an investigation of anyone by simply pardoning that person.

Throughout American history-- from Adams to Jefferson to Lincoln to Roosevelt to Kennedy to Obama-- presidents have directed (not merely requested) the Justice Department to investigate, prosecute (or not prosecute) specific individuals or categories of individuals, Dershowitz wrote. It is only recently that the tradition of an independent Justice Department and FBI has emerged. But traditions, even salutary ones, cannot form the basis of a criminal charge.

READ PREPARED COMMENTS

Dershowitz wrote the column after fomer-FBI Director James Comey's prepared remarks were released ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Comey is set to testify that Trump sought his loyalty and asked what could be done to lift the cloud of investigation shadowing his administration. The prepared remarks detail a series of conversations between Trump and Comey about the investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Comey's discomfort with the interactions.

Other legal experts say the most damning statement in Comey's written testimony concerns former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, who was under investigation for making false statements about contacts with Russian officials.

Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top government officials to leave the Oval Office on Feb. 14 before urging Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn. "I hope you can let this go," Trump said, according to Comey's testimony.

Dershowitz, however, wrote that the written statement does not provide evidence that President Trump committed obstruction of justice or any other crime.

Obstruction of justice is a federal crime, though it's an open question whether a sitting president can be prosecuted. It's also an impeachable offense, though Republicans who control Congress are extremely unlikely to go after a president of their own party.

Dershowitz wrote, Assume, for arguments sake, that the president had said the following to Comey: You are no longer authorized to investigate Flynn because I have decided to pardon him." Would that exercise of the president's constitutional power to pardon constitute a criminal obstruction of justice? Of course not. Presidents do that all the time.

Other legal experts see the statement differently.

Julie O'Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Georgetown University's law school, told the Associated Press Trump's decision to clear the room before talking to Comey is evidence that suggests that Trump "was aware that what he was doing was a problem."

Trump has previously denied that he told Comey to end the investigation.

A former FBI official and a prominent Washington, D.C., law professor told the AP that they don't see a crime in what Comey reported that Trump said. Instead, the document reveals a president woefully ignorant of standard protocol and of the historic wall of independence between the FBI and the White House, an inexperience that could work in his favor and make his actions simply improper instead of actually illegal.

"I think the request is inappropriate," said Andrew Arena, a retired senior FBI official. "Whether it crosses that threshold to being criminal, I'm not there yet."

The Associated Press contributed to this report
President Trump's legal team shot back Thursday at James Comey's Senate testimony, defending the president in a brawny statement against the fired FBI director's more damaging claims and asserting Comey himself could now be in legal jeopardy for his admission he'd leaked details of "privileged" conversations.

Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, also said Comey's testimony backed up Trump on key points -- affirming that the president "never sought to impede" the Russia probe, and that while he was FBI director, Comey told Trump several times he wasn't the subject of an investigation.

The president's lawyer issued the rebuttal in a written statement that he read to reporters during a brief post-hearing appearance.

The statement sought to shield Trump and shift scrutiny onto Comey, who on Thursday delivered dramatic testimony that stopped short of accusing Trump of obstruction of justice but made numerous other allegations.

Kasowitz tried to rebut them one by one.

Despite Comey's claims to the contrary, he emphasized Trump never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Comey drop an investigation into ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Kasowitz also denied Trump asked Comey for a pledge of loyalty, contradicting Comey's story and setting up a "he said-he said" between the former FBI boss and the president.

Kasowitz also cast doubt on Comeys explanation as to why he decided to leak a memo describing the Flynn conversation after Trump had fired him as FBI director.

Although Mr. Comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the New York Times was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies Mr. Comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory, the statement said.

The New York Times wrote its first story about private conversations between Comey and Trump on May 11, though the Times made no mention of a memo existing to allegedly substantiate the encounter. The following day Trump sent an infamous tweet implying he had recorded the discussion himself: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

Comey suggested that tweet prompted him to leak his notes. Four days later the first story appeared in the press citing an alleged Comey memo.

Kasowitz, meanwhile, pointedly raised the question Thursday of whether Comey's leak amounts to a legal problem for him: We will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether this leak should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.

Though Trump did not tweet or make a direct statement about Comeys testimony, he did reference fighting back during a speech he gave to religious conservatives as Comeys testimony was wrapping up.

They will lie, they will obstruct, they will spread their hatred and their prejudice, but we will not back down from doing what is right, Trump said. We will fight and win, and we will have an unbelievable future. An unbelievable future. And its going to be together.

Though Trump, a well-established prolific tweeter, has not sent a message from his account since Wednesday morning, he was certainly represented on the social media network. The Republican National Committee tweeted from its @GOP account, often hashtagging posts #bigleaguetruth.

So according to Comey, @POTUS never asked to stop the investigation and Russia didnt change a single vote. Good to know. #BigLeagueTruth, one message read.

One of Trumps children, Donald Trump Jr., was also tweeting a rapid-response defense of his dad.

Writing about Comeys assertion that Trump intimated Comey should drop the Flynn investigation, Trump Jr. wrote: Knowing my father for 39 years when he orders or tells you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means.


The governor of Hawaii on Tuesday signed a bill that aligns the states carbon emissions with the Paris climate accord.

Gov. David Ige signed the bill that calls on documenting sea level rise and set strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Many of the greatest challenges of our day hit us first, and that means that we also need to be first when it comes to creating solutions, Mr. Ige, a Democrat, said, according to The New York Times. We are the testing grounds  as an island state, we are especially aware of the limits of our natural environment.

Climate change is real, regardless of what others may say, he said.

President Trump withdrew the U.S. from that agreement last week.

Ige says Hawaii is the first state to enact legislation implementing parts of the Paris climate agreement.

Ige says the islands are seeing the impacts of climate change first-hand. He says tides are getting higher, biodiversity is shrinking, coral is bleaching and coastlines are eroding.

At least a dozen states including Hawaii have signed pledges to continue reducing fossil-fuel emissions despite Trumps decision.

Ige also signed a bill Tuesday to reduce carbon emissions in the agriculture sector.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
It was a tough statement by the Senate minority leader, blaming President Trump for the fact that so few of his nominees have been confirmed.

If the president is looking for someone to blame for the slow pace of confirmations, he needs only to look in the mirror, Chuck Schumer said Monday. Of the 63 that have been nominated, the Senate has confirmed 39 of them.

But as the White House tried to tell a number of reporters, only to be met by a collective yawn, the New York senator had confused the official statistics. At the time, the 63 nominees awaiting Senate approval were in addition to the 39 confirmed  meaning that Trump had nominated 102 people to top posts overall.

Schumers office put out an updated release later that day, correcting the numbers but making no mention of the mistake. But almost no one in the press picked that up. New Yorks Daily News, which played up the story, did say the senator had initially misstated how few people Trump had nominated.

It is hard to imagine Trump getting a pass from the media on a blunder of that magnitude.

A Schumer spokesman said he stands by the criticism. In the revised statement, Schumer said the Senate had to vet many nominees for conflicts and incomplete ethics agreements, and that the president ought to roll up his sleeves and get to work rather than pointing false fingers of blame.

Trump had tweeted earlier that day, Dems are taking forever to approve my people, including ambassadors. They are nothing but OBSTRUCTIONISTS! Want approvals.

The president did get around to nominating Christopher Wray as FBI director yesterday, just as James Comey prepares to testify on the Hill today. But he has still not filled such key jobs as head of the Centers for Disease Control.

There is no question the pace of nominations has been slow by historical standards, since the president can fill 559 jobs that require the Senates consent. And Republicans, of course, control the Senate. But administration officials believe they have gotten a bum rap in shouldering most of the blame.

The media is quick to attack the White House regardless of the facts, while failing to hold Democrats accountable for their historic obstruction of the presidents qualified nominees and false statements, said Raj Shah, Trumps deputy communications director.

Earlier this week, a Politico story quoted Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, on the subject, based on a podcast interview.

Were not even staffed up to where we need to be or where we were, to do a lot of our regular activities, she said. She also said that a lot of the staffing that Im talking about does have to have White House approval.  Theres been some bottleneck, you know. Theyre trying to fill a lot of roles at one time. And its a lot of people to process.

But other McMahon quotes from the Politico podcast were not included in the story. Asked about the bottleneck, she said: I don't know if it slows it down as much as it means there are many people working very long hours. We will operate much better when we are fully staffed. We won't operate at the full staff levels of the prior administration because we are going to do more with less. We are driving towards efficiency.

The SBA chief also said on the podcast, I do think we would like to see things move quicker but I think we have gotten over the hump since our deputy, head of comms, and that the general counsel starts next week.

McMahon addressed Politico in a statement to me: Quit trying to create a riff through truncated and cherry-picked quotes to create a controversy between the SBA and the White House where one does not exist. She also said the headline, Linda McMahon Complains About White House Bottleneck, is inaccurate and could be misleading for people who dont listen to the podcast. Nowhere is there complaining. In fact, quite the opposite, she said.

Politico spokesman Brad Dayspring said that "we appreciate Administrator McMahon joining our Off Message podcast with Isaac Dovere and sharing her insights and unique stories with our listeners. We'd encourage people to listen to the podcast episode themselves and form their own opinion."

The president has drawn criticism because, having fired all 93 U.S. attorneys, he has yet to name a single replacement. But administration officials note that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton didnt name their first U.S. attorneys until June of their first year, and George W. Bush did not do so until September. Plus, both the White House and the Senate Judiciary Committee were preoccupied for weeks with the Neil Gorsuch nomination.

One factor that has slowed the process on the administrations side is the elaborate ethics review that nominees must undergo. A number of Trumps nominees are very wealthy, and several top picks have withdrawn after financial conflicts or complications surfaced during the ethics process.

The issue also surfaced Tuesday at a State Department briefing, where NBCs Andrea Mitchell cited criticism from people on the Hill, quietly from both parties, that the nomination process is stalled here at the State Department. At all levels, nominations have not gone forward.

Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, a former Fox anchor, replied:

I would take issue, first, with the premise of your question. There are people moving through the pipeline. Nauert pointed to last months confirmation of former Iowa governor Terry Branstad as ambassador to China.

But getting clearance for potential nominees, especially ambassadors, is time-consuming, Nauert said. I went through a smaller version of the clearance process, and it takes months, she said.
Whether former President Barack Obama transformed the country is an open question  but theres no question he transformed the federal courts.

For example, in the federal appeals courts, one level below the Supreme Court, Obama named about one-third of all judges presently sitting.



Now its Donald Trumps turn to transform the courts. With more than 120 openings on the federal bench, the White House has just announced a slate of 11 new judicial nominees.

Court observers say the nominees will be a positive addition to the courts.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO LET REVISED TRAVEL BAN TAKE EFFECT

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, called it a fantastic list with nominees who have shown commitment to principled and even-handed application of the law throughout their careers.

Jonathan Adler, professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Ohio, called the choices superlative judicial nominees with sterling credentials and impressive intellects.

The list includes Stephanos Bibas for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Allison H. Eid for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and Ralph R. Erickson for the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bibas is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Eid, who clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and was professor of law at the University of Colorado, is at present a justice on the Colorado Supreme Court. Erickson is a district court judge in North Dakota who presided over the states first federal death penalty case.

TRUMP TRAVEL BAN BLOCKED BY VA.-BASED FEDERAL APPEALS COURT



President Trump continues to pick current and former academics for the appellate bench, Adler said. This will only magnify the impact his nominees are likely to have on the federal courts.

The other nominees are Michael P. Allen, Amanda L. Meredith and Joseph L. Toth for the Veterans Claims Appeals Court, Dabney L. Friedrich, Timothy J. Kelly and Trevor N. McFadden for the District Court of the District of Columbia, Stephen S. Schwartz for the Court of Federal Claim and Claria Horn Boom for district judge of the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has called for swift action on the nominees.

President Obama understood the singular importance of the lower courts, which is why he was so vigorous in appointing judges with a greater commitment to the liberal political agenda than to our Constitution, Hatch said in a statement released Wednesday.

But he said President Trump can turn things around.

The time has come to right the wrongs of the previous administration, he said. These supremely qualified jurists will restore respect and credibility to the judicial branch by saying what the law isnot what it ought to be.

Even though the presidents term has just begun, the judges he puts on the bench could be one of his most important and long-lasting legacies.


Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is eager to question fired FBI Director James Comey during Thursdays Senate Intelligence Committee hearing.

Collins said President Donald Trump's claim that Comey reassured him he was not under FBI investigation was "very interesting."

Comey confirmed during the hearing that he did reassure Trump that he was not under investigation.

That phrase raises a lot of questions in my mind," Collins said during a televised June 4 interview on CBS. "Does Mr. Comey agree that that is what was said? Why would he tell the president that? What was the tone and the context of those discussions on three different occasions, if they, in fact, are accurately portrayed in this letter?

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Collins will question Comey during the hearing.

Read on to find out more about Collins.

Personal life

Collins, 64, grew up in Maine. Both of her parents served as the mayor of their town of Caribou, according to her Senate biography.

She attended St. Lawrence University in New York.

Elle magazine named Collins one of the top 10 most powerful women in Washington, D.C., in 2014.

Political career

Collins was appointed to head the Small Business Administrations Boston office by former President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

While she unsuccessfully ran for governor of Maine in 1994, she made history as the first woman to become the Republican nominee for the position.

She was elected to the Senate in 1996. Aside from the Senate Intelligence Committee, Collins also serves on the committees on health, education, labor and pensions. She chairs the Senate Select Committee on Aging as well as the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Subcommittee.

Russia investigation

Collins pushed for Comey to testify before the Senate committee after he was fired. She said that she was aware that Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to investigate Russias involvement, might have been wary about Comey testifying in a public manner.

People ask, Why do we need a special counsel and the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation? Collins said in May. And the answer is that we have two very different missions. The special counsel is going to focus on whether or not criminal charges are appropriate. We're focused on counterintelligence policy, and we can impose sanctions on Russia.

Our investigation is really important because it will be public, Collins also said. [Muellers] wont. And we need a far broader set of the facts to come out.
The Republican Steering Committee has elected Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., to serve as the next chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I am grateful to the Steering Committee and the Conference as a whole for this opportunity to serve, Gowdy said in a statement. I look forward to working alongside the other Committee members, as well as any member of Congress, as we discharge the jurisdiction assigned to us.

CHAFFETZ TO RESIGN FROM CONGRESS IN JUNE

Gowdy will replace outgoing Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who is resigning from Congress at the end of June.

"Trey Gowdy is the right person for the job," Chaffetz said in a statement. "He has a long history of demanding accountability, upholding transparency, and relentlessly pursuing the truth. Under his capable leadership, the Committee will continue to work towards ensuring effectiveness and efficiency throughout the federal government. As his friend and colleague, I have every confidence in his abilities moving forward."

TRUMP TO NOMINATE CHRISTOPHER WRAY TO BE FBI DIRECTOR

Gowdy is a former federal prosecutor who led a two-year inquiry into the deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and was an outspoken critic of the Obama administration. As the new chairman, he will lead oversight of the Trump administration, including a nascent investigation of possible ties between Russia and President Donald Trump's campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
From his handling of a probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to his investigation into Russian meddling in the election, former FBI Director James Comey has long been a punching bag for President Trump.

After Comey left the FBI, Trump accused him of leaving the agency in "tatters." And as Comey released his explosive tell-all book, Trump called for the former FBI boss to be "prosecuted" for allegedly leaking information and lying under oath to Congress.

"He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI," Trump said in April. "It was my great honor to fire James Comey!"

But while Trump has publicly hit the nations former chief investigator hard, his public opinion throughout his presidency and campaign hasn't been all bad.

Criticism

On Comey's Capitol Hill testimony

On Dec. 7, Comey testified behind closed doors, despite previously seeking an open hearing. He was expected to answer a variety of questions  from his decision not to recommend any criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her private server scandal in 2016 to the FBI's investigation into potential Russian collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Comey tweeted days before his testimony that it was "hard to protect [his] rights without being in contempt," so he agreed to "sit in the dark." House Republicans apparently weren't satisfied at the conclusion of Comey's questioning and indicated they may want to bring Comey back, according to reports.

Trump, too, was clearly frustrated.

"It is being reported that Leakin' James Comey was told by Department of Justice attorneys not to answer the most important questions," Trump tweeted afterward. "Total bias and corruption at the highest levels of previous Administration. Force him to answer the questions under oath!"

On Clintons emails

Trump has often tweeted about Comeys involvement in the FBIs investigation into Clintons use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state, saying his handling of the probe has left the FBI in tatters.

Hillary and the Dems loved and praised FBI Director Comey just a few days ago. Original evidence was overwhelming, should not have delayed! Trump tweeted in October 2016.

Before Comey was officially sacked, Trump said Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Clinton because he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds.

After the FBI confirmed Comey had drafted a statement about Clinton before the investigation was completed, Trump took to Twitter to lambast the former FBI chief even more.

Wow, FBI confirms report that James Comey drafted letter exonerating Crooked Hillary Clinton long before investigation was complete. Many people not interviewed, including Clinton herself, Trump tweeted. Comey stated under oath that he didnt do this  obviously a fix? Where is Justice Dept? Trump tweeted.

As it turned out, James Comey lied and leaked and totally protected Hillary Clinton. He was the best thing that ever happened to her! he said.

He's also said Comey, along with others, have "committed many crimes."

On Comeys firing

Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017 and sent his FBI chief a short, impersonal letter to make him aware of his termination.

Trump predictably took to Twitter to defend the firing.

James Comey will be replaced by someone who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI," Trump said the morning after the firing.

Comey lost the confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike. When things calm down, they will be thanking me! Trump added.

On the Russia investigation

Comey told Trump that he was not under investigation by the FBI, Trump said in a May 2017 interview with NBC News.

I said, if its possible would you let me know, am I under investigation? He said, You are not under investigation, Trump said.

When asked if he was angry with Comey over his investigation into Russias meddling in the presidential election, Trump just said he want[s] somebody thats competent to lead the FBI. He added that he is a big fan of the FBI.

Trump reportedly called Comey crazy and a nut job during a conversation with Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after Comeys firing, according to The New York Times.

I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job, Trump said according to a document of the meeting obtained by the Times. I faced great pressure because of Russia. Thats taken off.

And when it comes to his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump has denied asking Comey to stop his investigation into potential wrongdoing.

I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie! Trump tweeted on Dec. 3.

On Comey's memo

As Comey has promoted his new memoir, titled "A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership," Trump called the former FBI head a "slimeball" and dubbed him "Slippery James Comey."

"Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!" Trump said on social media.

He also criticized the book for not answering certain questions, such as: "how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give [Clinton's email server] to the FBI (why didn't they TAKE it), why the phony memos," among other things.

Trump has also denied asking Comey for his loyalty, something Comey detailed in his memoir.

On stopping government leaks

Trump has several times expressed his disappointment with Comey and the FBI not being able to stop national security leakers  and even accused the former FBI boss of leaking as well.

The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security leakers that have permeated our government for a long time. They can't even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. Trump tweeted in February 2017.

Trump also threatened Comey against leaking, himself, information to the media.

James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press, Trump tweeted.

His tweet came after The New York Times reported Trump asked for Comeys loyalty during a private dinner, which Comey declined to give. The New York Times cited sources who said they knew about the details of the dinner through Comey.

Later, after Comey told Fox News the memos he shared with his legal team did not constitute a leak of classified information, Trump took to social media to call him "either very sick or very dumb."

Is everybody believing what is going on. James Comey cant define what a leak is. He illegally leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION but doesnt understand what he did or how serious it is. He lied all over the place to cover it up. Hes either very sick or very dumb, he wrote.

Praise

On Clintons emails

While the president eventually castigated Comeys handling of the probe into Clintons private email server, Trump initially praised him for investigating Clinton at all.

It took a lot of guts, Trump said in October 2017 of Comeys decision to reopen the Clinton investigation.

I have to give the FBI credit. That was so bad what happened originally, Trump said after the FBI did not recommend charges be brought against Clinton by the Justice Department.

It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had where theyre trying to protect her from criminal prosecution, Trump said.

I was not his fan, but Ill tell you what  what he did, he brought back his reputation, Trump continued.

He also encouraged Comey then to hang tough.

On the Russia investigation

In prepared remarks released ahead of Comeys testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017, Comey confirmed reports that Trump asked the FBI to lay off his former national security adviser as the department investigated Russias influence on the 2016 presidential election. But Comey also confirmed that he did reassure the president that Trump was not under investigation.

Trump was pleased by Comeys admission.

The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe, Trumps lawyer said in a statement. The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.
This is the centennial year of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division. At Major General Michael Kurillas remarks at the 100th Anniversary Memorial Service on May 24, he touched on the groups history, noting: A group of Americans from all over the country [formed] to fight as a cohesive unit. This had never been done before. They represented the values of All Americans.

Back then, the 82nd Airborne had a limited number of troops and planes. Today, their firepower has increased considerably. That might was on display at the annual Airborne Review on June 1, with 4,500 paratroopers of the 82nds 18,000 strong taking part.

From aircraft to artillery, here are four of the most impressive recent innovations.

C-17 aircraft

The Boeing C-17 aircraft, Globemaster can carry more than 100 paratroopers in the cargo hold and then unleash them as they parachute into a battlespace. The aircraft can also carry Army vehicles - even the M1 battle tank.

This 174 foot long aircraft also provides the advantage of remarkably short takeoffs and landings. Rather than require modern paved landing strips, the C-17 can take off from a 7,000-foot strip and land in less than 3,000 feet  a big advantage for war zones.

M777 Howitzer long-range artillery

The M777 Howitzer long-range artillery is a 155mm 39 caliber used by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps. The M77 can accurately strike over great distances.

It works with standard ammo types, but it can also take advantage ultra advanced rounds like the EXCALIBUR.

With a maximum range of more than 30 km, it can fire 5 rounds per minute for up to 2 minutes and then 2 rounds per minute in sustained rate of fire.

Able to be transported by air, this weapon can be rapidly deployed to where it is needed. With low radar and thermal signatures and low silhouette, it is designed to be very difficult for an enemy to detect.

CH-47 Chinook

The Boeing CH-47 Chinook has those iconic rotor blades at each end of the aircraft.

The Army uses Chinooks for assault, transporting troops, artillery and equipment as well as medical evacuation. It can reach maximum speeds of approximately 190 miles per hour.

Boeing continues to enhance the Chinook. There have been recent advancements in the airframe, cargo handling, and a digital cockpit. Another innovation is the flight control system that would allow pilots to hover the aircraft in place in spite of brown outs and other low visibility conditions.

AH-64 Apaches

The Boeing AH-64 Apaches can be used for missions like assault and close air support. Theyre fast, travelling at speeds more than 175 miles per hour.

These helicopters bring serious firepower to the fight like 70mm rockets and laser-guided precision Hellfire missiles. An enemy force could also face weaponry like the 30mm automatic cannon with its 1,200 high explosive, ammunition rounds.

To locate, track, and attack targets Apache can be equipped with systems like laser and infrared. The latest Apaches are amped up with further advantages like enhanced weaponry and the ability to detect objects without being detected.

There are even ultra advanced systems to classify and threat-prioritize 128 targets in less than a minute.
HOUSTON  NASA introduced 12 new astronauts on Wednesday (June 7), who will train for missions into Earth orbit and to deep space.

The seven men and five women comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. The group is the largest NASA has selected in almost two decades.

Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly, in Houston, Texas to announce the new astronaut candidates , or "ascans." The event was set inside the Johnson Space Center's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which the new astronauts might fly in the coming years on missions beyond low Earth orbit. [ Astronauts Record Awesome Welcome Video for NASA's 2017 Recruits ]

The ascans, who in August will formally report to begin two years of basic training, may also fly on commercial crewed spacecraft being built by Boeing and SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot. They are :

Lt. Kayla "Sax" Barron, a 29-year-old U.S. Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the U.S. Navy's first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old geobiologist who calls Williamsburg, Virginia, home. Cardman's research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania has focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments. She has embarked on multiple Antarctic expeditions, worked on research vessels and joined NASA analog missions in British Columbia, Idaho and Hawaii.

Lt. Col. Raja "Grinder" Chari, the 39-year-old commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a Master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old department head for the U.S. Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines considers Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, his hometown. He attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School for his Master's degree in flight test engineering and then the University of Alabama, where he earned a Master's degree in aerospace engineering. He has served in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

Warren "Woody" Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Originally from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, he earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley. He is a private pilot and has extensive experience with wilderness survival.

Dr. Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old Navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kim completed more than 100 combat operations and earned a Silver Star and Bronze Star with Valor. Afterward, he went on to complete a degree in Mathematics at the University of San Diego and a Doctorate of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. Hailing from Anchorage, Alaska, Kulin completed a Master's degree in materials science and a doctorate in engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli, the 33-year-old quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps' Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona. Moghbeli considers Baldwin, New York, her hometown. She earned a Master's degree in aerospace engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School and is a distinguished graduate of the Navy's Test Pilot School.

Loral O'Hara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home. O'Hara received her a Master's degree in propulsion and fluid dynamics from Purdue University in Indiana. As a student, she participated in NASA's KC-135 Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, the NASA Academy at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and interned at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California.

Dr. Francisco Rubio, a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. Originally from Miami, Florida, Rubio earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Rubio has accumulated more than 1,100 hours of flight time in helicopters and performed more than 650 free fall skydives.

Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. Hailing from Lafayette, Colorado, Watkins earned a doctorate in geology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Watkins has also worked at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California.

NASA's astronaut corps currently has 44 active members, led by newly-named Chief Astronaut Patrick Forrester. The 22nd group of astronaut candidates was selected out of a record 18,000 applicants , based on education, experience, and their interviews with NASA's selection board. [ What It's Like to Become a NASA Astronaut: 10 Surprising Facts ]

Selection as an ascan does not ensure becoming a NASA astronaut, which requires the successful completion of the basic training program.

With the addition of the new class, NASA has selected 350 men and women to train as astronauts in its nearly 60-year history.

Visit collectSPACE for continuing coverage of NASA's 2017 class of astronaut candidates.

Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @ collectSPACE . Copyright 2017 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
Researchers just confirmed a theory originally proposed by Albert Einstein nearly a century ago, and it's something that even the famed physicist thought was impossible. A team of scientists led by Kailash Sahu has observed a gravitational phenomenon in which light from stars is bent as it makes its way past neighboring stars, and will publish their report in the journal Science on June 9th.

Einstein's idea -- that the gravitational pull of stars can actually manipulate light passing by from extreme distances -- is commonly called "gravitational microlensing." The famous scientist never actually observed the effect, and had no proof that it indeed existed, but his knowledge of the effects of gravity told him it was not only possible, but likely. In 1936, he wrote in Science that, because of the distance between stars, "there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly."

Now, modern technology makes such an observation possible, and researchers have just confirmed that Einstein was indeed correct. That isn't to say there was any doubt -- examples of gravitation microlensing have been detected in space before, but never in this context, as Einstein predicted, and never studied and measured in this way.

"When a star in the foreground passes exactly between us and a background star, gravitational microlensing results in a perfectly circular ring of light -- a so-called 'Einstein ring.'" said Terry Oswalt, astronomer with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and chair of the Department of Physical Sciences. "The ring and its brightening were too small to be measured, but its asymmetry caused the distant star to appear off-center from its true position," Oswalt says. "This part of Einstein's prediction is called 'astrometric lensing' and Sahu's team was the first to observe it in a star other than the Sun."

So what would Einstein think of this? "Einstein would be proud," Oswalt said. "One of his key predictions has passed a very rigorous observational test."
What was once an unknown town in Slovenia is now a major tourist destination thanks to its most famous former resident, First Lady Melania Trump.

The small town of Sevnica, home to less than 5,000 people, where the First Lady was born, now offers a five-hour Melania-themed walking tour, NPR reports.

Located about 50 miles east of Slovenia's capital Ljubljana, Sevnica was primarily known for its lingerie factory, salami festival and 900-year-old castle, according to Redbook. But now, thanks to Trump's elevated profile as the First Lady of the free world, the town has seen a 30 percent increase in tourism, NBC reports.

The First Lady tour, which costs about $90 for two guests, takes people to several stops where Melania spent time as a child, including her elementary school, the communist-era apartment she lived and the neighborhood where her parents now own a home.

TRUMP BEER FOR SALE AT BREWERY IN UKRAINE

While Trump, born Melanija Knavs, reportedly hasnt returned home since she left in 1996, that hasnt stopped the town from capitalizing on her increased prominence.

Sevnica has since installed billboards with Trumps photo, welcoming visitors to the Hometown of the First Lady."

"Melania was raised here, she used to be our neighbor," Mayor Srecko Ocvirk told NPR. "Yes, she's President Trump's wife, and that's what she's known for. But we want to focus only on her."

First Lady-themed products are also available to tourists. Theres a cafe offering a white chocolate and gold-leaf Melanija torte, a bakery with First Lady Apple Pie and a shoe store with White House slippers, NPR reports.

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In the nearby wine-growing region, four Slovenian winemakers produced a red wine in honor of the First Lady, with the first 300 bottles selling out in just three days.

Other products available in the First Lady collection are salami made from a rare breed of local pig, chocolates and beauty creams.
The real VIPs aboard the iconic Cunard Liner Queen Mary 2 live on Deck 12 with their own bedding and, sometimes, speciality food brought from home. Guests come to gawk at these guests-- especially during their photo shoot-- but are kept a respectable distance away.

Welcome to the world's only kennel at sea open to all dogs-- not just service animals. There is room for 25 pets, each has a large cage and furniture. There's also a fenced in outdoor space for them to play and do their business, complete with a red American fire hydrant and British lamppost.

U.S. Air Force Sgt. James Donovan, his wife and Rayne, a seven-year-old border collie, decided to travel by sea when moving back to North Carolina after being stationed in England. Donovan said it was cheaper for all three to sail across the Atlantica week-long journeythan just to have paid for Rayne to fly.

Starting rates for humans aboard the Queen Mary 2 are currently $1,299, but flights from London to the New York City area are currently over $1,000 this summer. It costs $800 to $1000 for dogs on the ship, depending on their size. Cats cost $1,600 as they need two cages, one for their litter box.

WHY LIVING ON A CRUISE SHIP IS CHEAPER THAN YOU THINK

According to FareCompare.coms Anne McDermott, travelers typically have to contact the shipper the airline does business with to get the exact price for what it will cost to fly a petthe larger the dog, the more expensive. On United, for example, she said prices range from $500 to $2,350 for a pet traveling between Europe and the United States. Plus, the pet needs an airline approved kennel that isnt necessary on a shipthe kennels are provided and the passengers simply walk their dogs-- or carry their cats-- on and off.

If you are traveling overseas with a pet, always contact the local embassy or consulate at the destination country to see what is required, suggests the website BringFido.com, which offers an A-Z country guide on what is required.

Flying can also be risky for some pets, according to the Humane Society, especially for those with snubbed facial features like bulldogs, pugs and Persian cats whose short nasal passages leave them especially vulnerable to oxygen deprivation and heat stroke. Though relatively rare, several pets die or are injured each year while flying.

However, Dr. Rhonda Smetana, the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Associations Maryland state representative, cautions that pet owners should also take care when cruising with their animals.

Yes, dogs can experience motion sickness (car and boat travel) and your veterinarian can prescribe an oral FDA approved medication that would make your pet comfortable during his/her travel," Dr. Smetana told Fox News via email.

Before cruising with a pet, the veterinarian advises owners to:

--Ensure pets are propery vaccinated "with the core vaccinations (distemper with leptospirosis- this include parvo) and rabies, as well as bordatella (kennel cough) and influenza."

--Check their pet monthly for heartworm as well as flea and tick control.

--Be mindful of any pre-existing medical conditions a pet may have before cruising and discuss whether the pet is a good candidate for cruise travel.

Cunard is the only cruise line that opens its kennel to all dogs but you can bring a service animal on board most commercial cruise lines. We have a strict screening process in place, a spokesman at Norwegian Cruise Line told Fox News, explaining they dont have an issue with passengers trying to pretend their pets are actually service animals.

Working service dogs are not pets, added a spokesman for Carnival Cruise Lines, who also said there dont seem to be issues with pets masquerading as service dogs. Pets, service dogs in training and emotional support dogs, which are not recognized by the Department of Justice, are also not permitted on Carnival ships, he continued.

When he first moved overseas, Sgt. Donovan said flying to England with his dog was pretty frustrating since no one seemed to be willing to confirm the pooch was on the flight or even where he could meet his pet on arrival. This has been great, said Donovan of his time on Cunard. Not only are the kennel masters taking really good care of Rayne, he says, but he and his wife are making a weeklong vacation out of the move back.

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Dr. Amy Martindale, a veterinarian, echoed Donovan's praise. Shes immigrating to marry an American along with Bina, her 10-year-old rescue dog who weighs about 85 pounds.

I didnt know what to expect, said Martindale. But shes really relaxed. Her kennel is nice and big, she has bedding from home, toys, fresh water and food.

Its been perfect," the vet added. "Shes absolutely chilling, watching the waves.

The kennel allows four visits a day where owners can come play with their furry friends. The two kennel masters aboard, Oliver Cruz and Randy Perez, insist they have the best job on the ship. On most voyages, Cruz said, the kennel is full. You have to be an animal lover to do this job, he said. They all get a lot of love and hugs and kisses.

If cruisers had their way, there would be more kennels at sea. According to a recent survey by CruiseCritic.com, over a third of respondents said they would consider cruising with a pet and nearly a quarter said they wished more cruise lines offered the option.

LEARN MORE ABOUT SAILING THE QUEEN MARY 2 AND OTHER CRUISES

Many of the cruisers with pets aboard the Queen Mary 2 are making a trans-Atlantic move and opted for sea voyage over flying.

The dogs, dubbed Very Important Pooches, get a red Queen Mary 2 coat, a picture taken by the ship photographers on deck in their red coats and a certificate stating theyve crossed the Atlantic upon arrival.

The only thing better, said Sgt. Donovan, would be having our dog with us in our cabin.
The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):

7:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump has told the crown prince of Abu Dhabi that maintaining "a united Gulf Cooperation Council" is important for promoting regional stability.

The White House says Trump called Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Wednesday to discuss the importance of implementing counterterrorism agreements reached during his trip last month to Saudi Arabia, which includes cutting off financing of extremist groups.

Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have cut diplomatic ties to Qatar, accusing it of backing extremist groups.

Trump offered Wednesday to personally broker a resolution to the Persian Gulf's escalating diplomatic crisis, as both he and Qatar's leader looked past his pointed suggestion only a day earlier that the tiny gas-rich nation enables terrorism.

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1:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump says it's time for the U.S. to start investing more to improve the country's aging infrastructure.

Trump says in a speech in Cincinnati that as he campaigned across the country, voters often asked him why the U.S. was investing so much in other countries when infrastructure here is crumbling.

He says, "it's time to rebuild our country" and "to put America first."

Trump is also talking up his controversial decision to pull the U.S. out of what he dismissively referred to as the "so-called" Paris climate accord.

Trump says "we will never have outside forces telling us what to do and how to do it" while he's president.

Trump is speaking at a marina overlooking the Ohio River.

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1:35 p.m.

President Donald Trump says it will likely only be Republicans pushing for legislation to replace former President Obama's signature health care law.

After landing in Cincinnati, Trump complained about Democrats' reluctance to support a House plan that experts say will leave millions more uninsured. Trump says, "it's only obstruction from Democrats" and says, "It's all going to be Republicans or bust."

Trump met briefly with family business owners impacted by rising health insurance premiums.

Trump says the families have "had their lives completely upended by the disaster known as Obamacare." He claims the problems "will only get worse if Congress fails to act."

Trump is also pushing efforts to repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure while in Cincinnati.

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1 p.m.

President Donald Trump says the United States must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure in the world.

Trump is in Cincinnati to talk about a specific piece of his infrastructure plan: inland waterways and the need to repair aging levees, dams, locks and ports.

In excerpts of his remarks released by the White House, Trump is expected to say that inland waterways are critical to commerce, but currently depend on a dilapidated system.

He says that's why he's pushing a plan to pay for infrastructure improvements with $200 billion in tax breaks that he hopes will leverage $1 trillion worth of construction over time.

Trump says an $8.7 billion maintenance backlog for waterways is only getting worse.

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12:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump has arrived in Cincinnati to discuss health care and his infrastructure plan.

The president is expected to meet first with people described by the White House as "victims" of the Obama-era health law that Trump and congressional Republicans want to repeal.

Trump has been highlighting increasing premiums and insurance company pull-outs from the law's exchanges as he pushes a GOP replacement plan.

The president also plans a speech on his push to spur infrastructure investments using public-private partnerships.

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11:55 a.m.

A White House official says President Donald Trump plans to give a speech next week to address worker training programs.

An assistant to the president, Reed Cordish, says the speech will touch on issues such as apprenticeships and community colleges to develop workers' skills in order to increase hiring and job growth. Trump is slated to deliver the speech at the Labor Department on Wednesday, June 14.

At a panel hosted by the Business Roundtable on Wednesday, Cordish said the problem wasn't a lack of government funding for worker training but ineffective programs. He declined to give policy specifics about the speech, except to say that "administrative" steps would be involved and that the president's daughter Ivanka Trump would be part of the initiative.

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10:25 a.m.

President Donald Trump is defending his tweeting habit despite complaints from some Republicans that the president's practice can be a distraction.

That's the word from Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York who says Trump raised the issue unprompted at a White House dinner Tuesday night with several GOP senators and House members.

Zeldin told reporters that Trump upheld his tweeting.

Zeldin said Wednesday that the president "definitely believes that the tweets are an important, valuable tool to be able to get out his message over and through mediums when there might be another narrative that's out there that might be a different perspective than what he's trying to get out."

Zeldin says Trump "wasn't like on his heels defensive, but he was talking about it being valuable."

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3:15 a.m.

President Donald Trump will discuss his plans for a $1 trillion overhaul of the nation's crumbling roads, bridges and waterways during a speech in Ohio Wednesday.

The president will deliver remarks at the Rivertowne Marina in Cincinnati. He's expected to press efforts to repair the nation's aging levees, dams, locks and ports, as well as his larger infrastructure aims.

The speech comes as the White House tries to push past a series of distractions and focus on Trump's legislative agenda.

The White House has yet to detail specifics of the plan, but hopes to finance improvements using public-private partnerships.
A jury on Wednesday convicted a Virginia man on terrorism charges after he traveled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State group and volunteered to serve as a suicide bomber.



Twenty-seven-year-old Mohamad Khweis of Alexandria left the U.S. in December 2015 for Turkey, looking for a way to get across the Syrian border and join the militant group.



He eventually spent three months in Islamic State(ISIS)-controlled territory before reconsidering his choice and escaping. He was captured in March 2016 by Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.



Khweis took the unusual step of testifying on his own behalf at the trial, telling jurors he just wanted to "check things out" in ISIS and then realized it was not for him.



"He wanted to find out how they could justify some of this stuff," like suicide bombings, said defense attorney John Zwerling, who asserted there was no evidence his client ever expressed a desire to harm America. "It's not a crime to explore, to try to see some of this information for yourself," he said.



Prosecutors ridiculed the notion that Khweis had himself smuggled across the Syrian border on some sort of curiosity tour. They noted that Khweis expressed a willingness to be a suicide bomber on an official ISIS intake form.



"Nobody joins a terrorist organization like ISIS, that is renowned for its terror and its ... murderous agenda, just to check things out," prosecutor Raj Parekh said.



Khweis, 27, is one of more than 100 people charged in the U.S. in recent years with helping or trying to help ISIS. But most cases involve sting operations. His is among a small handful that involve individuals who actually evaded the U.S. intelligence apparatus and reached ISIS territory.



Khweis lived in ISIS territory from December 2015 through March 2016. According to trial testimony, he became intrigued with ISIS in 2015. He told FBI agents who questioned him after his arrest that he was interested in the establishment of a caliphate and wanted to tell his grandchildren he had been a part of it.



He quit his job as a bus driver in the D.C. region and booked a one-way flight to Istanbul, via London and Amsterdam. Once in Turkey, he established social media accounts using the moniker GreenBird, which is associated with martyrdom by ISIS.



Khweis used his social media accounts to reach out to people he thought could help smuggle him across the border to Syria, including one person known as the "Mad Mullah."



Finally, in late December, he got the call: He should leave his hotel room and enter a waiting taxi if he wanted to join. He did, and was smuggled across the border along with several Frenchmen. At one point, he received text orders to get out of the car and alternately walk and run across the border territory, taking care to avoid land mines.



He was processed by ISIS during a short stay in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The processing was formal, with blood tests, intake forms, and issuance of an ID card. It was on these intake forms that he expressed his willingness to serve as a suicide bomber.



During the next three months, he bounced among several safehouses in Syria and Iraq. He received religious training, and he met an American with a unit called Jaysh Khalifa, which trains people to go back to their home countries and conduct attacks.



Prosecutors pointed out that Khweis was interrogated multiple times before mentioning the American, which they said was shameful, given the risks to the United States.



Khweis testified that he came to believe he was destined for military service, but he never seemed to gain the trust of ISIS officials, who suspected he was a spy.



Khweis said he only expressed a willingness to serve as a suicide bomber because he would otherwise be labeled a spy.



Defense lawyers had emphasized that, under the law, Khweis could not be convicted of providing support to terrorists if he were being coerced or acting under duress. His freedom ended once he entered that taxi outside his Turkish hotel room, they said.



"From that point forward, ISIS took control of his life," defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said. "Whatever expectation he had about being able to walk the streets of Raqqa and see what life was like, that wasn't going to happen."



Prosecutors countered that Khweis knew exactly what he was getting himself into.



"It takes a highly dedicated and highly motivated individual to get to the Islamic State," prosecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick said.
State Police say four people are dead in a murder-suicide in a northeast Pennsylvania supermarket.

Troopers responded to a report of someone shooting people inside Weis Market in Eaton Township just before 1 a.m. Thursday.

Troopers found the bodies of two males and two females inside, along with one witness. Authorities believe one of the males opened fire on the others before turning the gun on himself.

Authorities believe it is a contained incident and the public is not in any danger.

The investigation is ongoing.

No names have been released.
Two chimpanzees that were caged at a trailer lot and at a primate sanctuary don't have the legal rights of people in New York, an appeals court said Thursday.

Nonhuman Rights Project attorney Steven Wise had argued to the appeals court in March that adult male chimps Tommy and Kiko should be granted a writ of habeas corpus, which for people relates to whether someone is being unlawfully detained or imprisoned and should be taken to see a judge.

Wise argued that the chimps, which were caged in a trailer lot in Gloversville, outside Albany, and at a primate sanctuary in Niagara Falls, should be moved to a large outdoor sanctuary in Florida.

Chimpanzees, which can walk upright and use sticks and stones as tools to help gather food, are considered to be the closest living relatives of humans. Some have been taught to speak simple human sign language.

But the appeals court, in a ruling that affirmed a lower court's decision, said there was no legal precedent for chimpanzees being considered people and their cognitive capabilities didn't mean they could be held legally accountable for their actions.

"Petitioner does not suggest that any chimpanzee charged with a crime in New York could be deemed fit to proceed," the court said.

The court also said that even if chimps were able to get writs of habeas corpus the writs wouldn't be applicable with these animals "since petitioner does not challenge the legality of the chimpanzees' detention, but merely seeks their transfer to a different facility."

The ruling said that while Wise's "avowed mission is certainly laudable," determining the legal rights of animals was better suited to legislators.

Messages seeking comment from Wise about the ruling weren't immediately returned Thursday.

The Nonhuman Rights Project, based in Coral Springs, Florida, started its litigation over the rights of chimps in 2013, when lawsuits were filed on behalf of Kiko in state Supreme Court in Niagara Falls and Tommy in Fulton County. Those cases were unsuccessful.
Coe College graduating senior Justine Arcand has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant. The Fulbright award will allow Arcand to teach in South Korea for the 2017-18 academic year.

In all, six graduating Coe seniors and a recent alumna received prestigious Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards this spring. The seven recipients represent a new record number of Coe students and recent alumni who have been awarded Fulbrights in a given year.

A graduate of North County High School, she is the daughter of Joe and Des Arcand of Bonne Terre.

Arcand graduated cum laude on May 7 with a double major in film studies and Asian studies, with a minor in creative writing. During her time at Coe, she was a Writing Center consultant, English as a Second Language (ESL) tutor, member of International Club, member of Mortar Board and participated in Coes Asia Term.

During her first year at Coe, Arcand learned about the Fulbright program from retired Coe Professor and former National Fellowship Advisor Ann Struthers.

I knew I wanted to study abroad, and I knew that Ive always liked teaching, said Arcand. Ive always been interested in South Korea, so I applied for the Fulbright grant.

While applying for the Fulbright, Arcand chose South Korea through learning about the country in her Asian studies major, and because of the countrys quality of education rank. While in South Korea, Arcand will be teaching English to primary students. She has been studying Korean in preparation for this opportunity.

South Korea is ranked as having the best education system in the world, according to multiple sources, said Arcand. I chose South Korea because I wanted to go somewhere education is valued.

While on Asia Term in the spring of 2016, Arcand took advantage of the opportunity to teach English to Burmese refugees in Thailand. Through that experience, her desire to be a teacher was solidified.

It was during this trip that I realized how much I loved teaching English and helping others understand the language, said Arcand. Specifically, I loved how fearless they were in making mistakes and flexible in learning how to communicate using a new language.

Arcand received guidance on her Fulbright application from William P. and Gayle S. Whipple Professor of English Emeritus Bob Drexler, as well as Coe English Professor and National Fellow Advisor Amber Shaw, who helped with Arcands essay.

Amber helped me craft my essay, said Arcand. It has been easy for me to convey my excitement for the program with friends, but it became difficult when trying to convey that to a committee.

In addition, Arcand received support and encouragement from retired ESL Director Barbara Drexler, History Professor David Nordmann, ESL instructor Kathy Welsh, and Rhetoric Professor and Director of the Writing Center Jane Nesmith.

Arcand says that she can foresee a future in teaching English to populations that have another first language proficiency.

Teaching English is something I love, said Arcand. I can foresee this as something I will be doing for my future career, maybe even in South Korea.

After South Korea, she hopes to attend graduate school for creative writing or screenwriting.

The reason I came to Coe was to become a screenwriter, said Arcand. If I go to graduate school, my focus will be either screenwriting or creative writing. I am interested in continuing to explore my writing creatively.

When looking back over the past four years, Arcand believes her Coe experience provided valuable preparation for her Fulbright Teaching Assistantship and her future.

Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 370,000 participants  chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential  with the opportunity to exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. More than 1,900 U.S. students, artists and early-career professionals in over 100 fields of study are offered Fulbright Program grants to study, teach English and conduct research annually in over 140 countries around the world.

Coe has established itself as a leading national producer of Fulbright scholars, with 20 in the past five years, and 28 awardees in the past decade.
One person was killed and dozens injured after a charter bus carrying carrying student missionaries from an Alabama church overturned Thursday outside Atlanta, officials said.

The crash took place around 3:30 p.m. along Camp Creek Parkway in Fulton County near the HartsfieldJackson Atlanta International Airport, where the students were headed to begin a mission trip to Africa, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

Fire officials told FOX 5 one person is dead, another critical, and 38 injured in total. Some of injured included children.

Fulton County Fire Chief Larry Few told the Associated Press crews are working to cut another person out of the bus, but their condition was not immediately available.

Three air ambulances were brought in to transport patients along with several Grady EMS ambulances, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

A spokesperson for Grady Memorial Hospital told FOX 5 they accepted nine patients from the crash, including four which were listed in critical condition, three listed in fair condition, and two stable as of early Thursday evening.

Images from television news helicopters showed the charter bus completely overturned, with portions of it crushed and resting next to a dark-colored sedan.

Mount Zion Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama, posted on its Facebook page that one of its buses with its student ministry mission was involved in a crash while traveling to the airport.

"PRAY! One of the buses with the student ministry mission had an accident on the way to the Atlanta airport. Several serious injuries. Please pray for those injured and parents as they travel to Atlanta," the post said.

The church's minister of education, Terry Slay, told WXIA-TV 11th and 12th grade students, along with some adults, were on the bus when the accident happened.

"We know there was a wreck, some injuries. Some critical," Slay said. "Thats all we know right now, were trying to get more information.

Circumstances surrounding the cause of the crash were not immediately available.

Read more from FOX 5 Atlanta.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Indiana mom filed a lawsuit on Friday against an elementary school teacher and principal for allegedly forcing her son to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Jamie Porter said her son's first grade teacher removed the boy from class when he refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance back in March, according to Fox 59. The lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of the family, alleged that the boy refused to recite it because he was "protesting" the government.

"He was doing it to protest the government of the United States, as it was racist, greedy and does not care about people," the lawsuit stated.

REPORT CITES IMPROPER USE OF SCHOOL SECLUSION ROOMS IN IOWA

After hearing the student's reason, the teacher, Kelly McFarland, then took the student out of the classroom and to the principal's office. Principal Mary Beth Harris was told what happened and the student was taken back to class 20 minutes later, according to the lawsuit. Later in the day, however, Harris took the boy out of class and had him "practice" how to recite the pledge.

"She told him that they were going to 'practice' how to do the Pledge of Allegiance and she made him recite the Pledge with her," the lawsuit alleged.

TEXAS TEACHER FIRED AFTER GIVING STUDENT MOCK 'TERRORIST' AWARD

The suit adds that the student "was extremely upset at this treatment by his teacher and the principal as he was made to feel that he had done something terribly wrong and was in trouble."

Porter said she and her son are seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the incident. She alleged that the teacher and principal violated her son's First Amendment rights.

The school district, Vigo County School Corporation, was not named in the lawsuit. A spokesman for the district said in a statement to Fox News: "We are currently reviewing the complaint with our legal counsel and have been advised not to comment on pending litigation."

Click here for more from Fox 59.
For more than 20 years, two Kentucky men were in prison because a jury said they killed a woman to curry favor with the devil as part of a satanic ritual.

But new evidence, including DNA and revelations that could discredit a key witness, prompted a judge to release Jeffrey Dewayne Clark and Garr Keith Hardin from prison last year and order them a new trial. Now Kentucky's highest court is reviewing that decision, considering whether the judge abused his authority by overturning the men's convictions in a case that grabbed national attention amid the satanic abuse scare of the 1980s and 1990s.

Thursday, Kentucky's Supreme Court heard arguments from the state Attorney General's office about why Clark and Hardin should be sent back to prison without a new trial.

Key pieces of evidence from the 1995 trial include a single hair found on victim Rhonda Warford's sweatpants that an expert at the time said was similar to the hair of Hardin, her former boyfriend. Former Louisville Metro Police Detective Mark Handy said Hardin told him he worshipped Satan and was interested in sacrificing people. And police found a blood-stained cloth with what they called a "chalice" in Hardin's bedroom, which they said was evidence that he killed animals and drank their blood as part of his worship of Satan.

But since then, DNA analysis shows the hair does not belong to Hardin. The blood on the cloth was actually Hardin's blood, not an animal. And Handy was later found to have lied under oath about a different murder case, which defense attorneys say question his credibility.

Thursday, Assistant Attorney General Perry Ryan tried to downplay the role that evidence played in the convictions, saying the significance of the hair was "completely overblown." He said prosecutors relied more on the testimony of witnesses, including an alleged jailhouse confession. And since Hardin and Clark were convicted, both have confessed to the crime in separate parole hearings.

"Those parole board confessions are pretty damning," Justice Bill Cunningham said. "I'm not sure a jury would blow them off as not being credible."

But attorneys for Hardin and Clark say inmates are pressured to confess to crimes during parole board hearings in order to improve their chances of being released. Seema Saifee, an attorney with the Innocence Project, said of the 350 men and women across the country who have been exonerated 28 percent of those cases involved false confessions.

One case included Edwin Chandler, a Kentucky man who spent eight years in prison before being exonerated. An internal investigation found the detective in that case, who was also the detective in Hardin and Clark's case, coerced Chandler into confessing.

"Innocent confess to crimes they did not commit all the time, especially when under pressure to do so," Saifee said. "Kentucky courts have recognized DNA is more powerful than an unlawful confession."

Saifee and attorney Amy Staples focused more on the DNA evidence. They said prosecutors relied on discredited science to convince the jury the hair belonged to Hardin so they could tie him to the crime scene. And they were confident they could get most of Handy's testimony thrown out of a new trial, which would make it harder for the state to prove a motive.

Justice Laurance VanMeter noted other witnesses testified about satanic influences, and Hardin himself said he dabbled in the practice but said he had lost interest by the time Warford was killed. Several justices were less interested in the specifics of the new evidence, focusing instead on any errors the trial judge made in ordering a new trial.

Ryan said the legal standard for ordering a new trial means new evidence shows a jury would "probably" reach a different verdict. He said the new evidence here does not meet that standard, because it shows a different verdict would be "possible," but not "probable."

Staples said proving the judge made a mistake was a burden the prosecutors could not meet.
A Michigan man, apparently upset because his food included onions, is jailed on charges he made drunken threats to shoot the owner of a Pittsburgh restaurant before exposing himself.

Forty-three-year-old Yuba Sharma, of Rochester, remained in the Allegheny County Jail on Thursday on charges of terroristic threats, indecent exposure, public drunkenness and resisting arrest.

Police say Sharma ate at All Indiana restaurant on Monday night and then returned Tuesday to rant and complain about the onions.

The owner tells police Sharma threatened to shoot him, so he called police. That's when Sharma  confronted by the restaurant owner and another employee  pulled down his pants and exposed himself.

Online court records don't list an attorney for Sharma.

Police say he resisted arrest and had to be lifted and carried to a police cruiser.
It was quite the learning experience in a Mississippi hospital when a 12-year-old helped deliver her newborn brother.

Dede Carraway was getting ready to give birth to her third child in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, when her doctor, Walter Wolfe, noticed the moms oldest child, 12-year-old daughter Jacee, eagerly watching the process in the delivery room, right next to her mother.

FLORIDA BABY WEIGHS 13 POUNDS, 5 OUNCES AT BIRTH

Dr. Wolfe then asked if Jacee wanted to join in  and help him deliver her new baby brother. Jacee, eager and excited, agreed.

The doctor helped Jacee throughout the entire birth and even allowed her to cut the umbilical cord.

Carraway said Jacee wanted to help deliver her moms middle son 18 months ago, who Carraway noted her daughter has such an emotional connection with. But at that point, Carraway and her husband Zack thought their daughter was too young.

'MIRACLE BABY' BORN TO TERMINAL CANCER PATIENT CELEBRATES FIRST BIRTHDAY

Knowing her third-born would be her last, Carraway said they decided it was time for Jacee to experience the miracle of childbirth.

I dont even know if there are words to describe how it felt, Carraway told Fox News. Never in a million years, if you would have told me 12 years ago she [Jacee] would be delivering my last born, I would have told you  youre crazy!
PROGRAMMING ALERT: SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE HOLDS OPEN HEARING WITH FORMER FBI DIRECTOR JAMES COMEY. WATCH FULL COVERAGE ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL AND FOXNEWS.COM

Former FBI Director James Comeys blockbuster testimony before a Senate panel Thursday has the potential to both arm President Trumps critics with new evidence he sought to thwart a federal investigation of his associates  and bolster his defenders claims that he did not cross a legal line.

One thing is virtually certain: Comeys testimony wont end the raging Russia controversy.

DERSHOWITZ: TRUMP HAS CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY TO STOP INVESTIGATION OF ANY PERSON

READ COMEY'S PREPARED REMARKS

LEWANDOWSKI: TRUMP ASKED FOR LOYALTY TO COUNTRY, NOT TO HIM

SYMPATHIES REJECTED

A top Iranian official on Thursday rejected President Trumps condolences after a pair of terror attacks in Tehran, saying, "Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship.

ISIS claimed responsibility for a pair of stunning attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

MAY NO SURE THING

The once-dominant lead that British Prime Minister Theresa May had over her rivals in the run-up to Thursdays election may be the latest casualty of recent terror attacks that have unnerved British voters.

Polls show a tightening race between May and her lead opponent, Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, one day ahead of a general election that will determine how the U.K. negotiates its exit from the European Union and how it handles attacks from radical Muslims, among other things.

HAWAII IGNORES TRUMP

The governor of Hawaii on Tuesday signed a bill that aligns the states carbon emissions with the Paris climate accord.

Gov. David Ige signed the bill that calls on documenting sea level rise and set strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

COMING UP ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL

10: 30 AM ET: Hillary Clinton delivers the commencement address to graduates from CUNY's Medgar Evers College. Brooklyn. Watch live on FoxNews.com

12:35 PM ET: President Trump makes remarks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Conference. Watch live on FoxNews.com

2 PM ET: Attorney General Sessions speaks at the Office of Inspector Gen Annual Honorary Award Ceremony, Dept of Justice. Watch live on FoxNews.com

COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS

7:30 AM ET: Bill Mateja, who worked with James Comey, will be a guest on "Mornings with Maria"
Oscar Lopez Rivera will be honored in this year's Puerto Rican Day parade despite New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement that the nationalist stepped down from the role, the city council speaker said.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said the award will continue "to be given to him, but he's decided to bestow it to the people," the New York Post reported. She spoke to reporters outside Gracie Mansion before the Puerto Rican heritage event on Wednesday.

Parade organizers announced earlier this month that Lopez Rivera would march down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Sunday "not as an honoree but as a humble Puerto Rican and grandfather." Lopez Rivera was expected to be honored as "Procer de la Libertad," or National Freedom Hero.

Lopez Rivera addressed the parade controversy in an op-ed piece published in the New York Daily News, saying the honor should be "bestowed" on the people.

"The honor should not be for me; it should be bestowed on our pioneers who came to the United States and opened doors," Lopez Rivera wrote in the op-ed.

"It should go for activists and elected officials who fight for justice and a fair society. It should go to the many companies that though not showing a float on June 11th have continued to support our future through scholarship funds."

OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA: CELEBRATIONS FOR FREED PUERTO RICAN NATIONALIST STIR CONTROVERSY

Mark-Viverito cited Lopez Rivera's words as the reason the militant would be receiving the honor, though she did not specify how it would be done.

His op-ed was very clear, Mark-Viverito said. "People just have to read his words. His words speak for themselves."

The honor for Lopez Rivera received major backlash among New Yorkers when it was initially announced. NYC Police Commissioner James O'Neill along with several law enforcement groups said they would not be attending the parade because of Lopez Rivera, who was released from prison in May after his 55-year sentence was commuted by former President Barack Obama.

OSCAR LOPEZ RIVERA TO MARCH IN NYC PUERTO RICAN DAY PARADE, THOUGH NOT AS HONOREE

Lopez Rivera, now 74, was sentenced in 1981 after he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, armed robbery, a weapons violation and four counts of interstate transportation of stolen vehicles. He belonged to the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN, an ultranationalist Puerto Rican group that claimed responsibility for more than 100 bombings in New York, Chicago, Washington and Puerto Rico during the 1970s and early 1980s. Many NYPD officers were injured during those attacks.

De Blasio then announced that Lopez Rivera agreed "to step aside from any formal role in the parade," adding that it was "a critical step forward."

However, earlier this week the mayor told reporters that he gave parade organizers an ultimatum to rescind Lopez Rivera's "Procer de la Libertad" honor, according to The New York Times. He threatened to skip the event completely if it wasn't done.
Three people were arrested Wednesday in what authorities describe as a series of thrill-shootings in the Seattle area, including one involving an elderly couple delivering newspapers.

While none of the shootings over the 10-day period were deadly, police said the male newspaper carrier was struck twice in the chest and shoulder, and the female victim was injured from broken glass.

The Seattle Police Department said in a news release the trio unleashed "hundreds of rounds from high-powered rifles and handguns," at homes and vehicles, and sometimes selected their targets at random.

Detectives said the first shooting took place on April 24 in Kent, located about 20 miles south of Seattle, when two of the three suspects, a 17-year-old boy and a 23-year-old woman, opened fire on a family with an AK-47 purchased earlier in the day. Prosecutors described the shooting as an attempted thrill killing.

The second shooting was reported in Seattle on April 30, when police said the two previously mentioned suspects and a 18-year-old man fired at least 50 rounds at a home where one of the suspects mistakenly believed a gang rival lived. Police said a the resident of the home, a teacher, was "miraculously unharmed."

On May 3, police said the same group of suspects fired more than two-dozen rounds at an oncoming vehicle in Seattle. Police said the victims were "seemingly targeted simply because they were driving through the neighborhood," but no injuries were reported.

Early the next morning on May 4, police said the trio "indiscriminately targeted an elderly couple who had driven past the suspects" while they were out delivering newspapers in Seattle with an AK-47 and AR-15 rifle.

Police said they were able to link the shootings through forensics, and have recovered both AR-15 and AK-47 rifles.

All three suspects are facing charges for multiple crimes, including assault and weapons possession, and are due to be arraigned Monday, according to authorities.

Read more from Q13 Fox.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Assurances to an incoming president that he was not under federal investigation. A president's unprecedented request for loyalty from an FBI director. A "very concerning" request from the president to end an investigation into a devoted presidential appointee. Lawmakers hungry for answers and frustrated by the reticence of national security executives to provide them.

It's been a month of extraordinary drama since President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, rife with leaked details of private memos detailing awkward interactions with the president and the rare appointment of a special counsel to alleviate concerns of White House interference in an ongoing investigation.

A day before Comey's much-anticipated testimony before the Senate intelligence committee, the former FBI director's prepared remarks were officially released, bringing into public view new details in the Trump-Comey saga.

Here's how we got to this point, and here are some things to expect from the most anticipated congressional hearing in recent memory:

THE BACKSTORY:

The testimony, Comey's first public comments since his May 9 firing, unfolds against the extraordinary backdrop of an FBI investigation that has shadowed the Trump White House from the outset and threatens to cripple its agenda.

At the time he was fired, Comey had been overseeing the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign for months.

The White House's stated reasons for firing Comey were contradicted by the president himself, raising questions about whether Trump had fired Comey to derail the Russia investigation.

The White House initially said Trump was acting on the recommendation of Justice Department leaders, citing as justification a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that lambasted Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation. But Trump gave a different explanation when he said in an NBC News interview that he had already decided to dismiss Comey and was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he did so.

Trump's actions and justifications presented the possibility that Trump's intention was to obstruct justice.

COMEY'S TESTIMONY

Comey, a skilled raconteur who generally tilts in favor of openness, is well-accustomed to the spotlight and in particular to sensational congressional hearings, including one 10 years ago in which he revealed a dramatic hospital room clash with Bush administration officials.

Thursday's testimony before the Senate intelligence committee is expected to be his most dramatic yet.

The official release of Comey's remarks on Wednesday afternoon came shortly after the conclusion of testimony from Comey's former national security peers who refused to answer senators' questions about their own interactions with Trump. There have been reports that the president tried to pressure NSA Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to publicly push back on the investigation.

The former director's prepared remarks answered many of the looming questions:

Did the president ask Comey for his loyalty? Yes. "I didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said in his written testimony.

Did the president ask Comey to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn? Yes. "I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December," Comey said.

How often did Trump and Comey communicate with each other before he was fired? Nine times, Comey said. "Three in person and six on the phone."

After one of these encounters, did Comey actually tell Attorney General Jeff Sessions that he did not want to meet with the president alone again? Yes. "I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me," Comey said.

But Republicans are likely to press Comey on why he did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign. Some may attempt to divert attention from Comey's remarks about Trump by focusing on two issues they've repeatedly seized on: leaks and revealing the names of Americans in intelligence reports.

ANY LIMITS?

The White House said Monday it would not invoke executive privilege over Comey's upcoming testimony  officials predicted it would look bad otherwise.

Comey, who is used to not answering lawmakers' questions about ongoing investigations, is not likely to say anything Thursday that could interfere with, or undercut, the ongoing federal investigation into Russia ties. That investigation is being led by Robert Mueller, Comey's predecessor.

Mueller was appointed as a special counsel by the department last month. The two former FBI directors are known to have warm feelings and respect for each other. A Comey associate has said he obtained Mueller's permission to testify.

On Tuesday, Trump was asked what his message for Comey would be. He said, "I wish him luck."

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
Mineral Area Community Elks Lodge 2583 has announced its 2017 Students of the Year for Central, North County and West County high schools.

Stockton George was selected 2017 MAC Elks Student of the Year for Central High School.

"Every year, Central High School is proud to present a male citizenship award at graduation as voted on by the faculty," said school counselor Ken Halter. "The criteria is based on responsibility, good conduct and service to the community. The male citizenship award winner for the class of 2017 was Stockton George."

According to Halter, George plans to attend Mineral Area College in the fall, concentrating his studies on computers and applied science.

Madison Ziegler was selected 2017 MAC Elks Student of the Year for North County High School.

"Madison led the school in our annual fundraiser for the American Heart Association, which was a record breaking year," said guidance counselor Dawn Duncan. "Madison has been actively involved in extracurricular activities. She is our student council president and played on the varsity volleyball team.

"She takes her academics seriously and has worked very hard. Her peers have commented that she is one of the hardest working students that I know and that she is dedicated to accomplishing any goal that she sets."

Ziegler has been accepted to the University of Colorado-Boulder where she plans on studying psychology.

Haleigh Marlow was selected 2017 MAC Elks Student of the Year for West County High School.

"Heleigh was chosen for her hard work, friendliness to all and positive attitude," said school counselor Jennifer Seabourne.
President Donald Trump is suggesting that Iran shares some blame for twin attacks by extremists on its parliament and a shrine, and insisting that sponsors of terrorism "risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Hours after conciliatory comments from his State Department, the president on Wednesday offered a seemingly contradictory statement, providing solace to the victims while delivering a broadside against Tehran. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The assaults killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," Trump said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said in a tweet Thursday that the White House comments were "repugnant." He accused the U.S. of supporting terrorism and tweeted, "Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship."

Despite the attacks, Democrats and Republicans in the Senate pushed ahead on a new set of sanctions against Iran.

The U.S. has designated Iran a state supporter of extremist acts since 1984.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had said the U.S. is sending thoughts and prayers to the Iranian people following the attacks.

"The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world," said Nauert, who said the U.S. is expressing condolences to the victims and their families.

The U.S. statement of solidarity with the attack's victims is notable because of the deep distrust between the U.S. and Iran. The two countries don't maintain diplomatic relations, and the Trump administration has emphasized the need to counter Iran's influence.

The distrust of Iran was evident on Wednesday when shortly after the condemnation, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate acted in a procedural vote to move forward on a new set of sanctions on Tehran, including its elite Revolutionary Guards. The strong bipartisan vote was 91-8 as after the roll call, Sen. Dianne Feinstein switched her vote from yes to no, pointing out that it would not affect the outcome.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure also would apply terrorism sanctions to the country's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

A few senators pleaded for a delay until next week of the previously scheduled vote in light of the attacks in Iran.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also pushed for a delay, but Republicans and Democrats pressed ahead.

The bill is a "carefully crafted response to Iran's ongoing aggression in the Middle East," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said.

Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed the measure despite concerns from former Secretary of State John Kerry and several Democrats that it could lead to the unraveling of the nuclear accord negotiated by the Obama administration.

Kerry cautioned lawmakers to "tread carefully" in pushing ahead with new sanctions against Iran in the wake of President Hassan Rouhani's re-election to another four-year term. Rouhani is a political moderate who scored a resounding victory over a hard-line opponent.

The committee chairman, GOP Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, is one of the bill's sponsors. He r recently reviewed top-secret intelligence that detailed Tehran's support for terrorism and other destabilizing actions.

"It is astounding what Iran continues to do around the world," said Corker, urging his colleagues to confront the threat Tehran poses.

In exchange for Iran rolling back its nuclear program, the U.S. and other world powers agreed to suspend wide-ranging oil, trade and financial sanctions that had choked the Iranian economy. As part of the July 2015 multinational accord, Iran also regained access to frozen assets held abroad.

Israel and congressional Republicans have long assailed the agreement as a windfall to Iran. They've argued the deal only delayed Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and failed to allow the kind of inspections of its atomic sites that would guarantee Tehran was not cheating. Lifting economic penalties saved Iran's economy, GOP lawmakers added, and allowed the country to funnel more money to terrorist groups.

Yet the nuclear deal remains in place despite Trump's pledge during the presidential campaign to discard or renegotiate the pact. Instead, the State Department took a key step last week toward preserving the pact by issuing a waiver to keep the sanctions from snapping back into place. And the Trump administration notified Congress last month that Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that as the Iran legislation moves forward, lawmakers will have an opportunity to offer amendments that would authorize new sanctions on Russia.
An Indiana high school student was forbidden from walking the stage to get his diploma while wearing his Marine uniform at his graduation ceremony.

Jacob Dalton Stanley graduated in December from Crown Point High School. He completed Marine boot camp on Friday, and flew home to attend his senior class' graduation ceremony. During practice, Principal Chip Pettit reportedly told Stanley that he was not allowed to wear his uniform at the weekend graduation. Stanley decided to wear his dress blues anyway.

Meanwhile, an early graduate and Marine from the nearby Hobart High School was encouraged to wear her uniform for graduation. Hobart schools superintendent Peggy Buffington told the Times of Northwest Indiana: This year was especially nice, because Ana Kritikos graduated midterm and landed just in time for the graduation ceremony.

Buffington described the occasion when past, present and future military were honored as a patriotic moment where the audience roars with applause.

The Marines do not have a policy on dress for high school graduations, leaving the decision up to the individual school districts.

FALLEN AUSTIN OFFICERS SON GETS HEARTFELT SUPPORT AT GRADUATION

Pettit, in addressing the issue regarding Stanley, said: We have continued wearing the traditional gown, as this is the last formal event of the year and a celebration of the time our graduating seniors have spent at Crown Point High School. This tradition is not intended to be disrespectful to students, parents, or our community, but as a source of pride for our students. It is also not intended to be disrespectful to our students choosing to serve in the military, our active duty servicemen and women and our veterans. We are forever grateful for the sacrifices that they make on a daily basis for our freedom."

Stanley declined to comment, but his classmates were outraged. Fellow graduate Leann Tustison said, if he wants to walk across the stage in his uniform -- that he worked so hard for and earned -- he should have the right to do that. Thats his achievement. They honored other peoples achievements whether they were in triathlon or other activities.

Its not just Marine uniforms that are causing controversy throughout the country. In Kokomo, Ind., and Redlands, Calif., high school graduates enlisting in the U.S. Army were not allowed to wear their Army stoles over their robes at graduation.

BOYS GRADUATION SPEECH PULLED OVER CHRISTIAN CONTENT

California student Elias Velazquez said his Army stole means something really honorable to me; its a whole new life transition to me.

Joe Velazquez, Elias' father, shared his feelings toward the school's policy against any sort of adornments on graduation day. Its kinda defeating the purpose of achieving that greatness. We push our kids to strive and try to be better and do the best they can and then we tell them at their grad ceremony we need you to all be the same because we dont want to hurt anyone elses feelings, said he senior Velazquez.

The Redlands School District told FOX 11 that we are totally supportive of our men and women in the military. This has nothing to do with a lack of our support.

Read more from the Times of Northwest Indiana.

Read more from FOX11.
A Virginia imam has been placed on leave after advocating for the controversial practice of female genital mutilation.

Imam Shaker Elsayed of the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia, made the controversial comments on a video, posted to the centers YouTube page, that has since been removed. It was first picked up by Middle East Research Media Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit that monitors and translates Iranian and Arab television channels, as well as sermons in the West.

We thought it important to publish this sermon on the topic of FGM [female genital mutilation] because it has been in the news recently, MEMRI Executive Director Steven Salinsky told Fox News.

MOSQUE CONDEMNS IMAM'S COMMENTS ON GENITAL MUTILATION

(Circumcision is) a sunna [traditional Islamic practice] for the boys, and the honorable thing to do  if needed  for the girls. This is something that a Muslim gynecologist can tell you if you need to or not, Imam Elsayed said in the video.

He went on to describe a woman who performed the practice, saying she is expected to cut only the tip of the sexual sensitive part in the girl, so that she is not hyper-sexually active. This is the purpose.

He then seemed to suggest the practice is so controversial because people dont understand it.

Of course, if that lady or surgeon cut more than the tip, it causes serious harm in the sexual life of the child when she grows up, and this is why the West thinks of (it) as sexual mutilation, he said.

After talking about unqualified people performing the practice, damaging the sexual sensuality of the woman as she grows older, he says this mistake in practice is used to prohibit the tradition.

He said that in societies that prohibit the practice, hyper-sexuality takes over.

And a woman is not satisfied with one person, or two, or three, he said. This is, God forbid, now happening even in Muslim societies where they prohibit circumcision.

The World Health Organization (WHO) describes female genital mutilation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It said the procedure can cause many problems, including severe bleeding and infection as well as later complications during child birth and can even be fatal and has no health benefits for girls and women.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION CASE INCLUDES VIDEO OF GIRLS BEING TAKEN INTO A MEDICAL FACILITY

Although the practice, which is sometimes also called female circumcision, has no basis in the Koran or in the Bible, experts say it is perpetuated in large part because of false claims about religious obligations and health benefits, societal pressures and the desire to suppress female sexuality, according to the Washington Post

Prominent members of the Muslim community have denounced Elsayeds comments, and some are calling for his ousting.

Fox News reached out to the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center via e-mail but the center has not responded. On Monday, board members released a statement saying they did not condone or support female genital mutilation.

The reference to hyper-sexuality is offensive and it is unequivocally rejected, the statement said. The Board of Directors is particularly disturbed by such comments.

They added that female genital mutilation is prohibited in Islam as well as the laws of the land.

It also included a statement by Elsayed that sought to clarify his position.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is considered by Islam to be a very harmful to womens sexual health. And in Islam anything harmful is prohibited which is why, he said, he referred the audience to their OBGYN to inform them why it is illegal and harmful.

But he did apologize for his choice of words.

Regarding the statement I made on hyper-sexuality, I admit that I should have avoided that, he said. I hereby take it back. And I do apologize to all those who are offended by it.

On Wednesday, the Board of Directors took action, putting out a second statement saying they agreed with Imam Shaker Elsayed that he will be placed on administrative leave until further notice.

According to the Post, Dar al-Hijrah, which boasts about 3,000 regular visitors, has sought for years to scrub its image, after it became the focus of public scrutiny and FBI investigations following 9-11. Two 9-11 hijackers and Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal M. Hasan all worshiped there at some point.
The Spartanburg Police Department said a child was left in a hot car outside a Walmart store on Wednesday.

Officers and EMS responded to the Walmart on Dorman Centre Drive between 4 and 5 p.m. in regards to a child abandonment call.

According to the incident report, a shopper was loading up her own children into a shopping cart in the parking lot when she heard a baby crying. The report states the woman then saw the baby in a van with the windows rolled up. The woman said the 6-month-old was sweating, alone inside.

As of 5:15 p.m., the average temperature in Spartanburg was 75 degrees.

The woman then ran to get help from store employees after unsuccessfully trying to open the van doors. Police the manager and co-manager of the Walmart came out to the vehicle where they saw the infant sweating and shaking inside the van, before deciding to break out the windows of the vehicle to get to the child.

The employee, after smashing a rear window of the van, was able to reach in and unlock the car seat straps, pulling the baby out. Police said the employee described the car seat as "soaked in sweat."

The employees then contacted EMS and city police about the incident. EMS took custody of the baby when they arrived at the scene, and transported her to Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.

The incident report said that the child's father told police he was supposed to be dropping her off with her mother, but became distracted and never did so, proceeding on to Walmart and forgetting the baby was inside the vehicle. He told police he had been up since 1 a.m. and hadn't slept since, the report states.

The child was not injured when the windows were busted out of the van, according to the incident report.

Walmart released the following statement on the incident:

"We cannot stress enough the importance that parents always check their cars and have their children with them at all times while at our stores. Were grateful this baby wasnt hurt and that the quick thinking of our associates and local emergency crews helped prevent the situation from taking a tragic turn."

Read more from FOX Carolina.
It was a close call for a front desk worker at the Marion County Sheriff's Office, after a car careened through the entry way at their Dunnellon, Florida branch.

Deputies say the 62-year-old driver was pulling into a parking space, when she lost control of the vehicle and continued through the front of the office. No one was injured during this incident.

"Our secretary had JUST stepped away from her desk before this happened...WOW!! We are so thankful everyone is ok," read a post on the MCSO Facebook page.

According to the Sheriff's Office, the driver's vehicle sustained close to $1,000 of damage and the district office sustained $10,000 worth of damage.

The driver was cited by the Florida Highway Patrol for careless driving.

Read more news at Fox 35 Orlando.
Local news agencies say an explosion at a fireworks factory has killed 23 workers in central India.

Press Trust of India cites district police official G. Janardhan as saying the blast occurred Wednesday afternoon while workers were producing firecrackers in Kheri village, in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The explosion triggered a blaze that engulfed the factory before firefighters put it out.

PTI reported that 23 were killed. Another seven were injured and were being treated in hospitals for burns and smoke inhalation.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the explosion.
North Korea launched several projectiles believed to be short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles from its east coast Thursday, according to South Korea's military.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

The JCS said the South Korean military has beefed up surveillance and vigilance against the possibility of additional provocations, maintaining full preparedness. The statement said the launches were immediately reported to South Korean President Moon Jae-in but gave no further details.

The missiles fired Thursday traveled around 120 miles, according to the South Korean military. The latest provocation came less than a week after United Nations Security Council passed a new resolution expanding sanctions against the country as punishment for its missile tests.

North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests over three consecutive weekends in May going back to Mother's Day, but last weekend there were no launches.

The remote country is on pace to break its record setting 2016 missile test-launch record.

The latest missile tests come as South Korea suspended its use of the American-based missile defense system THAAD.

SOUTH KOREA PUTS THAAD DEPLOYMENT ON HOLD

The Terminal High-Altitude Defense System (THAAD) has already been in operation in southeastern South Korea, with two launchers and radar. The system typically has six launchers  four of which are in in South Korea, but have yet to be installed.

South Koreas new President, Moon Jae-in, said his office was not briefed on the arrival of four new launchers and ordered an investigation. He also demanded an environmental assessment on the deployment site, saying the countrys Defense Ministry might be attempting to avoid an environmental inspection there.

"Each launch by the DPRK further demonstrates the rationale and necessity of the US-ROK alliance agreement to deploy THAAD," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said. "The deployment of THAAD battery to the Korean Peninsula will improve US-ROK joint missile defense posture and enhance our defensive capabilities"

Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called South Korea's decision "a blow to our national security interests."

Smith added that South Korea is "not sure of the U.S. commitment because of Trump's 'America First.'"

"We need to stand as a counter balance for other countries and this is a bad sign," Smith said.

"I have not seen North Korea back down," he added. "If they get nuclear capable missiles, they will threaten and hold sway without being deterred."

On May 14, North Korea premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts at the time said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

There are about 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson, Jennifer Griffin, Chad Pergram, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
A court in Russia's second-largest city has ordered the spiritual leader of the city's branch of the Church of Scientology held in detention for two months.

The spiritual leader ordered held on Thursday, Ivan Matsisky, was among five members of the church arrested Tuesday during a raid on the organization's offices in St. Petersburg.

They have been charged with participation in an extremist community, incitement of hatred and illegal business activities.

In 2015, a court ordered the Church of Scientology's Moscow operation to be dissolved, saying it could not be considered a religious organization.
At least 13 people are dead, including four attackers, after Boko Haram launched the deadliest attack in months on the northeast Nigeria city that is the birthplace of the extremist group, police said Thursday. The attack came just hours before a visit by the country's acting president.

Nigeria late last year declared that Boko Haram had been crushed but attacks continue, often with young women strapped into explosives for suicide attacks.

The jihadists attacked late Wednesday in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, as evening prayers were ending, targeting four locations around the city. Thirteen people were killed, including four attackers, Police Commissioner Damian Chukwu said.

Extremists also clashed with soldiers outside the city in Alidawari village and Jiddari Polo suburb, where homes were set on fire, Chukwu said. Nigerian forces killed three Boko Haram insurgents in that fighting, he said, and one attacker was captured alive.

Acting president Yemi Osinbajo arrived in Maiduguri on Thursday to launch a food relief program for hundreds of thousands of people who have fled their homes in the wake of Boko Haram attacks in the region. The eight-year insurgency has killed more than 20,000, kidnapped thousands and spilled into neighboring countries, creating a vast humanitarian crisis with thousands said to be near starvation.

The attacks late Wednesday in Maiduguri took place in various locations around the Chad Basin Development Authority headquarters just before 9 p.m., resident Alhaji Bashir said. The targets included a mosque, he said.

Young members of a civilian defense group, who have come together to combat the Islamic extremists, saw one suicide bomber at the headquarters. "One of the youth vigilantes rushed to hold him, and the bomb went off and killed the suicide bomber and three other persons," Bashir said.

In another attack, a female suicide bomber entered a crowd of worshippers leaving prayers and detonated her explosives, he said.

Dozens of injured people filled the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital on Thursday, said Abba Shehu, a private security worker.

"It is a horrible sight we have here," he said. "I could not count the number of injured casualties at the accident and emergency ward, most of them sitting on the floor as the place is crowded and no beds to properly admit them."
An attacker threw an explosive device over the fence of the U.S. Embassy in Kiev that detonated in the early hours on Thursday, Reuters reported.

There were no injuries, according to the report. Authorities called the incident a terrorist act.

Authorities in Kiev said in a statement that the incident occurred at 12:05 a.m. local time, and occurred at the U.S. Embassy compound in the Shevchenko district.

"It was determined that an unknown assailant threw an unidentified explosive device onto the grounds of the diplomatic mission. Criminal proceedings have been initiated under Art. 258 (Terrorist Act) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," the statement read, according to The Mirror.

The U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning in 2016 for U.S. citizens in Ukraine. The statement read, The situation in Ukraine is unpredictable and could change quickly.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP)  Republican Gov. Eric Greitens said Wednesday he is calling Missouri lawmakers back to the Capitol to work on abortion policies, including looking at a St. Louis ordinance that bans discrimination based on abortions and pregnancies.

The abortion opponent said he also wants lawmakers to consider new regulations, including annual inspections of clinics, after the GOP-controlled Legislature failed to pass several anti-abortion measures before adjourning last month. Two of those bills were aimed at blocking the ordinance.

While largely symbolic, the St. Louis ordinance bans employers from firing, refusing to hire or disciplining women because they have an abortion, take contraception, use artificial insemination or become pregnant while not married. It also bans such discrimination in housing.

The ordinance was approved in the heavily Democratic city in an effort to pre-empt anti-abortion measures during the regular legislative session. Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green, who sponsored the ordinance, has said it wasn't sparked by any specific case or current law.

On Wednesday, Greitens said the ordinance makes St. Louis "an abortion sanctuary city." He said the special session will begin Monday.

This is the second time Greitens has called lawmakers back since their annual legislative session ended on May 12. A special session can cost as much as $28,000 a week in the Senate and between $50,000 and $100,000 in the House, depending on how many lawmakers attend.

The first special session, which dealt with utility rates for steel and aluminum plants, cost taxpayers more than $66,000. Some legislators had said the governor should only call them back again for urgent matters.

"No greater issue fits the category of extraordinary than the safety of Missourians and the protection of life and the protection of our fundamental rights as Americans," said Republican Sen. Bob Onder, who represents parts of suburban St. Louis.

Missouri Right to Life and other anti-abortion advocates also lauded Greitens' decision to call another session. House Speaker Todd Richardson said lawmakers were ready to push the policies.

Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Webber slammed the governor's decision as costly and "an unnecessary government intrusion into private sexual and reproductive health decisions." The American Civil Liberties Union in Missouri said the session amounted to "a call for an attack on women," sentiments echoed by Planned Parenthood Advocates in Missouri.

The special session also comes in response to a federal judge's decision in April that invalidated a requirement that Missouri doctors who perform abortions must have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. The judge also struck down rules that clinics meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery.

Greitens said in a statement Wednesday that the judge's ruling "weakened our state's health standards in abortion clinics." He called for annual inspections and a requirement that clinics have a plan for complications related to abortions, among other regulations.

St. Louis' ordinance prohibits discrimination based on "reproductive health decisions." It doesn't apply to religious organizations such as churches and schools, but there is no exemption for faith-based "crisis pregnancy centers" that counsel women against abortion.

A group of St. Louis Catholics has sued the city, arguing the ordinance could force employers or landlords to act against their religious beliefs.
Greek and European Union authorities are investigating two members of a U.S. charity linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros after allegations that the pair sexually abused refugees at an asylum center. Also under investigation is possible financial corruption by the two members.

In addition, Mercy Corps, a foundation and corporate partner with Soros Open Society Foundations, has put the two persons under investigation on temporary paid leave and is conducting its own probe into the matter.

A comprehensive investigation of this allegation is underway, led by an expert in victims rights and, more specifically, with deep expertise in investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation, reads a recently published statement from the NGOs officials. We continue to promptly brief Greek authorities, including the Supreme Court Prosecutor, as the investigation proceeds and appreciate their assistance with this issue.

Meanwhile the European Union, which also is investigating the allegations, said last month it suspended a final payment to the group on a single grant in Greece. The EU said that besides the sexual abuse allegations, its anti-fraud office is investigating possible financial corruption by the two Mercy Corps members.

The allegations were first made public last month by the office of the EUs commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides.

Although these remain allegations under investigation, the Commission is taking them very seriously, reads an EU statement. We take a zero-tolerance approach to any abuse of the rights and personal integrity of all refugees and migrants as well as to any misuse of funds.

The investigation is just the latest controversy around Europes on-going migrant crisis.

In February, a number of privately run migrant rescue vessels ferrying refugees and migrants between Libya and Sicily caught the attention of authorities in Italy who suspected that some of the fleets funding may have come from smugglers. An investigation concluded that there was not enough proof of any wrongdoing.

"The ample amount of money that some of the newer NGOs have is an element of suspicion and it is something we are looking into ... No evidence has yet been found" of illicit funding, Carmelo Zuccaro, chief prosecutor of Catania, a city on the eastern coast of Sicily said, according to a Reuters article. "The profiles of some NGO crew members are not exactly philanthropic."
A top Iranian official on Thursday rejected President Trumps condolences after a pair of terror attacks in Tehran, saying, "Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship.

Reuters reported that Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called the White Houses statement repugnant.

ISIS claimed responsibility for a pair of stunning attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including the Islamic State group, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action."

The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged," the Revolutionary Guard statement said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report
Five of the men who launched an attack in the heart of Iran's capital previously fought for the Islamic State group, the country's Intelligence Ministry said Thursday, acknowledging the first such assault by the extremists in the Shiite power.

The attacks Wednesday on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 17 people and wounded over 40, stunning its people.

The ministry issued a statement on its website with bloody pictures of the men's corpses. It identified them by their first names only, saying they didn't want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

It described them as "long affiliated with the Wahhabi," an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia. However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion Iran's regional rival had a hand in the attack.

The men had left Iran to fight for the extremist group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria  the group's de facto capital, the ministry said. It said they returned to Iran in August under the command of an Islamic State leader and escaped when authorities initially broke up their extremist cell.

The ministry did not identify the men's hometowns, nor say how they were able to evade authorities. A woman suspected to be involved in the attack was arrested Wednesday.

Commuters in the Iranian capital noticed police on street corners and motorcycles, more than usual as dawn broke. That came after Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, a deputy Interior Minister, told state TV that "law enforcement activities may increase."

"We are focused on intelligence" gathering, he said.

The state-run IRNA news agency also reported Thursday that the death toll in the attacks had risen to 17 people killed, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

The attack Wednesday as lawmakers held a session in parliament and at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shocked Iranians who so far had avoided the chaos that has followed the Islamic State group's rise in Syria and Iraq. Iranian forces are backing embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad while the Shiite power also is supporting militias fighting against the extremists in Iraq.

The attack came as emboldened Sunni Arab states  backed by U.S. President Donald Trump  are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said. "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

The comments sparked anger from Iranians on social media, who recalled the vigils in Tehran that followed the Sept. 11 attacks. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet on Thursday called the White House comments "repugnant" and accused the U.S. of supporting terror.

"Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including the Islamic State group, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action."

The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged," the Revolutionary Guard statement said.

Emirati Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told The Associated Press on Wednesday that "the Iranian government should not use the attack in a very polarized situation against Saudi Arabia or claim that Saudi Arabia is somehow linked to the attack, because it isn't."

On the streets of the capital Thursday, Iranians said they remained suspicious that Saudi Arabia had a hand in the attack. Some pointed to comments in May by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of the King Salman and the kingdom's defense minister, who said his country would "work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia."

"I am sure Persian Gulf Arab countries are behind this," said Nahid Ghanbari, a 21-year-old university student studying accounting. "They have been angry about Iran's power in the region. They look for a way to destabilize our country."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if "Iran had not resisted," it would have faced even more troubles.

"The Iranian nation will go forward," he added.

The violence began in midmorning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran's state TV.

Images circulating in Iranian media showed gunmen held rifles near the windows of the complex. One showed a toddler being handed through a first-floor window to safety outside as an armed man looked on.

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

Iran's state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was slain by security guards. A woman was also arrested. The revered shrine was not damaged.

Police on Thursday said they now held six suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks.

Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.

Tehran's stock exchange fell nearly 2 percent Thursday after the attacks.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
The Latest on the fallout from attacks in Iran claimed by the Islamic State group (all times local):

5 p.m.

An Iranian news report says that Tehran is investigating the potential role of Saudi Arabia in Wednesday's deadly dual militant attacks in Tehran.

The semi-official ISNA news agency on Thursday quotes Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi as saying the matter is under investigation and it is "too soon to say" if Saudi Arabia was involved.

Alavi says that many people in Iran and around the world believe Saudi Arabia supports Islamic militants across the region.

In the wake of Wednesday's attacks, Iran's Revolutionary Guard released a statement accusing the Saudis of being complicit in the attacks. But no proof or specifics were offered.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attacks. IS has also claimed multiple attacks inside Saudi Arabia.

___

3:30 p.m.

Egypt has condemned Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and a shrine to its revolutionary leader in the "strongest terms."

Egypt's Foreign Ministry offered its condolences to the families of the deceased on Thursday and called on the international community to intensify its efforts to fight terrorism and its sources of funding.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed the attacks, which killed at least 17 people and wounded over 40, on its regional rival Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Egypt.

___

2:40 p.m.

Authorities have raised the death toll in a pair of Islamic State group attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader to 17 people killed.

The state-run IRNA news agency reported the increase Thursday, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

Shojaei earlier told state television that "three of the victims are women." He did not elaborate.

Iranian authorities have said assailants were Iranian nationals, adding they have arrested six suspects, including one woman, since the attack Wednesday in Tehran. Over 40 people were wounded in the attack.

___

2:30 p.m.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has confirmed that five of the men involved in terror attacks in Iran had fought for the Islamic State group.

A ministry statement issued Thursday said the men had left Iran to fight for the extremist group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria  the group's de facto capital.

It identified the men only by their first names, saying they didn't want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The ministry also published pictures of their corpses.

___

2:15 p.m.

Syrian President Bashar Assad has condemned the twin extremist attacks in Tehran, vowing the Iran and Syria would emerge victorious in their fight against "terrorism."

Iran is a key backer of Assad amid his country's six year long civil war. The Syrian president spoke to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani by phone on Thursday.

Rouhani affirmed his support for Assad's government and promised to carry out the fight against "terrorists and their supporters," according to a report on Syrian state media.

Iran blamed the Wednesday attacks on Saudi Arabia, casting them in the context of a broader regional conflict that encompasses the war inside Syria. Both Iran and the Syrian government portray the Syrian war as a conflict against Western- and Gulf-sponsored terrorism.

The Islamic State group claimed the Tehran attacks; no link has emerged of Saudi Arabia's involvement.

___

1:30 p.m.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has condemned the twin extremist attacks in Tehran, describing them as part of an "international, destructive plan" backed by various regional governments.

Hezbollah is seen as a proxy to Iran in Syria and Lebanon and has aligned itself with Tehran amid mounting regional tensions with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.

Iran blamed the Wednesday attacks on Saudi Arabia, though no link has been established. The Islamic State group claimed the attacks.

Hezbollan and Iran are locked in twin military conflicts in Iraq and Syria against Islamic State jihadists and Gulf- and Western-backed local opposition forces.

___

1:15 p.m.

Authorities have raised the death toll in a pair of Islamic State-claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader to 16 people killed.

State television reported the increase Thursday, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic center.

Shojaei told state TV that "three of the victims are women." He did not elaborate.

Iranian authorities have said assailants were Iranian nationals, adding they have arrested six suspects, including one woman, since the attack Wednesday in Tehran.

___

10:30 a.m.

Iran's foreign minister is rejecting U.S. statements about the attacks on Iran's parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader.

Mohammad Javad Zarif in a tweet on Thursday called the comments on the attack in Tehran a day earlier "repugnant" and accused the U.S. of supporting terror. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, which authorities on Thursday said killed 13.

President Donald Trump in a statement suggested that Iran bears some culpability for attacks in its capital.

Trump tweeted that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." He also said the U.S. was grieving and praying for the victims of the attacks.

Zarif tweeted: "The Iranian people reject such U.S. claims."
Portugal's public prosecutor has brought charges of espionage, disclosing state secrets and corruption against a Portuguese spy and a Russian secret service agent.

The prosecutor's office alleges the Portuguese Security Intelligence agent met with the Russian in Rome last year and handed him secret documents in return for 10,000 euros ($11,200).

Thursday's statement said the Portuguese spy was under suspicion and was being secretly followed in Rome by Italian and Portuguese officials.

The statement provided no details about the secret documents or the Russian's identity. Portugal is a member of NATO and the European Union.

The two men were arrested in Rome. The statement says the Portuguese spy is in custody in Lisbon but an Italian court refused to extradite the Russian, who was freed. His whereabouts are not known.
A radicalized 18-year-old was convicted Thursday of attempted murder for throwing two Molotov cocktails into the entrance of a German shopping mall.

The Hannover state court sentenced the German citizen, identified only as Saleh S. in line with privacy rules, to eight years in prison for throwing the homemade firebombs into the mall in Hannover in February 2016, news agency dpa reported.

They were filled with diesel fuel that didn't ignite. The Molotov cocktails glanced off two people, but nobody was hurt and no damage was caused. The defendant was tried as a juvenile behind closed doors.

He is the brother of a 16-year-old girl, Safia S., who was convicted in January of stabbing and wounding a police officer at the behest of the Islamic State group.

In a separate case, German authorities said Thursday that they arrested a Syrian man suspected of acting as a liaison between the IS group's Aamaq news agency and potential attackers.

Federal prosecutors said the 23-year-old, identified only as Mohammed G. in line with privacy rules, was arrested Wednesday. He is accused of membership in a terrorist organization.

The suspect arrived in Germany in September 2015. Prosecutors said he was in contact via social media with a person suspected in an arson attack on a Shiite community center in Sweden in October 2016, and demanded a personal claim of responsibility the day after that attack.

Aamaq didn't want to report the attack without a claim as evidence, prosecutors said. IS then published a claim of responsibility in its Al-Naba newsletter.

The suspect also allegedly spread IS propaganda in online chat groups.
The U.N. envoy for Syria visited Russia on Thursday for talks focusing on future peace negotiations.

The envoy, Staffan de Mistura said his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comes at a "delicate, important moment" in Syria's six-year-old civil war.

He stressed the importance of coordination between U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva, which are aimed at resolving the conflict, and upcoming talks in Astana sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran, which are focused on reducing violence. De Mistura said the two tracks are "closely interconnected."

"Without a good de-escalation process Geneva talks will be difficult, but without the Geneva progress there will be no horizon," he said.

The Astana talks set for later this month will focus on the specifics of so-called de-escalation zones in Syria.

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed to establish the zones, signing on to a Russian plan under which President Bashar Assad's air force would halt flights over designated areas across the war-torn country.

But fighting had been reported in the "de-escalation zones" since the deal was struck, and details related to the zones and the monitoring process are yet to be worked out.

The next round of Astana talks, originally scheduled for June 12, has been pushed back to June 20, Lavrov's deputy Mikhail Bogdanov said.

"Intensive work is underway to clarify some details and prepare the relevant documents needed for the meeting in Astana," Bogdanov said in remarks carried by Russian news agencies.

Lavrov on Thursday emphasized the need to "harmonize the efforts taken by various players in Syria ... to protect Syria's sovereignty, uphold the rights of all ethnic and religious groups, ensure the security of the region and prevent Syria from becoming a constant source of terror threats."

De Mistura noted that the U.N. needs to "come up with new ideas all the time in order to keep the momentum in the direction of a political process."

He added that he will also meet Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for discussions "related to the humanitarian assistance, de-mining and linked to the consolidation of the de-escalation environment."

Russia has conducted an air campaign in Syria since September 2015, helping turn the tide in the conflict in favor of Assad's forces.
Norway's top court on Thursday rejected an appeal by mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik, saying the country didn't violate his human rights by isolating him in jail.

The Hoeyesterett court ruled there was "no basis" for a different conclusion than the one reached by the Borgarting Court of Appeal in January.

Breivik, serving a 21-year sentence for killing 77 people in a 2011 bomb-and-shooting rampage, had claimed his solitary confinement has deeply damaged him and made him even more radical in his neo-Nazi beliefs.

"At this point, there are no prospects for Breivik winning an appeal in the Supreme Court," the Hoeyesterett said in a statement. The appeal committee added that Breivik "still represents an unusually high risk of (committing) very serious events."

His defense lawyer lawyer Oystein Storrvikk told Norwegian news agency NTB that they would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Last year, the Norwegian government had appealed a lower court ruling that Breivik's isolation in prison violates his rights. He had also claimed his solitary confinement, the frequent strip searches and the fact that he was often handcuffed during the early part of his incarceration violated his human rights. He is held in isolation in a three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise. He has also complained about the quality of the prison food, having to eat with plastic utensils and not being able to communicate with sympathizers.

The government had said he is treated humanely despite the severity of his crimes.

Breivik had meticulously planned the deadly July 22, 2011, attacks, setting off a car bomb outside the government headquarters in Oslo, killing eight people and wounding dozens. He then drove to the island of Utoya, 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, where he opened fire on the annual summer camp of the left-wing Labor Party's youth wing. Sixty-nine people there were killed, most of them teenagers, before Breivik surrendered to police.
Democrats have little to show but anger since their stunning upset loss to Donald Trump last November. So its perhaps no surprise they are turning their sights on tightening polls across the pond for electoral hope.

As the leftist New Republic put it this week: It will be like Bernie [Sanders] winning the election if left-wing activist Jeremy Corbyn pulls a come-from-behind victory over Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May.

The Democrats and their media allies have expressed similar hopes before, but have not picked up a seat despite several hyped-up special elections across the U.S. since Trump was elected. They did win one that didnt translate into a fresh seat, which the leftist New York mag wryly headlined: Democrat wins all-Democratic special election in California.

UK ELECTIONS: MAY WIN NO LONGER A SURE BET AFTER TERROR ATTACKS

From England, the American left is hoping for a political shockwave from Thursdays Parliamentary vote.

Jeremy Corbyn comes from a left-wing activist side that subscribes to a conspiratorial anti-capitalist ideology, said Timothy Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. It would be difficult to imagine two men who would get on worse than Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn.

A victory by Corbyns Labour Party would be huge, but even a close outcome would be a Trump-sized upset, and demonstrate just how dramatically the politics of both left and right have shifted in Europe and the U.S. since Brexitand since November 8, opined the New Republic.

Trump and terror have been key issues in the race. Corbyn reluctantly admitted that the bomb attack on an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was an act of terrorism, after initially calling it an appalling act of violence and a terrible incident. He also pointed out the recent rise in hate crimes shows how far our society has to go.

May pounced on such comments.

Corbyn said the terror attacks in Britain are our own fault a few days after one of the worst terror atrocities weve ever seen, May said last week. The choice that people face about the election has become starker between me working constantly to protect the national interest and Corbyn who isnt up to the job.

THE UK'S 2017 SNAP ELECTION: WHAT TO KNOW

Corbyn, for his part, has criticized the Conservative government for not spending enough on police and public services.

They wanted this election to be very much a kind of Brexit vote and I dont think thats in the hearts and minds of Londoners at the minute, not nearly as much as the security is, voter Rachel Sheard, 22, told the Associated Press after casting her ballot.

Since calling for the election in early April, Conservative leads of 20 points or more in the opinion polls have nearly faded away. But those numbers turned around in the wake of the Manchester and London terror attacks.

The Conservatives had a wobble last week, but have regained a clear lead in the last few days, said Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos MORI.

I suspect there has been some move in the polls toward the Tories due to the terror attacks, said Timothy Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University in London.

But its not just security, said Bale. Corbyns hard-left politics may hurt him in the end.

Very few Brits see Corbyn as an alternative prime minister, Bale told Fox News. Hes unlikely to win.

If Mays party prevails, as expected, political analysts say it will be an endorsement of the special relationship that May has worked hard to protect since Trump was elected. The Conservatives are also desperate for a free trade agreement with the United States, so if May wins we are going to see a UK that is less critical of President Trump than many other powers, and if it is critical it will be made in private, said Bale.

On the other hand, a victory by Labour would indeed mean a break with tradition, said Bale. Many Labour prime ministers have attacked Washington during past campaigns, but once they come into office they are anxious to maintain the special relationship.

That would evaporate with Trump at the White House, and Corbyn at 10 Downing Street, warned Bale.

As for the message for Democrats hoping Corbyn and England can send an electoral message to America, Bale says whats likely to happen is just the opposite. The message from todays vote is likely to be: You can still get elected in Britain even if youre prepared to do deals with Mr. Trump.

If youre a Democrat you have to realize theres not really a route to power through a more left-wing strategy in England as well as the U.S., said Bale, There are some Democrats saying if only it had been Bernie [Sanders] and not Hillary [Clinton] we would have won. I think Britains election is about to tell you thats probably not the case.


British Prime Minister Theresa May was battling to hold on to a narrowing lead as U.K. voters weighed terror, Brexit and immigration in an election that once seemed like a landslide for the incumbent.

Late polls show a tightening race between May and her lead opponent, Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, in a general election that will determine how the U.K. negotiates its exit from the European Union and how it handles attacks from radical Muslims, among other things. But surveys showed May carrying a lead of as much as 8 points, and had her on pace to keep a 50-seat majority in Parliament.

The 60-year-old May, who took over as prime minister last year after David Cameron stepped down following the Brexit referendum result, had what many saw as an insurmountable lead over her political rivals, a lead that could actually widen her current majority in the House of Commons.

Then came the Manchester bombing on May 22 and the London Bridge van and stabbing attacks on June 3. The Manchester attack left at least 22 dead and some 119 injured, while at least 8 were killed and more than 50 injured in the assault at London Bridge.

Corbyn quickly jumped on the opportunity to remind voters of what May did when she was Camerons home secretary, or top law officer: She oversaw cuts to the police department of some 20,000 local officers. Suddenly the 68-year-old socialist appeared within striking distance of No. 10 Downing St.

One recent poll shows May with a relatively small 6 percent lead over Corbyn -- though British political observers warn the polls are often wrong about outcomes.

"The opinion polls are tightening but the opinion polls in Britain are a bit unreliable," said Mark Garnett, a politics professor at Lancaster University.

"How people intend to vote is very different from how they will actually vote," Garnett told Fox News Wednesday. "Corbyn immediately went on the offensive and said this is largely due to the fact that police numbers have been curbed. May was home secretary in charge of the police before she became prime minister. The whole narrative [of the campaign] has suddenly become cuts to the police."

Corbyn, widely written off at the start of the campaign, has drawn thousands of people to upbeat rallies and energized young voters with his plans to boost public spending after years of Conservative austerity.

"They underestimated us, didn't they?" Corbyn told supporters in Glasgow on Wednesday. "They underestimated the good sense of ordinary people, ordinary people all over Britain."

An election that had appeared to be a referendum on Mays ability to negotiate a good Brexit deal had become a referendum on her ability to keep Britons safe. She may yet win, but prospects of her building or even retaining her majority in Parliament have dimmed dramatically.

"People have been questioning whether Theresa May symbolizes stable and strong leadership," said Michael Geary, professor of European studies at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

"Jeremy Corbyn over the last few days has been rising in a kind of Bernie Sanders way amongst the young and those on the left," Geary told Fox News.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Country

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Ireland United States Minor Outlying Islands United States of America Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
Venezuela's chief prosecutor called Thursday for Venezuelans to reject President Nicolas Maduro's push to rewrite the nation's constitution and urged the Supreme Court to annul the process immediately, further deepening her divide with the government.

Grasping a copy of the nation's blue constitution book in her hands on the steps of the Supreme Court, Luisa Ortega Diaz said she was acting to defend both the embattled nation's constitution and its very democracy.

"What's at play here is the country," she said. "The integrity of Venezuelans."

Ortega Diaz's remarks were her strongest repudiation yet of Maduro's effort to rewrite the nation's constitution, an act she said would destroy the legacy of the late President Hugo Chavez, who drafted the current charter.

A long-time government loyalist, Ortega Diaz first broke publicly with the Maduro administration in late March when she decried a supreme court decision gutting congress of its last remaining powers. Since then, the gulf between Ortega Diaz and the government has only grown, with has repeatedly questioning the validity of convoking a constitutional assembly without the proposal first facing a referendum.

Maduro ordered the National Electoral Council to convene the assembly, stating it was his constitutional right, a position the opposition rejects. He also designed the rules by which delegates to the assembly would be elected. The government-stacked council quickly rubber stamped both requests and is moving forward to hold the elections in late July.

Ortega Diaz is requesting that the Supreme Court's electoral chamber invalidate the process. In doing so, she is sidestepping the court's constitutional branch, whose magistrates were responsible for the March decision against the opposition-controlled congress.

That decision was later reversed amid a storm of international criticism and Ortega Diaz's own rebuke. But it instigated the current wave of protests that has left nearly 70 people dead and continues to rock the country. Demonstrators are frustrated with the nation's vast food and medical supply shortages, triple-digit inflation and rising crime.

The Trump administration slapped sanctions in May on the Supreme Court's president as well as seven justices from the constitutional chamber who issued the controversial decision. The court's constitutional chamber has declared null and void eight National Assembly laws between January and October 2016, after just one such ruling in the previous 200 years, legal experts say.

Ortega Diaz is accusing the National Electoral Council of breaking key democratic principles such as universal suffrage in approving Maduro's constitutional assembly. Maduro's terms call for allotting a specific number of votes to specific population sectors such as the disabled, fishermen and retirees, as well as one per municipality. Analysts say those terms will heavily favor the government.

"The appeal I am attempting is to defend the rule of the people," she said.

Her actions were immediately embraced by members of the opposition who until the current crisis accused her of being Maduro's enabler.

"If hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans join the chief prosecutor it would represent a huge act of pressure and protest," said Freddy Guevara, who has been spearheading the anti-government demonstrations as vice president of the opposition-controlled congress.

The nation's chief prosecutor also decried Maduro and his top administration officials for employing what she termed "violent calls" to participate in the constitutional assembly. Maduro has frequently referred to opposition members refusing to participate in the assembly as "fascist terrorists." Crowds at pro-government events frequently call for them to be jailed.

"We can't live in a country like this," Diaz Ortega said.

___

Christine Armario reported from Bogota, Colombia.
In just a few weeks, itll be time to head to Florida to check out whats new and improved at the big American Sportfishing Associations trade show. Its called ICAST, or International Convention of Allied Sportfishing Trades, and manufacturers from around the world come to show off their new stuff, renew business relationships and help fishing retailers plan their next years inventory.

Ive never been what sociologists might call an early adopter of almost any technology, preferring to let a little time elapse before I try anything with a new engine, design, microchip, nanotech something or other aspect to it.

If I made my full living off the fishing world, Id probably be a little more aggressive in looking for things that might give me an edge. Instead, I look for things that make life a little easier, safer, comfortable and, yes, productive.

For example, how did we ever live without trolling motors that have digital power steering, can be programmed to automatically follow contour lines or locked to hold your boat in a specific GPS position even in rough weather?

I was on a boat with Minn Kotas (minnkotamotors.com) Spot Lock technology last summer, fishing in the saltwater outside the jetty at Carolina Beach, N.C. Even with nearly 20-mph winds and rolling surf, that trolling motor held us in position about 30 yards off the formidable rock jetty. It seemed miraculous that this comparatively small saltwater trolling motor prop could hold a 23-foot boat in such conditions.

Last week, my brother Dana and I fished Lake Champlain, Vt. Our 21-foot boat was outfitted with Minn Kotas new Ultrex trolling motor with 112 pounds of thrust. This item was voted best in its category and overall best in show at last years ICAST New Product Showcase.

Wind, again, dominated the scenario. Yet, we held our position and fished effortlessly for smallmouth bass even as current screamed through various channels and wind routinely buffeted our lines and lures while casting. Previously, youd have had to mess with anchors or concentrate more on trolling motor foot pedals and steering than fishing.

Another great feature of this technology is when we were fishing for panfish. Wed slip into an area with the trolling motor and then lock our position, versus having to drop a fish-scattering anchor.

Get Your Pedal On

Kayak fishing is widely popular, but Im not the most physically adept at getting into and maneuvering those sleek, skinny crafts you must paddle. Paddling also interferes with fishing. Some manufacturers are coming out with pedal drive systems. Hobie, for example, debuted a Mirage-drive system years ago. It uses something that looks like seal or penguin flippers to power the craft.

Debuting last year was the Old Town Predator PDL (oldtowncanoe.com/kayaks), which also uses pedal power. But, instead of flippers, youre basically spinning something akin to a trolling motor propeller. You just flip the attached steering rudder into the water at the stern and pedal away. Steering is adjusted with a lever at your side. You can also pedal backwards.

This was also a best in category product at last years ICAST.

Ive used this in small ponds and wide, tidal creeks off the Lower Potomac River. The design is cool in that, if the propulsion unit bumps into something, it pivots up from the portal in front of you. This give versus being locked in lets the unit survive the inevitable dings and obstacles associated with skinny water fishing. You need about a foot and a half of water, or more, to successfully operate the boat.

The 13-foot boat tracks exceptionally well. I use the lever to set a heading and then pedal and fish. Plus, its incredible stable, with a 36-inch beam thats wider than most fishing kayaks. A more nimble guy could stand up and fish on it.

This pedal-driven model is similar to the Predator XL Minn Kota model, which actually has a battery-powered trolling motor console that drops into the center of the boat. The pedal system has a 10.3:1 gear ratio, which lets anglers reach speeds up to 5.5 mph.

I havent gotten around to tricking out this kayak yet but, since its rated to hold up to 500 pounds, I could add considerable stuff to it. I tend to do things on the cheap, so something like an anchor pole I could slip through the scupper poles may come in handy, and a milk crate and some bungee cords is likely in the works. For my keeper fish, I just use an old-fashioned stringer tied to the boats carrying handle, right at my side.

This kind of fishing is addictive and I like that this boat/kayak is adaptable enough that it can handle multiple types of water. Theres also something about being close to the water when youre working a fish that makes the experience just a little more exciting.

I cant wait to check out this years innovations. Sometimes new and improved is just that.

Chesapeake Bay Awareness

Mason Neck State Park in Lorton will be the site of a fun event from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday as part of Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week, which was established by legislatures in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to encourage events, activities and educational programs that raise awareness about the bay.

The event is free. Food and beverages will be available for purchase. Among the activities are paddleboarding, an oyster-shucking demonstration, tutorials about underwater grasses up close and Capt. John Smiths voyage, and live music by The Burn Band. Twenty exhibitors will have booths with hands-on educational activities focused on the Chesapeake Bay.

For more information about Chesapeake Bay Awareness Week and Back to the Bay, visit vcnva.org/chesapeake-bay-awareness-week or follow the event on Facebook.
Nick Ignacio, who is seeking the Republican nomination for a Fredericksburg-area House of Delegates seat, has appeared in online videos that show him simulating sexual acts and making vulgar remarks.

An anonymously made video that includes some of those YouTube clips has been shared by Facebook users who oppose his candidacy.

Ignacio, a 32-year-old Spotsylvania County resident who describes himself as a normal God-fearing guy on his campaign website, criticized The Free LanceStar for asking him about the videos and said he would not answer questions unrelated to policies or his campaign. He called The Free LanceStar biased in an interview Friday and repeatedly referred to the article as a hit piece in a voicemail message Monday.

He did not immediately reply to an email and a phone call after his voicemail Monday.

There are real stories out here, and youre talking about YouTube, youre talking about Twitter, youre talking about garbage, Ignacio said. Its garbage.

The newspaper also asked him in an email why his @greatnessofnick Twitter account had been suspended, but he did not reply to that question.

Ignacio is challenging 27-year incumbent Del. Bobby Orrock, RCaroline County, in Tuesdays Republican primary for the 54th District seat in the House of Delegates. The district includes parts of Spotsylvania and Caroline counties.

One YouTube clip uploaded in 2009 shows Ignacio, wearing a black wig, simulating a sexual act with a sex toy. He also makes anti-gay slurs and other vulgar remarks in a YouTube video uploaded in 2008.

The anonymously made video criticizing the candidate shows YouTube clips that include footage of someone who appears to light a bottle rocket from Ignacios rear end. What if we put one on my buttcould you light it off like they did on Jackass? Ignacio asks in the clip.

A Concerned Spotsylvania Citizens Facebook page posted the video Tuesday, and Ignacio remarked look at your life!!! in the comments section.

He told a Richmond TimesDispatch reporter who asked about the videos that he did some goofy silly dumb things in my youth.

He has also had some brushes with the law that led to misdemeanor charges, but would not discuss those.

Ignacio was supervised by the Alexandria Probation and Parole Office from March 18, 2011, until March 28, 2012, under an interstate compact with Maryland, according to the Virginia Department of Corrections.

He pleaded guilty in Maryland to charges of violating laws governing the possession and handling of firearms there, according to an Accurint background report. The report says he was sentenced to probation before judgment, which is not treated as a conviction and usually results in a dismissal.

An email Friday from Ignacios campaign address said the only thing Nick legally has on his record is speeding.

His speeding offenses include a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction in 2008 after an officer in Prince William County charged him with driving 100 mph in a 65 mph zone. In addition, he was charged with reckless driving in Fairfax County in 2010 and Brunswick County in 2015, but both citations were reduced to speeding, online court records show.

Ignacio also filed a $2 million lawsuit against the U.S. government, claiming a federal law enforcement officer he worked with threatened him with physical harm. Ignacio was a contracted security officer at the Pentagon at the time.

The lawsuit says Ignacio suffered post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the federal officers actions.

The parties reached an undisclosed settlement in 2012.

Chris Olmstead, a spokesman for Orrock, declined to comment on Ignacios YouTube videos or misdemeanor charges.

Its not our place to place any judgment on it, but we shall see what the voters think on the 13th, he said.

Ignacio criticized The Free LanceStar for reporting on YouTube videos instead of real news such as homelessness. He talked about people living in their cars and said he met an elderly couple who could not leave their home for weeks until a church built them a wheelchair ramp.

Ignacio did not respond to an email survey from the paper asking for background information, including any criminal arrests, and his most important campaign issues. He referred a reporter to his website, which lists protecting and strengthening the Second Amendment, protecting the sanctity of life and states: I will not allow us to be forced to go broke anymore by spending money on people who are not here legally.

This campaign has changed me for the better, Ignacio said in an interview. Its made me into the person I want to be that helps people and understands humanity.
TUESDAY WAS an important date in U.S. history, yet it slipped by with hardly any mention whatsoever.

D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe, occurred June 6, 1944. It was one of the major turning points of the Second World War.

In a society that has become almost obsessed with war and anything military, how did we manage to allow one of the most significant operations in the past 100 years pass without at least a major commemoration?

I saw nothing on TV or in the newspapers to mark the date and I heard no one speak of D-Day the entire day Tuesday. I looked for the parade of motorcycles out honoring the boys who died on the Normandy beaches, but did not hear the roar of a single motor.

I expected at least to see The Longest Day being shown during prime time, but it wasnt. I guess Americans have all but forgotten that all-important battle.

I havent. My father and several other men I knew went ashore amid a hail of German gunfire that day. They never forgot the dead and dying there on that bloody beach and neither should we.

We talk these days about the men and women who protect our freedom and that is all well and good. But the Nazis were without question the most serious threat to world freedom in modern times. Had the Allies not won World War II, God only knows what kind of a situation the world would be in today.

D-Day was a crucial moment in that war. Most of Europe was under Adolph Hitlers domination and without lend/lease England would almost certainly have fallen, too. Then America would have been virtually alone fighting wars on two frontsJapan to the west and Germany to the east.

But England did survive and gave the United States an embarkation point only a few miles from Hitlers terror. On D-Day we took the war to the enemy and once the Allies had a foothold in Normandy it was only a matter of time before we would get to Berlin.

Had our boys been thrown back into the sea, the war may have dragged on for two or three more years or the Nazis might never have been defeated, an outcome too bitter to contemplate.

With all the World War II veterans dying off, we seem to be forgetting the fight against Hitler and Japan. The commemoration of the bombing of Pearl Harbor now gets little fanfare.

To complicate matters even more, revisionists are now trying to make us the bad guys because we dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

What will happen when the last World War II veteran dies? Will history begin looking at the war against Japan and the Nazis in the same manner that it is beginning to look at the Civil War?

Will there come a day when there is a movement to remove the Iwo Jima statues because they are offensive to JapaneseAmericans?

Will schools stop teaching lessons about D-Day because GermanAmericans might be offended? Will those who stormed the Normandy beaches one day be portrayed as villains because they killed Germans?

Dont laugh. Thats the way we are headed. We are already starting to forget the important events of World War II like Pearl Harbor and D-Day. Who knows what the next step might be.

Why is World War II so significant? First, Hitler and the Nazis, the greatest threat to world peace in 500 years, were defeated.

Second, it was the last war that America won. Think about it. Korea was a stalemate, Vietnam was a loss and, for all intents and purposes, we are still fighting the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the war in Afghanistan and the War on Terror.

We are even losing the war on drugsbig time.

So lets not forget those men who stormed the Normandy beaches and saved the world from Hitler.
Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently granted a license to Dominion Energy to add a third nuclear reactor at its North Anna Power Station in Louisa County, the company remains undecided on whether to pursue that option.

Dominion Energy is unlikely to make a decision on the third reactor until the early 2020s due to the uncertain future of carbon regulation, according to Daniel Stoddard, the companys chief nuclear officer.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked enforcement of the Obama administrations Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. On March 28, President Trump signed an executive order directing a review of the plan.

Dominion Energy is evaluating several different options for the modernization of the Lake Anna site, and only one involves a third reactor. If the company does pursue a third reactor, the earliest date of operation would be 2029.

We need to have more certainty over what the public policy and regulatory environment will look like in the future before we make a decision, Stoddard said.

The company began exploring the possibility of adding a third reactor well over a decade ago. The company obtained an early site permit from the NRC in December 2007, and finally received authorization for the combined license on May 31.

Stoddard explained that the combined license gives the company the ability to build and operate in one license.

The proposed plan to add a new reactor has been hotly debated. An expert hired by Attorney General Mark Herrings office estimated last year that the final price tag could be more than $19 billion, leading some to question why the company is not pursuing lower cost, renewable alternatives instead.

Opponents have also cited the plants proximity to active fault lines as a possible safety issue. In August 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake occurred just a few miles from the North Anna site.

However, Stoddard said the only damage to the station was some cracked tile and chipped paint. The plant shut down automatically, and there was no damage to systems. Additionally, the company began storing backup emergency equipment in a concrete dome at Lake Anna in the wake of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident in Japan in 2011.

This equipment can keep the plant going indefinitely, Stoddard said.

Looking to the future, Stoddard believes nuclear energy will play a vital role in reducing the nations carbon footprint. The company also plans to continue to invest in solar and other renewables.

I think nuclear has a long-term future as a supply of electricity because it is zero emission, he said. You cant beat nuclear for energy density.
Virtual sparks flew as Gary Seal demonstrated the proper welding technique using a portable simulator at Germanna Community Colleges new Fredericksburg Center for Advanced Technology.

Students can use it to practice over and over without the risk of burning themselves or wasting supplies until they master the necessary smooth and slow movement, the GCC technical training consultant said during Tuesdays grand opening for what will be known as FredCAT.

Welding is one of a number of apprenticeships that the facility at 1315 Central Park Blvd. will offer in its classrooms and labs beginning in late August or early September. It also will offer training and certification in such areas as 3D printing, fiber optic cable technology and drone building.

In addition, FredCAT will rent incubator spaces for startups and a Makerspace where students and entrepreneurs can design, prototype, collaborate and hold meetings to support local technology and manufacturing startups. Therell be a repair cafe where people who are building or repairing high-tech equipment can work together, and theres a possibility that summer camps for children will be available next year.

We also want to have job fairs for employers who are looking for these skills, said Martha OKeefe, associate vice president for Workforce and Professional Development at the Germanna Community College Center for Workforce and Community Education.

Germanna decided to open a Center for Advanced Technology in Fredericksburg because there wasnt one in this part of the area that the community college serves, President David Sam said before cutting the ribbon to the new facility.

We have the Daniel Center in Culpeper, but people in Fredericksburg think its a long way away, he said to attendees laughter.

Sam added that city officials were thinking along the same lines, and City Council and the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority each voted to provide $125,000 for the center in $25,000 installments over five years. That, and other state and federal grants, helped make the center possible at a time when Germanna was facing a $1 million less in funding than the previous year.

So here were are now at the Fredericksburg Center for Advanced Technology, where youll find old-fashioned trades like masonry and plumbing, which by the way pay very well, he said, as well as new as 3-D printing and modeling and drones.

Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw called FredCAT a wonderful collaborative partnership, and congratulated everyone involved.

There is little [thats] more important today for our community than workforce development, she said. Not only do we owe it to our citizens to give them every opportunity to develop or retrain themselves, we also owe it to our community to have the workforce in place that we need to attract the businesses that we want.

FredCAT also fits into City Councils new vision plan, which includes an emphasis on lifelong learning, Greenlaw said.

Virginia, like a number of other states, has begun focusing on careers in trades and other occupations that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelors degree, said Craig Herndon, the Virginia Community College Systems vice chancellor for Workforce Development. These tend to be middle-class jobs that pay, on average, $58,000.

Its probably not news to you that about 175,000 jobs in Virginia go vacant each year, he said. Every day they go vacant, Virginia has missed out on income; every day they go vacant, Virginia businesses go absent the skills they need to be successful; and for a state government guy like I am, every day they go vacant, Virginia misses out on income tax that fuels our government.

Herndon noted that while other community colleges in the state also offer the types of training that FredCAT will, it is unique because of its many public/private partnerships.

Among those partnerships is the Virginia Education Center for Asphalt Technology laboratory, which was made possible through the efforts of Germannas Center for Workforce, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Virginia Asphalt Association. FredCat has one set up inside its building, plus a mobile unit that can be used for outreach to sister community colleges. Theres another at Virginia Tech, where FredCAT students can transfer to complete a four-year degree in asphalt technology.

I call it climbing the ladder of success, said Ben Sherman, business and career coordinator at Germannas Daniel Technology Center in Culpeper.
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Elect a conservative and conservationist

Paul Milde has worked tirelessly for Stafford County, beginning before he was elected to the Board of Supervisors. I recall first meeting Paul at a hearing where he spoke, as a private citizen and founder of CrowsNest.com, in support of property owners rights.

Thanks to the efforts of Paul and others, Stafford was able to purchase the Crows Nest peninsula. This was accomplished through negotiation rather than by trampling over property owners rights.

Paul has also been instrumental in preserving Government Island and creating a park there so that its beauty and history can be enjoyed by all. Take a walk along the islands trails and boardwalks, where chisel marks in the rock cliffs tell the story of hard manual labor in the building of our nations capital.

Or take a drive to a local marina and observe these thriving enterprises in Stafford. Talk to the workers who are newly employed, earning a living and supporting their families.

Paul has been able to accomplish much for Stafford without abandoning his conservative principles. Paul is the best candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates.

Conservatives and conservationists alike should go to the polls on June 13 and vote for Paul Milde.

John T. Biddulph

Fredericksburg
House speaker urges support for Thomas

It has been a distinct privilege to represent my friends, neighbors and fellow citizens of Stafford and Fredericksburg for the last 30 years. Looking forward, I am optimistic that the next generation will continue to inspire and fulfill the enormous potential of Virginias bright future.

Thats why Im supporting Bob Thomas to fill my seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. Ive had the privilege of knowing delegates from across Virginia, and I know Thomas will be one of the best.

Stafford County and Fredericksburg will be well served by Bobs leadership, and Ill hope youll join me in supporting Bob Thomas in the June 13 Republican primary.

Bob served our country in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a successful small businessman and job creator. He serves on the Stafford Board of Supervisors and was its chairman in 2016. Bob is a dedicated husband and father of eight who understands the needs of Virginia families.

Bob will work to improve our education system, fight to reduce traffic congestion, and ease burdensome regulations so small businesses can grow and flourish in our community.

More than anything, I know Bob is man of character, integrity and conviction. He will be an honest and principled leader. He will work hard on behalf of our community to get things done in a way that makes us all proud.

Bill Howell

Stafford

The writer is speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.
The chemo and antibiotics also kill fish lateral line hair cells, and its easy to quickly check for the loss of those cells under the microscope, making these tiny animals a good starting ground for research to prevent that drug-associated hearing loss. Simon, an expert in screening large numbers of potential drugs in the laboratory, teamed up with UW zebrafish and hearing researchers Dr. David Raible and Dr. Edwin Rubel to screen different molecules that could, if given in the water that the fish are swimming in at the same time as the chemo or antibiotics, cancel out the associated hair cell-loss.

After 10,000 tests, they found one.

That compound, which the researchers termed PROTO-1, led to the creation of a spinoff company, Oricula Therapeutics, which is developing an optimized version of the drug for clinical trial testing. The company hopes to file for approval with the Food and Drug Administration this year, Simon said.

They never thought in terms of survival

Denise Cutlip, a 64-year-old lung cancer survivor in Ypsilanti, Michigan, has suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus  ringing in the ear  for much of her life, having worked in a club when she was younger. But it was mild and didnt bother her much, she said. That is, until she was diagnosed with stage 4 adenocarcinoma of the lung in 2010 and her doctor prescribed cisplatin treatment.

The tinnitus got worse along with more noticeable hearing loss, she said, but it wasnt until a year into her treatment that Cutlip stumbled across an article describing the potential side effects of the chemo she was taking. Suddenly, she connected the dots. The ringing is now constant in one of her ears, she said, and can disrupt her sleep and her ability to concentrate on tasks like reading.

The hearing loss can be isolating, Cutlip said. Sometimes I have to just tune out a conversation because I'm missing some of it. Other times my family and friends get tired of repeating themselves.

Her doctors hadnt told her about this possible side effect, and once she brought it up with them after the fact they said there was nothing they could do. But given the stage of her cancer when she was diagnosed, shes not too surprised that nobody on her team focused on the long-term effects of her treatment, Cutlip said. Nobody expected she would live this long.

They never thought in terms of survival, she said. When she was diagnosed seven years ago, the 5-year survival rate for her cancer was 1 percent, she said. The hearing loss was not considered an issue because you were going to be dead in a couple years anyhow, she said.

Now, Cutlip said, she advises any friends who are treated with cisplatin to ask for hearing tests before and after their treatment.

If a patient is being treated with one of these drugs associated with ototoxicity, or hearing damage, and notices hearing loss, theres nothing to do but stop the treatment to prevent the hearing loss from getting worse, Simon said. He pointed out that tinnitus has a different underlying biology than hearing loss and his research only focuses on the latter. But some patients, like Cutlip, dont notice or arent tested for the damage until its too late. And for some, there might not be other treatment options.

For cancer patients, obviously, getting rid of the tumor is a higher priority than hearing loss, Simon said. But he and his colleagues started to wonder: Wouldnt it be great if we could administer drugs like cisplatin without worrying about affecting the quality of life, without hearing loss?

Drug-related hearing loss and beyond

To find such a drug, Simon, Raible, Rubel and their research teams screened 10,000 different molecular compounds on the tiny zebrafish in the presence of an aminoglycoside antibiotic (which causes hair-cell loss and thus hearing loss similarly to cisplatin). They used a fluorescent molecule to highlight the fishes hair cells under the microscope and looked for any molecules that prevented those tiny, lit-up cells from dying out in the presence of the antibiotic.

After six months, they found a compound that prevented antibiotic-related hair-cell loss  but not cell loss caused by cisplatin. Nevertheless, they decided to look into the compound, which they termed PROTO-1, further. Aminoglycoside antibiotics are not commonly used in the general population because they are such powerful drugs with potentially toxic side effects, but they are often used in people with cystic fibrosis who get certain chronic infections, Simon said. Preventing drug-related hearing loss in this population also seemed a worthy goal.

They knew the compound prevented hair-cell loss; their next step was to see if it could also prevent hearing loss. UWs Rubel, who studies the ear and hearing, uses rodent models in his work  unlike zebrafish, you can tell if a rat is hearing something. His assays trace brain-stem function using tiny electrodes placed on the animals heads, much like the hearing tests commonly performed on newborn infants.

The compound worked to prevent antibiotic-induced hearing loss in the animals. The scientists went to work refining the drug, first in their own labs through a special drug development initiative from the National Institutes of Health and then, when that funding ran out, through their new start-up. The three scientists founded Oricula Therapeutics in Seattle in 2013. The drug thats come out of all these studies, known as ORC-13661, is about 100 times more potent than PROTO-1 and actually works (in animals) to prevent both antibiotic- and cisplatin-related hair-cell loss.

Simon and his colleagues are working on the application for the FDAs Investigational New Drug program, which will allow them to open a clinical trial. Theyll first test for safety in an early-phase trial with healthy volunteers, Simon said. He points out that ORC-13661 hasnt shown any signs of side effects in their animal studies to date. Theyll likely then partner with Seattle Childrens cystic fibrosis researcher and physician Dr. Bonnie Ramsey in a clinical trial for patients with that disease who need aminoglycoside antibiotics. Its too soon to say when that trial might launch.

In the meantime, Simon and his colleagues are trying to understand, biologically, how the drug works. They have no idea either how chemo and antibiotics kill the ears hair cells or how ORC-13661 prevents their loss.

Ultimately, the researchers hope to test the drug in other types of hearing loss, including age-related hearing loss, which affects nearly half of people over the age of 75. That would require fairly massive and lengthy clinical trials though, Simon said. But still, its a pressing concern.

As we get an increasingly aging population, the ability to prevent any form of hearing loss becomes significant, he said.
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What opportunities does the Chinese market hold for British food exports? What will appeal to Chinese tastes?

Deputy business editor Jez Fredenburgh is travelling around the country to find out, after winning the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists Perkins Global Innovation Scholarship travel award.

This week, Jez writes her blog from Chongqing.

Prospective dairy exporters to China should perhaps cast their eyes further west of the well-known east coast cities.

With 33 million inhabitants, Chongqing in the South West is the mega-city youve probably never heard of, complete with skyscrapers, Mercedes and designer clothes shops.

See also: Trading with China  Farmers Weekly visits Chengdu

It is one of main beneficiaries of the Chinese governments drive to accelerate development in the west of China and a key city in the presidents plan to re-establish a great trading route along the old Silk Road.

The city has an increasingly wealthy population, including young professionals returning home as opportunities look brighter.

Growth opportunity

Dairy consumption is expected to grow, particularly for fresh milk, infant formula and yoghurt and including imports, driven by concerns over safety.

In anticipation of this, Chongqings state-run dairy company said it is in the process of setting up an e-commerce platform and is actively looking for foreign dairy brands to market.

The firm owns two 10,000-head dairy farms, has about 60% of the areas dairy market and the muscle of the government behind them.

British dairy companies have several things going for them: middle-class consumers interested in dairy are more concerned about quality and safety than price, and the UK is well thought-of in these respects.

British heritage also counts for a lot in China. We also have an active British consul in the city keen to help make introductions to Chinese companies and advise on how to find the right partner, which is key.

Foreign companies and other governments are increasingly taking an interest in the south-west market, so now may be the time for UK companies to make the most of the opportunities.

See the short video clip capturing the skyscrapers towering over the city.
Readers have been sharing photos of their Farming Forebears, providing a fascinating insight into our recent and more distant history.

These pictures are a brilliant window on our agricultural past  the people, the places, the machines and the animals that have always made rural areas so special.

Here is another instalment of your fabulous photos.

Golden couple

David and Christine Cheacker are celebrating their golden anniversary this year, but these show them on their wedding day  17 June 1967.

They travelled in style from the Church of St Marys in Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, to the reception a couple of miles away.

From local farming families, they were both members of Olveston Young Farmers Club.

They took on the tenancy of Gilslake Farm, later buying it and continue to farm it today along with their son Simon.

See also: Share details of your farming forebears with Farmers Weekly

Alongside running a mixed livestock farm, they also raised three children. Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad, say Helen, Carol and Simon.

The Germans Hut

John Farnworth of Bethesda, Gwynedd, sent us this photo, taken in 1947 or 1948.

John is in the foreground, aged three or four. It was at his grandfather Jims place  Bromyhurst Farm, Barton, near Manchester.

He is on the left and next to him are two German prisoners of war. John thinks the man on the right is a supervisory visiting officer of the British military.

The picture was taken outside the entrance of what they called The Germans Hut.

It had a large living room and two small, but very adequate bedrooms. I just about remember these two men and they were always spoken of as being hard working and most pleasant.

I remember them once coming round to my parents farm next door to use my mothers sowing machine. I well recall from family talk that when they were repatriated they said that Germany would be rebuilt. How true.

The hut went into farm use when they left and many a crop of chickens and turkeys were reared in there.

The hut stood well and in use until my uncle, who took over the farm, eventually retired in 1990. It was demolished when the landlords took the farm back in hand to build the Trafford Centre shopping mall and other modern wonders of this age.

Cornish history

This is (left to right) my great granddad, uncle and granddad with their Guernsey cattle in Cornwall, says Meghan Vellam.

I am an 18-year-old herdsperson and started working in agriculture when I was 15, following in my granddads footsteps.

He knew I was going to study agriculture at college but passed away a few years ago aged 84. Farming skipped a generation in my family so Im proud to have brought it back and hopefully make them proud.

Bringing in the hay

These are pictures of my father Brian Fry bringing in the hay in 1952, says Chris Thomas.

They were taken at Ham Farm in Somerset where he started his married life on the family farm.

Also in the picture stood beside the cart is his father, Jesse Fry, and their two horses, Prince and Shorty.

The past meets the present

Ruth Rees sent us the photo taken on Gellicadwgan Farms yard in Llanfaredd, Builth Wells, Powys, in about 1910.

The young boy feeding the poultry in it is her great uncle, Roland Price, who is surrounded by his seven sisters.

Fast-forward to 2017 and the picture shows Rolands family who now farm at Gellicadwgan  his grandson Stephen Price (Ruths second cousin), his wife Petrina and their four children (who are Rolands great grandchildren).

Pre-war pictures

Susan Shaw shared three pictures taken before the First World War at her familys farm  The Grove, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, where her father, who was born in 1890, grew up.

The other one is of her great grandfather, Robert Sibley, taken about 1887.
The result of the general election could trigger radical change to the rural economy and how Brexit will impact the agricultural industry.

About two-thirds of farmers voted for the UK to leave the EU and, in a recent Farmers Weekly poll, a similar number said they planned to vote Conservative in the snap election on Thursday (8 June).

However, with opinion polls showing the gap narrowing between Labour and the Tories, it was by no means certain that Theresa May will win a majority.

See also: Bovine TB is my biggest policy concern

Ahead of the result, Farmers Weekly asked farmers across the UK what they expect from a new government  whichever party wins  in terms of agricultural policy.

, arable farmer, AberdeenshireThe debate on GMs and glyphosate has become political. Decisions on farming policy must be science-based to allow our industry to use technology as and when it can while still being sympathetic to the environment.

Malcolm Parr, Lincolnshire arable farmer

After Brexit, the government must keep British farmers on a level playing field with farmers in other nations it is competing against in the marketplace, who will be in receipt of subsidies.

Guy Poskitt, East Yorkshire farmer growing potatoes and vegetables

We need more rewards and recognition in terms of grants as opposed to direct funding.

Alistair Mackintosh, west Cumbrian beef, sheep and arable farmer

I would like to see legislation in place that allows farmers to come together, get strength in the marketplace, and encourages processors and retailers to use producer organisations as a first port of call.

John Charles-Jones, Nottinghamshire grower

I want some certainty for the future that if I do a good job, I can make a profit.

Nick Adames, dairy farmer, West Sussex

Stability. We dont want to be confronted with total change after we Brexit in two years time. We need to know where were going.

John Clappison, East Yorkshire sprout grower

We need free movement of labour. Without access to eastern European migrant workers our business will suffer.

Morris Emery, Hampshire mixed farmer

We need more support for dairy farmers. Prices have gone up a bit, but they are still low. We need measures to enable us to make money, rather than stand still or go backwards.

Alan Barr, beef and sheep producer, Kent

The new government must secure proper export markets for our agricultural produce. It must open up new avenues globally for farmers, especially if trade suffers with our closest European neighbours.

David Barton, beef farmer, Gloucestershire

Defra has a 25-year plan to eradicate bovine TB. We need continuity and it must be seen through to the end. Politics must not be allowed to interfere with this strategy.

Chris Cardell, Cornish dairy farmer

We need a fair trading platform going forward, for both export and internal markets, and for the UK government to really push the British brand so there is demand for our high-quality products.

Sir John Campbell, Scottish egg producer

Clearly subsidies are going to be phased out, and that might be better for agriculture in the long run.

William Emmett, Berkshire arable farmer

We need some real honesty out of the Rural Payments Agency. They just keep telling everybody with issues a pack of fibs. Are they really so under-resourced that they just cannot deal with peoples queries properly? Farmers just keep getting fobbed off.

James Winslade, Somerset farmer

Over the years, farmers have suffered huge damage from general neglect of flooding maintenance by successive governments. More funding must be allocated for maintenance on main watercourses and politicians must listen to local farmers and drainage boards.

Jeremy Barber, Dorset livestock farmer

We dont want to see tariffs slapped on lamb exports. If they are, it will be a disaster for the British sheep industry.

Simon Beddows, Berkshire arable farmer

Brexit looks likely to take away our subsidies, or at least a large part of them. If we could have spending increased on R&D that would give us some help.

Howell Richards, dairy and arable farmer, Carmarthenshire

The less government intervention on farming, the better.

Michael Seals, Derbyshire livestock farmer

Politicians need to turn off the rhetoric and explain their vision. Then farmers and Defra can work together to achieve it.
Scottish hill farmers on average are being denied about 14,000 over a six-year period in Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) convergence uplift monies, according to the Scottish government.

Under the last CAP reform, the EU set out to redistribute direct payments to bring per-hectare support up to the European average.

The UK received additional funding because Scotlands average rate of 130/ha (113/ha) was about 48% of the EU average, taking the UK-wide average below the threshold.

See also: SNP pledge to protect Scottish agri-food industry

Without the Scottish rate, the UK would not have qualified for a convergence uplift.

Currently, the 190m convergence uplift payment is split between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

If the full allocation had been delivered to Scotland, rather than shared across the UK, it would have been worth 190m over six years to Scottish hill farmers, or about 14,000 to individual farms.

Instead Scotland received about 30m under the UK governments allocation.

Scottish rural affairs secretary Fergus Ewing said: Despite repeated requests, there is no evidence the UK government are taking action to deliver a fair share of the additional convergence funding to Scotland.

No level playing field

There is no level playing field for hill farmers north and south of the border, he added.

Farmers doing the same job in different parts of the UK do not presently receive comparable levels of payments for their hard work. This money rightly belongs to Scottish farmers and should be returned to them immediately.

Defra farm minister George Eustice has stated that discussions with the Scottish parliament about the convergence uplift money are ongoing.
Story Highlights U.S. still No. 1 desired destination

Germany more attractive to potential migrants

United Kingdom less so

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- After cooling off in the wake of the Great Recession, worldwide, people's desire to migrate permanently to another country showed signs of rebounding between 2013 and 2016. Gallup found 14% of the world's adults -- which translates to nearly 710 million people -- saying they would like to move to another country if they had the opportunity. This is up from 13% -- or about 630 million adults -- between 2010 and 2012.

Global Desire to Migrate Rebounds in Some Areas Percentage of those who live in these regions who desire to migrate Desire to migrate, 2010-2012 Desire to migrate, 2013-2016 Change % % pct. pts. Sub-Saharan Africa 30 31 +1 Europe (outside European Union) 21 27 +6* Latin America and Caribbean 18 23 +5* Middle East and North Africa 19 22 +3* European Union 20 21 +1* Commonwealth of Independent States 15 14 -1 Australia/New Zealand/Oceania 9 10 +1 Northern America 10 10 0 South Asia 8 8 0 East Asia 8 7 -1 Southeast Asia 7 7 0 Global 13 14 +1* Latest estimate based on World Poll surveys in 156 countries and areas between 2013 and 2016; * = Significant change Gallup World Poll

Gallup's latest findings on adults' desire to move to other countries are based on a rolling average of interviews with 586,806 adults in 156 countries between 2013 and 2016. The 156 countries represent 98% of the world's adult population. The analysis period overlaps the years of the European migrant crisis that began in 2015. The previous findings were based on a rolling average of interviews with 521,182 adults in 154 countries between 2010 and 2012.

While still not back at the 16% Gallup measured worldwide between 2007 and 2009, the desire to migrate has increased in a number of regions as global economic conditions have continued to slowly recover and as conflict, famine and disaster have driven people from their homes in some parts of the world. Desire increased the most in non-European Union countries in Europe, in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in the Middle East and North Africa.

Yet in other places, desire has not changed much at all. In all regions of Asia, for example, the percentage of adults who would like to move to another country permanently remained flat. The 10% of adults in Northern America -- the U.S. and Canada together -- who would like to migrate also was unchanged. And in sub-Saharan Africa, where residents remain the most likely worldwide to express the desire to migrate permanently, desire hovered near 30%.

In 31 countries and areas throughout the world, at least three in 10 adults say they would like to move permanently to another country if they could. These countries and areas are found in every region except Asia, Oceania and Northern America. In many of these populations, desire to migrate has increased significantly, likely pushed higher for a host of reasons -- for example, the civil war in Syria, chronic high unemployment rates in Albania and Italy, and the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

Highest Desire to Migrate Percentage of the total adult population that wants to migrate Desire to migrate, 2010-2012 Desire to migrate, 2013-2016 % % Sierra Leone 51 62* Haiti 53 56 Albania 36 56* Liberia 53 54 Congo (Kinshasa) 37 50* Dominican Republic 49 50 Honduras 41 48* Armenia 40 47* Syria 32 46* El Salvador 34 46* Ghana 40 45 Nigeria 41 43 Jamaica 43 40 Congo (Brazzaville) 38 39 Togo 41 39 Sudan 29 37 Guinea 33 36 Bosnia and Herzegovina 20 36* Puerto Rico N/A 35 Moldova 32 35 Senegal 31 34 Gabon 30 34 Macedonia 35 34 Kosovo 29 34 Uganda 37 33 Italy 21 32* Cyprus 25 32* Guatemala 30 31 Ivory Coast N/A 30 Lesotho 25 30 Peru 32 30 * Significant change Gallup World Poll

U.S. Still Top Desired Destination for Potential Migrants

The U.S. continues to be the most desired destination country for potential migrants, as it has since Gallup started tracking these patterns a decade ago. One in five potential migrants (21%) -- or about 147 million adults worldwide -- name the U.S. as their desired future residence. Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and Saudi Arabia appeal to at least 25 million adults each. These same countries have been top desired destinations for the past 10 years. In fact, roughly 20 countries attract more than two-thirds of all potential migrants worldwide.

Top Desired Destinations Worldwide Among those who say they would like to move % Potential migrants naming this country Estimated number of adults (in millions) United States 21 147 Germany 6 39* Canada 5 36 United Kingdom 5 35* France 5 32 Australia 4 30 Saudi Arabia 3 25* Spain 3 20 Italy 2 15 Switzerland 2 13 Japan 2 12 United Arab Emirates 2 12* Singapore 1 10 South Africa 1 8 Sweden 1 8 Russia 1 7 New Zealand 1 7 China 1 7 Netherlands 1 6 Brazil 1 6 Turkey 1 5* South Korea 1 5 * = Significant change Gallup World Poll, 2013-2016

While the number of potential migrants who say they would like to move to the U.S. hasn't changed significantly from previous years, the number who say the same about Germany has risen from 28 million to 39 million in the most recent analysis period. This increase coincides with the height of Europe's migrant crisis between 2015 and 2016 -- during which Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel promised there would be "no limit" to the number of refugees her country would accept.

The United Kingdom, on the other hand, lost some of its appeal as a desired destination, as immigration became one of the driving forces behind the country's eventual "Brexit" in mid-2016. Approximately 35 million potential migrants named the United Kingdom as a desired destination between 2013 and 2016, down from about 43 million between 2010 and 2012.

Bottom Line

After tailing off shortly after the Great Recession, the desire to migrate inched back upward in a number of regions, likely reflecting an improving economic climate that can make the idea of leaving one's own country less risky to entertain. But it also could reflect the increasing unrest in some parts of the world, where war, famine, disaster and disease are making it impossible for people to stay.

In the most recent analysis period, the U.S. remained the top desired destination for potential migrants, as it has for the past decade that Gallup has been measuring these attitudes. It is possible that the U.S. will lose some of its allure under the new Trump presidential administration, which aims to make it tougher for migrants to come to the United States and for existing migrants to stay. It is evident from the changes in the numbers of potential migrants who would like to move to Germany and the United Kingdom that a government's stance and policy toward immigration can contribute to the country's being more attractive or less attractive to potential migrants.

Dato Tsabutashvili contributed to this article.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

TUESDAY, JUNE 6

THEFT: 8:39 a.m., 3200 block of Southeast Midvale Drive, Corvallis. A manager of Centerpointe Apartments reported someone had broken into the workout room at the apartment complex and stolen a TV from the wall. Police reviewed video surveillance from the time of the theft but were unable to identify the suspect.

THEFT: 9:45 a.m., 300 block of Northwest Eighth Street, Corvallis. A man reported his motorcycle was stolen from outside his apartment. There are no suspects.

COUNTERFEIT: 2:59 p.m., 100 block of Northwest Fourth Street, Coravllis. The owner of Pegasus Games reported his business had received a $20 counterfeit bill. He was unsure who had given the business the counterfeit money.

MENACING: 11:46 p.m., 5900 block of Southwest Philomath Boulevard, Corvallis. Police responded to a report of a man threatening to shoot his roommate. Officers arrested Omar Jason for menacing and unlawful use of a weapon. Police also seized a 9 mm handgun from the home. Jason was booked into the Benton County Jail.
UK election analysis breakfast : Quo vadis, Britain?

Britain goes to the polls today - what does that mean for Europe and the UK? Foto: dpa

Bonn Britain goes to the polls today - people in Bonn will have the chance to analyze and discuss the results with experts on Friday morning.

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The British nation is deciding today (Thursday), who will move into Downing Street Nr. 10 and thus lead the United Kingdom through the Brexit negotiations. What consequences will the election results have on Great Britain, the future of the European Union and and the German-British relationship?

These questions will be discussed by experts this Friday from 9am during an analysis breakfast of the Federal Center for Political Education (bpb), Adenauerallee 86. The group of experts will analyze the results politically and historically. Attendance at the discussion and the breakfast is free, but due to limited capacity registration is recommend at www.bpb.de/249200.

Original text: ga
Photo exhibition : Through refugees eyes

A Syrian man while on the run, asleep with exhaustion on a bus. In his arms, he holds his son. Foto: GIZ

Bonn The Society for International Cooperation shows an exhibition of photographs shot by refugees on the way to safety. Undisguised and honest.

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People carrying their belongings in plastic bags. People fighting at border fences to be allowed to pass. The pictures of the major refugee crisis 2015 show how professional photographers observed it. The Hamburg photographer Kevin McElvany illustrates with his exhibition titled Refugee cameras in the Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ), how the refugees themselves saw their way to Europe.

The refugees documented their escape from war and misery from the western coast of Turkey via the Greek island of Lesbos and Athens to the border fence of Idomeni - with disposable cameras. Much closer, more honest and realistic than any professional could have do that. They show how it is to survive being put in an overcrowded rubber dinghy by human traffickers in the Aegean Sea.

How several people cluster around a small fire to dry their soaking wet clothes. How the small son discovers the room in a refugee accommodation and jumps on the mattress.

I wanted to give the refugees a voice, with the aid of the cameras, says McElvany. He flew to the Turkish city of Izmir, where he handed 15 disposable cameras to refugees. Each camera could take 27 images, they turned the refugees into authors of their own stories. On envelopes, McElvany had written his address, so the cameras could be send back to him. Seven cameras found their way back to Germany. One got lost, two got confiscated by border control and two never left Izmir, because the owners were held by Turkish authorities. Three cameras disappeared without a trace - as did the owners.

The Syrian man Hamza, one of the seven authors, used to work as chemist in Aleppo. On his pictures he documents his arrival on the shores of a Greek island. One shows a small, completely soaked boy on the beach. The Yazidi Firas escaped the terrors of the Islamic State. Some pictures show the waiting situation at the first registration office in Lesbos - in a former prison. Others show exhausted humans, cooped up in trains on the way from Macedonia to Serbia.

The pictures seem undisguised and honest.Kevin McElvany: What happened there is true, because the refugees showed it like it is.

The photo exhibition Refugee Cameras runs until June 19 at the Society for International Cooperation (Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ), Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 36, in the foyer of the Maanderbau.

Original text: Hans Peter Broduffel

Foto: GIZ This picture shows Syrian refugees reaching a beach after crossing the Mediterranean Sea in a rubber dinghy. zuruck

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No, it is not any "mental gymnastics" at all.



Indeed, the Green Climate Fund was essentially setup with an overall goal of financially assisting climate change-related mitigation and adaptation projects for undeveloped/underdeveloped countries.



So, instead of those undeveloped/underdeveloped countries having to pay the entire currently ongoing external costs and future external costs related to the use of fossil fuels by the developed nations, those developed nations would essentially be paying a portion of those inevitable bills, instead, thru that fund.



For example, the project I cited earlier relating to Vietnam essentially helps offset somewhat the costs that Vietnam inevitably has to pay regarding its adaptation and mitigation efforts towards climate change, of which happens to be related to rising sea level. Thus, in short, the use of fossil fuels by developed nations is the primary root cause why sea level is rising along the Vietnamese coast and the developed nation funding of that Green Climate Fund project helps to offset some of the bill that Vietnam inevitably has to pay regarding their adaptation and mitigation efforts related to that rising sea level. And, this scenario isn't much different than if I were to give my neighbor some money to help offset the clean up costs that my neighbor would have to pay if my garbage was to somehow end up in my neighbor's yard as a result of my negligence.
clarajancita at 8-06-2017 04:31 PM (5 years ago) (f)

A coalition of Northern Youth groups tagged, The Kaduna Declaration, which gave all Igbos residing in any part of North three months to relocate to their places of origin, has reversed the threat. Recall that the group had also directed northerners residing in the East to within three months relocate back to the North. The spokesman of the group, AbdulAziz Suleiman while briefing newsmen in Kaduna had earlier said, All northern civil society and pressure groups are by this declaration mandated to mobilize for sustained, coordinated campaigns at their respective State Government Houses, State Houses of Assembly, Local Government Council Secretariats and Traditional Palaces to mount pressure for steps to be taken to ensure enforcement of the directives contained herein.

A coalition of Northern Youth groups tagged,which gave all Igbos residing in any part of North three months to relocate to their places of origin, has reversed the threat. Recall that the group had also directed northerners residing in the East to within three months relocate back to the North. The spokesman of the group, AbdulAziz Suleiman while briefing newsmen in Kaduna had earlier said, All northern civil society and pressure groups are by this declaration mandated to mobilize for sustained, coordinated campaigns at their respective State Government Houses, State Houses of Assembly, Local Government Council Secretariats and Traditional Palaces to mount pressure for steps to be taken to ensure enforcement of the directives contained herein.

Quote The North hereby openly calls on the authorities and other national and international stakeholders to acknowledge this declaration by taking steps to facilitate the final dissolution of this hopeless union that has never been convenient to any of the parties.

From today, June 6, 2017, when this proclamation is signed, the North, a critical player in the Nigerian project, hereby declares that it will no longer be disposed to coexisting with the Igbos and shall take definite steps to end the partnership by pulling out of the current federal arrangement.



But in a u-turn on Wednesday, Comrade Yerima Shettima, President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, and Isaac Balami, Arewa Consultative Forum Congress President, appealed to Nigerians not to panic

In a video footage released online, Balami said the Northern groups had observed how the issue was being discussed globally. He said the groups will create a platform to discuss the outrage and condemnation trailing the eviction threat.



His words: This is not the time for us to discuss separation. We need to come together. Arewa is know for peace.

It is obvious that the initial approach was not the best. We need to work together as a nation I want to tell Nigerians living at home and in diaspora that there is hope. This nation is going no where. Shettima here wants to assure that everything that he has done was in good faith. This is one Nigeria and we are going nowhere.



Watch Video Below;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlYT079PNcg&feature=youtu.be But in a u-turn on Wednesday, Comrade Yerima Shettima, President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, and Isaac Balami, Arewa Consultative Forum Congress President, appealed to Nigerians not to panicIn a video footage released online, Balami said the Northern groups had observed how the issue wasHe said the groups will create a platform to discuss the outrage and condemnation trailing the eviction threat.His words: This is not the time for us to discuss separation. We need to come together. Arewa is know for peace.It is obvious that the initial approach was not the best. We need to work together as a nation I want to tell Nigerians living at home and in diaspora that there is hope. This nation is going no where. Shettima here wants to assure that everything that he has done was in good faith. This is one Nigeria and we are going nowhere.Watch Video Below;

Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 8-06-2017 04:31 PM (5 years ago) | Hero
Nokia Support app is now available on Google Play Store News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu You can download the Nokia Support app from the Play Store.

HMD is releasing the Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia 3 Android smartphones across the global markets in phases. While the Nokia fans are expecting to witness the release of these smartphones, it looks like the company wants to offer a good global support and experience to the users.

Well, we say this as HMD has released a support app on the Google Play Store. The support chat apps are one way that people find comfortable to use. These are one way for the companies to resonate with mobile users. Though HMD has already pre-installed the support app on its latest smartphones, the company has also released the support app on the Google Play Store for the Android users.

The Nokia Support app will allow HMD to update the app without any delays in rolling out the software updates. Dubbed the Nokia Support app, this one features chat support that will let the Nokia Android smartphone users talk with the company's representatives regarding the problems with their device, find details on care centers around them, locate the nearest Nokia mobile care center, check the warranty on the device, view the user guide of the phone, and get tips on how to get the most out of their Nokia smartphone.

It looks like HMD's decision is wise as the Support app can be updated from the Play Store itself even if the manufacturer is not rolling out the updates. The launch of the Nokia Support app comes in just two weeks after the release of the Galaxy S8 Launcher app. Even OnePlus had released the Community app on the Play Store for its smartphone users.

Via: NokiaPowerUser

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Apple Watch with micro-LED display tech to be launched in 2018 News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Apple seems to be all set to adopt a new display tech for its watch.

Apple seems to be in plans to bring about many new changes to its wearable device category.

According to the latest report by Nikkei Asian Review, the Cupertino tech giant is all set to adopt an advanced micro-LED display technology in the wearable devices that are to be launched next year. Going by the report, the next generation Apple Watch that will be unveiled in 2018 will feature a micro-LED display.

This isn't the first time that we are hearing such rumors. The company has been rumored to be working on the next Apple Watch with micro-LED panels. Currently, Apple uses OLED panels on the existing watch models.

Why switch to micro-LED panels?

The switch to micro-LED panels on Apple Watch is said to be beneficial. It is said that the micro-LED display technology will consume low power and offer better brightness levels and color gamuts than the LCD panels. It is speculated that there is another reason that Apple seems to have opted to the switch to micro-LED panels. It is said that the company wants to cut its dependence on Samsung Electronics that supplies the OLED panels for the watch.

Large scale manufacturing of such panels

Previous reports tipped that Apple's micro-LED efforts will be housed in a manufacturing plant located in Taoyuan, Taiwan. The report continues stating that Apple is the only company right now that is in the position of rolling out micro-LED panels on a large scale, given that the display technology is in its early development stages. It states that Apple is prepping hard to adopt this technology as early as the next year.

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Lebanon Chamber

plans car show

LEBANON  The public is invited to the annual Chamber Classic Cruz'N, Saturday, June 10, at Cheadle Lake Park in Lebanon. Admission is free.

Gates open at 7 a.m. and the cars will cruise the gut, an 8-mile loop around Lebanon, starting at 9. The car show itself begins at 10.

Classics, customs, trucks, hot rods and motorcycles, all models, are welcome. Preregistration is $15, or same-day registration is $20. A dash plaque is included with each entry. T-shirts are on sale for $10 in advance or $15 on show day.

Live music will be provided by the Albany Swing Band, and KSHO AM 920 plans a live broadcast. Registration can be done via the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce at 1040 Park St., Lebanon, or send an email to shelly@lebanon-chamber.org or call 541-258-7164.

Run to benefit

vets' health care

LEBANON  SamFit will present the annual Finish at the Flag 5K run/walk at 9 a.m. June 24.

Proceeds from this year's run will be used to help offset costs of the Samaritan Health Service Veterans Navigator Program.

The race will start and end at the circle on Mullins Drive near the Best Western Premier Boulder Falls Inn and COMP-Northwest on the Samaritan Health Sciences Campus.

Early entrants will be entered into a prize drawing. Winners will be picked on Friday, June 16.

Registration is $25 per participant, increasing to $30 on the day of the event. The fee includes a finishers medal.

For more information or to register, visit samhealth.org/SamFitRun.

Legion Post 184

plans events

BROWNSVILLE  Brownsvilles American Legion Post 184 is holding two events in June for veterans in the area.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, June 10, all area veterans are invited to come to Post 184 at 339 N. Main St. for coffee, doughnuts and socializing.

At 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, Post 184 will hold a special Post Everlasting, its first such ceremony since opening in 2009. At the ceremony, the post will honor the memories of local members who have died since the posts inception.

Special guests will be Department First Vice Commander Gene Hellickson and Department Second Vice Commander Tom Harris.

Following the cremony, new officers will be installed. They are: John Lee, commander; Brad Boles, first vice commander; Norm Simms, finance officer; Dan George, adjutant; Jim Weger, chaplain; Mike McDaniel, sergeant at arms; and Neil Stuckey, historian. Rick Dominguez, the current comander, starts a new position as commander of the Sons of the American Legion Squadron 184 on July 1.
US Intelligence Chiefs Decline to Discuss Conversations with Trump

By Ken Bredemeier June 07, 2017

Two top U.S. intelligence officials told lawmakers they did not feel inappropriately pressured by President Donald Trump to publicly disavow possible Russian collusion with Trump aides in last year's election.

But Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told the Senate Intelligence Committee they would not discuss details of their White House meetings with Trump in recent months. They refused to answer questions about whether Trump asked them to intervene to curb the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

"I've never felt pressure, to intervene or interfere in any way shape, with shaping intelligence, in a political way," Coats said. "Or, in relationship to an ongoing investigation."

A Washington Post report Wednesday said in March, less than a week after the Senate confirmed Coats to oversee the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies, Trump asked him to intervene with then-FBI Director James Comey to back off an investigation of Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, whom Trump fired after just 24 days on the job for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to Washington.

But Coats said it would be inappropriate to publicly discuss his White House talks with Trump, even though he said the White House had not sought to block discussion of his private conversations with the president

When pressed by one lawmaker to explain why he was refusing to answer questions about his conversations with the president, Coats replied, "I'm not sure I have a legal basis."

Rogers took the same stance against talking about his conversations with Trump, but denied feeling any pressure from the president to publicly downplay any Trump campaign connection to Russian officials.

"In the three plus years I have been director of the National Security Agency to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate," Rogers said. "And to the best of my recollection, during that same period of service, I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so."

Coats and Rogers testified on the first of two days of hearings focused on Trump's efforts to curb the investigation of what he says is a "witch hunt" aimed at undermining the legitimacy of his upset victory in the November election, an excuse he says opposition Democrats are using to account for his defeat of former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Did Trump interfere?

On Thursday, Comey, whom Trump fired last month while he was heading the agency's Russia investigation, is set to testify before the same Senate panel. In an early release of his planned testimony, Comey said Trump in January asked the former FBI chief for personal loyalty and then, on the day after Trump fired Flynn in February, urged him to back off the FBI investigation of Flynn's Russia connections.

Trump, according to the Post's account, complained to Coats and Central Intelligence Agency chief Mike Pompeo about Comey's handling of the Russia probe. Coats discussed Trump's request with aides, but decided that intervening with Comey was inappropriate. As he decided to fire Comey, Trump said he was thinking of "this Russia thing."

Coats' and Rogers' testimony comes as a new Post-ABC News poll said a 56-percent majority of U.S. adults think Trump is interfering with several Russia investigations, while 61 percent think Trump fired Comey to protect himself rather than for the good of the country.

But the news organizations' survey also said Americans are skeptical about what Comey says about Russian meddling in the election. The FBI and other U.S. agencies said earlier this year Moscow interfered to help Trump win, but the poll said only 36 percent of those surveyed say they trust what Comey says about Russia "a great deal" or "a good amount."

But the survey also said only slightly more than one in five people trust what Trump says about Russia's role in the campaign.

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Strikes Continue Against ISIS in Iraq, Syria

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, June 7, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 28 strikes consisting of 70 engagements, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 21 strikes consisting of 35 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed three vehicles and a front-end loader.

-- Near Raqqa, 17 strikes engaged 10 ISIS tactical units and destroyed seven fighting positions, two ISIS bridges, two vehicles, an ISIS boat and an ISIS communications tower.

-- Near Tabqah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Tanf, a strike engaged a pro-Syrian regime tactical unit, destroyed two artillery systems and an anti-air artillery system and damaged a tank.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted seven strikes consisting of 35 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three ISIS staging areas and two vehicles.

-- Near Mosul, four strikes engaged six ISIS tactical units; destroyed 20 fighting positions, two heavy machine guns, a supply cache, a mortar system, a vehicle and a rocket-propelled grenade system; damaged a command-and-control node, an ISIS supply route and a fighting position; and suppressed a mortar team.

-- Near Rawah, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed four ISIS staging areas, an ISIS headquarters, and an ISIS warehouse.

June 5 Strikes

Additionally, eight strikes were conducted in Syria and Iraq on June 5 that closed within the last 24 hours.

-- Near Raqqa, Syria, seven strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units and destroyed two ISIS staging areas, two fighting positions, a vehicle-borne-bomb factory, an ISIS tunnel, an ISIS sentry post, a vehicle and a command-and-control node.

-- Near Mosul, Iraq, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit, destroyed an ISIS command-and-control node, a heavy machine gun and an artillery system.

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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Australia, U.S. Discussions Ranged the Globe, Dunford Says

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii, June 7, 2017  The Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations in Sydney this week were not just a formality, but an effort to sync the relationship and strengthen it for the future, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said today.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Defense Minister Marise Ann Payne were the principles at the meeting held in the Government House on Sydney Harbor. Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford and Navy Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, also attended.

Dunford told reporters traveling with him that the discussions were comprehensive and covered the range of interests the two nations share. "We talked North Korea, we talked South China Sea, we talked about the insurgency in the Philippines, we talked about the maritime domain in the Sulu Sea and so forth," Dunford said.

Foreign Fighters

They also used the time to discuss issues moving forward. Australia is keenly aware of the issue of foreign fighters possibly coming back from the fight in Iraq and Syria. To the north is Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Malaysia, the Philippines and other nations in the region also have significant Muslim populations where foreign fighters might find fertile ground for their perverted philosophy.

"Secretary Mattis in that discussion took the opportunity to talk about the annihilation strategy and not letting the foreign fighters get back, but then we know that the foreign fighters some will come back and others will 'virtually' come back," Dunford said.

The threat represented by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a transregional one. Three things make these terror groups interconnected and transregional: the flow of foreign fighters, the flow of resources and their message, the general said.

"I call that the connective tissue and you have to cut that connective tissue," he said.

Operation Gallant Phoenix

This requires a broad information and intelligence-sharing network across all the countries that share this problem. There are 66 members of the coalition to defeat ISIS and the intelligence and information effort is centered on Operation Gallant Phoenix, hosted in Jordan with Australia as a partner.

Around 25 nations are participating or have indicated they will participate in the operation, and the coalition wants that to expand. "It allows nations to collaborate and share information and be able to get it back to law enforcement to deal with the foreign fighter challenges," Dunford said.

The critical piece is to make sure that what is going on in Syria and Iraq is known to all, the chairman said.

Australia is also a close U.S. partner in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American side shared its thinking on operations in both areas with their Australian counterparts.

The two allies discussed common programs such as the F-35 Lighting II joint strike fighter project. "We spoke to ensure we have a cooperative approach to capability development and making sure that from the beginning  we're fielding a capability in a combined way," Dunford said.

Finally, they received an update on the force posture initiatives with Australia. These include the Marine rotational force in Darwin, enhanced aviation capabilities -- which includes the F-22 Raptor squadron deploying in February -- and where the alliance might go in the future.

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Canada's New Defense Policy Draws Praise From Mattis

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2017  Pentagon officials are "heartened" by Canada's announcement today of a new defense policy that will increase its defense budget and the size of its military, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement.

"The United States welcomes Canada's marked increase in investment in their military and their continued commitment to a strong defense relationship with the United States and NATO," the secretary said.

Policy Demonstrates Resolve

Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan announced details of the policy during a news conference in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.

Mattis said the new policy demonstrates Canada's resolve to build additional military capacity and a more capable fighting force.

"In light of today's security challenges around the world," he added, "it's critical for Canada's moral voice to be supported by the hard power of a strong military."

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Nimitz Carrier Strike Group Departs from San Diego for Deployment

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170607-06

Release Date: 6/7/2017 9:16:00 AM

By Nimitz Strike Group Public Affairs

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Ships and units from the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (CSG) departed San Diego for a regularly scheduled deployment, June 5.

This is a previously planned, routine deployment and not in response to any specific incident or regional event. This deployment is an example of the U.S. Navy's routine presence in waters around the globe displaying our commitment to stability, regional cooperation and economic prosperity for all nations.

The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68), Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Kidd (DDG 100), and USS Shoup (DDG 86) departed their homeports of Naval Base Kitsap, Washington, and Naval Station Everett, Washington, respectively, June 1, followed by a brief stop at Naval Air Station North Island where they met up with other ships and units of the carrier strike group.

Additional Nimitz CSG ships include the San Diego-based Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Howard (DDG 83) and USS Pinckney (DDG 91), and the San Diego-based Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59).

Nimitz also embarked the aviation squadrons of Carrier Air Wing 11, the Lemoore, California-based "Argonauts" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 147, "Black Knights" of VFA 154, "Blue Diamonds" of VFA 146, the San Diego-based "Death Rattlers" of Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 323, the Whidbey Island, Washington-based "Gray Wolves" of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 142, the Norfolk, Virginia-based "Blue Tails" of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron (VAW) 121, and the San Diego-based "Eightballers" of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 8, "Wolfpack" of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 75 and "Providers" of Fleet Logistics Support Squadron (VRC) 30.

"This deployment is the culmination of months of intensive training and preparations," said Rear Adm. Bill Byrne, commander, CSG 11. "The Nimitz Strike Group stands ready to respond to a wide variety of contingencies, be that a humanitarian disaster or a regional incident. We're honored to be in this position to answer the nation's call to duty."

The strike group deployed with approximately 7,500 Sailors and is focused on maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts.

The Nimitz Strike Group is part of U.S. 3rd Fleet, which leads naval forces in the Pacific and provides the realistic, relevant training necessary for an effective global Navy. U.S. 3rd Fleet constantly coordinates with U.S. 7th Fleet to plan and execute missions based on their complementary strengths to promote ongoing peace, security, and stability throughout the entire Pacific theater of operations.

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Patrol Squadron 16 arrives in Denmark for BALTOPS

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS170607-18

Release Date: 6/7/2017 11:56:00 AM

By Lt. j.g. Justin Sabelhaus, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs

AALBORG, Denmark (NNS) -- The "War Eagles" of VP-16 took two P-8A Poseidon Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance (MPRA) aircraft to Aalborg Air base in Denmark to provide exercise maritime support.

Large exercises such as BALTOPS are opportunities to integrate the P-8A's capabilities with those of allies and partners as they train together in the maritime environment. The aircraft is vital to the Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW) and Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) elements of the exercise.



QUICK FACTS:

- BALTOPS 17 is the premier annual maritime-focused exercise in the Baltic Region and one of the largest exercises in Northern Europe.

- The exercise, which involves 4,000 shipboard personnel, 50 ships and submarines and more than 50 aircraft, is designed to enhance flexibility and interoperability, to strengthen combined response capabilities, as well as demonstrate resolve among allied and partner nations forces to ensure stability in, and if necessary defend, the Baltic Sea region.

- This marks the first time that VP-16 has operated out of Aalborg, Denmark with P-8As.

- VP-16 is homeported out of Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida.

- VP-16 is deployed to Commander, Task Force 67 out of Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily.

- VP-16 is in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operation in support of U.S National security interests in Europe and Africa.

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Fighting in Philippine city tougher than previously believed

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 7, 2017 10:3AM

Military officials in the Philippines have found the fight with the Daesh terrorist group in the southern city of Marawi to be tougher than they previously believed as the terrorists are using bomb-proof tunnels, anti-tank weapons, human shields and are familiar with the terrain.

"The advantage of the (enemy) is their mastery of the terrain. They know where even the smallest alleys lead to and they are free to go around," said Major Rowan Rimas, an operations officer for the marines, AFP reported Wednesday.

"They know where the government forces are coming from and where they are taking cover. They have snipers and their positions are well-defended," he added.

The Philippines' Defense Minister Delfin Lorenzana also conceded at the start of the deadly conflict that military forces had been taken by surprise when dozens of gunmen emerged on the streets of Marawi following a failed operation to capture one of the militant leaders.

According to military authorities, terrorists poured out of houses in the largest predominantly Muslim city of 200,000 in the largely Catholic country and went on a rampage that included taking a Catholic priest hostage, opening up two jails and destroying many buildings.

Meanwhile, Philippine military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jo-ar Herrera said on Monday that nearly 10 percent of Marawi controlled by the terrorists had many tunnels and basements, which can withstand the impact of 500-pound (227-kilogram) bombs.

"Even mosques here have tunnels," Herrera said, adding that the Daesh elements were using them to escape bombing strikes by the military as well as to store high-powered armaments. "These are all part of the dynamics of the battlefield that makes it more difficult for us."

Herrera also said that the gunmen had exploited Philippine military protocol sparing mosques and Islamic schools.

The military initially put the number of the terrorists at nearly 100 but later admitted there were as many as 500. It said that they included a number of foreign elements from countries such as Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.

Two weeks after gunmen waving the black flags of the Daesh terrorist group rampaged through Marawi, initial claims by authorities that the conflict would be over in days have given way to warnings of a protracted battle.

Lorenzana said battles with militants in the south in recent years typically led to their escape from the area but that this time they were putting up more resistance.

"Normally, in this kind of conflict, the local fighters will just scamper away and maybe hide in the mountains," he said while visiting Marawi over the weekend. "But surprisingly, this group has just holed up there and are just waiting to fight it out, maybe to the last."

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UN force in CAR may send Congo soldiers home over abuse claims

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 7, 2017 5:19AM

Hundreds of Congolese soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) face allegations of sexual abuse, fuel trafficking, and poor discipline.

The commander of the UN peacekeeping force in the CAR, General Balla Keita, has called for the soldiers to either be disciplined by the Congo or face departure, according to a confidential memo that was leaked on Tuesday.

He warned the Congo to "commit itself to improving without delay the standard of its unit" or else a "decision should be made to repatriate and replace the Congolese battalion."

The Congolese soldiers in the CAR have previously been accused of sexual abuse and exploitation, according to Human Rights Watch documents.

A battalion of about 800 Congolese soldiers were sent to the CAR last year, but 120 of them were repatriated following similar allegations, which involved at least seven victims, six of whom were children, according to a report by the UN force in the CAR.

UN peacekeeping spokeswoman Ismini Palla said the peacekeeping force in the CAR has carried out an assessment of the Congolese contingent and has shared the results with the Congo.

"The battalion is notorious for SEA (sexual abuse and exploitation) misconducts, fuel trafficking and poor discipline," Keita wrote in the memo, adding that he had sent "six blame letters" to the battalion commander already this year.

"The situation has deteriorated to the point that the battalion is no longer trustable because of poor leadership, lack of discipline, and operational deficiencies," Keita wrote.

The United Nations has 10,000 troops and 2,000 people serving in its MINUSCA force in the Central African Republic. The country has been plagued by deadly political violence since March 2003, when former army chief of staff Francois Bozize launched a coup and declared himself president.

Since that year, a militia group loyal to Bozize, known as anti-Balaka, has killed and tortured civilians, mutilated victims, and pillaged UN and other diplomatic facilities in so-called "cleansing operations" against Muslims, according to a report by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).

The bloodshed deteriorated in March 2013 when the mainly Muslim coalition of ex-Seleka rebels overthrew Bozize from power.

In an election in 2016, former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera won the presidency, but fighting between the ex-Seleka militia and the mainly Christian anti-Balaka rebels continues to take its toll on the country.

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NATO Welcomes Newest Member Montenegro

Rikard Jozwiak June 07, 2017

BRUSSELS -- NATO welcomed Montenegro as its newest member with a flag-raising ceremony at the Western alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

"NATO is an alliance of democracies, united by a single purpose: to stand with each other and defend each other," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on June 7, calling it a "historic day."

"Montenegro joins NATO as an equal, with a seat at our table, and an equal voice in shaping the future of the alliance," said Stoltenberg, who congratulated Montenegrin President Filip Vujanovic and the people of the Balkan country "for everything you have achieved."

"Montenegro's accession sends a message to other states that seek membership: that if a country travels the path of reform, embraces democracy, and the rule of law and proves itself willing to and able to contribute to our collective defense, sharing the responsibilities as well as the rewards, then it, too, can join the alliance," Stoltenberg said.

Vujanovic described the event as "a great day for Montenegro."

"With NATO membership, our future will be stable, secure, and prosperous," he said. "And we will make decisions about the most important issues within the strongest, most organized, and most efficient alliance in the history of mankind."

Russia has criticized accession for the Adriatic coastal state, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserting on June 6 that Montenegro was "dragged into NATO" and his ministry saying Moscow reserves the right to take "retaliatory measures" on what it called "anti-Russian hysteria" there.

Montenegrin officials have charged 14 people in connection with an alleged Russia-backed plot to take over parliament in October and assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic in a bid to keep the country out of NATO.

Montenegro became NATO's 29th member at a ceremony in Washington on June 5.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/nato-welcomes-montenegro- russia-criticizes/28533739.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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Top U.S. Intelligence Officials Duck Tough Senate Questions On Trump FBI Probe

Mike Eckel June 07, 2017

WASHINGTON -- Top U.S. intelligence officials have refused to answer key questions from senators about whether President Donald Trump sought to influence the FBI investigation into his associates' ties to Russia.

The tense June 7 hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee came one day before former FBI Director James Comey is to testify for the first time since his firing by Trump last month.

Comey was overseeing the criminal probe into Trump associates' interactions with Russian officials, including Trump's first choice for national security adviser, Michael Flynn. News reports have said Trump sought to pressure Comey to back off his investigation of Flynn, who was fired in February after he misled White House officials about his communications with Russian officials, including Moscow's ambassador in Washington.

The question of whether Trump's current and former associates had inappropriate interactions with Russian or other foreign officials has shadowed the Trump White House since his inauguration in January, hobbling his push on several major legislative priorities.

During the Senate hearing, both Democratic and some Republican lawmakers pressed Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency chief Mike Rogers about whether Trump had pressured them about the FBI investigation.

The Washington Post said in an article published June 6 that said Trump pressed Coats to intervene with the FBI on the investigation of Flynn.

"I have never been pressured. I have never felt pressure to interfere or intervene in shaping intelligence in a political way," Coats told the panel.

But both Coats and Rogers also said they wouldn't publicly reveal more specifics of private conversations they had with Trump.

"What I'm not willing to do is to share confidential information that I think ought to be protected in an open hearing," Coats later told senators.

The Justice Department on May 17 appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the FBI investigation.

In addition to the FBI probe, at least two different congressional panels, including the Senate Intelligence Committee, are looking into that issue, as well as U.S. intelligence reports that Russia actively meddled in the 2016 election campaign.

Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate committee, said any interference by Trump in the FBI investigation would be deeply troubling.

"Any attempt by the White House or even the president himself to exploit this community as a tool for political purposes is deeply, deeply troubling," he said.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied U.S. intelligence conclusions that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Trump's favor.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-russia-senate- investigation-fbi-probe/28534085.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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S. Africa Political Leader Hints at Impending End for Unpopular President

By Anita Powell June 07, 2017

South Africa's ruling African National Congress has been hurt by a new wave of corruption allegations targeting President Jacob Zuma, with the top party brass saying Wednesday that the end may be nearing for the increasingly unpopular leader.

"We've got a brand to protect as a current leadership as the next leadership will have the same responsibility," party spokesman Zizi Kodwa told journalists. "The more the allegation of corruption is repeated, about any member of the ANC, it damages the ANC ... We're dealing with difficulties, it's not like people who gave them a mandate, that 'go and do corruption.' There's not such a policy in the ANC. It's people who are independent in their own area of work. They do things that at the end, they come back to hit the organization."

New corruption allegations were spelled out in thousands of recently leaked emails that purport to show that a rich Indian family in South Africa, the Guptas, unduly influenced the president and government. Kodwa says the party does not tolerate corruption, and has called for a judicial commission of inquiry.

Zuma, whose term as party leader expires at the end of this year, is at the center of these recent allegations. Party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe hinted that the party's leadership will make a decision then that could see Zuma sidelined before his presidential term ends in 2019. Zuma originally rose to power in 2008, after the party chose him to replace then-party leader Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki then stepped down as president.

Mantashe refused to say what might afterward become of Zuma  who is mired in a court battle after old corruption charges were reinstated against him last year.

"All I'm saying is that beyond December, his term ends in 2019," he said. "But I'm saying on the 20th December, the debate becomes less complex. But I don't want to handle that now."

He also refused to say who the new party leader  and therefore the ANC's next presidential candidate  might be. Possibilities include the current deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former head of the African Union and ex-wife of President Zuma.

"We'll elect a new leadership of the ANC," he said. "Don't ask us who will be the president, we do not know."

Mantashe and other party stalwarts who spoke to journalists Wednesday also did not give a clear timeline for how long the commission of inquiry into the allegations could take.

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Trump Offers to Mediate Qatar's Diplomatic Crisis

By VOA News June 07, 2017

In a call with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, U.S. President Donald Trump offered to mediate the country's diplomatic crisis with its neighbors.

"The president reiterated that a united Gulf Cooperation Council and a strong United States-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability," a readout of the call said. "The president offered to help the parties resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House, if necessary."

Trump's offer echoed comments by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier this week that the U.S. is committed to helping the Gulf Cooperation Council "remain unified."

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties Monday with Qatar, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Trump also encouraged unity in the Gulf region with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud during a telephone call on Tuesday, the White House said.

Earlier in the day, the president entered the diplomatic spat involving Qatar and major Arab nations over Doha's alleged support of Iran and Islamist militant groups sponsoring terrorism in the region.

In a series of three Twitter posts Tuesday, Trump seemed to take credit for the Saudi-led move to isolate Qatar, which hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East.

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BROWNSVILLE  At first blush, being a school superintendent and a metal artist might not seem to have much in common, but Lori Garcy says her former vocation and current avocation require many of the same disciplines.

To be an effective administrator, one has to know how to plan well, know where you are going and how to bring others with you and to know when you have reached your destination, she said. To create art, you have to be organized, know where you are going and be able to trace your steps backwards to determine how to create each piece.

Today, instead of developing long-term plans to guide students in the Lake Tahoe School District, Garcy crafts whimsical sea creatures and jewelry from sheets of copper at her home studio east of Brownsville.

Garcys route to full-time artist took a long path full of detours, although she emphasized art classes in high school in upstate New York and then majored in art at the University of New York-Oswego.

She went on to earn a masters degree from the University of California-Santa Barbara and a doctorate from the University of Southern California.

She spent years in the classroom and then went into administration, co-authoring three books about the profession.

But seven years ago, Garcy and her husband Tom, a retired businessman, began looking for a place to retire in Oregon or Washington. Their three-year quest ended when they found 34 acres bordering the Calapooia River near Brownsville.

We both grew up in the country, Garcy said of their search for rural roots. We love it here. Its even better than we had hoped. The people are so friendly and it is so easy to become involved in the community.

The couple lived in the farmhouse that came with the property until they built a new home. Garcy turned the farmhouse into her studio, where she works nearly every day to feed her companys inventory  LMG Designs.

Her works are shown at the Brownsville Art Center, Gallery Calapooia in Albany and a gallery in California.

Her inspirations come from nature, but she is especially in love with circular shapes  think a corrugated snail shell  an image found throughout nature and wildlife.

Garcy focuses on metal work because she enjoys the feel of the medium. She works primarily in copper because it is beautiful and can be manipulated easily, although once she runs it through a corrugator, it becomes quite rigid.

Until moving to Linn County, Garcys artwork was a hobby, but now she considers it a job  really, her passion.

I cant wait to get into the studio and to play with metal every day, Garcy said. I see things in 3D, so Im not painting-oriented, even though I have taken painting classes. I see in three dimensions and can imagine in my mind what something is going to look like.

She admires painters who use paper, water and colors to create their artworks, but said thats now how she thinks.

Garcy said it's easy to find circular shapes in flowers, animals and plants.

Garcy added that her work has grown to the point that she may have to give up some of her volunteer efforts and become a bit more focused on my artwork.

In addition to its feel, Garcy said she relishes the thought that her yard artworks will last for decades or even hundreds of years.

Her sea creature works (each takes about three hours to make) stem in part from a class she took a decade ago. She likes the idea that the sea creatures and copper share the trait of longevity.

I sometimes make several bodies, then the tentacles and then color the copper before putting everything together, Garcy said. Tom helps prepare the wooden bases.

Garcys studio is filled with rows of hand tools and she admits to being a tool junkie. She said most of her work is done with fewer than a dozen hand tools, an anvil, and a couple of torches that are used to give the copper strength and to create colors.

I get excited when I find tools I can use to make new designs, Garcy said.

Garcy said there is a bit of trial and error in her work.

I have boxes of projects I have started and then tossed into a box, Garcy said. I often then go back and pull things out of the box once I get a better idea of what I want to do.

Garcy said she often dreams about a new art piece and then crafts it the next morning.

In addition to her sea creature and fire tubes, Garcy enjoys creating bracelets, necklaces and earrings out of copper, silver and gold.

Although she sees a number of similarities between her work as an educator and as an artist, Garcy identified one critical difference: No one makes her work in her studio.

I want to do it, she said. As a superintendent, there are certain things you have to do, even if you dont want to.
Army improves mobility, readiness with new secure wireless systems

By Amy Walker, PEO C3T Public Affairs June 8, 2017

FORT IRWIN, Calif. -- Imagine a fast-paced, complex combat environment that constantly shifted Army personnel and resources from one area to the other. In order to establish a functional tactical operations center (TOC) to direct troop movements and logistics, Soldiers have to handle nearly 2 dozen boxes of costly CAT 5 cables, weighing hundreds of pounds, in order to set up a functional network.

Multiple cables have to be cut, laid out, configured, plugged in, or replaced because of wear and tear. This network setup process can take several hours, and unit might not get the full technical support it needs before it is "jumped", or moved, to a new location.

Wireless connectivity would be a practical, effective solution to this problem. In fact, that's what the Army's tactical network program office, the Project Manager Warfighter Information Network-Tactical, is working on bringing into the field.

In April, the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division was the first unit to train with the Army's secure wireless capability at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif.

Throughout the unit's entire NTC rotation, Soldiers successfully utilized the Secure Wireless solution to provide untethered network connections to the brigade main command post, which enabled secure wireless voice, video and data exchange, and wireless mission command on systems such as Command Post of the Future.

"From a mission standpoint, as a brigade commander, the ability to have a mobile command post and exercise mission command with secure wireless continues to be an enabler," said Col. Phil Brooks, commander for the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. "When facing a near peer threat in a complex environment, it is imperative that our operations centers become more mobile with ability to move quickly, and that we have the ability to rapidly collaborate in planning to defeat a near peer adversary."

By going wireless, command post setup and tear down times can be reduced from hours to minutes, and less cable and protective flooring have to be transported from location to location. Soldiers can be untethered from their workstations inside the tactical operations center (TOC) to facilitate improved collaboration. Most importantly, network downtime and the loss of mission command systems following a command post jump are significantly reduced.

Once the unit arrives at its new location and sets up the physical structure of the command post, Soldiers can turn on their wireless systems and the network can come up in as little as minutes, with everyone connected to the network simultaneously, instead of one-by-one as they wait to get wired. Soldiers can also stay connected longer while the TOC is being disassembled to prepare for jump to a new location.

"Technology keeps moving forward at an astonishing pace. You must be knowledgeable about Army trends, understand the larger Army picture and be willing to push boundaries to ensure your unit remains on the cutting edge and with the greatest tactical advantage," said Lt. Col. Chris Byrd, Division G6 for the 3rd Infantry Division. "Secure wireless is that revolutionary capability that postures our Division well for the future."

Brooks said that in 2003, as a part of the initial "thunder run" from Kuwait to Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division's operations center was constantly jumping and on the move, with the unit reaching Baghdad within 100 hours.

"And [looking ahead] the operations center will continue to move in order to effectively conduct mission command as part of our operation in a decisive action environment," Brooks said.

During the NTC rotation, the unit jumped its large brigade main command post five times, in support of its realistic and complex decisive action operational mission training set. Maj. Michael Donegan, the brigade's communications officer (S6), sees time savings as the biggest benefit of employing secure wireless. The wireless network assists Soldiers "in rapidly getting the Wireless Access Point up and not having to do anything else but have users log in and have those systems securely connected to the tactical network all at once," he said. "Going forward, that will be invaluable."

"Anything you can do to shave time from TOC setup and tear down is really critical," Donegan said. "You can liken it to racing, anything to get that extra advantage."

Donegan explained that over the past decade, the Army "resigned itself to a counter insurgency fight, living on static and immobile forward operating bases that were heavily wired." Since then, as near peer adversaries continue to pose increasingly lethal threats in multiple domains, the Army has shifted the way it trains and fights. NTC's rotations reflect that shift, simulating the complexities of battle that U.S. forces could now face when fighting near peer adversaries.

"In the current NTC [desert] environment, there is no cover or concealment," Donegan said. "You absolutely need to have a smaller footprint, not only to be less visible (both physically and electromagnetically), but again, to reduce the time it takes to jump."

"A lot of brigades have been struggling with how to reduce the footprint of their TOC and be more agile, but as technology exponentially grows, it becomes more difficult," he continued. "We keep adding equipment and TOCs are becoming more complex, which adds to the overall setup time to becoming fully mission command capable. Secure wireless is reducing that time, and that is a good thing."

Along with advanced network operations capabilities, the secure wireless package also comes with comprehensive security features. These include the Wireless Intrusion Detection System, which enables the system to identify potential hackers trying to get into the wireless network. The system will display the hackers' location on a graphic and enable communications officers to shut them down remotely and immediately.

"Secure wireless can also eliminate that single point of failure along the network," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeffery Allen Leitheiser, server technician and automations officer, who also serves as the information assurance manager for the brigade. "It eliminates possible problems [and makes troubleshooting easier]. You know if the connection is working or not. With cable, if there is a problem, Soldiers have to go in and manually test each and every cable, which is often under flooring."

The brigade is scheduled for another NTC rotation this fall, where it plans to extend and push the limits of its piloted secure wireless capability to its fullest operational potential. In preparation for its next rotation, the unit will continue training with its secure wireless equipment at its home station at Fort Stewart, Ga.

The use of secure wireless during the recent NTC rotation was highly positive, which is why the unit is moving forward with an even larger footprint of the capability at its next NTC rotation, Donegan said.

The Army has conducted several risk reduction events of the secure wireless capability, including in Hawaii, Delaware, and Texas with other Army units.

As it moves forward with the eventual official fielding of Secure Wireless, the Army is using Soldier feedback from these and other events to continually improve the capability and the way it will be used to support mission requirements.

"Secure Wireless will change the way the Army conducts operations," said Lt. Col. Mark Henderson, product manager for WIN-T Increment 1, which manages the Army's secure wireless capability for the Army.

"It provides agility and operational flexibility, enabling commanders and staff to stay securely connected with full situational awareness and mission command capability for the maximum amount of time possible," he said, "so they can make faster, more informed decisions and move out when the mission demands."

--------

The U.S. Army Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical develops, acquires, fields and supports the Army's mission command network to ensure force readiness. This critical Army modernization priority delivers tactical communications so commanders and Soldiers can stay connected and informed at all times, even in the most austere and hostile environments. PEO C3T is delivering the network to regions around the globe, enabling high-speed, high-capacity voice, data and video communications to a user base that includes the Army's joint, coalition and other mission partners.

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US Soldiers support UK British Royal Marines during Exercise Saber Strike

By Sgt. Shiloh Capers June 8, 2017

ADAZI MILITARY BASE, Latvia -- U.S. Soldiers from 10th Combat Aviation Brigade based out of Lielvarde provided a CH-47 Chinook and Black Hawk helicopter for hot/cold load training to approximately 100 U.K.'s British Royal Marines at helicopter pads on Adazi Military Base, June 2.

The training was preparation for an upcoming event during Saber Strike 17 that will include the quick uploading and offloading of personnel. Saber Strike is a U.S. Army Europe-led multinational combined forces training exercise in the Baltic region. The exercise tests the capability of multiple nations to act against a threat.

Cold load training is the practice of entering or exiting the aircraft while the aircraft is not operational. Hot load training is entering or exiting the aircraft while the aircraft is operational.

The purpose of the exercise was to support the Royal Marines in their training, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Douglas Patterson, Blackhawk pilot and company safety officer, Alpha Company, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, New York.

Training began with familiarizing the British Royal Marines with simple aircraft features for emergency purposes. The brief transitioned to hands-on-training providing the Royal Marines an opportunity to conduct passenger aircraft load procedures.

Within the CH-47, U.S. crew members flashed countdown hand signals to alert Royal Marines of the approaching landing and the subsequent exit of the aircraft. For the exit, the Royal Marines maneuvered out of the aircraft, into defense positions to pull security for the departing aircraft.

Training for the Blackhawk and Chinook occurred simultaneously, with groups performing three iterations before rotating or concluding the cold load training.

Transitioning into hot load training, the 10th CAB crew flew to multiple locations, uploading and offloading personnel.

"They (training exercises) create a good discussion and a good battle rhythm and synchronization with our partners and Allies," Chief Warrant Officer Patterson said.

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Boko Haram kills 14 in fresh attack in Nigeria's Maiduguri

Iran Press TV

Thu Jun 8, 2017 1:52PM

At least 14 people have been killed when the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group launched a fresh attack in Maiduguri, the capital of Nigeria's Borno state.

Police said on Thursday that two dozen people were also wounded in explosions and shootings overnight in the suburbs of Maiduguri.

"A total of 13 people were killed in the multiple explosions with 24 persons injured while one person died in the attack (shooting)," Borno police commissioner Damian Chukwu said, adding that militants also set several buildings on fire before they were repelled by police forces.

Witnesses said shootings and explosions lasted for around an hour in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of Maiduguri, prompting thousands to flee their homes.

Borno has been the hotspot of attacks by Boko Haram since the Takfiri group launched its insurgency against the Nigerian government in 2009. Maiduguri, a city of more than a million, has been largely free of violence over the past two years as a result of a successful military operation against the militants.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari announced six months ago that Boko Haram had been technically defeated and that the group could no longer pose a threat to major urban centers in northern Nigeria. He said many of Boko Haram members were forced to remote jungles near the border with Cameroon.

However, the group continues to launch attacks in Nigeria.

The Boko Haram militancy has left more than 20,000 people killed and around three million displaced.

The insurgency has also affected Nigeria's neighbors of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

Recent reports have suggested that despite army's success in purging many towns and cities from militants, humanitarian staff still have difficulty reaching affected people as a massive risk of famine looms large for around 1.5 people in off-limit areas.

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Fired FBI Director Comey Begins Testifying Before Senate Panel

RFE/RL June 08, 2017

WASHINGTON -- Former FBI Director James Comey has begun to testify in a public hearing before U.S. lawmakers who are investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any signs of collusion by allies of President Donald Trump.

Comey's June 8 appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee comes a day after he said in written testimony that Trump, who fired him on May 9, had pressured him to drop the FBI investigation of Trump's first national security adviser and his interactions with Russian officials. Comey began his testimony by reading the written testimony.

In the written testimony, Comey also said that Trump demanded loyalty from him during a private dinner at the White House on January 27, a week after the Republican's inauguration following his victory in an election colored by what U.S. intelligence officials say was a concerted campaign of interference ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of helping him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Comey's written remarks, based on what he said were detailed notes he took after encounters with Trump, corroborate in part news reports of recent weeks that suggest Trump sought to influence the FBI's investigation of national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Flynn was fired less than a month into the job, on February 13, after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergei Kislyak.

In comments on June 7, Trump's lawyer focused on Comey's written statement that he told Trump he was not personally under investigation by the FBI."The President feels completely and totally vindicated," attorney Marc Kasowitz said.

But the highest ranking U.S. lawmaker, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, said it was "obviously" inappropriate for Trump to demand loyalty from the nation's top law-enforcement officer.

Some legal experts who spoke to the Reuters news agency said that Comey's testimony that Trump expected loyalty and hoped Comey would drop the investigation into Flynn could bolster obstruction of justice allegations that might be used as a basis for impeachment proceedings against Trump. But some said that it would be difficult to show that Trump intended to impede the investigation into Flynn.

In his written testimony, Comey said he and Trump had a private dinner together on January 27 and that during the meal Trump asked him if he wanted to remain on as FBI director. Comey was named to the post by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama.

Comey said he replied that he wanted to serve out his 10-year term and "was not on anybody's side politically."

Comey said Trump told him at the dinner in January that "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty," and Comey replied that he could offer his honesty.

Trump then said he wanted "honest loyalty," and Comey said he told him: "You will get that from me."

During a February 14 White House meeting, Trump pressed Comey on the bureau's probe of Flynn.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy," Comey quoted Trump as telling him.

"I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with his false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December," Comey said in his written remarks.

Trump fired Comey on May 9, a move that roiled Washington and cast a further shadow over Trump's presidency, which had been dogged by suspicions about the interactions Trump associates had with Russian and other foreign officials.

In addition to the FBI probe, the Senate Intelligence Committee and at least one House committee are looking both at the nature of those interactions, as well as the U.S. intelligence community's conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 election campaign and sought to tilt it in favor of Trump.

In the written remarks, Comey said that Trump also pressured him to publicly announce that he was not personally under federal investigation. In a March 30 phone call, Trump asked Comey what could be done to "lift the cloud" over him, according to the testimony.

"I responded that we were investigating the [Russia] matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well," Comey wrote. "He agreed, but then reemphasized the problems this was causing him."

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/comey-fbi-testimony -trump-pressure-flynn-firing-probe- russia/28534288.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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Former FBI Director Comey Accuses White House Of Lies, Says He Was Defamed

Mike Eckel June 08, 2017

WASHINGTON -- Former FBI Director James Comey suggested that President Donald Trump had lied in describing the bureau as having major problems, and said he believed Trump fired him because of the agency's criminal investigation into communications with Russian officials.

Speaking to the Senate Intelligence Committee June 8, Comey said it seemed that the investigation, which focused on interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials, "was irritating" for Trump and that was why he decided to fire Comey.

"I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was in some way putting pressure on him, in some way irritating him," Comey said.

Trump's personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, denied the allegations, and in turn accused Comey of "unauthorized disclosures" of "privileged communications" he had with the president.

Comey's stunning assertions to the Senate committee were the latest and most momentous chapter to date in the political turmoil that has gripped the White House and riveted much of Washington.

What started out as a series of unusual interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials has now been overtaken by questions of whether Trump sought to obstruct the FBI investigation into his first national security adviser.

That adviser, Michael Flynn, was fired as Trump's first national security adviser in February after he misled White House officials about his communications with Russian government officials, including Russia's ambassador to the United States.

Obstruction of justice is criminal offense in U.S. law, though there has been some debate among legal experts whether Trump in fact could be indicted.

A series of news reports detailing the interactions between some Trump associates had with dubious Russian and other foreign officials have dovetailed with the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Moscow waged a hacking-and-propaganda campaign to interfere in last year's election campaign.

At least two congressional committees are looking into both issues, as well as the FBI, which began its criminal probe in July as the presidential race between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was entering its home stretch

Comey, who was appointed by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, had given only fleeting public indications about the nature and scope of the FBI investigation. In testimony to a House committee in March, Comey revealed the existence of the investigation, but said little otherwise.

A day before the June 8 hearing, the Senate committee released Comey's written testimony, in which he detailed some of the interactions he had with Trump.

In that testimony, Comey said that Trump demanded loyalty from him during a private dinner at the White House on January 27, one week after Trump was inaugurated as president.

Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9, claiming the Justice Department had been critical of his job performance.

In his spoken testimony to the Senate June 8, Comey forcefully pushed back against that, making the remarkable assertion that Trump had lied.

"The administration chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey said.

Comey said that after he met Trump at the White House at the White House in January, he thought he should be writing memos recounting details of their meetings because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie."

Comey recalled that he thought at the time: "I gotta write it down and I gotta write it down in a very detailed way."

He also said that he leaked contents of a memo about his conversation with Trump to The New York Times, an effort he said was aimed at forcing the appointment of a special counsel.

Kasowitz suggested that Comey could be prosecuted for the release of "privileged information."

"Today, Mr. Comey admitted that he leaked to friends his purported memos of these privileged conversations, one of which he testified was classified," Kasowitz said.

Comey was asked by senators whether Trump's suggestion that Comey should drop the investigation into Flynn constituted obstruction of justice. Comey demurred, saying that was a question for special counsel Robert Mueller, also a former FBI director.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," he said. "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning."

Later, he said that he believed he was fired "to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted."

Despite sharply criticizing Comey, Kasowitz said the fired FBI director's testimony established that Trump was not being investigated for colluding with Russia or attempting to obstruct an FBI probe.

Trump "never, in form or substance" directed Comey to halt the probe into Flynn, Kasowitz said.

A day after Comey's firing, on May 10, Trump held an unusual White House meeting with Russia's foreign minister and its ambassador. According to press reports, Trump bragged about firing Comey to the Russians, calling him a "real nut job" and saying that the firing had taken pressure off his administration.

Trump's firing of Comey prompted an outcry among congressional lawmakers. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the Justice Department and thus the FBI, earlier had been forced to recuse himself from any Russian investigations due to his own interactions with Russian officials.

Oversight would have then fell to newly appointed deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, but he co-signed the May 9 letter firing Comey. Outcry over that led to his appointing Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation.

Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

In a speech delivered to supporters in Washington, roughly at the same time with the hearing, he vowed to fight on.

"We're under siege...but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever," he said. "We will not back down from doing what is right ... We know how to fight and we will never give up."

Earlier, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on June 8 that Trump was "not a liar."

"In Washington, we often say the cover up is worse than the crime," Norm Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama's special counsel and special assistant from 2009 to 2011, told RFE/RL in an interview.

"And this obstruction allegation is a cover-up, but today we heard very powerfully from Director Comey that the crime was even worse than the cover-up, because the crime that occurred was Russian interference, and an attack on our democracy; the same kind of attack using cyber tools and propaganda and espionage, the same kind of attacks that people in Europe are all too familiar with Russia, Mr. Putin launching against them," Eisen said.

Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking elected Republican in the House of Representatives, said it was "obviously" inappropriate for Trump to demand loyalty from Comey.

"This is nowhere near the end of the investigation," the committee's Republican chairman, Richard Burr, told reporters after the hearing concluded.

RFE/RL correspodnent Mark Najarian contributed to this report

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/comey- fbi-trump-testifies-russia -flynn/28536216.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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Turkey, Iran Back Qatar In Dispute With Other Arab States

RFE/RL June 08, 2017

Turkey on June 7 threw its support behind Qatar in Doha's split with other Arab states, with Ankara accelerating troop deployment to Doha and offering to provide food and water supplies that have been cut off by Saudi Arabia.

Turkey's move came as Iran, which already has offered to provide food to Qatar, where panicky citizens have been sweeping supermarket shelves clean, sent Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to Ankara to discuss what he called the "worrying" developments between the Persian Gulf's Arab states.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Libya, and several other Sunni-led Arab nations have severed diplomatic relations, cut off transport routes, and suspended other ties with Qatar, accusing it of getting too close to Iran and funding "extremist" groups.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has good relations with Qatar and both countries have backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt as well as rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Erdogan has urged other Arab countries not to isolate the small Gulf nation, saying it will not resolve any problems, and has offered to mediate the dispute. But he openly sided with Doha on June 7.

Turkey's parliament accelerated approval of legislation allowing Turkish troops to be deployed to Ankara's military base in Qatar and increasing military training and cooperation.

Meanwhile, Turkey's main exporters group said it was ready to meet food and water needs in Qatar, while a Qatari official said Doha was in talks with Iran and Turkey to ensure trade disruptions do not create shortages of food.

The president of Qatar's Chamber of Commerce told Qatari media on June 7, however, that Qatar has enough food durables such as grain stored in strategic reserves to last for a year, and should have no trouble importing fresh food needs.

"There will be no shortage of food and other products as more than 95 percent of imports arrive by air and sea," Qatari Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim al-Thani said.

Worries about food supplies had arisen when Saudi Arabia stopped food delivery trucks at its land border with Qatar on June 7.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/turkey-iran -back-qatar-dispute-saudi-arabia-other- arab-states/28535012.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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Heavy Losses Reported as Somali Puntland Forces Repel Al-Shabab Attack

By Abdulaziz Osman, Harun Maruf June 08, 2017

At least 50 people, including three senior military officers, were killed Thursday when al-Shabab attacked a military base in the semi-autonomous Puntland region, military officials and witnesses told VOA. Those sources said the dead include at least 45 Puntland soldiers and five al-Shabab militants.

The Puntland security minister, Abdi Hirsi Ali, has disputed reports of heavy military losses. He told reporters that most of the casualties are civilians.

The assault started with a heavy gun battle that ran for more than two hours, according to witnesses in the village of Af-Urur in the Bari region.

"Our forces are at the receiving end of a heavy attack. I'm on my way now. The communication is down, so I can't tell you more," the regional commanding officer, Colonel Abdullahi Omar Anshour, told VOA as residents reported plumes of smoke rising over the base.

Al-Shabab militants claimed to have overrun the base, killing more than 61 Puntland soldiers, although a Puntland military source told VOA their forces retreated from the camp for "tactical reasons' before launching a counter-assault and retaking it.

The militants destroyed part of the base and burned dozens of military vehicles, witnesses said. Witnesses also told VOA that more than 20 soldiers wounded in the attack were transported to a nearby Armo town.

Af-Urur is a camp for a contingent of the Darawish, a paramilitary force in Puntland that has been fighting al-Shabab in the Galgala Mountains. The militant group attacked the same camp in January this year when the regional forces fiercely defended it killing nine militants.

Puntland is relatively stable region compared to the southern and central parts of Somalia. But the regional forces have not been able to completely wrest the Galgala Mountains from an al-Shabab force reported to number several hundred fighters.

Security officials in Somalia believe Galgala serves as a strategic link for al-Shabab connecting militants in southern Somalia with al-Qaida militants in Yemen.

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Pakistan Alleges India Seeks Another War Over Kashmir

By Ayaz Gul June 08, 2017

Pakistan is alleging India is seeking another war by escalating tensions on the de facto Kashmir frontier, cautioning the rival nation against undertaking "any strategic miscalculation."

The nuclear-armed countries are locked in routine military skirmishes across the Line of Control, or LoC, that separates Pakistani and Indian portions of the disputed Himalayan region.

The recent clashes, harming soldiers and civilians on both sides, have apparently rendered ineffective a 2003 mutual cease-fire truce, plunging bilateral relations to historic lows in recent months.

"We have cautioned India from making any strategic miscalculation. It appears that India is seeking conflict with Pakistan," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nafees Zakaria told a weekly news conference Thursday.

There has been no immediate reaction from New Delhi to Pakistan's assertions.

Accusations

Zakaria again accused India of deliberately escalating operations on the Kashmir cease-fire line to divert international attention from rights abuses against locals by Indian troops in their part of the divided territory.

"While we have no desire to escalate the situation, Pakistani armed forces would respond effectively to unprovoked violations," Zakria said.

India claims its forces are firing at Pakistan army backed militants who try to infiltrate the LoC to fuel unrest in Kashmir, Islamabad rejects the Indian claim.

India and Pakistan have already fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. Kashmir was the issue in two of the conflicts and the dispute remains the primary source of regional tension.

Both countries claim the region in its entirety.

The two rival South Asian nations tested their nuclear devices in 1998, raising fears another war could escalate to nuclear exchanges.

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Fired FBI Chief Testifies About His Conversations With Trump

By Ken Bredemeier June 08, 2017

Fired FBI Director James Comey told U.S. lawmakers Thursday that President Donald Trump expected him to pledge his loyalty and urged him to drop the investigation into links between his aides and Russian officials.

Trump ousted Comey last month, saying he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he decided to dismiss the chief of the country's top criminal investigative agency while he was leading its Russia probe. Comey's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee marked his first public comments about the nine conversations he said he had with the president in the months before he was fired  three face-to-face meetings and six phone calls.

He told lawmakers he was confused by various explanations that Trump and his aides gave for his ouster and said they "chose to defame me" for his performance as the FBI chief by claiming -- wrongly in his view -- that the agency was in disarray.

Ultimately, Comey said of Trump, "I take him at his word," that he was fired because of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's ongoing Russia investigation.

Comey said it is the "high confident judgment" of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia interfered in the campaign to help Trump defeat his Democratic challenger, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "It's not a close call."

In his opening written statement, Comey recounted how at a White House dinner in January shortly after Trump assumed power, the president told him, "'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence."

The committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, called Trump's comments, as recounted by Comey, "very disturbing."

In another passage, Comey testified that Trump asked him on February 14 to "let go" of the investigation into Michael Flynn, who had been fired as Trump's national security adviser the previous day for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to Washington. "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go." Comey quoted Trump as saying, "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

Comey acknowledged under questioning that Trump did not order him to stop the investigation of Flynn's connections with Russia, but said, "I took it as direction. This is what he wanted to me to do," even though Comey said he did not end the probe.

Comey said he was "so stunned" by Trump's request to "let go" of the investigation of Flynn that he did not think at the time to tell Trump, "Mr. President, that's wrong."

He said FBI colleagues were as "shocked and troubled as I was" by Trump's comments urging an end to the probe of Flynn.

Comey said that in a March 30 phone call, Trump "described the Russia investigation as 'a cloud' that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. ... He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.' I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problem this was causing him."

In his statement, Comey described five of his conversations with Trump. Lawmakers are likely to ask him about the other four contacts Comey said he had with the president. "I have not included every detail from my conversations with the president, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the committee," Comey wrote in his seven-page statement.

After Comey's opening statement was released Wednesday, Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, offered the president's interpretation of Comey's testimony: "The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."

Talk of obstruction of justice

Comey said he told Trump three times that he was not personally under investigation, but some opposition Democrats now say that Trump's requests to Comey to drop the Russia probe amounts to obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense similar to that leading to the 1974 resignation of former President Richard Nixon.

Kasowitz did not address any of Comey's claims that Trump attempted to curb the FBI's Russia investigation.

Within days of Comey's firing, Trump's Justice Department, over his objections, named a special counsel, Robert Mueller, another former Federal Bureau of Investigation director, to lead the criminal investigation into all aspects of Russia's meddling in the election aimed at helping Trump defeat former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Trump said at the time that thinks Mueller's appointment "hurts our country terribly, because it shows we're a divided, mixed-up, not-unified country."

Trump, a New York real estate mogul turned Republican politician, has been dismissive of the Russia probes, calling them "a witch hunt" and saying they are an excuse by Democrats to explain Clinton's stunning upset loss in the November election. He has denied any collusion with Russian officials.

Comey's Capitol Hill testimony is one of the biggest congressional hearings in years in Washington. Broadcast television networks, in an unusual occurrence, are dropping their daytime programming schedule to air his testimony. Some bars in Washington are opening early to show it, offering Russian-themed drinks to patrons.

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Qatar Crisis Poses Test for China's Belt & Road Project

By Joyce Huang June 08, 2017

The diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its Gulf neighbors is putting China's political clout in the Middle East to the test as Beijing strives to flex its economic muscle there with its trillion-dollar Belt and Road trade Initiative (BRI).

But analysts say many of China's belt and road projects are often more aspirational than reality, including those involving Gulf nations, which gives the world's second-largest economy less-than-expected leverage to play a bigger role in a region plagued by domestic unrest, intra-regional conflicts and superpower competition.

On top of that, they add, China's own diplomatic policy of "non-interference" also limits Beijing's ability to engage with the region.

Simmering Gulf crisis

On Monday, Saudi Arabia and its allies including United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt led a regional effort to cut diplomatic ties and possibly air and sea traffic with Qatar, accusing it of funding terrorism  charges that Doha has denied.

Despite efforts by the U.S. and Kuwait to prevent a further escalation, the Gulf crisis is showing no signs of abating after the UAE threatened to impose an economic embargo against Doha and Bahrain added "all options" were on the table.

Given China's increasing economic interests in the region, there have been calls from some for Beijing to adjust its no-interference policy and take up a more active role.

Or the spat, observers fear, may disrupt part of President Xi Jinping's ambitious BRI, which stretches across 65 countries and encompasses Asia, Africa and Europe.

In no hurry to mediate

But Li Quofu, a senior research fellow at China Institute of International Affairs, said China is in no hurry to mediate conflicts in the Middle East.

He said China believes Gulf nations remain committed to iron out their differences while Xi's trade initiatives provide a solution for them to work together.

"We've proposed the BRI  a great platform, which we hope Middle Eastern countries would utilize to co-develop their economies instead of fighting each other. In this regard, I think China is already playing an active role there," Li told VOA.

According to Wu Sike, formerly China's Special Envoy on the Middle East issue, China's cooperation with the region has deepened, partly due to the BRI. For example, Kuwait plans to invest $130 billion to build a northern Silk City, which will help connect Europe and Asia as part of the Silk Road.

China is also switching its earlier focus on energy in the region, which accounts for half of its imported oil, to investment with trade in manufactured goods having risen substantially, Wu said in May.

As such, China will place its vested interests in the region before its political role despite the BRI showcasing it's ambition to expand its geopolitical influence globally, said Wang Tofar, an economics professors from National Taipei University.

"The BRI actually carries a strategic implication, in which China is poised to challenge the U.S.'s economic [or political] power," Wang told VOA.

China First

But whether China will rise to mediate in the Middle East, "it depends on whether it is within China's interests as China will prioritize its economic interests there," the professor added.

Given its dependence on the region for energy, China will be required to play some kind of role, although its involvement there will be highly circumscribed, said Kerry Brown, associate fellow with the Asia Program at London-based Chatham House.

"It has direct, tangible interests in the region. But it also is desperate to avoid being sucked into the intractable problems that exist there. So in the end it has to perform a balancing act," Brow wrote in an emailed reply to VOA, adding that China's non-interference principle will also cause a constant brake on its desires to be more involved in the region.

Insufficient economic clout

Chang Liu, China economist at Capital Economics, has doubts China even has the required economic clout to influence in the region.

In the case of BRI projects, "it is often the case that rhetoric is more ambitious than reality," Liu said in an emailed reply to VOA.

For example, it remains unclear whether Kuawit's Silk City project will be completed or where the financing would come from.

China's latest commerce data shows its foreign domestic investments (FDIs) to Kuwait declined from $162 million in 2014 to $144 million in 2015.

China's combined FDIs to Kuwait, Omen and Saudi Arabia totaled $560 million in 2015, which the economist said wasn't insignificant, but only equivalent to 5 percent of what China invested in Singapore and 0.4 percent of its total outbound investments in 2015.

There's little evidence that China has been investing significantly more in countries that are part of the BRI since it kicked off in 2014 than before, he concluded.

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Two unrelated incidents this week in Linn County serve as reminders of how easy it can be for even well-meaning governmental bodies to operate outside of the public view.

On Monday, a number of interested parties gathered in Sweet Home to kick around ideas on the best use for the 220-acre former Knife River rock quarry. The property, part of a failed housing development, is owned now by Linn County. County officials have been working with the city about potential uses for the land, which borders the South Santiam River.

Monday's gathering included representatives from Sweet Home city government, Linn County, the Oregon Jamboree and many others, including Dan Desler, the managing partner of Western States Land Reliance Trust. The trust failed to pay more than $500,000 in property taxes, which is how the county came to own the property.

As you can imagine, the fate of this land is a topic of considerable interest in Sweet Home and Linn County. So a reporter from the Democrat-Herald wanted to sit in on the meeting.

No dice. Since the meeting didn't involve a quorum of any governmental body, our reporter was told that it wasn't an official meeting. He was told that he could sit in, but that he couldn't report on it. Organizers feared that since the meeting had been billed as a "roundtable discussion," the presence of a reporter could discourage participants from freely expressing thoughts and opinions.

Our reporter (properly) decided that he could not stay at the meeting under those conditions. He left.

To be fair, the letter of the law suggests that this meeting legally could be closed to the public and to the media.

But the spirit of the law  to allow citizens to learn about matters of great interest to them  was violated.

Later in the week, on Wednesday, the Albany City Council held an official meeting  with a quorum of the council present  in the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Albany. This lab has been targeted for shuttering by President Donald Trump's proposed budget. As we noted earlier, the idea of closing the lab in Albany is a bad one on a number of levels. The council wanted to tour the lab to pick up ideas about how to keep it open.

That's a commendable impulse, and our hope is that the council and Albany city government will help mount an effective defense of the lab.

But there's a catch: When a reporter asked whether he could accompany the council on the tour, lab officials scotched the idea: They said they were worried about revealing some of the lab's secret projects.

That's understandable. But then the council went ahead and toured the facility in what legally amounts to an open meeting at a location that members of the public could not attend.

The council had options: It could have delegated two or three members, short of a quorum, to take the tour; in that case, the tour would not have counted as an official meeting of the council.

That option, of course, flies in the spirit of the open meeting law. A better option might have been to invite representatives of the lab to an open council meeting and allow them to talk about the vital work the lab has been doing and how it's been a boon to the mid-valley's economy.

Neither of these cases began with the idea of actively hiding information from the public. The organizers of the Sweet Home meeting wanted to encourage brainstorming about a valuable piece of land. Albany city councilors have a laudable desire to keep the National Energy Technology Lab open, and we wish them success.

But even laudable actions by governments need to be carried out in the sunshine. Does that complicate things? You bet. But it's the price we have to pay to maintain open governments. (mm)
X-60 GOLauncher1 hypersonic flight research vehicle

The Air Force designated the GOLauncher1 hypersonic flight research vehicle as X-60A. This is the first Air Force Small Business Innovative Research program to receive an experimental X designation. The vehicle is being developed by Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory, Aerospace Systems Directorate, High Speed Systems Division. It is an air-dropped liquid rocket, specifically designed for hypersonic flight research to mature technologies including scramjet propulsion, high temperature materials and autonomous control.

This project focuses on a single stage liquid rocket, GoLauncher 1, launched from a Gulfstream III, capable of delivering payloads up to 1,000 pounds on high-altitude suborbital and suppressed hypersonic trajectories. Generation Orbit Launch Services is partnering with the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center to conduct a flight test campaign for the GOLauncher1 Inert Test Article (ITA), which is a mass properties and aerodynamics simulator for the GOLauncher 1 vehicle. The campaign includes three major elements: aircraft integration, captive carry, and release testing.

Atlanta-based Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) focuses on providing fast, flexible, and dedicated space transportation services for small payloads. The unique air launch approach developed by GO and its partners offers flexible launch capabilities, poised to reduce fixed infrastructure needs, launch costs, and the time from contract signature to launch. Air launch system experience at GO dates back over 10 years, providing a distinct advantage throughout the design and analysis process. As a systems integrator, GO compiles multiple aspects of the launch architecture to provide a streamlined service to government and industry customers alike. The X-60A is like a flying wind tunnel to capture data that complements our current ground test capability, Col. Colin Tucker, Military Deputy, office of the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology, and engineering said 04 October 2018. Weve long needed this type of test vehicle to better understand how materials and other technologies behave while flying at more than 5 times the speed of sound. It enables faster development of both our current hypersonic weapon rapid prototypes and evolving future systems.

AFRLs motivation for the X-60A program is to increase the frequency of flight testing while lowering the cost of maturing hypersonic technologies in relevant flight conditions. While hypersonic ground test facilities are vital in technology development, those technologies must also be tested with actual hypersonic flight conditions.

Utilizing new space commercial development, licensing, and operations practices, X-60A is envisioned to provide the Air Force, other U.S. Government agencies, and industry with a platform to more rapidly mature technologies. The X-60A rocket vehicle propulsion system is the Hadley liquid rocket engine, which utilizes liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. The system is designed to provide affordable and regular access to high dynamic pressure flight conditions between Mach 5 and Mach 8.

NASA is partnering with U.S. companies to advance small spacecraft and launch vehicle technologies that are on the verge of maturation and are likely to benefit both NASA and the commercial space market. NASA secured partnerships with 13 U.S. companies through the Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity (ACO) solicitation, "Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships to Advance Emerging Space Technology System Capabilities. Through these partnerships, NASA provides technical expertise and test facilities to aid industry partners in maturing key space technologies.

Announced Nov. 19, 2015, the Technology Maturation and Flight Validation for Air Launched Liquid Rockets project with Generation Orbit Launch Services of Atlanta, GA focused on a single stage liquid rocket, GoLauncher 1, launched from a Gulfstream III, capable of delivering payloads up to 1,000 pounds on high-altitude suborbital and suppressed hypersonic trajectories. Generation Orbit Launch Services is partnering with the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center to conduct a flight test campaign for the GOLauncher1 Inert Test Article (ITA), which is a mass properties and aerodynamics simulator for the GOLauncher 1 vehicle. The campaign includes three major elements: aircraft integration, captive carry, and release testing.

Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) announced the award of a SBIR Phase II Extension from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Aerospace Systems Directorate, High Speed Systems Division (AFRL/RQHV) to enable wind tunnel and integrated hot fire testing of the GO1 hypersonic testbed. These efforts will further the development of the vehicle by validating aerodynamic models and demonstrating the functionality of the fully integrated GO1 rocket vehicle system. Wind tunnel testing will be accomplished at the AFRL Trisonic Gas Dynamics Facility and Mach 6 Wind Tunnel Facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH. Integrated hot fire testing will be conducted at AFRLs Rocket Lab test facilities at Edwards Air Force Base, CA.

By the time these two test campaigns are complete, well be well ahead of the curve in terms of our knowledge and understanding of how the vehicle hardware and software work commented A.J. Piplica, Chief Operating Officer at GO. The team is excited to apply what were learning here toward finalizing the detailed design of GO1 and pressing forward toward vehicle production and test flights in short order.

Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) announced the award of a Follow-On Phase II SBIR (Small Business Innovative Research) contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Aerospace Systems Directorate, High Speed Systems Division (AFRL/RQH) for development and flight testing of the GOLauncher 1 (GO1). The single stage liquid rocket, launched from a Gulfstream III business jet, will conduct its inaugural flight test in 2019, reaching Mach 6 within the atmosphere. The flight will mark the initial operational capability of the worlds first commercially-available hypersonic test bed, empowering hypersonic researchers with affordable and flexible access to hypersonic flight environments. This effort is a follow-on of the Phase I and Phase II SBIR Contracts awarded to Generation Orbit by AFRL in July of 2014 and August of 2015, respectively.

Building on the design and prototyping efforts we are currently engaged in for GO1, we are excited about the opportunity to bring the system together in flight, commented A.J. Piplica, Chief Executive Officer at GO. With this hypersonic flight capability available, we hope to see the pace of technology development for high speed flight accelerate in the coming years. From a commercial standpoint, we look forward to taking the first steps toward the operational hypersonic flight systems of the future, creating new markets and truly shrinking the world.

AFRL project manager, Barry Hellman, also commented on the program. The design of GO1 builds upon the successes of AFRLs Hypersonic International Flight Research & Experimentation (HIFiRE) program. GO1 has the potential to significantly increase the rate of hypersonic testing and support testing of a wide range of hypersonic payloads. We have been very pleased with the innovative ideas incorporated into GO1 and the opportunity that the SBIR program has enabled to develop this capability.

NASA Armstrong flew an inert test article of AFRL funder GOLauncher1 in Dec. 2017. This test gathered aerodynamic, flight dynamics, and structural data for carrying GO1 under a Gulfstream-III. This testing including the launch maneuver up 30deg flight path angle at Mach 0.7

Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) completed the GO1 Inert Test Article captive carry flight test program. Under a public-private partnership with NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, GO developed the GO1-ITA, a mass properties and outer mold line simulator for the GO1 hypersonic flight testbed and earned NASA airworthiness approval for flight on NASAs C-20a.

NASAs C-20a was originally modified to add a centerline hard point to carry the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) pod. Together with the NASA Armstrong team, a campaign of three flight tests was conducted, successfully completing all test objectives including clearing the operational flight envelope of the C-20a with the GO1-ITA mounted to the centerline hard point, as well as demonstration of the unique launch maneuver designed for air launch of the GO1 on operational flights starting in 2019. Data collected during the campaign will be used to validate models and inform the ongoing design and development of GO1.

The GO-NASA partnership was conducted under a 2015 NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) Announcement of Collaborative Opportunity (ACO): Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships to Advance Emerging Space Technology System Capabilities entitled Technology Maturation and Flight Validation for Air Launched Liquid Rockets. The non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement was signed in April 2016.

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Kurdistan - Iraq

The Kurdistan Region of the Republic of Iraq (KRI) is a constitutionally recognized semiautonomous region in northern Iraq with a population of 5.1 million (2012 estimate). Its government (the KRG), based in Erbil, has the right, under the Iraqi constitution of 2005, to exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers according to the constitution, except in what is listed therein as exclusive powers of the federal authorities.

Although the largest numbers live in Turkey (variously estimated at between 3 and 10 million in the 1980s and as high as 14-15 million by 2008), it is in Iraq that they have historically been most active politically. Indeed, the Kurdish minority has offered one of the most persistent and militarily effective security threat of Iraq's modern history. In Iraq, the Kurds have traditionally been organized on a tribal basis. In the past it was correct to distinguish the various communities of Kurds according to their tribal affiliation, and to a large extent this was still true in the 1980s. Tribes like the Herkki, the Sorchi, and Zibari maintained a powerful cohesion.

Increasingly groups of Kurds organized along political lines have grown up alongside the tribal units. Hence, the most northern and extreme northeastern areas of Iraq were heavily infiltrated by elements of the so-called Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP). The area around Kirkuk and south to Khanaqin was the preserve of the Faili Kurds, who, unlike the majority of Kurds, are Shias. Many of the Faili Kurds belong to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The far northwestern region of Iraq around Sinjar was spotted with enclaves claimed by the Iraqi Communist Party, the bulk of whose cadres were composed of Kurds.

Iraqi Kurdish areas have historically spanned three provinces: Dohuk, Arbil, and Sulaymaniyah of Iraq. Kurds also comprised a substantial portion of the population in and around Kirkuk, and live as far south as Khanaqin.

Kurds consider Kirkuk, a 5,000 year old city and a center of oil production, as the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, even though it was under Iraqi government control and even though it contained more Arabs than Kurds. Both the KDP and the PUK regarded Kirkuk as a key piece in their plan for a secure and economically viable independent Kurdistan.

By the beginning of the 16th century, the Shia Safavid (Iranian) Empire had emerged as a rival to the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds found themselves in the middle of the territories claimed by the Sunni Turkic Ottomans and the Shia Persian Safavids. The two empires fought at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, where the Ottomans defeated the Safavid Shah. The result of the battle established a boundary between the two empires that split the Kurds between Turkic and Persian empires.

Kurdish cultural identity was fundamentally influenced by their experience at the intersection of the Turkic, Persian and Arab cultures. These three cultures have subsequently dominated Kurdish culture, in part because of the empire and state borders have prevented coordination and unity within the larger Kurdish population.

From the mid-16th century through World War I, the Ottoman Empire ruled three provinces or vilayets Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul that comprise contemporary Iraq. The Kurdish area in modern-day Iraq was part of the Mosul vilayet.

The historic enmity between the Kurds and the central Iraqi Arab government had contributed to the tenacious survival of Kurdish culture. The Kurds' most distinguishing characteristic and the one that bound them to one another was their language. There are several Kurdish dialects, of which Kirmanji tends to be the standard written form. Kurdish is not a mere dialect of Farsi or Persian, as many Iranian nationalists maintain. It is certainly not a variant of the Semitic or Turkic tongues. It is a separate language, though part of the Indo-European family.

The Kurds had been locked in an unremittingly violent struggle with the central government in Baghdad almost since the founding of the Iraqi republic in 1958. Three governorates in the north, Dahuk, Irbil, and As Sulaymaniyah, constituted Iraqi Kurdistan, a region that historically had a majority population of Kurds. Ever since Iraq became independent in 1932, the Kurds have demanded some form of self-rule in the Kurdish areas. There were clashes between Kurdish anti-government guerrillas and army units throughout most of the 1960s. When the Baath Party came to power in July 1968, the principal Kurdish leaders distrusted its intentions and soon launched a major revolt.

It appeared in the early 1970s that the dissident Kurds, under the generalship of the legendary leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani, might actually carve out an independent Kurdish area in northern Iraq. In 1975, however, the Shah of Iran, the Kurds' principal patron, withdrew his support of the Kurds as part of the Algiers Accord between Tehran and Baghdad, leading to a sharp decline in the Kurdish movement. The signing of the Algiers Accord caused a breakaway faction to emerge from the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), led by Masud Barzani, the son of Mulla Mustafa Barzani. The faction that left the KDP in opposition to the accord formed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) under Jalal Talabani. The PUK continued to engage in low-level guerrilla activity against the central government in the period from 1975 to 1980. The war between Iraq and Iran that broke out in 1980 afforded the PUK and other Iraqi Kurdish groups the opportunity to intensify their opposition to the government.

In March 1970, the government and the Kurds reached an agreement, to be implemented within four years, for the creation of an Autonomous Region consisting of the three Kurdish governorates and other adjacent districts that had been determined by census to have a Kurdish majority. Although the RCC issued decrees in 1974 and in 1975 that provided for the administration of the Autonomous Region, these were not acceptable to all Kurdish leaders and a major war ensued. The Kurds were eventually crushed, but guerrilla activities continued in parts of Kurdistan. In early 1988, anti-government Kurds controlled several hundred square kilometers of Irbil and As Sulaymaniyah governorates adjacent to the Iranian frontier.

The future of the Kurds in Iraq had already preceded through uncertain times because of the Iran-Iraq War. In 1983, the KDP spearheaded an Iranian thrust into northern Iraq and later its cadres fanned out across the border area adjacent to Turkey where they established a string of bases. Meanwhile, Talabani's PUK maintained a fighting presence in the Kirkuk region, despite ruthless attempts by the central government to dislodge them. Thus, as of early 1988, most of the northern areas of Iraq, outside the major cities, were under the control of the guerrillas. It was speculated during the conflict that if on the one hand, if the present Saddam Hussein government in Iraq survived the war, which in early 1988 seemed likely and turned out to be the case, it was almost certain to punish those Kurds who collaborated with the Iranians. On the other hand, a number of large and powerful Kurdish tribes. as well as many prominent Kurds from nontribal families, had continued to support the central government throughout the war, fighting against their fellow Kurds. These loyal Kurds no doubt expected to be rewarded for their allegiance once the war ends.

In early 1988, the Autonomous Region was governed according to the stipulations of the 1970 Autonomy Agreement. It had a twelve-member Executive Council that wielded both legislative and executive powers and a Legislative Assembly that advised the council. The chairman of the Executive Council was appointed by President Saddam Hussein and held cabinet rank. The other members of the council were chosen from among the deputies to the popularly elected Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly consisted of fifty members elected for three-year terms from among candidates approved by the central government. The Legislative Assembly chose its own officers, including its cabinet-rank chairman, a deputy chairman, and a secretary. It had authority to ratify laws proposed by the Executive Council and limited powers to enact legislation relating to the development of "culture and nationalist customs of the Kurds" as well as other matters of strictly local scope. The Legislative Assembly could question the members of the Executive Council concerning the latter's administrative, economic, educational, social, and other varied responsibilities. It could also withhold a vote of confidence from one or more of the Executive Council members. Both the assembly and the council were located in the city of Irbil, the administrative center of Irbil Governorate. Officials of these two bodies were either Kurds or "persons well-versed in the Kurdish language," and Kurdish was used for all official communications at the local level. The first Legislative Assembly elections were held in September 1980, and the second elections took place in August 1986.

Despite the Autonomous Region's governmental institutions, genuine self-rule did not exist in Kurdistan in 1988. The central government in Baghdad continued to exercise tight control by reserving to itself the power to make all decisions in matters pertaining to justice, to police, to internal security, and the administration of the frontier areas. The Baath Party, through the minister of state for regional autonomy and other ministerial representatives operating in the region, continued to supervise activities of all governing bodies in the region. The minister of justice and a special oversight body set up by the Court of Cassation reviewed all local enactments and administrative decisions, and they countermanded any local decrees that were deemed contrary to the "constitution, laws, or regulations" of the central government. The central government's superior authority had been most dramatically evident in the frontier areas, where government security units forcibly evacuated Kurdish villagers to distant lowlands.

Although the Kurds had traditionally opposed any central governments in both Iran and Iraq, most Kurdish leaders initially saw the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran as a possible vehicle for promoting Kurdish aspirations toward self government. The Iranian government's anti-minority attitude, however, along with Iraq's attempts to support the Iranian Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), dashed all hopes for a unified Kurdish independent state. The Iraqi and Iranian regimes each chose to support a Kurdish faction opposing the other's government, and this intervention divided the Kurds along "national" lines. As a result, during the 1980s Kurds in Iraq tended to hope for an Iranian victory in the Iran-Iraq War, while a number of Kurds in Iran thought that an Iraqi victory would best promote their own aspirations. Because most Kurds were Sunni Muslims, however, their enthusiasm for a Shia government in either country was somewhat limited.

Following the outbreak of hostilities and the ensuing stalemate in the Iran-Iraq War, Kurdish opponents of the Iraqi regime revived their armed struggle against Baghdad. In response to deportations, executions, and other atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Baath, the Kurds seemed in the 1980s to have renewed their political consciousness, albeit in a very limited way. Differences between the brothers Masud and Idris Barzani, who led the KDP, and Jalal Talabani, leader of the Iraqi-supported Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), as well as the Kurdish leadership's periodic shifts into progovernment and anti-government alliances, benefited Baghdad, which could manipulate opposing factions. What the Iraqi government could not afford, however, was to risk the opening of a second hostile front in Kurdistan as long as it was bogged down in its war with Iran. Throughout the 1980s, therefore, Baghdad tolerated the growing strength of the Kurdish resistance, which, despite shortcomings in its leadership, continued its long struggle for independence.

In 2003, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq led to developments for Iraq's Kurdish population. The Iraqi Kurds expressed interest in a federal system of government that would grant them a measure of autonomy. As of May 2003, the US had maintained that any government installed in Iraq would be voted on by a parliament, made of groups representing the Iraqi population. The Kurds would clearly represent a minority in that parliament.





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Despite pressure and losses, ISIL remains potent threat, UN political chief warns Security Council

8 June 2017  After losing control on population centres and declining financial strength, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) terrorist group is more focused than ever before on "enabling and inspiring" attacks outside of conflict zones, the top United Nations political official said today.

"The threat from ISIL has been intensified by its use of the Internet and social media to disseminate propaganda online to a wide international audience," Jeffrey Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, told a Security Council meeting on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts.

"Although the volume of such messages has declined in the past 16 months, the threat persists as supporters outside Syria and Iraq collect and re-distribute this propaganda," he added.

In Europe, for example, ISIL has used its online presence to encourage supporters to mount attacks in their countries of residence. "This has led to multiple attacks, including in Belgium, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom," noted Mr. Feltman, adding that while some of those extremists had been labelled "lone actors," investigations demonstrate that the perpetrators often received support or resources from facilitators and, in a number of cases, were in direct contact with ISIL enablers.

He also noted a decrease in the flow of foreign terrorist fighters and in the overall number

of ISIL fighters during the last 16 months but returnees and the relocation of fighters

from the conflict zones to other regions now present a considerable  and an increasingly transnational  threat to international security.

At same time, Mr. Feltman also warned that ISIL continues to fund affiliates, while urging them to become more self-sufficient and proactive in developing internal revenue streams.

"Money services, including exchange houses and money couriers, continue to be a preferred method for ISIL and its supporters to move funds across borders," he said, expressing concern that funds for reconstruction and stabilization for newly liberated areas should not enable ISIL remnants to abuse those new resources.

Further, welcoming recent Security Council initiatives countering terrorist narratives, protecting critical infrastructure and stemming the destruction, looting and smuggling of cultural heritage sites and artefacts, the senior UN official called for more effort to implement norms and mechanisms, particularly those relating to terrorist financing and foreign terrorist fighter threats.

He also informed the meeting of the work undertaken by the UN and other actors, including the INTERPOL and the Financial Action Task Force to strengthen regional and national frameworks to counter terrorism financing and arrest the flow of foreign terrorist fighters.

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China to develop reusable space vehicles

People's Daily Online

(People's Daily Online) 17:22, June 07, 2017

China is in the process of developing reusable earth-to-orbit space vehicles that can boost the country to the forefront of the aerospace industry, as well as promote the commercial use of space technologies, said an aerospace official on June 6.

"Currently, China is developing its own reusable earth-to-orbit space vehicles that can take off and land horizontally. We have already finished several crucial ground tests for engines and [other key components], yielding remarkable achievements," Liu Shiquan, vice director of the China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC), told media at the Global Space Exploration Conference in Beijing.

According to media reports, the reusable space vehicles will allow astronauts to orbit, land and take off multiple times with minimal repairs and for a relatively low cost, offering easier access to Earth's orbit.

"[We] have made new progress in developing stable solid launch vehicles, making it possible to contemplate the large-scale launch of commercial space vehicles. Meanwhile, research on the recovery of space cargo is also going smoothly," said Liu.

According to Liu, CASIC has been developing a multi-layer information network, with a platform consisting of high-altitude solar drones, near-space aerostats and low-earth orbit satellites and ground equipment, which are expected to be available for use around 2020.

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China Plans to Launch Chang'e-5 Lunar Mission on Nov. 30

Sputnik News

08:00 07.06.2017(updated 08:36 07.06.2017)

Director of the international cooperation department of China National Space Administration Xu Yansong stated that the third launch of the carrier rocket Long March 5 with the satellite Chang'e-5 will take place in the end of November, approximately on November 30.

BEIJING (Sputnik)  China plans to launch Chang'e-5 lunar mission on November 30, Director of the international cooperation department of China National Space Administration Xu Yansong told Sputnik Wednesday.

"The third launch of the carrier rocket Long March 5 with the satellite Chang'e-5 will take place in the end of November, approximately on November 30. These are our plans so far," Xu said on the sidelines of the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) 2017.

As part of its lunar program, China plans the launch of the satellite that would collect the samples of the Moon soil and return to Earth.

GLEX-2017 is carried out in Beijing on June 6-8.

The second launch of China's high power carrier rocket Long March-5 [Changzheng 5] is planned for July 2, according to Xu Yansong.

"The second launch of Long March-5 carrier rocket is planned for the late June or early July, approximately July 2," Xu said on the sidelines of the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) 2017.

Media reported that the carrier rocket was already transferred to the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center earlier in May in preparation for launching a communications satellite.

 Sputnik

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South Korea Tries to Slow Walk THAAD

By Brian Padden June 07, 2017

Newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in is finding that increased diplomacy and legal maneuvers alone will not resolve the dilemma he faces over the U.S. THAAD missile defense system.

Moon advocates a more engagement oriented and less confrontational approach to reduce tensions with nuclear North Korea than his conservative predecessor ex-President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached for her alleged ties to a multi-million dollar corruption scandal.

THAAD is presenting an early test for the president's strategy to reduce regional tensions by balancing strong support for the U.S. alliance with increasing cooperation and outreach to China and North Korea.

Washington considers the advanced anti-missile battery critical for defense against North Korea's growing nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. Rejecting THAAD could strain the alliance and undermine the agreed upon extended deterrence and containment strategy.

"It could lead to complete review and questioning about the posture and the deployment of U.S. forces in Korea, if they are vulnerable to a North Korean missile attack," said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea analyst and lecturer in international relations with Troy University in Seoul.

But supporting it will further alienate Beijing and Pyongyang that adamantly oppose the THAAD deployment as an attempt to increase U.S. military power in the region.

Many residents living near the THAAD site in a rural area of the country have also voiced concerns over the possible negative health effects of the system's powerful radar, and are worried the battery deployment in their region puts them in danger from a potential North Korea attack.

Slow walking

During the presidential campaign Moon called for a review of the agreement to deploy the U.S. anti-missile battery.

This week the president suspended a deputy defense minster for not reporting the delivery of four additional THAAD launchers in an apparent attempt to bypass any oversight from the new administration in Seoul.He also ordered an environmental study of the site that could further delay the deployment schedule.

On Wednesday Kang Kyung-hwa, the presidential nominee for foreign minister called for the National Assembly to debate this national security matter.

"The key point of the THAAD issue is that public engagement was insufficient domestically, so it failed to reach a national consensus," said Kang during her confirmation hearing.

Stalled engagement

In the meantime Seoul's efforts to increase inter-Korean exchanges and humanitarian aid to rebuild trust has been met by resistance from Pyongyang.

Since Moon took office in early May, South Korea has approved 15 requests for contact with North Korea by aid and religious groups, according to the Yonhap News Agency. The National Assembly this week also called for the renewal of reunions of families that were separated by the Korean War and the partition of the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II.

Pyongyang has not approved these exchanges, and on Wednesday the North Korean affiliated website Uriminzokkiri cited the South's support for sanctions against the Kim Jong Un government as an impediment to cooperation. The pro-North Korean website called on the Moon government to drop sanctions and restore severed economic ties, including the Kaesong Industrial complex that employed thousands of North Koreans and the Mount Kumgang tourism project.

North Korea has also not indicated any willingness to even discuss a pause in its continued testing of ballistic missiles and nuclear technology.

"As we say in English, what's the expression, it takes two to tango. In Korean they have a term called "jak sarang" or one-sided love. If the other party doesn't return the love, then you are stuck in this situation," said Pinkston.

The Moon administration has so far been undeterred by early resistance to their efforts. The foreign minster nominee said Wednesday they would continue to pursue both sanctions and humanitarian aid to bring about peaceful change on the Korean peninsula.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.

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Officials: U.S. Missile Defense System Outpaces Threat

By Cheryl Pellerin DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, June 8, 2017  The defense system that protects the United States from ballistic missile attacks now outpaces the threat from adversaries out to 2020, and the Defense Department is advancing the capability to stay ahead of the threat into the future, defense officials said on Capitol Hill yesterday.

Thomas H. Harvey III, acting assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, and Missile Defense Agency Director Navy Vice Adm. James D. Syring testified before the House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on strategic forces, discussing fiscal year 2018 missile defense posture and priorities.

The department continues efforts to sustain and modernize homeland missile defense capabilities so the nation stays ahead of the threat while providing an effective, integrated and interoperable regional missile defense capability, Harvey said.

"The U.S. homeland is currently protected by the ground-based midcourse defense system -- the GMD system. Improving the capacity, reliability and effectiveness of the GMD system is one of our highest priorities," he added.

Funding for 2018

Harvey told the panel that the fiscal 2018 proposed budget -- which Syring said in his written testimony requests $7.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency -- would fund a redesigned exo-atmospheric kill vehicle and long-range discrimination radar.

It would also help to lay the groundwork for a new radar in Hawaii, continue funding for advanced discrimination center technology and space-based kill assessment programs, and remain on track to complete deployment of remaining interceptors in Alaska by the end of this year to bring the total to 44, the assistant secretary said.

"We're also moving forward with efforts to bolster our defenses against advanced cruise missiles," he added.

Allies and Partners

From a regional standpoint, Harvey said, the 2018 budget request continues the deployment of missile defenses tailored to threats in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.

"In Europe, we would continue to implement the European Phased Adaptive Approach, EPAA, and work in close collaboration with our NATO allies to develop an advanced network of sensors and interceptors," he said. The EPAA addresses the threat from Iranian short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to U.S. troops and interests in Europe.

The budget request supports the Aegis Ashore system scheduled for deployment in Poland in the 2018 time frame, Harvey said, noting that NATO allies have committed to spend more than $1 billion on NATO ballistic missile defense command and control, and many U.S. allies are improving national BMD capabilities.

"In the Asia-Pacific, our force posture includes Aegis BMD-capable ships along with Patriot batteries deployed in Japan and South Korea, and the recent deployment of [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] to South Korea. We've also converted the THAAD battery deployment to Guam to permanent status in response to North Korean threats," he added.

The United States maintains a robust ballistic missile defense presence in the Middle East, including land- and sea-based assets deployed in defense of forward-located forces and those of allies and partners, Harvey said.

Looking ahead, the assistant secretary said, means ensuring that the U.S. investment strategy and priorities "balance the needs of addressing the most dangerous threats we confront today while positioning ourselves to respond to emerging threats over the next decade."

Outpacing the Threat

In his testimony before the panel, Syring showed and narrated a video of the May 30 ground-based interceptor test over the Pacific Ocean, submitting his written statement for the record in lieu of an opening statement.

The day after the May 30 interceptor test, Syring said during a phone briefing with reporters that the interceptor tested outpaced the threat to the United States through 2020.

"The intelligence community gives us a body of evidence about where they think the threat is today and where it will evolve by 2020. We design tests specifically to incorporate the attributes of that threat today and what the intelligence community predicts it will be in say three years," he added.

In his written testimony, Syring said the MDA 2018 budget request will continue the development of reliable, increasingly capable, and state-of-the-art defenses against ballistic missiles for the nation, deployed forces, allies and international partners.

"Everything that this committee has supported over the last four years," he told the subcommittee, "has been targeted toward a near-term -- which is now part of the program of record and a fielded set of capabilities -- a mid-term and a far-term capability."

Mid-term is defined by 2020, he added, "and everything that we are working on and fielding is to stay ahead of the threat by 2020."

He told the panel, "Today we're ahead. We need to stay ahead."

The sensor and discrimination work to improve the capability of the system is on a trajectory and in large part fielded, Syring said.

"Where we need to be prudent and constantly vigilant on is what is the capacity increase that we can expect from North Korea and what is our capacity needed to meet that threat," the admiral said.

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South Korean Opposition Urges Faster THAAD Deployment as North Launches Missiles

Sputnik News

08:03 08.06.2017

South Korea's opposition parties urged the government on Thursday to proceed with the installation of a US missile shield after it was put on hold over environmental impact, local media said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  This comes after North Korea launched a salvo of short-range cruise missiles into the Sea of Japan, in what was the fourth missile test in a month.

"The government is charging at the THAAD deployment and the Korea-U.S. alliance while taking no measures whatsoever against North Korea's missile launches," Chung Woo-taik, acting chief of the Liberty Korea Party, was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

Kim Se-yeon, head of the conservative Bareun Party, said building a defense system as early as possible was a common-sense approach to North Korea's nuclear ambition.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is a highly controversial weapon, which Koreans fear might make the area of its deployment a target for the North. The president's office suspended the installation of four launchers this week to conduct a comprehensive study.

 Sputnik

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North Korea test-launches barrage of missiles: Seoul

Iran Press TV

Thu Jun 8, 2017 1:47AM

North Korea has test-fired several projectiles which are thought to be surface-to-ship missile, says Seoul.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon province," said a statement released by the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) early on Thursday.

Noting that the missiles flew for some 200 kilometers, the JCS stressed that it is "maintaining full preparedness" and has "beefed up surveillance and vigilance against the possibility of additional provocations."

The statement added that South Korean President Moon Jae-in has also been informed over the North's latest missile test.

Pyongyang conducted its previous missile launch on May 29 by firing a short-range ballistic missile believed to be a Scud-class missile that landed in the Sea of Japan after flying around 450 kilometers.

'North's ICBMs can range the US'

Meanwhile, the director of the US Missile Defense Agency warned that Pyongyang's continued ballistic missile tests have become cause for concern for Washington and its allies.

"It is incumbent on us to assume that North Korea today can range the United States with an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead," said Vice-Admiral James Syring while addressing Congress.

On June 3, the United Nations Security Council imposed a fresh array of sanctions on North Korea in response to a number of missile tests carried out by Pyongyang this year.

Unsettled by North Korean missile and nuclear programs, the US has adopted a war-like posture, sending a strike group and conducting joint military drills with North Korea's regional adversaries Japan and South Korea.

American officials have indicated that military intervention in North Korea is an option on the table.

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North Korea Fires Several Ballistic Missiles - South Korean Military

Sputnik News

01:48 08.06.2017(updated 03:50 08.06.2017)

The South Korean military is reporting that North Korea fired several ground-to-ship missiles from Wonsan, Gangwon Province, early Thursday morning, according to Yonhap News Agency.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, "North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province."

The South Korean military reports that the projectiles, later described as short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles, traveled around 200 kilometers, and that South Korean President Moon Jae-In has been notified.

This development comes hours after US Missile Defense Agency head Vice Admiral James Syring told a House Armed Services Committee meeting that the progress Pyongyang is making in its missile capabilities is a cause for "great concern" and that the US should assume it is within range of a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

This is North Korea's 10th missile test this year and its fifth since Moon, who has repeatedly expressed a desire to dial back tensions between the neighboring states, took office.

North Korea has continued its ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development program despite sanctions from the UN Security Council and international calls to cease its activities. Less than a week ago, the UN expanded its sanctions against the country after a unanimous vote by the Security Council.

The US, a frequent target of North Korean rhetoric, recently tested its ground-based missile defense system to hone its defense capabilities against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The system, which has a checkered record, was deemed successful by the Pentagon in its most recent tests.

 Sputnik

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Backgrounder: Well-Supported, Diverse, Resilient People and Families

The success of Canadas defence depends on our people. Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members are devoted to serving their country, and we are equally committed to our duty to improve the assistance, services, and care we provide them and their families. Not only is it important to build a strong and agile defence organization, but the Government has an obligation to care for those who have accepted service of their country before self.

Our military and civilian workforce will benefit from an inclusive, positive, fair, and supportive workplace. We will also resource the CAF sufficiently, with the right number of personnel possessing the right skills to get the job done. This means we need to rethink how we recruit, as well as increase the volume, skill sets, and diversity of who we recruit. Diversity is the strength of Canadas population and is essential to our militarys operational effectiveness and long-term success.

To deliver on the goals set out in Strong, Secure, Engaged, we will grow the size of the Regular Force by 3,500 (to 71,500) and the Reserve Force by 1,500 (to 30,000) members.

The Department of National Defence (DND) will also hire an additional 1,150 civilian employees to enable and support military operations in fields such as intelligence, logistics, procurement, and maintenance to name a few.

From the moment military members join, throughout their careers, and extending to the crucial time of transition when members retire and/or require assistance as veterans, we will focus on:

Recruiting, training, and retention of personnel;

Reflecting Canadian ideals of diversity, respect, and inclusion;

Ensuring military members and their families have the care and support they need;

Improving our support services for ill and injured members; and

Helping our members transition seamlessly to post-military life when the time comes.

Total Health and Wellness

There is an obvious link between the overall health and wellness of a military and its operational effectiveness. To effectively deliver on the defence mandate, Defence will ensure the needs of our military members, their families, and defence civilians are met.

For members of the CAF, this means being well supported from the moment they join, throughout their career, and finally as they transition out of the military. This also includes keeping the door open to Veterans wishing to return to service, or who later need assistance and support.

This continual support plays a large role in the recruitment and retention of our members and consequently, in increasing the size of the CAF. More importantly, we have a fundamental moral obligation to care for those who have accepted unlimited liability in the service of their country.

While there are many excellent existing DND/CAF health and wellness programs and services available, the field of total health care has greatly evolved and we will evolve with it.

We will:

Invest $198.2 million over the course of the policy to implement a new approach to care. Known as the Total Health and Wellness Strategy, this approach will expand wellness beyond the traditional healthcare model to include promotion, prevention, treatment, and support, and provide a greater range of health and wellness services and programs; and

Shed one-size fits all solutions in favour of more people-centred, compassionate, dependable, and comprehensive services.

Supporting Health and Resilience

Military service is challenging and rewarding, but it also places unique demands and stresses on CAF personnel that can have a profound impact on all aspects of health. This includes everything from the potential physical and mental injuries that can be experienced on operations to the strain that prolonged absence from loved ones can have on families and relationships.

Despite the CAF having an extensive and robust mental health program, we need to do more.

Even one suicide, or one more member suffering in silence, is too many. We will ensure our members feel comfortable seeking help, and receive the help they need as soon as it is requested.

We will:

Augment the CAF Health System to ensure it meets the unique needs of our personnel with effective and efficient care, anywhere they serve in Canada or abroad. This includes growing the Medical Services Branch by 200 personnel;

Implement a joint DND and Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) Suicide Prevention Strategy that hires additional mental health professionals and implements a joint framework focused on preventing suicide across the entire military and Veteran community. It will encompass and build on what is already being done to prevent suicide and will address gaps that may be identified; and

Remove barriers to care, including creating an environment free from stigma where military members are encouraged to raise health concerns of any nature and seek appropriate help when they need it.

Promoting a Culture of Leadership, Respect, and Honour

Everyone has the right to a workplace free from harassment and discrimination. It is vital that all Defence members feel safe at work, and that every individual is treated fairly and respectfully. Positive culture change requires a commitment to promote the respect of all members as equal contributors to the community  this is a no fail mission.

Operation HONOUR

Significant progress has been made with Operation HONOUR in addressing inappropriate sexual behaviour in the workplace.

Under Canadas defence policy, we will:

Complete the full implementation of the 10 recommendations of the Deschamps Report through Operation HONOUR;

Provide a full range of victim and survivor support services to CAF members;

Deal with harassment complaints in a clear and timely way by simplifying formal harassment complaint procedures; and

Be open and transparent with Canadians and members of the CAF in communicating progress on this important issue.

Supporting Military Families

Families are a major source of support to CAF members and integral to the success of the military  they are the strength behind the uniform. Family members also make important sacrifices, whether it be through the challenges associated with relocation or the prolonged absence of a loved one. They will have access to the support and services they deserve, to cope with the unique challenges and stresses of military life.

We will:

Implement teams at Wings and Bases across Canada, in partnership with Military Family Resource Centres, to prevent and respond to gender-based violence;

Improve access to psychological services through social workers and referrals to community programs and services;

Develop a Comprehensive Military Family Plan to help stabilize family life for CAF members and their families who frequently have to relocate. This includes:

Providing an additional $6 million per year to modernize military family support programs, such as Military Family Resource Centres, to provide better support to families when members are deploying or during periods of absence;



Establishing relocation expertise to help military families find and access the services they need in a new community; and



Working with federal, provincial and private sector partners to improve the coordination of services across provinces to ease the burden of moving.

Tax Relief

Canadians know that when our women and men in uniform deploy, they and their families make great sacrifices on our behalf. With this in mind, all CAF members deployed on all international operations designated as such by the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) will no longer pay federal income tax on their CAF salary up to the level of Lieutenant-Colonel. This will not affect the assessment and awarding of existing hardship and risk allowances earned by CAF personnel deployed abroad.

This initiative is retroactive to January 2017.

Reinventing Transition

The life of a CAF member is one of continual transition: from the first moments at the recruiting centre to the last day in uniform, and beyond. All members will benefit from a system which enables a smooth and successful transition to post-military life. Strong, Secure, Engaged reinvents the way we approach transition. It ensures that members receive the professional, customized, and personalized support they need as they transition to post-military life. This will ease their adjustment, and help them continue to live productive, meaningful lives. This is especially critical when CAF members are ill or injured. They require personalised support, in coordination with VAC and other partners, to get back to active service, or transition to post-military life. Ensuring a smooth and effective transition is critical to the well-being of our personnel and the effectiveness of the operational force.

We will:

Create a new CAF Transition Group that will support all members to seamlessly transition to post-military life. This Group will:

Be fully integrated with VAC, and will enhance the support for our ill and injured to get them back to active duty as much as possible, or transition to post-military life;



Be commanded by a General Officer and staffed by experts in human resources and personnel administration;



Comprise a strength of approximately 1,200 members, including specialized staff and holding positions for ill and injured members preparing to return to duty or transition out of the CAF; and



Provide fully engaged, personalized, and guided support to transition all CAF members, with special care and attention being provided to those who are ill and injured.

Ensure that all benefits are in place before a member transitions to post-military life;

Increase the Medical Services Branch capacity to support transition care; and

Establish a Personnel Administration Branch of experts in military human resources.

Recruitment

To attract high-calibre recruits into the military, the CAF requires a robust and engaging recruiting system  one that will allow the high volume of applications received each year to be efficiently processed. The current system is too slow to compete in Canadas highly competitive labour market and does not effectively communicate the exciting and fulfilling employment opportunities offered by military service.

We will:

Significantly reduce the time the CAF recruiting process takes  from enrolment to basic recruit training  by reforming all aspects of military recruiting;

Implement a recruitment campaign to:

Promote the complete range of more than 100 unique full- and part-time career opportunities, as well as the professional and personal development opportunities, offered by the CAF; and



Support key recruitment priorities, including hiring more women, increasing diversity, meeting Reserve Force requirements, and promoting priority occupations, and the needs of the Reserve Force.

Training and Retention

Once recruited, members need modern, high quality training that puts them on a solid foundation to succeed. We will adapt training to meet the highly technical requirements of modern militaries, as well as demonstrate that the military offers competitive training and technical certification on par with, or exceeding, the standards of industry and the private sector.

We will:

Restore the College Militaire Royal in St-Jean as a full degree-granting institution to help prepare the next generation of CAF leaders for success;

Increase the capacity of the Canadian Forces Leadership and Recruit School to accommodate growing the Forces and the influx of recruits;

Evolve the quality of all training and education to meet or exceed the highest industry standards and receive full trade standards accreditation across Canada; and

In a highly competitive labour market, DND/CAF will modernize and tailor our approaches to attract and retain the best and brightest Canadians. We have to meet the CAFs future needs by inviting Canadians with the aptitudes and skill-sets required in a variety of highly technical domains to join and stay with us.

We will:

Develop and implement a comprehensive CAF Retention Strategy to keep our talented people in uniform, ensuring they remain satisfied and motivated;

Undertake a detailed review of conditions of service and career paths to allow members much more personalized career choices and flexibility;

Recognize uniformed members in a timely, respectful, and meaningful way by modernizing the CAF Honours and Awards system; and

Implement an integrated DND/CAF strategy for human resources to balance the optimal assignment of tasks between the military, defence civilians, and the private sector.

Building on Canadas Diversity

Defence needs to reflect Canadian ideals of diversity, respect, and inclusion. This means building a workforce that leverages the diversity and multicultural fabric of Canadian society. As a result, we will better understand the world we live in and be able to respond more effectively to the challenges it presents. Diversity is also a pivotal factor in making our military more operationally effective.

We will:

Promote diversity as a core institutional value across Defence;

Appoint a Diversity Champion who will oversee the implementation of all aspects of the Diversity Strategy and Action Plan, including instituting mandatory diversity training across all phases of professional development;

Integrate Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) in all defence activities, across the CAF and DND, from the design and implementation of programs and services that support our personnel, to equipment procurement, and operational planning;

Focus on recruiting and retaining under-represented populations within the CAF, including, but not limited to, women, Indigenous Peoples, and members of visible minorities; and

Be a leader in gender balance in the military by increasing the representation of women by one percentage point annually over the next 10 years to reach an overall representation of 25 percent women in the military.

A New Vision for the Reserve Force

The Reserve Force is an integral component of the CAF, and Reservists are vital links to hundreds of communities across Canada. They come from all walks of life, including civil servants, labourers, business people, academics, and former Regular Force members.

Their varied skills and backgrounds enrich and strengthen the CAF.

Under Strong, Secure, Engaged, Reservists will be well integrated into the total force, with sufficient numbers trained, prepared, and equipped to be ready to contribute to operations at home and abroad.

Recruitment procedures will be dramatically improved; and remuneration and benefits will be better aligned with those of the Regular Force, where the demands and service are similar.

We will:
Germany To Pull Troops From Turkish Base In Dispute With Ankara

June 07, 2017

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet has decided to pull German troops and reconnaissance planes out of Turkey's Incirlik air base after Ankara refused to let lawmakers visit them.

The German troops and aircraft taking part in the international coalition against the Islamic State extremist group will redeploy to Jordan.

Germany has some 270 troops stationed at Incirlik, near Turkey's border with Syria, with six Tornado reconnaissance aircraft and a refueling plane.

The Defense Ministry said that the relocation would take the refueling plane out of service for two to three weeks and the reconnaissance planes for two to three months.

Merkel said that Berlin will consult with its allies on "replacement capabilities" during that time and the move "will be conducted as quickly as possible under the provision that the anti-IS coalition is able to work."

German leaders say it's essential that lawmakers be able to visit troops when they want, as deployments of German forces abroad require parliamentary approval.

Turkey blocked the latest Incirlik visit request in protest over a decision by German authorities to grant asylum to soldiers and other individuals that Turkey accuses of participating in last year's failed coup.

Ties have also been tense over the jailing in Turkey of two German journalists and the decision by German local authorities to ban planned campaign rallies by Turkish ministers earlier this year.

Based on reporting by AP and Bloomberg

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-turkey- troops-incirlik-pullout/28534121.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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Terrorist operation in Majlis ends, 4 terrorists killed

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, June 7, IRNA -- Terrorist operation in Iran's Majlis(parliament) ended and four assailants were killed by the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) special forces.

Terrorist operation had started at 10:15 local time (5:45 GMT).

In an apparently coordinated attempt, two terrorist groups attacked mausoleum of the late Imam Khomeini, southern Tehran, and the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) on Wednesday morning, killing 12 people and injuring 42 more.

One of the terrorist was gunned down by the security forces and another attacker, reportedly a woman, blew herself up outside the Imam Khomeini shrine.

The terrorist group of Daesh (the ISIS terrorist group) has claimed responsibility for the fatal attacks in Tehran.

Terrorists entered the Parliament building while they had dressed as women, said a security official.

Parliament operation ended by security forces who killed three of the terrorists, one of them had detonated himself before.

Meanwhile, according to an official at the Intelligence Ministry, several terrorist cells have entered Tehran to carry out terrorist operations but members of one of the cells have been arrested.

9191**2050

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Iranian parliament terrorist attack ends with 4 gunmen killed

ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency

Wed / 7 June 2017 / 14:42

Tehran (ISNA)  Gunmen and suicide bombers have carried out terrorist attacks on Iran's parliament and the mausoleum of revolutionary founder Ruhollah Khomeini on Wednesday.

Apparently, the aim of the attacks is creating advertising space in order to show the country is unsafe.

Four gunmen burst into Tehran's parliament complex with rifles and a pistol, and one of the attackers blew himself up on the fourth floor.

Several police snipers on the rooftops of buildings around the parliament. Shops in the area were shuttered, and gunfire could be heard. Witnesses said the attackers were shooting from the fourth floor of the parliament building down at people in the streets below.

At least 12 people were killed and 42 people wounded during the attacks.

About half an hour after the initial attack at Parliament, three to four people reportedly entered the western entrance of Ayatollah Khomeini's tomb complex and opened fire, before one of the attackers detonated a suicide belt.

But currently the situation in Ayatollah Khomeini's tomb complex in under control.

State news agencies said a number of people had been injured and that security forces were dismantling a bomb at the mausoleum, which is in southern Tehran, about 12 miles from the parliament building.

The Islamic State group has claimed attacks on Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

"Fighters from Islamic state attacked Khomeini's shrine and the Iranian parliament in Tehran," the Amaq news agency said.

In another statement, the news agency said Wednesday's attacks on Khomeini's shrine were carried out by two suicide bombers.

The terrorists entered the parliament in women dress.

Iranian security guards killed the four gunmen, ending the terrorist attack on Parliament.

Currently, the security guards are engaging in clearance the parliament building.

End Item

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Ayatollah Khamenei: Terror attacks will fail to undermine Iran's will

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 7, 2017 4:59PM

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Wednesday's terror attacks in Tehran will fail to undermine the Iranian nation's resolve in the face of threats.

"The Iranian nation is moving forward. These fireworks that happened today will have no impact on the people's resolve. They are too weak to affect the will of the Iranian nation and that of the officials," the Leader said in a meeting with university students in Tehran on Wednesday, several hours after two Daesh terrorist attacks were carried out in the capital.

The Leader said had Iran not stood against the hotspot of terrorism in the region, the country would have faced more severe problems.

Ayatollah Khamenei also expressed optimism that terrorists "will be uprooted God willing."

Earlier on Wednesday, gunmen stormed Iran's Parliament (Majlis) and the mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in two coordinated attacks, which claimed the lives of 12 people and injured over 40 others.

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Rouhani: Iran to crush any enemy plots through unity, integrity

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 7, 2017 2:29PM

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has condemned Tehran's twin terror attacks as "cowardly," stressing the country will crush enemies' plots through unity and integrity.

"The Iranian nation  will prove once again that it will crush any plot or scheme by ill-wishers through unity and solidarity and its powerful security structure," Rouhani said in a message, after 12 people were killed and more than 40 others wounded in twin terror attacks in Tehran on Wednesday.

He said that the terrorist attacks will further strengthen Iran's resolve to fight terrorism, extremism and violence in the region.

The Iranian president also described terrorism as a global challenge, and underlined that unity to fight extremism, terrorism and violence combined with regional and international cooperation is the most urgent need of the international community today.

He said that Iran's enemies were irked by the huge turnout of the Iranians in the country's May 19 elections and therefore recruited and supported Takfiri elements to "cover up their failures in the region, collapse of Islamic values and public dissatisfaction in their countries."

He also offered condolences to the victims' families.

Terrorism grave threat to global security: Zarif

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also condemned Wednesday's terror attacks, warning about the rise of terrorism as a serious threat to global security.

Zarif, who was in Turkey for a one-day official visit, denounced the "indiscriminate" terror attacks and said terrorism was threatening the Middle East and the rest of the world.

"Very grave conditions are prevailing in the region" in terms of security, Zarif said at Ankara's Esenboga Airport.

Tehran's terror attacks aimed at undermining Iran's anti-terror fight: Larijani

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani also condemned the attacks as "cowardly" and said they were meant to undermine Tehran's anti-terror fight.

"Iran is an instrumental and effectual pillar of the fight against terrorism," he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, gunmen stormed Iran's Parliament (Majlis) and the mausoleum of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini in two coordinated attacks claimed by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the attacks ended, the Interior Ministry issued a statement, elaborating on the terror incidents. According to the statement, the first terror group, comprised of two people, entered the mausoleum at around 10:30 a.m. local time (0600 GMT). The first terrorist blew up his explosives, but the second was killed during a firefight with security forces.

Concurrently with the attack at the mausoleum, the second terror team made up of four terrorists sought to enter the administrative building of the parliament but were confronted by security forces, the statement said.

The ministry added that one terrorist blew his explosives up while the three others were killed in shootouts during clashes with security forces as they were seeking to reach upper floors of the parliament building.

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Iran Blames Saudi Arabia for Tehran Attacks

By VOA News June 07, 2017

Iran's Revolutionary Guards are blaming Saudi Arabia for a pair of terror attacks Wednesday at symbolic locations in Tehran.

"This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. president and the [Saudi] backward leaders who support terrorists. The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack," the statement read.

Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia was quoted in Iranian media as saying five suspects had been arrested in connection with the attacks that left at least 12 people dead and 42 others wounded at Iran's parliament and a shrine to late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

IS militants immediately claimed responsibility. It marks the first time the Sunni Muslim group admitted it attacked the majority Shi'ite Muslim country.

Six of the attackers were killed by Iranian security forces.

The attacks began before noon when several men, dressed as women, stormed the parliament building and killed a security guard. One attacker blew himself up inside the building, and three gunmen were reported killed by police after they took several hostages.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament, called the attack a "minor incident" perpetrated by "some cowardly terrorists." He said "serious measures" would be taken against those responsible.

The shrine attack began about 30 minutes after the parliament attack, and involved three gunmen and a suicide bomber who stormed the site, killing at least one person and wounding several others, according to Iranian media. The reports said police arrested at least one of the attackers and killed another.

The United States condemned the terrorist attacks, with State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issuing a statement that said, "We express our condolences to the victims and their families, and send our thoughts and prayers to the people of Iran. The depravity of terrorism has no place in a peaceful, civilized world."

The Islamic State extremist group is at war with Iranian-backed groups in Syria and Iran and views Iran's Shi'ite majority as apostates deserving of death.

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US Senate Works on New Iran Sanctions, Possible Russia Sanctions

By VOA News June 07, 2017

The U.S. Senate has moved forward on a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran.

The bill advanced on a procedural vote Wednesday. It now will be available for amendments before a final Senate vote.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and those who do business with them. It also would apply terrorism sanctions to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

Bernie Sanders was one of the few senators opposed to holding the vote Wednesday because of twin attacks on Iran's parliament and a major historical site earlier in the day.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," he said.

Other critics of the legislation, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, have said reimposing sanctions could lead to the dismantling of the Obama administration's long-sought nuclear accord with Iran. President Donald Trump has strongly criticized the Iran deal.

In addition to the sanctions on Iran, lawmakers are likely to add language that would impose sanctions on Russia over its alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, its involvement in the Syrian civil war, and its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

For the legislation to become law, the House of Representatives also will have to approve it. It must then be signed by Trump.

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Tehran Security Increased After Attacks By 'IS Recruits From Iran'

RFE/RL June 08, 2017

Reports from Iran say police have increased patrols in the streets and subway stations of the capital, Tehran, as the death toll rose a day after attacks on parliament and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's shrine.

Iranian officials said on June 8 that 17 victims were killed and more than 40 wounded in the attacks a day earlier -- the first major attacks in Iran for which the extremist group Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility.

The Intelligence Ministry, meanwhile, said in a statement that five men involved in the attacks were Iranians who joined IS in Iraq and Syria.

The ministry released the first names of the men and published pictures of their corpses.

Describing them as "long affiliated with the Wahhabi" -- a reference to a conservative form of Sunni Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia -- it said the five had left Iran to fight for IS in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria

The ministry said the group returned to Iran in summer last year under the command of an IS leader to carry out terrorist operations in religious places, and escaped when authorities broke up their cell.

In the twin attacks that lasted several hours, officials said assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles stormed the parliament building in central Tehran while another group of assailants targeted Khomeini's mausoleum.

All the attackers were reported killed. At least two of them blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police say they arrested several suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks, while the Intelligence Ministry said on June 7 that members of a third "terrorist group" were arrested before being able to carry out any attack.

IS Claims Responsibility

Claiming responsibility for the attacks, IS released a video purporting to show gunmen inside parliament.

IS has regularly threatened Iran, which is backing militias battling IS fighters in both Iraq and Syria. The extremist Sunni group considers the 90 percent of Iranians who are Shi'ite Muslims to be apostates.

Releasing their first Persian-language video in March, IS militants threatened to step up recruitment within the country and threatened to "conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before."

Iran's sizable Sunni minority population resides mostly in restive areas near the borders with Iraq and Pakistan.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sought to play down the Tehran attacks, calling them mere "firecrackers" that would have no effect on "the will of the people."

President Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate who advocates engagement, said they would make Iran "more determined in the fight against regional terrorism, extremism, and violence," and called for international cooperation against the terror threat.

But Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) took a harsh tone, vowing revenge for the bloodshed and pointing the finger at the United States and its ally Saudi Arabia.

Zarif Slams Washington

In a statement, the IRCG called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed President Donald Trump's visit to the Sunni-ruled kingdom, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia, Iran's staunch regional rival, "constantly supports" terrorists, it said, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "shows they are involved in this savage action."

Riyadh and the United States both condemned the attacks, which came as Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-ruled countries cut ties with Qatar over alleged support for Islamist militants and closer ties with Iran.

In a statement, Trump expressed sympathy for the victims of the Tehran attacks but also implied that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism, saying, "We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took to Twitter to denounce Trump's reaction to the attacks and moves by U.S. lawmakers to slap new sanctions on Iran.

"Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," said in a tweet.

The U.S. Senate advanced on June 7 a package of new sanctions on Iran to punish Tehran for its ballistic missile program, arms transfers, and support for militant groups in the Middle East.

Senators voted on a procedural measure that sets up a final vote in the coming days.

Before the vote, several senators had urged a delay, arguing that the timing was inappropriate because of the terrorist attacks in Tehran.

The bill would sanction people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and anyone who does business with them.

The measure would also apply financial and other restrictions on the Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/security-official- says-tehran-attackers-were-iranians-who-j oined-islamic-state/28534955.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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Islamic State Threatens More Terror Against Iran

By Jeff Seldin June 08, 2017

Iran's Intelligence Ministry said Thursday that five of the men involved in attacks on the country's parliament and the tomb of former leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were Iranians who had joined the Islamic State group.

The ministry said the men had fought for Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, and in Raqqa, Syria, before returning to Iran in August of last year.

Iranian officials also raised the death toll in Wednesday's attack, saying at least 17 people were killed and 40 wounded.

The near simultaneous attacks by machine-gun wielding assailants and two suicide bombers were claimed almost immediately by Islamic State, and could set off a new round of hostilities in an already tense Middle East.

In a new twist, the terror group's Amaq news agency also quickly distributed a 24-second video of the attack showing a bloody, lifeless body inside the parliament complex, and threatened it would strike again.

Iranian security officials late Wednesday confirmed IS involvement, saying the attackers, many disguised as women, were Iranians who had joined the terror group.

Attackers

The officials said Iranian forces killed six of the attackers. Another five suspects were arrested, and two suicide bombers blew themselves up. Officials suggested a third attack had been foiled.

"These fireworks have no effect on Iran," Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told state-run television, vowing the terrorists "will soon be eliminated."

Islamic State and Iran have long been at odds, with IS fighters facing off against Iranian proxies and Iranian-led forces in Syria and Iraq. But Wednesday's attacks marked the first by the Sunni terror group in the majority Shi'ite country.

U.S. intelligence called the incident the worst domestic terror attack in Tehran since the 1980s, but an official said there have been signs IS was, at least, hoping to strike.

"ISIS has expressed a growing interest in conducting attacks on the Iranian homeland," the official said, using an acronym for the militant group.

And pointing to increasingly virulent propaganda over the past six months, the official added it had become clear "Iran has been at the top of ISIS' enemy list."

Still, Iranian officials immediately placed the ultimate blame on Saudi Arabia.

"This terrorist attack happened only a week after the meeting between the U.S. president and the [Saudi] backward leaders who support terrorists," according to statement by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. "The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack."

World reaction

Condemnation for the attacks poured in from around the world.

The United Nations Security Council said the attacks were "barbaric and cowardly" and stressed that it condemned the attacks "in the strongest terms."

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent condolences and offered assistance

In a statement, President Donald Trump said the U.S. grieves and prays for "the innocent victims" of the attacks, and "the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times."

But Trump also warned "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif responded on Twitter, criticizing both Trump's words and the U.S. Senate moving closer to new sanctions against Iran.

"Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by U.S. clients. Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship," Zarif wrote.

Middle East tensions

Tensions have been running high across the Middle East, where Iran and Saudi Arabia have long vied for prominence and influence, including in Yemen where the rivals have been locked into a proxy war.

The region has further put been on edge following a decision by key Arab powers to cut ties with Qatar, accusing the government in Doha of supporting terror groups and of aligning too closely with Iran.

Some analysts fear Wednesday's terror attack in Tehran could prompt a harsh response by Iran, at home and perhaps even across the region.

At least initially, though, Iran's proxy forces have been quiet on social media.

"It's reminiscent of when some IS bombs have hit Baghdad or other parts of Iraq," said Phillip Smyth, a University of Maryland researcher who closely follows Shi'ite militia activity. "Often there is little reaction and the groups continue to talk about their efforts."

Some of the groups issued condolences, Smyth said, though one Tehran-based account called it a "blueprint of [how] Zionist, Gulf-Saudi, and American terrorism [is exported] to Iran."

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Iraq to block off border with Syria to Daesh terrorists: Abadi

Iran Press TV

Tue Jun 6, 2017 5:50PM

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the Arab country wants to wrest control over the border with Syria in coordination with Damascus, as the Iraqi military along with pro-government fighters are pushing the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group to its final days in Mosul, the terrorists' last urban stronghold in Iraq.

The Iraqi premier made the remarks during his weekly presser in the capital Baghdad on Tuesday, adding that the government would definitely not allow Daesh terrorists or any other armed group operating in Iraq to cross into neighboring Syria. Abadi said Baghdad would not enter the years-long crisis in Syria.

His comments came eight days after paramilitary fighters, consisting of some 40 mainly Shia Muslim groups, reached the Syrian border in the north in an attempt to block Daesh from crossing the common border.

Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, fell to Daesh in 2014, when the terrorist group began its campaign of death and destruction in Iraq, making the city its de facto capital in the Arab country. However, Iraqi forces took control of its eastern part in January and the push for the western side, separated from the east by the Tigris River, began in February.

Daesh currently holds less than nine percent of western Mosul and is on the brink of total defeat in the city. Blocking the Syrian border means terrorists would no longer receive reinforcement and ammunition from Raqqah, the terror group's de facto capital in Syria, which is also waiting to be totally liberated by the advancing Syrian troops.

The full liberation of Mosul would likely spell the end for the Iraqi half of Daesh's so-called caliphate.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Abadi said Iraqi forces had never used chemical weapons in their counter-terrorism operations, instead they had used smoke grenades, which might be easily mistaken for chemical arms.

Gruesome violence has plagued the northern and western parts of Iraq ever since Daesh terrorists mounted an offensive there in the summer of 2014, and took control of portions of the Iraqi territory.

The terrorists have been committing heinous crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in Iraq, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians.

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Wreckage of missing Myanmar military aircraft found: military sources

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 20:58, June 07, 2017

YANGON, June 7 (Xinhua) -- The wreckage of the missing Myanmar military aircraft has been found on sea off Dawei township in southern Tanintharyi region late on Wednesday, according to military sources.

The military circle said the tragedy might be due to bad weather condition but it is yet to be determined only after the black box is found.

With 104 passengers on board, the aircraft of the Myanmar air force suddenly lost contact with the ground and went missing Wednesday afternoon on its flight from southern Tanintharyi region's Myeik to Yangon.

The 104 passengers include 90 army family members and 14 crew members.

With a load of 2.4 tons of goods, the military aircraft, carrying some welfare goods and military family members in its transport mission, took off from Myeik air base at 01:06 p.m. local time for Yangon, but when the aircraft reached a height of 18,000 feet (5,400 meters) at about 01:35 p.m. local time, it lost contact with the ground at a location, 32 km west of Dawei and went missing.

The aircraft was on a round trip transport mission in accordance with the route Yangon-Myeik-Pokkpyin-Myeik-Yangon.

Two aircrafts of the air force and four vessels of the navy have begun search and rescue operation.

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Putin Says 'Nobody Would Survive' U.S.-Russia 'Hot War'

RFE/RL June 07, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin says in a documentary set to air on U.S. television that "nobody would survive" a war between the nuclear-armed countries.

Putin made the comments to Hollywood director Oliver Stone during a series of interviews for the film, in which the Russian leader appears to be given ample room to vent long-held grievances against the United States.

The four-part series, slated to begin airing on June 12 on the Showtime network, comes on the heels of a series of public appearances by Putin in which he has sharpened his criticism of Washington, which he accuses of meddling in Moscow's affairs and exploiting NATO for its own foreign-policy interests.

These themes emerge in his interviews with Stone as well, according to excerpts that have been released online in advance. Asked by the director if the United States would be "dominant" in a "hot war" with Russia, Putin replies, "Nobody would survive."

U.S.-Russian ties cratered in the wake of Moscow's 2014 seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine. The United States and the European Union slapped sanctions on Moscow over the land grab, and NATO has bolstered its defenses in its easternmost member states in what it calls a defensive move in response to Russian aggression.

Putin's comments to Stone echo comments he has made over 17 years in power, including a speech at an international economic forum in St. Petersburg last week in which he portrayed NATO a foreign-policy tool exploited by Washington.

"NATO is a mere instrument of U.S. foreign policy. It has no allies, it has only vassals. Once a country becomes a NATO member, it is hard to resist the pressures of the United States," he tells Stone in the documentary titled The Putin Interviews.

He says in the interview that Russia would be forced to bolster its military preparedness in response to what he called NATO "threats." The alliance has repeatedly said it poses no threat to Russia and that it is merely protecting its member states in line with the NATO charter.

In parts of the documentary released in advance, Stone appears to offer a comfortable forum to Putin, whose critics accused him of steadily curtailing civic freedoms, prosecuting political opponents, and cronyism that has enriched his friends, family, and associates.

Bloomberg, which was given the first two hourlong episodes by Showtime, noted that "the documentary avoids fact-checking Putin's remarks or interviewing opposition figures."

It also features some of Putin's trademark off-color comments, including the statement, "I am not a woman, so I don't have bad days."

"I am not trying to insult anyone. That's just the nature of things. There are certain natural cycles," Bloomberg quotes Putin as telling Stone.

Stone told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation late last month that he "liked" and "respected" Putin, whom he says has been misrepresented in the West with a "politically, ideologically driven image."

He added of Putin: "I challenged him and I teased him and I angered him, I hit every note I could."

In a trailer released by Showtime, Stone can be heard asking Putin about U.S. allegations that a Kremlin-directed hacking-and-influence campaign aimed to help President Donald Trump, who says he seeks better ties with Moscow, defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in last year's election.

"Why did you hack the election?" Stone is heard asking.

It was not immediately clear how Putin answered, though he has repeatedly denied the accusation. Last week Putin suggested Russian involvement for the first time publicly, saying "patriotic-minded" hackers might target Kremlin critics. But he insisted the government was not involved in such efforts.

With reporting by Bloomberg, TASS, and ABC.net.au

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-tells-stone- nobody-would-survive-us-hot-war/28533533.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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Plugging the Air Defense 'Gorbachev Gap': Russia's Voronezh Radar in Action

Sputnik News

21:56 07.06.2017(updated 22:10 07.06.2017)

A new Voronezh-DM radar station, part of Russia's early warning system, will enter combat duty in Krasnoyarsk region outside Yeniseysk by late 2017, according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. RIA Novosti defense contributor Andrei Kotz explains how the system will plug the air defense gap left by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

At the moment, the Krasnoyarsk Voronezh-DM complex is already operating in test mode. However, observers say its future potential is even more significant.

Reporting to the defense minister during Shoigu's visit to the region on Tuesday, Aerospace Defense Forces Commander Lt.-Gen. Alexander Golovko said that "as part of combat alert duty in 2016, [Russia's] missile warning system, specialized means of space control and anti-missile defense detected over 40 launches of foreign and domestic ballistic missiles and space rockets."

The Voronezh program is Russia's latest-generation of ground-based early warning systems. At the moment, ten Voronezh-DM (UHF) radar and Voronezh-M/-VP (VHF) radar sites are deployed, planned, or under construction, including the Yeniseysk complex.

Commenting on the special importance of the Yeniseysk system in an article for RIA Novosti, military analyst Andrei Kotz wrote that at the moment, Russia is rushing to restore and surpass its Soviet-era missile early warning capabilities.

The Yeniseysk complex is a Voronezh-DM system, works in the decimeter range, and can simultaneously track up to 500 objects at a range of up to 10,000 km. It can detect all ballistic, space-based and air-based objects up to 6,000 km over the horizon, or 8,000 km vertically, thereby covering near space. The first station of this modular radar type was introduced in 2006.

Speaking to RIA Novosti, retired air defense officer Mikhail Khodarenok explained that the Voronezh radar system is "designed to detect ballistic missiles and their warheads over the radar horizon."

"They work in automatic mode, operating according to a special program for the observation of space, and have a very high probability of detecting targets soon after launch. The information from the systems is immediately transferred to a command post near Solnechnogorsk [a town in the Moscow region]. There, the data is processed and analyzed, after which it is sent to General Headquarters, which decides what to do next. If a mass launch is discovered, the most likely decision is to launch a counter-missile or missile counterattack. The entire process takes only a matter of minutes."

Khodarenok explained that Voronezh radars are able to not only pinpoint a ballistic missile target, but also instantly calculate its flight trajectory, and the time and location where its warhead(s) will fall. In addition, the radar systems serve the valuable peacetime role of monitoring and identification of space junk, including hundreds of possibly dangerous objects, from dead satellites, to rocket boosters, and other trash.

The retired officer noted that the Russian radar operators carefully document this space junk, and add it to special catalogues to distinguish it from ICBMs entering the atmosphere. To date, only Russia and the United States have this capability.

There is also another very important point worth mentioning, Khodarenok said. "Russia has managed to do what the USSR couldn't in its own time: to create an all-aspect missile attack warning system. In the Soviet Union, up to its collapse, there was a serious gap in the northeasterly direction, which was not covered by early missile warning systems," the expert explained.

"I am referring about the northern part of the Pacific Ocean and part of Alaska. In the event of full-scale nuclear war, the missile submarines of the likely enemy would have the opportunity to stage attacks on our cities and military targets from these areas, with our systems detecting these launches too late," he added.

"This direction was supposed to be covered by a Daryal-U type radar, which was being built outside Yeniseysk. However, in 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev, succumbing to pressure from the US, suspended the project. In 1989, the project was dismantled, at 90% completion. The 'Gorbachev gap' remained open for 28 years."

Later this year, thanks to the Voronezh radar system, the gap will finally be closed for good.

 Sputnik

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Can't Hide From Kalibr: Russian Pacific Fleet Subs to Get Deadly Cruise Missile

Sputnik News

17:11 07.06.2017(updated 21:35 07.06.2017)

The Russian Defense Ministry has confirmed its intent to equip four missile attack submarines in the Pacific Fleet with Kalibr cruise missiles. Military observer Boris Rozhin told Sputnik about the Kalibr's advantages over its predecessors, and what the future holds for the missile system.

The Russian Defense Ministry intends to fit four of its Project 949A Antei (NATO codename 'Oscar') submarines in the Pacific Fleet with 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missiles, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said. One sub is already undergoing upgrades, with three more in line under the 2018-2025 state armaments program.

"The old Granit [naval anti-ship] cruise missiles will be replaced by Kalibrs, which proved themselves well, including in the Syrian conflict," Borisov said, during his visit to the Zvezda shipbuilding and engineering complex in the town of Bolshoy Kamen in Russia's Far East.

The senior officer also confirmed that other shipboard systems on the subs will be replaced, effectively turning them into 'new vessels in an old shell.'

Borisov explained that the upgrades are planned under the current and the next state armament programs. "At present, the [K-132] Irkutsk is being modernized, and will be completed in 2021; we are now discussing plans for the modernization of three more boats, under the next state armaments program for the years 2018-2025," he said.

Russia's Pacific Fleet Antei-class submarines were commissioned between 1988 and 1996.

Asked to comment on the Defense Ministry's plans, Boris Rozhin, military observer and editor-in-chief of the Kassad information-analytical center, told Radio Sputnik that the Kalibr has a number of advantages over its Granit predecessor.

"Kalibr is, in fact, the further development of the Granit missiles, which were developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, and put into service in the 1980s," Rozhin recalled.

"At around the same time [that the Granit was adopted], design work began on the creation of next-generation missiles. Today, there are a number of systems designed for use on submarines, ships and the air force. Among the advantages of the Kalibr is its high accuracy compared to the Granit, and its smaller size."

According to Rozhin, the latter feature "allows for more Kalibr missiles to be placed on a submarine than its Granit equivalentThis is a natural process in the evolution of our missile systems. New modifications of Kalibrs are being developed, as well as other promising missile systems which will replace the system in 10-15 years' time. It's looking like the Kalibr will be one of the main missiles of our armed forces in the coming years."

Promising new systems include the 3M22 Zircon naval cruise missile, a missile with hypersonic capability that's expected to replace the Granit and Onyx; experts expect the new missile to be added to Russia's arsenal sometime between 2018 and 2020.

As for the Kalibr, Rozhin emphasized that the system's impressive performance in Syria doubtlessly helped determine its fate.

"The nature of the Syrian conflict made it possible to test [Kalibr] in combat conditions, from both surface ships and submarines, starting with the launches in 2015 and ending with the recent attacks on terrorist positions in central Syria," the expert recalled.

"The launches were made from platforms including the Krasnodar [a Varshavyanka-class attack] sub, and the Admiral Essen frigate. Russia, in addition to carrying out the strategic tasks of assisting the Syrian government in the fight against terrorism, is also solving the tasks of breaking in new weapons and the modernization of the armed forces."

Accordingly, Rozhin noted that the plans to incorporate Kalibr into more and more modern submarines is an indication that the system's combat experience has been successful. "Granit will gradually fade out. The system served well, but new realities of war require more advanced systems. Kalibr solves these tasks, for the moment," the observer concluded.

 Sputnik

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Aviation Unit in Crimea to Get Newest Helicopters During 2017

Sputnik News

16:31 07.06.2017

The aviation unit of the 4th Air and Air Defense army's aviation, deployed in Crimea will get the newest Mi-35 attack and transport helicopters, according to spokesman of Russia's Southern Military District Col. Vadim Astafyev.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  An aviation unit deployed in Crimea will receive new Mi-35 attack helicopters in the near future and will be fully equipped with modern helicopters by the end of 2017, spokesman of Russia's Southern Military District Col. Vadim Astafyev said Wednesday.

"The aviation unit of the 4th Air and Air Defense army's aviation, deployed in Crimea will get the newest Mi-35 attack and transport helicopters. The unit of the army aviation is set to be 100 percent provided with the newest samples of aviation equipment in 2017," Astafyev said.

Astafyev noted that Commander of Russia's Southern Military District Col. Gen. Alexander Dvornikov had previously checked if there was a sufficient number of attack and transport helicopters, and assessed the capacity of the helicopters in service, which included, among others, the Mi-28NE combat helicopter, Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopter and Mi-8 helicopters.

The goal of Dvornikov's trip to the Crimean aviation unit was to check the operational readiness of the Black Sea Fleet and 4th Air and Air Defense army, according to Astafyev.

Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014, after 97 percent of Crimean residents supported the reunification at a regional referendum. Kiev and the West, however, have refused to recognize the results of the referendum.

 Sputnik

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Kremlin Distrustful Over NATO Expansion, Taking Measures to Protect Security

Sputnik News

14:53 08.06.2017(updated 16:39 08.06.2017)

Russia is distrustful and concerned over NATO's eastward expansion and is taking all measures to protect its own security and rebalance the situation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Relations between NATO and Russia have deteriorated since 2014 against the background of the Ukrainian crisis and Crimea's reunification with Russia. During this time, NATO decided to suspend projects of practical civilian and military cooperation with Moscow, but maintained channels of political dialogue.

Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations of involvement in Ukraine, as they are not supported by factual evidence. Russia has also warned that amassing troops and military equipment on its borders is a provocation, violates past NATO pledges, and can lead to regional and global destabilization.

"Moscow traditionally treats the process of NATO expansion toward our borders with distrust and concern. We believe that this threatens our security and the balance of forces in the Eurasian region. Of course, the Russian side is taking all measures necessary to rebalance the situation and protect its own interests and security," Peskov told reporters.

It is not up to Russia to decide on Ukraine's chances to join NATO, Peskov noted when asked the respective question, and stressed that Ukraine was in the state of a civil war.

Since the beginning of Ukrainian crisis, the organization has also been boosting its military presence in Eastern Europe. During July 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw, allies agreed to deploy four multinational battalions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

 Sputnik

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Trump faces growing Senate resistance on Saudi arms deal

Iran Press TV

Thu Jun 8, 2017 2:44PM

US Senators are seeking to block at least a portion of US President Donald Trump's massive sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, amid fresh disputes among Persian Gulf nations.

"I think, if you were to ask the general public, should we be at war in Yemen or supporting war in Yemen, I think most people would say, 'where?'" Republican Senator Rand Paul told the POLITICO on Thursday. "I think there should be a valid debate on it."

Paul said that he expected to draw the majority of Democrats as well as a handful of Republicans for a vote, adding that he believes "the general public is with us."

Paul and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Al Franken introduced a resolution of disapproval in the Senate last month to force a vote on whether to block about $500 million of the $110 billion arms deal negotiated in Riyadh on May 20.

Earlier, Paul had said that he opposes the arms deal because Riyadh supports terror groups and could use the weapons in the war against Yemen.

"We need to send the Saudis a message that they need to get serious about the humanitarian nightmare inside Yemen," said Murphy, on Tuesday at a meeting to boost support for blocking the Trump sales.

"Unfortunately, the administration has not used these weapons sales to apply that conditionality. But a strong message from the US Senate that they don't have a blank check from the Congress would be very important."

Trump has said he wants to encourage international weapons sales as a way to create jobs in the United States.

On Tuesday, Trump tweeted that his recent visit to the region prompted Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and several other countries to cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of funding radical terrorist groups.

"During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology," Trump tweeted. "Leaders pointed to Qatar  look!"

Saudi Arabia has long had a dispute with Qatar, but the tensions intensified last month when Qatar's state-run news agency released comments attributed to the Qatari emir in which he described Iran as a force for stability and accused the Saudis of promoting extremism.

Since 2011, the Saudi regime has also been sponsoring Takfiri terrorists fighting against the Syrian government, which has left hundreds of thousands people dead and millions more displaced.

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Syrian Army's Allies Threaten US With Retaliatory Strike After Tuesday Attack

Sputnik News

18:11 07.06.2017(updated 22:25 07.06.2017)

An operational headquarters of the allied forces of the Syrian government army, which includes the forces of Lebanon's Hezbollah as well as Iran, has threatened the US-led coalition with a retaliatory strike following the latest coalition attack on Damascus positions.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik)  The US-led international coalition fighting Daesh terrorists in Syria announced on Tuesday that it had launched a strike on the Syrian pro-government forces as they had entered an established US-Russian de-confliction zone near the town of al-Tanf. A well-informed source told Sputnik on Tuesday that at least two Syrian army servicemen were killed and more than 15 were injured as a result of the attack.

"The blood of the sons of Syria, the Syrian Arab army and its allies is not cheap, and we have capabilities to attack their [US] positions in Syria and surroundings if it is necessary, taking into account the availability of rocket and different military launchers," the headquarters said in a statement.

The Syrian allies called the US actions "a coward aggression" and accused Washington of "hypocrisy" in its fight against terrorism.

The fact that the retaliatory actions have not been carried out yet was explained by the allied forces as their self-control, but they added that the response will take place if the coalition crosses "red lines."

The previous strike on the Syrian government forces was conducted by the US-led coalition on May 18. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov characterized the strikes as illegal and carried out in violation of Syria's sovereignty.

 Sputnik

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Battle for Raqqa Pits US-backed Kurds Against Syrian Government-backed Militias

By Edward Yeranian June 07, 2017

U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG militia forces chanted as they advanced toward the northern outskirts of the Islamic State-held town of Raqqa in northern Syria, attempting to set foot inside the city and dislodge the militant group from its so-called capital.

The U.S. envoy to the anti-IS coalition, Brett McGurk, said Wednesday in Baghdad that the battle for Raqqa would "only escalate," as the group loses control of its northern Iraqi stronghold of Mosul. He added that the fight for Raqqa would be a "difficult and very long-term battle."

McGurk made the comment one day after Kurdish YPG spokesman Talal Selo announced the start of the campaign to liberate Raqqa, while surrounded by militia fighters in a northern suburb of the city. He also thanked the U.S.-led coalition and President Donald Trump for helping his forces. Arab media showed video of what it said were skirmishes against Islamic State forces Tuesday.

Kurdish YPG media also showed video of its forces lowering an IS flag from a telephone pole in an area somewhere close to the city. Additionally, it broadcast video of Kurdish fighters welcoming refugee women and children who appeared to be fleeing the city.

The U.S.-led coalition thinks there are about 3,000 to 4,000 IS fighters holed up inside Raqqa. The Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper warned Wednesday that some sources thought the group was holding many residents inside the city as hostages.

Control on three sides

Kurdish commander Mohammed Hijazi told Arab media that YPG forces and their allies controlled the north, east and west of Raqqa, but not the south. Syrian government media have warned that its forces will not allow IS fighters to escape Raqqa toward the south, where it controls the nearby historic oasis town of Palmyra, recaptured from IS in March. Russian and Syrian government planes have bombed the outskirts of Palmyra repeatedly in recent weeks to prevent IS forces from approaching the city.

Arab media also reported that Shi'ite militia allies of the Syrian government were trying to advance in the direction of Raqqa from areas surrounding the government-held town of Hasaka to the east of Raqqa. Some reports also said that Iraqi Shi'ite volunteer militiamen were trying to enter Syria from areas of northern Iraq.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said in a news conference late Tuesday, however, that Iraqi government military forces were trying to secure the border with Syria but had no plans to enter its western neighbor. He maintained that "no Iraqi security force, whatsoever, will cross the border into Syria."

It was not clear how many militia and military forces the Syrian government controlled in the northeastern Kurdish region of Syria. Syrian government forces have also reportedly made territorial gains further south, in and around the desert town of Deir ez-Zor. The Islamic State group holds chunks of territory in and around Deir ez-Zor as well.

Jockeying for position

The region of northern and eastern Syria remains complicated, as Syrian government forces, Kurdish YPG forces and IS jockey for position. Each appears to have territorial aims, while the ethnic and sectarian populations of many northern and eastern Syrian towns do not always correspond with the forces that control them.

Iran, which backs many of the Shi'ite militias supporting the government of Assad, also is hoping to capture and maintain a land link between Tehran and the Mediterranean Sea, going through parts of Syria. The U.S. and its coalition allies say that they are trying to prevent that from happening.

Neighboring Turkey, which controls several chunks of Syrian territory north of Aleppo, has its own regional ambitions, along with a long-standing animosity to the Kurdish YPG militia. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yilderim expressed irritation with the U.S. for supporting the YPG in a recent speech. He said the operation to capture Raqqa was going on with the U.S. supporting terrorist groups, despite a warning from Ankara about them.

Syrian government media have reported heavy fighting around the southern city of Daraa and in the region around Deir ez-Zor since Monday. Kurdish YPG forces do not appear to have made any significant advances around Raqqa, though.

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President Tsai urges continued U.S. defense assistance to Taiwan

ROC Central News Agency

2017/06/07 20:49:08

Taipei, June 7 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen () said Wednesday that she hoped the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump will provide defense assistance for Taiwan based on the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the Six Assurances.

During a meeting with a delegation from a U.S. think tank, Tsai noted that the TRA has been in place for 38 years and has provided a legal framework for the development of relations between Taiwan and the U.S.

"On that strong basis, we look forward to working with the Trump administration to advance the partnership between the two sides in areas such as regional security cooperation, deeper economic exchanges and stronger mutual trust," she told the delegation from the National Bureau of Asian Research.

On the issue of security cooperation, Tsai said Taiwan and the U.S. share the common goal of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the region.

Taiwan will continue its efforts to procure defensive weapons from the U.S. while at the same time developing its own defense industry, she said.

"We hope the Trump administration will provide assistance based on the TRA and the Six Assurances," she said.

Tsai said Taiwan will also strive to play a more active role in regional and global security and to be a reliable partner of the U.S. in this regard.

In addition to security and economic cooperation, Taiwan hopes to strengthen exchanges with the U.S. in the areas of anti-terrorism, public health, digital economy, humanitarian assistance and the empowerment of women, the president said.

Tsai thanked the U.S. think tank for its long-time support of Taiwan and expressed gratitude to Samuel Locklear, a retired admiral who was a member of the delegation, for his efforts to strengthen military exchanges between Taiwan and the U.S. during his tenure as commander of the U.S. Pacific Command.

The TRA was enacted in 1979 by the U.S. Congress to maintain commercial, cultural and other unofficial relations between the U.S. and Taiwan after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The act also requires the U.S. "to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character."

The Six Assurances given to Taiwan in 1982 by then U.S. President Ronald Reagan include pledges by the U.S. not to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan, not to hold prior consultations with China regarding arms sales to Taiwan, and not to play a mediation role between Taiwan and China.

They also include assurances that the U.S. will not revise the TRA, alter its position regarding Taiwan's sovereignty, or pressure Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China.

(By Elaine Hou and Lu Hsin-hui)

ENDITEM/pc



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Taiwan's defense advantages declining: Pentagon report

ROC Central News Agency

2017/06/07 20:24:08

Washington, June 7 (CNA) China's decades of military modernization has eroded many of Taiwan's historical advantages in deterring People's Liberation Army (PLA) aggression, the U.S. Department of Defense said in an annual report to Congress on military and security developments involving China.

Those historical advantages include the Taiwan military's technological superiority, the geographic advantages of island defense, and the PLA's inability to project sufficient power across the Taiwan Strait, according to the report that was released Tuesday.

"Although Taiwan is taking important steps to build its war reserve stocks, grow its defense-industrial base, improve joint operations and crisis response capabilities, and strengthen its officer and non-commissioned officer corps, these improvements only partially address Taiwan's declining defensive advantages," the report said.

Taiwan plans to transition to an all-volunteer force by 2019, but the transition has slowed due to "severe difficulties" in recruiting enough volunteers, the report said.

According to the report, China's military budget grew at an average of 8.5 percent per year from 2007 through 2016, and has grown to roughly 14 times that of Taiwan's, which remains at around 2 percent of its gross domestic product.

According to the report, the PLA is capable of accomplishing various amphibious operations short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.

China could invade Taiwan-held islands in the South China Sea, such as Dongsha or Taiping islands, or medium-sized islands such as Kinmen or Matsu, according to the report.

But such military operations would involve "significant, and possibly prohibitive, political risk because it could galvanize pro-independence sentiment on Taiwan and generate international opposition," the report said.

In the report, the department reconfirmed that the U.S. maintains a one-China policy that is based on the three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).

"The United States opposes any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by either side and does not support Taiwan independence," the report said.

Meanwhile, China has continued with shore-based infrastructure construction in the South China Sea.

As of late 2016, China was constructing 24 fighter-sized hangars, fixed-weapons positions, barracks, administration buildings, and communication facilities at each of three outposts -- Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs.

"Once all these facilities are complete, China will have the capacity to house up to three regiments of fighters in the Spratly Islands," the report said.

(By Rita Cheng and Christie Chen)

ENDITEM/J

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Turkey parliament approves troop deployment to Qatar

Iran Press TV

Wed Jun 7, 2017 6:26PM

Turkey's parliament approves a measure to deploy troops to a Turkish military base in Qatar amid a widening rift between the Arab country and neighbors in the Persian Gulf region.

The parliament approved the deployment on Wednesday with 240 lawmakers in favor, most of them from the ruling party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The deployment had been drafted before a spat surfaced between Qatar and three main allies in the Persian Gulf, namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The three countries, plus Egypt and the Maldives, have cut ties with Doha over what they call Qatar's support for terrorism. Qatar has denied the allegation.

However, the debate on the legislation was moved up the agenda of the Turkish parliament while a separate bill was introduced to the chamber on increased military cooperation between Turkey and Qatar.

Turkey, which initially moved to mediate between the Arab countries, has declared its support for Qatar, rejecting claims that the country is financing terrorism.

Erdogan said on Tuesday that Qatar was a leading force in the regional fight against terror and criticized others for pursuing the policy of isolating the oil-rich country. He even hailed Qatar for a "cool-headed and constructive" stance in dealing with regional issues.

The vote in the Turkish parliament on Wednesday would be a fresh sign that Turkey is supporting Qatar in the dispute with the Saudis and allies.

Erdogan and other Turkish officials have said that they will continue efforts to resolve the dispute.

Turkey and Qatar signed an agreement in 2014 which allowed the construction of a Turkish base in Qatar. Officials say up to 3,000 Turkish troops could be deployed in Qatar as part of Ankara's program to increase its military cooperation with Doha.

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Crimean Tatar Leader Umerov Goes On Trial On Separatism Charge

Crimean Desk, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service June 07, 2017

SIMFEROPOL -- A Crimean Tatar leader who has criticized Russia's seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine has gone on trial on June 7.

Russian authorities who control Crimea have charged Ilmi Umerov -- deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, the Mejlis, which was banned by Moscow -- with separatism.

Umerov was charged in May 2016, after he made public statements opposing Russia's armed takeover of Crimea in March 2014. He denies the charges, saying he has the right to express his opinions freely.

The 59-year-old is one of several critics of the takeover who have faced what rights activists say are politically motivated criminal charges at the hands of the Russian state.

Dozens of relatives and supporters came to the courthouse in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, in hopes of attending the trial.

Authorities allowed only about 15 spectators into the courtroom, citing space concerns.

Aleksandr Podrabinek, a well-known Soviet-era dissident and journalist, came from Moscow to help defend Umerov.

Umerov's lawyer, Mark Feigin, told RFE/RL on June 7 that it was likely to be a lengthy trial. He said that, despite health problems, his client wanted an open trial so that he can speak publicly about the problems faced by Crimean Tatars under Moscow's rule.

In August 2016, Umerov was forcibly sent to a psychiatric clinic for a month of assessment tests.

The Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center has called the case against Umerov "illegal and politically motivated."

Mejlis Chairman Refat Chubarov has called the case against Umerov part of a campaign of persecution by the Russia-installed authorities against Crimean Tatars.

Russia took control of Crimea after sending in troops and staging a referendum considered by most countries worldwide as illegitimate.

After the takeover, Russia adopted a law making it a criminal offense to question Russia's territorial integrity within what the government considers its borders.

The majority of Crimean Tatars opposed the annexation, and human rights organizations say members of the Muslim minority group have faced a campaign of abuse and oppression under Russian rule.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-crimean- tatar-separatism-trial/28533650.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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Thales opens a new cybersecurity training centre in Belgium

June 2017 by Marc Jacob

Thales is inaugurating a new Cyberlab today in Tubize, in the south of the Brussels region, in the presence of Jean-Claude Marcourt, Vice President of the Walloon Government, Minister of Economy, Industry, Innovation and New Technologies. Unique in Belgium, this centre now allows the networks and information systems of businesses and public bodies to be realistically replicated in order to prepare them for cyberattacks.

Its use is also intended to educate students and enhance the training of cybersecurity specialists. In 2017, Thales plans to recruit approximately 400 employees worldwide in the cybersecurity field. In Belgium, 50 recruitments are planned in the next four years to support the rapid development of the activity.

In the heart of the ecosystem of institutions located in Belgium, the Tubize Cyberlab is part of the total offer of information system security of Thales, a European leader in cybersecurity and global leader in data protection. It meets the growing need of businesses, operators of essential services and public institutions faced with the rise in cyberthreats.

As the recent worldwide cyberattack WannaCry, which affected in particular the operational function of essential services like hospitals or rail transport, illustrates, administrations and businesses must prepare and train themselves to ensure the security of their information systems and protect their data. With this new Cyberlab, Thales can reproduce the information networks of an organisation, thanks to a dedicated platform, to test its resistance to the latest forms of cyberattacks.

The platform offers three applications:

 validation of the level of security of the information system architectures and data of our clients;

 training of cybersecurity specialists in an environment representative of real systems;

 support for Belgian businesses in developing products incorporating cybersecurity in their design (secure by design) and submitting them to the most demanding tests of cybersecurity.

Furthermore, this platform will contribute to the research and development activities of Thales in cybersecurity in Belgium.

It is estimated moreover that there will be a shortage of approximately 2000 cybersecurity experts in Belgium by 2020. This is why Thales has also decided to boost its support for the Master in Cybersecurity  by opening its Tubize Cyberlab to it. This programme, the first of its kind created in Belgium, will be able to make use of the platform to put students in realistic attack conditions and so enhance their ability to handle them.

To develop this Cyberlab, Thales called on the Diateam company, a supplier of resources of this type for over fifteen years.

Jean-Claude MARCOURT, Vice President of the Government, Minister of Economy, New Technologies and Higher Education, stresses the crucial importance of having an integrated policy in cybersecurity: "Today we must provide the means to guarantee the security of sensitive data as well as that of property and people.

After having launched a unique master in cybersecurity in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, we are pleased to see the European leader in cybersecurity and the global leader in data protection expanding in Wallonia. In addition to a role in training specialists and supporting businesses, the platform inaugurated today will contribute to research and development activities in cybersecurity, factors that can contribute to developing our digital ecosystem."

Recruitment and training in cybersecurity

In 2017, Thales plans to recruit approximately 400 employees worldwide in the field of cybersecurity.

The fast-growing market (+10% annually on average) provides an ongoing need for new specialists. Thales is endeavouring to bring academia and industry together to train the professionals of tomorrow.

Thales in Belgium

Thales has operated in Belgium for over 50 years and is active in the areas of Defence, Security, Space and Transport. Thales employs more than 800 people distributed over seven sites in Brussels, Charleroi, Genk, Herstal, Leuven, Hasselt and Tubize.

In Belgium, Thales supports operators of essential services (energy, transport, telecommunications operators, the banking sector, water distribution) in dealing with cyberthreats. The company makes its best engineers in this area available to its clients to provide encryption solutions and cybersecurity services.

Key points

 Unique in Belgium, the Tubize Cyberlab allows the networks of an organisation to be reproduced in order to test its resistance to cyberattacks.

 The platform provides an environment representative of real systems to educate students and train specialists in cybersecurity.

 Thales is contributing to the Master in Cybersecurity to help train the best experts in the sector and so meet the need for approximately 2000 experts in Belgium by 2020.
The city is consulting with architects to determine the amount of work needed for the next phase of the Riverfront Park project.

We are in the process of working with the architect to define the scope of the work for the next phase, what that encompasses and what the cost for that is, said Danville Parks and Recreation Director Bill Sgrinia.

The next step would be engineering, which would include soil testing at the site, flood plain modeling and getting into the details of how it would be graded and constructed, Sgrinia said.

A cascading water wall, steps and lawn terraces facing the Dan River, an oval lawn large enough to throw a Frisbee, hold a community concert, host a Flag Day event or stage food truck rodeos are all part of a vision for the park.

It was proposed by a design firm  DHM Design Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina  hired by the city. It would be located on four acres at Memorial Drive and Main Street between the White Mill building and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge.

DHM presented the conceptual plan during a Danville City Council special work session in March.

The plans also call for highlighting the architecture of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge.

Sgrinia said he is not sure when the engineering phase would begin. It would take about four or five months, he said.

A proposed whitewater park is being worked on. It is separate from  but in conjunction with  the park project, Sgrinia said.

As of now, everything proposed by DHM will likely be included in the park, Sgrinia said.

The proposed park would include possible lighting of the bridge extending the parks effect across the Dan River to attract visitors to the space, according to the plan.

A trail extension cutting across the parks northern boundary would connect at the parking area and trailhead at Main Street Plaza, according to the plan.

The promenade  on the side that would face the river  would fall away into a series of concrete steps allowing users to sit close and touch the water, according to plans.

A proposed multi-age play place, a kayak/canoe put-in and a small parking area would be at the western end of the park.

The main entry to the plaza would be located at the intersection of Main Street and Memorial Drive, according to the plan.

Brick pavers would visually connect the entrance to the existing brick crosswalks into the site and decorative bollards protect pedestrians from vehicles. From the entry, the visitor would have three options to choose from: small seating nooks and landscaped area to the right; down the steps to the splash pad in the center; or the accessible ramp to a sprayground and playground beyond on the left, according to the plan.

The conceptual plan also calls for space for an artistic shelter to provide shade and interest to the park. Either side of the water wall would be the curvilinear turf steps that invite visitors to relax, read a book, or people-watch activity on the lawn.

Playground and climbing boulders also would be included.

As for the parking area and water access, a small parking area would provide 10 parking spaces, including two accessible spaces as well as a small drop-off area.

An analysis of conditions at the site also found:

 The nearby existing (White Mill) dam plays a major role in the overall park experience by providing both an audio and visual element as well as having significant impact on the water levels of the site;

 Viewsheds into and out of the park are important items to consider given the topography and major entryway into the downtown Danville area;

 The streambank continues to erode due to the lack of riparian vegetation and fluctuating river currents;

 The Riverwalk greenway trailheads at the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge and there is an existing easement dedicated to its expansion through the park;

 The park plays a role in providing sidewalk connections on its perimeter;

 The recently renovated Main Street Plaza and comfort station provide much needed public facilities and a pedestrian-friendly connection point to the park.

In early 2016, Danville, led by the parks and recreation department, solicited firms for a Riverfront Park plan.

Public workshops were held in the summer and fall presenting conditions at the site and seeking public input on what they wanted in a park.

A short survey was handed out during the summer, as well as a link to a digital version of the questionnaire in order to get public feedback as for three weeks after the event.

DHM received about 275 responses to the survey, including many written responses describing what people wanted for the park.

About 50 people attended the fall workshop held in November, where they chose among two possible park concepts. About 90 participants also completed a survey choosing among the two concepts while including elements from the other concept.
RALEIGH, N.C.  Little has been known about an SBI investigation into the Rockingham County district attorneys office until a search warrant became public Tuesday morning.

The 25-page warrant, which was sealed for 90 days starting March 8, gives lengthy details of a district attorneys wife who allegedly collected $48,000 in pay from the state while enrolled full time in a nursing program.

Since July 25, 2016, the offices of former Rockingham County District Attorney Craig Blitzer and former Person/Caswell District Attorney Wallace Bradsher have faced scrutiny by the State Bureau of Investigation after both men were accused of putting each others wives on their payrolls, resulting in more than $100,000 in combined and unearned annual salaries.

That scrutiny has been fueled by a whistleblower lawsuit filed by Debra Halbrook, a former employee in the Caswell County district attorneys office, that alleges Bradsher fired her for reporting him to the SBI.

The newly released search warrant paints a vivid picture of the work SBI agents did to build their case to the point where they could justify asking a judge to approve a search of Blitzers office.

Much of their investigation clearly was centered on the whereabouts of Blitzers wife, Cindy, who was working for Bradsher.

In a twist to what has previously been reported, the documents revealed that Halbrook wasnt the first person to report their concerns to authorities.

According to the search warrant, Rockingham County Assistant District Attorney Jason Ramey spoke with SBI agents on April 6, 2016, with suspicions that his bosss wife, Cindy Blitzer, was collecting a paycheck as an investigator in Caswell County while enrolled full time in a nursing program at South University in High Point.

The allegation sparked an investigation by SBI agents to determine whether Rameys concerns were valid.

Ramey did not return a call Tuesday requesting comment. Neither did Joe Zeszotarski, an attorney representing Cindy Blitzer.

Halbrook went to the SBI a little more than a month after Ramey, alleging that Blitzer had worked sparingly during her time in the Caswell County district attorneys office.

The search warrant reveals that Halbrook had a vested interest in Blitzers employment because she was hired to relieve Halbrook of some of her duties. Several of Halbrooks colleagues confirmed to SBI agents that Blitzer, who began the job on Jan. 13, 2015, worked 12 days or less during the first six months of her nearly two-year employment.

On July 29, 2016, agents gathered Blitzers time cards from the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts and learned that since Jan. 1, 2015, she had recorded, with few exceptions, working eight hours a day.

According to the search warrant, however, Special Agent D.W. Mayes at one point spent 21 days monitoring the South University parking lot looking for Blitzers car.

He spotted it 14 out of 21 days.

Blitzer was seen as well.

Later, South University nursing professor Sandra Lynn Blackstock confirmed to SBI agents that Blitzer was a student in a 14-month nursing program. The professor added that she spent Tuesdays from 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. performing clinicals at Adams Farm Nursing Home.

Blackstock said Blitzers attendance was only affected when child care issues arose.

The search warrant yielded yet another revelation: Assistant District Attorney Spencer Morrow told SBI agents that Craig Blitzer asked him to take an online algebra class for his wife. He did so in exchange for a cake and a $50 gift card to LongHorn Steakhouse.

After Morrow completed the first-year algebra course, Cindy Blitzer began two weeks of an algebra II class before her husband asked another employee in his office, Kyle Ambrose, to finish it.

Morrow told SBI agents that those courses were completed before Cindy Blitzers admission into the nursing program.

The search warrant also says an office was set up for Blitzer in Rockingham where she worked for her husband as a legal assistant. Bradsher claims she worked there, despite being on his payroll. Several Rockingham employees told authorities they rarely saw her.

District Judge John J. Stultz  a former Caswell County chief assistant district attorney  has been under investigation for approving Blitzers time cards while he had the ADA job. Stultz told SBI agents that he believed she was working for Bradsher in Rockingham County.

After roughly eight months, SBI agents used this information to apply for a search warrant to raid the Rockingham County district attorneys office and seize the computer used by Cindy Blitzer.

Agents told Judge A. Graham Shirley they felt it would take weeks of analysis to find what they were looking for, including hidden and deleted files.

Shirley granted the request March 8.

Craig Blitzer resigned as Rockingham Countys district attorney two days later.
To the editor:

Vote for Corey Stewart in the June 13 Republican primary for governor; the reasons are below!

Stewart is best known for implementing the nations toughest crackdown on illegal immigration, resulting in Prince William County turning over approximately 8,000 criminal illegal immigrants to the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, leading to a 48.7 percent drop in violent crime. He is a strong supporter of the Second Amendment.

Under his leadership, Prince William County has kept taxes and spending low, leading to $205 million in savings for Prince William residents. During his tenure, the county was upgraded to an AAA bond rating status  one of only 36 such jurisdictions in the nation. He led the county to be ranked the No. 1 locality in job growth in Virginia and the No. 3 locality for job growth in the nation.

He successfully navigated the passage of the largest tax cut in the history of the county, leading to a 30 percent lower tax bill than any other county in Northern Virginia. And, small business is a priority for him  cutting in half the time to permit a business.

He was tapped by Donald Trump to lead his campaign in Virginia and was the first and only Republican gubernatorial candidate to support Trump before the GOP national convention.

He received his bachelors degree from Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service, and he was the first member of his family to graduate from college. Corey then earned his law degree from William Mitchell College of Law in Saint Paul, Minn., where he graduated magna cum laude. He now works as an international trade attorney with his own practice.

He and his wife of 20 years, Maria, live in Woodbridge with their two sons, Isaac and Luke. He is 100 percent pro-life, and he and his family are parishioners at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Woodbridge.

TOMMY GODDARD

Danville
Vancouver, June 8, 2017 - Harvest Gold Corp. (TSX.V: HVG) ("Harvest Gold" or the "Company") and Evrim Resources Corp. (TSX.V: EVM) ("Evrim") are pleased to announce that they have entered into an Option Agreement whereby Harvest Gold can earn up to an 80% interest in the high grade Cerro Cascaron gold/silver project in Mexico. The project covers 69 square kilometers in an historic Colonial-era mining district in the prolific Sierra Madre Occidental precious metals belt of western Chihuahua State, Mexico (Figure 1).

The Cerro Cascaron property hosts a low to intermediate sulfidation epithermal gold bearing system and includes a high-grade gold vein field measuring approximately 20 square kilometers in area on the eastern third of the property. Veining has been mapped over 900 vertical metres, with classic textural evidence of hydrothermal boiling accompanying the highest gold grades. This boiling zone has been established in the upper 380 metres of the vein field. Beneath the boiling zones, silver and base metal rich veins and breccias provide additional exploration targets.

The property also contains a substantial silver rich breccia target (La Cascarita) located five kilometers west of the currently defined gold field. Much of Cerro Cascaron is yet to explored

Harvest Gold's' President and CEO Rick Mark states: "After an extensive eight-month search for a project we believe offers tremendous upside to our shareholders, we are pleased to announce the option to acquire Cerro Cascaron in the Sierra Madre Occidental belt in Mexico. Cerro Cascaron has the classic characteristics we believe the market will value: it has drill ready, high grade gold and silver targets; it has district-scale potential; it is in a mining friendly jurisdiction: and, it is situated in a world class mineral belt. Finally, Cerro Cascaron is undrilled."

Mark further states: "Key to a successful option/JV agreement is a solid and open relationship. Our partner Evrim Resources has been excellent to work with in reaching this deal. Their team has years of market experience, knows the local environment well, is technically strong and are excellent operators. Their work in discovering and doing initial exploration at Cerro Cascaron is to our great advantage. I want to thank their CEO Paddy Nicol for his focus and fairness in the past two months in getting this deal done. We look forward to advancing Cerro Cascaron together."

About the Cerro Cascaron Project

Cerro Cascaron's setting and mineralization is similar to many epithermal deposits in the Sierra Madre Occidental, including Fresnillo Plc's La Cienega Mine in Durango, Goldcorp's past producing El Sauzal gold mine and further south, First Majestic's San Martin de Bolanos silver mine in Jalisco State). The property is approximately 55 kilometers southeast of Goldcorp Inc.'s past-producing El Sauzal gold mine and is one of the few unexplored and undrilled opportunities in the region.



Click Image To View Full Size

Highlights of Evrim's Exploration Programs

-Veining has been mapped over 900 vertical metres, with classic textural evidence of hydrothermal boiling accompanying the highest gold grades.

-Fourteen structurally-controlled epithermal gold-silver veins identified with strike lengths ranging from 70 to 1,980 metres and a cumulative strike length of over 11 kilometres delineated to date

-Rock chip samples grade from <0.005 grams per tonne gold ("g/t") to 1,670 g/t gold in the upper part of the system*

-The lower part of the system is characterized by silver and base metal rich veins with rock chip samples grading from <0.5 g/t to 599 g/t silver*

-Mapping has defined competent quartz veins up to 1.5 metres wide and quartz breccia veins/quartz healed faults and stockwork zones up to 25 metres wide

-Tourmaline rich breccias and veins with high grade gold values from 0.565 g/t to 39.7 g/t gold are present at the lowest elevations

-Channel samples collected perpendicular to strike have returned grades of 19 g/t gold and 72.6 g/t silver over 0.8 metres within 2.6 metres grading 6.05 g/t gold and 28.3 g/t silver at the San Pedro vein, and 45 metres north along the vein, 10.5 g/t gold and 46.4 g/t silver over 0.9 metres within 4.3 metres grading 2.22 g/t gold and 10.9 g/t silver

-Five kilometers to the west, the La Cascarita prospect contains intermediate sulphidation silver dominant veins and breccias up to three metres wide and range from 0.46 to a maximum of 982 g/t silver.

*Readers are cautioned that rock chip samples are selected samples and are not necessarily representative of the mineralization hosted on the property. Readers should refer to Evrim' s press releases dated June 8 and August 17, 2016 for a full description of their exploration results.

Mapping to date has focused within the vein field and contains multiple north-south trending veins including the Serpiente Dorada, San Pedro, Julietta and Carabino veins. These north/south trending veins are cut by east-west and northeast-southwest trending structures. The upper levels of the veining occur at the contact between the Upper and Lower Volcanic Sequence.

Alain Charest, Evrim Resources' Vice President Exploration, Mexico, said: "The Cerro Cascaron project continues to impress with high grade gold and silver systems spread over large areas on the project. The channel sampling program has provided drill targets at San Pedro and Carabina, confirmed our understanding of the controls on high grade epithermal mineralization, and increased the cumulative strike length of the vein system. Sample results from the newly-recognized high-grade silver La Cascarita prospect demonstrates the district scale of the project with most of the property yet to be explored."



Click Image To View Full Size

Phase 1 Exploration Plans

A fully funded Phase 1 Field Program developed by Harvest Gold and Evrim is scheduled to begin shortly and will require approximately two months with a budget of approximately $225,000. Evrim' s knowledgeable and experienced field crews will operate this program. The program will include the opening of two historic adits, detailed mapping, sampling and prospecting on the main vein field, La Cascarita, and a well altered and currently unexplored eastern extension of the vein field that lies across a river valley. The object of the Phase 1 program is to provide multiple drill targets for a minimum 3,000 metre diamond drill program in the fall of 2017.

About the Cerro Cascaron Option Agreement

Under the terms of the Agreement, which is subject to TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX.V") approval, Harvest can earn an initial 70% interest (the "Initial Interest") in the Cerro Cascaron project by incurring $6 million in exploration expenditures, making $900,000 in cash payments and issuing 2,000,000 shares to Evrim over a four year period. Evrim will be the operator during the Initial Interest period.

Time Exploration (CDN) Cash (CDN) Shares TSX.V Approval - - 1,000,000* End of Y1 $1.0 million $200,000 - End of Y2 $1.0 million $100,000 - End of Y3 $2.0 million $100,000 - End of Y4 $2.0 million $500,000 1,000,000** TOTAL $6.0 million $900,000 2,000,000

* subject to a 12 month hold period and Harvest retains the right to repurchase the shares at a greater of the 20 day volume weighted average price or the issue price at the end of year one.

** Harvest will issue the greater of 1,000,000 shares or 1% of the issued and outstanding shares of Harvest.

Once Harvest has earned its Initial Interest it will have a 90 day period during which it can elect to earn an additional 10% ("Additional Interest") for an aggregate 80% interest in the Project. To earn the additional 10% interest Harvest has to make a cash payment of $200,000 (or 200,000 shares at Evrim's election) and fund a 43-101 compliant feasibility study ("Feasibility Study") over a five year period. Minimum annual exploration expenditures of $2.0 million are required during this period and a $200,000 cash payment has to be made to Evrim if the minimum expenditures are not met.

During the Initial Interest period, Harvest can defer exploration expenditures at the end of the first, second or third anniversary for 12 months by making quarterly cash payments of $25,000 to Evrim and maintaining all other cash payments and claim maintenance costs.

If Evrim's interest in Cerro Cascaron is diluted to 10% or less, its interest will convert into a 2% net smelter royalty ("NSR"). Evrim will retain the right to purchase half of a pre-existing 2% NSR from a property vendor for US$2.5 million.

Harvest will also be responsible for all other claim maintenance and underlying vendor costs.

Detailed information on the Cerro Cascaron project, including detailed maps are available at the Company's website www.harvestgoldcorp.com.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

Mr. Warren Bates, P. Geo (APGO#0211), the Company's Director of Property Investigation, is the Qualified Person for this press release for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical information herein. Evrim Resources has advised that their quality control procedure is as follows: Samples were delivered to ALS Global in Hermosillo, Sonora for sample preparation and to the ALS laboratory in North Vancouver for analysis. The Hermosillo facility has ISO 9001:2008 certification while the North Vancouver facility has ISO/IE 17025:2005 certification. Blank samples were inserted into the sample sequence for all channel samples with noted visible gold with no indications of contamination. Samples were assayed for gold by 30 gram fire assay and multi-element analysis by aqua regia and four-acid ICP analysis. Selected samples with coarse or visible gold were re-analyzed by 50 gram screen metallic assay.

About Harvest Gold

Harvest Gold is a gold and silver focused mineral exploration company with an experienced board of directors and management whose collective geological and financing experience exceeds 200 years. Harvest currently holds three fully registered mineral concessions on properties in the Republic of Suriname: the Goliat-Tibiti, Gonini River and Oelemari concessions.

About Evrim Resources

Evrim Resources is a mineral exploration company whose goal is to participate in significant exploration discoveries supported by a sustainable business model. The Company is well financed, has a diverse range of quality projects and a database in Mexico and portions of southwestern United States. The existing projects, and generation of quality exploration targets and ideas, are advanced through option and joint venture agreements with industry partners to create shareholder value. Evrim's business plan also includes royalty creation utilizing the Company's exploration expertise and existing projects.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Joel Matheson,

Director

Harvest Gold Corp.

For more information please contact:

Rick Mark or Jan Urata

@ 604.682.2928 or info@harvestgoldcorp.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Except for statements of historical fact relating to the company, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "plan," "expect," "project," "intend," "believe," "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the inherent risks involved in the exploration and development of mineral properties, the uncertainties involved in interpreting drilling results and other geological data, fluctuating metal prices, the possibility of project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses, uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future and other factors. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Copyright (c) 2017 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.


VANCOUVER, JUNE 8, 2017 / Global Energy Metals Corp. TSXV:GEMC ("Global Energy Metals", the "Company" and/or "GEMC") is pleased to announce that it has successfully completed its technical due diligence and site visit on the Millennium Cobalt project ("Millennium" and/or the "Project") located in Mount Isa, Queensland. As outlined in the May 1, 2017 news release, Global Energy Metals has the exclusive right to earn from Hammer Metals Ltd. ("Hammer") up to a 75% interest in Millennium, a significant Australian based cobalt-copper deposit with significant near term and resource upside potential.

Both parties are now moving to complete a definitive agreement that will outline the final terms for the transaction and partnership to advance the Project.

Based on the findings from the visit and meetings with Hammer's senior management and technical team, Millennium could become a very significant regional opportunity for Global Energy Metals.

Hammer Metals Ltd. (Hammer) (ASX: HMX) completed a Mineral Resource Estimate for Millennium in accordance with the guidelines of the JORC Code (2012 Edition) as disclosed in their press release dated December 6, 2016.

The Mineral Resource, completed by Haren Consulting Pty Ltd., was based on a series of 23 RC holes drilled by Hammer Metals following its acquisition of the tenements in May 2016 and 17 RC holes drilled by the previous operator in 2013-2014. GEMC will work with Haren Consulting to re-calculate the resource on a cobalt equivalent basis for future reporting.

Table 1. Historical* (JORC 2012) Millennium November 2016 Mineral Resource - Inferred

Cu-Eq Cut Off Tonnes Cu Eq (%) Co (%) Cu (%) Au (ppm) 1.0% 3,070,000 1.29 0.14 0.35 0.12

*This work was based on a technical report by Haren Consulting Pty Ltd., issued November 29, 2016 conforming to JORC (2012) reporting standards for resources estimates. As Hammer uses JORC categories, it should be noted that the confidence in the estimate of JORC inferred mineral resources is usually not sufficient to allow the results of the application of technical and economic parameters to be used for detailed planning. For this reason, there is no direct link from an inferred resource to inferred resource as defined under NI 43-101. However, the Company deems this resource still relevant because economic parameters have not changed significantly since publication date and the Company has confidence in the estimate based on review of technical data. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves and the issuer is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources or reserves. CuEq%= Cu% +(Co%*5.9) +(Au ppm*0.9) +(Ag ppm*0.01). Price assumptions utilised by Hammer for the JORC resource estimate and drill hole intercepts are (in USD); Au - $1,300/oz, Ag - $20/oz, Co - $27,000/t and Cu - $4,600/t.

Hammer's technical team accompanied the GEMC team, consisting of Paul Sarjeant, VP Projects and Ian Spence, Australian Acquisitions Lead, to the site and inspected historic drill hole collars and historic mining shafts. Additionally, the team reviewed extensive resource drilling data and historic work to understand future work requirements for the project.

Paul Sarjeant, VP Projects said the following regarding the successful site visit:

"This trip confirmed that quality exploration work has recently been undertaken at Millennium by Hammer's highly qualified technical personnel. This visit strengthened our view that Millennium is an advanced cobalt project with significant potential and further upside in extending the known mineralized structure through exploration work. All these opportunities will need to be investigated once we hit the ground. The Hammer team is second to none when it comes to their technical abilities, we look forward to working with them closely on the development of Millennium."

In 2015, Newmont Mining Corp., one of the world's largest gold producers signed a joint venture agreement through its subsidiary Newmont Exploration Pty Ltd. ("Newmont") with Hammer to unlock the considerable under-explored mineral potential in this region. In agreeing to this joint venture Newmont recognized Hammer's demonstrated on-ground experience and skills and supports the strategy and approach of Hammer's exploration, with Hammer's team continuing to operate and manage the activities of the joint venture. To further emphasize the credibility and strong exploration expertise of Hammer's team, the company was named the Queensland Explorer of the Year, at the 2015 Mining Resources Convention, specifically for its exploration activities in Mount Isa.

In addition to the site visit, Mitchell Smith, GEMC President & CEO, joined Mr. Sarjeant in Australia for meetings with other cobalt project owners to discuss further acquisition and partnership opportunities.

Qualified Person

Mr. Paul Sarjeant, P. Geo., the Company's VP Projects and Director, is the qualified person for this release as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects and has reviewed and verified the technical information contained herein.

Global Energy Metals Corp. (TSXV:GEMC)

Global Energy Metals is focused on offering security of supply of cobalt, a critical material to the growing rechargeable battery market, by building a diversified global portfolio of cobalt assets including project stakes, projects and other supply sources. GEMC anticipates growing its business by acquiring project stakes in battery metals related projects with key strategic partners. Global Energy Metals currently owns and is advancing the Werner Lake Cobalt Mine in Ontario, Canada.

For Further Information:

Global Energy Metals Corp.

#1501-128 West Pender Street

Vancouver, BC, V6B 1R8

Email: info@globalenergymetals.com

t. + 1 (604) 688-4219 extensions 236/237

Twitter: @EnergyMetals

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:

Certain information in this release may constitute forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws and necessarily involve risks associated with regulatory approvals and timelines. Although Global Energy Metals believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change. For more information on Global Energy and the risks and challenges of their businesses, investors should review the filings that are available at www.sedar.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.

Copyright (c) 2017 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.


Toronto, June 8, 2017 - Monarca Minerals Inc. (TSXV: MMN) ("Monarca" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it anticipates completing the second and final tranche its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing (the "Financing") over the next couple of weeks. The TSXV has granted a 30-day extension of its conditional approval of the Financing in order to permit the closing of the second tranche. The total proceeds to be raised under the second tranche has not yet been determined.

As announced on May 10, 2017, under the first tranche of the Financing, Monarca issued 13,232,182 units (the "Units") at a price of $0.13 per Unit for gross proceeds of $1,720,183. Each Unit was comprised of one Common Share and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant"). Each Warrant entitles the holder to acquire one Common Share at a price of $0.18 per share for a period of 36 months from the date of issuance. The Company may raise additional proceeds under the Financing and complete one or more closings.

Eric Sprott, through 2176423 Ontario Ltd., a corporation which is beneficially owned by him, acquired 3,077,000 Units under the first tranche of the Financing for total consideration to the Company of $400,010.

Grant of Stock Options

The Company has granted an aggregate of 2,075,000 stock options pursuant to its 2016 Incentive Stock Option Plan to directors and officers of the Company. The options vest immediately, are exercisable at a price of $0.14 per share and have a term of 5 years.

About Monarca Minerals Inc.

Monarca is a Canadian company focusing on the exploration and development of silver projects along a highly productive mineralized belt in Mexico. The Company has a portfolio of silver projects including a mineral resource of 27.8 million ounces of silver (19.8 million tonnes at 45.0 g/t Ag) at its Tejamen deposit.

For further information, please contact:

Allan Folk

Interim Chief Executive Officer

Monarca Minerals Inc.

E: Afolk.bb@gmail.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements Forward-Looking Statements:

The above contains forward-looking statements that are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated in our forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause such differences include: changes in world commodity markets, equity markets, costs and supply of materials relevant to the mining industry, change in government and changes to regulations affecting the mining industry. Forward-looking statements in this release include statements regarding future exploration programs, operation plans, geological interpretations, mineral tenure issues and mineral recovery processes. Although we believe the expectations reflected in our forward looking statements are reasonable, results may vary, and we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.

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.



/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES WIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES/


A bill aimed at preventing the disruption of campus speakers won final legislative approval Tuesday.The measure, House Bill 269, stems from controversy at the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere, especially episodes where conservative speakers were shouted down.The House voted 95-0 to go along with Senate changes to the original bill.The sponsor is state Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria and chairman of the House Republican caucus.Harris said that, while high-profile free speech arguments have not erupted at Louisiana colleges, he has heard from students and faculty who said a law is needed.The bill would require management boards for LSU, Southern University and other schools to spell out policies aimed at protecting campus speech, "including without limitation ideas and opinions they (students) find unwelcome, disagreeable or even deeply offensive."Schools would be required to outline free speech rights during freshmen orientation.In addition, the state Board of Regents would set up a 15-member panel that would report on disruptions to free speech at colleges, how schools are handling any controversy and any changes needed.
Despite the advancing calendar, North Carolina voters could return to the polls this year to elect new state lawmakers after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the current districts are illegal. But one key Republican lawmaker said new elections this year are unlikely.The high court Monday upheld the decision by the district judges in the so-called Covington case. But it said the lower court order, in ordering new elections, "failed to meaningfully weigh" necessary considerations. It outlined three criteria for district judges to use.Rick Hasen, law professor at the University of California-Irvine and an election law expert, said an election this year is possible."I don't think that's likely, but it's still possible," he said Wednesday. "The court ... did not preclude it."Political scientist Davis McLennan of Meredith University agreed that elections this year are possible if unlikely. "The practical reality is we're halfway through June and it's looking very difficult," he said.The Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed a request Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court to expedite action by a panel of judges who last year declared 28 legislative districts illegal racial gerrymanders that diluted the impact of black voters.Anita Earls, the coalition's executive director, said lawmakers "are already under a court order to draw new districts and the only question is whether there's time for a special election in 2017."The Supreme Court said in deciding whether to hold special elections this year, the lower court should consider three criteria including "the severity and nature of the particular constitutional violation," the disruption to the elections process and "the need to act with proper judicial restraint when intruding on state sovereignty."In the request filed at the Supreme Court Tuesday, Earls and other attorneys called it "time-sensitive," especially give the General Assembly's expected adjournment in a few weeks.The defendants and "millions of other North Carolina voters have already been subjected to three election cycles under the unconstitutional enacted state legislative districting plan, including one election cycle following the district court's decision in this case in August 2016," they wrote.Rep. David Lewis, who chairs the House Elections Committee, said he doesn't expect elections this year."I feel very confident that there will not be," he said. "Simply based on the clock."In order to have new elections, lawmakers would have to draw new districts and set new candidate filing periods while election officials scramble to print ballots and marshal an unexpected election. But Earls said there's a precedent.In 2002, a judge ruled a new legislative redistricting plan unconstitutional. Superior Court Judge Knox Jenkins drew new districts himself in June. In July legislators set a September primary. The general election was held in November.Another possibility is a special election sometime next year. "We think that, too, would be a waste, but it would certainly be a possibility," Lewis said.Monday's Supreme Court ruling in the Covington case was the third in recent weeks involving N.C. districts.
trounced Clinton in the state's presidential caucuses last year 67.7% to 32.3%). Last month we speculated that unless congressional Republicans stop him, Trump would do to the U.S. what Governor Sam Brownback did to Kansas . Stopping him, though, isn't what Paul Ryan and his members have in mind-- encouraging him is more in line with what they want to do. Kansas was a petri dish-- an experimental lab-- for a crackpot far right ideological theory about how a government could run by cutting taxes for the rich and depending on trickle down. Kansas was the perfect place to do it not just because no one was looking but also because the radical right controlled every single office in the state and the voters seemed ready to go along with the scam. Kansas' whole delegation to Washington is Republican The state Senate has 32 Republicans and 8 Democrats and the state House contains 97 Republicans and just 28 Democrats-- super-majorities in both houses. And Kansas hasn't awarded a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since LBJ in 1964. Trump beat Hillary 671,018 (56.6%) to 427,005 (36.0%), winning 103 of the state's 105 counties. But yesterday Kansas got this hearty congratulations tweet from Bernie Sanders (who, by the way,Clinton in the state's presidential caucuses last year 67.7% to 32.3%).













Kansas City Star Yesterday the reported that "The Republican dominated Kansas Legislature that has soured on Gov. Sam Brownbacks vision for the state voted late Tuesday to roll back the governors signature tax cuts. Lawmakers voted to override Brownbacks veto of a tax plan estimated to bring the state more than $1.2 billion over a two-year span. The Senate vote was 27 to 13, and the House followed by agreeing 88 to 31 to supersede the Republican governors wishes on the tax plan and force the changes into law. Lawmakers marshaled together a coalition of moderate Republicans, conservatives and Democrats to overcome the governors opposition to seeing his landmark tax cuts, which have in large part come to define his tenure in Topeka, fundamentally come to an end."

Individual income would be taxed at rates of 3.1 percent, 5.25 percent and 5.7 percent starting in tax year 2018. A phased in rate begins during tax year 2017. The changes also end Brownbacks tax cut for certain business owners, known as the LLC exemption.



The tax bill also extends the sales tax revenue bond program, known as STAR bonds, by moving the sunset date to July 2020.



Tuesdays veto was Brownbacks third this session. He vetoed a bill that raised more than $1 billion in tax revenue back in February, and followed that by striking down the Legislatures attempt to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act a few weeks later.



Attempts to override the governors veto on both those bills failed.



Tuesdays vote to turn away from Brownbacks wishes was the most recent signal that a statehouse that moved more towards the center after the 2016 election cycle has come to resist the policy points long championed by the Kansas Republican.



The legacy of Brownbacks signature policy change loomed large over Tuesday nights debate.



Wheres the common sense? Sen. Tom Holland, a Baldwin City Democrat, asked during the debate. We should have gotten off the crazy train a long time ago.



Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican, made it clear during the floor debate that he voted for the 2012 tax cuts.



But it later became clear that the cuts went too deep, he said.



He still believes in this, Denning said about Brownback. Thats OK. I dont.

exactly what McConnell and Ryan and congressional Republicans want to do: sell off tax-payer owned assets (national parks, bridges, roads, the Veterans Administration... things like that) to their salivating campaign donors. Kansas has no more assets left to sell off. What Brownback and the Republican extremists in the legislature brought Kansas was not the super-charged economy they promised but the lowest job growth and most sluggish economy in the region, the most disastrous state budget anywhere in America and a state debt rating that has been slashed again and again and again while Brownback was playing his games. This is what the The Kansas Senate Majority Leader could do America a big favor by having a meeting with the U.S. Senate Majority, Mitch McConnell, and the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to explain to them what a catastrophe the experiment was and why it would be so wrong to take it national, as the Trump-Ryan-Mulvaney tax proposal plans to do. When Kansas went broke last year-- no money for essential services-- the state started selling off assets, which iswhat McConnell and Ryan and congressional Republicansto do: sell off tax-payer owned assets (national parks, bridges, roads, the Veterans Administration... things like that) to their salivating campaign donors. Kansas has no more assets left to sell off. What Brownback and the Republican extremists in the legislature brought Kansas was not the super-charged economy they promised but the lowest job growth and most sluggish economy in the region, the most disastrous state budget anywhere in America and a state debt rating that has been slashed again and again and again while Brownback was playing his games. This is what the editors of the Kansas City Star , who have lived through their nightmare, had to say to Trump, Ryan and McConnell, noting that their tax plan "strongly resembles the disastrous tax plan passed in Kansas in 2012."

Trump wants to consolidate individual tax brackets and lower the top rate. He would eliminate some deductions and, most crucially, dramatically reduce taxes for business owners, including millions of people who own businesses but pay taxes on their profits as individuals.



Kansas Gov. Sam Brownbacks 2012 tax reform blueprint was quite similar, and we know why. The same worn-out supply-side experts helped write both proposals.



Still, the president, the Congress and millions of Americans may be somewhat unfamiliar with the outcome of what Gov. Sam Brownback once called a real live experiment in tax policy.



No problem. Were happy to offer some of the lessons weve learned first-hand over the last five years:

 The economy wont grow at the rate you think. Brownback promised his tax cuts would provide a shot of adrenaline to the Kansas economy.



It never happened. Job growth in Kansas has lagged behind peer states, neighboring states and even some states that raised taxes.



A recently published academic paper suggests why: Kansans used the small business exemption to avoid taxes, not to add workers.



The governor and his allies blame slow growth on unanticipated slumps in the farming and energy sectors. That merely proves tax cuts are usually less significant than other macro-economic trends.



The American economy is changing dramatically. Health care jobs are up, while retail jobs have collapsed. Coal mining isnt coming back.



Giving companies a huge tax break wont change that.



 The deficit will increase. Remember when Republicans worried about the federal deficit? Good times.



Those worries have apparently vanished. Thats less important in D.C. than in Kansas-- Washington can deficit spend, Kansas cant-- but, contra former Vice President Dick Cheney, deficits still matter.



And the White House cant make that reality go away, no matter how many dynamic-scoring magic asterisks it uses. Kansas passed the biggest tax increase in state history in 2015 and is still $900 million short over the next two years.



 The business tax cuts will be unpopular. Kansas is one of the most Republican states in the nation, yet its GOP governor is a political outcast. Why?



The tax cut drama is one explanation. Kansans have grown tired of credit rating cuts, crowded schools, one-time transfers and budget crises. But something else is at work. Kansans resent the fact that thousands of business owners pay no state income taxes at all, while working people do. In fact, those working people have seen taxes on food rise dramatically.



Trumps huge business tax cuts, coupled with smaller reductions for individuals, will anger low- and middle-income Americans.



And ending the federal estate tax and the alternative minimum tax while eliminating federal deductions for health expenses and state and local taxes will make it worse.



We do not oppose tax reform. Paying federal taxes is too complicated and too distorted by tax breaks for special interests. Taxes at all levels should be simple, low, broad and fair.



But the president isnt just proposing tax reform. He also wants a trickle-down tax cut for the wealthy. Kansans know how this story ends.

Trump isn't up for reelection in 2018; neither in McConnell. But Paul Ryan is. Defeating him and replacing him with a progressive Democrat dedicated it making government function to better the lives of working families is that way to put an end to this crazy Ayn Rand tangent the Republican Party has been distracted by. Randy Bryce is the iron worker and veterans' and union activist about to launch a campaign to do just that. "Kansas," he told us yesterday, "is pretty similar to Wisconsin as far as extreme policies go. I havent checked where the Jayhawks stand, but, Id bet its close behind Wisconsin as the state where the Middle Class is disappearing faster than any place in the entire United States."
Dallas makes its decision

'Stop this hateful law'

Law enforcement weighs in

Dallas is joining some other Texas cities, including Austin and San Antonio, in taking on the state's so-called "sanctuary city" law.Mayor Mike Rawlings made the announcement Wednesday afternoon, calling SB4 "unconstitutional" and a law that "greatly infringes on the city's ability to protect" the public. According to Rawlings, the city attorney has "serious constitutional concerns" with the new measure, which goes into effect Sept. 1.Rawlings said after Wednesday's council meeting that he had already spoken with Austin Mayor Steve Adler and San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor about potential litigation."I told them both this was a serious issue," Rawlings said.A San Antonio federal district court announced Wednesday it would consolidate the lawsuits filed by all of the cities against the bill and designate the city of El Cenizo as the lead plaintiff. A hearing in that case is set for June 26.Critics call SB4 the "show-me-your-papers law," because it allows law enforcement to question the immigration status of anyone who has been lawfully arrested and detained. In addition, it could punish cities, counties and universities who do not enforce the law.And police chiefs, county sheriffs and constables who do not enforce the law could face criminal charges, and local jurisdictions could be fined up to $25,000 per violation per day.Gov. Greg Abbott and other supporters of SB4 say it would protect Texans from crimes committed by those who are in the country illegally.The Dallas city code allows the city attorney to initiate litigation without the council's approval. Rawlings made his announcement moments after the City Council met with City Attorney Larry Casto behind closed doors.Rawlings said he wanted to make sure the council was aligned before Dallas joined the fray. He said Wednesday that a majority of the council agreed with Casto's recommendation to take on the state."We are not a sanctuary city," he said. "We live by the national laws, and now the question is who's boss in all this. And this is an unfunded mandate. They're telling us how our police officers should spend their time and not giving us any money to do that."Council member Philip Kingston said last month, during an SB4 protest in Austin, that Dallas would eventually join the fight against the legislation.The official decision by Dallas to do just that followed a demonstration by about 60 protesters at City Hall Wednesday morning aimed at pressuring city leaders into challenging the controversial bill, which was signed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month.Members of the Workers Defense Project, Texas Organizing Project and other local activists were among the protesters. Rawlings attended the rally and told the group the City Council would discuss the issue later during executive session.Rawlings said then that he is concerned about how the law would affect his and other council members' roles in the community."My job, the job of the pro tem and the job of the council is to keep all citizens safe," the mayor said. "We want to have a safe environment so they can get married and do the things they have to do."Rawlings said the law asks too much of police by making them enforce federal immigration laws in addition to focusing on "safety first.""Time and time again, police chiefs and police associations across the state have said that SB4 is not a safe bill," he said.Carla Hernandez said she decided to join the protesters because she did not feel safe. Hernandez, 37, said she was afraid she would be separated from her children."I've had panic attacks when I've had to pick up my children," Hernandez said. "We want the mayor to give us support to join the lawsuit. I have confidence that there's more support than hate."During the council meeting following the protest, several opponents of the law spoke to the council and pleaded with them not to support the law.Manuela Castro said she knew of people who have already been detained and deported and said the measure would eventually hurt Dallas businesses that depend on immigrant labor."The law hasn't gone into effect and there are already people who have been detained and police officers who are asking for their papers," she said. "Please help us stop this hateful law."Solia Chaver of Lancaster told the city council she worries about how the sanctuary cities law will affect immigrants protected under temporary visas and permits, such as the Defered Action for Childhood Arrivals for unauthorized immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and Temporary Protected Status for immigrants who are unable to return safely to their country of origin."We have a lot of students who are currently protected by DACA, and people like me, who are protected under TPS," she said. "If the law goes into effect, they will only give us three months to renew our paperwork. So what's going to happen to us? Are we also going to be deported?"Two members of the law enforcement community -- Executive Chief Deputy Jesse Flores and Chief Deputy Jesse Herrera from the Dallas County Sheriff's Department --also addressed the Dallas council about SB4.Flores said that even though the sheriff's department has always cooperated with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency when handling criminals who are unauthorized immigrants, he believed the law could lead to fewer reported crimes by community members who will be afraid to interact with law enforcement."If members of the community are afraid to come forward and report crimes due to fear of deportation, then those crimes will not be reported or investigated," Flores said. "Senate Bill 4 will also affect vulnerable people at risk, because women and children are least likely to come forward if they are undocumented. We believe our community is safer when they report crimes without fear of deportation."In addition to those concerns, there was evidence the bill is already beginning to impact business in the the state.The American Immigration Lawyers Association, a 15,000-member assocation of attorneys and law professors announced Wednesday that it would relocate its 2018 convention out of Grapevine in response to the passing of SB4. About 3,000 people were expected to attend the three-day event.Staff Writer Tristan Hallman contributed to this report.
Twice as many people have been fatally shot by Maine police so far this year as in all of 2016 and 2015 combined.Between Jan. 1 and June 7, 2017, eight people were killed by officers from seven different agencies between Arundel and Presque Isle, according to data provided by the Maine Attorney general's office.In 2016, Maine police killed just two people, the same number as in 2015. Likewise, the death toll in 2009 and 2012 was two.Over the past decade, the deadliest years before this year were 2011 and 2014, when six people were fatally shot by law enforcement officers each year. Five people were killed by police in both 2008 and in 2013. Three people were killed by police in 2010.The eighth fatality of 2017 was Mark Ellis, 54, of Orrington. He was shot and killed by Maine State Police just after 2 a.m. Wednesday, more than 12 hours after Penobscot County deputies responded to Ellis' home at 488 Johnson Mill Road.The three Maine State Police officers involved in the Ellis shooting, Sgt. Josh Haines, Sgt. Peter Michaud and Trooper Dave Coflesky, have been placed on administrative leave, which is routine whenever an officer is involved in the use of deadly force. All three are members of the State Police Tactical Team.The attorney general's office will investigate whether their use of deadly force was justified. There is no timetable under which the report must be issued. The last report was issued on Dec. 19 concerning a shooting on May 17, 2016, by a Presque Isle police officer.Recent investigations have taken anywhere from three to 18 months to complete.In investigating the use of deadly force by Maine law enforcement officers, the attorney general's office has ruled in every case since 1990 that the killing was justified.In addition to Ellis, the following people were killed this year by police, according to data provided by the attorney general's office:-- Jon M. Alspaugh, 57, of Waldoboro was killed Jan. 22, at his home on River Bend Road after allegedly exchanging gunfire with Waldoboro police officers. Police responded to a report of a domestic violence disturbance.-- Kadhar Bailey, 25, of Gardiner and Ambroshia Fagre, 18, of Oakland were killed Feb. 10 by members of the Maine State Police and a Vassalboro officer after Bailey allegedly rammed a pickup truck into a state police cruiser. When they were shot, Fagre was a passenger and Bailey was driving the truck on Arnold Road. Police reportedly were called to the scene to investigate a burglary.-- Chance David Baker, 22, of Portland, was shot Feb. 18 by a Portland police office on the sidewalk outside a Subway sandwich shop on St. John Street. Baker allegedly was brandishing a rifle-style pellet gun.-- Brentant Lahey, 25, of Presque Isle was killed March 17, by Presque Isle police. Lahey allegedly threatened officers with a knife when they responded to the report of a disturbance at a mobile home on Skyway Street.-- Roger Bubar, 65, of Belgrade was killed May 20, at his Oakland Road home after allegedly exchanging gunfire with Kennebec County sheriff's deputies. His son, Scott Bubar, 40, of Belgrade was injured but survived.-- Chad Dionne, 37, of Arundel was killed on May 29 by deputies with the York County sheriff's office following an alleged armed confrontation. Deputies responded to a report of a disturbance at 267 Old Alfred Road.The eight people are among the 417 people killed by police across the nation this year, according to the Washington Post's database that is part of a project called "Fatal Force." The newspaper's numbers for shooting deaths by police were 991 in 2015 and 963 in 2016, which could indicate a downward trend nationally.Philip Stinson, associate professor in the Criminal Justice Program at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said Wednesday it was impossible to tell yet whether the deaths of eight people this year in Maine is statistically significant or not."It doesn't seem that alarming at eight because you may not have another one for the rest of the year," he said in a telephone interview. "If it were 30, that would indicate something might be going awry. Right now, it just seems odd."Stinson, who has been working with the Washington Post on its Fatal Force project, began his career as a police officer in Dover, New Hampshire."I think police officers in northern New England are used to encountering people with firearms [compared to police officers in more urban areas.]" he said. "We're expecting a lot of our police officers today. They are asked to deal with people dealing with mental health issues, opiate and other addictions and post-traumatic stress disorder."
On Wednesday, in the morning, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey departed Brisbane for an official visit to Toowoomba.

Following, at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended the Full Honours Funeral for Senior Constable Brett Forte and laid a wreath.

In the afternoon, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey departed Toowoomba for an official visit to St George.

Following, at St George State High School, the Governor, with Mrs de Jersey, officially opened the Schools Health and Wellbeing Centre, addressed students and toured classrooms.

Following, at Balonne Shire Council Chambers, St George, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey received a briefing on local issues from Council representatives and met staff.

Following, at the Anglican Parish Centre, St George, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended a community afternoon tea hosted by Balonne Shire Council where His Excellency addressed guests.
Description

GIS - 08 June, 2017: The amendments brought to the Road Traffic Act make provision for stricter penalties for serious road traffic offences like drink driving. The Bill was amended on two occasions to come up with a new mechanism of sanction and a set of new penalties. The figures for the first quarter of 2017 show a decrease in fatal accidents compared to the same period last year.

These facts were highlighted yesterday during a press conference held at the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport in Port Louis by the Adviser of the Government on matters relating to road security, Mr Daniel Raymond, the Chief Inspector of Police, Mr Mohit Ramah and the Director of the Traffic Management and Road Safety Unit, Mr Saeed Jeewon. An overview of road traffic offences, following the coming into effect of the Road Traffic Amendment Act in 2016 was also given.

It was highlighted that the number of fatal road accidents has remained around 130- 140 annually. Nevertheless, as at date, 62 persons have died in 58 accidents, compared to a total of 60 in 57 accidents in the same period in 2016. Fatal accidents involving motorcyclists accounted to 25 last year, compared to 16 for the same period this year. Furthermore it is noted that till date there have been 19 accidents involving pedestrians compared to 21 for last year.

A total of five drivers have been disqualified and 131 drivers having committed five offences are on the borderline of being disqualified.

Statistics show that 369 drivers are listed for having committed four offences and 1280 drivers for having committed three offences, by breaching various road traffic laws. In 2016, 228,189 contraventions have been issued to drivers amongst which 695 cases of drunk driving for the period of 8 December 2016 to 20 May 2017 have been recorded.

According to the Adviser on matters relating to road security, the amendment of the bill was a commendable initiative that has stabilised the road fatalities rate. Coupled with that, the policy push for safer and responsible driving has so far contained the otherwise accruing rate of road accidents, he said.

During the press conference, Mr Saeed Jeewon also recalled that the road is a shared space for drivers and pedestrians equally, adding that there is a need for everyone to co-own this responsibility and take necessary actions to create a safer road for all.

To achieve this, along with the high-level support from Government, the collective endeavour and a sense of shared responsibility of the civil society are required. This range from actions enhancing roads and vehicles to improving the behaviour of drivers, motorcyclists and pedestrians .
Description

 GIS - 8 June 2017: Mauritius is to leverage on one of its largest assets which is its Maritime Zone to develop its Ocean Economy. The ocean constitutes an immense potential which would advance Mauritius to the next level of its development. As such, important steps have been taken to boost the growth of key marine sectors such as fishing, aquaculture, biotechnology, ocean energy and shipping, and provide the best possible operational conditions for business.

This statement was made this morning by the Minister Mentor and Minister of Defence and Minister for Rodrigues, Sir Anerood Jugnauth, at the inauguration of the new building of the Mauritius Oceanography Institute (MOI) in Albion which coincides with the World Oceans Day 2017. The theme this year is Our Oceans, Our Future and the main focus will be on plastic pollution prevention and cleaning the ocean of marine litter.

The Minister Mentor added that Mauritius, which is blessed with a vast maritime zone of 2.3 million square kilometres, has been relying much on its traditional marine sectors to promote investment and to create employment. He recalled that the fisheries sector is being given due importance as well as aquaculture development. The signature of new Memoranda of Understanding for Fisheries partnership with neighbouring States and the European Union is a leap forward to strengthening our cooperation in sustainable fisheries, he said.

Sir Anerood Jugnauth pointed out that Government has already embarked on key initiatives to boost our ocean economy sector. They include: creation of a Ministry dedicated to the Ocean Economy which is supported by the National Ocean Council to drive strategies for this sector; setting up a department for Continental Shelf, Maritime Zone Administration and Exploration for the management of the Extended Continental Shelf between Mauritius and Seychelles; and enactment of new regulations for the conduct of Marine Scientific Research.

Speaking about the MOI, Sir Anerood pointed out that the aim of the Institute is to undertake quality scientific research in the region in collaboration with local as well as international institutions, and to contribute to regional and global oceanographic science which will ensure that the MOI is at the forefront of ocean economy advancement.

According to the Minister Mentor, the MOI is also now well-equipped technologically to access satellite imagery in order to assist in the monitoring of the environment. Such information can be useful, not only for Mauritius, but for the whole of the South-West Indian Ocean, he said.

As regards ocean research, Sir Anerood highlighted that the MOI should join force with partners in order to advance in the various aspects of oceanography. He added that the recent signature of the Memorandum of Understanding between MOI and the National Oceanographic Institute of Goa is an important step forward in this direction.

For his part, the Minister of Ocean Economy, Marine Resources, Fisheries and Shipping, Mr Premdut Koonjoo, stated that the ocean economy as a new economic frontier holds an immense growth potential through the diversification of existing activities such as marine biotechnology. Economic activity in the ocean is expanding rapidly and in Mauritius the seafood sector has registered encouraging growth in 2016 which represents 20% of our total exports, he pointed out.

Minister Koonjoo underscored the importance of scientific and technological advances which are expected to play a crucial role in addressing ocean-related environmental challenges and in the development of new ocean-based economic activities. To this end, several actions have been initiated: They are: setting up of specialised laboratories and facilities at the MOI; elaboration of a new strategic plan to explore possible avenues to boost development prospects of the ocean economy; and acquisition of a multi-purpose vessel to allow the MOI to carry out research and development activities.

The Mauritius Oceanography Institute

The MOI was established in January 2000 by the proclamation of the MOI Act (Act No. 24 of 1999). The need to rationalise and co-ordinate research and development activities related to Oceanography was the motive for the setting up of the MOI.

The MOI undertakes scientific research in collaboration with local and international institutions to contribute to the regional and global matrix of oceanographic science. It also monitors the marine environment around Mauritius, Rodrigues and the Outer Islands, and advise the Government on appropriate policies and strategies for the intelligent management of the living and non-living resources under its jurisdiction.

The MOI units comprises the Biological Oceanography Unit, the Chemical Oceanography Unit, the Marine Biotechnology Unit, the Marine Geosciences Unit, and the Physical Oceanography Unit.
Description

GIS  08 June, 2017: The Speaker of Lok Sabha, Smt Sumitra Mahajan, is currently on an official visit in Mauritius. Smt S. Mahajan and her delegation of 20 members will be in the country till 11 June 2017.

Her visit will be marked by the signature of an Agreement of Cooperation between the Lok Sabha and the National Assembly, which will be held on Friday 09 June in the Receptorium of the National Assembly in presence of both the Speakers of the Lok Sabha and the National Assembly.

The Indian delegation will visit the following places: Aapravasi Ghat World Heritage site, Le Morne World Heritage site, museum and archives at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute and the Ganga Talao, among others.

The Parliamentary delegation, accompanied by the High Commissioner of India, will pay courtesy calls on the President of the Republic, Dr. Ameenah Gurim-Fakim, the Prime Minister, Mr. Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, and the Minister Mentor, Sir Anerood Jugnauth.

Smt S. Mahajan will also meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, and the Leader of Opposition during her visit.
Description

GIS 08 June 2017: The University of Mauritius, in collaboration with James Cook University, Australia, would organise the 2017 BEST EN (Building Excellence in Sustainable Tourism Education Network) XVII Think Tank from 14 to 17 June 2017.

The theme of the conference is Innovation and Progress in Sustainable Tourism. Discussions will focus on new perspectives in the field of tourism within the global environment.

Some 70 participants, including academics, researchers and practitioners in the field of tourism from the United Kingdom, Australia, Africa, New Zealand, the United States, India, Finland, Sweden and Mauritius, would attend the conference.
Court Innovations, a four-year-old startup and two-time member of the Gov Tech 100 list, has picked up its first fundraising round.The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company announced June 6 that its raised a $1.8 million Series A round, mostly from regional investors. The leader on the round was the BELLE Michigan Fund, followed by Northern Michigan Angels, the Michigan Angel Fund and one student-led fund housed in the University of Michigan.The companys primary product is Matterhorn, which gives people who cant or prefer not to go to court in-person the ability to provide input on their cases.Citizens use Matterhorn to resolve traffic and parking tickets, warrants, family court compliance, plea online, or file a small claims civil case, a blog post from the company reads.According to the company, that means court employees spend less time working with cases, and cases are closed out much faster.The software is available on both desktop and mobile devices for 23 courts in Michigan and Ohio, but according to the post, the company is expanding. It will roll out in Arkansas this summer, and Court Innovations has also set up business development and marketing employees on the West Coast.Court Innovations previously raised nearly $500,000 in a crowdfunding round through Netcapital in March. At the time, it listed its pre-round valuation at about $2.7 million.
Socrata is not just focusing on open data anymore.The company announced June 7 that its achieved FedRAMP authorization, a strict federal security standard for cloud-based technology that many states and local governments use as well, and with it launched a product that will focus on internal government data.For now, the product has a distinctly federal flavor  its called Socrata for Federal Government  but Socrata CEO Kevin Merritt toldthat some states have already shown interest in using it. Thats because some state IT officials, in a bid to push agencies away from creating bespoke systems, require those agencies to meet the underlying controls and processes behind FedRAMP anyway.Theyre gonna say, Hey, Socrata did it. Why cant you do it as well? Merritt said.The hurdles to meet those standards are high. Socratas open data platform is one of only 82 products to make it through FedRAMP certification, and the process took the company two years. During that time, they had to work with a third-party vendor to iteratively improve all sorts of things within the company  which employees had access to customer data, continuous monitoring of threats, etc.Our security assessment package ended up being about 700 pages of documentation, he said.The company was willing to throw its weight behind the certification, Merritt said, because it opens up multiple new markets to the company. More than 20 federal agencies already use Socrata for open data; now the company can sell its services to those agencies for internal non-classified data as well.We have one soon-to-be new [federal] customer that has been in a pilot with us for the last six or seven months. They got an exemption from their chief security officer to go into a pilot with us, but they werent allowed to go into production with us until we got the FedRAMP certification, he said.Then there are the state and local agencies. Merritt said state and local users are much like citizens that use Socratas open data portals: Their level of technical expertise varies. Some potential Socrata users working with the companys internal product might know how to code, others will have no background in data at all.A great example would be a crime analyst in a police department, Merritt said. Maybe this is a former beat cop now working with the command staff trying to figure out how do we reduce crime, how do we increase trust with the community?For employees like that, he said, the internal data product could help guide decisions.Even for those that simply stick with Socratas existing open data platform, the process of going through FedRAMP certification has changed the companys cybersecurity practices.They dont need to do anything for that," Merritt said, "but if they want to take advantage of this new FedRAMP environment, they can."
(TNS) -- Strapping on a virtual reality headset can digitally transport a person under the sea, to the red surface of Mars or even inside the human body.But purchasing a virtual reality headset isnt cheap, especially for low-income families.Teaming up with the California State Library, Facebooks Oculus said Wednesday it hopes to bridge the digital divide by donating 100 sets of Rift headsets, touch controllers and computers to 90 libraries throughout California as part of a new pilot program.Participating libraries include those in San Jose, Berkeley, Oakland, Sunnyvale, Campbell and other locations in the Bay Area.By having access, it takes away the mystery of what it is and inspires, said Cindy Ball, Oculus education program manager. No matter how many videos or news reports youve seen about VR, once you put on that headset for the first time, thats when you really get it.Califa Group, a San Mateo nonprofit, is overseeing the program.VARLibraries  a network of libraries sharing best practices for implementing virtual and augmented realities  will run daily operations and deployment of the equipment.The Oculus Rift and touch controllers cost $598 and an Oculus-ready laptop costs more than $1,000, according to the tech firms website.By making the technology available in libraries, families can try out virtual reality without purchasing a headset, the tech firm noted. Oculus is rolling out the program over the next three months and said it was hoping to identify best practices by the end of the first year.Facebook purchased virtual reality startup Oculus in 2014. The social media firm paid $2 billion to acquire the company and shelled out another $1 billion for employee retention bonuses and other deals.Since then, Oculus has faced competition with similar products, including the HTC Vive and the PlayStation VR, a lawsuit, shipment delays and a leadership shakeup at the tech firm.But the companys executives have said they expect it will take years before the technology becomes mainstream. One of the barriers to adoption has been the price of virtual reality headsets, although there are lower quality options available.The pilot program covers fewer than 10 percent of all California library branches, but includes nearly half of the states 184 library jurisdictions, Oculus said.Ball said that the tech firm doesnt plan to donate virtual reality equipment to the entire state, so if the pilot program goes well, the California State Library will have to allocate or raise more funding to expand it to other locations.Oculus is also exploring a similar pilot program in Washington state.The tech firm will keep an eye on how much the equipment is used, and libraries will collect optional survey data, Ball said.Well be watching to see what the sentiment is, she said. Hopefully its positive.
I have never felt like this before. Even during the McCarthy 'red witch hunts', or even the long battle for black civic rights when the political and social temperatures rose to dangerous levels, I never thought any of them would actually threaten the American nation state. Today, I'm not so sure. It's a different problem but the fissure in American society is, to quote current usage, "yuuuuuge"!

I have mentioned before that I am a fairly regular visitor to two different Democrat-supporting blogs, one supports Sanders and the other is still drowning in tears over the loss of 'HillBilly'. The fact that the latter purports to be a mainline, middle of the road, Democratic blog makes the general content even more shocking. It is, more or less, one long stream of almost hysterical vituperation aimed at 'the irredeemables', that is, their fellow Americans who labour for a living and who lack a college education. Needless to say, 'the irredeemables' provided the perfect riposte by voting in Donald Trump and dumping 'HillBilly' and her Democrat party. Of course, I do realise that political discourse was, and still is, a much rougher business 'over there' than it tends to be 'over here'. Even so, as an outsider peering in, I would suggest, tentatively, that "there may be troubles ahead!"

My vague feelings of concern are confirmed by an excellent and thoughtful article at the NRO by David French which I urge you all to read. He begins with two examples of the malaise afflicting America, one small, the other exceedingly large:

Last week there were two telling incidents  one small, the other more consequential  that spoke volumes about the state of our national life. Lets start small. Over in Seattle, in the midst of a debate over juvenile justice, a city-council member invoked his Republican friends as a symbol of the broad-based agreement that incarceration policies need to change. One of his colleagues, Kshama Sawant, snapped back with the proud declaration that she didnt have any Republican friends. The crowd cheered. Sure, its but one small incident, but consider something bigger. The state of California is in the process of taking a series of political steps that are not only cementing its status as a progressive enclave, its stumbling toward its own foreign policy. After Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris climate agreement, California governor Jerry Brown rushed to fill the void. California is touting its collaborations with China to combat global warming.

Of course, politics was, is and always will be a divisive issue but the main point he stresses is that in America today it is no longer, so to speak, a matter of individual dispute, one neighbour against another, or one guy at the bar arguing with another. According to Mr. French, America is gradually but steadily moving to an 'enclave society' such that more and more people of a like political mind are moving together. The other point he emphasises, and backs up with some fascinating research conducted by Pew Research Centre, is that residents of one enclave are not so much united by their shared political opinions as by their utter contempt for people who do not share them.



Mr. French hesitates to suggest that a civil war is looming but he is definitely suggesting that a divorce might be approaching - and we all know how messy they can be!
(TNS) - Disaster can strike at any time, which means the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, Homeland Security, is open every minute of every hour of every day.In a bunker in the GEMA headquarters basement on the east side of Atlanta, people are always ready to answer the call when calamity strikes.From a terror attack, to hurricanes, wildfires or avian flu outbreaks, GEMA has a hierarchy of emergency specialists ready to mobilize.Wednesday morning, Macon-Bibb Countys emergency planners visited the State Operations Center for their regular Emergency Support Functions meeting.We wanted to give you guys a little picture of what the state does, what are the state operations that happen when we are working at the local level to manage whatever disaster or situations were looking at, Macon-Bibb EMA Director Spencer Hawkins told the group.GEMAs center, built before the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, is the hub of activity when emergency strikes.By the end of next year, GEMA is planning to move into a new, three-story State Operations Center, or SOC. That building, which is about to be constructed next door, will adjoin the current bunker.The facility will have technology upgrades and sleeping bunks for those working around the clock.Adding additional work space for our emergency support functions  that is our other state agencies that come in to assist us during state activations, Lamar McEwen, director of GEMAs State Operations Center said.GEMA has 15 divisions that can respond to any crisis. Some deal with public safety and rescue, while others focus on transportation, public health, communications, energy and agriculture issues.Macon-Bibb Countys EMA has a similar organizational structure, but with three added divisions to remove debris, provide damage assessments and coordinate with local businesses and industries.Not only do the law enforcement, public health and other government workers have to respond to the problems plaguing the state, they must document each task for possible reimbursement from federal disaster funds.Bibb County is still trying to recoup some expenses paid during the Mothers Day tornado of 2008.Its about a 10-year process, Hawkins told his team.The paperwork begins immediately.If its going to cost your jurisdiction something... its got to be documented, McEwen advised.Documenting damage is critical to securing disaster declarations and states of emergency.Were asking for numbers quick, GEMA Director of Operations Clint Perkins said. We need to know how many homes are damaged. We need to be able to present a picture to the governor to get that emergency declaration.Local agencies can take advantage of those declarations by requesting help from certain state agencies, like the Georgia Department of Transportation, which can operate outside of its normal boundaries under disaster declarations.Its important in that short time window to capitalize on whats available, Perkins said.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation briefed the local EMA group on the vital task of screening tips on possible terrorist cells that could be operating in the state.Andy Mossman, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Georgia Information Sharing Analysis Center, said the recent bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, shows how vital it is to properly process tips that could prevent attacks.National security is a priority, as is preparing for potentially damaging hurricanes.Any strike, but any category 3 or above is what keeps us awake, McEwen said.Hawkins and the Macon-Bibb County team are looking into ways to make shelter operations more efficient. Macon is a host community for people living along the 100 miles of Georgia coastline.Macon-Bibb County Assistant Fire Chief Shane Edwards reminded GEMA of the current construction at Interstates 16 and 75, which is at the tail end of the evacuation routes.Getting disaster experts together for regular planning is key to running efficient disaster and recovery operations, Hawkins said.A lot of this is about relationship building and making sure we know who is on the team and what were all doing.Liz Fabian: 478-744-4303, @liz_lines2017 The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)Visit The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.) at www.macon.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
BLOWING THIS OPPORTUNITY'

THE PITTSBURGH WAY'

HAVEN'T SHUT THE DOOR'

(TNS) -- Members of Pittsburgh's tech community want the mayor to cool it with his public disappointment in Uber, the San Francisco company that made Pittsburgh the center of its self-driving car development efforts.But Mayor Bill Peduto said he won't back down.They cannot create an industry that hurts cities, Peduto said in an interview with the Tribune-Review. Any mayor that would open their city to that simply for jobs would not be serving the people.However, representatives of Pittsburgh's robotics industry and others in the city's tech world have expressed concern that the mayor's remarks and attitude about Uber are sending signals to other companies that the city is not welcoming to new businesses. They've met with the mayor's staff to talk about the message coming from Grant Street, the Tribune-Review has learned. They are fearful about speaking out, worried what could happen if they anger the mayor.He's taken a tremendous positive news story and dragged it through the mud, said Brian Kennedy, senior vice president of operations and strategic programs for the Pittsburgh Technology Council and one of the people concerned about the image the mayor is giving the city. I take the mayor at face value for what he said.Peduto said his stance isn't anti-business. Other companies, like Ford and Argo AI, are receptive to his message, he said. Uber is an outlier, Peduto said. He has visited Silicon Valley to speak to CEOs. This week, the mayor will be in New York to speak to CEOs and he will take his message to London later this month.Those that would say that our expectations of Uber are anti-business don't firmly understand the business Peduto said.Uber has maintained that it is proud of its work in Pittsburgh and the jobs it has created in the city. The company has said throughout that it hopes to continue to have a positive presence in Pittsburgh.Peduto welcomed Uber when the company arrived in Pittsburgh. He defended the company when the state Public Utilities Commission tried to shut it down for operating without the proper license and wrote a letter with Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Gov. Tom Wolf asking the PUC to reconsider the $11.3 million fine levied against Uber.When Uber launched its self-driving car pilot program in Pittsburgh, Peduto was among the first to get a ride.Uber CEO Travis Kalanick called Peduto his favorite mayor, and Peduto liked to mention that he and Kalanick would text each other. Peduto told The New York Times they don't text anymore.Things started to fall apart first behind the scenes. Peduto asked Uber to commit $25 million to infrastructure projects as part of the city's Smart City Challenge application to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Uber didn't and the city lost the $50 million in federal funding to Columbus, Ohio. Uber started charging customers for rides in the self-driving cars, Peduto said, rides that were supposed to be free.Peduto said he and other mayors met with Uber during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.We just told them how they were messing this up, how they were blowing this opportunity, Peduto said, calling it a heated meeting.Peduto began to publicly criticize Uber and Kalanick in January after Uber dropped its surge pricing and went to New York airports while other taxi drivers were striking to protest President Trump's travel ban. He said that was the turning point.You had immigrant cabbies who were trying to make a point, and Uber saw it as a way to make a profit, Peduto said.Concerns over the mayor's remarks about Uber haven't played out. Delphi decided to test a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. Ford will invest $1 billion over five years in Pittsburgh's Argo AI to develop autonomous vehicles. Aurora Innovation, founded by leaders in self-driving from Google, Tesla and Uber, has an office in Pittsburgh.Former Democratic state Sen. Matt Smith, head of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, said he hasn't seen any evidence that Peduto's comments have steered away investment. Corporate Investment in Pittsburgh-area startups hit a five-year high in 2016, topping out at $66.4 million, according to a report released in March by Innovation Works and Ernst & Young.Fitzgerald said recent stories about the souring relationship between Pittsburgh and Uber have failed to capture what's really happening. Peduto, Fitzgerald and others want Uber here but they also want Uber to operate safely and responsibly without polluting the city's air, land and water, Fitzgerald said. He does not see Peduto as out of line to ask that from Uber.Yes, we want economic development, but we don't want irresponsible economic development, Fitzgerald said. I think the relationship has certainly had some issues to be dealt with, but I think by and large they are happy to be here; we're happy to have them here; the mayor is happy to have them here.Peduto pointed to PNC's Grow Up Great initiative on childhood learning and UPMC's Pittsburgh Promise of college scholarships as examples. He said he met with Google officials at Le Mardi Gras in Shadyside  Where people smoke, and there's Patsy Cline on the jukebox, and the screwdrivers are completely clear with an orange strip down the middle, Peduto said  before the company opened an office in Pittsburgh to talk about how it could contribute. One year Google bought items Pittsburgh teachers had put on wish list. The company is helping the city identify methane leaks and has offered to help with mapping lead water lines.I want Pittsburgh to rub off on them, Peduto said of Uber. I want it to be where they understand that they can be good civic partners and still run a profitable corporation. That's the Pittsburgh way.Peduto said he expects Uber to come around. He doesn't regret rolling out the red carpet for the company to lure it here or going to bat for it when state regulators tried to crack down. He said he's not trying to force the company out of the city and he hasn't asked it to leave. Many of Uber's employees in Pittsburgh, who were recruited from Carnegie Mellon University or spinout robotics and artificial intelligence companies, have no intention of leaving the city, Peduto said.If Uber decided tomorrow they were going to leave Pittsburgh, I would probably guess half of their employees would stay and another autonomous car company would move in or Ford and Argo AI would hire them.Kennedy, of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, is worried what the mayor's comments makes Pittsburgh look bad.We certainly don't want the mayor to stop advocating for positions that he cares about, Kennedy said. Hopefully, we can see Uber and the city come to some terms, and we can get to the work at hand, which is growing this technology.Peduto acknowledged that Uber has sent emails directly to him and his office and has called asking how the company can contribute to the city. The company reached out last week when the mayor announced the city would continue to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, Peduto said. The city hasn't responded, Peduto said, and has asked Uber to wait until June 14 when he and the American Architectural Foundation finish the report out of the National Summit on Design and Urban Mobility the city hosted in May. The report will outline what cities expect from autonomous driving companies , Peduto said.They haven't shut the door, Peduto said. I'm not looking for a check. I'm not looking for Give us money.' I'm not looking for one specific thing  It's not a specific ask. It's a goal.
(TNS) -- SAN JOSE  A proposal to allow surveillance cameras to be installed on city streetlamps is raising hackles among privacy advocates.The City Council will consider the plan Tuesday as part of a bid to reduce the cost of replacing existing streetlamps with more energy-efficient LED lights. But the city managers office is raising concerns and Mayor Sam Liccardo and Councilman Donald Rocha are recommending delaying the discussion for a week.We strongly oppose the web of street-level surveillance that is rapidly spreading across our urban landscapes, said Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney at Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group that fights for privacy protections, about the proposal. It invades privacy, chills free speech and disparately burdens communities of color and poor people.San Jose has 64,400 streetlamps across the city. In an effort to go green, the city in 2008 began using city and federal funds to convert 24,000 lights to LEDs, but estimated it would cost $36.7 million to switch out the remaining 40,000 lights with controller units to dim the lights.San Jose in 2015 allowed Philips Lighting to install 50 SmartPoles  which have wireless technology built into the poles for cellphone companies to lease  in exchange for converting 750 streetlights to LEDs.But San Jose had to find a way to pay for upgrading the remaining lamps. The city put out a bid asking companies to propose ways they would use the citys real estate assets in exchange for installing streetlights or providing revenue that could be used to pay for the lights.Of the four finalists, Siemens won the bidding process, though its installation costs were $2 million more than Philips, which has since protested the decision twice.As part of Siemens proposal to install LED lights, the company said it would partner with anyCOMM, a Sacramento County tech company, to install controller units that can accommodate up to four video cameras on each streetlamp  with 24/7 digital recording capabilities and audio sensors. The city staff report says the cameras could help combat crime, solve investigations and deter illegal dumping and graffiti.anyCOMM chief executive Rob Praske couldnt be reached for comment. And when asked about the cameras, Siemens spokeswoman, Amanda Naiman, said, We cant comment on another companys technology.anyCOMM has deployed similar technology in cities like Martinez, Pacheco and Elk Grove. San Jose in 2015 worked with anyCOMM on a pilot program to install 166 Wi-Fi devices  without video cameras  atop streetlamps. It has only installed five so far, city officials said.But while San Jose prides itself as a smart city that deploys new technology, it doesnt have privacy policies related to the surveillance equipment. Its unclear where the company would store the recordings, how long theyd be kept or who could access them.Thats one of the reasons Assistant City Manager Dave Sykes recommended rejecting the proposal and rebidding the LED conversion project. Another reason is that the street poles can be used for broadband capabilities, making them a much more valuable resource, Sykes said.It feels like we put the cart before the horse, Sykes said. We realized we have more work to do to ensure our residents are ready for this technology. We want to engage the community and policy makers on how we move this technology forward before we enter into an agreement with someone to deploy this technology.Councilman Johnny Khamis urged his council colleagues to prioritize adopting a data use and retention policy earlier this year  but it didnt move forward. With the growth of surveillance technology, Khamis said in his proposal, we must also ensure that we safeguard the civil rights and civil liberties of the public.On Friday, he recommended disabling video capabilities from the lamps that face peoples homes.But civil rights groups say that may not be enough, and worry the recording devices could gather and store information about how residents live their lives in public places. According to the Siemens proposal, anyCOMM would own the data collected by its controller units and store it on its servers. The company has the ability to sell data and would share some portion of revenues with the city.Individuals who are doing nothing wrong will be under surveillance in public, said Chris Conley, a policy attorney for ACLU of Northern California. The company would be the one who retains and holds this information  is there any limits on what they can do with it? Can they sell it to marketers and advertisers? There are lots of ways the information can be used.
The Texas Veterans Commission and the Texas Department of Information Resources were recognized for their redesign of the Texas Veteran's Portal, which made the site mobile accessible and user-friendly and includes features important to the state's 1.6 million veterans. Collaboration led by a multi-agency advisory committee and the University of North Texas team, and participation by veterans during testing efforts, was crucial to the website's success.

were recognized for their redesign of the Texas Veteran's Portal, which made the site mobile accessible and user-friendly and includes features important to the state's 1.6 million veterans. Collaboration led by a multi-agency advisory committee and the University of North Texas team, and participation by veterans during testing efforts, was crucial to the website's success. The T exas Office of the Attorney General was honored for creating a mobile-accessible site and enabling kiosk access for their Child Support Interactive web portal. Both the website and the kiosks offer the same user experience and customer service options. The kiosks, in department lobbies throughout Texas, provide a secured network for customers who might not otherwise have access to a computer, mobile device or printer to access and print case forms.

was honored for creating a mobile-accessible site and enabling kiosk access for their Child Support Interactive web portal. Both the website and the kiosks offer the same user experience and customer service options. The kiosks, in department lobbies throughout Texas, provide a secured network for customers who might not otherwise have access to a computer, mobile device or printer to access and print case forms. The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) was recognized for implementing a "social media customer care" agency strategy. METRO combined an open source software module with a user interface built in-house to enable their social media specialists to post and manage real-time service alerts for patrons. The new interface allows them to post the exact same alert to Facebook, Twitter, the RideMetro.org website, Google and the METRO trip-planning mobile app simultaneously. The social media specialists can also now respond to 90 percent of submitted queries within 15 minutes.

Texas Veterans Portal, Texas Veterans Commission and Texas Department of Information Resources

Dallas, Tarrant and Travis County Prosecutor, Defense Attorney and Local Law Enforcement Portal

El Paso County E-Bond

Harris County Law Enforcement Network Search

Treasury Offset Program - Benefits Project, Texas Workforce Commission

Houston Community College Academic Dashboard

Comptroller.Texas.Gov Website Rebuild, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts

Texas Career Check, Texas Workforce Commission

Child Support Interactive Mobile Web and Kiosk Project, Texas Office of the Attorney General

City of El Paso Zoo Webcams

Houston METRO Service Alerts, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County

Dave Childers, Applications Services Supervisor, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles

Paul Cook, Business Process Consultant Senior, City of Austin / Communications & Technology Management

Karen Garcia, Team Lead IMD Procurement, Texas Department of Transportation

Suzanne Hays, IT Human Resources Manager, Texas Workforce Commission

Veda Hickman, Systems Analyst, Texas Lottery Commission

Dustin Johnson, Manager of Business Analysis, Texas General Land Office

Zhi Lin, IT Tools Team Lead, Texas Education Agency

David O'Hara, TXCSES 1.0 Mobile and Portal Supervisor, Texas Office of the Attorney General - Child Support Division

Leonel Ramirez, Server Administrator, Texas State Office of Risk Management

Teri Shade, Systems Analyst Business Solutions, Texas Department of Information Resources

Layla Young, Information Technology Services Development Manager, Texas Department of Insurance



June 8, 2017 -- The Texas Veterans Commission, the Texas Office of the Attorney General and the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County were among the agencies honored at the 2017 Best of Texas Awards presented by the Center for Digital Government at the annual Texas Digital Government Summit this week in Austin."Government leaders in Texas are leveraging technology to make government services more accessible and easier to use for the Texas residents that want and need them," said Todd Sander, executive director of the Center for Digital Government. Making government services easier to access and use helps improve residents' lives and creates efficiencies and cost savings for the agencies involved.. Congratulations to this year's Best of Texas Award winners!"Highlights from the 2017 Best of Texas winners include:The Best of Texas Awards program recognizes public-sector professionals and local government organizations for their dedication and contributions to advancing information technology in Texas. Winners are selected based on a number of criteria, including collaboration among agencies, innovative use of technology, economic benefits and improving public services and business processes.Karen Lewis, ITS Project ManagerTexas Education AgencyDuring the reception, the 11 Outstanding IT Service and Support Awards (listed below) were also presented to those dedicated to Texas public service.Recognizing the dedicated work of public servants who work day after day - as team members, team leads, IT project leads and managers - upholding the highest standards of public service:The Center for Digital Government is a national research and advisory institute focused on technology policy and best practices in state and local government. The Center provides public- and private-sector leaders with decision support and actionable insight to help drive 21st-century government.The Center is a division of e.Republic , the nations only media and research company focused exclusively on state and local government and education.For more information, please contact:Janet Grenslitt, Director of Surveys and Awards916-932-1300
The search is over for San Franciscos next technology leader: Linda Gerull was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee on June 7 to serve as the citys next chief information officer and director of the Department of Technology.Gerull, who most recently served as the director of Information Technology for Pierce County, Wash., will begin working with the city on July 17. She will be taking over for Interim CIO Kenneth Bukowski, who served in the CIO capacity after Miguel Gamino left San Francisco to serve as New York City CTO in October of 2016.Describing San Francisco as a hub for leading technologies, Gerull toldthat she is thankful for the opportunity and excited to be in such a vibrant and innovative city. And she is eager to work with local technology businesses to provide the best services to residents as possible.San Francisco is in the middle of its third Startup in Residence program , which helps connect local tech companies with city government to develop applications and services. And part of that service delivery is practicing the best customer service processes possible.We definitely want to make sure that the Department of Technology is a preferred service provider, Gerull said, for city employees, residents and local businesses.City Manager Naomi Kelly expressed her support for Gerulls appointment in a press release, mentioning her track record in dealing with the public. We were seeking a hands-on IT leader who understands IT operations and comes with a strong focus on customer service, Kelly said in the release. Linda has the passion and skills to help the department successfully fulfill its mission.Being in such a tech-centric city, the community is used to working with safe, secure and reliable technologies  and working with Department of Technology should be similar. Part of Gerull's role in overseeing the agency is making sure that we are using best-of-breed technologies and leveraging our partnerships, she said.The department provides many of the core IT services for city operations through its management of municipal data centers, fiber, cybersecurity and Web services, among many others. Gerull will oversee the 228 department employees and manage the $113 million budget. While that number seems large, as most civil servants know, budgets become quickly constrained. Gerull expressed her duty to leveraging the technology that is already in place.We need to make sure we build that out and get the most out of that investment, she said, adding that often in government, there is a very large technology portfolio. What better way to reduce cost than to make good use of what you already have?And by leveraging what's already been in place, the city can avoid new implementation costs, avoid startup costs and avoid possible risk of failure, Gerull added, noting that it's surprising how often cities have excellent asset management or document management systems and don't even realize it.Another emphasis for Gerull will be on shifting systems to the cloud. According to the Center for Digital Governments* 2016 Digital Cities Survey , more than a quarter of surveyed cities have 20 percent or less of their systems in the cloud. San Francisco, while slightly above this number, is still in the midst of migration.While serving as IT director for Pierce County, Gerull oversaw several system migrations to the cloud. We implemented state-of-the-art cloud technologies, she said, adding that she expects to help move that initiative forward in San Francisco.And Gerull will have some help, as the city is in the market for a chief information security officer, who will help support the operating and development teams, and serve as an expert resource for other city departments and partners, she explained.San Francisco is an exciting place to be, Gerull said, adding that the opportunity to serve under and with support from Mayor Ed Lee, whom she classifies as a proponent for technology, was an especially enticing draw to the position.Government Technology
(TNS) -- News of stores and hospitals hit hard by major cyberattacks has mobilized California lawmakers to increase safeguards against identity theft in the private sector. But strengthening laws to protect personal information in the event of a government data breach has proved much harder.Legislation to require state and local agencies to provide 12 months of identity theft protection for anyone affected by a government data breach  similar to whats required of businesses  stalled in a fiscal committee in the Legislature amid concerns over the costs it would impose on cash-strapped state and local budgets. The bill by Assemblyman Matt Dababneh (D-Woodland Hills) was meant to motivate government agencies to better secure sensitive information, a strategy that its supporters said worked when major retailers, such as Home Depot and Target , were failing to protect their customers.But opponents argued that as state and federal agencies increasingly share data centers, it would be difficult to discern which agency was liable for a breach. The real burden, security experts said, would instead fall on taxpayers  many of whom will not only have lost their data but would end up having to foot the bill too.Once you have a Social Security number stolen, once you have your credit card information stolen, you can never be made whole again, said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist at Sophos, a security software and hardware company. You cant put the genie back in the bottle.Long before cybersecurity became a national focus amid a contentious election, California lawmakers were grappling with the growing threat of security breaches across the state. A 2016 report from then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris found that though the number of attacks nationwide remained relatively flat in 2015, the actual records compromised had drastically increased, from 4.3 million in 2014 to more than 24 million the following year.In that time, just six breaches were responsible for 70% of nearly 50 million records stolen in California. The hardest hit was health insurance provider Anthem , which had 10.4 million records breached in 2015. Just below it were retail giants Target and Living Social, each which compromised 7.5 million of the stolen records in 2013.The attacks spurred lawmakers to pass a 2014 state law that required any person or business responsible for a breach of Social Security or drivers license numbers to offer an identity theft protection or mitigation service to those affected at no cost, for at least 12 months.Dababneh has since sought to extend the measure to state agencies responsible for transferring, storing and destroying the kinds of personal data that are often more valuable to hackers. In recent years, according to a state legislative analysis, security breaches have been reported in at least 10 California public agencies, including the California State University system, the Departments of Motor Vehicles , Social Services and Employment Development.As major retailers and private companies have moved to fortify their cybersecurity teams, Dababneh said, what we have seen is the technology that our public agencies and even state and federal agencies are using, compared to the private market, is falling farther and farther behind.But security experts say private companies have been more motivated by negative publicity than state law to boost their information security teams.And Dababnehs bill, similar to another that was blocked last year, has faced a larger hurdle: its cost. His latest proposal was rejected by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which found it could cost hundreds of millions  even billions  of dollars for state and local agencies. If an attack on the Department of Motor Vehicles were to compromise one quarter of its 26 million drivers license records, the committees analysis said, the expense for providing identity theft prevention to the affected residents would be more than $1 billion, assuming a cost of $15 monthly per person.If 6,000 people were affected, the cost was estimated at roughly $1 million.In an opposition letter , the California State Assn. of Counties, the Urban Counties of California, and the League of California Cities said a large enough data breach could result in millions of dollars in costs to local governments already struggling to provide basic services to their residents.Dababneh said his goal is to look into the possibilities of creating an insurance market through which state agencies could pool together their resources to fund the identity theft protection or mitigations services. Security experts doubt those services would be beneficial to residents after their information has been stolen, saying the pooled money would be better spent on prevention services.For now, prevention is the major focus of the most significant cybersecurity bill sailing through the legislative process with bipartisan support. The bill by Assemblyman Jay Obernolte (R-Big Bear Lake) would establish the California Cybersecurity Integration Center to develop a cybersecurity strategy. It would require the director of the states Office of Emergency Services to administer $193 million in federal grant money for cybersecurity prevention measures.Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Arcadia), chairman of his chambers privacy and consumer protection committee, said multiple reasons have kept lawmakers from figuring out how to deal with the complex and evolving threat of security breaches to public and private networks, including costs, the intangible nature of the threat and differences of opinion between the public and private sectors on information security.It is not an exaggeration to say that cybersecurity may well be the single biggest challenge that the public sector will face over the next decade or more, he said in a statement. We dont necessarily need legislation for every new technology that comes along, or in response to every data breach, but we should certainly be thinking and talking about it.
(TNS) -- ALBANY -- Computer hacking will climb down from the headlines and into the Albany Capital Center next week, as local cybersecurity experts stage ANYCon, billed as the areas first hacker conference.Its not an exaggeration or slander to call these experts hackers -- they have the same skillset as criminals stealing identities and crashing computers for illicit gain, but they are hired to do it legally, to expose weaknesses in their clients computer systems.White hat hackers, those on the right side of the law, are the intended audience for the June 16-17 convention, but the organizer acknowledges there may be some black hat hackers in attendance, as well.Its an interesting debate, said Tyler Wrightson, owner of Leet Cyber Security and organizer of ANYCon. But ultimately, he thinks the debate about teaching black hats how to hack misses the point -- there already is a huge black hat hacker community, and theyve proved very adept at sharing the latest tips and tricks among themselves. Its crucial, he said, that the white hats keep up.Learning the offensive side of cybersecurity is absolutely necessary to defend against it, Wrightson said. Its far more important to get the good people together in a crowd. You need to understand things to actually create good, strong defenses. ANYCon -- which stands simply for Albany Convention, in honor of Wrightsons hometown -- is open to all but is targeted at cybersecurity industry professionals and students interested in the field, he said. More than 25 regional and national experts are lined up to speak, representing entities ranging from the U.S Army to Albany Law School. Topics will also include software and information security, but hacking is a main focus.Wrightson has been in cybersecurity for two decades: three years as a hobby and the last 17 years as a professional. His business is entirely preventative -- he looks for the weaknesses in a clients system and advises how to eliminate them. (Hacking you before they do is the Leet slogan.)If someone comes to Leet with a computer infection or security breach, Leet refers them to a company that specializes in damage control.All we do is hack, Wrightson said. We get hired to identify those weaknesses before [black hat] hackers do.Cybersecurity is a rapidly growing field, he said, with essentially zero percent unemployment and room for perhaps a million new practitioners.Everyone has had technology thrown into their business, he said. You cant not be connected to the Internet now. And its invaded peoples personal lives.With that sea change has come an entire category of criminals looking for illicit gain from all those computers.They spread knowledge through chat rooms, message boards, the "dark web" and sometimes even face-to-face meetings, Wrightson said. They can be hard to combat because seeking or possessing the knowledge isnt illegal -- misusing it is. Also, many are operating in countries that dont do anything to stop them.I think our government is getting very good at responding to threats that operate in America, but thats one of the challenges, he said.Government agencies and private entities keep tabs on black hat hackers and their activities, but they are a moving target -- hacking tools and techniques change weekly or even daily, Wrightson said.Even some of the things that are cutting-edge, theyll be obsolete three months from now, he explained.His company works for firms and agencies of all sizes, and while the tactics and details of what Leet does for each client vary, the results dont.The methods that we use basically work everywhere, Wrightson said. Hackers are like water; theyre going to follow the path of least resistance. Ransomware like the worldwide WannaCry hack last month is one of the major cybersecurity threats today, he said, but the current model -- where data on an infected computer is locked or encrypted so users cant get at it unless they pay the hacker a ransom -- is just the tip of the iceberg, he said.New types of ransomware will be deployed, Wrightson predicted, that will do things like leaving data accessible but completely scrambled -- patient names and treatment details switched in medical records, or numbers moved on financial data before it is released to regulators and stockholders.This is literally the easiest, most brute-force way to frighten anyone, he said. Criminals could do that today; its just a question of whether its worth their effort.This is the challenge of cybersecurity: As black hats follow the path of least resistance, white hats block them, and if they are successful, something else becomes the path of least resistance.Effective cybersecurity and white hat hacking contain a large education component, Wrightson said: professionals have to constantly update their knowledge base.Its impossible to print an up-to-date textbook about the subject, and colleges dont turn out graduates ready to immediately combat black-hat hackers through offensive security measures, he said. What colleges are good at is preparing people to move into the field, he added, by grounding them in network engineering, programming and network administration -- the fundamental infrastructure that black hats corrupt and white hats protect.We do have some really good pipelines of talent that are emerging, between all the colleges in the area, Wrightson said.He hopes to use ANYCon to further develop that talent.We want to make this a community event, where we stick a flag in the ground and say, Albany has a very good budding cybersecurity community, he said.Dave Kennedy, the founder and principal security consultant of TrustedSec, will be ANYCons keynote speaker. Kennedy is co-author of Metasploit: The Penetration Testers Guide." He is also the creator of the Social-Engineer Toolkit and co-founder of the DerbyCon cybersecurity conference in Kentucky. He will speak about the current state of the cybersecurity industry and its impact on the world.Two-day tickets are $125 for adults, $50 for students and free for those younger than 17.
(TNS) -- Election officials in Humboldt County are checking their voter data after a leaked National Security Agency document alleged that Russian operatives hacked one of the countys voting software contractors.According to a NSA memo published Monday by the news website The Intercept , Russias military intelligence unit, the G.R.U., successfully hacked a Florida voting software company, VR Systems, last summer. That hack then led to a broader hacking attempt of local election boards around the country just days before the November election.Humboldt County, population 136,000, might not seem like a top target for the Russians. The far-north county, which includes the city of Eureka, is more famous for its redwoods, coastline and marijuana crop than its politics.But the county Office of Elections had a contract with elections company Hart InterCivic, and Hart used VR Systems for its electronic poll books, the devices poll workers use to check in voters at the ballot.Theres no evidence that voting data in Humboldt County  or any other California county  was accessed by hackers. The county may not have even been a target of the hacking attempt.But news of the hack and the local connection to VR has raised concerns, and officials are responding quickly. Wednesday morning, County Clerk Kelly Sanders is holding a conference call with the Governors Office of Emergency Services and the IT staff of the California Secretary of State to conduct in-depth diagnostic checks into the county elections systems, she said in an interview.Election integrity is very important to us here in Humboldt County and were taking additional steps to make sure that nothing had been infiltrated, Sanders said.In the process outlined by the leaked NSA document , hackers successfully tricked VR Systems employees into giving up their email login information and used it to gain access to company files. Then, on Oct. 31 or Nov. 1, hackers sent emails to 122 email addresses associated with local governments from a fake address purporting to be VR Systems. The emails included an attached Microsoft Word document infected with malware that appeared to be a user manual but if opened could give hackers wide access to a computer.The 122 email addresses may have been obtained from VR Systems data, the NSA document said.Its not clear whether Humboldt County  or any other county in California  was actually a target of that hacking attempt. Sanders said in initial checks, elections officials havent discovered any evidence that employees received an email with the infected Word document, and theyve discovered no irregularities in their data.Humboldt officials used VR Systems equipment during the November election, but are no longer using it, Sanders said. The devices are not related to vote counting, just the voter registration process.Secretary of State Alex Padilla said his office hasnt found any other counties besides Humboldt that used VR Systems equipment so far.There is no evidence of any breach of elections systems in California, Padilla said in an email. The security of our elections from cyber threats is a top priority for our office and we constantly work to strengthen the integrity and security of our elections.In a statement, VR Systems said its employees immediately notified all our customers and advised them not to click on the attachment when the company was first notified of the email.We are only aware of a handful of our customers who actually received the fraudulent email and of those, we have no indication that any of them clicked on the attachment or were compromised as a result, the statement said. We have policies and procedures in effect to protect our customers and our company.California is one of eight states where local jurisdictions use VR Systems equipment, according to the companys website . In December, VR Systems advertised its products at the annual conference of California elections officials.A VR Systems spokesperson did not respond to a question about which California counties had contracts with the company. Hart InterCivic could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.Joe Canciamilla, the clerk-recorder and registrar of voters in Contra Costa County  which has no connection with VR Systems  said in an interview that the episode could encourage jurisdictions to spend more on technology to protect voting data. But he pointed out that even if hackers were able to break into voting results, the U.S. vote-tallying process is so decentralized that it would be almost impossible to swing an election.Planting fake stories and manipulating peoples opinions is much easier than manipulating the voting process, Canciamilla said.The alleged source for the NSA document, a 25-year-old government contractor in Georgia named Reality Leigh Winner, was charged with transmitting classified information Monday, just hours after the document was published. According to an FBI affidavit, Winner admitted sending the document to The Intercept.If convicted, she could face up to 10 years in prison. Its the first prosecution for releasing classified info under President Donald Trump, whos vowed to take a tough line on government leakers.Humboldt Countys Sanders said she hadnt experienced anything like the hacking scare in the 12 years shes worked in the county elections office.Wed like to make sure we go that extra step to make sure the voters in our community are confident in their votes, she said.
Ricardo Strategic Consultings proprietary Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) modeling capability, provides insights on the economics of fuel efficient technologies, both today and in future. This model enables vehicle manufacturers, regulators, transport authorities, urban planners, and other stakeholders in making informed decisions about new technology implementation.

Ricardo Strategic Consulting is collaborating with the California Fuel Cell Partnership to provide economic modeling tools that will enable the assessment of total cost of ownership (TCO) of future fuel cell trucks, and hydrogen stations necessary to support commercial operation.

Medium- and heavy-duty fuel cell electric trucks will play a crucial role in reducing vehicle emissions in California, but are at the beginning stages of introduction. Ricardos TCO model provides an enabling toolset that will help CaFCP members develop a consensus view as to the potential of hydrogen fuel cell technology, as an alternative to diesel propulsion in truck fleets operating with California. Bill Elrick, CaFCP executive director,

The collaboration with Ricardo supports CaFCPs efforts to enable adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology in commercial trucks. CaFCP last year released the Medium and Heavy Duty Fuel Cell Electric Truck Action Plan as the first step in this effort.

The Ricardo TCO model is being used to assess fuel cell technology as applied to commercial van and truck fleets. The model provides a building block for assessing the economic viability of future vehicles featuring new powertrain technologies including natural gas, battery electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cells by calculating key economic metrics such as total cost of ownership, payback period and internal rate of return.

The model comprises a detailed build-up of capital expenditures and operating costs incurred over the ownership period of the vehicle, and includes benchmarked vehicle prices, duty cycle based miles per gallon, itemized scheduled and unscheduled maintenance costs, future fuel prices and required infrastructure investment.

The toolset is supplemented with economic models of refueling infrastructure that convey insights on capital and operational expenses incurred when installing and operating refueling infrastructure such as hydrogen, CNG/LNG and EV charging stations.

Economic modelling and assessment is vital in identifying and overcoming barriers to commercialization of advanced technology, and to developing a strong business case against which customers can invest. We are pleased to be collaborating with the California Fuel Cell Partnership by providing our extensive TCO economic modelling and analytical expertise and supporting the Partnership in its efforts to advance zero emission fuel cell technology in commercial truck applications. Piyush Bubna, Ricardo Strategic Consulting

Founded in 1999, the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) is an industry-government collaboration that aims to accelerate market introduction of fuel cell electric vehicles to help create a cleaner, more energy-diverse future. Staff from CaFCPs member organizations participate on standing committees and project teams that help ensure that vehicles, stations, regulations, and people are in step with each other as the technology comes to market.
The Nissan X-Trail today became the brands second car available with ProPILOT, Nissans autonomous-drive technology that reduces the hassle of stop-and-go highway driving. The updated X-Trail is now on sale at Nissan dealers throughout Japan today. ProPILOT, the cars main new feature, supports drivers by helping control acceleration, braking and steering during single-lane driving on the highway. The technology has until now only been available in the Nissan Serena, which was fully redesigned in August.
A proposed solid waste rate increase died Tuesday night when the Green River City Council decided not to make a motion for its approval.

The increase, according to city documents, would have increased weekly service to the standard 90-gallon residential containers from $25.50 a month to $43. Each additional container at a residence would be billed $25.50 a month, while monthly service to 300 gallon containers would be charged $75 a month.

The lift rate for collections more than once a week would be set at $20 through the proposal.

When the Council arrived at the rate increases item on it...
Castle Rock Hospital District wants its ambulance service part of Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater Countys transport rotation to help offset the ambulance services losses.

During a meeting to discuss a possible affiliation agreement between CRHD and MHSC, an issue regarding the hospital districts exclusion from the rotation was brought up.

Bailie Dockter, CEO of CRHD, said the ambulance service struggles financially, losing approximately $360,000 a year. She said Castle Rocks ambulances were not included on the call list because their service doesnt include paramedic-level EMT...
Margaret Williams Evans was born Feb. 2 1917, to Clyde Williams and Annie (Judd) Williams in Grantsville, Utah.

She passed away June 1, 2017, peacefully, in Rock Springs. She was the third oldest of 11 children and was raised in Grantsville, Utah.

She is survived by her two children; Craig (Connie) Evans and Tracy (Ken) Wineberg; Six grandchildren, Mac (Cheryl) Evans, Tiffanee (Evans) Miller, Cinnamon Evans, Ernie (Jenna) Evans, Troy Wineberg, Dylan Wineberg; six great grandchildren, Isaac Langi, Bryley Miller, Cohen Evans, Crue Evans, Abram Evans, Stella Evans; and two brothers, Noel Willi...
Thanks to a $3,000 grant from the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, the Sweetwater County Child Developmental Center will purchase much needed technology for teachers.

I cant thank the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation enough for the generous donation to the SCCDC, Lu Kasper, Executive Director, Sweetwater County Child Developmental Center, said. We are in desperate need of upgrading technology within our buildings, but with ongoing budget cuts, its been next to impossible. Your generous donation will allow us to purchase new computers for several classrooms in both Green River...
Both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly on Thursday rejected Gov. Roy Coopers summons to a special session to tackle the redistricting issue.

The Republican-led state House and Senate separately rebuffed the call that Cooper issued Wednesday for a special session to redraw General Assembly districts in line with a U.S. Supreme Court decision this week.

In the House, state Rep. David Lewis (R-Dunn) introduced the motion to rebuff Cooper, a Democrat, saying that the governors summons violated the North Carolina Constitution because it did not stem from an extraordinary occasion after meaningful consultation with the Council of State.

The House voted 71-44 to uphold a decision by House Speaker Tim Moore (R-Kings Mountain) agreeing with Lewis and canceling the special session.

Lewis also said a special session was not needed because the General Assembly already is in session and fully equipped to discharge its duties.

Democrats on the House and Senate floor tried to stop the cancellation, which hasnt occurred in at least several decades.

Cooper told reporters Wednesday that legislators need to react immediately to the decision made Monday by the Supreme Court, which upheld a lower court decision that struck down 28 state House and Senate districts as illegal racial gerrymanders.

Citing a state law, Cooper argues that if lawmakers dont act within 14 days, three federal judges could draw new maps for the legislature. By acting quickly, legislators might enable the judges to order special legislative elections under new maps this fall, rather than wait until the next regular cycle in November 2018, which the GOP prefers.

Republicans say the Supreme Court still must formally return the case to the three judges and those judges must weigh in on how new boundaries should be drawn before they can act.

Meanwhile, lawyers for aggrieved North Carolina voters filed motions in federal court in Greensboro on Thursday seeking to force the General Assembly to redraw and submit acceptable, new districts within two weeks  or let outside activists take a shot at doing it on their own.

Attorneys Anita Earls and Edwin Speas Jr. asked the three-judge panel that initially found many N.C. voting districts unlawful to set a June 22 deadline for the General Assembly to draw new districts untainted by racial considerations.

Earls of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and Raleigh-based attorney Speas represent the 31 state residents who sued two years ago contending that alleged racial gerrymandering violated their voting rights.

The two lawyers asked to take matters in their own hands if state legislators fail to act speedily enough: If the state fails to redistrict by June 22, 2017, the plaintiffs may file a proposed redistricting plan no later than June 26, Earls and Speas wrote in a proposed order that accompanied their request for an expedited hearing to resolve the case.

In their petition, the lawyers noted Coopers call for a special, redistricting session to remedy the legislative districts ruled unconstitutional.

Cooper responded sharply to the General Assemblys decision on Thursday saying the Legislature is thumbing its nose at the North Carolina Constitution as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.

Its troubling that they prefer to fight about the process rather than draw the new map that North Carolina voters deserve to level the playing field of our democracy, Cooper spokesman Ford Porter said. The Supreme Court was unanimous in its decision and there is no reason to delay the drawing of new maps.

The current maps, drawn in 2011 and used first in the 2012 elections, helped Republicans pad their majorities in the House and Senate, allowing them to more easily pass tax cuts, abortion restrictions and taxpayer-funded scholarships for students to attend private schools.

Democrats, who in 2010 were pushed out of power in both chambers for the first time in more than 100 years, originally sued over the current maps in late 2011. Democrats need to gain another three House seats or six Senate seats to eliminate the Republicans veto-proof majorities, providing them a tool to thwart the GOP agenda.

Its a game of chicken, said Meredith College political science professor David McLennan in an interview. Theyre fighting because it matters a lot ... how much more gamesmanship will occur before we get a resolution  thats the question.
Four North Carolina universities rank among the best in the world

Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State and Wake Forest University are among the top 959 colleges worldwide, according to the 2018 edition of the QS World University Rankings.

Duke is 21st in the world and 12th among universities in the United States. UNC-CH is 80th in the QS rankings. Among public U.S. universities, it ranks 12th.

N.C. State is 263rd among world universities. Wake Forest ranks between 411th and 420th.

The 14th annual rankings, compiled by British education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, measures schools on six different metrics. These include student-faculty ratios, research citations per faculty member, employer reputation and ratios of both international students and international faculty. About 40 percent of each schools score comes from a survey of academic reputation.

U.S. schools hold down the first four places in the new rankings. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is first for the sixth straight year and followed by Stanford University and Harvard University.

California Institute of Technology is fourth after switching places in the rankings with Englands Cambridge University, the best-ranked school outside the United States.

University of Oxford, University College London, Imperial College London, University of Chicago and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich make up the rest of the top 10.

Though U.S. schools occupied the top four spots, the nation is losing some ground further down the rankings. This year, the U.S. had 31 schools in the top 100 versus 32 a year ago and 75 institutions in the top 400 versus 78 last year.

The reason: U.S. schools declined slightly in measures of international students and faculty amid a growing competition for international students.

The U.S. has long been the destination of choice for international students. In 2016, a record 1.2 million international students attended college in the United States.

But in the runup to and aftermath of Novembers election, significant numbers of American universities reported declines in undergraduate and graduate applications from the Middle East, India and China. Its too soon to say if a decline in applications will derail 10 straight years of growth in the international student population in the U.S. But the reports authors say U.S. colleges should be concerned.

Nations that are rising have adopted an open, global outlook and are increasingly poised to attack U.S. pre-eminence, Ben Sowter, the QS research director, said in a statement. If the United States fails to remain international and open and embraces isolationism, its higher education system will suffer.
Once again Janice Wangard (letter, June 5) is on her righteous pedestal, spewing ignorance like soot from a coal-fueled power plant. This time its about the Paris climate accord as a vehicle that perpetuates global warming as a liberal Democratic hoax created to destroy the United States as we know it.

She gives no reason the liberals would want to do that  they also have to live here. I could waste my time giving her a few scientific facts about climate change and what it will eventually do to our planet or mention that the only two countries not signing the accords were Syria and Nicaragua. One of her most blaring misrepresentations is that the U.S. is ahead of the rest of the world in dealing with climate change. Unfortunately, Ms. Wangard falls into the powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening life on Earth described by Andy Borowitz in a 2015 article (http://tinyurl.com/yah7cpny).
Managing an ecommerce business isn't easy. If, in particular, you're the owner of an online store, you shouldn't have a finger in every pie.

Related: 11 Mobile Apps That Make Managing Your Online Store Easier

Ideally, you don't want your ecommerce business to become fully reliant on you, either. You should outsource and delegate what you can so you can remain focused on high-level business-development activities. Don't be a victim of "superhero syndrome" -- you can't do it all.

Help is available in a variety of categories, and the following unique services and brands should help you gain more control over your time.

FounderTees

T-shirts are one thing, but FounderTees proves that soft, comfortable and shrink-resistant t-shirts are a whole other thing. This company even allows you to custom-order your company logo on the back of the shirts.

Since the company has already hand-selected the best designs, you don't have to make your own, hire a designer or search the web far and wide to find the best-looking shirts. Plus, t-shirts make for great marketing and branding tools, especially if you can get your customers to wear them wherever they go.

Cameron Herold, author of Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue in Profit in 3 Years or Less, discusses the idea of appearing bigger than you are as a company by presenting a unified front at trade shows, conferences or business events. Even just a few people can seem like an army when they're all wearing the same t-shirts. That's one way to build brand awareness.

Steve Chou

Steve Chou of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com helps ecommerce business owners build a profitable online store through his many free resources. When his wife became pregnant and quit her job, he decided to figure out how to replace her income by building an online income instead of sacrificing their lifestyle. He teaches others how to do the same.

What's unique about MyWifeQuitHerJob.com is that it doesn't promote any products or service pitches, to speak of. Chou simply offers great information on how to build your online store through his blog and podcast. You can also view his list of recommended tools and income reports to get a sense of what's possible with ecommerce. Chou does have a course you can purchase, however, at profitableonlinestore.com.

David Siteman Garland named Chou one of the most trustworthy sources for how to build a profitable online store. Other notable entrepreneurs have had great things to say about this entrepreneur's refreshingly open and transparent look at ecommerce.

Mobile Marketo

Have you ever felt frustration when trying to monetize your mobile site? Developing a fast and easy mobile checkout process can be difficult. Plus, you need to optimize load times, or your website visitors may never return. According to Kissmetrics, 73 percent of mobile internet users surveyed have said they've encountered a website that was too slow to load. Furthermore, 40 percent of users abandoned a website that took more than three seconds to load.

So, the message is that if you don't capture new customers in that moment, you could end up losing them for good. You could try running a remarketing campaign to bring them back to your site, but then your acquisition costs increase, and by that point your prospects may well have found a viable alternative and won't even buy from you.

This is the very reason MobileMarketo was founded. It helps businesses craft more effective mobile campaigns to maximize results. MobileMarketo even calls itself an "m-commerce" company.

If you're at a loss as to how to better monetize your mobile users, a service like this could help you convert more visitors.

PPC Masterminds

How do you know that you're getting the best results possible with your ads, SEO and conversion rate-optimization efforts? If you're trying to do it all yourself, the simple answer is you probably don't know whether you're getting those results. It's difficult enough to be an expert in one area of marketing, let alone many.

PPC Masterminds exists to help businesses get more from every click. It has optimized over 420 accounts to date. Nor are its services limited to pay per click (PPC), which makes the company unique: Its staffers also specialize in SEO, web analytics, and web design. And, if that weren't enough, the company offers courses on retargeting and competitive analysis you can purchase, to gain a better understanding of each.

Related: 3 Tools Ecommerce Retailers Can Use to Boost Efficiency

Overall, customers have had good things to say, citing the company's clear and transparent communication and thorough reporting.

Digital CoLab

No entrepreneur should try to do everything in isolation. The best ideas and strategies don't come from working on your business alone, day in and day out. Instead, there's a good chance others have encountered whatever challenges you're facing right now, and they may have even found a way to solve it. You could potentially bypass years of toil and struggle by leveraging the knowledge of others.

That's why it's useful to turn to Digital CoLab. The company offers an accelerated two-day learning experience to be held this year in Dallas, in October.

Tabitha Philen of Inspired Bloggers University had this to say about the 2015 Digital CoLab event: "Truly, the opportunities to network with powerhouse podcasters, millionaire bloggers and really cool nerds were numerous, but the best part . . . it was like a huge family reunion. No pretenses. No stuffy suits. Just blue jeans, flip flops and a bunch of friends talking about business over dinner."

If you're looking for a unique, non-corporate conference experience, Digital CoLab is worth a look.

Final thoughts

It's easy to balk at the cost of outsourcing and utilizing various tools and services to grow your business. But if outside help takes that weight off your shoulders, allowing you to focus on marketing and on gaining more customers, that help is worth its weight in gold.

Related: The 5 Most Innovative Trends in Ecommerce to Watch for in 2016

It's difficult for one person to manage and oversee an entire ecommerce operation. Things will fall through the cracks, and that could harm your reputation. So, if you're starting to feel overwhelmed -- if you didn't start a business so you could be tied to it-- don't put off finding help.

Related:

5 Unique Services and Brands That Can Boost Your Ecommerce Business

5 Ways Technology Is Changing Ecommerce

10 Reasons Your Ecommerce Store Isn't Making Any Sales



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The following excerpt is from the staff of Entrepreneur Medias book Finance Your Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes

Thanks to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lifting the ban on general solicitation for investors, LinkedIn has become a potential mother lode for identifying and pitching investors. But its a nuanced and regulated game.

Related: Landing a Revenue-Sharing Deal to Finance Your Business

I dont think a general solicitation as a first contact is the way to go, says Dave Gowel, founder of RockTech, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based enterprise-training platform for cloud technologies that he helmed from 2010 to 2016. Of the 29 angel investors Gowel brought onboard during that time, all had one thing in common: Every investor relationship  was influenced by LinkedIn, says Gowel.

Gowel and others recommend using LinkedIn as a recon tool to improve real-world interactions with potential investors. The following sections discuss how.

Embrace the advanced search

If youre not clicking the Advanced link next to the sites search bar and hunting by industry, company, location, alma mater, groups you belong to or specific keywords of your choosing, youre wasting your time, says Gowel, whos also the author of The Power in a Link: Open Doors, Close Deals and Change the Way You Do Business Using LinkedIn.

There are 300-million-plus people on LinkedIn, he says. Advanced searches help you cut through the clutter and zero in on the right people to meet.

Next, follow a potential investors company page. Join any relevant LinkedIn groups to which your target belongs. Scour their profile and posts to familiarize yourself with the persons portfolio, investment approach, likes and dislikes, says Milwaukee entrepreneur Seth Knapp, whos sussing out investors for his social marketing app, Chitter. As Knapp explains, Reaching out to an investor without doing any homework tells him everything he needs to know about you -- none of it good.

Vet and be vetted

Resist the urge to ping investors who sound like a good fit right away. Instead, ask mutual contacts for insights about them, Gowel advises. You dont want to partner with an investor whos known for being difficult or one who doesnt meet the SECs definition of an accredited investor.

If you do decide to move forward, dont contact an investor cold; an introduction through a mutual contact can catapult you to the top of the correspondence slush pile.

Related: 5 Essentials for Raising Your Growth Round of Financing

The one thing you cant fabricate is a strong relationship, Gowel says. Plus, he adds, a mutual acquaintance may know how and when that investor prefers to be contacted.

Be patient

Partnerships arent built overnight. Your deck and any other information you send over will fall on far less deaf ears if you patiently develop a relationship with the investor, Knapp says.

Of course, most angels wont end up investing, no matter how much they love your pitch, warns Brandon Bruce, COO and cofounder of Cirrus Insight, which sells a software add-on to Salesforce. But a carefully cultivated relationship can lead to market intel, strategic advice and, most important, referrals to other potential investors.

The fine print

Despite the SECs loosened regulations, there are still rules for soliciting investors. Before you start hitting up your LinkedIn network to publicize your capital raise, consult an attorney to make sure your pitch is legal and your paperwork has been filed with the SEC.

Youll also need to familiarize yourself with the SEC definition of accredited investor -- someone who has $200,000 or more in annual income or $300,000 in annual household income or who exceeds $1 million in net worth, excluding primary residence. Keep in mind it is your responsibility to make sure the investors are accredited. If theyre not associated with an angel funding group or known to be accredited, you may have to ask them to provide copies of their tax returns to prove it.

Look at your LinkedIn profile first

When Louis Beryl became a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in 2012, he hoped to find a financial technology startup involved in building what he calls the modern bank for the next generation of consumers. He didnt. So in 2013 he founded Earnest, an online lender of low-cost personal loans to financially sound applicants. His cofounder was Benjamin Hutchinson, a finance exec who had worked at the U.K.s HM Treasury during the banking meltdown.

San Francisco-based Earnest has launched in 19 states and closed $15 million in financing from Andreessen Horowitz, Atlas Venture, Collaborative Fund, First Round Capital and Maveron, as well as more than 15 angel investors. Earnest has loaned money to young people who need cash for moving costs, weddings, home repairs, vacations, furniture and the like.

Related: Grants and Loans for Women-Owned Businesses

The lender assesses each applicant as an individual, not a number, Beryl explains. Its not just, Do you have this credit score? Or, Do you make this amount of money? For us, its really about, Are you financially responsible?

The companys underwriting software pulls data from the applicants LinkedIn profile and financial accounts, evaluating education, work history, salary, savings, cash flow and earning potential, and Earnest staffers review each prospective client by phone. Loans are typically fulfilled within 48 hours of application.

Since raising the $15 million, Earnest has grown from a team of five to more than 125. Earnest offers loans in 39 states plus DC and is shooting for all 50 in the coming years. Keeping customer costs affordable throughout will remain a priority. Were building a 100-year company, Beryl says. We want our clients happiness to be so good that their grandkids will be our customers.

Related:

Finding Investors Through LinkedIn

For Entrepreneurs, Venture Capital Is Not Always the Best Option

Not Just Another Money Guy



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
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Voters across Grimsby, Cleethorpes and the rest of North East Lincolnshire have been heading to the polls today to cast their vote in the 2017 General Election. We headed to the polling station at the community centre in Nunsthorpe - the estate where the town's last MP, Melanie Onn, grew up to find out what was on the minds of her constituents.

Among those braving the blustery conditions at the community centre on Sutcliffe Avenue was the estate's former councillor and ex-mayor, Norma Lincoln.

Norma, who helps to run the community centre with her husband, said she had been "excited" by the number of people in Nunsthorpe who had chosen to vote in the snap general election and pointed out that, while she could not confirm how many had passed through the booths by 5pm, she estimated that it was up on previous elections.

"I think a lot of people might have been swayed by what happened in Manchester and London but Melanie Onn is a big character here and people like her," she said.

But her sentiments were not shared by everyone.

Mark Trevor, 51, of Kirkstead Crescent, Nunsthorpe, said: "I've been a Labour voter all of my life but I can't bring myself to vote for Jeremy Corbyn. He is too far to the left.

"I wouldn't sleep at night if I voted for the Conservatives so I've gone in the middle and voted for the independent (Christina McGilligan-Fell).

"Jeremy Corbyn isn't a strong enough leader and I just wouldn't trust him with defence."

He added: "I think it's a foregone conclusion; I think it will be Onn in Grimsby and Martin Vickers in Cleethorpes. Nationally it will be the Conservatives but I don't think it will be a landslide.

"It's the first time in my life that I've not voted Labour."

Another man, who described himself as a traditional Labour supporter, said the political landscape in Grimsby was changing after the town voted overwhelmingly in favour of leaving the European Union in last summer's referendum.

However, Richard Klein, 31, of Rothwell Avenue, said he would stick with Labour because they "still look out for our type of estates."

"Personally, I've been let down by the previous governments many times and sometimes you feel that you don't know who to vote," he said.

"I'm looking for someone who can help by improving wages, but not necessarily someone who is going to make it easier for me," he said.

"I've grown up in Nunsthorpe and sadly there's some people who just don't want to get involved (with politics). I do think it's important to vote."

Ms Onn became the town's MP in 2015 when she secured almost 5,000 votes, defeating the Tory candidate Marc Jones and Ukip's Victoria Ayling.

But research suggests tonight's count will be much tighter, as Ms Gideon aims to become the constituency's first Conservative MP since 1945.
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Rival candidates for the parliamentary seat of Great Grimsby have issued their last-ditch appeals as the town heads to the polls in a vote which is too close to call.

With recent polls suggesting the two main candidates are currently neck and neck, Labour's Melanie Onn and the Conservative's Jo Gideon have appealed directly to Grimsby's voters for one last time.

Ms Onn became the town's MP in 2015 when she secured almost 5,000 votes, defeating the Tory candidate Marc Jones and Ukip's Victoria Ayling.

But research suggests tonight's count will be much tighter, as Ms Gideon aims to become the constituency's first Conservative MP since 1945.

Ms Onn, who took over the reins from veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell two years ago, today urged readers to judge her by her record as MP and promised to "continue to make Grimsbys voice heard on the national stage."

You know me. You know Im from the town, I live here today, I use the same schools, hospitals and services as you, and I care strongly about building a better future for our town," she said.

Over the past two years Ive kept the promises I made in 2015. Ive helped save hundreds of jobs at Youngs Seafood factory, promoted Grimsby as a a great place for businesses to invest, helped save our direct rail link to Manchester, and I've been available to anyone who needed to contact me.

"We need a strong independent voice that is not afraid to speak up for what they think is right, even if it isn't the party line. People have had enough of meaningless slogans and want to hear what their politicians really think. That is what I've done for the last two years and what I'll continue to do in the best interests of Great Grimsby.

The Tories have cut 500 police officers from our local force, while violent crime has increased by 59 per cent. They have refused to guarantee that they wont cut the police further. I will vote against these plans which would make you less safe."

She added: "The Tories are planning huge cuts to Grimsbys schools and will close two outstanding local nurseries if they return to Government. They simply dont care about children in Grimsby.

Our local hospital will be forced to cut 27 million from their budget next year. People are already waiting too long to be seen in A&E, for surgery, or to see their GP. I will fight for better funding for Grimsbys schools and hospitals.

The Tories have also dropped their promise to increase the state pension and will scrap the winter fuel allowance for pensioners. I will vote to increase the state pension every year, protect the winter fuel allowance, and oppose the Tories unfair Dementia Tax.

I am the only candidate who will vote to protect our NHS, our childrens education, and to make Grimsbys streets safe. I will continue to make Grimsbys voice heard on the national stage, to ensure we get the best Brexit deal for Grimsby, and to bring new, better jobs to our town."

A poll conducted by the Grimsby Telegraph just days before the General Election revealed that the town's undecided voters held the key to Grimsby's next MP, with Labour and the Conservatives almost neck and neck.

The survey showed that 36 per cent of voters would opt for Ms Onn, while 34 per cent said they wanted to see Ms Gideon as their next MP.

However, 19 per cent of voters said they were still undecided about who they want to vote for - and it is their votes which are likely to swing the election either way.

Last night, several major betting companies listed Jo Gideon as favourite to take the seat, with odds of 8/11 and 4/6 available.

In a last minute plea to voters, Ms Gideon said: "A vote for me, Jo Gideon, is a vote for a candidate with real world experience. I have decades of experience in business, education and training, at home and abroad, and as an award-winning social entrepreneur. I know how to generate jobs and training opportunities, secure investment and help communities to prosper. I will be your strong voice in a strong and stable Government that will actually deliver for Grimsby and for you.

"The choice in Great Grimsby is clear: A choice between strong and stable leadership with Theresa May or a coalition of chaos with Jeremy Corbyn.

"You the voters of Grimsby will decide who governs the United Kingdom.

"Only by voting for me and Theresa May today can you get the strong and stable leadership in the national interest that will protect our security, get us the best Brexit deal, secure both our economy and the public services it funds which we all use. A vote for the Labour candidate is a vote for Jeremy Corbyn, and his nonsensical plans, which will put all this at risk.

"The Labour candidate in Grimsby tries to claim you can vote for her and not risk Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister. This is simply nonsense.

"If Theresa May loses just six seats then Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, backed by the SNP, who want to break up our United Kingdom, and the Lib Dems, who would team up with Labour to put an end to Brexit. Only by voting Conservative can you make sure Brexit goes through."

She added: "When you vote, you need to know that a vote for Labour is a vote for Jeremy Corbyn that will put at risk our economy and the finances for our public services. It will leave us with more debt, higher taxes, higher immigration and a bungled Brexit.

"The Labour candidate claims to support Brexit now, but most people I speak to know she is a passionate 'out and out inner'. Her heart isn't in it and she and the Labour Party don't understand why you voted to leave here in Great Grimsby.

Today vote for a party that will help secure our country, our economic progress, our public services and deliver the best Brexit deal. Vote for me, Jo Gideon, your Conservative Candidate, standing with Theresa May."
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At St Joseph's Catholic Primary Voluntary Academy in Philip Avenue, members of the club recruited the schools nursery children to signed up for their Dolly Parton Imagination Library, where the popular American signer has been an Honorary Member of our club since December 2014.

The children sat and listened as Rotary Club secretary, Keith Jones read to them the tail of Peter Rabbit, from a book with a special forward by Dolly herself and signed.

This is a tremendous opportunity for children. he said.

Its brilliant, I just wish this scheme was around when my children were small.

Although now I have a granddaughter and I make sure she regularly receives a book from her grandfather!, Keith smiled.

With parents on hand to sign up for the scheme, each child will receive a brand new book through their door every month.

Deputy Head Emily Powell said: This scheme is half funded by the Rotary Club of Cleethorpes, for children aged three to five-years.

It means as each month they receive their books they will have built up quite a library at home for themselves by the time they reach five-year-old.

Technology is all well and good but actually owning a book is wonderful, she added.

We spoke with a couple of the lucky nursery school pupils who had just joined up.

Luca Ashford, who is four-years-old, said: Im looking forward to getting my book delivered to my home and my mum will read it to me.

Three-year-old Carson Staples, who has just a new addition to his family, said: Im looking forward to reading to my new baby brother.

Rolf Sperr of the Rotary Club, said: After the school holidays we will be introducing the scheme at Queen Mary Avenue Nursery in Cleethorpes.

Dolly Parton became an honorary member of The Rotary Club of Cleethorpes after its involvement with her worldwide book project and her Imagination Library has boosted literacy to the under-fives by giving free books.

So now St Joseph's Catholic Primary is one of many Cleethorpes schools signed up to the programme.
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Polling stations were busy in the first few hours of them opening for the 2017 General Election thanks to an increasing number of young voters and women voters.

Polling clerks at stations across North East Lincolnshire and in the Louth and Horncastle constituency had a constant stream of voters this morning.

Polling stations in Louth, North Thoresby and Holton-le-Clay were busy, according to clerks.

The younger and female demographic among the electorate may play a crucial role in the election with an estimated two million people newly-registered to vote nationally in the run up to todays poll.

Among the first voters was Jane Bucknell of Louth who attended the Beech Grove polling station with Stuart Linsell.

She said: I have always voted. It is very important especially for women. It is a fundamental basic right to vote and everyone should do it.

She said she had been inspired by the Labour campaign.

Stuart said: It is important for people to get out and use their vote.

At North Thoresby village hall, Peter Turner, 59 and John Butterworth, 62, took along their pet Corgi dog Oscar.

Peter said: There has been a lot of younger people expressing an interest in voting and I totally support that. Their interest is there and that is a good thing.

It is notable how many young voters and women have shown an interest in voting.

John said: I always vote. It is something which in some other countries they wish they had.

At Holton-le-Clay village hall on Pinfold Lane there was a constant stream of voters keeping the clerks busy.

An East Lindsey District Council spokesman said: It has been stead. We are expecting peaks and troughs.

The vote for the Louth and Horncastle constituency is expected at around 4.30am from the Meridian Leisure Centre.

Holton-le-Clay resident, Bernard Marshall, 69 said: We should adopt an Australian-style of voting where it is compulsory to vote. I have always voted since I was 21 years old. It could not come soon enough for me. I have always voted Conservative because when the country is being led by the Tories we always do well. It was hard during the Thatcher years when she stood up against the Communists.

The Grimsby Telegraph will be providing an all-night service with views and results in a Live Blog starting around 9.30pm tonight.
Former president Barack Obama and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau met for a casual private dinner last night in Trudeaus hometown of Montreal, as youre no doubt aware if youve glanced at Twitter today:

Tonight in Montreal, @BarackObama and @JustinTrudeau discussed their shared commitment to developing the next generation of leaders. pic.twitter.com/170ze83igl  The Obama Foundation (@ObamaFoundation) June 7, 2017

How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks @BarackObama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown. pic.twitter.com/EwJXPEkN3w  Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 7, 2017

The meal practically oozed with bromance: It was at Liverpool House, the seaside-cottage-themed sister of Canadas Joe Beef; they hugged at the end; and, yes, it involved candles. Chef and co-owner David McMillan was there to personally feed them, and he gave CBC the scoop on what the menu entailed. As expected, mostly seafood  it was six courses that started with oysters, then shrimp, halibut, steak, and spaghetti lobster, followed by strawberry shortcake for dessert.



They ate everything, McMillan says. He adds that Trudeau is somewhat of a regular, so Obama asked for his recommendations  which were apparently to just [l]et them do what they do, McMillan says. So they stuck pretty much with the usual, only they health-ified things a little by using less butter and cream, since both men seem to watch their figures. Asked if either of them put ketchup on anything, McMillan shut the rumor mill down before it could start. No, he replied, I would tell you right away.

He adds that the scene was a madhouse either way  Maybe 200 security plus the police, and the streets were blocked. Hes pretty sure he saw ninjas in the restaurants backyard, and seems a little disappointed that the two security guys who got kitchen duty didnt get to taste-test his food like in the days of Julius Caesar.


Aftermath of the officer springing into action. Photo: Boston Police Dept./Twitter

Quick PSA for anyone considering a doughnut-shop robbery: If youre dead-set on this life decision, dont do it in Boston at a Dunkin Donuts where theres an on-duty police officer inside ordering coffee.



Boston PD couldnt help but joke about the incident, which sounds like Casey Afflecks next SNL Boston Man skit, where this time his DD disgruntlement goes next-level. According to the report, an officer entered a Boston Dunkin around 1:15 a.m. As he was waiting to order  again, on duty, so that means in full uniform  he observed another man, Stephen White, walk in and ask to use the restroom. As White was talking to the employee, the officer took his coffees and orange juice and left. En route to his cruiser, though, he observed an employee burst out of the store screaming, Hes robbing us! Hes robbing us!

Per the report, the officer instinctively sprang into action, doing this with such abandon, no less, that he dropped the coffee on the ground! He then took up a tactical position near the front entrance, arresting White on the spot when he emerged and simply walking the bagful of money back inside.

A Cautionary Tale, Boston PD warns. If youre gonna rob a Dunks, best not to do it during the cops coffee run.


A great day at McCorporate. Photo: Tannen Maury/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Outside of a $15 minimum wage, the fast-food industrys big mortal fear when it comes to labor law is over classifying companies with franchise business models as joint employers along with their franchisees. Their fear increased substantially in 2016, following news that President Obamas Labor Department had issued guidelines recommending precisely this classification. Its probably no surprise, then, to learn that yesterday the new Labor Department came to those giant corporations rescue by deleting the Obama-era guidelines entirely.



The retail industry was pretty happy about the changes. The International Franchise Association, a big fast-food trade group, said the guidelines under Obamas DOL were some of the most costly and burdensome regulations impacting the franchise business model. The group said it was pleased that the new agency is taking steps to undo a federal ruling thats made it harder for Americas 733,000 franchise owners to grow and create new jobs. The U.S. Chamber of Commerces statement called the Obama-era guidelines enforcement traps waiting to spring, and the National Retail Federation celebrated the move as an important first step in getting rid of the uncertainty that led to more growth-chilling litigation.

The DOLs withdrawal doesnt necessarily translate to an immediate win for fast-food employers, though. The guidance it removed wasnt technically law, so judges werent obligated to defer to it, former Labor deputy secretary Seth Harris tells the L.A. Times. He feels, If anything, it makes it harder for employers, because they dont know clearly what standards they should apply.

But it does signal a priorities switch  one where the Labor Department pursues fewer cases that go up-chain to a corporate franchisor, as another former Labor official explains. That will almost certainly affect the eventual outcome of cases before the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB has recently taken workers side in several joint-employer cases. The big one to watch, though, involves McDonalds, and its still being challenged in court. In the meantime, there are currently two vacancies on the NLRB that President Trump gets to fill, assuming he ever gets around to it.


Industry sources claim that Apple is looking to adopt microLED display technology for its wearables as a move to reduce its reliance on OLED manufacturers (i.e. mostly Samsung but also LG).

What is microLED/LED? It is very similar to OLED in that each pixel is built up of individually-controllable LEDs. This means total darkness is possible (no glowing blacks, amazing contrast) and that power consumption reduction is easy (just use a black background).

However, these new displays use classic LEDs, not organic ones. This means they offer higher maximum brightness and much improved efficiency. And they can be made flexible too (for curved screens).

One problem, though - even though they were invented in 2010, they are still not ready for prime time. This is why Apple is unlikely to use microLED on the iPhone just yet.

However, the company did acquire LuxVue, a microLED company in Santa Clara, in 2014. Foxconn invested in a similar company (eLux) and Samsung may be looking to acquire PlayNitride, another competitor.

Some insiders claim that Apple will use a facility in Taiwan it bought in 2014. This facility used to be a Qualcomm shop, churning out Mirasol displays - the failed color display tech for e-readers and smartwatches.

Source
While Motorola has already unveiled the Moto Z2 Play at the beginning of this month, that can't be said for the Moto Z2 or the Z2 Force. These upcoming models (which may just be one and the same, by the way) are still not official. And so it's good to see one of them in a benchmark's database, since it means we're fast approaching its release.

It's the Moto Z2 this time around, and it was spotted in the database of Geekbench. This means someone in possession of a prototype has run that benchmark, and this has resulted in a few of its specs being outed.

The Moto Z2 will be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835, unsurprisingly. This will be aided by 4GB of RAM. The phone runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat, so we should expect it to launch with that version of the OS. Based on past rumors, we assume the Z2 will have a dual rear camera setup, while an image leak has shown us that there's going to be a dual-LED flash for the selfie camera and a front-mounted fingerprint sensor. Unfortunately it's still unclear when Motorola plans to launch this device.

Source | Via
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As expected, Nokia 6, 5, 3, as well as Nokia 3310 (2017) have been officially brought to the Philippines. The devices carry a price tag of PHP 11,990 ($240), PHP 9,990 ($200), PHP 6,990 ($140), and PHP 2,490 ($50), respectively. They'll go on sale towards the end of June.

The devices recently arrived in the company's home country of Finland as well. The next market to get these Nokias should be Vietnam, where the launch/unveiling is expected to happen on June 10. India will follow on June 13.

Via
Samsung plans to build twice as many phones at Indian plant

Today, Samsungs Indian division celebrated its inauguration of the site of expansion for the South Korean companys Noida plan where it makes smartphones, TVs and refrigerators.

The investment of over $762 million (INR 4,915 crore) is a testament of Samsungs commitment to Indias initiative called Make in India, which calls to make India into a global design and manufacturing Hub.

Samsung Galaxy J7

The 35 acre sites inauguration opened in traditional fashion: with the Indian government ministers and officials along with Samsung Electronics President and CEO of Southwest Asia, HC Hong and CEO of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, JK Shin.

The expansion will double the production of smartphones and refrigerators in India. Heres Samsungs statement regarding the expansion.

This new investment of INR 4,915 crore is a testament to our continuing commitment to Make in India and to Uttar Pradesh, which has been our partner right from the day Samsungs journey in India began. Steadfast support from the state and local authorities in Noida has helped make our vision of Make for India a reality.

Via 1 | Via 2




Haiti - FLASH : Installation of members of the Commission of the Superior Council of Wages





Wednesday, at the National Palace, President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by his wife Martine and Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant, proceeded to the installation of members of the Superior Council of Wages (CSS) and those of the National Commission for the Modernization of Public Transport. An amplification of the two decrees was given to each member of these different entities.



In the presence of members of the Government and Parliament, members of the Trade Union of Workers, of business and labor sector, and members of the National Commission and of CSS, the Head of State stressed "The Superior Council of Wages will work to the maintain of the purchasing power of the workers. It will take measures to enable our businesses and industries to continue to function for the satisfaction of workers and employers."



The President of the Republic promised that the Government will take the necessary measures to socially support the workers so that they can be productive and live better with their families.



Members of the CSS :

Gouvernement : Renan Hedouville, Guerline Jean-Louis, Louis Pierre Joseph ;

Employer sector : Gilbert Durand, Hugo Elien, Jean-Max Bazin ;

Union sector : Pierre Joseph Polycarpe, Fritz Charles, Dominique St-Eloi.



Note that the trade unionist Saint-Eloi Dominique was not present at the installation ceremony, because according to him the other two members who represent the trade union sector, do not have the confidence of the workers in the factories.



According to Roosevelt Bellevue, the Minister of Social Affairs and Labor, the members of the CSS have 10 days to produce a report proposing an adjustment of the minimum wage by sector.



In addition, the Head of State said that "The National Commission for the Modernization of Public Transport will work for the professionalization of the public transport system in Haiti. It must propose standards in order to enable citizens to travel in good conditions." He gave assurances that his Administration would provide the necessary assistance to drivers in the public transport sector to facilitate the purchase of new vehicles for service, the obtention of a social security card and the execution of the agreement of 13 May 2017 between the Haitian State and the trade union of the Transport sector.



See also:

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21159-haiti-politics-minimum-wage-trade-unions-observe-a-6-day-truce.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21143-haiti-politics-famni-lavalas-supports-workersdemands.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21110-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21091-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21081-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21054-haiti-political-the-economic-forum-worried-about-the-negative-effect-of-the-demonstrations.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21046-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21036-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20989-haiti-flash-workers-forced-to-take-the-street-companies-close.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Diplomacy : 3 new ambassadors accredited





Wednesday at the National Palace, the President of the Republic, Jovenel Moise received the credentials of three new Ambassadors accredited to Haiti. They are Alberto Emilio Despradel Cabral (Dominican Republic), Cheng-Hao Hu (Republic of China - Taiwan) and Bader Almatrooshi (United Arab Emirates).



These new ambassadors renewed the commitment of their respective countries to maintain close ties of friendship and strengthen cooperation between Haiti and their countries.



President Moise also reassured these ambassadors of his willingness to work by common agreement to the harmonious development of relations between Haiti and these three friendly countries.



to the Museum of the Haitian National Pantheon (MUPANAH). Following the floral offering, in memory of the Heroes of Independence of Haiti, the Director General of the Museum Michele Frisch accompanied the Ambassadors on a guided tour of the museum's permanent and temporary exhibition rooms so taht they can discover the history and art of Haiti.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Diaspora : Moise to the Haitian American Business Summit (Miami)





The Board of Directors of the Haitian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida (HACCOF) and the office of Commissioner Jean Monestime present the Haitian American Business Summit (HABS-2017) being held in Miami, Florida from June 15th, 2017 to June 17th, 2017. The summit will conclude with our 2nd Annual Top 20 under 40 YoPro Presidential Gala on June 17th, 2017.



The Haitian American Business Summit will present a much needed platform for the Haitian American community to interact and explore new opportunities that will further our recent local progress and allow us to continue our investment in Haiti.



During his first trip to Miami, President Moise will also honor us as our keynote speaker at the Top 20 Under 40 YoPro Presidential Gala. His visit supports our collaborative efforts and the Haitian diaspora's efforts to expand opportunities to attract private sector investments, create jobs, and further advance the development of our Haitian American community.



This conference will start a movement to help gauge the current level of diaspora involvement in Haiti and support new methods of engagement. This two-day summit is open to the public.



Pre-registration is required and tickets can be purchased online at : www.haccof.com



For additional information, please contact Joann Milord at : jmilord@haccof.com



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Karen Peck & New River have again partnered with Daywind Records to release their new album Hope For All Nations. The set will release nationwide on June 23, 2017 to retailers and digital distributors. The current single, "Hope For All Nations" is impacting radio now and already seeing a strong surge to start.

Karen Peck writes: "Our new album Hope For All Nations is releasing on June 23 but we may have a few CDs at Homecoming! Also you can pre-order today. We are so excited about this album. We hope you will love it!"

Meanwhile, Karen Peck & New River are leaving for a special trip to Honduras. The group will be sharing songs from their new Daywind Records release Hope For All Nations during their time in the nation.

Karen Peck shared, "We are looking forward to returning to Roatan, Honduras. We had the honor and privilege of being there last November and instantly felt a connection with the wonderful people of Roatan. We have been praying for the Lord to make a way for us to go back to this beautiful place. We are beyond excited to perform our new album title song "HOPE FOR ALL NATIONS" with a choir comprised of the island churches. We are asking everyone to pray for a special anointing as we video the song and present the Gospel to the people of Roatan."

The group will be performing a special concert this coming Saturday night. Several local churches are assembling a choir to accompany New River on the title song, "Hope For All Nations", from their new project. Daywind Records staff is accompanying the award-winning Gospel group to video the song being performed live.

Tracklist:

1. LOVE WILL NEVER GIVE UP

2. HOPE FOR ALL NATIONS

3. WHO HE IS, WHAT HE DOES

4. THE REASON

5. GOTTA BE SAVED

6. I'LL KEEP ON PRAYING

7. THE RIVER

8. VICTORY IS MINE

9. GOD'S GOT A BLESSING

10. ALL YOU NEED

11. I KNOW I'LL BE THERE

12. I'M GONNA LOVE MY NEIGHBOR

Tags : Karen Peck and New River karen peck and new river hope for all nations Daywind Records
Published on 2017/06/08 | Source

Added episode 6 captures for the Korean drama "Fight For My Way" (2017)

Advertisement

Directed by Kim Dong-hwi, Lee Na-jeong

Written by Lim Sang-choon

Network : KBS

With Park Seo-joon, Kim Ji-won, Ahn Jae-hong, Song Ha-yoon, Son Byung-ho, Kim Ye-ryung,...

20 episodes - Mon, Tue 22:00

Synopsis

A drama about a man and a woman who live a life with nothing to show for.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/05/22

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Published on 2017/06/07 | Source

Seoul Ehwa University Hospital explained T.O.P's condition.

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The public relations manager at the Ehwa University Hospital held a briefing on the 7th of June. He said, "T.O.P (Choi Seung-hyun) arrived at the hospital on the 6th of June at 12:34PM. He was carried here by three people and he was given emergency check. He doesn't react to small stimulations but does to stronger ones. He is in a deep state of sleep and his eyes are contracted.
Published on 2017/06/07 | Source

While her son is in critical condition, the police's irresponsible statement about his condition made T.O.P's mother cry out in pain.

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T.O.P, also known as Choi Seung-hyun, was found unconscious at the Seoul District Office Division 4 on the 6th of June. He was taken to the ICU at the Ehwa University Mokdong Hospital.

It seemed that he was in that condition because he overdosed on the mental stability pills he was on. However, the police claimed T.O.P wasn't unconscious and was just in a deep sleep because of sleeping pills. Apparently he was 'helped' to walk into the hospital himself.

T.O.P's mom spoke to OSEN and said, "T.O.P is still unconscious but why did the police make a statement like that? He's not in good condition still so please refrain from making any statements that haven't been checked for".

Doctors held a briefing in a meeting room at the hospital and made announcements on T.O.P's condition. This helped to clarify statements made by T.O.P's family and the police.

The representing doctor said, "When T.O.P arrived at the hospital, he was held up by three people; one holding his upper body and two holding his lower body. He didn't react to small stimulations but he did react to stronger ones which means he was in deep sleep". He emphasized repeatedly that T.O.P was in a critical hypnoleptic state and it was different from what the police had announced in the first place.

It was a matter of life and death. Although T.O.P is responsible for having taken in marijuana, his life matters more and the police should have been more careful about the statements they made. The police was irresponsible and spread false information about the matter and hurt T.O.P's family.
The security environment has changed, he writes in an online column for MTV . The EU simply must do more to also develop its own security. It is high time the member states began to mull over how the means at the unions disposal could be used more effectively amid the changing security environment.

Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre) has expressed his support for increasing defence spending and co-operation within the European Union.

Could we do more together and less alone?

Sipila points out that, for a number of reasons, defence capabilities were left largely outside the scope of common development efforts in the EU until 2013. The EU has since sought to align its defence policy with the standards in other policy areas by co-ordinating investments, amending the legislation and developing the common defence market.

Using the EU budget increasingly to support defence is part of the normalisation. Finland is supportive of increasing EU budget allocations in the defence sector, he says.

The EUs common defence and security policy, he reminds, is no longer limited to crisis management but also seeks increasingly combat terrorism and increase public safety. We must actively continue the discussion about solidarity, mutual assistance and developing national capabilities, says Sipila.

The European Commission on Wednesday published a so-called reflection paper to encourage public discussion over how the 27-member bloc should enhance co-operation in the areas of defence and security policy by 2025. It also announced the European Defence Fund, a 5.5-million-euro fund launched to reduce overlap in defence spending between the member states.

The reflection paper sets forth three possible scenarios for continuing the development of common defence capabilities.

The first scenario would allow the member states to decide on whether or not defence and security co-operation is necessary on a voluntary and case-by-case basis. The European Defence Fund would develop certain joint capabilities, while the member states would continue to oversee most of defence-related development and procurement individually.

The second, more ambitious scenario would require member states to pool together financial and operational resources. The EU, meanwhile, would assume a greater role in areas such as cyber-security, border protection and counter-terrorism, and pursue closer and more co-ordinated co-operation with Nato with a view to becoming more engaged in providing protection within and beyond its borders.

The third and most ambitious scenario, in turn, would lay out a progressive common defence policy, leading to common defence under Article 42 of the Lisbon Treaty. The commission envisions that under the scenario protecting the continent would become a mutually reinforcing responsibility of the EU and Nato. The third scenario, it states, would also foster the emergence of a genuine common defence market.

The European Commission underlines in its press release that the scenarios are not mutually exclusive but reflect the different levels of solidarity.

Sipila estimates that the key questions with respect to developing common defence capabilities in the months to come are related to the development of so-called permanent structured co-operation.

The member states have proposed areas of co-operation based on their national priorities. Finland has proposed that new projects be launched to, for example, develop space co-operation, maritime defence, military logistics and the cyber-defence capabilities of the EU, he reveals.

The outlines published yesterday by the commission were drawn up by Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Jyrki Katainen, the Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness at the European Commission.

Europe needs to take its security and defence into its own hands in order to be a stronger partner to our allies, said Katainen.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Antti Aimo-Koivisto  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
London Conchord Ensemble | Concert Hall, Reading | Thursday, May 25

PROMOTED as part of the Classical Music Alive in Reading series, this concert  given by four exceptionally talented soloists  was both innovative and very entertaining.

The start was inauspicious. The cellist Thomas Carroll announced that he would play Bachs Cello Suite No 1 in G from the back of the stage to take full advantage of the halls excellent acoustics.

Unfortunately, much of his fast passage work became lost in reverberation from the bass line. In retrospect, the performance might have met with better appreciation from the audience if it had been delivered from the front of the stage and at a more accommodating pace.

Mr Carroll amply redeemed himself later, not least in the final work in the programme, Beethovens witty and charming Serenade Opus 25.

This gem, originally written for flute, violin and viola, had been adapted expertly by the ensembles flautist, Daniel Pailthorpe, for flute, oboe, bassoon and cello. It was being given its premiere UK performance here and was very well received; justly so.

The unusual instrumentation added colour, which brought out intricacies of the work that are not so obvious in its original version.

Crisp, light playing from the two bass instruments kept the impetus going and added more than a touch of humour as the players clearly enjoyed every moment of the performance themselves.

Sandwiched between the Bach suite and Beethovens serenade were four diverse and intriguing works for unusual combinations of players.

Villa-Loboss Bachianas brasilieras No 6 for flute and bassoon, played by Daniel Pailthorpe and Amy Harman, was inspired by the music of JS Bach.

The work is technically very challenging, but at no time did the difficulties of performance impact on its consistent and authoritative interpretation which was both lyrical and exciting. Villa-Lobos would have approved. So would Bach.

Beethovens Variations in C Major on a Theme from Mozarts Don Giovanni was originally written for two oboes and cor anglais.

It was performed here in a transcription for flute, oboe and bassoon which, although this combination added variations in tone and colour, resulted in the wooden flute in its low register being pitched against the stronger oboe. This inevitably presented occasional difficulties of balance between the instruments. Maybe a case of Beethoven knows best.

Ginasteras sparkling Duo for Flute and Oboe was played by the husband and wife team of Daniel and Emily Pailthorpe. This is an engaging work, brilliantly performed, that ended all too soon. The audience clearly loved it and called the players back for more applause.

Mozarts Sonata for Bassoon and Cello in Bb K292 is an oddity. The bassoon part is substantial while the cello is largely relegated to what seems like a second bassoon role. If the cello part was fleshed out and given to an orchestra to play, the work could pass for a bassoon concerto!

Amy Harman gave a warm and convincing account of the bassoon part, being sympathetically partnered by Thomas Carroll.

This concert was unusual in its content. It was very well received by its audience. More like it, please.

John Burleigh
The Enola Holmes 2 junket interviews are starting to come in and this is where we'll be posting them! View this post on Instagram ...

Collider just interviewed Director Chad Stahelski and he gave an update on the new Highlander film in the works. He also talked about c...

Enola is back with a new adventure and she's getting some help from Sherlock and others to solve her latest mystery. A new trailer and ...

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All eight people murdered in the London Bridge terror attack have now been identified.

Christine Archibald (30) was the first victim to be named. The Canadian died in her fiance's arms after being struck by the speeding van on London Bridge.

Her family said she would have had "no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death".

James McMullan (32) from Hackney, was last seen outside the Barrowboy And Banker pub.

Melissa McMullan described her brother as "an inspiration", adding: "Hatred is the refuge of small-minded individuals and will only breed more."

Alexandre Pigeard (27) was among those killed. Boro Bistro manager Vincent Le Berre told French media how his colleague was attacked by a terrorist in the bar near Borough Market.

Mr Pigeard was said to be from Caen, in Normandy, but had been living in London for more than two years.

French chef Sebastien Belanger (36) was identified by family members as a victim of the attack. Originally from Angers, he had lived in London for several years and reportedly worked at the Coq d'Argent restaurant.

His friend Damien Lecomte (34) said: "He is the very definition of a friend - always here to help you."

Australian nurse Kirsty Boden (28) was killed after she ran towards danger to help people, her family said.

Relatives said she was "loved and adored by her family, friends and boyfriend", while colleagues at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in central London described her as "one in a million".

Australian au pair Sara Zelenak (21) died after becoming separated from her friend. Her family said: "We are deeply saddened at the tragic loss of our beautiful daughter and sister."

Sharing a video of his daughter online, her father Mark Wallace wrote: "I really miss that funny little laugh."

Spanish banker Ignacio Echeverria (39) was killed after trying to defend a woman with his skateboard in the Borough Market area.

The Spanish foreign ministry said: "The exemplary attitude of Ignacio Echeverria during the attacks is, for everybody, a model of solidarity."

Journalist and relative Isabel Duran wrote on Twitter: "He is in heaven with his inseparable skateboard."

Xavier Thomas has been missing since he was caught up in the attack with his girlfriend Christine Delcros - though Scotland Yard confirmed an as-yet-unidentified body had been recovered from the River Thames.

The French couple, who were visiting London for the weekend, were walking south over London Bridge around the time the attack started, according to police.

Ms Delcros was seriously injured when she was struck by the van, while witnesses' accounts suggest Mr Thomas (45) was thrown into the Thames by the impact.
A young mother-of-one hurled abuse at gardai, then tried to run away when they found her drunk on a street near her home.

Agne Venclovaite (26) was arrested for public order offences after getting "a little lairy" when approached by gardai.

Judge Fiona Lydon left her without a criminal record when she appeared at Dublin District Court.

Venclovaite, of The Academy Building, Parkwest, pleaded guilty to public intoxication and threatening and abusive behaviour at Parkwest at 4.45am on May 13. The defendant was in "quite an intoxicated state" when gardai came across her.

When she was approached, she became agitated and shouted abuse at them, Sergeant Niall Murphy said.

Caught

When they went to arrest her, she ran away but they followed her and caught her.

She was arrested and taken to the local garda station where she was charged.

Venclovaite had no previous convictions, the court heard.

The accused had been living in Dublin for the past eight years, her solicitor said.

"She was very drunk at the time of the incident and fully accepted she got a little lairy," she added.

The accused had not been doing anything to attract the attention of gardai but "she was more happened upon in a drunken state and became abusive at that point".

Venclovaite had never been in trouble before and her solicitor asked Judge Lydon to be as lenient as possible.

A conviction would affect her ability to get a job and she asked the judge to deal with the case under the Probation Act.

The defendant apologised for her behaviour and the judge applied the act, leaving the accused without a conviction.
Charisse O'Leary, the estranged wife of London terrorist Rachid Redouane, has said she is "deeply shocked, saddened and numbed" by his actions.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that some day I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did."

Redouane, who lived in Rathmines with Ms O'Leary until March last year, was one of three terrorists who drove a rented van into pedestrians on London Bridge shortly after 10pm on Saturday.

Frenzy

Redouane, Khuram Shazad Butt and Youssef Zaghba then went on a stabbing frenzy in nearby Borough Market. Eight people were killed and 49 were seriously injured.

Police shot dead all three men within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call.

Ms O'Leary (38) married Redouane in Ireland in 2012 and lived with him in Rathmines, Dublin 6. The pair moved to England in 2015 before returning to Ireland last year. Records show they left again in March last year.

Ms O'Leary, who later split with Redouane, publicly denounced last month's Manchester suicide bombing on Facebook.

In a statement today Ms O'Leary said: "My heartfelt thoughts go out to all those murdered or injured in the events of June 3. I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex-partner.

"Since discovering that it was Rachid that was responsible, I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident.

"Rachid and I have been separated for six months. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that some day I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did.

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I condemn his actions and do not support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity."

The couple had one child together.

Marriage

Their marriage took place in the Registry Office at Sir Patrick Duns Hospital on Lower Grand Canal Street in Dublin 2, witnessed by Ms O'Leary's mother and an unknown man named Khalil Chadili.

The marriage to Ms O'Leary, a UK citizen, gave him an EU travel permit allowing him entry to the UK despite the fact he was refused asylum in 2009.

The revelation has prompted claims Ireland is being used by jihadis as a back door into Britain.

Investigations are ongoing to determine the details of Redouane's time in Ireland.

However, garda chief Norin O'Sullivan has said he was not involved in any terror cell in this country during his time here.
Ian Bailey has alleged that the husband of Sophie Toscan du Plantier had motive to kill the French filmmaker.

Speaking in an interview with Hot Press magazine, he said film producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier stood to benefit from a large insurance policy in the event of his wife's death.

The journalist also claimed that the late Mr Toscan du Plantier was having an affair at the time of his wife's murder.

Mr Bailey (60), who is currently fighting efforts to extradite him to France to stand trial for the murder, made the claims in an interview with the latest edition of the magazine, which out today.

His claims have been greeted with disbelief by representatives of Ms Toscan du Plantier's family.

Mr Bailey, originally from Manchester, denies any involvement in the 1996 murder.

Ms Toscan du Plantier (39) was bludgeoned to death outside her holiday home in Schull, Co Cork, and Mr Bailey alleges that gardai tried to frame him for the crime.

Suicide

In the interview, Mr Bailey said he believed the killer came from France.

He also spoke of the toll the case had taken on him over the past 20 years, saying he had massive debts, had attempted suicide and attended Alcoholics Anonymous after reaching "rock bottom".

He admitted he had no evidence to back up his theory, but insisted it should have been investigated.

Asked why he thought Ms Toscan du Plantier was murdered, he said: "I believe her husband had a large amount of insurance money on her.

"At the time of her murder he was having an affair with another woman."

Alain Spillaert, a lawyer representing Ms Toscan du Plantier's parents, said the claims would be "upsetting" for her family and that of her late husband, who died in 2003.

Mr Bailey went on to repeat previous allegations of garda ill-treatment and how he decided to "end it all" by getting "paralytically drunk" and throwing himself into the River Ilen.

He added that he had been in a "very dark place" and coped "very badly" with being identified as a murder suspect.

"I went to AA. I still go to AA occasionally," he said.

He also said he had struggled to support himself financially and claimed that he was in massive debt, adding: "I owe 1.2m in terms of cases against the State."

The High Court is to resume hearing an application for Mr Bailey's extradition next week.
Joe Duffy has admitted he doesn't know whether budget cuts in RTE will stop but said that every modern news organisation is "under pressure".

The Ballyfermot man (61), who earns 416k-a-year, is one of Montrose's most beloved broadcasters and has seen budgets tighten at the station over the last number of years.

"They've been going on for 10 years now so we are well-used to them. It's a very lean organisation and a very hard-working organisation. I don't know [if they'll stop].

"We have to keep making programmes every day and just keep it going. Every news organisation is under pressure in this ever-changing world," he said.

Mr Duffy thinks his stringent work ethic has made him one of RTE's highest-paid stars.

"I keep on top of things. You have to make sure you know what's going on. You read a story and think, how can I add to that?

"Look out for calls and judge what ones will be good. That's the wonderful thing about being a journalist, every person you meet and place you go can come in handy at some stage. It's all about learning and curiosity," he told the Herald.

Mr Duffy's Liveline Callback returns tonight and will run for eight episodes.

The broadcaster will be following up on some of the most memorable stories from Liveline.

Stories that will be revisited in tonight's episode include Surjit Nandha who travelled to Dublin from Bedford, England in search of her sister who she had not met in 40 years.

She tried registry offices but had no luck. On her way back to the airport the taxi driver suggested that she phone Mr Duffy to see if he could help. She spoke on air for 15 minutes and gave as much information about her sister as she could.

Listening that day was a woman on a bus in Co Westmeath who identified the missing sister as her friend Vicky Jackson now living in Castlepollard.

Community

Mr Duffy believes Liveline's popularity stems from the show's ability to spark a national conversation.

"Ireland is still a community, thankfully. We have 400,000 listeners or thereabouts. You can still have a national conversation about Liveline," he said.

"A lot of the calls we get never go air because we ring a bank or a kitchen supplier or a service provider and say, 'Listen, we have a caller coming on who says you owe them 2,500' or whatever.

"By the time the programme is on an hour later, the company have paid up the money they didn't pay for months. We're glad to do that. We're glad to be of service."

Liveline Callback starts at 8.30pm on RTE One, tonight
ELKO  The Elko County School District is hoping to tighten up its regulations policing interactions between students and teachers in the wake of a teachers arrest on sex charges.

Tennille Whitaker is a fourth-grade teacher who was arrested Monday afternoon on charges of engaging in sexual conduct with two high school students at Wells Combined School.

Whitaker, 40, has since posted bail and is on paid administrative leave while the investigation continues.

Elko County School District Superintendent Jeff Zander thinks Whitakers arrest come as a result of violating the regulations the school district already has in place and did not think she exploited any kind of a loophole within the guidelines.

Even though it did not appear to be an issue in this case, Zander said he would like to take a look at the social media policy to ensure that teachers have clear guidelines to follow going forward.

Theres a lot of gray area out there so well try to tip-toe through this thing and try to prevent these conversations from becoming personal. We want these conversations to be informational only.

Zander said Clark County School District is also looking into the issue and he has reached out to them to see how they amend their policies.

Providing more stringent guidelines to police interactions between students and teachers has not always been popular with the board of trustees.

The district first drafted regulations for maintaining professional boundaries between staff and students in February of 2012. The idea was met with resistance from some board members concerned the regulations would go too far and deter teachers from engaging in healthy personal relationships with their students.

The school district did eventually adopt a policy regulating these interactions during a meeting in April 2016 that was voted for unanimously but board president Thad Ballard said at the meeting that he was still concerned about the unintended consequences.

The overall tone of the policy was cautionary, be careful what youre doing, he said at a school board meeting on April 12, 2016. I wouldnt want the policy to discourage anybody from having meaningful relationships with their students or their parents because weve adopted a policy to address poor choices of a very, very small minority of people.

Zander is hoping that recent events will make the board less resistant to any suggested changes to the policy since similar incidents have highlighted the importance of having policies in place.

Were seeing more and more of this taking place. We havent seen these types of incidences take place in our schools, he said. Now I think its on everybodys radar now and its important to put policies in place to protect our kids, our staff, the district and the community.

The school district may look at the teacher conduct policy going forward but it feels like the mechanisms in place for reporting rules violations are working as intended.

A Wells employee reported that Whitaker was behind closed doors with a student, which put her in violation of districts policy even though she had not yet been accused of any criminal activity.

Zander said the investigation hit a snag when witnesses were reluctant to come forward.

You need to have people provide honest reports of what took place and, unfortunately, we just couldnt get anything in writing with reports of what took place, he said. We couldnt get anything in writing where anything had happened that was against the law.

Assistant Superintendent Mike Smith said the school district also would have moved more quickly if the initial investigation by the Elko County Sheriffs Department had produced more leads.

Had that happened differently, had they called us after five weeks and given us something to follow up on, we would have run a parallel employment investigation at that point in time, he said. When the sheriff office calls you and says our investigation turned up nothing then thats what youve got.

Despite some of the difficulties in enforcing some of the regulations Smith feels like the district has been proactive in designing its guidelines.

Smith helped draft the original guidelines after reading about similar policies that had been adopted in other school districts and feels like the school district will continue to be forward-looking with its rules.

I think were ahead of the curve nationally, he said. I dont think very few districts, back in 2012, had any inkling of boundaries. It was sort of a new thing.
SPRING CREEK  If property owners are seeking a low-cost alternative to the Spring Creek Association, the options dont look favorable according to a recent study that examined alternative forms of governance and their consequences.

According to a governance feasibility study by Hansford Economic Consulting based in Truckee, California, none of the governance structures would reduce the total cost to Spring Creek residents; in fact, all of the options increase the costs to residents.

Alternative forms of government presented in the study involved the SCA becoming either a district for maintenance of roads (DMR); a general improvement district (GID) for roads only; a multi-service GID that would provide other services to the community including, fire, emergency, power, water and sewer; and becoming an unincorporated town that could remove the SCA and replace it with a volunteer-based Committee of Architecture.

The study points out that while homeowners currently pay an annual $624 in fees to the Association, a multi-service GID could increase yearly fees to $718, with a roads-only GID at $649 per year, and fees for a DMR coming in at $626 annually.

The study used data gathered from Elko County, the Nevada Department of Taxation, Nevada Revised Statutes and the SCA, along with other supporting information. It was commissioned by the Committee of Incorporation last year as SCAs designation is set to expire in 2033.

The study was also an opportunity to see if there was the possibility of finding state or federal money for roads, said President Jessie Bahr, who was hoping to answer questions she receives from homeowners about rising assessment fees.

I wanted to see if there is a way we can get other funding so it doesnt have to go back on the property owner, said Bahr, explaining about half of all of our expenses goes directly to the roads.

Bahr was hoping for the study to reveal possible funding options, but theres just not the money there that we thought there would be.

According to the study, if SCA assessments had been raised each year in line with the cost of living index, they would be approximately $71 per month today instead of $52.

The cost for chip, oil and products (for roads) went up, we just didnt come up proportionally with it, Bahr said.

The option of becoming an unincorporated town would not bring in additional monies for roads, said Elko County Manager Rob Stokes.

The way (it) works with the unincorporated communities is that they generate their own funding, explained Stokes. So they would probably be looking at dealing with additional funding internally with whatever the footprint of the new entity might be.

An unincorporated town faces challenges if there is not financial support for the area and involves big factors, added Stokes.

Anytime you look at any unincorporated community, not only do you have to have housing, but also business and industries to help support those areas, said Stokes. Of course, Spring Creek is made up largely of homes, so that would somewhat limit their taxing authority there.

The decision to change SCA from an HOA into another entity, or leave it as is, ultimately rests on the property owners living in Spring Creek, who would have to vote to make any change official. That is another reason for the study, said Bahr.

The study gives facts to residents such as limitations under Nevada law, financial impacts, and governance of each entity to make a decision, Bahr explained.

Were giving you the proof of what you wanted to see, now you decide what is best, Bahr said.

Residents are invited to a meeting 6 p.m. June 15 at Spring Creek Elementary to talk about next steps and allow property owners to read copies of the report, listen to a presentation based on the study, and come forward with questions. This meeting follows one in April that introduced property owners to the municipality study.

Economic consultant Catharine Hansford, whose company compiled the report, kept the Association as an option in the study for residents to compare the same services across all of the different scenarios, but also stated that the residents could vote to remove the Association altogether and the Committee of Architecture could remain as a volunteer-only organization enforcing the Declaration of Reservations which outlines property maintenance throughout the Association.

Another consequence of unincorporation, according to the study, would be the exclusion of Tract 200 (Vista Grande) from the other Association-owned properties as a town must have contiguous borders.

Hansford explained that to keep Tract 200 with the rest of the unincorporated Spring Creek town, you would have to annex everything between the tracts. Youd at least have to have a corridor of parcels between them to connect (for) a contiguous boundary.

Bahr urged property owners to review the study online and take a hard look at it.

Im assuming that the majority of what residents are going to want to look at is who is going to govern us, what does that look like, and how much it is going to cost.

The report can be accessed online at www.springcreeknv.org or picked up at their office at 401 Fairway Blvd.
Hiker survives 100-foot fall at Utah national park

SPRINGDALE, Utah (AP)  Utah officials say a hiker survived a 100 feet fall at Zion National Park and is in the hospital recovering.

Officials say the male hiker was descending from Lady Mountain Tuesday when he slipped near the summit and fell into a narrow ravine. A friend that witness the fall reported the incident to Zion Dispatch.

Park medics say it took them about two hours to reach the hiker.

Official said Wednesday that the man was in critical condition.

Idaho officials OK plan to close Valmy plant

BOISE, Idaho (AP)  State officials have approved an Idaho utility companys plan to close a coal-fired power plant in Nevada about 10 years sooner than planned and raise monthly bills for customers.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission announced Monday a settlement with Idaho Power to close the North Valmy Generating Station near Valmy, Nevada, by 2025.

The average Idaho Power residential customer in southern Idaho will see an increase of about $1.20 per month. The company is seeking a similar agreement for its eastern Oregon customers.

The increased rates will allow Idaho Power to recover depreciation costs based on the shorter lifespan of the power plant.

Idaho Power co-owns the plant with Nevada-based NV Energy.

Idaho Power says closing the plant early will save customers money.

Nevada wildfire cuts power to homes

RENO (AP)  Power was restored to hundreds of northern Nevadans who were without it after a wildfire burned through utility lines near Topaz Lake about 70 miles south of Reno, threatening dozens of homes.

Liberty Utilities reports the lights were back on by noon Wednesday for all of the 660 residents affected by the outage near the Nevada-California line.

The 8-acre fire destroyed one outbuilding and threatened as many as 40 homes before firefighters snuffed it out Tuesday night with the help of a helicopter. Crews were in mop-up mode on Wednesday.

Another fire just across the California line in Alpine County was estimated to be 60 percent contained. The size of that blaze has been scaled back from 100 acres to about 70 acres. One firefighter suffered a minor injury.

The cause of the fires remains under investigation.

Body found in Truckee River near downtown Reno

RENO (AP)  Fire officials say a body was found in the Truckee River near downtown Reno.

A person spotted the body Tuesday in the middle of the river in between thickets.

Police Lt. William Rulla says the body is badly decomposed and believes it has been there for some time. As of Tuesday, officials did not know the identity of the body or the cause of death.

Officials are looking through missing persons reports for clues.

The body was taken to the Washoe County Medical Examiners Office for an autopsy. Officials are waiting for the autopsy to determine whether there was any foul play in the persons death.

Earthquake rattles Douglas County

GARDNERVILLE (AP)  An earthquake could be felt near the Nevada-California border on Tuesday afternoon.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 3.7 earthquake hit about 12 miles south of the Gardnerville Ranchos area in Nevada.

The rattle could be felt within Douglas County.

There were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake was initially reported as 3.9 before being downgraded.
Guillermo Sanchez met Ignacio Echeverria  a Spanish man who faced up to the London attackers and whose death was confirmed on Wednesday  at one of the citys skateparks at the beginning of the last academic year. They shared a love of skating, and would meet regularly to practice.

Police officers look for evidence at an attack site in London. Leon Neal (Getty Images) / EPV

On the afternoon of the London attack, they met near the Tate Modern art gallery, around two and a half kilometers from Borough Market  where they ran into the terrorists. Sanchez, a 25-year-old student, has shared his memories of Echevarrias last moments in a telephone conversation with EL PAIS.

Sanchez showed up a bit late for practice, and without his skateboard, because he was not feeling well. At that point, Ignacio and a third Spanish friend, Javier, had already been there for a while, capturing some of their skating tricks on video.

Im staring at her, and suddenly I see Ignacio there as well, and hes hitting them with his skateboard

Guillermo Sanchez, friend

They started to feel hungry, and Sanchez suggested a restaurant in the Whitechapel area. After taking bikes from a public bicycle rental station, they went on their way. But upon arriving in Borough Market, the three friends saw a man who was stumbling and looked like he was drunk. This made them stop in their tracks.

Sanchez recalls that they stopped in a single line, with Echeverria in the lead, followed by himself and Javier, each one on his rental bike. At that point, they saw what looked like a street brawl. A policeman came running to the scene, only to collapse to the ground instants later.

Next to him, a woman was being apparently punched, although Sanchez now realizes that she was in fact being stabbed. Im staring at her, and suddenly I see Ignacio there as well, and hes hitting them with his skateboard, he recalls. Then he fell to the ground, I dont know why, whether he slipped or what, but he fell.

Ignacio Echeverria.

After a few microseconds, Sanchez approached his friend, who was lying face up, and witnessed one of the attackers stab him in the side. Sanchez did not hear any gunshots. I did not see him getting stabbed any more.

One of the terrorists turned to Sanchez and screamed something he did not understand. He was about a meter and a half away; Javier was lagging behind. The other attackers were standing together, near Echevarria. Sanchez is not sure whether there were two or three of them.

The last thing I remember is seeing Ignacio still conscious, lying on the ground face up, grabbing his skateboard.

Afraid that he would be next, Sanchez hurled one of the bicycles at them and ran off, as did Javier. It was the last time they were to see Echeverria.

At that point, Sanchez did not know whether what he had witnessed was a terrorist attack or something else. They were carrying butchers knives, he says. He and Javier kept running through the crowd, until they figured they should go back for their friend. But it was already too late. The police had cordoned off the area.

Afraid that he would be next, Sanchez hurled one of the bicycles at the terrorists and ran off

The two were taken to a bar by police officers, where they stood around for a few minutes together with other passersby. Sanchez thought the police did not understand the situation and tried to tell them what he had seen. I know who they are. I was there. I know whats going on, he says that he screamed at them.

They were still inside the bar when they heard a few shots. The police then let them out, and told them to run. Still together and in a state of shock, Sanchez and Javier began phoning the Spanish embassy and the emergency numbers to try to locate their friend. But they agreed not to call his family yet in order not to cause them unnecessary alarm.

The next morning, when there was still no news of Echevarria, they decided to contact his relatives. They found one of his sisters on Facebook and explained what had happened. As of Wednesday morning, Echeverria was being officially described only as missing, and Spanish authorities had been in touch with British counterparts to ask for a speedy identification of the bodies.

Later on Wednesday, however, one of Echeverrias sisters announced on Facebook that her brother has now been identified as one of the eight fatalities in the terrorist attack.

English version by Susana Urra.
Banco Popular shareholders awoke on Wednesday to the unpleasant news that their investment had vanished into thin air following the struggling banks takeover by Santander for the symbolic amount of one euro.

Santander and Popular branch offices next door to each other. Pablo Blazquez Dominguez (Getty)

Until Thursday of last week, Popular shares had been trading normally  if down again for the eighth consecutive day. The bank had lost 50% of its value in just one week, evidencing massive share sales in recent days.

But Popular still had around 300,000 investors. Now, they are 300,000 angry investors.

Some cases could be open to legal claims. This is the case with shareholders who participated in the May 2016 capital increase

LEAN Abogados

And this could potentially mean business for law firms specializing in claims and class-action litigation.

For several years now, these lawyers have been having a field day with all the recent banking abuses  from the Bankia preference share scandal to the mortgage floor clause fallout.

As early as Wednesday afternoon, specialized lawyers were speaking on the radio to offer their services to shareholders wanting to claim their money back.

Un-Popular decisions Miguel Angel Noceda Forty years ago, right before Spain held its first democratic election following the Franco dictatorship, Banco Popular announced the shocking news that it was lending money to the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) to fund its campaign. The party had only become legal two months earlier, and banks as a whole were keeping it at arms length. To top it all off, Populars chairman, Luis Valls-Taberner, was a member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei. It was not the first time that Valls had swum against the tide. Not long before that, he had refused to contribute money to create an industry association, the CEE, which would go on to merge with todays employer association, the CEOE. The Popular was the only one of the Big Seven to refuse. Of those seven  Banesto, Central, Hispano Americano, Bilbao, Vizcaya, Popular and Santander  there are only two left standing today. The Basque banks merged and later incorporated Argentaria, to become BBVA. And Santander took over the first three in the 1990s  and the Popular this week.

Law firms have deployed an array of tools to attract clients, from ads and press releases, to information sessions.

Arriaga Asociados has updated its website to include an article on how the takeover might affect Popular shareholders.

We are currently analyzing all the options to recover the investment made by shareholders involved in the capital increase of 2016. We encourage you to fill in the following form to keep abreast of developments regarding a possible claim, it states.

Meanwhile, LEAN Abogados, an association of law firms specializing in banking law, was scheduled to hold an information session at 11am on Thursday. This group admits that the bulk of investors will not get their capital back, but points to a possible loophole in the process.

Some cases could be open to legal claims. This is the case with shareholders who participated in the May 2016 capital increase, says LEAN partner Ignacio de Azua. The reason is that the accounts that were used for the increase were inaccurate.

Meanwhile, the OCU consumer association has announced that it is considering legal action to defend Populars small shareholders. This group is also preparing an information campaign for affected investors.

And Asufin, an association of financial consumers, said it is in talks with specialized lawyers and financial experts to file a legal claim against Populars management team.

The Spanish Association of Minority Shareholders in Listed Companies (Aemec), called the takeover an expropriation and said it is also considering action against Populars board, whose chairman is Emilio Saracho.

Caja Madrid Chairman Rodrigo Rato (center) in March 2011 with the chiefs of the six other savings banks which made up Bankia. Just over a year after it would be nationalized. Carles Francesc

In April of this year, Aemec had already asked the stock market watchdog, the CNMV, to investigate whether Populars Mexican stakeholder, Antonio del Valle, had violated market regulations. This association also held that Chairman Sarachos statements at a shareholders meeting had led to a collapse in share value, leading numerous shareholders to ruin.

Meanwhile, a website has gone up under the name afectadosbancopopular (victims of banco popular), encouraging shareholders to come together in legal action against the bank. The site suggests filling out a form. At the bottom of the page, there is a note explaining that the initiative has the legal backing of RUA Abogados, a law firm specializing in banking law, with more than 40 years experience and 98.9% of favorable judicial decisions in the defense of plaintiffs affected by bad bank practices.

Bankia and mortgage fees

The Popular takeover fallout could represent a new seam in the goldmine that law firms discovered long ago, after helping thousands of Bankia investors who were affected by the banks IPO, which was based on inaccurate financial information. Lawyers made millions of euros after banks were forced to pay their fees after losing in court.

This spawned a thriving claims industry, pushing Bankia to offer express refunds to investors and save itself the money. Lawyers also targeted the preferred shares scandal.

Then, the mortgage floor clause issue came along, leading to thousands of court cases despite the governments drive for out-of-court settlements.

English version by Susana Urra.
For years, the Colombian city of Medellin  the countrys second largest  has been trying to shake its global image as a hotspot for drug trafficking . More than two decades after the death of the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, the city is enjoying a renaissance and has become a model of urban renewal, thanks in part to a public transportation system that is the envy of Latin America.

Pablo Escobars neighborhood in Medellin. Peace is in the air, reads the graffiti. LUIS EDUARDO NORIEGA (EFE)

More information Medellin destruira el cuartel general de Pablo Escobar

But the past clings on: travelling from the airport to a recent investment conference, a taxi driver points out some of the local sights, including the building-cum-museum of the notorious 1980s drug trafficker, which has become a prime destination for so-called narcotourism, driven in part by the interest inspired by television shows like Narcos, based on the life of Escobar.

Now, however, local authorities are keen to polish up their image even further with Medellin mayor Federico Gutierrez Zuluaga saying he wants to tear down the symbol of violence that is the Monaco building, once the base of operations of Escobar, who at one time controlled almost all of the lucrative cocaine trade into the United States.

Once one of the worlds most-wanted drug traffickers, Escobar was notorious for having Colombian politicians and judges routinely and brutally killed. According to government estimates, Escobar, who was gunned down in 1993 at the age of 44, was responsible for more than 20,000 deaths.

We are never going to deny our history; we are going to tell it how it is, from the victims side Medellin mayor Federico Gutierrez Zuluaga

Changing and removing these symbols of terror, of drug trafficking, is important in any society, said Zuluaga, announcing his plans to destroy the Escobar building. If you dont tell the story, they tell the story for you, he told journalists, referring to the citys dark past.

We are never going to deny our history; we are going to tell it how it is, from the side of the victims, the mayor added, saying that the demolition of the Escobar headquarters was also a symbolic action signifying the destruction of this illegal, mafia culture.

For the site of the Monaco building, located in the citys El Poblado district, city authorities are planning a park honoring the thousands of victims of the drug trade including civilians, police officers, soldiers, judges and many people who died in the era of violence, according to Zuluaga.

Pablo Escobar with his son Juan Pablo in 1978. Courtesy of NICOLAS ENTEL

The site will be a symbol of the rebirth of Medellin, the politician said, adding that exhibition space would be set aside at the citys Casa de la Memoria museum where the real story can be told.

There is a speed bump in the plans though. The site of the Monaco building is currently controlled by Medellins security forces and plans were afoot to turn it into the head of police intelligence operations  a move opposed by Zuluaga. But the mayor says he now has the backing of police chief Jorge Hernando Nieto for his plans for a park. The two sides were now working through various legal issues, the mayor said.

English version by George Mills.
Around 300 officers from Spains Tax Agency swooped on dozens of warehouses around the country on Thursday in a raid targeting suspected tax fraud on the part of distributors of Chinese products in Spain .

Vista de establecimientos en Cobo Calleja. EFE

The raids saw tax office staff as well as specialized teams from the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF) and customs officials search some 60 Chinese industrial warehouses at sites including the Cobo Calleja industrial park in Madrids Fuenlabrada district and the El Carrus industrial park in Barcelona. Sites in 11 Spanish regions have been targeted in the operations with searches expected to last all day Thursday.

Tax inspectors have opened investigations on dozens of firms operated by Asian businessmen in Spain

Tax inspectors have opened investigations on dozens of firms operated by Asian businessmen in Spain.

Thursdays operation comes just six months after the Tax Agency dismantled a major fraud operation involving the import of products from Asia and Pakistan. Operation Impala, carried out in December last year, lifted the lid on the fraudulent undervaluing of goods imported from those countries in order to minimize customs duties and sales tax.

In recent years, Spains Tax Agency has launched a string of operations against Chinese distributors, the largest of those being so-called Operation Juguetes (toys) in 2014 where authorities discovered fraud to the tune of 100 million related to 15,000 separate import operations involving millions of articles over several years.

Charges resulting from that operation related to offenses such as tax fraud, money laundering, smuggling, belonging to a criminal organization, forgery of official documents and intellectual property infringements.

The operation comes just months after the agency dismantled a major fraud operation involving the import of products from Asia and Pakistan

The organization targeted by Operation Juguetes imported merchandise from China for sale in Europe but declared the value of those goods at levels below the legally established limits. The fraud ring also failed to declare all sales within Spain, thus defrauding the Tax Agency in terms of customs duties, sales tax and company tax.

The criminal ring, in operation for several years, continually changing its procedures, delivery points and procedures to avoid being detected, even going so far as to import good meant for the Spanish market via The Netherlands.

English version by George Mills.
Anybody who thought the new Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times would be any less pro-Palestinian than his predecessor was sadly mistaken.

Ian Fisher replaced Peter Baker as head of The Timess Jerusalem bureau in January. Many of Fishers articles in recent months have been slanted against Israel, but his coverage of the lynching attempt in the Palestinian Arab village of Hawara May 18 was the worst so far.

The facts of the Hawara episode are well-documented in a graphic video that can be seen on YouTube. Arabs waving PLO flags and anti-Israel placards gather in the center of the town and begin shouting slogans. An Israeli civilian automobileeasily distinguished by the color of its license platehappens to drive by. The sight of a Jew fills the mob with bloodlust. They surround the car and begin hurling large rocks at it.

In the video, you can see a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance blocking the Israeli car from advancing. The driver of the ambulance later claimed he was trying to navigate around the mob. Thats an obvious lie. You can see the ambulance has stopped in front of the Israeli car, and is not moving at all as the rock-throwers try to murder the Israeli driver.

If the Israeli motorist had not defended himself, he would surely have ended up like Amnon Pomerantz, who took a wrong turn into the Gaza town of El-Bureij in September 1990. Palestinian rock-throwers attacked. Pomerantz didnt (or wasnt able to) shoot quickly enough. The mob stoned him until he was unconscious, and then set his car on fire, burning him to death.

The driver in Hawara May 18 shot back at the Arabs who were trying to murder him. One of the rock-throwers was killed, and a Palestinian photographer who works for The Associated Press was lightly wounded in his hand.

In Ian Fishers version in The New York Times, however, everything is upside down.

Heres how Fishers article began: An Israeli settler whose car was caught up in a pro-Palestinian street demonstration in the West Bank on Thursday opened fire on the protesters, killing a 23-year-old Palestinian man and wounding a news photographer.

So right from the start, the reader is misled into believing that the protesters were peaceful. No rocks are mentioned. No threat to the Israeli drivers life is acknowledged. His car was caught up in a demonstration, and he opened fire on the protesters. Sounds almost like Tiananmen Square.

The reader moves on to the second paragraphstill no mention of the rocks. Fisher reports only that the protest...was one of several marred by violence recently. You would think that it was the Israelis who were the aggressors, marring innocent Palestinian rallies with their Jewish violence.

Deep in the third paragraph, Fisher refers in passing to Palestinians who were throwing stones at a different protest the day before.

Finally, in paragraph five, Fisher mentions the rocks that were thrown in Hawarabut only after dressing the rock-throwing in moral equivalency. It was a battle of blame, Fisher announces. Even though he is supposed to be a reporter investigating the circumstances, Fisher is somehow unable to determine which side is actually to blame.

On the one hand, according to Fisher, Israelis pointed to video images showing the settlers car... being pounded by rocks and surrounded by dozens of demonstrators. But for their part, Palestinians accused the settler of firing needlessly when the Israeli Army was already dispersing the crowd, he writes.

It would have been easy for Fisher to have learned that, in fact, the army did not arrive until after the Israeli was nearly lynched and shot in self-defensein other words, that the Palestinian version was a lie. But acknowledging this fact would have contradicted Fishers entire both-sides-are-to-blame narrative.

At least 14 Israelis (including two Israeli Arabs mistaken for Jews) have been stoned to death by Palestinians since the 1980s. It was only by a miracle that they did not claim a 15th victim in Hawara May 18. But you wouldnt know that from reading Fishers fairy tale-account in The New York Times.

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
When it comes to winning the argument against the BDS movement, the strategy may be as simple as a pan of shakshuka, a Mizrahi album, and a real or virtual tour through Jerusalem.

A celebration of culture and a walk through the history of Israel may not be enough to win over the hardcore anti-Zionist proponents of BDS, as their convictions are rooted in the belief that the Jewish people arent entitled to their state or protection. In their view, Jews are mere occupiers in Davids kingdom, and Fatah and Hamas are entitled to sweep from the river to the sea.

But a campaign that extols the beauty, diversity and goodness of Israel can be a more persuasive voice than the pro-BDS arguments whispered in the ears of those who havent decided where they fall on the issue.

The strength of such a strategy was illuminated on Jerusalem Day this week at Congregation Bnai Tzedek in Potomac, Md., through moving testimonials of the Six-Day War, homemade Israeli treats, and choruses of Jerusalem of Gold, Haktivah and other songs that drew the crowd together in pride and passion.

Heidi Krizer Daroff, North America director of the Israel Forever Foundation, one of the evenings sponsors, told me her organizations mission of bringing people from all walks of life closer to the texture, tastes and timelessness of Israel rises above politics, bringing people who may have fond memories of Beer Sheva or Haifaor those who have never stepped foot in the Holy Landcloser to the Jewish state. Via books, music, film or cuisine, people are finding Israel through something they already care about, Daroff said.

Whether through the Munich Memory Project, which keeps alive the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Olympics for no reason other than representing the Jewish state, or through live cooking webinars hosted by Israeli chefs, the foundation produces interactive materials for preschoolers, seniors, students, young professionals and families to build and enhance their personal connection to Israel. Blog posts from those who have been to Israel and fallen in love share the experience with curious minds around the globe.

Daroff noted this outreach helps open eyes and build a connection with those who are teetering on BDSmaybe they think thats a good idea.

Israel may have some flaws like any country, she added, but strives every day to be a better society.

As emphasized during the evenings program, Jerusalem speaks a universal language that draws all cultures and faiths to the Old City and its 21st-century vibrancy.

Thats not to say politics doesnt creep into a unified anti-BDS message, but like few things in this political climate, support for Israel enjoys a very bipartisan base on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, drew rousing applause when he addressed the Trump administrations recent reticence to properly name the location of one of Judaisms holiest sites: In case any of you had any doubt, the Western Wall, the Kotel, is in Israel.

Jerusalem will always be and should always be the undivided capital Israel, Engel said, invoking another highly bipartisan maxim.

Jerusalem is the symbol of the Jewish people, and the U.S. embassy should be moved to Israels capital of Jerusalem, the lawmaker said, earning more appreciation from the audience. I dont think wed be happy if other countries opened their embassy in Chicago, he said.

One shouldnt expect those considering whether boycotting Israel is a good idea to immediately convert to the same level of policy agreement shared by Congress. First comes fostering respect for the existence of Israel, then introducing the uninitiated to the rich tapestry of the country. Through the sights, sounds and tastes of Israel, onetime doubters can find themselves deep in love with the Jewish state.

Bridget Johnson is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center and D.C. bureau chief for PJ Media.
Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump ever since the latter became a candidate to the US presidency. Through online social tools such as Twitter, Periscope and YouTube, the politician who governed Mexico between late 2000 and late 2006 has made his opinions about Trump crystal clear  particularly about the latters plans to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has found a new comedic talent. EFE

Mexico will not pay for that fucking wall, he said in an interview on the Hispanic network Univision. The expression has since become a popular slogan thats been praised by hundreds of Americans.

A comedy website called Super Deluxe has now released two videos in which Fox sends the US president messages highlighting his mistakes since he took office. The jibes are half-humorous, half-serious.

The most recent one, posted on Facebook this Wednesday, had already been viewed over three million times in under a day. In his address, Fox criticizes the idea of building a border wall and underscores the negative consequences of such a move for the US.

Another Message for Donald Trump from Former Mexican President... Dear Donald J. Trump: Here's a friendly reminder from Vicente Fox Quesada that Mexico will not pay for your wall. Posted by Tatered on Wednesday, June 7, 2017

The first Fox video appeared on Super Deluxe on May 24, and has been viewed over 11 million times on Facebook.

In this latest message, Fox asserts that unlike Trump, he personally understood the responsibility that comes with the job of president of a nation.

But the fact remains that his messages have received more praise in the US than they have in Mexico. Fox was a guest on a special episode of the Conan OBrien Show shot in Mexico, and he has granted dozens of interviews about Trump to international media outlets, including NBC, CBS and the BBC.

A Message for Donald Trump from Former Mexican President Vicen... Dear Donald J. Trump: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox Quesada has an important message for you. Posted by Tatered on Wednesday, May 24, 2017

But the comments posted under the Super Deluxe videos show that many viewers wonder whether Fox is the right person to be pointing out Trumps flaws. A former businessman himself, Fox symbolized an era of change for Mexico. In the year 2000 he became the first leader of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) to win an election after more than 70 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Although his administration introduced several major changes in Mexico, such as a system to access public information, Fox was also targeted for irregularities in infrastructure projects, excessive public spending, and influence peddling.

The 74-year-old politician is also notorious for his politically incorrect statements, delivered in a discriminatory tone. In a 2005 speech, he said that Mexicans in the US do the work that even blacks dont want to do. And in 2006 he insulted women by asserting that 75% of Mexican homes have two-legged washing machines, not mechanical ones.

When he took office, Fox also promised that he would solve the conflict with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) guerrilla group in 15 minutes. He never delivered on that pledge.

English version by Susana Urra.
GRANITE FALLS  There are many reasons for someone to visit their local craft brewery  beer, food, a welcoming pub atmosphere.

At Granite Falls Brewing Company, it might also be for the opportunity to simply lend a hand in the community  from helping feed the hungry through Meals on Wheels in Catawba County or the Hickory Soup Kitchen to having an impact through South Caldwell Christian Ministries or the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina.

In 2016, this outreach by the brewery allowed the company to contribute more than $61,000 to these and other local and regional charities.

Granite Falls Brewing is looking to push beyond that amount this year.

When Mario Mastroeli was looking for a place to start his brewery, he was already thinking about the economic impact his business would have on the local community. It was one of the reasons he settled on Granite Falls.

I fell in love with this little town and knew it needed some place for folks to gather, Mastroeli said.

Mastroeli wanted to take this idea of being part of the community outside the doors of his pub and actually reach the brewerys neighbors when they need a hand raising money for charitable causes.

Jan Shaffer, the adult services supervisor for Catawba County Meals on Wheels, said her organization is certainly grateful for the relationship with the brewery.

They helped to sponsor a Christmas meal for our recipients one year, Shaffer said. Theyve also delivered home meals for us for five months, and theyve also made other donations to our program that allowed us to be able to purchase additional meals and serve additional seniors.

Sales for charity

The first way Mastroeli started giving back was by taking one day each month to donate 25 percent of the days gross sales to a charity.

Robins Next Childrens Advocacy was one. Catawba Humane Society was another and Meals on Wheels. We picked basically things that cannot defend themselves, Mastroeli said. We picked animals, children and our elderly.

The checks they donated were between $1,200-1,800 each month.

Recently, the brewery donated $1 from every taproom pint sold as part of the North Carolina USO-Armed Forces Day Salute for Patriots fundraiser.

We were taking something which was food and beer and we were turning it into something positive, Mastroeli. We want to turn craft beer into something positive in the community.

The company also began donating 10 percent of its profits from some of its fastest growing and selling brands to charity. Recently, it provided this amount in sales from its Three Paw Chocolate Hazelnut Porter  from the Carolina Wild series  to help the Appalachian Bear Rescue.

Their very generous donation from their Three Paw beer sales helps us feed and care for the two bears that we have right now, Appalachian Bear Rescue President Dana Dodd said. We have one cub of the year. He is almost 4 months old. We also have a male yearling.

Dodd said the yearling came to the rescue sick. He was so anemic the doctors at the University Of Tennessee College Of Veterinary Medicine decided to do their very first black bear blood transfusion to save his life.

We are happy to say that he is doing very well now, and will get his second chance at life back in the wild, Dodd said. Our bear cubs are so lucky that the great folks at Granite Falls decided to support Appalachian Bear Rescue. Partnerships are an essential part of our fundraising efforts at ABR.

A place to gather

For Mastroeli, Granite Falls Brewing is all about creating a place of connections where people could come together face to face and meet and even reach out to one another if needed.

Theres something to be said about that Cheers atmosphere of walking into a place where everybody knows your name, Director of Sales Aaron Gore said. You can relate to somebody right down the street from you or down a table from you and being able to gather around.

In January, the company put together an economic impact statement for Alexander County but also to see what kind of impact it was having on local communities.

We were shocked and surprised by what we found, Mastroeli said.

The company had been so busy just being part of different charitable projects no one realized how much they contributed or their overall impact.

Another local group who benefited from the brewerys help was Hickory Trout Unlimited and its Trout in the Classroom program.

The funds from their Charitable Day were used for start-up costs for the program at River Bend Middle School, Hickory TU president Gary Hogue said.

Trout in the classroom's goal is to connect students with their watersheds by raising trout from eggs to fingerlings, engaging in stream habitat studies, understanding ecosystems connectivity and much more, Hogue said. The program is a tremendous success due to the financial support of Granite Falls Brewery.

The company intends on building on its pattern of finding worthy local organizations to partner with and help make a difference.

We tend to be very locally minded as an industry, Gore said. Craft breweries are supported by our local community because you cant get our beer in Washington state. You can get our beer in your own back yard. You can get our beer in the town over but were still right here and were still contributing to the community, to the people, to the businesses in the region.

For more information about the brewery and upcoming fundraising events, visit granitefallsbrewing.com.
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A 19-year-old Brazilian woman gave birth on Tuesday while being urgently transported by helicopter to a hospital. The youngster, named Shirlana Graciele, saw her waters break on an island in the state of Amapa, in the north of Brazil, prompting the emergency services to decide to move her by air for treatment. But 15 minutes before landing, at an altitude of 1,000 meters, the woman began to feel strong contractions and the birth couldnt be delayed further. A nurse and a police officer assisted the delivery on board. The helicopter landed once the child had already been born, and mother and baby were taken to a clinic in Macapa, the capital of the region. While the delivery was high-risk, given that the woman suffered a placental abruption, both mother and baby were in perfect health.
Until two years ago, Askari Naqvi was a lawyer, but he always wanted to be a performing artist. After practising law for seven years in Lucknow, he began performing dastangoi (the 12th century art of oral storytelling in Urdu) and also dabbling in soz khwani  the tradition of narrating the story of the battle of Karbala in song. Thereafter Naqvi brought soz khwani to audiences in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and of course Lucknow, taking them on an emotional journey of mourning and lament. This Sunday, he will be performing at Delhis Akshara theatre (see details at the end).

According to Islamic history, 1400 years ago, Prophet Mohammads grandson Hussain Ali attained martyrdom in a war in Karbala, Iraq, while leading a group of 72 people. Every year during Muharram (the first month of the Islamic calendar), Shia Muslims mourn for them by organising religious gatherings (majlis) and holding public processions.

Hailing from a Shia family, Naqvi grew up spending Muharram at his paternal grandfathers house in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh. By the time he reached his teens, he knew every incident of Karbala by heart and would recite it with the chorus. Naqvi is the first person from the community in India to have taken soz khwani to mainstream audiences. Renowned Urdu playwright SM Mehdi was related to my grandfather. He believed that soz khwani had the potential of a musical, says 32-year-old Naqvi. Except for him, previous generations restricted it to the majlis and never thought of taking it to the outside world.

When he started approaching people to book performance venues, some of them had reservations. They asked me if it was religious or would it propagate Islam. I asked them to look at art forms such as qawwali and dhrupad which have roots in religion, says Naqvi.

In a traditional majlis, the story of the Battle of Karbala is told in three parts: soz khwani, marsiya khwani (where chapters are recited) and nauha khwani (mourning). However, to connect with the audience, Naqvi tells the entire story of the battle only through soz khwani though he has added some commentary and dialogues.

The story includes 14 compositions sung in Hindi, Awadhi (written by 16th century poet Malik Mohammad Jayasi), Urdu (by 19th century poet Meer Anis) and Persian, which are based on different ragas, he says. Another minor change he has introduced is in the way soz khawani is performed. Because it is about lament, one cannot use musical instruments. In a majlis, four people sit around the person singing the soz and giving him the sur that resembles the sound of a tanpura. I have recorded these voices and play this recording when I perform, he says.

Naqvi believes that although the story of Karbala is old, it is also contemporary. At that time, it was a group of 72 people fighting the might of a tyrant State. In the current scenario, a minority of people are swimming against the tide, he points out.

Why would people spend an evening listening to songs of lament? The songs are about family dynamics, sacrifice and bonding . At the end of my performances, people have come up to me and told me which aspect they could relate to. Secondly, there is a sense of curiosity.

What: Soz khwanisongs of lament, by Askari Naqvi

When: 7.30pm, June 11 .

Where: Akshara theatre, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Connaught Place, Delhi.

Ticket: Rs 350. Available at the venue and at bookmyshow.com.

Nearest Metro station: Rajiv Chowk.

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On June 3, we carried the news that Bollywood actor Ileana DCruz is having a gala time in Fiji and her photos were great proofs. Well, the Barfi actor is still there and her photos are only getting better.

Dont believe us. See this one:

This was a few mins before I tried to take on something I never thought I would.. #calmbeforethestorm #ileanainfiji #flyingfiji #fijinow #etpt #conqueringfears A post shared by Ileana D'Cruz (@ileana_official) on Jun 4, 2017 at 5:21pm PDT

And then there is not so subtle brand promotion as well.

Adventure sports are high on her agenda.

Her gang of girls.

Becoz u gotta take the Indian bobble to Fiji! #fijinow #ileanainfiji #flyingfiji #etpt @nimster_t @divyachablani Boomerang credit @andrewkneebonephotography  A post shared by Ileana D'Cruz (@ileana_official) on Jun 4, 2017 at 4:16pm PDT

She is there after wrapping up the shoot of her next film in London. Apart from the pristine blue waters and clear skies, there is an inspiration for all of us to backpack and leave for Fiji.
Sushant Singh Rajput-Kriti Sanon-starrer Raabta got major relief on Thursday when the makers of Magadheera withdrew their plea seeking a stay on the release of the film.

The makers of Ram Charans Magadheera had moved a civil court in Hyderabad against Raabta over copyright infringement of the story in May. Directed by SS Rajamouli, which introduced him to the world as a visionary filmmaker, the film also starred Kajal Aggarwal in her first major hit of her career.

Earlier on Wednesday, the makers of Raabta listed out 100 films with the theme reincarnation and love stories.

Ankit Relan, lawyer for T Series, on behalf of Raabta makers told Hindustan Times that the entire script of the film was filed as evidence and they also submitted a comparative chart showing differences between Raabta and Magadheera.

The makers of Telugu film Magadheera had filed a case in court stating that Raabtas plot was a lift.

We filed the entire script of our film along with a comparative chart showing how the two films are completely different in the their story, treatment and expression, something that the plaintiff ought to have done in the first place as part of his pleadings to show comparative similarities. Neither any such similarities were pointed out nor has the plaintiff filed its script for the judge to make a comparison, he said.

Magadheera starred Ram Charan and Kajal Aggarwal.

He added, The entire suit, which has been filed at the eleventh hour despite the trailer coming out more than six weeks ago, is based on conjectures. We cant understand how a film of over 2.30 hours in duration can reasonably be compared with a trailer of around 2 minutes to jump to a conclusion of Copyright infringement. We even offered to show the entire film to the plaintiff as far back as on 17th of last month, to which the counsels for plaintiff responded only on the midnight of 30th May, 2017, one night before the next hearing, stating that the reply was left lying with the watchman of their building all this while. They rejected the offer to see the film, of course.

Allu Arvind (producer of Magadheera) had sent a legal notice to Raabta makers citing plagiarism. When asked to watch the rough-cut, he refused, a source told Hindustan Times. They were willing to show him (Allu Arvind) Raabta so he could compare it with Magadheera, but he wasnt interested. Then they offered to put the compensation being asked for into escrow with the esteemed court and if the court decided it was a copy, he could take the amount demanded. He wasnt even interested in entertaining this, the source told us.

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Veteran actor Anupam Kher says he is overwhelmed with all the response he has got for the first look of his upcoming movie The Accidental Prime Minister. Thank you all for your love, warmth and support for the first look of The Accidental Prime Minister. Your response has been overwhelming, he tweeted.

The film is an adaptation of Sanjay Barus controversial book The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh and Anupam, who plays the lead role, resembled every bit of former Indian Prime Minister in the first look of a film that was released on Wednesday.

The black and white poster showed the side profile of Anupam, dressed as Manmohan Singh -- complete with a white beard and turban. The focus of the poster is, however, more on the silhouette of a woman -- presumably Congress President Sonia Gandhi -- standing in the corridor of Parliament House.

Directed by debutant Vijay Ratnakar Gutte, the memoir by Baru is expected to hit the screens in December 2018, just ahead of the next general election in 2019.
Today, actor Shilpa Shetty Kundra is celebrating the second year of her fabulous forties. One of the poster girls of fitness in Bollywood, Shilpa looked as svelte in Life in a... Metro (2007) and Apne (2007) as she did in her initial films Baazigar (1993) and Main Khiladi Tu Anari (1994).

Now at 42, the actor talks about how she has never been bothered by age. I have always taken it in my stride and have aged gracefully. You cant stop the ageing process , but you can choose how you want to age, with healthy choices, says Shilpa.

The actor has decided to keep it simple this year on her birthday. Were keeping it simple since Im leaving for my yearly summer break in London soon and I need to finish pending work. Some close friends will come over at home for a home-cooked lunch to ring in my birthday. In the evening, dinner will be with my hubby (Raj Kundra), wherever he takes me, says Shilpa.

Her son Viaan is excited about moms birthday celebrations. Now hes five, so he gets very excited with birthdays, says Shilpa. Hell make me a card and give me more kisses and that will make my day and year.

However, the celebrations dont end there  Shilpa will also take time out for herself. This year, Ive gifted myself a week of me-time. Ive been very busy working and Im looking forward to a week of detox at the Viva Mayr (spa clinic in Austria)... and then papa will take over son duty, she says.

Talking about her best birthday memories, Shilpa recalls a time when Raj planned a surprise for her. My best birthday memory is Montenegro (on the Adriatic coast) where Raj planned my 40th with a few close friends and family. It was a complete surprise and I was in shock at how he and my friends all managed to keep it a secret. Raj had planned it for over 10 months, says Shilpa.

Of course, her fans make the day special for her, too. They send me lots of love. Earlier, I used to get a lot of fan mail, but now, in this time of social media, I get all their love through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and I value it, she says.

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General Motors Co shareholders on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected proposals by hedge fund Greenlight Capital to restructure the companys stock and reshape its board, backing chief executive Mary Barras efforts to rev up the companys stalled share price.

Seeing off the challenge from Greenlight manager David Einhorn does not mean the end of Barras challenges. GM shares traded on Tuesday at $34.25 a share, about 16% lower than when Barra became CEO, despite robust profits and a series of moves to sell or shut down money losing operations.

Silicon Valley electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc this year surpassed GMs market value, reflecting investor confidence that, despite heavy losses, Tesla chief Elon Musk has a better strategy as the auto industry shifts to ride services, electric and autonomous vehicles.

In comments prior to the shareholder meeting, Barra acknowledged Greenlights point on its stock price, saying we do believe GM stock is undervalued, and said the company is continually looking at ideas to increase investor interest. She did not elaborate on any new plans.

Preliminary results showed more than 91% of shareholders voted against Greenlights proposal to have GM offer dividend and capital appreciation shares, according to GM officials at the automakers annual shareholders meeting.

GMs nominees were elected with between 84% and 99% of the vote, the company said.

Greenlight founder David Einhorn floated his proposal in March, saying it could boost the automakers $52-billion market capitalisation by as much as $38 billion. Greenlight controls about 3.6% of GM shares, and is now the fifth-largest public shareholder, the fund said in regulatory filings.

But Einhorns pitch to rework GMs capital structure flopped with debt rating agencies, which said Einhorns plan could hurt the automakers credit rating, and he failed to rally other shareholders to his cause. Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway Inc , which holds a 3.3% stake in GM, remained silent on the proposal.

Proxy advisers Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis had also recommended GM shareholders vote for the automakers board nominees and against the dual-class proposal.

Einhorn made his proposal as US auto industry sales of new vehicles have begun to wane after a boom cycle that has lasted since 2010.

Barra also said despite the Trump administrations decision to withdraw from the Paris climate deal, the automaker will continue to push to reduce emissions.
While conventional automakers are boasting of concept cars and autonomous vehicles at global auto shows, ancillary industry players are also working in the background towards future of transportation -- emission norms, electric vehicles and digital integration in mobility.

Shell Lubricants, a global leader in making machines smoother, cleaner and noise-free, too sees an opportunity in the anticipated age of electric mobility, as environmental concerns loom over petrol and diesel-run vehicles.

We have always worked towards making transportation cleaner. With changing technology such as emission norms, we are constantly working towards upgrading our range of products, Mansi Madan Tripathy, managing director of Shell India, told HT on Wednesday.

Shell is a global company, so we have technology to meet whatever demand future raises for us. Even for the Bharat Stage VI (Indias emission norms is based on Euro VI and set to kick in from 2020), we are ready. In fact, we are already helping some of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in testing their new engines, Tripathy said, on the sidelines of the fifth edition of Global Lecture Series (GLS) On Greenovation- The Future of Mobility.

L-R Mansi Tripathy, country head, Shell Lubricants India; Suddhasatwa Basu, professor of department of chemical engineering at IIT-Delhi, PK Banerjee, deputy executive director (technology) Siam; YB Ramakrishna, chairman of working group on biofuels, ministry of petroleum and natural gas and Soma Banerjee, principal- energy and infrastructure, CII, at the 5th edition of the Shell Lubricants Global Lecture Series in partnership with CII at IIT Delhi. (Shell handout photo)

The GLS, organised by Shell India with Confederation of Indian Industries and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, focused on challenges of the industry towards greener mobility. Besides technologists from various institutes, representatives of automakers and ministries of petroleum and natural gas, road transport and highways, and industry bodies discussed the future of mobility.

Most of Shell products are also compatible with several engines and across a range of fuels of different emission norms, the India boss of the lube company said.

This becomes relevant in India, which recently saw chaos around April 1, 2017, when most automakers were not ready to switch to BS IV engines across the country. Automakers are also sceptical about the April 1, 2020 deadline to meet the BS VI norms, for which a completely new fuel and suitable lubricants will be required.

Shell is also eyeing collaboration with tech companies to give car users on-board information about engine health, oil and coolant status, etc. We could also develop online platforms such as apps which will allow you place an oil-change order. A company agent will pick up the vehicle from your place, change the oil and deliver it back to you in a matter of hours. And not just that, you could also locate the nearest fuel station to fill your tanks, and may sometimes also order a burger from a cafe on your way. We are looking at that level of integration, said Tripathy, who has previously held leadership positions with MNCs such as Gillette and Procter & Gamble.

Automakers have been for a while focusing on connecting smartphones to consoles and vice versa, to smoothen connectivity from the drivers seat. In India, while Ford and Tata Motors have their own tech partnerships with Microsoft to create suitable in-car infotainment system, major players such as Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Honda and Mercedes-Benz are allowing users to sync their phones via Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Globally a consortium of more than 20 automakers are developing an open platform called Automotive Grade Linux, to facilitate connectivity on the move.

When asked if theres any scepticism about the oncoming goods and service tax (GST) which kicks in on July 1, Tripathy said, There could be some friction, but it would be short-term pain for long-term gain.

She also agreed that the change in tax structure is making some dealers anxious, who are destocking their June inventory. The government has said they will take care of the transition, regarding issues like input credit, but this (anxiety) is natural and nothing to worry about. The economy will be benefitted, the businesses will grow, she said.

The new goods and service tax has put various commodities and services into four tax slabs. The new tax system is expected to wipe off the cascading tax impact, which in turn will bring down the net tax at the customers end.

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The Rewari Police on Thursday booked a policeman for raping a 35-year-old woman in the district. The accused has been identified as Jyoti alias Deepak, a policeman working in Faridabad. The police said they were yet to ascertain his rank.

The victim, a divorced single mother, alleged she was raped multiple times in the last couple of months by the accused, who is also a distant relative. She alleged that the accused used his position in the police to exploit her.

The woman lives with her 13-year-old son at a colony in Rewari.

According to reports said the woman had submitted a complaint in the women police station earlier, but no action was taken. Upset at the rebuff, she threatened to immolate herself at the police station on Wednesday, after which the police registered a case.

Rewari women police station incharge Saroj Bala refused to comment. Superintendent of police Sangeeeta Kalia said they have registered a case under section 376 of the IPC and have started the hunt to nab the accused.
Based on the, this is what the map looks like.

Number of students enrolled in the school
Human Rights Watch: Authorities should immediately investigate death threats against Artur Sakunts

Human Rights Watch issued a statement touching upon the death threats addressed to human rights defender Artur Sakunts. The statement runs as follows: (Berlin)  A prominent human rights defender in Armenia has received death threats, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately investigate the threats, made on the rights defenders Facebook page, and ensure that he gets the protection he needs. Artur Sakunts, the director of Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor Office (HCA-Vanadzor), reported that on June 2, 2017, a Facebook user threatened to kill Sakunts in a comment on his Facebook page. The threat appeared to be in response to Sakunts Facebook post the same day criticizing the Armenian government. The death threat was followed by a threat from another Facebook user. HCA-Vanadzor is a leading human rights organization in Armenia. The Armenian authorities should waste no time in meeting their obligations to investigate the death threat against Artur Sakunts and provide him with the protection he needs, said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. No one should fear death for publicly criticizing the government. The June 2 Facebook post from a user named Ashot Avanesyan said, Sakunts, Ill kill you [traitors] like you must have their heads [cut] off. Wait for me any moment. I am not one who shoots from the back; Ill shoot from the front, two to three meters, with a 9mm caliber bullet. Wait for me, Sakunts. Following Avanesyans post, a second Facebook user named Artur Ghazaryan also threatened Sakunts saying that, The country should be cleaned of him. On June 5, Sakunts reported the death threat to the general prosecutors office, which is examining it to determine if there are grounds to initiate a criminal investigation. Sakunts told Human Rights Watch that he has received threats in the past, but the June 2 threat alarmed him because it was very specific in terms of method, even to the caliber of the bullet. Armenias human rights ombudsman also raised concerns about the threats and called for an investigation. HCA-Vanadzor, operating since 1998, is based in Vanadzor, Armenias third largest city. The organization provides legal aid to victims of human rights abuses, makes policy recommendations to the government, monitors elections, and carries out peace-building activities.
Claiming that a tiger skin seized in Nepal in December 2015 was from Corbett, a non- government organisation has demanded forest minister Harak Singh Rawat to order probe into the matter.

Operation Eye of The Tiger-India has sought the tiger skins stripes be matched with the tiger database of Wildlife Institute of India.

In a letter dated June 6, a copy of which is with Hindustan Times, the NGOs chief functionary Rajeev Mehta requested Rawat to order an enquiry. Two men from the Bawariya community, Ram Dayal and Raju of Haryana, were arrested with the tiger skin at Itahari in Nepals Sunsari district, he said.

The duo are from the same Bawariya gang of whose another member, Ram Chander of Bhatinda, was arrested with five tiger skins on March 14 from Shyampur in Haridwar, he said.

The accused arrested in Nepal and in Shyampur belong to the same group. After the tiger skin was seized in Nepal, five skins were confiscated in Uttarakhand. I have arranged pictures of the tiger skin seized in Nepal and I had sought assistance from Wildlife Institute of India for matching stripes. But they are not supporting me, Mehta told HT.

He met chief secretary S Ramaswamy on Thursday who assured him of a probe.

There has been no communication by the Nepal government regarding the details of the tiger skins seized there. The police is investigating the case. A probe was already ordered by the forest minister. Well write to the principal chief conservator of forest (PCCF) to expedite investigation, secretary, forest, Arvind Singh Hyankit told HT.

On April 19, Rawat ordered a probe into the confiscation of five tiger skins and directed PCCF RK Mahajan to take over the case. He constituted a committee of three senior forest officers. The committee was to submit its report within a month, but was yet to do it, sources in the forest department said.

Rawat couldnt be contacted as he was busy at the budget session. Corbett director Surendra Mehra refused to comment, saying that he was not the park director in 2015.

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A BJP youth wing member has filed a civil defamation suit before a Delhi court seeking only Re 1 in damages from chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Sanjay Singh for allegedly sharing his pictures in media and falsely declaring him as the one who slapped former water minister Kapil Mishra on May 10.

Ankit Bhardwaj, the state executive member of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), a youth wing of BJP, sent a notice to Kejriwal and Singh seeking a public apology on May 13. None of them gave any reply to it, following which the civil suit has been filed, Bhardwaj said.

Besides the civil defamation suit, Bhardwaj has also filed a criminal defamation complaint against Kejriwal and Singh.

The plaintiff (Ankit Bhardwaj) assess the damages at Rs 1 crore but the plaintiff has no knowledge of any valuable assets of the defendants (Singh and Kejriwal) so the plaintiff limits his claim to Re 1, reads the civil suit.

Bhardwaj claimed that the AAP leaders had wrongly accused him in media of assaulting Mishra while the person apprehended from the spot for the alleged offence belonged to their own party.

In his complaint, Bhardwaj has claimed that Singh showed his Facebook profile picture on different news channels and declared him as the accused. He has further claimed that Kejriwal re-tweeted a tweet identifying him as the accused.

It was revealed to the plaintiff (Bhardwaj) that the name of the person who attacked Kapil Mishra was also Ankit Bhardwaj. It is pertinent that the person who attacked was apprehended at the spot and the incident as well as his arrest has been captured and broadcasted. The person apprehended at the spot was clearly saying that he was an Aam Aadmi Party volunteer, reads the civil suit.

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A man who quit carjacking to focus on stealing expensive cars from self-drive firms in Delhi has been arrested from Jalore in Rajasthan and seven stolen vehicles have been recovered from him.

Mukesh Chauhan, 31, was an active carjacker until self-drive car rental firms caught his attention, said police. Chauhan and his associates felt that stealing from the self-drive firms was easier and less risky than carjacking, said Ishwar Singh, DCP (South).

Their modus operandi was easy. They would approach the self-drive firms and submit fake identity proofs and other documents while renting a car. Even the security money required to be deposited at the time of the rental seemed less because they were receiving all the documents of the car.

They would drive away, never to return. Armed with the documents of the misappropriated car, it was relatively easier to sell it anywhere. They would sell the cars in places like Jodhpur, Jaipur and Jalore in Rajasthan and Nagaland.

The south Delhi police began probing this modus operandi after receiving complaints from two foreign self-drive car rental firms, which have their offices in Vasant Kunj area.

They had to approach the police after the cars were never returned. The mobile phones of the borrowers were found to be switched off. The documents submitted them were found to be fake leaving them untraceable.

The two firms had lost seven cars, including two Toyota Fortuners, a Mahindra XUV and a Mahindra Scorpio, in a short period. Multiple cases in this connection were registered at Vasant Kunj (North) police station and the mobile phones of the thieves put under surveillance.

That led the police team to learn that one of the suspects, Chauhan, was hiding in Jalore. The team camped in Jalore for over a week, but Chauhan would keep changing his hideout.

He was finally nabbed last week while he was driving a Honda Amaze, one of the cars stolen from the self-drive firm. He was arrested and at his instance, seven cars recovered from different places. A hunt is on for his associates.
Observing that whistleblowers are the eyes and ears of the system, a Delhi court on Thursday told the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) to ensure the safety of a man who filed a complaint against chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and others over alleged irregularities in the grant of contracts for roads and sewer lines in Delhi.

The courts observation came after the ACB filed a status report saying that there is no threat to the life of complainant Rahul Sharma. However, Sharmas counsel argued that his client has been repeatedly attacked and was under constant threat.

Last week, Sharma was allegedly shot at by two unidentified bikers in Noida. Sharmas counsel said that an FIR under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC was registered in Greater Noida.

The court posted the matter for the next hearing on June 23. Sharmas counsel has filed a fresh plea seeking a status report on the three FIRs filed by the ACB on May 8 related to the alleged irregularities in granting the contracts.

During the last hearing, the court, while observing that the attack on whistleblowers is a serious concern, said that the FIR lodged in relation to the recent attack shows that there was serious threat to the security of the complainant. It had then directed the ACB to assess the threat perception to Sharma and file a status report on June 8.

Sharma, the founder of NGO Roads Anti-Corruption Organisation (RACO), is seeking directions to the police to lodge an FIR against Kejriwal, his brother-in-law Surender Bansal, proprietor of a construction firm and a public servant for the alleged Public Works Department (PWD) scam. Bansal has since passed away.

The complainant alleged that Bansal operated through several dummy firms to obtain government contracts with the connivance of several senior PWD officials. He has further alleged in his complaint that documents showing purchase of material were concocted and forged, causing a huge loss to the public exchequer.

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Lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal may be batting for compensating consumers for unscheduled power cuts, but implementing the proposal is going to be an uphill task.

Even if the L-G on Wednesday agreed with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) governments policy of making distribution companies liable to pay consumers for untimely power cuts, its implementation will not be possible until the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) notifies the regulation.

Besides, it is unlikely that the DERC will be able to notify the policy this summer as the entire regulation will have to be re-drafted. The entire process of inviting suggestions and objections from public and stakeholders will have to be done again. On analyzing the comments, there may be a need for amends in the policy. So, the process will take some time, a DERC official said.

L-G Anil Baijal after his meeting with Kejriwal also said that there was a need to make the compensation policy more enforceable. Met CM @ArvindKejriwal. Discussed issue of power cuts & compensation to consumers. Suggested to devise a rational,fair & enforceable model, he tweeted.

Following this, Kejriwal also tweeted saying, Honble LG agreed DISCOMS shud pay compensation 4 unscheduled power cuts 2 make them accountable. Fairplay n equity 2 consumers 2 be ensured.

In June 2015, the Delhi government issued directions to the DERC to penalise discoms for unscheduled outages. Accordingly, the regulator in May, 2016, issued an order to the discoms to compensate consumers up to Rs 100 per hour for unscheduled outages extending up to two hours. The policy was not implemented as a gazette notification was awaited.

However, in August 2016, the regulation was declared null and void after the governments proposal was struck down by the Delhi high court for not having the L-Gs approval.

According to the draft regulation, a penalty of Rs 50 per hour per consumer was to be levied for the first two hours followed by Rs 100 for every subsequent hour.

The fine amount was proposed to be adjusted in the consumers monthly bills.

The policy stated that if any consumer approached the Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) after 90 days with a complaint that he or she had not received his compensation, DERC would have to ensure payment to all consumers affected by that power cut.

Sources said that the government is hopeful that the DERC would smoothly notify the regulations as the three-member commission currently has only one person, BP Singh. The post of chairperson and other member is lying vacant nearly a year now.

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A massive blaze was reported from a four-storey building in the narrow, busy and crowded lane of Kinari Bazar in Chandni Chowk on Thursday afternoon. At least 10 people were trapped inside the building at the time of the incident.

Though the flames blazed on for hours, needing over 20 fire tenders, no casualties were reported. However, goods worth lakhs were destroyed and the power connection to the locality remained affected for several hours.

The building, located behind Sis Ganj Sahib Gurdwara, serves as a manufacturing unit for jewellery boxes as well as rented accommodation for a few people on the top floor.

There were around two dozen workers at the box-manufacturing unit when flames were sighted around 12.45 pm. The trigger for the blaze remains to be investigated but the police believe short-circuit to be the cause.

Though the fire started on the first floor, it quickly spread to the entire building. I was visiting the gurdwara with my family when I noticed black smoke rise over the locality. I ran here to find the entire building up in flames, said Manavjit Singh, a resident of Hari Nagar.

The fire department was alerted around 1 pm and over one dozen fire tenders were immediately dispatched to the spot because of the threat the fire posed in the crowded locality.

Many people in the building, meanwhile, focused on removing the gas cylinders from inside. One cylinder burst but we managed to remove 10 other cylinders, said one of the survivors.

The firefighters struggled to gain access to the building due to narrow access. Along with fighting the blaze, they had the task of rescuing several workers trapped inside because of the flames at the very entrance of the building.

We rescued the people by taking them to a balcony and other open areas of the building that allowed them to enter the neighbouring building. There was no casualty, said a fire officer.

The blaze was finally controlled by 4 pm. The cooling operations continued till late evening.

Kinari Bazaar is a wholesale market popular for bridalwear. This is the second incident of fire in Chandni Chowk area within a fortnight. On May 23, a major fire had broken out in the area, gutting over 40 shops.
Confusion prevails in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over the future of senior leader Kumar Vishwas.

While everything seems hunky dory from outside, party sources said the partys national executive meeting on Sunday witnessed a heated atmosphere, at least two people present there told Hindustan Times.

The Kapil Mishra episode, and related controversies, came up for discussion during the meeting that went on for hours. Progress on the work assigned to the poet-turned-politician by the leadership was also discussed.

Kumar, who was made Rajasthan in-charge of the party last month, was present in the meeting attended by almost all members of the national executive.

Sources said water minister Rajendar Pal Gautam, who recently replaced Mishra in the Arvind Kejriwal cabinet, brought up a resolution seeking a discussion on loyalty of party leaders in the changed scenario.

The resolution, the sources said, did not name any specific individual.

It will be wrong if people think that the party leadership is plotting the exit of Kumar. Heated and emotive exchange of words is nothing new in AAP leaders meetings. But yes, discussion did happen about the progress in the organisation building in Rajasthan, the responsibility of which was given to Kumar by the PAC. Nothing much has moved on that front. He assured he will soon start taking meetings, a senior AAP leader said.

Over a month back, Kumar was made in-charge of Rajasthan by the political affairs committee (PAC), the highest decision-taking body, after he threatened to quit the party over attacks on him by a coterie surrounding Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The party had suspended legislator and member of the PAC, Amanatullah Khan, for three months to pacify Vishwas after the Okhla legislator termed his as a BJP agent.

While the party leadership was able to prevail upon the crisis then, speculation about the Vishwas future has been rife in the party as a section of legislators had sided with him, demanding his elevation as the national convener replacing Arvind Kejriwal.

The rift has been wide open but a section within the party feels that Vishwas, who got the support of sacked minister Kapil Mishra during the churning after the partys loss in the municipal elections, has lot to offer to the party, owing to his star power and popularity in the Hindi belt.

He has a following and is good in connecting with volunteers. While there were whispers of him being elevated as the national convener, the fact remains that his organizational capacity is still to be tested as he has largely been a star campaigner. The assignment in Rajasthan is an opportunity for him to show his organizational skills, a senior party leader said.

Rajasthan is one state the party is eyeing seriously for expansion. Assembly elections are scheduled late in 2018.

Sources said, Vishwas is likely to convene a meeting of the Rajsthan unit within the next few days.

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The only thing surprising about the terrorist attack on Irans parliament building and the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on Wednesday, which seems likely to have been carried out by the Islamic State (IS), is that it had not happened before. The IS bitterest enemies have been the Shia armies and militias arraigned against them in Syria and Iraq. Its hatred for Shia Muslims has been one of its defining characteristics. Yet this is the first time it has carried out an attack on the political centre of the Shia world. Iran, despite being surrounded by violence and instability, has not experienced a major terrorist attack on its cities for seven years. While a number of other Sunni groups have Iran in their crosshairs, their attacks have been minor and ineffective.

Tehran has previously warned of the threat posed by a collapsing IS and how it can be expected to lash out as its territorial existence comes to an end. What is more troubling is the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Crops (IRGC) decision to point the finger of blame at Saudi Arabia, despite the evidence of IS involvement and at a time when Riyadh has thrown in its lot with the anti-IS coalition.

The IRGC and other hardline elements in Iran to some extent see the IS as yesterdays problem. Their focus is beginning to shift back to a renewed Tehran-Riyadh geopolitical rivalry. The recent Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, attempts to divide Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen and Riyadhs encouragement of the Donald Trump administration to take a more hostile line against Iran are only a few of the sins that the ayatollahs are laying at Saudi Arabias feet. The Saudis, for their part, are paranoid about an Iranian-dominated Shia axis running from Lebanon across to Iran that they feel would inevitably be tempted to support the repressed Shia minority inside Saudi Arabia. Both camps have dirtied their hands supporting terrorist activities against the other.

These are sentiments that the Persian Gulf region could do without. The election of the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is a reminder that both Riyadh and Tehran have political voices who have previously argued Saudi Arabia-Iran cooperation would be mutually beneficial. And it is untrue to say the two sides have a history of constant hostility.

However, at present moderation is not winning the policy arguments if the recent events in the Gulf are any indication. This partly reflects the strength of hardline clerics and religious paramilitaries in all these countries. The attacks on Tehran are being used to sharpen the geopolitics of the region  and replace the war with IS with other forms of conflict.
The Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) decided increasing their fees by 10% each year till 2019. But these colleges will still remain far less expensive than private institutes or universities abroad offering similar degrees.

The hike will be only for students taking admission this year. These freshers will have to pay Rs 27,500 for each of the two semesters in the session beginning 2017.

The latest change is a back-to-back move after fees at the seven IISERs, the countrys premier science education institutes, were hiked from about Rs 15,000 a semester to Rs 25,000 last year.

The move reflects the past two years trend at top government-funded engineering and science colleges such as the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the National Institute of Technology (NIT). The hike ranged from 60% to 120%, but with safeguards for poor students and those within the governments reservation policy.

A May 26 meeting of the NIT and Science Education and Research (NITSER) council, chaired by human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar, decided the 10% hike in IISER fees for three consecutive years.

It was noted that the fees in IISERs are very low at present and there was need to progressively increase the fees, reads the minutes of the meeting.

Abhilash Swant, a student of IISER Pune who graduated in May, agreed that the institute has to change its fee structure as it provides modern laboratories and quality faculty. Even after the hike, the fee will still be manageable. Though an increase of 10% every year might be an issue, he said.

However, students affairs council of IISER Kolkata has demanded a rollback. Since scholarship has been limited to very few students from 2016 onwards and many students coming to IISERs for pursuing BS-MS in Basic Science belongs to lower class or middle class, current fee hike should be reviewed and 100% tuition fee wavier should be provided to students belonging to lower income group as it is being provided in IITs and NITs already, they said in a statement issued by them.

The NITs, which charge Rs 1.25 lakh a year, proposed a fee hike this year. But the council put the proposal for review.

IITs increased their tuition fee last year from Rs 9,000 to Rs 2 lakh. But the government gave full exemption to students with disabilities, from scheduled castes and tribes, and those from families that earn below Rs 1 lakh a year.

Education experts said a fee hike can augment resources as institutes need money to build and maintain infrastructure.

According to Pradipta Banerji, professor at IIT Bombay, a small percentage of students will pay the full fee because of the slew of exemptions. So, technically, the revenue is not really going up.

Dheeraj Sanghi, dean of academic affairs and external relations at the New Delhi-based Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, said a fee hike remains a healthy practice so long as there is a mechanism to protect poor students.

Also, a number of IITs had raised the issue that more students were opting for IISERs as they were charging much less  so they were losing meritorious students, he said.

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Boys performed better than girls in the Class 10 results of Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education (RBSE), which were announced at Board office premises in Ajmer on Thursday. Minister of State for Education Vasudev Devnani announced the results. The overall pass percentage was 78.96%, with 79.01% boys and 78.89% girls being declared successful.

Candidates can check their results on the boards official websites by clicking here.

Speaking at the occasion Devnani said, The results have shown that teaching environment in government schools has improved. Year after year there is not only a rise in the pass percentage but the overall board results have also improved, he said. There is an increase of 3.07% in pass percentage, which was 75.89% last year, he added.

At 75.69%, the government schools outperformed their last years performance by 3.24%. Last year, the pass percentage of government schools was 72.45%. During the same period, private schools at 82.49% showed an improvement of 2.64% over last years 79.85%.

A total of 10,98,921 students had registered for the examination out of which 10,72,799 students appeared. Approximately, 6,11,689 boys and 4,61,110 girls wrote their papers.

Heres how you can check your results:

* Log on to rajresults.nic.in or rajeduboard.rajasthan.gov.in

* Click on the Class 10th results 2017 link

* Enter your roll number and submit

* Results will be displayed on the screen

The board announced the Class 8 board results on Wednesday.
Around 26 Armenian businessmen present business plans to 170 Italian business partners

New business relations established as a result of the Armenia-Italy business forum Through the initiative of the Development Foundation of Armenia, and within the framework of the first Armenian-Italian Intergovernmental Commission Meeting, the Armenia-Italy Business Forum was held in the Italian capital of Rome, in order to establish and strengthen bilateral investment and business relations. The decision to establish the Commission was made during the official visit of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Paolo Jentiloni, in November 2016. Around 26 Armenian businessmen presented their different business plans to 170 potential Italian business partners, and highlighted the investment sectors where profitable cooperation is possible. Meetings between interested companies were held to discuss investment projects and export opportunities for Armenian products. The success stories of Italian companies Renco and Sartis were also presented in the Forum. "Now is a favorable time to invest in Armenia. The government is actively taking steps towards improving the business environment and eliminating bureaucratic obstacles. Our Foundation in particular is ready to provide practical support and consulting services to Italian businessmen at any stage of investment," stated the CEO of the Development Foundation of Armenia Armen Avak Avakian, adding that the conference and B2B meetings were organized to present the country's investment opportunities. The agenda of the Armenia-Italy Forum included presentations on investment opportunities in the agro-processing, renewable energy, information and communication technology, footwear and textile, and tourism sectors. During the forum, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) and the Italian Trade Promotion Agency (ICE), which will promote further bilateral trade and economic relations. According to the Memorandum, the two parties agreed to promote the cooperation between the Armenian and Italian business sectors, and share information on business visits, exhibitions and upcoming events. Both parties will do everything possible to identify and eliminate barriers against bilateral trade and increasing investment. Statistics: The trade turnover between Armenia and Italy amounted to 160 million USD in 2016: 32 million USD in Armenian exports and 127.5 million USD in imports. Last year Armenia mainly exported textile, clothing, aluminum foil, ethanol, liquor, plastic goods, automatic regulators and control devices to Italy. The imports from Italy mainly consisted of chocolate, confectionery, pasta, fabrics, central heating boilers and oil/petrolium products. Italy is Armenia's 17th largest investment partner with 103.3 million AMD of investments in January-September 2016. Development Foundation of Armenia
The Manesar gang rape victim had left her home on May 29 night after the couple had a tiff with their neighbours at Bas Kusla village in Manesar, 25 kms from Gurgaon.

Locals said the couple had left home, where they live on rent, separately when their neighbours, Birvan and Rani, had gone to the police station to complain after Rani was seriously injured after their fight. Eyewitnesses said first the victims husband left home and later the victim left the room with the child at around 12am.

The woman and her husband had a quarrel with us over a trivial issue but they injured me seriously and we went to the police. The two were scared and the husband left the home first and later his wife left with the child. What happened thereafter is not known to us. No action was taken on our complaint, said Rani.

Locals also said that during the fight the couples eight-month-old daughter had fallen down the stairs and got injured.

The couple had a love marriage. The victim belongs to Meerut in Uttar Pradesh and her husband is a native of Muzzaffarpur in Bihar.

The woman had left her house to go to her in-laws house in Khandsa, Gurgaon. The three accused had given a lift to the victim and her daughter in their four-wheeler Tata Magic vehicle and instead of dropping her to Khandsa, they took turns to rape her at a vacant plot in Manesar.

Yogender, one of the accused who was arrested after he confessed to his crime the sarpanch of Bas Kusla village, said that they had taken the woman to Khandsa village, and even tried to locate the house of her in-laws. However, after failing to find the house, they returned to Manesar, where they committed the crime.

However, the victim has said in her complaint that the accused had taken a u-turn from Kherki Daula toll plaza and raped her at sector 8 in Manesar.
Haryana government has agreed to provide monetary compensation to the Manesar gangrape victim.

The decision was formally conveyed on Thursday by Rekha Sharma, member, National Commission for Women, after a meeting with senior Gurgaon police officers with regard to the case.

Sharma also met the victim and said that she was satisfied with the progress of investigation into the case and the arrest of the three accused barely days after the crime. While two of the accused were arrested on Wednesday, the third was picked during a midnight raid at Bulandshahr in U.P.

Earlier, I was apprehensive that the investigation might be slow. But after the arrest of all the accused, we are convinced that the probe is proceeding smoothly. The SIT has done its job. I will also look into the initial lapses that delayed the investigation into the case, Sharma said.

After meeting the rape victim, Sharma said that her daughter did not die from injuries she sustained after a fall at their rented room in Manesar. She said the infant was throttled to death by the accused. The government has agreed to pay monetary compensation to the victim. However, the quantum has not been decided as yet, but there have been discussions with the state government, said Sharma.

Replying to a question, the NCW member said that the initial lapses in the investigations and allegations that there was deliberate delay on the part of the police to register a case, would also be investigated. The NCW will send its recommendations to the state government in this regard, Sharma said.

Read I Manesar gang rape, murder: Two held after one accused confesses to sarpanch

To ensure that victims of molestation, rape and similar crimes get sympathetic and humane hearing at police stations, the NCW will also organise sensitisation programmes at the police training centre in Madhuban. We have already sensitised 800 police recruits in Madhuban and the process will continue, Sharma said.

She, however, admitted that Gurgaon police was short on manpower and there was an immediate need to bring in recruits. The police presence is very thin and there is need to have more men on the ground to ensure security of residents, she said.

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The three accused in the Manesar gangrape case had committed the crime after repeatedly threatening to kill her 9-month old daughter. The threat was a ploy meant to force the woman into submission.

The arrest of the third accused in the wee hours of Thursday helped the police piece together the entire sequence of events. The trio were produced in the local court and sent on remand for two days for further questioning, the police said.

According to the police, Jaikesh, who was arrested from Hisra village in Bulandshahr (UP) was driving the van and was also the mastermind who instigated the two others to indulge in the act. He was the first to commit rape, and he had repeatedly threatened to kill the 8-month old daughter of the victim if she tried to resist or fight back, an investigating officer in the case said.

Amit, the other accused who is also in his twenties, was arrested from Sirhaul toll plaza on Wednesday after he managed to get away from the polices grasp at Bas Kusla village in the morning. The third accused, Yogender, was arrested from Bas Kusla village after he allegedly confessed to their crime to the village sarpanch.

Jaikesh fled Bas Kusla on May 31 itself and was arrested from near Hisra village on Thursday. The accused was arrested from Bulandshahr and brought to Gurgaon. We have taken the trio on two-day police remand for questioning. They have confessed to the crime, said Dharmvir Singh, ACP, Manesar, one of the key members of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed to crack the case.

Singh said Jaikesh had been living in Gurgaon for the last one-and-a-half years and he was very familiar with the city. The two others had come to Manesar only recently to look for jobs. Jaikesh drove the Tata Magic van, which is owned by a Jharsa resident, it has been learned.

As per the police, though the trio does not have a criminal record, the Gurgaon police has asked its counterparts in Bulandshahr to look into their past. None of the three received higher education. Jaikesh cleared class 10, Amit dropped out after clearing his class 12 exam and Yogender studied till class 9.

Ashok Bakshi, the SIT in charge, said Jaikesh fled to his native place and it took strenuous effort to nab him from his hideout.

Asked what measures the Gurgaon police will take to prevent such incidents in future, police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said that they plan to increase their presence in the fringe areas and boost patrolling. We will also ask the civic agencies to install more streetlights and fence off vacant plots so that anti-social elements could be checked. More recruits are likely to join the Gurgaon police and it will definitely help, he said, adding that the SIT had done a commendable job in cracking the case.

Read I Gurgaon gang rape victim narrates her night of horror

In order to ensure safety of residents in industrial estates, Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) has decided to set up a police station and one fire station in Manesar, apart from similar facilities in three other industrial estates across Haryana.

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Fed up by a six-hour power cut, a retired judge allegedly fired gun shots in the air and at the employees of a contractor working with the power discom Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitaran Nigam (DHBVN). The contractors employees had gone to repair power lines in the upscale Civil Lines area that is home to many top bureaucrats, government officials and a state cabinet minister.

One of the employees, Devender Kumar, said they had cut the electricity supply between 12pm and 6pm on Wednesday to change a power cable in the area.

However, he added, when they went to restart the power in the evening, the former judge came out of his house and abused them, before going back in.

He returned with a revolver and fired five shots, four of which hit the tyres of a tractor. We were saved by the fact that five of our men took cover behind the tractor trolley, he said.

Police detained the retired judge immediately after the incident. His licensed revolver was also seized by Sector 15 police officials, who said that the matter is being investigated.

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Irked over frequent power cuts, a former judge allegedly opened fire at Haryana electricity board workers while they were fixing the transmission line outside his house here, police said on Thursday.

No one was injured in the incident that occurred at Civil Lines area here last evening, police said.

The accused, AK Raghav, opened fire on a group of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (DHBVN) technicians and linesmen, ACP (Crime) Manish Sehgal said.

An FIR has been lodged and the former judicial magistrate has been booked for attempt to murder, he said.

He fired a few shots in the air and four towards the workers. The bullets hit a tractor-trolley and its tyres, the ACP said.

DHBVN superintending engineer, Naveen Sharma, said there were eight to 10 technicians and linesmen present at the spot, which is close to the residences of the police commissioner and the deputy commissioner.

The retired judge opened fire when the workers were replacing the wires to improve transmission in the area, he said.

The act is unacceptable from a person who has served such a critical post in the judiciary. A written complaint was given to the Civil Lines Police immediately after the incident, Sharma said.

The superintending engineer denied any power crisis in the area.
Sofia Boutella, who will be seen playing the titular character in the upcoming movie The Mummy, has bagged another big Hollywood project. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the 35-year-old actor is all set to play the female lead in HBO Films upcoming movie Fahrenheit 451.

The cast in the adaptation of the Ray Bradbury classic include the likes of Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon. Bradburys 1953 novel is set in a futuristic America where books are outlawed and those that are discovered are burned by firemen.

Jordan will play Montag, a young fireman who forsakes his world, battles his mentor and struggles to regain his humanity. Shannon will portray Beatty, Montags captain and mentor. The Mummy star will play Clarisse, an informant caught between the competing interests of Montag and Beatty.

The award-winning book has been adapted multiple times, including a 1966 film by Francois Truffaut and a 1982 Radio BBC version. American director and screenwriter Ramin Bahrani will be behind the camera for the project. Amir Naderi and Bahrani will co-wrote HBOs new take.

The Creed star Jordan will executive produce via his Outlier Productions. Sarah Green will serve in the same capacity via her Brace Cove Productions. Alan Gasmer and Peter Jaysen will also exec produce, with David Coatsworth set to produce.
Priyanka Chopra is now seen as a global star and is making a strong mark in Hollywood with her acting skills and brilliant dressing style .

Recently, the 34-year-old actor was a victim to social media trolling, when she met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Berlin and wore a short dress during the meeting.

In a recent interview given to Glamour Magazine, when asked about how important it is for her to have a voice and speak about things, she said, I feel like we live in a world right now where everything gets magnified so much and most of us are afraid to have an opinion because everything gets magnified and everyone has an opinion on the internet. Since when did trolling become international news first of all? Its TROLLING FOR A REASON.

She also noted that she does not let trolls affect her because she gets so much love and affection from the people on her social media profiles.

I dont care, I get so much love and affection from people on my social media. I focus on that. And second of all, thats how you should treat life. I was raised by my parents to have an opinion, I was raised to be fearless, I was raised to not be a girl who was meant to always be quiet and demure. I was told to be the best that I can be and I wish that for every girl-child on the planet, shared PeeCee.

The Baywatch star also said that her co-star of the movie Dwayne Johnson would definitely be good marriage material.

She noted, I definitely think he would make great marriage material because Ive seen him with his family and Ive seen him with his kids and I know how much of a family man he is. The one thing you need in a husband is honesty and trust and The Rock totally exudes that.

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Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat has said use of human shield is not a norm but individual officers are entitled to decide tactics depending on circumstances.

He also said India was ready for two-and-a-half front war in a reference to Pakistan, China and internal security threats.

Situation in Kashmir would normalise soon and was not as bad was being made out in the media, he said in interviews to two news agencies.

It (human shield) is not a general norm. As a practice it is not supported. But situations would dictate. Under the circumstances he (major Leetul Gogoi) took a decision independently. He cant look back at that stage and wait for orders. I think in his own wisdom he took the action, Rawat told IANS.

India is fully ready for two & a half front war (China, Pak & internal security requirements simultaneously): Army Chief to ANI (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/UKu8HSln04  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

If somebody has any other ideas as to how to tackle such a situation, then he can pass it on to us. We will take a look at it.

Rawat was talking about the criticism he faced for his remarks defending Gogoi for tying a civilian to the bonnet of an army jeep for a safe passage through a crowd of stone-pelters in the Valley.

To CPI-M leader Prakash Karat accusing him of instigating Kashmiris to take up arms over his reported remarks that stone-pelters rather use guns, Rawat said he was misquoted.

Condition in Kashmir will improve soon: Army Chief General Bipin Rawat to ANI  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

He dismissed criticism that the army was trigger-happy and said the level of violence in Jammu and Kashmir needed to be brought down for a meaningful dialogue with stakeholders.

Dialogue and violence cannot go together, Rawat told told IANS.

The chief, who served the border state extensively, rejected reports of Kashmiris being angry with the army.

I dont think there is that kind of resentment Look at the way the youth are coming to join the army in large numbers, he told IANS.

Violence had come down after 2011-12. What have the army or security forces done (to evoke anger)? Army cannot be faulted for the killing of Burhan Wani. Something is happening behind the scene, someone is instigating people.

Pakistan was using social media to stoke unrest in the Valley.

Pakistan is spreading disinformation among the youth of Kashmir with doctored videos and messages..., Rawat told ANI.

Security forces and installations have come under increased attacks in the Valley as well as the line of control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan.

On Thursday morning, a soldier was killed as the army foiled an infiltration bid along the LoC in Nowgam sector. Two militants were also killed in the operation that was on when the reports last came in.

Government estimates that around 200 militants are active in the Valley. Groups such as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa are aggressively using social media to woo youngsters.

Messaging platforms like WhatsApp have come under increased scrutiny especially for their role in getting stone-pelters at the sites of anti-militancy operations.

The army chief said the force regularly raised the issue of modernisation with the government and it was going well.

The Indian military, which needs to scale up capabilities to keep pace with Chinas defence modernisation, is in the process of acquiring big weapons and systems. India was the worlds fifth largest military spender in 2016.

(With HTC inputs)
Three policemen were arrested from zero mile area under Ahiapur police station in north Bihar district headquarters town of Muzaffarpur, late night on Wednesday, for their alleged involvement in holding hostage a man and demanding extortion money from his family.

The arrested policemen included the deputy president of district unit of the Bihar policemens association, a body representing the constabulary.

Confirming the arrests, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Vivek Kumar said the action was taken after an inquiry confirmed wrong-doing by the policemen. They were arrested after deputy superintendent of police (Town) Ashish Anand was asked to inquire into a complaint of abduction against them and found it to be true, he added.

Five of their associates , however, fled from the spot, the SSP said.

The arrested constables have been identified as Sarvesh Kumar Singh and Sanjit Kumar of Ahiapur poliice station and Md Akhtar, deputy president of district policemens association.

An official of the Ahiapur police station said the arrested policemen were accused of picking up Shashi Kumar of Maksudpur village in Minapur block of Muzaffarpur on the charge of helping a gang involved in ATM fraud and holding him hostage to extort money from his family.

The policemen took Shashi to a secluded place and forced him to make a call to his father. They, then, demanded Rs 3 Lakh from Shashis father, Umesh Yadav, who approached senior police officers for help, said the official. This led to the erring policemens arrest.

Station house officer of Ahiapur, Vijay Kumar, registered a named FIR against eight persons, including three arrested policemen for kidnapping and demanding ransom. The arrested policemen have revealed the names of their associates, said the SSP.

Other sources said 60 cases of ATM fraud had been registered at the Ahiapur police station in the past three months, of which none have been solved.
The administration has banned internet services for two days in Saharanpur district on Thursday after arrest of Bheem Army founder Chandrashekher from Dalhousie of Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh.

Pramod Kumar Pandey, district magistrate of Saharanpur, said the ban had been put in wake of messages circulating on WhatsApp and Facebook after Chandrashekhers arrest. The messages called upon supporters to unite against the arrest. Bheem Army uses social media to keep contact with its supporters and to spread its messages.

Meanwhile, security has also been strengthened in the district in order to prevent any possibility of violence. Additional directer general of police, Meerut zone, Anand Kumar said elaborate security arrangements have been made to ensure peace in the district.

Read more: Saharanpur violence: Bheem Army founder Chandrashekhar arrested

Chandrashekhar was wanted by police in connection with widespread violence that occurred on May 9 in Saharanpur.

Violence also rocked Saharanpur on May 23 when Dalits returning from a rally of BSP chief Mayawati were ambushed, leading to the death of one person.

The district administration had earlier banned internet services in the district for 9 days which was restored on June 3.
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A private hospital in Allahabad was sealed after a relative of Union minister of state for health Anupriya Patel died on June 5, allegedly due to the negligence of doctors.

Chief medical officer (CMO), Allahabad, Dr Alok Verma initiated action against Harsh Hospital following a complaint by Apna Dal national president Ashish Singh.

A probe committee has been set up to look into the matter.

Barring the OPD of neurosurgeon Dr Mukul Pandey, all services of the hospital have been suspended till further orders.

Ashish Singh took Garima Singh, niece of Anupriya Patel, to Harsh Hospital when she suddenly fell ill on June 2.

Singh alleged that instead of admitting Garima despite her critical condition, the doctors referred her to the Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital (SRNH) of the medical college.

Garima was kept at SRNH for a night under the supervision of a team of doctors led by the principal of the medical college

Dr SP Singh.

As her condition deteriorated, she was referred to the Sanjay Gandhi Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, where she died on June 5.

Garima was pursuing BTech from a college in Jhansi.

Ashish reached Allahabad

on Tuesday to immerse the ashes of Garima in the Sangam and lodged a complaint with the chief medical officer.

Meanwhile, the Allahabad Medical Association convened an emergency meeting of doctors to protest action against the

hospital.

AMA secretary Dr Tribhuwan Singh said the chief medical officers action was arbitrary as the case was related to a

minister.

The patient was brought to the hospital in a critical condition and needed ventilator support. Since ventilator was not available at the hospital, the patient was referred to SRN Hospital. There was no negligence on the part of doctors, he claimed.

The doctors also staged a demonstration at the CMO office on Thursday and threatened to paralyse medical services in Allahabad. The CMO said the hospital would be allowed to resume services after the inquiry was over.
On May 15, opposition parties and local residents around Indira Park got into a fight over Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Raos (KCR) decision to relocate Dharna Chowk, a popular protest space opposite Indira Park in Hyderabad, to the city outskirts.

In February, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) had decided to shift Dharna Chowk, claiming residents had expressed displeasure over traffic snarls and blaring loudspeakers. Now, a furious and united Opposition had obtained police permission to protest, but they didnt expect a shrewd move by the CM. The police had allowed various colony residents and Church representatives to also protest simultaneously to reclaim peace at Indira Park. A verbal duel between both protest groups soon deteriorated into hurling of chairs and fisticuffs, and the police moved in with a mild lathi charge to disperse everyone.

This isnt the only way KCR suppresses dissent in Telangana.

On April 28, Telangana Joint Action Committee chairman Kodandaram was arrested to prevent him from joining the farmers agitation at Mothkur market near Suryapet, about 110 km from Hyderabad. Earlier, on February 22, 2017, Hyderabad police arrested him to stop him from leading the nirudyoga nirasana (protest of unemployed youth).

When Kodandaram asked the police to wait while he used the toilet, they refused, smashing the door to enter. After being lodged in several police stations, he was finally sent to Kamathipura station. I am neither a terrorist nor an extremist or a criminal. But I was treated like one even when I offered to go with them after completing natures call, Kodandaram told the media later.

Read more | Rare bonhomie between Chandrababu, KCR during Amaravati event

The former political science professor, who guided TRS during the Telangana movement, became unpopular with the party and KCR after the states formation, for quizzing them on unfulfilled promises such as jobs.

Before this years budget session, KCR had reportedly issued a diktat to party to file FIRs against the media for publishing fake news to ensure that people understood the correct image of the government.

Neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is witnessing a similar drama. On April 21, the AP police arrested Inturi Ravi Kiran, a Hyderabad political satirist. His Facebook page Political Punch had made fun of CM Chandrababu Naidu and his son Nara Lokesh. A meme that irked officials depicted Lokesh asking his father to send him to the AP Legislative Council. It replaced the boards photograph with that of a couple kissing, bearing the caption, Adults Only.

Ravi Kiran was picked up from his home by the Guntur police and booked for caricaturing political leaders under Section 67 of the IT Act and Section 292 of the IPC, said Narayan Naik, Superintendent of Police, Guntur (Rural). Ravi Kiran has now been let off on bail.

When the Opposition came to his defence, the TDP blamed Kiran for being pro-YSR Congress (YSRC). After back-and-forth between TDP and YSR Congress, those who were brave enough to comment on social media were silenced.

This is not new. In 2011, Naidu and his men approached the Press Council of India with complaints against the Sakshi group (owned by YSRC chief and Opposition leader Jagmohan Reddy) for their alleged campaign against Naidu and TDP.

After the governments ban on Sakshi TV and the witch hunt against Reddy, others have fallen in line. The government wants us to ignore public issues and protests which [they] applauded when Congress was in power, said K Ramchandra Murthy, editor of Sakshi group of publications.

A great irony is playing out in both states. Both TDP and TRS came to power with a populist agenda, as well as criticising the Congress dynastic politics and corruption. Over the last couple of decades, they have turned into mirror-images of the party they once denounced.

Unsurprisingly, both Naidu and Rao owe their careers to Congress.

In AP, Chandrababu Naidu entered politics as a student. He was a Youth Congress leader in Chittoor and later, a Congress MLA from Chandragiri. He was also the cinematography minister in Chief Minister T Anjaiahs cabinet. After losing elections in 1982, he switched to the TDP, started by his father-in-law, actor NT Rama Rao. Naidu was born into a farmers family, but he grew to take on powerful posts in NTRs government. Chandrababu never tolerated if someone else did better than him in business and politics. That is the cause of hostility between him and his once best friend, YS Rajasekhara Reddy [former CM], said Karunakar Reddy, former Tirupati MLA.

TRS supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao, a member of the powerful Velama caste in Telangana, too was a Youth Congress leader in the Sanjay Gandhi bandwagon, before switching to TDP in 1983. He participated in the famous August revolt of 1995  a successful bid for power by Naidu against his father-in-law. But Naidu made the mistake of giving him the deputy speakers post instead of the ministerial berth Rao wanted. KCR left TDP in a huff. Had I given him a cabinet post, there wouldnt have been any TRS or Telangana movement, Naidu has often said.

In their non-Congress avatars, both Naidu and KCR have clearly emulated Congress.

KCR has inducted son KT Rama Rao and nephew T Harish Rao into the cabinet and made his daughter K Kavitha, a Nizamabad MP. Naidu has elevated his son Nara Lokesh as Panchayati Raj Minister within a week of him becoming an MLC and Lokeshs father-in-law Balakrishna as Hindupur MLA.

Naidus Way Or The Highway

In AP, according to analysts and Opposition leaders, democracy exists only for TDP.

Naidu told a TDP politburo meeting in April that the party had bagged 16 percent of YSRCs popular votes in the last two years and could soon wipe out their vote bank. Naidus achievement is through the backdoor. He bagged our votes by making 21 YSRC MLAs and 2 MPs defect, said Ambati Rambabu, YSRC spokesman.

After YSRC boycotted the foundation-laying ceremony of Amaravati, the state administration unofficially shunned them by not inviting them for any events. The government denied privileges like ration cards, pensions and sops. Defeated TDP candidates enjoy more power in our constituencies than we do, said RK Roja, YSR Congress MLA from Nagari in Chittoor.

Naidu is also perhaps the only CM who has taken local media on foreign trips in the guise of development reporting and to change their mindsets. During 1995-2005, he took select media teams to Dubai, Malaysia, China and Singapore, and a large contingent of almost 50 scribes in two batches to Singapore, after he finalised the deal in 2014-15 with several MNCs for building Amaravati.

Read more | Division day: KCR says Telangana richest, Naidu vows to make Andhra great again

Naidus hardened approach involves not tolerating any criticism of corruption. Even the Amaravati land scam, in which Naidus son and other TDP bigwigs have been implicated, was made to look like the farmers gave away land voluntarily (at least 20,000 acres has been amassed).

In the same breath, his intolerance towards erring reporters, independent journalists, the Opposition and ruling party legislators is legendary. Journalists who ask even remotely tough questions are not invited for press meets thereafter. Brother, change your mindset. Dont be negative, he warns journalists gently, but lethally. Naidu tries to convince a legislator or a scribe to come his way. If they refuse, Naidu uses his power to thwart their survival, said a senior TDP minister, who didnt want to be named.

The TDP supremo is now developing a different kind of rapport with the media.

It is widely rumoured that Naidu was a proxy investor in Andhra Jyoti and ABN Channel. In 2013, Naidus son Lokesh headed Telugu news channel Studio N to promote TDP. When that didnt pan out, Naidu had Sujana Chowdhary financially take over Maha TV floated by I Venkat Rao, a well-known TDP sympathiser. HR resources were moved from TDP to Maha TV for its campaign in 2014.

Naidu also keeps party men in line with a report card on MLAs and ministers. Recently, he dropped five ministers, including the Information & Public Relations minister, Palle Raghunatha Reddy, once his favourite from Anantapur. I even touched his feet, lamented Palle. He was told to improve, but was later sacked. These surveys are made public by Naidu at TDP review meetings.

Read more | After Andhra CM, KCR to be immortalised in biopic on the Telangana movement

KCR All The Way

In Telangana, Opposition leaders arent allowed to voice their dissent. There is no scope for criticism in either House and legislators are summarily suspended for even criticising the Governors address, said Sandra Veeraiah, TDP legislator, who was suspended in the last Budget session along with Revanth Reddy.

But Telangana has no effective Opposition to begin with. The Congress, despite being the second-largest (19 MLAs and seven MLCs in both Houses), has lost face among voters. The TDP has just three MLAs. The BJP with five MLAs functions alone, but its often stumped by the possibility that in 2019, the national leadership could tie-up with KCR.

Telanganas second-most powerful party, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) with seven MLAs and one MP, is an invisible ally. But MIM isnt happy with KCR as they fear his whims and fancies. Now with 12 percent reservation to Muslims in Telangana, the MIM feels obliged by TRS to tow its line.

Like Naidu, KCR too is intolerant towards media. When TV channels criticised him and ran satirical programmes, for reneging on his 2013 election promise of appointing a Dalit as CM, KCR blocked TV9 and ABN. An unofficial ban on ABN continued for a year.

Both ABC and TV9 appealed to the national broadcasting authority (NBSA) and Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry which didnt budge, while the government feigned innocence. Finally, TV9 got a reprieve after nine months and ABN after almost a year (cable operators didnt beam both channels across Telangana)  both channels registered huge losses.

When Telangana was formed, government employees, educational institutions, hospitals, hotels, theatres and apartments belonging to Andhra natives were attacked. Remaining spectators, KCR and Telangana police advised Andhra natives to accept the ground reality and make alternative arrangements.

Their clique then began a witch hunt to weed out detractors in administration and industry. Its allegedly why Hyderabad Metro work was stalled for over a year as L&T wouldnt compromise with changes in route. When the business community showed signs of exiting, his son KTR intervened and appeased them.

KCR even fears his own party planning a coup. This comes from a reading by KCRs analysts who conduct surveys on cadres and ministers, every second month. Harish Rao, who has been with KCR since 2002 and a minister in the YSR government, was rumoured to be planning a coup (later denied by Harish). He was reportedly brought under check by KTR.

Read more | How Andhra-Telangana rivalry has enriched PV Sindhu by crores

The CM also monitors the party regularly to nip any dissent. He had sacked his deputy CM and Health Minister T Rajaiah for corruption and inducted a TDP leader from the same district, Kadiyam Srihari, who defected just to replace Rajaiah. The CMO also employs several agencies to conduct surveys among MLAs, officials and ministers frequently, and the same is analysed by a team in KCRs home. One such survey in March predicted a bumper outcome of 106 seats of 119 to TRS if elections were held now or in 2019.

The fact that KCR is frequently claiming that TRS will return to power again in 2019 and has the groundswell of popular votes indicates that there is something wrong with the party. Everyone fears KCR and his doom is certain once the party fails to deliver what it has promised, said BJP leader G Kishan Reddy.

(Published in arrangement with Grist Media)
Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said there were reports of anti-social elements instigating the Madhya Pradesh farmers agitation, which led to the police firing that claimed five lives.

Singh was in Mumbai to attend a BJP meeting held to commemorate three years of Modi rule at the Centre.

The Union minister told mediapersons that the government was sensitive to the plight of the protesting farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. I have heard that some forces are instigating farmers. However, as an inquiry is underway, it is better to wait for the report, he said, adding that attempts to politicise the issue must cease.

We have fought alongside farmers in their protests, and we understand their plight. It hurts us when there are suicides or farmers are shot. However, some view these situations as cruel political jokes, claimed Singh.

Singh also slammed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, stating that his party was responsible for the farmers plight today. Our government would never do anything to betray farmers. In Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, we have two capable chief ministers who are sensitive to the issue. I would recommend cooperating with them to resolve the issue.

The minister ruled out using security forces to quell the farmers agitation. For now, we are doing everything we can to address the farmers problems in these two states, he said.
A special session of the Kerala assembly began on Thursday with a sumptuous breakfast that included beef fry.

The special session later passed a resolution criticising the Union governments recent notification regulating the sale of cattle in the open market.

Calling it anti-federal and anti-people, the resolution said it was aimed at curtailing peoples right to eat what they want.

Except O Rajagopal, the lone member of the BJP, all legislators supported the resolution introduced by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Vijayan said the new regulation has badly affected the people of the state and almost five lakh people, who were directory or indirectly involved in cattle trade, will become jobless.

The chief minister said cattle upkeep and slaughter came under the purview of the states and the Centre has no right to dictate terms.

An employee of the assembly canteen said that on normal working days when the house is in session, beef is served only after 11am.

But today, with the session wholly devoted to discussing the beef issue, we brought 10kg of beef early in the morning. By now, a good number of MLAs have already had beef fry before heading to the assembly floor, said the employee.

Special session of Kerala Assembly underway to discuss Center's notification on sale & purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter. pic.twitter.com/MPdMnjWQoz  ANI (@ANI_news) 8 June 2017

Devikulam CPI-M legislator S Rajendran was the first to be served steaming hot beef fry, the canteen attendant said.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the new rule is nothing but a blatant violation on the rights of individuals to eat what they wish and want. This new rule will hugely affect the agrarian society of our state and also our country.

To take care of a cow that has stopped giving milk, a farmer has to spend Rs 40,000. A huge majority of our society are non-vegetarians and this new law is in no way acceptable to us, the chief minister added.

The new notification is an attempt to encroach into a subject upon which the Parliament has no right to frame a law, the chief minister said, urging the Centre to withdraw the new regulation immediately.

Kerala is the first state to oppose the new regulation and it is planning to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

The new rules also banned the sale of cattle through market. With 15 lakh cattle being brought from neighbouring states, Kerala fears the new regulation will hit people hard. The state consumes around 2.50 lakh tonnes of beef worth Rs 6,500 crore every year.

Former chief minister VS Achuthanandan also slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party-Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (BJP-RSS) combine for the senseless new law on beef.

This is nothing but a fraud. It has been supported by fraud swamis for various reasons best known to them. The BJP has an agenda to castrate certain rules, Achuthanandan said.

The need of the hour is we should encourage people to produce value added beef, through which we can earn precious export earnings. The BJP is trying to bring in corporate houses to engage in this business and in no way can we allow our people to suffer, Achuthanandan said.

This law should be circumvented by our own new law on this, added Achuthanandan.

Former Kerala Minister and senior Congress leader Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan said what many fails to realise was that the BJP-RSS combine have vested agenda in bringing this new law.

What has come to light is that major beef exporting companies in our country are based in north India and some of them are lawmakers of the BJP. This new rule is helping them to continue to increase their business. This cannot be accepted in any manner, said Radhakrishnan.

Former Kerala Minister and senior CPI leader Mulakara Ratnakaran pointed out that the BJP-RSS combine have a huge support from around thousands of godmen, who will instantly support any such move by the BJP government.

They support this government and their strange new radical laws because the BJP government is supporting such godmen in various ways. So its a give and take strategy being adopted to push this specific agenda, said Ratnakaran.

There are 140 members in the Kerala assembly. However, a unanimous resolution against the new central law will not be possible as lone BJP MLA O.Rajagopal will approve the new cattle trade rule.

(With inputs from IANS)

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A twelfth grader from Bengaluru will get a minor planet in Milky Way named after her as reward for developing a crowd-sourced method to monitor pollution in water bodies.

Sahithi Pingali, 16, presented her paper An Innovative Crowdsourcing Approach to Monitoring Freshwater Bodies at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) for which she was awarded the second position prize and three special awards in the Earth and Environment Sciences category.

Her school, Inventure Academy, said on its website that she developed an integrated mobile phone app and lake monitoring kit to visualise changing lake conditions by crowdsourcing lake monitoring to citizens and students.

I definitely didnt see it coming. I was expecting one special award at the most. I havent yet digested the fact that I have a planet named after me, she said, according to The Hindu.

A minor planet will be identified by the Ceres Connection program of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory, which has partnered with ISEF to motivate budding scientists by giving them a name in space.

ISEF is regarded as the largest pre-college scientific research event in the world.

In addition to the ISEF accolades, she also won a gold medal at the International Sustainable World Engineering Energy Environment Project (ISWEEEP) for her research work on Varthur lake.
For Bihar police, Bhawani Shankar Pandey stood between crime and punishment for a price. They have put the 62-year-old former school principal behind bars on charges of selling fake school leaving certificates to adult crime suspects to fudge their age and pass off as juveniles in the eyes of the law.

A juvenile offender can be sentenced to a maximum of three years in a reform home.

Pandeys role extended to court depositions to certify his clients as juveniles and he charged extra for this  Rs 50,000 in each case, Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said on Thursday.

Police suspect Pandey sold at least 100 fake certificates between 2011 and 2013 when he was principal of Om Shiv-Parvati Shanti Niketan Madhya Vidyalaya, a government middle school (up to Class 8) in Patnas Shastri Nagar. The school that functioned from a single room was de-recognised in 2013.

Police zeroed in on Pandey last month after Santosh Kumar Singh, father of engineering student Saurabh Kumar who was murdered in 2015, challenged a school leaving certificate the accused produced in court to claim juvenile status. Pandey gave the certificate to the accused whose age is being verified, said police.

Barely days after Pandeys arrest on May 24, the family of suspected dowry death victim Suman Kumari alleged that the accused in the case used a fake school leaving certificate from Pandey to claim he was not 27 years old but 17 when the case was registered in 2015.

Incidentally, this accused has four different documented dates of birth spanning 11 years. On his driving licence his date of birth is March 3, 1989; on Aadhaar and PAN card it is March 13, 1988; his elector photo identity card states it is 1987; and the school leaving certificate from Pandey records his date of birth as March 20, 1998.

Maharaaj said Pandey also gave a fake certificate to Ranjeet Kumar, who is accused of killing marble trader Ramchandra Jha in Patna in September 2016. Kumar claimed he was a minor when the crime was reported, Maharaaj added.

Proof of age A school leaving certificate, among other documents, is taken as proof of age. Investigators also go for bone ossification test to determine age. Ossification is the process by which bone is formed. Usually, the test is conducted by a forensic medicine team and images are taken of elbows, shoulder or pelvis for scans. However, the test is not a fool-proof mechanism because it only gives an age range and not the precise age.

Police are investigating if Pandey, who is in judicial custody in Beur central jail, sold fake certificates to criminals from outside Bihar as well. Whats more, police know there are more persons issuing such fake certificates.

At least two other notorious criminals, Pinku Jaiswal and Makhkhan Gope, who have between them 21 cases of murder and loot, have managed to get bail from courts on the basis of such school leaving certificates, said Maharaaj. These certificates were not from Pandey, he added, declining to share details.

Pandeys arrest has put the spotlight on the May 17 murder of undertrial gangster Babloo Dubey on Bettiah court premises. Inmates of a remand home moved out of judicial custody, shot Dubey and slipped back into the home, which worked as a haven, said West Champaran superintendent of police Binay Kumar.

Police arrested one of the suspects in Dubeys murder after ascertaining he was not a juvenile but had made it to the remand home on the basis of a fake school leaving certificate.

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The Congress in Gujarat will field all its 57 sitting MLAs in elections scheduled later this year, including veteran party leader Shankersinh Vaghela and his legislator-son, Mahendrasinh.

But the partys announcement earlier this week aimed at keeping its flock together by keeping the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at bay from poaching its legislators, has brought little cheer to Vaghela.

Aides of the former chief minister say he is continuing to sulk. Miffed for not being made the chief ministerial candidate, Vaghela who made his displeasure with the party high command known last month by unfollowing leaders such as Rahul Gandhi on the micro-blogging site Twitter, is reportedly seeing the announcement as yet another attempt to curb his influence within the Congress.

Fielding all sitting legislators mean that Vaghela will have lesser say in distribution of party tickets for elections to the 182-member Gujarat assembly.

Once a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vaghela has kept local Congressmen guessing since he met BJP president Amit Shah in Ahmedabad in March. There have been persistent speculations that he might walk out with loyalist legislators to go back to the BJP which he had left in the 1990s.

Vaghela has denied any such move, but rumours about his future political plans have not died down.

The Congress leadership is also attempting to assuage his feelings. State Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and party in-charge for the state Ashok Gehlot have been meeting Vaghela at his residence from time to time. The Congress believes it is in with a great chance to wrest power from the BJP which has ruled the state for the past 22 years.

The opposition party is, therefore, trying to keep its house in order. As a first step, Solanki has announced that appointments to all key party committees, both in districts and cities, will be made soon. He had in April accused the BJP of attempting to lure Congress legislators.

The BJP, meanwhile, is keeping its door open for Vaghela, considered the most well-networked politician in the state after Prime Minister Modi. If there is a proposal (by Vaghela) and those wanting to join us that they are ready to accept BJPs ideology, then they are welcome, said BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya.

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In a shocking incident, a 14 year old boy hung himself to death at his home in Nalanda Colony under Laheri police station of Biharsharif town in Nalanda district of south central Bihar, after his father allegedly refused to buy him an Apple iPhone of his choice.

He left no suicide note.

Police said the mother of the boy found him hanging from the ceiling with her sari tied round his neck, when she went to his room with a glass of milk, around 11 am of Thursday.

Inquiries revealed that the boy had been given a mobile phone worth Rs 8,000 by his parents last month but his heart was set on an Apple iPhone, which his father, Satyendra Prasad, a roadside fruit vendor, said he was unable to afford.

But the boy again insisted on buying an iPhone, which he had negotiated for Rs 20,000, when his parents took him to market on Wednesday evening, for purchasing for him a school bag. Again, his father tried to mollify him, by telling the boy he would buy him his preferred phone when he turned 17.

Police said the boy apparently took his fathers refusal very badly and killed himself, early Thursday.

Laheri police station house officer Mohammad Meraj Hussain, under whose jurisdiction the incident occurred, told HT that the body of the boy was handed over to his parents after its post-mortem examination Thursday noon.

The boys parents told the police their son was a bright student, but had, of late, developed a strong craving for an iPhone, apparently because owning one was regarded as a status symbol among his peers. It is possible peer group pressure to own an iPhone may have driven the boy to suicide, said an officer.

A quick internet search showed incidents similar to one in Nalanda on Thursday had been reported from other parts of the country, as well.

Earlier, in January this year, a 17-year-old, Class IX student, Subham Sen, had ended his life reportedly after his parents denied buying a smartphone for him. The boy hung himself on the first floor of his house at Sanjay Colony in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh, 37 km from the state capital, Bhopal.

Also in January, apparently upset with his parents for denying him a smartphone, 14-year-old Pitla Lingamurthy, a ninth grade student from Raikal village, allegedly committed suicide in Jagtial district of Telangana, according to a report quoting the police.

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After delivering a lecture on the state of the transgender community at a Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association function recently, transgender activist Priya Babu was faced with a strange question from a member of the audience. While several states in north India celebrated transgender community members as children of god, it was not so in Tamil Nadu. Wasnt Periyar the reason, the questioner asked.

Without batting an eyelid, Priya Babu responded: We neednt be treated as gods; we only need to be treated as human beings. And in that, Tamil Nadu fares much better. We are part of government welfare schemes, including education, and Tamil Nadu is the first state to have a welfare board for transgender members. All this is because of the kind of foundation Periyar laid.

The foundation Priya and many others believe in was set five decades ago  Indian politics witnessed a tectonic shift when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was swept to power in the then Madras State, ending Congress rule. The regional party had entered politics only 10 years prior to the 1967 electoral victory, changing Tamil Nadu politics forever.

The DMK, whose stance against Brahmin hegemony, Vedic rituals and casteism, combined with its fierce push for self-respect and Tamil pride, had broken away 18 years earlier from its parent Dravidar Kazhagam, a movement founded by reformist leader EV Ramasami, popularly known as Periyar. Since then, no national party has been able to dislodge the Dravidian majors  the DMK and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK)  in Tamil Nadu.

Now, half a century after CN Annadurai became chief minister, where has the Dravidian parties rule left the south Indian state?

There are those who believe that from its lofty plank of rationalism, atheism, rejection of Vedic culture and a call for a return to Dravidian roots, the apparent rise of caste-based politics and parties today has consistently undermined the Dravidian movements contribution to the state. Though its harshest critics go so far as to accuse it of leading Tamil Nadu to all-round detriment, there are leaders who insist the movement has still not lost its relevance.

The Dravidian movement was born out of an historical necessity which is not over yet, said SP Agathiyalingam, a leftist thinker who lives in Chennai. Referring to the two main Dravidian parties, he pointed out, Every family in Tamil Nadu today has members who vote both the parties though, of course, I think it is not right to equate the DMK with the AIADMK. Now, more than ever, he said, Tamil Nadu needs them when the saffron forces are spreading everywhere.

DMK spokesperson Manu Shanmugasundaram agreed. We cannot claim a copyright on the Dravidian movement, but we are its biggest defenders. It is probably the only political movement that has translated social justice into legislative action. To that extent, it has lived up to its promises. It is another debate altogether whether it needed to have performed better.

He pointed out to three singular achievements wrought by the movement, which, he emphasised, have remained near-impossible elsewhere in the country. Starting with self-respect marriages (where couples get hitched without a Brahmin priest officiating and where inter-caste unions were encouraged), he said, (These) marriages eliminated all customs (including dowry) that demean women. The DMK government gave self-respect marriages legal sanctity and it was one of its earliest achievements. Next, despite the legal imbroglio, the Act that allowed members of any caste to become priests in temples was an important step towards social justice. Lastly, the welfare of marginalised sections such as transgenders and the differently abled has remained consistently in focus in the state. There are some actions by Dravidian parties  especially the DMK  that go beyond politics and this is one. I think that is very rare in a country driven by vote-bank politics.

Dravidian historian S Thirunavukkarasu, who recently wrote a book (the early history of DMK in three volumes) on the DMK, reeled out a bigger list. From eliminating the Devadasi system to having the first woman legislator [in the Madras Legislative Council in 1927], the Dravidian movements achievements have not just remained symbolic. It was the Justice Party (which was later merged with self-respect movement to form Periyars Dravida Kazhagam) that gave women the right to vote. As far as I am concerned, I would consider only the Justice Party and the DMK as Dravidian parties to have ruled the state. To accommodate the AIADMK into the Dravidian framework is a compromise of sorts. Even the Justice Party and DMK have not fully achieved the Dravidian ideology, but they tried their best.

Thirunavukkarasus dissing of the AIADMK as not being a Dravidian entity raised the hackles of Marudhu Azhaguraj, editor of Namathu MGR, the partys official mouthpiece. Bristling, he insisted the AIADMK was closer to Dravidian ideals than its parent parties, the DK as well as the DMK. It was the AIADMK that implemented 69 percent reservation in the state. Liberation of women was an important agenda for Periyar, and Madam Jayalalithaa effectively translated it into action. She reserved 50 percent seats for women in panchayats. Women were given several key posts in the bureaucracy and a large number of women were made mayors. We accept Periyar as our (ideological) leader and probably the only point we differed with (his vision) was atheism, he said.

Perhaps, acutely conscious of the late Brahmin AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaas association with several shrines and religious offerings, he claimed that though many DMK members professed to be non-believers, they practised theism on the sly. We are open about it. That is the only difference, he said.

Azhaguraj may have been defensive about religion but observers point out even when Annadurai launched the DMK in 1949, he had adopted a more flexible stance on atheism. So if Periyar described believers as fools, Anna watered it down to one community and one God.

Thinker Agathiyalingam views the AIADMK as being far away from even Annadurais softer stance, saying the party has more in common with the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Partys (BJP) ideology. Laws on conversion and the ban on animal sacrifice in temples are some examples of how Jayalalithaas government was closer to the BJP ideology than Dravidian ideology, he commented.

Observers say the AIADMK leadership is intelligent enough to ensure it is perceived as a Dravidian major as the movement is still very much relevant in Tamil Nadu. MGRs intention was to start a Dravidian party. But it is completely diluted now. However, AIADMK will be marginalised if it is not in favour of social justice or reservation in the state, says Agathiyalingam.

Another criticism comes from Sahitya Akademi Award-winning writer S Venkatesan. Culturally, he observed, it was the Dravidian movement that facilitated the relegation of orthodox, varna identities in the state and replaced them with strong Tamil identities. But the movement, despite being in the leadership for over five decades, has failed in adopting a scientific approach to education in the mother tongue.

Such pride in the mother tongue is built into the Tamils character. Several leaders of both the DMK and the AIADMK were drawn from the field of the arts and the movement created ripples in cultural spaces too. Many were fiery orators and writers well versed in Tamil, an ancient language capable of rousing powerful poetry and emotions. Many came from theatre and cinema, both formidable mediums of mass communication. Films penned by DMK supremo M Karunanidhi, whose alliterative prose imbued them with Dravidian ideals like atheism and self-respect, had wide-reaching impact across the State.

So three years ago, when the nation hyperventilated over Aamir Khans PK, the Tamil cineaste merely shrugged, wondering what the fuss was all about. For, when the likes of Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor were tunefully romancing Nimmi and Nargis way back in 1952, the legendary Sivaji Ganesan, in a stunning debut in Parasakthi, was delivering radical dialogues scripted by Karunanidhi that bordered on blasphemy in a very conventional sense. Considered a propaganda vehicle for the newly-launched DMK, the film ran for over 175 days; a telling testimony to the impact of Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu.

Despite its advantageous hold over the Tamil psyche, there are those who think the movement has failed to bring about any real change. Detractors accuse it of doing little for Dalits. Several Dalit activists feel the Dravida parties have done little to stop the increasing caste-based polarisation across Tamil Nadu.

Caste formations have grown relentlessly over the last few years, leading to consolidation of backward castes against Dalits. The alleged suicide of Dalit youth E Ilavarasan in 2013 at Dharmapuri, after he was forcibly separated from his girlfriend from another caste, and the murder of Gokulraj in 2015 at Salem after he was found talking to a Gounder girl, are clear pointers to growing caste-based consolidations. Statistics point to over 100 reported honour killings in Tamil Nadu in last three or four years.

Accusing the Dravidian movement of excluding the Dalits, D Ravi Kumar, writer and Dalit scholar says: The backward classes were definitely strengthened by Dravidian rule. But it never actually became a socially inclusive political majority. It stopped at being a communal majority, as Ambedkar pointed out. The hate campaign and honour killings that are rampant in Tamil Nadu are proof enough.

He adds that the Dravidian movement should rediscover itself to suit Periyars anti-caste politics and the democratic spirit of constitution. Failing which the caste majoritarianism strengthened by the Dravidian rule has the potential danger of becoming a religious majoritarianism.

Later, speaking to HT, Priya Babu said, It is thanks to Periyar that successive governments in Tamil Nadu have consistently focused on the welfare of the marginalised and Im not talking just about the transgender community. This is precisely why we are better off in Tamil Nadu than anywhere else.

From its robust opposition to the imposition of Hindi as the sole official language to cultural colonisation, the Dravidian movement has instilled a strong sense of identity and pride in Tamils. There is much the country can emulate from it: right from womens participation in the public sphere to concerns for the marginalised to focus on primary education. However, for that sense to continue and prevail, it should perhaps go through a phase of self-introspection and rediscovery. But one thing is certain: dislodging it from the seat of power remains a distant dream, at least for the next few years.

(Published in arrangement with GRIST Media)
Mandsaur violence: Farmers protests spread as Centre rushes five battalions to Madhya Pradesh

A farmers agitation demanding loan waivers and higher crop prices in Madhya Pradesh spread to large parts of the state on Wednesday with protesters torching vehicles, targeting police stations and attacking government officials. The flare-up occurred a day after five farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur, where district collector Swatantra Kumar Singh was heckled and assaulted on Wednesday when he was trying to pacify farmers blocking a highway. As the BJP-ruled state grappled to contain the situation, the Centre rushed five battalions of paramilitary forces to Madhya Pradesh. Six battalions were sent on Tuesday to assist police.

Read the story here.

Explosion at firecracker factory kills 23 workers in Madhya Pradeshs Balaghat

At least 23 people were killed after an explosion in a firecracker factory in Balaghat, about 440km southeast of Bhopal, on Wednesday. The blast sparked a blaze around 3pm, which firefighters tamed in two hours. Superintendent of police Amit Sanghi told HT that 23 people died in the fire incident at the Barsa fire cracker factory in Khari village. He said the incident took place around 3pm. Bodies were fished out from the rubble of the fallen structure and the injured were sent to the hospital, he said.

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83% of Indians give thumbs up to countrys economy: Pew survey post demonetisation

Indians have the most positive view of their economic situation in the developing world, says the annual Pew Research Centre survey of global economic attitudes. Even compared to the citizens of rich countries, Indians are near the top with 83% describing their current economic situation as good. The survey said, Notably, 30% of Indians believe their economy is very good. This was the strongest such sentiment among any country in the survey.

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BJP legislator wants momos banned, says they cause life-threatening diseases

Everybody loves street momos, but not lawyer and BJP legislator Ramesh Arora of Jammu and Kashmir. He wants the dumplings dumped for good, saying they contain the carcinogenic monosodium glutamate or Ajinomoto. The member of the legislative council has been campaigning for a ban against the cheap street food, invented arguably in Nepal. Momos have been found to be the root cause of several life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine, Arora said on Wednesday.

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Sacked FBI director Comey says Trump told him to let Flynn probe go

Fired FBI director James Comey confirmed in a statement on Wednesday that US President Donald Trump urged him to drop an investigation into his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, then under scrutiny for his Russia contacts. I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with his false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December, Comey said in a statement for the record ahead of his appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The president said, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed, Comey said.

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Debris from Myanmar military plane carrying over 100 people found in Andaman Sea

Pieces of a Myanmar military plane which went missing with more than 100 soldiers and family members aboard were found in the Andaman Sea late Wednesday, a local official said. Navy ships and aircraft had been searching since the afternoon when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers. More than a dozen children were believed to be among the passengers on the plane travelling from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

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Islamic State warns of more attacks in Iran, says caliphate will not miss a chance to spill their blood

Islamic State said in a statement on Wednesday that five of its fighters were responsible for a raid on Irans parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, using assault rifles, grenades, and suicide vests, and killing and injuring almost 60 people before dying. The Sunni militant group also threatened Irans majority Shiite population with more attacks, saying the caliphate will not miss a chance to spill their blood until Sharia law is implemented.

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Sri Lanka defends joining Chinas OBOR project

Sri Lankan foreign minister Ravi Karunanayake on Wednesday defended his countrys participation in the One Belt One Road (OBOR), a signature project of Chinese president Xi Jingping, and said India hadnt raised any objection in this regard. Karunanayake  who is in India on a two-day visit  met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and national security advisor Ajit Doval. Faced with a volley of questions, Karunanayake said India and Sri Lanka had held discussions on the project, which would revive ancient shipping routes that have existed for thousands of years.

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Barack Obama dines with Justin Trudeau. Internet goes gaga over their Bromance

Barack Obama maybe out of the White House, but his friendship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, is still going strong. A recent photo of both of them dining together in Montreal is proof of their evergreen bromance. The former President caught up with Trudeau on Tuesday at Montreals Liverpool House restaurant, and their pictures are going viral for obvious reasons. Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted a photo showing both of them in deep conversation.

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Virat Kohli admits disagreements with R Ashwin but for a good reason

Ravichandran Ashwin understands the dynamics of team composition which led to Ravindra Jadeja being preferred over him, feels India captain Virat Kohli. Ashwin is a top-class bowler. Everyone knows that. And he is very professional as well. He understands the dynamics of the side that was picked in the last game and he was absolutely fine with it. He (Ashwin) told me I support you whatever you want to do. Thats always been our equation, Kohli said on the eve of the match against Sri Lanka. Kohli revealed that there has been disagreements with Ashwin but specifically related to on-field technical issues and never ever over selection matters.

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One demand of Sasna Dzrer was fulfilled: supporters marched to the court (video)

One year after the seizure of the Erebuni police regiment, the trial of 14 members of Sasna Dzrer group is kicking off. Before the launch of the first court hearing in Erebuni court, the supporters of the group marched from Liberty square to the court. It is the first court hearing of Sasna Dzrer, which is symbolic and we wanted to highlight that symbolic meaning with a march to remind the regime that Sasna Dzrer have many supporters outside, representative of the Founding Parliament Alek Yenigomshyan told A1+. Member of the Founding Parliament doesnt expect fair trial. But he claims that trials are a good chance for Sasna Dzrer group members to present the aim of seizure of the police regiment and issues, which they tried to solve. In case of Sasna Dzrer, expecting fair trial will be naive. As long as this regime rules our country, the final decision will be political according to the arbitrariness of the head of the regime, said Alek Yenigomshyan. Civil activist Vardges Gaspari is also in Liberty Square holding the poster of Arthur Sargsyan, the man, who took bread to Sasna Dzrer. He cannot understand the viewpoints of those, who criticize Sasna Dzrer, in case when those people simply were against impunity. In the case when peaceful protest actions against the crimes were oppressed in a cynical way, in particular the actions of pre-parliament outside the Closed Market, and it developed to the condition that criminal elements threatened to stab the protesters, reminds Vardges Gaspari. Sasna Dzrer group seized Erebuni police regiment on July 17, 2016, early in the morning. Besides the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan and release of the political prisoners, Sasna Dzrer put forward one more demand. Gaspari claims that they reached that demand. The main thing was the process of surrender of territories, which was somehow postponed. Armenak Kyureghyan was also taking part in the march of supporters of Sasna Dzrer. He is father of member of the group Areg Kyureghyan. Father, who is harrying to the trial of his son, has no expectation of fair trial. The judicial system is wholly corrupted and fulfils an order, he told A1+. According to Kyureghyan, trials of political importance proceed out of legal logic and that is the ground to pessimism. The supporters of Sasna Dzrer reached to Erebuni court, where the trial of 14 members kicked off.
The Marathi textbooks of Class II published by Goas Education Department carry incomplete national anthem, Congress party alleged on Thursday.

According to the opposition party, the Class II Marathi books titled Gomant Bharati carry incomplete national anthem.

However, the education department authorities denied knowlege about the alleged printing error.

The Class II Marathi books, published by the state education department, carry incomplete national anthem. The state government should fix the responsibility over the error, Goa Congress spokesman Sunil Kawathankar told PTI.

The ruling BJP, which calls itself a patriotic party stands exposed. They have ignored such a grave error in the text-books, he said.

He demanded that the state government should initiate an inquiry to find out who was responsible for it.

Such an error is an insult to the country. We condemn such lethargic attitude, Kawthankar said.

He demanded that these books should be immediately withdrawn and replaced with the ones that carry complete version of the national anthem.

When contacted, state Education Director Gajanan Bhat said that the department had no knowledge of the alleged printing error. He, however, said that they would inquire into it.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Thursday that the government was following a case with the US police about an Indian man who was shot at in California.

In a series of tweets, Swaraj said she has received a report from Indian Consulate in San Francisco that an Indian man identified as Mubeen Ahmed, who was working at a gas station in California, was shot at by a gunman.

I have received the report from our Consulate in San Francisco. The victim Mubeen Ahmed works at a gas station. A gunman demanded money from Mubeen and then fired at him, she tweeted.

He is admitted in the Eden Medical Centre CA. Fortunately Mubeen is now out of danger. We are following up the case with the police, she said.

According to reports, 26-year-old Ahmed, a native of Telangana, had gone to the United States in February 2015, to pursue his Masters course in a university. He had completed the course two months ago and was doing a temporary job at a private store.

Tweeting on a separate issue, Swaraj said the government has taken up with the Canadian High Commission the visa issue of Indian badminton players, who are scheduled to play in Canada at the Yonex Open.

We took up the matter with Canadian High Commission. I am happy you will participate in the Yonex Canada Open, Swaraj tweeted after badminton player Sikki Reddy said the players were struggling to get a Canadian visa.

Hi Mam, this is sikki reddy badminton player. We all players have applied canada visa for the yonex canada open, Reddy had tweeted on Wednesday.

@SushmaSwaraj 1/1 hi Mam, this is sikki reddy badminton player. We all players have applied canada visa for the yonex canada open.  sikkireddy (@sikkireddy) June 7, 2017

@SushmaSwaraj 2/2 Still we haven't received our passports from embassy can you please look into it and help us  sikkireddy (@sikkireddy) June 7, 2017

@SushmaSwaraj 3/3 as we r leaving this Friday to Indonesia&Australia tournaments. Please look into it and help us Mam  sikkireddy (@sikkireddy) June 7, 2017
A tonsured head, white dhoti, a deep farewell bow and 17-year-old Varshil Shah was now Suvirya Ratna Vijayji Maharaj, a Jain monk.

The teenager from Ahmedabad, who scored 99.9 percentile in the Class 12 exam a few days ago only to denounce it all, on Thursday joined his guru in his spiritual quest at an early morning ceremony in Surat.

Two weeks ago when the commerce student aced the school-leaving exam, there were no celebrations. His Diksha ceremony, or the initiation ceremony, too, was a quiet and private affair.

At about 4.30am, Vashidaan  a procession in which members of the Jain community dispose of jewellery and cash, symbolising shunning of material world  was held on the banks of the Tapi river.

It was followed by tonsuring of his head, reciting of prayers. And then came perhaps the most poignant of the rituals, as the young man sought the permission of his family to renounce the world.

His mother Amiben Shah and Jigarbhai, an income-tax officer, are happy with their sons decision. Varshil was raised in a house that doesnt have a television or a refrigerator. Electricity is used only when it is absolutely necessary as the Shahs believes many aquatic animals are killed during power generation, which is against the Jain vow of ahmisa, or non-violence

On the eve of the ceremony, Varshil dressed like a groom, wearing a gaudy sherwani paired with a turban, the last time he would wear coloured clothes.

On Thursday, donning a white dhoti and wrap, he joined his guru Kalyan Ratna Vijay. From now on, he will only dress in a white dhoti worn by the members of the Svetambara, or white clad, sect of Jainism. He will walk bare foot and make all his journeys on foot as well.

As monks are not supposed to cook, he will eat what he will receive in alms.

Varshil is history as Suvirya Ratna Vijayji Maharaj begins his spiritual journey.

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An on-the-run Kashmiri carpet dealer suspected of working for both Indian and Pakistani spy agencies is under the scanner of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for allegedly channelling money to separatist leaders in the valley,

An NIA official said Nasir Shafi Mir, now believed to be a Gulf-based businessman, could be one of the links in the suspected money trail from Pakistan to Hurriyat leaders in Kashmir, being probed by the agency.

Mir was arrested from Delhi in February, 2006, but was released on bail a year later. He is absconding since then, the official added.

Sources said Mir, 45, was enlisted by the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW)  the later is Indias external espionage ageny  though it was known that he had links with the Pakistani spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

The son of a wealthy Kashmiri carpet businessman, Mir was running a business in Dubai when arrested by the Delhi Polices special cell.

Intelligence officials said he had an East European girlfriend whom he used to host in a Delhi five-star hotel

Mirs name is figuring in our probe as well, said the NIA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He did not give any other detail.

The NIA has accused several Kashmiri separatist leaders of getting funds from Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) patron Hafiz Mohammad Saeed.

The agency says money received from Pakistan was being used to fund violence in the Kashmir, including paying for stone-pelting on security forces and for burning down schools and government buildings.

A former intelligence official who worked in Kashmir said Mir was enlisted by Indian operatives after he tried to bring Kashmiri militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideens chief Syed Salah-ud-din alias Mohammad Yusuf Shah to the negotiation table in 2000.

We suspected he was a conduit between separatist leaders in the valley and Syed Salah-ud-din as well as the ISI...but he had some usefulness for us also when the Indian government tried to negotiate with Hizbul Mujahideen..., said the retired official.

The officer was a key figure in the talks with Hizbul.

As part of the negotiations, four masked Hizb commanders met the then Union home secretary Kamal Pandey in Srinagar, but the talks fell through.

The officer said Mir remained useful to Indian intelligence agencies for the next couple of years until it became clear that he was proving more beneficial to the Pakistanis, who were using him to channell money to separatists in the valley.

At the time of his arrest, police had allegedly seized Rs 55 lakh in cash and explosives.

Mirs arrest created ripples among Kashmir separatists and a senior Kashmiri leader leader even pleaded on his behalf with the government, said the official.

It is believed that Mir now has a Pakistani passport and keeps shuttling between Pakistan and Gulf countries where he has business interests.

A former chief of an Indian intelligence agency told the Hindustan Times that Mir was shrewd enough to survive in the intelligence game played in Kashmir during the time.

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International Court of Justice (ICJ) president Ronny Abraham will discuss further procedure with both India and Pakistan on Thursday in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case.

According to sources, India will be represented by its agent who appeared during the last public hearing on May 18. Ministry of external affairs joint secretary in- charge of Pakistan division, Deepak Mittal, represented India during the hearing.

Further procedure will be discussed by the ICJ president with both the parties, sources said.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on May 8. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.
A political storm over violent farmer protests in Madhya Pradesh intensified on Thursday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was arrested and held for hours before finally meeting families of five farmers who died in police firing two days ago.

Gandhi, who met the families at Doria on the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border, is believed to have discussed prices of vegetables and produce.

I am being stopped everywhere from UP to MP. I just wanted to meet the family of the deceased. Dont I have the right? The MP government has created problems for everyone, said Gandhi in Doria.

Police stopped Gandhi and a slew of top Congress leaders outside Mandsaur that has been scorched by angry agitations with several vehicles burnt and buildings torched.

The farmers are pressing for a loan waiver, better crop prices and better support for farmers reeling under successive droughts and a supply glut that has sent prices crashing.

Modi cannot waive loans of farmers, cannot give them bonuseshe can only give them bullets, Gandhi said minutes after his arrest. What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has blamed the Congress for stoking violence and appealed to farmers to not be incited by anti-social elements.

Deliberations can only solve problems, he said.

The morning kicked off with high drama as Gandhi abandoned his car halfway to Mandsaur from Udaipur airport and rode pillion on a motorcycle before walking to the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border on foot. He then jumped over barricades to enter Mandsaur but was pushed back across the border almost immediately by a huge posse of security personnel.

Farm protests have spread like wildfire across Indias food bowl states in recent weeks with a slew of suicides in neighbouring Maharashtra and simmering discontent in Rajasthan.

The farmers complain of a lack of storage facilities that forces them to either abandon produce or sell them at below-par prices  a result of chronic underinvestment in Indias agriculture sector.

Violence flared up in Mandsaur on Tuesday after five protesters were killed in police firing with farmers blocking highways, torching factories and attacking government officials.

The state government has struggled to contain the demonstrations and even transferred senior officials from violence-hit districts  including the district magistrate and superintendent of police in Mandsaur -- in a bid to tighten law and order. The central government has rushed in 11,000 Rapid Action Force troops and detained 62 people.

Chouhan and the BJP leadership have blamed the Congress of trying to destabilise the administration in a state that the saffron party has ruled for 14 years.

He (Gandhi) behaved like a college student. He was riding a bike without wearing a helmet. He was smiling and did not look concerned over farmers problems, said state home minister Bhupendra Singh.

More than 10 million people in Madhya Pradesh are dependent on agriculture but the state has clocked one of Indias highest rates of farmer suicides in the past few years. The deaths have come as a major embarrassment for Chouhan, who calls himself a farmers son and is banking on the farmers to guarantee him a fourth term in elections slated for next year.

The state government has attempted to open dialogue with the farmers and even announced a Rs 6,000 crore scheme to waive interests on loans, but without much success.The protests have singed atleast six districts in Madhya Pradesh with fresh clashes reported from Shajapur on Thursday. Thousands of protesting farmers blocked the highway and set trucks and motorcycle ablaze. Stone pelting was also reported.

In neighbouring Maharashtra, the family of a farmer who killed himself on Wednesday evening refused to cremate him unless his loan was waived and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the family. This was the fourth farm suicide in two days.
Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur witnessed a high-voltage political confrontation on Thursday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was arrested after attempting to jump a barrier to enter the town rocked by violent farmer protests over loan waivers and better crop prices.

He was later released at Doria on Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border where he met the families of the farmers killed in the police firing.

The Congress leader, accompanied by state leaders Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath and JD (U)s Sharad Yadav, was put on a bus and sent to a guesthouse in Neemuch.

Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said he was open for talks with the agitators as violence spread across the state. Congress workers staged protests in several states while opposition parties escalated attack on the Chouhan government.

Here are the highlights of the day:

8.20pm: Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia says while farmers are being shot in the country, those shouting slogans supporting Pakistan are spared.

In Madhya Pradesh, farmers fighting for their right to survive were shot down (in police firing on Tuesday). But we do not kill people in Kashmir valley who shout `Pakistan Zindabad, says the VHP leader.

7.45pm: The Vishwa Hindu Parishad condemned the police firing on agitating farmers in Madhya Pradesh and urged the central government to urgently take measures like total waiver of loans.

7.34pm: The Union agriculture minister slams Congress indirectly for doing drama over the Mandsaur incident, says they are the ones to blame for the present situation.

7.32pm: Union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh said the Mandsaur incident unfortunate. The central government has implemented many schemes for benefit of farmers, Singh told ANI.

7pm: Five farmers in Mandsaur killed due to police firing, Madhya Pradesh government tells Centre, ending the confusion over who opened fire on the victims.

6.26pm: Rahul Gandhi backs families demand for status of martyr to the farmers killed in Mandsaur.

Rahul Gandhi with the families of farmers killed in the Mandsaur firing. (Indian National Congress. )

6.25pm: The government waives loans of the top 50 rich men of the country but not of the farmers, Rahul Gandhi said before leaving for Udaipur.

6.22pm: I am being stopped everywhere from UP to MP. I just wanted to meet the family of the deceased. Dont I have the right? The MP government has created problems for everyone, says Rahul Gandhi.

6.18pm: Rahul Gandhi meets families of deceased at Doria on Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border and discusses prices of vegetables and produce.

5.45pm: Youth Congress blocked NH 31 in Assams Barpeta district and demonstrated against BJP government at the Centre and death of five farmers in MP.

5.35pm: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury criticised the Madhya Pradesh government, saying Are people paying the Krishi Kalyan cess so the government could buy bullets to shoot farmers?

5.33pm: Madhya Pradesh government is open for dialogue with agitating farmers, says chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

5.30pm: Rahul Gandhi, who was arrested for violating Section 144 in Mandasur, has been released by the Madhya Pradesh police. He will meet families of victims at Rajasthan border.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi after being released by Madhya Pradesh police at Rajasthan border. (INC)

5.12pm: The Aam Aadmi Party lashed out at the Madhya Pradesh state government for detaining Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The party is sending a delegation of leaders on Friday to meet families of farmers killed in Mandsaur.

5.11pm: The Congress alleges the local administration has taken the families to the border of Rajasthan to prevent Rahul Gandhi from meeting them in Madhya Pradesh.

5.10pm: Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar accuses the Congress of conspiring to instigate violence in Mandsaur, says its vice president Rahul Gandhis decision to visit the state a part of his irresponsible behaviour.

5pm: As curfew relaxed between 4pm and 6pm, residents throng market to purchase essential items.

Residents purchase essential items after curfew relaxed for two hours in Mandsaur. (ANI)

4.52pm: Some forces have fuelled the agitation. Inquiry is on, wait for the report to come, says the home minister.

4.48pm: Home minister Rajnath Singh addresses a press meet in Mumbai, says said the NDA-BJP govt wont break the farmers trust.

4.30pm: Police and Congress leaders reach compromise. Rahul Gandhi and other leaders will be escorted past the border into Rajasthan, where they are expected to meet families of the victims.

4.30pm: Rahul Gandhi refuses bail, asks to speak to families of victims.

4. 25pm: Rahul Gandhi says he spoke to the families of the deceased farmers on phone and conveyed condolences. Im here to meet them and will not be deterred from voicing their concerns, said the Congress leader.

4.18pm: In Raisen district, protesters block national highway 12 and burn the effigy of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

4.17pm: In Jhabua district, farmers block roads in Kodli and Karvad areas.

4.16pm: Fresh protests break out in Shajapur district. Thousands of protesting farmers block procurement of onions, block National highway, and torch truck and motorcycle. Stone pelting reported.

Violent protests spread to Madhya Pradeshs Shajapur district. (HT Photo)

4.15pm: Pilot, the Rajasthan Congress chief, says they are in Mandsaur only to express solidarity with them and appeal for calm and peace but police are using brute force.

4.13pm: Families of victims are hardly 1 km away from us, they want to meet us but police is stopping them, Sachin Pilot told ANI.

4.10pm: Family members of deceased farmers wait to meet Rahul Gandhi outside premises where the Congress vice president has been kept.

3.55pm:Rahul Gandhi says the Congress has stood with the farmers from the fields to Parliament. Their fight is our fight. Their victory is our victory, said the Congress vice president, who has been arrested for violating section 144 in Mandsaur.

3.50pm: Rahul Gandhi speaks to family members of deceased farmers on phone. He wont be returning without meeting the farmers, ANI reports quoting sources.

3.47pm: Former Congress MP Meenakshi Natrajan brings family members of Kanhaiyalal Patidar -- who was killed in police firing in Mandsaur -- to Neemuch guest house. Police dont allow them inside.

3:10pm:

Families of the farmers who were killed by the MP police waiting at the gate to meet with #RahulGandhi but the police won't let them in-  INC India (@INCIndia) June 8, 2017

3:05pm: Always ready to resolve issues by talks and discussions. Anti social elements are trying to bring instability will be strictly dealt with, says MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

3:00pm: Curfew to be relaxed for women and children from 4 pm to 6 pm in Mandsaur: sub-divisional magistrate of Mandsaur NS Rajawat.

2:16pm: Bail proceedings for Rahul Gandhi and others to begin anytime now.

2:15pm: Neemuch district administration has declared Vikram Cement factorys guest house as a jail and arrested Rahul Gandhi, Sharad Yadav, Kamal Nath, Sachin Pilot, Girija Vyas and others for breaching peace and the prohibitory orders issued under section 144 of CrPC

2:10pm: Fresh protests in Ujjain district as farmers block national highway.

2:08pm: Rahul Gandhi arrested for violating section 144, says additional director general of police V Madhu Kumar.

2:04pm: Indian Youth Congress leaders organsie Rail Roko (stop the trains) protest at Mumbais Ghatkopar railway station in support of farmers protests in Mandsaur.

2:01pm:

He (Rahul Gandhi) has been detained. What was the emergency to go there now? He only wants to do politics: MP HM Bhupendra Singh #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/zRGArgel8M  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

2:00pm: He (Rahul Gandhi) behaved like a college student. He was riding a bike without wearing a helmet. He was smiling and did not look concerned over farmers problems, says home minister of Madhya Pradesh Bhupendra Singh.

1:55pm: Hundreds of local Congress leaders mobbed Rahul Gandhi to take a selfie after he landed in Udaipur.

1:41pm: We have been fighting for farmers. Why dont they waive farm loans, asks Digvijaya Singh

1:40pm: Rahul Gandhi, Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Sharad Yadav and Sachin Pilot detained at Vikram Cement factorys guesthouse in Neemuch.

1:35pm:

#WATCH: Earlier visuals of Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch on his way to #Mandsaur. He was later detained by Police. pic.twitter.com/DaLeS5K83A  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

1:32pm: Narendra Modi has forgiven the debt of Indias richest, but he couldnt forgive the farmers debt. He could only give them the bullets: Rahul Gandhi.

1:30pm: I wanted to meet the farmers. I have been arrested but not given any reason, Gandhi adds.

Rahul Gandhi being stopped by police from entering Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday. (Twitter/INC)

1:29pm: If your thought does not meet that of the RSS, you cannot enter Madhya Pradesh, Rahul Gandhi to reporters.

1:15pm: Rahul Gandhi detained at Mandsaur border, put on a bus to an unknown location.

1:10pm:

What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 8, 2017

1:06pm: High drama at Mandsaur border. Rahul Gandhi jumps over barricade and enters district. Police team intercepts him and tries to push him back. He is accompanied by around 100 supporters.

1:01pm: Raj & MP Govts are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP & meeting the families of the #farmers killed in #Mandsaur, tweets Rahul Gandhi.

12:58pm: Rahul Gandhi around 100 metres from the checkpost outside Mandsaur district. Party leaders Kamal Nath and others locked in a heated dispute with administration. Around 200 party workers follow them.



12:52pm: Congress leader Shobha Oza: Rahul Gandhi is heading towards Mandsaur on foot and workers are following him.

12:49pm: Give me 2 hrs, we are holding meeting. If situation is better than yday,will give orders in 1-2 hr: Om Prakash Srivastava, new Mandsaur district magistrate on curfew orders

12:46pm: Police seal all borders to Mandsaur, say wont let Rahul Gandhi enter district

12:41pm: Sources say Rahul Gandhi has got off the motorcycle and is walking with supporters towards a new checkpost set up by police. Scuffles between police and Congress workers reported.

12:39pm: Sources say Rahul Gandhi intends to visit the home of Chain Singh, one of the five farmers killed in police firing on Tuesday.

12:38pm: More than 11,000 rapid action force personnel deployed across the state.

12:37pm: New district magistrate of Mandsaur says he is facing a challenging situation. I am trying to understand the situation, he adds.

12:34pm: Rahul Gandhi said to be heading towards Mandsaur on a kutcha route through villages

12:24pm: Administration and police flustered at Rahul Gandhis move

12:23pm: Congress workers present in huge numbers at Nimbaheda to greet and welcome Rahul Gandhi

12:21pm: Nimbaheda is about 12 kilometres ahead of Neemuch, one of the many centres of violence

12:20pm: Congress using farmers protest as a photo-op, says Venkaiah Naidu, dismisses demands for MP CMs resignation

12:16pm: Special protection group accompanying Congress V-P confirms Rahul Gandhi is trying to enter Mandsaur district via Nimbaheda.

#WATCH Congress VP Rahul Gandhi travels by road on a motorcycle to Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/CWoUq0zpWS  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

12:10pm: Rahul Gandhi changes route, now en route Mandsaur on a motorbike, say sources and journalists accompanying him. Rapid Action Force and police leave Nayagaon checkpost to intercept Congress leader

12:07pm: FIR lodged, some pople detained in connection with the heckling of Mandsaur collector.

12:05pm:More than 1,000 police personnel and paramilitary forces jawans at Nayagaon, Neemuch to prevent Rahul Gandhis entry.

12:00pm: A cement factorys rest house in Neemuch to be treated as temporary jail where Rahul Gandhi might be lodged in case police arrest him, an administrative official says.

11:55am: 62 people detained in connection with farmers protest in Mandsaur, police officlas say.

11:53am: Curfew will be relaxed in Mandsaur in the evening, says administration.

11:40am: Madhya Pradesh BJP vice-president Vijesh Lunawat fires salvo on Rahul Gandhi. Tweets and asks where were you when 3.25 lakh farmers committed suicide during Congress rule?

11:37am: Two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents.

11:36am: Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, the site of Tuesdays shooting of five farmers, police said.

11:32am: Chief secretary Madhya Pradesh BP Singh tells media, Situation is under control in entire state.

I have spoken to Madhya Pradesh CM @ChouhanShivraj ji, who has assured that MP government is doing everything to assist the injured.  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) June 7, 2017

11:27am: Meeting among farmers in Punjab to push for loan waiver, better prices. Express support for protesting Madhya Pradesh farmers.

11:24am: Death of the 5 farmers was due to Police firing. It has been established in probe: MP HM Bhupendra Singh .Why did he mislead us ? tweets Digvijaya Singh.

11:21am: Congress VP had predicted that #Demonitisation would hit the farmers hard when Modi ji made the announcement, says Congress.

11:18am: Modi Govts Demonetisation first killed the farm economy and now they are killing the farmers, says Congress.

If only PM Modi had paid heed to Congress VP #RahulGandhi 's suggestion to visit Mandis & pay attention to farmers needs#FarmersLeaderRG pic.twitter.com/Gdrk2uGB4A  INC India (@INCIndia) June 8, 2017

11:05am: This photo-op tourism will not benefit Rahul Gandhi at all, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi tells TV news channel.

11:03am: Number of transport vehicles reduced on the Bhopal-Indore highway after violence in Dewas on Wednesday.

11:02am: JD (U) leader Sharad Yadav, Congress leaders Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Mohan Prakash are accompanying Rahul Gandhi.

11:00am: Prohibitory orders issued under section 144 of CrPC in Neemuch ahead of Rahul Gandhis visit.

10:58am: Five farmers died in Mandsaur due to police firing, probe has confirmed: State home minister

10:45am: Toll plaza vandalised in Mandsaur, Rs 8-10 lakh looted.

10:41am: Additional director general of police V Madhu Kumar and other senior police officers have reached Nayagaon. Full preparation to stop Rahul Gandhi at the border.

10:40am: Heavy police force deployed in Neemuch. Two layers of barricading on the main road in view of Rahul Gandhis expected visit.

10:30am: A farmer in Maharashtras Nashik committed suicide on Wednesday evening. He owed money to money lenders and banks.In the last two days, four farmers have committed suicide.

10:20am: Police and CRPF have set up barricades at the Rajasthan-Madhya Pradesh border to prevent Rahul Gandhi from entering.

10:17am: Police stop all traffic into Mandsaur at Nayagaon and Neemuch district borders.

10:15am: Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur.

10:01am: Rahul Gandhi lands in Udaipur, leaves for Mandsaur by road. He is expected to be met by district officials at a checkpost outside the district.

9:54am: Protests have spread to six other districts. Apart from Mandsaur, focus of violence is at Dewas where farmers have torched at least two police stations, damaged more than two dozen vehicles and ransacked shops.

9:50am: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will not be allowed to visit violence-hit Mandsaur in MP: SP, Neemuch, Manoj Kumar Singh.

9:46am: The urban parts of Mandsaur appear to be calm but anger simmers in the villages.

9:43am: State government to set up a Rs 1,000-crore Price Stabilisation Fund to purchase the farm produce at MSP. Farmers would be paid 50% of the crop sale amount in cash and the rest would be transferred in their bank account through RTGS .

9:40am: Mandsaur collector Swatantra Kumar Singh who was shifted after the violence has been posted as a deputy secretary, MP government, as per the state government order.

9:32am: District magistrates of adjoining districts of Mandsaur- Ratlam and Neemuch - also shifted as per the order of the state government. Their names are B Chandrashekhar and Rajneesh Shrivastava, respectively.

9:30am: In two days, Madhya Pradesh government will start purchase of Moong, Tur and Urad at their support prices .

9:26am: Madhya Pradesh government has announced a Rs 6,000 crore crop-loan settlement scheme that proposes waiving of interests for those cultivators who have defaulted. This is short of the complete loan waiver that farmers have demanded.

9:21am: Local administration has set up a police post outside Mandsaur, expect to intercept Rahul Gandhi when he reaches around noon.

9:20am:Police remove two dozen burnt trucks from the Mhow-Neemuch highway, open road.

9:15am: Shops are opening in violence-hit Piplya Mandi for the first time in three days. Internet ban still in place

9:10am: Digvijaya Singh asked, If they were anti-social elements they why compensation? What was the police record on the farmers who were martyred. Shivraj ji all were pure farmers.

     -"     "



   -"       "  digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) June 8, 2017

9:08am:Neemuch superintendent of police Manoj Kumar Singh and Shivpur district magistrate OP Shrivastava posted as new SP and collector of Mandsaur, as per CM secretariat.

9:06am: Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh dares CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan to tender his resignation If you are left with even iota of shame in you. You call yourself a son of a farmer but fire at unarmed farmers. Ghor kaput bete ho (you are an unworthy son).

9.00am: District magistrate Swatantra Kumar Singh and superintendent of police OP Tripathi removed.

8.50am: Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav is also expected to visit Mandsaur

Will be in #Mandsaur tomorrow to meet the families of farmers who lost their lives in the police firing yesterday  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 7, 2017

8:47am: Bus services have been disrupted in Mandsaur after large-scale violence on Wednesday where protesters torched several vehicles

8.40am: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi leaves from Udaipur to Mandsaur where he is expected to meet families of the five farmers killed in police firing on Tuesday.

Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi leaves for Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur to meet family of those killed during farmers agitation. pic.twitter.com/mNbWgBC1Sl  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

8:25am: The local administration in Mandsaur has said no politician would be allowed to enter Mandsaur on Thursday either like Wednesday as curfew restrictions continued.

8.10am: We have only information that Rahul Gandhi is coming. We are yet to know about the timing, said Chandrika Dwivedi, general secretary state Congress, talking to the Hindustan Times on Thursday morning.
The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear on Thursday as Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were arrested by the police for violating section 144, said additional director general of police V Madhu Kumar.

Rahul gandhi and other Congress leaders tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests. Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.

Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan and Rahul Gandhi zindabad.

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-Uniteds Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. He cant give the right rates for their agricultural produce, cant give them bonus, cant give compensation... He can only give them bullets.

Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and chief minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Police tried to stop them saying there was curfew in Mandsaur. At this, Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath protested, saying they wanted to go there to restore peace but were being stopped.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, Gandhi had walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthans Chittorgarh district.

Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres, IG of Udaipur Anand Srivastava said.

Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road... After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border, he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.
The toll in the massive blaze at a firecracker factory in Madhya Pradeshs Balaghat rose to 25 on Thursday, as two of the injured who were sent to Nagpur for treatment succumbed to their injuries, officials said.

Speaking to HT, Balaghat superintendent of police Amit Sanghi confirmed the deaths.

On Wednesday night, two of the six injured, sent to Nagpur for treatment, succumbed to their injuries, he said.

Sanghi said an FIR has been lodged under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code that deals with culpable homicide against factory owner Waheed Ahmed Warsi, who was absconding.

The fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon after an explosion at the Barsa firecracker factory in Khari village in Balaghat, about 440 km southeast of Bhopal. Twenty-three people were killed on Wednesday.

People carry out rescue work near the site of the blast at a firecracker factory at Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh. (PTI)

The deceased were labourers who were working at the factory when the explosion took place. Due to the explosion, fire engulfed the factory within a short time, giving the workers no time to escape.

Balaghat collector Bharat Yadav said the reason behind the explosion could not be immediately ascertained and an inquiry has been ordered into the incident.

This was not the first such incident in Madhya Pradesh this year. In April, six people of a family were killed and many were injured in an explosion at an illegal firecracker factory inside a house in Seonda of Datia district. Later, in the same month, five people were killed in a fire that broke out at a crackers shop in Indore.
A Bharatiya Janata Party legislators call for a ban on the momo, a street snack, is all that many on Twitter were talking about on Thursday.

Momos have been found to be the root cause of several life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine, said Ramesh Arora, a BJP legislator and a lawyer, on Wednesday. He cited scientific evidence to support his claim, referring particularly to the use of monosodium glutamate, a common ingredient in many Asian dishes.

A street snack with origins in Nepal and Tibet, the momo has become popular across India.

Naturally, there were many who were not impressed with Aroras suggestion.

Now this gov wants ban on MOMOS. In coming yrs may b we will eat grass-leaves.#3__ #__ https://t.co/TqBcxWLshj  Abhishek Singh (@aksk99) June 8, 2017

One wrong delivery from Asian/ Tibetan restaurant and a nincompoop declares war on momos. Sir, please stick to naan and butter chicken.  Chutney (@SevPotato) June 8, 2017

Some also suggested that the BJP leader was keeping up with a tendency by politicians to make outlandish statements.

Every day, a new BJP hero emerges, who puts all other party members to shame. Today's winner - https://t.co/UTKZdQ3IZC  Raj Das (@beyalora) June 7, 2017

I am surprised they also didn't say Momos cause rape.  Sanjukta Basu (@sanjukta) June 8, 2017

And there were some that supported the BJP leader. A bunch of Tweets said he was correct in opposing MSG use, while some others saw even bigger issues with momos, like this user:

Ate almost everyday and trust me the headache is now an everyday issue with me. He is not moron. Dog meat being used in momos in delhi.  Vishal Sharma (@bhainskipooonch) June 8, 2017
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif on Thursday exchanged pleasantries at a cultural gala in Astana, amid frosty bilateral ties, deadlocked talks and escalation of hostilities along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first encounter between Modi and Sharif after their last meeting in Lahore on December 25, 2015, when the Indian prime minister made a surprise stopover at the historic city.

Modi and Sharif are in Astana to attend the summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc on Friday.

Official sources said Modi and Sharif were in the Leaders Lounge at the Astana Opera before the SCO concert where they exchanged greetings.

Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharifs operation, PM Modi enquired about his health. He also enquired about Sharifs mother and family, a top source said. Sharif had undergone an open-heart surgery in June last year.

The brief exchange of words between the two prime ministers came at a time when bilateral ties have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and death sentence given to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying.

The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhavs execution.

The LoC, the de-facto border between the two countries, in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed rising tension.

In December 2015, Modi had made a surprise stopover at Lahore on his way back home after a day-long trip to Afghanistan which was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in more than 10 years.

However, positivity from Modis visit was shortlived as Pakistan-based terror groups carried out an attack on Pathankot base of Indian Air Force base on January 2, 2016.

Earlier, asked whether there is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between Modi and Sharif, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said neither Pakistani side has requested for it nor India has any proposal for such a meeting.

He said there were couple of moments when leaders were at the same place, adding he was not aware whether they met.

Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

At the cultural evening, both Modi and Sharif were sitting apart.

The cultural event had a Kathak dance performance by an Indian team. It was the only performance from a country which is not yet member of the SCO.

Earlier in the day, when asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons, which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull-aside between the two leaders.
Pakistan on Thursday asked the International Court of Justice to adopt an expedited timetable for an early hearing of the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, the Indian national given the death sentence for alleged involvement in espionage and terrorism.

A Pakistani delegation led by attorney general Ashtar Ausaf Ali also informed The Hague-based world court of its intention to appoint an ad hoc judge to sit on the bench hearing Jadhavs case.

These issues were discussed when the Indian and Pakistani delegations met the ICJ president Ronny Abraham to discuss the timelines for the case. Several ICJ officials were also present.

The meeting only discussed procedural matters, including the submission of written memorials, or written pleadings and supporting evidence, and to list the case for hearing.

A Pakistani military court sentenced Jadhav, a former Indian Navy officer, to death after a secret trial earlier this year. India has maintained that he was kidnapped from Iran, where he was engaged in business.

On May 18, the ICJ stayed Jadhavs execution till it gives its final decision on Indias petition asking it to annul the death sentence.

Abraham asked both sides to specify the time required by them to submit their memorials.

The Pakistani attorney general asked the court to adopt an expedited timetable with a view for an early substantive hearing, according to a Pakistani statement.

Ali also informed the ICJ of Pakistans intent to appoint an ad hoc judge who will sit on the bench for all proceedings in this case, including the substantive hearing, the statement said.

The ICJs rules allow a country that is party to a case to appoint an ad hoc judge if an opposing party has a judge in the bench. An Indian judge is part of the panel hearing Jadhavs case.

Indias has sought at least release or acquittal of Jadhav but the Pakistani statement claimed India can never obtain this from the ICJ.

There was no official word from the Indian side on the meeting in The Hague.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called on Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev here and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties.

He met Nazarbayev soon after arriving on a two-day visit during which he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc.

Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties, the Prime Ministers Office tweeted.

Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties. pic.twitter.com/S8dNSCLo6A  PMO India (@PMOIndia) June 8, 2017

I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things, Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit on Friday and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues.

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday left for Astana, Kazakhstans capital, where he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit that is expected to grant India full membership.

Expanding the multilateral footprint. PM @narendramodi departs for Astana to attend Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit, external affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay tweeted.

Ahead of his departure, Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

After participating in the Summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinas President Xi Jinping for the first time in nearly eight months at the margins of the SCO Summit in Astana this morning  and it could be their testiest encounter yet.

Modi is expected to flag a host of issues that have bedevilled India-China ties, including Beijings consistent blocking New Delhis efforts to sanction JeM chief Masood Azhar at the UN, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CEPC) that runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Despite these contentious issues, officials on both sides expressed some hope that Modi and Xi would at least try to put bilateral ties back on track in the lead-up to the BRICS Summit in Xiamen in September. Among other things, the two leaders are expected to stress the need for regular high-level interactions.

Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif earlier exchanged pleasantries amid frosty bilateral ties, deadlocked talks and escalation of hostilities along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

It was the first encounter between Modi and Sharif after their last meeting in Lahore on December 25, 2015, when the Indian prime minister made a surprise visit.

Diplomats noted that a recent statement from Modi was welcomed by China last week. It is true that we have a border dispute with China. But in the last 40 years, not a single bullet has been fired because of the border dispute, Modi said during a panel discussion at an economic event in St Petersburg.

But the differences between the two countries could yet dominate discussions in the Kazakhstan capital. With India giving special focus to terrorism at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, Modi will raise the issue of fighting terrorism in the region in a concerted manner.

This includes Indias efforts to list the Jaish-e-Mohammed chief under UN Security Council Resolution 1267, which have been repeatedly blocked by China.

Besides Azhar, several other issues have emerged as irritants in bilateral ties. India recently boycotted the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) meet in Beijing organised to showcase Xis flagship connectivity initiative and China has stymied Indias efforts to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the elite club that controls trade in nuclear technology.

India was easily the most notable absentee at the high-profile BRF in May that was attended by nearly 30 heads of state and representatives from other countries. China tried in various ways to convince India to join the forum but it boiled down to New Delhis sovereignty concerns on the CPEC passing through PoK.

India was also conspicuous by its absence at the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) underway in Beijing, where several international delegates expressed surprise that nobody from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was present.

For its part, China was furious over the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lamas visit in April to Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims as south Tibet. It didnt help matters, as far as the Chinese were concerned, that the Dalai Lama also met President Pranab Mukherjee in December  the first time the Tibetan spiritual leader met a serving Indian president in several decades.

A number of ministerial visits from India are slated in the coming weeks. Minister of state for external affairs VK Singh is expected to attend the BRICS foreign ministers meeting to be held in Beijing during June 18-19.

This will be followed by a meeting of the National Security Advisers in Beijing during July 27-28.NSA Ajit Doval is also Indias special representative for the Sino-India border talks.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanaths motorcade was surrounded by students in Lucknow on Wednesday evening, with many shouting slogans at him over alleged violence against Dalits and Muslims.

The incident was seen as a security breach as the motorcade had to come to a halt when students lay down on the streets in front of the Lucknow University, where the Bharatiya Janata Party leader was scheduled to make an appearance.

The government announced the suspension of seven policemen on Thursday: a sub-inspector and six constables.

The protest at around 5.15pm was held by members of two student groups  the Left-wing All India Students Association and the Samajwadi Partys Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha. Police arrested 14 of them, which included 4 women.

A protester shouts slogans at Yogi Adityanath (inside the SUV) at Lucknow. (Deepak Gupta/HT)

Their protest seemed in connection with the recent casteist violence in Saharanpur, where members of Dalit and upper caste communities have clashed sporadically over a weeks-long period. They also accused the government of failing to create jobs for youth.

An 8-minute video of Wednesdays protest went viral shortly after. It showed police struggling to contain protesters shouting Yogi sarkar murdabad (down with Yogi government). Some were waving black flags, and opposed what they said was a BJP programme at the expense of Lucknow University.

Police and members of Adityanaths security assault a protester, outside the Lucknow University campus on Wednesday. (PTI PHOTO)

Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhary later told reporters that a peaceful protest was being staged by students.

The students did not indulge in any violence and were only drawing the attention of the chief minister towards an event which was being held at the expense of the university, he said.

Wednesdays breach happened despite a specific intelligence input that some student wings of political parties were planning to hold a protest.
New Delhi: He took a plane, a car, a motorcycle and even walked. But in the end, Rahul Gandhi couldnt reach his destination.

The Congress vice-president left Delhi on Thursday morning for a small town in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur district that has been rocked by farmer protests and the death of five people in police firing two days ago.

But he faced his first hurdle when he landed at the Udaipur airport around 10.30am as hundreds of Congress workers mobbed him for a selfie. Police had to resort to caning to disperse the crowd and let Gandhi get into his car, and onwards to Mandsaur.

But that was not to be. A few kilometers away from the border at Nimbaheda, Gandhi got down from his Bolero and got onto a motorcycle, taking a different route to dodge checkposts put up by police at the district border.

The motorcycle show ended around 500 metres from the border, as police put up fresh barricades. He got down from the motorcycle and walked upto the checkpost on foot as other Congress leaders were locked in a heated dispute with police.

But there was more drama left. Gandhi neared the barricades and jumped over one of them but could only go 50 metres into Mandsaur before a swarm of police personnel surrounded him and detained him.

The authorities then put him, and other leaders, in a bus and send them packing to a guest house in Neemuch that was treated as a temporary jail. Gandhi now awaits bail.
After being on the run for about a month, the founder of the Bheem Army, Chandrashekhar, was arrested on Thursday. He will be produced in court on Friday.

Chandrashekhar was wanted by police in connection with widespread violence that occurred on May 9 in Saharanpur.

After clashes between Thakurs and Dalits that left one person dead and many injured on May 5, Chandrashekhar and his supporters proposed convening a mahapanchayat for local Dalits on May 9. When the administration refused to give permission for the meeting, violence erupted on the streets. Bheem Army supporters torched a police checkpoint and civilian vehicles.

Chandrashekhar had been on the run ever since.

The additional director general of the Meerut police, Anand Kumar, confirmed Chandrashekhars arrest, from Dalhousie of Chamba district in Himachal Pradesh, and his appointment in a Saharanpur court.

Kumar said that a special investigation team was probing 47 cases of caste violence that occurred between May 5 and 23. Thirty of these, he said, involved the Bheem Army and its supporters.

Kumar added that he has recommended the director general of police to declare awards for the officers who arrested Chandrasekhar.

The Uttar Pradesh police had announced a bounty of Rs 12,000 for information leading to Chandrashekhars arrest.

After the police registered cases against Bheem Army activists, Chandrashekhar went underground and used social media as a tool to remain in touch with his supporters.

During its investigation, the district administration found that the Bheem Army was not properly registered with the government. Officials in the state administration said Chandrashekhar had submitted documents to get the outfit registered, but that his application was rejected, since no organisation is allowed to use the word army in its name.

Chandrashekhar asked his supporters to deposit money in some personal bank accounts for membership, which is illegal, added a police official.

The organisation has approximately 1,200 members according to the police, most of them youths who use social media to garner support from Dalits.

Bheem Army is an organised gang, said the police official. Chandrashekhar and other office-bearers are accused of hatching a conspiracy. Letters have been sent to the banks to freeze the organisations accounts. The economic offence wing may also be asked to investigate the outfits source of income and legality of transactions.

Dalits, however, claim that the Bheem Army is a social organisation working to protect Dalits from atrocities at the hands of the police and members of dominant castes.

Many villagers said that Bheem Army activists took care of Dalits who sustained injuries during the violence and provided food and medicine to victims in the Shabbirpur village of Saharanpur.

Local villagers said in interviews that the Bheem Army runs schools to provide free education to Dalit children. In Ambehetta Chandpur village, some elderly villagers have asked people to collect and donate money to the outfit.

May 9: Bheem Armys founder Chandrashekhar gives a call for a Dalit mahapanchayat in Saharanpur. The district administration forbids the meeting, which leads to clashes between the police and Bheem Army supporters. May 10: Police register more than 30 cases against Bheem Army activists and Chandrashekhar. More than 20 Bheem Army activists are arrested for indulging in violence. Chandrashekhar goes underground but continues to use social media to keep in touch with his supporters. May 24: The state government suspends district magistrate NP Singh and senior superintendent Subhash Chandra Dubey for failing to maintain law and order. May 25: The district administration suspends internet services. June 5: The deputy inspector general of Saharanpur police, KS Emmanuel, declares a reward of Rs 12,000 for information leading to the arrest of Chandrashekhar. June 8: Chandrashekhar is arrested in Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh. Bheem Armys founder Chandrashekhar gives a call for a Dalit mahapanchayat in Saharanpur. The district administration forbids the meeting, which leads to clashes between the police and Bheem Army supporters.Police register more than 30 cases against Bheem Army activists and Chandrashekhar. More than 20 Bheem Army activists are arrested for indulging in violence. Chandrashekhar goes underground but continues to use social media to keep in touch with his supporters.The state government suspends district magistrate NP Singh and senior superintendent Subhash Chandra Dubey for failing to maintain law and order.The district administration suspends internet services.The deputy inspector general of Saharanpur police, KS Emmanuel, declares a reward of Rs 12,000 for information leading to the arrest of Chandrashekhar.Chandrashekhar is arrested in Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh.
Soldiers were given a free hand to discipline Pakistan along the international boundary, Jammu and Kashmir deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh said on Thursday, underscoring the heightened Indian counteroffensive against cross-border attacks and insurgency.

His remarks at a function in Reasi town follow the National Investigation Agencys recent raids on Kashmiri separatist leaders and efforts to choke funding from Pakistan for terrorist activities.

The BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the state government of the PDP-BJP combine gave a clear message that those who want to spread terrorism and want to kill innocent people on Pakistans diktat will not be spared, he said.

The 61-year-old BJP legislator for Billawar in the Jammu region quoted the defence minister that there would be no soft-hand approach to any Pakistani mischief on the border.

India in unequivocal terms made it clear to Pakistan that they will be paid back in the same coin and even more. Infiltration attempts by armed terrorists are being repulsed with full might, Singh said.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley highlighted a week ago in New Delhi that Indian soldiers were in a commanding position along the Line of Control, the de-facto India-Pakistan border in Kashmir.

Cross-border skirmishes have escalated along the volatile LoC and Pakistani mortar shelling and heavy machine gunfire targeting frontier posts and villages are seen as a strategy to push militants into the region fighting more than three decades of insurgency.

The army has defended its positions effectively and said on Thursday that multiple attempts by militants to sneak though the LoC were foiled in the past 48 hours.

According to the Udhampur-based Northern Command, such attempts were made at the Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri sectors. Seven militants were killed and a large quantity of arms and ammunition were found on them.

This year, 22 infiltration attempts were foiled and 34 intruders eliminated on the LoC, it said.

The deputy chief minister saw a link between the Machil gunfight and the Amarnath Yatra, saying the four slain militants were probably on a mission to sabotage the annual Hindu pilgrimage.

Such terrorists are taken to task by our security forces and we shall ensure Amarnath Yatra and other pilgrimages are conducted smoothly, he said.

Militants, their supporters and separatist leaders fueling insurgency on hawala money will not be spared, he said, referring back to the NIA raids.

Everyone saw NIAs action. It has happened for the first time and that too on such a large scale. Some people felt that none could touch them, but the NIA raids ended their misconception.

Anti-national elements will be treated the way terrorists are dealt with, he said.

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A 26-year-old youth from Telangana was shot at allegedly by an unidentified person in California four days ago, his family members said on Thursday.

The condition of the youth from the states Sangareddy district is stated to be critical.

The incident was said to have happened at 6pm on June 4.

The victim, Mubeen Ahmed, went to the US to pursue his masters in engineering in February 2015 after completing B Tech in electronics and communications engineering from the states Royal Institute of Technology and Science.

After completing his course two months ago he has been working at a departmental store near California.

Victims uncle Mufti Aslam Osman said Mubeen was about to finish his duty at the store and return to his apartment in Fremont, when a few black persons stormed his place and demanded of him money and his mobile phone.

Apparently, an argument ensued between him and the miscreants when one of them opened fire at him, before fleeing the spot, Osman told HT.

He was immediately rushed to Eden Medical Centre in Castro Valley. The bullets pierced into his abdomen and liver, he added.

Mubeens friends alerted a couple of his relatives in Chicago and they reached California to attend to him. He is said to be on a ventilator and his condition is critical, Osman said.

Mubeens father Mujeeb Ahmed, who works at a military institution in Secunderabad, is making arrangements to leave for the US.

The family brought the incident to the notice of Sangareddy MLA Chinta Prabhakar, who on his part alerted Telangana irrigation minister T Harish Rao to make visa arrangements for Mujeeb.

Mujeeb would leave for the US after getting the visa in a day or two, Osman said.

Attacks against people of Indian origin have of late increased in the US. In February a 26-year-old youth from the states Warangal district was shot dead at Milpitas city in Santa Clara Country of California by a man suspected to be a carjacker.

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For the past week, Gujarat agriculture minister Babubhai Bokhiria has been flooded with calls from farmers across the state asking for advice on crop selection.

The reason: a viral Facebook status that gave out the BJP leaders number and asked people to call him and ask whether to sow cotton, groundnut or wheat.

Fed up, the minister approached the police in his constituency of Porbandar. A probe traced the social media post to a local Congress leader, Rajvir Bopadara, who claimed he had done no wrong.

Nothing derogatory or insulting was mentioned in my post. I had just pasted his number and asked farmers to take his advice for crop selection. As the IT cell head, I was only doing my duty, said Bapodara, who heads the local Congress IT wing.

The saga began on June 3, when Bopadara put up a Facebook status listing the personal phone numbers of the minister and his assistant. The message came in the backdrop of a call last year where Bokhiria was purportedly heard asking a farmer why he had sown groundnut. Did you ask me before sowing, read a transcript of the purported call that had gone public then.

After the minister approached the police on Monday, authorities asked the Congress leader to delete the post but didnt arrest him as no FIR had been filed.

Nagdan Odedara, the assistant whose number was also shared in the post, told HT, This was done by the Congress. We suspect that the call made a year ago was done by some Congress member. This is not acceptable and so we filed an application with the crime branch.

Odedara added that the farmer who had made the call a year back and circulated its transcript, which had also gone viral, has not been traced. We believe he was from Amreli. But his identity has not be ascertain as yet, he said.

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Five days to retire, there's no trace of the elusive Justice Karnan.

Where is Justice CS Karnan? Nearly a month after the countrys top court ordered his arrest, the police are clueless about the whereabouts of the Kolkata high court judge believed to be hiding in Chennai since going on the run.

If the police find him within the next five days, it will be the first instance of a serving judge of the higher judiciary being arrested.

Justice Karnan, who has alleged that he is being targeted because he is a Dalit, retires on June 12.

Incidentally, the judge once again failed to get relief from the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The top court refused to hear his plea seeking a stay on its May 9 order awarding him a six-month jail term.

The top courts order to arrest Justice Karnan came after his embarrassing spat with senior judges of the Supreme Court in the course of which he even ordered the arrest of the Chief Justice of India. While issuing the arrest warrant against him, the Supreme Court also ordered the media to refrain from reporting Justice Karnans statements.

The police have been looking for him ever since the SC order. A Kolkata Police team reached Chennai on May 10 to arrest the judge. They did not find him that day. They havent so far  not in Chennai or in Andhra Pradesh -- chasing leads that have turned out to be false.

At least two police teams comprising senior officers of West Bengal Police and headed by DGP (Home Guards) Raj Kanojia are engaged in the hunt for the judge who hails from a village in Tamil Nadus Cuddalore district.

"We went to Karnatham (Karnans village). We also kept a watch on a temple he has set up in the village. But nobody could provide us with any substantial lead, an exasperated Kanojia told HT.

The futile search has triggered speculation that the judge could be hiding in Nepal or that he managed to put the police off his trail by sending his cell phone with a decoy to Chennai.

A senior IPS officer tracking the case from Kolkata said, Justice Karnan has switched off his phones and is not using the two SIM cards he had. On why the trail had gone cold, the officer said, The lack of knowledge of Tamil and the local topography have hindered the search and forced the Bengal police to rely on their Tamil Nadu counterparts.

Meanwhile, some members of the legal fraternity said the police would ramp up their efforts in tracking down the judge after June 12, when he will cease to have judicial powers following retirement.

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A plentiful harvest in 2016 and imports drive some prices down 63%. A shortage of cash because of demonetisation. Despite Rs 3.5 lakh crore  enough to build 545 Tehri-sized dams  invested over six decades to 2011, more than half of all farms depend on rains. These are the three factors agitating Indians who depend on farming  90 million families, or 54.6% of Indias 1.2 billion people.

As anger sweeps rural Madhya Pradesh after the death of six farmers in police firing, farm protests roil rural Maharashtra -- wholesale markets are shut, produce is being dumped on streets -- and governments of the debt-ridden states struggle to respond to demands for loan waivers, an IndiaSpend analysis and reportage from rural Maharashtra explores why farmers are both angry and desperate.

The primary reason farming is unviable in India is that farms are now among the worlds smallest (the global average land-holding size is 5.5 hectares)  too many people are dependent on shrinking farms.

Since 1951, the per capita availability of land has declined by 70%, from 0.5 hectares to 0.15 hectares in 2011, and is likely to decline further, according to ministry of agriculture data.

Such small and marginal land-holdings, as they are called, now constitute 85% of the number of operational farms in the country, according this 2015-16 report on the state of Indian agriculture.

It is hard to use modern machinery on small farms, the owners of which are often too poor to afford farm equipment. Manual labour increases costs, but labour too has been in short supply, as workers migrate to cities. Further, their size and output limits access to loans and institutional credit.

Those are the larger issues. Here are the three reasons for the current turmoil, gleaned by IndiaSpends analysts and reporters:

1. After back-to-back droughts, a good harvest, but incomes fall

As 2017 rolled in, the news from Indias farms appeared good.

After droughts in 2014 and 2015, a good monsoon in 2016 reversed two years of rural economic decline. Indias agricultural growth contracted 0.2% in 2014-15 and grew no more than 1.2% in 2015-16, because of the back-to-back droughts. In 2016-17, the agricultural economy grew 4.1%.

Across many states growing pulses, such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Gujarat, markets were flooded with produce, especially tur (pigeon pea), which witnessed the highest growth among all pulses, an important source of protein for a majority of Indians. India is the worlds largest pulses producer.

However, an influx of pulses from Myanmar, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawigrowing 20% over two financial quarters, from September 2016 to March 2017, the Business Standard reported on March 3, 2017caused the price of Indian tur to plunge.

From Rs 11,000 per quintal (from December 2015), the price of tur fell 63% to Rs 3,800-4,000 per quintal  20% below the minimum support price (MSP)the price at which government buys farm produceof Rs 5,050 per quintal (including a bonus of Rs 425) since December 2016 as Indiaspend reported on April 12, 2017.

The table above explains how production of pulses rose 29%, from 17.15 million tonnes in 2014-15 to 22.14 million tonnes in 2016-17. Tur production increased 50%, from 2.81 million tonnes to 4.23 million tonnes, over the same period.

The MSP for tur should be increased to Rs 6,000 per quintal in 2017 and Rs 7,000 per quintal in 2018, a government committee headed by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian recommended in September 2016.

As on March 2017, the minimum support price for tur was Rs 5,050 per quintal, nearly 20% (18%) lower than the prices recommended by the committee on pulses.

As these prices crashed, farmers found it harder to find money to store their produce and prepare for the next season because demonetisationthe withdrawal of 86% of Indias currency, by value, on November 2016 left them starved of cash.

2. How demonetisation  and government red tape  left farmers short of cash

On May 18, at around noon, 30-year-old Prashant Lande waited under a harsh summer sun to sell 800 quintals of tur at the Amravati agricultural produce market committee (APMC), 664 km east of Indias financial capital, Mumbai.

From Kinhala village in Amravati districts Ashti taluka, in Maharashtras eastern region of Vidharbha, Lande said he refuses to sell his 800 quintals of tur to the government procurement centre, although the state buys tur at a higher rate.

At the market, Lande could sell his tur at Rs 3,800 to Rs 4,000 per quintal, while the government buying centre offered Rs 5,050 per quintal.

We dont sell to the government centre because the process of selling takes one month  from standing in line for the token to the sale to finally when the payment reaches the account, said Lande. Our fellow farmers who have sold their produce at the procurement centre on March 22, are yet to receive their payments and it is nearly June!

It does not help that the effects of demonetisation continue to to be felt across the rural economy.

Right after demonetisation, tomato farmers in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and onion farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat, were the worst hit as prices fell by 60-85%, IndiaSpend reported on January 18, 2017.

With little respite more than six months later, the experiment has aggravated the circumstances leading to the current farmers strike.

By now we should have begun preparing our fields for the monsoons, but because of demonetisation and the unavailability of cash, we are still struggling to find money for sowing, said Lande.

At such a time, farmers like Lande turn to credit.

Up to 57% of farm families in Maharashtra are indebted; the figure for India is 52%, according to the National Sample Survey Organisations 2013 situation assessment survey of farm households, the latest available data.

This indebtedness has widespread consequences. More farmers committed suicide in Maharashtra (4,291) in 2015 than any other state, rising 7% from 4,004 in 2014, followed by Karnataka (1,569) and Telangana (1,400), as IndiaSpend previously reported in January 2017.

Now, after Uttar Pradeshs new government waived Rs 30,792 crore of farm loans, pressure is building on the governments of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to do the same. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has been reluctant to do so, but with his governments coalition partner, the Shiv Sena, and other parties preparing for a political agitation, he may find it hard to exercise fiscal prudence.

3. In an era of climate change, 52% of Indian farmers without irrigation

The basic problem across most of rural India is that despite the spread of irrigationa sector plagued by unfinished projects and corruption52% of Indias farms still depend on the vagaries of rain, which is becoming increasingly uncertain in an era of climate change.

Extreme rainfall events in central India, the core of the monsoon system, are increasing and moderate rainfall is decreasing  as a part of complex changes in local and world weather  according to a clutch of Indian and global studies, as IndiaSpend reported on April 15, 2015.

The droughts of 2014 and 2015 in rural Maharashtra were mitigated by the plentiful rains of 2016, but many parts of the state also endured floods. Uncertain weather affects the ability of government extension systems to provide accurate advice to farmers.

The government encouraged us to grow more tur in the kharif (July to October) season, since these crops consume less water and are in high demand, said Lande, the Vidarbha farmer. We would not have faced so much loss over the last three years, had there been a proper system of canals.

Despite six decades of irrigation, less than 50% (or 66 million hectares of Indias net-cultivated area of 140 million hectares) as irrigated, according to the 2015-16 State of Agriculture report. Groundwater provides water for two-thirds of Indias irrigated land, but those levels are falling from overuse.

From the first five year plan (1951-56) to the eleventh (2006 to 2011), the central government has spent a total of Rs 3.51 lakh crore, as we said, on major irrigation and flood control projects characterised by time and cost overruns, shows this 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) report.

On July 1, 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY)or the Prime Ministers Farmers Irrigation Programmewith a budget of Rs. 50,000 crores over five years (2015-16 to 2019). The motto of the PMKSY is Har Khet Ko Pani (water to every field) and More crop per drop.

In 2015-16, less than a third (Rs 312 crore) of Rs 1,000 crores set aside for micro-irrigation was released, reveals this government report. Of this, upto April 2016, no more than Rs 48.3 crore, or less than 5%, was actually spent, according this micro-irrigation financial progress monitoring report. The government set Rs 1,763 as the 2016-17 micro-irrigation target, but no data on results have been released.

The micro-irrigation programme covers an area of 6,51,220 hectares, or 0.46% of net cultivated area.

(Salve is an analyst with IndiaSpend. Saldanha is an assistant editor with IndiaSpend. Vivek is an analyst with IndiaSpend.)
People belonging to the Jat community on Thursday launched an indefinite sit-in along Mathura highway in Rarah village demanding to be granted OBC status that would give them reservation in education and jobs.

The agitation resumed after a 15-day deadline set by the community for the government to act on their demand expired on May 24.

The sit-in began after paying tribute to famers killed in police firing in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur on June 6.

Bharatpur-Dholpur Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti convener Nem Singh said they would wait till Saturday for the government to seek report of survey from the OBC Commission, otherwise they would block rail and road traffic.

The sit-in site is close to the Mumbai-Delhi railway track and Bharatpur-Mathura highway. It is also surrounded by Jaghina, Santruk, Ajaan and Takha villages, where Jats live in large number.

Singh said the government has been misguiding the community for one-and-half year to fulfil its demands for reservation. The community is prepared to sacrifice for its childrens future.

All Jat public representatives of the ruling BJP will be boycotted during election if they dont support the stir, Singh said.

Meanwhile, OBC Commission secretary Hari Kumar Godara said: We will handed over the survey report to government within two or three days.

State health minister Kalicharan Saraf, who is in Bharatpur on a day-long tour, appealed to Jat leaders to maintain peace.

The agitators should talk to the government to know the progress then can launch the agitation if they dont agree with the government, Saraf said.

Bharatpur collector Narendra Kumar Gupta said: We are convincing Jats leader to maintain law and order. I have interacted with the commissions officials where they assured us to legal sanction for survey report and submitted to government within three days.

Bharatpurs superintendent of police Anil Kumar Tank said police along with a company of Railway Police personnel were deployed to maintain law and order.

I ordered to manage additional police force in reserve in police line. Officials were appointed to inspect situation in different places and camp spot, he said.

On August 10, 2015, the Rajasthan high court quashed the 1999 state government order as saying no survey was done before giving reservation to Jats. The court asked the government to set up a commission to review the status of OBC community in Bharatpur and Dholpur districts in four months.

Barring Jats from Bharatpur and Dholpur, others in the state are getting benefit of reservation under the OBC category both in centre and state.

Jats from two districts were excluded by the Centre while they got reservation in October 1999 as they belong to the ruling class.

The state government already constituted the OBC Commission and it completed survey report in last February but government has still not accepted the survey report from commission. The survey report was completed of 14,000 Jats families in both district.
The opposition Congress in Rajasthan on Thursday condemned the distorting the countrys history by diluting the contributions of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru during Indias struggle for freedom.

Commenting on the revised textbooks of the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education, state Congress chief Sachin Pilot said, This is being done with a political agenda. Distorting history in school textbooks and academics has become their (the BJPs) habit.

The BJP is trying to erase the contributions of Gandhi and Nehru in the freedom struggle, he said.

Politicising young children is absolutely unacceptable, he said.

We condemn this and will ensure that they do not succeed in distorting history.

Hitting out at the BJP, former chief minister Ashok Gehlot said whenever the BJP comes to power be it in the state or at the Centre, the partys agenda is to distort history and even today they have done the same.

History will never forgive them. Truth will prevail, he said.

Jaipur district Congress chief Pratap Singh Khachariyawas said history cannot be changed by distorting facts.

Whatever has happened in history cannot be changed through political vendetta. Indias independence struggle cannot be imagined without Gandhi and Nehru, he said.

This is an insult to the freedom struggle.

In just three years of governance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP leaders have distorted history by rewriting textbooks and deleting the contributions of leaders who worked the freedom struggle, and replacing them with leaders who have nothing to with it, he said.

Congress will not accept it and will give a strong reply.

The state education minister has lost his mental balance and this will be undoing of the BJP, he said.
A Lt Col of the Indian Army has been arrested by Rajasthans anti-terrorist squad for allegedly extorting money from candidates of army recruitment rallies to issue fitness certificates.

The ATS had unearthed a gang involved in extorting money from candidates appearing in army recruitment rallies by arresting four persons last month.

During interrogation of the four middlemen, the involvement of medical officer Lt Col Dr Jagdish Puri came to light.

Posted in Jodhpur, the officer was responsible for issuing medical fitness certificate for the candidates and this was the last process of the recruitment, Umesh Mishra, ADG-ATS and SOG, told PTI on Thursday.

He in connivance with the four accused allegedly issued medical fitness certificates to more than 2 dozen candidates in the last one and a half year.He used to take Rs 35-40,000 per candidate for issuing the certificate.

His job was to issue the medical fitness certificate, which is the last stage of the recruitment, Mishra said.

The officer was questioned in Jaipur and was placed under arrest yesterday with the permission of the Army authorities, he said, adding, that the Army authorities gave full cooperation in the investigation.

Puri, who has been booked for cheating, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy, will be produced before a local court on Thursday.

Commissioned in the Army in 2006, Puri has been posted in Delhi and Bairelly before Jodhpur.

He was a member in most of the medical boards constituted for Army rallies for recruitment of soldiers held in Jodhpur, Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Sawaimadhopur, Alwar and Jaipur.

Following inputs from Military Intelligence, the ATS had arrested Arjun Singh, Nand Singh Rathore, Sunil Vyas and Mahendra Singh on May 23.

A sum of Rs 1.79 crore in cash and documents of four candidates attending a recruitment rally in Udaipur were also recovered from the house of Nand Singh in Jaipur.

How many candidates in all were benefited by them is the part of ongoing investigation.Initially, the doctor has confessed to have benefited around two dozen candidates in one and a half year, he said.

The Army officer was produced before a local court in Jaipur where the magistrate remanded him to ten days of police custody.

He will now be interrogated in detail, Mishra said.
The West Bengal government sought Army assistance in Darjeeling on Thursday, after police failed to prevent thousands of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters from throwing stones and setting fire to public property.

This is the first time that the armed forces have been called in to tackle a law-and-order problem since Mamata Banerjee took over as the chief minister in March 2011. The state government last sought Army aid in 2010, when violence erupted at Deganga in North 24 Parganas.

The agitation arose from an announcement made by Banerjee last week that Bengali would be taught compulsorily up to Class 10 in state schools. Though several people were injured in the clashes, which had police personnel lathi-charging GJM supporters armed with stones, the exact number could not be immediately ascertained.

Read: Mamata Banerjee threatens GJMs Bimal Gurung with a special audit

The clashes occurred after Banerjee chaired a meeting of the state cabinet, the first in 45 years, at the Raj Bhavan. Thousands of GJM supporters had gathered near the venue, shouting slogans. Even as the chief minister emerged from the meet to address mediapersons, the agitators tried to burn her effigy and began pelting stones at the police contingent posted outside.

Another vehicle which was torched by the agitators in Darjeeling. (HT Photo)

The police resorted to a lathi-charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob. But that failed to quell the GJM agitators, who set fire to four police vehicles and a public transport bus. Banerjee was barely half-a-kilometre away from the scene of the clashes.

The police also suffered casualties. As many as 52 policemen were injured, a few of them seriously, said additional director general of police NR Babu. The administration has asked local television channels to go off air until further notice.

The GJM has called for a 12-hour strike in the region on Friday. Morcha president Bimal Gurung was expected to announce further plans at a press conference the same evening.

During the cabinet meet, Banerjee advised her colleagues against paying undue attention to the GJM protest because that would only turn a non-issue into an issue. The GJM is only trying to foment trouble in the hills, taking it on the path to destruction, she told mediapersons later.

Ministers of Mamata Banerjees cabinet in Darjeeling on Thursday before the cabinet meeting. (HT Photo)

The chief minister also announced that the government would set up a mini-secretariat for the hills in Darjeeling. This mini-secretariat will be named after legendary mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, she said after the cabinet meeting. Incidentally, ecretariat on the foothills of Siliguri.

Read: New political equation unfolds in Darjeeling hills, TMC-GNLF forge poll alliance against GJMs might

A new polytechnic college and skill development centre in Mirik figured among the other proposals highlighted by Banerjee. The cabinet also decided to form a West Bengal Higher Civil Service Commission to remedy the shortfall of public servants in the state.

Another police vehicle that was torched by the Morcha supporters. Tourists were terribly inconvenienced by the clashes. (HT Photo)

We are running short of IAS officers. Under the current system, a West Bengal Civil Service (WBCS) officer takes at least 25 years to become eligible for promotion to the IAS rank. However, with the formation of this commission, a WBCS officers can be promoted to the level of an IAS officer within 10 years from the start of his service life, Mamata Banerjee said after the cabinet meeting.

The ruling Trinamool Congress, spurred by a significant win in the recently concluded Mirik municipality elections, now wants to further its foothold in the hills.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has sent the first notice in the cash-for-favours scam highlighted by the Narada sting operation to Trinamool Congress MLA Iqbal Ahmed, asking him to report to reach the agencys office in Kolkata on June 10 to join the probe.

Ahmed, who is one of the 12 Trinamool leaders named in the FIR in the cash-for-favours scam, is the younger brother of the partys Lok Sabha MP, Sultan Ahmed, a co-accused in the same case. Iqbal Ahmed is a two-time MLA from Khanakul constituency of Hooghly district.

Read: Mamatas Trinamool faces heat, CBI files FIR against 12 leaders featuring in Narada sting

CBI sources said the reason to start interrogating Iqbal Ahmed is that available evidence suggests that he played a key role in introducing Mathew Samuel, chief of Naradanews.com who carried out the sting operation, to these influential politicians.

The Narada investigation has triggered new life into the opposition parties some of which are facing eroding support base. (HT Photo)

Ahmeds name is fourth in the list of 13 individuals named in the FIR filed by CBI on April 17.

The Narada sting operation had landed Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in her biggest trouble so far. The 12 Trinamool leaders seen in the video telecast nationwide are some of the most prominent and the powerful in the party  Saugata Roy, Suvendu Adhikari, Sultan Ahmed, Aparupa Poddar, Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Prasun Banerjee (all Lok Sabha MPs), Subrata Mukherjee, Firhad (Bobby) Hakim, Madan Mitra (ministers), Iqbal Ahmed (MLA), Sovan Chatterjee (MLA and Kolkata mayor). Rajya Sabha MP Mukul Roy has also been named in the FIR though he was not seen accepting cash.

Read: Narada case: Mention of Abhishek Banerjee in FIR sends Trinamool in tizzy

S M H Mirza, an IPS officer who claimed to be taking the money on behalf of Roy is the last on the list of accused.

The opposition is hoping that the alleged offenders would now be prosecuted.

The progress so far has been extremely slow. But we hope that CBI now accelerates the pace of investigations and prosecutes the offenders, CPI(M) politburo member and Lok Sabha MP Md Salim.

Now the real investigation will begin and will surely gather pace. I am sure the culprits will be punished and sent to jail, said BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha.

Read: Mamata Banerjee publicly defends the Narada accused

Sections 7 (Public servant taking gratification other than legal remuneration) and 13 (criminal misconduct by a public servant) of Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) and criminal conspiracy charges under section 128 of the IPC were slapped against the accused.

The Narada operation was a series of sting videos shot by Naradanews.com over a period of two years. It was aired in mid-March 2016, about a fortnight before the Bengal Assembly polls that year, leading Mamata Banerjee to allege that the operation was a political conspiracy.

CBI sources said there seems to be some audio clues besides the video evidence that indicate Ahmeds role in the matter. If Ahmed speaks, the CBI may be able to gather a lot of information to expedite the probe.

CBI officers are not ruling out the possibility that new names may surface after Ahmeds interrogation.
Some covered their face with a piece of black cloth and kept reading books, while some took out a traditional protest rallies but silently. Some walked with posters, while some simply sat in the square in symbolic defiance. Over the past seven days, agitators and activists of the city resorted to various forms of protest, all peaceful, to try and convince the Mamata Banerjee government that attempts to curb the right to agitate at a spot widely reckoned as a cradle of dissent is not acceptable.

But there were no moments of agitation, no display of the spirit of protest that made College Square famous since the days of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809-1831) and his band of Young Bengal students.

Read: Mamata Banerjee bans agitation in Kolkatas protest hub of College Square

The organisations that took to the streets to protest were human rights bodies such as Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), Centre for Protection of Democratic Rights and Secularism (CPDRS), All India Democratic Students Organisation (student wing of SUCI) and CPI(ML)(Liberation), a small Naxalite outfit. The mainstream political parties CPI(M), Congress or BJP were conspicuously absent.

Banner thanking chief minister Mamata Banerjee for the historic decision by the students union of Calcutta University. (Samir Jana)

Since the agitators were peaceful, policemen escorted them onto police vehicles, drove them some distance, and released them.

About 150 of us took out a rally on Wednesday afternoon. The police took away 31 of us who were released in the evening. But we will not stop, we will raise the tempo of protest in a calibrated manner, said general secretary of CPDRS, Pranab Dasgupta, who claimed to have attended about 270 protest rallies and meetings in College Square since 1990.

Read: Bengal students union elections to keep political parties at bay

We hoped that there should be more and louder protests against the undemocratic ban, said Mirza Hasan, spokesperson of Committee for Protection of Land, Occupation, Homestead and Environment that is organising resistance against the government in Bhangar.

A procession by rights body CPDRS on Wednesday. (Samir Jana)

I think people should come out to oppose this diktat to lock up College Square to protesters, remarked political science professor Amal Kumar Mukherjee, who spent five decades in College Street, first as a student of Presidency College and then its professor and principal.

The opposing voices were few and far between. At the spot, a hoarding by the students of Calcutta University thanked the chief minister for the order and notifying the area as a silence zone.

On Thursday afternoon, education minister Partha Chatterjee said, Our leader Mamata Banerjee, too, is a product of agitation and struggle. Let protests be organised at appropriate places. The chief minister wanted to make this a peaceful place and get rid of traffic jams here as there are so many educational institutions and a major hospital here. He asked students, who lined up the gate of the College Street campus of Calcutta University to greet him with flowers, not to shower petals on him.

The protests by the students at College Square were low key. (Samir Jana)

Meetings and rallies should be stopped in College Square. Political parties do it. I also do it, but only twice a year. Others keep doing it all the time. How can students study if people are raising slogans constantly on microphones? Trinamool Congress wont conduct any meetings there, and all parties must follow it, remarked Mamata Banerjee at an administrative meeting at Chinsurah of Hooghly district on June 1. Within a few hours of that announcement, Kolkata Police issued orders banning meetings and rallies at the spot.

However, on the evening of June 1, soon after Mamata Banerjees announcement, opposition leaders sounded defiant. Both BJP state president Dilip Ghosh and CPI(M) politburo member and Lok Sabha MP, Md Salim told HT that they were not accepting the chief ministers diktat.

The chief ministers plan seemed to be to maintain peace in a zone that accommodates more than half a dozen reputable and the countrys oldest educational institutions and the citys famous market of new and old books. The institutions are Hindu School (set up on January 20, 1817), Hare School (1818), Presidency University (1817), Calcutta University (1857), Calcutta Medical College (1835) and Sanskrit College (1824).

This meeting on June 2 to oppose the governments steps in Bhangar would be the last agitation programme in College Square. (Samir Jana)

In the end sixties and early seventies, College Street and College Square turned into hotbeds of Naxalite violence as students of Presidency College and Calcutta University became rebels by the dozens.

Even after Naxalism faded away, parties of all hues used College Square as a frequent seat of agitation programmes. Marching from College Square to Esplanade became a preferred route for political parties.

But since June 1, after serving the city as the cradle of countless agitation programmes for about 200 years, the protest hub of Kolkata seems to have decisively fallen silent.
CRPF commandant from Allahabad Iqbal Ahmad, who led his men in foiling a militant attack in their camp at Sunbal of Badipora, Jammu and Kashmir in the wee hours on Monday, has been awarded DG disc for bravery.

The CRPF team also killed the four armed militants. Iqbal is presently heading the 45th battalion of CRPF whose former commandant Chetan Cheetah received nine bullet injuries while countering militant attack earlier this year.

CRPF and J&K policemen including Iqbal, 47, have been decorated with DG discs for their distinguished bravery by CRPF DG RR Bhatnagar and Jammu and Kashmir police DGP SP Vaid. The DG disc is awarded to the troops for their excellent services and carrying out special operations involving life risk and danger.

Back in Sangam City, Iqbals family including his mother and three brothers are beaming with pride. They rejoiced in Iqbals achievements. His family members said Iqbal always wanted to join security forces. Resident of Naini area of Allahabad, Iqbal was born in 1970. He joined CRPF in 1997 after completing his MA from Allahabad University. His first posting was in Anantnag district during, which he was part of several anti-terrorist operations in South Kashmir.

Later, he also served in Nagaland, Tripura and was even deployed in riot-hit areas of Gujarat in 2002. In 2011, Iqbal was again posted in Kashmir and in February 2017 he was handed over the command of 45th battalion of CRPF after its commandant Chetan Cheetah was injured in a militant attack.

Read more: CRPF, J-K police praised for thwarting Bandipora camp attack

Eldest among four brothers Iqbal is married to Fatima and has three children. His wife and children also live with him in Kashmir. His father Ashraf Ali, who was a retired railway employee died in 2014. Iqbals family in Allahabad, which included his mother Zaitun Begum, and younger brothers Abrar Ahmad, Aftab and Mehtab were worried when they heard about the attack on CRPF camp in Bandipora.

Later, they spoke to Iqbal on phone who informed them that he was awake for sehri when he found something suspicious near the camp. He immediately alerted the CRPF personnel and killed the four militants with the help of Jammu and Kashmir police.
Uttar Pradesh Deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday assured saints of a majestic temple at Lord Rams birthplace in Ayodhya.

However, they had differing views on how to go about it.

The occasion was the 79th birthday celebrations of Mahant Nritya Gopal Das at Mani Ram Das Chavni Peeth in Ayodhya, where Subramanian Swamy was the chief guest.

Nritya Gopal Das is president of Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, a party to the ongoing Ayodhya case in Supreme Court.

Maurya advocated the dialogue process with Muslims to resolve the Ayodhya issue like chief minister Yogi Adityanath had recommended on May 31 at the same venue at the inaugural function of week-long birthday celebrations of Das.

Read more | Babri Masjid demolition: Court exempts LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti from personal appearance

Maurya touched the feet of not only Das, his guru, but also of other seers present there when he went on stage to share the dais with saints.

I know what you all want. I also want Ram Mandir at the Lords birthplace. As chief minister Yogi Adityanath has already pointed out, the issue will be resolved through dialogue and blessings of saints, said Maurya.

Subramanian Swamy, however, said: There can be no solution of the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute through dialogue with Muslims.

Swamy reposed full faith in the Supreme Court. I am not disenchanted by the Supreme Court. I have full faith in it, he said.

Read more: Ayodhya residents endorse CMs views

Amidst slogans of Jai Shri Ram, Swamy said: Muslims who are party to the ongoing Ayodhya case in Supreme Court are afraid to enter into any out of court settlement on the issue.

They fear fundamentalist elements of their community if they go for an out of court settlement, said Swamy.

Addressing thousands of saints, Swamy said: In Supreme Court, Muslims will not be able to prove their point in favour of Babri Mosque.

He also advocated day-to-day hearing of the Ayodhya case in the Supreme Court.

When the court reopens in July, I will plead for hearing of the Ram Janmabhoomi case on a day -to-day basis. If this happens, then in four months the hearing will be over, said Swamy.

Justifying the case for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, Swamy said: Mosque can be built anywhere. Even namaz can be offered at railway platforms, roads or any place. But lord Rams birthplace cannot be changed. He will be worshipped at his birthplace in Ayodhya.

Citing an example of Saudi Arabia, Swamy said: Even in Mecca, mosques are razed to pave way for other buildings.

Swamy ended his speech with a promise of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by the next birthday of Nritya Gopal Das.

Former MP Ram Vilas Vedanti advocated a law in Parliament to pave way for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi must convene a joint session of both houses of Parliament to formulate a law to pave way for construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya, said Vedanti.

Former union minister of state for home, Swami Chinmayanand, Sadhvi Ritambhara, VHP leader Praveen Togadia, Madhya Pradesh minister Jai Bhan Singh Pawaiya, among others, also expressed their views.

Shankaracharya Swami Vasudevanand and Janmejay Sharan Maharaj among other saints were also present there.

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Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik and chief minister Yogi Adityanath joined yoga guru Baba Ramdev in a yoga practice session at Raj Bhawan here on Wednesday morning.

The programme was a prelude to the upcoming International Yoga Day celebrations in Lucknow on June 21 in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath will participate.

Deputy chief ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya along with other UP ministers during the yoga session at Raj Bhavan. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

About 1,500 volunteers reached Raj Bhawan lawns well before 5.30 am to attend the session. Deputy chief ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya and ministers Siddharth Nath Singh, Shrikant Sharma and Mohsin Raza also participated in the programme.

Yoga helps in connecting with nature Deputy chief ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya said yoga was a source of energy and helped in maintaining a connection with the nature and society. Yoga is very beneficial and gives energy. I practise yoga daily, said deputy CM Dinesh Sharma. Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya said, Yoga teaches us how to maintain a connection with the nature and the society. I practise yoga daily for 45 minutes. Yoga keeps one going and one does not feel tired. I perform surya namaskar for 35 minutes daily, said UP health minister Siddharth Nath Singh. State power minister Shrikant Sharma said he practised yoga every alternate day to remain fit. It is the key for not only a healthy individual but a healthy society too, he said. Minister of state Mohsin Raza said those who associated yoga with religion were not aware about its benefits. Being a sportsperson, I have practised yoga for long, he said.

The participants included retired judges, bureaucrats, officials and businessmen.

Addressing the gathering after the session, the CM said, Yoga helps in developing a healthy mind, healthy citizen and a healthy society. This is also the aim of the government. Practising yoga is the best way to honour our ancestors who gave us the science of staying fit.

The participants included yoga enthusiasts, bureaucrats and business from Lucknow. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

The society that believes in the principles of yoga remains socially, morally, physically and spiritually fit and prosperous. The creation of such a society is the need of the hour, he said.

Taking a jibe at the media, Yogi said, Throughout the year, media makes us run behind them but this time we have made them run behind us.

He said it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who highlighted the benefits of yoga before the world.

Governor Ram Naik said it was perhaps for the first time that a yoga event was organised at the Raj Bhawan and hoped more such programmes would be organised in future.

It is a rarest of the rare occasion when a yogi raj (Yog Adityanath) and a raj yogi (Baba Ramdev) are sharing the dais at Raj Bhawan, Naik said in a lighter vein.

Participants practising yogic asanas at Raj Bhawan in Lucknow. (Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

Baba Ramdev, who conducted the yoga session, kept injecting humour with his witty one-liners.

The balance of chief minister Yogi Adityanath is good and now he is trying to balance the state. The CMs body is flexible but his mind is very strong, he said as the participants burst into laughter.

Yoga is a science which is totally secular in nature. It is a way of life and is not associated with any religion or cult. Yoga helps in maintaining discipline which is important for the formation of a non-violent society, he said.

Baba Ramdev performed Dandasan, Uttan Mandukasan, Makarasan, Ardh Matsyendrasan and Vakraasan and also spoke about the benefits of these yogic postures.

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The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has decided to prepare a roadmap for quick disposal of ongoing court cases and avoid unnecessary litigation bogging down the government as well as the courts.

The UP government has directed all departments to take effective steps in accordance with parameters set in the state governments litigation policy in this regard and made it clear that the aim of the exercise was to bring down average time period per case from the existing 15 years to a mere three years in the days to come.

Highlights Appeals not to be filed for one sided or interim orders unless the order was not getting quashed and adversely affects the department/government. File appeals first in high court itself and only in exceptional circumstances the Supreme Court is to be approached. Administrative tribunals to adopt compassionate stance for small service related cases to help employee get justice at the department level itself. Appeals against orders of administrative tribunals to be filed only if clear anomaly exists in documents and the order is against the government, is against service rules or orders of the high court or Supreme court, affects government functioning regarding a service or could lead to large number of financial claims. Appeals to be filed in Supreme Sourt only if legal point is inculcated in them, general interest is getting affected, where justice is getting impeded, where a question is over a legal issue under constitution of India or where the high court has overstepped its jurisdiction etc.

It has also issued detailed guidelines with instructions for effective follow-up of pending cases in courts and avoid unnecessarily dragging cases lacking legal substance.

The move is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modis call for steps by the state governments to lessen the burden of cases on courts, a senior official of UP law department said.

The official said principal secretary (law) Rangnath Pandey asked principal secretaries and secretaries of all departments to nominate senior departmental officers as nodal officers for effective follow-up of and disposal of pending cases in courts.

The missive dated May 31, 2017 categorically states that these nodal officers should be made responsible for quick disposal of cases.

The PM, in his address at the sesquicentennial celebrations marking 150 years of the Allahabad high court on April 2, had assured Chief Justice of India JS Khehar that his government will make all efforts to back Khehars resolve to the reduce burden on the judiciary and pendency of cases.

Earlier, Modi had also termed government as the biggest litigant while stressing on the need to lessen the load on the judiciary which spends its maximum time in tackling cases where the government is a party.

The UP government has a total of 3.55 lakh pending cases at just the high court level, including 1,26,619 cases involving 96 out of 102 departments at the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court and another 2,28,346 pending cases involving 93 departments at the Allahabad high court.

The officials have been asked to ensure that false testimonies are avoided and proper legal points put forth in cases, besides ensuring that proper documents and legal stands are presented right at the start of filing of the cases to avoid delays.

The government has gone as far as to say that in cases of notices received, each case be studied and inquired closely and those found correct be accepted so as to avoid disputes at later stages.

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To free Uttar Pradesh from the scourge of child marriage, the Yogi Adityanath government has directed the police to liaison with local schools at block and district level to check child marriages in the state.

Besides launching awareness campaigns, involving meetings and rallies against the custom, the cops will remain in touch with school staff and act on their tip-offs.

Orders in this regard had been issued by the Yogi Adityanath-led state government which was determined to free the Hindi heartland state of child marriage, said a senior official of UPs women welfare and child development department.

District magistrates and district police chiefs have been ordered by the principal secretary, women welfare and child development Renuka Kumar to strictly enforce provisions of Prohibition of Child Marriage Act-2006 and also extend support to the ongoing Indias Daughter campaign launched by the Study Hall Education Foundation, Lucknow across the state against the custom and practice of child marriages, the official said.

As per a study by an NGO, Uttar Pradesh tops the country in having the most married children (2.8 million), followed by Bihar and Rajasthan (with 1.6 million each) as per the 2011 census.

Uttar Pradesh, as per the 2011 census, has 2 million married girls in the age group of 10-19 years while the 2.8 million in total (boys and girls) are married in this age group, with the girls accounting for 71% of the total married people in this group.

The state also has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of children born to children: 1 million.

A UNICEF study points out that early marriage hinders educational achievements which in turn leads to poor maternal health and higher infant mortality rate. Child bearing at a young age is detrimental to the health of both the mother and the infant. This is why child marriage affects woman more than man, other than the fact that men are less likely to be married as children.

The UP government has urged the DMs and the SPs that through various initiatives, the thana level cops need to win over confidence of the locals including female teachers, religious leaders and members of the local community so that they receive timely information regarding child marriages and act as per law.

Renuka Kumar has also asked the district officials to organise meetings of Indias Daughter Campaign in all schools and also make other district level officers like the basic shiksha adhikaris, district coordinators and others working with the children aware of the need to act against child marriages.

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If you dont like it, then ban it  this is how our lawmakers roll. Lawyer and BJP legislator Ramesh Aroras campaign to ban momos in Jammu and Kashmir has predictably got the Twitterati buzzing. For the past five months, Ramesh Arora has been actively campaigning to ban the popular dish, as it contains monosodium glutamate or ajinomoto, an ingredient considered responsible for causing cancer. While Arora has been after the humble momo  everyones favourite snack  for months, the news broke only on June 8 and the whole country got to know about it.

In a media interview, Arora said that momos contained ajinomoto, a tastemaker that is added in these foods, which in turn makes them addictive. As per the report, he also said that it had been researched and found that momos were more dangerous than alcohol and drugs. All this has been greeted by scepticism and scorn on social media, but Aroras aversion to ajinomoto has a scientific basis.

Ajinomoto was declared unsafe by the World Health Organization in 2014. According to WHO, there are 26 countries that use ajinomoto. Out of those countries, only eight have banned it (and there is no information on which countries they are). However, according to the US Food and Drug Administration, monosodium glutamate is generally safe. India first woke up to the health controversy around ajinomoto when in 2014, Maggi noodles were banned for allegedly having monosodium glutamate and high levels of lead. The noodles were relaunched in November 2015 across India with the quality assurances in place.

Just as the nation mourned Maggi in the months that it was off the shelves, the threat of the axe falling on momos has brought wounded feelings out on social media. Delhi will go to war, if there is a #momoban, thundered @tanyashrivast11 on Twitter.

Here is what momo aficionados and restaurateurs in Delhi think about the Aroras momo ban campaign.

Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater, says the restaurant trade

In my opinion, its the ingredient that should be banned, and not the dish. Despite knowing that ajinomoto can be a health hazard, most chefs in various restaurants still use it. Chef Amit Kunar, Bella Cucina

The ban on momos is not the right way to keep the nation free of the side effects of ajinomoto. As rightly said by lawyer and BJP legislator Ramesh Arora, momos served on streets do carry the carcinogenic monosodium glutamate aka ajinomoto. Its used in most Chinese and Japanese dishes as well. Ajinomoto, a Japanese brand, should be banned due to its harmful effects on ones health. Dinesh Arora, owner of Unplugged Courtyard

Banning the dish because it contains the harmful ajinomoto is not the right solution. Banning ajinomoto would be the right action. Just not in momos, ajinomoto is widely used in roadside Chinese food. So, the question is, how do you get them to stop using it? Ankit Aggarwal, managing director at Cafe Indian Delight

Food is made with emotions and ingredients mixed together. When a person orders his food, he yearns for the taste and also the look and feel. When burgers and pizzas can be made healthy, why not momos? Its important to know that it is the ingredient that is harmful, not the dish. We can still preserve the essence of the dish without the harmful ingredient. Healthy customers are healthy business for us. Jasneet Sahni, owner of Lanterns Kitchen and Bar

Well continue to eat momos because we love them, say Delhiites

I eat momos regularly. However, Im also aware of ajinomoto. It induces a craving to eat. But unless theres a clear-cut health advisory against them, Ill continue to eat them. Its obvious that you should ban the ingredient and not the dish. Kartikeya Ramesh, digital professional

I think the government should stay out of our bedrooms and our kitchens. MSG is said to be the 5th taste (after sweet, sour, salty and bitter), giving the food a unique flavour. And I want the option to slow-poison myself, because sadly, everything that tastes amazing is bad for our health. Shashwat Gupta, financial consultant

First of all, momos are delicious. Ive recently become a fan. And while everything delicious may not be healthy, I dont really think that as Delhiites, we really care much about that. Our street food is our opium. Although I do feel that if theres an ingredient thats a health hazard, it should be prohibited, poor momos should not be given the punishment. Arnav Narain, advocate

The government needs to go beyond banning momos and noodles, say doctors

First of all, theres no conclusive proof that ajinomoto is harmful. Countries like Japan and China have been using it for years. So its fair to say that we are yet to determine the effects of ajinomoto. The use of ajinomoto is more in dishes like chow mein and [veg or chicken] Manchurian, so by that logic, you should ban the entire [range of] Chinese and Japanese cuisines. Such bans are ridiculous, to say the least. Dr Mohsin Wali, general physician

Rather than focusing on banning foods such as momos or Maggi, the government needs to ensure that our food regulatory bodies function properly, so that we have access to clean and hygienic food. Right now, from street stalls to five-star hotels, all serve mostly unhygienic food. As for ajinomoto, its harmful if consumed in large doses for a regular period. There is no research available that can guide us on exactly how much is too much. Dr R.K. Singal, doctor of internal medicine

And here is all the Twitter reaction

Some one needs to remind the genius BJP MLC who wants to ban Momos that d word MOMO Has OM & MOM in it   Vinay Kumar Dokania (@vinaydokania) June 7, 2017

Is Ajinomoto salt just dangerous for we Indians only ? Why are China and Japan still surviving. After #beefban here is #Momoban .  Shabaz Zargar (@Shabazargar) June 8, 2017

Dada, khub lamba and bhison boring article. Why don't we do the 'right' thing and ban momo. You see.. minimum time, maximum governance

  Oh!Boy (@JoydeepMazumdar) June 8, 2017

Can you raise your voice to ban the production of cigarettes and alcohol rather than momo ban? I bet you will not right? Stop petty politics  Micku (@MickuPanthi) June 8, 2017

Since #cigarettes are a majority thing, it cannot be banned by BJP. Xenophobic party only goes after minorities. #momoban  Heavena Singha (@HeavenaSingha) June 8, 2017

Perhaps they got momo wrong for mooing,but then why ban mooing unless they understand cow language well & heard cows protesting.against BJP.  Satish Kapur (@SatishKapur4) June 8, 2017

How can you ban such and innocent person? Hirai Momo is an entertainer bringing peace to the youth not a pollutant pic.twitter.com/AOaETLZgnP  Neil Michael (@goa_man) June 8, 2017

Foolishness. First ban the pizza ,hot dog kind of foods.

What's wrong with momo?  Yakhoob Ali Syed (@YaqoobSd) June 7, 2017

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Stalls stocked up with sizzling malpuas, simmering kebabs and phirni in three different hues, and a host of people with rumbling stomachs, patiently waiting to break their fast  pretty much sums up a typical evening at a tiny eatery in Mohammed Ali Road during Ramzan. But as soon as the sun sets, and the food is served, everyone is smiling and chatty. Eyes suddenly light up with gratitude and glee. You can hear some banter on one table and a child screaming with joy on the other.

However, even if you arent fasting, rest assured that the lip-smacking food found in the hidden pockets of this area, abuzz with restaurants dishing out their signature preparations, will make your mouth water. Heres a glimpse of what to expect on your Iftar trail.

Shami Kebab and Chicken Hakimi

Noor Mohammadi, Bhendi Bazaar

Bhendi Bazaar is a busy nightspot through the year. Its especially busy during Ramzan. And the largest crowd is usually gathered at Noor Mohammadi, waiting to break their fast with falooda, fruits and some lip-smacking Shami Kebab (Rs 20). Made with minced chicken, chana dal and spices, the kebab is hand-pound to a texture so soft that it is hard to lift them without having them fall apart. Another specialty here is the Chicken Hakimi (Rs 500), essentially tandoori chicken soaked in a thin liquid concoction of buttermilk, chaat masala and butter.

Bheja, Kaleji or Gurda Masala

Ba-Barkat, Nagdevi Street

Here, your choice of meat, bheja (lamb brain), kaleji (lamb heart) or gurda (lamb kidney; Rs 180), is pound with some oil, tomatoes, onions, chillies and lemon juice to form a dish that has the consistency of egg bhurjee.

Bhel Bara Handi

Surti, Bohri Mohalla

Located a stones throw away from Tawakkal Tandoori Chicken, Surti is famous for its Bara Handi, and sees huge crowds during Ramzan. The dish acquires its name from the 12 vessels that traditionally have different types of pulse-based gravies, each containing a different cut of mutton or tenderloin. The one served at Surti, however, is a banquet of seven gravies. While each of the gravies can be had by itself, a dish called the Bhel (Rs 150), which combines all the different gravies, is also served here. The ensuing gravy is a union of mutton, dal and garam masalas.

Aab Gosht

Cafe Nizari, Bhendi Bazar

Dunk some pillowy and slightly sour pav (Rs 7) into a bowlful of rich fiery mutton stew (Rs 70) primarily prepared with gram lentil, tomatoes and onions.

Baida Roti

Mastan Talao, Nagdevi Street

A meal in itself, the Baida Roti (Rs 100) found at Nagdevi Street, is an Iftar must-have. A thick layer of minced keema or chicken is sandwiched between two hot and fluffy flour-based rotis that are coated with egg.

Chicken Tandoori

Tawakkal Tandoori Chicken, Nagdevi Street

The Chicken Tandoori (Rs 110) served at the buzzy stall located on Nagpada Street is another local legend. Juicy and tender pieces are coated with a marination of your choice. The three varieties of tandoori are chicken malai (marinated in creamy yoghurt, ginger, garlic and chilli), hariyali (coated with a paste of coriander, mint leaves, ginger, garlic and lemon juice) and the regular chicken tikka masala.

Reshmi Special Malpua

Badri Mithai, Nagdevi Street

Watching Reshmi Special Malpua (Rs160) being made is almost hypnotic. Batches of dough, prepared with maida, sugar, saffron, milk, cardamom, semolina, etc., are dipped in a vessel of hot oil and fried till the outsides of the dough turn golden brown and crisp. The resultant is a steaming hot pancake that leaves you with a saccharine aftertaste the entire night. Its the perfect way to end your Iftar meal.

Also check out

Hyderabadi Murgh Dum Biryani at Neel

Neel, Mahalaxmi

Feast on dishes such as Bombay Bohri Boti (mutton in a traditional lamb mix), Raan-e-Mukhtar (leg of baby lamb), Hyderabadi Murgh Dum Biryani, Soya Macchli ka Salan (fish curry), Bhawnagiri Mirch ka Kheema and Mumbai ka Malpua as part of an Iftar special menu.

Till: June 26

Cost: Rs 2,500 (approximately for two)

Khichda at Sofitel

Jyran, Sofitel, Bandra (E)

Gorge on Iftar delicacies such as Khichda, Keema Pulao, Sheer Khurma, Tandoori Chicken and Falooda, among other dishes.

Till: June 26

Cost: Rs 3,300 (approximately for two)

Seviyan Kheer at Four Points by Sheraton

Four Points by Sheraton, Navi Mumbai

Try out Chicken Pakoda, Paya Shorba, Kebabs, Dum Biryani, Seviyan Kheer, Shahi Tukada and more.

Till: June 25

Cost: Rs 1,400 (approximately for two)

For a homely experience

The eight-course Iftar meal organised by The Bohri Kitchen will feature dishes such as Russian Kebabs, Cream Tikka, Mutton Haleem, Phirni and White Chicken Biryani, among other dishes. (Facebook/TheBohriKitchen)

The Bohri Kitchen

Home chef Nafisa Kapadia is all set to host an eight-course Iftar meal this weekend. You can start with savoury appetisers such as Smoked Mutton Keema Samosa, Bheja Cutlets and Baida Roti. Then move onto Russian Kebabs (stuffed with shredded chicken, assorted vegetables and a creamy sauce) and Chicken Cream Tikka (chicken marinated in masala coated with bread crumbs and fried). This will be followed by Phirni (rice pudding served in earthen pots). Mutton Haleem (boneless mutton and wheat slow-cooked for hours) and TBK Raan (in red masala), among other dishes, make up the fourth course, and White Chicken Biryani will be served as main course. Lastly, end your meal with ice cream and paan. Beverages and condiments will also be served.

Where: Magazine Street Kitchen, Byculla (E)

When: June 10

Cost: Rs 3,500

Home chef Farida Yunus is organising an Iftar meal that will feature dishes such as Keema Samosa, Bheja Cutlets, Tandoori Raan and much more. (Facebook/TheBigSpread)

The Big Spread

Home cook Farida Yunus is also whipping up a Ramzan meal. It will begin with Gol Pani (a drink made of jaggery and chia seeds), and will then proceed to Bheja Cutlets, Tandoori Raan and Mutton Nalli Nihari. Dont forget to save space for some Malpua topped with Rabdi, and Sheer Khurma.

Where: Byculla (E). Book on www.authenticook.com

When: Every weekend till June 25

Cost: Rs 1,300

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more

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The Delhi special cell, on Tuesday, arrested Abu Aslam Azmi, nephew of Samajwadi party leader Abu Asim Azmi in an international drug peddling racket after seizing 5kg of party drug MDMA also known as ICE worth Rs 40 crores in Delhi. Azmi was arrested from a five star hotel in Mumbai.

Maharashtra SP leader Abu Azmi said he had nothing to do with his nephew. My name is unnecessarily being dragged, by a section of the media, into the arrest of Aslam, who happens to be my nephew. Let me explain to the general public that I have seven brothers. All their children are independent and doing their own activities said Azmi.

The special cell also arrested three others including a Chandigarh based tycoon identified as Amit Aggarwal. The police claimed Azmi used to work as a right hand man, handling Indian operations, for one Kailash Rajput who supplied drugs while operating from Dubai.

Owing to common friends, he became friends with Kailash Rajput. Azmi opened a restaurant in Goa and came in contact with drug traffickers there, who got the drugs from Rajput. Azmi and Rajput joined hands and Azmi made his base in Mumbai. Around three years ago, when Kailash Rajput was arrested by Mumbai police, Azmi helped him during his trial period and hence became a close aide. On the directions of Rajput, Azmi supplied the drugs through courier to France, Germany, U.K. Spain and USA, said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, deputy commissioner of police, Special Cell, New Delhi.

Azmi, a class 12 dropout, stayed in Goa during 2010 and 2013.

According to officials, the racket was busted after they received a tip-off that "Aggarwal was procuring premium quality of ephedrine from Zirakpur in Punjab along with his associate.

Police said Aggarwal and his associates used to supply MDMA popularly known as ICE to his clients in India and abroad. After receiving the information, the Delhi special cell started investigations in Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh. On the lines of investigation. on June 4, the special cell received information that a consignment of premium quality drug - ICE was consigned from Mumbai to be supplied in the USA and the UK. Drug-traffickers would assemble at a courier company - 'Prefer Logistic Pvt Ltd run by Aggarwal, in Mahipalpur to package the consignment, according to officials.

After a trap was laid, the suspect later identified as Avdhesh Kumar was nabbed from outside the office and police seized 5 kg of drugs from him.

Police claimed, during interrogation, Kumar confessed he was offered Rs 1 Lakh for supplying 1 kg of drug and the booty would be shared amongst them proportionately. Kumar revealed he worked for the Aggarwal and one Chandan Rai after which the duo were also arrested. The accused then disclosed that the drugs were supplied by Azmi after which a team was dispatched to Mumbai and he was arrested.

Officials said the drug was supplied to UK, USA apart from the UAE and some other middle-eastern countries.
A day after the Shiv Sena-led Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) rejected a state government proposal to change land use of 33 hectares at Aarey Colony to build a car shed, Yuva Sena chief Aaditya Thackeray reiterated his partys opposition.

The Thackeray scion tweeted that he supports the need for a Metro rail corridor but it was ridiculous to damage Aarey, one of Mumbais few green lungs, for the project.

Hw ridiculous is it to justify damaging a forest by saying public transport will save environment. Damage is same. Alternative is available  Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) June 8, 2017

While on one hand, the Centre speaks of the Paris Agreement and our commitment to fighting climate change, we damage Aarey  our local forest. I wonder if our statements on climate change are just for headlines and social media, Thackeray said.

The Shiv Sena has opposed the plan of setting aside land at Aarey Colony for a Metro car shed for the Colaba-Bandra-Seepz line from the very beginning. The BMC, where the Sena has a majority, has also marked the land as a no-development zone in the draft Development Plan for Mumbai.
The Kanjurmarg police arrested a 50-year-old man and a 45-year-old woman on Tuesday after a minor girl alleged that the man had raped her in 2015 and the woman, her aunt, abetted the crime.

The girl talked about the incident before a probation officer at a shelter home, where she was kept after she was victimised in another sexual assault case. The girls mother had left her when she was a child. Her father married another woman but died later.

She lived with her step-mother and her aunt after her fathers death. The man, who was arrested, was their neighbour and in a relationship with the aunt. He visited their house frequently. In 2015, he had allegedly raped the minor there. The aunt knew about this but had silenced her. She was 14 years old then.

In the same year, two others, one of them a minor, from the neighbourhood had allegedly molested her. The Kanjurmarg police had arrested them and the girl had been sent to a shelter home.

A police official said, She mostly kept quiet at the shelter home. Earlier this month (in June), we received a letter from the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), informing us that the girl has given them a statement on being raped by a man and her aunt abetting it.

Based on the allegation, an FIR was registered under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The Sion police have arrested a 52-year-old man  a prolific online writer and poet  who allegedly cheated four nationalised banks of Rs5 lakh each on the pretext of buying a van.

According to the police, Sunil Rajaram Pawar, a resident of Pratiksha Nagar in Sion, applied for loans at four banks for the same vehicle  a Maruti Eeco  and managed to get them sanctioned with the help of an employee of a car dealership. Pawar was arrested on Sunday after a manager at Syndicate Bank learnt about the alleged fraud.

A writer of prose and poetry, Pawar has written several pieces in Marathi that are available online and has also contributed to Marathi newspapers about various topics, including the drought in Marathwada. Among his online works is an 87-part series titled Abhagyacha Bhagya (Fate of the Unfortunate).

An officer from Sion police station said, Pawar had been living in a rented apartment in Pratiksha Nagar with his wife and two children and wanted to buy a house of his own. We believe this is what motivated his crimes. He involved an employee of a car dealership by asking him to submit fake ownership documents to the banks.

When dealership employee agreed to participate in the crime, Pawar applied for loans from Syndicate Bank, Dena bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank and Karnataka Bank simultaneously for the Maruti Eeco.

Bank officials approached the dealership employee and after his confirmation, sanctioned the loans in the stores name. The employee then submitted fake ownership documents of the vehicle with all four banks, added the police officer.

The alleged con came to light when a manager at Syndicate Bank was checking a list of loan defaulters. Suspecting something was amiss, he asked Pawar to report to the bank with the car and its ownership documents.

The police officer said, Pawar kept ignoring the bank official, who then checked his history and learnt that he had applied for a loan for a vehicle with the same registration number at other banks as well. He came to the police station and registered a complaint.

The police waited for Pawar outside his home and soon arrested him. They named the dealership employee as an absconder.

Pawar was booked for cheating and other crimes under the Indian Penal Code. He was produced in a Bhoiwada court on Wednesday and remanded in police custody.

According to the police, Pawar earned Rs15,000 to Rs 20,000 a month doing odd jobs at a private firm, and writing was his hobby. They said his wife works as a saleswoman and the couple have a college-age daughter and son in school.

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The Bombay high court has advised those opposing the Mumbai Metro 3 project over the consequent destruction of the citys green cover to take a pragmatic view.

A bench of justice VM Kanade and justice AM Badar said the Metro was very important considering the worsening traffic situation in the city.

Justice Kanade said the city should have developed a metro network 30 years ago.

These public utility projects should have been operational in the city decades ago and still, people are opposing them, causing further delay, he said.

The court said several people travelled between north and south Mumbai each day, and thousands others died in road accidents. The Metro 3 project will prove immensely useful for these people and thus, those opposing the project must first consider the ground situation.

The HC was hearing an application filed by the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) seeking the courts nod to clear 108 mangroves to build the proposed Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) metro station.

MMRCs advocate Kiran Bagalia told HC the corporation had permissions from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) and it will also undertake compensatory replantation at alternate sites.

Bagalia said although no mangroves would be destroyed for the Dharavi station, the MMRC will still plant 4,000 mangroves in the area after completing construction.

MMRC also argued it had already lost two months over the same arguments before the Chief Justices court that had ultimately granted a go ahead to the project. The corporation said it had taken loans from Japan for the project and delays were causing it huge monetary losses on a daily basis.

However, activists and Bombay Environmental Action Group (BEAG) claimed the MMRC had misled the environment ministry while garnering permission for the two stations because according to coastal regulation zone (CRZ) rules, no underground construction can be carried out in a CRZ III area.

The bench, however, said the court was equally concerned about the green cover, but that activists and residents must not take an adversarial stand over public utility projects.

The court will take up the matter for further hearing on June 13.

Read

Aaditya Thackeray reiterates Shiv Senas opposition to Mumbai metro car shed at Aarey

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Farmer Dhanaji Jadhav committed suicide on Wednesday evening at Karmala in Solapur district, making him the fourth to have killed himself in two days. In his suicide note, Jadhav said he owed money to banks and moneylenders. He also requested his family not to conduct funeral rites until farmers loans were waived and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met them personally.

As the farmers strike enters its eighth day, the Kisan Kranti Morcha  a 21-member core committee of farmers outfits  will meet today to discuss what course the agitation should take. The recently reconstituted core committee, which comprises prominent farmers leaders and agricultural experts is likely to come up with plans to intensify the agitation.

Swabhimani Paksha chief and Kolhapur MP Raju Shetti, an ally of the BJP-led state government, decided to make the agitation a nationwide one by calling a meeting of all farmers outfits in Delhi on June 16. Shetti said it is time to remind the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of the promises it made to farmers.

However, the impact of the farmers strike has decreased over the past few days. The supply of vegetables, milk and fruits to Mumbai and other cities improved and prices fell considerably.

The strike began on June 1. Following protests started by various farmers groups, especially in western and central Maharashtra, Fadnavis held talks with the representatives of these groups on Saturday and promised to waive the loans of small and marginal farmers, who have five-acre plots.

The decision is expected to benefit 31 lakh farmers, who have not been able to apply for crop loans for past four or five years. The Maharashtra government is likely to spend about Rs30,000 crore to write off their loans. Fadnavis also announced that he would set up a committee of government officials and farmers representatives to work out details of the waiver.

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A farmer in Solapur hanged himself from a tree near his home, and has left a note saying he should not be cremated until the chief minister visits his village and meets the demands of the farmers.

The suicide comes as the ongoing farmers stir entered the eighth day in Maharashtra.

Dhanaji Jadhav, 45, hung himself from a tree near his house at Veet village in Karmala tehsil on Wednesday night, Solapur collector Rajendra Bhosale said.

The Karmala police said Jadhavs suicide note was addressed to his friends and relatives.

It read: I am a farmer, Dhanaji Chandrakant Jadhav. I am committing suicide today. Please take my body to my village and do not cremate me till CM Devendra Fadnavis comes here.

Bhosale confirmed the farmers suicide note said his body should not be cremated until the chief minister visits and announces a loan waiver for the farmers.

READ: After quelling Maratha protests, Maharashtra CM must now act to pacify farmers on strike

On Thursday, Solapurs guardian minister Vijay Deshmukh reached the village. The Jadhav has a wife and two children and was the eldest son in his family. He owned 2.5 acres of cultivable land, but was weighed down by a debt of Rs60,000. The police said he had also taken loans from private lenders.

After the incident, farmers organisations in the area held to a rasta-roko, or a road blockade, and called that a bandh be called in the Karmala tehsil.

Police teams have also been rushed to the spot to prevent the situation from spiralling into a law and order issue, the collector said.

CM Devendra Fadnavis has been under attack by opposition parties and the BJPs ally Shiv Sena over the states handling of the protests by farmers across Maharashtra for the past week. The protests have led to a rise in prices i cities such as Mumbai and Pune.

Even a recent statement by the CM promising a loan waiver for some farmers by October 31 has not pacified a section of the agitating farmers.
An accused in a quadruple murder case stabbed a co-accused when they were brought in for a scheduled hearing.

Uday Pathak, booked in connection with the 2011 Kurar murders, stabbed Kalpesh Patel with a sharp object that he had smuggled into the courtroom. Patel was to turn an approver in the case, four boys were murdered.

The two are facing prosecution.

On Thursday, the case came up before the new judge and all the accused were produced in court. The court adjourned the case and accused were to be taken back.

When came face to face outside court, Pathak attacked Patel, said a court staff. Pathak pushed the guards and attacked Patel with a sharp object, said Vijay Dhopavkar, senior police inspector, Colaba police station.

Patel sustained injuries on his right cheek and throat.

After the incident, Patel rushed inside the court room and narrated the attack. The court sent Patel for medical aid while Pathak was taken back to jail. After first aid, Patel was taken to Colaba police station where the case was registered against Pathak.

The police said that Patel recorded a confession in the murder case that had angered Pathak. Sources said that Pathak threatened Patel frequently and the two were kept in separate cells to avoid untoward incidents.

Patel, in his statement to police, said that on Thursday, Pathak first abused him and threatened to kill him, and later attacked his face with a sharp object.

The police has yet to look for the object that Pathak attacked him with. Sources said that Pathak threw it away immediately after attacking Patel and no one could identify it later. We are still looking for the object and trying to find out how he sneaked it inside the court, Dhopavar said.

The Colaba police has registered an attempt to murder case against Pathak.

Pathak, 44, is originally from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh. A resident of Kurar (east), he has over 12 cases against him. He had also been externed from the city once.

Pathak and Patel were arrested in 2011 for killing four youngsters in Kurar, Malad, over a minor argument.

According to the prosecution, on June 6, 2011, partially charred and naked bodies of Chetan Dhule, 24; Dinesh Ihire, 26; Ganesh Karanje, 24; and Bharat Kudle, 27, were found in Appapada.

Pathak and his gang allegedly kidnapped them, marched them up the hills and then killed them over a minor face-off that took place the previous evening.

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A Maharashtra farmer, Dhanaji Jadhav, committed suicide on Wednesday evening at Karmala in Solapur district, making him the fourth to have killed himself in two days. The Bombay high court, while hearing an application filed by MMRC seeking the courts nod to clear 108 mangroves for the creation of the proposed Bandra-Kurla Complex metro station, that the Metro was important considering the worsening traffic situation in the city. Want to help children on Mumbais streets? The Maharashtra state government has adopted a standard operating procedure (SOP) on how to help street children, and launched a mobile app for faster reporting of child right violations. Also, Gangland rivalry spilled over into a courtroom in Mumbai when an accused in a quadruple murder case stabbed a co-accused when they were brought in for a scheduled hearing.

Here are todays top picks:

1. Debt-ridden farmer commits suicide, fourth in two days, Maharashtra strike may intensify

Farmer Dhanaji Jadhav committed suicide on Wednesday evening at Karmala in Solapur district, making him the fourth to have killed himself in two days. In his suicide note, Jadhav said he owed money to banks and moneylenders. He also requested his family not to conduct funeral rites until farmers loans were waived and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met them personally.

2. World oceans day: After Versova clean-up, HT identifies dirtiest beaches along western coast

Massive amounts of sewage and trash generated by Mumbaiites enter the sea daily. This garbage not only lands up at city beaches, but pollutes several tourist beaches along the western coast. Though citizen-led beach clean-ups have made significant progress, a lot remains to be done. Garbage at beaches and lack of scientific waste disposal facilities still plague our citys beaches. Mumbaiites health is adversely affected by both.

3. Dont oppose cutting of trees, Mumbai Metro should have been built 30 years ago: HC

To those opposing the Mumbai Metro III project over potential destruction of green cover, the Bombay High Court advised on Thursday, to take a pragmatic view. A bench of Justices VM Kanade and AM Badar said that the Metro was important considering the worsening traffic situation in the city. Justice Kanade said that the city should have developed a metro network 30 years ago.

4. Mumbaiites, heres how you can help street children

The Maharashtra state government has adopted a standard operating procedure (SOP) on how to help street children, and launched a mobile app for faster reporting of child right violations. The app was launched by the Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MSCPCR) and women and child development minister Pankaja Munde on Wednesday.

5. Drama in Mumbai: Man stabs rival inside courtroom

Gangland rivalry spilled over into a courtroom in Mumbai when an accused in a quadruple murder case stabbed a co-accused when they were brought in for a scheduled hearing. Uday Pathak, booked in connection with the 2011 Kurar murders, stabbed Kalpesh Patel with a sharp object he had smuggled into the courtroom. An eye-witness said that guards intervened as soon as Patel was stabbed and separated the two men.
The Bombay high court has stopped revenue authorities from giving the Airports Authority of India (AAI) a major part of a plot in Gorai that has already been allotted for a law university.

The court said authorities should not proceed with a proposal to give 40 of the 60-acre plot at Gorai that was allotted for the Mumbai campus of the Maharashtra National Law University (MNLU).

The permanent establishment of the proposed university will not see the light of the day in near future, if this is allowed, said a division bench of Chief Justice Manjula Chellur and Justice Nitin Jamdar.

While restraining the authories, the bench said the allotment had already been made for the campus and only formalities and the handing over of the plat remained.

The comment came after senior advocate YS Jahagirdar, who represented MNLU, told the bench the university ad received a letter from the collector of the Mumbai suburban district, asking them to be present when the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) proposes to allot 40 acres of the land to AAI.

Jahagirdar said the state government allotted the 60-acre plot for setting up the campus in June 2016, and a year later, MMRDA has come up with a proposal to allot more than half of it for a radio receiving station.

He was responding to a public interest litigation filed by another advocate Pradip Havnur that complained that no concrete steps were being taken to hand over the plot to MNLU.

Havnur filed his PIL last year, and complained that while 60 acres was given by the government by a resolution on June 10, 2016 for a permanent campus of the university, no concrete measures to hand over the plot had been taken. Havnur said this raised serious doubts about the progress of building the university.

Havnur said he came across MNLUs status in December last year, when he visited the campus of the Tata Institute of Social Science at Chembur.

He said he noticed the Maharashtra National Law University was operating from a temporary transit-type ground-plus-one structure.

Havnur has contended that the National Law Universities Act, 2014 was enacted to establish National Law Universities in states for the development and advancement of legal education and to imparting specialised and systematic instructions, training and research in law.

He pointed out that under the enactment, it was the state governments duty to extend financial and other support to these universities.

He therefore sought a direction to the Maharashtra government to hand over the entire 60-acre plot at Gorai to MNLU at the earliest and make adequate financial provision to set up the campus.

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In October last year, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) started planning to make Mumbais roads ready for the monsoon.

In December, they began work on some of these roads they identified as most prone to flooding. In April, the BMC started cleaning storm water drains, or nullahs, to increase their capacity. But six months and Rs440 crore later, nullahs are still clogged with filth, work on arterial roads is patchy and incomplete and the city is underprepared to deal with the rain.

With just a week to go for the rains to hit the city, HT found various unfinished roadworks and filthy, choked nullahs.

STATUS CHECK

The BMC said that as of June 7, it had repaired 60.61%, or 217 of the 358 roads it wanted to fix. It claimed to have cleaned 94.31% of all nullahs. And the BMC appears to be happy with the status of its pre-monsoon work. Sanjay Darade, the chief engineer, roads department, said, Most of the work is nearly done. We will resume after the rains, in October.

READ: Bumpy ride, unfilled potholes, uneven patches on crucial Mumbai roads

Achieving 100% desilting is impossible as people keep throwing garbage into drains even as we clean them. On most major nullahs, the work has been completed, but people see floating garbage and feel there is more to be done, said Mangesh Satamkar, a Shiv Sena corporator and standing committee member. He added: Even in road works, it was unfortunate that quarries supplying material were shut for a while. Otherwise, it could have been completed on time.

GROUND REALITY

In our annual monsoon audit, HTs panel of experts identified nullahs and roads where work was still incomplete and that could cause trouble once the monsoon began. Other experts and activists agreed the BMCs work was not up to the mark. Nikhil Desai, an activist from Matunga, said, HT has pointed out all areas where work is incomplete. It shows the administrations apathy and highlights how elected representatives are not interested in solving these problems.

READ: Mumbai is at Mithis mercy, again

Political parties such as the BJP, Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena also conducted their own surveys. SP corporator Rais Shaikh said, HT has presented a realistic picture. This could just be the worst monsoon Mumbai will see, as desilting work is lagging behind and road work is half done. Congress Sanjay Nirupam said Mumbaiites will face a tough time, while MNS corporator Dilip Lande, who visited the Mithi river on Thursday, said the BMC had not done enough to clean it. The BMCs own data showed only 45% desilting (as of June 4) on the western stretch of Mithi was done.

READ: Nullahs of Mumbais east: Will they flood this year? HTs monsoon audit finds out

Mulund corporator Manoj Kotak said, To complete roadworks, the BMC is compromising on the quality. The BMC need to overhaul the way it approaches pre-monsoon work.

LOOK LONG-TERM

HTs experts said the administration should work round the year to prepare Mumbai for the monsoon. Desai said desilting was serving no purpose, as every year more shanties come up near nullahs. Their waste worsens the already clogged drains. There will be zero progress unless they are removed, he said.

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In a first, Maharashtras pollution control board will be issuing a policy to control traffic and construction noise across the state. The policy is in the drafting stage and will be released in August, said officials.

The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) is currently carrying out a noise mapping study in Mumbai and other districts which will be completed in June.

Once the results from the study are available, MPCB will issue directions to various government bodies and the police to reduce noise pollution. There is an extensive noise mapping exercise underway across Mumbai and similarly at cities such as Thane, Navi Mumbai, Pune, Nasik, Nagpur, Aurangabad and a few other major cities. We are mapping noise levels on a working day and non-working day, said P Anbalagan, member secretary, MPCB. Once the data is collated, we will identify the noisiest locations on the basis of  residential, commercial, industrial and silence zones, and which areas are exposed to maximum noise coming from traffic or construction.

Traffic and construction noise are the top sources of noise pollution in Mumbai with decibel levels as high as 110 dB (as loud as concert) and 107 dB (as loud as a power saw). According to World Health Organisation (WHO), noise levels are acceptable to a limit of 70dB to the human ear and continuous exposure to higher decibel levels more than 70dB can lead to hearing loss.

How noise pollution affects your health Annoyance Aggression Hypertension Increase in blood pressure High-stress levels Hearing loss Sleep disturbance Depression Panic attacks



(Source: Dr Ashwini Kumar Mehta, ear-nose-throat (ENT) specialist, Seven Hills Health Hospital in Andheri)

Anbalagan added that once the blueprint of the noise problems in the city was ready, municipal corporations, district collectors, police, agencies like the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) etc. will be issued directives to install noise abatement measures. Noise reducing measures such as developing adequate green cover, sound-barriers and setting up acrylic sheets will be suggested at noisy traffic junctions, all silence zones such as schools and hospitals, and construction sites in the city, he said.

Experts said that citizens need to be cautious about the exact guidelines of the policy. There have been a number of policy statements from the state government diluting noise rules in various locations in the past, said Sumaira Abdulali, convener, Awaaz Foundation. I hope the policy makes noise rules more stringent and the implementation better. So long as the intention is to recognise that noise is a serious health problem, activists will be all for it.

Meanwhile, anti-noise activists welcomed the move calling it a positive development. After introducing the issue of noise pollution in Mumbai as early as 1984, it is good to know that at least three decades later a policy is being charted out to control the problem, said Yeshwant Oke, who registered the first case in Mumbai against noise pollution at the Bombay High Court. I am optimistic that society is moving in the right direction. Authorities who had been docile all this while are gradually taking cognisance of the issue.

Dr Mahesh Bedekar, an anti-noise campaigner from Thane, said the state was forced to act on noise pollution. Pressure from citizens, courts, activists and media has played a huge role in making this a reality. The state government should have done this long ago but it has taken over two decades to make this pertinent issue across Maharashtra, he said. Now, the government needs to ensure noise is reduced and citizens need not go to the courts to highlight the smallest of issues.

Noise rules

According to Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, residential and silence zones  areas around schools, hospitals and religious shrines  should have a maximum noise level of 55dB and 50dB in the day and 45dB and 40dB at night.

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The number of students taking up degrees in Bachelors in Arts (BA) has been rising steadily over the years but this is because they are no longer seen as an easy option.

Students have finally realised the number of opportunities that a degree in BA gives them. A degree in arts teaches people-skills and an understanding of human psychology, which looks good on resumes, said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrews College in Bandra.

She added that not only does a BA degree allow students to take up jobs in mass communication, it also gives law aspirants an edge over their law school peers.

Some college principals said that the combination of BA with specialisation in psychology and economics is gaining popularity. Taking up a teaching job after a BA degree is a thing of the past. Now, students who specialise in psychology are welcomed to work in the corporate world, said Harsha Mehta, former principal of a city college.

While increased job opportunities is one of the reasons for the increase in demand for BA courses, another is that the MU has revamped its examination system, said students.

Earlier our exams would continue for two months as different colleges offered different combinations of subjects, said Archita Supe, a final-year BA student. Since last year, however, MU has been finishing all exams within two weeks, and that is a relief for many because we can apply for degrees in higher education immediately, she said.

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An Air India employee was duped of Rs9,800 by a cybercriminal who posed as an executive from his bank. Whats worse is that when he told her he would complain to the police, she threatened him and said she was unafraid of cops.

Police said the man is an Oshiwara resident. He told police the woman called him at 12.10 pm on June 2, saying she was a Bank of India official. The man did not suspect anything amiss as he has an account in that bank.

The woman told him the bank was verifying their customers ATM cards as part of an annual procedure. She asked him for his 16 digit card number and the CVV number on the reverse side. She added that he would get a verification message from the bank.

She then hung up the phone and called back a minute later, asking the man what one time password (OTP) he had received on his phone. When the man told her, he got a text message saying Rs9,800 was debited from his account. He called the woman and threatened to tell the police what had happened. She said she didnt care what he did.

Since she threatened him on the phone, we added section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code to the charges, along with sections 419 (impersonation) and 420 (cheating). We will also apply section 66C (identity theft) of the IT Act to her. The man will not get a refund from his bank. People should realise that no bank ever calls requesting your personal details, said an officer from the Oshiwara police station.
The Sakinaka police arrested a 32-year man for allegedly blackmailing cash and gold ornaments from his neighbours wife. The police said the accused and the woman were having an affair for the past two years. The accused had clicked a few pictures of them getting physically intimate and used them to blackmail her.

According to the Sakinaka police, the accused is an interior designer. Initially, he took money from the woman under the pretext of expanding his business. But when she refused to give more money, he started blackmailing her by threatening to tell her husband about their affair. The woman and the man live in the same building, said an officer from Sakinaka police station.

The victim panicked after the accused threatened to tell her husband about their affair. She gave him Rs50,000 and gold jewellery worth Rs1.5 lakh, the officer said.

It was the womans husband who confronted her upon discovering their affair. After telling him that she was being blackmailed, the two approached Sakinaka police and filed a complaint against the accused.

Based on her complaint and our investigation, an FIR was filed against the accused and he was arrested. He was produced in court and remanded in police custody till June 10 for inquiry, the officer said.

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The Thane crime branch officers seized 92,000 litres of illicit liquor and raw material worth Rs14 lakh during a raid in Shildaighar, Thane, on Thursday morning. The police booked six people for running an illicit liquor business for the past two months. They police also seized a wooden plank, mixing tubs, drums and raw material for making liquor. All the accused are on the run

The raid carried out in the early hours at Mothi Desai village. All six were identified and booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code by the Shildaighar police.

Assistant police inspector A Kurhade from Thane crime branch (unit 1) said, The accused were on the run for the past two months. This was our fifth raid in the same village. The villagers were helping the accused to run the business and well be meeting them soon. We hope this meeting helps us curb illicit liquor business in the area, as the villagers seem reluctant despite knowing that the business was illegal.

Officers said they saw smoke bellowing near a river upon reaching the village .

The drums were buried in the mud. We got a tip-off about the illicit liquor in the morning itself after which a team was formed and raided the spot. The six people are from nearby area only and we are in search of them, said inspector Ranveer Bayes from Thane crime branch (unit 1).

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The Andheri school whose founder-trustee and nursery teacher were booked for allegedly raping a three-year-old student, will soon install CCTVs in its premises to improve security. The step comes after parents raised concerns over absence of electronic surveillance in school, even though it is mandatory.

The kindergarten students mother registered a case against the 57-year-old founder-trustee and a nursery teacher on May 18. According to the police, the teacher took the girl to the trustees room, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her.

On Wednesday some sections of the school, which has over 700 students and studying an international curriculum, reopened for the new academic year and the management sent out messages to the parents assuring them that they plan to install CCTVs soon.

Police and parent volunteers were posted outside the school to prevent people from loitering around its campus. Some of the parents had approached the management seeking answers. They said that the school will handle the issue in an unbiased manner and not take sides, said the parents of kindergarten student.

When contacted, the school principal told Hindustan Times that the management is discussing the details of the project. Our school building was under construction so far and it has recently been completed. So quotes will be called for CCTVs, said the principal.

The school also issued a press statement on Wednesday stating that childrens safety is of paramount importance to the institution and they will take all necessary steps to ensure it is never compromised. Protection of the children is not only an individual duty but also an institutional responsibility. We are co-operating with the authorities to get to the bottom of the issue raised, and are confident that the truth shall prevail, read the statement. We are encouraged by the trust and faith the parents have reposed in us during the past few testing day.

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In the backdrop of the latest squabble between the saffron allies, Union home minister Rajnath Singh will visit Mumbai on Thursday.

Singh will hold a meeting with the state party leaders and cadre on the occasion of the Modi government completing three years in power. He will also hold a press conference prior to the state level party meeting, to present various policy decisions and achievements of his government.

The Shiv Sena had boycotted the cabinet meeting on Wednesday to express their displeasure over BJP not taking them into confidence while announcing the loan waiver. The party is also against the partial loan waiver for a section of farmers, and wants it to be extended to all 1.34 lakh farmers in Maharashtra.

Give the trouble in the alliance, all eyes will be on Singh, to see if he comments on this uneasy alliance or gives an indication of BJP going solo.

Until Presidential elections, we are not saying anything. The Union home minister will not comment on the situation but in the state level meeting, it is likely that some leaders will express their unhappiness with having Sena as an ally, said a BJP leader.
A 28-year-old labourer was held for setting his lover on fire at Kalwa in Thane on Wednesday. The woman suffered 90% burns and is critical, said police.

The woman, a homemaker, has four children with her husband, who she left six months ago. She had been staying with the accused Ramashray alias Raju Pal, 28, since then. The woman and her husband parted ways after they found out about each others extramarital affairs, said a police officer.

On Wednesday, the woman asked Pal why he had not been going to work for the past few days. Pals refusal to work angered the woman, who was unable to run the house without his wages. The two began arguing. Pal took out a can of kerosene from the kitchen and threatened to kill the woman. When she continued to argue with him, he poured kerosene on her. Before she could run out of the house, he set her on fire, said S Kesare, investigating officer, Kalwa police station.

Pal fled, while the woman came out of the house, screaming for help. Her neighbour covered her with a blanket and took her to the Thane Civil Hospital. Police were informed and Pal was arrested from Kalwa. Police suspected that he was planning to fly to Uttar Pradesh to evade detection.

Pal was arrested under section 307 (attempt to murder), 323(punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code.

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The state government and an NGO in the city have been trying to protect coral reefs off the Indian coast.

While the states focus has been on reviving the Sindhudurg corals, Reefwatch Marine Conservation has been working on those near the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Coral reefs are considered to be rainforests of the ocean because of the wide variety of marine life they sustain. Reefs are, however, threatened by the rising ocean temperature. Global warming poses a major threat to the corals off the Indian coast.

The rising temperature of the oceans pose a major threat to the reefs as the ideal temperature for them to survive is between 20 and 26 degrees Celsius. But, the water around the Indian subcontinent, especially the Andamans, is about 28 degrees Celsius, said Nayantara Jain, who heads Reefwatch. Any further rise in temperature could be a problem for corals, she said.

Jain, who has been diving for over a decade, said that she had seen how the reefs were deteriorating.

Coral reefs are formed by a symbiotic relationship between an algae and a polyp  a creature related to the jelly fish. While the algae makes food, the polyp protects it and creates a calcium base for it to grow. Over years, this base grows in size and becomes a coral reef.

Continuous rise in temperature damages the relationship between the algae and the polyp, which results in them breaking. As a result, the reefs, which get their colour from the algae, weaken, turn white and can die, said Jain. The structure shelters small marine animals, which attracts larger animals that prey on them. So, a large number of marine lives depend on coral reefs, she said.

Jain has been trying to encourage and speed up the growth of reefs off the Indian coast. She and members of Reefwatch rescue broken pieces of coral reefs and restore them to a point, from which they can grow again.

These fragments can grow back if replanted and taken care of, said Jain. This, however, is not the only way to protect the reefs.

Fan coral off the Indian coast. (Sumer Verma)

he Maharashtra governments mangrove cell and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have in three years successfully rehabilitated 2,620 coral fragments off the Malvan coast in Sindhudurg. This was an attempt to revive and facilitate growth of corals and formation of coral reefs.

We have been using coral fragments from donor colonies to increase their numbers in Sindhudurg, said Rohit Sawant, project management specialist and marine biologist.

The corals were transplanted in two phases  in December 2015 and April this year  and all of them are growing healthily, said Sawant.

We take the fragments and attach them to concrete frames with the help of nylon threads. We leave it on ocean beds, at a depth suitable for its growth. Each frame holds about 10 corals, he said. Around 3,200 coral fragments have been cultivated under the programme so far.

The corals on the first day of transplantation. (UNDP)

Even though corals grow at the rate of 1.5cm per year, the officials have already seen positive developments already. The ones rehabilitated in the first phase have developed growth rings. They are similar to the rings that we see on tree barks that indicate their age. This also means that the corals have adapted to the environment and are growing healthily said Sawant. The project was funded by Global Environment Facility.

The corals after one year of transplantation. (UNDP)

Suganthi Devadason Marine Research Institute (SDMRI) in Tamil Nadu has been helping the project with their expertise as they have been rehabilitating corals since 2002.

During our attempts, we realised that rehabilitated corals survive only if they are taken from healthy colonies, said JK Patterson Edward, director of the institute.

He also said that coral fragments taken from one place must be transplanted in another with the same environmental factors.

Speaking about the challenges that they faced, Edward said that rising ocean temperatures is a major threat to coral reefs. The overall survival rate was over 80%, but it came down to 45% to 50% in 2010 and 2016 because of increase in ocean temperatures, he said.

Using concrete frames to rehabilitate corals is a low-cost but effective method. As the corals slowly try to develop into reefs, there has been an increase in the population of fish in the area, added Edward.

However, the rehabilitated corals off the Tamil Nadu coast are thriving now and the team in Maharashtra is trying to follow their footsteps. Though our corals in Malvan are young, we hope that they can gradually develop into reefs like the ones in Tamil Nadu, said Sawant.

Marine scientist Vishal Bhave from BHNS which has partnered with the programme said that the next step would be to ensure that all the coral fragments survive the next 18 months. We will monitor the corals for 18 months and in case any of them die, we will replace them, he said.

The corals, after four years, have grown considerably in size. (UNDP)

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The Noida authority is facing problems in repairing potholes by June 15, the deadline set by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath for completing all road repair works.

The main hurdle is that awarding tenders to private contractors takes a long time, the authority officials said.

Engineers of the Noida authority said they have sought help from existing private contractors to repair potholes within the deadline because they cannot hire new ones through the laid down procedures in such a short span.

We cannot repair long dug-up patches in roads because it requires a bigger budget. To carry out bigger repair work, of more than Rs 1 lakh, we need to float a tender through an online tendering procedure that takes about a one or two to complete. Therefore, we are taking the help of existing contractors to meet June 15 deadline, an engineer of the Noida authority said.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath had on April 30 directed all officials to make roads free of potholes by June 15. The Noida authority decided to fix all potholes by April 30 but that did not happen.

The total length of all arterial and smaller roads in Noida is 1074.72km. Of this, 67.19km, comprising internal and main roads, are riddled with potholes. The authority could repair potholes only on 30km of road till May 20.

We have so far completed only 80% of the repair work. We will finish remaining work by June 10, come what may. But we will repair only small potholes and that too on roads that get a heavy volume of traffic. New roads in developing areas will be repaired later, the engineer said.

The Noida authority chief executive officer Amit Mohan Prasad said his team will meet the deadline.

I will ask engineers to float a one-week tender to select a contractor if required. We will meet the June 15 deadline, he said.

Earlier, Noida authority had said it has made a Twitter handle for people to post pictures of potholes along with its location to get them immediately repaired.

The Twitter handle  @noida_authority#Tag a pothole  to is to help the authority meet the June 15 deadline.

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The lawyer of the three women who were allegedly gang-raped at a colony of brick kiln workers in Rabupura in November last year, will meet UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath for the reinvestigation of the case.

Mozam Khan, the counsel, said that the accused, who have been arrested by the police, were never identified by the victims.

Since November, three identification parades have been held and not even one man was identified by the women who were gang-raped and robbed, Khan said.

Read | Greater Noida gangrape: Their ordeal continued even at hospital

The police arrested four men from Farrukhabad in March. They have confessed to having committed the crime, it said.

The matter is already sub-judice and police have already submitted its chargesheet in the court and four were sent to judicial custody. Khan said that since the arrest in March, police have not given details about any recovery.

Initially, police arrested some men in Kannauj. Later, they arrested five men in Tappal, Aligarh. Every time, the sequence of events did not match and the victims could not identify the accused, Khan added.

In March they arrested four men from Farrukhabad and presented a chargesheet in the court without identification. Later we raised an objection and identification parade was held, still none of the women identified them, said Khan.

Khan said the real culprits should not go scot-free. Police has taken this step to save its position from different quarters.

As a counsel, I will meet the CM and brief him about this matter, Khan added.

Meanwhile, Rajveer Singh Chauhan, SHO of Rabupura police station said they have all the evidence to show the involvement of the four accused. We have arrested them after detailed investigations. The proofs have been submitted in the court as well. If men are not identified does not mean they are not criminals, he added.

On the intervening night of November 1 and 2, six armed men allegedly struck an isolated colony of workers of a brick kiln adjacent to the Yamuna Expressway near Jewar. They allegedly tied up the men and boys before raping the women.

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The history of India-U.S. relations is excellent proof that most theories of international relations are wrong. These theories hold that nations develop partnerships based on mutual interests and common values. But if these theories were true, America and India  democratic, English speaking, pluralistic nations challenged by unemployment, terrorism, and growing Chinese ascendency  would be far closer.

But common interests arent enough to drive history. It is telling and ironic that President Trumps first trip abroad was to Saudi Arabia, a country with little in common with the United States compared to India. Yet Trumps decision is understandable. There were real deals to be done in Riyadh  a Rs 100 billion plus in defence sales among others.

The US-Saudi partnership is nearing its 100-year mark and it remains a remarkably stable arrangement. The original pact  US military protection in exchange for stable oil prices  grew to include foreign policy cooperation and Saudi weapons purchases that lower the cost of Americas military industrial base. Its precisely this highly transactional quality that sustains this relationship despite conflicting national interests and a vast cultural divide.

The India-US partnership rests on a much firmer foundation but tangible cooperation remains elusive. Maybe these two factors are interconnected. Might India and Americas natural alliance  in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees words  have produced an assumption that cooperation would emerge organically and therefore deal making was unnecessary? While a strategic partnership has been burgeoning since the 2005 Civil Nuclear deal, neither nation has seen this important goal as an urgent necessity.

Today this partnership has never been more compelling. Chinas economic and military growth is pulling countries including Russia and Pakistan into the Chinese diplomatic orbit. This trend will not reverse in the foreseeable future because of systemic Pakistani and Russian economic weakness. Recognising this shift, the Chinese are far more assertive in their military manoeuvering than in the past.

India can respond by pulling the US closer economically, diplomatically, and militarily, but we still hear critics question Americas trustworthiness. But trust, in the sense of a persons character, is not a reliable concept upon which to make foreign policy decisions. The House of Saud was mistrustful of America in the 1930s and remains so today. Yet, Saudi leaders created conditions that compelled the US to establish a durable partnership.

It doesnt take the cunning of a desert tribal leader for India to construct conditions for an effective partnership with America. First, Indian leaders should do everything they can to embrace Americas Indian diaspora. A century ago only 5,000 people of Indian heritage lived in America, but today they number three million and may be the most economically successful demographic. From Americas best hotels, most prestigious medical centres and prominent law firms to Silicon Valleys tech giants, Indian Americans are a powerful force in the U.S. economy. And today with five Indian American Congressmen and one US Senator, this community is increasingly a political force as well.

Second, nothing is more effective in getting America invested in Indias future than by getting Americans invested in Indias economy. The history of American diplomatic and military policy consistently shows that the U.S. government is more inclined to support foreign countries when the economies of those countries are intertwined with that of the US.

Third, the Indian government need not purchase $110 billion worth of US weapons systems, but it should rebalance it foreign defence acquisitions to encourage American defence companies to become Indias champions in Washington. The political incentive is complemented by the practical reality that America has the best defence technology in the world. American companies also have a proven track record of integrating foreign countries into the global aerospace and defence supply chains (see Turkey, South Korea, and Japan). With Indian private companies becoming defence manufacturers, American private sector companies are their natural partners, but Indian government orders need to be made for these relationships to be commercially viable.

Politicians, and political rhetoric, come and go, but tangible cooperation brings nations together. Its time to see more of this between the US and India.

Benjamin Schwartz is the Director for Defence and Aerospace at the US-India Business Council and former India Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defence

The views expressed are personal
The terrorist attacks in London last weekend have resulted in a strong demand from British PM Theresa May for cyberspace and social media to be regulated. Just after the terrorist attack in Westminster on March 22 this year, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd had said that WhatsApp and other services cannot provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other. Recently, the European Union Justice Commissioner for Human Rights Vera Jourova had alluded to proposing three or four plans in June this year that would require encrypted communications to provide law enforcement access to encrypted data with a swift and reliable response in a mix of voluntary and mandatory options. Just a year ago, the US Justice department wanted Apple to unlock the iPhone of one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino shootings in December 2015 and Apple refused to do so and fought a court order asking its compliance. The impasse was settled with the FBI managing to get into the iPhone with the help of an unidentified third party. Likewise government requests for users data to Google from across the world are quite high in numbers and according to the latest biannual Google transparency report, it received 45,000 government requests for user data worldwide between July and December 2016, with 31,000 of them coming from outside the US.

Clearly a situation has emerged where the balance or imbalance between privacy and security concerns are hitting us right in the face and there is no clear solution. Social media in the last decade has become a sort of force multiplier for terrorists and other violent extremist groups in terms of communication. This has been further complicated with the introduction of encryption for communications over the internet. While encryption is a legitimate tool for ensuring privacy and security for the network and its users, it has also offered opportunities for terrorists and criminals to hide many of their nefarious activities and potential evidence. Their emergence has made terrorists reduce their recourse to code languages and steganography, which allowed at least some form of tracing possibilities. Since April 2016, when Whatsapp incorporated end to end encryption for all messages sent via the app, the matter of finding a workable balance between privacy and security has become the concern of many stakeholders.

The situation is no better in India. Already a public interest litigation case on the Whatsapp privacy policy is being heard by a five- judge constitution bench in the Supreme Court of India and most of the substantial issues are being discussed including the vexed issue of privacy vs security. The department of telecom in its deposition in early April this year mentioned to the apex court its plan to put in place a regulatory mechanism for OTT platforms. In the current situation, OTTs are treated as intermediaries under section 79 of the Information Technology Act (IT Act) 2008 but not under the Telegraph Act 1869 and thus remain out of licensing purview. The thumb rule for intermediaries is due diligence and they have no role in the inception, transmission and reception of any content, to be exempted from any legal liability. On many occasions, OTTs have taken refuge under their stated terms and conditions (that have been harmonised more around the US system) to delay passing on information or specified content. Even the oft repeated plea to keep content on servers located geographically within the country of operation has been met with resistance.

So what are the solutions and is there a workable mechanism in the context of growing legitimate security demands, the march of technology and the past response from OTTs? The scenario for creating a special window for law enforcement or judicial access could be definitely thought of with provision for specific accesses without providing blanket access. Clearly cyberspace has to remain a free medium and not become a surveillance domain to allow all forms of surveillance in the name of security. Meanwhile the EU Justice Commissioners expected points could help the discourse move in a more focused direction.

Subimal Bhattacharjee advises and writes on issues of defence and cyberspace policy.

The views expressed are personal.
The University Grants Commission (UGC) put forth an idea of introducing the choice-based credit system (CBCS) in institutions of higher education in 2008-09, claiming that the new learner-centric approach has distinct advantages over the existing system since it allows students choice of courses or subjects within a programme and much more. In April 2015, the UGC suggested common minimum curriculum and syllabus for undergraduate courses under the CBCS, and instructed universities to restructure their courses and syllabi accordingly. But, not all stakeholders have found merit in this top-down, one-size fits-all approach, even terming it as an attack on the university autonomy.

Be that as it may, Panjab University (PU) has decided to adopt the CBCS for BA, BCom and BSc pass and honours courses from the 2017-18 session in all its 194 affiliated colleges across Punjab and Chandigarh. The plan to transform these traditional, popular undergraduate courses entails an in-depth review and revamp of their curricula and syllabi. Unfortunately, with a little over four weeks left for the new session to commence, colleges are still awaiting information on the proposed changes from the PU. Teachers, staff and college students are too in a quandary over the new system.

PU may violate UGC regulations

It seems that in its effort to introduce the CBCS, PU may violate the UGC (Grievance Redressal) Regulations, 2012, framed to prevent harassment of students during admissions. These UGC regulations require that the prospectus of a university/college must be published as well as posted on its website 60 days before the admission process begins to be easily accessible to students. The prospectus must feature detailed information on the structure of courses offered.

Under the regulations, the PU should have given the information by March 2017 if it planned to move to the CBCS from the coming session. This would have enabled affiliated colleges to release prospectuses following the UGC guidelines. With the academic session about to begin, colleges have been forced to release prospectuses and start the admission process without mentioning the structure or syllabi. Chandigarh colleges and PU itself have also launched portals for centralised admissions. With students visiting colleges to take admission, colleges have no answer to their queries on the CBCS and the choices for courses, subjects and papers.

No time to select courses

Reports suggest that the PU will notify the information only after its academic council meeting on June 21, whereas the last date for submission of forms for centralised admissions is June 26, leaving no time to students to make up their minds on choice of courses and subjects. This seems grossly unjust. Its also infringement of UGC regulations. Most students and colleges would blame the PU for landing them in such a mess.

Then there are reports of inconsistencies between the UGC regulations and the PU proposed CBCS courses, especially with regard to the requirement of 30 hours of contact teaching a week, as per UGC (Minimum Standards of Instruction for the Grant of the First Degree through Formal Education) Regulations, 2003. The planned BCom course has been faulted by commerce and economics teachers. English and Punjabi teachers are perturbed over reduced focus on languages. It is apprehended that there will be more complaints once the syllabi are formally notified.

Challenges before colleges

Major changes, like the ones now being proposed through the CBCS, require farsighted planning and a degree of micromanagement. As colleges are to implement the system, teachers and staff have to be well versed with various aspects of the new scheme so that they can assist their students take informed decisions. Even the whole gamut of new course nomenclatures under the CBCS, like the discipline specific elective courses (DSE), generic elective (GE) courses, ability enhancement courses (AEC), ability enhancement compulsory courses (AECC), skill enhancement courses (SEC) and the fine distinctions amongst them are quite baffling in themselves. With different papers carrying different credits, the CBCS will be a maze difficult to traverse for many a student.

Moreover, colleges have to decide on pass and honours courses/options/papers to be taught, and plan the number of seats per paper according to the faculty and infrastructure available with them. Many are yet to adjust to the new semester system introduced just a couple of years back. Some may now have to switch over from the common 45 minute period to a one hour period because one credit equals one hour of teaching per week in the CBCS.

Not prepared for fundamental change

Further, colleges have to distribute workload to the teachers according to the yet-to-be-notified syllabi, timetables have to be designed as per the new requirements, teachers have to prepare themselves to teach the modified syllabi, new books have to be arranged, laboratories equipped, et al. Usually, this work is completed before the colleges break for summer vacation but nothing has been finalised so far, and the vacation has begun, adding to the confusion all-around.

It is obvious that PU and its affiliated colleges are ill-prepared for this fundamental change. Some stakeholders feel that heavens are not going to fall if the previous system continues for another year because they fear that sudden and shoddy implementation of the CBCS would only cripple what may ultimately be a good initiative.

avanindrachopra@gmail.com

(The writer is associate professor at DAV College, Chandigarh. The views expressed are his personal)
They are called the black spots on City Beautiful. A few years ago, the city had a smattering of them. Today, most of them have been rehabilitated, but the three settlements of leftover shanties with their open drains and filth belie the citys claims of cleanliness. The UT administration had set a deadline of March 2017 for the resettlement of all its slum-dwellers but their ever increasing number is making it an uphill task.

At present, more than 25,000 people live in the three existing slums of the city. Even though Municipal Corporation claims to have deployed a strong force of safai karamcharis for cleaning up Colony No. 4 and Sanjay Colony, a visit to these areas leads to heaps of garbage piled up on sides of the road. Sewage flows in the open and stagnant water is a common sight. No wonder there are so many cases of malaria here. The safai workers deployed by the MC are nowhere in sight.

They also lack basics such as proper shelter, drinking water, and toilets. Most of shanties are cluttered and have little ventilation. The inhabitants fetch water from public taps. The mobile toilets provided by the MC are unusable for want of maintenance.

Shakti Devshali, BJP councillor of ward number 20, says he seldom sees any safai workers in the vicinity even though the MC claims to have deputed 40 workers for Colony No. 4 alone. The major problem is that of open drains, complains Devshali. The MC safai karamcharis, he adds, only clean up the outer roads and dont step inside the colony.

The slum-dwellers complain their condition is going from bad to worse even though every five years the local politicians promise them the moon. The dwellers say even though they are considered a significant vote bank by political leaders, little or no effort is being made to improve their living conditions.

While some MC officials blame the slum dwellers for not keeping their surroundings clean, former Congress Member of Parliament from the city, Pawan Kumar Bansal, feels its the duty of the corporation to ensure the basic level of hygiene for these squatters. The quantity of garbage generated by slums is much less than that generated by us. They dont have the means to spend like us. The solution lies in early rehabilitation and prevention of any further squatting.

Former BJP MP Satyapal Jain says, I think the problem of the colonies is settlement and encroachment. When it comes to living conditions, an officer of the MC or administration should try staying in Colony No 4 for a day to understand the plight of the dwellers. We should collaborate with neighbouring states of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to rehabilitate the dwellers.

The rehabilitation colony of Dhanas was built in accordance with the urban rules of planning. (HT Photo)

REHABILITATION POLICY

According to a biometric survey conducted by the UT administration, there were 18 slums in the city in 2006. The administration claims to have rehabilitated 15 of these settlements in the last ten years. As part of its drive to make the city slum free, the administration assigned Chandigarh House Board the task of constructing dwelling units for slum-dwellers under the Chandigarh Small Flats Scheme 2006. The scheme aimed to build 25,728 small flats to rehabilitate the squatters. A total of 8,448 flats in Dhanas were given to the residents of various colonies in 2013.

The Small Flat Scheme - 2006 was notified on an affordable monthly license fee basis (in the range of Rs. 800) to the slum dwellers. Under the scheme, 23,841 bio-metrically identified families of slum-dwellers are being rehabilitated at eight locations in the city. The slum rehabilitation complexes have been developed in the form of integrated townships with urban planning norms. The total cost of the slum rehabilitation project is around Rs 1300 crore. Fifteen hundred flats have already been handed over to squatters in Mauli Jagran. Now around 4500 flats are being built in Maloya. This project will take nearly a year for completion. It was last year that the administration removed and rehabilitated three slums  Lal Bahadur Shastri Colony in Palsora, Ambedkar Colony in Hallomajra, and Kabaddi colony in Industrial area.

NO ROOM FOR WORKERS

In 1950, slums had begun to sprout in Sector 7, 17, 19, 24, 35 and near Capitol Complex, sites of major construction work at that time. Most of these squatters have been rehabilitated in 23,000 dwelling units in slums in various parts of the city, and they have all the basic necessities. The initial squatters were largely labourers and construction workers building the city. Over time, they spread to Sector 25, Sector 26 Bapu Dham Colony and Industrial Area-1. Then came up Colony number 4 and 5, Janta Colony, Kumhar Colony in Sector 25, Adarsh Colony near Palsora, a labour colony at Industrial Area-2, Rajiv Colony near Sector 38 and Nehru Colony near Sector 53. The other slums that sprouted included Madrasi Colony, Rajiv Colony, and Sanjay Colony. The majority of squatters are from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan. The city saw a huge wave of migrants between 1971 and 2011, most of whom have settled here. They range from domestic workers, vendors, scrap dealers and cobblers to masons and rickshaw-pullers.

Designed in the 1950s by French architect Le Corbusier, the city had not earmarked any place for labourer. Corbusier assumed that they would return to their native place once the work was completed. But that never happened.

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An iron merchant, Jagmeet Pal Khurana, 40, his wife Jasmeet Kaur, 38, son Jashandeep Singh, 18, and daughter Bisman Kaur, 15, were shot at their house in Ludhianas posh Model Town locality on Wednesday night.

Preliminary investigation showed that it was a case of the merchant shooting his family before killing himself with a revolver. Police said a case was registered under Section 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC.

The family stayed on the first floor of house number 55-56 in B block of Model Town Extension.

The merchant shot his wife and son before shooting his daughter and then killing himself, a spot examination by the police revealed.

Bisman is the lone survivor and is admitted to Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), while the remaining three family members died of bullet injuries.

At 8.30am, Dharminder, who used to wash cars owned by the Khuranas, came to the house and went to the first floor to get the keys of the vehicle. He found the door bolted from inside and there was no response to his repeated knocking.

Jagmeet Pal Khurana (HT Photo)

He returned and asked the businessmans mother, Mohinder Kaur, who stays on the ground floor, about the family. The mother expressed surprise that her son and other family members were still asleep.

By that time, their driver Desraj also came to the house and knocked on the door. Dharminder and Desraj peeped into the house and found Bisman on the floor in the lobby with blood splattered around. The police were called and the door was broken open. Bisman was rushed to DMCH, where she is in a serious condition.

The bodies of Jagmeets wife, Jasmeet Kaur, son Jashandeep were found in one room on the first floor, while the merchants body was found in the adjoining room with the revolver.

The bullet hit the head of the merchant, his wife and son in the forehead. Bisman was shot near the neck and stomach. The exact number of bullets fired will be revealed after the post-mortem, police said.

Jagmeet was suffering losses in business and was mentally disturbed about the looming financial crisis. His mother Mohinder Kaur told the police that her son confided in her only last night when he said he is upset over his losses at work.

Police said the entire family had applied for permanent residency in Canada.

As the door was locked from inside, it appears that the businessman shot himself after shooting his wife and two children. Only the daughter has survived. However we are registering an FIR and will be investigating all other angles, said police commissioner RN Dhoke.

PAST INCIDENTS The most affluent city of Punjab, Ludhiana has an ugly side to it as incidents of businessmen committing suicide following a shooting spree are increasingly getting common. Financial crisis is to blame for such murders committed in a fit of rage. August 23, 2016: Fed up with sarcastic remarks of his family over mounting losses, businessman Gurmeet Singh had allegedly murdered his wife when she was asleep with an ice pick at New Shivaji Nagar here and tried to kill his son, too. The boy escaped with an injured shoulder. Gurmeet has told police that he wanted to kill himself after murdering Savinder Kaur (40), but his son, Aashu (18), made him change his mind and agreed to lie that it was the work of three intruders. It failed to fool police and they arrested Gurmeet before booking him for murder. July 29, 2016: Mentally disturbed man shot self in his head with .315 bore rifle in his head after killing his wife, daughter and mother in I-block of Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, a post locality of city near Guru Nanak International Public School. The police said the man was drug addict and short tempered. He lost property case in the court following which he was disturbed. The dead body of Sandeep Singh (45), who was a landlord, was found in his bedroom besides dead body of his wife Aman Kaur (42). The body of his mother Bachchan Kaur (70) was lying in lobby, while his 16 years old daughter Dinaz Kaur (16) was lying in lobby on first floor of the house.

Khurana was a partner in business with KK Garg, who is president of the Induction Furnace Association of North India. The business ties were suspended two months ago due to reasons best known to the family.

Garg, who was present at the spot, said there were no differences between the two and business ties were severed solely due to professional reasons.

Jagmeet Khurana had also applied for a PR for Canada nearly five months ago and was planning to leave the country along with the family.

Harbhajan Singh Dang a neighbour of Khurana who used to meet him regularly, said he looked depressed. Jagmeet used to meet me in the evening. He used to remain quiet of late. He told me recently that he had applied for PR and would shift to Canada said Dang.

Station House Officer of Model Town area, Surinder Chopra said that a pistol of .32 bore was recovered from near the body of Khurana that was used in the incident. It is a licensed pistol owned by Khurana and used in crime said Chopra.

He said that the post-mortem will be conducted on Thursday evening. Khuranas in-laws are based in Patna and scheduled to reach the city.

DAUGHTER CONSCIOUS, DID NOT UTTER A WORD

The lone survivor, daughter Bisman gained consciousness in the hospital in the evening. She was in a state of shock. She did not utter a word and doctors were examining her at the time of filing this report.
A Nigerian national was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Chandigarh Zonal Unit for drug trafficking.

NCB team arrested him, with 415 gram Heroin, near Mela Ground in Sector 17 on late Wednesday evening.

The accused is identified as Eze Uchenna James from New Delhi.

NCB said that the accused had kept contraband inside brown colour small bag.

James was visiting Chandigarh for the third time to supply Heroin. His drug operations were spread around Chandigarh, Pinjore and Panchkula.

Preliminary investigations also revealed that his friend, Refel, was also arrested by Sirsa Police, Haryana in a drug trafficking.
The humble momo from the north-east has won many a Punjabi heart through the stomach. So, its unlikely that Jammu BJP legislator Ramesh Aroras call to ban the dumplings for containing carcinogenic taste enhancer Ajinomoto will curry favour with momo lovers in Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali.

Momos, the steamed dumplings usually filled with chicken, have been reinvented to suit the Punjabi palate so much so that today there are more than 15 varieties to choose from. They include the popular paneer momos, tandoori momos, cheese momos, keema momos, and fried momos. There are wheat momos for the health conscious and chocolate momos for those with a sweet tooth.

But Arora, a member of the J&K legislative council, has been seeking a ban on the sale of momos for five months, saying they are the root cause of life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine.

Watch Video: Do momos have MSG?

AGREE TO DISAGREE

Momos feel like food family. Theres no question of banning it, says Bhawni Trivedi, 19, a student of journalism. I wonder how the original momo tastes after sampling so many alternatives, she says.

Mohan Lal, who owns a small stall in Chandigarhs Sector 35, says, Almost all dishes made in the market need a pinch of Ajinomoto to enhance their flavour. The plea should be to minimise their use not ban them.

Agreeing with him, Palak Kaushal, 20, a law student of Chandigarh, says, You can discourage consumption not ban momos.

Ishita Seth, 20, a momo lover and journalism student, says, The government does not get to choose what we eat. All it needs to do is create awareness. What we consume is our choice.

People like the variety this dish offers, says the owner of an eating stall in Sector 19, Chandigarh. We dont use Ajinomoto when momos are made on a large scale. Banning it is not a good idea, he says.

Im a momo lover but I think Ajinomoto is harmful if consumed regularly. Anything within limits is fine. says Ayushee Arora, 20, a student of humanities in Chandigarh.

All in all, the plea for a ban on the momo hasnt gone down well with Chandigarhians. Bring out an alternative, they say, why eliminate something that tickles the taste buds beyond measure?
Miscreants desecrated a statue of social reformer Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar at Dhanbad in Jharkhand on Thursday, drawing protests from Dalit groups and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) activists.

The culprits tied a dirty scarf around the statues head, hung a plastic bag from its hand and placed the flags of three political parties  the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and the Samajwadi Party  around it.

This is the second instance of the statue, located near DRM Building, being desecrated in the last six months. Miscreants had broken its arm on March 16.

Police removed the offending items from the statue as soon as the incident came to light, but photographs of the desecration had already gone viral on the Internet by then. Angry protesters hit the streets to condemn the manner in which Ambedkar  the father of the Indian constitution  was targeted. BSP activists and Dalit groups burnt Prime Minister Narendra Modi in effigy, holding him responsible for the growing bias against Dalits in the country.

BSP district president Madan Mohan Ram said the administration had failed to safeguard the statues sanctity despite repeated incidents of the kind. When the statue was defaced on March 16, they announced that CCTV cameras would be installed to prevent such incidents from recurring. The cameras have not been installed until now, he added.

He also pointed out that no suspects have been identified even three months after the previous incident.

The BSP has decided to hold a purification ceremony for the statue on June 10. Hundred litres of milk will be used for the purpose, Ram said.

The incident was also condemned by other political parties. Describing the statue desecration as an attempt to spread caste hatred, BJP district spokesperson M Parsarthi said: Action needs to be taken against those behind this shameful act.

JMM district president Ramesh Tuddu also raised a similar demand.
The most exciting factor about superstar Rajinikanths Kaala has to be the films promising cast. Director Ranjiths choice of actors so far has made everybody take notice of the film and at the same time look forward to the movie with a sense of anticipation. The biggest attraction has to be the inclusion of actor Nana Patekar who, according to trusted sources, plays the main antagonist. He will be seen playing a politician and is believed to take Rajinikanth head on.

Since the film will be predominantly shot against the backdrop of Mumbai, the makers decided to simultaneously shoot the film in Hindi. If not every scene, those featuring Rajinikanth and some key supporting cast will be shot in Hindi. Unlike Kabali, the film wont be dubbed in Hindi, and Rajinikanth is expected to mouth his lines in Hindi and in Marathi in some key junctures.

Nana Patekar will play the villain in Rajinikanths Kaala.

Dhanush is bankrolling the project and there are rumours that he might play the younger version of his father-in-law in the film which will shine the spotlight on the lives of oppressed Tamils in Mumbai. With the films shooting going at brisk pace, the makers are finding it extremely difficult to avoid leaks, especially pictures from the sets. The title track of Kaala, which has music by Santhosh Narayanan, has also mysteriously surfaced online.

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Actor Nicolas Cage turned down a role in the Netflix series Master of None, created by actor-comic Aziz Ansari.

Ansari revealed that he, along with co-creator Alan Yang, contacted Cage to do a cameo in the second season of the show, reported The Independent.

I think we did go out to Cage and quickly received a ... No, IndieWire quoted Ansari as stating at an LA screening earlier this week.

The actor is the centre of one of season twos most memorable jokes - hes the star of the fake movie Death Castle - which features in the standout episode New York, I Love You.

They wanted Cage to lend his voice to the film which can be heard off-screen in the episodes final scene. But Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Andy Samberg voiced Cage instead.

Emma Watson and Fast & Furious actor Tyrese Gibson feature in the fake movie within the episode.

The episode is notable for featuring a completely silent segment starring two deaf characters using only sign language.

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The Islamic State has killed two Chinese citizens it kidnapped from Quetta city of southwest Pakistan last month, the militant groups Amaq agency said on Thursday.

Armed men pretending to be policemen kidnapped the Chinese language teachers  a man and a woman  from the upmarket Jinnah Town area of Quetta on May 24.

Islamic State fighters kill two Chinese people they had been holding in Balochistan province, southwest Pakistan, Amaq said. The Chinese nationals were being held in Mastung district, the same area where the Pakistan Army conducted an operation against the IS during June 1-3.

A third Chinese national managed to evade the kidnappers while a passerby was shot in the foot when he tried to intervene.

In an effort to trace the kidnapped Chinese nationals, the Pakistan Army conducted an operation in Mastung area against the IS and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi, a banned terror group that has close links with the IS.

The Pakistan Army said on Thursday it had dismantled IS infrastructure in Balochistan and killed 12 terrorists, including two suicide bombers, during the operation conducted on actionable intelligence.

The successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect ISIS organised infrastructure in Balochistan (province of) Pakistan, also foiled terrorist incidents in Pakistan, an army statement said.

The statement was silent on the fate of the kidnapped Chinese nationals.

China condemned the kidnapping, saying it attaches high importance to the safety of Chinese citizens overseas and the state-run media had said the abduction highlights risks associated with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

A large number of Chinese nationals, most of them associated with projects that are part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, are based in Quetta and other parts of Balochistan, including Gwadar port.

In November last year, two Chinese engineers were killed by unidentified assailants in Pasni district of Balochistan. Two more Chinese engineers were killed in a roadside blast in Hub district last September.

(With inputs from agencies)
Pan-Arab satellite network Al Jazeera is combatting a large-scale cyber attack on its media platform, but all its entities remain operational, a company source said on Thursday.

There were attempts made on the cyber security of Al Jazeera but we are combatting them and currently all our entities are operational, said a senior employee who declined to be named.

Al Jazeera is the flagship broadcaster for Qatar, which is in a stand-off with fellow Arab states which accuse it of ties to terrorism, in a row that is endangering stability in the region.

Al Jazeeras English- and Arabic-language channels and its websites appeared to be still functioning on Thursday after the network tweeted it was under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms.

A later tweet said Doha-based media platforms were undergoing continual hacking attempts.

It was the third reported hack of Qatari organisations in the last 14 months.

Qatar said last month its state news agency had been hacked and false statements attributed to the countrys ruler posted, helping ignite the current rift with other Arab states.

Last April Qatar National Bank, the largest lender in the Middle East and Africa by assets, suffered a security breach and data was posted online revealing the names and passwords of a large number of customers.
China is willing to cooperate with India in space programmes but this depends on the governments deciding the extent of collaboration, a top Chinese aerospace scientist has said, playing down the so-called space race between the two countries.

We are very willing to cooperate with India in the field of aerospace, said Sun Weigang, chief engineer of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

Sun spoke to Hindustan Times at the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) 2017 in Beijing after delivering a keynote talk on The Engineering Plan of Chinas Lunar Exploration Program Phase III.

India, despite its standing as an emerging player in the sector, was the notable absentee at the three-day conference that brought together space engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, educators, agency representatives and policy-makers from dozens of countries.

Several international delegates expressed surprise at India not being represented at the meet.

Sun didn't comment on Indias absence but said top Indian and Chinese officials were in contact over possible collaborative projects. The directors of space agencies from both sides have met and have discussed about cooperation and collaboration, he said.

He said both countries should invest in space programmes. If the two governments were willing, then the possible areas of cooperation is very wide, he added.

It emerged last year that India and China were cooperating on the proposed BRICS Constellation of satellites.

Media reports on a space summit in New Delhi last year quoted Wu Yan Hua, deputy administrator of the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) as saying that China was in dialogue with India on the BRICS Constellation for disaster risk reduction.

Sun was among the top speakers at GLEX, co-organised by the International Astronautical Federation and the Chinese Society of Astronautics.

Despite Indias competitive space programme, including its successful Mars orbiter project, China is considered to have a more advanced programme with its six manned space missions to date.

Valanathan Munsami, chief executive officer of the South African National Space Agency, said it was surprising that India wasnt present at the conference.

Speaking of collaborating with the Indian Space Research Organisation, Munsami said talks were ongoing about launching a joint science mission by South Africa, Brazil and India. We would bring in the satellite bus, Brazil would bring in the instruments and India would launch it, he said.
Fired FBI director James Comey told a US senate committee at a much anticipated public hearing on Thursday that President Donald Trump and others in the White House had lied about the reasons for his firing and had sought to defame him and the investigating agency he had then headed.

But Comey was very clear, and repeatedly so in oral remarks and written testimony released on Wednesday, that Trump was never under investigation personally, as the president has stated multiple times. Not before, or, Comey added, at the time of his stunning and abrupt dismissal on May 9.

Comey confirmed a lot of the previously known details about his conversations with the president, and gave new details but made few, if any, major revelations in his oral testimony till the writing of this report, or in the written testimony he had submitted to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier, speaking publicly for the first time since his firing, the circumstances leading up to it and his interactions with Trump.

In his opening oral remarks Comey said although the law required no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader.

Those were lies, plain and simple, he added.

Asked by a senator why, he thought, he was fired, Comey said, I dont know for sure. I take the presidents word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation. He apparently felt it created pressure on him he wanted to relieve. I take him at his word.

He added: My judgment (is) that I was fired because of Russia investigationto change way investigation is being conducted. That is a big deal because of nature of FBI, which must not be subject of political consideration.

In response to questions about his memos  the contemporaneous written notes he kept of all his one-on-one conversations with Trump (nine in all, three face-to-face meetings and six phone conversations)  the former FBI director reflected deep distrust of the president.

The nature of Trump  I have never experienced this before, he said. I created records after each of our nine conversationsif not, I did it for nearly all. I knew there might come a day when I would need a record to defend myself and FBIs integrity and independence. Circumstances, subject matter, particular person at issue.

And, he added, he indirectly leaked some of the memos to trigger the naming of a special counsel. The appointment of former FBI director Robert Muller was announced shortly after by the department of justice as special counsel to take over the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and alleged collusion by Trump campaign aides.

About the presidents tweet about tapes of his conversations with Comey, the former FBI director said, in a line that went viral on social media, Ive seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes. And later, he added, he would like them to be released.

The former FBI director also said he took the presidents request on Michael Flynn  to let go off the probe  as a direction.

The president, who was reported to be following the testimony, had not responded. But Marc Kasowitz, who is leading the presidents defense in the Russia probe from outside the White House, said in a statement on Wednesday, in response to Comeys written opening remarks, the president was pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russia probe.

The president feels completely and totally vindicated.

But could not have been about Comeys full written remarks because he had disputed the presidents account of their interactions  their dinner meeting, on January 27, was not sought by Comey as Trump had indicated; and two, Comey did not want to know if Trump wanted him to continue as FBI director. Trump turned it into a job interview pressing him for his loyalty.

Much of Comeys oral and written testimony confirmed previously known details, such as his conversation with the president about Michael Flynn, just the day after Trump fired his first NSA for misleading the White House about his interactions with Russians. The president had asked the FBI director to let this go, referring to FBIs Flynn probe.

That confirms earlier reporting about the conversation that took place in the Oval Office on February 14. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Comey wrote using notes he kept of all his conversations with the president. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

Comey began keeping notes of interactions with Trump after their first meeting on January 6 when he, along with other intelligence chiefs, met the then president-elect in Trump Tower to brief him on the Russia probe and some salacious and unverified personal information that had come up.

It was probably in reference to this salacious and unverified information that was published by some US media outlets that Trump sought to reassure Comey in a phone call in March, as described by the former FBI director: He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud.

This was, Comey noted, the last of his nine interactions with the president in the four months he served in his administration  three face-to-face meetings and six phone calls  which the former FBI director felt the need, for some reason, to compare to just two he had with President Barack Obama, the man who appointed him, and with no phone calls.
Britons go to the polls on Thursday in the shadow of terrorism, in an election Prime Minister Theresa May once expected to win easily but has proved increasingly hard to predict.

When May called the snap vote in April, presenting herself as the strong leader to take Britain into Brexit talks, opinion poll ratings for the premier and her centre-right Conservative party were sky high.

But Islamist attacks in London and Manchester have put her under pressure over her six years as interior minister, while campaign missteps have dented her reputation as a safe pair of hands.

Meanwhile opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner deemed unelectable by a majority of his own lawmakers, has run an energetic campaign promising change and an end to austerity.

While May has been touring target seats around the country, delivering slogan-heavy speeches to small groups of hand-picked activists, Corbyn has drawn large crowds to open-air rallies.

Polling experts -- many of whom failed to predict the referendum vote to leave the European Union last year -- are now wary of calling the outcome.

While most still expect a Conservative victory, predictions of the margin vary widely, and one shock forecast model even predicted May could lose her majority of 17 in the 650-seat House of Commons.

Id still put my money on a comfortable Tory win -- but who knows? said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.

Speaking to reporters on her plane during a final burst of campaigning on Wednesday, May insisted she had no regrets about calling the vote three years early.

Ive enjoyed the campaign, she said. There is a very clear choice for people when they come to vote, between the coalition of chaos of Jeremy Corbyn, or the strong and stable leadership with me and my team.

Asked what would constitute success, the 60-year-old vicars daughter said: I never predict election results.

Corbyn, a 68-year-old leftwinger who has never held ministerial office and defied the odds to win the Labour leadership two years ago, urged supporters in Glasgow to think big.

Wouldnt it be great if on Friday we woke up to... a Labour government that will be a government for all of our communities across the whole of the country, to deliver that social justice that we all crave? he said.

More for us

The election is Mays first since taking office after Britons voted by 52% to leave the European Union, plunging their country into an uncertain future.

May has accused Corbyn of being unprepared for negotiations set to begin on June 19, and unwilling to curb mass migration -- a key driver of the Brexit vote.

But her governments record on cutting funding for health and education have also featured strongly in the campaign, to the benefit of Labour.

Jeremy Corbyn just seems more for us, said 38-year-old Debbie Worthy, a mother-of-two in Middlesbrough, northern England.

The Conservatives were also damaged by a manifesto plan for elderly care that would see many people pay more.

Then came the suicide bombing at a Manchester concert on May 22, which killed 22 people including seven children, followed by Saturdays knife and van attack in London, which left eight dead.

Campaigning was twice suspended in the aftermath of the attacks, which May blamed on evil Islamist ideology.

The Conservatives have always been strong on defence and security, and they have sought to exploit Corbyns anti-nuclear stance and his alleged past support for Irish paramilitaries.

Theyre more experienced -- Jeremy Corbyn cant be trusted on security, said Talib Hussain, 46, a postmaster from Bradford in the northwest of England.

But May also faced uncomfortable questions over cuts to police numbers during her time as interior minister, amid accusations that the attackers in Manchester and London Bridge had slipped through the intelligence net.

Pretty solid win

Security on voting day was reviewed following the London attack, with the citys Metropolitan Police force implementing a specialist and highly flexible operation which it said could be deployed as needed.

Polls are open between 7am (0600 GMT) and 10pm.

An exit poll will give an indication of the outcome, although final results will not emerge until early Friday.

When people ask me for a prediction, I have to say I know that I dont know, veteran BBC pollster David Butler said.

Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at the University of London, predicted that May would increase her parliamentary majority by 25 seats -- not as much as she had hoped, but still a pretty solid win.

A final poll by YouGov on Wednesday put the Conservatives seven points ahead of Labour, while ICM gave Mays party a 12-point lead over its rivals.

Such predictions stand in stark contrast to a Monday poll by Survation, which gave a narrow one-point gap.

As the Conservatives and Labour trade blows, the smaller pro-European Liberal Democrats and the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party (UKIP) have failed to gain much traction.

However the Scottish National Party, which has called for a new independence vote after Brexit, again looks set to dominate north of the English border.
A 46-year-old Indian-American lawyer has been killed in the US after being hit by a train at a crossing in California.

Kirtee Kapoor, who was born in Bangalore, was a partner in the law firm Davis Polk, The Mercury News reported.

Kapoor, who lived in Menlo Park city, was killed by a southbound Caltrain on Monday at the Watkins Avenue crossing in Atherton town, the San Mateo County Coroners office said.

Thomas McGovern, fellow at the coroners office, said the death is still being investigated.

Kapoor is survived by his wife and daughter, the report said.

According to the website legallyindia.com, Kapoor inspired a generation of Indian lawyers who went abroad.

It said he was the head of the India group at the firm Davis Polk, one of the first of a new generation of Indian- trained lawyers to make partner at top international firms.

Kapoor earned an LL.B. from the University of Delhi, a BCL from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and earned an LLM at New York University School of Law, a statement on the Davis Polk website said.

Kirtee joined Davis Polks New York office as an associate in 1999 and over the next 18 years spent time in several of our offices advising clients on significant M&A matters and in investments and other transactions around the world. He was elected to the partnership in 2007 and moved to Hong Kong later that year. In 2015, he joined our Northern California office, the Davis Polk statement said.

Kirtee was a truly wonderful man. His optimism, warmth, honesty and wisdom were inspiring. He will be remembered as a great partner of the firm, a beloved colleague and adviser, and a steadfast friend to so many, it said.
NASA has chosen 12 new astronauts, including an Indian American, from a record number of over 18,000 applicants, who will be trained for missions into Earth orbit and to deep space.

The seven men and five women comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades.

It was selected from a record 18,300 applicants -- more than NASA has ever had during an open astronaut call.

Lt Col Raja Grinder Chari, 39, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a Masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School. His father is from India.

US Vice-President Mike Pence speaks at an event where NASA introduced 12 new astronaut candidates, including Indian American Raji Chari (front row, 4th from left) at NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. (REUTERS)

To get picked, people had to meet some physical requirements as well as certain education and experience criteria -- such as having a bachelors degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

But its clear that this new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills that NASA requires.

After completing two years of training, the new astronaut candidates could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on NASAs new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

Vice-President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly, in Houston, Texas to announce the new astronaut candidates, or ascans.

NASAs 12 new astronauts pose for a gropu photo at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. (AP)

The event was set inside the Johnson Space Centers Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASAs Orion spacecraft, which the new astronauts might fly in the coming years on missions beyond low Earth orbit.

Pence said President Donald Trump was firmly committed to NASAs mission in space and that America will lead the way in space once again.

He said NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to make history -- even though the Presidents budget request cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency.

He also mentioned that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.

While delivering the speech, Pence touted the merits of the new astronaut class.

The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day, he said.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot.

Lt Kayla Sax Barron, 29, is a US Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the US Navys first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old is a geobiologist who had done research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Her research was focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old department is the head for the US Navys Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot is based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines hails from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. He attended the Air Force Test Pilot School for his Masters degree in flight test engineering. He has served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

Warren Woody Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley.

Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old Navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, is a quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral OHara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home.

Francisco Rubio, is a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Armys 10th Special Forces Group. He earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASAs Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. She has worked at NASAs Ames Research Center in northern California.
Iran said on Thursday that the five Iranians who killed 17 people in twin attacks in Tehran were Islamic State members who had been to the groups strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

The attacks on Wednesday at Tehrans parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wounded more than 50 people and were the first claimed by IS in Iran.

The five known terrorists...after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqqa, the intelligence ministry said in a statement.

It suggested there were only five attackers rather than the six originally reported. The ministry released their photographs and first names, and said they were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of high-ranking Daesh commander Abu Aisha intending to carry out terrorist operations in religious cities.

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee Iran, the statement said. It was not clear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of Wednesdays attacks.

Terrorist network

The attackers were armed with rifles and pistols and at least two blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police said a further five people were arrested around Khomeinis shrine on suspicion of involvement.

In the midst of the unfolding attacks, the intelligence ministry said a third team had been stopped before the attacks started, but no further details have since been given.

The network of this terrorist group has been identified and some of its members have been arrested, intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi said.

We still cannot judge that Saudi Arabia has had a role in this terrorist incident, he added.

Irans elite Revolutionary Guards have pointed the finger at regional rival Saudi Arabia  a close US ally  which Iran accuses of funding extremism and groups including IS.

Map Tehran locating the Parliament and Ruhollah Khomeini's mausoleum. (AFP)

IS has threatened to step up recruitment within Iran, releasing its first Persian-language video in March in which it threatened to conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before.

The Sunni jihadis of IS consider Shia Iran to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.

Counter-productive

Iran denounced Donald Trumps reaction to the attacks as repugnant after the US president said the nation was reaping what it sowed. Trump said the US would grieve and pray for the victims, but added: We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

That was condemned by foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who tweeted: Repugnant WH (White House) statement...as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.

Trumps comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their governments offers of support and the candlelight vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States.

Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while theyre down. Classy, tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

Trump has long accused Iran of backing terrorism and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.

Trumps statement is counter-productive and further narrows the opportunity for engagement between the US and Iran on countering a common enemy, said Ellie Geranmayeh, senior fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Even as Washington expressed its condolences on Wednesday, the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran, partly for what the bill described as the Iranian regimes support for acts of international terrorism.

Sunni Gulf Arab states are in the midst of a major diplomatic crisis after Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with Qatar on Monday over claims it supports extremism and has fewer tensions with Iran.

Iranian leaders sought to play down the attacks, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: These firecrackers that happened today will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people.
Former FBI director James Comey accused President Donald Trump on Thursday of firing him to try to undermine its investigation into possible collusion by his campaign team with Russias alleged efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

In the most eagerly anticipated US congressional hearing in years, Comey told lawmakers the Trump administration had lied and defamed him and the Federal Bureau of Investigation after the president dismissed him on May 9.

During more than two hours of testimony, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee he believed Trump had directed him in February to drop an FBI probe into the Republican presidents former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the broader Russia investigation.

Sitting alone at a small table facing a bank of senators who fired question after question, Comey gave short, deliberative answers. He painted a picture of an overbearing president who he did not trust and who pressured him to stop the FBI Flynn probe.

Comey, however, did not make any major new revelations about any links between Trump or his associates and Russia, an issue that has dogged the presidents first months in office and distracted from his policy goals such as overhauling the US healthcare system and making tax cuts.

Nevertheless, the Russia matter likely will continue to overshadow Trumps presidency, especially as the FBI probe has already ensnared not only Flynn but also Trumps son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. Attorney general Jeff Sessions has had to recuse himself from the investigation.

After Trump fired Comey, the administration gave differing reasons for his dismissal. Trump later contradicted his own staff and acknowledged on May 11 he fired Comey because of the Russia matter.

Asked why he thought Trump fired him, Comey said he did not know for sure. But he added: Again, I take the Presidents words. I know I was fired because of something about the way I was conducting the Russia investigation was in some way putting pressure on him, in some way irritating him, and he decided to fire me because of that.

Comey would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice, but added it would be up to special counsel Robert Mueller, who is now investigating the Russia allegations, to sort that out.

I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, Comey testified.

Trump critics say any efforts by the president to hinder an FBI probe could amount to obstruction of justice. Such an offence potentially could lead to Trump being impeached by Congress, although his fellow Republicans who control the Senate and House of Representatives have shown little appetite for such a move.

Comeys accusations could further mire Trumps administration in legal difficulties. Mueller and several congressional committees are investigating what US intelligence agencies have concluded was effort by Russia to help Trump win the election by discrediting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton through the hacking and disclosure of damaging emails and other steps.

Russia has denied such interference. The White House as denied any collusion with Moscow.

From Capitol Hill to San Franciscos Castro district, Comeys appearance attracted television watch parties beckoning politics buffs to taverns, restaurants and living rooms to view an event some likened to the Super Bowl of Washington.

Under siege

In a speech to supporters across town, Trump vowed to fight on. Were under siege ... but we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever, he said.

We know how to fight and we will never give up, Trump added.

Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said Comeys testimony proved the president was not under any investigation and there is no evidence a single vote was changed as a result of Russian interference in last years election.

Kasowitz denied Trump ever told Comey he needed and expected his loyalty, as Comey said, and also slammed the former FBI chief for saying he leaked details of a conversation with the president. Kasowitz added that we will leave it the appropriate authorities to determine whether Comeys leak should be investigated along with all those others being investigated.

Comey said Trumps administration had defamed him in comments made after his firing by saying that the FBI was in disarray and that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple, Comey said.

Comey said he felt he needed to get his account of his conversations with Trump in the public sphere in the hope it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel, which later occurred. Comey said he showed copies of his memo memorializing his talks with Trump to people outside the Justice Department and asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter.

Comey said he shared the memo with a professor at Columbia Law School, a reference to Daniel Richman, who confirmed to Reuters he was the one Comey referred to in his testimony.

Comey said he did not know if there are tapes of his conversations with Trump but said if so they should be made public.

Lordy, I hope there are tapes, Comey said.

Trumps fellow Republicans on the committee questioned Comey intently but did not attack his integrity or try to treat him roughly, as a witness making accusations against a sitting Republican president might expect.

Comey testified he kept notes after meeting with Trump because I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, and so I thought it really important to document.

US stocks closed slightly higher as the market reacted little to Comeys testimony, viewing his testimony alone as unlikely to mark the end of Trumps presidency.

Comey said Trump did not attempt to get him to drop the overall Russia investigation, just the part of if that related to Flynn, who the president fired in February for misleading vice-president Mike Pence about the extent of his conversations last year with Russias ambassador to the United States.

Republican senator Marco Rubio asked Comey whether he perceived the presidents request to let the Flynn matter go as an order given Trumps position as President, the setting and the circumstances surrounding the conversation.

Yes, Comey replied.

Laura Donohue, a Georgetown University Law Center professor, said if Trump fired Comey to change the course of the Russia investigation, that would constitute obstruction of justice.

Both the conversation between Trump and Comey about Flynn and the firing itself were obstructive acts, she said. He wanted to scuttle the investigation -- it is hard to see it any other way, she said.

Trump has previously called Comey a showboat and a grandstander and said he was thinking of this Russia thing in dismissing him.

.
Former FBI chief James Comey began his address at the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the most widely anticipated US congressional hearing in years, on Thursday. Photographers crowded around Comey as he took his seat at the witness table alone at the start of the hearing in a room on Capitol Hill.

The US President fired Comey in May. At the time, Comey was leading an investigation into Russias election meddling and ties with the Trump campaign.

Trump planned to watch the hearing with his outside counsel Marc Kasowitz and other advisers in a dining room in the White House, a source familiar with the plan said.

The outcome could have significant repercussions for Trumps presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and several congressional committees investigate alleged Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether Trumps campaign colluded with this. Russia has denied such interference and the White House has denied any collusion.

Here are the live updates:

11.56pm:

Trump lawyer denies the president pressured Comey for loyalty. Read his entire statement: https://t.co/IDXM2WOjfV  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 8, 2017

11.37pm: Trumps attorney attacks Comey for leaking privileged communications with the US president to media.

11.36pm: In his statement, Kasowitz says Trump never directed or suggested Comey stop investigating anyone, including Michael Flynn. Trumps attorney says Comeys hearing established Trump was not being investigated for colluding or attempting to obstruct FBI probe.

11.34pm: Donald Trumps lawyer Marc Kasowitz addresses press conference and says the US president never asked Comey for loyalty.

11.21pm: As Comeys testimony ends, chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee says theres more work ahead in the committees investigation. According to AP, Senator Richard Burr says the committee plans to get together next week with the special counsel whos leading an investigation into Russian activities during the 2016 US presidential election.

11.06pm:

Comey said he took Trumps hope that investigation into former NSA Michael Flynn would end as a directive.

VIDEO: James Comey said he took Trump's "hope" that Flynn investigation would end as a directive. https://t.co/Y9bMFD5VsV pic.twitter.com/NKjGVQ2n2b  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 8, 2017

11.03pm: Comey said he was honestly concerned he (Trump) might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document.

10.48pm: Comey said there were very disturbing requests by Trump that he drop an investigation into a former national security advisors ties to Russia.

I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, he said before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

10.47pm: US stocks were higher in early afternoon trading on Thursday after former Comeys testimony was seen by investors as having no smoking gun that could affect Donald Trumps presidency. Investors were concerned that any major revelation by Comey could dampen already flagging momentum for Trumps agenda of lower taxes and lax regulations.

Bets that Trump can implement his agenda are partly behind a rally that has taken stock indexes to record highs.

10.25pm: Republican senator Burr says after Comey hearing this is nowhere near the end of our investigation.

10.03pm: White House says Trump takes elections seriously, will do everything to ensure that they will be conducted without interference from anyone.

10.02pm: White House, on sanctions on Russia, says administration is committed to the existing sanctions until Ukraine crisis resolved.

10.01pm: The former FDI director says he believes he was fired to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

9.59pm: Comey says he was fired because something about the way he was conducting Russia investigation was pressuring, irritating Trump.

9.49pm: White House says Trump is pleased that Comey has confirmed he is not under investigation in any Russia probe

9.45pm: White House, asked about Comeys testimony that he was concerned Trump would lie, says the President is not a liar.

9.44pm: Comey, asked if US President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, says, I dont know. Thats Bob Muellers job to sort that out.

9.42pm:

VIDEO: James Comey describes how he broke a date with his wife to have his now-infamous dinner with President Trump https://t.co/8Fu7wHIfpp pic.twitter.com/FyIQZo9deO  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 8, 2017

9.40pm: US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about US President Donald Trumps interactions with former FBI Director James Comey, said Trump was new at this and probably not steeped in FBI independence from the White House. Im not saying its an acceptable excuse. Its just my observation.

9.35pm: The former FBI chief says will not say if he believes Trump colluded with Russia in open hearing.

9.29pm: Comey says if Trump has tapes, he urges him to release all their conversations, says Im good with it.

9.26pm: US President Donald Trumps personal attorney to make a statement following James Comeys testimony.

9.25pm: There have been many, many news stories about Russia probe that are just dead wrong, says Comey

9.16pm: The former FBI director says he asked a friend to leak memo of conversations with Trump to spark a special counsel appointment.

9.15pm: Comey says he never initiated communication with President Trump.

9.11pm: President Donald Trump disputes two key points in Comeys testimony, says a source familiar with Trumps thinking. The points are -- that Trump asked Comey to let go of the probe into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and said Trump asked for his loyalty.

9pm: US Presidents son Donald Trump Jr. attacks Comey on Twitter.

3/3 Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

8.59pm: Comey says he perceived Trumps request to drop Flynn probe as an order.

8.58pm: Comey says FBI colleagues were as shocked and troubled as he was by Trumps request to drop Flynn probe.

8.43pm: Fired FBI director James Comey describes US President Donald Trumps requests to stop probing the Russia ties of a former national security advisor as very disturbing.

8.40pm: Comey says Trump misguided the American public when he said the FBI was in disarray last month after his firing. Those were lies, plain and simple.

8.35pm: Comey says he thought during a January dinner with President Trump that the president was looking to get something in exchange for allowing him to stay on as FBI director.

8.34pm: President Donald Trump will dispute key parts of former FBI Director James Comeys testimony, reports AP quoting a source close to the US Presidents legal team.

8.32pm: I didnt immediately reject Trump request to drop Flynn probe because I was so stunned ... I just took it in, says Comey during Senate Intelligence committee testimony.

8.31pm: Comey says he took notes on Trump meetings because he feared the president would lie.

VIDEO: James Comey says he took notes on Trump meetings because he feared the president would "lie." https://t.co/FhXODf5ntw pic.twitter.com/T1W14aCgxH  AP Politics (@AP_Politics) June 8, 2017

8.30pm: Comey, on Trumps tweet about potential recordings of their conversation: Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

8.28pm: Shifting explanations of my firing confused and concerned me: Comey

8.25pm: James Comey says Donald Trump was not under FBI investigation while he was director.

8.22pm: The former FBI director says he was concerned President Trump would lie about the nature of his first conversation with him

8.22pm: Comey says the Trump administration spread lies and defamed him and the FBI.

8.20pm: The former FBI director says he believed Trump was looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job.

8.20pm: Comey says he created memo on January meeting with Trump because I was honestly concerned that he might lie.

8.19pm: Comey says Trump did not ask him to stop Russia investigation.

8.15pm: Have no doubt Russia interfered with US election, says ex-FBI director James Comey in testimony new messages.
Myanmars military said on Thursday it has found the wreckage of a plane in the Andaman Sea that went missing with around 120 people on board, along with several bodies.

We have found the plane and some dead bodies this morning about 8.25 am (0155 GMT), a spokesman from the militarys information team told AFP.

The countrys Commander in Chief confirmed in a Facebook post that the wreckage had been found off the coast of Launglon, in southern Myanmar, by a navy search team on Thursday morning.

Nine navy ships and three air force planes had been dispatched to search for the aircraft, which disappeared on Wednesday as it flew from the southern city of Myeik to Yangon.

There was conflicting information on the number of people on board, but in the latest update the military said the plane was carrying a total of 122 people.

More than half of the passengers were from military families, including 15 children, along with 35 soldiers and 14 crew members, the army chiefs office said in a statement.

Some were on their way for medical checkups and to attend school, said a spokesman from the militarys information team.

It is monsoon season in Myanmar but there were no reports of stormy weather in the area at the time.

Sources told AFP that debris had been found in the sea off the coastal town of Dawei, which lies an hours flight southeast of Yangon.

The commander-in-chiefs office said the plane lost contact with air traffic control at 1:35 pm (07:05 GMT) on Wednesday, about half an hour after takeoff.

The military named the captain of the Chinese-made Y-8F-200 four-engine turboprop as Lieutenant Colonel Nyein Chan, who it said had more than 3,000 hours of flying experience.

The plane was bought in March 2016 and had a total of 809 flying hours.

Myanmars military fleet has a chequered recent history of plane crashes.

A five-strong crew died when an air force plane burst into flames soon after taking off from the capital Naypyidaw in February last year.

Three army officers were also killed in June when their Mi-2 helicopter crashed into a hillside and burst into flames in south-central Bago.
Qatar-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera said Thursday that it was under a widescale cyber attack which had targeted all systems, according to a statement released on social media by the broadcaster.

BREAKING: Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms. More soon: https://t.co/hGzrK2N8WC pic.twitter.com/3XLP5mDkzd  Al Jazeera News (@AJENews) June 8, 2017

The attack was also confirmed by a source at Al-Jazeera, who said the broadcaster was attempting to repel the hack. An attempt has been made, and we are trying to battle it, said the source.

Following the initial reports of a cyber attack, some viewers in the region said they could no longer receive Al-Jazeera television.

Al-Jazeera, one of the largest news organisations in the world, has long been a source of conflict between Qatar and its neighbours, who accuse the broadcaster of bias and fomenting trouble in the region.

The alleged cyber attack comes during a time of heightened tensions in the Gulf, which has seen Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain and other allies cut ties with Qatar.

They severed relations over what they said is Dohas alleged financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabias regional arch-rival.

Long-running tensions broke out into the open last month after Qatar claimed its state news site was hacked by unknown parties who posted false statements attributed to the emir in which he speaks favourably of Iran and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. The remarks were widely reported as true across the region.

Earlier this month, Qatar said the FBI was helping it investigate the source of the alleged hacking.

Subsequently there were a media report suggesting that Qatar had been targeted by Russian hackers -- a claim dismissed by Moscow.
Qatars foreign minister on Thursday rejected interference in his countrys foreign policy, ruling out a military solution to a crisis which has seen Riyadh and its allies cut ties with Doha.

No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told AFP.

We dont see a military solution as an option to the crisis, he added.

A top United Arab Emirates official on Wednesday told AFP that the unprecedented measures against Qatar aim to pressure Doha into making drastic policy changes.

This is not about regime change -- this is about change of policy, change of approach, state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said, accusing the government in Doha of being in denial.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirates financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabias regional arch-rival.

Qatar denies having any ties to extremists.

The UAEs Gargash today told AFP the measures against Doha were limited to diplomatic and economic ties, but warned that no one could project the dynamic of a crisis.

Like any crisis, you cannot really control the dynamic... this is one of the dangers of any crisis. There is no intention for us to seek anything but what we look at as economic spheres of activities, he said.

The four Arab countries have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has also closed off Qatars only land border, a crucial lifeline for food imports.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar could nonetheless survive forever, adding that it respected international agreements and would continue supplying liquefied natural gas to the UAE.

Qatar is the worlds largest exporter of natural liquefied gas.

The emirate is also home to leaders of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and the Afghan Taliban.

Analysts say the crisis is in part an extension of a pre-existing dispute which saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Scotland Yard has issued an appeal to help trace an Indian-origin father and his son who absconded during their trial for laundering 80 million for criminal gangs and were sentenced to 12 and nine years in jail respectively.

Wembley-based Bhadresh Shah (49) and his son Abhishek (25) were on trial for money laundering offences at Southwark Crown Court. They attended the first week of the trial but absconded while on bail on April 21. A warrant has been issued for their arrest.

The two were found guilty and sentenced in their absence  Bhadresh Shah to 12 years imprisonment for one count of conspiracy to transfer criminal property and possession of Class B drugs (mephedrone and ketamine) with intent to supply, and Abhishek Shah to nine years imprisonment for one count conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

They have links to Wembley and India, Scotland Yard said in a statement.

The pair reportedly helped to siphon profits for organised crime gangs around the country through their hub at the Chandi Bazar in Ealing Road, the court was told. The police said they found 10 false company stamps used to create business documents linked to millions of pounds in dodgy transfers.

Prosecuting lawyer Adrian Keeling, said up to 80 million was funnelled through three front companies and money transfer companies in less than three years.

The two were on trial with three co-defendants  Bhadreshs wife Falguni, 46, who was sentenced to four years imprisonment for conspiracy to transfer criminal property, and Dipakumar Doshi (57) and Dinesh Thakoraka-Parmar (35), who were sentenced to five years imprisonment each for one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to transfer criminal property.

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A Sikh childrens group was denied entry into a Staffordshire-based Drayton Manor Theme Park in the UK after an elder accompanying them refused to remove the kirpan, an article of faith for the Sikhs, prompting accusations of religious discrimination.

A friend of the man described herself as disgusted and saddened at the reaction of staff and accused the Staffordshire attraction of religious discrimination.

The party, who had spent hundreds of pounds on tickets for a six-year-olds birthday, encountered problems over the kirpan worn by the primary schoolteacher who is from a respected family in Coventry, the Birmingham Mail reported.

The group was left disappointed last Friday after being told that the kirpan would not be allowed in the park for health and safety reasons.

The families case has been picked up by the Sikh Press Association, which is seeking discussions with Drayton Manor to resolve the issue.

In this day and age where the kirpan can be taken into Parliament, it is disappointing to see an amusement park ban this article of faith from their grounds, the associations spokesman said.

After recent events which have made public news, people across the UK have seen what the Sikh community stands for. We were shocked to be treated in the way we were by Drayton Manor and it is something the Sikh community as a whole was surprised at, he said.

A spokeswoman for the attraction said, the Drayton Manor Park is a family run business which operates within a multi- cultural society enriched with different creeds and beliefs and its staff welcome and embrace this. Kirpans have not been allowed to be worn in the park for a number of years as they pose a health and safety risk to members of the public.

To this end, Drayton Manor Park offers an alternative to the Sikh Community which has been acceptable -- a necklace worn next to their skin in exchange for the kirpan, which is handed over for safe keeping for the duration of their visit, she said.

It is regrettable that a group of Sikh visitors who came to the park on Friday 2nd June declined to take up the offer of the alternative to their kirpans and they were therefore denied access to the park, she added.
Ride-hailing service Uber has fired a top executive who obtained the medical records of a Delhi woman raped by a cab driver affiliated with the company in 2014. Hong Kong-based Eric Alexander, who headed the companys Asia Pacific operations, carried the report around for months, arguing successfully to the firms leadership in the US that a rival service may have been behind the complainant.

Alexander was fired on Tuesday after reporters asked the company, headquartered in San Francisco, about his status, according to online publication Recode. His dismissal comes in the wake of internal turmoil in Uber over allegations of widespread misconduct, sexism and sexual discrimination that the company is getting investigated by outside legal teams, including one led by former US President Barack Obamas attorney general Eric Holder.

The company announced to its staff on Tuesday the firing of 20 employees in the past some months, after another investigation. But Alexander, who is considered close to both CEO Travis Kalanick and senior vice president Emil Michael, was not among them.

It wasnt clear if Alexander reached India after the incident or he was already there at the time, but Recode said he conducted his own investigation in India. He brought the victims medical records and showed them to both Kalanick and Michael. They had raised doubts about the womans account despite having no expertise in evaluating medical records and put forth the prospect of Ola  the companys chief rival in India  being behind it.

The driver, who had a history of sexual assault and rape and had four other cases pending against him, was found guilty by a Delhi court and sentenced to prison for life. The incident had led to a ban on Uber, which was later lifted in June 2015.

The case also received international attention because of other incidents of sexual assault by Uber drivers, raising questions about safety on these cabs stemming from the companys unique business model that allowed it then to deny responsibility for its drivers, arguing they were not employees.

Uber had publicly seemed outraged by the incident and applauded the sentencing of the assailant, vowing to improve its screening of driver. Amit Jain, Ubers India head, had said in a statement: Safety is a priority for Uber and weve made many improvements  in terms of new technology, enhanced background checks and better 24/7 customer support  as a result of the lessons we learned from this awful case.

But internally, it has now been reported, the company leadership seemed to doubt the victims account, based on her medical records obtained by Alexander.

Recode reported that Alexander kept the medical records with him for a year before other executives, possibly of the legal department, took it from him and destroyed it.
Prime Minister Theresa Mays Conservative Party will fail to win a parliamentary majority in Britains election, according to an exit poll on Thursday, a shock result that would plunge domestic politics into turmoil and could delay Brexit talks. (LIVE UPDATES)

The exit poll predicted the Conservatives would win 314 seats in the 650-seat parliament, short of the 326 needed to claim a majority. The opposition Labour Party were forecast to win 266 seats, with the Scottish National Party on 34 and the Liberal Democrats on 14.

Below are details on what she would need to win and what would happen if she failed to get a majority:

Who gets power?

For the election to produce a majority government, the biggest party theoretically must win at least 326 seats of the 650 United Kingdom constituencies. In practice, the threshold for a majority is around 323, because the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party takes up no seats that it wins in Northern Ireland.

Failure to win an outright Conservative majority would leave May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn scrambling to find partners to support a new government.

As incumbent, May has the right to make the first attempt to form a coalition, though her tough stance on Brexit is likely to make finding a suitable partner difficult.

Until a new government is formed, May and her team of ministers remain in charge and retain their full legal powers to act on behalf of the country, although by convention they would be expected to avoid taking major decisions.

Minority Conservative government

May could attempt to lead a government without commanding a majority, relying on her opponents for support in parliament on an issue-by-issue basis. This will test the cross-party support for her pre-election pledges.

While her hardline Brexit strategy is opposed by all other major parties, Britain has already started the clock ticking on leaving the bloc by triggering a two-year negotiation period with Brussels. It is unlikely she would agree to stopping the Brexit divorce.

Nevertheless, Mays plans still rely heavily on being able to pass legislation through parliament. Firstly to convert EU law into British law, and then to form new post-Brexit policy on issues like immigration and tax.

Delays or outright blockages on this legislation would place huge doubts over how Britain would control its borders and trade with the EU after Brexit.

Mays fiscal agenda, including plans to balance the budget by the middle of the next decade through a continuation of existing austerity policy, would also be opposed by rival parties.

Her domestic reforms on issues ranging from fox-hunting to cuts to social care and education funding would also meet substantial resistance and demands for change.

However, her plans to clamp down on executive pay, give workers a say on strategy and make it harder for foreign firms to take over British ones could win support in principle, although others would probably demand changes to the policies before agreeing to back them.

2010 redux: Conservative-led coalition

The Conservatives formed a coalition in 2010 with the centrist, pro-EU Liberal Democrats as junior partner. They governed together until 2015.

The two parties are unlikely to be reunited in coalition without major compromises on the central principle of their election manifestos: Brexit.

The Conservatives are committed to a complete break with the EU regardless of whether a satisfactory exit deal can be reached. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats have promised voters a second referendum on whether to accept a deal with Brussels.

Electoral maths do not favour a second coalition. The Liberal Democrats tumbled to eight seats in 2015 from 57 in 2010 and are only forecast to rebound to 14, limiting their ability to take Mays support above the require threshold.

The party is led by Tim Farron, 47, who began his campaign by telling Britons they should have the option of rejecting Brexit in a second referendum and remaining within the EU.

The Conservatives other coalition options are limited. They can traditionally rely on the support of Northern Irelands Democratic Unionist Party, who in 2015 won eight seats and are forecast to win the same number again.

The Scottish National Party (SNP), which won 56 seats at the last election, are at ideological loggerheads with the Conservatives.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and her London-based deputy Angus Robertson argue that Scotland, where a majority voted to remain in the EU last year, should not be bound by Mays plan to withdraw from the EU single market, and have the right to hold an independence referendum at the end of the Brexit process.

Labour-led coalition

A hung parliament could play in Labours favour even if it won less seats than the Conservatives because it is politically closer to smaller rivals on several issues. Labour has said it would try to form a minority government, and Corbyn has refused to discuss forming a coalition after June 8.

He is committed to heeding the results of Britains EU membership referendum a year ago in which 52% voted Leave against 48% in favour of Remain.

However, Labour has fought to water down Mays Brexit strategy which could make it easier to reach a compromise with either the Liberal Democrats, which has ruled out any coalition, or the pro-European SNP, which says it wants to stop another Conservative government.

Labour has said it would tear up Mays Brexit negotiating priorities, instead focusing the talks on retaining the benefits of the EU single market and customs union. It has also promised to consult parliament more closely throughout the negotiations.

Corbyn, who would be in charge of negotiating any coalition deal, has said he would ensure there is a deal agreed with the EU before Britain leaves, and give parliament a meaningful vote on whether to accept the terms of a final deal.

Labour have not defined what constitutes a meaningful vote, and this would likely be one area where pro-EU parties would demand the power for parliament to send the government back to Brussels to get a better deal -- or even to halt the Brexit process altogether.

Beyond Brexit, Labour plan a radical change in Britains fiscal policy: raising taxes on large firms and the wealthy to pay for higher public spending on education, healthcare and police -- an agenda that would fit with the anti-austerity SNP.

Labours finance spokesperson and close Corbyn ally, John McDonnell, says he can achieve this while ensuring the national debt is reduced over the course of the next parliament.

However, Labour have also committed to creating a 250 billion pound fund for investment in infrastructure which will be spent over a 10-year period, indicating it will be funded by borrowing.

Economists expect a Labour-led government to substantially increase bond issuance, with the effect of increasing borrowing costs over the long term.

In what has been described as one of the most left-wing Labour manifestos for decades, Labour has also promised to take on multinational corporations and what Corbyn has called wealth extractors.

Labour has pledged to raise corporation tax to 26% from 19% and impose higher taxes on the top 5% of earners.
Prime Minister Theresa Mays Conservative Party is tipped to win Thursdays snap polls that will define Britains future in the foreseeable future, despite a surge in the prospects of Labour during a bruising and at times personal campaign.

Counting of votes will begin soon after voting ends at 10 pm UK time. As many as 46.9 million eligible voters are choosing from 3,304 candidates in 650 constituencies.

Opinion polls and bookmakers have not exactly been right in UK and elsewhere recently, but latest indications suggest the gap between Tories and Labour led by Jeremy Corbyn has considerably narrowed since April 18, when the election was announced.

The gap, however, did not suggest a Labour win or the party emerging as the single largest, though Corbyn surprised everyone with a popular manifesto and performances on live television and at rallies that attracted crowds not seen for at least a decade.

At stake is not only the direction of forthcoming Brexit talks in Brussels, but also the personal standing of May, whose campaign focused on her image of being a bloody difficult woman, who alone could face down EU negotiators.

In the House of Commons, the Conservative Party had a slender majority of six, having won 330 seats in the 2015 election (not counting the speaker, who was elected as a Conservative MP). May often pointed this out, seeking a bigger majority .

If I lose just six seats on Thursday, my governments majority in the House of Commons will be gone, and our country will face the chaos of a hung parliament, May had said in her appeal.

The idea behind holding the mid-term election was to gain a mandate for Mays version of Brexit and overcome frequent opposition inside and outside her party to her plans.

Anything less than a large majority will be seen as May failing in her endeavour.

A likely scenario is Labour emerging as the single largest party and forming a minority government with support from the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and others.

The SNP was the third largest in 2015, winning 56 of 59 seats in Scotland.

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Mark Antonys victories and political alliances with Julius Caesar and Octavian set his star on the riseuntil Cleopatra pulled down the shades.

Marcus Antonius (8330 bc) would have been no ones pick to become a great leader of men in battle. A hedonist given to drunkenness, debauchery, partying and pranks, always in debt, and oft married and divorced, Mark Antony (as he is familiarly known) was anything but a sterling character by either ancient Roman or modern standards.

Like Alexander and Hannibal before him, Antony was a spotty strategist who often failed to appreciate the larger political context in which he was operating. Incapable of long-term planning and lacking the discipline to carry it out, he was a man who lived for the moment, at his best when circumstances were at their worst. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, Antony was capable of dashing bravery and tactical brilliance. Also like Napoleon, when he blundered, he did so on a colossal scale. Yet despite his many flaws Antony came within an ace of being the most important figure of his day.

Antony began his military career at age 27 when invited by Syrian proconsul Aulus Gabinius, a family friend, to participate in a 56 bc expedition to suppress a Jewish revolt in Judea. Given command of the cavalry, Antony was the first to storm the wall at Alexandrium, a fortified town overlooking the Jordan River northeast of Jerusalem. Honored for his exploit, Antony led follow-up sieges against the Dead Sea forts of Hyrcania and Machaerus, forcing them to surrender. During the campaign the young commander endeared himself to his troops by eating, drinking and carousing with them, a habit he maintained throughout his military life.

The next year Ptolemy XII, deposed king of Egypt, hired Gabinius and his army to restore him to the throne. Again permitted to take the lead, Antonys cavalry cleared the route for the main army and soon arrived outside the fortress city of Pelusium. Catching the enemy by surprise, Antony captured the city by encouraging its garrison to revolt. Ptolemy wanted to put all prisoners to the sword, but Antony pleaded successfully for their pardon, earning him the Egyptians affection. The army then marched on Alexandria, where Antony led another daring cavalry raid, encircling the enemy and forcing its surrender. It was there the dashing Roman commander first met Ptolemys daughter Cleopatra, then 14-year-old heir to the Egyptian throne.

Antony resumed his self-indulgent life of drinking, gambling and womanizing in Rome before joining his mothers distant cousin, Gaius Julius Caesar, as a legate in Gaul in early 54 bc. A staff officer, Antony likely accompanied Caesar on his invasion of Britain. The fighting there was arduous, and Antony must have performed well, as by following spring Caesar had marked him as a promising unit commander and political agent. In 52 bc he sent his young relative to Rome to stand for election as quaestor, the bottom rung of public office. After winning election, Antony rejoined Caesar in Gaul, rising through the ranks to command of a legion and participating in the brutal suppression of the Gauls.

Returning to Rome in 50 bc, Antony won election as a tribune. Within months senators opposed to Caesars rising power ejected Antony when he tried to speak in his commanders defense. With civil war imminent, Antony returned to his legion. In January 49 bc Caesar and his army crossed the Rubicon River and marched toward Rome. At the head of the cavalry and some 2,000 infantrymen, Antony marched west across the Apennine Mountains then south on the Cassian Way, capturing Arretium (present-day Arezzo) and opening the road south to the capital. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) and the Senate fled east, crossing the Adriatic to the Roman province of Epirus in Greece, and Caesar and Antony spent the next two months securing all of Italy. In April Caesar left Rome to fight Pompeys legions in Spain, appointing Marcus Lepidus as acting consul of Rome and Antony as governor of Italy and commander of its forces.

In early January 48 bc Caesar led an army of seven legions and cavalry (about 25,000 men) from Italy to Epirus to deal with Pompey, leaving behind the rest of the troops (some 20,000 men and 800 horses) under Antonys command. Bibulus, admiral of Pompeys fleet, bottled up Antonys ships at Brindisi for three months, preventing his reinforcement of Caesar. On learning Bibulus had fallen deathly ill, Antony braved the blockade, landed north of the opposing Roman armies and linked up with Caesar.

Caesar besieged Pompeys larger army at Dyrrhachium (present-day Durres, Albania) from April through July, during which time Antony distinguished himself in action. On July 10 Pompey used his superior numbers to outflank the besiegers on both ends of the line. When Caesars army broke under the attack, Antony rushed into the fray, rallied the troops and counterattacked, robbing Pompey of his momentum. Antony then held while Caesar withdrew the main body of his army inland. The tribunes boldness burnished his reputation as a field commander and, more important, solidified Caesars trust in him.

Marching southeast to Thessaly, Caesar regrouped his remaining 12 legions (30,000 men) and 1,000 cavalry. Pompey soon arrived with his 60,000 men and 7,000 horses. The armies camped on opposite sides of the Pharsalian plain and met in battle on August 9. Stationing himself on the right opposite Pompey, Caesar held six cohorts of infantry in reserve, hidden from sight behind his cavalry. When Pompey attacked, Caesars horsemen resisted only briefly before withdrawing. Pompeys cavalry fell for the ruse and rushed in, exposing its flank to Caesars hidden troops. Armed with thrusting spears, his infantrymen drove through the onrushing horsemen straight into Pompeys camp, forcing him to flee. Antony, commanding the VIII and IX legions, had held the left flank despite being heavily outnumbered and defending poor ground. Caesar lost 250 dead and 2,000 wounded to Pompeys 15,000 dead and 24,000 captured. At that the Roman protectorates and provinces in Greece and Asia declared for Caesar.

Antonys stalwart defense in the decisive victory at Pharsalus earned him a glorious return to Rome to assume dictatorial powers as sole magistrate, while Caesar pursued Pompey to Egypt, confirmed the latters assassination, then helped Cleopatra depose her father, Ptolemy. Antony, meanwhile, fell back into his former debauched lifestyle, his tenure marked by corruption and misrule. Regardless, when Caesar returned to Rome in October 47 bc to assume the consulship, he retained Antony as his deputy, making him the second most powerful man in Rome.

Following Caesars assassination on March 15, 44 bc, Antony for once proved disciplined. Seeking to avoid civil war, he granted amnesty to the assassins and their Senate supporters, permitting them to leave the capital. Among the lead conspirators, Marcus Junius Brutus fled north to Cisalpine Gaul, Cassius east to Syria. Antony was left the most powerful person in Rome, though the presiding Republicans judged he lacked the genius, self-control, ambition and ruthlessness to be another Caesar.

Fresh from military training, OctavianCaesars great nephew, adopted son and heirarrived in the capital in May. When Antony refused to recognize the 18-year-old as Caesars political heir or turn over his inheritancewhich Antony had spent to keep his own troops loyalOctavian rallied Caesars veterans from Campania and began to amass an army. Seeking to avoid political machinations in Rome and to retain an army of his own, Antony marched to Cisalpine Gaul that December and besieged Brutus in Mutina (present-day Modena). In early January 43 bc the Senate, led by Antonys enemy Marcus Tullius Cicero, declared him an outlaw, appointed two new co-consuls, Aulus Hirtius and Vibius Pansa, ratified Octavians army and sent their collective legions north to relieve Brutus. A forewarned Antony left his brother in charge of the siege and marched to meet them.

On April 14 Antony led a masterly ambush of Pansas troops amid a forest and marsh near the northern Italian village of Forum Gallorum. Pansa was mortally wounded, his troops routed, but Antonys men cut short their spontaneous celebration when surprised by Hirtius and his fresh troops. Antonys cavalry fought bravely, but by nightfall half of his men were dead, the survivors on the run.

Six days later Octavians legions combined forces with those of Hirtius, forming a 45,000-man army that defeated Antonys exhausted, vastly outnumbered men at Mutina, though Hirtius was slain in the fight, leaving Octavian in sole command. In an arduous march Antony led his survivors over the Alps into Transalpine Gaul, where he joined forces with Lepidus and other commanders still loyal to Caesar. Six weeks later Antony re-entered Italy with 17 legions (90,000 men) and 10,000 cavalry. At that point Octavian compelled the Senate to appoint him consul, acknowledge him as Caesars heir and declare Caesars assassins outlaws. Also eager to avoid a civil war, Octavian came to an accommodation with Antony and Lepidus at Bologna, thus launching the Second Triumvirate (4333 bc).

Having gained Antonys support, Octavian freed himself to deal once and for all with his great uncles killers Brutus and Cassius. The latter duo had gathered an army of 80,000 infantry and 17,000 cavalry and crossed into Thrace. In September 42 bc Octavian and Antony moved to confront them with 100,000 infantry and 33,000 cavalry. On October 3 the armies met at the First Battle of Philippi. Octavian had taken ill, so Antony led their joint forces in a surprise attack against Cassius camp at the edge of a marsh. At the same time Brutus led an unexpected thrust against Antonys left wing, broke through and seized Octavians camp, forcing him to flee. An oblivious Cassius, still pressured by Antony, thought the battle lost and killed himself.

Twenty days later at the Second Battle of Philippi Antony again led in the indisposed Octavians stead. Placing Octavians army at the center to focus Brutus attention, he advanced through the marsh to envelop the enemy commanders left flank, taking him by surprise and forcing a rout. Brutus escaped but later committed suicide.

Having finally eliminated Caesars assassins, the triumvirsOctavian, Antony and Lepidussettled into their prior arrangement, Octavian and Lepidus ruling the west, Antony the east. Around 41 bc, while passing through the province of Cilicia (in present-day southern Turkey), Antony again encountered Cleopatra, who had been forced into exile by her younger brother, husband and co-ruler, Ptolemy XIII. Antony was 41, Cleopatra 18. It was a fateful meeting, launching of one of the most famousand disastrouslove affairs in history.

Meanwhile back in Rome, Antonys wife, Fulvia, and brother Lucius had in his absence taken up arms against Octavian. In a public rebuke of Fulvia, Antony returned to Rome and reiterated his support for Octavian. On Fulvias death in 40 bc Antony married Octavians sister, Octavia, further cementing his relationship with the future Augustus. The division of the empire was subsequently revised, Antony gaining control of everything east of the Ionian Sea, Lepidus placated with a governorship in Africa before fading into obscurity. The triumvirs also ceded territory to General Sextus Pompey, who took control of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and the Peloponnese.

Of course, political power is no guarantee of military control. Before leaving for Rome, Antony had appointed Publius Ventidius Bassus his proconsul in the east. In March 40 bc the Parthians had attacked Syria, reaching Antioch before Ventidius managed to drive them back out of the province. On his return from Rome, however, Antony planned a punitive invasion of Parthia, in part to recover the standards and prisoners left behind by Crassus after his disastrous 53 bc defeat and death at Carrhae. It was not one of Antonys better decisions.

In the summer of 36 bc, having assembled an army of more than 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, Antony marched through Armenia and into the Parthian province of Media Atropatene (present-day Azerbaijan) toward the capital of Phraaspa. Plutarch suggests Antony sought to end the campaign quickly, the sooner to return to Cleopatra in Egypt. As a result he pressed ahead in haste, failing to rest and refurbish his troops in Armenia after the long march from Greece. Further extending himself, Antony left his baggage train and siege engines behind, ostensibly protected by 6,000 Armenian cavalry. But when a Parthian army under King Phraates IV closed in, the Armenians bolted for home, allowing the enemy to destroy the baggage train and forcing the Roman general to abandon his siege. Worse yet, winter was approaching, and Antony was trapped, with the enemy across his line of communication and supply.

During the subsequent retreat to Armenia, the Persians relentlessly ambushed and harassed the Roman column, forcing 18 engagements in just 27 days. Antony lost some 20,000 soldiers and 4,000 cavalrymen during the campaign, many of hunger and cold during the frigid winter march through Armenia. Hearing of his misfortune, Octavia wrote to say she was sailing from Athens to console her husband. But Antony told her not to come, choosing instead to retire to Egypt with Cleopatra.

The Parthian debacle marked the turning point in Antonys fortunes. He had failed to avenge Carrhae, and his terrible treatment of Octavia had alienated her powerful brother, Octavian. The Roman people also turned against him over his relationship with Cleopatra. Of more immediate importance, his materiel and manpower losses had crippled Antonys military capabilities. Octavian, meanwhile, had consolidated his hold on the west, driving Sextus Pompey from the region and then pacifying Dalmatia, Illyricum and Pannonia. He upped the ante in 33 bc by launching a propaganda campaign against Antony, convincing the Senate a year later to declare war against Cleopatra and revoke her lovers triumviral title.

Anticipating war, Antony had raised a massive army of more than 150,000 soldiers, 12,000 cavalrymen and a fleet of some 800 warships and transports. He deployed his army and fleet in and around the harbor at Actium in Greece to discourage Octavian from venturing east. Seeing the deployments as a threat, Octavian mustered his own considerable force80,000 men, 12,000 cavalry and some 400 shipsat Brindisi. Antony should have followed the advice of his senior officers and invaded Italy, but Cleopatra was opposed to such an invasion, fearing it would leave Egypt exposed. So the Roman commander overruled his generals in what Plutarch termed one of the greatest of Antonys oversights. In midsummer Octavian crossed the Adriatic without opposition and deployed his army on high ground 5 miles north of Actium.

Antonys army was at the end of a long supply line linked to Egyptian granaries by a chain of island bases. Spotting the weakness, Octavians admiral, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, set about seizing the bases in turn. By September he had severed Antonys communications and choked off his food and supplies, isolating his troops. Antony twice sought to provoke Octavian to into a land battle, but the enemy commander refused to engage. In August 31 bc Antony sent an army north to break the siege and his ships west to break the blockade, but both efforts failed disastrously. Cleopatra insisted Antony retreat, believing her 60 ships and some of Antonys might escape to Egypt, where they could raise more troops to continue the war with Octavian.

Antony had more ships than rowers to power them, so on September 2 he burned the vessels he could not man, leaving him with 230 to Octavians 400. Taking Cleopatras advice, Antony sought to break free from his untenable position and live to fight again. His ships first engaged the Roman right, the maneuver having the calculated effect of thinning the center of the line so Cleopatras ships could break out and escape to the open sea. Antony soon followed. He lost 15 ships and some 5,000 sailors, with scores more captured, but almost half the serviceable fleet escaped to Egypt. The real disaster came on land. When Antonys subordinate Canidius Crassus tried and failed to break out of the encirclement, the army mutinied and surrendered to Octavian.

Antony knew any hope of further resistance depended on his army making it back to Egypt. On learning it had surrendered, he plunged into a suicidal depression. Octavian pursued Antony and Cleopatra to Egypt. Antonys remaining troops drove back the invaders in a brief battle at Alexandria, but Octavian renewed his attack in October, this time successfully. By then most of Antonys men and ships had gone over to Octavian, leaving the onetime consul of Rome only a token force. Mistakenly believing Cleopatra had killed herself, Antony fell on his sword. Mortally wounded, he died in her arms, ending a life that had earlier showed such promise. That night Cleopatra took her own life.

Antonys legacy suffered under the styli of ancient historians, all of whom were admirers of Octavian and the Augustan empire.

The most damaging claim was that Antonys fervor for Cleopatra had driven him to war against Octavian and in turn clouded his strategic thinking. In fact, the most defensible aspect of Antonys ragged strategy was his regard for Egypt itself. Like Octavian, he realized Romes very survival depended on its possession of Egypts grain, money, ships and manpower. Straddling the east-west trade route, Egypt was so important that Octavian, as Augustus, declared it a personal possession of the emperor, and that no Roman official could visit without his permission.

Antony doubtless would have done the same had he been victorious.

Richard A. Gabriel is the author of more than 50 books. For further reading he suggests Mark Antony: A Biography, by Eleanor Goltz Huzar, and The Life and Times of Mark Antony, by Arthur Weigall.
The South Londoners will play The Workmans Club in Dublin on Saturday October 14 as part of their UK and European headline tour.

Following in the footsteps of their mentors The Fat White Family, the South London punk rockers are already making a name for themselves across the UK, with their jaw-dropping performances and punk spirit. Already, theyve gate-crashed a Glastonbury stage, gone on tour with The Fat White Family, Warpaint and Slaves, headlined their own tour and released a double A-side single Gold Hole/The Lick, as well as having an Anchor award nomination under their belts, all within the past two years.

Check out Shame's video for their single "Gold Hole" below:

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The band are currently working on their debut album with Local Hero and will be playing over 40 festivals this summer in the run-up to their highly anticipated UK and European Tour.

Tickets for their Dublin gig are priced at 13 and are on sale through Ticketmaster and all usual outlets nationwide now.
As voting gets underway in the general election across the water, the controversial broadcaster has described the British PM as someone he "wouldnt trust to protect me from an angry wasp, let alone a jihadi terrorist".

Piers Morgan, who's father hailed from County Offaly, uses his column in the Daily Mail this morning to say that he wouldn't trust either the Tory leader or Labour's James Corbyn to protect the nation in the ongoing fight against extremists.

"What worries me far more is that the woman most likely to win the election, Theresa May, has proven herself to be a disastrous defender of our national security," he writes.

Explaining why he doesn't have any confidence in her, Morgan explains: "She is the one who slashed our police force by 20,000, thus directly harming our ability to gather vital intelligence on the ground from the communities where these jihadists live. Stop crying wolf! she arrogantly declared when they warned of dire consequences. Now the real wolves are at our door wreaking destruction.

"She is the one who decimated our armed police numbers by over 1,500, thus removing from the front line of our defences the kind of brilliant expert rapid-response marksmen we saw in action last Saturday night.

"She is the one who abandoned control orders that might have kept some kind of observational lid on these monsters. She is the one who has now had three massive ISIS terror attacks happen on her brief watch as our nations leader."

His Daily Mail column's full headline reads as: "Theresa Mays savage police cuts and weakness with Islamist extremism have made Britain a dangerous place - I wouldnt trust her to protect me from an angry wasp, let alone a jihadi terrorist."

In response to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson asking how could the terrorist Kharum Butt have slipped through the net, Morgan had this to say: "Well, Ill tell you what happened, Foreign Secretary. You and your government dropped the ball so badly that a whole load of your citizens got murdered and maimed. Thats what happened.

"And the person ultimately responsible for these failures was your boss. She can now spout all the tough terror talk she likes, but I wouldnt trust Theresa May to protect me from an angry wasp, let alone an ISIS jihadi."
Oil prices plunged to the lowest point in a month Wednesday as the market grappled with a stunning rise in oil and fuel stockpiles and slipping U.S. demand.

Traders reeled after the Energy Department reported a 6.6 million barrel combined increase in both oil and gasoline inventories, signs of tepid gasoline demand in the U.S. despite the start of the summer driving season, a period expected to draw motorists to the pump. Over the past four weeks, gasoline consumption fell nearly 1 percent from the same period a year earlier, the Energy Department said.

"That was the back-breaker," said John Kilduff, an oil market analyst at Again Capital, a New York investment firm specializing in commodities. "When gasoline demand is weak, it's going to take down the whole complex."

U.S. oil prices fell more than 5 percent on Wednesday to $45.72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, its largest drop since early March and a sign that abundant supplies, above all else, are driving global markets. Prices fell despite tensions between two of the largest oil producers in the Middle East, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, a terrorist attack in Iran and a recent OPEC deal to stem the world's oil glut by extending production cuts for another nine months.

That all these forces failed to lift prices underscored how much faith investors have lost in OPEC's ability to control supplies that have kept crude prices low for nearly three years. OPEC's deal to extend oil production cuts late last month disappointed traders, who had hoped the cartel and 10 other countries would slash output even deeper than 1.8 million barrels a day.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Persian Gulf cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, OPEC's 10th-largest oil producer. But instead of fearing a violent conflict that could threaten oil production in the Middle East, analysts worry the tension could simmer over into a clash that prompts Saudi Arabia and others to break the oil production pact that had kept oil prices stable for months.

"When they're at each others' throats, it's hard to see how they work together to limit oil production," Kilduff said.

On Tuesday, a new survey by the industry analyst S&P Global Platts showed OPEC increased production last month for the first time since October as output recovered in Libya and Nigeria, two beleaguered countries exempt from the oil production deal. The group's output climbed by 270,000 barrels a day, underscoring the difficulty OPEC has had in keeping oil off the market.

"The biggest problem OPEC is facing is the return of oil from Libya and Nigeria, and accommodating them," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston. "It just means there's more oil on the market."

Oil's fall is also a sign that U.S. shale drillers, which have sent hundreds of rigs and thousands of workers back into oil patches in West Texas and Oklahoma in recent months, have upended OPEC's long history of bending oil prices the way it wants.

Even with oil prices at $45 a barrel, those U.S. drillers - many with headquarters in Houston - aren't expected to stop drilling soon, said Chris Ross, a finance professor at the University of Houston.

"They're not going to blink for a while," Ross said, noting many of the most active shale oil producers have already locked in oil prices higher than $50 a barrel for future production with contracts that extend a year or longer. "They may go a little bit slower, but I would expect the exuberance to remain the same."

The Energy Department expects the march of drilling rigs across the nation to eventually lead to a boost in domestic oil production near record levels next year, above 10 million barrels a day - another reason analysts expect high levels of global supplies to persist. The amount of oil U.S. exporters sent abroad leaped to a record 1.3 million barrels a day last month, a figure not much lower than the production cuts of OPEC and other major producers.

The surge in U.S. exports began in January, the first month of OPEC's cuts. Oil exports climbed to 834,000 barrels a day in March, up from 442,000 barrels a day in December. The bulk of the nation's oil, extracted from dense rock that drillers once believed was inaccessible, has been shipped to markets in Asia.

"The market is still awash in oil, and it's waiting to see more concrete signs of global oil inventories declining," Lipow said. "The market is still not convinced we're seeing that trend worldwide."

But oil traders have watched U.S. crude inventory levels more intently than any other market indicator. The rise in oil stockpiles, reported Wednesday morning, came as a shock: Analysts had anticipated another reduction in fuel storage tanks, after levels had declined by about 10 million barrels in the two previous weeks.

The Energy Department said crude inventories rose by 3.3 million barrels last week. Gasoline inventories climbed the same amount. Overall, inventories of crude, gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and other refined products increased by 15.5 million barrels last week.

"Whenever inventories look as if they're not shrinking anymore," Ross said, "we're going to have a nasty fallback in the price."
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Dennis Nixon is the CEO of the International Bank of Commerce, the ninth biggest bank in Texas, the kind of person the state's Republicans used to listen to. These days, however, he's feeling woefully neglected.

"I personally think it's a disaster," Nixon says, about the legislative session that just ended. "They basically disregarded the business community of Texas, just threw us under the bus."

Nixon is particularly exasperated by the passage of Senate Bill 4, which directs local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration officials in arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants. He says the immigrant workforce is essential to the state's economic health, and that driving them out is self-sabotage.

He pointed to Arizona, where anti-immigration laws drove out workers, created labor shortages and hurt economic growth.

"This could have really serious consequences for Texas," he says. ""My argument is, we have to have these people. They're working already."

It's not just the immigration issue: Nixon is also fuming at the Texas legislature's focus on social issues like abortion and transgender bathroom access, its failure to address high property taxes, and the Trump administration's determination to build a wall on the border with Mexico. He says he's brought these issues up with lawmakers, to no avail.

"I don't get it," Nixon says. "I'm just one guy in the night, screaming."

But Nixon isn't alone. Much of corporate Texas has been disappointed by the state's political establishment. The state's largest business association fought hard against the bathroom legislation and called the sanctuary cities bill "a step back for Texas" that will "hurt the business community and families alike."

The political director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses' Texas chapter, Annie Spilman, put it this way: "In my 17 years at the Capitol, it was up there with  the worst."

So how did it come to pass that Texas started ignoring the voices of the companies that power its prodigious economy?

A thorough answer is beyond the scope of today's analysis. Some of it has to do with the grassroots power of religious conservatives. Some of it has to do with the ideological inflexibility of politicians such as Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, the driving force behind much of the social legislation that passed this session.

Also, Gov. Greg Abbott may be less vulnerable to charges of being anti-business as long as Texas continues to rack up awards like those from Site Selection magazine pronouncing the Lone Star State tops for new products. And as my colleague Ryan Handy has shown, businesses still have tremendous influence with agencies like the Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas drilling.

For his part, Abbott denies that anti-immigrant, anti-transgender rights measures are bad for business.

"No amount of misinformation and fear-mongering about a law that keeps dangerous criminals off the street, and that a majority of Texans support, will stop business from thriving in Texas," said Abbott spokesman John Wittman, of the sanctuary cities bill. He also expressed confidence that the bathroom bill wouldn't hurt the state's economy.

"The truth is that businesses look at what is best for their bottom line, and Texas is that place," Wittman says.

Nixon disagrees, and worries that Texas' open-for-business reputation isn't indestructible.

"That's a very slippery slope to get on, when the government disregards the business message, you're really getting yourself into trouble," Nixon says. "Especially if you're a Republican state, you want to retain the business community as a political ally."

Still, businesses are in a little bit of a box: Democrats aren't exactly their cup of tea either, with their preference for higher taxes and tighter regulations.

"They've moved to the left, and gotten so crazy out of whack," Nixon says. "And we've got the Republicans who've moved far to the right, they've gotten crazy out of whack. So we've got to get back to the middle here."

In Texas, as in D.C., it's not clear he has much to look forward to.
Something happened on Thursday that hardly ever happens any more: The news media stopped and collectively focused on one event. There was no other story in this otherwise fragmented news world; James B. Comey's congressional testimony was it and only it.

Fox News metaphorically locked arms with CNN, which linked with MSNBC and HLN and Fox Business and CNBC and CSPAN and PBS in airing the former FBI director's testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. The commercial broadcast networks swept aside "Let's Make a Deal," "The Price is Right" and other syndicated trifles to carry it live for nearly 2 1/2 hours. Univision ("Comey: El Testimonio") provided hushed simultaneous English-to-Spanish translation of the proceedings, too.

Public radio stations fed the audio. Dozens of websites streamed the live feed. On Twitter, #comey, #comeyhearings and #jamescomey all trended simultaneously.

It was this way for epic congressional hearings of yore, from Army-McCarthy in 1954 through Watergate, Iran-contra and Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings. But the key word is "yore." All of those were artifacts of a bygone media age, long before an explosion of news sources made living in an info-bubble possible if not desirable. Those hearings were a product of the pre-internet, pre-10,000 channel, pre-Netflix universe when media consensus was easily achieved.

But now? Outside of presidential elections and a thankfully rare national emergency such as 9/11, America's news industry flies on many separate beams. The news agenda is in pieces, dependent on the demographic imperatives and perceived audience tastes of each outlet and organization. There is no consensus on an agenda, and certainly no consensus about something as telegenically inert as a congressional hearing.

Cable networks fueled the buildup to Comey-Palooza with countdown clocks, 10-member talking-head panels, and prehearing hallway shots of senators arriving like heavyweights before a title fight. Although some of the surprise may have been deflated by the release of Comey's written testimony on Wednesday, the hearing was cast as a national suspense story unequaled since verdict day at O.J. Simpson's double-murder trial in 1995.

There was no finality in the event itself. News was made during the hearing, of course, but to what effect remains unclear.

Comey testified that he believed he was fired because he refused to commit to burying an FBI investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. He said President Donald Trump had attempted to establish a quid pro quo - by backing off the investigation, he'd keep his job, Comey suggested the president suggested - providing fodder for post-hearing discussions about whether Trump had obstructed justice. Comey also confirmed his prehearing testimony that he had told the president repeatedly that he was not the subject an investigation.

Perhaps more plainly, the public was treated - if that's the right word - to the extraordinary spectacle of a former FBI director telling the world that the president is a liar. Five times.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader," Comey said. "Those were lies plain and simple."

Lie-wise, Comey said he documented his private meetings with Trump because he was concerned Trump would lie about what happened. He directly disputed Trump's claim that Comey had requested a meeting in February to lobby for keeping his job; that Comey had called Trump (other way around, he said), and, the FBI director went on to say, that the president was lying when he said he had not asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

(Punching back later in the day, Trump's private lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, underscored Comey's statements that Trump wasn't under investigation, and he noted that Comey did not say that the president attempted to impede the investigation. What's more, Kasowitz asserted that Comey and others had leaked "classified and privileged" information, such as details of his meetings with Trump at the White House, in a "retaliatory" fashion.)

Hearings are static, visually dull affairs - just a bunch of people sitting around talking. Yet the networks, supplied with images from four "pool" cameras in the hearing room, made the most with not much. There were useful split-screen shots of speaker and listeners, and dramatic close ups of Comey's impassive expression.

The only distinguishing element among the many networks carrying the hearing were the banners summarizing bits of information at the bottom of the screen. These betrayed both editorial emphasis, point of view, and sometimes a bit of snark.

At the same moment that CNN's banner read, "Comey: Trump Administration Lied About Me & FBI," Fox News offered, "General Flynn Was in Legal Jeopardy at Time of February 14 Conversation," and MSNBC displayed, "Comey to Trump: 'Release All the Tapes."

At one point, CNN picked up on one of Comey's few colorful phrases and bannered it. "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," it read, a reaction to Trump's tweet last month that Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" (The White House has repeatedly refused to say if any of their conversations were recorded, including on Thursday).

More helpful, and occasionally more loaded, were the half-screen graphics displaying bullet points about participants in the hearings. One, on CNBC, said this about Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: "As lawyer, focused on defending doctors who were sued for malpractice."

PBS and CSPAN2 took the neutral path. They didn't run banners, just the name of each person speaking.

Whether any of this will prove significant in the course of the Trump presidency is hard to know in the immediate moments after the hearing. But for about 150 minutes on a Thursday in June, the media ensured that it was something that few things are any more: inescapable.
Director Roger Michell has tackled many different genres in his long career, including romantic comedies, dramas and thrillers. "My Cousin Rachel" offers the chance to sink his teeth into a juicy, gothic romantic melodrama, based on a 1951 novel by Daphne Du Maurier.

The story was adapted to the silver screen in 1952 with Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton in the lead roles, and now Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin tackle the story of passion and paranoia. In this tale, impetuous, distrustful masculinity meets mysterious, veiled femininity, which proves to be a combustible combination on contact.

Though Rachel is an omnipresent figure, this story belongs to Philip (Claflin). His beloved cousin and guardian, Ambrose (Claflin plays both men), retreats to Italy to convalesce, where he meets and marries an intriguing woman, Rachel (Weisz). After his untimely death, his widow arrives at his English estate, where Philip, his only heir, is now man of the house, and highly suspicious of his new relative, thanks to a series of anguished notes from a dying Ambrose. The sheltered young man has whipped himself into a frenzy over her arrival, but it turns out the cousin in question is actually quite beautiful and charming, and soon everything is topsy-turvy.

Weisz gives a performance that is virtuosic in its control. Her face is like the placid surface of a lake, never giving anything away. Is it nefarious? A defense? Both? Her Rachel is highly intelligent, resourceful, guarded, but also playful and compassionate.

More Information 'My Cousin Rachel' Rated PG-13: for some sexuality and brief strong language Running time: 106 minutes 4 out of 5 stars 'My CousinRachel' Rated PG-13: for some sexuality and brief strong language Running time:106 minutes xxxx See More Collapse

Claflin gives one of his best performances to date as the petulant Philip, his emotional pendulum swinging constantly from puppyish naivete to sinister anger. Though we see the story through his perspective, Claflin and Michell smartly don't make his character all too likable; Philip is as dark and complex as the new woman in his life.

Claflin and Weisz spin a captivating spell, but director Michell, who also adapted the screenplay, carefully balances the perspectives, so you never know quite who to believe. He underscores that with a dramatic, unique film style. Production designer Alice Normington has created a setting that is sensual, earthy and naturalistic, lit with natural light and candles, no stuffy "Downton Abbey" crispness in sight. That sense of realism is juxtaposed with a wild cinematic style from cinematographer Mike Eley, all off-center framing, low canted angles, dramatic tracking shots, and claustrophobic handheld camera for some of the more intense monologues. The cinematic craft of this film is heady and intoxicating.

"My Cousin Rachel" is an operatic melodrama of hidden notes, stolen kisses, family jewels, and love's first blush, but it's also a film about the danger of one's own belief systems, being locked into one way of thinking. It's a cautionary tale about toxic masculinity: of impulsive and jealous young bucks operating within a patriarchal system controlling women's independence.

Early on, Rachel expresses a desire to live a modest widow's life, getting by on her own as an independent woman. For that desire, she is rewarded with suspicion, jealousy and anger.

Her story, as ambiguously as Michell may want to present it, is ultimately about the danger of being a single woman in a world that can't reconcile that fact. The tangled perspectives of "My Cousin Rachel" illustrate a crucial element of their limits - the only thing stands in the way of the truth is our own understanding.
Collaborating with Foodways Texas, Texas A&M University in College Station has hosted an annual Barbecue Summer Camp for several years now.

There's really nothing like it in the country; instructors have Ph.D.s and guest lecturers might include such luminaries as Aaron Franklin or Wayne Mueller. And in tandem with Texas barbecue's rise in popularity across the nation, it has become a sought-after affair for budding barbecue warriors. Would-be campers apply through a lottery system, and they don't always get one of the 60 coveted slots.
What makes a family?

As families around Houston prepare to celebrate Father's Day, there are plenty of dads to honor. And for many kids, those dads don't necessarily share a genetic link.

In the 77027 ZIP code, 7.5 percent of kids are adopted. This means that dads here are bound to their children more by bedtime stories than blood.

Across the U.S., the adoption rate has fallen significantly in recent years. The National Council For Adoption reports that in 2007, 133,737 adoptions were recorded; by 2014, the most recent year for which data exists, that number was down to 110,373  a 17.5 percent decline.

A big factor in this drop is the red tape surrounding the adoption process. From long waits to high fees, prospective parents need significant resources  and patience  to navigate an adoption.

That explains why in Houston, a neighborhood like 77027, where families earn a median annual income of $139,051 has more adopted kids than 77504, just inside the southeast corner of the Beltway, where families earn $50,619 a year, and the Census reports no adopted children.

Another possible factor responsible for the large share of adopted kids in 77027? The sharp rise in adoptions for gay couples. Unfortunately, this one is difficult to prove, since the U.S. Census doesn't calculate the number of people in same-sex marriages  only the number of unmarried-partner households in same-sex relationships. And in 77027, that only accounts for 0.1 percent of households. Though, to be sure, there are far more gay couples in 77027 than this snapshot captures.

No matter the fabric that shapes the families of 77027, and Houston as a whole, Happy Father's Day, to dads both biological and adoptive.

Bookmark Gray Matters. You'll need significant resources  and patience  to navigate it.


Apparently, these are existential times. During the weeks leading up to last year's presidential election, The New York Times columnist Charles Blow announced that then-candidate Donald Trump was "America's existential threat." A Time magazine opiner, doubling down, declared that Trump was an "existential threat" not just to America, but the rest of the world, too.

More modestly, other voices worried that Trump was an "existential threat" to Europe, to the European Union, even to Jordan and Canada. Others, less geopolitically inclined, warned that Trump posed an existential threat to conservatives and liberals, journalists and scientists  to cite just a few of the endangered categories.

Even those who earn their keep by parading around in oversize animal costumes have not been spared: Sesame Street fans learned long ago that Trump loomed over Big Bird as an existential menace, because the New York millionaire had called for defunding public television. And after FBI director James Comey was fired  after being deemed yet another existential hazard to American democracy  we were reassured that the memos he wrote of his meetings with Trump posed, yes, an existential threat to our autocratic president. Ride-sharer Uber, without any help from the president, is going through an "existential crisis."

We have, it appears, entered the age of MEAT: Mutually Existential Assured Destruction.

As a scholar of French political and philosophical thought, with a long interest in existentialism, I've spent the last few months trying to straighten out how fear and trembling  the signs that the 19th-century existential thinker Sren Kierkegaard associated with existential crisis  have been grafted onto the widespread response to the Trump presidency.

In the vortex of news and commentary spinning around the Trump White House, "existential" has come to mean the mundane and mere existence of institutions and ideals. It denotes the preservation and continuation of, say, the Republican Party, or the American Republic, of a judiciary independent of the executive branch, or an environment all too dependent on that same executive branch  in short, of life in a world in which Trump has sucked out all of the oxygen.

This kind of existence is not to be sneezed at, but I also worry that the original meaning of "existential crisis," as it was spelled out by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in the middle of the last century, risks becoming yet another casualty of the Age of Trump. By contrast, what we're calling an existential threat now has solutions, both civic and political. Before the election, Charles Blow suggested that we could resolve it by simply voting for Hillary; since the election, he has argued that the Trump presidency should be "paused" until the relevant authorities sort out the Russian mess.

No such practical resolutions existed for the earlier brand of existential crisis, and one paused only to adjust one's black turtleneck, or light up a Gauloise. Simply pushing a button in a voting booth, or signing an online petition, will do nothing for a real existential crisis  for which there is no solution, only more questions. As Woody Allen, the jester of existentialism, once quipped: "I took a test in Existentialism and left all the answers blank. I got a 100."

To see this distinction more clearly, let's look at the work of Sartre and Camus  both canny political thinkers who happened to know a thing or two about existential crises.

For Sartre, existentialism has nothing to do with a government we elect to exercise power over the nation. Instead, it has everything to do with the inner government we choose to exercise power over our given situation in life. Sartre maintained that we must assume a radical responsibility for our choices  and our characters  in a world where the traditional measures of morality no longer hold. As he said in his famous 1945 lecture "Existentialism is a Humanism:" We are condemned to be free.

Recognizing this ominous freedom leads to the crisis situation Sartre called "anxiety." But liberte and angoisse were, like Sartre and his lover and philosophical comrade-in-arms Simone de Beauvoir, a package deal. For a people just emerging from four years of Nazi rule, it is hard to overexaggerate the excited frisson they experienced when Sartre declared: "We have never been more free than under the Occupation." Never, he implied, had choices been so charged with meaning, and never had the French been so starkly reminded that choices must be made, and not choosing is the worst choice of all.

Sartre made the choice, in the end, to spend the Occupation comfortably situated with a notebook and pen at a table in the Cafe Flore rather than joining the Resistance. Whether or not to order a third espresso was about as deep as it got.

While Sartre contented himself with waxing on the absurd, Camus risked his life to take its full measure as well as his own. During the Occupation, he assumed editorship of the clandestine Resistance paper Combat. He had a different understanding of existentialism, a term he always rejected. Existentialism, he said, might serve as a description of our spiritual condition, but it did not offer a prescription for dealing with it.

Dominique Berretty / Getty Images

Camus demanded, as he wrote in "The Myth of Sisyphus," a reason to livesomething that traditional philosophy had never thought to provide. Such a reason becomes urgent when, as Camus observes, the "stage set collapses."

A director, actor and playwright, Camus loved the smell and feel of the theater, but his stage set was more than physical. It was the metaphysical foundation we assume exists for the rules and rituals, ideals and ideas, values and virtues by which we live our lives. This metaphysical foundation can collapse, from something as banal as an overheard conversation or as momentous as the German invasion, unraveling assumptions and habits woven over a lifetime. At that moment, he writes, "the world becomes itself again." Absurdity rises in the space between our demands for meaning and the world's utter indifference.

Camus never used the precise term existential crisis, but he understood that we must live without appeal in a world shorn of transcendental truths and foundational morals. Without warning, a phenomenological two-by-four will one fine day smack us across the head, triggering a crisis that is not practical or political  or not merely one or the other  but instead spiritual.

Once we pick ourselves up off the ground, we will grasp that the practices and rituals, values and truths we had lived by are nothing more than a facade disguising the silence and emptiness of the world. As Camus learned in the Resistance, the necessary response to this absurd condition is rebellion: The struggle to resist the pull of nihilism that churns within this void.

We have, in effect, wrapped the talk of an "existential crisis" around a political crisis, which not only quickens our panic but also numbs our ability to feel the deeper meaning of existentialism. And, ironically, by confusing our terms, we are reinforcing, not resisting Trump's assault on meaning, by confusing the crises we now confront. We have taken the language of Sartre to describe a situation that requires the response of the same Camus who, upon enlisting in the Resistance, declared: "The absurd teaches nothing."

But embracing existentialism in its fullest form isn't easy for Americans. The philosophy clearly qualifies as an appellation d'origine controlee, grown and bottled on Paris's Left Bank. Tellingly, French existentialists believed Americans no more could appreciate existentialism than they could savor a slice of Camembert or glass of Sancerre. "In general," Sartre pronounced, "evil is not an American concept. There is no pessimism in America regarding human nature and social organization." That Americans took this as a compliment no doubt reinforced Sartre's despair over our capacity to live authentic lives.

And yet, over the years we have tried mightily to act the role. As George Cotkin recounts in his lively and lucid "Existential America," l'existentialisme was all the rage among American students in the 1960s. I recall evenings I spent at the Dial Bookstore in lower Manhattan. Loitering for hours in the philosophy section, I'd scuttle out with a pile of Kierkegaard and Jaspers, Camus and Nietzsche, certain that if they didn't lead to a suitably grim epiphany, they would at least lead to a conversation with a woman at a nearby bar.

In the end, they led to neither. Still, they did leave a nagging conviction that these writers were on to something deeply, though elusively true and terribly important about the human situation. Walter Kaufmann, who translated Nietzsche's writings for postwar America, helped me find the words for this sense of things. There are, he wrote, four traits that defined the existential cast of mind: Dread, despair, death and dauntlessness.

I now see we need to pick and choose among these qualities. We still  apologies to Emily Dickinson  cannot stop for Death, while dauntlessness has been outsourced to the likes of Forrest Gump and Kimmy Schmidt. As for dread and despair, we won the lottery on November 8. And I find my interest in misery now has lots of company.

But still, this political dread does not begin to plumb the depths of true existential dread and despair. We rightly feel that the existence of a better future for our children, our republic and our environment is threatened. Our institutions, our laws and our ethics are in a state of crisis, and we need to respond accordingly: As citizens of this res publica, this "public thing" which belongs to us all. We are in an acute state of political crisis, which we are unfamiliar with and would like to go away.

But  and here is the rub  the threat of an existential crisis is necessary to live life well. Without the possibility of existential crisis, we might as well be dead: We'd be sentenced to a life poorly or thoughtlessly lived. Whether we're inclined to sit in the cafe or run the newspaper for the Resistance, we cannot forget that we need to justify our lives. We are condemned to existential crisis. And that's a great thing.

Robert Zaretsky is a professor in the Honors College, University of Houston. His most recent book is Boswell's Enlightenment. And his book A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning has just been released in paperback. This story originally appeared on Zocalo Public Square.





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This year, my husband, kids and I are spending Ramadan at my parent's house in West Houston.

Food is a huge part of Ramadan  understandably so. "Iftar," the meal at sunset where Muslims break their fast, is the highlight of the day for most.

Today, the main course consisted of rice, ground beef kabobs, oven roasted chicken, stuffed peppers, squash, eggplant and grape leaves.

Traditional dishes are usually served for iftar. In my family, we break fast with water, "karkade," a traditional Egyptian hibiscus iced tea, or milk and dates as Prophet Muhammad did. That's followed by soup  lentil or tomato basil being the most popular in my house  and bread, then samosas and "kibbi/kobeiba," a mixture of bulgur, minced onion and ground beef shaped into ovals and fried to perfection.

After iftar comes my favorite part: Dessert and tea or coffee. But I usually do a decaf coffee to avoid staying up late so I can wake up for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal before the next morning's fast.

Today's dessert spread included cream- and pistachio-filled "katayef," creme caramel and Ramadan cookies that I baked with my 4-year-old son, Adam. Katayef are a Ramadan staple for me. It wouldn't be Ramadan without Katayef. Everybody knows that.

Traditional Ramadan desserts include "konafa," a dish made of shredded phyllo dough and soaked in a sugar-based syrup; "basboosa," a heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth dessert made of cooked farina soaked in syrup; and katayef.

Sarah Raslan

MUSLIMS FAST during the daylight hours, from dawn to sunset, during Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.

Breaking fast with loved ones is a big part of Ramadan. Mouth-watering menus are planned far in advance and parties fill up every weekend of the Holy Month.

It is week two of Ramadan, and we have already been to three iftar parties. Getting together with friends and bringing the kids together during Ramadan creates a sense of community and makes the holy month more fun for the kids.

To make things easier on the hostess, one of the iftars were potlucks  creating a diverse and delicious table scape of different cuisines ranging from Mediterranean to African and Asian.

A family friend hosted one of the iftars at a local Egyptian cafe, Dandanah. The Mediterranean eatery features Ramadan decor and a buffet of traditional dishes during the holy month. The host had also ordered a whole lamb for the gathering, truly turning it into a feast.

GRAY MATTERS: Ramadan in Houston: Counting down to iftar

After the feasting, worshippers head to the mosque to join Taraweeh prayers, a special prayer performed only during the holy month. Taraweeh is in addition to the five daily prayers Muslims observe.

BETWEEN THE fasting and the feasting, the praying and the reflecting, the kids and the 9-to-5 work, Muslims are fairly busy during Ramadan. We will nevertheless somehow find the time and means to make sure the entire world knows we "reject violence," as asked by President Trump in his Ramadan message to Muslims.

Trump's Ramadan message is not only insulting to Muslims, but it alienates American Muslims through his choice of words. In his message, the president wished Muslims a joyful Ramadan "on behalf of all Americans."

Some Muslims said that, though the message was not actually about Ramadan, it showed Trump acknowledges that Muslims do actually exist in America. Others, however, felt the president widened the divide by not using the words "American Muslims," as if the two cannot exist simultaneously.

The White House has held an iftar to honor Muslim Americans since the Clinton administration. As we approach the halfway mark of the holiest month in Islam, the White House has not spoken of any plans to host an iftar this year. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson even declined a request to hold an event to honor Ramadan from the State Department's Office of Religion and Global Affairs.

What a disappointment.

Sarah Raslan, formerly of the Houston Chronicle, is currently an associate editor.

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Authorities are searching for a suspect in connection with a four-year-old home burglary west of Humble in the 20600 block of Jasperwood Dr.

Deputies with the Harris County Pct. 4 Constable's Office first responded to a burglary report Aug. 7, 2013, after someone broke into a man's home by breaking the bathroom window between 7:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. A 12-gauge shotgun, worth about $60, was reported stolen. Deputies found an unopened Dr. Pepper in the bedroom with blood on it and a blood-soaked towel. They believed the blood came from the intruder.
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WASHINGTON - Former FBI Director James Comey's highly anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill Thursday could bring the question of whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice to the forefront of several wide-ranging congressional investigations.

In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., Comey is likely to be asked about his firing as well as reports that Trump asked him to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In a preview of his opening statement released by the committee Wednesday afternoon, Comey said Trump said to him during a meeting at the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

Comey's testimony comes on the heels of new revelations that Trump also asked two of his top intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to back off its focus on Flynn. In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday, those two officials - Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers - declined to describe private conversations with the president. Instead, they both said they never felt pressure to do anything inappropriate.

A series of such revelations in recent weeks have fueled accusations of obstruction, but at least four congressional inquiries have remained wide-ranging, with some lawmakers expressing greater concern about whether Trump campaign associates colluded with Russian officials to meddle in the 2016 election and others more focused on prosecuting those who have leaked classified information to the media.

In addition to those congressional probes, the FBI is heading up a counterintelligence investigation into collusion and Russia's interference last year.

Still unknown is whether Comey will offer more details about his conversations with Trump than he already detailed in his opening statement. Additionally, his opening statement does not recount his firing. He will be careful not to discuss classified information, which is likely to prevent him from providing new details about the Russia probe, several associates said.

Comey also will try to steer clear of saying anything that could compromise or constrain the work of special counsel Robert Mueller III, now heading up the FBI's investigation, such as offering legal or prosecutorial judgments, these people said.

Comey insisted on testifying publicly, but he will also address the committee behind closed doors following the public forum.

An intensification of the obstruction question could cause the center of gravity to shift on Capitol Hill. Besides the FBI, the House and Senate intelligence panels are exploring Russian meddling and the potential politicization of intelligence gathering. Members of both parties and in both chambers generally agree that the Senate investigation is the most comprehensive and advanced of the congressional probes.

The House and Senate Judiciary committees could become a more central focus after Thursday if Comey's testimony suggests that Trump's actions constituted obstruction of justice, as that could potentially shift congressional focus from intelligence matters to legal and criminal matters that those two committees oversee. In addition, House Judiciary is where any discussion of impeachment proceedings would begin.

To date, Democrats are split on the question of impeachment proceedings, with some readily suggesting the possibility but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., impatiently dismissing that as premature.

Still, Democrats again this week called for Comey to testify next before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the panel continues its duties overseeing the FBI and preparing to confirm Comey's successor. An aide on the House Judiciary Committee said the panel has no current plans to launch a new, separate inquiry.

The House Oversight Committee also has begun exploring how Trump and his associates may have attempted to influence the FBI investigation.

In addition to Flynn, current and former Trump associates, including his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, former adviser Carter Page, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, are the focus of the ongoing probes.

Republicans, already wary of how the investigations are impeding their legislative ambitions, said they will be listening Thursday for how Comey describes what the president said to him in a series of meetings and what he told Trump in response.

"I think the whole world has the same question," said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., adding that Comey's version of events is "possibly going to be very illuminating."

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., a long-serving member of the Intelligence Committee, said that "Having more details - fleshing out what was said, who was involved, was it documented - I think will very much clarify where things were at the time Mr. Comey was fired."

Legal analysts said the testimony adds detail that would beef up an obstruction of justice case.

While no one meeting itself is the smoking gun that Trump tried to illegally hinder an investigation, the totality of his interactions with Comey suggest he might have acted corruptly, said Cornell Law School Professor Jens David Ohlin.

"I think that the stuff that's now been put on the record, if you add it all up together, to me it spells obstruction of justice," Ohlin said. "The pieces are (1) Trump demanding loyalty, (2) Trump telling Comey or directing Comey to end the Flynn or close the Flynn investigation (3) Trump firing Comey when Comey refuses to close the Russia investigation, and then (4) Trump admitting on national television that the reason he fired Comey was because of the Russia investigation and not any of the other reasons cited in the memo."

Ohlin said that Trump seemed to have been particularly concerned with Flynn, though he said Comey's interpretation that he only wanted the Flynn aspect of the probe shut down was "a very generous interpretation of Trump's comments."

At best, Ohlin said, Trump might be looking out for a "loyal surrogate" he thought had been wronged. At worst, he said, Trump might view Flynn "as this potential pressure point in the whole investigation in the administration, and that he's a little bit worried about Flynn as someone who could potentially do a lot of damage if he were charged and decided to cut a deal and reached some sort of plea agreement where he had to provide information about the administration."

Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice at Perkins Coie, said of Comey's testimony: "There's enough here to raise serious questions about whether obstruction occurred." He noted particularly Trump's comment about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife received money from the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) during her run for a state senate seat.

"It's a suggestive statement by President Trump and could be read as, 'I did you a solid by not making a big deal out of the McCabe campaign contributions, you owe me,'" Cohen said.

Senators said that much of the attention on Thursday is expected to focus on a May 9 letter informing Comey of his firing. Trump wrote that he appreciated the director's repeated reassurances that the president himself was not the focus of the investigation.

"I find that phrase to be very curious," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the intelligence panel, who said she planned to press Comey for his side of the story and that she could "see no reason why" Comey wouldn't be forthcoming.

Comey kept memos of several conversations with Trump pertaining to the FBI's ongoing probes, but not all of them are unclassified. Senators are likely to quiz Comey about his memo regarding his conversations with Trump about Flynn, which is unclassified, according to an associate of Comey.

"It makes a big difference what the exact words were, the tone of the president, the context of the conversation," Collins said.

Wyden declined to tell reporters whether Comey planned to describe or read from his personal notes at the hearing, citing private "committee deliberations."

"We'll have debates about what constitutes obstruction of justice, but the comments the president made with respect to why he fired Mr. Comey on national television I think constitutes an attack on national institutions," Wyden said, adding that Comey deserves a chance to publicly respond.

Other lawmakers said the former director will face close scrutiny too.

"Comey has to answer some hard questions about why didn't he do more" to raise concerns about Trump's comments, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "If you really believe that the man was trying to obstruct justice and you're the head of the FBI, more than writing a note to yourself, you probably ought to do something about it."

Comey is a practiced witness in front of congressional committees, having taken political heat from lawmakers over controversial decisions during his time as FBI director and previously as deputy attorney general during the second Bush administration.

He is also unbothered by the prospect of crossing his superiors in an open forum. In some ways, doing so has defined his career, from his arguments during George W. Bush's presidency against the use of torture to his more recent testimony contradicting Trump's claims that the government had wiretapped Trump Tower. On another occasion, in front of the House Intelligence Committee, Comey was asked to respond in real time to a Trump tweet claiming that Comey had testified that Russia did not influence the election. "It certainly wasn't our intention to say that today," Comey replied.

Comey may be pressed again to respond to Trump in real time, given that the president is not planning to refrain from Twitter on Thursday, according to administration officials.

He is also likely to be asked for his personal take on the tone of his meetings with Trump.

"I just hope he tells everything he can," Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said this week, adding that the former director "should tell the whole story. The American people on a subject as serious of this are entitled to the whole truth and nothing but."

Other senior Democrats said that Comey's appearance is by no means the end of congressional investigations - with some suggesting that it may constitute a major step toward more discussion of impeachment.

"There has been discussion about obstruction of justice charges or even impeachment, but very little can happen until we obtain the documents we need to evaluate the reports we have heard to date," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. He faulted committee Republicans for not yet requesting or obtaining a series of memos that would detail Trump and Comey's interactions.

"At some point, Republicans need to start holding President Trump accountable."

Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has requested Comey's memos and papers and threatened to use his subpoena power to obtain them. But he is retiring from Congress this month, and GOP leaders have not yet picked a successor, leaving the committee investigation in limbo.

Pelosi is less ready to discuss impeachment than other Democrats.

"Anything you do has to be based on data, evidence, facts," she said on ABC's"The View."

When the hosts persisted, Pelosi shot back: "Let's take a deep breath and just calm down as a country. This is a serious matter."

- - -

The Washington Post's Matt Zapotosky, Devlin Barrett and Robert Costa contributed to this report.

- - -

Video: What is obstruction of justice?

With the term whirling around Washington, a former federal prosecutor explains what to know about the criminal charge of obstruction of justice. (Jenny Starrs / The Washington Post)

Short URL: http://wapo.st/2r7fLqv

Embed code: <iframe width="480" height="290" scrolling="no" src="//www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/17ad7a00-4bc3-11e7-987c-42ab5745db2e" f
WASHINGTON - In early January, before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took a brief turn as the highest profile Republican critic of Trump's emerging foreign policy.

Rubio opened his questioning at the Jan. 11 confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson, then Trump's nominee for secretary of state, with blistering questions about whether the Exxon Mobil CEO believed that Russians, at the behest of President Vladimir Putin, had interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Five months later, Trump's onetime GOP campaign rival displayed a far different demeanor in Thursday's hearing with James Comey, the fired FBI director who testified about his interactions with Trump before his dismissal. Rubio used his seven-minute stint to blunt allegations that the president's behavior toward Comey constituted an obstruction of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of Russia.

Once dismissed by Trump as "Little Marco," Rubio even homed in on the one issue that has most animated the president: leaks of information damaging to him.

"We've learned more from the newspapers sometimes than we do from our open hearings, for sure," Rubio said to Comey. "You ever wonder why of all the things in this investigation, the only thing that's never been leaked is the fact that the president was not personally under investigation?"

For those wondering if Republicans are ready to make a sharp break from Trump, think again. Rubio was among a vast majority of the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee who, judging from the questioning of Comey, could well be described as Trump's political defense team.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who earlier this year pushed for a more forceful Russia investigation, pressed Comey on his decision to leak a Trump-related memo through a friend to the New York Times. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., who has previously questioned Trump's posture toward Russia, dismissed Comey's belief that Trump was pressuring him to drop the probe as "a pretty light touch."

And across the Capitol, as Comey was midway through his testimony, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., dismissed Trump's demands of "loyalty" from Comey as a novice politician who does not understand that the FBI needs to maintain its independence from political influence. "He's just new to this," Ryan said of Trump.

Some Democrats were stunned that Republicans did not break away from the president.

"Given the fact pattern, it's a little surprising," said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

Others suggested that the GOP's reluctance to move against Trump was understandable because the investigation is still in its infancy. "I expected it a bit, to be honest with you," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "I think we're not at anywhere close to making conclusions."

Feinstein said it will take many more months before the committee can determine if the Trump campaign colluded with Russian hackers or if Trump committed obstruction of justice. "We're not there yet," she said.

Republicans did not succeed in breaking Comey's stride or expose wrongdoing on his part while running the FBI. Nor did they refute the underlying allegation that Trump fired Comey because he declined to drop portions of the FBI investigation. There are plenty of doubts lurking in Republican minds about what will be unearthed next, sometimes expressed publicly and often expressed privately.

In the early moments Thursday, Comey clearly commanded the hearing room in the Hart Senate Office Building, explaining why he kept highly detailed memos of each of his interactions with Trump from early January until his May 9 firing.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of the meeting," he said of their first meeting, when he briefed the president-elect about allegations that Russians had obtained compromising information on Trump. "I knew that there might come a day when I'd need a record."

Many Republicans felt the need to pay homage to Comey's long career as a federal prosecutor and leading the FBI. "America needs more like you," Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, said.

But on the political front, Republicans circled back to the idea that this portrait painted by Comey was not good for Trump - yet it was also not a high crime or misdemeanor.

Rubio stood out in part because of his often personal fights with Trump during the 2016 presidential primary. In January he appeared ready take Tillerson's nomination down, particularly after Rubio asked if Putin was a "war criminal."

"I would not use that term," the future secretary said.

Later that month, however, Rubio relented, and Tillerson was confirmed on a narrow vote.

Some saw Rubio as a potential maverick in the Intelligence Committee's investigation, and on Wednesday he was forceful in trying to get Trump's top intelligence advisers to confirm The Washington Post's report that the president had asked them to intervene with Comey to get him to drop the Flynn investigation.

On Thursday, however, Rubio kept his questions to Comey in the realm of narrowing the scope of the allegations. He attempted to diminish the impact of the allegation that Trump wanted to "let go" of the Flynn probe. He asked if Comey responded in any negative fashion: "Did you say anything to the president about - that is not an appropriate request, or did you tell the White House counsel, that is not an appropriate request?"

No, Comey said - and then Rubio asked the questions about leaks. He seemed to be suggesting that Comey or his onetime allies at the FBI were behind the leaks damaging to Trump, asking him to name every member of his senior leadership with whom he had discussed his interactions with Trump.

Afterward, Rubio told reporters that Trump's interactions with Comey were likely not appropriate. "Whether it rises to criminality, you know, I think there's significant doubts about whether it rises to that level," he said.
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MAGNOLIA - I drove past the site three times before I saw the signs.

They sat side by side, supported by spindly strips of wood, one bearing a message in English and the other in Spanish. Foliage obscured some of the text.

The signs were so small and so low that they were virtually invisible to passing motorists. I might never have seen them if I hadn't been looking for them.

"Proposed air quality permit," the signs state. "Application No. 143902. For further information contact: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality." An address and phone number followed.

This wooded area off Old Hockley Road in western Montgomery County is where Paul Vasquez wants to build a concrete batch plant - one of hundreds of such facilities producing the ready-mix concrete that feeds the Houston area's massive construction industry. As the Houston Chronicle's Kim McGuire reported in February, these plants produce noise, vibrations and dust that can represent a nuisance and a health hazard to surrounding neighborhoods.

Residents near the Montgomery County site, and public officials who represent them, protested vigorously when they learned about the application last April.

"I am not against industry, and I'm certainly not against business, but I am against the wrong business in the wrong place at the wrong time," Montgomery County Commissioner Charlie Riley said during an April 27 public hearing. "And that is what this is, the wrong place and time."

Riley and other opponents, however, were unable to arrange a contested hearing, a legal proceeding that carries more weight in the state review process than the informal hearing where Riley spoke. By the time they learned about the application, the deadline for seeking a contested hearing had passed, according to a report by Catherine Dominguez in the Conroe Courier.

Which brings us back to the signs.

Riley told Dominguez that he learned about the project from a resident who called him after seeing the signs, which had been posted months earlier. A former Magnolia councilwoman, Anne Sundquist, echoed Riley's complaint that public notice was inadequate.

"People didn't notice (the signs,)" Sundquist said.

Tiny but legal

Remarkably, the signs appear to comply with state regulations. If you want to build something that requires an air quality permit in Texas, you must post a sign at least 18 inches by 28 inches in size, with dark, block, capital letters at least 1.5 inches tall on a white background. The text doesn't have to specify the type of facility - only that an air quality permit is being sought.

"It's just appalling," said Matthew Feinberg, who lives on Old Hockley Road near the site and has struggled to find out more about the project since he learned about it. "I drove by that sign probably half a dozen times at least" after returning from a holiday trip.

Texas leaders apparently consider homes for poor people more troublesome than facilities that might foul the air.

Signs at proposed public housing sites must be at least 4 feet by 4 feet, with the words "Site of Proposed Housing Project" in 8-inch letters.

The tiny signs and limited public notification are among many concerns about state regulation of concrete batch plants. Many operate 24 hours a day, and the Chronicle's analysis of Harris County's 188 plants - the most in the state - found that they tend to be clustered in working-class, minority neighborhoods.

Not on agenda

During the just-ended state legislative session, Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, introduced two bills to tighten regulation of these facilities. Both measures were opposed by industry, he said.

One of Walle's bills didn't get a committee hearing, and the other got a hearing but not a committee vote. Gov. Greg Abbott's call for a special session does not include this topic.

"This was a priority issue for us," said Walle, who represents a north Houston district, "but we spent a lot of time on unnecessary social issues," such as the so-called bathroom bill. (That one did rate inclusion in the special session.)

TCEQ spokesman Brian McGovern said the agency followed all the required procedures for the Old Hockley Road application, including publication of two legal notices in a newspaper. He said "legislators, city and county officials" were notified of the application on Nov. 21, although Riley and Magnolia officials told the Courier that they did not learn about the project until April.

The state agency is drafting its response to comments it received on the project, McGovern said, and a final decision will be made by its executive director.

This is just one project among many, of course. Residents of communities where future concrete batch plants might be built would benefit from some changes in the review process - starting with bigger, more prominent signs.
Texas Congressman Ted Poe has become an advocate of the virtual - a technological wall instead of a physical barrier on the Mexico border. That was just one of the messages he delivered to his constituents during an unusual telephone town hall.

Constituents received a call Wednesday evening from the Republican, who lives in Humble and represents the 2nd Congressional district, requesting questions and participation in several instant phone polls during the conversation.

In the hourlong telephone town hall, Poe discussed health reform, the proposed border wall, press freedom, congressional gridlock and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

It is unclear whether the call was live or recorded and how many people were connected Wednesday, but the conference line disconnected at 6:30 p.m.

Poe made clear he supports a "virtual wall" to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border and called President Donald Trump's promise of a physical barrier unrealistic.

"The physical wall concept is not feasible," he said. "No one is more passionate about border security than I am."

Poe explained that a constructed wall would invade 900 miles of mostly private property in Texas and impede irrigation from the Rio Grande River, creating an economic problem.

"You change the international border from the middle of the Rio Grande River to where the wall is.  It's not a good idea, plus we can't afford it," Poe said. "We need more boots on the ground, more boats in the water  and more technology."

Frustrated by inaction

Poe said he was frustrated that members of the Republican party, which controls all three branches of the federal government, have not repealed and replaced the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," or passed other significant bills.

"Here we are in June, and there were major pieces of legislation that were supposed to be passed and have not," Poe said. "Republicans have a hard time of compromising on things.  I think it's all for political grandstanding - on both sides."

He said he expects the House health reform bill sent to the U.S. Senate to be passed by the Fourth of July but return to the House as "a different piece of legislation." Still, he said he's "optimistic" about a solution that individual Americans can afford.

Poe represents a heavily gerrymandered district of affluent parts of Harris County. The area jumps from West University and Rice Village to west Houston and the Cypress area. The district includes a large contiguous swath of east Harris County encompassing Kingwood, Atascocita and Huffman.

"Of course climate change is taking place, and the biggest issue is what can be done about it," Poe told a grandmother who asked about the congressman's position on the 2016 Paris accord that Trump decided last week that the United States should exit.

"It's a treaty that was never approved by the U.S. Senate," Poe said.

Varied results

Other area members of Congress have conducted in-person town hall meetings to varied results.

U.S. Rep. John Culberson, a Republican who represents the 7th Congressional District that includes high-income enclaves such as Bellaire and the villages in west Houston, endured a raucous meeting in March where he struggled to answer questions over shouting from many of the 700 attendees.

In February, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who represents much of central and north Houston, hosted a discussion in support of the Affordable Care Act that became an anti-Trumpcare rally among ideologically similar attendees.

Voters this year also have organized meetings to be heard without their representatives. During the congressional recess in February, a demonstration formed outside of the downtown tower where U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has an office (he later met with some of the participants) and a photo of Rep. Kevin Brady of The Woodlands was placed in a chair during a town hall in Conroe.

In late March, Poe was greeted by protesting constituents in Spring while he attended a Houston Chamber of Commerce event. The demonstration was organized by Indivisible TX-02 Northeast Houston members who have reached out to Poe's office, unsuccessfully they say, for a town hall with the congressman.
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Waving signs proclaiming "Brown Lives Matter" and "Justice for John Hernandez," more than 150 protesters marched through downtown Houston Wednesday as community tensions build over the strangulation death of the 24-year-old Houston-area man.

The calls for fairness and impartiality in the investigation came as the Harris County District Attorney's Office announced it will present evidence starting Thursday to let a grand jury decide whether Terry Thompson, the husband of a sheriff's deputy, should be charged in the case.

District Attorney Kim Ogg said every aspect of Hernandez's death will be presented to the grand jury.

"We're going to ask a grand jury to make decisions based on all the evidence," said District Attorney Kim Ogg, who is out of state for a meeting. "We are dedicated to a fair, evidence-based process."

The protests followed more than a week of public outrage, fueled by a cellphone video that captured the stout Thompson pinning the smaller Hernandez to the ground outside a Denny's restaurant in eastern Harris County.

"It's not right - everyone involved should've been arrested," said Antonio Ramirez, a friend of the family who joined the march Wednesday. "If the roles were reversed and he would've killed (the deputy's) husband, John would've have been locked up days ago."

Hernandez died from strangulation and chest compression on May 31, three days after he got into an altercation with Thompson outside the restaurant. The 50-second video shows Thompson on top of a kicking and grunting Hernandez.

But sorting out who may have started the fight - and whether Thompson was acting in self-defense - will be up for the grand jury to decide. According to Scot Courtney, an attorney for Thompson, Hernandez threw and landed the first punch.

"My client was not the aggressor," he has said. "My heart goes out to the entire family, but we need to see the entire picture and not just the end result."

The emotional pain for Maria Toral, the mother of Hernandez's 4-year-old daughter, has been overwhelming, she said. Toral said the only way Hernandez will receive justice is if Thompson is sent to prison.

"That's what I want," she said. "This has all been a bad dream and I just want it to be over."

After the medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez placed Thompson's wife, Deputy Chauna Thompson, on administrative duty until the investigation is resolved.

Gonzalez emphasized during a press conference Wednesday after the protest march that his office provided no special treatment to the deputy or her husband.

"Absolutely not," he said. "There's no favoritism being shown."

Gonzalez said his office has handed off its evidence to the district attorney's office and enlisted guidance from the Texas Rangers and the Department of Justice in an effort to be transparent.

But the sheriff's office remains on the case and will track any leads as they come in, Gonzalez said.

First Assistant District Attorney Tom Berg said Wednesday that senior prosecutor Jim Leitner will lead the presentation before the grand jury, which could decide as early as this week whether criminal charges are warranted.

The grand jury will consider the legal standard for self-defense in a confrontation, Berg said.

"Your response in self-defense has to be proportionate to the threat," he said. "In order to use deadly force, you normally have to be faced with deadly force or imminent bodily injury."

Berg addressed more than 100 protesters gathered outside the county courthouse demanding "Justice Now," said that he wants justice for John Hernandez and also for Terry Thompson.

"We want justice for John Hernandez, and we want justice for the Thompsons," the prosecutor recalled later. "We want justice for everyone involved in this case. We want the process to be transparent. And we want to remind them that they're part of our community too, and we care."

Protesters and family members believe the altercation may have been racially motivated, and that Hernandez's death would have been more aggressively investigated if he were white.

Berg said detectives have looked at a possible hate motive, including reviewing posts on Facebook, but have not seen convincing proof of bias.

Berg said Thompson was not arrested initially because Hernandez did not die at the scene, but instead was pronounced dead days later when he was removed from life support.

Because the incident was initially reported to sheriff's deputies as an assault by Hernandez and they were not aware he had been taken away without vital signs, Berg said that Thompson, his wife and other witnesses were interviewed by regular patrol deputies rather than homicide detectives, who might have asked questions and gathered evidence differently.

Instead, homicide investigators had to work days after the incident, he said.

"We're concerned that things happened later than they should have," Berg said.

The prosecutor added that Thompson and his wife spoke to patrol deputies at the scene but have declined to be interviewed by the DA's investigators.

The incident began after Thompson and his children pulled into the Denny's parking lot in the 17700 block of the Crosby Freeway in eastern Harris County. Thomas reportedly saw Hernandez urinating in public, Gonzalez said last week.

Thompson allegedly confronted Hernandez and a fight ensued, Gonzalez said. Thompson's wife, who was off duty, arrived in a separate vehicle to meet the family at the restaurant and called for assistance, the sheriff said.

On Wednesday, protesters marched about a mile through Houston streets and convened on the steps of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center to draw attention to the case.

What was originally planned as an event to protest the Harris County Sheriff's Office involvement in the case transformed into a bittersweet victory for Hernandez's family and friends as they learned that the grand jury would hear the case.

Friends and family members cheered  though briefly.

Randall Kallinen, an attorney representing the Hernandez family, said they are pleased that a grand jury will hear the evidence.

"This is what we wanted," he said. "The case is moving forward and we're hoping that the grand jury does the right thing. The evidence is clear."
NASA recently announced its newest generation of astronaut candidates.

Representing Space City is Loral O'Hara, a research engineer born in Houston and raised in Sugar Land.

In August, the group of 12 astronauts will begin training at the Johnson Space Center for two years.

BIZARRE FIND: Astronomers discover Jupiter-like planet hotter than most stars

After graduating from Clements High School in 2001, O'Hara earned a degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Kansas and a Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Purdue University.

Story continues below...

After completing her training at the Johnson Space Center, O'Hara will be assigned technical duties at NASA while she awaits a flight assignment, which has yet to be determined.

VP VISIT: Pence visits Johnson Space Center, affirms commitment to space mission

O'Hara and the rest of the astronaut candidate will train for a decade before heading into orbit.

O'Hara will join the list of a few hundred Americans who have been selected to participate in NASA's intensive astronaut program.

HISTORIC REPLICA: LEGO releases NASA Apollo Saturn V rocket

NASA's historic astronaut candidate program began in 1959 with the "Original Seven," which included John Glenn and Alan Shepard.

Click through above to meet NASA's newest astronaut candidates.
A man is injured after he was robbed at gunpoint in the parking lot of his north Houston apartment complex early Thursday morning.

The man was walking from the lot to his apartment in the 600 block of East Little York when several men tried to rob him around 1 a.m., HPD Lt. Larry Crowson said.
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The U.S. Supreme Court dealt another blow Wednesday to Harris County's controversial bail system, refusing to halt a court order even as county officials began releasing more than 100 misdemeanor inmates who couldn't afford to post cash bonds.

Justice Clarence Thomas denied Harris County's request less than 24 hours after the county filed a challenge to an appeals court decision that had left in place a strongly worded order tossing out the current bail system.

Even before the high court ruled, however, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez began releasing indigent inmates charged with misdemeanors who did not have other special holds or certain family violence restrictions.

Among those released Wednesday was Edward Gonzales - no relation to the sheriff - who was arrested Monday on misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and trespassing.

The 38-year-old construction worker was accused of damaging a fence while helping a friend move, but he said the fence was already damaged when he arrived. He sat in jail more than 36 hours, however, because he couldn't afford to make the $500 cash bond.

Finally, early Wednesday, he was released on a personal bond after promising to appear in court.

"Free at last!" he yelled as he walked outside. "It feels good to come out."

The new no-cash bail system "helps a lot," he said.

Andre Medina, 17, a high school senior, waited outside the Harris County Jail for his grandmother.

He had been in jail for two days after being arrested on a criminal trespass charge in Pasadena. Late Tuesday night, he, too, was released on a personal bond.

"Right before I saw the TV judge, I prayed I could get out," Medina said, referring to the hearing officer who read his charges via a television link. "It feels good. I'm going to go home and shower."

The court orders and costly legal fight came in a federal lawsuit filed last year by two civil rights groups - Texas Fair Defense Project and Civil Rights Corps - and local law firm Susman Godfrey on behalf of Maranda ODonnell, a single mother who was held for two days on a charge of driving without a valid license because she couldn't afford the $2,500 bail. Similar lawsuits filed on behalf of two other people were merged into the case in August.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal in Houston issued a 193-page ruling in April that the county's bail system was unconstitutional and ordered the release of indigent misdemeanor defendants using personal bonds.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday morning rejected the county's efforts to halt Rosenthal's injunction while they challenged the full ruling in court. The county filed the same day for emergency consideration before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Courts have 'clearly spoken'

The latest legal blow left county officials weighing their options and refocusing efforts on challenging the larger order from Rosenthal, said First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard.

The county still has the option to ask another justice or the full Supreme Court to reconsider Thomas' ruling. Follow-up requests to other justices often are referred to the full court, according to the high court's public information office.

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg - whose office has already begun supporting personal bonds for misdemeanors - praised the court's decision.

"There is no longer any legal reason why the county cannot comply with Judge Lee Rosenthal's order," she said, in a written statement. "Holding people in jail solely because they are poor violates due process, and the courts at every level of our federal judiciary have clearly spoken."

Ogg joined with the sheriff and County Commissioner Rodney Ellis in filing documents with the court opposing the cash-bail system. One of the 16 criminal court-at-law judges sued in the case, Darrell Jordan, has also indicated he opposes the current system. Six hearing officers and top county officials are also named in the suit.

Trisha Trigilio, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said being stuck in jail can ruin people's lives over minor offenses.

"What was happening under the previous system was an outrage," she said. "We have people who are held in jail with devastating consequences for their families and their lives, just because they can't afford to pay a bond."

The county, however, has argued that broad pretrial release on personal bonds can lead to dangerous criminals going free, saying the court order would "upend the pretrial bail system in the largest jurisdiction in Texas and the third largest in the United States."

County officials have invested millions of dollars to reform the bail system starting this summer, with a beefed up pretrial services department and a pilot program to provide public defenders present at bail hearings. A tool to assess the risk posed by a defendant is set to go into effect July 1.

Precinct 3 County Commissioner Steve Radack said the county wants a chance to complete its reforms without federal intervention.

"I want the end result to be fairness, and that's what we have been striving for," Radack said. "I don't think you can always get court-ordered fairness."

The bail bond industry has also opposed the order, which will release thousands of potential clients without requiring them to post bond.

Veteran bondsman Carlos Manzano, of Americas Bail Bonds, said he and many of his colleagues believe the overuse of personal bonds will create a dangerous situation for the community.

"It's kind of like just like giving everybody a slap on the hand," he said. "It's going to blow up in the county's face. It's just a ticking time bomb."

A welcome surprise

For those who were released Wednesday, however, many of whom had been facing days or weeks behind bars over misdemeanors, the change offered a surprise opportunity to resume life outside of a jail cell.

"I'm going to call my grandmother," said Traylessee Cunningham, who had been held in jail since early May. "Nobody knows I'm in jail."

Cunningham was charged with misdemeanor trespassing on May 10, just days after she said she had fronted nearly $10,000 in funeral costs for her twin brother. She was unable to post the $500 she needed to get out of jail on the trespassing charge, so she remained in jail for weeks, missing her brother's funeral.

"That messed me up really bad," Cunningham said.

She is also facing a felony retaliation charge involving her brother's former girlfriend, she said.

For Devin Walton, 27, getting out of jail means going back to work cooking barbecue in Oak Ridge North. He wants to go back to his wife and their two children in Chambers County and work on a car he's rebuilding.

"Get back to my kids, that's the ultimate goal," he said.

Walton had been held after getting into a fight with his brother. He could not come up with the $5,000 needed for the $50,000 bond and had been in jail almost a week.

He's lucky, he said, to have an understanding boss.

"I probably would have lost my job," he said.

Changes ahead?

Legal experts said the county has just about used up all its options in challenging Rosenthal's order.

"There's no question that Justice Thomas has concluded that there isn't clear and obvious irreparable harm to the state if the stay isn't granted," said Lonny Hoffman, a professor at the University of Houston Law Center who specializes in federal procedure.

Sarah R. Guidry, executive director of the Earl Carl Institute for Legal and Social Policy at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University, said Thomas' rejection of the county's appeal will force local changes.

"This is going to put a fire under the county to figure out how to implement this," she said. "It's also going to have a huge impact on the bail bonds industry. They're going to have to figure out a different way to make a living. They're not going the get the bulk of their income off of poor people who are charged with low-level crimes."
Despite mounting pressure from residents and immigrant rights groups, Mayor Sylvester Turner appears content to remain on the sidelines of the debate over Texas' new "sanctuary cities" law, even as Dallas announced plans Wednesday to join San Antonio, Austin and others in suing the state over the controversial statute.

Turner has asked the city attorney's office to review the law known as Senate Bill 4, which allows police to ask people their immigration status if detained even for a routine traffic stop, but otherwise continues to deflect questions about whether he plans to challenge it.

That has meant carefully sidestepping the term "sanctuary city," while touting Houston as a diverse, "welcoming city" and assuring residents that Houston police will not violate their constitutional rights.

On Wednesday, the mayor attempted to redirect attention to Austin by urging Houstonians to take up their concerns at the Capitol, even though the law has been signed and the Legislature is not slated to revisit the issue during its July special session.

"The right forum to reconsider Senate Bill 4 before it goes into effect on Sept. 1 is Austin, Texas, and I'd encourage people to write to call to drive or go to Austin," Turner said. "Go to Austin by the hundreds, by the thousands, and ask those who authored, voted for and signed Senate Bill 4 to repeal Senate Bill 4. Those of us around this table, we cannot repeal Senate Bill 4, as we did not author Senate Bill 4."

Turner, a longtime state lawmaker who made his career more on deal-making than strident advocacy, was loath to speak out on controversial issues this spring, when his primary focus was ushering a delicate pension reform plan through the state Legislature.

That task now in the rear view mirror, local advocacy groups have ratcheted up public pressure on the mayor to take a more decisive stand on the controversial immigration law.

"The time for good words or for pretty words (is) over. We need action and we need action immediately," Cesar Espinosa, executive director of FIEL Houston, said in front of City Hall last week.

Heights resident Karina Quesada-Leon echoed Espinosa when she appeared before City Council on Tuesday.

"We need to do more than just tout our city's diversity and call it a welcoming city, which is nice and all but doesn't do a thing for the most vulnerable," Quesada-Leon said, asking the city to sue over SB4. "Remember that indecision is a decision. To do nothing is to side with those that would harm my friends and family."

Turner, having noted he personally opposes SB4, assured Quesada-Leon he would act in the city's best interest.

"I'm not making pretty, nice speeches. I think the appointments and everything else we've done in this administration speaks very loudly and boldly," the mayor said, presumably referring to his appointment of Police Chief Art Acevedo, who has been an outspoken critic of SB4.

The law also says sheriffs and police chiefs who refuse federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants detained for other alleged crimes could face jail time and fines.

Anticipating legal challenges, Attorney General Ken Paxton preemptively asked a federal judge last month to declare SB4 constitutional.

Maverick County and the city of El Cenizo, which both sit on the Texas-Mexico border, quickly sued, alleging constitutional violations. El Paso County, Austin, San Antonio, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and others subsequently also took legal action, and the cases have been consolidated. A preliminary hearing is set for June 26.

Denise Gilman, who directs the University of Texas School of Law's immigration clinic, said it likely would not make much of a legal difference for Houston to sue, given the range of local jurisdictions already going up against the state.

"Their claims would probably match very closely with the claims that have been brought already by these other jurisdictions," Gilman said.

Still, adding Houston to a legal challenge could influence how the challenges are perceived, Gilman said.

"Even in litigation, there's an optics question of how the litigation is seen, how the parties are seen, and I think adding Houston to the mix in challenging the law would send an important message."

The Houston area has the third-largest population of immigrants in the country illegally, behind New York City and Los Angeles, according to Pew Research Center.

Turner said Wednesday the city does not have a timeline for completing its legal analysis, and University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray doubted the mayor would rush it.

"Sylvester Turner was often called Sly in his legislative career. He was very careful in his choices to make sure that it benefited his long-term political interest, and I assume he'll approach the sanctuary city issue in exactly the same fashion," Murray said. "Turner, I think, is particularly careful to calibrate: If I do this, what does it mean?"

Although the mayor successfully shepherded Houston's pension reform package through Austin, he is by no means out of the woods on the issue.

The new pension law, which goes into effect July 1, requires voters to approve the $1 billion in bonds Turner plans to inject into the underfunded police and municipal pensions. If voters reject the November referendum, those groups' $1.7 billion in benefit cuts would be rescinded.

Turner also plans to ask voters to lift the city's revenue cap, which limits property tax collections, and the city secretary is reviewing the validity of a petition that calls for a vote on giving 401(k)-style retirement plans to all city workers hired after the start of next year.

In what is likely to be a low-turnout election featuring few candidates and several complex propositions likely to drum up conservative opposition, Murray said suing the state over SB4 "would just be throwing a little more gasoline on their fire."

"Turner doesn't want to accumulate anything that would make it even more difficult to secure voter approval on these one or two issues that he's going to be carrying," Murray said.
In the six weeks they have to themselves before they return to the Capitol for next month's special session, we'd recommend a European vacation to our state's legislators. In sophisticated cities from the boot of Italy through the Alps to the banks of the River Seine, people routinely take care of business in unisex bathrooms. There's no crime, there's no controversy, there's no crazy talk about perverts and predators in public restrooms.

Then, after they return to Austin, maybe they'll get just as mad as we are that our governor has sentenced them to 30 more days of pointless arguments about toilets.

Alas, our state lawmakers once again couldn't get their jobs done in 140 days, so Gov. Greg Abbott announced this week he's calling them back to the Capitol in July. Our governor had an opportunity to assert himself, to show some political courage, to face down the lieutenant governor who bullied him by holding our state government hostage. Instead, Abbott failed a public test of political character by caving in to potty politics and putting the so-called "bathroom bill" back on the front burner for the special session.

In a regular session crippled by rancor over divisive issues, no subject was more shamefully disruptive than the schism created by this legislation targeting transgender Texans. The idea of basically denying people the right to use public restrooms isn't just a display of bigotry, it's an act of fiscal foolishness. Our state's business leadership has fought this bill from the very beginning, recognizing this ludicrous legislation stands to cost the Texas economy a staggering fortune. Indeed, after North Carolina passed a similar bill, a detailed analysis by the Associated Press concluded it cost the state $3.76 billion in lost business. Despite all this, our governor chose to revive this hateful job killer.

His reason was as obvious as it was galling. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a former conservative talk show host with a history of cravenly exploiting hot-button topics, witnessed how this nonsense about bathrooms enflamed social conservatives during the fight over Houston's doomed equal rights ordinance. So he tossed it like a firebomb into the middle of this year's Legislature. At first, Abbott kept mum about the bill, and it seemed he might even wisely heed the business lobby's warnings. But in the end, the governor proved he's still cowed by fears that Patrick will challenge him in the 2018 primary.

So instead of keeping this legislation off the table, the governor has ensured that this special session will be awash in the same bile that lawmakers choked on earlier this year. In a special session estimated to cost taxpayers at least $800,000, every hour that state lawmakers devote to this bill is an hour less they can spend working on important issues that truly impact Texans.

In his remarks earlier this week, Abbott took a backhanded slap at Patrick for holding essential legislation hostage in order to force a special session on his pet piece of right-wing red meat. There's plenty of blame to go around, but the buck stops on the governor's desk. Texas lawmakers should boot the revived "bathroom bill," and Abbott should be ashamed of himself for putting it on their agenda.
Pasadena politics

Regarding "Pasadena mayoral race nears end" (Page A3, Wednesday), after casting his vote for one of the remaining two candidates in the Pasadena mayoral runoff election, Julio Jimenez said he is just "pissed off. I wanted to vote for a Hispanic."

What your reporter did not point out was that of the seven original candidates, three were Hispanic (Pena, Gallegos and Flores). In total, the three Hispanic candidates garnered 22.5 percent of the votes and therefore none appear in the runoff election.

I submit that one of two things occurred: 1) the Hispanic community did not vote in force, or 2) they voted for a non-Hispanic. There is no need to be "pissed off" at the system.

Lisa Lenehan, Pasadena

Stepping back for China

Regarding "Europe turns to China in U.S.' absence" (Page A1, Saturday), I sent this question to our senators and am really looking forward to their responses: "A simple question, sirs: Are you comfortable with the U.S. ceding to China its 70-year-old alliance with Europe, an alliance that, at least in part, has kept us and our former allies safe and secure?"

The depth of President Trump's ignorance on foreign policy is so clearly demonstrated by his actions regarding the Paris climate accord, and there seem to be no adults in the administration to educate him.

C. John Turnquist, Magnolia

Local control

Regarding "Lawmakers tripped up the Texas tradition of local control" (Page A27, Sunday), when I first started in city management more than 40 years ago, I was told that the state of Texas didn't give cities any money, and cities didn't ask for any money, because there was an understanding that if "you leave us [cities] alone, we won't ask you [the Legislature] for anything."

Part of this understanding resulted from the passage of home rule charter legislation in the 1920s which provided cities with more than 5,000 population the opportunity to be creative and innovative in their governance and not be restricted by the state.

During the last 25 years or so, the state meddling has increased and local discretion and control have diminished. Oh, by the way, the state has still avoided providing much funding to cities.

James Thurmond, posted via Houston Chronicle.com

Raising the stakes

Regarding "UK's May: 'Enough is enough'" (Page A1, Monday), it is about time that England realized that it has got to increase its security against terrorists, even if it means some unpleasant but legal measures. There is no question that tolerance is a mainstay of democracy. But it must be realized that tolerating everything - to the point of nihilism - is tantamount to standing for nothing. In such a chaotic atmosphere, destruction and mayhem quickly fester.

Democracy is not chaos. It has civic responsibilities, most notable of which is to respect the next person's rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This implies lawful boundaries between people. All persons making a democracy their home must demonstrate understanding and respect for these lawful boundaries. If they don't, they must either be expelled or condemned as criminals. Democratic justice should not be obligated to commit suicide.

Hence, aggressive vetting measures are very much in store for persons desiring immigration. This is not necessarily discrimination against anyone. It is simply a prudent device to protect the rights of innocent people.

John L. Indo, Houston

Easier said than done

Regarding "Inequality is shaping, breaking the nation" (Page A11, Tuesday), Nicholas Kristof's column on income inequality admirably illustrates the thorny complexity of the issue. Equal pay for equal work is fair enough, but how can fairness be decided upon work that is more demanding or hazardous?

Free markets have demonstrated decisively in favor of a moral profit motive as the universal incentive for work. So if most Americans want to simultaneously pursue free market capitalism as well as a more equitable distribution of wealth (or at least what we might call the fairness doctrine with regard to employment compensation), how can these two competing strategies be successfully merged into a satisfying American policy or policies?

Identifying the problems is easier than crafting a palatable solution.

Michael J. Carmody, Houston
Recent calls by the Trump administration for further expansion of energy exports, and especially of liquefied natural gas, should give rise to concern over the massive concentration of energy and petrochemical projects on the Gulf Coast. This places most of these planned exports into a small region of the country whose ports are vulnerable to closures and restrictions. This is a serious problem, putting the huge potential growth of U.S. exports at risk.

While hurricanes might seem the most obvious threat, fog is a greater one. For instance, the Houston Ship Channel, the largest export waterway in the country, has been closed by fog for up to 30 days per year over the last five years. Continuous silting of channels, lack of dredging combined with shipping accidents (such as collisions and groundings), also lead to congestion and disruption. Last year, a study by Risk Management Services found that six of the 10 global ports most at risk for catastrophic loss are located on the Gulf Coast.

The latest data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers show about 16,000 large ships call at U.S. Gulf ports each year. Houston alone accounted for more than 5,000 of them. This activity will expand dramatically. The four LNG plants already under construction will produce more than 1,000 cargoes annually. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. If all the proposed projects materialize, which is unlikely, the region could host up to 20 LNG export facilities within a decade, accounting for 6,000 cargoes per year valued at more than $100 billion. By contrast, in 2016 the U.S. exported just 57 LNG cargoes.

The 36-mile Calcasieu Ship Channel, home to the Port of Lake Charles in Louisiana, is the site of eight of these proposed LNG projects. Their combined export capacity equates to 1,800 cargoes a year, quadrupling existing traffic. Channel restrictions for LNG tankers make congestion and delays inevitable. Given the narrow width and limited depth of the Calcasieu River, LNG tankers will need to travel in small one-way convoys. Waiting times for LNG tankers at the port entrance could range between six and 24 hours, and much longer in adverse weather. Similarly, LNG exports from the Port of Brownsville could cause a 10-fold increase in traffic. These projections do not account for the numerous proposed expansions of other energy and petrochemical facilities depending on these ports. Some of these limitations could be mitigated by dredging and maintaining deeper and wider channels. However, permitting delays and inadequate funding make achieving these expansions difficult.

The issue of congestion does not stop once the tankers leave the Gulf Coast. Although the Panama Canal shortens the distance between U.S. and Asian markets, it also presents limitations (lock and traffic rules, etc.). Under current restrictions the Panama Canal can handle, at most, one LNG tanker from the U.S. per day.

This surge in LNG export activity is heavily centered in the Gulf because projects are taking advantage of low-cost natural gas supply and infrastructure developed when the region was at the heart of the nation's gas production. Ironically, today, one-third of U.S. gas originates from Marcellus and Utica shale in the Northeast.

The Trump administration is correctly advocating for diversification of exports away from the Gulf Coast. There is no doubt that an LNG facility on either or both coasts makes good sense. It would create employment and expand the nation's vital export infrastructure.

While these objectives are admirable, industry has largely given up on developing projects on these coasts in the face of a hostile climate for securing permits at the state and local levels. The White House needs to take steps to address these issues sooner rather than later. It will take a combination of providing additional funding to protect and improve the Gulf coastline and ports, and the federal government's willingness to override the endless delays and obstruction at the state and local levels on the Northeast and West Coasts. Turning talk into action will be the challenge. Until then, the country will continue to place too many of its export eggs into the Gulf Coast basket. May the future bring clear skies and calm waters less the basket topples over.

Tusiani and Shearer, both employed by Poten & Partners, are co-authors of "LNG: A Nontechnical Guide," (PennWell, 2007) and its second edition, "LNG: Fuel for a Changing World" (Penn Well, 2016).
The Gospel compels Christians to speak for those without a voice and to advocate for society's most vulnerable members, including those with intellectual disability. For this reason, I feel compelled to speak out on behalf of Bobby James Moore, an individual with documented life-long intellectual disability who has spent the last 37 years on Texas' death row.

While Christians have varying views on the death penalty, hopefully we can all agree no person with intellectual disability should be executed. As the U.S. Supreme Court recognized more than 15 years ago, "(n)o legitimate penological purpose is served by executing a person with intellectual disability" because such persons "do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct." While the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has been reticent to heed this message, it has both the legal and moral duty to do so now. And it should take an important first step here by reforming Moore's death sentence to life imprisonment.

As a 13-year-old, Moore lacked a basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year, telling time, and the concept that subtraction is the reverse of addition. He failed the first grade twice and every grade after that before dropping out of school in the ninth grade. At age 14, his father - after subjecting Moore to years of severe mental and physical abuse - threw him out of the house because Moore still did not know how to read. Moore lived on the streets, eating out of garbage cans and sleeping in a pool hall. He survived largely due to the kindness of strangers.

Then, at the age of 20, Moore was involved in a bungled grocery store robbery, in which he shot and killed a grocery store clerk. He has spent nearly 40 years on death row for that crime, which we all condemn.

In 2014, a Harris County District Court judge held a two-day hearing. After carefully listening to experts and witnesses, Judge Susan Brown applied current medical standards and determined that Moore is intellectually disabled and therefore exempt from the death penalty. She noted that Moore has an average IQ score of 70.66, which is well within the range of intellectual disability. And she found in her lengthy fact-finding that Moore's serious mental and social difficulties were very clear from early childhood.

The judge's determination that Moore is intellectually disabled and exempt from the death penalty should have been the end of the matter. Instead, in 2015, the Court of Criminal Appeals said that the lower court erred in applying current medical standards in making its determination that Moore was intellectually disabled. Applying non-clinical and outdated medical standards, it decided that Moore was not intellectually disabled and could be executed.

In March 2017, in Moore v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically reversed the appeals court's decision. The U.S. Supreme Court carefully reviewed the record. It emphasized that Moore's IQ score is clearly within the range of intellectually disabled and that the evidence just as clearly supported that he had significant mental and social difficulties from an early age. The U.S. Supreme Court also strongly endorsed Brown's application of current medical standards in concluding that Moore is intellectually disabled. Now Moore's case is back before the Court of Criminal Appeals.

This case presents not only a legal issue, but also a moral one. In Moore's case, the U.S. Supreme Court questioned why Texas applies current medical standards for diagnosing intellectual disability in other contexts, "yet clings to superseded standards when an individual's life is at stake." The appeals court now has the opportunity to chart a new course for how Texas handles intellectual disability claims and ensure that no person with intellectually disability is executed.

Moore is not the worst of the worst, but due to his significant intellectual deficits, he is certainly among the most vulnerable. He is worthy of God's love and of our fair and humane treatment. There is a path forward that affirms Moore's innate dignity as a human being, while still ensuring that justice is done. The Court of Criminal Appeals should follow this path and reform Moore's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Wells, DMin, is pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Houston.
A Houston man faces three felony charges after allegedly scuffling Saturday with a pair of police officers.

The Houston Police Department said Corey A. Tharp, 36, of 115 S. Oakcrest Street, is charged with assault, resisting arrest and attempted escape from custody. He is held on $400,000 bond in the Texas County Jail.

{{tncms-inline content=<p>The incident was Tharps second physical confrontation with Houston police. In July 2014, he was charged in a similar incident in which he allegedly assaulted a police officer and fled on foot while being arrested.</p> <p><a href="http://www.houstonherald.com/news/man-jailed-after-assaulting-houston-police-officer/article_d7c4324c-110c-11e4-9f17-001a4bcf887a.html" target="_blank"><strong>Read the story.</strong></a></p> id=e07ad5bb-bda7-4e0d-8a45-1186b512fb6d style-type=bio title=SECOND CONFRONTATION WITH AUTHORITIES type=relcontent}}

According to a probable cause statement, a Houston police officer responded around 9 p.m. to a 911 call from a woman at Tharps residence who said he was angry she has been talking to her former boyfriend. The officer, who said he knew Tharp, left the area to search for him and located him behind a dumpster in the Hardees parking lot.

The officer said due to previous encounters with Tharp, he drew his duty weapon and advised Tharp to come out and get on the ground. The officer said Tharp did not comply and instead came toward him in a threatening manner.

The officer wrestled Tharp to the ground, but he resisted being handcuffed. Another officer arrived, and Tharp continued to resist the officers attempts to handcuff him. At that point, the first officer said he deployed a taser in Tharps back.

Tharp briefly complied, the officer said, but while being escorted to the police car in handcuffs took off running. He was caught after about 20 yards.

Tharp was taken to the Texas County Jail and placed in a restraint chair after continuing to be combative, the officer said.

The woman said she had been assaulted but told authorities she did not want to pursue charges. At one point during the tussle with Tharp, a third officer placed her in handcuffs after she refused commands to back away, police said. Photos were taken of bruising on one of her arms.

The reporting officer said Tharp was positive for hepatitis C. Both officers who tussled with Tharp had blood on their skin  apparently from Tharp  and were tested at Texas County Memorial Hospital to be checked out.

The incident was Tharps second physical confrontation with Houston police. In July 2014, he was charged in a similar incident in which he allegedly assaulted a police officer and fled on foot while being arrested.

Read the story.
Doris Kimrey Montgomery, 83, of Houston, Mo., was born May 28, 1934, in Roby, Mo., to Lawrence and Aulta (Barnhart) Kimrey. She passed away on June 6, 2017, at Houston House Nursing Home after a long battle with Parkinsons disease.

Upon graduation from Houston High School, Doris moved into Ms. Hutchesons boarding house, where she enjoyed the comradery of other working girls. She was employed as a bookkeeper by Hutcheson Oil. In 1954, she married Marvin Montgomery and settled on a farm in the Brown Hill community where they raised three children.

In 1970, Doris and Mar vin established the first Sears catalog store in Houston. She later worked at The Bank of Houston and the Texas County clerks office, where she retired in 1996.

Doris was a longtime member of the First Christian Church in Houston, where she served the Lord in a variety of ways. She was a member of the Christian Womens Fellowship for over 50 years. She always enjoyed working with the youth through VBS and especially teaching the Wednesday evening Bible class.

Doris passions were many. She loved family genealogy. She amassed an impressive family history through correspondence and travels to courthouses and cemeteries throughout the country. She served as historian for the Houston High Alumni Association for a number of years. She loved flowers and spent countless hours attending to her flowerbeds. Collecting antique furniture and dishes was another favorite pastime. She always had a creative project in progress, whether it was sewing clothes, crocheting Afghans or making one of her many beautiful quilts.

Doris loved her family and they loved her. She was a never-ending source of love, support and inspiration.

Doris was preceded in death by her parents; and sister, LaVeta and husband, Marvin.

Surviving are her children, Ann Montgomery and husband, Paul Schmitz, Joe Montgomery and wife, Gwen, and Molly Stephens and husband, Bruce; grandchildren, Ashlee Clifton, Levi and Lucas Stephens, Zachary and Hillary Schmitz; and five great-grandchildren.

Services were 10 a.m. Friday, June 9, 2017, at Evans Funeral Home with Joe Montgomery officiating. Burial was in Pine Lawn Cemetery under the direction of Evans Funeral Home. Pallbearers were Levi Stephens, Lucas Stephens, Zach Schmitz, Conner Clifton, Bill Montgomery and John Gettys.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Houston First Christian Church c/o Evans Funeral Home. To send an online condolence, go to www.evansfh.com.
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employers would be quick to welcome a company-wide closure but one major firm  with more than 170 locations across Australia and New Zealand  has made it an annual occurrence.



Equipment rental company Kennards Hire shuts up shop once a year for Family Day  an event which sees staff and their loved ones invited to celebratory events.



Sally Craig, general manager of people and culture, says the first Kennards Hire Family Day was first held as part of the companys 60th anniversary celebrations, back in 2008.



There was such positive feedback from this event that we then held another a year or two later, she tells HRD. It has now become an annual tradition.



Up until this year, celebrations had been held on ANZAC Day but employees often had other commitments on the public holiday so the company switched the day to a standard Sunday in May.



Anecdotally, it appears to have been an outstanding success with record numbers of employees attending, says Craig, who revealed 21 events had been held simultaneously across New Zealand and Australia with the most popular attracting over 700 attendees.



While the celebrations and time away from work are clearly appreciated by employees, Craig says the day also shows staff that the company really means what is says.



One of our company values is One Family which is all about caring for our mates, treating each other likely family, and having each others back to make sure were all heading some safely at the end of the day, she explains.



Family Day provides an opportunity for us to demonstrate the importance we place on family, by providing our people with an opportunity to spend time with their own family and the broader Kennards family, connecting families with families outside of the work environment.



Craig also dismissed any fear of lost revenue or business disruption that may come as a result of shutting up shop for the day.



We firmly believe that our employees are our greatest strength. The tenure of our workforce is a tribute to this with over 20 per cent of our workforce having been with us for more than ten years, she tells HRD.



This type of activity may not work for all companies, but by investing in your people and showing them how they are valued, the overall business results speak for themselves  happier and engaged employees, better customer experiences, and greater financial outcomes.
Edmonton police are looking for a man who they allege forcibly confined and sexually assaulted a woman while pretending to be a peace officer.

Police say a woman was driving home on Sunday around 1:30 a.m. in the area of Anthony Henday Drive and 127 Street when she was pulled over by a vehicle with flashing lights.

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A man approached her vehicle and told her to exit and get into his car.

She told police she listened to his instructions because his uniform led her to believe he was a legitimate officer.

Once he had her in his car, the man allegedly told the woman he would not press criminal charges if she performed sexual acts on him. Police say the man then drove the woman to another area where he sexually assaulted her before driving her home.

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The suspect as described as a white male, approximately 25 to 30 years old, with a thin build and short brown hair. He was wearing what appeared to be a navy blue peace officers uniform. Police say his vehicle is believed to be a 2007 to 2013, four-door, white Nissan Rogue.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.

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Leave it to a beaver to put the most Canadian kink into one Saskatchewan couple's wedding day plans.

Kim and Calum Martin were all set to get married on May 27 at The Resort at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. A venue with lights, and power, and  you know  all the modern amenities one would expect to accompany a wedding in 2017.

But a hiccup-free day was not in the cards, thanks to a beaver who gnawed through a nearby power pole, nixing electricity to much of the Cypress Hills and Maple Creek areas, including the couple's venue.

SaskPower shared photos of the downed power line on their Facebook page. The pictures highlight just how few trees are in the area, and why the beaver likely went after this particular pole.

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Kim told CTV News the venue lost power shortly after the ceremony, but quick-thinking staff were able to bring the lights back on, keep the food warm, and the tunes playing, thanks to two generators and some candles.

"We kind of had a hard time believing it was a beaver because that's the craziest thing we've ever heard ... It doesn't sound like something that would happen in real life. But in Canada it can," she told Maple Creek News.

Cheers to the bride for not giving a dam and taking this totally Canadian mix-up in stride!

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Ross Dance Photography

If you had the chance to make your best friend happier than anyone could imagine, you'd take it, wouldn't you?

What about if that meant sharing your wedding day with her?

For new bride Jess Nakrayko, it was a no-brainer. In fact, she orchestrated the whole thing.

When St. John's native and current Saskatoon resident Nakrayko held her wedding in Jamaica in April, she was thrilled to be able to have her celebration with 45 of her nearest and dearest from across Canada. And that of course included her longtime best friend, Jessica Kieley and her boyfriend, Adam Brake.

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"I had my two best friends and my sister as my bridesmaids," Nakrayko tells HuffPost Canada. "My sister was living in Australia, and Jess literally poured herself into my wedding. She planned a full trip to Montreal for my bachelorette, hosted an incredible shower and just did a lot leading up to the wedding."

Meanwhile, Kieley and her boyfriend were getting increasingly serious, having bought a house together in St. John's. But when Nakrayko asked about their potential engagement, Kieley dismissed it, saying she was so consumed in her friend's wedding, she hadn't really thought about it.

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But Nakrayko knew Brake had other plans and talked to him about the idea of proposing while they were all in Jamaica.

"He told me, 'I don't want to take anything away from your wedding trip,'" recalls Nakrayko. She told him as long as it didn't happen on the wedding day, she didn't care.

But as she and her sister were planning the details of the reception and got to the bouquet toss, an idea dawned on them.

"My sister said, 'what if you didn't throw the bouquet, but you passed it to Jessica, and Adam was waiting behind, down on one knee?'" Nakrayko explains. "And we just lost it."

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The rest, as they say, is gorgeous history. Calgary-based photographer Ross Dance was there to capture the moment in all its raw emotion.

"The very last 'wedding' duty of my day was to have the bouquet toss. Nobody knew but my sister, and the photographer and my husband, James."

"So then we had the song change from 'Man I Feel Like A Woman' to Bruno Mars' 'Marry Me.' I started walking to Jessica, and there was a moment where we locked eyes, and as I went to pass her the bouquet, she started hysterically sobbing, saying 'no, are you serious?'"

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"I said, 'yes, turn around!'"

Kieley was shocked, and so was everybody else at the wedding. Nakrayko couldn't have been more thrilled.

"I was looking forward to that all day. Even walking down the aisle I was so excited about it happening," she recalls.

"Just her face alone, her reaction alone was worth it. I was like, I'm done, she can have it from here on out."

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I was looking forward to that all day. Even walking down the aisle I was so excited about it happening

And despite receiving mixed reactions from friends the next day  "I had messages asking 'Why did you do that?"  to her it felt like the best way to honour her friendship, and perhaps more importantly, what weddings are supposed to be about.

"The way my husband and I looked at it was sometimes the actual concept of a wedding gets lost. It's to marry your best friend and spend the rest of your life with them and celebrating love and sharing your love with everyone else."

"My best friend was starting her love story  I didn't even think about that being me giving up my day. I have love and I want people close to me to have that love too.

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"I don't think that people need to be greedy about love."
Florida mom Chrissy Corbitt just gave birth to a record-breaking baby! Her daughter, Carleigh, is officially the biggest baby girl to be born in Clay County, weighing a stunning 13.5 pounds.

When the doctor was pulling her out of me I just start hearing them all laughing and excited in the operating room, Corbitt recalled to ABC News. They were throwing out numbers and when they showed her to me and said 13.5 I couldnt believe it.

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It looked they pulled a toddler out of my belly, the mom added. Shes so big.

Carliegh is Corbitt and her husband Larrys fifth child. While the couples other kids were all born big  their sons weighed between nine and 10 pounds, while their daughters weighed over eight  they were not expecting their newest addition to supersede them all.

According to the Independent, the newborn is already wearing clothes meant for a nine-month-old and using size three diapers.

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To celebrate the arrival of their baby girl, the Corbitts hired photographer Debbye Benson of Sweet Smiles Photography Studio to do an adorable photoshoot.

Shes just filled with rolls. Shes just a big squishy baby. Shes so adorable, the proud mom said.

But when asked if she will be having any more kids, Corbitt told Fox13: Im done. Im done. No more babies for me.

2017 is shaping up to be the year of big babies. In addition to Carleigh, a 13.4-pound baby boy was born in Australia earlier this year, and a whopping 16.4-pound boy was born in New Zealand!

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The Internet has a lot of feelings about photos of Jessica Simpsons daughter in a swimsuit. Why? Because according to some, a child doing a silly pose in a bikini is inappropriate.

For the record, Simpsons daughter Maxwell is only five years old. In a series of three Instagram shots, the young girl is seen playfully posing with her scooter, while wearing a bikini, sunglasses and helmet because, as Simpson writes, safety first.

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Safety first  #MAXIDREW A post shared by Jessica Simpson (@jessicasimpson) on Jun 5, 2017 at 1:39pm PDT





Although the Instagram post received over 50,000 likes in two days, many commenters were outraged by the images and criticized Simpson for sexualizing her daughter.

A child posing like that... that's just creepy, said one mommy-shamer. If I had a daughter that age I [wouldn't let her] wear a tiny bikini like that and pose herself like a model.

I would NEVER post a picture like this of my 5-year-old daughter! another added. This is an account anyone can see. Jessica shame on you for exposing your daughter instead of protecting her!

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And then there was this gem: You know there are PEDOPHILES, POSSIBLY GETTING OFF TO HER RIGHT NOW!!! SEXUAL EXPLOUTATION OF A MINOR, I GET IT SHE'S CUTE BUT PEDOPHILES WON'T THINK SHE'S JUST CUTE!!

Luckily, Simpson had countless fans immediately come to her defense.

But a little boy could be shirtless and there wouldn't be a problem right? one user shot back. You're a creep if you think a girl is too young to be in a bikini. Maybe you have a problem that needs to be addressed for automatically sexualizing a 5 year old.

People need to look at this picture and realize that this is a child. A 5 or 6 year old child, another said. You all need to stop sexualizing children. This is a mother who is proud of her little girl, and that's all it should ever be.

One even noted that for all the hubbub you'd think someone was topless. Let this adorable child be a CHILD and leave her mom in [peace].

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Mommy-shamers putting celebrity parents on blast is nothing new. Recently, Kate Beckinsale had to school an Instagrammer who told her to Go home and take care of your kids after she shared a short clip of herself dancing with friends.

And in a similar vein to Simpson's criticism, David Beckham was slammed for inappropriately kissing his five-year-old daughter Harper on the lips.

There's really no winning when it comes to Internet commenters. So just keep ignoring the haters and loving your kids, parents!

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A veteran Conservative who has long advocated for legalized marijuana was the only Tory MP to vote in favour of the Liberal government's Cannabis Act Thursday.

But Scott Reid, who represents the Ontario riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, says he will conduct a constituency referendum to determine if he should support Bill C-45 at third reading.

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The Liberal bill to legalize and regulate pot easily passed second reading in the House of Commons by a vote of 200-76, winning the support of New Democrats, Bloc Quebecois, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

Reid scored some applause from Liberals by standing alone among the Tories in favour of C-45.

Hours earlier, the MP released a statement reminding voters that he has supported ending the pot prohibition since he was first elected in 2000 and penned an essay on the topic in 2001.

Reid also took a shot at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who years ago voted in favour of harsher penalties for pot-related offences and later admitted he had smoked marijuana after he was elected MP in 2008.

Today I will be voting for Bill C-45. I've supported legal marijuana since I was elected in 2000. My statement: https://t.co/odB3JrOgiI.  Scott Reid (@ScottReidCPC) June 8, 2017

"I have been a far more consistent advocate of legalization than the current prime minister, who, for several years after he became an MP, simultaneously advocated criminal sanctions against Canadians who consume cannabis, while quietly enjoying cannabis himself," Reid said in the statement.

"It goes without saying that I welcome the improved consistency that has been brought about by his change of policy position."

Reid also outlined the changes he would like to see made to the bill, which is now headed for further study at the committee stage.

He wants the minimum age for legal consumption set at 21, instead of 18, as has been recommended by the Canadian Medical Association.

"I have been a far more consistent advocate of legalization than the current prime minister."  Tory MP Scott Reid

Reid is calling for a so-called "local option" that would allow communities to prohibit sales of marijuana, but not consumption. He also wants it to be unlawful for marijuana to be sold at provincially owned alcohol outlets, such as Ontario's LCBO stores, to discourage consumption of the drug and booze at the same time.

In a 2001 essay in Policy Options magazine, Reid  then a Canadian Alliance MP  argued that prohibition only makes society less safe by skewing law enforcement resources towards the drug wars. He also said prohibition was based on a belief that governments need to "dictate personal conduct."

"The distinction between legal and illegal substances is clearly arbitrary, and would seem to be based on nothing more substantial than the fact that some drugs have a long history in our culture and therefore are more socially acceptable than others," he wrote at the time.

In 2013, Reid told a group of high school students that while he has never smoked pot, he thinks it is illogical for the drug to be illegal.

"The most significant gateway drug is cigarettes, and the drug that does the most damage is alcohol, and they are both legal, and should be in my view," Reid said at the time, according to The Frontenac News.

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Big fan of referendums

Reid also noted how he voted against his government's efforts to toughen possession penalties.

In the 2015 election, he even scored odd, unsolicited endorsements from two different pro-pot groups.

Reid, who serves as the Conservative party's critic for democratic reform, also has a history of seeking feedback from his constituents on controversial legislation, including last year's bill on medical assistance in dying. Reid sent mail-outs outlining the bill  with voices in favour and opposed to the legislation  and asked constituents to tell him how to vote.

Thousands of constituents weighed in, Reid said in a later release, with 67 per cent of respondents voting in favour of the assisted dying bill.

He honoured the referendum results by voting in favour of assisted dying in the House at the third and final reading last spring.

With a file from Althia Raj

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Which Province Smokes The Most Pot? See Gallery
Fastest price growth is in areas surrounding Greater Toronto

Strong economy cant explain soaring prices

Panic-driven 'fire sales could hit Torontos housing market, BoC warns

Average home prices in some regions surrounding Greater Toronto have jumped by 40 to 50 per cent in the past year, according to data in the Bank of Canada (BoC)s latest Financial System Review.

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In its biannual survey of Canadian finances, the bank published a heat map of property price growth around Canadas largest metropolitan area. What it showed is a rapidly-spreading price bubble: The fastest price growth was seen in the areas surrounding Toronto, rather than in the metro area itself.

Prospective homeowners priced out of the GTA have looked increasingly farther in search of more affordable housing, bidding up prices throughout much of the Greater Golden Horseshoe area, the banks review stated.

As a result, prices in the areas surrounding the GTA have increased at an even faster pace than they have within the GTA.

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The banks review comes as evidence mounts of a slowdown in Torontos (perhaps formerly) heated housing market. Sales fell 26 per cent in May, compared to the same month a year earlier, while new listings soared nearly 50 per cent.

Prices were still up from a year ago, by about 15 per cent, but that is a much slower pace of growth than was seen just a few months ago.

Panic-driven fire sales could hit Torontos housing market

The BoC noted that strong fundamentals are holding up the regions housing market. Mortgage rates are low, job growth is strong and there is some added pressure coming from foreign buyers, the bank said, though its hard to estimate how much.

But these fundamentals cannot readily explain the pace of the price increases seen in the GTA over the past 18 months, the report said.

The bank said it sees signs of extrapolative expectations in the Toronto market  a fancy term for real estate speculation.

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It noted that property prices have grown faster than rents, making real estate investments less lucrative. Yet the pace of investing has sped up. That creates a potentially "destabilizing" environment, the bank cautioned.

When expectations reverse and prices recede, investors may quickly sell their assets, possibly leading to fire sales with adverse consequences for the rest of the market.

A correction in Torontos housing market, as well as in Vancouver, is one of two key risks to Canadas economy that the BoC outlined in its report.

The other related risk is rising household indebtedness, which makes Canadians more vulnerable to economic shocks.

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The bank says there is a moderate chance of a housing correction in Toronto and Vancouver, but if one were to happen, it would hurt the countrys economy and destabilize the financial system.

What's Going On In Housing? Our weekly newsletter delivers the news and analysis you need on Canada's housing market. Sign up below and don't miss an issue.

Follow HuffPost Canada on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Polar bear in Wager Bay, Nunavut (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Oceans and coasts are a key part of Canada's environment, economy and identity, and yet most of us are unaware of how they are protected, and why conserving them is critical.

Precious resources rich in life

Salt water touches every Canadian province and territory, with the exception of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Canada's marine territorial waters measure 5.75 million square kilometres, equivalent to the combined area of India and Greenland. Collectively, Canada's coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans are more than 243,000 kilometres in length -- the longest of any country in the world.

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Our oceans have a climatic influence that reaches far inland, and many species that depend on our oceans and coasts ebb and flow into every part of Canada. Fishes migrate for hundreds of kilometres inland to spawn, rear their young or overwinter. From Pacific salmon in the west, to striped bass and blueback herring in the Atlantic, to char in Arctic waters, fishes link the food chains of oceans with freshwater rivers and lakes.

More than half of the world's population of semipalmated sandpipers stop at the Nature Conservancy of Canada's (NCC's) Johnson's Mills property in the fall along the coast of the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick, but these same birds migrate through the prairies in the spring en route to their Arctic nesting grounds. Even our common loon transforms from a summer bird of our northern lakes, to a coastal bird feeding in nearshore waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans when autumn comes.

Semipalmaed sandpiper (Photo: June Swift)

Canada's marine waters are rich in life. They support more than 15 million seabirds and three-quarters of the world's narwhal population. They also harbour species that are becoming rare in Canada and throughout their global range. Canada currently has more than 100 marine mammals, saltwater fishes and sea turtle species that are nationally at risk.

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The race to conserve marine areas

The conservation of our marine regions has long been neglected compared to Canada's land-based habitats. Perhaps it was the myth that oceans were endless or not understanding the importance and benefits of marine conservation. Most of Canada's marine protected areas were only created in the 1960s, then from 2000 to the present. While Canada has protected close to 11 per cent of our lands and inland waters, less than one per cent of our oceans have been protected.

Today we recognize that oceans and coasts are a critical part of our collective national ecology. What was once seen as a limitless marine resource is starting to appear more and more fragile in our rapidly changing world. Canada, as a signatory to the Convention on Biodiversity, has committed to protecting 10 per cent of our oceans and coasts by 2020. To date, our collective efforts to protect marine areas have conserved some important sites, but with a total area of 51,000 square kilometres, or less than one per cent of our marine territory, there will need to be some significant actions to meet our target in the next three years.

Marine protected areas are created and administered by three federal agencies in Canada: Parks Canada, Canadian Wildlife Service and Department of Fisheries and Oceans. These protected areas are scattered throughout our oceans and is growing. Recently, two new sites were announced. Anguniaqvia niqiqyuam, near the community of Paulatuk in the Northwest Territories, protects arctic char, ringed and bearded seals, polar bears and seabirds. Hecate Strait protects fragile and globally rare glass sponge reefs off the coast of B.C. that are 9,000 years old.

The role of provincial governments and private land trusts

Provincial governments and private conservation organizations such as NCC also play a role in protecting our oceans. More than 10,000 square kilometres of ocean are protected by provincial agencies. These are mostly nearshore waters and are associated with coastal protected areas, such as the Pointe Au Tonnerre-Ile a Paul Waterfowl Gathering Area in Quebec and Broughton Archipelago Marine Park in BC.

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Gaff beach, NS (Photo: The Nature Conservancy of Canada)

NCC is also playing an important role in protecting coastal and marine areas, including more than 200 projects on Canada's coasts that are protecting important salt marshes, dunes, beaches and rocky coasts.

The lines between coastal waters and watersheds are blurry. Many NCC projects are helping to maintain coastal water quality and habitat for migratory fishes by protecting rivers and watersheds.

A global leadership opportunity

The conservation of oceans and coasts impacts all Canadians. As stewards of the world's longest coastline, we have an opportunity to show global leadership in marine conservation, and ensure that the richness and abundance of marine habitats and species are protected for our children and grandchildren.

This post originally appeared on the Nature Conservancy of Canada's blog,Land Lines.

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By David Dodge and Dylan Thompson

"Not enough!"

That's what Cornelius Koster told Tom Jackson of Simple Solar. The latter had presented a quote for a modest solar thermal heating system for Koster's energy efficient garage suite.

But Koster had grander ambitions. He told Jackman to oversize the system. Use every square inch of space.

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"He wanted as much solar power as he could get on that building so we've maximized the density," says Jackman.

Koster installed 5.5 kilowatts of solar PV to generate electricity and 12.5 kilowatts of solar thermal collectors to supply more than enough hot water and heat for the suite. Excess energy is exported to the main house making the garage suite net-positive in terms of energy.

"So, just doing solar photovoltaic, it would've been a much smaller level of energy production," says Jackman.

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Solar thermal advocates are fond of reminding us that homes, especially those in Canada use about 70 per cent of their energy for heating. As solar photovoltaic prices continue to plummet, some net-zero home builders have started pairing solar PV with air-source heat pumps for space heating and electric resistance water heaters to produce hot water.

They say it's more economical.

Solar thermal made simple

But Jackman says don't count solar thermal out just yet. Simple Solar has patented a stripped-down approach. What his company does is place a simple, solar-powered DC pump between the solar collectors and the water tank. The pump for the solar collectors is powered by a small solar PV module built in to the solar thermal collector - when the sun shines the collectors heat the glycol, the solar PV runs the pump and glycol is pushed through heat exchangers in the water tank.

"The brighter the sun shines, the more heat's being made and the faster the pump runs," says Jackman.

According to Jackman, his patented system avoids the complication and expense of conventional high pressure systems, which require more maintenance. When too much heat is collected a thermostatic valve sends the pipin' hot glycol through a heat dissipater that looks like little radiators built into the solar collector.

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Homeowner Corelius Koster and Tom Jackman of Simple Solar in front of the net-positive garage suite in Ramsay neighbourhood of Calgary, Alberta. Photo David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca

"So it dissipates heat and keeps the glycol at 90 degrees Celsius," says Jackman. "That ensures the glycol doesn't get any hotter, at which point it would start to degrade. So our glycol will last the life of the system."

Jackman's other secret ingredient is scale. Solar thermal heating systems make a lot of sense on large applications such a swimming pools.

It will cost $8,000 - $10,000 to install a solar hot water system in a home, but expanding on this basic system can costs little as another $5,000-$6,000 to turn your hot water system into a home heating and hot water system. And it's this scalability that makes solar thermal more competitive.

On the matter of installed cost

"Solar thermal is typically $1.50 to $1.80 a watt installed," says Jackman. "And PV, it's come down quite a bit but it's still around $3, maybe a little under for a very large system, but certainly a little more like $3.50 or $4, for smaller systems."

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In our example of the garage suite, the roof has limited space. By integrating solar thermal with PV Jackman managed to get 12.5 kilowatts of solar heating energy and 5.5 kilowatts of electricity generation on the roof and the front of the garage suite.

That's definitely more than the garage suite needs. This excess heat is pumped into the main house. This provides supplementary heat to Koster's home and helps heats his water as well.

Backup heat?

Solar thermal systems provide anywhere from 60 - 70 per cent of the heat required for hot water and heating. In this case the balance comes from an electric resistance heater built right into the water tank. This helps on cloudy winter days and when the demand for heat and hot water is very high.

Solar thermal homeowner in the business

Solar vacuum tubes are pretty simple. A vacuum drastically reduces heat loss and the double-walled glass tubes turn light energy into heat that radiates up the copper rod to the copper rod on the end where the heat is transferred into a glycol solution that runs through the end of the solar collectors. Photo David Dodge, GreenEnergyFutures.ca

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Cornelius Koster is a one-time greenpeacer, who is now in the renewable energy business. He works for GP Joule, a "100 per cent renewable company."

"We build utility scale solar," says Koster. "We have wind parks in Germany, Italy and France."

The idea to build a 100 per cent renewable energy garage suite "...came from a lifelong passion for the environment, and obviously in recent years the affordability of solar and it's not just on the PV side but also on the thermal side," says Koster.

Koster wanted workspace in a garage and a suite to rent out. He lives in Ramsay, an inner city neighbourhood of Calgary within walking distance of downtown-a high value place to build a rental suite. While it's true Koster wants to do the 'right thing,' the garage suite is also an investment.

"The PV obviously has a shorter payback than the thermal, but personally I always think long term," says Koster. "I'm not necessarily too concerned about payback. Both systems will pay themselves back easily within 20 years. PV obviously a lot sooner.

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For solar PV advocates who've pronounced solar thermal as dead, it might come as s surprise to hear Koster describe his integrated solar thermal/PV system as "a no brainer," at least on a new build.

No natural gas

"There's no natural gas hookup to the building," says Koster. Integrating the solar thermal system to provide both hot water heating and home heating is what helped make the case for omitting the gas hook up and going solar thermal.

The garage suite has 2x6 insulated walls with one inch of exterior foam insulation, a foam vapour barrier, and triple-pane windows. It has steel cladding on the outside and a metal roof, which was ideal for mounting the solar modules. It's best to make your building energy efficient before trying to generate renewable energy.

The solar thermal and PV energy systems provides all of the electricity and heat for the garage suite and a good portion for the main house as well. Koster's electricity bill had a credit balance in the summer months.

Solar thermal not new

After the energy crisis of the 1970s Isreal jumped on the solar thermal bandwagon to cut their dependence on fossil fuels. Today solar water heaters are used in 90 per cent of Israeli homes. In Cyprus and Greece 30 - 40 per cent of homes use solar water heating systems.

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Koster says his system will pay for itself in 20 years. This number goes down as much as half in countries that have higher amounts of insolation (more sunshine). It goes down even more the more heat energy you require. Think swimming pools, hot tubs and a giant family that showers all the time (but hopefully not at the same time) the better a solar thermal system will look.

Since Tom Jackman started Simple Solar eight years ago he has installed about 80 solar thermal projects in the Calgary area. These days about half of his clients also want to install solar PV to generate electricity.

One thing we have learned at Green Energy Futures is the pace of innovation in the renewable energy space is incredible. This story has certainly make us think again about solar thermal heating as another renewable energy solution in the toolbox.

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Did you know that demand for air travel around the world is expected to double over the next 20-30 years? As more and more of us want to visit far flung destinations like Dubai or Hong Kong, and people in emerging economies increasingly find themselves in position to do the same, we expect Canada to be a welcome destination for both trade and tourism.

Our airports have an increasingly important role to play in supporting this demand for "Brand Canada." Air service demand in Southern Ontario is strong and expected to grow over the next quarter-century on the back of a booming population that will reach 15 million by 2043 and a GDP that will grow to $1 trillion over the same time period. The result will be more people who not only want to travel by air, but also have the economic means by which to do so.

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This is great news for the region, with forecasts indicating that there could be some 110 million additional passengers by the mid-2040s. If we're ready to serve them, we could unlock significant economic opportunity for Southern Ontario; if not, these benefits could be lost to airports in other regions better prepared to handle the growth.

So what can we do to ensure this opportunity isn't lost? First of all, we need to think about how many passengers all the airports across the region can support. Today, that looks like 89 million, and given that total demand will likely hit 110 million, it's clear that we need to take action. What is also clear is that the forecasted demand is greater and more varied than any one airport can accommodate.

Indeed, our region is not the first to experience this kind of growth in aviation demand. We can learn from global cities and regions around the world like New York, Los Angeles, Paris or London, where communities have reaped the benefits of a network approach to supporting air service demands.

With an eye toward finding ways for Southern Ontario to fully seize the opportunities that growth in air travel demand brings, eleven airports --Toronto Pearson International Airport; Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport; Hamilton John C. Munro International Airport; Kingston/Norman Rogers Airport; Lake Simcoe Regional Airport; London International Airport; Oshawa Executive Airport; Niagara District Airport; Peterborough Airport; Region of Waterloo International Airport; and Windsor International Airport -- have been working together over the last two years to align our efforts.

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Work to date has centered on how best we can utilize airport infrastructure on a region-wide scale to meet future air travelers' needs. With an eye to the future, this group will continue to work with the Government of Canada to support their studies on the need for additional airports.

A host of opportunities for these airports exist based on the region's diverse needs. These include short- and medium-haul flights; general aviation, including business aviation and flight training; provincial air services such as medevac and police services; processing of air cargo; maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO); and aircraft and component manufacturing. As Toronto Pearson grows toward becoming North America's next mega hub airport, it is ideally suited to provide long-haul, global connectivity to Southern Ontario's travelers.

Earlier this month, the eleven airports officially launched the Southern Ontario Airport Network (SOAN) with the short-term goal of completing a catchment and demand study of the region to identify opportunities for future point-to-point growth in leisure, business aviation and short-haul markets at regional airports. The network will also work to gain a comprehensive understanding of Southern Ontario's ground transportation needs and develop actionable strategies for responsible and sustainable airport growth in the region.

With regard to the former, Toronto Pearson has been a strong proponent of the need for improved ground transportation throughout the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area and the region at large. In April of this year, our plan for a Regional Transit Centre located on airport grounds received strong support from provincial and local government, including Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, Toronto Mayor John Tory, Brampton Mayor Linda Jeffrey and Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic. The centre will connect a number of existing and planned transit lines, helping residents get to jobs and travelers get to airports, in addition to easing congestion and thereby facilitating the movement of goods on Ontario's roads.

SOAN's remit is to take a bigger picture view of what is in store for Southern Ontario, identifying synergistic business opportunities and enhancing air transportation service and capacity as group rather than on an airport-by-airport basis. Of course, this isn't to say that each airport won't continue to make its own businesses decisions based on local business drivers and community input.

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More than anything, SOAN amounts to a recognition on the part of its members that long-term, sustainable success isn't a happy accident; it is the result of preparation, collaboration and an understanding that the region as a whole isn't winning if we're not all winning together.
The scope of the famine in South Sudan, combined with severe food shortages in northeastern Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, has not been seen since the end of the Second World War. In terms of numbers, these crises alone affect the equivalent of over half of the population of Canada.

This is not the first time that humanitarian aid workers have been called on to fight and prevent starvation. However, it is the first time that they have had to do it for over 20 million people, including 1.4 million children at risk of death.

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Climate change is certainly partly to blame for droughts that destroy crops, kill livestock and dry up rivers. However, the main cause of hunger crises is conflict. When starvation is used as a weapon of war.

If the guns were silenced and humanitarian access were restored, it would save more lives in the short term than the return of the rains and crops.

Canada cannot remain silent in the face of these crises, which disproportionately affect women and children. We are aligning our efforts at the diplomatic level for an improved security context, and boosting our support for further development and humanitarian programs. We also know that long-term solutions must also be local. This year, Canada provided close to $120 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the emergency appeal by the United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. But, to date, the response remains underfunded.

Each of us, in our own way, can lend a hand.

Unlike earthquakes that suddenly destroy entire cities and tragically kill hundreds of people, death by hunger is slower, more silent, and even inconceivable to us in 2017-- but it is very real. And although none of us can predict when or where the next natural disaster will strike, we do know that over 20 million lives are currently at stake in Africa and Yemen, not only because of food shortages, but because of a lack of access to water and sanitation.

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When thousands of people seek refuge in a camp that doesn't have soap and water to wash their hands, deadly illnesses such as cholera spread quickly. The human body, already weakened by lack of essential nutrients, will succumb more easily to infections of all kinds.

Each of us, in our own way, can lend a hand to help save these millions of lives at risk.

We also know that Canadians are not insensitive to this reality and want to help. This is why the Government of Canada is ready to do more and has created the Famine Relief Fund. Until June 30, Canada will put one dollar aside toward the fund for every dollar donated to registered Canadian charities that are raising funds to fight the famine. These funds will support the valiant and difficult efforts of Canadian, international and local humanitarian aid workers to provide food, clean drinking water, sanitation services, emergency shelters and other essential services.

I encourage all Canadians to give generously to the organization of their choice over the next few weeks.

Together, we will help save lives.

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Recently, a group of 250 people took a day off from work, but they didn't spend the day at the cottage or go to the spa. Instead, they travelled to a giant warehouse in north Toronto to pack 30,000 bags of food for hungry kids, as part of Food Banks Canada's After the Bell program.

These bags of food will be distributed in July and August, along with fresh produce, by food banks in thirteen cities across the country. They will help to fill the gap left by the absence of school meal and snack programs during the summer -- programs that too many children depend on to get enough to eat every day.

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These volunteers were not alone. Hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations are involved in making sure the children they see in their day camps, summer schools and drop-in centres have enough food -- because too many are arriving with nothing, or very little, in their lunch bags.

Governments have let the pendulum swing too far

This type of charity and mutual aid has always been part of the Canadian social bedrock. From the first days of the United Appeal (which became the United Way) in the early 1900s, to breadlines in the 1930s, up to our intense support of Vietnamese and Syrian refugees, Canadians are serious about community-level mutual aid. However, the balance between government-led and community-led support has shifted much too far onto communities.

Canada's poorest communities are least able to address the effects of poverty with a charitable response. As the rate of poverty in a given community increases, the number of donors available to support charitable efforts -- and the ability of charities to address the effects of poverty -- decreases.

Only government programs can ensure a basic level of access, in all communities.

This dynamic is a major contributor to inequality across Canada. In communities where rates of poverty and food insecurity are high, and where many households depend on social assistance to get by, charities struggle mightily to find donors to keep them afloat. The services that people in more affluent communities have access to -- fragmented and imperfect though they may be -- often simply don't exist in lower-income communities.

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Only governments can offer equal access to needed services

Only government programs can ensure a basic level of access, in all communities, to the supports and services people need to get back on their feet during difficult times. The most basic government program available to such households -- social assistance -- is failing, on an epic scale, to provide the help that people need. The same is true of too many government-supported programs, from affordable child care to adult education.

The federal government has an opportunity to begin to change this imbalance with its upcoming poverty reduction strategy, due to be released this autumn: an opportunity to leave behind tried, tested and failed strategies, and to chart a new path. The new strategy can position the federal government as a leader of change, and pull provincial and territorial governments away from what is clearly not working.

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There aren't many things that unite Labour governments, Conservative governments and coalition governments, but one of them has been a mutually fawning and back-scratching relationship with the regime in Riyadh.

For decades now, irrespective of which party or Prime Minister has held office, Downing Street has continued to arm and support what is unquestionably one of the most brutal, repressive and misogynistic dictatorships in the world.

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At a time when questions are being asked about Saudi Arabia's links to the funding and promotion of terrorism, and when UK fighter jets and bombs are central to the humanitarian catastrophe Saudi forces have inflicted on Yemen, it is more important than ever that the toxic relationship comes to an end.

Saudi Arabia has been a political ally and major buyer of UK arms since the 1960s, with Whitehall and Downing Street taking a keen interest in maximising sales. Right from the start, the deals, which also included military training, have been complemented by an unbending political support.

The first real landmark deal came in 1985, when Margaret Thatcher helped to broker the major Al Yamamah' deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. At the time it was the biggest arms deals in UK history - reportedly helped by former BAE Chair, Dick Evans, ability to eat sheep's eyeball.

The deal, ironically a translation of 'the dove', saw Saudi Arabia committing to purchase an initial cost of 4 billion worth of military aircraft. It was followed three years later by an even bigger deal, 'Al Yamamah II', that included helicopters, minesweepers and an airbase. Both deals included long-term maintenance deals staffed by UK personnel.

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The deals would subsequently become the subject of a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation, following multiple accusations of corruption. The investigation, which began in 2004, was cancelled in 2006, following political pressure and an intervention by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Shortly after Blair intervened, and the investigation was shelved, Saudi Arabia agreed a new deal for 72 fighter jets, including many of the ones that are flying over Yemen at the time of writing. The deal was known as Al Salam; which, in a classic example of doublespeak, is a Saudi translation for peace.

David Cameron continued in the same vein, with regular visits taking place between London and Riyadh. Prince Charles was co-opted in 2014, dancing at a BAE-sponsored event in the Saudi capital, just 24 hours before the pricing of a major fighter jet sale was finalised.

In 2015, the Saudi military began its ongoing bombing campaign in Yemen. At the time, the then Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, made clear that they were doing so with the full support of the UK. "We'll support the Saudis in every practical way short of engaging in combat" he said.

He's stuck to his word, at present UK-trained Saudi forces are flying UK-made fighter jets and dropping UK-made bombs. The results have been devastating. Over 10,000 people have been killed and millions have been left in urgent need of medical attention. Yet the arms sales and the political support have continued.

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The legality of the arms sales that have underpinned the terrible bombardment has been the subject of a landmark judicial review, which was heard in February, following an application by Campaign Against Arms Trade. The result is still pending.

Despite the backdrop of destruction, and the ongoing legal process, Theresa May visited Riyadh in April. While there she rubbed shoulders with Royalty and called for even closer relations. No doubt the main winners from an even closer political embrace will include the Saudi Royal Family, who will gain greater international respectability, as well as BAE Systems and other arms companies that have profited from every step of the shameful partnership.

One feature of the relationship has been the establishment of a permanent Saudi-funded UK civil-service presence. Around 240 UK Ministry of Defence civil servants and military personnel work in the UK and Saudi Arabia to support the contracts through the Ministry of Defence Saudi Armed Forces Programme and the Saudi Arabia National Guard Communications Project. This unique level of international infrastructure makes clear how ingrained the relationship is.

Over the last 40 years the Saudi regime has executed thousands of people, suppressed millions more, and have created a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. Serious questions are being asked about the regime's role in the funding of terrorism and violence. Yet, despite its long list of abuses, it has been supported every step of the way by Westminster.

Thankfully the issue has received a lot more scrutiny over recent months, with MPs from all parties, including the Conservatives, raising questions, and all major opposition parties uniting in calling for an end to arms sales.

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Regardless of who wins the election, if the next government wants to help the people of Yemen and Saudi Arabia then it must put a stop to a relationship that has killed too many people and whitewashed too many atrocities.
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Electing a Labour government with Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister and Diane Abbott as Home Secretary together with others in the Labour leadership is the best way to defend living standards against the brutal cuts of the Tories.

The Tories have overseen cuts to the Police and an undermining of measures to protect the population's security. This alone discredits their record in the Home Office. Labour stands in clear opposition to this, as it does to their brutal policies which have hit ordinary people hard; tuition fees trebled, the NHS in crisis, pensions threatened, disabled people wrongly assessed for work, tax collectors cut in the HMRC and their time in office has seen billionaires benefit while the rest suffer.

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The Tories understand that thanks to Labour's radical manifesto, the electorate faces a real choice in this election. That has got through to the population and has seen a narrowing in the polls. The Tory-biased media are targeting senior figures in the Labour leadership, including a vile campaign coming from the Tories themselves.

The campaign against Diane Abbott cuts to the heart of many of Labour's core values. Elected the first Black woman MP in the late eighties, she was part of a pioneering intake of Labour MPs from African-Caribbean and Asian background which made history. Diane talks here of how for 30 years she has faced racism and sexism. She has faced an increasingly aggressive, threatening tone on twitter following her appointment to Labour's front bench. As a Black woman, I and many of us will be asking, is this the price we have to pay for participating in politics on the front line? It's a price that is not asked of our white or male counterparts. How can I say to my young daughter, you are part of an equal society, when the moment you sit up and advocate for yourself, and for your community, the political knives are being sharpened and thrown by a Tory party and their media friends using tactics that belong in the dustbin of history? I have yet to hear a clear call from any leading Tory in this campaign standing up to the racist and sexist abuse that Diane Abbott has faced.

Instead, they have tweeted "If Jeremy Corbyn became PM, Diane Abbott would be Home Secretary". This from the party that used to say 'If you want a N***** for a neighbour, vote Labour'. Why was it that in the televised leader's debate Amber Rudd asked why Diane Abbott was not present? Abbott's slap down tweet to Rudd reminding her that it was a leader's debate and May was absent got more retweets than the silence that greeted her idiotic comment. Why do they have a poster rounding on Labour depicting Diane Abbott an Jeremy Corbyn, when Diane's Shadow position, Home Secretary, has very little to do directly with Brexit? Why did Theresa May suggest Diane Abbott wants to remove criminals and terrorists from the DNA database repeatedly on the BBC Question Time Leaders Debatewhen her actual position was to oppose innocent people being on the database and to highlight concerns over a raid on a Tory MP?

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The fact of the matter is that Diane Abbott would make an infinitely more sensible Home Secretary than either May or Rudd. This campaign against her has all the hall marks of a campaign run by Lynton Crosby, architect of some of the most divisive campaigns that the Tories have mounted in recent years. Campaigns which whip up reaction, bury real debate about the best choice in the election and provide the right wing pro-tory media with lurid headlines accompanied by the drum beat of hysteria. When the Tories are on the ropes they revert to type. With the difficulties that are to come in British Politics with Brexit and an economic crisis upon us, this is really bad news for Black people, and anyone else they target.
Last month, I travelled to India to meet some of the incredible women entrepreneurs supported by my charity. Among them was Delhi-based Priyanka (pictured), who told me why she had made the bold decision to leave a stable job and strike out on her own. As a journalist, Priyanka realised not only that she was earning less than her male counterparts, but also that she lacked the financial knowledge and support to optimise her money. After speaking with friends, Priyanka realised she was not alone. In 2011, she launched WOW Money Gym, a social enterprise offering financial management classes and resources to women.

Priyanka is one of the women supported by my foundation, which I established in 2008 to empower women in developing and emerging economies to establish and grow successful businesses. After joining our online Mentoring Programme, Priyanka was matched with a mentor from the UK. Together, the pair created an ambitious strategy for growth which has already seen Priyanka train four volunteers, double her membership community and expand her network of followers to over 7,000 women.

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Priyanka's energy and resilience was inspiring. And, according to a new report by the World Bank, it's exactly this kind of entrepreneurial spirit which has the potential to transform India's economic outlook.

India has one of the lowest rates of female labour force participation in the world - ranked 120 out of 131 countries by the International Labor Organization. More alarming still, this rate is in decline. Furthermore, the dearth of women in the labour market is a heavy drag on India's GDP, with India's economic growth rate now the lowest it's been in two years.

According to the World Bank, bringing large numbers of women into the workforce with "safe, flexible and well-paying jobs" could boost growth and generate huge gains across society, as women plough their earnings back into the health and wellbeing of their families and communities.

What's even more exciting is that there is a clear opportunity to accelerate this solution. Enabling more women like Priyanka to set up and grow successful enterprises could 'fast-track' growth, since - according to the report - female entrepreneurs in India tend to hire more women. Interestingly, this is true not only of very small businesses, or where the owner is also the sole employee, but also of medium-sized firms.

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Many of the women my foundation works with create a powerful chain of empowerment, not only by creating jobs but also by sharing knowledge with, and inspiring confidence in those around them. Eighty per cent of mentees from our Mentoring Programme, for example, pass on what they learn with others, with 50% going on to mentor others.

Priyanka's classes are already setting off a ripple effect. One of her participants has been able to pay off a high debt and use her newly accessible capital to launch her own bakery after using WOW Money Gym's services.

There are, of course, challenges to boosting female entrepreneurship, not least the deeply entrenched social attitudes which can make it difficult for women to translate their ambition into achievement.

From the middle-class, educated women I met in Delhi to the rural women I visited in the drought-affected Maharashtra region, there was one recurring theme in their stories: the scepticism they encountered from family members, who felt that entrepreneurialism was too 'risky' a pursuit for women.

Some of the women had gone to great lengths to keep their enterprises a secret from their families, until they were able to prove that they were successful. Priyanka, for example, didn't tell her father that she had given up her job as a journalist to start a business, until she felt certain that the risk would pay off.

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Dhanashree, from the rural Satara district, also faced initial resistance from her family. She also had to contend with the loss of her left hand in an accident several years ago. But she didn't let either obstacle stop her from making a success of her grocery and dairy business. After participating in our business training project with the Mann Deshi Foundation, she has expanded her operations, is now able to pay her children's school fees and is determined to send her daughter to university.

The resilience, inventiveness and determination of these trailblazing women is inspiring - further proof that where ready-made jobs are scarce, enabling women to unlock their own entrepreneurial potential can generate boundless rewards.

According to the McKinsey Institute, closing the gender gap in economic activity could add $28 trillion to global GDP by 2025 - with almost $3 trillion added to India's GDP alone. In fact, achieving gender equality in India would have a larger economic impact there than in any other region in the world.
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A very unusual election is drawing to a close. The campaign has been unconventional in that normal issues, such as the economy, have hardly featured. Instead, a quasi-presidential contest has been concentrated on supposed competence to govern. Even the one issue that has regularly and tragically intruded on the campaign, terrorism, has featured largely in this context, while the merits of actual counter-terrorism policies have hardly been broached, let alone debated.

This presidential-style approach was very much the choice of the Tories and supposed to play to the strengths of their 'strong and stable' candidate. As long as voters did not question her competence or Jeremy Corbyn's unfitness to govern this seemed a risk-free strategy. Things started to go wrong, however, from the moment that the leaked Labour manifesto switched attention from May onto Corbyn. The Tories then compounded this by overstated attacks on the Labour leader. Not only did this undermine their own electoral strategy, but they allowed Corbyn to gain attention and traction, particularly by failing to obligingly give credibility to the Tory propaganda. The stridency of their attacks also drew increasing attention to May's own dubious record in areas such as policing and counter-terrorism. Many of the polls still suggest that she will nonetheless triumph on 8 June, but despite rather than because of her campaign.

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The polls, meanwhile have been another conspicuous feature of this unusual election. They have been more volatile than usual, while the spread between the various polling organisations has been phenomenal. This partly reflects changes in methodology after pollsters under-called the Tory vote in 2015. But their main problem in calculating the likely vote and seat share come 9 June has been the 3Ts: turnout, territory and tactical voting.

Pollsters adjust for past voting record, including propensity to vote. Differential turnout by older voters in 2015 strongly favoured the Tories. Many pundits are assuming that this will again see the Tories coast to victory. However, the Lynton Crosby dog-whistle tactics of 2015, scaring the voters about Alex Salmond being the backseat driver of a Miliband government have no obvious analogue now. Instead, the Tories' lacklustre campaign seems to have dimmed the enthusiasm even of many of their elderly voters. Most pollsters are assuming that young voters will turnout more than in 2015, but they are not agreed on how much more. I suspect that they should also be dubious about whether older ones will turnout in the same numbers again.

The other imponderable is how much of a purple firewall of ex-Ukip voters do the Tories have? It is noticeable that Ukip was polling in double-figures almost until the May local elections, then collapsed. Did the pollsters adjust too late, or too drastically? Will most of these defectors stay with the Tories now that their former party is denouncing 'weak and wobbly' Theresa? Indeed, given that 15% of the Ukip voters in 2015 apparently were previous non-voters, can we be certain that they will actually turnout this time?

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It is, of course, not just a matter of if they turnout, but where. Britain has not had a uniform swing election for years and 2017 is unlikely to buck that trend. Differential turnout, however, will only matter where it can swing outcomes. So the mobilisation of younger voters may not greatly change results if they are largely concentrated in urban settings. Some polls have suggested that this could result in some Tory losses in London, but there are few such seats elsewhere in the country. Tory strategists will be hoping that ex-Ukip support will more than compensate in the disaffected towns of the North and Midlands. Here two factors are likely to be significant. One is incumbency, with polls showing that sitting Labour MPs benefit to varying degrees from a personal vote. The other is the third of the 3Ts, tactical voting.

There has certainly been lots of effort to encourage tactical voting. There is also some polling evidence to suggest, for instance, that Liberal Democrat support in Labour marginals has more than halved in favour of tactical voting against the Tories. This might help to explain the seemingly poor polling record of the Liberal Democrats during the campaign. It does not necessarily mean that they will fail to get their vote out in seats that they hold or at least some of those they are targeting.
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The Labour Party manifesto is not economically radical. It is moderate. Its perceived radicalism depends primarily on the extent of the Conservative tax cuts that Britain has experienced over the past seven years. Corbyn can only offer his 'tax and spend' proposals because the UK's higher rates of tax have been cut so drastically. The Tories, wittingly or not, have left room for vast increases in revenue. It is a point seldom mentioned, but Osborne has paved the way for Corbyn.

When the Tories came to power in 2010, the highest rate of income tax was 50%. They immediately lowered it to 45%. More importantly, the UK possessed a corporation tax rate of 28%, which the Tories cut over the proceeding seven years to 19% and will further reduce to 17% by 2020. Osborne claimed the reductions would prove attractive to businesses, making the UK more 'competitive'. It seems the Conservatives failed to realise, however, that at 28% corporation tax, the UK was already highly competitive among developed economies. The severity of the tax cuts was simply unnecessary.

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Imagine we retained 28% corporation tax throughout the seven years. Would companies have shipped abroad? Would they not have come to the UK? I doubt lower taxes proved particularly beguiling, especially when considering the competition. Had companies opted for Berlin as opposed to London on 28%, for example, they would have had to pay an additional 2%. Moving across the Chanel to France would cost them an extra 5%. The US - hardly a bastion of communism - would have cost them at least an additional 10%. Indeed, the average corporation tax rate of the G7 economies in 2016 was over 30%.

It is also worth remembering that some of these economies offer greater state investment and better access than the UK. It is a point rarely appreciated, but the inexorable limitation of expenditure that comes with austerity can prove unattractive to businesses. Businesses want government spending in education and healthcare to make sure they have a talented and strong workforce. They seek funding for defences to enforce security. And, of course, they support investment in infrastructure to ensure their businesses can function smoothly. The UK could have kept a competitive tax rate of 28%, secured more revenue, and offered structural as well as economic incentives to businesses at home and abroad.

Simply put, Tory austerity has not worked. The price the government said we would have to pay - weaker public services, shoddy infrastructure, reductions to local authorities and so on - has not yielded adequate rewards. Austerity has not worked even by Conservative targets. The point of the reduction of expenditure, according to Osborne and David Cameron, was to eradicate the deficit entirely by 2015 and start paying back the debt. Seven years later, the Tories are still managing a hefty deficit and they have increased the debt excessively. It is clear that the UK has not reaped the supposed benefits of austerity, but has certainly suffered the cost.

According to the TUC, for example, wages in the UK have contracted since 2007. As our economy has grown, Statista reveal, real wages have suffered a -10.4% decrease - akin to that of Greece. The impressive increase in employment under the Tories, according to the Office for National Statistics, has been supplemented by under-employment. Public services are evidently struggling and our defences have been weakened. Home ownership has become harder than ever for the precariat, private landlords are charging unaffordable rents, and the levels of homelessness are rapidly rising. Child poverty has increased, waiting times in hospitals have increased, school sizes have increased. The cuts to benefit payments, perhaps the most brutal aspect of austerity, have led to cruel and shameful policies for the most vulnerable, such as the bedroom tax and strict work capability assessments.

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The global financial crash played a large role in creating this mess, of course, but austerity has failed to clean it up. If the Tories remain in power, we will witness more of the same, which means further reductions in tax rates for high earners and businesses, and inadequate investment in public services, infrastructure and human capital.

Corbyn wants economic change and his manifesto reflects that desire. The Labour Party propose the reversal of the majority of Tory tax cuts and additional taxes for the richest 5%, which could yield up to 50bn. These tax increases will raise significant revenue for public services, defences and investment.

On top of the big-hitting tax and spend policies, Corbyn's manifesto also pledges, among other things, to introduce certain regulations and taxes on the financial sector, create a national investment bank, renationalise certain utility industries prone to monopolisation or oligopolisation, and increase investment in green energy.

The manifesto represents a shift towards an economy more inclined to state intervention and more willing to tackle the woes of inequality. It is no surprise that plenty of the world's foremost economists are supporting Corbyn - not necessarily politically, but economically. Mainstream economists regularly argue that a society that tackles inequality does not necessarily jeopardise economic growth. In fact, plenty of reputable and indeed Nobel prize winning economists believe, as Joseph Stiglitz writes in The Price of Inequality and Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson write in The Spirit Level, that greater overall prosperity depends on greater equality.

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Recently I was listening to a group of Remain voters discuss whether they would base their vote in the General Election on the promise of a second EU referendum. Most said 'no'. Their line was simply: the vote has been decided; we need to proceed and exit.

For those who are dismayed by the implications of exiting the EU, this certainly gives pause for thought.

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Putting aside our own concerns about what this decision means for the UK, for us, and for future generations, we must remember that we held a democratic vote, a public referendum, and the majority of the country as a whole voted to leave.

But that is not to say that we can't in good conscience challenge how the outcome will be exercised, and the journey to get there.

The arguments about the benefits the EU has brought us are well rehearsed and at a recent meeting of colleagues from across the UK and European third sector, some of these were brought to the fore. For example:

Strengthening rights

As members of the EU we have strengthened citizens' rights, including increasing mobile EU citizens' right to vote where they reside. (Note that here we are talking about EU citizens, and not 'migrants' - the term often used by scare-mongering media and the far-right.)

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The EU and its membership have also played an integral role in strengthening equality and non-discrimination practices and laws across gender, LGBTI, working families and disability.

Equal pay for men and women is enshrined in EU law (although sadly we know this is not always implemented) whilst the Human Rights Act was a significant piece of legislation which came about thanks to the work of EU member states. In recognition of its importance, and the integral role it plays in society and how a modern society should function, hundreds of organisations across the UK, including Children in Scotland, have joined the British Institute of Human Rights in calling for its protection regardless of how Brexit negotiations are taken forward.

Jobs

The EU has increased opportunities for students, trainees, teachers and others to work across Europe and the European Union, allowing shortages in teaching, early learning and childcare as well as social and healthcare to be filled. In addition, approximately one in 10 British jobs are reported to be directly linked to membership of the European Union's single market.

Funding

All of this is before we even consider funding that is channeled to organisations and programmes across the UK directly from EU funds. More than 200 billion has been pledged between now and 2020 alone in support and innovation to tackle the challenges of an ageing population for example. The Erasmus programme invests millions to support families, children and young people.

The UK is amongst the biggest beneficiary of EU research funds, alongside Poland, Italy and Spain.

Freedom of movement

The freedom to work and study abroad, not to mention easy travel, has helped more than 1.4 million British people try a new way of life, and more than 200,000 UK citizens have taken part in the Erasmus student exchange programme since 1987.

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Environmental policy

Finally, through commonly agreed EU environmental policies, progress is being made in reducing carbon and stabilizing the number of many animals and plants under threat, though Climate Change remains a danger to citizens both in and out of the EU.

From just these few examples, even the most ardent Brexiters might feel daunted by the sheer scale of decoupling from the EU. For those of us who recognise that the strengths of our rights covering children and family draw on the European framework, it is worrying.

But continuing to argue to remain a part of the EU when the majority in the UK voted to leave suggests that those who voted to leave have less clout or claim to victory than those who voted Remain. Challenging the outcome is to challenge the whole democratic process the UK political system has been built on.

However, it is legitimate that in discussions around our exit from the European Union, we must seek confirmation that there will be no reversal or detriment to existing rights and protections across all our public institutions. Vital relationships must be maintained and nurtured.

Discussing this with others in the sector, as well as international and EU counterparts, it is clear that we all stand together on one message: Brexit should not spell the end for valuable cross-border working. Collaboration, communication and openness must remain the priorities.

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So what should our next steps be?

Our mandate for action will come from how people vote in this week's UK General Election, not to mention the result of any future referendum on Scottish independence.

But regardless of outcome, we must continue to seek ways of working together within the EU network to learn from each other and support change and improvement - not just for us and our own interests, but for the next generation and children and young people across Europe.
I own a communications company with 20 plus employees, dealing with a load of C-suite clients in a tough, competitive market. I will also be voting Labour in the General Election.

Some people might think that would be anathema for a business owner in a difficult economic climate, made all the trickier with Brexit approaching, as Labour have often been painted as the anti-business party.

But Labour are the clear and only choice for me. Let me explain why.

For one thing, I am a person of strong beliefs - I was born in a working class family. I've grafted all my life and brought up my amazing daughter single-handedly. I try to put other people's interests and happiness before my own, not always successfully I must admit but it's always been about the bigger picture for me when it comes to life.

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And that includes politics too - for the many, not the few resonates with me. Plus, when you get down to the nitty gritty, Labour have detailed far more policies that will help other people like me running small businesses, and more importantly, the people who work for them.

SMEs are a vital part of a vibrant community - it's certainly the case where I work in Dalston. When SMEs prosper, so does the economy and society as a whole - they employ over 15 million people in the UK, or two-thirds of all jobs in the private sector.

SMEs are also behind the recent recovery in the UK's employment market. Between 2008 and 2011, 88% of individuals moving from unemployment into employment found work in either an SME or self-employment, where they often end up launching their own SMEs themselves.

SMEs are also more likely to employ people who face more disadvantage in the labour market, such as the disabled, and younger and older workers.

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Plus, we'd have carbon copy high streets without them and we'd lose those family businesses that have been going for generations. We'd lose something quintessentially British without them.

For example, Labour will ban zero hours contracts and unpaid internships, increase the minimum wage to a living wage of 10phr by 2022 for over 18s, and will give all staff full employee rights from day one, even if they're only temporary.

Better paid workers will have more to spend in the economy and employers treating employees better is good for everyone and society as a whole. It's essential to have a fairer distribution of wealth in Great Britain, and not leave it all in the hands of the massive banks and corporations. This is at the heart of Labour's policies.

Labour will also double paid paternity leave to four weeks, and most importantly, it will strengthen protection for women at work who have children. I still hear of far too many women got rid of while they're on maternity leave. It's got to stop.

As someone who finds it difficult not to work all hours of every day, I also love the idea of being made to down tools with the four new public holidays they're proposing. Having down time is so important and can help your business as it gives you time and space to think creatively about any problems that need solving or coming up with new ways to push your business forward. Being nose to the grindstone the whole time sometimes means you only end up dealing with the nitty gritty and not seeing a bigger picture.

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While the LibDems have proposed tackling some of these issues, Labour's plans are more detailed. And the Conservatives are light on proposed changes until after publication of the Taylor report into the labour market. Labour simply have more clarity on these issues.

Labour are also promising to look into current business rates, which are crippling many small firms like mine, and it's also helpful that they are not going to increase National Insurance or VAT. It will also bring in a lower small profits rate of corporate tax for SMEs. This is all incredibly helpful to the likes of my business.

It's also great that they want to reassert the power of trade unions - happy employees who feel their rights are protected are better workers after all.
I walk into the service user council meeting, and Tom, the council chair, beckons me in. There are about a dozen members here today: people with learning disabilities, mental health concerns and dementia. Tom tells the members I am here to talk about the election. There's an explosion of groans and shouts and laughs as Dave, one of the more boisterous members of the council shouts: "Oh No! Not that crap again!". "I'm afraid so", I tell them "it's getting close..."

Rob's reaction echoed that of Brenda, the Bristol housewife door-stepped on the day the election was announced, but there are a couple of key differences. Soundbites and campaign information have filled Brenda's screens and letterbox and she can weigh it all up and make her choice, including to not vote at all. For people with a learning disability, it's not so simple.

There are a number of barriers to overcome first - when you have a learning disability, society makes everything - including exercising your democratic rights - much harder. There are no figures available on how many of the UK's 1.5 million people with learning disabilities voted in 2015, but if our experience is typical, the answer is not many. Social care has been top of the political agenda, but people with a learning disability have been excluded from this debate as well, with all the attention being focussed on home care and, indeed, little mention of the impact of local authority spending cuts to this vulnerable group of people.

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One of the chief hurdles is access to information. Presenting that information in a way that makes sense to someone with a cognitive impairment is challenging, and it's a challenge that all parties have been slow to meet. As a support provider it is not our job to provide that information and attempts to do so are fraught with difficulty - everyone is terrified of influencing someone's vote. It is reassuring that this year the main parties have finally acknowledged that this is their responsibility. The Labour Party published its accessible manifesto a few weeks ago, in easy read and other formats; the other parties have now followed suit with variable degrees of polish. It's a huge step forward.

Back in the council meeting, they have hit their stride and I am bombarded with questions - they want to know about Brexit, about benefits, about refugees. But I am there to talk about our plans for a panel event. We invited all the candidates and the Lib Dems, the Greens and the Labour Party agreed to meet people and answer their questions. We booked a room for a Saturday; it had to be a Saturday, because staff time is being given for free. The council then return to writing questions reflecting their concerns.

Whilst our efforts have been focussed on the people we support, we have also needed to work with the people supporting them. The questions they have are common: questions about someone's capacity to vote; about the potential wisdom of their choice; about whether they understand the issues; anxieties people might vote a particular way for "silly" reasons. These are views held by others in society too and yet lack of capacity is no barrier to voting in law.

People with support needs are among those most affected by changes in Governmental ideology and priority, and yet whilst they don't have access to information and to proactive staff support, they are prevented from having their voices heard and their silence is then easily ignored. It is an indictment of our democracy as a whole that this disenfranchisement continues.

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So, what can be done to address these challenges? We need to see better education for staff to address their core anxieties, so that they feel capable of supporting this vulnerable group of people to make an informed vote - but without undue influence. We need to support people with learning difficulties, and others supported by the social care sector, to articulate the issues that concern them, bearing in mind these concerns are sometimes not the same as those of the average voter. They need to have direct access to the candidates - via events such as our panel debate - and support, before and after, to reflect and interpret what has been heard, as well as to understand the mechanics of voting and their right to vote.
Research by the GMB Union has found that up to 10 million Britons are currently working in insecure employment. This includes roles in the 'gig economy', on zero hour contracts, temporary workers, the underemployed and those who are falsely classed as self-employed. From 2014-2016 Peninsula experienced a 63% increase in advice requests regarding employment status from small business owners.

Precarious employment is bad for the health and family life of these workers who, together, make up nearly a third of the UK workforce. The report found that 61% of these workers had suffered stress as a result of their job, due to factors such as fear of losing roles, uncertain pay and insufficient hours. A similar number said that they attended work whilst unwell because they feared losing future work as a result of any absence.

Workers who are faced with concerns over their job security are also likely to be bad for that business. Undertaking a lower quality role can result in the worker being less productive, less engaged and having a negative relationship with the work itself, and their colleagues.

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Employers are being encouraged to do more for their workers and focus on providing "good work". The government-commissioned Taylor review into modern employment practices, expected to report its findings following the General Election, is likely to focus on how the government can do more to remove the issues faced by those in insecure jobs and the gig economy. A speech by Matthew Taylor highlighted the issue of flexible, insecure and low paid work by commenting that whilst this type of work has led to an increase in job roles, the quality of work has decreased as a result.

Employers can take simple steps to improve the quality of work they provide. Identifying and addressing issues such as job security, increasing communication, increasing worker integration in the company and providing opportunities for training and promotion will help motivate staff and provide job satisfaction. Employers can also consider whether insecure contracts are best for their company. Some businesses are finding that although they use zero hours contracts, their staff are currently working the same number of hours each week. McDonalds has recently chosen to offer guaranteed hours contracts to their UK workforce with some staff moving and others choosing to stay on zero hours contracts.
Labour's recent surge in the polls has provided much for the media and political analysts to ponder. The New Statesman's view that the 'stench of decay and failure coming from the Labour Party is now overwhelming', written all the way back in March 2017, now seems a distant memory. The national debate is changing on a near daily basis. At the time of writing, there has been three major terrorist incidents in as many months in the UK. The Prime Minister has had to reaffirm that the General Election will be going ahead on the date planned. Theresa May was able to assert her superiority on defence issues confidently as the Labour Party almost tore itself apart over what stance to take on matters of national security. The sight of Labour front bench colleagues publicly clashing with each other only assured the Conservatives' supremacy on defence. Labour looked set to commit itself to unilateral nuclear disarmament and a re-run of the controversial 1983 General Election manifesto pledge ('the longest suicide note in history') looked on the cards.

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But then, Labour committed itself to renewing Trident in its election manifesto. Jeremy Corbyn, who only last year addressed a CND rally in Trafalgar Square themed, 'NHS - Not Trident', signed off on a manifesto that offered one vital sentence - 'Labour supports the renewal of the nuclear deterrent'. How does a left-wing pacifist reconcile himself to this policy position? The answer in one respect is that he hasn't. As evidenced in several interviews and the live Q&A on the BBC on Friday, Corbyn is cagey on discussing the nuclear issue and the all-important dilemma of 'pushing the button'. A better explanation is found by looking at the history of the Labour Party itself in the last seventy years. The party leader has returned to Labour's default position on the nuclear deterrent, and on defence more generally.

Firstly, the manifesto pledge to renew Trident aims to unify a divided party. The nuclear deterrent has divided Labour ever since Britain's first thermonuclear bomb was tested in 1957. The Labour left-wing was active in CND and achieved significant victories at the party conferences in 1960 and 1961 which threatened to commit the party to unilateral disarmament. This was passionately opposed by the Labour right-wing, with the leader of the party, Hugh Gaitskell, vowing to 'fight, and fight again' to resist the left. When Harold Wilson, a moderate left-winger, won the 1964 General Election, he immediately committed the Labour Government to continuing with Polaris - the precursor to Trident that was at that stage only a year into its construction. He did so by lying to the party, claiming that the Royal Navy informed him that Polaris was 'past the point of no return'. Party unity was Wilson's primary concern in his thirteen years as Labour leader. Such was the divisiveness of the nuclear question, he could not afford more faction-fighting.

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This is very much the condition of Corbyn's Labour Party. But there are other motivations to renewing Trident. Should Teresa May's overall majority stay in the single figures, marginal constituencies will be vital. Labour's stance on defence has an impact on two constituencies especially: the Labour-held seat of Barrow-in-Furness, where the Trident successor system will be built; and Devonport, a Conservative held seat with a strong naval tradition. Both seats are held by the narrowest of margins - approximately 500 votes - and the impact of Labour committing to defence could be crucial. The attention given to Trident has obscured Labour's commitment to the other aspects of defence, such as conventional weapons and the defence industry. As a left-winger, Corbyn is on safer ground discussing these issues, just as Michael Foot tried to convince a sceptical electorate that a non-nuclear policy would work during the Cold War. Corbyn may find more success in arguing that more funding should be diverted to cyber warfare, intelligence and policing, while criticising the Conservative government's cancellations of HMS Ark Royal and the Harrier jump-jet, which was commissioned by the Labour government in the 1970s. The defence industry also resonates strongly in the manifesto, referencing the impact on the steel and shipbuilding industries without indulging any attempts to 'convert' defence production to commercial use - another policy from the Foot era. Labour has also proposed a 'Defence Industrial Strategy White Paper', which it acknowledges will 'provide good jobs down the supply chain'. Trident also happens to have a very considerable economic impact in the west of Scotland, and his could be a useful benefit in clawing back seats on Clydeside. Defence is not only a matter of keeping the country safe, especially during a General Election.
The ownership of businesses is fundamental to how power and reward are distributed in society. Since the early 1980s the privatisation of major industries has helped transform the nature of the economy and in whose interest it operates. Yet strikingly, this election has seen the re-emergence - across the ideological spectrum - of arguments in favour of alternative models of ownership that have long been on the margins of policy debate, if not popular opinion. Whatever the general election result, ownership is back on the political agenda with potentially profound implications for the economy.

Private ownership of businesses gives private capital investors the control rights to appoint management, as well as ownership rights to the profits generated by production. It is a fundamental institution of capitalist economies and an engine of both economic dynamism and economic and political inequality.

Challenging the value of private ownership in the economy has been politically taboo for decades. In part, this reflected a consensus that the previous era of nationalisation was a failure. This is despite the fact that, as Andrew Cumbers, professor of political economy at Glasgow University, has pointed out, "total factor productivity ... in the nationalized industries of gas, electricity and water increased by 3.1 per cent between 1950 and 1985, a figure that was higher than both their US privately owned counterparts (2.6 per cent) and UK manufacturing as a whole (1.8 per cent) over the same period." Nonetheless, publicly owned companies were portrayed as inefficient and cumbersome, destined for the dustbin of economic history. Indeed, the UK took to privatisation with a zeal unmatched anywhere else in the world: between 1980 and 1996 Britain racked up 40 per cent of the total value of all assets privatised across the entire OECD.

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Labour's manifesto marks a clear break from this approach. It commits the party to new forms of public ownership across the economy, with the stated goals of encouraging long-termism, improving productivity, and promoting more equitable patterns of ownership. The means to achieve this range from taking rail franchises back into public ownership as they expire and re-nationalising Royal Mail, to bringing the 32 private water companies in England under common ownership (as in the rest of the UK). Labour also proposes a decentralized system of energy production and distribution, with a single nationally owned energy grid provisioned by a network of new municipally owned energy providers. While the up-front cost would be considerable, as Tony Yates of Birmingham University has argued, the state would acquire valuable assets generating income, so the public debt would net out as roughly neutral. The more important policy issues are therefore less about cost than questions of governance, equity, and efficiency of those assets and companies in public relative to private ownership.

Alongside these strategic, largescale nationalisations, the manifesto promised to introduce a 'right to own', which would make employees the 'buyers of first refusal' when the company they work for is put up for sale, as part of a commitment to doubling the size of the co-operative sector in the UK.

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A recent Labour policy document on alternative forms of ownership was more ambitious still. Drawing on a long tradition ranging from GDH Cole's guild socialism in the early 20th century to 'post-Fordist' economic arguments for common ownership today, Labour puts forward a series of steps to achieve a form of participatory economic democracy. These include expanding cooperatives, municipal and local-led ownership and new models of public banking. The proposals offer a vision of a pluralistic and public landscape of economic ownership.

Remarkably, the Conservative party has also got in on the act. The Tory manifesto commits to introducing a number of sovereign wealth funds, to be known as 'Future Britain Funds'. These promise to 'hold in trust the investments of the British people', extending public ownership of economic assets into the economy. They plan to capitalise such public investment funds by selling off public assets. This raises significant questions about how a sovereign wealth fund network would be run, funded and how its gains would be redistributed to achieve social, democratic and redistributive goals. Nonetheless, the commitment marks an interesting and potentially significant development in Conservative policymaking.

These manifesto commitments by both major parties reflect the enduring popularity of public ownership of the railways and utilities. Moreover, this agenda has arguably been given a new lease of life by Brexit, with public ownership of key sections of the economy an economic embodiment of 'taking back control'. The coming wave of automation makes questions of ownership all the more urgent. While the much-heralded rhetoric 'rise of the robots' does not mean mass joblessness, increasing automation is still likely to accelerate inequalities as capital substitutes for labour, with capital taking an ever larger share of national income. Who owns the robots in this future will be of vital consequence in determining who reaps the reward of technological change.
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Why can't I vote? This is the question currently being asked by thousands of sixteen and seventeen year olds in this country.

Casting my mind back to not being able to vote in the 2015 general election, I remember feeling disregarded as a seventeen-year-old. I felt overlooked as a young person in Britain by missing the opportunity to vote. At the time of the 2015 election, I was working a part-time job whilst at college studying A-levels, and planning for university. I could not help but scrutinise what the next few years would offer young people, including myself. We are trusted to drive, have children and join the army, but not trusted to responsibly vote. How could the future government make young people feel empowered and valued members of Britain if they do not trust them with voting?

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The next five years of my life was ultimately decided by people who were not me. I imagined being twenty-two when I could first vote in the next general election if the EU Referendum and the snap-election had not been called. Currently, sixteen-year-old's will be university graduates when they can first vote in the next election at the age of twenty-one in 2022.

In the 2015 election, I was eager to represent my informed opinions, interests and worries for the future by casting my vote. Rather than older generations in my family, the access to social media and the freedom of consuming digital news extended my knowledge about the complexity of politics. Powerless to the decisions made by our government, decisions that directly affect young adults, such as rising university fees, housing policies and tax rates, were made without their input.

The general election in 2015 witnessed an overall turnout of 66.1%. This figure has previously dipped as low as a 59.4% in the 2001 election turnout. These percentages show that not all of the British public want to vote in elections, regardless of age demographics. The EU Referendum turnout of young voters was almost double than initially expected - approximately 64% of 18-24 voters voted - exemplifying the political interest shared by many young people.

The EU referendum differed to other elections which are held every five years. Brexit is an irreversible decision that will change our country's trade, travel and integration with the rest of Europe; the consideration to allow more of the future tax-paying generation to vote should have been paramount. The young generation will bear most of the brunt over the success or failure of Brexit. The importance of a democracy is that it views every person equally; indiscriminate of political positioning, financial income, gender and age. It is an undermining betrayal to sixteen and seventeen year olds of not being eligible to vote. Sixteen and seventeen year olds should be provided with their say in the future discourse of this country rather than being held partly accountable in the future for repairing past mistakes.

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Many argue that young people are not interested in politics and will not vote, or vote irresponsibly if they do. Allowing sixteen and seventeen year olds to vote could be a proactive way to engage more young people in British and international politics. Like people who choose not to vote, the sixteen and seventeen-year-old voters who are not interested in politics will simply not vote - they will not drift the country into anarchism. Lowering the voting age by two years will simply make it available for those who are engaged with politics to have an input and provide more young people with a valuable voice.

There is a distinction between sixteen and seventeen year olds and those younger. Sixteen and seventeen year olds can join the army, marry, become a Director of a company, and must pay adult train fares, for instance. They can also have kids.

They can contribute to the economy by working and paying tax, so surely they should be allowed to vote?

Lowering the voting age by two years will provide sixteen and seventeen year olds with political voices. There is a disservice to young people by thinking that all teenagers linger on street corners in trackies or dedicate their time to the Kardashians and Instagram. Youth Parliament has never been stronger, with team of circa 600 young people aged 11-18 campaigning nationally and debating in Parliament. Since 2016, Scotland have recognised sixteen and seventeen year olds with the right to vote in all Scottish elections, whereby 75% of them turned out to vote; higher than the national average turnout. Currently, the Green Party, Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP support this change.

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Over the course of the last 50 days, the British people have been hit by a goddamn whirlwind of shameless politicking and ineptitude.

Corny catchphrases and mean tweets have totally dominated this election, and they've replaced any sort of substance with a watery debate about non-existent independence referendums and Brexit negotiations that aren't even on the books yet. No one seems remotely interested in the country's faltering economic performance, and we're all so preoccupied with divorcing Europe that none of us have spared a minute to ponder how Thursday's result will inevitably reshape one of the globe's most influential and dysfunctional power dynamics.

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So, let's take a second and address this 'yuge' and totally incompetent orange elephant in the room.

Believe it or not, Donald Trump hasn't got a whole lot of friends anymore. Five months into this nonsensical adventure in self-annihilation he's calling leadership, pretty much all of America's key allies have started to pick up their toys and go home out of sheer exhaustion.

Yet for whatever reason, Theresa May seems to think Trump is really on to something.

Zoom out for a bit of context, and it's not hard to see why - because the two leaders have got a lot more in common than most of us should care to admit. And it goes well beyond their shared love of Thatcher and the odd holding of hands.

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Privatisations, nuclear weapons, the eradication of public services, huge cuts to education - the list goes on and on. Theresa May didn't even have the gall to tell her mate off for endangering the lives of future generations by pulling out of the Paris Agreement - but then again, why would she? Her first act of business last year was to abolish the Department of Energy and Climate Change and place fracking's number-one fan in charge of Britain's environmental affairs.

The bottom line is this: we all know Donald Trump is a very real threat to global stability, the economy and our environment. But Theresa May is marching to the beat of the same drum. That makes the Prime Minister, along with every single voter she represents, complicit in all of Trump's catastrophic blunders.

Go ahead and let that sink in on the way to your local polling station.

Do you want to live in a racially divided country whose 'strong and stable' leader is constantly at the beck and call of a goddamn looney toon villain and his self-serving agenda? Do you want your government standing in the way of progress, and shuffling its feet on the wrong side of history?

If so, then go ahead and vote Conservative.

But if you're after someone with a bit more integrity - if you don't want Britain to end up turning into a feckless Trump proxy state - you've got to put your money where your mouth is, get out there on polling day and stand up for what's right. Cast your ballot for a party who's willing to stand against brazen tyranny, and send Theresa May a message she won't soon forget.

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Up to 13 million disabled voters like me will be heading to polling stations this week. It's no understatement to say that we could tip the balance in who gets hold of the keys to number 10 - if the narrowing polls are to be believed....

This is a crucial election. The result could have long lasting implications for disabled people's ability to support themselves and their families, find work, access education, or benefit from local services that enable them to play active, fulfilling roles in communities.

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We are a sizeable and influential group of people that political parties ignore at their peril.

Yet every election seemingly sees some disabled voters struggle to make their voice at the ballot box heard, because of a lack of basic provision in polling stations.

Poorly thought out and isolated polling station locations, venues or facilities can render them difficult or potentially humiliating for disabled people to use.

Leonard Cheshire Disability research at the time of the last General Election found that almost a quarter (24%) of disabled people had difficulties voting in person at polling stations. And recently Mencap found 70% of people with a learning disability wanted to vote - but 60% found it too hard to register. About one in five (17%) had been turned away at polling stations previously.

In 2015, wheelchair users faced stairs and no disabled parking. Other problems included lack of large print ballot papers or too narrow voting booths.

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One voter told us: "There was a step up into the venue. My wheelchair could not be tipped back far enough to get over the step. The staff did offer to come and help lift me over -- which although was kind it wouldn't have been helpful or dignified at all, plus I was fearful of being dropped."

Local authorities have a responsibility to ensure that disabled voters are not offered a lower standard of service than other people in their community, by making reasonable adaptations and providing other support at polling stations. I've written to all relevant council CEOs in England to remind them of their responsibilities.

The General Election is building up to a feverish finale and disabled people have a huge stake in it.

One in six of us will be affected by disability at some point in our lives - and like me the vast majority of people with a disability weren't born with it. Eight in ten disabled people have become disabled through accidents, heart attack, stroke or conditions like MS.

As the UK comes to terms with the implications of an aging population and grapples with a social care system that is increasingly not fit for purpose - the views of disabled people are essential in finding the answers on this pressing issue.

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There is also a mountain to climb in terms of giving disabled people the employment opportunities others take for granted. A huge gap remains between the proportion of disabled people employed and other people of working age. Closing this gap will take real commitment and focus by the next Government.

To even halve the gap, more than one million more disabled people would need to find work. Schemes like the Government's Access to Work break down barriers to employment, but need to be significantly expanded by whoever takes power.
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When the British public head to the polls this week they will not only be voting for a UK government, knowingly or not, they will also be voting for what kind of Brexit we will see.

Just short of a year since the landmark referendum result, the political landscape has shifted significantly and Britain again finds itself on the brink of voting for what kind of relationship it will have with the European Union in the future.

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Since nearly 52 per cent of those who voted in the 'Brexit' referendum signalled their desire to withdraw from the EU we've seen resignations, leadership contests, a new Prime Minister, a cabinet cull, failed coups and a shadow cabinet reshuffle so long I'm not entirely sure whether or not it's still ongoing today.

The referendum really shook things up and whichever way you look at it, Thursday's election will be remembered as 'the Brexit election'.

Prime Minister Theresa May cited Brexit as the major reason for calling the snap election when she made the announcement back in April and the issue has been a key fighting ground over the campaign period with polarised views coming from political parties.

May herself has shifted her overall messaging from that of strong and stable leadership to positioning herself as the only person capable of conducting Brexit negotiations.

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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has focussed on the need to secure a trade deal and access to the Single Market in his discussions on Brexit. While Lib Dem leader Tim Farron has made outright opposition to Brexit and the desire for a second referendum the cornerstones of his campaign.

While debates continue on key issues like the NHS, education, welfare and pay, there are few elections in British history which are so tied up and interconnected with one specific issue.

The economic and trading future of the country will be dependent on any deal secured with the EU - if one is indeed secured. The thorny issue of immigration and freedom of movement will be influenced by any ongoing relationship. Business laws, working directives, human rights, university programmes, funding for projects are all also among the many things that will be directly influenced by negotiations.

In light of the tragic events in London and Manchester over the last two weeks, even approaches to terror and security are inextricably linked to Brexit talks and how surveillance and information will be shared between Britain and member states following its withdrawal.

So what are we likely to see? If Theresa May secures a majority then 'Hard Brexit' will definitely be on the cards. The size of the majority will dictate quite how much flexibility there is on this, but given the language used in the campaigns, a large majority will be seen as a mandate for Hard Brexit and the possibility of withdrawing from the EU with no trade deal.

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A Conservative minority government will likely see significant concessions made and could potentially trigger another early general election. A Conservative-led coalition has the potential to take completely different turns, with the Lib Dems and UKIP their most likely partners - yet again this could also trigger another early general election.

Partner with UKIP and the Hard Brexit will be delivered, join forces with the Lib Dems and a second referendum would be in the offing and views on the freedom of movement could well be softened.

A Labour majority or Labour-led coalition would see the UK bid to stay in the Single Market, a meaningful parliamentary vote on the terms of the negotiation deal and the potential for a second referendum if allied with the Lib Dems, SNP and/or the Green Party.

So despite the referendum result almost 12 months ago, there is much about Brexit which remains completely unresolved and which could well hinge on the way the vote goes on Thursday.

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Any significant deviation from the polls has the potential to trigger the kind of chain reaction the referendum vote itself led to as leaders and parties scramble to react to the viewpoints of the public and the landscape laid out before them.
Utah-based Photographer Ryan Houston via Getty Images

The internet is perhaps the clearest example of how even the greatest strides in history come with troubling consequences. Steam power would lead to industry and pollution, the Enlightenment to despotism, and the internet, the world's greatest collection of shared information? The bitter twist is that we know as little as we did before.

Of course, no one would argue that as a group, the population of the UK does not, in the modern day, know more than our ancestors in the past. Indeed, we have a greater range of knowledge than ever, and the internet gives us more and more sources to access. Traditional media, new media, CNN, BBC, Buzzfeed, Infowars, thousands of talking heads, coupled with social media, through which anyone can post their opinion and share it to millions.

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Today then, it's so easy to know everything, but crucially, we understand nothing.

The motivation to right this piece came from a conversation I had around the time Trump dropped out of the Paris agreement. Disappointed and angry voices filled the internet, and a friend was telling me how much they hated Trump for acting so rashly. I never pretend to be knowledgeable on every issue, so I simply asked what it was the Paris accords did, and how they aimed to help the environment. Struggling for words, they could only reply, "It lowers carbon emissions", but how? The person couldn't tell me. That's because they didn't know, and if I asked them what criticisms had been posed about the accords, I'm sure they wouldn't be able to tell me those either.

This piece isn't about Trumps decision or my opinion on it, I'm as uneasy about his choice as many of us are. But the example highlights an issue I've been noticing more and more, particularly with young people. I've talked before about how easy it is online to react to an incendiary headline and immediately feel angry, and how anger has never lended itself well to thoughtful discussion, even less to introspection. The latest election campaign has only served to highlight this issue even more. Instead of anyone questioning why, now the immediate response is, how could they? How could Trump win? How could they be angry about immigrants? How could people disagree with me?

This reaction is one with its roots firmly stuck in the internet, and as such has been more impactful among young adults, including myself, for whom non-digital media has little influence over. It's here where most news is shared and discussed, and it's here we find unique echo chambers that don't represent the outside world. For many young people, this means a dominantly left wing area that doesn't challenge them to defend their views. More damagingly, it doesn't encourage people, right or left, young or old, to understand each other's arguments.

There is now nothing more divisive in society than talking politics. It is beyond comprehension that if I posted my voting intentions, or attempted a discussion on particular issues involving race, sex or immigration, I would receive boundless hate about how awful I was, and would be disowned by people from either end of the spectrum. Another sweet irony when many talk about how important "Tolerance" and "Freedom of expression" are to them.

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This is the unique problem that the internet poses. The failure to receive challenge, and furthermore, to genuinely question your own beliefs, which is ultimately the hardest job of all, has been abandoned. It allows Alex Jones to blindly defend Donald Trump and wade yet deeper into his tin foil hat conspiracy theories. It allows CNN to continue its rolling negative coverage of the new President, stooping so low they even criticised his ice cream preferences. Die hard Corbyn supporters see nothing alarming about unlimited public spending. Committed Tories don't understand the struggle of living on diminishing benefits. It's all because none of them need to. No one needs to dig deeper into a headline, or to hold off an instant reaction.

Just yesterday I spotted a post about corporation tax in the UK. It was based on sound data from KPMG, that showed British corporation tax as one of the lowest in the Western world, and was used by a group to argue that wealthy corporations had nowhere to go to avoid tax, thus criticising Theresa May for daring to lower it further. It took one google search for me to find out that America's average corporation tax is far lower than ours, and works on a completely different system, and only a few more minutes of research and some common sense to know that corporations dodge tax by setting up headquarters in micro states like Luxembourg with next to no corporate tax rates. Nevertheless, the comments reflected a total consensus on the issue, as if one internet post was enough investigation to totally settle an issue.

Young people take in so much information in modern life, but we truly understand so little. We buy into consensus politics, afraid or too unaware to present an opposing view. Social media isn't a platform for debate, it's a platform for political indoctrination, and in the comment section the mob rules, so you better be on the right side. Are you looking to become a Communist? A Fascist? A Jihadist? Look for it and you will find it, and you never need to challenge your views along the way.

The internet is polarising. It's misinforming. It's dangerous.

But it's also transformative, provides connection and can foster understanding.

The crucial element in the equation is you. No one can tell you what to look at or how to use it properly, because then the beauty of the internet would be lost. Theresa May's solution to terrorism, to in effect establish total state monitoring, is no fix. As an individual, it is your responsibility to use the internet wisely. Question sources, challenge points of view, and open your mind to ideas that might disturb your world view.

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To be a citizen in a democracy is a privilege, but it comes with a duty. A duty to stay informed, so that you might make those decisions you truly believe are the best for the future of the country. Use the internet as a tool for this, but don't let it use you.
Can you imagine a European capital city where the annual LGBTI Pride event was being threatened by neo-Nazi dunderheads and the city stood by and took no action? Or a situation where the same thugs were encouraging their supporters to bring weapons to attack LGBTI people, and the authorities said nothing? No?

It's hard to believe, granted, but it's happening this week in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. Their annual Pride event is due to take place this Saturday, but a far-right group called 'National Resistance' have tried to wreck plans first by 'booking' the same public space used by Pride for four consecutive weekends in June, and now that this weekend's Pride is confirmed as going ahead, by organising on Facebook and secret online forums to get their supporters along in significant numbers this weekend. And yet the city is doing next to nothing to stand up to them.

The motives of National Resistance are clear. They have said that they plan to 'clear the garbage of Sofia', and told supporters that they are 'welcome to clear everything unclean from our capital and then Bulgaria'. In a video temporarily published online, and captured by human rights activists, National Resistance urge their supporters to bring 'brooms and shovels with long wooden handles' to 'cleanse' the city.

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National Resistance's full statement said:

"We coordinated with Sofia Municipality and the Regional Office of the Republic of Bulgaria the beginning of our campaign "Clear the garbage of Sofia". We look forward to you on 10.06.2017 at 5 pm at the Soviet Army Monument. We saw that some sick people had decided to do the parade of sodomy, but this time they will have to miss it. Because they are constantly telling us about the campaign on June 10th, you are welcome to clear everything "unclean" from our capital and then from Bulgaria! Do not sit home, we do this all year round, let this day of the tenth anniversary of the Sodomites, WE WILL NOT HAVE A GAY PARADE IN OUR CITY! The law is on our side and everything depends on us !!!"

I met with Pride activists in Sofia back in January, along with other colleagues from the European Pride Organisers Association (EPOA). We'd decided to visit Bulgaria to meet not only the Sofia organisers, but also activists from across the Balkans - including Serbia, Greece and Montenegro. All the organisers we met told us of the challenges they face - including police brutality, state-sponsored homophobia, right-wing attacks and media apathy. And it's a signal of how volatile things can be in that region that, when we met in January, Sofia seemed to be the Pride that faced the fewest challenges.

All that has clearly changed, and Sofia Pride this weekend faces very real and very serious threats of violence. Activists there have told me that they have met with police, who have said they will protect people attending Pride - but that can only be once they reach the assembly area. LGBTI people - many young, many vulnerable - will have to run the gauntlet of getting to the assembly point without being spotted or attacked. Or worse.

Some people will decide not to go to Pride, fearing for their safety - and quite understandably. But just as we must not cave in to terrorists who want to change the way we live, nor must we allow neo-Nazi homophobes to force us into the closet and enforce our silence. Bulgaria's criminal code offers no hate crime protection to people who are LGBTI, and the thugs of National Resistance know this and are only encouraged by it.

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The municipality could have banned the National Resistance events, just as police would have restricted or cancelled them in the United Kingdom had they been brazenly threatening violence. But there are complex legal reasons why they couldn't be banned, and so police are simply doing what they can.

The city's mayor, Yordanka Fandakova, is being urged by the international Pride community through EPOA and AllOut to not only condemn National Resistance's call to violence, but also to attend Pride herself and march to show her support. Fifteen thousands people signed the petition within twelve hours of it going live on Tuesday evening, and activists in Sofia will present the petition on Friday.

Fandakova's political party - that of the Bulgarian prime minister - is not known for its liberal attitude on LGBTI issues but that's not the point: this is about the freedom of assembly for LGBTI people living in the capital city of an EU country. She has a moral, ethical and almost a constitutional duty to stand with Sofia Pride this weekend, and denounce the thugs who stand in its way.

So, Mayor Fandakova, over to you. The right-thinking majority who care about equality and human rights will be watching closely to see what happens in your city on Saturday. It is absolutely within your purview to ensure that Sofia Pride not only goes ahead, but does so safely, with the rights and freedoms of LGBTI people protected and respected.

Mayor Fandakova, you could send the biggest signal possible by joining the march yourself, as many thousands of people have urged you to. I hope we'll see you there.
The accusation from many against the British Muslim community in the wake of the London terror attack is that spiritual leaders do not condemn the terrorists enough. However, a single statement on June 5th, two days after the incident, makes it abundantly clear to anyone who will bother to read it that the faith very much condemns the attack.

130 Imams and religious leaders from diverse backgrounds issued a joint statement in which they made clear their refusal to perform the funeral prayers for the terrorists. Since publication, the number has increased to over 200 Imams.

This refusal to grant the funeral prayers is hugely significant. Perhaps more so than many outside the Muslim community would understand it to be.

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Funerals are big affairs in the Muslim community. The belief in the afterlife requires anyone and everyone who knew the deceased to come together together for a 'big send off'. Condolences are given to the family and prayers are offered by all the gathered for the deceased. These prayers include asking God to forgive the dead, to shower His mercy on the departed soul and to raise him/her to heaven.

Then we leave it to God to judge for we cannot judge.

And yet the statement includes the following:

Their acts and wilful dismissal of our religious principles alienates them from any association with our community for whom the inviolability of every human life is the founding principle. (Q.5:23)

Also:

Such criminals defile the name of our religion and of our Prophet, who was sent to be a mercy to all creation.

For those vulnerable young people who are on the brink of radicalisation, statements such as these can prove to be a powerful counteract against the grooming process. Terror grooming is very similar to child abuse grooming where the steps to maintain control include gaining trust, filling an emotional need and isolating the victim from family and friends. This can happen face to face, but happens more frequently on-line which is hard to monitor and control.

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Returning to those who would commit murder in the streets of the UK, the brainwashing includes the promise that the act of death will be a stepping stone to glory. Yet there is no glory in the unmarked grave which Imams refuse to bless with prayers for forgiveness.
NIKLAS HALLE'N via Getty Images

The torture room in which I was manacled and chained was fully loaded by any standards.

There were harnesses and batons, and a vast assortment of flails, blades, tourniquets, electrical equipment, and syringes filled with murky liquids. Much of the apparatus was covered in dried blood. In the middle of the floor, was a central drain - so the room could be hosed down between sessions.

For the first few of my nightly interrogations there - heaved from a cell in the solitary confinement wing - I had been blindfolded. But, once the military-grade bindings were removed - and I got a first look at the torture room - it wasn't comforting in the least.

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When you're really frightened - the kind of fear many people never experience - the scent of your sweat changes. It smells like cat pee - the effect of sweating out adrenalin.

This summer it'll be twelve years since my two Swedish colleagues and I were rounded up on a street in Peshawar, Pakistan, and hauled off to languish for sixteen days and nights in the ultimate hellhole of the Pakistani interrogation machine.

We'd been doing pre-production for a Channel 5 documentary - about my search for the fabled lost treasure of Mughal India... a treasure said to be hidden in caves somewhere in Afghanistan. My family hails partly from that war-torn country. Like so many others of my genetic generation, I've spent my life trying to work out who I am.

I see the East through one eye, and the West through the other, understand them both from the inside out, and feel like a walking cultural crossroads.

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So, during the week after the dreaded 7/7 bombings in London, my two colleagues and I were walking down a street in Peshawar. They were filming me, and I was rabbiting on about the treasure we hoped to find.

The next thing we knew, we'd been chained, blindfolded, and were being taken to a secret military unit for a medical exam. At the time we wondered why they would bother checking our health. It was to confirm we could withstand electric shock treatment, and the other goodies on offer at the ultra secure base - known to the guards as 'The Farm'.

The off-the-scale events at London Bridge and the Manchester Arena have brought the days and nights I spent in the Pakistani torture jail back in sharp focus, in a way that I haven't experienced them in recent years.

It's not that I'd forgotten about them.

Because I hadn't.

Every time I put on a freshly-laundered shirt, eat out in a restaurant, or drink a nice glass of wine, I thank providence, and wonder who's trussed up in my solitary confinement cell.

My point here isn't linked to nostalgia or self-pity. Instead, I'm interested how a chain of events rolls out a future that becomes the present. Had the suicide bombers not struck in London on that July morning, I wouldn't ever have been exposed to such a wild rollercoaster of a time. I wasn't there for the bombings, but the ripples created by the explosions caught me in their wake.

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As anyone with my ill-fated combination of a Muslim-sounding name and a British passport knows, it's a pain in the backside. However hard I work, it's always there - looming like a storm cloud on the horizon.

I've made documentary films, have more than a million words in print, and all manner of other projects to my name - but I'm the guy who's routinely shaken down at airports, and grilled by immigration officers the world over.

Before that cursed Autumn day in 2001 when New York was hit, I was living the good life - roaming the world, writing, exploring, and having a whole lot of fun. It all changed - like a fresh deck of cards dealt at a casino, in which each one is worse than the last.

I shouldn't complain at being given the third degree more often than I'd like - because these are impossible days for the security services. Almost every terrorist who's attacked Europe since London on 7/7 was the same living cultural crossroads as me. So I guess it would be disturbing if I - and so many thousands like me - were not being checked over as we are.

It's easy to get dragged down and glum by the niche I'm in. But there's a valuable side of being from the Fusion Zone: As a mixture of Occident and Orient, people like me can show one to the other. Not in an obvious cliched way - but in a way that's deeply profound.

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As hybrids of two worlds we have a duty.
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A convicted paedophile tried to hide his laptop under his sofa from police after using it to view thousands of sexual images of children as young as one.

Kevin Heyes, 50, had already served a 12 month prison sentence in November 2005 for making indecent images of children and inciting a girl under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

But Hull Crown Court heard police officers visited his house in August last year after receiving information that an IP address at his home had been used to view indecent images of children.

Heyes, then already a registered sex offender, lived alone at the property, and told officers he did not own a computer.

"But he had attempted to hide a Toshiba laptop under a sofa," said Mr Gordon. "He was heard to say, 'I do not want to go back to prison.'"

A search of the property in Queen Street, Bridlington, also resulted in the discovery of a USB stick and a memory card.

Police found "at least" 509 category A - the most serious - images, 498 category B, and 770 of category C.

"I say at least because there are limited resources and the officer in the case is not able to view every image," said Mr Gordon. "There were thousands of images in his possession."

Heyes was charged with three counts of making indecent images of children between January 2010 and August 2016.

During his first of two police interviews, Heyes claimed he had bought the laptop second-hand from a Cash Converters store in Bridlington. He admitted viewing indecent images.

Mr Gordon said: "He was asked why he had offended again (following his earlier conviction), and he said, 'I did not think that I would get caught.'"

Hayes had attempted to argue that the material "was not proper child porn". Asked to elaborate, Heyes told officers that "proper child porn involved adults and kids doing stuff.

Faced with the full evidence against him, which included a video lasting three minutes and 19 seconds of children aged one to three being sexually abused, Heyes admitted in his second interview that he had bought the laptop new from a store seven years earlier.

"He admitted that he was responsible for all the images and that he knew it was wrong," said Mr Gordon. "He said he liked pre-teen webcam material the most."

Antony Farrell, for Hayes, said his client had accepted his guilt in the courts at the earlier opportunity.

"He is wracked by guilt and self-loathing," he said. "He lived a very isolated life and has very little in the way of support."

Heyes told authors of a pre-sentence report, "I know it's wrong and I want to stop."

Mr Farrell added: "He is tremendously remorseful."

The barrister urged Judge Simon Jack to pull back from sending Heyes straight to prison.

But Judge Jack told Heyes he had "learned nothing" from his earlier prison spell.

He sentenced him to two-years in jail.

"These children are being exploited and you are part of that," said Judge Jack, before ordering him to be sent down.

Heyes must register as a sex offender for ten years. He was also made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order for ten years.
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A man who staged a rooftop protest after being accused of raping a woman he met on the dating website Plenty of Fish has been found not guilty.

Andrew Fewster, 48, has been cleared of rape and sexual assault following a trial at Hull Crown Court.

In March, with his trial just three months away, Mr Fewster daubed, 'Helped me please' and 'I'm innocent' on the roof of a building next to Centre 88, in Saner Street, off Anlaby Road in west Hull.

He says he was "driven" to such lengths in a bid to prove his innocence.

After the jury delivered its verdict, Mr Fewster, of West Parade, west Hull, fired a warning shot to other men using dating sites to meet women.

Outside of court, he told the Mail: "We are vulnerable as well as them.

"I knew truth would prevail eventually. Lonely hearts, be careful."

His roof-top protest lasted three hours and caused the street to be closed by police, Humberside Fire and Rescue and ambulance. Residents were not allowed into their homes.

At times he lay on the roof and even started dancing and trying to do handstands while shouting "he wanted to clear his name".

Onlookers watched as Mr Fewster, who was covered in the white paint, continued to smoke cigarettes while holding onto aerials on the building and slipped on the tiles as the rain started to pour.

Throughout his trial, Mr Fewster said he had started chatting with the woman months before the night of the allegations because he was "interesting in seeing if he could get real chemistry and maybe form a relationship long-term."

She claimed she was raped by Mr Fewster at his home last year. They agreed to meet after exchanging texts and phone calls.

Mr Fewster met the woman at St Stephen's Shopping Centre, and the pair bought pizza and bottles of wine, before walking to his flat.

The woman claimed they "were kissing each other, not French kissing, but kissing, there was no other touching or intimacy." But she alleged Mr Fewster then forced himself on her, undressed her, raped and sexually assaulted her.

Mr Fewster advanced a different account of events, which was believed by jurors. He said he had fetched a quilt from the bedroom to "put on top of us", and had fallen asleep after having consensual sex.

He said he was awoken by a police officer standing over him.

Mr Fewster, asked for his immediate response at that point, replied: "I said, 'You what, mate? I couldn't have been nicer to that woman'."

The three-day trial heard how the woman had called police on the 101 non emergency number from the flat alleging she had been raped.

The operator heard a woman say, "You shouldn't have done it", and "I told you no".

Prosecutor David Gordon said a male voice, which he claimed belonged to Mr Fewster, could be heard saying, "You're sexy, I couldn't help myself."

Leaving court, Mr Fewster blew a sigh of relief and said: "I'm now going home for a cup of tea and a cuddle with my partner."
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Thousands of pupils have been evacuated and placed in lockdown after hoax bomb threats at two schools and reports of an armed intruder in the grounds of Hymers College.

Wolfreton School was the first to receive a call at 1:30pm with a man threatening to detonate a bomb on site.

At the same time, armed police were dispatched to Hymers College following reports of a man with a knife in the school grounds.

Sirius West and Ganton Academy also received a bomb scare at 2pm.

Here is what we know so far from this afternoon's developments:-

Hymers College

Armed police attend the school and placed it on lockdown following reports of an armed intruder entering the school grounds shortly after 2pm.

The intruder was reportedly armed with a knife. It came after police attended a "nearby theft" on Spring Bank.

Headteacher says that reports of an intruder were false and the school was taken out of lockdown at 3:15pm.

However, shortly after 4pm, the school was placed back on lockdown.

Children and staff are kept inside the locked premises with police still on site.

Humberside Police have confirmed that the incident is ongoing and searches are thought to be continuing for an armed intruder.

Wolfreton School

School switchboard receives a call at 1:30pm from a young man threatening to detonate a bomb which he has planted inside the school.

1,300 children and 175 staff are promptly evacuated from the premises and police are called.

Thirty A-Level students were evacuated midway through an exam.

Police carry out an extensive search of the school and its ground but decide that there is no 'credible threat.'

The children are released from the school and allowed to return home with the school told to 'stand down' at 3pm.

Sirius Academy and Ganton West
Pittsfield Police: No Cause For Alarm About Missing Teen Reports

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  In the past few day, the Police Department has posted on Facebook numerous requests for information regarding local missing teenagers. In the last 10 days, there have been eight juveniles reported as missing or runaway.

That, of course, triggered alarm among many fearing there was some type of outbreak of abductions or a trend. But, on Thursday, the Police Department said that isn't true.

The department had used Facebook to gather leads on several missing teens. Seeing success, it kept using Facebook to get the word out in hopes to find the other missing juveniles.

"The decision to make the recent posts was made by the investigating detectives in an effort to generate leads and based on recent success. For example, one of the missing teens was located with 24 hours of our Facebook post," wrote Capt. Jeffrey Bradford.

"The social media post reached 46,157 people and was shared 1,228 times. While the circumstances of these cases cannot be released, the information gathered by our department does not point to a specific public safety risk. Although we are always concerned when a juvenile's whereabouts is not known by their parent or legal guardian, and our detectives treat these cases seriously, the recent number of reports is not unusual or out of the ordinary for our community."

Of the eight reported missing, which police say is a normal number of reports, six have already been found and two reported on Wednesday remain missing. The department has since deleted posts regarding the missing teens who were found.

"The purpose of this press release is to inform the media and public that our department has not received any information that these teens have been victimized or that the individual reports are connected," Bradford wrote.

The department also clarified its terminology when saying a juvenile is "missing" or is a "runaway." Missing is a term used to describe individuals who have not been in contact with family or friends for an unusual amount of time and runaway is a juvenile who said he or she had no intent to return to parents or legal guardians.

"In many cases, it is not clear which category best describes a specific juveniles situation. As a result of this the words 'missing' and 'runaway' are commonly used together," Bradford wrote.
Valedictorian William Andrew Peter Kipp holds up the mechanical pencil that's served him well over the past four years, telling the class that like the pencil they have changed yet still are who they are. PreviousNext

McCann Graduates Encouraged to Be Brave & Live for the Moment



S alutatorian William D. Galipeau told his classmates to live in the now, not the next. See more photos here. NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The McCann Technical School class of 2017 was encouraged to live in the moment and to be brave in the face of failure.

School Committee Chairman Thomas Mahar said he'd had a hard time thinking of what advice to give the school's 55th graduating class that hadn't been said before.

"I realized I didn't have anything new to say," Mahar told the 112 graduates seated in the Amsler Campus Center gym at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. "Then it struck me, you don't hear much about failure."

Satisfaction comes from doing your best, he said, by reaching deep inside and pulling off something beyond your skill level.

"No one ever became famous because they failed at something, or have they?" Mahar asked. He continued that "failure is often the beginning of success" and noted when Thomas Edison was asked about failing a 1,000 times before inventing the light bulb, his response was "the light bulb is an invention with a 1,000 steps."

And Michael Jordan's missed 9,000 shots and lost plenty of games, he said, but he kept trying.

"Success depends on risk in order to reach your full potential, you can't fear failure, you must push yourself," Mahar said. "You have to practice being brave, growing to become the best you can be ... failure is the foundation of character."

Valedictorian William Andrew Peter Kipp reflected on how the class has changed but remained the same over the past four years.

Pulling out a mechanical pencil, he held it high as he told how he'd "used it on every assignment and every test" since his first day McCann.

"It's still the same pencil, you're still the same person, but greater and changed by your experiences," Kipp said. "As this pencil has become worn and dirty, you have become the opposite. You have become bright, intelligent and well-rounded individuals, well-rounded like the edges of my pencil that used to be a hexagon."

He thanked his classmates for their support and competition, and the faculty for pushing him out his comfort zone. McCann's "unique educational experience" and his election as an officer with SkillsUSA had opened boundless opportunities both in academics and leadership.

Quoting former President Barack Obama, Kipp said, "we are the change we seek. ... The world is imperfect and we can leave here today and do nothing about it or we can leave here, go into the world and make a difference. ...

"I urge you, I implore you and, if I had any real power, I would order you to take all that you have learned over these four years in the walls of our incredible school and go out there ... go out and be the change you want to see."

The class sang the national anthem at the beginning of the ceremony and the school's song at the conclusion, with Robert Davis on the keyboard. The slideshow of senior pictures this year also included a video of scenes from "The Breakfast Club" recreated by the Spanish Club that drew lots of laughter.

Superintendent James Brosnan said he was proud of them and encouraged them to remain in touch and supportive of each other. He and Mahar awarded the diplomas as the family members cheered.

Principal Justin Kratz took a moment to thank MCLA for the use of the gym, noting that size of the gathering wouldn't fit in the high school gymnasium, and the extra effort done in taking down the MCLA banners.

"They make it feel more like McCann for us," he said. "They really go the extra distance to make us feel welcome here."

Kratz picked up on a theme of salutatorian William D. Galipeau's address about living in the moment, "in the now, not in the next."

"Do not to be in rush for anything in life, because the finish line of life is not something you really want to get to," he said. "Enjoy it, take your time, slow things down ... we can try as best we can to live in the moment and make a conscious effort to enjoy everything that's going on."

Galipeau, who ended with a poem he wrote about graduation, had also asked the class to look around at the hundreds of people in the bleachers.

"We aren't here for their graduation, they all are here for your graduation," he said. "We are graduating for everyone who helped us get this far ... they're going to be wondering what is this moment going to signify for you? You have every moment from now to the rest of your life to decide that."
Drury High School Names Valedictorian, Salutatorian for 2017

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Alexandra Jane Flynn Bernard and Chase Emery Christopher have been named the valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, of the Drury High School class of 2017.

Both students will speak at Drury's graduation exercises on Thursday, June 8, at 7 p.m. at the high school.

Bernard is the daughter of Thomas and Jennifer Bernard of North Adams. She has served as a Student Ambassador, a member of Student Council and Service Learning Action Council, and with concert and marching band. She was elected as Drury's representative for the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce Youth Leadership Program.

She has been a vital member of the Drury Stage Company, acting as the lead in several musicals. She has also been a committed member of her community, volunteering at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish and participating in several community service learning projects. She has been inducted into both the Nu Sigma and Pro Merito honor societies and was the 2016 recipient of the Rochester Institute of Technology Book Award.

Bernard will be attending Wililams College in the fall.

Christopher, of North Adams, has been an active member of the concert and marching bands and was a section leader for the clarinets. He has participated in Student Council, as a peer mentor and in two of Drury's musical productions. He has been inducted into both the Nu Sigma and Pro Merito honor societies, has taken several courses at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

A recipient of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Book Award in 2016, Christopher will be attending RPI in the fall.




iciHaiti - Politics : Formalities to obtain a residence permit in Haiti





Fednel Monchery, the Director General of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Authorities, recalls in a note to foreign nationals the documents required for obtaining a residence permit :



Following the notice dated January 27, 2010, issued by the Ministry of Interior, of Territorial Collectivities and National Defense, to the attention of foreign nationals staying for more than 90 days in Haiti or living on the national soil, concerning the formal obligation to obtain a residence permit and to legalize their status, the services of the Ministry inform the person concerned, of the steps and documents required to apply for a residence permit.



1. Write a letter requesting an application for a residence permit to the Directorate of Immigration and Emigration by notifying the reasons ;

2. A photocopy of the biographical page of passport of the applicant

3. A letter of employment from its employer or the person who supports it, guaranteeing the stay of foreign in Haiti and repatriation if necessary.

4. A copy of the employer's license or operating authorization, in the case of NGOs;

5. A Medical Certificate not older than thirty (30) days ;

6. Two (2) copies of the photograph of the person (format: Passport Photo and color) ;

7. A photocopy of boarding card obtained during its last re-entry to the country

8. A photocopy of Birth Certificate (French translation required) ;

9. A bank statement from a bank operating in Haiti

10. A fee of seven thousand five hundred Gourdes (7,500 Gdes) or two hundred dollars (200 US) minimum.

11. A criminal record (Country of origin, of recent date);

12. A sum of five thousand Gourdes (5,000 Gdes) to be paid in "check of direction" to the order of the Treasury



Note: When filing the documents, the applicant will be required to complete an interview and complete the Application for a Residence Permit. His fingerprints will be taken and saved in the institution's database. With reference to Article 34, the application for the annual renewal of the Residence Permit shall be accompanied by a receipt for the renewal of the income tax rights for the previous fiscal year.



IH/ iciHaiti


















Mr. Yu Yun Lin receives Ho Chi Minh citys delegation. (Photo: SGGP)

During the meeting, Vo Thi Dung, Deputy Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh city Party Committee and the delegation showed their happiness to visit Guangxi provinces Nanning city, confirming that the visit followed commitments reached by Guangxi province and Ho Chi Minh city leaders in 2015 and 2016, in paying working visits to each other.

Despite geographic distance, Ho Chi Minh city and Guangxi province share numerous similarities, including the development of the non-State economic sector.

In the tendency of non-State economic development in the years to come, Ho Chi Minh city hopes to share experience in Party building and the development of political forces in the non-State economic sector from China in general and from Guangxi in particular.

Besides, the Vietnamese city also wants to increase trade, education and healthcare cooperation, suiting the Vietnamese Party, State and peoples viewpoints in attaching great importance to promoting friendly and comprehensive cooperation with China.

Ms Dung expressed her thanks to Chinese leaders and authorities for strictly working with Vietnamese border localities to ensure favourable conditions for people to do business, contributing to reinforcing solidarity and cooperation between the two countries.

Mr. Yu Yun Lin, a member of the Standing Board of the Guangxi Party Committee and Head of the Guangxi Party Committee Commission on Organization, confirmed the viewpoint of Guangxi provinces leaders in considering Ho Chi Minh city its friendship city, expressing his hope that the two localities would further increase cooperation in diverse areas, for the benefit of the two localities and the two nations.

Guangxi province also hopes to exchange experience with Ho Chi Minh city in Party building, considering Ho Chi Minh citys success in the development of the non-State economic sector experience for Guangxi.

According to Mr. Yu Yun Lin, Guangxi will be willing to share experience in the organization of apparatus and personnel in leading and managing Party members in the non-State economic sector./.
BEIJING  The Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) announced a new campaign called EV 30@30 to speed up the deployment of electric vehicles and target at least 30 percent new electric vehicle sales by 2030.

The campaign will support the market for electric passenger cars, light commercial vans, buses and trucks (including battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, and fuel cell vehicle types). It will also work towards the deployment of charging infrastructure to supply sufficient power to the vehicles deployed.

The CEM Electric Vehicle Initiative (EVI) recognizes the importance of reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector, which account for almost a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the fastest-growing energy end use sectors. It also recognizes the importance of working towards energy efficiency and the mitigation of air pollution from transportation. These environmental, economic and social goals can be addressed through the accelerated electrification of the transportation sector.

The new sales target will apply collectively to the CEM-EVI membership, and not to individual countries. Governments who endorse the goal show leadership by establishing policies to reach the target and engage through EVI to report progress and share best practices.

The global electric car stock reached more than 2 million vehicles in 2016, after crossing the million-car threshold in 2015, according to the latest Global EV Outlook report. Still, the scale achieved so far remains small. The global electric car stock currently accounts for just 0.2% of the total amount of passenger light duty vehicles in circulation.

Despite the progress so far, electric vehicles still have a long way to go before reaching a scale that would make a significant dent in global oil demand growth and greenhouse gas emissions, said Dr Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency. But the Electric Vehicles Initiatives latest campaign can provide a significant boost to this critical market.

The new campaign aims to galvanize public and private sector commitments for EV fleet procurement and deployment, strengthening the work begun with the EVI Government Fleet Declaration for public fleets, and reaching out to businesses for commitments on the electrification of private fleets.

It also seeks to expand research on the scale up of EV deployment, including such topics as policy efficacy, barriers to adoption, the electrification of public transportation, grid integration and load management, and synergies with automated, connected and shared vehicles. It will also establish a Global EV Pilot City program to reach 100 electric vehicle-friendly cities around the World over five years.

The announcement was made during the 8th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM8) held in Beijing on 6-8 June.

CEM-EVI participants include Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The campaign is organized by the CEM-Electric Vehicles Initiative, coordinated by the International Energy Agency.

Governments supporting the EV30@30 campaign include Canada, China, Finland, France, India, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

The EV30@30 campaign is also supported by C40, the FIA Foundation, the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI), the Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC), the Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT), The Climate Group, UN Environment, UN Habitat, and the International Zero Emission Vehicle Alliance (ZEV Alliance).

The CEM is a unique partnership of 25 key countries, including most of the G20 economies, representing 90% of clean energy investment and working together to accelerate the global energy transition.

Canada recognizes the key role electric vehicles will play in reducing emissions from the transportation sector, which will help us achieve our climate change and clean growth objectives while driving the economy.

- Jim Carr, Canadas Minister of Natural Resources

The EV30@30 campaign complements Indias ambition towards increased electric mobility to meet its developmental and environmental challenges. India has the worlds most ambitious renewable energy capacity addition programme and electric vehicles offer potential synergies with this initiative.

- Shri Pradeep Kumar Pujari, Secretary of Power, Government of India

The Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 gives a boost to the ambitions of the Netherlands in e-mobility, the transition to renewable energy and business opportunities in the field of charging infrastructure and the automotive sector. Its our goal to have 100% of all new registered cars in 2035 being zero-emission cars. In 2016 the Netherlands had a market share of new registered electric cars of 6.4% - the largest in the European Union.

- Henk Kamp, Minister of Economic Affairs, the Netherlands

Sweden intends to become one of the world's first fossil-free welfare nations. To reach that ambition it is absolutely crucial to reduce the emissions from the transport sector nationally as well as globally. International cooperation, such as the promotion and support to electric vehicles through the EVI, is an important part of the work to reduce the emissions from transport.

- Ibrahim Baylan, Swedish Minister of Energy

We need to see a rapid, global shift towards electric cars and other vehicles. This is not only so we can cut carbon emissions and reduce climate change, but also because urban air pollution is one of the world's biggest killers and a major public health emergency.

We want all countries to join this campaign and promote electric mobility. UN Environment is supporting close to fifty countries and cities around the world to make this positive change, and will support where we can in order to push policy change. Our lungs and our planet depend on our collective leadership.

- Erik Solheim, Executive Director, UN Environment

The Climate Group is excited to see the continuous growth of momentum for electro-mobility from both governments and business. We welcome the collective ambition and the concrete implementing actions set out by the CEM EVIs 30@30 initiative, and look forward to collaborating closely with the governments and other stakeholders involved to build dialogue and knowledge sharing between public and private stakeholders and leverage the role corporate demand can play in driving EV uptake.

- Mike Peirce, Corporate Partnerships Director, The Climate Group

Raised ambitions are needed now more than ever before as we unite in collective intent to build a better future. The world is on a mission to bend the curve of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and we cant be late. To ensure we collectively reach that turning point a series of milestones must be met, including zero-emission transport being the preferred form of all new mobility in the worlds major cities and transport routes by 2020.

Reaching that crucial milestone will help ensure that EV30@30 becomes reality: it is necessary, desirable and most importantly achievable.

- Christiana Figueres, Vice-Chair, Global Covenant of Mayors Climate and Energy, and Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

The 30@30 initiative has the potential to be a game changer for transports contribution to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. The Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT) will actievly support the EV30@30 campaign in the Marrakech Partnership on Global Climate Action of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where SLoCaT operates as thematic coordinator for transport.

- Cornie Huizenga, Secretary General, Partnership on Sustainable, Low Carbon Transport and Co-founder Paris Process on Mobility and Climate
BEIJING  Sweden and Canada announced they were setting up a new global Technology Collaboration Programme (TCP) under the IEA to promote leadership roles for women in clean energy.

The establishment of the Clean Energy Education and Empowerment TCP (C3E TCP) was announced during the 8th Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM8) meeting in Beijing. It builds on the successful C3E initiative created by member governments of the CEM in 2010.

The TCP aims to raise awareness, share best practices, establish a network for information exchange and commit to action across borders so that more women are encouraged and empowered to become leaders in clean energy.

Women make up 52% of the world population, but only 30% of science researchers globally, according to the United Nations. The lack of professional role models for young women might be a factor discouraging more women from participating in these technical fields, according to the OECD.

Under the aegis of the International Energy Agency, TCPs provide a framework for stakeholders from both the public and private sector to share knowledge, work collaboratively and, where appropriate, pool resources to deliver integrated, cost-effective solutions to common challenges.

The C3E TCP will provide a new international platform that will focus on four distinct areas: data collection, career development, recognition and awards programmes and dialogue. Italy is in the process of formally joining the C3E TCP, while Chile, Finland and the United Arab Emirates are considering participation.

If we want to be successful in the transition to a clean energy future, we need to mobilise the talent and capacity from the whole population, and not only half of it, said Ibrahim Baylan, Sweden's Minister of Policy Co-ordination and Energy.

Hon Jim Carr, Minister of Energy, Canada (left) and Hon Ibrahim Baylan, Minister for Policy Coordination and Energy, Sweden announce the C3E TCP (Photograph: IEA)
In Jewish Hands

The Fellowship | June 8, 2017

After securing Jerusalems Old City and the Temple Mount in June of 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank, as well. In the next video in their series, our friends at JerusalemU and The Jerusalem Post explain why this was important, as the Israeli military still faced threats as the Six-Day War continued:

Israeli forces consolidated control of the West Bank. During the 19 years that Jordan controlled the area, Israels width at the narrowest point was a barely defensible nine miles, leaving Tel Aviv and all of central Israel vulnerable to Jordanian artillery.

Now that Israel controlled the West Bank, Israeli-controlled territory grew to 44 miles wide and could be more easily defended.

But more than just territory needed for security, the West Bank held great religious and historic importance. Also known by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, this was the ancient ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, the dwelling place of Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It had always been central to Jewish identity and Jews had maintained a continuous presence there for 3,000 years.

That it was back in the hands of the Jewish state was a deeply moving event for many people around the world.

Meanwhile, Israeli advances toward the Suez Canal in the south ultimately led Egypt to accept a ceasefire late that night. But Syrian artillery continued to rain down in the north, drawing Israel into battle on the Golan Heights.




This Isnt Our Last Love Letter



Dear Don Don,

Way back in 92



I walked into the room and knew



Never felt this way before



I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes



And the feeling grew



As I took a seat I knew



A love that would have my heart



Forever



I knew



Way back in 92





They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true



We were the exception to that rule



Our love had no where to hide



A spark set fire



As if this is how the universe started





I never doubted our love or what we could do



Together we grew



Forming a bond everlasting



That became our glue



My euphoria was YOU



Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared



For how fortunate we were :



to have and to hold

through sickness and in health

Til death do us part



Until we are together again



This isnt our last love letter



I love you with all my heart and soul



Yours forever,



Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow)





Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus.









A True American Hero

I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus.



I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years.



I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years.

But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us.

In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about.



Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle.

I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life.

I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life.

No one will ever do what he did.

I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO





David Jurist

IMUS IN THE MORNING

FIRST DAY BACK!
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The Australian director Cate Shortlands films are charged with a heady erotic heat, and ripe with sensual imagery. They also put their young women through the wringer, boldly exploring extremes of female experience.

This is certainly true in Berlin Syndrome, in which Clare (Teresa Palmer) is Shortlands latest unlucky heroine. Shes a typical Australian backpacker in Europe, dawdling around the cultural sights of Berlin, till she meets a charming teacher, Andi (Max Riemelt). Her dreamy attraction to him leads to a one-night stand. Except that the next morning, he leaves her locked in. The potential physical risk that lurks every time a woman goes home with a man has leapt up and grabbed her.

Yeah, I think about this a lot, Shortland says. What happens is a mixture of truth, and how we fantasise about sex, and how we sexualise violence. Clares not after this vanilla experience, when she goes home with him. She kind of knows theres something not right. But she continues. And thats not victim-blaming. Its more getting into why women are socialised to eroticise that.

We thought about fairy tales when we were shooting. And a lot of them, like Sleeping Beauty, or Rapunzel, or Beauty and the Beast, eroticise a very immobilised, trapped heroine. So we grow up with these stories, and somehow theyre in us. In a way, its outside politics. Its so ancient. Its Neanderthal. You kind of want an intellectual, sensitive, funny big bad wolf! she laughs. Its really crazy. But its a fantasy. And the reality of what she goes home with is terrible.

Clare is left trapped in an abandoned apartment complex in the former East Berlin which is like a modern ogres castle. She struggles to be free, then gives in to her inevitable death, then fights again. But Shortland lets the hazy, narcotic attraction Clare first felt for Andi stubbornly linger.

Australian director Cate Shortland's third film deals with female obsession

People talk about Berlin Syndrome as part-thriller, Shortland says. But for me, it was about a relationship. So I looked at this incredible attraction. And that didnt disappear once she was trapped by him. And when we researched other women who have been captured for long periods of time, or are in domestic violence situations with men, often these women are still having sex. So it was interesting for me to blur those lines, and to experience what it is to be attracted and repulsed by somebody at the same time. The erotic element continues, even though it shouldnt.

The hurricane whirl of Clares psyche shows after she instigates sex with her captor. I love the look on Teresas face just after that, Shortland says. She looks so old. But everybody who has sex knows that often when youre engaged in it its transformative, youre not in the space youre in. So for that time she can escape her situation, and not think, and just feel.

Shortlands debut, Somersault (2004), gave Abbie Cornish her breakthrough role, as a teenager who flees her Canberra home after being discovered in bed with her mothers boyfriend. Alone in a snowy mountain resort which Shortland colours a glistening aquamarine, she heedlessly offers sex as her only, uncontrolled adolescent currency, almost finding love with Sam Worthingtons brooding, sexually confused jock.

After Somersault swept the AFI awards (Australias Bafta equivalent), Shortland followed up with Lore (2012), Australias nomination to the Oscars that year. Another young actress, Saskia Rosendahl, plays the eponymous teenage anti-heroine here, leading her siblings across Germany in 1945. Too young not to be a Nazi, but sexually blooming, her first erotic encounter is with an apparent Jew.

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Shortland says she hadnt meant to make another film about a young woman and her sexuality after Lore, and is now writing something very different. But the theme had deep personal roots.

Palmer as Clare and Max Riemelt as Aldi, who holds her captive after a one-night stand

My childhood, and my teenage years, were quite traumatising, she says. So I think I was trying to make sense of my family, and where I grew up, and who I was as a person. But I feel Im more at peace with that now.

Elements of this difficult autobiography can be glimpsed in Somersault. I have got two sisters, Shortland explains. And my father was brought up in an orphanage. So he brought us up as if we were in a very strict, high Church of England childrens home. One of my sisters left home at 14, because the strain of it was so intense, she couldnt do it any more.

My other sister and I stayed. Ive been making sense of that, and getting over that, and also forgiving and loving my father. For all his flaws hes the most kind and beautiful and generous person, and he didnt know what he was doing. And Ive got two adopted kids, we adopted our son when he was 11. He has been a street-child, so he has his own trauma. So its been quite good for me to see that these things happen to us, but we dont necessarily have to be them.

Saskia Rosendahl stars in Shortland's 2012 film Lore

The lack of censorious judgement in Shortlands films, the way she enthusiastically follows her female characters as they dive into terrible depths, comes from such difficult knowledge. I think most people have a lot of beauty, and good. But we also have the capacity to be monsters. And I love looking at that in my work. Theres always multiple personalities in all of us. And how do we rise up? How do we be better, and get on with it, and not sit around and dwell in this mud?

A friend of mine whos a journalist in her sixties said, When you look back at your life, how do you retain that open heart that you had in your early twenties? And thats also what the films really about. We travel and we want all these experiences, and we have these beautiful open hearts, and these things happen to us and it sort of shuts down. And how do we keep that heart open?

Shortlands women suffer and struggle in ways you never see in Hollywood. But they dont give up. Clare in Berlin Syndrome is sheepishly callow, before her capture hot-houses new, mature strengths. Most of my characters have a hard time, Shortland laughs. But I dont want to tell stories which are just black and dark and upsetting. I want people to leave the cinemas feeling there is a way out. That there is a way of connecting to other people, or to themselves. I dont want to make something thats just nihilist. I want to connect to people.

The latest young actress to benefit from a Shortland baptism of fire, Teresa Palmer, is on the verge of real stardom, after taking the lead in the hit horror film Lights Out, the thankless role of Andrew Garfields girlfriend in Mel Gibsons war film Hacksaw Ridge, and appearing in Terrence Malicks Knight of Cups.

Shes just a trooper, who was breast-feeding whole time we were shooting, Shortland says admiringly. Teresa came in with a really big personality. Shes physically really active and large and her arms never stop moving, shes always laughing. But Palmer brought her own pain to the role. Shes had her own trauma, because her mothers had mental illness since Teresa was baby, and Teresa brought her mother up, basically. So Teresa is a coper. But what happened was we had to stop all that, and stop the pretending that everythings OK, and go to a quiet, hibernation state, thats filled with trepidation and not false confidence. Women have this thing that they have to be a certain way, and I just took that out. I didnt want it, I wasnt interested.

Abbie Cornish in Somersault

As much as anything, Berlin Syndrome is a horror film perversion of the young Australians rite of passage to Europe. We look to Europe as so much better than us Neanderthal bush-pigs, Shortland agrees. We go there to become cultured and better, and learn to speak and how to look at a piece of art. Thats a persistent view, unfortunately.

The way this goes wrong for Clare isnt all bad. She has this idea that shes going to get off the plane and take photographs, and be an intellectual. And then she meets this person, and like myself or other women Ive spoken to, that intellectual side goes out the window, and this obsession takes over. Im actually watching Jill Solloways I Love Dick at the moment, and its so great seeing that female obsession. The power and pull of wanting to see this person, and be in this persons presence, and sex takes over everything. She just wants to be with him. She wants to be encompassed by him, she wants to be consumed by him. Thats her dream. And then it becomes this terrible nightmare.

It returns to something Sam Worthingtons character says about Abbie Cornishs in Somersault: that he cant get her off of his skin.

Yeah, yeah, Shortland enthuses. We all want to climb inside the other person, and just lose ourselves in that passionate love.

Berlin Syndrome is out on 9 June
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One of the odd things about watching history in the making is that vague feeling in the back of one's mind that, inevitably, someone is going to win an Oscar because of this.

That's exactly how surreal an experience it's been watching FBI Director James Comey give evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee about conversations he had with Donald Trump, and whether he pressured him to drop an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

Also touched upon has been Russia's alleged meddling in the US 2016 election, with Comey testifying about a pair of phone calls with Trump where he had reportedly complained to him about the FBI's investigation into his campaign team's links with Russia.

Recommended Watch the James Comey testimony against Trump live

Whether or not this leads to Trump's impeachment, the event itself has been an incredible, historic piece of political drama; one that really puts the likes of House of Cards or the West Wing to shame.

Ahead of the inevitable reality headed our way, here's who Twitter would cast for what would surely shape up to be the part of a lifetime.



Somebody get Oliver Stone on the line.
NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman (Source: VNA)



During a meeting in Hanoi on June 7th, Ngan wished that the two countries will continue active cooperation and mutual support at regional and global forums, particularly at the United Nations, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), and the ASEAN-EU.

She also hoped that the recent signing of numerous memoranda of understanding on cooperation will promote bilateral trade and investment.

Vietnam is ready to offer all possible support to Czech businesses to do long-term business in the country, particularly in fields of Vietnams demand, she stated, adding that the regular exchange of delegations from the two legislatures will make important contributions to developing bilateral ties.

Zeman, for his part, informed the host that during talks with President Tran Dai Quang, both sides expressed wish to open direct flights linking the two nations and agreed to assign ministries and agencies concerned to launch negotiations on the issue.

He said if short-term tourist visa waiving for Czech citizens is realised, tourist arrivals to Vietnam will increase, opening a new chapter in investment for the two countries businesses.

The guest affirmed that the Czech Republic will continue supporting the comprehensive cooperation partnership between Vietnam and the European Union and hasten the EUs signing and adoption of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

Host and guest expressed delight that a treaty on the transfer of sentenced persons and an agreement on combating crime have been signed during the visit.

On the East Sea issue, they underscored the necessity of settling disputes by peaceful means, including diplomatic and legal processes, in line with international law, especially the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The same day, President Tran Dai Quang hosted a banquet in honour of the Czech guest./.
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Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge has been showing in cinemas for two weeks now, audiences having lapped up Johnny Depp's latest outing.

Many have been left in awe by the ground-breaking effects, particularly those on Javier Bardem's Salazar and the zombie-pirate crew.

VFX Supervisors Gary Brozenich and Sheldon Stopsack, from MPC (Moving Picture Company), both who worked on the film, sat down with The Independent to discuss working on the film.

Notable talking points include de-ageing Depp, the evolution of special effects, and how audiences are becoming savvier towards effects. Read the full interview below.

When did you get involved with Salazars Revenge?

Gary: I got involved over three years ago, at the film's very conception. I met Joachim [Rnning] and Espen [Sandberg, directors] and thought they would be very interesting filmmakers to get involved with.

Sheldon: I got involved later, two years ago, when Gary had covered most of the principle photography. They had been working together for a long time.

Films to get excited about in 2017 Show all 13 1 /13 Films to get excited about in 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director: Rian Johnson Rian Johnson Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Lupita Nyong'o Plot: No details yet, but it will continue directly on from Rey coming face-to-face with Luke at the end of The Force Awakens. Release Date: 15 December 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Thor: Ragnarok Director: Taika Waititi Taika Waititi Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, and Mark Ruffalo Plot: Story details are minimal as of now, but Thor's third return to screen has already been teased to feature a loose adaptation of the famous 'Planet Hulk' storyline. Release Date: 27 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 You Were Never Really Here Director: Lynne Ramsay Lynne Ramsay Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola Plot: A war veteran's attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Annihilation Director: Alex Garland Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A biologist's husband disappears. She thus puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Wonderstruck (image from Far From Heaven) Director: Todd Haynes Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Amy Hargreaves Plot: The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Mother (image of Darren Aronofsky) Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, and Ed Harris Plot: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (image from The Lobster) Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Alicia Silverstone Plot: A surgeon forms a familial bond with a sinister teenage boy, with disastrous results. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Blade Runner 2049 Director: Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, and Jared Leto Plot: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years. Release Date: 6 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Lady Bird (image of director Greta Gerwig) Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Lucas Hedges Plot: The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (image of director Steven Spielberg and star Mark Rylance) Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Mark Rylance, Oscar Isaac Plot: The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara recounts the story of a young Jewish boy in Bologna, Italy in 1858 who, having been secretly baptized, is forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents' struggle to free their son becomes part of a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 How to Talk to Girls at Parties Director: John Cameron Mitchell John Cameron Mitchell Cast: Elle Fanning, Ruth Wilson, and Nicole Kidman Plot: An alien touring the galaxy breaks away from her group and meets two young inhabitants of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Dark Tower Director: Nikolaj Arcel Nikolaj Arcel Cast: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor Plot: Gunslinger Roland Deschain roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. Release Date: 28 July 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Suburbicon Director: George Clooney George Clooney Cast: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Josh Brolin, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A crime mystery set in the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, where the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and betrayal. Release Date: 24 November

That seems like an incredibly long time to be working on a film. Is that how long these projects normally take?

G: I think you find, more and more on these bigger projects, they take this amount of time. We work to a release date, and we were shooting early. With the ability of what we all have to contribute to the filmmaking process now, people expand to fill that time.

How closely do you work with the directors? Are they alongside you all the time or do they allow you to play around?

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G: I was with them every day through pre-production and production. In post-production, I was based in Los Angeles, then Montreal, then the last few in London to help finish things off. During that period we had calls with Joachim and Espen, if not some sort of contact with them, on a daily basis for the last three years.

How much was physical effects and how much was digital?

G: It was a pretty healthy balance. There were a lot of massive ship builds. They were very decorative, something that you dont often get. The practical side was very important. The costumes and make-up of Salazar and his crew was heavily significantly practical. We were either replacing or augmenting. Theres some stuff that hopefully people will never know we did.

 Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge Clip - Ghosts

What was the hardest part to edit?

S: Its difficult to identify one part as the hardest. There were a few big challenges we faced. Obviously, the ghost crew, their appearance, and Salazar was difficult. That underwater-ness  the floating hair, all those parts  that was one big patch that was very challenging. The other was the large amounts of water we had to recreate, the open oceans and more superficial water events such as Poseidons tomb.

G: I also think that, on Salazars crew, one of the huge challenges we worked with Joachim and Espen on was on Salazar and his overall appearance. He has a look of being underwater the entire film. Hes floating, his costumes floating, he has holes in the back of his head. His entire crew has the same appearance. We didn't want to detract from his performance in any way. He has such a large on-screen presence, so we had to step back when we needed to, to make sure his performance was always the most dominant thing, and then enhancing it whenever possible.

S: It was more of a supportive effect really. Supporting the performance.

How much were you able to put into the creative process?

G: I had a lot of input with Nigel Phelps, the production designer. Typically, what the production designer maps out is the overall view of the film. Thankfully, in this case, that included the ghosts, the ship, the crew, the islands, and the underwater environments. Everything we had to make was with a unified vision that came through Nigel and the directors. We worked together to make sure the original intention made it to screen. Theres always a massive gap between what you put into a concept image and what can actually be a shot. We bridge that gap to make sure the original intention is there, bringing in all the moving components, those things you would have never thought of until you had a moving camera. Thats where we step in and build on the creative process. Our footprint and impact was significant on this, but its always to enhance rather than change.

S: Every VFX project comes down to the individual outlet. There are so many pieces missing from the concept. When you get to the shot level you realise how many questions remain unanswered and need figuring out. The individual artist then has something to contribute to an answer, to present and put into context. Its a long, ongoing development project thats worked on until the last second.

 Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge Featurette - The Craft

It must be quite daunting and seeing how much is effects led. Did you stand back and think this is a lot of work to get done?

S: What I tend to do is approach these projects in a naive way, otherwise youll be too intimidated by it. Theres a risk of being overwhelmed right from the start and its always good to just go bit by bit and let it grow. By doing so, by the end of the production you get to a point and look back and realise the sheer amount of stuff that was created and developed. Then in becomes more intimidating, the aftermath.

G: Theres a maturity to the process that we all have to go through. There are a certain amount of steps and tasks you have to go through, answers that need to be solved along that road. We try to roadmap things along the way. It gets scary when you fall of course. But this process is becoming more and more refined with every film, and we get better and better at it. But the demands get bigger and bigger every project. Its just becoming smarter about doing it. But I agree, when you look back at the film, you go oh my God I cant believe that!

You worked on Stranger Tides as well. How did you want to improve on things from last time?

G: With this film, we knew from the start it was going to be very different. The Pirates franchise has a quality expectation thats always there, thats been set from the first film all the way through. In a way, thats a blessing, because there will never be any compromise on quality. In terms of the way creatively we approached this, we were trying to get back to the spirit of the first films. We have so much more creative ability, so much more artistry that we can bring to special effects than they could then. It was trying to take that spirit and do what we can do to it. Thats, hopefully, what everyone will get seeing it.

Do you ever think, maybe were going overboard with the effects?

G: Um No, not really. Audiences are smart now, in a way that we were not. People have a higher threshold for what they can visually take on compared to what they could five years ago. The younger generations of film viewers are so much more savvy about the technology. Its much more integrated into the fabric of filmmaking.

S: The use of visual effects comes down to how they contribute to the narrative of the movie. You can completely overdo it, but at the same time, if it helps the story, you can completely strip it down and it will still work.

G: We used to do these films where there would be one small shot that would spike into this huge visual effects shot and completely change the fabric of the film. The audience would be so pulled out by that people would have negative reactions. The quality and quantity of the spectacle that we bring into that process is much more integrated into the story. Audiences are more accepting of crazy shots that they know are not real. As long as theyre well executed, they can take it on. It used to be impossible camera moves that would pull people out, because people knew they could not do that. What we do now, we still try to apply the rules of natural filmmaking, but were trying to push them. Theres a grey area that can make or break whether people hang onto that.

Javier Bardem "Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" Film - 2017 (Rex)

Were there any innovations on this film perhaps you hadnt done before?

S: Plenty. Youre always trying to push boundaries, and each project presents another set of boundaries youre trying to overcome, and youre always trying to do better than the last. For this one, the ghost work, pirates, Salazar, all the water, was all a challenge. We developed a whole set of tools for those aspects. There are always things youre trying to bring to the table.

G: Theres very little we did on this show that was run of the mill, that we took from the last one, just because thats the evolutionary process of what we do. Thats not that were revolutionising on every single front, but were pushing forward.

It must be difficult to keep on top of new innovations all the time?

G: Thats the fun of the job. Were sitting on top of 600 talented people that are also doing the same. Its a privilege to sit here and talk to you, but were speaking for buildings full of people who worked on it.

For the young Jack Sparrow. That de-ageing process has cropped up numerous times recently in film. Is that technically similar to what they used in Rogue One for Peter Cushing? And is that going to become a more common occurrence?

G: Yes, its becoming a more acceptable occurrence. We didnt use the same technology as Peter Cushing, but the same as on Iron Man in Civil War. The company was Lola, based in LA, and they are pushing the frontier on what youre able to achieve with Youthification, trying to find ways to retain original actor presence and how to work that into the performance. The approach they take to every show isnt so much the technology, but theyre a group of people who try to find different ways to create that effect. They were skinning that cat in various different ways on this shoot alone. While shooting, we took three approaches. Only in post-production did we decide how to apply the effects to those shots. The people we deal with at Lola are very good at that craft. Sheldon did young Arnold in the last Terminator which took a completely different approach. I actually supervised but Sheldon did all the work. Were all still looking at how to approach it.

Sorry if this sounds naive, but was that Johnny Depp beneath the CGI? Or a body double?

G: That was him. We also shot with a body double, but that was more for reference underneath all that. That was one of the reasons I went with those guys. Because Jack Sparrow is so well known worldwide, every nuance of his performance. Weve all tried and failed at our version. Hes so ingrained in film culture that I didnt want to take a CG replacement of him, so we took an approach where Johnny did his performance and we did manipulation on top of that. Its Johnnys eyes, his mouth, and his performance throughout.
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Wonder Woman may be dominating the UK and US box-office, but certain countries are refusing to show the superhero smash.

Following Lebanons lead  the country officially banning the Patty Jenkins-directed flick because Gal Gadot is Israeli  the films debut in Tunisia has been suspended.

Deadline reports that the Tunisian Culture Minister has prevented the film screening in the capital of Tunis following a request by Arab nationalist political party the Peoples Movement.

According to the publication, Gadots 2014 defence of Israel during the Gaza war was cited as reason for the delay. In a statement, the Peoples Movement said: We must continue the mobilisation on this type of affair, as on everything related to normalisation with the Zionist entity.

Films to get excited about in 2017 Show all 13 1 /13 Films to get excited about in 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Star Wars: The Last Jedi Director: Rian Johnson Rian Johnson Cast: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, and Lupita Nyong'o Plot: No details yet, but it will continue directly on from Rey coming face-to-face with Luke at the end of The Force Awakens. Release Date: 15 December 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Thor: Ragnarok Director: Taika Waititi Taika Waititi Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Tessa Thompson, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, and Mark Ruffalo Plot: Story details are minimal as of now, but Thor's third return to screen has already been teased to feature a loose adaptation of the famous 'Planet Hulk' storyline. Release Date: 27 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 You Were Never Really Here Director: Lynne Ramsay Lynne Ramsay Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Alessandro Nivola Plot: A war veteran's attempt to save a young girl from a sex trafficking ring goes horribly wrong. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Annihilation Director: Alex Garland Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A biologist's husband disappears. She thus puts her name forward for an expedition into an environmental disaster zone, but does not quite find what she's expecting. The expedition team is made up of the biologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist, and a surveyor. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Wonderstruck (image from Far From Heaven) Director: Todd Haynes Cast: Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Amy Hargreaves Plot: The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Mother (image of Darren Aronofsky) Director: Darren Aronofsky Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall Gleeson, and Ed Harris Plot: A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Killing of a Sacred Deer (image from The Lobster) Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Cast: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Alicia Silverstone Plot: A surgeon forms a familial bond with a sinister teenage boy, with disastrous results. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 Blade Runner 2049 Director: Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, and Jared Leto Plot: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard, a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years. Release Date: 6 October 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Lady Bird (image of director Greta Gerwig) Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Lucas Hedges Plot: The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (image of director Steven Spielberg and star Mark Rylance) Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Mark Rylance, Oscar Isaac Plot: The Kidnapping Of Edgardo Mortara recounts the story of a young Jewish boy in Bologna, Italy in 1858 who, having been secretly baptized, is forcibly taken from his family to be raised as a Christian. His parents' struggle to free their son becomes part of a larger political battle that pits the Papacy against forces of democracy and Italian unification. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 How to Talk to Girls at Parties Director: John Cameron Mitchell John Cameron Mitchell Cast: Elle Fanning, Ruth Wilson, and Nicole Kidman Plot: An alien touring the galaxy breaks away from her group and meets two young inhabitants of the most dangerous place in the universe: the London suburb of Croydon. Release Date: Unknown Films to get excited about in 2017 The Dark Tower Director: Nikolaj Arcel Nikolaj Arcel Cast: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor Plot: Gunslinger Roland Deschain roams an Old West-like landscape in search of the dark tower, in the hopes that reaching it will preserve his dying world. Release Date: 28 July 2017 Films to get excited about in 2017 Suburbicon Director: George Clooney George Clooney Cast: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Josh Brolin, and Oscar Isaac Plot: A crime mystery set in the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, where the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and betrayal. Release Date: 24 November

Wonder Woman was due to officially start playing today (Thursday, 8 June) in two cinemas, but has been suspended until a later date. A spokesperson for the Tunisian Culture Minister said the delay was purely administrative for the meantime, with a permanent ban yet-to-be-decided.

Distributor Lassaad Goubantini told Deadline: Its a decision based on bogus accusations Today they prevent a film because of an actress, tomorrow theyll invent another excuse. Its an attack on liberties.

The Warner Bros. film was also pulled from an Algiers film festival, where the film was due to premiere. The issue there, however, is said to be administrative rather than with regards Gadot.

Meanwhile, Patty Jenkins has not been confirmed to be returning for the Wonder Woman sequel yet, apparently negotiating a contract at the moment.
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Donald Trumps decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement is sociopathic, a leading economist has claimed, arguing the US President is without remorse  wilfully inflicting harm on others.

Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said claims that the Republican billionaire actually believes climate change is real made things worse, not better, as this would mean he is knowingly jeopardising the planet.

Just a day after he announced the US withdrawal, Mr Trump declared a major flooding disaster in Missouri, which climate researcher Dr John Abraham suggested added to the mounting ironies.

And the stream of scientific studies showing evidence of a changing climate has continued. One revealed the number of large wildfires affecting the Great Plains area has increased from an annual average of 33 to 117 in two decades; another found once-rare coastal flooding would become the norm in parts of the US if emissions are not cut; and a third reported the chance of dying in a heatwave in India increased by 146 per cent between 1960 and 2009.

In a forthright article on the Project Syndicate website, Professor Sachs suggested the next major storms linked to global warming should be named Typhoon Donald, Superstorm Ivanka and Megaflood Jared after the President, his daughter and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

When Mr Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change, he claimed the rest of the world had been laughing at us because it was such a bad deal for America.

Professor Sachs, of Columbia University, said his speech had displayed a bullys bravado.

These ravings are utterly delusional, deeply cynical, or profoundly ignorant. Probably all three. And they should be recognised as such, he wrote.

The decision to withdraw from Paris had not just been Mr Trumps alone but reflected the will of the Republican leadership in Congress, including the 22 Republican senators who sent Trump a letter the week before, calling on him to withdraw from the Paris accord, he said. And the oil and gas industry had spent $100m on campaign contributions in 2016 of which 90 per cent went to Republican candidates.

Professor Sachs also attacked the twisted mindset of Trump and his closest advisers.

Their view, defended with alternative facts that have no basis in reality, is paranoid and malevolent, aimed at inflicting harm on others, or at best indifferent to harm befalling others, he said.

He condemned Mr Trumps claim that the Paris Agreement was unfavourable to the US, pointing out that it had emitted far more greenhouse gases than any other country in the world over its history.

As such, the US has contributed more to ongoing climate change than any other country, he said.

And US per capita emissions are higher than in any other large country, by far. The Paris accord does not victimise the US; on the contrary, the US has a world-beating responsibility to get its house in order.

Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Show all 33 1 /33 Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first 100 days in office were marred by a string of scandals, many of which caught the eye of the Independent's cartoonists Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's first 100 days have seen him aggressively ramp up tensions with his nuclear rivals in North Korea Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has warned of a "major, major conflict" with the pariah nation lead by Kim Jong Un Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump dropped the "mother of all bombs" on alleged ISIS-linked militants in Afghanistan, amid an escalation of US military intervention around the globe Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been accused of falling short of the standards set by his predecessors in the Oval Office, including Franklin D Roosevelt Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The tycoon's ascension to the White House came at a time when the balance of power is shifting away from Western nations like those in the G7 group Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Western politicians, including the British Conservative party, have been accused of falling in line behind Mr Trump's proposals Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Brexit is seen to have weakened Britain, reducing still further any political will to resist American leadership Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump's leadership has been marked by sudden and unexpected shifts in global policy Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Trump's controversial missile strike on Syria, which killed several citizens, was seen by some analysts as an attempt to distract from his policy elsewhere Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The President has also spent a large majority of his weekends golfing, rather than attending to matters of state Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Though free of gaffes, a visit from Chinese president Xi Jinping spotlighted trade tensions between the two states Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One major and unexpected setback came when Mr Trump's Healthcare Bill was struck down by members of his own party Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Mr Trump has been a figure of fun in the media, with his approval at record lows Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A string of revelations about Mr Trump's financial indiscretions did not mar his surge to the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Outgoing President Barack Obama was accused of wiretapping Trump Tower by his successor in America's highest office Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The alleged involvement of Russian intelligence operatives in securing Mr Trump the presidency prompted harsh criticism Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons The explosive resignation of Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who lied about his links to the Russian ambassador, was just one scandal to hit the President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Many scandals, such as the accusation Barack Obama was implicated in phone-hacking, first broke on Mr Trump's Twitter feed Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's election provoked mass protests in the UK, with millions signing a petition to ban him from the country Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump cited a non-existent terror attack in Sweden during a campaign rally Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump stands accused of stoking regional tensions in Eastern Asia Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons North Korea has launched a number of failed nuclear tests since Mr Trump took power Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Theresa May formally rejected the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons When Mr Trump's initial so-called Muslim ban was struck down by a federal justice, the President mocked the 69-year-old as a "ridiculous", "so-called judge" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons A week after his inauguration, Theresa May met with Mr Trump at the White House Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's first days in office were marked by a hasty attempt to follow through on many of his campaign promises, including the so-called Muslim ban Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's decision to ban citizens of many majority-Muslim countries from the US sparked mass protests Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Revelations about Donald Trump's sexual improprieties were not enough to keep him from being elected President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was criticised by many in the press for cosying up to the new President Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons One of Mr Trump's top aides, Kelly Anne Conway, was mocked for describing mistruths as "alternative facts" Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons British PM Theresa May was quick to demonstrate that her political aims did not hugely differ from Mr Trump's Donald Trump's first 100 days: in cartoons Donald Trump's inauguration, on 20 January 2017, sparked protests both at home and abroad

According to data from the World Resources Institute, the US accounted for an astounding 26.6 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions from 1850 to 2013.

Americas population today is just 4.4 per cent of the worlds population. In short, it is America, where per capita emissions have always been several times higher than the world average, that owes the world climate justice, not the other way around.

Trump carries on about the Paris agreements supposed bias in favour of India, but fails to acknowledge that Indias per capita emissions are 1.6 tons, just one-tenth of the US level.

The need to move quickly to a low-carbon economy was not a move against the US, but a global imperative.

The US has done more than any other country to bring about the global peril of climate change, so it should accept its responsibility in helping to get us all out of danger. At a minimum, America should be eagerly cooperating with the rest of the world, Professor Sachs said.

Instead, Trumps sociopathic behaviour, and the corruption and viciousness of those surrounding him, has produced utter disdain for a world nearing the brink of human-made catastrophe.

The next human-caused climate disasters should be named Typhoon Donald, Superstorm Ivanka, and Megaflood Jared. The world will not forget.


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The Indus is one of Asias mightiest rivers. From its source in the northwestern foothills of the Himalayas, it flows through the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir and along the length of Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. The river and its five tributaries together make up the Indus Basin, which spans four countries and supports 215 million people.

Yet fast-growing populations and increasing demand for hydropower and irrigation in each country means the Indus is coming under intense pressure.

India and Pakistan, the two main countries in the basin, divided up rights to the various tributaries under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960. The treaty has survived various wars and other hostilities between the two countries, and as such it is largely considered a success. Today, however, the treaty is increasingly faced with challenges it wasnt designed to deal with.

The Indus Basin

India recently fast-tracked approval for several major dams along the Chenab, a 560-mile-long tributary of the Indus that was originally allotted to Pakistan under the agreement. This follows several other contentious dams already being built on shared rivers including Kishanganga, on the Jhelum River, which was also allotted to Pakistan.

Under the treaty India does indeed have a right to limited hydropower generation upstream on the western tributaries allotted to Pakistan, including the Chenab and the Jhelum. However, many in Pakistan worry that even though these proposed dams may individually abide by the technical letter of the treaty, their effects will add up downstream.

Because the Indus Waters Treaty does not provide a definitive solution, the two countries have frequently sought time-consuming and expensive international arbitration. From time to time, Pakistan has raised concerns and asked for intervention on the storage capacity of Indian dams planned on shared rivers allotted to Pakistan under the IWT.

Basin countries have also not been forthcoming in sharing data and announcing planned hydropower projects ahead of time.

Environmental degradation

Other challenges are completely outside the scope of the treaty. First, global warming will raise the sea level and make Himalayan glaciers, the ultimate source of the Indus, melt ever faster. Dangerous flooding is expected to become more frequent and more severe.

Climate change is also expected to affect monsoon patterns in South Asia, and could result in less rainfall for India and Pakistan. This could be disastrous as summer monsoon rainfall provides 90 per cent of Indias total water supply.

The basins watershed area has suffered tremendous environmental degradation and massive deforestation on both sides of Kashmir, leading to a decrease in the annual water yield.

The IWT does not rule on such issues. Currently, there is no institutional framework or legal instrument for addressing the effects of climate change on water availability in the Indus Basin.

Dispute: Indias Nimoo Bazgo plant faced a legal challenge in 2012 (Shutterstock)

India and Pakistan also share an important aquifer  essentially a vast pool of underground water covering an area of 16.2 million hectares across both countries. This groundwater helps support the huge population in the Indus region, accounting for 48 per cent of all water withdrawals in the basin.

But far more water is being taken out each year than is replenished by rain and other recharge sources. One recent study said the Indus was the most overstressed major aquifer in the world, thanks to population growth and development pressures in both countries.

Despite this, the 1960 treaty also does not have any clause to deal with transboundary aquifers, and there are no agreed rules for the allocation and management of shared groundwater.

A whole new conflict

As with most of Asias great rivers, the Indus ultimately begins on the Tibetan plateau, in Chinese territory. India currently has no treaty with upstream China on their shared rivers. How that relationship develops will determine Indias future water availability and in turn how India behaves towards downstream Pakistan.

Trust deficit: dialogue between the two countries is made difficult by their historical grievances (Shutterstock)

Similarly, Pakistan and Afghanistan have no water sharing agreement for the Kabul River, an important tributary of the Indus which supplies up to 17 per cent of Pakistans total water. As Afghanistan strives to develop its hydropower, with the help of Indian finance, this could instigate a whole new conflict on the Indus itself.

The authors of the Indus Waters Treaty cant be blamed for not anticipating climate change, huge population growth or modern hydropower issues. After all it was drawn up in the 1950s. The IWT does have a clause for future cooperation which allows the two countries to expand the treaty to address recent challenges like climate-induced water variability or groundwater sharing. But the historical trust deficit between the two countries has prevented meaningful dialogue.

But it is clear that these new challenges require all countries in the basin to acknowledge their dependence on each other and discuss joint solutions. Expanding the water sharing agreement to include Afghanistan and China would be a start. Including these two countries, especially China, would also help to address the power asymmetry between India and Pakistan and pave the way for a more holistic sharing agreement over the Indus waters.

Fazilda Nabeel is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Water Informatics and Technology at the University of Sussex. This article was originally published on The Conversation.
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One of the best things about globalisation is having food from across the world on your doorstep - in the bigger cities at least anyway.

We have access to pretty much every cuisine we could ask for, but theres one in particular that is, according to top chef Anthony Bourdain, set to be the next big food trend: Filipino.

Bourdain believes Filipino food is underrated, ascendant and a work in progress.

Recommended A top chef on the food you should never eat

And he thinks western palates are ready for it: I think certain Filipino dishes are more likely to take root and take hold more quickly than others, he told CNN.

One of the dishes he particularly likes is called sisig, which is made from the snout, jowl, ear and tongue of a pig.

I think sisig is perfectly positioned to win the hearts and minds of the world as a whole, he said, adding that he thinks the dish is casual, accessible, [and] exactly what you need after a few beers.

I think it's the most likely to convince people abroad who have had no exposure to Filipino food to maybe look further and investigate further beyond sisig. I think thats the one thats gonna hook them.

Bourdain will be relying on people being open to eating all the parts of a pig that we normally discard.

Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Show all 4 1 /4 Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Curry Channa with Quinoa n Peas, Poppy's Plantains in a coconut coating, Kingston Fries, and Livity Superfood Salad Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Wings N Tings jerk marinated cauliflower 'wings' in a crispy Jamaican ginger beer batter with tropical slaw and sweet potato fries dusted with pink Himalayan salt and paprika, drizzled with jerk mango 'mayo'. Food by Ital Fresh - In pictures Lime jerk vegetable kebabs on rice and peas with grilled maple and thyme sweet potato

He said that Filipinos who moved to the US were able to assimilate and Americanise very easily and very quickly.

I think Filipinos embraced America and were embraced by America in a way that other cultures might not have been, Bourdain explained.

I think Filipinos in America maybe underrated their own food. They used to be mocked for balut [hard-boiled duck embryo].

A lot of traditional Filipino food has sour and bitter notes, which are very unfamiliar to American palates of a few years ago. American palates have changed drastically. I think theres a really bright future.

In the States in particular, theres been an explosion of Korean cuisine over the last decade, and Bourdain believes the same will happen with Filipino cuisine.

While there are only a handful of Filipino restaurants in London at the moment - including the incredibly popular Romulo in Kensington - where America goes, the UK often follows (with food anyway).
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Fathers Day is that one time of the year you can make up for being a complete pain in the arse to your Dad. How you ask? Why, the answer is simple: whisky.

Now some dads prefer wine (dont worry weve got a guide for that too), but for many theres nothing like a sumptuous bottle of whiskey straight from the dram.

Understanding that not everyone has 150 to splash out on a gift, Ive teamed up with whisky lover and The Independents Lifestyle Editor, Dave Maclean, to put together a comprehensive Fathers Day Guide across all price spectrums.

No matter what your budget, theres something here for everyone. Lets say thanks to Dad, the right way.

The Affordable Collection (15-30)

The Glenmorangie Discover Set - 30

When youre on a budget you need to be realistic, great whisky often comes with a price tag, but the good news is that not all great whisky has to come in the size of a full bottle.

Understanding peoples love of exploration, LVMH released their bespoke Glenmorangie gift set, giving you a sublime taste of The Original, La Santa, Nectar dOr and Quinta Ruban.

A perfect idea for those who want great quality for great value. Buy it from Clos19.

Drinks by the Dram Scottish Whisky Selection - 24.95

Who wants just one whisky when you can have five? If your Dad continually boasts about being into his Scottish whisky, look no further.

This delicious set of five contains a variety of flavour profiles from peaty, smoky Islay to the fruity, malty Highlands; the soft, floral Lowlands; and the honeyed, often Sherried Speyside.

The range itself includes Glenfarclas (15-Year-Old), Lagavulin (16-Year-Old), Talisker (10-Year-Old), Dalwhinnie (15-Year-Old) and Auchentoshan (12-Year-Old). Put simply, this great selection gives you the best of some of Scotlands most renowned distilleries and allows Dad to tempt his palate with multiple experiences in one.

Buy it from Master of Malt.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Manhattan 36% ABV - 39.99

If youre looking for something a little quirky, heres your pick of the bunch. It may sound a little odd, but this Peanut Butter & Jelly Manhattan isnt half bad.

Its perfect for those with a sense of humour who can polish off a Manhattan with ease. Bourbon is infused with a variety of interesting blended ingredients, including raspberry jam syrup and Himalayan rock salt. To top things off a raspberry scented wax closure seals the bottle, you know, just because.

Buy it now from Firebox.

Mid-Range Wonders (31-70)

Boutique-y 18-Year-Old - 45

The Boutique-y Whisky Company has built a phenomenal reputation for itself over the past several years with a vast array of sumptuous whiskies in bottles designed to truly catch the eye.

They recently teamed up with Majestic to create a one of a kind 18-year whisky at an even more attractive price point of just 45. Expect lemon drizzle cake, marmalade and chewy toffee to sit alongside chocolate truffles, cinnamon and malt loaf.

Buy it from Majestic.

Glenfiddich IPA Experiment - 45

Does your Dad like a good craft beer as well as his whisky? Double the happiness with Glennfiddichs new experimental range. I always take my hat off to brands who try to innovate and while the prospect of combining an IPA and whisky may sound hard to come by, theyve pulled it off pretty damn well.

Youre looking at the worlds first single malt scotch whisky that has been finished off of IPA craft beer casks. The flavour profile offers a vibrant and zesty citrus with Madagascan vanilla, fresh hops and white pepper spice. Throw in a twist of orange peel and youre in for a real treat or should we say, Dad is.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Lost Distillery Company  Lossit Blended Malt - 50

One for the history buffs  a very impressive attempt at recreating the whisky of the now lost Lossit distillery of Islay. The company uses archival records and other clues to attempt to recreate the likely flavours and aromas of long lost distilleries (many shut down in the 19th century).

The Lossit farm operation was once the biggest producer of whisky on Islay, and this bottle was created with a blend of more than five single malts, including a peated Ben Nevis.

Its easy on the nose  a whiff of peach and some vanilla is at the forefront  but dont let that fool you. Its a lot more formidable in the mouth, with the typical smoky peaty kick Islay malts are known for, and the intriguing hint of peppered beef.

Buy it from Lossit Distillery Online.

Hibiki Japanese Harmony Whisky - 59.99

You may have heard your Dad talking about the craze that is Japanese Whisky. Over the past ten years Suntory has done an exceptional job at bringing these wonders to the UK market and in doing so has created a surge of demand.

The Hibiki Harmony is a blend of both malty and grain whiskies taken from the famed Yamazaki, Hakushu and Chita. If you want to step away from the traditional Scottish and Irish roots, this is your answer. Rich notes of white chocolate, apricot and orange peel combine with a spiced, cinnamon, white pepper and charred oak barrel.

Buy it now from Waitrose.

Splash Out, Its Worth It (71-150)

Lagavulin Distillers Edition Double Matured Islay Edition - 75

The smoky, peaty, often medicinaltasting whiskies of Islay can be overwhelming to the casual malt drinker. The mid-range 16-year-old is a go-to dram for many discerning drinkers, but the smell and taste packs a formidable punch.

This distillers edition was finished in casks that held sweet, rich Pedro Ximinez sherry, which means the peat and iodine is tempered by a sweet stick fruit notes. The rich smoke stills rolls across the tongue, as youd expect from a Lagavulin, but youll get delicious rum and raisin flavours, along with a subtle nuttiness.

The finish is the biggest surprise: theres a hint of delicate mushroom. Sounds strange? Trust us, youll love it.

Buy it from Waitrose.

Ardbeg Kelpie - 98

If the words Limited Edition create an immediate lightbulb, then let me tell you about Arbeg Kelpie. Theres only a small handful of whiskies on the planet that are matured in Virgin Black Sea oak casks and this is one of them.

Released specifically for Arbeg Day on June 3rd, this limited production whisky is already a collectors item. Aged in virgin oak from the Black Sea coast this sumptuous nectar showcases intensely deep smoky and peaty Islay characteristics.

The whisky is blended with Ardbegs famous ex-bourbon casks to create a truly unique flavour profile. You can expect an oily and peaty nose full of dark chocolate and seaweed. The palate itself will offer a plethora of smoked fudge, fresh pine and creamy coffee with a peppery and indulgent covering of the tongue. Treacle tart, smoky bacon and stewed peaches also enter the taste equation.

Buy it from the LVMH store.

The Balvenie Portwood 21-Year-Old - 170

Id be lying if I told you Balvenie isnt one of my favourite whiskies on this planet, theres just something about it that makes it so approachable and its always my go-to for folks who claim they dont like whisky.

In my mind this is one of the most traditional whiskies around and a tipple that never fails to put a smile on my face, the 21-Year-Old is no exception to that.

Balvenie Portwood is matured in traditional oak cask before being transferred over to port casks which have held some of the worlds finest port wines. Its a creamy wonder, oozing with silky exuberant fruits, fresh honey from the beehive and gentle spices.

Theres a staple nuttiness in this delicious single malt that delivers towards the end of your sip with a great long lasting but smooth finish. Its the whisky you buy Dad so you can secretly drink half the bottle yourself. Smart, eh?

Buy it now from Fortnum & Mason.



The Investments (150+)

Craigellachie 31 Year - 500

A smile gleams on my face each and every time I visit the Craigellachie Distillery, surrounded by nature, birds hopping from one tree to the next. Its a place of beauty only complimented further by the divine whisky created within. The 31-year is a global treasure and has picked up some of the most prestigious awards in the industry.

This is a serious whisky for serious whisky lovers and make no mistake, once you open the bottle you will fall completely and utterly in love. Distilled by Master Blender Stephanie McLeod who is one of the leading female personalities in the world of whisky, I think Ill hand over the tasting notes to her, its her baby after all! The 31-year is beautifully balanced, smooth and rich, a swirl of smoke and sulphur accentuate the sumptuous fruits of kiwi and pineapple.

The tang of old, leather bound books and tobacco emerge, with a hint of meatiness of a beef consomme. I dont think I could have said it better myself. Buy it from Craigellachie Distillery or online whisky auction sites.

Littlemil 25 Year - 2000

Now we get to the really serious stuff  this is for the Dads who mean real business and are building up a collection of some of the worlds most investment-worthy whisky. For those of you who know Loch Lomond youll know its rumoured to be one of, if not the oldest distillery in Scotland.

Lowland single malt lovers could still visit Littlemill Distillery today if it wasnt for a fire in 2004 that pretty much wiped it out, but the angels werent ready to spill every drop and protected just enough barrels to create some truly rare, unique and historical whiskies from what was salvaged.

Im of course referring to the 25-year-old from 1990, bottled in 2015 in the most elegant of wooden vanished cases, bound internally by leather, this is the creme de la creme of my guide. It comes with its own miniature bottle, so you dont have to immediately break the seal of the bottle (although wheres the fun in that?!).

Buy it from Robbies Whisky Merchants.

Yamazaki 2017 Limited Edition 152

Is your Dad a whisky collector? Well, heres a treat. Yamazaki are about to launch their highly anticipated Limited Edition 2017 blend and your Dad can be the first to get his hands on it.

A blend of single malt vintages have been matured in a variety of casks for over 20 years, creating a diverse and mysteriously tasty blend. This unveiling is so secretive that tasting notes havent even been revealed. Either way, with it being Yamazaki you already know its going ot be amazing.

Buy it from Dekanta.

Unique Choices

10 Year Membership To Na Tusairean Club - 1,999

Fancy getting your Dad a piece of history? R&B Distillers are creating the very first distillery on the Isle of Raasay in Scotland. In celebration, theyre launching an extremely bespoke club called Na Tusairean, giving members the opportunity to invest in the distillery and gain access to rare and exciting drams.

Members will receive an annual supply of single malt as well as exclusive use of the luxury members lounge and accommodation at the distillery. You can also choose to pay increments of 199.90 over 10 months.

Buy it from R&B Distillers.

The Savoy Collection II: Age of Discovery - 350

How about a whisky cocktail that has travelled the world? No, seriously. We all know the famous Savoy in London, but did you know about their exclusive whisky and cocktail ranges within the renowned Savoy Collection.

The Age of Discovery is a uniquely blended limited edition cocktail that has been barrel-aged on board Cunard's flagship Queen Mary 2 during a 41,000-nautical mile and four-month long world voyage. It returned from its journey at sea in May 2016, being bottled within the Beaufort Bar.

So, whats in it? Well, how about a distinctive blend of Savoy Select Jack Daniels Single Barrel, Jack Daniels Old No.7 and Bacardi 8, with Spice Trail Madeira, Dubonnet, Martini Riserva Rubino and Earl Grey and Cocoa nib bitters. Sounds delicious. Buy it directly from The Savoy Hotel.
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A woman from Florida has given birth to a baby girl weighing 13 pounds and five-ounces  almost twice the weight of the average newborn.

Proud parents Chrissy and Larry Corbitt say they had no idea how large their bundle of joy would be and likened the size of their daughter, Carleigh, to that of a toddler.

When the doctor was pulling her out of me I just start hearing them all laughing and excited in the operating room, Chrissy told ABC News.

The doctor said, Oh my gosh, shes going to be 15-pounds. I dont think this baby is going to end. Are there two of them? recalled husband Larry.

Her cheeks were so chunky and she was just so fat. She was so gorgeous, of course.

They were throwing out numbers and when they showed her to me and said 13.5, I couldnt believe it.

It looked like they pulled a toddler out of my belly. Shes so big.

Doctors who performed the C-section were just as shocked and even suggested that she might be having twins.

But, Carleigh could have turned out much heavier because she arrived a week earlier than expected. If mum Chrissy had gone full term, she would have weighed 14 pounds  the same weight as the heaviest baby born in the United States this year.

The parents celebrated their new arrival with a photoshoot by photographer Debbye Benson of Sweet Smiles Photography Studio and the photos are adorable.

Shes just filled with rolls. Shes just a big squishy baby. Shes so adorable, said the proud mom.

The newborn is even having to wear clothes meant for a nine-month old and uses size 3 nappies.

While a delivery of this size would have proved difficult for any woman, husband Larry said that because of his wifes anaemia she had to have three blood transfusions during the C-section.

But, that both mother and baby are doing great.

My wife is a trooper for everything shes gone through, he added.
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Ikea plans to test selling its products on websites other than its own, the head of brand and strategy owner of Inter Ikea Group said on Wednesday, as the world's biggest home furnishing retailer targets more online customers.

The move means Ikea's customers may soon be able to buy its flat-pack furniture and other home furnishings through the likes of Amazon, which has said it plans to venture into furniture, or Chinese rival Alibaba.

Inter Ikea Group chief executive Torbjorn Loof said in an interview that the plan is to start testing in 2018.

On digital platforms, we only sell our products through our own website, and there we also see that the competitive landscape is changing, Mr Loof said.

Mr Loof would not be drawn on which companies he had in mind to sell through and said no contracts have yet been signed.

I leave unsaid on which (platforms), but we will test and pilot, to see 'what does this mean, what does digital shopping look like in future and what do digital shopping centres mean?', he said.

Ikea, known for its warehouse-like stores, has recently restructured to give its retail arm more freedom. The Swedish firm has never sold its goods through another company and is also trying new smaller store formats and stepping up integration of stores and online to adapt to new ways of shopping.

In the fiscal year through August 2016, online sales at Ikea Group, which owns most Ikea stores worldwide, jumped 30 per cent to 1.4bn ($1.6bn), a small fraction of total sales which were up 7 per cent to 34.2bn.

The web of companies that make up Ikea have in the past couple of years focused ownership of retail operations, which also include shopping centres and food retail, on Ikea Group, the main franchisee to Inter Ikea Group.

Supply chain management and design has transferred to brand owner and franchisor Inter Ikea Group.

Hopes are that with Ikea Group focusing fully on retail, it will be better placed to defend its market-leading position and maintain growth as competition and consumer expectations evolve.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

There is a rapid change in the market where much of what we have learned and what we know of is changing radically, Mr Loof said, adding that he expects Ikea to keep its leading position.

We have one great advantage and that is that we design, produce and distribute our own unique range.

Reuters
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The University of Reading has come under fire for allegedly making false claims it is in the top 1 per cent of the worlds universities.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has since asked the institution to remove the claim from its website, after a complaint was made to the regulating body.

The discrepancy comes as new World University Rankings are released, detailing the most reputable and top-performing institutions across the globe.

A description of the University of Reading as being in the top 1 per cent worldwide had been challenged by a complainant, who said such a figure could not be substantiated and could be misleading, the BBC reported.

The ASA said the issue had since been informally resolved, with the university agreeing to remove the claim, without going ahead with a formal investigation or ruling.

The matter has invited debate as to how university rankings can be used in marketing, since the tables are deemed especially important for the recruitment of students from overseas.

Several other top-performing institutes in the UK currently make similar claims on their websites and advertising brochures based on the much revered QS and Times Higher Education global league tables.

Charles Heymann, the University of Readings head of corporate communications, welcomed the clarification over how universities can present global rankings, suggesting that it was not just Reading that had suffered confusion over rankings.

It now needs to investigate every single other UK university which claims it is in the top 1 per cent in the world, rather than waiting for individual complaints to be made, he said of the ASA.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures 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 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2022 Motorists in Coventry pass trees showing autumnal colour PA UK news in pictures 11 October 2022 A woman and her dog in the the North Sea at Tynemouth Longsands beach before sunrise PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2022 Police officers remove a campaigner from a Just Stop Oil protest on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace, London PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2022 A drummer plays during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA UK news in pictures 21 September 2022 A flock of birds in the sky as the sun rises over Dungeness in Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2022 Flowers which were laid by members of the public in tribute to Queen Elizabeth II at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland are collected by the Hillsborough Gardening Team and volunteers to be replanted for those that can be saved or composted PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2022 The ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II travels down the long walk as it arrives at Windsor Castle for the committal service at St Georges Chapel AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 18 September 2022 A man stands among campers on The Mall ahead of the Queens funeral Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2022 Wolverhampton Wanderers Nathan Collins fouls Manchester Citys Jack Grealish leading to a red card. City went on to win the match at Molineux Stadium three goals to nil. Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 16 September 2022 Members of the public stand in the queue near Tower Bridge, and opposite the Tower of London, as they wait in line to pay their respects to the late Queen Elizabeth II, in London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 15 September 2022 Members of the public in the queue on in Potters Fields Park, central London, as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA UK news in pictures 14 September 2022 The first members of the public pay their respects as the vigil begins around the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday PA

Like dozens of other UK universities in recent years, we judged this put us in the top 1 per cent out of an estimated 20,000 institutions internationally.

We accept, though, the ASAs view that this could not be proved given no league table assesses every single university worldwide.

While the advertising claims had been made all in good faith, he acknowledged that universities must accept stricter marketing rules as the industry continues to grow.

Since boasts about the institutions top percentage status have been printed in brochures and other literature, Reading has agreed to phase out the potentially misleading claims, but said it would take some time.

A total of 76 UK institutions are included in the QS rankings for 2018, with 51 dropping down the list.

Cambridge University has been named top for the UK, ranking in fifth place globally  down from fourth place last year.

Oxford takes sixth place and University College London comes in seventh, both retaining their positions from last year.

Overall, 16 of the 24 Russell Group Universities have fallen down the ranks.

This is thought to be the result of a squeeze on university resources as well as increasing competition from other parts of the world, rather than the impact of Brexit, experts suggested.

 Labour pledges to scrap tuition fees for students starting in September

The rankings assess university performance in four areas  research, teaching, employability and internationalisation.

Ben Sowter, head of research at QS, said: Though the temptation may be to attribute the UKs second year of struggle to Brexit, we would warn against doing so.

Much of the data we collect for these tables has been collected over a five-year period, and the first year of post-Brexit internationalisation scores suggests that there has, thus far, been a minimal impact on international student and faculty rates at UK institutions.

Of greater importance, we believe, is the continued strain on university resources, which appears to be having a deleterious impact on not just research, but also the capacity to deliver world-class teaching.

Also of greater significance than Brexit is the simple and unavoidable truth that these rankings are a relative exercise, and the rest of the world is becoming increasingly competitive.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, acting director of the Russell Group, added: The UK remains a world-leader in higher education and Russell Group universities have been fundamental to this success. Our members continue to deliver an excellent teaching and learning experience for students.

By this ranking, four of the top 10 universities in the world are Russell Group institutions. Of course, there is always room for improvement and maintaining our global position in teaching, research and innovation requires investment.

For a number of years, funding for teaching has been squeezed. The position is particularly acute in engineering and some of the sciences where the need for specialist facilities, equipment and technical support adds to the cost of teaching.

This is something that the new government will have to look at closely if universities are to deliver the jobs and growth that we all want to see for the UK.
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Dogs have their own innate sense of fairness and did not learn this from humans as previously believed, a new study has concluded.

In fact the research suggested the opposite may be true  that dogs have learned greater acceptance of inequitable treatment as a result of their close relationship with people.

In tests, wolves and dogs would both refuse to take part if they received no reward for pressing a buzzer while a partner animal got one for doing so. The same was true if they received a lower quality prize.

It was thought that dogs had learned the importance of equality  seen as a sophisticated trait found in humans and some primates  during the domestication process, but the study found the wolves displayed a greater reluctance to take part once they realised what was going on.

 Dog makes way down mountain after team fails to rescue it

Writing in the journal Current Biology, the researchers said the study suggested a sense of fairness in dogs was not an effect of domestication, but rather were maintained from their ancestors.

In fact, the results here and in previous studies on pet dogs suggest that rather than increasing dogs response to unequal treatment, their relationship to humans may result in a higher tolerance for unequal treatment, at least from humans," they wrote.

Life-long positive interactions and training with their human caregivers might prevent dogs from refusing to continue to participate in the experiment due to their willingness to please the human experimenter.

They said the dogs in the study had been highly socialised with humans in their first weeks of life but did not have a pet-owner relationship.

Nevertheless, they were still more eager to please the human experimenter than were the wolves, the researchers wrote.

In the tests, dogs and wolves were put in adjoining cages and a trainer then instructed them to press the buzzer.

One of the scientists, Jennifer Essler, of the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, explained what happened next.

In the no-reward test, only the partner got a treat in every trial. The test animal got nothing," she said.

In the quality test, both animals got a reward, but the preferred and thus higher quality treat was again given to the partner.

The ability to realise this inequity became evident when they [the test animal] refused to continue the experiment.

An animal was deemed to be refusing to cooperate if they moved away from the buzzer and did not respond to 10 commands to press or come. If this happened, the session was ended.

Animals in decline Show all 8 1 /8 Animals in decline Animals in decline Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) Where: Orkney Islands. What: Between 2001-2006, numbers in Orkney declined by 40 per cent. Why: epidemics of the phocine distemper virus are thought to have caused major declines, but the killing of seals in the Moray Firth to protect salmon farms may have an impact. Alamy Animals in decline African lion (Panthera leo) Where: Ghana. What: In Ghanas Mole National Park, lion numbers have declined by more than 90 per cent in 40 years. Why: local conflicts are thought to have contributed to the slaughter of lions and are a worrying example of the status of the animal in Western and Central Africa. Animals in decline Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Where: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Costa Rica. What: Numbers are down in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It declined by 95 per cent between 1989-2002 in Costa Rica. Why: mainly due to them being caught as bycatch, but theyve also been affected by local developments. Alamy Animals in decline Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) Where: South Atlantic. What: A rapid decline. One population, from Bird Island, South Georgia, declined by 50 per cent between 1972-2010, according to the British Antarctic Survey. Why: being caught in various commercial longline fisheries. Alamy Animals in decline Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) Where: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. What: fall in populations has been dramatic. In the early 1990s numbers were over a million, but are now estimated to be around 50,000. Why: the break up of the former USSR led to uncontrolled hunting. Increased rural poverty means the species is hunted for its meat Animals in decline Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) Where: found worldwide in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas. Why: at risk from overfishing and as a target in recreational fishing. A significant number of swordfish are also caught by illegal driftnet fisheries in the Mediterranean Animals in decline Argali Sheep (Ovis mammon) Where: Central and Southern Asian mountains,usually at 3,000-5,000 metres altitude. Why: domesticated herds of sheep competing for grazing grounds. Over-hunting and poaching. Animals in decline Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) Where: the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands (Polynesia), north to the Ryukyu Islands (south-west Japan), and south to New Caledonia. Why: Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and trading of the species

The results of the test involving different qualities of prize confirms even more clearly that wolves and dogs really understand inequity, Ms Essler added.

Tellingly, the animals were happy to press the buzzer for no reward when there was no partner there.

This showed that the fact that they themselves had not received a reward was not the only reason why they stopped to cooperate with the trainer, said Ms Esslers colleague Dr Friederike Range.

They refuse to cooperate because the other one got something, but they themselves did not.

The rank of both dogs and wolves in the pack also had an effect on their reactions.

High-ranking animals become frustrated more quickly by inequity because they are not used to this situation: not receiving something at all or only of lower quality, Dr Range said.

Thus, the hierarchy in their pack is directly linked to their reaction to inequity.
President Tran Dai Quang and his Czech counterpart Milos Zeman (Source: VNA)



At the talks, held following the welcome ceremony for the Czech President, President Quang expressed his belief that Milos Zemans State visit to Vietnam will contribute to deepening the time-honoured friendship and multi-faceted collaboration between the two countries in the new period in a pragmatic manner.

Vietnam always attaches importance to consolidating and developing relations with traditional friends, including the Czech Republic, he affirmed.

The leaders briefed each other on situations in the respective countries and discussed concrete measures to promote the bilateral ties. They also exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern.

Hailing achievements Vietnamese people have recorded in the reform process as well as the countrys increasing role and position in the world arena, President Milos Zeman said the Czech Republic always regards Vietnam as its traditional partner and wishes to advance the bilateral affiliation across fields.

Host and guest noted with pleasure active developments of the Vietnam-Czech Republic relations over the past time, particularly in politics and diplomacy, as well as their effective collaboration at international arena.

They held that bilateral economic and trade ties have remained stable with annual two-way trade averaging USD250 million in recent years.

The two leaders agreed to continue improving the effectiveness of the joint commission on economic cooperation, while strengthening trade and investment promotion, encouraging and backing the business community of both sides to foster their partnership and study each others market, especially in areas of the Czech Republics strength and Vietnams demand such as infrastructure, food processing, pharmaceuticals, urban planning, public transportation, environmental protection and water resources management.

President Quang thanked the State and people of the Czech Republic for creating favourable conditions for the Vietnamese community in the country to live, work, and integrate into the local society.

The State leader expressed belief that the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic will continue promoting the role as a bridge for the friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

The two Presidents showed their delight at the close and effective coordination between the two countries at international forums.

President Zeman affirmed that the Czech Republic supports the enhancement of the Vietnam-EU relations as well as the signing and approval of the Vietnam-EU free trade agreement, and the EUs soon recognition of Vietnams full market economy status.

Regarding the East Sea issue, the two leaders stressed the need to settle all disputes through peaceful measures, including diplomatic and legal processes in conformity with international law, especially the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS).

Meeting with the press following their talks, President Quang said both sides consented to increase the exchange of all-level delegations and consultations on issues of shared concern.

The Presidents were unanimous on the need for the two countries to improve the efficiency of affiliations in trade and investment and join hands with each other in preparing for the sixth meeting of the Vietnam-Czech Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation scheduled for 2018 in Hanoi.

They welcomed and pledged to facilitate the Czech investment in Vietnam in such areas as energy, environment, support industry, infrastructure, manufacturing, medical equipment and food processing.

Host and guest also consented to beef up the partnership in other realms like education-training, science-technology, culture-tourism, health care, environment, employment, national defence and security.

Regarding regional and international issues, President Quang said that the two leaders highlighted the significance of the maintenance of security and peace as well as the promotion of cooperation and development in the world.

President Zeman said that the business community of his country is interested in the Vietnamese market. He stated that his entourage included representatives of 68 enterprises in various sectors, who show their hope to affiliate with Vietnamese peers through specific agreements.

He also revealed that the two leaders discussed and agreed on the opening of a direct air route connecting Prague and Ho Chi Minh City, and the short-term visa exemption for Czech tourists to Vietnam. The Czech Republic will open a Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City in the coming time.

He also said that he believes this will contribute to boosting the number of Czech tourists to Vietnam in the future.

After their talks, the Presidents witnessed the signing of cooperation documents between the two countries, including an agreement on the transfer of sentenced persons and another on combating crimes.

Vietnam and the Czech Republic set up diplomatic ties on February 2nd, 1950.

With 35 projects worth USD91.3 million, focusing on real estate, beer, electronic equipment and construction materials, the Czech Republic ranks 42nd out of 101 countries and territories investing in Vietnam.

Vietnam was among 12 priority markets included in the Czech national export strategy during 2012-2020, which was announced in 2012.

The Czech Republic has been the first Eastern European nation to provide official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam with about USD18 million.

More than 60,000 Vietnamese are living in the Czech Republic. On July 3rd, 2013, the Czech Government appointed a Czech representative of Vietnamese origin to the Council of Ethnic Minorities, thus recognising the Czech Vietnamese community as an ethnic minority group in the country./.
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Relatives of one of the three French victims have described him as a marvellous son, a perfect older brother and a radiant young man.

Alexandre Pigeard, 26, was originally from Normandy but had been living in London for more than two years.

He was working as a waiter at Boro Bistro when he was attacked during Saturday nights rampage.

Recommended The innocent victims who were killed in London Bridge terror attack

A statement on behalf of his family said he was much loved by all who had the good fortune to meet him, adding: All his friends praised his kindness, his good humour and his generosity.

Mr Pigeard was passionate about electronic music and a member of Club 808, a group of DJs from Caen.

Vincent Le Berre, a manager at the restaurant, told Le Telegramme newspaper: I managed to escape him [an attacker], but my friend Alexandre did not have that chance. He was hit in the neck with a knife.

The familys statement said Mr Pigeard was fatally stabbed while working on the terrace of the restaurant, where he had been employed for nine months.

London Attack victims Show all 8 1 /8 London Attack victims London Attack victims Christine Archibald, a Canadian woman who was killed in the latest London attack PA London Attack victims James McMullan, 32, who is believed to be one of victims who died in the London Bridge terror attack after his bank card was found on a body at the scene PA London Attack victims Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, aged 28. a staff nurse at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, England, who died in the 03 June 2017 terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market EPA London Attack victims Darren Mole Twitter / DarrenMole London Attack victims Oliver Dowling and his girlfriend Marie Bondeville were injured in the london terror attacks Facebook London Attack victims Candice Hedge London Attack victims Alexandre Pigeard, from Normandy, was knifed to death at Boro Bistro after three terrorists went on the rampage on Saturday night DoyouBuzz London Attack victims Geoff Ho Facebook

Relatives, who are being supported by specialist police officers, asked for privacy to grieve their tragically cruel and unjust loss.

Mr Pigeard was among three French victims of the terror attack, which left eight people dead and injured dozens more.

Sebastien Belanger, 36, was also killed in Boro Bistro, where he had spent Saturday night watching the Champions League final with friends.

A friend, Damien Lecomte, described him as a talented chef, he is one of the best people I know.

He is the very definition of a friend  always here to help you, to listen to you, whatever he can do to help you, he is going to be there, he added.

He is a guy who enjoys life, socialises with people, meets new people, thats Sebastien.

Mr Belanger arrived in the UK seven years ago, having moved from his native Angers, western France, and worked in the Coq dArgent restaurant in central London.

 Who are the victims of the London Bridge attacks?

Officers searching for 45-year-old Xavier Thomas recovered a body from the river Thames on Tuesday night.

He is believed to have been thrown from London Bridge as the terrorists rammed their van into pedestrians, before crashing the vehicle and emerging with knives to start the rampage in Borough Market.

Mr Thomas had been walking with his girlfriend at the time, during a visit to London for the weekend.

Christine Delcros suffered severe injuries but her sister said she was in a stable condition following surgery.

President Emmanuel Macron confirmed the French death toll on Wednesday, adding that eight citizens were also among the injured.

It is a heavy price that we pay in these attacks, he added, following a series of terror attacks on French soil that have left around 240 people dead since the start of 2015.

Christine Archibald, a Canadian, has been named as one of the eight people killed (Twitter)

Other victims include Canadian Christine Archibald, who was on the bridge with her fiance Tyler Ferguson when she was hit by the van.

She worked in a homeless shelter in her home country, with relatives appealing for supporters to honour her memory by volunteering or donating.

She would have had no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death, they said.

Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, ran towards people being attacked to try to help them before herself being killed.

As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life, relatives said.

We are so proud of Kirstys brave actions which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was, not only on that night, but throughout all of her life. Kirsty  we love you and we will miss you dearly.

Kirsty Bodens family say she was loved and adored

Another Australian woman, Sara Zelenak, was also killed in the attack as she walked across London Bridge after being given the night off from her job as an au pair.

The 21-year-old, who was planning to travel around Europe, had been sightseeing in Westminster the day before the attack there in March and bought tickets to Ariana Grandes concert in Manchester on 22 May, but did not end up going.

Spaniard Ignacio Echeverria, a 39-year-old banker, was confirmed dead after last seen attempting to defend a stabbed woman with his skateboard.

My brother Ignacio tried to stop the terrorists and lost his life trying to save others, said his sister, Isabel.

The family of another victim, 32-year-old James McMullan, said: It is important for us to all carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who are trying to destroy us and remember that hatred is the refuge of small-minded individuals and will only breed more.

This is not a course we will follow despite our loss.

From his friends that were with him that night, they want everyone to know what a generous and caring friend he was.

NHS England said 10 victims remain in a critical condition, with a total of 29 people being treated at five London hospitals.
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The parents of a terminally ill baby who want to take their son to the US for treatment have lost their case in the Supreme Court.

Chris Gard and Connie Yates, from Bedfont in west London, want their 10-month-old son, who has mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic condition, and brain damage, to undergo a therapy trial in the States.

But a panel of three Supreme Court justices has dismissed the couples latest challenge for their son to receive the experimental treatment after a hearing in London on Thursday.

They said doctors should continue life-support treatment for Charlie for 24 hours to give the European Court of Human Rights the chance to consider the case.

Ms Yates broke down in tears and screamed as justices announced their decision, shouting: How could they do this to us? as she was led from the court by lawyers.

The parents, who are in their 30s, have appealed for money to cover doctors bills in the US on a GoFundMe page, which has topped 1.3m.

The High Court warned in April against a trip to the US and in favour of Great Ormond Street doctors, concluding that life support treatment should end and that Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 10 November 2022 A grey heron lands on the river Dodder in Dublin on a sunny autumn morning PA UK news in pictures 9 November 2022 Australia and Spain play during the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup group A match at the Copper Box Arena, London PA 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 Florence Kasumba, Letitia Wright, Tenoch Huerta and Lupita Nyongo attend the European Premiere of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in London Getty 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

Specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where Charlie is being cared for, warned at the time that therapy proposed by a doctor in the US is experimental and will not help, and that his life-support treatment should stop.

The devastated couple chose to appeal the judgement, but appeal judges ruled in May that doctors should be allowed to stop the babys life-support treatment.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, Mr Gard and Ms Yates are now hoping to take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
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CCTV footage has emerged showing the moment armed police shot the three London Bridge attackers dead, stopping their bloody rampage.

Three officers arrived on the scene in Borough Market as a man was being stabbed by one of the assailants, while others attempted to enter a pub that had its doors barricaded shut.

Members of the public are seen throwing a chair and other missiles in an attempt to stop the stabbing when a City of London Police unit pulls up at speed.

The armed officers emerge and take aim at the three terrorists, shooting two dead in seconds as they run towards them.

One of the terrorists, believed to be ringleader Khuram Butt, rushes towards an officer wielding a large knife, forcing him to retreat as he opened fire.

One of the officers tripped over a falling attacker before recovering and circling the terrorists bodies as reinforcements from the Metropolitan Police arrived.

The CCTV footage does not include sound but Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said officer fired an unprecedented number of shots  around 50  to take down what they believed to be three suicide bombers.

Armed police on Borough High Street on the night of the incident (PA)

The vests worn by Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba were afterwards revealed to be fake but the officers were praised for their bravery.

I am humbled by the bravery of an officer who will rush towards a potential suicide bomber thinking only of protecting others, Assistant Commissioner Rowley said.

The trio of terrorists had already killed eight people and injured dozens more in an attack lasting just quarter of an hour.

Police said the rampage started at 9.58pm, when they rammed a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge, before crashing the vehicle and emerging with large knives and attacking people at random in bars and restaurants surrounding Borough Market.

All three men were dead within eight minutes of the first call to police. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has opened a routine investigation into their deaths, as well as the injury to a member of the public who was hit by a stray bullet.

We can confirm that 46 shots in total were fired by eight police officers - three officers from City of London Police and five from the Metropolitan Police, said the IPCCs deputy chair, Sarah Green.

We are examining CCTV footage from within Borough Market which we believe shows the majority of the incident relevant to our investigation.

(PA (PA)

I recognise that this was a fast-moving and dangerous situation which the police had to respond to extremely quickly.

Stories of heroic efforts to protect the public have emerged in the days after the atrocity, including a Millwall fan who fought the three attackers barehanded in the Black and Blue steakhouse, giving other diners the time to escape.

Roy Larner was taken into intensive care with severe injuries but described the battle from his hospital bed, saying the killers burst in the restaurant shouting Islam, Islam and This is for Allah.

Like an idiot, he told The Sun, I shouted back at them. I thought, I need to take the p*** out of these b******s.

I took a few steps towards them and said, F*** you, Im Millwall. So they started attacking me.

Geoff Ho, the Sunday Express business editor, had tried to slow the trio as they advanced on the restaurant, being stabbed in the neck as he defended an injured friend.

Among other heroes was a Romanian baker, Florin Morariu, who moved a group of Brazilian women to safety and then took on one of the attackers with industrial crates.

The terrorists entered El Pastor restaurant and stabbed a woman in the chest before fellow diners launched a counter-attack launching chairs and glass bottles, forcing the man back outside as a Spanish nurse kept the injured woman alive.

London Bridge Terror Attack Show all 16 1 /16 London Bridge Terror Attack London Bridge Terror Attack Armed police on Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed Police talk to members of the public outside London Bridge Hospital as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police Officers outside the Barrowboy and Banker Public House on Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed Police talk to members of the public outside London Bridge Hospital as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Armed police on Borough High Street as police deal with a 'major incident' at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency services near the scene of the incident Screengrab London Bridge Terror Attack People run down Borough High Street as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency services arrive at the scene near Borough market at London Bridge Carl Court/Getty Images London Bridge Terror Attack Emergency personnel on London Bridge as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police sniffer dogs on London Bridge as police are dealing with a "major incident" at London Bridge PA London Bridge Terror Attack A second helicopter lands on London Bridge as police are responding to three incidents in the capital, amid reports that a vehicle collided with pedestrians on London Bridge, Scotland Yard said. Officers are dealing with reports of stabbings in Borough Market, where armed officers attended and shots were fired. They are also at an incident in the Vauxhall area PA London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London REUTERS London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack A police officer escorts members of the public to safety at London Bridge Getty Images London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident on London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters London Bridge Terror Attack Police attend to an incident near London Bridge in London, Britain Reuters

An off-duty police officer was stabbed after tackling one of the three attackers and remains in critical conditioner.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick praised the "utterly heroic" actions of the officer, adding: "It's hard to pick out individual stories but I am immensely proud of him and what he did".

A British Transport Police officer, who faced the attackers armed only with a baton, was also seriously injured.

In a statement from hospital, the unnamed man said he was overwhelmed by public support as he recovers from wounds to his head, arm and leg.

Like every police officer who responded, I was simply doing my job, he added.

I feel like I did what any other person would have done. I want to say sorry to the families that lost their loved ones. Im so sorry I couldnt do more and I want you to know I did everything I could.

Spanish banker Ignacio Echeverria, 39, was last seen trying to defend a woman using his skateboard but has since been confirmed among the eight people killed in the atrocity.

Fresh arrests were made Ilford overnight, seeing armed police detain two men on a street and a third arrested during searches of a home.

Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, while a 33-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs.

All three men have been taken into custody at a south London police station as searches continue at the house and an unidentified business address in Ilford, believed to be a gym where the attackers were seen five days before the attack.
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British intelligence officials have denied they were warned that one of the London attackers wanted to be a terrorist, as CCTV footage shows the trio attempting to kill police before they died.

They rushed at armed officers who arrived in Borough Market as they struck down another victim on Saturday night, but were shot dead within seconds.

Police have been hailed for their bravery in approaching who they feared to be suicide bombers, before the vests they were wearing were found to be fake.

But British intelligence services have come under scrutiny over revelations that ringleader Khuram Butt was cautioned over an extremist assault, and known for associating with Anjem Choudarys network of Islamists.

A cousin of Butt's wife said he openly supported Isis among the family, claiming the groups atrocities were quite justified and watching extremist sermons on YouTube.

Fahad Khan said the terrorist discussed taking his family to join Isis in Syria, but was dissuaded because his wife was pregnant at the time.

Pressure increased after Italian authorities claimed they also warned MI5 over his accomplice Youssef Zaghba, who was stopped in Bologna airport at he attempted to travel to join Isis in Syria last year.

 CCTV footage police shows police open fire on London Bridge attackers

The 22-year-old was stopped at Stansted in January as a result of an alert on the Schengen Information System (SIS), but officials told The Times it suggested he was wanted for a criminal matter rather than extremism.

They claimed the alert did not include the fact Zaghba told Italian police he wanted to be a terrorist. The extent of information uploaded to a second database used by European intelligence agency is unclear.

He was able to make multiple trips between the UK and his mothers home in Bologna, despite the SIS alert and heavy monitoring by Italian police.

The countrys police chief said his force has its documents and conscience clear but understood how Zaghba slipped through the cracks.

Franco Gabrielli added: We can understand the concern, the suffering and the difficulty of those who are called to manage complicated situations.

Italian prosecutor Giuseppe Amato said there was not enough evidence to arrest or charge the attacker when he was caught at Bologna airport.

We did everything we could have done, but there werent elements of proof that he was a terrorist, he added.

Investigators confiscated Zaghba's computer but said it did not contain proof of a crime, although Isis propaganda was reportedly found on one of his devices.

London Attack victims Show all 8 1 /8 London Attack victims London Attack victims Christine Archibald, a Canadian woman who was killed in the latest London attack PA London Attack victims James McMullan, 32, who is believed to be one of victims who died in the London Bridge terror attack after his bank card was found on a body at the scene PA London Attack victims Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, aged 28. a staff nurse at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, England, who died in the 03 June 2017 terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market EPA London Attack victims Darren Mole Twitter / DarrenMole London Attack victims Oliver Dowling and his girlfriend Marie Bondeville were injured in the london terror attacks Facebook London Attack victims Candice Hedge London Attack victims Alexandre Pigeard, from Normandy, was knifed to death at Boro Bistro after three terrorists went on the rampage on Saturday night DoyouBuzz London Attack victims Geoff Ho Facebook

The terrorist, born in the Moroccan city of Fez in 1995, was estranged from his father but lived in the country for much of his life.

Able to move round the EU as an Italian citizen, he moved to the UK in 2015 and lived in Ilford while working in a Pakistani restaurant in east London.

Zaghba also taught children at Catleaps Gymnastics in Dagenham, where managers said he did not need a background check because of his status as a volunteer and was supervised at all times.

His mother said she believed he was radicalised in London, while associating with the wrong kind of people.

The Metropolitan Police claimed Zaghba was not a police or MI5 subject of interest, although the statement is believed to have been carefully worded.

It admitted Butt, a former Tube worker and KFC employee, was known to them, but that 30-year-old accomplice Rachid Redouane was not on the security services radar.

The way the trio met remains unclear, but a European intelligence official told the New York Times Zaghba was introduced to Butt by an Italian faction of Al-Muhajiroun.

He and Redouane appear to have been friends, reportedly being seen together at a cafe next to a betting shop in Newham.

Images provided by Met Police of (left to right) Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba

The pastry chef also used the surname Elkhdar and Rachid al-Magrabi, and there were reports he had fought against Muammar Gaddafis forces at the start of the Libyan civil war in 2011.

Both Butt, whose family were from Pakistan, and Redouane lived in nearby Barking, where both had young children.

Redouane, who claimed to be from both Morocco and Libya, had been denied asylum in the UK in 2009 but moved back to London after gaining an EU residency card by marrying a woman in Ireland.

While she was at work he used to come here with friends, a neighbour told The Sun.

I think they used the flat to plan the attack [] on Saturday he was here with Khumar Butt.

CCTV footage captured the trio laughing, joking and hugging at a gym in Ilford five days before the atrocity.

Butt, Redouane and Zaghba gathered shortly after midnight on 29 May at the Ummah Fitness Centre.

Redouane left his mobile phone on a pile of building materials before they disappeared for around 10 minutes, suggesting the plotters were wary of surveillance.

The Ummah Fitness Centre in Ilford where the three attackers met days before the atrocity (AFP/Getty Images)

Ummah Fitness Centre, which operates a gender-segregated timetable and remains open until 3am for fasting Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan, said it was shocked and saddened by the London Bridge attack.

While Mr Butt did occasionally train here at UFC gym, we do not know him well nor did we see anything of concern. We will of course help the police in any way we can, said a statement posted on its door.

The gym, whose name refers to the Muslim community, could not be reached to confirm reports that Butt ran its mixed martial arts classes.

A member of the Ummah Fitness Centre, who said Butt had enrolled him three weeks ago, reported that he looked troubled in the lead-up to the attack.

The man said Butt would normally be friendly, greeting him when he arrived for sessions, but increasingly appeared blank.

He was very quiet as well, he was not speaking with strangers, he added.

He speaks only with his guys, people with robes [] I last saw him two weeks ago. Sometimes when you spoke with him he would not respond to you, he was blank.

The first time I saw him in the gym he was not like that, he was normal. But after a couple of days he was worried about something, but I don't know what about.

"When I spoke with him he wasnt responding."

The gym is reportedly run by Sajeel Shahid, who has been named as a senior member of Choudarys banned extremist network Al-Muhajiroun by FBI agents.

People view flowers and tributes near the scene of the London Bridge attacks (Getty Images)

An extremist-turned supergrass said Shahid and his brother helped set up terror training camps in Pakistan and safe houses for British jihadis.

Among the graduates was the ringleader of the 7/7 attacks, Mohammed Siddique Khan, while Shahid was also named in the trial of seven plotters who attempted to bomb the Bluewater Centre and Ministry of Sound.

Fresh arrests were made in Ilford overnight, where armed police detained two men on a street and a third during searches of a home.

Two of the men, aged 27 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, while a 33-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs.

They are among a total of five suspects in custody as searches continue at the house and an unidentified business address in Ilford, believed to be the Ummah Fitness Centre.

Witnesses reported that computer equipment had been taken away from the gym, with the road cordoned off as plain-clothed police took evidence away.

Isis has claimed responsibility for the attacks in London Bridge, Manchester and Westminster, having released detailed instructions on how to carry out massacres using vehicles and knives.

An issue of the groups Rumiyah propaganda magazine published on Thursday hailed Butt, Redouane and Zaghba as Islamic State soldiers, giving them the war names of Abu Sadiq al-Britani, Abu Mujahid al-Britani, and Abu Yusuf al-Britani.

All eight people killed in the massacre have now been officially identified, while a further 10 victims remain in a critical condition in hospital.

Additional reporting by PA
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The Manchester bombers brother has said he was radicalised in the UK two years before he launched a terror attack in the name of Isis.

Libyan officials said Hashem Abedi, who was arrested in Tripoli following the atrocity, also confirmed British police claims he brought materials for his device in the UK.

Ahmed bin Salem, a spokesperson for the Government of National Accords counter-terror force, said Hashem admitted knowing of his brothers plans but did not know where they would be carried out.

Salman Abedi killed 22 people, including seven children, when he detonated a homemade bomb amid Ariana Grande fans leaving a concert at Manchester Arena.

Hashem said that he and Salman got the ideology of Daesh [Isis] in Manchester in 2015 from the internet and some friends in the UK, said Mr bin Salem.

He added that they used to watch videos and had sympathy for children in Syria and wanted to do something for Daesh to help.

 Manchester bomber Salman Abedi's cousins speak out

Officials said the two British brothers flew to Libya, where their parents were originally from , on 18 April but Salman left around a week before the attack while claiming he was going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Abedi flew to Turkey but then doubled back across Europe, flying via Dusseldorf to arrive in Manchester on 18 May.

Hashem said all necessary things were purchased for the bomb in Britain.

Experts told The Independent the deadly device could easily have been constructed in the four days between Abedi returning from Libya and launching the attack, with Greater Manchester Police saying the bomber made core purchases himself.

He phoned Tripoli before the attack to say goodbye to his family, Mr bin Salem said, adding: Salman phoned Hashem's phone on the day of the attack to talk with his family.

The mother had refused to talk with him because they were angry with him as he lied.

Hashem knew about the attack and convinced his mother to talk to him.

Manchester explosion in pictures Show all 37 1 /37 Manchester explosion in pictures Manchester explosion in pictures People running down stairs as they attempt to exit the Manchester Arena after a blast, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester Twitter/@ZACH_BRUCE/ via REUTERS Manchester explosion in pictures Helpers attend to people inside the Manchester Arena after a suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people PA wire Manchester explosion in pictures Armed officers guard outside a hotel near the Manchester Arena following reports of an explosion, in Manchester, Britain EPA Manchester explosion in pictures Police officers are seen outside the Manchester Arena, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester, northern England Reuters Manchester explosion in pictures Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures AFP/Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police and fans close to the Manchester Arena, after reports of an explosion Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures There have been reports of explosions at Manchester Arena where Ariana Grande had performed Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police deploy at scene of explosion in Manchester, England, at a concert in Manchester Arena AFP/Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police stand by a cordoned off street close to the Manchester Arena Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police deploy at scene of explosion in Manchester, England AFP/Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police deploy at scene of a reported explosion during a concert in Manchester, England, on May 23, 2017. British police said early May 23 there were "a number of confirmed fatalities" after reports of at least one explosion during a pop concert by US singer Ariana Grande. Ambulances were seen rushing to the Manchester Arena venue and police added in a statement that people should avoid the area AFP/Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures An ambulance drives away from the Manchester Arena, where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester Reuters Manchester explosion in pictures Police escort members of the public from the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures A woman sits in the street in a blanket near the Manchester Arena as police guard the area following reports of an explosion, in Manchester, Britain EPA Manchester explosion in pictures Two women wrapped in thermal blankets stand near the Manchester Arena, where US singer Ariana Grande had been performing, in Manchester Reuters Manchester explosion in pictures A Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) bomb disposal robot is unloaded outside the Manchester Arena following reports of an explosion, in Manchester. At least 19 people have been confirmed dead and others 50 were injured, authorities said. It is being treated as a terrorist incident until police know otherwise EPA Manchester explosion in pictures A Royal Logistic Corps (RLC) bomb disposal robot is unloaded outside the Manchester Arena following reports of an explosion, in Manchester EPA Manchester explosion in pictures Members of the public receive treatment from emergency service staff at Victoria Railway Station close to the Manchester Arena on May 23, 2017 in Manchester, England. There have been reports of explosions at Manchester Arena where Ariana Grande had performed this evening. Greater Manchester Police have have confirmed there are fatalities and warned people to stay away from the area Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Armed police after a suspected terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena at the end of a concert by US star Ariana Grande left 19 dead PA wire Manchester explosion in pictures Emergency services arrive close to the Manchester Arena in Manchester Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures An amoured police vehicle patrols near Manchester Arena in Manchester Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures A man carries a young girl on his shoulders near Victoria station in Manchester AFP/Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police officers stand at the Miller Street and Corporation Street Crossroads, in front of the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police block a road near to the Manchester Arena in central Manchester, England AP Manchester explosion in pictures Armed police patrol near Victoria station in Manchester, northwest England. Twenty two people have been killed and dozens injured after a suspected suicide bomber targeted fans leaving a concert of US singer Ariana Grande in Manchester Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Police forensic officers leave the Manchester Arena as they investigate the scene of an explosion in Manchester Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures A forensic officer collects evidence on a walkway between Victoria station and Manchester Arena following a deadly terror attack in Manchester, Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures A woman and a young girl wearing a t-shirt of US singer Ariana Grande talks to police near Manchester Arena following a deadly terror attack in Manchester, Getty Manchester explosion in pictures EPA Manchester explosion in pictures Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham and Manchester City Council Leader Sir Richard Leese speak to the media outside Manchester Town Hall after a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including children, as an explosion tore through fans leaving a pop concert in Manchester Dave Higgens/PA Wire Manchester explosion in pictures The media gather behind a police cordon in Manchester Getty Images Manchester explosion in pictures Flowers left close to the Manchester Arena, the morning after a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including children, as an explosion tore through fans leaving a pop concert in Manchester Danny Lawson/PA Wire Manchester explosion in pictures Ariana Grande concert attendees Karen Moore and her daughter Molly Steed, aged 14, from Derby, leave the Park Inn where they were given refuge after last night's explosion at Manchester Arena Getty Manchester explosion in pictures Signs saying 'We love Manchester' are displayed in a window in Manchester, England Getty Images

Abedis mother told investigators her son had asked for forgiveness but she had not understood why at the time.

It was not possible to verify what conditions the Abedis were questioned under or whether they had access to legal representation, although British consular officials have been granted access.

Libyas Special Deterrence Force (Rada) previously said Hashem had been plotting an attack in Tripoli, and told investigators he spent time in Germany working as a driver between December last year and his return in April.

Hashem and his father Ramadan, who moved the family back to the Libya following the outbreak of the countrys civil war, remain in custody after being arrested by police in Tripoli.

Abedis mother said both sons had been taken to the frontlines of the conflict as Ramadan fought against Muammar Gaddafis forces.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Independent that Abedi developed extremist beliefs while in Manchester, but that the violence he was exposed to in Libya was a key part of the path to launching the attack.

He was known to security services as an associate of Isis recruiter Raphael Hostey, also from the city, who was killed in a drone strike in Syria last year.

Ramadan Abedi, the father of Salman Abedi (Reuters ) (Reuters)

Other prolific militants from Manchester include Abdalraouf Abdallah who was jailed last year for attempting to help fellow jihadis reach Isis territories in Syria after being shot and paralysed during the Libyan uprising.

Abedi also reportedly met Isis-linked fighters in the Katibat al-Battar al-Libi group during his visits to Tripoli and the coastal city of Sabratha.

A retired European intelligence officer told the New York Times that Abedi kept in contact with the militants after returning to Manchester.

Members of the group, which was originally formed by Libyan jihadis fighting in Syria in 2012, include Paris attacks ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Battar brigade fighters who moved back to Libya set up terror training camps, with the Isis gunman who killed 30 British tourists on a beach in Tunisia among their graduates.

Europol has warned Libya could develop into a second springboard for Isis attacks in the EU and the North Africa as the group loses territory in Syria and Iraq.

Abedi had a relatively minor criminal record as a teenager but was not known to police for holding extremist views, appearing on police logs in 2012 over offences of theft, receiving stolen goods and assault.

A CCTV image dated 18/5/2017 showing Salman Abedi before he carried out the Manchester attack (Greater Manchester Police)

Acquaintances said he was previously linked to gangs, smoked cannabis and drank but came back from Libya a completely different guy, later hanging a black Islamist flag from his home and referring to Brits as infidels who were unjust to Arabs.

The same transformation has been documented in many of Europes deadliest terrorists, including petty criminals and drug dealers in the Isis super cell behind the Paris and Brussels attacks.

Nine suspects remain in custody over the attack in the UK, where a 20-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of terror offences after handing himself into police on Wednesday.

Two of the other arrests came on Tuesday, with a 20-year-old being held in Harpurhey, and a 38-year-old being detained at Heathrow Airport as part of a planned operation, both on suspicion of terrorism offences.

Police have released 12 people without charge, including an 18-year-old man understood to be Abedi's cousin and his older brother, Ismail.

Greater Manchester Police said they had found significant evidence in a car where Abedi may have stored items used to assemble his improvised explosive device.

The inquests into the deaths of the victims, who include seven children, are due to begin on Friday at Manchester Civil Justice Centre.

Anyone with information is asked to call the anti-terror hotline anonymously on 0800 789321 or send images and footage to police by visiting the UK Police Image Appeal website.
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Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross station have been evacuated by armed police over a "suspicious item".

The Metropolitan Police said a suspect package was found on Duncannon Street, which connects the busy central London train terminus with Trafalgar Square.

In a statement, a Met spokesman said: "Police were called at 2.40pm (BST) to a suspicious item in Duncannon Street in WC2

"Specialist officers are in attendance and cordons are in place. As a precaution Charing Cross station has been closed."

An hour later, at 3.40pm BST, the Met said the incident was over and all roads had been reopend.

Traffic is running smoothly and officers are leaving the scene, the Met confirmed.

There were no further details about what caused the evacuation, but the force said it was not terror related.

For a short time Charing Cross Road was closed northbound between Trafalgar Square and Cranbourn Street due to a police incident", Transport for London said.

Ten bus routes  6, 9, 11, 15, 23, 24, 29, 91, 139, 176  were temporarily diverted.
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Dozens of voters have been denied the chance to cast their ballots in a marginal seat amid claims of administrative errors.

Postal votes were reportedly not sent out and some potential voters, including students, were turned away from polling stations.

Paul Farrelly, the Labour candidate for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said he planned to refer the council to the Electoral Commission over the shambles, which he said had prevented at least 50 people from voting.

The Independent has heard from student voters who were turned away from a polling station near Keele University despite having registered to vote online.

Recommended Admin errors deny voters chance to cast ballot in election

Jonathan Price, 21, said he was told his name was not on the electoral roll when he arrived to vote on Thursday morning. Other people he knew had experienced similar problems, he said.

It could actually make the difference here, he said.

Newcastle-under-Lyme was won by Mr Farrelly in 2015 with a vote share of 38.4 per cent. The Tory candidate came second with 36.9 per cent of the vote.

Mr Price said he was eventually able to vote after calling a council hotline, but others would not know to contact the local authority directly and would have left the polling station without voting.

It is claimed that in some areas, the printed electoral registers used in polling stations were out of date and did not include those who had recently registered.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

Several students used the Keele University Freshers Facebook page to complain that they had also been turned away.

One wrote: There is apparently nothing anybody can do  I just cant vote.

Recommended Voters share photos of dogs at polling stations as they cast ballots

Another said: Its an absolute joke. Glad Ill never have to vote here again.

Mr Farrelly said: The Electoral Services Department here in Newcastle is a shambles and there is chaos, which is denying people votes on a scale unprecedented in my 30 years fighting and organising elections.

We have spent the past week fire fighting on over scores of postal votes, which have not arrived, and we not only have lots of registration applications that have not been processed, but people  including students  being turned away when they are indeed registered.

The Independent contacted Newcastle-under-Lyme council but had not received a response at the time of publication.

Claims of voters being turned away in the Midlands follow reports of admin errors preventing voters in London from casting their ballots.

 Party leaders cast their election votes

John Fairhurst, who lives in the Finchley and Golders Green seat, which is ranked as the 65th most marginal of the Tories 331 seats, registered to vote on the Governments website on deadline day but was later told he would not be able to vote.

It is impossible to maintain any faith in the current system, Mr Fairhurst said.

Every vote counts in this election and I demand the right to be able to cast the vote for which I registered.

His experience was echoed by others, including Rachel Allmand, who claimed she was denied a vote after an admin error by Waltham Forest council.

She told The Independent she was also denied an emergency proxy vote and would be unable to cast her ballot.

Hundreds of voters in Plymouth were also left without postal voting forms just days before the election.

Plymouth City Council said it had reissued around 370 replacement ballot packs to those who contacted them.
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A candidate for the Womens Equality Party has been left distressed and disturbed after she received a vitriolic letter of racist and misogynistic abuse which was signed Jo Cox.

Nimco Ali, a vocal female genital mutilation campaigner, recieved the handwritten death threat referring to the horrific murder of Labour MP Ms Cox at the party's headquarters in Southwark.

Ms Ali, the partys candidate in Hornsey and Wood Green, told The Independent her massive personal respect for Ms Cox, who was shot and stabbed multiple times by right-wing extremist Thomas Mair last June, made the letter considerably harder to deal with.

She said: It was difficult having known Jo Cox personally and respected her so much. Im familiar with abuse and received stuff like that for eight years as an activist but this shocked me. Its just words on a paper it just takes one idiot to act on it.

Its crippling to receive a death threat. I dont think the people who send these things realise the affect it will have or maybe theyre fully aware and get kicks. I am worried for my safety.

Catherine Mayer, the co-founder of the WEP, said Ms Ali had received a great deal of abuse in the recent weeks leading up to the election but this was the worst instance.

Ms Mayer said: At first Nimco was resilient as always but when I told her how it was signed, she was shaken up. It was handwritten and in capital letters. It included racist, Islamophobic and misogynistic stuff and was extremely nasty.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

Police were called to the partys London offices after staff said they were bombarded with threatening and abusive phone calls on Tuesday.

The unidentified male callers were shouting angry and abusive stuff and throwing insults. It was terrifying. The women have been left shaken up, Ms Mayer explained.

There are women in the office at all times but it is scary to be there. This shows how much we need a womans equality party.

According to Ms Meyer, one man informed two staff who were alone in the office that he was ten minutes away and then read out the party offices address before telling them they should be scared.

Abusive phone calls to @WEP_UK so bad & prolific that police advise upgrading phone security, Ms Mayer wrote on Twitter.

The contemptible attempts to frighten @WEP_UK into silence *do* frighten us but wont silence us. They strengthen our resolve.

After colleagues notified Ms Ali of the letter, she tweeted: Just got a call from my team that a letter full of racist abuse & threats signed "Jo Cox" was delivered to our office for me. I am shaken.

I have spent the last 10 years risking my life to Ends #FGM and I have lost so much to ensure this world is free of abuse and hate.

A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said they had received a call on Tuesday shortly before 1.40 am. "An appointment has been scheduled to take a report from the complainant, they said.
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Jeremy Corbyn could be on course to become the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, according to the general election exit poll.

The shock poll predicts the Conservatives will fall short of an overall majority, despite beginning the campaign with a huge lead.

As leader of the party that seems certain to win the most seats, Theresa May will have the first opportunity to form a government.

However, should she prove unable to pass key legislation such as a budget or Queen's Speech, Mr Corbyn could be asked by the Queen to attempt to form a government in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, SNP and Greens.

The exit poll suggests such a coalition would have 323 seats, which, if Sinn Fein follows its tradition of not taking its seats in Parliament, would be enough for a tiny majority. In contrast, the Conservatives are predicted to have won 314 seats.

The poll, conducted by election expert Professor John Curtice for the BBC, Sky and ITV, stunned the country by predicting Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election could have backfired.

However, the 2015 exit poll underestimated support for the Conservatives and predicted they would win 15 fewer seats than they actually did. Should that prove to be true again, Ms May would have a majority similar to the one she held before the election.

UK Election Day 2017 Show all 38 1 /38 UK Election Day 2017 UK Election Day 2017 Door of Number 10 Downing Street is seen on the morning after Britain's election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home in north London after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should "go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country" PA UK Election Day 2017 Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell arrives at Labour Headquarters on June 9, 2017 in London, England. After a snap election was called by Prime Minister Theresa May the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday. The closely fought election has failed to return a clear overall majority winner and a hung parliament has been declared Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Caroline Lucas, co-leader of Britain's Green Party, speaks after retaining her seat in the general election, in Brighton REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Patrons watch the results for Britain's election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Leader of the Liberal democrats Tim Farron celebrates beating Conservative party candidate James Airey (R) following the announcement of the results at the Westmoorland and Lonsdale constituency count at Kendal Leisure Centre on June 9, 2017 in Kendal, United Kingdom. After a snap election was called, the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday following a closely fought election. The results from across the country are being counted and an overall result is expected in the early hours Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Paul Nuttal, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party reacts after failing to win the seat of Boston and Skegness at the counting centre for Britain's general election in Boston REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election. PA UK Election Day 2017 Anna McMorrin hugs Jo Stevens MP after winning Cardiff North for Labour at the Sport Wales National Centre on June 9, 2017 in Cardiff, United Kingdom. After a snap election was called, the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday following a closely fought election. The results from across the country are being counted and an overall result is expected in the early hours Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Vince Cable wins the Twickenham election for the Liberal Democrats. Richmond and Twickenham election Rex Features UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn rubs his face after arriving for the declaration at his constituency in London AP UK Election Day 2017 Emily Thornberry speaks after holding her Islington South and Finsbury seat at the Sobell Leisure Centre in Islington, north London PA UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May listens as the declaration at her constituency is made for in the general election in Maidenhead, England, Friday, June 9, 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election appeared Friday to have backfired spectacularly, after an exit poll suggested her Conservative Party could lose its majority in Parliament AP UK Election Day 2017 Labour Party candidate Emily Thornberry smiles at a counting centre for BritainaAAs general election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 A picture shows the Elizabeth Tower, commonly referred to as Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament in central London on June 8, 2017, on the night of Britain's general election. Prime Minister Theresa May is poised to win Britain's snap election but lose her parliamentary majority, a shock exit poll suggested on June 8, in what would be a major blow for her leadership as Brexit talks loom AFP/Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffrey Donaldson celebrates following his election at the Eikon Exhibition Centre in Lisburn as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd attends the count for her seat at a counting centre for Britain's general election in Hastings REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Ballots are counted at a counting centre for BritainaAAs general election in London Reuters UK Election Day 2017 The London Eye is illuminated in blue, representing the Conservative Party, after the first exit polls announced in Britain's general election AP UK Election Day 2017 Election officials count votes in the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK Election Day 2017 The London Eye is illuminated in red, the color of the Labour Party, after first exit polls of Britain's national election announced in London AP UK Election Day 2017 BBC Television centre is illuminated with the exit poll results for Britains general election Eddie Keogh/Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Labours Bridget Phillipson (centre) smiles after being announced as the winner of the election for the constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South at a counting centre Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Members of the election staff prepare to count ballots, in Theresa Mays constituency in Maidenhead AP UK Election Day 2017 Ballot papers are checked ahead of the count at the Westmoorland and Lonsdale constituency count at Kendal Leisure Centre Getty UK Election Day 2017 Ballots are counted at a counting centre for Britains general election in Kendal Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Theresa May arrives to vote at a polling station in Maidenhead AP UK Election Day 2017 Jeremy Corbyn arrives to cast his ballot at a polling station in north London EPA UK Election Day 2017 Lib Dems leader Tim Farron outside a polling station at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal, Cumbria PA UK Election Day 2017 The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) Paul Nuttall arrives to vote at a polling station in Congleton Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon with her husband Peter Murrell (left) the CEO of the SNP after casting their votes at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall, Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK Election Day 2017 Caroline Lucas, co-leader of Britains Green Party, arrives with her husband Richard Savage, to vote in Brighton Reuters UK Election Day 2017 An advertising van showing caricatures of Tim Farron, Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Nuttall with the message who will be looking for a new job as Britain goes to the polls to elect a new government Rex UK Election Day 2017 Performers pose with puppet caricatures of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Tim Farron and leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, in front of the Palace of Westminster Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Dogs wait for their owner outside a polling station in Penally, Wales Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Police officers speak with a Labour Party activist outside a polling station in London AP UK Election Day 2017 Benedictine nuns from Tyburn Convent leave after voting in Britain's general election at a polling station in St John's Parish Hall, London AP UK Election Day 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty

If the poll is correct, though, Mr Corbyn could find himself set for Number Ten. Labour has ruled out forming a formal coalition but could find itself as the biggest party in an informal "confidence and supply" arrangement in which the other parties support a Labour budget and Queen's Speech but do not formally take part in the government.

The Liberal Democrats have said they will not form any formal coalitions in the case of a hung parliament, while the SNP has said it would be willing to be part of a "progressive coalition".

Nicola Sturgeon, the party's leader, previously told the BBC: If there was to be a hung Parliament of course we would look to be part of a progressive alliance that pursued progressive policies.

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell re-iterated the party's position on Thursday night, telling the BBC: "Tim Farron made it very clear: he said no pact, no deal, no coalition. Weve had our fingers burned by coalition, I dont need to tell you that."

"I find it very, very difficult to see how Tim Farron would be able to go back on what hes previously said and indeed to persuade the membership of the Liberal Democrats that a coalition would be a good idea from our point of view."

Green Party co-leader Caroline Lucas said she would be willing to help support a Labour-led coalition.

More follows...
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People in one of Britains most marginal constituencies have reportedly been turned away from polling stations despite having polling cards.

Voters in Plymouth have called the situation a joke and demanded a re-election after they arrived to cast their ballot only to be told their names were not on the electoral register.

The centre of the Devon city is the Conservative constituency of Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport  won by a majority of just 523 at the last general election.

The error follows a postal vote mix-up in Plymouth that left more than 1,500 people unable to vote when their postal voting packs went missing.

Plymouth City Council said it was urgently investigating the postal vote disruption, which it blamed on an IT issue.

One man, who has lived in the constituency for more than three decades and said he has voted at every general election, told the Plymouth Herald he had been told his name was not on the electoral register.

Anthony Prynn said the incident had left him flaming and said he had notified the council of the situation and was told to wait for a call back. It is a joke, he said.

I waited for two hours for a call back, and have phoned five times altogether, but I haven't heard anything, said Mr Prynn. They will have to have a re-election.

Other residents told the newspaper they knew of people who had been refused a vote even with their polling cards in their hand, with one couple saying they had registered for one of them to be the others proxy, but only one was on the register.

A Council spokesperson said: "At any election, a number of issues can crop up. This is often down to people not being registered to vote."

The statement, issued just before polls closed, urged anyone who had not been able to vote to contact the council's election team.

UK Election Day 2017 Show all 38 1 /38 UK Election Day 2017 UK Election Day 2017 Door of Number 10 Downing Street is seen on the morning after Britain's election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn leaves his home in north London after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should "go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country" PA UK Election Day 2017 Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell arrives at Labour Headquarters on June 9, 2017 in London, England. After a snap election was called by Prime Minister Theresa May the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday. The closely fought election has failed to return a clear overall majority winner and a hung parliament has been declared Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Caroline Lucas, co-leader of Britain's Green Party, speaks after retaining her seat in the general election, in Brighton REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Patrons watch the results for Britain's election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Leader of the Liberal democrats Tim Farron celebrates beating Conservative party candidate James Airey (R) following the announcement of the results at the Westmoorland and Lonsdale constituency count at Kendal Leisure Centre on June 9, 2017 in Kendal, United Kingdom. After a snap election was called, the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday following a closely fought election. The results from across the country are being counted and an overall result is expected in the early hours Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Paul Nuttal, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party reacts after failing to win the seat of Boston and Skegness at the counting centre for Britain's general election in Boston REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election. PA UK Election Day 2017 Anna McMorrin hugs Jo Stevens MP after winning Cardiff North for Labour at the Sport Wales National Centre on June 9, 2017 in Cardiff, United Kingdom. After a snap election was called, the United Kingdom went to the polls yesterday following a closely fought election. The results from across the country are being counted and an overall result is expected in the early hours Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 Vince Cable wins the Twickenham election for the Liberal Democrats. Richmond and Twickenham election Rex Features UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn rubs his face after arriving for the declaration at his constituency in London AP UK Election Day 2017 Emily Thornberry speaks after holding her Islington South and Finsbury seat at the Sobell Leisure Centre in Islington, north London PA UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May listens as the declaration at her constituency is made for in the general election in Maidenhead, England, Friday, June 9, 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May's gamble in calling an early election appeared Friday to have backfired spectacularly, after an exit poll suggested her Conservative Party could lose its majority in Parliament AP UK Election Day 2017 Labour Party candidate Emily Thornberry smiles at a counting centre for BritainaAAs general election in London REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 A picture shows the Elizabeth Tower, commonly referred to as Big Ben, and the Houses of Parliament in central London on June 8, 2017, on the night of Britain's general election. Prime Minister Theresa May is poised to win Britain's snap election but lose her parliamentary majority, a shock exit poll suggested on June 8, in what would be a major blow for her leadership as Brexit talks loom AFP/Getty Images UK Election Day 2017 DUP candidate for Lagan Valley Jeffrey Donaldson celebrates following his election at the Eikon Exhibition Centre in Lisburn as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK Election Day 2017 Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd attends the count for her seat at a counting centre for Britain's general election in Hastings REUTERS UK Election Day 2017 Ballots are counted at a counting centre for BritainaAAs general election in London Reuters UK Election Day 2017 The London Eye is illuminated in blue, representing the Conservative Party, after the first exit polls announced in Britain's general election AP UK Election Day 2017 Election officials count votes in the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK Election Day 2017 The London Eye is illuminated in red, the color of the Labour Party, after first exit polls of Britain's national election announced in London AP UK Election Day 2017 BBC Television centre is illuminated with the exit poll results for Britains general election Eddie Keogh/Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Labours Bridget Phillipson (centre) smiles after being announced as the winner of the election for the constituency of Houghton and Sunderland South at a counting centre Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Members of the election staff prepare to count ballots, in Theresa Mays constituency in Maidenhead AP UK Election Day 2017 Ballot papers are checked ahead of the count at the Westmoorland and Lonsdale constituency count at Kendal Leisure Centre Getty UK Election Day 2017 Ballots are counted at a counting centre for Britains general election in Kendal Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Theresa May arrives to vote at a polling station in Maidenhead AP UK Election Day 2017 Jeremy Corbyn arrives to cast his ballot at a polling station in north London EPA UK Election Day 2017 Lib Dems leader Tim Farron outside a polling station at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal, Cumbria PA UK Election Day 2017 The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) Paul Nuttall arrives to vote at a polling station in Congleton Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon with her husband Peter Murrell (left) the CEO of the SNP after casting their votes at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall, Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK Election Day 2017 Caroline Lucas, co-leader of Britains Green Party, arrives with her husband Richard Savage, to vote in Brighton Reuters UK Election Day 2017 An advertising van showing caricatures of Tim Farron, Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn and Paul Nuttall with the message who will be looking for a new job as Britain goes to the polls to elect a new government Rex UK Election Day 2017 Performers pose with puppet caricatures of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party Tim Farron and leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, in front of the Palace of Westminster Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Dogs wait for their owner outside a polling station in Penally, Wales Reuters UK Election Day 2017 Police officers speak with a Labour Party activist outside a polling station in London AP UK Election Day 2017 Benedictine nuns from Tyburn Convent leave after voting in Britain's general election at a polling station in St John's Parish Hall, London AP UK Election Day 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty

Regarding the postal vote situation, Council says it has reissued around 370 replacement ballot packs to those who have contacted them, and urged anyone whose remain missing to call their offices.

The local authority claimed it had sent out all the forms in accordance with the regulations, adding that this had been confirmed by our printers. Both it and Royal Mail are now investigating.

Those who applied before the 23 May deadline and have not yet received them can order replacement packs via special delivery on the same day, go in to the council offices during select times on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday or nominate someone to collect it for them, the council said.

Several people took to social media to complain about the issues.

Elliot Phillips, 25, is due to go on holiday before election day, and described the problems as an absolute joke, saying: People are essentially being robbed of their right to vote.
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Polling stations have opened for the most important event of the general election  polling day.

Following a highly unusual campaign that was blighted by terror attacks, security around the centres has been increased.

How this 24-hour-period plays out will decide how the UK is governed for the next five years. Here is a rundown of how it is expected to proceed.

When do polls open and close?

Polling stations  usually in public buildings such as schools and community centres  opened at 7am on Thursday.

Party leaders are expected to cast their ballots throughout the day, with many photo opportunities along the way.

Voting closes at 10pm, but if voters are queuing when the deadline strikes, they will still get a chance to cast their ballots. Then counting begins.

When does TV coverage start?

BBC, Sky News, ITV and Channel 4 are all planning live election coverage. David Dimbleby will host an election programme from 9.55pm through to 7am on Friday on BBC 1.

ITVs coverage will also start just before 10pm and will continue to 6am, hosted by Tom Bradby.

Jeremy Paxman will present Channel 4's coverage from midnight until 6am and Sky News will have live coverage throughout the night, hosted by Adam Boulton and Sophy Ridge.

The best Google Doodles Show all 50 1 /50 The best Google Doodles The best Google Doodles Mister Rogers Google Doodle celebrating children's TV presenter Mister Rogers Google The best Google Doodles Lucy Wills Google Doodle celebrating haematologist Lucy Wills Google The best Google Doodles Falafel Google Doodle celebrating falafel Google The best Google Doodles St George's Day Google Doodle celebrating St George's Day Google The best Google Doodles James Wong Howe Google Doodle celebrating Hollywood golden age cinematographer James Wong Howe Google The best Google Doodles Seiichi Miyake Google Doodle celebrating Seiichi Miyake, developer of tactile paving Google The best Google Doodles Walter Cronkite Google celebrates US broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite's 100th birthday The best Google Doodles Lantern Festival 2016 Google celebrates the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a doodle of the Lantern Festival Google The best Google Doodles Google Doodle celebrating 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Doodle celebrating Thanksgiving 2018 Google The best Google Doodles Nigerian Independence Day Google Doodle celebrating Nigerian Independence Day Google The best Google Doodles Mary Prince Google Doodle celebrating abolitionist Mary Prince Google The best Google Doodles Father's Day 2016 Google celebrates Father's Day The best Google Doodles Ebenezer Cobb Morley Google Doodle celebrating "father of football" Ebenezer Cobb Morley Google The best Google Doodles Octavia E Butler Google Doodle celebrating science fiction author Octavia E Butler Google The best Google Doodles Tamara de Lempicka Google Doodle celebrating painter Tamara de Lempicka Google The best Google Doodles Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss Google Doodle celebrating mathematician and physicist Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss Google The best Google Doodles Fanny Blankers-Koen Google Doodle celebrating Dutch Olympic gold medalist Fanny Blankers-Koen Google The best Google Doodles John Harrison Google Doodle celebrating clockmaker John Harrison Google The best Google Doodles Guillermo Haro Google Doodle celebrating astronomer Guillermo Haro Google The best Google Doodles St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google The best Google Doodles Carter G Woodson Google Doodle celebrating Carter G Woodson, a pioneering African-American historian Google The best Google Doodles St Andrew's Day Google Doodle celebrating St Andrew's Day Google The best Google Doodles Gertrude Jekyll Google Doodle celebrating horticulturist Gertrude Jekyll Google The best Google Doodles Children's Day 2017 Google Doodle celebrating Children's Day 2017 Google The best Google Doodles Studio for Electronic Music Google Doodle celebrating the Studio for Electronic Music Google The best Google Doodles Olaudah Equiano Google Doodle celebrating abolitionist Olaudah Equiano Google The best Google Doodles Fridtjof Nansen Google Doodle celebrating Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen Google The best Google Doodles Ladislao Jose Biro Google celebrates Ladislao Jose Biro's 117th birthday The best Google Doodles Amalia Hernandez Google Doodle celebrating ballet choreographer Amalia Hernandez Google The best Google Doodles Dr Samuel Johnson Google Doodle celebrating lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson Google The best Google Doodles British Sign Language Google Doodle celebrating British Sign Language Google The best Google Doodles Eduard Khil Google Doodle celebrating baritone singer Eduard Khil Google The best Google Doodles Fourth of July Google Doodle celebrating Fourth of July Google The best Google Doodles Victor Hugo Google Doodle celebrating author Victor Hugo Google The best Google Doodles Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google Doodle celebrating Giro d'Italia's 100th Anniversary Google The best Google Doodles Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. Patrick's Day Google The best Google Doodles Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google Doodle celebrating St. David's Day Google The best Google Doodles Steve Biko Today's Google Doodle features anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko Google The best Google Doodles The history of tea in Britain Google celebrates the 385th anniversary of tea in the UK The best Google Doodles Nettie Stevens Google celebrates geneticist Nettie Stevens 155th birthday The best Google Doodles William Morris Google celebrates English polymath William Morris' 182 birthday with a doodle showcasing his most famous designs Google The best Google Doodles Professor Scoville Google marks Professor Scovilles 151st birthday The best Google Doodles Sophie Taeuber-Arp Google marks artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp's 127th birthday

What time are the exit polls?

The exit poll  a survey of voters leaving polling stations  will be published at 10pm on Thursday. Exit polling correctly predicted the winners of the last four elections, although its record on predicting the exact number of seats each party wins is less reliable.

When will we get the first results?

Sunderland has historically been the first to announce its results, winning the race to count its ballots at every election since 1992. The result from Houghton and Sunderland South is expected around 45 minutes after polls close, owing to its finely-tuned counting system.

The next results are expected to trickle in slowly. At around 1am around 12 results will have been announced. This should indicate whether the exit poll is right.

When will we get the bulk of the results?

Around 1am is also when the first Labour-held marginal seats will be announced, such as Nuneaton in Warwickshire. If the Conservatives win these, it will indicate Theresa May is on course to win a sizable majority.

Results from Scotland will start coming in around 2am. How successful the SNP has been at defending its seats should become apparent.

Conservative marginal seats should also be announced around 2am. If the Tories lose some of these it indicates the party is in danger of losing its majority.

Then at 2.30am, Jeremy Corbyn's Islington North constituency will declare.

At about 3am the results are expected to be flooding in, giving a fuller picture of the final result.

Around 4am, Theresa May's constituency in Maidenhead, Berkshire, will declare its result.

Paul Nuttall  leader of Ukip  will find out if has successfully become an MP at about 5am, when the results from Boston and Skegness are expected.

Caroline Lucas will discover if she retained her seat, Brighton Pavillion, at about 6am. At a similar time, Tim Farron will find out if he has won his seat of Westmorland and Lonsdale.

St Ives in Cornwall is traditionally the last seat of all 650 to declare its result.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. Stormont and the political situation in Northern Ireland has been in limbo following the collapse of the power sharing executive due to the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme scandal which implicated the DUP Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Priti Patel, International Development Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Larry the Downing Street cat runs ahead of Michael Fallon Britain's Secretary of State for Defence as he arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, June 12, 2017. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth REUTERS UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Michael Gove, Environment Secretary leaves 10 Downing Street on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 Scottish National Party Leader Nicola Sturgeon (C) leaves after speaking to the media in Parliament Square. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May (C, L) holds the first Cabinet meeting of her new team. Getty UK General Election 2017 11 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May attends church in her constituency with her husband Philip May, a few days after disappointing results in a general election. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn leaves Labour Party HQ this morning, following a general election yesterday. Parliament is hung, with no individual party gaining an overall majority. Post general election reaction. Rex UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - JUNE 09: DUP leader and Northern Ireland former First Minister Arlene Foster (C) holds a brief press conference with the DUP's newly elected Westminster candidates who stood in the general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A " Get May Out" demo took place opposite the gates of Downing Street, calling for May to resign, after the shock election results and Mays coalition with the DUP. Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A policer officer enters a polling station in London AP UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A woman leaves after casting her vote at the Hove Museum and Art Gallery near Brighton, in southern England Getty UK General Election 2017 8 June 2017 A polling station sign is seen on a telephone box outside the polling station at Rotherwick Hall, west of London Getty UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 A woman walks past a general election display in the window of a betting shop in Camden on June 7, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow, Getty Images UK General Election 2017 7 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May visits Atherley Bowling Club during an election campaign visit on June 7, 2017 in Southampton, England. Britain goes to the polls tomorrow June 8 to vote in a general election. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 Election workers, George Gaunt and Luca Tragid deliver the first ballot boxes, on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh AFP UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May meets with Conservative party supporters during an election campaign visit to a bakery during an election campaign visit on June 6, 2017 in Fleetwood, north-west England. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another terrorist attack on the nation's capital Getty Images UK General Election 2017 5 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a general election campaign visit to a removals depot in Edinburgh AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Pro-Independence supporters hold a march through Glasgow AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn campaigns for the upcoming general election in Beeston, Nottinghamshire AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 3 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts to supporters after a rally at Beeston Youth and Community Centre as he visits the East Midlands during the final weekend of the General Election campaign on June 3, 2017 in Nottingham, England. If elected in next week's general election Mr Corbyn is pledging to create a million new jobs and to scrap zero-hours contracts Getty Images UK General Election 2017 1 June 2017 Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party leader Ruth Davidson joins a selection of Scottish Conservative election candidates and activists during campaigning on May 1, 2017 in South Queensferry, Scotland. With only seven days to go until the general election on June 8th, polls are showing the SNP out in front and the Conservatives set to close in on Labour. Getty Images UK General Election 2017 29 May 2017 Prime Minister Theresa May canvasses in Richmond with Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith on May 29, 2017 in London, United Kingdom. After suffering defeat in the London Mayoral election Zac Goldsmith resigned over the Government's position on Heathrow expansion. He stood as an Independent but lost in a by-election to the Liberal Democrats. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron poses for a selfie taken by carer April Preston during a General Election campaign visit to the Barlow Medical Centre, in Didsbury, Manchester Yui Mok/PA UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at an election campaign event in Wrexham, Wales Reuters UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and Labour's former deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, exit the party's general election campaign 'battle' bus as they arrive at an event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 Britain's main opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn walks with supporters between venues, before speaking again at another general election campaign event in Kingston upon Hull, northern England Getty Images UK General Election 2017 22 May 2017 An anti-fox hunting protester is taken away and arrested by police outside the venue where Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May was due to launch the Welsh Conservative general election manifesto at Gresford Memorial Hall in the village of Gresford, near Wrexham, North Wales, on May 22, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to elect a new parliament in a general election AFP/Getty Images

When will we know the winner?

It is hard to say when we will know who has won, because it depends on how tight the race is. The leader of the triumphant party is expected to wait for the leader of the losing party to concede defeat before announcing their victory.
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The al-Jazeera media network has been hit with a "cyber attack on all systems, websites and social media platforms", the Qatar based broadcaster has said.

A source at the station said it was combatting an ongoing hack of its cyber security, but all entities were still operational.

It is the flagship broadcaster for the country, which is in a stand-off with fellow Arab states over alleged ties to terrorism, a row which is endangering stability in the region.

The attack comes days after Saudi Arabia has issued the country with a list of 10 demands it must meet, after Riyadh and other nations in the region took the unexpected step of cutting off ties to the tiny kingdom.

Kuwaiti mediators flew to the Saudi capital earlier this week, where diplomats conveyed extensive demands of Doha, including cutting off all links with Iran and expelling resident members of Palestinian militant group Hamas and the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood.

Other points included curbs on the freedom of al-Jazeera, which its Gulf neighbours have accused of slander and fake news, orders to stop interfering in foreign countries affairs and to cease any funding or support for terrorist organisations.

Qatar vehemently denies all these allegations.

Saudi Arabias foreign minister demanded on Tuesday that Qatar respond to its ultimatum soon, if the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were to meet to discuss further reconciliatory action.

It was with great pain that his country and others took measures against Qatar, said Adel al-Jubeir, but it was the aim of restoring relations to how they were in the past.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed all diplomatic ties, followed by the internationally recognised governments of Yemen and Libya, the Maldives and Mauritania.

The crisis has only escalated since, and could have manifold economic and political effects for the Middle East  as well as alter the course of the regions many conflicts.

The closure of the tiny energy-rich kingdoms sea, land and air borders with its neighbours has effectively left Qatar under siege.

Panicked citizens have cleared supermarket shelves of produce, the countrys stock market has plummeted, and Qatari nationals living abroad have been given 14 days to leave.
Former FBI Director James Comey says Donald Trump demanded personal loyalty to him (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

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Former FBI Director James Comey is due to give evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee about conversations he had with President Donald Trump and whether the former businessman pressured him to drop an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

The committee has already released his prepared opening statement in which he will confirm under oath that Mr Trump tried to get him to drop the probe into whether General Flynn, who was forced to resign two weeks after the inauguration, had met with Russian officials during the campaign to discuss economic sanctions imposed by Barack Obama.

He will also testify about a pair of phone calls with Mr Trump where he had reportedly complained to him about the FBI's investigation into his campaign team's links with Russia, calling it a "cloud" looming over the presidency and reportedly urged mr comey to state publicly that the President himself was not under investigation.

Follow our liveblog below the video:
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James Comey has delivered a damning blow against Donald Trump  claiming he was directed to drop an investigation into the Presidents former national security adviser and was then fired to impede his probe into alleged collusion with Russia.

In a rare assault on the integrity of a sitting president by someone who was until very recently a high-ranking investigative official, Mr Comey testified on Capitol Hill that he believed he was got rid of because he was overseeing the federal inquiry.

Its my judgement that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Mr Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee, during more than two hours of frequently gripping testimony.

I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.

The appearance of the 56-year-old former lawyer was keenly anticipated in Washington, even if some of the impact of Mr Comeys words may be been softened by his decision to release seven pages of written testimony the previous day.

In his first public testimony since being fired by Mr Trump last month, Mr Comey said the President had not ordered him directly to halt his investigation of Mr Flynn, who resigned after lying about his meeting with Russian officials. Yet he said he took Mr Trumps expressed wish as a direction. I took it as a direction. Its the President of the United States and me alone, saying this is what he is hoping Im going to do, said Mr Comey. I did not obey that. But that was the way I took it.

 Comey on his conversations with Trump: "Lordy, I hope there are tapes"

Mr Comey may not have delivered the smoking gun that some of Mr Trumps critics may have wished. Yet, in the course of detailed, damaging insights about his conversations with the President, Mr Comey portrayed a commander-in-chief whom he could not trust. Indeed, so uncomfortable did he feel about their one-on-meetings, that he wrote lengthy memos to document what had been said. Previously, he had said Mr Trump repeatedly sought him to pledge his personal loyalty.

I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document, Mr Comey said. I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.

Mr Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading lies, plain and simple about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his firing.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Democrats on the committee asked Mr Comey why he had not spoken out when the President said he hoped he could overlook Mr Flynn's behaviour. Senator Dianne Feinstein asked Mr Comey why he did not say "this is wrong" after Mr Trump said I hope you can let this go.

Maybe if I were stronger, I would have, Mr Comey said. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.

There had been suggestions that Mr Trump would tweet throughout the hearing. As it was, he did not do so, perhaps at the suggestion of his legal team.

However, soon after the conclusion of Mr Comeys testimony, a lawyer for Mr Trump, Marc Kasowitz, immediately hit back, and dismissed the former FBI Directors claims.

He said Mr Trump had not asked Mr Comey for his loyalty and did not direct or suggest to him that he stop investigating Mr Flynn. He said: The President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr Comey let Flynn go.
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Former FBI Director James Comey said it was not up to him to determine whether Donald Trump's behaviour was obstruction of justice.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," Mr Comey said during his testimony in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee, but added that Mr Trump's behaviour was "concerning...and disturbing".

Mr Comey, fired on 9 May, detailed in a written statement ahead of his ongoing testimony that Mr Trump said to him during a one-on-one White House dinner: I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

The former FBI Director said his "common sense" said that it made him feel as if Mr Trump was "looking for something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job" of FBI Director.

Mr Comey, a prosecutor himself, said that the determination of obstruction of justice should be left up to the Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, who was appointed as an independent counsel in the investigation into the alleged ties between Mr Trump's campaign team and Russia and the country's possible interference with the 2016 US election.

The former Director's comment today, however, may mean that Mr Trump's possible obstruction of justice or possible collusion with Russian officials is also under the purview of Mr Mueller's investigation.

Obstruction of justice is an impeachable offence but is a tricky legal issue because it has to do with Mr Trump's actions rather than his intent or how Mr Trump's actions made Mr Comey feel. As a lawyer, Mr Comey is aware of this and likely why he is leaving that determination up to Mr Mueller.

Seth Abramson, an attorney and professor at the University of New Hampshire, gave a breakdown on Twitter of the legal and political definitions on obstruction of justice:

Philip Allen Lacovara, who was counsel to Watergate special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, wrote in the Washington Post that Mr Comeys "statement lays out a case against the president that consists of a tidy pattern, beginning with the demand for loyalty, the threat to terminate Comeys job, the repeated requests to turn off the investigation into Flynn and the final infliction of career punishment for failing to succumb to the presidents requests, all followed by the presidents own concession about his motive."

However, Mr Lacovara said that whether Mr Trump would be indicted on such a crime as a sitting President is an "open question" up to Mr Mueller to answer.
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Former FBI Director James Comey has said he has "no doubt" President Donald Trump fired him because of his department's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation, Mr Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a public hearing. Something about the way I was conducting it, the president felt, created pressure on him he wanted to relieve.

The former intelligence official made no mistake about the significance of this conclusion.

I was fired in some way to change  the way the Russian investigation was being conducted," he said later in the hearing. "That is a very big deal.

The FBIs investigation includes a probe into the Trump campaigns possible ties to Russia. Mr Trump has said in previous interviews that he fired Mr Comey after concluding that reports about his campaign's ties were "made up".

"When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won,'" he told NBC's Lester Holt.

He also reportedly told Russian officials that he faced great pressure over their country, and that it was lifted after Mr Comeys firing.

The statements sparked outcry among many in Washington, who believed they showed intentional obstruction of justice on the president's part.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Comey said these comments eventually lead him to believe he had been fired over the Russia investigation.

I watched his interview, Ive read the press accounts of his conversations, so I take him at his word there, the former FBI director said on Thursday.

He did not offer an opinion on whether Mr Trump had committed obstruction of justice.

The White House provided multiple different explanations for Mr Comey's firing in the days after his dismissal.

At first, officials claimed Mr Comey was dismissed for improperly handling the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. They cited two Justice Department memos on the matter as swaying the president's hand.

Later, Mr Trump told reporters he fired Mr Comey because he was doing a "bad job". He expanded on these comments in his interview with Mr Holt, in which he also insisted he had acted independently of the Justice Department's recommendation.

"I was gonna fire regardless of recommendation," Mr Trump said at the time.

The president has not commented publicly on Mr Comey's testimony.
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A Republican congressman who was charged with assault after allegedly body slamming a reporter, has sent a letter of apology and offered to make a $50,000 donation to a journalism charity in order to settle the matter.

Greg Gianforte, the Montana congressman-elect dispatched the letter and said he would be donating the money to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a group that works to protect press freedom.

My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful. As both a candidate for office and a public official, I should be held to a high standard in my interactions with the press and the public. My treatment of you did not meet that standard, the 56-year-old said in a letter to Ben Jacobs of the Guardian.

I made a mistake and humbly ask for your forgiveness.

Mr Jacobs, who wrote about the incident in which his glasses were broken, said he hoped the issue had highlighted the importance of a free press.

 Pelosi: Greg Gianforte showed he's a 'wannabe Trump' by body slamming reporter

I have accepted Mr Gianfortes apology and his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and statements, he said.

I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country.

Mr Jacobs said he was slammed to the floor by Mr Gianforte on May 24 after he sought to interview the Republican, who was contesting a special election in the state. Mr Gianfortes team initially defended his actions and said the reporter had pushed a voice recorder into the politicians face.

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The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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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. 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Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Very quickly, Mr Gianforte apologised and police charged him with assault.

He said he will plead no contest to the charge of assault.

Despite the encounter taking place on the eve of the election, Mr Gianforte, a businessman who made his money in technology, went on to win the contest.

Mr Gianforte is scheduled to appear in a Montana court on June 20 to face the assault charge.
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A pair of Democrats in Congress are drafting up articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, saying that the presidents decision to fire former FBI Director James Comey constitutes an obstruction of justice.

Texas Representative Al Green, who has been one of the most outspoken proponents of impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump, was joined by California Representative Brad Sherman in announcing the long-shot bid.

The question really is whether the president can obstruct justice with impunity, Mr Green told a press conference. We live in a country where no congressmen, no senator, and not even the president of the United States of America is above the law.

Mr Green said that Mr Trumps actions are his primarily concern. Whatever Mr Comey might say during planned congressional testimony this week isnt important to his rationale on impeachment, the congressman said in a statement released before his official announcement.

Several other Democrats have indicated that impeachment could be possible if obstruction is proved, but most have held back from actually calling for the measure.

But the efforts to impeach the president dont appear likely to be successful given the current makeup of Congress. While Mr Trump has historically low approval ratings among the public, his Republican Party control the House of Representatives that would be tasked with formally indicting the president.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

If he were somehow impeached, removal from office also seems especially far-fetched right now: Republicans also control the Senate, where two-thirds of the members would need to vote in favour of pushing Mr Trump out of office.

Mr Comey is expected to testify before the Senate this week in what will be one of the most watched congressional hearings in modern times. Mr Trump fired the former FBI director last month, and has been criticised frequently for doing so. While the Trump administration initially cited Justice Department rationale for the ouster, Mr Trump later said that he had decided to fire Mr Comey on his own and said that the FBIs Russia investigation played a part in that reasoning.

It was later revealed that Mr Trump had asked Mr Comey to pull back on his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynns contacts with Russian officials. A draft of Mr Comeys planned opening remarks confirms those allegations.
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North Korea fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles Thursday, South Korea's military said, in a continuation of defiant launches as it seeks to build a nuclear missile capable of reaching the continental United States.

The projectiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200 kilometres (about 125 miles) while reaching a maximum altitude of about 2 kilometres (1.2 miles), South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where US aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

The North's missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang. North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North's weapons activities.

Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seoul's military, said the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its precision strike capabilities on ships in response to the joint drills.

Recommended North Korea releases first pictures of latest nuclear missile test

North Korea's weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile programme that can stand up to what it sees as US and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul. Analysts say the latest test appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Moon, who convened a National Security Council meeting in Seoul over the launch.

The launches Thursday were North Korea's fourth missile test in as many weeks as the country continues to speed up its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the projectiles, which showed longer range than North Korea's previously known KN-01 anti-ship cruise missiles that can travel up to 160 kilometres (99 miles), were likely from a new cruise missile system North Korea displayed during a massive 15 April military parade. The improved range indicates the North is pursuing weapons capable of reaching US aircraft carriers that operate from deeper positions, he said.

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after Thursday's launch that Tokyo has not detected any flying objects that headed toward Japan or landed inside the country's maritime economic zone.

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

North Korea on 14 May premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new precision-guided missile, which experts say is designed with a maneuverable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defense systems like the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense that is being deployed in South Korea.

Associated Press
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A suspected murderer who went on the run for 45 years has been arrested in Japan.

Masaaki Osaka, a left-wing revolutionary, has been charged for murdering a police officer during a street protest in Tokyo.

He evaded investigators for almost five decades after he allegedly set the officer on fire using a petrol bomb in 1971.

Osaka was a member of the Revolutionary Communist League National Committee, often referred to as Chukaku-ha, the Japan Times reported.

He was initially arrested for allegedly obstructing police officers who raided an apartment used as a hideout of the Chukaku-ha while searching for a fellow activist.

Police say Osaka was able to remain on the run for so long because sympathetic party associates assisted him.

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

His identity was confirmed through DNA tests and he has apparently remained silent since being caught.

He has now been taken to Tokyo for further questioning.

There was a 15-year statute of limitations on crimes in the country but this was abolished in 2010.
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The Eiffel Tower is to turn out its lights shortly before midnight in tribute to the victims of the terror attack in Tehran.

Isis militants killed at least 17 people in suicide bombings and shootings in the Iranian capital, which targeted the national parliament building and the mausoleum Ayatollah Khomeini.

Tonight, at 11.45pm, I will turn my lights off to pay tribute to the victims of the Tehran attack, said a tweet from an account representing the Eiffel Tower.

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, wrote on Twitter that the French capital and its residents stand in solidarity with Iran.

The landmark has extinguished its lights as a mark of respect following terror attacks around the world, going dark as recently as Sunday night for the victims of the London Bridge attack.

The tribute was first made following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket in 2015, before the French flag was projected on to the Eiffel Tower that November after Isis militants massacred 130 people in Paris.

 Eiffel Tower goes dark in memory of Westminster attack victims

It was subsequently lit up in the flags of countries including Belgium as an expression of solidarity for atrocities, but there was criticism when the same move was not taken after terror attacks in Asia and the Middle East.

Officials have since taken the decision to turn the Eiffel Towers lights off for massacres including the recent bombings in Kabul and Baghdad.

The decision to extend the tribute to Iran was being seen by some as a signal to the American government, following a controversial statement from the White House.

We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times, a statement said.

We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Donald Trump has previously accused Iran of being the number one global sponsor of terrorism, publicly criticising a landmark deal to limit its nuclear capability struck under Barack Obama.

Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Show all 9 1 /9 Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Policemen outside Rouen's cathedral during the funeral of Jacques Hamel, the priest who was killed in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy on 26 July during a hostage-taking claimed by Islamic State group Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two jihadists, both 19, slit Hamel's throat while he was celebrating mass in an attack that shocked France as well as the Catholic Church Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Muslims place flowers and hold a minute of silence in front of the church if Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, western France, where French priest Jacques Hamel was killed on 26 July Charly Triballeau/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Two people hold each other by the new makeshift memorial in Nice, in tribute to the victims of the deadly Bastille Day attack at the Promenade des Anglais Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people in Nice on France's national holiday. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into a packed crowd of people in the Riviera city celebrating Bastille Day Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police work at a site where a Syrian migrant set off an explosive device in Ansbach, southern Germany, on 25 July, killing himself and wounding a dozen others Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis A Syrian migrant set off an explosion at a bar in southern Germany that killed himself and wounded a dozen others in the third attack to hit Bavaria in a week. The 27-year-old, who had spent a stint in a psychiatric facility, had intended to target a music festival in the city of Ansbach but was turned away because he did not have a ticket Friebe/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis Police officers walk along train tracks in Wuerzburg southern Germany on 19 July, a day after a man attacked train passengers with an axe. German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the man, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images Terrorism in 2016: Terror attacks in Europe claimed by Isis German police killed a teenage assailant after he attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg, southerg Germany with an axe and a knife on 18 July, seriously wounding three people Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images

Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called the response repugnant, adding: Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship.

The US President made Saudi Arabia the symbolic first stop on his first foreign tour last month, making a speech blaming Iran for regional instability.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, which base their governance on hardline interpretations of Sunni and Shia Islam respectively, are waging a proxy war in countries including Syria and Yemen.

Despite Isis swift claim of responsibility for the Tehran attack, when it shared gruesome images on its propaganda channels, Iranian officials have turned suspicion on Saudi Arabia. Riyadh denied any involvement.

Isis has threatened more attacks on Iran, declaring war on the country in a new edition of its Rumiyah propaganda magazine issued on Thursday.

The terrorist group, founded in Salafi jihadi ideology, has declared Shia Muslims heretics and targeted them in years of terror attacks and massacres across Iraq and Syria in what the US said amounts to genocide.

Irans intelligence agency said five of the attackers in Tehran were Iranian nationals who had previously fought for Isis in the groups strongholds.

Iranian forces are backing embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as Shia militias fighting Isis in Iraq.


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Irans Foreign Minister has rejected Donald Trump's condolences for deadly attacks in Tehran, calling the US Presidents words repugnant. Mr Trump had said he prayed for the victims of Wednesdays attacks that were claimed by Isis, but added that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his Twitter account: Repugnant White House statement... Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship. Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Iranian parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum in Tehran, killing at least 13 people in an unprecedented assault that Iran's Revolutionary Guards blamed on regional rival Saudi Arabia.

Isis claimed responsibility and threatened more attacks against Iran's majority Shi'ite population, seen by the hardline Sunni militants as heretics. Saudi Arabia said it was not involved.

Reuters
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Israels cabinet has approved a 3.2m project to develop accessibility to holy sites in the disputed territory of east Jerusalem.

The plans have faced a backlash from Palestinian organisations, which say the Israeli government is attempting to take control of the sites.

The plans include proposals for a cable car that will transport thousands of visitors an hour to the Western Wall and close to al-Haram al-Sharif, a compound containing the Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden-topped Dome of the Rock, also known as Temple Mount.

A 11m lift and underground passageway to the Western wall is also planned.

The decision was made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahi's Cabinet at a meeting in tunnels near the compound containing Al-Aqsa.

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said the meeting served as a "provocation".

He added that it sent "a clear message to the Palestinian people that the systematic violations of their inalienable rights are going to continue".

However, Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said the cable car "will change the face of Jerusalem, allow easy and convenient access for tourists and visitors to the Western Wall and will serve as an exceptional tourist attraction".

Israel has also produced plans for thousands of homes across the West Bank. It was the first announcement of settlement construction since US President Donald Trump urged a building freeze in February.

Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem over the 1967 Green Line is considered illegal under international law and has been condemned by the United Nations and European Union.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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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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An Israeli Defence Ministry committee responsible for West Bank construction gave the green light to plans for around 3,000 homes at various stages of the approval process.

It is the first major approval of plans since Mr Trump told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit" while Washington tries to renew peace talks.

Mr Netanyahu's office wasn't available for comment on whether the move was cleared with Washington beforehand.

Palestinians hope to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They say Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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The foreign minister of tiny embattled Qatar has reiterated the country will not compromise its independence even if it would mean an end to the growing diplomatic spat which has seen it become increasingly isolated by other Arab nations.

"We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told reporters in Doha on Thursday.

The dispute between Qatar and its neighbours is threatening the stability of the entire region, Sheik Mohammed bin Abdulrahman continued, adding that Qatar was still looking for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

 Saudi Arabia cuts ties with Qatar over terror links

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic ties and suspended air and sea links with the kingdom on Monday, accusing it of supporting terrorism and controversial political groups. The decision has since been adopted by several other Muslim nations.

Qatar vehemently denies the allegations.

On Wednesday Saudi Arabia issued Qatar with a list of 10 demands it must meet, including curbs on the freedom of state-funded broadcaster al-Jazeera, which its Gulf neighbours have accused of slander and fake news, orders to stop interfering in foreign countries affairs and to cease any funding or support for terrorist organisations.

Kuwaiti mediators have flown between Riyadh, Dubai and Doha since the spat erupted on Monday, but the tentative attempts at dialogue so far seem to have faltered.

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

Both US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have reportedly spoken with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to urge dialogue.

Russia has also denied it was behind the hacking of Qatars state news agency last month. The fabricated comments attributed to Emir al-Thani about Iran and Israel are partly to blame for this weeks stand-off.

UN Chief Antonio Guterres waded into the crisis on Thursday, saying his office was ready to offer diplomatic support to avoid escalating tensions.

The crisis could have manifold economic and political effects for the Middle East  as well as alter the course of the regions many conflicts.

The closure of the tiny energy-rich kingdoms sea, land and air borders with its neighbours has effectively left Qatar under siege. Panicked citizens have cleared supermarket shelves of produce, the countrys stock market has plummeted, and Qatari nationals living abroad have been given 14 days to leave. Several countries have now recalled their diplomatic envoys from Doha.

Iran has said it is ready to help Qatar with food and other supply shipments if necessary.

On Wednesday, the UAEs justice ministry warned social media users on Wednesday that any expressions of sympathy for Qatar could result in between three to 15 years in prison, as well as hefty fines.

Bahrain has warned its media outlets - already subject to heavy state scrutiny - that any organisation which publishes or circulates anything that condones or justifies Qatari policies by any means" will be held responsible, without elaborating.
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At least five of the armed men who killed 17 people and injured 45 in unprecedented terror attacks in Tehran were fully fledged members of Isis who fought for the group in Syria and Iraq, the Iranian authorities have confirmed.

They earlier left Iran and were involved in the crimes of the terrorist group in Raqqa and Mosul, the intelligence ministry said in a statement, referring to Isiss effective capitals in the two countries.

Last year, they returned to Iran ... to carry out terrorist attacks in the holy cities of Iran, the statement carried by the state news agency said.

Wednesdays dual attacks on the parliament building and Ayatollah Khomeinis tomb in the Iranian capital were the first terror incidents on Iranian soil claimed by Isis.

The extremist Sunni group views the Shia-ruled country, and most of its inhabitants, as heretical. While it has long called for attacks in Iran, in recent months Isis propaganda has been released in Farsi with the aim of recruiting the countrys Sunni minority.

The south-west of Iran has seen some bombings and unrest due to a Sunni secessionist insurgency, but no major terror incidents have occurred in the country for several years

Inside Iran: What life is really like in Tehran Show all 2 1 /2 Inside Iran: What life is really like in Tehran Inside Iran: What life is really like in Tehran 601510.bin EPA Inside Iran: What life is really like in Tehran 601511.bin EPA

Iran is one of the world powers engaged in the ground war against Isis, funding troops and firepower in order to assist the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Shia militias in the Iraqi coalition battle for Mosul.

That Wednesdays attackers were able to travel to the so-called caliphate and back without alerting Irans watchful security services has troubled many in the country.

The incidents took place less than a month after moderate President Hassan Rouhani was re-elected.

The atmosphere is tense. It is a blow to Rouhani. How can four armed men enter the parliament, where a very tight security has always been in place, a senior official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

The assaults could also have ramifications across the region.

 Gunfire heard outside Iran parliament as battle continues

Irans powerful religious Revolutionary Guards blamed rival Sunni-led Saudi Arabia for the attacks, an accusation the kingdoms foreign minister dismissed.

An attack like this could provoke disproportionate counter-terror response in Iran.

Iranian officials will be called on to step up intervention in Iraq-Syria big time. If this happens, a more intense Sunni war against Shia Islam will pour petrol on [Isiss] ideological fire, said Charlie Winter, a research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at Kings College London.

The intelligence ministry said an investigation was still under way.
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Donald Trumps first trip abroad as President of the United States last month took him to Saudi Arabia, where he gave a speech about the importance of global unity in combating terrorism, sold arms to regional powers, took part in a ceremonial sword dance, and along with a few other world leaders, grasped a glowing orb.

In his remarks in Riyadh the president made repeated attacks on Iran, which he singled out as a state sponsor of terrorism. (In response to the Isis attacks in Tehran on Wednesday, the White House reiterated that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote," ignoring the fact that the militants are Sunni rather than Shia extremists.)

Mr Trumps open criticism of the Gulf states traditional enemy is widely viewed by many as part of the reason the Saudis were emboldened to make an example of tiny maverick neighbour Qatar this week, leading the charge as several Arab states cut off all ties with the kingdom.

 Donald Trump says Iran has helped commit 'unspeakable crimes' in Syria

The unprecedented spat could have manifold consequences across the region - not least for its many conflicts, as economic and political alliances shift.

The fallout could have a particularly important effect on the course of the six-year -old Syrian civil war.

Yet on the ground in Syria, in the last two weeks, US forces are also changing the status quo directly, with two direct attacks on pro-regime militia forces which entered the deconfliction zone around Al Tanf, near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders in the south of the country. On Thursday, the US confirmed it had also shot down a pro-regime drone after it fired at coalition forces. Pro-Iranian Hezbollah media channels claimed the drone to be Iranian.

In pictures: US missile strike against Syria Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: US missile strike against Syria In pictures: US missile strike against Syria The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter (DDG 78) launches a tomahawk land attack missile in the Mediterranean Sea AP In pictures: US missile strike against Syria The United States military launched at least 50 tomahawk cruise missiles at al-Shayrat military airfield near Homs, Syria, in response to the Syrian military's alleged use of chemical weapons in an airstrike in a rebel held area in Idlib province EPA In pictures: US missile strike against Syria Shayrat airfield in Syria Getty Images In pictures: US missile strike against Syria US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71) fires a tomahawk land attack missile in Mediterranean Sea Reuters In pictures: US missile strike against Syria US Navy guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG 71) fires a tomahawk land attack missile in Mediterranean Sea Reuters In pictures: US missile strike against Syria President Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., after the US fired a barrage of cruise missiles into Syria in retaliation for this week's gruesome chemical weapons attack against civilians AP In pictures: US missile strike against Syria Syria's President Bashar al-Assad Reuters

US-led bombing also destroyed two artillery pieces, an anti-aircraft weapon and damaged a tank in a strike on June 8, Central Command, the wing of the US military which oversees its operations in Syria and Iraq, said in a statement.

Tuesdays strike follows a similar incident in the same area on 18 May, in which US-led forces destroyed pro-regime units which had made significant advances into the deconfliction zone.

It is not clear whether the two strikes caused any casualties.

Mr Trump ordered a retaliatory air strike on a Syrian airbase near Homs to dissuade President Bashar al-Assad from using chemical weapons following the 4 April atrocity in Khan Sheikhoun, which was the first direct military intervention by the US in Syria since the war began.

The strikes at Al Tanf, however, mark a significant escalation of tensions between Washington and Damascus and its allies over control of Syria's southeastern border with Iraq.

The area is strategically crucial for Assad's military partners in Tehran, who hope it could open a 'Shiite Crescent' of Iranian influence from the country across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

The US maintains a base in the same region which is where it trains Syrian rebels to fight against Isis.

The Syrian government-allied troops had been warned multiple times not to advance inside the de-confliction zone, Central Command said.

The Coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime or pro-regime forces but remains ready to defend themselves if pro-regime forces refuse to vacate the de-confliction zone.

The Coalition calls on all parties in southern Syria to focus their efforts on the defeat of Isis, which is our common enemy and the greatest threat to regional and worldwide peace and security, it said.

A statement from an alliance of pro-Assad militias issued via Hezbollah on Wednesday, however, threatened to hit US positions in Syria in retaliation, warning Washington their self-restraint would end if US forces again crossed red lines.

America knows well that the blood of the sons of Syria, the Syrian Arab Army, and its allies is not cheap, and the capacity to strike their positions in Syria, and their surroundings, is available when circumstances will it, the statement said.

It was not clear from the release whether Russia, Assad's most powerful ally, was a signatory.

 Theresa May refuses three times to say if she would join US in a strike against Syria

Speaking in Baghdad, a US envoy said the United States was in regular touch with Moscow and used the de-confliction hotline established between the two countries to avoid possible clashes.

Tuesdays attack reportedly occurred after the coalition gave the go-ahead for four unarmed pro-government trucks to enter the de-confliction zone to evacuate troops wounded in an attack by Isis.

The later entry of the larger armed force led to the hostilities, Central Command said.
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Donald Trumps decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord has been branded short sighted and silly by North Korea.

Warning that global warming is one of the gravest challenges humankind is facing today, the secretive Communist state, said the US presidents decision comes "at the cost of the entire planet."

"The selfish act of the US does not only have grave consequences for the international efforts to protect the environment, but poses great danger to other areas as well," the statement, published on Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The quotes were attributed to an unidentified Foreign Ministry spokesman.

Suggesting the US leader had come to the decision because of his America First policy, it said the US was ignorant of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests.

This is the height of egotism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being at the cost of the entire planet, the statement added.

Despite its pariah status, North Korea signed the agreement, becoming one of the 195 nations to do so. To date, 147 have ratified it.

At the summit in Paris, the countrys then foreign minister Ri su Yong said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had declared war on deforestation.

In pictures: North Korea military drill Show all 8 1 /8 In pictures: North Korea military drill In pictures: North Korea military drill North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) is seen in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill A military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) KCNA/Handout via REUTERS In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video In pictures: North Korea military drill This image made from video of still images broadcast in a news bulletin by North Korea's KRT, shows what was said to be a 'Combined Fire Demonstration' held to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the North Korean army, in Wonsan, North Korea. KRT via AP Video

Experts have warned that climate change could lead to droughts or flooding, which could aggravate the countrys chronic food shortages.

Mr Trumps decision to withdraw the US means that it joins only two other countries who stand outside it.

Nicaragua refused because it believed the agreement did not go far enough, and Syria.

The statement went on to warn other countries who might wish to follow Americas lead.

Whoever chooses to blindly follow the Trump administration overpowered by its bravado should be fully aware that the judgment of history shall take them all as one, it said.
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Last week Qatar became an outcast in the Persian Gulf. Its neighbours Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are joined by Egypt cutting ties with Doha, which they accuse of supporting extremist groups and destabilising the region.

This means no flights to or from these countries or use of their airspace by airlines operating routes to Qatar from other places.

Libya, Yemen, and the Maldives have also cut political ties (although flights between Doha and the Maldives continue for now).

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Travellers face cancellations and delays as Qatar Airways is forced to fly around airspace from which it is banned. Diverting over Iran to reach Auckland adds 15 minutes to what is already the worlds longest non-stop route.

Its important for travellers to contact airlines for refunds and rebooking. Gulf News is sharing rebooking options for passengers on Qatar Airways flights. Reports suggest the airline may be running relief flights via Kuwait or Oman, but as all Qatari citizens have been ordered to leave Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain within two weeks, airlifts are likely to focus on aiding them.

Travellers with itineraries that pass through Doha but do not begin or end in one of the countries banning Qatar Airways will find their flights only slightly affected by the ban. They are not expected to face mass cancellations and are advised to proceed with travel plans as normal.

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A Brussels-based flyer, who wished to remain anonymous, rearranged his plans for his Maldives holiday because of the chaos. Im hoping to buy a Bangkok Airways flight to make it to Male, but I really dont want to think about getting home just yet, he told The Independent during a layover in Doha yesterday. Ill see what it is like in the Maldives and hope for better news while Im away, but I will read the fine print of my travel insurance just in case.

Another traveller in Sri Lanka booked to fly with Qatar Airways to London via Doha, told The Independent about her fears. Im anxious because I dont know whats going on, she said. Ive been abroad for five months and I usually live in a local homestay with very limited wifi access. Also there is just a stigma about the Middle East. Its somewhere Ive never travelled and so its unfamiliar.

Travellers are right to be cautious, especially if their current or future travel plans involve visiting the UAE  even social media is monitored to bar expressions of support for Qatar. Al Jazeera notes that UAEs Attorney General has threatened offenders with jail terms up to 15 years and $136,000 fines, so perhaps its wise to keep any praise of Qatar Airways or your Doha layover off Twitter or Facebook. Its a situation thats even breeding uncertainty in travellers with no upcoming plans, such as one woman who visited Doha last month through the airlines complimentary stopover program.

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This is all really intense, she told The Independent. Im almost out of pages on my passport so all this makes me want to get my new one earlier and really start from scratch and consider my routes. Qatar Airways has a good product. Politics aside, the ban forces my hand to not book with them. Theres too much unpredictability with them and the rest of the world given the current state of things.

Unpredictable it sure is. Ongoing efforts by diplomats in mediating countries like Kuwait and Turkey may prove successful and restore travel, or they may fail. In any case, there is no certainty as to when the travel restrictions around Qatar will be lifted and to what extent. The best precaution travellers can make regarding upcoming plans is to stay informed, as well as being ready and willing to make alternate travel plans.
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This is a big day for the UK. After weeks of never-ending gaffes, weak and wobbly U-turns and bitter disappointments, voters are finally being given the chance to make their voices heard  and what theyve got to say could drastically alter the political and economic fate of an entire continent.

But over on the other side of the Atlantic, theres a congressional hearing about to kick off that could decide the fate of the entire planet. Donald Trumps gaudy and scandal-ridden political career is now hanging on by a single orange thread  and today could be the day we finally see that thread slashed down the middle.

Enter James Comey, long-time federal prosecutor and freshly sacked FBI director with one heck of a chip on his shoulder.

Comey was tossed out in the cold last month as a direct result of his public investigation into whether Donald Trumps campaign team colluded with Russian hackers to sabotage Hillary Clinton and steal the presidency. If even a shred of the allegations against Trumps team are true, this steaming heap will effortlessly dwarf Richard Nixons infamous Watergate scandal to become the most disturbing ethical crisis Americas Executive Branch has ever faced.

 Will Donald Trump be impeached?

Not even the Teflon Don will be able to survive all this, and to be honest, its not looking good. Every move the President has made since this Russia thing started brewing has made him look guiltier and guiltier.

First, we heard that Trump tried to stiff arm the FBI into dropping an inquiry against the disgraced national security advisor Michael Flynn  who resigned from the Trump team after just one month for lying to everybody about secret meetings with a former KGB spy recruiter.

Next, we heard Trump demanded an oath of loyalty from the director of the FBI and told him to stop trying to connect the dots linking his pals with the Russians. And not long after, Trump had the balls to tell us on primetime TV that hed given Comey a pink slip for refusing to back down.

All of that sounds like a genuine obstruction of justice, and most legal experts would tell you it is grounds for impeachment. But up until now, nobody has actually gone on-record or given us significant evidence to back all this stuff up.

Thats going to change in a few hours.

This afternoon, James Comey is going to plop down in front of the Senate intelligence committee and spill the beans on all of these allegations  and guess what? Unfortunately for the President, Comey takes pretty good notes.

In an opening statement that was released last night, Comey confirmed all of it. According to the long-time public servant, Trump did demand an oath of loyalty at an uneasy candlelit dinner. Trump did pressure Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn, and wanted the FBI director to publicly state that Trump himself was not suspected of any wrongdoing.

According to Comey, Trump even nagged him about making that whole Russian hooker dossier disappear  but those allegations did always seem a bit tenuous, even for a billionaire megalomaniac like the President.

And thats just the start. After Comey delivers his statement, Senators will get to quiz the former FBI director on all the nitty-gritty. You could cut the tension with a knife  and ecstatic Democrats are already celebrating Comeys big day by launching impeachment proceedings against the President.

That celebration might be a little bit pre-emptive, though.

Apparently Trump has been wining and dining a couple of the guys on the questioning panel this week, so you can bet your bottom dollar somebodys going to try to discredit Comey in some way or another. And at this stage in the investigation, this entire mucky scandal is essentially just one mans word against another's (even if one of those men happens to be a compulsive liar). Either way, this is only a small step down a long and winding road.

But make no mistake: today's drama will undeniably set the wheels in motion. And when the history books are written, James Comey's testimony very well may be recognised as the beginning of the end for Donald J Trump.
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This was widely billed as the first time since Watergate that all of Washington stopped to watch a Congressional hearing. That is strictly true. But the last time that Washington  and much of the United States  abandoned work to watch a real-life political spectacular was in September, 1998, when President Bill Clinton was shown giving his grand jury testimony on the sordid matter of his relations with Monica Lewinsky.

James Comeys appearance before the Senate intelligence committee was an infinitely more straitlaced occasion, while still fitting into this all-American tradition of high political drama  a few hours when the fate of a President, and the presidency, is at stake.

There were several crucial points to be clarified when 6-foot-8 Comey stood to swear that oh-so-familiar oath to speak the truth, the whole truth, etc, at the start. But they all boiled down to one. Had the President, in the former FBI directors view tried to exert undue  unconstitutional  pressure on the holder of a job that had by definition to be non-partisan.

 Comey: I took Trump's request to drop Flynn probe as a direction

That question broke down into four specifics. Was it true that Donald Trump had tried to stop an FBI investigation into his former National Security Adviser, General Mike Flynn? Was it true that he had tried to halt the bigger, overarching investigation into allegations about Russian interference in the US election? Did Trump put pressure on him to state publicly that he, the President, was not under investigation? And was Comeys refusal essentially to play ball the reason why he had been so summarily fired as director of the FBI?

Comeys opening statement, like his replies to Senators questions, was a model of clarity, and he answered the first two of those questions fairly categorically. Yes, Comey believed, Trump had tried to get him to abandon the investigation about Flynns contacts with Russia, though the request was couched as a suggestion to let it go. Obviously, this is not what a President ought to be doing. Indeed, when that claim became public, I found it one of the most damaging revelations to have emerged from the short, action-packed Trump presidency so far.

To the second question, though, Comeys answer was an almost unqualified No. In his view, Trump had not tried to interfere in the bigger Russian investigation in any way.

It is worth quoting exactly what he said in his statement: I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynns departure ... Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency.

If Comey had felt, or noted in some way, that Trump had even signalled, let alone actually tried to stall, the broader investigation, that would have meant far bigger trouble for the President  as it would have amounted to a direct attempt to subvert the judicial process and so threatened a key constitutional check on the executive. The parallels with Watergate, and the break-in and the cover-up, would have been evident. Unless there was conclusive evidence to the contrary, Donald Trumps presidency could well have been stuttering to a close, barely months after it began.

It can be argued that Trumps apparent attempt to halt the investigation into Flynn was just as serious. After all, the principle is essentially the same. In Comeys testimony, however, it did not come across quite like that, even if a competent barrister could surely make the case in a court of law. It felt different, first, because Comey refused to act on the signal; he absorbed the point, but did not halt the investigation and did not pass the request on to any of those involved. It felt different, too, because of the way Comey recounted it, in what amounts to the minutes he took of his one-on-one meetings with Donald Trump.

These minutes, as set out in his opening statement  vivid and terse as they are  afford a considerable insight into the way Trump operates. This is probably not what Comey primarily intended. He wrote down his account after each meeting, he made clear under questioning, largely because he anticipated an eventual need to defend himself and feared that Trump  might lie. As the committee noted, this was quite something to say about a US President.

Now it is possible to regard Comeys observations about Trump as a straight-down-the-line indictment of his integrity, and in many ways they are. But they also highlight crucial differences in the way a wayward CEO might behave, and what is expected of a US President. Comey judged from Trumps repeated requests, one-on-one, for loyalty, that he was being asked (coerced?) to enter into a patronage relationship. It was not stated outright, but that was his abiding impression.

Something similar might apply to Trumps signal to drop the Flynn investigation, on the grounds that Flynn was a good guy. Personal loyalty, to Trump, is clearly a prime consideration  as it surely was to him in business - something he demanded from all his subordinates. His mistake was to regard the FBI director in that light. Was that a deliberate violation, or did it reflect naivety, ignorance even, of how a President should behave? And if the latter, is this something that Trump will learn?

A similar conclusion might also be drawn in relation to the last two questions  Trumps repeated requests to Comey to state that he was not personally under investigation (for inappropriate ties to Russia)  and the reason for his dismissal. Trump appears to have fretted about speculation that he was personally under FBI investigation, believing it cast a restricting shadow over his presidency. Again, that could be seen as more the response of a CEO, than of a President, who would accept that he and the FBI were necessarily separate.

As for why he lost his job, Comey speculated to the committee that it was because Trump felt that the broad Russia investigation was taking too long and, again, constraining his presidency. And this was indeed one of several explanations Trump gave at various points. The real answer, though, might be that Comey was dismissed for the simple reason that Trump was unhappy with him generally, because he didnt feel he was his man. You can do that sort of thing as the autocratic head of a business; you cant really do it, as President, with the director of the FBI.

So the question recurs: is Trump quite simply unsuited to occupy the White House, or will he come to understand what power he has, and how to use it? Once again, with the Comey hearing, as with the blizzard of executive orders, as with the court challenges, as with the rise and fall of Mike Flynn, we are watching not just high political drama, but the fundamentals of the US Constitution being tested. That admirably succinct document has held up pretty well for more than two centuries; there is no reason to believe that it will suddenly prove inadequate in 2017.
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The Qatar crisis proves two things: the continued infantilisation of the Arab states, and the total collapse of the Sunni Muslim unity supposedly created by Donald Trumps preposterous attendance at the Saudi summit two weeks ago.

After promising to fight to the death against Shia Iranian terror, Saudi Arabia and its closest chums have now ganged up on one of the wealthiest of their neighbours, Qatar, for being a fountainhead of terror. Only Shakespeares plays could come close to describing such treachery. Shakespeares comedies, of course.

For, truly, there is something vastly fantastical about this charade. Qatars citizens have certainly contributed to Isis. But so have Saudi Arabias citizens.

No Qataris flew the 9/11 planes into New York and Washington. All but four of the 19 killers were Saudi. Bin Laden was not a Qatari. He was a Saudi.

But Bin Laden favoured Qatars al-Jazeera channel with his personal broadcasts, and it was al-Jazeera who tried to give spurious morality to the al-Qaeda/Jabhat al-Nusrah desperadoes of Syria by allowing their leader hours of free airtime to explain what a moderate, peace-loving group they all were.

 Saudi Arabia cuts ties with Qatar over terror links

First, lets just get rid of the hysterically funny bits of this story. I see that Yemen is breaking air links with Qatar. Quite a shock for the poor Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, since Yemen  under constant bombardment by his former Saudi and Emirati chums  doesnt have a single serviceable airliner left with which to create, let alone break, an air link.

The Maldives have also broken relations with Qatar. To be sure, this has nothing to do with the recent promise of a Saudi five-year loan facility of $300m to the Maldives, the proposal of a Saudi property company to invest $100m in a family resort in the Maldives and a promise by Saudi Islamic scholars to spend $100,000 on 10 world class mosques in the Maldives.

And let us not mention the rather large number of Isis and other Islamist cultists who arrived to fight for Isis in Iraq and Syria from  well, the Maldives.

Now the Qatari Emir hasnt enough troops to defend his little country should the Saudis decide to request that he ask their army to enter Qatar to restore stability  as the Saudis persuaded the King of Bahrain to do back in 2011. But Sheikh Tamim no doubt hopes that the massive US military air base in Qatar will deter such Saudi generosity.

When I asked his father, Sheikh Hamad (later uncharitably deposed by Tamim) why he didnt kick the Americans out of Qatar, he replied: Because if I did, my Arab brothers would invade me.

Like father, like son, I suppose. God Bless America.

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All this started  so we are supposed to believe  with an alleged hacking of the Qatar News Agency, which produced some uncomplimentary but distressingly truthful remarks by Qatars Emir about the need to maintain a relationship with Iran.

Qatar denied the veracity of the story. The Saudis decided it was true and broadcast the contents on their own normally staid (and immensely boring) state television network. The upstart Emir, so went the message, had gone too far this time. The Saudis decided policy in the Gulf, not miniscule Qatar. Wasnt that what Donald Trumps visit proved?

But the Saudis had other problems to worry about. Kuwait, far from cutting relations with Qatar, is now acting as a peacemaker between Qatar and the Saudis and Emiratis. The emirate of Dubai is quite close to Iran, has tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates, and is hardly following Abu Dhabis example of anti-Qatari wrath.

Oman was even staging joint naval manoeuvres with Iran a couple of months ago. Pakistan long ago declined to send its army to help the Saudis in Yemen, because the Saudis asked for only Sunni and no Shia soldiers; the Pakistani army was understandably outraged to realise that Saudi Arabia was trying to sectarianise its military personnel.

Pakistans former army commander, General Raheel Sharif, is rumoured to be on the brink of resigning as head of the Saudi-sponsored Muslim alliance to fight terror.

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President-Field Marshal al-Sissi of Egypt has been roaring against Qatar for its support of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood  and Qatar does indeed support the now-banned group which Sissi falsely claims is part of Isis  but significantly Egypt, though the recipient of Saudi millions, also does not intend to supply its own troops to bolster the Saudis in its catastrophic Yemen war.

Besides, Sissi needs his Egyptian soldiers at home to fight off Isis attacks and maintain, along with Israel, the siege of the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

But if we look a bit further down the road, its not difficult to see what really worries the Saudis. Qatar also maintains quiet links with the Assad regime. It helped secure the release of Syrian Christian nuns in Jabhat al-Nusrah hands and has helped release Lebanese soldiers from Isis hands in western Syria. When the nuns emerged from captivity, they thanked both Bashar al-Assad and Qatar.

And there are growing suspicions in the Gulf that Qatar has much larger ambitions: to fund the rebuilding of post-war Syria. Even if Assad remained as president, Syrias debt to Qatar would place the nation under Qatari economic control.

And this would give tiny Qatar two golden rewards. It would give it a land empire to match its al-Jazeera media empire. And it would extend its largesse to the Syrian territories, which many oil companies would like to use as a pipeline route from the Gulf to Europe via Turkey, or via tankers from the Syrian port of Lattakia.

For Europeans, such a route would reduce the chances of Russian oil blackmail, and make sea-going oil routes less vulnerable if vessels did not have to move through the Gulf of Hormuz.

So rich pickings for Qatar  or for Saudi Arabia, of course, if the assumptions about US power of the two emirs, Hamad and Tamim, prove worthless. A Saudi military force in Qatar would allow Riyadh to gobble up all the liquid gas in the emirate.

But surely the peace-loving anti-terror Saudis  lets forget the head-chopping for a moment  would never contemplate such a fate for an Arab brother.

So lets hope that for the moment, the routes of Qatar Airways are the only parts of the Qatari body politics to get chopped off.
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Donald Trump issued a triumphal tweet, declaring that his trip to Saudi Arabia has already paid off with a Saudi crackdown on Qatar. This single tweet shows just how out of depth US policy has become in the six months since Obama left office.

So why has the issue with Qatar blown up, why now and what do we need to know to understand it?

Firstly, we do need to paint a very broad and generalised brush of history to begin, and I really mean only begin, to understand what is going on.

Westerners, when looking at the Middle East, often think the disputes in the region can be boiled down to the Arab-Israeli dispute. The creation of the Jewish State and the dispossession of the Palestinians is thought by some to be the heart of all things.

In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour Show all 39 1 /39 In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud arriving for a reception ahead of a banquet at Murabba Palace in Riyadh Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 US President Donald Trump, accompanied by First Lady Melania Trump, and Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud being welcomed at Murabba Palace in Riyadh Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 US President Donald J. Trump with King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud during a welcome ceremony with traditional sword dancers at Murabba Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud with US President Donald J. Trump and wife Melania during a welcome ceremony at Murabba Palace, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 US President Donald Trump adjusts the Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud Medal, after it was bestowed upon him by Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 20 May 2017 Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud presents U.S. President Donald Trump with the Collar of Abdulaziz Al Saud Medal at the Royal Court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 21 May 2017 Palestinians print posters depicting US President Donald Trump in preparations for his planned visit, in the West Bank town of Bethlehem Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 21 May 2017 US President Donald Trump accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, before delivering his remarks to the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 21 May 2017 US President Donald Trump looks on as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef exchange a memorandum of understanding Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 21 May 2017 First Lady Melania Trump shares a laugh with a child during a visit to the American International School in the Saudi capital Riyadh Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 21 May 2017 US President Donald Trump holds a bilateral meeting with Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 Israeli soldiers rest during preparations ahead of President Trump's landing in Tel Aviv, Israel Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 First Lady Melania Trump makes her way to board Air Force One in Riyadh as she heads with her husband the US President to Israel Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One for Israel, the next stop in Trump's international tour, at King Khalid International Airport AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 Israeli soldiers wait for the arrival ceremony of US President Donald Trump at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, Israel AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive aboard Air Force One at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod near Tel Aviv, Israel Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump disembark Air Force One on arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald J. Trump and his wife, US First Lady Melania Trump are welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, in Lod outside Tel Aviv, Israel EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit during welcome ceremony in Tel Aviv AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US First Lady Melania Trump chats wife Sara Netanyahu as US President Donald Trump chats to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a welcoming ceremony to welcome Trump at Ben Gurion International Airport Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump delivers a speech upon his arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump gestures during a press conference with Israel's President at the President's Residence in Jerusalem Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump watches as First Lady Melania Trump signs the guest book at the President's Residence in Jerusalem Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump walks with first lady Melania Trump in Jerusalem's Old City Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump visits the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray, in Jerusalems Old City Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US President Donald Trump stands next to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz at the plaza in front of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House senior advisor Jared Kushner leave notes at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 US First Lady Melania Trump touches the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 Ivanka Trump, assistant and daughter of US President Donald J. Trump, touches the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem's Old City EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 22 May 2017 President Donald Trump visits the Western Wall AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 US President Donald J. Trump arrives in a vehicle to Saint Damaso's Court for a private audience with Pope Francis in Vatican City EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 Pope Francis walks past Ivanka Trump and First Lady Melania Trump on the occasion of the private audience with President Donald Trump, at the Vatican AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 Pope Francis exchanges gifts with US President Donald Trump during a private audience at the Vatican Getty Images In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 Pope Francis meets US President Donald Trump and his wife Melania during a private audience at the Vatican Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 Pope Francis with US President Donald J. Trump EPA In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 Pope Francis gets into is car after meeting with US President Donald Trump AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 President Donald Trump and his wife Melania look at the frescoed ceilings during their visit to the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican L'Osservatore Romano/Pool Photo via AP In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 US President Donald Trump security vehicles are seen in front of Air Force One before take off from Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy Reuters In pictures: President Donald Trump on tour 24 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump wave to reporters before boarding the Air Force One to Brussels, at the end of a 2-day visit to Italy including a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican, at Rome's Fiumicino international airport AP

Commentators, when discussing this 70-year-old dispute often bring Iran into the mix, as the American President now does. Unfortunately, this Israel centric narrative forgets one very important point.

Iranians are not Arabs. Iranians are Persian.

The Persians and the Arabs have been fighting since well before not only the creation of Israel a mere 70 years ago, long long before Muhammad popped up in the seventh century to found Islam, but at least back to when Persian King Darius ruled Egypt in the fourth century BC.

Even to some in Egypt, Darius is recent history. Lets talk Pharaohs, pyramids and Moses, to get some degree of historical perspective of just how long the Egyptians and Persians have been fighting.

Once Muhammad created Islam, religion became even more important. Anyone who is anyone in the world of Islam wants to control Mecca and set the direction and narrative for Islam. The Persians (Iran) are Shia, the Egyptians Sunni, albeit moderate, and the Saudis follow the stricter version of Wahhabism, which itself is a sect of Sunni Islam. All want to dominate.

For centuries, the Ottomans controlled Mecca until their empire collapsed following World War One, which coincided with the discovery and valuation of oil.

The British, understanding the power of oil, chose one tribe of Arabs to lead the Arabian Peninsula  the al-Saud family, who have been ruling most of the peninsular ever since.

Most, but not all.

A fair minority of the Arabian Peninsula is ruled by other absolute monarchies like the Emirs of the Emirates, the Emir of Oman, Bahrain, and yes, Qatar. Lets leave Yemen to the side for just a moment.

 Saudi Arabia cuts ties with Qatar over terror links

The Qataris are, like the Saudis, Sunni Islam. However the al-Thani ruling family of Qatar descend from a tribe of Bedouins that fought the al-Saud family well before Lawrence made the al-Saud family the rulers of Mecca, and then promptly crashed his motorcycle.

To complicate matters further, even though they are Sunni, the Qataris supported the Muslim Brotherhood opposition to Mubarak in Egypt, funded in large part by the Iranian Persians.

Prior to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Egyptians and Persians were unusually getting along as the Shah married King Farooks sister. The Shah is now buried in Cairo in a mosque next to where King Farook, as the last King of Egypt, is also buried.

The Islamic Revolution started another round of the millennia old Egypt versus Persian fighting. Iran, with Qatars help, funded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt ultimately, with American help, seeing the end of Mubarak and the bringing in of Mohammad Morsi as the Egyptian ruler.

The Iranians and the Egyptians were happy again. However a happier Iranian-Egyptian partnership really annoys the Saudis and scares the Israelis, so Saudi Arabia and Israel jointly lobbied the Americans for the end of Morsi. Surprise, surprise then when the Americans then supported the end of Morsi, the rise of al-Sisi in Egypt and the sidelining of Iran.

Recommended This is the real story behind the crisis in Qatar

In return al-Sisi in Egypt offered two islands in the Gulf to the Saudis as a bit of a thank you. Israel sat back and watched their enemies descend on each other. The Saudis ramped up their war in Yemen, which is a proxy war with Iran, and started to focus again on their own Bedouin enemies  Qatar.

Why Qatar? When you look at a map of the Arabian Peninsula you can see how some military planners in Saudi would think that Qatar, as an independent state, makes no sense. They may think it better off as a province of Saudi and unite the historically divided Bedouin tribes of the peninsula. Oh, and the Qataris have gas, lots of it.

But you cant invade Qatar, as Qatar has a US air base and the Americans might get upset. So you would need to move the Americans off the fence.

The Saudis offered a Sword Dance to Trump, and in one tweet he has more or less ignored the role that Saudi played in 9/11, pointed the finger at Iran and said to the Saudis, If you want Qatar, go for it.

Someone in Saudi Arabia must be giving thanks for Donald Trump. Has Trump been played like a pup? I bet the Qataris and Iranians think so.

Andrew MacLeod is a visiting Professor at Kings College London
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During recent months, our country has suffered three horrific terrorist attacks. It is right that the general election has been unaffected, as we cannot allow acts of evil to destabilise our democracy. But we have all seen how security, rightly, has become a key issue in this election, especially in the aftermath of the London Bridge attacks on Saturday night.

There is a consensus across the political spectrum that we must give our brave police and security services the tools they need to keep the British people safe from acts of terror like the despicable recent attacks.

The Prime Minister chose the day before the election to launch a baffling and cynical attack on human rights legislation  when there is not a shred of evidence that doing so would have prevented any recent attacks. This is a ploy designed to shift the focus away from the 20,000 police officers the Tories have cut since 2010.

The reality is that a key plank of the Prime Ministers Brexit strategy will put our security at risk. Her boast that no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain would, if put into practice (as the OECD thinks it would), lead to an end to security cooperation between Britain and the European Union.

UK General Election 2017 Show all 47 1 /47 UK General Election 2017 UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street for the 1922 committee on June 12, 2017 in London, England. British Prime Minister Theresa May held her first cabinet meeting with her re-shuffled team today Getty Images UK General Election 2017 12 June 2017 DUP leader Arlene Foster stands alongside deputy leader Nigel Dodds as they hold a press conference at Stormont Castle as the Stormont assembly power sharing negotiations reconvene following the general election on June 12, 2017 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Discussions between the DUP and the Conservative party are also continuing in the wake of the UK general election as Prime Minister Theresa May looks to form a government with the help of the Democratic Unionist parties ten Westminster seats. 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Rex Features UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A demonstrator wears a mask depicting Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May, poses with a mock gravestone bearing the words "Hard Brexit, RIP", during a protest photocall near the entrance 10 Downing Street in central London AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters in London Reuters UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May flanked by her husband Philip delivers a statement outside 10 Downing Street in central Londo Getty UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party Theresa May leaves Buckingham Palace in London the day after a general election in which the Conservatives lost their majority Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 A TV cameraman watches the door of 10 Downing Street in London Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is greeted by his Office Director Karie Murphy as he arrives at Labour Party HQ in Westminster, London, after he called on the Prime Minister to resign, saying she should 'go and make way for a government that is truly representative of this country' Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at the Conservative Party's headquarters with her husband Philip in London REUTERS/Peter Nicholls UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ukip leader Paul Nuttall speaks during a press conference at Boston West Golf Club where he announced that he is standing down as party leader Joe Giddens/PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, leaves the counting centre for Britain's general election with her partner Jen Wilson in Edinburgh, Scotland REUTERS/Russell Cheyne UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale celebrates with candidate for Edinburgh South Ian Murray as he retains his seat at the Meadowbank Sports Centre counting centre in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon speaks to the media at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, as counting is under way for the General Election Andrew Milligan/PA Wire UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh, as counting is under way for the General Election PA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland EPA UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, arrives at the Labour Party's Headquarters in London REUTERS/Marko Djurica UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 UKIP Leader Paul Nuttall leaves in a car following the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness in Boston, England Anthony Devlin/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 9 June 2017 British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader Theresa May speaks at the declaration at the election count at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead, England. 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Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A supporter wears a pair of Jeremy Corbyn decorated tights at a general election campaign event in Birmingham, central England, on June 6, 2017. Britain goes to the polls on June 8 to vote in a general election only days after another deadly terror attack in the nation's captial. AFP/Getty Images UK General Election 2017 6 June 2017 A picture taken in London, shows election leaflets from various parties displayed ahead of the United Kingdom's general elections. 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The threats we face are international in nature and the best way of fighting them is to work closely with our partners across the world, including in Europe. The EUs crime and terror fighting institutions, in which the UK plays a full role, give our security services crucial information about potential threats and suspects.

Europol  whose director, Rob Wainwright, is British  facilitates cooperation by police forces from Britain and the whole of Europe. EuroJust does the same for judicial systems, making it easier to prosecute offenders. The European Arrest Warrant prevents serious criminals and terrorist suspects from hiding from justice in a different European country, as it eases the extradition process.

Even more important are the institutions that let our police and security service access information about suspects the length and breadth of Europe. The Schengen Information System is an EU-wide database on organised criminal and terrorist suspects. It includes alerts on people who have travelled to Syria and elsewhere to fight for Isis. Our police and security services used the database over half a billion times in 2016, equivalent to 16 checks a second. The Prum Convention allows for fast and efficient data exchange between EU Member States, including on DNA analysis files, fingerprint identification systems and vehicle registration databases. The European Criminal Records Information System supports the exchange of crucial information on criminal convictions between EU law enforcement authorities.

In a speech earlier this week, the Prime Minister admitted that British participation in these institutions will lapse when we leave the European Union, unless we negotiate continued involvement. That is why threatening to leave the European Union with no deal is so dangerous. Brexit without a deal would risk our involvement in these programmes ceasing with no new arrangements to replace them.

 Prime Minister Theresa May casts her vote

This nightmare scenario is far from impossible. No deal, by definition, means that there will be no continuing agreement between the UK and the EU on security ready to go by the end of the Article 50 process. We would find ourselves in limbo, our ability to fight terrorism diminished while we frantically tried to negotiate a new deal from the outside.

This would be asking our brave police officers and security services to fight terrorism with one arm tied behind their backs. The Prime Minister should end her misleading rhetoric that no deal is better than a bad deal and, as a minimum, make clear that she will not even countenance walking away from the negotiating table without an agreement on security cooperation. In this election, it is crucial she is not given a blank cheque to negotiate a chaotic, extreme Brexit and put our national security at risk.

Chuka Umunna is Labour candidate for Streatham and was a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the last parliament
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We watched in our millions and thus we became the jury. And, as in any case before a court  legal or of public opinion  the nature of our verdict will be determined in part by the personalities of the people before us. Who is believable? Who seems upright and who doesnt?

The testimony of James Comey, erstwhile director of the FBI, was a wildly anticipated flashpoint in this rare drama. But there is a lot more of this to come. Indeed, the probe now being pursued by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russias alleged meddling in last years election may outlast Donald Trumps first term. This thing will have more seasons than Game of Thrones.

But whats the jury thinking now after Comey accused the President of speaking lies, plain and simple about him and his former colleagues at the agency? After he admitted he took notes after all communications with him because of the nature of the person? The nature of the leader of the free world. The notes he felt compelled to take, because, in his words, I was honestly concerned he might lie? (You begin to see why the ratings for this were high.)

Whats the jury thinking after Comey admitted to having been left stunned by Trump expressing the hope he could help make an FBI investigation of Michael Flynn, his former National Security Advisor, just go away?

Points of interpretation matter a great deal too, especially when it comes to the most salient question of the hour: did Trump do something that could be termed an obstruction of justice when he took Comey aside after an Oval Office cabal in mid-February and made his Flynn request? It is why some liken this to Watergate, which was as much about the cover-up as the crime.

I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go, Trump told Comey, according to Comeys own account of it. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. Republicans on the committee, like James Risch of Idaho, tried to run defence here. Telling someone you hope they might do something is not the same as telling them they must. Is it?

But this moment in the mornings open session on the Hill  a closed one followed, with us, the jury, excluded  was key, surely. Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice or, for that matter, any other criminal offence, where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome? Risch asked. I dont know well enough to answer, Comey replied. The reason I keep saying his words is I took it as a direction.

He took it as a direction. A direction, moreover, from the President, no less, his boss. The entire countrys boss. Comey had another point. Why, if he wasnt about to edge into inappropriate territory  call it that for now  had the President requested that everyone else leave the Oval Office before broaching this with Comey? Those told to leave included Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. I mean, this is a President of the United States with me alone saying I hope this, he noted. I took it as, this is what he wants me to do. I didnt obey that, but thats the way I took it.

Time for a commercial break, please. So much to discuss, so much to debate. Doesnt it seem odd to you? Keeping Comey back, making that request when they were all alone? Or we could have changed channels. Elsewhere on the Hill, the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was telling reporters, in effect, that the important thing to remember here is that the American President is still a rank amateur. So there cant be any crimes. Trump, he said, was, new at government, and he probably wasnt steeped in the long-running protocols about the proper distance between the FBI and the White House, he offered. No, this wasnt the Comedy Channel.

We know what Trump thinks of Comey. The day after firing him he called him a nut job to, of all people, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, who was visiting him in the Oval Office. A more erudite version of his being sacked came from Comeys lips. Asked repeatedly by the committee why he thought hed been fired, he finally offered a Thomas Beckett invocation. It had to come. Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest? Which makes Trump King Henry II.

Ryans defence of Trump hardly makes him look better. Hed be fine as leader of some other country perhaps, where independence of the judiciary isnt a thing. Where nods, winks, back-scratching and arm-twisting is normal practice. But this is America and impeding an investigation into what happened between your election campaign and a foreign foe tends to be taken seriously. And most Americans would probably prefer less sloppiness in the Oval Office.

But not everyone is convinced by Comey either. If he was made to wriggle it was when he admitted that the reason the press got hold so quickly of the memo hed written about that Oval Office encounter was because he had leaked it. He said he woke up in the middle of the night and realised he had to. Except he didnt leak it; he asked a professor friend of his in New York to do that shifty business for him. Why? Because he didnt want to encourage reporters camped at the end of his driveway. It would have been like feeding seagulls at the beach, he said.

And Comey has a bit of a martyr thing going. Feeling sorry for him is a bit of a stretch, even for Democrats who cant abide the President, but cant forgive Comey for dropping that last-minute bomb at the end of last years election saying he was reopening the probe into Hillary Clintons emailing habits and only saying of the eve of voting that there was nothing new there after all.

So the jury is a bit lost. Was it entertained at least? By the Shakespearean intrigue of it all, possibly. But its desultory for the country also. Plenty of Americans are plain embarrassed by it all. And, like we said, we have so much further to go, with Mueller and the different Congressional panels really only just getting started.

What was that other thing Comey said? Sometimes when you start turning over rocks, you find things not related to the original criminal investigation. We have lots of rocks to go and who knows where this will take the country. And where it will leave Trump.
Aidan Regan said the UK's withdrawal from the European Union will accelerate the drive to harmonise corporate income taxes. Stock picture

Brexit will make it much more difficult for Ireland to fight plans by the European Commission to standardise the way corporation tax is calculated and paid across the EU, an academic has warned.

Aidan Regan, an assistant professor at the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD, said the UK's withdrawal from the European Union will accelerate the drive to harmonise corporate income taxes.

He said the Franco-German preference is for increased tax harmonisation, with the common consolidated corporate tax (CCCTB) base proposals a part of that.

The Government is opposed to the plans, which include making companies pay tax in countries where sales are made rather than where businesses are controlled.

In Ireland's case, it would undermine the competitiveness of the 12.5pc corporate tax rate that has helped make the country a favourite European base for US multinationals.

"Britain was the most vociferous voice against the CCCTB proposal," Mr Regan told a recent sitting of the Oireachtas Finance Committee. "It was absolutely unafraid to use its veto in the case of something like this coming along in actually forcing a vote, but, of course, one would not vote on it. With Britain gone, a variety of policies come into play that will strengthen the voting behaviour of France and Germany within the Council. It has become much more difficult for a small open economy on the periphery of north-western Europe to become the biggest obstacle to what the core strategic players in this process want."

Mr Regan said Ireland is already in the spotlight in Brussels, Frankfurt and Paris for "facilitating global corporate tax avoidance, not least in the Apple case".

"Significantly, it represents a small portion of the overall population of the European Union. Hence, a core political economy question for Ireland is whether it is in Irish interests to veto such a strategic policy which is fundamentally aimed at building the problem solving capacity of the European Union to avoid the potential side effects of a country in the north west of its region [UK] turning itself into a low tax regulatory environment," Mr Regan said.

Last week outgoing Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the European Commission promotes the interests of larger countries and no longer stands by small states. He said this was particularly the case in plans for a CCCTB.
Brexit will lead to airlines offering fewer routes to the UK and cause increased prices from spring, it has been warned.

CEO of the Dublin Airport Authority Kevin Toland also told a Seanad Special Select Committee on Brexit that the UK will become a bigger competitor of Ireland's both in terms of tourism and the provision of flights to regional airports in the UK.

Currently 42pc of tourist numbers into Ireland come from the UK, with visitors generating 1.1bn in revenue for the Irish economy in 2016.

However, Mr Toland, who will leave the DAA later this year to join global bakery company Aryzta, said that the tourist numbers were already falling, with trips by UK residents to the Republic down 10.7pc between February and April this year.

Furthermore, the UK could become more competitive in attracting tourists away from Ireland as sterling weakens, he said.

In terms of what could be done to mitigate the effect of Brexit, the Seanad was told the Irish airline industry needs to deepen its connectivity, in particular through greater numbers of long-haul flights and the building of a new runway at Dublin Airport.

Mr Toland, who has been CEO of the DAA since 2013, advised that introducing duty-free shopping between Ireland and the UK should begin immediately after the UK leaves the EU. He also said that Ireland should position itself as the "business destination of choice".

Mr Toland also warned of the need to prioritise the airline industry in Ireland, advising that out of the EU's 27 members, Ireland is most dependant on the UK, with traffic to and from the UK representing 36pc of Dublin Airport's business.

In comparison, France only depends on the UK for 6.8pc of its air traffic, while for Germany the percentage of traffic to and from its airports to the UK is even smaller, at 6.1pc.

On the subject of the need for a second runway at Dublin Airport, Mr Toland said that currently during the hours of 5am to midnight, the airport is at 87pc capacity. This means it is a priority that another runway be built to ensure that Ireland remains the preferred location for business and tourism.

A longer runway would also increase the airport's capacity for long-haul flights, as well as facilitate approximately 2.2bn growth in GDP.
A senior official with the Chinese Community Party - tipped as a potential contender to succeed President Xi Jinping - will arrive in Ireland today with a 250-strong delegation, with Brexit opportunities expected to be one of the talking points.

Hu Chunhua, party secretary of the economically-powerful Guangdong Province in the south east of the sprawling country, will spend three days here meeting Taoiseach Enda Kenny, ministers, businesses and representatives of Ireland's third level and farming sectors. He will attend a business event organised by Dublin Chamber, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Chinese embassy in Ireland.

Guangdong is the most populous province in China, with about 106 million people living there. It is also a hugely significant economic hub, and the largest province by GDP in China. Its economy exceeds $1.1trillion, and it is home to the special economic zone, Shenzen. Mobile giant Huawei, which has operations here, is headquartered there.

Sources estimate that around 1,000 companies from Guangdong have invested in the UK. Brexit will likely raise questions about where they see their future.

The business event tomorrow morning will include addresses by Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor, IDA boss Martin Shanahan and Enterprise Ireland chief Julie Sinammon. Two-way trade between Ireland and China was estimated at 12.38bn last year, up from 7.08bn in 2013.
Farmers more usually get up early in the morning. So, Leo Varadkar's campaign sound bite should not cause conflict between the agriculture sector and the incoming Taoiseach.

Mr Varadkar, whose mother grew up on a farm near Dungarvan, did actually cite agriculture in his policy priorities document launched just over a fortnight ago, on May 22, in the teeth of his campaign to win the big job.

Naturally, he led off with Brexit, but he also spoke of the future of EU farm payments as a new regime post 2020 looms into view, and the need to adapt Irish farming to meet climate change targets.

On Brexit he spoke of a pledge to "put the unique difficulties of the agriculture and food sector top of the agenda." He identified the need to protect Irish food exports to the UK from what is increasingly looking like "a hard Brexit" with some form of tariffs and border controls a very clear danger post 2019.

The whole thing takes on a deal of urgency with tough talk in London of storming off with "no deal - rather than a bad deal." That would mean World Trade Organisation rules and some very hefty tariffs inimical to trade and creating more fuss and expense to administer.

For the Taoiseach-designate the remedy would be an "EU-Britain Free Trade Agreement" post the divorce in April 2019. But that is all much easier said than done.

Matters might be helped by the British general election on Thursday. But that assumes a stronger majority for Prime Minister Theresa May, something which at time of writing appears to be a big assumption.

More generally, the election of Emmanuel Macron as French president and the completion of parliamentary elections in France should calm things. German elections due in September will not impact on Brexit as the two big groupings there are on the same page about the EU.

Leo Varadkar has spoken of appealing to Theresa May to allow Northern Ireland to remain in the single market. He said he will advocate special arrangements for Northern Ireland that "respect the democratic vote" in the region and would seek to retain a number of programmes including the single market, and Common Agricultural Policy.

"The pitch to Theresa May is about what is in our common interest, I think the British authorities want to retain the common citizenship that is in place and Britain wants a free-trade agreement with the EU, and that is in our interests too," he said at his priorities launch. In summary he wants a "soft Brexit" for the North whatever happens to the rest of the UK.

But two problems immediately occur: first is that the North is clearly far from Ms May's top list of Brexit priorities. Second is that there is no power-sharing government in Belfast to look after the North's interests at this pivotal time.

That leaves Mr Varadkar, who is due to attend his first EU summit in little over a fortnight, with very limited room for manoeuvre. This summit in Brussels will be the acid test for him.

He may find more allies in Europe than in Britain. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom was optimistic speaking in Copenhagen late last month: "It's uncharted territory but I'm sure we will solve it. We will have a free trade agreement, that is for sure."

John Downing is an Irish Independent political correspondent
On average 3pc of dairy cows, 1.5pc of beef cattle, 0.5pc of pigs, 0.8pc sheep and 0.2pc of goats in the EU are slaughtered during the last third of gestation, according to an expert judgement from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

EFSAs Panel on Animal Health and Welfare has examined issues surrounding the slaughter of pregnant farmed animals in the European Union
Grass measuring is number 1 on the farm on the farm of this years Zurich Farm Insurance Farming Independent Farmer of the Years.

A dairy farmer who has revolutionised his farming operation Peter Hynes and his wife Paula, from Aherla, Co Cork, have tapped into the very latest technology.

In terms of grass Hynes says its the number one job to do every week.

We walk the farm every five to seven days to check were growth rates are an to manage the grazing platform, Peter says.

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He uses Grasshopper grass measuring kit which he also demonstrates the benefits of to other farmers for its Irish developers.

It has GPS mapping built into it and bluetooths back to the phone automatically.

Its sending all the information directly to my phone

It knows what paddock its in at any one time and has been independently validated by Teagasc. The grass package used on the farm is Pasturebase Ireland.

Read More

Teagasc advice on how to improve grassland performance:

1. Increased emphasis on measurement and feed budgeting

Greater adoption of pasture measurement and budgeting will be essential to lift grass utilisation from its current level. Recent research has shown that at higher stocking rates, both grass production and utilisation can be increased. The development of web-based grassland management decision support tools such as PastureBase Ireland (PBI) will be critical in increasing the adoption of best grazing management practices at farm level.

The weekly use of such reliable, easy to use decision support tools will be essential to increase grass utilisation at farm level.

2. The development of the Pasture Profit Index (PPI) is a significant step towards linking breeding objectives, evaluation programmes and farmers needs. PBI provides a mechanism for new cultivars to be evaluated at farm level thereby increasing the rate of genetic gain.

Selecting grass varieties based on the PPI will result in increased profit at farm level. Additionally, there is the possibility that biotechnologies similar to those used in dairy cattle breeding could increase the rate of genetic progress in grass breeding in the near future.

3. Raising soil fertility to maximise pasture productivity

Since the late 1990s the levels of phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and lime being applied to grassland in Ireland has reduced significantly. As a result only 10% of the soils tested on dairy farms were optimal for soil pH, P, and K in 2015. It is not possible to have optimum grass production with this level of soil fertility.

Recent research has shown that a soil with optimum pH has a replacement value of 72 kg/ha of N fertiliser. Similarly, soils with optimum P can deliver an additional 1 t/ha of DM in spring period. While it costs money to increase fertility levels in low fertility soils, the return in grass production more than doubles the annual investment in fertilizer costs.

4. Management of marginal lands

Marginal land occupies a large proportion (approximately 50pc) of Irelands total land area. This land is limited principally by its poor drainage status and farm profitability on such land is highly weather dependent. The Heavy Soils Research Programme has demonstrated site-specific land drainage design methods to ensure efficient drainage can be achieved, regardless of variations in soil/site conditions.

Land drainage and infrastructure improvement strategies will be critical in reducing income volatility and sustaining viable farm enterprises on heavy soils. Additionally, there is a requirement to develop specific additional management strategies in order to maximise profitability on these heavy soils.

5. Incorporating clover in grazing swards

There is renewed interest in forage legumes, particularly white clover, as it offers important opportunities for sustainable grass-based animal production systems by increasing herbage yield, increasing herbage nutritive value and raising the efficiency of conversion of herbage to product. Results from research carried both at Moorepark and Clonakilty Agriculture Collage show a significant advantage to including white clover into perennial dominated ryegrass pastures. Despite the clear advantages of incorporating white clover into ryegrass pastures, its adoption on Irish grassland farms is low. This requires significant research allowing greater adoption at farm level over the coming years.

In Europe, grass breeders have increased DM yield by 0.5pc per year as tested in cutting trials in the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. However, there is little evidence that new grass cultivars have made a significant contribution to increased animal production from grazed pasture.

Considerably greater gain has been achieved in breeding other crops such as maize. There is considerable potential to increase the rate of genetic gain in perennial ryegrass, not only in annual yield but also in other traits such as improved winter/spring growth, increased nutritional value especially in mid-season and persistency.
Bank of Ireland's outgoing CEO, Richie Boucher, is considering a future role with the Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa, the investment guru who reaped a fortune from the lender after buying into the Irish bank at the nadir of the financial crisis.

Sources familiar with Mr Boucher's future moves told the Irish Independent he is weighing an offer to work with Mr Watsa.

Toronto-headquartered Fairfax Financial Holdings, headed by Watsa, is often dubbed the Canadian version of Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway investment firm. It hoovered up 9.3pc of Bank of Ireland in 2011, when the lender was on its knees.

The stake was bought at 10c a share, delivering a hefty CAD$806m (566m) profit when Mr Watsa began cashing in the holding starting in 2014 when the stock was trading at more than 30 cent. By the end of last year it had sold the vast majority of its exposure, bought as part of an orchestrated deal that also involved a major investment from US billionaire Wilbur Ross. He too made a 500m-plus gain on the selldown of his 9.3 pc stake.

The 2011 equity injection from the private investors prevented a full-scale nationalisation of Bank of Ireland at the time, and the lender remains in better health than its peer AIB given its lighter burden of non-performing loans.

But the State's role in the bank's rescue has also kept a lid on Mr Boucher's wages, with global proxy firms recently noting his total remuneration for 2016 remains less than the average paid to peers at a similarly-sized European bank.

CGI Glass Lewis flagged its concerns at the lack of performance-related pay ahead of the lender's AGM but conceded the restrictions stem from the State recapitalisation of the banks.

The Government still holds a 14pc stake in Bank of Ireland which is yet to resume dividends.
Drogheda-based skincare firm Irish Breeze has launched a New York legal action against a US maker of baby wipes, claiming its own popular WaterWipes trademark has been infringed.

It's now seeking unspecified damages from New York company WaterPura and a connected firm, Crescent Marketing. WaterPura is owned by Emily Frazer, while she is also a director of Crescent Marketing, which is owned by her family.

Irish Breeze has been making a fortune from the wipes, with operating profits soaring in 2015 to 4.4m from 2.2m.

Irish Breeze is seeking special damages that can be awarded in the US for trademark infringement under the Lanham Act. That act allows for the trebling by a court of provable damages awarded to a plaintiff.

"Irish Breeze has suffered great detriment to its business, goodwill, reputation and profits, all to its damage in an amount as yet not fully ascertained," it told a New York court in a complaint just filed there.

It added "Irish Breeze is entitled to all remedies available under the Lanham Act", including "injunctive relief, compensatory damages, treble damages, and disgorgement of profits".

Irish Breeze is controlled by Edward McCloskey, the son of Boyne Valley Foods founder Malachy. Last year, it opened a sales office in New Hampshire as WaterWipes gained consumer momentum in America. Irish Breeze has signed deals with US retailers like Walgreens, Target and Amazon.

The wipes contain almost entirely water and no chemicals.

Irish Breeze claims the US Waterpura products "are identical products sold by Irish Breeze under the WaterWipes (trade) marks". Irish Breeze has alleged that Ms Frazer claims she began developing Waterpura wipes in 2013, when WaterWipes were already for sale in the US.
BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company, is studying the introduction of giant, automated cargo ships to carry everything from iron ore to coal as part of a strategic shift that may disrupt the $334bn (297bn) global shipping industry.

"Safe and efficient autonomous vessels carrying BHP cargo, powered by BHP gas, is our vision for the future of dry bulk shipping," vice president, Freight Rashpal Bhatti, wrote in a posting on its website. The company, run by Andrew Mackenzie, also one of the world's largest dry bulk charterers, is seeking partners to work on technological changes in the sector, he said.

BHP, which charters about 1,500 voyages a year for around a quarter of a billion metric tons of iron ore, copper and coal, wants to deploy the technology within a decade, according to Bhatti. For the biggest miners, a move to crewless ships could deliver new savings in the $86bn a year seaborne iron ore market, mirroring the shift to autonomous trucks to trains that allow fewer staff to remotely operate or monitor multiple vehicles.

Deploying unmanned ships on the 10-day sea journey from Australia's northern coast to China would be a logical extension of technology that currently runs from mines to ports and allows producers to respond quickly to specific customer demands, Emilie Ditton, Sydney-based research director at IDC Energy Insights, said by phone.

"There has been in the last six months a really big change in the desire of mining companies to seek out opportunities for innovation," Ditton said. "There's a much bigger recognition that there are opportunities to innovate across the board."

Work is underway at the International Maritime Organization, the United Nations agency in London that oversees global shipping, to consider regulation of autonomous surface ships, James Fanshawe, a former senior Royal Navy officer and chairman of the UK's Maritime Autonomous Systems Regulatory Working Group, said by phone. A meeting beginning Wednesday of IMO's maritime safety committee will consider proposals for a regulatory study on the "safe, secure and environmentally sound operation" of autonomous vessels, according to the organization's website.

BHP takes the view that the dry bulk freight market is on the verge of pricing and liquidity reforms similar to those seen in bulk commodities markets over the last decade, Bhatti said in the May 30 posting. The company cut freight and transportation costs by 16pc to $2.3 billion in fiscal 2016, according to filings.

The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of commodity shipping costs, fell 0.4pc on Tuesday to 818 points, according to the Baltic Exchange in London. BHP declined 0.6pc to A$23.19 in Sydney trading Wednesday.

A three-year, 3.8m project backed by the European Union developed a proposal for an intercontinental bulk carrier and concluded in 2015 that autonomous technology is both feasible and likely to be adopted. China's Maritime Safety Administration is also working on development of uncrewed ships, according to its website.

Rio Tinto Group, which uses a fleet of about 76 driverless trucks and will fully deploy autonomous trains in Western Australia by the end of next year, sees shipping as among the next target for innovation, its top iron ore executive Chris Salisbury told a Perth conference last month. Rio's marine unit shipped 281 million tonnes of cargo in 2016 and is the largest dry bulk shipping business in the world, operating 17 vessels of its own and contracting a fleet of about 200 at any one time, according to filings.

An unmanned ocean-going vessel could be in international waters by 2035 under proposals by Rolls-Royce, which has developed a virtual prototype and aims to have remotely controlled coastal vessels in testing as soon as 2020, according to its marine division. Fertilizer producer Yara International ASA said last month it will deploy an autonomous-capable container ship on Norway's coast from next year and aims to move to remote operation in 2019 and full autonomy a year later.

"Autonomous ships will change the way transport systems are designed and operated," Ornulf Jan Rodseth, a Trondheim, Norway-based senior scientist at Sintef, Scandinavia's biggest science and technology researcher, said. If freight users, including BHP, are able to adopt the technology, "you might see that they build a new fleet of special purpose ships that puts the traditional ships and ship operators out of business," he said. (Bloomberg)
The CEO of Ireland's biggest taxpayer, Apple, has said any new US tax on companies' overseas earnings should be mandatory with proceeds spent on upgrading US infrastructure.

Apple has $257bn (228bn) in cash reserves, held mostly outside of the US.

Tim Cook said any new, lower federal tax rate on US companies' overseas earnings should be mandatory for all companies, and proceeds should be spent on upgrading US infrastructure.

"It should be a required tax," Mr Cook said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "And so you're not asking the people that have had earnings from their international subsidiaries if they'd like to bring back money. You're saying that, you must pay the government X percent now or over some period of time."

Apple has $257bn in cash reserves, and most of it is outside of the US. Like many CEOs, Cook has supported US President Donald Trump's repatriation push, which could see Apple bring overseas cash back to the US without being hit with the country's full 35pc corporate tax rate.

During his campaign, Trump proposed requiring companies to pay a one-time 10pc levy on their offshore income.

Unlike most developed nations, the US applies its 35pc corporate income tax to global earnings, not just US income. But companies can defer tax on their overseas profits until they decide to return those earnings to the US, or "repatriate" them. To delay those bills, companies including Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet have stockpiled an estimated $2.6trn offshore, sometimes borrowing in the US against the offshore funds in order to return cash to shareholders.

Economists say removing the incentive to hoard cash outside the US would stimulate the world's largest economy by encouraging domestic investment. Investors are keen for the money to come home because they expect much of it to be spent on stock buybacks and dividends.

Cook told Bloomberg Television that he supports a "deemed repatriation" tax rule - the approach that Trump and congressional Republicans favour. Under that approach, companies would be deemed to have repatriated their cash already - whether they plan to or not - and automatically owe the tax. Payment schedules could be spread over years. (Bloomberg)
The 12-year-old girl who went viral last week for busking on Grafton Street reportedly turned down an opportunity to appear on The Ellen Show.

Allie Sherlock, from Cork, received over 1.2 million views on Facebook for her performance of Ed Sheeran's 'Supermarket Flowers'.

However, the Douglas native said that she enjoys performing solely as a hobby, and wants to work in childcare rather than have a career on the stage.

"I don't want it to be a professional career but I'd like to do it, just as a hobby. I'd like to do childcare because my auntie owns a creche," she told the Evening Echo.

"I want to keep practising all the time and singing and so it's like a hobby really. Maybe I'll do weddings. I'd like to see what happens in the future before deciding anything."

Allie's father Mark went on to say that the talented musician was contacted by The Ellen Show, one of the biggest chat shows in America, but they turned the opportunity down.

"There's been a few people on to us about different things. She had the Ellen Show in America contact her but she's only 12 and she just enjoys a bit of busking.

"My main thing is that Allie continues to be Allie because she's a child. She enjoys her singing and as soon as it isn't fun anymore, that would be the end of it. Her plan is to do childcare, she would love that. Music is second. She might go to college and maybe head into town busking and earn herself a few quid."
An adventure? Alpaca my bags.

Two alpacas made the most of the Bank Holiday weekend by taking a trip out to Dun Laoghaire.

Clyde and Cooper hopped aboard Dublin Bus after visiting Feast restaurant.

They proved to be quite popular with passersby, although it was assured that they weren't on the menu.

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In a photo shared to Instagram, their owners wrote: "Alpaca Feast! The boys were the main attraction in Dun Laoghaire visiting Feast restaurant... but not on the menu. Clyde & Cooper had a great day."

We wonder if they had to pay a fare for the trip.
A FORMER dissident Republican commander died from shock and haemorrhage after he sustained multiple gunshot wounds in an execution-style attack last Christmas.

Aidan 'The Beast' O'Driscoll (37) died after he was ambushed and shot up to four times on December 7 as he walked in Blackpool in Cork city.

Detectives fear it was a targeted attack by his old dissident Republican colleagues.

Gardai are still trying to determine if the gunman was from Dublin or recruited from Kerry-Limerick to carry out the attack.

A Cork coroner's inquest into Mr O'Driscoll's death was adjourned after Coroner Philip Comyn heard evidence of identification and cause of death.

The inquest was adjourned on the application of Detective Inspector Declan O'Sullivan.

"Criminal proceedings are being contemplated by the Gardai," he said.

Det Inspector O'Sullivan said Gardai are currently working on a file which will be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Dr Comyn was told by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster that Mr O'Driscoll died from shock and haemorrhage due to multiple gunshot wounds.

The coroner adjourned the inquest for mention to November 30 but told the O'Driscoll family that a death certificate will be available in five days.

A 40-strong team of detectives at Watercourse Road Garda Station are investigating the killing which occurred on a busy Blackpool street in the build-up to Christmas.

Up to four vehicles were used in the getaway  two of which, a Nissan Almera and Vauxhall Astra van, were found burned out a couple of hours after the shooting on Redemption Road in the city and at Killeens.

However, a third vehicle, an Opel Astra, used by the killers to flee from Killeens, was only found shortly before Christmas in a remote ravine in Nadd.

A fourth vehicle was then used by the killers to flee from Nadd, possible a Toyota Avensis.

Gardai also suspect a motorcyclist may have operated as a spotter for the gunmen waiting to ambush Mr ODriscoll.

Two weapons were also seized by detectives during a search of houses in Cork.

The weapons  a sawn-off shotgun and a US-made Colt semi-automatic pistol  were seized from a property on the Old Commons Road in Cork just hours after Mr ODriscoll was fatally shot.

Detectives are also considering whether Mr ODriscoll may have recognised one of his attackers seconds before he was shot.

He apparently realised he was about to be ambushed, turned and attempted to flee.

However, he was shot once in the back and fell to the pavement. A gunman then walked up to him and shot him up to three more times.

Mr ODriscoll died just over an hour later as he was undergoing emergency surgery at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Supt Michael Comyns insisted at the time Gardai were keeping a very open mind about the murder.

Mr ODriscoll was the victim of a punishment shooting in 2013 and was expelled from the dissident Republican group.

He had also apparently been warned about his recent activities which included associating with known Limerick criminals.

The former Delaneys GAA player also had numerous enemies within Munster-based drug gangs so detectives are not willing to rule out revenge as the motive for the killing.

It has been established that the getaway car used, a Nissan Almera registration number 01 TS 1312, was in the general Blackpool area for a number of hours prior to the murder, a Garda spokesperson said.

We are also appealing for any taxi driver, driver or cyclists who have a Dashcam and were in the Blackpool area from 2pm onwards to contact Gardai.

A further appeal is being made for any witness who may have seen a white Vauxhall Astra van registration number 99 G 12357, a red Opel Astra car (reg no unknown) or a black Toyota Avensis (reg no unknown) on the day of the murder in the Blackpool area from 2pm to 5pm or in the Killeens area from 2pm to 6pm.

Special posters have been placed in Blackpool near the scene of the murder appealing for public information.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Anglesea Street Garda Station on (021) 4522000 or the Garda Confidential line (1800) 666111.
Ian Bailey has alleged the husband of Sophie Toscan du Plantier had a motive to kill the French filmmaker.

The journalist said he believed movie producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier stood to benefit from a large insurance policy in the event of Sophie's death and was having an affair at the time.

Mr Bailey (60), who is fighting efforts to extradite him to France to stand trial for the murder, made the shock claims in an interview published today in 'Hot Press' magazine.

His claims have been greeted with disbelief by representatives of Sophie's family.

Manchester-born Mr Bailey has always denied any involvement in the December 1996 killing.

Ms Toscan du Plantier (39) was bludgeoned to death outside her holiday home near Schull, Co Cork, and Mr Bailey alleges gardai tried to frame him for the crime.

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In the interview, he said he believed the killer was someone from France. He also revealed the mental and financial toll the case had taken on him over the past 20 years, saying he had massive debts, had attempted suicide and attended Alcoholics Anonymous after reaching "rock bottom".

"There was never a proper investigation. My belief has always been that the perpetrator came from France and it was a deliberate assassination," he said.

Mr Bailey accepted he had no evidence to prove this theory but insisted it should have been investigated.

Asked why Sophie would be assassinated, he said: "I believe her husband, the late Daniel Toscan du Plantier, had a large amount of insurance money on her. At the time of her murder, he was having an affair with another woman who he subsequently married, who became his fourth trophy wife, Melita."

Alain Spilliaert, a lawyer representing Sophie's parents, said the claims would be "upsetting" for her family and that of her late husband, who died in 2003.

But he declined to comment further as extradition proceedings are continuing at the High Court in Dublin.

Mr Bailey repeated previous allegations he has made of ill-treatment by gardai, and revealed how at one point he decided to "end it all" and intended to get drunk and throw himself into the River Ilen.

Referring to the movie 'Leaving Las Vegas', where the lead character tries to drink himself to death, Mr Bailey said: "I tried to do a Leaving West Cork, and actually just finished up being arrested for being drunk and incapable in the streets of Skibbereen."

He said he had been "in a very dark place" and coped "very badly" with the stress of being identified as a murder suspect.

"I reached rock bottom and I went to AA. I became an adherent of AA. I still go to AA occasionally," he said.

Mr Bailey also said it had been a struggle to support himself financially and he was living "on a shoestring".

"I'm severely in debt. I owe 1.2m in terms of costs against the State, but that's a matter under appeal," he said.

"We live very frugally. We produce a lot of our own food. Occasionally I get little bits of work. But its tough."

The High Court is to resume hearing an application for Mr Bailey's extradition next week.

French authorities previously sought his surrender in 2010 but this application was refused by the Supreme Court in 2012.

A second extradition request was sent to Ireland last year.

Under French law, prosecutions can be brought for crimes committed against French citizens outside of France.

But Mr Bailey's legal team believes the French are relying on material gathered during a flawed Garda investigation, evidence which the Director of Public Prosecutions deemed insufficient to mount a prosecution here. They also argue that the Supreme Court had already determined there was an "absolute bar" on Mr Bailey being extradited to France.

A five-judge Supreme Court refused to surrender Mr Bailey in 2012 and four of the five judges upheld Mr Bailey's argument that section 44 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 prohibits surrender because the alleged offence was committed outside French territory and Irish law does not allow prosecution for the same offence when committed outside its territory by a non-Irish citizen.

But lawyers for Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald have asked the High Court to refer the issue to the European courts for clarification.

Mr Bailey's legal team has also initiated proceedings in France aimed at halting the prosecution there.

Mr Bailey told the magazine his human rights were being infringed as long as the European Arrest Warrant remains in place.

He said that as soon as the first warrant was issued in 2010, he was never able to leave Ireland and that he is on a European intelligence register as having a warrant against him.

"I wasn't even allowed to go to my mother's funeral [in the UK]. And I never will be able to leave Ireland, as far as I can see. My human right of being able to travel freely has been robbed from me, "he said.

The full interview can be read in the latest issue of 'Hot Press', which goes on sale today.
A SHOPLIFTER was arrested after he was caught stealing 41 packs of false eyelashes from a city centre store.

Vasile Popa (45) had "no personal reason" for taking the fake eyelashes, but had suffered from erratic behaviour after being treated for cancer, a court heard.

Judge Anthony Halpin applied the Probation Act, leaving the accused without a theft conviction.

Popa, a former security guard with an address at Spiddal Road, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty to stealing the goods, which were worth 61.50.

Dublin District Court heard the incident happened at Penneys on O'Connell Street Lower on May 24.

Popa went into the store's cosmetics section at 6.40pm and picked up 41 packets of fake eyelashes, which he concealed before leaving without paying.

He was stopped, gardai were called and he was arrested and charged. The property was recovered in a saleable condition and returned to Penneys, a garda sergeant said.

UNEXPLAINED

Popa had previous convictions, but none were recent.

"The latest offence doesn't make a lot of sense," Sgt Stephen O'Mahony said. "He has no personal reason for taking fake eyelashes. He can't explain what happened - he had no reason to take the items."

Mr O'Mahony said while some people might shoplift goods to sell, the defendant had no need to do this either.

"Vanity might be a motivational factor," Judge Halpin said.

Mr O'Mahony indicated this was not the case.

Popa had suffered from cancer of the nasopharynx and this had subsided after treatment, but it had the effect of causing some erratic behaviour, Mr O'Mahony said.

His treatment had finished and he was only on over-the-counter medication. He did explain to gardai when he came to his senses that he was suffering from irrational behaviour.

The accused had worked in security, so he understood the issue of shoplifting.

Mr O'Mahony handed a medical letter in to court in support of his mitigation.

"He genuinely didn't harbour any intention of stealing on the day in question," the judge read from the letter, before applying the Probation Act.
A homeless family has secured a temporary High Court order preventing Wicklow Co Council from moving their caravan from a site they have been staying at for several weeks.

The action was brought by John Paul Moorehouse and his wife Barbara who along with their two young children have been staying in a small caravan at a site at Priests Newtown, Kilcoole, Co Wicklow since early May.

Late last month the council issued a notice directing the family to quit the site.

However the family, who are members of the Irish Traveller Community and have been homeless since April, say they have nowhere else to go.

In their High Court proceedings against the Council the family say the notice is flawed as it does not provide details of an alternative site where they can move their caravan

Their barrister Siobhan Phelan SC said the family had come to court over fears of becoming "roofless as well as homeless".

Their caravan could be impounded and the family prosecuted if they did not move from the site at Priests Newtown, counsel added.

At the High Court today the family secured a temporary injunction preventing the Council from impounding their caravan on foot of the notice to quit, which has been issued under the section 10 of the 1992 Housing Act.

In addition the court placed a stay on the council prosecuting the family on foot of the notice to quit pending further order.

The Moorehouse family also gave an undertaking to the court that they would co-operate with the council by moving their caravan to a site offered by the local authority.

The injunction was granted on an ex parte basis, where only one side was present in court, by Mr Justice Richard Humphreys. The Judge made the matter returnable to a date later this month.

After granting the order the Judge said he hoped that something could be worked out between the parties.

In a sworn statement to the court Mrs Moorehouse, who is expecting the couple's third child, said she understood some people in the locality were unhappy the site at Priests Newtown has been occupied by members of the Traveller Community.

She said that shortly after they arrived somebody let off gunshots which they believe was a warning to them to leave the lands.

The Gardai, she said, called to them and gave them a number to call if there were any further acts of intimidation.

Mrs Moorehouse said she and her husband, who are both from Co Wicklow are very concerned about their family.

Seeking the injunction Ms Phelan SC, instructed by solicitors for the Free Legal Advice Centre said the family have been on the housing list for several years, and the local authority is well aware of the Moorehouse's situation.

Since becoming homeless they have been unable to secure alternative accommodation for either the council or in the private rental market.

The family had been living in private rented accommodation, but had to leave after it was deemed unfit for human habitation mainly due to damp by Wicklow Co Council.

Counsel said since they became homeless all the council have been able to offer the mother and children were "three nights" emergency accommodation in a hotel while Mr Moorehouse slept in his van.

The family then borrowed money to pay for a small touring caravan.

Before arriving at their current location they have spent short periods of time at various locations in Co Wicklow before being moved on.

On one occasion they stayed at a small halting site in Delgany, Co Wicklow for two days but the caravan was removed and impounded by the Gardai.

After negotiating with the Gardai the caravan was returned to them.
Loreto on the Green students Rachel Murphy, left, from Ashbourne, and Eleanor Coleman, from Rathgar. Picture: Collins

That the very topical issue of housing appeared on the Leaving Certificate higher level home economics paper was not a surprise, according to teacher Margaret Kinsella.

"A lot of teachers were expecting this question this year," said Ms Kinsella, a subject representative for the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland.

Ms Kinsella, who teaches at St Raphaela's Secondary School, Kilmacud, Dublin, described the short questions as "very doable".

But she thought the section 1 question on carbohydrates would have thrown some candidates as carbohydrates, in a different form, also came up last year.

Ms Kinsella described question 2, which was devoted to cheese and artisan producers, as "lovely".

Question 3 was on sensory analysis, which she felt would not have presented any problems.

However, teacher Sandra Cleary, of the Institute of Education, said some students may have been caught out because, while a very small part of the course, a whole question was devoted to it.

While housing may have been expected, both teachers were surprised with a question on marriage, because it came up two years ago. "That would have thrown students," said Ms Kinsella.

The three electives covered social housing provision, textiles and fashion, and unemployment and work.

In the social studies elective, on unemployment and employment, Ms Kinsella said candidates would have had to spend a lot of time on the table. A table had not appeared since 2012.

Ms Cleary said reliance on textbooks would not have helped in relation to the electives on social housing and unemployment/work and said students would need to be very tuned to current affairs and recent commentary on these issues.

Her overall view of the paper was that while questions were clear and straight-forward, it was not predictable.

Ms Kinsella said the ordinary level paper was "very approachable".
CUS students Noel Fitzsimons, left, from Blackrock, and Graham ONeill, from Portmarnock, after the Leaving Cert exam English paper 1 in Dublins City Centre. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

A very good paper that would definitely reward students who are literate and well read, was how teacher Fintan O'Mahony described the Leaving Certificate higher level English paper 1, which covers writing and comprehension.

One of the interesting things he noted about it was how, for the second time in recent years, there was a question that represented a mix of paper 1 and paper 2, which deals with poetry and prose.

It happened the year Seamus Heaney died, when the late poet turned up on the comprehension paper, which is not where students were expecting to find him.

Mr O'Mahony, a subject representative with the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland, drew parallels with a question yesterday asking candidates how they would present poems they have studied in a language context.

A teacher at Scoil Mhuire, Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, Mr O'Mahony said students were treated to three very good texts: American writer Paul Auster, the Scottish poet Robert Montgomery, and the English historian Timothy Garton Ash.

He said students "would have had no issue with them, if they are literate and well read English students, as they should be, they should have had no problems".

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Liz Farrell, a subject representative for the Teachers' Union of Ireland agreed it was a nice paper.

Among the essay choices was a "lovely" short story in which a tattoo plays an "important part of the narrative", she said. Another option in that section that caught the imagination of teachers was the one asking students to write a dialogue between two Stone Age people about the invention of the wheel and whether it would catch on.

Ms Farrell, who teaches at Colaiste Eoin, Hacketstown, Co Carlow, said some candidates would have found that difficult, while Mr O'Mahony said "it would be up the alley of anyone who has a good sense about how to write dialogue".

Overall, said Ms Farrell, there was something for everyone in this section. Mr O'Mahony said students could not really prepare for an essay about a tattoo or the Stone Age, "but if you are prepared as a good writer, then you will be fine".

At ordinary level, Ms Farrell thought "kids would have had a ball" writing about how teachers will be replaced by robots, but said the letter to the editor question was tricky enough because "they wouldn't be used to that".

Jim Lusby, a teacher at the Institute of Education, Dublin, described the higher level paper as "wonderful", while he said the ordinary level paper was a "delight".
Laura Scanlan and Caoimhe Daly at Kildare Town Community School after the Leaving Cert English exam. Photo: Gerry Mooney

The Junior and Leaving Cert exams got off to a flying start yesterday with no nasty surprises to catch students off guard.

Many Leaving Cert pupils who braved English paper 1 at higher level felt the exam involved a lot of creative thinking.

Those who did ordinary level felt it was the "most student friendly paper in years".

Students from Kildare Town Community School said they were largely pleased with how their first exam went.

"It was easier than I expected, but I didn't like how much you had to write," said Sean Curtis (17).

"It wasn't really the type of exam you had to study for, but I had a previous essay in my head that I worked into it.

"I'm just glad the first exam is over and done with," he said.

Caoimhe Daly (17) said she didn't like the choice of essay options.

"I was happy enough with how it went, but the essay options weren't great. There was a question where you had to write a story involving a tattoo and one where you had to write a speech on democracy. I found this a bit tricky," she said.

English paper 2 lies in store today for both levels. Rachel Flavin (18) said she still has a "good bit of studying" left to do.
Nobody could complain about the poets selected for the Leaving Certificate higher level English Paper 2, with three of the near certainties , Boland, Donne and Keats, turning up, according to teacher Jim Lusby.

Mr Lusby, of the Institute of Education, Dublin was generous in his praise for the paper and said the facile debate about which poets appear is dead.

He added: Of far more importance is the subtlety of the phrasing in the questions, with a thought-provoking phrase or concept in each, such as penetrating truths about society, a range of profound tensions and lifes harsh realities, he said

In the Single Text section, he described questions on each of the prescribed texts as fresh and inventive.

He said most candidates would have answered on Hamlet, and there was choice was between a really engaging discussion of the play as a psychological thriller and a novel analysis of the secondary characters.

In the Comparative Study, Mr Lusby said that , as with the other sections of the paper, the expected areas turned up  Viewpoint and Theme  but the tasks were inventive and stimulating..

He described the ordinary level paper as extremely friendly, with generous choices in all sections, interesting questions, enjoyable tasks and wonderful presentation.

It was, said Mr Lusby, absolutely perfect for encouraging the ordinary level student to engage with literature pleasurably.
A new, free educational resource to help teach primary schoolchildren about the media, advertising and fake news has been launched.

The 'MediaWise' initiative from Safefood is an eight-week programme suitable for primary school children of all ages. It has been designed to help children makes sense of the media world around them.

Education Minister Richard Bruton attended the launch yesterday.

"From a teacher's perspective, we hope to meet the needs of our students, and develop their understanding of media. I feel it's really important we give children the opportunity to understand what's coming at them from the media and how they process that information," said Gearoid McCauley, a teacher at St Senan's Primary School, Enniscorthy.
There is a lot of debate about the pluses and minuses of technology for children, in terms of both its impact on their daily lives and education.

Access to the internet has put a new world of learning at their fingertips, but among the criticisms are how children are spending too much time on digital devices, at the expense of activities such as reading a book or physical exercise.

A new Irish study has raised a fresh concern. Researchers at Dublin City University (DCU) say technology may be impairing the development of fine motor skills in children and warn of the potential negative consequences for their educational achievement, and life in general.

Fine motor skills are the use of small muscles in fingers, toes, eyes and hands that are essential for numerous daily living activities, such as manipulating a pencil, buttoning shirts, feeding and playing. Every cyclist needs them to control handlebar functions.

There is a link between well-developed fine motor skills and higher academic achievement, including being better at maths and earlier development of reading. Poor fine motor skills can also lead to increased anxiety and low self-esteem.

There are also gross motor skills, involving movement and coordination of large body parts (arms and legs, for example) for activities such as crawling, walking, running, jumping and catching a ball. Gross motor skills can also impact on the development of fine motor skills in a child.

The new study, of six- to 12-year-olds, was carried out by Dr Johann Issartel and David Gaul, of DCU's School of Health and Human Performance and has been published in the journal, Human Movement Science. Their research involved a sample of 253 pupils in second, fourth and sixth classes, in five Dublin primary schools.

What they found was that the ability of children to master tasks such as drawing shapes, picking up coins, fixing laces and putting pegs into a pegboard was not meeting the normal milestones.

According to Issartel, "this impacts academic achievement and quality of life both now and in the future. We need to think about how we can tackle this emerging problem before they have long term consequences."

The two researchers were motivated by previous studies pointing to a link between a decrease in gross motor skill proficiency and the more sedentary lives experienced by children today. In the technological age, were fine motor skills also suffering?

They wondered whether new leisure time activities that have taken the place of playing with blocks, Lego, board games or jigsaws are having a detrimental effect on the rate of development of these skills. "Now it is more Playstation than play dough," says Issartel.

It is not only in their leisure time, but with the greater use of new technologies in school, children may spend less time writing and drawing with pencils and crayons. Other research has shown how the development of pencil grip used for writing is a complex skill, which has been found to improve with age as a result of practice. While keyboard skills are a must-have, Issartel says they are no replacement for writing: "You may be able to type on a iPad, but you still need to be able to hold a pencil."

Against their concerns that certain skills are at risk of being "lost in the sea of instant messaging and other technologies", Issartel and Gaul were conscious that, as many screen-based activities such as playing video games or using tablets require such skills, technology could be beneficial.

For the purpose of their study, they asked children to engage in two different forms of exercise: one set was pencil and paper based, such as writing, cutting and folding, which require precise finger control and hand movements; the other was more about manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination, involving throwing and catching activities and the manipulation of objects, such as placing as many pegs as possible in a board in 15 seconds. While they found the fine motor skills of the six- to eight-year-olds were at an expected level of development, the same was not true of the 11-12 years-olds. The intervening years are the very time when technology takes on a central role in children's lives.

While Issartel and Gaul did record an improvement in fine motor skills between second and sixth class pupils, as would be expected as children grow older, the concern is that it was not at the normal rate of progression.

"Overall, second and fourth class children exhibited greater proficiency levels, when the performance is considered at their age level, in comparison to their sixth class counterparts for their age," their report states.

While 13pc of children in second class were below average, and 14pc of fourth class children also exhibited difficulties, among sixth classes pupils, some 36pc of pupils were not hitting the expected milestones.

The researchers argue that a potential reason for the upset in the well-established norms of motor development is the increasingly prominent role that technology plays in modern society.

On the other hand, they point to evidence that video gaming can lead to improvement in manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination in laparoscopic surgery training in surgeons, while touch screen devices require actions such as swiping, dragging and dropping, pushing or tapping that all require fine motor skills.

"It might be possible that children are now developing a new set of fine motor skills that meet the demands of the environment that they are now faced with. These new skills allow for the proficient use of touch screen technologies or games consoles."

Now they are calling for extended studies on the impact of technology on fine motor skills, in order to get a comprehensive picture.

Cutting and pasting with a scissors and brush

Drawing, writing, cutting and pasting (using scissors and brushes rather than a mouse!) and doing jigsaws are not just fun activities for young children. They are some of the ways in which fine motor skills are developed from the earliest years.

Primary teachers have been warning for some time that technology and modern living have been having a negative effect on some children. Increased screen time leading to a more sedentary lifestyle over years has seen less time for many traditional childhood activities.

As a result, infant teachers have reported spending more time on activities like finger painting, playing with play dough as well as drawing patterns and shapes with chubby crayons.

This not easy in over-crowded classes where very young children often need one-to-one help. It also makes the case for curriculum reform to allow more time for these activities. There is also a need to resource physical education throughout the primary school years. Running, jumping and ball skills are not just important in the battle against obesity but are vital to the development of fine motor skills.

Technology has brought huge benefits to education. Adults must be on guard to make sure its increased use by primary school children doesnt have unintended consequences.

Peter Mullan, assistant general secretary of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO)
University College Dublin has warned it may have to reduce the number of places available for Irish students if it does not get more funds.

There is no threat to the intake for this year, but UCD president Professor Andrew Deeks has sent a clear signal that patience is running thin on the issue of sorting out the financing of higher education.

Increasingly, fees paid by growing numbers of international students - typically 18-24,000 for undergraduates, rising to more than 50,000 for graduate-entry medical students - subsidise Irish students.

"Unless there is movement on the funding of Irish students soon, the university will have to consider the option of reducing the number of places available to Irish students in order to preserve quality," Prof Deeks said.

The warning comes as figures show Leaving Certificate numbers will rise again over the next two to three years, creating more demand for colleges.

The population boom sees more than 62,000 students entered for this year's Junior Cert exams, up more than 1,500 on 2016, and the highest number for at least 15 years. They will be sitting the Leaving in two or three years and most will expect to get into college.

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Increasing demand for third-level means more competition for each college place, which pushes up points.

There is a general acceptance that Ireland's higher education system is in financial crisis, but there is controversy over who should pay to fix it.

After years of cuts, the Government has started putting additional funding in while employers are also facing a higher contribution. The thorny questions are what should students pay and if there should be a loan scheme for them.

Ironically, Prof Deeks' comments came in response to a new global league table showing that UCD is one of three Irish universities which have improved their positions.

The QS World University Rankings 2018 credits the better showing by Ireland to the Brexit effect, with across-the-board gains in the measure that records how employers view graduates from a particular university.

Trinity College Dublin has risen 10 places to 88th in the rankings and is the best placed Irish entry. UCD is up eight places to 168th, while NUI Galway has risen six to 243rd. University College Cork and the University of Limerick remain stable, while Dublin City University and Maynooth University have dropped slightly. The Dublin Institute of Technology also features and its position remains unchanged.

QS said the improvement in scores under the employer reputation measure, suggested "the increased desirability of Ireland among employers both domestic and international since the Brexit vote, and the consequently increased imperative to hire from Irish institutions".

As well as gains for UCD in both the academic and employer reputation surveys, Prof Deeks credits its gains on some recovery in the university's staff-student ratio measure, which has climbed to 439 from a position outside the top 500 last year.

But it is a far cry from 86, which is how UCD ranked in this measure in 2008 before the austerity era.

Staff-student ratio accounts for 20pc of the overall QS score and so plays a crucial role in determining a university's placing.

Prof Deeks said "because of the failure of the Government to address the funding issue facing the sector", the only way for UCD to increase the number of staff has been through using non-exchequer income, raised primarily by recruiting additional non-EU students.

He said this had directly improved UCD's ranking under the staff-student ratio criterion, but the ratio remained unacceptably poor compared with competitors overseas. He went on to warn that limiting places for Irish students may soon be considered.
Eleven people have been taken to hospital following an incident at the Poolbeg Incinerator.

The workers were taken to hospital after they were enveloped in a cloud of particles when it appears a door seal was breached at Dublin's new incinerator plant.

The incident happened last night when workers dismantling scaffolding at the multi-million euro plant were suddenly surrounded by a cloud of lime that was accidentally released inside the flue gas treatment area.

The incident occurred during the commissioning and testing of the waste-to-energy plant.

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Workers in the area began to complain of breathing difficulties, feelings of nausea and blurred vision, according to one source today.

The 11 scaffolders were sent to St Vincents Hospital.

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Nine have since been released but two remain in hospital this morning.

In a statement, operators Covanta said that a number of workers were in an adjacent area to the gas treatment area, and were taken to hospital for evaluation as a precaution.

The incident occurred at 10.45pm last night.

Combustion Unit No. 1, which was operating at the time, was shut down in an orderly and controlled manner, the statement added.

The lime was contained within the building and did not escape into the environment and the incident had no impact whatsoever outside the plant.

Both the EPA and the Health & Safety Authority were notified of the incident, and the company is co-operating fully with them.

John Daly, managing director of the Dublin Waste-to-Energy Ltd, added today; "A small amount of lime was inadvertently released inside the flue gas treatment area during the commissioning and testing of the Dublin Waste to Energy plant at Ringsend.

"At the time, there were a number of workers in an adjacent area. As a precaution, eleven workers were sent to St Vincent's Hospital nearby for medical evaluation.

"Two were detained overnight."

Mr Daly said the Covanta company, which runs the plant, is investigating the incident.

"The safety of our employees and contractors is of utmost importance to Covanta and we are investigating the incident thoroughly.

"We are investigating to understand what exactly occurred, but it appears from preliminary investigation that the release of the lime was due to a problem with a door seal in the fabric filter baghouse."

A Health and Safety Authority investigation team were beginning today to begin an examination of what happened.

Workers were not being allowed into the area until a full investigation is complete.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan described the incident as a "real concern".

Speaking to RTE Radio One's Today with Sean O'Rourke, the Dublin Bay South TD said; "This incident is extremely worrying, given the incinerator only began operations this week. This is a real concern for people working in the plant.

"For people who live in the area, for those who were hospitalised.

"This shows the nature of incineration and the risks that are involved."

In a statement issued to the media, he added; " Our thoughts are with the 11 people affected.

"We are extremely concerned at this incident happening so soon after incineration began at the site.

"The authorities need to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. Were calling for all activities at the site to cease while the investigation is carried out."

Incinerator

The 600m Poolbeg Incinerator was first proposed more than 20 years ago, and is designed to process 600,000 tonnes of waste a year.

Currently at the testing and commissioning phase, it will supply power to 80,000 homes and district heating to another 50,000 when it begins full operations in August or September of this year.

The plant was licensed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2008, with technical amendments made since.

Lime is used to clean the flue gas which contains dioxins and heavy metals during the combustion process.
Rachel Kenna with Marvella Afumbom (1) and staff nurse Liliya Petkova celebrating International Nurses Day at Our Ladys Childrens Hospital Crumlin in Dublin. Photo: Justin Farrelly

Nurses in Dublin should get extra top-ups in recognition of the higher cost of renting, Crumlin's director of nursing has said.

Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin has lost nurses to other hospitals outside of Dublin, where rents are lower.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is currently calling for a special deal for groups such as nurses and doctors in the pay talks in light of the ongoing shortages in hospitals which are impacting on patient care.

Crumlin's Rachel Kenna said she would like to see a Dublin weighting allowance, which gives nurses in the capital extra allowances in recognition of the higher cost of renting.

"Incentives like that help. We offer great opportunities to nurses in the hospital," she said.

The failure to recruit enough theatre nurses at Our Lady's Hospital meant that a new state-of-the art theatre was only performing one day's surgery a week despite the waiting list of children in need of spinal operations to treat their scoliosis.

Ms Kenna said it had hired another 17 nurses, nine of whom will work in theatre and from July the theatre can do operations for three days a week.

"We have an ongoing recruitment campaign," she said. "We are victims of our own success as well. Our nurses are so highly trained they get promotional opportunities in other hospitals."

She said recently arrived nurses from overseas are delighted with the new operating theatre.

In Tallaght Hospital, nurses who hail from as many as 17 different countries now make up the workforce. The hospital had no vacancies for funded nursing posts and an important part of its success had been its ability to attract nurses from overseas, said director of nursing Aine Lynch.

Trainee nurses in a hospital who graduate are potential gold dust - but too many are packing their bags for countries such as Australia.

"As a teaching hospital we have 60 nurses graduate every year. They were a pool we wanted to target and retain," she said. "We managed to retain over 90pc in 2016."

Tallaght Hospital has also facilitated the additional recruitment of 38 nurses for other hospitals. And it was able to re-divert nurses to other hospitals.
An Irish racer has become the third rider to be killed during the Isle of Man TT in less than 24 hours.

Alan Bonner (33), from Stamullen, Co Meath, died yesterday during a practice run for Friday's Senior TT race.

The Irish racer came off his bike at the 33rd milestone of the circuit around 3.30pm, and despite the best efforts of emergency services, he died soon after.

A red flag was raised and the rest of the day's racing was called off.

Isle of Man races are notoriously treacherous, with the course set up over more than 37 miles of public roads across the island.

A race figure said last night the 33rd milestone where Mr Bonner was killed was "a particularly quick and tricky" part of the course.

In a statement released last night, race organiser ACU Events Ltd said it wished to extend its "deepest sympathies to Alan's family and friends".

"Alan made his TT mountain course debut at the 2014 TT Races and had a highest placed finish of 15th, which he achieved in the 2015 Senior TT.

"He was the fastest ever TT rider from the Republic of Ireland with a lap of 127.09mph (204.5kmh) which he achieved in 2015."

Mr Bonner's death brings to three the number of racers killed at this year's Isle of Man TT race. Mr Bonner's death follows those of Jochem van den Hoek and British racer Davey Lambert (48).

Yesterday, race officials announced the news that Mr van den Hoek (28), from Werkendam in the Netherlands, died from injuries sustained in a crash at the 11th milestone in the Superstock race.

Speaking to the 'Herald's' Eamon Carr in one of his last interviews earlier this year, Mr Bonner (inset) revealed how he bounced back after a serious crash in 2015 and was aiming to post a new Irish record on his BMW at the TT by going past 209kmh.

Mr Bonner was set to ride a BMW S1000RR and said he believed the time had come to make more history.
The Duke of Cambridge, Princess Astrid of Belgium and Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the commemoration of the Battle of Messines Ridge at the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Mesen, Belgium. Photo: Reuters/PA

As Leo Varadkar laid the ground for his imminent appointment as Taoiseach, the incumbent leader, Enda Kenny, laid wreaths for Ireland's World War I dead.

Mr Kenny's last foreign engagement as Taoiseach was spent with Britain's Prince William and Belgium's Princess Astrid, commemorating the fallen in the 1917 Battle of Messines Ridge, near the Belgian-French border.

The battle marked the first time unionist and nationalist soldiers - from the 36th Ulster and the 16th Irish divisions - fought alongside each other during the war.

The Allied offensive began with the simultaneous explosion of 19 massive mines on the German front lines.

Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan, who was at the joint British-Irish ceremony, said it was "symbolic in terms of its huge importance on the journey of reconciliation" between the UK and Ireland.

"While reflecting on their honour and on their memory, we look to the future with lessons of the past firmly learned, of the need to continue on the journey towards full reconciliation," Mr Flanagan told reporters.

"We face very difficult challenges in terms of our relationship," he said.

"And I believe it's important that we continue to work together."

More than 700 people braved the blustering Belgian wind for the ceremony at the Island of Ireland Peace Park in the town of Messines (or Mesen, as it is known by its Dutch-speaking residents), which was followed by a more intimate event at Wijtschate cemetery, where many Irish soldiers are buried.

Mr Kenny also visited the grave of Major Willy Redmond, brother of Irish nationalist politician John Redmond, who was shot at Messines and later died from his injuries.

Around 40,000 men - both Allied and German soldiers - are estimated to have died in the Battle of Messines Ridge, which took place exactly 100 years ago yesterday.

It is regarded as one of the Allied successes in the war, and was a precursor to the infamous Third Battle of Ypres, or Passchendaele.
Charisse OLeary, pictured, has expressed disgust at the attack by her ex-husband Rachid Redouane

Former Defence Minister Willie O'Dea has said the Government should deport Islamic extremists who are identified by Irish intelligence services as being involved in terror-related activity.

Gardai are currently monitoring the movements of around 30 suspected jihadists, but the actual number is "unquantifiable", according to security sources.

Fianna Fail TD Willie O'Dea, who served as Defence Minister from 2004 until 2010, said the Government has the powers to deport people living in Ireland who are suspected of being engaged in or facilitating terrorism.

During his time in Government Mr O'Dea said military intelligence agencies closely monitored the activities of a number of individuals with links to al-Qa'ida.

"There aren't very many [extremists] living here, so it is easier to identify them and keep them under surveillance.

"The Justice Minister does have the right to deport people who are suspected or anyway associated with terrorism, and there are wider powers there which should be used if this is found to be the case," Mr O'Dea told the Irish Independent.

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He added he would have concerns about letting individuals, who were involved in armed conflict in the Middle-east, return to Ireland.

"If there was anybody involved in conflict like that I would be very slow to let them back in, even if that meant changing the law, because by definition they are radicalised.

"Isil has shown again and again what it is capable of and we don't want that mentality here. I am very, very friendly with members of the Muslim community here in Limerick and they would agree with me.

Fraud

"We can't be closing our eyes when people are based here or using it as a back door [to the UK]".

It comes as gardai are continuing their investigation into a number of individuals with suspected ties to London Bridge attacker Rachid Redouane, and more arrests are expected in the coming days.

Yesterday, detectives released a Moroccan national who was arrested in relation to theft and fraud offences connected to their ongoing probe. He was detained at Wexford garda station before being released without charge.

Earlier this week another Moroccan man was detained in Limerick after being found in possession of documents linked to Redouane. He has since been released without charge with a file now being prepared for the DPP.

More resources are also being given to the Garda Armed Support Unit (ASU) in Dublin.

However, the president of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) Antoinette Cunningham has raised concerns over the lack of counter-terror training for front-line gardai.

Last night, Redouane's ex-wife Charisse O'Leary expressed her disgust at his involvement in Saturday's terror attack.

"I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex partner, who has killed and injured so many innocent people.

"Since discovering that it was Rachid that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident," Ms O'Leary said.

"Rachid and I have been separated for six months. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that someday I will have to try to explain to her why her father did what he did.

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I condemn his actions and do not support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity," she added.
"Nobody is doing high-fives," a trade union spokesperson said after a deal brokered overnight will see public servants set for a pay boost of up to 10pc over the next three years.

The draft deal to extend the Lansdowne Road Agreement that will run from January 1 next year to December 31 2020 was brokered in the early hours this morning.

Under the terms of the deal, the vast majority of the country's 300,000 public servants will enjoy an increase in their pay worth over 7pc.

Head of Communications at Impact, Bernard Harbor, said this morning that "over 90pc of public servants will get full restoration of pay over the three-year period."

Speaking to Newstalk's Breakfast, he said; "About 25pc will exit fully from the pension level and most will have a reduction in the pension levy.

"The deal looks at pay and other issues... and the negotiation is about trying to find the balance between the different needs.

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"Nobody is doing high-fives about the deal but I think it is the best we could have achieved.

"In the coming weeks we will put the deal to our members and vote on it."

The pay boost is at an estimated cost of 880m over the next three years, but 1.1bn over four years when a "carry-over effect" is taken into effect, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Expenditure said.

As part of the deal, roughly 50,000 newer recruits who joined the workforce since 2013 will see their wages rise by up to 10pc.

Their salaries will increase through a combination of pay rises and reductions in a pension levy imposed under emergency legislation during the financial crisis.

State workers will have to make a higher permanent pension contribution on top of their existing contribution towards the 3.3bn a year bill - which will not come into force until January 2019.

No one will pay more than they already do in a pension levy that was imposed under emergency legislation, which will be converted into the new contribution.

The deal means that 90pc of public servants will be out of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest legislation by 2020 and almost a quarter will no longer make pension levy payments.

A total of 73pc of public servants will see their wages rise by over 7pc within three years.

The pay and pension levy changes are worth 7.4pc to those earning 30,000 a year or less, 7pc to those earning between 50,000 and 55,000 a year, and between 6.6pc and 6.9pc for those earning between 55,000 and 80,000 a year.

A worker who joined before 2013 earning between 60,000 and 65,000 would benefit by 4,247 over the course of the deal.

Under the terms of the draft agreement, which unions and staff associations will now put to ballot:

Pay rises will be given on:

2018

* January 1, 1pc pay rise

*October 1, 1pc pay rise

2019

*January 1, pay rise of 1pc for those earning below 30,000

*September 1, pay rise of 1.75pc

2020

*January 1, pay rise of 0.5pc for those earning below 32,000

*October 1, pay rise of 2pc

A three-tier extra pension contribution system will be set up that means:

*The 23,000 public servants in gold-plated 'fast accrual' schemes including politicians, judges, members of the defence forces and prison officers will have to keep paying the same pension levy contribution they currently do.

*The 253,000 public servants who joined before 2013 will pay a contribution that is less than they currently do in levy payments by increasing the threshold at which they start to pay.

*Those who joined after 2013 and are in a less generous scheme will pay even less of the current levy in a new contribution through an increase in the threshold and lower rates.

The government rowed back on a number of measures to get more productivity from its employees, with a plan to extend Saturday working scrapped.

It also agreed it would not weaken protections for workers in relation to out-sourcing that it had proposed.

A clause in an earlier draft to refuse to give back-payments of pay rises to staff who did not sign up to the deal was dropped.

It also accepted that pensions should continue to increase when someone in a pensioner's old job got a pay rise.

However, it held firm on other issues including the retention of 15 million unpaid hours, which Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe had insisted was a red-line issue.

Staff could opt not to work the hours but will suffer an equivalent pay cut to reflect this.

The draft deal keeps lower pay rates for recruits starting out in place, although a process to examine this is to be set up within 12 months of the start of the deal.

It gives no commitment to groups, including nurses, to pay increases as a result of recruitment and retention issues but agreed to set up a process to examine these issues.

Speaking as they left the Workplace Relations Commission, there was disappointment among some unions that issues including equal pay for recruits had not been addressed.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe has welcomed the proposals issued by the Workplace Relations Commission.

He paid tribute to his officials from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, union representatives and staff at the WRC, for their extensive work at the Commission.

"These proposals aim to award pay increases for public service staff across the coming years in line with what is affordable to the State, put pension provision on a more sustainable footing and secure industrial peace so that our public service remains a rewarding place for those who work in it and continues to deliver for those who depend on it," he said.

"I will now take these proposals, which will see the Lansdowne Road Agreement extended, to Government. Arrangements will also be made to put them to ballot across the range of public service sectors to which they apply."

Head of Communications at Impact, Bernard Harper, said this morning that "over 90pc of public servants will get full restoration of pay over the three-year period."

Speaking to Newstalk's Breakfast, he said; "About 25pc will exit fully from the pension level and most will have a reduction in the pension levy.

"The deal looks at pay and other issues... and the negotiation is about trying to find the balance between the different needs.

"Nobody is doing high-fives about the deal but I think it is the best we could have achieved.

"In the coming weeks we will put the deal to our members and vote on it."
KILLER Eric Locke is so afraid of being attacked by fellow inmates he avoids leaving his cell and mixing with other prisoners.

Prison sources said the murderer, who assumed a fake identity on Facebook and lured his ex-girlfriend Sonia Blount to a hotel bedroom where he strangled her to death, is keeping a low profile behind bars as he begins his life sentence.

Clondalkin, Dublin man Locke was found guilty of the murder of Ms Blount the week before last and started prison life in Mountjoy jail.

Now known as prisoner 90392, he was moved in recent days to the Midlands Prison where other notorious killers such as Graham Dwyer and Mark Nash are caged.

"He's as quiet as a mouse. He's keeping to himself and is too scared to leave his cell unless he really has to," said the source.

Locke is avoiding mixing with other inmates for fear of being attacked.

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"It will take him a while to get used to the whole prison regime but then again he has all the time in the world now because he got a life sentence," the source added.

The Herald previously revealed how Locke was regarded by prison staff as cold and calculating, with no emotions.

"We're glad to see him get his 'L' [lifer] plates," a source said.

Twisted Locke lured Ms Blount to a room in The Plaza Hotel, Tallaght where he killed her. He had admitted causing Ms Blount's death but said he did not mean to kill her and pleaded the defence of diminished responsibility.

A mugshot of his scratched and swollen face shows how much Ms Blount fought for her life.

It is also understood that Locke's arms and legs were covered with carpet burns when he was arrested.

Injuries

"After Locke initially arrived in Cloverhill Prison, he was medically examined," a source said. "His injuries were consistent with someone with defence wounds one would receive while carrying out an attack of a sexual nature.

"As well as the injuries to his face, he had carpet burns on his arms and legs. Locke refused to discuss the murder with prison officers but he made it clear he believed he was far better than the other inmates."

Following his conviction for murder the Herald revealed that gardai recommended that Locke also be charged with either the sexual assault or rape of the young mum.

However, while the Director of Public Prosecutions decided that Locke be charged with the murder of Ms Blount, prosecutors deemed that there was not enough evidence to charge him with sexual offences.
Motorists are warned to take caution on the country's roads as heavy rain continues nationwide.

Met Eireann issued a rainfall warning for Cork and Kerry which is valid until 8pm tonight.

Elsewhere, the heavy rain and occasional fog is to clear eastwards this morning and brighten up gradually as the day continues.

However, there are more thundery downpours expected this afternoon with spot flooding and hail expected as well.

AA Roadwatch spokesperson Arwen Foley told RTE Radio One that motorists are being asked to exercise caution in the wet conditions.

"There is a rainfall warning for Cork and Kerry but there are wet roads everywhere, so care is needed," she said.

Day for the ducks out there today. Allow extra time if driving/bringing someone to exams this morning. #leavingcert2017 #englishpaper2  An Garda Siochana (@GardaTraffic) June 8, 2017

The unsettled weather is set to continue for Friday and the weekend, with a wet and blustery Friday night expected and more heavy rain forecast for Saturday.
Pat Henry believes are "going too far and it's dangerous".

A top Dublin fitness expert has slammed 'fitspiration' bloggers for "dangerous" posts which they say encourage young men to develop eating disorders.

Pat Henry, who runs the Pat and Karl Henry Fitness Centre in Dublin with his son Karl, hit out at bloggers, who he believes are "going too far and it's dangerous".

"They are giving out all this advice on what to eat, what not to eat, without any real experience and they aren't taking into account each person's body fat, their age, or their mental health. It's wrong," he said.

Mr Henry, who has been in the fitness industry for two decades, said he is seeing young men from 14 to 20 obsessed with what they are eating while in pursuit of the body beautiful.

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"The bloggers give advice and boys are following it, trying to look ripped, and the problem is this is affecting girls too," he said.

"Girls from the age of 14 to 20 want their boyfriends to have six packs because they're also reading all of this. They think it's normal.

"They want them to look like their favourite movie stars."

The 'fitspiration' websites, often backed by celebrities, have also been criticised in the UK by TV doctor Christian Jessen, who hosts Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies.

Mr Henry told the Herald he "wholeheartedly agrees" with the doctor, saying: "Young boys are cutting out vitamins and nutrients to look muscular."
The signal tower on Bray Head was used from 1815 until the Second World War. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Hiker dwarfed by the Cliffs of Moher, with OBriens Tower in the distance. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

The Sheep's Head. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

View towards Cruagh Island from the cairn on the tidal islet of Illaunakeegher on Omey Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Looking across to Mountain Common from the north-eastern part of the route on Inishturk. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

A walker beside the narrow chasm that separates Illandavuck from Erris Head. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Spectacular cliffs line the promontory of Dun Balair on Tory Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Ards Peninsula. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn, published by The Collins Press, 2016

Looking towards Bunglass from the summit of Slieve League. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Looking for a great walk on the Wild Atlantic Way? Helen Fairbairn has the perfect book for the hiker's back pocket.

'Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way: A Walking Guide' is published by The Collins Press (collinspress.ie), and here, its author outlines 10 of her favourites.

From golden beaches to thrusting headlands and soaring sea cliffs, it's a selection that makes us want to get the boots on, with photos to match by Gareth McCormack.

1. Ards Peninsula, Co Donegal

Expand Close Ards Peninsula. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn, published by The Collins Press, 2016 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Ards Peninsula. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn, published by The Collins Press, 2016

This highly enjoyable, easy route explores a pleasant mixture of woodland and coastline at the tip of Donegal's Ards Peninsula. Highlights include a wooden boardwalk through the dunes, and 4km of sandy bays separated by rocky headlands. Terrain is firm throughout, and it all starts and finishes at historic Ards Friary.

Time: 2-3 hours Distance: 7km Difficulty: Easy

2. Tory Island, Co Donegal

Expand Close Spectacular cliffs line the promontory of Dun Balair on Tory Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Spectacular cliffs line the promontory of Dun Balair on Tory Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Lying 12km off the northwest coast of Donegal, Tory Island is the most remote place to walk in Ireland. Its unique atmosphere and spectacular coastline make it an evocative and intriguing spot to explore. A 35-minute ferry crossing brings you to the island, then a figure-of-eight circuit carries you past the lighthouse to the sheer cliffs and razor-sharp aretes of the north-east coast.

Time: 3-3 hours Distance: 11.5km Difficulty: Easy

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3. Slieve League, Co Donegal

Expand Close Looking towards Bunglass from the summit of Slieve League. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Looking towards Bunglass from the summit of Slieve League. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

The hike over Donegal's most majestic sea cliffs is a classic of Irish hillwalking. These are amongst the highest cliffs in Europe, and the scale of the scenery is simply breathtaking. The most popular route to the top is an out-and-back ascent from Bunglass. But beware  500m of ascent and the sheer drop to ocean mean the trip is not for the fainthearted!

Time: 3-4 hours Distance: 10km Difficulty: Hard

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4. Erris Head, Co Mayo

Expand Close A walker beside the narrow chasm that separates Illandavuck from Erris Head. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp A walker beside the narrow chasm that separates Illandavuck from Erris Head. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

This short trip packs a remarkable punch as it makes its way around the northern tip of Mayo's Belmullet Peninsula. The cliff-fringed headland feels wild and remote, and is crowned by a First World War lookout post. A series of marker posts make route-finding a simple affair, but the fabulous Atlantic views are nothing short of extraordinary.

Time: 1-2 hours Distance: 5km Difficulty: Easy

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5. Inishturk, Co Mayo

Expand Close Looking across to Mountain Common from the north-eastern part of the route on Inishturk. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Looking across to Mountain Common from the north-eastern part of the route on Inishturk. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

A picturesque harbour, a modest mountain summit and 130m-high sea cliffs are just some of the highlights of the circumnavigation of this charming Mayo island. The day starts with a 40-minute ferry journey, and continues with the discovery of the Inishturk's finest natural features. The hike fits perfectly into a day-trip, but the welcoming hospitality of the islanders makes it tempting to stay longer.

Time: 3-4 hours Distance: 10km Difficulty: Moderate

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6. Omey Island, Co Galway

Expand Close View towards Cruagh Island from the cairn on the tidal islet of Illaunakeegher on Omey Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp View towards Cruagh Island from the cairn on the tidal islet of Illaunakeegher on Omey Island. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

Timing is critical for this walk, because the route starts and finishes by crossing a tidal causeway. Get the tide wrong and you'll be stranded on the island! Once safely across the sand, Omey is all about its history. Millennia of human habitation on this County Galway outpost have left remains including a medieval church, a holy well, and ancient bones protruding from a monastic graveyard.

Time: 2-3 hours Distance: 8km Difficulty: Easy

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7. Cliffs of Moher, Co Clare

Expand Close Hiker dwarfed by the Cliffs of Moher, with OBriens Tower in the distance. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Hiker dwarfed by the Cliffs of Moher, with OBriens Tower in the distance. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

This linear path carries you above Ireland's most famous sea cliffs. Almost a million people flock to these County Clare cliffs each year, but most never venture beyond the grounds of the visitor centre. This route lets you explore the full 13km of coastline between Doolin and Hag's Head, enjoying magnificent coastal scenery throughout.

Time: 3-4 hours Distance: 13km Difficulty: Easy

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8. Mount Eagle, Co Kerry

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Ancient ruins, spectacular coastal views and a mountain summit all feature on this highly recommended route at the tip of Kerry's Dingle Peninsula. In fact, it's hard to think of a route that packs more variety into 8km than this one. With clusters of beehive huts on the lower slopes and Great Blasket Island lying just offshore, fond memories are guaranteed.

Time: 3-3 hours Distance: 8km Difficulty: Moderate

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9. Bray Head, Co Kerry

Expand Close The signal tower on Bray Head was used from 1815 until the Second World War. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Whatsapp The signal tower on Bray Head was used from 1815 until the Second World War. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016)

This relatively short, signed circuit visits the most dramatic coastal scenery on the famous Ring of Kerry. Lying at the western tip of Valentia Island, Bray Head is wild and rugged, with a Napeoleonic signal tower that perches precariously above 240m-high cliffs. Fabulous coastal views include the twin pyramids of the Skellig Islands.

Time: 2-2 hours Distance: 6km Difficulty: Easy

10. Sheep's Head, Co Cork

Expand Close The Sheep's Head. Photo: Gareth McCormack, from Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn (The Collins Press, 2016) / Facebook

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Wild scenery and a rather primeval atmosphere pervade the tip of this remote peninsula in County Cork. This fully-signed hike lets you explore the final few kilometres of land before the promontory finally concedes to the sea. A cliff-ledge lighthouse and a ridge-top traverse of Ballyroon Mountain are just some of the treats on offer.

Time: 3-4 hours Distance: 12.5km Difficulty: Moderate

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Want to know more?

Find more on Helen Fairbairn at helenfairbairn.com, and on photographer Gareth McCormack on his website at garethmccormack.com.

For full details of these and twenty other walking routes, see Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way  A Walking Guide by Helen Fairbairn, published by The Collins Press, price 14.99.

For more on the Wild Atlantic Way, see wildatlanticway.com.
The OECD is urging caution and saying that the authorities should stand ready to tighten prudential regulations if needed. Photo: Stock Photo: Bloomberg News

Is it a case of deja vu all over again on house prices? With residential property prices up by 10.5pc in the first four months of this year, the OECD has repeated its warning of a property bubble.

In its latest economic outlook for Ireland, the Paris-based think tank foresees strong economic growth accompanied by a shortage of housing supply. It's predicting that gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 3.7pc this year before dropping to 2.5pc next year and to more reasonable rates after that.

Economic growth and the drop in unemployment are very welcome but they come at a time of inadequate housing supply. These and other factors, such as wage growth, are leading to higher property prices. New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that prices are rising faster outside Dublin than in the capital.

The Government insists that its Rebuilding Ireland plan will go a long way towards solving the housing crisis. It is investing significant amounts of taxpayers' money to ensure this happens over the next few years.

But the OECD is urging caution and saying that the authorities should stand ready to tighten prudential regulations if needed.

It echoes comments from the Government's own advisers who have also warned about the risk of the economy overheating if too many houses are built too quickly. The Fiscal Advisory Council suggested that a surge in house building could inflate the economy.

Disagreements between experts are really academic for those struggling to get on to the housing ladder. For them, the promised new houses cannot come soon enough. They will look to Leo Varadkar's government to deliver.

Better college rankings come with a warning

Three Irish universities have improved their position in the latest world rankings. That's welcome news because, for all their faults, rankings matter. They are scrutinised by employers, potential research investors as well as staff and students both at home and abroad.

Before we get carried away and think that our higher education funding crisis has passed we would do well to consider the blunt statement issued by the president of UCD, our biggest university.

Professor Andrew Deeks disclosed that the main way UCD is paying for urgently needed new staff is from the fees income from non-EU students.

He warned that unless there is movement on the funding of Irish students soon, UCD will have to seriously consider reducing the number of places available to Irish students in order to preserve quality.

That possibility shouldn't worry those taking the Leaving this month but it should set alarm bells ringing in the Department of Education and in Government circles as a 'cap' could be imposed from next year.

It wouldn't just be UCD that would take such a drastic step, as other higher education institutions are also feeling the strain of a decade of cuts in government funding.

The funding issue has been kicked down the road for too long.

It's time for the Oireachtas Committee on Education, which is looking at how to fund the system, to make up its mind.
I do wonder if as a nation we suffer from an acute Napoleon complex. Do we feel a collective need to show the world just how important we are? Is it that we feel left out because we haven't suffered an appalling Isil-related attack yet?

The outpourings of politicians in the media generally as to our unpreparedness in the event of such an attack, the rolling out of "security experts" all telling us what we already know, serves only to advertise the fact we are vulnerable.

If Ireland hasn't entered into the Isil consciousness as yet, this outpouring of a delusional mindset will ensure it does.

We are not engaged in the "war on terror", we are shocked at the horrendous loss of life in the recent terror attacks.

But as a neutral country, the last thing we want or need is to see the lives of our children and fellow citizens jeopardised by the insane and attention-seeking utterances of politicians.

Jim Dunne

Dunshaughlin, Co Meath

As one of many parents of young gardai, I find the Justice Minister's recent assertions that the force is adequately equipped to deal with a terror attack quite shocking and disingenuous.

Recent terror attacks involve a strike and kill on the spot policy - they didn't involve a hostage situation.

The first responders (ordinary gardai in squad cars) will have to deal with these terrorists face on. The majority of our gardai have only a stab vest, a mace canister, a baton and, lastly, the respect for their uniform as protection.

As a parent, I find this knowledge very disturbing. The Government has a duty of care to these young people.

Aidan Hampson

Artane, Dublin

Tax on house land is madness

The idea that a tax on building land will stimulate house building lacks critical reasoning. The figures, as I estimate, are that I can build a house for an estimated 300,000 including about 40pc tax and the market price is 230,000 including VAT. In most other countries, a necessity like a house is not taxed. The masterplan in Ireland is to put more tax on a necessity. Is it any wonder our housing crisis is getting worse?

Stephen Fallon

Barrington St, Limerick

In praise of adoption

Maire Ni Dhiarmada's letter ('Adoption alternative to abortion', Irish Independent, June 6) is a welcome contribution to highlight adoption as an option.

Adoption practices in Ireland have changed a lot since the decades when it was more frequent. Then, many birth mothers agreed to the arrangement under pressure from others, and/or had no contact with their child after the adoption for many years, if ever. Such closed adoption practices were deeply and seriously damaging to too many mothers and families.

Today, those looking into adopting in Ireland are encouraged to consider open adoption or semi-open adoption, where there can be contact between birth parents and the child in person, or updates by letter between parents. This is not to underestimate the importance of support being available, as and when needed, for everyone involved in adoption, whether closed or open.

It's a strange paradox that while thousands of Irish babies die by abortion every year in the UK, probably hundreds of couples are seeking costly and arduous fertility treatment. Yet, according to the Adoption Authority of Ireland, on average just six babies each year are now adopted within Ireland. Surely more needs to be done, and can be done, to ensure there are practical, accessible pathways towards adoption.

Wouldn't it be worth the effort to facilitate some of the many babies, whose biological parents may not be in a position to raise them, to be placed with some of the many potential adoptive parents who would gladly care for them?

Ruth Foley

Clondalkin, Dublin

More to life than Leaving Cert

May I give some advice to the many parents of children starting their Leaving Cert? Tell your children, and often, that you love them. Tell them that you hope they will do their best but whatever the outcome they can come home and they will be loved just as much as ever.

Tell them there is lifelong learning and the Leaving Cert is but one, relatively small, stepping stone along the road of life. And always remember, the ones who do best do not always succeed best in life. I sat my Leaving Cert in 1969, and the pressure was horrific, way over the top. Of course, it did not help that school life in general at that time, was a very unhappy experience. I survived and learnt very quickly there was a lot more to life than the Leaving Cert.

Brian Mc Devitt

Glenties, Co Donegal

A lot of hot air, and that's a fact

Ian O'Doherty (Irish Independent, June 6) states that wind and solar in America produces less than 3pc of US energy needs. He precedes this with the sermon that people are interested in facts, not speculation. Where does Ian get this "fact"?

The US Energy Information Administration is the statistical and analytical agency within the Department of Energy. Its website states: "In 2016, renewable energy sources accounted for about 10pc of total US energy consumption and about 15pc of electricity generation".

It's hard to know what constitutes a fact these days but I'd like to encourage Ian to provide more sources for his so-called ones.

Ciaran Meaney

Limerick city

Prejudice is rampant, Leo

"Prejudice has no hold in this Republic," according to Leo Varadkar. Yes, Leo, if you are of a certain standing in Irish society.

There is still prejudice if you are from a different standing in Irish society and are female, black, poor, single, homeless, unemployed, on social welfare, a child in care, an orphan, a refugee, a pensioner, a prisoner, a drug user, living in emergency accommodation, living in direct provision, living with a disability, living in a nursing home or long-term in hospital, from certain addresses, suburbs, towns, rural areas, non-Irish, non-conformist in Irish society.

Breda Gahan

Cabra, Dublin 7

Don't shoot the messenger

The bishop of Kilmore, Leo O'Reilly, criticised the media for "the denigration of religious beliefs, practices and institutions on radio and television". But is he copying US President Donald Trump's attacks on the fourth estate in America and doing it here or is Mr Trump just imitating how the Catholic Church used to blame everything wrong in society on the media?

It's simple to blame the fourth estate, but unhealthy for democracy.

Sean O'Brien

Kilrush, Co Clare
FAMILY RIFT: Dr Peter Boylans relationship with his sister-in-law Dr Rhona Mahony, Master of the National Maternity Hospital Holles Street, is said to have become seriously strained after they disagreed strongly over the nuns involvement in the new maternity hospital. Picture: Tony Gavin

Dr Peter Boylan insists he was determined his public spat with sister-in-law Dr Rhona Mahony over the new national maternity hospital would not turn "personal" - but admits losing friends as a result of the furore.

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And in a controversial move, he has now called for an end to the teaching of religion in schools.

Well known for his outspoken campaigning in defence of women's rights, he was one of the most vocal opponents of the Sisters of Charity owning the new 300m national maternity hospital. The row erupted over the plan to move the hospital from Holles Street to the St Vincent's campus, which is owned by the religious order.

This week, the order confirmed it "will not be involved in the ownership or management of the new National Maternity Hospital".

But the controversy had already taken its toll on the much-respected medic - and caused his relationship with his sister-in-law, Dr Rhona Mahony, to become seriously strained. At the heart of Dr Boylan's argument were concerns the nuns or the Catholic Church hierarchy could dictate what medical treatments or procedures could be carried out in the new hospital.

The former Holles Street Master was worried they could influence whether women could have terminations should their life be at risk, or seek IVF treatment, sterilisation or contraceptive care. However, his sister-in-law, Holles Street Master Dr Mahony, defended the ownership structure, insisting it had adequate powers to guarantee its independence. Dr Boylan is married to Trinity historian Jane Boylan, elder sister of Ms Mahony.

As the controversy escalated, he ended up resigning from the Holles Street board in protest. In a wide-ranging interview for The Paul Williams Podcast, he said he was anxious the debate should not damage relations within the family.

"I didn't make it personal. This controversy is not of my making. This controversy is a consequence of the deal that was agreed between the board of the national maternity hospital and the St Vincent's Hospital shareholders. That is the source of the controversy.

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"This is not personal. I have compared it to playing a rugby match. You tear strips off each other on the pitch. When the whistle goes you shake hands and go off and socialise together. I've always had that attitude in arguments. It's fine to have an argument about a principle - but don't let it get personal. It shouldn't get personal, and I certainly don't make it personal."

He said the level of influence the Catholic Church has on Irish society is "complicated", dating back to the foundation of the State.

However, he believes the time has come for religious teaching to end within the Irish education system. "It's a very complicated history going right back to the foundation of the State, and before, with the role of religious in education and health," he said.

"The State just didn't provide education and health and handed it over to the Church. There was that toxic relationship between de Valera and the Catholic hierarchy, which I think is responsible for a lot of our problems over the years."

He added: "I think the control element of the Catholic Church in Irish society was damaging over the years. People's faith and their ability to practise their faith needs to be respected, but I think there should be separation of State and Church. For example, I don't think religious education should be in a school. I think it should be in the church. If parents want their children to be educated in whatever faith they chose, then they should go to the church for that. That's the way it happens on the continent, and in various other societies. If you want to have a faith-based hospital or school that's fine, but you'll have to pay for it yourself."

In the wake of the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar at University Hospital Galway in 2012, Dr Boylan gave expert witness at her inquest, saying she would still be alive if an abortion had been performed - but that the legal situation had not allowed it.

"If you look at the facts, and work off the evidence, then it was absolutely crystal clear there were serious errors made in her management. But if she had had a termination in time, then those errors would not have occurred because she'd be delivered and in the clear, and she wouldn't have died. I'm not a pro-abortionist, but I am pro-choice."

He said he is "absolutely" in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment. "I think the hypocrisy surrounding the whole Eighth Amendment is just staggering when you look at it from the outside."

On the ongoing crises in the Irish health service, he said: "No health service in the world is sorted out to the satisfaction of all. Ireland is not going to be unique to that. There's no panacea.

"Healthcare is something that can be managed, but it can't be solved. You can put in place systems which allow access to all, regardless of income, and that's the aim.

"The Scandinavian countries are probably the best model in that respect. But they have problems as well with waiting lists and problems with interactions between medical staff and patients. You've got to take into account human failure and the ability of humans to mess things up."

The Paul Williams podcast lifts a lid on the stories and lives of ordinary people doing extraordinary things and of famous Irish people behind closed doors.

To hear the full interview, subscribe to the Paul Williams podcast on iTunes or SoundCloud
Actor Aidan Turner poses for a portrait at the Poldark Series 2 Preview Screening at the BFI on August 22, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Actor Aidan Turner poses for a portrait at the Poldark Series 2 Preview Screening at the BFI on August 22, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Irish actor Aidan Turner is reportedly back on the singles market.

The 33-year-old Poldark star is said to have called time on his relationship with artist Nettie Wakefied after eight months of dating due to busy schedules, according to The Sun.

Since splitting with Irish actress Sarah Greene in 2015 after a six year relationship, Turner has been linked to a number of women but appeared to have become settled with Wakefield as the pair were often pictured looking loved-up around London.

Last year, he sent the rumour mill into overdrive when he was pictured kissing Swedish marketing executive Tara Deradkshan.

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While he has often been quiet about his love life (when he was asked last September about his relationship status, he simply said, "I can't answer that"), but his legions of super fans will be happy to know he has a type - non-actresses.

Turner said that relationships between actors can be clouded with industry talk and overshadow the "real things", describing it as !quite dull and taxing".

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"If you're in my business and you find somebody who does exactly what you do and you're living with them, then you're in the business all the time. You go home, talk about casting directors, you talk about the press, you talk about the next job you're doing - it can become quite dull and taxing," he told TV Week in the Irish Mail on Sunday.

"There's nothing like going out with somebody who doesn't even care what you're doing, let alone have anything to say about it. Because then it boils down to what the real things are, you know?

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"You're left with the epicentre, the crux of it, what your relationship really is. And I think that's what turns me on."
International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney arrives to meet with United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., March 10, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Nick Clooney, Nina Clooney and Actor George Clooney attend a dinner hosted by the Save Darfur Coalition September 13, 2006 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

Amal Clooney is seen arriving at the "United Nations" on March 9, 2017 in New York City. (Photo by Raymond Hall/GC Images)

Nick Clooney and Nina Warren arrive to the premiere of Universal Pictures' "Leatherheads" held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on March 31, 2008 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)

Amal Clooney arrives at Villandry restaurant after attending International crimes in Syria and Iraq - Chatham House discussion on March 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Ricky Vigil/GC Images)

Amal Clooney arrives at Villandry restaurant after attending International crimes in Syria and Iraq - Chatham House discussion on March 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Ricky Vigil M/GC Images)

Amal and George: Unlikely to struggle too much with the supermarket shop

Amal and George Clooney at the Cannes Film Festival in France last year. Photo: Getty

George Clooney introduced his twin babies to their paternal grandparents in a Skype video call just two hours after their births.

The Ocean's Eleven star became a first-time father at the age of 56 on Tuesday, when his wife Amal gave birth to son Alexander and daughter Ella at a hospital in London.

Amal's mother, Baria Alamuddin, was present for the babies' arrival, but George's parents Nick and Nina Clooney decided to stay at home in Kentucky to give the new mum and dad a little space.

Instead, the new grandparents 'met' the latest additions to the Clooney clan over the Internet, and journalist Nick reveals their grandson has inherited George's good looks.

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Whatsapp Nick Clooney, Nina Clooney and Actor George Clooney attend a dinner hosted by the Save Darfur Coalition September 13, 2006 in New York City. (Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images)

"They are gorgeous," the 83-year-old told Cincinnati, Ohio's WXIX anchor Tricia Macke. "Nina swears they have George's nose. Not both of them, one of them. The little boy looked like he had nose. His little profile."

"And I love their names Alexander and Ella," Nick gushed. "Both sound terrific."

He went on describe Amal as "superwoman" for making the video call happen while recovering in hospital, revealing she is doing "terrifically well".

"Both George and Amal are doing wonderfully well," he added, quipping, "George, well, his eyes were glazed so I'm not sure that he was sober!"

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Nick and Nina, who are already grandparents to daughter Adelia's two grown-up kids, hope to eventually meet the newborns in person once George and Amal settle into life as parents, but they are in no rush.

"They have enough on their plate to have some visiting grandparents coming in to London," he shared. "So we'll leave that one entirely up to them."

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Whatsapp Amal Clooney arrives at Villandry restaurant after attending International crimes in Syria and Iraq - Chatham House discussion on March 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Ricky Vigil M/GC Images)

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Nick Clooney's comments emerge hours after Amal's parents publicly gushed about their grandchildren.

"We are over the moon," Bara told French news agency AFP. "It was a beautiful delivery. The babies are beautiful and are doing well."

Expand Close US actor George Clooney, right, and his wife Amal Clooney arrive at the red carpet for "Hail, Caesar!" the opening film of the 2016 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Axel Schmidt) / Facebook

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Whatsapp US actor George Clooney, right, and his wife Amal Clooney arrive at the red carpet for "Hail, Caesar!" the opening film of the 2016 Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. (AP Photo/Axel Schmidt)

Amal's dad Ramzi, who was in the family's native Lebanon, added, They are in great health, all is perfect. I am very happy for them."

George and Amal Clooney wed in Italy in 2014.
Former FBI chief James Comey is set to give his first public comments since he was fired from the position. Ahead of todays testimony, Comey has released his hotly anticipated prepared remarks and they are certainly explosive.

Its been a month of drama since Donald Trump fired Comey, so heres everything you need to know about the congressional hearing and what the former FBI director is going to say.

Why was Comey fired?

Just to recap, Comey was fired whilst he was overseeing the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The White House initially said Trump was acting on the recommendation of Justice Department leaders. However, Trump gave a slightly different explanation when he said in an NBC News interview that he had already decided to dismiss Comey and was thinking of this Russia thing when he did so.

What is in Comeys testimony?

In his comments, Comey says that he can recall having nine one-on-one conversations with Trump in four months  all of which he recorded in memos afterwards because of their content. In the testimony, he recounts what went down in each conversation  some of which were in person, and some on the phone.

One particular conversation about loyalty sticks out. The president allegedly said: I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. Comey says that he later repeated: I need loyalty. I replied, You will always get honesty from me. He paused and then said, Thats what I want, honest loyalty. I paused, and then said, You will get that from me.

In the testimony, Comey emphasises the fact that the FBI is not involved in politics, something he was worried Trump was trying to encourage. He was apparently so concerned about this that at one point he asked the Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prevent future direct communication between Trump and himself.

Comey reveals that the president seemed to be asking him to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn: I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.

In their last conversation, Comey recounts that Trump said: Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. I did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing.

What are the legal implications of these comments?

Legal experts say conversations attributed by Comey to Trump were clumsy and inappropriate at best. In the worst light, these recollections could provide enough evidence to build a case that the president tried to interfere with a criminal investigation.

However, Trumps personal lawyer said the president was cheered by the testimony.

The president is pleased that Mr Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe, attorney Mark Kasowitz said in a statement. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.

What happens next?

Comey is due to give this testimony today, and it is likely that Republicans will press him on why he did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign. Some may attempt to divert attention from Comeys remarks about Trump by focusing on two issues theyve repeatedly seized on: leaks and revealing the names of Americans in intelligence reports.

Comey is unlikely to say anything that could interfere with or undercut the ongoing federal investigation into Russia ties.

Trump has derisively characterised Comey as a showboat. Whilst this is hardly a label with which Comeys supporters would agree, American media have been among those labelling the ex-FBI chief as showing a flair for drama during his career.

As such, Washington DC is hugely excited for the congressional hearing  so much so that The Washingtonian reports that at least three bars in the city will open early for Comeys testimony. One Irish pub will even be serving a special covfefe cocktail, whatever that entails.
With voting under way, #dogsatpollingstations trending and returning officers primed for overnight counts there is not much more that the parliamentary candidates can do to guarantee a win.

Come June 9 though, the real work begins for the 650 MPs returned to Westminster. The new class of 2017 will need to learn everything from the mundane  navigating their way around a new office  to how to make political headway and getting to grips with doughnutting (thats making sure you are in the TV shot when someone asks a question in PMQs).

Luckily, for those needing to be enlightened, there is a guide penned by someone who has served in Westminster for more than three decades. Paul Flynns book How To Be An MP was first published in 2012. Since then it has been routinely included on the list of most borrowed books from the House of Commons library.

We asked Flynn, himself seeking re-election as Labour MP for Newport West, what wisdom he would like to share with the political freshmen this time around.

Whats the most important thing in the first few days?

They need to find friends. People they can trust. If you can get on with neighbouring MPs or those with similar interests. Its best to have someone to learn and blunder through with.

It has to be someone from their year (when first elected). Hand holding is not advisable.

Is this parliament going to be different for newcomers, what with Brexit?

Its going to be a nightmare. They will be hitting the ground stumbling. No-one will be clear whats going to happen. The legislative burden is going to be quite something. There will be late-night sittings. The Brexit legislation is going to be on top of normal work.

Will a large majority make it easier or harder for new MPs?

The governments with overwhelming majorities are the worst ones. There is nothing more damaging. There are fewer jobs to go around. They (the new MPs) will be fishing around for things to do.

What are the pitfalls they can make?

The answer is not always legislation. It can sometimes do more harm than good.

What do they need to get to grips with?

Were stumbling into an age of political influence thats not very well understood. People are getting information, they dont realise its propaganda, based on your Facebook information  little quizzes and Facebook likes. Its up to the MPs to understand this.

How should the new MPs relax?

They should go to the Donmar Warehouse to watch Committee. (Committee is a musical is based on evidence given to a select committee on the failure of charity Kids Company).

Its essential to go there and enjoy a rich cultural musical experience and a lesson on select committees.

Well thats them told. The musical opens on June 23 and runs until August.
A newly-wed bride interrupted her wedding celebrations to cast her vote in the General Election in her bridal gown.

Westminster candidate Socha Eastwood was accompanied by her new husband Dale Shirlow to a polling station in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, after tying the knot at a nearby church.

The young couple didnt let their big day get in the way of their right to vote, and after marking their ballots, they joined their guests at their reception.

Its been a lot to do and a lot to take in but my family have been absolutely fantastic and my husband Dale has been absolutely fantastic and so supportive throughout the whole process, said the Alliance Party candidate for West Belfast.

I hope it sends a strong signal to women out there that they can do it, they can get involved in politics.

The couple brought their photographer along to the voting centre and posed for an unusual set of wedding day pictures beside the polling station signs.

Shirlow said he had a feeling their big day might clash with an election.

I actually predicted it, he said. A few months ago I said I bet you any luck well have an election on the day of our wedding.

The couple will be setting up a big-screen TV at their reception and watch as the results come in this evening.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts during the 8th Congress of the Korean Children's Union (KCU) at the April 25 House of Culture in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang June 7, 2017. REUTERS/KCNA

North Korea has fired several suspected short-range anti-ship missiles off its east coast, South Korea's military said.

The missiles were fired from the North Korean eastern coastal town of Wonsan and likely flew about 200km (about 125 miles) with an altitude of about 2km (1.2 miles), South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

They landed in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, where US aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan participated in joint exercises with the South Korean navy that ended earlier this week.

The North's missile tests present a difficult challenge to new South Korean president Moon Jae-in, a liberal elected last month who has expressed a desire to reach out to Pyongyang.

North Korea, which could have a working nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile in the next several years, may also be the most urgent foreign policy concern for the Trump administration, which has been distracted by domestic political turmoil and has insisted China do more to rein in the North's weapons activities.

Roh Jae-cheon, spokesman of Seoul's military, said the latest launch would have intended to show off its widening arrange of missiles and also its "precision strike capabilities" on ships in response to the joint drills.

North Korea's weapons tests are meant to build a nuclear and missile programme that can stand up to what it sees as US and South Korean hostility, but they are also considered by outside analysts as ways to make its political demands clear to leaders in Washington and Seoul.

Analysts say the latest launch appeared to be aimed at keeping up pressures on Mr Moon to try to win concessions.

The launches on Thursday from Wonsan were North Korea's fourth missile test in as many weeks as the country continues to speed up its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.

Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the projectiles, which showed longer range than North Korea's previously known KN-01 anti-ship cruise missiles that can travel up to 160km (99 miles), were likely from a new cruise missile system North Korea displayed during a massive April 15 military parade.

The improved range indicates the North is pursuing weapons capable of reaching US aircraft carriers that operate from deeper positions, he said.

Japan's foreign minister Fumio Kishida said after Thursday's launch that Tokyo has not detected any "flying objects" that headed toward Japan or landed inside the country's maritime economic zone.

North Korea on May 14 premiered a powerful new midrange missile that it said could carry a heavy nuclear warhead. Experts said that rocket flew higher and for a longer time than any other missile previously tested by North Korea, and that it could one day reach targets as far away as Hawaii and Alaska.

The North in following weeks launched a solid-fuel midrange missile that can be fired on shorter notice than liquid fuel missiles, and also what it descried a new "precision-guided" missile, which experts say is designed with a manoeuvrable terminal stage meant to frustrate missile defence systems such as the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence that is being deployed in South Korea.
The body of an eighth victim of the London Bridge terror attack was discovered in the Thames, one and a half miles downstream from where he had been thrown into the water, police said yesterday.

The man, believed to be French national Xavier Thomas (45) was found by specialist officers from the Metropolitan Police's Marine Police Unit who have been scouring the river since Saturday night.

Just minutes before the body was recovered, police had issued an appeal to find Mr Thomas, whose girlfriend Christine Delcros was badly injured in the attack when the terrorists' van smashed into pedestrians on London Bridge.

It is thought Mr Thomas was thrown into the river when he was also hit by the van.

Friends and family made a desperate search for him, taking pictures to hospitals and police stations, but staff said none of the dead or injured matched his description.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said: "Formal identification has not yet taken place, however Mr Thomas's next of kin have been informed of this development."

The other two French victims were named as waiter Alexandre Pigeard (27) and chef Sebastien Belanger (36).

Spanish lawyer Ignacio Echeverria, 39, was also finally confirmed as dead.

Mr Echeverria, who worked in fraud prevention at HSBC, tried to tackle attackers at Borough Market, swinging at them with his skateboard.
Rachid Redouane had previously been refused asylum in the UK in 2009 (Metropolitan Police/PA)

Charisse O'Leary, the former wife of London Bridge terrorist Rachid Redouane, has said she is "deeply shocked, saddened and numbed" by his actions.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that someday I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did," she said.

Redouane was one of three terrorists who ploughed a rented van into pedestrians on London Bridge shortly after 10pm last Saturday night.

Redouane, Khuram Shazad Butt and Youssef Zaghba then carried out a number of stab attacks in the nearby Borough Market area.

Eight people were killed in the attack and almost 50 people injured.

Police shot dead all three men within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call.

Ms O'Leary married Redouane in Ireland in 2012 and lived with him in Rathmines, Dublin 6.

The pair returned to Ireland in 2016 before leaving again in March of that year, records show.

Ms O'Leary, split with Redouane later and publicly denounced the Manchester suicide bombing on Facebook, was born in July 1978.

In a statement today Ms O'Leary said:

"My heartfelt thoughts go out to all those murdered or injured in the events of 3rd June 2017.

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"I am deeply shocked, saddened and numbed by the actions of my ex partner who has killed and injured so many innocent people.

"Since discovering that it was Rachid that was responsible I have shed many tears for the people caught up in this horrific incident.

"Rachid and I have been separated for six months. We have a beautiful young daughter, that for the last six months has been our only bond and reason for contact.

"My thoughts and efforts now are with trying to bring up my daughter with the knowledge that someday I will have to try and explain to her why her father did what he did.

"I wish to make it absolutely clear, so there can be no doubt, I condemn his actions and do not support the beliefs he held that led to him committing this atrocity."

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The couple had one child together. Their marriage took place in the Registrar's Office at Sir Patrick Duns Hospital on Lower Grand Canal Street in Dublin 2, witnessed by Ms O'Leary's mother and an unknown man named Khalil Chadili.

The marriage to Ms O'Leary, a UK citizen, gave him an EU travel permit allowing him entry to the UK despite the fact he was refused asylum there in 2009.

The revelation has prompted claims Ireland is being used by jihadis as a back door into Britain.

Investigations are ongoing to determine the details of Redouane's time in Ireland.

However, gardai have made it clear that there is no link to terrorism in Ireland and there is no evidence he was radicalised here.

"The indications at this time are that this individual lived in this country for a short period of time, going through a normal process of immigration," Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan said during an press conference today.

"Thereafter, he left and went with his wife, who is a UK citizen, to the UK and we are satisfied with the inquiries we have made at this time, that there is no link to terrorism in this country.

"We are also satisfied from the indications from our partners (in the UK) that that is also the case."

Two people believed to have documents linked to the killer have been arrested.

One Garda source said there is no knowledge of Redouane being involved with other international terror suspects who have been under surveillance in Ireland, and that he lived an apparently normal life during his time in Dublin.

But the source added that investigators were "still shaking the tree".

Additional reporting by Press Association
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn clashed on security and their respective visions of post-Brexit Britain as they made their final pitches to the British people ahead of today's election.

As the British Prime Minister and her Labour opponent each went on a whistle-stop tour of the UK on the final day of campaigning, Mrs May promised voters a Brexit boost of billions of pounds in state investment to support business, transport and housing. Mr Corbyn said the election was an opportunity to end the Conservative government's austerity agenda and build a more just society.

"It's a choice of the kind of world, kind of country we want to live in," the Labour leader told a rally in Runcorn, northwest England. "It's a choice of this or cuts, closure and privatisation. It's a choice, quite simply, of hope or fear."

With polls at odds on how close the election will be, the outcome is far less certain than at the start of the campaign seven weeks ago, when Mrs May was projected to win by a landslide. Since then, the Tory lead over Labour has narrowed as Mr Corbyn outperformed expectations and Mrs May made unforced campaign errors, while two terrorist attacks in the past two weeks added a further layer of uncertainty.

At stake is the UK's future prosperity as it prepares to leave the EU, its largest market. Talks with EU officials on quitting the bloc are due to begin less than two weeks after the election, with economic indicators suggesting the outlook is worsening.

In her final rally of the campaign, Mrs May portrayed the election as a choice of who is best equipped to lead the country into Brexit, thus "setting the course for generations to come".

"Only the people can give us the mandate, so my message to people is very simple: Give me the mandate to lead Britain, give me the authority to speak for Britain," Mrs May said. "Strengthen my hand as a I fight for Britain."

Mrs May shuttled by bus, plane and car from London to Southampton, Norwich, Nottingham and finally Birmingham on the last day of the campaign. Mr Corbyn, for his part, started the day in Glasgow, before heading to the capital via stops in Cheshire, north Wales and Watford.

Two last-minute polls last night showed the Conservative Party is on course to increase its majority. Polling firm ICM said its final pre-election poll showed Mrs May's lead had increased by one percentage point to 12 points. Rival pollster ComRes said the lead had narrowed by two points but still stood at a comfortable-looking 10 points.

ICM said its 46-34 lead for the Conservatives over Labour would give Mrs May a majority of 96 seats in parliament, up sharply from the working majority of 17 she has had until now.

The 'Independent' newspaper, which commissioned the ComRes poll, said the 44-34 lead it gave Mrs May would leave her with a majority of 74, bigger than any Conservative majority since the days when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

ICM and ComRes have tended to give the Conservatives bigger leads than other polling firms.

As Mrs May takes flak for her Home Office record, the Tories have concentrated their fire on the Labour leader's past relationship with extremist groups, and the performance of his home affairs spokeswoman Diane Abbott.

Mr Corbyn replaced Ms Abbott yesterday with Lyn Brown, the party's spokeswoman on police matters, citing ill health.

"For a couple of days, she's taking a break from the campaign," Mr Corbyn told the BBC. Ms Abbott later said on Twitter that she was "still standing" and would "rejoin the fray soon".
The victims of the London Bridge attack,from top left: Alexandre Pigeard, Sebastien Belanger, Christine Archibald, Xavier Thomas, Sarah Zelenak, James McMullan, Ignacio Echeverria and Kirsty Boden

The last of the eight victims of the London Bridge terror attack have been identified as police searching for the missing Frenchman Xavier Thomas recovered a body from the Thames.

With formal identification of the victims still ongoing, the sisters of the missing Spanish banker Ignacio Echeverria confirmed on Wednesday he was among those killed. The London-based HSBC worker was hailed as a hero for using his skateboard to take on the three attackers.

The victims were:

Christina Archibald

Canadian Archibald, 30, was the first victim to be named.

She died in her fiances arms after being struck by the speeding van on London Bridge.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Xavier Thomas is pictured here CREDIT: FACEBOOK James McMullan is pictured here Sebastien Belanger CREDIT: FACEBOOK / Facebook

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Whatsapp Xavier Thomas is pictured here CREDIT: FACEBOOK

Her family said she would have had no understanding of the callous cruelty that caused her death.

James McMullan

McMullan, 32, from Hackney, was last seen outside the Barrowboy And Banker pub and his sister said police have told her his bank card was found on a body at the scene of the attack.

Melissa McMullan described her brother as an inspiration and told Sky News: While our pain will never diminish, it is important for us all to carry on with our lives in direct opposition to those who wish to destroy us, and remember that hatred is the refuge of small-minded individuals and will only breed more.

She added that police told her they were unable to formally identify him until the coroners report is released.

Alexandre Pigeard

Pigeard, 27, has been named by French media as one of those killed.

Brittany news outlet Le Telegramme reported an account from Boro Bistro manager Vincent Le Berre, who told how his colleague, Pigeard, was attacked by a terrorist in the bar near Borough Market on Saturday night.

I managed to escape him, but my friend Alexandre did not have that chance. He was hit in the neck with a knife, he said.

According to French media, Pigeard was from Caen, in Normandy, but had been living in London for more than two years.

Sebastien Belanger

French chef Belanger, 36, is thought to be among those who died.

He was drinking at the Boro Bistro near Borough Market when the area came under attack.

Originally from Angers, western France, Belanger had lived in London for several years and worked at the Coq dArgent restaurant in the City, the Daily Telegraph reported.

French media have reported that his family are travelling to London on Wednesday to identify a body which is believed to be his.

Kirsty Boden

Australian nurse Boden was killed after she ran towards danger to help people, her family said.

Relatives said the 28-year-old was loved and adored by her family, friends and boyfriend, while colleagues at Guys and St Thomas Hospital in central London described her as one in a million.

As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life, her family said in a statement. We are so proud of Kirstys brave actions which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Melbourne Radio 3AW Ms Boden was killed by cowardly, vicious terrorists.

Sara Zelenak

Family and friends of Australian Zelenak have said she died in the attack as they posted tributes to her online.

Her father, Mark Wallace, shared a video of his daughter and wrote: I really miss that funny little laugh.

Friend Elle Bishop said on Facebook: I find solace in the fact that the hate that saw you taken from us, you have never felt inside, making you a remarkable young woman.

Zelenak has not been seen since the attack after she became separated from friends on Saturday night.

Two Australians were confirmed among the dead by the countrys minister for foreign affairs, Julie Bishop.

Meanwhile the grim wait continues for the families and friends searching for loved ones since the attack:

Ignacio Echeverria

Spanish banker Echeverria, 39, was reported missing after he was last seen in the area of Borough Market defending a woman with his skateboard.

His family confirmed his death, although they said it had not been made official by police.

His father, Joaquin Echeverria, said British authorities had not shared any information with them, but his sons employer, HSBC, had provided the services of a private detective to help with their search.

On Wednesday, journalist and relative Isabel Duran wrote on Twitter: Ignacio Echeverria attacked the terrorists to try to save a woman. He is in heaven with his inseparable skateboard.

Xavier Thomas

Thomas, 45, has been missing since he was caught up in the attack with his girlfriend, Christine Delcros  though Scotland Yard confirmed an as-yet-unidentified body was recovered from the River Thames on Tuesday evening.

The French couple, who were visiting London for the weekend, were walking south over London Bridge around the time the attack started, according to police.

Delcros was seriously injured when she was struck by the van, while witnesses accounts suggest Thomas was thrown into the Thames by the impact, Scotland Yard said.

The body was recovered near Limehouse in east London, downstream of London Bridge.

Thomass next of kin have been informed.
Prime Minister Theresa May speaking at a rally in Birmingham while on the General Election campaign trail. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

D-day, crunch time, the final countdown. Call it what you will, the most important day of the 2017 General Election is upon us - polling day.

The polls opened at 7am and will remain open until 10pm this evening.

On the eve of an election Prime Minister Theresa May returned to her core message that only she can deliver a good Brexit deal, moving on from a heated national debate over security after two deadly Islamist attacks.

May unexpectedly called the snap vote seven weeks ago, seeking to increase her working parliamentary majority of 17 seats ahead of the start of negotiations on leaving the European Union.

But the campaign has seen unexpected twists - a steep decline in May's once-commanding poll lead over the opposition Labour Party, and attacks in Manchester and London that killed 30 people.

Pollsters still expect May's Conservatives to win, although talk of a landslide majority of more than 100 seats has faded. A final flurry of polls put her party's lead in a range between 1 and 12 percentage points, with most of them suggesting she would increase her majority.

Expand Close Jeremy Corbyn has a selfie taken with a woman at an election rally in Colwyn Bay. Picture: Reuters / Facebook

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Whatsapp Jeremy Corbyn has a selfie taken with a woman at an election rally in Colwyn Bay. Picture: Reuters

The polls started narrowing after May launched a new policy on care for the elderly that proved unpopular. She backtracked days later, prompting opposition parties to pour scorn on her claim to offer "strong and stable leadership".

Then came a suicide bombing at a pop concert in Manchester on May 22 that killed 22 children and adults, and a van and knife attack on London Bridge and in nearby Borough Market that killed eight people on June 3, five days before the election.

The attacks threw the campaign spotlight onto security and prompted questions from May's opponents and media about her record overseeing cuts in police numbers during her years as interior minister from 2010 to 2016.

But the security issue was not seen as helpful to her main rival, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has voted against counter-terrorism legislation and expressed reservations in the past about police shoot-to-kill tactics.

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On Wednesday, the eve of the vote, May tried to bring the campaign back to Brexit.

"When it comes to the election tomorrow, I think the choices and the questions that people need to ask are exactly the same today as they were right at the beginning of the campaign," she told a campaign rally in Norwich, eastern England.

"And the first is a question of who do you trust to actually have the strong and stable leadership that is going to deliver the best deal for Britain in Europe."

May has sought to portray Corbyn as the weak leader of a spendthrift party which would crash Britain's $2.5 trillion economy and lead the country to ruin in chaotic Brexit negotiations.

Corbyn, a veteran left-winger who unexpectedly won the Labour leadership in 2015 after three decades on the party fringe, has hit back that Conservative fiscal austerity has hurt the poor and increased social inequalities.

Labour propose to build a fairer society through policies such as increasing tax for the richest 5 percent, boosting workers' rights, scrapping university tuition fees and investing 250 billion pounds in infrastructure.

"The choice is quite simple. Five more years of a Tory government, five more years of austerity, five more years of cuts. Or something different," Corbyn told supporters in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, to cheers and applause.

For May, the challenge is not only to win but to surpass handsomely the 12-seat majority her Conservative predecessor David Cameron won in 2015.

A narrow victory would undermine her authority both inside her party and at talks with the 27 other EU leaders.

Up to five more opinion polls are expected before voting begins at 0600 GMT on Thursday.

Britons have until 2100 GMT to vote, and there will be an exit poll as soon as voting ends. The first handful of seat results are expected to be announced by 2300 GMT, with the vast majority of the 650 constituencies due to announce results between 0200 GMT and 0500 GMT on Friday morning.

After a campaign that saw twists, turns and terrorist atrocities, Britain's newspapers have given their final assessment as voters go to the polls:

:: The Daily Mail accuses Labour of telling "many lies" during the campaign and offers a "tactical voting guide" to boost the Tory majority.

:: The Guardian mourns a missed opportunity to debate Brexit during the campaign and criticises Theresa May's approach as potential divorce negotiator-in-chief, warning "a farce might follow a Brexit drama".

:: The Times urges voters to "beware old Labour", saying that a vote for Jeremy Corbyn's left-wing party "would reward an ideological maverick when the country needs experience and pragmatism".

:: On the other hand, the Daily Mirror, warns voters not to "condemn Britain to five more years of Tory broken promises" under the headline: "Lies, damned lies and Theresa May" on its front page.

:: The Daily Telegraph attempts to coax any readers suffering "voter fatigue" to the polling booth with a warning that Jeremy Corbyn's supporters need to be "countered by those who think the prospect of a neo-Marxist Labour government would be a national disaster".

:: The Sun tells voters: "Don't chuck Britain in the Cor-bin" on its front page, urging them to back Mrs May or risk destroying 35 years of "spectacular progress and prosperity" by putting the Labour leader in charge.

:: In the Financial Times, columnist Bill Emmott says Mrs May has "shown herself to be poor at strategy and campaigning", but when voters get in the polling booth her leadership and policy stances may prove to be more trusted than Mr Corbyn's.

:: The Daily Express instructs its readers: "Vote for May today" on its front page, warning it is "for the sake of the country, the Brexit process, our economy and our safety".

:: The i judges Mrs May's campaign as "lacklustre" while describing Mr Corbyn's as "bold" and "lively" - but adds: "i does not have an axe to grind, and is unique among UK national newspapers in refusing to endorse a party. You Decide."

Here is a full guide to General Election night 2017 - the key moments to look out for and when and where to see them.

What to watch

BBC

David Dimbleby will be leading the coverage on BBC One and the BBC News Channel as the polls close, from 9.55pm to 7am on Thursday. This will be his 10th time at the helm of the BBC's coverage, joined by graphics whizz Jeremy Vine and reporters Emily Maitlis and Mishal Husain.

Huw Edwards will then take over until 10am on Friday, joined by Andrew Neil at 1pm. Neil will host the rest of the coverage on BBC Two until 4.30pm.

ITV

Tom Bradby will steer ITV's coverage through the night, starting at 9.55pm. He will be joined by the channel's Political Editor Robert Peston, former Labour MP and Strictly Come Dancing star Ed Balls and Evening Standard Editor and former Chancellor George Osborne.

Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid will take over with a special edition of Good Morning Britain from 6am-9.25am, after which an extended ITV news will run until 2pm.

Channel 4

Channel 4 is mixing comment with comedy for its alternative election night. From 9.45pm the stars of Gogglebox will be giving their views on the election, followed by news heavyweights Jeremy Paxman and Cathy Newman co-hosting with David Mitchell and Richard Osman.

The programme promises to combine serious coverage mixed with light relief until 6am.

Sky News

Veteran news editor Adam Boulton partners with Sophy Ridge to lead the election charge on Sky News, beginning at 9pm. They will be supported by live coverage from 300 constituencies.

Sky's results night will extend to Snapchat from 10pm with rolling coverage on the picture and video sharing platform.

First indication of results

The result of a joint BBC, ITV and Sky exit poll will be released at 10pm - as soon as polling stations close.

The survey will be taken from 144 polling stations across Britain, asking voters at these stations to mark a mock ballot paper to show how they have voted.

Similar exit polls have correctly predicted who would take the keys to Number 10 in the last five elections, and in 2005 and 2010 came extremely close to predicting the exact number of seats.

Results to watch for (timings approximate)

By 12am

The three Sunderland constituencies - traditionally first to declare - should be in. All are safe Labour seats and all three should return women MPs, meaning that by this point in the night the House of Commons should be 100% female.

1am

Nuneaton: The first marginal seat to declare. Marcus Jones (Con) is defending a majority of 4,882 and Labour needs a 5.4% swing to win.

1.30am

Darlington: If the Tories win here in Labour's heartland of north-east England, they are on course for a very good night.

Wrexham: The first chance for the Tories to gain a seat from Labour in Wales.

2am

Bury North, Peterborough and Thurrock: Three Tory marginals are due to declare - all are key Labour targets.

Clwyd South: Can the Tories surge in Wales and grab this seat from Labour?

Hastings & Rye: The seat of Home Secretary Amber Rudd, which would fall to Labour on a 4.8% swing.

2.30am

Islington North: Jeremy Corbyn's result should see him safely returned by a big margin.

Vale of Clwyd and Warwickshire North: Two chances for Labour to make gains from the Conservatives.

Ynys Mon: A close three-way fight between Labour (who are defending the seat), Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives

3am

Dunbartonshire East: The Liberal Democrats are hoping to take this seat back from the SNP.

Ealing Central & Acton and Hampstead & Kilburn: Two marginal seats that could offer the Tories their first chance of gaining from Labour in London.

Exeter: Can Ben Bradshaw cling on to one of Labour's few remaining seats in the South West?

Moray: Might the SNP's depute leader Angus Robertson be defeated by the Conservatives?

Westmorland & Lonsdale: Tim Farron's seat is due to declare. The Lib Dem leader would lose to the Tories on a 9.3% swing.

3.30am

Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale: The Tories' only seat in Scotland is being challenged by the SNP.

Enfield North, Ilford North and Westminster North: More Labour London seats at risk from a swing to the Conservatives.

Sedgefield: Tony Blair's former seat would fall to the Conservatives on an 8.9% swing.

4am

Birmingham Northfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Walsall North: Three key West Midlands Labour seats at risk from a Tory surge.

Carshalton & Wallington and Southport: Two Lib Dem seats fancied by the Tories.

Gower: The seat with smallest majority in the country (just 27 in 2015), which Labour is hoping to take back from the Conservatives.

Richmond Park and Twickenham: Can Zac Goldsmith (Con) and Vince Cable (Lib Dem) win back their respective former seats?

4.30am

Blackpool South and Wolverhampton South West: Two more Labour marginals eyed by the Tories.

Maidenhead: Theresa May's seat is expected to declare around now.

Sheffield Hallam: Lib Dem former deputy PM Nick Clegg could lose his seat on a swing of 2.2% to Labour.

5am

Boston & Skegness: Ukip leader Paul Nuttall is hoping to win this seat from the Conservatives.

Bristol West: Can the Greens oust Labour and claim their second ever MP?

Brentford & Isleworth, City of Chester and Wirral West: Three of Labour's most marginal seats - all are being challenged by the Tories.

Fermanagh & South Tyrone: Sinn Fein is hoping to win back the seat from the UUP.

Halifax: Theresa May launched the Tories' manifesto here - but can Labour hold on?

5.30am

Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk: The Conservatives are hoping to snap up this SNP marginal.

Hove: Can the Tories seize one of Labour's few remaining seats in south-east England?

6am

Brighton Pavilion: Caroline Lucas is defending the Greens' only seat.

Derby North: On paper, Labour's best chance of a gain from the Tories, who are defending a majority of just 41.

Derbyshire North East and Lancaster & Fleetwood: Two late chances for Tory gains from Labour.

7am

Morley & Outwood: Labour is hoping to win back the seat of the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls.

Thanet South: Tory marginal being defended by Craig Mackinlay, who has been charged with allegedly overspending in the 2015 general election.

By 12pm

After a lull during the morning, the final seats should be declared just before lunchtime - Berwick-upon-Tweed, Blyth Valley and Wansbeck.
A polar bear walks across rubble ice in the Alaska portion of the southern Beaufort Sea. (USGS/AP)

Faster-moving sea ice brought on by rapid global warming is adding to physiological stress for polar bears off the coast of Alaska, experts warn.

A study by US Geological Survey researchers and others says the already at-risk bears have to burn more calories to stay within their preferred habitat as sea ice drifts.

Research ecologist George Durner said that adds to problems for polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea.

Researchers there have documented declining body condition, reproduction and survival among polar bears as diminished sea ice gives them fewer opportunities to hunt for seals.

The study concludes that bears must kill one to three more seals per year to compensate for burning more calories on sea ice that carries bears away from their home range.

AP
Former FBI director James Comey has told a congressional hearing that Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation into Russia's ties to the Trump campaign, accusing the White House of spreading "lies, plain and simple".

He also revealed he had orchestrated the public release of information about his private conversations with the president in an effort to further the investigation.

Mr Comey's evidence, at a hugely anticipated hearing, provided a gripping account of his interactions with Mr Trump and underscored the deep distrust that soured their relationship before his stunning firing last month.

In occasionally explosive statements, he portrayed Mr Trump as a chief executive dismissive of the FBI's independence and made clear that he interpreted Mr Trump's request to end an investigation into his former national security adviser as an order from the president.

He expressed confidence that the circumstances of his firing, and Mr Trump's overall behaviour towards him, could be investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for possible obstruction of justice, but he declined to offer an opinion on whether it met the threshold.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Mr Comey said towards the end of more than two hours of evidence to the Senate intelligence committee.

"I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

"That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me."

At one point he practically dared Mr Trump to release any recordings of their conversations, a prospect president once alluded to in a tweet.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Mr Comey said, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over the president's.

The hearing was Mr Comey's first public appearance since his sudden May 9 firing and it brought Washington and other parts of the country to a standstill as Americans sat glued to their screens, harkening back to the Watergate congressional hearings that held the nation rapt four decades earlier.

Republicans mindful of the gravity of the moment worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing.

They tried to undermine Mr Comey's credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance when the FBI had to clean up the director's evidence to Congress.

In his opening statement, Mr Comey sombrely accused the Trump administration of spreading "lies, plain and simple" in the aftermath of his abrupt removal, declaring that the administration "chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI" by claiming the bureau was in disorder.

AP
A man takes cover during the attack on the Iranian parliament. Photo: Reuters

Isil has claimed responsibility for a co-ordinated attack by gunmen and suicide bombers on Iran's parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Iranian Revolution.

President Hassan Rouhani said the attacks in Tehran that killed at least 12 people yesterday would make Iran more united.

"Today's terrorist attacks in Tehran will make the Islamic Republic of Iran more determined in the fight against regional terrorism, extremism and violence," Mr Rouhani said in a statement published on the ISNA news agency.

"We will prove once again that we will crush the enemies' plots with more unity and more strength."

Teams of attackers struck the two sites in Tehran early yesterday morning, killing at least 12 and wounding dozens more, according to Iranian state media.

If confirmed that Isil was behind the attack, it would be its most ambitious operation yet against Iran.

One suicide bomber blew themselves up at the Khomeini shrine, which is highly symbolic for Iran's theocratic leadership. A second bomber later detonated explosives at the parliament during a stand off with security forces.

Isil's Amaq news agency released a short statement soon after the attacks, saying: "Fighters from the Islamic State attacked the shrine of Khomeini and the Iranian parliament building in the centre of Tehran."

The jihadist group claimed the credit with unusual speed and released a video of the attackers inside the parliament building.

Members of the Iranian forces took cover outside parliament.

Isil has recently stepped up its propaganda against Iran and in March released a video in Farsi, where it called on Iran's Sunni minority to rise up against the Iranian regime. The Sunni jihadist group considers Iran's Shia leaders to be apostates and worthy of death.
A young massage therapist was found dead by her boyfriend at the location of her last appointment.

Kayla Ann Denham (24) was found in a barn on a property in Denham Springs, Louisiana.

The resident of the property, Christoper Landry, is now being held by police investigating the young woman's death.

It is understood Kayla died from blunt force with head injuries associated with strangulation.

Police told local news outlets that Kayla has been scheduled to meet a client on Monday morning at their home.

She texted her boyfriend the time and location of the house call.

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Her family reported her missing after she failed to return home and calls to her phone went unanswered.

Her boyfriend travelled to the property twice before he noticed her car parked in the woods by the property.

He called the authorities who arrived at the scene and soon discovered her body in the barn.

Landry (25) was arrested on suspicion of killing Denham.

He was charged with second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. His bail was set at $250,000.

Kayla's family paid tribute to their loved one, writing; "We are in shock about the loss of our beloved daughter, granddaughter, sister, cousin and friend.

"Kayla was a wonderful young woman who always shared a beautiful smile on her face and love in her heart.

"She will be greatly missed, and we ask for privacy during this very difficult period of mourning for the family."
Sarah and Travis Mitchell are being charged with murder for praying for their sick newborn instead of taking her to the hospital. She died shortly after birth. Clackamas County Sherrif's Office in Oregon

Parents who prayed for their sick newborn baby instead of taking her to the hospital are charged with murder. The infant died just hours after she was born.

Sarah and Travis Mitchell of Oregon City, Oregon are members of the Followers of Christ Church, which does not believe in modern medicine. Instead, members rely on prayer and anointing oils for healing.

Ms Mitchell gave birth to twin girls on 5 March in her grandparents home with only midwives and family present.

One of the newborns died within hours due to lung formation and breathing problems associated with a premature birth.

State Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Gunson told local news station KATU that she estimates Ms Mitchell gave birth approximate two months early.

It is not immediately clear whether the child would have survived had she been born in a hospital or at least taken to one shortly after birth after the breathing trouble became noticeable.

However, Ms Gunson said the baby would have had a chance had the parents done so.

In 2011, church members Dale and Shannon HIckman, were convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison for the death of their newborn infant.

That same year, the state removed faith healing as a legal defence in murder and manslaughter cases.
A former CIA director has said that James Comeys "radar would have been set off" when asked to be loyal to President Donald Trump, months before Mr Comey was unceremoniously fired as FBI Director.

John Brennan, who worked with the Central Intelligence Agency for 25 years and served as the agency's director from 2013 until 2017, said he would have been stunned if asked for loyalty by a president.

Speaking to Sean ORourke on RTE Radio One, Mr Brennan said: "I was never asked to show or to give loyalty to the President. Thats something that I think would have certainly set off Jim Comeys radar.

"I think if I was asked to show loyalty to a president, I dont think Id have been as stoic as Jim Comey. I think my facial expression would have demonstrated just how surprised and shocked I would have been."

When asked if he could have worked with President Trump, Mr Brennan said; "I was finished at noon on inauguration day."

Mr Comey is due to tell Congress today that President Trump pressed him repeatedly to halt a probe into his ex-national security advisors ties with Russia, as well as to declare publicly that President Trump was not himself under investigation.

His testimony comes as part of an ongoing investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Before his dismissal, Mr Comey was heading the campaign into the Trump teams Russian links. He was fired under the guise of inappropriate handling of a months-old investigation into Hillary Clintons emails, which the President had praised at the time.

Mr Brennan recounted the CIAs monitoring of Russian influence in the 2016 Presidential Election, saying that by the spring of that year it had become apparent that Russian efforts to influence the elections result were complex and far-reaching.

He said a full-blown investigation had been mounted by that summer and said Russias main objectives seemed to be to undermine the democratic election process, hurt Hillary Clintons credibility and promote Mr Trump.

He said: What we saw was a clear effort to denigrate Ms Clinton, but also put forward positive stories about Mr Trump.

One thing that Americans hold very dear is their right to choose their elected officials and any attempt to exploit the election environment to promote their agenda is something I think all Americans should be outraged over.

Mr Brennan said Russia had also attempted to interfere with European elections in recent years.

Speaking about the ongoing investigation, he said he hopes the Democrats and Republicans in Washington can set their party loyalties aside and get together, take the results of these investigations, look at them and act upon them in whatever way is best for the United States and not any particular party.

Todays testimony

Mr Comey's testimony in the most widely anticipated congressional hearing in years will put at center stage a high-stakes clash between two men with vastly different personas.

The outcome could have significant repercussions for Mr Trump's 139-day-old presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees investigate whether Mr Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House and Russia deny any collusion occurred.

In written testimony released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Mr Comey quoted Mr Trump as telling him the Russia investigation was a "cloud" impairing his ability to operate as president.

Comey said in his statement that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb.14, Mr Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn that is part of a wider probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Mr Comey quoted Mr Trump as saying.

Mr Comey also said Mr Trump told him during a one-on-one dinner on Jan. 27 that he needed "loyalty."

Mr Trump fired the FBI chief on May 9, setting off a political firestorm, and he has since called Mr Comey a "showboat" and a "grandstander."

Despite the high drama, Mr Comey is not expected to drop any major new bombshells, or directly accuse Mr Trump of trying to obstruct justice by asking him to halt the FBI probe of Flynn.

He is also unlikely to reveal new details of the ongoing Russia investigation. U.S. law enforcement officials said Mr Comey had discussed his testimony with Mueller's investigative team to ensure it did not interfere with the special counsel's probe.

"The one thing you know he's not going to do, you know he's not going to reach a conclusion (on the legality of Trump's actions) and he's not going to talk about the underlying investigation," said Stephen Ryan, a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator now at the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm.

Still, Ryan said the testimony, and senators' questions, would be historic. The closest comparison, he said, was the appearance 44 years ago of President Richard Nixon's White House counsel John Dean, who, after being fired by Nixon, gave damning testimony in 1973 to the Senate Watergate Committee.

Additional reporting from Reuters
Former FBI Director James Comey has presented evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee about conversations he had with President Donald Trump and whether the former businessman pressured him to drop an investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

The committee on Wednesday released his prepared opening statement in which he confirmed under oath that Mr Trump tried to get him to drop the probe into whether General Flynn, who was forced to resign two weeks after the inauguration, had met with Russian officials during the campaign to discuss economic sanctions imposed by Barack Obama.

The statement also includes information about a pair of phone calls with Mr Trump where he had reportedly complained to him about the FBI's investigation into his campaign team's links with Russia, calling it a "cloud" looming over the presidency and reportedly urged Mr Comey to state publicly that the President himself was not under investigation.

The hearing, dubbed the Washington Super Bowl, and pundits are predicting it could be the "most explosive in a generation".

President Trump was expected to live Tweet his responses according to the Washington Post, but he has not yet taken to social media.

A source close to him did say that he disputed some of the facts presented by Mr Comey during the hearing, which ran for more than two hours.

Opening statements:

Chairman of the Committee, Republican Richard Burr said he is looking forward to a candid discussion and reminded senators that they would meet with Mr Comey in a closed session at 1pm.

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Vice Chairman Mark Warner told the committee that the hearing is not about who won or lost the election or Republican v Democrat.

"We must find out what the Russians did," he said.

Reasons for his firing:

Speaking to the committee Mr Comey said he was confused to hear Trump say on TV that he was fired over Russia investigation.

He said he was confused when the White House said he was fired because the FBI was not performing properly.

Those were lies, plain and simple," he said.

Questions from senators:

He said he wanted the American people to know that "the FBI is honest, the FBI is strong and the FBI is and always will be independent".

He said he is confident that he no votes cast in 2016 election were altered.

Addressing his colleagues he said:

It was the honour of my life to serve beside you... I will miss it for the rest of my life.

When asked why he felt the need to keep memos documenting his private interactions with Trump he said he knew there might come a day when he would need a record to defend himself.

He said he created a memo on a January meeting with Donald Trump because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie".

Source close to Trump says President disputes element of Comey's testimony:

A source close to the White House has revealed that Trump disputes two points in Comey's testimony.

Comey testified that Trump asked him to let go of the probe into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and also said that Trump asked for his loyalty. Trump disputes those points, the source told Reuters.

Comey takes questions on conversation about Michael Flynn:

He says he took Trump's words as a "direction" and inferred that he wanted him to drop the Flynn probe.

It was a direction he did not follow he tells members.

He goes on to say he takes Trump at his word that he was fired because of the Russia investigation.

He said he was stunned by the conversation in the Oval office.

A committee member asked why Mr Comey did not say this is wrong after Mr Trump said I hope you can let this go.

Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in, Mr Comey said.

Tapes:

Comey said "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" of his conversations with the president.

Later he encouraged Trump to release any tapes he has saying "I'm good with it".

Russian interference:

Comey says the fact that Russia interfered in the election is "about as unfake as you can get".

He said the Russian interference was sophisticated and directed from a high level and he is glad to see a non-partisan focus on the issue.

On private White House dinner:

Under further questioning Mr Comey discussed how he was due to spend time with his wife on a night in January when Mr Trump invited him to a private dinner in the White House.

He raised a laugh from those present when he said he wished he had spent the night with his wife.

"In retrospect I love spending time with my wife... I wish I'd been [with her] that night, " he said.

Media coverage:

Comey has said there have been "many, many" news stories about the Russia probe that are just "dead wrong".

White House responds:

When asked about Comey's testimony that he was concerned Trump would lie a spokesperson said the president is not a liar.

The White House has said Trump is "pleased" that Comey has confirmed he is not under investigation in any Russian probe.

Ongoing investigation:

Comey tells the committee he believes he was fired to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

Closing remarks:

Chairman Burr thanks Comey for his work in the FBI and a ss prosecutor.

He thanks Comey for telling it like it is.

"We are grateful to you for the professionalism you have shown," he said.

Mark Warner said there are still unanswered questions.

"We will get to the bottom of this," he said.

The public session of the hearing has now closed.

Here is everything you need to know:

Why was Comey fired?

Just to recap, Comey was fired whilst he was overseeing the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The White House initially said Trump was acting on the recommendation of Justice Department leaders. However, Trump gave a slightly different explanation when he said in an NBC News interview that he had already decided to dismiss Comey and was thinking of this Russia thing when he did so.

What is in Comeys testimony?

In his comments, Comey says that he can recall having nine one-on-one conversations with Trump in four months  all of which he recorded in memos afterwards because of their content. In the testimony, he recounts what went down in each conversation  some of which were in person, and some on the phone.

One particular conversation about loyalty sticks out. The president allegedly said: I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. Comey says that he later repeated: I need loyalty. I replied, You will always get honesty from me. He paused and then said, Thats what I want, honest loyalty. I paused, and then said, You will get that from me.

In the testimony, Comey emphasises the fact that the FBI is not involved in politics, something he was worried Trump was trying to encourage. He was apparently so concerned about this that at one point he asked the Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prevent future direct communication between Trump and himself.

Comey reveals that the president seemed to be asking him to stop investigating his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn: I had understood the president to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.

In their last conversation, Comey recounts that Trump said: Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. I did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing.

Read More

What are the legal implications of these comments?

Legal experts say conversations attributed by Comey to Trump were clumsy and inappropriate at best. In the worst light, these recollections could provide enough evidence to build a case that the president tried to interfere with a criminal investigation.

However, Trumps personal lawyer said the president was cheered by the testimony.

The president is pleased that Mr Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe, attorney Mark Kasowitz said in a statement. The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda.

What happens next?

Comey is due to give this testimony today, and it is likely that Republicans will press him on why he did not raise his concerns about Trump publicly or resign. Some may attempt to divert attention from Comeys remarks about Trump by focusing on two issues theyve repeatedly seized on: leaks and revealing the names of Americans in intelligence reports.

Comey is unlikely to say anything that could interfere with or undercut the ongoing federal investigation into Russia ties.

Trump has derisively characterised Comey as a showboat. Whilst this is hardly a label with which Comeys supporters would agree, American media have been among those labelling the ex-FBI chief as showing a flair for drama during his career.

As such, Washington DC is hugely excited for the congressional hearing  so much so that The Washingtonian reports that at least three bars in the city will open early for Comeys testimony. One Irish pub will even be serving a special covfefe cocktail, whatever that entails.

Additional reporting by agencies and the UK Independent.
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump wait to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, at the White House in Washington, DC, February 15, 2017. / AFP / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. bars are offering $5 Russian vodka drinks, impeachmint cocktails and free drinks with every presidential tweet to draw crowds on Thursday to watch fired FBI Director James Comey's televised testimony to Congress.

Television "watch parties," typically hosted for sporting events and awards shows, are planned at homes and bars across the country for Comeys 10 a.m. EDT appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Most bars are opening early for Comey's morning appearance, which will be at 3pm GMT.

One bar in DC is offering an 'FBI breakfast' of French toast and bacon and ice-cream as well as an 'FBI sandwich' which includes friend chicken breast, bacon and iceberg lettuce.

An Irish pub has offered free wifi alongside their breakfast, "so you can pretend you're working."

Former FBI Director James Comey will tell Congress on Thursday that President Donald Trump pressed him repeatedly to halt a probe into his ex-national security adviser's ties with Russia and to declare publicly that Trump himself was not under investigation.

Testimony

Comey's testimony in the most widely anticipated congressional hearing in years will put at center stage a high-stakes clash between two men with vastly different personas.

Thursday we are opening early for our Comey Hearing Covfefe! pic.twitter.com/o7o2XsFzl2  Shaw's Tavern (@ShawsTavern) June 6, 2017

#ComeyHearing viewing party this Thursday! Opening at 10am with @redapronbutcher breakfast + The Last Word & Drop The Bomb drink specials. pic.twitter.com/5BjNvwstw1  The Partisan (@ThePartisanDC) June 6, 2017

Duffy's getting in on the Comey watch party action pic.twitter.com/HvDT35YMHR  Tierney Sneed (@Tierney_Megan) June 6, 2017

The outcome could have significant repercussions for Trump's 139-day-old presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees investigate whether Trump's campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House and Russia deny any collusion occurred.

In written testimony released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Comey quoted Trump as telling him the Russia investigation was a "cloud" impairing his ability to operate as president.

Comey said in his statement that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb.14, Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn that is part of a wider probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Comey quoted Trump as saying.

Expand Close Former FBI Chief James Comey says President Donald Trump sought his loyalty. Photo: Getty Images / Facebook

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Comey also said Trump told him during a one-on-one dinner on Jan. 27 that he needed "loyalty."

Trump fired the FBI chief on May 9, setting off a political firestorm, and he has since called Comey a "showboat" and a "grandstander."

Democrats, along with some Republicans, on the committee will use the hearing on Thursday to press for further details of any attempts by Trump to blunt the Russia investigation.

"Im very concerned about the implication that Comey keeping his job was dependent on his loyalty or, in Comeys words, developing a patronage relationship. That is another way the President sought to impede the investigation," Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a comment emailed to Reuters.

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, said earlier this week: "I want to know more also about the president's interactions with Mr. Comey with regard to the investigation into Michael Flynn. ... It makes a big difference what the exact words were, the tone of the president, the context of the conversation."

But Republican Senator Richard Burr, the panel's chairman, sought to downplay Comey's "loyalty" remark, saying: "I don't think it's wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration."

Trump's attorney, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement on Wednesday saying the president felt "totally vindicated" by Comey's acknowledgement that he had told Trump on three occasions that he was not personally under investigation.

Despite landing himself in other political controversies, including his handling of the FBI investigation of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private email server, Comey is widely seen as cautious and fact-oriented.

"One thing you don't ever hear about him is (that) people don't think he tells the truth. He brings a lot of credibility," said Benjamin Wittes, a Comey confidant and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Less than five months into office, Trump has proven himself to be impulsive and visceral, turning to Twitter to lambaste perceived adversaries in 140 characters or less.

Relationship

As Comey's written testimony underscored, he and the U.S. president had an awkward, topsy-turvy relationship.

Then-candidate Trump excoriated Comey last summer for deciding not to prosecute Clinton over her handling of government emails, then praised him when he reopened the issue in October just days before the election.

Trump initially kept Comey on as FBI director, and publicly embraced him at a January White House event. Two days after firing him, Trump said it was because of "this Russia thing."

Trump is widely expected to use his Twitter account, which lists 31.8 million followers, to counterpunch at Comey on Thursday - perhaps even in real time.

The Republican president's unconstrained use of Twitter has confounded allies and skeptics alike.

"Every time you tweet, it makes it harder on all of us who are trying to help you. I dont think you did anything wrong. Dont get in the way of an investigation that could actually clear you," Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News on Wednesday.

Despite the high drama, Comey is not expected to drop any major new bombshells, or directly accuse Trump of trying to obstruct justice by asking him to halt the FBI probe of Flynn.

He is also unlikely to reveal new details of the ongoing Russia investigation. U.S. law enforcement officials said Comey had discussed his testimony with Mueller's investigative team to ensure it did not interfere with the special counsel's probe.

"The one thing you know he's not going to do, you know he's not going to reach a conclusion (on the legality of Trump's actions) and he's not going to talk about the underlying investigation," said Stephen Ryan, a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator now at the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm.

Still, Ryan said the testimony, and senators' questions, would be historic. The closest comparison, he said, was the appearance 44 years ago of President Richard Nixon's White House counsel John Dean, who, after being fired by Nixon, gave damning testimony in 1973 to the Senate Watergate Committee.
A teenager accused of using text messages to encourage her boyfriend to kill himself played a "sick game" with another person's life, a prosecutor said.

In dozens of text messages and telephone calls, Michelle Carter, then 17, repeatedly urged Conrad Roy III (18) to kill himself, prosecutor Maryclare Flynn said in opening statements at Ms Carter's trial for involuntary manslaughter.

Mr Roy was sitting in his pickup in a car park in July 2014 as the truck filled with carbon monoxide. After he exited the truck, Ms Carter told him to "get back in", Ms Flynn told the juvenile court in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Ms Carter, who never called authorities or Mr Roy's parents as he died, allegedly wanted the sympathy and attention that came with being the "grieving girlfriend", Ms Flynn said.

Mr Roy was depressed after his parents' divorce, was physically and verbally abused by family members and had long thought of suicide, researching suicide methods online. It was Ms Carter who urged him to get help, defence lawyer Joseph Cataldo said. The couple met in Florida in 2012 but had only seen each other in person a handful of times even though they lived just 55km apart in Massachusetts - Mr Roy in Mattapoisett and Ms Carter in Plainville.

They communicated mostly by text messages and phone calls.

When Mr Roy suggested they should be like Romeo and Juliet, the lovers who killed themselves in the Shakespeare play, Ms Carter said she didn't want them to die, Mr Cataldo said.

"Conrad Roy was on this path to take his own life for years. It was Conrad Roy's idea to take his own life. It was not Michelle Carter's idea. This was a suicide, a sad and tragic suicide, but not a homicide."

Ms Carter had her own mental health struggles and was taking medications that may have clouded her judgment, he said.

The case continues.
Police officers near the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Five of the men who launched an attack in the heart of Iran's capital previously fought for Islamic State, the country's intelligence ministry has said.

The attacks on Wednesday on Iran's parliament in Tehran and the tomb of its revolutionary leader killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 40.

The ministry issued a statement on its website with bloody pictures of the men's bodies.

It identified them only by their first names, saying it did not want to release their last names due to security and privacy concerns for their families.

It described them as "long affiliated with the Wahhabi", an ultraconservative form of Sunni Islam practised in Saudi Arabia.

However, it stopped short of directly blaming the kingdom for the attack, though many in the country expressed suspicion that Iran's regional rival had a hand in the attack.

The men had left Iran to fight for the extremist group in Mosul, Iraq, as well as Raqqa, Syria - the group's de facto capital, the ministry said.

It said they returned to Iran in August under the command of an IS leader and escaped when authorities initially broke up their extremist cell.

The ministry did not identify the men's home towns or say how they were able to evade authorities.

Commuters in the Iranian capital noticed more police than usual on the streets as dawn broke.

That came after Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, a deputy interior minister, told state TV that "law enforcement activities may increase".

"We are focused on intelligence" gathering, he said.

State television also reported on Thursday that the death toll had risen to 16, citing Ahmad Shojaei, the head of the country's forensic centre.

The attack as politicians held a session in parliament and at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini shocked Iranians, who so far had avoided the chaos that has followed IS's rise in Syria and Iraq.

Iranian forces are backing embattled Syrian president Bashar Assad while the Shiite power is also supporting militias fighting against the extremists in Iraq.

The attack came as emboldened Sunni Arab states - backed by US President Donald Trump - are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Mr Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times," the statement said.

"We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote."

The comments sparked anger from Iranians on social media, who recalled the vigils in Tehran that followed the September 11 attacks.

Foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the White House comments "repugnant" and accused the US of supporting terror.

"Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," Mr Zarif tweeted.

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks.

A statement issued on Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it "meaningful" that the attacks followed Mr Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washington's support for Riyadh.

The statement said Saudi Arabia "constantly supports" terrorists including IS, adding that the IS claim of responsibility "reveals (Saudi Arabia's) hand in this barbaric action".

The "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged", the Revolutionary Guard statement said.

Emirati minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said "the Iranian government should not use the attack in a very polarised situation against Saudi Arabia or claim that Saudi Arabia is somehow linked to the attack, because it isn't".

On the streets of the capital on Thursday, Iranians said they remained suspicious that Saudi Arabia had a hand in the attack.

Some pointed to comments in May by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the son of King Salman and the kingdom's defence minister, who said his country would "work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia".

"I am sure Persian Gulf Arab countries are behind this," said Nahid Ghanbari, a 21-year-old university student studying accounting.

"They have been angry about Iran's power in the region. They look for a way to destabilise our country."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehran's involvement in wars abroad.

He told a group of students that if "Iran had not resisted" it would have faced even more troubles.

"The Iranian nation will go forward," he added.

The violence began in mid-morning when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress.

The siege lasted for hours and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Iran's state TV.

Images circulating in Iranian media showed gunmen held rifles near the windows of the complex.

One showed a toddler being handed through a first-floor window to safety outside as an armed man looked on.

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeini's mausoleum on Tehran's southern outskirts.

Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Iran's first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

Iran's state broadcaster said a security guard was killed at the tomb and that one of the attackers was killed by security guards. A woman was also arrested.

The revered shrine was not damaged.

Police on Thursday said they now held six suspects as part of their investigation into the attacks.

Reza Seifollahi, an official in the country's Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals.

AP
Portugal is a member of Nato and the European Union

Portugal's public prosecutor has brought charges of espionage, disclosing state secrets and corruption against a Portuguese spy and a Russian secret service agent.

The prosecutor's office alleges the Portuguese Security Intelligence agent met with the Russian in Rome last year and handed him secret documents in return for 10,000 euros (8,668).

The Portuguese spy was under suspicion and was being secretly followed in Rome by Italian and Portuguese officials, Thursday's statement said.

It provided no details about the secret documents or the Russian's identity.

Portugal is a member of Nato and the European Union.

The two men were arrested in Rome.

The Portuguese spy is in custody in Lisbon but an Italian court refused to extradite the Russian, who was freed, the statement said.

His whereabouts are not known.

AP
Former FBI director James Comey appears before the Senate intelligence committee at Capitol Hill in Washington (Alex Brandon/AP)

Former FBI director James Comey claims that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Mr Comey told the Senate intelligence committee in explosive testimony that threatened to undermine Mr Trump's presidency.

"I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted," Mr Comey testified under oath.

"That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me."

Mr Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading "lies, plain and simple" about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month, declaring that the administration "defamed him and more importantly the FBI" by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership.

And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman, Mr Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," Mr Comey said.

"I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI."

The revelations came as MR Comey delivered his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with President Trump, speaking at a packed Senate intelligence committee hearing that brought Washington and parts of the country to a standstill as all eyes were glued to televisions showing the testimony.

The former director immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Mr Trump interfered in the bureau's Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered on Wednesday.

In that testimony he had already disclosed that President Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

Mr Comey said that he declined to do so in large part because of the "duty to correct" that would be created if that situation changed.

Mr Comey also said in his written testimony that President Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Democratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Mr Comey the key question: "Do you believe this arises to obstruction of justice?"

"I don't know. That's Bob Mueller's job to sort that out," Mr Comey responded, referring to the newly appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department's Russia investigation.

In a startling disclosure, Mr Comey revealed that after his firing he had actually tried to spur the special counsel's appointment by giving one of his memos about President Trump to a friend of his to leak to the press.

"My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square," Mr Comey said.

The Republican National Committee and other White House allies worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Mr Comey's credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up the director's testimony to Congress.

Republicans and Mr Trump's own lawyer seized on Mr Comey's confirmation, in his written testimony, of President Trump's claim that Mr Comey had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation.

President Trump himself is expected to dispute Mr Comey's claims that the president demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn.

The president has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Mr Comey's accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Mr Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes'" of the conversations.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Mr Comey remarked at one point on Thursday, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over any claims from the president.

But it was a Democrat, Sen Dianne Feinstein of California, who asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Mr Comey's firing as one media leak followed another revealing Mr Comey's claims about President Trump's inappropriate interactions with him.

Discussing the Oval Office meeting where Mr Comey says President Trump asked him to back off Mr Flynn, Ms Feinstein asked: "Why didn't you stop and say, 'Mr. President, this is wrong,'?"

"That's a great question," Mr Comey said.

"Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in."

The hearing unfolded amid intense political interest, and within a remarkable political context as Mr Comey delivered detrimental testimony about the president who fired him, a president who won election only after Mr Comey damaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the final days of the campaign.

Ms Clinton has blamed Mr Comey's October 28 announcement that he was re-opening the email investigation for her defeat.

She has argued she was on track to a victory when Mr Comey's move raised fresh doubts about her.

"If the election were on October 27, I would be your president," Ms Clinton said last month.

Many Democrats blame Mr Comey for Ms Clinton's loss, leading President Trump to apparently believe they would applaud him for firing Mr Comey last month.

The opposite was the case as the firing created an enormous political firestorm that has stalled Mr Trump's legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and taken over Washington.

Under questioning on Thursday, Mr Comey strongly asserted the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election.

"There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered," Mr Comey stated firmly.

"That happened. It's about as unfake as you can possibly get."

President Trump has begrudgingly accepted the US intelligence assessment that Russia interfered with the election.

But he has also suggested he does not believe it, saying Russia is a "ruse" and calling the investigation into the matter a "witch hunt".

AP
New York, June 6(Just Earth News): The United Nations humanitarian wing on Tuesday said it is deeply concerned for the safety and protection of more than 400,000 civilians in Syria's war-torn Raqqa Governorate, awho continue to be exposed to daily fighting and airstrikes.a

The humanitarian situation in Al-Raqqa governorate remains dire, with the majority of the population reportedly facing critical problems in meeting their immediate needs, Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the UN Nations Information Service in Geneva on behalf of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters at on Tuesday's regular press briefing.

She also reiterated the UN's call for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to those affected by the fighting in Raqqa, and more broadly to the 4.5 million who are still in hard-to-reach areas across the war-torn country.

Turning to the internally displaced (IDPs), she pointed out that more than 160,000 people have been displaced since 1 May with the situation on the ground remaining fluid. There are some 87,200 in the Ar-Raqqa governorate; nearly 37,000 in Aleppo; over 33,400 in Idlib; and smaller numbers in Hama, Deir-ez-Zor and Ho

On 3 June, three internally displaced people, including a pregnant woman, had been reportedly killed by a landmine. On 4 June, airstrikes on the al-Mashlab neighbourhood in Raqqa city had reportedly resulted in the destruction of two schools while mortar shelling in the vicinity of another school injured several people, she said.

Vellucci stated that since March, UN agencies continued to provide multi-sectoral humanitarian assistance through their local partners  such as food, medical treatment and vaccinations throughout Raqqa, including IDPs in camps.

Some 60,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon in Jordan could lose assistance

For its part, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) sounded the alarm that humanitarian programmes supporting Syrian refugees and their host communities are quickly running out of resources.

Citing critical gaps in Lebanon and Jordan, UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told journalists in Geneva that vital parts of its response to Syrian refugees were critically underfunded.

Despite generous pledges, humanitarian programmes in support of Syrian refugee and communities hosting them are quickly running out of resources. The situation is most dramatic in Lebanon and Jordan where a number of direct cash assistance activities could dry up in less than four weeks, he said.

Those who fled to Jordan face stark challenges.

Refugees tell our staff that UNHCR monthly cash support means a meal a day, a better roof, their dignity. Now they fear losing everything. Many say would prefer to go back to Syria to die if they stop receiving this assistance, continued Mahecic.

In Lebanon, where UNHCR urgently needs $116 million, direct cash assistance programmes for refugees will be affected first.

These include a lifeline of multi-purpose cash for 30,000 Syrian refugee families, a winter cash assistance for two months for another 174,000 families and protection cash assistance for 1,500 refugee households to help them overcome periods of hardship, he continued.

The funding gap also jeopardises 65,000 life-saving secondary health care interventions and support to UNHCR's and the Lebanese Authorities' capacity to issue and renew documentation for refugees, following a recent decision to waive the residency renewal fees which most refugees could not afford, Mahecic added.

Mid-way through this year, the $4.6 billion inter-agency appeal to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of Syrian refugees across the Middle East and North Africa is only 18 per cent funded.

Photo: UNICEF/UN039561/Soulaiman

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Farhan who has taken off to Spain is leaving no stone unturned to make sure that this trip is a memorable one!

After sharing a post on his social media wherein the actor is seen catching up with old friends in Spain, Farhan has also planned upon a few adventure sports! Just like we saw in one of the actor`s most loved film, ZNMD Farhan performed a sky dive all over again! This video of Farhan Akhtar indulging in a sky dive will definitely take you back to the exact scene of Hrithik, Abhay & Farhan doing a skydive in ZNMD!

The actor took to social media and posted "Deviyon aur sajjanon.. kripya vimaan se utarte waqt gulaatiyan maaren.. #funtimes #skydivempuriabrava #ultimateplayground #freefalling#sunnydays"

Deviyon aur sajjanon.. kripya vimaan se utarte waqt gulaatiyan maaren..  #funtimes #skydivempuriabrava #ultimateplayground #freefalling #sunnydays A post shared by Farhan Akhtar (@faroutakhtar) on Jun 7, 2017 at 4:47am PDT

We wonder, what other plans the actor has in store for us with this adventurous trip to Spain! Knowing the actor's love for music, he also attended the event, Primavera Sound, a music festival that takes place towards the end of May and beginning of June in Barcelona.

Farhan shares a special connect with the country given that ZNMD was shot there.The actor will soon be seen in his forthcoming film 'Lucknow Central'.


Superstar Rajinikanth was supposed to visit the localities of Tamil population in March this year but the visit was cancelled due to resistance from certain political parties in Tamil Nadu.

Many Sri Lankan Tamils had sent letters requesting Rajinikanthe expressing their eagerness to welcome him at their place. Thalaivar in his reply letter to them, had said that he will definitely visit the place at the appropriate time.

Now Ravi Karunanayake, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Sri Lanka who is on his visit to India has spoken about Rajinikanth's visit to the Island nation. Addressing media persons in New Delhi, the Minister said "If Rajinikanth wishes to come to Sri Lanka he can come at any time. There is no opposition for that. He is a popular star in Sri Lanka also. There will be no problem if he visits our country."

The actor who is admired by Tamils living across the globe is presently shooting for 'Kaala' in Mumbai. We hope he will take a call on visiting the neighbourhood country very soon.
Keystone Realtors (Rustomjee) IPO to open on 14th November The IPO of Keystone Realtors will open on November 14th. It will close on November 16th. The issue size is of Rs 635 crore. Price band has been set at Rs 514 - 541 per share. Mi... November 10, 2022 | 10-11-2022 3:51 pm

GST officials detected Rs 55,575 crore worth of tax evasion, arrested over 700 people, in the past 2 Over the previous two years, the GST officials have discovered fraud totalling Rs55,575 crore and have detained over 700 people for defrauding the exchequer, an official told ET on Thursday. Th... November 10, 2022 | 10-11-2022 2:58 pm

Bharat Electronics inks agreement with Goa Shipyard for development of autonomous navigation Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has signed an MoU with Goa Shipyard Limited (GSL) for joint development of products/solutions in the area of Autonomous Navigation an... November 10, 2022 | 10-11-2022 12:54 pm

PSP Projects secures work order worth Rs200 crore; Stock rises PSP Projects Limited has informed to the exchanges regarding receipt of work order. In a regulatory filing, the company said, "We are pleased to inform that we are in receipt of... November 10, 2022 | 10-11-2022 12:37 pm

Five Star Business Finance IPO receives .02 times subscription application at the end of day 1 Five Star Business Finance IPO has received .02 times subscription application at the end of day 1. Five Star Business Finance, a non-banking financial organization with headqu... November 10, 2022 | 10-11-2022 11:39 am
If you spent every day in high school learning about people who dont share your race, culture or ethnicity, you might be more likely to turn off and tune out. Sound familiar?

All Indiana high schools will be required to offer ethnic and racial studies as an elective course at least once every school year under a new law that goes into effect July 1.

This historic and significant law was the product of more than four years of work by the Indianapolis NAACP branch and our allies, including Kenny Long-Eagle of the Native American Indian Affairs Commission, Wayne J. Hilson, Jr., Senior Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at IUPUI, and many others.

At NAACP, we believe that all students need ethnic studies, not just students of color. Ethnic studies help all students to unlearn watered-down and skewed versions of historical events, says Camille Z. Charles, a professor of sociology, Africana studies, and education at the University of Pennsylvania. The way that we teach our history and culture  the way that we exclude and minimize certain groups and their experiences, while privileging others, feeds prejudice and negative stereotypes, Charles told The Atlantic magazine.

A bipartisan set of legislative champions emerged this year to make the new law possible. We are grateful to State Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, who had sponsored this legislation for several years. Passage became possible this year when Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-Auburn, chair of the Senate Education Committee, asked to co-sponsor the bill. State Rep. Robert Behning, R-Indianapolis, also signed on and heard the bill for the first time in the House Education Committee.

Students who learn with a culturally relevant curriculum have role models that have similar experiences to them ethnically, Behning said in a statement. Weve also seen students who are taught relatable, culturally-focused lessons are more likely to have higher attendance rates and even higher grade point averages. I was happy to be a part of the process to give students the opportunity to take a class that relates to their experiences and heritage.

NAACP Education Chair Garry Holland assembled experienced teams to meet with key legislators and to testify in support of the bill, including high school teachers, university professors and others knowledgeable about ethnic issues.

Now that high schools are required to offer ethnic studies, we need to make sure those courses are designed and implemented in an authentic and culturally sensitive way. To have an accurate understanding of who we are as a people, we must have a course that starts at the beginning of our histories  not in the middle. NAACP will be working with the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Teachers Association to ensure that ethnic studies courses help counter centuries of misinformation that have fed privilege, prejudice and racial stereotypes in our society.
The Indianapolis job market is heating up, and its not only high-tech jobs employers are looking to fill. Recent announcements bring exciting news about thousands of new jobs in the Indy metro area in coming months.

In early May, BorgWarner announced it will bring 300 jobs to a new Noblesville location for its automotive supply operations. Kohls, Amazon and Walmart are all hiring at area e-commerce fulfillment centers. By August, the first of nearly 2,000 new jobs will arrive when Infosys, an India-based IT-service provider, opens its planned Indianapolis innovation hub. Add in growing downtown employer Salesforce, and the opportunities are compelling.

Some of the new jobs certainly require technical expertise and industry knowledge; thats great for employees with the right skills, like engineers and software developers. But what about people who dont have such technical skills?

The good news is that all workers have the potential to benefit, because high-tech jobs pay well, and that bolsters the overall economy of our city. There is a multiplier effect. New tech jobs, in turn, create a demand for support roles, ancillary jobs and local services.

A 2012 study by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute in San Francisco found that every new technical job added 4.3 new positions to the local economy. The study found this impact to be more than three times the impact of a new manufacturing job. A similar 2015 study by the Washington Technology Industry Association found that each computer tech job added 1.7 positions to the same company and nearly three jobs to the greater community.

That means workers who dont have specialized technical skills can still find advantages in the rising job market. Companies need support for technical functions with positions in accounting, finance, human resources, marketing and administration. Likewise, employers that provide support to tech companies will likely be hiring for similar positions.

Fortunately for local workers, state universities support educational options that help people add these skills to their resumes.

Ivy Tech and IUPUI offer in-class and online courses in basic business disciplines. Recently, Purdue announced its acquisition of Kaplan University, which offers online courses, as well. Kaplan and Ivy Tech both offer associate degrees for individuals willing to commit to a long-term course of study.

At IUPUI, the Kelley School of Business offers an online Business Foundations Certificate that helps students develop basic proficiency in accounting, finance, marketing, operations, human resources and management. The courses are designed to introduce students to the basic concepts in each discipline while gaining a top-line view of business management. Average completion of the program is about 18 months.

A modest addition to skills can have a big impact when looking to attract attention from an employer. Its not feasible to earn a degree in a few months, but completion of even one course can demonstrate initiative while adding valuable new job skills.

A basic accounting course will teach workers the terminology and concepts needed to converse in the workplace about an employers financial transactions. Students learn to read and understand the most common accounting documents  the income statement and balance sheet. On first glance, these documents can be intimidating, but after just one course, workers can demonstrate a basic level of understanding sufficient to contribute to the business.

Students in a human resources class will learn about proper hiring practices and ways to engage workers that promote retention for the employer. Such courses also cover dealing with performance issues in the workplace. These important skills can help a worker make that important step from line contributor to team leader or supervisor.

New skills bring a broader view of the employers business along with renewed confidence for the individual. Its not too late to take advantage of the robust high-tech wave in Indianapolis. Smart workers will take the initiative now to complement their experiences with some added skills.

Judith Wright, JD, MBA, is a clinical assistant professor of business law at Indiana University Kelley School of Business at IUPUI.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I found myself thinking this as I listened yet again to the ongoing debate about the use of the n-word.

During his show last week, Bill Maher, host of HBOs Real Time with Bill Maher, made reference to the n-word when his guest, Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, said hed love to have Maher work in the fields with him. Using the opportunity for a quick comeback meant to be funny, Maher returned with, Work in the fields? Senator, Im a house nigger. Maher, who is caucasian, used the word in reference to himself, not toward an African-American. However, as we all know, that word has a very ugly history with Blacks.

So is it OK for a white person to say nigger in reference to themselves?

Is it fair for Blacks to be offended even by the mention of the word if the reference wasnt directed toward them?

Before you answer those questions, consider this: Just this week, audio of a Flint, Michigan, Land Bank employee was released referring to Blacks as niggers. Phil Stair said, Flint has the same problems as Detroit, fu*#ing niggers dont pay their bills; believe me, I deal with them. They just dont pay their bills.

It is quite fair to say that the ugliness of that word is still as evident in the present as it was in the past, because people continue to use the disparaging word in reference to Blacks.

Now answer those two questions I asked earlier and this one: is it OK for Blacks to use the word in reference to each other?

Ive asked myself all three of those questions for years, and if I am honest, my opinion has changed over the years. Most recently (like for the past 20 years) my responses have generally been the same: the word shouldnt be used by anyone.

Nigger, nigga or any other deviation of the word is offensive  period. We should not be comfortable with anyone using the word. Some people within the Black community use the word as a term of endearment to someone they are cool with or genuinely like. It is not uncommon to hear one Black man say to another, Whats up my nigga, or Thats my nigga.

Sadly, some women in the Black community also use it in reference to other women as well as their male counterparts.

The issue I have with use of the word specifically in the Black community is it sends the wrong message to society that the word is OK. It is also a blatant double standard. It is not fair for Blacks and other minorities to use the word as a term of endearment yet get offended when a white person calls us a nigger. Some Blacks would argue that the er at the end of the world has a racist connotation, but the ga at the end of the word is used affectionately in the Black community. My response to those Blacks is usually something like, If a Caucasian person called you a nigger or a nigga, you would be offended by both, because it came out of a white persons mouth. So why perpetuate a stereotype and call a fellow Black person the n-word?

African-Americans have to be more deliberate about our expectations for the way we treat ourselves and the way we want others to treat us. We cannot use a derogatory word as a term of endearment yet get pissed off when someone of another color calls us the n-word.

Dont get me wrong, I strongly believe most white people who refer to Black people as niggers or niggas have some level of racism or a superiority complex within them. But I also think Black people who use the words toward other Blacks have a level of ignorance or a disregard for our history within them.

When I think of what my ancestors endured hundreds of years ago, or even people who decades ago constantly had the word heralded at them, I shiver. For countless Black men and women, that was the last word they heard as they hung from trees, were beaten to death or even set ablaze. For others, the derogatory word was spewed at them constantly as they had near-death experiences or simply as they went about their normal lives. It is because of those people and their experiences that I cant use the word at all.

I wont lie, I have said the word when I would sing along to rap songs, and I also recall instances where I very sparingly used the word when I was a lot younger and far less wise. But when I knew better, I did better, abolishing the word altogether. I have incredibly educated, professional male and female friends today whose opinions differ from mine, and they continue to use the n-word as a term of endearment.

As far as Bill Maher and Phil Stairs use of the word nigger, I have two different perspectives.

Stairs reference was deliberately meant to alienate and insult Black people. Mahers comment was a joke (albeit, an inappropriate one) about himself. I dont take offense to Mahers use of the word, because I choose to look at the word in its expansive description: a person who is economically, politically or socially disenfranchised.

In the greater definition of the word nigger, its not exclusive to Blacks, but rather anyone who is poor or alienated. But because it is primarily used to describe Blacks and even poor whites and others  and most always used in an insulting manner  it is best to abandon the word and its variations altogether. Regardless of the definitions, intent is what prevails, and the word is most always used by the greater community in a disparaging and disrespectful manner.

For that reason and the others I mentioned, we should all erase the word out of our vocabularies.
Beneath education, beneath politics, even beneath religion itself, there must be for my race, as for all races, an economic foundation.  Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, a colleague of Madam C.J. Walker, continually emphasized the importance of African-American wealth creation. In Washingtons view, African-Americans neglected the creation of economic enterprises and business at their own peril. In The Miseducation of the Negro, Carter G. Woodson strikes a similar chord. He argues that Black students who pursued college degrees without regard to the needs of their community reflected a miseducation divorced from the reality that African-Americans lived daily.

Walker embodied the business principles that both of these men talked about. She amassed a personal fortune and created prosperity and opportunity for others in Indianapolis and elsewhere by meeting a basic need within the African-American community that was neglected by the larger society. This is the essence of Black business and all business. Today, African-American businesses are needed as much as, if not more than, ever before. Time spent in local and other Black communities will show a wide range of residents needs neglected by other businesses.

In Indianapolis, there are more than 250,000 African-Americans. Although dispersed throughout the city, most live in predominantly African-American neighborhoods. Many of these communities lack grocery stores providing fresh fruits and vegetables, community-based banks or credit unions, or even dry cleaners. This void exists despite the need shared by residents for the services and goods these businesses would provide. Moreover, our communities need the jobs and opportunities these establishments provide. Although this would seem to be a match made in heaven, few Black entrepreneurs sign up to build businesses in these communities.

There are many practical reasons for this, such as limited access to credit and capital. Competition from establishments in predominantly white areas to which Black residents are content to bus, drive and share a ride is another reason. African-Americans have less wealth than any other racial group, and wealth is the basis of the capital necessary for business ventures. In a similar way, African-Americans also have the lowest rate of business loans from the small business administration of any racial group. Without the necessary financing, brick and mortar businesses are very difficult to start. Competition from regional and national chains also plays a major role in deterring entrepreneurs. Why risk your savings to open a business or go in debt to finance an organization that you do not feel confident your neighbors and fellow residents will patronize?

These are important factors that cannot be ignored. However, while they definitely deter some entrepreneurs from opening businesses, the dearth of Black businesses in this city reflect a deeper phenomenon, as well. African-Americans today have not prioritized business development as a community norm. To be clear, this is not a sign of a deficiency or pathology, but the consequence of urban renewal and highway construction that interrupted a much stronger tradition of business ownership. In Indianapolis, the construction of IUPUI and the interstate hastened the end of Indiana Avenue as a longtime hub of Black business in the city. Additionally, the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the subsequent creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reflected expanding employment opportunities across the city and country that attracted young and talented African-Americans who may have otherwise started their own businesses.

With some exceptions, since that time, African-American business in the city has suffered. Many more job opportunities have been made available in businesses owned by whites and others, though, so some may ask why it matters. What difference do Black-owned businesses make? While you cannot miss what you have never had, our communities miss the mentoring that Black business owners provided to the young people who worked for them. Our neighborhoods suffer from the lack of financial investment that Black businesses provided in past generations. Our youth lack the opportunities to work for a neighbor or family friend and the sense of pride it provides. Our families go without the wealth that business ownership can provide and the skills that children develop working with one or more parents in a family enterprise. In short, we need entrepreneurs who will take the risk of business for the personal and communal benefits that it will impart. More importantly, in Indianapolis, we need to recognize that this is not something special or extra  it is just getting back to the basics of business.

Carlton Waterhouse is a professor of law and Deans Fellow at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
Success is measured in many ways. Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. What is the accomplishment? What is the aim or purpose?

This is graduation season, and we are reminded that education is a sign of success.

My oldest grandson graduated high school three years ago and headed off to the United States Marines Corp. aiming to raise money to further his education. Traveling around the world for the first time, he has now returned to the states and continues his studies as a chef through the Corps.

This past weekend I celebrated the graduation of my second grandson from high school in Michigan. A recognized scholar and a champion wrestler, he is headed to a notable college in central Michigan. His graduating class of more than 500 was reminded, in an address from their class president, of four students who passed during their senior year, and they were encouraged to keep hope alive and reach for education and success in the future.

Thinking of the different paths these grandsons have chosen, I saw again that college is not for everyone, but everyone desires continuing education and the opportunity to experience this education.

Even in this season of celebration, Im troubled by events here and abroad. In Warren Township, where four of my grandchildren attend high school, Warren Central students were recently forced to deal with the loss of two classmates. Students had to quickly learn to deal with the results of gun violence that took their classmates.

In Manchester, England, 22 lives were lost as a suicide bomber targeted an Ariana Grande concert. The victims were young people or those chaperoning them. An education quickly took place around the world, and even here in the Martindale-Brightwood (M.B.) area, on how the handle grief that comes from just living in this often-dark world. We were touched here as one of the adults killed in Manchester was a family member of a M.B. resident.

Who can claim success in these trying circumstances? Are these the educations we want to claim as successes? Is there a way to really stop the violence? What can we learn from all of this?

Grande gathered some of pops biggest names last Sunday for a tribute concert to help deal with the pain, and I was moved by the words of a young man we have often called troubled himself. After singing Love Yourself, Justin Bieber said, Im not going to let go of hope. Im not going to let go of love. Im not going to let go of God.

He added, God is good in the midst of the darkness, God is good in the midst of the evil, God is in the midst no matter what is happening in the world. God is in the midst, and he loves you and hes here for you.

These words encouraged me. They brought hope back to hopeless situations. I was reminded of a James Baldwin quote: Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

This phrase begged the question, what am I modeling for students in these troubling times? How am I helping them to define success? It is a reminder that the days of do as I say and not as I do are long gone. I think the education and quest for success is the duty of the adults first, so that the children have a success to model. Why should society/M.B. feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?

In M.B., we are concerned about education and success of the young and the old. Students in M.B. represent many stages of life and types of education. Vocational programs are growing. Edna Martin is offering free training and certifications in manufacturing logistics and culinary arts. Martindale Brightwood Community Development Corporation, in partnership with Business Ownership Initiatives and Small Business Administration, are offering free entrepreneurship workshops. M.B. is trying to redefine education and success.

Congratulations to the high school, college, vocational and life graduates that are residents, workers and worshipers in and of the area! I celebrate your education, success and hopeful resolve!

God is in the midst, and he loves you and hes here for you.

Martindale-Brightwood, a neighborhood bettering its Quality of Life, joins its past, people, organizations, churches, schools and businesses. For more information or to schedule a tour of the area, contact Gina Fears, Neighborhood Engagement Coordinator, at (317) 637-3776.
The arbitration court of Lipetsk region in Russia on June 20 will hear arguments by joint-stock company Lipetsk Confectionary Factory Roshen to strike down the decision of Russia's interdistrict tax inspection service in Lipetsk region demanding the factory pay RUB 48 million to the state budget.

According to materials posted to the Internet by the court, in March 2017 the tax office monitoring large taxpayers in Lipetsk region discovered tax violations. It said Roshen owed RUB 28.66 million in value-added tax payments, RUB 8.3 million in penalties and RUB 11.45 million in other fines.

The court on May 31 found the fines unwarranted and scheduled a hearing on the matter for June 5.

Roshen, meanwhile, filed a court motion requesting to prevent tax authorities from taking any actions involving the factory. Lawyers for the factory argued in the motion that compelling the enterprise to abide by the decisions taken by the tax authorities would be harmful.

The court, however, dismissed the motion, and asked Roshen by June 16 to provide its accounting balance, financial result reports and information about tax payments, liabilities, penalties, fines, as well as other financial documents.

As earlier reported, Roshen Corporation in January 2017 said it would stop production at Lipetsk confectionery factory.

Roshen's factory in Lipetsk, which is part of the Ukrainian Roshen Corporation, posted RUB 4.9 million in net losses for 2016, which was 92.3% less than in 2015.

Roshen Corporation, one of the largest Ukrainian confectionery manufacturers. It incorporates Kyiv, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Kremenchuk (Poltava region) and two Vinnytsia confectionery factories, Dairy Plant Bershadmoloko, and Litynskplemzavod (both based in Vinnytsia region). It also runs confectionary facilities in Klaipeda (Lithuania), Lipetsk (Russia), and BonbonettiChoco (Hungary).

The owner of the corporation is President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko. During the election campaign he promised to sell Roshen, hiring for that the investment firm Rothschild and Ukrainian investment group Investment Capital Ukraine (ICU). However, due to lack of buyers, the contract was signed in January 2016, in accordance with which Poroshenko gave his share of the corporation to an independent blind trust. The bank managing the trust has a four-year proxy to negotiate the sale of the assets.
When she was 20 years old, Cammi Jacksons life changed forever.

My body started swelling  my eyelids, feet and stomach. I went to the emergency room and they ran tests, and there was protein in my urine. Doctors sent her home with a prescription for water pills. Two weeks later, she was back in the ER. This time, she learned she was expecting a child.

What should have been an exciting time soon soured when she miscarried eight weeks into her pregnancy. Her kidneys then began to fail.

They put me on Prednisone, she said, referring to the synthetic corticosteroid used to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases. It wasnt working so (five months later) they began emergency dialysis. The process involved having a catheter inserted into her chest during a two-week hospital stay before being moved to a permanent dialysis clinic. She has been having the procedure regularly since.

I was actually at the hospital with her when they said it, said Denise Jackson-Dowdy, Jacksons mother. It must have been apparent to them that it didnt register to us, because after they said it, they left the room and gave us time to process. Due to being ignorant of the disease itself, it didnt affect me immediately. Once I studied up, it became easier to accept. Jackson-Dowdy recalled then that her daughters grandfather had kidney disease and was on dialysis for 27 years before passing away.

Life for the family has changed tremendously, Jackson-Dowdy says. Even though (Cammi is) an adult, my life is not mine. Shes not married and doesnt have any children, so I feel solely responsible for her when shes ill, so Im limited in some ways.

Jacksons stepfather Willie Dowdy, who describes himself as Jacksons guardian angel, said watching her go through these issues is tough, but he sees her as victorious. Shes the pain queen to me; shes been through a lot, he said. She holds her own.

A typical week for Jackson, now 29 years old, includes three sessions of hemodialysis, during which a machine and a special filter known as an artificial kidney are used to clean her blood. Each session is three-and-a-half hours long and begins at 4:30 a.m. Beyond the time commitment, Jackson has experienced a host of health challenges related to her renal failure. In addition to enduring 16 operations over the past nine years, she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a hyperactive thyroid and takes medicine for each ailment. Her appearance has changed, as well. Her skin has darkened, she is tired all the time and, pointing to a raised scar on her arm caused by the dialysis needles, she remarked that the warmer months are especially difficult, as she doesnt like to wear short sleeves.

It has affected her personally, as well. I dont have a life, she said. Jackson said her friends and family, although they dont understand everything she goes through, have been supportive. They dont like seeing me down. They do things to help me get my mind off it.

This weekend, as theyve done for several years, the Jackson clan will gather downtown on the Canal for the annual Kidney Walk, put on by the National Kidney Foundation. For them, it is a time to stand in solidarity with their sister, niece and daughter and help spread awareness to others in the Black community about the need for organ donation.

The lack of education is killing our Black people, said Jackson-Dowdy. The statistics show clearly that whites are more likely to receive donations than Blacks. So if nothing else, Id suggest people pick up some literature and educate themselves, she said. Once you know better, youll do better, but if you dont know, then you just dont know, and its hurting us.

A growing need

Currently, more than half of the people on the national transplant waiting list come from communities of color; 35 percent are African-American, a population that is three times more likely to suffer from end-stage renal disease than caucasians. While transplants can occur across racial or ethnic groups, success rates are increased when recipients receive organs from donors who are of the same ethnicity.

Clyde Rainey, community relations coordinator with the Indiana Donor Network (IDN), said there are a number of myths and negative experiences that may contribute to the lack of donors, though to say Blacks dont donate at all is a misnomer.

What happens in communities of color is that we are in more of a need than there are donors, he said. A couple of the reasons we arent donating come from an earned mistrust of the medical community. Rainey cited examples like the Tuskegee Experiment, during which hundreds of Black men living in the South, many infected with syphilis, were unknowingly and purposefully left untreated so researchers could observe the effects the disease. He also noted the story of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman who died of cervical cancer and had cells from her tumor stolen from her. The cells, which were remarkably durable, were used to create an immortal cell line sample known as HeLa. HeLa cells went on to be used as the basis for modern day medical advancements and were purchased by nearly every major pharmaceutical company on the planet.

Rainey also noted that there are lots of myths in the Black community when it comes to organ donation. People feel like when you become an organ donor that when youre in a car crash, and an organ donor, you dont receive adequate care as others would, he said, adding that this is simply not factual.

What is true, he noted, is that Black people and other communities of color must become more aware of the issue. IDN is working on a variety of community events and activities to raise the level of consciousness around donation.

The ins and outs of organ donation

IDN, one of 58 designated organ recovery organizations in the U.S., works alongside hospitals, the families of donors and other organ recovery groups to fill the ever-growing need for organs and tissue. Most registrants who agree to become donors come through the Bureau of Motor Vehicles; when receiving a license, permit or identification, Hoosiers are asked if they would like to be donors.

According to IDN data, nearly 1,500 Hoosiers and more than 120,000 people nationwide are waiting for life-saving organ transplants. In the U.S., another person is added to the transplant waiting list every 10 minutes. Each day, 22 people (on average) in the nation die because a donated organ wasnt available in time. One organ donor can save the lives of roughly eight people. While most tissues  such as heart, lungs, intestines, bone and skin  can only be procured from deceased donors, kidneys can come from donors who are still living.

(Donation) is huge for (people with kidney disease), especially the patients who are on dialysis, said Andy Arrendale, renal inpatient care manager for Fresenius Kidney Care.

Once they receive a transplant, theyre pretty much able to resume their regular life  and get back to the things they love.

The kidney donation process begins when a patient is put on the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS) list. The wait time can be as long as 10 years, depending on geographic location. Currently, there are over 90,000 people on the waiting list for a kidney transplant.

Life after and hope to come

For husband and wife Stephen and Stephanie Quick, life after kidney donation has been better. Stephen was on the list for six months before receiving a kidney from his wife in 2006. I would tell people to have their family members get tested to see if theyre able to be a donor. Thats a real personal choice, he said. I knew people whose family members were a match but wouldnt even go through with the surgery.  I wouldve done it in a heartbeat, but some people arent like that.

Stephanie said there was no hesitation on her end. Im a living witness that you can live with one kidney. I have not had any issues at all; its the greatest gift you could give someone, she said.

Betty Mayes Morris, who received her kidney transplant from a deceased donor in 2004 after being on dialysis for 18 months, said her life has changed in many ways since. I worked for a year after my transplant but was unable to stay employed because my employer had to keep the workplace so sterile, she said. Mayes Morris, who was cleared for disability assistance soon after, said that though she is on a number of medications to maintain the health of the donated organ, her quality of life has improved, as she is no longer required to be on dialysis.

For Renita Peck, that quality of life is one that she is actively working to have for herself. Peck, who was first diagnosed with kidney disease in 1998, was able to keep the condition in check with medication before going into renal failure in 2011. She has since been on the waiting list and began dialysis last year.

Its a challenge to find people who want to give one of their kidneys. Theres a stigma in the Black community about wanting to be buried whole, she said. Peck has had personal conversations with friends and coworkers, many of whom have gone to get tested to see if they are a match. Recently, a close friend underwent the initial testing, and it looks to be promising. She is the first person to get that far, said Peck. It really makes me feel loved and appreciated that theyre willing to sacrifice for me.

Cammi Jackson and family, are still hopeful that there is someone out there who can make this sacrifice for her.

She has been on dialysis for eight years, and we know at least eight people who have received transplants, said Jackson-Dowdy, recalling names of recipients like Alonzo Mourning, Natalie Cole and even close friends and family.

Some had fortune, some had fame and some are everyday people like myself. But we have faith, and were still anticipating a kidney at any moment.

For more information on organ donation, visit indianadonornetwork.com and kidneyregistry.org.

Indianapolis Kidney Walk

Date: June 10

Check-in time: 8:30 a.m. Start time: 9:30 a.m.

Where: Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center and The Canal

Visit donate.kidney.org to register

Cammi Jackson, 29, has lived with kidney disease for nearly a decade. She is currently on the waiting list for a transplant.
Samone Willis says her three younger brothers were typical teenage boys  they spent time hanging out with friends, walking or riding their bikes through the neighborhood.

Willis said their antics resulted in occasional run-ins with the police, but in other instances, the attention from law enforcement was unwarranted.

Sometimes the encounters with the police officers were during situations that my brothers may have caused, but there were times they felt like they were being picked on by police, Willis said.

In one instance, her brother was walking home, cutting through a CVS parking lot, when he was stopped by an officer who demanded to know where the boy was going. The boy said he was walking home, and he asked the officer why he had been stopped; the officer refused to explain.

My brother felt like he was being targeted, and he wasnt allowed the opportunity for an explanation, although he asked, Willis said. There were several occasions where officers were just overly aggressive with my brothers for no apparent reason.

Because of those interactions, Willis brothers harbored negative feelings about police.

The sentiments Willis describes are not unique. In a December 2016 Cato Institute report titled Policing in America: Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police, a national survey found that views on the police vary based on race and that African-Americans tend to feel less positive overall than their white and Hispanic counterparts. According to the report, African-Americans:

n are far more likely than whites and Hispanics to say that police are too quick to use lethal force;

n are far more likely to say police tactics are generally too harsh, compared to Hispanics and whites;

n are nearly twice as likely as white Americans to report a police officer swearing at them;

n are about twice as likely as white Americans to know someone physically abused by police;

n are five times as likely as caucasians to personally expect worse treatment from police officers and

n are less likely than both whites and Hispanics to rate their local police departments highly for being courteous.

Similar research by other organizations found comparable results. Trends like these are one reason police departments, including IMPD, struggle to recruit minorities.

IMPD Sgt. Kendale Adams said the data has stayed relatively consistent in recent years but not because of lack of effort.

To recruit minorities, it just continues to be a difficult path, Adams said. I think most police departments would tell you that.

Adams said IMPD has resources and staff members  including three African-Americans  dedicated to recruitment.

Sgt. Ida Williams, one recruiter on the team, said increasing diversity on the force is a work in progress, and there are several strategies she and her colleagues are putting into practice.

Williams said recruiters regularly visit college campuses, including HBCUs, and career fairs in Indiana and beyond. Commercials on WTLC, billboards in minority-majority neighborhoods and ads on IndyGo buses are all ways IMPD has tried to get the word out. Utilizing social media sites and embracing partnerships with the local faith community have also been valuable, Williams said.

Being visible in the community and coming face-to-face with residents, especially children, is key to the effort, Williams said.

For Willis, who has been an IMPD officer for about a year, that visibility did the trick.

I got a chance to meet my first African-American officer (in the fifth grade). I didnt even know they existed! she said. It made me smile, and I told my mom that was something I wanted to do, but at that time I didnt know how to go about it.

After she completed college, Willis had a conversation with her brother-in-law, who was fresh out of the military and embarking on a police career. After learning more about the process, Willis was reacquainted with her childhood passion for policing.

Willis said she was not far into the process when she first met Williams. For Willis, seeing another Black woman on the force was incredible.

She was like a breath of fresh air for a young woman to see. And she was a ranking officer, which was like, wow, Willis said.

Though her brother-in-law was on the same page, Willis brothers werent so quick to accept her new career choice.

They were shocked, she said. At first, it was kind of hard for them to understand my decision. As I went through the academy and I started to meet different veteran officers and the policing family, I was able to go back and tell my brothers that the experience we had when we were kids, its not like that. I was able to show them the positive side of policing.

Now, Willis says, two of her brothers are eyeing careers in law enforcement, and theyve been asking for her guidance as they prepare for the various admissions tests.

Willis said she appreciates IMPDs dedication to recruiting diverse officers, because shes seen firsthand how being a Black woman on the force has impacted the community.

When I go on certain calls, Im normally like the only person of color and Im the only female working with four other guys, she said.There could be three other officers on the scene, and (the civilian) will come directly over to me.  I feel like they trust me a little bit more, because Im a woman and Im African-American. I dont have to break certain barriers that (my colleagues) have to break.

On the other side of the coin, Willis said she sometimes has to take a step back, because her identity  either as an African-American, as a woman, or both  could agitate a situation.

Its just trying to find a balance of when I can be beneficial, and I have to understand when to walk away, she said.

Overall, Willis said she thinks the departments efforts are paying off.

I felt like there was a gigantic barrier between the police and the community, but (IMPD has) taken tremendous steps to bridge that gap, she said, adding that some of the responsibility for progress falls on community members, as well. No matter what the past of policing may have been, the future of policing is changing, and you just have to try to put yourself in the situation, try to make the difference. If we just sit back and twiddle our thumbs and just hope for change, nothing will ever happen.

Williams knows theres more work to be done, and shes prepared to soldier on.

Were not going to be satisfied until we have exhausted all of our avenues.

Samone Willis
After conquering the world, Baywatch promotions, attending some of the most prestigious awards, rocking international red carpets, globetrotter PC is finally back to her homeland, Mumbai. Priyanka Chopra took to Instagram to share her excitement.

Making @zacefron blush is so fun! Especially when @therock and @davidhasselhoff approve! Lol! #baywatchinberlin #baywatchscreening #captionthat A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on May 30, 2017 at 1:33pm PDT

She captioned a picture from the plane and wrote, "Is it ok to be super excited about heading home?! #mumbaikar."

Is it ok to be super excited about heading home?! #mumbaikar A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jun 7, 2017 at 3:41am PDT

From Berlin to Germany, PC's last month also included trips to London and New York. She also posted a photo with celebrities like Nicole Kidman and Kendell Jenner, who accompanied PC for a polo match.

A perfect New York afternoon with these lovely ladies @nicolekidman @katemara @kendalljenner #kerirussell A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jun 3, 2017 at 12:05pm PDT

Sigh, it's not easy to be Priyanka Chopra right. Have a look at happy PC, after she touched down Mumbai last night.

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An ISI operative arrested in Rajasthan has spilled the beans on how Pakistan is using charity donations to fund terror. The spy, Deena Khan, was arrested last week from a remote village in Barmer district of Rajasthan.

He has reportedly admitted that ISI handlers allegedly set up donation boxes at places of worship, and use the money donated by devotees to fund terrorist activities in the border villages of the state.

afp/representational image

Also Read: Here Is How Separatists Are Using Almonds From Pakistan To Fund Unrest In Kashmir

"Khan revealed that he was in-charge of a small Mazar in Chohtan village of Barmer district and distributed Rs 3.5 lakh of Mazar's donation to other spies like Satram Maheshwari and his nephew Vinod Maheshwari," a senior officer of the state intelligence and security wing told The Times of India.

He added that Deena's handlers in Pakistan would call him over the phone, and ask him to distribute fund accordingly.

reuters/representational image

The officer said Deena Khan disturbed the amount among several spies, including Satram and Haji Khan, who were arrested by the border intelligence earlier this year for sharing confidential information about the movement of Indian troops along the international border.

Also Read: Kashmiri Youth Given Rs 500 Each For Stone Pelting, Says J&K Deputy CM Nirmal Singh

"Since no record books were maintained by the Mazar authorities, Deena Khan secretly used part of the religious offerings to fund anti-national activities," the officer said.

ap/representational image

The police suspect that ISI may have set up several such donation boxes at multiple locations in border areas to fund its espionage activities. "It is difficult to distribute money through hawala network as it can be traced. Hence, the donation boxes are easy way to collect money and distribute it among the spies," the officer said.

reuters/representational image

Intelligence agencies are now keeping a close tab over the sudden spike in makeshift places of worship that have sprung up in border villages. "The district superintendents of police have been directed to keep a close vigil at such places. With enhanced coordination and strategic planning, we have traced the network of foreign intelligence," said deputy IG, R Suhasaa.
Kerala, which had been on the forefront of the fight against the Central government's recent order restricting cattle trade took it one notch higher on Thursday. The state government convened a special session of the state assembly to discuss the issue.

ANI

State chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan moved a resolution against the Centres new cattle trade and slaughter rules calling it anti-federal and anti-people.

Vijayan said the new regulation has badly affected the people of the state and almost five lakh people, who were directly or indirectly involved in the cattle trade, will become jobless.

The chief minister said cattle upkeep and slaughter came under the purview of the states and the Centre has no right to dictate terms.

ANI

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the new rule is nothing but a blatant violation on the rights of individuals to eat what they wish and want. This new rule will hugely affect the agrarian society of our state and also our country.

To take care of a cow that has stopped giving milk, a farmer has to spend Rs 40,000. A huge majority of our society are non-vegetarians and this new law is in no way acceptable to us, the chief minister added.

The new notification is an attempt to encroach into a subject upon which the Parliament has no right to frame a law, the chief minister said, urging the Centre to withdraw the new regulation immediately.

The resolution was supported by all the members except the lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal. But in what is seen as a more symbolic gesture, the special session convened with a beef fry breakfast.

According to IANS, most of the MLAs stopped at the canteen to taste some beef, before the session.

A canteen staff said they had prepared 10 kg of beef and it was made available even before the normal schedule, that is 11 am.

A board at the Kerala Assembly read that "beef roast is available today."

"But today, with the session devoted to discussing the beef issue, we brought 10 kg beef early in the morning. A good number of MLAs had beef fry before heading for the assembly floor."

CPIM MLA from Devikulam, S Rajendran was the first to be served beef, followed by others.

Kerala, where beef is popular among people from all religious communities, was the first state to oppose the Environment Ministry's notification which banned the sale of cattle in the markets for slaughter.

BCCL/ File

The state had responded with organizing beef festivals, which saw the participation of thousands.

Kerala CM had also written to the all the other chief ministers on the subject, stating that the order was an infringement on the constitutional right of the states.
Madhya Pradesh home minister, Bhupendra Singh, today admitted that the police opened fire at the farmers on Tuesday, killing five of them.

Singh briefed reporters that both the Mandsaur District Magistrate and the Indore Superintendent of Police had been transferred.

PTI

"I admit that the farmers died due to police firing," said Singh, who had on Tuesday denied that the police opened fire.

Read more: Five Farmers Killed In Police Firing, Here's What Has Happened During Protests In MP So Far

The farmers in MP have been protesting for increasing the price of their produce in Mandsaur district.

PTI

The farmers turned violent, setting on fire as many as 10 trucks, one Dial 100 vehicle and three motorcycles in Piplia Mandi area, forcing CRPF and police to open fire to gain control, official sources said.

As the protest turned violent, Madhya Pradesh Police imposed curfew in Mandsaur and Piplia Mandi area.
A national human milk bank has opened at Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi. The bank, which was inaugurated on Tuesday, will provide breast milk to newborns and promote breastfeeding.

getty

Known as Vatsalya  Maatri Amrit Kosh, the bank - also a lactation counselling centre - will collect, pasteurise, test and store milk that lactating mothers donate.

The bank has been established in partnership with the Norwegian government, Oslo University, and Norway-India Partnership Initiative (NIPI).

facebook

Union Heath Secretary, CK Mishra told PTI, We launched Mothers Absolute Affection (MAA) programme to create awareness about breastfeeding, which is the most cost-effective way of enhancing a childs immunity."

The bank will also offer assistance to other milk banks in teaching and training.
Gurugram police said that they have arrested all the three men who killed an eight-month-old baby and raped her 23-year-old mother in Gurugram on May 29, a crime that has provoked such widespread shock, horror and outrage for its sheer savagery.

ap

The accused have been identified as Yogender, Amit and Jaykesh. These are the three men, all between 20 and 25 years old, are from Bulandshahr UP.

Yogender and Amit were arrested on Wednesday after a massive search operation, Yogender from the same Manesar village where the woman lives and Amit from the Delhi-Gurugram border later in the evening.

All three accused have been sharing a tenement in the Manesar village, right behind the sarpanch's office, doing odd jobs like driving autos and transporting goods to earn a living. They did not, however, know the woman.

"The accused are not just guilty of rape but also murder of the child and we will not let them get off easily," police commissioner Sandeep Khirwar said.

PTI

Police said Jaykesh was driving the vehicle used to kidnap the woman  a leased Magic van, not a shared auto, as was believed earlier. The trio had offered the victim a lift on NH-8 near the toll plaza in Kherki Daula late on May 29 when she was on her way to her in-laws' place in Old Gurgaon with her eight-month-old daughter.

With public transport virtually absent, she had agreed. But instead of driving to Old Gurgaon, Jaykesh took a U-turn and drove back to Manesar, deep inside the industrial township, up to Sector 8 where the three took turns to rape the woman and kill her daughter. Khirwar said on Wednesday the baby had died of asphyxiation. She choked because one or the other of the three men continuously had his hands on its mouth to stop her from bawling. Before they drove away in the van, they had flung the baby, which had died by then, on the concrete road divider.

PTI

Police said the three fled to Bulandshahr after that. But late night on June 2, Yogender and Amit returned to their Manesar house for a recce. The delay in the police investigation, which began in earnest almost a week after the woman filed her complaint on May 30, probably lulled them into a sense of comfort. They stayed back and started getting back to their daily routine.

But in a couple of days, as police realised their mistake and visited the village, Yogender and Amit panicked. News reports followed. The two then decided to confess before sarpanch (village chief) Ajit Chauhan on Wednesday morning. This is where two parallel lines of investigation crossed. At one point during her account of events that night, the rape survivor had told the cops she had heard the three men discussing the sarpanch was known to them and would save them, police said.
China, for the first time, exported completely built vehicles to Western Europe, on Tuesday. 123 Volvo cars were put in a train at Daqing - in the country's Heilongjiang Province, and will reach Belgium in 18 days.

The journey from Daqing to Zeebrugge Port will see the train covering 9,832 kilometers through Russia, Belarus, Poland and Germany. Trade through train - using the Silk Road route - with West Europe has seen a spurt in recent years. In fact, the Yiwu-Madrid railway line has emerged as a major train trade route and expands over 10,000 kilometers through 12 Chinese and nine European cities.

google maps

UK also joined the route late last year with a train arriving in London - 15th European city added to the route - carrying a variety of goods. The return train to Yiwu was reportedly carrying whiskey, vitamins, soft drinks and other goods. This is a distance of 12,070 kilometers - one way.

While the politico-economic implications for countries are plenty, there is much at stake for companies in general, and auto companies in particular. For Swedish company Volvo, for instance, China is the biggest market by far.

The country has also been made a global manufacturing hub by the company. And it is just one of a long list of global automotive companies who would now look to make the most of packing their cars on cargo trains and exporting them to markets elsewhere.
A woman was arrested at the Shanghais Pudong airport in China after custom officials raised an alarm on her suitcase that was partially made from 10 kg of cocaine.

police handout

After a young security officer found it difficult to lift the woman's suitcase - that showed up darker in the images on the scanning machines - she was nabbed by the authorities. The woman passenger, who hails from Southeast Asia had arrived at the airport from South America.

police handout

A report published by Shanghai Daily read, "Cocaine was allegedly mixed into the suitcases using an injection molding technique."

Custom authorities became cautious after the woman's flight schedule was termed 'high-risk' with regard to smuggling. They confirmed the suitcase was partially made of cocaine after testing samples.

The case had occurred in February but was only disclosed on Tuesday. The Chinese law makes death sentence mandatory for anyone smuggling 50kg or more of cocaine. Looks like the woman passenger has saved herself on that account.
The Ukrainian entrepreneur, the founder of K.Fund, and the majority shareholder of UDP development company (Kyiv), Vasyl Khmelnytsky has sold his land plot with a villa located on the beach near the Chkalov sanatorium in Odesa, an informed source in the Odesa real estate market has told Interfax-Ukraine.

According to its data, the buyer was local businessman Volodymyr Halanternyk, who owns a number of other real estate facilities in the city.

According to available information, it is planned to make a high-quality institution for competition with the existing nightclubs in Arkadia from the unfinished villa of Khmelnytsky.

"I sold it in early spring to an Odesa resident with the hope that Odesa citizens will find a common language among themselves," Khmelnytsky said.

At the same time, he refused to name the buyer and the value of the transaction, citing the confidentiality of its terms.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said there must be political liability for the signing of gas contracts with Russia in 2009.

"I am saying that there must be responsibility [taken for this]. I am not speaking about criminal responsibility  that is not for the president to decide. We have the necessary [law-enforcement] agencies. I am speaking about political responsibility for putting the country on its knees. Today this has been proven, not by politicians, not by domestic experts, but by the highest international legal institution. It has been proven that the interests of Ukraine were compromised," Poroshenko said during a visit to the Trypilska combined heat and power plant (CHPP) on Thursday.

The head of state spoke of the recent decision of the Stockholm Arbitration court, which refused to recognize the "take or pay" principle incorporated in the gas contract.

"The predatory take-or-pay principle means that, no matter how much gas you consume, you'll pay for 52 billion cubic meters, even though we have never consumed that much. And there was a criminal signature given, and absolutely unlawful, non-market, and corrupt obligations were undertaken," he said.

It had been reported earlier that the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction at the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada had urged anti-corruption bodies to scrutinize the details of the Ukrainian-Russian gas delivery contract concluded in 2009 by then Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Speaking at a meeting of the conciliatory council of the heads of the parliamentary factions, committees, and groups on Tuesday, Artur Herasymov, the head of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentary faction, called on the Rada's national security and defense committee and anti-corruption committee to summon Tymoshenko to their sessions and look into "high treason and a corruption element in the 2009 gas contract."

During Viktor Yanukovych's presidency, Tymoshenko was convicted of abuse of office in concluding the 2009 gas contract with Russia.
UK Terrorism Could Be Linked To Corbyns Pledge To Halt Saudi Arms Sales





A pair of terror attacks that have rocked the UK in the last two weeks have come just before the countrys general election. Some believe that the timing of the attacks is not coincidental, as one of the candidates has pledged to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia - a known sponsor of terrorism.



By Whitney Webb

June 07, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - With the latest terror attack to befall London taking place less than two weeks after the concert bombing in Manchester , many are wondering about the timing and frequency of the attacks. Both attacks occurred in the lead-up to Thursdays general election, leading some to theorize that there may be a link between the election and the uptick in terrorist activity.

However, one such explanation has been widely overlooked. Historical precedent and the high stakes of this upcoming election suggest that one of the UKs allies  Saudi Arabia  may have had a much more active role in the attacks than has been perceived beyond its well-known penchant for funding terrorist groups .

Saudi Arabia has been known to threaten foreign governments, particularly the UK, with an uptick in terrorist activity in the event that arms deals to the Gulf monarchy are put on hold or limited in any way.

Previously released court papers reveal that the Saudis had threatened the UK with an increase in terror attacks if the government of former Prime Minister Tony Blair chose to move forward with a corruption investigation concerning sales of arms to the Gulf nation.

According to official documents, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of Saudi Arabias now-defunct National Security Council from 2005 to 2015, told Blair in December 2006 that the UK would face another 7/7 and the loss of British lives on British streets were the investigation to continue.

Bandar stood accused of taking over 1 billion British pounds in secret payments from BAE, the UKs largest arms manufacturer  and the worlds third-largest . Blair subsequently halted the inquiry.
Search for Justice in the American Police State

By John W. Whitehead

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air  however slight  lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

June 07, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - We have entered a new regime and its called the American police state.

As the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in County of Los Angeles vs. Mendez makes clear, Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

Continuing its disturbing trend of siding with police in cases of excessive use of force, a unanimous Court declared that police should not be held liable for recklessly firing 15 times into a shack where a homeless coupleAngel and Jennifer Mendezwas sleeping.

Understandably, the Mendezes were startled by the intruders, so much so that Angel was holding his BB gun, which he used to shoot rats, in defense. Despite the fact that police barged into the Mendezs backyard shack without a search warrant and without announcing their presence and fired 15 shots at the couple, who suffered significant injuries (Angel Mendez suffered numerous gunshot wounds, one of which required the amputation of his right leg below the knee, and his wife Jennifer was shot in the back), the Court once again gave the police a get out of jail free card .

Unfortunately, weve been traveling this dangerous road for a long time now.

In the police state being erected around us, the police and other government agents can probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts.

Whether its police officers breaking through peoples front doors and shooting them dead in their homes or strip searching motorists on the side of the road, these instances of abuse are continually validated by a judicial system that kowtows to virtually every police demand, no matter how unjust, no matter how in opposition to the Constitution.

These are the hallmarks of the emerging American police state: where police officers, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, are part of an elite ruling class dependent on keeping the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.

While the First Amendmentwhich gives us a voiceis being muzzled, the Fourth Amendmentwhich protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agentsis being disemboweled.

A review of critical court rulings over the past decade or so, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

Police can stop, arrest and search citizens without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.

Police officers can stop cars based on anonymous tips or for suspicious behavior such as having a reclined car seat or driving too carefully.

Police officers can use lethal force in car chases without fear of lawsuits.

Police can steal from Americans who are innocent of any wrongdoing. Asset forfeiture laws, which have come under intense scrutiny and criticism in recent years, allow the police to seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity without having to prove the owner of the property is guilty of a criminal offense.

Americans have no protection against mandatory breathalyzer tests at a police checkpoint .

Police can forcibly take your DNA , whether or not youve been convicted of a crime. A divided U.S. Supreme Court determined that a person arrested for a crime who is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty must submit to forcible extraction of their DNA. In doing so, the Court opened the door for a nationwide dragnet of suspects targeted via DNA sampling.
Saudis Demand Total Surrender But Qatar Will Not Fold

By Moon Of Alabama

June 07, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Many people believe that Qatar will soon give in to recent Saudi demands and threats. I first though so too but have changed my opinion. Qatar will likely hold out way longer than anyone assumes and fight more intensive and much longer than foreseen.

The Saudi "young leader" has now given Qatar 24 hours to submit to 10 demands . These include (unconfirmed) the dismantling of Al Jazeera, breaking off of all diplomatic relations with Iran and (the Israeli demand of) ending all support for the Muslim Brotherhood and especially Hamas. The Saudis threaten with a military invasion.

But Qatar is not like Bahrain where 1,000 Saudi troops could easily take over to save a dictator from a mostly unarmed uprising of his people. It has way more resources and capable allies on its side and recent news shows that it knows how to use them.

Two days ago we extensively described the complex conflict between Qatar and some of its neighbors that has recently been escalating. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the main forces on one side, joined yesterday by Donald Trump but not by the Pentagon . On the other side is Qatar, geographically isolated and seemingly without any real allies even though it hosts a very large U.S. command center and air-base.

The conflict has been simmering for years. Qatar has a strong media arm with Al Jazeera TV and other prominent news outlets. Qatar and its media support the political Islam of the Muslim Brotherhood which won elections in Egypt before being kicked out in a Saudi financed military coup. The ruling Turkish AK Party is a Muslim Brotherhood branch as is Hamas in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood parties have thereby proven that it's possible to have an Islam(ist) aligned government without a hereditary dictatorship. Their pure existence de-legitimates the al-Saud clan and other dictatorial family enterprises in the wider Middle East.

There is little reason to waste tears on Qatar. It is a small country with only 200,000 original inhabitants but with 2,000,000 expatriates living there too. Thanks to its large natural gas reserves Qatar is ultra rich and has a very modern (but also vulnerable) infrastructure. The country is way more liberal than Saudi Arabia. Its cities are somewhat cosmopolitan. Unlike in Saudi Arabia women are allowed to drive and other religions than Islam can build their places of worship. But the rulers of Qatar officially follow the same ultraconservative and proselytizing Wahhabi cult as the al-Sauds. They support terrorists of the worst kind in the war against the Syrian people and elsewhere (just as the al-Sauds do).

The Saudis currently lack money. Oil prices are too low to finance the needs of its 26 million people and the exorbitant expenditures of its ruling family. The Qatari gas fields would be a very profitable extension of their oil empire. The UAE would like to take over strategic Qatari islands in the Gulf (and the hydrocarbon fields around them). Taking over Qatar would bring both countries into a better position to fight their presumed enemy in Iran.

As we wrote:

The extreme bullying of Qatar by the Saudis and the UAE, with total closure of all its borders, is designed to create an immediate capitulation. So far Qatar holds onto its course but in the end it is likely to fold. It will have to stop its support for "terrorism" i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood. Another scenario is a putsch in Doha with some Saudi puppet prepared to take over the realm. If that is unsuccessful a military move could follow. Qatar has little capabilities to withstand a potential Saudi invasion.

I have since changed my opinion and said so in a few conversation on Twitter. Qatar will hold out way longer than anticipated. It may not fold at all:

The map shows Qatar having moved from the Arab coast of the Gulf to the Persian one.

Our piece on the Qatar crisis two days ago also included this graph:

For Iran this is a chance to further blow up the GCC by intensifying its relations with Qatar. It could increase its food exports to the country and host Qatar airline flights. This in exchange for a Qatari retreat from Syria. The U.S./Saudi plan of confronting Iran through the GCC would then be in complete jeopardy.

Iran did exactly what I proscribed - NBC:

A top Iranian agricultural official responded by announcing Monday that Iran could send food shipments to Qatar by ship. He said the shipments would take 12 hours to reach Qatar. It is not known if any shipments have yet arrived.

...

An Iranian transportation official said Tuesday that Qatari flights bound to North Africa and Europe that used to cross Saudi, Egyptian or Kuwaiti airspace can now travel over Iran, Iraq and Jordan. Flights to Northern Europe can cross Iran.

Today Qatar officially asked Iran and Turkey for additional food supplies.
A London Attacker and UK Covert Operations in Syria and Libya By Mark Curtis



June 07, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The Telegraph reports that London attacker Rachid Redouane fought in the 2011 British/NATO war against Qadafi  as did Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber  and joined a militia which went on to send jihadist fighters to Syria. In Libya, he is believed to have fought with the Liwa al Ummah unit.[1]



The Liwa al Ummah was formed by a deputy of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the former emir of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. In 2012, the Liwa al Ummah in Syria merged with the Free Syrian Army (FSA)[2], which was formed in August 2011 by army deserters based in Turkey[3] whose aim was to bring down Assad.



In Syria, the Liwa al Ummah was often referred to as an FSA unit[4] and sometimes teamed up with al-Nusra, al Qaedas official branch in Syria. [5]



The UK has been reported as covertly supporting al-Nusra in Syria.[6] Moreover, the UK backed and supplied the FSA. In February 2012 Britain pledged to send advanced communications equipment to the FSA to help coordinate its forces.[7] In August 2012, it was reported that British authorities know about and approve 100% intelligence from their Cyprus military bases being passed through Turkey to the rebel troops of the FSA.[8] In August 2013, the UK announced 1m support to the FSA in form of communication and other equipment.[9] No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter The FSA has been covertly armed by the US and Gulf states[10] and trained by Turkey[11]  all as part of the UK-backed covert operation to oust Assad which began in 2011. There is evidence to suggest that the anti-Qadafi fighters who fought on Britains side to oust Qadafi in 2011  for which the British authorities allowed an open door for them to travel from the UK to Libya  then simply moved on to Syria. In December 2011, it was reported that with explicit consent from Transitional National Council (TNC) chairman (supported by the UK and NATO) 600 highly motivated troops fresh from toppling the Gaddafi regime were shipped to Syria to fight alongside the FSA. The trigger-happy Libyans have access to a wealth of weapons plundered from the Gaddafis regimes military depots or gently donated by NATO and Qatar.[12] Mark Curtis is an author and consultant. He is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and has been an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde and Visiting Research Fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Paris and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik, Bonn. http://markcurtis.info/ REFERENCES [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/06/london-attacker-rachid-redouane-refused-uk-asylum-2009/ [2] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/03/al_nusrah_front_free_1.php [3] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24403003 [4] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/03/al_nusrah_front_free_1.php [5] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/03/al_nusrah_front_free_1.php [6] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo [7] http://syrianfreedomls.tumblr.com/post/17225970100/well-help-rebels-overthrow-syrian-murderers [8] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/syria-rebels-aided-british-intelligence-041638306.html [9] https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldhansrd/text/141127w0001.htm#14112778000328 [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Syrian_Army#Arms_deliveries_from_U.S..2C_Turkey.2C_Qatar.2C_Saudi_Arabia.2C_others [11] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-19124810 [12] http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ML02Ak01.html The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
Iran: Trump's Reaction To Deadly Attacks Is 'Repugnant'



Foreign minister Javad Zarif rejects statement by US president that Iran fell victim 'to the evil they promote'.



By Al Jazeera June 08, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called US President Donald Trump's reaction to deadly attacks in Tehran "repugnant", as intelligence officials said that the five attackers were Iranians who had fought for ISIL in Syria and Iraq . At least 16 people were killed on Wednesday in attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, as suicide bombers and gunmen targeted the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini - leader of the 1979 revolution - in the capital, Tehran. "Repugnant [White House] statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," Zarif tweeted on Thursday. He was responding to a statement released by Trump's press secretary's office , which took the opportunity of an attack to make a point that "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote". Repugnant WH statement & Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients.Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship  Javad Zarif (@JZarif) June 8, 2017

The White House statement, which mentioned how Iranian people were "going through such challenging times", came as the US Senate advanced legislation that would impose new sanctions on the Islamic Republic, partly for what the bill described as Iran's "support for acts of international terrorism".

What kind of "terrorism" these statements refer to remains vague. Trump has long accused Iran of backing "terrorism" and has threatened to tear up a 2015 nuclear deal between the Iranian government and major western powers.

Trump's comments also brought criticism from Iranians on social media, who recalled their government's offers of support and candlelit vigils held in Iran after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York.

"Iranians lit candles for you on 9/11. You kick them while they're down. Classy," tweeted Ali Ghezelbash, an Iranian business analyst.

Attackers fought for ISIL

More than 40 people were also wounded in Wednesday's attacks.

A statement by the intelligence ministry issued on Thursday said that the men who carried out the twin attacks had left Iran to fight for ISIL in the Iraqi city of Mosul, as well as Raqqa, in Syria - the armed group's de facto capital - before returning last summer.

It identified the men only by their first names, saying they did not want to release their last names owing to security and privacy concerns for their families.

The assault marks the first attacks claimed by ISIL in Iran.

Iranian security officials counter that it is their regional rival Saudi Arabia , a close US ally, that is responsible for funding and spreading the ideology that most closely resembles ISIL's.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard weighed Saudi Arabia of being behind Wednesday's attacks .

"The fact that Islamic State has claimed responsibility proves that they were involved in the brutal attack," the Revolutionary Guard said in a statement, referring to Saudi Arabia.

The statement also said that the "spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged".

Source - Al Jazeera and news agencies -

No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

See also -
A Paramilitary officer who was attached to the Lagos State Taskforce has been sentenced to one year imprisonment by the Lagos State Mobile Court sitting in Oshodi area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria for stealing a Phantom 6 Techno mobile phone belonging to one Pastor Kingsley of Christ Church, Fadeyi, Lagos.

The convict, Moses Prince, 34 years, a paramilitary officer deployed from ManO War to the Agency in October, 2016 stole the Phantom Six Techno mobile phone valued at N150,000 during an enforcement operations carried out at No 22, Ereko Street, Fadeyi, Lagos.

Magistrate Lateef Owolabi of the Lagos State Mobile Court at Oshodi sentenced the accused to one year imprisonment without any option of fine after he pleaded guilty to a-one count charge leveled against him for stealing a Phantom 6 Techno Mobile Phone while In-discharge of a lawful duty with the Lagos State Task Force contrary to Section 258 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State.

Owolabi, who said the judgment was meant to deterred other public officers from engaging in criminal activities, however, confirmed that the accuseds statement under caution where he admitted stealing the phone was used as an evidence against him.

Prosecutor Counsel, Ajibola Olumide disclosed that all evidences tendered against the accused were not denied by him during the court proceedings.

However, Yinka Egbeyemi, Chairman of the Lagos State Task Force said the convict stole the phone at a recent enforcement carried out at Idi-Oro area of Mushin where hoodlums clashed recently.

He said the convict voluntarily confessed to have stolen the said mobile phone during an interrogation carried out by the agency.

Egbeyemi stated that the agency carried out series of seminar programmes where officers of the agency were lectured to shun criminal activities and be upright in the course of discharging their legitimate duties.

The Chairman who commended Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for providing security gadgets and prompt payment of allowances to officers, however, warned that any acts of criminal activities from officers would not be tolerated by the government.
Just few hours after the threat on the Igbos living in the Northern part of the country to vacate thee community before October 1st, 2017. Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, has reacted to the quit notice issued to Igbos in the north by a coalition of northern youths describing it as a threat to national security. Just few hours after the threat on the Igbos living in the Northern part of the country to vacate thee community before October 1st, 2017. Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, has reacted to the quit notice issued to Igbos in the north by a coalition of northern youths describing it as a threat to national security.

We earlier reported that a group named, the Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY) on Tuesday, June 6, issued a statement ordering Igbo people in the north to vacate Northern Nigeria within 3 months. It was learnt that the group also urged northern people in the south-eastern part of the country to immediately start moving back to their various states.

The group threatened that from the 1st October, 2017, it will begin to prove to the whole world the north was no longer part of any federal union that should do with the Igbos. Atiku via his official twitter page said the country is too precious and has pressing issues to attend to than the divisive statement of the northern youths. The All Progressives Congress chieftain also criticised an Igbo group that also issued a counter-statement asking Igbos to return to the south east region while also ordering the northerners out of their state.

He wrote on his official Twitter handle: @atiku

Our country is too precious; our problems are too pressing to pander to divisive rhetoric. The ultimatum issued by a Northern youth coalition to the Igbos to quit the region is provocative, and a grave threat to national security. The counter response by a South-east group to Northerners is also reckless and thoughtless.
Four days after winning the pageant, a beauty queen has been reported dead in a car crash.

The young lady, Rattana Ramchatu, who had won the Miss Grand Uthai Thani 2017a local pageant in Bangkok, had died on June 1, just four days after winning the contest, Matichon newspaper said.

She died in a car accident early that morning while travelling from Chumphon to Bangkok where she reportedly had some business to attend.

Rattana had won her crown on May 27, and her friends have been deeply saddened by her death.

They described her as talented, be it in modelling or singing.

Her next birthday was supposed to be on July 9.

The fan page of Miss Grand Thailand and Mr Nawat Itsaragrisil said the following in their message:

The Miss Grand Thailand team expresses their deepest sorrow on the sudden passing away of Fies Rattana Ramchatu, Miss Grand Uthai Thani 2017 in an accident.

Rest in peace Fies, and our sympathies are with your family.

Source: Punch
13 Persons have been confirmed dead by the Borno Police Command, 3 suicide bombers were also dead while 24 others sustained various degrees of injuries in multiple Boko Haram attacks in Borno.

According to reports, one of the terrorists captured during an attack at Alidawari Village near Jiddari Polo area is in military detention.

Disclosing this to journalists during a press briefing at the police headquarters in Maiduguri, the Borno State police commissioner, Damian Chukwu said the terrorists who came in through Molai general area, outskirts of Maiduguri metropolis, shot sporadically with AA guns, set fire on some houses and makeshift tents in the neighborhood .

Mr Chukwu said that the police comprising the FSARS, CTU, PMF and others were deployed to the scene to engage the attackers before the military massively mobilised and repelled the attack in a gun duel that lasted for about an hour.

One of the terrorists captured during the attack is in the custody of the Army. Three terrorists including a suicide bomber were killed in action by the military. Unexploded PBIED Vest on the dead suicide bomber was recovered and rendered safe by Police EOD team, he said.

Chukwu added that three AK 47 rifles, some bombs and hand grenades were recovered, adding that one civilian was killed in a stampede while a soldier was reported wounded.

The police Commissioner further confirmed multiple suicide bombs attacks by three suicide bombers in Jere local government area of the state.

According to him, the first explosion occurred in a mosque at Goni kachallari Village, Jere local government in the outskirts of Maiduguri metropolis when Muslim faithful were coming out from the mosque.

During the attack, the suicide bomber and six others died while 18 other persons were injured. The second suicide bomber detonated his IED within the premises of Chad Basin Development Authority, Maiduguri at 2120hrs same day killing himself and three others.

The third suicide bomber detonated his IED across the road outside the Chad Basin Development Authority killing himself and one other person. Police EOD team were promptly dispatched to the scenes to sanitize and render the area safe and the injured taken to various hospitals across the state for medical attention , said Chukwu.

Source: ( PM News )
DTEK expects second vessel with 75,000 tonnes of coal from South Africa in mid-July

The loading of the second vessel with 75,000 tonnes of anthracite at Richards Bay port in South African for replenishment of stocks at DTEK thermal power plants (TPP) began on June 5 and will last for about a week, DTEK Energy CEO Dmytro Sakharuk has said.

"The loading of the vessel will take a little more than a week. And its arrival in Ukraine is expected in mid-July," he told journalists in Kyiv.

According to him, these 75,000 tonnes of anthracite upon arrival in the country will be directed to Kryvy Rih and Prydniprovska TPPs.

Sakharuk noted coal supply from South Africa will allow in summer months to provide peak loads of the power system.

As reported, the first bulk carrier with 75,000 tonnes of anthracite for DTEK arrived in Yuzhny port (Odesa region) on May 25.
A court has sentenced a man identified as Ezeoma Chigozie Obioha for allegedly killing Carrie Melvin, 30, who had done social media work for his business. But she turned him down, prosecutors said, and eventually notified state officials that he owed her more than $1,000 for work she had done to promote his company.

Weeks after the work has been done, Carrie was killed by a man who fired a shotgun blast at her face as she walked with her boyfriend to a Thai restaurant in Hollywood. A shotgun on the beach and a bounced check are key clues to the murder, prosecutor says.

The morning after the killing, a boy playing on the beach in Malibu found Obiohas Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun under a rock. Lying nearby was an unusual shotgun shell, identical to an expended shell found at the crime scene: a white Rio Royal Grand 12-gauge, 00 buck shell with the head stamp globalshot.com, prosecutors said.

On Monday, Obioha, who was convicted last year of first-degree murder, sat showing no emotion. Jurors deliberated about a day before convicting Obioha and finding true the special-circumstance allegation that he committed murder for financial gain.

Defense attorneys plan to file an appeal. Obiohas defense attorneys had argued that the shotgun shells, as well as the gun, were planted. A blast from a Rio Royal shell would have caused more wounds to the victims face, they argued.

In phone calls from jail, Obioha gave his family different explanations about what happened to his gun. First, he said that it had been stolen. Then, that Melvins boyfriend had taken it to set him up.

Lastly, he said it had been planted by an ocean photographer who wanted his Instagram and Facebook accounts featured on the news, the prosecutor said.

In court, the victims father said that after sitting through the trial and hearing the evidence, hes convinced that Obioha was the person who killed his daughter. He urged Obioha to accept the sentence
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai, Kaduna State Governor on Wednesday ordered the arrest of some Northern youth leaders for ordering Igbos in the North to leave the region before October 1.

The act by the youth leaders has been described as irresponsible by the State government and has vowed not to allow Kaduna State to become hotspot for violence.

Those that had been declared wanted over the issue are  Nastura Ashir Sharif (Arewa Citizens Action For Change), Shettima Yerima (Arewa Youth Consultative Forum), Aminu Adam (Arewa Youth Development Foundation), Alfred Solomon (Arewa Students Forum), Abdul-Azeez Suleiman (Northern Emancipation Network), Joshua Viashman (Northern Youth Vanguard), Mohammad A. Mohammad (Northern Youth Stakeholders Forum), Mohammed Tasiu Pantami (North East Assembly) and Nathaniel Ajegena Adigizi (North Central Peoples Front).

However, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has called for caution against unguarded statements capable of breaching the peace and unity of the country.

The governor, who spoke through his Media aide, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, at a press conference held at the Kaduna State Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) secretariat, said the state government would uphold the right of every Nigerian to live safely and develop his/her full potentials within its territory.

He said, The Kaduna State government takes exception to the fact that the northern youths did their irresponsible press conference in Kaduna. This government has been consistent in taking action to punish hate speech and incitement. People who may feel unhappy about irresponsible comments or actions that have taken place in other states must know that two wrongs cannot make a right, and they cannot use our state to do or say things that threaten the peace.

Kaduna State government has therefore ordered the arrest, investigation and prosecution of the signatories to the statement.

The state government condemns in the strongest terms the press statement by some self-appointed northern youths that threatened the safety and property of our citizens of Igbo extraction. Government assures every resident of our state that their constitutional and human rights to live peacefully and own property wherever they choose is sacrosanct. Even people who may feel unhappy about irresponsible comments or actions that have taken place in other states must know that two wrongs cannot make a right.

Reckless disregard for the rights of other citizens drips through the press statement by these northern youths who have chosen to use the discourse around restructuring to promote their own agenda of hate, division and incitement. This sort of opportunists cannot be allowed to distort debate, or turn it into a pretext for a barely-disguised agenda of displacement and dispossession of some citizens.

We will not tolerate such irresponsible statements and conduct in our state. The statement issued by the northern youths violates the laws of Kaduna State. Therefore, the Kaduna State government has directed that its Ministry of Justice should prepare charges and prosecute the signatories and anyone complicit in arranging this egregious assault on the rights of fellow citizens.

Preparatory to prosecution, the police had been directed to immediately arrest, interrogate the signatories to the statement and investigate all the circumstances and persons that may be implicated in the matter.

The Kaduna State Government urges all residents to ignore the threats from the northern youths. We are in contact with the leadership of the Igbo community in Kaduna, and we delighted to say that this community, like all our other communities, believes in the strength of the constitutional order to protect all citizens.

Kaduna State government wishes to encourage all our people to celebrate the diversity with which the Almighty has blessed us, to continue to shun agents of division, and to stand firm in upholding a common humanity. Everyone has a right to live in peace and harmony.

Source: ( PM News )
The House of Representatives on Thursday condemned the ultimatum by the Coalition of Arewa Youths to Igbo to leave the Northern region by October 1.

Consequently, the House urged security agencies to be on the alert to forestall any breakdown of law and order that may arise as a result of the threat.

The resolution was sequel to the adoption of a motion under matter of urgent public importance by Rep. Oghene Egoh (Lagos-PDP).

Moving the motion, Egoh condemned the relocation threat issued by the 16 Northern youth groups and the stand of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra on the matter.

The lawmaker stressed the need for the Federal Government to urgently intervene in order to avert a national crisis.

As part of the campaign by the IPOB for the actualisation of Biafra Republic, Biafra agitators shut down major towns in the South-East on May 30, 2017.

It is disturbing that 16 Northern youth groups on June 6, 2017 gave Igbo residing in their states up till October 1, 2017 to vacate the region.

In its reaction, the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra said it received with gladness the quit notice and urged the Igbo to return home immediately.

The two calls created alarming twists, which are ominous and dangerous for the good health of Nigerians.

This motion is not interested in the merit or demerit of Biafra; nor is it interested in apportioning blame to those who made the two unpatriotic calls.

Rather, this is only a concern for the nations leaders to immediately intervene to stop these agitations from resulting in violence that may consume the entire nation, Egoh said.

He also urged the National Assembly and the Presidency to initiate dialogue with the two groups to avoid damage to the nation.

Source: ( PM News )
The Edo State Police command has arrested 2 suspects, for allegedly involved in the murder of Mr. Omoruyi Okundolor, an Italian-based Nigerian in Benin, the Edo State capital, have been arrested by men of the state Police Command.

They alleged that the deceaseds former lover contracted them to kill Okundolor because the deceased jilted her.

The suspects, who were paraded by the Edo State Police Commissioner, Haliru Gwandu, confessed that four of them embarked on the mission to eliminate the deceased and named one Moses and Power as members of the gang.

The said female lover, identified as Mercy, and the two accomplices are now at large. The arrested suspects alleged that the plot to eliminate Okundolor was hatched at a drinking spot at Evbuotubu area of Benin.

The also took the life of an 18-year-old girl, who recognised one of the suspects, when they went for the mission, Gwandu, who described such killings as wicked and barbaric, vowed to bring to book the female lover and other suspects currently on the run.

He said: Even if one decides to jilt you, killing the person is not an option; that is wickedness. And such people are enemies of the society. No excuse can be acceptable for killing someone.

We must orientate ourselves and inform others because we have been witnessing such crimes these days and it is shocking. It is actually a devilish act which must be stopped.

Source: ( Instablog9ja)
gal expenses since she still has so much to cover.

According to Kemi Olunloyo, she has spent over $300,000 in fees since her arrest back in March.

Expenses ranging from flight tickets, bail funds and several other legal fees have taken a large chunk of her money leaving her with no choice but to seek for financial aid.

The blogger has opened a GoFund Me account begging Nigerians to help her fund the account. The case is not over, I still have to go to court on June 20th she said and also informs fans waiting for her return to the blogosphere that she will not be returning any time soon until her case is over.


Weeks after the death of a- 23 year-old tailor apprentice, identified as Jamiu Ayoade who was shot dead by a Divisional Police Officer in the Ijeshatedo area of Lagos, Yakubu Mohammed, residents of area have lamented the delay in the prosecution of the DPO.

They appealed to the police authorities not to sweep the case under the carpet, just as a relative of the deceased said the family had been inundated with appeals from community elders, adding that they were under pressure to withdraw from the case.

PUNCH Metro had reported that the DPO, around 7.30pm, on Sunday, May 7, led some policemen to Wosilatu Daudu Street, Ijeshatedo, where Ayoade was attending his friends birthday party.

The operatives, who raided the area, shot into the air to disperse the gathering.

Yakubu reportedly chased Ayoade and other fun seekers into a building and shot him in the head at a close range. The 23-year-old was said to have bled to death while he was being taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba. One Akeem also sustained a gunshot injury in the hand.

The command subsequently arrested and detained the DPO.

During a meeting with senior officers at POWA Secretariat on Tuesday, May 16, the states Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, had said Yakubu violated rules of engagement during the raid on the area.

He had said, I dont know what he was thinking that could have made him (the DPO) to shoot at somebody in the crowd. He would be arraigned in court; no doubt about that. For any civilian that is killed unjustifiably, my emotion cant take it. I feel the pain of the family of that boy. Why should I defend anybody that kills?

There are administrative processes to be followed, which are almost complete. Probably, it will be completed by the end of this week (May 20) and the DPO will be arraigned in court.

A resident, Jelili Bakare, who spoke with our correspondent on Wednesday, said investigation into the case was slow despite the evidence available to the police.

He said, The last thing I learnt was that his body would be exhumed for investigations. That was three weeks ago. We were told at the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Yaba, that necessary evidence was available and that the exhumation could be avoided.

The police are slow about the investigation. If it were to be a civilian that killed a policeman, quick action would have been taken.

The deceaseds friend, whose birthday was being marked when the incident happened, Abubakar Animashaun, said he had yet to fully recover from the shock of the death, noting that the cruel way that Ayoade was killed called for quick justice.

He said, I have not heard of any development about the case, but we were told that the DPO is still in detention. Justice must be done accordingly, and on time.

A relative of Ayoade, who did not want his name in print, said some elders in the community had been begging on behalf of the DPO to let go of the matter. He added that he had tried to exercise restraints on the case for security reasons.

The brother said, What we are all interested in is justice, but if it is not served, God will judge. Some community leaders are begging us on behalf of the DPO and some people are being sent by the police, but we have turned down their pleas. The pressure is much; we told them to let the police do their work.
A legal practitioner, Mr Olutimi Folorunsho has identified poverty as the main cause of child labour in the country.

Folorunsho said this in Ilorin on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

He said that the high rate of poverty had led to increased rate of child exploitation in the country.

Without mincing word, poverty is the major cause of child labour in the country and that has ruined the lives of so many Nigerian children, Folorunsho said.

According to him, some parents cannot afford to provide for the needs of their children, therefore, they are forced give them out for menial and undignified jobs.

In the course of hawking, some children get exposed to evil vices such as smoking, prostitution, drug abuse, robbery and even cultism, he said.

Folorunsho said that the rate at which the children were being subjected to slavery would definitely have negative effects on their future.

He therefore warned parents to desist from using their children for hawking and other jobs meant for adults, to avoid taking the blame for contributing to their being wayward and causing societal ills in the future.

The lawyer also urged the government to provide free education and enacts laws to protect childrens right for the country to have a secured future.

Source: ( NAN )
Nigerian Musician, Omawumi has inked a deal with hip hop icon Jay Zs Roc Nation label, as she just made this news known via an announcement which included her album release date.

She shared the artwork for her new album titled, TIMELESS with the Roc Nation logo, which was placed at the top of the art.

Omawumis Timeless will be released on June 22nd.
The European Energy Community has asked Moldova to give explanations about the revision of contracts for the delivery of electricity from Ukraine, Interfax was told at the Moldovan Economy Ministry.

This is stated in a letter to Economy Minister Octavian Calmic in which the Secretariat of the Energy Community, the EU Delegation in Moldova and the EU high-level advisor for the energy policy asked for explanations about the situation with electricity deliveries from Transdniestria, the ministry report says.

"Moldova's return to purchases of electricity generated in Transdniestria aroused the bewilderment of our foreign partners," the Economy Ministry said.

The letter says that at the end of March Ukraine's DTEK Trading won an international tender organized by Moldovan operator-companies and Moldova's Energocom state company signed an agreement with it. The procedure of procurements was regulated by instructions developed by the Secretariat and approved by the Economy Ministry.

European experts praised the organization of the tender pointing out to the competition between Energocom state trader buying electricity in Ukraine and the Moldovan thermal power plant (MTPP) located in Transdniestria.

However, there are still many aspects which have to be worked on, their report said. "The National Agency for Energy Regulation in the framework of the observer group adopted a fairly inactive approach while the role of the Economy Ministry in the entire procedure was, on the contrary, too apparent considering that the Economy Ministry is the sole shareholder of Energocom," the report said.

The group recommended "removing these shortcomings while signing a new contract in 2018 and making the deepening of the reform of the market of energy resources in Moldova and further integration with the energy market of Ukraine a medium-term objective."

Moldova generates only 20% of the electricity it consumes. At the beginning of this week Energocom announced that it would buy only 30% of the necessary imported electricity from the Ukrainian supplier and 70% from MTPP with which a contract was signed at a 10% lower price. The Economy Ministry welcomed the contract believing that the existence of two suppliers will become a guarantee of non-stop power supplies for Moldova.
Reverend Michael and his wife, Christiana Ewache welcomed a beautiful baby girl after 32 years of waiting on the fruit of the womb  Rev. Ewache is the founder of the Glory of of His Majesty Ministry, Markurdi, Benue State.

The baby was born on Monday, 5th of June at the National Hospital, Abuja.

The evangelist posted the photos on his Facebook page and wrote:

God comes late when He wants to come big, He is never too late. He visited my family

More photos below:

Source: Yabaleftonline
The Lagos State Police command police have arrested 24 suspected criminals at a hideout at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.

The new Assistant Inspector General of Police, AIG, Zone 2 Command, Onikan, Lagos, Adamu Ibrahim had ordered his men to raid the suspected criminals hideout at the National Stadium,.

The operation which lasted for four hours led to the arrest of 24 suspects. It was gathered that the suspected criminals used the stadium as their hideouts to rob members of the public.

Police identified some of the arrested suspects as Patrick Uchens, 32; Babatunde Omotayo, 42; Olukotun Olumide, 33; Testimony Basses Efiong, 32; Awolola Peter, 21; Olawale Oyeyipe, 35 and Omopaire Hassan 41.

Others include Ugochukwu Ikidingwu, 31; Christian Mark, 47; Ibrahim Sule, 31; Saheed Taiwo, 33 and twelve others.

Police source said during investigation, all the arrested suspects could not give satisfactory account of their missions at the National Stadium.

All the suspects were arraigned before an IgbosereMagistrate Court, Lagos on two-count charge of felony to wit. unlawful assembly at the National Stadium and constituting nuisance.

Police prosecutor, DSP Eshiet told the court in charge No G/31/2017 that all the suspects were arrested for using the National Stadium, Lagos for criminal intentions.

He said the offences committed were punishable under section 409 and 44 (2) of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2011.

All the accused pleaded not guilty and Magistrate O.G Oghre granted them bail in the sum of N20, 000 each with one surety each in like sum.

Oghre adjourned the case till 19 June, 2017 for mention while 21 of the dsuspects remanded in prison custody pending when they would fulfill their bails conditions while three others were able to perfect their bail condition before the court closed proceeding for the day.
A storm that occured in the Borgu Local Government Area of Niger State, between Tuesday and Wednesday claimed the lives of six persons including a village head identified as Malam Abdulmumuni Mohammed.

It was learnt that the village head was in his house when the rainstorm started between 11pm and 12am.

An eyewitness said the storm, which was later accompanied by a heavy rain, blew off the roof of the palace of the village head, making part of the roof and the building to collapse on him.

The roof fell on the village head and he slumped and died on his way to a hospital, the eyewitness said.

It was gathered that several other people were injured as a result of the storm with many of them treated and discharged at the New Bussa General Hospital.

Property worth millions of naira, including places of worship, schools and livestock, were destroyed by the storm.

The Emir of Borgu, Alhaji Mohammed Dantoro, in whose emirate the incident happened, was seen engrossed in a meeting with his councillors when our correspondent called at his palace on Wednesday.

In the second disaster, which took place in Ibbi town, in the Mashegu LGA, flood took over most part of the town, rendering the villagers homeless.

Six of the villagers were said to have been killed by the flood, while no fewer than 500 animals were reportedly killed.

Some of the affected villagers, whose houses were destroyed, resorted to taking refuge in schools and with neighbours.

The Chairman of Mashegu LGA, Alhaji Shuaibu Kaboji, and the Director General of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency, Mr. Ibrahim Inga, confirmed the incident.

They asked for assistance from the state government to cushion the effect of the disaster on the displaced people.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Details have emerged about how the Chibok girls who were rescued from the deadly Boko Haram terrorists are being treated in Abuja.

The 106 freed Chibok schoolgirls have continued to savour their freedom with testimonies, particularly as many of them had given up hope of coming out of Boko Haram captivity alive.

As they worshiped last Sunday in their Abuja camp, the girls poured out their gratitude to God.

Rhoda Peter and Luggwa Mutah intermittently burst out in praise in their local dialect.

Freedom was secured for the first set of 24 girls last October, after painstaking negotiations with the insurgents, before another 82 were released a month ago. There was heavy outflow of emotions as the 82 recently freed girls joined the other 24 at the National Women Development Centre, Abuja, which the Federal Government designated as camp for them.

Even though 24 schoolgirls commenced rehabilitation since January, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajia Jummai Alhasan, said that all of them would be enrolled in schools across the country to continue their education in September this year.

While taking over the girls from the director of the Department of State Securitys (DSS) medical clinic, Dr. Ann Okoroafor, the minister clarified that the girls were not under compulsion to remain within the care of government as any of them who wished to rejoin their parents were free to do so.

She explained that they had been medically and psychologically certified fit for the rehabilitation programme that would last 90 days.

Inside the camp

The new abode of the freed girls, most of whom were in the lions den for three years, could be said to have all the facilities one could require for normal life: school, sickbay, relaxation centre, fully functional common room/worship centre and, above all, water-tight security.

Daily Sun gathered that the facility was recently renovated by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development with support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and it had the blocks and extensions renamed after Hajia Aisha Buhari, Dolapo Osinbajo, Mama Taraba, Nana Kashim Shettima and others.

In the camp, four girls were assigned a room with two bunk beds and wall fans. They also have a common room with six large-screen televisions showing cable channels. The common room also serves as worship place on Sundays when clerics would be allowed to come and conduct service for them, and 100 plastic chairs were provided for that.

Regarding their education, it was also gathered that 20 teachers have been engaged and sorted into four classes to give the girls remedial preparation in five subjects, English Language, Mathematics, Biology, Agricultural Science and Civic Education.

The minister, who reiterated the resolve of the federal government to give the girls the best care through the Presidential Rehabilitation and Re-integration Committee, headed by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, expressed joy that the first batch of 24 were already picking up in English Language, as the girls who couldnt speak good English can now speak.

As part of their rehabilitation, the minister disclosed that each of the girls would receive compulsory training in information and communication technology as well as two other skills of their choice.

During the handing over, Alhassan said, Here we have 24 girls; remember that these were rescued last year. They are being joined today by 82 others, who have been certified fit to live on their own; they dont have any medical issues any more apart from the one that we need to put a limb for her. This place is their common room; it will accommodate the 106 of them. We have put these television sets and other things for their comfort.

We have more handlers for the girls now; more doctors, nurses and matrons. And the programme will end at the beginning of next academic year in September when we will enrol all of them back in school.

One area that should be of utmost concern to everyone is the health of the freed girls, having lived with terrorists, who may have debased them sexually, with attendant sexually-transmitted infections and other diseases.

In fact, while commending the management and staff of the DSS clinic for their intervention, Alhassan disclosed that the clinic was shut down for 3 weeks for the girls, because of the myriad of medical cases anticipated, coupled with the need to give them full attention and security.

However, the DSS medical director said there was no cause for alarm as any diseases identified have been treated while those with cases such the one amputee and another with injury in the hand would continue treatment at the clinic.

Okoroafor confirmed that they were fit for the programme thus: We have done the needful for them, profiled them and done all the investigations; whatever we found out during the investigation, we have treated them. Some of them require on-going medical treatment like you can see one of them has problem with her hand; one is an amputee and one or two others who have some medical issues that we are still treating them for. But I can say to you that they are all stable and comfortable for us to release them. They are stable not just medically but psychologically.

In the meantime, a fully-equipped medical facility has been set up at their camp with two doctors and two nurses, while the National Hospital, Federal Staff Clinic and the DSS Medical Clinic, were open to handle any referral cases, even as an ambulance would be dedicated to the facility for emergencies.

The last war

While the rehabilitation and re-integration process goes on, Daily Sun gathered that most of the girls still experience some intrusive thoughts and memories of their horrifying captivity.

They reportedly have a sort of phobia and panic attack anytime they hear the roaring sound of flying aircraft, which reminds them of their Sambisa forest experience.

(They) cant stop feeling frightened hearing the whirring noise of aeroplane whenever it is flying, one of their caregivers volunteered.

The foregoing indicates that the most pressing challenge for the girls and their tenders would be managing the psychological trauma.

Even in their prayers, they always beg God to help them forget their past while looking forward to a brighter future.
The Bauchi state Commissioner for Local government Affairs, Nasurudeen Mohammed, disclosed that the State Government spent a total of N96 million to purchase horses for the six emirate councils in the state in the last two years.

He listed the emirate councils as Bauchi, Misau, Dass, Jamare, Katagum and Ningi at a press conference in the state capital, Bauchi.

He said:

N96 million was expended by this administration in the last two years for purchase of horses to six emirate councils to maintain the tradition and culture of the state,

The commissioner, whose ministry was responsible for coordinating the activities of the 20 local government areas in the state, explained that the gesture was as a result of the request by the emirate councils.

He explained that the ministry served as a liaison office between the three tiers of government to ensure prudent releases and that N72.9 million was spent by the ministry to print uniform and indigenes certificates for all the local government areas.

He said the state government spent N8.9 million to organise Inter-Local Government and Governors Cup competition and that N55 million was used to print and distribute revenue receipt for all the local government areas.

He included that the government settled legal fees and debts owed by some local government areas like Shira, Alkaleri, Dambam, Misau, Bauchi, Giade and Toro to safeguard the image of the government.

Meanwhile, In 2015, a United Nations poverty index report said 86.6 percent of Bauchi state residents were poor making the state one of the poorest states in Nigeria.

Source: Yabaleftonline
Nigeria music diva, Tiwa Savage shows that she is an adorable mum, as her only son, Jamil means the world to her. She shared photos from her sons Jamal Graduation.

She also revels at what they would do during the holiday.

Tiwa signed a recording contract with Mavin Records in 2012 currently has a songwriting deal with Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

She wrote:

End of year graduation today  so proud of my lil handsome man

We are so fly huh JamJam? Congratulations JAMJAM

Now what are we gonna do alllll summer before next academic year/semester in sept?

Here are the photos shared by the proud mother:
The UN Deputy Secretary-General,Ms Amina Mohammed, has expressed her shock over the death of Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin, the Executive Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

Mohammed, in a statement, recalled her fond memory of Nigerias former Minister of Health.

The UN deputy chief and former Nigerias Minister of Environment expressed sympathy to Osotimehins family, the UN and the Nigerian Government.

Mohammed said: I received with great shock the news of the passing of my brother and friend, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin at midnight of June 4, 2017.

I want to express my most sincere sympathies to his family, the Nigerian nation and to UN family especially the Nigerian UN family during this difficult time.

When I joined the UN system in 2012, as a member of the Nigerian UN Family, Prof. Osotimehin was there to welcome me and he provided me with great support during my first UN journey.

He was a very remarkable man. Knowing him personally as I did for many years, I am well aware of the huge difference he made in the lives of many people around the world and in his private life.

He was a highly valuable and respected member of our UN team here and his fellow employees and young mentees around the world are already feeling the effects of his passing away.

As a champion for the well-being of women and youth, his passing is a big loss to the world and his passionate work for humanity especially women and youth is his legacy.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time, the UN deputy scribe said.

The UN Deputy Secretary-General was among those who signed the condolence register opened for the late UNFPA chief at the UN headquarters in New York on Monday.

Osotimehin died on Sunday night at his home in New York at the age of 68 years.
With numerous different entities and millions of people affected, cancer continues to be one of the most prevalent diseases around the world. Scientists are working to find new treatment possibilities, and have been concentrating on the bodys own immune system for some time.

Because cancer emerges from the bodys own cells, it is usually difficult for the immune system to distinguish good cells from bad ones, explains Prof. Dr. Elfriede Noner, head of the Tissue Control of Immunocytes Research Group at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen. But there are ways to support the immune system in recognizing and combating cancer cells.

Focus on T-cell therapy

One approach is the so-called adoptive T-cell therapy, which involves removing immune cells from the body and genetically arming them. The cells are given new structures on the surface that accurately lead them to the cancer cells.

One limitation in this form of therapy is that the binding between the immune cell and the cancer cell is often somewhat weak. Although this binding can be artificially strengthened, doing so also increases the risk of unwanted binding to healthy structures in the body, explains study leader Noner. She and her team were therefore searching for a different way to improve the defense provided by the immune cells.

Attack instead of sleep mode

In the current work, the researchers present a new surface molecule which comprises two halves. On the outside, it preferentially binds to the PD-L1 molecule, which tumor cells often form in order to thwart the attacking immune cells. On the inside of the T-cells, however, this binding does not activate a sleep mode (which the natural protein would do), and instead activates the T-cells killer program, making it especially aggressive. Experimental models showed that T-cells armed in this way proliferate more strongly in the tumors and destroyed more tumor cells.

The next step will be to confirm the findings in clinical studies. If that step succeeds, the approach would enlarge the arsenal of T-cells suitable for adoptive T-cell therapy, Elfriede Noner states. This could not only make the treatment more effective but would allow it to be used in more patients in the framework of personalized medicine.

Further Information

The work was the result of close cooperation with the team headed by Dr. Matthias Leisegang from the Institute of Immunology at the Charite Berlin Buch Campus and Prof. Dr. Dolores J. Schendel, CEO and CSO at Medigene AG. The authors Ramona Schlenker, Luis Felipe Olguin Contreras, Anja Disovic and Julia Schnappinger attend the Helmholtz Graduate School Environmental Health, or HELENA for short.

Original Publication:

Schlenker, R. et al. (2017): Chimeric PD-1:28 receptor upgrades low-avidity T cells and restores effector function of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for adoptive cell therapy. Cancer Research, DOI: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-16-1922

The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, the German Research Center for Environmental Health, pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich and has about 2,300 staff members. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 18 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members. http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en

Contact for the media:

Department of Communication, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen  German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstadter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg  Tel. +49 89 3187 2238  Fax: +49 89 3187 3324  E-mail: presse@helmholtz-muenchen.de

Scientific Contact:

Prof. Dr. Elfriede Noner, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen  German Research Center for Environmental Health, Immunoanalytics  Research Group Tissue Control of Immunocytes & Core Facility, Marchioninistr. 25, 81377 Munchen  Tel. +49 89 3187 1303  E-mail: noessner@helmholtz-muenchen.de

http://www.helmholtz-muenchen.de/en/press-media/press-releases/all-press-releases/index.html  read more news of Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen
Shootin' the Bull about wild markets Swift Trading Company - 1 hour ago The whopping two tenths of a percent decline in CPI set equities, bonds, and currencies on fire this morning. Unfortunately, if you weren't privy to the coming action, or did not get in until after the...

Nat-Gas Prices Jump on Smaller Inventory Build and Colder U.S. Temps Barchart - 1 hour ago Dec Nymex natural gas (NGZ22 ) on Thursday closed up +0.374 (+6.38%). Dec nat-gas Thursday closed sharply higher after weekly EIA nat-gas inventories rose less than expected. The EIA reported that nat-gas... NGZ22 : 6.151 (+4.88%)

Crude Oil Rallies on Dollar Weakness and Surge in Stocks Barchart - 1 hour ago Dec WTI crude oil (CLZ22 ) on Thursday closed up by +0.64 (+0.75%), and Dec RBOB gasoline (RBZ22 ) closed up by +2.17 (+0.85%). Crude oil and gasoline prices Thursday shook off early losses and posted... CLZ22 : 86.18 (+0.41%) RBF23 : 2.5016 (+1.01%)

NY Cocoa Rallies on Dollar Weakness Barchart - 1 hour ago December ICE NY cocoa (CCZ22 ) on Thursday closed up +26 (+1.03%), and December ICE London cocoa #7 (CAZ22 ) closed down -29 (-1.38%). Cocoa prices Thursday settled mixed, with NY cocoa climbing to a 6-1/4... CCH23 : 2,555s (+0.99%) CAH23 : 2,032s (-0.97%)

Sugar Moves Higher on Reduced Brazil Sugar Output Barchart - 1 hour ago March NY world sugar #11 (SBH23 ) on Thursday closed up +0.03 (+0.15%), and Dec London white sugar #5 (SWZ22 ) closed up +11.60 (+2.13%). Sugar prices Thursday closed moderately higher, with NY sugar matching... SBH23 : 19.41s (+0.15%) SWH23 : 530.40s (+1.28%)

Coffee Gains on Dollar Weakness and Smaller Brazil Coffee Exports Barchart - 1 hour ago December arabica coffee (KCZ22 ) on Thursday closed up +5.85 (+3.54%), and Jan ICE Robusta coffee (RMF23 ) closed up +8 (+0.44%). Coffee prices Thursday recovered from early losses, with arabica coffee... KCH23 : 167.70s (+3.30%) RMF23 : 1,827s (+0.44%)
On Wednesday militants fired on Zaitseve populated area and the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone using weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian side of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the ceasefire in Donbas region has reported.

"Since the beginning of the day, militants have violated the ceasefire regime more than 50 times. A residential building in the village of Zaitseve was fired on Manuyilskoho Street. The inhabitants of the house, fortunately, were not injured," the JCCC said on the official website of the press centre of the ATO headquarters.

In addition, the ATO positions near the settlements of Novotoshkivske and Krymske were fired by militants from artillery of 152 mm and 122 mm caliber and mortars of 120 mm and 82 mm caliber, while strongholds in the outskirts of Avdiyivka - from artillery of 122 mm caliber and mortars of 82 mm caliber.

"Thus, illegal armed groups of ORDLO, despite the fact that a regular meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group was held in Minsk on June 7, demonstrate their disregard for the Minsk agreements, and the wish for further aggravation of the armed conflict in Donbas," a report says.
A self-storage tenant was arrested in Pearcy, Ark., on Monday on a felony count of second-degree forgery and a misdemeanor count of second-degree criminal impersonation. Jason Alan Alexander, 35, allegedly used another persons name and drivers license when renting a unit in November, according to the source.

The owner of the unidentified self-storage facility told investigators she noted Alexander didnt resemble the photo on the drivers license he used when signing his rental agreement. When she confronted him about it, he told her he didnt look the same because he had lost a lot of weight, the source reported.

When Garland County, Ark., sheriffs Cpl. Felix Hunter responded to an unrelated call at the storage facility on Dec. 16, he encountered two men on the property, one of whom identified himself as Alexander. When Hunter discussed the two men with the owner, she told him the man who said he was Alexander had used a different name to rent the unit.

By March 16, Alexander was more than 45 days delinquent on his rent, and the storage owner considered the unit abandoned, according to the source. Investigators talked to the owner that day about suspected stolen property found inside the unit.

Though Alexander allegedly used an alias at the time of rental, the address he provided was later determined to be his, the source reported.

The felony forgery count against Alexander carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, while the misdemeanor criminal impersonation charge is punishable by up to a year in jail. Alexander remained in custody as of Tuesday in lieu of a $3,500 bond. He is scheduled to appear in Garland County District Court on June 20.
SROA Capital LLC, a self-storage investment and management firm, has appointed Robert Buffett as chief financial officer (CFO). Hell be responsible for the banking, financial reporting, insurance and finance functions of the company, which operates the Storage Rentals of America brand.

Buffet has extensive experience in the self-storage industry, including 11 years as CFO for the Stor-All Storage brand based out of Deerfield Beach, Fla., according to a press release. He earned a bachelor's and master's degree in accounting from the University of Florida.

"As we look to expand our property base across the country, Bob's expertise will help us control costs and increase efficiency," said CEO Benjamin Macfarland. Along with the addition of SROA Capital President and CTO Rob Consalvo earlier this year, we have built a management team with extensive industry expertise, which can help lead us through our rapid growth plan. Bob is committed to a continuous analysis and control of cost centers to drive efficiency and cost-savings."

Based in West Palm Beach, Fla., SROA Capital is a real estate investment company focused on the acquisition and operation of self-storage properties nationwide as well as direct-equity investments with developers. The company operates more than 3 million rentable square feet of storage space at 57 properties containing 22,000 units. It recently changed its name from Elite Stor Capital Partners LLC to better align with the Storage Rentals of America brand name.
Update 10/11/17  Stor-Age intends to move forward with its StorTown purchase by acquiring 99.9 percent of DanCor shares for R145 million. The transaction is expected to occur through subsidiary Roeland Street Investments, according to the source. The StorTown locations will be rebranded under the Stor-Age name.

"Implementation of the transaction will provide Stor-Age with a broader geographical store offering across the city of Durban in locations which are complementary to the existing trading portfolio," Lucas said.

The deal will increase the companys owned portfolio to 35 locations and 255,000 square meters, according to a Stor-Age press release.

6/8/17  Stor-Age Property REIT, which operates the Stor-Age Self Storage brand in South Africa, has agreed to acquire the four-property StorTown portfolio from real estate investment company DanCor Properties Pty. Ltd. All the facilities are in the Durban, South Africa, market and will boost Stor-Ages total gross leasable area (GLA) by 9 percent, according to the source.

The StorTown locations are in the Brackenhill area, the Durban Central Business District and Durban North. The deal will boost Stor-Ages presence in the local market to five facilities and more than 27,000 square meters of GLA, the source reported.

We are excited about this acquisition. It aligns with our strategy of targeting quality peers in a fragmented market, with a focus on the four major metropoles in South Africa on a complementary quality level to our existing portfolio," Stor-Age CEO Gavin Lucas said in a statement.

In December, Stor-Age acquired the seven-property portfolio operated by local competitor Storage RSA through its subsidiary Roeland Street Investments. Those facilities are in Cape Town and the Gauteng province.

Founded in 1972, DanCor specializes in commercial and industrial properties in addition to self-storage.

Headquartered in Cape Town and established in 2006 by the Lucas Family, Stor-Age operates a 42-property portfolio, primarily in four South African metropolitan areas, that comprises approximately 318,000 square meters. Its the operator appointed by Stor-Age Property Fund Managers Pty. Ltd. to manage and market the property portfolio owned by Stor-Age Property Holdings Pty. Ltd., and was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in November 2015.
Storage Asset Management (SAM), a self-storage property-management and consulting firm, announced its managed facilities recently donated $452 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a nonprofit that grants wishes to children with cancer. The money was raised through two initiatives at 70-plus of the firms properties, according to a press release.

First, the company held a company-wide Jeans Day on April 19, raising $90. Employees who donated to the cause could wear jeans to work that day.

Additionally, donations were collected via Facebook check-ins on each stores social media page between April 15 and May 15. For every check-in at the facility, a dollar was donated. The campaign was advertised via the properties and through digital channels. The drive netted $362.

We are so grateful to our store managers for their work in promoting this initiative. We are proud to make this donation to such a great foundation, said Alyssa Quill, vice president and managing partner.

Founded in 2010 and based in York, Pa., SAM oversees 78 self-storage facilities in 20 states as well as three UPS Stores in 18 states, primarily along the East Coast.
HALIFAX, NS  (June 6, 2017) This week Scotia Speedworlds summer of affordable family fun continues with $20 A Car Load Night! Gather up your friends and family, hop in a car and everyone gets in for just $20! If you are more of the solo type, no problem, reduced admission prices will also be available -$10 for adults, $2 for youth, children 7 and under are free all summer at Scotia Speedworld.

Five CARSTAR Weekly Racing Series divisions will see action including the Toursec Thunder, Strictly Hydraulics Legends, Affordable Fuels & Metro Home Heating Sportsman, Pulse Heavy Duty Trucks and Hydraulics Plus Bandoleros. Racing Action gets underway at 7:00PM.

After two events, the CARSTAR Weekly Racing Series has been heating up quicker than the June weather. Among the highlights from last Friday include Nic Baker (Middle Sackville) becoming a winner for the first time in the Toursec Thunder division while Megan Parrott (Beaver Bank) outdrove two-time track champion Gordie Ritchie (Elmsdale) to score a popular victory with the fans. Of the 13 feature events contested so far in 2017, the CARSTAR Weekly Racing Series has produced 13 different winners.

Dylan Langille will join track announcer Tim Terry as the co-host for $20 Carload Admission Night. Langille is the host of the Saturday Night House Party on 89.3 K-Rock in Kentville, sister station to Scotia Speedworld Media Partner Q104, and is the voice of Valley Raceway in Melvern Square. Langille makes his second Speedworld stop after co-hosting Kiddie Rides in September 2016.

Please note $20 carload admission is not applicable or upgradable to the pit area.

About Scotia Speedworld:

Scotia Speedworld (SSW) is a 3/10-mile asphalt oval racing facility. SSW is the only track in Nova Scotia to host a weekly racing series, which runs May through September and features six different classes of racecars. SSW also hosts special events, including Monster Jam, Nitro Circus and the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour. SSW is located at Exit 6 on Highway 102, across from the Halifax Stanfield International Airport. For more information please click on www.ScotiaSpeedworld.ca or call our Event Hotline at (902) 873-2277 or our office at (902) 481-2514. Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sswracing and follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/sswracing
No one was hurt when an explosion happened on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv overnight.

Kyiv's police were alerted at 00:05 a.m. on June 8 that an explosion had occurred on the premises of the U.S. Embassy, the press service of the Ukraine's National Police said.

"It has been established during an examination that an unknown person threw an unidentified explosive device into the diplomatic mission's premises. No one was hurt as a result of the blast," the Kyiv police department said on its website.

A group made up of detectives from the district department and the central office of Ukraine's National Police is en route to the scene. A criminal investigation has been launched on a count of a terrorist act. Measures are being taken to identify those who could be involved in the incident.
CONCORD, N.C.  June 7, 2017  The World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series will be true invaders next month when the series crosses the border for Canadian stops in Ontario at Brighton Speedway and Cornwall Motor Speedway on June 17 and 18. It will be the only time the Series stops this season in Canada.

The Outlaws have raced twice at Brighton, in 2013 and in 2015. This years visit to the track for the Mud Slingin 50 is a highlight of the tracks 50th anniversary season, said track owner/promoter Mark Rinaldi.

Theres events were doing all year long to help honor the people who made Brighton Speedway what it is today, Rinaldi said. The Outlaws are certainly a part of it and Im happy that everything worked out that we could put them on the schedule this year for our 50th anniversary along with all the other special events.

The Series visits the 1/3-mile Canadian track every other season, which leaves fans excited for the Outlaws return. As the June date draws closer, the energy for the event continues to build.

Every second year people sort of anticipate it and everybody is always waiting for us to make the announcement that theyre coming back, Rinaldi said. Its definitely building momentum as we get closer to the date. You can tell the people are excited.

A number of new stars  including most recent winners 22-year-old Devin Moran and 24-year-old Brandon Sheppard  together with veteran racers like Shane Clanton, Rick Eckert, Chris Madden and Chub Frank, will compete in the Canadian events. Josh Richards and Darrell Lanigan won the previous Outlaw visits to Brighton, but fans will be cheering equally for their favorite Outlaw drivers and local heroes.

Phil Potts and Charlie Sandercock, Brightons past two Late Model track champions, are eager to take on Late Model racings best when the Outlaws roll into town for the weekend.

Im definitely looking forward to it especially after the last couple of seasons weve had where weve learned a bunch more and gained a bunch more knowledge, Sandercock said. Im looking forward to taking on the best in the business at our home track to see what we can do.

Potts echoed Sandercocks sentiment. The Outlaw visit is always among the first races circled on the calendar for the Brighton native.

The superstars of Late Model racing are coming to our backyard, which is so cool, Potts said. These guys can drive and their cars are 900 horsepower. Theyre turning around our little track at unreal speeds.

The Outlaws have typically enjoyed their trips to Brighton every second season. The fast clay oval has a smooth surface with multiple grooves that allows for side by side racing.

When I talk to guys after the race, they cant wait to come back to Brighton again because they love the small track, Potts said. Its a good surface and the fan draw is amazing.

Following the stop at Brighton, the Outlaws will travel east to Cornwall the next night for another $10,000 to win shootout. This years event will be the fifth race for the Series at Cornwall, where Richards has two wins along with victories by Lanigan and Steve Francis. The track is often only host to Late Models once per season, which makes the Outlaw visit popular with some of Ontarios most diehard race fans.

When you bring the World of Outlaws to your track its prestigious, said Cornwall owner/promoter Raymond Lavergne. As a race fan, I really like the Late Models. The World of Outlaws are the best of the best and Im proud to bring them back.

Advanced reserved tickets for the World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series Mud Slingin 50 at Brighton Speedway on June 17 are available online by clicking here or by calling (613) 475-1102. Fans who purchase tickets prior to June 5 will receive a FREE Fan Pit Pass upgrade. Cornwall Motor Speedway tickets are general admission and available at the track on race day.
Investor interest in renewable energy is swelling less than two years after the Paris Agreement was signed to protect the environment globally.

Renewables-focused funds have raised $5 billion this year, outstripping fundraising targeting conventional energy for the first time, according to a Preqin report Wednesday. Fundraising for conventional energy has fallen significantly from its $38 billion peak in 2015, when renewable funds attracted $13.8 billion globally.

Trumps decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, an historic international accord on climate change that world leaders adopted in 2015, isnt likely to stop allocators from investing in renewable energy.

As managers, when you look at renewable energy its less about policy, Tom Carr, head of real assets products at Preqin, said by phone. Now its sort of more about the economics behind it. Investments in renewable energy actually make business sense now.

Tom Sanzillo, director of finance at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis said he views renewable energy investing as a race horse already long out of a gate. And while Trump says we dont want to be part of this race, his move likely wont have an impact on investing in renewables, Sanzillo said.

Institutional investors were quick to denounce the presidents decision last week, with California Public Employees Retirement System and the California State Teachers Retirement System reiterating they stood by the Paris Agreement. Last month 217 institutional investors representing $15 trillion urged world leaders to stand by the accord, which requires nations to reduce carbon emissions to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

The median net internal rate of return from renewable energy investments is just under 5 percent since 2003, less than half the 10.3 percent median net IRR from nonrenewable sources, according to Carr. Still, what matters more is that renewable energy investors are now finally seeing returns. And while investments in nonrenewable energy sources, such as oil, natural gas and coal, have higher returns, Carr noted that these carry a greater risk. This is because renewable sources of energy tend to be more predictable, which makes expected returns more stable, he added.

Sanzillo agreed, noting that renewable energy investments are starting to outperform their targets.

On the equities side, youre seeing investments that are above what investment performance targets are, Sanzillo said. On the listed equity market, theres early evidence that the companies themselves that are involved in renewables are showing profits that are comparable and usually better than power generation utilities.

According to the Preqin report, most allocators favor an investment mix of renewable and nonrenewable energy sources. As a result, fundraising for traditional nonrenewable resources fell 41 percent last year to $22.3 billion while interest in renewable energy has picked up.

The majority of interest in renewable energy investing comes from Europe, according to Preqin. Still, the Paris Agreement may lead emerging markets like China and India to increase their renewable energy investments in the coming years.

More investors will be coming into the renewable space, Carr said. But I dont see conventional energy going anywhere right now.
Edward Pennings faces possible incarceration for five years, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

Edward Pennings, a former managing director of State Street Corp., is pleading guilty to charges that he committed wire and securities fraud in connection with the firms clients.

According to court documents filed June 6 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Pennings faces possible incarceration for five years, supervised release for three years and a potential $250,000 fine. The case against him, and Ross McLellan, a former State Street executive v.p., involved secret commissions applied to billions of dollars of securities trades, according to a U.S. Department of Justice statement made in April 2016 about the charges.

We deeply regret this matter and accept responsibility for the actions of our former employee, a State Street spokeswoman said in an email. We reimbursed the impacted clients, terminated responsible employees, appointed new executives to lead our transition management business."

She said that "over the past five years we have taken significant steps to strengthen our controls for our transition management business, and more broadly to enhance our compliance program, culture and operating environment.

This matter has been disclosed in State Streets public filings since 2012 and was the focus of the firms agreement with the Department of Justice and Securities Exchange Commission earlier this year, the spokeswoman said.

Roger Burlingame, a lawyer for Pennings in London, couldnt immediately be reached for comment.

Pennings was indicted in March 2016 along with Ross McLellan, a former State Street executive v.p. and head of the banks broker-dealer. Prosecutors alleged that the State Street executives were adding secret commissions to trades of at least six clients. McLellan and Pennings then allegedly took steps to hide the commissions from the clients and others within the bank, including compliance staff, the DOJ said in its April 2016 announcement of the indictment.

McLellan pleaded not guilty in April 2016, the Boston Globe reported at the time.

The secret conversations and backroom plotting laid bare in todays charges paint a vivid picture of a brazen fraud, said Carmen M. Ortiz, U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, in the DOJ statement.

In July, the SEC announced that State Street agreed to pay $382.4 million in a global settlement for misleading mutual funds and other custody clients by applying hidden markups to foreign currency exchange trades. The firm also settled with British regulators, paying $38 million over the matter in 2014.
Fund firms are urging the London Stock Exchange and the regulator responsible for stock market listings not to bend the rules to allow Saudi state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco to list part of the organization in the U.K.

On Thursday, investment managers Hermes Investment Management, Royal London Asset Management, and Schroders joined those investors calling on the U.K.s Financial Conduct Authority not to accommodate a float where only a small portion of the company is listed or where normal governance requirements are waived.

In May, Institutional Investors Sovereign Wealth Center reported that Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdoms sovereign wealth fund, was seeking to float part of the state-owned oil giant to boost domestic investment. Saudi Aramco is seeking to float only 5 percent of its shares, according to published reports.

As it stands, companies outside of the U.K. need to list at least 50 percent of their free float shares in London in order to be eligible for inclusion in the FTSE indexes, an LSE spokesman told Institutional Investor. The requirement for U.K. domiciled companies is just 25 percent, he said.

However, just because a company doesnt appear on an index, doesnt mean it is ineligible to be listed. The FCA has the power to allow a company to float, even if it doesnt list 25 percent of the company in London, if it considers that the market would continue to operate properly, according to the LSE spokesman.

To obtain what the LSE calls a premium listing, firms are also required to supply full, audited accounts for the past three years and adhere to the U.K. governance code. Media reports that some exceptions may be made for Saudi Aramco have not gone down well with investors.

We do not believe that a new listing standard to accommodate the IPO of Saudi Aramco would be desirable for investors, said Tim Goodman, director of Hermes EOS at Hermes Investment Management, in an e-mailed response to questions. We believe that the governance protections provided by the Premium Listing standard help maintain very necessary protections for institutional investors and the ordinary people for which they work.

Royal Londons corporate governance manager, Ashley Hamilton Claxton, said that an attempt to bend listing rules to facilitate Saudi Aramcos IPO is highly inappropriate and flagrantly ignores the principles which the UKs listing rules were designed to defend, adding, Given the size of Saudi Aramco, even a five per cent listing would mean the stock would become a key part of many of the passive equity funds. The pension funds of millions could end up holding Aramco shares without many of the governance protections usually available to UK investors.

Jessica Ground, Schroders global head of stewardship, stressed the need to be very firm about the governance standards and free float requirements.

Todays public airing of investor concerns follows private correspondence on June 1 between the Investment Association, which represents U.K. asset managers, and the regulator. In the letter, seen by Institutional Investor, I.A. chief executive Chris Cummings told the FCA that good governance and liquidity are critical elements to the IPO process.

We would like to reiterate our members view that 25% should be the minimum free float level for any premium listed company in the UK, irrespective of the size of the company being listed, Cummings wrote. This should be preserved at all costs to protect the integrity and standard of the UK premium listing.

When asked whether it would be possible for one of the worlds largest companies to be listed in London but not be included in the FTSE 100, the LSE spokesman explained that this would be at the discretion of the FTSE Russell Governance Board, which would consult major passive fund investors to inform its decision, as passive funds often use these indexes as benchmarks. Index fund operators BlackRock and Vanguard did not respond to a request for comment. Saudi Aramco did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.



In an interview with the BBC, Saudi Aramcos chief executive Amin Nasser said, We have always been transparent with our one shareholder, which is the government, and with our board. When we are listed and there are many shareholders, we will be sharing data like any IPOd company is doing, quarterly sharing [of] results and data. When we share it, it will be a pleasant surprise for the rest of the industry.
The European Union is raising Pariss profile as a major financial hub by centralizing the regions regulatory power in the French capital.

Policymakers are increasing the supervisory reach of the European Securities and Markets Authority, the Paris-based regulator that seeks to safeguard the E.U.s financial system, according to a statement from the European Commission Thursday. The regions executive arm, based in Brussels and Luxembourg, said it aims to strengthen the powers of ESMA to promote the effectiveness of consistent supervision across the E.U.

The European Commission made the announcement while detailing its priorities for the regions capital markets union project. The increased power it has granted ESMA represents a major win for Paris, which is seeking to attract asset management firms, banks and traders from the U.K. when it leaves the E.U. in 2019.

ESMA is there, the infrastructure is there and we know the French authorities are wooing financial institutions, said Alasdair Haynes, chief executive officer of Aquis Exchange. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for a land grab.

Its larger role within Europe may prompt more financial firms, which traditionally have preferred to have offices close to where regulatory policy is set, to move staff to France.

Paris is increasingly seen as a financial center of the future, said Haynes, who is also the founder of Aquis Exchange, a London-based firm that began operating as a pan-European equities trading venue in 2013.

Last month, European Central Bank vice president Vitor Constancio signaled that investment firms in the E.U. would be overseen by a single, cross-country regulator. The European Commission is now seeking to bolster ESMAs power, giving it more of the responsibilities traditionally belonging to national regulators within the trading bloc. The move is also meant to protect E.U. investor rights through greater transparency, while helping funds assets to be allocated more efficiently across Europe.

As we face the departure of the largest E.U. financial center, we are committed to stepping up our efforts to further strengthen and integrate the E.U. capital markets, Valdis Dombrovskis, vice president of the European Commission, said in Thursdays statement.

The executive bodys mid-term plan included proposals for a more proportionate regulatory environment for small and medium-sized companies listing on public markets and a review of the prudential treatment of investment firms.

The European Fund and Asset Management Association said the decision to accelerate market integration and prioritize a review of rules governing cross-border distribution of funds was welcomed. Consolidating financial supervision under ESMA would be integral to removing regulatory barriers to selling funds in different European countries, according to the group.

In an emailed statement, Peter De Proft, director general of EFAMA, said fund firms play a vital role in the financing and growth of the European economy, and that a capital markets union would be strengthened by increased competition and the safeguarding of investor protections.

We will continue contributing our expertise and vision of how to build an overall asset management framework that ensures an efficient and attractive investment environment, he said.

The European Commissions announcement came on the same day Reuters reported that 30 to 50 asset managers were now in talks to move to Paris due to Brexit, up from the 30 firms disclosed to Institutional Investor in an April interview with the French Asset Management Association.
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The online used car dealer has hit a new low, making it the most profitable short of the year.
How completely do employers appreciate the terrorism risk to which their travelling employees are exposed in todays world?

Wayne Anstiss, chief underwriting officer for Accident & Health International ( AHI ), tells Insurance Business employers are becoming more cognisant of their evolving duty of care to employees with respect to terrorism and safety and security.

In the past, there was an assumption that these risks only occurred in high-risk countries, like Iraq and Syria. Often it was only people travelling to high-risk areas who sought terrorism cover, such as missionaries or charity workers, Anstiss says. However, as the 2014 Lindt siege and last years Nice and Berlin attacks showed, these incidents can happen anywhere and any time. Organisations need to ensure they have appropriate cover for their people.

Many would be shocked to know there were 100 terror events around the world in the last month alone.

So precisely what types of employers should have terrorism included in their corporate travel coverage?

These days, every organisation should have terrorism included in their corporate travel policy, Anstiss says.

Increasingly, he adds, brokers are seeking AHIs view on client travel risk situations.

We work closely with our assistance provider, Dynamiq , to provide up-to-date advice and information to brokers and their clients. This is not about stopping the business trip, it is about weighing up the risks and putting mitigation strategies in place to maximise the safety and security of the travellers.

An evolving risk

Dynamiqs founder and director of strategy, Anthony Moorhouse , discusses the evolution of terrorism risk since the beginning of the 21st century. He refers to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the USA, carried out by a coordinated group of terrorists using hijacked commercial passenger jets as weapons.

Then, in Mumbai, Bali and Paris, terrorists struck again but with more conventional weapons. The tools used were simple yet deadly explosives and small arms, but the planning was still complex and mass casualties and panic caused.

Moorhouse notes the increased frequency of attacks that has come with the rise of ISIS.

But ISIS has also given rise to another form of attack  the lone wolf assault, he explains.

This attack is characterised by the use of unsophisticated weapons  without a highly coordinated team carrying out the attack. The introduction of such attacks, marked with allegiance to various terror groups, has made the jobs of law enforcement, security and risk managers that much harder.

In many situations, these attacks may not be able to be foreseen or prevented, so a wellexercised emergency response plan is vital.

Moorhouse mentions last Junes nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.

It was simply undertaken by a lone wolf who used his attack for notoriety, pledging allegiance to ISIS in the midst of carrying out his violence. He used military-style weapons and masses of ammunition in a traditional hostage or mass shooting situation.

Moorhouse describes the 2016 attacks in Nice and Berlin  carried out by lone wolf actors using trucks  as both particularly shocking and representative of another evolution in terrorists tactics.

In many ways, the blunt-force trauma caused by a speeding truck was worse than a large, sophisticated explosive device, he says.

This has required organisations, insurers and assistance providers to review their travel risk policies and procedures, and adapt them to this new threat environment.

Check the cover

Anstiss emphasises the need for brokers and their clients to check their cover to ensure its adequacy.

Its no good just having cover that pays a specific benefit amount for a terrorism event, because this doesnt help the traveller when they are in the middle of a terror incident, Anstiss says.

The policy must include effective security and medical emergency response. In an emergency, an organisation must be able to immediately identify who is involved and be given updates on their safety and security in the quickest possible time.

Looking beyond coverage, Moorhouse talks about the ways in which employers  and the brokers advising them  can work to ensure an organisations employees are best protected against terrorism risk.

As an employer, you cant protect your people every minute of the day. However, its part of your duty of care to have a plan in place for when the unthinkable happens to your people, whether they were specifically targeted or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he says.

This includes assessing the specific risks at the location in which the employee is travelling, as well as assessing the particular risks of the traveller. Once you have assessed the risks, you turn your attention to mitigating those risks.

One way a company can do so, Moorhouse says, is by warning its people of potential incidents that could affect them.

Intelligence alerts or push notifications are a great way to inform your people about threats and potential impacts to their safety, he says.

He adds that its important to make a travelling workforce aware of the risks that exist in the country in which theyll be travelling and to arm them with appropriate training to mitigate those risks.

We are working with Amazon Web Services, for example, to roll out hostile environment awareness training to their travelling staff, which looks at both country-specific and personal risks, Moorhouse says.

Its also important for organisations to take a step back and look at their broader resilience strategy. Most businesses have looked at crisis management through a business continuity lens, but theyre only looking inside the fence. They will look at what would happen if a terror incident directly affects their head office or people, but wont look at the wider ramifications if a larger scale terror event was to occur outside the wire. Consideration needs to be given to everything from supply chains and partners to suppliers and contractors.

Terrorism risk aside

Asked to cite other essential inclusions in a corporate travel policy, Anstiss talks about the importance of a security assistance component.

This is necessary for when an employee experiences a direct personal threat, he says.

For example, we had a traveller who was in the Philippines on a work trip. He was touring an area with a local resort owner and was riding on the back of his motorbike. The resort owner collided with a police bike, killing both drivers. The police and the resort owners family were soon threatening the traveller. Through Dynamiq, we were able to arrange for a security team to go in and get the traveller to safety before the situation deteriorated to violence.

Anstiss refers to another case that illustrates the importance of a security component in a corporate travel policy.

One of our travellers had some personal images of himself and his partner in Indonesia. During the trip, he broke up with his partner and was subsequently blackmailed by the ex-partner, who threatened to go to the local authorities with the photos.

We sent in a security team to get the traveller out of the country and to safety.

Its also essential, Anstiss says, for medical expenses to be covered under the policy.

There are many countries in which a hospital stay can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Interestingly, he notes that the USA is probably no longer the most expensive location in the world when it comes to medical expenses.

Major Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Hong Kong and others like Singapore quite often exceed the USA in medical costs, Anstiss says.



Being covered for financial collapse is another one to watch out for. You only need to cast your mind back to the collapse of Ansett or Strategic Airlines to understand that airlines, travel agents and hotels do go bust and its best to be covered.


A Townsville resident whos had it with premium increases on his home and contents cover has urged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to move staff to Northern Australia to monitor premiums and insurer profits.The call was in response to premium hikes and years of inquiries, the latest of which is the Northern Australian Insurance Premiums Taskforce report, which found that insurers are pricing their premiums to align with high cyclone risks.Bob Chad made the suggestion to move ACCC staff to North Queensland as he charged insurance companies with ripping off people, and politicians with not doing anything to resolve the issue, Townsville Bulletin reported.Chad said his North Ward home saw a 250% increase in home and contents premiums in the five years to 2017. He managed to make a significant reduction by changing insurers and increasing the excess on the policy tenfold to $2,500.We are all black-listed because we live north of Rocky, Chad told the publication. Weve had all the politicians carry on but nothing has happened.The taskforce report revealed that premium rates for home and contents in North Queensland are an average 1.5 times more than in Brisbane, and 2.5 times higher compared to those in Sydney and Melbourne in 2012-13. For North Queensland strata properties, the rates are on average five times those in southern cities.Commenting on the premium increases, Chad said they had become so high, pensioners and people with lower incomes could no longer afford them.I feel sorry for pensioners and people on a basic wage. I dont know how they can afford it, he told Townsville Bulletin.He said that by transferring staff into North Queensland, ACCC would get a better understanding of what was occurring on the ground.Meanwhile, there have been calls to create a mutual insurer providing cover, underwritten by the Government, to address the high cost of insurance, the report said.
Groping insurance may not exist in Australia, but sales have taken off in Japan.Train travel can often become an ordeal for women in Japan, with sexual assault and harassment not uncommon on public transport. In response, male commuters are taking out insurance to protect themselves in case they are falsely accused.For 6,400 yen ($77), customers can purchase a false groping accusation benefit plan as a spate of incidents in the country have seen men suspected of molesting female passengers flee the scene along railway tracks.Around 50 policies a month have been sold in the past several years, which has now spiralled to several hundred in the last month alone.The plan, devised and sold by the Small Amount and Short Term Insurance company, covers legal costs for policyholders who find themselves fronting a false charge, The Daily Mail reported.It is impossible to know whether one will be caught up in a groping incident, company president Shoji Sugimoto told the Mainichi. We are here to provide help to people who feel anxious about the issue.Originally set-up in 2015, the policy was a fringe benefit that included cover for fees of any legal consultation, including domestic or traffic incidents, but a helpline service set-up by the firm  which alerted lawyers practising in the vicinity of a groping incident  proved to be a big hit with customers.In Japan, approximately 1,800 arrests are made each year under public nuisance laws.
During Wednesday, June 7, Russian-occupation troops provoked a significant aggravation of the situation in the area of Zhelobok settlement in the Luhansk region, where they attempted to seize strongholds of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) and expand the bridgehead near Zhelobok, the press centre of the ATO headquarters has reported.

"The enemy used heavy artillery and mortars. The enemy tank was firing on the Ukrainian army positions from 14:20 until 21:00 from the direction of the temporarily occupied village of Frunze. And these actions occurred against the backdrop of information interference in the media space. The main informational reason was the unfounded accusation of the Ukrainian Army in the offensive in this direction," a report says on the official website of the press centre of the ATO headquarters on Facebook.

According to the report, attempts to seize positions of the Armed Forces were successfully repulsed and the fighters suffered losses - 25 people, 11 of whom were killed as of 22:00 of Wednesday.

"Eyewitnesses report that mobile operating units, bed-trucks for the removal of bodies of the deceased have been deployed and intensive traffic of ambulances has been observed in the occupied town of Stakhanov (Kadiyivka)," the report says.

Russian media reported that the leaders of militants controlling temporarily occupied areas of the Luhansk region accuse the Ukrainian side and other participants of the Minsk process.

In particular, they quote ORLO leader Igor Plotnitsky as saying that responsibility for the bloodshed in Donbas, along with Poroshenko, should be borne by the OSCE, as well as by the leaders of Germany and France, who do not use opportunities to force the Kyiv regime to seek peace."
Global Aerospace, the latest UK insurance firm to reveal its post-Brexit plans, is not following the pack. While CNA Hardy, RSA , and AIG are setting up their European subsidiaries in Luxembourg, Global Aerospace has picked Paris for the move.Other insurers are considering destinations such as Dublin ( Beazley ), Brussels (Lloyds of London, QBE ), and Munich (Markel). However, for Global Aerospace, the most important factor is market presence.We already have a team there (Paris) and it is already an important marketplace for aviation insurance, Global Aerospace chief executive Nick Brown was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.He said Global Aerospace will ensure it is able to provide services across Europe on an uninterrupted basis, regardless of the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.The firms offerings include aerospace manufacturer insurance, airline insurance, airport & ground handler insurance, and even space & satellite insurance.Meanwhile, another insurer is also considering market presence in its shortlisting options. Life insurer Chesnara, while taking a wait-and-see approach , cited the Netherlands and Sweden as potential headquarters if the firm finds it necessary to move.
It seems that the terror events of the last few weeks have taken their toll on the UK  with an increasing number of people cancelling their visits to the capital. A report by Travel Agent Central said Allianz Global Assistance has so far received 70 claims from US travellers who have decided not to go ahead with their trips.



With Europe currently under a travel alert from the US State Department until September 01, it wont be a surprise if more cancellations come. The travel alert, which was issued even before the London Bridge attack where seven people were killed, said extremists continue to focus on tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets/shopping malls, and local government facilities as viable targets.



In addition, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, high-profile events, educational institutions, airports, and other soft targets remain priority locations for possible attacks, read the alert.



Also succeeding the travel alert was the suicide bombing at Manchester Arena which caused the death of more than 20 people. The event, among other recent terrorist attacks in Europe, has countered earlier tourism forecasts.



Before the Manchester bombing, the travel insurance provider (Allianz Global Assistance) had released a study forecasting a rise in summer travel to London and Paris despite an earlier string of terrorist attacks, said Travel Agent Central.



The insurers report was based on online airfare and package bookings for partners offering Allianz travel insurance for itineraries arriving in Europe from May 29 to September 07. It forecast travel to London to rise 36.55% year over year.



Meanwhile, the US State Department said it continues to work closely with its European partners and allies on the threat from international terrorism.








The Federal Reserve has ordered a Georgia bank to pay $1.5 million in penalties for what it found was a pattern or practice of violations of the National Flood Insurance Act.However, authorities did not specify what these violations were in an order issued on May 24 ordering SunTrust Banks to pay the civil fine to the National Flood Insurance Program.The Federal Reserve specified, though, that the violations were in relation to a regulation prohibiting banks from making loans to properties in special flood hazard zones unless they are protected by flood insurance, according to a report by local media outlet Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Flood law defines a special flood zone as those areas that are likely to experience flooding at least once every 100 years.In the report, a SunTrust spokesperson said: We have made enhancements to our flood insurance program since these issues occurred in 2012 to 2013.In the order, the Federal Reserve did not specify the number of violations committed by the financial institution, but said that each violation carries a fine of up to $2,000.
He allegedly talked Farmers Insurance into paying for a car that was trashed on the race circuit, but a YouTube video proved to be drag racer Tim Barnums undoing.Barnum filed a claim for damage on his Ford Mustang in 2015, stating it was damaged when his tire blew out in a Georgia highway and hit a center barrier, which destroyed the front end of his car.Local media outlet Oklahomas Own reported that Farmers cut him a check for more than $13,000 and another to Tinker Federal Credit Union worth almost $19,000 as lien holder.However, a YouTube video of the crash that actually damaged Barnums car was eventually unearthed early this year. It documents the collision that took place in Thunder Valley Raceway, where Barnum was drag racing.The towing service that picked up Barnums car from the track also admitted to delivering the Mustang to his pit after the crash. The bill was apparently made to Garnum and not Barnum.The Oklahoma Attorney Generals office has since filed a criminal charge of false claim for insurance with the Oklahoma County District Court.Barnum reportedly said he made the fraudulent claim because Farmers didnt ask about his drag racing hobby. He also said he had been engaging in the sport for years and never had to file a claim. Investigators said he eventually admitted that he made the false claim because he had a hunch Farmers wouldnt cover the damage.He surrendered to the authorities but eventually posted bail.
The Hartford is working to educate college students about opportunities in the insurance industry while helping to make the transition from college to an insurance career an easier one.

This initiative comes through its recent partnership with the Connecticut Department of Labor, the Arizona Department of Economic Security and local community colleges to launch an insurance apprenticeship program.

The program serves as the first U.S.-based registered insurance apprenticeship program, which was signed at a ceremony at the U.S. Department of Labor on Nov. 17, 2016. Through current partnerships and others in development, The Hartford plans to onboard 200 apprentices by 2020.

The program allows The Hartford to engage potential talent in claims early in their college careers, helping to build awareness of insurance as a great career path, said John Kinney, The Hartfords chief claims officer.

We have expectations that the program will flourish, allowing us to grow in other parts of the country.

The apprenticeship program offers an insurance-specific curriculum, paid on-the-job training and mentoring to equip students for customer-facing roles in The Hartfords claims operation. It is registered with the U.S. Department of Labor, which provides tuition assistance for participating students through its American Apprenticeship Grant Initiative.

The program was initially launched in partnership with two colleges  Capital Community College in Hartford, Conn., and Rio Salado College in metro Phoenix, Ariz.

The Hartford took a tremendous lead on this effort by seeing the value in apprenticeships and doing what was necessary to get the program approved on a federal level, said Dr. Linda Guzzo, dean of the School of Workforce and Continuing Education at Capital Community College. They had looked at what Zurich had done in the past and said theres no reason why a U.S. company cant do the same with an apprenticeship program.

Students involved in the program will complete 61 credit hours of college coursework and 2,400 hours of paid on-the-job-training at The Hartford claims center in Windsor, Conn., or in Phoenix. The curriculum includes courses in insurance-specific topics as well as critical thinking, business analytics and communications.

Graduates will earn registered apprenticeship credentials, and when they become full-time employees of The Hartford, they will be eligible for additional tuition reimbursement to complete their bachelors degree.

This serves to not only help The Hartford recruit and retain skilled claims professionals outside of the traditional college track, but also to help students gain education, training and a full-time position within the company, Kinney said.

We are always looking for ways to identify, recruit and develop a wide array of talent, he explained. We know significant, diverse talent already exists in community colleges.

Rio Salado and Capital Community College were chosen as early partners because they understood the advantages of an apprenticeship program in their city and at their schools, he said.

Capital Community College is close to our headquarters, and Rio Salado is a great partner that already has an insurance-studies curriculum, Kinney added.

Rio Salado College

Rick Kemp, dean of instruction and partnerships at Rio Salado College, said the school is on track for having up to 10 students to start the apprenticeship program in August.

Our hope would be starting next year to have 10 to 20 students, Kemp said.

He said most of the students set to be involved in the apprenticeship program are reentry students looking to retool their lives and careers. The typical student is roughly 29 years old with some work experience.

These are folks who are re-careering, Kemp stated.

The courses required for the apprenticeship program are: GBS157 Insurance Industry Profession; GBS263 Personal Insurance; GBS258 Property and Liability Insurance; GBS265 Claim Handling Principles and Practices; GBS266 Auto Claim Practices.

The school is working with The Hartford to bring on two adjunct faculty from the carrier as instructors to teach the five courses.

This is being done so that specific Hartford examples and context can be provided to supplement the courses, Kemp said.

The school last year launched an associate of applied science in insurance studies, which isnt a required track for those wanting to qualify for the apprenticeship program.

The AA consists of a core of 18 credits. Beside general education and specific insurance-related courses, other courses include accounting, business communications, financial planning and marketing courses.

There are currently 25 students enrolled in the AA program.

Were just getting underway, Kemp said.

He said time and resources are just now being spent on both the AA program and the apprenticeship program, and those efforts have begun with a local and focused outreach. However, he hopes to step up and eventually broaden those efforts.

Right now, our outreach is very localized, Kemp added.

With this expansion of apprenticeship training into the professional world, Kemp said he hopes to help break the paradigm of higher education apprenticeship programs involving only trade-related career paths.

Capital Community College

This strategy is one being implemented at Capital Community College as well, which officially welcomed The Hartfords first class of insurance apprentices during an event taking place at the college at the end of May.

Apprenticeships are being viewed differently than they have been viewed in the past, Guzzo said. Traditionally, theyve been more for trades. Now, theyre being looked at as an option for jobs such as those in the insurance industry.

Students in the program at Capital Community College are required to be in a business administration, two-year degree program and be one year away from completion of their associates degree, Guzzo said. They are required to have a 3.0 GPA, and as part of application process, they have to write an essay and have letters of recommendation from faculty. They also have to go through a college interview and be interviewed by The Hartford before selections are made.

Its a pretty intense process to be accepted into the program because the commitment is also very rigorous, so we want to be sure we have the right match of students for the job, Guzzo stated. It is part of the community colleges mission to assist our businesses and residents of the state. Part of that is to create a pipeline of a highly skilled workforce to support economic growth, so that is the reason we have gotten into this. Its really just at the heart of what we do.

This first group of students will complete the program in May 2018, Guzzo said. They will receive the Hartford-specific customer service training, which is a five week program, and they will also be taking courses with the college on ethics, P&C insurance, liability, auto claims, claims management and personal insurance.

This new program is an innovative way to develop Connecticuts insurance talent and provide promising careers for our residents, said Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy in prepared remarks. It supports our communities and helps the state expand into non-traditional apprenticeships to help grow our major industry sectors.

Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Scott D. Jackson echoed Malloys enthusiasm in an emailed statement to Insurance Journal, adding: By creating new pathways to educational opportunities and well-paying jobs for our residents, we are also helping to build a skilled workforce for Connecticut companies.

Future Outlook

Although The Hartford is focusing its efforts solely in Connecticut and Arizona while the program is still newly launched, it expects that the program will expand in the future, Kinney said.

The Hartfords claim organization has conceived and piloted this concept to fill entry-level customer-facing roles, he said. Over time, its possible other departments at The Hartford may consider creating apprentice positions as well. We have expectations that the program will flourish, allowing us to grow in other parts of the country.

Additionally, Capital Community College plans to offer the apprenticeship program at a much larger scale in the future and make it available to other companies beyond The Hartford, Guzzo said.

The college is in the process of designing a claims simulation training center, which it hopes to complete by the fall, as well as develop a credit insurance certificate program so students will be able to earn additional college credit.

As part of the apprenticeship right now, weve been focused on new hires, Guzzo said. In the future, well also be able to do the apprenticeship for incumbent workers. So if employers have individuals that they want to have become apprentices and be trained to move into other roles in the company, well be branching into that as well. We have a lot of things on the horizon following this initial launch.

Willie Higgins, apprenticeship program lead coordinator for the Arizona Department of Economic Security, said it is also working to expand the apprenticeship program in Arizona and is in ongoing talks with a major carrier.

We will be in talks with creating an apprenticeship program for State Farm, Higgins said. Were looking forward to expanding it.

He said the deal with State Farm is still in the works, and he had no timeline for a deal to be worked out.

The apprenticeship program is registered through the Department of Labor and the Arizona Department of Economic Security, which means apprentices will have nationally recognized certification upon completion of the program, he said.

We recruit people for employers, Higgins said. Some people are just not aware that these opportunities exist.

He was referring not only to apprenticeship opportunities in general, but opportunities available in the insurance industry, which he would like to introduce to not only continuing education college students but high school students just coming into college as well.

As apprenticeships can help these students gain a foot in the door with the insurance industry early on, Kemp added that he sees the potential for programs like this to become more common.

I see this as being the future, Kemp said. Apprenticeships have been a highly successful model, and I think theres great potential for expansion into this area. Bottom line for us in higher education is we want our students to get jobs and thats what our students do.

Topics USA Claims Talent Market Education Training Development Connecticut Universities Arizona
Markel Corp., in a bid to boost innovation and competitiveness, combined its Wholesale and Global arms into one entity to be known as Markel Assurance.

Wholesale consists of excess and surplus lines and Global Insurance handles complex, risk managed accounts. The current president of Markel Wholesale  Bryan Sanders  will lead the new division. Britt Glisson, president of Markel Global Insurance and a 40-year industry veteran, will assist in the transition and then retire in 2018.

Along with the new Markel Assurance, Markels other insurance/reinsurance divisions are Markel Specialty, Markel International and Markel Global Reinsurance.

Richard Whitt, Markel co-chief executive officer, said that the combination aligns its structure more closely with both production partners and customers, and the change will help boost innovation and efficiency.

We are committed to innovation and to making it easier to do business with Markel  establishing this new division accomplishes both of those objectives, Whitt said in prepared remarks.

Sanders, added, also in prepared remarks, that the combined operations will help Markel maintain its leadership position and increase our market presence in both the wholesale and large account retail market space.

Markel said the combined division will have underwriting teams in the U.S., Bermuda, Dublin and London and handle gross written premium of about $1.8 billion annually. Products for the division will originate from casualty, professional liability and property/marine lines, and underwriting leads for those product lines will report to Robin Russo, Markels chief underwriting officer.

Source: Markel

This article first appeared in Insurance Journals sister publication, Carrier Management.
South Africas property and casualty insurers face an even tougher year than expected after Cape Town experienced its worst storm in 30 years and dozens of fires engulfed the region around the town of Knysna this week.

The insurers, including Santam Ltd., Old Mutual Plcs Mutual & Federal and Rand Merchant Investment Holdings Ltd.s OUTsurance unit, are already being battered by an economy that slipped into a recession in the first quarter, the countrys credit rating downgrade to junk status, continued political turmoil and unemployment at a 14-year high.

Profit will be under pressure, said Richard Hasson, an analyst at Electus Fund Managers in Cape Town. In a weak economic environment, such as low gross domestic product growth and increasing unemployment, claims typically pick up, which will not be good for them. The recent fires and storms will affect the companies.

The storm in Cape Town claimed at least nine lives, blew roofs off houses, flooded buildings, downed power lines and forced schools to close on Wednesday. About a five-hour drive to the east, around the wealthy towns of Knysna and Plettenberg Bay, more than 26 fires broke out late Wednesday, with severe devastation in at least 12 suburbs, according to local government officials.

The expected influx of claims may not push the bigger property and casualty insurers into losses for the year, but companies like Zurich Insurance Co. South Africa Ltd. and Auto & General Insurance Ltd. may struggle, Adrian Cloete, analyst at PSG Wealth, said by phone from Cape Town. The reinsurance programs will help to absorb the impact, although underwriting margins are likely to contract, he said.

Stocks Drop

Santam, which on May 31 said underwriting results are under pressure, dropped as much as 2.9 percent to its lowest level on a closing basis in almost four months. Old Mutual declined as much as 1.1 percent and RMI fell more than 2 percent.

Due to Santams size and diversification from a line of business and geographic perspective it is best positioned to contain the losses, but theoretically it is the most exposed and the impact on earnings will still be material, said Warwick Bam, analyst at Avior Capital Markets. Mutual & Federals underwriting margin has been under significant pressure in recent years. I expect it will struggle to make an underwriting profit in 2017 given these events.

That said, there are some events that may help the insurers this year. The rand has strengthened almost 7 percent against the dollar, meaning that any imported goods for repairs will be cheaper than they were last year. While the equity market has been subdued, bonds have gained and insurers investment returns may be at historic levels, according to Bam. The likes of Santam and OUTsurance have also expanded outside of South Africa in their search for growth.

Golf Balls

I expect 2017 to be a tough but not catastrophic year, Hasson said. Generally they have reinsurance structures in place that limit their losses normally to around 50 million rand to 100 million rand ($7.8 million) per event. And in aggregate the outlook for farming in 2017 for South Africa is better than 2016, which should also provide some relief.

Still, with only half the year gone the risk of hail stones as big as golf balls damaging cars and property later in the year remains, PSGs Cloete said. While the claims environment has been relatively benign in the past few years, a repeat of the summer storms in and around Johannesburg in 2012 and 2013 would significantly impact underwriting margins, he said.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Carriers Trends Windstorm
A Columbus man on disability benefits for a workplace injury must reimburse the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation (BWC) $35,000 after investigators found him collecting and selling 46 tons of scrap metal during a time he purported to be disabled.

Richard Claffey, 53, pleaded guilty to a fifth-degree felony count of workers compensation fraud in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. In addition to restitution, he must serve five years of community control in lieu of six months in prison.

An anonymous source told us Mr. Claffey was junking everyday, picking up refrigerators and stoves and driving through alleys every evening to collect metal and sell it to local scrap yards, said Jim Wernecke, director of BWCs Special Investigations Department (SID). Some might call junking more of a hobby than a profession, but we found Mr. Claffey made a living from these efforts, which disqualified him from receiving BWC benefits.

Claffey suffered a workplace injury in 2010 while working for a landscaping company.

Source: Ohio BWC

Topics Workers' Compensation Ohio
Rolling Meadows, Illinois-based Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has acquired Ann Arbor, Michigan-based insurance brokerages Armstrong/Robitaille/Riegle Inc. and Ann Arbor Business Advisors LLC. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Armstrong/Robitaille/Riegle is a full-service insurance broker offering employee benefits, retirement planning, life insurance and human resource consulting, as well as commercial and personal property/casualty coverages, to clients primarily in Michigan and California. It specializes in multi-state groups.

Ann Arbor Business Advisors provides retirement plan services for institutional clients.

Laurie E. Riegle, Charles Kennedy and their associates will continue to operate in Ann Arbor under the direction of John Neumaier, head of Gallaghers Great Lakes employee benefits consulting and brokerage operations, and Cindy LaMantia, head of Gallaghers Great Lakes retail property/casualty brokerage operations.

Source: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Agencies Michigan A.J. Gallagher
The U.S. Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief on Tuesday in a lawsuit brought against Wells Fargo & Co. by two former employees, who were fired after they reported misdemeanors they had noticed to their supervisors.

The DOJs filing concluded that the appellate court, which had earlier dismissed the case, should revisit and modify its analysis.

The plaintiffs, Paul Bishop and Robert Kraus, had said the Wall Street bank had requested Federal Reserve loans on various occasions when it was in violation of certain banking regulations, in a complaint filed in 2011.

The suit, which was filed under the False Claims Act, is designed to encourage people to bring to light evidence of fraud against the government.

We continue to believe these claims are without merit, as the previous court decisions have confirmed, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman said in an email statement.

We look forward to the opportunity to again present legal arguments to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, she added.

The filing follows a Supreme Court ruling in February that had also asked the appellate court to review the matter, the New York Times said in a report.

(Reporting by John Benny in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)
U.S. embassy in Kyiv says it doesn't see overnight explosion as terrorist act

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine does not consider the explosion that occurred over the night into Thursday in the territory of the diplomatic mission, a terrorist act.

"At present, we do not consider this incident a terrorist act. The embassy closely cooperates with our partners from local law enforcement agencies in the investigation of this incident," the embassy said in a statement posted on Facebook.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced today that the California Department of Insurance has reached a settlement agreement with Berkshire Hathaway subsidiaries to stop what he calls bait and switch marketing tactics used to sell a workers compensation insurance products.

In May 2016, in response to a complaint by a small business owner and after a hearing by an administrative law judge, Jones determined California Insurance Company and Applied Underwriters, both subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway, were selling a workers comp product with illegal side agreements that modified the obligations of the parties under the policy.

Such agreements, known as Reinsurance Participation Agreements or RPAs, require department review and approval. The Berkshire companies used the agreements without first obtaining the departments approval.

For example, the RPA did not disclose basic premium information, levied penalties for policy cancellation, failed to disclose required binding arbitration outside the U.S., and obfuscated the methodology for calculating premiums, deposits, or other payments due.

Jones concluded that Applied Underwriters was trying to avoid regulatory oversight.

The settlement notes that the RPA was an unfiled product but the insurers conceded that it falls under the commissioners oversight and jurisdiction and has to be filed with the Department of Insurance. It also includes new disclosures that will provide policyholders with key details regarding the product.

This is a significant victory in protecting California businesses from sophisticated bait and switch marketing tactics, Jones said in a statement. We have gone to the limit of our authority over workers compensation insurance products in winning concessions that eliminate oppressive contract terms, such as the insurer requiring arbitration in the British Virgin Islands. The revised product terms include lower rates, improved disclosures, and limiting sale of the product only to companies that can absorb the substantial risks.

Related:

Topics California Workers' Compensation Underwriting
Youd think climate change activists now living under a new reality created by a U.S. president making good on his promise to withdraw the nation from the Paris accord on global warming would feel at least a bit vexed or marginalized.

Yes, can count them among the countless rancorous voices lamenting President Trumps decision to pull out of the Paris agreement, but the folks at Ceres say they arent grieving and that they definitely dont feel helpless.

Ceres, a sustainability advocacy group in Boston, Ma., believes Trumps withdrawal in fact creates great opportunity with those who the president has said hes protecting with the move: Americas business community.

Thats the very constituency were seeing now stepping up and owning this and owning the responsibility for building a low carbon economy, said Cynthia McHale, director of the Ceres insurance program.

McHale and Max Messervy, the insurance program manager at Ceres, shortly after Trump announced his decision said that they expect to see corporate and investor commitments to climate action to only grow stronger.

According to Ceres, The Hartford and Allianz are among 1,200-and-counting executives, firms and other entities signing a new We Are Still In initiative pledging to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.

The initiative, which has a website outlining the pledge and those making it, was coordinated by Ceres, as well as groups like the American Sustainable Business Council, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Center for American Progress, Climate Mayors, Environmental Defense Fund, Environmental Entrepreneurs, Sierra Club, We Mean Business and World Wildlife Fund.

Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, and Bill De Blasio, New York Citys mayor, are on the list, as are states including California, Hawaii, New York, and Washington.

Names of businesses on the list include Adidas, Microsoft, Netflix, Patagonia, Starbucks and Tesla.

Efforts coming together on numerous fronts in the wake of the decision to leave Paris have given McHale and Messervy more encouragement in their ongoing efforts to get insurers to talk more about climate change and disclose their risks to climate change, they say.

Its clearly a turn a frown upside down, make lemons from lemonade, and then take the high road form of rhetoric theyre offering up in the face of questions like Isnt this going to make things tougher for you? followed by You cant be saying Trumps decision doesnt mean a thing?

But they can easily backup their words with evidence that people who think something must be done to combat climate change are being galvanized by the Trump decision.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein last week used the first tweet he reportedly ever sent out to criticize Trumps decision to back out of the Paris climate pact. Also last week, Tesla head Elon Musk and Disneys Robert Iger quit Trumps advisory councils citing his decision.

McHale and Messervy believe the uncertainty created by whether the U.S. public should continue working to combat climate change or if the nation should support Trumps decision has enabled businesses, numerous public entities and myriad groups to step into the vacuum that has been created and to take action. Whereas under the previous administration, which clearly indicated its intention to wholeheartedly follow the accord, the incentive was more to follow than to act, they said.

One of Ceres most influential functions is amassing an insurer disclosure report every other year. The report, Insurer Climate Risk Disclosure Survey Report and Scorecard, evaluates the quality of responses from insurance companies in the annual National Association of Insurance Commissioners Climate Risk Disclosure Survey.

Putting together the report has McHale and Messervy reaching out to insurers nationwide to solicit information on practices and investments that some carriers would rather not share.

Will Trumps decision, and the fact that the nations leader has been vocal in his negative feelings about combating climate change, make gathering this information tougher? And wont certain carriers that have been reluctant to hand over this information now feel even less obliged to do so, or just not cooperate at all?

Messervy, of course, painted the glass as half-full on these points as well.

He believes public attitudes toward climate change will continue to steer businesses in all sectors toward greater transparency and continue to give them a more environmentally friendly bent.

There is actually this amazing shift toward increasing disclosure and transparency over what companies are doing and are not doing related to climate risk, Messervy said.

He believes pressure from shareholders to disclose climate related risks and investments will only grow more. In fact, Exxon Mobil shareholders at the end of May approved a proposal calling for the company to disclose the impact on its business of compliance with global climate change guidelines.

According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly six-in-10 people disagree with Turmps decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. Nearly half of those polled believe it will cost jobs vs. 39 percent saying it will create jobs.

No doubt the Trump decision will have an impact that advocates like Ceres do not like. Under Obama, the terms climate change and global warming began to go from unspeakable dirty political words to becoming more socially accepted terms that could be used with little more than the risk of a heated personal debate on social media.

Theres a chance that such phrases may once again be regarded as the kind of political speak to be avoided at all costs.

McHale in the past has pointed out that the attitudes of U.S. insurers differ from their European counterparts when it comes to climate change. She has publicly stated that U.S. insurance sector is reluctant to use the phrase climate change, which is almost becoming silly.

She couldnt pinpoint any one reason for the past reluctance to use these phrases in the U.S.

Weve been asking that for years now, McHale said.

Some insurers have told her that to use those words opens them up to climate or environmental litigation, others have told her theres just no business benefit to talking about climate change (insurance companies dont sell flood insurance). A few have said its a politicized issue in the U.S. and they dont want to risk alienating policyholders.

Absolutely the industry has been skittish on it, she said. Nowhere it seems to be more of an issue using the words climate change than with the insurance industry.

Neither McHale nor Messervy wanted to give their take on whether the Trump decision will make these the dirty words they once were.

Pressed for at least a few hard words on the Trump decision, McHale relented.

Clearly its a mistake, McHale said. Its a mistake for so many reasons, whether its the U.S. economy, or whether its the perception and understanding of the countrys global leadership and the respect for the United States, or whether its the wrong decision for the environment. I dont think theres any way to mince words on it. On any front, it was the wrong choice.

Past columns:

Topics Carriers USA Climate Change Pollution
Note: This article originally appeared in the Texas Tribune.

Eighteen months ago, the Texas Tribune and ProPublica asked the federal government for some documents.

At the time, we were investigating what will happen the next time a massive hurricane hits Houston, and because the city is home to a massive oil refining complex, we knew a big oil spill was one likely consequence.

Its happened before: During Hurricane Katrina, rushing water caused one refinerys oil tank to rupture, sending oil into more than 1,700 homes a mile away. And the Houston area has many schools and neighborhoods that are less than a mile from large refineries and oil storage terminals.

For months, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica tried in vain to get specific information about what could happen if any of the thousands of massive oil tanks along the Houston Ship Channel sprung a leak during a hurricane; whether companies that owned the tanks were prepared; and whether nearby communities understood the risk. Our last hope, we were told, were documents called Facility Response Plans that big facilities must submit to the Environmental Protection Agency.

So we asked for the plans submitted by more than a dozen oil refineries and storage terminals that sit along a 50-mile waterway known as the Houston Ship Channel.

That was in January 2016. The documents finally arrived late last month, but they shed little new light on our original questions.

Ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, its becoming increasingly difficult to get any information about the risks of an accident happening along the Houston Ship Channel. That was apparent as we fought to get these documents.

A month after our initial open records request, we got a call from EPA lawyers. They said the documents were voluminous and, before releasing them to us, the agency would have to consult with the Department of Homeland Security because of potential sensitive information in the plans.

That agency is basically the place where public information requests go to die.

There was a way to potentially avoid this, or at least speed it up, the EPA said: Narrow the scope of your request. Ask only for a portion of the plan known as vulnerability analysis.

That seemed reasonable. According to federal law, those documents address the potential effects (i.e. to human health, property, or the environment) of an oil discharge on nearby water intakes, schools, residential areas, businesses, and other places. So we agreed to tweak our request.

Thank you, we will continue to process your request, the EPA wrote in an email in February 2016.

A month later, the agency called again with more news: They were ready to provide us with one facilitys vulnerability analysis, for Shell Oils refinery in Deer Park. All the other documents would have to go through the agency where public information requests go to die.

Still, getting Shells document was great news: The refinery is one of the largest in the country, with a crude oil capacity of 14 million gallons. Then the document arrived. It was two pages long and 13 years old  from 2003.

The main detail in those two pages: Oil that spills from the refinery could travel as much as 15 miles away in the event of a spill, depending on weather conditions and the time of day.

When we asked the company for more details, a spokesman told us they updated their Facility Response Plan in 2012. We still dont know why the EPA only produced the 2003 version.

The company also sent us some other portions of the plan  even though the EPA had insisted that any other portion could have sensitive information that could impact national security.

The additional documents noted that Shell had installed new firewalls around its tanks to protect them from damage. They added that an oil spill might affect the heavy concentration of industrial companies near the refinery, as well as adjoining bayous, waterways, bays and wetlands that are environmentally sensitive areas.

More than a year would pass before the EPA gave us any more vulnerability analyses. When they finally arrived on May 23, they were equally underwhelming.

The Stolthaven Houston Terminal stores chemicals, petroleum products and vegetable oils in 188 tanks right by the ship channel. Its analysis is one page long, and is simply a list of features near the terminal that might be affected by an oil spill, including water intakes, schools, medical facilities, residential areas, and businesses.

The document continues: Identified vulnerabilities are listed in SECTION 6. A giant black box follows, where information had been redacted.

The Texas Tribune and ProPublica called a number listed on the companys web site as media relations for its U.S. branch. A reporter was connected to someone from the human resources department, and after asking for more information related to the vulnerability analysis, was told, the answers probably no.

At first glance, the documents for a transfer facility operated by Chevron looked more promising: four pages long. However, each page looked like this:

This is a page from a document that Chevron submitted to the federal government. Its supposed to detail how an oil spill at Chevrons facility in Galena Park might impact the surrounding area. Environmental Protection Agency

A Chevron spokesman said that the company submitted a complete report. The EPA may have redacted the report for security reasons, but any questions about this should be directed to the EPA, he said.

The documents from a Petrobras Refinery in Pasadena contained a few more details, but nothing that could not have been gleaned from searching for the facility on Google Maps. It notes that two elementary schools and one high school are less than a mile from the facility, and that residential populations begin within a quarter mile  and continue outward.

The document continues, any evacuation efforts for these areas will be coordinated with the local emergency assistance agencies. Those same words and phrases appear in many other vulnerability analyses that the EPA provided.

The EPA didnt respond to requests for an interview, either. But officials there have made presentations about how to prepare these documents correctly, and some of the PowerPoints are online.

According to those presentations, using generic verbiage in these documents could be violating the law. So could leaving out the analysis of potential effects on schools and residential areas. Both of those issues appear in many of the documents The Texas Tribune and ProPublica received.

In short, as hurricane season begins  and nearly two years after we first started trying to truly understand the risks of what could happen in Houston  we havent found out much.

All we know is that, as we reported previously, thousands of cylindrical storage tanks carrying the worlds largest concentration of oil, gases and chemicals line the Houston Ship Channel. If a hurricane were to hit at the right angle, more than 25 feet of water could be sent up the channel. If even one of those tanks ruptured because of the rushing floodwaters, areas that are home to hundreds of thousands of people could be affected.

Any other details  what companies are prepared for, what the government is doing to monitor them, and specific things that residents can do to protect themselves and their property nearby  probably wont be publicly available until its too late.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/05/eighteen-months-later-documents-hurricane-vulnerability-are-thin/.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans  and engages with them  about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Texas Energy Oil Gas Hurricane Pollution
Insurance broker and consultant JLT Specialty USA has appointed Mark Purdy as senior vice president.

Purdy will be based in Houston, where his primary focus will be to help JLTs clients improve their overall claims platform and develop post loss strategies while increasing productivity and reducing costs related to workers compensation, auto and general liability exposures.

Purdy has 25 years of corporate claims, risk management, claims resolution and consulting experience. Purdy comes to JLT from Aon where he spent 14 years consulting as an assistant director and consulting lead in Houston. Purdy began his career as a claim team manager for Liberty Mutual Insurance, where he managed a group of commercial auto and general liability adjusters. He then spent the next several years as the risk manager at Grocers Supply Co., where he was responsible for the corporate insurance program, claims and legal.

Source: JLT Specialty USA.

Topics Aon
Lifelong Florida resident, long-time Florida politician, and head of the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS), Jeff Atwater shocked the state when he announced in February he would step down as chief financial officer at the end of the 2017 legislative session to become vice president of strategic initiatives and CFO for Florida Atlantic University (FAU).

As Floridas CFO, a position he has held since 2011, Atwater has worked closely with the insurance industry. DFS oversees the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), as well as the office of the Florida Insurance Consumer Advocate, who assists Florida residents with insurance-related questions or concerns.

DFS is also home to the Division of Investigative and Forensic Services (DIFS), which handles all insurance fraud-related investigations. One of Atwaters biggest priorities since he took office, and no doubt one of his legacies after he leaves, has been his commitment to rooting out fraud that he says drives up the cost of insurance for all Floridians.

Before he departed DFS, Atwater was adamant about completing a mission he began three years ago: passing legislation to put a comprehensive system in place to track and prosecute insurance fraud.

What has surprised me is the magnitude of fraud that exists in the marketplace

And this past session, his work paid off when HB 1007 and HB 1009 were passed by state legislators. The passed bills (still awaiting the governors signature) will require state attorneys offices that receive money for prosecuting fraud to report their progress to DIFS, which will file annual reports with the legislature.

The bill also expands requirements for insurers anti-fraud efforts and reporting. Beginning Dec. 1, each insurer must file annual reports with DIFS that contain a detailed description of their insurance fraud investigative unit or a copy of the contract with the investigation firm, and a copy of the anti-fraud plan.

Atwater said he worked first-hand with the insurance industry during his 25 years working in the banking industry, though on a much smaller scale than over the last six years as CFO. But he said he has always understood the importance of insurance and the role that it plays in economic development.

For a growing economy, you need investment. For investment, you need risk takers. Risk takers must mitigate that risk, and insurance is what mitigates that risk, he said.

Shortly before departing from DFS, Atwater spoke with Insurance Journal to discuss his experiences with the insurance industry as CFO, including what about the industry has surprised him and frustrated him through the years, and how he thinks the industry could improve its customer relationships and gain support in its fight against insurance abuse. The following interview has been edited for brevity.

IJ: Did you have any personal opinions on the industry before you began this position?

Atwater: I certainly did. I would say that from the standpoint of being a banker, and when you have a portfolio the size of portfolios that we would hold in the banking institutions that I was a part of, there is going to be events that would ultimately require that the insurance policy itself might well have been a source of repayment  a fire; a hurricane; a tragic accident. I saw players perform and I saw players that did not perform well. 

Regrettably, I think we acknowledge that almost in any industry  and insurance might well be at the top of that list  the poor performance of the few is going to create a perception and a narrative that could be detrimental to the perception of the entire industry  that occurs in all industries. The insurance industry has not been immune from that fact [and] when local television and local media gets a hold of a story where a player has underperformed, there is no sympathy for an insurance company that has accepted premiums, made promises and then, for whatever reason, has not fulfilled those promises.

Sometimes, it may be a real legitimate dispute. But that narrative is rarely covered equally in the communication that the media will bring to the story.

IJ: What have you learned about the industry that you didnt know before? What has surprised you the most?

Atwater: What has surprised me  is the magnitude of the fraud that exists in the marketplace across virtually every line of insurance that is available to Floridians, personally and in a commercial nature. That has been an eye opener.

I was aware of fraud, just not aware of how many really organized crime rings there were designed specifically to exploit opportunity. 

I think it was learning the depths of both the true fraud that is taking place within the market and where individuals who have developed  again, I would call it organized crime, without question  who have developed business practices that while yet might not be identified as illegal should be because they are clearly exploiting portions of Florida law to make money. Some might call it overutilization, but I think thats awfully generous and I think theyve created their own cottage industries.

IJ: Do you think that the abuse of assignment of benefits (AOB) and personal injury protection (PIP) is making consumers more aware of how fraud impacts their insurance rates and coverage?

Atwater: I think that consumers are becoming aware, but I still think there is a significant void from consumers understanding the magnitude of that fraud. Therefore, I would say that there is still tremendous rate sensitivity by the consumer market in Florida that is unfamiliar with the magnitude of what fraud might be loading into those rates.

IJ: How could the industry help consumers better understand?

Atwater: I think that the industry could go a long way by communicating the actual evidence that it has in its databases that could show the magnitude of the losses that are occurring that are being built right back into the rate formula. Its not coming from disputes over attorneys fees, etc., its coming from these claims. These are the losses that we are now experiencing from these claims and we want the public to see this and really focus on communicating that this is an issue. [Saying] we want to work with you on developing the policies that could, and should, be able to still offer a fair product with a very rapid response to a consumer when theres a legitimate claim filed, but does not allow a collection of individuals to exploit the opportunity to make money. Lets work at this hand-in-hand.

Instead, it becomes a number of lobbyists that take on the challenge.  The conversation takes place in the halls of the state capitals and the consumers are just seeing rates go up, rates go up, rates go up. 

I think consumers believe that the rates that come [are because the] insurance company just wants more rates and the government just keeps giving it to them. I dont think that, again, most consumers, without the right public communication, understand that these losses are required to be built into the rate filing. And theyre going to be granted.

When the public does understand it then they turn back and they say, What is the insurance company doing to help me fight this fraud? They know the data. They know the bad actors. They know the trends before everybody else does. Why arent they fighting this target? I think thats a question for the industry to answer.

Atwater said the industry came together more than ever this session to encourage legislation against AOB abuse, though that didnt turn out to be enough as no AOB bills were passed. Atwater said the industrys pushback in sharing information that would help consumers to understand the magnitude of fraud taking place in Florida is partly to blame, and hasnt just occurred with recent AOB legislation.

Atwater: There are some players in the industry that believe any bit of data that they hold is proprietary and its a trade secret, and theyre not going to help  [but] my fraud investigators can only begin to act when a referral is made.  I do believe there is more that the industry could do in the development of strategic initiatives, the sharing of data in trend lines, the identification of the [abusers], seeing where the abuses are taking place, and acting faster; than for us to be trying to collect that from referrals of neighbors who saw somebody get a whole new roof or possibly a referral from someone who heard someone say that that guy got a big water claim and got a new kitchen out of it.

Thats hardly the trend line in data that the insurance industry itself holds. I would hope that they would be excited and desiring to work together and to work with our division in helping provide data on trends and narrowing our search to go after the bad actors. That would be very helpful.

IJ: Lets talk about the anti-fraud legislation that just passed. Why did the industry fight this legislation?

Atwater: There have been, over the last three years, players within the industry that just said, No. We dont want to have to provide more information to you all. We dont want to have to be held in any kind of account of sharing that data. This is our proprietary data. This is our business model. Everything we do is a trade secret. There are others within the industry who said, We are not concerned in the least. Regrettably, the industry itself was not altogether onboard.

IJ: Looking back at your time as CFO and your experiences specifically with the insurance industry, what has really stood out to you?

Atwater: We just had a hurricane season last year, where we had two named storms, both that caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage. I was impressed with the reaction time that I saw from most of the industry, how quickly they were onsite, calling upon those who had reported a claim, as well as those who were in the same general vicinity who had not reported a claim, to try to be on their game and trying to serve their client.

I was impressed and glad to see that kind of self-motivated initiative to quickly get in there and address those claims. I would say that was a really pleasant experience.

Theres always going to be a case, no matter what industry youre a part of, where someone makes a mistake on a loan file, on an application or on a claim. It happens in every industry. Our responsibility is to see that nothing systemic begins to take place by any particular carrier. We did not see any of that during these past two storms that hit Florida. We really believe people were trying to do their best and, knowing that if they did their best, they could probably take care of the claim in a fast and efficient way, which is what the expectation of their client would be.

IJ: What advice would you give your successor in working with the industry?

Atwater: When I look back on what we have done working with the industry, Im incredibly proud and happy.  We havent always been on the same page, but I would tell the individual that would step into this role to work to build the relationships with these players in the industry; that the industry has the first sense of whats going right and whats going wrong and to be able to work with them to try, even though sometimes its difficult.

Get your hands upon the best data that can help you make the case for public policy change. Thats important. And to stay mindful that the insurance industry is providing one of the most key ingredients into the economic success of the state of Florida. Again, without insurance, people dont buy a home; the bank is not going to take that risk. Without insurance, theyre not going to make the loan for the small business. Without insurance, the developer isnt going to build the building.

It is incredibly important to be able to build these relationships, to be able to speak frankly and know that inside that frank conversation is tremendous respect. Its not built in a day, but its built over time and itll serve both the people of Florida well and this process of public policy making.

Listen to the full interview with CFO Atwater below:

Topics Florida Legislation Fraud Market
Companies issue shares of stock or equity for various reasons, including to fund expansion or pay down debt. In this article, we'll explore the various terms that are used in the process of issuing stock to raise capital.

Share Capital

Share capital consists of all funds raised by a company in exchange for shares of either common or preferred shares of stock. The amount of share capital or equity financing a company has can change over time. A company that wishes to raise more equity can obtain authorization to issue and sell additional shares, thereby increasing its share capital.

Share capital is only generated by the initial sale of shares by the company to investors. It does not include shares being sold in a secondary market after they've been issued.

Authorized Share Capital

Authorized Share Capital is the maximum amount of share capital that a company is authorized to raise. This limit is outlined in its constitutional documents and can only be changed with the approval of the shareholders. Before a publicly traded company can sell stock, it must specify a specific limit to the amount of share capital that it is authorized to raise.

A company does not usually issue the full amount of its authorized share capital. Instead, some will be held in reserve by the company for possible future use. The amount of share capital or equity financing a company has can change over time. A company that wishes to raise more equity can obtain authorization to issue and sell additional shares, thereby increasing its share capital.

0:58 Contrasting Paid-Up Capital And Share Capital

Issued Share Capital

Issued share capital is the total value of the shares a company elects to sell. In other words, a company may elect to only issue a portion of the total share capital with the plan of issuing more shares at a later date. Not all these shares may sell right away, and the par value of the issued capital cannot exceed the value of the authorized capital. The total par value of the shares that the company sells is called its paid share capital. This is what most people refer to when speaking about share capital. Issued share capital is simply the monetary value of the portion of shares of stock a company offers for sale to investors.

Paid-Up Capital

Paid-up capital is the amount of money a company has been paid from shareholders in exchange for shares of its stock. Paid-up capital is created when a company sells its shares on the primary market, directly to investors. Paid-up capital is important because it's capital that is not borrowed. A company that is fully paid-up has sold all available shares and thus cannot increase its capital unless it borrows money by taking on debt. Paid-up capital can never exceed authorized share capital. In other words, the authorized share capital represents the upward bound on possible paid-up capital.

Characteristics of Paid-Up Capital

Paid-up capital doesn't need to be repaid, which is a major benefit of funding business operations in this manner. Also called paid-in capital, equity capital, or contributed capital, paid-up capital is simply the total amount of money shareholders have paid for shares at the initial issuance. It does not include any amount that investors later pay to purchase shares on the open market.

Paid-up capital may have costs associated with it. In capital budgeting, paid-up capital is most often referred to as equity capital. In the great debate on the relative benefits of debt versus equity, the absence of required repayment is among equity's main advantages. However, shareholders expect a certain amount of return on their investments in the form of capital gains and dividends. While the business is not required to return shareholder investment, the cost of equity capital can still be quite high.

Paid-up capital is listed under the stockholder's equity on the balance sheet. This category is further subdivided into the common stock and additional paid-up capital sub-accounts. The price of a share of stock is comprised of two parts: the par value and the additional premium paid that is above the par value. The total par value of all shares sold is entered under common stock, while the remainder is assigned to the additional paid-up capital account.

Paid-up capital can be used in fundamental analysis. Companies that utilize large amounts of equity funding may carry lower amounts of debt than companies that do not. A company with a debt to equity ratio that is lower than the average for its industry may be a good candidate for investing because it indicates prudent financial practices and a decreased debt burden relative to its peers.

Authorized Versus Paid-Up Capital

The amount of authorized share capital must be listed in the company's founding documents. Any time the authorized share capital changes, these changes must be documented and made public.

Paid-up capital can be found or calculated in the company's financial statements. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires publicly traded companies to disclose all sources of funding to the public.
What Is the Gini Index?

The Gini index, or Gini co-efficient, measures income distribution across a population. Developed by Italian statistician Corrado Gini in 1912, it often serves as a gauge of economic inequality, measuring income distribution or, less commonly, wealth distribution among a population.

The co-efficient ranges from 0 (or 0%) to 1 (or 100%), with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing perfect inequality. Values greater than 1 are theoretically possible due to negative income or wealth.

Key Takeaways The Gini index is a measure of the distribution of income across a population.

A higher Gini index indicates greater inequality, with high-income individuals receiving much larger percentages of the populations total income.

Global inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has steadily increased over the past few centuries and spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Because of data and other limitations, the Gini index may overstate income inequality and can obscure important information about income distribution.

1:54 Watch Now: What Is the Gini Index?

Understanding the Gini Index

A country in which every resident has the same income would have an income Gini co-efficient of 0. Conversely, a country in which one resident earned all the income, while everyone else earned nothing, would have an income Gini co-efficient of 1.

The same analysis can apply to wealth distribution (the wealth Gini co-efficient), but because wealth is more difficult to measure than income, Gini co-efficients usually refer to income and appear simply as the Gini co-efficient or Gini index, without specifying that they refer to income. Wealth Gini co-efficients tend to be much higher than those for income.

Even in affluent countries, the Gini index measures net income rather than net worth, so the majority of a nations wealth can still be concentrated in the hands of a small number of people even if income distribution is relatively equal.

The Gini co-efficient is an important tool for analyzing income or wealth distribution within a country or region, but it should not be mistaken for an absolute measurement of income or wealth. A high-income country and a low-income country can have the same Gini co-efficient, as long as incomes are distributed similarly within each. For example, Turkey and the United States both have income Gini co-efficients of around 0.390.40, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), despite Turkeys vastly lower gross domestic product (GDP) per person.

Graphical Representation of the Gini Index

The Gini index is often represented graphically through the Lorenz curve, as depicted below, which shows income (or wealth) distribution by plotting the population percentile by income on the horizontal axis and cumulative income on the vertical axis. The Gini co-efficient is equal to the area below the line of perfect equality (0.5 by definition) minus the area below the Lorenz curve, divided by the area below the line of perfect equality. In other words, it is double the area between the Lorenz curve and the line of perfect equality.



The Gini Index Around the World

Global Gini

The Gini co-efficient experienced sustained growth during the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1820, the global Gini co-efficient stood at 0.50, while in 1980 and 1992, the figure was 0.657.

Source: The World Bank

COVID-19 is likely to have a further negative impact on income equality. According to The World Bank, the Gini co-efficient has increased about 1.5 points in the five years following major epidemics, such as Ebola and Zika. Economists believe COVID-19 triggered an annual 1.2- to 1.9-percentage-point increase in the Gini co-efficient for 2020 and 2021.

Gini within Countries

Below are the income Gini co-efficients of every country for which the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook provides data:

Some of the worlds poorest countries have some of the worlds highest Gini co-efficients, while many of the lowest Gini co-efficients are found in wealthier European countries. However, the relationship between income inequality and GDP per capita is not one of perfect negative correlation, and the relationship has varied over time.

Michail Moatsos of Utrecht University and Joery Baten of Tuebingen University show that from 1820 to 1929, inequality rose slightlythen tapered offas GDP per capita increased. From 1950 to 1970, inequality tended to fall off as GDP per capita rose above a certain threshold. From 1980 to 2000, inequality fell with higher GDP per capita, then curved back up sharply.

Correlation between Gini co-efficients and GDP per capita in three time periods. Source: Michail Moatsos and Joery Baten.

Limitations of the Gini Index

Though useful for analyzing economic inequality, the Gini co-efficient has some shortcomings.

The metrics accuracy is dependent on reliable GDP and income data. Shadow economies and informal economic activity are present in every country. Informal economic activity tends to represent a larger portion of true economic production in developing countries and at the lower end of the income distribution within countries. In both cases, this means that the Gini index of measured incomes will overstate true income inequality. Accurate wealth data is even more difficult to come by due to the popularity of tax havens.

Another flaw is that very different income distributions can result in identical Gini co-efficients. Because the Gini attempts to distill a two-dimensional area (the gap between the Lorenz curve and the equality line) down to a single number, it obscures information about the shape of inequality. In everyday terms, this would be similar to describing the contents of a photo solely by its length along one edge, or the simple average brightness value of the pixels.

Though using the Lorenz curve as a supplement can provide more information in this respect, it also does not show demographic variations among subgroups within the distribution, such as the distribution of incomes across age, race, or social groups. In that vein, understanding demographics can be important for understanding what a given Gini co-efficient represents. For example, a large retired population pushes the Gini higher.

What country has the highest Gini index? South Africa, with a Gini co-efficient of 63.0, is currently recognized as the country with the highest income inequality. The World Population Review attributes this massive inequality to racial, gender, and geographic discrimination, with white males and urban workers in South Africa earning much better salaries than everyone else.

What does a Gini index of 50 mean? The Gini index ranges from 0% to 100%, with 0 representing perfect equality and 100 representing perfect inequality. A Gini of 50 marks the halfway point and can generally be perceived as a place where income is not fairly distributed. Only 15 countries in the world have a Gini of 50 or more.

Is the U.S. Gini co-efficient high or low? The United States has a Gini co-efficient of 41.1, which is a high reading for such a developed economy. Economists blame rising income inequality in the U.S. on factors such as technological change, globalization, the decline of unions, and the eroding value of the minimum wage.

The Bottom Line

If the gap between rich and poor continues to increase, the evaluation of the income gap can become more important. And the Gini index can provide a great starting point when it comes to measuring that income inequality. Knowing the Gini index numbers is no panacea, but this measure does provide a way to quantify and track the direction in which a society is moving, which may open the door for dialogue and potential solutions.

But keep in mind that there are limitations associated with using this measure. The co-efficient is only as reliable as the data used to calculate it, and it only provides a single-digit reading, which doesnt take different groups in the sample into account.
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Breaking AI Stock News: Intellagents, a FatBrain AI (OTCQB: LZGI) Company, Announces Hiring of Insurtech Industry Veteran as Chief Revenue Officer

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U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is currently operating in the usual mode.

"The embassy is operating as usual," the press service of the diplomatic mission told Interfax-Ukraine.

As it was reported, over the night into June 8 at 12:05 a.m., the duty police of Kyiv received a message about an explosion on the territory of the U.S. Embassy. Upon examination, it turned out that an unknown person threw an unidentified explosive device on the territory of the diplomatic mission. As a result of the explosion, no one was hurt.

A criminal proceeding was opened into the incident pursuant to Article 258 (terrorist act) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Measures are being carried out to identify those involved.

The police said that the collected materials would be transferred to the prosecutor's office and the SBU will investigate it afterwards.

The National Guard and the police strengthened the warding of the embassy.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine condemned this terrorist act.
Organizations with employees who derive value from AI are 5.9 times more likely to see financial benefits from it 
The co-founder of one of Ireland's largest charities, Concern, has died.

President Michael D Higgins led tributes to Fr Jack Finucane.

Fr Finucane passed away yesterday peacefully in Kimmage Manor in Dublin at the age of 80.

President Higgins said Mr Finucane's lifelong commitment to protecting the dignity of some of the world's poorest and most marginalised people would stand as a lasting tribute to all that is good about mankind.

CEO of Concern Worldwide Dominic MacSorley said: "An unassuming leader, he brought intelligence, drive and passion to what is now Irelands leading humanitarian and development organisation. Along with his brother, Aengus, they were a bridge between Irelands long tradition of missionary work defining contemporary humanitarian response characterised by professional, practical, compassionate solutions on the ground. Together, they brought a nation with them.

"What Jack has achieved may never be fully quantified but he has saved and improved the lives of millions of people caught up in crisis and poverty. Sorely missed, he leaves behind a legacy of incredible humanitarian significance."

Born in Limerick in 1937 and ordained a priest in 1963, Fr Finucane was sent to Nigeria with the Holy Ghost Fathers and was at the heart of the distribution of aid flown into Biafra by Concern and other relief organisations.

Following the surrender of Biafra, he was arrested by the Nigerian authorities and spent several weeks in prison before being deported. He then went to the United States of America where he spent a period in parish Ministry and studied in San Francisco for a Masters in Education.

In 1973, he was posted to Bangladesh, a country he loved and returned to often. But it was the 1984 famine in Ethiopia where Fr Finucane's knowledge of the country, his considerable diplomatic skills enabled Concern to mount a massive response to the crisis.

By the time that famine received worldwide attention, Concern had a team of 46 expatriates and 890 national staff on the ground. He was an advisor to Bob Geldof and his Live Aid team. In 1985, he brought a young Bono on his first trip to Ethiopia and the singer has credited him with having a huge influence on his thinking with regard to international development.

In 1994, he witnessed over one million people fleeing from Rwanda into Goma, Zaire, and two years later he saw the same population stream across the border to return home. A powerful driving force, he visited the region almost every month, encouraging and supporting new and innovative resettlement programmes that included supporting hundreds of thousands caught up in horrific prison conditions or reuniting more than 30,000 separated and unaccompanied children.
Update 12 noon: Former CIA Director John Brennan has said no country should feel immune from a terrorist attack or having terrorists use their country for "whatever purposes".

He said he knew the Irish leadership was aware of the need to "stay vigilant" and that British police have close relationships with the gardai, frequently sharing information.

Mr Brennan told Today with Sean O'Rourke that we should not be fearful to the point of limiting freedom and liberties that were hard fought for in the West.

He praised counter terrorism officials across the world who, he said, have stopped a lot of attacks.

Mr Brennan said that the only way to look at those who have carried out recent attacks is as psychopaths and murderers, who have distorted the teaching of Islam.

He said he was pleased to see Imans refuse to say prayers at the burials of the perpetrators.

Mr Brennan said ISIS is quite different to al-Qaida, which he described as a structured organisation who took months and years to put together attacks.

ISIS, he said, was taking advantage of the cybersphere to encourage people to carry out attacks in their name.

Mr Brennan, who was in the White House situation room during the Navy Seal Osama Bin Laden operation, said the operation was the culmination of many years of intelligence and there was "a lot of hand-wringing" in the months preceding it.

He described it as a nerve wracking time with the lives of Americans on the line and "minutes that seemed like hours".

Earlier:

The Tanaiste has said there is no complacency when it comes to a possible terrorist attack on Irish soil.

Senior gardai said yesterday that they could respond to a terrorist attack in Dublin within minutes, but were still establishing response times in rural areas.

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said that while an attack here is unlikely, the Gardai is working hard at ensuring safety across Ireland.

"It's possible but unlikely," she said. "There's no complacency. We continue to gather information and work with colleagues internationally (and) make sure we exchange data.

"There's a strict regime in place, but it's challenging with the amount of international travel people do these days. We dont want our democracies to be closed down by these people."

Meanwhile, a prominent Muslim figure had called for a dedicated and friendlier garda system for reporting concerns or suspicions regarding radicalisation.

Faheem Bukhatwa, a senior leader in the Libyan community, said gardai and the Muslim community, in general, need to take preventative action.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, he said he believes that a phone contact system, not one run by anti-terrorism officers but staffed by community gardai and professionals like psychologists, should be set up.

I am pretty concerned for the Irish community as a whole, said Mr Bukhatwa.

We do not want anything to happen. The Muslim community do not want anything wrong to happen to anybody, not only for those people who might be affected but the Muslim community who will suffer if anything happens.

The college lecturer said measures should be brought in now to try and stop anything from happening.

Preventative action needs to be taken. Gardai will need to do that and the Muslim community, in general, needs to take part in that.

We need to fight this menace which is taking young people and turning them into monsters.
One hundred new jobs have been announced for Dublin.

Gift voucher firm Smartbox says the positions are being rolled out as part of its expansion in the city. It is based of Talbot Street.

The roles include R&D, customer experience, sales, marketing, finance and supply chain.

The 100 new jobs will see the Smartbox headcount rise to 500 this year.

The company operates in 10 countries with seven brands: Smartbox, Bongo, Buyagift, La Vida Es Bella, Cadeaubox, Dakotabox and Emozione3.

Smartbox Group sold more than six million experience gifts in 2015 and had sales of more than 500m.

Smartbox Group offers a choice of 'experience' gifts including overnight stays, wellness, adventure and food.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak and Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili has had a meeting in Tbilisi.

"Our countries have always been good partners and reliable friends. I am pleased that good relations have developed between the defense ministries of our countries. The entire Georgian people support Ukrainians and Ukraine," the press service of the Defense Ministry quotes Margvelashvili as saying.

In turn, Poltorak informed the Georgian president about the situation in the east of Ukraine in these days and also briefed about the course of reforms in the Defense Ministry.

"We are in a difficult way of reforming the department. The reform process is taking place at the time when firing and deaths continue in the east. The experience of reforms in the Georgian Defense Ministry is valuable for us. We are currently reforming the system of training sergeants, and Georgia has made a real educational breakthrough in this direction. We will obviously use this experience when developing the education system of Ukrainian servicemen," Poltorak said.
Montenegro's higher court has confirmed prosecution indictments against 14 people, including two Russians charged with masterminding a coup attempt aimed at preventing Montenegro from joining Nato.

Russian nationals Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Popov have been indicted with various criminal offences, terrorism and acts against the constitutional order of Montenegro, a statement issued by the court said.
Researchers at Dundalk Institute of Technology have launched a new medical device cybersecurity company called Nova Leah that plans to create 78 jobs over the next four years.

Its chief executive Anita Finnegan said the Wanna-Cry attack which hit 230,000 Microsoft operated computers worldwide meant cybersecurity in health could no longer be taken lightly.
The Companies (Accounting) Act 2017 introduces a new category of company  a micro company  with the Government claiming it will greatly reduce the financial reporting obligations on very small companies.

The Act increases the thresholds for the small company category so that more companies will qualify as small in the future, thus becoming eligible for cost-saving provisions such as the audit exemption.

Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association chief executive Neil McDonnell said the Act lightened the burden on SMEs.

He said it is long overdue as most companies in Ireland were in that microspace, adding that more needs to be done to assist the SME sector in the future.

Chambers Ireland, which represents chambers of commerce in the Republic of Ireland, said the Act would be majorly beneficial to businesses that would now be reclassified.

Chief executive Ian Talbot said: It is good news for small and micro business, potentially leading to a reduction in costs. Reduced financial reporting obligations will have a positive impact on many smaller businesses through elimination of administrative burdens, particularly for micro enterprises.

Mr Talbot urged caution to businesses, saying they had to reflect carefully before availing of the audit exemption in the Act to ensure information and quality assurance required by key stakeholders such as directors, shareholders, and bankers is retained.

The Act applies to financial years beginning after January 1, 2017.

However, companies that wish to apply the provisions of the Act to earlier financial years may be able to use section 14, which allows application to financial years that began after January 1, 2015.

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell OConnor said: I believe that this new Act will be seen as good regulation that strikes the right balance between proportionate disclosure obligations on the one hand, and the need for meaningful transparency on the other.

Above all, the vast majority of Irish companies should see real benefits and savings in time, effort, and cost.
Total, one of the energy sectors so-called super majors, has signed up  via its Irish subsidiary  Total E&P Ireland - for a 50% working interest in the Providence-controlled Avalon prospect off the west coast of Ireland.

Separately, the French giant has entered into an exclusive option agreement for a 35% share of the frontier exploration licence which contains the Druid, Drombeg and Diablo prospects. The latter will see Providence and junior partner Sosina receive phased cash payments of $27m. It also comes three months after Providence farmed out a 30% stake in the licence area to Scottish explorer Cairn Energy.
For some dads, the day is tremendously difficult as they live on without a son or daughter who died.

Cork-based charity Anam Cara, which runs support groups in Cork city and Bantry for bereaved parents, is asking the public to remember and celebrate our dads this year through their #Daddyandme campaign.

Anam Cara is asking people to post pictures with their dads on social media, or if youre a dad, then photos with your children, and to nominate friends and family to post as well. You can make a 2 donation to Anam Cara by texting the word REMEMBER to 50300.

For Dads, Anam Cara has produced a video with testimonies from bereaved fathers.

I think Fathers Day does not get the same attention as Mothers Day as an occasion. Sadly, very often its the same for bereaved Dads with people asking them how their wife and children are, not taking into account that they too are devastated after the death of their child, Anam Cara CEO Sharon Vard said.

Fathers hold a special place in our hearts, and children hold a special place in every Dads heart. This Fathers Day is an opportunity for extended family and friends to show they support and remember Dads who have experienced the loss of a precious son or daughter. For the general public #Daddyandme is also a great way to show our dads or our kids that were thinking of them.

Anam Cara is an all-island support organisation set up by bereaved parents to support bereaved parents throughout Ireland. There are currently nine Anam Cara groups which meet regularly across the country. Anam Cara is open to all bereaved parents, regardless of the age a child died or the circumstances of the death.

A booklet on A Dads Grief, which forms part of Anam Caras Information Pack for Bereaved Parents, can be ordered free by calling 085 2888 888 or by emailing info@anamcara.ie.
And while that pride has often been the source of derision from other parts of the country, the reason for it is set to be underlined today with a high-profile EU award for the picturesque port city.

After months of Government campaigning behind the scenes, Cork City is expected to today be announced as the hosts for European Maritime Day in 2020.
He was convicted despite evidence that the complainant had tried to blackmail him to pay her cash to buy a house in 2005 or she would make a complaint to gardai about the historical indecent assault allegation.

After almost three hours of evidence at Cork District Court yesterday, Judge Aingeal Ni Chonduin convicted the accused on the charge. Sentencing was put back for a week.

There was some confusion about the precise date on which the Glenroe episode aired in February 1986. The complainant said she was 16 at the time. Frank Buttimer, defending, said that in February 1986, the complainant was 14. The complainant said: I am going by memory. I was not concentrating on the age. I am going by the memory and it was not a very nice memory.

She said she remembered the night of the indecent assault by reference to the marriage of the Glenroe characters, Biddy and Miley.

My father was sitting in his chair. He was drinking. He had whiskey. I sat down at the base of the chair. Glenroe started to come on. He started rubbing the back of my neck. After five minutes he put his hand under my bra and held my breast. He did not let go. I froze, she said.

The man testified that he had never been in trouble in his life and said of the allegation: I am horrified actually. Totally shocked.

I had a couple of drinks. I was dozing in the chair. I heard her say something. I did not hear what she said so I leant forward. As I leant forward I draped my right arm around her front to hear what she had said. I leant back in the seat and went back to sleep.

The man alleged that in 2005 his daughter arrived at his front door to blackmail him.

The victim said she went to her father for help and he was nasty to her. In my haste I threatened him, she said. I apologised to him afterwards.
Faheem Bukhatwa, a senior leader in the Libyan community, said gardai and the Muslim community, in general, need to take preventative action.

He believes that a phone contact system, not one run by anti-terrorism officers but staffed by community gardai and professionals like psychologists, should be set up.

I am pretty concerned for the Irish community as a whole, said Mr Bukhatwa.

We do not want anything to happen. The Muslim community do not want anything wrong to happen to anybody, not only for those people who might be affected but the Muslim community who will suffer if anything happens.

The college lecturer said measures should be brought in now to try and stop anything from happening.

Preventative action needs to be taken. Gardai will need to do that and the Muslim community, in general, needs to take part in that.

We need to fight this menace which is taking young people and turning them into monsters.

He added: If people could contact a number if they have suspicions. Theres always someone who knows something  a brother, a sister or a mother.

But he said the phone line should not be run by garda anti-terrorism officers or, at least, operated along those lines only.

If someone rings with a suspicion, they dont just want an anti-terrorism response and a raid and an arrest, he said. They want to ring someone and feel the problem is treated and have a more friendly point of contact.

He said this unit could have psychologists as well as gardai to help the individuals and their families.

He said gardai did hold clinics at mosques every two to three weeks, or so, where people can bring to garda ethnic liaison officers any issues they have.

There are clinics in mosques but they are more for help or in relation to residence problems. Maybe the gardai could emphasise that they are also there if anyone knows a vulnerable person who is being radicalised or they have some concern.

He said he did have a concern that radicalising was occurring in Ireland.

I personally feel there is a small level of radicalisation going on, he said. Since the Syria and Libya crises, people have been convinced to travel. Gardai should look into that situation.
Groysman on resignations of Kutoviy, Stets: I am not for it, but must accept this

Ukraine's Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman is not "for" the decision of Ukrainian Agriculture Policy and Food Minister Taras Kutoviy's and Information Policy Minister Yuriy Stets' decision to step down, but is obliged to accept the resignations.

"I see a lot of speculation about who compelled whom to resign. I can say the following: the position of Kutoviy and Stets is their own. I don't agree with it, but am compelled to oblige, because it is their decision," Groysman said during a trip to Chernihiv on Thursday.

Groysman said the next step [involving the resignations] "is up to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine," which must vote on the resignations. The [majority] coalition must then discuss possible replacements and submit them to the head of government.
Picture: Sophie Lynch, Mollie Barrett, Megan Moloney, Leah Davenport, Chloe Lynch, and Megan Nason, all Junior Certificate students from St Angelas College, Patricks Hill, Cork, take a final look over study notes before the start of their first examination yesterday. Pic: Larry Cummins

One higher level student told the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) subject spokesperson Kate Barry that the exam was neither too hard nor too easy.

There was a lot they could get their teeth into, particularly the material for their essays, she said.

One was a speech to a youth conference about supporting democracy in todays world. Another Ms Barry felt they could write a lot on was an article about whether scientists or artists contribute more to society. But a comprehension text about free speech in an online age was quite challenging, despite its initial simple appearance.

Liz Farrell, Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) English spokesperson, said the comprehension questions were phrased like in previous years, including parts that looked for opinions and parts about style.

The first text was about images incorporated in the work of Scottish poet Robert Montgomery, based on visuals in his poetry. A question asked them to write a school website article about poems they would choose for display and where in the school.

A question following the second text, about free speech in a connected world, asked students to write an opinion article for a national newspaper. Another required a radio text talking about childhood memories, and Ms Farrell felt students would have been prepared for all these formats.

Ms Farrell said many teachers can expect to be marking essays featuring a tattoo, a short story option was to write a narrative in which a tattoo played an important part. Much fewer examiners are likely to be reading students who picked a dramatic dialogue in which they describe to their skeptical Stone Age friends how they just invented the wheel.

This was a sign, Ms Farrell said of how Leaving Certificate papers are diversifying.

She thought the first ordinary level English paper was very fair, including a nice question in which students could write a talk about choosing senior cycle subjects for third-years.

She said a task to write a letter to a newspaper editor might have been difficult for ordinary level students. But she thought they would have liked the topic about whether they supported or opposed an imagined proposal to replace Irish school teachers with robots.

A composition choice for ordinary level students was to write three diary entries by a robot teacher, about their work, their students and humans in general.

Ms Barry reported positive student reaction about the papers theme about school, including a lovely piece by novelist Donal Ryan about his school days, and another about a Syrian refugee student in a German school.

She said an article for the school website about being more welcoming to students with disabilities was fine and a short story option about a familys regrets at adopting a robot was a nice inclusion in the well-balanced paper.

The afternoons higher level Leaving Certificate home economics paper featured a question on sugar which the ASTIs Margaret Kinsella felt might have thrown some students. She said they might not have expected a long question on another carboyhdrate after one about fibre a year ago.

There was a full question on the very topical issue of housing, its availability, the factors involved and national policies. Elsewhere, however, she felt the work involved in analysing data in a table on unemployment rates was time-consuming.

Ms Kinsella said the ordinary level question on fruit, vegetables and vitamin C was very topical in light of recent changes to the food pyramid. She was pleased that a higher level question on a specific food commodity of cheese, was matched with an ordinary level question about meat. A further topical social studies question dealt with poverty.
BRITAINS general election has been disrupted by a deadly attack on civilians. The assault by jihadists at London Bridge and the Borough Market area has kept security issues to the fore in the final days of campaigning.

But the violence is unlikely to shift voting intentions, no more than the May 22 suicide bombing in Manchester did. Rather, its the surge in support among young people for the main opposition, the Labour Party, which has been shifting the polls.

When British prime minister, Theresa May, called a surprise early general election on April 18, her ruling Conservative Party was so far ahead in the polls that she appeared on course for a landslide victory. That would have reinforced her authority in the crucial Brexit negotiations with the European Union.

But the gap has since narrowed, such that some projections suggest May will not win an overall majority. The result will hinge upon how many young people vote in an election that has exposed a stark generational divide.

Britains two main parties have traditionally divided along class lines, with Labour building on its working-class base and the Conservatives bolstered by their middle-class support.

But now, age, even more than class, distinguishes the two parties. Pollster, Ipsos MORI, shows Labour outpolling the Conservatives by 30 or so percentage points among 18 to 34-year-olds, but trailing behind by a similar margin among those 55 and older.

The importance of age in modern British politics was apparent in last years referendum on whether to leave the European Union. The exit camp narrowly beat out those who wanted to remain, 52% to 48%.

But that narrow margin disguised a chasm between young and old. According to pollste, YouGov, just 29% of 18 to 24-year-olds supported exit, compared to 64% of those aged 65 or older. Voters under 50 backed staying in the EU, whereas 50 to 64-year-olds, as well as those 65 and older, supported leaving.

The British general election is not a rerun of the referendum. For one thing, 3,303 candidates from dozens of parties are contesting 650 seats, whereas the Brexit poll was on a single issue that cut across party lines.

For another, the decision to leave the EU is now wearily accepted, even by many who voted to remain. That has stymied the hopes of the pro-European Liberal Democrats, who dreamt of restoring their fortunes, in the centre of politics, by mobilising the more youthful Remain voters with their promise of a second referendum on the outcome of the Brexit talks. Instead, the party is again likely to win only a handful of seats.

Labour, not the Liberal Democrats, is attracting younger voters in what has become a two-party race between them and the Conservatives, outside Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Labour has made a blatant pitch for younger voters by promising the abolition of university tuition fees and a big expansion in publicly-funded childcare.

The offer seems to be working, as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a political lookalike to Americas Bernie Sanders (who said, on a recent trip to Britain, that he was impressed by Corbyn), attracts admiring, youthful crowds on the campaign trail.

The prominence of generational issues in the election reflects the divergent fortunes of young and old since the 2008 financial crisis. Young workers have had a rough ride. Though jobs have been plentiful, real wages for 20-year-olds have fallen.

By contrast, real incomes for those who are 60 and older have risen. Austerity has brought cuts in working-age benefits, but not to state pensions, which are protected by a triple lock, ensuring they increase each year by the inflation rate, growth in average earnings, or 2.5%  whichever is highest.

Enjoying apparently impregnable support among the retired, May attempted to curry favour among young voters, with plans to trim the generosity of state help for the old, including the replacement of the triple lock with a double lock, which dropped the 2.5% minimum.

Her most controversial idea was to get older people to pick up more of their social care bill by drawing down most of their assets, including the value of their homes  deferring payment until after they die.

The proposal backfired, as it was instantly dubbed a dementia tax.

The prime minister was forced into a swift U-turn that did nothing for her supposed strong and stable leadership.

Despite Mays misstep over social care, and despite the upsurge of support for Labour, fuelled by generational gripes among younger people, most pollsters continue to think that May will win the election, even if the scale of such a victory is now quite uncertain. The main reason is that turnout differs by age.

There are not just more older people as Britain ages; they are also much more likely to vote. In the Brexit referendum, 90% of those aged 65 and older turned out to cast their ballots. This contrasted with 64% for people aged 18 to 24 and a similar share for 25 to 39-year-olds.

Different expectations about turnout explain the divergence between polls. Polls showing Labour snapping at the heels of the Conservatives assume a high turnout among younger people, based on their declared intentions.

By contrast, polls showing the Conservatives comfortably ahead assume that turnout will be more in line with past experience.

The generational tension revealed in the election is a taste of what is to come in Britain, as the bills for an aging society continue to rise. And the country is not alone.

Italys general election will pit the incumbent Democratic Party, supported by older voters, against the insurgent Five Star Movement, which appeals to discontented youth. Population aging, the silent force behind so much economic and social change, is transforming politics.

Paul Wallace is a London-based writer. A former European economics editor of The Economist, he is author of The Euro Experiment, recently published by Cambridge University Press.
ISNT Trump a desperate man altogether for pulling out of the Paris Agreement on climate change! Youd never hear the like of that out of one of our politicians!

Never. Except most days for the last six years.

OK, I accept the Fine Gael-led governments didnt say they wanted out of international effort on climate change. What they did, instead, was nothing.

When they took office emissions reduction was on a downwards trajectory to 14% below 1990 levels by the following year. The Environmental Protection Agency felt that half of that reduction was due to the recession and the other half was due to our own efforts, particularly the development of renewable energy.

Under EU law we need to have emissions which are 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. But now our emissions are rising steadily, some 3.7% a year since 2014.

The Draft National Climate Mitigation Plan expresses the hope that we might have cut emissions by 6% by 2020. Other climate experts say its going to be 4%.

Lets split the difference and say 5%. So we have done a quarter of what we said wed do to tackle climate change, the global challenge of our generation, to quote our National Climate Mitigation Plan.

Would the word rogue spring to mind? Particularly as our target for emissions reduction for 2030 is meant to be 40% below 1990 levels? We are one of only two European states which will not meet our EU commitment to reduce emissions by 2020.

Having wasted a decade, we will face cutting emissions by up to a third in the 10 years to 2030 unless we crash out of the EU and the Paris Agreement and paddle our own canoe into the sunset.

Which would certainly bring our emissions levels right down because we would have no economic relationships and nowhere to sell our stuff.

While it is true that Ireland is so small an economy that on our own we cant influence the climate much, it is understood by the worlds developed and civilised nations that we are in this together or its game over.

Special pleading will not get us very far. Thats why there are EU fines for non-compliance and we may face a bill of up to 5bn for our hopeless performance on cutting emissions.

Our performance on turning to renewable sources of energy is also abysmal. With a wind resource second to none which by 2011 was moving us towards the target of 16% renewables by 2020 we currently produce 9% of our energy from renewables, one of only four EU countries which will not meet its 2020 target.

The supports are just not here. I have met several top-level entrepreneurs with money to invest in renewables who have now left this country, bringing their smarts and their money with them.

The feed-in tariff which paid customers who had excess self-generated electricity from renewables to feed into the national grid was abolished in 2014 and there is a total lack of incentive for indigenous solar energy companies. The infrastructure for electric cars is so appalling it is the progress of the true pilgrim to own one.

Our performance on transport has been particularly poor with emissions now increasing 6% a year and expected to show an increase by 2020 of up to 16% since 2014.

This reflects, argues our National Mitigation Plan, both our reduced investment capacity over the period of the economic downturn as well as the fact that the target itself was misinformed.

How about saying it reflects poor political decision-making? And who was making those transport decisions?

Why, it was next weeks Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar!

We should have been investing heavily in public transport during the recession, when construction workers badly needed jobs.

We could have built Dublins Metro North between 2012 and had it up and running this year, a project which had planning permission and 500m in funding from the European Investment Bank and had been interrogated more than any plan in the history of the State.

Leo Varadkar cancelled it. His government had a huge majority and a rare opportunity to change this countrys direction towards its agreed target of 80% to 95% emissions reduction by 2050 and it failed utterly.

Transport was perhaps the biggest casualty. Luas cross-city connection Dublins Red and Green Lines should be the icing on the cake, not the only bun on the plate.

There is no public transport initiative for Cork, Galway or Limerick. The only public transport project name-checked in Taoiseach-elect Varadkars mission statement was Metro North which was finally revived last year by Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe. Otherwise, it was roads, roads, roads.

Varadkars rival for the top job, Simon Coveney, knows how to spell climate change and his election as Taoiseach might have inspired more hope in the breasts of environmentalists.

However,the sector of which he was Minister, agriculture, is the second most disappointing sector from the point of view of emissions reduction, with emissions now rising again and expected to have gone up 6% or 7% between 2014 and 2020.

Admittedly, its the sector which is toughest to fix. But Coveney invested a vast amount of time and energy highlighting emissions reductions from individual animals, without stressing the fact that this doesnt help if the number of animals increases accordingly.

Nobody has dared spell out to the farming community what our emissions reduction targets will mean for them. How will we go from having 5,000 hectares of forestry to 20,000 by 2030, for instance, when this land has to come from agriculture?

Some experts say we will need a radical land use plan which will mean paying farmers for leaving their land idle as a carbon sink and a flood mitigation measure. Irish people are still groping in the dark when it comes to the economic and societal transformation they must make. There is no leadership from government.

And most of the blame for the last two governments appalling record on climate change must lie with its leader, one Enda Kenny, who is currently doing his lap of honour.

He has got away with it. No resume of his career has concerned itself with the global challenge of our generation. The Sunday Business Post did a 30-point evaluation of his tenure as Taoiseach and didnt even mention the environmental challenge.

By the time insults are being traded as to who is responsible for our failure to cut emissions  and who is responsible for those massive fines we have to pay from resources which we need such as health and education  no one will name-check Enda Kenny.

But Leo Varadkar will still be a young man. If he wants a positive legacy he needs to stand up as our new Taoiseach next week and declare that Ireland is not going rogue but is going back on track towards a carbon emissions-free future.

Who was making those transport decisions? Next weeks Taoiseach Leo Varadkar
The militants, trying to hide the crimes committed by them in Luhansk region, have mounted a campaign to spread fake messages, the press centre of the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) headquarters has reported.

"In particular, there was a false story about how a group of the so-called 'journalists' fell under artillery fire near the occupied village of Frunze. Surely, the hostile propagandists forgot to clarify that the artillery fire was conducted by the militants themselves. They arranged the sham for pro-Russian 'PR people' with the goal of creating the needed TV image and making false TV news," a statement says posted on the official website of the press centre of the ATO headquarters.

"Given the chaotic shelling and inadequate actions of militants, local authorities are considering the possibility of sending children to safe areas," the report says.
Three items  two surveys and a government study  that were released in recent weeks show just how serious the Internet of Things (IoT) security situation is.

Altman Vilandrie & Company found that 48 percent of responding organizations IoT networks have been breached, some more than once.

The survey, which included results from almost 400 firms, also touched on budgetary issues. IoT security breaches are equal to 13.4 percent of annual total revenue of firms that take in less than $5 million. Almost half of larger companies with annual revenues of more than $2 billion estimated just one breach could cost more than $20 million, according to the press release.

There is some solace, if not outright good news, in the release. Companies that are proactive fare better:

The data indicated that preparedness helps: companies that have not experienced a security incursion have invested 65% more on IoT security than those who have been breached. The survey also showed that IT decision-makers often chose IoT security solutions based more on provider reputation and product quality rather than focusing on cost as a primary decision driver.

Three other key findings were highlighted in the release:

Sixty-eight percent consider IoT security a distinct category  but only 43 percent have a discrete budget.

Seventy-four percent centralize IoT security decisions for the entire company.

The three reasons for adopting IoT security: preventing loss of control over IoT devices, preventing breaches of customer information and preventing breaches of company data.

The Altman Vilandrie & Company results complemented those from the ISACA (formerly the Information Systems Audit and Control Association). Its research found that 80 percent of its responding members expect to be cyberattacked this year, and 53 percent say that they have experienced more attacks this year than last.

Almost all respondents, 97 percent, report that IoT defense is now their primary focus. It overtook mobile as the most important area to secure.

The third report, which doesnt solely focus on security, is from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). It sees the IoT as a great challenge that creates significant information security and privacy issues. It portrays an area where standards are not set and responsibility is divided between various federal agencies. The sense is that a lot of work needs to be done:

Adoption will likely accelerate as IoT devices become more affordable and offer increasing benefits. However, significant challenges accompany the wider adoption of IoT technologies. For example, devices that collect health information on patients may be vulnerable to hacking. With the rapid global expansion of IoT, security and privacy measures become increasingly important to curtail its misuse.

The reports  in particular, the surveys from Altman Vilandrie & Company and the ISACA  suggest that the IoT so far has shown great vulnerability. Moreover, the evidence suggests that more serious problems lie ahead if concerted actions are not taken.

Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at [email protected] and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
Ukrainian law enforcement officers investigating a terrorist act staged near the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv overnight into Thursday have already been granted access to the grounds of the diplomatic mission, Anton Gerashchenko, a People's Front faction deputy and an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, said.

"Half an hour ago, specialists were allowed to enter the embassy's premises, because it is regarded as U.S. territory, in order to collect CCTV recordings that were filmed there in cooperation with the embassy's security service. CCTV recordings will also be collected from all over the surrounding area in order to establish how these people approached the embassy, in what cars, etc," Gerashchenko said on his Facebook account on Thursday.

Gerashchenko blamed the Russian side for this incident near the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.

"The goal was very simple. It is a good pretext to stir up the information space, make it to the headlines on possibly global newswires and say that it is unsafe in Kyiv. I do not see any other motives," he said.

It was reported that Kyiv's police were alerted at 00:05 a.m. on June 8 about an explosion on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy. It was established during an examination that an unknown person had thrown an unidentified explosive device onto the diplomatic mission's premises. No one was hurt in the blast.

A criminal investigation has been launched on the count of a terrorist act under Ukraine's Penal Code following the incident.

The police said that all of the collected materials would be forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office and the Ukrainian Security Service would be in charge of this inquiry.
British Embassy Kyiv stands by the letter sent to NABU on 6 March 2017 and subsequent material provided by UK Passport Office to Ukr side https://t.co/0X2vDnmv5P  Judith Gough (@JudithGoughFCO) 8  2017 .

The British embassy in Ukraine has confirmed to the Ukrainian authorities information about the British passport of suspended Ukrainian Fiscal Service Head Roman Nasirov. "British Embassy Kyiv stands by the letter sent to NABU [National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine] on 6 March 2017 and subsequent material provided by UK Passport Office to Ukr side," British Ambassador to Ukraine Judith Gough wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.Gough was responding to assertions by Nasirov about misinformation about his possession of British passport. As earlier reported, the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine suspects Nasirov of committing crimes pursuant to Part 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (misuse of public office leading to serious consequences). Kyiv's Solomyansky District Court on March 7 remanded Nasirov in custody for 60 days and set bail at UAH 100 million. Ukraine's Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO), meanwhile, requested the court set bail at UAH 2 billion. On March 16, SAPO said Nasirov and his wife had posted UAH 100 million bail. On March 30, NABU turned down Nasirov's request to leave Ukraine for medical treatment. Kyiv's District Solomyansky District Court on June 2 turned down a request by Nasirov to change the terms of his pretrial detention. NABU detectives and SAPO agents filed a motion to recover UAH 100 million bail from Nasirov because he did not turn in his British passport. The court rejected the motion and its decision cannot be appealed.
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has passed a law strengthening cooperation between Ukraine and NATO with the aim of eventually joining the military alliance.

Corresponding bill No. 6470 on amending some legislative acts on the foreign policy of Ukraine was supported by 276 people's deputies at the plenary session on Thursday, the Kyiv-based Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported.

The bill says one of the pillars of Ukraine's foreign policy will be deepening cooperation between Ukraine and NATO in order to become a member.

The bill's author is Verkhovna Rada Speaker Andriy Parubiy.

The document envisages amendments to the July 1, 2010 law on the main principles of Ukraine's domestic and foreign policy and the June 19, 2003 law on the main principles of the country's national security.

"With the help of this bill, we are going to effectively restore the June 19, 2003 version of the law on the foundations of Ukraine's national policy. The Verkhovna Rada has finally gathered up the courage to renew the course toward membership in NATO without any phrases that it is necessary to reach the criteria for membership in NATO," Borys Tarasiuk, a Batkivschyna faction deputy and a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs, said during the parliamentary debate on the initiative.

This course was cancelled during Viktor Yanukovych's presidency, and in 2014 parliament voted for a "watered-down version [of the bill] on the course toward membership in NATO," he said.

An explanatory note to the bill said that Ukraine's "non-aligned status, which was documented in the law on the main principles of the country's domestic and foreign policy, turned out to be inefficient in the context of the need to ensure the state's security against external aggression and pressure."
Local Dems sweep; town rejects pot Every Democrat on the local ballot won their race Tuesday, including Jamestown resident Peter Neronhas re-election as the states top prosecutor, and local voters followed suit with the statewide trend...

Voters rebuff allowing retail pot sales in shops By a margin of 157 votes, the electorate decided Tuesday not to allow local businesses to cultivate, manufacture, test or sell recreational marijuana in Jamestown. The referendum to allow the...

School board agrees to contract with North Kingstown Jamestown students entering high school can continue to choose North Kingstown as their destination for grades 9-12. We are pleased to continue this historic partnership, said Ken Duva, superintendent of...
Kyiv should stick to its neutrality status, the Opposition Bloc in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada said.

"We believe, and this is also my personal opinion, that the most efficient model for Ukraine would be a model of neutrality, like Austria or Switzerland have," Opposition Bloc faction cochairman Oleksandr Vilkul told Interfax on Thursday.

He also said that the Thursday vote on bill No. 6470 would have no political meaning.

The Verkhovna Rada has defined deeper cooperation between Ukraine and NATO with the purpose of eventual entry into the alliance as the foundation of the Ukrainian foreign policy. Bill No. 6470, making adjustments to certain legislative acts on the Ukrainian foreign policy, gained the support of 276 parliamentarians on June 8.
The situation in the vicinity of the village of Zholobok, Luhansk region, where a Ukrainian serviceman was killed and eight others were injured on Wednesday, has stabilized, Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzianyk said.

"As for the current situation, it has somewhat stabilized there: it is quiet there so far. We have recorded only eight hostile armed provocations since the morning today in the entire ATO zone," he said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Thursday.

The village of Zholobok is situated in the Slovianoserbsk district, Luhansk region, northeast of the town of Kyrovsk. It is controlled by the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR). The disengagement line of forces in Donbas runs along the north-western and northern outskirts of the village.
Ukrainian police agree blast near U.S. embassy in Kyiv was 'malicious hooliganism' rather than terror attack

Ukrainian police have re-classified an explosion near the U.S. embassy in Kyiv early on Thursday, which was previously tentatively treated as an act of terrorism, as malicious hooliganism, the Ukrainian National Police press department said.

"The object that was thrown onto the embassy's territory could not have harmed anyone. Therefore, it's been decided ultimately to classify this incident as malicious hooliganism," the department quoted National Police chief Serhiy Kniazev as saying.

The U.S. embassy to Ukraine had said earlier in the day that it did not consider the explosion a terrorist attack.

After the scene of the blast was examined more carefully, the police determined signs of a criminal offence covered by Ukrainian Criminal Code Article 296, Part 4 (hooliganism), Kniazev said.

The investigation has been assigned to the National Police's main investigative directorate and criminal investigations department, he said.

At the same time, the Ukrainian Security Service is looking into possible terrorist designs behind the crime.

It was reported earlier that Kyiv police had received a report at 0:05 a.m. on Thursday about an explosion on the grounds of the U.S. embassy. An initial inquiry determined that an unidentified person had thrown an unidentified explosive device onto embassy territory. The blast did not harm anyone.
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KYIV. June 8 (Interfax-Ukraine)  A number of non-governmental organizations continue to seek the abolition of resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 365 dated June 8, 2016, which introduced a mechanism for exercising control over social and pension payments to internally displaced persons.

A relevant lawsuit was lodged in August 2016 with the District Administrative Court of Kyiv by the 'Right to Protection' Charitable Foundation, Donbas SOS and others. The court will begin consideration of the case per se only on June 13, 2017.

"We cannot silently agree that someone unilaterally decides whether we have the right to receive our legally earned pension or not. For a year now we have demanded that the government repeal resolution No. 365," legal analyst of the 'Right to Defense' Charitable Foundation Olena Vynohradova said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

In addition, citizens file lawsuits against the territorial directorates of labor and social protection of the population and offices of the Pension Fund of Ukraine. As of mid-May 2017, there are already over 60 court rulings in favor of internally displaced persons against discriminatory provisions of resolution No. 365.

Yulia Tralo, Legal Assistance Coordinator for the 'Right to Protection', noted that the termination of social and pension benefits guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine based on subordinate regulations or even letters of recommendation is a violation of the Constitution and laws.

Coordinator for Legal Assistance of the 'Donbas SOS' NGO Olha Hvozdiova said that the mechanisms introduced by the resolution are not only discriminatory and contradict the law, but also cannot be implemented in practice. Consequently, it creates unnecessary strain on social workers and contains corruption risks.
GREENSBORO  It's a scary thing for a developer to invest millions in an empty building before a tenant is even lined up.

But that's exactly what Guilford County needs to attract advanced manufacturers that come to town looking for move-in-ready buildings.

Without those buildings, hundreds of jobs could be bypassing the region.

Greensboro-based developer Roy Carroll said this week he's ready to spend from $75 million to $100 million developing shovel-ready building sites and industrial buildings that will help restock the shelves of the economic development inventory.

"I think $100 million will have a significant impact on industrial inventory especially coming from somebody like Roy who has the community's best interest at heart and will do the work in a first class manner," said Brent Christensen, president and chief executive officer of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, and a key leader in Guilford County economic development.

Carroll owns 600 acres in the eastern Guilford County area of Whitsett and about 200 acres in the southern part of the county with railroad frontage near Interstate 85, he said this week.

He plans to grade some sites so corporations can build to suit their needs and he's already working with some clients. But most important, he'll build some buildings on speculation that will house companies that need 300,000 or 400,000 square feet of space. Those are big buildings that could accommodate a wide range of companies that need manufacturing or warehouse space.

Carroll said he would be able to subdivide or expand those buildings as needed.

He knows that this region's prosperity drives the kinds of projects he's building downtown and could build in the future.

So he's ready to start work on some of the land he's been holding vacant for more than a decade.

"People come in and see a wooded site but they can't see the pad for the trees so to speak," he said. "Let's put some money in it and try to get some true shovel-ready (concrete) pads on the ground."

A native of Greensboro, Carroll owns a development company that holds about 13,000 apartment units, the Bee Safe self-storage company, the Rhino Times newspaper and other commercial properties in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.

He is in the midst of a $65 million project downtown called Carroll at Bellemeade with apartments and a hotel.

The $2.2 billion company has owned industrial land for more than a decade, but the manufacturing depression of the past 20 years plus the recession of 2008 have made it difficult for Carroll and other developers to lay out money before a tenant comes to town.

After six months of consideration, Carroll said he's ready to change the equation.

"We want to help the community," he said. "Its going to be good for The Carroll Cos. if we can create additional jobs."

Carroll said his company will also prepare building sites that will accommodate buildings from 150,000 square feet to a million square feet  23 acres under one roof.

"There are not many sites in Guilford where you can build a million-square-foot building," he said.

Greensboro's Samet Corp. built and sold a smaller speculative building on Gallimore Dairy Road in 2016, proving the market is ready to accept what was rare only a few years ago.

Christensen said Guilford County would be challenged right now to find the kinds of sites that Carroll is proposing.

"I think were in a good position," Christensen said. "Perhaps not in a great position but I dont think you'll ever find an economic developer who says we're in a great position. Were always having to be looking ahead. You have to be looking five or 10 years out."

A community can't afford to let industrial sites run out because they provide jobs and a strong tax base for the region, he said.

"You can find yourself out of luck real fast," he said.

Carroll said he's already working with potential tenants, so he won't start cold on his new ventures.

Expect work to begin sometime in spring 2018.

"It'll be sooner than later," he said.
A Stokes County man was convicted Tuesday on charges that he went the wrong way on Business 40 last year and crashed into another car.

Steven Paul Hamm, 37, of Pinnacle pleaded guilty in Forsyth Superior Court to driving while impaired, two counts of serious bodily injury by a motor vehicle and driving the wrong way on a dual highway.

Judge John O. Craig of Forsyth Superior Court gave Hamm two consecutive suspended sentences of one year to two years in prison. Craig placed Hamm on 30 months of supervised probation and ordered him to serve an active 30-day jail sentence. Hamm, Craig said, could serve that sentence on the weekends in order to maintain his employment.

Assistant District Attorney Aaron Berlin said the crash happened about 10:30 p.m. June 23, 2016. Hamm was driving a 2003 Jeep Wrangler west in the eastbound lane of Business 40 near Broad Street. Berlin said he struck a 2010 Honda that was driven by Joel Jiminez De los Santos of Pfafftown.

Berlin said Hamm had no one else in the car with him. Santos had three passengers in the car, including Crystal Clavel Lopez. Santos and Lopez were seriously injured.

Santos had compound fractures of his legs, a fracture of his clavicle and a contusion of his right lung, among other injuries, Berlin said. Lopez had head trauma and bleeding on the brain, he said. At one point, Lopezs injuries were considered life-threatening.

Hamm had a blood-alcohol content of .17 percent. The legal limit is .08 percent.

George Cleland, Hamms attorney, said Hamm is remorseful over what happened.

Hamm goes to church regularly with his wife and his child and doesnt drink alcohol, Cleland said. Hamm had gone out with a few co-workers the night of the crash.

Berlin said that Hamm was convicted of a DWI in 2001.

Cleland said Hamm has cooperated with Santos civil attorneys and reached a settlement on claims.
The North Carolina State Constitution is clear. It states in no uncertain terms that public higher education should, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense. We are one of the few states that has this mandate enshrined in our constitution. Our states founders understood that education is a critical public good.

Accomplishing this requires a multifaceted approach. Not only must we keep costs down, we also must deliver our students an education in the most efficient manner possibleall without sacrificing quality. This is a challenge the University is well positioned to tackle.

This spring, the University of North Carolina system rolled out its strategic plan for 2017-2022 after spending a year speaking with faculty, staff, administrators, business and civic leaders, elected officials, and the community at large. The plan reflects the states commitment to ensuring that college is within reach for all citizens of North Carolina. While our public universities are already among the best values in the country, but we must build upon that foundation to ensure any student in the state can afford to attend college if she or he wishes.

One way college costs can be driven down is by reducing the length of time it takes to complete a degree. Students who graduate in four years will typically spend less overall for their educations than students who takes five or six years to complete their studies. To help incentivize students to complete their degrees in eight semesters, a new guaranteed tuition policy was put into effect for the states public universities beginning in fall 2016. UNC system students are now locked into a fixed tuition rate for four years of continuous enrollment. This means they will be exempt from tuition increases if they complete their degree in four years, giving them both a cost break as well as the ability to predict accurately what their overall financial needs will be.

To help ensure students are able to matriculate through the university in that time frame, Winston-Salem State University is building upon work we began five years ago. Our faculty and administrators have taken a close look at how our general education courses integrate with the majors and how those courses can be used by students to meet the prerequisites required for advanced study. Meanwhile, advisors have been working closely with students to help them identify the best courses to take to meet their graduation requirements.

This fall, we also began a deeper dive into curriculum reform. We are looking at our curriculum from all angles and making decisions on the alignment of courses by placing the student at the center of the process. We are continually asking ourselves challenging questions about how we can better serve our studentsand how we can better serve our state by reducing the overall cost per degree for taxpayers.

The oft-quoted saying, A rising tide lifts all boats is a truism. There is no doubt that having a well-educated population reaps enormous benefits for all citizens of North Carolina. Our state is growing rapidlyand growing more diverse. Meanwhile, the global economy is changing, as are the expectations for our workforce. Employers are increasingly looking for people with broader skills and deeper knowledge. Prosperity for our state requires us to offer a public higher education system that responds to those needsand serves not only those with the financial ability to pay for college but also those from under-resourced families.

The Strategic Plan for the University of North Carolina (2017-2022) lays out a strong path for ensuring all North Carolinians can achieve their dreams and demonstrates our states commitment to higher education. This is an exciting time to live in this great state. With this robust, collaborative, and well-crafted plan, the university is poised to help North Carolina reach its full potential.

Elwood Robinson is the chancellor of Winston-Salem State University.
Security forces stand next to a crater created by a massive explosion, that killed over 150 according to the Afghan president, in front of the German Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD  A letter drafted by a senior Islamic State militant and obtained by The Associated Press points to a growing power struggle within the groups Afghan affiliate, pitting notoriously fierce Uzbek fighters against Pakistanis seen as too close to that countrys powerful intelligence service.

The rumblings of discontent come as the IS affiliate, which refers to itself as the Khorasan Province, is at war with both the U.S.-backed government and the more well-established Taliban, with which it differs on tactics, leadership and ideology.

The IS affiliate emerged in 2014 and refers to itself as the Khorasan Province, an ancient term for an area that includes parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian states. It has pledged allegiance to the IS group in Iraq and Syria but consists mainly of disgruntled former Taliban and other insurgents from South and Central Asia.

The letter, obtained by a jihadi fighter with ties to the IS affiliate and then provided to AP, was signed by Moawiya Uzbekistani, the apparent nom de guerre of an Uzbek militant, who claims to have become the leader of the IS affiliate after the death of Abdul Hasib, who was killed in a joint U.S.-Afghan operation in April.

Uzbekistani rejects reports that another fighter, who he identifies as Sheikh Aslam Farouqi, has been chosen to lead the group and suggests Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence is behind the rumors.

Even if this information is true, then its the ISI of Pakistan behind this function and we dont accept it, because we all fight for Allah and his religion, the letter says, warning against infidels, intelligence services and the deceitful acting from behind the scenes.

Militants belonging to allied groups said Central Asian fighters as well as Afghans want the leadership of the group taken out of Pakistani hands, even though the founder of IS in Afghanistan, Hafiz Saeed Khan, was a Pakistani tribesman. Khan was killed in a U.S. drone strike in July 2016.

The rift seemed to widen with a recent IS meeting in Pakistans Orakzai tribal belt, from where Khan originates, according to two people familiar with the meeting, which was said to have been attended by 40 senior IS commanders.
Summerville, SC (29483)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 69F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The Delaware legislature [official website] approved a bill [SB5 materials] on Tuesday that guarantees access to abortion. The bill, which was previously approved by the state Senate, was approved by a vote of 22-16 after five hours of debate and discussion. The bill ensures that the provisions of Roe v. Wade [LII materials] remain legal at the state level should the historical case be overturned. Under Delawares current laws [AP report] abortions are only permitted if the mothers health is at risk, if there is significant indications that a child will be born with disabilities, or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. The new legislation lifts any restrictions on abortions prior to the stage where a fetus reaches viability. A similar bill to protect abortion rights [Reuters report] was approved by the Illinois legislature [official website] in May but the states governor, Bruce Rauner, has said he would veto it. New York has also written legislation to protect abortion rights, but it has stalled in the Senate.

Access to abortion has been a recent issue since President Donald Trump vowed to appoint a Supreme Court [official website] justice who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Also on Tuesday Texas Governor Greg Abbott [official website] signed a series of abortion regulations into law [JURIST report]. In May Trumps administration announced [JURIST report] plans to expand the so-called Mexico City Policy blocking international family planning assistance through the US Agency for International Development [official website] to any groups or programs that provide abortion or abortion education to women. Also in May Trump signed [JURIST report] a bill into law that scales back an Obama administration regulation that protected certain federal funds for organizations that provide abortions, including Planned Parenthood [advocacy website]. In February the US House of Representatives approved a bill [JURIST report] that would overturn the Obama administrations rule prohibiting states from denying federal funding to Planned Parenthood and passed a bill [JURIST op-ed] that makes permanent restrictions on federal funding abortion. That same month the Florida Supreme Court [official website] blocked [JURIST report] enforcement of the Mandatory Delay Law, which requires that a woman wait 24 hours after receiving counseling from a physician before she can have an abortion. Also in February the Pennsylvania Senate [official website] approved SB 3 [JURIST report], putting Pennsylvania in line to become the seventeenth state to pass a bill banning abortions past 20 weeks.
Germanys Federal Constitutional Court [official website, in German] ruled [judgment, in German] on Wednesday that a tax on nuclear fuel was illegal. The tax, implemented in January 2011, charged [World Nuclear News report] nuclear power plants 145 per gram of fissile nuclear fuel loaded in a power plant. The court ruled that the tax did not fit within the types of excise duty allowed by the Basic Law. When the tax was initially enacted, in included a provision that allowed for the extended operation of the countrys nuclear power plants. However, after the 2011 Fukushima accident, Germany removed the extended operation provision, closed some older units early, but kept the tax in place. With the court ruling, the German utilities may be reimbursed the 6.3 billion (USD $7.1 billion) the utilities paid for the tax between 2011 and 2016. The European Court of Justice ruled in June 2015 that the tax did not violate EU laws.

The role of nuclear power plants in countries throughout the world have been a significant focus since the Fukushima accident. Voters in Switzerland voted [JURIST report] in May to phase out nuclear power in the country. This vote came just six months after a previous Switzerland resolution that voters rejected [JURIST report] that called for the phase out of nuclear power in the country. In the US, Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill in April to give nuclear power plants Zero Emission Credits, and a lawsuit was filed [JURIST reports] in Illinois in February against a recently enacted law that gave Zero Emission Credits to nuclear power plants in the state. A Japanese court ruled [JURIST report] in December 2015 to allow the restart of two nuclear power plants in the Fukui district.
Honda Motor president & CEO Takahiro Hachigo has announced a new modular product development strategy and a new unit to control product costs during a wide-ranging press briefing in Japan today to discuss the automakers future direction, including various products and technologies and the companys new 2030 vision.

We are currently moving forward with a project that will significantly advance Hondas development system and capability, Hachigo said.

The special merit of [our] automobile development is our SED development system where teams from development (R&D), production and sales work as one and form a project team to pursue product development. We will further advance this development system and introduce a new development process for making automobiles which will enable us to more efficiently create both products and services that appeal to peoples emotions.

As the first step of this initiative, we created a new planning division within R&D called the product and perceived quality planning division in October of last year. This is a planning team that ensures that our products feature perceived quality which is not easy to quantify.

In order to ensure that all of our automobile models consistently offer such perceived value to our customers, we are currently considering the introduction of modular strategies which include the sharing of parts and units.

We will establish an automobile cost planning division that will be in charge of comprehensive cost reduction by working closely among the divisions of R & D, purchasing, and production in addition to strengthening our capability in the area of cost planning.

Through those activities, we will aim for creating attractive automobiles and achieving comprehensive cost reduction by making both developing and producing new automobiles more efficient.

We will begin applying these initiatives starting from automobiles scheduled to go on sale in 2019.

New design direction

Hachigo said Honda would launch its new design direction at an auto show this fall.

Technologies to realise further evolved driving experience that performs at the will of the driver are currently under development.

He said Honda had been working to establish a flexible production system and mutually complementary production among six regions and has begun to see positive results.

In North America, in order to accommodate the recent increase in demand for SUVs, the automaker is in the process of establishing a production system to handle the production of light truck models such as the Honda CR-V and Pilot and the Acura MDX more flexibly.

Civic hatchback supply from the UK to North America has begun and export to Japan is being planned.

The WR-V, a regional model developed mainly in Brazil, is now being produced and sold in India as well.

We are facilitating inter-regional coordination to evolve our models more efficiently, Hachigo said.

Electrification

Honda wants to electrify two-thirds of its global automobile unit sales in 2030 and is focusing on hybrid based models utilising a high efficiency plug-in system claimed unique to Honda.

It will strengthen the development of electric vehicles (battery EV) in addition to fuel cell vehicles (FCV).

A China-exclusive BEV model is scheduled to go on sale in 2018 while a dedicated EV model for other regions is also currently under development. It will be introduced at an auto show this fall.

In October last year, Honda R&D established an electric vehicle development division where a specialised team will be in charge of developing the entire vehicle including the powertrain and body.

Safety tech

Honda plans to increase the number of vehicles with sensing technologies. In Japan, starting with the redesigned N-Box it will make sensing standard for all new models including mini-vehicles.

We will expand application of Honda Sensing for all-new models in other regions as well, including North America, China, and Europe, Hachigo said.

We are going to realise automated driving technologies for use on highways in 2020. And then, we will make them usable in a broader area including regular roads.

As for automated driving on highways, we are striving to realise an automated lane changing function which enables the vehicle to drive in multiple lanes without any command from the driver. And we also are going to realise an automated driving function which will free the driver from the need to monitor their surroundings while the vehicle is experiencing traffic congestion. Moreover, we will strive to achieve the technological establishment of level 4 automated driving for personal car use by around 2025.

2030 vision

Hachigo said: For Honda to continue to be a company society wants to exist even in the year 2050, when [we] will be more than 100 years old, we envisioned what we want to look like in such a future. And based on that, we determined what we want to look like in the year 2030, and we summarised that as our 2030 vision.

We will bring the universal passion of Honda to serve people worldwide with the joy of expanding their lifes potential. And toward this end, we will lead the advancement of mobility and enable people everywhere in the world to improve their daily lives. This is our 2030 vision statement.

We will focus on three areas, namely mobility, robotics, with a focus on AI, and energy solutions in order to provide people with the joy and freedom of mobility and the joy of making their lives better.

We will strive to further expand the joy of people by offering products and services that are optimised based on Hondas desire to utilize technology to help people, while putting people at the core.

Striving to become No. 1 in the areas of the environment and safety, we will invest more resources in these areas. And we will strive to become a company that leads the effort to realise a carbon-free and collision-free society.

He said Honda will further enhance inter-regional coordination and collaboration and increase the efficiency of operations from a global perspective. It will grow our global models strong, so that they will be well-received anywhere in the world. As for regional models, with consideration of customers needs in each region, multiple regions with similar customer needs will work together to realise common regional models with a high level of product strength. Through this initiative, we will strive to achieve more efficient business operations in each region.

We will clarify what we should do on our own, and we will focus on that. At the same time, we will be proactive in engaging in open innovation with external partners.
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Photos Credit: Patti Morrow

China can be a logistical challenge for foreigners. The countrys recent tourism boom has put this country on many bucket lists, but maneuvering by plane or train is still difficult due to the language barrier and cultural differences. Touring by boat, however, is a different story. Viking River Cruises provides a luxurious, stress-free journey throughout much of the country, including the stunning Three Gorges, considered by many to be the trip of a lifetime. From Chongqing to Wusan, the floating luxury hotel stops for exploration of temples and pagodas, floats past misty monolithic bluffs, and pampers guests every inch of the way.

The Emerald

From the moment I stepped onto the gangplank, greeted by a Chinese dragon, I knew this was going to be a memorable trip. The 256-passenger Emerald did not disappoint. The exterior of the ship was unexpectedit did not look like a luxury vessel, but was intentionally designed to fit in with Chinese-style crafts. Inside was the familiar state-of-the-art Viking sophistication; from the spacious, tastefully appointed suites, each with sliding glass doors leading onto a veranda, to the formal dining with panoramic views, lounges, spa, and shops.

The menu onboard changed every day with Asian and European entrees and buffet items. The staff mingled with the guests for happy hour every evening before the scrumptious dinner, and wine and beer were served with the meal. The highlight was always the communal dining experience, where new friendships were forged, often times lasting beyond the cruise itself. Guests can gather at any time of day on the partially shaded sun deck to socialize while gazing at the emerald green water and towering craggy cliffs.

Chongqing

The cruise embarked in southwest China at Chongqing, making it the perfect jumping off point for the Three Gorges. The mountainside city with its Manhattan-like skyline served as the countrys capital during World War II. Its known as the "Fog City" because of the high probability of being fogged in.

Shibaozhai

Rising sharply from the banks of the Yangtze River, I saw the Buddist temple of Shibaozhai, which is often considered a national treasure. I crossed the Drunk Bridge, named because of the floating wooden planks that move as people cross. In front of me perched on a rocky hill, the temple seemed almost inaccessible, but I was not to be put off. Ascending the 12-story spiral of rickety, wooden stairs, I emerged at the red pavilion on top. What a spectacular 360-degree panorama of the Yangtze River and surrounding countryside! The walk to get to the temple will take you through the local town and market where I found the best variety and price of local handcrafts and antiques in the country.

The Three Gorges

For the next 150 miles, our ship navigated along the placid Yangtze River, through the adjacent scenic gorges, classified as an AAAAA scenic area (the highest level) by the China National Tourism Administration. With mist-laden cliffs rising up on either side of the river canyon, the sunrise on Qutang was the first to greet us. At only five miles long, its the shortest gorge and also where warriors coffins were discovered, some of which still rest in the caves.

The 20-mile Wu Gorge was next on the agenda. The cliffs here are very tall and sheer, making for a very dramatic entrance. Near the end of the Wu Gorge is the Goddess peak, which marks the entrance to Wushan and of one of the lesser gorge tributaries, called the Goddess Stream. At this point, I left our Viking ship and stepped into a small sampan boat to explore the jewel of the gorges. Off we went, into the narrow, sparkling green tributary embraced by the vertical rock walls and regaled with history. The stream has retained its unspoiled beauty and splendor, and offered the most dramatic scenery that I witnessed in China. It was certainly the highlight of the Three Gorges cruise.

The Locks

We traveled through the lock system at approximately midnight. It was dark, which only added to the mystical experience. The passageway that the ship has to navigate is so tight, I could reach out and touch the wall from my balcony! In reality, the locks and ship elevators which lift or lower ships into the locks, make the previously dangerous gorges safer to navigate, especially for freighters.

Three Gorges Dam

Damn. No literally dam. In the middle of Xiling Gorge, we came to the infamous Three Gorges Dam in Sandoupingthe worlds largest hydroelectric dam. Unfortunately it was too foggy to see much of the massive structure. The dam, built in 2011, was designed to control the destructive flooding of the Yangtze River, but has been cloaked in controversy. The ecological mass relocation of more than a million people in the cliffside towns and villages is reasoned against the newly accessible temples, pagodas and historic sites which created more tourism.

Jinzhou

Jinzhou is an ancient city with 2,000 years of history and culture. During the Three Kingdom Period (220-589), the city was the focus of many disputes and wars. Subsequently, the city was established as the capital and political center by 11 emperors and is one of 24 famous historical and cultural ancient cities. I was very fortunate to get a unique opportunity to visit the local markets with head chef Danny Tang from Viking.

Wuhan

The cruise ended at Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province and home to financial, cultural, political with artifacts dating back to 433 BC. Before you go, climb the Yellow Crane Tower for a panorama of the river before heading to the land-based city of Shanghai.
Largest Chinese animal vaccine company to add labs, offices in Manhattan



Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Chinese animal health company Jinyu Bio-technology Co. Ltd. Will locate in Phase II of the Kansas State University Office Park, which is scheduled to break ground in July. The company will begin operations in 2018. | Download this photo.





MANHATTAN  The largest animal vaccine company in China announced May 31 that it will open a research lab and offices in the Kansas State University Office Park, which is on the north side of the Manhattan campus.



Officials for Jinyu Bio-technology Co. Ltd. said that this is the first time that the company has established facilities in the United States. The company will focus on the research and design of vaccines for swine and cattle, as well as developing educational materials for Chinese companies and veterinarians.



"When university-focused companies like Jinyu Bio-technology locate adjacent to K-State's campus, partnerships develop with faculty expertise and research to promote real-world application and discovery," said Greg Willems, Kansas State University Foundation president and chief executive officer. "The K-State Office Park advances opportunity for these current and future collaborations to boldly move K-State and the needs of a global community forward."



Jinyu plans to employ four to six scientists. The company has researched the Manhattan location for nearly two years and was drawn to its connection with the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor, which stretches from Manhattan to Columbia, Missouri. It is home to more than 300 animal health companies, which account for more than half of the sales generated annually by the global animal health industry.



"The Kansas City Animal Health Corridor's international reputation is a strategic advantage for more and more animal health companies," said Kimberly Young, corridor president. "We are thrilled to welcome Jinyu to our corridor community and look forward to the company's leadership and effort."



Chongyu Zhang, Jinyu chairman, said the company's decision was based on a belief that Manhattan and Kansas State University are in the forefront of animal health research that is relevant to Chinese animal agriculture and the world.



"Manhattan is the home to many world renowned scientists in the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Biosecurity Research Institute and the future National Bio and Agro-defense Facility, Zhang said.



He added that Jinyu is growing quickly internationally and is looking forward to developing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships with partners in the region. The company may add manufacturing facilities in the future.



"The addition of Jinyu Bio-technology to the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor is truly a partnership of innovation and expertise," said Antonio Soave, secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce. "We, as a state, must continue to engage excellent biotech companies like Jinyu, as Kansas continues to become one of the leading locations for bioscience in the nation."



Many organizations played a key role in attracting Jinyu to the region, including the state of Kansas and the Kansas Department of Commerce; city of Manhattan and Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce; Kansas State University, Kansas State University Institute for Commercialization, KSU Foundation, College of Veterinary Medicine and the university's U.S.-China Center for Animal Health; the Kansas City Area Development Council; and the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor.



"Jinyu has state-of-the-art pilot production and manufacturing facilities, strong financial support for research and development, and great market penetration in China," said Jishu Shi, director of the U.S.-China Center for Animal Health. This partnership is the first for K-State with a Chinese animal health company. It will accelerate the commercialization of novel discovery and development ideas generated by K-State scientists."



Tammy Beckham, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said the agreement supports the university's interest in research and development of biopharmaceuticals.



"In addition, Jinyu's expansion to Manhattan will help support economic development through the addition of jobs and partnerships, she said. I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Jinyu to the state of Kansas and look forward to a long and robust partnership."



Peter Dorhout, Kansas State University's vice president for research, said the university's strength in animal health research helps attract large companies to the region and contributes to the economic impact in Riley, Geary and Pottawatomie counties, which amounted to $882 million in fiscal year 2015.



"Partnerships in animal health in particular help university and industry researchers inhabit the cutting edge," Dorhout said. "Protecting animal health requires adapting to changing global circumstances, and we want to ensure that our researchers and students are prepared to contribute and to help industry address urgent needs."



Dorhout added that the partnership further advances the university's goal to become a Top 50 public research university by 2025.



"K-State's 2025 strategic plan encourages us not only to create a culture of excellence that results in increased research activities, but also to fully engage with people and build necessary infrastructure," he said. "We are working to ensure that K-State innovations are applied to improve global food security, bio-agro defense, animal and human health, and more.



"Engagement is part of our land-grant heritage, so our attention to this area isn't new, but 2025 infused new energy into these efforts," Dorhout said. "Industry partnerships also enhance the opportunities we can offer to our students through involving undergraduate and graduate students in individual research projects as well as internships and full-time employment opportunities."



Lyle Butler, president of the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce, hailed Jinyu's announcement as another success story for the city of Manhattan and the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor.



"Our partnerships with the university family, the state of Kansas and the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor were critical in attracting Jinyu to the state," Butler said. "Jinyu's decision to locate in Manhattan is yet another example of the successes that can come from our shared university/community economic development strategy to attract high-pay, knowledge-based jobs and grow the regional economy through the leverage of Kansas State University's research and talent.



Jinyu's Manhattan operations will be located in Phase II of the Kansas State University Office Park, which is scheduled to break ground in July. The company will begin operations in 2018.
Save the date: Friends of McCain Holiday Home Tour set for Dec. 3



Thursday, June 8, 2017

Funds raised through the biennial Friends of McCain Auditorium Holiday Home Tour help support McCain's free educational programming for children.





MANHATTAN  Mark your calendar now for some holiday cheer as the Friends of McCain Auditorium have announced the McCain Holiday Home Tour for 2017. The popular biennial fundraiser for McCain Auditorium will be 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3.



This year's event will feature four area residences decorated for the holiday season. Selection and coordination of homes begins more than a year in advance to allow homeowners adequate time to plan and prepare for the event.



Money raised will support McCain Auditorium's education and outreach activities.



"McCain Auditorium's education programs, including free children's matinee performances, are supported by sponsorships, individual giving, grants and fundraising events such as the McCain Holiday Home Tour," said Todd Holmberg, executive director of McCain Auditorium. "The community also enjoys touring the homes and seeing a snapshot of the homeowners' holiday traditions while knowing they are benefiting arts-related educational programming at McCain Auditorium."



Sponsorships are available for the home tour by contacting Holmberg at trholm@k-state.edu or 785-532-6425.



The tour will feature Eryn and Jeff Smith's home in the renovated former Keats High School building; Jodi and Larry Thierer's Southern-inspired home in Wyndham Heights; Kelly and Tim White's Craftsman-style home north of Manhattan; and Lori and T.J. Vilkanskas' modern home in the Vanesta area. The wide variety of styles will be accented by the different holiday decorating themes.



Tickets will be $20 in advance or $25 at the door, and will be available at several area business outlets in the fall. The McCain Holiday Home Tour Committee is chaired by Julie Keenan and Val Kershner. For more information on the tour, please contact Keenan at koenigkeenan@gmail.com or 210-875-7456.






Physicists create 'molecular black hole' using ultra-intense X-ray pulses



Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Kansas State University physicists capture how an iodine atom irradiated by an extremely intense X-ray beam loses dozens of electrons and, for a short time, turns into a "molecular black hole" that pulls in charge from its surroundings. Artistic rendering of the process courtesy of DESY/Science Communication Lab. | Download this photo.



MANHATTAN  Heavy atoms absorbing X-rays are sucking the electrons from their molecular neighbors like a black hole pulling in matter. The research is published in the June 1 issue of Nature.



Principle investigators of the study, Artem Rudenko and Daniel Rolles, both assistant professors of physics at Kansas State University, successfully used short pulses of ultra-intense high-energy X-rays to produce a detailed picture of how X-ray radiation interacts with molecules. This was the first time this kind of extreme light has been used to break up molecules, and it may help scientists understand the damages from X-ray radiation when it is used to take an X-ray picture.



Rudenko and Rolles shot iodomethane, CH3I, and iodobenzene, C6H5I, molecules with a powerful X-ray beam at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University. According to Rudenko, the X-ray laser is the most powerful in the world with an intensity of 100 quadrillion kilowatts per square centimeter.



"As this powerful X-ray light hits a molecule, the heaviest atom, the iodine, absorbs a few hundred times more X-rays than all the other atoms," Rudenko said. "Then, most of its electrons are stripped away, creating a large positive charge on the iodine."



The positive charge that was created steadily pulls electrons from the other atoms in the molecule, which fills the created vacancies like a short-lived black hole, Rudenko said. Unlike the real black hole, the molecular version lets the electrons out again. They are stripped away in a few femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second.



"The cycle repeats itself until the molecule explodes," Rolles said. "In total, 54 of iodomethane's 62 electrons were ejected in this experiment, far more than we anticipated based on earlier studies using less intense X-rays. In addition, the larger molecule, iodobenzene, loses even more electrons."



Understanding the ultrafast dynamic process is important for many applications of intense X-ray lasers, including X-ray imaging of biomolecules.



"Ultra-intense X-rays give us a new and efficient tool to image biological particles, such as proteins and viruses, with high resolution," Rolles said. "But they also damage and eventually destroy the object we are trying to study. If we can understand the mechanisms that cause the damage, theorists can model how the structure changes during the picture-taking process, allowing researchers to either avoid the damage or to account for its influence."



The molecules Rudenko and Rolles used in this experiment are comparatively small model systems that are used to study typical damage effects induced by very intense energetic X-rays.



"Based on our findings, we can predict what will happen in larger systems," Rolles said.



In addition to helping scientists image and understand biological systems, the research also sheds new light on the charge and energy flow in a highly energized molecule. The research of these fundamental processes could be important for solar energy conversion and radiation-driven chemistry  both areas of interest for the U.S. Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences program, which funded the research.



Under Rudenko and Rolles' guidance, two doctoral students in Kansas State University's J.R. Macdonald Laboratory, Xiang Li and Javad Robatjazi, carried out elaborated data analysis for the study and worked on the interpretation of the results.



Robin Santra and his colleagues, all at the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, or DESY, in Hamburg, Germany, contributed the theoretical work for the study. Other collaborators include researchers from Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, University of Chicago and Northwestern University in the U.S.; University of Hamburg, the Max Planck Institutes and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt national metrology institute, Germany; Tohoku University, Japan; the University of Science and Technology Beijing, China; the University of Aarhus, Denmark; and Sorbonne University, France.
SEOUL, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on DPRK's east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into the DPRK'S eastern waters. South Korea and the United States were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The South Korean militaryhas strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional DPRK provocation, while maintaining full defense preparedness, the JCS said.

The DPRK projectiles were not ballistic missiles. Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The test-firing by the DPRK came as the U.S. military dispatched nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The test-launches were immediately reported to South Korean President Moon Jae-in right after being detected, according to local media reports.

Pyongyang has conducted missile test-launches five times since Moon took office on May 10.
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KEARNEY  Because of a nursing shortage, a unit offering rehabilitation services has been closed at CHI Health Good Samaritan.

The hospital has notified the state of the closure of the Transitional Care Unit. It was a hard decision but allows our focus to remain on hospital-based, acute care, Good Samaritan CEO Michael Schnieders said.

TCU, previously located on the fourth floor of the main hospital building, was a separate, skilled nursing facility that provided short-term, skilled nursing care to medically complex patients, rehab patients and end of life care patients. The unit was licensed for 22 beds and had 24 staff members. Because of staffing challenges, the hospital was limited to care for only 16 patients at a time.

As a skilled nursing unit, TCU works very differently than any other unit of our hospital, Schnieders said in an email to the Hub. It is not an acute unit, but more like a nursing home. Unlike the other nursing homes here in town, it happens to be located inside the walls of the hospital.

Now that the TCU has closed, the hospital will relocate the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit from the second floor into the fourth floor.

The hospital CEO cites the national nursing shortage for the cutback.

Our TCU provides exceptional care and the staff are amazing, however, we simply need more of them. ... For a while now weve been unable to fill open nursing positions, Schnieders said.

According to the American Nurses Association, registered nursing positions are close to the top of the list when it comes to employment growth. Registered nurse is listed fifth by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor as one of the occupations with the largest projected job openings because of growth and replacement needs.

The bureau listed the national number of registered nurses as 2,711,500 and the projected number by 2022 as 3,238,400. The agency projects there will be more than 1 million job openings from 2012-2022 as a result of the fields expansion and the need to replace people leaving the workforce. The bureau lists about 21,240 registered nurses in Nebraska.

The nursing shortage shines a light on the fact that health care is changing, and we need to look at new ways to provide care in the most efficient and high-quality manner possible, Schnieders said.

Good Samaritan currently employs 530 nurses. There are 26 openings for nurses at Good Samaritan.

With the closure of TCU, some employees in that unit chose to leave. Those who remained were given the option to apply for open positions throughout the organization, Schnieders said.

No other units have closed, Schnieders said.

For those in need of the type of care provided by TCU, Good Samaritan began partnering with other skilled nursing facilities, such as some nursing homes, to provide care and service. The hospital did this by first limiting admissions to TCU then transferring the remaining patients to skilled facilities.

Now, if there is a patient in our hospital who is ready to move to that level of care, our Care Management Department works with skilled nursing facilities close to the patients home to transition them there rather than TCU, Schnieders said.

Staff has moved other units around the hospital as well. During flu season, the hospitals Pediatric Unit remained steadily full but thats not usually the case during the rest of the year, Schnieders said.

In early April, the pediatric rooms were moved adjacent to the Medical Surgical Unit to provide more staffing flexibility, he said.

Nurses are cross-trained and can easily move between the combined unit. It utilizes our nursing workforce to the best advantage, Schnieders said. While there were a few kinks to work out in the beginning, this new model of care has been a success.

This new model of care involves more cross training of nurses, ultimately creating more flexibility with a workforce that is in short supply, Schnieders explained.

Previously, pediatric nurses cared only for children and young adults. If there werent any of those patients in the hospital, the nurses went home. Now, with the department co-existing with the Medical Surgical Unit, the nurses can care for adults when there are no pediatric patients.

At one time, hospitals across the nation provided skilled nursing care within their walls. Now, its rare to see that type of care offered in the hospital setting, Schnieders said. Other facilities in our community and region focus on this level of care, and thats why were looking to partner with them to transition our patients to those facilities when there is a need.

@AmandaPush
Older Nebraskans had better speak out and be heard in the national health insurance debate, because if they dont defend their interests they could face enormous increases in their out-of-pocket expenses for medical care.

Thats the warning being sounded by an organization that looks out for some of the most vulnerable groups and individuals in our state.

Nebraska Appleseed is amplifying the alarm sounded two weeks ago when the federal Congressional Budget Office released its assessment of the U.S. House of Representatives American Health Care Act.

House lawmakers approved the AHCA 217-213 on May 4, and sent the legislation to the U.S. Senate for further attention and refinement. Rep. Adrian Smith, who represents 68 mostly rural counties in central and western Nebraska, is among the House members who voted to advance the AHCA to the Senate.

If the CBAs assessment is correct, Smiths constituents could be very hard hit if the Senate is unable to fix the badly flawed AHCA.

Nebraska is one of the states with the most to lose from Congress drastic cuts to premium tax credits and Medicaid, Appleseed Deputy Health Care Director Molly McCleery said.

According to the CBO, Nebraskas premium increases could be the nations fifth-highest, and rural Nebraskans also could see an average annual increase of more than $5,000 in out-of-pocket costs such as deductibles and cost sharing.

The elderly of rural Nebraska already are hard-pressed to keep up with living expenses, including rising food and housing costs. Piling on thousands more in medical expenses and insurance premiums would crush older Nebraskans.

As its written, AHCA also slashes Medicaid, the public health insurance program that provides coverage to Nebraskas most-vulnerable people, by more than $800 billion over the next decade. The U.S. Senate must rescue Americans from imploding Obamacare, and also correct the major flaws in the AHCA.

Nebraskas U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer and Ben Sasse need to know that constituents wont stand for the AHCAs sharply reduced coverage and impossibly increased costs.
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Forensic officers with Halifax Regional Police searched for evidence on a Dartmouth footpath, Wednesday, June 7, 2017 after an 18-year-old woman discovered in medical distress on the path late Tuesday later died in hospital. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Brett Bundale
FILE - In this May 3, 2017, file photo, then-FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Comey will testify that President Donald Trump sought his "loyalty" and asked what could be done to "lift the cloud" of investigation shadowing his White House, according to prepared remarks released ahead of his appearance on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
A 27-year-old Kenosha woman is awaiting extradition to Illinois, alleged to have shot and killed a woman outside a house party in Waukegan, Ill., Monday.

Nicole Maise was taken into custody in Kenosha by Kenosha and Waukegan police who were seeking her on a warrant for murder.

She appeared in court here Wednesday and her bond was set at $300,000. According to the court record, she indicated she would waive her right to contest extradition.

According to a statement from Waukegan police, Maise is implicated in the shooting death of 24-year-old Ciera Q. Davis of Waukegan.

Waukegan police said they received a call at 4:30 a.m. Monday about a shooting on the 1600 block of 11th Street of that community. When they arrived, they found evidence of a shooting but no victim.

A short time later, they learned that someone at a party drove Davis to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

At a vigil this week, Davis family said she had been shot in the head.

According to the Chicago Tribune, family members at the vigil said Davis had been at the party earlier in the evening, then returned in the early morning hours after receiving a phone call.

They said she had been jumped by a group of women at the same house about a month earlier.

Right now the detectives are still putting together the events from that evening, said Commander Joe Florip.

Maise has a lengthy misdemeanor record in Kenosha County, with several past convictions for disorderly conduct, retail theft and obstructing police.
China's May exports up 15.5 pct, imports up 22.1 pct

BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Both China's exports and imports surged in May, beating expectations, customs data showed Thursday.

Exports in yuan-denominated terms hit 1.32 trillion yuan (about 194 billion U.S. dollars) last month, up 15.5 percent year on year, higher than market expectations and the 14.3 percent growth in April, according to the General Administration of Customs (GAC).

Imports grew 22.1 percent in May, much faster than market forecasts and the 18.6 percent growth in April.

This led to a monthly trade surplus of 281.6 billion yuan, in contrast with a 262.3 billion yuan surplus in April. However, the May surplus declined 3.4 percent year on year.

Total foreign trade volume reached 2.35 trillion yuan last month, up 18.3 percent year on year.

May's data continued the growth in China's foreign trade since the beginning of the year.

In the first five months combined, exports increased 14.8 percent from a year ago to 5.88 trillion yuan, and imports jumped 26.5 percent to 4.88 trillion yuan, resulting in a 21.1 percent decline in the trade surplus.

During the first five months, trade with the EU jumped 16.1 percent from the same period last year to hit 1.6 trillion yuan. The EU is China's biggest trade partner, accounting for 14.8 percent of the country's foreign trade.

Meanwhile, trade with the United States, ASEAN and Japan went up by 21.1 percent, 23.2 percent and 17.5 percent, respectively.

Machinery, electronics and clothing exports rose in the first five months, while labor-intensive products such as fertilizer, steel and automobiles saw shrinking orders.

A leading indicator for China's exports increased from 40.7 to 41.1 month on month in May, signalling positive export potential.
During the eighth Clean Energy Ministerial, held in Beijing from June 6 to 8, Wang Zhigang, vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said that China has significantly increased its investment in clean energy and remained the biggest investor in the world for five consecutive years.

China now boasts the greatest installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic power in the world, registering 149 and 77 gigawatts of energy respectively. It is also home to the biggest base of product R&D and application for semiconductor lighting, Wang explained.

The vice minister continued, The growth of energy consumption in China has slowed markedly in recent years, while our energy mix keeps optimizing. Our energy use is now green, low-carbon, renewable and efficient. The change is in itself a reflection of the value of science and technology."

Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency

Adnan Amin, director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency, welcomed the policies of the Chinese government, noting that China has pledged to invest $361 billion in renewable energy power generation by 2020. At the same time," Amin said, "the construction of 100 coal-fired power plants will be canceled.

During the implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan, it is expected that 68 percent of increased energy consumption will be powered by non-fossil fuels or natural gas. Investment in renewable energy will reach 2.5 trillion RMB, and will help to create 13 million jobs.
Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, has been well prepared for the Expo 2017 which will start on June 10, under the theme of Future Energy.

It is the first time for a Central Asian country to host the event, which will attract a total of 115 countries and 22 international organizations to participate in the expo and the number of visitors is expected to reach 5 million.

Staffs, volunteers and reporters from all over the world can be seen in the expos news center. Besides, there are about 150 interpreters to offer various language services for visitors, the Astana Convention Bureau told the Peoples Daily.

Anastasia Noziya, a volunteer, said Astana has become more beautiful because of the expo. It makes me excited and proud seeing so many foreign friends coming to my city for the expo. I hope that inspired by the expos theme of Future Energy, my city will become better and better.

The theme of Future Energy stems from the reality, said Adilet, a college student and volunteer. Energy has demonstrated its importance in driving world development, therefore looking for new energies is a must. The theme chosen for the expo by Kazakhstan, a resource-rich country, showcases the priorities it gives to the future of the earth, the student added.

Shaposhnikova Tatyana, a retired nurse, said that the pavilion she wants to visit most is the China pavilion. Tatyana said she liked to watch the Russian channel of China Central Television.

My children showed me lots of photos they took during their visit to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which left deep impressions on me. Now Im going to visit the China pavilion on my own like Im in China. I believe the pavilion will bring me a lot of surprises, she noted.

China is the first country to confirm to attend the expo, and the China pavilion is the first to start trial operation. Those efforts have been praised by the host country.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid two visits to the China pavilion during his tours to the expo site.

Editor-in-Chief of the online version of the Yegemen Serik, who has been to China for many times, said his dream is to travel along the Silk Road by train. That dream will soon be fulfilled in the China pavilion, which has set up a stimulated high-speed train driving platform that allow spectators to drive from Xian in Northwest China to Astana, watching the spectacular sceneries along the route.

The pavilion has been praised as a role model by the organizing committee of the expo, said Yang Hong, deputy director of the China pavilion.
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I cant quite describe the feeling of sitting in the audience of my medical school graduation this past month. Among the rows of students anxiously awaiting the graduating class, I felt like an anomaly. When the newly minted doctors came down the aisle, my heart skipped a beat.

The truth is I should have been in that processional. I should have been an MD by now. No, I didnt flunk out of medical school. I just left.

When I decided to leave medical school for a year, I didnt know what to expect. I wanted to pursue my passion for public health and research, interests that had developed in college as a volunteer in free health clinics in Detroit, MI. The training seemed even more necessary as I practiced medicine in my third year. I saw how there were gaping holes in our medical system and how physicians alone couldnt solve compounding health inequities. I decided an accelerated Masters of Public Health in between my third and fourth years of medical school was the best option to take.

Although I left alone among the rows of students at graduation, I know Im not. Several of my classmates also took a year off  some for professional reasons like pursuing a Masters or conducting a research fellowship. Others took time away from medical school to start their families or for their own health reasons before residency.

Although there is no official statistics on the number of students who take time off of medical school, a recent study suggest that about a third of students do it to increase their competitiveness for a residency program, while another 23 percent want to pursue other academic interests. This trend speaks to the evolution of physicians and medical education at large.

More medical students are interested in a career that combines clinical practice with something else. Whether that is research, teaching, or advocacy among others, medical students are expanding their careers opportunities outside of the patient setting.

This trend is increasingly normalized nationally with research programs like those at the National Institute of Health or Howard Hughes Medical Institute, that continue to encourage students to take time away from medical school to improve their research acumen. In addition, some schools offer physician-scientist training programs like the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where students start medical school knowing they will take a year off to pursue research. Other places like the University of Michigan School of Medicine offers students an opportunity to pursue research through the Masters of Science in Clinical Research, a fully funded year of research-oriented courses and independent research.

These programs are meant to incentivize research training and ensure students get the additional preparation needed to be competitive in various residency applications and beyond. It is no wonder that students who leave medical school with dual degrees are often afforded more opportunities in their residency choices and far down the road as attending physicians. I was assured of this as I scrolled through the leadership directories of various hospitals.

In the context of these new trends in medical education, explaining my decision to my family and community members was no easy task. Some perplexingly asked what I would do now that I didnt want to be a doctor. Others recommended I find a career that was less demanding than medicine. But, most understood why the additional training was so vital in the changing health care landscape.

In a time when the American Health Care Act is proposing to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund as well as completely defund Planned Parenthood, it is important that medical students consider their roles outside of the clinical setting.

For me, it was simple: I not only wanted to address the health of my patients individually, but also at the population level. Although I was trained in diagnosing and treating illness in medical school, I really wanted to learn how to prevent them. I wanted to learn how to sustain health and restore wellness. Ultimately, I knew that I needed the additional training to shape my career as a hybrid physician  one that could see patients, engage in community research, help teach future physicians, and shape health policies.

As I watched my former classmates take their Hippocratic Oath at graduation this past month, I was both relieved and anxious. I still had a year left of medical school to complete and a residency application process to navigate through. Although I had this new public health knowledge, I wasnt exactly sure what would come of it years later. Yet, I felt a sense of relief knowing that my additional training afforded me new opportunities in the long term.

Emman Dabaja is a medical student.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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While Thomas Jefferson may have written that All men are created equal in our Declaration of Independence, nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to health care in the United States. As a physician, I have pledged to ease suffering and heal those who are sick. However, I find that my job has become increasingly difficult over the last several years. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has limited access for my patients, increased the administrative burden on health care providers and created a market that favors those who have over the have-nots. I am also deeply concerned about the impact of the so-called replacement passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

Problems (and questions) remain after the latest repeal efforts: How will we cover those Americans who need health care the most  the chronically ill, the poor, and the marginalized? Why is there still no tort reform? Why did we not address the issue of competition among insurers across state lines? What about limiting drug costs by holding big pharma accountable?

Now, there is more evidence that health care in the U.S. remains broken. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that where you live within the United States may have a significant impact on your longevity. In 2014, there was a spread of nearly 20 years in life expectancy based solely on which county in the United States in which you lived. Counties, where residents are more educated and more affluent, had the longest lifespan and, as you might expect, those counties where residents are poorer and have no post-secondary education have the shortest.

Those that are educated and have more financial options are able to focus on prevention and healthy lifestyle habits. Those that have not do not have the access to preventative care and cannot afford quality insurance. While they remain insured on paper they are effectively uninsured due to issues with access and cost.

Until we focus on prevention for all, we will continue to see such disparities, and we will continue to have the most expensive health care in the world.

The new Republican plan leaves me with little hope. Those that are already marginalized will remain marginalized. Those who need preventative care will be placed into high-risk pools and could be priced out. While the House Bill does say that pre-existing conditions will be covered, I fear that by leaving much of this to the States, we will likely create a system in which many are left out. Alternatively, if we were to create a system where we address chronic disease early in the process and focus on prevention of complications and the proper management of the condition, we are likely to be able to close the ever increasing lifespan gap that is demonstrated by this most recent study.

Any real reform must include things that will lower cost, increase access, improve choice and care and expect engagement and individual responsibility from patients.

1. Tort reform. We can no longer allow for frivolous and predatory lawsuits against physicians. Fear of litigation increases costs by forcing doctors to practice defensive medicine and results in the ordering of costly and often unnecessary diagnostic tests.

2. Allow insurers to compete across state lines. Many counties across the U.S. have either one or zero choices for ACA exchange insurers. This lack of choice results in a limited network of physicians and may create significant issues with access to care. We must allow patients to choose the doctor that is right for him/her. We must force insurers to compete with one another for our business and allowing them to cross state lines is likely to lower costs, improve care and improve choice. By providing better access in all areas of the country, we may be able to lower the life expectancy gap.

3. Place limits on drug prices. Currently, many patients cannot afford the drugs they need. Lack of compliance with treatments for common diseases may be a major contributor to the life expectancy gap. How can we expect patients to improve their health status if they cannot follow their treatment plan due to a lack of financial resources? We can no longer allow drug makers to charge US consumers far more than is charged elsewhere in the world. We must hold big pharma accountable if they are found to be price gouging.

4. Individual responsibility. I firmly believe that patients can play a role in improving their own life expectancies as well. Patients must engage with their health care providers and must participate in their own treatment plan. The treatment of a disease is a team effort. Doctor and patient must work together, but we must be allowed to collaborate without government interference in the exam room.

Kevin R. Campbell is a cardiac electrophysiologist who blogs at his self-titled site, Dr. Kevin R. Campbell, MD. He is the author of Women and Cardiovascular Disease.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Recently, a new mother of twins in Columbus, Ohio, sent a text message to her doctor:

Adam and I would like to introduce you to Ava Jain Cullum and Piper Jain Cullum. Their middle name was a no-brainer since we are so thankful for the huge role you had in getting them into this world  Both girls are doing fantastic. We are over the moon excited to have them in our arms.

Whats unique is the no-brainer middle name Jain  chosen by the parents in honor of their doctor, who is my cousin and a specialist in fertility and reproductive medicine, Dr. Akas Jain.

The Cullums tried unsuccessfully for years to have a baby, and then they sought the help of a specialist. Yet the miracle worker whose expertise contributed to the birth of the twins was not Dr. Akas Jain, but thousands of scientists and researchers whose hard work over decades have made fertility therapy a reality.

In some ways, we doctors are merely the deliverers of the therapy, which has been postulated, prepared and piloted, by innovators toiling at the lab bench and bedside day and night.

Much of this research in the United States is funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Energys Office of Science, and many other government agencies which support the national laboratories. And proudly our tax dollars go toward this collective success and innovation, the U. S. Crown Jewel, which gives lives, saves lives and prevents death, as well as being an economic engine.

We boast a 43 percent drop in all-cause mortality over a half-century, thanks to research by NIH scientists. Research and efforts in just the last six years on hospital-associated infections have led to 125,000 lives saved, with over $28 billion in cost savings.

Yet we are about to see a dramatic change, unless Congress continues its historic bipartisan support of science. Last month the Trump administration proposed cutting NIH funding by nearly 20 percent, in effect crippling innovation, invention and scientific medical research. The new budget titled America First would take away $5.8 billion from NIH, the largest cut proposed in its 90-year history.

I wonder, with such draconian cuts what will happen to our dream of curing cancer, eliminating infectious diseases like Ebola and Zika, or finding new treatments for diabetes and heart disease within our lifetimes?

An HIV patient in my clinic for whom I have cared for two decades is working, healthy and raising two beautiful teenagers. She even gave birth to the children while she was HIV positive and taking medications  medications developed with support from NIH-funded research a quarter century ago. Today, she manages a group of a dozen computer engineers, providing jobs and livelihoods for them and their families.

Contrary to the prevailing belief, the NIH budget of $32 billion does not fund a group of scientists or laboratories on the federal payroll in Washington DC. Rather 80 percent of the NIH funds support biomedical research and training programs across the nation, including 300,000 investigators at 2,500 universities. In my younger days, I too was a recipient of such a grant, and it helped make me who I am today.

If such cuts move forward, a generation of basic research scientists will be lost. Soon America will become second to China, which is training more PhDs in the natural sciences and engineering than we are. And Chinas investment in research and development will surpass the US investment in just a few years.

To protest the cuts and the overall disregard of the new administration toward science, from climate change to environmental protection, a March for Science was held in Washington and across the country on Earth Day, April 22. Tens of thousands of scientists left their labs and in white coats walked in Washington.

Those of us, doctors and scientists, who live the science every day and see its miracles must not be quiet or timid at this time. We need to let our colleagues, patients, and political representatives know how we are touched and how we touch other lives by the miracles of science each and every day.

Science is the truth we can bet our life on. A couple in Columbus, Ohio, did this and, now they have fantastic miracles, twin girls, in their lives, with the help of government funding for the National Institutes of Health.

Manoj Jain is an infectious disease physician and contributor to the Washington Post and the Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at his self-titled site, Dr. Manoj Jain.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
A new chapter begins at the Laredo Police Department as the new chief of police takes his oath.

In front of family, friends and city officials, Claudio Trevino, Jr. was administered the Oath of Office.

In his remarks, Chief Trevino talked about unifying the police department and providing a safe city for Laredoans. He also spoke about last Friday's police shooting and thanked all people in uniform for their service to the city.

Tonight on KGNS News at Ten, our own Jerry Garza finds out what else the new chief has to say.
According to the organization No Kid Hungry, about 13 million children live in households which cannot afford enough nutritious food on a regular basis - meaning they suffer from hunger at some point during the year.

For years, a local program has made it their mission to make sure no child goes hungry in Laredo.

Both school districts offer the Summer Feeding Program, which allows any child to receive free breakfast, lunch and snacks.

"A lot of families, it's hard for them to provide a meal. Now with the economic situation, it's a lot easier for us to do so through this federally funded program," says Roberto Cuellar, Jr., of the LISD Child Nutrition Program.

If you or someone you know may be interested in using the program, you can call 211 or text 'FoodTX,' to 877-877 for more information.
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Raabta wins over Magadheera in plagiarism case



Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon's Raabta is all set to hit the screens tomorrow. But, the makers of Telugu hit film Magadheera accused that Raabta is a copy of their film and they haven't taken any rights for it. Yesterday, it was reported that the makers of Raabta in a five-hour long argument in the Court stated that there are several differences in the script and storyline of both the films. The Telugu filmmakers said that the iconic 100 warriors scene has been lifted in Raabta.

Read More...


Young people from two local youth clubs represented Kilkenny recently at the Aldi Foroige Youth Citizenship Awards.

Foroige clubs from Paulstown and Piltown were among the 204 groups which took part in the awards, with projects covering topics such as equality, homelessness, mental health, culture and more. The event took place at the Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre, where more than 2,300 young people from throughout Ireland showcased their work in the community.

The Piltown Foroige Club were also featured on RTES Nationwide for their project, which involved a clean up of their local river. Historically, the waterway was used a great deal for industry and to transport goods.

The group wanted to both highlight the rivers historical significance and make it more exciting and usable for the present time. Piltown Foroige Club cleaned up the area along the riverbed, catalogued the local fora and fauna, created a beautiful structure to showcase the local wildlife, and built a willow structure to sit beside the river.

For the clean-up project, the group got litter-pickers and bags from Kilkenny County Council. They also partnered with Birdwatch Ireland to detail the local wildlife and plants.

Meanwhile, members of the Paulstown Foroige Club were made aware of the lack of events for the elderly in the community. They wanted to work on getting them more involved in the events Foroige held.

The young people also wanted to learn about the experiences of the elderly in their community, and so took the necessary steps to arrange an afternoon event for both groups. The group were responsible for all of the logistical and organisational elements of the event.

Local people donated refreshments for the day. The group now hopes to engage more community groups to build on the success of this.

We are so proud of everything these young people have achieved in their communities and its wonderful to see all the skills theyve gathered in the process, said CEO of Foroige Sean Campbell.

The event was opened by Minister of State for Mental Health and Older People, Helen McEntee TD. DJ Jenny Greene was MC for the awards ceremony, and played DJ sets throughout the day.
Story

King County Executive Dow Constantine today brought together elected leaders from Washington and Oregon to discuss ways to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and establish the Pacific Northwest as a leader in the clean-energy economy.

It was the latest meeting of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance, a coalition of more than 160 elected city, county, state and Tribal leaders from the across the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. Members discussed the change in the federal landscape under the Trump administration and ways to update regulations in West Coast states to support renewable energy resources and infrastructure.

One way we can protect our communities from the growing risks and impacts of oil and coal transport is to accelerate the transition to safe, renewable energy, said Executive Constantine. The shift to clean energy is going to happen whether the U.S. chooses to lead the change, or cede the field to others. Members of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance are committed to making the Pacific Northwest a global leader in this transition.

The elected leaders are exploring policy changes that would better support renewable energy, and give local governments more options to use their combined buying power to help accelerate the transition to safe, clean energy. State energy regulations were developed decades ago, before the advent of new technologies for solar and wind power, battery storage, and grid management. Members of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance want to update state regulations to level the playing field for renewable energy.

The rapidly growing clean-energy economy

The clean-energy economy is rapidly growing, both domestically and internationally. More Americans today are installing wind turbines and solar panels than are digging for coal.

The wind industry employed 102,500 people in 2016 and is expected to employ 380,000 people by 2030, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Solar power represented 39 percent of new electric capacity added to the grid in 2016.

Many local governments  including King County, Multnomah County and Portland  are adopting ambitious commitments to renewable sources of energy. The Safe Energy Leadership Alliance, which Executive Constantine first convened in 2014, provides the opportunity for local governments to share best practices and speak with a unified voice when advocating for updated energy regulations.

During the meeting today in Seattle, members also discussed how the new federal administration has impacted oil transport safety, review of fossil fuel infrastructure siting, and review of federal coal leasing policies.

This was first meeting of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance since February when members toured the site of a major oil-train derailment and explosion in Mosier, Ore. Members have previously met in Everett, Olympia, Tacoma, Portland, and, Vancouver, British Columbia.

Relevant links

Quotes

One way we can protect our communities from the growing risks and impacts of oil and coal transport is to accelerate the transition to safe, renewable energy. The shift to clean energy is going to happen whether the U.S. chooses to lead the change, or cede the field to others. Members of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance are committed to making the Pacific Northwest a global leader in this transition. Dow Constantine, King County Executive and Chair of the Safe Energy Leadership Alliance

For more information, contact:

Chad Lewis, Executive Office, 206-263-1250
Chinese President Xi Jinpings ongoing state visit to Kazakhstan will on one hand enrich the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, and on the other hand drive Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) development and international energy cooperation, said an expert.

It will finally add new energy to the new type of international ties with win-win cooperation at the core, said Ruan Zongze, Vice President of the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), in a signed article published on the Peoples Daily.

Xi kicked off his four-day trip to Kazakhstan on Wednesday, during which he is scheduled to attend the 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State and the opening ceremony of Astana Expo 2017.

It is his third tour to the Central Asian nation, and also first overseas trip and major diplomatic action after the just-concluded Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

Both the historic bonds and current ties of China and Kazakhstan, as important neighbors to each other, are connected with the Belt and Road routes, wrote Ruan.

He illustrated that Xi firstly proposed to build the Silk Road Economic Belt rightly during his stay in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan in September, 2013.

During the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation hosted by Beijing this May, the international community reached important consensus to upgrade Belt and Road cooperation from China solution to an global one, the scholar reviewed, adding that Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev attended the event as well.

Over the last four years, China and Kazakhstan have intensified cooperation and tapped potential on Belt and Road construction, bringing their collaboration into a new stage and creating benefits to their peoples, said Ruan, also a research fellow with the CIIS.

Xis visit this time will strongly reinforce bilateral ties, deepen political mutual trust, and push forward Belt and Road cooperation, the expert pointed out.

During the upcoming 17th meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State, the organization will witness its first enlargement since its founding in 2001, Ruan pointed out, adding that the new members, India and Pakistan, will make it a regional cooperation organization with largest population and area.

He praised that the SCO has played a unique role in building new regional and global order amidst the complicated international and regional vicissitude.

Persisting to the "Shanghai Spirit" featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and shared development, the organization contributed to regional peace and stability by cracking down on the three evil forces of separatism, extremism and terrorism and coordinating on information security, he explained.

The upcoming Astana Expo 2017 will be the first time for a Central Asian country to host the event. Ruan said that China Pavilion themed with Future Energy and Green Silk Road will be a highlight of the expo. It will be the second largest exhibition hall after Kazakhstan Pavilion as well.

Ruan also lauded the contribution China made to the organization as a founding member, adding that Xi and leaders of other members, during the upcoming summit, will issue Astana Declaration, release press communique, and sign documents including the anti-extremism convention.

They will pass the resolutions to grant India and Pakistan with SCO membership as well, he added.

China will take over the baton to host the 2018 meeting as the rotating presidency of the organization after the meeting, Ruan said.

China now also holds the presidency of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), a mechanism first proposed by Nazarbayev in1992 at the 47th session of the UN General Assembly.
Question: How long does it usually take after a person dies for a life insurance company to pay out the death benefit? What happens if the beneficiary doesn't know about the policy?

Answer: The more information you have about the life insurance (opens in new tab) policy, the faster you can receive the payout. "Having the policy and death certificate when filing a claim expedites the process," says Jack Dolan, spokesman for the American Council of Life Insurers (opens in new tab), a trade organization of life insurance companies. In that case, it can take as few as five business days after filing the claim to receive the payout.
A protein (colored red) is located at the tip of a hypha of Aspergillus nidulans and controls growth. The hypha is about 3 micrometers in diameter and extends by about 1 micrometer per minute. (Photo: KIT)

Fungi grow with tubular cells extending by kilometers. Growth takes place exclusively at the tip. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now found out how this works: Construction materials are transported on rails through the fungal cells and used at their outermost tip. Calcium concentration at the end of the cell defines when this happens. This is reported by the scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS).

Although omnipresent, fungi are considered most mysterious organisms by human beings. Until the late 20th century, chanterelles and horns of plenty were considered plants due to their sedentary lifestyle. Today, it is known that fungi form an empire of their own, which is much closer to that of animals. Experts assume that there are up to five million fungal species, many more than plants or insects. Most of the fungi are hyphae. Their filamentary cells form fine, very large networks in the ground. These mycelia form the fungus proper, while the hats commonly referred to as fungus only represent the fruiting bodies. Professor Reinhard Fischer of the Institute for Applied Biosciences (IAB), Professor Gerd Ulrich Nienhaus of the Institute of Applied Physics (APH), and Professor Norio Takeshita, who just accepted a professorship at Tsukuba University in Japan, and their teams studied how the hyphae grow by infinite extension of their microscopically small tips and form partly gigantic mycelia.

Contrary to conventional growth by cell division, hyphae grow nearly infinitely (similar to human nerve cells) by extension at their tips. As a result, hyphae may reach a length of several kilometers. While they appear rather modest, hyphae are world champions in growth. Having a diameter of three micrometers, hyphae can grow by more than one micrometer per minute, Reinhard Fischer says. This would correspond to human beings gaining ten centimeters in thickness every minute. No wonder that the biggest living organism on earth is a fungus: A honey fungus in the forests of Canada was found to have a diameter of 17 km.

For other organisms, this enormous growth is both a blessing and a curse. Apart from bacteria, fungi are the best recyclers of organic waste. Its constituents can then be used by the next generations of organisms, Fischer explains. Moreover, fungi play an important role in nutrient uptake of plants: For every meter of a plant root, there is one kilometer of symbiotic fungal hyphae that supply the plant with nutrients, the microbiologist adds. Fungi also help produce medicine (penicillin, citric acid) and food (cheese, salami). On the other hand, hyphae are dreaded pests of crops and pathogens.

Hence, understanding of the growth processes of hyphae is of interest to both scientists who want to study their positive properties as well as to scientists who want to fight their negative properties. How these growth processes work is studied by international teams of researchers. So far, however, exact coordination of the growth processes has been unknown.

It was known that mycelia do not extend continuously, but grow in phases. It was not known how these growth explosions are initiated and controlled. As hyphae extend at the tip only, the question was: How do they know where the tip is?, Fischer says. The KIT researchers found that the tip is tagged by certain proteins. The construction material required is supplied in vesicles, small bubbles on motor proteins running on long rails. Upon their arrival at the tip, the vesicles attach to the cell wall and merge with it. As a result, the cell extends. The growth phases are controlled by the calcium concentration at the end of the hyphae. If the concentration is small, the transport phase starts. In case of a calcium pulse, the vesicles merge with the cell membrane and release their content. The cell wall consists of chitin, the material of which insect carapaces are made.

The team visualized the growth processes by marking key elements of the cells signal and transport system with fluorescent proteins, Norio Takeshita says. For quantitative imaging of living fungi, latest highest-resolution optical fluorescence microscopy methods were applied in this interdisciplinary project.

The scientists expect that their findings will be used for the development of fungicides in agriculture and in the clinical sector as well as for the optimization of biotechnological processes in medicine production.

More Informations:



http://www.pnas.org/content/114/22/5701.long



Pilzzelle im Wachstum

Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY, June 8 (Reuters) - Australia's trade surplus collapsed in April as damage wreaked by a massive cyclone in Queensland almost halved exports of coal, underlining the risk of another round of disappointing economic growth.

The blow comes just a day after data showed the economy grew at the slowest annual pace since 2009 in the March quarter, again due in large part to the vagaries of the weather.

"This is a poor start to the June quarter," said Andrew Hanlan, a senior economist at Westpac, though he did hold out hopes for a better September quarter as shipments resumed.

Thursday's figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed the trade surplus shrank 82 percent to just A$555 million ($417.69 million). That was the lowest in six months and far under forecasts of A$1.9 billion.

Exports of coal alone fell 45 percent, or a sizable A$2.5 billion, as Cyclone Debbie tore up rail tracks and caused weeks of disruption in the country's biggest coal region.

Total exports slumped 8.3 percent, the largest decline since a similar weather-affected dive in early 2012, while imports dipped just 1 percent.

Prices for some major commodities, notably iron ore, have also fallen back sharply from last year's peaks amid concerns about demand for the world's number one buyer, China.

Yet not all is dark. While coal exports were disrupted in April the mineral was still being stockpiled and would therefore add to inventories, and GDP.

Miners also worked overtime to resume shipping once the rail lines were fixed, noted Paul Dales, chief economist at Capital Economics. After diving 60 percent in March, shipments from Queensland's three main coal ports jumped 130 percent in May.

"The hit to coal exports caused by Cyclone Debbie almost single-handedly wiped out the trade surplus in April," said Dales. "However, the railways all reopened in mid-April and it's been business as usual since."

Shipments of iron ore, the country's single biggest earner, have also picked up markedly in the last couple of months.

Exports to China from Port Hedland, the world's largest ore terminal, surged to a record 38 million tonnes in May, up 9 percent on April and 21 percent on March.

Shipments of liquefied natural gas are also ramping up significantly as new projects come on line.

Analysts at National Australia Bank predict the value of LNG exports will pass A$27 billion this year and near A$35 billion in 2018, overtaking coal as the second biggest earner.

The gas could add a whole percentage point to GDP growth over this year, a much-needed offset to softness in household consumption. ($1 = 1.3287 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
TOKYO, June 8 (Reuters) - Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kikuo Iwata said on Thursday it would be hard for the central bank to release scenarios on how it could withdraw its monetary stimulus in the future. "It would be difficult to lay out specific scenarios on an exit strategy now. Presenting several versions of it would confuse markets," Iwata told parliament, responding after a lawmaker said the BOJ should issue scenarios on how it would dial back its massive stimulus programme.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
By Koustav Samanta and Rajendra Jadhav

BENGALURU/MUMBAI, June 8 (Reuters) - Demand for gold in Asia was muted this week as the bullion's rebound in prices curbed purchases, with discounts in India widening to the highest in more than five months.

Spot gold hit a seven-month peak earlier this week, primarily boosted by safe-haven demand stemming from political uncertainties in the United States and Europe. "Gold markets in Asia have been quiet... The rise in price did encourage destocking in some markets, but purchases have been slow," said Cameron Alexander, an analyst with Thomson Reuters-owned metals consultancy GFMS.

Dealers in India, the second-biggest gold consumer, were offering a discount of up to $3.5 an ounce this week over official domestic prices, the highest since the last week of December.

Last week, they were offering a discount of $1 an ounce. The domestic price includes a 10 percent import tax.

"Demand is very weak. Traditionally, business comes down in June and now with the price rise, gold is trading in discount," said Mukul Sonawala, proprietor of wholesaler Narrondass Manordass in Mumbai.

India's gold imports in May surged four-fold from a year ago to 103 tonnes as jewellers increased purchases to replenish inventory and stock up ahead of a new national sales tax, provisional data from consultancy GFMS showed. "For the next few weeks, market will trade in discount. In the supply chain, almost everyone is carrying higher stocks than the demand," said a Mumbai-based dealer with a private bank.

On Saturday, India said it will tax gold at a rate of 3 percent under the new tax, which was lower than industry expectations of around 5 percent. The impact of the new goods and services tax (GST) in India is likely to be less severe as the lower-than-expected tax rate may encourage a higher level of imports than what was anticipated earlier in the second-half of this year, Alexander said.

Demand in top consumer China remained weak with premiums dipping to $4-$6 per ounce this week versus $7 last week.

In Singapore, gold was being sold at a premium of $1, nearly flat from previous week, while Hong Kong premiums ranged between 40 cents to $1, compared with 60 cents to $1 an ounce last week, traders said.

"On the retail side (in Singapore), there's more selling at this point because prices are high. People who trade physical hope to buy when prices come down again," said Brian Lan, managing director at gold dealer GoldSilver Central in Singapore.

Prices in Tokyo were quoted at a discount of 25 cents-50 cents, unchanged from last week.

(Additional reporting by Vijaykumar Vedala in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
* Vietnamese prices hit highest in over two years

* Strong demand from Bangladesh, the Philippines

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat

BANGKOK, June 8 (Reuters) - Prices of Thai rice hit their highest in nearly four years while those of the Vietnamese grain rose to their strongest in more than two years on strong demand from key importing countries, traders said on Thursday.

Thailand's benchmark 5-percent broken rice was quoted at $440-$457 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) Bangkok, up from $430 last week.

Thai prices have been rising steadily since March, when traders started loading ships, and reached a level unseen since August 2013 this week.

"Ships are still arriving and exporters are buying supply to fulfil shipments," said a trader in Bangkok.

Exporters are now buying the grain at much higher prices than when deals were struck, while some have shied away from fresh deals, he added.

Thailand has exported 5.09 million tonnes of rice so far this year, up 15.7 percent from the same period last year, the government said on Wednesday.

In Vietnam, the 5-percent broken rice was quoted at $395-$400 a tonne, FOB Saigon, up from $390 last week, and the highest level since November 2014.

Prices are expected to rise further in Thailand and Vietnam, the world's second and third biggest rice exporters, traders said, given that demand from key importers of the grain has been strong this year.

Bangladesh is set to import 250,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam in a government-to-government deal, as part of an effort to build reserves, which are at 10-year lows, and rein in record-high local prices after flash floods hit output.

"The deal is likely to be finalised by next week," Ataur Rahman, additional secretary at Bangladesh's food ministry, told Reuters.

As a result, Vietnamese traders are holding onto stocks to sell later at higher prices.

"Most private traders and farmers are still holding grains for higher prices," said a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City.

Bangladesh also plans to increase rice imports from Vietnam to 500,000 tonnes by end-2017 and to buy 1 million tonnes of Vietnamese rice annually until 2022. It is also in talks with Thailand and India.

The Philippines has also said it would issue a tender next month to import 250,000 tonnes of the grain from Thailand and Vietnam, and possibly also India. In India, the world's biggest rice exporter, prices of 5-percent broken parboiled rice climbed by $2 per tonne to $415-$418, as demand from overseas buyers rose.

"In the last few weeks demand has risen from African buyers. The quick rise is prompting many buyers to increase purchases," said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

At current levels, exports are competitive despite an appreciation in the rupee, he added.

The rupee has risen nearly 5 percent so far in 2017 and trading near its highest level in 21 months. A stronger rupee trims returns of exporters.

India's non-basmati rice exports in April fell 18.5 percent from a year ago to 475,050 tonnes due to a stronger rupee. (Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in BANGKOK, My Pham in HANOI, Rajendra Jadhav in MUMBAI, and Ruma Paul in DHAKA; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu) Keywords: ASIA RICE/
CAIRO, June 8 (Reuters) - Average yields on Egypt's six-month and one-year treasury bills fell at auction on Thursday, data from the central bank showed. The average yield on the 182-day bill fell to 20.373 percent from 20.441 percent at the last sale. The yield on the 364-day bill fell to 20.274 percent from 20.494 percent in the previous auction.

(Reporting by Arwa Gaballa; Editing by Ahmed Aboulenein)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
TOKYO, June 8 (Reuters) - Japanese government bond prices slid across the board on Thursday, with the benchmark 10-year yield rising to a 2-month high, as an edgy market reacted negatively to a report regarding Bank of Japan's stance on its massive stimulus programme.

The two-year JGB yield was 1.5 basis points higher at minus 0.105 percent after reaching minus 0.090 percent, its highest since February 2016. The 10-year yield climbed 3 basis points to 0.070 percent, its highest since early April.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that the BOJ was re-calibrating its communications to acknowledge that it is thinking about how to handle a future exit from monetary stimulus.

While the idea of the BOJ telegraphing an exit from its massive stimulus is not an unfamiliar theme, the report was seen to have caught the market at a vulnerable time.

"Both JGBs and the yen appear to be reacting to the Bloomberg article. There was a shortage of immediate incentives today and the market jumped on it," said Shuichi Osaki, a rates strategist at Merrill Lynch Japan Securities.

"Medium-term JGBs had also been weakened by several days of selling, and it was vulnerable to such headlines. That said, the exit theme is not new, so the market could be over-reacting a little."

Yields of two-year and five-year JGBs have risen steadily this week as the market reacted negatively to the BOJ's recent reductions in the amount of shorter-dated debt it buys at regular purchasing operations.

The central bank has trimmed its purchases in an attempt to reintroduce liquidity after its massive JGB-buying created a shortage of debt available to market participants.

Still, any reductions in the amount it buys have not been met with enthusiasm by a market now accustomed to having the BOJ absorb volumes of JGBs.

The five-years fared a little better thanks to a well-received auction of the maturities. The yield on five-year JGBs was up a basis point at minus 0.085 percent after briefly touching a four-month peak of minus 0.075 percent.

The bid-to-cover ratio, a gauge of demand, at Thursday's 2.2 trillion yen ($20 billion) five-year auction rose to 4.71 from 3.59 at the previous sale last month.

The new five-year JGBs were seen to have drawn ample investor demand as the maturities had cheapened significantly prior to the auction.

(Reporting by the Tokyo markets team)
PRAGUE, June 8 (Reuters) - Czech central banker Oldrich Dedek said he did not question the bank's staff forecast which suggests a rate hike already in the third quarter of 2017. "There is no reason to question the forecast. That does not mean, however, that the forecast is something that the board upholds in all circumstances," Dedek said in an interview published on Thursday by Czech economic daily paper E15.

(Reporting by Robert Muller)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
Chinas annual two-day national college entrance examination, or the gaokao, officially kicked off on June 7. Dressed in auspicious red clothing and even traditional qipao, the parents and teachers of examinees waited outside test sites to offer their best wishes.
ANKARA, June 8 (Reuters) - Foreign currency deposits held by local investors in Turkey rose to $164.8 billion in the week to June 2, from $162.3 billion a week earlier, central bank data showed on Thursday.

In December, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan made a call for Turks to convert their foreign currency holdings into the local currency in a bid to support lira.

Following an April 16 referendum on granting Erdogan sweeping executive powers, the lira has rebounded from the sharp losses it saw at the start of 2017.

However, the lira weakened on Wednesday after officials said parliament would fast-track legislation allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, fuelling concerns about an escalation of the dispute in the Gulf. Parliament later endorsed the bill for troop deployment. (Reporting by Behiye Selin Taner; Writing by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan)
LONDON, June 8 (Reuters) - British authorities have arrested Stuart Scott, a former senior HSBC executive accused of participating in a fraudulent scheme involving a $3.5 billion currency transaction, according to a U.S. court filing seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Scott was arrested in Britain on Monday following an extradition request by the U.S. Department of Justice, the document filed with the court by acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Rohde said.

Scott, HSBC's former head of cash trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, was charged in July last year along with Mark Johnson, a British citizen who was HSBC's global head of foreign exchange cash trading and who was arrested in New York.

"Our client strongly denies the allegations. Given there are ongoing proceedings it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time," Anne Davies, a lawyer at Gunnercooke who is representing Scott, said.

HSBC said Scott had left the firm in 2014. "We are unable to comment further on personnel issues or matters which are the subject of ongoing legal proceedings," a spokeswoman for the bank said in an emailed statement.

Scott and Johnson are believed to be the first people to face U.S. criminal charges arising from an investigation of foreign-exchange rigging at banks. The inquiry led to four banks pleading guilty to conspiring to manipulate currency prices in the United States. HSBC was not among those banks, but in 2014 agreed to pay $618 million to resolve related probes by U.S. and British regulators.

Johnson, a British citizen who at the time of his arrest in 2016 was HSBC's global head of foreign exchange cash trading, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of wire fraud and conspiracy last August.

Prosecutors said Johnson and Scott in 2011 misused information provided by a client that hired HSBC to convert $3.5 billion to British pounds in connection with a planned sale of the client's foreign subsidiaries.

They then used their insider knowledge to trade ahead of the transaction, causing a spike in the price of the currency that hurt HSBC's client, prosecutors said.

London police could not immediately confirm Scott's arrest.

Bloomberg News earlier reported Scott's arrest.

(Reporting by Lawrence White in London, additional reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Michael Holden and Kirstin Ridley in London; Editing by Adrian Croft)
(Kitco News) - Former FBI director James Comey had some harsh criticism of the Trump administration and the president himself, but his testimony didnt add much to the ongoing turmoil in Washington D.C., which has driven risk sentiment on Wall Street.

While gold prices are off their session lows, the yellow metal has seen little safe-haven demand following Comeys more than two-hour testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.

August Comex gold futures last traded at $1,280.20 an ounce, down 1% on the day following the end of Comeys testimony. At the same time, equity markets are showing modest gains with the S&P 500 up 0.10% on the day. Ahead of the testimony, gold fell to a session low of $1,273.50 an ounce.

However, Comeys comments werent without its revelations. He confirmed that President Donald Trump was not specifically under investigation during his tenure. However, he also said that he felt that the President directed him to end the investigation of national security adviser Michael Flynn and his alleged connection to Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

He said that he was shocked the President asked top officials to leave the room so he could have a private conversation with Comey regarding the Flynn investigation. A conversation that Comey later documented in a memo, which he later asked a friend to leak contents off to the media.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning," Comey said.

Comey also said that the administration lied and defamed him, saying that he was dismissed because of disarray within the FBI and that the bureau lost confidence in his leadership.

Those were lies, plain and simple," he said.

Comey said that he believed he was fired because of his role in the Russian investigation.

Looking at Russias meddling into the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election, Comey said that there is no question that Russia interfered and he suspects that they will be back.
Massive demand for gold exchange-traded funds lately reflects a surge in safe-haven buying of the metal, says Commerzbank. Global ETFs posted inflows of 14.6 tonnes Wednesday, the most in 11 months, analyst point out. Almost 10 tonnes were attributable to the worlds largest gold ETF, the SPDR Gold Trust. Clearly investors are seeking to hedge against the numerous risks, Commerzbank says. These risks include not only the U.K. election and a congressional hearing involving former FBI Director James Comey, but also events in the Middle East after two terrorist attacks in the Iranian capital of Teheran Wednesday. Although IS was probably behind the attacks, Iran is also holding Saudi Arabia partly responsible, Commerzbank says. There is thus the risk of tensions escalating further between Saudi Arabia and Iran  the two leading powers in the region  in addition to the latent crisis surrounding the Gulf emirate of Qatar.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

UBS: Macro Conditions Support Higher Gold Prices

UBS says macroeconomic forces justify the strength in gold since mid-May. In particular, lower rates, weaker dollar and broader uncertainty provide [a] good foundation for the market to continue its journey higher, the bank says. The uncertainties include central-bank meetings and global political risks, UBS explains. We've argued gold's role as a diversifier in investor portfolios, and this is becoming increasingly relevant in the current environment, UBS says. Despite the rally from the lows printed in May, we think gold positioning is not crowded overall and there should be room for the move to extend. While a pause is understandable around key resistance levels and ahead of key events in the near term, we think the market should stay supported overall and would view dips as an opportunity to build/add to positions.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com

UBS Expects Eventual Pickup In Chinese Official-Sector Gold Reserves

UBS looks for official-sector Chinese gold reserves to eventually rise again, even though they have been flat since October. News this week shows that the countrys official gold reserves remained at 59.24 million ounces, or around 1,843 tonnes, as of the end of May. This creates downside risks to official-sector gold demand, considering China accounted for about 20% of buying last year, UBS analysts said. We maintain our base case that purchases should resume up ahead as overall official reserves stabilize, given that the diversification argument remains intact. Nevertheless, we acknowledge growing risks to this view considering that the pause in buying has gone on longer than what we initially expected.
ATHENS, June 8 (Reuters) - Greece will seek arbitration to settle its differences with Canada's Eldorado over a gold mine investment, the energy ministry said on Thursday.

Energy Minister George Stathakis has requested that the state's legal advisers prepare for the arbitration process to begin, the ministry said.

Vancouver-based Eldorado is developing a gold mine project in northern Greece but differences have persisted for years with Greek authorities over testing methods applied to comply with environment regulations.

Greece says it wants to make sure that Eldorado's Greek unit Hellas Gold, which is developing the project, respects its contractual obligations.

"The aim is to safeguard public interest by developing the region's mineral resources in line with the existing environmental terms and standards," the ministry said in a statement.

A ministry official told Reuters last week that the three-member arbitration panel would include a government-selected judge, an Eldorado-selected judge and a third selected by the president of Greece's Supreme Court.

Its decisions would be binding, but could be subject to further appeal.

(Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou; editing by Jason Neely)
BUDAPEST, June 8 (Reuters) - Hungary's parliament is expected to approve the 2018 budget law next week, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff Janos Lazar told a news conference on Thursday.

The budget targets a deficit of 2.4 percent of economic output and GDP growth of over 4 percent. The ruling Fidesz party has a strong majority in parliament.

Orban will face national elections in April 2018 and his party has a firm lead in opinion polls.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto)
MILAN, June 8 (Reuters) - Intesa Sanpaolo is willing to put in fresh capital to help prop up Italy's troubled Veneto banks before they can be bailed out by the state, but only if other domestic lenders pitch in, newspaper La Repubblica said on Thursday.

* The newspaper added that Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan has asked the country's two biggest banks, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit , to take on one of the Veneto banks each, following the example of Santander's takeover of Spanish lender Banco Popular . * Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca, both based in the north-eastern Veneto region, have requested a state bailout to help fill a combined capital shortfall of 6.4 billion euros ($7.21 billion). However, sources have said the European Commission has demanded an additional injection of 1.2 billion euros by private investors before taxpayer money can be used. * Rome has so far struggled to find investors willing to put up the money.

* Intesa's agreement in principle came on the condition that other Italian banks would participate in the 1.2 billion euro private capital injection, La Repubblica said.

* The Treasury declined to comment. Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit could not immediately be reached for comment.

* Intesa Sanpaolo has repeatedly said that it had already done its part by injecting money in banking fund Atlante, which is now the top shareholder in the two regional lenders.($1 = 0.8879 euros)

(Reporting by Agnieszka Flak and Paola Arosio in Milan and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome; editing by Jason Neely)
By Oludare Mayowa

LAGOS, June 8 (Reuters) - Nigeria will start an international road show next week for the sale of a diaspora bond and has named Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Bank of South Africa as joint lead managers, its debt management office said on Thursday.

Africa's biggest economy first unveiled in 2013 plans to sell diaspora bonds worth between $100 million to $300 million from Nigerians living abroad. But the government at the time did not appoint a bookrunner until an election brought the opposition into office.

A roadshow will start on June 13 with meetings planned in Britain, Switzerland and the United States, the debt office said in a statement.

"Nigeria has filed a registration statement for the Bonds with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission," the statement said, adding that the Bonds would be listed in London. It gave no price expectations.

Nigeria, grappling with its first recession in 25 years that was largely brought on by low oil prices and the impact of attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta, has set a budget of 7.44 trillion naira ($23.66 billion) this year.

The West African country expects a budget deficit of about 2.21 trillion naira in 2017 as it tries to spend its way out of a recession, with more than half the deficit to be funded through external borrowing.

The OPEC member country successfully raised $1 billion in February and $500 million in March from Eurobond sales and is planning more external borrowing to plug the gap in this year's budget. ($1 = 314.50 naira)

(Reporting by Oludare Mayowa; editing by Mark Heinrich)
DUBAI, June 8 (Reuters) - Qatar's central bank has asked commercial banks to provide it with detailed, frequent information on their foreign exchange trading, deposit withdrawals and money transfers, banking sources told Reuters on Thursday.

They were speaking after the Qatari riyal fell to an 11-year low against the U.S. dollar in the spot market on Wednesday amid signs that some foreign portfolio investment funds were pulling money out of Qatar, because of its diplomatic rift with other Gulf states. The sources said banks were asked to provide information on their foreign exchange trading every day, a daily statement of withdrawals and transfers from deposits worth at least 10 million Saudi riyals ($2.7 million), and daily information on cash withdrawals and deposits, the sources said.

Previously, banks were generally required to provide such information monthly, they said.

The Qatari central bank also asked banks to supply on a weekly basis a breakdown of their customer deposits by maturity and type from Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Egypt and other countries, the sources said. There was no immediate comment from the central bank.

(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh and Tom Arnold; Writing by Andrew Torchia)
BUCHAREST, June 8 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Thursday.

DEBT TENDER

Romanian debt managers tender 700 million lei ($172.40 million) worth of Dec. 2022 treasury bonds.

GDP

Romania's economy expanded 5.7 percent on the year in the first quarter, the National Statistics Board said on Wednesday confirming a flash estimate, while domestic consumption rose 5.9 percent. PUBLIC SECTOR WAGES

Romania's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly approved on Wednesday a public sector wage bill enforcing a 25 percent pay hike across the board from January 2018 despite criticism from the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund. PIRAEUS

Piraeus Bank , Greece's largest bank by assets, aims to sell its Balkan businesses and certain other holdings and shrink its bad loans portfolio, its new chief executive told reporters on Wednesday, outlining the group's plans up to 2020. CEE MARKETS

The zloty traded off two-week lows against the euro on Wednesday as investors waited to see if comments from a Polish central bank meeting confirm an expected delay in rate hikes. CONTITUTIONAL REFERENDUM PLANS

Dozens of Romanian rights groups jointly asked parliament on Wednesday to reject a proposed referendum to restrict the constitutional definition of family which would effectively rule out the possibility of legalising same-sex marriage. BUCHAREST MAYOR

A civil society group called "Bucharest without them" has started raising signatures on Wednesday to have Bucharest mayor Gabriela Firea and six other district mayors removed from office for poor representation and management.

A quarter of Bucharest residents, or more than 400,000 people, need to sign the petition to trigger a referendum to have the officials removed from office.

BANKING SECTOR

Romanian banks' exposure to the government via purchased treasuries and granted loans is 2.5 times higher than the European Union average, central bank data showed. Ziarul Financiar

MARKET OFFERING

Induction heat parts maker AAGES Targu-Mures has launched a secondary market offering on the Bucharest Stock Exchange, with several shareholders selling a 15 percent stake. The subscription period is June 8-21 and the price is in a range of 3.15 lei and 3.9 lei per share.

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 -------------------------------------------------------- ($1 = 4.0604 lei)
By Chris Thomas

June 8 (Reuters) - Most Southeast Asian stock markets fell on Thursday as investors shrugged off positive trade data from China to tread carefully ahead of the UK election, a European Central Bank policy meeting and congressional testimony from ex-FBI director James Comey.

Comey will be grilled by Washington politicians later in the day over his claims that President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. China's exports rose 8.7 percent in May from a year earlier, while imports expanded 14.8 percent, both beating expectations, but analysts expect the world's second-largest economy to lose momentum over the course of the year due to policy tightening. Southeast Asian markets may not react to the Chinese data now as they wait for the results of the key global events, said Manny Cruz, an analyst with Manila-based Asiasec Equities Inc.

The data will, however, bolster the yuan as well as other regional currencies in the near term, he added.

Philippine shares closed nearly 0.6 percent lower after hitting their highest in nearly 10 months in early trade. Industrial and telecom stocks dragged down the index. SM Investments Corp dropped 1.9 percent, while PLDT Inc fell 1.4 percent.

Indonesian shares fell 0.3 percent, weighed down by Bank Rakyat Indonesia which declined 1.8 percent.

Meanwhile, Singapore shares snapped three sessions of falls, with industrial and property stocks leading the rise.

Jardine Matheson Holdings gained 1 percent, while CapitaLand rose 1.1 percent.

Thailand eked out small gains, while Malaysia was little changed.

For Asian Companies click; SOUTHEAST ASIAN STOCK MARKETS: Change on day Market Current Previous Close Pct Move Singapore 3237.05 3230.49 0.20 Bangkok 1570.28 1566.58 0.24 Manila 7958.63 8002.32 -0.55 Jakarta 5702.922 5717.325 -0.25 Kuala Lumpur 1785.57 1785.92 -0.02 Ho Chi Minh 750.13 753.46 -0.44

Change on year Market Current End 2016 Pct Move Singapore 3237.05 2880.76 12.37 Bangkok 1570.28 1542.94 1.77 Manila 7958.63 6840.64 16.34 Jakarta 5702.922 5296.711 7.67 Kuala Lumpur 1785.57 1641.73 8.76 Ho Chi Minh 750.13 664.87 12.82 (Reporting by Chris Thomas; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
HANOI, June 8 (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 0412 GMT.

June 8 USD/VND mid-point 22,406 USD/VND interbank 22,685/22,690 USD/VND unofficial 22,690/22,705 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.32/36.54

Interbank offered rates Overnight 2.0-2.5

1 week 2.4-2.7

1 month 3.3-3.7

3 months 4.1-4.5

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)
BUDAPEST, June 8 (Reuters) - Hungary sold 50 billion forints ($182.38 million) worth of government bonds at an auction on Thursday, 10 billion forints more than planned, the Government Debt Management Agency (AKK) said . The AKK will hold a non-competitive top-up tender later on Thursday. Series: A200923C Issue status: Auction data: AUCTION DATE 08/06/2017 25/05/2017 TOTAL BIDS (bln HUF) 55.12 63.30 ALLOTTED (bln HUF) 15.00 15.00 AVERAGE YIELD (pct) 0.77 0.78 Series: A221026B Issue status: Auction data: AUCTION DATE 08/06/2017 25/05/2017 TOTAL BIDS (bln HUF) 71.40 66.03 ALLOTTED (bln HUF) 20.00 15.00 AVERAGE YIELD (pct) 1.81 1.76 Series: A311022A Issue status: Auction data: AUCTION DATE 08/06/2017 30/03/2017 TOTAL BIDS (bln HUF) 47.65 32.21 ALLOTTED (bln HUF) 15.00 10.00 AVERAGE YIELD (pct) 3.62 3.79

($1 = 274.1500 forints)

(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Sandor Peto)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.
(Adds Poloz comment from news conference)

By Andrea Hopkins

OTTAWA, June 8 (Reuters) - The recent liquidity strain at Home Capital Group highlighted the vulnerability associated with overreliance on less-stable funding sources, but the alternative lending sector is a business that works, the Bank of Canada said on Thursday.

In its semi-annual Financial System Review, the central bank said the market largely viewed the alternative lender's situation as "idiosyncratic to" Home Capital, and Governor Stephen Poloz later defended the sector as one which provides an important service.

"There are lots of folks out there who are self-employed or have recently moved to Canada, other cases where they just don't have the paperwork it takes to walk in and be approved at a bank for a mortgage in 60 seconds because they don't fit the template," Poloz told a news conference.

"So this alt-lending sector does an important service, it fills that space ... and as you can tell from the stats that have been published, they have very, very low default rates, so it's a business that works."

Home Capital, which accounts for about 1.5 percent of Canadian mortgage lending, was Canada's biggest non-bank lender and typically the first port of call for would-be borrowers who did not meet banks' more stringent lending criteria.

The rapid withdrawal of deposits at Home Capital beginning in April coincided with allegations by the Ontario Securities Commission that the company failed to adequately disclose a 2014-2015 review of mortgage origination business partners and underwriting processes, remediation actions and associated effects on business operations, the bank said.

The company has said the accusations are without merit.

The central bank said depositors were sensitive to information about the lending industry amid rising household indebtedness and housing market imbalances - the two biggest vulnerabilities to Canada's financial system.

"This focus was particularly acute for HCG because its main business is mortgage lending to borrowers who do not meet all the lending criteria of traditional financial institutions," the bank said.

It added that federal financial sector authorities are "working collaboratively" to monitor HCG, which said in late May that it continues to work on developing longer-term liquidity solutions.

"Market participants have remained confident in the capital and liquidity position of other Canadian lenders," the bank said in the review.

Lenders not supervised by Canada's main financial regulator account for around 15 percent of new mortgages in Canada, and Home Capital's near-collapse six weeks ago has seen some of them inundated with more new business. (Reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
* Italy seeking to salvage two ailing regional banks

* Banco Popular's overnight rescue steps up pressure

* Lack of private investors hinders Italian rescue

(Recasts with comments)

By Paola Arosio and Stefano Bernabei

MILAN/ROME, June 8 (Reuters) - Italy's biggest banks may help Rome bail out Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca to avoid being hit by costly depositor guarantees if European regulators shut them down, sources close to the matter said on Thursday.

Wednesday's overnight rescue of Spain's Banco Popular by Banco Santander has increased pressure on Italy, which has been trying to win European Union approval for its planned bailout of the two regional banks for months.

Rome has so far failed to find investors ready to put in the 1.2 billion euros ($1.35 billion) in private capital that EU authorities are demanding to authorise the plan. The "resolution" of Banco Popular could strengthen the case for winding down the two Veneto banks, an EU official said on Wednesday. Italian banks would have to shell out 11 billion euros to protect depositors at Veneto Banca and Popolare di Vicenza if the two banks were wound down, one source said on Thursday.

Under Italian law, deposits up to 100,000 euros each are guaranteed by a depositors' protection fund which is financed by healthy lenders and would have to be replenished if the two Veneto-based banks were shut down.

The source said Italy's healthier banks and the government were looking at a plan under which each lender would contribute to provide the 1.2 billion euros required based on the size of their deposits.

Some leading banks were already agreeable, but only if others signed up.

A second source said Rome was putting pressure on heavyweights Intesa SanPaolo and UniCredit to take part so that other banks would follow their example.

UniCredit CEO Jean Pierre Mustier has held talks with the Rome government and European authorities, the first source said.

The two Veneto-based banks, weighed down by bad debts and mounting losses over the past three years, need a total of 6.4 billion euros in capital. One possible vehicle for private investment would be an existing bank rescue fund.

Unlike Spain or Ireland, Italy did not tap EU funds to repair its banks during the financial crisis and is now seeking to prop up its weakest lenders under strict new rules that aim to shield taxpayers by forcing losses on investors.

Rome won a preliminary green light from Brussels this month over its a proposed rescue of its fourth-largest bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena .

But drumming up support for the Veneto banks has proved a challenge as Italian banks already spent 3.4 billion euros last year to save them from bankruptcy.

Further loan losses and deposit flight have drained the two lenders of capital, forcing healthier rivals, which own them through state-sponsored bailout fund Atlante, to write down the value of their investment. ($1 = 0.8901 euros)

(Writing by Valentina Za; editing by Jane Merriman and Alexander Smith)
The Herald reports:

It will require 16- and 17-year-olds who wish to marry to apply to the court and get the consent of a Family Court judge. Currently parental consent is needed in such cases.

A private members bill in the name of National MP Joanne Hayes passed its first reading in Parliament last night with backing from all parties.

A law change aiming to protect teenagers from forced marriages has passed its first hurdle  and a National MP says it will stop girls being exported to New Zealand.

A very useful safeguard. I suspect most people marrying at that age are do so through family pressure.

Hayes told Parliament child marriage and forced marriage are the most horrific culture practices that could happen.

There are horrific stories that I have heard to do with forced marriage and child marriage that just absolutely sicken me, and we must ensure that they must stop here in New Zealand before they get legs and carry on, said Hayes, who paid tribute to former National MP and now Human Rights Commissioner Jackie Blue, who introduced the bill to the members ballot in 2012.

Hayes said that between 2002 and 2011 there were 798 young brides in New Zealand, 388 of whom married overseas. About 80 16- and 17-year-olds marry a year.

We know that some girls also are exported to New Zealand for the purposes of forced marriage. All this has to do with a fee to parents, a bit of a story given to the young woman who is told, you come over here, youll get free education, well look after you.

And they end up as slaves in an unwanted marriage and one that ends in violence, to the point that we hear stories of where young women lose their lives, and there is no justice for them.
The Herald reports:

New Zealand has signed a deal with the United States which will allow it to find out whether multinationals are paying enough tax in this country.

Revenue Minister Judith Collins, who is at an OECD conference in Paris, said New Zealand was one of the first countries in the world to sign such a bilateral agreement. She hailed it as great news in the fight to get large corporates to pay their fair share of tax.

Beginning in 2018, Inland Revenue will receive more information about US companies operating in New Zealand, and will reciprocate with information about NZ companies.

This will further enhance Inland Revenues risk assessment processes to make sure that the right amount of tax is being paid, Collins said.
(File photo)

California Governor Jerry Brown reiterated his determination to introduce high-speed rail infrastructure in the state during his latest visit to China.

California aims to put 4 to 5 million electric cars on its roads by 2030, and, according to Brown, we arent going to get there until Chinese business people, Chinese government leaders make it a priority to develop batteries and electric cars. And we will, too. Brown made the remarks at a conference in Nanjing on June 5, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The governor is currently on a week-long trip to China to attend an international summit on clean energy.

California and the world will need the cost of batteries and electric vehicles to come down, said Yunshi Wang, director of the China Center for Energy and Transportation at the University of California Davis. China is a leader in this area, Wang was quoted as saying.

As early as 2013, during Browns first trip to China, the governor expressed his hope for Chinese investment to assist in building bullet trains, which is Californias biggest public project. Upon completion, trains are expected to travel from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours.

(Photo/Xinhua)

The high-speed rail in California is under construction, Brown said on his latest high-speed rail trip from Nanjing to Beijing. We have money and we are spending. And we will continue to do so.

On June 6, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with the visiting governor in Beijing. Xi called on California to play a bigger role in promoting exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States. Xi said he hoped California could continue to promote bilateral exchanges between localities and contribute more to China-U.S. cooperation in areas including technology, innovation and green development, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Brown said California was willing to join the Belt and Road Initiative, and was looking forward to a stronger cooperative relationship with China in trade, investment, clean technology and environmental protection.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 21F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 21F. Winds NNW at 10 to 20 mph.
The public security traffic administrative department of Chongqing Municipality recently installed face recognition stations at some pedestrian crossings to reduce the instances of illegal street-crossing, according to Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau on June 6, Chongqing Daily reported.

Illegal crossings have been reduced from 40 percent of all crossings to less than 3 percent since the system went into trial operation at the beginning of this year.

Some pedestrians cross roads without following the directions of traffic lights, which increases congestion and leads to more accidents. Therefore, timely reminders and strict enforcement of the law are essential to address this problem.

The system warns pedestrians against crossing streets when the light is red, and automatically captures images of law-breaking pedestrians' faces, which are then projected on a large screen nearby. Meanwhile, video evidence is stored and uploaded for authorities to review.

During the system's trial operation, police are inclined to issue warnings when people cross roads illegally. After the system is put into formal use, unruly pedestrians will be fined up to 50 RMB ($7.40) per infraction. The system will be implemented at crowded crossroads around the city this year.
BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China reaffirmed its commitment to opening up to foreign investors, underscoring balanced interests shared between foreign and domestic entities.

Sun Jiwen, spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC), said Thursday that China is resolutely committed to opening up. Once the door is open, it will never close and, in fact, will open wider.

Sun made the remarks after the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China released its latest survey on China's business environment.

"China always welcomes EU investment. However, China and EU differ in development stage and industrial structure. In terms of opening up, they are varied on key areas, intensity and pace," Sun told a press briefing.

"It is unadvisable to make simple comparisons and demand reciprocal access. It is important to make balanced interests," he said.

According to the report, over 55 percent of the respondents said they saw sales revenue rise in 2016. Some 51 of them planned to increase their presence in China, four percentage points higher than a year ago.

"Those figures show EU businesses' confidence and profitability have been strengthened in China, not on the contrary," Sun said.

He said the Ministry of Commerce will invite foreign businesses in China to discuss enhanced communication and listen to their concerns.
San Francisco Ballet corps de ballet member Park Won-a / Yonhap



By Jhoo Dong-chan

A young Korean ballerina has joined the world's leading professional ballet company.

According to San Francisco Ballet, Wednesday, its trainee Park Won-a was promoted to the position of corps de ballet member after completing her two-year course.

Founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm, San Francisco Ballet was the first professional ballet company in the United States as one of the four big ballet companies. The others are American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet and Boston Ballet that present more than 100 shows every year, covering both classical and contemporary dance.

Park is the first Korean to join the ballet company as an official member, and is expected to play her role beginning next month at the earliest.

She joined the San Francisco Ballet School, the dance company's official school, with a scholarship in 2015 when she was a freshman at Sunhwa Arts School in Seoul.

She won a series of international dance contests, including the Sicily Boroka International Concours in 2012 and Seoul International Concours Junior division in 2014.

A number of young Korean ballet dancers have successfully made their debut on the global ballet scene.

Recently, Korea ballet dancer Jun Joon-hyuk who attends London's Royal Ballet School, was invited to join the Royal Ballet, one of the top ballet companies in the world.

Winning the grand prize last year at the Youth America Grand Prix, the 19-year-old will be joining the company in August.

Thirty-two year-old Kang Hyo-jung is also the principal female dancer at Germany's Stuttgart Ballet, the second female Korean principal dancer following legendary Kang Sue-jin who held the position for 19 years in the company from 1997 to 2016.
Dimitris Psillakis

This is the fifth in a series of experts' letters to President Moon Jae-in on various economic topics.  ED.

By Dimitris Psillakis

Dear President Moon Jae-in,

I would like to convey my sincere congratulations on your election to the presidency of the Republic of Korea.

As the representative of the European business community in Korea, I am confident that under your leadership and following your campaign pledges, the Korean economy can enter into a new era of development and prosperity.

Right now, Korea's economy is facing a challenging time with the rebalancing of economic and geopolitical power in Korea's major trading and diplomatic partners. Nevertheless, amid these tough challenges, I believe this is rather an opportunity for Korea and Europe to strengthen its bilateral links.

Without a doubt, Europe and Korea have long been close partners, particularly in economic cooperation and technological exchange. And this partnership, under your administration, can be further improved seizing economic opportunities deriving from the new digital era and Industry 4.0 initiatives.

European countries have been long and successfully working toward achieving economic and regulatory integration. In comparison to the U.S. and China, Europe's economic market is mature and less polarized.

In political terms, Europe is showing clear stability, with centrists growing stronger. In this regard, it is now, more important than ever, for Korea to expand business opportunities and technology exchange with Europe, not just within the framework of the well-established bilateral FTA, but beyond it.

Toward this direction, simplification of the complex regulatory framework here as well as alignment of norms and standards with Europe would directly benefit Korean economy, rendering it more efficient and competitive.

As we all know, Korea has increasingly become an attractive foreign investment destination and this applies to European companies too.

If a stable and predictable economic and geopolitical environment is reached, confidence in Korea will grow, thus drawing further foreign investment, creating employment opportunities and supporting real economic growth.

Therefore, we welcome your initiatives to reduce the growing tension on the Korean Peninsula and reestablish the confidence and safety feeling.

Further we support the current administration's direction of not raising corporate taxes, at this point in time, as this would be totally counterproductive toward attracting further investment in Korea.

Dear President Moon, we believe in your strong leadership, in order to enhance security and confidence among Korean citizens and business people.

Europe has been shaping its economic relationship based on its fair and transparent trade principles. I am well aware that, both you and your nominees are also supporters of economic and regulatory initiatives which safeguard a business environment that promotes competitiveness, transparency and fairness and further creates equal opportunities for small- and medium-sized companies to play a growing role in the Korean economy.

Personally, as a Greek who has witnessed the long journey of democratization in my homeland, I sincerely respect your contribution to Korea's democratization. At the same time, I look forward to your further contribution toward a better society with a stronger and growing economy in the future.

All in all, I want to emphasize again that Europe _ and European businesses in particular _ are valuable partners for creating prosperity in Korea. On the other hand, I do believe that Europe and European businesses can also learn a lot from Korean business practices.

Through continuous communication and the exchange of best practices, we wish to contribute actively to Korean economic development. We will support your efforts to build a fair, transparent and strong investment environment in Korea.

Dimitris Psillakis is the chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea (ECCK) and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Korea.
President Moon Jae-in / Courtesy of DPK



By Park Hyong-ki



President Moon Jae-in is expected to head for a summit in the United States later this month with a group of corporate executives in tow, according to officials at Cheong Wa Dae and the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).



They will meet the U.S. business community along with President Donald Trump in an event following the summit. Some had suspected that Moon would not bring businesspeople to the U.S. unlike his predecessors.



Top of the agenda for the two heads of states will likely be the North Korean nuclear issue and the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile system.



However, the two sides are likely to touch on economic issues concerning trade and investment as Moon's business delegates meet their counterparts in Washington.



Cheong Wa Dae and the KCCI could not confirm how many corporate executives will tag along with President Moon.



However, the presidential office asked the KCCI to draw up a list of participants to business gathering events, which will be held on the sidelines of the summit.



"We are currently working on the list and an itinerary," a KCCI spokesperson said.



Some news reports suggested the President may travel with executives from mostly small- and medium-sized enterprises. As many as 30 executives could board the presidential aircraft.



Cheong Wa Dae is said to not have invited the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Korea Employers Federation (KEF), lobby groups for chaebol.



President Moon recently criticized the KEF for making the labor market situation worse with its lack of contribution to creating quality regular jobs.



Also, the FKI is embroiled in a political scandal involving ousted former President Park Geun-hye and her associate Choi Soon-sil.



Executives from a few notable conglomerates such as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics may also be included in Moon's business delegation. The tech giant's made recent pledges to increase their U.S. investment amid Trump's policy on trade protectionism.



Samsung Electronics is expected to invest about $300 million to expand its household appliance manufacturing plant in South Carolina by 2019. LG Electronics will also invest about $250 million to build an appliance plant in Tennessee by the same year as Samsung.



In 2003, former President Roh Moo-hyun traveled to the U.S. for his first summit with Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo and LG Chairman Koo Bon-moo.



Then, President Moon was Roh's chief secretary for civil affairs, who later became the chief of staff.
By Park Hyong-ki





Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis' Korean subsidiary will further face a probe and indictment as the country's antitrust agency has decided to file a complaint with the prosecutor over the foreign-invested company's bribery of local doctors.



Those local doctors, along with Novartis' Korean executives and sales agents, are also expected to be summoned for questioning.



The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has slapped a fine of 500 million won on Novartis after the state agency uncovered that the company offered kickbacks worth 7.6 billion won to doctors from March 2011 to August 2016, it said Thursday.



The drug maker used the money to provide expenses for doctors' trip to overseas academic forums in exchange for favors including issuing more prescriptions of its drugs.



Some of the money were also used to provide personal sponsorship, which is clearly illegal, according to the FTC.



Under the fair competition law, companies are allowed to donate to academic associations and conferences for further research and development. However, it is against the law to provide personal expenses.



Novartis broke the rule on all accounts as it went far over the limits to list doctors, who were highly likely to prescribe its drugs, and approached and offered them financial assistance for overseas travel to academic conferences.



The FTC said that it will further draw up measures with related ministries to prevent this kind of illicit acts again in the industry.



Novartis Korea said that it respects the FTC's decision, admitting that its action did "not fully comply with industry standards and was in violation of its own policies."

The company added that it has stopped funding healthcare professionals' overseas trip to academic forums.



"We have also reinforced our compliance function, re-designed the field force evaluation system and are currently developing a new customer-facing model to drive performance with integrity," it said in a press statement.



"Our commitment to bringing life-changing medicines to patients in Korea remains unchanged."



The antitrust agency's fine on Novartis follows the health ministry's punitive measures against the company two months ago.

Novartis was then charged with offering 2.59 billion won to doctors from January 2011 to January 2016 in return for more prescriptions of its drugs.



This also follows prosecutors' indictment of six Novartis executives on charges of bribery last year.



Prosecutors have indicted six executives, including Novartis Korea's former chief Moon Hak-sun. Moon joined Novartis in 1994 as a clinical test manger, and assumed various positions at Novartis Korea and the Swiss giant's overseas units.
Visitors walk along Seoullo 7017 sky park, May 21. / Korea Times photo by Sohn Yong-seok



By Baek Byung-yeul

Having opened about three weeks ago, the Seoullo 7017 urban sky park seems to have already been an iconic spot for city dwellers in Seoul.

To make the megalopolis more pedestrian friendly, the Seoul city government planned to make its own version of the High Line park of New York. The Seoullo project cost 59.7 billion won ($53 million) and took about a year and a half after closing down the outdated Seoul Station Overpass on Dec. 13, 2015.

Seoullo means "Seoul Road" or "going to Seoul," and the number 7017 comes from the years 1970 when the overpass was first constructed and 2017 when it was reborn as a public park. The 1,023-meter-long and 17-meter-high walkway is decorated with more than 24,000 trees and plants, plus benches, rest areas and eateries.

Though there has been a backlash for shutting down the overpass that carried 40,000 vehicles daily, it has been received well since its opening on May 20 as it took only 14 days to surpass the 1 million visitors mark.

The city government said the public park averages 40,000 to 70,000 visitors on weekdays and 100,000 to 120,000 during weekends. The number peaked at 151,000 on the opening day, followed by 131,230 on May 27, 112,678 on May 28 and 104,440 on May 21.





Visitors soak their feet in a foot bath fountain at Seoullo 7017, May 21. / Korea Times photo by Hong In-ki

Given that the city-run Seoul Institute expected the annual number of visitors to the elevated public park would be 4.37 million, Seoullo 7017 has established itself as the city's top attraction.

Taking an hour-by-hour look, it appears to see the most visitors during the lunch hour between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. in the 14 days since its opening and the majority of them are office workers. The park's popularity also peaked in the closing hours between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.

An office employee working nearby said strolling along Seoullo 7017 has become part of his daily routine. "Though it is still crowded with visitors who are curious to see it firsthand, it is nice to have this place in the midst of the bustling city."

A pedestrian in her 60s said she likes the idea of making the city friendlier for walking.

"As I live in southern Seoul, I rarely visit the downtown area, but I came here to take a walk from Namdaemun Market to Seoul Station. At first, I was against the idea of building another big pedestrian overpass, but after walking through downtown on Seoullo in the sunshine, I feel okay with the idea," she said.

Another pedestrian in his 70s also expressed his hope that the city can garner more overseas tourists with the overpass-turned-park. "I thought Seoul needs more attraction for overseas tourists. Like Cheonggye Stream, I hope this place could be a landmark for them." The city government said 60,000 overseas tourists have visited Seoullo 7017 in the 14 days since its opening.





Children jump on trampoline installed at Seoullo 7017, June 2. / Korea Times photo by Kwon Do-hyeon



Safety concerns

Though the new public park is still fresh, a safety issue arose as a Kazakhstani man jumped off it and died on May 29, just 10 days after its opening.

According to the city government, the man in his 30s climbed over a 1.4-meter glass barrier at a point in front of Seoul Station and fell onto Cheongpa Road at around 11 p.m. Sustaining an injury to his head, he was hospitalized but died the following day at around 7:50 a.m. After the deadly accident, the city government promised to install more safety guards to prevent further accidents.

An expert in construction site safety said the height of the glass panel is already 20 centimeter higher than regulation and having more safeguards would be best at this point, adding that raising the height more could cause other safety issues.

"If we raise the height more, the wind-exposed panels would be breakable. If the panels are pushed over by the strong winds, it would cause another safety issue. Thus, assigning more guards would be proper to prevent future accidents," the expert said.




Mount Bukhan is one of the national parks and beloved by Seoul citizens because its accessibility./Courtesy of National Park Service



By Kim Se-jeong

Seventy percent of Korea is covered with mountains, big and small.

Among them, 22 are under the care of National Park Service, which maintains the mountains' natural beauty, cultural assets and biological diversity, while keeping them accessible to the public.

Last year, almost 45 million people hiked around national parks. Mount Bukhan in the capital city of Seoul attracted more than six million visitors.

The National Park Service builds trails and paths for them, as well as amenities both to make hiking convenient and to protect nature.

To see the list of 22 national parks, visit english.knps.or.kr.





Mount Jiri became the first national park in 1967./Courtesy of National Park Service



A brief history of national parks

The first attempt to designate a national park began during the Japanese occupation (1910-45). A Japanese scholar is said to have pushed to make Mount Geumgang in modern-day North Korea a national park, but failed. Mount Jiri in southern Korea became the first national park in 1967, after a push by a group of residents near the mountain and a few scholars. Mount Jiri was followed by other national parks, most of which were designated during the 1970s and 1980s.

David Mason, a professor from Sejong University who has studied Korean mountains for more than three decades, said national parks were a part of former President Park Chung-hee's nation-building vision.

"Park was going to imitate the rich countries. International advisers said you can't have it, but Park's attitude was Korea will become a rich country and they will be preserved for future generations," Mason said.

Mason added that for Park, the national park system was also a way to lift rural people out of poverty. "People in those villages lived in terrible poverty and he wanted them to be able to make money and make a better life. By the 1990s, there were paved roads, parking lots, nice motels and beautiful restaurants."

After the 1988 Summer Olympics, the number of foreign visitors to the country and its national parks increased.

The Korea Times interviewed four foreign hikers about their experiences with the national parks.

All praised the parks' accessibility, facilities and conduciveness to exercise and outdoor activities. They also mentioned some aspects for improvement, such as the lack of diverse language assistance services. The summaries of the interviews are below.

Melaina Sharpe, the U.S.





Melaina Sharpe at Mount Seorak

Melaina Sharpe grew up hiking and as an adult, she has hiked around the world  Her job as a nurse for the U.S. military enables her to travel.

She has hiked with Climbing in Korea (CIK), a meetup group, since January 2016. She's been on many national park mountains in Korea, and she is fascinated by the rockiness of the mountains and the amount of workout it required of her.

She is also a member of the Sierra Club, a U.S. nonprofit environmental organization that promotes hiking; earlier this year, she hiked Mount Kilimanjaro with the Sierra Club members. She said her hiking experience in Korea helped her prepare for the hike on Mount Kilimanjaro. "I had the fear, but I'd already overcome it in Korea," Sharpe said.

Her most memorable hike was on Mount Seorak because of the mountain and surrounding nature's beauty. "It was in the fall. It was a crystal clear day, blue sky and white clouds. When we got higher up, you could see clouds below. It was a clear perfect fall day."

When she hikes in Korea, she usually follows her group leader, which meant she doesn't have to pay much attention to other things during the hike. However, she hoped to see more maps and signs in English.

She completed her mission with the U.S. military in Korea recently and returned to the United States early this week. She had something to say about CIK: "I feel privileged to have hiked with these folks and been exposed to the beauty of mountains. I know that's a place which I want to come back to."

She said she will continue to hike and volunteer to take children out for camping and hiking in Washington, D.C., where she will be located. With her retirement approaching in a couple of years, she plans to pursue outdoor education for children.

Catherine Germier-Hamel, France













Catherine Germier-Hamel, right, with her husband and friends at Mount Bukhan

Catherine Germier-Hamel, a sustainable tourism consultant, began hiking in Korea in 2005 and is now a leader of the hiking group Millennium Hikers.

She enjoys hiking on Mount Bukhan. "It's the choice of my heart," she said. "It's very familiar to me. I've hiked there so many times."

Her expertise in sustainable tourism gives her insight on mountain management. She praised the National Park Service for the park's efficiency and modern trails. While acknowledging Korean mountains' crowdedness, she said the National Park Service is doing a great job in maintaining the parks and providing services.

What she truly enjoys is drinking makgeolli at the end of a hike.

"After my Korean experience, if I don't drink makgeolli, I feel like something is missing."

Germier-Hamel said France has 10 national parks and its overseas territories  French Guiana, Guadeloupe and Reunion  have three.

She said she wants to see more signs and maps with different languages in Korean national parks.

"I want to see new technologies for interpretations for different languages  for flower names, villages and history of villages."



Parie Molaei, Iran

Parie Molaei at Mount Bukhan

Parie Molaei is a student at Kyung Hee University. Her hiking experience began in 2015 when she joined meetup group Climbing in Korea, in which she is now one of the regulars.

Mount Bukhan is where she goes most often and where she takes her family when they visit her.

"It's so easy to get to. You just have to take a subway," she said.

What she particularly enjoys on this mountain are the Korean temples. "There are a lot of temples that are so beautiful."

She said she couldn't think of a particular thing that needs improvement. "They are mountains. I don't expect much."

She was already a hiker back home. From Kurdistan region, she said she often hiked on Mount Abidar, which she said has a landscape that is just as fantastic as that of Mount Bukhan.

David Mason, the U.S.

David Mason at Mount Jiri

David Mason's been living in Korea since 1982 and was an avid hiker until early 2000. An expert on Korean mountains and mountain culture, he has a wealth of knowledge from his hiking experience.

Mason said national parks are a good place to get fit.

"In general, they are not that big, but they look high because they're very steep. But compared to Himalaya, they're not really so high. It's actually a good thing. It's a challenging experience. You're getting a real workout getting up there, to the peak and back within the same day."

He also likes that there is so much to enjoy near the national parks.

"There're restaurants, motels and even hot springs in which to relax. So it's a very pleasant experience."

He said another advantage of Korean national parks is safety. "With the modern trails done by the Korea National Park Service, it's a safe experience. And there are very few plants and animals up there that are very dangerous to human beings."

Asked to pick a mountain on which he had the best experience, he said it's difficult to pick one.

"Mount Seorak has got to be the most beautiful mountain in Korea. Mount Taebaek is so fascinating  a lot of shamanism culture and mythology related to the founding of Korea. Mount Gyerong is rich in Korean Buddhism, very rich in shamanism. Mount Bukhan is right here in the capital city. It's easily accessible."

Like many others, Mason also wanted more English information services on the mountains, but especially about the mountain's cultural heritage.

"The English signs only emphasize the natural aspects, plants and animals. But there's more than that. There is not enough about cultural history in those places  about Buddhism and shamanism."
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has convened a meeting of the National Security Council on Thursday to discuss possible measures against North Korea's repeated rocket and missile launches, the presidential office said.

The first NSC meeting to be chaired by the president will be held at 2 p.m., according to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae.

The meeting follows North Korea's launch of what appeared to be short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles earlier in the day.

The missiles launched Thursday had a short range of around 200 kilometers, but they marked the fifth rocket launches by the communist state since the Moon Jae-in administration came into office May 10.












By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea's successful launching of multiple anti-ship cruise missiles, Thursday, showed its capability in the event of war.

The cruise missiles were the fifth new type of missile the Kim Jong-un regime has tested in less than a month after an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), May 14; a medium-range ballistic missile, May 21; a surface-to-air missile, May 27; and an anti-ship ballistic missile, May 29.

It now seems that the last remaining missile test for the North may be one involving an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The North's KN-08 or KN-14 road-mobile ICBM, which has never been tested, is believed to have a range of more than 10,000 kilometers, enough to reach the U.S. mainland.

The Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, claimed May 31 that the regime in Pyongyang is ready to test the ICBM at any time from any location upon the order from its leadership.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un also said during his New Year address that the repressive state has entered the final stage of preparations to launch a nuclear armed ICBM.












President convenes security council

By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea launched what were presumed to be anti-ship cruise missiles from its east coast Thursday morning, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).





This is the North's fifth missile firing since President Moon Jae-in was sworn in, May 10.

After receiving reports about the provocation from the JCS as well as national security adviser Chung Eui-yong, President Moon convened a meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) at 2 p.m. at Cheong Wa Dae to discuss countermeasures.

During the meeting, Moon made it clear that his government will never compromise on issues related to national security, presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said.

"North Korea will only face the deepening of its isolation and economic trouble should it stick to this provocative mode," Moon was quoted as saying.

The President also vowed to enhance the country's ability to defend against the North's nuclear and missile threats while maintaining the ROK-U.S. combined defense readiness, according to Park.

Those who attended the meeting included Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, Defense Minister Han Min-koo and National Intelligence Service director Suh Hoon as well as Chung.












By Kim Hyo-jin



A U.S. Senator who recently met President Moon Jae-in in Seoul has expressed discontent about the ongoing dispute here over the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit.



Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin said during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Wednesday, that he "cannot understand" Seoul's decision to suspend the deployment for an environmental impact assessment.



He stressed that the anti-missile system is aimed at protecting Koreans and the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK).



The senator had already relayed his concerns about the domestic controversy over the anti-missile system during his meeting with Moon in Seoul.



Durbin is the assistant Democratic leader and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for Defense, and his voice carries weight in allocating the U.S. defense budget.



His remarks indicate the THAAD issue could be a variable in Korea-U.S. relations ahead of a summit later this month.



Durbin reportedly said at the hearing that he was perplexed to see the deployment of the U.S. THAAD unit which would cost Washington $923 million (1.379 trillion won) being made into a political controversy here.



He added that if he lived in South Korea he would expect all possible missile defense systems to protect South Koreans and the USFK stationed there to defend them.



During the session, acting Secretary of the Army Robert Speer noted that the deployment of four additional THAAD launchers will be delayed, while Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said the U.S. will "work through the issue."



Milley echoed a view similar to Durbin's, saying, "THAAD is essential to protect USFK, but also South Korea as a whole, and as U.S. forces are there in order to protect the entire country we'll work through that."



Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday that the ongoing deployment of the THAAD unit will be suspended until a full-scale environmental impact study of the site is completed.



The study may put the brakes on the Ministry of National Defense and the USFK's plan to fully deploy the unit by the end of the year.



Some analysts say the move intends to assure the U.S. that the government needs procedural justification and only this can quell any domestic backlash against the THAAD unit, and send a message to Beijing that Seoul is exerting full diplomatic efforts over the issue.



The THAAD battery, a countermeasure to North Korea's missile threats, was deployed in March in the southeastern region of Seongju with two of its maximum load of six launchers.



Four additional launchers have also arrived for full deployment, but their arrival caused a controversy later, following the revelations that the defense ministry had intentionally omitted the presence of the additional launchers in a recent briefing to the presidential security office.



The government said it plans to conduct a full-scale environmental assessment while two launchers that have already been deployed at the site in Seongju remain in place.




By Lee Kyung-min







Criticism is mounting over the punishment sought for a professor at the University of Seoul in Dongdaemun-gu, eastern Seoul, who engaged in misogynistic verbal abuse.



The university disciplinary committee submitted a letter to the university chairman, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, Thursday, recommending a three-month suspension of duty for the environmental science professor only identified by his surname Kim.



The alleged abusive behavior was made public last December when one of the students in his class put up a poster on the school campus.



According to the poster Kim, 54, frequently made offensive remarks during class.



His comments included "Women over 30 do not get married thinking they are still new and fresh."



During class, Kim randomly asked one of the female students "How many babies do you plan to have?" and said "Women watching too much television and spending too much time looking at smartphones won't give birth to boys."



Kim casually used derogatory, vulgar words to his students. To those who gave the wrong answers to his questions, he said to male students "You dumb piece of ****," and "Think, you bi***" to females.



He also frequently hit students with a bamboo stick saying, "Don't come to my class unless you are ready to get beaten up."



One internet user said, "It is such a shame that a person full of vulgarity can call himself a professor. He should be permanently banned from teaching."




Moon Hyung-pyo, former minister of health and welfare, walks into the courtroom at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

Former health minister Moon Hyung-pyo has been found guilty of abusing his authority in the merger of two Samsung units in 2015.

The Seoul Central District Court sentenced Moon to two-and-a-half years in prison, Thursday, for pressuring the National Pension Service (NSP), a key shareholder of the Samsung units  Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries  to vote for the merger when he was minister of health and welfare.

It was deemed a critical decision for Samsung Group scion Lee Jae-yong to tighten his grip on group management.

Hong Wan-seon, former chief official for the NSP's investment plans, was also sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for colluding in committing the crime.

The ruling is expected to affect the bribery trial involving Lee, former President Park Geun-hye and her friend Choi Soon-sil. Lee, vice president of Samsung Electronics, is charged with offering 43 billion won ($38 million) in bribes to the two in return for the NSP vote.

Park Young-soo, the special prosecutor appointed for the corruption scandal that eventually removed the former president from power, alleged that Lee and some other Samsung major shareholders gained about 855 billion won with the decision  at the expense of 139 billion won of taxpayer money.

"Moon seriously infringed on the independence of the NSP," the court said in the ruling. "He ordered ministry officials to pressure the NSP to make the decision."

"As a result, the NSP lost its assets and Lee and some others gained financial benefits."

Moon was also found guilty of perjury over the false testimony he made during the National Assembly's hearings on the scandal last year.

The court said Hong ordered his staff to manipulate data about the merger and use it to persuade the NSP investment board members to support the merger, which they eventually did.

"Hong was supposed to follow the rules in making investment decisions, which he ignored to help the merger," the court said.

Hong, who had been tried without physical detention, was immediately put in jail, following the ruling.

The special prosecutor believed the former president ordered Moon to push for the merger through former presidential secretary An Chong-bum.

If the alleged link between Samsung's support and the NPS decision is proved in court, Lee, who has led the company since his father, Lee Kun-hee, collapsed from an acute myocardial infarction in 2014, will face bribery charges, which could put him behind bars for many years.

For taking the bribe, the former president and Choi could face life sentences.

Samsung's legal representatives have insisted that Lee was a victim  not an accomplice  in the scandal, saying the firm simply made donations for various government projects without expecting to receive anything in return.
Hosigi Chairman Choi Ho-sig / Screen captured from YTN







By Park Si-soo



Police will question the chief executive of South Korea's major fried chicken franchise who has been accused of sexually harassing a female employee.

Gangnam Police Station said Thursday it will question Hosigi Chairman Choi Ho-sig next week. It didn't name the date.

Choi, 64, is suspected of molesting his female secretary, in her 20s, at a hotel after they drank alcohol in Gangnam, southern Seoul, last Saturday. Choi denies the allegations.

The alleged victim initially filed a complaint with police, demanding an investigation, but withdrew it early this week. Nevertheless, police decided to investigate amid a public outcry.

Police questioned the woman on Wednesday.

Video footage obtained by cable news channel YTN shows the woman running from a hotel to a taxi, with Choi following trying to stop her. Further details are unknown.

At the time, the woman told police Choi persuaded her to go to a hotel room. But Choi claims there was "no physical contact at all" and they checked into the room because the woman had a hangover.

Choi launched the fried chicken brand in 1999. The business is now one of South Korea's biggest fried chicken franchises, with the innovative marketing policy of giving two serves of chicken for the price of one.

The company opened its 1,000th domestic store last August and its first Japanese store in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in November 2015.
By Park Si-soo



A total of 2,144 undocumented foreigners have left Jeju Island voluntarily this year amid an intensified law enforcement and immigration office crackdown.



They have caught 101 Koreans who hired foreigners who entered the resort island on travel visas. The latest crackdown was held between March 2 and May 31, during which 428 foreigners were deported and 1863 left voluntarily.



"The consistent increase in the number of unregistered foreigners on the island has come to a halt after a sweeping crackdown kicked in," an official at the Jeju District Prosecutor's Office said. "We will continue to work with police and the immigration office to bolster public safety and the rule of law."



Jeju has wrestled with an increasing number of undocumented foreigners, many from China and Southeast Asian countries, in recent years after it eased visa regulations to lure more foreign travelers.



The prosecution estimated the number of unregistered foreigners on Jeju at 7,600 in April, up from 2,154 in 2014 and 4,913 in 2015.




Kang Kyung-wha, the foreign minister nominee, answers a question during a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly, Wednesday. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul



Kang's fate will be in Moon's hands

By Choi Ha-young

The liberal opposition People's Party decided Thursday to reject Kang Kyung-wha, President Moon Jae-in's pick for foreign minister, following a tough confirmation hearing the previous day that focused on her alleged ethical lapses.

This dims the prospect of her winning National Assembly confirmation because conservative parties vowed to oppose Kang even before the hearing. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) requires the cooperation of the People's Party which holds the deciding vote.

A parliamentary confirmation is not legally binding for Moon to give the job to Kang, but if he appoints her it may diminish his political capital. Moon needs cooperation from the minor liberal party to secure a parliamentary majority in pushing through his reform agenda. It remains to be seen whether the President will go ahead with Kang's appointment, but analysts say the chances are slim.

Kang underwent a tough hearing at the Assembly, where she apologized for registering a false residence to enable her daughter to attend a prestigious high school; and explained other allegations concerning tax evasion and plagiarism. She added that her daughter was prepared to renounce her U.S. citizenship as this too was considered a stumbling block for her appointment.

The People's Party confirmed its official stance Thursday on three other nominees  Kim Sang-jo as head of the Fair Trade Commission (FTC), Kim Dong-yeon as finance minister, and Kim Yi-su as president of the Constitutional Court.

The party said it will endorse the former two, while remaining firmly against Kang and vague on Kim Yi-su. "The ethical lapses of Kang have not been resolved. We also failed to find any outstanding ability that would mitigate such flaws," said Rep. Lee Un-ju, a party spokesperson.

"The party will call for a joint report that she is unfit for the post. If the ruling party disagrees with us, we will reject adopting the report."

Regarding Kim Yi-su, the nominee for chief of the top court, the party said it will decide after finishing a second hearing, Thursday. The party said it will request an audit for Kim Sang-jo on the allegations made against him as a condition for its approval. The joint report on him is expected to be adopted by the National Policy Committee, Friday.

With regard to Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, the second-largest opposition party, based in the Jeolla region, backed the former South Jeolla governor to get him confirmed. The decision helped him pass a mandatory plenary session vote in the Assembly.

Rumors are rampant that Kang, a challenger to be the first female foreign minister, is being made a "political scapegoat" for a "deal" between the ruling and opposition parties, as Cheong Wa Dae couldn't abandon FTC nominee Kim Sang-jo, picked to spearhead the reform of family-run conglomerates.

Moon also needs to request the opposition parties' cooperation to pass a supplementary budget bill, designed to implement his main pledge  support for job creation.

The ruling DPK pleaded with the opposition bloc for Kang's appointment. "She hopes to break the glass ceiling and serve the nation," DPK spokeswoman Kim Hyun said in a statement. "The career diplomat has proven abilities in multilateral diplomacy as shown by her work at the United Nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

When President Moon appointed her, the silver-haired nominee caught attention for her rare career as a minister who had never taken the foreign affairs exam. Her forward-thinking views on human rights and the comfort women issue gained positive attention as well.

The ruling party convened a general meeting to draw up plans to nominate Kang. "The opposition parties may aim to save face by not approving one or two nominees. However, cooperation to fill the power vacuum as early as possible would be more appreciated," Chairwoman Choo Mi-ae said in the meeting.

Meanwhile, the largest opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) has not stopped its political offensives toward all nominees. Though the People's Party has softened its stances, the LKP has consistently called for the withdrawal of three nominees with the exception of Kim Dong-yeon. It even lodged a complaint with the prosecution against Kim Sang-jo's wife for alleged corruption.
Members of the Labor Party hold a rally to demand a big minimum wage hike near Cheong Wa Dae in central Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap



By Jung Min-ho

Talks to set the minimum wage for 2018 will begin next week.

According to the Minimum Wage Commission, Thursday, representatives of employers, workers and the government will have their first meeting June 15 to negotiate next year's minimum wage, following the election of Moon Jae-in who promised to raise it to 10,000 won ($8.80) an hour within three years.

The current minimum wage is 6,470 won, which was raised by 7.3 percent from the previous year.

The representatives have to close the deal by June 29, and the Ministry of Employment and Labor will make an official announcement by Aug. 5.

The previous two meetings scheduled this year fell through as the representatives of workers refused to talk. They have demanded an immediate minimum wage increase to 10,000 won.

Meanwhile, management expressed concern over Moon's minimum wage plan, saying it is "too drastic" and ignores the tough reality facing most small business owners.

Speaking to the State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee, the de facto transition team for President Moon, Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business Chairman Park Sung-taek asked the committee to reconsider the plan, claiming it will increase the burden on business owners and kill more jobs.
Chinese automakers say the target of producing high-speed automated vehicles can be achieved by 2025. By then, mass production of such vehicles may be a reality, they believe. That vision was included in the government's medium- and long-term development plan for automobiles, which aims to transform China into an innovative automotive nation.

Smart cars are a hit at the ongoing Shanghai Asian Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where science and technology companies gather to display products and ideas in areas such as the Internet of Things, 3-D printing, robotics and wearable devices.

With the inexorable growth of international cooperation, insiders say the auto industry faces significant changes. On May 31, German technology company Continental signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Baidu, with the goal of establishing a comprehensive strategic cooperation in the areas of automated driving, connected vehicles and intelligent mobility services.

Elmar Degenhart, Continentals chief executive, said collaboration with Baidu would enable his company to work on core technologies like batteries, machinery and electronic controls.

On June 1, German auto supplier Bosch announced a plan to team up with Baidu to strengthen cooperation on intelligent transportation. Dirk Hoheisel, a member of Boschs management board, said the two companies will make full use of their technologies and experience in order to promote smart mobility.

On the same day, Chinas Beijing Automotive Group (BAIC Group) and Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (JAC Motor) signed a cooperative agreement with Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG. Volkswagen AG and JAC Motor announced that they will set up a joint venture to produce electric vehicles. Xu Heyi, chairman of BAIC, said the partnership would combine the strategies of "Made in China 2025" and German Industrie 4.0.
By Mehmet Fatih Oztarsu





Georgia, which is located at the heart of the Caucasus region, has a great willingness to improve relations with South Korea. The country's newly appointed Ambassador Otar Berdzenishvili has shared his significant projects for the bilateral relations with journalists during a press meeting in early May.



The young ambassador who has worked as ambassador at large at the Georgian Foreign Ministry, deputy minister of defense and ambassador to Brazil, now started his work in Seoul.



The two countries mark the 25th anniversary of their diplomatic relations and Berdzenishvili says the two countries will have a rapid rapprochement by using his motto of "More Korea in Georgia and more Georgia in Korea."



"Georgia is a young but old country," Berdzenishvili said by mentioning the ancient history of Georgia apart from the Soviet past. Contemporary Georgia strongly belongs to the ancient heritage with cuisine, traditions and human characteristics. Especially, the popularity of Georgian wine is also an unchallenged part of old Georgian existence in the region.



Currently, 20 percent of Georgia's internationally recognized territory is under the Russian military occupation. The country lost big territories as a result of the military aggression by Russia in 2008. As a democratic country, Georgia supports the consolidation of peace in the region and strongly supports the peace talks.



On the other hand, this young country had a great progress in the talks with EU and NATO. As a former Soviet member, Georgia puts big effort for a stable region. Recently, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve visa liberalization for Georgia. It shows that Georgian state institutions and people can easily shape the political system in democratic ways and pursue a way to obtain global benefits.



At this situation, creating strong relations with South Korea is inevitable for the country since it is an economic attraction center which is located between Asia and Europe. For this, Berdzenishvili underlines that Georgia is ready for all types of Korean investments because of the country's safe economic environment with zero corruption.



This is an important reality that Georgia is one of the safest countries in the world for economic investments and living. There is no heavy bureaucracy and corruption. So the country has enjoyed rapid growth just after the 2000s. He frequently points out that Georgia is in the middle of great markets. According to him, the Georgian government is ready for all types of facilitation services for both Korean and other foreign companies.



Currently, some of Georgia's products are already sold in South Korea. Borjomi and Nabeghlavi are the well-known brands mineral water in CIS geography along with wine and honey.



Apart from economic projects, Berdzenishvili gives a big importance to education by saying: "Education is my main aim." He plans to open branches in Korean universities to teach the Georgian language and culture. At the same time, Georgian universities are ready to open similar branches for Korean language education. In the near future, it is possible to provide scholarship programs to Korean students in Georgia. I should mention also the Georgian Embassy recently started literature programs in Korea. The 12th century's Georgian historical poem "The Knight in the Tiger's Skin" by Georgian author Shota Rustaveli was translated into Korean last year.



New Georgian ambassador Berdzenishvili will make great contributions to the bilateral relations as a young, energetic and dynamic person. Georgian-Korean relations have a new start as of now.





The writer is a Turkish journalist in Seoul. Write to oztarsu@gmail.com.
By Chyung Eun-ju





Two former presidents were charged. They were implicated because of corruption charges and both pleaded not guilty. They still have supporters that fight for their innocence because of the legacies they represent. One of her father, and the other one of his past administration.



The two protagonists are Park Geun-hye and Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva.



Park is accused of colluding with her "friend," Choi Soon-sil, to extort money from Korea's conglomerates in return for political favors. She is facing 18 charges. In addition to bribery charges, she is accused of leaking state secrets by giving Choi advance access to presidential speeches and other documents and of running a blacklist of media figures.

Park is the third Korean president on trial for corruption and the hearing took place in the same courtroom as the previous trials. She entered wearing a black suit with a broach-like badge with the number 503 (her prison number).



Brazil's former president Lula met with the country's tough anti-graft judge Sergio Moro on May 10th. Lula is involved in numerous cases in the Petrobras investigation, a money-laundering scheme involving multiple politicians, but the trial on the 10thwas regarding his possession of a beachside apartment in Sao Paulo that was given to him by a construction company, OAS, in exchange for assistance in securing contracts between OAS and Petrobras. The company OAS is also accused of having paid the storage bill on items Lula received during his presidency between 2003 and 2010.



Lula's trial is considered the biggest legal hunt that a Brazilian president has ever faced. He made his appearance with a tie marked with Brazil's colors.



While Park may get a life sentence, Lula has other plans. On online videos posted after the trial, Lula is seen expressing his desire to run for president to Sergio Moro. Polls illustrate Lula's high popularity and indicate that he would win if elections were held today. Many see Lula as a leftist hero who raised the minimum wage and awarded the poor with monthly stipends. According to analysts, Lula is known to manipulate these types of situations in his favor.



After the trial, Lula said, "Never before in the history of this country has someone been so massacred as I have If I have made a mistake, before being judged by justice, I want to be judged by the Brazilian people."

Lula's defense lawyers stated that the charges were part of a political scheme to prevent Lula from running in next year's presidential elections.



If Lula is convicted in any of the trials and the second court upholds the ruling, he will be unable to be a presidential candidate and will go to jail.



It is a difficult task to see beyond the image that is represented. Park reminded people of her father, the late president Park Chung-hee, who achieved economic growth disabling her supporters to see her as guilty. In Brazil, people see Lula and are reminded of the "good times".



"People remember that it was good when Lula was president. But the time was good. Not him. Globally the economy was good and all he did was ride the tide. What did he actually do? He is a hero for the poor people but during his rule, he helped the rich who gave him material goods," said Rodrigo Cury, the director of Cury Embroidery and Textiles and a Ph.D., and former professor at USP.



Brazil is still in an ongoing battle with corrupt governments. The current President Temer is facing calls for resignation for corruption scandals and the leading "possible successor candidate" is also a figure embroiled in corruption cases. Korea seems to have taken a step forward to turn the government around with the election of President Moon Jae-in, who pledged to get rid of "deep-rooted evil."



Brazil must also find a "clean" figure that will truly reshape the nation. The people must be able to see beyond the political theatrics that Lula puts on. Because what will happen when the Brazilian people realize that Lula is no better, the nation's growth will be stunted by the shadow of Lula.





The writer lived in Brazil for 18 years and studied at Graded School. She currently studies at Seoul National University and works at Arirang TV. Her email address is: elainechyung@gmail.com.
People need stronger assurance on jobs, national security



A month has passed since the May 9 election of President Moon Jae-in. Voters had high hopes for the new President, who rose to power following the removal of former President Park Geun-hye from office, March 10.



Moon's 80 percent-range job approval rating at the beginning of his term shows the people's strong support for the liberal leader's reform drive after the disastrous failures of the previous administration. His rating shot up to 87 percent after an emotional embrace during a memorial ceremony earlier this month with a woman whose father was killed during the May 18, 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement. Many people were moved with the President's sincerity toward easing the people's sufferings. The first couple's down-to-earth personalities have also won much praise on social media.



Since taking office, Moon has brought some noticeable changes. The best thing that Moon has done so far is normalizing the way the President communicates with the public and the press. Moon's Cheong Wa Dae is certainly different from that of Park, who was notorious for shunning contact with even her close aides and often seemed aloof to the people's hardships.



It is particularly noteworthy that President Moon and his aides have eagerly embraced encounters with the press, which reflects the President's determination to conduct state affairs in a more transparent manner. Moon announced some of his key personnel decisions in a media briefing at Cheong Wa Dae, including the nomination of former South Jeolla Province Governor Lee Nak-yon as his first prime minister. Moon's determination to empower women by nominating women to key posts such as the foreign minister is also laudable.



While the above-mentioned changes have helped Moon become a popular leader, they have little to do with assuring the people of his competence.



The people will judge presidential competence based on what he does to improve the economy and the peoples' lives, in addition to how he deals with national security issues. It is worrisome that Moon still sometimes behaves like a candidate making populist pledges. For example, the President has stressed that he will open an "era of zero irregular workers" in the public sector without detailing how this can be done. It is also problematic that some of his job-related proposals, such as raising the minimum wage, were conceived without considering the position of businesses.



There has been mounting concern on Moon's capacity to advance Korea's interests in national security and diplomacy as well. More people are becoming apprehensive about how Moon will improve relations with the U.S. despite his reluctance on the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, and quell China's resolute opposition to this at the same time. The President's conviction for the need to talk with North Korea also seems ill-timed given Pyongyang's repeated military provocations. Last but not least, the President lacks a sense of reality in approaching some lingering diplomatic issues, such as the Korea-Japan bilateral agreement on the so-called comfort women.








During her confirmation hearing Wednesday, Foreign Minister nominee Kang Kyung-wha apologized for her daughter's false address registration. But the former U.N. official rejected other allegations, including real estate speculation and plagiarism.



Opposition lawmakers called into question her qualifications as the top diplomat in both morality and capability. The centrist People's Party, in particular, a spinoff from the governing Democratic Party of Korea, said Thursday that it would oppose adopting a report for Kang, a crucial procedure before President Moon Jae-in officially appoints her.



True, it's doubtful if Kang's explanation on the fake address issue will satisfy the public. She said in the hearing that she let her daughter use a fake address to enter a specific high school, her alma mater, fearing that her child might fail to adjust to the new surroundings after returning home.



However, it turned out that the house of the false address belonged to the school, which had been used by other parents for the purpose of registering false addresses. It's surely a testament to the ethical lapse of the establishment in our society.



What was most regrettable was that the hearing failed to confirm if she has professional expertise and capabilities to lead the foreign ministry as lawmakers focused on her suspected irregularities.



Vetting nominees for Cabinet posts thoroughly is necessary. But it would be wrong if the National Assembly prevents competent people from serving the country by applying excessively strict criteria.



In fact, Kang has a lot of things to be proud of. One can appreciate her experience and capabilities she built during her many years working for the United Nations and other international organizations. Also, that she is the nation's first female foreign minister nominee must not be discounted.



President Moon will mark his first month in office soon. But he has yet to form his diplomatic and security lineup consisting of foreign affairs, defense and unification ministers. It's especially urgent to appoint the foreign minister to prepare for Moon's first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in late June.



Opposition parties need to give consent to Moon's foreign minister pick unless she is found to have additional problems.




By Donald Kirk





JEJU  Gary Samore of the Belfer Center at Harvard, formerly with the Obama administration, suggested at the annual Jeju Forum for Peace and Prosperity that resolution of North Korea's nukes-and-missiles program may be insoluble.



That sense weighs heavily on policy-makers in Seoul and Washington. How can Koreans and Americans agree on a common approach, and where is South Korea going in its alliance with the U.S.?



Americans and Koreans alike wondered how long the special U.S.-Korea relationship can endure despite the claims of U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during visits to Seoul that the U.S. and Korea are "in lockstep." Differences were all too clear in debate here on the unending standoff for power and influence in the region.



Chinese participants seemed far more concerned about the U.S. counter-missile battery known as THAAD than about North Korean missile tests. Asked whether "the U.S. pivot to Asia" would "continue under the Trump administration," Wang Dong of Peking University railed against the dangers of THAAD's radar spying on Chinese forces. Speakers from Chinese institutes and universities all agreed: THAAD had to go or Korea would go on suffering retribution  some would say, bullying.



Japanese military power was also on expert minds. Alexis Dudden, winding up a year at Yonsei, on leave from the University of Connecticut, saw Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe longing "to break Japan free" of Article 9 of Japan's post-war constitution "against waging war abroad"  a warning of the renaissance of Japanese militarism. She was hopeful, though, about Korea's new president, Moon Jae-in, having "the real potential to de-weaponize' the region's so-called history wars"  that is, go beyond the desire for trying to avenge past misdeeds.



In the cacophony, uncertainty reigns as Moon fantasizes dialogue with North Korea. U.S. President Donald Trump, by contrast, seems unable to decide what he would prefer  sitting down with Kim Jong-un for a hamburger or ordering a "preemptive strike" against the North's nuclear and missile facilities.



Moon would doubtless like to persuade Kim to stop test-firing missiles long enough to be able to follow through on gestures toward reconciliation despite divisions among his newly appointed aides and ministers. His government has already approved missions to North Korea  a modest prelude, perhaps, to resuming regular contacts on different levels.



Trump, meanwhile, is waiting to see if China's President Xi Jinping can restrain North Korea. How far, however, will Xi want to go against the North while battling the imaginary danger of THAAD and defending China's claim, fortified by expanding island bases, to the South China Sea? And how likely is Trump to take matters into his own hands with results that are difficult to anticipate?



North Korean missile tests so far have aroused only denunciations and stiffened sanctions, but the threat of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the U.S. is deeply disturbing. Seeing Kim Jong-un defying China, might Trump decide now is the time to act?



This question is sure to test not only the historic Korea-U.S. alliance but an array of values and ties on multiple levels that bind the two in ways that defy precise definition. Korean democracy, far from perfect, still comes much closer to the democratic ideal than almost any other nation for which Americans have fought and died since World War II.

The danger of reversion to historic colonialism and imperialism permeated the atmosphere here.



Haruki Wada of Tokyo University perceived "the legacies of colonialism" as a "vital problem of mankind." Other than the usual "apology and persuasion," however, he had no idea how to right the wrongs of Japanese rule  notably exploitation of "comfort women."



A sign of the futility of the Japanese approach was Wada's view that "the problem of Dokdo-Takeshima," as he called those two rocky islets in the East Sea, known to the Japanese as the Sea of Japan, "should be solved through diplomatic negotiations, finally."



Oh sure. When I asked what was there to negotiate since the Koreans are not about to surrender Dokdo, he concluded where he had begun, that negotiations held the answer.



Such nonsense was overshadowed by reminders of the U.S. and Japan confronting China in a reversion to the bad old days even as North Korea brandishes its nuclear club. It was as though history was bound to repeat itself despite the camaraderie floating around the Jeju Forum.





Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, has been reporting on the confrontation of forces in the region for decades. He's at kirkdon4343@gmail.com
Osstem Japan CEO Kim Hae-gon poses during an interview at its headquarters in Tokyo, Wednesday, introducing its vision to raise its market share in the dental equipment market in Japan. / Courtesy of Osstem Japan

Korean firm makes inroads in dental equipment market



By Lee Min-hyung



TOKYO  Osstem Japan is making gradual inroads into the country's dental implants market with a view to taking away some of the market share from leading players  such as Nobel Biocare and Straumann.



For dental equipment manufacturers, Japan is seen as a key revenue area, as the artificial tooth roots industry has yet to saturate here, compared to other developed countries.



The Japanese affiliate of the Seoul-based implants giant holds only a 3 percent share of the Japanese implants market, but the branch head remains optimistic about its growth potential.



"Unlike Korea and other European and American nations, the Japanese implants industry is growing at a very slow rate," Osstem Japan CEO Kim Hae-gon said in an interview, Wednesday. "Osstem's materials and product quality never fall behind those of the market leaders, but our products are more price-competitive."



Osstem was founded in 1997 in Korea as a dental equipment maker. At first, it failed to compete with implants giants from overseas. But it slowly expanded its presence and won the fierce rivalry with them in the home market.



Back in the early 2000s, the leading players took up more than 85 percent in the Korean implants market, he said. But Osstem succeeded in competing with them and is currently a business bellwether with more than 50 percent share of the market in Korea.



"The key behind our success in Korea is our strategy of not taking excessive royalty profits, but instead, investing more in research and development (R&D) to enhance product quality," he said.



Kim believes the same strategy will work in Japan, even if its dental industry has striking differences from other developed countries.



"Demand for implants is not that high in Japan, but is gradually growing especially among young dentists," he said.

Osstem established its first Japanese branch in Tokyo in 2006, aiming to duplicate its Korean success. The subsidiary has slowly expanded its footing, operating 12 branches as of the end of 2016. Osstem Japan plans to almost double the figure to 22 by 2019.



The company is also reporting eye-catching growth in terms of sales.



"Osstem Japan generated 600 million yen ($5.48 million) in sales last year, growing more than 150 percent, compared with 232 million yen in 2012," he said.



"Given its rapid growth, Osstem Japan will likely accomplish its annual sales goal of 3 billion yen by 2023."





Main driver for rapid rise: R&D



Osstem has become one of the world's top-tier implants manufacturers, even if its history started later than the conventional powerhouses.



The Japan branch head attributed its rapid rise to the firm's aggressive investments in R&D.



"Under the corporate motto of good is the enemy of better,' we put top priority on the research drive," he said. "As of May last year, about 8 percent of our 2,069 employees work in our R&D departments, and the ratio is much higher than that of existing rival players."



The R&D investment has enabled Osstem to produce quality implants and other dental equipment, he said.



Osstem's advanced implant education seminar is also in line with the corporate-wide research drive.



"We are running the special education courses for dentists who seek to learn surgical procedures for implants. This is part of our efforts to raise the awareness of implants in Japan, which will also improve our brand image in the country."



"It is true it will not be an overnight thing for us to make tons of profits in Japan in the next few years, but we are confident that the implants industry here will definitely take more concrete shape as time goes on. Our price-competitive and quality products will then pose serious threats to market leaders, as we had done with our products in Korea."


Professor taps into unorthodox data for analysis



By Yoon Sung-won

Chief executives who frequently appear in the media tend to be paid more, according to a behavioral finance expert, Thursday.

Sungkyunkwan University's business administration professor Andy Kim said he looked into 4,452 CEOs at 2,666 U.S. listed enterprises and 6,567 interviews by U.S. news media CNBC and 104,129 new articles about them released between 1997 and 2009.

The result showed that CEOs who are interviewed by the media frequently have a higher negotiating power and tend to receive $210,239 more in salary on average.

Kim collaborated with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) business administration professor Kang Jin-goo. The results were released in the global business administration journal Organization Science late last month.

Kim said the research also found that the positive relationship is weaker when the CEO is with a large company and is stronger when the CEO is with a company demonstrating a strong stock market performance. When the CEO is the founder of the company or holds significant shares in it, the positive relationship disappears, he added.

"Many other economists claim that the media is just a sideshow. But I thought this was not necessarily true. Media appearances by CEOs can promote what has been underestimated about the company or the CEOs themselves," Kim said.

Kim majored in business and finance at Yonsei and Brown universities. He continued studying finance at the University of Minnesota's Carson School of Management. He acquired his doctoral degree in finance at the same university in August 2009.

He worked as a corporate credit analyst at the Seoul branch of Bank of America between 1999 and 2001. After completing his degrees, he went to China to work as a professor at NTU in Singapore in 2009. He moved to Sungkyunkwan University in 2015 and has since lectured on finance as an assistant professor.

Kim said he started such an unorthodox project in his pursuit of unprecedented research.

"The University of Minnesota had strong faith on rational expectations. So many advised me not to look into such unorthodox research," he said. "At NTU, however, I had many supporters for my ideas so that I could push for research projects on behavioral finance."

In another study titled "The face of risk: CEO testosterone and risk-taking behavior," Kim argued that a male CEO's facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) can predict the riskiness of his firm's financial and investment policy.

"We found that a CEO's fWHR is positively associated with stock return volatility, idiosyncratic risk, leverage ratio, acquisitiveness and CEO compensation," he said. "A CEO's personal traits can be a key predictor of his riskiness in corporate financial and investment policy."

In 2016, Kim wrote another article titled, "Investor Psy-chology Surrounding Gangnam Style." He said media attention drives the stock price away from fundamentals, citing the global success of rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style" in 2012 and the change in stock price of DI Corp., a semiconductor company run by Psy's father.

In the article, he considered the number of flashs mob and parody videos of "Gangnam Style" on YouTube in different countries as an index of individual investors' enthusiasm.

"We found that individual investors became net buyers of DI Corp. stock when the attention level increased in their neighborhood countries," Kim said. "Accordingly, the attention drove up the stock price by 800 percent without information on the stock's fundamentals."

Kim said he is currently looking into other personal factors of CEOs and their influence on business performance. He argued that CEOs with low voice tone have stronger male hormones and tend to be more risk-takers.




The 2017 Ssangyong Motor G4 Rexton large-size SUV / Courtesy of Ssangyong Motor



By Jhoo Dong-chan

Goyang, Gyeonggi Province _ The 2017 Ssangyong Motor G4 Rexton large-size sport utility vehicle (SUV) was offered for a test drive here on Wednesday. The nation's smallest carmaker completed its SUV lineup by introducing the model last month, aiming at dominating Korea's SUV market along with its popular Tivoli crossover.

Under the slogan of "Great 4 Revolution," a Ssangyong Motor official said the G4 Rexton is a monumental model for the carmaker to regain its past reputation as an SUV powerhouse.

This reporter drove the G4 Rexton with a 2.2-liter V4 e-Xdi220 diesel engine from the MVL Hotel KINTEX in Goyang to Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province -- a distance of 40 kilometers.

Ssangyong Motor also offered a short off-road experience in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, to demonstrate the vehicle's ability to run through rough terrain, and the vehicle lived up to its jack-of-all-trades feature throughout the test drive.

It shares a similar exterior design with its sister model, the fifth-generation Korando C SUV, in its front face while adding a muscular-looking masculine sideline. The G4 Rexton also has sizable head- and legroom to offer comfort for the driver and passengers. The vision is also excellent without any blind spots.

The V4 e-XDi220 engine produces a maximum of 187 horsepower, with 42.8 kg-m torque. The initial acceleration, though not robust, kicked-in when it reached 120 kilometers per hour.

The official said the G4 Rexton also features the Mercedes-Benz 7G-Tronic transmission giving it smooth shifting.

Although it was raining during the test drive, it was difficult to hear ground or wind noise while running very comfortably even at high speed.

The G4 Rexton proved its all-round character while being driven off-road. Although the ground was wet and slippery because of a sprinkling, the large-size SUV maintained its stability at all times.

The model's suspension -- double wishbone in the front and multi-advanced in the rear -- sufficiently absorbed shocks from the rough terrain. Wheel slip took place because of wet ground, but the vehicle immediately recovered its stability without losing traction.

"The G4 Rexton's tow capacity is 3 tons, higher than its competitors such as the Hyundai Mohave and the Ford Explorer, an ideal feature for outdoor leisure activities," the official said.

The model also features Infinity speakers, but its sound quality isn't impressive enough as it was hard to hear the bass at loud volumes.

The drive range during the test drive measured out at 8.9 kilometers per liter.
Lotte Rental CEO Pyo Hyun-myung, right, and union leader Ryu Kyoung-o, left, prepare lunch boxes at a T.G.I. Fridays store in Seoul, Thursday, for Wooridul School students who defected from North Korea. / Courtesy of Lotte Rental



By Park Jae-hyuk

Lotte Rental employees visited Wooridul School in Seoul, Thursday, to volunteer for the benefit of young refugees from North Korea.

Wooridul School is an alternative school that helps the young refugees adjust to South Korean society. About 50 students attend the school and most of the teachers are volunteers.

To celebrate the company's 31st anniversary, CEO Pyo Hyun-myung, union head Ryu Kyoung-o and about 20 Lotte Rental workers provided lunch boxes for the students.

The volunteers made the lunch boxes themselves, cooperating with T.G.I. Fridays, a U.S.-based family restaurant chain.

They interacted with the students while having lunch with them.

"I was so proud of contributing to help make a better society at my first volunteer activity as a Lotte employee," a Lotte Rental employee said. "I will continue to participate in small and large activities to make our society warmer."

Lotte Rental also promised to offer a "Rental Dream Car" and a driver to the school for free, so the students can use the car for field trips and outside events.

The company employees plan to visit Wooridul School regularly and hold various events to promote friendship with the students.

"Lotte Rental's volunteering efforts have been possible because of the support and interest of many people over the past 31 years. I hope the volunteer work will allow every Lotte rental employees to think about our corporate social responsibility (CSR)," Pyo said.

"As our move for a win-win management, Lotte Rental will try our best to make a happier society, enhancing social contributions for children, youths and women."

In line with seamless growth in sales and expansion in its business, the company has created many job positions for youths and regularly carried out CSR activities for disabled and marginalized classes.

The environment minister awarded the nation's leading total rental company this week for its efforts to boost the supply of eco-friendly electric vehicles.

Also, its Lotte rent-a-car brand swept Korea's three major customer satisfaction indices last year, including the Korean Standard Service Quality Index, the National Customer Satisfaction Index and the Korean Customer Satisfaction Index.
By Nam Hyun-woo



Taekwang, a firm known for producing Nike shoes, will open a massive industrial complex in Vietnam, providing land and infrastructure for textile and dyeing companies.



The project draws attention because Chairman Park Yeon-cha is a longtime financial supporter of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun.



According to the firm on Thursday, the complex is being built on a 1.32-million-square-meter plot of land in Tinh Tay Ninh Province, Vietnam, and will open next month. The complex will be available for mostly dyeing companies but other manufacturing firms can be accommodated.



The complex is equipped with an industrial water-processing facility treating 20,000 tons per day and a tap water supply facility providing 3,000 tons of water per day. Also, high-speed internet will be installed.



The logistics environment near the complex is favorable for accommodated companies, as a highway will link the complex and Ho Chi Minh City within an hour's drive. It will be completed in 2020.



Another advantage of the complex would be tax cuts. Since it is located in the Moc Bai Economic Zone, companies there would be eligible for tax benefits for up to 15 years, according to Taekwang.



"By using its 22 years of experience in Vietnam, Taekwang will help companies in the complex to get approval and permission from local authorities," a company official said.



Chairman Park has headed Taekwang to become one of the leading Korean companies in Vietnam.



After entering the market in 1994, the company became an industry leader, producing Nike shoes through original equipment manufacturing. It posted 1.56 trillion won ($1.39 billion) in sales last year and has 72,380 employees.



Park is also a center figure of a bribery scandal involving the late former President Roh and dozens of politicians.

He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in 2011 and served the full term through 2014.



There are two groups named Taekwang in Korea. One is led by Park and the other is a conglomerate focusing on textiles, petrochemicals and finance.




BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The BRICS Media Forum concluded Thursday after leaders of 27 organizations agreed on an action plan to boost media cooperation.

The Action Plan Promoting BRICS Media Cooperation noted that the content, depth and breadth of BRICS media cooperation should be expanded and deepened in accordance to the needs of BRICS nations.

UNITY A MUST

The forum, with the theme "Deepening BRICS Media Cooperation, Promoting Fair and Just International Public Opinion," was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africa's Independent Media.

Liu Qibao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the committee's publicity department, urged BRICS media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction while addressing the forum.

"Sharing a common destiny, BRICS countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions," said Liu.

"There are misinterpreting and misreading voices in international public opinion that are skeptical of the development prospects of BRICS countries and even BRICS itself," said Liu, urging BRICS media to maintain composure and consolidate confidence, and pass on the message of confidence in BRICS countries' development.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua News Agency and executive chair of the forum, urged efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among BRICS media.

Cai said Xinhua will provide 1 million U.S. dollars to establish the BRICS Media Fund for the implementation of the action plan and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The participating media organizations all agreed to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award, and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions, according to Cai.

ACTION PLAN HIGHLIGHTS COOPERATION

The action plan shows BRICS media's determination to accept social responsibility and create a fair public opinion environment, said He Ping, editor-in-chief of Xinhua News Agency, while addressing the closing ceremony of the forum.

Participating organizations agreed to maintain balanced international public opinion and to strengthen the media's social responsibility.

"BRICS media organizations should create a platform to share verified and reliable information, and we should work together to expose fake news," said Alexey Nikolov, managing editor of Russia Today TV, at Thursday's session.

The participating media agreed to boost people-to-people ties and to expand cooperation fields. There is a need to jointly develop digital media and provide financial information services among BRICS countries.

Mahesh Daga, director and CEO of Indo-Asian News Service, called for more communication among journalists to promote inclusiveness.

The media organizations unanimously agreed to carry out the action plan in the spirit of equity, pragmatism and mutual benefit.

Zenariah Barends, co-chair of the forum and chief of staff of Independent Media from South Africa, called for more effort to find solutions to the narrative which focuses on the negative side of BRICS.

BRICS media have a role in telling amazing stories, not only what BRICS is doing, but also life-changing stories happening in these countries, said Barends.

NEW MEDIA, NEW OPPORTUNITIES

BRICS media also agreed to explore new channels and new spaces in international communication. "We should develop integrated digital media, video new media, social media and jointly seek new ways of increasing international voices via digital means," according to the plan.

"For BRICS media... the popularization of information has broken the traditional information monopoly and put us at the same starting line as media from the United States and European countries," Cai said in his keynote speech.

Xinhua's app has been downloaded 220 million times, and the number of followers of Xinhua's Weibo account is close to 60 million.

Last month, followers of Xinhua's accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube reached 30 million, among the top mainstream international media outlets.

Last year, Xinhua established a cooperative, sharing platform "On-Scene Cloud," which offers members media content, channels, technology and other services. "We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge," Cai said.
INFINITE's L is proving his critics wrong by excelling in his first role in a historical drama in MBC's "Ruler: Master of the Mask." The K-pop idol and actor was recently selected as "Actor of the Month" of MBC's Dramanet.

According to a report by All Kpop, INFINITE's L impressed the viewers with his natural screen presence and his subtle effectiveness in his role as a commoner asked to assume the role of the crown prince. Many netizens have credited the idol for his calm and natural aura.

It can be recalled that the casting of INFINITE L's was met with much reservation from netizens who thought that he was not skilled enough as an actor to portray a serious role in a historical drama like "Ruler: Master of the Mask." In the MBC drama, L portrays the role of a butcher's son who leads a miserable life until he meets the crown prince Lee Sun, who asks him to act as the prince in his stead. So far, L is meeting fans' expectations and is contributing to the positive reception to the show which has topped the competition when it comes to ratings.

"Although many were initially opposed to L being cast for the role, the results appear to be a rather successful one," MBC Dramanet reps said regarding INFINITE L's selection as Actor of the Month. "Thanks to L, the show topped number one on viewer's rating charts."

"Ruler: Master of the Mask" which premiered on MBC last May 10 has been consistently rising in the rating game, according to stats from AGB Nielsen. Starting with a 9.7 percent nationwide ratings, the show has reached 13.6 percent nationwide ratings for its 16th episode. For the Seoul areas, the historical drama featuring Yoo Seung Ho and Kim So Hyun has jumped from 10.5 percent to 14.2 percent.
Doctors of T.O.P initiated a press conference on June 7 at 4 p.m. KST to update the public of the idol's status. The BIGBANG member is being treated at the Ewha Woman's University Mokdong Hospital.

T.O.P was hospitalized on the evening of June 6 after he was found unconscious at his military base. It was suspected that the idol overdosed of the medicine he takes for his anxiety.

On Wednesday, June 7 at 4 p.m. KST, doctors of T.O.P held a press conference to update the public and his fans. As reported by Soompi, the press conference was attended by professors Kim Han Soo (Otolaryngology Department), Lee Deok Hee, and Kim Yong Jae (Neurology Department).

The doctors first described how T.O.P was brought to the hospital and what his condition was at the time. The doctors stated that the idol was carried by three people, presumably his co-workers.

The doctors also stated that T.O.P was nearly unconscious upon arrival at the facility and that he was in deep drowsiness. The idol only responded by opening his eyes to very strong shocks and was not able to give responses for more than 10 seconds.

Also, T.O.P's blood pressure and heartbeat were exceedingly high. Doctors found out upon testing that his RBC (red blood cells) was low on oxygen but has high, dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide - which could ultimately lead to brain damage.

The doctors also added that T.O.P overdosed of "benzodiazepine", a type of tranquilizer. This is the idol's medicine for his anxiety disorder. The medicine also helps the idol sleep better at night.

At the time of the press conference, the doctors revealed that T.O.P was still not breathing properly. The doctors also planned on treating him psychologically but were unable due to his unresponsive state.

Ultimately, the doctors said that in his condition, it would take T.O.P 2 weeks to recover. That is if he doesn't have any other illness.

Despite T.O.P's condition, however, the Seoul Central Court has set a court date for his case. The announcement came a few hours after the press conference.

According to Koreaboo, the Seoul Central Court has set June 29 as the date for T.O.P's marijuana case. It is unclear though if the session will
ASTANA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Kazakh counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, vowed Thursday to accelerate the alignment of their countries' respective development policies and push bilateral ties to a higher level.

During their talks in the Kazakh capital of Astana, the two presidents agreed to further integrate the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and Kazakhstan's development strategy of "Nurly Zhol," or "Bright Path" in the Kazakh language.

The two countries will focus on aligning the New Eurasian Land Bridge and the construction of an economic corridor linking China, central Asia and west Asia, with the Kazakh strategy of building an international logistics corridor.

Meanwhile, they will join efforts in connecting the international production capacity cooperation with Kazakhstan's push for industrialization, sharing China's transportation advantages on land and by sea with the world's biggest landlocked country, and linking China's "digital Silk Road" initiative with the "digital Kazakhstan" strategy.

Xi and Nazarbayev also hailed the "great achievements" made in bilateral ties since China and Kazakhstan forged diplomatic relations 25 years ago and decided to push the healthy and stable development of their comprehensive strategic partnership to a higher level, so as to better serve the two peoples.

Xi attributed the development of bilateral ties by leaps and bounds in a relatively short period to the spirit of good neighborliness, mutual benefit and mutual support upheld by the two countries, the principles of mutual respect and equality, as well as their generations of friendship and the concept of common development.

Noting that the political mutual trust between China and Kazakhstan has reached an unprecedented height, with frequent high-level contact and close coordination in international affairs, Xi said China is willing to build a stronger community of shared interests and shared future with Kazakhstan.

Nazarbayev warmly welcomed Xi, saying his visit, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, will greatly facilitate the Kazakhstan-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

Noting that bilateral ties are developing with a sound momentum and bear huge potential, Nazarbayev said his country stands ready to deepen win-win cooperation with China in such fields as economy and trade, politics and culture, and carry out closer communication and coordination under the frameworks of the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The building of the Belt and Road Initiative, first proposed by President Xi in Astana, is of major significance, said Nazarbayev.

He pledged to actively participate in cooperation in areas including cross-border transportation, production capacity, industrial parks, finance, agriculture, people-to-people and culture exchanges under the Belt and Road framework.

The initiative, proposed by Xi in 2013, comprises the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe, Africa, along the ancient trade routes.

The Chinese president arrived here Wednesday for a state visit to Kazakhstan and the 17th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

Co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (MG) are planning to clarify the situation in the zone of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, during their visit to the region, Spokeswoman of Russias Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said at a briefing June 8.

During the visit of the co-chairs to Yerevan on June 10, it is planned to discuss topical issues on settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, including in the light of the results of recent meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia on April 28 in Moscow, noted Zakharova.

According to the spokeswoman, during the visit to the region, a trip to Nagorno-Karabakh is also expected, and a week later the co-chairs will visit Baku. A corresponding statement will be published on the results of the visit to the region.

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.
Management, professors, teachers, staff members and students of Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) went to the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theater to see 'One Thousand and One Nights' ballet in two acts by prominent Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov.

This cultural event was organized in honor of the fifth-year students who would become the first graduates of BHOS in July this year.

Prior to the performance, BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov congratulated future graduates and wished them every success in their work and career. He emphasized that the management of the Higher School pays close attention both to technical education of the students and their cultural and intellectual development. The management and teachers of the Higher School strive to ensure that our graduates are not only highly qualified oil and gas engineers, but also true citizens and erudite persons with deep scientific and cultural knowledge. This evening we will see One Thousand and One Nights, a ballet by famous Azerbaijani composer Fikret Amirov, which is the most popular performance of the Opera and Ballet Theater for nearly 40 years, said Elmar Gasimov.

After the performance, which was met by the audience with great interest and standing applause, the actors were presented with bouquets of flowers as an expression of gratitude.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

Trend:

Today, thanks to joint efforts between Azerbaijan and the United States, residents of Sabirabad districts Garali village celebrated the completion of a new medical facility.

Mrs. Anne Cekuta, spouse of U.S. Ambassador Cekuta, along with representatives of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Health, the local Executive Committee, and the municipal government representatives attended the event. USAID and the Government of Azerbaijan co-financed the construction of the medical facility, which was managed by the East-West Management Institute (EWMI).

The United States is committed to helping the Azerbaijani people. Mrs. Cekuta said during the opening ceremony. This project shows the sincere friendship the American people have towards the people of Azerbaijan.

With technical support from EWMI, Garali residents worked with their local and regional governments to replace an aging one-room medical point with a new facility able to meet the communitys healthcare needs. The new facility, which includes one examination room and one halfway for a waiting room, will improve the day-to-day access to healthcare for nearly 3,000 people from Garali and neighboring villages.

Through USAIDs Socio-Economic Development Activity (SEDA) program, EWMI promotes cooperation between citizens, civil society organizations, and government to advance socio-economic development and improve quality of life in rural areas. In total, EWMI has implemented 98 community projects in 86 Azerbaijani communities benefiting nearly 148,000 people.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Ilhama Isabalayeva  Trend:

Azerbaijan welcomed 211,000 tourists in May 2017 compared to 174,000 tourists in May 2016, Abulfas Garayev, Azerbaijani minister of culture and tourism, said.

Garayev made the remarks at a meeting with tour operators and travel companies of the National Tourism Promotion Bureau in Baku June 8.

The minister said that up to 960,000 tourists arrived in Azerbaijan in January-May 2017 compared to 768,000 tourists in January-May 2016.

The tourist flow increased by 30 percent, the minister said, adding that almost 200,000 more tourists arrived in Azerbaijan in the reporting period. This growth is directly related to the simplification of the visa regime with almost 90 countries.
To the Editor:

Paul Ryan has cancelled town hall meetings as we know them. Instead, to a small select audience at Badger High School, he responded to a pre-submitted civics question: What is your job? He answered, I represent Wisconsins first district. Wouldnt it be better if he had a respectful exchange of ideas with his constituents and demonstrated democracy rather than describe what he wished were truth?

Speaker of the House Ryan, person next in line for president after Trump and Pence, here are some questions:

1. After his six bankruptcies, Trump secured Russian financing; he has fired three people investigating Russian campaign connections. There is evidence his son-in-law has committed espionage; Kushner had an undisclosed pre-inauguration meeting with Russians trying to establish a FBI/CIA-free channel. Relatedly, when is the House going to demand Trump release his taxes and reveal the extent hes influenced by Putin?

2. At the G7 meeting, Trump neglected to support NATOs mutual defense agreement. Contrary to reassuring unity with democratic countries, Trump continues to side with dictators who welcome Trump real estate. Trump praises Manila Tower champion President Duterte of Philippines who has ordered more than 7,000 suspected drug violators gunned down. Istanbul Tower host, President Erdogan of Turkey, has imprisoned at least 200 journalists. Trump called to congratulate Erdogans power increases. After selling eight Trump companies to Saudi Arabia during his campaign, Trumps first foreign stop included signing a $110 billion arms deal with King Salman. Trump is silent regarding the Saudis untold arms-wrought atrocities in Yemen and elsewhere. Immediately following Trumps signing, the king contributed $100 million to Ivankas Foundation. How much democracy must evaporate before money is followed and impeachment initiated?

3. At the NATO meeting, Trump secured a prime photo op position by shoving Montenegros prime minister aside. After 10 years of negotiation, every world country except two signed the Paris Climate Accord. The U.S., having only 5 percent of the worlds population, uses 24 percent of the worlds energy; yet, Trump removed the U.S. from the accord. With planet survival at stake, when are the controlling Republicans going to pass legislation supporting the accord with crucial new renewable energy jobs, and prohibit Trumps rampant self-centeredness from defining our country?

4. In television coverage of the Republicans celebrating the passage of the bill causing 24 million people to lose medical insurance, your smiling face rejoices with Trump. What has changed you from the Paul Ryan ashamed to be seen campaigning with Trump in Elkhorn, to a head-bobbing yes behind him even in the face of such immorality?

5. Finally, Trump repeats, The press is the enemy of the people. Your bobbing head is the Houses moral compass. How is your integrity arrow going to magnet toward a more respectful country with freedom of speech, unity and truth unalterable by invented alternative facts?

Dona Palmer

Delavan
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...
Prospects of developing cooperation between Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) and Mexican Institute of Petroleum (IMP) were discussed at the meeting of the Ambassador of the United Mexican States to Azerbaijan Rodrigo Labardini and BHOS Vice-Rector for Training, Science and International Relations Ramiz Humbatov. IMP Head of the Competitive Technical Intelligence Department Victor Gerardo Ortiz Gallardo visiting Baku to attend the 24th International Caspian Oil and Gas Exhibition and Conference also participated in the meeting, which took place at BHOS.

Vice-Rector Ramiz Humbatov briefed the guests about development and achievements of the Higher School and provided detailed information about BHOS academic and educational activities. He also told about the Higher Oil Schools new campus equipped in accordance with highest international standards, and the conditions created there for teachers, students and staff members.

The Mexican Ambassador to Azerbaijan Rodrigo Labardini emphasized that cooperation with Azerbaijan, which achieved impressive successes in the country economic development, is very important for Mexico. He expressed confidence that Victor Ortiz Gallardos visit to BHOS would give an impetus to establishing close partnership relations of IMP with the Higher School. The Ambassador reminded that he discussed significance of developing cooperation between two institutions with BHOS Rector Elmar Gasimov at their meeting in the beginning of this year.

Representative of the Mexican Institute of Petroleum Victor Gerardo Ortiz Gallardo also expressed IMPs management interest in building business relationship with BHOS. Speaking about the Mexican Institute of Petroleum, he said that it is the largest public research center and services provider in the oil and gas sector of the country. IMP major activities include applied scientific research in order to develop technologies; services, support and technical solutions; and talent development, formation of human resources and training personnel for the petroleum industry. These fields, emphasized Victor Ortiz Gallardo, can become areas of future cooperation between the Mexican Institute of Petroleum and the Baku Higher Oil School.

At the meeting, other issues of mutual interest were also discussed.
PRESS RELEASE

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit Begins in Astana; Xi Jinping, Putin, Modi in Attendance

June 7, 2017 (EIRNS)The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan, June 8-9, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in attendance, among heads of state of the other member nations, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In the course of the summit, India and Pakistan will be formally admitted into the SCO.

India and Pakistan together represent 1.5 billion people, and with their addition, the SCO "will now represent the voice of three billion peoplehalf the worlds population," Indias ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, P. Stobdan, told Sputnik.

Leading into the summit, Xi Jinping is in Astana today for a state visit with his counterpart, Nursultan Nazarbayev, during which the two will discuss enhancing their bilateral economic, trade, cultural, and security cooperation.

In an opinion piece he penned for the Kazakh daily Aikyn Gazeti, published today under the headline "May China-Kazakhstan Relationship Fly High Toward Our Shared Aspirations," Xi recalled that it was in Kazakhstan that he first announced the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. Since then, he pointed out, the project has developed into "an open and inclusive platform of cooperation and has become a global public good well received by the international community."

The Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese President said, offers "unprecedented historic opportunities," and pointed to the success of May 14-15 Belt and Road summit in Beijing. He added that he will discuss with Nazarbayev joint cooperation in building the Belt and Road, to "synergize our development strategies...and work together to implement the outcomes of the Belt and Road Forum." Xi and Nazarbayev will also participate in a video event to discuss cross-border transportation and "promoting connectivity under the Belt and Road Initiative."

On the sidelines of the summit, Xi Jinping will meet with President Putin to discuss a wide range of matters related to regional and international issues, as well as their bilateral agenda. The situation on the Korean peninsula will be a key topic of discussion. Indias Foreign Ministry has said that a meeting between Modi and Xi is "possible," but nothing has yet been confirmed.
PRESS RELEASE

President Trump on Infrastructure: We Should be a Nation of Builders Again

June 7, 2017 (EIRNS)In an upbeat speech today in Cincinnati, against the backdrop of the Ohio River, President Trump proposed to make the United States a "nation of builders" again, capable of building projects on a par with the Panama Canal, the Transcontinental Railroad, the Hoover Dam, the National Highway system, etc. In the past, he said, we built those projects in record time. But today, "we dont do that anymore ... we dont even fix things." Whenever anyone proposes fixing things, theyre told theres no money. That will change, he said.

Before an audience that included representatives of the United Ironworkers, Building Trades, and Laborers Union, among others, as well as many corporate leaders, Trump insisted that people should be inspired by "our legacy of a nation of builders." We must see into the future, and see that it is bright. Crumbling dilapidated infrastructureroads, bridges, locks and damscan no longer be tolerated.

As an example of the "can do" attitude that used to characterize the way Americans got things done, Trump cited the case of New York Governor Dewitt Clinton, who 200 years ago had the kind of "bold, daring vision" that built the Erie Canaleven when Thomas Jefferson told him that the project was "madness." If you want a New Yorker to do something, he said, tell him its impossible, and then watch him get it done. Just as occurred when the Erie Canal was built, he vowed, "we will open new paths, just as our ancestors did." Chastising Democrats for being "obstructionist," he called on both Democrats and Republicans to come together to rebuild the United States.

Trump made special mention of the importance of the 12,000 miles of inland waterways on which producers, heavy industry, farmers, and others depend. On the river behind him, was a tow of 12 barges.

"Rivers are the lifeblood of our heartland," he underscored. We depend on our waterways for energy cargo, and yet, our locks and dams are almost half a century old. They are no longer reliable. "There have been no capital improvements." Americans want to build brand new projects, he said. "Skilled workers are waiting to go back to work."

Trump made a point of referencing his decision to pull out of the Paris climate treaty, citing it as an example of "outside interests trying to tell us what to do."

He did not elaborate in detail how he intends to finance his infrastructure program, referencing his plan to generate $1 trillion in investment in infrastructure, $200 billion of which, he said, would come from direct federal investment. The federal government must be a responsible partner, he said, which will work with state and local governments to help them prioritize projects.
EY Azerbaijan has presented the 4th Robin Bennett award for significant contributions to Azerbaijan-UK business relations at the monthly meeting of the British Business Group (BBG). The event, which is sponsored by EY Azerbaijan, was held at the Four Seasons Hotel on 6 June 2017.

Gordon Birrell, former Regional President of BP in Azerbaijan, was awarded the annual prize, a smoking pipe. Turgay Teymurov, EY Baku Partner, and John Patterson OBE, Chairman of the BBG, presented the award to Cathal Kelly, BP AGTR Vice President, who was representing Mr. Birrell at the event.

The winner of the Robin Bennett Pipe Award is selected by decision of the BBG Committee based on nominations by members.

Robin Bennett OBE (1942-2011) was one of the founders of BBG Azerbaijan. He came to Baku as EY Managing Partner and enjoyed a long and successful career with the firm.

About BBG

The British Business Group has been operating in Azerbaijan for 21 years. It provides a vehicle for new businesspeople to meet businesspeople who are familiar with Azerbaijan and can provide information and advice on how business is done in the country. It is a valuable opportunity for networking and allows companies to present themselves and raise their profile.

The group does this by holding monthly meetings, usually on the last Wednesday of each month. Sometimes the meetings are attended by a visiting UK government minister or similar guest.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and economies around the world. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In doing so, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY works together with companies across the CIS and assists them in realizing their business goals. 5,000 professionals work at 20 CIS offices (in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Togliatti, Vladivostok, Almaty, Astana, Bishkek, Baku, Kyiv, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Minsk and other locations).

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

EY in Azerbaijan

EY made a major commitment to the development of Azerbaijan and the region by opening an office in Baku 22 years ago. Today, in addition to being the leading audit and consulting firm in Azerbaijan, we are the leading firm in the region. As a result of our experience and competence, we have been able to assist domestic and international companies as well as state-owned entities in managing the challenges of the international economy.

The 170 people currently working in our Baku office serve our clients in Azerbaijan. EYs strength in the Caspian Region and the firms commitment of resources are important to entities operating in the region. It means that as we grow, EY will continue its tradition of hiring and training local professionals to be leaders in our practice.
Chris Argentieri is President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, overseeing all the business operations of The Times.

After joining the company in late 2014, Argentieri has led initiatives to extend The Times brand and its journalism to additional platforms, collaborate with other businesses and organizations, and refine the product portfolio and marketing offerings to better serve clients.

Argentieri brings more than 20 years of media industry experience to his role at The Times. He was previously President of The Enthusiast Network (TEN), the countrys largest collection of special-interest media, which includes more than 75 publications, 100 websites, 800 branded products and 50 annual events. Prior to that, he served as TENs Chief Operating Officer overseeing technology, consumer marketing and brand development.

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Earlier in his career, Argentieri held a variety of operational roles at Hearst Magazines.


The seventh annual San Marino Motor Classic  Southern Californias answer to the Pebble Beach Concours DElegance  will be held Sunday.

The all-day event will feature an estimated 350 vintage, classic and exotic automobiles, many owned by the biggest names in the local car world.

Peter and Merle Mullin will be showing a 1939 Delage, driven by Gene Kelly in the film "An American in Paris." Bruce Meyer will bring a 1965 Ford GT350. David Lee will have a selection of his Ferrari collection. Custom builder Gary Wales will show up with his hot rod fire truck, La Bestioni.

Jack and Helen Nethercutt will present at least one vehicle from their massive collection. Representatives from Forest Lawn will even be showing a restored 1964 hearse.

The non-profit event, which last year raised $300,000 for local charities, is expected to attract about 7,000 visitors to the Lacy Park grounds.

The car show is managed by a group led by San Marino car collector and real estate developer Aaron Weiss, who will show several vehicles from his own collection as part of the classic car field.

Weiss said the event will include nine gourmet food trucks, a VIP reception tent and a Saturday night gala featuring a musical performance by the USC Trojan marching band.

Entrants pay $100 per vehicle to enter the show, and the odds of winning a prize are pretty good, Weiss said.

People like to win, especially the men, he explained. The male ego needs to go home with hardware.

Prizes will be given in 45 classes, including:

Four divisions of Ferraris

Four classes of Porsches

Three divisions of American Big Block Muscle Cars

One division for American Pick Up Trucks through 1973

One special class called American Postwar Orphan Marques, to include Edsel, Kaiser, Muntz, Nash, Rambler, Willys, Hudson and Studebaker cars built before 1974

Last years winners included:

Best In Show - Prewar 1930 Rolls-Royce Town Car Jack & Helen Nethercutt

Best In Show - Postwar 1956 Mercedes Benz 300Sc Coupe Vin & Erika DiBona

The Saturday night gala begins at 6 p.m. The gates open Sunday morning at 9 a.m. and close at 3 p.m. The awards ceremony begins at 1:30 p.m.

Tickets for the events can be purchased here. The Saturday gala costs $250; Sundays show is $30 at the door or $25 in advance. Children under the age of 12 get in free.

charles.fleming@latimes.com

@misterfleming
The House voted along party lines Thursday to repeal many of the stricter regulations enacted after the 2008 financial crisis, taking the first step in a long-held Republican desire to roll back landmark rules they complain are hurting banks, restricting consumer credit and slowing economic growth.

The legislation, which faces major hurdles in the Senate because of united Democratic opposition, would continue the Republicans deregulatory push under President Trump by dismantling key parts of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had provided consumers about $12 million in relief. It has provided about $12 billion in relief.

That law, passed with almost no Republican support, was the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression and one of President Obamas signature accomplishments.

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Dodd-Frank is strongly supported by consumer advocates, but opposed by banks and other financial firms.

Its key reforms included a prohibition on federally insured banks from engaging in risky trading, a new liquidation authority to safely shut down teetering financial giants to avoid future bailouts and the creation of the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to oversee credit cards, mortgages and other financial products.

The House legislation, called the Financial Choice Act, would undo or scale back much of Dodd-Frank. The bill was approved 233 to 186. All but one Republican  Walter Jones of North Carolina  voted for the bill. No Democrats supported it.

Its major changes include repealing the trading restrictions, known as the Volcker Rule, and scrapping the liquidation authority in favor of enhanced bankruptcy provisions designed to eliminate any chance taxpayers would be on the hook if a major financial firm collapsed.

The bill also would repeal a new Labor Department regulation, largely still pending, that requires investment brokers who handle retirement funds to put their clients interests ahead of their own compensation, company profits or other factors.

And in a move vociferously protested by Democrats, the measure would gut the powerful consumer bureau.

The agency  the centerpiece of Dodd-Frank  has provided consumers about $12 billion in refunds, mortgage principal reductions and other relief since opening in 2011. It played a key role in penalizing Wells Fargo & Co. for its creation of about 2.1 million unauthorized accounts.

The Financial Choice Act would strip the agency of its ability to closely monitor financial firms for compliance with consumer protection laws and specifically prohibits the bureau from writing any regulations on payday and car-title loans.

The bureaus director would be subject to removal by the president for any reason and the agencys independent funding stream would be eliminated, making it subject to congressional appropriations where Republicans could reduce its budget.

We will replace bailout with bankruptcy. We will replace economic stagnation with a growing healthy economy, said Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the legislations author. Well replace Washington micromanagement with market discipline.

President Trump said during the campaign that he wanted to dismantle Dodd-Frank. In February, he directed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to consult with regulators about changes to the law and to report back by this month.

House Republican leaders decided not to wait. They pushed forward with a revised version of legislation introduced last year by Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Democrats labeled the legislation The Wrong Choice Act and said it risked creating another financial crisis by removing important regulations and consumer protections.

Donald Trump and Republicans want to open the door to another economic catastrophe like the Great Recession and return us to a financial system where reckless and predatory practices harm our communities and families, said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who has led opposition to the bill.

Unlike changes to Obamas healthcare law, making most changes to Dodd-Frank would require 60 votes in the Senate. Republicans in the Senate are working on their own financial regulatory bill that could gain the needed Democratic support.

But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last month that he was not optimistic about making changes to Dodd-Frank.

The White House this week said it supported House passage of the legislation as a necessary and important step in moving financial reform legislation through the Congress.

A key feature of the Financial Choice Act is the ability for any bank to avoid strict federal regulatory oversight if it holds capital of at least 10% of assets. The current requirement is 3% for most banks and 6% for institutions considered systemically important.

Big banks arent thrilled with such a high hurdle to avoid regulations and have not embraced the legislation.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the eight largest banks  including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp.  would be unlikely to choose the option because they would have to raise large amounts of capital given their size.

House Republicans pointed to Wall Streets concerns about the capital levels, as well as the Financial Choice Acts tougher federal penalties for financial fraud, to counter charges that they were doing Wall Streets bidding.

They said the legislation was needed because Dodd-Frank rules had made mortgages tougher to obtain, forced banks to scale back fees that had helped allow them to offer free checking accounts, and placed a heavy burden on community banks.

This law may have had good intentions, but its consequences have been dire for Main Street, said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)

But Democrats said Republicans were making the country vulnerable to another financial crisis.

This legislation unleashes every bloodthirsty, greedy Wall Street super-predator on the American people, said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.).

Democrats said that bank profits are up and lending has increased since Dodd-Frank was enacted. Bank profits hit a record $171 billion in 2016, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. And in the first quarter of this year, profits were up 13% from a year earlier, the FDIC said.

And while the largest banks have grown significantly since Dodd-Frank was enacted, the profit gains havent been limited to them. Community bank profits in the first quarter were up 10% from a year earlier, the FDIC said.

Republicans point out that the number of banks have declined under Dodd-Frank. And they have, from 6,719 in the first quarter of 2010 to 5,031 in the first quarter of this year, Federal Reserve data shows. But thats the continuation of a steady decline since the mid-1980s, when there were about 14,000 banks.

Despite Republican statements that Dodd-Frank has restricted business lending, statistics dont bear that out.

Commercial and industrial bank loans have increased 77% since hitting a post-crisis bottom in 2010, according to the Federal Reserve. Consumer lending also has not been restrained in recent years.

Household debt, including mortgages and auto and student loans, has been rising for four years. And in the first quarter, that debt topped the peak reached in 2008 before the economic crash led to a historic downturn, the Fed said.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

ALSO

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Former CEO of OneWest Bank is Trumps pick for key financial regulatory post

Employers and worker advocates both hate Trumps plan to overhaul labor watchdogs

UPDATES:

2:25 p.m.: This article was updated to note that Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina was the lone Republican to vote against repealing Dodd-Frank.

This article originally was published at 2:05 p.m.
Agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday morning raided Proove Biosciences, an Irvine company that sells a DNA test it claims can determine whether a patient is at risk of addiction to opioid painkillers.

In a press conference, FBI spokeswoman Cathy Kramer said the raid was part of an ongoing investigation concerning healthcare fraud. No arrests were made.

Anonymous company employees told STAT News, a healthcare news site, that about 25 agents arrived with a search warrant and spent several hours hauling out boxes of documents. The employees had been told by Proove to stay home for the day.

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Proove maintains that its test can determine a patients risk of addiction with 93% accuracy.

In December, an article published by STAT questioned the scientific basis for Prooves test. Rockefeller Universitys Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek, who researches genetic links to addiction, told STAT that Prooves test was hogwash. In February, the site said Prooves method of paying physicians to participate in clinical trials might violate anti-kickback laws.

That article included a statement from CEO Brian Meshkin, who said that Proove is acting within the confines of the law  [and intends] to follow both the letter and spirit of the law.

Meshkin could not be reached for comment regarding Wednesdays raid.

Proove had 2016 revenues of $28 million, according to STAT. The company was able to collect more than 100,000 DNA specimens, largely because of a regulatory loophole regarding laboratory-developed tests. Essentially, these tests are free from Food and Drug Administration regulation so long as theyre designed, manufactured and used within a single laboratory.

Last November, the Obama administration halted plans to close the loophole, and the FDA elected to leave the decision for the Trump administration.

On average, 91 Americans die each day of an opioid overdose. From 2000 to 2015, more than half a million people died from overdoses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

jack.flemming@latimes.com

Twitter: @jflem94
Question: My 17-year-old son is looking for an evening and weekend job. Hes polite, well-spoken and clean-cut. But when he goes into places that are advertising, managers just tell him, Apply online (this includes the places that say Apply Inside). He has applied to dozens of jobs online and has not received a single expression of interest. Its been tremendously demoralizing.

He has pointed out that its rare to see teenagers working even at fast-food joints or in grocery stores. Do you have any advice for him?

Answer: Polite, well spoken and clean-cut are a good start  but your son will need more to get a foothold in the current market. According to data compiled by Bethesda research nonprofit Child Trends, the number of high school students with jobs has dropped from peaks of 35% in the late 1990s to about 18% in 2015. Child Trends research fellow David Murphey attributes the decline in part to automation and international competition, as well as teens increased focus on academic pursuits.

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I suspect those first two trends have also pushed unemployed adults  willing to work for low wages, at any hours, exempt from youth labor restrictions  into some of the jobs traditionally filled by teenagers.

But thats not to say your son should give up. He just has to make an extra effort to stand out.

A study by the same nonprofit identifies the soft skills most likely to help youths succeed in the job market: communication, social skills, self-control, higher-order thinking and positive self-concept (self-awareness, not just self-esteem). The problem is that those kinds of things are not visible on the Internet, notes Kristin Anderson Moore, study co-author and Child Trends senior scholar.

Heres how your son might display these skills:

Communication: Phone ahead and arrange for in-person conversations with managers at select employers. Business cards might be over the top, but a typed list of references wouldnt be.

Social skills: Work existing connections with peers, teachers, family friends, clergy and neighbors. Parents can help make introductions.

Self-control: Fight discouragement. Keep busy, and keep looking ahead.

Higher-order thinking: Identify employers and personal connections where hes most likely to succeed.

Positive self-concept: Develop and practice delivering a 30-second self-introduction: name, interest in opportunity, skills and assets.

The response might still be Apply online. But a manager might also remember the pleasant candidate who takes the initiative to personally introduce himself and who follows up with a thank you message. And building those soft-skills muscles now will give your son a head start in the post-educational rat race.

PRO TIP: If youre an under-18 worker or parent of one, check out the Labor Departments Youth Rules website at youthrules.gov for information on the federal rights of underage workers.

Karla Miller writes about work dramas and traumas for the Washington Post.
For the second year in a row, shareholders of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, voted down a proposal asking the tech giant to publish a report on possible pay disparities between its male and female employees.

The vote comes at a time when the company is grappling with a federal lawsuit tied to this very issue and as the tech industry faces heightened scrutiny over compensation inequities, a lack of diversity, and dysfunctional work environments.

Under the proposal, the company would measure and disclose how much its female employees make as a percentage of their male counterparts pay. The plan, put forward by Arjuna Capital, an investment firm, and others also called for the company to design a policy to tackle any gender pay disparity.

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Gender pay disparity is not only one of the biggest social justice issues of our time, it poses a risk to companies performance, brand, and investor returns, said Natasha Lamb, Arjunas director of shareholder engagement, at the shareholder meeting. This issue is particularly salient to the technology industry, which struggles to attract, retain and move women into positions of leadership, she said.

The board of directors told shareholders that approving the proposal would not be in the best interest of the company or its investors, according to Alphabets 2017 statement to stockholders. Management pointed to Googles existing diversity reports and internal evaluations as sufficient measures to ensure pay equity among its staff. Our board of directors does not believe that the proposal would enhance Alphabets existing commitment to fostering a fair and inclusive culture, read the statement.

Like many of its peers in the tech industry, Google produces an annual report outlining the gender and ethnic makeup of its employees. A vast majority of Alphabets employees work for Google. But the report doesnt outline gender pay disparities. Of the companys global employees, 69% are male and 31% are female, according to Google 2016 diversity report, which captured data from the year prior. But its unclear how much women employees are paid relative to the men.

Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have all reported on gender pay disparity at their companies, with each claiming a discrepancy near zero. Lamb described Alphabet as a laggard compared to its peers when it comes to transparency over gender pay.

Alphabet declined to comment.

Arjuna Capitals push for Alphabet to release its gender pay information is part of a broader campaign to address enduring gender discrimination in the American workplace. Within Silicon Valley, which generally views itself as a meritocracy, calls for improving diversity have only grown louder as yearly employment reports continue to show leadership teams being dominated by men.

The calls also come as accounts of workplace harassment continue to surface. In February, former Uber employee Susan Fowler published a blog post alleging episodes of sexual harassment that she said took place while she worked as an engineer at the company. Since her writing, Uber initiated several internal investigations to examine what Fowler and others described as a toxic work culture.

Ubers sexual harassment controversy is viewed by some not as an anomaly, but just the latest, prominent example of women facing discrimination at work in Silicon Valley.

Google is currently facing a lawsuit from the Labor Department related to unfair gender pay. The Labor Department filed the lawsuit in January after the Mountain View, Calif., company refused to turn over compensation data as part of a routine compliance evaluation, according to a Labor Department statement released in the same month. Labor Department lawyers have accused Alphabet of underpaying women, finding evidence of extreme gender pay discrimination. Google has denied those accusations. In a hearing last month, Alphabet said that it couldnt turn over internal wage data that the department requested because compiling it would cost too much  $100,000  and require hundreds of hours of work, according to the Guardian.

Alphabet is the third major tech company since 2016 to fall under Labor Department scrutiny. Palantir was accused of discriminating against Asian job applicants, and Oracle was sued for allegedly engaging in pay discrimination against women employees as well as Asian and black workers, according to the Guardian.

At the shareholder meeting, Lamb also presented a shareholder proposal for Google to analyze its role in the spread of misleading and fabricated news stories, so-called fake news. With managements blessing, that proposal failed.

Another plan presented by NorthStars Asset Management would have given stockholders equal voting power.

That was defeated as well.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

Shaban writes for the Washington Post
Can we unpack unpack?

The verb remains a favored bit of jargon among journalists and academics, who use it to mean pretty much any effort to break a complicated idea, theory or assumption into its constituent parts for easier analysis. Theres so much unpacking going on at a typical symposium or conference these days that you begin to worry about tripping over all the empty luggage.

Blame Walter Benjamin. The German philosophers 1931 essay, Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting, first popularized the U-word as a metaphor. For those of us who admire and continue to read Benjamin but wish unpack would pack up and go  who think overuse has left it nearly meaningless  this spring has not been a happy season. In architecture and museum circles the essay is on its way from trendy to ubiquitous.

The introductory exhibition at L.A.s newest museum, the Marciano Art Foundation on Wilshire Boulevard, is called Unpacking: The Marciano Collection. The curator, Philipp Kaiser, writes in the catalog that deciding which artworks from the collection of the Guess Jeans founders Paul and Maurice Marciano to put on view was a task that invariably called to mind Benjamin.

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On the other side of the country, the Museum of Modern Art will open a major exhibition Monday called Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive. The show is meant not only to mark the anniversary of Wrights 1867 birth but to celebrate the fact that the architects archive, long held at his Taliesin compounds in Wisconsin and Arizona, is now jointly owned by MoMA and Columbia University.

Among the questions that hover over the exhibition: What does it mean that a pair of Manhattans wealthiest and most august institutions have appointed themselves to safeguard the legacy of an eccentric architect whose relationship with cities in general and New York City in particular was iffy at best  and who made a point of removing himself to the desert, 2,500 miles away, for the long second half of his career?

Thats a lot to unpack.

Benjamin was 39 when he wrote Unpacking My Library. He and wife Dora had divorced two years before. The essay is superficially about the act of organizing his large book collection on the shelves of his apartment in Berlin. Its really about the habits, foibles and vanities of collectors. And about poles: about the movement (some of which we can control and some of which we cant) between order and disorder, excitement and boredom and youth and old age.

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Its about the renewal we try to find in the things and people we gather around us, an effort that tends to accelerate the older we get. I am not exaggerating when I say that to a true collector the acquisition of an old book is its rebirth, Benjamin writes.

He admits, though, that there was a period when he was adamant about not reading the books he acquired. The militancy of non-reading among book collectors is a major theme.

Theres no such subtlety or self-deprecation in Kaisers essay. I doubt MoMA will portray its acquisition of the Wright archive in any but the noblest of terms.

At one point in the essay Benjamin uses a short Latin phrase, Habent sua fata libelli. Its a fragment of a longer saying, Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli, which basically means that the fate of a given book depends on the capacities, the intelligence, of those who happen to pick it up. Dull readers make dull books.

The same is true of metaphors. Unpack has become a victim of its most enthusiastic users. But killing this particular cliche may be tougher than it sounds. Eighty-six years after the Benjamin essay appeared, the term has gathered enough momentum to seem Rasputin-like.

Why? It clearly scratches some cultural itch. It has something to do with the way we increasingly think of intelligence as something to perform  in particular the way we use social media as a stage to display our knowledge of one subject or another.

Unpacking has become something we (and by we I mostly mean men) do in public. Its analysis that proceeds step by step.

The Twitter thread is unpacking taken to its logical 21st century extreme. (Unlike writing an essay, which is more like packing than unpacking.) Each linked tweet is a book held up for notice, spine pointed toward ones followers, on its way from box to bookcase.

This version of unpacking also brings instant attention of the kind Benjamin never experienced. (The Canadian writer Jeet Heer spun his threading prowess into a senior editor gig at the New Republic.) That makes me think the metaphor will be around for a while and that this column will do absolutely nothing to slow its spread.

In this sense Benjamin  and here is a comparison I guarantee you didnt see coming  is like Donald Trump. The best way to analyze either mans body of work is simply to quote his own words. There is an aphorism or one-liner (or in the presidents case a tweet) for every occasion.

Wrote Benjamin: Nothing highlights the fascination of unpacking more clearly than the difficulty of stopping this activity. You said it, Walter.

Building Type is Christopher Hawthornes weekly column on architecture and cities. Look for future installments every Thursday at latimes.com/arts.

christopher.hawthorne@latimes.com

Twitter: @HawthorneLAT

MORE BUILDING TYPE:

The architecture of moviegoing: Can the multiplex stay in the picture?

Marciano review: Former temple loses some personality in stylish redesign

Rich history, new anxieties inside MacArthur Park building where Berggruen Institute plans satellite

Design for Obama library and museum off to surprisingly somber start
He plays the title role of Mr. Robot, but at the end of the cybernetic psychodramas debut season, Christian Slater wasnt sure he would be invited back for a second round. He was, after all, revealed to be an imaginary character who doubled as the dead father of the shows bedeviled would-be revolutionary, uber-hacker Elliot Alderson.

Instead, Slaters role deepened in Season 2, fighting back as Elliot struggled to shut him down. We push each other to deliver the strongest, most surprising performances, said Rami Malek, who plays Elliot, of his costar. One tool sharpens another.

Slater spoke recently about the shows intense dynamic, the intricacies of playing Mr. Robot and where his relationship with Elliot may be headed.

In Season 2, Mr. Robot is much darker and antagonistic. Do you think hes there to help Elliot or to hurt him?

Going from Season 1 to Season 2, my interpretation is that Mr. Robot is really very angry and upset. Elliot does everything he can to control and manage that part of him, much to the chagrin and anger of Mr. Robot. Inevitably, it becomes an antagonistic relationship. I want Elliot to be the leader he was meant to be and to take charge and lead this revolution, and hes doing everything he possibly can to keep himself locked up and put away. When hes locked up, the same things happening to me.

Actor Christian Slater plays the title role in Mr. Robot. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Where do you find inspiration to play someone who doesnt exist?

I just thought, Elliot is a genius and hes part of the generation thats been raised with Wikipedia and Google and having information right there. I wanted to incorporate that element into the Mr. Robot character. I started to look at great quotes from history, from people like Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein. Even Jesse Jackson had some great quotes I found, that Im always trying to incorporate into the show. Theyre things Elliot would have stumbled across and would be deeply layered into his subconscious and come out at appropriate times. I wanted Mr. Robot to be a walking Google search.

Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson and Christian Slater as Mr. Robot in Mr. Robot. (Virginia Sherwood / USA Network) (Virginia Sherwood / USA Network)

How does the relationship with Elliot evolve in the new season? Series creator Sam Esmail has offered up the word disintegration as a teaser.

Now we get all the scripts ahead of time. We sit down over two days and we read through them like a long movie. Once again, I found myself shocked, surprised and going, How did you come up with this? I did not see this coming. Its really that kind of show. You mention the word disintegration; thats a word that was presented to me as well. I would also say that theres a quickness to it. We shot a scene yesterday that had a very frenetic, chaotic energy to it, and I feel like that is something that is consistent with Season 3. This is going to be a fast-paced kind of season.

Christian Slaters role as Mr. Robot deepened in Season 2, fighting back as Elliot struggled to shut him down.We push each other to deliver the strongest, most surprising performances, said Rami Malek, who plays Elliot, of his costar. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

A little less conversation, a little more action?

It definitely has its cerebral qualities. But there is a lot more danger that Elliot is having to face. We also have some wonderful additions. Bobby Cannavale, a phenomenal actor, has a character that hes created, is hilarious and wonderful. I just love the fact that Sam, and all the writers, take the time to examine and flesh out each one of the characters. Everybody really has to go through a lot of questionable things in Season 3.

Looking back at last season, did you have a favorite episode?

The sitcom episode. For me, that was so outrageous and so wild. To put the show on its head like that was very exciting, and tricky. Sitcom dialogue  I had the hardest time just trying to get the rhythm of that dialogue into my head. Theres something so static and unnatural about it, and its not the way that I am comfortable communicating. But I loved the whole journey of that episode. You start with this loving but phony-esque relationship between Elliot and his dad, and you go on the journey to the end of the episode and [theres] a beautiful scene between me and young Elliot, and I was extraordinarily passionate about that scene and wanting to get the tone right. I can play this smooth-talking, swaggering kind of character, who is this image of who Elliot would have liked his father to be, and then I get the opportunity to play Edward, quirky, insecure, klutzy at times, just a very genuine, sensitive person with his young son.

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Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

Trend:

Opening of Azerbaijans Trading house in Ukraine will increase export of non-oil products, said Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev at a meeting with Ukrainian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Alexander Mishchenko, the ministry told Trend.

At the meeting, during which the parties exchanged views on opportunities of expanding the Azerbaijan-Ukraine economic relations and cooperation, it was noted that the ties between the two countries are at a high level and the heads of these states attach special importance to the development of cooperation.

Mustafayev noted that there is a plan to open Azerbaijans Trading house in Ukraine.

Opening of a Trading house will have significance in increasing the export of non-oil products to Ukraine and expanding the trade. Azerbaijan is a transit hub of the region and is implementing big projects in this sphere; A Coordination council on transit freight traffic operates in order to increase the efficiency of transit traffic. Ukraine can benefit from transit opportunities of Azerbaijan, including the potential of the Baku International Sea Trade Port, said the Azerbaijani minister.

It was also noted that the work conducted by Azerbaijan in the field of creating the pharmaceutical industry, specialized Pirallahi industrial park and the countrys rich experience in the sphere of chemistry create big opportunities for cooperation with Ukraine in this area. Noting that several Ukrainian companies show interest in Azerbaijans pharmaceutical industry and meetings were held for this purpose, Mustafayev emphasized that Ukrainian companies can benefit from opportunities created for investors in Azerbaijans industrial parks.

Sharing opinions with regard to opportunities for expanding the cooperation in various fields, Ambassador Mishchenko said that Ukrainians are interested in therapeutic opportunities of Naftalan [Azerbaijani city known for its petroleum spas that are claimed to be an effective treatment against several diseases] just like tourists from Azerbaijan come to Truskavets with the purpose of treatment.

The envoy noted that the relevant information about that has already been presented to Ukraines tourism companies.

Noting the expansion of trade relations between the two countries, mutual growth of export, the diplomat said that Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR is known enough in Ukraine and filling stations of the Azerbaijani company may be used for promotion of Azerbaijani products.

During the meeting, the two sides also discussed the issues of expanding trade relations, investments and other issues of mutual interest.
In his long and decorated career, John Lithgow has learned never to underestimate the power of creative anxiety and a good melon baller.

Playing against type, the beloved comedic actor has earned raves for his portrayal of Winston Churchill on Netflixs The Crown. The 10 episodes span a decade in the life of young Queen Elizabeth, giving Lithgow much opportunity to portray Englands war-time prime minister, and as important, illustrate his vast range as an actor. Emmy buzz around The Crown is strong for another Lithgow statuette, particularly after the role earned him a supporting actor Golden Globe nomination this year.

During a recent visit with The Envelope at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, Lithgow confessed he had been uncertain he was the right fit for Churchill.

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He is arguably the most recognized and best known and most important Englishman of the 20th century, with the emphasis on Englishman. And Im an American. I was honestly amazed that they cast me, he said. Im 6-4 and he was about 5-7 and both of us are about 225 pounds. We couldnt have been more different.

Lithgow was further worried how hed fit in as the lone American shooting for eight months in London among highly regarded English actors. So he set out to get inside Churchill, the leader, and the private man.

I was hired to do it in January, and it didnt start shooting until July. I was both terrified and determined to deeply research this man. I think its more preparation than Ive ever done for a role. At a certain point, it was no longer preparation for a role. I was just fascinated by Churchill, as so many people are, he said.

Getting the great orators distinctive, rumbling speech was critical, so Lithgow devised a novel technique, which he demonstrated during an early rehearsal.

I had practiced in L.A. where I had taken a melon baller and had dug out two little balls of apple and I put them in my jowls, Lithgow said, shifting into Churchill-speak, so I would give myself a Churchillian face and that strange, hollow voice. His mouth was an echo chamber.

I actually took my melon baller to the rehearsal. And they all looked at me like I was nuts. And even as I spoke, my mouth filled up with apple juice, Lithgow said. No apples were required during the production, however.

He credits The Crown makeup designer Ivana Primorac with sending him to Chris Lyons. Hes the king of false teeth. He built me these plumpers that fit onto my molars. They swelled my jowls up, so they made me not only look but sound a good deal more like Winston.

It was my idea to stuff cotton up my nose, not only to give me a more bulbous nose, but also to make me sound more nasal, said Lithgow. Now Ive ruined it for you!

Spoiler alert: He also wears a fat suit and a wig, but no facial prosthetics. Lithgow, a lithe 71, also assumed an old mans gait and bent posture to play the 80-year-old leader.

Yet achieving the transformation was as much a psychological challenge as a physical one. The first hurdle: A two-day table read in front of about 40 executives.

Now, Im used to table reads for 3rd Rock From the Sun, so I came to my first scene as Churchill, and then as now in this hotel room, Lithgow not so much impersonates Churchill as channels his spirit, voice and mannerisms. The effect was just as startling to his cast mates.

The whole trick is for those two hours or 10 episodes to obliterate the memory of the real thing and just accept this.  John Lithgow

All these English actors, they all looked up from their scripts and straightened their spine. But I was scared to death. I had terrible stage fright. But from that moment on, there was never any question, he said, sounding still slightly thrilled he pulled it off.

He came to appreciate that he, and every other actor who plays a well-known figure, cant and shouldnt hope to be a replica.

The whole trick is for those two hours or 10 episodes to obliterate the memory of the real thing and just accept this, he said. In a sense, the differences between your knowledge of the real thing and the fiction that youre seeing, the tension between the two is part of what makes it gripping.

Fears now quelled, Lithgow said hed love to play Churchill again.

Im heartsick that Im not in the second season. On the other hand, I had a wonderful exit from the first season. You dont want to mess around with a good exit.

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Paul Giamatti has spent two decades bringing his flawed-everyman charm to diverse roles: frustrated writer, Founding Father, even God. For two seasons, in Showtimes Billions, he has brought it to Chuck Rhoades, a U.S. attorney locked in an alpha-dog struggle with hedge-fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis).

In Giamattis first ongoing TV role (no one had ever offered him one before, he says), Chuck has a complex relationship with power  as well as with his wife, Wendy (Maggie Siff). Serenely sipping water in a quiet Brooklyn bistro, Giamatti says he enjoys exploring Chucks nooks and crannies and layers and carefully reveals a few of his own.

Has playing Chuck Rhoades allowed you to explore anything new?

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I dont usually play strong people. Hes insecure and weak in some ways, but he tells people what to do and they do it. I generally play people who tell people what to do and they dont do it, and theyre frustrated that nobody will do what they tell them to.

Do you think about the shows bigger themes?

I suppose I do. Its about male power. I think about how a scene will express the larger idea of a guy who cant control his male ego.

Power and control are also elements of Chuck and Wendys relationship.

You mean the violent sex stuff. What I like is its just a thing they do. Hes tied to the bed, and then they have ice cream. Maggie and I met a couple, and it was amazing just how normal and in the course of events the crazy stuff these people did was.

How did you and Maggie prepare for those scenes?

We had a technical adviser, a dominatrix, and met some of her clients. But ultimately we just had to do it. It helps to be with somebody thats cool. Youre not going to worry about the other person being freaked out or too into it.

Chuck is partly based on former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara. Donald Trump famously fired him in March. Will that factor into the story line?

I dont know. The show is rooted enough in the real world that it has to acknowledge, not the things that literally happened, but that the structures of things are changing. Its a different world.

Have you helped shape your character?

Things happen as were shooting, like the way my character chows down on food. I hate when actors dont eat in movies because theyll end up eating an enormous amount; you have to do a scene over and over. So I was, like, Im going to really chow! Theyre, like, Thats awesome the way youre taking food from other people. That became part of my character. Theres a thing with Winston Churchill books. I have an interest in Churchill, so they threw that in there.

Do you ever root for Damian Lewis character instead of yours?

No. I think those guys should go to jail. I dont have anything against [hedge-fund] guys, but the crooked ones I find reprehensible. It seems like a victimless crime, theres no body in the street, but they can mess up peoples lives.

Youve done movies, TV, theater, producing. What goals do you still have?

I just want to keep acting until I cant do it anymore.

Well, youre a guy, so theres no expiration date.

A guy who can get bald. So, yeah, I can get old. Id like to do more theater. I like acting with my whole body, which you dont really do on film. Youre acting with your head. You can feel disembodied.

How do you feel about fame?

I was naive about it coming with the territory. Or maybe I didnt think I would be in the position where anybody would care that much. I think I thought, well, Ill do stuff I like and get good work and I wont have to deal with this other stuff. But if you get good work you have to deal with that stuff.

You may have it especially hard because everyone feels like youre their best friend.

You may be right. I worked with a director who had worked with Danny DeVito and he said, You guys elicit the same thing. People just want to sit down and chat with you. The thing thats a drag is it takes away your anonymity and your ability to watch people. Eventually, I realized I just have to do it while they come up and talk to me. Its an opportunity for me to get even closer to people.

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Celebrating #HarryPotter20: How Harry Potter and his blockbuster films came of age on screen

The Boy Who Lived has cast his spell on the box office since Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, the first film in Warner Bros. blockbuster franchise, hit theaters in 2001.

The bestselling, seven-book series was adapted into eight record-breaking films -- and a two-part play -- as the boy wizard ventured through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the wizarding world with his pals Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, taking on the enigmatic Lord Voldemort and his magical henchmen each school year.

As J.K. Rowlings debut novel Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone -- the first of the books from which the decade-spanning films were adapted -- marks its 20th anniversary, heres a reminder of how Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan reviewed the Harry Potter films. (Spoiler alert: He didnt always like them.)

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone film is imaginative and faithful but shuns any risk-taking (2001)

As his 11th birthday approaches, orphan Harry Potter learns that hes a wizard and enrolls at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where his reputation as the Boy Who Lived precedes him during his magical training.

The result is a remarkably faithful copy of the book that treats the text like holy writ (hence its 2-hour-and-33-minute length), wrote The Times film critic Kenneth Turan. From the gold in Gringotts, the safe-as-houses goblin-run bank, to the centaur lurking in the forbidden forest that adjoins Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, so much is presented just as written that Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone starts to resemble one of those fiendishly exact replicas of great works of art that Sunday painters can be seen working on in galleries of museums.

2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets doesnt capture the well-balanced tone of the book (2002)

In their second year at Hogwarts, Harry and his pals Ron and Hermione contend with a celebrity author professor and a well-meaning house elf named Dobby who thwart the trio in unexpected ways.

The darkness that invades Chamber of Secrets underlines how well the books managed to exactly balance good and evil, dark and light, so that within their pages you seemed to be experiencing both at the same time. Not so here, Turan wrote. Because Chamber of Secrets cant seem to get the balance right, it ends up broadly overdoing things on both ends of the spectrum. The films scary moments are too monstrous and its happy times have too much idiotic beaming, making the film feel like the illegitimate offspring of Alien and The Absent-Minded Professor.

3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film comes close to capturing the essence of the books (2004)

The wizarding world gets markedly darker as convicted murderer Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who is believed to have killed Harrys parents, escapes from the Azkaban prison and the soul-sucking Dementors are loosed to chase him down. Director Alfonso Cuaron takes the helm from Chris Columbus, who directed the two previous films.

"[T]he final hour of the two-hour-and-21-minute Azkaban is the closest any of the films has gotten to capturing the enormously pleasing essence of the Potter books, wrote Turan, adding, Those three leads (Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione, Rupert Grint as Ron) play characters who are now 13, an age when anger and frustration are more publicly expressed. One of the benefits of Cuarons direction, his expertise with younger actors, means that the constant determination and occasional fury exhibited by the characters, especially Harry and Hermione, are completely convincing.

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire finally gets Harry Potter right (2005)

Harrys surprising inclusion in the prestigious Triwizard Tournament, as a fourth-year student, raises concerns and brings danger to the Hogwarts castle.

Its taken them long enough, but the movies have finally gotten Harry Potter right, wrote Turan. It has fallen to the veteran [director] Mike Newell, eager, in his own words, to break out of this goody-two-shoes feel, to make the first Harry Potter film to be wire-to-wire satisfying.

Though memorable acting is neither called for nor delivered on the part of Goblets collection of juveniles, Radcliffes Harry does get one thing exactly right. Watching him face myriad challenges, were convinced that Harrys heart will lead him to do the right thing. He does good in the most natural way and, like so much of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, thats just how it should be.

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix cant shake an episodic feeling (2007)

With the Ministry of Magic refusing to acknowledge Lord Voldemorts (Ralph Fiennes) return, fifth-year Harry is brooding at school as he contends with spooky visions and Ministry transplant Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton). His knowledge of the dark magic-fighting organization, the Order of the Phoenix, and a prophecy further complicate matters.

"[Director David] Yates and his team handle the films visuals well, including the impressive sets for the atrium of the Ministry of Magic and its Hall of Prophecy, as well as fine flying sequences involving either broomsticks or equine creatures called Thestrals, Turan wrote. The director also works well with the films juvenile leads, which is important, because these are the raging hormone years at Hogwarts School, and that is especially true where Harry is concerned. Looking so disgruntled in his gray hoodie that you fear he might start rapping, Harry comes off as more Grumpy Potter than the bright light of the wizarding world.

6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is well-crafted but sometimes hard to endure (2009)

As dark magic spills into the Muggle world, Harrys mentor, Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), tasks him with bringing down Lord Voldemort. But Harrys discovery of an old textbook teaches him more than he expected about his past.

Now in its sixth episode shot over an eight-year span, with two more features still to come, this one-of-a-kind film cycle has become as comfortable and reliable as an old shoe, providing a degree of dependability thats becoming increasingly rare, Turan wrote. As directed by David Yates, who did the previous film and is on tap for the final two, Half-Blood Prince demonstrates the ways that the Potter pictures have become the modern exemplars of establishment moviemaking. We dont turn to these films for thrilling or original cinema, we look for a level of craft, consistency and, most of all, fidelity to the originals -- all of which we get.

7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 1" (2010)

The penultimate film sees Harry, Hermione and Ron venturing out into the real world to locate and destroy Lord Voldemorts soul-encapsulating Horcruxes as Hogwarts and the wizarding world fall to He Who Must Not Be Named.

Much of the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows involves the attempt to find and destroy a series of Horcruxes, and if you havent a clue about what they are or why theyre important, you might as well stay home, Turan wrote. There is something different, however, about this Potter movie, and that is the words Part 1' that end the title. Understandably distraught about Hallows being the last of the phenomenally popular J.K. Rowling novels, Warner Bros. has split the final effort into two films and is likely kicking itself for not having thought of that with the earlier books.

(It should be noted that the studio reboots the wizarding world with the forthcoming Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series. The first film hit theaters in 2016.)

8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2" (2011)

Harry goes wand-to-wand with Lord Voldemort, concluding Harrys final year at the wizarding school with the epic Battle of Hogwarts.

In a classic storybook finish, however, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- Part 2' turns out to be more than the last of its kind. Almost magically, it ends up being one of the best of the series as well, Turan wrote. The Harry Potter films, like the boy wizard himself, have had their creative ups and downs, so its especially satisfying that this final film, ungainly title and all, has been worth the wait. Though no expense has been spared in its production, it succeeds because it brings us back to the combination of magic, adventure and emotion that created the books popularity in the first place.

For more of The Times Harry Potter anniversary coverage, go here.
Only one bank faced criminal charges in the aftermath of 2008s global financial meltdown, and it wasnt one you might expect.

If behemoths like Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley were judged too big to fail, then tiny community-oriented Abacus Federal Savings in New Yorks Chinatown  only the 2,651st largest bank in the U.S., with assets but a fraction of the big boys  was deemed as one observer tartly puts it, small enough to jail.

Not surprisingly seeing the potential of this story was Steve James, one of Americas most accomplished and socially conscious documentarians with films such as The Interrupters, Head Games and the classic Hoop Dreams on his decades-long resume.

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The film that resulted, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, is a potent examination of how and why the choice was made to go after Abacus and what that action says about the ways the factors involved in American justice play out.

Its a deeper look than we usually get into the extent to which these decisions are judgment calls by prosecutors, influenced by a wide range of factors. Indictments are not inevitable fait accompli but fluid situations that, absent preconceptions and preconditions, could have gone another way.

James is helped enormously in telling this story by the wide range of interview subjects he was able to put on screen, starting with the complete cooperation of Thomas Sung, the banks founder and chairman, his articulate wife and their four formidable adult daughters.

In addition to the inevitable complement of journalists (which in this case include Rolling Stones Matt Taibbi and the New Yorkers Jiayang Fan), James was able to extensively interview the people who decided to bring the prosecution, New York County Dist. Atty. Cyrus Vance Jr. and Polly Greenberg, the chief of his offices Major Economic Crimes Bureau.

Abacus begins with a clip from one of the few American films with a banker hero, Frank Capras Its a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart. Its a favorite film of Thomas and his wife, Hwei Lin Sung, who tear up when they watch. As to his own banking story, Thomas admits, in reality its not that simple.

Born in Shanghai and arriving in the U.S. at age 16, Thomas was a lawyer before he founded his bank. Helping New Yorks Chinese community has always been one of his key focuses.

Thomas started Abacus because he realized that while major banks were happy to take deposits from Chinese customers, they were unwilling to make loans. Set up to appeal to his immigrant neighbors, who often lack secure places for their valuables, Abacus for instance rents out 8,000 safe deposit boxes, way more than the norm.

But while this ought to be a heartwarming story, it has another side: a legal case that lasted five years, culminated in a four-month trial and ended up costing the Sungs $10 million to defend.

One of the ironies of the Abacus prosecution is that it began with a case of fraud by one of the banks loan officers that Abacus itself discovered and reported to federal authorities.

So when the government decided that complicity with corruption went high enough to indict the entire bank, the Sung family was shocked.

This included not only the two sisters (Jill Sung and Vera Sung) who ran the bank but also sister Chanterelle Sung, a former assistant district attorney in Vances office who was so distraught by what she saw as the incompetence combined with arrogance in the indictment that she quit her job.

Because Thomas took the charges, and some inexcusable humiliation that went along with it, as an insult to the entire Chinatown community, he refused to back down even in the face of an intense government investigation that took five years, used hundreds of lawyers and led to a 240-count indictment.

The trial itself was off limits to cameras, but the film does an expert job re-creating it using actors reading testimony and vivid courtroom illustrations by Christine Cornell. Its not every day that you end up rooting for a bank, but the story Abacus: Small Enough to Jail tells is no ordinary tale.

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Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes

Playing: Landmark Nuart, West Los Angeles

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@KennethTuran

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Early on in the new film Beatriz at Dinner theres a squirm-inducing moment  one of many in director Miguel Artetas and screenwriter Mike Whites biting social commentary.

Salma Hayek, cast as Beatriz, a healer whos giving massages at an upscale dinner party, is telling the guests about her career when shes immediately interrupted by one-percenter Doug Strutt, played by John Lithgow.

When I first came to the United States, a long time ago ... she begins.

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Did you come legally? Strutt asks.

A long pause follows. Yes.

Despite the heightening tension in the room, she tries to get back to her point.

I always had inside me the desire to be a healer  

Good for you, he cuts her off again. Youre working. Youre contributing.

The dark comedy shines an unforgiving light on such topics as immigration and economic disparity  both issues that are at the forefront of political consciousness in todays deeply polarized America. It opens Friday in Los Angeles in limited release.

Its a story about what its like to feel outside of society and about how divided our society is, said Arteta in a phone interview. But its set in the really relatable and casual environment of a dinner party, something we can all relate to.

 Justin Chang reviews Beatriz at Dinner, directed by Miguel Arteta, starring Salma Hayek, John Lithgow, Connie Britton, Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker, Chloe Sevigny, and David Warshofsky. Video by Jason H. Neubert.

Hayek, whose stunning beauty is semi-successfully muted as Beatriz beneath a frumpy monochromatic outfit and fringe of baby bangs, signed on for the role before the script was even written.

I have always wanted to work with Miguel and Mike, she said of the director and screenwriter who had collaborated on such films as Chuck & Buck and The Good Girl. They approached me with just an idea of what they wanted to do. I dont care what they wouldve given me, I wouldve done it.

She spent half a day talking about the film but was told nothing more than the role in mind was for a masseuse at a dinner party.

I didnt even understand how the masseuse was going to fit into the dinner, she said. But I wouldve done anything.

Two weeks later, all her questions were answered.

It was my birthday and I got an email from Mike that said Happy Birthday and the script. He wrote it in two weeks and its exactly the script that you see on the screen. And then I fell in love immediately with the character.

That character is Beatriz, a holistic healer from Mexico who finds herself stranded at her employers Newport Beach home just before a very well-to-do dinner party.

She does not come in with a chip on her shoulder, shes not somebody that has a complex of inferiority, shes at dinner with these people that are rich and powerful and sophisticated, but she doesnt look up to them, Hayek said by phone in a separate interview. Shes just happy to be there, even if its by accident. And she makes an effort to understand who they are and doesnt judge immediately and doesnt react immediately. And I think that this is something that is really needed today.

Beatrizs well-meaning employer, Kathy (Connie Britton), insists she stay for the party, not anticipating that the deeply empathetic Beatriz will butt heads with Strutt, a billionaire real-estate mogul whose attitudes and behavior may remind some of our current president.

[White] wrote the script before all this happened, and I never was thinking Im playing opposite Donald Trump, Hayek admitted. It wouldve been unethical to play it from my perspective and not really respect the character.

Though the film is of the moment, its larger theme is what it feels like to be an outsider in society and the sense of powerlessness that immigrants and others feel.

Everyone has felt like an outsider at some point and has felt not really seen or underestimated, said Hayek, whose family is from Mexico. Also, most of us have felt the horrible sensation of impotence in front of somebody who is very powerful and very entitled and who is completely unconscious about anything or anyone that doesnt serve their interests.

One of the major sources of tension between Beatriz and Strutt concerns the real estate developers ruthlessness in business. Beatriz, whose hometown in Mexico was overtaken by a luxury hotel development (and was active in protests to save it), still feels resentment about the lack of compassion of business executives and feels deeply nostalgic about the country of her youth.

My character is very nostalgic about the place of her youth, said Hayek. I think all immigrants are going to feel very identified with this. But I think this goes beyond immigrants because I think in reality, its not a place of her youth that shes longing for, her nostalgia is for a place inside of her that we all share where we long for our innocence before we realized how messed up the world was. And who we were then because its a place of purity.

We all have a yearning to go to a time that was simpler when we cared about each other more and that almost seems like an impossible place, said Hayek.

Hayek embodies Beatrizs longing for a return to simpler times with a tragic wistfulness, a deep departure from the bombshells shes most famous for portraying in earlier films like From Dusk Til Dawn and Wild Wild West. Increasingly in recent years shes spoken out about political issues, including immigration and womens rights.

Salma is incredibly bright and caring and shes not afraid to tell the truth, said Arteta. She was perfect for Beatriz. I know shes very well known for her glamour and her beauty, but it was her intelligence and her empathy and her courage and her hard working ethic that really drew us to her. And so I thought she was the perfect person, her interior qualities are perfect for this.

While the films star and director are deeply familiar with the American immigrant experience, they felt it important to portray both sides of the conversation with balance.

Its not a movie about a liberal being correct and a conservative being incorrect, not at all, said Arteta. Its a fair and balanced movie, really. The tragedy in life is that we all have good reasons for what we do. People who abuse this world, they dont wake up every morning saying, Im just going to screw this world to kingdom come. They have good reasons for why they do this in their minds.

I think its important, the film, because it starts a conversation that shows both sides with respect, Hayek said. Because both arguments are intelligent arguments and they make sense. And theres even a moment where you see that we are more similar than we think. What determines who you are is the choices you make.

We didnt want to pre-digest it for people, we wanted to leave it so that you have to think about it when you leave the theater, Arteta added. We didnt want to give any solutions. I definitely dont want to pretend that I know what the solutions to our time is, I think that would be really pretentious. I really wanted to reflect what it feels [like] to be frustrated by the state of our culture.

sonaiya.kelley@latimes.com

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With movies as small as Capps Crossing, its often unfair to pick on production values, location or even the acting. Independent filmmaking means small budgets, and audiences shouldnt expect that they look and sound like big studio films. Unfortunately, the worst fault in this horror movie isnt the amateur performances, beginner-level editing or the special effects; its the dreadfully dumb script.

Set in the California campground of the title, Capps Crossing begins with David (Brian Cory) murdering a few lonely geo-cachers as they hike through the forest in search of their treasure. A year later, three couples camp in an isolated area of the woods and David chooses them for his next victims. He begins taking them out in a manner that wont be surprising to anyone who has seen a horror movie before.

Written, directed and produced by Mike Stahl, Capps Crossing does feature a bit of nicely disgusting gore and some interesting camera angles from cinematographer Alejandro Guimoye. However, the scripts pacing is off, with the long break between the initial violence and the later killings creating boredom rather than tension. Stahls expository dialogue has his unlikable characters constantly reminding viewers of their relationship to each other, with bro and sis being said more frequently than characters names. Regardless of these connections, we cant care about the people on screen, which makes their inevitable demise even more pointless.

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Capps Crossing

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes

Playing: Arena Cinelounge Sunset, Hollywood

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An ethnically diverse cast and authentic New York locations help to effectively ground Lucky, a palpably gritty, if familiar, take on the immigrant experience.

Hustling up just enough work  legit and otherwise  to save up for a green card marriage and send a little money to his mother back home each month, soft-spoken Lucky (the films writer-director Bari Kang) is just another of the immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, struggling to live the dream.

But he soon finds himself heading down an increasingly slippery slope when he takes a job as a driver for a slick, coked-up drug dealer (Alfredo Diaz) following the disappearance of his gambling addict business partner (Daniel Jordano).

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While you might know from the get-go where this is heading  the promise of a shortcut to a better life has provided the ill-fated temptation for many similarly themed dramas  Kang, in his filmmaking debut, proves adept at capturing background detail with a close-up, hand-held authenticity.

Quietly taking in life through the rear-view mirror of his cab, Lucky can come across as a little too virtuous to be true in his compulsion to serve as protector for the various women in his orbit.

Its largely a reactive role but one that allows plenty of dramatic grist for others, especially Diaz and Natalia Zvereva as a good-hearted hooker with a keen survival instinct, to strut their stuff.

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Lucky

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Music Hall, Beverly Hills

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She roamed across deserts, loading camels with evening gowns and cutlery, slipping through ancient ruins like a spy and finding herself the lone woman at the center of a struggle that defined the borders and politics of a Middle East that has refused to be tamed by Western powers.

Gertrude Bell was heroine, archaeologist, feminist and map-maker. She spoke Persian and Arabic, was the confidant of a king and was famously unlucky in love. The daughter of a British industrialist, her wanderings through Syria and Iraq in the early 1900s were as vital to deciphering the region as those of her more celebrated male counterpart T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

A new film, Letters from Baghdad, explores the complexities of a character who was at once graceful and arrogant, erudite and earthen. The documentary is based on letters and communiques  Tilda Swinton is the voice of Bell  that follow her from the aristocracy and drizzle of Yorkshire, England, to the scoured, arid expanses of tribesmen, Bedouins and sheikhs. Bell called the Middle East my second native country.

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Insights from her years of travel helped shape the boundaries of Iraq after World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. That Iraq, with its uneasy balance of Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, has confounded the West for decades, including two American-led wars, and the rise of ISIS, which today threatens stability from Cairo to Damascus to Dubai. Bell was prophetic on the conflicting allegiances and dangers of Western intervention in lands that were rooted in clan customs and knew little of democracy.

We dont know exactly what we intend to be in this country. We rushed into this business with our usual disregard for a comprehensive politics scheme, she said of the British occupation of Iraq in the early 1920s. Can you persuade people to take your side when youre not sure if in the end whether youll be there to take theirs?

Such sentiments have echoed through hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in damage, weapons and other costs since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. But Letters from Baghdad takes us on a journey before all that. Directed by Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbuhl the film elegantly unfolds as if someone had peeked inside a steerage trunk and thumbed through the brittle pages of scrapbooks showing sailboats on the Euphrates and hieroglyphics in the moonlight.

I have cut the thread, Bell wrote as she vanished once again into the desert. You will find me a savage for Ive seen and heard strange things and they color the mind.

The only woman diplomat at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Bell was a curiosity in a political world dominated by men. The Ottoman Empire marked her as a spy; some of her British colleagues viewed her with suspicion and grudging admiration. Lawrence said of her: A wonderful person, not very much like a woman, you know.  She was born too gifted perhaps. A British newspaper headline said Bell Explored in the Middle East Like a Man.

She looks out from black-and-white photographs and film footage as privileged and restless; sharp nose, thin lips, pearls and cloche hats. She once hired 17 camels and traveled 1,500 miles. Her love life was just as arduous. A fiance in Tehran died of illness and a married lieutenant colonel she adored was killed in the battle of Gallipoli. And eventually, even in the land she was most intimate with, her influence waned among onetime friend King Faisal and officials dispatched by the British foreign office.

Letters from Baghdad reaffirms Bells legacy as pivotal in the Wests understanding of the Middle East. It is a vivid, if sober, counterbalance to Werner Herzogs poorly reviewed Queen of the Desert, starring Nicole Kidman as Bell. In an age of a rebooted Wonder Woman, Bell is the real thing, intrepid, fierce and smart.

A writer and archaeologist, respected by sheikhs, Bell helped found the National Museum of Iraq (ransacked and looted during the war in 2003). She struggled with black depression and reportedly died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1926, at the age of 57. She left behind the contours of a new nation and at least, as one friend put it, 25 pairs of expensive shoes.

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Letters from Baghdad

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica

Academy-Award-winning Lawrence of Arabia editor Anne V. Coates will join filmmakers Zeva Oelbaum and Sabine Krayenbuhl for the Q&A at the Friday, June 9, 7:30 p.m. screening.

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jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 8

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Uzbekistan has offered 29 deposits of strategically important solid minerals, including 12 gold deposits to foreign investors for industrial development.

In accordance with the Uzbek governments decree, published in the national legislation database, investors were also invited to develop eight deposits of tungsten and three deposits of uranium, iron and lithium, each.

In addition, potential foreign investors were invited to participate in the geological study of 111 sites prospective for noble, colored, black and rare earth elements.

A list of deposits and promising areas offered to foreign investors have been approved, and the criteria for their selection have been determined by the decree. One of the selection criteria is that the deposits and promising areas shouldnt be in the long-term state programs for the development of the Uzbek mineral resources and similar programs of Navoi and Almalyk mining and smelting plants.

It is assumed that the lists of the deposits and promising areas offered to foreign investors will be updated every five years taking into account newly obtained geological information.
A contemporary drama constructed upon the foundation of a classic western, 11.55, a potent first feature by Ari Issler and Ben Snyder, transcends any lingering trace of gimmickry with emotionally gripping results.

Returning from deployment in Afghanistan, Nelson Sanchez (a quietly effective Victor Almanzar) has the haunted expression of someone well aware that the festive homecoming party arranged by his fiercely protective big sister, Angie (Elizabeth Rodriguez, of Orange Is the New Black), will prove to be short-lived.

Theres unfinished business waiting for him in his economically hard-hit corner of Newburgh, N.Y., in the form of a vendetta against him by the brother (Mike Carlsen) of the drug dealer he fatally shot before leaving town, whos due to arrive from Manhattan on the 11:55 p.m. bus.

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While they may have borrowed the ticking-clock conceit from the likes of High Noon and 3:10 to Yuma, theres little that is derivative in the penetrating script by Issler, Snyder and Almanzar. which offers a convincing portrait of a man tired of attempting to outrun his dead-end past.

Although familiar faces John Leguizamo, as a wheelchair-bound vet who served with Nelson, and Julia Stiles as Carlsens high-strung pregnant wife, are on hand to lend their customarily capable support, the affecting work by Almanzar, Rodriguez and the rest of the ensemble in this immersive film tenderly speaks for itself.

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11:55

Not rated

Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

Playing: Laemmle NoHo 7, North Hollywood

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Its title couldnt be more innocuous and genteel, but dont be taken in. Anchored in an exceptionally persuasive performance by Rachel Weisz, My Cousin Rachel is not only a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity, the pitfalls of being taken in are what this melodramatic thriller is all about.

First filmed more than 60 years ago with Olivia de Havilland in the title role and based on a novel set a century earlier, My Cousin Rachel has not only refused to date, it has if anything extended its relevance.

In fact, as written and directed with intelligence, zest and craft by Roger Michell and making expert use of Weiszs impeccable work, My Cousin Rachel comes off as remarkably modern, dealing with personal issues and power dynamics between men and women that arguably echo at least as strongly now as they did back in the day.

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This is in significant measure due to the narrative skill of novelist Daphne du Maurier, in her prime one of the highest paid authors in the world. Du Maurier was capable of combining psychological acuity and deft plotting to such an extent that three of her novels (Jamaica Inn, The Birds and the classic Rebecca) were memorably filmed by Alfred Hitchcock.

With smart stories like Venus and Notting Hill and one of the best Jane Austen adaptations (1995s Persuasion) to his credit, director Michell has always been expert at transitioning literate material to the screen.

Hes helped here by a top visual team, including cinematographer Mike Eley, production designer Alice Normington, costume designer Dinah Collin and editor Kristina Hetherington. Working in tandem, they see to it that each image on the screen, whether it be wind-swept landscapes, gutted candles or Rachels midnight-blue riding outfit against a milk-white steed, is visually thrilling without seeming fussy or overthought.

Though her name is on everyones lips from the start, the title character doesnt appear for a while, which leaves the focus on the films narrator, who hauntingly demands in an opening voice-over, Rachel. Did she? Didnt she? Whos to blame?

That questioner is Philip Ashley (Sam Claflin), who is tasked with filling in the films complex back story in a brisk pre-credits prologue that contains more plot than many entire films.

Orphaned as a child, Philip is adopted by his cousin Ambrose, who the boy comes to love as a father. Returning from school determined to avoid books, cities, clever talk, Philip has his tranquil Cornwall world upended several times over.

First his beloved Ambrose travels to Italy for his health, then Ambrose falls in love with and marries the half-Italian Rachel, radiant, good, the kindest companion, then he begins sending home darker, more sinister letters hinting that Rachel is scheming to end his life.

Philip goes to Italy at once, but Ambrose has died by the time he arrives, Rachel has disappeared, and her mysterious Italian friend Rainaldi (Pierfrancesco Favino) insists the cause of Ambroses death was a brain tumor that caused paroxysms of paranoia in the sick man.

The 1952 version of Rachel has the great benefit of a young Richard Burton in his Hollywood debut playing Philip.

Philip swears to wreak vengeance on the absent Rachel and returns to the rural estate he will soon inherit, looked after by his wary guardian/godfather Nick Kendall (Iain Glen) and Nicks good-humored daughter Louise (Holliday Grainger), who is clearly in love with the oblivious young man. All is tranquility itself, until Rachel pays an unexpected visit and the film begins in earnest.

The 1952 version of Rachel has the great benefit of a young Richard Burton in his Hollywood debut playing Philip. With his passionate intensity and melodious voice, Burton runs away with the part (he was nominated for an Oscar) and is a tough act for Claflin to follow.

Often seen playing an unheroic hero (he was Gemma Artertons cranky collaborator in Their Finest), Claflin gives Philip a different kind of a reading than Burton, but one that is well-suited to the points this Rachel is making.

For, not to put too fine a point on it, Claflins Philip is kind of a dolt, an emotionally dense bear of little brain who doesnt understand a lot of things, women being first among them. The fact that we are seeing Rachel largely through his eyes makes him an unreliable narrator of a very particular sort.

In truth, though, Rachel would be a lot for anyone to get used to. A bewitching, classically feminine beauty who likes to drink herbal infusions or tisanes, she represents a style of life Philip has never even imagined existed. Not only does he give up all thoughts of vengeance, he is soon besotted with her himself.

But because Rachel proves unpredictable, because she herself is so different and, in Weiszs subtle, effortlessly complex performance, so unknowable, suspicions about her actions never die.

Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the bigger question, one that feels very contemporary, becomes whether what Rachel says and does are signs of sinister behavior or simply the actions of a woman who wants to be her own person, someone who heartbreakingly asks, Why shouldnt I have a life of my own?

How My Cousin Rachel resolves this diabolically ambivalent situation, how it deals with the Did she? Didnt she? Whos to blame? questions it began with, is a dilemma fated to haunt us even after the final credits roll.

------------

My Cousin Rachel

Rating: PG-13 for some sexuality and brief strong language

Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Playing: In limited release

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

Movie Trailers

kenneth.turan@latimes.com

@KennethTuran

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The Mummy is too much. Nominally a humble reboot of a horror franchise that dates back to Boris Karloff in 1932, The Mummy is trying to do so many different things, has so many different reasons for being (not to mention so many screenwriters), that a kind of narrative chaos is the all but inevitable result.

Starring Tom Cruise and directed by Alex Kurtzman, whose credits are almost exclusively as a writer-producer (including Star Trek and Transformers), The Mummy does have elements that are effective, especially Sofia Boutella in the title role, but with all the hurly-burly on screen the virtues get lost in the shuffle.



For the record: An earlier version of this post identified the character played by Tom Cruise as Nick Morgan instead of Nick Morton.

Not content with being a showcase for its namesake horror, The Mummy tosses in strong elements of todays ever-present zombie movies and drags in portions of the venerable Jekyll and Hyde narrative as well.

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Even more troublesome, the Mummy mandate clearly extends beyond just producing an entertaining motion picture. Not only is an attempt made to position this as the first of a series of Mummy adventures, but Universal aims to build an entire cinematic universe on its back.

Gripped, as all studios are, with a case of envy at what Disney has done with its interconnected Marvel films, Universal has announced that it will remake many of its horror classics as part of a Dark Universe world and here introduces Russell Crowes Dr. Henry Jekyll as a kind of unifying Nick Fury figure.

The problem with all this is not only that its a lot of freight for one film to carry but that co-writer and director Kurtzman and the five additional credited screenwriters (David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, Dylan Kussman, Jon Spaihts and Jenny Lumet) have not been able to make the result feel like a coherent whole.

The most convincing parts of The Mummy, as it turns out, are its ancient Egyptian back story, its tale of warrior princess Ahmanet (Boutella) and her attempts to reclaim her destiny.

Once the favorite of the Pharaoh Menehptre and next in line for the throne, Ahmanet gets bumped when her father has a late-in-life son. Taking things into her own hands, Ahmanet makes a pact with the evil god Set, but her scheme is foiled and all she gets for her trouble is being mummified alive and entombed in distant Mesopotamia. Which is where Tom Cruise comes in.

The protean actor plays Nick Morton, a U.S. soldier in modern-day Iraq who, along with pal Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), spends most of his time looting antiquities he can sell on the black market.

Though they have no idea what theyve found, Morton and Vail, soon joined by comely archaeologist Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), stumble on Ahmanets burial site. This isnt a tomb, Halsey accurately observes. Its a prison.

Cruise has played these kinds of snappy roles for forever but that doesnt stop him from working hard.

More impulsive than smart, Morton frees Ahmanet from her eons of captivity and, understandably irked at being out of the loop for so long, she jump-starts her program for world domination.

This involves getting to London, where she unleashes her zombies and where the discovery of long-forgotten tombs of 12th-century Crusaders that open the film play a part. Perhaps not coincidentally, Dr. Jeyklls Prodigium organization makes its headquarters in that very town.

Ahmanets plans also involve Morton, whom she has fixated on ever since she was freed, calling him my chosen and working her way into his mind in the way only long-buried mummies with vague supernatural powers can do.

Cruise has played these kinds of snappy roles for forever but that doesnt stop him from working hard and bringing a hint of essential plausibility to the proceedings.

Equally effective is Boutella, who made an impression as the alien Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond and who uses her background as a dancer to good effect in bringing to life this being from another dimension.

Filmmaker Kurtzman is a workman-like director at best, but he is intent on attempting to give moviegoers their moneys worth, filling The Mummy with all manner of peril, including dust storms, underwater exploits and a zero-gravity weightless experience. Even the films key prop, a 300-pound sarcophagus, was fussed over by more than 40 people.

None of this, however, can make up for a too-fragmentary story that has too many masters to serve to be effective. Maybe one of the future Dark Universe films (remakes of everything from Bride of Frankenstein to The Invisible Man are planned) will mesmerize the multitudes, but this one is unlikely to do the trick.

------------

The Mummy

Rating: PG-13 for violence, action and scary images, and for some suggestive content and partial nudity.

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Playing: In general release

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

Movie Trailers

kenneth.turan@latimes.com

@KennethTuran

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When Ice Cube stops by Bill Mahers show on Friday he doesnt plan on ignoring the hosts casual usage of a racial epithet during last weeks episode that ignited a firestorm.

Im pretty sure its going to come up, Cube told The Times during a break from shooting one of his own projects earlier this week.

Everybody knows the deal, he continued. I love Bill Mahers show, but sometimes hes got more black jokes than a white trucker.

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During an interview with Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska on last weeks episode, Maher told the senator he needed to visit the state more often, to which Sasse quipped the host was more than welcome: Wed love to have you work in the fields with us.

Maher then replied, Work in the fields? Senator, Im a house , to a mix of groans, laughter and applause, quickly telling the crowd the comment was just a joke.

The backlash was immediate, with HBO calling the remark completely inexcusable and tasteless and saying it would not re-air the segment.

Maher immediately offered his regrets in an apology as the chorus calling for the shows cancellation grew louder  with critics pointing to previous comments and guest bookings by the comedian over the years as further proof he should be yanked off the air.

Cubes booking on Real Time happened well ahead of the scandal and he said he never considered pulling out, unlike Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota, who canceled his appearance shortly after last weeks episode.

The rapper and actors appearance couldnt come at a more opportune time for a discussion on race, and in particular, the usage of the epithet.

His interview with Maher coincides with the release of the 25th anniversary edition of his influential Death Certificate, a politically and racially charged album recorded as the nation reacted to the police beating of Rodney King that was caught on camera by a bystander and served as the catalyst for the 1992 L.A. riots  themes that continue to be especially prevalent in this current political climate.

Never one to mince words  Cube was, after all, a member of the most controversial rap group of all time, N.W.A, a group that helped pioneer gangster rap to the chagrin of conservatives and law enforcement  the unapologetically brash emcee had some real talk when asked about the hosts controversy.

Liberals can be just as racist as conservatives. But everybody needs to check they self before they wreck they self, Cube said, making reference to one of his hit records.

We cant always be the go-to joke, you know. Its like slapping the weakling in the group doesnt make you cool, he continued. It doesnt make you funny  it makes you nothing but a bully.

Cubes group infamously used the colloquial eye dialect of the epithet in its name  and quite liberally throughout its lyrics  to incite the public while documenting the harsh realities of life in gang- and drug-plagued South-Central. N.W.As groundbreaking debut, Straight Outta Compton became a flashpoint in a battle to censor hip-hop in the late 1980s.

Cubes first solo records, 1990s AmeriKKKas Most Wanted and Death Certificate, were also met with widespread controversy over their lyrics and themes.

Asked if Mahers usage of the racial epithet offended him, Cube said it didnt  though his full answer is mostly unprintable here: You can make a joke out of everything, but everything aint funny.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

Real Time With Bill Maher

Where: HBO

When: 10 p.m. Friday

Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

gerrick.kennedy@latimes.com

For more music news follow me on Twitter:@GerrickKennedy
If vintage Rolex and Cartier watches have become a status symbol among the well-heeled, LaCaliforniennes take on the timepieces might be the epitome of how chic Californians do it.

Launched late last year by husband-and-wife duo Courtney Ormond and Leszek Garwacki, LaCalifornienne is an L.A.-based custom-watch company that restores and modifies these timepieces, rendering them in color combinations that would appeal to even the most seasoned of watch collectors.

The duo hand-paints and hand-prints each dial before pairing it with a handmade leather strap, sometimes left plain and other times adorned with stripes (think: light blue face with navy and white stripes or a pink face with pink and gold stripes).

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Leszek Garwacki and Courtney Ormond (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

With all the options to choose from, the watches become a little more personal.  Courtney Ormond

While some of the combos feel divinely feminine, there are masculine options.

We love to discover how people respond differently to the colors of our creations. With all the options to choose from, the watches become a little more personal, says Ormond, who cites the city of Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Hotel and palm trees as just some of their inspirations. Leszek and I believe L.A. is a very special city with an energy not found in many other places. I think being here drives us as a young company and certainly influences our designs.

The couple came upon their fashion venture naturally: Ormond was a commercial stylist, and Garwacki was an entrepreneur who dealt in classic cars and vintage watches.

Their combined experience coupled with an anniversary gift gone awry led to what is now a burgeoning business.

Years ago Leszek gave me a watch as an anniversary gift, says Ormond. He chose a Cartier Tank because he thought it was the most standard-issue watch to get  a classic that would last. But the reason why he loved it was the same reason I grew tired of it.

Colorful faces give old watches new life. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

I started looking into buying a more interesting leather band, but there were no options for womens watches. It struck us that we could design our own leather band with hand-painted stripes to brighten up the watch and make it unique. We then decided to refinish the dial  what resulted was our first watch.

The watches are sold on the brands website as well as in select stores.

Prices for the made-to-order watches range from $3,250 for a small Cartier to $10,500 for a gold Rolex.

Even the retailers pick the color combinations for each watch for their stores, says Ormond. We create a seasonal palette that we work off of, but the watches on our website are merely suggestions.

For the couple, LaCalifornienne is about more than a beautiful piece of arm candy  each watch comes with its own history, its own story.

A vintage watch is never so much about the watch itself but about the idea of the life it lived throughout the decades, says Garwacki. We chose to work with Rolex and Cartier Tank models because of their iconic status and the beautiful simplicity of their design. I like to think the watches we select were loved and admired by their original caretakers in the same way we appreciate their existence when we acquire them. By re-imagining them we give them second lives.

image@latimes.com

@latimesimage

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Name of restaurant: Dough Box Pizza and Bread, a pizzeria that specializes in deep-dish pizza, officially opened a few weeks ago in the former home of a Mexican bakery in El Sereno. The pizzeria takes its name from the container where you place dough to proof, similar to the proofing drawer in the Great British Bake Off. Unlike the anxious bakers on that show, though, Dough Box owners Alexandra Gonzalez and Tony Hernandez proof their pizza dough for between 24 and 48 hours. The flavor of the dough, Hernandez says, only gets better with time.

The backstory: Gonzalez and Hernandez actually started Dough Box early last year; up until now, they were operating from a 200-square-foot commissary nearby in City Terrace, where customers would phone in their order and then pick it up at a scheduled time. If that set-up rings a bell, you may remember another deep-dish specialist, Hollywood Pies, that operated on a similar call-in/pick-up model when it opened a few years ago. Not uncoincidentally, Gonzalez was one of the co-founders of Hollywood Pies.

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After leaving Hollywood Pies, Gonzalez worked at Bread Lounge, the Arts District bakery, as a barista. Thats where she met Hernandez, who was there as the pastry chef. Gonzalez moved on to pull shots at Civil Coffee, and Hernandez to bake at Proof Bakery, before they decided to quit their day jobs and go all in with Dough Box.

Where you are: Sitting on a stool at Dough Boxs El Sereno location, near the skate park, or comfortably watching old episodes of Bake Off on Netflix at home, waiting for Dough Box to deliver your pie.

Whats in the box: Pizza, of course. Unsurprisingly, given Gonzalezs background, the emphasis here is on their version of deep-dish pizza, which comes in six-, nine-, and 12-inch sizes. You can also order it by the slice. The long fermentation time of the dough yields a lovely crust that Gonzalez and Hernandez describe as biscuity. Its also structurally sound. Since our main business is delivery, the crust needs to hold up, says Gonzalez. The pizza survived a rush-hour drive from the pizzeria to Pasadena, easily. No soggy bottoms here.

As for the toppings, theres a bakers dozen that makes up the core of the menu, with both meat and vegetarian options available. The pies are named after various streets in Los Angeles; the Figueroa, for example, has mozzarella, pepperoni, cherry peppers and red onion. The Alameda, meanwhile, has mozzarella, ricotta, spinach and garlic. The ricotta is house-made, and the vegetables are roasted every day. Nothing is frozen, Gonzalez says. We get our sausage in El Sereno, down the street on Huntington.

In case youre not partial to deep-dish pie, Dough Box uses that same dough to make a few other types of pizza. Theres a pan pizza on the menu, for instance, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, thin-crust pizzas. And they just started offering Sicilian-style pizza, sold by the square.

For dessert: Hernandez changes up the sweets every few weeks, but at the moment, hes making peanut butter and jelly cookies.

To drink: Topo Chico, Sangria Senorial, Mexican Coke and sparkling water. You know, the basics.

The best way to order: Email, in advance. Though theyve ramped up their production in recent weeks, Dough Box has proved to be so popular that it often sells out, especially on the weekends.

Doh: It may take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or more before your deep-dish pizza order is ready, and delivery can take an hour or more. Also note that Dough Box is only open for dinner, and Gonzalez doesnt anticipate opening for lunch any time soon.

While youre waiting: Channeling classic pizza parlors, Dough Box has an upright arcade machine tucked away in the corner of the shop. There are some 60 of the greatest video games of all time on there, including Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga.

What to expect next: Hernandez is going to start baking bread. While theyre still sketching out the details, the team is planning to offer a monthly bread box with a few different types of breads, not unlike a community supported agriculture (CSA) operation. Hernandez is thinking about including ciabatta and country loaves, among others.

And Gonzalez says she misses making coffee, so you can probably expect to see coffee at Dough Box in the future, too.

Info: 2734 N. Eastern Ave., El Sereno, (323) 346-6811, www.doughboxla.com.

Food@latimes.com

@latimesfood

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Is there a working woman alive who cannot identify with poor James Comey right now?

The former FBI directors boss tried to seduce him. When the seduction failed, his boss fired him.

And then called him crazy, a real nut job.

Hell hath no fury like a scorned President Trump.

When you are the kingpin of a family business, used to a world in which no one questions or challenges you, where you can grab anyone in the  well, you know, its no wonder you see the world as divided into two sorts of people: you, and the subordinates who are here to meet your every need.

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Comeys first private encounter with President-elect Trump came shortly before the inauguration. According to a copy of the testimony Comey is to give Thursday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI director asked if he might have some alone time with Trump. He wanted to warn the incoming president about a salacious and unverified intelligence report involving Trump, Russian hookers and bizarre sexual behavior, which Trump adamantly denied.

How surprised Comey must have been when Trump thought their tete-a-tete meant they had created some sort of special bond  that thing, as the president would later describe it. Comey, by contrast, was discomfited enough by the president that he decided to document their conversation in a memo the moment I walked out of the meeting.

Three weeks later, Comey reluctantly attended a White House ceremony honoring law enforcement officials who had worked during the inauguration. He didnt want to be anywhere near the president; the FBI is supposed to have limited contact with the White House.

More columns 

So, like Scarlett OHara, he wore a suit that looked like blue curtains and tried to camouflage himself by standing next to a window. Unfortunately, when you are 6-foot-8, its hard to hide.

The president spotted him and called Comey across the room. The director, determined to minimize physical contact, held out his long, long arm for a handshake. The president tried to yank him into a hug. What resulted was the dont-hug-me-handshake, a hybrid greeting familiar to any woman trying to fend off unwanted touching by an alpha male.

Like so many clueless pursuers, Trump could not take a hint. On Jan. 27, an unbidden invitation arrived from the White House. Dinner tonight, Mr. Comey?

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room, he wrote. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

At least the president didnt excuse himself to slip into something more comfortable. He did, however, ask Comey if he wanted to keep his job. Of course, Comey replied, puzzled because hed already told the president twice he planned to finish his 10-year term.

I need loyalty, I expect loyalty, the president told him.

I didnt move, speak or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed, wrote Comey. We simply looked at each other in silence.

Awkward for Comey perhaps, but enflaming for his dining partner.

For more on politics 

Their next meeting (not making this up) was on Valentines Day. After a counter-terrorism briefing in the Oval Office, the president asked everyone to clear out. Except for Comey. He wanted to be with alone with his FBI bro.

The president wanted to talk about the investigation of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, who had resigned amid allegations that hed concealed meetings with Russian officials. I hope you can let this go, the president told Comey.

Comey knew he should have gone straight to his boss, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. But he was stuck. He couldnt tell Sessions, Comey decided. That might compromise the Flynn investigation.

Anyway, he reasoned, who would believe him? It was a he said/he said situation, a one-on-one conversation, he wrote. There was nothing available to corroborate my account.

The sexually harassed women of America feel your pain, Director Comey.

Trump thought he had some kind of bromance going with Comey. He wined him. He dined him. And because he is transactional to his core, he expected a little somethin somethin in return.

As it happens, he is getting a little somethin in return. Its just not exactly what he had in mind.

robin.abcarian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AbcarianLAT

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Fabian Nunez had everything ready for his high school graduation. His uncle had bought him a blue suit along with a shiny pair of black dress shoes to wear with his green cap and gown.

But two days before the 17-year-old was set to receive his diploma from Narbonne High School, he was shot and killed steps away from his Wilmington apartment.

Fabian was raised by a single mother in a rough neighborhood. His main goal was to finish school, a dream he talked about with friends and family.

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He always did his work, his friend, Javier Delgado, 17, said. He always tried to show people he was good at school.

Javier and other friends and family gathered Wednesday to grieve outside the home Fabian shared with his mother and two younger sisters.

Dozens of candles were placed near a wall, along with bouquets of red and white roses and balloons commemorating the almost-graduate. His father, Saul Nunez, stood near the shrine with tears in his eyes. He said his son had lots of dreams and listened when he told him to be a good kid.

He had a big heart, Fabians cousin, Cynthia Batista, said. He was really smart, a hardworking guy.

Early Tuesday morning, Fabian and three friends had just returned from the beach and parked down the street from his home. The group was walking in the 900 block of West I Street when a vehicle drove by and slowed down before taking off again, Los Angeles Police Officer Jeff Tiffin said.

The group began to pick up its pace, then the car pulled up again and stopped in an alley. A male wearing dark clothing got out, ran toward Fabian, who was behind his friends, and began shooting.

Fabian, who was on the sidewalk, tried to run away. He collapsed in the driveway of a nearby duplex, and the shooter got back into the vehicle and fled, police said.

Detectives said Wednesday that theyre trying to narrow down a vehicle description and are looking into why someone would want to shoot Fabian. Its unclear whether the shooting was related to gang activity in the neighborhood, because the area had recently been kind of quiet, Tiffin said.

Tiffin said as he and his partner interview people, hes finding that Fabian was well-liked and a good kid.

Everyone at the school had nice things to say about him, said he was very respectful, Tiffin said.

Alex Brito, 18, who was with Nunez that night, said he heard feet scattering and gunshots. Brito ran up to Fabian, who was on the ground struggling to breathe with a mouth full of blood.

Brito told Fabian that he would be OK and attempted to perform CPR. Moments later an ambulance arrived.

Fabian was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, according to Los Angeles County coroners officials.

In a statement, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Michelle King said the district was deeply saddened by the students death.

His death is a loss to the entire L.A. Unified family, King said.

King said in the statement that crisis counselors would be available for students at the school.

Javier said he met Fabian in summer school last year. Fabian soon asked him to go fishing, and the two quickly became friends.

He was always happy, Javier said. Sometimes at school, Fabian was pressured to join gangs and got picked on, Javier said. Fabian fought back.

He wasnt going to let himself get punked on, Javier said.

Brito said that he and Fabian planned to wear matching suits to graduation and wanted to join the military together.

He wasnt looking for any trouble, Brito said.

Now, Brito said, joining the military may be postponed by his friends death. But Brito said he will wear his blue suit at graduation, in honor of his friend Fabian.

nicole.santacruz@latimes.com

For more crime news, follow @nicolesantacruz on Twitter.

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Californias attorney general argued Thursday that President Trump has no legal authority to revoke or modify national monuments created by previous administrations.

In an 11-page letter to the Interior Department, state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra vowed to take any and all legal action necessary to preserve six California monuments, including one in Los Angeles backyard, that the Trump Administration may attempt to revoke or shrink.

In April, Trump signed an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review all national monuments that were created since 1996 and are larger than 100,000 acres, or were expanded without adequate public outreach.

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Six California monuments created by Presidents Obama and Clinton are on the review list:

The San Gabriel Mountains monument, which forms a backdrop to Los Angeles.

The Mojave Trails and Sand to Snow monuments in the Southern California desert.

The Giant Sequoia monument in the southern Sierra Nevada.

The Carrizo Plain monument on the southwestern edge of the San Joaquin Valley.

The Berryessa Snow Mountain in Northern California.

Monument designation adds another layer of protection to federal lands, typically putting them off limits to oil and gas development or limiting logging and grazing.

Presidents have the authority to designate monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906, which President Theodore Roosevelt used to set aside more than 800,000 acres in Arizona that later became Grand Canyon National Park.

In his letter Thursday, Becerra echoes arguments made by conservationists and many environmental attorneys: While the Antiquities Act gives presidents the authority to create monuments, it does not give presidents the authority to undo or modify them. That power belongs solely to Congress.

In announcing the review, the Trump administration specifically mentioned two big Utah national monuments as an example of federal overreach: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Bears Ears National Monument.

Both were controversial in a state that has frequently chafed under federal control of large chunks of its land.

In California, timber interests opposed creation of the Sequoia monument in Sequoia National Forest because Clinton banned commercial logging in and around nearly three dozen giant sequoia groves.

For the most part, however, the six California monuments were widely supported.

Becerra predicted that California will not be the only state to fight Trumps executive order.

I expect that I will be joined by many of this countrys state attorneys general in using all of the legal tools at our disposal to ensure that the rule of the law is followed, he wrote.

Asked for comment, the Interior Departments press office referred The Times to the news release that accompanied the executive order.

For years, the people of Utah and other rural communities have voiced concern and opposition to some monument designations. But too often in recent history, exiting presidents make designations despite those concerns, Zinke stated.

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

Twitter: @boxall

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A judge Thursday delayed until next week the arraignment of the operator of an Oakland warehouse where three dozen people died in a devastating fire so that the second defendant can be brought to court as well.

The continuance is bound to be the first of many delays in what promises to be a complex and difficult criminal trial.

Derick Almena and partner Max Harris are charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter  one count for each of the people who died in the fire that broke out on the night of Dec. 2, 2016, in the cluttered warehouse that had been converted into a residence and concert venue known as the Ghost Ship.

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Relatives of some of the victims sat silently through an hour of courtroom delays Thursday before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Nixon agreed to a defense motion to hold over Almenas arraignment until June 15 so that Harris, now jailed in Los Angeles County, can be transferred north to face the same charges. Attorney Jeffrey Krasnoff told the judge he would probably seek to delay pretrial and bail hearings another 30 days after that.

Almena appeared silently behind a glass partition, not visible to many of those in the courtroom. After the brief motion hearing, Krasnoff stepped outside the courtroom to make a short statement to a bank of waiting television cameras. He called the criminal case a distraction from the responsibility that public agencies face for not also addressing fire safety hazards in the community.

Victims family members filed silently out a side door of the courtroom. On the sidewalk outside, the father of one victim told reporters he attended the hearing to see if Almena showed remorse.

I just wanted to see his face, said David Gregory, the father of Michela Gregory, who died with her boyfriend in the fire.

The squat two-story warehouse in Oaklands Fruitvale district that Almena dubbed the Ghost Ship operated as a rogue art collective and underground venue for music performances, and an illegal home for some dozen itinerant tenants.

Thirty-six people died inside on Dec. 2 when a fire started during a band performance, the worst fire fatality in the nation in more than a decade. No cause has been determined, but former tenants and firefighters described do-it-yourself wiring and an internal maze of structures and junk and haphazard wood stairs that invited fire and would have made escape difficult.

Oakland prosecutors allege Almena and Harris, a tattoo artist and musician who allegedly helped Almena operate the Ghost Ship, made the danger all the worse by closing off a standard back staircase the night of the fire.

Almena and his wife moved their family for the night to the quiet of a local motel. They had recently regained custody of their three children after complaints the warehouse created an unhealthy environment, including an erotic New Years party after which condoms were found.

Almena, 47, sought refuge from the public outrage over the fire in the nearby Lake County community of Upper Lake. The East Bay Times quoted neighbors as saying Almena, who often freelanced as a set builder, had begun to collect odd pieces of furniture on his rented porch and yard, as well as making alterations to the fence.

Harris, 27, who moved to Los Angeles after the fire to continue to produce electronic music, is charged with the same 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. He was arrested in Los Angeles and taken to the county jail, where he awaits transfer to Oakland for his own arraignment.

Both men are being held on $1.08 million bail.

Almena also is represented by one of Californias most flamboyant criminal defense attorneys, Tony Serra, whose client roster also included San Francisco Chinatowns convicted racketeer Raymond Shrimp Boy Chow. Serra has summoned press to his offices Friday to lay out Almenas defense, and promised an appearance of Almenas wife, Micah Allison.

Legal experts disagree over whether the lack of a determination of what caused the fire will hamper the criminal case. Oakland prosecutors contend it is enough to show Almena and Harris willfully created conditions that invited such disaster, even complaining to the building owner of overloaded electric circuits.

The building owner, Chor Ng, has not been charged in the case. Other tenants of the building have told The Times that the power system was faulty, sometimes causing light fixtures to burst in a shower of sparks.

Lawyers representing families of the fire victims allege in civil lawsuits that Oakland is complicit in the deaths, a viewpoint Almenas defense team shares.

City inspection records reviewed by The Times show Oakland inspectors repeatedly cited the owner of the Ghost Ship for sidewalk clutter and graffiti but failed to address its use as a club or dwelling.

Those files show the city inspectors similarly turned a blind eye to other illegal warehouse conversions, some for decades, and acted only after events forced safety hazards into public view.

Inspectors frequently cited building owners for blight violations  graffiti on walls and fences, tall weeds, or piles of trash. They returned often to ensure those exterior nuisances were corrected and if not, levied liens against building owners to collect inspection fees. But even when the city received reports of illegal warehouse conversions, cases routinely were closed without action because inspectors did not gain physical entry inside the buildings.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

For updates and more, follow @paigestjohn.

UPDATES:

11:05 a.m.: This article was updated with the arraignment being delayed until next week.

This article was originally published at 8:35 a.m.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Standard & Poors (S&P) Global Ratings expects that Azerbaijans Kapital Bank OJSC will likely increase, its already material market share, while its operating revenues continue increasing progressively and its profitability remains high, according to an S&P report.

S&P confirmed the credit rating of the Azerbaijani bank at BB-/B level with a negative outlook.

Meanwhile, the companys analysts believe that Kapital Bank will strengthen its business positions in the next 12-18 months, considering the successful restructuring of foreign debts of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) in the amount of $3.3 billion.

Kapital Bank is one of the countrys big banks. The banks share is 8.1 percent in the market in terms of loan portfolio, and 15.8 percent  in terms of the volume of deposits. As of today, the banks profitability exceeds 20 percent.

Kapital Banks operating revenues continue increasing progressively and its profitability remains high, says the report.

S&P experts noted that Kapital Bank will continue to develop also thanks to the customers of closed banks. As for problem loans, their volume wont exceed 8-9 percent in the next 12-18 months, taking into account the restructuring of a large problem loan this year, said the company.

We believe that Kapital Bank is a sustained outperformer in its peer group, thanks to the structural changes and competitive trends that are strengthening its creditworthiness, which is more consistent with a higher rating than its SACP, which we assess at 'b+', said S&P analysts.

Confirmation of the rating reflects S&Ps opinion that the banks capitalization for the next 12-18 months will be moderate, according to the experts.

Founded in 1874 as Azerbaijan Savings Bank, today Kapital Bank is one of Azerbaijans largest banks serving more than three million customers. Kapital Bank provides services to people in 90 branches and two offices throughout the country and has the most extensive service network.
The Tattle Tale Room was nearly silent at 7 a.m. Thursday  except for the sound of news booming over the bars wide-screen TV.

A small crowd sat on stools and around tables inside the Culver City bar, focused on the testimony of former FBI Director James B. Comey.

Across the state, bars and restaurants opened their doors early for customers intent on watching the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing regarding Comeys interactions with President Trump in the weeks leading up to his dismissal.

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In a statement released Wednesday, Comey recounted Trumps demand for loyalty and his request that the bureau drop at least part of its investigation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Early Thursday morning, people trickled in and out of the lounge as the bartender poured drinks.

Harper Thomson, 22, decided to stop by and watch Comey speak before walking over to work.

I was kind of curious to see what kind of people would come to the bar at 6 in the morning, Thompson said, drinking a mimosa. I wanted to watch this.

I believe hes going to give more proof to the obstruction of justice, her co-worker, Jorge Varon, said of Comey.

Farther down the bar, Michael Trujillo leaned forward, one hand resting over his face as he watched the testimony from another television screen.

I just want to hear the truth, said Trujillo, a political consultant. Were not D.C., were not New York, were not San Francisco, but there are political nerds in L.A.

Tyler Dowling arrived at 6:15 a.m. at Tom Bergins Public House to watch the Comey hearings. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

A few guests in a lobby lounge at the Residence Inn in Beverly Hills gathered around four TVs to watch Comeys testimony. Sitting on a couch, Stephanie Low said she believed Comey is incredibly honest.

I trust what Comey is saying, Low, 84, said. Hes not trying to take a political stand on any of this, hes just saying what he knew.

Some didnt feel the need to watch the hearing, saying they would read the news of the testimony later.

John Sanchez grabbed a coffee in Grand Central Market, where a television near the Hill Street entrance was streaming the hearing. The 27-year-old, who is visiting from Albuquerque, was on his way to the Broad Museum with his friend, Keith Funkhouser.

They werent following the hearing, but said they would read up on it later.

Im on vacation, Sanchez said.

I would probably still be in bed right now, Funkhouser said, if it werent for the museum trip.

LOS ANGELES,CA., JUNE 8, 2017: Patrons in Tom Bergins Public House on Fairfax watch the Comey testimony June 8, 2017 (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times). (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

Morning commuters also listened in on the testimony  dubbed the Capitol Hill Super Bowl  on their way to work and rushed into their offices to continue watching.

Teresa Wilkins heard the beginning of the hearing on the radio. She said she appreciated Comeys straightforwardness.

I am surprised he is so blunt, so honest, Wilkins, 55, said as she walked into her office building.

Daryl Merkel listened to a livestream of Comey on his way into Union Station from Orange County.

Its kind of hard to look away from the news right now, said Merkel, who works in supply management at Southern California Gas Company. The 28-year-old said he planned to watch and read updates on the hearing throughout the day.

I wish I were off work, he said.

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

For more California news follow me on Twitter: @sarahparvini

UPDATES:

10:05 a.m.: This article was updated with quotes from people watching the hearing and scenes from Beverly Hills.

This article was originally published at 9:40 a.m.
The former chief of staff for Long Beach Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication as well as an outstanding warrant hours after police observed the two engaged in a heated argument, authorities said.

Devin Cotter, 36, was arrested about 6 a.m. Saturday after a confrontation with Pearce, according to a statement released Wednesday by the Long Beach Police Department.



For the record: A previous version of this article identified Chris OQuinn of the California Highway Patrol as an assistant chief. His correct title is chief.

Hours earlier, officers with the California Highway Patrol had approached a vehicle that was stopped on the side of the 710 Freeway after they observed a man and woman involved in a heated argument, said Chief Chris OQuinn, who leads the CHPs Southern Division.

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OQuinn said his officers were not aware that Pearce was an elected official when they approached the car.

The CHP officers contacted city police and requested assistance investigating a possible domestic violence and driving under the influence incident around 2:40 a.m., according to the Long Beach police statement.

OQuinn did not say whether his officers observed injuries to either party, only that they saw enough there to contact Long Beach police. The CHP officers did not conduct a field sobriety test, but OQuinn said his officers probably smelled alcohol in the car if they reported a possible DUI incident to Long Beach.

City police did not find sufficient cause to arrest either Pearce, who was the driver, or Cotter at the time, according to the statement. Pearce passed a field sobriety test at the scene, and was driven home by a friend, according to police. Cotter was taken home by Long Beach police officers.

Police said Cotter confronted Pearce later as she was returning home. He was subsequently arrested for public intoxication and on an outstanding $50,000 warrant for a previous DUI, according to the statement. A Long Beach police spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for additional information.

Cotter served as Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcias campaign manager when he was elected in 2014, and later served as a legislative deputy to the mayor until July 2016, according to his LinkedIn page. He then left to work as Pearces chief of staff until February 2017.

A call to Pearce and an e-mail to a spokesman for Garcia seeking comment were not immediately returned. Cotter could not be reached for comment.

Pearce was elected to the City Council last year.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.
A former high-ranking Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department official alleges he was pressured to take early retirement after he reported illegal conduct by various department officials, including Sheriff Jim McDonnell, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The case, listed as John Doe vs. County of Los Angeles, was filed Tuesday in a Los Angeles state court by former Assistant Sheriff Todd Rogers, whose name appears on the cover sheet of the court document.

Rogers, a Lakewood City Council member who has served as mayor of the city three times, ran against McDonnell for sheriff in 2014. He alleges McDonnell used a surrogate during the campaign to try to bribe him into dropping out of the race. Rogers says he was approached by former Undersheriff Jerry Harper  a McDonnell supporter  who said Rogers would be promoted to undersheriff if he would exit the race and endorse McDonnell, who was favored to win. Rogers said he declined.

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Under state law, it is a crime to offer any money or other valuable consideration to a political candidate in order to induce that person to withdraw from an election.

Rogers was among several candidates who failed to make it past the primary election. McDonnell, then chief of police in Long Beach, won the November 2014 general election.

A sheriffs spokesman said Wednesday that McDonnell strongly denied the allegations. He declined to comment further, saying the department had yet to review the lawsuit.

Harper did not return calls for comment.

In late 2015, Rogers says, he reported the meeting with Harper to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, which investigated the claims. Prosecutors ultimately decided there was no evidence to corroborate the allegations.

A memo by Deputy Dist. Atty. Sean Hassett on Sept. 1, 2016, said Harper acknowledged to investigators that he suggested to Rogers that he drop out of the race in order to improve his chances of McDonnell considering him for undersheriff. But Harper insisted he spoke to Rogers without McDonnells knowledge, according to the memo, which was obtained by The Times.

The memo noted that Rogers claims came more than a year after the alleged wrongdoing and that he endorsed McDonnell for sheriff six weeks after the meeting with Harper, following Rogers loss in the primary election. The memo does not indicate that McDonnell was ever interviewed by prosecutors.

In his lawsuit, Rogers claims audio evidence of Harpers criminal misconduct and Sheriff McDonnells involvement was forwarded to prosecutors in November, after theyd declined to prosecute.

Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorneys office, said in an email that prosecutors evaluated all evidence, including an audio recording, and determined there was insufficient evidence of a crime.

Rogers said Wednesday he believed it would not be appropriate to speak about the lawsuit. The 55-year-old retired on March 30 after three decades in the department.

Rogers also alleges in the lawsuit that McDonnell advised him in November 2016 that he didnt fit into the sheriffs vision for a team of upper managers and that he ought to step down. Rogers, whose job included managing the departments $3-billion budget, claims he was replaced by a younger official he believes is not as qualified.

Jill Serrano, the former chief financial officer for the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, was installed as assistant sheriff and chief financial and administrative officer in May.

Among various other claims in the lawsuit, Rogers says he was not given enough staff to manage the departments budget and that McDonnell repeatedly told him he did not approve of top sheriffs managers serving as elected officials.

Rogers retirement came after what he said amounted to a smear campaign last summer by fellow sheriffs employees, who he said leaked confidential information to media outlets, including The Times, about a medical episode suffered by his wife. The lawsuit did not name the alleged leakers. The Times did not report on the medical episode.

Rogers also alleges the employees spread false, salacious rumors about him, prompting him to file a claim against the department outlining what he said were violations of state and federal laws by his colleagues.

After he filed the claim, Rogers alleges he was removed from an executive panel and soon asked to resign.

maya.lau@latimes.com

Twitter: @mayalau

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A San Francisco Bay Area school district advised the families of 14 elementary school students to take their children to doctors after another student pricked them with a needle, a school district official said Thursday.

The student at Cabrillo Elementary School discovered a needle, the type used by diabetics to test their blood, on May 26 in front of the school, brought it onto campus and pricked other students, creating a potential health risk, Fremont Unified School District spokesman Brian Killgore said.

We understand this incident has caused stress and anxiety for the families involved and we will continue to support them however we can, Killgore said in a statement.

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School officials disciplined the student who found the needle, though Killgore said he could not comment on the specific discipline that was handed down.

Im stressed, you know, Bud Lofton, whose grandson, 8-year-old Bryan Bullock, was pricked, told KGO-TV. Im just thinking, What if something happens to him? And thats really scary because hes a healthy little boy.

Bryan, who was interviewed next to his grandfather, said the student asked him whether he liked stamps and told him to stick out his hand before poking him with a needle.

Lofton said he took his grandson for a blood test to check for HIV and hepatitis. They were still awaiting results.
California officials say they are forging ahead with emissions-cutting measures despite the Trump administrations move this week to delay implementation of Obama-era limits on ozone, the lung-searing gas in smog.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt told governors Tuesday he was extending by one year a deadline for them to determine which areas of their states violate federal standards for the pollutant, citing what he said was a lack of information and increased regulatory burdens, restrictions on infrastructure investment, and increased costs to businesses.

We are committed to working with states and local officials to effectively implement the ozone standard in a manner that is supportive of air quality improvement efforts without interfering with local decisions or impeding economic growth, Pruitt said in a statement.

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The extension applies to a tougher 70 parts per billion limit on ozone the Obama administration EPA adopted in October 2015.

This regulation was yet another attack on the middle class by the Obama Administration.  statement from U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

The move is the latest in a series of steps Pruitt has taken to roll back or delay Obama-era environmental protections. The decision is expected to push back federal deadlines to reach the health standard, allowing states with dirty air, including California, to put off the adoption of pollution-reduction measures.

California regulators insisted that Pruitts decision would in no way delay progress in cleaning the air.

California is forging ahead with aggressive actions to reduce ozone levels, irrespective of EPAs delay, California Air Resources Board spokesman Stanley Young said. In the meantime, we believe that EPA cannot back off on its own responsibility to set cleaner standards.

Young cited the critical public health challenge of air pollution in Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley. He said steps that California regulators are taking to reduce emissions in the freight and transportation sector will put us on the trajectory for meeting the 70 [parts per billion] standard in any case.

Ozone is a corrosive gas that forms when emissions from smokestacks and tailpipes cook in the heat and sunlight. It triggers asthma and other respiratory illness. Southern California has the nations worst ozone pollution and remains far from meeting a series of previous federal air quality standards.

Environmentalists blasted the EPAs move as a step toward rolling back the Obama administrations clean-air standards and allowing industries to avoid stronger emissions controls.

This delay is a flagrant violation of the law that denies Americans their right to safe air free from unhealthy smog pollution, said John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Industry groups waged a fierce lobbying and advertising campaign against the 2015 ozone rules, predicting they would harm businesses by requiring costly new pollution controls.

In his previous job as attorney general of Oklahoma, Pruitt was one of the top legal adversaries seeking to block the EPAs regulations on climate change, clean water and air quality, suing the Obama administration over its 2015 ozone standards and other major environmental rules.

After Trump appointed Pruitt administrator, the EPA began reexamining its ozone rules.

EPA records show all 50 states and the District of Columbia submitted recommendations last year on which areas should be designated as meeting or violating ozone limits. None said they had insufficient information to do so.

The EPA did not respond to requests for comment, including questions about what specific information it lacks and the potential health consequences of the delay.

Republican lawmakers who have long been critical of Obamas environmental regulations applauded Pruitts decision.

This regulation was yet another attack on the middle class by the Obama Administration and was forced through despite significant concern from communities across the country, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement.

Tougher ozone standards, achieved quickly, would benefit tens of millions of Americans who live in counties with unhealthy air. That includes 17 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties who breathe the nations worst-polluted air. After decades of reducing ozone levels, progress has faltered in recent years.

This year, ozone has exceeded the 70 ppb ozone standard on 37 days. Thats up from 33 days during the same time last year and 21 days in 2015, according to South Coast Air Quality Management District data through Monday.

Clean-air advocates say that means California pollution regulators must do more locally to reduce emissions. California adopted its own 70 ppb ozone standard in 2005, citing the threat to childrens health.

AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood said the best path forward toward meeting this standard is the one we are on now  implementing all feasible measures, fostering cleaner technologies and accelerating deployment of zero- and near-zero technologies.

In 2015, the EPA estimated that achieving the 70 ppb limit by its 2025 deadline would prevent hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and missed school days for children and hundreds of early deaths from cardiovascular disease and other illnesses. It also said the savings from those health benefits would outweigh the billions of dollars in annual costs to the industry by about 4-1.

Obama gave California extra time to comply  until 2037  because of the severity of its air pollution.

California is forging ahead with aggressive actions to reduce ozone levels, irrespective of EPAs delay.  Stanley Young, California Air Resources Board spokesman

California air quality officials say they expect the EPA to extend the deadline until 2038.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to review its air quality standards for ozone and other pollutants every five years and adjust them if necessary to reflect the latest health science.

Ozone is such a widespread pollutant that obligations to keep reducing it have vexed previous administrations.

The administration of George W. Bush rejected recommendations for a tougher limit when it adopted the 2008 ozone standard of 75 ppb.

Obamas EPA vowed to tighten ozone rules but set aside EPA administrator Lisa Jacksons recommendation for a 65 ppb standard during his reelection bid, leaving the Bush administration limit in place. When his administration ultimately tightened the standard in 2015, it selected a less protective standard than the 60 ppb public health groups had endorsed.

tony.barboza@latimes.com

@tonybarboza

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Gary Sheler couldnt wait to get to his second segment, when the Auto Doctor comes on and takes creaky-engine questions. But first, the morning show host had to get through the news hour. The news was Jim Comey.

Sheler, 70, is the local voice in Kingman and Bullhead City, Ariz., on the stations KAAA and KZZZ, from 7 to 9 a.m., followed by national conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham. His Comey spiel is practiced, and he delivers it easily, despite the early hour.

Were fed up. Were so fed up with the Democratic Party pushing this Russia thing, Sheler said. Theyre trying to find anything to impeach Trump.

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Sheler has been on the air in some form or another for 50 years  radio jobs in San Diego, television in El Paso, and finally here, the hot scrubland between Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon that went 74% for Trump in 2016.

Conservatives will never accept the testimony of someone as partisan as Comey, Sheler said, and that probably applies to anyone, liberal or conservative, who persists in trying to connect Russia to the president. Trump needs at least a year in office before any alarm bells should ring.

Callers into his show during the Thursday news hour seemed more interested in denigrating the stations late-afternoon hosts for being insufficiently conservative than in engaging with the news.

The biggest hit among them was a conservative parody of Garth Brooks called Ive Got Friends in Safe Spaces, mocking liberals:

You saw the surprise and the fear in our eyes / When Donald became president / Screamed this cant be true, Americas through / And to the safe spaces we went

Did callers care about Comeys testimony as it was unfolding?

I really dont think so, Sheler said when he was off the air. Part of that is, hes a showboat looking for attention. He did the same thing to Hillary.

Sheler shouldnt be confused with a Clinton sympathizer, but neither is he a Trump loyalist. He supported Sen. Ted Cruz for president in the 2016 primaries.

Expect a kangaroo court, and nothing to come of it, Sheler said.

After Shelers show ended, Limbaughs began, focused entirely on Comey. Every time Comey responded that he could not answer a question in open court, Limbaugh asserted that the answer probably further exonerates Trump and his people. He then cut to the local news and weather.

It would be 106 degrees in Bullhead City, and getting hotter every day.

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Follow Nigel Duara on Twitter: @nigelduara

nigel.duara@latimes.com
Former FBI Director James B. Comey feared from their first meeting that President Trump was trying to forge a patronage relationship between the two of them and was intruding on the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency, he plans to tell Congress.

In testimony released a day before he is to appear Thursday at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey recounts Trumps demand for loyalty and his request that the bureau drop at least part of its investigation of former national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Comey draws no legal conclusions in his statement and does not accuse Trump of seeking to obstruct justice. His detailed account of awkward and often tense conversations over four months, however, provides evidence that he thought the president was attempting to inappropriately intercede on behalf of Flynn and influence the FBIs investigation into whether any associates of Trumps were involved in Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.The testimony could mark a milestone in the Russia case, which has stymied the Trump administration since his first days in office.

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Read James Comeys opening statement for the Senate intelligence panel 

Trumps ability to weather the investigation politically depends to a large degree on his support among Republicans, who control both houses of Congress. So far, GOP leaders have largely stood with Trump, reflecting the views of most Republican voters.

Whether that continues depends heavily on the investigation being led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is only now getting started.

In the meantime, public opinion could be shaped by Thursdays testimony. Until now the main allegations in the investigation have been leveled by anonymous officials speaking to reporters and have involved people associated with Trump, not the president himself.

The hearing, by contrast  which will feature a clearly identified, prominent law enforcement official on national television describing possible wrongdoing by Trump  could shift that dynamic.

The Senate committee released Comeys statement shortly after the end of a contentious hearing Wednesday during which two senior intelligence officials repeatedly refused to answer questions about whether Trump had asked them to intervene with the FBI to try to impede or alter the investigation.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers denied feeling pressured or directed to intervene, but pointedly refused to say whether Trump had asked them to do so.

They left unclear what their legal basis was for declining to answer  at one point Coats said, Im not sure I have a legal basis  and their lack of answers drew angry responses from senators of both parties.

Before we adjourn, I would ask each of you to take a message back to the administration, Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) admonished both men at the end of the hearing. At no time should you be in a position where you come to Congress without an answer.

The Comey testimony before the same panel is likely to deepen the political risk for Trump and perhaps the legal jeopardy as well. Some legal experts said that Comeys claim that the president may have sought to close down the Flynn investigation provides strong evidence that Trump may have attempted to obstruct justice, a federal crime.

Federal law defines the crime as any effort to corruptly seek to obstruct or impede the due and proper administration of the law.

If Comey is right  and the president was asking him to drop the investigation  we have an increasingly strong case of obstruction, Jennifer Daskal, a law professor at American University, said Wednesday.

After all, if a president asking his top law enforcement official to halt an investigation isnt an effort to impede, I dont what is.

Democrats seized on the disclosures, but most stopped short of talking of criminal charges or impeachment, saying that more time was needed for the congressional investigations and for Mueller to conduct his inquiry.

This president was engaged in pressuring the head of the FBI when it came to a criminal investigation. Thats pretty serious, said Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate.

Its hard to imagine that a man can become president of the United States and not understand the most basic  basic  rules of criminal law and investigations.

If Comey is right  and the president was asking him to drop the investigation  we have an increasingly strong case of obstruction  Jennifer Daskal, law professor at American University

Republicans loyal to Trump tried to play down the impact.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor, said on MSNBC that Trumps comments to Comey were normal New York City conversation and that the president didnt realize his remarks were inappropriate.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said he was not going to prejudge any of this.... Let these investigations go where the facts take them and then lets make some judgments.

Others noted that Comey confirmed in his statement something that Trump had asserted  that the former FBI chief had told him he was not a target of the bureaus investigation.

The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe, Trumps lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, said in a brief statement. The president feels completely and totally vindicated.

According to the testimony, Comey several times told Trump that he was not personally the target of the investigation. But, Comey adds, he was reluctant to say so publicly because, among other reasons, that would create a duty to correct, should that change.

Trump fired Comey last month, revealing later that this Russia thing had been on his mind when he did so. He later derided the FBI director as crazy, a nut job to Russias foreign minister and its ambassador during a private meeting in the Oval Office, according to published reports that cited a leaked White House transcript. The White House has not denied those reports.

Comeys concerns about Trumps efforts to influence him began with their first meeting, at Trump Tower in January, before the inauguration. After that encounter, he says, he felt compelled to immediately write an account. He began it while sitting in an FBI vehicle the moment [he] walked out of the meeting  something he said he never thought he needed to do after his only two private talks with President Obama.

A couple of weeks later, on Friday, Jan. 27, Comey says, Trump called him at lunchtime and invited him to dinner that night in the White House. Comey says he had expected other people would be there, but it turned out to be just him and Trump, served by Navy stewards in the Green Room.

His startlingly detailed account depicts the president as applying a crude, street-corner type of pressure to make sure Comey was on his side.

Heres what to look out for during Comeys testimony 

Trump began by asking him whether he wanted to stay as FBI director. Comey says he found that request strange since Trump had already told him twice he hoped he would stay, but Trump went on to say that lots of people wanted the job.

Comey writes that he immediately got the sense that Trump wanted to create some sort of patronage relationship. He adds, That concerned me greatly, given the FBIs traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

At that meeting, Comey says, Trump told him, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed, Comey recounts. We simply looked at each other in silence.

Later, Comey told the president he could offer him honesty, and Trump responded, Thats what I want, honest loyalty.

I paused, and then said, You will get that from me, Comey recalls, noting that it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently.

Just over two weeks after their dinner, Comey says, he had a second meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. After telling Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and several top White House officials to leave the office so that the two could talk privately, Trump told Comey that Flynn, whom he had fired the day before, is a good guy and has been through a lot.

He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go, Comey recounts.

I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December, Comey says. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign.

After Trumps requests to end the Flynn investigation, Comey decided not to inform any of his bosses in the Justice Department, including Sessions.

Comey says he talked to other top FBI officials. They decided there was no reason to tell Sessions, since they expected he would soon step aside from any matters related to the Russia investigation, which he did two weeks later. Likewise, they didnt tell then-acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Dana Boente, since they figured he would not be in that job for long.

They also agreed not to infect the investigation by telling the team running it.

But Comey did later meet with Sessions and took the opportunity to implore him to prevent any further direct communication between him and Trump, he said. Sessions did not answer.

Trump, however, contacted Comey by phone two more times, according to the testimony.

On March 30, Trump told him that the Russia investigation was a cloud impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country, Comey recalls.

Trump went on to say that he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia, Comey recounts.

The reference to prostitutes refers to a dossier that circulated in Washington late last year containing accounts of purported Russian intelligence material about Trump. The contents of the dossier have never been confirmed and are not believed to be the center of the FBIs investigation, but were clearly on Trumps mind in several conversations with Comey, the testimony indicates.

A week and a half later, on April 11, Trump called again.

He asked what I had done about his request that I get out that he is not personally under investigation, Comey said. Trump added, I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing, you know.

I did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing, Comey says.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

david.cloud@latimes.com

Twitter: @davidcloudLAT

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The Obama administrations plan to save the greater sage grouse was widely heralded as a landmark moment in collaborative conservation when, nearly two years ago, former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the effort to protect the rare Western bird.

Republican and Democratic governors expressed support. So did many ranchers and environmental groups. While not everyone declared the plan perfect, it went a long way toward easing years of tension over a divisive issue that combined politics, energy development, land use, wildlife conservation and climate change.

The new effort also seemed to assure that another polarizing development would not happen: the potential listing of the bird for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

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Now, however, the Trump administration says it will do with the sage grouse plan what it has done with so many other Obama environmental initiatives, including national monument designations, limits to offshore drilling and participation in the Paris climate accord: review and potentially reverse it.

On Wednesday, Jewells successor, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, said he was ordering his agency to review core principles of the 2015 agreement, perhaps most notably its underlying premise that protecting the sage grouse requires protecting its distinctive habitat, the sprawling sagebrush sea, which winds across the West from the Dakotas to California.

The Interior Department did not release a copy of the order or a written summary of it, but Zinke, speaking in a conference call with reporters, said the broad idea was to give the 11 states involved in sage grouse protection more flexibility to customize their efforts to protect the bird, freeing them from what he called the heavy handedness of the federal government.

After traveling the West in recent months, Zinke, a former congressman from Montana, said he decided to act because he had heard from people who did not believe that they were heard on the issue of sage grouse. He said a task force within the department would report back to him within 60 days.

While we in the federal government have a responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to take action, we also want to be a good neighbor, a good partner and recognize that a lot of the state agencies and the work that has been done thus far are really the forefront of the effort, he said.

The announcement could reopen a volatile issue.

Zinke, a Republican, made it even as some governors have urged him not to abandon the 2015 plan. In a letter last month, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a Republican, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, told Zinke that moving from a preservation model based on protecting habitat to one that potentially depends instead on population goals for each state would be not the right decision.

On Wednesday, the announcement prompted a quick rejection from environmental groups.

Basically, this is here we go again, said Ken Rait, director of the public lands program for the Pew Charitable Trusts. Theres an aspect of this that was just bringing peace to the region. Thats what happened in 2015. This is going to be like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound.

Scientists say the sage grouse is an indicator species, that its health reflects the well-being of its habitat and hundreds of other species that depend on it, including elk, mule deer and golden eagles. Yet after decades of residential and industrial development and with new threats from climate change, the sagebrush sea has been in steady decline. Along the way, the sage grouse population has also declined, shrinking from millions of birds a few decades ago to perhaps as few as 200,000 now.

Zinke said Wednesday that his review, which will include employees of the U.S. Geological Survey, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, would consider allowing states to emphasize population goals over habitat protection. It would also study the impact of predators and disease and whether captive breeding could replace other conservation measures.

Just because you have habitat doesnt mean that the health of the flock is healthy or vice versa, he said.

The 2015 plan did just what Jewell hoped it would: It convinced the Fish and Wildlife Service not to list the sage grouse as endangered in 2015. That decision is up for review in 2020.

william.yardley@latimes.com

@yardleyLAT
On the morning of May 18, Cal State Los Angeles student Claudia Rueda disappeared in East L.A. The 22-year-old immigrant rights activist stepped outside her aunts home to move her mothers car for street cleaning, but never returned. Hours later her family learned that she had been surrounded by three unmarked cars carrying an estimated nine plainclothes Customs and Border Protection officers who whisked her off to a detention center 130 miles away.

Claudia is a Latin American Studies major at Cal State L.A., where we are faculty. At the time of her arrest, Claudia was enrolled in one of our courses on U.S. immigration policy that studied the effects of deportation on families and communities. This subject was not just academic for her; it hit close to the bone. Once in class she asked, Why arent more people advocating for immigrant rights, or against the further creation of illegality, when populations of children and parents across borders are suffering due to U.S. policies? Though she is eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which would protect her from deportation, her family could not afford the $500 application fee. Claudia worried constantly that she or one of her family members would be deported from the country where they have lived for more than 15 years.

In late April, it seemed that Claudias worst fears were realized when her mother, Teresa Vidal-Jaime, was swept up in a drug raid by a joint task force of the CBP and the L.A. County sheriff at the apartment complex where they lived. Although Vidal-Jaime was not charged with a crime, she was detained by immigration officials for overstaying her visa. Vidal-Jaime was released by an immigration court on $2,000 bond, thanks in part to a high-profile campaign led by the Los Angeles Immigrant Youth Coalition, of which Claudia is a member.

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Although none had a criminal record, four were deported to Tijuana within 24 hours without seeing a judge or a lawyer.

Less than a week later, the CBP returned to East L.A. looking for Claudia. Residents reported that dozens of CBP agents knocked on doors at her former apartment building and at her aunts nearby home asking for information about Claudias whereabouts and even followed her neighbors for miles on their way to work to question, and in some cases arrest, them. In total, the CBP arrested seven community members that day, including Claudia and several residents from her former apartment building. Although none had a criminal record, four were deported to Tijuana within 24 hours without seeing a judge or a lawyer, and the rest are detained and in danger of deportation. The CBP claims that these arrests were part of a criminal investigation, but has not produced any evidence that connects Claudia or the others to any crime.

Claudia is the face of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. Under current executive guidelines, any immigrant suspected of a crime, even if never arrested, charged, or convicted, has become a priority for deportation. Basic due process, such as the right to know the charges and evidence against you, is absent in the immigration system. This policy has led to a 32% increase in immigrant detentions in the first three months of Trumps presidency compared with the same time last year, and a 100% increase in the detention of people with no criminal record or with only minor traffic infractions. Criminal investigations serve as a pretext for a policy of mass deportation of immigrants who have deep ties in local communities.

Trump recently claimed, We are not after the Dreamers. We are after the criminals. However, data show a 25% increase in the deportation of Dreamers, as DACA recipients are known, in the first three months of Trumps presidency, compared with the same time last year. Immigrant youth who encounter the police are more likely to have their DACA status revoked and be detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Claudias case also illuminates the governments apparent practice of going after undocumented activists who challenge its immigration policies. Claudias detention less than one week after her mother was released seems like payback by the CBP for her activism and leadership. She is one of several youth activists since Trumps inauguration who have been targeted by immigration agencies in what seems to be an attempt to silence them.

In March, undercover ICE agents in Vermont arrested three prominent undocumented activists associated with the group Migrant Justice, all of them under 25. In that same month, ICE agents in Mississippi detained 22-year-old DACA recipient Daniela Vargas after she spoke at a rally calling on the Trump administration to establish a path to citizenship for immigrants.

Those concerned about creeping authoritarianism in U.S. governance should be deeply troubled by Claudias experience. After four weeks in detention without seeing a judge, Claudia will finally have a bond hearing on Friday. ICE can and should exercise its discretion to release her immediately and process her application for DACA. State and local politicians who promised to create sanctuaries for residents like Claudia need to ensure that local law enforcement agencies are not using valuable public resources to sow fear by collaborating with immigration enforcement efforts.

Beth Baker is professor of anthropology and Alejandra Marchevsky is professor of liberal studies and womens, gender and sexuality studies at Cal State Los Angeles.

To read the article in Spanish, click here

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In the 50 years since Israel occupied the West Bank, in June 1967, Palestinians have tried myriad strategies to end foreign military rule without success. They have sought freedom through violent and peaceful means, including years spent talking to reluctant Israeli officials. Yet Palestinian activists have found a productive way forward: They are joining forces with outsiders, including sympathetic Israelis and diaspora Jews, to form strategic nonviolent alliances.

Traditionally, Israeli peace groups have limited their activities to Israel proper, holding rallies in opposition to government policies in the comfort of Tel Aviv. Rarely have they crossed the green line to show true solidarity with Palestinians. And those Israeli peaceniks who did cross over did so only for a short protest or meeting, at the end of which they returned home.

A breakthrough occurred recently when a coalition of five Palestinian, Israeli and Jewish diaspora groups, inspired by the Standing Rock protests in the United States, created Sumud Freedom Camp in the West Bank village of Sarura, in South Hebron.

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The area is under full control of the Israeli military. Its Palestinian residents live in fear of violence from soldiers and Israeli settlers alike and are under constant pressure to leave the area so Israel can appropriate the land.

The point of the camp is to draw attention to this problem, reclaim the land for Palestinians and rehabilitate the village, which is in disrepair.

The point of the camp is to draw attention to this problem, reclaim the land for Palestinians and rehabilitate the village, which is in disrepair. Its an act of radical civil disobedience through continuous presence.

Participants in this campaign, which began May 18 and continues to this day, vowed to stay put even if the Israeli army tried to remove them physically. Three times in the first 12 days, Israeli troops raided the camp and confiscated tents, sound equipment and even a car belonging to a local Palestinian. But no one was arrested. The coalition resisted nonviolently and after every army incursion they rebuilt their tents.

If Palestinians alone had built Sumud, it would no doubt have been dismantled by now. But the presence of Israelis and diaspora Jews confers a measure of security. The camp survives due to solidarity, and local Palestinians are grateful. Theyve begun making daily visits to bring food, and many broke the Ramadan fast with their new comrades.

Sumud, which means steadfastness in Arabic, is actually one of several examples of a nonviolent alliance between Palestinians and Jews, who are bonding together to support the inalienable right of Palestinians to live in their homes and on their land independent of military occupiers.

On May 16, after the group Jewish Voices for Peace and Palestinian rights activists realized that the cash payment giant PayPal had excluded Palestinians from using its service  while including Israelis and Israeli settlers  they staged a demonstration outside the companys San Jose headquarters. They also circulated a petition that was eventually signed by 180,000 people around the world.

Another example is the weekly Friday protests against the Israeli-built security wall inside Palestinian areas. Israeli peace supporters have joined in these protests, which have succeeded in shifting the path of the wall in a number of locations.

The alliance between Palestinians and supportive Jews is reminiscent of the period in the U.S. civil rights movement when white activists actually traveled to the South to join forces with black activists, instead of simply voicing their displeasure from far away.

While these efforts at alliance might be limited in nature and scope, they may represent the most effective way yet for Palestinians to regain their national rights.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and former professor of journalism at Princeton University. He is a columnist with Al-Monitor. Follow him on Twitter @daoudkuttab

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Details added (first version posted on 10:26)

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

The share of European Union (EU) countries in total volume of Azerbaijans trade turnover was 38 percent in January-April 2017, said Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev.

He made the remarks addressing a business forum between Azerbaijan and the EU in Baku June 8.

Mustafayev said that this figure was 35 percent in 2016.

The minister noted that the EU is also the biggest investor in Azerbaijans fixed capital.

Over the past time, EU investments in Azerbaijans fixed capital amounted to about $20 billion or 46 percent of the total volume of investments. Meanwhile, EU countries invested $3 billion in the non-oil sector of Azerbaijans economy, which accounts for 35 percent of total investment volume in this sector, said Mustafayev.

Currently, more than 1,300 European companies operate in Azerbaijan, he added.

The minister said that along with the relations with the EU, Azerbaijans bilateral relations with various EU member states are also developing.

Until today, Azerbaijan signed agreements on eliminating double taxation with 23 countries of the EU, agreements on expanding and protecting investments  with 17 countries, he noted.

Mustafayev also said that Azerbaijan has joint intergovernmental commissions with 13 EU countries.

Moreover, we have already signed agreements on strategic partnership with seven EU countries, noted the minister.

Over the past five years, 123 business forums and business meetings were held with EU countries, he added.
Its possible that Rex Tillerson has the worst job in the world. It cant be much fun being the top diplomat for the least diplomatic president in American history  just look at the pictures of New Zealanders lining his motorcade route in Wellington this week, middle fingers extended.

But its also possible that it beats the alternative. Because if the secretary of State were still at his old job, running Exxon Mobil, hed have to deal with a burgeoning corporate scandal. Late last week, overshadowed by Trumps withdrawal from the Paris accords (which in turn caused Tillersons top man in Beijing to resign his post), environmental news of a different sort broke in a New York court filing.

The intrepid Eric Schneiderman, the Empire States attorney general, laid out the first real fruits of his investigation of the worlds largest fossil fuel company on Friday. That probe started two years ago, after news organizations including this newspaper showed that Exxon had known everything there was to know about climate change decades ago, and instead of telling the rest of us engaged in a massive coverup.

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One enduring mystery of the litigation is Californias absence.

Those lies are a moral crime of incomparable consequence  they mired the world for a quarter-century in a sterile debate about the reality of global warming, a debate that Exxon could have ended by coming clean. But telling that kind of lie may be protected by the 1st Amendment; in the short run, anyway, there wasnt much to do about it except try to publicly shame Exxon in an effort to hold it accountable. Some of us took on that job; I was arrested after sitting in at an Exxon station to draw attention to those articles in the Los Angeles Times and Inside Climate News.

Schneiderman took a different tack, subpoenaing the company to see if it had also lied to investors. (Since theres money on the line, thats called fraud, and its definitely not protected by the Constitution). For two years now, Exxon, with the same lawyers at its side who once defended Philip Morris, has fought his efforts, attempting to quash subpoenas and intimidate environmentalists. (I have a letter from them warning me to preserve my emails relating to Exxon, which apparently didnt like my little protest). But Schneiderman persevered, and eventually his sharp-eyed attorneys noticed something interesting in the crateloads of documents the company has so far surrendered.

Exxon claims that since 2007 it has used a proxy price on carbon to decide if its safe to invest in new oil fields. Executives know the world is starting to take action on climate change and that national governments are likely to impose new rules and regulations on fossil fuel markets, so they predict how much extra theyll have to pay to obtain and sell oil.

By 2040, they told investors, it would cost an estimated $60 a ton of carbon dioxide for the right to sell oil. And they assured investors repeatedly that since theyve applied that price to their profit and loss calculations, none of their reserves would be stranded by climate concerns. They had stress-tested, as it were, their business plans against the political changes they knew were coming.

But Schneidermans trove of documents makes it appear that this was just a story for outside consumption. Internally, they were figuring in a much lower proxy price for carbon dioxide, meaning that they were taking on much riskier projects. There even appears to be an email in which Tillerson says hes happy with the double accounting.

This tawdry scheme matters mightily, and not just to investors who may have lost money. It translates into great clouds of heat-trapping gas, which in turn mean drought, flood, fire. Its evil, Big Tobacco-scale evil, except that instead of taking out one smoker at a time, the fossil fuel industry works one planet at a time.

Schneiderman deserves enormous praise for taking on Exxon, and his Massachusetts counterpart Maura Healey has shown courage too. One enduring mystery of the litigation, however, is Californias absence.

When Kamala Harris was the states attorney general, she announced she was joining in the probe, but she never took an active role in issuing subpoenas. Her successor, Xavier Becerra, has so far stayed on the sidelines too, a curiosity since the rest of Sacramento is hard at work dealing with climate change. Perhaps the new revelations will get his office actively engaged in issuing subpoenas of its own.

In any event, the backstory of the greatest crisis the planet faces is slowly emerging, one email and deposition at a time. Rex Tillersons State Department is doing its best to twist the truth about climate change. That his company apparently did the same is not a shock, but its a scandal nonetheless.

Bill McKibben is the founder of 350.org and Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College.

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Gov. Jerry Brown doubles down on California measure changing recall process, calling it eminently reasonable By Christine Mai-Duc State Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Compton), left, and Gov. Jerry Brown talk about funding for projects under the state transportation bill, SB1, at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson. (Christian K. Lee/ Los Angeles Times) The partisan volleys have continued this week in the effort to recall state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) over his vote to pass an increase in the gas tax. Those seeking to recall Newman submitted more than enough signatures needed to qualify the measure for the ballot, if theyre all deemed valid. Newman supporters looking to halt the recall filed a lawsuit Thursday, claiming signature gatherers had misled voters. And Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes changes to long-standing recall rules, an effort that Republicans have decried as an attempt by Democrats to rig the system to protect one of their own. Brown seemed to double down on that measure Friday at a press conference at Cal State Dominguez Hills, where he discussed the new gas tax, calling the new recall process eminently reasonable. The measure allows voters up to 30 days to remove their signature from a recall petition and creates a new process to review costs associated with a recall election. Brown said the bill provides an opportunity for people who have been hoodwinked to change their mind. Its all about truth and giving people the opportunity to make sure that their vote and their signature is knowingly given, Brown. The only people who would be against that are people who wanted to fool people and dont want to test it in court or in the light of day. .@JerryBrownGov responds to GOP criticism of budget trailer he signed that could make Newman recall harder. Calls it "eminently reasonable." pic.twitter.com/hSsmIPiHtP  Christine Mai-Duc (@cmaiduc) June 30, 2017 Browns comments came after a roundtable discussion in which he and state Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Compton) spoke about the importance of directing transportation dollars raised by the gas tax increase to businesses owned by women, minorities and people who are disabled. Brown cast it as part of a larger question of equality and opportunity in America. But the discussion took place even as Brown mused about efforts to repeal the controversial tax package, which is expected to raise $52 billion over 10 years for road repairs and other transportation projects. If people want to not fund the roads, then they can put something on the ballot and maybe change things, Brown said. But I think most people in California want to fix the roads. Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach), who is running for governor, has filed a ballot measure to repeal the gas tax. Brown dismissed a recent poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, which said that a majority of registered voters oppose the gas tax increases Brown and legislators recently approved. That was a poll that said, Do you want to raise a tax? Brown said. Of course people are going to say no. Brown added that when voters are given concrete situations like education and roads, theyre more likely to support tax increases. I think Californians are always leery of taxes. Im leery of taxes, Brown said. You want to drive around on gravel roads? Ive got a gravel road out in front of my house in the country. Its not bad. But I dont think thats what people want. I think they want real, paved roads  and to have paved roads youve got to spend real money. Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report. Facebook

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San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer says he wont run for governor, dashing hopes of GOP leaders By Phil Willon San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer speaks during a news conference about the San Diego Chargers in 2015. (Gregory Bull / AP) Republican San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, who has been lobbied intensely by GOP leaders to run for California governor, on Friday rejected the idea and vowed to serve out his second term at city hall. Both House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and state Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte had urged Faulconer to run. A fiscal conservative and social moderate who has demonstrated crossover appeal by winning over Democrats, Faulconer has been seen as the GOPs strongest potential gubernatorial candidate, and one who could help Republicans in down-ballot races if he was at the top of the ticket in 2018. But Falconer nixed the idea of a gubernatorial bid in a Facebook post Friday afternoon, saying he was deeply honored by so many encouraging him to run. Its a testament to the people of San Diego, and the progress weve made to create a fiscally responsible, prosperous city that is moving in the right direction. I made a pledge last year to serve out my second term as mayor, and thats exactly what Im going to do, Faulconer said in the post. He was facing pressure to enter the race and GOP insiders who were familiar with his thinking believed he was leaning toward running. Faulconer ultimately decided not to run because he did not see a certain path to victory, according to a top state party official who did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to speak for the San Diego mayor. The last time a GOP candidate won a statewide race was in 2006. The governors race already has attracted a handful of Republican candidates, but none with Faulconers political stature. They include conservative Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen and Rancho Santa Fe venture capitalist John Cox. Speculation is mounting that former state Assemblyman David Hadley plans to announce a run. The Democratic heavyweights in the race include Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang. A strong GOP top-of-the-ticket candidate would be expected to increase Republican turnout next fall. Faulconers decision not to run could impact some hotly contested congressional races in California, and potentially affect Republican efforts to retain control of the House of Representatives. If a Republican gubernatorial candidate fails to make the general election, creating a Democrat-on-Democrat race in November 2018, that could depress GOP turnout and affect those targeted congressional races. It leaves the Republicans without an obvious front-runner that the donors would have confidence in, said GOP strategist Rob Stutzman, who previously advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and 2010 GOP nominee Meg Whitman. But it still depends on the nature of the race next November. Its too early to say. Update 4:21 p.m.: This story was updated with reaction about Faulconers decision and more information about the 2018 election. This story was originally published at 3:30 p.m. Facebook

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Assembly Democrats denounce threats made after single-payer healthcare bill was sidelined Facebook

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Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom blasts National Rifle Assn. recruitment video, saying it could lead to violence By Seema Mehta (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom called on the National Rifle Assn. to take down a controversial new video that he argued villanizes political rivals and could lead to violence. Come after politicians. Come after policy makers. Come after ME, Newsom wrote on his Facebook page Thursday. But do not implicitly call for demonstrations of force against your fellow Americans in a country that is already reeling. You are powerful. People are listening to you. And your message could lead to tragedy. The NRA video, which urges people to join the organization, was posted earlier this month and features conservative commentator Dana Loesch talking about political rivals who she argues use the media, schools and Hollywood for sinister purposes. The video features footage of police clashing with protesters and a bloodied Trump supporter, and flashes images such as the Hollywood sign, Disney Hall and the Los Angeles Times building as Loesch repeatedly invokes an unnamed opponent she refers to as they. Loeschs concluding remarks in the minute-long video have drawn the most ire. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom, is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth, Loesch said. Im the National Rifle Assn. of America, and Im freedoms safest place. Newsom is a longtime foe of the NRA. He was a primary sponsor of Proposition 63, a ballot measure voters approved in November that requires background checks to purchase ammunition, bans possession of high-capacity magazines and other gun-safety efforts. On Thursday, the NRA claimed victory when a federal judge, at their attorneys request, granted a preliminary injunction blocking a related law that would have required Californians to get rid of large-capacity magazines by Saturday or face fines and potential jail time. Newsom, the states lieutenant governor, wrote that he felt a chill down my spine when he watched the video. He said while he and the NRA have long disagreed, the video crosses the line of appropriate political debate. He described it as dangerous because it tells viewers that our fellow Americans are to be feared  and even worse. How does this video advance debate? How does it bring people together for common ideals? How does it do anything but cast Americans as enemies to be defeated in a cynical ploy to sell as many weapons as possible? he wrote. Facebook

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Tired of exporting campaign cash, these politicos are putting California first By Mark Z. Barabak Air Force One leaves California after another fundraising foray. (Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times) California feeds the world with its bounty, fuels the economy with its innovation, fires the imagination with its creativity. There is one export, though, that is far less celebrated: the unceasing torrent of outbound campaign cash. For political fundraisers, California has long been the Big Rock Candy Mountain, excavated, mined and, ultimately, shafted by candidates of both parties who use the boodle to run for president in Iowa or New Hampshire, or Congress in East Podunk. Now, Democratic efforts are underway to put California first, directing more campaign cash from whence it came by focusing on seven targeted House districts in the Central Valley and southern part of the state. Read More Facebook

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Federal judge blocks California gun law By Patrick McGreevy A handgun is displayed with 10- and 15-shot magazines. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A federal judge Thursday granted a request by attorneys for the National Rifle Assn. to block a law that requires Californians to dispose of large-capacity ammunition magazines by Saturday or face fines and possible jail time. U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez wrote in San Diego that the rights of voters who approved Proposition 63 in November have to be balanced against the rights of gun owners. If this injunction does not issue, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess ones self of lawfully acquired property, Benitez wrote. That is a choice they should not have to make. C.D. Michel, an attorney for the NRA and state gun owners, welcomed the decision, which allows a lawsuit to be decided on its merits before the law takes effect. My clients are pleased the Court affirmed that the Second Amendment is not a second class right, and that law abiding gun owners have a right to choose to have these magazines to help them defend themselves and their families, Michel said in a statement. Read More Facebook

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Two California Democrats join with House Republicans to vote for Kates Law By Sarah D. Wire There would be tougher penalties for people repeatedly caught crossing the border illegally, and millions of dollars less in federal funds for so-called sanctuary jurisdictions such as Los Angeles under two House immigration bills approved Thursday. Both bills would fulfill President Trumps campaign promises if they became law, but the Senate has killed similar legislation and is unlikely to be able to reach the 60-vote requirement to pass the bills. The House voted 257 to 167, with 24 Democrats crossing party lines, to pass Kates Law, which would create harsher mandatory minimum prison sentences for people who repeatedly enter the U.S. illegally. It is named after Kathryn Steinle, who allegedly was shot and killed in San Francisco in 2015 by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican immigrant who had repeatedly entered the country illegally and was released from jail by sheriffs officials despite a request by immigration officials to keep him behind bars. Two California Democrats, Reps. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough and Eric Swalwell of Dublin, joined Republicans in voting for the bill. Swalwell grew up with Steinle and is still in touch with her family, he said. This bill is not perfect, and its shameful that the Republicans did not allow any debate. But it does improve our ability to punish individuals who repeatedly break the law and to deter those who may do so, he Swalwell said in a statement. Read More Facebook

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Committee unexpectedly opens door to Rep. Barbara Lees push to end military force authorization By Sarah D. Wire (Paul Morigi/Getty Images) In September 2001, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) was the only member of Congress to object to an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, a resolution in response to the terrorist attacks that paved the way for the war in Afghanistan. In the 16 years since, the resolution has been used by President George W. Bush, President Obama and now President Trump as justification for more than 35 military actions in nearly 20 countries around the world -- which means those presidents have not gone back to Congress for new permission to send troops into harms way. On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee opened the door to ending that 2001 authorization when it added Lees amendment to a Defense Department measure. Congress would have 240 days to debate a new authorization. At the end of that time the 2001 authorization would be repealed. Lee has lobbied hard just to get to this first step, which was approved by a voice vote in the Republican led committee. Ive been working on this for years and years and years. Im just really pleased that Republicans and Democrats today really understood what Ive been saying and Ive been explaining for the last 16 years, and that is, this resolution is a blank check for perpetual war, Lee said. Committee members broke into applause after the unexpected vote. Lee said Thursday she plans to personally call Speaker Paul Ryan and make the case for keeping her amendment in the bill when it gets to the House floor. The public wants to see a debate, Lee said. Our young men and women in harms way need to know their Congress is supporting them and backing them up, or not. Facebook

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Volkswagen submits revised plan for installing charging stations as part of emission-cheating settlement By Chris Megerian (Markus Schreiber / Associated Press) Volkswagen would build more electric vehicle charging stations in disadvantaged communities under an updated plan being submitted to state regulators on Thursday. The companys subsidiary, Electrify America, revised its proposal after an earlier version was rejected as inadequate by the California Air Resources Board. The proposal is the first phase of an $800-million investment in the state, one piece of a much larger settlement over Volkswagens cheating on vehicle emission rules. Although the money is expected to yield hundreds of new charging stations and boost Californias efforts to foster the market for electric cars, its also been a source of controversy. State regulators want 35% of the money to be spent in disadvantaged communities, a target endorsed by the Legislature as well. Electrify America CEO Mark McNabb said, We will strive hard to hit it. The updated plan adds Fresno to the list of metropolitan areas, which already included Los Angeles and Sacramento, where charging stations would be installed. It made sense to get out into the Central Valley, McNabb said. We thought that was an improvement we could make to the plan. Facebook

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Californias top elections officer to Trumps voting fraud panel: No By John Myers (Dylan Stewart / HS Insider) President Trumps voter fraud commission will not be getting the names and addresses of Californias registered voters. The panels request was denied on Thursday by Secretary of State Alex Padilla, who said it would only legitimize false claims of massive election cheating last fall. Padilla refused to hand over data, including the names, addresses, political party and voting history of Californias 19.4 million voters. Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas who serves as vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, sent letters to all 50 states on Wednesday for information he said would help the group examine rules that either enhance or undermine the American peoples confidence in the integrity of federal elections processes. Padilla, though, suggested the effort is little more than a ruse. I will not provide sensitive voter information to a commission that has already inaccurately passed judgment that millions of Californians voted illegally, he said in a written statement. Californias participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach. Last November, Trump tweeted that California was one of three states where serious voter fraud took place in the general election. No state or local elections official has found any evidence to back up the presidents assertion. Kobachs request says the panel seeks only publicly available information. Basic information about California voters is routinely shared with journalists, political campaigns and researchers after a written request and payment of a fee. The letter asks for data including information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information. Padilla also criticized the selection of Kobach to help lead Trumps commission, accusing the Kansas official of past efforts at racial profiling and suppressing voter turnout. His role as vice chair is proof that the ultimate goal of the commission is to enact policies that will result in the disenfranchisement of American citizens, Padilla said. The presidential commissions first meeting is scheduled for July 19. Facebook

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Supporters of state Sen. Josh Newman sue to stop effort to recall him, alleging voters have been misled By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) faces a recall. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Supporters of state Sen. Josh Newman filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to stop a recall campaign against the lawmaker, alleging that signature gatherers have misled voters and the petition contains false information. The Democratic legislator from Fullerton faces a recall funded by the California Republican Party for voting with other lawmakers to increase the states gas tax and vehicle fees to raise $5.2 billion annually for road repairs. On Tuesday, the state party announced it had submitted 84,988 signatures to election officials, some 20,000 more signatures than would be needed if officials determine they are valid. The lawsuit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla was filed in Sacramento Superior Court by three residents of Newmans Senate district and paid for by the campaign against the recall. It alleges that signature gatherers misled voters to sign the petitions by saying they would repeal the car tax. The petition gathering campaign has misrepresented the nature of the petition by informing voters that it will Stop the Gas Tax when it will not, the lawsuit says. These statements are intentionally misleading statements of fact that are false beyond dispute and mislead voters The legal complaint, which also names several signature gatherers, alleges that the notice of intent to file the petition is inaccurate in saying that the tax bill provides billions of dollars for mass transit in Northern California without Newmans district benefiting from the revenue. The bill itself does not earmark where money will go, but the intent of lawmakers was that Newmans district would benefit, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit asks that the circulation of the petition be stopped and the recall effort, using the petition as drafted, be halted. This suit is about nothing less than the integrity of our election process; a recall election simply should not be certified when signatures were gathered based on lies to voters, said James Harrison, an attorney who filed the lawsuit. Former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, an organizer of the recall, said the lawsuit is without merit. Josh Newman refuses to accept accountability for his disastrous vote to raise the car and gas tax and instead has chosen to blame others for the recall against him with lies and frivolous lawsuits, DeMaio said. Facebook

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State to pay $2.9 million to three men wrongfully convicted in Los Angeles cases By Patrick McGreevy Kash Delano Register outside a Los Angeles restaurant in November 2013 after his release from prison. (Christina House / For The Times) The state Senate has approved payment of $2.96 million to settle three claims by men who were wrongly convicted for crimes in Los Angeles and served time in prison before they were exonerated. The approval of the payments, amounting to $140 for each day served behind bars, next goes to Gov. Jerry Brown. The largest payment  $1.7 million  goes to Kash Delano Register, who said he was wrongfully convicted of a 1979 murder because of a flawed LAPD investigation. He served 34 years in prison. In 2013, the Los Angeles County Superior Court ordered that Register be released from prison after it found he had been denied due process of law and a fair trial because material exculpatory information and evidence was not disclosed. The court acted after lawyers and students from Loyola Law School cast doubt on the testimony of a key prosecution witness. The Los Angeles County district attorneys office later dismissed the charges, and Register was found by the court to be factually innocent. The Senate payment for 12,427 days served in custody is in addition to a $16.7-million settlement paid to Register by the city of Los Angeles. The Senate also voted Thursday to pay $886,760 to Luis Vargas, who spent more than 17 years in custody before a court ruled him factually innocent of a 1998 rape. In 2012, DNA evidence from one of the victims showed that a suspect known as the Teardrop Rapist, not Vargas, was the perpetrator of the rape. The third payment, $340,620, goes to Reggie Cole, who was found factually innocent after serving time in prison for the shooting death of a man outside a South Los Angeles house of prostitution in 1995. Facebook

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Public affairs strategist Fiona Hutton hosts fundraiser for Antonio Villaraigosa By Phil Willon Antonio Villaraigosa in July (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) Los Angeles public affairs strategist Fiona Hutton is hosting a San Fernando Valley fundraiser for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa in July. Hutton, who has worked on a number of statewide campaigns, also raised money for Villaraigosa during his successful campaign for mayor of Los Angeles in 2005. The July 25 fundraiser is being held at Huttons office in Studio City. Tickets run $1,000 apiece. To be a co-host, itll cost $10,000. Along with serving as president of her company, Fiona Hutton & Associates, Hutton sits on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Facebook

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California joins other states asking the Trump administration for information on how its enforcing immigration law By Patrick McGreevy Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra wants more information on federal enforcement of immigration laws. ( Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) A group of nine state attorneys general, including California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday seeking records that would clarify how the Trump administration is enforcing federal immigration law. The request seeks the number of immigration detentions, deportations and detainer requests, and the rationale for each, as well as clarifying information on whether Trump is following through on comments that he will not target young people who were brought to the country illegally by their parents. The attorneys general also want to know whether immigrants in the country illegally have been detained at schools, hospitals and places of worship, which the state officials feel should be off-limits for enforcement. Mixed messages from the Trump Administration on immigration enforcement are sowing confusion and increasing anxiety among immigrants, Becerra said in a statement. Today we ask the Administration to tell us what it is doing in this area. The data could be used in a barrage of legal challenges the states have filed against federal immigration policies. Becerra noted that immigration-related arrests have increased nearly 40% since Trump became president, and there is concern that some of the arrests have included young people who were given a deferral from deportation under the Obama administration. The Presidents Executive Orders, and the steps taken by the Department of Homeland Security to implement those orders, have generated new fears and uncertainties in immigrant communities across the country, the attorneys general wrote in the request for information. The other states represented in the request are New York, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, Iowa, Maryland, Oregon and Hawaii. Facebook

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This is why Californias Legislature cant fix the states housing problems By Liam Dillon An apartment complex in Hollywood (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) For 50 years, California has had a law that aims to encourage developers to build housing. But the law has failed at helping stem the statewide shortage of homes that drives Californias affordability problems. The reason? The law requires cities and counties to produce prodigious reports to plan for housing  but it doesnt hold them accountable for any resulting home building. Cities and counties resent the law. To avoid complying, theyve asked the state to let prison beds count toward their low-income housing goals, among other things. And despite knowing about the laws weaknesses for decades, state lawmakers have provided no incentive, such as a greater share of tax dollars, for cities and counties to meet their housing goals. Read More Facebook

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Californias attorney general joins the fight against President Trumps sanctuary city order By Patrick McGreevy Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra led a group of 10 states Wednesday in filing an court brief supporting San Francisco and other California communities that challenged President Trumps executive order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions. After the local governments won a preliminary injunction against the order, the Trump administration asked the courts to dismiss the cities lawsuit. The brief filed by Becerra argues that public safety is improved when local law enforcement agencies focus on crime prevention instead of helping federal authorities enforce immigration laws. The Trump Administration does not have the right to coerce states, counties or municipalities to do the federal governments job, Becerra said in a statement. Californias state and local law enforcement officials are in the business of public safety, not of deportation. Threatening public safety funding to compel localities to do immigration work is a dangerous game that undermines public safety. Facebook

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California Supreme Court leaves in place decision upholding cap-and-trade system By Chris Megerian Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the Air Resources Board, oversees the cap-and-trade program. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) After more than four years, a legal challenge to Californias cap-and-trade program has reached an unsuccessful conclusion. The end came on Wednesday when the California Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal from business groups who consider the program to be an unconstitutional tax. The program requires companies to buy permits to release greenhouse gases, a system intended to provide a financial incentive to reduce emissions. The law that provided the programs foundation was not passed with a two-thirds vote in the Legislature, the legal threshold for new taxes, sparking lawsuits from the California Chamber of Commerce and the Pacific Legal Foundation. A state appeals court rejected their arguments in April, but they appealed. Business groups were also concerned the decision was too broad and could open the door to additional taxes. Despite the states victory in court, there are other legal questions around cap and trade. Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing lawmakers to extend the program past 2020 with new legislation. With this Supreme Court victory, now its up to us to take action extending Californias cap-and-trade system on a more permanent basis, Brown said in a statement. This story has been updated with a statement from the governor. Facebook

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Rohrabacher on meeting with Manafort while he was a foreign agent: It was a nice little dinner By Sarah D. Wire (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) When former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort belatedly filed as a foreign agent on behalf of a pro-Russian Ukrainian political party this week, he listed a meeting with just one U.S. politician  Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach. Manaforts years-late filing with the Justice Department details $17 million in political consulting work he did between 2012 and 2014 for the Party of Regions, a Ukrainian party considered friendly with the Kremlin. Rohrabacher told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that the March 2013 meeting happened over dinner at the Capitol Hill Club, a popular Washington Republican social club. He said Manafort billed it as a chance to get reacquainted decades after they worked together in the 1970s on President Reagans campaign. Still, he assumed Manafort had an agenda. I assume when old friends call me up and are wanting to get reacquainted and stuff I always assume they are in some way under contract with somebody, Rohrabacher said. Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, has long been known for encouraging improved relations with Russia, something thats made him an outlier in the Republican Party. He said Russia and the Baltic states probably came up during dinner, but it wasnt the focus of their conversation. We discussed a myriad of things, a lot of personal stuff, a lot of different analysis of the politics of the day, Rohrabacher said. It was a nice little dinner. Three days later, Manafort contributed $1,000 to Rohrabachers reelection campaign. Manaforts modest donation didnt stand out, Rohrabacher said. Ongoing FBI and congressional investigations into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 election, and how the Trump campaign may have been involved, have heightened interest in any connections American politicians may have had with the Russian government or its proxies. Rohrabachers opponents immediately began fundraising off the revelation that Manafort met with the congressman while serving as a foreign agent. Democrat Harley Rouda, whos running for Rohrabachers seat in 2018, called it embarrassing in a solicitation email Tuesday. We need someone who cares more about Orange County and America than supporting Russia and Putin, Roudas email stated. Facebook

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Democrats block Republican legislators proposal for forensic audit of UC Office of President By Patrick McGreevy Two months after a state audit found mismanagement at the University of California, Democratic state lawmakers on Wednesday blocked a Republican legislators proposal to have auditors go back in and look deeper at spending, this time with an eye for possible criminal activity. Assemblyman Dante Acosta (R-Santa Clarita) said the follow-up examination was justified after an audit in April found the UC Office of the President had failed to disclose a $175-million budget surplus to the Board of Regents and the public, was paying excessive salaries and expenses and had inadequate financial safeguards in place to prevent abuse. The lack of controls, the audit concluded, was putting millions of dollars at risk of abuse. I am fighting to return trust in the institution of the UC Office of the President for students, parents, faculty and staff, Acosta said. Only complete transparency can accomplish that goal. However, no Democratic lawmakers on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted to authorize a new audit, so the motion failed. Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) said the university administration should be given time to address the recommendations of its recent audit. I believe this request is premature, he said. State Auditor Elaine Howle said Wednesday in response to a legislators question that she did not find any evidence of misuse of funds. We didnt see anything nefarious, Howle told the panel. UC President Janet Napolitano said funds were not hidden, but she has agreed to adopt policies to make the budget process more transparent. Monica Lozano, chairwoman of the UC Board of Regents, told the legislative committee Wednesday that a new audit is unnecessary and may interfere with the systems implementation of recommendations from the last audit, including the hiring of an accountant to look at UC spending. Facebook

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Single-payer healthcare advocates protest at Capitol with a message for Californias Assembly speaker: Shame on you! By Melanie Mason View Twitter post Backers of a measure to establish a single-payer healthcare system in California rallied at the Capitol on Wednesday to renounce Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount), who shelved the bill last week. Several hundred demonstrators, many affiliated with the California Nurses Assn., the legislations sponsor, convened in the Capitol rotunda, where they unfurled a banner that blared Inaction = Death, before handing off signs with written complaints to a member of Rendons staff. The rally, on the heels of a smaller demonstration at Rendons district office on Tuesday, is a sign of how single-payer backers continue to seethe after the bill, SB 562, stalled on Friday. Patty Estefes, a retired nurse from San Jose, said the campaign for single-payer heathcare, in which the government would cover all residents healthcare costs, was her passion. Rendon sabotaged SB 562 and we want to take the knife out, said Estefes, explaining her sign, which had an image of the California grizzly bear stabbed in the back with a blade labeled Rendon. The image has become popular among supporters of the bill, although other Democrats have said the violence of the image makes them uneasy. View Twitter post A depiction of violence in any form is unacceptable and inappropriate. #StandwithRendon #StrongerTogether #DeathThreatsUnacceptable pic.twitter.com/KLF8nNvxdZ  Rudy Salas Jr (@rudysalasjr) June 27, 2017 Meanwhile, another union leader, Robbie Hunter of the powerful State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, chimed in Wednesday with support for the state Assembly speaker. Working people have real fights, and they are not with a labor champion like Anthony Rendon, said Hunter, who denounced the criticism from single-payer advocates as unfair and unwarranted attacks. Facebook

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Garcetti and Schwarzenegger urge cities and states to lead fight against climate change in Trump era By Michael Finnegan Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on Wednesday called on cities and states to lead the nations fight against global warming as the federal government begins to reverse its climate change policies. The Republican former film star  who signed a landmark 2006 law to reduce Californias carbon emissions  and the Democratic mayor spoke out against President Trumps denial of climate science at a forum at Creative Artists Agency in Century City. Both argued that steps taken by cities and states to promote renewable energy could largely make up for the Trump administrations withdrawal from the worldwide Paris agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Facebook

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California voters could decide in 2020 whether to remove mandatory punishment for falsifying U.S. citizenship records By Jazmine Ulloa A proposed California law would let state voters decide in November 2020 whether to remove the mandatory punishment for a person who falsifies citizenship documents. The legislation by Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (D-Pacoima) would make the crime a wobbler, meaning prosecutors would have the discretion to charge suspects in such cases with either felony offenses or lower-level misdemeanors. That, supporters say, would bring the penalties in line with those for similar crimes committed by legal residents who falsify government records, such as drivers licenses. Assembly Bill 222 moved out of the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday with a 5-2 vote along party lines. An amendment added Tuesday places the issue on the ballot in November 2020. Bocangera said the measure was introduced as a response to President Trumps hard-line stance on immigration and would reverse part of Proposition 187, a 1994 California ballot measure to deny public services to immigrants in the country illegally. The bill would repeal provisions in the penal code that require a person to serve an automatic five-year mandatory prison sentence or pay a $75,000 fine if they are convicted on charges of manufacturing, distributing or selling false documents to conceal someone elses citizenship or residency status. It has the support of the Los Angeles County district attorneys office, which says there are far more serious crimes that carry substantially lower penalties. Today, if an underage college student uses a fake ID to purchase a six-pack of beer, he or she can be charged with a misdemeanor, Bocanegra said in a statement. However, if an immigrant is caught using that same fake ID, he or she is automatically charged with a felony and is subject to five years in prison. Facebook

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Its all good: Gov. Jerry Brown (again) signs a budget without any vetoed spending By John Myers Gov. Jerry Brown, signs bills in his Capitol office on Oct. 9, 2015. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Gov. Jerry Brown holds two unique records when it comes to state budgets. No governor has signed more of them, and none in modern times have been as hesitant to veto items they dont like. In the budget he signed on Monday, Brown made no changes. Its not the first time. This was Browns second consecutive budget in which he took no veto actions, and his third veto-free budget since 1982. Governors have line-item veto power to erase budget expenditures, decisions that arent subject to review by the Legislature. Previous chief executives have used their unilateral power far more often, a way to trim spending from a variety of state budget-related programs. State documents show former Gov. George Deukmejian holds the modern record for the most budget changes, issuing 367 line-item vetoes on July 21, 1983. In total amount of spending, the record belongs to former Gov. Pete Wilson, whose budget vetoes in 1998 added up to more than $1.9 million. Brown also has the distinction of issuing fewer vetoes of stand-alone legislation of any governor in the last half-century, suggesting its a sign of respect for the legislative branch of government. The governors signature on the latest state budget sets in place $183.2-billion in spending, covering a wide range of programs and services while setting aside more in cash reserves than ever before. Read More Facebook

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Campaign to recall freshman state senator submits more than enough signatures to qualify for the ballot By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton) at the Capitol on April 20. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The campaign against state Sen. Josh Newman has turned in more than enough signatures to force the freshman Democrat from Fullerton into a recall election. Republican Carl DeMaio, a lead organizer of the effort, said the group submitted 84,988 signatures on Tuesday. More signatures are being collected but only 63,500 registered voters in the 29th Senate District are needed to put the recall question on the ballot. It shows that there is an unbelievable grass roots movement to fire Josh Newman for his disasterous vote to support an increase in the gas tax, said DeMaio, a conservative radio talk show host from San Diego. The recall drive was complicated by recently enacted legislation that allows voters to ask that their signatures not be included in the recall petitions if they felt they were misled. Elections officials in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties must now determine whether there are sufficient valid signatures to qualify the recall. Mike Roth, a spokesman for the campaign against the recall, said special interests including Chevron have helped fuel a misleading petition drive. The recall petition is a costly power grab by out-of-district special interests that wont save taxpayers a dime and wont solve any problem voters care about, Roth said. What it will do is cost up to $3 million in tax dollars that would be better spent on our schools and public safety. Facebook

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In massive shake-up, Gov. Jerry Brown breaks up Californias scandal-plagued tax collection agency By Patrick McGreevy In a move that triggers the most dramatic shake-up of the California Board of Equalization in its 138-year history, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Tuesday that strips the embattled state tax collection agency of most of its powers and duties as officials scramble to create an entirely new department by July 1. The board is the target of an investigation by the state Department of Justice, and its employees and members have been accused by auditors of mismanagement, including putting $350 million in sales taxes in the wrong accounts and improperly interfering with decisions to open field offices and transfer staff. The governor signed a bill that pares the state board from an agency with 4,800 workers to one of 400 employees, shifting the other staff engaged in the collection of sales and excise taxes to a new California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. The elected, five-member Board of Equalization will also give up its role hearing taxpayer appeals to a new Office of Tax Appeals, leaving the board to advocate for taxpayers and continue setting rates for gas taxes and pipeline levies, and making sure counties fairly assess property taxes. Anticipating the governors action, officials had already started work to create a new state department by July 1. Its a short period, acknowledged Marybel Batjer, secretary of the California Government Operations Agency, who is coordinating the changes. The new department will be headed by a director appointed by the governor and requiring state Senate approval. Brown will also appoint a chief deputy and chief counsel. The recruitment is underway for those positions, Batjer said, adding that the transition will continue after July 1, obviously. Not every i will be dotted and t crossed between now and July 1. We will do our mighty best to do the most important things before July 1. Learn more on the history of the state board and whats next. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown approves a $183-billion state budget, though a few details are unfinished By John Myers (Justin Sullivan/Getty) Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed into law a $183.2-billion budget, a spending plan with significant boosts for public schools and a variety of programs to help Californias most needy residents. While the blueprint depends on a series of other related bills that havent reached his desk, Browns action largely ratifies the plan approved by the Legislature and ensures the state will have a budget in place for the new fiscal year that begins Saturday. This budget provides money to repair our roads and bridges, pay down debt, invest in schools, fund the earned income tax credit and provide Medi-Cal health care for millions of Californians, Brown said in a written statement released by his office. The budget boosts total state and local spending on K-12 education and community colleges to $74.5 billion, roughly $11,000 per pupil in the coming school year. It also increases funding for the University of California and Cal State University systems, and provides additional money for preschool and child care programs. Brown and lawmakers agreed to devote a portion of new tobacco tax dollars to higher payments for doctors and dentists that treat patients in Medi-Cal, the states healthcare program for the poor. Divvying up the dollars generated by last falls Proposition 56 was among one of the most contentious issues during spring budget negotiations. The budget sets aside additional money in the states rainy-day reserve fund, growing the contingency account to $8.5 billion. Brown, who rarely uses his line-item veto power in trimming budgets, left entirely intact the plan ratified by the Legislature on June 15. While the governor signed 15 budget-related bills Tuesday, a handful of other related bills have yet to make their way to his desk. Those include a plan to make an extra $6-billion payment to the California Public Employees Retirement System, or CalPERS, borrowing the money from surplus state revenues. The plan was approved by the state Senate on Monday. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says GOP healthcare bill cuts right into the heart of what is already a divided nation By Sarah D. Wire Californias senators, Kamala Harris, left, and Dianne Feinstein. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) One in three California residents are covered by Medicaid, and California is thought to have the most to lose if Republicans gather enough votes to roll back major aspects of the Affordable Care Act. California would see the nations biggest increase in uninsured people by next year and face a $24-billion budget shortfall by 2026 because of reduced Medicaid funding, Californias Democratic senators and Gov. Jerry Brown warned during a call with reporters on Tuesday. The Californians call was just one of dozens of events House and Senate Democrats held Tuesday to try to stir up anger over the bill. Brown called the bill divisive, saying it puts tax cuts for the wealthy above healthcare for the poor. This is such a political bill, he said. This bill will be the most divisive maneuver, cutting right into the heart of what is already a divided nation. The bill would increase the number of people without health coverage by 22 million and push up medical costs for millions of other poor and sick Americans, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. After pledging to pass the bill this week, Senate Republicans abruptly delayed a vote until after the July Fourth recess. A handful of Republicans have announced they are leery of the bill, saying it either goes too far or doesnt go far enough, and the White House is lobbying them to get on board. Every major medical association has come out against the bill, which was written by a small group of senators behind closed doors. Sen. Kamala Harris said the bill is being rushed to the Senate floor without hearings, debate or much time for senators to review it. Its absolutely wrong, it is harmful and it is unconscionable. The bill would restructure our nations entire health care system, she said. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said its not enough to amend the existing GOP bill, and Congress needs to start over instead. She said 10 or 12 Republican senators need to defect so the bill is not revived after a few changes, as a similar bill was in the House. I am optimistic that it is doable to kill it, Feinstein said. Its the most indefensible bill Ive actually seen in 24 years in the Senate. Facebook

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National Republicans target California water needs in new ads against House Democrats By Sarah D. Wire The National Republican Congressional Committee is going after five California Democrats for votes on a water issue. The online ads are identical except for one line tailored to target each Democrat: Reps. John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, Ami Bera of Elk Grove, Salud Carbajal of Santa Barbara, Raul Ruiz of Palm Desert and Scott Peters of San Diego. They specifically are about the Democrats voting against a bill to funnel dam permits through a single federal agency in an effort to speed up new water storage projects. Tell Congressman Garamendi to stop letting politics get in the way of our water, one ad says. Sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), the bill passed the House last week, with a 233-180 largely partisan vote. Democrats need 24 seats to regain control of the House, and are expected to focus their attention in the midterms on tying Republicans to President Trump. Their list of seats they need to flip includes 9 of the 14 California seats held by Republicans. The ads, which will run online for the next week, could be the first glimpse of an NRCC strategy of trying to keep the focus on local issues in the 2018 election. California Democrats want to help radical environmentalists more than their drought-stricken constituents. If Democrats continue to sit on their hands and let this chance to capture much-needed water float on by, the NRCC will hold them accountable, said spokesman Jack Pandol. Facebook

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Only a few California counties may use the new state law for sending every voter a ballot in the mail By John Myers A broad effort to close thousands of California neighborhood polling places in favor of absentee ballots and multi-purpose vote centers has yet to find traction beyond a handful of counties. Data collected by Secretary of State Alex Padillas office concludes only two counties have a plan in place to implement the sweeping change in state election law enacted last year. As many as 14 counties can do so in 2018, with Los Angeles County and others able to switch to the system in 2020. Change is hard, said Jill LaVine, registrar of voters in Sacramento County, one of the counties that has already approved adoption of the system to swap polling places for a limited number of vote centers offering several different election services. Meanwhile, leaders in the county that has done the most planning to move toward changing its election system -- Orange County -- have rejected the new law for 2018. Read More Facebook

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Nurses union uses the image of a California bear stabbed in the back after single-payer bill is blocked Facebook

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Rep. Grace Napolitano to miss House votes for several weeks while husband receives cancer treatment By Sarah D. Wire Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Norwalk) will miss House votes while her husband, Frank Napolitano, undergoes chemotherapy and radiation to treat esophageal cancer, her spokesman said. The congresswoman, 80, easily beat out former Democratic state Assemblyman Roger Hernandez of West Covina in the November election. She said in April that she would seek reelection in 2018, and her husbands health does not change her plan to seek an 11th term, spokesman Jerry ODonnell said. Napolitano has missed the last two weeks of House votes, though shes working some from the district, and is expected to remain in California for several more weeks to care for her husband during the treatment, ODonnell said. He did not know for sure how long Napolitano would be gone, but it is possible she might make it back for some votes during the seven-week-long treatment, he said. Napolitano said by phone she will try to return if the House votes again on the GOP health care bill. I intend to be back at work soon, Napolitano said. The House leaves Friday for a one-week break and leaves again at the end of July for the August recess. Napolitano suffered a minor stroke in 2016 that affected her ability to write and slightly slowed her walk. For the record, 8:47 a.m.: An earlier version of this post identified the type of cancer Napolitanos husband has as lung cancer. It is esophageal cancer. 8:47 a.m., June 27: This post has been updated with a quote from Napolitano. 2:45 p.m. This post has been updated to correct how many terms the congresswoman has served. 2:26 p.m. This post has been updated with more details about when Napolitano might return. This post was originally published at 2:06 p.m. Facebook

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After a career in the majority, Jimmy Gomez prepares for life in the minority in Washington By Sarah D. Wire (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez has spent his entire political career as a member of the majority party. When hes sworn in as central and northeast Los Angeles newest member of Congress in the coming weeks, hell be the most junior Democrat  194th out of 194  in Congress. Hell have to find a path forward in a Congress dominated by the opposing party. Even if Democrats win back control, hell have hundreds of more senior and just as eager colleagues ahead of him in line. Read More Facebook

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Rep. Maxine Waters focuses on GOP healthcare bill at packed town hall By Andrea Castillo (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times) Rep. Maxine Waters, who spoke Saturday at a packed town hall meeting in Gardena, said she worries some Americans will be forced to do what her family did if the Republican healthcare bill passes. Senate Republicans have pledged to pass a bill before the July Fourth holiday. To illustrate why she believes everyone should have access to comprehensive healthcare, the Los Angeles Democrat said she and her 12 siblings never saw a physician or a dentist their entire childhood. I was born at home in St. Louis back in the day when it was hard for minorities to get into hospitals, she said. Read More Facebook

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This former Jeff Denham challenger wont run again, but hes launching a committee to elect Democrats By Christine Mai-Duc Two-time congressional challenger Michael Eggman says he wont try for a third campaign against Republican Rep. Jeff Denham (Turlock), but hes hoping to help Democrats running against the him. Eggman, a beekeeper and farmer, announced Monday that hes starting a political action committee to help oust Republicans in seven seats, including Denhams in the Central Valley, which Democrats have targeted for 2018. The committee, Red to Blue California, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission in March but so far hasnt reported raising any money. Andrew Feldman, a spokesman for the PAC, said the group has taken in about $50,000 and its goal is to raise at least $7 million in the 2018 cycle. Eggman will serve as chair of the committee. In a statement, Eggman said that while he lost last year, I learned a heck of a lot on the way. Now as Donald Trump threatens to upend the very fabric of what makes our country great, Im doing my part to join the resistance. In addition to Denhams seat, the committee will target Republican Reps. Steve Knight (Palmdale), David Valadao (Hanford), Ed Royce (Fullerton), Mimi Walters (Irvine), Dana Rohrabacher (Huntington Beach) and Darrell Issa (Vista). All seven were reelected in districts won by Hillary Clinton in the presidential election. The committee also plans to use some of the money to promote down-ballot candidates in each of the districts as a way of building a base of Democratic candidates. Eggman, a beekeeper and farmer who received a rare endorsement from Barack Obama in the Democrats unsuccessful quest to take back the House last year, lost to Denham by 5% in November. Spending in that race topped $14 million. Six Democrats have already filed to run in Denhams 10th Congressional District, including Josh Harder, a venture capital executive whose campaign manager worked for Eggman in 2016. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: Theres a powerful new ally of those who support a sanctuary state By John Myers Supporters of an ambitious California effort to limit law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities begin the week with a prominent new ally. On this weeks California Politics Podcast, we take a look at the impact of Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck endorsing the sanctuary state bill thats now under consideration in Sacramento. We also discuss the decision by Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) to run for governor, and how his conservative politics could have a big effect on how Republican voters view their choices in 2018. Im joined by Times staff writer Melanie Mason and Marisa Lagos of KQED News. Facebook

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California wont be passing a single-payer healthcare system any time soon  the plan is dead for this year By Melanie Mason View Twitter post A high-profile effort to establish a single-payer healthcare system in California sputtered on Friday when Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) decided to shelve the proposal. Rendon announced late Friday afternoon that the bill, SB 562 by state Sens. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), would not advance to a policy hearing in his house, dampening the measures prospect for swift passage this year. SB 562 was sent to the Assembly woefully incomplete, Rendon said in a statement. Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, including the fact it does not address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump Administration and voters to make SB 562 a genuine piece of legislation. Rendon took pains to note that his action does not kill the bill entirely  because it is the first year of a two-year session, it could be revived next year. But the move is nonetheless a major setback for legislation that has electrified the Democratic partys progressive flank. The California Nurses Assn., the bills sponsors and the states most vocal advocates for single-payer, blasted Rendons decision as cowardly. Acting in secret in the interests of the profiteering insurance companies late Friday afternoon abandons all those people already threatened by Congress and the Trump administration, Deborah Burger, the unions co-president, said in a statement. Burger continued: The people of California are counting on the Legislature to protect them now, not sometime next year, and as polls have shown Californians support this proposal by a wide majority. A solution to this health care emergency could be at hand; Speaker Rendon is standing in opposition. In a joint statement, Lara and Atkins, the measures authors, said they were disappointed the robust debate about healthcare for all that started in the California Senate will not continue in the Assembly this year. This issue is not going away, they added. Gov. Jerry Brown, who had signaled wariness about the proposals costs, said in a statement that Rendon made the case that theres clearly more work to do before anyone is in a position to vote on revamping Californias healthcare system. I recognize the tremendous excitement behind the measure, but basic and fundamental questions remain unanswered, Brown said. Updated at 6:44 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from Gov. Jerry Brown. Updated at 5:38 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from the California Nurses Assn. and the measures authors. This article was originally published at 4:38 p.m. Times staff writer Patrick McGreevy contributed to this report. Read More Facebook

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California politicians are in Dallas despite new ban on state employees traveling to Texas By Patrick McGreevy Sen. Ricardo Lara (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) A day after California banned state employees from going to Texas on official business, a group of politicians from the Golden State was in Dallas on Friday for a major conference. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra on Thursday announced he was prohibiting state employees from traveling at state expense to Texas and three other states that he determined have approved laws that discriminate against gay and transgender people. Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), who is openly gay, is among those attending the annual gathering of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). A spokesman said he is using his own money, not taxpayer funds. Lara voted for the bill that enacted the travel ban. Lara felt participating in a panel discussion on immigration was important amid debate over Gov. Greg Abbotts signage of a controversial immigration law that bans sanctuary cities for immigrants in the country illegally, spokesman Michael Soller said. Texas just passed one of the nations most anti-immigrant laws with Senate Bill 4, and California went down this road with Proposition 187 more than 20 years ago, Lara said in a statement. With LGBT and immigrant rights under assault across the country, I thought it was important to join other Latino leaders and show Californias example. Like Lara, West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem John Duran made plans to attend the Dallas convention well before Becerra announced the travel ban, which does not apply to non-state employees. Duran is the national chairman of NALEO and said the conference was scheduled for Dallas three years ago. I dont know about the LGBT laws in Texas or AG Becerras call for a boycott -- I am not only LGBT but also Latino, Duran said in an email, adding he is very angry over Texas SB 4, which requires law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials in enforcing immigration laws. I am here supporting my elected official colleagues in Texas from Austin, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas who are joining together to sue the state of Texas, Duran said. Being a Californian who worked against Gov. Pete Wilsons Prop 187 -- I have experiences and strategies to share with them. Facebook

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Texas responds to California LGBT travel ban, saying Golden State firms fleeing over taxation and regulation By Patrick McGreevy A day after California officials said they are banning state workers from traveling to Texas on official business, an aide to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott returned a verbal volley claiming mistreatment of businesses. On Thursday, California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said Texas and three other states were being put on a list of states that had adopted laws seen by Becerra as discriminatory to the LGBT community and therefore were off-limits for state-sponsored travel. That drew a response Friday from John Wittman, Abbotts press secretary. California may be able to stop their state employees, but they cant stop all the businesses that are fleeing over taxation and regulation and relocating to Texas, Wittman said. Becerra put Texas on the travel-ban list after the governor signed HB 3859 last week. The new law allows foster care agencies to deny adoptions and services to children and parents based on sincerely held religious beliefs. Becerra said the measure allows agencies to discriminate against children in foster care and potentially disqualify LGBT families from the states foster and adoption system. A spokesman for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin also criticized California officials. It is fascinating that the very same West Coast liberals who rail against the Presidents executive order, that protects our nation from foreign terrorists, have now contrived their own travel ban aimed at punishing states who dont fall in lockstep with their far-left political ideology, said Woody Maglinger, Bevins press secretary. Updated at 1:35 pm to include comment from Woody Maglinger. Facebook

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Rep. Tom McClintocks bill to streamline dam permits passes House largely on party lines By Sarah D. Wire Dam permits would be funneled through a single federal agency in an effort to speed up new water storage projects under a bill that passed the House on Thursday. Sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), the 233-180 vote was largely along partisan lines. Reps. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) and six other Democrats joined with Republicans to pass the bill. McClintock said the various local, state and federal agencies that must sign off on new projects dont have to communicate or set deadlines, and often require redundant information from permit applicants, which can make the application process drag on for years and drive up costs. Dam applications can go on endlessly, McClintock said after the vote. A lot of these projects become cost prohibitive. He pointed to a dam project proposed by the town of Foresthill in his district as an example. Conflicting demands from several federal agencies about a plan to install a spillway gate on the dam at the Sugar Pine Reservoir have driven up the cost, he said. The project application is still under review. So a $2-million project that was a heavy lift for a little community, but within reach, becomes an $11-million cost-prohibitive boondoggle, McClintock said. Under the bill, the Bureau of Reclamation would coordinate with other federal agencies on all aspects of a dam application and set deadlines for deciding whether to approve a project. Democrats who voted against the bill said the bureau would be able to set arbitrary deadlines for the at-times lengthy environmental reviews required for water projects, which could undermine reviews required by laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. Fixing the process isnt just about saving some headaches or a few hours of time. This is about making sure millions of people in California and across America have the water they need and deserve, said Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has filed similar legislation in the Senate, and McClintock said he is cautiously optimistic it will pass. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says Senate healthcare bill has same stench as House version Facebook

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Travis Allen, a conservative and controversial Orange County lawmaker, jumps into California governors race By Phil Willon Conservative Orange County Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) is jumping into Californias 2018 race for governor, a move that could splinter the GOP vote in what promises to be a crowded and competitive race. Travis, elected to the Legislature in 2012, said he decided to run because of the years of wasteful spending and dictatorial policies pushed by Jerry Brown and the Sacramento Democrats. I am running to be the next governor of California to take back our state for the forgotten ordinary citizens of California, who will no longer tolerate the squandering of our incredible natural abundance of people, economy, and resources by limousine liberals beholden to ravenous public sector union bosses and extremist environmentalists, Travis said in a statement announcing his campaign. Outspoken and controversial, Travis has filed a ballot measure to repeal the recently approved gas tax and sponsored legislation requiring voters to show photo ID. Allen has faced criticism for claiming that a new law that barred police from arresting people under 18 for soliciting sex or loitering with intent to commit prostitution was an effort to legalize child prostitution. The purpose of the law was to treat minors as victims of sex trafficking rather than offenders. Allen, 43, worked as a certified financial planner before he ran for the Legislature. His Assembly district includes all or portions of Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Fountain Valley and Garden Grove. Allen will face stiff competition from fellow Republican John Cox, a Rancho Santa Fe venture capitalist who already has put $3 million of his own money into his campaign. Former GOP Assemblyman David Hadley of Manhattan Beach also is exploring a run, and former Los Angeles Rams football player Rosey Grier announced plans to jump into the race but thus far has not established an official campaign. The race also has attracted a cadre of Democratic heavyweights, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang. Delaine Eastin, a former state legislator and state schools chief, is also running. In California, Democrats hold a 19-percentage point advantage over Republicans in voter registration, a strong head wind against GOP candidates running for statewide office. Because of the large field of Democrats in the race, a Republican could have a good shot of finishing in the top two in the June 2018 primary if they can put together GOP support. But Allens entry into the race could divide Republican voters, reducing the odds of a GOP candidate making it to the November general election. The first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the general election regardless of their party. Facebook

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Coastal panel spawned by 1930s oil scandal now a player in governors race By Michael Finnegan (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times) When John Chiang joined the State Lands Commission, it quickly became a platform to showcase his environmental record, starting with his 2007 vote to block construction of a shipping terminal for liquefied natural gas in Ventura County. The commission has served the same purpose for Gavin Newsom, who often uses his seat on the panel to remind Californians that he opposes offshore oil drilling. Now that both Chiang and Newsom are running for governor, they are drawing rare attention to the little-known but powerful State Lands Commission, which oversees 4 million acres of land beneath California waters. Read More Facebook

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Ballot measure to expand L.A. County Board of Supervisors advances By Patrick McGreevy State Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, wants to expand the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors from five to seven members. Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press ( Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors would be expanded from five to seven members and an elected chief executive post would be created under a measure recommended Wednesday by a state Senate panel despite opposition from the county. Two members of the countys 2015-16 civil grand jury testified that the group felt the current government is inadequate for a county of more than 10 million residents. They said that if the county was a state, it would be the eighth-largest state in the country based on population. The board is too small to adequately serve the diverse needs of county residents, grand jury member Molly Milligan told the Senate Governance and Finance Committee, before its 5-1 vote to recommend Senate Constitutional Amendment 12. The proposed statewide ballot measure was introduced by Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). The proposal was opposed by Phyllis Marshall, the chief legislative representative for Los Angeles County, who noted that the proposal would allow voters statewide to decide the governance structure for one county. Voters in other counties do not have sufficient knowledge to vote on a constitutional amendment to change the governing structure of Los Angeles County, Marshall told the panel before the measure was sent to another policy panel on its way to a possible full Senate vote. Facebook

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Kimberly Ellis blames Democratic Party hacks for losses in Tuesdays congressional races By Phil Willon Kimberly Ellis (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Kimberly Ellis, who has challenged the results of the California Democratic Party leadership election she lost, blamed party establishment hacks who are the worst in the biz for losses in congressional races in Georgia and South Carolina on Tuesday. Ellis, a progressive Bay Area Democrat who tapped into a wellspring of disaffected Bernie Sanders backers, on Tuesday night sent a tweet saying that it was time for a new coalition. That drew a sharp rebuke from veteran Democratic operative Bob Mulholland, who has criticized Ellis for not conceding. Ellis blamed her narrow May loss to Eric Bauman for state Democratic Party chairperson on voting irregularities. Ellis, who lost the race by 62 votes,has called on the party to conduct an independent audit of the election. Bauman rejected that request, saying the party already has a process in place to review contested elections. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members who were appointed during former chairman John Burtons tenure, is currently reviewing the election. On Friday, Bauman announced that the party hired the law firm of Olson Hagel & Fishburn LLC to oversee, advise and counsel the commission during the inquiry. Let's thank Jon Ossoff, his staff and the thousands of volunteers for their effort. Let's ignore Trump and Kimberly Ellis attacks on Ossoff.  Bob Mulholland (@Chico_Bob) June 21, 2017 Facebook

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These legislators are trying to make sure Jimmy Gomezs replacement in the Assembly is a woman By Christine Mai-Duc As soon as Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez announced he was running for Congress, his Assembly colleague Cristina Garcia got to work. Garcia, a legislator from Bell Gardens who became chair of the Womens Legislative Caucus in December, called Gomez, other Assembly members, and labor and environmental groups to make it clear: If Gomez won the 34th Congressional District and vacated his Assembly seat, her priority would be electing a woman in his place. With Gomez headed to Washington after his June 6 win, Garcia said its time to put her groups plan into action. Its simple, said Garcia in a recent interview. As long as we dont have parity, were going to fight at every opportunity to try to get another woman in office. Women hold 17 out of 80 seats in the state Assembly and nine of 40 of the state Senate seats. On Wednesday morning, the Democratic arm of the womens legislative caucus announced it was endorsing Wendy Carrillo, a Democrat who ran in the 34th District primary against Gomez, and who is the only woman running to replace him so far. I am impressed by her ongoing activism for environmental justice, womens rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrants and social justice movements that are the bedrocks of a progressive democracy and welcome the tenacity she will bring to further promote these issues in the state Legislature with a womans perspective, Garcia said in a statement. Eight other candidates have filed to run for or have announced campaigns for Gomezs 51st Assembly District. The election date and its accompanying filing deadlines have not yet been set, mainly because Gomez has not stepped down, so another woman could still jump in. But Garcia is hoping her caucus announcement will head that off. If the 34th Congressional District race is going to teach us any lessons, its that we dont have the luxury of having multiple women split the field, Garcia said. More than a dozen women ran in the crowded primary to replace Xavier Becerra in the central Los Angeles District. None of them won more than 10% of the vote. So Garcia and her colleagues havent just been talking about their mission; theyve been trying to shape the field of candidates, too. Garcia said she reached out to former 34th District hopefuls to gauge their interest, solicited names of potential female candidates from interest groups, and had conversations with half a dozen women who were considering jumping in. Garcia said she didnt discourage any women, but was up front with them about the challenges each might face. Shes also encouraged women who expressed interest to work it out among themselves in hopes that they could unite behind one female candidate. Its a somewhat new tactic for the womens caucus, which has struggled to unite on political endorsements in the past and is hoping to flex more muscle in Sacramento. We are being more strategic now, Garcia said. It cant just be like, I like you and you have a great heart. Thats not good enough. You have to put in the work and be able to build a coalition and win. Carrillo said it was unfortunate that none of the women in the 34th District race made it past the primary. But, she added: Men dont get asked the question of whether theyre worried about splitting the vote. The outcome in the congressional primary, Carrillo said, had more to do with a lack of money flowing to many of the womens campaigns, something she hopes to remedy. Ive learned a lot ... [about] just what it takes to build coalitions and how best to move forward in terms of having a strategy to win, Carrillo said. Ultimately, the voters are going to decide based on issues, Carrillo said. I think that I bring a very unique perspective, having grown up in the district, in terms of advocating for labor and for education and for healthcare and all the issues that residents care for. ------------ FOR THE RECORD June 21, 2:53 p.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Cristina Garcia became chair of the Womens Legislative Caucus in January. She took over the position in December. ------------ Facebook

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Prompted by San Bernardino shooting, House passes bill to require reports to Congress after terrorist attacks By Sarah D. Wire Evacuated workers pray on the fairway of the San Bernardino Golf Club shortly after the 2015 mass shooting at the nearby Inland Regional Center. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) Intelligence agencies would have to make recommendations to Congress on how to stop the next domestic terrorist attack under a bill inspired by the 2015 San Bernardino shooting. The bill, which passed the House on Tuesday without opposition, requires the Homeland Security secretary to submit a report to Congress within one year of a terrorist attack in the U.S. The report, which would be unclassified, must include details of what happened and recommendations for laws or policies that can be changed to prevent a similar attack. It would also include input from the attorney general, FBI director and the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), who represents San Bernardino, filed the bill about a year after the Dec. 2, 2015, shooting in which 14 people were killed and 22 were wounded by a married couple at the Inland Regional Center. Aguilar told The Times that individual members of Congress shouldnt have to press agencies for details about what happened after an attack. By nature every terrorist event is unique, and so we need something to prod the agencies to tell us why its unique and what we can do better, Aguilar said. There is no current requirement for the agencies to submit a report to Congress after a terrorist event. We think that it makes sense to do that and that it will help us learn from these events and become smarter about it. After the San Bernardino attack, the Justice Department worked with the Police Foundation, a Washington-based research group, to create a report, but it was aimed at training law enforcement on responding to an attack. We think there are more lessons to be learned, but that only happens when those agencies work with Congress on what we can change, Aguilar said. The bipartisan bill was backed by nine other Californians: Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley), Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana), Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro), David Valadao (R-Hanford), Jeff Denham (R-Turlock), Steve Knight (R-Palmdale), Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine). Aguilar said he is still working to line up a sponsor for the bill in the Senate. Facebook

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New super PAC targets seven California Republicans By Phil Willon Former Northern California Rep. Ellen Tauscher has launched a new super PAC targeting seven vulnerable Republicans in the states congressional delegation, hoping to aid the Democratic effort to win control of the House of Representatives in 2018. Each Republican represents a district that backed Hillary Clinton in the November election. On the Fight Back California PACs list are Reps. Jeff Denham of Turlock; David Valadao of Hanford; Steve Knight of Palmdale; Ed Royce of Fullerton; Mimi Walters of Irvine; Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach and Darrell Issa of Vista. Of those, the former congresswoman served with Issa, Royce and Rohrabacher. This isnt personal, Tauscher said. But the fact is that Im a Californian, and they dont vote in the interest of my state. Tauscher represented Northern Californias 10th Congressional District for 14 years before becoming undersecretary of State during the Obama administration in 2009. Katie Merrill, the PACs political strategist, said the campaign will target the Republicans records on issues that directly affect voters in the district, such as the GOPs efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We intend to soften the ground. So when the Democratic nominee emerges ... they are facing a significantly weakened incumbent, Merrill said. Updated at 4:02 p.m.: This story was updated to include a comment from Tauscher. Facebook

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Overhaul of Californias state tax board plagued by confusion, members say By Patrick McGreevy Board of Equalization Chairwoman Diane Harkey says there is confusion around the reorganization of the board. (Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times) State tax board members on Tuesday said there remain a lot of unanswered questions about how their agency will transfer many of its duties to two new offices, a reorganization approved last week by the state Legislature in response to problems with the panel. About 4,400 of the state Board of Equalizations 4,800 employees will be transferred to a new California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which will take over collection of sales and excise taxes, and an office of administrative law judges who will take over taxpayer appeals. The change was outlined by the boards executive director, David Gau, at a meeting with the panel Tuesday. I dont think anything is easy, Board Chairwoman Diane Harkey said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. I think its going to be expensive. There is a lot of confusion. Board member George Runner said there are questions about whether he can continue to hold educational events for taxpayers, while board member Jerome Horton said he wants to know whether he can continue to advocate for taxpayers. There are still some issues they need to work out, Horton said. Harkey said new bills will have to be approved with clarifying language on some issues. For instance, the newly approved legislation takes away the boards power to hear appeals after July 1 even though lawmakers want the board to continue handling the hearings until the new administrative law judges are operating Jan. 1. In addition, the board employs civil service workers who are trained for jobs that will no longer exist with the board, she said, adding that the new department is supposed to begin operating July 1. This is all still in flux. Its a huge step to take in a couple of weeks, Harkey said. Marybel Batjer, secretary of the California Government Operations Agency, has addressed the board employees, assuring them that they will be able to shift to jobs in the new department. She told The Times on Tuesday that planning has already begun for the new department, including the early stages of recruitment of its administrative staff. Meanwhile, board representatives, including Harkey, confirmed that investigators from the state attorney generals office have begun interviewing agency employees after Gov. Jerry Brown called for a probe into whether staff and resources were mishandled by the agency. Were just hearing that they are around, Harkey said of investigators. I think it scares everybody. Facebook

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Californias Clean Air Act waiver should be yanked, Trumps former environmental advisor says By Chris Megerian (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) The head of President Trumps Environmental Protection Agency may not be prepared to battle California over air regulations, but the man who led Trumps transition team for the department is ready. Myron Ebell, who works at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington and helped devise Trumps environmental agenda, said California should not be allowed to set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes. The state has that authority under a Clean Air Act waiver granted by President Obama, one of dozens that have been issued over the years. The waiver has to go, in my view, Ebell told journalists on Monday at a training program organized by the National Press Foundation. The problem, he said, is that the California regulations are a backdoor attempt to regulate fuel economy, a power thats reserved for the federal government. California said it would push forward on greenhouse gas rules earlier this year even though the Trump administration has opened the door to rolling them back on the federal level. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had previously suggested that the Trump administration could try to revoke Californias waiver, but during a recent Capitol Hill hearing he said it wasnt currently under review. Ebell has denied mainstream science on global warming. But apart from the waiver he wants to see revoked, he told journalists that he didnt have a problem with California trying to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions. I believe in competitive federalism, he said. The only problem, Ebell said, is whether Gov. Jerry Brown tries to conduct his own foreign policy and sign international treaties. Facebook

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A new audit says some California agencies sidestepped competitive bidding rules on contracts By Patrick McGreevy Two California agencies in charge of high-tech projects failed to provide proper oversight for billions of dollars in contracts awarded without competitive bidding, according to a state audit released Tuesday. State law requires the Department of General Services and the California Department of Technology (CDT) to use the competitive bidding process whenever possible to ensure fair competition and eliminate favoritism, fraud, and corruption, State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote in a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown. The investigation examined a sample of those contracts and found nine noncompetitive requests valued at almost $1 billion that agencies likely could have avoided had they engaged in sufficient planning, Howle wrote. The auditors cited approval of a request by the California High-Speed Rail Authority for a $3-million noncompetitive contract amendment to provide financial consulting services. The proposal was submitted 17 days before the existing contract was set to expire. When justifying its noncompetitive request, High-Speed Rail stated that the financial consulting services were critical to its mission and that the vendors skills were specialized and not widely available. However, it did not provide a valid reason why this vendor alone could meet the states needs, as financial consulting services are not unique, the audit found. In all, auditors estimated that the state awarded at least $44 billion in noncompetitive contracts of more than $1 million each during the five fiscal years ending June 30, 2016. The two agencies have the power to enforce contract rules but they rarely employed them, allowing agencies to continue inappropriately using noncompetitive requests, the audit concluded. State workers also allegedly wrote reports in ways that misled about which projects were competitively bid. In one case, a $3-million contract was identified as competitively bid, to which an additional $31 million in noncompetitive contracts was added through nine amendments. Amy Tong, director of the California Deptartment of Technology, agreed with the auditors recommendations, saying the agency believes that the recommendations will strengthen CDTs oversight of information technology and telecommunication procurements, especially those acquired through the noncompetitive request process. Daniel C. Kim, director of the Department of General Services, also agreed to improve the process, writing to auditors that his agency will take appropriate action to address the issues presented in the report. Facebook

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Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer has a big decision to make By Phil Willon Tom Steyer at a Los Angeles high school in 2014. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press) For months, billionaire Democratic donor and environmental activist Tom Steyer has been acting like a candidate running for governor  hobnobbing with Democratic loyalists, putting out a position paper on income inequality and continuing his aggressive efforts to combat climate change. Steyer says hes still considering jumping into the race. But he may have another target on his radar. Steyer has starting mounting his own challenge to President Trump, going so far as to call for impeachment and use his nonprofit, NextGen Climate, to encourage citizens to lobby their congressional representatives for it. Read More Facebook

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Lobbying firm fined $4,000 for violating gift limit buying dinner for former state Sen. Ronald Calderon By Patrick McGreevy Ron Calderon, shown in while still in the senate in 2014, was treated to a dinner by a lobbying firm that violated a gift limit. ( (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)) Mercury Public Affairs has agreed to pay $4,000 in fines to Californias ethics watchdog agency for violating the $10 gift limit on lobbying firms when it provided dinners worth $200 to former state Sen. Ronald Calderon and his wife. In October, Calderon was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty in a public corruption case unrelated to the Mercury dinner. The fines proposed against Mercury by the enforcement staff of the state Fair Political Practices Commission stem from violating the $10 gift limit and failing to report that Calderons wife also received a dinner, according to the investigative report. Calderon and his wife attended an April 2013 dinner paid for by Mercury at Mastros in Beverly Hills. Also present was former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a non-lobbyist partner of Mercury, and four other unidentified people. The violation of the state Political Reform Act was found by a random audit by the state Franchise Tax Board. Mercurys $200 gift to Sen. Calderon, while not extravagant, significantly exceeded the gift limit, the investigative report said. A central purpose of the act is to prevent improper influence by lobbyists and the acts strict gift limit on lobbying firms is intended to effectuate that purpose. The commission will vote on the fines on June 29. Facebook

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California bill aims to revive broadband privacy rules that were killed by Trump and Congress By Melanie Mason A woman works on her laptop in the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library. ( Mark Lennihan / Associated Press) Several months ago, President Trump signed into law a repeal of sweeping privacy regulations limiting what broadband providers can do with customer data. Now, an Assembly Democrat is trying to resuscitate those rules for Californians. Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park) unveiled a measure on Monday that would largely enshrine the sputtered federal regulations into California state law. The bill would require Internet service providers, such as Verizon, Comcast and AT&T, to get permission from customers before using, selling or permitting access to data about their browsing history. Such restrictions were crafted by the Federal Communications Commission under the Obama administration. But the FCC under Trump sought to roll back those rules before they went into effect. Congress approved the repeal in March, and the president signed it. Congress and the administration went against the will of the vast majority of Americans when they revoked the FCC rules, Chau said at a news conference, adding that with his measure, AB 375, California is goi
The White House took comfort Thursday that former FBI Director James B. Comey did not directly accuse President Trump of trying to obstruct the bureaus investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Beyond that, bad news abounded. In a nationally televised Senate hearing, Comey repeatedly accused the president of lying and at least tacitly attempting to interfere.

No Republican senator openly contradicted him.

1 / 15 Former FBI director James Comey heads to a secure room to continue his testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP) 2 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in under bright lights at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 3 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey takes his seat at the beginning of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) 4 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Andrew Harnik / AP) 5 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey testifies June 8 at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) 6 / 15 Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Richard M. Burr (R-N.C.) prepare for former FBI Director James Comeys testimony at the intelligence committee hearing June 8. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) 7 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in before testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 8 / 15 Ppatrons at Shaws Tavern watch former FBI Director James Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee / Getty Images) 9 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey, left, is welcomed by Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), right, and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) to Thursdays hearing on Capitol Hill. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) 10 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) 11 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey takes his seat before testifying at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) 12 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey answers questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill on Thursday. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) 13 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey arrives to testify during a US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC, June 8, 2017. (MANDEL NGAN / AFP/Getty Images) 14 / 15 Former FBI Director James Comey arrives to testify during a US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington,DC, June 8, 2017. (MANDEL NGAN / AFP/Getty Images) 15 / 15 The hearing room is prepared for Former FBI Director James Comey to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (Alex Brandon / AP)

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In what represented a showdown between Comey and the president, several members of his party, including the chairman of the Intelligence Committee that is investigating the role Russia played and whether anyone in the Trump campaign colluded, endorsed the truthfulness of the fired FBI director.

For a president mired in difficulties that are both political and legal, the hearing demonstrated a new and bracing shortage of avid support for Trump in the Senate.

Their reticence contrasted sharply with the message from the presidents personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, who told reporters after the public hearing that Comey had testified falsely, although Kasowitzs remarks themselves included questionable statements.

The lawyers aggressive defense of Trump was the exception.

Some senators defended Trump gingerly, some indirectly. Others, like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a member of the intelligence panel, chose equivocation. Asked if he could rule out the possibility that Trump obstructed justice, Rubio said:

Im not prepared to reach a conclusion on that, because were not done with all the other pieces that are missing. Rubio said. He added that he did not know if Trumps conduct rises to criminality, but that Trumps suggestion to Comey that he halt the investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn was not appropriate.

Other Republicans seem for now to have hit on an even more tepid justification for Trumps actions  that he is a Washington naif who wandered into questionable territory due to unfamiliarity with the ways of the executive branch.

The presidents new at this. Hes new to government, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said at a briefing during the hearing.

Former FBI Director James Comey arrives for a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Andrew Harnik / AP)

Comey, by contrast, is anything but naive, a fact he reinforced with his matter-of-fact recitation of pulling off the ultimate D.C. insider move  orchestrating the leak of his own memos in order to provoke the naming of a special counsel, effectively taking control of the probe away from Trumps Department of Justice.

That move may have played into Trumps characterization of himself as battling against a cabal of greater Washington, but the description by Comey drew little more than a shrug among the senators, even Republicans.

The limited willingness of senators of his own party to stand up for Trump shows how much the president is operating from a position of weakness.

Almost since the beginning of Trumps presidential candidacy, most Americans  and a chunk of his own voters  have told pollsters that they believed he was untrustworthy. His remarks during his campaign and in his presidency have been replete with provable falsehoods, from erroneous statements about the size of his inauguration crowds to denials that hes uttered words captured on video.

Trumps aides have tried to brush off media attention to that credibility problem, but it appears to have taken a toll. Trumps job approval, around 40% on average, is at or near the lowest point of his presidency and well below the ratings for most past presidents in their first terms.

And now, when he urgently needs members of his party to believe him, not his accuser, few, at least in the Senate, appear willing to vouch wholesale for Trumps truthfulness as he heads into what seems likely to be a long summer and fall of special counsel investigations.

His support Thursday seemed to erode not because of any significant breakthrough but from the contrast between the president and the former FBI director.

Comey confirmed, in person and under oath, blockbuster news articles about the presidents actions. At the same time, he acknowledged the ambiguous nature of what he took to be Trumps order to halt an investigation into former Trump advisor Flynn  the presidential action that seems closest so far to legal jeopardy.

Youre big. Youre strong. Why didnt you stop and say, Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

As telling as anything: Republicans as well as Democrats seemed to take his assertions at face value. The strongest criticism leveled by either side centered on Comeys decision not to confront Trump, especially in the White House meeting in February at which Trump allegedly asked for lenience for Flynn.

Youre big. Youre strong, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat from California, asked. Why didnt you stop and say, Mr. President, this is wrong. I cannot discuss this with you?

Its a great question, Comey replied. Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in.

Since the president has denied the conversation took place, that line of critique by senators from both parties assumed that Comeys version of events should be believed.

To side with Trump, Republicans would have to take up arms with a president who often contradicts his own aides carefully crafted defenses. They also would have to cast aside a longtime government attorney with a reputation for unflinching independence.

During the 2016 election, even as his agents were secretly investigating Trumps campaign, Comey harshly criticized Hillary Clintons actions in using a private email server. On Thursday, Comey criticized both current Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Obama administration Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, actions that together gave his statements more credibility, judging by the deferential statements of the Senate panel.

Republican Sen. James Risch of Idaho praised both Comey and the seven pages of prepared remarks about his interactions with Trump that were made public on Wednesday.

America needs more like you, and we really appreciate it, he said. Yesterday, I got, and everybody got, the seven pages of your direct testimony. I read it, then I read it again, and all I could think was, number one, how much I hated the class of legal writing when I was in law school. And you were the guy that probably got the A.

Committee Chairman Richard M. Burr opened by lauding Comeys candor and closed by praising his credibility as somebody that loves this country enough to tell it like it is.

Much time remains in the investigations into the Trump campaign and administration  investigations that Comey made clear now are likely to include the president himself. The remarks by the former FBI chief reinforced that at this early stage the investigation is sketched in grays, rather than in more conclusive black and white.

The Watergate investigation, to which the current investigations have been compared, is remembered in flashbacks now as a series of quick and telling moments that prompted the departure of President Nixon.

But it actually unspooled over a lengthy period, the better of two years from the start through the presidential resignation in 1974. Other independent investigations, such as those of President Clinton, have taken years longer.

As Comey took his oath Thursday, Trump was serving only the 140th day of his presidency. If Thursday is any indication, rough days lie ahead.

Read more from Cathleen Decker 

cathleen.decker@latimes.com

Twitter: @cathleendecker

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After a tumultuous month at the White House and a public search that often resembled a reality television show, President Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday to announce a mainstream choice to replace fired FBI Director James B. Comey: a former Justice Department prosecutor and white-collar criminal defense lawyer who is likely to win Senate approval.

Trumps surprise choice of Christopher A. Wray, who led the Justice Departments criminal division from 2003 to 2005, caught House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other senior Republicans off guard.

While at the Justice Department, Wray led headline-grabbing investigations of corporate fraud, including the prosecution of top officials at Enron Corp., the energy giant that went bust in 2001. He also played a role in the agencys scramble to track terrorists after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

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While in private practice, Wray represented embattled Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey during the states Bridgegate scandal.

In the weeks since Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9, the president has interviewed a slew of candidates to head an agency that is investigating Trumps campaign and at least one of his top White House aides for dealings with Russia, FBI inquiries that Trump has denounced as a witch hunt.

His loyalty pledge must be to the Constitution and the country, not to Donald Trump.  Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)

At least six candidates  including three current and former members of Congress  later withdrew their names from consideration. While none described it as a snub, the chorus of thanks but no thanks highlighted Trumps mounting difficulty in filling dozens of top-level positions in his administration.

Wray, 50, is likely to face tough questions in his confirmation hearings as to whether he can maintain the FBIs traditional independence in the Trump era. He also may be grilled by Democrats on whether he helped prepare or approve Justice Department memos for the George W. Bush administration that critics said sanctioned torture.

His loyalty pledge must be to the Constitution and the country, not to Donald Trump, said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Trumps early-morning tweet appeared aimed at least in part at seizing public attention at the start of two days of nationally televised congressional hearings that will try to determine whether Trump sought to pressure Comey and other top U.S. officials to get the FBI to back off the various Russia investigations.

But the presidents announcement was overshadowed when the Senate Intelligence Committee unexpectedly released a seven-page statement by Comey that detailed his account of nine one-on-one meetings and phone calls with Trump before being fired.

Wray has most recently worked as a litigation partner at King & Spalding, an international law firm with 900 lawyers in 19 offices in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, according to the firms website. The married father of two called it a great honor to be chosen to lead the FBI.

I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country, Wray said in a statement issued by the White House.

In the same statement, Trump described Wray as an impeccably qualified individual who would serve the nation as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity.

In a rare bit of bipartisanship, some of Trumps toughest critics applauded the choice.

Considering some of the more political candidates who were being floated, and the presidents abysmal judgment, the country should breathe a sigh of relief that he chose a talented, credentialed, respected, deeply experienced individual like Wray, said Norman Eisen, a former ethics czar to President Obama who has harshly criticized Trump.

Eisen said he got to know Wray during the federal prosecution of officials from Enron, the former Houston-based energy giant whose leaders were charged with fraud, money laundering, insider trading and other crimes after the $64-billion company collapsed in what was then the nations largest bankruptcy.

Eisen, who worked on the defense team while Wray oversaw the prosecution, called Wray tough but fair. He said Wray avoided trying to capitalize on public anger but did not pull punches against an energy company seen as close to Bushs administration.

Another frequent Trump critic, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), called Wray tough, qualified and principled.

Trumps use of a tweet to announce his FBI pick solidified Twitters role as an official mode of communication at the White House. He did so days after several senior advisors, including Kellyanne Conway, said reporters were paying too much attention to the presidents tweets.

The choice of Wray surprised many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will review his nomination  and even surprised some in the White House. Trumps press office took more than five hours to issue a four-paragraph news release.

Born in Massachusetts, Wray graduated from Yale University in 1989 and three years later from Yale Law School, where he edited the Yale Law Review. After a year clerking for a federal appeals judge, he became a federal prosecutor in 1997 in the Northern District of Georgia, which includes Atlanta.

He came to Washington in 2001 to join the Justice Department as an associate deputy attorney general. Two years later, he was promoted to lead the departments criminal division.

In 2004, during a showdown between the Bush White House and the Justice Department over a secret surveillance program, Wray was among the officials who threatened to resign if the secret program was renewed without changes.

When then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft lay in a hospital bed and White House aides were headed to his room to pressure him to renew the program, Wray stopped Comey in the hallway to join those standing up to the White House, according to a 2008 account in the Washington Post.

Look, I dont know whats going on, but before you guys all pull the rip cords, please give me a heads-up so I can jump with you, he said. In the end, Bush backed down and the program was changed.

In his highest-profile case since leaving government, Wray represented Christie in Bridgegate, a case that helped sink the governors hopes of winning national office.

In 2016, three of Christies top aides were convicted of deliberately creating a massive traffic jam at the George Washington Bridge, a major artery into New York, to punish a local mayor who had declined to endorse Christie in his state reelection bid.

Christie, a former U.S. attorney from New Jersey, was not accused of wrongdoing. He described Wray on Wednesday as the gold standard for lawyers.

When I had to retain legal counsel during a very, very troubling, confusing and difficult time for me, I made one phone call and that was to Chris Wray, he told reporters. I cant give a better recommendation than that.

Before choosing Wray, Trump spent a month considering a long list of politicians, former prosecutors and others. A parade of candidates trooped through the Justice Department and White House for interviews in an unusually public display.

At one point last month, Joe Lieberman, a former U.S. senator from Connecticut who ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 2000, was considered the front-runner. But he soon withdrew his name, as did Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

Others who pulled their names from the shortlist included Michael J. Garcia, a New York judge and former U.S. attorney; former FBI official Richard McFeely; and Alice Fisher, a former assistant attorney general.

Trump settled on Wray after interviewing him in the last week at the White House along with John Pistole, a former director of the Transportation Security Administration. The president said little about Wray in speeches later Wednesday in Cincinnati that focused on infrastructure and healthcare.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

Twitter: @noahbierman

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @JTanfani

Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

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Top California Democrats worry that the escalating feud over the outcome of the state partys selection of a new leader may fracture the membership and undercut the states emerging role as the nations political counterweight to the policies of President Trump.

Kimberly Ellis, a progressive Bay Area Democrat who tapped into a wellspring of disaffected Bernie Sanders backers, continues to blame her narrow loss on voting irregularities she alleges corrupted the election of Eric Bauman as chairman last month.

Bauman accuses Ellis of distorting the truth and being unable to accept defeat, and the war of words has escalated. His influential allies, including powerful labor unions and state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, have called on Ellis to concede before she damages a party that now wields almost unprecedented political power in California.

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Woven through the very public dispute have been allegations of voter fraud and back-room dealing as powerful Democratic leaders pleaded for both sides to find a peaceful resolution.

Its out of hand, said former state party Chairman John Burton, who did not endorse in the race for his successor. It certainly isnt helpful.

The stakes are high, with Trump in the White House and a fast-approaching 2018 election that provides Democrats an opportunity to take control of the House of Representatives. While Californias 8.7 million registered Democrats may be unaware of the state partys leadership battle, the organization holds enormous sway over the partys politicians and the positions they take  using its fundraising machine and statewide network of activists to support its favored candidates.

The state Democratic Party has recovered from similar clashes in the past, most recently after the 2004 presidential election when energized followers of Howard Deans grass-roots presidential campaign felt shut out by Californias old-guard Democrats backing eventual party nominee John Kerry.

Kimberly Ellis. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

State Controller Betty Yee, an Ellis supporter, said she was disturbed by the tenor of the dispute, especially coming from two Democrats who campaigned on their devotion to progressive ideals.

In a message sent to party delegates, Yee urged Ellis and Bauman to find a peaceful resolution, saying Californians are counting on the Democratic Party to uphold our values.

Still, Yee supports Ellis call for an independent audit of the election held during the California Democratic Partys convention in Sacramento on May 20. Ellis lost to Bauman by 62 votes, with just under 3,000 party delegates casting ballots.

Ellis has released a six-page memo detailing hundreds of voting deficiencies she said her campaign found during a review of the ballots and other election material. Among the claims is that someone double-voted. Bauman says that situation was a person signing the ballot of an Orthodox Jewish delegate who could not sign on the Sabbath  an accommodation the party has long allowed. Those questionable votes may have swayed the election to Bauman, she alleged.

If Bauman is confident his victory was above-board, he shouldnt have any qualms about allowing independent auditors to verify the results, she said.

Instead of us calling for unity what we should be calling for is truth, Ellis told The Times. We feel very strongly that we won this race outright, fair and square.

Bauman has repeatedly dismissed Ellis calls for an independent audit, calling the memo scurrilous allegations with no facts. The partys compliance review commission, made up of six members appointed during Burtons tenure, is going over the evidence and will rule later this month.

Just because a candidate didnt win the election doesnt mean they get to rewrite the rules, Bauman said.

Bauman said hes made every effort to stay focused on his job as chairman, meeting with other party officers to plan for the 2018 election. Since Bauman started May 21, hes been busy hiring staff and focusing on priorities such as combating the GOP-led recall campaign against state Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton).

Bauman has the advantage of serving in the job, and hasnt hesitated to use the state partys infrastructure to defend his victory and paint Ellis as a sore loser.

Chris Masami Myers, the partys executive director and a holdover from the Burton regime, issued an official party statement that Bauman was chosen in an open, fair election. The media relations firm hired by the party after Baumans election, Paschal-Roth Public Affairs, has been sending out press releases this week from Democrats and liberal organizations urging Ellis to end her challenge. Ellis backers argue this constitutes a conflict of interest, and say an interim chair should be appointed until the matter is resolved.

The race for state party chair evolved into a choice between an established party insider  Bauman, a union organizer born in the Bronx -- versus an outsider embraced by insurgent Sanders supporters. The former director of a nonprofit devoted to electing more women to office, Ellis believes the party is too beholden to special interests and corporate donations. The convention where he prevailed was an example of the tense divide  some delegates shouted down Burton during his opening remarks and walked out of the convention hall when Bauman took the stage after his victory.

Eric Bauman. (Rich Pedroncelli / AP)

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Ellis arrived at the convention with tremendous momentum, in part because of strong support from the California Nurses Assn., a major Sanders backer and forceful advocate in favor of a state-sponsored single-payer healthcare system. The associations executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, warned party leaders that if they ignored the demands of the progressive movement they would be doing so at their own political peril.

If you dismiss progressive values and reinforce the dynamic status quo, dont assume the activists in California and around this country are going to stay with the Democratic Party, she told delegates at the convention.

The conflict in many ways mirrored the divide in the Democratic National Committees election of a new chairperson earlier this year. Former Obama Labor secretary Tom Perez, who backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, was seen as the establishment Democrat while Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Sanders supporter, was portrayed as the outsider.

Perez won the hard-fought contest by just 35 votes and made Ellison his deputy chair, helping soothe some of the bitterness between the two factions.

We dont have the luxury, folks, to walk out of this room divided. weve got earnest and sincere work to do, Ellison said at the time.

Dont expect to see a similar kumbaya moment in California. The state party elects its vice chairs separately, and Ellis has refused any peace offering to drop her challenge.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti sees the clash as a family squabble within the party, saying only party insiders and political reporters are playing attention. Garcetti predicted the feud will quickly melt away given the enormous challenges the party faces.

Weve got races in 2018 in [congressional] districts that were . held by Republicans who voted against the Affordable Care Act, Garcetti said. If that doesnt unify us, what will?

phil.willon@latimes.com

seema.mehta@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon @LATSeema

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Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez said he woke up Wednesday morning at his Eagle Rock home unsure whether his decisive win over fellow Democrat Robert Lee Ahn was real.

I actually was like, Was that a dream? Did that really happen? said the 42-year-old Gomez.

Gomez never even planned to go to college. As a freshman in high school, Gomezs grade-point average was a dismal 0.83. (Five Ds and an F, he recalls.)

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In many ways, Im still the community college kid with immigrant parents, the current state assemblyman for the 51st District said in an interview Wednesday outside a cafe in his neighborhood. Im still that kid that worked at Subway and Target.

Gomez, the youngest of six children born to a farmworker-turned-cook and a nursing home employee, finds himself preparing to enter the halls of power in Washington, D.C. He will represent the 34th Congressional District, which includes downtown, Koreatown and much of L.A.s Eastside, replacing Xavier Becerra, who gave up the seat to become Californias attorney general in January.

After graduating high school, where he wrote for the school newspaper, Gomez settled into double work shifts. He worked at the sandwich shop from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., sometimes grabbing a quick nap in his car before heading to Target, stocking shelves from midnight until 9 a.m. the next day.

At a friends urging, he enrolled in one class at the community college in the fall of 1993: an anthropology course that hadnt filled up. He earned a B. The next semester, he started going to school full time and dropped the Target gig. He still has his worn-down name tag, a reminder of his unlikely path.

He went on to graduate from UCLA and Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government before landing jobs as a union organizer, political director and aide to then-Rep. Hilda Solis. Elected to the Assembly in 2012, Gomez already represents more than half of the voters in his new district. Hes built a reputation as a reliable progressive vote in the Legislature, recently joining Assembly Democrats new progressive caucus.

In December, his mother watched as he was sworn in for a third term in Sacramento. When he told her he was running for Congress, Gomez recalled, the normally stoic 73-year-old raised her hands in joy.

It means were part of this larger American story, said Gomez, whose parents and siblings lived in the country illegally until shortly after Gomez was born in the U.S. To see her son not only go to college, graduate, but then to run for public office and get elected  it means a lot. It means that theres still a lot of opportunities for immigrants.

After the 41-year-old Ahn called to concede the race Tuesday night, Gomez was surrounded by family and supporters, including his wife, top Mayor Eric Garcetti aide Mary Hodge, and some of his siblings. He gave his mother, Socorro Gomez Martinez, a long hug. His father, who first came to the U.S. as part of the bracero guest-worker program, died in 2005.

Gomez, who will carry on a decades-long tradition of Latino representation in the district, told the crowd his values are based on his upbringing: the bout of childhood pneumonia that nearly bankrupted his family, seeing his gay brother bullied in school and knowing his sisters relied on Planned Parenthood for medical care.

I try to put myself in your shoes, and I will continue doing that as your next member of Congress, he said.

Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez embraces his mother, Soccoro Gomez Martinez, after speaking to supporters at his election night party. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Jimmy Gomez gets a hug from his wife, Mary Hodge, before a 34th Congressional District debate. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

Gomezs 60% share of the runoff vote as of Wednesday suggests many voters believed him. Gomez was regarded as the favorite in the race as soon as former Assembly Speaker John A. Perez dropped out in December. He defeated nearly two dozen other candidates in the April primary with 25% of the vote, though Ahn came within striking distance with 22%. But in the top-two runoff, Gomez won wide margins on the districts Eastside, particularly in the low-income and immigrant-heavy areas of Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights.

His sizable victory does not diminish the fact that he will enter Congress as a junior member of a minority party who campaigned on fighting President Trump.

Capitulation will lead to failure, he said at a recent debate. You need to hold firm, you need to work with your colleagues and you need to throw elbows.

While Gomez will have little if any say on his committee assignments, his wish list includes the Health and Human Services subcommittee and the Natural Resources and the Oversight and Government Reform committees, posts that would give him a chance to fight Republican efforts to roll back regulations on healthcare and the environment.

Eventually, Gomez added, hed like to serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee, a post he thinks could help him bring Californias climate change policies to the federal stage.

Gomez has asked House leadership to delay his swearing-in until after June 15 so he can help wrap up one major climate change initiative: a vote to extend Californias cap-and-trade program. Gov. Jerry Brown wants a two-thirds majority to pass the measure in order to insulate it from ongoing legal challenges, a feat that could be considerably tougher without someone in Gomezs seat. A special election to choose his replacement cant be called until he resigns.

 Congressman-elect Jimmy Gomez talks about his plans for the future. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

Until he leaves for D.C., Gomez said, his first order of business is to tour the 34th District, particularly the neighborhoods where constituents may not know him well. After a hard-fought campaign, large swaths of Koreatown, Westlake and Chinatown turned out for Ahn, who would have been the first Korean American Democrat in Congress.

There are also plenty of logistical details Gomez has to work through, including where to find an apartment on Capitol Hill and hiring staff. Hodge will remain in Los Angeles with their dog, Austin, and Gomez says he plans to fly home every weekend.

Its an essential part of the job that you show up, he says, but also, I just love it here.

Times staff writers Chris Megerian and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.

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MAP: How Jimmy Gomez became L.A.'s newest member of Congress

Jimmy Gomez wins Los Angeles congressional election to replace Xavier Becerra

Jimmy Gomez will be L.A.'s next congressman. His first order of business will be bringing the 34th District together

Updates on California politics
Trumps latest tweet in media war is a literal show of mock pugilism By Laura King President Trump on Sunday circulated a doctored video clip on Twitter that showed him physically attacking a crudely rendered stand-in for CNN, a post that drew rebukes from critics as an incitement to violence, but prompted renewed expressions of support from backers. In doing so, Trump also ignored pleas to stop tweeting or at least take a more presidential tone -- from lawmakers in his own party -- after he took his war against news media to new heights last week with a coarse post on the appearance and intellect of cable television host Mika Brzezinski. On Saturday he also posted several anti-media messages as Americans began their Fourth of July celebration. Sundays tweet, which used an edited version of a years-old promotional video for professional wrestling, showed Trump, clad in a business suit and tie, administering a choreographed beat-down to a figure whose face was obscured by CNNs logo. #FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017 CNN, which has been a particular target of the president since the network was forced to retract a story relating to an element of the sprawling investigation into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign, quickly condemned the tweet. It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters, the network said in statement. It also tweeted a recent assertion by White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders that Trump had never engaged in such incitement. "The President in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary." - @SHSanders45 6/29/17  CNN Communications (@CNNPR) July 2, 2017 As is often the case, the presidents surrogates were left scrambling to explain or justify an inflammatory Twitter outburst. Homeland security advisor Thomas Bossert, who was shown the clip while appearing on ABCs This Week, watched it stone-faced and then declared: No one would perceive that as a threat. I hope they dont. The night before, Trump had used a celebration of veterans at Washingtons Kennedy Center to again denounce the news media. The president, who had briefly broken a weekend golf getaway to appear at the rally, pounded away at the theme that he is being treated unfairly. The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House, he told the raucous crowd. But Im president, and theyre not. Facebook

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Increasing number of states reject request for personal information on voters from Trump commission By Colleen Shalby (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press) A growing number of states have rejected a request for personal information about voters from a presidential commission on vote fraud led by Kansas controversial Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kobach, the vice chairman of the commission, sent letters to each state and Washington, D.C., asking for voters personal information. The request asked for names, addresses, voting history and the last four digits of voters Social Security numbers. The commission was set up to look into voter fraud after President Trump alleged that he lost the popular vote in 2016 only because millions of people voted illegally -- a claim that numerous states election officials from both parties and outside experts have dismissed as groundless. As of Friday afternoon, at least 13 states had outright rejected the request from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity. Officials in several other states either said they would not supply all the information or needed more information before making a decision. Some officials did not mince words in their nos. They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great State to launch from, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann wrote in a statement. California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement that strongly criticized Kobach that he would continue to defend the rights of all eligible voters to cast their ballots free from discrimination, intimidation or unnecessary roadblocks. Secretary Padilla's response to the Election Commission's request for personal data of CA voters: pic.twitter.com/UdUt55HSim  CA SOS Vote (@CASOSvote) June 29, 2017 As a Kansas official, Kobach has been a leading backer of immigration restrictions and of measures to put new requirements on who is allowed to vote. His opponents note that he was fined last week for misleading a federal court in a voting rights case. Democratic elected officials in several states criticized the commission, itself, not just the information request. The president created his election commission based on the false notion that voter fraud is a widespread issue  it is not, Kentucky Secretary of State Allison Grimes wrote. "I do not intend to release Kentuckians' sensitive personal data to the fed. gov't."  Sec. Grimes



Statement on Pres. Commission request: pic.twitter.com/9Js05x99eF  Alison L. Grimes (@KySecofState) June 30, 2017 In an odd contradiction, Kobach said that Kansas, like some other states, will partially reject at least one aspect of the request. In Kansas, the Social Security number is not publicly available.  Every state receives the same letter, but were not asking for it if its not publicly available, he told the Kansas City Star. The states that have fully rejected the request include California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Dakota, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Mississippi and Minnesota. Others, including Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Missouri, Kansas, Utah and Texas will turn over some of the requested information. Vermont has requested an affidavit from the commission. And Wisconsin has suggested that the commission could purchase the publicly available information, just as political campaigns do. Officials in Washington state said they were reviewing the request. Facebook

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Look at possible conflicts of interest in Trump teams OneWest Bank probes, 2 Democrats urge By Jim Puzzanghera Protesters gather outside a OneWest Bank in Pasadena in 2014. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times) Two House Democrats want Congress to look into possible conflicts of interest in the Trump administrations handling of investigations into Pasadenas OneWest Bank  a bank formerly headed by now-Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Al Green (D-Texas) said Friday that there was room for considerable doubt as to the impartiality and the adequacy of this administrations investigations into OneWest and a subsidiary, Financial Freedom. Mnuchin was the banks chairman from 2009 to 2015. President Trump has nominated Joseph Otting, the former chief executive of OneWest, to be comptroller of the currency, a key bank regulator who is part of the Treasury Department. And Brian Brooks, who was OneWests vice chairman, reportedly will be tapped to be deputy Treasury secretary. Read More Facebook

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Healthcare issue delivers nothing but pain for Nevadas embattled Sen. Dean Heller By David Montero Dean Heller is Stephanie Diaz-Gonzalezs problem now. Shes never met Nevadas Republican senator and hadnt had much time to familiarize herself. How could she? The 25-year-old is holding down a full-time job and ra+ising a 7-year-old son, who keeps her busy with soccer games, math homework and those too-often terrifying moments when he cant breathe. When President Trump was elected and congressional Republicans moved on their top priority to dismantle Obamacare, Diaz-Gonzalez got to know Heller a whole lot better. Given his back-and-forth on the issue, she came to distrust him. I dont know if I could vote for him or support him, the Democrat said. He seems very contradictory. Which is why Heller is also Karen Steelmons problem. Steelmon, a 48-year-old Republican who grew up in northern Nevada, isnt happy with the lawmaker, who is considered the most vulnerable GOP senator in the country when he comes up for reelection next year. Obamacare has always been an abomination to Steelmon, an ardent supporter of repeal. To her, deeply held principles are at stake. Heller has never acted in favor of what I would consider conservative, constitutional principles as a general rule, said Steelmon, who would like to see the incumbent taken out in a GOP primary. And on the very few times he has, its always come as a surprise. This is Hellers dilemma. Read More Facebook

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Trump will meet face-to-face with Putin in Germany next week By Brian Bennett (Alexei Nikolsky / Associated Press) President Trump has governed five months under a cloud of questions about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, yet the two men will meet next week for the first time, on the sidelines of the G20 summit of world leaders in Hamburg, Germany. White House officials on Thursday confirmed plans for the private meeting but said no decisions had been made about the topics Trump will raise. So its unclear whether the men will discuss Russias election-year cyberattacks that are the focus of criminal and congressional investigations. Our relationship with Russia is not different from any other country in terms of us communicating with them, really, what our concerns are, where we see problems in the relationship but also opportunities, said Trumps national security advisor, H.R. McMaster. McMaster said he expected the two men to have a broad, wide-ranging discussion about problems in the relationship but also about where the U.S. and Russia have common interests. Theres no specific agenda, McMaster said. Its really going to be whatever the president wants to talk about, he added. The White House has refused to say whether Trump would sign legislation with new sanctions on Russia for meddling in the elections by hacking, including into some states voting systems, and by spreading false news stories. But Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin indicated the existing restrictions against Russia were sufficient. Weve got plenty of those as well, Mnuchin said. Trump will also meet with the leaders of China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Indonesia, Singapore and other countries during the summit of 20 major world economies. Trumps director of the White House National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, said the meeting would fall short of a typical bilateral discussion between the American president and the head of another country, but would be more than whats known in diplomacy-speak as a pull aside  a quick, informal get-together on the edge of a conference. Trumps scheduled meeting with Putin in Hamburg places added significance on his stop in Poland next Wednesday. In Warsaw, McMaster said, Trump intends to bolster U.S. relationships with Poland and other central European and Baltic states that were once in Moscows orbit under the Soviet Union, but now rely on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. to counter pressure from Russia. Trumps meetings there seem designed to strengthen his hand with Putin. McMaster called Poland a front-line NATO nation with regards to the eastern flank, noting that it sent troops to fight alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq and has exceeded its pledge on NATO defense spending. As a candidate and president, Trump has criticized other NATO countries that have not yet met those pledges for military spending equal to at least 2% of the size of their respective economies. Facebook

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Travel ban seen a win by at least one conservative; Breitbart focuses on upcoming votes in Congress By Kurtis Lee After it stalled for several months in federal courts, a portion of President Trumps travel ban is set to take effect Thursday evening and will bar individuals from six majority-Muslim countries. Some in conservative media are viewing it as a much-needed political victory for Trump. Here are some of Thursdays headlines: Two wins for Trump (Washington Times) Trump has seen setbacks in his fledgling administration  probes into possible collusion with Russia, infighting among his party over a healthcare overhaul, federal courts halting his travel ban. But now, the president gets a W. The Supreme Courts decision to allow portions of President Trumps travel ban to proceed is a much-needed victory for the administration, Cal Thompson writes. In doing so the unanimous court affirmed  at least temporarily, pending a full hearing on the case in the fall  a presidents constitutional authority to determine whether people seeking admittance to the U.S. pose a threat to our safety and security. Thompson also highlights the Supreme Court decision this week that churches have the same right as other charitable groups to seek state money for new playground surfaces and other non-religious needs. Thompson called the ruling in the case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc. v. Comer, a victory for religious institutions and Trump, who at times has touched on the issue of religious freedom. Breitbart prods GOP leaders to pass pro-American immigration reforms (Breitbart) For Trump, Breitbart hasnt always delivered the most approving headlines for his administration  particularly on immigration. Some right-wing bloggers and pundits dont think Trump has done enough on immigration, a key pillar of his campaign platform. This piece turns the attention to members of Congress, where two bills  focused primarily on detaining people in the country illegally  could come up for a vote . The GOP-run House is expected to vote for two modest immigration-reform bills as soon as this week, but pro-American reformers are using the two votes to build loud and energetic public pressure for major reform legislation, notes the right-wing website. Trump attacks Psycho Joe Scarborough, Crazy Mika Brzezinski in Twitter tear (Fox News) At first, they were friends; now, perhaps, enemies?

Trump used Twitter early Thursday to jab Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who the president in past has said he admires. The tweets have drawn the ire of Republicans. Heres what the president wrote: I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017 ...to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017 And the response? pic.twitter.com/8YhzcCUwM1  Mika Brzezinski (@morningmika) June 29, 2017 Facebook

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Trump plans to nominate Brendan Carr to fill final FCC seat and provide crucial vote on net neutrality rules By Jim Puzzanghera President Trump intends to nominate Brendan Carr, a former aide to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, to fill the final open seat at the agency and provide a crucial vote on the future of tough net neutrality rules. Carr, the FCCs general counsel, would fill a Republican slot on the commission and would be expected to support Pais push to roll back the regulations for online traffic. Carrs intended nomination was announced by the White House on Wednesday night. It comes after Trump nominated Jessica Rosenworcel, a former FCC commissioner, on June 14 to fill a Democratic seat. If the Senate confirms both nominees, as expected, the FCC would have its full complement of five commissioners and a 3-2 Republican majority. Read More Facebook

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Gorsuch is already pushing Supreme Court to the right on religion, guns and gays By David Savage Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) When Judge Neil M. Gorsuch went before the Senate in March as President Trumps first nominee to the Supreme Court, he sought to assure senators he would be independent and above the political fray. There is no such thing as a Republican judge or Democratic judge, he said more than once. We just have judges. But in just his first few weeks on the high court, Justice Gorsuch has shown himself to be a confident conservative activist, urging his colleagues to move the law to the right on religion, gun rights, gay rights and campaign funding. He dissented along with Justice Clarence Thomas when the court rejected a gun-rights challenge to Californias law that strictly regulates who may carry a concealed weapon. The 2nd Amendments core purpose, they said, shows the right to bear arms extends to public carry. He wrote a dissent, joined by Thomas and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., when the court struck down part of an Arkansas law that gave opposite sex-couples, but not same-sex couples, the right to have both spouses listed on a childs birth certificate. The court said it had already decided that same-sex couples deserve fully equal rights under state law. And when Trumps travel ban came before the court this week, Gorsuch dissented from the majoritys middle-ground approach, which allowed the ban to take effect except for foreign travelers who had a relationship with this country, such as a close relative or a student enrolled in a university. Read More Facebook

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When he meets South Koreas president, Trump will be asking for trade concessions and help confronting North Korea By Brian Bennett (Nicholas Kamm / AFP Photo) President Trump plans to pressure South Korean President Moon Jae-in to make trade concessions when they meet Friday, while at the same time seeking closer cooperation against North Koreas accelerating nuclear program. Both aims, outlined Wednesday by a senior administration official, could make for some difficult discussions, especially since the newly elected Moon campaigned for a softer approach to the government in Pyongyang. Moon, who arrived Wednesday in Washington, began his four-day visit by laying a wreath at a memorial at Marine Corps Base Quantico in northern Virginia to the U.S. Marines who died during the Korean War in the battle at Chosin Reservoir. Trump will host Moon and his wife, Kim Joon-suk, for dinner at the White House on Thursday before the two leaders meet one-on-one in the Oval Office on Friday morning. Having criticized the two countries trade agreement when he was running for president, Trump will argue for a more balanced trade relationship, the administration official said in a background briefing. In particular, Trump will cite the large amount of Chinese steel that is sometimes processed in South Korea before being sold cheaply in the U.S. market. The two leaders will have a friendly, frank discussion about the trade imbalance between South Korea and the United States, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Seouls trade surplus is shrinking, the official added, but there is still a large gap. The visit will mark the first time the two leaders have met since the liberal Moon took office last month after the ouster of President Park Geun-hye, a scandal-tarred conservative who had taken a hard line against North Korea. Trump and Moon share precisely the same goal, the Trump aide said -- the complete dismantlement of North Koreas nuclear program. But the approach of the two leaders is starkly different. Trump has called for maximum pressure against North Korea, seeking additional economic sanctions and demanding that China, North Koreas main ally and patron, do more to shut off assistance to Pyongyang. Moon has risen through the ranks of his countrys politics advocating for closer ties between the Koreas, which technically are still at war. Already he has taken steps to delay the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, an anti-missile system intended to counter any North Korean strikes. The anti-missile system is a divisive issue in South Korea; it prompted protests last weekend at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. China has objected to installation of the powerful radar defense as well, but the White House believes the U.S. system will ultimately be fully operative. The delay should not be equated as a reversal of the decision to deploy THAAD, the official said, and suggested that the topic would not be central to the two presidents discussions. As important as anything [will be] building a rapport and getting to know each other, the official said. Facebook

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Senate Republicans aim for new healthcare bill by Friday, but skeptics remain By Lisa Mascaro (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) Senate Republicans reconvened behind closed doors Wednesday trying to break the impasse on their healthcare overhaul but emerged with no apparent strategy for resolving differences by an end-of-week deadline. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky vowed to try again for a vote after the Fourth of July recess, despite having abruptly delayed action this week. Senators were aiming for a revised bill by Friday, the Republican whip, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, told reporters, so it could be assessed by the Congressional Budget Office during the break. But senators remained skeptical after the lengthy lunchtime huddle that appeared to run long on ideas but short on consensus. I think its going to be very difficult, said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). McConnell surprised senators by delaying this weeks expected votes once it became clear he did not have a majority for passage  or possibly to even open the debate. As many as 10 Republican senators now publicly oppose the bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act, and leaders are scrambling to win them over with an estimated $200 billion in savings from the bill that can be applied to their particular states needs. But even with that fund of resources, it is not clear McConnell will be able to satisfactorily improve the legislation, which now threatens to cut 22 million Americans off health insurance. He can only afford to lose two Republican votes in the face of Democratic opposition. Its going to be very difficult to get me to a yes... have to make us an offer we cant refuse, Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said on a telephone town hall late Tuesday, according to journalist Jon Ralston, who monitored the call. Fresh polling Wednesday showed paltry support for the Republican approach to overhauling the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, which has enjoyed a surge in popularity now that Republicans are closer than ever to repealing it. A USA Today poll put approval of the Senate GOP bill at 12%. Republicans, though, are under enormous pressure from their most conservative supporters  and big dollar donors, including the powerful Koch network  to deliver on their promised to end Obamacare. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, suggested that President Trump convene all 100 senators  much the way then-President Obama did during his first days in office for a session at Blair House  to see how they might be able to work together to improve, rather than repeal, the Affordable Care Act. Id make my friends on the Republican side and President Trump an offer: Lets turn over a new leaf. Lets start over, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). President Trump, I challenge you to invite us  all 100 of us, Republican and Democrat  to Blair House to discuss a new bipartisan way forward on healthcare in front of all the American people. No such invitation, however, seemed forthcoming. Trump dismissed Schumers proposal  he just doesnt seem like a serious person, the president said  and instead promised his own big surprise on healthcare. Healthcare is working along very well, Trump told reporters at the White House. We could have a big surprise, with a great healthcare package. Asked what he meant by a big surprise, Trump simply repeated: A great, great surprise. The Republican bill, like its counterpart passed by House Republicans, does not fully gut Obamacare, but rescinds the new taxes imposed on high-income individuals and healthcare companies to pay for expanding coverage through Medicaid and subsidies for private insurance on the ACA marketplace. Senators said the private talks Wednesday focused mainly on changes to the Obamacare marketplace that could bring down the cost of insurance premiums. One idea from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to allow insurers to offer policies that do not meet the Obamacare benchmarks for what insurance needs to cover met with mixed reaction, senators said. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, warned that such changes would alter the risk pool, keeping insurance costs high. You end up with policies that, for example, dont cover maternity, Cassidy said. Do you want a policy that doesnt have maternity, which would be principally appealing to young men, when obviously typically men have had a role in that pregnancy? Other senators were floating new ideas, but McConnell gave no indication whether those proposals would be included in the final revised product. Michael A. Memoli contributed to this report. Facebook

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No new laptop bans, but air travelers to the U.S. will face tighter screening all over the globe By Joseph Tanfani Homeland Security officials said Wednesday they will order stricter passenger screening and other new security measures for all flights entering the United States but will not bar laptop computers in carry-on luggage as airlines and passenger groups had feared. The new order will cover about 2,000 flights a day from 280 airports in 105 countries, a move that could make international flying even more onerous just as the busy summer travel season starts. Security officials would not detail the new measures but said passengers headed to the United States will face more intensive screening at airports, and probably more security dogs. They gave no date for when the new procedures will start. If carriers dont implement the measures effectively, Homeland Security still may ban laptops, e-readers and other electronic devices larger than cell phones from cargo holds as well as passenger cabins. The decision follows intelligence, reportedly gathered from Islamic State in Syria by Israeli spy services, suggesting a lethal new threat from bombs that could be concealed in digital devices and that could evade detection by airport screening devices. In March, U.S. and British authorities banned laptops in cabins on flights from eight Muslim-majority countries in North Africa and the Middle East, saying terrorists were seeking innovative methods to bring down commercial jetliners. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly told a security conference in Washington on Wednesday that the new security measures will be both seen and unseen and will be phased in over time. He said they will include tougher screening, particularly of electronic devices, plus new technology and procedures to protect planes from so--called insider attacks by airline employees. It is time that we raise the global baseline of aviation security, Kelly said. We cannot play international whack-a-mole with every new threat. He said terrorists still see commercial aircraft as the crown jewel target for attacks, and that intelligence has shown renewed interest by terrorists to attack airlines. Kelly told a House committee several weeks ago that the department was considering extending the laptop ban to 71 more airports overseas. But Kelly ultimately decided to tighten screening across the board, instead of focusing on laptops or chasing after each item that might be used to bring down a jetliner, senior Homeland Security officials said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to brief reporters, said Kelly worked with airlines to find ways to improve screening without unduly inconveniencing passengers. Intensive doesnt always mean slower, said one official. In some cases, airlines have been doing these things at international airports for some time. The officials said more security dogs, which sniff for explosives, may be used. And they said airlines and airports may institute pre-check programs like those approved by the Transportation Security Administration for use in U.S. airports. The officials said restrictions on the first 10 airports will be lifted once airlines in those countries satisfy the new security protocols, officials said. Airport authorities in the eight countries affected by that ban  Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates  have been told about the new security measures and will put them in place so the ban is lifted, the officials said. In recent weeks, Kelly and his aides have huddled with their counterparts overseas, as well as with representatives of major airlines, to discuss whether to expand the ban around the globe. Airlines protested that a laptop ban would inconvenience passengers and not remove the threat. Aviation experts and European security officials warned that putting laptops in cargo holds would pose other dangers because the lithium batteries could start fires. In 1988, a bomb hidden in a radio cassette player exploded aboard a Pan Am jet flying over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers and crew. The plot was blamed on then-Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi. In 2010, powerful bombs hidden in printer ink cartridges were found aboard two cargo jets headed from Yemen to Chicago. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula later claimed responsibility for the plot. Facebook

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Its crunch time for McConnell after Senate GOP is forced to delay vote on healthcare bill By Lisa Mascaro ( (Alex Brandon / Associated Press)) The abrupt decision Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to temporarily shelve a vote on the Republican Obamacare overhaul gives him a few extra weeks to build support for a revised bill before it risks becoming hopelessly stalled by the opposition. The seasoned GOP leader will be aided by what amounts to a $200-billion piggy bank to push Republican holdouts into line. Thats the bills extra cost savings, compared with the House version, that McConnell can tap to provide perks to individual senators, from more opioid assistance to expanded tax-free health savings accounts. A similar strategy  delay and enticements  worked well in the House, where Republicans last month passed their healthcare bill on the third try. But prolonging the debate also gives Democrats and other critics time to mobilize, and ensures that senators will be exposed to an onslaught of opposition as they head home for the weeklong holiday break to defend a bill that has estimated would leave tens of millions of Americans without insurance. After the delay was announced, President Trump hosted a White House gathering of all GOP senators. But rather than rally them around the bill with the power of the presidential bully pulpit, he struck a surprisingly detached tone. This will be great if we get it done, Trump told senators in the East Room. And if we dont get it done, its just going to be something that were not going to like. And thats OK. Read More Facebook

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As vote looms, concerns over Medicaid cuts rise from some in conservative media By Kurtis Lee Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press ) The vote  for now  is delayed. As President Trump has urged Senate Republicans to pass a bill that would overhaul the Affordable Care Act, some, including Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Rob Portman of Ohio, have expressed concerns over cuts to Medicaid. Both represent states that, under Obamacare, expanded Medicaid coverage to low-income adults. The current Senate healthcare bill would deliver deep cuts to Medicaid, leaving millions uninsured. While Trump awaits a vote in the coming weeks  originally scheduled for this week, but pushed back until after the July 4 recess  its on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to gather enough support from within his GOP caucus to secure the bills passage. Some in the conservative media are questioning the current bill. Here is an overview of todays headlines on this and other issues: Republicans have a Medicaid problem (Weekly Standard) The Republican healthcare bill would cut Medicaid spending by $772 billion over the next decade. Chris Deaton writes that Republicans aim to offset the consequences of these Medicaid changes by offering tax credits for private insurance to people under the poverty line. In this piece, Deaton raises the question of whether low-income earners would be better off with Medicaid coverage or obtaining insurance through a GOP tax credit? He answers by noting, Its long been a contention of conservative thinkers that healthcare outcomes improve with private insurance rather than Medicaid. Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman, registers as foreign agent (Associated Press) Hes among those facing scrutiny in an FBI investigation into Russian meddling in last years election. Now, Paul Manafort, who at one time served as Trumps campaign chairman, has registered with the Department of Justice as a foreign agent. In a filing with the department, Manafort notes that his consulting firm received nearly $17 million between 2012 and 2014 from a Ukrainian political party with links to Russia, according to the Associated Press. Last spring, former national security advisor Michael T. Flynn, who resigned from his position in February after misleading administration officials about contacts with Russians, also registered as a foreign agent, for consulting work he did for a Turkish businessman. A Democratic road to recovery (American Spectator) The party is attempting a reboot. After Hillary Clintons 2016 loss and defeats in several special elections this year, Democrats are in search of a new face for the party. Even so, liberals are in lock-step in their opposition to Trump. This piece offers Democrats some advice  from the right  on how to recover. Leftists: You have been lied to and taken advantage of. When you eventually come out of this haze you are in, you will realize that it was done not by the president, but by the snake oil salesmen and charlatans, who took advantage of your sickness and weakness, simply for money and power, writes Judah Friedman. Ask yourselves this: What is the Democratic Party, right now, without this rage, and hate, with which it is fueling your addictions? The answer is nothing. Facebook

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Sarah Palin sues the New York Times for tying her PAC ad to mass shooting By Associated Press Former vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is accusing the New York Times of defamation over an editorial that linked one of her political action committee ads to the mass shooting that severely wounded then-Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court Tuesday, Palins lawyers say the Times violated the law and its own policies when it accused her of inciting the 2011 attack that killed six people. The lawsuit refers to a June editorial in the Times on the recent shooting of Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise. The editorial later was corrected. Palin is seeking damages to be determined by a jury. A spokeswoman for the Times, Danielle Rhoades Ha, says the company hasnt seen the lawsuit but will defend against any claim vigorously. Facebook

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Trump succeeds where Obama failed  spawning a new wave of liberal activism By Mark Z. Barabak Amanda Litman and Ross Morales Rocketto launched the Democratic activist group Run For Something, which encourages people under 35 to seek elected office. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) The night Hillary Clinton lost the White House, Amanda Litman cried so hard she threw up. In Atlanta, as the returns rolled in, Traci Feit Love faced a question from her anguished 8-year-old daughter: Now what do we do? Across the country, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Rita Bosworth wondered the same thing. The three never met, never spoke, never communicated in any fashion. But in the days and weeks that followed, they became common threads in a sprawling patchwork: the angry and politically aggrieved who  with no help from politicians, political parties or any formal campaign structure  have joined to fight President Trump and his policies. Read More Facebook

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Trump on healthcare bill: If we dont get it done ... thats OK By Associated Press (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) President Trump said that if the healthcare bill fails to pass in the Senate, he wont like it  but thats OK. Trump spoke Tuesday at a gathering of Senate Republicans after their leaders delayed a vote on their healthcare bill until at least next month. Trump said, This will be great if we get it done and if we dont get it done its going to be something that were not going to like and thats OK and I can understand that. He added, I think we have a chance to do something very, very important for the public, very, very important for the people of our country. Facebook

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Watch live: Press briefing with Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and Energy Secretary Rick Perry Facebook

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Senate GOP leaders abruptly delay vote on healthcare bill until after July 4th recess By Lisa Mascaro Facing resistance from their own party, Senate Republican leaders said Tuesday they would postpone a vote on their healthcare bill until after the July 4th recess. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to provide more time to make changes to the bill to try to convince reluctant GOP senators to vote for the measure. Were going to press on,' McConnell said, adding he remains optimistic. Were continuing to talk. Since the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would leave 22 million more Americans without insurance after 10 years, several Republicans senators had said they would not even support allowing the bill to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote. Meanwhile, President Trump invited all GOP senators to the White House for a meeting Tuesday afternoon. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a moderate who has expressed serious doubts about the bill, questioned whether revisions would make a difference. I have so many fundamental problems with the bill, that have been confirmed by the CBO report, that its difficult to see how any tinkering is going to satisfy my fundamental and deep concerns about the bill,' Collins said on CNN. McConnell is struggling to appease two factions in his party. Centrists like Collins want to lessen the impact of proposed cuts to Medicaid, while conservatives want to go further in repealing benefits provided under Obamacare. Senate leaders hope to continue talks this week, with an eye toward moving quickly when Congress returns after the holiday. McConnell plans to wait for the CBO to review any changes and reissue a score. He can only afford to lose two Republicans given the partys 52-seat majority in the Senate. Theres more work that needs to be done, its pretty obvious, said Republican Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho as he was leaving a Senate lunch with Vice President Mike Pence. Pence ignored reporters questions about the decision. If more work needs to be done, you shouldnt try to light the fire. But the delay in a vote will give Democrats and other opponents of the repeal bill more time to mobilize, particularly as Republicans return to their home districts during the holiday. We know the fight is not over,' said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York. Facebook

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Trump administration warns of Syrian chemical attack, but with damaged credibility By Noah Bierman The Trump administration Monday night sent the kind of dire warning -- of the Syrian regimes apparent preparation for another chemical weapons attack, and a threat of U.S. retaliation -- that requires credibility to have a receptive national and foreign audience. Yet the initial bafflement about the warning among U.S. defense officials, and the simultaneous distraction of President Trumps unrelated tweets, seemed to undercut the seriousness of the moment. More broadly, the episode is testing the damage Trump has done to his and his administrations trustworthiness by his assaults on the intelligence community as well as other perceived enemies. Trump has spent months attacking the credibility of the intelligence community, at one point comparing their tactics to Nazis and repeatedly calling its findings of Russian meddling in the election a hoax and witch hunt, even as foreign policy experts cautioned that he was diminishing the reputation of a community he would need in times of crisis to rally public support. At a moment of crisis when U.S. decisions and actions rest upon information coming from the intelligence community, [Trump] may have diminished the credibility of that information in the eyes of the public and the eyes of the international community, said Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Assn. Kimball called the White House statement unusual and said such messages would normally be sent through private diplomatic channels. He added that the public allegation should be followed by a formal presentation of the evidence to the United Nations Security Council, to build international support against suspected Syrian violations of the chemical weapons ban. The four-line statement on Syria from the White House Press Secretary came just after 9:44 p.m. EDT Monday. The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children, the statement read. The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack. If Syrian President Bashar Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price, it concluded, citing a U.S. missile strike after the previous chemical attack to reinforce the new threat. A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Tuesday that preparations for a chemical attack were observed at the same base in Syria from which its military launched a sarin nerve gas attack that killed 86 people, including children, in April. We have observed activities at Shayrat Air Base that suggest possible intent by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons again, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway said in a statement. These activities are similar to what we observed prior to the regime chemical weapons attack against Khan Sheikhoun in April. But some senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials reached late Monday and early Tuesday were caught off guard by the White House statement. Some knew, some didnt, said a U.S. official who sought anonymity to discuss the intelligence matter. The official described the release of the nighttime statement as ungraceful, but said the assessment that Syria was preparing for an attack is sound. Such official statements are typically distributed widely across an administration for internal vetting before theyre publicly released. The White House said the relevant agencies were informed before the statement was published. Yet Trump lent further confusion about the urgency of the matter and his own level of concern by sending out a tweet about domestic politics only minutes later. He cited a Fox news report about the FBIs Russia investigation, writing as he often does about the probe, Witch Hunt! From @FoxNews "Bombshell: In 2016, Obama dismissed idea that anyone could rig an American election." Check out his statement - Witch Hunt!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017 Indeed, Trump continued through the next morning to demonstrate his frustration with the Russia investigation and what he calls the American medias fake news with posts on his Twitter feed. Many tweets quoted supportive conservative commentators and Fox News reports. Trump was eager to go after CNN, one of his top media targets, after it retracted a Russia-related story and three journalists involved resigned. So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC? What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost? They are all Fake News!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017 Trumps willingness to mix politics and his administrations ominous red line to Syria opened him up to criticism that he was trying to divert attention from other unfavorable news Monday. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had found that the Republican plan to replace Obamacare would strip 22 million people of health insurance coverage over the next decade. The Syria statement also prompted a sharp backlash from the Kremlin, which is Assads military ally in his nations civil war. Russian officials denied there is evidence of an imminent chemical attack and called the White House threat unacceptable. The tensions have heightened as Trump is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next week at the G20 Summit of industrialized nations in Germany. Mondays statement may be seen as a warning not just to Syria but to Russia, which is widely seen as enabling Assads harsh tactics by bolstering his military as he has tried to retain power. Facebook

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Kremlin calls White House warning to Syria unacceptable, denies any Assad chemical attack in the works By Sabra Ayres The Kremlin is calling unacceptable a White House warning to Syrias government that it would pay a heavy price if it carries out another poison gas attack against its own people. Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, also declared Tuesday that there is no indication that a chemical weapons strike is in the works. The White House said late Monday night that activity had been detected similar to that preceding a nerve gas attack on April 4 that killed dozens of civilians, including children, in rebel-held Idlib province. President Trump responded by launching nearly 60 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian military airfield that U.S. officials said was used for the chemical attack. It was the first U.S. attack on Syrian forces in the six-year civil war. Russia continues to deny that Assads forces carried out the April 4 gas attack and Peskov criticized the White House for saying there were signs of preparation for another such strike. Peskov said the Kremlin does not think it is possible to lay the blame on the Syrian armed forces for the April strike on the village of Khan Sheikhoun, which the U.S. and its allies said involved sarin, a banned nerve agent. Despite all the demands from the Russian side, an impartial international inquiry into a previous tragedy using chemical agents has not been carried out, the spokesman told Russian news agencies. Peskov criticized the White House warning to Assad, saying such threats to Syrias legitimate leaders are unacceptable. Read More Facebook

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Senate healthcare overhaul hits trouble as Republicans hesitant to proceed to vote By Lisa Mascaro The Senate Republican healthcare bill ran into serious trouble late Monday when key GOP senators indicated they may block the Obamacare overhaul from proceeding to a vote this week. Political turmoil has been building over the bill for days. But GOP tension burst open after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reported that 22 million more Americans would lose insurance coverage under the plan and that out-of-pocket costs for many of those buying policies on the Affordable Care Act marketplace would rise. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hoped to start procedural votes by Wednesday, and President Trump called key senators over the weekend as support splintered. Its the same political dynamic that stalled the House Republican bill last month, as conservative and centrist factions wrestle for dominance. Conservatives want a more complete repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which they hope will lower premium costs, while centrists are trying to avoid leaving millions of Americans without health coverage. Senate bill doesnt fix ACA problems for rural Maine, tweeted Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). I will vote no on mtp, she said, referring to the motion to proceed to the bill. Conservative Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is also working to change the bill so that he can vote yes on the procedural motion. We are not there yet, Lees spokesman said. Senators have bristled at what they viewed as McConnells secretive and rushed process, and several other senators said they wanted more time before voting. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was among those Republicans who shared concerns in weekend calls with Trump. We continue to make progress, Cruz told reporters Monday, as Democrats, who oppose the bill, planned an almost-all-night protest session. Cruz is part of the gang of four conservatives -- including Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky -- who have said they cannot vote for the bill as is. Among the changes being pursued is one provision that would allow insurers to offer cheaper policies that do not meet ACAs requirements and another to let consumers sock more money into health savings accounts We can get there and Im hopeful we will get there, Cruz said. However, he declined to say whether he would agree to Wednesdays procedural vote. Also hesitant to proceed was Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who has strongly criticized undoing Obamacares Medicaid expansion that has enabled about 200,000 people to gain coverage in his state. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for example, wanted changes to help residents in her geographically far-flung state where healthcare costs are particularly high. Some senators, though, dismissed the budget analysis and said keeping the ACA would be worse. Its clear the CBO cannot predict the purchasing patterns for millions of Americans, said Georgia Sen. David Perdue, a Trump ally, in a statement. This bureaucratic analysis will do nothing to prevent Obamacare from failing. Others are weighing their votes. Republican Sen. Bob Corker, whose office is receiving thousands of daily calls, spent part of Monday on the phone with health officials in Tennessee as he assesses the fallout in his state of 22 million more people in the country without healthcare. I kind of figured it was going to be a pretty big number, said Corker, who remains undecided. Theres a lot of incoming. CBO says 22 million people lose insurance; Medicaid cuts hurt most vulnerable Americans; access to healthcare in rural areas threatened. 2/3  Sen. Susan Collins (@SenatorCollins) June 26, 2017 Facebook

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Supreme Court puts off decision in three pending cases about borders and immigration By David Savage ((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) Amid its flurry of decisions Monday about Trumps travel ban and cases involving religious liberties and guns, the Supreme Court put off final rulings on three pending cases involving immigration and the U.S. border. In Hernandez vs. Mesa, the court in an unsigned opinion told the U.S. appeals court in New Orleans to take a second look at a border shooting case. The parents of a 15-year-old Mexican boy sued a U.S. border patrol agent who shot and killed the teenager when he was standing a few feet from the border on the Mexican side. The 5th Circuit had thrown out the parents suit. The facts alleged in the complaint depict a disturbing incident resulting in a heartbreaking loss of life, the court said in sending the case back for a further hearing. The court said it would rehear in the fall a Los Angeles case involving whether immigrants awaiting deportation can be jailed indefinitely, or instead have a right to a bond hearing after six months. The courts action suggests the eight justices were evenly split in Jennings vs. Rodriguez. The court also said it will rehear the case of Sessions vs. Dimaya to decide whether non-citizens can be deported for an offense like breaking into an empty home because it may be deemed a crime of violence. Facebook

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Refugee advocates says even partial reinstatement of travel ban will cause hardship By Laura King Immigration and refugee advocates expressed disappointment Monday with the Supreme Courts partial reinstatement of President Trumps travel ban, saying even limited implementation could cause hardship to refugees and others seeking to travel to the United States from six affected Muslim-majority countries. However, organizations taking part in the months-long legal fight against the revised travel ban expressed hopes that the high court ultimately will reject the restrictions after arguments are heard in October. And they welcomed what they described as an implicit rebuke of the White Houses assertion that Trump has unfettered powers to exclude arrivals based on purported national security concerns. The initial rollout of the ban, days after Trump took office in January, caused pandemonium at airports across the United States and overseas as tens of thousands of visa-holders arriving from seven affected countries were turned away without warning or detained. After courts blocked that order, Trump issued a revised travel ban that took Iraq off the list. A replay of Januarys travel chaos was unlikely Monday because the courts action will allow visa-holders with bona fide ties to people or entities in the U.S. to enter, meaning students, employees and family members can still get in. But refugee advocates said the courts limited ruling, which the administration can move to implement on Thursday, could leave many would-be arrivals in limbo pending the finalizing of new vetting procedures. The administration had originally said a three-month travel ban was needed in part to review the checks to which would-be entrants are subjected. David Miliband, president of the International Rescue Committee, said the partial reinstatement of the ban particularly threatens vulnerable people waiting to come to the U.S., including those with urgent medical conditions. We urge the administration to begin its long-delayed review of the vetting process and restart a program which changes lives for the better, said Miliband. The National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups that challenged the ban, said that as of this week, approximately 50,500 refugees from the six affected countries had been approved for travel and resettlement in the United States  all having already undergone intensive checks. The Middle East Studies Assn., one the groups contesting the ban in the lower courts, said many students and academics were ensnared by the original order. Even though Mondays court move should allow entry to those studying or working at American academic institutions, many from the affected countries remained wary of leaving and then attempting to re-enter the United States, the group said. Iran  along with Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya  is one of the affected countries, and Southern California is home to a large Iranian American community that was hit hard by the original ban. Some advocates said even with Mondays limited action, there has already been a chilling effect on movement. Todays Supreme Court decision immediately places the status of many Americans families into question again, said Shayan Modarres, legal counsel for the National Iranian American Council. The group said that visas issued to Iranian passport-holders had fallen by nearly half since the legal battle over the ban began, and that obtaining a U.S. visa was becoming so onerous that many would not even try to get one. The Trump administrations new idea is to make it so hard on Iranians and Muslims to get a visa that visa officers will have the unrestricted discretion to reject visa applications, Modarres said. He added that grounds for rejection could be social media postings critical of Trump or not being able to produce airline boarding passes that could have been issued and used more than a decade ago. Advocacy groups reiterated their position  which was argued in a number of the lower court cases that propelled the issue to the high court  that the travel restrictions run counter to core American traditions and values. Mark Hetfield, president of the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, said the group considered the courts move an affirmation that the president does not have unfettered, unchecked authority to bar refugees from the U.S. without evidence to justify such action. But he added that the executive orders partial resurrection would once again cause irreparable damage to refugees, immigrants, and Americas reputation as a welcoming country. The initial ban prompted large nationwide protests, and advocates suggested they would again seek to marshal popular opposition to the restrictions. When the first order went into effect, tens of thousands of Americans showed the world that this is not who we are and not what we want, said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project, another of the groups involved in the legal challenge. We will never give up defending the rights of those who are affected by this discriminatory executive order. Facebook

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Trump says Supreme Court action on travel ban gives him important tool By Michael A. Memoli .@POTUS statement says SCOTUS action allows him to "use an important tool for protecting our Nation's homeland." Will admin press further? pic.twitter.com/gxBJO5aYYZ  Mike Memoli (@mikememoli) June 26, 2017 President Trump celebrated the Supreme Courts decision Monday to allow a curtailed version of his travel ban to take effect, calling it a clear victory for our national security. In an official White House statement, the president said he was particularly gratified that at least part of the ruling was 9-0; three conservative justices said they would have let the presidents revised executive order take effect completely. My number one responsibility as Commander in Chief is to keep the American people safe. Todays ruling allows me to use an important tool for protecting our Nations homeland, he said. The White House has long maintained that the president was acting within his authority in seeking to temporarily restrict travel to the United States. They most often point to a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act that states a president can suspend or limit entry of individuals whenever the president finds that the entry ... would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. Facebook

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Rival Senate factions push competing agendas as healthcare bill hangs in balance By Laura King Heading into a week of intense jockeying and arm-twisting over the Senates polarizing healthcare plan, the rift appeared to widen Sunday between moderates who consider the measure too punitive and conservatives who want to see the sweeping bill toughened up before agreeing to back it. President Trump, who made the repeal of his predecessors signature Affordable Care Act a campaign centerpiece, expressed optimism about chances for Senate passage, but declared again that he wanted to see a plan with heart  suggesting he might undercut Republican efforts to bring recalcitrant conservatives on board. With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) seeking to push ahead with a vote this week, the bills prospects hung in the balance. Five GOP senators have said publicly they oppose the measure as written; the defection of only three Republicans would be enough to sink it. Read More Facebook

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Analysis: Atop 2017 losses, a sobering challenge for Democrats aiming at Trump next year By Cathleen Decker Republican Karen Handel, winner of last weeks special House election in Georgia. ( (Bob Andres / Atlanta Journal-Constitution)) Democrats have hoped that President Trumps deep unpopularity would propel them to gains in next years midterm election as they fight to take control of the House and improve their position in the Senate. But last years contests and this years special elections suggest a complication: Trump is so distinctive a politician that its hard to persuade voters that other Republican candidates are carbon copies of the president. Trumps outsized persona makes even those Republicans who share his views seem more moderate, an important attribute to swing voters. That presents a problem for the party out of power. Midterm elections traditionally serve as referendums on the president, but voters complicated views of Trump may give Republicans more running room than his popularity figures suggest. The votes cast by individual Republican incumbents may be more important to their survival than any linkage with the president. Read More Facebook

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Conservatives at Koch summit outline changes to Senate healthcare bill to win their support By Lisa Mascaro Tim Phillips, who heads Americans for Prosperity, the largest of the Koch networks advocacy groups, speaks to the media at the White House in Washington on March 8. (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press) Conservatives floated two amendments for toughening up the Senates Obamacare overhaul this weekend at the influential Koch networks confab of wealthy donors, as Republicans seek ways to win over detractors and tip enough GOP votes for passage. That the Koch network quickly panned the Senate bill is no surprise. The organization of deep-pocketed conservative advocacy groups similarly rejected the House GOP bill this spring until party leaders tacked on tough amendments to appease right-leaning Republicans. Weve been disappointed that movements not been more dramatic toward a full repeal or a broader rollback of this onerous law Obamacare, said Tim Phillips, who heads Americans for Prosperity, the largest of the Koch networks advocacy groups. But we are not walking away, he said. We worked to make the House bill better and it did get better. Were doing the same thing on the Senate front. One key lawmaker attending the weekend summit at the luxurious Broadmoor Hotel, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and a chief negotiator on the House bill, outlined two key changes to the bill that he said could likely win enough conservative support for passage. One amendment from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) would allow companies that offer insurance policies on the Obamacare marketplace to also offer plans that do not meet the ACAs strict requirements. Such a change would in essence allow insurers to offer cheaper, though skimpier, policies that may help achieve the GOPs goal of lowering premiums for consumers. Another amendment would broaden the ability of those who buy insurance on the marketplace to sock away more money in tax-free Health Savings Accounts to help them pay for their premiums. Cruz is one of four Senate conservatives who have said they would not support the bill unless changes are made, positioning them for negotiations in the days ahead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) needs to win back some of their votes to pass the bill with his slim 52-seat Republican majority. One of the conservatives, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), was among those feted Saturday night at a reception with Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist who funds the conservative network. Koch told those gathered for an outdoor cocktail reception on a breezy Colorado Springs evening about how far his team has come over the years at promoting what is a libertarian-leaning conservative agenda. Now when I look at where we are, at the size and effectiveness of this network, Im blown away, he told donors. Koch met Friday with Vice President Mike Pence. But the politics in the Senate remain difficult as McConnell continues to negotiate behind closed doors and rushes the bill to a vote expected this week. On Sunday, one key centrist, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, doubted a swift resolution. Its hard for me to see the bill passing this week, she said on ABCs This Week. Another crucial vote, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who had offered his own proposal, also criticized the rush. I frankly would like a few more days to consider this, Cassidy said on CBSs Face the Nation. But Republicans are anxious to resolve the healthcare debate, which has created a logjam in their legislative agenda. Meadows also told reporters if the Senate passes the bill this week, the House could quickly follow with a weekend session -- ahead of a Fourth of July bill signing by the president. Facebook

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Schiff: Obama should have acted on Russian interference, but Trump shouldnt complain By Laura King A top House Democrat says President Obama should have reacted more forcefully upon learning of Russian election-meddling, but also asserted that it was illogical for President Trump to levy such criticism against his predecessor. I think the [Obama] administration needed to call out Russia earlier, needed to act to deter and punish Russia earlier, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), said in an interview aired Sunday on CNNs State of the Union. Failure to do so, he said, had been a very serious mistake. But Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Trumps criticism of Obama made little sense in light of the current presidents own inaction in the face of decisive U.S. intelligence conclusions about Kremlin efforts to tip the 2016 race to Trump. Trump, Schiff said, is in no position to complain here in light of the fact that as a candidate, he openly urged the Russians to hack Clintons emails. To criticize Obama is now a bit like someone knowingly receiving stolen property blaming the police for not stopping the theft, said Schiff, a former prosecutor. On Saturday, Trump issued a statement on Twitter referencing a Washington Post report a day earlier detailing the previous administrations wrestling with how, when and whether to make public the degree of Russian interference. Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T! the president tweeted. The Post report said Obama was worried about the appearance of improperly using mounting intelligence reports about Russian activities to aid Clintons candidacy. The subject was particularly inflammatory because at that point in the race, Trump had complained repeatedly about the rigged political process and even suggested he might not respect the election outcome. Facebook

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Trump says hes optimistic about Senate approval of GOP healthcare measure By Laura King President Trump says he believes that backers of a sweeping GOP healthcare measure are going to get there and pass the measure despite the refusal of five Republican senators to endorse the bill as written. Healthcare is a very, very tough thing to get, but I think were going to get it, Trump said on Fox and Friends in an interview aired Sunday that he had touted beforehand on Twitter. We dont have too much of a choice because the alternative is the dead carcass of Obamacare, the president said, referring to the Affordable Care Act, his predecessors signature piece of legislation. Opinion polls have indicated low public support for the version of the healthcare bill passed earlier by the House of Representatives. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), wants to bring the Senate version, unveiled days ago, to a vote this week. In addition to the five Republican senators who have publicly aired their opposition, several others have declined to explicitly endorse the bill, which would overhaul the U.S. healthcare system and set the stage for massive tax breaks that would primarily benefit the wealthiest Americans. With a 52-seat Republican advantage in the 100-member chamber, only three GOP defections would be sufficient to derail the measure, since Vice President Mike Pence could cast a tie-breaking vote. Facebook

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Pro-Trump group launches new attack ad against special counsel Robert Mueller By Lisa Mascaro A Southern California group backing President Trump is out with a new ad attacking special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, criticizing the investigation into the Trump campaigns possible cooperation with Russian interference in the 2016 election. The ad, called Witch Hunt, features conservative favorite Tomi Lahren reflecting Trumps own language to complain about the probe. The more than $400,000 ad buy is expected to start running Sunday. Only in Washington could a rigged game like this be called independent, Lahren says, using air quotes in the ad to emphasize her point. She is now a senior advisor to Great America Alliance, which backs Trump. The ads chief complaint echoes Trumps criticism that Muellers team has ties to Democrats, because some of the lawyers have given campaign contributions to the party. Trump has also complained of the relationship between fired FBI Director James B. Comey and Mueller, who was once his boss. Mueller is a registered Republican. Among the members of the legal team he is assembling for the Russia probe -- which is also looking into whether the president obstructed the federal investigation by firing Comey -- four have donated to Democrats. One who gave the maximum donation to Trump rival Hillary Clinton also donated to Republicans. Both Republicans and Democrats have praised Muellers credentials and ability to handle the Russia probe as an independent investigation. The group, which ran a similar attack against Comey ahead of his testimony earlier this month on Capitol Hill, has emerged as a key pro-Trump organization. Facebook

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Koch brothers political network says Senate GOP healthcare bill is insufficiently conservative By Associated Press ( (Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)) Chief lieutenants in the Koch brothers political network lashed out at the Senate Republican healthcare bill on Saturday, becoming a powerful outside critic as GOP leaders try to rally support for their plan among rank-and-file Republicans. This Senate bill needs to get better, said Tim Phillips, who leads Americans For Prosperity, the Koch networks political arm. It has to get better. Phillips called the Senates plans for Medicaid a slight nip and tuck over President Obamas healthcare law, a modest change he described as immoral. The comments came on the first day of a three-day private donor retreat at a luxury resort in the Rocky Mountains. Invitations were extended only to donors who promise to give at least $100,000 each year to the various groups backed by the Koch brothers Freedom Partners  a network of education, policy and political entities that aim to promote small government. No outside group has been move aggressive over the years-long push to repeal Obamas healthcare law than the Kochs, which vowed on Saturday to spend another 10 years fighting to change the healthcare system if necessary. The Koch network has often displayed a willingness to take on Republicans  including President Trump  when their policies arent deemed conservative enough. Read More Facebook

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Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions wants to get tough on crime. These people think hes got it all wrong By Jaweed Kaleem Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions has vowed to crack down on crime by sending more criminals to prison for longer periods of time. Every one of our citizens, no matter who they are or where they live, has the right to be safe in their homes and communities from the scourge of criminal gangs, rapists, carjackers and drug dealers, Sessions said in an address to law enforcement officials in Memphis, Tenn., last month. In his view, imprisoning more criminals would make families safer, and fewer people would break the law if there were more severe punishments for crimes such as drug offenses. In a recent memo to federal prosecutors, Sessions instructed them to pursue the harshest punishments legally allowed, a reversal of an Obama-era move giving federal lawyers more leeway to reserve such prosecutions for repeat offenders and people who had committed the worst of crimes. Department of Justice officials hope the changes at the federal level  where a sliver of crimes across the country is prosecuted  will trickle down to a similar approach to crime in states. Read More Facebook

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Vice President Mike Pence stops in for an unscheduled chat with billionaire Charles Koch By Lisa Mascaro Vice President Mike Pence popped in for a visit this weekend with Charles Koch, the billionaire GOP donor hosting his semi-annual confab of like-minded business leaders assessing their priorities for the White House and Congress. The meeting was not listed on Pences official schedule for the day. President Trump never much enjoyed backing from Koch s sprawling, secretive, political enterprise, which has emerged as a libertarian-leaning power center, sometimes overshadowing the traditional Republican Party apparatus with its high-dollar donors and vast operations. Kochs group did not endorse the GOP presidential nominee. But the network has always had close ties with Pence. The vice president had previously attended the exclusive gathering of donors, held this weekend at the luxurious Broadmoor hotel. And his top staff was plucked from a key Koch organization, Freedom Partners. Pence and Koch and their top aides spoke for nearly an hour late Friday, according to a Koch spokesman. They discussed tax reform, the GOPs healthcare overhaul and other heavy legislative lifts that have run into resistance in the Republican-controlled Congress. The aide described the talks as casual. Pence was in the area making other stops, including at the Air Force Academy and an evening fundraiser for GOP Sen. Cory Gardner. Even without investing in Trump, the Koch network has made impressive strides in advancing its agenda this year. Congress swiftly rolled back more than a dozen regulations, including some intended to protect the environment, that Koch-backed groups complained were too rigorous and invasive in industry operations. The Koch network groups, including Freedom Partners, a free market-oriented, chamber of commerce-type organization, is pushing the Trump administration and Congress to pass tax reform and overhaul healthcare. Both those efforts have stalled in Congress amid Republican infighting, but the Koch groups is able to put their army of resources  money, staff and volunteers in the states  to pressure lawmakers to act. Facebook

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Kris Kobach fined for misleading court and refusing to produce previously exposed Trump memo By Colleen Shalby (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press) Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been fined $1,000 for misleading a federal court in an effort to keep two documents private. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last year against Kobach arguing that his states proof of citizenship law violates the National Voter Registration Act. ACLU lawyers asked Kobach to produce two documents they said pertained to the case. One of those documents was a draft of a proposed amendment to the National Voter Registration Act. The second was a document that had been photographed and widely shared in late November after Kobach met with then-President-elect Donald Trump. The power of a zoom lens exposed certain details of his proposal to Trump to deport potential terrorists. In a 24-page ruling made public Friday, U.S. Magistrate Judge James OHara wrote that Kobach did not accurately represent the contents of the documents when he argued against producing them. Defendant refused to produce these documents, asserting that they are beyond the scope of reopened discovery, do not seek relevant information, and are protected by the attorney-client, deliberative-process, and executive privileges, the judge wrote. The court took Kobach at his word, OHara wrote, but upon review of the documents  produced under a court order  found that they did relate to the voting rights case. The judge wrote that while the court could not say that Kobach flat-out lied, the defendants statements can be construed as wordplay meant to present a materially inaccurate picture of the documents. For now, the documents will remain classified, as Kobach designated them. But, OHara wrote, that status could change. Trump tapped Kobach last month to serve as vice chairman of a presidential commission that would oversee a voter fraud investigation. Facebook

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Number of refugees admitted to U.S. drops by almost half By Tracy Wilkinson (Patrick T. Fallon / For the Los Angeles Times) The number of refugees admitted to the United States was cut by nearly half in the first three months of the Trump administration compared with the final three months of the Obama presidency, reflecting the new presidents skepticism toward immigration. Government statistics released Friday showed that more than 25,000 refugees were permitted to enter and reside in the United States at the end of the Obama administration. In the initial months under President Trump, the number fell to 13,000. The statistics were released by the Department of Homeland Security, based on information supplied by the State Department. Countries of origin were largely unchanged. In both periods, two-thirds of the arrivals came from five countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Myanmar. Refugees from two of those countries  Syria and Somalia  would have been banned under Trumps executive order against entries from certain Muslim-majority nations, but federal courts have blocked the order. Trumps original order covered Iraqis as well, but he omitted Iraq from his revised order. The data suggest that the Obama administration, as it was about to turn over power to Trump, significantly stepped up the number of refugees admitted. Arrivals in its final three months reflected an 86% year-over-year increase compared to the same period the previous year. In Trumps first three months, arrivals were 12% lower than for the same period in the previous year. Trump has sought to limit the number of refugees to 50,000 this year. But adverse rulings in the courts could work against him. The United States already has one of the lowest quotas of refugee admissions among major receiving countries. Nations closer to conflict zones such as Syria have taken in millions of refugees. More people have been displaced from their home nations, because of violence and poverty, than at any time since World War II. Facebook

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Trump nominates former Dodgers co-owner Jamie McCourt as ambassador to Belgium By Lauren Rosenblatt Trump nominated Jamie McCourt, former co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, as ambassador to Belgium. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times) President Trump nominated Jamie McCourt, former co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, to be the ambassador to Belgium on Thursday night. McCourt, who co-owned the Dodgers with her husband, Frank, until their messy 2011 divorce, has donated money to several Republican organizations, including funds for Trumps campaign and his transition to the White House. McCourt was among many business leaders who signed their support for Trump early on in his campaign, praising his plan for economic development and growth. In the months leading up to Trumps victory, McCourt gave more than $400,000 to the Trump victory fund, according to data from the Federal Election Commission. She signed a letter in October 2016 with 100 other business executives and CEOs championing Trumps plan and criticizing opponent Hillary Clinton for having thrown in the towel on strong economic growth. McCourt was listed as a 2016 State Victory Finance Chair for Trumps campaign in July, according to a report from the GOP. Robert Wood Johnson, chairman and CEO of the New York Jets and Trumps nominee for ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was also on the list as Trump Victory vice chair. After Trump won the election, McCourt continued to financially support his transition to office. In December, she helped host a fundraiser breakfast for the incoming president where tickets sold for $5,000 a piece. Prior to her support for Trump, McCourt also donated to the campaigns of several other Republican presidential candidates, including John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Carly Fiorina, although in much smaller amounts. In the past, she has also supported former President Obama, contributing to his campaign and victory funds in 2011 and donating $50,000 to the inauguration in 2009. She donated about $2,000 to Hillary Clinton for her presidential campaign in 2007, according to the FEC. McCourts ex-husband said his former wife had political aspirations of her own, with an end goal of ending up in the White House, according to a March 2010 Los Angeles Times article. Her high-profile divorce gathered a lot of public attention and ended in dispute over finances and assets. McCourt has founded and directed entrepreneurial enterprises in Los Angeles and Boston throughout her career as a entrepreneur and attorney. Her investment firm, Jamie Enterprises, invests in real estate and technology start-ups. She has degrees from Georgetown University, the University of Maryland School of Law and from MIT/ Sloan School of Management. The Senate must confirm McCourts nomination for ambassador. Facebook

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Nevada Sen. Heller -- a key swing vote -- says he opposes Senate healthcare bill By David Lauter (Andrew Harnik / AP) Nevada Sen. Dean Heller said Friday that he planned to vote against the Republican healthcare bill, a potentially key defection. Although the White House and Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have said they plan further negotiations over the bill, its going to be very difficult to get me to a yes, Heller said at a news conference in Nevada with Gov. Brian Sandoval (R). The bill unveiled Thursday by McConnell is simply not the answer, he said. In this form, I will not support it. Given the unified Democratic opposition to the bill, McConnell can afford to lose only two Senate Republicans, so Hellers announcement is significant. A no vote by Heller would not seal the fate of the bill, however. Heller is widely viewed as the most vulnerable Republican senator up for reelection in 2018 -- the only one running in a state that Hillary Clinton carried last year -- and Republican leaders have been hoping to avoid having to count on his vote. Heller cited several reasons for opposing the bill, but the chief one was its deep reductions in federal support for Medicaid. This bill will mean a loss of coverage for millions of Americans and many Nevadans, he said. Nevada, under Sandoval, has used its authority under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid, which has given health coverage to more than 210,000 additional state residents, Sandoval said. These are folks who are worth fighting for, he added. The cutbacks the Senate bill, which would end Medicaid expansion, would cost the state $120 million a year by 2022, with the cost rising sharply after that the governor said. Thats a cost that the state cannot sustain. Heller also cited the bills impact on treatment for opioid addiction and the likelihood that the plan would fail to reduce premiums. There isnt anything in this piece of legislation that will lower your premiums, he said, contradicting one of the main arguments that supporters of the bill have made. Hellers announcement increases the pressure on McConnell to find ways of persuading several other reluctant senators to support the bill. Four conservatives, Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said Thursday they were opposed to the bill in its current form because it does not go far enough to roll back the Affordable Care Act. Several more centrist senators, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, have voiced concerns similar to Hellers about the depth of the bills Medicaid cutbacks and its impact on opioid treatment. Collins and Portman have both said they want to review the analysis of the bill from the Congressional Budget Office before making up their minds. The budget office has said it will release that assessment early next week. Facebook

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Trump signs VA reform bill to make it easier to discipline and fire employees By Lauren Rosenblatt President Trump signed into law Friday a bill that will ease restrictions on the discipline and termination of employees from the troubled veterans affairs department. The Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 is designed to speed up the process to discipline an employee for misconduct and put more decision-making power in the hands of Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin. The act is in response to the 2014 VA scandals involving long wait times for medical care and attempts by VA employees to cover up the delays. Trump, who promised to improve healthcare for veterans during his campaign, said the bill was one of the largest reforms to the VA in its history and is essential to making sure our veterans are treated with respect. The bill passed the House with bipartisan support June 13 and the Senate on June 6. Although the bill is widely supported by veterans advocacy groups, civil servant unions condemn the legislation as a way to get around long-standing protections for government employees and whistle-blowers. The reform, Shulkin said, will not be used as a tool for mass firings, but rather a way to raise morale throughout the department and attract new employees. Slow, steady, incremental change isnt what this organization needs, Shulkin said. Right now, I believe this is progress. Facebook

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Mexico pushes back against Trumps tweet calling it the second deadliest country in the world By Kate Linthicum Mexicos Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray speaks during a news conference in Cancun, Mexico, on June 19. (PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images) After President Trump incorrectly tweeted that Mexico is the second deadliest country in the world after Syria, the Mexican government responded quickly. No, Mexico isnt the second deadliest place on the globe, said a tersely worded statement issued by Mexicos secretary of foreign relations, pointing to a host of other Latin American countries that have higher per capita murder rates. And while homicides have been rising in Mexico in recent years, rising violence in Mexico is inextricably linked to demand for drugs in the United States, the statement said. Illicit drug trade is indeed the most important cause of violence in Mexico and drug trafficking is costing thousands of lives both in Mexico and the U.S., the foreign ministry said Thursday. However, as has been repeatedly stated by the U.S. government itself, drug trafficking is a shared problem that will end only by addressing its root causes: high demand for drugs in the U.S. and supply from Mexico and other countries. In order to be effective, we must be able to move beyond finger-pointing, the statement said. The Mexican government issued the response after Trump tweeted a reference to a controversial recent study that ranked Mexico as the worlds second most-dangerous conflict zone after Syria. Trump misrepresented the study in his tweet, saying Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world. He also neglected the considerable debate about the studys accuracy. The annual Armed Conflict Survey, released this year by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, has been called into question by the Mexican government and others who say it wrongly points to the existence of an armed conflict in Mexico. The existence of criminal groups is not sufficient criteria to speak of a non-international armed conflict, said a joint statement issued by Mexicos secretaries of governance and foreign relations in May, adding that drug-war violence is part of a bigger regional problem. Although Mexicos homicide rate has soared  the first two months of 2017 were the most violent since the government started releasing such statistics in 1997  other countries are experiencing higher homicide rates. In January, Mexico had a homicide rate of 20 deaths per 100,000 people, according to a Times analysis of Mexican crime statistics. By comparison, El Salvadors homicide rate was 81 deaths per 100,000 people in 2016, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that studies organized crime in Latin America. Venezuela had a homicide rate of 59 deaths per 100,000 people. Trump ended his tweet with a frequent campaign mantra: We will BUILD THE WALL! Mexico was just ranked the second deadliest country in the world, after only Syria. Drug trade is largely the cause. We will BUILD THE WALL!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 22, 2017 Facebook

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Supreme Court says final decisions of term will come on Monday By David Savage The Supreme Court is shown at sunset on Feb. 13, 2016. (Jon Elswick / Associated Press) (Jon Elswick / Associated Press) The Supreme Court announced it will hand down its final rulings for this term on Monday. But that does not mean the justices will actually decide the six cases that remain, which include three significant disputes involving immigration and the U.S. borders. Heres a look at the notable decisions so far. On Nov. 30, with one seat on the court still vacant, the eight justices heard arguments in a Los Angeles case on whether noncitizens who face possible deportation can be held in jail indefinitely or instead have a right to a bond hearing after six months. The case, Jennings vs. Rodriguez, has taken on added importance in the Trump era, but the long delay may signal that the justices are split 4-4. If so, the court may announce Monday that the case will be reheard in the fall, leaving it to new Justice Neil M. Gorsuch to cast the tie-breaking vote. Also still pending, since January, is a California case that will decide whether a crime such as breaking into an empty home qualifies as a crime of violence, triggering automatic deportation, even for an immigrant who is a longtime legal resident. A ruling in Sessions vs. Dimaya could affect thousands of deportations The third case, pending since February, is a closely watched border shooting. At issue in Hernandez vs. Mesa is whether a U.S. agent can be sued for fatally shooting a 15-year-old who was standing on the Mexican side of the border. On Friday, the justices gave a second chance to a Korean restaurant owner from Memphis who faces deportation for selling Ecstasy pills. Based on his lawyers advice, he pleaded guilty to the drug charge, having been assured it would not trigger his deportation. The lawyer was wrong. By a 6-2 vote in Lee vs. United States, the court said the Korean man may withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial. But for his attorneys incompetence, he would not have accepted a plea, said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.. Dissenting were Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.. The justices, including Gorsuch, are likely to rule in a significant case on religion and funding for church schools. In Trinity Lutheran vs.Comer, the justices will decide whether states may exclude church schools from receiving public funds. Also still pending, but on a different track, is the Trump administrations appeal over his blocked foreign travel ban. The court may act on that appeal at any time. Facebook

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Trump backs L.A. Olympic bid in meeting with IOC officials By Michael A. Memoli The opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. (Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times) President Trump pledged his full support for the Los Angeles bid to host a future Summer Olympics, the White House said Friday after an Oval Office meeting with the head of the International Olympic Committee. Trump met Thursday with IOC President Thomas Bach and three U.S. members of the IOC -- Larry Probst, Anita DeFrantz and Angela Ruggiero. A White House official called it a very constructive conversation in which Trump backed a potential third Summer Games in Los Angeles. With only L.A. and Paris bidding to host the 2024 games, the IOC is moving to reward both cities, giving one hosting duties in 2024 and the other in 2028. The United States hasnt hosted a Summer Olympics since the Centennial games in Atlanta in 1996. Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he discussed the citys Olympic bid during a post-election conversation with Trump last November and that the then-president elect pledged his backing. Facebook

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Trump says he tweeted about tapes to influence Comeys account of their private conversations By Michael A. Memoli .@POTUS on why he wanted former FBI Dir. James Comey to believe there were tapes of their conversations pic.twitter.com/pCuibM5Z6k  FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 23, 2017 President Trump called it bothersome that the special counsel now overseeing the Russia probe was good friends with fired FBI Director James B. Comey, and said he hinted at having tapes of his private conversations  apparently falsely  to try to influence Comeys eventual testimony. The president made his remarks during an interview that aired Friday morning on Fox & Friends, but was recorded on Thursday just hours after he tweeted that he did not, in fact, have tapes. Trump said that floating the possibility they did exist might have forced Comey to tell what actually took place at the events. When he found out that, I, you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether its governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, I think his story may have changed, Trump said. My story didnt change. My story was always a straight story. Foxs Ainsley Earhardt followed up: So it was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in those hearings? It wasnt very stupid, I can tell you that, Trump answered. Many disagree, including Republicans. Comey testified that Trumps tweet is what prompted him to as
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The European Union (EU) and Azerbaijan are very interested to further enhance the economic cooperation, Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Malena Mard told reporters June 8 on the sidelines of the EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum.

We are organizing the 3rd EU-Azerbaijan business forum. As you see, we have over 400 participants from over 300 companies. Of course, I think, this is a very clear signal that there is a large interest between the EU and Azerbaijan to even further enhance trade and economic cooperation, she said.

Mard pointed out that the EU is the largest trade partner and the major investor including in the non-oil sector in Azerbaijan.

Of course, we want to work with Azerbaijan on the diversification and reform agenda, she added.

Mard reminded that the EU Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn will visit Azerbaijan on June 16.

EU countries accounted for 38 percent of Azerbaijans total trade turnover in the first four months of 2017.

Currently, over 1,300 European companies operate in the country.

To date, Azerbaijan has signed double taxation avoidance agreements with 23 EU countries and agreements on the promotion and protection of investments with 17 EU countries. Moreover, Azerbaijan has intergovernmental commissions with 13 countries and has signed strategic partnership agreements with seven EU countries.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
She was considered a dancer for the ages, the embodiment of the romantic ballerina, renowned for the spirituality of her dancing.

Olga Spessivtseva, one of Russias foremost and well-acclaimed ballerinas of the 20th century, was most famous for Giselle, a ballet in which a peasant girl goes mad from a broken heart after discovering her lover is betrothed to another.

The romantic ballet seemed to be an extension of Spessivtsevas existence.

While on a world tour in the 1930s, Spessivtseva, who occasionally danced under the name Spessiva, suffered the first of a series of mental breakdowns.

She gave her last performance in 1937 and settled in New York, where she had lived for many years after recovering from paranoia and delusions that curtailed her career.

The story is Boris Eifmans choreographic essay, Red Giselle, a narrative ballet dedicated to Spessivtseva after Eifman learned of the ballerinas fall along with other artists who met similar fates when forced to leave Russia.

Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg will return to Segerstrom Center for the Arts performing Red Giselle, from June 16 to 18. The North American tour is in celebration of Eifman Ballets 40th anniversary.

Eifman said he was drawn to Spessivtsevas story after he learned the esteemed dancer spent 20 years in a mental clinic, alone and deprived of her rights.

The great dancer had a truly tragic fate, Eifman said. She shone on the stages of the Mariinsky Theatre and the Grand Opera, worked with outstanding figures of the ballet art of the 20th century and was rightfully considered an unsurpassed performer of the role of Giselle.

But her mental fragility, multiplied by the trials that fell to Spessivtsevas share  terrible events of the Russian revolution, forced emigration, unhappy love  doomed the ballerina to a mental catastrophe, Eifman said.

It is this dramatic contrast between the lifetime creative demand for Olga Spessivtseva and her subsequent immersion into oblivion that deeply shocked me, prompted me to create the performance, he said.

Eifman said the ballet is not a biographical play, as he does not delve into the details of her life, but gives a portrait of a generation of people who left their country and became wanderers.

Its like a combination of dance and theater, which makes it so unique, said Judy Morr, Segerstrom Centers executive vice president and principal dance programmer. Boris creates a visual picture of history and he generously makes this subject matter into art.

Red Giselle is at 7:30 p.m. June 16, 2 and 7:30 p.m. June 17 and 1 p.m. June 18. Segerstrom Center for the Arts is at 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets start at $29. For more information, call (714) 556-2787 or visit scfta.org.

kathleen.luppi@latimes.com

Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
A Scott Peotter recall proponent has filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission in hopes that the state agency will look into the Newport Beach city councilmans financial filings.

Newport Beach activist Susan Skinner said Peotters financial forms create more questions than answers.

In a wide-ranging complaint dated June 1, Skinner raises issues about how properly Peotter disclosed his economic interests during his time as a council member, where he has served since 2014, or as a Newport Beach planning commissioner prior to that.

She said Wednesday that her chief concern is over income Peotter reported through Capitol Ministries, an organization that spreads gospel to local, state and federal government leaders.

She also questioned why he reported no income from 2006 to 2010, the years he served on the Planning Commission.

As a member of regional governmental boards that include the county Sanitation and Vector Control districts and the San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency, Peotter is required to file a series of forms showing his business interests within Orange County.

In a 2016 form, he reported income from Capitol Ministries to his architectural and development firm, Aslan Companies, in the range of $10,000 to $100,000.

Skinner wrote in her complaint that it was unlikely that Peotter provided architectural services to the Washington, D.C.-based group.

Instead, she said she believed Peotter was acting as a lay ministry leader for the organization.

To serve as a ministry leader, he would have to solicit tax-deductible donations to Capitol Ministries, which the organization would pass back to him to support his spiritual work.

And if thats the case, she argued, the donors and their gift amounts are not disclosed.

We need to know the money trail, whos influencing Mr. Peotter, she said.

But Peotter said thats not the case. He said the income was direct payment from Capitol Ministries for his work to expand its mission to local governments, not money he raised to support his own ministry.

Peotter said if he reported no income for a time it was because he didnt have any  that was during the recession, and real estate is a fickle business.

He said that he would have been living off savings.

Peotter said he stands by everything on his forms and has no problem answering any questions by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

I dont have anything to hide, he said. Thats why we file these things publicly.

An FPPC spokesman said Wednesday that the agency had received the complaint, but couldnt say anything further, as is standard practice on pending complaints.

In general, complaints are reviewed to determine if they have merit  if there is enough information or evidence to suggest a violation of the state Political Reform Act  then the office begins an investigation. This initial review takes anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD
Patriotism was on full display Wednesday morning as dozens of people attended a ceremony at the Huntington Beach Pier to usher in a surfing clinic to benefit injured war veterans.

The program, Operation Surf, will provide surfing lessons to 15 veterans through Monday.

Its meant to change the lives of wounded military heroes one wave at a time, event director Danny Nichols said.

This is the inaugural Operation Surf in Huntington Beach.

A fire engine behind Pier Plaza raised a large American flag to serve as a backdrop for speakers at Wednesdays ceremony, including several city officials.

My hope is that each and every one of you knows what a gift you are, Mayor Barbara Delgleize told the veterans.

The program is provided by Amazing Surf Adventures, an organization based in San Luis Obispo that develops community surfing programs to help individuals change their perspective and overcome their personal challenges, according to the groups website.

Former professional surfer Van Curaza said he founded the group in 2008 with the idea that surfing has rehabilitative effects that could help others.

Following the ceremony, the veterans took to the water with their soft-top longboards and surfing instructors.

With some participants missing limbs, several safety personnel were on hand.

Participant Eric Stoneking said he was blown up while working as an Air Force explosive ordnance disposal technician in Iraq.

He said the surfing program changed his life when he first took part in San Luis Obispo in 2014.

Stoneking said surfing is rehabilitative because the ocean, like war, is a mind field. Filled with sharks and other unknowns, it requires acceptance of chaos. But, Stoneking said, once you embrace the chaos, its beautiful.

He said one of the most important aspects of the program is being connected with other veterans.

Its generally instilled in military members not to ask for help, Stoneking said. We are our own worst enemy, he said.

Several veterans who went through the program in previous years were on hand Wednesday to help as support staff.

Marine Corps veteran John OConnell was injured while serving as an infantry platoon commander in Vietnam when two 500-pound bombs were dropped nearby.

He went through the surf program in Santa Cruz last year and said the ocean acts as a calming agent, stripping away anxiety.

Theres something magic about the ocean, OConnell said.

benjamin.brazil@latimes.com

Twitter:@benbrazilpilot
The reach of the late Henry Segerstroms artistic vision continues to impact Orange County and beyond.

Segerstroms widow, Elizabeth, carries the cultural and charitable torch with boundless energy and her own disarming style, expanding the Segerstrom legacy from west coast to east. The Polish-born socialite who speaks multiple languages and holds several advanced degrees had previously lived and worked as a practicing psychologist for many years in New York.

Today she builds a bridge connecting O.C. to Manhattan in the worlds of fashion retail as the Segerstrom familys South Coast Plaza celebrates its 50th anniversary year in Costa Mesa, along with Segerstrom family sponsorship of major cultural events on both coasts.

Recently American Ballet Theatre (ABT) of New York arrived in O.C. to debut its production of the ballet Whipped Cream at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

The Alexei Ratmansky choreographed production received rave reviews from both critics and audiences alike, again solidifying SCFTAs reputation as a world-class house of dance thanks in great part to the decades-long cultivation of dance performances mentored by Center executive vice president Judith Morr.

The O.C. debut of Whipped Cream was followed by a major gala celebration in New York City on May 22 as ABT celebrated its opening night gala for the 2017 Spring Season at the storied Metropolitan Opera House.

Among the major sponsors/underwriters was Elizabeth Segerstrom, who had flown in from Newport Beach with local friends and associates to attend and support the ballet that had previously been a smash in Costa Mesa.

Attired in a chic strapless original gown by Oscar de la Renta, Segerstrom joined South Coast Plazas executive director of marketing Debra Gunn Downing, along with friends Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Elettra Wiedemann, Rachel Feinstein, Sutton Stracke and designer Cameron Silver, for the performance and party.

The evening was star-studded.

Hollywood A-listers Blake Lively, Katie Holmes, Maggie Gyllenhaal were among the glittering guests.

Elizabeth Segerstroms associates Hugues de Pins, Andrew Barth, Allan Pollack and Hamilton James, president of Blackstone Group and Chairman Emeritus of ABT, were all front and center for the spring season opener.

Also greeting the east-west contingent was artist Mark Ryden, considered one of the preeminent pop surrealists of our time.

Ryden designed the lavish sets for Whipped Cream, which is created around themes of old Vienna, Austria in keeping with the ballet score by Richard Strauss.

Following the performance, guests were ushered into the David H. Koch Theatre at The Met for dinner and dancing. Many of the principal dancers who had also graced the SCFTA debut shared their O.C. experience with the California crowd, including Hilary Rhoda, Amy Ashley, Hannah Bowles, Ann Duong, Fernando Garcia, Eric Rutherford, Sean Avery and Bettina Zilkha.

Coming up June 13, Elizabeth Segerstrom will join extended family members and retail partners at South Coast Plaza presenting to the public a multimedia exhibition in Jewel Court titled Pioneering Spirit: An American Dream on the path and legacy of the Segerstrom family.

The exhibition will detail the Segerstrom journey from its 19th century farming roots in underdeveloped Orange County to its 21st century status as an international shopping and cultural center known as South Coast Plaza.

B.W. COOK is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.
The Mothman of West Virginia, the Jersey Devil of New Jersey and now the creature of La Crescenta?

A cellphone video has been making the rounds among local news outlets this week showing what appears to be some kind of creature climbing through the trees in the foothills of La Crescenta.

The video was shot by Jake Gardiner, who was out on a walk during his lunch break last week in the woods near the Foothill (210) Freeway and Lowell Avenue. He told KTLA that he heard strange noises in the trees while on his walk and that something was watching him.

Figured it was just some type of bird or something like that, he said.

He told KTLA that he took out his cellphone and began filming the area, trying to find out what was making the noise.

When he later reviewed the footage, he noticed some kind of object moving through the trees.

You can definitely see a torso and four limbs moving around and swinging around  its a pretty obvious kind of motion, Gardiner said.

Its unknown what exactly Gardiner saw.

It could be some kind of ape, it also could be a bear, it could be a large bird, Andrew Hughan, a spokesman with the states Department of Fish and Wildlife, said.

Hughan said its hard to determine anything from the 12 frames of cellphone video that Gardiner shot, and there hasnt been any kind of evidence left behind to even give an idea of what it might be.

While it could be some kind of exotic pet that has escaped, Hughan said its rare for that to happen in California.

Its an interesting mystery right at the moment, and well see what happens, he said.

Hughan did caution for people to not go out and look for this animal or mystery, saying that it has the potential to be dangerous.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_Truc
La Canada Flintridge has been named one of the 50 Safest Cities in California, it was announced Monday by a firm specializing in home security and safety advice.

According to Salt Lake City-based SafeWise, La Canada Flintridge comes in at No. 37 in this years rankings, which it based on the 2015 FBI crime report, the most recent data available. According to the report, the city reported 0.96 violent crimes and 13.82 property crimes per 1,000 (population) during the period studied. The citys SafeWise ranking improved from No. 57 the previous year.

We are pleased to be recognized for the safe community that we know La Canada Flintridge to be, said City Manager Mark Alexander, in an emailed response to a request for comment. This comes, in large part, due to the combined diligence of our residents and the hard, steady and dedicated work of our Sheriffs Department deputies and detectives that are so committed to protecting our community. As with every city, there will be times when we will be faced with crises or events that challenge our thinking or approach, but the expertise and resources of the Sheriffs Department has come through every time to meet those challenges and this is reflected in the results of this survey. Thank you to our residents and our Sheriffs Department for helping make this happen.

Capt. Chris Blasnek, who in April arrived to oversee the Crescenta Valley Sheriffs Station, was quick to credit the attitudes of residents, as well as the support from the LCF City Council and the city manager for the improved safety ranking. In an email, he said that in his 34-year career with the county Sheriffs Department, hes finding a higher level of citizen involvement in this community than others and that such activity is paying dividends.

These residents are involved! he said. They care about the community they live in and they volunteer. Crescenta Valley Station has an incredible ratio of citizens that are either on our premier Mountain Rescue Volunteer Team, our Station Support Group, and even as our Volunteers on Patrol. Many work around our station side by side with our deputies who patrol daily. They know what is going on and they support our efforts to maintain safety. When they see something, they say something. 

Noting that there has been an uptick in property crime in recent months, a statewide issue, Blasnek said the station is receiving local support in fighting it. With the help from the involved residents, new technology, and deep care towards maintaining our low crime rate, we have seen successful apprehensions, he said.

Imperial, at the southern tip of the state, garnered the No. 1 rank in this years SafeWise report. The nearby city of Sierra Madre also made the Top 50 list, ranked No. 16, slipping from the No. 9 spot last year.

To see the complete list, visit https://www.safewise.com/blog/safest-cities-california/

carol.cormaci@latimes.com

Twitter: @CarolCormaci
Want to get away from it all? Youll have three opportunities to do it in a big way next January when three separate cruise lines begin their world cruises from the Port of Los Angeles.

Most of these long-term cruises, which generally run more than 100 days, depart from Florida. But next year, Californians who prefer to sailing to flying will be able to hop down to the local port in San Pedro for trips that will make their way to most of the worlds continents.

Princess Cruises announced its 111-day cruise in late May. Others departing from Los Angeles in January 2018 are Regent Seven Seas and Crystal Serenity.

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The Pacific Princess will depart San Pedro on Jan. 22, visiting 44 ports before returning to California on May 14. Stops will include Honolulu, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, India, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Greece, Rome and several more ports in Europe before crossing the Atlantic and stopping in Florida, then sailing through the Panama Canal to Mexico and finally back to Los Angeles.

Prices start at $19,999 per person, double occupancy, for an inside cabin; balcony cabins start at $25,998.

Regent Seven Seas will spend time sailing in South American waters during its 137-night cruise, which leaves Los Angeles on Jan. 8 and returns May 25. Its itinerary includes Honolulu, French Polynesia, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Seychelles Islands, Argentina, Brazil, several port stops in the Caribbean and Mexico before returning to Los Angeles.

Inside cabins start at $59,999 per person, double occupancy, including free airfare. Veranda rooms start at $69,999 with airfare.

Crystal Serenity will depart San Pedro on Jan. 23 on a 112-day voyage that will conclude in Rome on May 15. The itinerary includes Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, India, Oman, the Suez Canal, Israel and European ports, including Rome.

Inside cabins start at $43,960 per person, with a concierge suite starting at $73,999 per person, double occupancy. Several categories are wait-listed, but the concierge suite is open.

Port charges and fees can increase the cost of these cruises from $2,000 to $6,000 per person.

ALSO

Think locally, hire a pro, and consider the Northwest or Normandy to save big on a sail

Watch the Great American Eclipse from the Atlantic Ocean on Oasis of the Seas cruise

Alaska strikes gold with record number of visitors  and more are on the way

Cruise lines roll out Mexico sailings for fall 2017 and beyond

travel@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimestravel
Road trips make me antsy. As a hiker and runner, I build in as many stops as my buddies will tolerate on the northward drive from L.A. (destination: Morro Bay).

Here are five leg-stretchers that will break up the boredom.

Your ultimate guide to planning the best summer road trip 

Wendy Trail in Newbury Park

The wikiup at the Satwiwa center in the Santa Monica Mountains. (Mary Forgione)

A 15-minute detour from U.S. 101 takes you into the grasslands and meadows of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Walk a few flat miles on this trail and youll come to the Satwiwa Native American Indian Culture Center, where kids can play in the outdoor wikiup or view artifacts inside.

Its a good place to burn off some energy before youre back on the open road.

How: far Its about 48 miles from downtown Los Angeles. Take the Wendy Drive exit off U.S. 101 North to its end at Potrero Road and park; no fees.

Info: Santa Monica Mountains

El Moro Elfin Forest Natural Area in Los Osos

The Elfin Forest in Los Osos. (Mary Forgione)

This is an easy walk of sheer coastal beauty, from the silver lupine and sage that line the trail to the wide-angle views of the estuary and Morro Rock in the distance.

The easy boardwalk loop, less than a mile long, takes you to 200-year-old coast live oaks stunted by this coastal dune habitat (hence the elfin name). Birders should bring their binoculars.

How: Its about 155 miles from the Santa Monica Mountains stop. Find Santa Ysabel Boulevard in Los Osos and turn on to 11th through 17th streets for access to the reserve.

Info: El Moro Elfin Forest

Cerro Alto Trail in Los Padres National Forest

The trail starts out under a lush oak canopy. (Mary Forgione)

This spot is midway between Atascadero and Morro Bay. Take a break from the road by walking into a shady oak grove in the first quarter-mile of this trail.

There are blackberry bushes in the underbrush and a sweet little creek with a wooden footbridge.

Youll feel miles away from the road and, as you climb, the oaks give way to a ridge studded with manzanita. Here the views of San Luis Obispo Countys hill country unfold.

Blackberries bloom along the Cerro Alto Trail, (Mary Forgione)

You can continue on for two more miles or so to the top. (Yes, it gets steep.)

How far: This is 13 miles from the Elfin Forest. Trail begins off California 41 at the Cerro Alto Campground; $10 day-use fee.

Valencia Peak in Montana de Oro State Park, Los Osos

Its a hard but worthwhile slot up to Valencia Peak. (Mary Forgione)

There are so many places to see in this state park  the dramatic bluffs and coves of the California coast up close -- but Valencia Peak takes you above it all.

Its a tough trek (about 4 miles round trip) to the top of the more than 1,300-foot summit along a rocky two-mile trail.

Snap a selfie when you reach the top. (Mary Forgione)

The payoff? 360-degree views of the surf and beaches below  unless its fogged in.

How far: Its about eight miles from the Cerro Alto Trail. Trail starts near the parking area south of Spooners Cove.

Info: Montana de Oro State Park

Embarcadero in Morro Bay

Here youll find dunes and a great view of Morro Rock. (Mary Forgione)

Youve arrived! Kick off your shoes and head for the dunes at the spot where Atascadero Road turns into the Embarcadero.

A slog through the deep sand will feel like a foot massage, and you can check out the sand verbena and beach primrose that cling to the sandy hills.

A sand dollar on the beach off Embarcadero. (Mary Forgione)

Once through the dunes, you can walk the hard-packed beach in either direction where youll catch great vistas of the back side of Morro Rock.

How far: Its about 13 miles from Valencia Peak trailhead. Take Pacheco Valley Road, Los Osos Valley Road and Bay Boulevard to meet up with Cabrillo Highway and into Morro Bay. Parking along the Embarcadero is free.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Azad Hasanli  Trend:

Economic reforms implemented in Azerbaijan are already yielding tangible results, said Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev at the 3rd EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum in Baku June 8.

According to him, in January-April 2017, non-oil industry grew by 2.8 percent, with agriculture growing by 3.2 percent in Azerbaijan.

Mustafayev noted that Azerbaijans trade turnover with other countries rose by 11.5 percent during the period. Exports increased by 41 percent, including a 23-percent increase in non-oil exports, he said.

During the first four months of 2017, currency reserves of Azerbaijan increased by $1.3 billion and reached $39 billion, said the minister, adding that as of April 1, 2017, the reserves exceeded the foreign state debt by 3.2 times.

He said Azerbaijan ranked 37th among 138 countries in the Global Competitiveness Report for 2016-2017, and has been ranking first among CIS countries for several years.

The minister said Azerbaijan attaches special attention to development of human capital. The development of human capital is the main direction of social and economic policy pursued in the country under the leadership of Azerbaijans president, added Mustafayev.

He emphasized that political stability, rich natural resources, economic potential, favorable business and investment environment, modern infrastructure, favorable geographical location, rich culture, and being a reliable partner on international arena have turned Azerbaijan into a country attractive for investments.
My son is a whiz at navigating all things having to do with air travel. Yet when it came to planning road trips he seemed content to defer to me  that is, until the teen and young adult years.

Here are some things I (we) learned about traveling together on several recent road trips in the Southwest.

A hotel with a pool is important, until its not

I booked a room at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas so my water-loving (I thought) teenager could hang out at its 1.6-million-gallon wave pool. He wasnt even tempted to put a toe in the water.

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Your ultimate guide to planning the best summer road trip 

What did he do instead? He sat on his bed in our upper-floor hotel room and watched the planes take off and land at McCarran International Airport.

What he said: It would have been better to be at the pool with a friend. Dont go to Vegas with just your mom.

Sometimes the buffet is best

My son is an adventurous eater, so in Las Vegas I booked someplace a bit different for dinner. Jaleo, a Spanish tapas restaurant at the Cosmopolitan, was a misfire. It was impossible to fill up this champion chowhound with even a large assortment of expensive small plates.

A Vegas all you-can-eat buffet would have been a practical, more budget-friendly choice.

What he said: Sometimes the best choice is the simple choice. Pizza is comfort food, and you can always find it. I also like dives  usually cheap.

Strike a balance when it comes to activities

He wont want to go to all the museums you want to visit. Ask him whether theres something special he would like to do.

What he said: Mom, this last trip to New Mexico was really your trip. Way too many [five] museums. Dont push it. Its called a vacation for a reason. I did like the Taos Pueblo and Georgia OKeeffes house in Abiquiu because they were like walking into history.

I want to be outside hiking, horseback riding or river rafting. The raft trip we took on the Rio Chama was a good save on your part.

Dont be afraid to take your offspring to the theater or opera

He might surprise you. We had generally positive experiences at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City and the Santa Fe Opera.

What he said: I need to know about this stuff at least 48 hours ahead of time so I can mentally prepare for the boredom. But it wasnt too bad. The architecture at the Santa Fe Opera was unique; it was great being able to see the horizon and the sun drifting away. The opera was kinda cool [Puccinis The Girl of the Golden West], with a saloon, gold miners and a heroine who packs a pistol. I wasnt expecting that.
If youre a shrinking violet, you might think twice before taking to the road in Jucys mini RV, which is painted blazing shades of lime green and purple and is plastered with ads.

But if you dont mind attracting attention, this small-size rental can be big fun.

Jucy, a New Zealand vehicle rental company, is testing the waters in the U.S. with offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco.

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Your ultimate guide to planning the best summer road trip 

In the U.S., it primarily rents Dodge Caravans, which have been customized as pop-up camper vans that can sleep up to four.

I rented one in the fall for a four-day road trip to Arizona, where I visited friends and went cave-hopping, checking out Colossal Cave in Vail, about 25 miles southeast of Tucson, and Kartchner Caverns, outside Benson, about 45 miles southeast of Tucson.

It didnt take long to realize that I was a rolling billboard. My first stop was for fuel, and I immediately drew the attention of a fellow driver at the next pump.

Does it really have a sink? he asked, gesturing at a slogan on the side of the van that read, This Jucy RV comes with everything, including the kitchen sink.

I think so, I answered. I just rented it. Lets look. I opened the back and found a small sink, a gas stove and a mini-fridge.

Impressive, he said.

Another customer who had wandered over to take a look adjudged it to be cool.

How much is it? asked a woman who was filling her car at a nearby pump.

It depends on the time of year, I said, cutting the conversation short and getting back into the van. I was beginning to feel like an auto show model.

It was the first of several encounters with curious onlookers.

Compared with larger RVs, Jucy is inexpensive. Costs start at $45 a day and can climb to as much as $110 a day.

Compare that with the $60 to $200 a day youll be charged for a standard 19-foot RV. Prices are the highest in August, when many Europeans join Americans in touring the U.S. Youll also pay mileage fees and a deposit.

My charge during Thanksgiving week was $45 a night, plus a daily $25 charge for unlimited mileage.

The biggest cost saving for Jucy renters is probably in fuel charges. I averaged 20 mpg with my Jucy. In a normal RV, my mileage would have been in single digits. I also felt good about leaving a smaller carbon footprint with this van than I would have in a larger vehicle.

Of course, a full-size RV also would have a toilet, a shower, more storage space and walk-through capability. I had none of these with my green-and-purple camper van.

But I had a pop-up penthouse top, which was pretty comfortable and offered a birds-eye view of the desert landscape at Kartchner Caverns State Park Campground.

Another plus: It was an excellent spot for wildlife viewing. I watched a javelina (a tusked, piglike creature) and jackrabbits scurry through the camp.

Besides the penthouse bed, you can sleep in the rear of the van. The back seat folds into a bed that can sleep two, or you can convert the area into a dining table. A storage area is below.

The van is efficient and well-designed, but the space is very compact, and theres not much room for extra gear. Youd have to be super well-organized to travel in it with four people -- and everyone would have to limit baggage.

One thing I wish I had brought: a low-temperature-rated sleeping bag because it was pretty chilly. I learned when I returned the van that I could have rented a camper pack that included sub-zero-rated bags.

Jucy gets points for being much easier to park and maneuver than a regular-sized RV, and when I ran into a windy stretch on Interstate 10 in Arizona, I didnt worry about it blowing off the road in the next big gust. In a larger RV, I probably would have been tempted to pull off the road.

The company has made some changes since I rented my van, a Jucy marketing representative told me. I had to pick up my van in Lawndale, but the company will now deliver a vehicle to Southern California residents for a fee. And you can pick up your rental after hours.

The small size of the vans, coupled with their energy efficiencies, make them an attractive alternative for younger travelers.

Just remember, youre going to get lots of stares and questions.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
Dozens of soldiers were killed early Thursday in a dawn attack by the Somali extremist group the Shabab on a military base in the Somali region of Puntland.

The Shabab  allied with Islamic State rival Al Qaeda  said it was responsible for the attack and claimed to have killed 61 soldiers. The precise casualty figure was not known but the Associated Press cited a military official as saying up to 70 were killed.

It was the Shababs largest attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a period seen by militants as a key time for attacks.

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Extremists have carried out a series of Ramadan attacks in London, Paris and Tehran, as well as Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad; Mogadishu, Somalia; and Melbourne, Australia. There have been attacks in northeastern Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon and the Philippines. The deadliest attack was an explosion in a neighborhood in Kabul where many Western embassies are located, which killed 150 people and injured hundreds.

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the bulk of the attacks.

Somalia has been mired in civil war for decades, but elected a new president in February, in an election that many hope will usher in a more stable and peaceful period. Nonetheless, the Shabab continues to carry out almost-daily attacks targeting soldiers, police and government officials  but also often killing civilians.

Suicide attacks on hotels and cafes and drive-by shootings are common in the capital, Mogadishu, often targeting government workers.

The attack on the Af-Urur military base in the Galgala mountains killed the base commander and his deputy in Puntland, a semiautonomous region that has its own 3,000-strong military force. Under a deal between the Somali and Puntland governments, the force is to be integrated into the Western-backed national army.

In a tactic repeated frequently on other military bases, the Shabab suicide bomber or bombers attacked first, before fighters overrun the facility, killing dozens. The Shabab has often used the same tactic in attacking Mogadishu hotels, with a suicide bomber in a car loaded with explosives spearheading the attack, before armed fighters swarm in, taking control of the building, killing civilians.

The AP reported that civilians in the area, including women and children, were beheaded during the attack.

The group seized weapons and military vehicles in the attack.

A similar attack on a Kenyan base in southern Somalia in April last year killed about 180 soldiers, making it Kenyas largest military loss. Militants later posted photographs and video purporting to show the attack and killings of Kenyan soldiers.

Kenya is part of a United Nations-backed African Union force seeking to stabilize Somalia and drive out the Shabab, and Islamic State, which has recently taken hold in some parts of the country.

But despite losing a series of commanders to American drone strikes, the Shabab has proved nimble and versatile, capable of inflicting devastating attacks, including bombings and shootings in Mogadishu

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LAT
South Koreas former health minister was convicted Thursday of pressuring the countrys pension fund to support a controversial Samsung merger, in one of the first rulings on key players in the corruption scandals that ensnared the countrys ousted president and Samsungs heir.

The merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries in 2015 was crucial in Samsungs father-to-son leadership succession, but U.S. hedge fund Elliott Associates and other minority shareholders opposed the plan, arguing that it would unfairly benefit Samsung founding family members.

Support from the National Pension Service, a key investor in Samsung, was crucial to ensure shareholder approval. Thanks to the pension services vote, Samsung narrowly won the approval, helping Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong consolidate his control over South Koreas largest business conglomerate.

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The Seoul Central District Court said Moon Hyung-pyo, then head of the health ministry that oversaw the National Pension Service, was sentenced to two years in prison. He was found guilty of abusing power to sway the pension funds vote on the merger. He was also found guilty of perjury during a parliamentary hearing, lying about his role in the merger.

Moon has violated the pension funds independence, the court said in a statement.

A former executive at the pension fund was also found guilty of causing damages to the fund by swaying its investment committee to support the Samsung merger. Hong Wan-sun, a former head of the funds operation division, was sentenced to two years in prison.

The court said Hong swayed the vote even though he knew that the merger ratio was unfair to Samsung C&T shareholders and would cause damages to the pension funds stake in the construction company.

The 2015 Samsung merger and the allegations that the pension service was pressured to support Samsungs succession plan were among the triggers of the massive corruption scandals that led to the impeachment of Park Geun-hye in March and the arrest of Lee, Samsungs de facto leader.

Prosecutors have accused Lee, who is on trial for bribing Park and her long-time friend, of offering bribes seeking the governments support of the smooth leadership transition at Samsung, including the merger.

The allegations that the pension fund, which manages $508 billion for South Koreans post-retirement, supported the Samsung merger despite financial damages angered the public, and it was one of the reasons that prompted South Koreans to stage massive demonstrations for months last fall.

ALSO

Was that Manila attack an act of terrorism? Trump and Philippine officials differ

Jerry Brown in China with a climate message to the world: Dont follow Americas lead

Do you think we will go away? Islamic State says after attacks in Iran that leave 12 dead

UPDATES:

12:55 a.m.: Updated with the conviction of Hong Wan-sun.

This article was first published at 11:50 p.m.
Germanys transport minister on Monday unveiled plans to charge foreign drivers a road-use toll to close what he called a fairness gap that lets cars registered in other countries get a free ride on some of the worlds best highways and byways.

The proposal by Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt would generate about $3.4 billion every four years by charging about $14 for a 10-day road-use pass and an average of about $123 for a yearlong permit, depending on the foreign vehicles emissions and engine size, Deutsche Welle reported from the Berlin news conference.

The system would be revenue neutral for German-registered cars, Dobrindt said, as the new toll proposed to take effect Jan. 1, 2016, would provide a rebate to car owners on the licensing taxes they already pay.

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That has spurred some opposition among Germanys neighbors who see the plan as imposing a tax on foreigners in contradiction to European Union regulations. Austrian Transport Minister Doris Bures called the proposal discriminatory and vowed to challenge its compliance with EU rules.

Dobrindt said the proposal, which would have to be approved by the German parliament, will be written in such a way as to meet any EU test of equal treatment of citizens within the 28-nation alliance. He said the measure was intended to charge foreign drivers their fair share for road maintenance and construction.

We see some 170 million trips by cars registered abroad on German roads each year. These are not involved in financing our infrastructure in any way, Dobrindt told the news conference. We want to bridge that gap, and we want all users of our streets to contribute to their maintenance.

Germany already imposes tolls for foreign and domestic trucks using national roads and highways but hasnt collected for cars entering the country. With nine countries on its border, Germany has the largest volume of cost-free foreign road use within the EU, Dobrindt said.

Several European states operate a similar road-use toll system for all vehicles, including Austria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Stickers attesting to the paid toll would be available online before a foreign drivers entry or at roadside service stations, Dobrindt said.

Follow @cjwilliamslat for the latest international news 24/7.
Britains opposition Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn called on Prime Minister Theresa May to step down early Friday after exit polling projected that she could fall short of a majority in Parliament.

If confirmed, the result would be a stunning setback for May, who called a snap election to strengthen her hand as she embarks on two years of divorce negotiations with her European Union counterparts.

The prime minister called the election because she wanted a mandate, Corbyn said in a victory speech in the north London constituency where he won by a clear majority.

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Well, the mandate shes got is lost Conservative seats, lost votes, lost support and lost confidence. I would have thought thats enough, actually, to go and make way for a government that will be truly representative of all the people of this country.

With results still coming in five hours after the polls closed, the Labor Party was doing better than many had expected, winning 186 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons, compared with 169 for the Conservatives.

Mays voice faltered as she addressed supporters after successfully defending her Maidenhead seat, but she gave no indication that she planned to quit as prime minister.

As we look ahead and we wait to see what the final results will be, I know that the country needs a period of stability, she said. And whatever the results are, the Conservative Party will ensure that we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability so we can all, as one country, go forward together.

Interviews with voters as they left the polls suggested that the Conservatives could ultimately claim 314 seats  more than any other party but a drop of 17 compared with the 2015 result.

The Labor Party was projected to win 266 seats, an increase of 34.

The exit poll was conducted for a consortium of British broadcasters and is generally a good indicator of results.

Financial markets were unnerved by the prospect of Britain being thrown into a period of more uncertainty, with the pound dropping sharply against the euro and the dollar as the exit polls came out.

The leader of the UK Independence Party, Paul Nuttall, was quick to heap scorn on May for what could have been a failed gamble.

If the exit poll is true, then Theresa May has put Brexit in jeopardy, Nuttall said on Twitter. I said at the start this election was wrong. Hubris.

Even the former Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, suggested that Mays political future could be in peril.

Clearly, if shes got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader, Osborne told British media.

Still, Britains exit from the EU  colloquially known as Brexit  is unlikely to be derailed entirely. The two parties with the largest vote share  Conservative and Labor  have both agreed to accept the outcome of last Junes referendum, in which the vote to leave the EU was 52% compared with 48% to remain.

The Liberal Democrat Party remained staunchly opposed to leaving the EU, hoping to win over the disgruntled 48% by pledging to hold another referendum on the issue. But the idea gained little traction.

In one of the first big upsets of the night, the former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, lost his seat in the north of England to a Labor Party rival.

Clegg formed a coalition government with Mays predecessor, David Cameron, in 2010, but stepped down as his partys leader after its poor showing in the 2015 election. In his concession speech, he made a heartfelt appeal to the politicians who will be forming a new government in the morning.

It is a Parliament that is presiding over a deeply, deeply polarized country, he said. We must try and reach out to each other to try and find common ground if we are to heal those profound divisions, he said.

A police officer is stationed Thursday outside a London polling station. (Victoria Jones / Associated Press)

May had looked unassailable at the start of a campaign marred by deadly terrorist attacks in London and Manchester and was widely seen as a strong leader during a time of turmoil.

Even though she was not voted in by the electorate, but succeeded Cameron when he resigned after backing the failed Remain side, she quickly took the helm and promised to get Britain the best possible deal from the EU.

Although she initially said she would not call an election until the current parliamentary term was set to expire in 2020, she announced in April that she had decided with reluctance that an early vote was necessary to end the infighting that had beset lawmakers and the country since the Brexit vote.

Her decision came after she had triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which formally began the divorce proceedings from the other 27 EU members.

May had made her vision for Brexit clear, stating that there could be no half in, half out deal. She said Britain was prepared to withdraw from the European single market  a central tenet of the EU that guarantees the free movement of goods, capital, services and people  and also the customs union, which guarantees tariff-free trade within Europe.

No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain, May said during a speech in January.

This caused alarm among detractors who argued that this so-called hard Brexit was something no one had voted for.

The Labor Party, meanwhile, said that it would seek to pursue a more tempered approach to Brexit, including attempting to negotiate for Britain to remain in the customs union.

That soft Brexit option could become more likely if May has to persuade lawmakers from other parties to support her strategy. But being seen as weak at home could ironically make her negotiating life a lot easier.

If you have a weak position back home, you have a very strengthened position in negotiations, as other countries know you might not be able to get the deal through Parliament, said Tim Oliver, an associate at LSE IDEAS, a foreign policy think tank at the London School of Economics.

From the EU perspective, if youve got a massive majority, you can make concessions. If you have a small majority, you can say, Cut me some slack. 

Regardless of the final results, the prime minister that the country wakes up to Friday morning will have a huge job ahead.

There are an array of pressing domestic issues, not least the fact that London and Manchester have been hit by three terrorist attacks in as many months.

Brexit negotiations are due to begin June 19. And once the terms of the deal become clearer, it could spark a second independence referendum in Scotland, where the electorate voted 62% to 38% to remain part of the EU.

Election booths opened at 7 a.m. nationwide, and lines formed early in many parts of the country. But many voters said they had only just decided whom to vote for, and the decision had not come easily.

I was 50/50 between Conservative and Labor, said Joe Johnson, 22, who was voting in north London. But I read their manifestos yesterday, and a lot of the Labor policies are not relevant to me. I think the Conservatives are there to get the job done.

Corbyn was initially virtually written off by much of the British press, who felt he lacked the leadership skills to win over the public and was presiding over a deeply divided party that couldnt decide if it supported him.

However, he attracted large crowds at his election rallies  including much-coveted younger voters  and made pledges to make the country work for the many, not the few.

May, by contrast, was accused of running a lackluster campaign and appearing awkward in interviews, repeatedly trying to make the election about the strong leadership she could provide, without wanting to be drawn into specifics about her Brexit plan.

This left many voters feeling indecisive and uninspired about whom to support.

Im not a Corbyn fan, said hairdresser Natasha Simon, 40, who said she voted Labor on Thursday more because she liked her local candidate than because of the Labor leader. I dont know how to feel. Theresa May is decisive, and she gets her point across. I think shes good.

Many schools were shuttered to act as polling booths, but in some parts of the country, more inventive methods were used to enable voters to cast their ballots. In Liverpool, a gym was transformed into a polling station; in North Yorkshire it was a train carriage, and in Somerset a farm store.

Boyle is a special correspondent.

UPDATES:

8:15 p.m.: This article was updated with Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn calling on Prime Minister Theresa May to step down.

7:20 p.m.: This article was updated with the former Liberal Democrat deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, losing his seat to a Labor Party rival.

7 p.m.: This article was updated with background and analysis.

4 p.m.: This article was updated with comments on exit poll results.

2:55 p.m.: This article was updated with information that exit polls project the Conservative Party will lose seats.

This article was originally published at 9:05 a.m.
The remarkable thing when this tiny nation legalized same-sex marriage in June wasnt that the conservative-leaning prime minister, Xavier Bettel, supported the new law.

It was that he might be among the first to take advantage of it.

Bettel and his partner, architect Gauthier Destenay, probably will tie the knot sometime soon. He asked me, and I said yes, the 41-year-old prime minister said with an impish grin. I cant give you the date, because its not official yet.

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He took office in December, after an election campaign in which his sexuality was neither a secret nor an issue. Bettel had opened up about his private life when he was a Luxembourg city councilman, acknowledging his sexual orientation on a radio talk show. (Asking the DJ to play a song by gay pop band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Power of Love, sealed matters.)

I have just one life, and I dont want to hide my life, Bettel said in an interview here in his office. But I was not the gay candidate.  People didnt vote for me because Im gay or Im straight.

Nevertheless, he is a pioneer on one of the last frontiers of gay visibility: a politician who not only wins office but also makes it all the way to the top. Since 2009, three have achieved that milestone; the others are Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo of Belgium and former Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir of Iceland.

All are in Europe, where gay rights campaigners have scored significant victories in recent years, in some cases eclipsing gains in the United States.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first nation to authorize same-sex marriage, three years before gay and lesbian couples could get hitched in Massachusetts. Now, several of Europes biggest nations, including France, Britain and Spain, offer marriage equality, which exists only on a state-by-state basis in the United States.

Electing an openly gay person to run the country represents another step in Europes evolving attitudes. By contrast, no American state has elected an out-of-the-closet governor, though that could change this fall, in Maine.

I dont know how in the States you think about it, Bettel said, but I think in Europe, what is important is people respect private choices as long as you are honest.

::

Not that the continent is a gay utopia.

Although Europe has made strides in combating anti-gay prejudice in hiring and sports, among other areas, outbreaks of homophobic rhetoric and violence still mar the record of even the most tolerant nations. The recent rise of far-right parties across the region has been accompanied in some instances by attacks on homosexuals as well as on immigrants.

Acceptance is strongest in the west and north, but even in Western Europe, at least one major country, Italy  with the Vatican looking over its shoulder  offers virtually no legal protections or rights to its gay and lesbian citizens.

And despite the growing number of gay politicians, theres no guarantee that their countries embrace or will adopt progressive policies, just as the election of female lawmakers, prime ministers and presidents around the world hasnt necessarily resulted in the elevation of womens status in those nations.

As role models, they are important, especially for young people. But when it comes to issues, we look not at party members but on party platforms, said Rene van Soeren of COC Netherlands, which promotes gay rights around the world. Whats most important is that parties really seek  to make it proudly visible that they support LGBT rights.

Membership in the 28-nation European Union, which demands  but doesnt necessarily enforce  compliance with nondiscrimination standards, has helped improve the situation in some countries, Van Soeren said. Since Poland joined the bloc a decade ago, gay pride marches have become a fixture on Warsaws cultural calendar, and a gay man and a transsexual woman have entered Parliament.

Paris and Berlin, two of Europes most vibrant cities, have elected gay mayors.

A 2012 survey asked EU residents to rate, on a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable they would feel having a gay, lesbian or bisexual person in their countrys highest public office, with 10 signifying totally comfortable. Of the then-27 member states, 17 scored an average of 5 or higher; in nine nations, the average was above 7.

The three nations where that has actually come to pass are relatively small ones. The most populous among them, Belgium, is home to 11 million people; Iceland has barely 325,000.

Surrounded by Belgium, France and Germany, Luxembourg covers only 1,000 square miles and has about 500,000 residents, fewer than live in Vermont. But it often wields greater clout in Europe than its size would suggest.

Two of Bettels predecessors as prime minister, Jacques Santer and Jean-Claude Juncker, have gone on to serve as president of the European Commission. (Juncker was appointed just last month.) Luxembourg also attracts international talent as a leading global financial center.

Parliament approved the same-sex marriage measure in June on a 56-4 vote, with virtually no public opposition. The law takes effect in January.

It took its time, but it also gave us the opportunity to raise awareness in the population so that nowadays we did not have this big backlash like [there was] in France, said Roby Antony of Luxembourgs Gay and Lesbian Information Center.

In the States, he said, you have very strong forces that are still longing for the old times. Our old times were not very good. Our old times were the Middle Ages, when everybody was poor and ill.

::

Luxembourg is now healthy and affluent, but still relatively modest: The prime ministers headquarters, in the capitals historic district, is virtually indistinguishable from the clutch of old buildings around it, shadowed by the big Roman Catholic cathedral. Security is absurdly minimal compared with the phalanx of officers guarding the White House.

Funky, colorful pieces of contemporary art, which reflect his gregarious personality, adorn the walls of Bettels office, culled from his collection at home. (There is no official prime ministerial residence.) A black-and-white photo of him with his partner, Destenay, sits on his desk.

The couple was already in a civil partnership, though a query as to when it happened set off an embarrassed search through the prime ministers computer files and a sheepish call to Destenay, who didnt pick up.

Dont worry, its not important for me to know the date, a reporter told Bettel reassuringly.

No, its important for him, his assistant responded with a smirk.

Answer: March 2010.

Bettel had been in office barely six months when the same-sex marriage bill was passed June 18. He dismissed concern that it might be viewed as his personal agenda, noting that the proposal was first drafted by the previous government.

People who are against it, they will just blame you and say, We have unemployment, we have poverty, we have problems with housing, but this is his biggest priority? said Bettel, who is leader of the Democratic Party. The text was ready. Why should we wait six months or a year just to [mollify] people who will always complain? When it was done, it was done.

As premier, Bettel has not shied away from public appearances alongside Destenay, including attending the annual national day ceremony held in the cathedral.

After he was first elected to the parliament in 1999 at age 26, I had invitations for the first two, three, four years where it was Monsieur and Madame. But now its clear in everybodys mind, Bettel said. If Im not invited with Gauthier, I wont go.

Official trips abroad might prove trickier, particularly to countries that frown on or outlaw homosexuality. When Sigurdardottir visited Beijing last year as Icelands prime minister, Chinas state-run media studiously avoided any mention of her wife, who accompanied her.

Opportunities for such trips are naturally limited for Bettel and Destenay by the absence of an official role for Luxembourgs first spouse. But the couple plans to call on Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras together this summer.

On his Facebook page, you see quite often he posts photos of them together, said Laura Philips, 20, a college student from outside the capital. It never makes headlines or anything. People are indifferent, but in a good way.... Its a sign of a modern society.

At any rate, should a cabal of homophobic Luxembourgers scheme to topple Bettel from power, it probably would have to contend with the coalition governments No. 2 leader, Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider.

Schneider, 43, is head of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers Party and serves as economy minister and defense minister.

Hes openly gay, too.

henry.chu@latimes.com
An armed drone fired on U.S.-backed coalition forces on patrol Thursday outside a small military garrison in southern Syria where American special operations forces train Syrian rebels.

The drone, believed to be an Iranian-made Shahed-129, missed the ground forces, and the bomb itself failed to explode, according to U.S. officials.

A U.S. F-15 fighter jet, scrambled from a nearby airfield, shot down the drone  the first time an American fighter destroyed an enemy aircraft in air-to-air combat since February 2009.

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Earlier in the day, coalition warplanes destroyed two trucks mounted with machine guns that were advancing toward the Tanf garrison.

The incidents are part of a steady escalation of the U.S. militarys role in Syria  one that runs the risk of putting American forces on a collision course with Iran, a close Syrian ally.

The Pentagon is not sure Iranian military piloted the aircraft.

It was clearly meant as an attack, U.S. Army Col. Ryan Dillon, the Baghdad-based spokesman for the campaign against Islamic State, told reporters at the Pentagon via teleconference. We do not see it as a warning shot.

The U.S. military has now conducted three airstrikes in less than a month against what it says are Syrian forces directed by the Iranian government and loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad. The forces have amassed for the last several weeks just outside  and have repeatedly encroached inside  a 35-mile de-confliction zone that rings the base and was negotiated with Syrian ally Russia.

We wont allow the Americans to control the borders, and weve informed them of this.  Hadi Ameri, head of Iraqs Badr Organization

In recent months, the U.S. has ramped up the number of special operations advisors, weapons and other support for Syrian rebels battling to deny Islamic State militants access to the Badia, a desolate swath of territory in Syrias southeast that has long been a conduit for the jihadis moving east into Iraq and on to Iran and back. The rebels also want to overthrow Syrias government, even though the two sides share a common enemy in Islamic State.

With support from a U.S.-led coalition, the rebels have snatched hundreds of square miles there from Islamic State. The desert fighting is a prelude to campaigns for oil-rich Dair Alzour province, which is largely in the hands of the extremists, as well as the city of Raqqah, the groups de facto Syrian capital.

Dozens of shiny new U.S.-supplied Toyota Land Cruisers, equipped with platforms that can take a heavy gun, lay on flatbed trucks rumbling into Tanf, a small base that U.S., British and Norwegian special forces use as a staging ground to train, equip and fight alongside their rebel partners. Advanced U.S. weapons, including drones and projectiles designed for clearing minefields, have been used in recent confrontations between rebels in Syrias south and forces loyal to Assad.

But the campaign has spurred Assad and his allies  who include Iranian military advisors as well as irregular military forces from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan  to launch their own offensive in Badia against Islamic State and the rebels. In addition, Russia has deployed warplanes and special forces to bolster Assads battered ground troops.

All sides, the Americans, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Iranians, are in a race against time to consolidate their strategic positions between Iraq and Syria, Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East studies at the London School of Economics, said in a phone interview on Tuesday. It was a matter of who will reach the Iraqi-Syrian border first, he added.

Further complicating the situation, Central Combat Media, a news channel affiliated with the Lebanese faction Hezbollah, last week issued a statement from the Syrian army and its allies saying it had launched the Great Dawn operations aimed at controlling the eastern desert of Syria and liberating it from the presence of Islamic State militants. Hezbollah is supported by Iran and is allied with Assad.

The U.S., which has favored Assad stepping down, has given varying degrees of support to the rebels over the six-year civil war.

The pro-government troops approached Tanf on Tuesday with a tank, artillery, antiaircraft weapons, trucks mounted with machine guns, and more than 60 soldiers, according to a statement by the coalition.

The U.S. military said it issued several warnings before destroying two artillery pieces and an antiaircraft weapon and damaging a tank.

The U.S. military does not speak with the Syrian government. So U.S. military officers at an air command center in Qatar called their Russian counterparts on a special hotline set up to ensure the two countries pilots do not mistakenly run into  or fire upon  one another in the skies above Syria.

After warning the Russians of the impending strikes, the ground forces continued their activity, the U.S. military said. The coalition then carried out the airstrike.

The U.S. military launched the first airstrike May 18 against the ground forces. Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said afterward that the fighters were believed to be Iranian-directed forces.

After that strike, the coalition dropped leaflets warning pro-government forces they were within the de-confliction zone and commanding Syrian forces to leave this area now.

But the threat to Tanf may also come from across the border in Iraq, where paramilitary factions backed by Iran, known as the Popular Mobilization Units, or Hashd al Shaabi, have begun to push Islamic State into Syria.

Although those militias are in a reluctant alliance with the coalition against Islamic State, the U.S. views these factions as little more than Iranian proxies.

Hadi Ameri, head of Iraqs Badr Organization and a leader in the militias, said in an interview on Lebanese news broadcaster Al Mayadeen that his forces would clear the Iraqi side of the border with Syria.

We wont allow the Americans to control the borders, and weve informed them of this, he said, adding that although his forces would chase Daesh wherever it is, they would not enter Syrian territory without coordination with Damascus. Daesh is a pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

If the militias did cross into Syria, it would strengthen Damascuss bid for the east and, Washington and its allies say, give Iran unprecedented influence in the area by creating a land route linking Tehran to Beirut.

Such a link would allow easier transfer of weapons and support to Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Hilal Khashan, a professor of political science at the American University of Beirut, said in a phone interview.

Iranian officials dismissed those claims, saying there was no need for such a geographic link.

Why make this land corridor in these risky areas? Are we mad? Americans do not understand the reality on the ground, said Hussein Sheikholeslam, a senior advisor to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Bulos, a special correspondent, reported from Amman and Hennigan, a staff writer, from Washington. Special correspondent Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran contributed to this report.

@nabihbulos

twitter:@nabihbulos

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Hundreds of guests and dignitaries gathered at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, for a special session Tuesday marking the 1967 Six-Day War. It was a celebration of Israels lightning military victory over Arab armies in the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, West Bank and East Jerusalem that forever changed the landscape of the Middle East.

In an address that waxed nostalgic for the euphoria that swept Israel in the wars aftermath, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invoked the biblical history of the Jewish people in Hebron and Nablus, the West Bank cities that were captured during the conflict. The Six-Day War returned us to the country from where we had been cut off for generations, he said. This is our land.

Absent from the parliamentary party, however, were legislators from Israels pro-peace Meretz party. Not enough attention, they said, was being paid to the consequences of Israels unending control over millions of Palestinians who live in the lands occupied 50 years ago this week.

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Tamar Zandberg, one of the partys parliament members, complained that the celebrations ignored the fact that the West Bank has lived under military rule for 50 years.

This casts the biggest shadow over Israels democracy in its history  and for its continued existence, she said on the parliament television channel. This reality is really abnormal  its distorted, and we need as quickly as possible to reach a solution to this in the form of an agreement.

The dissonance between the prime minister and the opposition politician highlights the extent to which the anniversary of the war is stirring a debate in Israel over whether one of the countrys most storied military victories planted the seeds of a modern political disaster.

Israel scored a total defeat against Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian forces, perhaps one of the last moments in the Middle East that a military conflict has been decided so decisively. The victory transformed Israel from a small, vulnerable outpost teetering on the eastern shelf of the Mediterranean into a regional power player with ample territorial buffers against any potential new attacks.

Its a moment of clarification that is forcing Israelis to be more honest about where we are heading.  Ehud Eiran, professor of political science, Haifa University

After surviving a traumatic surprise attack in 1973 by Egypt and Syria in an attempt to recover their territories, Israel eventually traded Sinai for a peace accord with Cairo in 1979 and established full diplomatic ties with Jordan in 1994.

But the 1967 war also began Israels self-declared military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, along with its controversial annexation of East Jerusalem, which formerly belonged to Jordan.

Described as temporary, the occupation gave Israel control over the lives of a Palestinian population that today numbers 4.9 million.

It also opened the door to establishing hundreds of Jewish settlements and outposts in those territories  neighborhoods that many right-wing Israelis, including Netanyahu, now consider an inseparable part of the country.

At official ceremonies and academic symposiums and on the opinion pages of newspapers, the anniversary has become an occasion among Israelis for taking stock of what was gained, and the continuing costs of the countrys failure to turn those 50-year-old military gains into lasting security.

Its a moment of clarification that is forcing Israelis to be more honest about where we are heading, said Ehud Eiran, a professor of political science at Haifa University. Theres a growing belief that this reflects a permanent reality, rather than the stories we told ourselves that its a temporary occupation.

Israeli armored forces in action in the Sinai Desert on June 5, 1967. (AFP/Getty Images)

In a late May survey by the Israel Democracy Institute released this week, about 62% of Jewish Israelis disagreed with the idea that control over the West Bank constituted a military occupation.

Although a two-thirds majority considered control of the West Bank to be a boost for Israels security, the survey also found that the public was evenly split over calls by right-wing politicians to annex the territory.

For the religious nationalist leaders who lead the settlement movement, the jubilee anniversary is being hailed as a sign of the settlements permanence. Tens of thousands of religious nationalist supporters gathered at the Western Wall plaza on the Hebrew calendar anniversary of the capture of East Jerusalem in late May to celebrate.

When I am asked about what is the full vision, what is the future of Judea and Samaria in our eyes, I answer that I want to see, with the help of God, one million Israelis living in Judea and Samaria, Avi Roeh, who heads the Yesha settlers council, wrote on Facebook, referring to the biblical names for the West Bank.

It used to seem like a far off, impossible dream. But today, its possible to believe that were on the right track.

In an effort to push back against public perception that the Jewish settlements in the West Bank are an asset to security, the Molad center, a left-wing research institute, released a paper based on interviews with former Israel Defense Forces generals arguing that large amounts of resources are being diverted to the protection of settlements.

Israels left wing, which has seen its influence and power diminish over the last two decades, has also been focusing this week on the moral implications of continued control over Palestinians in the West Bank and what it means for the countrys democratic values.

The settlers have succeeded in creating, on the ground, exactly what they wanted. A reality in which it will be very difficult to draw a border line, which will prevent a separation between us and the Palestinians, David Grossman, a prominent Israeli author, told the daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot.

This forces us into making a choice between a few tragic options for those who want a democratic state and a Jewish home. In this sense, the settlers create a danger for the future of the state of Israel, they are dragging us into an abyss.

Writing in the same newspaper, the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed such concerns.

Those who say that we should have evacuated the territories at once need to be reminded what it was like here before the Six-Day War: a country whose border was near the outskirts of greater Tel Aviv, and which was only 15-kilometers wide, wrote Gilad Sharon. Does anyone want to go back to that? With all the problems, our situation today is a thousand times better.

Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University, argued that Israelis on both sides of the political spectrum do agree that the government needs to come up with a definitive policy to end the state of political limbo started in June 1967.

Whether youre on the right or left, the continuing uncertainty for 10 or 20 more years is untenable, he said. The longer the temporary aspect of the situation lasts, the more unhealthy it is for Israel.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

@joshmitnick

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Police increased patrols in the streets and subway stations of Tehran on Thursday, a day after a pair of Islamic State attacks on the parliament and the tomb of Irans revolutionary leader.

Irans Intelligence Ministry confirmed that at least five of the eight male attackers had fought for Islamic State.

Officials also announced that the death toll had increased to 17, not including the attackers. An additional 43 people were wounded in the attacks.

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Many of the injured remained in intensive care at Cina Hospital in the capital on Thursday. Several lawmakers visited the injured, including Allaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads parliaments national security and foreign policy commission.

Among those shot in the attack and still hospitalized Thursday was a former presidential bodyguard.

Ali Akbar, 34, had survived other attacks that killed fellow bodyguards while traveling overseas with then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to a relative who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. The attack on parliament left Akbar with shrapnel in his neck and a bullet lodged in his abdomen, his relative said.

I could not resist fighting the terrorists, who were killing common people and staff in the light of day.  Ali Akbar, a former presidential bodyguard

Akbar was heading home Wednesday and had stopped at a bank to guarantee a loan for a friend when he heard the attack at parliament and rushed over to help.

He heard the shooting, went to the west gate of parliament, showed his card and was given a gun, the relative said Akbar later told him. He went to the third floor where the hostage takers had dozens of hostages and he started shooting at one of the terrorists, who was a tall, broad-shouldered [man] dressed in black, and gunned him down. But the other one killed several hostages: women, staff of the parliamentary offices.

The attackers appeared to be Arab, Algerian and Tunisian, not Iranian, according to the relative.

The relative said that Akbar told me in the ICU, I could not resist fighting the terrorists, who were killing common people and staff in the light of day.

All of the attackers were killed: Four at parliament and four at the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, officials said. One of them was identified as Saryas Sadeghi, an Islamic State recruiter on the western border known to authorities for the last three years, according to state-run Fars news agency.

Funerals for victims of the attacks are expected to be held Friday. A procession is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. in parliament for guards killed there, with parliament Speaker Ali Larijani addressing the crowd, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency

The rest of the funerals are expected to be held later in the day, during Friday prayers, when coffins wrapped in Iranian flags will be taken to the public cemetery in south Tehran, where they will be buried near defenders of a shrine that was attacked, local media reported.

The deputy interior minister, Mohammad Hossein Zolfaghari, told state TV that law enforcement activities may increase in the aftermath of the attacks.

He said authorities are focused on intelligence gathering.

Police said half a dozen suspects were held in connection with the attacks. Reza Seifollahi, a member of the Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by Iranian media as saying the attackers were Iranian nationals. At least one witness reported hearing an attacker speakPersian, but video posted online that appears to have been recorded by the attackers shows them speaking Arabic.

A motorcycle repairman reads a newspaper at his shop near Irans parliament building in Tehran on May 8, 2017. (Vahid Salemi / Associated Press)

The assailants, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives, attacked the parliament complex while lawmakers were at work, according to witnesses. The siege lasted several hours. Sixteen people were killed, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside the complex, according to state television.

At the same time, gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Khomeinis mausoleum on Tehrans south side, killing a security guard, according to state television.

Islamic States media arm quickly claimed responsibility for both attacks, the first in recent memory by the militants in Iran. Iranian forces are fighting the Sunni Muslim extremists in Iraq and Syria, and lawmakers have argued theyre doing so to prevent terrorist attacks at home.

The attacks also came at a tense time in the Middle East: Sunni Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the U.S., have aligned against Irans Shiite Muslim leaders.

President Trumps statement condemning the attacks also suggested that Iran had it coming. The United States considers Iran to be a state sponsor of terrorism.

We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times, the statement said. We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

Iranians angered by the statement took to social media to vent, recalling sympathetic vigils held in Tehran after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that Trumps statement was repugnant.

Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship, Zarif tweeted.

Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks in a statement issued late Wednesday that also noted the spilled blood of the innocent will not remain unavenged.

Others also blamed the kingdom.

Khoda Karam Gomaraj was at Cina Hospital awaiting news about a friend injured in the attack.

The terrorists were on the payroll of Saudi Arabia, he insisted.

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molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Special correspondent Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Times staff writer Hennessy-Fiske from Beirut.

UPDATES:

1:40 p.m.: This article has been updated with funerals scheduled, other details.

This article was originally published at 7 a.m.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Azerbaijan is inviting European companies to invest in the development of the countrys non-oil sector, Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev said.

He made the remarks June 8 at the EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum in Baku.

Azerbaijan and the EU have great potential for expanding cooperation in industry, transportation, agriculture, IT, tourism, education and healthcare, the minister said.

Mustafayev added that the EU-Azerbaijan cooperation in the energy sector remains promising.

So far, the second stage of the project to develop the large Shah Deniz gas and condensate field has been completed by 93 percent, while the work on the expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline has been completed by 85 percent, he said.

Mustafayev noted that the work on construction of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) has been completed by 72 percent, adding that the work on construction of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) has been completed by 42 percent.

To date, there are many tools for cooperation between Azerbaijan and the EU, he said.

Twinning projects, TAIEX (Technical Assistance and Information Exchange), SIGMA (Support for Improvement in Governance and Management), as well as technical and budgetary support can be mentioned among them, Mustafayev added. Since 1992, the EU has provided support worth 582 million euros to Azerbaijan within the framework of these tools.
All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced.  19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc.
Travelling to the U.S. has become a bit more personal now that the Trump administration is vetting visa applicants with requests for all of their social media profiles, reports Reuters.

But, what does this mean for you, or your family or friends applying for a visa to enter the U.S.?

Under the new procedure consular officials can request for an applicants Facebook, Twitter or all of their social media profiles used within the last five years. Also, they can ask for email addresses, phone numbers and 15 years of biographical information including addresses, employment information and an applicant's travel history.

Even though answering these new questions are voluntary, the form states that failure to provide the correct information may delay or prevent the processing of a visa applicant.
Former FBI Director James Comey told a great many things the Senate Intelligence Committee in a Thursday morning session open to the public and media and proved to be a poised and collected witness.

He didn't read his riveting seven-page statement released Wednesday night, but questions surrounding the contents of it were abound. In opening statements before opening himself up to inquiries, Comey stated that he was "confused" about the rapidly "shifting explanations" President Trump gave for his removal as FBI Director in early May.

BREAKING: Comey says he believes he was fired `to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted'  The Associated Press (@AP) June 8, 2017

"It confused me when I saw on television the president saying he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation and learned again from the media that he was telling, privately, other parties that my firing had relieved 'great pressure' on the Russia investigation," Comey said, referring to reporting on Trump's conversation with Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after the dismissal. Elaborating on Trump's closed-door requests for "loyalty" in his preliminary statement, Comey later explained one of the reasons he began cataloguing all of his conversations with Trump, something he had not done while working under President Bush or Obama, was because he "was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting."

Comey says he leaked contents of memo on WH dinner to media because he thought it would prompt appointment of special counsel.  FactCheck.org (@factcheckdotorg) June 8, 2017



Noting several times how inappropriate he thought Trump's speaking to him privately was, Comey said he seen Trump's tweet last month suggesting that the president had "tapes" of their conversations, and that if those did exist, they would corroborate his testimony.



A frequent line of questioning from Senators centered on Trump's February 14 private conversation with Comey in the White House, one day after Flynn was asked to resign for misleading Vice President Pence over his conversations with Russian officials during the transition. Comey said that he was under the belief the president was directing him to lift "the cloud" or stifle the investigation into Flynn.

"I took it as a direction," Comey said. "I took it as, this is what he wants me to do." Comey also added that he didn't stop the investigation, and at that time, Flynn was indeed in "legal jeopardy" over his ties with the Russians.

There were of course questions Comey would not answer publicly, either deferring to answer them in the closed afternoon session devoted to sharing of classified information or answering that "he was no longer in government anymore" and that it could impede on Former FBI Director and current Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

Comey's purposeful silence around several of the questions revolving around the nature of Russian interference in the 2016 election and it's connections to officials in the Trump camp before and after the election paint a fairly damning connect-the-dots picture. Whether charges of obstruction of justice are being pursued by Mueller's team remains to be seen, but Comey came forward on the biggest stage possible with several illuminating bombshells about President Trump and his administration.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Voluntary restructuring of external debt of the International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA) is the most optimal way of resolving the issues related to the banks indebtedness to foreign creditors, Azerbaijani Deputy Economy Minister Sahil Babayev told the EU-Azerbaijan Business Forum in Baku.

Answering the question on why Azerbaijan, which has available foreign currency reserves and is able to fully repay the debts, decided to go for the IBAs debt restructuring, Babayev noted that using the reserves is the last option the country can choose.

As a result of restructuring the banks external debt, Azerbaijan will get advantageous conditions, Babayev added.

Earlier, the IBA commenced a process of voluntary debt restructuring as part of its rehabilitation. The banks total debt to foreign creditors is $3.3 billion.

The International Bank of Azerbaijan has been operating since 1992 and is one of the countrys two state-owned banks.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

Turkey will support the export of Nakhchivan products to its territory, Azerbaijans Economy Ministry said June 8.

This statement was made at a meeting of Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev with Turkish delegation.

During the meeting, the sides mulled the issues of expanding exports from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to Turkey, a preferential trade agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkey, and trade relations between the two countries.

Mustafayev said the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Turkey grew by 88 percent in January-April 2017, as compared to the same period of 2016. In particular, exports increased by four times and imports increased by 18 percent, according to him.

The Turkish side, in turn, expressed support for expanding exports of Nakhchivan products to Turkey, noted the systematic work with entrepreneurs and relevant authorities in this area, and said Turkish businessmen are interested in investing in Nakhchivan.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

A delegation of Turkmen companies will visit Tajikistan on June 12 to establish economic cooperation, the Tajik Foreign Ministry said June 8.

The delegation will include the representatives of Turkmenistan Airlines, the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and tourism companies.

According to the Tajik Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the visit is aimed at strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation between Turkmenistan and Tajikistan in the economic and trade sectors, attracting investments and finding partners.

The chamber said the Turkmen delegation will include more than 70 entrepreneurs working in banking, food, agriculture, construction, energy, trade and other sectors.
Jun 7, 2017, 5:48pm ET

Judge says Uber must present acquisition documents to Waymo

Uber has asserted attorney-client privilege to prevent Waymo from reviewing an internal due-diligence report related to the Otto acquisition.

Uber may have been dealt another blow in the legal battle with Waymo as a magistrate judge apparently shoots down its assertion of attorney-client privilege for an important document.

The lawsuit centers around Uber's acquisition of Otto, a startup formed by Google's former head of self-driving car engineering, Anthony Levandowski, after he left the search giant. Waymo has argued that Otto was created as part of a conspiracy to steal trade secrets from Google without directly exposing Uber to legal liability.

Potential risks of Otto acquisition were likely discussed in due-diligence documents that Waymo has requested in the lawsuit. Uber claimed the document was protected by attorney-client privilege because it involved discussions with internal lawyers.

The disagreement was left to a magistrate judge to establish a ruling under seal, however the US federal judge overseeing the primary lawsuit apparently revealed the outcome in court.

"Are you appealing the ruling against you on the due diligence report?" US District Judge William Alsup asked Uber's lawyers in a San Francisco courtroom, as quoted by Reuters.

Levandowski was fired recently for failing to comply with Uber's internal investigation and asserting his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying in the case. He was not listed as a defendant in the case, which focuses instead on Uber's knowledge of his alleged actions.

The document could reveal what Uber's executives knew, if anything, about Levandowski's actions and intentions related to his departure from Google and Otto's acquisition.
Subaru WRX STI Type RA sheds weight, adds power

Jun 8, 2017, 12:38pm ET

Engineers added a cold-air intake, high-flow exhaust, retuned ECU and stronger pistons to achieve a modest increase in engine output.

Subaru has revealed the 2018 WRX STI Type RA, reviving the 'Record Attempt' acronym for a limited-edition performance package.

The RA is lighter than the standard WRX STI thanks to a carbon-fiber roof and pedestal wing. A spare tire has been omitted and the standard wheels have been swapped for lightweight BBS 19-inch forced alloys wrapped in 245/35R19 Yokohama Advan Sport tires.

Engineers modified the company's 2.5-liter turbocharged boxer engine with an STI-specified cold air intake, high-flow exhaust, stronger pistons and a retuned ECU. Together, the changes deliver a modest increase to 310 horsepower.

The six-speed transmission was also tweaked to deliver faster acceleration, adopting a revised third gear ratio and integrating a short-throw shifter.

Handling improvements can be traced to new Bilstein dampers all around and a modified VDC system. Front brake calipers have been upgraded to Brembo six-piston units with cross-drilled rotors to improve heat dissipation.

A few subtle exterior enhancements help distinguish the RA from the standard WRX STI. Designers added a Cherry Blossom Red accent around the front mesh grille and rear bumper cover, while a new STI front underspoiler is claimed to improve stability at high speeds.

Only 500 units will be sold in the US, heading to showrooms early next year.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 8

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov will attend the opening of the international specialized exhibition Astana EXPO-2017, the Turkmen government said in a message.

The opening ceremony will take place June 9. The main theme of Astana EXPO-2017 will be Future Energy.

During the exhibition, special attention will paid to efficient use of energy resources and innovative alternative energy projects, according to the message.
Jun 7, 2017, 3:47pm ET

Tesla lands on Fortune 500 list ahead of Model 3 arrival

The company has reportedly succeeded in its efforts to attract more customers in China.

Tesla has been added to the Fortune 500 list, debuting in the 383rd position thanks to $7 billion in revenue last year.

In a related report, Fortune highlights the company's success in revitalizing its important China operations after several years of lackluster sales.

Analysts at JL Warren Capital estimate Tesla's China sales likely reached around 10,400 units last year, tripling 2015's deliveries and accounting for 13 percent of the company's global sales volume for the year.

The California-based automaker has not been shy in acknowledging China's importance as the world's largest automotive market and particularly critical for electric vehicles. The country will likely play a leading role in Tesla's aim to take on industry giants with the more affordable Model 3.

Tesla so far has declined to establish a joint venture to produce cars in China, resulting in huge markups of around 50 percent due to import tariffs and taxes. Fortune sources claim several Chinese companies are 'feverishly' pursuing partnership talks with the high-profile US automaker.

Chief executive Elon Musk traveled to China in April to meet with Vice Premier Wang Yang. Reports suggest the event marked the first time the important economic official had met with an automaker for a one-on-one chat. The visit coincided with official hints that China could be preparing to wind down its joint-venture restrictions that currently require foreign automakers to team with local companies before establishing assembly facilities.

Fortune's first '500' list contained five US automakers when it debuted in 1955. Only two remained by 1999 -- Ford and General Motors -- and Tesla is the first new car manufacturer to ever join the list since its inception.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 8

By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend

The political consultations between Turkmenistan and Israel were held at the level of deputy foreign ministers in Jerusalem, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said June 8.

Turkmen and Israeli deputy foreign ministers discussed the expansion of relations in the political, trade, economic, cultural, humanitarian spheres, the opportunities of developing cooperation in industry, high technologies, water management, health care and tourism.

"Stressing the high level of political and diplomatic cooperation, Turkmen and Israeli deputy foreign ministers discussed the possibilities for further expansion of cooperation in this area, the ministry said. In this context, the role of high level visits and the Turkmen and Israeli sides commitment to further implementation of the reached agreements were stressed."

Earlier it was reported that Israel, with its rich experience in agriculture and irrigation, is ready to share its experience with Turkmenistan.
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Shocking dash-cam footage shows an angry BMW driver attacking another motorist on a busy Leicester road.

The irate driver mounts the pavement in his car, pulls in front of a Renault Clio, gets out, pulls open the Clio's door and lunges at the middle aged man behind the wheel.

He can be seen throwing punches at the Clio driver while yelling at him.

Moments earlier, the BMW driver can be seen trying to force his way into a busy lane of traffic, but the Clio happens to be in his way.

The incident has been described as "one of the worst examples of road rage which has been brought to our attention" by the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Road Safety Partnership said.

The video was captured in Abbey Lane by a motorist who only wished to be identified as Mr Parmar.

He said he could not believe what he was seeing.

The motive for the furious attack remains a mystery, but police said the incident, just before 12.20pm on May 29, was under investigation.

Mr Parmar said: "I had no idea why the BMW driver was so angry, and I watched the footage back to see if the driver in the Clio had done something to annoy him, but saw nothing wrong.

"The BMW driver got a couple of punches in on the Clio driver's face, but thankfully there didn't seem to be any serious damage.

"After the event the BMW drove away and I got out to check on the Clio driver.

"He was obviously very shaken up at what had just happened.

"I offered him my dash-cam footage and have since given it to him - hopefully the BMW driver will get prosecuted for his crazy actions."

(Image: Nextbase)

The video, which has no sound, begins in Blackbird Road near the Parker Drive junction.

The BMW is travelling alongside the Clio.

As the vehicles pass B&Q the BMW driver nudges towards the left lane, but has to pull back into his own lane because the Clio is in the way.

The BMW then pulls in behind the Clio - in front of Mr Parmar's car - before braking to a halt close behind the Clio.

The driver's door of the BMW begins to open but then shuts again as the Clio pulls off to turn left into Abbey Lane, towards Loughborough.

Swerving sharply to the left, the BMW is driven onto the pavement to overtake the Clio and then pulls into the middle of Abbey Lane, blocking the Clio's path.

(Image: Nextbase)

Dressed in a white t-shirt and with a furious look on his face, the BMW driver gets out of his vehicle and jogs over the to the Clio.

He puts his arms through the window to grab the driver, in his 40s, before opening the driver's door and grabbing the driver again and then apparently punching or shoving him hard.

During the assault the Clio driver's glasses fall out onto the road. The BMW driver picks them up and flings them back into the Clio.

Jonathan Clarkson, spokesperson for the Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland Road Safety Partnership, said: "This is one of the worst examples of road rage which has been brought to our attention.

"We all have an equal right to use the road and I would ask that we are all careful and considerate towards other road users by being understanding, patient, staying calm, allowing people plenty of room and being courteous to one another."

A spokeswoman for Leicestershire Police said the incident had been reported on May 31, and that an investigation was ongoing.

No arrests have been made at this stage.

Mr Parmar was on his lunch break when he witnessed the incident, catching it on his Nextbase 402G dash cam.

Richard Browning, director at Nextbase, said: "Often with road rage clips you can see the fault from both drivers, but in this case it really appears to come out of nowhere.

"More and more people across the UK are installing dash cams to protect themselves and those around them.

"Luckily in this situation Mr Parmar shared the footage with the victim so he can inform the police and ensure that this dangerous individual gets prosecuted."

For more information, see here .
A case against an elderly Brazilian woman, charged with keeping a brothel, has been adjourned once again after it was revealed that the prosecution only supplied her solicitor with details of the charge earlier this week.

Thats despite the fact that the alleged offence occurred on November 9, 2016 and the defendant, Ms Terezinha Aparacida De Jesus, 74, with an address listed at 8 Basin Street, Naas, has appeared before the court several times since then.

Ms De Jesus is charged with keeping a brothel at her home address.

This is the fourth time the case has been listed, solicitor Matt Byrne told Judge Desmond Zaidan yesterday, Wednesday, June 7.

And he added: I only received disclosure last night. The State had three months to furnish it since the last appearance.

Prosecuting Gardai explained that a Garda witness is currently on UN duty for the next several months.

Mr Byrne asked for the matter to be struck out on the basis of the undue delay.

Judge Desmond Zaidan said it was most unsatisfactory.

Mr Byrne revealed that his client wants to return to her native Brazil to be with a sick relative but it waiting in Ireland for the conclusion of the case.

The Judge granted one final short adjournment, until a date in July, to see if progress can be made.

Read more: Woman charged with keeping Naas brothel
Miss P. Murphy, a military nurse attached to the Territorial Fore Nursing Staff, who is daughter of Mr. Thomas Murphy of Ballyroe, Athy, reached home this week after having a providential escape from death, the Leinster Leader reported on June 2, 1917.

She was preceding on the ill-fated transport Transylvania which was torpedoed in the Mediterranean on the 4th inst. as a result of which 29 officers, 373 soldiers Lieut S. Brenell RNR and 10 of the crew lost their lives.

Completed just before the outbreak of the First World War, the Transylvania was taken over for service as a troopship.

Commissioned for service just two years before she sank, she was designed to carry 200 officers and 2,860 men, as well as the crew.

The ship was full when she set off from Marseille bound for Alexandria on May 3, 1917.

Ms Murphy tells a thrilling story of the attack and the subsequent exploits that followed the sinking of this fine vessel. The ship was only one night out from port. About 10 oclock on the morning, the liner was stuck with a torpedo and the engine rooms smashed.

She began to list and when struck with a second torpedo began to sink.

The boats were lowered and the greatest order prevailed. Life belts had been served to each person.

The sea was rough and some of the life boats were smashed but the occupants were picked up as far as it was possible by other boats. But for the very rough sea that was running, more lives would have been saved.

All the nursing staff were saved and the soldiers, despite the awful fight they were having for their lives, sang, and were in no way down-hearted.

At 11.20 the Transylvania sank.

The position of the survivors was made all the more precarious by the plight in which they were, when in the boats.

In the boat in which Miss Murphy was, it was discovered that someone had interfered and removed three of the row locks, leaving them helpless.

As a result, the boat was soon filled with sea water which eventually swamped it, despite the efforts of the occupants to keep it bailed with the aid of hats and other articles. All on board lost all their belongings.

After the swamping of the boat it was a case of everyone for themselves, and after floating for three hours they were rescued by one of the escorting destroyers.

They were landed at Marseilles where they were treated with the greatest kindness and with the greatest hospitality.

On arrival some of the rescued presented a weird appearance, one man wearing a Turkish fez, a kilt and white shoes. The captain of the ship was rescued but died from the effects of the ordeal he underwent the day after arrival.

Many of the survivors swam to the land, nearly nine miles from where the ship sank.
Well, its done. The polls have closed and we have a long wait till the results come through, although the exit poll, which struck terror into us in 2015 will just have been published.

Most of us are at counts but well be keeping an eye on whats happening when we can.

This thread is for you to discuss whats going on. Its going to be a nail biting few hours.

Here are when some of the seats in which we have the most interest are likely to declare. The Press Association has a full list here. If all the Edinburgh seats declare at 4 am, I shall be very surprised. Thats all Im saying. I might once have been tempted to say Id ingest headgear, but thats been tried before and isnt a good look.

2 am

Ceredigion. Will our sole Welsh MP get back in?

3 am

Before this election, few would have had Vauxhall as a key Lib Dem prospect but weve been doing well against Brexiteer Labour MP Kate Hoey. It declares this hour.

Well also have Bermondsey and Southwark to see if Simon Hughes gets back in.

And East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)

Other seats with Lib Dem interest include Brecon and Radnorshire,

Also, well get a flavour of how its going in Tory/SNP seats in Scotland. Will Angus Robertson, their leader in the Commons, hold on in Moray?

4 am

Lots of Lib Dem interest this hour.

Can Sarah Olney hold on in Richmond Park to the seat she won in a stunning by-election just six months ago?

Will Orkney and Shetland return Alistair Carmichael? The odds are good given the huge vote share we got last year in the Holyrood election.

North East Fife  held by us until 2015 and where Elizabeth Riches hopes to win seat back from the SNP

Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), Bath (Wera Hobhouse), Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), Carshalton and Wellington (Tom Brake), Twickenham (Vince Cable) are among our key seats announcing this hour.

Will Eluned Parrott pick up Cardiff Central?

Nick Cleggs Sheffield Hallam result is due in at 4:30 ish.

Has Sue McGuire held on to Southport after John Puths retirement?

5 am

Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine)

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, where Jamie Stone is challenging an unpopular SNP MP.

Ross, Skye and Lochaber, Charles Kennedys old seat where Jean Davis is the candidate

Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland)

Kingston (Ed Davey)

Lewes (Kelly-Marie Blundell)

Cambridge (Julian Huppert)

Well also find out if Daisy Cooper has pulled off an amazing victory in St Albans

We might even have a chance in Argyll and Bute where the very popular Alan Reid is standing again

Also Manchester Gorton, which might have been a famous Lib Dem by-election victory for Jackie Pearcey, declares this hour.

6 am

Tim Farron stopped off in one of our most likely seats for a gain, Oxford West and Abingdon, for his last campaign rally last night. Can Layla Moran pull off a win?

Friday lunchtime

St Ives where Andrew George is standing again.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
After 7 weeks solid campaigning, following 9 months of local elections campaigning, following 4 months EU referendum campaigning we finally reach the last polling day for a while.

This is timed to catch you as you have a break after your good mornings. Get some caffeine and sustenance as youre going to need it.

The last 48 hours of an election campaign are always horrible. You always focus on what you havent done rather than the huge amount you have achieved. Its a tense and anxious time. Even when you are really tired, you dont sleep that well.

Polling day should actually be reclassified as an endurance event. Up before dawn, delivering leaflets and knocking on our supporters doors until they physically cant get to the polls in time and then on to the count or sitting up watching the results, it takes its toll. The adrenaline will get you through, though.

We can bring in some really good results today in our key seats. Im in Edinburgh West helping Christine Jardine, and other members of the LDV team are in their local targets.

If you want to help Lib Dems get elected today, go to www.libdems.org.uk/win and put in your postcode. That will tell you where your help is most needed. If you cant travel, the Lib Dem Newbies Facebook page has a list of key seat phone banks so you can help their effort.

When the pain and exhaustion hits, remember those who have inspired you in politics and keep going for them. Today, Ill be thinking of Andrew Reeves, our former Scottish Campaigns Director who died in 2011. His booming laugh and infectious enthusiasm, combined with a healthy dose of pure smut, made us achieve more than we thought we could.

Ill also focus on how much I want to see Christine elected. Ive always liked her, but my respect for her has shot up even higher during this campaign. She has endured the most difficult personal challenges and been the subject of a really nasty campaign by the SNP, but shes got through it with good grace and humour, always taking the high road.

Every photo I see of St Albans candidate Daisy Cooper has that wide, enthusiastic smile. Shes taken the challenge of beating a Brexiteer Tory MP in a Remain area with her customary grit, energy and style. Since last Summer, she has built what could be a winning campaign. Can you help her over the line today?

The House of Commons needs Kelly-Marie Blundell. There are few better and stronger advocates for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. She could win back Lewes for the Lib Dems today.

Jo Swinson, a former government minister who revolutionised parental leave, has inspired me since her first election at the age of 25 in 2005. She is one of the most focused, hard-working people Ive ever met and its been clear that people have missed her as their MP.

Julian Huppert was an amazing voice for science in the Parliament and his absence has been very deeply felt these last two years. Lets make sure that hes back in there to stop a Brexit that will drain research funding from our universities.

These are just some of the amazing Lib Dems standing for Parliament today. You will have your own to add.

Thank you all so much for everything you are doing today. Whether its pounding the streets, working the phones or standing at polling stations telling, it will help elect Lib Dem MPs.

If you have moved to a target seat for the day, then make sure that they return the favour in the months to come by helping your area.

Keep going till 10 pm and well see you on the other side.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Some great photos from Getty Images (click on the arrows to see the slide show) which give a great view of the workings of democracy on these islands (as they say).

Mandy Hassan, an assistant area electoral officer for Antrim and mid Ulster, accompanies the ballot box on the ferry destined for Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland. There are 99 voters on the island and they usually have a 80% turnout.

Update 8/6: I changed the title upon sage advice from locals. Weather concerns were not a factor.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 8

By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend

OSCE regional activity on environmental security is being carried out in accordance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and others, Natalya Drozd, ambassador, head of the OSCE Center in Ashgabat, said in an interview with the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper.

The priority aspects include the management of natural resources, primarily, water resources, the development of measures to reduce the risks of natural disasters and the management of hazardous domestic waste.

Among several important projects which are being implemented are joint activity as part of Environment and Security Initiative (EnvSec) and security issues in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South Caucasus.

The OSCE promotes initiatives on water resources management and cross-border cooperation in Central Asia, Drozd said. The OSCE Center plans to intensify activity to promote principles of balanced environmental management.

"We intend to put forward an initiative to open a scientific center for sustainable development at one of the Turkmen universities," she said.

Turkmenistan joined the OSCE on January 30, 1992. A number of the OSCE international forums have been recently held in Ashgabat.
FATHER Jack Finucane, the Limerick priest who helped found the charity Concern, has has died aged 80.

Fr Jack and his late brother Fr Aengus Finucane earned worldwide recognition for their famine relief efforts in the late 1960s, and both were awarded the Freedom of Limerick in 2005.

In 1968, the Limerick brothers, as well as Fr Raymond Kennedy and John and Kay OLoughlin Kennedy, founded Africa Concern, which later became Concern, which now has more than 3,000 staff working around the world.

Since then, Limericks connections with Concern continue to run deep.

Relative Susan Finucane, from the Ennis Road, has worked with their programmes in Rwanda, Burundi, Haiti and Tanzania.

Born in Limerick in February 1937, Jack Finucane was ordained in 1963 and joined the Spiritan (Holy Ghost) missionary society before being sent to Biafra in Nigeria.

At 26, he was sent to Nigeria, and within four years he was engulfed in the fallout from the Biafra war and the ensuing famine.

Concern was founded in response to the famine, with Jack was at the centre of the distribution of the relief goods flown into Biafra by Concern and other relief organisations.

He was appointed Caritas co-ordinator in Nigeria during the Biafra war at the age of 30, and joined Concern in 1973, working in Bangladesh.

He was transferred to Ethiopia in 1974, and his considerable diplomatic skills and his relationship with the Ethiopian authorities were said to have greatly assisted Concern being able to mount a significant and immediate response to the crisis of that time.

He went back to Bangladesh in 1977, and again returned to Ethiopia in 1984.

Jack returned to Dublin in 1990 where he was Concerns Regional Director for a number of countries in Africa.

In 1994 he witnessed over one million people fleeing Rwanda into Goma, in Zaire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and four years later he saw the same population stream across the border to return home.

One of six children, he said his sister Patsy, a Mercy Sister "is the brightest of us.

Speaking about the life of Fr Finucane, CEO of Concern Worldwide, Dominic MacSorley said he was "an unassuming leader, he brought intelligence, drive and passion to what is now Irelands leading humanitarian and development organisation.

"Along with his brother, Aengus, they were a bridge between Irelands long tradition of missionary work defining contemporary humanitarian response characterised by professional, practical, compassionate solutions on the ground. Together, they brought a nation with them.

"What Jack has achieved may never be fully quantified but he has saved and improved the lives of millions of people caught up in crisis and poverty. Sorely missed, he leaves behind a legacy of incredible humanitarian significance."

President Michael D Higgins praised "Jack, and his late brother Fr. Aengus Finucane (who) were inspirational figures among the large group of people in Ireland who value and embody the importance of the humanitarian spirit.

"Theirs was a distinctive voice and their lifes work leaves a real, positive, and enduring legacy for millions of people across the globe, as well as having contributed to Irelands reputation abroad in the best possible sense.

"I had the great privilege of meeting Jack Finucane in Somalia during the Famine, and on many occasions since. His commitment to the ethical basis for, as well as the practical application of humanitarian principles was exemplary.

"Jack Finucanes lifelong commitment to protecting the dignity of some of the worlds poorest and most marginalised people will stand not only as a lasting tribute to all that is good about mankind, but is exemplary in its invitation not to avert our gaze from our current challenges of global hunger and poverty."

Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy has said that the late Limerickman will forever be a symbol of selflessness, caring and hope.

"In life there are many people placed on pedestals, people we consider, and rightly so, heroes. We all need people to look up to. But it is no exaggeration to say that Fr. Jack Finucane was the embodiment of what it means to be a hero - someone who protects and defends," said Bishop Leahy.

"In his deeds, he was a hero in that he dedicated his life to protecting and defending the weakest people on our planet. There is no greater Christian calling and he took it up selflessly and courageously, often putting himself at great risk but also completely indifferent to that risk."

Fr Jack Finucane will repose at Fanagans Funeral Home, 92 Lower Kimmage Road, this Friday and Saturday, from 4pm-6pm. Removal on Sunday to the Church of the Holy Spirit, Kimmage Manor arriving at 6pm for evening prayer. Funeral Mass on Monday, at 11.30am in Kimmage Church. Burial afterwards in Dardistown Cemetery. Donations if desired to Concern Worldwide, in lieu of floral tributes.
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A criminal from Lincolnshire was featured in a BBC programme last night all about how the Metropolitan Police fight crime.

Scott Smith, from Grantham was featured on The Met: Policing London, last night, June 7.

He was filmed being apprehended by the Metropolitan Police near to his home in Grantham when they arrested him on the street.

The programme shows Scott Smith and accomplice Paul Brown from South London storm into a Post Office using a hand gun to threaten staff and demand cash.

Two of the raids took place in December 2015 and one in February last year in the Bromley area of South London and they stole a total of 1,295.

The programme shows Smith being apprehended on the street by the Metropolitan Police Flying Squad.

Both men pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery at Croydon Crown Court.

The first brazen raid took place in the Bromley area of south London, at a sub-post office when the pair came in and Brown pointed the handgun at staff from behind the counter, demanded cash and stole 695.

In the second they targeted a newsagents, when Smith threatened staff with what is believed to be sawn-off shotgun, and stole 400 in cash from the till.

The final raid took place at a Co-Op store in Orpington, South London, armed with a sawn-off shot gun.

The programme detailed how the Metropolitan Police followed Smith from his home address in order to apprehend him on the street for the offences and how they were eager to arrest him for these string of very serious offences.

They were charged with three counts of armed robbery and they both pleaded guilty at Croydon Crown Court.



Smith was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and Brown six years.

The programme airs every Wednesday night at 9pm. You can watch the full programme here.
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A Boston woman is awaiting sentencing after admitting to stealing six British bulldog puppies as part of stealing spree  violating a court order given just one day before for two similar offences committed previously.

Danielle Marie Nuttell, 31, who lives on Tower Road, pleaded guilty to trespassing into a property on Wood Farm Road on May 25 and swiping the six puppies to which a value is unknown.

On the same day, Nuttell also confessed to illegally entering the staff room at a McDonalds restaurant on Queen Street and stealing a purse, a wallet and two mobile phones which amounted to the value of 905.

Nuttell also admitted to breaching a suspended sentence order given by Lincolnshire Magistrates Court on May 24 for committing two previous acts of theft.

Nuttell has been remanded into custody and will wait to hear when she will be sentenced at Lincoln Crown Court.
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CCTV footage captures the moment heroic police gun down one of the terrorists believed to have been in the midst of their London Birdge rampage.

The harrowing video recording near the Wheatsheaf Pub on Stoney Street in Borough Market shows the brutal attack the Islamic extremists laid on the innocent civilians who were enjoying their weekend at some of the restaurants and bars in the capital.

Police, remarkably managed to foil the attackers in just eight minutes, potentially saving numerous lives, and earning nationwide praise for their bravery, reports The Mirror.

Earlier on the terrorists had ploughed a van into a number of people on London Bridge on Saturday, June 3.

In the video, a man then comes into shot and the terrorists run after him and chase him to the side of the road.

They then appear to stab the victim, who has not been identified in the clip, but remarkably he appears to get up after the police arrive.

A reveller is seen throwing a chair at them from a pub across the road as they attack the victim.

Seconds later, police swoop to the scene and take down the terrorists in a hail of 50 bullets.

One of the terrorists runs towards a police officer across the street, who continues to shoot at him until he is dead.

An armed officer can be seen aiming a gun at the other terrorists as they lie on the ground.

Eight people have been confirmed to have died as a result of the attack and many more were injured.

Among those to have been involved in the attack was Lincoln University student, Sam Baggley.

The 21-year-old had been enjoying a drink with girlfriend, Annabelle Owen and her mum, Nicola at Boro Bistro below the Barrowby and Banker pub in Borough Market just 15 minutes before the attack.

The politics and social policy student recalled the fear the trio felt as they took refuge in the Market Porter pub.

We didnt know what on Earth was going on. It was just chaos," he said.

There were about 20 people in the pub and we all dropped to the ground.

I looked out of the frozen glass window and I could see two of the three men with knives covered in blood. I saw them chasing someone through Borough Market.

There was a burst of fire, about five shots, then a pause and then another 10 shots.

There was a guy who came in who was bleeding very badly from his abdomen and people were helping him.

Mr Baggley recalled how police and armed officers entered and told all inside to run clear of the incident.

The trio fled through the carnage to Southwark Street where they got a taxi to safety in Greenchwich.

Family firm Boston Sausage, a traditional butchers who produce Lincolnshire sausages have a stall in the affected area but posted on social media to confirm all their staff were safe.

Lincolnshire Police have since confirmed that there will be no changes to policing in the county following the attack.

18 people have been arrested in connection with the attack and five have been remanded in custody.


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A slaughter house in Sleaford has been charged in court with letting chickens suffer before they died.

Moy Park Ltd, which is one of the UK's top 10 food companies and owns the slaughterhouse, has been accused of four offences at Lincoln Magistrates' Court.

During an inspection, 518 birds from a load of 6,336 were allegedly found to be dead on arrival at the slaughterhouse.

The inspection also allegedly discovered that two modules containing 315 live birds went through the module washer with the birds being sprayed with pressurised water jets and disinfectant.

It also claimed to have found that two modules containing live birds tipped over, resulting in some birds being crushed and others being trapped by their necks and wings between the crates and module frame.

It said the company had failed to immediately advise the duty official veterinarian of the dead animals so that they could undertake a post-mortem inspection.

Moy Park LTD will appear at Lincoln Magistrates' Court on July 3.
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Following the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829, many counties and boroughs in the United Kingdom soon established their own police forces, to attempt to deal with the rising crime rate they were experiencing.

Nottingham, and other large centres of population, was under great pressure from criminality, and, although there had been a system of policing, albeit inadequate, in place throughout the Georgian era; when the Counties and District Police Act reached the Statute Book in 1839, the County took the decision to get to grips with the situation in a positive manner.

And so it was that the newly born County Police Force appointed its first Chief Constable in charge of the new police force on 1 April 1840.

The rules by which the new force would be governed, was to a large extent mirroring the example of that laid down by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. They stated that It is expected that all persons engaged in this service shall exert themselves to the best of their ability for the security of person and property, the preservation of public tranquillity and especially bear in mind that the prevention of crime is the main object of your employment.

All persons connected with the police force, whether principal or subordinate officers, should endeavour to distinguish themselves by such vigilance, activity and judgement, as may render it extremely difficult for anyone to commit a crime within that portion of the town under their charge; and if offences are of frequent occurrence on any round or beat, it will be considered that there is a want of attention on the part of those who have care of it.

It is also expected that every individual shall behave himself with civility to everyone with whom his duty may bring him in contact. He must be careful on the one hand not to interfere with that which does not concern him, and on the other not to permit anything to be neglected which it is his duty to notice.

He must be in the firm discharge of his duty, and be careful never to use more force than is necessary for his own safety and the due discharge of his immediate duty.

He must ever retain that perfect command over his temper which is an indispensable qualification in a police officer, and which ought ever to be preserved under whatever provocation.

The first force, with its constables on a wage of 18s a week, were well served by a succession of Chiefs who were both able and conscientious. The force increased from an establishment of just 42 in 1840 (a Chief Constable, eight superintendents, and thirty three constables), to double that number in 1856  a manpower count of 82 per sons.

A wage of 18s. a week was considered to be reasonable at the time, and was double the pay of the average framework knitter. There were strict rules of conduct for a policeman.

They included; having to appear at all times in uniform; always to be neat and clean with a good haircut; always to have a good suit of plain clothes and two pairs of strong boots; upon no pretences to take money from any person; being guilty of neglect of duty meant a fine of 10 (or one months hard labour - no doubt that would concentrate the mind!); and he could be dismissed by the Chief Constable without giving a reason.

The term, sartorial dress sense could by no means be used to describe the uniform police constables wore at the time. In 1844 the Punch magazine remarked Police men s boots are two sizes only, the too small and the too large.

The latter are by far the most numerous, so that it is easy to judge a policeman by his foot, which seems to be about twice as big as anyone elses. These boots or rather boats, presumably consist of leather, but they look as clumsy, awkward and inflexible, as if they were made of castiron.

The hat of the policeman has been compared to a chimney pot, where from, however similar to it in shape and weight, it differs in the important particular of not allowing the heat and exhalations which ascend into it, to escape.

By 1874, the Chief Constable, Captain H. Holden was reporting that  The cases of serious crime in the county have been very few but petty robberies are decidedly on the increase, owing to the number of collieries now in work.

There are a great number of strangers in the county of whom nothing is known; they are here one day and gone the next, and when departing frequently take articles of clothing which do not belong to them.

In the same report, Captain Holden reminded the Justices that the Superintendents of the county were expected to find and keep a horse on an allowance of 50 a year (no squad cars then!).

This cannot be done for the money; the price of horses has risen so immensely, and neighbouring counties allow considerably more, and I trust the court will sanction an increase which is considered just and reasonable.

Some three years later, in 1877, Captain Holden had to inform the Justices that serious and aggravated assaults on police officers seemed to be on the increase throughout the county.

Whilst maintaining that the infliction of fines for such behaviour was a very inadequate punishment, he added that the number of constables in proportion tothe population was very small, and if not supported in the execution of their duty, proper order could not be maintained.

In June 1871, it is recorded that the widow of Inspector George Hallam, who died on 11 May from the effects of an injury sustained by slipping on a piece of orange peel, when in the execution of his duty at East Retford on 2 March, after service of upwards of 35 years, be granted a pension out of the Superannuation Fund of 25 a year.

Captain Holden retired in November 1892, after service of over 35 years, and his successor, Captain W.H. Tomason, was to stay at the helm for another impressive 30 years.

One of Capt. Tomason first acts on taking office was to arrange for a telephone line to be connected to his office at Shire Hall, linking the Worksop police station and his own home  truly an innovative measure at the time.

As mentioned in last weeks article, in addition to the County Police Force there were three other organisations in Nottinghamshire, the Nottingham City force, and borough forces at Retford and Newark. Retford was the third borough force in England to be established after the 1835 Act.

Before the Act there were ten petty constables in the borough, appointed on an unpaid annual basis by the two Justices. The local Association for the Prosecution of Felons had drawn attention to the lack of a night watch in the town, and the fact that there was no active Superintendent  and an appointment was urgently recommended.

A Watch Committee was set up on 1 January 1836. And it is thought that a night watch on a wage of twelve shillings and a day patrol earning eighteen shillings a week were approved. One day constable and two watchmen were appointed.

William Pearson, the borough Sergeant-at-Mace, was promoted to Superintendent of Police and was given a salary of 50 along with a house. In 1840 the Mayor, John Hudson, obtained the lease of a former workhouse in Grove Street, and converted it into a police station and temporary prison.

When the building was eventually demolished in 1963 it was found that copper gilt buttons with the town arms inscribed and the words Borough Police had been hidden there by the original contractors. Next week we will take a more detailed look at the development of Retford.
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A Lincoln voter faced a nervy wait to see if she would be allowed to have her say in the General Election.

Jo Dodsworth, 42, who lives on Anzio Close originally tried to register to vote at her new address after she moved in 2015.

She received an email from the GOV.UK website in November 2015 saying her application to change her details on the electoral register had been received and passed on to the City of Lincoln Council.

But her application was not processed and she missed out on her chance to vote in the county council elections last month.

Jo raised the issue and believed it was fixed, but was turned away from her polling station again today, Thursday June 8, after she was told again that she was not registered.

I had tried to speak to the council this morning," she said. "But they said there was nothing they could do."

Jo then contacted Lincolnshire Live and following an inquiry from our reporter, the problem was resolved just hours before the 10pm deadline.

Expressing her delight, she said: I spoke to Lincolnshire Live who said they would look into it as I had a copy of the email proving I was registered to vote in time for the election.

I was shot down originally. It made me mad, angry and frustrated, especially as I had already missed out on voting in the recent local council election.

Julie Rouston, the electoral service officer, was very understanding and after looking into it blamed it on the gateway system.

It was sorted within seconds. They gave me my registration number, said they would contact my local polling station and encouraged me to get down and vote.

I feel like a proper person again, she added. Honestly, I am really happy as I think it is vitally important to vote.

To be denied that right felt terrible. But I am glad it has been sorted, the council were very apologetic and were great even though they are very busy.

I wanted to use my vote and make it count as that is how I have been brought up.

One vote can make a difference so I am really grateful I can use mine.

The City of Lincoln Council has been approached for a comment.
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Campaigning for the 2017 General Election has finally come to a close, and all that's left to do is cast you ballot.

Polling stations across Lincolnshire opened their doors at 7am and people now have until 10pm to cast their vote.

Where can I cast my ballot?

Details of the numerous polling station locations can be found on your local council's website.

And contrary to popular myth, you DO NOT need to take your polling card with you.

But remember you must use the polling station you are registered at.

Who should I vote for?

If you are still unsure of who to vote for, take our quiz here to see which party is best for you.

It couldn't be simpler.

We've sifted through the manifestos and compared the big issues of childcare, tax, the NHS and schools.



Which way are others going?

We conducted a readers poll on May 23 which showed that all is still to play for (in Lincolnshire at least).

One in three voters were yet to make up their minds according to our poll of 1,000 readers.

Of the voters who have already made up their minds, the Conservatives held a commanding lead in most of the Lincolnshire constituencies, including Boston and Skegness, Gainsborough, Grantham and Stamford and Sleaford and North Hykeham

However, 29.8% of voters surveyed in Lincoln said they were going to vote Labour, compared to 24.1% who have decided to vote Conservative. Both Labour and the Tories are equal in South Holland on 17% each.

Is the weather going to affect turnout?

Showers are forecast for Lincolnshire for throughout the day but if you manage to time it right, there's every chance of avoiding a soaking on the way to the polling station.

Professor Stephen Fisher, of Oxford University, told the BBC there was no historical evidence to suggest bad weather stops people voting.

His research suggests people are more likely to vote if the election race is close and there is a strong difference between the two leading parties.

Do I have to use a pencil in the voting booth?

Afraid so. The Electoral Commission says the reason that pencils are traditionally used is partly for historical and practical reasons: with ink pens there is always a risk that they may dry out or spill.

Also, ink may cause some transfer of the mark the voter has made on the ballot paper when they fold it, thus potentially leading to a rejection as it may look like they have voted for more options than they are entitled to.



Is there likely to be ANOTHER election or referendum in the near future?

With our current rate of around one a year, we certainly wouldn't rule it out!
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 8

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

The OSCE organized trainings in Turkmenistan, dedicated to the fight against drug trafficking, the organization said in a message.

Three separate practical training courses, held at the International Customs Terminal in Ashgabat, brought together officers of the State Customs Service, the State Border Service and the Ministry of Interior, the OSCE said.

The first two training courses were attended by 36 officials from Ashgabat and the regions, while the third training event was held as a train-the-trainer course for 20 attendees from the same agencies, including participants in the two previous courses.

Transnational threats, particularly those related to drug trafficking, remain a significant issue on the security agenda of the entire OSCE region, said Natalya Drozd, Head of the OSCE Center in Ashgabat. Due to its broader social and economic context, drug trafficking is also considered to be one of the most complex problems affecting the well-being of modern societies.

The agenda of the training courses featured up-to-date methods of interdicting drugs and chemical, biological and radiological substances, case studies of cross-border crime and discussions on common challenges to open and secure borders. The officials also took part in practical exercises simulating examinations of personal effects as well as of commercial trucks and personal vehicles.

The train-the-trainer course introduced participants to training aids and methods of sharing knowledge on interdicting drugs with their colleagues and subordinates, as well as planning and conducting practical exercises.

The OSCE Center in Ashgabat acknowledges the efforts of the Government of Turkmenistan in countering illicit drug and chemical precursors trafficking and we firmly believe that such training activities will contribute to achieving sustainable results, Ambassador Drozd concluded.
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Owners of family business are disgusted after a man snatched a charity box from their counter just yards away from where a staff member was working.

The man walked into the shop and tried to prise the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research charity box from the counter twice before successfully shoving it into his bag after the third attempt.

But he didn't know that Myers Bakery, Cafe & Deli in the Bullring, Horncastle had caught him on CCTV.

A video of the CCTV footage posted on the bakery's facebook page has been viewed an astonishing 64,000 times.

Marie Myers, 31, who works in the shop which is owned by her dad and uncle, is astounded at the theft.

"Stealing is low anyway but to take from charity is the lowest of the low - it's disgusting," she said.

"Customers are very kind and often put their change into the box, and you want that money to go to charity. It's just disgusting.

"It's a charity that is very close to our family's hearts for personal reasons. We have raised 30,000 for them over the last ten years through various fundraising activities."

Marie doesn't know exactly how much was in the box, but said it would be a fair amount due to their customer's genorosity.

And though their were several staff working at the time, it was a busy morning and no one spotted what he was up to.

"Everyone one else was busy but you can clearly see him having a few attempts on the CCTV," she said.

"The following morning when a customer went to out their change in the charity box we realised it wasn't there.

"My brother Rob then went through the CCTV, which took quite a while, and then he saw the man doing it."

Police confirmed they are investigating the incident which happened on May 17 at about 10am but said that no arrests have been made.

If anyone can help identify the man, contact Lincolnshire Police on 101
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Politics is, in a way, a simple game - at least when it comes to elections.

When voters tell us what they think in one constituency, they are also telling us things that help us understand how the results might go somewhere else.

So if party A wins big in constituency X, with a swing of 10 per cent, it would be perfectly reasonable to look at that result and think - party A is having a good night and will do well nationally.

You would probably be able to say they look like they're going to win the keys to Number 10.

It's not totally straightforward. There is often a strong personal vote for a candidate in a particular constituency or the sitting MP might be unpopular. There might be other factors, too, like the closure or opening of a hospital. But in many cases, what happens in a constituency gives us a hint about who will win the election.

It's all about the swing. If party A has 60 per cent of the vote, and party B has 40 per cent, there needs to be a swing of just over 10 per cent to get party B into power. If B gains 10 and A loses 10, both have 50 per cent - so just over would clinch it for the B party.

Take Lincoln, to put the theory into practice.

The Tories secured 42.6 against 39.6 per cent of the vote in 2015. If Labour wants to win tonight, it has to hack into that 3 point lead by at least 1.5 per cent - putting both on 41.1 per cent or thereabouts.

In a way, if Labour win any seats in Lincolnshire tonight, May is having a bad night. She is looking to increase her majority in order to defy people in the Commons she believes are hijacking the Brexit process.

So she needs to do better than Cameron, who in 2015 ended with a 12-seat majority after picking up 36.9 per cent of the national vote against Labour's 30.4.

If Lincoln - the seat in the county most likely to be close - falls to Labour on a swing of 1.54 per cent, and if that swing were replicated nationally, May would end up 13 seats short of a majority, according to electionpolling.co.uk

That would result in either a hung parliament or a coalition Government, which in the current political set-up seems an unlikely scenario (the Lib Dems are much less pro-Tory than they used to be).

In that scenario, many would say May has to go. A failure of that magnitude would leave the Tories as the largest party, but would be a personal dent to her authority and would very possibly see her either resign or lead to a leadership challenge.

But if things, as the polls suggest, go the other way, a win for May in Lincoln could herald a much better night for her and her party.

If Lincoln were to see a swing to the Tories of the same amount as above - 1.54 per cent - the Tories could walk away with a majority of 40.

That would possibly be enough for May to feel she had strengthened her hand, but would, in the light of polls showing huge leads just a month ago, still leave many feeling she had under-performed.

For the Tories to have what they would regard as a very good night, they would need to see Lincoln swing blue by a whopping ten per cent. If that happens, and if Lincoln's result were reflected nationally, May would have a majority of 100 - enough to rule with a free hand with a commanding majority and an overwhelming personal mandate.

One poll today puts her at 12 points ahead, so that outcome is not beyond the realms of possibility - on paper.

For Corbyn to win a majority, he of course needs a completely different outcome - and would need to be taking a place like Lincoln by a very large swing. If it swung to Labour by 10 per cent, they could still end up with fewer seats than the Tories, according to electionpolling.co.uk. 12 per cent would probably be enough, the website's swingometer suggests. And, funnily enough, the last time any British party secured a swing of that size, Labour's Clement Attlee became Prime Minister, booting victorious Tory war leader Winston Churchill from office.

So although Lincoln might seem like one small part in a much bigger picture, the result here will be important - and could help us work out who will be the next Prime Minister.
May 3, 2021, 10 PM

Royal Mail issued two souvenir sheets June 5, the 50th anniversary of the release of the first Machin definitives June 5, 1967. This sheet, 50 Years of a Design Icon, displays some of Arnold Machins work in creating the portrait of the queen for the st

For the Machins golden anniversary, Royal Mail changed the design of its post & go labels to show the portrait of the queen Arnold Machin created for use on commemoratives.

The second souvenir sheet in Royal Mails tribute to the Machins 50th anniversary includes six Machin stamps issued from 1971 through 2013 and a new 1 gold stamp, issued June 5, 2017.

By Denise McCarty

Great Britains Royal Mail commemorated the 50th anniversary of its Machin stamps with souvenir sheets, booklets, and post & go self-adhesive postage labels issued June 5.

Definitive stamps featuring Arnold Machins sculpted portrait of Queen Elizabeth II were introduced June 5, 1967. In the last 50 years, this portrait of the queen has appeared on an estimated 220 billion stamps, printed in more than 130 colors.

Royal Mail said, There have been more than 550 basic varieties; the differences being mainly in value, colour, shape, security features, phosphor bands or coating, methods of printing and printers.

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Larry Rosenblum describes the Machins in depth in a recent three-part series of Great Britain Philately columns. (part I, Linns May 8, page 17; part II, May 29, page 20; and part III, June 12, page 20.)

One of Royal Mails two new souvenir sheets honoring the Machins anniversary is titled 50 Years of a Design Icon. This sheet contains six nondenominated first-class stamps depicting sketches, essays, and other preparatory work from 1966 used in creating the Machin designs.

An explanation of what the item is appears in the selvage above each stamp. For example, the stamp in the upper left shows One of the many preliminary sketches by Arnold Machin based on the Penny Black, from January 1966.

Each stamp in this souvenir sheet also includes an embossed image of the queen.

The second souvenir sheet is called the Golden Anniversary Celebration. Below this title is the following quote from Edward Short, Great Britains postmaster general in 1967: After months of extremely hard work by Mr. Arnold Machin and the printers  a design was evolved which in my opinion will be one of the classics of stamp history.

Pictured on the top part of the sheet is one of the first Machin stamps, the 4-penny brown black (Scott MH6).

The bottom half of the sheet includes seven stamps showing versions of the Machin from 1971 to 2017. The first two stamps are denominated: a 5p stamp issued for decimilization in 1967; and a 1990 double-head 20p for the 150th anniversary of the Penny Black, the worlds first postage stamp issued by Britain in 1840.

The four first-class stamps in this souvenir sheet reproduce the designs of the first Machin self-adhesive of 1993, a new setting of the Machin portrait on a white background in 2000 to commemorate the millennium, a pricing-in-proportion stamp of 2006, and a 2013 red Machin with iridescent overprint.

Royal Mail describes the final stamp, This 1 stamp, issued on 5 June 2017, is based on the high-value range of 1969 and is printed using gold foil.

This stamp also is available in a pane of four in the prestige booklet that celebrates the Machin anniversary. The booklet contains text and illustrations in addition to stamps. The booklet sells for 15.14, according to Royal Mail.

The prestige booklet includes four additional stamp panes. Two of these feature the stamps from the 50 Years of a Design Icon souvenir sheet.

The third pane contains a second-class stamp with an iridescent overprint and eight other Machins that Royal Mail describes as make-up values. The denominations are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, and 1.

The fourth pane represents stamps from the Golden Anniversary Celebration souvenir sheet. However, this pane of nine does not include the 5p stamp or the 1 gold-foil stamp, but does include a 1989 first-class black nondenominated definitive and two examples of the 20p double-head stamp of 1990.

A retail booklet contains six red first-class Machin definitives and shows a photograph of Arnold Machin at work, with the quote from Postmaster General Short below it.

Royal Mail also has revised the design of its post & go labels for the golden anniversary celebration of the Machins, replacing the definitive version of Machins silhouette of the queen with the portrait that appears on Britains commemorative stamps.

The Royal Mail Group explains the difference between the two in an online article about portraits of the queen on stamps:

Machins head was intended for definitive stamps, standing alone apart from the value. For commemorative and special stamps a smaller version was required. Machin created a new, simplified plaster cast, without the diadem but with a laurel wreath and ribbons in the hair. This could be used as a detailed drawing or as a simple, solid silhouette.

The new post & go labels show the full-relief portrait rather than the silhouette normally used. The background text on the labels reads, Machin Anniversary 1967-2017.

The Machin anniversary post & go labels are available in six colors that were inspired by the original definitives of 196768. Royal Mail describes these inspiration colors as orange rust from the d; oriental gold, 1d; spectrum violet, 3d; olive brown sepia, 4d; Paris green, 7d; and olive brown, 10d.

International Security Printers printed these labels by gravure. They measure 56 millimeters by 25mm. The same firm also printed the souvenir sheets and prestige booklet. The gravure process was used for all except the booklet pane of the 1 stamp, which was printed by lithography and gold foil.

The souvenir sheets are 192mm by 74mm each. The stamps in the 50 Years of a Design Icon sheet measure 34mm by 24mm each and are perforated gauge 14 by 14.

The stamps in the Golden Anniversary Celebration sheet are three different sizes: 30mm by 35mm for the 1 stamp, 25mm by 20mm for the pricing-in-proportion stamp, and 20mm by 24mm for the other stamps. The stamps in this sheet are perforated 15 by 14, except the 1993 and 2017 stamps, which are 14 by 15.

Atelier Works designed the stamps in the souvenir sheets and booklets, using images from different sources, including the Postal Museum and the Machin Arts Foundation. Godfrey Design created the prestige booklet.

Among the related products from Royal Mail are two press sheets, first-day covers, a presentation pack, and postcards reproducing the designs of the six new stamps and the two souvenir sheets.

Ordering information is available from Royal Mail, Tallents House, 21 S. Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB, Scotland.

Royal Mails two agencies in the United States are Interpost, Box 420, Hewlett, NY 11557; and the British Stamp Service in North America, 1 Unicover Center, Cheyenne, WY 82008.
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Photos by Neil Van.

For what might be my first and last experience at Field Trip, I was determined to make the most of it. Last week Broken Social Scenes Kevin Drew said in an interview that he thinks this will be the penultimate iteration of the festival that his record label Arts & Crafts puts on, although he may be saying that now because of all the work that is needed to his band putting on the finishing touches to release their first album in seven years (their first record released since Field Trip began in 2013).

Checking out the grounds at Fort York you had Harrison on the main stage playing smooth electronic music that got a small crowd standing in front of the stage dancing along to the sounds of summer. In between the insane amount of food trucks there were plenty of bars too selling Brickworks Cider and Kraken Rum, which is different then the usual bar fare at fests. Over on the side stage Yoke Lore, a two-person band, played like there was a full five piece on stage. They put on a good show and hopefully were able to make plenty of new fans. If you look back at the previous lineups of Field Trip, it is shocking just how well it is curated as almost every bottom of the poster name has graduated significantly. Acts like The Darcys, River Tiber, Vance Joy and Andy Shauf have all become big name performers after first appearing bright and early at Field Trip.

Checking out the Laugh Barracks there was a Perfect 10 showcase, a Toronto institution on the comedy scene created and MCed by Daniel Woodrow that showcased about a half dozen comedians doing five minute sets. One of the highlights was Chris Robinson who actually performed with his newborn son Carter in a Baby Bjorn and was fast asleep the whole set. A highlight from Robinson was him telling a story about meeting a gangster with a stutter and how its hard to take someone serious as being tough at that point.

Up and comers Joseph (no its not a guy but instead a trio of ladies) braved the blazing heat to get the crowd pumped up with their country meets 90s alt-pop. By the time the end of their set rolled around and they played a rousing version of their hit White Flag the crowd was singing along. Veteran spacey electronic rockers Royal Canoe had a ton of fun on stage. Alexa Dirks aka Begonia sang back up vocals for the group, and you can see her on her own at Wayhome later this summer.

Matt Mays showed what an honest to goodness rock star show is supposed to be like with plenty of loud guitars and fast drumming chugging the tunes along. Mays proved he may the only guy to look even cooler in a fedora in over 60 years. Mays vocals are shockingly powerful and reminds you just how underrated he is as a talent. The crowd eagerly sang along to classics On the Hood and Cocaine Cowgirl.

Portugal. the Man have long been the indie scenes next big thing but never seemed to break into the mainstream in the way bands like Arcade Fire and The Black Keys did before. The band released seven albums in seven years before taking four years off, their longest hiatus of their entire career. Finally Woodstock is coming out this year but with only one track released its hard to tell what the whole album will be like. The band came out to Metallicas For Whom The Bell Tolls before launching into a annihilating set of blistering rock. The band was always well known for their live shows, but they seem to be on a different plane currently. The intense guitar solos, heavy bass loops and psychedelic hippie pop on the keyboards gave the festival an adrenaline shot in the arm. Between playing older hits like People Say, Holy Rollers and Creep in a T-Shirt they also managed to inject some instrumental covers of The Beatles Shes So Heavy and the guitar solo from Weezers Say it Aint So. In recent years Ive seen acts like Alabama Shakes, Grouplove and Foals play before headliners or on side stages at festivals tear it up so hard you know they are destined for greatness. Portugal. the Man may have eclipsed them all. By the time their set finished with the only song from Woodstock released so far, Feel It Still, a Soul Bossanova (you know the Austin Powers theme by Quincy Jones) like offspring, which brought the funkiness and cemented the notion that they might be the best booked band on tour this year.

https://twitter.com/dgapa/status/871145378783088640

While the counter programing was excellent, getting a sweet spot for the last two acts on the main stage was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Getting right up to the front for A Tribe Called Red was an amazing experience. Having seeing them several times over the years and seeing how much they have grown both in stature and live performances is a pleasure. The fact that a DJ set can consist of only original music and no popular samples is a testament to the confidence and quality of the music that ATCR plays. As soon as the three members came out on stage they were greeted with a loud cheer, putting a huge smile on 2oolmans face. Their usual powwow dancers graced the stage at various points in their set, always amping the crowd up as much as any bass drop did. The music that ATCR is making right now might be some of most culturally impacting Canadian music ever all while doing it as some of the top electronic producers is equally as impressive. Backstage both George Stroumboulopoulos and rock royalty Gord Donwie were dancing around and enjoying the music. DJ NDN took to the mic to exclaim just how big the crowd was all grooving in unison.

Headlining the first day were the festival founders Broken Social Scene, they came onstage to a roar from the crowd as they played Cause = Time a classic from their 2002 breakthrough album You Forgot It In People with just the regular core six band members lead by Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning et all. Wondering what guests might appear with the band in their hometown was a fun game to paly beforehand. Youd have to imagine Feist would be there since she is a headliner on Day 2, but would the other ladies of BSS show up, or maybe K-os or Jason Collett would make a rare appearance, there was also the thought of a true surprise guest like Gord Downie or one of the other acts playing the fest like BBNG. By only the second song answers became clear, as all the ladies of BSS were present. Feist, Amy Millan and Emily Haines rotated lead songs all night long, starting with 7/4 Shoreline. What would have been an epic closing number for any other band was only the second song of the set as the massive horn section came out to play the famous riff at the end of the song prompting a thunderous yell of excitement from the crowd.

Toronto is unbelievably lucky to be the home of a band like Broken Social Scene, while they are always great live, there is a certain irreplaceable energy that this city feeds to them and add to the fact that they revitalized the music scene in Toronto almost singlehandedly makes every musician want to be their best friends. BSS has their share of legendary shows from their former annual island park shows in the early years to their Harbourfront show that was made into a film (This Movie Is Broken), and with a new album and potentially ending their own fest (yet again) it was ripe to be a memorable one. Drew acknowledged that the band was able to play deeper cuts due to Emily Haines presence and it was not wasted. During epic solos Feist jammed out on the air guitar as Amy Millan growled at the crowd. Several new songs were played and as Drew introduced current single Hug of Thunder as a song that Feist wrote, we were told that the band loved the song so much it had to be the title of the album that has yet to hit shelves.

In a more somber moment the band dedicated Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl to the victims of the Manchester bombing at Ariana Grandes show last month. BSS were actually the first band to play in Manchester after the attacks so it was fitting they would play such a delicate song in honour of the city and those effected by the tragedy. While it wasnt mentioned by any acts it was sobering that while a crowd of ten thousand people enjoying amazing music over in London, more terrorist attacks were occurring. Haines and the other ladies proved just what kind of power their music has in an utterly touching manner. The band only had a ninety minute set, and it seemed to fly by as the band was having just as much fun as the audience was, every time people came on hugs went around and backstage members and their families danced and shared drinks joyfully.

Drew told a story about how he met Haines twenty-six years ago after being introduced to her by Millan, being an alumni of the same highschool where they went always brings a certain amount of pride to my heart. If you walk around the halls of Etobicoke School of the Arts, their presence is still felt as their lore is overbearing and you can even spot Haines name on the Graduates with Honours wall in the main foyer. The band ended their set with a killer three song set including Superconnected, Backyards and KC Accidental. Thankfully BSS didnt feel the need to take an encore break as we probably got an extra song out of them because of it. All in all this might have been one of the best 1-2-3 acts in a festival in a longtime with Portugal. the Man, A Tribe Called Red and Broken Social Scene. This festival is so perfectly fit for Toronto, Im sure we all hope this truly isnt the last year.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan, June 8

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

An Uzbek delegation led by Ismatilla Irgashev, Uzbek presidents special representative for Afghanistan, took part in the international Kabul Process meeting, held on June 6-7 in Afghanistans capital, the Uzbek Foreign Ministrys press service said in a message.

At the meeting, delegations of more than 20 countries, including the neighboring states, discussed security issues and terrorism threats in Afghanistan, region and the world, and issues of inter-Afghan reconciliation.

As part of the visit to Kabul, the Uzbek delegation was received by Afghanistans President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.

Representatives of Uzbekistan held negotiations with advisors of the Afghan president on infrastructure, human resources and technology, agriculture, national security.

Negotiations were also held with special representative of Afghanistans president on development of cooperation with CIS countries, Muhammad Shokir Korgar, First Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, as well as several Afghan ministers.

On the sidelines of the Kabul Process meeting, a meeting was held with Turkeys First Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmet Yildiz, during which the sides exchanged views on issues of mutual interest.
By Chris Cook, for Trend

Obama's Smart Energy Strategy

On taking office in January 2009, President Barak Obama inherited a failed energy policy from the George W. Bush administration which had attempted to secure Middle East oil & gas resources by military means through creating client states and imposing one-sided contractual terms favouring US International Oil Companies (IOCs). However, China's threat in 2007 to pull the plug on the US financial system forced the US to back off in Iraq, in the same way that the US threat in 1956 to pull the plug on  sterling forced the UK to pull out of Suez.

Consequently, the 2008 US financial meltdown obliged the incoming Obama administration to take a very different approach to US energy security. There were two major objectives of Obama's resource resilience energy strategy: firstly, to rid the US for good of their historic reliance on Saudi oil, and secondly, to make a transition through gas as a bridging fuel to a low carbon economy.

The first objective was achieved by Obama's investment bank collaborators who used Saudi/GCC petrodollars to inflate the oil price from its low of $35/barrel in 2009 by manipulating the Brent/BFOE benchmark oil price. The price was then maintained in a range between a collar under oil prices of $80/barrel and a US gasoline price cap at levels which would not threaten Obama's 2012 re-election chances.

The effect of these artificially high prices were firstly, to fund indiscriminate lending to US shale oil and gas developers and secondly, to finance renewable energy such as wind and solar which substituted for fossil fuels. Finally, high prices led to massive investment in energy savings such as in more efficient car engines. As a result the US increased oil production by 5m barrels per day, and made oil product savings of maybe 2m bpd. When added to new high cost global sources of oil such as Canadian tar sands, and global renewable energy and efficiency, particularly in the EU, this led by 2014 to a substantial global surplus of oil production, which has now become structurally embedded.

The increasing surplus of oil supply led  as I forecast it would in 2011  to a collapse in the oil price to $45 to $50/bbl in late 2014 after the financial Quantitative Easing (QE) pump of Federal Reserve Bank dollars was finally turned off.

Obama's Energy Doctrine

Obama's strategy  executed through Hilary Clinton's State/CIA power nexus  was for Caspian and Qatari gas to supply Europe, displacing crude oil and oil products and competing with Russia. Resource nationalism  particularly in Turkey and Syria - stood in the way of this. Meanwhile the massive US base at Al Udeid has effectively come to secure Qatari gas production and an effective position of Qatar as a US proxy in the MENA region acting against resource nationalism by promoting Islamism.

The US strategy was therefore to create a new wave of non-nationalist Sunni Islamism such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere, and Gulenism in Turkey. The outcome desired by the US was Balkanisation of the region to create a Kurdish Petro State (which would be tolerated by a Gulenist regime in Turkey) with Islamist territories elsewhere acting as conduits for Qatari gas transit to Europe by pipeline.

However, Obama's smart energy policy was so successful that the accompanying wave of new smart technology and investment led to an irreversible tipping point in the global economy of Peak Demand the effect of which is to cap the global oil price at or around $50 per barrel.

Current Events

Saudi Arabia has clearly learnt the truth of Yamani's dictum that the Oil Age is not ending for lack of oil, since they would not conduct the Aramco IPO if the future oil price trajectory were upwards. Clearly, Saudi Arabia is now casting covetous eyes on Qatari gas, since this will enable them to free crude oil for export, particularly in the summer. In other words, Qatari gas will act as a bridging fuel while their ambitious (and in my view unimplementable) Energy 2030 programme progresses. Such a Saudi gas for oil swap is unlikely to take place on favourable terms for Qatar.

So President Trump has now turned away from the Obama doctrine at least in part due to his personal antagonism to anything Obama was able to achieve in office. Unfortunately, as with his similar rejection of COP 21 and Obama's domestic US energy policy he has no constructive Plan B.

As a result of Trump's impulsive action, Saudi Arabia has now been permitted to take extraordinary measures, with the full support of the US, which essentially constitute war on Qatar by economic means. Moreover, Qatar has been presented with a detailed ultimatum including a draconian prohibition in dealings with Iran and the scope for rapid escalation is clear.

Today's events in Tehran  an attack on the Majlis and an unprecedented suicide bombing at the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini  provide a grave challenge to President Hassan Rouhani and his colleagues in Iran's government. Trump's top military/security team is extremely antagonistic to Iran, and clearly hope and expect that Iran will act stupidly and aggressively in response to this provocation.

What is Iran's Smart Move in this difficult position?

The Smart Move

In my view, the smart, and unexpected, policy for Iran would be to propose a constructive regional initiative based upon energy/resource co-operation and resilience. This may perhaps commence with a humanitarian offer to Qatar of essential supplies through international waters.

What appears to be a unilateral US-backed resource grab by Saudi Arabia creates an opportunity for Russia, Iran & Qatar (who between them possess more than 60% of global gas reserves) to collaborate in launching a networked physical and financial global market in natural gas based upon a new settlement between gas producers and consumers.

The market in Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is key to such a new settlement. While historically the global natural gas market has been fragmented and largely bilateral due to deliveries via static pipelines, the last five years has seen massive new production and infrastructure for liquidising and decompressing Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). The combination of diversity of supply, flexibility of delivery and homogeneity of gas (there are many grades and qualities of oil, but CH4 is CH4) has now led to an over-supplied global 'buyer's market' in natural gas. The emergence and convergence of a global LNG price is strikingly illustrated by this chart.

I believe  based upon my experience of implementing the UK Natural Gas Balancing Point Futures contract in 1995 as a Director of what is now ICE Europe  that the potential now exists for a global gas 'Balancing Point' physical gas market price based upon the price at which LNG is delivered into and out of global LNG infrastructure. This could enable financial energy credit instruments (not derivatives) based upon this price which are issued, traded, cleared and settled within a global energy clearing union.

The EU, which is fuming at Trump's America First antics, as well as China, India and Turkey (whose President Erdogan has offered to intermediate), could be expected to support a new global gas market settlement, while neutral countries like Norway and Switzerland could be expected to facilitate it.

So my advice to President Rouhani is to play chess where Trump is playing the fool, and to begin a process of depoliticised energy diplomacy based upon competition for quality of energy as a service and cooperation to reduce energy costs within a new natural gas global market paradigm.

Chris Cook is a former director of the International Petroleum Exchange. He is now a strategic market consultant, entrepreneur and a commentator.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi has declined to comment on Saudi Arabias possible role in the yesterdays terror attacks in Tehran.



So far, we cannot judge whether Saudi Arabia has played a role in the terrorist attack, ISNA quoted him as saying this morning.



The authorities say that at least seven shooters and suicidal bombers were involved in the terrorist attack.



Six terrorists were killed on the scene and a woman was wounded and arrested.



The officials say the woman who commanded the terrorist attack is from Irans southern regions and the rest are from the countrys western regions.



Two separate attacks shook Tehran on June 7. As reports said, several armed people tried to break their way into the Parliament building.



The attackers managed to get inside the building and engaged in a shootout with the security forces. One terrorist committed suicide by blowing himself up. The latest reports indicate that all four terrorists who took part in the siege of the parliament building have been killed.



Meanwhile, another attack took place at the Imam Khomeini Shrine. The reports said Iran's security forces neutralized one terrorist, another one committed suicide.



A separate terrorist group in the country has been detained before it managed to carry out any terror attack. Fars news agency issued a report saying that ISIS claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in Tehran.



According to the latest reports, the overall body count in the attacks has reached 16 people, including three women.
Details added (first version published at 12:10)

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Ilgar Emil  Trend:

Iran sent the first food cargo to Qatar, Irans Press TV reported June 8.

Iranian Homa Airlines Boeing 747 plane delivered the cargo.

Turkey also announced that it will provide Qatar with food. It is expected that a special delegation from Qatar will visit Turkey to discuss this issue soon.

Earlier, Arab media outlets reported that the foodstuff available in Qatar will suffice for four weeks and that Qatar started talks with Turkey and Iran for the supplies of drinking water and agricultural products.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE announced about breaking their diplomatic relations with Qatar June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.

Later, the authorities of Libya, Yemen as well as the Maldives and Mauritius also announced about severing diplomatic relations with Qatar.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has arrived in Kazakh capital, Astana, to attend the summit of the heads of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), ISNA news agency reported.



Zarif is expected to address the SCO summit and partake in the inauguration ceremony of the Astana Expo on June 9.



The minister is also scheduled to confer several Kazakh officials during the visit.



China earlier this week said that it supports Iran's membership of the SCO and the subject will be discussed at the group's summit.
A man in Brazil died of rabies in May after a vampire bat bit him.

The man, who lived in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador, was one of many people in the area bitten by bats. Brazilian news agency Agencia Brasil reported that the bloodsucking bats have bitten 40 people since March.

Vampire bats were not thought to prey on humans, but Brazilian researchers recently found that one species of vampire bat (Diphylla ecaudata) had expanded its palate beyond birds, to human blood.

These bats can carry and spread the rabies virus, and indeed, the man who died caught rabies from the bat that bit him. But what happens when a person gets rabies, and how does the virus kill? [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

The rabies virus can have a long incubation period, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician and a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who was not involved in the Brazilian man's care. In some cases, it can take months after a person is infected with the virus for symptoms to appear.

The length of the incubation period depends, in part, on where a person is bitten, Adalja told Live Science. The rabies virus travels through a person's nerve cells until it reaches the central nervous system and enters the brain, so it will take longer to get there if a person is bitten on the toe than, say, the face.

Once the virus gets to the central nervous system, a person will have general symptoms associated with viral infections, such as a fever and a headache.

But rabies is different from other infections, because as this infection gets worse, a person experiences changes in personality, including alterations in how he or she thinks, along with agitation and delirium, Adalja said. People infected with rabies may also develop hydrophobia, or a fear of water. These severe symptoms generally begin about two weeks after a person experiences the initial symptoms of the infection, Adalja said.

The changes occur because the virus causes inflammation in the brain, a condition known as encephalitis, Adalja said. This inflammation can disrupt neurotransmitters in the brain, altering how brain cells communicate with each other.

Severe brain inflammation can lead to seizures, coma and ultimately death, Adalja said.

If a person has been bitten by an animal that could be rabid, it's important to immediately seek medical attention, Adalja said. The infection can be nipped in the bud using "post-exposure prophylaxis"  in other words, giving someone the rabies vaccine after he or she has been bitten.

Post-exposure prophylaxis is extremely effective, Adalja said, but it's essential that patients get the treatment before symptoms start.

Once a person starts having symptoms, rabies is nearly impossible to treat, and is fatal. Only one type of treatment, called the Milwaukee protocol, has ever been shown to work to treat rabies and save the lives of people infected, Adalja said. That treatment involves putting a person in a medically induced coma and giving the individual antiviral drugs. But the treatment has been used in only a handful of cases, and there is significant debate in the medical community about whether it is effective.

About 59,000 people worldwide die from rabies each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On average, there are one to three rabies cases reported yearly in the U.S.

Originally published on Live Science.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for two attacks that claimed at least 12 lives in Iran on Wednesday. With this, the flaring tensions between Sunnis and Shias are once again in the news.

Iran is a Shia Muslim majority state often in tension with Sunni states and extremist groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. These attacks are the latest chapter in the story of the centuries-long strained relationship between Sunnis and Shias.

As a scholar of Islam and a public educator, I often field questions about Sunnis, Shias and the sects of Islam. What exactly is the Shia-Sunni divide? And what is its history?

History of divide

Both Sunnis and Shias  drawing their faith and practice from the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad  agree on most of the fundamentals of Islam. The differences are related more to historical events, ideological heritage and issues of leadership.

The first and central difference emerged after the death of Prophet Muhammad in A.D. 632. The issue was who would be the caliph  the "deputy of God"  in the absence of the prophet. While the majority sided with Abu Bakr, one of the prophet's closest companions, a minority opted for his son-in-law and cousin  Ali. This group held that Ali was appointed by the prophet to be the political and spiritual leader of the fledgling Muslim community.

Subsequently, those Muslims who put their faith in Abu Bakr came to be called Sunni ("those who follow the Sunna," the sayings, deeds and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) and those who trusted in Ali came to be known as Shia (a contraction of "Shiat Ali," meaning "partisans of Ali").

Abu Bakr became the first caliph and Ali became the fourth caliph. However, Ali's leadership was challenged by Aisha, the prophet's wife and daughter of Abu Bakr. Aisha and Ali went to battle against each other near Basra, Iraq in the Battle of the Camel in A.D. 656. Aisha was defeated, but the roots of division were deepened. Subsequently, Mu'awiya, the Muslim governor of Damascus, also went to battle against Ali, further exacerbating the divisions in the community.

In the years that followed, Mu'awiya assumed the caliphate and founded the Ummayad Dynasty (A.D 670-750). Ali's youngest son, Hussein  born of Fatima, the prophet's daughter  led a group of partisans in Kufa, Iraq against Mu'awiya's son Yazid. For the Shias, this battle, known as the Battle of Karbala, holds enormous historical and religious significance.

Hussein was killed and his forces defeated. For the Shia community, Hussein became a martyr. The day of the battle is commemorated every year on the Day of Ashura. Held on the tenth day of Muharram in the Islamic lunar calendar, scores of pilgrims visit Hussein's shrine in Karbala and many Shia communities participate in symbolic acts of flagellation and suffering.

Leadership disagreements

Over time, Islam continued to expand and develop into evermore complex and overlapping societies that spanned from Europe to sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa to Asia. This development demanded more codified forms of religious and political leadership.

Sunnis and Shias adopted different approaches to these issues.

Sunni Muslims trusted the secular leadership of the caliphs during the Ummayad (based in Damascus from A.D. 660-750) and Abbasid (based in Iraq from 750-1258 and in Cairo from 1261-1517) periods. Their theological foundations came from the four religious schools of Islamic jurisprudence that emerged over the seventh and eighth centuries.

To this day, these schools help Sunni Muslims decide on issues such as worship, criminal law, gender and family, banking and finance, and even bioethical and environmental concerns. Today, Sunnis comprise about 80-90 percent of the global Muslim population.

On the other hand, Shias relied on Imams as their spiritual leaders, whom they believed to be divinely appointed leaders from among the prophet's family. Shia Muslims continue to maintain that the prophet's family are the sole genuine leaders. In the absence of the leadership of direct descendants, Shias appoint representatives to rule in their place (often called ayatollahs). Shias are a minority of the global Muslim population, although they have strong communities in Iraq, Pakistan, Albania, Yemen, Lebanon and Iran. There are also different sects within Shia Islam.

Differences masked during Hajj

Other disputes that continue to exacerbate the divide include issues of theology, practice and geopolitics.

For example, when it comes to theology Sunnis and Shias draw from different "Hadith" traditions. Hadith are the reports of the words and deeds of the prophet and considered an authoritative source of revelation, second only to the Quran. They provide a biographical sketch of the prophet, context to Quranic verses, and are used by Muslims in the application of Islamic law to daily life. Shias favor those that come from the prophet's family and closest associates, while Sunnis cast a broader net for Hadith that includes a wide array of the prophet's companions.

Shias and Sunnis differ over prayer as well. All Sunni Muslims believe they are required to pray five times a day, but Shias can condense those into three.

During the Hajj  the pilgrimage to Mecca, held annually and obligatory for all Muslims once in a lifetime  it may seem that these differences are masked, as both Sunnis and Shias gather in the holy city for rituals that reenact the holiest narratives of their faith. And yet, with Saudi authorities overseeing the Hajj, there have been tensions with Shia governments such as Iran over claims of discrimination.

And when it comes to leadership, the Shia have a more hierarchical structure of political and religious authority invested in formally trained clergy whose religious authority is transnational. There is no such structure in Sunni Islam.

The greatest splits today, however, come down to politics. Although the majority of Sunni and Shia are able to live peacefully together, the current global political landscape has brought polarization and sectarianism to new levels. Shia-Sunni conflicts are raging in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan and the divide is growing deeper across the Muslim world.

This historical schism continues to permeate the daily lives of Muslims around the world.

Ken Chitwood, Ph.D. Student, Religion in the Americas, Global Islam, University of Florida

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
The monument, which consists of two huge, circular enclosures  each outlined by tall, wooden posts  is about 5,300 years old, meaning the structure predates the first stones erected at nearby Stonehenge by about 800 years, the study found.

Though the exact purpose of the Avebury monument is still shrouded in mystery, archaeologists think the two wooden circles were used for only a short time for a ceremony or festival before burning to the ground.

"It's much too large to be a stock enclosure; it's got to be a ceremonial enclosure," said study co-author Alex Bayliss, a statistical archaeologist with Historic England. "It's completely unlike anything we've ever found in the British prehistory." [In Photos: A Walk Through Stonehenge]

Historic landscape

The area around Stonehenge is dotted with ancient historical sites, revealing shrouded glimpses of Britain's prehistoric past. Bones found at a site near Stonehenge suggest that the site was a sacred wild-auroch hunting ground long before the monument was built. Nearby, the largest prehistoric human-made chalk mound, called Silbury Hill, looms over the landscape, though its original purpose remains obscure. Avebury is also home to Avebury henge, a historic stone monument similar to Stonehenge. And the remains of a Neolithic settlement called Durrington Walls shows signs of ancient barbecues and may have been where Stonehenge's builders lived while they were erecting the epic monument.

The wooden circles in Avebury, located about 23 miles (37 kilometers) from the mysterious stone circle at Stonehenge, were discovered when a pipeline was being laid in the 1960s and 1970s. In the late 1980s, Cardiff University archaeologist Alasdair Whittle conducted a small excavation at the site. He and his colleagues found the charred remains of a massive monument that sprawled across the landscape. Based on the charring, the team deduced that two massive, side-by-side circles dominated the landscape, together spanning about 2.5 miles (4 km). One of the large circles was about 820 feet (250 m) in diameter.

"It's like a pair of glasses: There's two circles with a small gap in between them," Bayliss told Live Science.

Workers in ancient times likely constructed the site first by digging large ditches and then placing oak posts into sockets in the earth, Whittle told Live Science. Then, they used the dug-out earth to backfill and cover the base of the posts and create a huge palisade. The posts were very closely set, so it's likely that hundreds and hundreds of trees would have been cut down to build the monument, Whittle added.

"It looks like a serious, big enterprise," Whittle told Live Science.

During that excavation, scientists dated a shard of pottery found in one of the post holes, using the ratio of carbon isotopes, or versions of carbon with different numbers of neutrons. Based on that analysis, the team determined that the site was used around 2500 B.C., the same time as the first stones were raised at Stonehenge.

Ceremonial enclosure

However, in recent years, carbon-dating techniques have improved dramatically, so the team revisited the analysis. This time, they carbon-dated the charred remains in the post holes, along with animal bones at the site and fragments of pottery, with improved techniques.

It turned out that the site was 800 years older than the prior research had suggested. The monument was erected during a dark period in this region of Britain's history, for which relatively little archaeological evidence exists.

"There's shed loads of stuff happening in the 700 years before and shed loads of stuff after, but there's almost nothing in the middle," Bayliss said.

The team suspects that the two great enclosures were used as a gathering place  though not for long, as there were few other remains of human settlement or occupation dating to the period, Bayliss said. It's possible that one of the enclosures was for women and the other for men. People would have gathered, and then burnt the massive timber circles to the ground in what would have been an "amazing spectacle," Bayliss said.

Right by the wooden circles, archaeologists also unearthed artifacts such as animal bones, remnants of ancient structures and pottery shards suggestive of late Neolithic housing. Those remains also date to about 2500 B.C.

"That's significant in the local context because it shows people coming back to an old site"  a trend that seems to crop up across southern England in this rough period of prehistory, Whittle said.

The settlement also neatly overlaps with the raising of Silbury Hill, just two or three fields away, suggesting that some people from the settlement may have been involved in its construction, Whittle said.

"They could have been the people who were doing this," Whittle speculated.

The new findings will be published Friday (June 9) in the journal British Archaeology.

Originally published on Live Science.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8



By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will attend a funeral ceremony for the victims of Wednesday terror attacks.



Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and the head of judiciary, Sadeq Amoli-Larijani are also expected to partake in the ceremony, Fars news agency reported.



Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli are also scheduled to brief MPs on the recent terror attacks on June 7.



The attackers managed to get inside the building and engaged in a shootout with the security forces. One terrorist committed suicide by blowing himself up. The latest reports indicate that all four terrorists who took part in the siege of the Parliament building have been killed.



Meanwhile, another attack took place at the Imam Khomeini Shrine. The reports said Irans security forces neutralized one terrorist, another one committed suicide there.



A separate terrorist group in the country was detained before it managed to carry out any terror attack. Fars news agency issued a report saying that ISIS claimed responsibility for the terror attacks in Tehran.



According to the latest reports, the overall body count in the attacks has reached 17.
Officers at bridges on the Texas-Mexico border often discover drugs hidden in interesting packaging, but what they found Monday might be the most fitting.

While inspecting a black 2010 Jeep Compass at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found an estimated $390,000 worth of cocaine wrapped in "Coca-Cola" markings, according to a CBP news release.
One of two men charged with 36 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter in Oaklands Ghost Ship fire appeared in an Alameda County court filled with victims families Thursday.

Wearing buttons with pictures of their dead loved ones, many parents hoped to catch a glimpse of 47-year-old Derick Almena, who stood in his dark orange jail clothes, saying nothing during the brief hearing.

I just wanted to see his face, his expression, said David Gregory, whose 20-year-old daughter, Michela, was killed in the Dec. 2 fire.

Gregory and his wife, Kim, were looking for remorse on Almenas face, but said they could barely see the defendant standing behind glass.

Asked if he was satisfied with the charges, Gregory said, Its a start.

Almena, the master tenant of the Ghost Ship warehouse, and 27-year-old Max Harris, the art spaces creative director, were charged Monday by the Alameda County district attorneys office. Both men face up to 39 years in prison if convicted.

Harris, who was arrested in Los Angeles, was returned to Alameda County and is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday. The defendants are each being held on $1,080,000 bond.

Attorneys for Almena, who was arrested in Lake County, called the charges a distraction and blamed the city of Oakland and soaring rents for the tragedy, signaling a possible defense strategy.

This creates a distraction so that the local government does not have to address the fundamental issues of housing and equality and fire safety that will continue to be a problem in this community, Jeffrey Krasnoff said outside the courtroom. They have not addressed their failings.

Almena did not enter a plea Thursday. His arraignment was postponed until next Thursday.

Krasnoff acknowledged the fire as one of the most profound tragedies to strike the Bay Area but argued that no public good will come out of prosecuting his client.

He and his co-counsel, Tony Serra, have called the charges a miscarriage of justice and described Almena as a scapegoat. They will hold a news conference related to the charges at their San Francisco law offices Friday.

Gregory called Krasnoffs statements on Thursday nonsense.

The fire broke out during a music event at the Ghost Ship warehouse on 31st Avenue in the Fruitvale section of Oakland that had illegally been converted into a live-work artist collective.

Mondays arrests capped a six-month investigation that began the night of the fire. Most of the victims were trapped on the second floor as flames and smoke engulfed the building.

Investigators have not determined a cause for the fire but said the warehouse was of full of highly flammable materials, including tapestries on the walls and a makeshift stairway made of wooden pallets. A tangle of electrical wires that snaked through the building was fed from a power source in a neighboring auto-repair shop.

The district attorneys office called Almena and Harris actions before the fire reckless and said they created a high risk of death.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
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BIOGRAPHY

"Ernest Hemingway: A Biography"

By Mary V. Dearborn (Knopf)

This thorough re-examination of Hemingway shows the writer to be a more troubled, complex and tragic figure than most previous biographies have allowed.

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"Madame President: The Extraordinary Journey of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf"

By Helene Cooper (Simon & Schuster)

A penetrating history of Liberia and the story of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who became the first woman elected president of an African nation.

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"Richard Nixon: The Life"

By John A. Farrell (Doubleday)

By employing recently released government documents and oral histories, Farrell has written the best one-volume, cradle-to-grave biography that we could expect about such a famously elusive subject.

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"Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama"

By David Garrow (William Morrow)

Garrow shows us the calculations Obama made in the decades leading up to his winning the presidency.

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"Robert Lowell: Setting the River on Fire"

By Kay Redfield Jamison (Knopf)

There are no half measures to Kay Redfield Jamison's medico-biographical study of poet Robert Lowell. It is impassioned, intellectually thrilling and often beautifully written.

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CURRENT EVENTS

"An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back"

By Elisabeth Rosenthal (Penguin Press)

An authoritative account of the distorted financial incentives that now drive medical care in the United States.

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"Janesville: An American Story"

By Amy Goldstein (Simon & Schuster)

A poignant account of how the people of Janesville, Wis., reacted to the closure of their General Motors plant.

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"No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America"

By Ron Powers (Hachette)

Powers argues that the future of mental health in the United States is being shaped along two trajectories: a flourishing research enterprise juxtaposed with a chaotic system of delivering care.

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"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century"

By Timothy Snyder (Tim Duggan)

Steeped in the history of interwar Germany, Snyder writes with bracing immediacy about how to prevent, or at least forestall, the repression of lives and minds.

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FICTION

"A Book of American Martyrs"

By Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)

An explosive story about the family of an abortion doctor and the family of the man who murdered him.

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"American War"

By Omar El Akkad (Knopf)

When climate change sparks a devastating civil war in the United States in the late 21st century, one young woman fights to avenge her family's destruction.

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"Anything Is Possible"

By Elizabeth Strout (Random House)

In these short stories, Strout returns to Amgash, Ill., where the protagonist of her 2016 novel, "My Name Is Lucy Barton," was raised.

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"Borne"

By Jeff VanderMeer (FSG)

In a ruined city littered with discarded biotech experiments, a young woman finds a strange life form that she decides to raise.

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"Exit West"

By Mohsin Hamid (Riverhead)

Two Middle Eastern lovers fleeing the migrant crisis arrive in California, where they must contend with natives, other refugees and their grief for what they have left behind.

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"Lincoln in the Bardo"

By George Saunders (Random House)

When President Lincoln's 11-year-old son, Willie, is laid to rest in Georgetown's Oak Hill Cemetery, the ghosts engage in a spirited debate about how to move the boy along to the next level of existence.

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"No One Is Coming to Save Us"

By Stephanie Powell Watts (Ecco)

In a North Carolina town ground down by factory closings, an African-American family struggles to survive. Then a handsome young man returns home promising to make a new life and lift them up.

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"Norse Mythology"

By Neil Gaiman (Norton)

Gaiman transmutes the tales of ancient Scandinavia into expertly paced short stories for the 21st century.

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"Saints for All Occasions"

By J. Courtney Sullivan (Knopf)

Two Irish sisters come to America. One begins a family and the other becomes a cloistered nun, but their very different lives remain tethered by a fateful deception.

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"Standard Deviation"

By Katherine Heiny (Knopf)

At the center of this witty novel on family life is a mother with an outsize personality who must deal with things such as a son who's an origami prodigy.

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"The Ministry of Utmost Happiness"

By Arundhati Roy (Knopf)

In her first novel since "The God of Small Things" (1997), Roy draws us through a kaleidoscopic story about the struggle for Kashmir's independence.

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"The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley"

By Hannah Tinti (Dial)

A widower with a violent criminal past moves into a small Maine fishing town hoping to establish a safe space for his daughter, who gradually learns the stories behind her father's 12 bullet scars.

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"Woman No. 17"

By Edan Lepucki (Hogarth)

A mother of two boys hires a nanny so that she can work on her memoir, but the nanny has a secret project of her own.

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HISTORY

"Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty"

By John B. Boles (Basic)

Perhaps the finest one-volume biography of an American president.

"Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI"

By David Grann (Doubleday)

For present-day Osage communities, the events related in "Killers of the Flower Moon" are not last century's news but yesterday's. Many members of the tribe still wonder what exactly happened to their relatives.

"The Blood of Emmett Till"

By Timothy B. Tyson (Simon & Schuster)

Tyson clears away the myths that have accumulated over the decades and restores the immediacy of this quintessentially American tragedy.

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"The Evangelicals"

By Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster)

FitzGerald shows how a movement that began in reaction to the Calvinist establishment of New England shaped American identity in the first decades of the 19th century.

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MEMOIR

"Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body"

By Roxane Gay (Harper)

From the author of "Bad Feminist," a long-awaited memoir about her struggles with weight and childhood traumas.

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"Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

By Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant (Knopf)

Sandberg, whose husband died in 2015, illustrates with heartbreaking honesty that nothing can inoculate you against the pain of grief.

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"Priestdaddy"

By Patricia Lockwood (Riverhead)

Poet Patricia Lockwood's darkly comic memoir about returning home to her parents' house in Kansas, where she is forced to reassess her relationship with her eccentric father, a married Catholic priest.

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"The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying"

By Nina Riggs (Simon & Schuster)

Written in the final two years of her life, a mother's poignant memoir about her life, family and last days.

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"The Skin Above My Knee"

By Marcia Butler (Little, Brown)

How did this distinguished oboist save herself from a detached, withholding mother and a sexually abusive father? In this insightful memoir, she reveals the answer and more.

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MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

"Not a Sound"

By Heather Gudenkauf (Park Row)

Two years after losing her hearing, a nurse discovers the corpse of a co-worker in the woods near her Minnesota cabin - and realizes her life is in jeopardy.

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"Since We Fell"

By Dennis Lehane (Ecco)

Lehane's 14th novel, which takes the author back to his old New England stomping grounds of "Mystic River," is a pleasantly twisted character study of a disgraced television journalist who shoots her second husband in the first scene.

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"The Long Drop"

By Denise Mina (Litttle, Brown)

Based on the true story of Scotland's most infamous serial killer, a chilling novel set in 1950s Glasgow.

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POP CULTURE & SOCIAL SCIENCES

"Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night"

By Jason Zinoman (Harper)

A definitive and enjoyable biography of the late-night legend and why he was better at his job than Jay Leno.

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"The Poetry of Pop"

By Adam Bradley (Yale)

Are pop music lyrics poetry? A tour of musical history that gets to the bottom of this age-old question.

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"Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow"

By Yuval Noah Harari (Harper)

Harari presents three possible futures: In one, humans are expendable. In a second, the elite upgrade themselves, becoming another species that sees everyone else as expendable. In a third, we all join the hive mind.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

A day after shocking terror attacks in Iran's Tehran, which left people dead and injured, another attack occurred on June 8.

A biker threw acid on people in the street, reportedly injuring 16 bypassers, Fars news agency reported.

The incident took place this morning in southern Tehran.

ISNA later reported that the perpetrator of the acid attack was detained describing the reason behind the attack as personal. Health officials say the victims suffered minor injuries and all injured have been discharged from the hospital.

Over the past few years, several cases of acid attacks have been reported in the country.

Twin terror attacks rocked Tehran on June 7 claiming the lives of at least 12 and injuring about 40, tough the officials have not stated whether terrorism was the motive behind the acid attack this morning.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Qatari authorities need to take several concrete steps to resume the fraternal relations with certain Arab states.

Expulsion of one of the leaders of the Palestinian Hamas militant group from Qatar should be the most important step by Doha. Qatar should also stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood organization, as well as severe too close relations with Iran, because, according to a number of Arab states, it is namely Tehran that supports terrorism in the region by using Hezbollah militant group and Yemens Houthi Ansarullah movement.

It is obvious that the Arab states, which regard the Muslim Brotherhood as their main enemy, dont mind that the authorities in Doha also expel Egyptian Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is considered one of the ideological mentors of the Muslim Brotherhood, from Qatar.

It is noteworthy that back in 2014, Egypt demanded that Qatar expel Yusuf al-Qaradawi, but Doha rejected such demand of the Cairo authorities at that time.

However, a completely different situation is emerging today. Probably, the Arab states were able to agree on something for the first time, and this agreement is aimed against the Arabs themselves.

In this regard, one can state that if Qatar expels Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas and its former political bureau chief, from Doha, it is quite realistic that the neighboring countries will restore diplomatic relations with Doha.

But the question arises: which country can receive Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Khaled Meshaal in case if Qatar decides to fulfill the conditions of its neighbors?

Today, the expulsion of Khaled Meshaal is not a very difficult task for Qatar, because Meshaal is no longer head of the Hamas political bureau since the end of May this year. Ismail Haniya was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in the Gaza Strip.

That is, in case if Qatar expels Meshaal, he can safely move to Iran, just like it was before the crisis in Syria.

As for Yusuf al-Qaradawi, his resettlement to Iran is excluded, although it should be noted that even the members of the Muslim Brotherhood are Sunnis, they had close ties with Iran before the Syrian crisis.

Given this, one can say that if Qatar decides to expel Yusuf al-Qaradawi, there is significant possibility that he will nevertheless move to Turkey, since this is the most optimal choice for him.

It turns out that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas severed relations with Hezbollah militant group and Iran namely due to the military conflict in Syria.

There is no doubt that the Qatari crisis may play the role of a catalyst for the changes in the Syrian crisis with the Free Syrian Armys joining efforts with Hezbollah and the government troops of Syria against the common enemy, the so-called Islamic State (IS aka ISIS/ISIL).

The case is that no matter what global media outlets report about Qatars supporting the IS, in fact Qatar supports only the FSA, which fights against the IS, Hezbollah and the Syrian government troops.

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Follow Rufiz Hafizoglu on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
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For years Laredo has been without any kind of official citywide organization that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

But that wont be the case much longer. Kike Lobo, director of sales and marketing at La Posada Hotel and member of the LGBT community, has been appointed to serve on the board of Equality Texas representing Laredo and the surrounding area.

Equality Texas is a nonprofit that advocates and lobbies for the elimination of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Their board is made up of 20 individuals representing cities across the state. And up until recently, Laredo was missing.

Click through the gallery above to see where Laredo ranks on the most and least friendly cities in Texas for LGBT people.

Lobo said the Human Rights Campaign nominated him last month to serve on Equality Texas board, and his application was accepted. He want to his first meeting Saturday.

Part of Lobos job as a board member is to create a steering committee in Laredo. This committee will share Equality Texas mission, Lobo said, but it will work specifically for the Laredo community.

READ MORE: Generations of Laredoans clash when it comes to LGBT issues

Since he moved back to Laredo seven years ago, Lobo said he has never seen a gay couple holding hands in public. He thinks this is due to fear of the unknown.

Theres a lot of folks that associate as LGBTQ (in Laredo), but theres no organization that someone can join, Lobo said.

PILLAR is a local organization that provides help for struggling youth and members of the LGBT community, but it focuses mainly on anti-bullying efforts. Theyre a great organization, Lobo said, but they dont get involved with anything political.

The steering committee can establish and solidify Laredos LGBT community as a group, Lobo said, and eventually go on to organize events like the citys first gay pride parade.

He said he would also like to reach out to smaller LGBT organizations in the community, like those at TAMIU.

RELATED: Laredo ranks as one of the least LGBT friendly cities in Texas

Whatever events or fundraisers or programs, we need to do them all together. People need to see a united community. Theyll become more comfortable, and it will create a positive domino effect, Lobo said.

Lobo has created a shortlist of people he would want to serve on the steering committee, which he hopes to assemble soon. He is itching to implement a five-year plan that addresses local LGBT issues as they relate to society, family, education and health.

My first priority is to gather a strong, qualified and passionate board, he said.

Lobo already sits on the boards for the Webb County Heritage Foundation, United Way, Plaza Partners Incorporated, Laredo Center for the Arts, and he is the incoming president for Laredo Main Street.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
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One of the larger infrastructure projects imminent in Laredo and Webb County is the Hachar-Reuthinger Road. This road will connect Mines Road and Interstate 35 across the currently undeveloped land north of Loop 20, opening up thousands of acres of for warehousing, commercial and residential development.

But due to extended negotiations with the Texas Department of Transportation, the first phase of this project has been delayed both with the city and county.

Dannenbaum Engineering, which appears to be at the focus of a public corruption probe, was hired by the City of Laredo and Webb County for preliminary design work.

On Nov. 17, 2014, City Council approved a professional services contract with Dannenbaum, allowing them to perform land surveys, plan for foundation and soil tests, prepare cost estimates, and study necessary drainage, water and sewer improvements. This work falls under Phase I of the project, for which Dannenbaum is receiving $1,016,063 from the city.

READ MORE: Two Laredo-area high schools receive failing grades from Children at Risk

Phase II is the final design phase, which has not been approved by council. This work involves mainly construction management and inspection.

Contractually, Phase I can take a total of 450 days. If Phase II is approved, it is expected to take about three years.

City Council considered on Monday extending the deadline for Phase I for another year, and ended up not taking any action on the item. Council had previously voted to push up the deadline 365 days on April 18, 2016. Neither of these actions affected the project cost, but could push the total contract time to 1,180 days.

The reason for these delays boils down to funding. In August, Webb County was classified by the Texas Comptrollers Office as an economically disadvantaged county due to the decline in oil and gas activity.

This classification qualified Laredo to work out an advanced funding agreement with TxDOT where 71 percent of the citys expenses on this Hachar Road project are reimbursed by TxDOT. The City of Laredo was only paying for 20 percent of the project to begin with, so it works out to about 6 percent that the city is responsible for.

If the city had not delayed the contract for Phase I, it would be paying the full 20 percent, since Webb County was not considered economically disadvantaged in 2015.

The advanced funding agreement with TxDOT for Phase I, which was approved by City Council on March 20, lays out that the city will spend an estimated $4.9 million on the project, while state and federal funds will reimburse the city for $25.2 million.

RELATED: 19 businesses in Laredo caught selling, serving minors since start of last year

City of Laredo Utilities Director Riazul Mia said this project is not moving as quickly as he would like, but its ongoing.

All the coordination is being pushed back a year, he said. ... Its a lot of coordination between TxDOT, the county and the property owners.

He conceded that the roadway is a beneficial project for the city and county since they are being reimbursed for so much of it.

The second deadline extension was not voted on Monday so that the city can look into its funding source for the project. It is technically called a water line project, and therefore falls under the Utilities Departments purview. But only 20 percent of the project is the water line; 80 percent is the road.

Interim City Manager Horacio De Leon told LMT he is looking into the reasoning behind this.

We shouldnt be using utilities funds to build a roadway. This is new information to me. Well look at that as we move forward, he said at Mondays meeting.

Webb County

Webb Countys portion of the project has also been delayed due to TxDOT.

On May 22, Commissioners Court voted to rescind Dannenbaums $300,000 work authorization contract with the county after TxDOT revamped its procurement process.

MORE POLITICS: City of Laredo considering taking legal action after multiple water pump failures

At the meeting, Webb County Engineer Luis Perez Garcia said TxDOT found an error in the procurement process for this project and recommended that the county re-solicit bids for engineering services. Dannenbaum agreed to this request, Perez said.

Dannenbaum was the only firm that bid for this project for both the city and county.

Perez told LMT on Wednesday that he does not believe that going through this process again will create much of delay since environmental work still need to be done anyway.

The county will be requesting qualifications from interested firms again soon, Perez said.

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
The widening and expansion of Northpark Drive was first among a list of proposed District E projects identified in the "Rebuild Houston Need Area Identification Priorities Memo," a list of potential projects suggested for possible inclusion into the city's capital improvement plan.

"The expansion of Northpark Drive from two lanes to three lanes between the Eastex Freeway and Woodland Hills Drive, while eliminating a dangerous drainage ditch in the middle of the roadway is a much needed project in District E. The current infrastructure was built for a capacity of 27,000 cars a day. Today, there are over 42,000 cars utilizing this roadway on a daily basis, which increases frequency of accidents in addition to compounding congestion issues," the memo states.

This was one of several proposed projects included in the memo, which was discussed during the June 8 Lake Houston Redevelopment Authority and Tax Reinvestment Zone 10 board meeting in Kingwood.

"Each year, public works and engineering asks each council office to submit a framework for future projects to be considered in the CIP," stated Jessica Beemer, chief of staff and north sector manager for the office of Councilman Dave Martin, in an email. "The attachment includes projects that could improve mobility/drainage and create connections that may not have been considered or thought of at this time. This is a framework and does not mean that these projects are funded or have been prioritized. They are just ideas for future consideration."

A possible evaluation and rehabilitation of the Forest Cove drainage system, the oldest drainage system in Kingwood, was proposed as well. The project is meant to reduce the risk of flooding and would consider the needs of the system in its entirety.

"Taking a holistic approach to the open ditch system in this neighborhood is the only (way) to fully resolve the drainage issue within the community," the memo states.

Also included among the proposed projects is an expansion and widening of Woodland Hills Drive from two to four lanes south of Kingwood Drive and connecting Woodland Hills to Hamblen Road.

Martin responded to a concerned expressed by a Forest Cove resident that the proposed connection may result in an influx of Kingwood commuter through-traffic in the neighborhood.

"We get the concept that you don't want the Kingwood Drive traffic moving over to Hamblen Road," Martin said. "I think the data will show you that the Kingwood Drive traffic is not going to move to Hamblen, it's going to move to Northpark, and it's actually going to alleviate some of the traffic going from Kingwood over to Hamblen."

During the meeting in May, chairman Stan Sarman announced the Northpark Drive expansion project will now be conducted in two phases, the first of which includes constructing an overpass across Texas 494 Loop and the Union Pacific railroad tracks.

The Northpark Drive overpass is designed with two at-grade frontage roads, across which the railroad tracks will pass. This will require the single set of warning equipment and gates currently in place at the tracks on Northpark Drive to be replaced with two sets of the warning circuitry and gates - one set at each frontage road's intersection with the tracks.

In order to move forward with the Northpark Drive overpass project, LHRA must collaborate with the Union Pacific Railroad Company.

During the June meeting, the board talked about an interlocal agreement between the two entities in which the LHRA "authorizes and agrees to reimburse Union Pacific for its expenses and actual costs that are incurred for collaborating in the development of the project's preliminary engineering and other preliminary activities."

Union Pacific's estimate for the preliminary engineering and additional costs is approximately $50,000, to which the board consented.

It was noted the construction of the Northpark overpass may prove especially beneficial in the future considering the likelihood of Union Pacific to install a south-to-north track paralleling the current north-to-south track at some point in the future.

"Could you imagine dual tracks with no flyover? It would be a nightmare  So, how do we get in front of it to make sure we have mobility? That's our number one priority for us," Martin said.
CINCINNATI -- President Donald Trump traveled to the banks of the Ohio River here on Wednesday to rally blue-collar workers behind his emerging infrastructure plan, using the event to bash Democrats as "obstructionists" over his stalled legislative agenda.

Trump's trip, part of a week of events aimed at promoting the White House initiative, was heavy on symbolism as he spoke at the Rivertowne Marina to a crowd of 400 steelworkers, coal miners and construction workers. Barges the president said were carrying West Virginia-produced coal were visible on the river behind him.

Yet if part of the aim was to build crucial bipartisan support for a plan he has claimed will boost jobs, Trump was unable to mask his disdain for his political rivals.

"I'm calling on all Democrats, who honestly have really been obstructionists - boy, have they tried on every single thing," Trump said, citing his administration's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act as an example. The House passed a repeal bill without Democratic support, but the Republican-led Senate has yet to act.

"Every single thing is obstruction," the president continued, adding that "if I was in that party, I would not do it that way. I'd be doing positive things. That's why they lost the House, it's why they lost the Senate, it's why they lost the White House."

Trump's campaign promise to invest $1 trillion in rebuilding the nation's airports, roads, bridges and tunnels had produced early hopes among some in Congress that infrastructure would be a rare area where the two major parties could find compromise.

But Democrats have uniformly balked at the White House's proposal, which would provide $200 billion in funding over a decade with the aim of attracting an additional $800 billion in private money, as well as state and local funds.

White House aides had hoped that what they called "infrastructure week" would provide new momentum for Trump's legislative agenda and focus the president's attention on a positive message during a week in which senior U.S. intelligence officials and former FBI Director James Comey are testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee over the federal probe into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian officials.

As Trump flew to Ohio aboard Air Force One, cable networks aired live coverage of the testimony of Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers. Later in the day, Comey's opening statement for his Thursday appearance before the committee was released, dominating news coverage.

Trump did not mention the events in Washington, D.C., during his visit to Cincinnati, where he also made separate remarks shortly after landing about the effort to repeal Obamacare. At the Rivertowne Marina, Trump was joined by several Cabinet secretaries as well as two New York real estate moguls, Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, whom Trump had previously named to lead an infrastructure council to monitor progress.

The president has said a key part of the initiative will be jettisoning and streamlining regulations to speed up projects. Critics have countered that Trump's approach would rely on privatizing many roads, bridges and airports, selling off these projects in a way that will let investors raise fees, tolls and other charges.

During his remarks, which lasted about half an hour, Trump framed his plan as a way to make good on his pledge to put "America first," saying expensive U.S. entanglements abroad have distracted the country from its goals of spurring job growth.

"Every other country looks out for their interests," Trump said. "It's time we start looking out for our interests in the United States."

He alluded to his decision last week to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, boasting that "we will never let outside forces tell us what to do and how to do it. That would have been a huge anchor on our country."

Trump also touted his recent foreign trip, including a stop in Saudi Arabia, which he said would bring new foreign investment in U.S.-produced military equipment. And he thanked Saudi Arabia's King Salman for efforts to cut off funding for terrorist groups.

"Hopefully, that will be the beginning to the end of this horrible, horrible situation the world is suffering through right now," Trump said. "We have to put an end to it. We have to be very tough."

Yet Trump referred to the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as an example of misguided priorities.

"As of a few months ago, we spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, along with the deaths of so many incredible people," he said. "And yet if we want to fix a road or fix a school or make sure bridges do not collapse, we don't ever seem to have the money. Gotta change, folks."

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Nakamura reported from Washington.

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VIDEO:

President Donald Trump said he is "calling on all Democrats, who have really been obstructionists," to join him in his infrastructure plan during a speech in Cincinnati on June 7. (The Washington Post)

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Bahrain on Thursday declared it a crime, punishable by imprisonment of up to five years and a fine, for "any show of sympathy or favoritism" to Qatar or objection in any way to Bahrain's decision to break relations and impose economic and border restrictions on the neighboring Persian Gulf country.

A similar statement by the United Arab Emirates, with a possible 15-year penalty, was issued Wednesday, prohibiting criticism of that government, or sympathy toward Qatar, "whether it be through the means of social media, or any type of written, visual or verbal form."

The measures, in countries where civil rights are already sharply restricted, came as Al Jazeera, the state-funded Qatari media organization, said its website and digital platforms were "under cyberattack" and facing "systematic and continual hacking attempts."

President Donald Trump met at the White House Thursday with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss the situation and reiterated his proposal that Tillerson help mediate the dispute between Arab governments, according to State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.

But "the American preference is for the GCC countries to arrive at a solution of their own," Nauert said.

On Monday, three members of the six-nation GCC, or Persian Gulf Cooperation Council - Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain - severed relations with Qatar, a fourth member. They were joined by Egypt and, since then, several other Arab nations.

In statements, the Saudis and the others have demanded that Qatar distance itself from Iran and stop support for "terrorist groups." Qatar "has to realize its interests are with us, not with another country that conspires against us, wants to dominate and divide us," Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa told Asharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper.

Other countries, including Turkey, have voiced support for Qatar. Kuwait and Oman, within the GCC, have tried to mediate.

Trump's offer of U.S. mediation was first voiced in a telephone call Wednesday with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, in which the president offered to hold a meeting of regional leaders at the White House.

A White House readout of the call took a markedly different tone from Trump's first comments on the rift, in postings on Twitter Monday congratulating Saudi Arabia for taking action against Qatar. Trump also credited his own meetings with the Saudis, the GCC and other Muslim leaders in Riyadh late last month with sparking the action.

Those initial tweets also differed sharply from statements by Tillerson and Mattis, who at the time were visiting Australia and called for Persian Gulf unity. The United States directs its air wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan from a huge air base in Qatar, where more than 10,000 U.S. service members are stationed.

On Wednesday, the readout of Trump's call to Qatar said he "reiterated" that a united GCC and its partnership with the United States "are critical to defeating terrorism and promoting regional stability."

In the past, the Treasury Department has said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others in the region, have provided support for Sunni extremist groups. More recently, it has said that governments in the gulf have taken steps to stop money flows, but singled out Kuwait, and to a lesser extent Qatar, for failing to stop terror financing by individuals in those nations.

A number of regional experts have charged that Trump's lavish praise toward Saudi King Salman during his visit to Riyadh effectively encouraged that kingdom to act on long-standing disputes with Qatar over its less restrictive foreign and domestic policies, and what the Saudis charge is biased reporting by Al Jazeera.

Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, speaking to reporters in Doha on Thursday, said his government had not received a list of specific demands from the Saudi-led bloc, but suggested Qatar was unwilling to modify its policies to satisfy their complaints.

"We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender, the independence of our foreign policy," Thani said, according to Al Jazeera.

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Kareem Fahim in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 8

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey will provide Qatar with food, Turkish media outlets reported June 8.

It is expected that a special delegation from Qatar will visit Turkey to discuss this issue soon, according to the report.

Earlier, Arab media outlets reported that the foodstuff available in Qatar will suffice for four weeks and that Qatar started talks with Turkey and Iran for the supplies of drinking water and agricultural products.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE announced about breaking their diplomatic relations with Qatar June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.

Later, the authorities of Libya, Yemen, as well as the Maldives and Mauritius also announced about severing diplomatic relations with Qatar.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu
WASHINGTON - Former FBI director James Comey on Thursday essentially laid out an obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump, highlighting for a Senate committee and a national television audience some of the critical encounters that will be considered in any evaluation of whether Trump committed a crime.

There was evidence of possible intent: when the president cleared the room so he could ask Comey - without the attorney general or his son-in-law present - about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian officials after the 2016 election.

There was the suggestion of quid pro quo: when Trump repeatedly raised the status of Comey's job as he asked for loyalty.

And there was the consequence: when Comey, having not steered investigators away from Flynn, was fired by Trump in May, long before the end of his 10-year term.

Comey, a former prosecutor, did not connect those dots explicitly to allege obstruction. But he posited someone who might.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," Comey said. "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense."

Robert Mueller III, another former FBI director, was appointed special counsel last month and heads the independent investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election.

Legal analysts said Comey's testimony clarified and bolstered the case that the president obstructed justice - adding rich new color about the former FBI director's interactions with the president.

It might not be the last word. Trump's personal lawyer disputed key portions of Comey's under-oath account, and the president has hinted on Twitter he might have "tapes" of what happened. But Comey said he kept contemporaneous memos, which he was willing to see released. He also said he would not stand in the way of the president's purported recordings also becoming public.

"Release all the tapes," Comey said. "I'm good with it."

Comey's testimony was remarkable for its frankness, and his willingness to reveal his personal reactions to the president along with his view of the facts. Comey said Trump's request that he terminate the Flynn investigation left him "stunned," and it sparked serious conversations among senior leaders at the FBI about what to do next.

"It was of investigative interest to us to try and figure out what just happened with the president's request," Comey said.

Of particular concern, Comey said, was that Trump asked other officials to leave him alone with his FBI director in the Oval Office before saying of Flynn: "He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go."

"Why did he kick everybody out of the Oval Office?" Comey said. "That, to me as an investigator, is a very significant fact."

Kelly Kramer, a white-collar criminal defense attorney at the Mayer Brown law firm, said that point was particularly damaging.

"I think any reasonable prosecutor would look at that and say it implies a consciousness of guilt," Kramer said. "You know this is not something you're supposed to be doing. You're not even willing to do it in front of the attorney general."

Marc Kasowitz, Trump's lawyer, disputed Comey's descriptions of Trump's interactions with the president and said Trump "never pressured Mr. Comey."

Kasowitz said Trump never "directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone," and he said Trump specifically "never suggested that Mr. Comey 'let Flynn go.' "

"As the president publicly stated the next day, he did say to Mr. Comey, 'General Flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot' and also 'asked how General Flynn is doing,' " Kasowitz said.

Comey testified that he was skeptical of Trump almost from the outset, and he decided to document their interactions because he was "concerned [Trump] might lie about the nature of our meeting."

He said his concerns were realized almost immediately. In a meeting soon after Trump took office, Comey said, Trump brought up his job as FBI director and asked for loyalty. Comey said he felt Trump was "looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job." The FBI director is generally appointed to a 10-year term to avoid political influence.

Kasowitz said the president "never told Mr. Comey, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' He never said it in form, and he never said it in substance."

The next month, after a counterterrorism briefing, Comey testified that Trump asked him to stay for a one-on-one conversation. He said both Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Trump's son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, lingered behind - in Comey's view, because they were leery of what might happen next.

When they left, Comey said, Trump said he hoped Comey would shut down an investigation of Flynn. At the time, Comey said, Flynn was "in legal jeopardy," as agents were investigating him for his contacts with Russians and "whether there were false statements made to government investigators."

Under questioning from Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., Comey denied that Trump had asked him to stop the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. elections. But he said the Flynn request was nonetheless "very disturbing" and that other bureau officials were "as shocked and troubled by it as I was."

Comey also said he believed he was fired to affect the Russia probe.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Comey said. "I was fired, in some way, to change - or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted."

Comey allowed, under questioning from Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, that Trump did not outright give him an order on Flynn.

"He did not direct you to let it go?" Risch asked.

"Not in his words, no," Comey said.

But Comey later said he took the president's assertion as akin to a command.

"I took it as a direction," Comey said. "This is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying 'I hope this.' "

The specific language of Trump's request could be pivotal. In response to a question from Risch, Comey conceded he was not aware of a case where the FBI had charged someone for hoping something.

Cornell University law professor Jens David Ohlin said that he understood "why the Republicans would want to focus on 'hope' versus 'direct,' but I don't think it makes any difference."

"Trump made his wishes clear and fired Comey when his wishes weren't respected," Ohlin said. "It doesn't matter whether it was an order or not. What matters is the action that Trump took when it became clear that Comey was continuing the investigation."

While Mueller could ultimately conclude Trump obstructed justice, previous Justice Department legal opinions say he could not indict or charge a sitting president. Congress, though, could impeach the president.

Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice at Perkins Coie, said he believed Comey was "walking a fine line" by "trying to convey how he interpreted the president, but also admitting that there might have been other ways to interpret what the president said."

But Comey's assessment of the situation, he said, was critically important.

"He was there; he heard the president's tone and saw his body language - things that shape whatever the president was trying to express," Cohen said. "That's why direct evidence of someone who witnesses an alleged crime is so important."

- - -

Video: 'Impeaching Trump could be a reality, prosecuting him might not be'

Post Opinion columnists Ruth Marcus and Jennifer Rubin deconstruct the legal and moral quagmire President Donald Trump faces following fired FBI director James B. Comey's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8. (Adriana Usero / The Washington Post)

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He was in office only 24 days, but former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn remains a constant presence for the Trump White House, a figure who seems to occupy a larger and more lasting role in the ongoing Russia-related probes than he ever did in his brief stint as a top adviser.

Flynn was mentioned 68 times Thursday during a congressional hearing in which former FBI Director James Comey recounted Trump's alleged efforts to persuade the bureau to abandon its investigation of the retired three-star Army general.

Flynn also surfaced repeatedly during a separate hearing a day earlier, when Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats refused to discuss - or deny - a Washington Post report that Trump had asked Coats to discourage the FBI from pursuing the ousted national security chief.

The Russia inquiries are still in their early stages on Capitol Hill and at the offices of the special counsel. But the mounting public testimony puts Flynn at the center of two major investigative fronts - whether there was collusion between Trump associates and Russia, and whether Trump's alleged efforts on Flynn's behalf amount to obstruction of justice.

Trump's personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, vigorously disputed the latter allegation in a statement issued after Comey had finished testifying Thursday. "The President never sought to impede the investigation into attempted Russian interference in the 2016 election," Kasowitz said. He also denied that Trump had ever "in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey 'let Flynn go.' "

The statement is at odds with both written and verbal accounts delivered by Comey over the past two days that present a detailed chronology drawn from contemporaneous notes he kept before being fired.

Comey's descriptions of his interactions with Trump can border on cinematic. Recounting a Feb. 14 meeting in the Oval Office, Comey described how Trump ordered others out of the room.

"When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, 'I want to talk about Mike Flynn.' "

Flynn had been forced to resign the previous day after exposure of misstatements he had made to Vice President Mike Pence and others about his contacts with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump maintained that "Flynn hadn't done anything wrong," even though he had been caught on surveillance of his conversations with Kislyak pledging to revisit sanctions that the outgoing Obama administration had imposed on Moscow for election interference.

"He is a good guy, and he has been through a lot," Trump said, according to Comey's account, although Trump also mentioned "that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify."

Comey expanded on that written account during his testimony on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, saying that Flynn "at that point in time was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts."

Comey appeared to be referring to potential discrepancies in what Flynn had told FBI agents during an interview at the White House. His comment was the most direct to date from a current or former FBI official on the bureau's investigation of Flynn.

The reasons for Trump's alleged efforts on Flynn's behalf remain unclear. Flynn's attempt to secure immunity in exchange for congressional testimony have prompted speculation that he may have potentially incriminating information to share.

Trump might also feel guilty over how quickly he discarded the most high-ranking U.S. national security official to endorse him and campaign for him during the 2016 race.

By Flynn's own account, he and Trump met during the campaign and did not strike an immediate bond. In an interview with The Washington Post, Flynn said that he had been advising several GOP candidates and only joined Trump's team as he closed in on securing the nomination.

"I found him to be very attuned to what was going on around the world," Flynn said of Trump at the time."I got the impression this was not a guy who was worried about Donald Trump, but a guy worried about the country."

Flynn's impression is hard to reconcile with depictions of Trump as uninterested in global issues and preoccupied with how he is perceived. But for a president who often goes out of his way to make clear that subordinates are expendable, Trump appears to have formed an attachment to Flynn.

Even in recent months, Trump has reportedly continued to muse about scenarios in which Flynn might return to the administration, and sent his exiled adviser a message to "stay strong."

Comey, in his testimony, described a dinner with Trump on Jan. 27 in which the newly inaugurated president pressed the FBI director to pledge his loyalty. Comey demurred. "You will always get honesty from me," he said. Trump replied, according to Comey: "That's what I want, honest loyalty."

Flynn, by contrast, never seemed to hold back his enthusiasm or fealty to Trump. He was the first high-ranking former military officer to endorse Trump, appeared at campaign rallies with the candidate, and delivered a fiery speech during the GOP convention in which he led the crowd in "Lock her up!" chants aimed at Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

At one point, Flynn was even considered a potential vice-presidential running mate.

A month ago, Trump was still defending his decision to delay ousting Flynn for weeks after learning he had misled Pence. In an NBC interview, Trump said that Flynn "has served for many years, he's a general, he's a - in my opinion - a very good person."

Whether Trump's efforts to intervene on Flynn's behalf amount to obstruction may now rest with Robert Mueller, the former FBI chief who was appointed special counsel to lead the ongoing criminal probe. Asked whether he expects the investigation to produce evidence of obstruction, Comey said, "I don't know. That's Bob Mueller's job to sort that out."

---

The Washington Post's Abby Phillip and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON - Former FBI director James Comey on Thursday used a dramatic appearance before a national audience to sharply criticize the character of the president, accusing Donald Trump of firing him over the Russia investigation and then misleading the public about the reasons for the dismissal.

Trump and his team, Comey said, told "lies, plain and simple," about him and the FBI in an effort to cover up the real reason for his sudden sacking last month. Comey said that after one particularly odd private meeting with the president, he feared Trump "might lie" about the conversation, prompting him to begin taking careful notes after each encounter.

Comey revealed that after he was fired, he leaked notes on his interactions with Trump to the media, hoping that sharing the information would prompt the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the administration over possible links to Russia.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Comey said. "I was fired, in some way, to change - or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted."

Comey's testimony threatened to deepen the legal and political crisis engulfing the White House, which has struggled to respond to growing questions about the president's conduct.

"I can definitely say the president is not a liar," said White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the hearing. "I think it's frankly insulting that that question would be asked."

Over nearly three hours of testimony in a packed hearing room, Comey grimly recounted the events that he said showed the president sought to redirect the Russia probe away from his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and get the FBI to publicly distance the president himself from the probe.

As Comey spoke, most senators on the dais sat spellbound. Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sought to soften Comey's version of events, noting that Trump never ordered him to drop the Flynn investigation but merely "hoped" he would. Democrats tried to build a case that Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey.

Pressured by the administration to focus on the president's legislative ambitions rather than the politically consuming investigation, Republican leaders defended the president after the hearing, with House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) casting Trump as a political novice who isn't "steeped in the long-running protocols" of Washington and is "just new to this."

Comey declined to say whether he thought the president had obstructed justice, saying that was a determination to be made by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III.

In response to Comey's testimony, Trump's personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement saying the president "never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone."

Kasowitz also accused Comey of trying to "undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications."

The hearing, broadcast nationally by at least 12 television networks, was held in a cavernous space in the Hart Senate Office Building with hundreds of seats to accommodate the intense interest. Several lawmakers who do not serve on the committee took seats in the audience, a rarity on Capitol Hill. Most were Democrats eager to hear Comey's claims of presidential impropriety.

Inside the hearing room, people audibly groaned or gasped when Comey said he had "no doubt" that Russian government officials were behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee last year.

Anticipation for the hearing stretched far beyond the Hill. Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., walked into the hearing with a binder that included 20 of more than 600 questions he said were submitted to him by constituents.

Comey began his testimony by saying he became "confused and increasingly concerned" about the public explanations by White House officials for his firing on May 9, particularly after the president said in an interview that he was thinking about the Russia investigation when he decided to fire him.

The former director wasted little time repudiating White House statements that he was fired in part because of low morale among FBI employees who supposedly had soured on his leadership. Comey said the administration "chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI."

"Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey said. "And I'm so sorry that the FBI workforce had to hear them, and I'm so sorry the American people were told them."

His most damning remarks were directed at the president, but in the course of his testimony, Comey also raised doubts about the judgment of a host of other people, including Justice Department officials such as former attorney general Loretta Lynch and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

During questioning, Comey said that while the Hillary Clinton email case was ongoing, Lynch asked him to refer to the probe as a "matter" rather than an "investigation."

The former FBI director said he thought that that wording "gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way the campaign" talked about it. "That was inaccurate," he said. "That gave me a queasy feeling."

Regarding Sessions, Comey said he took his concerns about one particular conversation with Trump to the new attorney general and said he did not want to be left alone again in a room with the president. Comey said Sessions's body language gave Comey the impression there was nothing to be done.

Comey described his state of mind as he tried to navigate a number of tense conversations with the president about the investigation into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russian operatives.

In his written testimony, released Wednesday, Comey described being summoned to a private dinner at the White House in January with the president, who told him: "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty."

Comey said the conversation, in which Trump asked whether Comey intended to stay on as FBI director, despite three prior discussions in which Comey had said he did, raised concerns in his mind.

"My common sense told me what's going on here is he's looking to get something in exchange for granting my request to stay in the job," Comey testified.

Comey made clear he felt the discussions were improper since Trump repeatedly pressed him about specific investigations that involved people close to the president.

The former FBI director described another interaction in February, one day after Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser for misleading Vice President Pence about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

A number of senior officials had met with the president in the Oval Office to discuss terrorism. At the end of the meeting, according to Comey, Trump asked everyone to leave but Comey.

Sessions, the attorney general, lingered until the president told him to leave, too, Comey said.

"My sense was the attorney general knew he shouldn't be leaving, which is why he was lingering,'' Comey said. "I knew something was about to happen which I should pay very close attention to."

Once they were alone, Comey said, the president told Comey he hoped he could let go of the investigation into Flynn.

"When it comes from the president, I took it as a direction," Comey said.

At the time Flynn was fired, he was being investigated for possibly lying about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Comey said.

He said he was shocked and concerned about the president's request, but decided not to tell Sessions about it because he expected that the attorney general would soon recuse himself from the Russia probe, which he eventually did.

It was after this meeting that Comey went to Sessions about never being left alone with Trump again.

Comey's account made clear that his relationship with Trump was fraught from their very first meeting, which occurred before the inauguration, when he told the president-elect that a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations against him had been circulating around Washington.

"I didn't want him thinking that I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way," Comey said. "He needed to know this was being said, but I was very keen to not leave him with the impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him."

Comey acknowledged, as the president has claimed, that he repeatedly told Trump that he was not personally under investigation. But he also said that in private meetings and one-on-one phone calls, the president repeatedly asked him to say publicly that he was not personally under investigation - something Comey did not want to do.

After firing Comey, the president tweeted a suggestion that there could be tapes of their private talks.

"The president tweeted on Friday after I got fired that I'd better hope there are not tapes," Comey said. That made the ex-FBI director think any such tapes would back up his account of Trump's improper statements, so he said he asked a friend of his to share with a reporter a memo he had written about the February conversation.

"I thought it might prompt the appointment of a special counsel," Comey said.

Asked by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., why he felt he had the authority to do that, Comey replied: "As a private citizen, I felt free to share that. I thought it was very important to get it out."

The friend is Daniel Richman, a law professor and a former federal prosecutor who confirmed his role but declined to comment further. The reporter is Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, who declined to comment.

A special counsel was appointed - Mueller, who is a former colleague of Comey's - and Comey has provided him with his memos, he testified Thursday.

Comey said he still has no idea whether the president has tapes of their conversations, but he said: "I hope there are, and I will consent to the release of them. . . . The president surely knows whether he taped me, and if he did, my feelings aren't hurt."

When the hearing was over, Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Mark Warner, D-Va., the two senior members of the committee, walked out to greet reporters camped in the hallway outside.

"This is nowhere near the end of the investigation," Burr said.
Illinois farmers may soon be able to add hemp to the list of crops they can grow on their land.

A bill that passed unanimously in the Illinois Senate, and now goes to the House, would allow the Illinois Department of Agriculture to license farmers to grow industrial hemp.

The Illinois Stewardship Alliance and Illinois Farmers Union initiated this bill, and have collaborated with the Illinois Environmental Council and Illinois Farm Bureau in a coalition of farm and environmental interests to bring hemp back to Illinois.

Historically, hemp has been a key American farm crop, primarily for its fiber to produce rope and cloth. It was banned in the 20th Century when cannabis was outlawed by the federal government.

During WWII, the prohibition was lifted after imports were cut during the war in the Pacific. It was banned again in 1957.

The ban has kept the U.S. out of the worlds substantial hemp export market, which is currently dominated by China.

According to the Illinois Stewardship Alliance there are 25,000 different products that could be made from hemp, ranging from a plastic alternative, to food, cosmetics, rope and clothing.

In addition to the economic aspects of growing hemp, Rebecca Osland, policy associate at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, said growing hemp would benefit farm management.

From a farming side of things, it would allow our farmers to have another crop for rotation, and hemp is a much less chemically-intensive crop, she said. It has the potential to remediate the soil by drawing out toxins. Its also a good option for farmers who transition to organic to help get the soil prepared for that conversion.

Illinois Farmers Union Marketing Director Rob Davies said Illinois could become a market leader in industrial hemp production.

It would make sense to have an alternative commodity that we can grow which is very useful, Davies said. Whether its for nutritional purposes, for fiber purposes, manufacturing, there are over 20,000 uses for industrial hemp. What were hoping, its something that we can start here and be at the forefront of turning it into an industry.

One of the biggest misconceptions with hemp is its similar to marijuana. Hemp differs from marijuana because it has low THC content. THC is the psychoactive property in the plant that creates the high in marijuana use.

Davies said it is important to recognize that hemp is not a drug.

If the bill is approved, Illinois would join a growing number of states that have removed the prohibition of industrial hemp production.

Indiana and Kentucky allow licensed growers to put hemp into production.

In Kentucky, more than 135 farms and 40 processors have enrolled in the states hemp program.
Babies born during water births are at risk of contracting Legionnaires' disease, a severe and potentially life-threatening form of pneumonia that infected two infants in Arizona last year.

Both infants survived after receiving antibiotics.

Infections among infants born in heated birthing pools are rare. So public health officials in Maricopa County were alarmed when they learned of two cases that had taken place just months apart. They identified "numerous gaps in infection prevention" during the water births, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the Arizona investigation.

In the United States, there has only been one other reported case of Legionellosis in an infant after a water birth. That involved a Texas baby who died in 2014 just weeks after being born at home in a heated birthing pool.

The Legionella bacteria thrive in warm water and can grow in water systems such as water storage tanks or pipes. Among those at greatest risk are the elderly and people who have weakened immune systems. In 2015, about 6,000 cases of the disease were reported in the United States. Nearly 10 percent of cases are fatal. A CDC report earlier this week found that more than 500 of the total cases definitely or possibly occurred in health-care facilities such as nursing homes or hospitals.

Arizona officials say the number of reported cases of Legionnaires' disease has increased in recent years, jumping to 93 cases in 2015, doubling the 46 cases in 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, there was only one case reported in an infant younger than one month old.

But in the first four months of 2016, Arizona had two infants who contracted Legionnaires' disease, both of whom were delivered at home in a birthing tub.

The first baby was delivered Jan. 6 by a midwife in a tub filled with tap water. The following day, the baby was rushed to a local emergency department in severe respiratory distress with low blood oxygen levels. Clinicians found fluid in the lungs, which can indicate pneumonia. Lab tests confirmed the infection.

The tub had been cleared with vinegar and water before being filled with tap water immediately before delivery. A new drinking water hose was used, and the mother delivered the child within an hour of entering the tub. But tap water is not sterile; Legionella can grow and spread in plumbing systems. The child did not swallow any water, but the bacteria still found its way into its lungs.

The second infant was delivered in a rented jetted Jacuzzi tub on April 5 by a different midwife. Three days after birth, the baby developed a fever of 101 degrees that lasted two days. The next day, the baby arrived in the emergency room with an even higher fever, 102.6 degrees. A chest X-ray showed cloudy spots in the lungs. The infant was admitted, and the bacterial infection was later confirmed to be Legionella.

In that case, the water in the Jacuzzi had been allowed to stay at 98 degrees F for a week, an optimal temperature for the bacteria to grow, the report said.

The health department was alerted to the second case when the same infection specialist who worked on the first baby realized that the second infant had also been delivered in a home water birth.

"She was so astute," said Tammy Sylvester, who co-manages infectious disease epidemiology at the Maricopa County health department. "She's the one who picked up on the fact that these were both at-home water births and that we need to look into this to find out what's going on."

Health officials declined to identify the hospital or the clinician who spotted the connection to protect the privacy of the patient and families.

Even though appropriate measures were used, including a new tub and new hose in the first birth, the tap water in both births wasn't treated, and that's how the infection was introduced, she said. Although the risk for infection cannot be eliminated because of the need for warm tap water, it can be reduced by running hot water through the hose for three minutes before filling the tub to clear the hose and pipes of stagnant water and sediment.

Immersion in water during labor or delivery has been popularized over the past several decades. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it's hard to measure its prevalence in the United States because it hasn't been studied outside of the home or birth centers, and the information isn't recorded on birth certificates.

Undergoing the early stages of labor in a birthing pool may offer some advantages to pregnant women, ACOG noted last October in an opinion by its obstetric practice committee. However, water delivery has no proven benefit to women or newborns, and the safety and efficacy of immersion in water during delivery have not been established, ACOG said. It also noted that "rare but serious health problems in the newborn have been reported," including a higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections.

Arizona health officials have put together a tool kit about the risks for Legionella infection for women choosing water immersion for labor or birth and distributed the resources to all licensed midwives in the state and professionals working in health-care associated infection.
Kenya's elections may prompt violence that evokes the unrest that killed at least 1,100 people following a disputed vote a decade ago if the electoral authorities fail to ensure this year's process is credible, opposition leader Raila Odinga said.

Any outbreak of clashes would be difficult to control, even though Kenyans "don't want to go back to 2008," Odinga said in an interview Wednesday in the capital, Nairobi. The 72-year-old former prime minister is seeking to stop President Uhuru Kenyatta from securing a second term in the Aug. 8 election.

Kenyan elections are a source of nervousness for investors in East Africa's biggest economy. A dispute between supporters of rival parties over the outcome of a presidential election in December 2007 sparked two months of violence that, in addition to the deaths, forced 350,000 others to flee their homes. The clashes also caused Kenya's growth rate to slump to 1.7 percent in 2008 from 7.1 percent a year earlier.

"The other time we told people to stop, but when the situation develops, it becomes very difficult for an individual to do anything," Odinga said. "Things just completely get out of hand. It's not in my hands" to stop the violence.

The opposition National Super Alliance, which Odinga heads, already suspects "something sinister" is afoot at the Independent Electoral & Boundaries Commission after the body dismissed two senior officials in the space of a week. One of the people removed was the head of the procurement office, which has yet to secure 130 million ballot papers needed for the legislative, gubernatorial, presidential and other elections taking place in two months.

The chances of unrest at the August ballot have been heightened by an "extremely polarized" political environment, the National Democratic Institute said in April. The Washington-based advocacy group said delays in installing new members of the IEBC hindered the body's ability to organize the elections.

NASA, as the opposition coalition is known, might accept the vote date being pushed back if it meant ensuring the elections would be credible, Odinga said.

"We would like to have credible elections," he said. "We don't mind pushing it back. It's better a delayed election than a flawed election. We don't think this country can live with another flawed election."

Kenyatta, 55, is seeking a second, five-year term after winning the 2013 presidential election with 50.07 percent of the vote, when Odinga received 43.3 percent. The opposition disputed the outcome of that vote, citing alleged rigging.

Odinga is "setting the tone" that his side may not accept the results, especially if they lose by a small margin, said Lisa Brown, a risk analyst at Rand Merchant Bank in South Africa. By raising questions about the electoral body, his alliance can create public doubt about its ability to carry out the polling as well as any run-off, she said.

"Given the fragility of the economy, Odinga's rhetoric around rejecting the outcome, and the fact that NASA might not be able to prevent violence, does cloud prospects around economic recovery after August," Brown said.

Odinga and Kenyatta may have near equal support among ethnic voting blocs in the country, and if the opposition coalition boosts turnout in swing counties by 10 percent on voting day, it may be able to force a run-off, according to Emma Gordon, senior analyst at Bath, England-based Verisk Maplecroft.

Kenyatta is a member of the Kikuyu community, the largest ethnic group in the nation, while Odinga is Luo, the third-biggest. There are more than 40 ethnic groups in the nation of 47 million people.

Kenyatta would take 47 percent of the vote if elections were held now, pollster Ipsos Kenya said in a survey published May 30. That compares with 42 percent support for Odinga, according to Ipsos. Respondents in 76 percent of the households said economic conditions have worsened, citing the rising cost of living, while 71 percent said the nation is headed in the wrong direction.

NASA can garner about 8.4 million votes in its strongholds against the ruling Jubilee Party's estimated 7.2 million, Odinga said. The tide of voters in so-called battleground counties, with an estimated 5 million voters, "has changed more in our favor than theirs," Odinga said.

"You cannot say that 71 percent of the population say the country is headed in the wrong direction and then the leader of that government is still leading in the polls," he said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, June 7

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkish police launched raids against supporters of Fethullah Gulen in four banks of the country June 8 morning, Turkish media outlets reported.

The raids were carried out in such banks as Merkez Bankasi (The Central Bank of Turkey), Kalkinma Bankasi (Development Bank), Bank Asya and Iller Bankasi (Ilbank).

Over 20 people were detained, their names and positions have not been disclosed.

The Turkish authorities accuse Fethullah Gulen, living in the US, of being involved in the military coup attempt in Turkey July 15, 2016.

On July 15, 2016 Turkish authorities said a military coup attempt took place in the country as a group of servicemen announced about transition of power to them. However, the rebelling servicemen started to surrender July 16 and Turkish authorities said the coup attempt failed.

The death toll as a result of the military coup attempt was over 200 people.

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1 Terrorism charges: Two men from Michigan and New York City were assigned by a terrorist organization to look for potential terrorism targets in New York and Panama, U.S. authorities said Thursday as they announced the suspects recent arrests. Samer El Debek, 37, of Dearborn, Mich., and Ali Kourani, 32, of the Bronx were charged in Manhattan federal court with providing support to a terrorist organization. El Debek was arrested June 1 in Livonia, Mich.; Kourani was arrested the same day in the Bronx. In a release, authorities said the men tried to provide support to Hezbollahs Islamic Jihad organization after receiving military training from the group.

2 Deportation order: A Hawaii coffee farmer has 30 days to remain in the United States after being ordered to report to immigration officials for deportation back to Mexico. Andres Magana Ortiz entered Arizona illegally nearly three decades ago when he was 15. His lawyer James Stanton says immigration officials on Thursday told him he has to leave voluntarily at his own expense in 30 days. Magana Ortiz is hoping something can be worked out before then. Ortizs case gained attention after a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge criticized the Trump administrations order to deport him. However, the court lacked authority to block the order.
We learned on Thursday just how significant a tweet from President Donald Trump can be.

Former FBI director James Comey said during his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the tweet below is what spurred him to ask a friend to give information about a meeting with the president to The New York Times.

"James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

After that tweet, Comey testified that he woke up in the middle of the night and realized that it might not simply be his word against Trump's on whether the president had asked for him to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. By getting out his side of the story, he believed, he might spur the appointment of a special counsel - which, of course, happened.

Later, Comey was asked whether he would encourage Trump to release any recordings of their conversations.

"I'll consent to the release of all of them," Comey replied.

That discussion, though, reinvigorated a question that first arose about a month ago. Are there recordings of those conversations? More broadly, does the administration record every conversation that happens in the Oval Office? In the White House?

Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked that question multiple times Thursday in the wake of Comey's testimony.

"I have no idea," she said, when first asked. She then added that she was "not aware" of any recording system and that she was "not sure" if one existed.

Press secretary Sean Spicer has been asked the same question multiple times, clustered around the time of Trump's initial tweet. His responses:

"The president has nothing further to add on that."

"As I mentioned, the President has nothing further to add on that."

"As I've said for the third time, there is nothing further to add on that."

"I'm not aware of that."

"The president has made it clear what his position is."

"As I've said, Hallie, the president has made it clear what his position is."

"Hallie, I've answered the question over and over again the same way."

As we noted at the time of Trump's tweet, there's some reason to think that Trump does indeed have some sort of recording system in place. Most notably, when a feud flared up between Trump aide Omarosa Manigault and reporter April Ryan just outside the Oval Office, Manigault claimed that she had a recording of it. Manigault "asserted that White House media staff regularly records interviews between reporters and officials," The Washington Post's Paul Farhi reported. "We do it all the time," she said.

There are a number of reasons such recordings would be important. Recordings from inside the Oval Office have proven important in past presidential investigations, of course. Knowing that they are being recorded might make visitors to the Oval Office more reticent to speak freely. But there's also the point Comey raised: Trump has denied certain claims Comey made about their conversations. Tape recordings would obviously demonstrate who was being honest about what happened.

That may be why the White House refuses to say whether those tapes exist. Congress may never see them, if they do exist, since a subpoena would require Republican leaders in Congress to sign on. If Republicans knew concretely that the tapes did exist, that might make them more eager to demand that the White House turn them over.

That Trump's attorney denied elements of the conversation between the president and Comey suggests that he's not worried about being contradicted. But why not simply announce that there's no recording system and no tapes if there are none? The impression one is left with is that the administration both doesn't want to acknowledge the existence of recordings and doesn't want to be on-record as lying about them.

For his part, Comey summed up how Trump's opponents feel about the prospect of there being Oval Office recordings.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," he said on Capitol Hill. President Trump, contrary to his own tweet, should probably hope that there are not.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan late on Thursday ratified two deals on deploying Turkish troops in Qatar and training the Gulf nation's gendarmerie, according to the presidency.

Turkeys parliament had earlier ratified the agreements on Wednesday. The votes came just days after five Arab countries cut ties with the Gulf state, Anadolu reported.

The deal on deploying troops on Qatari soil, aimed at improving the country's armed forces and boosting military cooperation, had been signed in April in Doha.

Under the bill, the two countries armies will also be able to carry out joint exercises. The move aims to contribute to regional and world peace.

In addition, Turkish gendarmes will be able to train Qatari forces, under another deal between the two countries interior ministries in December 2015.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Yemen cut ties with Qatar, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism.

Qatar denied the accusations, calling the move "unjustified".

The escalation came two weeks after the website of Qatars official news agency was allegedly hacked by unknown individuals who reportedly published statements attributed to the countrys emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.

The incident triggered a diplomatic row between Qatar and its neighbors.
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A Texas City woman who was among hundreds of non-violent drug offenders granted clemency by President Barack Obama was ordered back to federal prison Thursday for violating the terms of her release.

Carol Denise Richardson, 49, was arrested for theft in Pasadena and violated other conditions imposed when she was released from prison last year, according to Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez in Houston.

"This defendant was literally given a second chance to become a productive member of society and has wasted it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Imperato said in a statement released by the office. "She has clearly shown a willful disregard for the law and must face the consequences for her crimes and actions."

ORIGINAL STORY: Texas City woman to serve life for drug conspiracy

Richardson was convicted by a federal jury in June 2006 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of crack cocaine and two counts of possession with intent to distribute the drug.

She has an extensive rap sheet, and was sentenced to life in prison by U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison. She was released from prison on July 28, 2016 after Obama tapped her for clemency.

During his two terms in office, Obama granted clemency to 1,715 people, including 568 inmates, like Richardson, who faced life sentences. The bulk of Obama's effort focused on non-violent drug offenders who had been locked up under strict sentencing laws.

Richardson was ordered to remain under supervision for 10 years, but on April 13 was arrested by Pasadena police.

CLEMENCY: Obama lists 6 from Texas in latest clemency announcement

Imperato told Ellison Thursday that, in addition to the arrest for theft, Richardson violated five separate terms of her release including failing to report that she had been arrested, that she'd been terminated from a job for not showing up and that she had changed her address.

The judge Thursday told Richardson he was disappointed that she had wasted a rare opportunity at freedom. He ordered her back to federal prison for 14 months, after which she will serve five years of supervised release.

Attorney Mark Anthony Diaz, who was assigned to Richardson's case during the series of events that brought her back to court, said she cried throughout the hearing.

He said the theft involved $60 of stolen laundry detergent that she planned to sell to buy drugs.

Diaz said the root of her relapse is an ongoing addiction to crack cocaine, which is how she ended up in prison in the first place.

Diaz said he asked the judge to assign her to mandatory drug rehabilitation. He questioned why Richardson had not been assigned to treatment while in prison, and Ellison said the Bureau of Prisons does not provide treatment to someone with a life sentence.

Ellison said he'd make rehab part of Richardson's release plan.

According to Diaz, Richardson had a strong family support system she relied on to stay clean during the first few months she was out, but once she relapsed into drug use, she failed to maintain contact with them.
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A week after President Trumps decision to break from the Paris climate accords, the issue has trickled down to San Antonios mayoral campaign.

A group of at least 80 activists and residents gathered outside City Hall on Wednesday to collectively urge Mayor Ivy Taylor to sign a pledge on climate action. Mayors from around the country have signed the pledge, including the mayors of Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Marcos and Smithville.

President Donald Trumps decision to try to renegotiate the U.S. commitment to the climate accords rocked the world last week, though many commentators have said Trumps decision on the nonbinding accord was mostly political theater.

Still, the response from businesses, colleges and local governments was swift. At least 246 mayors, 180 college and university presidents and chancellors, and hundreds of businesses have signed statements defying the Trump administration and pledging action.

Taylor has not taken a position on the accord or the Climate Mayors letter. In a prepared statement Wednesday, Taylor said she is reviewing the language to determine whether signing it would help San Antonio.

My commitment to a thriving local economy, a healthy environment and an inclusive community is priority one and will not be changed by any actions or announcements in Washington, D.C., the statement says. Whether we sign a letter or not, we will continue to move forward meeting our targets like reducing the per-capita energy demand, increasing electricity generation capacity from renewables and increasing the number of LEED buildings.

District 8 Councilman Ron Nirenberg, Taylors opponent in Saturdays runoff, said the mayor should sign the pledge.

I believe we should be a part of working with other cities and mayors across the country and in Texas in furthering these issues, said Nirenberg, who in March signed a National League of Cities statement on fighting climate change.

The citys top climate priorities should be assessing the vulnerability of all its systems, increasing CPS Energys renewable energy portfolio and building a modern multimodal transportation system, Nirenberg said.

Outside the Municipal Plaza Building in Main Plaza, a coalition of environmental, social justice, Latino rights and Native American groups urged Taylor to support the goals of the Paris agreement.

Its time San Antonio sends a message to the rest of the world: We are with you, said Krystal Henagan, Texas field organizer with Moms Clean Air Force.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, drew a distinction between Taylors and Nirenbergs possible strategies in the last days of the race.

I think shes thinking that Saturday cant come soon enough, Jillson said. He described Taylor as a moderate to conservative candidate for San Antonio whose supporters may be ambivalent about dealing with a changing climate.

Texas cities are diverse, Jillson continued. There are lots of Democrats, lots of moderates, and they are concerned about climate change, so Nirenberg thinks that this is a way to shake up the race in the final days in a Democratic direction, where Ivy Taylor thinks its better just to remain quiet.

bgibbons@express-news.net

Twitter: @bgibbs
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A Converse man who faced a misdemeanor charge of deadly conduct for pointing an AR-15 rifle at a group of men he thought were breaking into his neighbors home could see his case dismissed.

A motion for continuance was granted Wednesday by Visiting Judge Raymond Angelini as part of an agreement reached between prosecutors and the defense so that Coty Bob McDonnell can participate in a 90-day pretrial diversion program. McDonnell is expected to appear Sept. 7 for a hearing on the matter in County Court-at-law No. 9.

If McDonnell does everything he is supposed to do, his case will be dismissed, and his record could be expunged, his attorney Daniel De La Garza said Wednesday.

Weve agreed to a 90-day supervision period and a gun safety course, he said of McDonnell. When he does that, it (the charge) will be dismissed.

An assistant district attorney asked to comment on the deal referred all inquiries to the Bexar County Criminal District Attorneys Office. Calls, emails and text messages sent to District Attorney Nicholas Nico LaHood and his media liaison seeking details on the agreement were not returned Wednesday.

McDonnell, 31, of Converse was watching the home and property of his neighbor, Doug Stearns, 52, who was out of town Oct. 23 when McDonnell said he saw four men driving in a car stop at Stearns home. He approached them and they headed down the street with McDonnell in pursuit. When they stopped, he held them at gunpoint. Another neighbor, John Schulte, helped McDonnell and called 911.

According to Texas law, people who believe they have been asked to protect the property of a third party have some leeway to use deadly force to prevent theft or criminal mischief if they see it.

Converse police arrested McDonnell and said at the time that he went too far when he chased the suspects down the street with an AR-15 rifle and blocked them from getting out of their vehicle because he believed they were burglars. The suspects were charged with possession of drug paraphernalia but not burglary.

For Stearns, McDonnells outcome is exactly what it should be.

This is a win for justice and a win for homeowners, he said. We feel extremely good about today. We would have rather not had any of this from the start, but this whole incident is a testament to people who are gun advocates.

Stearns, retired from the U.S. Air Force and currently a science fiction author, said McDonnell and his wife are like family.

He said he asked McDonnell to be responsible for his property while he and his wife were away for two months as they visited family.

I gave him the keys to my house and asked him to watch the place. I trust him fully, said Stearns, who also is a gun advocate. Id do it again in a heartbeat.

Stearns said he always has believed McDonnell did the right thing.

(What Coty did) shows what a responsible person can do when deadly force was authorized, and he showed tremendous restraint, he said.

Stearns said he is grateful for the agreement attorneys on both sides reached for his friend, whom he said was just conducting a citizens arrest.

He did what he thought was in the confines of the law. He held them (the suspects) for the police, he said.

De La Garza, said he was more than ready to go to trial, but was glad his client can participate in the pretrial diversion program. He added McDonnell did not get any special treatment.

We are very satisfied with the outcome, Im glad to work this out with the district attorneys office, said De La Garza. He wasnt causing alarm, he was defending a third-party property.

Court records indicate in exchange for participating in the pretrial diversion program, McDonnell waived his right to a jury trial and agreed to plead no contest. He will be required to pay $350 to the program, and $10 urinalysis testing fee, if deemed appropriate, during his three-month supervision. He also must pay for gun safety and license to carry classes.

ezavala@express-news.net

Twitter: @elizabeth2863
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A second arson investigator testified Thursday that a 2013 fire inside a pickup where the body of a toddler was found was set with gas, and that it originated in the passenger compartment, disputing what the defendant originally told police.

Ryan McCormick, a fire investigator with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, told the Bexar County jury hearing the murder case against Joel Soto that numerous plastic and rubber components were intact in the engine compartment, which showed the fire did not start there.

Soto, 55, is accused of murder in the death of Jeremy Soto, his 2-year-old grandson, whose body was recovered from the inside of the elder Sotos Chevy pickup Nov. 16, 2013. He also is charged with arson and injury to a child by omission.

RELATED: 'Dangerous' alleged kidnapper may be headed to S.A.

Soto and his grandson were at Mount Evans and Rogers Road on the far West Side when the pickup caught fire. Soto told police that he was having engine trouble and had pulled over to take a look underneath the hood. He said something caused a flash fire and that the engine just blew up.

Prosecutors allege that Soto used gasoline inside the vehicle to start the fire to hide that the child  who lived with Soto  already was dead from ingesting methamphetamine. The defense disputes that assertion, stating that the state cant prove Soto was in possession of the substance.

Under direct questioning by prosecutor Stephanie Boyd, McCormick went through numerous photos to show the jury how the white burned marks on the body of the pickup helped him reach his conclusion.

Radial burn patterns emanating from the passengers side (of the hood) are indicative of the fire originating in the passenger compartment, he said.

RELATED: BCSO: Suspect fired AK-47 at repo man, barricaded himself inside home with family

When Boyd asked McCormick what started the fire, he said, gasoline by open flame.

The response prompted defense attorney Justin Fischer to ask McCormick how he knew it was an open flame.

We concluded open flame was applied to ignitable vapors in the compartment, McCormick said, adding that the source was removed from the scene.

Fischer asked, So you dont know?

No, McCormick said.

Rebecca Moreno, a Child Protective Services investigator assigned to the Soto case after learning the child died, also testified that Soto admitted the day after the child died that he had taken methamphetamine in capsule form for two weeks before the child died, and that the last day he used it was two days before his grandson died.

Testimony is expected to continue at 10 a.m. Friday morning in the 379th state District Court, presided by Judge Ron Rangel.

If convicted of murder, Soto faces up to life in prison.

ezavala@express-news.net

Twitter: @elizabeth2863
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San Antonio's Brad Parscale is used to working behind-the-scenes.

During the 2016 presidential election, Parscale, who is a co-owner of S.A.-based web design and digital marketing company Giles-Parscale, was a quiet, driving force on now-President Donald Trump's campaign, creating websites and offering digital advice.

Now, months after Election Day, Parscale is making a name for himself on social media and in headlines across the country.

READ ALSO: Parscale denies help from Russia on Trump digital campaign

CNN reported in early May that the FBI was turning it's investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election to the Trump campaign's data analytics programs, which were run largely out of San Antonio and headed by Parscale.

Since the report, Parscale, who is now the president's digital adviser, has taken to Twitter and TV programs to defend himself against allegations that his work on the campaign was involved with Russia to influence the election.

RELATED: Timeline: Probes into Russia, Trump campaign

"Absolutely not," Parscale said on Fox News May 30 when asked if his work was at all intertwined with Russia.

On Twitter, Parscale has gone to bat against the press, calling stories "fake news," and saying he plans to keep up efforts to "Make America Great Again."

Click through the slideshow to learn 10 things about Brad Parscale, the man Buzzfeed recently called "Donald Trump's Michael Bay."

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5


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U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, called for more information Wednesday into President Trump's conversations with former FBI Director James Comey.

Comey is set to speak about his conversations with the president before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday morning and his prepared testimony was released Wednesday.

In Comey's prepared remarks, the former FBI director detailed five of his conversations with the president. After three of the conversations, according to the prepared seven-page statement, Comey said he immediately wrote a memo detailing the discussion he'd had with the president.

"Comey's memos about his conversations with President Trump should be released for public review," Castro said on Twitter.

Castro also told a Buzzfeed reporter Comey should come before the House Intelligence Committee, which Castro serves on.

He said Comey's statement "raises some very troubling and disturbing questions about the president's attempts to make the investigation into Michael Flynn go away, and hopefully we'll get fuller explanation tomorrow of what exactly the president asked him to do."

RELATED: Julian and Joaquin Castro launch social media attack on Donald Trump

On Feb. 14, Comey met with president in the Oval Office, the former director said in the statement.

Trump dismissed Attorney General Jeff Session and adviser Jared Kushner and proceeded to discuss then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who was fired the day before.

Flynn was accused of speaking with Russian officials and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his meetings.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," Trump said, according to Comey.

After that meeting, Comey "immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership," he said.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, five months into her first term, is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and got her chance to question former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday. She asked him if he knew of President Trump asking anyone besides the since-fired Comey to pledge his loyalty. Comey answered that he was not aware of anyone else.

Harris asked a series of questions that Comey said he could not answer in open session. Comey declined to say, for example, whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions was involved in any part of the Russia investigation after he recused himself from the probe. He said that when he asked Sessions to keep the president from meeting with him privately, the attorney generals body language seemed to say, What can I do?
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Jose Maria Suarez Brana: "Tengo fama de borracho, pero Isabel II de Inglaterra le daba a la ginebra y reino 100 anos"
Egypt condemned "in the strongest terms" Wednesday's twin terrorist attacks in Iran that killed at least 12 people and injured more than 40, the foreign ministry said.

On Wednesday, assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles stormed the Iranian parliament building in Teheran. One of the attackers blew himself up inside, where a session had been in progress. Another group of attackers, including a second suicide bomber, struck former leader Ayatollah Khomeini's shrine.

In a statement on Thursday, Cairo called on the international community to increase efforts to fight terrorism and weaken its sources of support.

The Islamic State (IS) group, known as Daesh, its Arabic acronym, claimed the attacks, its first ever carried out in Iran.

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By Don Miller Published: June 08 2017

Food Bank Participates in Nationwide Feeding Kids Around the Clock Initiative.

Hauppauge, NY - June 8, 2017 - Island Harvest Food Bank today announced it has received a $50,000 grant from the Morgan Stanley Foundation to fund its School Pantry program, a child hunger initiative that helps to make sure low-income families have a readily accessible source of healthy and nutritious food to prepare at home. Employees from Morgan Stanleys Long Island branches presented the check and volunteered at Island Harvest Food Bank as part of Morgan Stanleys Feeding Kids Around the Clock initiative, a full day of activities across the globe to help the fight against childhood hunger.

The Foundation is awarding a total of $750,000 in grants this month to food banks across the country. Employees from Morgan Stanley are also volunteering today in 40 different locations, including Hauppauge, to pack and sort food in preparation for the summer, when four out of five children who typically received reduced and free lunches through schools, lose that access to nutrition. Through its partnership with Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks, the Morgan Stanley Foundation has given more than $21 million to help launch, expand and sustain critical childhood feeding programs including summer feeding programs.

We are thrilled to receive such a vital grant from the Morgan Stanley Foundation in support of our efforts to deliver more nutritious meals to children and families on Long Island, said Randi Shubin Dresner, president and CEO, Island Harvest Food Bank. Morgan Stanley and its employees provide vital support for Island Harvest Food Bank by generous contributions like this and many hours volunteering.

We are honored to be able to help Island Harvest Food Bank in its important fight against child hunger, said Morgan Stanley Complex Director Ralph Balzano. We are delighted to extend our support through this grant and provide even more children with the foods they need to learn, grow and thrive.

Grants like this from Morgan Stanley make a vital difference in our efforts to provide children with the nutritious meals they need every day, said Andy Wilson, Chief Development Officer at Feeding America. More than 13 million children in the United States live at risk of hunger. Together, we can solve hunger and ensure that children have the fuel they need to grow healthy and strong.

Morgan Stanley employees were scheduled to participate in Feeding Kids Around The Clock events in more than 40 locations in the United States.

About Island Harvest Food Bank
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: June 08 2017

First-in-the-Nation Program to Make SUNY and CUNY Tuition-Free for Families Making Up to $125,000 Per Year.

Albany, NY - June 8, 2017 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the application for the Excelsior Scholarship is now open. SUNY and CUNY students whose families make up to $100,000 annually can now apply for tuition-free college Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the application for the Excelsior Scholarship is now open. SUNY and CUNY students whose families make up to $100,000 annually can now apply for tuition-free college here . When fully implemented, the Excelsior Scholarship, in combination with other aid programs, will allow 52 percent of resident full-time students to attend a SUNY or CUNY two-year or four-year college tuition-free.

"With the launch of the first-in-the-nation Excelsior Scholarship program, the dream of a college education and a better life is now within reach for all New Yorkers," Governor Cuomo said. "A college degree has become a necessity to succeed in the modern economy, and this program is the ticket to greater opportunity and will help build the stronger, smarter workforce New York needs to compete in the global economy."

To be eligible for an Excelsior Scholarship, students must be New York State residents, plan to attend a SUNY or CUNY two- or four-year college, take 30 credits per year (including Summer and Winter sessions), and be on track to graduate on time with an Associates Degree in two years or a Bachelors Degree in four years. Recipients must also plan to live in New York State for the length of time they received the award.

Under this groundbreaking program, nearly 80 percent, or 940,000 middle-class families and individuals making up to $125,000 per year, would qualify to attend college tuition-free when fully phased in. A regional breakdown is available here

Dr. Guillermo Linares, Acting President of the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation, said, Studies have found that states that make higher education a priority have smarter and more diverse talent pools and greater economic opportunities. Excelsior Scholarships are a sound investment in our students, our high-quality public university systems and our State.

To apply, students must complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, the NYS Tuition Assistance Program application, if applicable, and the Excelsior Scholarship application at hesc.ny.gov/excelsior

Applications will be accepted through Friday, July 21. Learn more at hesc.ny.gov

About the New York State Higher Education Services Corporation
Pets & Animal, Local News, Crime, Community, Charity & Cause, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: June 08 2017

Nassau DA Madeline Singas: "We will all work closely together to ensure the safety of Nassaus animals."

Mineola, NY - June 8, 2017 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas, Acting Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter and members of the Nassau County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Inc. (NCSPCA) announced the recent signing of a Memorandum of Agreement in the fight against animal crimes. This agreement is the first of its kind in Nassau County and enables law enforcement to supplement resources while enforcing laws pertaining to animal protection.

We are ushering in a new era of cooperation  where prosecutors and investigators from my offices Animal Crimes Unit, peace officers from the SPCA, and police officers and detectives from the NCPD will all work closely together to ensure the safety of Nassaus animals, DA Singas said. Crimes against defenseless animals are heartbreaking, and we take these cases very seriously because we know that those who abuse or neglect animals often harm people too.

For many of us pets are like family members and it is unfathomable that someone would do harm, neglect, or fight any animals, said Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter. Unfortunately, that does sometimes happen but working together with the District Attorney and the Nassau County SPCA we will be able to pool our resources and work collaboratively to help put an end to these egregious events.

The Nassau County SPCA, which is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, will utilize its peace officers to investigate animal cruelty offenses, either independently or in support of Nassau County Police Department (NCPD) or Nassau County District Attorney (NCDA) operations. The NCDA will continue to pledge financial assistance for the care of impounded animals during the time of criminal investigation and prosecution. In addition, the NCSPCA will maintain a 24-hour hotline consult with the NCDA when contemplating criminal charges and provide training for NCPD recruits and sergeants on officer safety matters related to animal interactions and indicators of possible animal cruelty.

This agreement should stand as an example for other towns, cities and counties to follow, said Gary Rogers, President of the NCSPCA The collaboration and cooperation between these agencies will ensure that our community continues to do all that is possible in preventing, investigating and prosecuting animal cruelty.

The NCPD will be conducting background checks of NCSPCA peace officers and will be notifying NCSPCA personnel where their services are needed. The NCPD will assist NCSPCA with high-risk arrests or investigative situations and when requested the NCPD Detective Division will assist with investigations, evidence collection and evidence analysis. The NCDA will continue to prosecute cases proffered by the NCPD and NCSPCA and will endeavor to secure restitution for any out-of-pocket expenses of the NCSPA.
Irans government has scrambled to explain Wednesdays terrorist attacks in Tehran, the first major attacks by the Islamic State on Iranian soil, leading to contradictory messages. Select officials such as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei have tried to downplay the severity of the attack, attempting to dissuade criticism.

Terrorist teams attacked the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of the founding father of the Islamic Republic  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini  on Wednesday morning. At least 17 have been killed and 40 wounded, according to Iranian official media. The intelligence ministry identified five terrorists. Authorities have reportedly arrested five Iranian suspects including a female who guided the attackers. The Islamic State accepted responsibility, claiming five assailants and vowing to launch more attacks.

As the attack was unfolding in a parliament office building, it was simultaneously being uploaded to Amaq, the Islamic States media outlet. According to translations provided to The Long War Journal, at least two attackers spoke native Arabic.

Authorities have identified the assailants as being Iranian nationals from various parts of Iran, according to the deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Reza Seifollahi. The Imam of the Sunni-Kurdish village of Paveh in the western provinces of Kermanshah, relayed that several attackers came from that village. A social media account belonging to one of the terrorists lists Paveh as the place of his birth.

According to Thursdays Intelligence Ministry statement, the five assailants had a history of activities related to Wahabbi and takfiri groups who joined the Islamic State and traveled to Raqqa and Mosul. The operatives returned to Iran in Aug. 2016 under the command of Abu Ayesheh  who allegedly was appointed emir of the group in Iran  but slipped past Irans security services, who instead killed the emir and a smaller team. This claim matches last years statements of Iranian officials about neutralizing Abu Ayesheh and his network.

Undetected, the attackers communicated with Islamic State directors outside Iran and benefitted from a domestic network to organize the attack on high-value targets in Tehran.

The last string of high-profile bombings in Tehran occurred during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Since then, incidents targeting the largest state-sponsor of terror were limited to attacks by ethno-sectarian and separatist groups against security personnel in periphery provinces. Yet those grievances remained localized.

The deliberate targeting of the parliament and the mausoleum of the founding father of the regime issued a violent rebuke of Tehrans governing system and ideology.

Official Iranian declarations yield competing narratives of the attack, indicating that they were caught off-guard. The Interior Ministry claimed the first attack started at 10:30 a.m. local time, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) countered with 10:15. Brigadier General Mohammad-Hossein Nejat, the deputy commander of the IRGCs Intelligence Organization, said three young assailants opened fire while security was preoccupied with checking their packages. Conversely, the Interior Ministry claimed four assailants were involved in the parliament attack. Another official from the same ministry reported the assailants had cloaked themselves in womens clothing.

All accounts agree that the assailants failed to reach their intended targets: the parliaments open floor, which security had blocked off. The two assailants who sought to attack Khomeinis Mausoleum did not reach the shrines interior, the first blew up his suicide vest and the other was reportedly shot by authorities.

The IRGC and select Iranian elites immediately blamed Saudi Arabia as the attacks sponsor. Some even used the opportunity to deride the US. Regime officials claimed the recent Arabic Islamic American Summit in Riyadh allegedly constitutes proof of this sponsorship. Following that narrative, Brigadier General Nejat claimed last weeks meeting between President Donald Trump and Saudi officials implicated Washington and Riyadh in the attack. Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif similarly cited the Saudi Defense Ministers call last month to bring the fight to Iran as proof.

Other Rouhani administration officials, however, did not blame Saudi Arabia, towing the presidents policy to improve diplomatic relations with neighboring countries. Mahmoud Alavi, Irans Minister of Intelligence, told the media on Thursday that we still cannot judge if Saudi Arabia had a role in this terrorist action.

Downplaying the episode, Khamenei called the attacks firecrackers that would fail to impact the nations will. He also implicitly defended Irans military involvement abroad: if the Islamic Republic had not resisted  we would have had much more trouble of this sort in the country.

The Islamic State has recently campaigned for violence against the Islamic Republic. In a March video, the groups Iraqi Wilayat Diyala branch threatened to attack Iran and called on Iranian Sunnis to rise. This was followed by additional calls for violence in the groups propaganda as reported by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Since the rise of the Islamic State in 2014, Iranian officials claimed to have thwarted dozens of schemes by the group to infiltrate Iran and form cells. An Iranian official asserted that Tehran prevented 58 attacks. Yet contrary to the pre-existing practices, none of the apprehended individuals were publicly displayed, nor did Tehran reveal any evidence about the alleged plots, except in minor instances.

While Iran has mobilized assets to fight the Islamic State, it has also exploited the opportunity to further its maligned regional activities. In Iraq and Syria, Tehran feeds a vicious sectarian cycle, which has contributed to the Islamic States rise. A frequent talking point espoused by Iranian elites is that if Tehran doesnt take the battle to its enemies abroad, it would have to fight them at home. Recent developments, however, have proven this strategy to be folly, highlighting Tehrans vulnerability to regional crises.

Behnam Ben Taleblu is a Senior Iran Analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Amir Toumaj is a Research Analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Shabaab fighters overran a military base in the seni-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia today and killed dozens of soldiers during the fighting. Fighters from al Qaedas branch in East Africa have successfully overrun Somali and African Union bases in the past and inflicted high casualties.

Security officials told Garowe Online that more than 30 Puntland soldiers were killed and an unknown number were captured during a Shabaab raid on a base in Af Urur located in the Galgala mountains. The Shabaab fighters completely took control of the base and seized weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment.

Shabaab confirmed the raid in a statement that was obtained by the SITE Intelligence group. According to Shabaab, it killed 61 troops, including three officers, and captured 16 military vehicles and large quantity of weapons and ammunition as spoils.

The Galgala mountains have long been a stronghold of Shabaab, which has carried out a number of high profile attacks there. Most recently, on April 23, Shabaab fighters killed eight troops and wounded several more in a complex IED attack. Shabaab is thought to have about 300 fighters operating in the Galgala mountains.

The Islamic State also has a presence in Galgala. An estimated 20 fighters loyal to Abdiqadir Mumin broke off from Shabaab and swore allegiance to Islamic State emir Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in October 2015. Several months later, Mumin was featured in a video that promoted the first camp of the Caliphate in Somalia.

Shabaab has successfully overrun Somali and African Union bases in the past and inflicted a large number of casualties on troops based there. In January 2016, Shabaab fighters assaulted a base in Al Ade in the south and killed at least 100 Kenya soldiers. In June 2015, Shabaab killed an estimated 60 Ethiopian soldiers in the south. That same month, Shabaab fighters killed more than 50 Burundi soldiers in Leego.

Shabaab has been resurgent in Somalia since losing ground to a combined African Union and Somali offensive in 2011. The jihadist group has slowly but methodically retaken several towns and villages that it lost, including the coastal town of Marka.

Alarmed by Shabaabs resurgence, the Trump administration expanded the US militarys authority to target the group with additional precision fires. In the past, under the Obama administration, the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) has targeted senior Shabaab leaders and operatives in drone and conventional airstrikes. Additionally, US aircraft would strike Shabaab fighters while US personnel accompanied Somali forces on raids, but hid the activities under the guise of defensive fires missions.

AFRICOMs attempts to hide direct combat operations against Shabaab targets such as training camps and IED factories as advise and assist missions whitewashed the more than 10-year-old war that the weak Somali government, the African Union, and the United States has waged against al Qaedas branch in Somalia. In 2016, AFRICOM announced nine self-defense strikes and defensive fires missions in Somalia. The Department of Defense has even justified airstrikes on Shabaab training camps, such as the one in Raso on March 5, 2016, as defensive operations.

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.
Qatar's envoy to Egypt left Cairo on Wednesday evening, returning to Doha following the expiration of a 48 hour formal notice set by Egypt amid ongoing strained ties with the Gulf state , Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported.

Security sources told Al-Ahram that Qatari Ambassador Seif Bin Moqadem El-Boaynan left Cairo for Turkey's Istanbul, where he is then set to board another flight to Doha.

Egypt imposed a flight ban to and from Qatar on Tuesday, closing off Egyptian airspace to Qatari aircrafts that seek to land or pass through.

Egypt's flagship carrier EgyptAir has suspended flights from and to Doha until further notice, forcing Cairo-bound passengers seeking travel from Qatar to pass first through Jordan, Kuwait, or Turkey, according to sources in the company.

The decision to cut ties with Qatar followed a move on the part of Bahrain to sever diplomatic and transport links with the Gulf state. This prompted similar actions on the part of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Yemen and the eastern-based government of Libya, as well as other countries.

All of the governments said that their decision was based on Qatar's ongoing support for terrorist organisations such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda, as well as interference in the internal affairs of nations in the region.

Egypt said it took the decision "in light of the continued insistence of the Qatari government to take a stance against Egypt."

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Egypt and France should increase their coordination on Libya, as terrorists groups who exploit the ongoing instability in the country threaten both Egyptian and European security, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian told Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry during a press conference after the two held talks in Cairo on Thursday.

Le Drian agreed with Shoukry on the need for reaching a political solution in the war-torn country.

The French minister also agreed with Shoukry's statements that an accord between the rival factions should be prioritised over a political agreement at this stage, and that this could be achieved through meetings of those factions hosted by Cairo.

According to Shoukry, the meetings held so far with the Libyan parties have demonstrated a desire all around for solutions that would help the country restore its stability, sovereignty and aspirations, and defeat the terrorist groups that have seized Libyan territory.

This is the French minister's first visit in his current post since President Emmanuel Macron was sworn into office in May.

Le Drian visited Egypt before as defence minister under president Francis Hollande (2012-2017), where he met several Egyptian officials including Defence Minister Sedki Sobhi and other top military officials.

The French minister is set to meet during his two day visit Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark.



Shoukry said his discussions with Le Drian focused on relations between Cairo and Paris, and how the two countries could work together to support French investments and consolidate economic gains in Egypt under ongoing economic reforms.

Shoukry said he and his counterpart agreed to deal with issues clearly and through direct talks, in accordance with the strong friendship between their countries. He affirmed Egypt's commitment to working together on several regional and international issues to achieve the interests of both parties.

Le Drian said he was keen to visit Egypt to bolster relations, delivering a message from the newly sworn-in Macron of companionship and support for Cairo's economic reforms and solidarity in fighting terrorism.

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The full story in your area:

Theresa May holds Maidenhead on night of turmoil for Prime Minister

Tan Dhesi is Slough's new MP with increased majority

Conservative Adam Afriyie re-elected in Windsor

4.04pm:

Buckethead fever - it's a real thing. Find out more on the epidemic here.

2.30pm:

After that announcement, we should have a quick look at the Twitter poll. Ah. Erm. Who's going to tell her?

12.57pm:

Theresa May has spoken outside Downing Street:

I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen and I will now form a government, a government that can provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time for our country.

"This government will guide the country through the crucial Brexit talks that begin in just 10 days and deliver on the will of the British people by taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union.

"It will work to keep our nation safe and secure by delivering the changes that I set out following the appalling attacks in Manchester and London. Cracking down on the ideology of Islamist extremism and all those who support it. And giving the police and the authorities the powers they need to keep our country safe.

"The government I lead will put fairness and opportunity at the heart of everything we do so that we will fulfil the promise of Brexit together and over the next five years build a country in which no-one and no community is left behind. A country in which prosperity and opportunity are shared right across this United Kingdom.

What the country needs more than ever is certainty and having secured the largest number of votes and the greatest number of seats in the general election, it is clear that only the Conservatives and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and authority to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons.

As we do we will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Democratic Unionist Party in particular. Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many year and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interest of the whole United Kingdom. This will allow us to come together as a country and channel our energies towards a successful Brexit deal which works for everyone in this country, securing a new partnership with the EU which guarantees our long-term prosperity.

"Thats what people voted for last June. Thats what we will deliver. Now lets get to work."

(Not trying to brag but I typed that all myself)

11.48am:



As we let that poll tick over (so far it isn't good news for Maidenhead's MP), let's remember what a night it was for Slough's new MP Tan Dhesi. He's become the first turban-wearing Sikh to be elected to parliament, seeing off a Conservative onslaught to do so.

Paid respects & sought blessings at #Slough #Gurudwara after just being elected MP & before starting new journey of serving the community. pic.twitter.com/j8UgGC4ekK  Tanmanjeet S Dhesi (@TanDhesi) 9 June 2017

11.31am:

And on that note, let's try and fill the awkward silence with a divisive poll.

Should Theresa May remain as Prime Minister?  MaidenheadAdvertiser (@MaidenheadAds) June 9, 2017

11.13am:

So what happens now?

Theresa May is expected to visit Buckingham Palace at 12.30pm and ask the Queen for permission to form a government.

Noises this morning indicate Mrs May could attempt to form a coalition with the Democratic Unionist Party, a party in Northern Ireland, which won 10 seats.

Its not clear how long that process will take. There may be a bit of a lull until it becomes clearer as to how, or if, the Prime Minister can form a government.

This could go on a while. So... what about this rain, hey?

10.15am:

We have photos from the Maidenhead count here and Windsor count here. Not many words are needed for this one: (Lord Buckethead received 249 votes. He didn't win the seat, which means the nationalisation of Adele will not be going ahead)

9.03am:

Maidenhead  you know Theresa May better than anyone. What are your thoughts on her campaign? What did she do right and what did she do wrong? Should she remain as Prime Minister? Tweet us @MaidenheadAds. Try to keep it clean...

8.49am

Wakey wakey. We're back at it. What an extraordinary night. But following recent elections, whos really surprised?

If youve just woken up, heres a snapshot of what happened locally:

Theresa May won Maidenhead with a slightly reduced majority on what was a hugely disappointing night for her personally and the party she leads.

Tan Dhesi won Slough, keeping it in Labour hands following Fiona Mactaggarts decision to step down. The seat was heavily targeted by the Conservatives, with the visits of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond in the lead up to the election.

Conservative candidates Adam Afriyie and Dominic Grieve won Windsor and Beaconsfield respectively. Nothing to see here.

5.33am:

Right, after seven and a half hours of blogging, we are wrapping up for now. There's still plenty up in the air, including Theresa May's position as Prime Minister but, never fear, we will be bringing you updates as they develop as the picture becomes clearer later this morning.

For everyone who stayed with us, thank you and we hope you enjoyed our coverage.

5.30am:

Some words from victorious Windsor candidate Adam Afriyie: Id really like to thank all of the very active, hard working helpers, volunteers and activists who worked with me on the streets of Windsor and elsewhere.

The result has been very good for the Windsor constituency and for the electorate I give you the commitment to continue to fight for the things you care about locally.

Peter Shearman, of Windsor Labour said: Nearly a quarter of the Windsor electorate voted for the Labour Party which is a testimony to our hard work.

I think theres a number of wards where we can continue to build on what weve done today and see if we can bring some red to the Royal Borough.

Julian Tisi, of the Liberal Democrats, said: I think its a disappointing result for the Liberal Democrats in Windsor and weve suffered as a result of the presidential style campaign battle between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.

This is a deeply divided country and I dont think either the Conservative or Labour government are going to improve that.

5.09am:

Royal Borough councillor Jack Rankin lost out on his bid to become an MP in Ashton-under-Lyne.

Labours Angela Rayner secured an increased majority with 24,035 votes with the boroughs deputy member for finance receiving 12,710.

4.50am:

Reaction from Tan Dhesi:

Humbled & honoured to be elected as @UKLabour MP for #Slough. I thank the voters for bestowing trust in me & to all who made it possible. pic.twitter.com/YpcrnkD06A  Tanmanjeet S Dhesi (@TanDhesi) June 9, 2017

4.46am:

So what next for Theresa May?

There's no way around it, this snap election has backfired for the Prime Minister and her party. Lots of talk on the major television networks about whether Theresa May will have to go, possibly in the next 24 hours.

We shall see...

4.39am:

So, as our local results are pretty much all in, here's a quick summary.

-Theresa May holds Maidenhead, albeit with a reduced majority on a difficult night for the Prime Minister.

-Adam Afriyie holds Windsor for the Conservatives

-Tan Dhesi is elected in Slough with an increased majority for Labour.

-Dominic Grieve holds Beaconsfield.

4.34am:

Maidenhead Labour candidate Pat McDonald was delighted to almost double his partys vote compared to the last election. Labour polled 11,261 votes compared to 2015, making it Labours best showing in Maidenhead for years.

Mr McDonald put Labours strong showing down to leader Jeremy Corbyn and his manifesto.

He said: I would like to thank our leader as clearly his leadership and manifesto persuaded more voters in the Tory heartland to vote Labour this time. I am hugely encouraged by this result.

Its having a good manifesto to stand behind. Even in this Tory heartland many, many people believed in this manifesto. And I am delighted that Nick Clegg, who betrayed so many students over tuition fees was defeated by an honest Labour candidate in Sheffield.

4.29am:

Some words from Slough Borough Council leader Sohail Munawar:

Were comrades, we both belong to a socialist party and that brings us under one umbrella.

It doesnt matter whether someone is Sikh or Muslim, black or white.

Its all about Slough.

Were so diverse and so lucky for it.

You see the community cohesion we enjoy here and this will strengthen it going forward, whatever side you belong to.

We will all build on this and thats the beauty of this town."

4.22am:

Here's defeated Conservative candidate Mark Vivis:

Its very disappointing but we worked hard to try and deliver for the people of Slough.

It was always going to be a tough challenge and unfortunately not one we were able to rise to.

Congratulations to Tan and I wish him the best.

Asked if he would contest Slough in the future: Who knows?"

4.18am:

Apologies for the delay. We headed back to the office. We have some quotes from the new Slough MP Tan Dhesi,

He said: It's an honour and a privilege. The size of the majority shows that the people have chosen hope over fear and progress over stagnation.

"On the doorstep we found that people don't want anymore cuts, they need a Labour government.

"Nationally nobody was predicting the results we've had in so far a month ago, we ran a good campaign and I will be seeking to serve the many not the few."

3.52am:

Reaction from Lib Dem Julian Tisi to the Windsor vote.

Tisi: "This is a deeply divided country and I don't think either Labour or the Conservatives are going to improve that."  David Lee (@DavidLee_BM) June 9, 2017

3.50am:

Big increased majority for Labour in Slough.

#Slough #GE2017 results:

Lab 34,170

Ind 417

Lib Dem 1,308

UKIP 1,228

Con 17,172  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 9, 2017

3.48am:

In Maidenhead, the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems all got more votes than they did in 2015. Labour nearly doubled their votes.

3.47am:



3.46am:

Tan Dhesi takes Slough for Labour with 34,170 votes.

3.42am:

Other issues mentioned by Theresa May included 'getting a Brexit deal right' and also to look 'to address the big challenges facing our country'.

3.41am:

Here's Adam.

3.38am:



Does that smile look a little forced to you?

3.35am:

Some more from Theresa May:

"It is a huge honour. It is a wonderful constituency."

3.34am:

Majority of about 22,000 for Afriyie.

3.33am:

Labour in second with 12,334 and Lib Dems in third with 5,434.

The Greens received 1,435 votes.

3.32am:

Adam Afriyie HOLDS Windsor for the Conservatives with 34,718 votes.

3.28am:

A few more results:

Grant Smith (Independent) - 152

Edmonds Victor (Christian Peoples Alliance) - 69

Derek Wall (Green) - 907

Bobby 'Elmo' Smith - 3

Julian Reid (Just Political Party) - 52

3.25am:

A few key quotes from Theresa May:

"We have yet to see the full picture emerging."

"...this country needs a period of stability."

"If the Conservatives were the largest party...that is exactly what we will do."

3.24am:

The majority is 26,457.

3.23am:

Theresa May is now speaking. More on the blog shortly.

3.22am:

Theresa May HOLDS Maidenhead, albeit with a slightly reduced majority. Labour in second.

3.17am:

Gerard Batten (UKIP) - 871

Yemi Hailemariam - 16

Lord Buckethead - 249

Tony Hill (Lib Dem) - 6,540

Howling Laud Hope - 119

Andrew Knight -282

Theresa May (Con) - 37,718

Pat McDonald (Lab) - 11,269

More to follow.

3.16am:

Theresa May enters the counting hall to hear the result #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/QyqZJti8ap  Martin Trepte (@MartinTrepte) June 9, 2017

3.14am:

A hush across the hall.

3.12am:

This is much earlier than expected.

3.11am:



Theresa May is in the hall. Think we are ready....

3.09am:

Slough is close.

3.06am:



Lots of standing around and waiting in this hall. Watch this space.

3.05am:

Dominic Grieve HOLDS Beaconsfield for the Conservatives.

2.57am:

Slough's Conservative candidate has arrived.

Caught up with #Slough candidate Mark Vivis who has just arrived #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/cdcpIZzRxB  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 9, 2017

2.53am:

We're waiting...

2.47am:

The photographers are waiting, but when will we see her in the hall?

T May has entered the building and swiftly been taken upstairs. Won't be seeing her for awhile. "She's hiding" says a campaigner #rbwmcount  Grace Witherden (@GraceW_BM) June 9, 2017

2.43am:

Here she is:

The Prime Minister has arrived at the Magnet and heads straight upstairs. #GE2017 @MaidenheadAds pic.twitter.com/Jm03pETvAd  David Lee (@DavidLee_BM) June 9, 2017

2.41am:

Theresa May is here.

2.40am:

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring Wokingham constituency, John Redwood is back.

John Redwood (CON) is elected MP for the Wokingham constituency with 33,806 votes  Wokingham Borough (@WokinghamBC) June 9, 2017

2.35am:

Something is afoot.

Lot of waiting around - is the PM near? pic.twitter.com/ba3Y8SIBQx  Grace Witherden (@GraceW_BM) June 9, 2017

2.29am:

Big commotion from the media. Could be a big arrival soon...

2.27am:

About an hour since the proper count started. Still no sign of Con or Lab candidates yet though  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 9, 2017

2.22am:

When two lords collide.

Lord Buckethead and Howling Laud Hope squaring up. Outstanding. #ge2017 pic.twitter.com/AK5WJEJrYI  James Preston (@japre) June 9, 2017

2.01am:

'Bloody hell' is the reaction to the exit polls from Lib Dem candidate Tom McCann in Slough.

He added: To be honest, for Theresa May to have been so arrogant to call an election, anything under a 17-20 increase in her majority is a failure, otherwise whats the point?

It looks like theyve ignored one of the strongest things about the Labour party, which is that theyve got a very strong membership.

Theyve probably got about 50,000 hardcore activists - thats about half the British Army.

If those 50,000 hardcore activists banged on 50 doors each, thats a lot.

Jeremy Corbyn has an army of support that the media has failed to understand.

If the Lib Dems had an army like that then we could be running the country."

1.56am:

A somewhat disappointing turnout of 66.1% in Windsor. That equates to 48,619 people. The figure is down on the 70.19% turnout in 2015.

1.49am:

Here he is:

The one we've been waiting for. @LordBuckethead. Who has shunned the BBC and only wants to speak to @MaidenheadAds. Specifically @GraceW_BM. pic.twitter.com/tSMq7pgG7d  Nicola Hine (@nicola_hine) June 9, 2017

1.47am:

Hugh excitement here as Lord Buckethead arrives. Big crowd gathering around.

1.43am:

More from Cllr Dudley: "I think we are dealing with something very different with Brexit, with the youth vote, the collapse of UKIP. It is going to be a long night."

1.40am:

Royal Borough leader Simon Dudley has arrived.

He said: "The night is but young."

He added: "I think we are dealing with new politics here."

1.38am:

Hearing predictions of an 8am finish here might be a bit excessive. Could still come in at 4am-5am.

1.36am:

We are still waiting to talk to Adam Afriyie, but here's a Conservative councillor.

Cllr Ed Wilson reaction to #Windsor count: "We've seen a good showing from Labour but Lib Dem vote seems to have fallen away."  David Lee (@DavidLee_BM) June 9, 2017

1.32am:

Some bookies now have Jeremy Corbyn as favourite to be the next PM. Blimey.

1.29am:

Slough turnout is 65.4%. Again above 2015 numbers.

1.27am:

In numbers that is 58,364 people.

1.25am:

We have a turnout in Maidenhead. 76.72%! That is massive.

1.19am:

Not going to lie, we've hit a bit of a lull.

I've had another hobnob.

1.08am:

It's all go in Slough. This guy looks chuffed.

1.04am:

I wonder what they're chatting about.

12.57am:

This is pretty impressive to be fair.

This is Mo Brooker, 66, from Langley. She has taken part in every polling and count in @SloughCouncil since 1978. @ExpressSeries #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/GWpgSlk8K4  Stephen Delahunty (@StephenD_BM) June 8, 2017

12.53am:

Adam Afriyie won't speak to us until he gets 'more intel'. Very dramatic.

12.50am:

Bobby Smith, who is campaigning for father's rights, said: "I think people are sympathetic to family law reform. As a default position people support that children should have two parents in their life."

12.48am:

Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Howling Laud Hope pledged that if the Loonies were to be victorious he would 'rejuvenate Maidenhead'.

He added: "We will turn it into Loony Land, on a par with Disneyland."

He also complained about the weather.

12.47am:

It is very warm in the Magnet right now, so we do not envy Bobby 'Elmo' Smith.

12.43am:

A little bit from Windsor's Labour candidate.

Labour candidate Peter Shearman has kindly stopped by for a chat. Encouraged by voting samples so far. @ExpressSeries pic.twitter.com/iH2NvowdvE  David Lee (@DavidLee_BM) June 8, 2017

12.35am:

'You must be joking,' was the reaction of Liberal Democrat candidate Tony Hill to the suggestion his party could go back into coalition with the Conservatives following predictions of a hung parliament.

"It won't happen without the party and the party will never allow it," he said.

He said rather than a coalition, parties would have to learn to work together vote by vote and issue by issue.

He said: "It will mean we have debate again. An awful lot of this is a protest. People don't want government by a minority section of a party. Theresa May should never have given in to John Major's bastards.

"This is people saying we want a proper parliamentary democracy where there is still a chance to talk to their MP and get something done."

He said he did not think Theresa May could survive as Tory leader if they did not win a majority: "At this moment it looks like she will not be able to stay leader of the party."

He said the Lib Dems had enjoyed a very positive election campaign locally. He added: "We have doubled our membership and trebled the number of people on the streets. It's been a great campaign."

He said people on the doorstep appeared to have moved on from wanting to punish the Lib Dems for their time in coalition with the Tories.

Big issues for the electorate had been grammar schools and the dementia tax.

"Theresa May has totally underestimated the intelligence of the electorate," he said.

12.34am:

Here's Laud Hope.

Howling Laud Hope from the Monster Raving Loony Party has arrived at the Maidenhead count. @MaidenheadAds #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/Pah6fwmfAY  Nicola Hine (@nicola_hine) June 8, 2017

12.31am:



A ripple of applause in the hall here as Monster Raving Loony Party candidate Howling Laud Hope arrives. Bobby 'Elmo' Smith is also here.

12.27am:

Last time out, Afriyie won the seat with a majority of 25,083.

12.26am:

Scratch that, Windsor Conservative candidate Adam Afriyie is in the building.

Conservative candidate Adam Afriyie has arrived at the #Windsor count and is now chatting with RBWM councillors.  David Lee (@DavidLee_BM) June 8, 2017

12.23am:

Three hours have just flown by. Just eight or so more to go. Things have quietened down a little bit.

12.15am:

Photographer Ian has popped up in Slough now. He's getting plenty of exercise.

12.13am:

Sorry about the moment of radio silence. Your trusty live blogger is posting on the floor and my legs went dead. Had a lovely stroll around the room though.

12.04am:

Lord Buckethead is in the building. We haven't spotted him yet though.

Midnight:

Nearly three hours in and barely a mention of UKIP so far. Here's Slough's candidate.

#UKIP candidate for #Slough Karen Perez thinks her party has been a victim of its own success after #brexit #GE2017 pic.twitter.com/3jYnQCcHNh  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 8, 2017

11.54pm:

In Maidenhead, one of the tables (table 4, fact fans) has started counting. Others still verifying.

11.48pm:

Will has been speaking to independent candidate Yemi Hailemariam, who is looking to raise awareness about her partner's imprisonment in Ethiopia.

She said: "We have been campaigning here in Maidenhead for the last three Saturdays consecutively. The reaction there has been amazing. People have really engaged with us.

Speaking of her partner, Andargachew Tsege, she said: "He does not really know the level of campaigning that I have been doing up until now. He has absolutely no idea."

She thought he would be proud of her.

11.44pm:

Windsor Labour member Michael Boyle told reporter David Lee: "I was expecting a larger Liberal Democrat vote because of how well they did in the Clewer North by-election but that doesn't really seem to be the case. I think we'll [Labour] cut into the Conservative majority which will put us in a good place for future elections."

11.43pm:

Prime Minister Theresa May cast her vote in Sonning earlier today. Wonder if she went for Lord Buckethead for a laugh?

11.38pm:

In case you missed our report earlier, Maidenhead Conservative Club was tagged with graffiti by vandals on the eve of the election.

Bar supervisor Gordon Marshall said: All we can do is treat it with the contempt it deserves. I think it is quite pitiful.

11.37pm:

Don't forget to let us know how you voted.

So, people of Maidenhead, how did you vote? (Sorry, we can only give four options).  MaidenheadAdvertiser (@MaidenheadAds) June 8, 2017

11.35pm:

Let's get some Conservative reaction to the exit polls in Slough now.

11.32pm:

Ian has been snapping away. Here's some counters verifying the ballot papers.

11.29pm:

Andrew Marr was here earlier. I think he's gone now but Ian got a snap.

11.24pm:

James has heard they could start counting in Slough by 2.30am.

All 46 boxes are back from the polling stations. It's just the last postal vote box we need  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 8, 2017

11.17pm:

Some words from Maidenhead Labour candidate Pat McDonald about the Labour manifesto and Jeremy Corbyn.

He said: "The polls are looking a lot better tonight than they were a few weeks ago. For the first time in 20 years we've got a manifesto which I'm proud to say, as the Maidenhead candidate, I stand behind 100%."

"We are talking about giving kids free university education, we are talking about looking after pensioners. The Conservative manifesto was an absolute disgrace."

11.16pm:

Cllr Coppinger added: "With the greater number of postal votes these days the polls are having less and less relevance.

11.13pm:

Will Taylor has been talking to Conservative councillor David Coppinger (Bray).

He said: "After last time, how can you trust exit polls? I was surprised but it is an exit poll."

11.11pm:

By the way, Newcastle Central beat Sunderland to be the first seat to declare (Labour hold).

Your Newcastle supporting live blogger is very happy about this fact.

11.07pm:

A major challenge for our weary reporters tonight: Make you always spell count correctly.

11.05pm:

Our photographer Ian Longthorne has taken this portrait of Pat and has now nipped off to take some photos of the Slough count.

11.03pm:

...and now, a moment with Maidenhead Labour candidate Pat McDonald.

Pat McDonald Labour candidate chatting about tonight's exit polls pic.twitter.com/8KdUMcGjmH  Grace Witherden (@GraceW_BM) June 8, 2017

11pm:

Let's hear from Slough Borough Council leader Sohail Munawar after the exit poll results were revealed.

The leader of @SloughCouncil Cllr Sohail Munawar has given his take on the exit poll predicting a hung parliament #GE2017 @SloughLeader pic.twitter.com/20SOqDEhEP  James Harrison (@JamesHarrisonBM) June 8, 2017

10.58pm:

Someone has just suggested we could be waiting until 8am for a result. Your trusty live blogger is already one can of red bull and a couple of coffees in.

10.56pm:

Oh, in case you wanted to know more about those 13 candidates, you can find out about them here.

Might have been worth checking on that before the polls closed though.

10.50pm:

Ok, let's switch our attention back to a local level. Back in 2015 (it seems so long ago) Theresa May claimed an enormous majority of 29,059.

Naturally she's odds on favourite to reclaim the seat and a certain national broadcaster suggested Maidenhead may be the safest seat in the country.

However, with 13 candidates standing, it will be interesting to see who comes where.

10.49pm:

We are hearing Boris Johnson's odds of being the next Prime Minister have been slashed.

10.41pm:

Anti-grammar school campaign group Excellent Education for Everyone are protesting outside.

Member Jo Smith said: "We do not feel that the issue of grammar schools coming to Maidenhead has been given enough debate this election."

She added she hopes, if the exit polls are correct, the result will lead to more scrutiny of evidence surrounding grammar schools.

The protesters have been outside since 9.30pm.

10.36pm:

We just spoke to independent candidate Grant Smith, who is patiently awaiting the results.

He said: "I hope I get a few votes. It's been an interesting few weeks. I didn't think there would be this many people standing against the Prime Minister but there was always going to be alternative candidates."

When asked if he would stand down if Theresa May were to step down as an MP, he said: "I wouldn't stand again. It's been very hard work."

He added one of the positives was making friends with the other independent candidates.

10.28pm:

Let's not forget the every-favourite #dogsatpollingstations. Here are some Animal Welfare Party campaigners earlier today.

10.27pm:

The first ballot box back to Maidenhead was from the Holy Trinity Parish Centre in Cookham. Pretty impressive as it's a lot further away than some of the polling stations.

10.25pm:

An anti-grammar school protest is taking place outside the count in Maidenhead.

Anti-grammar school campaign group @ee4eRBWM outside Maidenhead count at Magnet to draw more focus on selective education @MaidenheadAds pic.twitter.com/WqhOLTYG9L  Will Taylor (@WillTaylor_BM) June 8, 2017

10.21pm:

OK, lot's of questions to be answered.

What next for Theresa May? Who will win in Slough? Will the Tories retain their huge majorities in Maidenhead and Windsor? Who on earth is Lord Buckethead?

10.17pm:

Speaking of Windsor, I haven't mentioned it much yet (sorry!). The count is taking place right here in the Magnet Leisure Centre but there is not so much of a media scrum. Here is Windsor reporter David Lee all on his lonesome.

10.16pm:

The postal votes have arrived for the Maidenhead and Windsor counts.

10.12pm:

Meanwhile, we are conducting our very own exit poll. Let us know how you voted:

So, people of Maidenhead, how did you vote? (Sorry, we can only give four options).  MaidenheadAdvertiser (@MaidenheadAds) June 8, 2017

10.10pm:

Few murmurs going around about what this exit poll could mean for Theresa May. It's certainly a long way from what was expected when she called the election.

10.08pm:

Meanwhile, in Slough, the first postal votes have arrived.

10.02pm:

Now, remember exit polls do need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but it is fair to say this is not the result the Conservatives wanted.

10pm:

Exit polls are out and it looks like...a hung parliament.

Conservatives are forecast to be the largest party with 314 seats, followed by Labour with 266, the SNP with 34 and Lib Dems with 14. UKIP are forecast to win no seats.

9.57pm:

A long procession of counters are coming out. They are in for a long night.

9.51pm:

Polls close in less than 10 minutes.

9.50pm:

In case you were wondering, Maidenhead candidate and space traveller Lord Buckethead is in the pub.

Before I take on your Prime Minister, a quick stop-off at the pub quiz in the Maiden's Head. Because that's how I roll. pic.twitter.com/BdcsrDHptH  Lord Buckethead (@LordBuckethead) June 8, 2017

9.48pm:

As far as results go, we're expecting Maidenhead's to come in at about 5am. That is only a very rough estimate though.

9.46pm:

OK, let's talk turnouts. The magic number for 2015 in Maidenhead was 72.91%. It was 70.19% for Windsor and 55.9% in Slough.

It will be a while yet before we know if 2017 numbers are close to that, but we've heard a lot of reports about strong turnouts at polling stations across the area.

9.40pm:

The room is starting to fill up now. Not long until things really get going.

9.32pm:

So a fair few people seem to have settled in to join us for the evening and, strangely, a lot of them seem to be enjoying it with a nice gin and tonic. Let us know if you're enjoying an #electiondaygin

I am on Cornish gin pic.twitter.com/gRSL2OLVL5  Rattled Resident (@RattledResident) June 8, 2017

9.30pm:

Half an hour until the polls close and the first exit polls come out. If you haven't voted yet you've still got time if you hurry. Run (or walk with purpose).

9.27pm:

Right, let's introduce you to our team tonight.

Here in Maidenhead, we have reporters Grace Witherden and David Lee, photographer Ian Longthorne, digital editor James Preston (that's me!), deputy editor Nicola Hine and editor Martin Trepte.

In Slough, reporters Stephen Delahunty and James Harrison will be at the Montem Leisure Centre as the town decides who will become its new MP.

9.20pm:

There is a huge media presence here in the Prime Minister's constituency. Major broadcasters are all here (but you should stick with us for the best coverage).

We've arrived at the Magnet. Here's what we can see. TV crews are on the stage to left. Result will be declared on right. @MaidenheadAds pic.twitter.com/fq8Hwl2Wur  Nicola Hine (@nicola_hine) June 8, 2017

9.10pm:

Grab a coffee and settle in. We are live from the Magnet Leisure Centre throughout the night for the general election counts.
The legislative and constitutional affairs committee of Egypt's parliament will begin discussing a controversial Egyptian-Saudi Arabian maritime border demarcation agreement on Sunday, the committee announced on Thursday.

In press statements reported by Al-Ahrams Arabic website, the committee said it would start its discussions on Sunday at 12pm Cairo local time, and conclude on Tuesday.

The deal, inked in April 2016, would transfer sovereignty of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir, located at the southern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, to Saudi Arabia.

The agreement has been the subject of a lengthy court battle between the government and those opposed to the deal.

In December, the Egyptian cabinet approved the deal and sent it to parliament for a vote.





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New Delhi : Passengers flying on Indian carriers to Qatar will face increased travel hours as airlines have been forced to take longer routes over Pakistan and Iran, amid airspace curbs in the Gulf region. Jet Airways, Air India Express and IndiGo are now operating flights to Qatar's capital Doha through Pakistan and Iran airspace following restrictions imposed by the UAE. Apart from longer flying hours, the airlines would see a spike in costs for operating these flights due to higher fuel burn and the need for having additional human resources. In a major diplomatic face-off in the Gulf region, Saudi Arabia and various other countries have severed their ties with Qatar, accusing the latter of extending support to extremists.

The development has impacted flight operations in the region with airspace restrictions in place and the UAE imposing curbs on flights to and from Doha using its airspace. As per official data, little over 28 lakh passengers flew to and from Indian cities and Doha in 2016. Air India Express CEO K Shyam Sundar said its flights to Doha have started taking the alternative route following restrictions in the UAE airspace. "The duration of our flights to Doha will increase by an hour and a half or so in either direction. We will have to avoid the UAE airspace and fly over Pakistan and Iran instead," Sundar told PTI.

An Air India Express flight takes nearly three hours and 30 minutes to complete Mumbai-Doha flight while the duration is around four hours for the flight between Kozhikode and Doha. Air India Express, part of Air India group, has 14 flights from Kozhikode, Mangalore and Mumbai. A spokesperson for IndiGo -- which operates a flight each from Delhi and Mumbai to Doha -- said it is now operating through Pakistan and Iran airspace. "We have tactically altered our routes from today pending future course of action by UAE... Flights originating from Mumbai will be extended by 30-40 minutes and from southern cities it will be even more. Flights from Mumbai will now have to fly over Karachi (Pakistan), Bandar Abbas (Iran) to Doha," the spokesperson noted. PTI
The international community should implement strict procedures to stop the funding and arming of terrorist organisations, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian during a meeting in Cairo on Thursday.

In a press release by the presidents office, spokesman Alaa Youssef stressed the importance of continued coordination and talks between the two sides over different regional and international conflicts that share mutual interest in order to face the ongoing challenges, including the dangers of terrorism, which have implications affecting the whole world.

El-Sisi also said Egypt appreciated the French ministers major contribution in boosting Egyptian-French relations in the past, particularly in the military field when he was defence minister.

According to the Egyptian release, Le Drian said he hoped for the bilateral cooperation between Egypt and France by strengthened and that France appreciates its strong relations with Egypt.

The meeting, which was also attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, also included discussions related to Libya, where both the Egyptian and French sides agreed on continued cooperation to push forward with efforts to support the political path of the Libyan factions.

The French minister also met separately with Shoukry on Thursday to discuss bilateral and regional issues.

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Israel has advanced plans for a further 1,500 homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank, Peace Now said on Thursday, the second such announcement in a week.

More than 3,000 units have been advanced this week, a spokeswoman for the NGO that tracks settlement building in the Palestinian territory told AFP.

On Tuesday, Israel advanced 1,500 units, with the potential to add around another 900, Peace Now said.

These 900 were confirmed on Wednesday by an Israeli defence ministry planning committee, it added.

In a separate process, 688 homes were advanced by the committee late on Wednesday and will now go out for a 60-day public comment period during which objections can be filed.

Peace Now's Hagit Ofran told AFP a total of 3,178 units were advanced this week.

The plans are at various stages in the process and the units are located in a number of settlements across the West Bank.

Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, including the occupied east Jerusalem, which are seen as a major obstacle to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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MARTINSVILLE  Being an effective leader means being willing to collaborate, not simply dictating your own ideas and expecting people to carry them out without question, Kris Westover believes.

Sometimes collaboration gets messy, but its vital to successful projects and encouraging people to have faith in you and your abilities, she said.

Westover has been vice president for academic and student development services at Patrick Henry Community College since 2011. Friday is her last day on campus, as she is leaving to become president of Mountain Empire Community College (MECC) in Big Stone Gap in early July.

The Aspen Institute, a Washington-based leadership development think tank, chose Westover last year for the first class of its Aspen Presidential Fellows program for community college administrators. Participating in the program helped her to become a more effective leader, she believes.

Ultimately as a leader, you have to figure out ways to help your organization achieve its goals, taking into account others ideas and opinions, while achieving your goals simultaneously, Westover said.

While collaboration is necessary, it can be messy, she said, because the more people that are involved in a project, the more different ideas there are on how to get the work done, which can hurt productivity. An effective leader must make it clear what the expected outcome of the project is and keep participants on track to achieving that result, all the while taking into account various perspectives, she added.

There is no room for negativity, personally or professionally.

As an individual, you paint who you are on the rest of the world, Westover said. If you are happy, people around you are going to be happy, and vice versa, she emphasized.

She sees more happiness and collaboration occurring in Martinsville-Henry County now, as well as more people willing to go above and beyond to move the community forward, she said.

Westover has lived in various places nationwide but as a Martinsville native with relatives locally, she visited often and kept in touch with happenings here before returning to the area to work for PHCC. She saw a lot of negativity among residents following industry shutdowns during the past couple of decades and the massive numbers of job losses that resulted, she said.

Today, more people are willing to take chances and more open to new ideas (for improving the local economy) than I saw six years ago when she arrived at the college, Westover said.

They also seem to be supporting each other more, such as by encouraging younger family members to pursue college degrees so they can get better jobs and better support themselves, she said.

As an educator, Westover said being an Aspen fellow also helped her to articulate ways as to what student success should look like.

Success means different things for different students, based on their needs and ambitions, she said.

For educators to help them become successful in life beyond their studies, though, we cant enable students. We must support students, she continued.

Enabling means doing tasks for students so they dont experience the process, she explained, whereas supporting means providing them information they need to understand the task and the tools required for it so they can gain experience in doing it in case they encounter it again later in life.

Personal success

Westover has gained a special understanding of what it takes to achieve success, having graduated with honors from the School of Life Happens, so to speak.

She dropped out of high school when she was 16 but later earned a general educational development (GED) certificate, considered equal to a diploma. She became eager to obtain all the education she could. Over the years, she earned a bachelors degree in math and a masters degree in instructional technology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas, followed by a doctorate in education from Nova Southeastern University in Florida, having decided to make her lifes work helping to better educate others.

Westover taught high school and community college math before she became vice president for academic affairs at Colby Community College in Kansas. She was director of technical programs and curriculum for the Kansas Board of Regents from 2008 to 2009. Before coming to PHCC in 2011, she served as the higher education program coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin.

Becoming a community college president has long been her goal.

When you finally get the chance to take on that role, its exciting, Westover said.

But its sad, too, having to leave colleagues at PHCC who have become like a second family to her and supported her ambition to advance in her career, she said. College President Angeline Godwin is among those colleagues, she mentioned.

Although she is highly educated and accustomed to urban living, Westover considers herself to be a country girl at heart. She is soft-spoken and friendly and enjoys bluegrass music and simple living. So she is sure that she will enjoy living in far Southwest Virginia, a largely rural, mountainous region where most people live in small towns, if they opt not to live in the countryside.

Big Stone Gap and surrounding Wise County have a population of a little more than 41,000, with about 5,600 living in the town. In contrast, Martinsville-Henry County has about 68,000 residents, with almost 14,000 living in the city, according to the 2010 Census statistics.

The two areas have at least one thing in common: Struggling to overcome many job losses. Here, it was in the furniture and textile industries. There, it was in the coal mines.

Because of well-paying coal industry jobs that kept families afloat financially, Westover said, higher education wasnt always needed in that region. It wasnt a must (for people), kind of like it wasnt in this area (for manufacturing workers).

But thats no more, she pointed out, as the modern economy is demanding that people become more highly educated and skilled.

Despite its rural isolation and high poverty rates amid economic downturns, Southwest Virginia has an educational resource that Southern Virginia does not  a public university. As MECCs new leader, Westover said she intends to work closely with the University of Virginias College at Wise to find new ways of collaborating to better educate students in the region.

Westover already has noticed similarities between PHCC and MECC, such as their willingness to try new ideas for helping students be able to afford college. An example she mentioned is Mountain Empires Aims Higher Scholarships which allows dual enrollment students  ones in high school taking college-level courses keeping a certain grade-point average and meeting requirements for the Virginia Scholars Program to attend the community college for two years at no cost. The cost is covered by the colleges foundation and the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission.

Thats a pretty good deal, Westover said, noting that Patrick Henry wants to develop a similar program.

A college is not a group of buildings but rather the people it employs who educate students, Westover observed.

Along that line, PHCC has the greatest faculty and staff who put serving students above everything else, she said. For example, she has seen employees take time to walk with new students who were lost from one side of the campus to another.

Ive got to be careful, she said, laughing while sitting on a large rock in front of PHCCs Walker Fine Arts/Student Center. Soon Im going to have to start thinking that Mountain Empire is the greatest community college on earth.
For the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency, Marxism is the historical memory of the working class. In its struggle with the bourgeoisie, the victories, defeats, traditions, and hopes of the workers are distilled and synthesized into a revolutionary theory of action. This unbroken thread extends back in time, an uninterrupted line of thought beginning with Marx and Engels, developed further by Lenin and Trotsky, and taken into the modern epoch by those who have worked for world revolution since Trotskys death.

It is by grasping this thread that generations of revolutionaries were able to hold out against the pressures of difficult times, to maintain and hold high the banner of Bolshevism.This is the reason we have access to these ideas and methods today, and can rally and build the forces of Marxism in the USAthe proverbial belly of the beast. No country is more central to the global market system, making it the stage for the most absurd and contradictory developments plaguing capitalism in its senile decay.

The extraordinary 2017 Congress of the US section of the IMT was called in response to the earthshaking events unfolding around us, and represents a significant new milestone in our work. We normally convene a Congress only every two years, but the events of the last 12 months necessitated a full discussion of our perspectives, targets, and tasks. Meeting the weekend of May 2728 in Pittsburgh, over 80 comrades and sympathizers traveled from 20 cities and 5 different countries to take part in our largest National Congress yet, with the participation of more delegates than ever before. The logistical execution, enthusiasm, and high level of participation showed the rising professionalism and political education achieved by the comrades just one year since our last Congress.

After several months of preparation and discussion within the branches during the pre-Congress period, contributions during each of the sessions on World Perspectives, Perspectives for Revolution in the US, our Organizational Resolution for 2017, and discussions on Marxism and the Struggle Against Oppression displayed a keen awareness of the shifts in consciousness and conditions facing us today.

Only a few years ago, our perspectives explained that the period we were passing through could be described as the calm before the storm. While we are still in the stage of building the IMT in the US on the basis of the ones-and-twoswinning over the most advanced elements of our class to revolutionary socialismwe have now entered a period of greater instability playing out within the political, economic, and social structures of American capitalism. With the stage set for further polarization and crisis, the mood among comrades was a sober, yet optimistic sense of duty to understand and prepare for the years ahead, which will present many opportunities as well as challenges. The situation is sure to grow only more favorable for the spreading of our ideas, while the need to urgently build the organization has never been so apparent.

World Perspectives

The first session of the Congress was led off by Fred Weston from the IMTs International Secretariat in London. Fred began by laying out the main trends leading to the economic stagnation and political strife that has been lurching from one country to the next in the last few years.

Marx understood long ago that the measure of an economic systems progressive character lies in its ability to develop the productive forces of society. For capitalism to justify its continued existence, it must deliver the goods. For the vast majority of humanity, this is no longer, and in some situations, has never been, the case. Having used up all the tools at its disposal for avoiding a crisis as occurred in 2008such as quantitative easing and a massive expansion of creditthe parasitism of the system has now been completely laid bare. Sitting on over $7 trillion in cash reserves and further enriching themselves through purely speculative, unproductive means, the capitalists refuse to invest in real production given that there already exist too many goods in circulation than the market can absorb. This fact strikes at the heart of the capitalist system, pointing out a fundamental contradiction resulting in recurring crises of overproduction, vindicating one of Marxs most famous statements from the Communist Manifesto:

Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule.

Additionally, weve pointed out since the beginning of the crisis that all attempts to regain economic stability will only serve to upset the fragile political and social equilibrium which the system depends on. Everywhere, especially in Europe, this perspective has continued to ring true. Among the youth, this ferment is given its earliest and sharpest expression: among countries most affected by the crisis such as Spain, Greece, Italy, and France, over half of the youth report that they would support a large-scale uprising against the government!

The recent and upcoming elections in France and Britain, the instability rocking Brazil, the looming economic crisis in China, the continuation of proxy wars and civil conflicts worldwide, and the result of the 2016 presidential election in the US have all been further developments which prove that capitalism is tobogganing towards ever-greater uncertainty.

With all indicators pointing towards another severe global economic downturn just around the corner, the Marxists around the world must have, more than ever, a sense of urgency in building the revolutionary subjective factor to meet with open arms the coming of the world socialist revolution.

US Perspectives

This extraordinary Congress was called for due to extraordinary circumstances: the bourgeoisie intends to use the Trump regime as a battering ram to smash down what few walls are left between workers rights and hard-won benefits, and the voracious profit-making of the capitalist class. The discussion on Perspectives for the US Revolution was led off by Tom Trottier of the editorial board for Socialist Appeal, who outlined the conditions giving rise to the the Trump presidency.

While the current labor leaders have done next to nothing, or worse, to resist the administrations agenda, a mood of furious indignation is brewing among the wider population, and the youth in particular. Not willing to sit back and watch hardened reactionaries and the most despised administration in generations win the day, and thereby pave the way for even more brutal austerity, millions of people have come out since Trumps inauguration to protest policies which take aim at virtually everything from the environment to womens reproductive care, immigrant rights, health care, as well as the wars on workers and the poor overseas through a continuation of the Bush-Obama era foreign policy, and more.

Above all, these attacks are linked to the impasse of the capitalist system globally. The US has dropped measurably from its undisputed place as the only superpower in the pantheon of imperialism. Whereas, the US made up 50% of the worlds total GDP in 1945, today it stands at 25%. While still the most powerful country on the planet, militarily and economically, it has begun to be outstripped by competition from the EU and China, shifting geo-political relationships in such a way as to reduce its ability to project power across the globe, namely in the Middle East.

Likewise, stagnant growth rates of around half the postwar boom levels, low job growth with ever more workers finding their way into the ranks of the permanently unemployed, and the fact that the so-called recovery overwhelmingly benefitted the top 1%who received around 95% of the total income growth over this periodhave all found their expression in rapidly declining living standards and a generally pessimistic outlook among people towards their own futures.

With inequality reaching unprecedented proportions, this process of deterioration has given rise to the polarizationboth to the right and the leftthat has characterized the last year of US politics, with the dual phenomenon of Sanders and Trump, each in their own way, expressing this trend. While Sanders was defeated and ultimately capitulated to the Democratic Party machine, the Republicans and the bourgeoisie as a whole must now contend with an unreliable servant in President Trump. Though he has been brought to heel on many issues, to the point of going back on several of his more blustering campaign promises, his lack of any legitimacy has done much to dispel illusions in the capitalists system.

A total of 17 amendments were submitted to the US Perspectives, reflecting the vibrant and lively discussion within the branches around crafting our position and orientation going into an exciting new period of our work.

The second day focused on a range of organizational and theoretical discussions, including our Organizational Resolution which established new targets for the attainment of new full-timers, the expansion of our press to include one more issue per year, and setting growth targets to be met by the end of the year. Most notably, the comrades also voted unanimously to officially change the name of our paper from Socialist Appeal, which just published its 100th issue, to Socialist Revolution, in order to more boldly connect our ideas with a new layer of youth and workers who have drawn advanced conclusions, and are already looking around eagerly for revolutionary ideas. Watch for issue one as well as a new website coming soon!

As a fantastic reaffirmation of our comrades commitment to build the IMT in the US, we succeeded in kicking off our Summer Collection with a new record for pledges of nearly $40,000! The members of the US section are willing and proud to make tremendous personal sacrifices to build our organization, confident that such contributions will aid in building the one revolutionary tendency capable of leading a revolutionary movement around the world. Please help support our work by making a donation in any amount!

In addition to an exciting report on the work of the IMT around the world and a moving commemoration of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Congress ended with the singing of the Internationale in many languages and versions, followed by the rousing opening verses of Bandiera Rossa. Comrades discussed passionately before, after, and between each of the sessions, sharing experiences, advice, and relating stories from their efforts to build the IMT in all corners of the US.

The future looks brighter than ever for socialism, and humanitys potential to achieve it has never been greater. The Marxists of the US section are stepping confidently forward into another year of dramatic shifts, changes, and developments, understanding the key role we are preparing to play in the intervention of history by the masses. Join us to fight for socialist revolution, and a better world!
SPRINGFIELD -- State Sen. Eric. P. Lesser and colleagues pushing for faster and more frequent east-west rail service from Boston to Springfield plan a whistle-stop tour June 19 in hopes of convincing Gov. Charlie Baker not to veto an in-depth feasibility study, as the governor did in 2016.

But the lawmakers will have to make the trip in a Honda CRV and not the train Harry Truman would have used to campaign cross country. As of now, Amtrak only runs one train -- the Lakeshore Limited -- each day east and west through Massachusetts. Not very convenient if one needs to stop in Fitchburg, in Worcester, in Palmer and in Springfield.

"If we got off, we would never be able to get back on it," said Lesser, D- Longmeadow.

It's that sort of limited transit service in Western Massachusetts that Lesser is trying to address with an item in state budget legislation calling for the Department of Transportation study the feasibility of increasing east-west rail.

The state could use that study, which could cost $100,000 to $200,000, to capture federal funding for a rail project that could run $300 million to $400 million. That money, Lesser said, could come in the form of the $1 trillion infrastructure plan touted by President Donald Trump.

Lesser said he'd prefer to get the feasibility study done by the MassDOT. But he is also exploring the option of having it privately funded by local foundations and business donors.

Lesser proposed the study last year, but Baker vetoed it.

Peter Picknelly, chairman of Peter Pan Bus Lines in Springfield and a Baker backer, lobbied for the veto. Picknelly acknowledged the impact of expanded rail service on his business and called for a comprehensive look at all modes of transportation.

Lesser, who spoke on this and other matters Thursday with reporters and editors at The Republican, said now is a pivotal point for passenger rail. Springfield Union Station opens later this month following a $94 million rehab. MGM Springfield opens its $950 million casino in the fall of 2018.

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce backs the rail study.

The state of Connecticut plans to offer commuter service from New Haven to Springfield starting in early 2018 with 12 commuter trains at speeds up to 110 mph, cutting travel time between the two cities to as little as 81 minutes, according to the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

"Imagine you add eight or nine trains a day to Boston," Lesser said. "Now downtown Springfield starts to look like a much different place."

He disagrees with the notion that trains would hurt bus business. They could work symbiotically with bus service, he said, serving rail stations while trains with their fixed schedules and routes take traffic from highways to clear the way for buses.

He's sympathetic to Baker's concerns that the MBTA and its commuter rail service still need reform. But Lesser said there will always be needs in Boston. Waiting for those questions to get settled would mean waiting forever in Western Massachusetts.

Economic trends favor knowledge-driven economies in centers like Boston and New York, Lesser said. For Springfield to grow, it has to be connected to those economies, and Lesser argues rail is the way to do it.
SPRINGFIELD -- By fall, between five and nine currently unemployed people will be working in a new hydroponic greenhouse growing salad greens for major local institutions like Baystate Medical Center, the public schools and Big Y supermarket.

That's the plan from Wellspring Harvest, which broke ground Thursday at the former Chapman Valve site at 121 Pinevale St. in Indian Orchard.

"This will be a great place to go grow food. This will be a great place to grow people," said greenhouse manager and grower Stephen Hilyard.

The 2-acre project continues the process of putting the old factory property back to productive use, said Kevin Kennedy, city chief development officer.

Once one of the country's largest manufacturers of valves and fire hydrants, Chapman Valve had nearly 3,500 employees in the 1940s. The company supplied valves to the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb, and later machined uranium rods into slugs for reactor fuel at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1949, Chapman may have also conducted rolling operations on uranium metal.

Chapman Valve closed in 1986 when there were fewer than 100 employees.

An April 2005 federal study revealed that "significant" radioactive contamination remained at the plant at Pineville and Goodwin streets in Indian Orchard through the early 1990s.

Parts of the factory site, once 54 acres in size, were contaminated with radioactive waste that has since been cleaned up. Another part of the campus on Goodwin Street is the site of a 12-acre, 2.3-megawatt solar facility constructed by Western Massachusetts Electric Co., featuring 8,200 solar panels.

"I think it's amazing that we have been able to redevelop this site with 'green' uses," Kennedy said.

Inside the 15,120-square-foot greenhouse, Hilyard said, herbs and salad greens like bok choy, cilantro and Boston lettuce will be grown in channels of nutrient-filled water set at working height. The plants at Wellspring Harvest never touch the ground. There are no pesticides.

"It's a very clean product. From the moment we plant a seed, its food," Hilyard said.

Wellspring Cooperative Corp. looked during more than two years for a site to create the greenhouse, said Co-Director Fred Rose. The organization bought the Pinevale Street parcel from the Springfield Redevelopment Authority for $70,000.

It's a $1 million project, Rose said. Wellspring borrowed from the PV Grows Investment Fund, Coastal Enterprises Inc. in Maine, the Local Enterprises Assistance Fund from Boston, Cooperative Fund of New England, Working World and Balanced Rock Investment Advisors. It also collected $250,000 in investments from the general public in $1,000 increments.

Wellspring creates and grows worker-owned cooperatives as a way to get the unemployed or underemployed working in a skilled trade, Rose said. Already the organization has seven workers in Wellspring Upholstery Cooperative and six working at Old Window Workshop. Both are also located in Springfield.

Workers are paid a living wage. After a year they are given a chance to buy in and become worker-owners with a vote in how the enterprise is managed.

"It will be a moneymaking operation," Rose said. "We expect to lose money in the first year and then make a profit after that."

Customers include Baystate Medical Center, Springfield and Worcester public schools, Big Y supermarkets, food co-ops in Greenfield and Northampton, and Squash Inc., Rose said.

Kevin Barry, director of produce and floral at Big Y, said the chain anticipates buying 50 to 100 cases a week of greens from Wellspring Harvest to supply four nearby stores: Fresh Acres in Sixteen Acres and the Big Ys on Cooley Street, in Wilbraham and in East Longmeadow.

"We are always looking for local sources of produce," Barry said. "And having a year-round source of greens is great for us. The usual source for those greens is in California, so you are saving us five days of transit time. And this gets local people jobs, which we love."

Wellspring Harvest is raising an additional $140,000 in operating capital for the greenhouse and is reaching out to interested people who want to make an investment to improve their community, according to a news release.

The organization's website is wellspring.coop.
Iran said Thursday that the five Iranians who killed 17 people in twin attacks in Tehran were Islamic State group members who had been to its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hit back, meanwhile, at US President Donald Trump over what he called a "repugnant" statement that Iran was reaping what it sowed.

Wednesday's attacks on Tehran's parliament complex and the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which also wounded more than 50 people, were the first claimed by IS in Iran.

"The five known terrorists... after joining the Daesh (IS) terrorist group, left the country and participated in crimes carried out by this terrorist group in Mosul and Raqa," the intelligence ministry said in a statement.

It suggested there were only five attackers rather than the six originally reported.

An official said previously that those who attacked the parliament complex had been dressed as women.

The ministry released their photographs and first names.

It said they were part of a network that entered Iran in July-August 2016 under the leadership of "high-ranking Daesh commander" Abu Aisha intending to carry out "terrorist operations in religious cities".

Abu Aisha was killed and the network forced to flee the country, the statement said. It was unclear when the five men returned to Iran ahead of Wednesday's attacks.

IS has threatened to step up recruitment within Iran, releasing its first Persian-language video in March in which it threatened to "conquer Iran and restore it to the Sunni Muslim nation as it was before."

The Sunni jihadists of IS consider Shiite Iranians to be apostates, and Tehran is deeply involved in fighting the group in both Syria and Iraq.

The attackers were armed with rifles and pistols and at least two blew themselves up with suicide vests, Iranian media reported.

Police said a further five people were arrested around Khomeini's shrine on suspicion of involvement.

In the midst of the unfolding attacks, the ministry said a third team had been stopped before the attacks started, but no further details have since been given.

"The network of this terrorist group has been identified and some of its members have been arrested," said Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi.

Iranian leaders sought to play down the attacks, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying: "These firecrackers that happened today will not have the slightest effect on the will of the people."

As a mark of respect to victims of the Tehran attacks, the Eiffel Tower's lights will be turned off at midnight, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Twitter.

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WEST SPRINGFIELD -- After a lengthy discussion on traffic flow, turn lanes and parking issues, the West Springfield Planning Board on Monday continued the public hearing on Costco's plan to add a gas station to July 19.

Allyson Manuel, West Springfield's planning administrator, said the town just received Costco's updated traffic study, which now must undergo a peer review by an outside consulting firm.

Costco Wholesale Corp., the nation's largest membership-only warehouse club, is seeking a special permit to install a small kiosk, nine gas pumps that can fuel up to 18 vehicles at a time, several signs, and a large canopy roof to cover the fueling station.

Costco is also seeking a waiver for parking requirements related to construction of the gas station at 119 Daggett Drive.

Planning Board members asked questions about the station's impact on area traffic, particularly efforts by Costco to mitigate traffic at Riverdale Street's intersection with Morgan Road, Morgan Road Extension, and Daggett Drive.

"Right now, that seems to be the most pronounced concern," Frank Palange, the chairman of the Planning Board, told the engineering and development management team working on the proposal.

Jason Adams, general manager of McMahon Transportation Engineers and Planners, a Boston firm hired by Costco, said impact studies show that Costco "can accommodate the peak demands that the site would have."

The station would be built in the northeast corner of the nearly 12-acre property occupied by Costco, resulting in the loss of some parking spaces. The current site plan calls for a total of 554 spaces after the station is completed, but local planning regulations require just over 600 spaces, which is why Costco is seeking the waiver.

A parking lot survey conducted over a 3-hour period Saturday showed an average of 376 parked cars at the site, with a "peak parking utilization of 408 cars parked," Adams said.

A previous study showed a peak parking rate that was 25 percent higher than Saturday's peak. That prompted McMahon Transportation Engineers to increase Saturday's peak by 25 percent, bringing the estimated peak to 510 cars -- 44 fewer than Costco's planned 554 spaces.

The biggest component of the proposed traffic mitigation plan is the addition of two southbound turn lanes onto Riverdale Street from Daggett Drive, which is expected to alleviate traffic congestion on Riverdale Street (Route 5). Currently, motorists can only go north on Riverdale from Daggett.

Because Route 5 is a state road, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation must sign off on any proposed changes to the traffic pattern.

"Before we can actually move forward with any of this mitigation we're discussing on the state right of way, we'll have to get a clean bill of health from MassDOT," Adams said.
SPRINGFIELD - Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts will once again mark World Refugee Day on June 20 with the free showing of a documentary on Syrian refugees, followed by an update on area refugee resettlement work, as well as a perspective on national efforts.

Attendees are invited to bring donations of toiletries for area refugee families.

"Salam Neighbor," which highlights the stories of the Syrian inhabitants of Jordan's Za'atari refugee camp, will be shown at 5:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Trinity United Methodist Church, 361 Sumner Ave.

Filmmakers Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci, both in their 20's, spent a month with some of the 81,000 inhabitants of Za'atari, the second largest refugee camp in the world. It was opened by Jordan and the United Nations, in 2012, to provide temporary housing to Syrians at the beginning of their six-year civil war.

It is estimated that the war has forced five million people from the country, with some 655,000 living in exile in Jordan; internally displaced more than six million, with half the population living in extreme poverty, and resulted in the deaths of more than 400,000.

Temple and Ingrasci's previous film, "Living On One," focused on them living in Guatemala on a dollar-a-day for two months during the summer of 2013.

The screening of "Salaam Neighbor" will be followed by a discussion with Maxine Stein, JFS chief executive officer, and Deirdre Griffin, director of its New American Program.

Griffin called the event "an important opportunity for all of us to learn about the experiences of people displaced by violence around the world."

"The more we know about the journeys and courage of our refugee neighbors, the more we realize that we all belong to each other and that each of us has the power to help heal the world and ourselves, person by person, right here in our own neighborhood," said Griffin in a statement about Refugee Day.

Staff members of Griffin's agency speak a number of languages, including Arabic, and assist refugees with housing, medical needs and school enrollment as well as employment.

The program resettles about 200 refugees annually in the area, most recently from Bhutan and Eritrea, and is working to expand resettlement to the Berkshires.

Resettlement of refugees has become a controversial issue at times in the Pioneer Valley, and even more so nationally under President Donald Trump.

The Department of Justice has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Trump's revised executive order, which would suspend the nation's refugee program and temporarily bar new visas for citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, to go into effect immediately with its legality to be determined at a later date.

Recent lower court rulings, including a 10-3 ruling from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 25, have blocked its enactment as discriminatory on religious grounds.

West Springfield and Northampton have been among area cities whose mayors have welcomed refugees, while Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno has opposed ongoing resettlement efforts on the basis of limited resources, particularly in the areas of housing, education and transportation.

Catholic Charities Agency of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield hopes to help settle some 51 refugees in Northampton this year.

Light refreshments will be served at the June 20 event.

Last year's observance involved the showing of a refugee film edited by State Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke.
A man suspected of killing two engaged doctors in their luxury Boston condominium is due in court this week.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office says a hearing is scheduled for Thursday in the case against 30-year-old Bampumim Teixeira. The Chelsea man has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

Police found the bodies of 38-year-old Dr. Lina Bolanos and 49-year-old Dr. Richard Field in May while responding to a report of a man with a gun. Police also found a black bag filled with Bolanos' jewelry.

Teixeira was shot by police at the scene. Authorities first reported that Teixeira had opened fire when police confronted him at the door. They later said that Teixeira did not open fire on police, but a fake gun was found at the scene.
A corpse was found in Boston Harbor Thursday morning, authorities say.

The body, found by Massachusetts Environmental Police, was pulled from the water near Deer Island late Thursday morning.

The Suffolk County District Attorney's Office said it is believed to be an adult but "was in a state of decomposition such that age, gender, and ethnicity are not immediately apparent."

The body of 2-year-old Bella Bond was found in a plastic bag on the shore of Deer Island nearly two years ago. For three months, she was referred to as "Baby Doe" before she was identified as the daughter of Rachelle Bond.

Michael McCarthy, the former boyfriend of Bond accused of killing the toddler, is currently on trial for first-degree murder.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that entered the Islamic State (IS) militant group's bastion Raqa on Wednesday was formed just 18 months ago.

It has since emerged as a key fighting force against IS in northern Syria, and the main ground partner of the US-led coalition battling IS.

The SDF has scored a series of victories in the past 18 months, including the recapture of the strategic northern city of Manbij, and has now encircled Raqa city and entered it from the east.

But the dominant role of Kurdish forces in the alliance has raised concerns with Turkey, whose military has hit SDF positions.

The SDF was formed in October 2015 as Kurds, Arab Muslims and Christians joined forces to battle IS in northern Syria.

Syria's six-year civil war has seen it divided into a patchwork of fiefdoms but in IS the disparate members of the SDF found a common enemy.

The alliance is estimated to command about 30,000 fighters -- some 25,000 Kurds and 5,000 Arabs.

The Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which had already dealt IS several defeats including seizing the key border town of Tal Abyad, is the alliance's backbone.

Along with the Kurdish female Women's Protection Units, the SDF includes Arab factions, Syriac Christian fighters and Turkmen units.

The alliance has often emphasised its Arab component, despite allegations that they are effectively a junior partner in the force.

After launching the coalition air war against IS in Syria and Iraq, Washington struggled to find a reliable partner on the ground.

A much-touted $500-million programme to build a rebel army to fight IS collapsed after many candidates failed the screening process and one group surrendered equipment to an Al-Qaeda affiliate.

But since its creation the SDF has benefited from strong US backing, including weapons drops and air strikes in support of its operations.

Shortly after the SDF was formed, the White House announced the first sustained deployment of US special forces to Syria, reversing a longstanding refusal to put boots on the ground.

Some 50 special operations personnel were deployed in northern Syria, and the number has now grown to around 500 US troops, though not all are from special operations.

US officials including Washington's envoy to the coalition Brett McGurk and the head of Central Command have met senior SDF commanders on visits to northern Syria.

And in June, Washington announced it would supply weapons directly to the YPG, over objections from ally Turkey.

In November 2016, the SDF announced its "Operation Wrath of the Euphrates" aimed at eventually ousting IS from Raqa province, including its de facto Syrian capital Raqa city.

Over the following months, the alliance has gradually closed in on the city, first sweeping down and capturing territory to the north before closing in from the east and west.

A key battle was for the town of Tabqa and the neighbouring dam, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Raqa.

That operation began in late March, with US forces airlifting SDF troops behind IS lines.

After heavy fighting, and fears for the integrity of Tabqa dam, the SDF seized the town and the dam on May 10, severing a key route out of Raqa.

The rise of the SDF has raised deep concerns in Turkey, which considers the YPG to be a "terrorist" offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

Turkey launched an operation inside Syria on August 2016 alongside allied opposition forces and managed to retake the IS stronghold of Jarabulus and the symbolically important town of Dabiq.

The operation also sought to check the advance of Syria's Kurds, and Turkish forces have carried out air strikes against YPG positions.

But Ankara failed to convince Washington to hold off on the Raqa operation and find an alternative partner to the SDF.

It reacted with fury to Washington's decision to arm the YPG directly, despite US assurances that the weapons supplies would be limited and monitored.

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Chad has recalled its ambassador from Qatar for consultations, the foreign ministry said on Thursday, joining other African states in showing support for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations amid a worsening regional rift.

The announcement came a day after Senegal recalled its envoy from Doha, citing its "active solidarity" with Saudi Arabia. Mauritania, a member of the Arab League, severed ties with Qatar on Tuesday - following the lead of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt - while Gabon condemned Doha.

"The Chadian government calls on all concerned states to privilege dialogue to solve this crisis and asks Qatar to respect its commitments by ceasing any attitude likely to harm cohesion of states in the region and peace in the world," the foreign ministry statement said.

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Its a problem that a group of students at Georgetown Universitys McCourt School of Public Policy set out to alleviate by offering free adult education and career development services at a library in one of the poorest wards. But to do that, they first had to address a different issue.

"A lot of people might have kids they cant leave to go to programs like this," says Catherine Lyons, one of the four students who crafted the proposal.

To accomodate those parents, Lyons and her classmates proposed pairing adult literacy and career services with child tutoring. The idea, called "Leveraging Libraries," won $1,000 and was a finalist at the annual Public Policy Challenge hosted by the University of Pennsylvanias Fels Institute of Government and Governing.

by Natalie Delgadillo

Full Story: http://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-fels-institute-leveraging-libraries-mccourt-school.html
Jennifer Doudna was sitting in her UC Berkeley office when she got the first call from a reporter asking what she thought about scientists using Crispr to modify embryos. At the time, the embryos in question were monkeys. It was late 2014, and Doudna was just beginning to become the face of Crispr/Cas9the bacterial enzyme behind todays gene editing revolution. Since then she has fielded an ongoing avalanche of questions about the implications of her discovery. How its going to change the future of everything from medicine to agriculture to energy production. But inevitably the questions always get around to super-babies.

Megan Molteni

Full Story: https://www.wired.com/2017/06/crispr-may-cure-genetic-disease-one-day/
Qatar's foreign minister Thursday rejected interference in his country's foreign policy, ruling out a military solution to a crisis which has seen Riyadh and its allies cut ties with Doha.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said.

"We are an independent country with sovereignty," he told AFP, rejecting tutelage from other states.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar denies having any ties to extremists.

A top United Arab Emirates official on Wednesday told AFP that the unprecedented measures aim to pressure Doha into making drastic policy changes.

"This is not about regime change -- this is about change of policy, change of approach," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said.

Sheikh Mohammed called attempts to isolate Doha "collective punishment" and a "systematic campaign" against Qatar, which he said continued to work alongside the United States against extremism.

The Gulf crisis has sparked fears of military escalation in an already volatile region. However, the Qatari foreign minister downplayed the likelihood of military conflict.

"We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, Sheikh Mohammed said.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has also sealed off Qatar's only land border, a crucial lifeline for food imports.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar could nonetheless survive "forever", adding that it respected international agreements and would continue supplying liquefied natural gas to the UAE.

Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

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"Whatever we can do to help. A successful, strong, prosperous U.S. is in our interest. We want to share what we know if we can be constructive and helpful.

 Israels Consul General Andy David

The Israelis are experts on water-saving drip irrigation and desalinization, Raanan told The Montana Standard during a tour of Montana Resources Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant Tuesday afternoon. The desert country, located in the Middle East on the Mediterranean Sea, nationalized its water system about a decade ago, Raanan said. The country also came up with a new word, "fertigation," which is fertilizer combined with drip irrigation. Such a practice increases yield with less water, according to Raanan.

The Israelis appeared impressed by Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant. It is controversial in Butte as some believe it is inadequate and unprepared to handle the pits mine wastewater when the day comes, in 2023, to pump and treat the pits water in perpetuity. Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive Dave Palmer said he is "keeping his fingers crossed" that the Israeli experts could come up with a different plan for the Berkeley Pit.

The two Israelis who made the international trip were Raanan Adin, who is head of an Israeli water consulting firm http://www.amiadusa.com/ , and his father, professor Avner Adin, who is a distinguished water technology specialist.

SUSAN DUNLAP [email protected]

Full Story: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/can-the-inventors-of-water-saving-drip-irrigation-solve-the/article_ff4006ff-30ed-5b0b-95b9-dab39e027f6d.html
New state investment will catalyze up to $20 million in crucial school broadband upgrades in Montana

Montana Governor Steve Bullock today joined Woodman School officials and students in Lolo to celebrate the approval of a $2 million investment to give Montana schools the opportunity to enhance broadband and develop 21st century classrooms.

"Providing our students with access to high-quality digital learning helps set them up for success in our increasingly digital world," said Governor Bullock. "As a predominantly rural state, we need to work even harder to make sure that our students have the high-speed Internet that they need to flourish. This investment is the result of collaboration between state government, the service provider and school communities, and will bring us even closer to closing the connectivity gap in our states schools."

Full Story: http://governor.mt.gov/Newsroom/governor-bullock-signs-new-law-funding-k-12-broadband-upgrades
Her Excellency Mrs. K. Nandini Singla, High Commissioner of India paid a courtesy call to the Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation, The honorable Stephan Toussaint on the 08th March 2021.

During the consultation, the High Commissioner uttered her appreciation for the cordial and mutual relations between Mauritius and India. She also expressed great interest in increased collaboration between the high commission of India in Mauritius and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports, and Recreation.

The discussions focused on the avenues of cooperation that can be further developed in the sports sector, youth development, and recreational activities.

In this context, 10 Mauritian youngsters will be invited to participate in next years national day celebration of India.

The cost and accommodation will be borne by the government of India.

Finally, both sides have also expressed the willingness to review the existing MoU between the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation and the High Commission of India signed in 2012.

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The United Parcel Service Inc <UPS.N> said it will suspend the transit of goods to and from Qatar in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain amid an ongoing dispute in the region.

"We will continue to monitor for any potential service impact with regards to air, road and sea connections and will communicate with customers as additional information becomes available," spokesman Glenn Zaccara said in a statement.

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President Donald Trump spoke to Qatar's emir on Wednesday, offering US mediation in a crisis that has split Washington's allies and pushed regional powers toward confrontation.

"The President offered to help the parties resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary," the White House said.

Trump spoke to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani as Qatar faces an economic and diplomatic blockade from Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar's neighbors are angry at Doha's backing for jihadist groups, its willingness to engage with Iran, and its patronage of Al Jazeera, which often criticizes Gulf governments.

The call came a day after Trump appeared to back Saudi Arabia strong-arming the emirate, which is home to 10,000 US troops.

Qatar confirmed the call, saying Trump "expressed readiness to find a solution to the diplomatic crisis in the Gulf, and stressed his keenness that the Gulf remains stable."

Trump aides also stressed the need for Qatar and "all countries in the region working together to prevent the financing of terrorist organizations and stop the promotion of extremist ideology."

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North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, Pyongyang's fifth test in less than a month in defiance of global pressure to rein in its weapons program.

The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Kim Jong-Un's regime in response to recent ballistic missile tests.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles," the defence ministry said, adding the short range missiles flew some 200 kilometres (124 miles) before falling into the Sea of Japan.

Pyongyang has ordered three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile, and Thursday's cruise missile tests since the South's President Moon Jae-in took power in early May.

Moon advocated reconciliation with Seoul's isolated, unpredictable neighbour but has taken a more stern position in the wake of the missile tests, which pose a policy challenge to the left-leaning leader.

"The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the National Security Council Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-Hyun.

Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people," Moon said, according to his spokesman.

Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability," a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions.

Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns".

Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions.

"North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations... but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US President Donald) Trump," he added.

Thursday's launch is also aimed at pressuring Seoul and Washington ahead of a planned summit between Moon and Trump late June, said Hong Hyun-Ik, analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank.

"The North is trying to flaunt its presence... and to pressure Moon to offer a big favour in order to ease tension, like the resumption of a joint economic project," Hong said.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, a move Pyongyang said was "mean".

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks -- and not more sanctions -- is its priority.

"Talks deserve another chance and peace is still within our grasp," Beijing Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Thursday.

The new tests come a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile shield -- an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

"North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea".

The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Trump has vowed "won't happen".

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, but analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.

But most agree that the country has made significant progress under Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.

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Unknown gunmen on Thursday ambushed a convoy on the main road connecting South Sudan's capital with the Ugandan border, killing at least 15 people, officials said.

Nine others were wounded in the attack on a civilian convoy escorted by the military on the insecure Juba-Nimule highway.

"The convoy was attacked in Moli village when it was coming from Nimule to Juba with an escort," said South Sudan police spokesman Daniel Justine, who confirmed the death toll.

He said the convoy was "targeted with heavy weapons" and that gunfire struck a military vehicle and two private civilian vehicles.

Some of the wounded and the dead were taken to Juba's main hospital while others were transported to the border town of Nimule.

South Sudan's deputy interior minister Riaw Gatlier called the incident "unfortunate" and said an investigation was underway.

Thursday's ambush was the second this week alone on the Juba-Nimule road, after an attack on Monday left one dead and four injured.

The dangerous highway is nevertheless a lifeline for South Sudan, which imports almost everything, and for people fleeing the more than three-year-long civil war for the safety of refugee camps in Uganda.

Since the government began deploying military escorts for convoys using the road in January there have been at least four separate deadly attacks with no one claiming responsibility or held to account.

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Qatar's credit quality would decline if tensions with its Gulf neighbours continue for much longer, raising the country's debt ratio and hurting banks' liquidity, Moody's ratings agency said on Thursday.

"A prolonged or deepening rift between Qatar and its GCC neighbours would potentially have a more marked financial effect and increase funding costs for the sovereign and other Qatari entities," Moody's told clients.

It currently rates Qatar at A3 with a stable outlook, or four notches above junk.

"An escalation could include restrictions on capital flows, which would be negative for Qatari banks' liquidity and funding," Moody's said, adding that total external debt was 150 percent of gross domestic product.

Eight mostly Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates this week severed diplomatic relations with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member Qatar while also suspending air, land and sea transport and imposing travel bans.

Rival ratings agency S&P Global cut its rating on Qatar on Wednesday to AA- and put the rating on CreditWatch with negative implications, meaning there was a significant chance of a further downgrade.

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On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a new photography exhibition in Switzerland showcases faces from Palestine's history

To mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, 77 faces of Palestine are being exhibited at the premises of the United Nations headquarters in Geneva.

The exhibition showcases Palestinian photographic memory, one that started off at the end of the 19th century and up to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The exhibition comprises a very important memory for the Palestinian people, because it features aspects of society from their history.

It stands as a cultural, economic and political proof that negates the poisonous claims of Balfour, the British minister of foreign affairs, who said in 1917 that Palestine is a land with no people, calling for making it the home of Jews since they were a people with no land.

The photographs were taken by orientalists who visited Palestine during the last decades of the 19th century.

Felex Bonfis arrived in Palestine in 1880, and focused on taking portraits in Nazareth and Bethlehem. His works are well-known in France.

The exhibition includes work by Dumas, another French photographer who visited Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, the brothers Jerome and Jean Tharaud, and the photo researcher Sarah Graham Brawn. Other British, German and American photographers are also exhibited.

The collection also includes works by Palestinian photographers, including Karima Abboud, the first female professional Palestinian photographer who is from Nazareth, and Palestinian photographer Hanna Safieh from Jerusalem, who was very interested in documenting Palestinian social life and touristic and religious sites.

Overall the exhibition presents a true image of Palestine and its people, as the photographs were collected from various associations and Palestinian families who lived through this era and witnessed the massive injustices that tarnished the beautiful image of a cosmopolitan and often tolerant way of life.

Photographs and text are courtesy of Palestinian artist Ahmed Dari.

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An open-source software tool called Mendel,MD could help doctors analyze patients' genetic data in order to diagnose diseases caused by mutations. Developed by Raony Cardenas and colleagues at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, the tool is presented in a new study in PLOS Computational Biology.

Diseases caused by genetic mutations can be challenging to diagnose. Sequencing of a patient's entire genome or exome - the part of the genome used to build protein - now offers an effective strategy to pinpoint culprit mutations and make an accurate diagnosis. However, the software needed to analyze these sequences is often costly or too complex for many doctors to use.

To address these issues, Cardenas' team developed Mendel,MD specifically for easy use by physicians, free of charge. Users upload a patient's whole genome or exome sequence via a web-based interface, and the sequence is analyzed and filtered using various computational tools and databases of disease-causing mutations. The result is a list of candidate mutations that can be clinically investigated to arrive at a final diagnosis.

The researchers validated Mendel,MD using previously-published clinical cases. They also had it tested by researchers and students at their own university, as well as at GENE - Nucleo de Genetica Medica, Brazil, and the Children's University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland. The results suggest that Mendel,MD is reliable, simple, and efficient in identifying disease-causing mutations in patients.

"We designed the software to be simple and intuitive enough to be used directly by physicians, even those who are not proficient in bioinformatics," says study co-author Sergio Pena. "We expect Mendel,MD to be adopted in other research centers and laboratories around the world."

Mendel,MD can be accessed at www.mendelmd.org.

Article: Mendel,MD: A user-friendly open-source web tool for analyzing WES and WGS in the diagnosis of patients with Mendelian disorders, G. C. C. L. Cardenas R, D. Linhares N, L. Ferreira R, Pena SDJ, PLOS Computational Biology, doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005520, published 8 June 2017.
The first blood test that can predict the onset and progression of Huntington's disease has been identified by a UCL-led study.

The researchers say their findings, published in Lancet Neurology, should help test new treatments for the genetic brain disorder, which is fatal and currently incurable.

"This is the first time a potential blood biomarker has been identified to track Huntington's disease so strongly," said the study's senior author, Dr Edward Wild (UCL Institute of Neurology).

The test measures the neurofilament light chain (neurofilament), a protein released from damaged brain cells, which has been linked to other neurodegenerative diseases but hasn't been studied in the blood of Huntington's disease (HD) patients before.

The team, led by scientists at UCL Huntington's Disease Centre working with colleagues in Sweden, the USA, Canada, France and the Netherlands, measured neurofilament levels in blood samples from the TRACK-HD study, an international project that followed 366 volunteers for three years. They found that levels of the brain protein were increased throughout the course of HD - even in carriers of the HD genetic mutation who were many years from showing symptoms of the disease. HD mutation carriers had neurofilament concentrations that were 2.6 times that of the control participants, and the level rose throughout the disease course from premanifest to stage 2 disease.

In the group who had no symptoms at the start of the study, the level of neurofilament predicted subsequent disease onset, as volunteers with high neurofilament levels in the blood at the start were more likely to develop symptoms in the following three years. After taking into account factors already known to predict progression - age and a genetic marker - the blood level of neurofilament was still able to independently predict onset, progression and the rate of brain shrinkage as measured by MRI scans.

Currently, the best biomarkers available are measured with neuroimaging or cerebrospinal fluid, which are more difficult and expensive to obtain than a blood test. The researchers say that predicting progression in mutation carriers who do not yet show symptoms has been particularly challenging.

"We have been trying to identify blood biomarkers to help track the progression of HD for well over a decade, and this is the best candidate that we have seen so far," said Dr Wild. "Neurofilament has the potential to serve as a speedometer in Huntington's disease, since a single blood test reflects how quickly the brain is changing. That could be very helpful right now as we are testing a new generation of so-called 'gene silencing' drugs that we hope will put the brakes on the condition. Measuring neurofilament levels could help us figure out whether those brakes are working."

The researchers caution that the test is not expected to be immediately helpful for individual patients. "This is the first time neurofilament has been measured in blood, so much more work is needed to understand the potential and limitations of this test," said Lauren Byrne (UCL Institute of Neurology), the study's first author. "In the future, if drugs to slow HD become available, it may well be used to guide treatment decisions. For now, this test is most promising as a much-needed tool to help us design and run clinical trials of new drugs."

Dr Robert Pacifici, chief scientific officer of CHDI Foundation, a US non-profit Huntington's disease research foundation, welcomed the development. "I can see neurofilament becoming a valuable tool to assess neuroprotection in clinical trials so that we can more quickly figure out whether new drugs are doing what we need them to. As a drug hunter, this is great news."

The study's funders included the CHDI foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, Swedish Research Council, European Research Council, Wallenberg Foundation and Wolfson Foundation.
An archaeological mission from the Ministry of Antiquities discovered the rock-hewn tomb in the city's El-Shatby district

During excavation work at a site in the El-Shatby neighbourhood of Alexandria, an Egyptian archaeological mission from the Ministry of Antiquities discovered a rock-hewn tomb that can be dated to the Hellenistic period (323-30 BC).

Mahmoud Afifi, head of Ancient Egyptian Antiquities at the ministry, told Ahram Online that studies on the architectural style of the tombs decorative elements and pottery sherds found at the site show that the tomb dates to the time of Greek occupation in Egypt.

The tomb is composed of four halls with burial shafts decorated with geometric, coloured designs as well as funerary prayers written in ancient Greek.

Mustafa Rushdi, director-general of Antiquities of the Western Delta and Alexandria told Ahram Online that the mission found around 300 artefacts within the tombs hall. Among the objects were pottery vessels, a terracotta statue and lamps made of clay.

During the next archaeological season, the mission plans to study the funerary phrases written on the tombs to identify their owners.

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Conference to explore citizen science, Indigenous water perspectives and the role of business in freshwater sustainability



OTTAWA, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - The findings of four years of research into the state of Canada's freshwater ecosystems will be shared at WWF-Canada's Healthy Waters Summit in Ottawa on June 12.



Canada

Saturday, June 11

Canada's

June 12

Canada's

CANADA'S

Sunday, June 11, 2017

Ottawa

Canada

Monday, June 12, 2017

8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Ottawa

North Vancouver MP Jonathan Wilkinson , parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

, parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Glenn Benoy , senior water quality and ecosystem adviser, International Joint Commission

, senior water quality and ecosystem adviser, International Joint Commission Caleb Behn , Eh-Cho Dene and Dunne Za/Cree from the Treaty 8 Territory of Northeastern British Columbia

, Eh-Cho Dene and Dunne Za/Cree from the Treaty 8 Territory of Kat Hartwig, executive director of Living Lakes Canada

Robert Chant , senior vice-president, corporate affairs and communications, Loblaw Companies Limited

, senior vice-president, corporate affairs and communications, Loblaw Companies Limited Craig Stewart , vice-president of federal affairs, Insurance Bureau of Canada

This WWF-Canada summit will bring together stakeholders from Indigenous and other local communities, academia, governments and businesses to discuss solutions for improved freshwater health for wildlife and communities who depend on this critical resource.Panellists will explore the power of citizen science, Indigenous perspectives on healthy waters, the role of business in freshwater sustainability, community action and the open data movement inThe event begins on Canadian Rivers Day  with a public celebration offreshwater, and continues onwith a full day of discussion about the future offreshwater ecosystems.Music, Indigenous round dance and refreshments with freshwater expertsAboriginal Experiences, Victoria Island (100 Middle St.,).Open to the publicLeading freshwater voices from acrossdiscuss the most pressing freshwater issues and work toward solutions.Visit here for the full summit agenda.The Lord Elgin hotel, 100 Elgin St.,Media are welcome at all presentations and panel discussions, including those with:Visit here for a full list of summit panellists.This summit is sponsored by Coca-Cola Canada Ltd. in collaboration with RBC.WWF-Canada creates solutions to the environmental challenges that matter most for Canadians. We work in places that are unique and ecologically important, so that nature, wildlife and people thrive together. Because we are all wildlife. For more information, visit wwf.ca.SOURCE WWF-Canada
Command Centre will help Humber River become a high reliability hospital

Caregivers will be able to spend more time with patients

4,500 square-foot centre will feature GE's Wall of Analytics

TORONTO

June 8, 2017

Barb Collins

Canada

John Flannery

North America

Andrew Day

Peter Bak

Canada's

Greater Toronto Area

North America's

University of Toronto

/CNW/ - Humber River Hospital is underway with building a state-of-the-art, digitally-advanced "Command Centre" that uses complex algorithms, predictive analytics and cutting-edge engineering to target improved clinical, operational and patient outcomes. Designed and built with GE Healthcare Partners, the centre will open end of 2017 to help enable the hospital to meet its objective of safe, high-quality and efficient patient care delivery.The heart of the 4,500 square-foot Command Centre is a GE Wall of Analytics that processes real-time data from multiple source systems across the hospital. The system applies advanced and predictive analytics and provides a continuous "read out" alerting staff to everything from delayed patient care activity, unbalanced physician and staff workload and unusual situations that may correlate to increased risk of patient harm. This information provides real-time decision support so staff can prioritize patient care activities and discharges, make short-term staffing decisions and mitigate potential bottlenecks before they occur.Command Centre staff will impact day to day performance through several dozen Interactions, Procedures and Operating Mechanisms that have been thoughtfully designed in conjunction with front line caregivers, support staff, physicians and executives."The Command Centre is being built to improve the patient experience, enable caregivers to spend more time with patients and less time organizing care and enable staff to make care decisions easier and faster," said, President and CEO of Humber River Hospital. "We want to continue investing in the latest technologies and smart hospital solutions to provide the best clinical solutions and hospital experience to our community."The Command Centre will be funded through ongoing business investment, private donations and efficiency savings since Humber River Hospital expects to be able to care for more patients for the same or less cost."This is the first command centre of its type in," said, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. "Using real-time data and analytics will help clinicians and administrators make more informed decisions for a better patient experience and deliver improved clinical and operational outcomes."Humber River Hospital is already recognized as the first fully-digital hospital inand the Command Centre is a continuation of their digital journey toward becoming a high reliability hospital."The Humber River Hospital Command Centre features several "firsts" including the ability to identify delayed care delivery activities that could impact patient outcomes and length of stay," said, Principal of GE Healthcare Partners."The air traffic control concept was actually envisioned with GE Healthcare well in advance of the opening of our new hospital in 2015 and now it is becoming a reality," explained, CIO, Humber River Hospital. "The Command Centre perfectly combines our clinical expertise, advanced digital infrastructure and culture of continuous improvement with GE Healthcare's advanced analytics, technical capability and deep understanding of hospital workflows to create an exciting and transformational system for our patients, clinicians, staff and the wider community."Humber River Hospital is one oflargest acute care hospitals, serving a catchment area of more than 850,000 people in the northwestfirst fully digital hospital, it is located at Keele Street and Highway 401 in northwest Toronto. With a capacity of 656 acute inpatient beds, including 48 critical care beds, the hospital has 3,400 staff, approximately 600 physicians with privileges, and over 1,000 volunteers. The hospital has formal affiliations with theand Queen's University Medical Schools. A number of Humber River's programs and services have been, and remain, recognized provincially, nationally and internationally. Learn more about Humber River Hospital online at www.hrh.ca or follow us on Twitter at @HRHospital.As the management consulting arm of GE Healthcare, Partners is a diverse team of consultants with a passion to help leading organizations manage the interdependencies between cost, quality and access. As an activation partner for clients, Partners collaborates to design strategy, formulate improvements and achieve measurable results and outcomes  implemented to change the way care is delivered. Working side by side with clients, Partners brings together advisory services, advanced analytics, and a world-renowned approach to individual and group change acceleration. By thoroughly transferring critical tools and methods, Partners enables clients to preserve and advance improvements in the long-term. http://partners.gehealthcare.comSOURCE Humber River Hospital
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All smartphone apps available in the Australian Google Play and iTunes stores relevant to self-management of back pain were collected and assessed.

The 2016 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines were used to identify whether interventions recommended by apps were evidence-based.

Apps that recommended evidence-based interventions were rated for quality by using the Mobile Application Rating Scale (MARS).



Source: Eurekalert

The study reviewed 61 current apps specifically designed to help consumers self-manage their back pain and evaluated their content, functionality, quality, and whether they recommend evidence-based interventions. The researchers found more than 700 apps in the Australian iTunes and Google Play stores that use the keyword "back pain"."Treatment guidelines often recommend self-management for the symptoms of back pain, and mobile apps can represent a useful and convenient way to help people manage their own condition, however, consumers need to be aware that there is minimal regulatory control over their content," said lead researcher Gustavo Machado from the University's School of Public Health."Millions of people worldwide use these apps, however here is no independent guidance to help consumers identify which ones are safe and of high quality."In this study, apps generally offered questionable and poor quality information, lacked engaging and customisable features, and had poor visual appeal and questionable credibility."Although the recommendations in most apps were broadly aligned with the 2016 National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) treatment guidelines such as strengthening exercises and yoga, the quality of the information provided was generally low."Developers usually claim that consumers could rapidly improve their back pain symptoms by following their exercise programs. However, none of the apps have been directly tested for their effectiveness, and only very few provide the educational content and information that is key to guideline recommendations," Gustavo Machado said."Considering none of the apps included in this study had been evaluated rigorously, it is not clear whether any of them are really effective in improving symptoms in people with back pain."Consumers often rely on in-app or online user ratings and reviews to select an app, but our study found that this information was not associated with app quality. In general, the apps that required some payment were also the ones with the highest quality scores."Senior author Associate Professor Steven Kamper from Sydney Medical School said: "App developers need to work closely with healthcare professionals, researchers, and patients to ensure app content is accurate, evidence based, and engaging to improve the quality of existing apps for low back pain.""They also need to devise ways to appropriately evaluate these emerging technologies to ensure that they are beneficial to patients," he said.
We've all received at least one email from a Nigerian prince asking us to help them with their money. But, this is a whole new type of scam. Well, you can't really call it a scam since the buyer got exactly what he had ordered.

What Reddit user Delta_Jesus didn't realise though was where the Land Cruiser he was buying online was coming from.

He was shopping on an online website called vroom.com where he found a 2013 Toyota Land Cruiser with just 15,000 miles on the odometer. A car that is usually listed for around $80,000 and he was getting it for around $60,000. That's a pretty great deal, right? RIGHT? Of course not!

The man called up vroom.com on receipt of the vehicle and told them he wanted to return the car. It had a few scrapes on the side, and one of the headlights was broken. Good enough reasons to return it. But wait, there's more.

He took the car to his mechanic for the heck of it and found out it had been in a rear-end collision and didn't have rear brake pads. They weren't worn out; they just weren't there.

At this point, the man started digging and with the help of the owner's manual and the internet, came to the undeniable conclusion that the SUV belonged to Major-General Gabriel Atondo Kpamber of the Nigerian Army.

The only image we have of the Major-General is of the car accident in which he died. It's pretty graphic. Click here if you want to see it.

The General was best known for the profits he made selling conflict diamonds during the Sierra Leone war. That and getting someone to buy his battered Land Cruiser for $60,000.

 Pinterest/Diane Kalinga

The only thing that could have made Delta_Jesus' life easier would have been finding some of those diamonds tucked away in the car but, as he puts it, "Unfortunately, I did not find any diamonds in the seat cushions."
Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain.

Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.
Starting today, Deputy Foreign Minister Terens Quick will carry out a two-day visit to Tbilisi, Georgia, heading a Greek business mission from the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV) and the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI).

He will meet with the Deputy Minister for Economy and Development, Giorgi Cherkezishvili, and Deputy Foreign Minister David Jalagania.

He will also speak at a joint meeting of Greek and Georgian entrepreneurs, analysing and presenting the positive prospects  for both sides  of joint business actions.

Heading the SEV delegation is Executive Vice President Konstantinos Bitsios, and the ACCI delegation is being headed by Secretary General Nikos Sofianos.
The Ubly fourth grade classes recently presented quilts that they made to Hills and Dales Hospital in Cass City and Huron Medical Center in Bad Axe.

This was a thank you for the hospitals' donations for the students' entry fees for the DNR HeartMISnow 5K walk this past winter.
BAD AXE  City council lost three years of experience following the resignation of a council member this week. And council is now looking to fill the open slot.

During this weeks city council meeting, the first order of business was to accept the resignation of councilman Marc C. Bridson.
WASHINGTON - Fired FBI Director James Comey said President Donald Trump told him at the White House "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty" in their private White House dinner conversation in January, according to written remarks from Comey offering a vivid preview of his testimony Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In seven remarkable pages of prepared testimony, Comey describes a president obsessed with loyalty and publicly clearing his name amid an FBI investigation of his associates, and the FBI director's growing unease with the nature of the demands being made of him in their private conversations.

Since firing Comey last month, the president has denied reports that he sought a pledge of loyalty from the FBI director amid a Justice Department probe into possible coordination between Trump associates and Russian operatives. Comey's written remarks do support another Trump claim - that the FBI director repeatedly assured the president that he was not personally under investigation.

But overall, Comey's testimony portrays Trump as a domineering chief executive who made his FBI director deeply uncomfortable over the course of nine separate private conversations, beginning with their first meeting in early January before Trump was sworn into office. In that conversation, Comey warned the president-elect of a dossier that was circulating with unsubstantiated allegations against him and his advisers.

The details as described by Comey are likely to further fuel the debate over whether the president may have attempted to obstruct justice by pressuring the FBI director about a sensitive investigation.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., who is leading the Senate probe of possible Russian coordination with Trump associates, said he was not alarmed by Comey's account.

"I don't think it's wrong to ask for loyalty of anyone inside an administration," Burr said. "I don't think of what I've read there's anything of wrongdoing."

Comey writes with almost novelistic detail about his interactions with the president, describing a call on Jan. 27 around lunchtime inviting him to dinner.

"It was unclear from the conversation who else was going to be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others," Comey wrote. "It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks."

The president began the conversation, Comey wrote, by asking him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, "which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to."

The president replied, according to Comey, that lots of people wanted his job and "he would understand if I wanted to walk away."

Comey's instincts, he wrote, were that both the setting and the conversation "meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch."

The president then made his demand for loyalty.

"I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey wrote. "We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner."

When prompted again on the subject of loyalty, Comey said he replied, "You will always get honesty from me."

Comey said that once before Trump's inauguration, and again at the January dinner, he assured the president that he was not personally under investigation. He also told the president later on that he had shared that information with congressional leaders.

In his letter firing Comey, Trump wrote that three times Comey had assured him he was not under investigation. After the firing, Comey's defenders publicly challenged the accuracy of that statement.

Overall, Comey's written testimony describes a strained, awkward relationship between the two powerful men, punctuated by exchanges in which the president expressed his displeasure about the Russia probe in ways that alarmed the FBI director. Even the number of contacts between the two were alarming to Comey, who noted that he only spoke twice privately with President Barack Obama.

The written testimony also recounts a face-to-face conversation the two men had on Feb. 14 in the Oval Office, where many senior officials had gathered for a counterterrorism briefing.

After the meeting, the president asked everyone to leave. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and senior adviser Jared Kushner lingered in the room, but the president told them to leave, too, according to Comey.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, Comey wrote, the president said, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn'' - the former national security adviser who was forced out after disclosures about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Flynn had resigned a day earlier.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," the president said, according to Comey. The FBI director replied only that "he is a good guy.''

In that conversation, the president repeatedly complained to the FBI director about leaks, and Comey said he agreed with him about the harm caused by leaks of classified information.

Comey said he understood the president to be asking for him to "drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign.''

The former FBI director wrote that he found the conversation "very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.''

Later, Comey complained to Sessions that he should not have been left alone with the president, and Sessions did not reply, according to the written testimony. Sessions declined to comment.

Then, in late March, Trump called Comey at the FBI. In that conversation, the president called the Russia probe "a cloud'' hanging over his ability to lead the country.

He also expressed continued frustration that unsubstantiated allegations in a private dossier about him had become public, including lurid claims of sexual activity while in Russia.

"He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he had been recorded when in Russia,'' Comey wrote.

"He asked what we could do to 'lift the cloud.' I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him," Comey wrote.

After that phone call with the president, Comey said he called acting deputy attorney general Dana Boente to tell him what was discussed and to "await his guidance." Comey said he never heard back from Boente. A spokesman for Boente did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Then, on April 11, Comey wrote, the president called him and asked him what he had done about getting out word that he was not personally under investigation. The president told him "the cloud" of the probe was interfering with his ability to do his job.

"I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know," Trump told Comey, according to the written testimony. "I did not reply or ask him what he meant by 'that thing.' "

He added: "That was the last time I spoke with President Trump."

- - -

The Washington Post's Sari Horwitz and Karoun Demirjian contributed to this report.

- - -

- - -
BAD AXE  A fire started in a vehicle parked at the Huron County Senior Center located on Nugent Road late Wednesday morning.

According to Bad Axe Fire Chief David Peruski, car owner Tamra Schumacher, a cook at the center, had just parked her car and entered the building when a man came in and said there was a car burning out front.

Schumacher said she knew it was hers because it was the only car that was parked out front, so she grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran out and tried to put the fire out herself.

However, she was unable to do so.

Firefighters say the fire originated in the engine area of the car, before eventually spreading to the passenger area. She was parked partially under a canopy, so firefighters sprayed the car down and then the canopy, with no apparent damage taking place with the canopy.

Schumachers 2002 Buick LeSabre, which had over 300,000 miles on it, was severely damaged. The cause of the fire was not completely known, other than Peruski saying something must have shorted or something ignited in the engine area.

Firefighters arrived on scene around 11:47 a.m. and cleared by 12:31 p.m. Also assisting was the Bad Axe Police Department.
Camp Lejeune Town Halls Aim to Help Those Exposed to Toxic Water. Heres How You Can Go.

Retired Marine Master Sgt. Jerry Ensminger made it his mission to tell the world that if they lived or served on Camp Lejeune...
The House Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony Wednesday that was both encouraging and disturbing about PTSD programs and allegations that some vets are faking symptoms to get a disability check.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has greatly expanded its treatment programs for mental health problems overall, and for post-traumatic stress disorder in particular, said Dr. Harold Kudler, acting assistant deputy under secretary for Patient Care Services at the VA.

In fiscal 2016, the VA provided mental health treatment to 1.6 million veterans, up from 900,000 in 2006, Kudler said. Of the overall figure, 583,000 "received state-of-the-art treatment for PTSD," including 178,000 who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.

Kudler said the number of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn veterans receiving VA treatment for PTSD has doubled since 2010, while VA services for them have increased by 50 percent.

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In addition, the VA is increasingly open to alternative treatments for PTSD, including the use of hyperbaric chambers and yoga, but an Army veteran who went through VA treatment for PTSD said the expansion and outreach leave the program open to scams by veterans looking to get a disability check.

Brendan O'Byrne, a sergeant with the 173rd Airborne Brigade who served a 15-month tour in the remote Korengal valley of eastern Afghanistan, told the committee he was overwhelmed by "crippling anxiety, blinding anger" compounded by drinking when he left the service in 2008.

After four years, he was given a 70-percent disability rating for PTSD and was immediately advised by administrators and other veterans to push for 100 percent to boost his check, O'Byrne said.

"Now, I don't know if they saw something that I didn't but, in my eyes, I was not 100 percent disabled and told them that," O'Byrne said. But they continued to press him to go for a higher rating. His arguments for a lower rating went nowhere, he said.

In VA group counseling sessions, "I realized the sad truth about a portion of the veterans there -- they were scammers, seeking a higher rating without a real trauma. This was proven when I overheard one vet say to another that he had to 'pay the bills' and how he 'was hoping this in-patient was enough for a 100-percent rating.' I vowed never to participate in group counseling through the VA again," O'Byrne said.

"When there is money to gain, there will be fraud," he said. "The VA is no different. Veterans are no different. In the noble efforts to help veterans and clear the backlog of VA claims, we allowed a lot of fraud into the system, and it is pushing away the veterans with real trauma and real PTSD."

Committee members, who are accustomed to hearing allegations of fraud and waste within the VA but rarely about scamming by a veteran, did not directly challenge O'Byrne's allegations, but Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., told him he was unique. "That's the first I've ever heard of a vet wanting to reduce the amount of benefits they're receiving," Bost said.

O'Byrne was a central figure in the book "War" by author Sebastian Junger, who also testified at the hearing on "Overcoming PTSD: Assessing VA's Efforts to Promote Wellness and Healing."

Junger said society must share the blame for the prevalence of PTSD. "Many of our vets seem to be suffering from something other than trauma reaction. One possible explanation for their psychological troubles is that -- whether they experience combat or not -- transitioning from the kind of close communal life of a platoon to the alienation of modern society is extremely difficult."

Then there is politics. "In order for soldiers to avoid something called 'moral injury,' they have to believe they are fighting for a just cause, and that just cause can only reside in a nation that truly believes in itself as an enduring entity," Junger said.

"When it became fashionable after the election for some of my fellow Democrats to declare that Donald Trump was 'not their president,' they put all of our soldiers at risk of moral injury," he said.

"And when Donald Trump charged repeatedly that Barack Obama -- the commander-in-chief -- was not even an American citizen, he surely demoralized many soldiers who were fighting under orders from that White House," Junger said. "For the sake of our military personnel -- if not for the sake of our democracy -- such statements should be quickly and forcefully repudiated by the offending political party."

The allegation that some veterans are bilking PTSD programs is not a major concern for Zach Iscol, a Marine captain who fought in Fallujah and now is executive director of the non-profit Headstrong Project.

"If there are people taking advantage of us, that's OK, because we have a bigger mission," Iscol said, but he also noted that Headstrong does not give out disability payments.

In partnership with Weill Cornell Medical College, the project's goal is to provide free assistance with experienced clinicians to post-9/11 veterans for a range of problems, from PTSD to addiction and anger management.

Iscol said Headstrong currently has about 200 active clients, and "on average it costs less than $5,000 to treat a vet." He cautioned there are no panaceas for treating PTSD, and "there's no simple app that will solve this problem. I don't think you can design a one-size-fits-all for mental health."

The witnesses and committee members agreed that PTSD is treatable, but disagreed over the types and availability of treatment programs and whether the VA is adequately funded to provide them or should rely more on non-profits.

The issue of the estimated 20 suicides by veterans daily came up briefly when Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., a retired Marine lieutenant general, questioned Kudler on VA programs to bring down the rate.

VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin has made combating veteran suicides a major priority and has focused on making treatment available for veterans with less than honorable discharges.

Kudler said there is a "counter-intuitive" involved in addressing the veteran suicide problem. About 14 of the 20 daily suicides involve veterans who never deployed and experienced combat trauma, he said. "It would be premature to say we know why."

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.
A U.S. aircraft shot down an unidentified drone deemed hostile toward coalition forces in At Tanf, Syria, a spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve said Thursday.

The drone, similar in size to a U.S. MQ-1 Predator, was suspected to be "pro-regime" and was shot down Thursday by an F-15E Strike Eagle.

Army Col. Ryan Dillon said the drone was struck down after it was observed dropping a munition near coalition personnel training partner forces in the fight against the Islamic State.

Dillon, who replaces Air Force Col. John Dorrian as the operation spokesman, said the MQ-1-like drone "hit dirt."

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The drone released one of several munitions it was carrying -- and the action clearly wasn't "just a warning shot," Dillon said.

"It was clearly meant as an attack on coalition forces," he told reporters over video conference at the Pentagon. "They made very clear who they were trying to fire upon [but] were unsuccessful."

The drone "showed hostile intent, had munitions on it, and we shot it down," he said. The "pilot of that drone could be considered a threat as well."

Dillon didn't say where the drone came or took off from. There were no injuries to coalition advisers, but he didn't identify their nationality.

The drone strike marked the first time that forces supporting the Syrian government have attacked inside a so-called "deconfliction" zone near At Tanf, close to the Jordanian border, Dillon said.

The deconfliction zone is an area in which U.S. and Russian forces have agreed not to operate. The zone previously applied to airspace but now includes ground territory, a defense official told Military.com last month.

Dillon said U.S.-Russia deconfliction communications are open and in use. Russia, which supports the regime of Bashar al-Assad, reportedly made attempts to reach the pro-Assad forces on the ground last month during a similar strike. Dillon could not say whether messages relayed to the Russians got across regarding Thursday's incident.

"There is a deconfliction line," he said. "We have used that from the middle of May, when pro-regime forces first arrived."

The drone shootdown "follows an earlier engagement in the day in which coalition forces destroyed two pro-regime armed technical vehicles that advanced toward coalition forces at At Tanf inside the established de-confliction zone threatening coalition and partner forces," U.S. Central Command said in an email release following Dillon's video conference.

The strike against the pro-Syrian regime forces marks the third strike in recent weeks -- the second just this week -- by the coalition.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the pro-Syrian forces are backed by Iran, and have been knowingly operating "inside an established and agreed-upon deconfliction zone."

They are believed to be a threat to coalition forces in the region, he has said.

But CentCom stressed the coalition does not seek to fight Syrian regime forces, nor the Russian and pro-regime forces partnered with them.

"The demonstrated hostile intent and actions of pro-regime forces near coalition and partner forces in southern Syria, however, continue to concern us, and the coalition will take appropriate measures to protect our forces," the statement said.

Dillon added, "We are very well prepared and positioned to defend ourselves. We've clearly showed we are able to do that. We do not want to continue this everyday [as it] distracts from our goal to defeat ISIS."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

Related Video:
Dear Ms. Vicki,

What makes someone a helicopter parent? My family and my best friends say that I'm a helicopter parent who is smothering the life out of my children (ages 16, 14 and 12).

I disagree. Those are my babies and, if I don't take care of them, who will? For example, I cook for them and make sure they are eating properly. I clean their rooms and do their laundry. I walk them to and from the bus stop or pick them up from school.

I think I should be involved in everything that is going on in their lives because it's my responsibility. So many parents are not involved with their children, and the kids pay a big price for having unconcerned parents.

This won't be me. I will know where my children are at all times and who my children are with. Oh, by the way, I also volunteer in my children's schools so I can keep an eye on them.

What surprises me is how my own family talks about me like I'm doing something bad. Instead of supporting me, they are talking about me to my children and my husband.

My sister told me that during a recent family visit, my daughter was complaining to her saying, "I wish Mom would back off and give me more space." Well, space leads to mistakes, and my daughter won't be making any.

So, Ms. Vicki, do you think I'm a good parent or a helicopter parent? Should I be concerned with what my friends and family are saying about me or just let it go?

Sincerely, A Hovering Mom

Dear Hovering,

First of all, let me applaud you for taking your job as a parent very seriously. To your credit, there are many parents who don't care who their children are with or what they are doing.

That said, I think you would meet the criteria of a helicopter parent. For example, you are walking a tween and two teenagers to the bus stop. You are cooking every meal for them, even making sandwiches. You stay at their schools practically every day. You fold and put away their clothes, and you clean their rooms.

Mom, all I'm saying is that you need to have some balance. Balance is healthy for everyone. For example, most 16-year-olds have a part-time job even if they are just working 8 to 10 hours a week. They drive or have driving permits. They hang out at the mall with friends. They date.

It's healthy for children to differentiate from their parents. Differentiation shows that parents have done a great job because their children are self-reliant.

You are not giving your children the opportunity to do that. Your daughter will be going to college soon. I wonder what will happen to you if she decides to live on campus in a different city or state? How will you handle this? How will your daughter handle all of this new freedom?

In my professional opinion, I sense some anxiety. Where is that coming from? What are you afraid of and why?

If I were you, I would start loosening the reins on my children little by little and allowing them to earn more freedom with increased responsibility. Trust that you are doing a good job as a parent.

Think about what I said about the anxiety. If there is something more you would like to discuss about that, please email me again and I can help. Take care!

Sincerely, Ms. Vicki
While you probably have all the information you could possibly want for your transition needs right here on Military.com, sometimes you like holding a book in your hands. We get that. Reading the guidance in the form of a book clicks for certain people. With that in mind, we have compiled a list of books related to military transition (along with some reader feedback on these books from Amazon.com) that should be very useful to you on your journey into the civilian world.

The Military Advantage, by Terry Howell

Sure, were a little biased, but we recommend The Military Advantage, the Military.com guide to military and veteran benefits. The book is updated annually and covers scholarships, educational benefits, home loan guarantees, military discounts and more. Reviewers refer to it as "a terrific resource " and "a single reference book with essential information for all service members."

Your Next Mission, by Lida D. Citroen

Your Next Mission is a branding guide for the military to civilian transition, and helps to clarify the job search process for veterans. The book includes interviews with business executives, transitioned veterans, and veteran advocates. Those who have reviewed the book say that they enjoy the exercises included, and the straightforward approach that the book takes to helping build your brand.

Barracks to Boardrooms, by Byron Y. Chen

Barracks to Boardrooms is a guide for negotiating salary after the military. The book addresses concerns related to salary negotiations, such as ensuring you negotiate in a way that doesn't cost you the job or negatively affect your relations with the company or hiring manager. Reviewers say they've used the book for successful bonus and commission negotiations, and note it is valuable no matter what stage of your career you are in.

Out of Uniform, by Thomas Wolfe

Out of Uniform covers the "nuts and bolts" of the career search for veterans, including how to prepare a resume and prepare for the interview process. The book discusses the various types of interviews, and is meant to also help with the mental process involved in the job search. Reviewers say they continue to find it useful even after they have been out of uniform for some time, and add that it's "a must have for anyone in the service even remotely considering separation or retirement."

PCS to Corporate America, by Roger Cameron, Chuck Alvarez, and Joel Junker

PCS to Corporate America is a workbook and a reference book that analyzes the array of questions you may find in an interview. It offers advice for adapting your military background into a company's culture, and provides tips on resumes, dress, and more. Reviewers of this book say it's a great reference for officers (as the target is the Junior Military Officer), though say most of the content is helpful regardless of rank or status.

Networking for Veterans, by Michael L Faulkner, Andrea Nierenberg, and Michael Abrams

Networking for Veterans claims to be the first transition book written by an Iraq or Afghanistan veteran, and specializes in networking for returning veterans. The book covers networking advice such as how to overcome the fear of communicating, how to build a network of contacts, and more. Reviewers say this book does a wonderful job of taking the advice above what is provided in military separation courses, and the book's advice is more targeted to veterans than what you would receive in school.

Down Range, by James D. Murphy and William M. Duke

Down Range is a guide to developing a post-military career. It focuses on the short and the long term, and covers developing a career plan, how businesses differ from the military, and how to take action to achieve your career goals. Each chapter ends with a debriefing section. Reviewers say it's an especially useful resource for veterans who have spent their lives in the military, who may feel overwhelmed with the lack of a straight-forward career track in the civilian world.

Military to Federal Career Guide, by Kathryn Troutman

Military to Federal Career Guide had to be included in this list, considering the high number of veterans that go government. The book covers resume and interview tips tailored to attaining a government job, along with samples for you to work with. Reviewers have pointed out the books case studies as especially helpful, and say they have seen real-world results after applying the lessons from this book.

Military Veterans in Creative Careers, by Justin Sloan

Military Veterans in Creative Careers provides advice for veterans interested in pursuing their creative passions when they exit the military. In addition to advice on breaking into television, movies, video games, and publishing, the book includes interviews with working veterans in these sectors. The book was written by the author of this article, and shares its name with a podcast that covers the same topics. Reviewers say that this book is great for veterans and non-veterans alike, and provides "incredible insight and inspiration."
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Bajaj Electricals advertising spend in the ongoing financial year is likely to spike by almost a third with the company expected to extend more hand-outs in below-the-line promotional activities, according to the companys Chief Financial Officer Anant Purandare. He attributed this to the companys rollout of its new distribution model for consumer products achieving the footprint.

The company could spend Rs 100 crore on advertising and sales promotion, 31.6 percent higher than the Rs 76 crore it spent on the same in the last financial year, Purandare said.

Our focus on advertising will be more on BTL (below the line) spending. We will have to spend more and more on BTL as we are doing secondary and tertiary distribution. There we have to do a lot of BTL activities like putting up hoardings on shops, giving them discounts to store our products. So that will increase the visibility of our products in the market, Purandare told Moneycontrol.

Bajaj Electricals divides its business into three segments  lighting, consumer durables and engineering, procurement and construction to cater to the government orders.

He said the companys new distribution model for its consumer products will mostly be in place by March, barring states in the north east and Jammu & Kashmir.

We are half way through now. Most of the rollout will be completed by December. But by March 2018, we will be completing the entire geography except few places like Guwahati where the market is very scattered and the distribution model will take time to get established, he said, while adding Assam, north east and J&K to the list of states that will be left after March next year for the rollout of its distribution model.

He said the company had completed the task in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Delhi with Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh being the ones where the exercise was being rolled out or will be rolled out for implementation by March.

Deriving from the distribution model adopted by fast-moving consumer goods companies, the company has implemented the TOC or Theory of Constraints concept of distribution across all its verticals, of course making the right changes to suit each.

Under the TOC model of distribution, a company avoids the wholesaler altogether and goes directly to the dealer. The model calls for keeping a lower inventory at the dealer outlets while at the same drives the company to reduce stock-outs by replenishing goods faster. It also aims to increase the return on investment at dealer- and vendor-end by doing weekly billing against the usual practice of monthly billing.
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Moody's Investors Service said on Thursday the 11 Indian state-run banks that it rates could need up to 950 billion rupees ($14.76 billion) in equity capital by March 2019, far above the 200 billion rupees the government plans to inject into state banks by then.

Weak capitalisation levels will remain a key credit weakness for the 11 banks, the ratings agency said, adding that they had limited ability to raise external capital.

Moody's said it estimated that the 11 banks - including State Bank of India , Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank - will need external equity capital of 700 billion rupees to 950 billion rupees, over a two-year period ending March 2019, to fully meet Basel III capital rules.

"Moody's believes that capital infusions from the government remain the only viable source of external equity capital, because of the public sector banks' low capital market valuations, which would likely continue to deny them the option of raising fresh equity from the capital markets," the agency said.

It said it expected impaired loans to increase during the horizon of this outlook, but at a slower pace versus the past two years. Provisioning costs will stay "broadly in line" with the levels during the last fiscal year to March, Moody's said.

The other state banks Moody's rates are Indian Overseas Bank IDBI Bank , c http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/stockpricequote/banks-public-sector/orientalbankcommerce/OBC and Central Bank of India
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, Ashish Kyal, Gaurav Ratnaparkhi and Ruchit Jain battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis

Ashish Kyal of wavesstrategy.com

Buy BEML with a stop loss at Rs 1210 and target of Rs 1310

Buy Bharat Forge with a stop loss at Rs 1185 and target of Rs 1265

Sell Just Dial futures with stop loss at Rs 456 and target of Rs 423

Sell Cummins India futures with a stop loss at Rs 942 and target of Rs 880

Gaurav Ratnaparkhi of Sharekhan

Buy Dena Bank with a stop loss at Rs 33.40 and target of Rs 35.60

Sell Idea Cellular futures with a stop loss at Rs 81.20 and target of Rs 76.20

Sell Capital First futures with a stop loss of Rs 723 and target at Rs 680

Sell Amara Raja Batteries futures with a stop loss at Rs 892 and target of Rs 836

Ruchit Jain of Angel Broking

Buy JSW Steel with a stop loss at Rs 191, target of Rs 202

Buy NMDC with a stop loss at Rs 112, target of Rs 122

Buy HPCL with a stop loss at Rs 531, target of Rs 575

Buy Strides Shasun with a stop loss at Rs 899 and target of Rs 990
Manoj Murlidharan of Religare Securities told CNBC-TV18, "We like Canara Bank. We would still like to go with the futures at this point of time Rs 356 to 358. That is a price we recommend to buy that with a stop loss of Rs 349 and we are expecting a short-term target of close to Rs 373-375 which might be the VWAP of some distribution that might come in."

"HDFC, wonderfully it has, actually seen an accumulation and we believe the peak might be still a 60-80 points more. So, at this level, even yesterday if you see, it was more or less flat and it has closed almost at the VWAP of the entire day and that gives you good indication that we might see a surge here on. So, at Rs 1,600-1,604 we should buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,576 and we are expecting a target of Rs 1,660 in the short-term," he said.

"The cement sector has been muted at least yesterday. We generally try to see what the FIIs are doing and the difference that we see is the cash market buying or selling versus the stocks because that is the root how the appetite money comes in and then we focus on the sector where there is derivative money which is come in."

"So, I guess Ambuja Cements is one stock we can still buy because there has been accumulation yesterday and the stock has not moved much. So, we are expecting a follow up buying on that. So, at Rs 235, we recommend buying that with a stop loss of Rs 229 and we are expecting a short-term target of close to Rs 246-248. That should be the VWAP where some profit booking might come in," he added.
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Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com told CNBC-TV18, "I am not very upbeat on metals. I think metals could be a one-off even today. Pharmaceutical is suddenly looking up in some cases, but Hindustan Unilever (HUL) from the FMCG pack has been outperforming. That is a stock I would be looking at to buy now."

"The second idea is to buy BEML. Infrastructure that includes Larsen and Toubro (L&T), BEML or even Crompton Greaves to some extent and a lot of small infrastructure companies have been showing good momentum. So, today again BEML is a buying opportunity," he said.

"Apart from that, the microfinance companies are not showing great traction. They are all going down slowly. So, Ujjivan Financial Services is a short sell. Now that is a short sell for a small period of time because this is an up trending market. However, these are the two buy ideas and Ujjivan is a short sell."

"Housing finance companies are in a strong bull market. So if you dont have a position, you could really buy either LIC Housing Finance HDFC , or Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL), any of these three stocks at this point as an investing idea. However, after this enormous run up for the last few days, it is becoming difficult to get a trade entry. So, as an investing idea it is perfect, but I dont have a trade in housing finance for the day."
Ashwani Gujral of ashwanigujral.com told CNBC-TV18, "Metals has broken out, so Tata Steel is doing a breakaway gap. So, this is a buy with a stop loss of Rs 500 and target of Rs 530. GAIL India is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 396 and target of Rs 378."

"ONGC is also collapsing. That is a sell with a stop loss of Rs 174 and target of Rs 162."

"Basically, all kinds of NBFCs even if they are correcting today like Can Fin Homes, Indiabulls Housing, Muthoot Finance, the ex-broking NBFCs, this is a theme for all seasons. Even when the market is sideways, goes down a bit unless there is a major midcap correction, even Bajaj Finance. So, NBFCs is an on-going theme, so, try to enter on all corrections," he added.

"PVR seems to have bottomed out. So that is probably a medium-term call for the day."

"The Adani Group stocks are wild stocks, normal retail guys should keep away from this. We have seen what happened with the ADAG, Adani is somewhat similar kind of group. Stay with clean, good corporate governance type companies and you will be safe. There were no reasons for a 70-80 percent rally. Again possibly there are no reasons even in Adani Transmission . These are stocks which are more controlled by F&O considerations than great amount of fundamental or technical. Basically if you still want to buy it, I think anywhere between Rs 105-110, if we get to those levels, you can try to buy it with Rs 100 stop. However, overall, it is avoidable," he said..
business Inter-ministerial Group to consider providing tax sops to telecom companies: Sources Watch Kritika Saxena of CNBC-TV18 giving details of what the Inter-ministerial Group might be planning to improve the situation of the telecom companies.
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For a long time, popular footwear manufacturers and retailers like Bata and Relaxo hogged the limelight and caught the markets fancy, despite their premium valuations. In the midst of this, Sreeleathers Limited (SLL) (with a market capitalization Rs 370 crore), a relatively unheard-of company, deserves an investors attention owing to its consistently strong financials since the past few years.

The Kolkata-based company, a retailer and wholesaler of footwear and leather articles, manufactures a diverse range of products encompassing mens footwear and unisex leather articles (bags, wallets, hand bags, trolley bags, school bags and jackets). With 30 retail outlets (including franchise-owned ones), the companys presence spans across nine states in India, mostly in the eastern region.

What differentiates SLL from its competitors is its ability to grow profitably in select markets (West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand being the decisive ones). Unlike its larger peers, the company continues to play successfully on its strengths by not opting for a pan-India presence.

While critics may argue that this may limit SLLs top-line progress, a focused approach, backed by consequent cost savings on the product promotion and distribution front, have yielded superior margins, evident from the company's performance over the years.

A better understanding of the local consumers preferences positions SLL reasonably well to cater to price-sensitive buyers (mainly in the non-metro areas) instead of competing head-on with its branded counterparts in major cities, where people are comparatively less price-sensitive.

SLL boasts of a steady financial track record. Barring minor margin blips in FY17, its overall parameters seem to be pretty well balanced. The lower return ratios can be attributed to the companys inability to sweat its assets as effectively as its peers. Going forward, with revenues gaining traction, we expect the returns to improve.

SLL Vs Peers

Return Ratios & Valuation Multiples

GST: The Game-changer

Even as SLL competed with organised players, it simultaneously faced price competition from the unorganised entities. The tax arbitrage that the latter enjoyed in the pre-GST era eroded the competitive positioning of efficient companies like SLL.

However, in the post-GST phase, the arbitrage benefit wouldnt exist since all manufacturers would come under the purview of a similar levy structure, thereby providing a key opportunity for firms like SLL, which prima facie cater to price-conscious customers, to gain a greater share of the market at the expense of the unorganised units.

Industry in a Sweet Spot

According to a Technopak report, Indias footwear market, which has been growing by 12 percent per annum, is anticipated to be worth USD 11.5 billion by FY20 in comparison to USD 6 billion in FY14. The number of footwear products manufactured domestically is estimated to exceed 4 billion pairs by FY20 from the existing level of 2.1 billion. The per capita consumption of footwear in the country, which stands at 1.7 pairs per annum, fairly low when compared to the international average of 3-5 pairs, has an immense potential to grow in tandem with the increase in middle-class population.

While SLL had a decent and smooth journey so far, it has to manage volatility arising out of fluctuations in raw material prices and labour costs. The new GST rates for footwear at 18 percent (where the sale price exceeds Rs 500) and 5 percent (for those costing less than Rs 500) are unlikely to impact SLLs competitiveness materially.

Valuation

We foresee SLL participating meaningfully in the secular growth opportunity of the industry. While we are emphasizing more on its organic investment propositions, the premium for inorganic events for a small regional company like this cannot be ruled out. At the current market price, the stock, which trades at 15.6x FY19 projected earnings, seems to be reasonably priced given its future prospects. Long-term investors, looking for moderate growth with decent quality, wouldnt perhaps want to take their eyes off this efficient performer.
FDI

India continues to be a favourite FDI destination though tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors, an UNCTAD report said.

It also said that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to developing Asia shrank by 15 per cent to USD 443 billion in 2016, the first decline since 2012. This affected three sub- regions, with only South Asia spared.

However, UNCTAD's World Investment Report 2017 said an improved economic outlook in major economies, such as ASEAN, China and India, will likely to boost investors' confidence, propping up the region's FDI prospects for 2017.

"The favourite FDI destinations remain the US, China and India," UNCTAD said, adding "Although new liberalisation efforts continue to improve the investment climate in India, tax-related concerns remain a deterrent for some foreign investors".

In South Asia, FDI inflows increased by 6 per cent to USD 54 billion. Flows to India were stagnant at USD 44 billion.

FDI inflows to developing Asia are expected to increase by 15 per cent in 2017 to USD 515 billion, as an improved economic outlook in major Asian economies is likely to boost investor confidence.

In major recipients such as China, India and Indonesia, renewed policy efforts to attract FDI could contribute to an increase of inflows in 2017, it said.

The foreign outflows from South Asia declined by 29 per cent to only USD 6 billion in 2016, as India's outward FDI dropped by about one third, it added.

Cross-border merger and acquisition deals have become increasingly important for foreign multinational enterprises to enter the rapidly-growing Indian market, the report said.

In 2016, there were a number of significant deals, including the USD 13 billion acquisition of Essar Oil by Rosneft (Russian Federation).

The report noted that signing of a tax treaty by India and Mauritius in May 2016 "might have" contributed to reduced round-tripping FDI.

It further noted that despite a historically high number of announced greenfield projects in 2015, FDI flows to India were largely flat at about USD 44 billion in 2016, up only 1 per cent from 2015.

Foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly relying on cross-border M&As to penetrate the rapidly growing Indian market.

Pakistan's inflows increased by 56 per cent due to significant investment in infrastructure from China in support of the One Belt One Road initiative.

For the first time, China was the world's second-largest investor as FDI outflows surged by 44 per cent to USD 183 billion, a new high.

BRICS - the economic group comprising Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China and South Africa  accounted for 22 per cent of global GDP but received only 11 per cent of global inward FDI stock in 2016.

FDI flows to the five BRICS countries last year rose by 7 per cent to USD 277 billion. The increase in inflows to the Russian Federation, India and South Africa more than compensated for the decline of FDI to Brazil and China.
women_25240110

Come July 1, employers in India will be required to have a creche facility (within a prescribed distance) mandatorily if they employ 50 or more employees. According to a study by daycare services provider ProEves, 81 percent companies are considering a daycare tie-up though a majority of them want costs to be shared.

Earlier, the law allowed three months or 12 weeks of maternity leave which has now been extended to 26 weeks under the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017. This new law will apply to all establishments having 10 or more employees and will be applicable only for the first two children.

The ProEves Managing the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 Survey said that contrary to the earlier negative reactions, 67 percent of the surveyed companies are positive about the new amendments to the Maternity Benefit Act, while 24 percent are neutral.

With the extended Maternity Leave Benefit period, India now qualifies among the 16 countries having the longest paid leave for new mothers. Countries like Singapore which have 16 weeks of paid leave (8 are funded by the employer and remaining 8 through public funds). In Australia and Canada the respective maternity leave of (18) and (17) weeks is paid by public funds.

The clarifications to the Act state that companies need to provide for the creche facility from July 1, 2017. Companies are looking at the April-June quarter for implementing the same. The study said that since the average time taken from mapping the demand, to the Centre short-listing and rolling out the details to companies is 3-4 weeks, companies should start preparing immediately.

According to the survey, the creche clause has come as a surprise to many companies. While 81 percent are considering a daycare tie-up, about 10 percent are investing in onsite set-up and 9 percent are still to act on it.

However, 46 percent of companies are looking at sharing the cost. Further, around 70 percent of companies looking for a near site tie up are exploring ways of sharing the cost.

Quality childcare comes at a premium. Hence to be able to provide for the same companies have to look at a co-pay model, said the study.

While there is no cap on children's age provided in this Act, companies are complying with the age provision mentioned in The Factories Act where the creche facility should be provided up to 6 years of age. For companies that have an onsite daycare, utilisation is maximum up to the age of 3-4 years.

In India, the maternity leave funding is an investment into gender diversity that companies are mandated to make. The study said that this makes the cost of post-maternity loss incredibly high for companies in India. It added that companies should look at spending at least 1 percent of cost of post maternity employee loss in the maternity connect programmes to safeguard the investment made in maternity leave.

This survey was conducted across 70 organizations covering various sectors like FMCG, IT, manufacturing, ITES, e-commerce, retail and financial services making this study the single largest study on maternity, childcare and parental support practices in India.

The Amendment has also introduced an enabling provision relating to work from home (WFH) for women, which may be exercised after the expiry of the 26 weeks leave period. It is based on the nature of work and mutually agreed by the women employee & the manager.

Here, 43 companies already have a WFH policy for all its employees, while 36 percent companies are in the process of drafting such a policy.
Ahmedabad: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addresses a round table conference on Global Growth Through Indian Economy in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. PTI Photo(PTI5_23_2017_000170B)

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The finance ministry is examining the possibility of merger of two state-run financial institutions India Infrastructure Finance Company (IIFCL) and IFCI to create a bigger financing firm for the sector.

The proposal is under the active consideration of the ministry so that the huge deficit, which infrastructure space has, can be bridged, a senior finance ministry official said.

Currently, the financial institutions are not capable of financing huge infrastructure requirement as there is mismatch between asset and liability, the official said.

Asked if merger in the general insurance space is also being considered, the official said there is no such proposal.

"We just have four general insurance companies, so where is the scope of merger. These are small entities with regional focus," the official said.

There are four PSU general insurance companies New India Assurance Company, United India Insurance Company, Oriental Insurance Company and National Insurance Company.

Recently, the Cabinet approved the reduction of a stake in five state-owned general insurance companies to 75% by listing them on the bourses. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave nod to listing of five government-owned general insurance companies including re-insurance firm General Insurance Corp of India (GIC).

The government shareholding in these companies will be reduced from 100 per cent to 75 per cent in one or more tranches over a period of time and the department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) has already identified companies and initiated process in some cases.

The government plans to divest Rs 11,000 crore worth of stake in public sector unit (PSU) general insurance companies to meet the steep disinvestment target of Rs 72,500 crore next fiscal.
Vijay Chopra of enochventure.com told CNBC-TV18, "My sense is that couple of quarters down the line, Tata Motors should stabilise and JLR numbers should look up. My sense is that there are things which are happening good in Europe and due to that we can see a push up in the JLR sales so to say. So, probably this stock can go up till Rs 530 odd if somebody holds for the longer term perspective."

"However, in the short-term, there might be pain, we might see some kind of slipping down happening in the stock but for the longer term it as the potential of reaching Rs 530,""he added.

"Overall on the IT sector, there is a lot of clarity which is sought on what kind of future businesses, future clients they are going to get from countries like United States or Europe. There are existing issues regarding to a lot of pink slips which have been given to a lot of employees and hiring new talent in US or in India and reskilling them would be a lot of cost to the IT companies."

"So, my sense is that it is not going to go anywhere until and unless we get a very clear signal from the major markets. US, Europe happen to be the major markets. Now, the light at the end of the tunnel is that there would be a lot of domestic order flow which is also going to come from the kind of Digital India initiative which the government is taking. However, that would take time, that would not bring dollars to the company and I think that IT companies would take some time to consolidate."

"Probably, Wipro can head towards Rs 580-590. However, I think that crossing Rs 600 would be a definite challenge. So, if at all you get a rally, it is better you shift to some other story."
The other IPO which also received huge responses were Happiest Minds Technologies and Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, which was subscribed 150.98 times and 149.3 times respectively. Interestingly, both these stocks have seen bumper listing gained over 100 percent. Let's see how the IPO subscription and listing happened in 2020 so far, considered only IPOs issue size over Rs 100 crore.

Tejas Networks Ltd said it has fixed the price band between Rs 250 to Rs 257 per equity share for its proposed initial public offer (IPO).

The company is making an initial public offering of equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each for cash comprising of a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs 450 crore and an offer for sale of up to 12,711,605 equity shares through offer for sale, it said in a statement.

The offer opens on June 14 and closes on June 16.

Tejas Networks designs, develops and sells high-performance and cost-competitive products to telecommunications service providers, internet service providers, utility companies, defence companies and government entities in over 60 countries.

The company proposes to expand its business by adopting a series of strategies, it said.

The company has R&D centres in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram.

The Book Running Lead Managers (BRLMs) to the offer are Axis Capital Limited, Citigroup Global Markets India, Edelweiss Financial Services and Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India).
A Jet Airways passenger plane takes off from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport in Ahmedabad

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Naresh Goyal-promoted private carrier Jet Airways today said it has partnered with Mexican flag carrier Aeromexico for codeshare flights and frequent flyers programme.

The two airlines have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to give effect to the partnership, Jet Airways said in a release here.

The MoU, signed by Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Aeromexico Chief Executive Officer Andres Conesa on the sidelines of the IATA Annual General Meeting in Cancun (Mexico), outlines cooperation in the areas of enabling codeshare flights and frequent flyer programmes, it said.

As part of the arrangement, both carriers will code on each other's services between India and Mexico via common gates in Europe (London Heathrow, Paris Charles De Gaulle and Amsterdam).

Codesharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless travel to destinations where it has no presence.

To begin with, Jet Airways will place its marketing code '9W' on Aeromexico flights from London Heathrow to Mexico City, the release said adding that in turn, Aeromexico will place its marketing code on Jet Airways' direct services from London Heathrow to Mumbai and Delhi.

The initial codeshare flights via London Heathrow will open for sale as well as travel later this year, subject to government approvals, Jet Airways said in the release.

The codeshare partnership will offer passengers enhanced connectivity and seamless access to the combined networks of both the airlines, with convenient connections via Jet Airways' European gateways, it said.

The comprehensive MoU signed between the two carriers, also includes cooperation in the area of reciprocal frequent flyer benefits for members.

At the MoU signing ceremony, Goyal said, "We are delighted to announce our partnership with Aeromexico which will significantly enhance the international reach of both airlines bringing increased benefits to all our guests."

"We are confident that this new codeshare partnership will stimulate the demand for business and tourist travel between India and Mexico," he said.

"The new relationship between Jet Airways and Aeromexico illustrates our commitment as well as strategic efforts to continuously strengthen our network, connecting India with the rest of the world as well as providing opportunity and convenience to our guests who can now connect to Mexico from India via our European gateways and vice versa," Goyal said.

Conesa said, "It is a great pleasure for us to settle this code share partnership with Jet Airways that will build new bridges and connect Mexico to India more easily."

"This achievement is a manifest of our will to continuously offer new flight destinations to our passengers. Also, by connecting with an important country as India, Aeromexico creates new cultural bonds and tourism exchange between both nations," Conesa added.
The Chief Executive Officer of Tata Mutual Fund, Ramamoorthy Ganesh has resigned from the fund house.

Ganesh had joined Tata Mutual Fund on June 29, 2015. Prior to joining Tata Mutual Fund, he was managing director of Blackrock Inc.

He had spent over 14 years managing global business operations including portfolio administration for institutional clients across locations in US, India and EMEA. He was responsible for performance measurement, portfolio valuation, custody operations and client reporting for institutional portfolios of over USD 1.5 trillion.

He started his career with ICICI and MeesPierson Curacao NV (Netherlands Antilles) prior to joining Birla Capital International AMC, managers for Birla Mutual Fund. He became the first chief executive officer for Birla Capital International AMC (Birla Capital). During his tenure at Birla Capital, Birla Mutual Fund launched several mutual fund schemes, pioneering the entry of private sector mutual funds in India.

Currently, Tata MF is the 12largest fund house in the country with AUM of Rs 43000 crore.
Consumer electronics major Samsung said it will invest Rs 4,915 crore to double its manufacturing capacity for smartphones and refrigerators at its Noida (UP) plant.

The Korean chaebol said that the investment would position the Noida plant as a major production hub and create about 5,000 new jobs.

As a result of the investment spread over the next two years in the Noida factory, the production capacity of smartphones will rise to 12 million units a month from the existing 5 million.

The capacity for refrigerators would double to 3 million units per annum (against 1.5 million at present), and for TV panels to 2.6 million units (from 1.3 million), an official said.

"The investment reaffirms Samsung's commitment to Make- in-India and Make-for-India and to the state of Uttar Pradesh," a company statement said.

The Noida plant was was set up in 1996 and is the first of two manufacturing units in India for the company. The plant started with the manufacture of televisions way back in 1997, and mobile phone manufacturing unit was added in 2005.

"The expansion of the plant on an additional 35 acres of land adjacent to the current facility will double the production capacity of both mobile phones and refrigerators...," the statement said.

Besides the factory in Noida, Samsung also has a production unit in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, five R&D centres and one design centre in Noida, employing over 70,000 people.

The company's investment proposal was recently approved by the UP Government under its Mega Policy.

"The expansion of the plant will act as a catalyst for the development of a robust electronics manufacturing ecosystem and is expected to generate thousands of new jobs, both direct and indirect, across the country," the statement added.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held at the new site today in the presence of Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, and NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.

Speaking on the occasison, HC Hong, President and CEO of Samsung Southwest Asia, said, "A bigger manufacturing plant will help us cater to the growing demand for Samsung products across the country".
An Uber senior executive who had obtained confidential medical reports of a Gurgaon executive raped inside one of the registered cabs in Delhi in December 2014, has quit the company.

Recode was first to report the development. Uber's Asia Pacific head Eric Alexander had allegedly obtained confidential medical records of the rape victim, which were passed around in the company up to CEO Travis Kalanick, a Recode report said. Uber confirmed that the senior executive 'no longer worked with the company.'

The woman who had suffered a sexual assault by a Delhi based cab driver registered on Uber's platform had also filed a lawsuit against Uber, Inc, in a California court.

The case was reported to have been settled out of court. A Delhi court had found the Uber driver guilty of charges in 2015 and granted him life imprisonment.

An Uber spokesperson also told Recode that Alexander no longer works with the company.

Uber India directly reported into Alexander at the time, and he flew down to the national capital in the aftermath of the crime committed by one of the driver partners.

Alexander along with top Uber Delhi managers were questioned by the investigating authorities.

Uber reportedly provided detailed maps and location of the vehicle before and after the crime was committed, which later led to the arrest of the accused driver.

The Gurgaon based victim went ahead to engage Wigdor LLP, a New York based Law firm to file a lawsuit against Uber, Inc in California courts. Alexander was working with Uber since June 2014, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Statement from Uber India on the issue:

The 2014 crime in Delhi was absolutely horrific and something no one should ever go through. Uber responded by working closely with law enforcement and the prosecution to support their investigation and see the perpetrator brought to justice. We have taken significant steps to improve our safety processes and policies in recent years to ensure the safety of everyone who uses the app, Amit Jain, President, Uber India said.
Angel Commodities' report on Crude Oil

WTI oil prices declined by 5.1 percent on Wednesday to close at $45.7 per barrel after an unexpected increase in U.S. inventories of crude and gasoline fanned fears that output cuts by major world oil producers have not done much to drain a global glut. Crude stocks in the United States grew 3.3 million barrels to 513 million barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Outlook

Time and again the efforts by the OPEC nations for the compliance on oil output cut is getting compensated by increase in oil production in the US. Besides, rising inventory for the first time after seven weeks raised concerns about the incremental demand coming from the summer driving season.

On the MCX, oil prices are expected to trade lower today. Although international markets are trading higher by 0.6 percent at $46 per barrel.

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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Tata Power Company shares lost 1.4 percent intraday Thursday after the rating agency downgraded the company, citing concerns over under-recovery of Mundra power project.

The company said ICRA has revised long term rating for the company from AA to AA- while the short term rating has been reaffirmed at A1+.

The existing rating from the rating agency has a negative outlook in view of under-recovery of fuel cost at the 4,000 MW Mundra Ultra Mega Power Project operated by the company's subsidiary.

"The revision in long term rating takes into account disallowance of any relief to Mundra UMPP under 'force majeure' or 'change in law' clauses as per recent judgement of the Supreme Court," Tata Power said in its filing.

The company is also rated by other domestic and international rating agencies but at present, there has been no revision in those ratings, it added.

Source: Tata Power

At 12:04 hours IST, the stock price was quoting at Rs 79.05, down Rs 0.70, or 0.88 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Sunil Shankar Matkar
Workers collect plaster at the Gypsum factory in the Makhmur district, Iraq, August 7, 2016. Picture taken August 7, 2016. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari - RTSPGJH

The government has extended an anti-dumping duty on imports of gypsum plaster boards from China, Indonesia, Thailand, and UAE to protect domestic players.

Saint-Gobain India Pvt Ltd had sought an extension of the duty on the imports of the boards from these four countries.

In April 2013, an anti-dumping duty of up to USD 73.8 per cubic meter was imposed till June 7 this year.

"Unless revoked earlier, (the duty) shall remain in force up to and inclusive of the 6 June 2018," the Finance Ministry has said in a notification.

Countries impose anti-dumping duties to guard domestic industry against the surge in below-cost imports.

India has also imposed similar duties on several other products including steel, fabrics, and chemicals being exported by different countries here like China.

Anti-dumping steps are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry.

They are not a measure to restrict import or cause an unjustified increase in the cost of products.
Representative image

Congress created a ruckus in the Uttarakhand assembly. On the opening day of its budget session today the opposition accused the Centre of running away from a CBI probe into the multi-crore national highway scam to shield NHAI officials involved in it.

After the BJP came to power in March, alleged irregularities to the tune of Rs 240 crore were detected in the acquisition of land for the National Highway-74 between 2011-2016.

The Congress MLAs rushed to demand a debate on the issue by suspending all other business listed for the day, forcing Speaker Premchand Aggarwal to adjourn the proceedings for 15 minutes initially and then extending it to 30 minutes.

As soon as the speaker assumed the Chair to preside over the day's proceedings, Leader of Opposition Indira Hridayesh rose from her seat to draw his attention to her notice for a debate on the subject under Rule 310.The speaker asked the opposition members to not insist on a debate under Rule 310 at the cost of the Question Hour. Hridayesh tried to convince the chair that the issue was very important as a huge scam which may run into nearly Rs 500 crore had been detected in the construction of the NH-74 and a CBI probe was still awaited despite Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat's recommendation for it.

"Shying away from a CBI probe at a time when their own chief minister has recommended it and sent two reminders to the Centre to expedite the same may be costly for the BJP government which never tires of flaunting its zero-tolerance to corruption," she said.

Hridayesh accused the Centre of not only dragging its feet over the CM's recommendation for a CBI probe, but also trying to protect NHAI officials named in an FIR in connection with it.

The Leader of Opposition read Gadkari's letter which states that such an action will adversely affect the morale of NHAI officials and impede the progress of projects taken up by the authority in the state.

Taking exception to the "threatening tone" of the letter which said that if the state government went ahead with its action the NHAI will have to re-examine usefulness of taking up more projects in the state, she said it reflected a clear lack of political will on part of the powers to institute a CBI probe.She accused the Centre of mounting undue pressure on the state to withdraw action against those involved in the huge scam terming it as an attack on the country's federal structure.

Hridayesh also criticised the state government for transferring Kumaon Commissioner D Senthil Pandiyan whose report forms the basis of the state government's recommendation for a CBI probe saying an honest official was being harassed for exposing corruption.She said if the state government does not go for a CBI probe i it will be in conflict with its own claim of having a zero tolerance to corruption.

Hridayesh slammed the Centre for sending Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi himself to Uttarakhand High Court to represent the NHAI officials who had sought withdrawal of their names from an FIR lodged in connection with the scam.Accusing the Centre of deliberately ignoring the recommendation of an elected chief minister, she asked "If you are clean why are you trying to suppress it?"

Echoing Hridayesh, Congress MLA Karan Mahra said the chief minister's recommendation for a CBI probe into the scam was a welcome step but the Centre's unwillingness to act on his recommendation is highly condemnable.

Speaking on behalf of the state government on the notice, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Pant gave the background of the case informing the House about the promptness with which the chief minister had acted in the matter.

He said the chief minister had issued a notification on March 25 recommending a CBI probe into the scam besides immediately suspending six state government officials for their suspected role in it."That clearly shows our intention which should not be held in doubt," he said.Noting that initiating a CBI probe into a scam was the investigative agency's prerogative, he said ever since the state's creation 13 cases had been referred to the CBI by successive governments which had not initiated a probe into any of them.
The results for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 examinations are unlikely to be announced before June 13.

While the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has asked for the stay on the results to be listed, both the Madras High Court as well as Gujarat High Court as well will only hear the cases on June 12 and 13 respectively.

When declared, results will be displayed on official website cbseneet.nic.in.

The case came into prominence after there was an allegation that the NEET papers in the regional languages like Tamil were easier than the one in English. Post this, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the declaration of results. On June 12, Madras HC will examine all the papers in the different languages.

Similarly, in Gujarat, candidates had moved the court saying that the test paper in Gujarati was tougher than English and that it should be scrapped.

CBSE had moved Gujarat HC yesterday and had said that they had framed a different set of questions for English and Gujarati in a fear that the regional papers may get leaked.

Further, the CBSE said that it is looking to challenge in the Supreme Court the order of the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court granting interim stay on publication of results of NEET across the country.

A CBSE official also said while the results may not be published until June 12, they are planning to challenge the decision of the Madras HC.

An official of the CBSE present in the court stated that the interim stay put on publication of results of NEET which was conducted on 7 May across the country will also apply to Gujarat till 12 June when the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court next hears the case.

The Madras HC will the question papers in all the 10 languages that NEET was conducted this year to look into the uniformity of questions and also level of difficulty.
Everything is being done to secure the release of former Naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, and he will be provided with all support, Navy Chief Sunil Lanba said on Thursday.

Following his death sentence, India had approached the International Court of Justice at the Hague last month seeking a provisional stay of execution of Jadhav which was granted.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence to 46-year- old Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

"We will provide all support to him and his family. The country is doing all that can be done to secure his release," Lanba said, on the sidelines of a flag-in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.
The first meeting of the representatives of various farmers groups, today resolved to amplify their protests across Maharashtra if their demands, are not accepted by the state government by June 11.

A number of farmer leaders, including Raju Shetti MP, president of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna , Raghunath Patil, Bachhu Kadu MLA, Maharashtra Kisan Sabha (MKS) members Ajit Navle and Raju Desale, participated in the meeting held here in the afternoon.

Shetti, whose SSS is an ally of the BJP-led NDA government in Maharashtra stressed the need to take farmers struggle to the national level.He sought support of all opposition parties for the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report and alleged that only traders and middlemen profited from the flawed Tur purchase policy of the state government.Shetti said that he would be visiting Madhya Pradesh, where the ongoing agitation by farmers has taken a violent turn.

Farmers in Maharashtra launched an unprecedented stir on June 1 which has affected the supply of milk and vegetables in major urban centres including Mumbai. While refraining from selling their agricultural produce in many parts of the state, the cultivators took to the streets to disrupt the movement of vehicles carrying farm produce to cities.

Among prominent demands raised by farmers are a complete loan waiver, a guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce, and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report.

Earlier a group of farmers decided to call off the protest after Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a partial loan waiver for small and marginal farmers on June 3. The measure is to come into effect by October 31.

However, protests continued as a section of farmers stuck to its demand for a blanket loan waiver.At the meeting, Navle said farmers will start holding "thiyya andolan" (sit-in protest) outside tehsil offices and district collectorates across the state from June 12.

"If our demands are not met by June 11, farmers will resort to 'thiyya andolan' June 12 onwards. Farmers will start holding protests like rasta roko, rail roko across the state on June 13 onwards," he said.

Farmers from Nashik district, which has emerged as the epicenter of protests are also demanding scrapping of the proposed 701-km Mumbai-Nagpur "Samruddhi" expressway project.

Meanwhile, agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs) in Nashik district have started receiving supply of vegetables and fruits from farmers, after days of shortage. Supply of milk has also become normal.

Addressing the meeting, Bacchu Kadu said farmers will not let ministers in Maharashtra address meetings in the state during the second stage of agitation if their demands are not met."We will take our struggle to the national level," he said, adding that 70 leaders of various farmers' organisations participated in today's meeting of the steering committee.

Meanwhile, soaring prices of vegetables and fruits in Mumbai and some other cities are slowly getting plateaued with increased inflow of agricultural produce.

According to official sources substantial inflow of vegetables and fruits in Pune, Navi Mumbai and Vashi agricultural produce market committees (APMCs) has somewhat stabilised their prices in the last two days, .

Yesterday, security was stepped up outside houses of legislators and MPs of the ruling BJP after agitating farmers put a lock outside the house of R T Deshmukh, the party MLA from Majalgaon.
Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

Speaking to reporters here, Naidu also dismissed the Congress' demand that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Targetting the opposition party, he recalled an incident in the state's Betul district on January 12, 1998, where 24 farmers died allegedly in police firing ordered by then chief minister and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

"The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there," Naidu said.

He dubbed the party vice president's planned visit to Mandsaur, the hotbed of the ongoing farmers' agitation, as "yet another photo opportunity".

On Chouhan's resignation, Naidu questioned whether Singh had resigned from the post of chief minister after the farmers, who were seeking compensation after a hailstorm, were killed.

"Did they seek resignation of Singh when the 24 farmers were killed? Did the Congress vice president visit the victim farmers then?" Naidu asked.

The minister described Chouhan as the most farmer- friendly chief minister and listed welfare measures taken by the BJP-led Centre and state government.
A view of India's presidential palace Rashtrapati Bhawan is seen during the evening in New Delhi July 10, 2008. REUTERS/B Mathur (INDIA) - RTX7TF9

The Election Commission of India (EC) on Wednesday announced that the 15th Presidential Election will be held on July 17, a week before the term of current President Pranab Mukherjee ends.

Article 62 of the Constitution requires an election to fill the vacancy due to the expiration of the term of office of the outgoing President to be completed before the expiration of the term. The votes will be counted on July 20.

Leaders of opposition parties have been meeting in recent weeks to zero in on a consensus candidate. A fortnight ago, Congress President Sonia Gandhi had convened the meeting which was attended by senior leaders from Trinamool Congress, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal (United) among others.

With the election date now officially declared, talks are expected to intensify in the coming days.

President Pranab Mukherjee is eligible for a second term and the Congress veteran would sail through should the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) nominate him. However, it appears that the NDA wants to put forward its own candidate.

The President is chosen by an electoral college comprising elected MPs and MLAs. While the BJP is the single largest party in the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and rules more states than any other party, its candidate is not guaranteed to win and it will need the help of a neutral like the AIADMK to take it over the line.

While there has been no official word yet, several names have been doing the rounds in both camps. Heres a round-up of the top contenders so far:

NDA

Sumitra Mahajan

Sumitra Mahajan is the current Speaker of the Lok Sabha and is the longest-serving woman MP. She was the minister for human resources, communication and petroleum in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government (1999-2004). She has also headed several parliamentary committees.

Draupadi Murmu

Draupadi Murmu is believed to be one of the top contenders. Hailing from Odisha, the BJP leader served as a minister in the state government. She is currently serving as the first woman governor of Jharkhand. If elected, she will be the first person from a tribal community to become President.

LK Advani

The BJP stalwart has served as Union Home Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and twice as Leader of Opposition. But his advanced age (89) and a pending Babri Masjid case will most likely work against him.

Murli Manohar Joshi

Joshi is a senior BJP leader who served as the Human Resource Development minister in the Vajpayee government. He is close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. But like Advani, he too has the baggage of a Babri case potentially damaging his prospects.

Sushma Swaraj

Swaraj is the External Affairs Minister in the Modi government and is a former Supreme Court lawyer. She has been a Member of Parliament seven times and served as the fifth Chief Minister of Delhi. She enjoys a very good rapport with opposition leaders.

Opposition

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Gopalkrishna Gandhi is the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. He is an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who has also served as the joint-secretary to the President of India from 1987 to 1992. A former Governor of West Bengal, his clean image should work in his favour.

Meira Kumar

Hailing from Bihar, Kumar is a five-time Member of Parliament (MP) and the daughter of popular Dalit leader Jagjivan Ram. Kumar served as the first woman speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014, where she was known for her soft-spoken ways and calm demeanour amid frequent chaos. Before joining politics, Kumar worked with the Indian Foreign Service.

Sharad Pawar

Talk of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief being in the race has been doing the rounds for several months. Pawar has served as Maharashtra Chief Minister in the past and has frequently been considered as prime ministerial candidate. However, he is believed to have rejected a Congress offer to enter the race for the country's highest office.

Sharad Yadav

Sharad Yadav was the president of the Janata Dal (United) and enjoyed a long tenure. He has been elected to Lok Sabha seven times and Rajya Sabha twice.
Polls to elect the next President of India will be held on July 17 for which the nomination process will begin from June 14 with the issuance of a notification, the Election Commission announced.

The counting of votes will take place on July 20 in New Delhi where all the ballot boxes will be brought.

Both the ruling NDA and the opposition are yet open their cards on the presidential candidate. While the ruling alliance is likely to announce its nominee in the next few days, the opposition is seeking to unite all non-NDA parties under a common platform to put up a consensus candidate for the presidential election.

As per the schedule, June 28 is the last day for nominations, while a candidate can withdraw from the electoral battle till July 1. If there is no consensus between the NDA and the opposition, the number of serious candidates in the fray will be clear by July 1 evening.

Various opposition parties have already held deliberations and have decided to set up a sub group that is likely to meet within a week to build consensus on a joint candidate.

The electorate, comprising elected Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members and members of state assemblies, is tilted in favour of the NDA, but the opposition is trying to woo some regional parties to support their candidate.

The tenure of the incumbent, Pranab Mukherjee, comes to an end on July 24. So far 13 persons, including Mukherjee, have held the post, with V V Giri being the president on two occasions.

The electoral college which elects the President through the system of proportional representation, comprises MPs and members of state legislative assemblies. A total of 4896 voters --- 4120 MLAs and 776 elected MPs -- are eligible to cast their ballot. MLCs of states with legislative councils are not part of the electoral college.

While the Lok Sabha Speaker, an elected member, can vote, the two nominated members in the Lower House from the Anglo-Indian community cannot. 12 nominated members in Rajya Sabha are also ineligible.

Since the election is through a secret ballot, the parties cannot issue a whip to their members to vote for a particular candidate, Chief Election Commissioner Nasim Zaidi told a press conference here.

Responding to a question, he said the election to 10 Rajya Sabha seats, postponed earlier due to presidential polls and EVM challenge held last week, would now be held after the Presidential election.

He said the 10 members would be retiring after the presidential elections and are entitled to vote in the July 17 poll.

When asked whether the 20 AAP MLAs, against whom the EC is hearing a petition seeking their disqualification for allegedly holding office of profit, can vote in the polls, he said "as on today" they can vote. Originally, the case was against 21 MLAs, but one had resigned.

A total of 13 vacancies in Lok Sabha and state assemblies will be filled up after the presidential elections, he said.

Incidentally, Zaidi is retiring on July 7 and will not be in office when the results are notified by the Commission.

In 2012, the election to the President's office was announced on June 12 and held on July 19. The term of Mukherjee as the President commenced on July 25.

This time, the Lok Sabha secretary general will be the returning officer. Last time, it was the secretary general of Rajya Sabha.
Nagpur: Congress Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi addressing at a public meeting to mark culmination of 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, at Kasturchand Park in Nagpur on Monday. PTI Photo (PTI4_11_2016_000433B)

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was today detained by police when he tried to force his way into Madhya Pradesh with surging crowds of Congress supporters shouting slogans in praise of farmers.

Hundreds of Congress workers as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh also courted arrest. They were being taken to a guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.

Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh and Kamal Nath, defied elaborate police arrangements to prevent him from entering the state. Slogans of "Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan" and "Rahul Gandhi zindabad" could be heard as the procession made its way towards Mandsaur, the ground zero of the farmer unrest where five people were killed on Tuesday, from Naya Gaon in Neemuch.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he entered a field and was detained.

Determined to meet the families of farmers in distress, he walked for close to 100 metres before entering Madhya Pradesh from Dalia village in Rajasthan's Chittorgarh district, police said.

Before entering MP, Gandhi rode pillion on a motorcycle in Nimbahed in Chittorgarh district for about five to seven kilometres, IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.

Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh in a four wheeler by road... After the bike ride, he walked to cross the border, he said.

There are almost 2,000 people and nearly 150 vehicles with Gandhi, sources at the police control room said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital today on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO.

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.

If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.

India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.

However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital today.

The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.

Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.

The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.
The objective this time is to follow the East Asian model to make India into a hard state, a state than can ensure that its policies are enforced.

India will be admitted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at a summit of the regional grouping on Thursday in Kazakhstan, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be present.

The Prime Minister is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit at Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana.

Pakistan will also be admitted as a full member of the SCO along with India during the Astana summit.

"Indications are that the last leg of the entire process, as per the Memorandum of Obligations, which is the confirmation (of membership) by the heads of the states of the existing members of the SCO, is going to happen in Astana," GV Srinivas, joint secretary of the Eurasia division in the MEA, told PTI on Wednesday.
In a big fillip to an already robust bilateral relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to land in Israel on July 4 on a three-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state.

Informed sources in Tel Aviv told PTI that Modi would be arriving in Israel on July 4 and is likely to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the same day in the evening.

Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

He would be addressing the Indian community in Israel the following day in Tel Aviv with preparations for the event in full swing amid massive enthusiasm with people expected to attend the event from all over the country.

The Indian community has launched a website in preparation of the much awaited visit of Modi. About 80,000 Indian Jews belonging to four different communities - Bene Israel, Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bnei Menashe - live in Israel.

The Indian Jewish community in Israel still maintain some of the cultural practices from India and take a lot of pride in their origin often mentioning that India is the only nation in the world where there was no trace of anti-semitism.

Modi's ascendance to power in New Delhi generated a lot of euphoria in Israel as he was popular here for maintaining close ties with Tel Aviv during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had also visited Israel in October 2006.

One of the things that have been particularly discussed widely in the Israeli media is the "close chemistry" between Modi and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu often calls Modi "my friend" and in a recent tweet said that people of his country were eagerly waiting for his "historic" visit.

The two leaders have already met twice on foreign soil on the sidelines of UN related events and are said to be constantly in touch with each other over the phone.

"I am happy that often we can talk easily on telephone, we can discuss everything. It has very rarely happened. In your case it has happened," Modi told Netanyahu during their meeting on the sidelines of Paris Climate summit in November 2015. The Israeli premier had then promptly responded saying, "in your case too".

India's abstention at a UNHRC vote in 2015 on a UN report critical of Israel's offensive in the 2014 Gaza war was described by many here as a sign of a "qualitative leap" in ties which had transformed into a "completely normal relations without any hangups" with many crediting the closeness between the two prime ministers for the "change in heart".

New Delhi, however, later clarified that the vote was a "principled" stand in connection to the International Criminal Court that had reference in the resolution and does not mark "any shift in policy".

Modi's visit being limited to Israel in the region, skipping Palestine, has been pointed by some analysts as a "major statement", but the Palestinian Authority (PA) clearly stated that India has the right to build relations with Israel but it should not come at the "expense" of New Delhi's firm support for the Palestinian cause.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited India in May. It was his fifth visit to New Delhi in the last 12 years and the third state visit underlining the importance of relations.

"India has the right to make relations with Israel and any other country but what we care about is that it should not be at the expense of its relations with Palestine," Dr. Majdi Khaldi, senior diplomatic Advisor to Abbas, had told PTI.

The defence ties between India and Israel have often drawn worldwide attention and acquired strategic dimensions. It is being believed that Modi's visit would further solidify security ties as Israeli defence industries have shown greater inclination towards participating in joint ventures to give a boost to NDA government's 'Make in India' campaign.

Israel's state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) last month announced that it has inked yet another major deal worth USD 630 million with India, giving a boost to the 'Make in India' campaign in a project to be jointly executed with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL).

The contract is related to the supply of LRSAM (Long Range Surface to Air Missiles) systems for four ships of the Indian navy. The project will be carried out, for the first time, with Indian government owned BEL, which will serve as the main contractor in the project.

In April, Israel closed a USD 2 billion defence deal with India with IAI taking the lion's share of it with contracts worth USD 1.6 billion. It is the largest single deal in the history of the Jewish state.

LRSAM is an advanced air and missile defence system, a unique joint development by IAI and India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in collaboration with IAI subsidiary ELTA, RAFAEL, various Indian companies including BEL, L&T, BDL and other private Indian companies.

Prime Minister Modi's visit has been preceded by several other high-profile visits, including the trip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, several senior secretaries and Minister of State for Agriculture SS Ahluwalia-led 11 member multi-party parliamentary delegation. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba would be on a five-day visit to Israel starting June 11.

All these visits have laid the ground work for several MoUs that are likely to be signed during Modi's visit.

Netanyahu's government has taken several steps to boost Israel's exports to India emphasising that "sky is the limit" as far as cooperation between the two countries goes across several sectors.

Starting with humble figures of USD 200 million in annual trade in 1992 the two countries have registered bilateral trade of about USD 4.5 billion last year. Cooperation in the field of Agriculture and water management has also drawn a lot of attention with Israel setting up dozens of Centres of Excellence in India to boost India's farming sector.
A map of Qatar is seen in this picture illustration June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration - RTX3910P

The ongoing crisis around Qatar is forcing Indian travelers to Europe to put their plans on hold. This is after major airlines in the middle east such as Etihad, Emirates, Air Arabia, and Flydubai suspended flights to Doha, a key hub in the Middle East for transit between Europe, America and Asia. Qatar Airways has also suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia.

Anxious customers are queuing up for cancellation and refunds, leading travel portals told the Economic Times.

A number of Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, UAE and Yemen have snapped diplomatic ties with Qatar for its alleged support to Islamist groups. These countries have even cut off land and sea access to Qatar.

For some travel portals like Cleartrip, calls from customers (mostly booked on Qatar Airways) seeking refunds or alternative flight options has increased by nearly 55 percent since June 5.

Etihad stated on its website that customers booked on its flights to and from Doha are being provided alternate options, full refund on unused tickets, and free re-booking to the other nearby Etihad Airways hubs.

However, Manheer Singh Sethi, Co-founder of Delhi-based travel website TravKart.com said the airlines are not particularly helpful in addressing customers concerns.

Subhash Goyal, Founder Chairman of another travel company STIC pointed out that as it is, India has a shortage of seats and those travelers who had booked on Qatar Airways are in a soup. The developments have especially hit the labor traffic in Kerala.

The crisis also does not augur well for the non-Resident Indian (NRI) population in Qatar at over 6,50,000.

According to Anand Malhotra, Destination Strategist at Travel-Triangle, a lot of Middle Eastern travelers come to India and travel further to destinations like Sri Lanka and Maldives. This segment could also take a hit.
Sushma Swaraj



Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. https://t.co/Smg1oXKZXD

 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

External Finance Minister Sushma Swaraj, who's known for coming to the aid of Indians living abroad, won Twitter on Thursday with a witty reply. The tweet, though humorous, shows her intent to help Indian citizens.Earlier in the day, one Karan Saini had tweeted to Swaraj saying that he was stuck on Mars and food sent by Mangalyan 987 days ago was running out.

@SushmaSwaraj I am stuck on mars, food sent via Mangalyaan (987 days ago), is running out, when is Mangalyaan-II being sent ? @isro June 8, 2017



And Mam Sushma Ji will continue to bedazzle us all with her wit, passion & energy to serve Indians wherever they are. You're an inspiration

 Monica Jasuja (@jasuja) June 8, 2017

Her tweet drew attention of many Indians. No wonder she has over 8 million followers on Twitter.

Swaraj is one of the Indian politicians who is very active, fast, quick-witted on Twitter, who takes her job seriously as well.

Two days ago, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) chief M K Stalin expressed concerns over Indians stuck in Qatar which has seen a boycott from neighbouring Gulf nations. Swaraj replied with assurances that her ministry will take care of Indians in the Gulf country.



Thiru Stalin - Rest assured. We will look after each and every Indian national there. @mkstalin  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 7, 2017



Swaraj's role was crucial in bringing back Indian national Uzma Ahmed from Pakistan. Uzma's husband Tahir Ali had confiscated her passport in a bid to prevent her from returning to her homeland. Swaraj stepped in and Uzma returned to India on May 25.

[caption id="attachment_2289205" align="alignnone" width="800"] External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj consoles Uzma Ahmed upon her arrival in New Delhi on May 25. REUTERS[/caption]

Uzma - Welcome home India's daughter. I am sorry for all that you have gone through. pic.twitter.com/ufbxs3AOyS Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) May 30, 2017



Really happy to know of Uzma's safe return to Delhi, congrats to central govt for handling sensitive matter with maturity @SushmaSwaraj

 Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) May 25, 2017

The External Affairs Minister had in the past took Amazon to task after the ecommerce giant was found selling doormats depicting Indian tricolour on its Canadian website.

She asked Amazon to withdraw all such products immediately and directed the Indian embassy to look at the issue with Amazon Canada.



Amazon must tender unconditional apology. They must withdraw all products insulting our national flag immediately. /1  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) January 11, 2017



Indian High Commission in Canada : This is unacceptable. Please take this up with Amazon at the highest level. https://t.co/L4yI3gLk3h Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) January 11, 2017

Swaraj went ahead to even threaten Amazon to deny Indian visas to their officials.



If this is not done forthwith, we will not grant Indian Visa to any Amazon official. We will also rescind the Visas issued earlier.  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) January 11, 2017

Quick-on-feet responses and timely help both on and off Twitter are two qualities that separate Swaraj from fellow politicians.
With farmers' protest entering its eighth day in Madhya Pradesh, the unrest in BJP-ruled state escalated further today when Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi was barred from entering Mandsaur district, on the borders of MP and Rajasthan.

Shortly after, he was released but Rajasthan police said that they would verify whether Gandhi broke traffic rules when travelling upto MP border. There were allegations that Gandhi rode pillion on a bike with two others.

Over the course of a week, Mandsaur and other adjacent districts of Madhya Pradesh were witness to scores of farmers agitating for fair prices for their produce. It reached a crescendo when police opened fire on Tuesday, killing at least six farmers and injuring several others.

Mandsaur city and Piplia Mandal, two key districts of the state, have been declared curfew zones with farmers taking to pelting stones and engaging in violence and arson against the state police.

In the wake of this violence, state opposition party Congress and Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh called a bandh across the state on Wednesday to lodge a protest against police brutality in Mandsaur.

Internet services were completely shut down in Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neechman districts as state authorities feared the spread of rumours.

Farmers in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra began a protest on June 1 demanding an increase in minimum support price (MSP) for their farm produce as their primary demand.

The MSP is the price at which the government purchases food grains from farmers, irrespective of their market price. It helps to incentivise the farmers and boost the agricultural economy of the country. Recently, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis announced a farm loan waiver. Despite the promise, farmers, who are more keen on a fair price for their produce, are on a 'Rail Rokho' protest in Mumbai.



This Govt is at war with the farmers of our country#Mandsaur #MadhyaPradesh https://t.co/HQsjluDUPg

 Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 6, 2017

Predictably, both the BJP and the Opposition have been pointing fingers at each other over the violent protests. While MP Chief Minister Chouhan is reported to have supported the farmers through his tweet, Rahul Gandhi publicly criticized the government's inability to control the situation.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi summoned a meeting of Union Ministers yesterday to discuss the farmers' protest, the outcome of which hasn't been disclosed yet. With Gujarat assembly elections around the corner, Modi could face a tough battle ahead if farmers don't stand down.

Only three days into the protest, on June 4, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, a farmer group involved in the agitation retracted after a meeting with CM Chouhan. This angered the other major organisations involved- Rashtriya Kissan Mazdoor Sangh and Bharatiya Kisan Union -- who decided to spur the agitation further.

On 5 June, Chouhan announced that the government will procure onion at Rs 8 per kg. He also declared that Rs 1,000 crore price stabilisation funds would be provided to procure the agricultural produce at MSP.

According to National Crime Records Bureau data , there were 5,650 registered cases of farmer suicides which accounted for 43 percent of total suicides in India.

Maharashtra recorded the highest number of suicides followed by Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka constituting for 45.5 percent, 15.9 percent and 14.6 percent, respectively.

The report also said that the primary reason for farmer suicides was bankruptcy and indebtedness, acting as the prime reason for 21.5 percent of the cases.
Saket Mehra

Industrialisation has been evolving ever since its discovery and we are expected to enter a new world of Industry 4.0, a technological revolution in which computers and robots would take over human force by an interconnection between the two. It is all about optimisation of smart, flexible supply chains, factories and distribution models where machines capture and convey data. There are majorly three key trends that are expected to change the life of industries and employees  Digitization, Industrialisation and Optimisation. The objective here is that machines talk to other machines & products and information is processed and distributed in real time, which results in profound change to the entire industrial ecosystem.

Industry 4.0 is the need of the hour due to confrontation with increased number of products, options, competition and changing customer preferences and has nine key technological components - Autonomous Robots, Big Data, AR (Augmented Realilty) Additive manufacturing, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Internet of Things (IOT) and Simulation. Globally countries and their governments have been taking several initiatives such as building regional hubs, adopting additive manufacturing and developing 3D technology platforms.

Industry 4.0 started in Germany and is expected to bring forth the idea that advances in automotive will help the industry focus on key functional pillars such as technology, integration/collaboration and processes. The momentum gradually picks up in the United States, Japan, China, the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom to bring Industry 4.0 into the system. Companies all over the world are expecting to dramatically increase digitisation over the next five years. By 2020, the US aims to achieve 74 percent digitisation from the current levels of 32 percent, Asia Pacific to 67 percent from current 36 percent and the Europe, the Middle East and the Africa to 71 percent from current 30 percent. Thus, Industry 4.0 includes some mega trends that are expected to be key enablers for the automotive industrys transition.

Countries have also been attracting significant FDI to push various Industry 4.0 initiatives. Vietnam made an FDI contribution in 2015 of US$ 14.5 billion, but still stands far behind today by being in the second revolutionary phase. Further, Philippines is expected to be one of the fastest growing automotive markets in South East Asia by 2020. On the other hand, China has laid immense focus on Industry 4.0 in its 13th Five Year Plan and aims to increase its productivity by 25 to 30%. However, UK is slightly backward in this context as only 8% manufacturers are found to have an understanding of Industry 4.0.

Overall, a global inclination is evident towards Industry 4.0 at an elevated level which is also measured as Networked Readiness Index (NRI) in the global market. Networked readiness Index is a key indicator of how countries are doing in the digital world. It depends on whether a country possesses the drivers necessary for digital technologies to meet their potential, and whether these technologies are actually having an impact on the economy and society. The NRI measure showcases the position of countries and an assessment is made based on strategy & organisation, smart factory, operations, products, data driven services and employees. NRI ranks Singapore at first and India at 91 for Industry 4.0. wherein innovations take place in the automotive industry on the following points as - Connected Cars, Automated Driving, Product Lifecycle Management, Cyber Physical Production System, Nearfield communication system(NFC) Integrated GNSS, Automotive Ethernet.

Further, Industry 4.0 is an opportunity to change the economic rules of the industry, especially to overcome the dependence of India on the labour arbitrage based manufacturing work. India has a number of programs to enable innovation and ensure the talent pipeline for manufacturing. There is great importance rendered to Industry 4.0 by India, being the 6th largest manufacturing country. It strives to quickly adapt to the emerging changing environment and is expected to capture more than 20% in IOT market in next 5 years. Particularly, Andhra Pradesh as state is the first to adopt a policy on IOT.

With these initiatives, by 2026 India is expected to be 3rd largest automotive market having emergence of Highways and road networks as also proposed in the union budget 2017-18 and with Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicle (FAME) policy to make electric cars a possibility with a sizeable market segment in future. The Automotive Mission Plan 2016-26 focuses on making it top third country in automotive market by increasing exports to 35% with setting up of separate department to minister the emission norms and safety issue.

Of paramount importance is, Make in India concept which has had a huge impact in attracting foreign investment because of: R&D Incentives, favourable FDI Policy, implementation of GST, increasing safety concerns, adaptation in connected mobility segment, IOT Developments, Big Data analytics to build a strong network across industry players and government. A sustainable partnership model is essential between government, private firms, industry bodies, research and financing institutions for promoting Industry 4.0.

Consequently, Industry 4.0 will revolutionise manufacturing around the globe, as did the first three industrial revolutions. With global supply chains and highly interactive markets, this revolution will be vastly different from the previous ones, being much faster and generating results that were heretofore unexpected. It will highlight the fact that small changes in one area of the manufacturing ecosystem will create significant ripples throughout the ecosystem, due to connectivity throughout the supply chain and the speed at which information propagates. Furthermore, Industry 4.0 will enable information to flow not only from manufacturer to product, but between producers, products and, most importantly, customers. The ability to embrace Industry 4.0 and use the opportunities will be a key to success in the new global market for many companies which are both well established and quite new and very innovative. It is clear that Industry 4.0 presents tremendous opportunities, and highlights the need for a highly trained and flexible workforce and production capacity that can answer the needs of tomorrow as well as those of today.

(The Author is Partner, Grant Thornton India LLP)
business Bharat Wire Ropes targeting Rs 300 crore revenue in FY18 In an interview to CNBC-TV18, ML Mittal, MD of Bharat Wire Ropes spoke about the latest happenings in his company.
Representative image

Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera said on Thursday it had come under a large scale cyber attack.

Al

Jazeera

al

al



BREAKING: Al Jazeera Media Network under cyber attack on all systems, websites & social media platforms. More soon: https://t.co/9o3ihGGVjD pic.twitter.com/ZlBBEpTDf6

 Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 8, 2017

Media Network under cyber attack onl systems, websites & socimedia platforms," it said on Twitter.

Al Jazeera is the flagship broadcaster for Qatar, which is in a stand-off with fellow Arab states over "terror" ties. The controversy is endangering peace and stability in the Gulf.

Earlier in the day, Al Jazeera acting director-general Mostefa Souag will maintain its editorial independence despite a regionaldiplomatic crisis that has isolated the small Gulf Arab state, the Doha-based broadcasting network's acting director-general said on Thursday.

Souag dismissed accusations by some Arab powers that Al Jazeera is interfering in their affairs through its reports and defended the network's professionalism.

"All this talk about Jazeera interfering in other countries' affairs is nonsense. We don't interfere in anybody's business, we just report," he told Reuters in his office at the network's headquarters in Qatar's capital.

"If we bring (in) guests who are opposing certain governments, does that mean we are interfering in the countries' business? No. Al Jazeera's editorial policy is going to continue the same regardless of what happens with this event."

The state-funded network is at the centre of the dispute in which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic ties and transport links on Monday with Qatar, which supplies natural gas to world markets.

 With inputs from Reuters
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during an election campaign event in Bradford, Britain, June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Phil Noble - RTX39625

UK polls today opened with about 46 million eligible voters expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the country.

The odds seem to be in favour of May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister who called for snap polls 52 days ago.

Polls close at 10 p m UK time (2.30 am IST), with results expected to begin rolling in within an hour or so after voting finishes.

May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britain's exit from the 28- member-bloc.

More than 46 million people are eligible to vote in what is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

The UK was recently rocked by two terror attacks.

Seven people were killed on Saturday when three men aboard a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and went on a stabbing spree before being shot by police.

The second attack took place on May 22 when 22 people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.
A map of Qatar is seen in this picture illustration June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration - RTX3910P

Qatar's foreign minister today rejected attempts to interfere in the country's foreign policy and said a "military solution" to the country's crisis with its Gulf neighbours was not an option.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al- Thani told AFP.

"We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, he added.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party, speaks at his closing election campaign rally in London, June 7, 2017. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne - RTX39J4V

Voters in Britain are currently heading to the polling booths, with elections being held to elect 650 MPs to the House of Commons - the lower house of Parliament.

Prime Minister Theresa May had on April 18 called for snap elections, a full three years ahead of schedule, and Parliament ratified the move a day later.

May's decision had surprised many. In public, the Prime Minister said that she wanted a clear mandate before the start of negotiations on Britain's future after it exits the European Union. But those reading between the lines felt that May's overconfidence about her government's popularity and a stumbling opposition had triggered the move to conduct early elections.

The polls seemed to back her confidence. May's Conservative Party initially enjoyed a lead of 20 points over their main rival, the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour party.

However, as the UK swung into election mode, May's approval ratings started declining. By the month of May, the ruling party's popularity had plunged.

For the first time, polls suggest that there are more people against May's leadership than those in favour of it. May desperately wants public approval of her leadership, given that she rose to the PM's post after David Cameron stepped down and there was no public vote involved.

Now, just a day before the election, the difference between the 'Tories' and the Labour Party is in single digits, indicating that the elections are too close to call.

Sir David Butler, a 92-year-old psephologist who had helped Winston Churchill win his last election in 1951, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) news, "The swing recorded by the opinion polls is the greater than in any previous election."

Here are some of the factors that have triggered the swing:

Corbyn's image makeover

In February, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's approval rating within his own party was just 17 percent, with his left-wing leanings not finding too many fans.

But he has managed to turn the tide since then. The combination of an image makeover, an aggressive campaign and an assertive Labour manifesto appears to have given Corbyn a genuine chance. He has managed to draw huge crowds to his rallies and the Labour Party has also managed to regain ground in Wales, which it had lost to the Tories.

Overconfident Theresa May

The Conservative Party campaign has revolved around the slogan "strong and stable". But May's reluctance to participate in TV debates has worked against her and she doesn't seem to be doing well in the popularity stakes, given that her rallies have also been poorly attended.

Terrorism

The 'What Worries the World' poll conducted by Ipsos MORI found that 32 percent Britons are worried about terrorism, making it their second biggest concern after immigration control (31%).

Three terror attacks since March his year have killed 39 and injured 216 people, with the last two happening in the weeks building up to the election.

The terror attacks are fresh on the minds of the people and have dented May's image as a strong leader. Corbyn criticised May for the police cuts that were made by her government. He also promised to deploy more police on the streets, a tactic that would work when people feel most vulnerable.

Going by popularity that Theresa May and the Conservative Party enjoyed, paired with a weaker Labour Party, re-election was supposed to be a cakewalk for May. Instead, on Friday morning, she will be hoping for a narrow win at best.
Still reeling from two major terrorist incidents in the past fortnight, Britons are set to cast their votes on Thursday in a high-stakes general election.

Voters will elect MPs to the House of Commons, which is similar to the Lok Sabha in India. The elections were originally scheduled for May 2020. But in a shock announcement in April, Prime Minister Theresa May called for snap elections to be held on June 8 this year, a full three years in advance.

WHY THE SNAP ELECTIONS?

May took charge in July last year after Prime Minister David Cameron resigned in the aftermath of the "Brexit" referendum, in which British voters chose to leave the European Union.

The referendum result was only the start of Brexit, which will be a long-drawn-out process. May set the ball rolling by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which defines how an EU country might voluntarily leave the union.

Britain now has less than two years to negotiate the terms of its exit on trade and other issues. The Conservatives have a slim working majority and May wants a clear mandate before negotiations begin later this month.

A recent poll by YouGov showed that 63 percent of Britons think that Brexit is the most important issue facing the UK.

HOW DOES VOTING TAKE PLACE?

The British system is similar to India, where voters elect their local MP in a general election. There are 650 constituencies in all, of which 533 are in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales, and 18 in Northern Ireland. More than 46 million people are currently registered to vote.

The party which crosses the halfway mark of 325 MPs wins the election. The leader of the winning party is then formally appointed Prime Minister by the Queen.

Below was the status of the House of Commons before it was dissolved last month:

WHO ARE THE CONTENDERS?

Theresa May, Conservative Party

May was not in favour of leaving the EU, but the future of post-Brexit Britain would lie in her hands should she win. May has pledged for a "hard" Brexit which involves leaving the single EU market.

Since she was given the PM's post rather than being elected, she is now seeking an approval of her leadership and is pinning her hopes on the message of a strong and stable Britain.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party

Leader of the Opposition, Corbyn has struggled to revive the Labour party since he unexpectedly became its leader after the 2015 election defeat. His left-wing ways have failed to find favour with many in his own party.

Labour wants to build a new partnership with the EU that involves a "soft" Brexit. It has also focused its attention on improving public services including the National Health Service.

Tim Farron, Liberal Democrats

The pro-European party, which was part of the coalition government before a horrible returns of nine seats in the 2015 elections, is seen by many as the greatest hope for those who want the UK retain strong ties with the EU. The party has said it would offer a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish National Party

The SNP is seeking a second referendum on Scottish independence in a bid to retain EU membership for Scots, who had voted by an overwhelming majority to remain a part of the union. The party bagged nearly all the seats in Scotland in the 2015 elections.

Paul Nuttall, UKIP

The UK Independence Party was created with the agenda of getting Britain to leave the EU. Leader Nuttall has plans for an "integration agenda" promoting "British law and a British way of life". The party is anti-immigration and wants to ban the burqa in public places. It won just one seat last time around.

IS TERRORISM A FACTOR?

There have been three major terrorist incidents in the UK this year, including the Manchester bombing on May 22 and a van and knife attack last weekend, similar to the one in March.

According to a YouGov poll conducted last year, 68 percent of British citizens had expected such terrorist attacks to happen in the UK in 2017. The poll also that terrorism was the second most important issue for Britons.

WHY THE RESULT MATTERS TO INDIA

Indian markets have reason to be hopeful as political stability might help further appreciation of the British pound vis-a-vis the rupee. Companies that were adversely affected post-Brexit owing to sharp depreciation of the pound might gain marginally in this scenario.

For the Indian IT industry, 28 percent of the services are exported to Europe, with UK constituting around 17 percent. An appreciation in the pound will help their cause. Auto exports from India, 4 percent of which go to the UK, will also get boost from an appreciating pound.

WHAT ARE THE POLLS SAYING?

After Theresa May announced the snap elections in April, polls indicated that the Conservatives had a massive lead over Labour. But Corbyns party has steadily narrowed the gap as the election date draws nearer.

YouGovs latest poll has the Tory lead at just four points, while ICM still gives May a decent 11-point lead.

A poll also suggested that nearly four times as many people think the Conservatives are the best party to handle the Brexit negotiations as compared to Labour.

WHEN WILL THE RESULTS BE KNOWN?

Counting will begin on Thursday night and the result should be known in the early hours of Friday morning IST.
FILE PHOTO: A worker checks the valve of an oil pipe at the Lukoil owned Imilorskoye oil field near Kogalym, Russia, January 25, 2016. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/File Photo

Moneycontrol Research

Had it been normal times any news on a fall in crude output would have made oil prices jump through the roof. But these are not normal times. Despite news that oil production had dropped, prices continued to fall. From a traders point of view, if market is not reacting to bullish news then it does not makes sense to stay long.

Oil market seems to be clearly in a bear grip. Consider the news flow. Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the cartel that tries to control oil prices by managing production, announced in May its decision to extend its production cut by nine months.

Since OPECs announcement, oil prices have fallen by 6.6 percent and trades at USD 45.66 per barrel currently.

Qatar, one of the OPEC members, is in a diplomatic row with the largest OPEC oil producer, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Despite the infighting among the OPEC nations, which normally would have been read as non-compliance in production cuts, there was hardly any sustained reaction in the oil market.

Finally, two attacks in Iran, which the country says has been instigated by their arch rival Saudi Arabia, has barely created any uptick in the oil market. Oil experts view the confrontation between Iran and Saudi Arabia as a bigger issue for the market than the diplomatic row in Qatar.

The fact that Saudi Arabia and Iran between them account for 35 percent of proven oil reserves and 43 percent of OPEC current production is reason enough to be worried about.

So why is the market reacting to the spate of negative news?

The main reason seems to be the glut in oil supplies. Market is not too bothered with the recent developments in Qatar because, even if it is an OPEC nation, it is the smallest one in the Middle-East and produces oil which is equal to only 15 percent of Saudi Arabias production level. The drop in production by Qatar, if it actually happens, will be made up for by an increase in production from the US.

As for the Iran-Saudi Arabia confrontation, it is being taken as an ongoing tussle between the two nations. Saudi Arabia is already engaged in a war with Yemen which it says has been getting moral and monetary support from Iran. Experts do not feel that either countries can afford an all-out war, given the precarious financials of both the countries.

Just ahead of the production cuts, all OPEC and non-OPEC members like Russia had run their oil wells at full throttle. This allowed them to freeze their productions near their life-time highs. As a result the market is now flush with oil.

Added to that is the continuous increasing production in the US which is not being matched by demand. Data released on Wednesday by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that there was a 3.3-million-barrel increase in oil inventories from the previous week. This was a big surprise of the market as the expectation was for a drawdown.

As per US government officials, crude inventories across the country rose for the first time in nine weeks. Analysts were expecting that US government had already sold sizeable quantity of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the market, thus the higher inventory symbolized a slower than expected pick-up in demand.

The data resulted in a sharp sell-off in the oil market, further strengthening the argument that market is in the bear grip as it reacts strongly to negative news and barely moves on positive news flows.

Analysts have started writing bearish reports on the oil market. JPMorgan has drastically cut its oil price target by USD 11 for 2018 to USD 42 a barrel.

Clearly, it would take more than a few disruptions in the Middle-East to take oil prices higher.
Friends In Pink is still on the radar and growing every year
June 08, 2017

News of the Day - Elections in Britain, Comey Testimony, Gulf Troubles

Big stories are coming up today but I will have no time to extensively post on them. A short take:

The Conservatives in Britain will likely win today's elections - at least according to recent polls. This even as the Labour Party, under its new leader Jeremy Corbyn, will achieve its best results since "New Labour" under Tony Blair wreaked the party.

The unnecessary loss for Labour can be solely blamed on the media, especially the "liberal" ones like the Guardian, who viciously defamed and fought against Corbyn ever since he was elected to lead the party.

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In hearings at the U.S. Congress the former director of the FBI Comey will do his best to put a bad light on Trump. Trump fired him, later than he should have done, for good reasons:

After six months of investigation the FBI had no evidence for any of the rumors about Russian interference [in U.S. elections] that were thrown around. It should have closed the case with a clear recommendation not to prosecute the issue. [...] That Comey kept the case open was political interference from his side. Hearings and public rumors about the case blocked the political calendar.

The anti-Trump media (which means about 90% of all) will push the Comey testimony as evidence for malfeasance by Trump even though nothing of that kind will be in there.

---

Micah Zenko writes that there is a danger that the Trump administration will wage war somewhere against someone as a diversion from the pressure it is under within Washington DC:

The academic findings are mixed on whether heads of government facing domestic vulnerability engage in such diversionary wars  uses of force to divert public attention and rally support for their leadership. [...] What seems clear, however, is that presidents are more likely to engage in such diversions when they are inherently distrustful and perceive the world in simplistic black-and-white terms  a perfect characterization of Trump. The other potential outcome to consider for the Trump administrations conduct of foreign policy is for an embattled president to become further and further detached while remaining in office. [...] Since Trump has already bestowed total authorization to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, it is not unimaginable that the Pentagon chief could be notifying a president who has retreated to one of his properties of meaningful military decisions already underway.

Both cases are indeed possible - the second one seems more likely to me. War is also exactly what many of the people and lobbies who peddle the evidence-free "Russian hacking" stories want. Trump campaigned for detente with Russia. The "Russian election interference" campaign is designed to prevent that. The War on Russia or war on Iran are their favorite outcomes. Open war on Syria, North Korea or some yet developing crisis also have good chances to conquer the headlines.

Further leaks and scandals could increase the political pressure on Trump to such a degree that he resigns. But, while hoping or assuming this happens, it would be a grave mistake to ignore U.S. foreign-policy commitments and activities, and any shifts they might undergo under the influence of scandal.

A huge problem is the incompetence of the White House foreign policy shop and especially its National Security Council. To blame Iran for yesterday's ISIS attacks in Tehran is vile and scandalous. This will come back to hurt the U.S. To release a statement about a phone call with the "Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayet Al Nayhan of the United Arab Emirates" is blatant incompetence. A diligent reading of the names unveils that the "United Emirates" are a federation of emirates just as the "United States" are a federation of states. There is no kingdom of the UAE. There is some crown prince of the emirate of Abu Dhabi who has a bit of informal say within the UAE but there are also six other emirates with other crown princes and a federal UAE government structure in which the crown prince of Abu Dhabi only plays a minor role. The UAE structure is fragile. The federation could easily blow up over the current crisis with Qatar. The incompetent White House statement increases that chance.

Posted by b on June 8, 2017 at 8:48 UTC | Permalink

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These four put in half of the W40-50 billion annual budget of the FKI, so their withdrawal deals a huge blow to the organization (US$1=W1,147).

Hyundai on Tuesday pulled out of the Federation of Korean Industries on Tuesday over the business lobby's entanglement in the Cheong Wa Dae extortion scandal. That means all the country's top four conglomerates have now pulled out, the others being LG, Samsung and SK.

The business world is concerned that unless the FKI appoints a new chairman in the general assembly scheduled Friday and quickly implements reforms, it could shut down entirely.

So far there is no news of a firm candidate yet. Some speculate that CJ chairman Sohn Kyung-shik, who is regarded as a strong contender, has not made up his mind.

One insider said, "Sohn has passion for the FKI, but due to souring public opinion about the organization and the departure of major donors, he is having second thoughts."

The FKI acted as an eager bagman in collecting vast donations from conglomerates for the slush funds of President Park Geun-hye's crony Choi Soon-sil.
The history of fund company mergers isn't an especially pretty one. As Larry Fink said at the Morningstar Investment Conference in April, "Mergers suck. They're hard. They take years and years off your life..

Too often they result in culture clashes and the departures of key personnel. It's even more difficult, it seems, to find fund company mergers that benefit fund shareholders in a clear and material way. The merger between US-based Janus Capital Group and U.K.-based asset manager Henderson Group that closed on May 30 doesn't appear to be one of those mergers, at least not yet.

According to a press release Janus and Henderson prepared on the deal, the Janus-Henderson merger, first announced last October, will result in an estimated cost savings of $110 million. And yet no long-term fee cuts for funds have been announced.

Indeed, previous fund company mergers in the past decade haven't always delivered on oft-promised cost savings in a meaningful way. BlackRock and JP Morgan, both of which have engaged in acquisitions, sport Below Average Morningstar Fee Levels on average, but AllianceBernstein, Columbia Threadneedle, Invesco, and WellsFargo who have all taken part in M&A in recent years, show merely middling Average fee levels.

Janus and Henderson may have a starting advantage, both firms' fund fees were modestly lower than their competitors' prior to the merger, but it remains to be seen whether investors will realise a cost benefit after the merger. The industry's record doesn't make a strong case.

That's unfortunate news, as Janus Henderson funds' results haven't stood out in aggregate. Janus Henderson Group's risk-adjusted success ratio, which measures the percentage of a firm's funds that have both survived and outperformed their Morningstar Category peers on a risk-adjusted basis in a given time period, was just 23% during the past 10 years through May 2017.

In comparison, the average success ratio of the 20 largest fund families in the United States by assets was recently 38%.

The current lineup's Morningstar Analyst Ratings reflect its unremarkable nature. Several Neutral-rated funds were recently merged away, but 16 of the 37 remaining funds that are rated earn Neutral ratings. Eleven earn Bronze ratings and 10 earn Silver ratings, but there are no Gold-rated funds in the combined line-up. And neither Janus nor Henderson has been a standout parent company, in our view, which is why both firms earned a Neutral Parent rating prior to the merger.

Fee cuts would benefit fund investors and help the combined firm compete in an industry where fees have been steadily declining in recent years. One prominent transaction that led to fee cuts was BlackRock's 2009 acquisition of Barclays Global Investors and its iShares ETF unit. Some iShares ETFs saw fee cuts in subsequent years, and the firm also launched a suite of cheaper ETFs to help it compete with Vanguard's low-cost ETF offerings, which had gained some market share.

Will the Fund Line-up Be Trimmed?

Janus and Henderson did pare their fund line-ups to a degree in the runup to the close of the deal in an attempt to put more assets in the hands of more-promising managers. Janus merged four funds into other funds managed by Janus and another into a Henderson-managed offering; it also liquidated one fund. In addition, two Janus-managed funds are now run by Henderson managers.

Meanwhile, Henderson merged one of its U.S.-sold funds into a Janus-managed offering while shutting down three other funds.

These kinds of fund consolidations and liquidations tend to be typical in fund-company mergers, and help explain why firms that have merged or made acquisitions tend to have lower success ratios, though they are often eliminating weaker performers to begin with. For Janus Henderson, we expect further consolidation given the extensive nature of the combined company's fund line-up and the question marks within it.

For example, Janus' global and international equity offerings have largely struggled. In some cases, they have seen manager departures in recent years. This year, Janus liquidated a small non-U.S. stock fund in early 2017, merged its emerging-markets funds into Henderson's, and had Henderson take over its Asia-focused equity fund. But Janus still manages sizable non-U.S. and world stock funds with uncertain prospects. Henderson has demonstrated particular expertise in developed Europe and emerging-markets equities and could take over those offerings in the future.

One important risk of fund-company mergers is the loss of investment talent. That's happened a number of times before following fund-company mergers, as veteran portfolio managers with ownership stakes cash out or leave owing to the distractions of integration, which can include culture clashes.

The Janus Henderson merger does make sense for the firm from a distribution perspective. Henderson had a very limited presence in both the U.S. and Japan compared with Janus, while Henderson has a much larger footprint in Europe than Janus.

But while the deal could result in wider distribution for the combined fund line-up and thus more scale, the product line-up doesn't appear compelling enough to attract substantially more investors in a highly competitive landscape for active managers. Lower fees would certainly help, however, and would represent at least one tangible benefit from the deal for fund investors.
The U.S. Senate has moved forward on a bill that would impose new sanctions on Iran.

The bill advanced on a procedural vote Wednesday. It now will be available for amendments before a final Senate vote.

The bill would impose mandatory sanctions on people involved in Iran's ballistic missile program and those who do business with them. It also would apply terrorism sanctions to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and enforce an arms embargo.

Bernie Sanders was one of the few senators opposed to holding the vote Wednesday because of twin attacks on Iran's parliament and a major historical site earlier in the day.

"Let us tell the people of Iran that while we have serious disagreements with them on a number of issues, that today when they are mourning, when they are dealing with the shock of a terrorist attack, today is not the day to go forward with this piece of legislation," he said.


Lee Yoo-young has made her first TV appearance in time slip crime drama "Tunnel," which recently wrapped up with the highest ratings in the history of cable channel OCN.

Lee had no ambitions when she was 20. She gave up college and worked part-time in a beauty salon, but then decided to go back to her studies as she felt sorry for her mother. She entered Korea National University of Arts in 2010 and studied acting.

A student film changed her life. "I saw myself on the screen in class. It was the first time I saw myself acting as an audience, and that was the moment I was seriously thinking about being an actress," she recalls.

Before long she had won best actress at the Milan International Film Festival for "Late Spring" in 2014, where she played a poor country woman who works as a nude model for a frustrated sculptor.

She has appeared in several films since including "The Treacherous" and "Yourself and Yours" and now ended her first TV series.

"To play my character, I studied the psychology of criminals, reading profiling books," she said. "Now I think want to show a brighter side of myself in my next project."
A 27-year-old Midland motorcyclist died Tuesday afternoon in a two-vehicle wreck three miles east of Midland.

A Mack truck towing a semi-trailer was westbound on Farm-to-Market Road 307 and slowed down to turn right onto County Road 1140. Hunter C. Moses was driving a Harley Davidson, failed to control his speed and hit the trailer, according a press release from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Moses, who was not wearing a helmet, died at the scene, according to DPS.

The truck driver, a 40-year-old San Angelo man, was not injured in the wreck that occurred at about 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Moses is the 15th person to die on roads in Midland County this year, according to Reporter-Telegram records. The number of traffic fatalities in Midland County in 2017 is on a pace to double last years total. At this time in 2016, seven people had died on roads in Midland County, according to Reporter-Telegram records.
Gov. Greg Abbotts call for a special July-August session gives you a clue  through the timing and the subject matter  as to what problem he hopes to solve.

He wants to erase the notion  a popular idea in the Texas Capitol  that hes not in charge.

Abbott laid out a bewildering list of ideas for lawmakers to consider in a special session, but put his real emphasis on only one  unpassed legislation that would keep the Texas Medical Board and a handful of other agencies in business after the end of the current budget cycle.

That effectively buries the priorities of his unofficial rival, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who stalled that agency-preserving legislation in an effort to win passage of a couple of pet issues  a bathroom bill and restrictions on local property tax increases.

And it puts Abbott back in charge. The regular session belonged, in large measure, to the lieutenant governor: He had an expansive agenda and his issues, for the most part, framed that 140-day venture.

Now the agenda belongs to the governor again. Abbotts focus is first on the thing that must be done; then and only then, he said, can lawmakers work on an astonishing, almost ridiculous (given the allotted time) avalanche of issues  including Patricks, somewhere in the pile  that hes willing to add to the agenda.

If the point of a special session is to reach agreement on something  property taxes, bathrooms, school finance, the issue of your choice  theres no reason to start unless you can see the finish. That would be a good reason not to call a one-issue session on the bathroom bill, which stymied lawmakers earlier this year.

That issue is on Abbotts list, but it must compete with others in that unruly crowd of priorities. Instead of asking lawmakers for the agencies and nothing else, he offered them a shot at everything in the pantry in return for the only bills that have to pass.

The timing of the special session isnt surprising. It gives lawmakers six weeks to chill out, but it will take place as they are raising political money and making their calculations for the coming electoral season. The session, running from mid-July to mid-August, would end before the new fiscal year starts on Sept. 1 and comes in time to endanger incumbents and embolden challengers. Candidates will file for the 2018 elections from Nov. 11 to Dec. 11, presumably taking the results of the regular and special sessions into account. The primaries are on March 6 of next year.

The surest outcome in bringing the Legislature to Austin on so many issues will be to draw distinctions  to show whos on what side. That can be politically useful entering an election year. But if youre looking for policy solutions  for new laws, for remedies to problems, for tax relief  its not a formula for success. Some of these things might never come to a vote. Having this many issues in one month would press even a cooperative Legislature, and the 85th hasnt exhibited many signs of collaborative harmony.

Texas lawmakers left Austin last month in foul humor. That last day, with its pushing and shoving among some of the men on the House floor, was no Come, let us reason together celebration.

This all started with the Senates hostage-taking, with Patricks promise to stall must-pass bills to force votes on restroom restrictions for transgender Texans and on local governments ability to raise property taxes without voter approval. He didnt win on either issue  and he engineered the failure of legislation that would have kept the Texas Medical Board and other agencies operating through the states next two-year budget.

Abbott was stuck. He had to call lawmakers back to keep those agencies open. Calling lawmakers back always opens the window for supplicants inside and outside the Legislature who didnt get what they wanted out of the just-ended regular session. Since lawmakers unclenched their fists and went home on Memorial Day, Abbott has heard calls for special session consideration of restrooms, property taxes, annexation laws, redistricting and even the things that made his list.

He could have stopped his special session call at the agency bills, doing whats compulsory and leaving the discretionary issues to the 86th Legislature that convenes in 2019. It would only take a couple of days.

Bada-bing, bada-boom.

Everything else requires prep work. The bathroom issue has been in public political discussion for a year. Conservative voters and businesses are split, and the Republican majority in the Legislature is split, too. Importantly, Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus disagree on it, and nobody from Abbott on down the line was able to reconcile their views before the end of the regular session.

In fact, if you rank the potential special-session subjects in order of their likely success, Patricks top issue  the bathroom bill  sits solidly in last place. The sunset bills that would rescue those state agencies are comparatively easy.

Anybody hoping to pass other bills will be hacking through a thicket. Abbotts list is extensive  and diffusive, knocking the focus away from any one particular issue by surrounding it with a daunting inventory of distracting legislative playthings (the descriptions are the governors):

Teacher pay increase of $1,000

Administrative flexibility in teacher hiring and retention practices

School finance reform commission

School choice for special needs students

Property tax reform

Caps on state and local spending

Preventing cities from regulating what property owners do with trees on private land

Preventing local governments from changing rules midway through construction projects

Speeding up local government permitting process

Municipal annexation reform

Texting while driving preemption

Privacy

Prohibition of taxpayer dollars to collect union dues

Prohibition of taxpayer funding for abortion providers

Pro-life insurance reform

Strengthening abortion reporting requirements when health complications arise

Strengthening patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders

Cracking down on mail-in ballot fraud

Extending maternal mortality task force

Theyll have 30 days for all of that, and they cant start until that sunset legislation has passed. Its almost a guarantee that some of those ideas will wither on the vine  and it gives both the House and the Senate ample opportunity to starve legislation they dont like.

If they fail, its not for lack of time, Abbott said at the end of his announcement. It would be because of a lack of will.

That might be generous: Its an awfully long list.

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texastribune.com
New CEO for Tapad

US-based cross-media marketing technology specialist Tapad has appointed Sigvart Voss Eriksen as Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Are Traasdahl who is moving into the advisory role of Chairman Emeritus.



Telenor Group-owned Tapad offers a range of solutions for cross-device retargeting, mobile retargeting and mobile audience buying. Its 'Device Graph' targeting system examines 'trillions' of data points every month, to determine if different devices are owned by the same person; while its Viewable Exposure Time metric identifies the optimal amount of time a consumer spends with an ad before they take action.



Voss Eriksen (pictured) joins from Telenor, where he latterly served as Head of Advertising Technology. He joined the business in 2001, and has since held roles including Chief Marketing Officer of the company in Pakistan, Hungary and Thailand. At Tapad, he will focus on developing the company's core graph and identifying cross-device products, with a focus on improving the infrastructure to create new features and vertical solutions for marketers.



Commenting on the changes, Traasdahl said: 'It is sixteen months since Tapad's acquisition by Telenor and having seen the company thrive, it was a very natural transition that I shift operational day-to-day responsibilities to a new CEO. Sigvart brings to the role both experience in the advertising technology industry, as well as a rich relationship with Telenor. He is fully equipped to spur Tapad's growth across the globe and I can't think of anyone better to pick up the baton and shape the next era of this great company'.



Web site: www.tapad.com .




Powerful businessmen.- Who have the same idea of government  lower taxes on people and businesses as well as cutbacks on spending for the underprivileged. As a result, this government of wealthy businessmen present a budget called A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again. This $1,15 billion dollar budget increases defense spending ($603,000 million ) and at the same time cuts back on social aid by $65,100 million dollars. When it comes to revenue, personal taxes are lowered as well as those taxes on inheritance and corporations. Revenue is expected to be compensated by an increase in the GDP. In other words, American companies abroad are expected to return to the States and create jobs. If there is no growth, what will happen is that there will be an increase in the deficit and public debt. This is exactly what happened during President Reagans term in office. He put the country in debt for over 25 years. This is a budget that must be passed by Congress in order to go into effect. The Republicans dominate both chambers, Congress and the Senate.

Will Republicans be willing to reject the budget?

The 2018 United States Federal Budget.- When it comes to revenue, Mr. Trump has said it is the biggest decrease in history, due to lower taxes on personal income and on corporations. However, it states in the budget that that $300,000 million dollars are expected to be collected. Inheritance tax will be eliminated, which will benefit a very limited number of wealthy people. In addition, the charges for Obamacare will be eliminated.

As for spending, more money will be spent on Defense and Security, whereas social spending, such as Obamacare will be replaced by Trumpcare, which will negatively affect the elderly, the sick and the poor sectors of the American people. Medicare is to be eliminated and Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, will undergo cutbacks. Not only will food stamps for 46 million people be affected by cutbacks, but also services for the disabled in addition to student loans.

Mr. Trump looks down on his voters. He promised not to cut back on social aid or health care for the poor, assuring all Americans they would have insurance in order to get their votes. These people believed him. Now the Congressional Budget Office claims that 23 million people will lose their health insurance on account of the cutbacks in Medicaid and the huge increase, around 750% in insurance policies for those lower income families without any right to Medicaid.

Trump also promised well paid jobs in industry as well as taking away help for other groups with the exception of white workers. However, if there is not an increase in growth, the number of jobs in healthcare is likely to drop, especially with the elimination of Obamacare and any assistance for the disabled. According to the economist Paul Krugman, This is a fraudulent budget because it includes $2 billion dollars in savings. Those who voted for Trump are victims of an epic fraud.

The Republican Party.- Republican Congressmen, financed by powerful families, are conservative, united and loyal to the Party. They make up a defense group to lower taxes on the wealthy and are defended by the neoliberal right-wing press. Republican voters cast their ballot for the Republican Party despite the Partys unwillingness to back Trump. Yet the voters knew that Mr. Trump was not politically prepared and thought he might even be corrupt. Among other things, they see how he makes his family rich and how his businesses are not straightforward. Whats more, he fails to publish his tax returns and seems more inclined to deal with Putin. Also to be taken into account is the money spent on his Florida home and that spent on protecting is wife in New York, which turns out to be quite a great deal of spending. The only control on the President is Congress, which is dominated by Republicans and they are not going to call on Mr. Trump to testify in the Putin affair or concerning many of the things he has done up to now. As the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Krugman says, The impeachment process should already be underway.
BMW and Mercedes-Benz are fiercely competing for the top spot in the imported car market in Korea this year.

BMW led the market for the second consecutive month in May with 5,373 cars sold, edging out Mercedes-Benz which sold 5,063 cars, according to the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association on Wednesday.

Mercedes-Benz was in first place from January to March this year after ousting BMW, which had been the No. 1 imported car brand since 2009. In cumulative sales in the first five months of the year, Mercedes-Benz is still ahead of BMW with sales of 29,940 and 23,488 cars, respectively.

MINI, a subsidiary of BMW, sold 1,013 units in May, bringing the market share of the BMW Group up even further. Japan's Honda came in third with 1,169.

The two German carmakers have been expanding their presence rapidly in Korea, taking up a combined 59 percent of the imported market. Mercedes-Benz's sales so far this year have gone up by 50.1 percent from a year ago, and BMW by 28.1 percent.

Some 19,380 imported cars were sold in Korea in May, down 0.5 percent from last year, and down 3.3 percent from the previous month. Diesel cars were most popular accounting for 51.4 percent of sales, followed by gasoline with 39.3 percent and hybrid with 9.3 percent.
The Unification Ministry on Wednesday urged North Korea to allow South Korean civic groups to visit Pyongyang as part of cross-border exchanges despite being cold-shouldered earlier this week.

"There is no change in the government's desire to resume civilian exchanges with the North for better inter-Korean ties," Unification Ministry spokesman Lee Duk-haeng told reporters. "In that sense, we are urging North Korea to respond the civic groups' requests to visit North Korea."

Lee added the government will probably smile on requests from members of civic groups to visit North Korea given the purpose of the visits and their impact on inter-Korean relations.

But the spokesman stressed that it is important for the North to adhere by previous agreements with the South.

Pyongyang on Monday rejected attempts by South Korean civic groups to resume exchanges and instead blasted the South's support for the latest UN sanctions over the North's missile tests. The North's state media said South Korea must first implement hasty promises made during the years of an uneasy thaw.


We are collating signatures to petition ...
Normally around 150 of them swarm the area from April to June when blue crab season starts. But their numbers suddenly started dwindling in early April, and by April 11 there were none. A handful returned on April 19 but since mid-May no more have been sighted.

According to the government authorities on Wednesday, no Chinese trawlers have been caught by the Navy radar in waters near the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border, since May 15.

No Chinese trawlers have been seen fishing illegally in waters off Yeonpyeong Island in the West Sea since last month. They used to swarm these waters during blue crab season each year.

Coast guards attribute their disappearance to the launch on April 4 of a special commando to protect waters off Korea's five northwesternmost islands. It consists of three 1,000-ton ships, six 500-ton ships, three speedboats, and about 400 troops.

Only a week after its launch, it caught five illegal Chinese trawlers, and the rest fled, scared away by warnings that the commando vessels are armed and will use their machine guns.

The Chinese government is also trying to crack down on the incursions.

New artificial barrier reefs aimed to prevent illegal fishing are also starting to become effective. The government spent W10 billion building about 700 artificial barrier reefs in waters off Yeonpyeong, Baeknyeong, and Daecheong since April last year (US$1=W1,124).

Many of them have hooks that can rip or snag fishing nets. Chinese trawlers use dragnets along the seabed that trap even young fish and have a devastating effect of fish populations.

With the Chinese trawlers gone, fishermen on Yeonpyeong Island caught 113,513 kg of blue crabs in April and May, more than double last year's catch.


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China and Russia keep supporting North Korea's arms development by buying its iron ore and other goods and thereby weakening international sanctions, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Tuesday.

China imported US$20.26 million worth of iron ore from the North in April, up 4.4 times from a year ago, the daily said, quoting analysis of China Customs Statistics data by Hong Kong business analysts CEIC.

That suggests that there has been no real change in China's attitude despite Chinese President Xi Jinping's promise to his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in early April to put heavier pressure on the North.

The trade in North Korean iron ore was banned by the UN except for "livelihood purposes," which is China's justification for allowing or encouraging firms to continue buying it.

The North has increased exports of iron ore since coal, its chief export article, was banned.

Russia has also drastically increased trade with the North. Volume grew a whopping 85 percent on-year in the first quarter of the year. Russia sold some $31.41 million worth of energy products like oil to the North in the quarter, up 133 percent on-year, as supply from China seems to have dried up.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of Russian oil products are imported into the North every year, including transactions that are not covered in official statistics, according to a Western diplomat. Russia aims to increase trade with the North 10-fold by 2020.
A divided Florida Legislature on Wednesday opened a special session that many lawmakers expect will exceed its three-day timetable -- perhaps by weeks.

3-day budget special session began Wednesday

Session to include budget, school funding, tourism funding

Senate says it made no promises on a deal made by Gov. Scott, House speaker

RELATED: Special session expands to include medical marijuana

An impasse over the closed-door deal that formed the basis for the session led the Senate to override Gov. Rick Scott's veto of the state's K-12 education budget. Under an agreement forged with House Speaker Richard Corcoran, Scott nixed the spending plan on Friday with the expectation that the legislature would pass a new education budget highlighted by an increase in per-pupil funding.

But the money to pay for the increase would have come at the expense of state universities. The governor also vetoed $108 million in higher education funding, planning to divert it to public schools. The cash had been part of Senate President Joe Negron's signature plan to boost financial support for the state university system.

Negron says he never agreed to the arrangement between the governor and the speaker, raising the prospect that the special session could melt down in dysfunction. Wednesday's override vote was billed as a preemptive measure to ensure that public schools could continue to operate if talks drag on past July 1, when the 2017-18 budget takes effect.

"We're in contentious times here," Sen. Jack Latvala (R-Clearwater), the Senate budget chief, told his chamber. "We're faced with a very aggressive House of Representatives in advocating their position on issues. We're faced with words like 'take it without amendment', things like that, and so, you never know what that's going to produce."

Senate leaders suggested paying for an increase in public school funding in a way that wouldn't raid the higher education money -- code for hiking taxes, in the eyes of House Republicans.

"By them saying we're going to override on the existing, underlying legislation says either take the underlying legislation or take our massive tax increase," Corcoran said in an interview. "That's not a good sign and it's not a good -- when you're a conservative Republican Senate -- that's something I'd expect out of Harry Reid, not a Republican Senate."

The debate over the education funding also throws into question another part of the Scott-Corcoran deal: a widely-rumored quid pro quo that involves Corcoran signing off on much of Scott's prized economic development agenda in exchange for Scott promising not to veto the speaker's 'Schools of Hope' program to spend $200 million on building charter schools in areas served by failing public schools. Such a trade would take buy-in from the Senate, where Schools of Hope narrowly passed during the regular session.

As for Corcoran's sudden support for Scott -- whose economic development initiatives he spent months bemoaning as "corporate welfare" -- the speaker said in the interview that the two men had overcome their differences without sacrificing their principles.

"What's great about Gov. Scott, what's great about the House, is you passionately go out there and you fight courageously for those things that you believe in," Corcoran said. "The governor's done that, the House has done that, and you get to a point where you end up with policy -- I think when you do that based in principle -- that's beneficial to the whole state."
The death sentence for Bessman Okafor, the man convicted in the murder of Alex Zaldivar during a 2012 home invasion, has been overturned.

The Florida Supreme Court vacated the death sentence Thursday, saying that the jury didn't recommend it unanimously. Several hours later, Gov. Rick Scott issued an executive order removing State Attorney Aramis Ayala from the resentencing after her proclamation earlier this year that she wouldn't seek the death penalty in murder cases. Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brad King was assigned Okafor's case.



Okafor will be allowed to get a new sentencing hearing.

Okafor was convicted in August 2015 in the murder of the 19-year-old Zaldivar, who was scheduled to testify against him the next day in a previous home invasion case. He also was convicted of attempted murder for shooting Zaldivar's roommates, siblings Brienna and Remington Campos.

Both siblings testified against Okafor in the emotional trial.

"He needs to die," Alex's father, Rafael, said of Okafor during the trial. "He needs to forfeit his life. He took my son's life. He needs to be gone  completely gone  and I want him to suffer."

Prosecutors said Okafor shot all three in the head to stop them from testifying against him in court.

Alex Zaldivar would have turned 22 on the day of Okafor's conviction.



Alex Zaldivar, 19, was shot and killed at his Ocoee home in November 2012, hours before he was scheduled to testify in a violent home invasion trial. One of the defendants, Bessman Okafor, was charged with killing Zaldivar. (File)
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HART -- First Baptist Church of Hart has a new church sign, funded through donations and church revenues.

The lighted sign features maroon, white and black, in keeping with the Hart ISD school colors.
DALLAS  The Singing Women of Texas, Texas Baptists affiliated choir, is hosting the Texas Lone Star Mission Tour this June to benefit charities around the state.

Their performance will take place Sunday, June 25, at First Baptist Church, Plainview. The morning worship service will begin at 10:15 a.m. Any donations given at the event will benefit the cause chosen by each host congregation.
Plainviews annual community fireworks show is just 30 days away, with the fundraising effort still about $4,000 short of its $14,000 goal.

One of our success stories is the tip jars that are in the checkout lanes at Amigos and United Supermarkets, explains Linda Morris, executive vice president of the Plainview Chamber of Commerce which sponsors the professional fireworks exhibition. People have really responded by contributing their spare change as they check out. We collected about $325 from the jars last week.

Those jars, decorated by residents of Westridge Manor, will remain in place until show time, at 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, July 4.

For the first time this year, the Chamber is able to accept donations using either debit or credit cards. Using its new credit card machine, the Chamber is able to process payments with MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover. Donors can stop by the Chamber at 1906 W. Fifth St., email payment information to info@plainviewtexaschamber.com or call 806-296-7431.

Patriotic music, including a variety of patriotic Western music, will be broadcast beginning at 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, July 4, on 103.9 FM, adds Morris. The special programming will be coordinated with the fireworks show.

The annual fireworks show has been a tradition in Plainview for well over four decades, with the Chamber coordinating the event for the past two decades.

In 2014, Plainview lost its longtime fireworks vendor when Atlas Enterprises was acquired by rival Pyrotechnics. The new owner opted not to review Plainviews contract. Instead, the Chamber contracted with Fannin County-based Pyrotex, Inc.

This year, the fireworks show will be held Tuesday, July 4, at Runningwater Draw Regional Park, the traditional location. It will cap a day-long celebration that includes the morning Freedom Parade followed by the Red, White and Moo celebration outside the courthouse. That festival is sponsored by Hale Countys dairy families.

The cost of staging our level of fireworks show has gone up over the years, Morris said. The first year Chamber of Commerce switched contracts from Atlas to Pyrotex, the price increased from $10,000 to $12,000. Last year, the price increased to $14,000, which is the same this year.

Fundraising for the fireworks show has about gotten to be a year-round proposition, Morris said. It has reached a point where we must receive support from more donors or we will be forced to scale back the show. Thats something that we really dont want to do. Plainview has long been known for the high-quality show we put on each year.

Local and area residents are invited to bring their lawn chairs to Kidsville and elsewhere in Regional Park for the fireworks display, which begins shortly after dusk. They are reminded to leave their personal fireworks at home since its illegal to use them within the city limits.
The Chosun Ilbo hosts the conference from July 3-4 at the Walkerhill Hotel in eastern Seoul under the theme "New Leadership in the Era of Hyper-Uncertainty: Towards Cooperation and Prosperity."

Former U.S. President Barack Obama is to visit Seoul for the eighth Asian Leadership Conference that promises to look at how global politics is changing in the era of his successor Donald Trump.

Some 130 speakers will include other top global leaders taking part in some 60 different sessions. Obama will deliver the keynote speech on July 3.

Former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who led his country into the Brexit vote but resigned when it turned against him, will deliver the keynote speech on the second day.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will talk about his vision of coexistence in Asia. And Esko Aho, the former prime minister of Finland who steered his country out of a financial crisis in the early 1990s, will talk about the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution and graying societies.

The second day of the conference is organized by French advanced technology nonprofit Hello Tomorrow, under the theme "Convergence of Technology," and will focus on finding tech solutions to various global problems.

It will offer participants a chance to meet up-and-coming figures from science, technology, entrepreneurship and math. A contest showcasing the 10 most promising Korean tech start-ups will see the winner invited to present their projects in Paris this October.

On the sidelines, former and incumbent ministers from India, Indonesia and Malaysia will hold investment seminars. Many Chinese venture business officials will also participate in the conference to showcase their success stories and business strategies.

For more information, visit www.ALCchosun.com


MERIDEN  A local Catholic-based care center is celebrating its 30th anniversary as a licensed home health care facility.



Franciscan Home Care and Hospice Care, 267 Finch Ave., received its license in April 1987. The business had just four patients at the time, but now has over 200.



The center has been licensed for skilled nursing, physical, speech and occupational therapy from the beginning. The agency also recently added a wound care specialist.



We felt that there was a great need for community-based services in Meriden, Franciscan Home Care Administrator Suzanne Gross said.



Franciscan Home Care currently serves patients in 31 towns in the region.



Weve had wonderful staff through the 30 years, Gross said. The people working for Franciscan Home Care and hospice care are really dedicated to the mission of providing quality care in a faith-based setting.



Gross said patient growth has been spurred by recommendations. We are the only surviving Catholic agency in Connecticut, she said. That also is because of the support weve gotten through the years.



About 150 employees serve more than 200 patients in homes and up to 25 patients in hospice care each day. Ages of patients range from early 20s to more than 100 years old, Gross said.



Some patients, such as Shelia Spellacy, reside nearby in center-owned homes on Beverly Drive and also volunteer at the facility.



They treat everybody with dignity and respect, whether its an elderly person or young person, Spellacy said.



blipiner@record-journal.com 203-317-2444 Twitter: @BryanLipiner






New shops profits go to the poor and disabled

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-06-07 09:24

Clothes, bags and even wine can be bought at a new charity shop in Jingan.  Jiang Xiaowei



The seven-year-old online charity shop Buy42 opened its first street shop in downtown Shanghai yesterday.

Located on Xinzha Road by Jiangning Road, the 100-square-meter space, is stylishly furnished and has racks of secondhand as well as new clothes, books, toys, bags, bottles of donated wine and home appliances, such as hairdryers.

Occupying a former tax administration office of the subdistrict Shimen Road No. 2 in Jingan District, the shop comes under the coordination of Shanghai Charity Foundation, which will handle the financial management.

Income from sales will be used to support the training and employment of disabled people to work in the shop as well as to help to alleviate poverty in the subdistrict.

Yu Shiyao, co-chief executive and marketing director of Buy42, said dozens of companies partnered with the organization had donated goods for sale at both its online operations and at the Xinzha Road shop.

At the shop you can also buy cloth bags created from donated clothes that are not considered fit to be put on sale, said Yu, adding that the shop accepts donations of sellable objects, including nearly new clothing.

Staff at he shop, which opens from 9am to 8pm daily, said all goods would be sold at 50 to 70 percent of their market prices.

By yesterday afternoon, it had recorded sales of nearly 6,000 yuan (US$880).

Bamboo Yuan, a young designer who has been working alongside Yus team on a voluntary basis for five years and who was in charge of the shops design, said it was similar to charity shops in other countries, such as the Goodwill stores in the United States.

Our shop is perhaps more spacious with fewer racks because we hope to make it also a place where people can come to meet and talk and through events to promote charity as a life style, she said.

The project has attracted volunteers, such as Li Juan, a former fashion shop manager, who plans to help in the shop from 3pm to 8pm every day. I think this is a very worthy cause which is dedicated to helping disabled people, and I can see the satisfaction on their faces when they came here to visit today, she said.

Dong Guifang, a nearby resident, dropped in yesterday afternoon after reading about the shop on the subdistrict governments WeChat account. She said she would like to see a bigger selection of clothes.

Another Buy42 charity shop is scheduled to open on Jiangning Road by the end of this year, and a third is being considered.
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BART directors made it clear Thursday that the so-called seat-hog ordinance is doomed, likely to be replaced by an etiquette campaign or possibly a system in which violators are temporarily banned.

Board President Rebecca Saltzman proposed rescinding the law that allows police to fine BART riders who occupy more than a single seat during crowded commute hours. Directors passed the law on a 5-4 vote last year but a dispute over how it should be enforced meant that it has not been. A vote to kill the law is expected in two weeks.

In discussing the proposal Thursday, directors had plenty to say about whether BART should start enforcing the law, which took effect in October. It allows BART police to issue citations of $100 for the first violation and as much as $500 for subsequent offenses.

Saltzman, who opposed the law from the start, said she sought to have it rescinded because she considers it a waste of limited police resources, a potential cause of more delays, and something that could lead toward targeting homeless people and possible use of force.

This is not the way to go, she said, adding that she would support an expanded etiquette campaign that reminds riders not to take more than one seat, to take off their backpacks and generally behave themselves.

Debora Allen, a director from Clayton, said she surveyed her constituents in Contra Costa County and found that many of them thought BART had better things to do than issue citations to people storing their suitcases on the seat next to them or sleeping across two seats.

Why are you spending time on this? she said her constituents wanted to know. We would rather you focus on making the trains run on time.

Allen said BART shouldnt completely abandon the one-person, one-seat rule. She suggested adding a line to the systems Everyone is welcome here signs reading but this is how we expect you to behave and posting a list of rules.

Director John McPartland of Castro Valley said BART police need to have the ability to do something when a rider taking multiple seats refuses to sit up, slide over or move his or her luggage.

Im not willing to just kick this thing to the curb and depend on the ethical standards of the people on the train, he said. Unless we give law enforcement authority to do something, we are giving people permission to be seat hogs.

Joel Keller, the director from Brentwood who came up with the ordinance last year, suggested that instead of fines, BART could ban repeat seat hogs from using the system for two weeks, a practice used by some systems.

Directors, on a 5-3 vote with Robert Raburn, Saltzman and Bevan Dufty opposed and Lateefah Simon absent, agreed to consider that idea as an alternative to the existing fines in the one-seat ordinance in two weeks.

BART has a code of conduct, adopted in 2013, but it doesnt include taking more than one seat, and it has no penalties, aside from allowing BART police to escort the offender from the system.

Keller acknowledged that the makeup of the BART board has changed  it has three new directors  but said that the system should make sure that violating one-seat policy has some consequences.

Id hate to think this district is going to say were going to make it easy for someone to take more than one seat on a crowded train, he said.

Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ctuan
Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Foothill Community Colleges Smithwick Theatre, 12345 El Monte Road in Los Altos. For information: http://eshoo.house.gov.

Syria documentary: The Syrian American Council, the International Rescue Committee and National Geographic premiere Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS, at 3 p.m. at the AMC Metreon 16, 135 Fourth St. in San Francisco. The film will be followed by a discussion with the director. RSVP by Friday: http://bit.ly/2snzF2q.

Candidate fundraiser: The Sister District Project holds a fundraiser with drinks and music to support Cheryl Turpin, Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 85th District (Virginia Beach). The Sister District Project consists of volunteers who support Democratic state and congressional campaigns in historically red states. The event is from 6 to 9 p.m. at Spats Berkeley, 1974 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: http://bit.ly/2ssaHOC.

Health care film: A showing of the 30-minute film Now Is the Time: Healthcare for Everybody, with speaker Sue Bergman, a nurse and supporter of the Healthy California Act, proposed in the Legislature to create a single-payer health care system. The free event is at 7 p.m. at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 6250 Village Parkway in Dublin. For information: (925) 462-3459 or flickknight@gmail.com.

Sunday

Sierra Club recruitment: The Sierra Club is seeking volunteers to recruit new members and educate people on environmental issues at Sunday Streets, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Golden Gate Park. The Sierra Club booth will be located on John F. Kennedy Drive, near Spreckels Lake at 36th Avenue. For information, contact Katherine Howard at sfoceanedge@earthlink.net.

Equality march: Marchers to mobilize and call for the protection of rights for LGBTQ people and those targeted due to immigration status, ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender and disability. The event begins at 11 a.m. at San Jose City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St. A rally will begin at 1 p.m. at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, 1 Paseo De San Antonio in San Jose. For information:http://equalitymarchsj.domoreproject.org.

Monday

Refugees: Oxfam America and Microsoft will host an interactive event exploring the Syrian refugee crisis. The free event is from 5 to 7 p.m. at Microsoft Conference Center 1065 La Avenida St., Building 1 in Mountain View. For information: www.refugeeroad.info.

June 17

Nuclear weapons march:Womens March to Ban the Bomb, in support of U.N. negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Demonstrators will meet at 11:30 a.m. at the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto. For information: wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com. In San Francisco, marchers are planning to meet at noon at UN Plaza. For information: bln.sf.ca@gmail.com.

Anti-Trump discussion: Hosted by the Freedom Socialist Party, a conversation on countering racism and fascism. The event begins at 2 p.m. A $3 to $5 donation is requested at the door. The event is at New Valencia Hall, 747 Polk St. in San Francisco. For information: (415) 864-1278 or www.socsialism.com.

Nuclear weapons film: A screening and discussion of The Nuclear Requiem, on the challenges of controlling nuclear weapons. The free, two-hour event starts at 3:30 p.m. at the Los Altos Public Librarys Orchard Room, 13 South San Antonio Road. For information: wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com.

June 21

Electoral system presentation: Californians for Electoral Reform and FairVote California will present an overview of local election systems and discuss possible reforms. The free event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Richmond Progressive Alliance, 2540 Macdonald Ave. in Richmond. For information: (510) 412-2260.

June 22

Coal film: A free screening of From the Ashes, a National Geographic documentary about coal, followed by a discussion on the environment and climate. The film begins at 7 p.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: www.nocoalinoakland.info.
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In a spectacular TV tribute to San Antonio, daring and devilish Travel Channel host Andrew Zimmern aims to help visitors experience the city not only as a gorgeous stop full of fun and history, but as a truly delicious destination.

Our goal is to introduce the viewers to the types of food you shouldn't miss out on the next time you're in San Antonio, Zimmern wrote in an email.

The S.A. celebration  filling an entire episode of Zimmerns Bizarre Foods spinoff series Delicious Destinations  airs at 8 p.m. Tuesday on Travel Channel.

It not only is a dazzling tour of distinctive sights and sounds of San Antonio, but showcases the citys signature foods  including barbecue, the bean burger, puffy tacos, even quail, cooked the Alamo City way.

This is the third time Zimmern  whos most famous for Bizarre Foods, which showcases unusual regional edibles from around the world, slimy insects, animal organs and the like  has featured San Antonio on one of his shows.

One included the Alamo City as part of an episode on Texas. The second, which was the most in-depth until now, was a Bizarre Foods hour in 2015 called San Antonio: Brains, Balls & Blood. It showed how unexpected parts of the cow and goat that, on first glance, might seem icky, became scrumptious in the hands of local chefs.

This new episodes purpose is different. Its a more sweeping celebration of the citys favorite dishes and the cooks and restaurateurs who bring them to you.

San Antonio is the heart and soul of the nexus between the colonial Mexican era and the modern evolution of the longhorn state. In every episode of Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations, I try to select the foods you need to experience when you're in a given city, not necessarily where to get them, although sometimes the two are one and the same, Zimmern wrote.

They are one in the same in this Destinations, which guide viewers through some of the most frequented eateries here.

First, the spotlight sparkles on San Antonio as a city  its skyline, markets, San Fernando Cathedral, Alamo, River Walk and more. Its the second largest city in Texas, Zimmern notes, bringing in about 2 million tourists every year.

Originally a part of Mexico with a population bolstered by migrants and immigrants, today, remnants of the citys past are everywhere, especially in the food, the host begins.

These Texans arent shy about saying their food reigns supreme, Zimmern continues.

Proving this, renowned chef Jason Dady announces with conviction: Texas is the king of barbecue.

Zimmern agrees. Here, pitmasters slow-cook their seasoned meats over locally grown oak and serve their barbecue sauce on the side, he says of San Antonios barbecue.

He then focuses on a popular pitstop that Dady and his brother Jake own: Two Bros BBQ on the North Side.

Dady prefers the old school style of barbecue using classic pits.

Were not using any electricity; were not using machines that rotate for 12 hours at a time. Its about using a steel pit with live fire wood, he says in the special.

Managing the smoke and the heat is an art, Zimmern adds, and pitmaster Laura Loomis, one of two female pitmasters in all of Texas, has got it.

The photogenic Loomis then turns into one of the stars of the show, illustrating how to cook brisket right, so tender, as Zimmern puts it, diners can cut it with a fork.

Zimmern then moves on to Tex-Mex, which he describes as a mashup of Northern Mexicos regional cuisine, anglo ranchers ingredients, along with Spanish and Native American influence as well.

Rays Drive Inn, he says, is credited with inventing the first puffy taco in the 1960s.

What an invention it is, as Destinations shows in beefy, cheesy, peppery detail. Patsy Torres, the niece of the inventor, Arturo Lopez, is now the keeper of the family legacy.

It was originally called the crispy taco, but that name didnt fit him. He felt it need a more snappy name. So he named it the puffy taco, Torres says.

One edible icon in San Antonio that remains rooted in its Mexican history is barbacoa. You can still find restaurants that cook the entire head, Zimmern says, citing El Milagrito as an example. Its a homey, three-generation restaurant off the St. Marys Strip.

Another San Antonio staple showcased in this Delicious half-hour is the bean burger, the marriage of a burger and taco.

The everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bean burger was first served at a San Antonio snack shack in the 1950s, Zimmern says, explaining that corn chips, Cheez Whiz, refried beans, meat, jalapenos and more make up this tasty concoction.

An excellent place to find the best, Zimmern says, is Bigz Burger Joint, located on the far North Side of the city, where everything that goes into its version  the Chalupa Burger  is fresh.

San Antonio, however, is a place where life happens outside, Zimmerman says, largely because of its sultry climate.

Underscoring this is the growing food truck scene, where you can find another iconic food favorite: traditional spicy Texas chili ... without beans.

Closing the episode is a grand, expansive look at the many restaurants located on San Antonios River Walk  including Boudros, where diners flock for an excellent quail dish.

The birds are grilled over mesquite, Zimmern says, and stuffed with a mixture of wild rice, nuts and all sorts of spices and vegetables.

San Antonios cuisine is authentically Texas and honestly Mexican, he concludes. Thats why this city has birthed a vast variety of Tex-Mex creations.

When you come here, Zimmern suggests, you should enjoy all of it ... make sure you leave room for the barbecue and those cute little quail.
Sturgeons and sharks released into the Yangtze

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-06-07 09:25

Chinese sturgeons and sharks are released yesterday into the Yangtze Rivers mouth at Chongming Island. The aim is to better protect aquatic organisms.  Ti Gong



Thousands of sharks were put into the Yangtze River yesterday.

The city released 30 Chinese sturgeons and more than 30,000 Chinese high-fin banded sharks into the rivers mouth in suburban Chongming Island.

The project aims to increase the number of rare animals living in Yangtze River and to better protect aquatic organisms, which will also contribute to building up Chongmings plans to be a world-class ecological island.

The sturgeons had received one-year acclimation by Shanghai Yangtze River Estuarys Chinese Sturgeon Nature Conservation Area Office before the release to help them better adapt to the wild environment. The sturgeons are about 9 years old and over 1.7 meters in length.

Both Chinese sturgeons and Chinese high-fin banded sharks are endangered species. The sturgeons have first-grade national protection, and the sharks second-grade national protection.

The conservation area office said it would launch a second release of Chinese sturgeons in the second half of this year. The office has been releasing rare aquatic animals to the wild since 2004.

June is an important month for the breeding and growth of aquatic organisms and major Chinese rivers, including the Yangtze, have introduced fishing moratoriums.

The Ministry of Agriculture has for the past three years called for local authorities to release aquatic animals to the wild to restore fishing resources and promote the protection of aquatic animals.
Magik Theatre is including some programming aimed at older kids in its lineup for 2017-18.

A Wrinkle in Time is based Madeline LEngles classic 1963 sci-fi novel about a girl who travels through space and time to rescue her father. The show is slated to run Feb. 9-18 and is recommended for middle- and high school students.

Heres a look at what else is in the works:

Rikki Tikki Tavi and Other Just So Stories, Oct. 6-Nov. 4: The show is adapted from Rudyard Kiplings tales of animals and others set in India. Laced with Bollywood-influenced song and dance, it includes such stories as How the Elephant Got Her Trunk and Rikki Tikki Tavi, which is about a mongoose who rescues a boy from a cobra.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Nov. 21-Dec. 31: The Magik holiday fave returns. Its based on Barbara Robinsons book about a church show in which the nativity story is brought into clearer focus by some rowdy kids who also bring chaos to the production process.

Tomas and the Library Lady, Jan. 26-Feb. 17: The play is based on Pat Moras book based on the real-life story of author Tomas Rivera. It tells of a son of migrant farm workers whose world is opened up when he crosses paths with a librarian.

Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical, March 2-April 7: This is another reprise of an audience favorite. The musical is based on Mo Willems much-adored story of a trip to a laundromat that goes horribly awry when a childs much-adored stuffed bunny gets left behind.

Disneys Aladdin, April 24-June 2: This is the dual-language version of the stage adaptation of the animated film. It tells the story of Aladdin in both English and Spanish.

Madagascar: A Musical Adventure, June 15-Aug. 18: The musical is based on the DreamWorks film about animals who discover a new world after escaping from their sheltered lives in New Yorks Central Park Zoo.

Season tickets range from $30 for a three-show package to $54 for a six-show package. Call 210-227-2751 for more information.

dlmartin@express-news.net

Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN
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London, Paris, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Montenegro  This isn't the travel log of a life-long adventurer, it's all the places a 19-year-old San Antonian has visited in a little over a month.

Jake Baine jetted off to London in mid-April after being picked from more than 5,000 applicants who were vying for the chance to become a video producer for Busabout, a travel company.

The Johnson High School graduate won the title by producing an immersive video highlighting Alamo Plaza that quickly went viral.

RELATED: Local teen's viral video showcase of S.A. has people falling in love with the city

Busabout heralded the position as "the best job in the world" and it's hard to argue with the claim. Baine and the company's team are getting paid to travel and create "vlog-style" content.

Europe has proved to be a playground for Baine's creative genius. He's used social media to chronicle his excursions, culminating in a wanderlust-worthy set of photos that he shared with mySA.com.

"I'm having a blast," Baine told mySA.com after visiting the Balkans. "It's really cool to break away from America's cultural bubble and see other cultures and societies and realize how blessed we are."

Before the Balkans, he was sailing Croatia's coastline for a week.

Baine has a few more months left in his travels, but he's ready to hit the ground running once he returns to San Antonio on Sept. 14.

"I'm loving every second of this trip, I can't believe it's almost half way over already," he said. "I'm keen to start working on some new films to show off the destinations I've been too."

In the meantime, check out the slideshow above for photos from Baine as he leaves his footsteps around Europe.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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BRIDGEPORT  Police have identified the body found in the passenger seat of an sport utility vehicle Wednesday night.

The victim was identified as Jason Nieves, 28, of Bridgeport, according to Bridgeport spokeswoman Rowena White, who said the death was determined to have been caused by a gunshot.
Webb County Commissioner Jesse Gonzalez held his third large-scale community cleanup of the year in the City of El Cenizo on Tuesday.

Over 30 Webb County employees and community volunteers assisted the residents of El Cenizo in picking up and disposing of unwanted items, such as old tires, furniture and tree limbs.
The 7-year-old granddaughter of Danbury philanthropist Noel Hord died earlier this week, apparently suffocated by her father, police said.

Police officers in New Rochelle, N.Y., who were called to a Westchester County home on Tuesday, said they found Gabrielle White dead in her bed and the girls father, Neil White, bleeding with wounds on his forearms.

White was arraigned on a murder charge on Wednesday, appearing in a blue hospital gown with his forearms bandaged, The Journal News reported. He was held without bail.

Noel Hords daughter, Michelle Hord-White, an NBC executive, is Gabrielles mother.

Hord runs the Danbury-based Hord Foundation, which has awarded more than $4.5 million in college scholarships to African-American students since 1993. The foundations annual awards ceremony was scheduled to take place Thursday night.

Natasha McNeal, the foundations executive director, confirmed Thursday that Hords granddaughter was the victim in Tuesdays crime. McNeal added that Hord wasnt available for comment.

In a statement to the Associated Press, Hord-White and her family said words could not sum all that Gabrielle meant to us.

We are broken and devastated that our sweet little girl is gone, but we're thankful that we had seven wonderful years with her, the family said in the statement.

Gabrielle was in second grade at William B. Ward Elementary School in New Rochelle, where school district officials said grief counselors were available to help staff members and students cope with her death.

The Journal News reported, citing county records, that Hord-White, a talent acquisition vice president for NBCUniversal, had filed for divorce in April. The newspaper said the couple were living apart and had shared custody of Gabrielle.

The girls babysitter, Tonelle Mahon, told WABC-TV that she had gone to the home just north of New York City on Tuesday but didn't see anyone.

I went upstairs, and I kept calling, `Neil? Gabrielle? she said in the interview.

She said Neil White appeared, bleeding from his arms, and told her that Gabrielle was in her room resting.

An autopsy will be performed, but police said they believe the girl was asphyxiated. New Rochelle police Commissioner Patrick Carroll said he would not speculate about a motive.

According to the couples 2007 wedding announcement, Neil White was a freelance journalist, and the two met in 1992, when he was her brother's resident adviser at the University of Connecticut.
Cary Moon will be an unfamiliar name on the city's August ballot, but the candidate for Seattle mayor is a self-described "civic leader" with a reputation for tenacity and a lengthy record of outside activism.

The leader part comes from Moon's role as founder of the People's Waterfront Coalition, which fought to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with "surface transportation options" and not with a deep-bore tunnel.

"I'm a collaborator, a listener and a convener; I bring people together and invite people to share ideas," Moon said when asked about her qualifications.

The candidate brings personal wealth -- estimated at $4.1 million by Seattle blogger Erica Barnett -- to the contest. In her latest email fundraising blast, Moon pledges: "I'll match every contribution this month."

Moon is, however, focused on reforming taxation in the Emerald City. It would mark a radical change. City Hall has been in the business of doubling property tax levies, culminating with the gargantuan $930 million 2015 Move Seattle transportation levy, followed by a doubling of the city's housing levy.

Moon wants those at the top to bear a greater burden. She is not out to soak the rich but would make them bathe far more frequently. She favors a direct tax on real estate speculation by outsiders and a real estate excise tax on high-income development.

Moon is a strong supporter of a statewide capital gains tax to yield more revenue, as well as a statewide carbon tax.

"Our city must become a leader in progressive tax reform," Moon said over coffee at Tuogo on Capitol Hill.

Why? Because, Moon says of the city's economic leadership, "They are still trapped in the neo-liberal, trickle-down mind set that does not work. We can look around at how Seattle is growing, and see that it does not work."

Moon would "plow the money back into housing," she said, seeking a fourfold increase in affordable housing. She is raising her family downtown and admires what has been done in the densely populated west end of Vancouver, B.C., where family life continues to exist amidst wealth and corporate power.

As well, Moon is blunt in her call for Seattle to "acknowledge clear inequities on racial and class lines."

"Every decision on allocation of resources must be made on racial-equity lines," she added. Moon wants to expand "as soon as we can" the city's startup preschool program, a creation of Mayor Ed Murray and City Councilman Tim Burgess.

"If we're going to move to equity, it starts early," said Moon.

Moon is committed to getting a full network of protected bicycle lanes in place -- "I don't bike downtown, it's too scary" -- and make downtown Seattle more accessible to those who ride and walk and use transit.

Moon was not able to stop the tunnel. She did gain fans. She was the Municipal League of King County's "Citizen of the Year" in 2009, and was picked as "Change Agent of the Year" by Real Change in 2011. She is a past winner of one of The Stranger's "Genius" awards. (The Stranger's adoration this year seems directed at rival Nikkita Oliver.)

How, then, does Cary Moon hope to get to the seventh floor of City Hall?

The Michigan native hopes to do a "Bern" over the next two months. "I was inspired by Bernie Sanders' campaign," she said. "Ihe campaign I'm running is modeled on that."

She talks of melding so-called "urbanists" -- advocates of greater density and transit -- as well as the city's most involved civic activists.

"My groups are the folks who really care about these issues," she said, "the wonks who really understand the provisions of my platform."

Moon has two months to mobilize the urbanists and wonks ... the two usually gorgeous summer months when Seattle historically tunes out politics.
Former FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee. In his opening remarks, Comey said he always knew he served at the pleasure of the president and was willing to go home immediately as a private citizen. But he said he was concerned about the shifting explanations for his firing by President Trump last month. The administration chose to defame me and the FBI, Comey said. White House statements that Comey had left the FBI in turmoil were lies, pure and simple.

Heres a live rundown of his testimony and the reaction from Trumps personal lawyer.

12:15 p.m.: Marc Kasowitz, Trumps lawyer, offers a statement saying that Comeys appearance shows that the president never tried to impede any probe into Russian interference with the 2016 election. He also denies that the president ever asked Comey for a pledge of loyalty  Of course, the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration  or that Trump ever pressured Comey or anyone else to drop or slow any investigation.

While saying that Comey unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president, Kasowitz adds that in the wake of the public hearing, it is now established that the president was not being investigated for colluding with or attempting to obstruct the investigation into actions by Russia during the campaign.

9:40 a.m.: GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas goes back to the Clinton email investigation, asking why there wasnt a special counsel after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton when his wife was under investigation.

Comey says he considered calling for that special counsel, but because he already knew there wasnt a case against Hillary Clinton, that would be brutally unfair, since it would have suggested to people that there was something there when there wasnt.

Democrat Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island asks Comey if he was fired because of the Russia investigation. Comey says he doesnt know, although he believes he apparently was putting pressure on (Trump) and somehow irritating him.

Comey says he does believe he was fired because of the Russia investigation, though. If any Americans were involved in helping the Russians ... its incredibly important.

GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona also moves to Clinton investigation, asking why there was a difference in the treatment between Clinton and Trump.

The Clinton investigation was a completed investigation, Comey says. The Trump investigation is ongoing, he adds, which makes them completely different.

While Comey says the Clinton investigation was wrapped up last July, McCain says, The American people still have a lot of questions.

Comey, though, reminds McCain that he was referring to the email investigation, while the senator tries to link Clinton to the Russia investigation. It is a very confusing line of questioning.

Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign is very serious, Comey says, but Clinton is not directly involved.

I think theres a double standard there, McCain says.

That ends the hearing. The committee will reconvene in closed session with Comey at 10 a.m. PDT.

9:15 a.m.: Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas shows the problem of questioning Comey about the Russia investigation. Time after time, Comey has to say he cant answer those questions in an open session. He is to testify in closed session with the committee later today.

Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California also runs into problems with details of classified information. Comey does say he knows of no other high-level officials who were specifically asked for a loyalty pledge by Trump.

Comey declines to say whether the attorney general has been involved in any part of the Russia investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the probe. He says that when he asked Sessions to keep the president from meeting with him privately, the attorney generals body language seemed to say, What can I do?

Appointment of special counsel, especially considering who it is, should give American people great confidence, Comey says.

Harris also adds that as a former prosecutor, she knows that when a robber holds a gun to you head and says, I hope youll give me your money, hope isnt the most important word.

9 a.m.: Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine asks whether Comey asked for the dinner meeting with Trump, as the president said. Comey says no and that he had to break a date with his wife to meet with Trump. In retrospect, Comey says, he wishes he had gone out with his wife.

Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma hits on the fact that President Trump asked about easing off on the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn one time only and that no one else in the administration followed up.

That seems like a pretty light touch, he says.

Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia says he had over 600 requests for questions from constituents. Among them: Why should Americans be concerned about Russian involvement?

I dont remember any questions (by Trump) about Russian intervention, Comey says.

Were talking about a foreign government ... that tried to change the way we think and act, Comey says. Thats a big deal ... And they will be back. We remain that shining city on the hill, and they dont like it.

Comey says he hopes there are tapes of his meetings with Trump, as the president himself indicated in a tweet after one of their meetings. If there are, My feelings arent hurt, release them all.

Trump never suggested he was doing a bad job, Comey says, and even called him as the FBI director was getting on a helicopter to tell him he was doing great.

As to whether he would have been fired if Hillary Clinton had become president, Thats a great question, Comey replies. I dont know.

Do you believe this (Trumps actions) rises to obstruction of justice, Manchin asks. I dont know, thats (Special Counsel Robert) Muellers job.

8:45 a.m.: Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico asks Comey why people should believe him.

You have to look at the whole body of evidence. Ive tried to be open and fair, transparent, Comey says. As I told juries, you cant cherry pick the evidence.

GOP Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri asks if Comey believes he would still be FBI director if he hadnt been fired, despite his concerns about Trump? Comey said he would have stayed.

Blunt asks why Comey would take phone calls from president if he didnt want to be in the room alone with Trump. Whats the difference, Blunt asks.

Like the other Republicans, Blunt focuses on fact that Comey did tell Trump multiple times that the president wasnt being investigated.

He also attacks Comey for sharing a memo about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn with a friend, arguing that memos werent his to give out. Comey says these were my recollections and as unclassified documents they were his to give out. And the reason he had a friend share the memos with reporters is that with reporters camped on his doorstep, if he gave out memos it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach.

8:30 a.m.: Another bombshell. GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine asks if he had shared his memos with anyone outside the Department of Justice, Comey says he had. When a Trump tweet suggested there might be tapes of their meetings, Comey says he woke up at midnight and realized there could be evidence of that talk.

He says his judgment was that the information had to get out, so he asked a friend of his, a professor at Columbia Law School, to share his notes with the press, in the hope it would prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

8:15 a.m.: GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida asks why Comey wouldnt publicly say that Trump wasnt the target of any investigation.

It would create a duty to correct, which Ive lived through before in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Comey says. Its also a slippery slope since if the FBI says that the president and the vice president are being investigated, where do you stop?

Rubio than argues that since the entire Russia investigation has been full of leaks, why has the only thing not leaked is that President Trump was not the subject of the investigation?

Comey replies that that information was closely held by a small group in the FBI and they dont leak.

Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon comments that the timing of your firing stinks and suggests that Comeys written testimony shows why the odor of presidential abuse of power is so strong.

8 a.m.: GOP Sen. James Risch of Idaho questioning: Compliments Comey on his clear and concise statements. He gets Comey to repeat that Trump was not under investigation while he was FBI director.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein questioning: Calls Comey a man of strength and integrity and asks why he believes he was fired.

I take (the president) at his word and believe it had to do with his handling of the Russia investigation, Comey replied, adding he believes the Russia probe was involved in his firing because Ive seen the president say so.

As for questions about the Oval Office conversation during which Trump asked him to drop the investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Comey says he didnt tell the president the conversation was improper because he was so stunned by the conversation, I could only take it in. I was playing in my mind about what I should say. He says if he had it to do over, maybe he would do it better.

When he told FBI leadership about Trumps request to dump the investigation, his colleagues were as shocked as I was ... they were all experienced people who had never experienced such a thing and that they wouldnt stop the investigation.

7:45 a.m.: The first blockbuster. When Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia asks why he immediately wrote a memo about his meetings with President Trump, Comey says it was because of the circumstances, the subject matter and the person I was dealing with.

I was concerned (Trump) might lie about the substance of the meeting and decided he needed to create a written record. He says he knew there might come a day when Trump would dispute the record and needed documentation to protect not only himself by also the FBI.

Warner says the committee wants access to the memos Comey made on the meetings and discussions with Trump.

Comey says he had one conversation with Trump on a classified matter that was brief and entirely professional.

7:30 a.m.: Burr asking questions. Comey immediately ducks question about whether Trumps actions were obstruction of justice, arguing, thats not for me to say. But Burr focuses on Russian cyberattacks and Hillary Clintons emails. Comey refuses to answer questions about the so-called Steele dossier, unconfirmed information compiled by a former British spy for anti-Trump groups, saying it can only be be discussed in closed session. Comey does say there were hundreds of cyberattacks against government, nonprofit and other groups, with Russia involved at least from late summer of 2015.

7:20 a.m.: Comey sworn in and makes his opening comments. Says he always knew that he served at the pleasure of the president and was willing to go home immediately as a private citizen. But he was concerned about the shifting explanations for his firing. The administration chose to defame me and the FBI. White House statements that Comey had left the FBI in turmoil were lies, pure and simple.

7:10 a.m.: Hearing opens in a packed room with Comey sitting alone at a desk  no aides, no lawyers. Committee chairman and North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr reminds panel members that they are scheduled for a closed door session with Comey at 10 a.m., East Coast time. Addressing Comey as Jim, he says that the panel will lay out the facts for the American people to judge.

Burr says he wants to know more about potential collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia, as well as about his handling of the investigation into Democrat Hillary Clintons handling of emails as secretary.

The hearing must be kept above partisanship and politics.

Comeys opening statement differed from the one he released publicly on Wednesday.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth

Facebook Live

Chronicle political writers Joe Garofoli and John Wildermuth and Editorial Page Editor John Diaz will discuss the hearing today at 2 p.m. at www.facebook.com/SFChronicle
It is not often that you hear about a student earning an associate degree before graduating with their high school diploma.

In Amar Moturu's case, the situation rings true, but he is not one to boast about his accomplishments. Moturu, a Cy-Fair High School junior, received his associate of science degree at the Lone Star College-University Park commencement ceremony May 12 at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston. The high school student can now add being a college graduate with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average to his resume.

"It's a really nice feeling knowing that our son has accomplished so much. At first, I thought it was too much work because junior year can be difficult, but he said he wanted to try it," said Sarada Moturu, assistant professor of physics at LSC-University Park and Amar Moturu's mother.

"In the past spring semester he took seven classes at the high school and two at the college. We are happy and glad that whatever he set his goals as, he is able to achieve. He finished his junior year very well, and he has made straight A's since Kindergarten."

Moturu was born with cystic hygroma, a disability which affects his speech and hearing. The disability causes abnormal growths in the neck and head. He believes that his disability has not interfered with achieving his goals.

"I'm very lucky to have grown up in a community that can look past my disability, so it has not hindered me much," Moturu said in a statement. "If we all focus on our abilities, we can achieve anything we choose."

The summer before Moturu's freshman year, he began taking college courses. His schedule included multiple Advanced Placement classes as well as playing the marimba in marching band and the Houston Youth Symphony. His parents are proud that their son continues to set goals and achieve them, despite his disabilities.

"Amar has quite a bit more than just speech and hearing disabilities because of being born with cystic hygroma. He can't eat; he only drink liquids," Sarada Moturu said. "It can be hard for people to understand when he speaks, and his face is disfigured. Despite his health impairments and disabilities, he is a good kid who is very bright. He will go for his goals. He says his disabilities did not impair him for what he wanted to achieve."

Moturu's parents are thankful for the LSC-University Park community's encouragement of Morturu succeeding. They do not believe their son was treated any different because of his age or disability.

"We have more than five million library resources that can be viewed online and our disability services team helps each and every student succeed with a personalized set of services," said Shah Ardalan, LSC-University Park president. "We are very proud of Amar and the wonderful support and encouragement his mother, and our esteemed faculty member, Sarada Morturu provided."

The Lone Star College system offers low-cost academic transfer and career training education to 95,000 students each semester. The LSC system consists of six colleges, eight centers, two university centers, Lone Star Corporate College and LSC-Online

"LSC-University Park is honored to support the educational pursuits of students such as Amar," Ardalan said in a statement. "Our passion is for serving all students, and we are proud of Amar's accomplishments as they are a testament to our mission."

Moturu's academic achievements include being the first-runner up in the You Be the Chemist competition and he took quantum physics at Harvard University as a sophomore. Additionally, the district reports that Moturu qualified for the Texas Music Educators Association All-State Band this year, and finished as a champion in several percussion competitions around the country.

This summer Moturu plans to work as a paid research intern at Baylor College of Medicine. Moturu will be entering his senior year at Cy-Fair High School in the fall. Continuing with the pattern of setting high goals and standards for himself, Moturu plans to take additional college courses during his senior year. After high school Moturu looks forward to attending a four-year university to pursue a bachelor's degree. He eventually wants to earn his master's degree as well.

"He doesn't brag or talk about his achievements much," Sarada Moturu said. "If he sets his goal, he will work for it quietly and do whatever hard work that is necessary to finish it. Then, he will go to the next one."
Margaret Smithers-Crump was raised on an island in Canada near a glacial lake with waters so transparent she could see the breathtaking natural formations decorating the lake floor.

"When I was a child, you could see at least 20 feet down with real clarity," Smithers-Crump said. "It was incredible."

Over the years, she watched the lake change as phosphates, algae and trash clouded the once-transparent water.

"I was saddened," Smithers-Crump said. "Watching that change occur in the span of 25 years is disturbing."

Having been around fresh and sea water much of her life, she developed a passion for ecology.

Smithers-Crump has always been an admirer of visually stimulating characteristics of the natural world. She is now a Houston-based artist whose work has been featured in dozens of exhibitions since the 1980s. Her sense of stewardship of the planet has manifested in her artwork.

"I became dedicated to using creativity that carries with it a message that is really important to me, and something I felt was important to the world," Smithers-Crump said.

Her message of the importance and fragility of the Earth's environment is a driving concept in her artwork. Her latest exhibition, "In Silence," is no exception.

"In Silence" is currently on display at the Lone Star College-Kingwood Art Gallery.

The exhibit features artwork made of Plexiglas designed to imitate the organic and membranous textures found in nature, while visually implying a glass-like fragility to reflect the delicateness of Earth's ecosystems.

"When one encounters 3-D artwork, your senses are challenged," Smithers-Crump said. "The art offers a visual metaphor. People are encouraged to get involved, ask questions - 'Why did they do that? What's happening in the artwork?' Art has a way of distilling concepts - like poetry - reducing something to its common denominator to engage the viewer, involving them both creatively and conceptually."

The exhibit runs May 30 through July 5 in LSC-Kingwood's Art Gallery. The gallery is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The community is invited to an artist's talk June 15 at 12 p.m., during which Smithers-Crump will discuss the basic engineering and practical aspects of her artwork, as well as addressing the concept behind it. The event is free and open to the public.

Smithers-Crump aims to inspire thought and discussion through her artwork regarding the importance of water to survival and the need to protect the planet's fragile ecosystems.

LSC-Kingwood Gallery director Kris Larson intends to continue hosting exhibits that focus on environmental topics, including the importance of water to life. She is currently collaborating with the campus' science students to create an exhibit comparing global water quality.

"The idea of these events isn't to promote a point of view, it's about conversation and enjoyment," Larson said. "This is an opportunity for people to get together and discuss topics from multiple points of view."

For more information about the Lone Star College-Kingwood Art Gallery's exhibits and events, email kc.artgallery@lonestar.edu or visit www.lonestar.edu/arts-kingwood.

To learn more about Margaret Smithers-Crump, visit www.margaretsmithers-crump.com.
A decision was made to cut fees paid by enterprises during a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on June 7.

Premier Li said in the Government Work Report this year that China will take multiple measures to cut costs for companies, leave no stone unturned and make structural tax cuts pay off as much as possible and create a straightforward, transparent, and fairer tax regime.

It was decided at the meeting that the country will reduce construction assurance deposit standards. Also canceled is an industry restructuring charge that is ultimately levied in power bills.

The country will also put on hold industry oversight charges levied on banks and other financial institutions, and reduce the fees charged by public security departments for licenses they issue.

Premier Li said too many charges have weighed down businesses too much. The country is on its way to delivering on its promise to slash costs by 1 trillion yuan ($147.1 billion) this year, he said.

Measures rolled out by the central government earlier this year has already cut taxes and fees by about 718 billion yuan, which, combined with the latest move, is meeting the target.

Premier Li said the central government will keep slashing nontax burdens and completely overhaul charges levied by the government.

All government departments and agencies concerned should put the overall interests ahead of their own by reducing burdens on enterprises, and forging a new competitive edge in China, he said.

The Ministry of Finance will make public on its website a list of the administrative charges levied by the central and local governments before July. The National Development and Reform Commission will also make public all the government-set fees for public services on its website before the end of this year.

The 1-trillion yuan cost cut is no easy task, but must be delivered in full.

Government departments and agencies should keep the bigger picture in mind and take concrete measures to reduce the burdens on companies, and energize businesses and make China an even more inviting destination for investment, Premier Li said.
Iran's foreign minister on Thursday called the White House statement about the double attack on Tehran that killed 17 people "repugnant" after it linked the assault to what it called Iran's support for terror.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry also issued a statement identifying five of the attackers as Iranians who had left the country to join the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria and published photos of their bodies.

Javad Zarif, who is on a visit to Turkey, also criticized a vote by the U.S. Senate soon after the attack to extend sanctions on Iran in a tweet.

"Iranian people reject such U.S. claims of friendship," he said, hinting in the tweet that the terror attacks were "backed by U.S. clients."

The U.S. statement, which expressed grief for the victims, concluded with the phrase "states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote." Other countries such as Russia, Britain and France just expressed condolences for the attack.

The Trump administration has taken a much harder line toward Iran than its predecessor, describing it as the top state sponsor of terrorism in the world and backing the view of allies Israel and Saudi Arabia that Iran is the chief threat to stability in the region.

The attacks on Iran's parliament and the venerated shrine of the Islamic Republic's founder shocked the country and was claimed by the Islamic State - an avowed enemy of both Iran and the United States. Both countries are fighting ISIS in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

Iranians awoke Thursday to find increased security on the streets of the capital and an announcement that the death toll from the attack had risen by five to 17, according to the coroner's office. Emergency medical services said 52 were injured with 31 people still in the hospital.

Police Chief Brigadier General Hossein Ashtari said Thursday one of the attackers was in custody and being interrogated.

According to the Interior Ministry, on Wednesday four people attacked the parliament building with automatic weapons, with one detonating an explosive vest and the others eventually being gunned down by security. The men entered the building disguised as women, who in Iran often wear billowing robes that would have allowed them to conceal weapons.

A two-person team, including one woman, launched a near simultaneous attack against Ayatollah Khomeini's enormous tomb complex in the south of the city. The woman blew herself up with an explosive vest, according to the ministry statement.

Both sites are revered symbols for Iran, one of its founder and the other because it represents what the country describes as its participatory government - in sharp contrast to the hereditary monarchies of its main regional rivals across the Persian Gulf.

The attack appears to be inflaming the enmity between the countries.

In another tweet, Zarif, the foreign minister, referred to the parliament as "the seat of democracy" which was attacked by the proxies of "terror-sponsoring despots."

Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement vowing to avenge the attack and described as "very meaningful" that it happened just a week after President Donald Trump met with the "heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has constantly been supporting Takfiri terrorists."

The rare assault in the heart of Tehran comes as the whole Persian Gulf region is on edge with a deepening feud between the Arab monarchies and gas-rich Qatar over its alleged support for extremist groups and ties to Iran.

On Thursday, Bahrain's foreign minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed la-Khalifah, put renewed pressure on Qatar "to distance itself from our number one enemy, Iran," in remarks to the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it will review a massive and controversial federal plan to protect the dwindling population of greater sage grouse in 11 western states.

Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke said he assembled a Sage Grouse Review Team comprised of scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to study a plan that took many years to develop. The group has 60 days to return with recommendations.

Zinke said the administrative order to review the plan "does not change or alter existing work that has been done." He said it simply forms a team. The purpose is to work closer with states that deplored the management plan when the Obama administration implemented it two years ago.

The two-month review will take into consideration issues that concern some western politicians: jobs and energy development, some of the very things that scientists say led to the bird's decline.

The greater sage grouse, a chicken-like bird that nests in a giant habitat covering 11 states called the sagebrush sea, are some of the only birds that exist only in the continental United States. Its mating rituals, where males dances on natural stages called leks to attract females, have drawn attention to the birds and made it a tourist attraction.

But the greater sage grouse population is estimated to have fallen by as much as 90 percent because of industrial mining, oil and gas drilling and other disturbances in the mineral rich sage sea in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington. The health of sage grouse is an indication of the health of the sagebrush, which hundreds of animals depend on.

Under the current plan, the BLM, which controls millions of acres of public lands with the Forest Service, will regulate miners, energy developers and ranchers who hold federal leases to work in sage brush wilderness in 10 states more closely to ensure the survival of the greater sage grouse.

States worked with Interior in an effort to convince Fish and Wildlife to not list the bird as threatened or endangered, and it worked. The agency decided that a listing wasn't warranted because the work arrested the sage grouse's decline. But several western governors, including those in Wyoming and Idaho, slammed the plan.

States worked with the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and conservation groups to take steps to increase sage grouse populations.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said its regulations on industry and ranchers went go too far. He said Interior's "actions constitute the equivalent of a listing decision outside the normal process" and reiterated that his state was better positioned to manage its sage grouse population - though critics say Utah's past actions contributed to the bird's decline.

In remarks Wednesday, Zinke said that anger is still palpable. "When I travel around, there's a lot of anger of what is perceived, either right or wrong, as heavy handedness," he said. "The federal government doesn't listen. There's a lot of mistrust. My largest and most important task quite frankly is to restore trust. I can tell you a lot of these local communities . . . just don't think they've had a voice and I don't disagree with them in many ways."

Zinke only mentioned speaking to state officials or residents, not other groups such as the Nature Conservancy that played a major role in helping states and the federal government develop the plan. He said states had innovative ideas to build the population of sage grouse, include the control of predators that perch on trees that don't belong in the sage habitat, and target them.

"Secretary Zinke should be careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory when it comes to sage grouse conservation," said Brian Rutledge, the Audubon Society's conservation policy adviser. "The existing conservation plans were designed with both flexibility and scientific rigor, guaranteeing maximum buy-in from Western communities and the best chance of success for the sage-grouse and more than 350 other species that depend on this landscape."

"This is a review. I'm not sure if the plan is working or not. We'll have a sense in 60 days on the plan going forward," he said. "I'm very hopeful and optimistic that the plan will reflect what's in the best interests of the states, the federal government and the sage grouse. I'm optimistic because I know a lot of work has been done by the states."
The stories Donald Trump most relishes telling are those in which a no turns into a yes. The prime actor in those stories is always Trump himself.

Sometimes his weapon is mischief, as when Trump wanted to persuade a law firm to vacate its offices in a Wall Street skyscraper he had bought in the 1990s. The lawyers had stopped paying rent. So one wintry morning, they got to work and the elevators to their 52nd-floor offices were kaput. And the heat was off.

Telling the story, Trump flashed the same impish smile he deploys when he recounts tales of even tougher tactics he has used to persuade his executives, wives or bankers to do his bidding. "They were real wiseguys," he said of his lawyer tenants. "I got a check for the whole thing" and the law firm moved out.

But as president, Trump has found that at least some of the people on the receiving end of his strong-arming are far more likely to push back publicly. Which is what fired FBI Director James Comey did Wednesday in a seven-page, single-spaced statement that portrays the president as a stereotypical tough guy out of a B movie.

In Comey's telling, Trump talks like a mob boss: "I have been very loyal to you, very loyal. We had that thing, you know." Trump can be politely cajoling: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," he tells Comey, referring to the FBI's investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And Trump can be relentlessly insistent, as when he came back at Comey on four separate occasions to press the FBI chief on whether he might commit himself to loyalty to the president.

Trump was so demanding that Comey took it upon himself to document every twist of his encounters with the new president, a bit of self-protection it had never dawned on him to use during Barack Obama's presidency.

Now, as Comey prepares to testify before Congress and a nationwide TV audience, Trump faces pushback against his tools of persuasion that he rarely confronted in four decades as a real estate developer, entrepreneur and celebrity entertainer.

Trump said during last year's campaign that he intended to govern the nation much as he had run his businesses - as a hard-driving boss who takes no guff, acts from the gut and holds people to account. Some of that approach is not new to the White House. Presidents bully, threaten and punish. Even the best presidents sometimes get down and dirty as they shoulder their initiatives through peckish bureaucrats and recalcitrant legislators.

And some of what comes off as rough and defiantly non-Washington about Trump is rhetoric that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) called an artifact of the president's roots: "What you're seeing is a president who is now very publicly learning about the way people react to what he considers to be normal New York City conversation," Christie said Wednesday on MSNBC.

Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., - chair of the Republican Study Committee, which brokered a deal on health care in the House - said Trump is accustomed to "dealing with people as someone who's been a New York-style 'say what you want to say, do what you want to do.' Now he's in this new arena where . . . that behavior is sometimes not always probably the best approach."

Some of Trump's supporters say he is adapting to Washington's expectations while holding on to what's worked for him in his first 70 years of life: "He's like the guy who can pitch 100 miles an hour but he hasn't pitched in a game yet and hasn't learned how to control the direction," said Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., an early Trump endorser. "Remember, this is what we love about him - that he's got this different style, that he doesn't adhere to the traditions and the rules of the swamp."

However they speak, presidents have deployed different styles in practicing their central task - persuading people to do what they want. President Lyndon B. Johnson's tough tactics, memorialized in hundreds of White House tapes and explicated in Robert Caro's majestic biography of a president who relished power, have become the stuff of legend. Obama drew as much criticism for his failure to strong-arm members of Congress as some other presidents have garnered for being overbearing.

Trump, like Johnson, is perfectly willing to dress down people to their faces or in a larger gathering. But both presidents' main tool was the telephone. As Caro wrote in "The Passage of Power," Johnson would browbeat congressmen whose votes he needed but would also butter them up, offering goodies for their own districts.

In one recorded phone call, Johnson, pushing to get the 1964 civil rights bill passed, told the bill's Senate manager, Hubert Humphrey, D-Minn., how to get the Republican leader, Sen. Everett Dirksen (Ill.), on board: "You've got to let him have a piece of the action. He's got to look good all the time. . . . You drink with Dirksen! You talk to Dirksen! You listen to Dirksen!"

Trump's style is less solicitous. During the House health-care battle earlier this year, Trump confronted the leader of the House Freedom Caucus at a meeting of Republicans. If the bloc didn't back the bill, "I'm going to come after you," Trump told Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. Those were familiar words to many Trump-watchers; he has used the phrase with reporters writing about him, TV executives he was negotiating with and activists who opposed his building projects.

With his top executives, underlings, attorneys and vendors, he won loyalty with a finely crafted mix of threats, shouting, demands - and generous gestures, such as extra time off, an encouraging phone call when someone was down, and repeated promises that an employee's loyalty would be returned in kind. He was the same way with the reporters he alternately cultivated and bashed - he could praise a story, threaten a lawsuit, deliver an exclusive scoop and call the reporter's boss seeking a firing, sometimes all in a week.

Some presidents - Ronald Reagan, for example - flexed their power muscles with self-deprecating humor. Trump does this, too, as when, during a lunch with U.N. ambassadors, he jokingly polled the room on whether they thought U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, seated next to him, was doing a good job. "How do you all like Nikki? " he asked. "Otherwise, she can easily be replaced."

Because Trump can also be rough and even humiliating, comments like that often come off as double-edged - possibly a joke but possibly a real threat. (Trump followed his jest with a reassurance: "No, we won't do that. I promise.")

In April, during the health-care bill's push, Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., who was skeptical about the proposal, said Trump sent an emissary to tell him that "the president hopes you vote against this because he wants to run somebody against you if you do." Sanford said Trump "has made those kinds of threats to any number of members. . . . But I don't think it's productive to his own legislative agenda. It doesn't make anybody's day when the president of the United States says, 'I want to take you out.' "

But the same tough tactics that might pass ethical muster between a president and Congress may turn out to be inappropriate between a president and, say, the head of the FBI, an agency that is designed to be as free as possible from political interference.

Trump's tactics in some ways recall Johnson, who had what one of his aides once called "a horror of defeat." Johnson, like Trump, saw himself as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who knew how to get things done and had little patience for the niceties of high society. (Of course, Johnson really did come up from nothing; Trump, not so much.) Johnson, like Trump, also believed that good ends often justified rough, even brutal, means.

Johnson, like Trump, was a big man, comfortable with using his size and authority to get in people's space and show them who was boss. Johnson, Caro once said, would "grab your lapel. He leaned into you. He got bigger when he talked to you."

Trump has always taken pride in his ability to get his way, whether in his work or his personal life. When his marriage to Ivana Trump was collapsing in a very public way in the late 1980s, Donald Trump said during the divorce proceedings that "my marriage, it seemed, was the only area of my life in which I was willing to accept something less than perfection."

- - -

The Washington Post's Mike DeBonis contributed to this report.
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Sounds of multiple explosions pierced the normally quiet air surrounding Alamo Plaza Wednesday afternoon, leaving tourists and locals rattled, confused and taking to social media for answers.

Multiple agencies, including Homeland Security and the San Antonio Police Department bomb squad, responded to the Hipolito F. Garcia Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse shortly before 5 p.m., after three men tried to mail a package deemed "suspicious."

Streets were closed in the area, which is next to the Alamo, and bystanders were told take shelter inside surrounding shops and close doors. Just after 5 p.m., loud bangs could be heard in the area as officials detonated a parcel in question.

MORE: Suspicious package prompts evacuation at federal building in downtown San Antonio

Out-of-towners and locals downtown looked for more information on social media, and San Antonians warned family and friends to avoid the area.

Click through the slideshow above to see what locals and visitors were saying as officials locked down the area around the Alamo Wednesday.





"[...] I've never heard a bomb go off, and still not sure what was in the package which was detonated FOUR times. But I know, I never want to experience that sound and panic again," Jennifer Shirah, who lists herself as an Eagle Pass resident on Facebook, shared online.

Other witnesses, like George Calero who was staying at a nearby motel, told mySA.com that he felt the walls shaking as officials detonated the package. Calero took a video that captured the dramatic scene, showing authorities yelling "fire in the hole" before an explosion, which set off car alarms.

The Alamo, which is about 400 feet away from the federal building and is in its peak season for summer travelers, was also affected by the situation.

RELATED: Authorities release men tied to 'suspicious' package that caused downtown evacuations

The Texas General Land Office, which oversees the landmark, said in a release that the Alamo Rangers worked with law enforcement agencies to secure the grounds of the mission.

"The area was secured, streets were closed to traffic and visitors, staff and other individuals in the area were escorted to secure areas for their safety," GLO Commissioner George P. Bush said in a statement.

"Securing the Shrine of Texas Liberty and those who visit is a top priority and we continue to work with our partners to protect the site," he added.

Officials said the men, who were handcuffed and detained around 4:30, did not know what was in the package. They told authorities they were mailing it for a friend who was out of town, according to previous mySA.com reports.

The parcel was found to not have contained explosives, but something "benign," according to Christopher Combs, special agent in charge of the FBI in San Antonio.

The trio was found to "not pose a threat" and were released by the FBI late Wednesday.

Staff writers Guillermo Contreras, Sergio Martinez-Beltran, Emilie Eaton contributed to this report.

mmendoza@mysa.com

Twitter: @MaddySkye
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As three San Antonio kids figure out life without their mother, the community is rallying around them with a donation drive for clothing, diapers and formula.

April Russell, 35, was shot while in her North Side apartment Monday afternoon and died in her 15-year-old daughter Alyla Russell's arms, a family member at the scene told mySA.com.

April Russell left behind her three children: Alyla Russell, 8-year-old son Jordan Russell, and 1-year-old daughter Avery Russell, who was taken from the scene by the suspected killer, who was also the toddler's father.

RELATED: Relative says 15-year-old held dying S.A. mother in arms after gunman shot her in back

The man accused of shooting April Russell was 37-year-old Adrian Hardeman, the mother's ex-boyfriend who police said was trying to re-connect. Hardeman was fatally shot by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers later Monday after he wrecked his vehicle in Gonzalez County.

On a Facebook page called "Rip April Russell," the children's clothing and diaper sizes are listed.

Those looking to donate to the family can purchase the following sizes for the children:

For Alyla:

Size 13/14 pants, bottoms

Size large tops

Size 9 shoes

For Jordan:

Size medium shirts

Size 10/12 pants

Size 6 shoes

For Avery:

Size 18-24 months clothing

Size 6/7 shoes

Size 4/5 diapers

Similac Go & Grow formula

Donations can be sent to the Russell Family at 126 Coriander Bend.

Additionally a bake sale will be held Saturday at 4947 Fortuna on the West Side at noon. April Russell's cousin said she plans to sell cupcakes, cookies, oreo cake pops and other desserts to benefit the children.

"We would like to thank everyone who has stopped by with food, cash, cards, to lay hands on us for prayer, to visit with us sharing memories, and those who've anonymously donated altruistically," reads a post from the Russell family on the Facebook page. "We really appreciate it!"

A GoFundMe page created for the Russell family has raised $7,030 so far. Her funeral will be held June 16.

kbradshaw@express-news.net

Twitter: @kbrad5
Police believe a man who kidnapped a woman Wednesday in Topeka, Kansas, may be headed to or through San Antonio.

Pedro Enriquez, 38, allegedly kidnapped his estranged wife, 33-year-old Viviana Vazquez, around 7 a.m. Wednesday after an argument at a home in the 1300 block of Southwest Garfield Avenue in Topeka.
To the editor:

I am writing this letter about the importance of health education in schools. The American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association all believe that quality health education programs delivered in the nation's schools can improve the well-being and health of our children and youth.

In 2006, the United States spent approximately $7,000 per person on health care alone.

The most important topics that children need to be educated on are: not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight and getting regular exercise. Another vital reason health education is important is because our childhood obesity crisis; not only is it a crisis in adults but in children as well. Approximately 17 percent of today's children are overweight.

As a registered nurse pursuing my master's degree, I see the importance of health education in schools. I have cared for many children who have not received this valuable education at home. I believe by educating our children in school, it will not only improve their overall health but potentially save their lives. I believe it would be easier and less costly to teach our children healthy lifestyle habits now than having to fix preventable health problems in the future.

Kimberly Wheeler BSN, RN

Loud mower ruins a peaceful summer night

To the editor:

On a recent Saturday evening, my wife and I took some time for ourselves by sitting out on our deck, enjoying the cooler air and having something to drink. It was comfortable and quiet, until 7 p.m. rolled around.

My next-door neighbor's lawn company decided to show up. The mower he uses for this "normal" yard is large enough to use on a small farm, and the backpack blower is loud enough to wake the dead in Denver. Let alone the noise he creates, the dust from blowing the entire yard makes a Phoenix dust storm seem mild.

One would think that there would be time constraints as to when these lawn services could perform their work, especially on weekends, but apparently not in The Woodlands. So much for trying to enjoy a summer's night.

Pat Rizk

The Woodlands

Reagan's got it right

To the editor:

I hope everyone read the editorial from Michael Reagan June 6. He hit the nail on the head about "Queen" Hillary, the democronies and the news media. Was glad to see someone else has seen what the "Queen" is doing along with the democronies in D.C. and the democronie news media.

I, for one, am tired of hearing about the "Russian" connection to the election. The only people to blame for "Queen" Hillary losing is her and the democronies, no one else.

I am also tired of hearing the broad on the Today, Guthery, show trying her best to make everyone she talks to look wrong and she look right. If it wasn't for Al I wouldn't watch it.

Hope the paper keeps putting Reagan's editorials in the paper; he is great.

Thank you.

B. K. Morgan

Conron
The president is angry at his attorney general. The attorney general is reportedly ready to go. And this time, even Kellyanne Conway's husband is telling the president he is wrong.

Clients.

Every law student interviewing at every law firm in America asks the same silly question: Will I have client contact? We all give the same answer: "As much as you want," we dutifully say, although that is not necessarily true - if only it were. Clients generally take their complaints to the top.

I'm not talking about my clients here, of course. I count among my closest friends some of my clients and former clients. But none of them are named Donald Trump.

Trump, as president, is a terrible client. That is, as it turns out, the most charitable view of this week's events.

Just how terrible a client Trump is was on display on Monday, when he attacked his own Justice Department's handling of the travel ban, accusing them of submitting a weak "watered down, politically correct version" of his travel ban, instead of the tougher one that had been roundly found unconstitutional - all this in tweets, of course, which his lawyers no doubt did not get to review.

If they had, they would have said (if not tweeted) essentially what George Conway did. Don't. Say. Anything.

The Justice Department is seeking review of the travel ban in the Supreme Court. As George Conway pointed out, the president's attack on the Justice Department "certainly won't help" convince the Supreme Court to exercise its discretion to take the case and reverse the decision. Conway, no doubt responding to criticism of his first tweet, went on to tweet that "every sensible lawyer" in the White House counsel's office and "every political appointee" at the Justice Department would agree with him.

Absolutely. Trump is a terrible client. He is undermining his own cause. About that, I would lose no sleep. Some clients are hard to control.

He is also undermining his own Justice Department, and calling into question his respect for the rule of law. That keeps me awake a little longer.

President Trump is reportedly furious at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russian-meddling investigation, even though Sessions would be lunchmeat if he tried to run the investigation when he himself had met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice last year - and failed to disclose it to the Senate or to background investigators. That Trump doesn't understand this and has been fuming about it for months is almost as shocking as his counterproductive tweets. But it's not surprising from a man who would tell the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to drop an investigation. (In fact, Trump made former FBI Director James Comey so uncomfortable that Comey reportedly complained to Sessions that he didn't want to be in a room alone with the president.) Nor is it surprising when you consider that this is a president who would tell the Russians that the former director of the FBI is a "nut case."

There was a reason John Kennedy picked his brother to be attorney general. It's the one Cabinet position that can ultimately cost you your job. Frustration is hardly novel. But I can't think of another instance of a president so visibly undercutting his attorney general and his Justice Department.

Unless, that is, you go back to the Saturday night when Richard Nixon asked his attorney general, Elliot Richardson, to fire the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. Neither Richardson nor his deputy would comply; by the end of the night, the attorney general, the deputy attorney general and the special prosecutor were all gone.

Not too long after, so was the president.

Trump is not there. Yet.

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
A Weston woman who operated a physical therapy practice in Norwalk has been sentenced for obstruction and tax offenses.

Danielle Faux was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Stefan R. Underhill in Bridgeport to two years of probation, the first six months of which Faux must spend in home confinement for obstruction and tax offenses. Underhill also ordered her to perform 100 hours of community service and pay a $3,000 fine.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Faux owned and operated Danielle Faux PT, LLC, a physical therapy clinic located at 27 Lois St. in Norwalk.

Federal prosecutors say in August 2009, a contractor for the Medicare program conducting an audit of Fauxs physical therapy practice contacted Faux and requested records of 40 claims for physical therapy that Faux had submitted to Medicare.

The requested records included appropriate documentation to support the services billed, including the physical therapy progress notes, physical therapy flow sheet/activity sheets, and any additional documentation verifying medical necessity for the physical therapy procedures.

Because no patient progress notes or similar records existed that would support many of the Medicare claims, Faux instructed a physical therapist working for her to create detailed notes in the patient files that were requested in the audit, and Faux similarly created such records.

In addition, from 2008 through 2011, Faux skimmed checks and cash proceeds from her physical therapy practice and did not declare the skimmed proceeds on her federal income tax returns, according to federal officials.

Through this conduct, Faux avoided paying $77,640 in taxes over the four-year period.

Underhill ordered Faux to pay full restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.

On Sept, 22, 2016, Faux pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of a federal audit, and one count of making false statement on a federal income tax return.

In a related civil matter, she agreed to pay $50,000 to settle allegations that she and her practice submitted false records to the Medicare program in violation of the False Claims Act.

Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Danielle Faux defrauded Medicaid and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield by filing false claims. The Medicare related charges involve documentation failures to Medicare. The Medicare patients were treated and several wrote to the judge in support.
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The citys height limit for new development around Mission Concepcion remains unbroken, for now.

Local company 210 Development Group removed its proposal for an apartment complex next to the mission from Wednesdays agenda of the city Historic and Design Review Commission after city staff decided not to support its updated design that exceeded height restrictions.

Three of the complexs nine buildings would be between 3.5 and 7 feet over the limits, which the city set up in 2014 to control growth around the missions as they were being considered for World Heritage status.

210 Development withdrew the proposal to give the city more time to review recent changes to the complexs roofs and facades, spokeswoman Holly Thoman said in an email. The 228-unit complex, which would be built on an 11-acre property next to the mission, will go before HDRC again at an upcoming meeting.

This will also allow us the time to gather feedback from our neighbors and community stakeholders regarding the proposed roof plan, she said.

210 Development agreed last summer to lower the height from four to three stories to comply with the limits, part of the Mission Protection Overlay buffer zone the city created around the missions in 2014. But the company later realized it had to expand the foundation of the apartment buildings for the sites drainage to work properly, Thoman said earlier this week.

In the last few days, city staff decided not to endorse the project, according to the HDRC agenda. One concern was changes that 210 Development made to the complexs roofs  they were originally sloped and tiled, but the company flatted them to limit how much they would break the height limit. The company also removed details from the buildings facades, the agenda says.

The currently-requested revisions diminish the quality of the overall proposal, and renew concerns regarding overall building height, scale and site designs, the agenda says.

The proposed complex is controversial among South Side residents, with some supporting it because they think it will help revitalize the neighborhood and others opposing it because theyre concerned it would diminish the mission.

Brady Alexander, one of the leaders of the Alliance for San Antonio Missions community group, told the HDRC on Wednesday that the group opposes any exception to the height limit, which it believes is already too lenient.

We are concerned that the citys Historic and Design Review Commission will set a terrible precedent, he said.

Local historical activist Lance Aaron said the project would pave over ancient acequias and Native American burial sites. The HDRC agenda notes that human remains might be on the property.
In about 24 hours, well have a much better idea whether the Labours momentum, created by a combination of a strong manifesto and a remarkable metamorphosis in Jeremy Corbyns stumping skills, will have lain waste to what was envisaged as a romp for Theresa May that would strengthen her hand as Prime Minister.

As we said two days ago, the majority of polls show a comfortable Tory win. But the majority of polls and bookies also predicted in the Brexit vote that Remain would win, with the final estimates a 4% to 6% majority, versus the 2% loss that resulted.

The reason to give the outlier YouGov poll more weight is that it was one of the few to call that Leave would prevail. Their polls this week have shown Labour continuing to gain ground on the Conservatives. Keep in mind that 323 seats is a currently a majority once you allow for the abstention of Sinn Feins 5 seats:

Interestingly, the Torygraph and YouGov are very close in their reading of the popular vote split, pegging the Conservatives at 42.9% versus 37.2% for Labour, but they come up with a different result in terms of seats won. This is a similar view to the one taken by the Financial Times early this week, that of the 100ish seats that are up for grabs, Labour hadnt made headway in the midlands or north:

According to a latest forecast by the University of East Anglias Chris Hanretty, the Conservatives are on course to gain a majority in Parliament. Thanks to seat gains in the North of England and Scotland, Mrs May would benefit from a swing of 45 seats  and end up with 375 MPs in Parliament. 45 seat gains would see the Tories end up with a majority of 100 in Parliament, with Mays 375 MPs dwarfing the 275 MPs of all the other parties. These seats would come at the cost of both the SNP and Labour, with Jeremy Corbyn left on 198 seats after losing a total of 34 MPs.

New Statesman also throws cold water on the YouGov prediction:

In recent days, I have been speaking to Labour candidates, including those defending small majorities in marginal seats, as well as to activists. The picture emerging is bleaker than the polls would suggest and the mood is one of foreboding: candidates expect to lose scores of seats on Thursday. Theres a sense, too, that two campaigns have been conducted simultaneously: candidates with majorities under 10,000 are trying to hold back the Tory tide, while Corbyn is, as some perceive it, already contesting the next leadership contest  one in which, at present, he is the sole candidate. The problem is that the partys vote share is heavily concentrated in safe seats and it is overly reliant on young people actually turning out to vote.

Yesterday Bloomberg similarly argued that Labour was vulnerable and Mays campaign was targeting its weak spots:

But an analysis of the prime ministers campaign stops shows the path to re-election still runs through the Brexit heartlands with the Conservatives gunning for traditional Labour seats where voters supported to leave the European Union. Leeds, Halifax, Bolton, Mansfield, and Tyneside North. These are unusual places for a Tory leader to focus on. After the terror attacks, May was back on the stump in northern England three days before Thursdays vote. Specifically Bradford South, a place that last elected a Conservative in 1918. That is the surest sign yet that she remains confident she can still score a historic win despite the polls showing her lead eroded. As we can see below, in seats where the two main parties finished first and second in 2015 the battle is being fought mainly on Labours turf.

Put in a slightly more Labour-positive way: the Conservatives believe that they can swing votes based on Brexit, even though May started campaigning on it in a somewhat credible manner this week. The Bloomberg models mainstream scenario predicts a gain of a mere 7 seats for the Tories. Its upside scenario was an increase of 48 seats, and a downside of a loss of 17 seats, which would put them at 313 seats, less than a majority.

Interestingly, long-standing Brexit champion Ambrose-Evans-Pritchard depicted Labour as the better choice for Brexit than the Conservatives, but recoiled from the idea of pinko Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister:

Some might even think it preferable that such a Labour Party should win. The centre-Left would then own Brexit. Labour would have the excruciating task of negotiating withdrawal from the EU The distinction between Brexiteer and Remainer would fade away. Battles would rage but chiefly on the terms and methods of restoring British independence. The great rump of the country would be aligned on the same side in defence of the national interest Once the honeymoon with Brussels had expired  within days  Labour would discover that overtures of goodwill count for little. Brexit has its own logic. The 100bn bill for reparations would remain. Powerful EU interests are already angling to carve up the putative carcass of the City of London. They do not want a friendly settlement to intrude. Personally, I favour Labours pledge to immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain. As the Manifesto states, these people are part of our society and should not be used as bargaining chips. To the extent that Labour would have to rely on Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party, I say all the better  cognisant that few Telegraph readers will agree Labour has pledged to uphold this devolution accord as far as possible, subject to limits required for UK trade talks with the rest of the world. Theresa May is missing a trick  or worse  by trying to snatch these powers for Westminster Yes, Labours stated refusal to walk away from a bad deal amounts to capitulation in advance. It more or less invites torture. Yet is this really different from Theresa Mays position? While she vows defiance, we have yet to see evidence that Downing Street is preparing a credible Plan B that would make this plausible. The danger is that the Tories will bluster and bluff for months before surrendering, like the derided Alexis Tsipras in Greece. This is the worst outcome.

Weve pointed out the disturbing parallels to the 2015 Greek negotiations repeatedly, with the UK, like Greece, playing a game of chicken on the bad assumption that the other side would change course.

But Evans-Pritchard cant abide Corbyn. Hes a neo-Marxist who would usher in the first radical-Left government in a major democracy since World War Two.

And finally, Im not sure if the Daily Mail is useful as an indicator of just a source of comic relief. Its hard to tell from the US, Im not getting a Daily Mail UK edition, but its UK tab downplays the election to a remarkable degree. The lead articles are about the terrorist attacks; two of the less prominent ones make a pitch for Brexit and restricting freedom of movement, but got hardly any comments. After yet more attack stories (it takes remarkable creativity to find so many ways to flog it) we finally get to a small format election piece (Labour REFUSE to back Mays bid to rip up human rights laws to tackle terrorism (and here are TEN reasons why they are wrong) which got 1.7K comments. Finally we a large format story which isnt pro-May and manages to again ring the changes on the terrorism theme: PIERS MORGAN: Theresa Mays savage police cuts and weakness with Islamist extremism have made Britain a dangerous place  I wouldnt trust her to protect me from an angry wasp, let alone a jihadi terrorist which as of this writing got 2.9K comments. But not to worry, Morgan isnt pumping for Corbyn:

Let me be very clear: I wouldnt trust Corbyn to keep this country remotely safe. His record in voting against all new terror legislation, his nauseating sucking up to terror groups in the past, and his openly stated refusal to ever use our nuclear deterrent if he ever had to, all make him a walking defence liability of epic proportions.

It would be quite the spectacle to see conventional wisdom defeated yet again in the UK with a Labour win. I trust that faithful readers will keep us updated in comments as results come in.

Update 1:30 AM: A cheery note from Bloomberg: even if the Tories win, Mays days as Prime Minister could be numbered:
Yves here. Continued weak oil prices translates into even more political pressure in the Middle East. Moodys and other analysts estimated that Saudi Arabia could deal with two or three years of low oil prices, then their budgetary problems would start to bite. And that was before Riyadh went to war with Yemen and started pressuring Qatar. The new king isnt well liked domestically and depleted coffers make it harder to maintain the support and veneer of legitimacy he needs.

Or as Pepe Escobar put it more vividly, in describing the motive for the Saudis to set the stage for a war with gas-rich Qatar:

The plain fact is the House of Saud is absolutely desperate. Oil price remains low, around $50 a barrel. The monster Saudi IPO on Aramco is only 12 months away. The House of Saud needs to move the markets towards a higher oil price by any means necessary  ultimatums and threats of war included.

By Tsvetana Paraskova, a writer for the U.S.-based Divergente LLC consulting firm. Originally published at OilPrice

The U.S. shale-vs-OPEC-cuts tale has been the predominant theme in oil markets this year, and like the cartels output cut, it will be rolling over into next year as well.

Major banks, the same that at the time of the initial OPEC deal were seeing the markets tightening and glut eliminated as soon as the second or third quarter this year, have started slashing their oil price forecasts for this year and next, as the six-month OPEC deal failed to rebalance the markets and cuts were extended into March 2018.

U.S. shale production is expected to continue growing through this year and into next year. Meanwhile, JP Morgan sees OPECs extension deal as having no exit strategy, with the cartel not communicating what its end game is.

Neither the length of the extension, nor the compliance rate of its participants, concerns me as much as OPECs lack of an exit strategy. If OPEC really has the courage behind their convictions, then the optimal decision would have been to extend cuts through the end of 2018, Ebele Kemery, head of energy investing at JP Morgan, said on the day on which OPEC announced they would roll over the cuts.

Major investment banks hastened to revise further down their oil price projections, seeing a flow of supply hitting the market as soon as production cuts expire in March 2018. Add the second U.S. shale boom to this, and it looks like the glut will return with a vengeance in 2018.

Last week, Goldman Sachs cut its Brent price forecast for this year to US$55.39 per barrel from its previous estimate of US$56.76 a barrel. It also revised down its WTI projections to US$52.92 from US$54.80 a barrel. Just days before that, Goldman said that it sees the oil glut returning after OPECs deal expires.

For 2018, it was JP Morgan that made the most drastic cut to its oil price projections, expecting not only U.S. shale to continue roaring back at OPEC, but also the cartels deal falling apart by the end of this year.

JP Morgan slashed its 2018 WTI forecast by US$11from US$53.50 to US$42. The price projection for Brent was also axed, by US$10, from US$55.50 to US$45.

We assume that the OPEC/non-OPEC deal collapses at the end of 2017, as cheating becomes untenable for core OPEC members. Consequently, the 2018 oil market balance now points to rapid builds in inventories which, absent continued OPEC support, should depress oil prices, David Martin, executive director at JP Morgan, said in the banks note, as quoted by Business Insider Australia.

On the other hand, U.S. crude output is expected to keep growing for several quarters due to lower breakeven costs and higher investment, according to JP Morgan.

To compare, as of January 30, 2017, merely a month into OPECs production cuts, JP Morgans global outlook 2017 suggested that oil markets look set to tighten further in the coming quarters as better than expected compliance from OPEC ensures drawdowns in oil inventories. The bank had expected back then Brent at US$58.25 for 2017 and at US$60 for 2018, and WTI  at US$56.25 a barrel in 2017 and US$58 in 2018.

In the oil markets, however, four months is a very long time, during which it became evident that OPECs efforts failed to draw down the glut in six months, and failed to lift prices. And now JP Morgan is the bank warning that oil prices may go substantially lowernot only compared to previous price projections, but also compared to the current price of oil.

JP Morgan also sees OPEC losing more than it gains with the output cut deal.

As we have previously flagged, the longer-term consequences of OPECs actions will likely prove unpleasant for the cartels members, JP Morgans Martin said.

Other analysts do not see the current cuts balancing the oil market next year.

If OPEC wants to keep the market balanced next year, they will probably need to extend the production cut to all of 2018, Martijn Rats, managing director at Morgan Stanley in London, told Bloomberg in an email.

Currently, the expected surge in supply after the OPEC deal ends, coupled with continuous U.S. production gains, does not bode well for oil prices to move much higher in 2018 than they are now.
Nanotechnology reveals hidden depths of bacterial 'machines' (Nanowerk News) New research from the University of Liverpool, published in the journal Nanoscale ("Direct characterization of the native structure and mechanics of cyanobacterial carboxysomes "), has probed the structure and material properties of protein machines in bacteria, which have the capacity to convert carbon dioxide into sugar through photosynthesis.

Cyanobacteria are a phylum of bacteria that produce oxygen and energy during photosynthesis, similar to green plants. They are among the most abundant organisms in oceans and fresh water. Unique internal 'machines' in cyanobacteria, called carboxysomes, allow the organisms to convert carbon dioxide to sugar and provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment.

Carboxysomes are nanoscale polyhedral structures that are made of several types of proteins and enzymes. So far, little is known about how these 'machines' are constructed and maintain their organisation to perform carbon fixation activity.

This is an illustration of a carboxysome. (Image: Dr Luning Liu, University of Liverpool)

Researchers from the University's Institute of Integrative Biology, led by Royal Society University Research Fellow Dr Luning Liu, examined in depth the native structure and mechanical stiffness of carboxysomes using advanced microscopes and biochemical approaches.

For the first time, the researchers were able to biochemically purify active carboxysomes from cyanobacteria and characterize their carbon fixation activity and protein composition. They then used electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to visualise the morphology and internal protein organization of these bacterial machines.

Furthermore, the intrinsic mechanical properties of the three-dimensional structures were determined for the first time. Though structurally resembling polyhedral viruses, carboxysomes were revealed to be much softer and structurally flexible, which is correlated to their formation dynamics and regulation in bacteria.

Dr Liu, said: "It's exciting that we can make the first 'contact' with these nano-structures and understand how they are self-organised and shaped using state-of-the-art techniques available at the University. Our findings provide new clues about the relationship between the structure and functionality of native carboxysomes."

The self-assembly and modularity features of carboxysomes make them interesting systems for nanoscientists, synthetic biologists and bioengineers, who hope to find ways to design new nanomaterials and nano-bioreactors.
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.
Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine Michael Creed presented Tipperary farmer John Walsh from Ballylooby with the Overall Dairygold Milk Quality Award for supplying the best quality milk to Dairygold throughout 2016, at a special ceremony in the Clayton Silver Springs Hotel, Cork, last week.

John farms with his wife Maria and children, Brendan, Claire and Helena at Ballylomasna, Ballylooby, Cahir.

They have 110 cows on a milk platform of 53 hectares. They also run a beef enterprise and plan to expand to 150 cows in 2018.

The awards were based on 2016 milk quality data for all 3,000 Dairygold milk suppliers from across Cork, Limerick, Tipperary and Clare. The judges declared that while all 18 finalists demonstrated exceptional quality, the Walsh farm was an excellent example of what good management and high standards of production can achieve.

Congratulating them, Dairygold chairman James Lynch said, John is an excellent farmer with well-kept facilities and a keen awareness of the importance of hygiene, safety and sustainability. He is a very deserving winner and we wish John, his wife Maria and their children every success for the future.

Above: John and Maria Walsh pictured with their children Helena, Brendan and Claire on the family farm at Ballylomasna, Ballylooby. Photo O'Gorman Photography.

Dairygolds Milk Quality Awards

A shortlist was drawn up of three suppliers from each of the six Dairygold regions. The Mitchelstown Region winner award was made to Patrick Clancy and family from Dangan, Ballyporeen. The judges choose six regional winners and the overall winner was announced on the night.

These 18 finalists underwent adjudication by two independent judges Dr. Karina Pierce, University College Dublin and Dan Crowley, Teagasc dairy specialist. The judges visited all 18 shortlisted farms to review their farm enterprises first hand.

The review takes account of Milk Quality, Dairy Facilities, Herd Health and Welfare, Sustainability and General Efficiencies and Farm Health and Safety.
Family and friends of missing Bridget Madigan staged an hour-long candlelit vigil outside Clonmel Garda Station on Sunday night and issued a fresh appeal for the public's help in finding the Clonmel woman, who disappeared nearly a year and half ago.

The last confirmed sightings of Bridget Madigan, a 37 year-old mother of four children, were at Western Road and on O'Connell Street in Clonmel on February 8 last year. Her disappearance was reported to the gardai in Clonmel on June 15 last year.

Bridget's first cousin Olivia Madigan said they organised the vigil to raise public awareness that Bridget was still missing in the hope of jogging people's memories of any sightings they may have had of her before her disappearance.

She appealed to anyone who may have any information, even if they consider it to be insignificant, to contact the Gardai in Clonmel, who are investigating Bridget's disappearance. Missing persons posters have been erected around Clonmel and a similar renewed appeal for information on Bridget's whereabouts has been made on social media.

Deputy Mayor of Clonmel Borough District Cllr Catherine Carey (SF) has also been highlighting the missing person case.

Olivia said Bridget's disappearance was heartbreaking and her family and friends miss her and love her.

"Someone must have seen something. Bridget can't have just disappeared," she appealed.

Olivia said Bridget's medication and her social welfare payments haven't been collected since she went missing.

While Bridget resided in the Clonmel area, she had been known to visit England. Her family moved to London when she was a child.

She travelled to England in November 2015 and returned to Clonmel on January 29 last year. It was initially thought she may have returned to England and there was an unconfirmed sighting of her in Belfast.

Gardai made inquiries with the PSNI, Interpol and the police in England. Olivia said the Gardai have now established that she didn't leave Ireland after her return last January.

Clonmel Garda Superintendent William Leahy has echoed her family and friends' appeal for information on the whereabouts of Bridget Madigan. He said it was an "open and live" missing persons investigation and the gardai were liaising with her immediate family. He would not comment any further on the investigation.

Bridget Madigan is described as being 5ft 4 in height, medium build with long fair to brown coloured hair. When last seen she was wearing black knee high boots with gold around the heel and sole, a black padded long jacket and black leggings.

Anyone who has seen Bridget or who can assist in locating her is asked to contact Clonmel Garda Station on 052-6177640, the Garda Confidential Telephone Line 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.
The meet will take place on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Indonesia.
(Natural News) One of the things that liberals will never acknowledge is the fact that racism works both ways; that is, whites can be racist towards blacks, and blacks can be racist towards whites. Instead, most leftists falsely believe that racism is defined only as whites discriminating against blacks. As such, it is very unlikely that any of them would use the word racism to describe what recently happened at Evergreen State College, where students attempted to force white people off campus for a Day of Absence.

One of the schools educators, Professor Bret Weinstein, refused to participate in the campus event, sparking mass outrage and protests among the black student body. Video captured of the protests depicted students screaming and shouting on campus in response to Professor Weinsteins refusal to leave. Now, the students are demanding that the video, which has been published on multiple websites including, The College Fix, be taken down.

We demand that the video created for Day of Absence and Day of Presence that was stolen by white supremacists and edited to expose and ridicule the students and staff be taken down by the administration by this Friday, the students demanded in a letter to college President George Bridges.

The students even demanded an investigation into the theft of the video. Based on conversations with the Attorney Generals office, the most likely course of action requires an investigation, they wrote. We commit to launching an extensive forensic investigation of the theft of this video and to determining who stole it from the student. If that investigation yields a suspect, we will seek criminal charges against the individual in consultation with the Attorney General.

So to summarize, these students at Evergreen State College demanded that all whites leave campus for a day, and when a video was published online showing how absurd their request was, they demanded that it be taken down. Here is a newsflash for black students at Evergreen  with all due respect, the world doesnt revolve around you.

If you go to Google and search for the words students demand, you will see an entire list of articles about young people who, quite frankly, think they are entitled to anything and everything. A headline on The Daily Caller website from March 8 reads, Wisconsin Students Demand Control Over Cops Because F**K THE POLICE Graffiti Vandal Got Busted. A headline from the Washington Post says Student Protesters Demand that Universities Become Sanctuaries for Undocumented Immigrants. Campus Reform reported just a couple of weeks ago that students at the University of Chicago are demanding the school fund race-specific housing. The College Fix published a headline back in February that reads, UMich Students demand no white-allowed space to plot social justice activism and Infowars recently reported on black students at UCLA who are demanding safe spaces and free housing.

Whats troubling about all of this is that school administrators are beginning to lose control of their own colleges. Most of the time, when students organize and lay out a set of demands in the name of social justice or equality, the school is going to bend over backward to meet those demands. The problem with this is that it often reinforces bad behavior. For instance, when Milo Yiannopoulos was set to deliver a speech at UC Berkeley, students responded by running around campus and destroying things. In the end, the school decided to cancel the event altogether, thus teaching students that they can get exactly what they want as long as they cause a scene. (RELATED: Americas universities have become training camps for violent left-wing extremism.)

Now more than ever, school administrators and educators need to regain control of their campuses, or else students will continue to take advantage of them and the demands will never stop.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

DailyCaller.com

WashingtonPost.com

TheCollegeFix.com

InfoWars.com

CampusReform.org

WashingtonTimes.com
(Natural News) Genetically modified crops were once hailed as the solution to all manner of problems facing our planet. Proponents insisted they would reduce the need for pesticides, increase yields and help create plenty of nutritious food to feed our world.

Two decades later, however, its becoming increasingly clear that GMO crops are far from a dream come true for a hungry population. On the contrary, they have proven to be a nightmare that just keeps getting worse. Not only have GMO crops failed to deliver on every one of their earlier promises, but they are also slowly killing our world and its inhabitants.

There is no way to talk about the massive failure of GMO crops without sounding dramatic because the situation has taken so many sensational turns that it almost sounds like a work of fiction  and if it were, it would certainly be filed in the Horror section of the bookstore. Unfortunately, the nightmare is all too real for thousands of animals and people who have lost their homes and lives because of this risky practice.

The main problem is that the Roundup herbicide that GMO crops have been engineered to withstand has been found to have a number of serious health risks, prompting the World Health Organization to label it a probable carcinogen.

Are GMO crops feeding the world?

Two decades ago, much of Europe rejected the concept of genetic modification, while the U.S. and Canada jumped into it head first. An examination of data from the time that has elapsed since then shows just how much the technology has failed to deliver. In fact, an analysis by the New York Times using data from the UN found that the U.S. and Canada have not gained any discernible advantage in terms of food per acre compared to Western Europe. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences backs this up.

Are we using less herbicide than before?

The question that we must ask ourselves then, is are we using fewer herbicides? The answer: A resounding no. In fact, herbicide use has actually grown in our country, even as major crops like cotton, soybeans and corn have been converted into those highly-touted modified varieties. Since the introduction of these crops, the use of toxins to kill fungi and insects might have decreased, but the high-volume spraying of herbicides has actually risen by a startling 21 percent. France, meanwhile, has noted a 36 percent decrease in herbicide use and a 65 percent decrease in insecticides and fungicides.

According to the Greenpeace report 20 Years of Failure, the number of glyphosate-resistant weed species in the U.S. has risen from five to 14 since 2004, while the total glyphosate use on soybeans in Argentina increased 56 times from 1996-97 to 2003-04 as farmers there made the switch to Roundup Ready soybeans.

The failure of GMO crops has been so spectacular that more than 290,000 Indian farmers killed themselves between 1995 and 2011 because of mounting debt caused by GMO adoption and crop failures. The prices of GM seeds have skyrocketed since they first came onto the scene and are significantly costlier than conventional seeds. Moreover, the fact that they are protected by patents means they cannot be saved and replanted year after year, creating high recurring expenses for farmers.

GM crops have also been responsible for mass die-offs of beneficial insects like bees and monarch butterflies. In one particularly egregious example, the death of 37 million bees was attributed to a recent planting of GM corn in Canada. The crops had been sprayed with neonicotinoids, which have been linked to bee losses all over the world, particularly when air seeders are used.

No matter how you look at it, GMO crops have been nothing but a failure and have wreaked havoc on our planet, contaminating our soil, air and water and harming nearly every form of life in some way. Given Monsantos wide-reaching influence and willingness to go to any lengths necessary to defend its products, this is a nightmare that shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

Sources:

EcoWatch.com

NYTimes.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

StopOGM.net
(Natural News) Not all Americans are crazy about President Donald J. Trumps campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire U.S. southwest border (and make Mexico pay for it) as a way to curb illegal immigration and cut down on the massive amounts of drug trafficking into the country.

But the president has, at least, voiced his support for an environmentally-friendly border wall that will produce benefits for the U.S.: A wall design that incorporates solar panels.

As reported by Axios, during a meeting with Republican leaders in the White House on Wednesday, Trump briefly engaged lawmakers on the issue of the border wall, according to three people who said they had direct knowledge of what was discussed during the meeting. The president floated the idea that the wall could be covered in solar panels, and the electricity generated used to pay for the cost (so that Mexico wont have to?).

The president said he had a vision of building a wall 40 feet to 50 feet high and covering it with solar panels so they would be beautiful structures, according to sources. They also noted that Trump said most people associate the wall with being something like 15 feet high but not those he envisions. (RELATED: Another day, another RINO attempt to thwart Trumps border wall)

One person said that the solar-panel walls were not yet the agreed-upon design of all those that have been submitted thus far. Trump also apparently joked that the lawmakers could discuss the idea of a solar panel wall as long as they said it was the presidents idea.

In early April The Associated Press reported that Gleason Partners LLC of Las Vegas had submitted a design that included sections of solar panels which would provide electricity for lighting, sensors, and patrol stations along the wall. The report also noted that the wall could be built and then maintained by selling electricity to local utilities, paying for the entire project in 20 years or less. In addition, power could be sold to Mexico  which would soothe some diplomatic hard feelings, perhaps.

I like the wall to be able to pay for itself, managing partner Thomas Gleason told the AP.

Two lawmakers who attended the meeting also told The Wall Street Journal that Trump pitched the idea of a solar panel wall, to which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., remarked, I think its innovative. To authorize it and to appropriate it wouldnt cost as much.

Democrats especially are keen on green energy, as is their base, but because they are driven crazy by so much Trump hate  and opposition to his wall, because more immigrants mean more voters (eventually) for them  theyre not likely to support even a wall built with solar panels.

But House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., liked the idea as well. Hes been looking at a lot of options and this is a new option that hes been looking at that sounds like its got real promise, he told the WSJ.

As of now, Congress has not allotted any funding for the border wall, which angered conservatives earlier this year after the GOP-controlled Congress rolled out a stop-gap spending bill that did not contain funding for many of the presidents priorities. But Trump seems unfazed, telling reporters that he would revisit funding for the wall in September, when the current spending measure expires.

In Ohio on Wednesday, Trump also pushed additional infrastructure spending, which was a major part of his campaign, saying that Americans cant live any longer with crumbling highways, roads, dams and bridges. He outlined a plan to leverage $1 trillion in investment in U.S. infrastructure over the next several years, if he can get Congress to go along with it.

America wants to build, he stressed, as Bloomberg News reported.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

NaturalNews.com

Axios.com

APNews.com

WSJ.com

Bloomberg.com

FoxNews.com
(Natural News) Google could be facing a hefty fine if the European Commission finds the search engine giant guilty of breaching antitrust rules. Following a seven-year investigation that was triggered by several complaints form Googles U.S. and European rivals, the company could be slapped with a whopping $7 billion fine.

The antitrust investigation against Google began in 2010. This stemmed from accusations that the interest search giant abused its dominant position to skew search engine results to favor its own shopping services. After a five-year investigation, The EU watchdog competition filed a complaint against the company. Google has previously rejected the charges, saying that the regulators ignored competition from other online retailers like eBay Inc. and Amazon.

The punishment for antitrust breach can go up to 10 percent of the companys annual turnover, which is the amount of revenue in a particular period. In Googles case, that fine can reach up to $7 billion. If found guilty, the search engine giant will also be asked to stop manipulating the online search results in their favor and to cease other alleged anti-competitive practices to even out the playing field for everyone. Its still not certain, however, what exact measures the company would need to implement to ensure rival companies get equal treatment in online shopping results.

Search engine results are important in determining which businesses get customers. Customers go online to look for products and/or services using specific keywords, which when typed on to the search engine, pulls up a list of businesses. The first page of the search engine is crucial because customers are most likely to order from companies that appear here. Additionally, appearing at the top of the list increases the chances of getting customers.

According to a report from Reuters, Google previously made attempts to settle the case with former European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia to avoid having to pay a possible fine. All attempts were unsuccessful. The current commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has expressed an unwillingness to settle with the company.

This isnt the first time Google has been involved in very expensive complaints. In 2016, the commission said that the company broke antitrust rules by abusing its position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators. Vestager said that the company denied customers a wider choice of mobile apps and services and that it stands in the way of innovation from the other players in the market.

Earlier this year, Google agreed to pay 306 million Euros in back taxes to Italy and Ireland to finally put an end to a series of disputes for the tax years 2002-2006 and 2014-2015.

Google also lost an antitrust appeal in Russia over pre-loading Android apps in 2016. According to a report by ZDNet.com, the Federal Antimonopoly Service found Google using its dominance to force its own apps and services on users, which significantly diminished competition. It also paid the U.K. government 130 million British Pounds in back taxes that span 10 years. Another country that seeks to get paid for back taxes worth $1.76 billion is France. The countrys finance minister, Michel Sapin, expressed that they would pursue legal action and that a settlement is off the table. Meanwhile, Google is in hot waters after Germany passed its ancillary-copyright law, which grants publishers the right to content instead of the article author.

Aside from the possible multi-million dollar fine, the European Union also instructed Google and other internet giants to put a stop on hate speech. European laws does not allow incitement to violence or hatred directed against people based on descent, religion, race and color, or ethnic origin.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

ZDNet.com

Reuters.com
Thursday, June 08, 2017 by: Earl Garcia Tags: Colorado , hemp , Nevada , Oregon , Vermont This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval has recently signed into law Senate Bill 396, which will allow the cultivation of industrial hemp for commercial purposes. The bill would also authorize the production of agricultural hemp seed in the state. The laws approval meant that Nevada has nullified a federal prohibition in hemp products in practice and effect within the state. The federal government currently bans hemp seed acquisition.

The bill was introduced in March by a bipartisan group of 12 legislators. The bills recent approval will expand current law passed in 2015 that allows only institutions of higher education or the Nevada Department of Agriculture to grow industrial hemp for research purposes through an agricultural program or for other agricultural or academic research. The new law will enable Nevada to develop separate licensing initiatives for hemp seed handlers, producers, and growers. Russell Wilhelm, manager of the state industrial hemp program, noted that there are currently 19 Nevada producers that grow about 500 acres of hemp for research purposes in the state.

The legislations provisions to promote hemp seed development within the state is slated to boost the hemp market. However, the new law will also give the Department of Agriculture greater leverage on its rule-making powers, which will decide how the program will operate in practice.

The State Senate passed the bill by a 20-0 vote. On the other hand, the Assembly passed the bill last month by a 34-5 vote. The bill is set to take effect on July 1, 2017. Some of the bills provisions are listed below.

The bill requires a person who wishes to grow or handle industrial hemp or produce agricultural hemp seed to register with the Department of Agriculture.

The bill requires the testing of commodities or products made using industrial hemp by an independent testing laboratory.

The bill allows a facility for the production of edible marijuana products or marijuana-infused products and a medical marijuana dispensary to acquire industrial hemp from a registered grower or handler.

The bill allows a facility for the production of edible marijuana products or marijuana-infused products to use industrial hemp to manufacture edible marijuana products and marijuana-infused product.

The bill allows a medical marijuana dispensary to dispense industrial hemp and edible marijuana products and marijuana-infused products containing industrial hemp.

The bill sets forth the amount of usable marijuana that a medical 4 marijuana dispensary may dispense to a person who holds a valid 5 registry identification card, including, without limitation, a 6 designated primary caregiver, in any one 14-day period.

The bill requires the Division of Public and Behavioral Health of the Department of Health and Human Services to adopt regulations setting forth minimum requirements for industrial hemp which is used by a facility for the production of edible marijuana products or marijuana-infused products to manufacture such products or which is dispensed by a medical marijuana dispensary

Nevada, other states defy federal hemp ban

Nevada is not the only state to defy the federal prohibition against hemp production. Other states  such as Colorado, Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, California, and Vermont  have also chosen to ignore the government ban and carry on with legalizing the cultivation of industrial hemp within their respective borders. In approving this new bill, Nevada has eliminated a big road block in commercial hemp cultivation.

Some states have already adopted the practice in the previous years. Colorado farmers began harvesting industrial hemp in 2013, while Vermont farmers started harvesting the plant the following year. Oregon officially launched its industrial hemp market in 2015.

Experts have touted that the hemp industry may have a market value of around $600 million annually. Hemp can also be used in as many as 25,000 application including food, cosmetics, plastics, and bio-fuel.

Sources include:

ActivistPost.com

TheDailyChronic.net

Leg.State.NV.us
(Natural News) Youll never hear it from the majority of the talking heads or liberal columnists that make up the mainstream media, but in America today, reverse discrimination is becoming more and more common. While no one could or should compare the modern day discrimination against whites to the days of slavery and Jim Crow laws, it is still something that needs to be addressed, because any society that perpetuates hatred towards a particular race is a society that cant properly function.

As it turns out, though, reverse discrimination is something that is not unique to the United States. In an article published in the UKs The Guardian titled Why Theres Nothing Racist About Black-Only Spaces, writer Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff argues that excluding whites from a space is a sign of progress.

In contrast to Nyansapo, self-organized white spaces  think far-right groups  are almost always layered with prejudice and the flawed notion of ethnic superiority, the article says. They are made in opposition to diversity and multiculturalism  and that, coupled with the uniquely powerful positions white people hold in society, is why they are unacceptable and reek of segregation. Black-only spaces rarely exist for the same purpose; instead, they are founded on the basis of the true lived experiences of struggle. By denying white people entry to them we are not reflecting existing power structures, we are trying to subvert them.

The author of this article is talking about the same myths that you hear leftists perpetuating all the time in the United States  that somehow, there exists this structural barrier that prevents minorities from rising up and pursuing their interests. Radical progressives like Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders tell us that white racism is still embedded deep within the DNA of our country, and for that reason, minorities experience discrimination in essentially everything they do (RELATED: Racism RIGGED by A&E: KKK documentary was entirely scripted; A&E provided Nazi flags and wooden crosses to burn; actors paid cash to say [email protected]@er on camera).

What The Guardian is basically saying is that racism only works one way. According to the author, if whites were to hold an event that excluded black people, then that would be considered racist. However, if blacks were to hold an event that whites werent allowed to attend, that wouldnt be racist because black-only spaces rarely exist for the purpose of spreading prejudice and the notion of ethnic superiority. This is ridiculous for a number of reasons, but whats most striking is the fact that the author doesnt understand the true definition of racism, which is the discrimination of anyone based on skin pigmentation. Is it not fair to say that black-only spaces are discriminating against whites for the sheer reason that they are, in fact, white?

Furthermore, the idea that there arent any black organizations that are layered with prejudice and the flawed notion of ethnic superiority, as the author says, is nonsense. For proof, all one has to do is look at the Black Lives Matter movement, which has sparked controversy numerous times over the past few years.

For example, Yusra Khogali, the co-founder of Torontos Black Lives Matter chapter, is on record as saying that white people are recessive genetic defects who should be wiped out. In a Facebook post from December of 2015, Khogali argued that white people need white supremacy in order to defend the existence of the white race, but that black people could wipe out the white race if we had the power to.

In November of last year, The Daily Caller reported that Black Lives Matter and other groups were planning to block white-owned stores, preventing customers from entering, in Chicago to draw attention to police shootings, economic issues and racism.

If calling white people recessive genetic defects and blocking whites from being able to enter shopping areas are not blatant examples of racism, then what are?

Sources:

PJMedia.com

TheBlaze.com

DailyCaller.com
Scientists are watching intently as a titanic section of Larsen C, the fourth largest ice shelf in Antarctica, prepares to break off into the sea as an iceberg the size of Delaware. The question is, when?

ScienceAlert reports that satellite images began tracking the spread of an enormous crack in the ice shelf in 2010. As it reached 120 miles in length this spring, the fissure suddenly forked earlier this year. and the resultant rift will cause a 2,000 square mile section -- 10% of Larsen C's total area -- to break off into the ocean.

Though scientists cannot predict exactly when this will happen, it could be a matter of weeks, says Dan McGrath, a scientist with the U.S. Geologic Survey.

When the sudden fork occurred, one crack continued parallel toward the Southern Ocean, while the other continued north, creating the giant rift. Andrian Luckman and Martin O'Leary, scientists at Swansea University in the UK wrote on their blog that the crack has grown 11 miles between May 25 and May 31. Just eight miles remain before the rift reaches the sea, causing the block to plunge into the ocean.

Most importantly, computer modelling has shown that the remainder of Larsen C might become "less stable" after the iceberg breaks off and may fully disintegrate like a neighboring shelf, Larsen B, did in 2002 -- a disatrous acceleration that could raise sea levels by several inches.

Calving, as this process of shedding icebergs is called, is a natural process, especially when snow accumulations force old ice to be pushed out to sea. But the speed with which this calving incident is occuring in Antarctica and the relative size of the area in jeopardy are alarming to scientists.

Joe MacGregor, a glaciologist and geophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, says when the block breaks off, it will be the third largest such block to do so.

The scientists' latest update came just days before Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
SpaceX bags another launch mission for the U.S. Air Force. Elon Musk's commercial space flight company will fly its first mission in August for the launch of the X-37B miniature spaceplane.

The announcement was made last Tuesday, June 6, by the U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson. The military used to fly its top-secret missions using United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

But for the X-37B miniature spaceplane launch in August, USAF will use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. This will be the company's first mission for the Air Force. There is no reason provided why the government chose to launch X-37s using a SpaceX rocket instead of ULA's Atlas V.

"SpaceX will be sending the next Air Force payload up into space in August," U.S. Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in a webcast during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The secretary further divulged information by saying that the SpaceX Falcon 9 will carry two miniature spaceplanes to space. Aside from being SpaceX's first mission with the U.S. Air Force aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, this will also be the biggest national security launch for the company.

The partnership between the Air Force and SpaceX may be the first, but it's already the fifth launch for the X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle. ULA's Atlas V rocket launched the first four X-37 into orbit. SpaceX and its entry into the U.S. Air Force mission provided the secretary more confidence when it comes to commercial space flight services.

"There are some very exciting things happening in commercial space that bring the opportunity for assured access to space at a very competitive price," Wilson added.

Even the director of Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Randy Walden, said the capability to launch Orbital Test Vehicle on multiple platforms ensures a "robust launch capability" for their experiment designers. He also expressed his excitement over the new partnership between the U.S. Air Force and SpaceX.

"We are excited about this new partnership on creating flexible and responsive launch options and are confident in SpaceX's ability to provide safe and assured access to space for the X-37B program," Walden said.

The X-37 vehicles are reusable. The X-37B successfully completed its first landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last May 2017.
NASA just introduced 12 new astronauts. Today, there are 56 active members of its corps. The new astronauts together with their older comrades will be assigned in the upcoming spaceflights and might even be selected for deep space explorations like the Journey to Mars.

The new batch from NASA Astronaut Class 2017 is composed of five women and seven men. And just like in the movie "The Martian," the new NASA astronauts are experts of various fields such as an ocean engineer and an Air Force commander. Interestingly, one of them is a former SpaceX engineer.

NASA introduced the new astronauts during a special event held at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Vice President Mike Pence was in attendance during the event as well as various Texas representatives. Pence even gave a speech on the future of space explorations and the space agency. According to the vice president, President Donald Trump is "firmly committed" to support NASA's space missions and that the president believes that the country "will lead the way in space once again."

The 12 new NASA astronauts are considered the cream of the crop. This is because they were chosen from more than 18,300 people who tried their luck during the application period one a half years ago.

After completing their training, the new NASA astronauts may hitch during commercial flights to the International Space Station or beyond. With NASA's Orion spacecraft on the works, more humans will lift off from Earth in the future, but the ultimate destination will be Mars.

The NASA Astronaut Class of 2017 includes Kayla Barron, Zena Cardman, Raja Chari, Matthew Dominick, Bob Hines, Warren (Woody) Hoburg, Jonny Kim, Robb Kulin, Jasmin Moghneli, Laral O'Hara, Frank Rubio and Jessica Watkins.

"We intend to send her to Mars one day, folks," Brian Kelly, director of flight operations at NASA's Johnson Space Center said when he introduced the last new astronaut Jessica Watkins.
INDIANAPOLIS (CNN)  Family and friends hope to raise awareness after the untimely death of 2-year-old Kenley Ratliff from what doctors believe is a tick-borne disease.

Kenley died last Saturday, several days after being admitted to the Riley Hospital for Children, WISH-TV reported. She was treated for Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a tick-borne disease that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, causes a bacterial infection.

After being taken to the Emergency Room twice for strep throat and released, she was admitted to the hospital after her 104-degrees fever didnt break.

Doctors treated her with antibiotics while diagnosing her symptoms: a brain infection, swollen hands, and rashes all over her body.

She had purple rashes splotches all over her body and a uniform pattern just all over little tiny purple spots big purple patches, said family friend Nichol Kirby, just the condition of this poor baby laying there the way she was, its a mothers nightmare, a fathers nightmare.

Family and friends are not sure where the tick bite may have happened.

As of now, family and friends are waiting for autopsy confirmation of whether it was a tick bite that caused her death.

More than $4,000 has been raised to help with funeral expenses.

Copyright 2017: CNN
Thousands of cyclists set off on a journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles on Sunday to raise awareness about AIDS.

The annual AIDS Life Cycle left the city in the morning, with 3,000 riders pedaling to Santa Cruz on the first leg of the 545-mile trip.

After spending the night on the Monterey Bay coast, the group will set off for King City on Monday.

"My boyfriend and I raised over $9,000 together, and were here to end AIDS," said Mari Azizkhanian of San Francisco.

Fellow cyclist Gabriel Peixoto added: "And I do it for friends who have passed, but I also do it for solidarity and getting a community together, and its a lot of fun."

San Francisco has one of the largest HIV-positive populations per capita in the U.S., with nearly 16,000 people diagnosed.

The event marked it 15th year raising money and awareness in the battle against HIV/AIDS.
Attention shoppers: That enticing $75 coupon for Trader Joes that is circulating on social media will save you zero money at checkout. Its counterfeit.

It's not us, the Monrovia, California-based grocer said in a statement Thursday.

The viral coupon claims to take $75 off any purchase of $80 or more to celebrate Trader Joes birthday. The problems is this: Trader Joes doesn't offer Internet coupons -- at all.

We do not offer any special promotions online. No coupons. No discounts. No special gift card offers, the grocer said. Trader Joe's has no association with these organizations.

The coupon includes an apparent customer satisfaction survey that asks users three brief questions. The website that hosts it, yu8sad.us, is registered to a person who lists a Los Angeles address. An email to the registrant, Jullie Wernia, was not immediately returned.

A brief search of yu8sad.us found several other surveys and coupons or gift card offers that include the logos for other national restaurants and grocery chains.

The pages are nearly identical and they all generate the same result: a list of or purported Facebook comments from people who claim to have received the coupon or offer. The same names and comments that appear after the Trader Joes survey also appear after a survey emblazoned with a Waffle House logo, for example.

A commenter who is identified as Jennifer Caesar says, Yeeess, I got the free coupon from Trader Joes. Caesar also appears at the end of the Waffle House survey, saying, Yeeess, I got the free coupon from Waffle House.

Trader Joes said it takes bogus coupons seriously.

When alerted to the existence of misleading promotions of this nature, we actively attempt to get our name removed, the company said.

Heres Trader Joes full statement to NBC Bay Area:

We do not offer any special promotions online. No coupons. No discounts. No special gift card offers. We apply the same philosophy in the digital world as we do in the physical world - we stay focused on providing the best everyday values, every day.

It has happened that organizations have appropriated the Trader Joe's name for use in association with special coupon, discount or gift card offerings online, which can cause confusion. It's not us. Trader Joe's has no association with these organizations. When alerted to the existence of misleading promotions of this nature, we actively attempt to get our name removed.

At present, the only means we use to communicate with our customers online are via our website (www.traderjoes.com) and our E-Newsletter, which you will only receive if you have elected to hear from us.
Most of the things 83-year-old June Amrhein of Half Moon Bay still has of her late father, Louis Phipps, fit neatly into a single bag.

His draft card. His police badge. A few old photographs.

Most, but not all.

There is one thing she wears proudly each and every day for all to see. "I inherited his smile," Amrhein said. "That's what everyone tells me that remembered him."

Remembering her father, it turns out, has been something of an obsession for Amrhein for the past 30 years. Or, better said, making sure her father's memory is honored is what she has longed for decades.

Amrhein is the oldest of Phipps' five children. She was 9-years-old in 1942 when he died.

A year earlier, the start of the United States' involvement in World War II, many young men in Amrhein's hometown of Ashland, Massachusetts went off to fight. That left many vacancies in the town's police and fire departments. Phipps left his job at a local clockmaker to join the police force.

In June of 1942, he was assaulted by a drunk patron at a bar in town. He died a few days later of his injuries.

"I just couldn't believe it," Amrhein said. "This was my hero. How could he be dead?"

For a number of reasons, not all of which Amrhein understands to this day, Phipps was never honored as a police officer who had died in the line of duty.

It was something that always bugged her, but didn't come completely to the surface until the 1980s when another fallen officer's picture when up on the wall at Ashland's police headquarters. "I said, 'Why isn't my father up there?' That's when the wheels started to work for me."

For years, Amrhein would talk to whomever she could contact in town government and the police department but was never able to convince anyone to take her cause seriously.

"I didn't have any records. I didn't have any evidence," Amrhein said.

But then, while cleaning out her mother's belongings after her death, Amrhein uncovered an old document that, in great detail, described the circumstances of her father's death.

Not long after, she also found a sympathetic ear on the department: Sgt. Greg Fawkes.

Once Fawkes, a police union representative, heard Amrhein's story, he got to work. "He told me this shouldn't be a problem," Amrhein said. Turns out, he was right.

Within just a few months, Amrhein got the world that her father's name was being added to the Fallen Officers National Memorial in Washington, DC. "I just sat down and cried. I couldn't believe it," Amrhein said.

All she had to do then, was find a way to get to the airport, to fly to the dedication last month. That proved to be no problem as well.

"It was a no-brainer," said Sgt. Leo Capovilla of the San Mateo County Sheriff's Department. Knowing that Amrhein was having difficulty finding a ride to the airport, Fawkes had called his counterparts in the Bay Area. Capovilla quickly arranged rides to and from the airport as well as personal escorts through security, all the way to the gate.

"This was a fellow officer who gave his life," Capovilla said. "I didn't have to think twice."

Amrhein says the ceremony in Washington was everything she knew it would be. Though she never knew just how this honor would happen, and couldn't have guessed the unexpected turns her journey would take, she always knew it would happen. There just wasn't another option.

"I was never going to give up. No. It had to happen."
We regularly assist with air passengers baggage complaints. This is the first time, however, we have been asked to help someone whose airline lost their luggage more than once.



They lost the bag twice, said Michael Petriano of San Francisco. Yes, twice.

Earlier this year, Petriano embarked on a trans-Atlantic jaunt that took him from SFO to Iceland, Sweden, Holland, and then back to SFO via Iceland and Newark, New Jersey.

The bag he checked arrived everywhere in Europe. But it was missing when his WOW Air flight landed in Newark.

These things happen, he said.

They do. Bags are mishandled more than 4,600 times a day, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation. So, Petriano immediately filed a report with WOW Air. Five days later, WOW headquarters, in Iceland, sent him an email informing him his duffel bag was located, and it would be sent to him via FedEx.

I was elated, he said. This is perfect. This is what I wanted.

But then, a large oblong box arrived at his doorstep.

This is about seven feet long. Its bigger than my body, Petriano explained. Theres just no way this can be luggage in any way.

The label indicated the long, skinny box had shipped from WOW Air at Newark airport.

Only, its not my luggage, Petriano said. Its a gigantic car part from Toyota Motors.

Petriano contacted WOW Air and discovered that after it found his lost luggage in Newark it lost it again.

This is when everything sort of snowballs out of control, he said.

So, Pertiano returned the box and kept on WOW Air about his bags whereabouts. He says he emailed every two or three days but received no response. He says he kept a tally of the days WOW Air was silent  and stopped counting at 50.

Can someone just act a little human toward me? he asked. A little bit?

Finally, he sent us his photos and asked for help. We wanted to know whether Petriano would be compensated and how WOW Air could confuse a seven-foot-long car part for a small piece of luggage.

In a statement, a spokesperson said, Somehow there was a mix-up. ... His bag got the same tracking number as the car part he received.

Petriano's bag was then declared officially missing. WOW Air offered him $1,531.20, the amount payable under the Montreal Convention, an international agreement that governs lost luggage claims.

As for why it took WOW Air more than 90 days to pay, the spokesperson said, We have for some time now tried to connect with our handling agents and contacts at FedEx about this matter with limited success, which explains the delay of this matters resolution."

Now that Petriano's ordeal is over, hes sharing a piece of advice with fellow travelers: persistence.

Be ruthless, and dont stop fighting for what you deserve, he said. Because I truly believe they just hope youll drop off and stop.
Political and social leaders in the Bay Area had mixed reaction to President Donald Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate change accord.

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who was among 12 mayors invited to take part in the 2015 Paris Climate Summit, said she's disappointed and angry.

"Our president has broken a promise to the world and walked away from the most pressing issue of our time," Schaaf said. "Believe me, what this president is going to fail to do, we will do."

Schaaf joined 66 mayors across the country Thursday, pledging to adopt the goals of the Paris pact despite Trump's action. The director of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club also says the organization is ready to double down on its efforts to stem global warming.

"For every step backward the country is taking, the Bay Area and Sierra Club (are) really pushing for renewable energy's future," Minda Berbeco said.

Not everyone is upset by Trump's decision. The former chair of the California Republican Party and current board member applauded the president.

"This is long overdue," Tom Del Beccaro said. "In the long term, the Paris pact would have led to more pollution, not less, because it would have driven jobs to India and China, who are the world's worst producers."

Business leaders also were disappointed with the decision. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stepped down from his post on Trump's advisory council.
Gov. Jerry Brown has company on his trip to China to further his climate change agenda: About 30 California business leaders are along for the ride to support Brown's policies and build their own business deals.

The business delegation is led by the Bay Area Council business advocacy organization and includes executives at transportation and energy companies, public utility leaders, academics, investors and a top executive of San Francisco International Airport.

Most paid a fee of about $5,500 on top of their travel costs to attend four days of events, including multiple private dinners and receptions with Brown, a clean energy ministerial and meetings with Chinese business and political leaders.

Brown's office declined to provide an estimate on the trip costs for him and staff members being paid for by a nonprofit group that takes private donations.

"The purpose of this is really to enable California to play a global role on an issue that's of huge global consequence," said Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, which helps run California's trade office in China. "The governor showed a lot of appreciation about having fellow Californians take the time to go to China just for a few days."

Brown's five-day trip, which ends Thursday, has generated heightened media and political attention following President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement.

Brown has pledged California's support to continue meeting emission reduction goals laid out in the international accord. He signed a new agreement this week with China aimed at boosting green technology.

It's his second trip to China. A 2013 visit was paid for by Bay Area Council delegates.

But this time, a different group of businesses is paying for the visit for Brown and four of his staff members. The nonprofit California State Protocol Foundation collects private donations to fund travel and other expenses for the state's governors, with the goal of eliminating costs to taxpayers.

Donations to the foundation to support Brown's activities must be regularly disclosed. Documents show labor unions, a physicians group and businesses such as Walmart gave between $25,000 and $100,000 to the foundation in 2016 to pay for Brown's travel, meals and other activities.

Oakland developer John Protopappas, a longtime friend of Brown's, serves as the foundation's president. Tom Willis, an attorney for the nonprofit group, said donations were not solicited specifically for the China trip. Donations in 2017 will eventually be disclosed but are not available yet.

Ethics experts say while there's nothing illegal or wrong with using private funds to pay for the trip or letting business executives tag along it still raises questions about who gets access to the governor.

"Any elected official hears more about the hopes and dreams and concerns of those who can pay to fund trips and spend time with him," said Jessica Levinson, a professor who studies government and ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

While in China, Brown has met with leaders in the Sichuan and Jiangsu provinces and in Beijing, and delivered remarks at various forums. Remarks on the California-China Climate Partnership at Tsinghau University early Thursday mark Brown's final event of the trip.

Executives traveling with the Bay Area Council dined with Brown on Tuesday evening and attended a Wednesday reception with the governor and Beijing Mayor Cai Qi.

Here's who's joining Brown in China:
In the first "Star Wars" film, Obi-Wan Kenobi said, "in my experience there is no such thing as luck." Steve Sansweet thinks differently.

Sansweet, the owner of the largest privately owned collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world, said Monday he feels lucky he found out about the theft of $200,000 worth of prized vintage action figures from his California nonprofit museum before it was too late.

About 120 pieces were stolen between 2015 and 2016 by a friend who stayed at the compound four times during that period, Sansweet said.

The sprawling collections are set up on shelves and are not behind glass or under lock and key.

About 100 of the stolen items have been recovered, he said.

Police arrested Carl Edward Cunningham, 45, of Marietta, Georgia, and in March, the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office charged him with felony grand theft.

Cunningham is free on $25,000 bail and is scheduled to be in court June 27 for a preliminary hearing.

Neither Cunningham, nor his lawyer, Amy Chapman, returned calls for comment.

"It was very lucky we found out when we did  but not so lucky that he had a year to steal things," Sansweet said.

Sansweet, the founder of Rancho Obi-Wan in Petaluma, California, owns roughly 400,000 pieces of Star Wars memorabilia that are on display and shown to visitors.

That includes everything from the original banner Lucasfilm used to promote Star Wars at fan conventions in 1976, to a Darth Vader costume and all of the more than 2,500 small action figures issued over the past 40 years.

The thefts surfaced after a collector learned he had inadvertently purchased a Boba Fett action figure stolen from a Texas warehouse, Sansweet said.

Star Wars actors Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew tweeted about Sansweet's news Monday.

"Maybe publish a list of stolen items to protect potential victims from purchasing 'hot' merchandise. #TheFraudIsStrongInThisOne #SithHappens," Hamill said.

"This is despicable. Keep an eye out. Get the word out," Mayhew tweeted.
PG&E Co. was ordered by the California Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco Tuesday to pay a $400,000 fine for a toppled transmission tower that caused a massive blackout in Monterey County in 2015.

More than 55,000 people lost power when the newly installed transmission tower north of PG&E's Moss Landing substation fell over and took high-voltage transmission lines down with it on Oct. 18, 2015.

The customers who lost power were in Sand City, Seaside, Pacific Grove, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Monterey and the surrounding area beginning at 7 a.m. that day. About half had power restored within seven hours, but others lacked electricity for 17 hours.

The citation issued by the PUC Safety and Enforcement Division said utility workers used an incorrect angle when they installed the four concrete footings of the tower on Sept. 9, 2015.

That "resulted in a low safety factor and caused the tower to fail and fall to the ground" on Oct. 18, the citation said. The tower was put into operation on Oct. 11.

The citation said, "PG&E's employees discovered the misalignment on September 9, 2015, and proceeded with constructing the tower without correcting the misalignment."

The citation is for installing the tower improperly and seven days of operating it with a below-minimum safety factor.

Since then, according to the citation, PG&E hired an outside engineering company, updated its construction standards and procedures and tested all towers installed within the previous two years.

PG&E has 30 days either to pay the citation or to appeal it to a PUC administrative law judge.

In a statement, the utility said, "We are reviewing" the citation, and did not say whether it plans to appeal.

Spokesman Matt Nauman said, "As we shared publicly after this incident, the tower footings were not properly installed and that led to the tower failure."

"Since then, we have inspected all recently constructed towers and found that they were installed correctly with no steel deformation or cracking," he said.

Bauamman said steps recommended by the engineering firm included a new tower stub angle verification process, additional training and the use of stronger steel, and "have all been implemented."
SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk said Thursday he is stepping down from two presidential advisory panels in response to Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

"Am departing presidential councils,'' Musk wrote on Twitter following Trump's announcement. "Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world."

Musk was followed Thursday by Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, who also announced his resignation from the Strategic and Policy Forum, a business advisory group.

Musk had indicated Wednesday that he would step away from from the Strategic and Policy Forum and a manufacturing jobs initiative if Trump opted out of the Paris agreement, tweeting that he has "done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in WH (White House) & via councils, that we remain."

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After confirming Thursday he would depart the presidential advisory board, Musk took aim at one of Trump's claims about the agreement  that the pact will allow China to continue increasing emission for the next dozen years.

"Under Paris deal, China committed to produce as much clean electricity by 2030 as the US does from all sources today," Musk wrote on his Twitter page.

The agreement  negotiated by 195 nations in Paris  was designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to climate change.

Trump's announcement and Musk's response came just hours before Hawthorne-based SpaceX was set to launch a supply mission to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But the launch was scrubbed.

The long-anticipated rematch between Saul "Canelo" Alvarez and Gennady Gennadyevich Golovkin has officially been called off.

In March, Iger defended his involvement on the panel to shareholders, quoting the Broadway hit "Hamilton" when he said, he wanted to be "in the room where it happens" so he can have influence, the Los Angeles Times reported.

See more reactions from world leaders to the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris accord here.

[2017 UPDATED 12/19] 2017 Southern California Images in the News
A solemn procession was held Monday for a 29-year-old firefighter who died after a fall during a training exercise in downtown Los Angeles over the weekend.

The firefighter, identified Monday by the Los Angeles Fire Department as Kelly Wong, fell from an aerial ladder at about 10 a.m. Saturday during the exercise in the 300 block of South Main Street in downtown Los Angeles. He was an "accomplished individual" who had just started a promising career with the department, the LAFD chief said.

Wong, survived by his wife and infant son, was rushed in critical condition to a hospital. The fire department announced the death Monday morning.

Wong was a two-year veteran of the department assigned to Station 92 in Rancho Park. He was set for transfer to Station 9 in downtown Los Angeles this month.

"I join the men and women of the LAFD in mourning Firefighter Wong's sudden passing," said LAFD Chief Ralph Terrazas. "It is always a tragedy to lose one of our own, especially an accomplished individual who was still at the beginning of what was certainly going to be a promising career."

During a morning procession to the coroner's office, colleagues, family members and hospital staff members gathered outside LA County USC Medical Center to honor the firefighter. A coroner's van carried his flag-draped body from the hospital, passing under a U.S. flag suspended from the ladders of two fire trucks.

Overcome with grief, Wong's wife kneeled next to the casket. The couple was about to celebrate their child's first birthday.



Rows of firefighters lined the exit from the hospital and saluted as the van passed.

Wong graduated from the LAFD Recruit Academy on Terminal Island in August 2015. He was the top academic performer in his class.

"Kelly's dream since he was a little boy was to be a firefighter," Terrazas said. "His mother, Ann, shared that story with me that Kelly liked to play with fire trucks growing up. He applied with several departments, but he wanted to work for the best. He wanted to work for the Los Angeles Fire Department. And he accomplished his goal."

Mayor Eric Garcetti's eyes watered and his voice broke as he talked about Wong's death and his young son, saying the boy will have "a lot of uncles and aunts" looking over him.

"This department and this city will ensure that he grows up with a life of love and knowing what a hero his father was," Garcetti said. "So I'm here to represent 4 million grateful souls today."

Terrazas echoed that sentiment, describing the immediate outpouring of support that came from fellow firefighters and people across the city. The chief added that the type of training in which Wong was killed will continue.

"When Kelly was injured, the crew at Fire Station 9 was training, and I always tell our people that the first thing, the most important thing that we do is respond to emergencies," he said. "The second most important thing we do is train to respond to emergencies. We will continue to train whether it be for a high-rise fire, a brush fire, a medical event, whatever incident type it is, we will continue to train to be ready so we can protect the people of this great city."

The LAFD, in conjunction with state safety agencies, is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of the death.

Memorial services for Wong are pending.
A former Fremont elementary school teacher was sentenced Friday to 195 years to life in state prison for molesting two young students nearly 20 years ago.

Frank Montenegro, who's now 53, was convicted in March of two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor under 14 for his acts against one of the boys and seven counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor under 14 and four counts of aggravated sexual assault for his acts with the other victim.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy told Montenegro, "You committed atrocious and appalling crimes and took advantage of two young, vulnerable and fatherless boys."

Murphy said he and other parents trust teachers to protect and educate their children but told Montenegro, "You violated that trust in a horrible way."

Apparently noticing that Montenegro smirked throughout his trial and sentencing hearing, Murphy said, "You've surrounded yourself with a cloak of self-righteousness" and said he thinks that may be Montenegro's way of trying to deny what he did to the two boys on multiple occasions between August 1998 and June 2001.

Prosecutor Amanda Chavez alleged in her closing argument in Montenegro's trial that he was a sexual predator who "was motivated by sexual urges in children" and preyed on two vulnerable boys who came from troubled homes.

One of the victims testified that Montenegro began molesting him when he was an 8-year-old third grader at John Blacow Elementary School in Fremont in 1998 and the assaults continued until he was a 10-year-old fifth grader in 2001.

Chavez said that boy was assaulted at the school at nighttime, at Montenegro's home, at the home of Montenegro's friend and at a motel.

Chavez said the other victim, who had lived in a group home, was assaulted in an interior room at the school during recess periods.

Chavez said Montenegro, who had worked for the district since 1988, fled the Bay Area on July 19, 2001, when police were about to arrest him and went into hiding for 14 years by using a false name until FBI fugitive task force members found him and arrested him in the Los Angeles area on Aug. 15, 2015.

Defense attorney Todd Bequette said in his closing argument that Montenegro is "an innocent man" and the prosecution failed to produce any DNA evidence, medical records, hotel receipts or confessions to prove that Montenegro had molested the two boys.

In a strange twist on the case, Chavez alleged at a hearing outside the presence of jurors on Feb. 28 that Montenegro had been masturbating in court that day while Bequette was cross-examining one of the alleged victims.

Bequette then asked that a mistrial be declared because he thought jurors might not be able to give Montenegro a fair trial but Murphy denied the defense motion.

The victim who was assaulted multiple times at multiple locations, who is now 27, said that now that Montenegro has been convicted and sentenced, "I've finally gotten justice after all these years and finally feel free and like a burden has been lifted off my chest."

Fighting back tears, the victim told Montenegro, "You should be ashamed of yourself" and asked, "Why did you take advantage of me?"

The victim said, "You stole something from me that I can never get back and I will never forgive you."

The victim's mother said, "My life will never be the same because of how much my son suffered from this piece of trash."

Montenegro's sister, Genevieve Montenegro, who was the first person to report him to police after seeing the victim in the bedroom where Montenegro lived with his siblings, alleged that Montenegro sexually abused his younger siblings after their parents died.

Genevieve Montenegro said, "We were given to him (Montenegro) to take care of us but he didn't."

She told her brother that when he's in prison, "You will be with animals and the worst people in the world."

The victim who spoke in court Friday is still in custody because he's serving a sentence for a residential burglary conviction and for assault with a deadly weapon and resisting an officer in a jail incident.

But the victim is expected to be released soon and Murphy told him, "Your family is supporting you in finding a way to turn your life around and your future is bright. Go forward with your head up and do some good things."
With online celebrities popping up almost overnight on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, it may not be surprising to learn that youngsters are looking to get in on the burgeoning career.

From 15-year-old Russell Horning  a.k.a Backpack Kid  drawing laughs during his appearance on Saturday Night Live to 9-year-old A.J. Heinicke, from San Mateo, showing off motorcycle stunts on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," kids are gaining national attention through a variety of Silicon Valley-based platforms.

First Choice, a British vacation company, decided to see how its youth weighed online careers in comparison to traditional professions like becoming a doctor or actor.

Silicon Valley's influence was apparent in its survey of 1,000 kids around the United Kingdom. The surveyed kids overwhelming favored online fame and more than one-third of them specifically aspired to YouTube stardom.

Just over 11 percent of the children said that fame is the main reason for their choice, but the most common reason was the ability to "create cool content." Children also counted self-expression, travel and earnings among their inspirations.

Since its founding in 2005, San Bruno-based YouTube has expanded its reach to 95 percent of the worlds internet population, spanning 88 countries and 76 languages. According to the company, it now boasts more than one billion users and a larger viewership than any television network in the United States.

Top Career Choices in Surveyed Kids:

YouTuber  34.20% Blogger/Vlogger  18.10% Musician/Singer  16% Actor  15.7% Film Maker  13.6% Doctor/Nurse  13.4% TV Presenter  12.4% Athlete/Teacher  11.9% Writer  8.4% Lawyer  6.4%

First Choice, a British vacation company,
Following the opening of its first LGBTQ Pride Center, San Mateo County is set to celebrate LGBT Pride Month with festivities Saturday in Central Park.

While Silicon Valley Pride is set for late August, several cities will be hosting their annual pride events over the next three weeks:

Love Our Island's LGBTQ Pride Celebration in Alameda

DATE: Tuesday, June 6

TIME: 7 p.m.

LOCATION: Alameda City Hall 2263 Santa Clara Ave #320 in Alameda

DESCRIPTION: Community members are invited to eat free ice cream and take a photograph with the city mayor and council members before the weekly city council meeting (view event).

Pride Cruise in San Francisco

DATE: Saturday, June 10

TIME: 3 to 6 p.m.

LOCATION: USS Potomac, San Francisco Ferry Building Gate E, 1 Ferry Building in San Francisco

DESCRIPTION: The Pride Law Fund's annual fundraiser to fund fellowships for law students focusing on LGBT civil rights issues takes off from the San Francisco Ferry Building on Saturday. Tickets cost between $100 to $150 (view event).

Pride Parade at San Mateo Central Park

DATE: Saturday, June 10

TIME: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

LOCATION: San Mateo Central Park, 50 E 5th Ave in San Mateo

DESCRIPTION: San Mateo celebrates its 5th annual pride parade with this year's theme as "Still We Rise" (view event).

Equality March for Unity and Pride in San Jose

DATE: Sunday, June 11

TIME: The march begins at 11 a.m and the rally begins at 1 p.m.

LOCATION: San Jose City Hall to Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park

DESCRIPTION: Participants in San Jose are expected to join cities across the nation marching during the annual Equality March for Unity & Pride (view event).

Raise A Glass Pride Fundraiser

DATE: June 15

TIME: 5 to 10 p.m.

LOCATION: Laughing Monk Brewing, 1439 Egbert Ave, Unit A San Francisco, CA

DESCRIPTION: There will be an early pride celebration and fundraiser at Laughing Monk Brewing where event organizers say $1 dollar for every beer sold will be donated to the Lyric Center for LGBTQQ Youth and the AIDS Family and Youth Foundation as well as another dollar for every image posted on social media with people raising a glass with the Laughing Monk page tagged and the hashtag#RaiseAGlass. (view event).

Pride Party and Fundraiser at the TAYLOR/MONROE in San Francisco

DATE: June 17

TIME: 8 to 11 p.m.

LOCATION: TAYLOR / MONROE, 448 Grove St. San Francisco, CA 94102

DESCRIPTION: This annual fundraiser is an option for those 21 and up with all proceeds from event tickets, raffles and auction items benefiting the SF LGBT Center (view event).

Pink Triangle Installation & Commemoration

DATE: June 24

TIME: 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

LOCATION: Twin Peaks in San Francisco

DESCRIPTION: The north side of Twin Peaks facing the Castro District is turned into a memorial annually to remember the gay victims who were persecuted and killed in concentration camps in Nazi Germany starting in 1933 through the end of WWII (view website).

Pride Brunch at the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco

DATE: June 24

TIME: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

LOCATION: Hotel Whitcomb, 1231 Market St. in San Francisco

DESCRIPTION: Wells Fargo is sponsoring the Gary Virginia and Donna Sachet's 19th Annual Pride Brunch which benefits the Positive Resource Center and honors the parade's grand marshals. Tickets cost $75 for balcony seating, $100 for general admission and up to $10,000 for sponsoring tables (view event).

Pride Party at the Mezzanine in San Francisco

DATE: June 24

TIME: 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

LOCATION: 444 Jessie St. Mezzanine in San Francisco

DESCRIPTION: The Mezzanine's annual event is an option for those 21 and up with a portion of its proceeds from the night donated to the San Francisco City Clinic (view website).

Pride Parade in San Francisco
San Jose police are looking for a suspect in a knife attack that sent one man to the hospital Saturday, according to police officials.

At about 5:45 p.m., officers were sent to East St. John and North Fourth streets and found the victim suffering from at least one stab wound, police said.

The man was taken to the hospital with injuries that are considered life-threatening.

Police are still trying to identify and locate a possible suspect.

No additional information about the attack was immediately available.

Anyone with information is asked to contact San Jose police by dialing 911. Anonymous callers can call Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-7867.
Former first lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday stopped by Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference for a "fireside chat" with CEO Tim Cook.

Cook announced the surprise visit Monday at the end of his keynote address to the crowd in San Jose.

Obama, accompanied by Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environment, policy, and social initiatives, took to the stage to chat with developers about the role technology can play in "empowering people from all walks of life to make the world a better place."

The former first lady talked about life after the White House and delivered some comforting advice on how to deal with fear.

"If we let [fear] consume us, then we don't move," she said.

Attendees walking out of the discussion also noted feeling a sense of inspiration.

"I'm a woman in technology, so she's inspiring in that sense," Leila Navon said. "She keeps telling us to keep working and keep doing what we should do and keep striving to be awesome pillars in our economy and our communities."

During her time as first lady, Obama launched several initiatives that focused on themes of empowerment. Her Let's Move! campaign worked to address childhood obesity, Reach Higher encouraged young people in the U.S. to enroll in higher education and Let Girls Learn helped young girls around the world go to school.

The conversation with Obama and Jackson began at 9 a.m. PT. The talk was closed to the public and was not be live streamed or broadcast, according to Apple.



During the first day of Apple's conference, the tech giant on Monday unveiled its new "HomePod" speaker, virtual reality technology and software developments for its line of products.
Pack your bags. Next February, you will be able to fly from Oakland to Rome for only $229.

Norwegian Air is pushing to expand its international travel from the United States with bargain priced flights, reported USA Today. People itching to take a vacation will be treated with cheap and direct trips from cities like Oakland, Los Angeles, and Newark. Rome is just one of the many destinations for Norwegian Air.

Other non-stop flights from Oakland include trips to London, Barcelona, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. You can fly to each of these cities in July for less than $300.

The company has declared itself as the worlds fastest growing airline and seems to be holding to that claim. Along with flying out from the trio of cities listed, USA Today also reported that the company will go from 12 other U.S. locations to 13 different destinations spanning across Europe. Fifty-two of those flights will travel direct. This means no layovers or missed connections.

To make customers lives even easier, Norwegian Air has added price trackers when looking to book a flight. With this, flyers are able to compare costs of the airlines trips. This can be accessed by choosing a destination and departure location. Other features will summarize a citys attractions and culture. You may even be given a suggested reading about the vacation spot.

Those who travel may also get to board the new Boeng 737 Max, according to USA Today. The airline has confirmed that is has ordered 100 of these aircrafts, so travelers will be able to fly in the new Boeng plane as soon as this summer. Along with the contemporary interior of this plane, it will also be more eco-friendly, using less fuel than their previous models.

Flights can be booked online now at Norwegian Airs website.
Two people were arrested Monday morning on charges connected to the deadly Oakland Ghost Ship warehouse fire that killed 36 people in December, according to Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley.

Derick Almena, the warehouse's operator, and Max Harris, a warehouse tenant, were taken into custody. Almena was arrested in Lake County, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who assisted with the arrest.

O'Malley said both Almena and Harris are charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection to the deadly blaze.

Almena was taken to Santa Rita Jail in Dublin late Monday and was to be processed sometime after midnight, sheriff's officials said. He is scheduled to be in court Thursday, with bail set at $1 million. Sheriffs deputies will travel to Southern California to pick up Harris this week.

One victim's mother reacted to the arrests Monday.

"That place was set up like a death trap," said Susan Slocum, whose daughter Donna Kellogg one of the first to be identified in the tragic fire. "Our daughters and sons didnt have much of a chance."

Slocum said the arrest of two men facing involuntary manslaughter charges couldnt come soon enough.

"You feel like youre in a state of limbo, waiting to hear something," she said. "It feels better knowing theres movement going on."

OMalley explained the two men's arrests and charges during a news conference Monday.

"They knowingly created a fire trap, with inadequate escapes, and are now suffering the consequences of their actions," she said.

A massive fire ripped through the converted Ghost Ship warehouse building during a dance party on Dec. 2, engulfing the ground floor and sending smoke up twp staircases, trapping party-goers. Th structure was zoned as a warehouse but illegally converted into a living space.

Almena told NBC's "Today" show back in December that he was "incredibly sorry and that everything that I did was to make this a stronger and more beautiful community and to bring people together."

Almena, 46, who friends knew as Derick Ion, was convicted in January of receiving stolen property, specifically an Airstream trailer from his landlord in January 2015, court records show. He spent two days in jail then, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor, and had been on probation until 2019.

Almena survived the fire and posted to Facebook after hearing that the converted warehouse he managed was the site of a deadly fire. The post, which has since been deleted, got a lot of attention because of its insensitivity to what was already known to be a fatal scene.

The post read as follows: "Confirmed. Everything I worked so hard for is gone. Blessed that my children and Micah were at a hotel safe and sound ... it's as if I have awoken from a dream filled with opulence and hope ... to be standing now in poverty of self worth."

The post prompted more than 2,000 comments, and many of them were critical of Almena's message. The commenters said he showed more concern for his material possessions than the people who were killed in the blaze.

Danielle Boudreaux said she became fast friends with Almena and his wife Micah Allison when they met eight years ago before a falling out about a year ago over conditions at the warehouse.

Access to the second floor, where there was a room for concerts and a home for the couple and their children, was a rickety, homemade staircase, she said.

"Calling it a staircase gives you the idea that it was a set of stairs. It was not," Boudreaux said. "It was random pieces of wood put together to create something that you could get up to the top floor on. But it was not what most people would consider a staircase. It was like a jimmy-rigged makeshift staircase. As soon as you stepped on it, it wobbled all over the place."

Other former tenants have said there were constant problems with the power and hot water. One, Shelly Mack, described "all kinds of electrical cords running through there illegally." She called it a "death trap."

Long before the fire killed 36 partygoers in Oaklands Fruitvale district late Friday night, Oakland officials had been fighting the owners of that building over hazardous or substandard conditions at their properties.



City building inspectors never set foot inside the Ghost Ship warehouse in 30 years. But dozens of public documents obtained by the Investigative Unit reveal city officials had routinely accused the buildings owners of neglect in connection with the warehouse and other properties they own. Those records show the Ng family, who own the so-called Ghost Ship warehouse and at least a dozen other properties across the Bay Area, failed to clean up dangerous or shoddy conditions at properties over a period of more than 15 years despite code violations and complaints from neighbors.

NBC Bay Area's Jodi Hernandez and Cheryl Hurd contributed to this report.
Contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and abstinence are some of the topics that could be discussed with middle school students in Palo Alto, but some parents are concerned.

The Palo Alto Unified School District is scheduled to address those questions and the sexual health course, which could be delivered to students as young as seventh grade, during a meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The curriculum, which features 10 hours of content to be delivered over a two-week period, will cover gender roles, relationships, sexuality, reproductive health, contraception and STDs, according to nonprofit Health Connected, the group the district is partnering with for the course.



Students are required to receive sexual health education once in middle school and again in high school, according to California's Healthy Youth Act.

Parents in Palo Alto can opt out of the program if they see fit, according to the school district. Parents can also take a peek at the material before their children do.

For proprietary reasons, parents can only review the course material in person. Health Connected doesn't share the material electronically.
San Francisco police on Monday identified the 34-year-old suspect arrested for killing an Australian tourist last Friday.

David Murillo of Hesperia, Calif. was arrested following the deadly assault, which occurred in the vicinity of the Da Vinci Villa hotel on the 2500 block of Van Ness Avenue, police said.

After detaining Murillo and questioning him, "it was determined (Murillo) was responsible for Bate's murder," police wrote in a statement.

Murillo was booked into San Francisco County Jail on one felony charge for murder, according to police.

Matthew Bate, 33, suffered severe head trauma as a result of the assault, according to police. First responders tried to save him, but Bate died at the hospital.

Despite the arrest, police are still asking the public for information. Anyone with details is asked to contact the San Francisco Police anonymously at 415-575-4444. People can also text TIP411 and begin the text message with SFPD.
For the second time in roughly 48 hours, racist graffiti targeting African American students cropped up on the campus of Castro Valley High School Friday.

The N-word has been scrawled across the East Bay campus in at least three different locations recently, prompting students to condemn the act and a "deeply troubled" principal to speak out against the bigoted behavior.

"It is important that each of our students understand that using hate speech in any capacity is wrong," Principal Blaine C. Torpey wrote in a message to the school community. "Hate speech and racist language destroy the fabric of our community."

Seniors at the school say a small contingent of students is known for displaying racist symbols and using racist speech against people of color.

"There are kids here who are racist, for sure," senior Marco Macchiavello said. "It just makes me kind of sad to know that there's kids like this in our school."

Fellow senior Robert Terhell added that such behavior cannot be tolerated.

"I don't like that it's at my school," he said.

The school and the Alameda County Sheriff's Office are investigating the incident. Any student with information is asked to come forward.

School officials are also encouraging students to seek support from school counselors or administrators if need be.
San Francisco's city attorney issued subpoenas Monday to ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft for records about their drivers and service in the city.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera said he is concerned about drivers who commute from as far away as Southern California to work in San Francisco and wants to ensure the companies comply with laws that require equal accommodation for people with disabilities.

He wants to know how many miles and hours drivers log; what guidance and training they receive; what neighborhoods they serve; and whether their vehicles are accessible to disabled people. The city attorney is seeking four years of records.

Herrera separately issued a public records request to the California Public Utilities Commission for annual reports Lyft and Uber have submitted to the agency since 2013 as well as any additional data about their effect on traffic congestion and safety. The CPUC regulates ride-hailing companies.

"Our action today aims to protect San Franciscans by ensuring that these companies comply with state and local law," Herrera said in a statement.

Uber said in a statement it is happy to work with the city to address congestion, but any solution should look at construction, the city's population increase and the rise of online delivery services.

Lyft said it is reviewing the subpoena and has always been focused on improving transportation access in all cities where it operates.
Three men were convicted Friday of rigging bids at real estate auctions held in Northern California to snatch up hundreds of foreclosed properties during the housing crisis.

The jury found Michael Marr, Javier Sanchez and Gregory Casorso guilty of conspiracy following a three-week trial in federal court in Oakland.

Prosecutors said they worked together to suppress the prices of bids on foreclosed homes at courthouse auctions in Alameda County between June 2008 and January of 2011. Marr and Sanchez also were convicted of conspiracy to rig bids in Contra Costa County.

Authorities said the men decided who would win the bidding for certain properties by agreeing not to compete with each other before the public auction. They would then hold a private auction to determine who would get the properties. Prosecutors said payoffs were given to those who agreed not to compete with them.

Those practices cheated lenders, taxpayers and distressed homeowners, officials said.

Marr owns more than 300 properties and is considered the largest private landlord in Oakland, the East Bay Times reported. Some of his tenants protested outside the courthouse when his trial began. They alleged he is raising rents, sending eviction notices and collecting back rents at homes he purchased in the working-class neighborhoods of east Oakland.

Federal authorities continue to investigate bid-rigging in Northern California. So far, 68 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty, and indictments are pending against other real estate investors who participated in the conspiracy, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
For a third straight summer, nearly a dozen young great white sharks returned to a spot in Monterey Bay near the cement ship in Aptos, according to a report from NBC affiliate KSBW in Salinas.

A shark expert says the current movement and warmer temperatures in the ocean are bringing them up from Southern California.

"It's one of the warmest, calmest areas in the bay," Sean Van Sommeran, of the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, told KSBW. "They don't seem to be in the hunting mode when we're observing them here, they really are just lounging around."

Van Sommeran said there are 22 shark species in the Monterey Bay, but the larger sharks leave the area for the summer, so the pups, as he calls them, feel safe while they're gone.

"They have for the past three years shown up as early as March," he said. "They start showing up in numbers in April. Then by May, June, July, we find them right here."

He and his team with the research foundation have been studying them for years using underwater GoPros and drone cameras.
Former FBI Director James Comey testified Thursday that President Donald Trump pressured him to to drop an investigation into one of his senior advisers, fired him after he would not do so and lied about the affair. Trump denies pressuring Comey, and is accusing Comey of leaking "privileged information."



In dramatic testimony that gripped Washington, D.C., and much of the country, Comey said he began documenting what occurred in their private interactions from the outset because he believed Trump might lie about what took place. Comey revealed to the Senate intelligence committee that after his firing he tried to spur the appointment of a special counsel by giving one of his memos about Trump to a friend to leak to the press.

Neither Trump nor any member of the administration sought to directly stop the FBI's investigation into Russian election meddling, Comey said, but his dismissal left him "confused and increasingly concerned" by the "shifting explanations" that were given by the White House.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russian investigation, I was fired in some way to change the endeavor was in some way to change the way the Russian investigation was being conducted," Comey said. "And that is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me. The nature of the FBI, and the nature of its work, requires that it not be the subject of political consideration."

Soon after the hearing, Trump's outside counsel released a statement denying Trump asked for loyalty, as Comey alleges. The statement continued, however, that "the Office of the President is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration." The statement also accused Comey of leaking "privileged information," including the memos.

The hearing came a day after Comey said in written testimony to the Senate that private conversations with Trump made him deeply uneasy and concerned about the blurring of boundaries between the White House and a law enforcement agency that prides itself on independence.

Comey wrote Wednesday that Trump said "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty," and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

He also wrote that he began writing memos after his first private meeting with Trump, a briefing at Trump Tower on Jan. 6. Comey explained Thursday that he did so because he "was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of the meeting, and I thought it was important to document it."

But Trump's personal attorney, Marc Kasowitz, said in the statement that Trump never "directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey 'let Flynn go.'" And Kasowitz said Trump "never told Mr. Comey, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' in form or substance."

The statement accused Comey of being one of many people trying to trip up the administration by leaking information: "It is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers."

The statement concluded, "In sum, it is now established that there the President was not being investigated for colluding with the or attempting to obstruct that investigation. As the Committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are virtually the only facts that have not leaked during the long course of these events."

Kasowitz read the statement at a news conference but took no questions.



Comey would not say in public session whether he believes the president colluded with Russia during the election. The committee went into closed session following the hearing, in which classified information can be discussed.

'LIES, PLAIN AND SIMPLE'

At the hearing, Comey did not repeat his written testimony, but he touched on the meetings with Trump while answering questions, and his own firing. He said the administration's explanations for letting him go, that the FBI was in disarray, "were lies, plain and simple."

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed that remark during a briefing at the White House, saying, "I can definitely say the president's not a liar."

Trump did not respond to Comey's testimony, though officials said he was expected to watch it at the White House with his legal team. Trump didn't make direct reference to the hearing at an event in Washington that began as Comey's hearing finished up, but he did say he "would not back down from doing what is right" in the face of "failed, bitter voices in Washington" who lie, obstruct and spread hatred.

His son, Donald Trump Jr., criticized Comey and defended his father in a series in Twitter posts. He said that the "Flynn stuff" was "very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction."

Comey had testified that he took Trump's phrase, "I hope you can let this go," a reference to the FBI's investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, as an order.



Trump was expected to dispute Comey's claims that he demanded loyalty and asked Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, according to a person close to the president's legal team who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss legal strategy.

Comey said he was sure that Trump's alleged attempt at influencing the Flynn investigation is something the special counsel who took charge of the FBI's probe, Robert Mueller, would look at.



"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," Comey said. "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work for, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense."

Additionally, Comey said he knew of a "variety of reasons" why Attorney General Jeff Sessions' involvement in the Russia investigation would be problematic before Sessions recused himself in March. But Comey added he could not discuss the reasons openly.

The Justice Department said Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation only because he was involved in Trump's campaign.

In a statement late Thursday, spokesman Ian Prior said "it was for that reason, and that reason alone" that Sessions decided to step aside from the probe. The statement doesn't mention Sessions' undisclosed contacts with Russia's ambassador.

A PACKED ROOM

Hundreds of people lined up outside the Capitol Hill hearing room to try to get a seat, with the queue snaking from the Hart Senate Office Building into the adjoining Dirksen Senate Office Building.

"It feels like a historic day," said Matt Veno, of Massachusetts. He was at the very end of the line about 20 minutes before the start of the hearing.

Comey entered the overflowing hearing room just after 10 a.m. and took his seat at the witness table, alone, as the session got underway. He listened, hands clasped on his lap, as committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina delivered his opening statement.

"Today," Burr told Comey, "is your opportunity to set the record straight."

Burr is leading the committee's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and ties with Trump's own campaign team.

Comey's written and verbal testimony confirmed that he told Trump he was not personally under investigation, as Trump had asserted in his termination letter to Comey. Trump felt "completely and totally vindicated" by that part of the written testimony, according to a statement from Kasowitz Wednesday.



House Speaker Paul Ryan said as the hearing was underway that the FBI director needs to be independent of the executive, but explained that Trump was unfamiliar with protocol, and "just new to this." Asked about Comey saying Trump lied, Ryan called it a "he said, he said" situation.

When the hearing ended, a crowd of reporters for news outlets from around the world waited for the former FBI director to exit the hearing room. He strode through the crowd silently, ignoring shouted questions.

ARE THERE TAPES?

Much of what Comey had to say was new, but there was one point on which he remains in the dark: whether or not the president recorded their conversation.

Days after firing Comey, and after The New York Times reported on one of Comey's memos, Trump tweeted a warning to the former FBI director that he had better hope there are no "tapes" of their conversations. That statement raised the question of whether Trump recorded discussions with Comey, but the White House has not confirmed whether Trump did so.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said Thursday, later urging the president to release any tapes he has.

"I'm good with it," Comey said.



In fact, Comey said that Trump's "tapes" comment prompted him to ask a friend, a professor at Columbia Law School, to release the memo, thinking it could corroborate his account.



"My judgment was, I needed to get that out into the public square, and so I asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with a reporter," Comey said. "I though that might prompt the appointment of special counsel."

There were a few moments of levity during the hearing.

When Comey said he had to cancel a date with his wife to have dinner with Trump, the dinner at which Comey says Trump demanded his loyalty, the crowd cooed, "Awwww!"

"In retrospect, I love spending time with my wife  I wish I hadn't broken that date," Comey joked.

And Comey got a slight laugh when he said, "The statue of justice has a blindfold on. You're not supposed to be peeking out to see if your patron is pleased or not."

Comey used part of his opening statement to assure the public that "the FBI is honest, the FBI is strong and the FBI is and always will be independent." He also apologized to the bureau for not being able to say goodbye to them when he was fired.

NBC Washington's Andrea Swalec and The Associated Press contributed to this report.


A tick bite may have led to the death of a young Indiana girl who fell dangerously ill in a matter of days last week, family members said.

WTHR reports that 2-year-old Kenley Ratliff, of Plainfield, died Sunday after her family suspected she was infected with Rocky Mountain Spotted fever following a tick bite during a camping trip.

Family members said it took only one week for Kenleys health to deteriorate.

Within less than like five days, family friend Monica Kirby, who was asked to speak on the grieving familys behalf, told WTHR. Her little body couldnt handle it.

First, Kenley tested positive for strep throat. But the young girls fever continued to climb to nearly 104 degrees.

They just couldnt break it, Kirby told the news outlet.

Kenley died at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis Sunday.

The family had said physicians suspected Kenley was suffering from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but confirmation from testing could take up to two weeks to complete.

The CDC reports Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever can be fatal if not treated in the first few days of symptoms.

Symptoms include fever, headache, abdominal pain, vomitting and muscle pain. In many cases, a rash may also develop, but that can take days to appear, if at all, health officials said.

The progression of the disease varies greatly, according to the CDCs website. Patients who are treated early may recover quickly on outpatient medication, while those who experience a more severe course may require intravenous antibiotics, prolonged hospitalization or intensive care.

Health officials note that in children, symptoms including a cough, sore throat and diarrhea may be seen, which can lead to misdiagnosis.

Kenleys death comes amid numerous alerts from health departments across the Midwest warning of tickborne illnesses, particularly as warm weather approaches.

The Illinois Department of Public Health warned residents Wednesday about a rise in ticks across the area.

A bite from a tick can cause anywhere from mild to severe illness, and even death in some cases, so it is important to protect yourself against bites, Director Nirav D. Shah said in a statement.

The DuPage County Health Department sent out a similar alert.

Health officials recommend the following tips for avoiding tick bites:

 Wear light-colored, protective clothinglong-sleeved shirts, pants, boots or sturdy shoes, and a head covering. Treat clothing with products containing 0.5 percent permethrin.

 Apply insect repellent that contains 20 percent or more DEET, picaridin, or IR3535 on exposed skin for protection that lasts several hours.

 Walk in the center of trails so grass, shrubs, and weeds do not brush against you.

 Check yourself, children, other family members, and pets for ticks every two to three hours.

 Remove any tick promptly by grasping it with tweezers, as close to the skin as possible and gently, but firmly, pulling it straight out. Wash your hands and the tick bite site with soap and water.

For information on how to remove a tick if you find one attached to your skin, click here.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Kenleys family cover medical costs and funeral arrangements. As of Wednesday, more than $5,100 had been raised.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu is reportedly saying his state will not join the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of states pledging to uphold the Paris climate agreement despite President Trump's decision to back out.

Gov. Sununu told the Concord Monitor he did not want to join the 12-state pact because of concerns about the alliance's impact on the economy and the environment.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker became the first Republican governor to bring his state into the alliance on June 2.

"Our administration looks forward to continued, bipartisan collaboration with other states to protect the environment," said Gov. Baker in a statement.

Vermont's Republican Gov. Phil Scott also signed on to the agreement.

There are currently 12 states committed to the alliance, which aims to cut carbon emissions by 26 percent from 2005 levels.
The Latest on developments involving fired FBI Director James Comey (all times EDT):

4:30 p.m.

The top two members of the Senate intelligence committee say they believe former FBI director James Comey told the truth under oath Thursday.

Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina said, "I trust James Comey" and does not believe he lied. Sen. Mark Warner, the committee's top Democrat, also said he believes Comey.

Comey said at the hearing that he interpreted comments from President Donald Trump as a directive to shut down the bureau's investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Trump's lawyer disputed that, saying the president never directed or suggested that Comey stop investigating anyone.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer challenged Trump to release tapes the president once alluded to in a tweet. "Play the tapes for all of America to hear," he said.

___

[[427263563, C]]

4:25 p.m.

President Donald Trump is declining to answer questions about claims made by former FBI Director James Comey that he has been untruthful.

Trump stayed quiet and simply smiled Thursday afternoon when reporters asked him about Comey's testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. The president was hosting a panel at the White House with governors and local government leaders on infrastructure.

Trump also kept silent on Twitter as Comey testified Thursday morning. The former FBI director says the president had told "lies, plain and simple" about dismissing him from the FBI due to low morale. Comey says he took notes about his meetings with the president on a feeling that the president might misrepresent them. Trump's lawyer has disputed Comey's statements.

___

4:20 p.m.

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi says former FBI Director Jim Comey's "resolute testimony" confirms President Donald Trump's "contempt for justice."

Pelosi says that instead of protecting American democracy from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president has worked relentlessly to obstruct the investigation of General Michael Flynn and the campaign's "possible collusion"with Russia.

Pelosi spoke after Comey appeared before a Senate panel Thursday.

Pelosi says an outside independent commission is needed to prevent foreign powers from interfering in future elections.

She says Russia hacked, leaked and in some cases altered information in a way that had an impact on the 2016 election. She says "we cannot let that happen again."

___

3:00 p.m.

Sen. John McCain says his sometimes confusing line of questions to fired FBI Director James Comey was aimed at getting Comey to say whether he believes President Donald Trump had obstructed justice.

The 80-year-old Arizona Republican's performance during the widely-watched Comey hearing lit up social media sites, where many observers posted their confusion or criticism. McCain asked Comey why he was willing to come to a conclusion in the case of Hillary Clinton's emails, but not the Russia investigation.

McCain said he wants Comey to conclude whether Trump's interactions with Comey "constitutes obstruction of justice."

Comey has refused to give an opinion on the obstruction question, saying that's special counsel Robert Mueller's job.

McCain joked that maybe he shouldn't stay up late watching the Arizona Diamondbacks. His statement said "I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people's heads."

___

2:15 p.m.

President Donald Trump's personal attorney says the president "never, in form or substance" directed former FBI director James Comey to stop investigating anyone. That includes former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Marc Kasowitz is responding to Comey's Thursday morning testimony, in which the fired FBI director said Trump urged him to drop the Flynn case.

Kasowitz says that the president is "entitled to expect loyalty" from those serving the administration. But he says Trump never told Comey, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,'' in form or substance, as Comey claimed.

Trump tasked Kasowitz late last month with responding to matters arising from various probes of Russian interference in the election.

He is expected to deliver a spoken statement shortly.

___

2:10 p.m.

President Donald Trump's lawyer is accusing fired FBI Director James Comey of "unauthorized disclosures" of "privileged communications" he had with the president.

Marc Kasowitz said there continues "to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications."

He says, "Comey has now admitted that he is one of the leakers."

Comey said in his testimony that he leaked his memos of his conversations with the president to a friend after a tweet by the president suggested he may have taped the conversations.

Kasowitz says Trump's team will "leave it the appropriate authorities" to determine whether the leak should be investigated.

___

1:25 p.m.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee says there's more work ahead in the committee's investigation after hearing testimony from former FBI Director James Comey.

Sen. Richard Burr says the committee plans to get together next week with the special counsel who's leading an investigation into Russian activities during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Burr says the aim is to work on ways to avoid logistical conflicts with upcoming witnesses and testimony.

___

1:05 p.m.

Former FBI Director James Comey says at the end of his testimony to a Senate committee that he believes he was fired by President Donald Trump in an effort to affect the Russia investigation.

Comey says it's a "very big deal and not just because it involves me."

He says political considerations shouldn't influence the FBI's work. Comey say that if any American helped Russia in trying to influence the 2016 election, "that is a very big deal."

Comey says he's confident an investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller will be conducted thoroughly.

___

12:55 p.m.

James Comey has gone back in history to find an appropriate description for one of his interactions with President Donald Trump.

The reference to medieval times has arisen during the former FBI director's appearance before the Senate Intelligence committee.

Comey is telling senators about one of his private meetings with Trump. Comey says the president said he hoped that Comey would back off investigating Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Comey says that reminded him of the phrase, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

It's a reference to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, who was killed in 1170. King Henry II was said to have said those words or something similar, which was taken by his men as an order to have Becket killed.

___

12:50 p.m.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders is calling it just a "regular Thursday"at the White House - even with the dramatic testimony by former FBI Director James Comey on Capitol Hill.

Here's what Sanders is telling reporters: "In terms of the mood in the White House, I would say that it's a regular Thursday at the White House. We're carrying on."

She says staffers have their TVs turned to the news - as they do normally. Sanders says, "We're carrying on, focused on the things that the president was elected to do."

Sanders says Trump spent his morning mostly in meetings with officials -including the secretaries of state and defense, discussing North Korea, the Persian Gulf region and other matters.

She's not sure whether the president saw most of Comey's testimony.

___

12:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump says he and his supporters "are under siege" but "will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever."

That's what he's said at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference at the same time as former FBI Director James Comey's was testifying before Congress.

The president did not make specific reference to Comey, who says Trump tried to get him to pledge loyalty and drop an investigation into potential collusion with Russia by his campaign aides.

But in the first moments of Trump's his speech he said "as you know, we're under siege" and then vowed to survive and thrive.

___

12:40 p.m.

A White House spokeswoman says she doesn't know if President Donald Trump is taping his Oval Office conversations, but will "try to look under the couch."

Trump tweeted last month that fired FBI Director James Comey better hope there are no "tapes" of their conversations. Comey, testifying on Capitol Hill Thursday, said he indeed hoped tapes existed and called on the president to release them if they do.

The White House has refused to answer what the president was referring to in his tweet. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that she had "no idea" about Oval Office taping.

___

12:30 p.m.

A White House spokeswoman says President Donald Trump has confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions - after days of refusing to answer the questions.

Sarah Sanders tells reporters the president "absolutely" has confidence in Sessions and the rest of his Cabinet.

Press secretary Sean Spicer had said earlier this week that he wasn't sure about the president's opinion on Sessions because he hadn't discussed the topic with him.

Trump has been angry with Sessions ever since he recused himself from the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible connections with the Trump campaign.

___

12:28 p.m.

A Columbia University law professor and close friend of former FBI director James Comey has confirmed he leaked contents of one of Comey's memos to The New York Times.

Comey testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Thursday that he hoped the story about his interactions with President Donald Trump would prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

Daniel Richman confirmed to The Associated Press in an email that he was the friend who Comey mentioned in his testimony. He declined further comment.

Richman served with Comey in the Southern District of New York and at the FBI.

___

12:20 p.m.

A White House spokeswoman says President Donald Trump is "not a liar."

Former FBI Director James Comey opened his Senate testimony by saying the administration had spread "lies, plain and simple" and "defamed" him and the agency.

The White House had claimed after Comey's May 9 dismissal that he had lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI agents.

Trump claimed separately in a television interview that the FBI was "in turmoil"and hadn't recovered.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders disputed Comey's testimony when asked about it during an off-camera briefing at the White House, saying "I can definitely say the president's not a liar."

___

12:15 p.m.

Former FBI Director James Comey is steering clear of giving his opinion about whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct justice when he asked him to back off investigating ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Asked if the request rises to obstruction of justice, Comey told the Senate intelligence committee that he didn't know and that it would be special counsel Robert Mueller's job to sort that out.

Earlier in his testimony, Comey said he doesn't think it would be fair for him to say whether the conversation he had with the president was an effort to obstruct the FBI probe into Russian activities during the election.

Comey said he found the president's request "very disturbing."
A newly minted Marine who wore his dress blues to his Indiana high school graduation Wednesday and was denied the opportunity to walk across the stage for his diploma says he just wants to put it all behind him.

PFC. Jacob Stanley, of Crown Point High Schools class of 2017, says he was informed of the schools policy that all graduating students must wear their cap and gown to walk during the ceremony but wore his dress blues anyway.

I dont want the social media controversy that is drawing attention away from the Class of 2017, Stanley said in a statement issued by the 9th Marine Corps District, Naval Station Great Lakes. I also do not want to make any additional statements and wish to put this all behind me so I can start my career in the Marine Corps.

Critics of the school vented their frustrations and what they perceived as a slight to the young service member on social media this week.

Principal Chip Pettit says the cap and gown tradition is customary and many students who enlist in the military or are involved in notable extracurricular activities are recognized by wearing stoles and chords.

This tradition is not intended to be disrespectful to students, parents, or our community, but as a source of pride for our students, Pettit said. It is also not intended to be disrespectful to our students choosing to serve in the military, our active duty servicemen and women, and our veterans.

Sgt. Tyler Mitchell, a marketing and public affairs representatives for Marine Corps Recruiting Station Indianapolis, says the Marines are proud to have Stanley amongst their ranks and appreciate his pride in wearing the uniform.

We also recognize that there are policies in place which outline graduation dress codes and the appropriate wear of Marine Corps uniforms when in public, Mitchell said in a statement. As high school graduations recognize the academic accomplishments of the class and the class's final chapter at that institution, the decision to allow individuals to wear uniforms during graduations is at the discretion of the school.

At neighboring Hobart High School, a graduate marched in the schools commencement services June 1 while donning her Marine uniform, the Times of Northwest Indiana reports.

Pettit maintains the firm stance on not allowing the uniformed Stanley to walk with his graduating class was simply a matter of policy and not a stance on military service.

We are forever grateful for the sacrifices that they make on a daily basis for our freedom, he said.
A man linked to a pipe bomb that was detonated in Woodbury in April has been sentenced to 57 months, or nearly five years, in prison after pleading guilty to one count of possession of a destructive device by a felon, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Connecticut State Police obtained two search warrants for a home on Greenwich Drive in Southbury and a 2001 Mitsubishi Eclipse as a result of an investigation into a pipe bomb detonated in Woodbury on April 15.

Various state police troops, the state police emergency services unit, fire and explosives unit and the FBI executed the search warrants on Thursday at 4:05 a.m.

Brian Fluman, 34, of Southbury, was charged with one count of possession of an assault weapon and one count of manufacturing of bombs as a result of the search and seizure. He was sentenced Wednesday to 57 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Fluman, a convicted felon, was also charged with breach of peace, criminal possession of a firearm and reckless endangerment.

He has been detained since July 26.
A missing 16-year-old Vermont girl who went missing with a 47-year-old convicted sex offender was found in Connecticut on Thursday.

Mickayla Lozell, 16, of Alburgh, was reported missing around 5 p.m. Sunday and investigators said they believed she was with 47-year-old William Smith, a convicted sex offender whose last known address was in Swanton, Vermont.

The teen was a ward of the state, but was living with her mother at the time.

Connecticut State Police received information that the missing teen was seen with Smith inside Walmart at 180 River Road in Lisbon, Connecticut, and the mans vehicle was found in the parking lot at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Vermont State Police said.

Connecticut State Police responded to the area and located Lozell and Smith shortly after, Vermont troopers said.

The 16-year-old was found in good health and was taken into protective custody.

Smith has active arrest warrants out in Vermont and faces multiple charges after being taken into custody. Police learned that Smith's license plate was a misused plate and his license was suspended.

According to Vermont police, Smith does not have a permanent address listed with Vermont's sex offender registry and he was not considered a high-risk offender after a 1999 sexual assault conviction.

Lozell called a friend and said that she was OK and in New Hampshire, Vermont investigators said. Police said they did not suspect foul play or believe that Lozell was being held against her will.

Smith was charged in Connecticut with being a fugitive from justice without a warrant, operating a vehicle without a license and improper use of license plates.
Amazon is expanding in Connecticut with plans to build a new 855,000 square-foot fulfillment center at the former Pratt and Whitney site in North Haven.

The North Haven Board of Selectman tonight will vote on a tax incentive agreement for Amazon to redevelop the towns former Pratt and Whitney site during a special meeting, according to the agenda published on the towns website.



The company, which recently opened a fulfillment center in Windsor and a sorting center in Wallingford, employs around 2,000 people in Connecticut, according to Gov. Dannel Malloy, and the North Haven facility would add around 1,800 more jobs.

This is a significant win for our states taxpayers and our economy, Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a statement. Amazons $255 million investment to expand operations in Connecticut is proof positive that when we work with companies and bring our collective ingenuity to bear, we deliver on creating jobs for the hardworking residents of our state.

If the North Haven selectmen approve the agreement, the worldwide online retailer plans to redevelop the vacant site on Washington Avenue into a new distribution center and warehouse.

The governor said the property has been vacant for more than 15 years.

Five years after announcing our first fulfillment center in Connecticut, were excited to open a new, state-of-the-art fulfillment center in North Haven, creating more than 1,500 full-time jobs that offer wages 30 percent higher than traditional retail roles and include comprehensive benefits on day one, bonuses and stock awards, Akash Chauhan, Amazons vice president of North America operations, said in a statement. Weve found an abundance of talent in Connecticuts workforce, and we are so happy to have this opportunity to expand in the state to serve customers.

A resolution on the building permit fee abatement agreement is also on the agenda for the public meeting at 7 p.m. at the North Haven Town Hall at 18 Church Street.

Amazon already has a fulfillment center on Old Iron Ore Road in Windsor and a sorting center on Research Parkway in Wallingford.

The Department of Economic and Community Development is supporting the project through the First Five Plus program, making Amazon eligible to earn up to $15 million in Urban and Industrial Sites Reinvestment tax credits if they reach certain job creation and capital investment milestones, according to the governor's office.

An additional $5 million in credits might be available if the company surpasses initial job targets.

A statement from the governors office said the company might also be eligible for a sales and use tax exemption of up to $5 million on equipment and construction materials.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that President Donald Trump has asked him to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Russia and not allow the political turmoil over possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign to impede him.

Tillerson said relations with Russia are at a low point and deteriorating, and Trump asked him to try to stabilize the relationship and rebuild trust.

The top U.S. diplomat spoke in Wellington, New Zealand, where he met with Prime Minister Bill English during a brief visit.

Tillerson said he couldn't comment on the details of the Russia investigations or whether they could bring down the administration because "I have no direct knowledge."

He said Trump has told him he should not allow the uproar to impede him from working on the relationship.

"He's been quite clear with me to proceed at whatever pace and in the areas I think we might make progress," Tillerson said. "I really am not involved in any of these other issues."

Tillerson was also asked about Trump's provocative tweets, including those in which he criticized London's mayor after three assailants killed seven people and wounded dozens in the London Bridge area over the weekend.

"The president has his own unique ways of communicating with the American people, and the world," Tillerson said. "And it's served him pretty well, and I don't intend to advise him on how to communicate. That's up to him."

Tillerson said he was pleased by reports that some British imams were refusing to offer funeral prayers for the London attackers.

"That is what has to be done," he said. "Only the Muslim faith can handle this."

English said he was reassured by Tillerson about the intention of the U.S. to engage in the Asia-Pacific region. Tillerson's New Zealand stopover came after he visited Australia with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.
A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against the flight school involved in a deadly plane crash on Main Street in East Hartford.

American Flight Academy (AFA) shut down its last Connecticut location at Hartfords Brainard Airport on June 1.

Federal investigators said Feras Freitekh is the flight student who died after the plane he was a student pilot in crashed last October. His instructor and owner of the AFA, Arian Prevalla, survived the horrific crash.

This lawsuit claims Freitekh wasn't adequately trained or prepared to deal with inflight challenges and that American Flight Academy failed to implement related policies, guidelines and curriculum.

Arian Prevalla is responsible, as far as I'm concerned, either personally and or as the owner of the American Flight Academy, attorney Michael Peck told NBC Connecticut.

Prevalla is not personally named in the wrongful death suit against AFA, which alleges carelessness and negligence.

Freitekh was killed October 11, 2016 when the Piper PA-34 crashed in East Hartford, igniting a ball of fire on busy Main Street. Prevalla suffered serious burns, but made a full recovery.

I am claiming there were maintenance issues with the plane, and that will come out further as the lawsuit unfolds, Peck told the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters.

Federal investigators concluded it was pilot-induced error, however which of the two pilots on board, Freitekh or Prevalla, was never identified.

According to a report from East Hartford police, a hospital doctor said Prevalla told him there were no problems with the plane and, the pilot driving the plane at the time of the crash was making mistakes and may have done this on purpose.

The report notes Prevalla said Freitekh took over the planes controls and refused to let go, even after being ordered to do so. The report also said Prevalla had to scream and hit the student's hand to gain control.

As I say, it could be mechanical failure or there could have been a lack of supervision or a lack of taking control, Peck said.

Peck believes this death was preventable and disputes allegations Freitekh may have crashed the plane intentionally.

Voice messages made just a few minutes before he boarded the plane will speak volumes," according to Peck.

The attorney said the voice messages were left by Freitekh for a friend, minutes before the doomed flight and showed he was in a positive frame of mind.

The suit alleges plane maintenance problems. Part of the lawsuit reads, "including but not limited to, the engine, propeller, avionics, airframe, instrumentation, landing gear and lawful inspections.

NBC Connecticut reached out to the attorney for Prevalla and American Flight Academy and we are told they do not comment on pending litigation.
Police said a man was killed and another was wounded in a shooting at a Dallas strip club Thursday morning. [[427201983,C]]

Dallas police said the shooting followed a fight outside the Dallas Cabaret in the 11500 block of Harry Hines Boulevard just after 4 a.m.

When officers arrived at the scene, authorities said they found one man who had been shot in a vehicle outside the club, according to police. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said another man was shot in the arm, but he is expected to be OK.

The shooter fled the scene, according to police.



No further details have been released.


House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday it was obviously not appropriate for President Donald Trump to ask James Comey for loyalty after prepared testimony by the fired FBI director alleges the president did just that, NBC News reported.

In a statement released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump asked for his loyalty during a one-on-one dinner at the White House. Comey said he replied that he could offer honesty.

When asked if it was appropriate for the president to be asking the FBI director for such loyalty, Ryan told MSNBCs Greta Van Susteren, "No, obviously, I dont think that is."
President Donald Trump abruptly fired James Comey as director of the FBI in the midst of the law enforcement agency's investigation into whether Trump's presidential campaign was connected to Russian meddling in the election. In a letter to Comey, Trump said the dismissal was necessary to restore the public's trust and confidence.

Comey told a congressional committee that Trump tried to pressure him to drop an investigation into one of his senior advisers then "spread lies" about the affair, and why he fired Comey.

Often lauded for his independence, Comey had earlier come under intense scrutiny for his role in the agency's investigation into the email practices of Trump's opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, including a pair of letters he sent to Congress on the matter in the final days of last November's election.

Here is a look at key moments in Comey's tenure, the lead-up to Trump's decision to fire him and what followed.

Sept. 4, 2013: Comey is sworn in to office as the seventh director of the FBI. He was nominated for the post by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate.

July 5, 2016: Holds news conference to announce that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, over her email practices as secretary of state, but criticizes Clinton and her staff for being "extremely careless" in their handling of classified material.

July 5, 2016: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump calls the FBI's decision not to bring criminal charges against Clinton the greatest example yet that the system is "rigged."

July 7, 2016: Comey vigorously defends the decision not to prosecute Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Under an onslaught of Republican criticism, Comey says that to charge Clinton would have been unwarranted and mere "celebrity hunting."

Oct. 28, 2016: Days before the election, Comey informs Congress by letter that he was reopening the investigation into Clinton's email practices based on new evidence, citing the discovery of emails on a laptop used by a top Clinton aide. Justice Department officials warned Comey against sending the letter, saying that doing so would be inconsistent with department policy meant to avoid the appearance of prosecutorial interference or meddling in elections.

Oct. 28, 2016: Trump reacts to FBI's decision to investigate new messages related to Clinton's emails, telling a campaign rally that he has "great respect for the FBI for righting this wrong."

Nov. 6, 2016: Comey tells Congress in a follow-up letter that a review of newly discovered Clinton emails has "not changed our conclusions" that she should not face criminal charges.

Nov. 6: Trump criticizes Comey's second letter to Congress, saying Clinton was being protected by a "rigged system" and pronouncing her "guilty," despite the FBI's conclusion that criminal charges were unwarranted.

Nov. 8, 2016: Trump is elected president.

Nov. 12, 2016: During a telephone call with top campaign donors, Clinton blames Comey for her defeat by Trump. Clinton said her campaign was on track to win the election until Comey sent the letter to Congress on Oct. 28.

Nov. 13, 2016: In a CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast after the election, Trump said he hadn't decided whether to keep Comey.

Jan. 6, 2017: Comey is among a group of four top U.S. intelligence officials who briefed then-President-elect Donald Trump on their conclusions that Russia meddled in the presidential election on his behalf. Trump told The Associated Press by telephone after the meeting that he "learned a lot" but declined to say whether he accepted their conclusion about Russia.

Jan. 22, 2017: Two days after taking office, Trump appears to single out Comey at a White House reception to thank law enforcement officers and others that helped during the inauguration. Trump called Comey over to where he was standing in the Blue Room to offer a handshake and a partial hug, then commented that Comey has "become more famous than me."

March 8, 2017: During a cybersecurity conference at Boston College, Comey said he planned to serve his entire 10-year term, quipping, "You're stuck with me for another 6 years."

March 20, 2017: Comey testifies to Congress that the FBI has been investigating possible links between Trump associates and Russian officials since July, the same month he held an unusual news conference to discuss the investigation into Clinton. Comey had previously refused to acknowledge the parallel Trump investigation, and his disclosure enrages Democrats who already blamed Comey for costing Clinton the presidency.

March 20, 2017: Comey testifies at the same hearing that the FBI and Justice Department have no information to substantiate Trump's unsubstantiated claim on Twitter that former President Barack Obama wiretapped him before the election.

May 2, 2017: Clinton again lays part of the blame for losing the election on Comey's Oct. 28 letter. "If the election were on Oct. 27, I would have been your president," she tells a women's luncheon in New York.

May 3, 2017: Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey insists that he was consistent in his handling of the separate investigations into Clinton and Trump. Comey also said it made him feel "mildly nauseous" to think his actions in October might have influenced the election outcome. But he told senators: "I can't consider for a second whose political futures will be affected and in what way. We have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do it."

May 9, 2017: Comey sends Congress a letter correcting his prior sworn testimony regarding emails handled by longtime Clinton associate Huma Abedin. Comey had told Congress that Abedin had sent "hundreds and thousands" of emails to her husband's laptop, including some with classified information. The two-page, follow-up letter said that, in fact, only "a small number" of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices.

May 9, 2017: Trump abruptly fires Comey. "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump states in a letter addressed to Comey.

May 10, 2017: Trump told Russian officials during an Oval Office meeting that firing Comey helped to deescalate the investigation into his ties with the Kremlin, The New York Times reported on May 19. "He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump said of the former FBI head, according to a senior official who read from a document summarizing the meeting.



May 11, 2017: The New York Times reports on a dinner Comey had with Trump a week into his term in which the president asked him do I have your loyalty? Comey did not oblige but promised his honesty instead, according to the Times, which cited two Comey associates. The White House disputed the account.

In an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Trump revealed that he planned to fire Comey even before receiving a recommendation to do so from his attorney general. He alleged the FBI was in turmoil under Comey's leadership, and described him as a "showboat" and "grandstander." He also suggested the Russia investigation played a role in the firing. "When I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story," he said.

May 12, 2017: "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweets.

May 16, 2017: The New York Times reports on a Feb. 14 meeting between Comey and Trump regarding the investigation of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. I hope you can let this go, the president said, citing an unclassified memo from Comey. The Times said it did not received the memo but its reporter was read parts of it by Comey's associates.

May 17, 2017: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the FBI's Russia investigation.



May 19, 2017: The Senate Intelligence Committee announces that Comey will testify at an open hearing.

June 7, 2017: Comeys written testimony is released ahead of his Senate Intelligence committee appearance. The statement outlines a series of interactions between him and the president, including those reported by The New York Times, which he found concerning or unusual.

June 8, 2017: Comey testifies to the Senate intelligence committee that he believes his involvement in the Russian investigation is what led to his firing. He said President Trump pressured him to to drop an investigation into one of his senior advisers, fired him after he would not do so and lied about the affair. He also said he leaked memos of his conversations with Trump to a friend to spur the appointment of a special counsel after Trump suggested he taped their conversations. Trumps lawyer responded by denying the president pressured Comey and accused the former FBI director of leaking privileged information.
Ahead of Wednesday's rush hour commute, three lanes were blocked on the 101 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles due to police activity.

The California Highway Patrol issued the alert around 4 p.m. for the northbound 101 Freeway at Spring Street.

The #2, 3 and 4 lanes were blocked, according to the CHP.

All lanes reopened around 6 p.m.
Lawmakers verbally sparred with top intelligence chiefs on Wednesday after they staunchly refused to answer questions about conversations they had with President Donald Trump regarding probes into Russian activities during the election.

Members of the Senate intelligence committee wanted to know about news reports claiming Trump had asked Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Adm. Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly state that there was no evidence of collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Trump has consistently pushed back against suggestions that his campaign coordinated with Russia and says the investigations into the matter are a hoax.

"In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate," Rogers told the committee. "And to the best of my recollection, during that same period of service, I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so."

Coats, who was confirmed as Trump's national intelligence director in mid-March, said: "In interacting with the president of the United States or anybody in his administration, I have never been pressured.

"I've never felt pressure to intervene or interfere in any way and shape  with shaping intelligence in a political way, or in relationship to an ongoing investigation."

Those answers didn't satisfy the senators. Even mild-spoken Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, got testy. He demanded to know what legal basis justified Coats' refusal to answer questions.

"I'm not sure I have a legal basis, but I am more than willing to sit before this committee ... in a closed session and answer your questions," Coats said.

With the frustrated lawmakers gearing up for Thursday's long-awaited testimony from ousted FBI Director James Comey, the committee on Wednesday afternoon took the unusual step of releasing the written statement Comey plans to deliver.

In it, Comey details a series of interactions with Trump that made him uneasy and appear to show the president disregarding the FBI's traditional independence from the White House.

Comey said he was taken aback by specific requests, including one during a private Oval Office meeting in February where he said Trump asked him to end a probe into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Trump complained that the probe had created a "cloud" over his presidency.

During Wednesday's hearing, which was about the reauthorization of a federal foreign intelligence collection law, Democrats and Republicans pressed Coats, Rogers and also acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

The senators said they were puzzled as to why McCabe would not answer questions about conversations he had with Comey regarding the former FBI director's meetings with the president.

McCabe said it would be inappropriate to discuss issues that might end up being part of the special counsel's investigation into Russian activities during the election.

"I have to be particularly careful about not stepping into the special counsel's lane," McCabe said.

At the close of the hearing, the Republican committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, said that executive branch officials have the option of briefing the committee or congressional leaders in a classified setting.

"At no time should you be in a position where you come to Congress with no answer," Burr told the witnesses. "The requirements of our oversight responsibilities and your agencies deserve it." After the hearing, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, lamented that the witnesses could have laid to rest questions about what the president told them about the Russia probe, but they chose not to answer.

To refuse to answer the questions in a public hearing "just won't be enough," Warner said. "The American public deserves to know what the president of the United States did and what he asked of the leaders of our intelligence community."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it's standard practice for executive branch officials, such as the ones who testified, to decline to discuss conversations with the president.

She said the White House had not yet received any follow-up requests regarding the testimony of Coats or Rogers. "If it receives one, it will do its best to work with the committee to accommodate the request to the fullest extent possible consistent with these interests," she said.
In a classroom at Miami-Dade Colleges InterAmerican Campus, 10 aspiring teachers are learning how to document the special needs of what they hope will be students in classes they will one day lead.

But, in addition to the desire to teach, nine of those 10 students share something else: they failed at least one of the tests required to be certified to teach in Florida.

Three years ago, the state made the certification tests much harder, part of the federal Race to the Top programs emphasis on improving teacher effectiveness.

The Florida Department of Education says the test was made more rigorous because it is committed to ensuring that Florida's students have access to high quality educators at every step along their education journey  and the teacher certification exams are essential to ensuring their teachers have the skills and knowledge necessary to help them succeed.

But one effect of the harder tests, educators tell NBC 6, is fewer students passing, exacerbating what is already a shortage of experienced, well-qualified teachers.

If the state wanted to make it harder to teach, they succeeded.

Just look at the change in average pass rates for the two years before and after the tests were toughened: general knowledge essay and reading -- down 30 percent; K-6 language arts and reading -- down 38 percent; and middle grade English  down up to 60 percent.

The tests are harder and the passing scores are higher, so its a double whammy for students, said Dr. Susan Neimand, dean of MDCs College of Education. They get slapped on both sides of their face.

So how hard are these tests?

TEST BREAK: Try to answer this question: (Correct response below, and just before the next TEST BREAK question)

DIRECTIONS: Choose the sentence in which the modifiers are correctly placed.

A. While protesting the Vietnam War, clashes between Chicago police and demonstrators resulted in over 175 arrests at the DemocraticNational Convention.

B. While protesting the Vietnam War, Chicago police arrested over 175 demonstrators during clashes at the Democratic National Convention.

C. While protesting the Vietnam War, over 175 demonstrators were arrested for clashing with Chicago police at the Democratic National Convention.

D. While protesting the Vietnam War and clashing with the Chicago police, over 175 demonstrators were arrested.

The Florida Teacher Certification Exam includes four sections in its general knowledge test, including the English language skills portion from which the questions above is drawn.

Claudia Hernandez, an MDC junior majoring in exceptional student education, has failed to pass the essay portion twice. In 2014, 93 percent of test-takers passed the essay; in 2015, after the change, 63 percent passed.

Well, its embarrassing, she said after class recently. Im a very capable person.

The Miami High graduate has worked in a museum for a decade, educating underprivileged kids, and tutors some of her peers. She wants to teach because, she said, I love learning, am a lifelong learner, extremely enthusiastic about science in particular.

But she is perplexed by the higher failure rates. I know a lot of my classmates are struggling and they are intelligent people, they are capable people and that exam does not reflect how youre going to be as a teacher.

Dean Neimand agreed.

I absolutely think its totally unfair, she said of the tougher tests. I think the test is rigged to be very, very tricky.





TEST BREAK: So, was that first question tricky? The Answer was C: While protesting the Vietnam War, over 175 demonstrators were arrested for clashing with Chicago police at the Democratic National Convention.

Now for a little harder one:

DIRECTIONS: Choose the option that corrects and error in the underlined portion(s). If no error exists, choose "No change is necessary."

These two brands of (A) inexpensive laundry detergent both performed

(B) fantastic on those (C) terrible stains.

A. inexpensively

B. fantastically

C. terribly

D. No change is necessary





The FDOE said the new, harder tests, are aligned with the goal of improving teacher effectiveness.

Theres no correlation between passing a test and being an effective teacher, Neimand said. People who would potentially be excellent teachers are being discouraged from going into the teaching profession.

People like Christopher Sanchez, who just retook the English portion for a third time.

I was spending hours and hours and hours studying and when I took the exam I didnt pass anything, I was very downhearted.

But he continues to try, paying $150 each time he takes a retest.

I do believe in testing,: he said, but to this extent where were spending hundreds of dollars.

The harder the test, the more money they spend and, ultimately, the more money paid to Pearson, the company FDOE contracts with to produce, administer and grade the tests.

Its now on track to be paid $57 million by FDOE since 2012, an amount boosted, its contract notes, by the escalation in rigor.

This is all about making money, Neiman said, The test provider is making a fortune off of the students.

Pearson said it is just doing what its client, the state, is requesting  and the state agrees.





TEST BREAK: The previous answer is B, fantastically. This one may take some mad math skills.:

A child has 26 pennies, 15 nickels, 21 dimes, and 18 quarters in a coin bank. When the child picks up the bank, a single coin falls out. What is the probability that the coin is a quarter?



A. 3/16

B. 9/40

C. 21/80

D. 26/80

Forty-three percent of test-takers failed the mathematics portion on the general knowledge test in 2016.

Besides discouraging potentially good teachers and costing struggling students more money, the new, harder tests also contribute to what Neimand calls Floridas critical teacher shortage.



A study by the Learning Policy Institute ranks Florida among the worst in promoting an environment that attracts enough qualified teachers. The ranks among the worst in the share of classrooms led by inexperienced or uncertified teachers. When new students fail the certification test, they cannot teach  but certain college graduates can be hired without certification for up to three years.

Oh, and that last answer is B: 9/40.
Mosquito spraying was underway after a powerful line of storms made its way into South Florida Thursday afternoon as days of heavy rain left many areas flooded, closing streets and businesses and leaving residents drenched.

Trucks were out in full force in Hollywood Thursday evening to conduct chemical spraying to combat mosquitoes.

"Mosquiotes need a water source to breed, so right now it's a big concern for us because obviously there's a lot of water around so we're very actively working to treat the larva of the mosquito before they hatch," said Ahn Ton, the Division Director for Broward Mosquito Control Section and Highway Bridge Maintenance.

Broward Mosquito Control will be spraying in Plantation and Sunrise.

A severe thunderstorm warning was issued earlier in the afternoon for northeastern Miami-Dade County Thursday for a powerful system that was moving east, the National Weather Service said.

The warning was canceled as the system moved off shore but the potential for more storms was expected to continue into Thursday night.

A significant weather advisory for frequent to excessive lightning and 45 to 55 mph winds was also issued for northeastern Miami-Dade and southeastern Broward Counties.

Heavy flooding was reported Wednesday throughout Broward, including the parking lot of the Sawgrass Mills mall, which had to close Wednesday and remained closed Thursday due to the flooding.

The heavy rain was causing flights to be canceled at both of South Florida's major airports Wednesday and into Thursday. Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport reported 156 delays and 15 cancellations Thursday afternoon. There were another 15 delays and 12 cancellations reported at Miami International Airport.

While a break in the rainfall earlier Thursday helped, many parts of Broward remained waterlogged.

Broward County Emergency Management urged residents around inundated areas to be cautious.

"We don't want the kids to stand in water or play in water or swim in the water that may be filled with hazardous materials such as oils, even fish or other animals," Emergency Management Director Miguel Ascarrunz said. "Do not drive through a flooded area. As they say, turn around, don't drown. Stay away from down power lines and electrical wires."

And while separate flood insurance is available under the National Flood Insurance Program, county officials are trying to see if there are federal funds to help with the soggy mess.

"Because of the severe weather we are working with our local municipalities that have been impacted by flooding and also coordinating with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, to inquire and identify any potential disaster assistance programs," Ascarrunz said.


What to Know Bombshell abuse allegations pit customs officers against each other at Newark Airport

One officer claims there was a notorious conference table known as "the rape table" in middle of the room where senior officers went wild

The feds confirm an ongoing investigation and say U.S. Customs and Border Protection is cooperating fully with the probe

The head of the U.S Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday he has ordered Customs and Border Patrol, which he oversees, to provide assistance to four customs officers who told NBC 4 New York's I-Team they were physically and sexually abused by fellow officers in a pattern of extreme hazing at Newark Airport.

"The first thing I did when I heard about it was ordered CBP to take action up there, not assuming anyones guilt, just to take some action," Secretary John Kelly said during a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security. "Part of that action was to offer those who were reporting the fact they were hazed  to get them medical help or psychological help, counseling."

The development comes a day after the I-Team reported a fourth customs officer had come forward to corroborate allegations first exposed in an exclusive interview last month. In that first bombshell report, the officers detailed extreme hazing they say occurred in a secure area of Terminal C as far back as 2011.

CBP officer Vito Degironimo claimed he was pinned down on a so-called "rape table" and sexually abused.

"I mean his genitals are on my chest, hes humping me, dry humping me with clothes on," he said.

Another officer, who did not want to be identified by name, said there was no conference table when he was assigned to the office, but he said he was sexually abused and, once, thought he was going to die.

"For some reason, somebody put a bag over my head and he started choking me," the officer said. "It was a plastic bag. At this point hes not just suffocating me, but hes choking me at the same time, so I was struggling. I tried to get it off and he held it tighter."

He said he was finally able to free himself and confronted the officer. "I said, Why did you hurt me, you were trying to kill me, you were choking me."

He added that other officers in the room were laughing and he wondered, "Why would they come to this? Why are they trying to kill me?"

New Jersey attorney Patrick Metz, who is representing the officers as they seek to file a lawsuit over the alleged abuse, described the latest claim as sickening.

"Somebody put a bag over his head and choked him until he almost passed out. What other workplace does that go on in?" Metz said. "Everybody from the rank officers on up knew or apparently knew and just looked the other way."

At the hearing Wednesday, Kelly acknowledged that an investigation into the allegations is underway by the DHS inspector general. But that wasnt enough for Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat who serves on the House Committee on Homeland Security. Coleman was among several members who sent a letter to Acting CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan demanding answers after the I-Team report in May. In that letter, she and the others set a May 26 deadline for a response. Weeks later, they haven't gotten one.

"To date we have not received any kind of response, even 'weve received it and well get back to you,'" Coleman Watson said.

I do think its really important to look at not only whats happening in Newark but perhaps there could be a problem of this nature at other airports and its something that you all really do need to get on," she added.



In a prior statement, a CBP spokesman told the I-Team the agency is cooperating with the investigation by the Inspector General.




What to Know Two men with ties to Hezbollah "pre-operational surveillance" on possible targets for attack in New York, as well as Panama, feds say

One of the men is Ali Kourani of the Bronx, who was arrested last week; the other man, Samer El Debek, was arrested in Michigan

Kourani specifically conducted surveillance of potential military and law enforcement facilities in NYC, feds say

Two men with ties to Hezbollah conducted pre-operational surveillance on possible targets for attack in New York, as well as U.S. and Israeli embassies in Panama, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

No specific plot was underway but the men were allegedly scouting the targets to assess their vulnerabilities, including LaGuardia Airport and FBI headquarters in New York.

The two men allegedly received weapons and bomb-making training in Lebanon. Ali Kourani, of the Bronx, was arrested last week on the terror-related charges. Samer El Debek was arrested in Livonia, Michigan, and sent to New York last week for trial.

Kourani attended Hezbollah-sponsored weapons training program starting at age 16, and lied on his immigration application, stating he had no ties to any foreign terrorist organization, the FBI said. He became a naturalized citizen in 2009.

Prosecutors said Kourani was an active member of the Islamic Jihad Organization  a branch associated with Hezbollah and had traveled to China Guangzhou where Hizballah in the past had been known to obtain bomb making materials for the group. They said he also sought to buy weapons in the U.S. to send to the group.

El Debek allegedly joined Hezbollah in 2008 and traveled to Lebanon for training on numerous occasions, officials said. Investigators said he undertook bomb-making training while there.

Officials said in 2009 he traveled to Thailand on his U.S. passport to help clean up explosive residue left behind in a safehouse used by members of a Hezbollah backed terror cell.

In 2011, he allegedly went to Panama to photograph the American and Israeli embassies security measures. In 2012, he went back to scout vulnerabilities of the Panama Canal, officials said.

A search of Debeks computer turned up over 250 searches for sites like Hezbollah martyrs and martyrs of Islamic resistence.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim called the terrorism charges serious, adding Debek and Kourani "received military-style training, including in the use of weapons like rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns for use in the support of the groups terrorist mission."

Kim said Kourani specifically "conducted surveillance of potential targets in America, including military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.

NYPD Commissioner James ONeill said the men were involved in pre-operational surveillance in New York.

Hezbollah is a Shia organization in Lebanon founded in the 1980s after Israels invasion there. With support from Iran, the group has been involved in numerous terrorist attacks  some which killed Americans.

At the request of law enforcement, NBC New York did not report news of the investigation last week because officials cited ongoing security concerns connected to the case. Documents associated with the case were made public Wednesday.

Debeks family did not answer requests for comment at the Michigan home. Attempts to reach Kouranis attorney Peggy Cross-Goldenberg and Debeks attorney Robert Soloway were not immediately successful. Prosecutors said both men have already appeared in court and are being held without bail.
What to Know Video shows an innocent bystander being beaten by Jersey City officers moments after he was on fire, prosecutors say

The bystander's family told News 4 that he has severe burns and fractured ribs; they say he was just heading to work

A union representing Jersey City police said the officers were trying to put out the flames and pull the man to safety

An innocent man was beaten by cops after a police chase and shooting that ended in a fiery crash in Jersey City Sunday night, prosecutors say.

The man seen on video being kicked by officers on Tonnelle Avenue turned out to be a bystander who suffered burns in the crash -- not the driver that police officers were pursuing, according to the Hudson County prosecutor's office.

"Our investigators have reviewed the video and we believe with certainty that this man is the bystander from West New York who suffered burns, not Leo Pinkston, the individual pursued by police," said a spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop says he wants the officers fired.

"This is unacceptable," he tweeted Wednesday. "We're IDing officers. We'll pursue termination + criminal charges as appropriate."

He later told News 4, "I don't think there's any explanation that would justify their actions," Fulop said. "The entire pursuit that was previous to that fiery crash had questionable judgment calls from the officers, from the shootings to continuing to pursue the car."

Prosecutors are continuing to investigate the video, and prosecutors are asking anyone who witnessed the incident to contact them at 201-915-1345.

The police chase began at Ocean and Cator avenues after 11 p.m., when the driver, identified as the 48-year-old Pinkston, fled police during a traffic stop. Cops pursued him down Tonnelle Avenue, and Pinkston got into a minor crash when he tried to move between two lanes of traffic.

That's when Jersey City police opened fire, though it's not clear if anyone was hit by the bullets, authorities said. Pinkston kept going until he crashed into a utility pole a few blocks away and his vehicle burst into blames.

Another man happened to be driving along Tonnelle Avenue at the time of the chase, and was critically injured when Pinkston's vehicle combusted, authorities said at the time. Prosecutors now say that was the man in the video being kicked by cops.

A neighbor, Tom Evans, said he watched from his balcony as two cars slammed into the utility pole, then saw emergency responders struggle to pull someone out of a burning car.

The man who recorded the encounter on video, Eric Roberto, told News 4 he witnessed the officers kicking the injured man and dragging him into the street.

"They didn't help him, they just started kicking him and grabbing him," Roberto said. "I don't think they treated him the right way, and that's not how you treat any human in this world."

The Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association, a union representing Jersey City police officers, said the officers were trying to put out the flames and get the man to safety.

"Taking swift action isn't always elegant, but this video clearly shows that the officers acted quickly to extinguish the flames, and pull this man out of harm's way," JCPOBA President Carmine Disbrow said in a statement.

The burned bystander is being treated for his injuries. His family told News 4 New York that he has severe burns and fractured ribs, and that he's going into surgery on Thursday.

"When I saw the images of my son being massacred, it was indescribable. He was just leaving home for work," the victim's father, Tomas Feliz, said.

Meanwhile, Pinkston is also being treated at a hospital and faces charges of aggravated assault and eluding. Prosecutors didn't immediately say why police initially tried to stop him, nor did they say why he may have fled.

A spokeswoman for Jersey City says city officials are working with prosecutors to identify the officers in the video. The city will seek termination of the officers, "in addition to any possible criminal penalties in appropriate cases," said Jennifer Morrill.


What to Know Hillary Clinton spoke at the commencement ceremony at Medgar Evers College Thursday

Clinton urged the graduates to follow the example set by Medgar Evers

The Democrat told them to vote in every election and to "never let anyone silence your voice"

Losing the 2016 presidential election was "pretty devastating, especially considering who I lost to," Hillary Clinton told graduates of Medgar Evers College on Thursday.

But Clinton said that setback "pales in comparison" to the heartbreak endured by Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of the slain black civil rights leader for whom the Brooklyn college is named.

Clinton urged the graduates to follow the example of Evers, who was assassinated in 1963, and of Evers-Williams, who has continued to fight for civil rights for more than 50 years.

"Never let anyone silence your voice," Clinton said. "Medgar Evers faced constant threats because of his work. His house was firebombed by white supremacists. But he refused to back down."

Clinton, a Democrat who served as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state, did not mention Republican President Donald Trump by name but criticized his policies including the travel ban affecting citizens of several predominantly Muslim countries.

She noted that graduate Yahya Mused worked in a deli across the street from Medgar Evers College after arriving in New York from Yemen, one of the countries targeted by the travel ban.

"He made sandwiches for students and professors. And today he's graduating with honors," Clinton said. "I'm certainly glad he wasn't banned from America."

Clinton spoke as former FBI director James Comey was telling Senate members in sworn testimony that Trump had fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia's role in the election. Clinton made no mention of Comey.

Medgar Evers College is part of the public City University of New York system, the largest urban university in the United States.

Clinton said she visited the Medgar Evers campus last year and was asked if she would come back and speak at commencement.

"I said yes," she said. "Now, I wish I had flown in from the White House, but I'm just as happy to be here anyway!"
Spectacularly punished by voters who took away her majority in parliament, a politically wounded Theresa May sought to soldier on Friday as Britain's prime minister, resisting pressure to resign after the failure of her high-stakes election gamble made the massive challenge of untangling Britain from the European Union only more complex and uncertain.

Having called an early election in hopes of getting an increased majority that could have strengthened her hand in Britain's exit talks with the EU, May instead saw her majority evaporate completely  leaving her fortunes hanging by a thread.

Still, rather than resign, May clung to the prospect that her Conservatives might still be able to govern by making deals with another party or group of parties. She said she will form a government after seeking Queen Elizabeth II's approval by working with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

The shock result and the prospect that the EU will now be negotiating with a shaky British government cast dark clouds over the Brexit negotiations just 10 days before they are due to start. The pound lost more than 3 cents against the dollar.

With 649 of 650 seats in the House of Commons declared, May's bruised Conservatives had 318 seats  short of the 326 they needed for an outright majority and well down from the 330 seats they had before May's roll of the electoral dice. Labour has 261.

The recriminations were immediate and stinging.

"This is a very bad moment for the Conservative Party, and we need to take stock," Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry said. "And our leader needs to take stock as well."

Left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was among those calling on May to resign, said Friday morning that people have had enough of austerity politics and cuts in public spending. He ruled out the potential for deals or pacts with other progressive parties in Parliament.

"The arguments the Conservative Party put forward in this election have lost, and we need to change."

The results confounded those who said Corbyn was electorally toxic. Written off by many pollsters, Labour surged in the final weeks of the campaign. It drew strong support from young people, who appeared to have turned out to vote in bigger-than-expected numbers.

As she was resoundingly re-elected to her Maidenhead seat in southern England, May looked tense and did not spell out what she planned to do.

"The country needs a period of stability, and whatever the results are the Conservative Party will ensure we fulfill our duty in ensuring that stability," she said.

Many predicted she would soon be gone.

"Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government, then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative Party leader," former Conservative Treasury chief George Osborne said on ITV.

British media reported later Friday that May had no intention of resigning.

The result was bad news for the Scottish National Party, which lost about 20 of its 54 seats. Among the casualties was Alex Salmond, a former first minister of Scotland and one of the party's highest-profile lawmakers.

The losses complicate the SNP's plans to push for a new referendum on Scottish independence as Britain prepares to leave the EU. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said the idea of a new independence referendum "is dead. That's what we have seen tonight."

May had hoped the election would focus on Brexit, but that never happened, as both the Conservatives and Labour said they would respect voters' wishes and go through with the divorce.

Despite the surprise election result, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said he doesn't believe voters have changed their minds about leaving.

But speaking Friday on Europe 1 radio, he said "the tone" of negotiations may be affected.

"These are discussions that will be long and that will be complex. So let's not kid ourselves," he said. "I'm not sure that we should read, from the results of this vote, that Britons' sovereign decision on Brexit has been cast into doubt in any way."

EU budget commissioner Guenther Oettinger said the EU is prepared to stick to the timetable that calls for negotiations to start in mid-June, but said it would take a few hours at least to see how the results of the election play out in forming a government.

"Without a government, there's no negotiation," he said Friday morning by phone on Germany's Deutschlandfunk radio.

May, who went into the election with a reputation for quiet competence, was criticized for a lackluster campaigning style and for a plan to force elderly people to pay more for their care, a proposal her opponents dubbed the "dementia tax." As the polls suggested a tightening race, pollsters spoke less often of a landslide and raised the possibility that May's majority would be eroded.

Then, attacks in Manchester and London that killed a total of 30 people brought the campaign to a halt  twice, sent a wave of anxiety through Britain and forced May to defend the government's record on fighting terrorism. Corbyn accused the Conservatives of undermining Britain's security by cutting the number of police on the streets.

Eight people were killed near London Bridge on Saturday when three men drove a van into pedestrians and then stabbed revelers in an area filled with bars and restaurants. Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber killed 22 people as they were leaving an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester.

Voters were left flustered Friday by the fast-moving events.

"It's a bit of a mess," Peter Morgan, 35, said in London. "I was kind of hoping it would just go the way that the polls suggested it would and we could have a quiet life in Westminster but now it's going to be a bit of a mess."

Steven Fielding, a professor of politics at the University of Nottingham, said Britain had seen an election "in which the personal authority of a party leader has disappeared in an unprecedented way."

"If she had got the majority she wanted, she would have been a supreme political colossus," he said. "She did not get that and she's a hugely diminished figure. She's a zombie prime minister."

Gregory Katz, Sophie Berman and Niko Price contributed to this story.
A community came together Wednesday night to pray and show their support for a young boy who was struck by a stray bullet while in a vehicle with his mother in Wilmington, Delaware.

The 6-year-old boy and his 31-year-old mother were inside an SUV that pulled up at a stop sign on the 700 block of E. 6th Street Tuesday. Police say a gunman then got out of another car and opened fire.

The boy was shot in the head while his mother was cut on the arm by broken glass. The boy was taken to the A.I. DuPont Children's Hospital and is currently in critical condition. His mother was taken to St. Francis Hospital and later released. Police don't believe the woman and her son were the gunman's intended victims.



On Wednesday loved ones returned to the intersection where the boy and his mother were shot and held a prayer meeting. They prayed for the boy and also mourned other victims of gun violence.

"He's still fighting," the boy's cousin, Jaywann Bullock said. "Things are getting a little better but not as much as we would like."

Bullock told NBC10 bullet fragments are still inside his cousin's body and doctors can't remove them right now. He is urging people to talk to police to help them find the gunman.

"It's not snitching," Bullock said. "Things are getting out of hand right now."

Several Wilmington city leaders attended Wednesday's prayer meeting, including Wilmington Police Chief Robert Tracy and Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki.

"We do have leads on who did this shooting," Chief Tracy said. "We do have leads on who was involved in this. And we're going to bring them to justice as quickly as possible."

If you have any information on the shooting please call Detective Devon Jones at 302-576-6206. You can also leave tips on the Delaware Crime Stoppers Tip-line at 1-800-TIP-3333, or text a tip to NIXLE at 888777.



NBC10s Pamela Osborne reports live from AI DuPont Hospital where a boy is in critical condition after he and his mother were shot in Wilmington Tuesday.
The district attorney won't use testimony from a jailhouse informant when two men are tried on charges they ambushed a Pennsylvania cookout, killing five adults and an unborn child.

The informant, Frederick Collins, was charged last month with screaming profanities at an Allegheny County judge presiding over his unrelated case on witness intimidation and other charges.

Collins and another informant have told prosecutors Cheron Shelton and Robert Thomas told them they were trying to kill a man during the March 2016 shootings in Wilkinsburg. The target was wounded but survived, but five others, including a pregnant woman, were slain.

Police say Thomas opened fire on one side of the backyard while Shelton used an assault rifle to gun them down as they ran onto a porch for safety.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says defense attorneys now plan to challenge evidence seized with search warrants based on information Collins provided.
Lanes on a busy bridge connecting Delaware and South Jersey reopened Wednesday after a construction fire closed it for hours.



The blaze broke out below the Delaware Memorial Bridge around 10 a.m. after welding sparks ignited construction materials closing both spans of the bridge over the Delaware River, Delaware River and Bay Authority spokesman James Salmon said.

Motorists experienced significant delays as traffic backed up past the toll plaza onto the New Jersey Turnpike and onto Interstate 295.

Construction fire under the @demembridge temporarily closes both spans. Fire trucks are at the scene. jes # @njturnpike @DelawareDOT  Del Memorial Bridge (@demembridge) June 7, 2017

The New Jersey-bound (northbound) span reopened around 10:45 a.m. while the left two lanes of the Delaware-bound span reopened around 3 p.m. The right two lanes of the Delaware span reopened around 5 p.m.



The New Jersey Turnpike diverted all southbound traffic off the turnpike at Exit 4 during the closure.

"I feel for the individuals in the traffic situation... it's not something we want to cause," Salmon said. "This is an accident."



As SkyForce10 hovered overhead you could see thick smoke coming from under the bridge on the Delaware side of the roadway.

The fire was under control by 10:50 a.m. but engineers inspected the bridge to make sure it was safe for travel.

"They want to make sure that it's absolutely, positively safe for individuals to travel across the bridge," Salmon said. "We're taking a conservative approach to this and making sure that the structural integrity of the bridge is intact."

No injuries were reported.
Nestled on a 330-acre farm outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, some of the states first hemp seeds in 80 years wait to be planted.

The seeds originated in Canada and Italy but traveled from Poland to the Rodale Institute in Maxatawny Township. Their journey was as cumbersome as the federal laws restricting the plant.

Hemp is a member of the cannabis sativa family. Unlike its more famous sister, marijuana, hemp only contains trace amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and does not produce euphoria. Instead, hemp has historically been used in farming, manufacturing and cooking.

Its familial relations have not done the plant any favors. Once considered a cornerstone of agriculture in Pennsylvania, hemp was outlawed in the 1970s under the Controlled Substance Act. The Drug Enforcement Administration still considers it a controlled substance.

Rodale Institute is hoping to change that. Researchers here are testing how hemp can be used to improve soil and, by extension, crops without the use of pesticides.

[We] have always held hemp at arm's length, said Rodale Institute executive director Jeff Moyer, referring to the stigma of anything cannabis-related.

But as consumers increasingly demand organic alternatives, hemp could provide a supplement to traditional farming.

Hemp is a crop that has been on the radar of research scientists for a very long time, said Rodale chief scientist Dr. Kristine Nichols, a former Department of Agriculture employee.

We have struggled with the fact that we havent been able to incorporate it into research because it has a lot of capability for us to enhance our  production.

At the core of Rodales research is the potential of improving soil health and better managing pesky weeds. No, not that kind of weed. Ragweed and hogweed, in particular, can ruin crops and become difficult to control.

Cleaner soil could also mean cleaner run-off, an environmental concern that is often overshadowed by a focus on carbon emissions.

This is a movement toward sustainability, to improving our economy, to making sure that our farmers are supported in their efforts to grow this product without having the hammer of the DEA come down on them, said former Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose wife is on the board of Rodale.

This is about an industry and it has nothing to do with drugs, so lets suspend the misconceptions and go right for the potential that hemp products have.

Hemps history in Pennsylvania dates back to the Founding Fathers. Hempfield Township in Lancaster County was founded in 1729 and named after the plant that flourished there. More than 100 water-powered mills processed hemp in the county, with dozens more other parts of the state, according to the Pennsylvania Hemp Industry Council (PHIC).

Even before the state was created, William Penn foresaw an abundant agricultural future involving hemp. One of the first laws passed by Pennsylvania's General Assembly in 1683 was a law to encourage every farmer to grow the plant, PHIC said.

From 1681 until around 1840, the culture of hemp was nearly universal in Pennsylvania, according to PHIC. It was used to make linen, rope and twine, but also crucial in ship-building. Each maritime endeavor required roughly 60 to 100 tons of hemp for anchor cables and sails. More recently, BMW incorporated hemp into their 3 series door panel. Because it is lighter than fiberglass, the car weighs less. It also performed better in crash tests and can be recycled.

Other countries have already adopted hemp cultivation and manufacturing. Canada is considered a leader in hemp cultivation while Slovenia is making hemp skateboards. Meanwhile, scientists in Ukraine are experimenting with hemp to help regenerate soil in nuclear Chernobyl.

In the United States, hemp has been maligned for decades. But a provision in the 2014 Farm Bill allowed the plant to return to Pennsylvania for research purposes. It was buoyed by Berks County Democrat State Sen. Judy Schwank and State. Rep. Eric Nelson, who argued that hemp could be used to supplement coal mining and other industrial and agricultural jobs.

Pennsylvania is a baby-step state, he said at the World Medical Marijuana Conference in April. This isnt about dopers. Its about farmers.

At Rodale, hemp could hold the key to healthier crops, researchers said.

Using hemp in a crop rotation, we believe, will improve the microbiology of the soil, it will improve the weed management strategies and ultimately make people more healthy, Moyer said.

Rodale was awarded two of the states 16 industrial hemp licenses, which limits farmers to just five acres of crops. While the local licenses opened the door to research, federal regulations hamstrung the project and delayed it by several months. Anyone working with the seed underwent thorough background checks, police clearances and even FBI fingerprinting.

The institutes four-year project is part of the Department of Agriculture's Industrial Hemp Pilot Project focusing on low-THC plants to address pest issues and enhance soil health.
Philadelphia Police say a stepfather beat and sexually assaulted a boy who died a short time later.

Officers responded to a home on S. Conestoga Street near Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia after receiving a 911 call Wednesday evening from a 24-year-old man who later turned out to be the suspect, police said.

Officers went upstairs to find the boy on the floor without a pulse, police said.

The boy, who would have turned 2 next month, was found with bruises and scratches on his body and appeared to have been choked, police sources told NBC10s Denise Nakano.

Medics rushed the boy to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where doctors pronounced him dead a short time later. "The attending physician noted multiple bruises on the child and signs of sexual assault," police said in a news release.

Police took in the suspect, who calls himself the boy's stepfather, in for questioning, police said.

Police said they plan to charge the yet-to-identified suspect with attempted murder, aggravated assault, rape, child endangerment and related offense.

The medical examiner would need to complete an autopsy and release the results before the suspect could face homicide charges, police said.

Correction: Sources initially said police went to the home to serve a warrant but later clarified that a 911 call led them to the unresponsive boy.
What to Know The Shulaya Enterprise operated in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada

Alleged members are accused of various crimes, from murder for hire and extortion to illegally trafficking of 10,000 pounds of chocolate

The suspects are due in court later Wednesday

More than 30 members and associates of a New York City-based Russian organized crime group are named in federal court papers charging them with racketeering, murder for hire and other crimes, including trafficking tens of thousands of pounds of stolen chocolate, law enforcement sources familiar with the case tell NBC 4 New York.

The FBIs Joint Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force arrested more than two dozen members of the group, called the Shulaya Enterprise, in the NYC area and elsewhere early Wednesday, law enforcement sources said. The seven other suspects remain at large.

The group is accused of trafficking stolen goods -- including large quantities of cigarettes and 10,000 pounds of chocolate confections, court papers say.

The suspects also face charges of extortion, gambling, narcotics trafficking, wire fraud, credit card fraud, and identity theft, according to law enforcement sources. Some of the charges carry a maximum penalty of decades in prison.

Many of the suspects are from Brooklyn, and range in age from 22 to 59.

The group conspired to carry out a dizzying array of criminal schemes, including a murder-for-hire conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing them and drugging them with chloroform, and a fraud involving the hacking of casino slot machines, a federal complaint says.

The leaders of the organization, 40-year-old Razhden Shulaya, of Edgewater, New Jersey, and 37-year-old Zurab Dzhanashvili, of Brooklyn, are among those arrested. Most of the organizations members were born in the former Soviet Union and maintain ties to Ukraine, Georgia, and the Russian Federation.

Shulaya was the vor, or thief-in-law of the group, and offered assistance and protection to members of the criminal enterprise, the complaint says.

The Shulaya Enterprise operated in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Nevada, the court papers say.

Among a long list of crimes, the complaint says the enterprise tried to operate an illegal poker business in Brighton Beach, defraud casinos in Atlantic City, and steal shipments from cargo ships.

The suspects arrested Wednesday were expected to appear in federal court.
Three astronauts in NASA's newest class studied at universities in San Diego, before being accepted into the highly prestigious program.

Five women and seven men were selected for the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class out of a record pool of 18,300 applicants. The new astronauts with local ties include Dr. Jonny Kim, Matthew Dominick and Rob Kulin.

Kim graduated from the University of San Diego (USD) and served as a Navy SEAL based in San Diego.

According to NASA, the California native completed more than 100 combat operations and earned a Silver Star and Bronze Star with Combat "V" while training and operating as a Navy SEAL. He was born and raised in Los Angeles before earning a degree in Mathematics at USD and graduating summa cum laude from the 2012 class.

A second astronaut candidate, Dominick, also attended the same university. After growing up in Colorado, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of San Diego with minors in Physics and Mathematics, according to his NASA biography.

Dominick also graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, clocking in more than 1,600 hours of flight time in 28 aircraft, 400 carrier-arrest landings and 61 combat missions, according to NASA.

The third astronaut candidate, Kulin, graduated from UC San Diego. He earned a Doctorate in Engineering from UC San Diego, while studying dynamic bone fracture, according to his NASA biography.

Kulin has previously worked as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers, according to NASA. Kulin was also a senior manager for flight reliability at SpaceX, leading the Launch Chief Engineering group in Hawthorne, California.

All three of the Astronaut Candidates will report for duty and begin two years of training in August 2017.

In total, NASA chose 12 new astronauts Wednesday from the biggest pool of applicants ever.
Montgomery County Police Chief Tom Manger said he is confident investigators will solve the high-profile double homicide of two high school students on the eve of their graduation.

Twenty-three shots from two guns were fired at the car in which Shadi Adi Najjar, 17, and Artem Ziberov, 18, were found dead Monday, sources told News4. They were scheduled to graduate from Northwest High School in Germantown, Maryland, Tuesday afternoon, school officials said.

Police found their bodies inside Najjar's Honda Civic parked but still running in the 8200 block of Gallery Court in Montgomery Village, about five miles from their neighborhood. One of the victims was found clutching a $20 bill.

Investigators have leads and are putting together a timeline of where the victims were in the hours before the shootings, Manger said.

We got the medical examiner report yesterday," Manger said. "That has helped us in terms of piecing together the forensic information. We've collected shell casings at the scene. We've got witnesses who have told us how many shots they heard.



Officers went to the quiet residential street after a neighbor reported hearing gunshots about 10:46 p.m. Monday.

A neighbor's surveillance camera picked up the sound of the barrage of gunfire. Faintly, a car can be heard driving away from the area.

Mourners spilled out of the Islamic Society of Germantown and into the parking lot for Najjar's funeral Wednesday.

Cold-blooded murder, thats what it is, said Najjars uncle, Ammar Najjar, the imam at the Islamic Society. Whoever shot him, looks like they didnt want him to live. They did it with the intention to kill this young boy just one day before his graduation.



Shadi Najjar and his best friend, Ziberov, left Najjar's house about 7 p.m. Monday and never returned. Najjar's father said he sent his son several text messages asking if he was OK and where he was.

Both victims were excellent students at Northwest High and planned to attend college in the fall.

Sadness filled DAR Constitution Hall, where the victims should have received their diplomas with their classmates Tuesday. There was a moment of silence for Najjar and Ziberov, and their principal remembered the lives of two young men he said had so much potential.

Manger said it's difficult and emotional investigating the double homicide of the two teenagers.

Every officer that was on the scene, every detective that's working this case can't help but think about their own families, their own kids and be impacted by that, he said.

"I want everybody to know what happened exactly," said Najjar's father, Adi Najjar. "Why he's shot? Maybe somebody saw something, will call the police. At least I'll have an answer, you know? Because I will never be able to sleep until I find the answer who shot my boy and why they shot him."

Anyone with information about this case is asked to call police at 240-773-5070. A reward of up to $10,000 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.
A Virginia man who joined the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq for three months, all the while evading the scrutiny of U.S. intelligence officials, was convicted Wednesday on terrorism charges despite his protestations that he was only there to "check things out.''

The jury in U.S. District Court took only four hours to deliberation before convicting Mohamad Khweis, 27, of Alexandria, on all charges. He could potentially face 20 years or more in prison when he is sentenced in October.

Earlier Wednesday, the jury heard closing arguments in which Khweis' lawyers acknowledged that Khweis left his home in Virginia in December 2015 to join the Islamic State group. He even got an official membership card. But they argued those facts don't automatically make him a terrorist.

Khweis took the unusual step of testifying on his own behalf at the trial, telling jurors he just wanted to see for himself what the militant group was like. After a few months, he realized it was not for him.

"He wanted to find out how they could justify some of this stuff,'' like suicide bombings, said defense attorney John Zwerling, who asserted that there's no evidence his client ever expressed a desire to harm America. "It's not a crime to explore, to try to see some of this information for yourself," he said.

Prosecutors ridiculed the notion that Khweis had himself smuggled across the Syrian border on some sort of curiosity tour. They noted that Khweis expressed a willingness to be a suicide bomber on an official IS intake form.

After the verdict, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Dana Boente said in a statement that "Khweis is not a naive kid who didn't know what he was doing. He ... knew exactly who ISIS was, and was well aware of their thirst for extreme violence. Nonetheless, this did not deter him. Instead, Khweis voluntarily chose to join the ranks of a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that is a federal crime, even if you get scared and decide to leave.''

Khweis is one of more than 100 people charged in the U.S. in recent years with helping or trying to help the IS. But most cases involve sting operations. His is among a handful that involves individuals who actually evaded the U.S. intelligence apparatus and reached IS territory.

Khweis lived in the Islamic State territory from December 2015 through March 2016. According to trial testimony, he became intrigued with the Islamic State group in 2015. He told FBI agents who questioned him after his arrest that he was interested in the establishment of a caliphate and wanted to tell his grandchildren he had been a part of it.

He quit his job as a bus driver in the D.C. region and booked a one-way flight to Istanbul, via London and Amsterdam. Once in Turkey, he established social media accounts using the moniker GreenBird, which is associated with martyrdom by the Islamic State group.

Khweis used social media accounts to reach out to people he thought could help smuggle him across the border to Syria, including one person known as the "Mad Mullah."

Finally, in late December, he got the call: He should leave his hotel room and enter a waiting taxi if he wanted to join. He did, and was smuggled across the border. At one point, he received text orders to get out of the car and alternately walk and run across the border territory, taking care to avoid land mines.

He was processed by IS during a short stay in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The processing was formal, with blood tests, intake forms and issuance of an ID card. On these intake forms, he expressed his willingness to serve as a suicide bomber.

During the next three months, he bounced among several safehouses in Syria and Iraq.

Khweis testified that he came to believe he was destined for military service, but he never seemed to gain the trust of IS officials, who suspected he was a spy.

Khweis said he only expressed a willingness to serve as a suicide bomber because he would otherwise be labeled a spy.

Defense lawyers had emphasized that, under the law, Khweis could not be convicted of providing support to terrorists if he were being coerced or acting under duress. His freedom ended once he entered that taxi outside his Turkish hotel room, they said.

"From that point forward, ISIS took control of his life," defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said. "Whatever expectation he had about being able to walk the streets of Raqqa and see what life was like, that wasn't going to happen."

Prosecutors countered that Khweis knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

"It takes a highly dedicated and highly motivated individual to get to the Islamic State," prosecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick said.
In announcing the appointment of Joseph Otting to a key treasury job on Monday, the White House Press Office trumpeted his credentials, noting that he was a graduate of the School of Credit and Financial Management at Dartmouth College.

But in fact, Dartmouth does not have such a school.

"Joseph Otting is not a Dartmouth graduate," Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said Wednesday. "Dartmouth does not have a school of credit and financial management."

According to Bloomberg, Otting's biographical information frequently lists him as a Dartmouth graduate, but the School of Credit and Financial Management is actually a continuing-education program for financial executives that once operated on the Dartmouth campus. Otting graduated from the 3-year program in 1992, but it has no affiliation with the college.

The White House press office acknowledged its mischaracterization of Otting's credentials in a brief emailed statement Wednesday, saying "Bloombergs characterization of Mr. Ottings credentials is correct."

The School of Credit and Financial Management is a program that includes a total of 20 days of instruction - two weeks per year over a 2-year period. It is run by the National Association of Credit Management, which describes itself as "the leader in executive education for the credit and financial management community." It is not a university, and current instructors include no college professors.

The program is now held at American University in Washington D.C., though it has no affilation with the school.

Otting, a former OneWest Bank CEO, was nominated as comptroller of the currency at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He worked closely with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during his time at One West.

In his new role, Otting is expected to play a significant role in carrying out President Donald Trump's promise to roll back regulations on some of the nation's biggest banks. His nomination must be approved by the Senate.

An email sent to the National Association of Credit Management was not immediately returned Thursday.

Attempts to reach Otting were also unsuccessful.

Katherine Underwood contributed to this report.
An IT outage on May 27 that caused British Airways (BA) to cancel more than 400 flights and strand 75,000 passengers in one day was because of human errorand a simple one at that.

An engineer had disconnected a power supply at a data center near Londons Heathrow airport, and when it was reconnected, it caused a surge of power that resulted in major damage, according to Willie Walsh, CEO of BAs parent company IAG SA. Walsh made the comment to reporters in Mexico, and it was picked up by Bloomberg and other news outlets.

+ Also on Network World: Were learning the wrong lessons from airline IT outages +

The engineer in question had been authorized to be on site and was part of a team working at the Heathrow data center hit by the power outage. The facility is managed by CBRE Works Solutions, a U.S. property services company.

A BA spokesperson told the U.K. publication IT PRO, "There was a loss of power to the U.K. data center, which was compounded by the uncontrolled return of power, which caused a power surge taking out our IT systems. So we know what happened; we just need to find out why. It was not an IT failure and had nothing to do with outsourcing of IT; it was an electrical power supply which was interrupted."

An internal email sent by the head of group IT at IAG, which was leaked to the Press Association, a U.K. news group similar to the Associated Press in the U.S., said, "This resulted in the total immediate loss of power to the facility, bypassing the backup generators and batteries. ... It was turned back on in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion, which created physical damage to the system."

A spokesperson for CBRE said, however, the cause for the outage is still to be determined.

We are the manager of the facility for our client BA and fully support its investigation. No determination has been made yet regarding the causes of the incident on May 27," the spokesperson said.

This was no small accident. Its estimated to have cost BA as much as 100 million euros (U.S. $112 million) to say nothing of the black eye BA got for the outage.

This isnt an isolated incident. Most recently, in March, Amazon Web Services suffered a massive outage when one of its employees was debugging an issue with the billing system and accidentally took more servers offline than he intended. That error started a cascade effect that took down other systems, resulting in the outage.

Humans the cause for most data center failures

To err is human, and we err a lot.

A 2016 study by the Ponemon Institute found human error was the chief cause of failure, accounting for 22 percent of data center outages, while water, heat or air conditioning failure accounted for 11 percent of outages, weather accounted for 10 percent and generator failures were 6 percent. IT equipment malfunction accounted for only 4 percent of all outages.

Thats because the IT industry doesnt do a good job at educating its workers on proper processes for managing this equipment. Two-thirds of data center outages are related to processes, not infrastructure systems, according to David Boston, director of facility operations solutions for TiePoint-bkm Engineering.

Most are quite aware that processes cause most of the downtime, but few have taken the initiative to comprehensively address them. This is somewhat unique to our industry, he told Data Center Knowledge.

This matches another long-standing problem in corporate America: failure to educate users on acceptable practices for their laptop and smartphone. Its well established that most corporate breaches come not from external hackers or even internal malcontents, but employees making stupid mistakes, such as opening phishing emails.

Management needs to stop assuming people are computer literate, know the technology as well as their kids, and are mind readers when it comes to policy. Taking some time to train and educate people on what is expected of them should not be a special consideration, it should be standard operating procedure. Clearly it is not at the moment.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazars Revenge, is far from the swashbuckling revival it could have been

Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazars

Revenge (12A)

Running time 2hr 9mins

Rating: **

ITS been six years since the notorious Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) last sailed and few, frankly, were actually missing the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Indeed, as the series sank into progressively blander waters (can you tell your Dead Mans Chest from your On Stranger Tides?), only Depps charisma appeared to hold it aloft.

Sparrow, exasperating and preposterous as he can be, is a hero cut from classic Boys Own cloth, there to ensure a few hearty laughs in the absence of creative thrills and fresh storytelling.

Salazars Revenge (also known as Dead Men Tell No Tales, for North American landlubbers) is a reboot, albeit one that does staggeringly little in the way of actually, yknow, REBOOTING the series.

Disney having relieved itself of Gore Verbinski, directorial duties have fallen upon the shoulders of a Norwegian duo, Joachim Rnning and Espen Sandberg (aka two of the minds behind Netflixs highly-flawed, moderately watchable Marco Polo  not a bad set of hands, as far as a new Pirates movie goes); strikingly little, however, seems to have changed for the better, and much has taken a turn for the worse.

Jack Sparrow is, sadly, no longer the guilty pleasure he once was, more a mildly irritating windbag than the humorous windbag wed all come to begrudgingly love.

Depps personal and professional failings of late may have gone a long way in souring us to the good captains charm, but thats hardly the all of it  whether hes stumbling around blind-drunk, dodging execution for the umpteenth time or cracking gags about horology (Google it), this feels suspiciously like an act done to death.

Its little wonder Orlando Bloom, Depps former co-star, has all but turned his back on the franchise, sporting a mere cameo here  despite its shoehorning-in a backstory for Sparrow, Salazars Revenge is a film in search of a purpose, sticking squarely to the old crew (Joshamee Gibbs, Geoffrey Rush and Martin Klebba all reprise their roles) and to a script of the most unimaginative order where it shouldve charted new waters.

The plot essentially blenderizes the least interesting elements of the last four movies. Javier Bardem is Salazar, the movies undead Mr Bad; CG conjures him gloriously to life, all scars and writhing black tentacle-hair, but his menace is blunted by a clumsy, predictable screenplay.

Brenton Thwaites and Kaya Scodelario are the inevitable Bloom/Knightley stand-in, and one would be forgiven for confusing them with their predecessors.

Scodelario, admittedly, is initially granted space to strike out on her own (she plays a plucky scientist, accused of witchcraft by her ignorant peers), but is swiftly sidelined in the face of Depps antics, spending much of the film tied to the masts of various galleys.

There are nice touches along the way, but they only serve as a painful reminder of the swashbuckling revival this might have otherwise been.

The first act features a bank robbery-gone-skew-whiff thats easily among the series most inspired set pieces, but the same flair is nowhere in sight by the time were at sea, the film getting quickly bogged down in a succession of tedious nautical skirmishes.

Paul McCartney makes a delightful cameo, but such fare is hardly worth the price of a ticket  his many talents are being sorely wasted here.

Salazars Revenge carries nothing but ill omens for this carcass of a franchise; if this is the absolute best Disney has to offer from hereon in, then lets all hope this is the last well see of Captain Jack Sparrow.
By IANS

MUMBAI: The Indian equity markets opened on a flat-to-positive note during the early morning session on Thursday, with healthy buying in metal, automobile and capital goods stocks.



According to market observers, investors were cautious on global concerns such as the European Central Bank's policy review (due later during the day) and the strengthening of the US dollar against major currencies.



The Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 19.05 points or 0.20 per cent to 9,682.95 points (around 9.20 a.m.).



The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 31,316.91 points, traded at 31,313.55 points (at 9.20 a.m.) -- up 42.27 points or 0.14 per cent from its previous close at 31,271.28 points.



It has so far touched a high of 31,354.51 points and a low of 31,298.77 points during intra-day trade.



The BSE market breadth was bullish -- with 786 advances and 361 declines.



On Wednesday, the benchmark indices closed in the green, cheered by the decision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to boost liquidity levels in the commercial banking system.



The Nifty closed at 9,663.90 points -- up 26.75 points or 0.28 per cent, while the BSE Sensex was up 80.72 points or 0.26 per cent to close at 31,271.28 points.

MUMBAI: The Indian equity markets opened on a flat-to-positive note during the early morning session on Thursday, with healthy buying in metal, automobile and capital goods stocks. According to market observers, investors were cautious on global concerns such as the European Central Bank's policy review (due later during the day) and the strengthening of the US dollar against major currencies. The Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose by 19.05 points or 0.20 per cent to 9,682.95 points (around 9.20 a.m.). The 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE, which opened at 31,316.91 points, traded at 31,313.55 points (at 9.20 a.m.) -- up 42.27 points or 0.14 per cent from its previous close at 31,271.28 points. It has so far touched a high of 31,354.51 points and a low of 31,298.77 points during intra-day trade. The BSE market breadth was bullish -- with 786 advances and 361 declines. On Wednesday, the benchmark indices closed in the green, cheered by the decision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to boost liquidity levels in the commercial banking system. The Nifty closed at 9,663.90 points -- up 26.75 points or 0.28 per cent, while the BSE Sensex was up 80.72 points or 0.26 per cent to close at 31,271.28 points.
S Lalitha By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: The wait is finally over! President Pranab Mukherjee will formally inaugurate the 10.5-km stretch of the Green Line between Mantri Square Sampige Road and Yelachenahalli Metro stations on June 17. Commercial operations will begin the next day.

This will mark the completion of the 42.3km network of Phase-1.

Setting the ball in motion for the D-day, Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) K A Manoharan gave the formal authorisation for the running of trains on Wednesday evening. Kochi Metro will also be launched on the same day by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Aluva.

The authorisation letter was signed by Manoharan at 6.45 pm. It will be handed over to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) on Thursday morning. I am giving the authorisation today with conditions attached. BMRCL will fulfil them before they go ahead with the launch, Manoharan told Express. Trains have been cleared to run at a maximum speed of 80 kmph but they generally run a little less than the certified speed, which would be 75kmph, he informed.

An official communication to the State government from New Delhi on Wednesday confirmed the Presidents arrival in Bengaluru on June 17. The inauguration will take place by late afternoon only. We are working out other details of the function and will confirm them in a day or two, a highly placed source said.

Mahendra Jain, Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, said, The BMRCL staff went around Metro stations on Wednesday to inspect and finalise on a specific station. It is not decided yet.

Easy conditions

Asked about the conditions which need to be met, the CMRS said they were minor in nature which could be completed in a short time.

Passenger amenities like lifts and escalators need to be completed at Krishna Rajendra Market and Chickpet Metro stations. Sufficient space has to be identified to install firefighting and electrical equipment at these stations. Minor civil works are pending, the CMRS explained.

The entrances which are not ready at these stations are not big matters of concern as Metro, he added.

BMRCL MD Pradeep Singh Kharola said, The minor pending works would be completed by June 10.

Asked about the preparatory steps being taken, he said, We are now posting security personnel and housekeeping staff at all the new Metro stations. Each station will have over 40 of them. Ten ticket operators will be posted at each station during this weekend.

BENGALURU: The wait is finally over! President Pranab Mukherjee will formally inaugurate the 10.5-km stretch of the Green Line between Mantri Square Sampige Road and Yelachenahalli Metro stations on June 17. Commercial operations will begin the next day. This will mark the completion of the 42.3km network of Phase-1. Setting the ball in motion for the D-day, Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) K A Manoharan gave the formal authorisation for the running of trains on Wednesday evening. Kochi Metro will also be launched on the same day by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Aluva. The authorisation letter was signed by Manoharan at 6.45 pm. It will be handed over to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) on Thursday morning. I am giving the authorisation today with conditions attached. BMRCL will fulfil them before they go ahead with the launch, Manoharan told Express. Trains have been cleared to run at a maximum speed of 80 kmph but they generally run a little less than the certified speed, which would be 75kmph, he informed. An official communication to the State government from New Delhi on Wednesday confirmed the Presidents arrival in Bengaluru on June 17. The inauguration will take place by late afternoon only. We are working out other details of the function and will confirm them in a day or two, a highly placed source said. Mahendra Jain, Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, said, The BMRCL staff went around Metro stations on Wednesday to inspect and finalise on a specific station. It is not decided yet. Easy conditions Asked about the conditions which need to be met, the CMRS said they were minor in nature which could be completed in a short time. Passenger amenities like lifts and escalators need to be completed at Krishna Rajendra Market and Chickpet Metro stations. Sufficient space has to be identified to install firefighting and electrical equipment at these stations. Minor civil works are pending, the CMRS explained. The entrances which are not ready at these stations are not big matters of concern as Metro, he added. BMRCL MD Pradeep Singh Kharola said, The minor pending works would be completed by June 10. Asked about the preparatory steps being taken, he said, We are now posting security personnel and housekeeping staff at all the new Metro stations. Each station will have over 40 of them. Ten ticket operators will be posted at each station during this weekend.
MS Vidyanandan By

Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What do Indonesia and Kerala have in common? According to Saut Siringoringo, the archipelagos consul general in India, there are several common factors, foremost being friendly people.

Nice, amiable people, rich culture and scenic locations are some of the similarities between the two places. There is a big scope for more cooperation between Kerala and Indonesia, he said during a chat with Thiruvananthapuram Express on Thursday.

The consul general was in the capital to woo Indian investors to Indonesia. We do have Indian investors but mostly in the tourism sector. As a fast growing economy, we need more investors in as many sectors, especially manufacturing, he said.

He said the tourist flow between India and Indonesia is rising every year. There was a 28.42 percent increase in Indian arrivals in 2016. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of Indonesian tourists to India, he said.

Indonesian tourists to India are mostly pilgrimage tourists; north Balinese Hindus coming to visit Varanasi, Ganga and other holy places in northern India.

According to Siringoringo, Kerala and its capital Thiruvananthapuram have a huge potential for educational tourism. Higher education is one area in which Kerala can offer huge help to Indonesia. Keralas highlights include affordable cost, quality and safety. We plan to campaign big for Kerala among Indonesian students, he said.

At present, a few Indonesian students are studying in Kerala. Two of them are in Kerala University. Indonesian students, who go abroad for higher studies prefer Technology and IT courses.

Pharma manufacturing and medical tourism are the other areas in which Indonesia and Kerala can cooperate, said Siringoringo. Every year, thousands of Indonesians visit foreign countries for medical assistance. Major destinations are Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, he said.

In India, according to the consul general, treatment costs are less compared to these popular destinations. But people are largely unaware of the Indian medical sector. Besides popularising India as a medical tourism destination, we look forward for tie-ups with major service providers, he said.

Siringoringo is accompanied by consul (economics) Josep Sitepu, Vijay V Tawde (trade section), Walfred Tagor Manihuruk, director, Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC), Chennai, Iska Huberta Sinurat, deputy director Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC), Chennai and Vijay of Indonesian Consulate, Mumbai.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: What do Indonesia and Kerala have in common? According to Saut Siringoringo, the archipelagos consul general in India, there are several common factors, foremost being friendly people. Nice, amiable people, rich culture and scenic locations are some of the similarities between the two places. There is a big scope for more cooperation between Kerala and Indonesia, he said during a chat with Thiruvananthapuram Express on Thursday. The consul general was in the capital to woo Indian investors to Indonesia. We do have Indian investors but mostly in the tourism sector. As a fast growing economy, we need more investors in as many sectors, especially manufacturing, he said. He said the tourist flow between India and Indonesia is rising every year. There was a 28.42 percent increase in Indian arrivals in 2016. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of Indonesian tourists to India, he said. Indonesian tourists to India are mostly pilgrimage tourists; north Balinese Hindus coming to visit Varanasi, Ganga and other holy places in northern India. According to Siringoringo, Kerala and its capital Thiruvananthapuram have a huge potential for educational tourism. Higher education is one area in which Kerala can offer huge help to Indonesia. Keralas highlights include affordable cost, quality and safety. We plan to campaign big for Kerala among Indonesian students, he said. At present, a few Indonesian students are studying in Kerala. Two of them are in Kerala University. Indonesian students, who go abroad for higher studies prefer Technology and IT courses. Pharma manufacturing and medical tourism are the other areas in which Indonesia and Kerala can cooperate, said Siringoringo. Every year, thousands of Indonesians visit foreign countries for medical assistance. Major destinations are Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, he said. In India, according to the consul general, treatment costs are less compared to these popular destinations. But people are largely unaware of the Indian medical sector. Besides popularising India as a medical tourism destination, we look forward for tie-ups with major service providers, he said. Siringoringo is accompanied by consul (economics) Josep Sitepu, Vijay V Tawde (trade section), Walfred Tagor Manihuruk, director, Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC), Chennai, Iska Huberta Sinurat, deputy director Indonesian Trade Promotion Centre (ITPC), Chennai and Vijay of Indonesian Consulate, Mumbai.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The big move of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to waive off farm loan appears to have opened a Pandoras Box with farmers agitations in the BJP ruled Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh turning violent. Even while there is a rising clamour for UP like farm loan waiver in other states, as sought by the NCP chief Sharad Pawar during his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, the Centre remains firm that it has to be a state governments call and the Central government would not foot the bill.

Besides the demand for farm loan waiver, the farmers are also apparently anguished that they could not avail the minimum support prices (MSP) for a host of crops. The Centre had gone aggressive in hiking the MSP for pulses in the last two cropping seasons. The farmers, while taking the cue from the hiked MSP, sowed pulses on a large scale, which led to 22 million tonnes of productions IN 2016-17 against the average 17 million tonnes in the recent past.

Its true that the farmers had to sell pulses to traders at a much below price than the MSP for the reason that the state governments have not yet created enough procurement centres and storage capacities. Since pulses need to be protected against moisture, which can get fungus, the creation of scientific storage capacity is a big concern, which is depriving the farmers the price that they should genuinely get, said a senior official of the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs.

Incidentally, the vegetable prices had crashed after the announcement of the November 8 decision on demonetization, while the subdued price trend continues even now. The Centre has been pursuing with the state governments for reforms in Agricultural Produces Market Committee (APMC) to unveil a single market for farmers, besides integration with e-National Agricultural Market (e-NAM). Its progressing at a snails pace and much need to be done with proactive cooperation of the state governments. It has to be understood that there is no short cut to end the woes of the farmers.

Agriculture has not seen reforms, which are urgently needed to help the farmers increase their incomes, said a senior official of the NITI Aayog.

Incidentally, Pawar in his meeting with the Prime Minister reportedly pressed for a UP like farm loan waiver in Maharashtra. The Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has constituted a team headed by the NITI Aayog Advisor Dr T Haque to look into the ways to waive the farm loan, besides suggesting the roadmap for revival of farm economy in the state.

NEW DELHI: The big move of the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh to waive off farm loan appears to have opened a Pandoras Box with farmers agitations in the BJP ruled Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh turning violent. Even while there is a rising clamour for UP like farm loan waiver in other states, as sought by the NCP chief Sharad Pawar during his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, the Centre remains firm that it has to be a state governments call and the Central government would not foot the bill. Besides the demand for farm loan waiver, the farmers are also apparently anguished that they could not avail the minimum support prices (MSP) for a host of crops. The Centre had gone aggressive in hiking the MSP for pulses in the last two cropping seasons. The farmers, while taking the cue from the hiked MSP, sowed pulses on a large scale, which led to 22 million tonnes of productions IN 2016-17 against the average 17 million tonnes in the recent past. Its true that the farmers had to sell pulses to traders at a much below price than the MSP for the reason that the state governments have not yet created enough procurement centres and storage capacities. Since pulses need to be protected against moisture, which can get fungus, the creation of scientific storage capacity is a big concern, which is depriving the farmers the price that they should genuinely get, said a senior official of the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs. Incidentally, the vegetable prices had crashed after the announcement of the November 8 decision on demonetization, while the subdued price trend continues even now. The Centre has been pursuing with the state governments for reforms in Agricultural Produces Market Committee (APMC) to unveil a single market for farmers, besides integration with e-National Agricultural Market (e-NAM). Its progressing at a snails pace and much need to be done with proactive cooperation of the state governments. It has to be understood that there is no short cut to end the woes of the farmers. Agriculture has not seen reforms, which are urgently needed to help the farmers increase their incomes, said a senior official of the NITI Aayog. Incidentally, Pawar in his meeting with the Prime Minister reportedly pressed for a UP like farm loan waiver in Maharashtra. The Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has constituted a team headed by the NITI Aayog Advisor Dr T Haque to look into the ways to waive the farm loan, besides suggesting the roadmap for revival of farm economy in the state.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: Army on Wednesday said troops foiled an infiltration bid of militants along Line of control (LoC) in Machil sector of border district of Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir and killed three militants.

The alert army men noticed a group of militants trying to infiltrate into this side of LoC in Machil sector of Kupwara district, an army official said.

He said the army men fired on the militants, who returned the fire.

In the ensuing gunfight, three militants were killed, the official said.

Defence spokesman in Srinagar Colonel Rajesh Kalia confirmed killing of three militants.

He said the combing operation in the area is going on.

Additional reinforcement was rushed to the area to prevent militants from sneaking into this side, the army official said.

He said troops along the LoC are on high alert to foil infiltration attempt by militants in view of melting of snow in the upper reaches.

It was the third infiltration attempt foiled by Army in north Kashmir in last fortnight.

Meanwhile, police said a militant seen at funeral of slain Hizb commander Sabzar Ahmad Bhat at Tral recently has surrendered to authorities.

A few days back video clips of an unidentified militant, wearing battle pouch with a grenade, during funeral of Sabzar had gone viral on social media. During investigation, he was identified as Danish Ahmed R/o Kulangam, Handwara in Kupwara district, a police spokesman said.

He said it was found that Danish was studying in B.Sc third year at Doon P.G. College of Agriculture Science and Technology, Dehradun before joining militancy.

After learning that Danish had joined militancy, police and 21 RR got into touch with his parents and impressed upon them to counsel their son to surrender. His parents were convinced that if he surrenders, he would be dealt with fairly under law. Efforts made by security forces yielded results and Danish surrendered before police and 21 RR army, the spokesman said.

He said on being questioned, Danish said he was in touch with militant of south Kashmir on social media sites and it was on their instigation he had decided to become a militant.

He was tasked by Hizbul Mujahideen commanders to activate some local youth in North Kashmir and make the region as militancy infested as the southern part of Kashmir. However, after spending a few days with the militant in south Kashmir, he realized the futility of joining militant ranks, the police spokesman said.

He said Danishs case is being considered under the J&K surrendered militants rehabilitation policy.

It is second such instance when a militant seen with gun on social media has surrendered.

Earlier, a youth from Srinagar, who had joined militancy, had also surrendered to police.

Meanwhile, Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman Saleem Hashmi claimed that Danish was not affiliated with the outfit.

The police claim about the Danishs association with Hizb is not true, he said.

SRINAGAR: Army on Wednesday said troops foiled an infiltration bid of militants along Line of control (LoC) in Machil sector of border district of Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir and killed three militants. The alert army men noticed a group of militants trying to infiltrate into this side of LoC in Machil sector of Kupwara district, an army official said. He said the army men fired on the militants, who returned the fire. In the ensuing gunfight, three militants were killed, the official said. Defence spokesman in Srinagar Colonel Rajesh Kalia confirmed killing of three militants. He said the combing operation in the area is going on. Additional reinforcement was rushed to the area to prevent militants from sneaking into this side, the army official said. He said troops along the LoC are on high alert to foil infiltration attempt by militants in view of melting of snow in the upper reaches. It was the third infiltration attempt foiled by Army in north Kashmir in last fortnight. Meanwhile, police said a militant seen at funeral of slain Hizb commander Sabzar Ahmad Bhat at Tral recently has surrendered to authorities. A few days back video clips of an unidentified militant, wearing battle pouch with a grenade, during funeral of Sabzar had gone viral on social media. During investigation, he was identified as Danish Ahmed R/o Kulangam, Handwara in Kupwara district, a police spokesman said. He said it was found that Danish was studying in B.Sc third year at Doon P.G. College of Agriculture Science and Technology, Dehradun before joining militancy. After learning that Danish had joined militancy, police and 21 RR got into touch with his parents and impressed upon them to counsel their son to surrender. His parents were convinced that if he surrenders, he would be dealt with fairly under law. Efforts made by security forces yielded results and Danish surrendered before police and 21 RR army, the spokesman said. He said on being questioned, Danish said he was in touch with militant of south Kashmir on social media sites and it was on their instigation he had decided to become a militant. He was tasked by Hizbul Mujahideen commanders to activate some local youth in North Kashmir and make the region as militancy infested as the southern part of Kashmir. However, after spending a few days with the militant in south Kashmir, he realized the futility of joining militant ranks, the police spokesman said. He said Danishs case is being considered under the J&K surrendered militants rehabilitation policy. It is second such instance when a militant seen with gun on social media has surrendered. Earlier, a youth from Srinagar, who had joined militancy, had also surrendered to police. Meanwhile, Hizbul Mujahideen spokesman Saleem Hashmi claimed that Danish was not affiliated with the outfit. The police claim about the Danishs association with Hizb is not true, he said.
Rajitha Sanaka By

Express News Service

LATUR: Driving in Latur at dawn in the last week of May, you see women splashing water on their front yards, and you know that the frightening drought of the year before has been forgotten. Last summer, an aeon ago, this was a town of water queues kept in order by the instrument of Section 144.

As water scarcities go, it had been an extraordinary one. An entire train had been commandeered to ply water to these parts, 108 trips by what came to be called the Latur Water Special, each time carrying 25.95 lakh litres to three lakh people in the parched district. The train had opened up possibilities: yes indeed why cant water be carried to deserts?

At dawn this summer, the town had gone back to being sleepy. The 360 water tankers that had rumbled about then have now been whittled down to six, operating only to uphill villages where the basalt bedrock allows no percolation to the water table beneath.

It could even be claimed as some sort of an achievement, as I was later to be told by the new collector and municipal commissioner of Latur, Sreekanth Sajjan. This year we started using water tankers only in the third week of May, he said.

The miracle occurred over a week in mid September last year. A downpour not seen in all of the monsoon months ensured that the annual precipitation figure soared to a record 1110.92 mm, against the 10-year average of 802.13 mm. It had dipped to 413.48 mm in the year of the Latur Water Special. It was some manna from heaven. The Manjara dam filled up and remains substantially turgid today. Ground water levels recorded an average of 1 m rise.

Predicatly, Latur was a happy place this summer, the opposite of what they had been in 2016  all for the grace of one burst of the clouds. Anasuya Podare remembers the torrid months last year. She and her husband had moved to Latur after a tiff with their children and took up a servitors jobs at the local Mahalakshmi temple. The 65-year-old woman used to spent three to four hours in queues for one pot of water last year. Now she walks a few metres to the tap and fills up as much as she needs.

"I have no count of the money I spent last season to buy water, she says.

But here in Marathwada, water shortage is an unforgettable mistress. It indulges you for no more than one season. Even in this summer of unanticipated surplus, there are localities in Latur that are served water once in eight days, plausibly because one of the nine water tanks in the city has gone on the blink.

But even in those localities, this years privations are leavened by the experience of last year. Anita Patil, a resident of water-short Revenue Colony, told me she still has to buy water. But its not as bad as last year, whe she had had to spend Rs 3000 per month all of 2016.



New to the job, collector Sajjan has to wrestle with the detritus of last years disaster, mainly illegal bore wells that had sprouted in the frenzy of near-famine conditions. "Illegal bore wells and lack of awareness among people are some of the reasons why we are unable to check water wastage, he said.

During the high fever of 2016, bore wells had been dug by the hundreds. While no one kept count of the exact number of illegal ones, at least 2000 bore wells were dug in the town, some as deep as 700-800 feet. The groundwater departments rules prescribe a dainty five per square km.

As anyone familiar with the hydrography of Marathwada knows, drought is never far away in Latur. Even in this frolicsome summer, you only have to step out of town to meet it. About 11 km east of Latur, in Bhatkeda village, a habitation of 600 families where one branch of the Manjara flows by, there is not a drop of water to drink.

After the downpour of September, water had to be released from the Manjara dam and it flooded the village. By January, barely four months later, the Manjara had dried up as always. Marginal farmer Baba Shiekh said, Theres water in this stream for four months a year. The rest of the year, its dry.

A 60-year-old farmer, Madhukar Gurame said hes not fooled by the surplus of September 2016. He had never been able to fully irrigate his 14 acres for 15 years. He dug 15 bore wells during that time, some as deep as 650 ft.

A SUGARCANE ADDICTION

Latur knows its been lucky. Knowing droughts frequent visitations, the state government launched what it called the Jalyukt-Shivar Abhiyaan (JYS) in 2014 with the bold aim of making the district drought-free by 2019. Some 13 different water conservation schemes were announced, involving broadening and deepening of river beds, afforestation, watershed management, rain water harvesting mechanisms, the works.

However, local conservaton experts Pradeep Purandare, a retired prof at the Water and Land Management Institute in Aurangabad, are sure they are missing the point as usual. They are digging up river beds, he complained. A river is a discharge zone, not a recharge zone. They need to check the hydrography of the place and study the aquifer status, where it allows filtration and penetration of ground water. All thats not being done.

Typical of the thrashing about that a disaster always produces in India, none of the water conservation schemes is being implemented in a scientific manner, Prof Purandare said. There is too much of widening and deepening of nalas and then are no watershed development systems in place either.

And then there is the local farmers obsession with water-guzzling sugarcane. Take Kendriya Veerendra Sambhaji Rao, a 49-year-old farmer who owns 20 acres in a village called Patoda, 80 km from Latur. After three years of drought had parched his land and drained his pockets, he still stuck with sugarcane. After that copious September, he sowed 10 acres of sugarcane and 10 acres of soya bean and toor dal. I earn a minimum of Rs 9 lakh from sugarcane, and less than Rs 2 lakh from any of the other crops. There are three sugarcane factories in this taluka and it is a lucrative option for me, he said. So why not?

But Prof Purandare has a quarrel with that. Sugarcane is the main reason for the water scarcity endemic in Latur -- bar the odd lucky year. Of the 10 river basins that fall in Marathwada, seven are in deficit with available water less than 3000 cubic metres per hectare. The forest area is only 4 per cent. There are 11 major irrigation projects and all of them have water in a good year. But sugarcane plantations guzzle it all up, he says.

In fact, when the Manjara project was designed, it had been mandated that only 3 per cent of the water should be used for sugarcane. Now the actual usage is more like 77 per cent.

The government does not want to address this issue. Instead, it comes up with ideas like JYS which would only make it worse, he said.

STILL SLOW TO ADOPT RWH

Latur is no stranger to the idea of rain water harvesting (RWH). Activist Amol Ravindra Gowande has been advocating it for 15 years. In all of that time, only about 5000 people set up systems on their rooftops. But after last year's drought, 5000 chastened households rushed to sign up. So today, only 10,000 of the one lakh properties in Latur have RWH in place.

For a drought-prone city, theres no good reason why the number should be so low. Oil merchant Mohan Pardesi is one of the few converts to RWH. His rooftop mechanism protected him from the Big Dry of 2016, generating 3000 litres of water per day even in the dreadful summer.

"We set this up in 2003 with an investment of Rs 6000. I harvest one lakh litres from the 2000 sq feet terrace every year. My bore well has not gone dry for 15 years," he said. It takes care of his household and the small-scale oil extraction industry he runs.

And his 200 ft bore well yielded enough to let him be charitable last summer. He shared 4000 litres of water with his neighbours.

Prof Purandare is skeptical that latur has come to its senses. It is hard to believe that after years of slacking, the people of Latur have woken up to reality, he says.

LATUR: Driving in Latur at dawn in the last week of May, you see women splashing water on their front yards, and you know that the frightening drought of the year before has been forgotten. Last summer, an aeon ago, this was a town of water queues kept in order by the instrument of Section 144. As water scarcities go, it had been an extraordinary one. An entire train had been commandeered to ply water to these parts, 108 trips by what came to be called the Latur Water Special, each time carrying 25.95 lakh litres to three lakh people in the parched district. The train had opened up possibilities: yes indeed why cant water be carried to deserts? At dawn this summer, the town had gone back to being sleepy. The 360 water tankers that had rumbled about then have now been whittled down to six, operating only to uphill villages where the basalt bedrock allows no percolation to the water table beneath. It could even be claimed as some sort of an achievement, as I was later to be told by the new collector and municipal commissioner of Latur, Sreekanth Sajjan. This year we started using water tankers only in the third week of May, he said. The miracle occurred over a week in mid September last year. A downpour not seen in all of the monsoon months ensured that the annual precipitation figure soared to a record 1110.92 mm, against the 10-year average of 802.13 mm. It had dipped to 413.48 mm in the year of the Latur Water Special. It was some manna from heaven. The Manjara dam filled up and remains substantially turgid today. Ground water levels recorded an average of 1 m rise. Predicatly, Latur was a happy place this summer, the opposite of what they had been in 2016  all for the grace of one burst of the clouds. Anasuya Podare remembers the torrid months last year. She and her husband had moved to Latur after a tiff with their children and took up a servitors jobs at the local Mahalakshmi temple. The 65-year-old woman used to spent three to four hours in queues for one pot of water last year. Now she walks a few metres to the tap and fills up as much as she needs. "I have no count of the money I spent last season to buy water, she says. But here in Marathwada, water shortage is an unforgettable mistress. It indulges you for no more than one season. Even in this summer of unanticipated surplus, there are localities in Latur that are served water once in eight days, plausibly because one of the nine water tanks in the city has gone on the blink. But even in those localities, this years privations are leavened by the experience of last year. Anita Patil, a resident of water-short Revenue Colony, told me she still has to buy water. But its not as bad as last year, whe she had had to spend Rs 3000 per month all of 2016. New to the job, collector Sajjan has to wrestle with the detritus of last years disaster, mainly illegal bore wells that had sprouted in the frenzy of near-famine conditions. "Illegal bore wells and lack of awareness among people are some of the reasons why we are unable to check water wastage, he said. During the high fever of 2016, bore wells had been dug by the hundreds. While no one kept count of the exact number of illegal ones, at least 2000 bore wells were dug in the town, some as deep as 700-800 feet. The groundwater departments rules prescribe a dainty five per square km. As anyone familiar with the hydrography of Marathwada knows, drought is never far away in Latur. Even in this frolicsome summer, you only have to step out of town to meet it. About 11 km east of Latur, in Bhatkeda village, a habitation of 600 families where one branch of the Manjara flows by, there is not a drop of water to drink. After the downpour of September, water had to be released from the Manjara dam and it flooded the village. By January, barely four months later, the Manjara had dried up as always. Marginal farmer Baba Shiekh said, Theres water in this stream for four months a year. The rest of the year, its dry. A 60-year-old farmer, Madhukar Gurame said hes not fooled by the surplus of September 2016. He had never been able to fully irrigate his 14 acres for 15 years. He dug 15 bore wells during that time, some as deep as 650 ft. A SUGARCANE ADDICTION Latur knows its been lucky. Knowing droughts frequent visitations, the state government launched what it called the Jalyukt-Shivar Abhiyaan (JYS) in 2014 with the bold aim of making the district drought-free by 2019. Some 13 different water conservation schemes were announced, involving broadening and deepening of river beds, afforestation, watershed management, rain water harvesting mechanisms, the works. However, local conservaton experts Pradeep Purandare, a retired prof at the Water and Land Management Institute in Aurangabad, are sure they are missing the point as usual. They are digging up river beds, he complained. A river is a discharge zone, not a recharge zone. They need to check the hydrography of the place and study the aquifer status, where it allows filtration and penetration of ground water. All thats not being done. Typical of the thrashing about that a disaster always produces in India, none of the water conservation schemes is being implemented in a scientific manner, Prof Purandare said. There is too much of widening and deepening of nalas and then are no watershed development systems in place either. And then there is the local farmers obsession with water-guzzling sugarcane. Take Kendriya Veerendra Sambhaji Rao, a 49-year-old farmer who owns 20 acres in a village called Patoda, 80 km from Latur. After three years of drought had parched his land and drained his pockets, he still stuck with sugarcane. After that copious September, he sowed 10 acres of sugarcane and 10 acres of soya bean and toor dal. I earn a minimum of Rs 9 lakh from sugarcane, and less than Rs 2 lakh from any of the other crops. There are three sugarcane factories in this taluka and it is a lucrative option for me, he said. So why not? But Prof Purandare has a quarrel with that. Sugarcane is the main reason for the water scarcity endemic in Latur -- bar the odd lucky year. Of the 10 river basins that fall in Marathwada, seven are in deficit with available water less than 3000 cubic metres per hectare. The forest area is only 4 per cent. There are 11 major irrigation projects and all of them have water in a good year. But sugarcane plantations guzzle it all up, he says. In fact, when the Manjara project was designed, it had been mandated that only 3 per cent of the water should be used for sugarcane. Now the actual usage is more like 77 per cent. The government does not want to address this issue. Instead, it comes up with ideas like JYS which would only make it worse, he said. STILL SLOW TO ADOPT RWH Latur is no stranger to the idea of rain water harvesting (RWH). Activist Amol Ravindra Gowande has been advocating it for 15 years. In all of that time, only about 5000 people set up systems on their rooftops. But after last year's drought, 5000 chastened households rushed to sign up. So today, only 10,000 of the one lakh properties in Latur have RWH in place. For a drought-prone city, theres no good reason why the number should be so low. Oil merchant Mohan Pardesi is one of the few converts to RWH. His rooftop mechanism protected him from the Big Dry of 2016, generating 3000 litres of water per day even in the dreadful summer. "We set this up in 2003 with an investment of Rs 6000. I harvest one lakh litres from the 2000 sq feet terrace every year. My bore well has not gone dry for 15 years," he said. It takes care of his household and the small-scale oil extraction industry he runs. And his 200 ft bore well yielded enough to let him be charitable last summer. He shared 4000 litres of water with his neighbours. Prof Purandare is skeptical that latur has come to its senses. It is hard to believe that after years of slacking, the people of Latur have woken up to reality, he says.
Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: After two days of dodging questions, Madhya Pradesh home minister Bhupendra Singh admitted on Thursday that it was police firing that killed five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday afternoon.

The autopsy report and the empty cartridges found at the spot have established that it was bullets fired by the police that killed the farmers, he said.

Ever since five farmers were killed while agitating in Mandsaur district, the home minister of the state had been saying that there were two incidents of firing that day, the first in the Bahi Chowpati area where there was arson and rioting by farmers and the second at the Pipliya Mandi police station. He had said he wasnt sure where exactly the deaths occurred.

Bhupendra Singh also claimed on Tuesday that police opened fire in self-defence after a mob stormed the Pipliya Mandi police station and began destroying property.

He had, however, added that it was unclear as to who had opened fire in the first incident at Bahi Chowpati.

WATCH VIDEO:

Collectors transferred

After deputing senior IPS officers to quell the continuing agitation, the Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday transferred the collectors of three violence-hit districts  Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch.

The superintendents of police of Mandsaur and Neemuch too have been removed.

Madhya Pradesh chief secretary B P Singh issued orders effecting the transfers just a few hours before Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders were to arrive on the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border to visit the slain farmers families in Mandsaur.

The present collector Mandsaur, Swatantra Kumar Singh, has been sent out as the deputy secretary of Bhopal. He will be replaced in Mandsaur by Om Prakash Srivastava.

The present municipal commissioner of Sagar, Kaushalendra Vikram Singh will be the new collector of Neemuch, replacing Rajnish Srivastava, who will be sent abroad on a training sabbatical. The government posted the additional managing director of MP Tourism Development Corporation (MPTDC), Tanvi Sundriyal as the new collector of Ratlam, replacing the incumbent B Chandrasekhar.

According to sources in the state government, the Mandsaur superintendent of police O P Tripathi has been shifted as assistant inspector-general to Police HQ in Bhopal.

The SP of Neemuch district Manoj Singh will be the new Mandsaur SP. Manoj Singhs post in Neemuch will be taken by Tushar Kant Vidyarthi, presently the Railways SP in Bhopal, sources told the New Indian Express.

Curfew relaxed in Mandsaur

The curfew imposed in Pipliyamandi and Mandsaur towns of Mandsaur district on Tuesday was relaxed from 4 pm to 6 pm on Thursday, during which no untoward incident was reported from anywhere. The outgoing Mandsaur SP OP Tripathi said that 62 persons have so far been arrested in connection with seven cases of violence in the district. In the adjoining Dewas district, the police arrested 17 persons in connection with Wednesdays violence on Indore-Bhopal highway and Hatpipliya police station.

Two trucks set Afire, NH-3 blocked

Violence erupted in Shajpur district (158 km from Bhopal and 180 km from Mandsaur) with unruly mob of protesting farmers setting two trucks afire and blocking the Agra-Mumbai National Highway (NH-3). Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the mob, who pelted stones, injuring a sub-divisional magistrate and a few journalists.

BHOPAL: After two days of dodging questions, Madhya Pradesh home minister Bhupendra Singh admitted on Thursday that it was police firing that killed five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday afternoon. The autopsy report and the empty cartridges found at the spot have established that it was bullets fired by the police that killed the farmers, he said. Ever since five farmers were killed while agitating in Mandsaur district, the home minister of the state had been saying that there were two incidents of firing that day, the first in the Bahi Chowpati area where there was arson and rioting by farmers and the second at the Pipliya Mandi police station. He had said he wasnt sure where exactly the deaths occurred. Bhupendra Singh also claimed on Tuesday that police opened fire in self-defence after a mob stormed the Pipliya Mandi police station and began destroying property. He had, however, added that it was unclear as to who had opened fire in the first incident at Bahi Chowpati. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[];window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTQ3Mzc2fHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'100%', ratio:'4:3'});Collectors transferred After deputing senior IPS officers to quell the continuing agitation, the Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday transferred the collectors of three violence-hit districts  Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch. The superintendents of police of Mandsaur and Neemuch too have been removed. Madhya Pradesh chief secretary B P Singh issued orders effecting the transfers just a few hours before Rahul Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders were to arrive on the Madhya Pradesh-Rajasthan border to visit the slain farmers families in Mandsaur. The present collector Mandsaur, Swatantra Kumar Singh, has been sent out as the deputy secretary of Bhopal. He will be replaced in Mandsaur by Om Prakash Srivastava. The present municipal commissioner of Sagar, Kaushalendra Vikram Singh will be the new collector of Neemuch, replacing Rajnish Srivastava, who will be sent abroad on a training sabbatical. The government posted the additional managing director of MP Tourism Development Corporation (MPTDC), Tanvi Sundriyal as the new collector of Ratlam, replacing the incumbent B Chandrasekhar. According to sources in the state government, the Mandsaur superintendent of police O P Tripathi has been shifted as assistant inspector-general to Police HQ in Bhopal. The SP of Neemuch district Manoj Singh will be the new Mandsaur SP. Manoj Singhs post in Neemuch will be taken by Tushar Kant Vidyarthi, presently the Railways SP in Bhopal, sources told the New Indian Express. Curfew relaxed in Mandsaur The curfew imposed in Pipliyamandi and Mandsaur towns of Mandsaur district on Tuesday was relaxed from 4 pm to 6 pm on Thursday, during which no untoward incident was reported from anywhere. The outgoing Mandsaur SP OP Tripathi said that 62 persons have so far been arrested in connection with seven cases of violence in the district. In the adjoining Dewas district, the police arrested 17 persons in connection with Wednesdays violence on Indore-Bhopal highway and Hatpipliya police station. Two trucks set Afire, NH-3 blocked Violence erupted in Shajpur district (158 km from Bhopal and 180 km from Mandsaur) with unruly mob of protesting farmers setting two trucks afire and blocking the Agra-Mumbai National Highway (NH-3). Police had to fire tear gas shells to disperse the mob, who pelted stones, injuring a sub-divisional magistrate and a few journalists.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: In an interaction with ANI, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said that the condition in Kashmir will be normal soon.



This statement of the Army Chief comes at a time when the situation in Kashmir remains volatile with protesters carrying out violent demonstrations against the army, some protests taking place in the middle of active operations launched by security forces against Pakistan sponsored terrorists in the valley.



The Army Chief added social media is an important tool being used by Pakistan to create unrest in Kashmir.

He said, Pakistan is spreading disinformation among the youth of Kashmir with doctored videos and messages. This is further supported by some of the people in the valley who spread it and glamorize the young boys who have joined terrorist organisations.



Government estimates of active terrorists in the valley stand at 200, a marked reduction in numbers as compared to previous years, however, terror groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) have gone for a tactical shift -- vigorous use of social media.



Also on the Government radar are social media networks like WhatsApp groups which aid in the spread of disinformation to stone-pelting protesters.



JuD has taken out advertisements to join its 'workshops' to wage a social media war in Kashmir.



"Join #SocialMedia workshops to know Social Media as an instrument for Kashmir uprise," an advertisement by Cyber Team JuD North Punjab read.



The programme was scheduled in five major cities of Pakistan with the last one being on April 17 this year in Lahore.

NEW DELHI: In an interaction with ANI, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat said that the condition in Kashmir will be normal soon. This statement of the Army Chief comes at a time when the situation in Kashmir remains volatile with protesters carrying out violent demonstrations against the army, some protests taking place in the middle of active operations launched by security forces against Pakistan sponsored terrorists in the valley. The Army Chief added social media is an important tool being used by Pakistan to create unrest in Kashmir. He said, Pakistan is spreading disinformation among the youth of Kashmir with doctored videos and messages. This is further supported by some of the people in the valley who spread it and glamorize the young boys who have joined terrorist organisations. Government estimates of active terrorists in the valley stand at 200, a marked reduction in numbers as compared to previous years, however, terror groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) have gone for a tactical shift -- vigorous use of social media. Also on the Government radar are social media networks like WhatsApp groups which aid in the spread of disinformation to stone-pelting protesters. JuD has taken out advertisements to join its 'workshops' to wage a social media war in Kashmir. "Join #SocialMedia workshops to know Social Media as an instrument for Kashmir uprise," an advertisement by Cyber Team JuD North Punjab read. The programme was scheduled in five major cities of Pakistan with the last one being on April 17 this year in Lahore.
By Online Desk

BHOPAL: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who was detained by the Madhya Pradesh police on Thursday, while on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur, as he tried to defy barricades to gain entry has been released. "Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders have been released," SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said.

He was also allowed by the administration to meet the families of farmers killed in Mandsaur. "After a long struggle, the administration has finally ageed to allow Rahul Gandhi to meet the families of those who were killed in police firing," former Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan told reporters outside the guesthouse where scores of Congress leaders and workers were being kept.

I condemn this incident. I only wanted to stand with farmers and want to assure them that the Congress Party is standing with them. We demanded from the Centre to take strict action against the accused. We will raise this topic in parliament as well, Gandhi told media after meeting with the farmers.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.

WATCH VIDEO

As crowds swelled outside the guesthouse of a cement company where the Congress members were taken, amongst those waiting outside the gates were the families of some of the five killed in the firing in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

The Congress Vice-President, while reacting to his detention, said, "Narendra Modi can waive loans of the country's rich but can't do so for farmers".

SDM Mandsaur N S Rajawat said that the ongoing curfew will be relaxed for women and children from 4 pm to 6 pm in Mandsaur.

Meanwhile, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government earlier in the day transferred the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district which witnessed the death of five farmers in police firing. Mandsaur Collector Swatantra Kumar Singh is transferred as deputy secretary Mantralaya. Singh was replaced with OP Shrivastava, official sources said.



The government also transferred Mandsaur SP, OP Tripathi and posted Manoj Kumar Singh in place of him, the sources added.

So far 62 persons have been detained in connection with the unrest, state police said.

Read: Mandsaur situation almost normal, says Divisional Commissioner

They also added that Town Inspector of Pipliamandi Anil Singh Thakur removed from field duties in connection with the firing.

On the other hand, union minister Venkaiah Naidu, while dismissing demands for CM Shivraj Chouhan's resignation, said that Congress was using the entire incident as a "photo-op".



Farmers had yesterday resorted to violence and arson in western Madhya Pradesh despite prohibitory measures, posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties.

WATCH VIDEO:

Collector Singh and superintendent Tripathi yesterday turned up at Barkheda Pant village, located on NH 79, to console one of the deceased's family.

Even as they were speaking to the bereaved family, some of the mourners started blaming the collector for the firing and ordered Tripathi to remove his cap.

The villagers demanded that inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who allegedly ordered the firing on the agitators, be dismissed, arrested and booked for murder.

The officials tried to speak assuringly but the mood was ugly and someone from the crowd assaulted collector Swatantra Kumar. Some villagers extricated the latter from the mob and he fled the spot.

Swatantra Kumar later denied being assaulted.

Some anti-social elements vitiated the atmosphere, so we had no option but to make a hasty retreat, he said.

FIR has been lodged and some persons were detained in connection with the heckling of Kumar.

In view of the volatile situation, the Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of RAF to the violence-hit state where the farmers have been agitating for loan waiver and better crop prices.



The Chouhan government had sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier.



The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6000 crore, according to the government.

Read: District Magistrates of violence-hit MP districts transferred

Among the major incidents till yesterday, farmers had set fire to three trucks and burnt a warehouse in curfew-bound Bahi Chaupati and Pipliya Mandi areas.

Unconfirmed reports said that mobs pelted stones and attempted arson in Suvasra and Chandukhedi areas of Ujjain.

However, Ujjain Additional director-general of police V Madhu Kumar said these were only sporadic incidents.

As per other reports, farmer groups and Congress supporters took to the streets yesterday to make the farmer unions' bandh successful.

There were reports of roadblocks and protests from Gwalior, Sehore, Harda, Indore, Khandwa, Bhopal, Jhabua and Neemuch districts. Policemen in Ujjain were attacked, while Congress activists stopped trains in Dewas district.

In Indore, the agitating farmer union Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (RKMS) demanded the dismissal of Shivraj Singh Chouhans government and the the imposition of presidents rule.

The Congress MP for Chhindwara, Kamal Nath too urged Chouhan to quit.

In Bhopal, home minister Bhupendra Singh chaired an emergency meeting with senior police officers, including director-general of police Rishi Shukla.

Shivraj Singh Chouhan too convened his council of ministers, and talk was that some major announcements would be made to placate farmers.

On the other hand, the Rashtriya Kisan Majdoor Sangh, which called a statewide bandh yesterday, held a press conference in Indore, where it alleged that not five but eight farmers had died in the police firing.

The unions president Shiv Narayan Sharma Kakkaji alleged that policemen deliberately set fire to vehicles to serve as a ruse to open fire on farmers, killing not five but eight of them.

He also announced that the farmers stir, originally slated to go on for 10 days up to June 10, will now continue beyond that date.

Ill go to Delhi to meet the representatives of 68 farmer bodies. It will no longer be just a statewide protest, but will be turned into a national movement by farmers. After June 10 well start a Jail Bharo Andolan, said Sharma.

Another RKMS leader Trilok Chand said the Patidar community would teach a lesson to the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh.

Importantly, there was even the news that Hardik Patel, the Patidar leader from Gujarat, was likely to turn up in Mandsaur soon.

(With Inputs from PTI and ENS)

BHOPAL: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who was detained by the Madhya Pradesh police on Thursday, while on his way to violence-hit Mandsaur, as he tried to defy barricades to gain entry has been released. "Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders have been released," SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said. He was also allowed by the administration to meet the families of farmers killed in Mandsaur. "After a long struggle, the administration has finally ageed to allow Rahul Gandhi to meet the families of those who were killed in police firing," former Congress MP Meenakshi Natarajan told reporters outside the guesthouse where scores of Congress leaders and workers were being kept. I condemn this incident. I only wanted to stand with farmers and want to assure them that the Congress Party is standing with them. We demanded from the Centre to take strict action against the accused. We will raise this topic in parliament as well, Gandhi told media after meeting with the farmers. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace. WATCH VIDEO As crowds swelled outside the guesthouse of a cement company where the Congress members were taken, amongst those waiting outside the gates were the families of some of the five killed in the firing in Mandsaur on Tuesday. The Congress Vice-President, while reacting to his detention, said, "Narendra Modi can waive loans of the country's rich but can't do so for farmers". SDM Mandsaur N S Rajawat said that the ongoing curfew will be relaxed for women and children from 4 pm to 6 pm in Mandsaur. Meanwhile, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government earlier in the day transferred the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district which witnessed the death of five farmers in police firing. Mandsaur Collector Swatantra Kumar Singh is transferred as deputy secretary Mantralaya. Singh was replaced with OP Shrivastava, official sources said. The government also transferred Mandsaur SP, OP Tripathi and posted Manoj Kumar Singh in place of him, the sources added. So far 62 persons have been detained in connection with the unrest, state police said. Read: Mandsaur situation almost normal, says Divisional Commissioner They also added that Town Inspector of Pipliamandi Anil Singh Thakur removed from field duties in connection with the firing. On the other hand, union minister Venkaiah Naidu, while dismissing demands for CM Shivraj Chouhan's resignation, said that Congress was using the entire incident as a "photo-op". Farmers had yesterday resorted to violence and arson in western Madhya Pradesh despite prohibitory measures, posing a major challenge for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and providing a rallying point for the opposition parties. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[];window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTQ3NDc0fHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'405', height:'325'});Collector Singh and superintendent Tripathi yesterday turned up at Barkheda Pant village, located on NH 79, to console one of the deceased's family. Even as they were speaking to the bereaved family, some of the mourners started blaming the collector for the firing and ordered Tripathi to remove his cap. The villagers demanded that inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who allegedly ordered the firing on the agitators, be dismissed, arrested and booked for murder. The officials tried to speak assuringly but the mood was ugly and someone from the crowd assaulted collector Swatantra Kumar. Some villagers extricated the latter from the mob and he fled the spot. Swatantra Kumar later denied being assaulted. Some anti-social elements vitiated the atmosphere, so we had no option but to make a hasty retreat, he said. FIR has been lodged and some persons were detained in connection with the heckling of Kumar. In view of the volatile situation, the Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of RAF to the violence-hit state where the farmers have been agitating for loan waiver and better crop prices. The Chouhan government had sought to cool the tempers by announcing certain measures, including a loan settlement scheme for those cultivators who had defaulted on repayment of farm loan borrowed by them earlier. The scheme will cover around six lakh farmers, with accumulated dues of Rs 6000 crore, according to the government. Read: District Magistrates of violence-hit MP districts transferred Among the major incidents till yesterday, farmers had set fire to three trucks and burnt a warehouse in curfew-bound Bahi Chaupati and Pipliya Mandi areas. Unconfirmed reports said that mobs pelted stones and attempted arson in Suvasra and Chandukhedi areas of Ujjain. However, Ujjain Additional director-general of police V Madhu Kumar said these were only sporadic incidents. As per other reports, farmer groups and Congress supporters took to the streets yesterday to make the farmer unions' bandh successful. There were reports of roadblocks and protests from Gwalior, Sehore, Harda, Indore, Khandwa, Bhopal, Jhabua and Neemuch districts. Policemen in Ujjain were attacked, while Congress activists stopped trains in Dewas district. In Indore, the agitating farmer union Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (RKMS) demanded the dismissal of Shivraj Singh Chouhans government and the the imposition of presidents rule. The Congress MP for Chhindwara, Kamal Nath too urged Chouhan to quit. In Bhopal, home minister Bhupendra Singh chaired an emergency meeting with senior police officers, including director-general of police Rishi Shukla. Shivraj Singh Chouhan too convened his council of ministers, and talk was that some major announcements would be made to placate farmers. On the other hand, the Rashtriya Kisan Majdoor Sangh, which called a statewide bandh yesterday, held a press conference in Indore, where it alleged that not five but eight farmers had died in the police firing. The unions president Shiv Narayan Sharma Kakkaji alleged that policemen deliberately set fire to vehicles to serve as a ruse to open fire on farmers, killing not five but eight of them. He also announced that the farmers stir, originally slated to go on for 10 days up to June 10, will now continue beyond that date. Ill go to Delhi to meet the representatives of 68 farmer bodies. It will no longer be just a statewide protest, but will be turned into a national movement by farmers. After June 10 well start a Jail Bharo Andolan, said Sharma. Another RKMS leader Trilok Chand said the Patidar community would teach a lesson to the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh. Importantly, there was even the news that Hardik Patel, the Patidar leader from Gujarat, was likely to turn up in Mandsaur soon. (With Inputs from PTI and ENS)
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: While there will no formal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan, sources indicated that he is likely to meet his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the summit.

There is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between PM Modi and the Chinese President at SCO Astana, but nothing is confirmed as of now, an MEA official said.

A day before the leaving for the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to deepening Indias association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a summit of the six nations.

During the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will be become full members of the Eurasian group comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Modi said India had long-standing relations with the SCO members and he looked forward to progressing them further through the grouping for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people.

I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things, he said in his pre-departure statement.

PM Modi said at this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP. We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting of the SCO last year, he said.

Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realizing our full potential, he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo which has the theme Future Energy.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO.

NEW DELHI: While there will no formal meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstan, sources indicated that he is likely to meet his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the summit. There is a possibility of a bilateral meeting between PM Modi and the Chinese President at SCO Astana, but nothing is confirmed as of now, an MEA official said. A day before the leaving for the summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to deepening Indias association with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a summit of the six nations. During the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will be become full members of the Eurasian group comprising China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Modi said India had long-standing relations with the SCO members and he looked forward to progressing them further through the grouping for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our people. I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things, he said in his pre-departure statement. PM Modi said at this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP. We launched the process of full membership in Tashkent meeting of the SCO last year, he said. Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realizing our full potential, he added. On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo which has the theme Future Energy. With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO.
By PTI

BHOPAL: While curfew-bound Mandsaur district was relatively peaceful, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of Madhya Pradesh as protests spilled over to new places on the eighth day of the farmers' stir.

While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time.

District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting. She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements.

Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur. Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC.

In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district. Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added. A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district.

The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls. According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators.

In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's effigy to a tree near Sanodha village. The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful. In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterday's violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area.

Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans. In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains.

Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the party's state headquarters.

Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district. In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said.

Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent.

While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time.

District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP).

The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting. She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements. Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur.

Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC. In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district.

Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added.

A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district. The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls.

According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators. In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's effigy to a tree near Sanodha village. The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state.

A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful. In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterday's violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area.

Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans.

In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains. Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today.

In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the party's state headquarters. Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district.

In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said.

Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent.

BHOPAL: While curfew-bound Mandsaur district was relatively peaceful, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of Madhya Pradesh as protests spilled over to new places on the eighth day of the farmers' stir. While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time. District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP). The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting. She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements. Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur. Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC. In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district. Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added. A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district. The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls. According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators. In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's effigy to a tree near Sanodha village. The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state. A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful. In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterday's violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area. Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans. In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains. Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the party's state headquarters. Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district. In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said. Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent. While a truck and two motorbikes were torched by protesters on the Mumbai-Agra highway (NH-3) in Shajapur district, stones were hurled at police personnel in Shajapur town, which witnessed the farmers' unrest for the first time. District collector Alka Shrivastava said protesters pelted stones at police and set ablaze a truck and two motorbikes even though the administration agreed to their demand to stop purchase of onions at the prevailing Minimum Support Price (MSP). The collector said Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) Rajesh Yadav was injured in the stone pelting. She added that the incident was a conspiracy hatched by some anti-social elements. Police lobbed tear gas shells and cane-charged protesters after a stone-pelting incident near the local market in Shajapur. Following the incident, prohibitory orders were imposed in Shajapur town under Section 144 of the CrPC. In Dhar district, protesters set a truck on fire near Phulgawdi village, about 40 km from the district headquarter, on Indore-Ahmedabad road. They also blocked the road at Bandhedi village in the district. Dhar superintendent of police Birendra Singh said the fire was immediately doused by fire tenders. "We will take action against the trouble-makers," he added. A bandh called by the Congress remained peaceful in Gandhwani and Kukshi towns in Dhar district. The Bhopal-Jabalpur highway (NH 12) remained blocked for hours at Panjra village near Udaipura in Raisen district, causing massive traffic snarls. According to eyewitnesses, police personnel present at the spot remained mute spectators. In Sagar district in Bundelkhand region, protesters blocked Sagar-Jabalpur road and hanged chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's effigy to a tree near Sanodha village. The agitation also spread to Chhindwara district in Mahakoshal region of the state. A bandh called by the Congress in Saunsar town of the district remained peaceful. In Dewas district, the district administration has clamped prohibitory orders in the wake of yesterday's violence in which 12 vehicles, including four passenger buses, were set on fire in Newri Phata area. Dewas district collector Ashutosh Awasthi has issued an order asking petrol pump operators to stop selling fuel in bottles and cans. In Guna district, police arrested 90 Congress workers when they were marching to the railway station in a bid to stop trains. Congress workers also staged demonstrations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, and in Mandi Bamora of Vidisha district against the preventive detention of party vice-president Rahul Gandhi today. In Bhopal, Congress workers staged a protest outside the party's state headquarters. Protesters also tried to stop Bhopal-Bilaspur Express at Mandi Bamora town in Vidisha district. In Mandsaur, the epicentre of the violence, rail movement resumed today from the railway station, a day after the rail traffic was suspended in view of the safety of passengers, Western Railway official Jitendra Kumar Jayant said. Farmers in Mandsaur have been protesting since June 1 demanding loan waiver and better crop prices. Five farmers were killed in police firing on Tuesday as the agitation turned violent.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRINAGAR: Army on Thursday said troops thwarted attempts by Pakistan army to push militants into Jammu and Kashmir by foiling four infiltration bids of militants along Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir in last 48 hours and killing seven heavily armed militants while a soldier also died in the gunfight.

In this year, army has foiled 22 infiltration attempts by militants along LoC in the State by killing 34 militants.

Defence spokesman in Srinagar said alert army men foiled an infiltration bid along Naugam sector in border district of Kupwara today.

He said the army men killed three militants and recovered three weapons and other war-like stores from their possession.

A soldier was also killed in the gunfight and the combing operation was going on, he said.

Armys Northern command spokesman said Naugam bid was the 4th infiltration bid of militants foiled by soldiers along LoC in Kashmir in last 48 hours.

Also Read: Cordon and search operation in Kashmir's Pahalgam

He said apart from Naugam sector, the infiltration bids have been foiled in Machil, Gurez and Uri sectors.

Four armed militants were killed in the Machil sector, where infiltration bid was foiled yesterday, the spokesman said adding large cache of arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants.

He said the troops, who are on highest level of alert, foiled the infiltration bid of militants in Gurez sector.

The prompt action forced the infiltrating militants to escape back to other side of LoC leaving behind rucksacks, he said.

The spokesman said another infiltration bid was foiled in Uri sector of North Kashmirs Baramulla district.

The combing operation in the area is going on, he said.

The spokesman said the militant groups were being provided active support including covering fire from heavily calibre artillery by the Pakistani army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Valley for causing disturbance in the State.

According to army official, the infiltration bids by militants have increased in the wake of melting of snow in the upper reaches along the LoC.

Once the snow starts melting, infiltration attempts by militants pick up as Pakistan army wants to push them into the Valley. The army is alert to deal with any situation and the counter infiltration grid along the LoC has been strengthened by deploying more sophisticated gadgets to detect movement of militants, he said.

The Northern command spokesman said 22 infiltration attempts of militants have been foiled along the LoC in the State this year. 34 armed militants have been killed while foiling these bids.

He said relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramadan.

SRINAGAR: Army on Thursday said troops thwarted attempts by Pakistan army to push militants into Jammu and Kashmir by foiling four infiltration bids of militants along Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir in last 48 hours and killing seven heavily armed militants while a soldier also died in the gunfight. In this year, army has foiled 22 infiltration attempts by militants along LoC in the State by killing 34 militants. Defence spokesman in Srinagar said alert army men foiled an infiltration bid along Naugam sector in border district of Kupwara today. He said the army men killed three militants and recovered three weapons and other war-like stores from their possession. A soldier was also killed in the gunfight and the combing operation was going on, he said. Armys Northern command spokesman said Naugam bid was the 4th infiltration bid of militants foiled by soldiers along LoC in Kashmir in last 48 hours. Also Read: Cordon and search operation in Kashmir's Pahalgam He said apart from Naugam sector, the infiltration bids have been foiled in Machil, Gurez and Uri sectors. Four armed militants were killed in the Machil sector, where infiltration bid was foiled yesterday, the spokesman said adding large cache of arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants. He said the troops, who are on highest level of alert, foiled the infiltration bid of militants in Gurez sector. The prompt action forced the infiltrating militants to escape back to other side of LoC leaving behind rucksacks, he said. The spokesman said another infiltration bid was foiled in Uri sector of North Kashmirs Baramulla district. The combing operation in the area is going on, he said. The spokesman said the militant groups were being provided active support including covering fire from heavily calibre artillery by the Pakistani army posts on the LoC to assist them in infiltration into the Valley for causing disturbance in the State. According to army official, the infiltration bids by militants have increased in the wake of melting of snow in the upper reaches along the LoC. Once the snow starts melting, infiltration attempts by militants pick up as Pakistan army wants to push them into the Valley. The army is alert to deal with any situation and the counter infiltration grid along the LoC has been strengthened by deploying more sophisticated gadgets to detect movement of militants, he said. The Northern command spokesman said 22 infiltration attempts of militants have been foiled along the LoC in the State this year. 34 armed militants have been killed while foiling these bids. He said relentless operations by security forces have defeated desperate attempts by Pakistan and its agents to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir during the holy month of Ramadan.
Sumit Kumar By

US President Trump finally decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement on June 1. Trump said, In order to fulfil my solemn duty to the United States and its citizens, the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accords or a really entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States.

The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, signed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims at strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The United States and other 196 countries had committed themselves to the accord.

Although the agreement sent a positive signal across the globe about the need to combat climate change, Trump and many US citizens criticised former President Obamas decision to become a signatory of the accord. Even the Speaker of House of Representatives Paul Ryan support Trump on this issue, saying Paris agreement was simply a raw deal for America.

During the presidential election campaign, Trump had promised that he would pull the United States out of the Paris accord if elected. His election as the president consequently saw Trump harden his position. It was therefore only a matter of time before Trump would make a formal announcement to quit the Paris Agreement. So, the decision to quit was not a surprise. What was shocking was Trumps justification for the move.

Trump says that quitting the accord will revive the coal sector. Ever since the start of the US election campaign, many Republican lawmakers, coal companies, think tanks and others had brainwashed Trump into believing that the agreement would damage any prospect of reviving the coal sector which is facing a deplorable situation. In fact, three companies iron-ore miner Cliffs Natural Recourses Inc., and coal miners Murray Energy Corp., and Peabody Energy Crop welcomed Trumps decision.

But Trumps move might not help the coal sector spring back on its feet, because the demand for coal itself is falling as it is being replaced by cheap and abundant natural gas. Also, reviving the coal sector does not mean more jobs. Technology is replacing miners and in countries like Australia, self-driving trucks have already been tested in coal mines. The coal industry in the US employed about 2,42,000 people in 1980. But now, fewer than 1,00,000 people work in the industry although production rose by 8 per cent.

Similarly, Trump says that he wants the US to take back control. Such flimsy arguments do not hold water because the Paris Agreement is not legally binding. In fact, all member countries can modify their commitment to the agreement in line with their national interests and it is not necessary for them to exit the agreement at all.

So at best, Trumps motivating factors for quitting the accord could be misinformed advisors and his pathological hatred for Obama. But apart from all this, does the US president even believe in climate change? We have heard Trump repeatedly call climate change a hoax. Even when he announced Americas exit from the Paris agreement, he did not tell anything about his stand on the issue of climate change. Only recently, Nikki Haley, Americas ambassador to the UN, said Trump believed in global warming. Then, why did he quit the Paris Agreement? Whatever has been the motive behind Trumps decision, there is no doubt about the fact that at a time when countries are struggling to develop the means to address climate change, the US presidents act will make this planet more vulnerable. Following Trump, other countries may also decide to abandon this agreement.

However, the possibility of that happening is very remote as many countries which have signed the Paris Agreement have expressed their strong commitment to combat climate change. Germany, France, and Italy have also strongly condemned Trumps decision and announced that the Paris accord cannot be renegotiated. Apart from other nations affirming their commitment to the accord, many states in the US itself have criticised Trumps move. Only yesterday, California signed a climate agreement with China.

India is equally concerned about global warming, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi playing a crucial role in signing the agreement. Right after Trumps announcement, Modi vowed India would go above and beyond the Paris Agreement.

Trump had even claimed that India signed the accord to receive billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj strongly objected to this statement. She further mentioned that it is not out of greed that India is a party to this agreement. In fact, protecting the environment is embedded in Indias culture. According to a recent research by Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis produced by three research organisations tracking climate action since 2009, India and China would easily exceed the targets set in the Paris agreement.

India is expected to obtain 40 per cent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2022, eight years ahead of schedule.

Thus, Trumps statement about India and the Paris accord has clearly reflected his poor knowledge about the issue. While many countries want to ensure that the US withdrawal does not adversely impact their efforts to protect the planet, it may also be hoped that the Trump administration would revisit its decision and rejoin the accord before the US eventually exits in 2019.

Sumit Kumar is with the UGC Centre for Southern Asia Studies

Email: sumitjha83@gmail.com

US President Trump finally decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement on June 1. Trump said, In order to fulfil my solemn duty to the United States and its citizens, the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin negotiations to re-enter either the Paris accords or a really entirely new transaction, on terms that are fair to the United States. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, signed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, aims at strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The United States and other 196 countries had committed themselves to the accord. Although the agreement sent a positive signal across the globe about the need to combat climate change, Trump and many US citizens criticised former President Obamas decision to become a signatory of the accord. Even the Speaker of House of Representatives Paul Ryan support Trump on this issue, saying Paris agreement was simply a raw deal for America. During the presidential election campaign, Trump had promised that he would pull the United States out of the Paris accord if elected. His election as the president consequently saw Trump harden his position. It was therefore only a matter of time before Trump would make a formal announcement to quit the Paris Agreement. So, the decision to quit was not a surprise. What was shocking was Trumps justification for the move. Trump says that quitting the accord will revive the coal sector. Ever since the start of the US election campaign, many Republican lawmakers, coal companies, think tanks and others had brainwashed Trump into believing that the agreement would damage any prospect of reviving the coal sector which is facing a deplorable situation. In fact, three companies iron-ore miner Cliffs Natural Recourses Inc., and coal miners Murray Energy Corp., and Peabody Energy Crop welcomed Trumps decision. But Trumps move might not help the coal sector spring back on its feet, because the demand for coal itself is falling as it is being replaced by cheap and abundant natural gas. Also, reviving the coal sector does not mean more jobs. Technology is replacing miners and in countries like Australia, self-driving trucks have already been tested in coal mines. The coal industry in the US employed about 2,42,000 people in 1980. But now, fewer than 1,00,000 people work in the industry although production rose by 8 per cent. Similarly, Trump says that he wants the US to take back control. Such flimsy arguments do not hold water because the Paris Agreement is not legally binding. In fact, all member countries can modify their commitment to the agreement in line with their national interests and it is not necessary for them to exit the agreement at all. So at best, Trumps motivating factors for quitting the accord could be misinformed advisors and his pathological hatred for Obama. But apart from all this, does the US president even believe in climate change? We have heard Trump repeatedly call climate change a hoax. Even when he announced Americas exit from the Paris agreement, he did not tell anything about his stand on the issue of climate change. Only recently, Nikki Haley, Americas ambassador to the UN, said Trump believed in global warming. Then, why did he quit the Paris Agreement? Whatever has been the motive behind Trumps decision, there is no doubt about the fact that at a time when countries are struggling to develop the means to address climate change, the US presidents act will make this planet more vulnerable. Following Trump, other countries may also decide to abandon this agreement. However, the possibility of that happening is very remote as many countries which have signed the Paris Agreement have expressed their strong commitment to combat climate change. Germany, France, and Italy have also strongly condemned Trumps decision and announced that the Paris accord cannot be renegotiated. Apart from other nations affirming their commitment to the accord, many states in the US itself have criticised Trumps move. Only yesterday, California signed a climate agreement with China. India is equally concerned about global warming, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi playing a crucial role in signing the agreement. Right after Trumps announcement, Modi vowed India would go above and beyond the Paris Agreement. Trump had even claimed that India signed the accord to receive billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj strongly objected to this statement. She further mentioned that it is not out of greed that India is a party to this agreement. In fact, protecting the environment is embedded in Indias culture. According to a recent research by Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis produced by three research organisations tracking climate action since 2009, India and China would easily exceed the targets set in the Paris agreement. India is expected to obtain 40 per cent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2022, eight years ahead of schedule. Thus, Trumps statement about India and the Paris accord has clearly reflected his poor knowledge about the issue. While many countries want to ensure that the US withdrawal does not adversely impact their efforts to protect the planet, it may also be hoped that the Trump administration would revisit its decision and rejoin the accord before the US eventually exits in 2019. Sumit Kumar is with the UGC Centre for Southern Asia StudiesEmail: sumitjha83@gmail.com
Akram Mohammed By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: One for the road will soon be a thing of the past. For instance, tech-hub Electronic City might soon find its bars and pubs shutting shop or shifting elsewhere. This is because several establishments along the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway, popularly known as Hosur Road, will have to close as per the apex court direction. Similar fate awaits other bars and restaurants, pubs and MRP outlets along other Highways.

In December 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that no establishment would be permitted to sell alcohol if it was within 500 metres of a national or state highway.

Also Read: SC liquor ban: Karnataka moves to denotify highways

Establishments along Tumakuru Road and Bellary Road, both National Highways, are yet to have any clarity on whether their establishments will be allowed to operate after June 30  when the licence period of all liquor vendors ends. However, some States implemented the ban in April itself.

According to a representative of a 5-star hotel along Tumakuru Road, they will wait till June 20 for all the confusion around the issue to clear. Though the five-star hotel sits along the Highway, the representative said that they had applied for renewal of their licence. There is no clear black and white document as of now regarding what we are supposed to do, he said.

Adding to the confusion is the manner in which the Excise Department has served notices across the four excise districts in Bengaluru Urban district.

While bars along Hosur Road, a highway, have been directed to shut down, others in different excise districts in the city are not sure of their fate. Bar owners, meanwhile, have pinned their hopes on the State government.

Apart from the logistics involved in shifting, owners complained about the difficulty in finding commercial space for rent even if they decide to shift.

Rajkumar Reddy, who owns an MRP outlet at Bommanahalli along Hosur Road, told Express that the local excise officials have served notices to two of the five bars owned by their family. While we are forced to relocate the shop at Bommanahalli, we are awaiting the state government decision on the MRP outlet along Bannerghatta Road, which is a State Highway, he said.

Lakshman R, who also owns a bar on Hosur Road, listed the difficulties involved in shifting. It requires brand new infrastructure. While my old outlet cost Rs 30,000 rent, the new shop near BTM  where I am shifting to  will cost Rs 1 lakh in rent alone, he said.

According to Lokesh, president of Bengaluru District Wine Merchants Association, the notices are served randomly. Pointing out that no notices have been served along Tumakuru Road and Ballari Road, he said that in some areas bars have been asked to close, even though they are not near any highway. Claiming that Mysuru Road starts from Chamarajapet, a few bars near the area have been served notices, he said.

He blamed the lack of information and coordination between different departments for the confusion. It appears that Excise officials are not aware where National and State Highways begin or end, he added.

The major state and national highway stretches in Bengaluru include Poona-Bengaluru, Bengaluru-Chennai, Bengaluru-Mangaluru, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, besides state highways, which include Bengaluru-Mysuru, Yelahanka-Kudumalakunte, and Kanankapura-Bengaluru-Pavagada.

400 stores to down shutter in Belagavi

Some 400 liquor shops near national and state highways in Belagavi district will soon have to shut shop. A total of 650 bars have their licences issued by the Excise Department in Belagavi.

According to sources, the ban will hit liquor shops and bars from Bachi Raichur Highway (near Shankam) to Ashok Circle, Sangolli Rayanna Circle, Chenamma Circle and Club Road. Bars in Camp Fish Market, Khanapur Road, Peeranwadi and near Khanapur will also be affected as they are on NH 4A.

We didnt get notices

Come July, 199 liquor shops in Hubballi will have to down their shutters. A majority of them (179) are in Hubballi-Dharwad. A senior official in the excise department said notices have been issued to liquor shop owners, informing them that June 30 will be their last day of business. If they fail to relocate, they have to surrender their licences. They can renew it after relocation by paying a fee, the official said.

However, bar owners say they have not received any such notice. Hubballi Bar and Hotel Owners Association president Srikant Habeeb said they have no option but to comply but added there has been no notice from the government.

No one wants to move

Of the 82 liquor stores and bars in Tumakuru city corporation limits, only 15 will survive. These 15 are alongside railway tracks, in residential areas and on the busy Mahatma Gandhi Road.

On July 1, as many as 67 shops will be shut down if they fail to relocate. But looks like nobody wants to relocate. Deputy Superintendent of Excise, J Giri, said, If they want to relocate, they need to apply for a permission. So far no one has approached us in this regard.

Yadunath, an owner of two bars, said, Who will come for a drink if we relocate to a secluded place? We will loose out on business.

A big blow to outlets in coastal areas

The coastal area is the second largest consumer of liquor in the state after Bengaluru. The highways NH 75 (towards Bengaluru), NH 66 (towards Mumbai) and NH 169 towards Kolhapur are dotted with bars and liquor stores.

Former general secretary of the Wine Merchants Association of Dakshina Kannada, Sundar Shetty said, Licences to run liquor outlets and bars near highways are cheaper. Now, if the traders have to move 500m away from the highway (as per the rule), they have to pay heavier fees.

However, some have taken the court decision well. Sudhakar Shetty, a licence holder on Kalladka near NH 75, says he will now shut his liquor business and open a restaurant instead.

Tourism in heritage city to take a beating

The industry that will take the most beating in Mysuru will be tourism. As many as 236 liquor outlets will have to face the brunt, of which some 150 are in Mysuru city.

On NH 275 alone (Bantwal to Bengaluru city), there are 106 liquor shops. There are 60 more in neighbouring Mandya district. All these will have to shut.

State Hotel Owners Association president Rajendra said the hotels will suffer as they have made huge investments in liquor licences. It will be almost impossible for them to shift elsewhere. Also, it is the small liquor shops from where most people buy alcohol, he said. There are also many clubs on NH 766 towards Kozhikode. But with the clubs going dry too, these will be less attractive to people in Mysuru city.

BENGALURU: One for the road will soon be a thing of the past. For instance, tech-hub Electronic City might soon find its bars and pubs shutting shop or shifting elsewhere. This is because several establishments along the Chennai-Bengaluru Highway, popularly known as Hosur Road, will have to close as per the apex court direction. Similar fate awaits other bars and restaurants, pubs and MRP outlets along other Highways. In December 2016, the Supreme Court ordered that no establishment would be permitted to sell alcohol if it was within 500 metres of a national or state highway. Also Read: SC liquor ban: Karnataka moves to denotify highways Establishments along Tumakuru Road and Bellary Road, both National Highways, are yet to have any clarity on whether their establishments will be allowed to operate after June 30  when the licence period of all liquor vendors ends. However, some States implemented the ban in April itself. According to a representative of a 5-star hotel along Tumakuru Road, they will wait till June 20 for all the confusion around the issue to clear. Though the five-star hotel sits along the Highway, the representative said that they had applied for renewal of their licence. There is no clear black and white document as of now regarding what we are supposed to do, he said. Adding to the confusion is the manner in which the Excise Department has served notices across the four excise districts in Bengaluru Urban district. While bars along Hosur Road, a highway, have been directed to shut down, others in different excise districts in the city are not sure of their fate. Bar owners, meanwhile, have pinned their hopes on the State government. Apart from the logistics involved in shifting, owners complained about the difficulty in finding commercial space for rent even if they decide to shift. Rajkumar Reddy, who owns an MRP outlet at Bommanahalli along Hosur Road, told Express that the local excise officials have served notices to two of the five bars owned by their family. While we are forced to relocate the shop at Bommanahalli, we are awaiting the state government decision on the MRP outlet along Bannerghatta Road, which is a State Highway, he said. Lakshman R, who also owns a bar on Hosur Road, listed the difficulties involved in shifting. It requires brand new infrastructure. While my old outlet cost Rs 30,000 rent, the new shop near BTM  where I am shifting to  will cost Rs 1 lakh in rent alone, he said. According to Lokesh, president of Bengaluru District Wine Merchants Association, the notices are served randomly. Pointing out that no notices have been served along Tumakuru Road and Ballari Road, he said that in some areas bars have been asked to close, even though they are not near any highway. Claiming that Mysuru Road starts from Chamarajapet, a few bars near the area have been served notices, he said. He blamed the lack of information and coordination between different departments for the confusion. It appears that Excise officials are not aware where National and State Highways begin or end, he added. The major state and national highway stretches in Bengaluru include Poona-Bengaluru, Bengaluru-Chennai, Bengaluru-Mangaluru, Bengaluru-Hyderabad, besides state highways, which include Bengaluru-Mysuru, Yelahanka-Kudumalakunte, and Kanankapura-Bengaluru-Pavagada. 400 stores to down shutter in Belagavi Some 400 liquor shops near national and state highways in Belagavi district will soon have to shut shop. A total of 650 bars have their licences issued by the Excise Department in Belagavi. According to sources, the ban will hit liquor shops and bars from Bachi Raichur Highway (near Shankam) to Ashok Circle, Sangolli Rayanna Circle, Chenamma Circle and Club Road. Bars in Camp Fish Market, Khanapur Road, Peeranwadi and near Khanapur will also be affected as they are on NH 4A. We didnt get notices Come July, 199 liquor shops in Hubballi will have to down their shutters. A majority of them (179) are in Hubballi-Dharwad. A senior official in the excise department said notices have been issued to liquor shop owners, informing them that June 30 will be their last day of business. If they fail to relocate, they have to surrender their licences. They can renew it after relocation by paying a fee, the official said. However, bar owners say they have not received any such notice. Hubballi Bar and Hotel Owners Association president Srikant Habeeb said they have no option but to comply but added there has been no notice from the government. No one wants to move Of the 82 liquor stores and bars in Tumakuru city corporation limits, only 15 will survive. These 15 are alongside railway tracks, in residential areas and on the busy Mahatma Gandhi Road. On July 1, as many as 67 shops will be shut down if they fail to relocate. But looks like nobody wants to relocate. Deputy Superintendent of Excise, J Giri, said, If they want to relocate, they need to apply for a permission. So far no one has approached us in this regard. Yadunath, an owner of two bars, said, Who will come for a drink if we relocate to a secluded place? We will loose out on business. A big blow to outlets in coastal areas The coastal area is the second largest consumer of liquor in the state after Bengaluru. The highways NH 75 (towards Bengaluru), NH 66 (towards Mumbai) and NH 169 towards Kolhapur are dotted with bars and liquor stores. Former general secretary of the Wine Merchants Association of Dakshina Kannada, Sundar Shetty said, Licences to run liquor outlets and bars near highways are cheaper. Now, if the traders have to move 500m away from the highway (as per the rule), they have to pay heavier fees. However, some have taken the court decision well. Sudhakar Shetty, a licence holder on Kalladka near NH 75, says he will now shut his liquor business and open a restaurant instead. Tourism in heritage city to take a beating The industry that will take the most beating in Mysuru will be tourism. As many as 236 liquor outlets will have to face the brunt, of which some 150 are in Mysuru city. On NH 275 alone (Bantwal to Bengaluru city), there are 106 liquor shops. There are 60 more in neighbouring Mandya district. All these will have to shut. State Hotel Owners Association president Rajendra said the hotels will suffer as they have made huge investments in liquor licences. It will be almost impossible for them to shift elsewhere. Also, it is the small liquor shops from where most people buy alcohol, he said. There are also many clubs on NH 766 towards Kozhikode. But with the clubs going dry too, these will be less attractive to people in Mysuru city.
By Reuters

DUBAI/SYDNEY: Qatari nationals will not be allowed to board flights to Dubai or Abu Dhabi because the United Arab Emirates has banned them from passing through its airports after Arab powers cut ties with Qatar, Etihad Airways said on Wednesday.

Foreigners living in Qatar with residence visas will no longer be eligible for visas on arrival into the United Arab Emirates, a spokesman for Etihad Airways added.

Several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, cut ties with the tiny Gulf state on Monday over what they say is Qatar's support for terrorism, an accusation Qatar vehemently denies.

WATCH VIDEO:

The United Arab Emirates had already said Qatari nationals would not be allowed to enter the country or cross its points of entry, although the practical effects on airline passengers had been unclear until now.

Qatari nationals will now not be allowed to pass through airports in the UAE even to change planes.

"This ruling applies to all airlines flying into the UAE, including Etihad Airways," the Abu Dhabi-based airline said.

The transit ban on Qataris is stricter than restrictions on Israeli passport holders who are allowed up to 24 hours to change planes at UAE airports, even though Israel and the United Arab Emirates lack diplomatic relations.

Emirates, which has its hub in Dubai, did not respond to a request for comment. Qantas Airways, a codeshare partner of Emirates, said it would not carry Qatari nationals on its flights to Dubai due to the government restrictions.

QATAR AIRWAYS HIT HARD

OPSGROUP, an industry flight operations service, said it had advised airlines of a series of restrictions on Qatari nationals, including a ban on transit through the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Qatar Airways has cancelled all of its flights to those countries, which had averaged 55 a day before the diplomatic dispute, according to analysis published by CAPA Centre for Aviation. The airline's website says it has offered refunds or rebookings to affected passengers.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been Qatar Airways' largest markets by the number of available seats and the loss of the four Arab markets could lead to a double-digit revenue decline for the carrier, CAPA said.

"A more long-term effect will be that passengers will shy away from booking with Qatar Airways," Leeham Co analyst Bjorn Ferhm said in a note published on Wednesday.

"This is the strongest accusation to date of Qatar being connected with terrorism. Many travellers and corporate accounts could blacklist Qatar Airways."

Qatar Airways did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Indonesia on Wednesday said it had diverted Muslim pilgrims to Saudi Arabia to other airlines. An Islamic Religious Council of Singapore spokesman said alternative flights to Saudi Arabia were being sought, with less than 200 people affected.

Saudi Arabia and Bahrain revoked the licences of Qatar Airways on Tuesday and ordered its offices to be closed within 48 hours.

The transit restrictions follow from the cutting of all transport links with Qatar as part of the coordinated action. The rift has affected global oil prices, hit travel plans and sown confusion among businesses.

DUBAI/SYDNEY: Qatari nationals will not be allowed to board flights to Dubai or Abu Dhabi because the United Arab Emirates has banned them from passing through its airports after Arab powers cut ties with Qatar, Etihad Airways said on Wednesday. Foreigners living in Qatar with residence visas will no longer be eligible for visas on arrival into the United Arab Emirates, a spokesman for Etihad Airways added. Several Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, cut ties with the tiny Gulf state on Monday over what they say is Qatar's support for terrorism, an accusation Qatar vehemently denies. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[];window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTQ2NTkyfHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'100%', ratio:'4:3'});The United Arab Emirates had already said Qatari nationals would not be allowed to enter the country or cross its points of entry, although the practical effects on airline passengers had been unclear until now. Qatari nationals will now not be allowed to pass through airports in the UAE even to change planes. "This ruling applies to all airlines flying into the UAE, including Etihad Airways," the Abu Dhabi-based airline said. The transit ban on Qataris is stricter than restrictions on Israeli passport holders who are allowed up to 24 hours to change planes at UAE airports, even though Israel and the United Arab Emirates lack diplomatic relations. Emirates, which has its hub in Dubai, did not respond to a request for comment. Qantas Airways, a codeshare partner of Emirates, said it would not carry Qatari nationals on its flights to Dubai due to the government restrictions. QATAR AIRWAYS HIT HARD OPSGROUP, an industry flight operations service, said it had advised airlines of a series of restrictions on Qatari nationals, including a ban on transit through the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Qatar Airways has cancelled all of its flights to those countries, which had averaged 55 a day before the diplomatic dispute, according to analysis published by CAPA Centre for Aviation. The airline's website says it has offered refunds or rebookings to affected passengers. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had been Qatar Airways' largest markets by the number of available seats and the loss of the four Arab markets could lead to a double-digit revenue decline for the carrier, CAPA said. "A more long-term effect will be that passengers will shy away from booking with Qatar Airways," Leeham Co analyst Bjorn Ferhm said in a note published on Wednesday. "This is the strongest accusation to date of Qatar being connected with terrorism. Many travellers and corporate accounts could blacklist Qatar Airways." Qatar Airways did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Indonesia on Wednesday said it had diverted Muslim pilgrims to Saudi Arabia to other airlines. An Islamic Religious Council of Singapore spokesman said alternative flights to Saudi Arabia were being sought, with less than 200 people affected. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain revoked the licences of Qatar Airways on Tuesday and ordered its offices to be closed within 48 hours. The transit restrictions follow from the cutting of all transport links with Qatar as part of the coordinated action. The rift has affected global oil prices, hit travel plans and sown confusion among businesses.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Ousted FBI chief James Comey accused Donald Trump's White House of lies and defamation Thursday in wounding sworn testimony that plunged his already troubled presidency deeper into peril.

During almost three hours of extraordinarily frank televised statements, Comey described himself as "stunned" by Trump's "very disturbing" and "very concerning" behavior in several private meetings.

Detailing one-on-one talks with a sitting president -- which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day -- Comey said he took painstaking notes for fear Trump might "lie" about the unusual encounters.

That account painted a devastating picture of an untrustworthy president, who at best unknowingly shred the norms of office by pressing Comey on the probe into Russian election meddling, and at worst may have criminally obstructed justice.

During one White House dinner, Comey recalled that the president asked him for "loyalty" and to lay off his former national security advisor Mike Flynn -- who is under criminal investigation over his Russia ties -- imploring Comey to "let this go."

Comey indicated that it was now up to a high-powered special prosecutor to determine whether that behavior, and his own sacking, constituted an obstruction of justice, a potentially impeachable offense.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," he told senators. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal."

Easing months of speculation, Comey did confirm that Trump was not personally the subject of a counterterror or criminal probe when he left the FBI last month.

The White House and Trump's lawyers expressed vindication over some parts of Comey's testimony and lashed out at others.

"I can definitely say the president is not a liar and frankly am insulted by that question," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

Lawyer Marc Kasowitz said the president "never told Mr Comey 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' in form or substance," rejecting a key allegation made by the sacked FBI director.

Deploying Trump's trademark bareknuckle style, Kasowitz also suggested the ousted lawman should be prosecuted for leaking "privileged information."

Trump avoided directly responding to the explosive accusations, defiantly telling supporters at a religious event in the capital: "We are going to fight and win."

Lies, plain and simple

After solemnly raising his right hand and vowing to tell the whole truth, a visibly aggrieved Comey kicked off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight about the state of the bureau he led until he was sacked last month.

"Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader," he charged.

"Those were lies plain and simple," Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senate's Hart building, which stood silent except for the shutter clicks of a phalanx of photographers capturing the moment of pure political theater.

Lawmakers started the hearing with a call for unity of purpose, but the pretense of bipartisanship soon fell away.

Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump's actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have zeroed in on Comey's admission he assured the president he was not personally an FBI investigation target.

Trump abruptly fired Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 9, admitting later that the Russia probe was on his mind at the time.

In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in person and phoned to press him on the probe into his campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republican's favor.

A big deal

At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him.

"The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said.

In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month, Comey said Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about his unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador.

And he described trying to insulate himself and the FBI from political pressure, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labeled it "fake news."

Harvard law School professor Mark Tushnet said onlookers should keep in mind that Comey knows much more than he can say.

"He's saying that when he looks at all the evidence that he knows, that he draws the conclusion that the president was trying to pull him off the investigation of Flynn."

"It's a pretty powerful statement that an investigator with his background, (says) when I look at this investigation, this is what I conclude. So his statement is a big deal."

As the hearing played out, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared to sympathize with Trump over his interactions with Comey, telling a news conference that "the president's new at this."

"He's new to government. So he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. He's just new to this."

Networks and cable news stations provided blanket coverage of the testimony, and hundreds of people turned out at Washington bars for watch-parties, glued to live TV broadcasts of the hearing.

"There's been so much media hype," said Sadie Cornelius, 33. "It's good to actually hear this from the source."

WASHINGTON: Ousted FBI chief James Comey accused Donald Trump's White House of lies and defamation Thursday in wounding sworn testimony that plunged his already troubled presidency deeper into peril. During almost three hours of extraordinarily frank televised statements, Comey described himself as "stunned" by Trump's "very disturbing" and "very concerning" behavior in several private meetings. Detailing one-on-one talks with a sitting president -- which under normal circumstances would never see the light of day -- Comey said he took painstaking notes for fear Trump might "lie" about the unusual encounters. That account painted a devastating picture of an untrustworthy president, who at best unknowingly shred the norms of office by pressing Comey on the probe into Russian election meddling, and at worst may have criminally obstructed justice. During one White House dinner, Comey recalled that the president asked him for "loyalty" and to lay off his former national security advisor Mike Flynn -- who is under criminal investigation over his Russia ties -- imploring Comey to "let this go." Comey indicated that it was now up to a high-powered special prosecutor to determine whether that behavior, and his own sacking, constituted an obstruction of justice, a potentially impeachable offense. "It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," he told senators. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change the way the Russia investigation was being conducted. That is a very big deal." Easing months of speculation, Comey did confirm that Trump was not personally the subject of a counterterror or criminal probe when he left the FBI last month. The White House and Trump's lawyers expressed vindication over some parts of Comey's testimony and lashed out at others. "I can definitely say the president is not a liar and frankly am insulted by that question," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. Lawyer Marc Kasowitz said the president "never told Mr Comey 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty' in form or substance," rejecting a key allegation made by the sacked FBI director. Deploying Trump's trademark bareknuckle style, Kasowitz also suggested the ousted lawman should be prosecuted for leaking "privileged information." Trump avoided directly responding to the explosive accusations, defiantly telling supporters at a religious event in the capital: "We are going to fight and win." Lies, plain and simple After solemnly raising his right hand and vowing to tell the whole truth, a visibly aggrieved Comey kicked off his testimony with a bid to set the record straight about the state of the bureau he led until he was sacked last month. "Although the law requires no reason at all to fire an FBI director, the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the work force had lost confidence in its leader," he charged. "Those were lies plain and simple," Comey said, firing a shot of tension through hearing room 216 of the Senate's Hart building, which stood silent except for the shutter clicks of a phalanx of photographers capturing the moment of pure political theater. Lawmakers started the hearing with a call for unity of purpose, but the pretense of bipartisanship soon fell away. Democrats are intent on determining whether Trump's actions amounted to obstruction of justice, while Republicans have zeroed in on Comey's admission he assured the president he was not personally an FBI investigation target. Trump abruptly fired Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on May 9, admitting later that the Russia probe was on his mind at the time. In his written statement, Comey described his mounting discomfort in the weeks leading up to his dismissal as Trump pulled him aside in person and phoned to press him on the probe into his campaign associates and possible collusion with a Russian effort to tilt the 2016 vote in the Republican's favor. A big deal At a private White House dinner on January 27, just days after the billionaire took office, Comey said Trump appeared to want to "create some sort of patronage relationship" with him. "The president said, 'I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.' I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey said. In an Oval Office tete-a-tete the following month, Comey said Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation into Flynn, who had been fired for lying to the vice president about his unreported conversations with the Russian ambassador. And he described trying to insulate himself and the FBI from political pressure, as the president complained about the Russian probe and labeled it "fake news." Harvard law School professor Mark Tushnet said onlookers should keep in mind that Comey knows much more than he can say. "He's saying that when he looks at all the evidence that he knows, that he draws the conclusion that the president was trying to pull him off the investigation of Flynn." "It's a pretty powerful statement that an investigator with his background, (says) when I look at this investigation, this is what I conclude. So his statement is a big deal." As the hearing played out, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan appeared to sympathize with Trump over his interactions with Comey, telling a news conference that "the president's new at this." "He's new to government. So he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. He's just new to this." Networks and cable news stations provided blanket coverage of the testimony, and hundreds of people turned out at Washington bars for watch-parties, glued to live TV broadcasts of the hearing. "There's been so much media hype," said Sadie Cornelius, 33. "It's good to actually hear this from the source."
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice today for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated news agency News Network International (NNI).

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees.

Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation.

India had approached the world court last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

The 15-member bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy.

Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will propose three names to the International Court of Justice today for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case of Indian prisoner Kulbhushan Jadhav who has been sentenced to death by a military court, according to a media report. A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf would present the names to the ICJ President Ronny Abraham in The Hague, according to Pakistan's private-operated news agency News Network International (NNI). Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali were recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees. Pakistan's counsel Barrister Khawar Qureshi was also part of the delegation. India had approached the world court last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted. The 15-member bench backed India's contention that there had been a violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations as New Delhi's requests for consular access to its national had been denied 16 times. Pakistan, which announced the death sentence on Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy. Jadhav's case is the latest flash-point in the tensions between Pakistan and India. The two countries last faced off at the ICJ 18 years ago when Islamabad sought its intervention over the shooting down of its naval aircraft.
By PTI

ASTANA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital today on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO.

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.

If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.

India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.

However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital today.

The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.

Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.

The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.

ASTANA: Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Kazakh capital today on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001. India's entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the group's heft in regional geo-politics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue. Experts say India's inclusion may even bring down Beijing's overarching influence over the SCO. The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit tomorrow and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and India's Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid. If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part. India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours. However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting. President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital today. The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. "I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here. The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan. SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCO's influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region. Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population. The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping. India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region. India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence. India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region. Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.
By AFP

North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, the latest in an accelerating series of tests defying global pressure to rein in its weapons program.

The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Pyongyang in response to recent ballistic missile tests.

"North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the defence ministry said.

The short range missiles flew for some 200 kilometres (124 miles) at an altitude of two kilometres before falling into the Sea of Japan, the ministry added.

Thursday's launches are the North's fifth round of tests - three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile and now the cruise missiles -- since the South's new president Moon Jae-in took power in early May.

"The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the National Security Council Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-Hyun.

Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people," Moon said, according to his spokesman.

WATCH VIDEO:



Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability," a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions.

Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns".

Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions.

"North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations... but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US President Donald) Trump," he added.

The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to the recent tests.

North Korea described the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and warned they would not stop its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks -- and not more sanctions -- is its priority.

The new tests come a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile defence system -- an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

- 'Provocative actions' -

"North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea".

The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region.

US ally Japan also hit out at Pyongyang.

"We can never tolerate these kind of provocative actions," Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Thursday, adding the projectiles had not landed in Japanese territory nor had they any immediate impact on the country's security.

The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Trump has vowed "won't happen".

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, but analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile.

The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of a US attack.

But most agree that the country has made significant progress under Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.

North Korea launched a volley of surface-to-ship cruise missiles off its east coast Thursday, Seoul's defence ministry said, the latest in an accelerating series of tests defying global pressure to rein in its weapons program. The launches come less than a week after the United Nations expanded sanctions against Pyongyang in response to recent ballistic missile tests. "North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province," the defence ministry said. The short range missiles flew for some 200 kilometres (124 miles) at an altitude of two kilometres before falling into the Sea of Japan, the ministry added. Thursday's launches are the North's fifth round of tests - three ballistic missile launches, a surface-to-air missile and now the cruise missiles -- since the South's new president Moon Jae-in took power in early May. "The only thing North Korea will earn through provocations is international isolation and economic hardship, and it will lose opportunities for development," Moon said at a meeting of the National Security Council Thursday, according to Blue House spokesman Park Soo-Hyun. Seoul "will not take a single step back or make compromises over the issue of national security or the safety of its people," Moon said, according to his spokesman. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[];window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTQ3MjMyfHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'100%', ratio:'4:3'}); Thursday's launch "was aimed at showing off various missile capabilities and antiship precision strike capability," a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff told reporters, adding it did not appear to have violated UN sanctions. Cruise missile tests do not contravene UN regulations, Korea Defence Network analyst Lee Il-Woo told AFP, adding they were "much slower than ballistic missiles and can be shot down by anti-aircraft guns". Any North Korean tests using ballistic missile technology are banned by UN resolutions. "North Korea is carrying out carefully calibrated provocations... but restraining from ICBM tests or nuclear explosions which could bring about military retaliations by (US President Donald) Trump," he added. The UN Security Council last Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to the recent tests. North Korea described the latest UN sanctions as "mean" and warned they would not stop its missile and nuclear weapons programmes. China, the reclusive regime's sole major ally, has made it clear that a push for talks -- and not more sanctions -- is its priority. The new tests come a day after South Korea suspended deployment of a controversial US missile defence system -- an apparent concession to China, which is strongly opposed to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. - 'Provocative actions' - "North Korea has been stepping up missile tests ... in order to project an image to the world that international sanctions can never bring it to its knees," Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP. "It is also expressing displeasure of the arrival of a US nuclear submarine in South Korea". The 6,900-ton USS Cheyenne, whose home port is Pearl Harbor, arrived in the South Korean port of Busan Tuesday, as the US steps up its own muscle-flexing in the region. US ally Japan also hit out at Pyongyang. "We can never tolerate these kind of provocative actions," Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Thursday, adding the projectiles had not landed in Japanese territory nor had they any immediate impact on the country's security. The North has carried out two atomic tests and dozens of missile launches since the beginning of last year in its quest to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the continental United States -- something President Trump has vowed "won't happen". Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, but analysts doubt that the North has developed an ICBM or a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop a missile. The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of a US attack. But most agree that the country has made significant progress under Kim Jong-Un, who took power after the death of his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, in December 2011.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today left for Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries.

WATCH VIDEO:

Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counterterrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement yesterday.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy".

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today left for Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries. WATCH VIDEO: window.__ventunoplayer = window.__ventunoplayer||[];window.__ventunoplayer.push({video_key: 'OTQ3NDA0fHw4fHw2fHwxLDIsMQ==', holder_id: 'vt-video-player', player_type: 'vp', width:'100%', ratio:'4:3'});Ahead of his two-day visit, Modi said he looked forward to deepening engagement with the SCO countries. "I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counterterrorism cooperation, among other things," he said in his pre-departure statement yesterday. At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said. "Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added. On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of "Future Energy".
Testifying under oath in a Senate hearing watched worldwide, former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump administration Thursday of defaming him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing by President Donald Trump.

"Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey said of the administration's claims that the FBI was poorly led and in disarray under his leadership, and that agents had lost confidence in him.

"The administration chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI," he said.

He also said he was "confused and increasingly concerned" by Trump's shifting explanations for firing him, including Trump's remark that he had had Russia on his mind in dismissing Comey four years into a 10-year term.

"He had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay," Comey said. "So it confused me when I saw on television the president told me that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation."

And Comey told senators why he had decided he must document every meeting he had with Trump, with a written record.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," Comey said. "I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI."

Comey made his comments as the packed hearing got underway, bringing Washington and parts of the country to a halt as all eyes were glued on the hearing room. He immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

Comey also testified in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump was expected to dispute Comey's claims that he demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to a person close to the president's legal team who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss legal strategy. The Republican National Committee worked aggressively to discredit Comey ahead of the hearing and as it unfolded.

Comey listened, hands clasped on his lap, as committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina delivered his opening statement.

"Today," Burr told Comey, "is your opportunity to set the record straight."

Burr is leading the committee's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and ties with Trump's own campaign team.

"We will establish the facts separate from rampant speculation and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgement," Burr said. "Only then will we be able to move forward and put this issue to rest."

Testifying under oath in a Senate hearing watched worldwide, former FBI Director James Comey accused the Trump administration Thursday of defaming him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing by President Donald Trump. "Those were lies, plain and simple," Comey said of the administration's claims that the FBI was poorly led and in disarray under his leadership, and that agents had lost confidence in him. "The administration chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI," he said. He also said he was "confused and increasingly concerned" by Trump's shifting explanations for firing him, including Trump's remark that he had had Russia on his mind in dismissing Comey four years into a 10-year term. "He had repeatedly told me I was doing a great job and he hoped I would stay," Comey said. "So it confused me when I saw on television the president told me that he actually fired me because of the Russia investigation." And Comey told senators why he had decided he must document every meeting he had with Trump, with a written record. "I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," Comey said. "I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI." Comey made his comments as the packed hearing got underway, bringing Washington and parts of the country to a halt as all eyes were glued on the hearing room. He immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaign's Russia ties. Comey also testified in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Trump was expected to dispute Comey's claims that he demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to a person close to the president's legal team who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss legal strategy. The Republican National Committee worked aggressively to discredit Comey ahead of the hearing and as it unfolded. Comey listened, hands clasped on his lap, as committee Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina delivered his opening statement. "Today," Burr told Comey, "is your opportunity to set the record straight." Burr is leading the committee's investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and ties with Trump's own campaign team. "We will establish the facts separate from rampant speculation and lay them out for the American people to make their own judgement," Burr said. "Only then will we be able to move forward and put this issue to rest."
By AFP

DOHA: Qatar's foreign minister Thursday rejected interference in his country's foreign policy, ruling out a military solution to a crisis which has seen Riyadh and its allies cut ties with Doha.

"No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said.

"We are an independent country with sovereignty," he told AFP, rejecting tutelage from other states.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

Qatar denies having any ties to extremists.

A top United Arab Emirates official on Wednesday told AFP that the unprecedented measures aim to pressure Doha into making drastic policy changes.

"This is not about regime change -- this is about change of policy, change of approach," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said.

Analysts say the crisis is an extension of a pre-existing dispute which saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

The emirate is still home to leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and the Afghan Taliban.

Sheikh Mohammed called attempts to isolate Doha "collective punishment" and a "systematic campaign" against Qatar, which he said continued to work alongside the United States against extremism.

"Taliban representation here is done in coordination with the Americans," he told AFP. "They are hosted here... for peace talks."

The Gulf crisis has sparked fears of military escalation in an already volatile region. However, the Qatari foreign minister downplayed the likelihood of military conflict.

"We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, Sheikh Mohammed said.

The UAE's Gargash said the measures against Doha were currently limited to diplomatic and economic ties, but warned that no one could project the "dynamic of a crisis".

"Like any crisis, you cannot really control the dynamic... this is one of the dangers of any crisis. There is no intention for us to seek anything but what we look at as economic spheres of activities," he said in an interview with AFP.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar.

Saudi Arabia has also sealed off Qatar's only land border, a crucial lifeline for food imports.

Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar could nonetheless survive "forever", adding that it respected international agreements and would continue supplying liquefied natural gas to the UAE.

Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

DOHA: Qatar's foreign minister Thursday rejected interference in his country's foreign policy, ruling out a military solution to a crisis which has seen Riyadh and its allies cut ties with Doha. "No one has the right to intervene in our foreign policy," Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said. "We are an independent country with sovereignty," he told AFP, rejecting tutelage from other states. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain lead a string of countries that this week cut ties with Qatar over what they say is the emirate's financing of extremist groups and its ties to Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival. Qatar denies having any ties to extremists. A top United Arab Emirates official on Wednesday told AFP that the unprecedented measures aim to pressure Doha into making drastic policy changes. "This is not about regime change -- this is about change of policy, change of approach," state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said. Analysts say the crisis is an extension of a pre-existing dispute which saw Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain temporarily recall their ambassadors from Doha in 2014 over Qatari support for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. The emirate is still home to leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas and the Afghan Taliban. Sheikh Mohammed called attempts to isolate Doha "collective punishment" and a "systematic campaign" against Qatar, which he said continued to work alongside the United States against extremism. "Taliban representation here is done in coordination with the Americans," he told AFP. "They are hosted here... for peace talks." The Gulf crisis has sparked fears of military escalation in an already volatile region. However, the Qatari foreign minister downplayed the likelihood of military conflict. "We don't see a military solution as an option" to the crisis, Sheikh Mohammed said. The UAE's Gargash said the measures against Doha were currently limited to diplomatic and economic ties, but warned that no one could project the "dynamic of a crisis". "Like any crisis, you cannot really control the dynamic... this is one of the dangers of any crisis. There is no intention for us to seek anything but what we look at as economic spheres of activities," he said in an interview with AFP. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain have suspended all flights to and from Doha and closed off sea and air links to Qatar. Saudi Arabia has also sealed off Qatar's only land border, a crucial lifeline for food imports. Sheikh Mohammed said Qatar could nonetheless survive "forever", adding that it respected international agreements and would continue supplying liquefied natural gas to the UAE. Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
By Associated Press

KHAN YOUNIS: Qatar, one of the few foreign backers of Hamas, faces massive pressure from its Gulf neighbors to cut ties with the Islamic militant group. If it does, the result could be disastrous for Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Qatar has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in roads, housing and a major hospital in the tiny territory. Its infrastructure projects are one of the few job-creators in a devastated economy.

Gaza already suffers from an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, widespread destruction from a string of Israel-Hamas wars, economic misery and chronic electricity shortages. For Hamas, Qatar's money pumping into the economy is a vital lifeline bolstering its rule.

Qatar appears to be weighing its options. The mere prospect of losing Qatari support prompted Hamas on Wednesday to issue rare criticism of Saudi Arabia, which has been leading the campaign against its tiny Gulf neighbor.

Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said the Saudi call for Qatar to cut ties with the Palestinian group is "regrettable" and contradicts traditional Arab support for the Palestinian cause. He accused Saudi Arabia of siding with "American and Zionist calls to put Hamas on the terrorism list."

Saudi Arabia and three other Arab states cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting violent Islamist groups across the region, including Hamas. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Qatar must sever its ties with Hamas.

Qatar has denied the allegations. But its small size and reliance on food imports from Saudi Arabia could make it susceptible to the pressure.

This could spell trouble for Hamas. The group  which calls for Israel's destruction, even if it has offered long-term interim cease-fires  is considered a terrorist group by Israel and its Western allies. Israel and Hamas have fought three cross-border wars that caused large-scale damage in Gaza.

Qatar doesn't support Hamas directly, but its large-scale projects have significantly eased the burden on Hamas authorities and given it some credit for bringing this money to Gaza.

In 2012, Qatar's then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza, the first and only head of state to do so since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas 10 years ago. The emir announced a grant of $407 million for humanitarian projects.

The grant is being used to build a housing complex of 3,000 units. Two phases of the project have been completed and families moved into their new houses in the complex, dubbed the Hamad Residential City in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis.

Last month, Palestinian contractors and Qatari envoys signed deals to start the third and final phase of Hamad City. Now, those deals could be in question.

Using that grant, Qatar also built a specialist prosthetic center, the first of its kind in Gaza. Qatar paved roads, repaired or rebuilt mosques and oversaw dozens of other infrastructure projects.

Qatari Ambassador to the U.S. Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, told The Associated Press in an interview that his country's work in Gaza is "purely humanitarian."

"All our contacts are very transparent, and they are clear, in coordination with the U.S. and the Palestinians and the Israelis. We don't understand where the problem is," he said.

Following a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, Qatar was the largest single donor to the reconstruction of Gaza, pledging $1 billion at a Cairo-hosted international conference.

So far, Qatar has delivered just $50 million of this pledge for rebuilding 1,000 houses.

Qatar also helped pay for fuel deliveries from neighboring Israel, which, despite its enmity to Hamas, supplies energy to Gaza for what it says are humanitarian reasons. But in an ominous sign for Hamas, Qatar stopped the energy payments for the past two months.

It is unclear whether the payments were halted under Arab pressure.

On Wednesday, bulldozers with Qatari flags were seen leveling land overlooking Gaza City's coastal road. The spot is supposed to house the headquarters of Qatar's Gaza reconstruction mission and a residence for an envoy.

In Hamad City, new shops and stores are opening, including a pharmacy named Qatar, barber shops and a video gaming cafe as more families move in. The complex is the largest in Gaza.

Wael al-Naqla, a contractor, has won a bid to build several buildings in the final phase. Thanks to Qatari money, he is one of the few businessmen who can hire workers in today's Gaza.

"Without these projects, we would have been idled long time ago," he said, voicing fears that the funding could soon dry up. "We are afraid I won't be able to keep paying for my 20 workers and they will not be able to eat."

The construction is one of the few bright spots in Gaza.

As the Islamic group marks its 10th anniversary in power, the situation is grim. The territory suffers from rolling power cuts, with just four hours of electricity at a time, followed by 14-18 hours of outages. Tap water is undrinkable, youth unemployment is estimated at 60 percent. Thousands wait for a rare chance to exit the blockaded territory.

Unable to offer a remedy, Hamas has jailed people who dare to criticize it. A new political program that Hamas hoped would mollify the West and Arab nations instead underscored its ideological rigidity. While softer in tone, the document reaffirmed a call to armed struggle and its goal of eliminating Israel.

Mkhaimar Abusada, an independent Gaza political analyst, said Qatari pressure could increase Hamas' political and financial isolation.

This week, a high-level Hamas delegation was summoned to neighboring Egypt, which has had cool relations with Hamas. "If these talks don't lead to new understandings getting Hamas out of its difficult political situation, I think there will be more crises," he said.

One person who could benefit from Hamas' troubles is Abbas, who has repeatedly failed in talks with Hamas to regain control of Gaza.

Abbas recently reduced the salaries of his former employees in Gaza and threatened to scale back payments for Gaza's electricity  attempts to pressure Hamas. Abbas' government, which maintains good ties with Qatar, has not commented on the latest crisis.

Chagai Tzuriel, the director general of Israel's Intelligence Ministry, said Hamas's many troubles have put it in a "strategic bind."

"I think they are under greater pressure now than before," he said.

KHAN YOUNIS: Qatar, one of the few foreign backers of Hamas, faces massive pressure from its Gulf neighbors to cut ties with the Islamic militant group. If it does, the result could be disastrous for Hamas-ruled Gaza. Qatar has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in roads, housing and a major hospital in the tiny territory. Its infrastructure projects are one of the few job-creators in a devastated economy. Gaza already suffers from an Israeli-Egyptian blockade, widespread destruction from a string of Israel-Hamas wars, economic misery and chronic electricity shortages. For Hamas, Qatar's money pumping into the economy is a vital lifeline bolstering its rule. Qatar appears to be weighing its options. The mere prospect of losing Qatari support prompted Hamas on Wednesday to issue rare criticism of Saudi Arabia, which has been leading the campaign against its tiny Gulf neighbor. Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said the Saudi call for Qatar to cut ties with the Palestinian group is "regrettable" and contradicts traditional Arab support for the Palestinian cause. He accused Saudi Arabia of siding with "American and Zionist calls to put Hamas on the terrorism list." Saudi Arabia and three other Arab states cut ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting violent Islamist groups across the region, including Hamas. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Qatar must sever its ties with Hamas. Qatar has denied the allegations. But its small size and reliance on food imports from Saudi Arabia could make it susceptible to the pressure. This could spell trouble for Hamas. The group  which calls for Israel's destruction, even if it has offered long-term interim cease-fires  is considered a terrorist group by Israel and its Western allies. Israel and Hamas have fought three cross-border wars that caused large-scale damage in Gaza. Qatar doesn't support Hamas directly, but its large-scale projects have significantly eased the burden on Hamas authorities and given it some credit for bringing this money to Gaza. In 2012, Qatar's then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza, the first and only head of state to do so since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas 10 years ago. The emir announced a grant of $407 million for humanitarian projects. The grant is being used to build a housing complex of 3,000 units. Two phases of the project have been completed and families moved into their new houses in the complex, dubbed the Hamad Residential City in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Last month, Palestinian contractors and Qatari envoys signed deals to start the third and final phase of Hamad City. Now, those deals could be in question. Using that grant, Qatar also built a specialist prosthetic center, the first of its kind in Gaza. Qatar paved roads, repaired or rebuilt mosques and oversaw dozens of other infrastructure projects. Qatari Ambassador to the U.S. Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, told The Associated Press in an interview that his country's work in Gaza is "purely humanitarian." "All our contacts are very transparent, and they are clear, in coordination with the U.S. and the Palestinians and the Israelis. We don't understand where the problem is," he said. Following a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2014, Qatar was the largest single donor to the reconstruction of Gaza, pledging $1 billion at a Cairo-hosted international conference. So far, Qatar has delivered just $50 million of this pledge for rebuilding 1,000 houses. Qatar also helped pay for fuel deliveries from neighboring Israel, which, despite its enmity to Hamas, supplies energy to Gaza for what it says are humanitarian reasons. But in an ominous sign for Hamas, Qatar stopped the energy payments for the past two months. It is unclear whether the payments were halted under Arab pressure. On Wednesday, bulldozers with Qatari flags were seen leveling land overlooking Gaza City's coastal road. The spot is supposed to house the headquarters of Qatar's Gaza reconstruction mission and a residence for an envoy. In Hamad City, new shops and stores are opening, including a pharmacy named Qatar, barber shops and a video gaming cafe as more families move in. The complex is the largest in Gaza. Wael al-Naqla, a contractor, has won a bid to build several buildings in the final phase. Thanks to Qatari money, he is one of the few businessmen who can hire workers in today's Gaza. "Without these projects, we would have been idled long time ago," he said, voicing fears that the funding could soon dry up. "We are afraid I won't be able to keep paying for my 20 workers and they will not be able to eat." The construction is one of the few bright spots in Gaza. As the Islamic group marks its 10th anniversary in power, the situation is grim. The territory suffers from rolling power cuts, with just four hours of electricity at a time, followed by 14-18 hours of outages. Tap water is undrinkable, youth unemployment is estimated at 60 percent. Thousands wait for a rare chance to exit the blockaded territory. Unable to offer a remedy, Hamas has jailed people who dare to criticize it. A new political program that Hamas hoped would mollify the West and Arab nations instead underscored its ideological rigidity. While softer in tone, the document reaffirmed a call to armed struggle and its goal of eliminating Israel. Mkhaimar Abusada, an independent Gaza political analyst, said Qatari pressure could increase Hamas' political and financial isolation. This week, a high-level Hamas delegation was summoned to neighboring Egypt, which has had cool relations with Hamas. "If these talks don't lead to new understandings getting Hamas out of its difficult political situation, I think there will be more crises," he said. One person who could benefit from Hamas' troubles is Abbas, who has repeatedly failed in talks with Hamas to regain control of Gaza. Abbas recently reduced the salaries of his former employees in Gaza and threatened to scale back payments for Gaza's electricity  attempts to pressure Hamas. Abbas' government, which maintains good ties with Qatar, has not commented on the latest crisis. Chagai Tzuriel, the director general of Israel's Intelligence Ministry, said Hamas's many troubles have put it in a "strategic bind." "I think they are under greater pressure now than before," he said.
By AFP

KIEV: A small blast hit the premises of the US embassy in Kiev overnight causing no casualties after an unknown assailant lobbed an explosive device, Ukrainian police said today.

"Investigators found that an unknown person threw an explosive device onto the territory of the diplomatic mission," the police said in a statement.

The US embassy - located in central Kiev - confirmed that an "incident involving a small incendiary device" happened just after midnight but said diplomats were working "as normal" after no damage was caused.

"At this time, we do not consider this incident a terrorist act," the embassy wrote on Twitter. Ukraine's foreign ministry condemned the incident, saying it could have "harmed the life and health of the diplomatic mission staff".

"Law enforcement agencies are taking all measures to investigate the crime, and additional measures are being taken to ensure the security of the diplomatic mission", ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa wrote on Twitter.

Ukraine has been roiled by crisis since mass protesters begun in 2013 that eventually ousted a Moscow-backed leader and pitched the country into a mammoth tug-of-war between Russia and the West.

The Kremlin responded by seizing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and backing a pro-Moscow rebellion that spiralled into a bloody conflict still rumbling on in eastern regions.

KIEV: A small blast hit the premises of the US embassy in Kiev overnight causing no casualties after an unknown assailant lobbed an explosive device, Ukrainian police said today. "Investigators found that an unknown person threw an explosive device onto the territory of the diplomatic mission," the police said in a statement. The US embassy - located in central Kiev - confirmed that an "incident involving a small incendiary device" happened just after midnight but said diplomats were working "as normal" after no damage was caused. "At this time, we do not consider this incident a terrorist act," the embassy wrote on Twitter. Ukraine's foreign ministry condemned the incident, saying it could have "harmed the life and health of the diplomatic mission staff". "Law enforcement agencies are taking all measures to investigate the crime, and additional measures are being taken to ensure the security of the diplomatic mission", ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa wrote on Twitter. Ukraine has been roiled by crisis since mass protesters begun in 2013 that eventually ousted a Moscow-backed leader and pitched the country into a mammoth tug-of-war between Russia and the West. The Kremlin responded by seizing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and backing a pro-Moscow rebellion that spiralled into a bloody conflict still rumbling on in eastern regions.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump offered Wednesday to personally broker a resolution to the Persian Gulf's escalating diplomatic crisis, as both he and Qatar looked past his pointed suggestion only a day earlier that the tiny gas-rich nation enables terrorism.

In a phone call with Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani, Trump said he wanted to help Qatar and its Arab neighbors resolve the row that has upended any sense of Gulf unity, suggesting a possible White House summit among leaders. Though Trump again said countries must eliminate funding streams for terror groups, the White House said he focused on the need for the region's various U.S. allies to stick together.

Blockaded by its neighbors by land and sea, Qatar is eager for Trump's help. Qatar's U.S. ambassador, Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, told The Associated Press his country is counting on Washington to persuade Saudi Arabia and others to back down.

"We have great confidence in the president's ability to calm this crisis and to resolve it," Al Thani said in an interview.

Trump's bid to fashion himself as a neutral arbiter among Arab governments departed from his stance only a day earlier, when he left little doubt about where he felt the fault rested. In a tweetstorm, Trump said Mideast leaders he'd met with last month had all "pointed to Qatar" as the source of terrorist financing, waxing optimistically that the isolation of the kingdom might be "the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism."

Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates joined the Saudis earlier this week in cutting diplomatic ties to Qatar, accusing it of backing groups from al-Qaida and Hamas to the Muslim Brotherhood that threaten the region's other governments. Qatar vehemently denies such support. Al Thani, the ambassador, insisted his country had no idea why Qatar's neighbors were picking a fight.

Qatar received no notice from the other Arab countries before ties were cut, he said, calling it "a surprise and a shock to us, this act of aggression." He said normal life in Qatar is "not affected" by the blockage, insisting the tiny country maintains sufficient access to other air and sea routes to secure food for its people.

Trump also called Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., Wednesday. On the call, he reiterated "the importance of maintaining a united Gulf Cooperation Council to promote regional stability, but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism," the White House said in a statement.

Trump's broadside Tuesday against Qatar, which plays a major role in U.S. military efforts in the Mideast, arrived as an early-morning shock to U.S. officials. They then sought to clean up the president's comments by stressing U.S.-Qatari cooperation remained intact and crediting the country with working hard to stem funding and support for extremists.

That was enough, it seemed, to persuade Qatar the U.S. wasn't abandoning its strategic partner.

"We don't see that he's pointing fingers at Qatar," Al Thani said. "Our relationship with the U.S. speaks for itself."

Countries across the globe re increasingly faced with the same conundrum: How much credence to give to the president's Twitter musings when they deviate sharply from U.S. policy?

Emirati officials said they perceived Trump's tweets as a sign Qatar shouldn't count on America taking its side despite U.S. having some 10,000 troops based in the country's al-Udeid Air Base.

But in Germany, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer pointed out that Trump's words differed substantially from those of State Department and Pentagon officials.

"I can indeed see differences in some 140 character comments by the American president," Schaefer said. "But what the position of the United States of America... is something I can't really say."

Both Qatar and the U.S. sought to show the rift wasn't affecting military cooperation. They cited no change to the status of al-Udeid Air Base. And a State Department official said an approved but pending sale of F-15 fighter planes to Qatar hasn't been affected.

The call with Qatar's emir showed Trump trying to personally involve himself in resolving the conflict. A day earlier, Trump discussed the crisis with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which is leading the anti-Qatar campaign.

Other countries also are offering to intervene, and it's not clear if Trump will end up as the primary mediator. Kuwait's emir flew to the UAE on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, while Qatari ally Turkey voiced willingness to play a role.

A White House summit seemed an unlikely possibility. The potential for a coup makes it unlikely the Qatari emir would travel so far from home, especially as its adversaries hint that regime change would be welcome.

In the interview, Al Thani confirmed the FBI is helping Qatar investigate a hack of its state-run news agency last month that may have been a catalyst for the crisis. The Saudis and others have cited an article in which a top Qatari official seemed to pay tribute to Iran as a major regional power; the Qataris say the comments were fabricated as part of the hack.

Al Thani also denied any Qatari involvement in a separate hack of emails belonging to the UAE's Washington ambassador, which have surfaced at various news agencies this week.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump offered Wednesday to personally broker a resolution to the Persian Gulf's escalating diplomatic crisis, as both he and Qatar looked past his pointed suggestion only a day earlier that the tiny gas-rich nation enables terrorism. In a phone call with Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamin bin Hamad Al Thani, Trump said he wanted to help Qatar and its Arab neighbors resolve the row that has upended any sense of Gulf unity, suggesting a possible White House summit among leaders. Though Trump again said countries must eliminate funding streams for terror groups, the White House said he focused on the need for the region's various U.S. allies to stick together. Blockaded by its neighbors by land and sea, Qatar is eager for Trump's help. Qatar's U.S. ambassador, Meshal bin Hamad Al Thani, told The Associated Press his country is counting on Washington to persuade Saudi Arabia and others to back down. "We have great confidence in the president's ability to calm this crisis and to resolve it," Al Thani said in an interview. Trump's bid to fashion himself as a neutral arbiter among Arab governments departed from his stance only a day earlier, when he left little doubt about where he felt the fault rested. In a tweetstorm, Trump said Mideast leaders he'd met with last month had all "pointed to Qatar" as the source of terrorist financing, waxing optimistically that the isolation of the kingdom might be "the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism." Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates joined the Saudis earlier this week in cutting diplomatic ties to Qatar, accusing it of backing groups from al-Qaida and Hamas to the Muslim Brotherhood that threaten the region's other governments. Qatar vehemently denies such support. Al Thani, the ambassador, insisted his country had no idea why Qatar's neighbors were picking a fight. Qatar received no notice from the other Arab countries before ties were cut, he said, calling it "a surprise and a shock to us, this act of aggression." He said normal life in Qatar is "not affected" by the blockage, insisting the tiny country maintains sufficient access to other air and sea routes to secure food for its people. Trump also called Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., Wednesday. On the call, he reiterated "the importance of maintaining a united Gulf Cooperation Council to promote regional stability, but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism," the White House said in a statement. Trump's broadside Tuesday against Qatar, which plays a major role in U.S. military efforts in the Mideast, arrived as an early-morning shock to U.S. officials. They then sought to clean up the president's comments by stressing U.S.-Qatari cooperation remained intact and crediting the country with working hard to stem funding and support for extremists. That was enough, it seemed, to persuade Qatar the U.S. wasn't abandoning its strategic partner. "We don't see that he's pointing fingers at Qatar," Al Thani said. "Our relationship with the U.S. speaks for itself." Countries across the globe re increasingly faced with the same conundrum: How much credence to give to the president's Twitter musings when they deviate sharply from U.S. policy? Emirati officials said they perceived Trump's tweets as a sign Qatar shouldn't count on America taking its side despite U.S. having some 10,000 troops based in the country's al-Udeid Air Base. But in Germany, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer pointed out that Trump's words differed substantially from those of State Department and Pentagon officials. "I can indeed see differences in some 140 character comments by the American president," Schaefer said. "But what the position of the United States of America... is something I can't really say." Both Qatar and the U.S. sought to show the rift wasn't affecting military cooperation. They cited no change to the status of al-Udeid Air Base. And a State Department official said an approved but pending sale of F-15 fighter planes to Qatar hasn't been affected. The call with Qatar's emir showed Trump trying to personally involve himself in resolving the conflict. A day earlier, Trump discussed the crisis with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, which is leading the anti-Qatar campaign. Other countries also are offering to intervene, and it's not clear if Trump will end up as the primary mediator. Kuwait's emir flew to the UAE on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, while Qatari ally Turkey voiced willingness to play a role. A White House summit seemed an unlikely possibility. The potential for a coup makes it unlikely the Qatari emir would travel so far from home, especially as its adversaries hint that regime change would be welcome. In the interview, Al Thani confirmed the FBI is helping Qatar investigate a hack of its state-run news agency last month that may have been a catalyst for the crisis. The Saudis and others have cited an article in which a top Qatari official seemed to pay tribute to Iran as a major regional power; the Qataris say the comments were fabricated as part of the hack. Al Thani also denied any Qatari involvement in a separate hack of emails belonging to the UAE's Washington ambassador, which have surfaced at various news agencies this week.
By AFP

JUBA: Unknown gunmen on Thursday ambushed a convoy on the main road connecting South Sudan's capital with the Ugandan border, killing at least 15 people, officials said.

Nine others were wounded in the attack on a civilian convoy escorted by the military on the insecure Juba-Nimule highway.

"The convoy was attacked in Moli village when it was coming from Nimule to Juba with an escort," said South Sudan police spokesman Daniel Justine, who confirmed the death toll.

He said the convoy was "targeted with heavy weapons" and that gunfire struck a military vehicle and two private civilian vehicles.

Some of the wounded and the dead were taken to Juba's main hospital while others were transported to the border town of Nimule.

South Sudan's deputy interior minister Riaw Gatlier called the incident "unfortunate" and said an investigation was underway.

Thursday's ambush was the second this week alone on the Juba-Nimule road, after an attack on Monday left one dead and four injured.

The dangerous highway is nevertheless a lifeline for South Sudan, which imports almost everything, and for people fleeing the more than three-year-long civil war for the safety of refugee camps in Uganda.

Since the government began deploying military escorts for convoys using the road in January there have been at least four separate deadly attacks with no one claiming responsibility or held to account.

JUBA: Unknown gunmen on Thursday ambushed a convoy on the main road connecting South Sudan's capital with the Ugandan border, killing at least 15 people, officials said. Nine others were wounded in the attack on a civilian convoy escorted by the military on the insecure Juba-Nimule highway. "The convoy was attacked in Moli village when it was coming from Nimule to Juba with an escort," said South Sudan police spokesman Daniel Justine, who confirmed the death toll. He said the convoy was "targeted with heavy weapons" and that gunfire struck a military vehicle and two private civilian vehicles. Some of the wounded and the dead were taken to Juba's main hospital while others were transported to the border town of Nimule. South Sudan's deputy interior minister Riaw Gatlier called the incident "unfortunate" and said an investigation was underway. Thursday's ambush was the second this week alone on the Juba-Nimule road, after an attack on Monday left one dead and four injured. The dangerous highway is nevertheless a lifeline for South Sudan, which imports almost everything, and for people fleeing the more than three-year-long civil war for the safety of refugee camps in Uganda. Since the government began deploying military escorts for convoys using the road in January there have been at least four separate deadly attacks with no one claiming responsibility or held to account.
Who will be the new District 11 senator? Votes are in.
To assess the cause and effect relationship between clinical and basic research and efficiency in public health centers, the researchers used a database from the Ministry of Health.With this database, which consists of results from 189 public Spanish hospitals over more than a decade (1996 to 2009), researchers measured the impact that R&D&i has on the length of patients hospital stays.

The results of the study, published in the journal Research Policy, show that both basic and clinical research have a positive effect on hospital efficiency. "Hospitals that can produce more knowledge in terms of scientific publications are also going to be better hospitals, in both diagnosis and treatment and surgery. As such, they contribute to reducing the patient's average stay in hospitals," said one the study's authors, Josep A. Tribo, full professor in the UC3M Department of Business Administration.

"Taking into account that approximately 9% of the population is hospitalized over the course of the year, each day of a hospital stay entails an annual cost of some 660 euros per patient in Spain," explained another of the researchers, Alvaro Escribano, full professor in the UC3M Department of Economics. "Therefore, adopting measures that reduce the duration of hospital stays will greatly reduce health costs." Tribo added, "If you reduce or penalize doctors' research activity, they will be less prepared, which will ultimately lead to an increase in health care costs." In other words, hurting research can have a great impact on global health care costs.

The study also analyzes the impact of R&D on the sustainability of the National Health System (initialed SNS in Spanish) through the cost reduction entailed by the reduction in the length of hospital stays. "If scientific production increased significantly, health costs would be reduced by around 1%," stated another of the researchers, Antonio Garcia-Romero, professor at the IE Business School.

In the study, they also point out the most important factors that affect the efficiency of hospitals, such as their characteristics, human resources, diagnostic activity, investment and capacity to absorb knowledge. Their recommendation, however, is that "it is necessary to promote research, and in particular, basic research, because this would have very clear effects in the medium to long term on efficiency and a reduction in health care costs."In addition, there are other indirect benefits that are even more important. For example, if patients recover sooner, they will also return to work sooner, which in turn will increase labor production.

Furthermore, research carried out in hospitals affects other aspects such as reduction in mortality and patient safety patient. The methodology used in this article could be employed to analyze these effects.

Source: http://www.uc3m.es/ss/Satellite/UC3MInstitucional/en/Detalle/Comunicacion_C/1371232859893/1371215537949/Hospitals_that_carry_out_more_research_are_more_efficient
Centenarians have a lower incidence of chronic illness than those in their 80s and 90s, according to research from the George Washington University (GW).

The centenarian population is one of the fastest growing in the country, according to the United States Social Security Administration. They are predicted to exceed one million by the close of this century, little is known about why this generation has achieved such longevity. Raya Elfadel Kheirbek, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and geriatrician and palliative care physician at the Washington, D.C. Veteran Affairs Medical Center (VA), wanted to understand what factors contributed to their long life.

Kheirbek and her team looked primarily at octogenarians, nonagenarians, and centenarians within the VA. The sample that they studied comprised mostly of white males that had fought in World War II. The results were published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society.

"Additionally, this generation lived through the Great Depression," said Kheirbek. "It is a wonder, considering the hardships they had faced, that they have achieved such longevity. This never before studied group of centenarians at the VA imparts a very important message of resilience to anyone struggling as they did."

A key factor that Kheirbek and her team observed in these individuals is that, due to their military background, many had a developed sense of discipline and therefore were keen to make healthy decisions; many did not smoke or drink. The team also offered the hypothesis of compression morbidity as a potential explanation for the extended health span in an individual's life span. The hypothesis states that the lifetime burden of illness could be reduced if the onset of chronic illness is postponed until very late in life, or as Kheirbek put it, "the older you get, the healthier you have been." Her work with a 108-year-old woman inspired this study.
The success of kidney transplant is dependent on the age and sex of both the donor and the recipient, according to research published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The study, which was a collaboration between a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), revealed that young women had poorer transplant outcomes compared to young men, whereas women of post-menopausal age had similar or slightly better outcomes than men of the same age. This finding opens the door to a new approach for organ transplantation, and could lead to personalized immunosuppression strategies based on age and sex.

"This is the first study to assess differences in graft outcomes between female and male recipients across the entire age spectrum," says the study's corresponding author Dr. Beth Foster, researcher at the RI-MUHC and pediatric nephrologist at the Montreal Children's Hospital of the MUHC. "Previous studies did not find significant differences in graft survival between the sexes, but they focused exclusively on adults, most of whom were older. We considered the possibility that sex differences in graft survival may depend on age."

The researchers evaluated the records of nearly 160,000 kidney transplant recipients recorded in the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients database, which includes all transplant recipients in the United States. The outcomes of graft success were evaluated in relation to the age and sex of both the recipient and the donor.

"We found that among recipients of male donors, females of all ages had significantly worse graft survival than males," explains first author Dr. Fanny Lepeytre, fellow in Nephrology at the CRCHUM for this project. "However, when the donor was female, only female recipients aged 15-24 years had worse outcomes than their male counterparts. In fact, female recipients aged 45 years or older actually had slightly better graft survival than males of the same age when the donor was female."

The role of sex hormones in graft outcomes

These findings open new questions about the possible impact of sex hormones on immune reactivity in transplant recipients. "We know from studies outside the field of transplantation that the female sex hormone estrogen tends to activate the immune system, whereas male sex hormones such as testosterone tend to suppress it," says Dr. Foster who is also an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at McGill University. "The fact that young women 15-24 years old, in whom estrogen levels are at their peak, have higher graft failure risks than males or females in any other age group suggests that estrogen may increase the risk of rejection. Women over the age of 45 have less of this hormone so it makes sense that they may have a lower risk of rejection and graft failure."

Another possible explanation for the sex differences observed in this study is that sex hormones may influence the function of anti-rejection medications, making them less effective in females than males.

This observational study sheds light on how little we know about the influence of sex, gender, and age on the immune system, transplantation, and medical care in general.

"We need to better understand which biological and social factors explain the sex differences in graft outcomes that we observed," says Dr. Foster. "Right now, we treat men, women, boys and girls with transplants in a very similar way. With better understanding we could potentially improve graft outcomes by developing age and sex specific immune-suppression strategies."
It is almost axiomatic in medicine that the study of rare disorders informs the understanding of more common, widespread ailments. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who study an inherited disorder of skin, hair follicles, nails, sweat glands, and teeth called hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED) have identified a mechanism that may also be disrupted in male pattern baldness, a more common condition. They published their findings this week in Nature Communications.

About one in 5,000 to 10,000 people are thought to have HED, although this may be an underestimate of its actual prevalence as this condition is not always diagnosed correctly. HED is most frequently caused by mutations in the EDA, EDAR, EDARRAD and WNT10A genes. In addition to its association with HED, mutations in WNT10A are the most common genetic defect observed in people who are born missing one or more teeth, but do not display other characteristics of the disease. These milder WNT10A mutations occur surprisingly frequently, in about 1 to 2 percent of the population. Interestingly, a variant of the WNT10A gene associated with lower levels of its protein's expression has been linked to a greater likelihood of male pattern baldness, according to a recent genome-wide association study.

"By analyzing mice with the WNT10A mutation, as well as tissues from human patients with WNT10A mutations, we found that WNT10A regulates the proliferation, but not the maintenance, of stem cells in hair follicles," said Sarah Millar, PhD, vice chair for Basic Research in the Department of Dermatology. "Together with a previously published genome-wide association study, our findings suggest that lower levels of WNT10A may contribute to male pattern baldness in some individuals."

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The team made mouse models for WNT10A-associated HED by deleting the Wnt10a gene. The mutant mice displayed the same symptoms as HED patients with severe loss of function mutations in the WNT10A gene. Long-term absence of WNT10A leads to miniaturization of hair follicle structures and enlargement of the associated sebaceous glands, a phenomenon that is also observed in male pattern baldness.

Millar's group and her clinical collaborators, including Emily Chu, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Dermatology and John McGrath, MD, from King's College, London, also discovered that cracking and scaling of palm and foot sole skin in WNT10A patients is due to decreased expression of a structural protein called Keratin 9, which is specifically expressed in these regions of skin and contributes to its mechanical integrity.

"Our studies took us back and forth between human patients and our mouse model," said Millar. "Our goal was to find what happened to cellular components affected by the WNT10A mutation to make better treatments."

Millar's group showed that decreased proliferation and Keratin 9 expression in the absence of WNT10A resulted from failure of signaling through a well-characterized pathway that stabilizes a protein called beta-catenin, allowing it to enter the cell nucleus and activate gene transcription.

These findings indicate that small molecule drugs that activate the beta-catenin pathway downstream of WNT10A could potentially be used to treat hair thinning and palm and sole skin defects in WNT10A patients. These agents may also be useful for preventing hair loss in a subgroup of people with male pattern baldness.
A new study from the ABCSG (Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group) indicates that women suffering from metastasized breast cancer do not benefit from surgery performed prior to drug treatment. This could cause a paradigm shift in treatment of the disease. The multi-center trial, conducted under the direction of Florian Fitzal, was presented this weekend at the ASCO meeting, one of the most important international cancer conferences. Florian Fitzal is Head of Breast Surgery at the Department of Surgery of MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital and one of the two deputy heads of the Breast Health Center at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC) of MedUni Vienna and Vienna General Hospital.

In Austria, around 250 women a year are told they are suffering from primary "metastatic breast cancer". That means: breast cancer is first diagnosed at a late stage. Despite recent advances in treatment, a "cure" is not possible in these fortunately rare situations; the therapeutic aims are to maintain quality-of-life and extend life expectancy - many women go on to survive for several years. Breast cancer experts from throughout the world are therefore working to improve treatment strategies and, at the same time, the quality-of-life of their patients.

Paradigm shift

A research team from the ABCSG (President: Michael Gnant, MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital), headed up by Florian Fitzal, therefore explored whether immediate surgical removal of the breast cancer tissue prior to administration of systemic (drug) therapy influences the treatment outcome. During the last decade, this method was regarded as a possible strategy for treating primary metastatic breast cancer. The scientific basis for this procedure was retrospective studies, that is to say studies that analyze pre-existing data, and these showed that surgery could potentially prolong survival by up to 50%.

The results of the ABCSG-28 trial now show that surgery prior to systemic therapy does not improve the outcome over primary systemic therapy. These results tally with the findings of other international studies that have recently appeared.

Says Fitzal: "Our work shows that an operation does not offer patients any advantage in terms of survival. This means that, in the interests of giving them better quality-of-life, many of them could be spared this stressful procedure. This could cause a paradigm shift in the treatment of primary metastatic breast cancer."

Source: https://www.meduniwien.ac.at/web/en/about-us/news/detailseite/2017/news-im-juni-2017/metastasised-breast-cancer-surgery-prior-to-drug-treatment-not-beneficial/
As global automakers compete to bring the first flying car to market, Czech pilot Pavel Brezina is trying a different tack: instead of creating a car that flies, he has made a "GyroDrive" -- a mini helicopter you can drive.



The engineer and owner of Nirvana Systems, a company producing motors for small flying machines, insists his vehicle is the first in the world authorised to operate both on roads and in the air.



"This is the only road certified flying vehicle I know about," Brezina told AFP in a hangar at the Prerov-Bochor airport in the eastern Czech Republic.



"Everyone is trying to make a high-speed car that can fly, but this is a different thing," said the tall, bespectacled 51-year-old, who has 30 years' experience as a pilot under his belt.



His GyroDrive vehicle is based on a gyroplane -- a mini-helicopter -- that uses a copter-style rotor to move up and down, and an aeroplane-type "pusher propeller" to go forward.



Brezina's company buys gyroplane kits from a German firm, and then assembles and equips them with a system allowing the pilot-driver to switch between a petrol engine propelling the rotors and an electric engine that drives the wheels.



The two-seat GyroDrive has a maximum driving speed of just 40 kph (25 mph) and can take its crew of two on short drives to a petrol station or a hotel.



It needs less than 100 metres (110 yars) to take off and reaches a top speed of 180 kph in the air. Its flying range is 600 kilometres.



After landing, the pilot only has to fix the main rotor blades along the axis of the GyroDrive and pull out a built-in licence plate to transform it into a road vehicle.



Prices start at 1.5 million koruna (57,000 euros, $63,500), but they can reach four million koruna, depending on specifications.



While Brezina is already planning to take his wife -- also a pilot -- and two children to London aboard GyroDrives, inventors worldwide are frantically working on prototypes of cars that fly.



In neighbouring Slovakia, the AeroMobil company says it has received dozens of orders from customers for a flying car expected to hit the market in 2020.



"We want to build a vehicle that will not only be able to fly and drive but also fulfil each technical and legal requirement," says AeroMobil CEO Juraj Vaculik, touting "a robust testing programme".



He told AFP that AeroMobil initially plans to produce 500 units of its winged car, which uses a turbo propeller to get off the ground.



The AeroMobil is expected to reach a top ground speed of 160 kph and up to 360 kph in the air, with a flying and driving range of some 700 kilometres.



In mid-May, Japan's Toyota also unveiled plans to launch a three-wheel flying car dubbed SkyDrive using retractable wings and drone technology.



The vehicle is expected to have a top flight speed of around 100 kph, hovering around 10 metres off the ground. It will have a top land speed around 150 kph.



Silicon Valley flying car startup, Kitty Hawk, reportedly backed by Google co-founder Larry Page, released a video in April of its airborne prototype and announced plans for deliveries of a "personal flying machine" this year.



Other firms, including ride-sharing service Uber, also have soaring ambitions for their flying car prototypes.



Brezina got the licence plates for his GyroDrive in March, three years after starting the project.



For his first trip, he flew some 230 kilometres west to an airport on the outskirts of Prague, then drove downtown to have a cup of coffee in the Czech capital's central Wenceslas Square -- and got stopped by the police on the way.



"Well, if you saw this driving through Prague, wouldn't you stop it? I would," chuckles Brezina, adding the police merely checked his papers and did a breathalyser test.



Brezina told AFP he has already been safely flying gyroplanes all over Europe and beyond for the last seven years with a group of friends.



"I would liken it to a group of motorbikers, this is actually a 3D motorbike. We also travel to other continents where we rent gyroplanes," he said.



Looking into the future, Brezina said he doubts GyroDrive will take over roads and airways.



"First, it requires a set of certain qualities to become a gyroplane pilot, and second, it's not just about pushing a button. I think it will spread, but not on a mass scale."



Co-financed by the Slovak government, AeroMobil will not be everyone's flying car either because of its eye-watering price tag of 1.2-1.5 million euros ($1.35-1.7 million) per unit.



It will rather serve as "some kind of a flying Uber service," Vaculik said.



"Our concept is that not many people would own this flying car but many will be able to use it," he added.
New Delhi: Low cost Internet based transactions and business efficiency due to technology advancements are expected to kill physical banks in next 5-6 years, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Thursday.



"My view is in next 5-6 years you will see death of physical banks. It will be very difficult for physical banks to survive because the cost of physical banks will be so enormous. It will be so enormous compared to an online instrument, many of the fintech start-up and their ability to do data analysis (and) providing lending," Kant said at an IAMAI event.



He said that with proliferation of mobile phones and Internet based transaction, it will be easy for financial technology firm to do analysis and provide loans to person who requires it and has good credit history.



"Amazing thing is that a lot of this going to happen because India will become data rich before it becomes rich. Our ability to use technology, analyse data and able to reach and provide financial inclusion to people in rural area will be key drivers of growth," Kant said.



He said that India is now home to about 900 financial technology players and received funding of USD 3 billion. This is forcing Indian banks to transform themselves riding on wave of Fintech.



"There is lot happening in India because of Internet. We have leap frogged US technology industry with very simple and practical innovation. Cost of customer acquisition in India fell down to USD 1 where across America and Europe the cost of acquiring is between USD 28-30," Kant said.



He said that in last 45 years about 28 bank licences have been issued by the government, but within last 18 months about 21 payments bank licences have been issued.



In 2015, the RBI had granted 'in-principle' approval to 11 entities, including the Department of Posts, to set up payments banks and proposed to give such licences 'on tap' basis in future.



However, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company, Tech Mahindra and a consortium of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries promoter Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor

Financial Services gave up their plans to roll out payments bank.



Out of the remaining eight companies in the fray, Airtel, India Post Payments Bank and Chinese firm Alibaba backed Paytm have launched their commercial operations.



Other players are Aditya Birla Nuvo, Fino PayTech, National Securities Depository, Reliance Industries and Vodafone m-pesa. Kant said Indian government is making things easy and simple for businesses.



He, however, was annoyed when director of a company complained about processes at government offices and problem in online transactions in India.



The NITI Aayog CEO said he agrees with the point raised but in last three years lot of things have started changing. "I have been in government for long time to realise that in the last 3 years a lot of attempt has been made to make India very easy and simple," Kant said.



He cited new reforms like goods and services tax, bankruptcy laws, enabling company to register in a day etc.



"You and me have to change India. All of us have to be part of that change. But, people when they live abroad, come to India for 10 days and start criticising everything about India, that's not done," Kant said.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tweeted his thanks to former U.S. President Barack Obama after the two shared a private dinner at a Montreal restaurant.



Trudeau posted a picture of the pair talking in the eatery, with the caption "How do we get young leaders to take action in their communities? Thanks BarackObama for your visit & insights tonight in my hometown."



A crowd cheered the two leaders as they left the restaurant on Tuesday night. "A nice opportunity to share one my favorite hometown restaurants with an old friend, and talk about the state of the world," Trudeau said on Wednesday.



Last year, Obama hosted Trudeau for a state dinner at the White House, the first for Canada since 1997. Obama spoke to the Montreal Board of Trade on Tuesday and decried what he called the lack of American leadership on climate change, a swipe at new President Donald Trump's administration.
Growing up in Delhi in the 80s and 90s, an era sans mall or multiplex, one of the congregation points of the city was the Chanakya Cinema Complex and the abutting Yashwant Place complex. The former housed the Chanakya cinema and one of the finest (and most crowded) Nirula's in the city while the latter comprised a somber set of buildings characterised by wide open courtyards and courtyards and its labyrinthine lower levels.



These basements and sub-basements comprised rows and rows of shops selling a bewildering array of merchandise. Jewels and semi-precious stones glimmered at shop fronts, vying for attention against literal forests of furs -- coats, capes, caps and other confections of clashing colours and contours. Other stores boasted vast hoards of Indian arcana and others still leather goods in all manner of shapes, sizes and utilities. Given its location in the Capital's diplomatic enclaves, a host of travel agencies also had their representative offices in the building. Signs inscribed with Cyrillic alphabets hung outside most stores, testament to the market's popularity with Soviet (former or otherwise) expats.



As the years went by, one saw a few ramshackle huts begin to be put up towards one size of the market. Usually fronted by a curtain of plastic, these structures were set up by some enterprising momo sellers who rightly figured a plate of steamed dumplings, perhaps accompanied by a hot soup in the rains and winter, would be a welcome addition to an outing to the cinema. Especially when the Nirula's was full.



The whole scene -- from customers streaming in and out of stores and stalls, the sellers calling attention to their wares, touts sidling up to you and offering tickets to sold out shows in black, and the inevitable hapless cinema-goer who found him or herself with extra tickets and desperately trying to sell them off -- provided a diorama of Delhi.



Today, though both Chanakya and Nirula's are gone, relegated to the scrap heap of history and the occasional nostalgic column, the momos remain. Indeed, such is their potency that the few rude stalls have made way for a thriving food hub, where an elongated building is home to more than a score of eateries jostling for customers, of which there are a seemingly endless supply. Most of the establishments serve the staples of momos, fried rice, noodles and stir-fries, but a few serve Delhi's other favourite, hybridised North Indian-Punjabi fare. Keeping pace with the times, new variants of momos have been introduced, ranging from fried to fish momos; every place commands its own loyal following. But the cult of the momos have spread far beyond the flag-stoned courtyard of Yashwant Place.



Successive generations of DU North Campus enjoyed their flirtations with the hot pot stickers in the neighbouring Tibetan refugee colony of Majnu ka Tilla and spread word of the momo further. Meanwhile, the dumplings became ubiquitous to Dilli Haat, that collective of handlooms and handicrafts from different states, enticing shoppers and their restless offspring with beguiling bowls of clear soup or thukpa accompanying steaming mounds of momos and a splash of radioactive red chili sauce. Elsewhere, enterprising Delhi restaurateurs played around with the format and introduced tandoori momos, steamed and roasted, dusted with chaat masala (whether these originated in West Delhi or North Campus is a question still hotly debated).



In any case, the momo seller became as common as the paan-wallah, present at most street corners, dealing out their wares to the masses on the prowl for a quick, steaming fix. Chaat masala, green chutney, chilli sauce, mayonnaise, whatever you wanted to have it with, it was all kosher and available. From Mumbai to Manipur and Kashmir to Kanyakumari, momos mushroomed everywhere to universal acclaim. With recent restaurant chains basing their menus entirely on momos (momo lasagna or momo subs anyone?), the dumpling's ascendancy is self-evident. To most people, anyway.



So when a public figure calls for the banning of an item, especially a food item, so intrinsic to the Indian identity, it's bound to blow up in his or her face -- just like that still-hot pressure cooker your grandmother always frightened you about.



Our own affair with momos continues undiminished despite a stunning revelation a few years earlier. While interning at the butchery of a 5-star hotel in South Delhi where, on a daily basis, hundreds of kilos of chicken were processed according to the needs of the different kitchens, we were always told to never throw the fatty bits, gristle and other that were trimmed from the meat. These fowl coagulants were gathered in large black plastic bags and collected quietly but courteously by an elderly bespectacled Sardarji in a rather battered van, in which he drove away with the profferings. As it turns out, he supplied momo sellers in Yashwant Place and other locations, who used the grist from our mill as it were, to stuff the dumplings with. If the memory of those bags bulging with chicken trimmings and the knowledge of where they went didn't stop us from still devouring momos in Yashwant Place -- and everywhere else -- we don't think anything will.




Prime Minister Narendra Modi may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Kazakhstans capital Astana where India and Pakistan will become full members of the bloc. There is, however, no meeting scheduled between Modi and his Pakistani counterparty Nawaz Sharif.

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Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, the 30-year-old lawyer who heads the Dalit-rights outfit Bhim Army, was arrested from Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, sources in UP Police said.According to police, a total of 25 FIRs were registered in connection with the May 9 Saharanpur caste-based clashes and Chandrashekhar was named as one of the main accused."He (Chandrashekhar) was arrested today (Thursday) morning. He was holidaying there (Himachal Pradesh), said UP Home Secretary Mani Prasad Mishra to CNN-News 18.Ravi Kumar Gautam, leader of the Bhim Armys youth wing, also confirmed the arrest to News18.com. Chandrashekhar was in Himachal Pradesh where he was arrested by a team of UP Police. They came to Himachal Pradesh in civil dress and took him away.We request the administration to follow the rules and take him for medical examination and then to court. If the administration tries to skip any step, the central and state governments will be responsible for the consequences. They should withdraw the false cases. The Dalit community will not tolerate this, he told News18.com.According to police sources, the arrest was made by the Special Investigative Team (SIT) of Saharanpur police set up by SSP Babloo Kumar and DIG KS Emmanuel.Chandrashekhar, who had been on the run for a month, had been hopping from one state to the next before finally being arrested in Himachal Pradesh. A source said, he had spent the last month in Uttarakhand, Delhi, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.Police have stepped up security in Chutmalpur, Chandrashekhars native town in Saharanpur district, as a precautionary measure.Recently, UP Police had declared a reward of Rs 12,000 each for information leading to the capture of Chandrashekhar, the 30-year-old leader of the Bhim Army, along with two of his associates. Chandrashekhar, who is wanted in connection with violence in Saharanpur on May 9, offered to surrender to the court when he emerged on stage at a massive rally in New Delhis Jantar Mantar.The Bhim Army, in protest against alleged atrocities on Dalits, had called for a Mahapanchayat in Saharanpur on May 9. While the police denied permission for the public meeting, invitations had already gone out on social media. Hundreds had started making their way to the venue of the meeting when things turned sour. Supporters of the Bhim Army clashed with the police, following which; Chandrashekhar was booked by the police.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been arrested in Madhya Pradeshs Neemuch en route to violence-hit Mandsaur where he was to meet families of five people who died in police firing during farmers protests on Tuesday. The Congress Vice-president was released later.

The farmers agitation has intensified in other parts of the country with around 4,000 villagers taking to the streets in Maharashtras Solapur where a farmer hanged himself. The farmers union of the Congress is also staging a protest at the Cantonment Railway Station in Bengaluru.

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Mumbai: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said that farmers are being instigated to create unrest, a day after violence escalated in the Mandsaur district of Madhya Pradesh over the death of five protesters in police firing.



Singh while speaking at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday, said that the central as well as the BJP governments in the states are sensitive to the needs of the farmers and was doing everything to meet the farmers demands and end protests.



He refused to talk about the death of the farmers in protests and said an investigation is underway. He said he would wait for the report before commenting on the issue but accepted that security forces should not have been used against the protesting farmers.



The BJP has repeatedly alleged a "conspiracy" behind the ongoing agitation. Senior party leaders on Thursday asked Rahul Gandhi to refrain from "politicising the death of farmers". Singh said that Rahukl Gandhi should not forget that Congress is primarily responsible for the plight of farmers in the state.



Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh have been protesting since June 1 over various demands. The protesters have been demanding higher minimum support prices (MSP) for their produce and loan waiver among other things. Beyond MP, farmers have also gone on a strike in Maharashtra.







The home minister appealed to farmers to show restraint and support the state governments that have promised to come up with solutions to their issues. I accept that there is a crisis, but our state governments are capable enough of handling the situation, Singh said.
Ahmedabad: Varshil Shah, a 17-year-old Ahmedabad resident, scored 99.99 percentile in the Gujarat Class 12 examination in Gujarat. Now he is set to become a Jain monk.



Varshil wasone of the toppers in general stream of Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board examination 2017. His father is a government servant, reported PTI.



"Though I scored high marks, I don't want to pursue the usual path where people run behind earthly possessions. My goal is to attain inner peace and eternal happiness. That will be possible only when I leave behind everything and become a Jain monk," Varshil said, speaking to reporters in Ahmedabad.



His family is supporting his decision, said Varshil, who will receive 'diksha' (initiation) of monk-hood at a grand ceremony in Surat on Friday.



"Since childhood I used to think a lot about real happiness. Then I met my guru Kalyan Ratna Vijayji Maharaj, who made me understand fine nuances of Jainism and other aspects of leading a happy and meaningful life," he said.



"There is no end to the human greed. Those who are having thousands of rupees try to earn lakhs and then want crores. There is no end to it. But Jain monks who do not have anything except inner peace and knowledge are happier than these people," he said.
The Gujarat State Board has shot itself in the foot once again. In an embarrassing error, a Class 9 Hindi subject textbook of the board refers to Jesus Christ as a demon and goes on to say that stories of this demon will be forever remembered.Realising the blooper, the education minister and the chairman of the textbook board have said that the error will be rectified soon. Officials said that the mistake was caused by a misprint.The reference to Jesus Christ as a demon is made in chapter 16 of the book titled Bharatiya Sanskriti Mein Guru-Shishya Sambandh. This translates to the relationship between a guru and his disciples in Indian culture.On page 70, the line referring to Jesus Christ reads  Iss sambandh mein haivan Isa ka ek kathan sadaa smaraniya hain." Translated, it means that in this context, an incident of demon Jesus will always be remembered.The underlined sentence translates to "an incident of demon Jesus will always be remembered."Advocate Subramaniam Iyer, who noticed the mistake, says that the error attracts section 295 (a) of the IPC, which pertains to deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class.Speaking to News18, Iyer said, Jesus is being portrayed as a demon to students. Quite clearly, this is a case that attracts section 295(a) of the IPC that pertains to hurting the religious sentiments of any class.Iyer said that the error may be unintentional, but it can create a rift between communities and cause a law and order problem. This simply is unacceptable and should be removed immediately, he said.When contacted by News18, state education minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said he was aware of the error and added that it will be corrected.Nitin Pethani, chairman of the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks said that it was a typographical error. The word haiva, a disciple of Jesus Christ, got misprinted as haivan, meaning a demon, he said, adding that Aadam Isa and Haiva Isa were the two disciples of Christ and an n inadvertently got printed in the book.This is not the first time that errors have been pointed out in school textbooks published by the Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks. In the past, a textbook had claimed that Japan had dropped an atom bomb on the United States during the World War-II. In another instance, a book had got the date of Mahatma Gandhis death anniversary wrong.
India is ready for a two-and-a-half front war, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat has said referring to Pakistan, China and the internal conflicts, ANI reported.In an interview to the news agency, Gen Rawat said he was confident the situation in Kashmir would soon normalise.Talking about Pakistan, Gen Rawat said, Pakistan is spreading disinformation among the youth of Kashmir with doctored videos and messages. This is further supported by some of the people in the Valley who spread it and glamorise the young boys who have joined terrorist organisations.We are raising our modernisation issues with the Government of India. The discussions are going well, Rawat told ANI.Earlier, the Army chief had termed the unrest in Kashmir a proxy war. "This is a proxy war and proxy war is a dirty war. It is played in a dirty way. The rules of engagement are there when the adversary comes face-to-face and fights with you. It is a dirty war... That is where innovation comes in. You fight a dirty war with innovations," Rawat had told PTI.A political slugfest over the Army chief was triggered recently when former CPI (M) general secretary Prakash Karat criticised General Rawat over the handling of Kashmir protests.Karat, in a piece written in the party organ 'People's Democracy', had said that General Rawat was reflecting the views of the Narendra Modi government, which according to him was "using force to suppress the people of Kashmir who are voicing their political protest."The Marxist veteran had objected to Rawat's interview in which he had suggested it would have been easier for the armed forces if the protesters were firing weapons instead of throwing stones. Karat said the statement was a needless provocation and was "unbecoming of a senior Army officer."
New Delhi: After the International Court of Justice decided in Indias favour and stayed Kulbhushan Jadhavs death sentence till the pendency of the case, Pakistans Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf Ali will on Thursday lead a team to the world court, seeking appointment of an ad-hoc judge from Pakistans side in the case.



The decision to appoint the Attorney-General to lead the Pakistan team at The Hague was taken at a Parliamentary Committee meeting on National Security, according to the Pakistani press.



Jadhav, was tried by a military court in Pakistan and awarded death sentence on charges of spying and posing as a threat to the national security. Recently, Pakistan had issued a statement clarifying that Jadhav will not be executed till he exhausts all his mercy appeals and according to the law he has two appeals left, one with the Pakistani Army Chief and the other with the President of Pakistan.



Pakistans Foreign Office spokesperson, Nafees Zakaria said that Indias petition at the world court was about Jadhavs entitlement to consular access and not about whether the ICJ can act as Court of appeal for Pakistani legal proceedings.



It has also been reported in the Pakistani media that the country will be indicating its intention to nominate an ad-hoc judge for the case, taking into account the ICJ statute.



The ICJ statute provides that a state, which is party to a case but does not have a judge of its nationality on the bench, can choose a person to sit as an ad-hoc judge in that case.



This development comes close on the heels of the comment made by Justice Dalveer Bhandari, the sole Indian judge on the panel of ICJ judges, who said that the basic human rights of Kulbhushan Jadhav was violated by not allowing India to have consular access to him after his arrest and during the pendency of the criminal proceedings against him in Pakistan.



According to The Nation, a Pakistan-based newspaper, Pakistan will recommend three names to the world court for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case. The delegation led by the Attorney General will present these names to the UN court.



Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Husin Jeelani and former attorney general Makhdoom Ali have been recommended to be the ad-hoc appointees at the UN court, according to The Nation.



Lately, Pakistan has also claimed that Jadhav was providing them with crucial intelligence about the recent spate of terrorist attacks in the country.



This ICJ meeting will also be in the backdrop of petitions being filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan, urging it to expedite the hanging of Jadhav as international law was not binding on Pakistan.
Nashik: Around 4,000 villagers stopped traffic at Karmala in Solapur on Thursday after a 45-year-old farmer committed suicide amid the ongoing agitation to demand a crop loan waiver from the government.



The farmer had written in his suicide note that he should not be cremated till Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis visits his village.



Now, agitated farmers in Maharashtra have given a 48-hour ultimatum to the government to hold talks with them. Or else, they will escalate the week-old agitation, and bring the state machinery to a grinding halt.



What exactly is the farmers' agitation about? Where did it begin and why? What are their main demands?



Here is your guide to Maharashtra's farmer protest:



On April 3 this year, a few farmers from Puntambe in Ahmednagar sat together to search answers to the agricultural crisis that plagues them every year.



Agitated and frustrated due to low minimum support price and governments ignorance towards their plight, they decided that the only way out was to make their voices heard and go on a strike.



And so, they claim, that for the first time in the history of the state, the farmers decided to go on a strike. The Puntambe gram sabha passed a resolution on April 3. Word soon spread and 2,500 gram panchayats came out in support of the protest.



Their main demands were the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report, particularly the Minimum Support Price clause. They demanded that farmers should be given 50% additional money than the cost of production so that farming becomes viable, a complete loan waiver and pension for farmers above 60 years of age.



Towards the end of May, BJPs ally in the state, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana declared Atmaklesh yatra. This, party leader Raju Shetti said, was his repentance for being a part of the insensitive government.



Soon after the Atmaklesh yatra, farmers protests began on June 1. The state government, in a gesture of goodwill, called some farmers leaders for talks in Mumbai.



After the talks, a farmers' leader from Puntambe named Jayaji Suryawanshi unilaterally declared that the strike was called off.



This sent a wave of rage among farmers. They alleged that the government had slyly broken the unity of the protestors, instead of addressing their concerns.



This led to further agitations. They were further aggravated by the governments statements that it was a conspiracy by opposition parties against the BJP government.



NCP, Congress and even allies like Shiv Sena, didn't leave the opportunity of attack the government from the shoulders of the farmers for its failure to end the protest.



Finally, the CM announced the largest loan waiver in the history of Maharashtra. But, by then, it was too late. The farmers were too bitter and reluctant to trust the government. This also showed the lack of mass leaders in the government that BJP could engage with.



Now, despite the announcement, the farmers continue their protest. They haven't declined political support, but are also wary of other politicians hijacking the cause.



The core committee of farmers leaders has given a two-day ultimatum to the government to hold talks with them or they will hold a state-wide dharna on June 12. The farmers have also planned a rail roko andolan on June 13. The protests will continue till Swaminathan Commission Report is implemented, farmers have said.
Two persons have been arrested for allegedly killing a man after he asked them not to consume drugs inside a toilet complex in outer Delhi's Nangloi area.Police said the accused were drug addicts and they had a grudge against the victim for long. After the incident, they had threatened the kin of the victim not to reveal their names to the police.Rahul, who was in his 20s, was allegedly stabbed multiple times by Salman (24) and Sahid (23) on Wednesday.The two accused were nabbed from their houses in Nihal Vihar and Mundka respectively while they were planning to flee. A police team traced the accused on the basis of the descriptions provided by the victim's mother.The men were wearing blood-stained clothes when they were nabbed, police said, adding that a button-actuated knife, allegedly used to kill the victim, was seized from their possession.The incident was reported from the Punjabi Market area around 8 pm on Wednesday. The pay-and-use toilet usually remained empty after dark. It was a hangout for the drug addicts in the area since there were no guards. While returning home, the victim saw the two accused at the toilet and asked them to leave the place.An argument led to a minor scuffle and the victim reportedly succeeded in pushing the accused out of the toilet complex. But, a few minutes later, the duo returned with some of their associates and allegedly attacked the victim with swords and rods. The victim's father and brother had died a few years back.(With PTI inputs)
Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi left for Madhya Pradesh's violence-hit Mandsaur district on Thursday morning to meet the families of the five people who were killed in violence during the farmers' agitation."Our leader wants to meet the family members of the deceased and comfort them," Congress MLA Jaivardhan Singh, son of senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, said. "The entire Congress is with Madhya Pradesh's farmers in distress. The BJP-led state government should wake up from its slumber and help the farmers in need," he said.Gandhi will be accompanied by senior party leader and former Union minister Kamal Nath.Five people were killed on Tuesday as the farmers' agitation turned violent in Mandsaur, prompting the authorities to clamp curfew in the trouble-hit area.The BJP has alleged a "conspiracy" behind the ongoing agitation and has asked Rahul Gandhi to refrain from "politicising the death of farmers"."Farmers of Madhya Pradesh are peace-loving. They do not indulge in violent activities. There is a conspiracy behind this entire incident. Those who do not want peace and prosperity in the state and cannot see the BJP government functioning smoothly are behind this incident," Rural Development Minister Narender Singh Tomar said.Tomar, who represents Gwalior seat in Lok Sabha, said farmers in Madhya Pradesh are the most prosperous in the country.Replying to a question on Rahul Gandhi's scheduled visit to the protest site, the minister said he should not "politicise" the death of farmers.He also said that Gandhi and his party were responsible for the poor condition of farmers in the country.Union minister Venkaiah Naidu also hit out at the Congress for "hijacking" the protest in Mandsaur. "It is a very sad turn of events in a state that is the most peaceful in India. The Congress is trying to politicise farmers' problems after they failed to counter Shivraj Singh Chouhan politically in the state," he said.Farmers in western Madhya Pradesh have been protesting since June 1 over various demands. The protesters have been demanding higher minimum support prices (MSP) for their produce and loan waiver among other things.(With PTI inputs)
: The Rajasthan police said that it will examine whether traffic rules were violated by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who visited the state on way to Madhya Pradesh, on Thursday.SP, Chittorgarh, Prasanna Khamesra said that Gandhi had travelled a few kilometres as a pillon rider on a motorcycle from Nimbaheda to up to the Madhya Pradesh border.At the border, Rahul had alighted from the bike and walked into Madhya Pradesh, he said.The police official said that there were reports that at one point of time, there were three passengers including Gandhi on the motorcycle. The pillion rider also need to wear a helmet, he said."We will look into whether any traffic violation was committed," he said.DSP Gopi Chand also said that the matter will be looked into.Gandhi reached Udaipur by a chartered plane in the morning and from there left for Chittorgarh. From Chittorgarh he entered Madhya Pradesh aiming to meet the families of farmers who had died during recent protests in Mandsaur.
"Then in 1981 I took up a job in the state's legal aid department. My first posting was in Bastar, where I fought for the land rights of adivasis. But the higher authorities did not like my attitude. I was transferred thrice, till I finally left my job," Sharma says.

"The first time around, I brought the whole state capital to a halt for three days. We arrived in Bhopal with some 15000 tractors and practically laid siege to it. Then the Chief Minister agreed to meet us and said that our demand letter was holy Gita for him. But he never implemented it, which is why two years later we launched a second agitation," Sharma said.

Sharma claims that he never intended the current agitation to get violent. "We have always heard about the farmer killing himself. Never will you hear about a farmer killing anyone else. This is not what we set out to achieve. Some anti-social elements, vandals and looters joined the protest somewhere down the line and they need to be identified and acted upon. We farmers never hurt anyone," he says.

: Since June 6, when Madhya Pradesh burst out on national television screens and newspaper front-pages, one kept hearing a name  Kakkaji. All queries made about the ongoing violent farmer protests kept leading to him.Shiv Kumar Sharma, nicknamed Kakkaji, is the angry farmer leader who has been railing against the government for last several years and, as many believe, is the person behind the ongoing violent farmer stir.Though he distances himself from the violence in the ongoing stir, he doesn't shy from claiming credit for bringing farmers from far flung areas together. "This was just phase 1 of our bigger plan. Phase 2 is yet to start," he claims, adding that elaborate plans for these protests were made back in January.For this, he is going to hold a meeting with 62 farmer bodies on Friday in the capital. According to close aides of Sharma, he managed to reach Delhi on Thursday evening for Friday's mega meeting.The 65 years old farmer-activist has been associated with an RSS backed farmer outfit, sacked after his repeated attacks on the BJP-led government in the state, and, by his own admission, jailed 44 times.He started out as a student activist back in 1971. It was in Jabalpur University where he studied from 1971 to 1977 as a law student, doing MA LLB where he first dabbled in activism, first by holding protests for farmers' rights and later providing them legal assistance pro bono.He then started a farmers' magazine called 'Kisan Ganga' with his own money. But the magazine didn't take off and he lost the 2 acres of land he had mortgaged to fund the magazine.This is the time, in 1998, when he joined RSS backed farmers' outfit  Bharatiya Kisan Sangh. He claims to have worked in Sangh affiliate for two years without realising that it was run by RSS. "I didnt know. Nowhere in their documents did they say that BKS was run by RSS. After two years, I got to know," Sharma says.But that didn't stop him from working for the Sangh affiliate for the nine more years.Another farmer activist Suresh Gurjar, a national executive committee member of BKS, remembers his association with Sharma. "He was active from his student days and during his time strengthened and built from scratch our outfit in over 50 districts in Madhya Pradesh, which is why the organisation made him its state president. There is no doubt about his integrity and honesty. Only I feel that he is hogging all the limelight. Others like me have also worked for farmers. But we aren't talked about as much."Shiv Kumar Sharma, nicknamed Kakkaji, is the angry farmer leader who has been railing against the government for last several years.With BJP being in power in Madhya Pradesh for the last 15 years, the period in which over 18000 farmers committed suicide in the state, there may not have been much scope for the RSS-led farmer outfits to protest against status-quo. That's when Shiv Kumar Sharma made his mark.He led two huge movements against the state government in 2010 and 2012.The 2012 agitation in Bareilly was more violent. The violence was solely provoked by police, he claims, where one farmer lost his life and several rounds were fired.After his second protest, Sharma was sacked from BKS. He went on to found his own farmer rights body  Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh. This is the body behind most of the protests in Madhya Pradesh today.A person close to Sharma claims that the firebrand farmer activist has always felt a threat to his life since. "Even today he feels that the state is out to kill him. Although Kakkaji doesn't fear death but the threat is real to him."When asked about rumours that some opposition parties are behind the protests, he says, We in a group of 500 farmers, 25 can be from Congress. So what can we do? Should we identify all the farmers with Congress and show them the door. Some may have political affiliation to BJP, should we do the same to them?But he doesn't deny that he has been in touch with several political parties. "They have all approached me at some time is all I can say."Nevertheless, he will continue to lead the protest in Madhya Pradesh. "We had planned to hold protests in the Malwa region from June 1 to 10. Farmer protests that you are seeing are part of this plan. Now in the second phase, we will take the protests to Mahakaushal region [Bundelkhand, Baghelkhand, Rewa, Jabalpur  22 districts in all]."With Madhya Pradesh smoldering from over a week long violent farmer agitation, police is unlikely to let Sharma plan and take off a next round of protest in Madhya Pradesh. And with Assembly elections scheduled next year, the government may not want to crackdown and annoy the farmers either. Both parties will be watching each other's steps. Who makes the first move will be interesting to watch.
Kolkata: Nine policemen were reportedly injured in clashes in West Bengals hill districts after Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) supporters clashed with police and torched several vehicles on Thursday.



Sensing more trouble, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee  who is in Mirik for a cabinet meeting  called an emergency meeting with chief secretary and home secretary.



The clashes started after police forces were rushed to the troubled areas and met GJM supporters protest against the imposition of Bangla. Several GJM supporters, policemen and local people were injured in the clashes.



According to reports, GJM supporters attacked policemen with stones and glass bottles. In self-defence, the policemen resorted to lathi charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob.



There were reports that the West Bengal government has asked Army to be deployed in the area. However, the Army has denied them.



Wing Commander SS Birdi, spokesperson, Defence, Eastern Region, told News18, We have not received any official letter from the state government requesting for Army deployment in Darjeeling. There is no Army deployment in the Hills.



The clash took place close to the venue where Banerjee along with her ministers held the cabinet meeting for the first time in the hills after 45 years.



In some areas, internet connection were barred and local channel operators were asked to shut down the services till further order.



Our agitation for separate Gorkhaland and against the autocratic attitude of state government will continue till we achieve it, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said.



Reacting to the incident, Mamata said, They are trying to politicize the issue (compulsory Bangla language) to create hurdles before developmental path of TMC government.



We never said that Bangla is compulsory for the students in the Hills. Students of the Hills can study whatever they want. Bengali has not been made compulsory. No one can stop good work from happening. For 34 years nothing was done for the Hills. We should be given respect for the work we have re-started, she said while announcing that the government will set up a mini-secretariat for the hills in Darjeeling.



The mini-secretariat will be named after legendary mountaineer, Tenzing Norgay, Banerjee said after the cabinet meeting.



Meanwhile, GJM has called a 12-hour bandh in the hills on Friday. GJM will take a fresh call on indefinite strike after tourists leave the hills.
Astana/ New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif greeted each other at a cultural gala in Astana on Thursday night, according to sources.



The sources said Modi and Sharif were in the Leaders' Lounge at the Astana Opera before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) concert. Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders met each other after Sharif's operation, Modi enquired about the Pak premiers health. He also enquired about Sharif's mother and family, they added.



Earlier, asked whether Modi and Sharif will have a bilateral meeting, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, Our position has not changed. There is no proposal from their side. There is no proposal either from our side.



Both Modi and Sharif arrived in Astana on Thursday to participate in the SCO Summit which will on Friday induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.



Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues, including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.



The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.



(with PTI inputs)
Mandsaur: Farmer protests spread across Madhya Pradesh on Thursday even as the epicentre of the agitation, Mandsaur, remained relatively peaceful, on a day when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi made an attempt to meet the farmers but was stopped before entering the district.



While curfew continued in Mandsaur, except for a two-hour relaxation, incidents of arson were reported from Shajapur and Dhar districts in western part of the state on the eighth day of the agitation for loan waiver and better crop price.



The authorities also prevented Rahul Gandhi and a number of other Congress leaders from entering Mandsaur. Gandhi travelled by air, by car, by motorcyle and by foot from Delhi to Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan before he was detained and arrested in Naya Gaon, about 70 km from Mandsaur.



He slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the problems being faced by the farmers, evoking a sharp response from the BJP which termed his visit to Mandsaur as a photo opportunity.



Gandhi, accompanied by few senior leaders of the state and JD(U)s Sharad Yadav, tried to make his way to Mandsaur through the Rajasthan border.



There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.



Gandhi was released after over four hours of detention in the guest house of a cement company. They were later released on the border.



Just before his detention, the Congress vice president said Prime Minister Narendra Modi "can't give the right rates for farmers' agriculture produce, can't give them bonus, cant give them compensation... He can only give them bullets."



The BJP termed Gandhi's visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity" and accused the Congress of "fuelling violence" in the farmers' protests.



Later in the evening, Gandhi met the kin of four of the five deceased farmers who were brought to Rajathan's Chittorgarh district by Congress workers.



He lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the "barbaric" police action.



Talking to reporters, he said, "I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief....Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS?"



He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of "50 richest people" of the country.



Amid the increasing political slugfest, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, which is facing a major crisis, shunted out the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district, two days after five farmers were killed in police firing during a violent protest.



A police inspector, who had allegedly fired at the protestors on Tuesday, was also removed from field duty and sent to police lines.



The states home minister Bhupendra Singh said five farmers had been killed in police firing despite the earlier claim that police did not fire during the protests. He said Pipliamandi Town Inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who had allegedly fired at the farmers causing casualties, had been removed from field duty and sent to the Mandsaur police lines.



To bring back normalcy, the Chief Minister made a fresh attempt to reach out to the agitating farmers, saying the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.



Appealing to the farmers to maintain calm, he said, "Only talks can end the differences. He said, "The state government is of farmers and public. I will continue to work for them."
Srinivas said that there could be a couple of more bilateral meetings between India and heads of the member states.

During Modi's visit to St Petersburg earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin had conveyed to India about its admission as a full member of the SCO.

However, there is no meeting scheduled between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.

India also hopes to benefit from Tashkent-based Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (RATS).

India will be admitted as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at a summit of the regional grouping on Thursday in Kazakhstan, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be present.The Prime Minister is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit at Kazakhstan's capital city of Astana.Pakistan will also be admitted as a full member of the SCO along with India during the Astana summit."Indications are that the last leg of the entire process, as per the Memorandum of Obligations, which is the confirmation (of membership) by the heads of the states of the existing members of the SCO, is going to happen in Astana," GV Srinivas, joint secretary of the Eurasia division in the MEA, told PTI on Wednesday.Srinivas said that there could be a couple of more bilateral meetings between India and heads of the member states.However, there is no meeting scheduled between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif.Apart from China, there is also the possibility of a meeting between India and Kazakhstan, the largest supplier of uranium to India.When asked whether Modi would meet Xi on the sidelines of the SCO summit, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "There is a possibility, but the schedule is being worked out and our missions are coordinating locally."On Modi and Sharif's meeting, he said, "External Affairs Minister (Sushma Swaraj) has already said that there was neither any request from their side nor any such proposal from our side. There is no change in the status on this."Srinivas said India had been an observer country at the SCO since 2005 and had applied for a full membership in 2014.Founded in 2001, the SCO currently has six members  China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, and is headquartered in Chinese capital of Beijing.During Modi's visit to St Petersburg earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin had conveyed to India about its admission as a full member of the SCO.Highlighting the advantages of joining the regional grouping, Srinivas said one of the aspects deals with economy, connectivity and trade, while another aspect focuses on terrorism which includes protection of classified information.He said 38 different documents have been signed by India to be a part of the body.On being asked that the SCO summit statement of 2015 had a reference to the Belt and Road Forum (BRF), a Chinese initiative opposed by India, the official said the aspect was not part of the 38 documents signed by India to become a member of the grouping.The One Belt One Road (OBOR) project under the Belt and Road Forum seeks to connect China with Europe, Asia and Africa. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is also a part of the project.India opposes CPEC as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).India also hopes to benefit from Tashkent-based Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (RATS)."There is little possibility of India staying out of such an exercise. We hope that as we join the RATS, we will be able to benefit from this collaboration against our fight against terrorism. They (RATS) do a series of activities, including joint exercises in fighting terrorism, maintaining a data bank of terrorists and undesirable elements etc," Srinivas said.Responding to a query on whether or not India would be invited to participate in any anti-terror exercise alongside Pakistan and China, Baglay said, "We work with many countries, including Pakistan, as well as in UN peacekeeping operations. Terrorism is a fight which is incumbent on the entire humanity, not just countries."(With PTI inputs)
The desert kingdom of Qatar is no stranger to strained relations with other Gulf countries. But the current crisis, which was triggered by seven countries severing ties with Qatar after accusing it of funding terrorism, is far more serious. And the Indian diaspora of more than 6 lakh people, in a country with 26 lakh population, is anxious, if not panicked.Qatar is powered, to a certain extent, by investments made by Indian natives and also by thousands of those who work in construction and hospitality sectors.There is no widespread panic. People are anxious, but that is expected, said OV Musthafa, director of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department (NORKA) and a leading Indian businessman in Dubai.With its wealth fund placed at a staggering $335 billion, Qatars per capita GDP is at $129,726, highest in the world.Musthafa was, however, quick to add that the anxiety among people was something to be concerned about. The stalemate, if it continues for another 15 days or so, will spell trouble. People have already started stocking up household items, food items, etc before they run out, he said.Qatar has only one land border with Saudi Arabia, on whose call the other Gulf nations decided to cut all diplomatic ties with it. This border is the only route for Qataris to get their supply of daily items like milk, sugar, meat products, etc. Indians in Qatar are worried about supplies running out in no time.As of now, supermarkets have all sorts of products. But a week ago, if it took us half an hour to buy something from a supermarket, now it takes four hours, said Jacob, a resident of Doha.Local news reports also suggest that supermarkets in Doha are witnessing long queues ever since the isolation of Qatar.Jacobs views were met by Shoaib, who lives in Doha with his family. There is stuff in the supermarket, but there have been changes. Now, everyone wants milk in tetra packs that lasts longer than the usual, fresh milk, he said.Indian government has sensed this anxiety among its natives. Three days after Qatar was isolated by the Gulf, the Indian embassy in Doha, on Wednesday, released an advisory, promising that it was doing everything possible to make sure that Indians were safe.The Qatari authorities have conveyed that they will take all necessary steps to ensure that normal life, including supplies of food items, is not affected, said the advisory. Reports have also suggested that the Indian government has offered to send in supplies to Qatar.Additionally, despite the political upheaval, Indians News18 spoke to said that their immediate business prospects were still intact. Most of the supplies for industries here come from Saudi. Even if it is not from Saudi, it comes via Saudi. While we have sufficient material for now, we dont know about the future, Jacob said. Hope for a patch up among the Arab nations sooner than later, he said, was all that Indians in Qatar were holding on to.(Names in full have been withheld to maintain anonymity)
Hyderabad: A fresh row has erupted at the Osmania University in Hyderabad after the administration issued a circular banning all non-academic activities like political events, agitations and public meetings on the campus.



While the administration claims that the decision was taken to improve academic atmosphere, students said the sudden move is an attempt to suppress voices at the university that has become synonymous with student political movements. The move comes few months after Telangana government faced flak for shifting iconic Dharna Chowk to the city outskirts.



The orders issued by University administration states, Osmania University has been established for the purpose of imparting higher education and conducting research in various disciplines. It is informed to all concerned teachers, students and staff of Universities that activities which are unrelated to academics and research such as political and public meetings will not be permitted on the campus."



The orders banning protests and agitations on campus has drawn huge criticism from the student community, activists and opposition parties. Protests have already hit campus, demanding that the order be revoked.



The decision to ban protests is also being seen in the backdrop of the beef and pork festival which were planned on the campus on June 30.



Students who led the agitations during the Telangana movement are shocked over the decision. "Osmania University was the epicentre of protests during the Telangana movement. It was the student movement that led to the creation of new state. Why government wants to stop protests now and suppress the voices of the students? Its the students who made KCR the Chief Minister. We will fight against this decision which is against our democratic right, said Krishank, member of the Joint Action Committee.



For many years Osmania University has been a platform for students to raise their concerns and has witnessed protests against the various government policies.



Recently, students on campus have been protesting against Telangana government, over non-fulfillment of jobs promises made by Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao.
: Thousands of tourists were left stranded in the hills following a violent clash that erupted between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters and the police over 'compulsory Bangla language' in schools on Thursday.Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet colleagues were also stuck in the Hills after GJM chief Bimal Gurung called for a sudden shutdown in the evening. Roads were blocked and in some places they were dug up by GJM workers making it difficult for the people to commute.Prohibitory orders have been imposed in most of the troubled areas and a large number of policemen were deployed to maintain law and order.Concerned over the bandh called by the GJM, Mamata instructed officials to launch a massive rescue operation for the stranded tourists.Speaking to News18, State Tourism Minister Gautam Deb, said, "Special buses were pressed into action to help ferry stranded tourists to Kolkata, Siliguri, and Bagdogra airport. We are coordinating with the police to provide all kind of assistance to the tourists. Whatever happened today is unfortunate and we will not tolerate this in future."For the last few months Mamata is having a bitter political fight with the GJM. Recently it flared up after she announced Bangla language will be compulsory in all government schools.GJM chief Bimal Gurung protested against this move and accused Mamata of dictatorial politics. Few days back Mamata reached Darjeeling to hold her cabinet meeting (which held today) and accused Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA) of misusing funds. She also ordered a special audit  which angered GJM workers and today they tried to break a police barricade and clashed violently with the policemen.Nine policemen were reportedly injured in clashes and several vehicles were torched by the GJM supporters. According to reports, GJM supporters attacked policemen with stones and glass bottles. In self-defence, the policemen resorted to lathi charge and fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob.Meanwhile, Anil Punjabi, Chairman (eastern region) of Travel Agents Federation of India (TAFI), expressed his concern over the stranded tourists. He urged the state government to ensure safe return of all of them."I would like to request all tourists not to get panic as things will be normal soon," he said.Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh, said, "Mamata intentionally held her cabinet meeting in Darjeeling to instigate the people of hills. She is responsible for the clash. She should immediately come down to Kolkata for the safety of tourists. She is there to flare up the situation."
: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday attended a reception and a gala show, marking the beginning of the two-day-long SCO Summit, even as speculation swirled over a possible meeting between him and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to defuse tensions in bilateral ties.Modi, Sharif, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping were among the top leaders who attended the reception hosted by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It was not known whether Modi and Sharif exchanged pleasantries at the reception.When asked whether he will have a meeting with Modi, Sharif, before leaving for the reception, only smiled and waved at the media persons which many interpreted as an indication of a possible meeting or at least a pull aside between the two leaders.Sartaj Aziz, the Pakistan Prime Minister's Advisor on Foreign Affairs, too did not respond to a query on a possible Modi-Sharif tete-e-tete.India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.Both Modi and Sharif arrived in Astana on Thursday to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit which will on Friday induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.The events related to the SCO Summit got underway with a spectacular concert this evening.Indian classical dance Kathak was the first to be featured after the host nation Kazakhstan's ensemble. Eight dancers from Bengaluru-based NADAM put up 'Mahaganapathim' -- an ode to the god of auspicious beginnings, Lord Ganesha.India was the only observer country to perform in the concert which featured traditional and western classical music and dance performances from China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, apart from the hosts.
Patna: Himanshu Yadav was hacked to death and shot six times at the orders of a village Panchayat. His fault  marrying a girl from his own neighbourhood in Bhagalpur district of Bihar.



Yadavs attackers also took the girl, Soni Kumari, away with them as they escaped.



The incident took place in Gaurachakki village of Bhagalpur which is approximately 250 kilometers from Patna.



The Panchayat was called on Tuesday to deliberate on the marriage, which had taken place only a few days ago. In the presence of both families, the Panchayat annulled the marriage and ordered the brides family to kill Yadav.



No sooner had the members of the Panchayat verbally ordered the killing, a group of people armed with iron rods and firearms barged into Himanshus house.







The victim was bundled into a cotton bag and beaten till his limbs broke. His mother was also attacked when she tried to save her son. When it was clear that Himanshu was dead, they took out guns and fired six shots at him, his wailing mother said.



Himanshu and Soni knew each other since they were children. The attraction between the two recently grew. Rajneesh Kumar, Himanshus brother, said his family agreed to the marriage on his brothers insistence but the brides family was always opposed.



Bhagalpur Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Manoj Kumar has launched a search operation to nab the accused. An FIR has been lodged against 21 people. Three have been arrested and we will soon nab the rest, he said.



Soon after the incident, the village wore a deserted look, with not many opting to venture out.



The SSP said that a police protection team had been deployed at the home of the victim and that he was personally looking into the matter.
Actor Priyanka Chopra arrived in Mumbai on Wednesday after turning heads at the CFDA FAshion Awards 2017 in a black Michael Kors number and receiving rave reviews for her performance in her debut Hollywood film Baywatch as the antagonist Victoria Leeds.The 34-year-old actor who received a warm welcome by her fans was snapped by paparazzi while she was leaving the airport.The international star who is still desi at heart, greeted her fans with a namaste as she left from the place in her car.From red carpet events, television shows, movies and now airport, Priyanka is leaving no opportunity to flaunt her impeccable fashion sense. The actor looked stunning dressed in a black Zimmermann jumpsuit and Etro jacket which she later took off at the airport given the soaring temperatures in the country.Take a look:Although it isn't clear for how many days the B-town beauty is in India, but seems like she already has a lot of things on her mind and on her platter too.(All images: Yogen Shah)
Attending a dear friends wedding,dolled up in @manishmalhotra05 sari with @renuoberoiluxuryjewellery .#weddingdiaries #white#tassels #glam A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on Jan 27, 2017 at 8:58am PST

A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on Mar 24, 2017 at 7:56am PDT

Wearing @manishmalhotra05 with earrings from @anmoljewellers for my first charity event with @amirkingkhan for #ssfcare #orphanaidproject #gratitude #karma #london A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on Apr 29, 2017 at 10:26am PDT

In Goa ready for a Brand endorsement event styled by @sanjanabatra. Tap for creditsMy South Indian genes seem to have a bias towards this style#workmode #brandendorsement #saristory #volini A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on May 18, 2017 at 5:12am PDT

Dolled up to attend the #dadasahebphalkeacademyaward wearunv @amitaggarwalofficial @silverstreakstore .Styled by my fav @sanjanabatra #awarded #blueliner #glamsham A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@theshilpashetty) on Jun 1, 2017 at 8:50am PDT

There is no denying the fact that actor Shilpa Shetty Kundra is of one the hottest and fittest B-town mommies. While on one hand her tall frame, perfect figure, flawless skin combined with her confident personality makes her look gorgeous each time, on the other, her dedication towards health and fitness keeps her young both at heart and mind.The 41-year-old star who tied the knot with London-based entrepreneur Raj Kundra in 2009, has seldom gone wrong with her fashion selections. From elaborate gowns, ethnic attires, casuals to chic summer dresses, Shilpa's sartorial choices have been spot on. Apart from all other outfits, the one attire that the actress can really pull off extremely well is the traditional Indian drape.Time and again she has slayed the saree game and made heads turn with her stunning public appearances. The elegance, panache and confidence with which the actress dons the traditional Indian six-yard has no match.Here are five times the ravishing actress sported sarees and totally had us going gaga over her killer looks.Shilpa looked ethereal and glamorous dolled up in a Manish Malhotra saree and statement necklace, bracelet and ring by Renu Oberoi for a friend's wedding.No one can do belted sarees better than the actress. Shilpa looked lovely sporting a Shantanu Nikhil number that featured a belt for a modern twist. The actress sported the saree at an awards function. In fact, even her beautiful hairdo and spot on makeup and accessories deserve a mention here.Shilpa stunned in a Manish Malhotra saree that she donned for a charity event she had organised with British boxer Amir Iqbal Khan to raise funds for orphans.The B-town diva looked flawless dressed in a Raw Mango saree. While Shilpa exuded elegance and grace in the beautiful outfit, the vibrant colours of the traditional Indian attire accentuated her lookThe 41-year-old star showed up in a Amit Agarwal one-shoulder upcycled vintage banarasi brocade saree gown at the Dadasaheb Phalke Awards held in Mumbai. Styled by Sanjana Batra, the gorgeous actress glammed up her look with metallic draped corset blouse, silver jewelry by Silver Streak, signature hairstyle and minimal makeup. The side trail of the outfit was the perfect detail to give it the saree-gown look.
Mumbai: Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani is happy that Anupam Kher is stepping into the shoes of Manmohan Singh for a film, but says the movie's makers will need to obtain no-objection certificates (NOC) from the former Prime Minister himself as well as Congress President Sonia Gandhi for film certification.



Nihalani has warned that the film's makers would have to abide by the guideline regarding all films based on real-life characters.



"The makers of The Accidental Prime Minister, producer Sunil Bohra, would have to get an NOC from Manmohan Singhji, Sonia Gandhiji and all the other real-life politicians who are part of the narrative. This rule applies without fail. There are no exceptions," Nihalani said.



"And although my current tenure as the CBFC chairperson ends in January 2018 and this film will come up for censorship after that, I am sure the guidelines regarding biopics would remain unchanged."



He hopes the film's team is aware of this.



"Anupam Kher was himself the CBFC chairperson not too long so. Ashoke Pandit who considers himself a part of the CBFC, is also a part of the film on Manmohan Singhji. And Hansal Mehta who is writing the film, claims to be a victim of the censorship guidelines every time his film is on release. I can't imagine how these people cannot be awar of the NOC required for censor clearance of films based on real-life figures," Nihalani added.



When IANS contacted producer Sunil Bohra, he said he was travelling.



Nevertheless, Nihalani is confident Anupam Kher will give the role his best shot.



"He's such a versatile actor. At the age of 28, he had played an old man so brilliantly in 'Saaransh'. I am sure he will do full justice to Manmohan Singhji's character, though it would have to be more expressions than words. As we all know, Manmohan Singhji hardly speaks. I am sure the dialogue writer would not have much to contribute to the character," he added.



The project is an adaptation of Sanjay Baru's controversial book The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh.


Image: A still from A Death In The Gunj

Image: Hardly Anonymous Communications

In an industry that demands conforming and at times, a strong Bollywood lineage, it seems tougher for newcomers and outsiders to hold their own. But despite all odds, some actors have carved their niche and paved their way to becoming the finest of the current lot. At a time when Bollywood is battling and struggling to storm the waves of nepotism, it becomes all the more important to appreciate and acknowledge the outsiders whore slowly becoming the definition of the kind of cinema one would want to see. They might not have had big roles in their kitty yet but they sure have the potential to make it big and a testimony to that is their content-driven choices in the past.Vikrant Massey, who played Shutu in Konkona Sens directorial debut A Death In The Gunj, brought to screen the complexities of his character with such finesse, that one probably cant imagine any other actor pulling off a Shutu better. He evoked a gamut of emotions with his honest act and managed to shine amid a stellar star cast including the likes of Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Om Puri and Tanuja. In Mohit Suris Half Girlfriend too, he sported an accent more relatable than the lead Arjun Kapoor and emerged to be the sigh of relief that viewers deserved after bearing a hell lot of Arjun-Shraddhas forced love act. Lootera and Dil Dhadakne Do are only some of the other films that featured Vikrant but the actor is yet to bag a film of his own.Vikrant isnt the only actor that was brought to limelight in A Death In The Gunj, the likes of Tilotama Shome, Jim Sarbh and Gulshan Devaiah, too, have been missing out on their share of fame. Tilotama, an award-winning actress, is possibly one of the main faces of todays parallel cinema. She shines bright with her choice of roles, but the mainstream or commercial cinema per se, is yet to tap into the talent this woman has to offer. Back in 2001, she featured in Monsoon Wedding and since then, shes been a part of the content-driven wave of cinema. Jim, on the other hand, is a nuanced theatre actor who made his Bollywood debut with Sonam Kapoor-starrer Neerja as a terrorist. Despite playing an antagonist in the film, Jim grabbed eyeballs and instantly became the talk of the tinsel town. Thankfully, he now has a full-fledged role to himself in Dinesh Vijans Raabta. Another actor, Gulshan, made his debut with That Girl In Yellow Boots and is often spotted on silver screen doing varied roles such as that of Bhawani in Ramleela but still remains an under-appreciated actor for the most part.Another actor, to have carved a successful path for himself, is Ali Fazal. One may remember him from the sensible man in Fukrey and Happy Bhaag Jaayegi and that hell next be seen opposite Judi Dench in Stephen Frears Victoria & Abdul only stands a testament to the fact that Hollywood knows how to utilise Indian talent better than Bollywood will ever know.Nandita Das Manto will bring to screen Rasika Dugal, the girl known for playing character roles in Anwar, No Smoking and Qissa, in the shoes of Mantos wife, Safia. Her first look from the film has already piqued up viewers curiosity and has got them hooked to see what more lies in the film. Meanwhile, Kirti Kulhari, who was last seen in multi-starrer Pink, has now bagged a pivotal role in Madhur Bhandarkars Indu Sarkar and itll only be interesting to see what new feather she adds to her filmography this time.The films like Jajantaram Mamantaram, Wazir, Citylights, Jai Gangaajal, Kai Po Che!, Jolly LLB 2 saw Manav Kaul doing varied genres of roles. He can step into the shoes of a helpless dwarf resident with the same perfection he does a corrupt officer onscreen. But has Bollywood given him the pie yet? The answer is similar to that for the other unconventional character actors  a no.Sayani Gupta, who is slowly becoming Bollywoods favourite, proved her acting mettle in Margarita With a Straw, went on doing a series of commercial films including Parched, Fan, Baar Baar Dekho and is now all set to experiment in Ranbir Kapoor-Katirna Kaif starrer Jagga Jasoos. In a way, Sayami has tried to bridge the gap between the existing kinds of cinema by dwindling from one kind to another. With Masaan and Haraamkhor, another actor, Shweta Tripathi, brought a certain innocence to the projects and beautifully exemplified a job well done.Having featured in films like Sarkar 3, Kai Po Che!, Running Shaadi and Akira, Amit Sadh is swiftly entering the league of lead actors and so far, his decisions only seem to be turning out right. Its equally elating to see the likes of Rajkummar Rao, Sushant Singh Rajput, Vicky Kaushal and Saqib Saleem to be representatives of the stay of self-made actors in the industry.Rajat Barmecha, who made his Bollywood debut with Vikramaditya Motwane's 2010 film Udaan, recently took to Facebook and penned down a note that ended up being an eye-opener of sorts. He wrote at length about how some of the most eminent names in the film industry appreciated and acknowledged his brilliant debut but no one offered him any projects. Rajat also explained how he had to take up projects that he didn't believe in just to manage a survival in Mumbai. What was probably meant as a personal clarification ended up shedding light on the struggle of various actors across the industry and happened to be in total sync with the ones who aspire to make it big in the industry but lack the connections to see it through.The aforementioned names probably add up to be just a drop in the whirlpool of talent that Bollywood happens to be, but if this drop isnt considered and given its due credit now, one might see it fading amid the glitzy and glamorous Bollywood potboilers soon enough.
Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh was seen doing yoga with yoga guru Ramdev at a public function in Bihars Motihari, even as the killing of Madhya Pradesh farmers in police firing fuelled protests in other parts of the country.The yoga event was part of a three-day camp organised by Ramdev.The BJP and the Congress are embroiled in a slugfest over the killing of five people during farmers protests in Madhya Pradeshs Mandsaur district on Tuesday. Two days later, the states home minister Bhupendra Singh admitted that the lives were lost during police firing.Sources in the Agriculture Ministry said Singhs visit was pre-planned and that he was monitoring the situation in Madhya Pradesh.The issue took a political turn on Thursday when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi was detained in Neemuch, around 60 km from Mandsaur where he was scheduled to meet the families of the deceased farmers.Protests also broke out in Maharashtras Solapur where around 4,000 people took to the streets a day after a debt-ridden farmer killed himself."Prime Minister Narendra Modi will waive off the loans of his rich friends. He wont help out the farmers. He can't give the right rates for their agricultural produce, can't give them bonus, can't give compensation... He can only give them bullets," Rahul Gandhi said just before he was taken into preventive custody.Hitting out at the Centre, Congress leader and former Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan said: The agriculture minister is not serious about the issue. What is the PM doing? What are his ministers doing?The agriculture minister should have been in Mandsaur to resolve the issue. The government does not care about the farmers, Chavan told CNN-News18.Hitting back, BJP leader Hitesh Bajpai said those protesting were not farmers but members of political parties.
Ahmedabad: Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Pravin Togadia on Thursday said that while farmers are being shot in the country, those shouting slogans supporting Pakistan are spared.



"In Madhya Pradesh, farmers fighting for their right to survive were shot down (in police firing on Tuesday). But we do not kill people in Kashmir valley who shout `Pakistan Zindabad'," he said, speaking to reporters in Ahmedabad.



"Farmers across the country are agitated. Not just Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Gujarat, farmers in Andhra, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, all are agitated," the international working president of VHP said.



He demanded a special session of Parliament to frame a policy to make farmers debt-free by taking into account recommendations of the Swaminathan committee.



"We kill enemies, not farmers....I must say that farmers of this country are today unhappy," he said.



Togadia was speaking after launching `Prato Amrut Powder', which he said helps provide moisture to plants during dry spells, and which VHP is going to distribute to farmers.



"When it rains, this powder (sprinkled around the roots of a plant) will absorb water. One gram soaks up 200 millilitres of water. It stores water and forms a gel. When it doesn't rain for 20 days, this gel starts releasing water to the plant," he said.



The product is bio-degradable and VHP is going to distribute it to farmers across the country, he said.



"Our effort is to make farmers prosperous with three-pronged action plan: farming without incurring cost, providing water for crop and getting right support price for produce," Togadia said.



VHP has provided training to over 30,000 farmers about how to conduct farming using these techniques, he said.
Despite the administration announcing that he would not be allowed to enter Mandsaur, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi reached the Madhya Pradesh border from Udaipur early on Thursday, and from there rode pillion to meet families of farmers killed in police firing. Gandhi left his SPG cover behind as he zoomed past a plethora of journalists and policemen. He was soon detained by MP Police.This is not the first time when Gandhi has reached a farmers protest amid soaring tension. However, there are questions if such appearances help the farmers cause.RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sanghs MP state secretary Manmohan Vyas said, Madhya Pradesh will be going to Assembly polls next year and Rahul Gandhis visit is nothing but a political stunt. His visit is not going to normalize things in Mandsaur, which is tense right now. He shouldnt have come at such a time. What did Congress do for farmers during its tenure and what has Rahul Gandhi done for them?Rahul has, in the past, taken up the cause of farmers in Bhatta Parsaul  the twin villages near Greater Noida where the farmers protested against the land acquisitions. That drama culminated into Rahul Gandhis arrest midnight. Ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections, Gandhi had started the Kisan Yatra, where he covered about 3,500 kilometres of distance tapping 48 districts and 141 Assembly segments in 26 days. He had recently hit out at Telangana government over farmers suicides.But farmer unions believe Gandhi needs to do a lot more to win the faith of Indian farmers. Rahul Gandhi has tried to raise issues of farmers but has failed to take them forward. He has not been able to maintain the same fervor he has when he starts speaking on the issues. He probably has more important things to do, but he has not acted well on his commitment to farmers, said Dharmendra Mali of Bharatiya Kisan Union.Congress, however, said Rahul Gandhi is Indias only leader consistent on farmers issues. Sanjay Nirupam, a former Congress MP and current President of the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee, said Gandhis fight for their rights has benefitted farmers.Look at what happened in Bhatta-Parsaul where he was actively fighting for the farmers. In UP, farmers benefitted because of his agitation otherwise the state government would have had its way in acquiring land, he said.Slamming the central government for failing to implement the MS Swaminathan Report, he said, It was one of his poll promises. What happened to that? Farmers are dying and the government has done nothing. It is still at its age-old formula of accusing the Congress of wrongdoing.Speaking to News18, Prabhat Jha, the BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh said, Rahul is not a man of farmers. He does not know anything about them. He is neither a leader nor a farmer. Why does he wait for people to die to talk about their welfare?
South Korean major Samsung is likely to launch the Galaxy Note 8 in August. According to a report in Korean Herald, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will launch just ahead of the Apple iPhone 8 event slated for September.The largely successful Note lineup from Samsung suffered a dent when the Note 7 problems came to the fore.Read more: 5 Best Budget Android Smartphones From Xiaomi The report, based on industry sources, stated that Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will feature the Infinity Display seen on Samsungs current flagship phones - the S8 and S8+. Also, the dual camera lens on Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is likely to have a 12MP wide-angle lens and a 13MP telephoto lens.Rumoured specifications of the Galaxy Note 8 include a 6.3-inch Infinity Display, a length-to-width screen ratio of 18.5-9 or more, and dual rear cameras with 12MP and 13MP lenses.Read more: Latest Android Mobile Phones We Reviewed Recently The Galaxy Note 8 will be a crucial phone for the company to erase the horror of the Note 7 fiasco even though the Galaxy S8 is being called the most beautiful Android smartphone. Samsung had earlier confirmed that it will bring back the Note brand.The launch of Note 8 and Apple's next iPhone will be followed by the unveiling of LG V30.It is quite likely that the three flagship phones would boast of similar premium features.
Former FBI director James Comey, in a written statement posted on the web on Wednesday, said President Donald Trump asked him to back off from a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and told Comey, "I need loyalty. I expect loyalty."Comey, who will testify in person to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday (7:30pm IST), will use his opening statement to recount a dinner he had with Trump on January 27, a week after the president took office, according to a copy of the statement posted on the Senate panel's website.Comey said that during the dinner Trump asked him if he wanted to stay on as Federal Bureau of Investigation director. Comey said he became concerned that Trump was trying to create "some sort of patronage relationship."Heres Comeys full statement:Statement for the RecordSenate Select Committee on IntelligenceJames B. ComeyJune 8, 2017Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee.Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI's counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI's leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau's goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves "turning" the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will "open an investigation" on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone)  once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months  three in person and six on the phone.The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner. At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "That's what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me." As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further. The term  honest loyalty  had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn't happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren't, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counter-terrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn." Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn't done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information  a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied only that "he is a good guy." (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would "let this go."The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President's request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General's role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role. After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members  or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them -- aware of the President's request.Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President's concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened  him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind -- was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI's potential investigation of General Flynn.On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as "a cloud" that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to "lift the cloud." I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week  at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out." (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)The President went on to say that if there were some "satellite" associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him.In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn't brought up "the McCabe thing" because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe's wife) campaign money. Although I didn't understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.He finished by stressing "the cloud" that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that "the cloud" was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.(With inputs from agencies)
London: A Sikh children's group was denied entry into a UK theme park after an elder accompanying them refused to remove the kirpan, an article of faith for the Sikhs, prompting accusations of religious discrimination.



Staffordshire-based Drayton Manor Theme Park, popular with Coventry and Warwickshire families, denied entry to the children's birthday party after the adult refused to remove the small Sikh ceremonial dagger.



A friend of the man described herself as "disgusted" and "saddened" at the reaction of staff and accused the Staffordshire attraction of religious discrimination.



The party, who had spent hundreds of pounds on tickets for a six-year-old's birthday, encountered problems over the kirpan worn by the primary school teacher who is from a respected family in Coventry, the Birmingham Mail reported.



The group was left disappointed last Friday after being told that the kirpan would not be allowed in the park for health and safety reasons.



The families' case has been picked up by the Sikh Press Association, which is seeking discussions with Drayton Manor to resolve the issue.



"In this day and age where the kirpan can be taken into Parliament, it is disappointing to see an amusement park ban this article of faith from their grounds," the association's spokesman said.



"After recent events which have made public news, people across the UK have seen what the Sikh community stands for. We were shocked to be treated in the way we were by Drayton Manor and it is something the Sikh community as a whole was surprised at," he said.



A spokeswoman for the attraction said, the Drayton Manor Park is a family run business which operates within a multi-cultural society enriched with different creeds and beliefs and its staff welcome and embrace this. Kirpans have not been allowed to be worn in the park for a number of years as they pose a health and safety risk to members of the public."



"To this end, Drayton Manor Park offers an alternative to the Sikh Community which has been acceptable -- a necklace worn next to their skin in exchange for the kirpan, which is handed over for safe keeping for the duration of their visit," she said.



"It is regrettable that a group of Sikh visitors who came to the park on Friday 2nd June declined to take up the offer of the alternative to their kirpans and they were therefore denied access to the park," she added.
A Bedford County race for the District 2 Board of Supervisors seat has become a three-way challenge, with Moneta resident Edgar Tuck throwing in his hat as an independent.

Democrat nominee Fred Sylvester announced his campaign for the seat Monday and Republican Brian OConner did the same in March.

One of the three will replace current chairman Curry Martin, who has served on the board since 2013and announced in March he will not run for re-election in November. His term ends Dec. 31.

Tuck, 50, said he wants to focus on conscientious development, strengthening small businesses, addressing the needs of the schools, both vacant and occupied as well as protecting the agricultural landscape of the county.

Im about responsible development but also preserving the things we love about Bedford, the scenic views, the landscapes, the good balances that make Bedford great, he said.

He said the county needs to consider the long-term effect of infrastructure needs, strengthen the small business environment as well as invite new businesses in.

Im not one of these people who will take this no tax pledge, because you never know what youre gonna have to deal with down the road, he said.

District 2 has two schools  Moneta and Huddleston elementary schools  and Tuck said both are busting at the seams and the board needs more long-term strategies.

The closure of Body Camp [Elementary School in 2015], in the short term it saved a few dollars but in the long term, Im not sure that was the best thing. Huddleston [Elementary] has over 300 kids in it and was never designed for that. Moneta is at capacity too.

He added there needs to be a strong working relationship between the supervisors and the school board.

It shouldnt be a tug of war, he said. We need a forward movement and united vision for what Bedford County can be.

Tuck is a lifetime Bedford resident and lives on the same farm he grew up on in Moneta where he sells beef cattle. His children are the fifth generation to live on the farm, which is named Billy Tuck and Sons Farm.

I have personally seen the benefits of preserving our county landscape by placing our family farm in a conservation easement with the Virginia Outdoor Foundation, he said. We need to be protecting the agriculture landscape, while still promoting a vibrant agriculture environment and doing things that would promote agricultural business.

He and his wife, Alison, have three children.

Tuck works in banking, was educated in Bedford County schools and attended James Madison University, where he received his degree in business management.

Tuck has served two years on the Bedford Public Library System Board of Trustees and is currently the chairman.

Being a lifelong resident of Bedford, I was raised to serve the community that gives to us, he said. A servant leadership thought process has been engrained in me.

Tucks father, Billy, served for several years on the Bedford County School Board in the 1980s.

Susan Epperly, a Moneta resident who has known Tuck for 30 years, said he has a level head on his shoulders.

He has a wonderful business background and recognizes that we need to maintain business here and also draw business in so our citizens have well-paying jobs, but at the same time any of that growth needs to be where there is infrastructure to support it, she said.

She agreed the schools need attention as they are one of the countys greatest assets.

Epperly favors Tuck because of how he takes care of his own resources and believes he will be fiscally responsible with the countys resources as well.

He brings a lot of different pieces of the puzzle with his farming and business background, being a family man, all of that together are great plusses for supervisor, Epperly said.

Tuck said he is plugged into the community, born and raised in.
The Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra will expand its repertoire this weekend during an outdoor concert in downtown Lynchburg.

The show  a tribute to American music set for 7 p.m. Saturday and the kick-off for the Academy Center of the Arts Riverfront Park Concert Series  includes a 12-minute medley of hip-hop songs to be performed alongside local entertainer Tony Camm, Jack DJ Ed Edma and local rappers.

Think Biz Markies Just A Friend, Nas If I Ruled the World and a localized take on Jay-Zs Empire State of Mind.

Essentially, were going to accompany the rappers, says conductor Chris Swanson. Its kind of an experiment for us. This is something that Tony and Jack and I have been talking about for probably a year and a half.  Its coming together.

For people who have come to symphony concerts, this will be totally unlike anything we have ever done.

Camm, who plays in a number of local bands, says the idea first occurred to him last year, after watching a YouTube video of Kanye West performing with an orchestra in London.

Camm had just participated in LSOs Celebrity Maestro Competition, as one of four local celebrities who competed for a chance to conduct the orchestra during a gala fundraiser. While he didnt win, Camm still attended the fundraiser, his first experience going to the symphony.

I was blown away. The power of the music is just incredible, Camm says. These young rappers that we have are over the moon about the opportunity.  Most young rappers, like the local guys, they only get to perform with a DJ. They dont even get a band, much less an orchestra.

Camm says he and Edma came up with a list of songs that could work  hip-hop classics that everybody knows  and then submitted them to Swanson, who created sheet music for the orchestra.

The tribute is about American music, Camm says. We wanted to make sure we had songs that were universally known in the hip-hop world, that not just hip-hop people would know.

And Camm even put a local spin on a couple of the chosen songs. Instead of Jay-Zs Empire State of Mind, an ode to New York, theyll perform Lynchburg State of Mind, and hes also reworked Tupacs California Love.

Were going to have some fun with them, he says. Basically, well have probably three or four performers. DJ Ed will be there mixing and scratching and stuff in the midst of all of it.

In addition to the hip-hop medley, LSO also will be playing patriotic tunes, including God Bless America, Stars and Stripes Forever and a medley of armed services tunes performed alongside a baritone soloist and retired naval officer.

From the beginning, I wanted it to be an All-American, kind of a light program, Swanson says. But were doing a real wide variety of stuff. The patriotic stuff is one piece of it. Were also doing some movie music, some cinematic music from great American movies, [including] John Williams excerpts. We are doing some real standard American classical music works. Were doing the Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland, and then were ending the entire concert with Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin.

The concert, which concludes with a fireworks show, also is a bit of a throwback for LSO, which used to perform annual outdoor shows more than a decade ago.

Some of the big orchestras around the state and the country, they do these things all the time, says Swanson, who hopes it will become an annual event once again. Richmond has a great big outdoor amphitheater and a movable stage. So I feel like this is just another piece of LSO growing and trying new things and growing with the community. Its really exciting.
More than 200 people from breweries around Virginia attended the awards ceremony for the sixth annual Virginia Craft Beer Cup.

It was organized by the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild and hosted at the WestRock Co. headquarters in downtown Richmond on Monday.

This year, 356 beers were entered into the competition in 24 categories. Forty judges reviewed the beers on May 13 at Fair Winds Brewing Co. in Lorton.

The overall, best-of-show award went to Smartmouth Brewing Co. in Norfolk, for its Safety Dance pilsner beer.

Second place in best-of-show went to Old Ox Brewery in Ashburn for its Black Ox rye porter.

The best-of-show third place award went to St. George Brewing Co. of Hampton for its Summer Ale.

Nelson County-based Wild Wolf Brewing Company earned a third-place award in the Fruit Beer category for its Area 151.
Petrotrin EAP rebrands, expands services

The move is expected to grow PEAPSL Consultancys existing business while expanding its suite of employee assistance programme (EAP) services, such as counselling, therapy, critical incident stress management or debriefing.

When you say Petrotrin EAP Services Limited, many people think our services are limited to Petrotrin (Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited) staff.

For a long time, Petrotrin was our major client and therefore our dependence on Petrotrin was real, (but) we have expanded into corporate training, were doing a lot more workshops outside of the traditional suite of EAP services and weve been able to secure some additional contracts, some major clients. So, in terms of attracting new contracts, that is growing, said the companys chief executive officer (CEO), Neil Parsanlal, who sat down with Business Day to discuss the imminent changes.

Parsanlal, former Lopinot/Bon Air West MP and Minister of Information in the last Manning administration, was appointed PEAPSL CEO in June 2016 after going through a rigorous interview process. He said his mandate from the board was to grow the company and to reduce its reliance on Petrotrin. PEAPSL Consultancy started off as a department within Petrotrin. It was hived off and set up as a wholly-owned subsidiary after management recognised that providing EAP services was something that could become profitable. In fact, it was the business model for Petrotrin in the late 1980s, early 1990s that any business unit that had the potential to exist on its own and be profitable on its own, would have been hived off and set up as a separate company.

(Thus) allowing Petrotrin to maintain its core services - refining operations.

PEAPSL is in fact, the prime example of that working and working well. PEAPSL Consultancys head office is located next to the Augustus Long Hospital on the Pointea- Pierre compound of State-owned Petrotrin. The company also has offices in Port-of-Spain, Santa Flora, Point Fortin, an affiliate office in Trincity, and every other Friday, PEAPSL Consultancy books space at Rovanels Resort in Bon Accord to meet its Tobago clients.

Parsanlal said there is now a need for both traditional EAP services as well as financial counselling, educational outreach, workshops on substance abuse, retirement planning and the companys Lunch and Learn sessions; a one hour session where we go into an organisation and treat with a particular issue. The company is also expanding its suite of services in corporate training  communication, industrial relation issues, motivation, supervisory training, supervisory management training, executive management training.

We offer a holistic solution, rather than dealing only with the employee, because otherwise, youre seeing the problem at the end of the spectrum without addressing the workrelated cause.

Weve revised our mission statement to reflect this. It says, PEAPSL Consultancy Limited delivers essential consultancy services to improve people and organisational efficiencies and effectiveness through the provision of EAP, corporate training and other human development services. (For example), if we have a contract with an organisation and we are seeing their staff but those people are presenting to us on issues that are affecting them in the workplace, we have a responsibility not only to treat with the clients themselves but also to say to the organisation there are some systemic issues that you can address by doing x, y and z. Parsanlal told Business Day this sometimes includes training of supervisors/management to enhance their communication skills, their inter-personal skills, teaching them how to have difficult conversations and how to use more emotional intelligence when dealing with employees. This will be one of the topics guests will be able to discuss with PEAPSL Consultancys counsellors at tomorrow afternoons official rebranding ceremony at the Government Campus Plaza Auditorium, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain.

Guests, mainly human resource professionals and those who are intimately involved in making the decisions with respect to the provision of EAP and training services, will also get a first look at the companys website; www.

peapsl.com. Currently, one has to go through Petrotrins website to access the PEAPSL page.

The website goes live on the morning of June 10.

Expanding its opening hours is another way in which the company has worked to better meet clients needs while going after new business.

Effective October 1, 2016, PEASPL Consultancy moved from office hours of 7 am to 4 pm, Monday to Friday, to 7 am to 6 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 1 pm on Saturdays.

Clients and staff had been asking for this.

What I did when I came onboard was work out the mechanics and give life to a suggestion that was first made some time ago. Since then, weve seen a tremendous uptake in the number of clients coming to us, especially on a Saturday, because it removes the necessity of them having to take time off from work during the workday. What is also interesting, Parsanlal added, is that more men are coming to us. That is progress as far as were concerned because more men are realising that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but is, in fact, a sign of strength.

Its also as a result of us doing a lot more outreach and because of the confidentiality and quality of the services that we offer; they feel safe coming to talk with us. Given the current recession and the number of staff retrenchments that have taken place, Business Day asked Parsanlal if the company has an even greater role to play in helping people deal with stress.

Thats absolutely correct. A number of companies are going through all kinds of difficulties and challenges.

One company, for instance, as part of their retrenchment offer to employees, included our services.

So, the employees, apart from being given their severance benefits, were also afforded the opportunity to have counselling sessions with us because it is a traumatic time for those who have been retrenched, and therefore, how well they cope with the situation is important. We have been able to step in, in a number of cases, to provide this kind of counselling as well as financial counselling services because you now have to look at what you have, to see how you can make that work until such time as you secure other employment. Looking to the future, Parsanlal sees potential for PEAPSL Consultancy becoming part of an integrated health and wellness facility, providing services to companies in Central and South America.

The company would combine its services with those of the Augustus Long Hospital, the haemodialysis unit and the Petrotrin Wellness Complex, located next door on the first floor of the Augustus long Hostel.

With the developments taking place in Guyana now, for instance, you have the whole oil industry thats going to mushroom there. So companies in Guyana, Venezuela, et cetera can become our clients because, to the best of my knowledge, there isnt another facility nearby that offers medical, wellness, therapeutic and EAP services in one compound. Asked if the PEAPSL Consultancy and Petrotrin boards were receptive to his vision, Parsanlal replied, They were not unreceptive. I think theyre thinking along the same lines.

So theres a synergy in terms of what we think is possible for this particular facility, Parsanlal stated.

For more information about the company or to make an appointment with one of its counsellors, you can visit its website www.

peapsl.com (effective June 10), call its head office at (658-1291) or call its PoS office; located at #50 Richmond Street, at (623-7221).__
IM NOT WASTING TIME

But my understanding is that there are specific conditions under which the Chief Justice can be removed from office and I am not wasting time. Rowley made his view clear, on rumblings within the judiciary over CJ Archies tenure, minutes after presiding over a specially-convened Cabinet meeting relating to Governments victory in the Court of Appeal on the property tax case as well as the Court of Appeals ruling to allow the swearing in of two new judges.

Recently, there have been calls for both CJ Archie and members of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) to resign over the Marcia Ayers-Caesar fiasco and also over claims that the Commission is not properly constituted owing to the fact the two members (for justices Roger Hamel-Smith and Humphrey Stollmeyer) are over the age of retirement.

Leading the call has been the Law Association which recently held an historic emergency meeting at the Hall of Justice and passed a resolution citing its no confidence in CJ Archie and called for him to resign from that office.

Insisting the Executive (government) will maintain its distance from the Judiciary, Rowley noted the damage that misleading information could have on the publics psyche.

The PM spoke of the circumstances surrounding efforts to remove retired Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma from office as he (Rowley) emphasised the need to maintain the Separation of Powers.

Sharma, in 2006, was alleged to have attempted to pervert the course of justice in the trial of former prime minister Basdeo Panday for not declaring a $10 million London bank account to the Integrity Commission.

A tribunal subsequently found that Sharma was not guilty of any wrongdoing and he went on to serve as CJ for two more years, until 2008, when Archie was appointed on Sharmas retirement.

Rowley recalled learning of the issue surrounding then CJ Sharma during an impromptu visit to then prime minister Patrick Mannings office. He spoke of the twists and turns which involved Manning who was called upon to deal with very serious allegations made by the DPPs Office against the then CJ.

I watched that matter go through all the hoops until it became presented to this country that the substance of the matter in Mr Sharmas difficulty, was Patrick Manning hounding him out of office. I looked at that in amazement because I knew how it started and I knew what the issue was. But for those who wanted a different narrative...members of the media have been repeating it as if it was the gospel truth, Patrick Manning, just so in a capricious way, was driving the Chief Justice out of office. Just like that, he (Manning) get up mad one day. Reflecting on the Sharma controversy, Rowley said he will not be drawn into a debate on the merits of removing CJ Archie.

So, those who are inviting me as Prime Minister now to join them in an attack on the current Chief Justice, I am making it very clear from now, I have had the experience of Patrick Manning (in the Sharma affair).

I have more important things to do and that is ensuring that Trinidad and Tobagos interest is protected and that the quality of life of the people of Trinidad and Tobago is improved.
Man dies in front hospital

Authority CEO Sheldon Cyrus said that a full investigation has been launched into the matter, but preliminary reports indicate Phillip died shortly after being treated and released.

He was not turned away. He was admitted on two occasions, Cyrus said.

He came, he was treated and he was discharged. He went outside but began feeling unwell and was brought back into the Accident and Emergency (Department), but by the time doctors came to him they could not find him. Apparently he had gone back outside and that was when he collapsed on the front lawn, Cyrus said.

Phillips body was found sometime between 1 and 2 and video images of his body were circulated yesterday on social media. Cyrus made it clear that no person is denied treatment at the Hospital. He said people who are homeless or mentally ill are treated and referred to the social welfare department of the hospital. He added that Phillip, who told doctors that he lived alone, was also referred to the social welfare department.
Police deeply saddened by death

At the moment I am unable to say for certain whether or not police officers receive the necessary training to handle persons who are mentally ill, but I will say that a formal investigation has been launched into this matter, Kerr told reporters.

For this year, three mentally ill people have been shot and killed by police.

The death of one of them, Raymond Joseph, led to San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan asking National Security Minister Edmund Dillon, during a sitting of the House, if police are trained to engage with mentally ill citizens.

Dillon replied that officers are exposed to training related to handling mentally ill people in emergency situations. However, less than a month late, Toco/Sangre Grande MP Glenda Jennings-Smith (herself a retired police officer) revealed that police are not adequately trained to handle mentally ill people.

An official at the National Centre for Persons With Disabilities denounced the killings and said there were testament that the police are not trained to engage with mentally ill people.

The official said the Centre is will to interact with police in the form of sensitisation classes to better equip officers to deal with people suffering from mental disorders.

Paul was shot dead Monday night after the police were called out to investigate a report that a man was throwing stones at cars in Ste Madeleine.
New dentists told: The customer is always right

Speaking at the oath-taking ceremony for four new graduates receiving their Bachelor of Science degrees in dental hygiene and dental therapy and 22 new doctors in dental surgery at the Daaga Auditorium at The UWI on Tuesday night, Carrington reminded them that as in all service professions, the customer is always right.

He said service includes providing the patient with adequate information to make informed choices and once they have done that, they have done their duty. He added that providing the information does not mean that the patient will, in fact, take the doctors advice and make that better choice, but it does mean that they have done their duty.

Nothing we do can really undo what they are doing or not doing every day. He also urged the new doctors not to restrict themselves to their private practices but to get involved in community work in their neighbourhoods, saying it was an investment which would pay dividends in the future.

He also said they should get involved in the dialogue on oral health, noting that while members of other professions were speaking out, dentists were generally very quiet and that needed to change.

Carrington advised the dentists to take some time out of their work for fun, saying they should ensure that they protect some free time in their lives for something that had nothing to do with work.

You will never have time if you never take time. He said me time would pay off in a longer work life and reduce the possibility of burnout.

Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences Professor Terrence Seemungal said the faculty was very proud of the School of Dentistry which had been accredited for two years in its last accreditation but had that increased to four years which, he said, was absolutely wonderful. He said the school had become the only school outside the continental United States to be recognised by the Quality on Dental Accreditation where its residency programme had been accredited for seven years, which he said was testament to the high standard the school had attained and maintained for several years.
Ruptured water main, school closed for weeks

The parents complained that while arrangements are being made to conduct repairs, their children are losing valuable time to prepare for exams.

We have very willing teachers to come out and teach, said one parent.

Our children are willing to learn. It is just taking so long to fix this one problem. You mean to tell me that three weeks have passed and not a single person has come to even view the damage? This is going on for too long now. Parents protested for a second day in a row yesterday in front the school.

As parents we try to do as much as we can, said another parent.

If something like a bulb needs to be replaced or something needs fixing then we would do it. But something so technical like this, there is nothing we could do. The ministry has to be here. Newsday was told that the principal has been liaising with the Education Facilities Company Limited (EFCL) to find out when the main can be repaired, but bureaucratic red tape has slowed, to a veritable halt, the progress of sourcing contractors.

A source from the Ministry of Education said yesterday that the EFCL will have a contractor on the school compound before the end of the week to complete the necessary repairs.
Mounting discontent within Pan Trinbago

The causes for their discontent are many, but a Carnival season fraught with allegations of financial misconduct appears to be the main cause.

The first group, calling itself the Concerned Individuals for Pan (CIP), has published several letters on the whensteeltalks.

ning.com website to members of Pan Trinbago.

One such letter, written by former Pan Trinbago education officer Aquil De Caires, reads We are representatives from member bands within Pan Trinbago who have lost confidence in the executives of Pan Trinbago. The CIP distributed to its Pan Trinbago members a 26-pointlong list of charges which allegedly led to the groups loss of confidence.

At the top of the list are points which dominated headlines during this years Carnival season  the governments decision to have the National Carnival Commission take control of Panorama gate receipts after allegations of financial misconduct against Pan Trinbago and its president, Keith Diaz arose; and Pan Trinbagos $34 million debt.

The CIP has been circulating a petition to demand that the central executive call a meeting to have their concerns addressed, but de Caires said they are around 50 signatures short of the compulsory 122.

However, even without the signatures, De Caires said Pan Trinbago is bound by its constitution to have a general meeting before the end of the year.

There, the CIP and other disillusioned groups will have an opportunity to demand answers to their concerns.

The second group which has expressed their loss of confidence in the executive is the Tobago Region of Pan Trinbago.

Newsday obtained a letter dated May 8 sent from the Tobago regional group to Pan Trinbagos secretary.

The letter highlighted resolutions voted for by 15 members of the group on April 27 this year.

According to the letter, there were no abstentions or any against the resolutions.

The group said Pan Trinbagos central executive did not pay Tobagos monthly office rent which led to them having to find a new location.

For this, along with the allegations of financial misconduct, Tobago expressed its disgust and no confidence in the executive.

Be it resolved that this Central Executive shall cease to hold office with immediate effect in order to restore confidence and trust in the organisation by Government, private sector and the general public, the letter read.

Newsday reached out to Diaz for comment on the apparent mounting discontent within the organisation.

Diaz said, We deal with member bands.

I do not know who these Concerned Individuals for Pan you are talking about. We have a constitution. Diaz ended the conversation before Newsday could ask further questions.

Meanwhile, Pan Trinbagos website published two resolutions passed by its South-Central Region on May 10 in which it distanced itself from all activities of the Concerned Individuals for Pan, its statements and its agents as well as all other groups or individuals seeking to destabilise the organisation. When reached for answers on what prompted these resolutions to be passed, South-Central Region president David Balbosa said he did not wish to comment on the matter.

After the allegations of financial misconduct were levied against Pan Trinbago and Diaz in the months leading up to Carnival, Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, announced in a February 26 press conference governments intention to launch a forensic audit into the organisation.

Newsday asked Gadsby-Dolly via text-message on Monday whether the audit was launched, which company was selected to perform the audit, and when the government expected it to be completed.

Gadsby-Dolly answered, We aim to have a report by or before September.

The process for this to be accomplished is proceeding according to plan. The details you request will soon be available.
Amazon Is First Company to

Lose $1T in Market Value
Speaking in front of a coal barge in Cincinnati, President Trump promised Wednesday to construct a "first class" system of roads, bridges, and waterways along with "incredible new monuments to American grit," the AP reports. Trump was in Ohio talking up his infrastructure plans, which include turning $200 billion in public funds into $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. "There is no limit to what we can achieve," Reuters quotes Trump as saying. "All it takes is a bold and daring vision and the will to make it happen." Trump's plan would see the repairing of bridges and roads, the privatizing of air traffic control, and more. He told those assembled that he didn't want to see the US become a "museum of former glory."

Trump's infrastructure plans remain short on details, and his speech Wednesday lacked specifics. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao says a detailed proposal is coming by the end of September. Infrastructure was originally one of the areas where Trump had the most bipartisan support, the New York Times reports. But that has eroded. The mayor of Cincinnati called Trump out for promising to rehabilitate a major bridge in the city then cutting funding to the Highway Trust Fund. And Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer says Trump's proposed budget actually cuts $206 billion from infrastructure spending. Trump's speech was quickly overshadowed by the Senate releasing a transcript of former FBI Director James Comey's planned testimony. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
North Korea angered the US and its own neighbors Thursday morning with yet another missile launch, this time involving what South Korean officials believe were multiple anti-ship missiles from Wonsan on the country's east coast. Officials say the missiles traveled around 125 miles. Pyongyang is trying to develop missiles capable of reaching the US mainland and the Washington Post reports that the pace of testing has been "relentless:" There were three missile launches in May, making it 16 for the year, meaning Kim Jong Un has now ordered as many launches in 2017 alone as father Kim Jong Il ordered during his 17 years as the country's supreme leader.

The missiles, fired the day after South Korea announced that it is delaying implementation of the THAAD anti-missile system, landed in waters where the US aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Ronald Reagan recently carried out drills with the South Korean navy, the AP reports. CNBC reports that Pyongyang released a statement this week denouncing the US not for the drills, but for President Trump's decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord. The foreign ministry statement slammed the "egotism and moral vacuum" of those making such a "short-sighted and silly decision" about the global environment. (Read more North Korea missile launch stories.)
A lawyer for Steven Avery requested a new trial Wednesday and made a stunning accusation in the case made famous by Making a Murderer: Kathleen Zellner's 1,272-page filing claims Ryan Hillegas, ex-boyfriend of murder victim Teresa Halbach, is the real killer. Hillegas led the volunteer search for Halbach after she disappeared in November 2005, the Law Newz blog reports. Avery is serving life for the murder and has long claimed that he was framed by vindictive authorities. His nephew, Brendan Dassey, was also convicted in the case, but his conviction was overturned by a federal court in Wisconsin last summer.

In Zellner's filing, she suggests that Manitowoc County sheriff's deputies conspired with Hillegas to plant evidenceincluding Halbach's vehiclein Avery's salvage yard, WISN reports. She says that during the original trial, Avery's lawyers lacked the experts who could prove that evidence had been planted. Trial attorney Dean Strang tells the AP he is glad Zellner filed the motion. "All that really matters here, to us and we hope to everyone, is that we get closer to the truth in this case and to justice for everyone," he says. (Zellner is having key pieces of evidence independently retested.)
Greg Gianforte, the Republican who body-slammed Guardian journalist Ben Jacobs on the eve of Montana's special election last month, has apologized with words and money. He has agreed to donate $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists in a deal that will avoid a civil lawsuit, Guardian reports. "My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful," Gianforte wrote in a letter to Jacobs, adding: "I made a mistake and humbly ask for your forgiveness." In the letter, Gianforte also confirms that Jacobs "did not initiate any physical contact," contradicting claims made by his campaign, the Independent Record reports.

The New York-based CPJ is a nonprofit that fights to protect press freedom and the rights of journalists. "I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country," said Jacobs, who will not be receiving any money under the settlement. Gianforte won the election for Montana's only US House seat despite being charged with assault, possibly helped by the fact that an estimated two-thirds of voters cast their ballots before the incident. The Republican still faces a criminal case and could be punished with up to six months in jail or a fine of $500. (Read more Greg Gianforte stories.)
In April, a Michigan doctor was charged with performing genital mutilation on two young Minnesota girls. On Wednesday, feds dropped what the Detroit Free Press calls a "bombshell" in the case: They estimate not two but up to 100 girls had their genitals cut by Dr. Jumana Nagarwala. "The Minnesota victims were not the first victims," Assistant US Attorney Sara Woodward told a judge as part of what is the first case of its kind to be prosecuted in federal court. The government says it has evidence of eight victims (though the Detroit News notes the case at hand still just involves the two). The feds arrived at their estimate based on defendant Dr. Fakhruddin Attar's alleged statement that he gave Nagarwala use of his Livonia clinic as many as six times a year over a dozen years.

The allegation came as Woodward argued Attar and his wife, who is accused of helping to calm and restrain the girls during the procedure, should not be released on bail in advance of the October trial. A judge disagreed; they'll be on house arrest going forward, and barred from using the Internet. The prosecution argues the three, members of an Indian-Muslim sect called the Dawoodi Bohra, illegally cut the girls' genitals as part of a religious rite. The defense counters they simply underwent what the News terms a "benign" procedure that involved scraping the mucous membrane of the girls' genitalia; lawyers say what was removed was then deposited on gauze pads and returned to their mothers for burial. (The first person in America to be convicted of female genital mutilation was kicked out of the country in March.)
A federal jury in Milwaukee has awarded $6.7 million to a former inmate who charged she was repeatedly raped by a jail guard while she was pregnant, the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal reports. The woman filed a civil lawsuit alleging the guard, Xavier Thicklen, began assaulting her shortly after she was locked up in early 2013. Then 19, the woman identified only as "Jane Doe" was in the early stages of pregnancy when she said Thicklen raped her at various spots in the jail. "He used his keys, his power, his authority to get in these places and rape me," she testified earlier in the trial, per the Sentinel-Journal. Officials in Milwaukee County plan to appeal the verdict. The county is liable for the payout since Thicklen was a public employee on the clock at the time of the assaults.

The jury declined to award the woman compensation for being shackled during laborshe gave birth to a healthy baby girlwhich her legal team claimed violated her constitutional rights. A midwife testified the restraints could slow labor and endanger the child. Prosecutors dropped four sexual assault charges against Thicklen, now 28, after he agreed to plead guilty to felony misconduct in November 2014, per Fox6. Sentenced to three days in jail, he was given credit for time served. The victim testified the assaults still bring on nightmares. "She sought justice and she is glad the system delivered that justice," her lawyer tells the Sentinel-Journal. "She hopes to prevent other women from being sexually assaulted in the Milwaukee County Jail." (A judge called a rapist ex-bishop a "good man.")
It had police scratching their headsand wondering if they should be searching for missing persons: an SOS message spotted by helicopter in a part of Western Australia so remote the nearest city of note is more than 600 miles away. Now police may have their answer, thanks in no small part to the BBC. It reports that a man identified only as John read its initial coverage of the mystery and called police, telling them his brother Robert and a female became stranded at the location of the rocksSwift Bayin 2013. Unable to operate their yacht out of the bay, John says they dramatically weathered a crocodile attack while en route to shore in an escape raft; upon landing there, he says they constructed the SOS from rocks.

The story ended, John says, with the pair being picked up by another yacht, and police are "very confident" that story is "legitimate and it's the real deal," Senior Sgt. Dave Rudd with the Western Australia Police tells the BBC. The West Australian reports police have thus far communicated with Robert, who is currently sailing in the Mediterranean, only via email, with Rudd offering this: "He said after three days they saw a plane flying overhead and realized the SOS sign couldnt be seen from the air." But Rudd says police have seen photos taken from the time of the pair's alleged stranding, and "we can see from the photo that it's the same location and the same SOS." (An SOS led to this desert-island rescue.)
What does Kobe Bryant have to do with the possible discovery of a "lost" Jackson Pollock painting? Something, it turns out. An Arizona auction house says it was contacted by a Sun City resident who wanted someone to take a look at a 1992 LA Lakers poster signed by Bryant. "We ended up signing a contract to auction the contents of the estate, and that's when we found many of the paintings," among them one that Josh Levine of J. Levine Auction & Appraisal believed to be a Pollock. The Arizona Republic reports Levine was so intrigued by the potential Pollock that he spent more than $50,000 over 18 months in an attempt to establish it was done by the artist's hand. "I'm brave enough to call it a Jackson Pollock and put my entire reputation on it," he says.

Still, Levine acknowledges potential Pollocks have long been a source of art-world consternation; the Pollock-Krasner Foundation does not authenticate Pollock paintings. But in a press release, the auction house describes the painting's provenance as "strong": The man who owned ithe had never heard of Pollockwas given the gouache painting by his half-sister, who was a longtime friend of an art critic who knew Pollock. The auction house further explains forensic tests established "the dating of the painting to the mid-twentieth century ... as no pigments or binding media introduced in the late 1950s and 1960s have been detected." The work, which measures 22.5 x 32 inches, will be auctioned June 20; Levine expects it will fetch $10 million to $15 million. (A painting made by a 21-year-old in 1982 recently sold for $110 million.)
Four of Josh Duggar's sisters are suing over the 2015 revelation by InTouch Weekly that Josh molested themand Josh wants to join the lawsuit, the AP reports. Per Josh Duggar's lawyers, he suffered "unwarranted public scrutiny" like his sisters did after the story came out. The sisters involvedJill Duggar Dillard, Jessa Duggar Seewald, Jinger Duggar Vuolo, and Joy Duggarsay they were promised confidentiality by investigators (they were minors when the police report on the matter was written). But lawyers say that promise was not kept: Though their names were redacted in the report InTouch obtained, the sisters argue the magazine was easily able to identify the victims as Duggar girls because their parents' names were not redacted. The sisters are also suing the city of Springdale and Washington County in Arkansas for breach of privacy.

In his complaint to join the suit, Josh Duggar says the InTouch story forced him "to relive painful memories and experiences" and that he was "subject to the humiliation and extreme mental anguish of being publicly identified." His attempt to join the lawsuit has resulted in some incredulous reaction: The Huffington Post headline on the matter, for example, reads, "Josh Duggar Has The Audacity To Claim Molestation Reports Caused 'Emotional Injury.'" The site also notes that, unlike his sisters, Josh was legally an adult when he first spoke to investigators, though his name was redacted, too; his sisters' suit argues that children who have been molested need to be protected, noting that "revealing juvenile identities under these circumstances is unacceptable, and it's against the law." (Read more Josh Duggar stories.)
More than 70 years ago, a US Army plane was headed for India on a supply mission. It never arrived, and no one went looking for the doomed aircraft or the eight men on board because military officials had no way of pinpointing where it went down. All signs of the mission were lost until 2006, when a hiker in India spotted a wing and panel sign inscribed with the bomber's name. It wasn't until 2015 that the US Defense Department investigated the crash site and found the remains of 1st Lt. Robert Eugene Oxford. On Thursday, Oxford will finally be returned home and laid to rest with full military honors in his hometown of Concord, Georgia, the AP reports. Photos of Oxford's seven fellow crewmen, none of whom were found, will be placed inside his coffin for burial.

Oxford's plane departed Kumming, China, on Jan. 25, 1944, said Staff Sgt. Kristen Duus at the Defense Prisoners of War/Missing in Action Agency. Oxford was declared dead two years later. Oxford's family didn't know the wreckage had been found until 2007. Harmful weather coupled with access issues and security delayed recovery operation efforts until late 2015, Duus said. Officials say a DNA analysis of Oxford's remains matched his niece and nephew. Though Oxford's parents, siblings, and any other relatives who saw him leave for World War II have all died since he went missing, a relative said the niece and nephew were "shocked and excited" when they heard the news. Duus said Oxford is one of 74 veterans who have been identified so far this year. (Read more veterans stories.)
Andrew Left made $280,000 in two hours by short-selling stock in a Chinese real estate company, then publishing claims the company was committing accounting fraud. Shortly after the 2016 election, Left issued a series of tweets about a company called Express Scripts, accusing it of inflating drug prices; the company's stock is still down 13%. He's also mused about short-selling stocks of companies before revealing them as a subprime lender or publishing proof their new MS drug doesn't work. Perhaps surprisingly, this is all completely legal (assuming the short-seller isn't committing fraud themselves). It's known as activist short-selling, and Left might be the best there is at it. The New York Times has his story.

Basically, Left bets against the price of a stock, then intentionally hurts the stock by publicly accusing the company of fraud or abuse. He gets his information from confidential sources and calls himself an investigative journalist with one difference: He "can make millions of dollars." An expert on activist short-selling says people look at Left and realize "it's not a lot of work" to do what he does. That's not exactly true. While activist short-selling campaigns increased 1,300% between 2006 and 2015, very few activist short-sellers have a record of success. Left does. If he writes about a company, its valueon averagedrops 10% in a year. Sometimes it's as much as 95%. "Some guys know this stuff better than me. But I know how to put it in [expletive] tweets," he tells the Times. Read the full story here. (Read more Longform stories.)
After more than 45 years, time is up for one of Japan's most-wanted criminals. NBC News reports Masaaki Osaka was arrested Wednesday in connection with the 1971 murder of a police officer; he's accused of killing officer Tsuneo Nakamura during a street protest in Tokyo in November of that year. A member of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (JRCL), Osaka was protesting the continued American military presence in Okinawa, an island 400 miles south of the mainland. Authorities say Osaka, now 67, assaulted Nakamura with a steel pipe before lighting him on fire with a Molotov cocktail.

The BBC reports Osaka was first arrested last month for allegedly obstructing police during a raid on an apartment in Hiroshima. The JRCL was reportedly using it as a hideout, and police were in search of someone other than Osaka. Although Osaka refused to give police his name, he was recognized, and his identity was eventually confirmed through DNA testing; the Japan Times explains a new warrant on the murder charge was served Wednesday. Osaka has since been moved from Hiroshima to Tokyo for further questioning, though the BBC says he has yet to say anything. Osaka's time as a fugitiveaided, authorities say, by the JRCLwas the longest among major-crime suspects being sought by Japan's National Police Agency. (Read more fugitive stories.)
The White House has responded to James Comey's blockbuster testimony in the form of a statement from President Trump's lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, USA Today reports. The statement essentially accuses the former FBI director of lying during key points of his testimony. Kasowitz says Trump "never in form or substance" asked Comey to stop investigating anyone or demanded a loyalty oath from him. Kasowitz went on to attack Comey for leaking memos of his meetings with Trump to the media. Here's what else you need to know about Comey's Thursday testimony to Congress:

Media outlets rushed to put out what they believe are the key takeaways from Comey's testimony, which the Washington Post deemed "newsworthy," highlighting in particular that Comey believes Trump is a liar.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's highlights include Comey admitting to leaking memos of his meetings with Trump and his statement that the White House "chose to defame me."

Key moments named by ABC News include Comey saying he was fired to "change" the Russia investigation and declining to answer "in an open setting" whether he believed Trump colluded with Russia.

The three most-tweeted moments of Comey's testimony, according to Twitter, were John McCain's questioning, Comey's "Lordy, I hope there are tapes," and Comey asserting Russia definitely interfered in the election.

McCain's line of hard-to-follow questioninghe referred to "President Comey" at one pointhad fellow senators, Comey, and the public "perplexed," Time reports. John Legend summed up Twitter's feelings, asking, "Is McCain OK?" The senator later released a statement saying he "shouldn't stay up late watching" baseball.

CNN rounds up the winners and losers, including Comey (winner) and Trump (loser). Others who came out on one side or the other: Jeff Sessions, Loretta Lynch, the New York Times, and one-time Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket.

Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel says Comey came across as arrogant in his testimony, which "was simply a last ditch attempt to save face with the American people," the Hill reports.

Finally, CNBC states nothing in Comey's testimony was enough to get Trump impeached or even to discredit him politically. But the testimony will have one lasting impact: "It will foster more partisan bitterness and more bad feelings about our political process and news media."

(Read more James Comey stories.)
Bill Cosby acknowledged to police more than a decade ago that he fondled Andrea Constand after giving her what he said were cold-and-allergy pills to help her relax, according to a statement introduced Thursday at the comedian's sexual-assault trial. But Cosby also told police that Constand showed no ill effects from the 1 1/2 Benadryl tablets and never objected to his behavior, the AP reports. The TV star said they had been romantic before. The January 2005 interview with police was conducted at his lawyer's offices in New York about a year after the alleged assault.

Asked by police if he ever had sex with Constand, Cosby replied: "Never asleep or awake." "I never intended to have sexual intercourse, like naked bodies, with Andrea. We are fully clothed. We are petting. I enjoyed it. And then I stopped, and I went up to bed," he said, according to the statement read to the jury. Prosecutors decided against charging Cosby at the time, shutting down a police investigation after four weeks. Cosby, 79, is charged with aggravated indecent assault and could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted. He has said the sexual encounter at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004 was consensual. (Read more Bill Cosby stories.)
The National Science Foundation award for Charlie C. Nicholson was actually real

(Newser) - Maybe you should open up that next "Lucky Winner!" email you get and not automatically dump it in the trash. Because for University of Vermont researcher Charlie C. Nicholson, his spam folder turned out to hold more than the usual dream-job and porn messages. On Tuesday, the National...
Muhammed Syed charged with murders of 2 Muslim men

(Newser) - This story has been updated with new developments. A man police in Albuquerque, New Mexico describe as the "primary suspect" in the killings of four Muslim men was charged with two murders Tuesday and authorities believe he will be charged with two more. The suspect was identified as Muhammed...
Comedian's references to supposed aphrodisiac are 'damaging admissions'

(Newser) - Prosecutors preparing to try actor Bill Cosby on sexual-assault charges want to use not only his explosive deposition testimony about getting quaaludes to give to women before sex, but also his riffs on trying to slip women the supposed aphrodisiac Spanish fly. In a court filing Thursday, they say the...
Livae Nanjikana and a companion floated 250 miles off course

(Newser) - Being lost at sea for nearly a month wouldn't be most people's idea of a good time, and it probably wasn't for Livae Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni, but it was still a respite of sorts for at least one of them. The Guardian reports the two men...
Woman is warning others not to use the glue that comes with fake teeth

(Newser) - Anna Tew certainly had a scary Halloween experience, though not in the way you might think. The Mobile, Ala., woman bought a $3 pair of fake fangs to complete her zombie costume, and she applied them to her teeth using the glue that was included. Little did she know the...
Mosque bombed during Taliban service, reportedly killing at least 5 civilians

(Newser) - At least five civilians were killed in a bomb blast at the entrance to a Kabul mosque Sunday, a Taliban official said, describing the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since US forces left at the end of August. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion fell on...
Lukashenko Goldmine has notched more than 3M views since Monday

(Newser) - The man referred to as "Europe's last dictator" is also now the star of a filmthough he's likely not too pleased about it. Lukashenko Goldmine is an 83-minute film by Poland-based opposition news service NEXTA that was dropped onto YouTube on Monday and has now been...
Miss Venezuela wins crown on curves

(Newser) - For the second year in a row the US contestant in the Miss Universe pageant tripped and fell during the competition, AP reports. Miss USA Crystle Stewart of Texas took a tumble when she stepped on the train of her bejeweled evening gown as she made her entrance in the...
Victoria Yillia gives birth in Sierra Leone

(Newser) - Ebola did not take Victoria Yillia's life. And it could not prevent the birth of her son. And yet it loomed, even on this, her happiest day. She delivered her child just a few minutes' walk from the ward where just last year she had hovered between life and...
Pennsylvania inmate charged with botched threat

(Newser) - President Obama might currently have one of the better-known addresses in America, but that piece of trivia was apparently lost on the Pennsylvania inmate charged with trying to send him a threat. Joseph Savage gets his latest day in court today, and prosecutors allege that, while cooling his heels in...
Connecticut couple demands police act before they remove slur

(Newser) - When Heather Lindsay and Lexene Charles discovered the n-word painted across their garage door on the weekend of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, they decided to leave it up in plain view. The interracial couple says their home in Stamford, Conn., has been vandalized several times and at least three...
Human rights groups horrified at Yahya Jammeh's announcement

(Newser) - Human rights groups are condemning President Yahya Jammeh for his vow to execute every death row prisoner in Gambia next month, breaking an almost 30-year hiatus on executions in the country. "All those guilty of serious crimes and are condemned will face the full force of the law,"...
Owner of the Kokuka Courageous is deeply skeptical that mines were involved

(Newser) - The owner of an oil tanker attacked near the Strait of Hormuz is pushing back against the US version of events, NBC News reports. The president of the company that owns the Kokuka Courageous, one of two tankers targeted Thursday in a politically charged incident, says the Japanese vessel was...
He faces 6 years on federal charges, 12 on state charges

(Newser) - The other shoe has dropped on the Barefoot Bandit. Twenty-year-old Colton Harris-Moore pleaded guilty today to seven federal charges and will receive up to 6 and a half years in prison under the deal, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer . He also will not be able to profit from any movies or...
Michael Scott Moore's attempt to flee Somali pirates didn't work

(Newser) - He said he needed to use the bathroom, and that he had toilet paper downstairshe just needed permission to get it. There was some verbal tussling, but then Michael Scott Moore was given the OK to retrieve it. It was all a ruse, and the downstairs location he headed...
You better make more than $31K a year, too

(Newser) - If you're an American looking for a wife and happen to be, well, broke and old, there's no point in looking in Cambodia. Under Cambodian law, it's now illegal for the country's women to marry foreigners who are age 50 and up, or who make less than $30,960 a...
Britain ends Kabul evacuations, saying it couldn't 'bring everybody out'

(Newser) - There will be more violence in Afghanistan before US forces are out, President Biden said Saturday. In a statement, Biden said that the situation there remains dangerous and that another terrorist attack at the airport in Kabul is "highly likely" in the next day or two, the Washington Post ...
Nawaz Sharif likely to meet Narendra Modi during SCO summit

Islamabad : Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday left for Kazakhstan to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, with a chance meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi not ruled out, a media report said.

Pakistan and India are to become full members of the SCO at the 7th SCO summit being held in the Kazakh capital Astana.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz are accompanying Sharif, Pakistan Today reported.

During his stay, Sharif will be holding bilateral meetings with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Thursday, and the Mongolian and Russian presidents on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also attending the conference, as India too will be granted full membership of the SCO.

According to sources, there may be a chance meeting between Sharif and Modi on the sidelines of the summit.

With the inclusion of Pakistan and India, the SCO will have a total of eight states as permanent members - after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The group will then represent nearly half of the world's population after the inclusion of the subcontinental neighbours.

Pakistan and India both currently hold observer status at SCO.

Sharif will also be attending the inaugural ceremony of the International Expo 2017, in which more than 100 countries, including Pakistan, are participating.
Turkey approves Bill to deploy troops in Qatar

Ankara : Turkey's Grand National Assembly on Wednesday approved draft bill allowing the deployment of troop to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

According to Xinhua, the bill includes two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military officer training cooperation.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday expressed disapproval of the sanctions imposed on Qatar by several Arab countries.

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AKP Party and nationalist opposition MHP.

The new move appears to support Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, claiming it of "terrorism support."
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New Delhi:

Good News for the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay for the first time made it to the list of the worlds top 200 universities. According to the QS World University Rankings 2018 which was released on Wednesday shows that IIT-Bombay has his a century by jumping from 219th position to 179th position this year, joining IIT Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in the top 200 institutes of the world in the league.

In the league of top universities the IIT Delhi has be able to grab 172nd this time. However, the IISc has at 152nd spot from 190th rank.

It just like a dream to see this happening as it is the the first time in over a decade that three of the countrys universities have made it to the top 200.

Devang Khakhar, Director, IIT-B, said: The improved ranking is a reflection of the continuous improvement of the quality of education and research at IIT Bombay.

But the IISc is rated the sixth best institution across the globe in QSs citations per faculty metric.

This metric measures the research intensiveness and research impact of a university by dividing the number of citations that a universitys research acquires by the number of faculty members at that university. QS notes that IIScs research papers were cited nearly 82,000 times over the five-year period QS used for this metric, .

The QS World University Rankings was released by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British agency that ranks higher educational institutesm responsable to compare leading universities around the globe based on six performance indicators across four areas  research, teaching, employability and internationalisation. Significant weightage (40 per cent of the total score) is attached to an institutes reputation.

Research is another criteria that holds a high weightage at 20 per cent
Lucknow:

Expressing shock over the death of innocent and unarmed farmers in Mandsaur, BSP chief Mayawati on Thursday slammed BJP-led governments in various states, saying that every state has adopted an oppressive attitude against the poor, labourers, farmers and other sections of the society.

In a statement issued in the state capital, Mayawati condemned the Madhya Pradesh government over the death of five farmers, who had died in clashes with the police, in Mandsaur on Tuesday.

The BSP, especially its Madhya Pradesh unit, support the demands of the farmers. We have full sympathy for them and also want meet the affected families. But we are feeling helpless due to the attitude of the BJP government, Mayawati said.

She said the BJPs attitude was not favourable towards the poor, labourers, farmers and other sections.

This was the reason, she claimed, that the Modi government tried to bring a new land acquisition law to benefit the rich and force the farmers to give away their land.

Also Read: Akhilesh Yadav set to attend Lalu Prasad's rally at Patna with Mayawati, hints at alliance

Farmers in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana have been protesting as they want a fair price. But the administration in these BJP governed states fired bullets and attacked them with sticks, Mayawati alleged.

The BSP chief said that the farmers are the backbone of the country but they were facing the governments apathy.

Also Read | Saharanpur clashes: Mayawati accuses BJP, RSS of unleashing casteist violence

The farmers are already under huge debts. They want relief from debts. The BJP has repeatedly made promises, but has not delivered, she said.

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Darjeeling:

The Army was deployed in the restive Darjeeling town on Thursday after Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters indulged in violence and arson while attempting to march to the venue of a cabinet meeting presided by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

The troops were brought in after the protesters damaged police vehicles and set some of them ablaze, prompting the police to fire teargas and lathicharge the violent GJM supporters who are opposing imposition of Bengali language in schools in the hills.

The hill town, which is at present full of tourists, had remained peaceful for several months as the GJM-spearheaded agitation for a separate state of Gorkhaland had taken a backseat.

Fresh violence erupted this afternoon with the Bimal Gurung-led party calling a protest march towards the Raj Bhavan, where the cabinet meeting was taking place.

The GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled bricks at them. They also damaged a number of police vehicles and set some of them on fire, police sources said, adding that some security personnel were injured.

An Army spokesperson said, A requisition from the state government was received. Two Army columns (each consisting of around 80 personnel) based in Darjeeling have moved out.

The GJM supporters were protesting among other issues alleged imposition of Bengali language in the schools in the hills.

Darjeeling (WB): Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha protests against state govt's proposal of making Bengali language compulsory in government schools pic.twitter.com/dpixrt8aek  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

This is the first time that the chief minister is holding a cabinet meeting in Darjeeling. Banerjee said the state government would set up a new secretariat here.

The GJM supporters staged a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister.

Shopkeepers at some places, including the Mall, downed shutters while the traffic came to a halt, causing inconvenience to tourists.

The GJM has accused the TMC government of trying to disrupt peace in Darjeeling by its divide and rule policy and called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills tomorrow.

The TMC is systematically trying to use police and its goons to disrupt peace in the hills. Today the police resorted to unprovoked baton charge and firing of tear gas shells, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told PTI.

We condemn the state-sponsored violence. We have decided to call a 12-hour shutdown in the hills tomorrow. If the situation deteriorates further, then we may go for an indefinite shutdown, he said.

Giri said the GJM would never compromise on the fight for the identity of the people of the hills.

Also Read | West Bengal civic poll results: Trinamool bags 4 municipalities, wrests Mirik from GJM; Mamata says 'the hills are smiling'

Asked about the GJMs agitation programme, the chief minister said, They have the democratic right. Let them do it. They have no issue. Let there be competition for development.

On the GJMs opposition to the alleged imposition of Bengali language in schools in the hills, she said that Bengali was not made a compulsory subject.

Rather, we gave recognition to Nepali language, she said.

The people in the hill areas have been demanding development. Nothing had happened during the Left rule of 34 years, but things have changed after our government took over.

We have done so many development works here. I am proud to say that I am the first chief minister to visit the hills for more than 100 times, she said.

CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra said, The condition in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Darjeeling policy of our chief minister is just a replica of the Kashmir policy adopted by our prime minister.

The Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Adbul Mannan, accused Banerjee of betraying the people of the hills through false promise.

What the chief minister has been doing in the hills for the last two years is nothing but a political gimmick. The Gorkhas are our brothers, they fight for the nation and sacrifice their life. The CM is using a divide and rule policy in the hills, he alleged.

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New Delhi:

The illegal mining problem of Rajasthan is again in the news after a dumper carrying stones from an illegal mine ran over a police constable who was trying to stop it.

30-year-old Rajasthan police constable Lalaram had gone to an illegal mining site in Bhiwadi area of Alwar district where he spotted a truck carrying stones from the mining. He tried to stop the dumper but the driver did not stop and ran over him causing his death.

He tried to stop the dumper, which was carrying stones from the mine, but the driver did not stop and crushed him," circle officer Bhiwadi Siddhant Sharma said.

Police have arrested dumper owner, Tamim, and his brother, Wasim, who was driving the vehicle, Sharma said.

Lalaram's body was kept at the mortuary in Bhiwadi from where it was handed over to his family after a postmortem. He was posted at the Chupanki police station in Alwar.

Also Read: NGT directs MoEF to ensure no illegal mining takes place on river Gaula

Illegal mining is an old issue of Rajasthan and according to a Central govt data of 2015, there were 2,339 illegal mines were operating against which only 72 court cases were filed.

The cases of illegal mining are on the rise in Rajasthan under Raje govt despite Centre's guidelines for regular monitoring and setting up of task force at state and district level.

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New Delhi:

Farmers protest in Madhya Pradesh has managed to grab headlines, if not for blocking vegetable and milk supply to any of the metropolitans (as in the case of Maharashtra), then for widespread violence, including arson, triggered by the death of eight farmers in the police shooting.

Now on to its eighth day, the farmers agitation has shaken up the political circles. The MP govt has announced compensation for families of farmers killed, along with a promise of a loan settlement scheme which it said will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore.



The Centre, jittery from the size of the protest, rushed 1,100 anti-riots police personnel to Mandsaur, site of shooting and majority protests.



The opposition parties have widely condemned the police action and even called for bandh on Wednesday which had a little impact.

Read | Farmers agitation in MP: Widespread violence, incidents of arson reported from Mandsaur, Dewas districts



Amid this political game, the reason for farmers protest seems lost. Here are the reasons why farmers in Madhya Pradesh are protesting



1) Minimum Support Price: Commonly known as MSP is the key issue here. The farmers have been demanding to implement the recommendations of Swaminathan Committee. MS Swaminathan, an agricultural scientist, had released a report back in 2006, recommending that MSP for crops should be at least 50 per cent more than their cost of production. BJP had included this recommendation in its 2014 general election manifesto. But in an interview to PTI last month, on the occasion of Modi government completing three years in office, BJP president Amit Shah had claimed that no government can meet the Swaminathan formula for calculating the cost of production.



2) Damage cover for drought: MP suffered two back-to-back droughts, hundreds of farmer suicides and mass exodus of workers between 2014 and 2015. Then normal rainfall was registered in the state in 2016, but the situation didnt improve. According to information submitted to the state Assembly, 1695 farmers and farm labourers committed suicide between November and mid-November last year. Thus, farmers are demanding for a package to cover losses incurred by farmers during the droughts.



3) Damage cover for demonetisation: The key reason why normal monsoon of 2016 didnt help farmers is because demonetisation forced them to sell their crops at flat rate, said an editorial in Shiv Sena journal Saamana. Another issue caused by demonetisation was cash crunch. Since farmers primary mode of transaction is cash, their demand is that half their dues at mandis should be paid in cash and the remaining via electronic transfer to their bank accounts.



4) Punishment for the shootings: The agitation took a violent turn after the police shootings. While the government has booked over 450 farmers for various activities, the farmers union has demanded action against those who opened fire on farmers. However, the district collector Swantra Singh told ANI that there was no order to open fire. I have assured them (farmers) a strict action, he added.



The government is contemplating a formula wherein it may waive interest on crop loans. Also, an Agricultural Costs and Marketing Commission to ensure better prices for farm produce would be set up, minister Archana Chitnis said after attending a meeting chaired by chief minister Chouhan.



Curfew remained in force at Pipaliya Mandi areawhere five farmers were killed and six others were injured on Tuesday -- and in Mandsaur town. Prohibitary orders under section 144 of CrPC are still on in place in rest of the district, Inspector General of Police V Madhukumar said.



Several policemen, including senior officials, were heckled or injured in stone-pelting. Protesters threw vegetables and fruits on road in Sanwer and Simrol areas of Indore and emptied milk containers. Shops, warehouse and vehicles were looted and set ablaze.

Read | Mandsaur farmers protest: PM Modi calls emergency meeting, Rahul Gandhi to visit MP tomorrow

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New Delhi:

President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Ronny Abraham will on Friday discuss the further procedure in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case with both India and Pakistan.

According to sources, India will be represented by its agent who also appeared during the last public hearing on May 18.

The Ministry of External Affairs joint secretary in-charge of Pakistan division, Deepak Mittal, represented the case during the hearing.

The further procedure will be discussed by the ICJ president with both the parties, sources said.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty to Jadhav on May 8. The next day, the global court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Also Trending: Kulbhsuhan Jadhav will not be executed till he exhausts all mercy appeals: Pakistan

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran. However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Indian Navy.

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Gurgaon:

The police on Thursday said that a former judge who was irked over frequent power cuts allegedly opened fire at Haryana electricity board workers while they were fixing the transmission line outside his house in Gurgaon.

No one was injured in the incident that occurred at Civil Lines area here last evening, police said.

The accused, A K Raghav, opened fire on a group of Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Ltd (DHBVN) technicians and linesmen, ACP (Crime) Manish Sehgal said.

An FIR has been lodged and the former judicial magistrate has been booked for attempt to murder, he said.

He fired a few shots in the air and four towards the workers. The bullets hit a tractor-trolley and its tyres, the ACP said.

DHBVN Superintending Engineer, Naveen Sharma, said there were eight to 10 technicians and linesmen present at the spot, which is close to the residences of the police commissioner and the deputy commissioner.

The retired judge opened fire when the workers were replacing the wires to improve transmission in the area, he said.

The act is unacceptable from a person who has served such a critical post in the judiciary. A written complaint was given to the Civil Lines Police immediately after the incident, Sharma said.

The Superintending Engineer denied any power crisis in the area.

Also read: Delhi: Kejriwal wants daily reports on power cuts

Also read: Rahul Gandhi to lead rally against AAP, BJP on May 28 over power cuts, water shortage

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Anantnag:

Aiming to locate terrorists who might be hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings, the Indian Army is going to use through the wall radar imaging during counter-insurgency operations in the Valley.

A few such radar systems have already been imported by the Army, official sources said, explaining that the technology would help in more precise - and effective anti-militancy operations. It would enable forces to get the pinpointed location of terrorists hiding inside homes in congested areas and also avoid civilian casualties.

On more than one occasion, the Army and the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police have had to return without engaging with militants despite specific intelligence inputs. Local informers later conveyed that the terrorists were hiding in a specially created false ceiling or an underground cavity in the same house that had been raided, said a senior official involved in the anti-militancy drive.

This happened on July 8 last year as well when security forces gunned down Burhan Wani, poster-boy of the banned terror group Hizbul Mujahideen. The first time they tried to get him, they couldnt locate any terrorist in the house in a village in Kokernag in south Kashmir despite precise intelligence tip-offs.

The commanding officer and his men, it is learnt, entered the house twice but were unable to find any terrorists who were hiding in a false ceiling. During the third round of searches, the hiding militants gave themselves away when they fired at the Army men. It was only after that that three men, including Wani, were killed, leading to unrest in the entire Valley.

Often, troops face hostile crowds when they are unable to locate a terrorist at a house notified by human intelligence as well as technically generated intelligence.

Also Read: Army Chief Bipin Rawat says India ready for two-and-a-half front war as he refers to Pak, China and internal security threats

Given the many hits and misses, need was felt for through-the-wall radars which would help troops function better during counter-insurgency operations especially in densely populated areas, sources said.

The radar is based on short electromagnetic waves generated by the signatures of people hidden behind the wall or other concrete barriers.

It is useful for detecting small changes in electromagnetic waves induced by humans; this includes even micro-movements caused by breathing, an official explained.

The images on the radar will give army an upper hand in determining the position of hiding terrorists and their movements on real-time basis, he said.

Also Read: Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat says 'Dirty war in Kashmir has to be fought with innovative ways'

Though the Army has imported only a few such radars, officials are hopeful that the number would go up once their utility was put to test.

Interestingly, the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), a wing of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has been making attempts to build the radar indigenously. However, the product has not moved to the trial stage yet.

Named Divyachakshu (divine eye), the radar is designed to scan 25-30 cm wall. The project was started after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks when commandos of the elite NSG unit were injured while clearing the Taj Mahal hotel.

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New Delhi:

Home Minister Rajnath Singh visited Mumbai on Thursday to hold meeting with state party leaders and cadre on the occasion of the Modi government completing three years in power. Rajnath addressed press conference in which he said that the Prime Minister through his diplomatic skills have been successful to bring international community on-board on terrorism.

BJP government has got success on Left Wing Extremism front. We are extending full support to states on this, wholeheartedly, said Rajnath Singh.

Rajnath said that NDA-BJP government will not any act which will break the faith of farmers and common man. He added that they have received information that there are some forces which attempted to instigate people, investigations are going on and we should wait for the report to come.

Also read: Trumps withdrawal from Paris climate deal shock for India and world, says Rajnath

Also read: Terrorists intended a prolonged siege in Jammu and Kashmir attack: Home Minister Rajnath Singh



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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana on June 8-9 along with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping.



Apart from bringing all the leaders at tension on the same platform, the SCO summit is likely to have several crucial highlights. Here are the events to watch out for during the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.



1) India, Pakistan to become full members: The key event at this year's summit is that observers India and Pakistan will finally be admitted as full members to the SCO summit. It is very significant for New Delhi, as it took us 10 years to get an upgrade from current Observer status. The reason for the delay, of course, was the initial opposition from China to India's membership. Beijing went on to ensure that Pakistan too became a full member along with India.



2) Counter-terrorism joint ops: By joining the SCO, the two countries will be part of the Tashkent-based Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which conducts such exercises. While Indian and Pakistani military officials have served together under the United Nations flag, this will be a rare occasion  when that happens  to conduct joint military exercises along with other SCO countries  China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India, which is focussing on global cooperation against terrorism, is likely to remain at forefront of the issue. But doing so in front of what New Delhi considers a prime culprit Pakistan would definitely be watched closely by the experts.

Read | PM Modi targets Pakistan in Russia, says some nations arming, funding terrorists



3) The cloud of OBOR summit: China is likely to continue the endorsement of its One Belt One Road initiative, which India has refused to be part of as a part of OBOR, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, infringes upon India's sovereignty because it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, which India maintains is its territory. India had refused to participate in recent Border Road Fund summit in Beijing which created a tense atmosphere in Asia.



4) Modi-Xi meeting: Officials have confirmed that a meeting between Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the summit is almost definite. Xi and Modi had started their terms with a very cordial relationship, but the things have been not so ideal in past some time. It will be interesting to see how the two leaders use this time to nip the rising tension between two Asians giants in the bud.

Suggested read | Days before SCO summit, China terms India's NSG bid 'more complicated'



5) Possible pull aside or handshake between Modi and Sharif: There are only a handful of countries in the SCO and a face-to-face meeting between PM Modi and Pak PM Sharif is unavoidable. However, officials said that even as no formal meeting has been planned between Pak PM Sharif and PM Modi, a handshake or a pull aside is possible between the two leaders. Last time PM Modi and Pak PM Sharif met was on December 25, 201, when Modi made a surprise stopover in Lahore en route Delhi to Kabul. Only a week later on January 2, 2016, an attack on an IAF base in Pathankot by Pakistan ruined the peace process between the two nations. Since then a series of Line of Control misadventure, including Uri attack, the surgical strike by Indian Army and followed by Kulbhushan Jadhav debacle has only widened the rift between India and Pakistan.



6) Scope for mediation by Russia and China: India has never been appreciative of mediation on Indo-Pak matters by any third party. But according to experts, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sharif had an informal meeting in Beijing recently during the Belt and Road Initiative summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping had also joined at the end. Putin and Xi supposedly had offered to play a mediatory role between Sharif and Modi at Astana, an expert said.

Read | China likely to establish military base in Pakistan: Pentagon

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New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday exchanged greetings at the Astana Opera in Kazakhstan.

During the short meeting, PM Modi enquired about Nawaz Sharifs health and also asked about PM Sharifs mother and family.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi arrived in Kazakhstan on Thursday on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

Also read: PM Modi meets Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev in Astana, India set for SCO

Also read: SCO membership to give India greater say in fighting terror

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Mumbai:

The Shiv Sena, ruling partner of the BJP at the Centre and in Maharashtra, on Thursday said it may take an independent stand in the upcoming presidential election. It also said it would continue to press for the candidature of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for the highest office.



We may take an independent stand over casting our vote in the upcoming presidential election. We have time and again reiterate that we do not find anyone other than (RSS chief) Mohan Bhagwat more capable of fulfilling the Hindu rashtra (nation) dream, Sena spokesperson Sanjay Raut said.



The party will continue to suggest Bhagwats name till the end, Raut, also Rajya Sabha MP, said. Despite being the oldest ally, Shiv Sena had embarrassed BJP in the 2012 presidential poll by backing the UPA candidate Pranab Mukherjee while the saffron party supported P A Sangma for the post.



In 2007 also, the Sena ignored NDAs presidential candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and instead voted for UPA candidate and Congress leader Pratibha Patil.



Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April and termed him an elder brother, signalling a thaw in the frosty ties between the two saffron allies.

ALSO READ | CEC Nasim Zaidi on Presidential election 2017: Polling will be held on July 17, counting on July 20



With presidential election round the corner, the BJP is hopeful of securing the support of the Senas contingent of 18 MPs and 63 MLAs. The BJPs oldest pro-Hindutva ally has seen playing the hard ball over the issue so far.



Toughening its stand on the farmers agitation in Maharashtra, Raut asked the BJP to relinquish power if it could not solve the grievances of the agriculturists and if it felt offended by the Senas stand on loan waiver.



There are lot of differences between the Sena and the government over farmers issues. If the BJP cannot solve the problems being faced by farmers and if they find our stand to be troublesome, they should forgo power then, he said.

ALSO READ | RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat needs to be President for India to be a 'Hindu Rashtra': Shiv Sena



On Wednesday, making light of the Sena ministers absence at the cabinet meeting, state Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar of the BJP said that they did not boycott the cabinet meet but sought permission not to attend it, which the chief minister had granted.



He also said that since Thackeray was not in town, his views on farm loan waiver issue could not be sought.



Taking a dig at Mungantiwars remarks that Thackerays views will be sought after he returns from his foreign tour, Raut said even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a foreign tour while there is a severe agrarian crisis in the country.

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Astana:

India is expected to have a greater say in pushing for effective action in combating terrorism and on issues relating to security when it becomes a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation at the annual summit of the grouping, seen as a counterweight to NATO.



India, one of the largest energy consuming countries in the world, is also likely to get greater access to major gas and oil exploration projects in Central Asia once it becomes part of the SCO. Many of the current members of the six-nation grouping have huge reserves of oil and natural gas.



The SCO summit is taking place here in the Kazak capital in the backdrop of a series of major terror attacks in a number of countries including Iran, Britain and Afghanistan and ways to combat terrorism effectively are likely to be deliberated upon extensively by the grouping.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the summit on Friday and he is likely to flag the issue of terrorism and the need for concerted efforts to combat it.



India and Pakistan will formally be admitted as members of the SCO, capping a three-year-long process.



The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa in Russia in July 2015 when the administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

Read | PM Modi at SCO summit: India to be admitted as full member, possible meeting with Xi Jinping and other things to watch out for



The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.



India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June, 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for expansion of the grouping.



India feels as SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.



India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.



I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things, Prime Minister Modi said in a statement on Wednesday.



Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential, he added.



At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, he said.



India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.



Russia has been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for the induction of Pakistan.

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New York:

Radio taxi major Uber has fired a top executive who had allegedly obtained medical records of a 26-year-old woman raped by an Uber driver in India in 2014, according to a media report.

Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, was fired on Tuesday, just as the company announced that it had fired 20 employees over the last few months for harassment, discrimination, and inappropriate behavior.

Alexander had obtained the medical records of the woman, who was raped and assaulted by Uber driver Shiv Kumar Yadav in New Delhi in December 2014, a report in the technology news website Recode said.

The report quoted sources as saying that Alexander had shown the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Senior Vice President Emil Michael.

Further, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them by this group and sources said Alexander had carried around the document for about a year before other executives, presumably the legal department, obtained the report and destroyed his copy.

The report said Alexander was not among the group of 20 people fired by Uber as part of an internal investigation into its workplace culture after employees made allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work environment.

Alexanders handling of the situation was among the over 200 claims reported to two law firms which were conducting the investigations into widespread management issues at the company, the report said.

Read More: Uber ties up with prominent bars and Kolkata police to launch initiative against drunk driving



The news website contacted the company about Alexanders actions, it was told that he was no longer employed there. It quoted an Uber spokesperson as saying that Alexander was no longer with the company.

The 2014 incident had triggered scrutiny into Uber by the Indian government and the company was banned from operating in Delhi till June 2015. A Delhi court sentenced Yadav to life imprisonment for raping the woman in 2015.

It said while the company was publicly apologetic, some top executives apparently had trouble believing that the incident was entirely true, including Alexander, who was already in India at that time and investigated the claims.

Alexander then brought the files to Kalanick and Michael, who read them, the report said, adding that soon all three began to consider the prospect whether Ubers main rival in India, Ola, was behind the incident to sabotage the company.

Travis should have never looked at the report and he should have fired him immediately, said one executive.

Though Kalanick, Michael, and Alexander has no medical training, they questioned the incident based on the medical report, the report said.

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New Delhi:

Farmers' protest, which entered its the eighth day on Thursday, is likely to remain a sensitive issue as there was little hope for settlement of the issue was in sight on Wednesday.



LIVE UPDATES:

# 5:37 PM: Rahul Gandhi leaves after being released from custody

# 5:29 PM: MP police releases Rahul Gandhi

#2:38 PM: MP Police arrests Rahul Gandhi under Section-151

The farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh moved into high political gear when Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders were detained by police when they tried to make their way to Mandsaur, ground zero of the protests. Police moved in to stop Gandhi as he defied elaborate security arrangements and tried to force his way into the state from Naya Gaon in Neemuch, about 400 km from the state capital Bhopal.



Surging crowds of Congress supporters followed him, shouting slogans like Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan and Rahul Gandhi zindabad. Hundreds of Congress workers, as well as senior leaders like Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot and Madhya Pradesh legislator Jaiwardhan Singh, also courted arrest. They were taken to the guesthouse of a cement company, a police official said.



Gandhi, also accompanied by senior party leaders Digvijay Singh, Kamal Nath and Janata Dal-Uniteds Sharad Yadav, took the opportunity to hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He told reporters that Modi could waive loans worth Rs 1.50 lakh crore of the rich but not for farmers. He cant give the right rates for their agricultural produce, cant give them bonus, cant give compensation... He can only give them bullets.



Lashing out at Centre and the Madhya Pradesh government, he blamed both Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan for the deaths of five farmers in Mandsaur on Tuesday. There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

#2:00 PM: He (Rahul Gandhi) has been detained. What was the emergency to go there now? He only wants to do politics: MP HM Bhupendra Singh

#1:25 PM: Rahul Gandhi detained by Police on his way to Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh

The didn't give any reason, just said they are arresting me. The same was done in Uttar Pradesh also, Rahul Gandhi said after arrest.



"Na kisaano ka karza maaf karte hain, na bonus dete; bas goliyaan dete hain (neither do they wave loan, nor give out bonus, they just fire bullets)"

#1:20 PM: Rahul Gandhi rides pillion on bike to enter protest zone, Police determined to stop him

Rahul Gandhi is riding pillion on a motorcycle after walking some distance to reach Mandsaur from Rajasthans Chittorgarh district. As he made his way to the epicentre of the farmers protest, the local police in Madhya Pradesh made it clear that he will not be allowed to enter the district.

Gandhi reached Udaipur from Delhi in a chartered plane and left for Madhya Pradesh by road.In Nimaheda town of Chittorgarh district, he rode pillion for 5-7 km and reached close to the border. After the bike ride, he walked toward the border, IG Udaipur Anand Srivastava told PTI.

The party sources close to PCC Chief sachin Pilot also said that Gandhi took motorcycle ride in Nimbaheda. Gandhi is accompanied by PCC Rajasthan chief Sachin Pilot and other party leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Girija Vyas, Kamalnath. Congressmen in several vehicles are accompanying Gandhi.

However, Superintendent of Police of Neemuch Manoj Kumar Singh said the Congress leader will not be allowed to enter the violence-hit district where the situation remains tense. If the Congress leader tries to enter the district, he will be detained, the SP said.

#WATCH: Earlier visuals of Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch on his way to #Mandsaur. He was later detained by Police. pic.twitter.com/DaLeS5K83A  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

#1:15 PM: Rajasthan and MP govt preventing me from meeting farmers' families: Rahul Gandhi

Raj & MP Govts are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP & meeting the families of the #farmers killed in #Mandsaur  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 8, 2017

What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 8, 2017

#12:50 PM: Naidu accuses Congress of instigating and politicising farmers stir

Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhis planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as another photo opportunity. Speaking to reporters in New Delhi, Naidu also dismissed the Congress demand that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Targeting the opposition party, he recalled an incident in the states Betul district on January 12, 1998, where 24 farmers died allegedly in police firing ordered by then chief minister and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there, Naidu said. He dubbed the party vice presidents planned visit to Mandsaur, the hotbed of the ongoing farmers agitation, as yet another photo opportunity.

On Chouhans resignation, Naidu questioned whether Singh had resigned from the post of chief minister after the farmers, who were seeking compensation after a hailstorm, were killed. Did they seek resignation of Singh when the 24 farmers were killed? Did the Congress vice president visit the victim farmers then? Naidu asked.

The minister described Chouhan as the most farmer-friendly chief minister and listed welfare measures taken by the BJP-led Centre and state government.

#12:40 PM: Give me 2 hrs, we are holding meeting. If situation is better than yesterday, will give orders in 1-2 hr: Om Prakash Srivastava, new Mandsaur DM

The situation in Mandsaur, ground zero of the farmer unrest where five people were killed, was almost normal today and curfew might be relaxed by evening, a senior official said. Internet services that had been suspended might also be restored, Divisional Commissioner M B Ojha told PTI.

For the last two or three days, farmers were stopping vehicles and setting them on fire. No such incident has been reported today. The situation is almost normal, he said. If the situation continued to be quiet, curfew, imposed in four police station areas, including Pipaliya Mandi where the firing took place, might be relaxed.

Vehicles that were burnt had been removed this morning from the highway and traffic had resumed. Asked to comment on the post-mortem report of the five people who had been killed in firing on Tuesday, the official said the matter was under investigation. Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were both at the spot. However, he didnt divulge any details.

The investigations, he indicated, revealed that the stone-pelters included boys between the ages of 16 and about 22. Some anti-social elements had joined in.

#12:30 PM: Total 62 people detained, more people are being identified based on videos and pictures

Seven cases have been lodged and 62 persons detained in connection with the farmers agitation in the violence-hit district, police said. Superintendent of Police Om Prakash Tripathi, who has been transferred in the wake of the firing in the district that left five farmers dead, said the cases have been filed in connection with various incidents of violence. Addressing a press conference along with the new Collector O P Srivastava, Tripathi said some persons have also been detained for heckling the previous Mandsaur Collector S K Singh in Berheda Pant area on Wednesday.

#11:00 AM: Govt admits that five farmers were killed in police firing

Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh has said that the five casualties during farmers agitation in Mandsaur occurred during police firing. Five persons were killed in police firing, Singh told PTI over phone.

The ministers remarks assume significance as the authorities had been claiming that the police had not fired during protests at Pipliamandi in Mandsaur district in which five farmers were killed two days ago.

Minutes after the incident, the then Mandsaur Collector S K Singh had told PTI that the police told him categorically that neither did they fire nor did they have any orders to fire. Asked what provoked the police to fire, the home minister said it is being probed in the magisterial inquiry. However, he said the situation was now peaceful in western Madhya Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh Farmers' Protest: Toll plaza vandalised in #Mandsaur, Rs. 8-10 lakhs looted. pic.twitter.com/LW15R0k8QO  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017



#10:00 AM: Congress VP Rahul Gandhi reaches Udaipur Airport, to leave for MPs Mandsaur by road to meet kin of those killed during farmers agitation.

Congress VP Rahul Gandhi reaches Udaipur Airport, to leave for MPs #Mandsaur by road to meet kin of those killed during farmers agitation pic.twitter.com/7NfocOeb4E  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

#9:00 AM: RAF deployed across agitation sites

Contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) have been deployed in Madhya Pradeshs violence-hit Mandsaur district where the situation remained tense. Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, the site of Tuesdays shooting of five farmers, police said.

While two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents, they said. The situation is tense but under control, police said.

DIG Ratlam range Avinash Sharma is camping in Pipliamandi where farmers, agitating for the last seven days for loan waiver and better crop prices, defied prohibitory orders yesterday, beat up officials and policemen and resorted to violence and arson. Senior police officials have also been deployed to oversee the law and order situation in all sub-divisions of Mandsaur district, the official said.

#8:00 AM: Officials transferred

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government has transferred the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district which witnessed the death of five farmers in police firing. Mandsaur Collector Swatantra Kumar Singh is transferred as deputy secretary Mantralaya. Singh was replaced with OP Shrivastava, official sources said. The government also transferred Mandsaur SP, OP Tripathi and posted Manoj Kumar Singh in place of him, the sources added.

#7:00 AM: Rahul Gandhi visit, officials to block him

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi left Delhi for Mandsaur where five farmers were killed during protests earlier this week even as the local police made it clear that he will not be allowed to enter the district. Gandhi left this morning for the district and would enter Madhya Pradesh from Rajasthan.

However, Superintendent of Police of Neemuch Manoj Kumar Singh said the Congress leader will not be allowed to enter the violence-hit district where the situation remains tense. If the Congress leader tries to enter the district, he will be detained, the SP said.

The Congress on Wednesday termed as coldblooded murder the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh and questioned the prime ministers silence over it. The Congress accused the BJP of acting as a curse of death for Indian farmers.

#6:00 AM: Bus operators have decided to go on strike after the violence in which several public, private and government vehicles were torched on Wednesday

Suggested read: Farmers Protest in Madhya Pradesh: Why Mandsaur is burning? Here are the four demands by farmers

On Wednesday, widespread violence, including several incidents of arson, were reported from western Madhya Pradesh, especially Mandsaur and Dewas districts.



The Centre rushed 1,100 anti-riots police personnel to Mandsaur district where five persons were killed on Tuesday allegedly in police firing.



Though the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore each for the families of five farmers, it didnt seem to have mollified the protesters who are demanding better prices for their produce and a complete farm loan waiver.



The BJP government also announced a loan settlement scheme which it said will cover around six lakh farmers with accumulated dues of Rs 6,000 crore.



The government is contemplating a formula wherein it may waive interest on crop loans. Also, an Agricultural Costs and Marketing Commission to ensure better prices for farm produce would be set up, minister Archana Chitnis said after attending a meeting chaired by chief minister Chouhan.



The bandh called by the main Opposition Congress received a mixed response.



Curfew remained in force at Pipaliya Mandi areawhere five farmers were killed and six others were injured yesterday -- and in Mandsaur town. Prohibitory orders under section 144 of CrPC are still on in place in rest of the district, Inspector General of Police V Madhukumar said.

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New Delhi:

The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was on Thursday arrested from Himachal Pradesh. The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar told PTI over phone. He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

Meanwhile, the local administration has suspended the Internet services in Saharanpur for 2 days to avoid any unrest that may sprout from Chandrashekhar's arrest.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village in the district on May 5. Chandrasekhar, who had since been evading arrest, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

On Tuesday, Chandrasekhar, who is evading arrest since last months caste-violence in Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, said he is willing to surrender if 37 innocent dalits are released on bail.

Speaking to PTI-Bhasha at a hiding place about 50 kms from Jalandhar, the young lawyer alleged that the Uttar Pradesh police was not arresting the real culprits but was going after innocent people.

Read | Ready to surrender if 37 innocent Dalits are released on bail, says Bhim Army leader Chandrasekhar



He alleged that cases of atrocities against the dalit community were on the rise since Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took over.



I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year, he said.



The Bhim Army shot to the limelight after the May 5 clashes between dalits and thakurs at Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur in which one person was killed and several injured.



Chandrasekhar is one of the key persons wanted in connection with the caste violence and the UP police yesterday announced a reward of Rs 12,000 for information on his whereabouts.



Instead of arresting the real culprits of the Saharanpur violence, the police has arrested innocent people and put them behind bars. This has resulted in growing anger among the dalits, the advocate-turned-activist claimed.

Read | Chandrasekhar is no threat, Bhim army not integrated enough: BSP



Asked if he would surrender, he claimed to have earlier reached out to the Delhi Police and the magistrate to turn himself in. He said they refused to arrest him.Now I want that 37 innocent dalits who are in jail be released on bail. Only then will I surrender, he said.



On the Shabbirpur clash, he claimed that the dalits were threatened that they would be shot dead if they intervened in the procession that was to be taken out by the thakurs.



When we informed the police about it, a rumour spread that our community was protesting the rally. In retaliation, the houses of the dalits in the village were torched. It seemed the attack was planned and the youth was caught in the violence, he said.



It didnt take much time for another rumour to spread that the youth had been killed by the dalits, the Bhim Army founder said.



On the youths death, he said, Initially, the police said he was shot dead. Later, the post-mortem said he died of suffocation.UP Police arrests Bhim Sena chief Chadrashekhar from Himachal's Dalhousie

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Houston:

In what could be termed as a proud moment for India, NASA has selected an Indian-American for its missions into Earth orbit and deep space. Meet Raja Chari, the 39-year-old who is Lieutenant Colonel with the US Air Force and has made it to the list of 12 astronauts selected from a record number of 18,000 applicants.



The 12 astronauts include seven men and five women comprising the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This group is largest one selected by NASA in almost two decades. The space agency has announced that this group will have to take a two-year training in the month of August.



Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Raja Grinder Chari is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron. He is also the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.



Raja Chari got a Masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School.



A record 18,300 people had applied for the programme. The number is more than the US space agency has ever received during an open astronaut call.



Candidates were required to pass some physical requirements and also certain education and experience criteria such as having a bachelors degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets to be able to get selected. This new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills required by NASA.



After completing the two-year training programme, the new astronauts could be assigned to missions that are involved in research on the International Space Station (ISS), launching from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and flying on deep space missions on NASAs new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.



The new astronaut candidates or ascans were announced by Vice President Mike Pence and NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly.



The announcement was made during an event at the Johnson Space Centers Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASAs Orion spacecraft. The new astronauts might fly the Orion in the coming years on missions beyond low Earth orbit.



According to Pence, US President Donald Trump is firmly committed to NASAs mission in space and that America will lead the way in space once again.



NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to make history, even though the presidents budget request cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency, he said, adding that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.



The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day, Pence said.



Six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot are among the 12 new candidates.

Charis father Srinivas Chari was an engineer and he immigrated to the US after his engineering from Osmania University in Hyderabad.



Among other candidates include Lt Kayla Sax Barron, 29, Zena Cardman, 29, Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, 35, Bob Hines, 42, Warren Woody Hoburg, 31, Jonny Kim, 33, Robb Kulin, 33, Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, Loral OHara, 34, Francisco Rubio, 41 and Jessica Watkins, 28.

The elite 12:

1. Navy Lt Kayla Barron who belongs to Richland, Washington, is a submarine-warfare officer and nuclear engineer. She was among the first class of women commissioned into the submarine service and now works at the US Naval Academy.



2. Zena Cardman who hails from Williamsburg, Virginia, is a graduate research fellow at the National Science Foundation with a specialty in microorganisms in subsurface environments such as caves.



3. Air Force Lt Col Raja Chari belonging to Cedar Falls, Iowa, is the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California.



4. Navy Lt Cmdr Matthew Dominick from Wheat Ridge, Colorado, department is the head for Strike Fighter Squadron 115.

5. Bob Hines from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is a NASA research pilot at Johnson Space Center.

6. Warren "Woody" Hoburg of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

7. Dr Jonny Kim from Los Angeles, is a Navy lieutenant. He trained as a SEAL and is completing his residency in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

8. Robb Kulin from Anchorage, Alaska, leads the launch chief engineering group for SpaceX at Hawthorne, California.

9. Marine Maj Jasmin Moghbeli of Baldwin, New York, tests H-1 helicopters and also serves as a quality assurance and avionics officer for Marine Operational Test Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

ALSO READ | KalamSat: World's smallest satellite made by Indian student for NASA to be launched next month



10. Loral O'Hara from Sugar Land, Texas, is a research engineer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.



11. Dr Francisco "Frank" Rubio of Miami is an Army major and serves as a surgeon in Fort Carson, Colorado.



12. Jessica Watkins from Lafayette, Colorado, is a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

ALSO READ | Meet Tamil Nadu's Rifath Sharook who made worlds smallest satellite KalamSat

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Mogadishu:

Close to 70 people were killed after heavily armed al-Shabab extremists have stormed a military base in Somalias semiautonomous state of Puntland, officials said on Thursday.

Officials called it the regions deadliest attack in years, highlighting the twin challenges facing security forces from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab and the growing presence of fighters linked to the Islamic State group.

The attack began with a blast at the remote Af-Urur camp, roughly 100 km west of the commercial hub of Bossaso, before the extremists overran the base and killed soldiers at close range, said Ahmed Mohamed, a senior military official.

Read more: Iran leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shrugs off IS attacks in Tehran

Close to 70 people were killed, though an exact death toll was not yet available, Mohamed said.

Residents in the area reported chaotic scenes, with fighters beheading several civilians they encountered. One witness, Abdibasit Hassan, said women were among those beheaded.

The situation is grim over there. This attack was an unexpected one, Mohamed said. The extremists, including suicide bombers, reportedly attacked the base from three directions, forcing soldiers to retreat.

Col Hashi Ahmed, a senior military official, told The Associated Press that reinforcement troops reached the area and drove the extremists out of the camp. He estimated that at least 100 fighters were involved in the attack.

Read more: Notre Dame Cathedral attack: Attacker was a former journalist

Al-Shabab claimed killing at least 61 soldiers in the attack. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups, said Al-Shabab issued the claim via its Shahada News Agency. Al-Shabab also said it seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition and more than a dozen military vehicles.

Puntland in northern Somalia also faces a growing threat from IS-linked fighters who have split from al-Shabab.
Washington :

Making of him mockery in front of US audience, Pakistans top diplomat in the US was laughed at when he repeatedly insisted that there are no safe sanctuaries for terrorists in Pakistan and that the Taliban leader, who reportedly died in a hospital in Karachi, never left Afghanistan.

What is there funny about, a visibly irritated Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, the Pakistan Ambassador to the US, told a Washington think-tank audience which burst into laughter when he repeatedly argued that there is no terrorist safe havens in Pakistan and that Mullah Omar never left Afghanistan to visit Pakistan.

The reality is, however, different, argued former US diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as his countrys ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN.

We have very firm evidence of his (Mullah Omar) presence in Pakistan, where he went, lived, ..hospital, he said, adding that for a long time there was the idea that bin Laden never left Afghanistan.

There is ample evidence that while the operation was going on Haqqani network was being evacuated to safer location, the former US Ambassador to Pakistan said during a panel discussion on Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan, at the Atlantic Council?s South Asia Center.

Chaudhry appeared to be isolated as two other panelist ? the former Indian minister Manish Tewari and top American think-tank expert Ashley Tellis ? joined Khalilzad to say that terrorist safe havens continues to exist in Pakistan and there is level of support from the Pakistani establishment.

What sanctuaries you are talking about? If you want to live in the past, you cannot solve the present. Haqqani and the Taliban are not our friends. They are not our proxies. What Quetta Shura you are talking about? What Peshawar Shura? the Pak Ambassador questioned to an amused Washington audience, who was witness to sharp debate between him and Khalilzad. The panel discussion had an abrupt end as the two exchanged words.

Tellis said while the safe havens continue to exist in Pakistan, a great deal of financial and personnel supply does come from Afghanistan. But there is no denying that the Taliban leadership are based in Pakistan, he said.

Tewari said it is time that Pakistan should introspect as to why the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani who went to Rawalpindi to meet the Pakistan Army Chief has turned against Pakistan. Ghani is actually constrained to say Pakistan is having an undeclared war with Afghanistan.

Those are extremely strong statements coming from the head of state, he said.

Also Read | Indo-Pak dialogue only way forward: Pak High Commissioner Basit

During the question and answer session, a Afghan diplomat, Muhammad Asad, and an Afghan woman journalist Nazira Karimi of Ariana television joined the three other panelist to challenge Chaudhrys assertion about terrorist safe haven.

Our allegation is evidence based, Asad said adding that while the carrot formula has not worked, it is time for the US to look the other way around. Karimi referred to the allegations of US lawmakers about continued terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which he dismissed.

The Pakistan Ambassador said his country wants a peaceful, stable, sovereign and prosperous Afghanistan.

Afghan soil should not be used against Pakistan. Other than that, we want to facilitate reconciliation. ..Just blaming Pakistan all the time will not help. What will help is recognise what Pakistan has done for Afghanistan, he said.

Chaudhry also accused India of being a part of a double squeeze strategy.

Asserting that India has a strategic interest in Afghanistan, he alleged that this is part of the double squeeze strategy of New Delhi against Islamabad.

Also Read | Military courts have tried even Pak nationals: Kasuri on Kulbhushan Jadhav death sentence

India does have strategic interest in Afghanistan. It could be part of the double squeeze strategy against Pakistan. To that end an Afghanistan that is not stable would serve Indias purpose and thats why India is opposing reconciliation with Taliban of any kind, Chaudhry told a Washington audience.

Participating in a panel discussion on Regional Perspectives on the US Strategy in Afghanistan, at the Atlantic Councils South Asia Center, Chaudhry accused India of trying to be a hegemonic power in the region.

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Astana:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday met Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, in Astana who arrived on a two-day visit to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India and Pakistan will be inducted as full members of the bloc, in the first ever expansion since its inception in 2001.

Indias entry into the China-dominated grouping is seen as a major milestone as it is expected to increase the groups hefty in regional geopolitics and trade negotiations besides giving it a pan-Asian hue.

Experts say Indias inclusion may even bring down Beijings overarching influence over the SCO.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, in Astana pic.twitter.com/ySJxdtsLns  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

The Prime Minister will address the SCO Summit on Friday and is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping amid growing differences between the two countries over a host of issues, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and Indias Nuclear Suppliers Group membership bid.

PM Narendra Modi arrived in Astana (Kazakhstan) to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit pic.twitter.com/MZZ8JB3KVV  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

If the meeting takes place, then it would be the first between the two leaders after India boycotted the high-profile Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing last month in which 29 world leaders took part.

India abstained from the Summit to highlight its concerns over the USD 50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

There is also speculation about a possible meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to ease the growing tension between the two neighbours.

However, India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

President Xi arrived here yesterday while Prime Minister Sharif reached the Kazakh capital on Thursday.

The Prime Minister is also expected to meet a number of other foreign leaders, including Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

I look forward to deepening Indias association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things, Prime Minister Modi said ahead of his visit here.

The SCO had set the ball rolling to make India a member of the bloc during its summit in Ufa, Russia, in July, 2015, when administrative hurdles were cleared to grant membership to India and Pakistan.

Also Read: SCO membership to give India greater say in fighting terror

SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov said entry of India and Pakistan will enhance the SCOs influence in dealing with pressing challenges and promoting trade and investment in the region.

Inclusion of India and Pakistan into the SCO would mean addition of another 1.45 billion people which would make the grouping cover around 40 per cent of the global population.

The SCO was founded at a Summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the Presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as observers at the 2005 Astana Summit. The Tashkent SCO Summit in June 2010 had lifted the moratorium on new membership, paving the way for the expansion of the grouping.

India feels as an SCO member, it will be able to play a major role in addressing the threat of terrorism in the region.

India is also keen on deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.

India has been an observer at the SCO since 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

Russia had been favouring permanent SCO membership for India while China pushed for induction of Pakistan.

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Beijing:

Chinas state-run news agency Xinhua has announced a USD one million fund to institutionalise media cooperation among the BRICS countries including awards for journalists from the five member states.

This was announced on Wednesday by Cai Mingzhao, president of Xinhua and executive president of the BRICS Media Forum.

Cai said the participating media organisations all agree to select news stories for the BRICS news reporting award and continue to hold joint photo exhibitions.

Xinhua would like to host the first event for selecting BRICS news reporting award winners, and help other BRICS media to prepare the second joint photo exhibition, Cai said.

According to Cai, participating media organizations agree to explore cooperation in areas such as integrative development, video, new media and social media.

Last year, Xinhua established the cooperative and sharing platform On-Scene Cloud, which can offer its members media content, channels, technologies and other services.

We are willing to open that platform to BRICS media free of charge, he noted.

Cai said Xinhua is willing to provide funding to invite 20 BRICS media reporters every year to visit Chinese media and exchange views with them and conduct news reporting in China.

Liu Qibao, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and head of the committees Publicity Department, urged BRICS media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction.

Sharing a common destiny, BRICS countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions, said Liu while addressing the forum.

There are misinterpreting and misreading voices in the international public opinion that are sceptical of the development prospects of BRICS countries and even BRICS itself, Liu said, urging BRICS media to maintain composure and consolidate confidence, and pass on the message of confidence in BRICS countries development.

Liu called for pragmatic cooperation among BRICS media, including conducting joint interviews on major topics, promoting cooperation in information services, professional training, human resources and think tank exchanges, as well as sharing experiences in meeting the challenges of the Internet and promoting integrated media development.

Journalists from 27 media organisations from BRICS countries today promised to deepen cooperation and contribute to the BRICS framework at the ongoing two-day BRICS Media Forum which was kicked off in Beijing on Wednesday.

The forum with the theme Deepening media cooperation among BRICS countries, promoting equity and justice in international media was proposed by Xinhua and jointly initiated with Brazils CMA Group, Russias Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africas Independent Media.

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Los Angeles :

In an unfortunate incident, a 46-year-old Indian-American lawyer has been killed in the US after being hit by a train at a crossing in California.

Kirtee Kapoor, who was born in Bangalore, was a partner in the law firm Davis Polk, The Mercury News reported.

Kapoor, who lived in Menlo Park city, was killed by a southbound Caltrain on Monday at the Watkins Avenue crossing in Atherton town, the San Mateo County Coroners office said.

Thomas McGovern, fellow at the coroners office, said the death is still being investigated.

Kapoor is survived by his wife and daughter, the report said.

According to the website legallyindia.com, Kapoor inspired a generation of Indian lawyers who went abroad.

It said he was the head of the India group at the firm Davis Polk, one of the first of a new generation of Indian-trained lawyers to make partner at top international firms.

Also Read: Indian-American doctor receives death threat from unknown caller

Kapoor earned an LL.B. from the University of Delhi, a BCL from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and earned an LLM at New York University School of Law, a statement on the Davis Polk website said.

Kirtee joined Davis Polks New York office as an associate in 1999 and over the next 18 years spent time in several of our offices advising clients on significant M&A matters and in investments and other transactions around the world. He was elected to the partnership in 2007 and moved to Hong Kong later that year. In 2015, he joined our Northern California office, the Davis Polk statement said.

Also Read | Hate crimes in US: Indian community members hold rally in front of White House

Kirtee was a truly wonderful man. His optimism, warmth, honesty and wisdom were inspiring. He will be remembered as a great partner of the firm, a beloved colleague and adviser, and a steadfast friend to so many, it said.

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London:

UK polls on Thursday opened with about 46million eligible voters expected to cast their ballot to choose between Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn under the looming shadow of the two deadly terror attacks that recently rocked the country.



The odds seem to be in favour of May holding on to her job as the British Prime Minister who called for snap polls 52 days ago.



Polls close at 10 pm UK time (2.30 am IST), with results expected to begin rolling in within an hour or so after voting finishes.



May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britains exit from the 28-member-bloc.



More than 46 million people are eligible to vote in what is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

Read | UK elections 2017: Odds favour Theresa May's win as voting begins



The UK was recently rocked by two terror attacks.



Seven people were killed on Saturday when three men aboard a van ploughed into pedestrians on London Bridge and went on a stabbing spree before being shot by police.



The second attack took place on May 22 when 22 people were killed and 116 injured in a suicide bombing at Manchester Arena.

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
July 19 is National Hot Dog Day! If you're in the mood for a good dog tonight, seems you should head to Fairfield. Three of the top 10 most Yelp-reviewed hot dog spots in southwestern Connecticut are found in Fairfield.

Not surprisingly, the famous Super Duper Weenie is at the top of the list.
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RIDGEFIELD  Residents of a Hulda Lane neighborhood where an attempted car theft led to the shooting of a 15-year-old girl said they feel unnerved by the incident, about which police have had little to say.

A woman who lives on the street told Hearst Connecticut Media she called police around 3 a.m. on Monday, after she heard three gunshots in her normally quiet neighborhood just off Route 35.

I feel bad for everybody involved, the woman said. People have been kind of relaxed about security around here, which maybe they shouldnt have been. It was very scary.

Police said another Hulda Lane homeowner called around the same time Monday to report an attempted car theft from the driveway, and the police activity log for that night shows officers responded to at least two reports of motor vehicle break-ins in the same neighborhood.

But police have refused to release additional details of the case, except to say a 15-year-old girl taken to Waterbury Hospital with a gunshot wound the next morning might have been in Ridgefield earlier.

The home where the shooting occurred is owned by businessman Mauro Tropeano, records and sources said. Tropeanos LinkedIn account says he is the owner of Stanziatos Wood Fired Pizza in Danbury and Teema LLC, which is described elsewhere as a Ridgefield-based private investment firm.

Attempts to reach Tropeano at his home and at the Danbury restaurant were unsuccessful Thursday.

Eugene Riccio, a Bridgeport-based attorney who represents Tropeano, said Thursday he was not at liberty to discuss the case.

Another neighbor said while she would not blame a homeowner for defending himself, particularly given break-ins and thefts from cars in the neighborhood, she is concerned about use of guns in a residential area.

Its a little unnerving, she said. I have my own children. Walls dont protect you from everything.

She added a Porsche was stolen from the neighborhood several months ago.

Under Connecticut law, a person is allowed to use reasonable physical force to prevent someone from criminally trespassing, according to a report by the state Office of Legislative Research. Deadly force is reasonable only when necessary to defend oneself, to prevent a trespasser from committing arson or a violent crime, or to prevent or terminate an unlawful entry, the report said.

Tropeanos house, on the lot nearest Route 35, has a security camera pointed at the driveway. It is unknown whether police collected video from the home as part of their investigation.

According to a report in the Waterbury Republican-American, police said the 15-year-old girl was with a group of teenagers who were trying to steal a car from a Ridgefield home when the owner surprised them and opened fire, hitting the girl in the back. The girl was dropped off by another teen at Waterbury Hospital around 5 a.m., the newspaper reported. She is expected to survive her injuries.

The Republican-American reported the girl was involved with a group police believe are responsible for numerous car thefts spanning several Connecticut towns, including one in Southington that led to the arrest Monday afternoon of four teenaged boys in Waterbury.

Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi said state police are assisting in the investigation, and the immediate safety threat has been resolved.

Theres no conclusion yet, he said. I would want neighbors to know its certainly safe and any issues with safety have been taken care of.
/ contributed photo

DANBURY - An 11th grade student at Wooster School was recognized with honors in the National Chemistry Olympiad Exam, according to a release.

The student, Daniel Michael, had the best performance on the test from the western Connecticut region, the release said.
TORONTO, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (ONE:TSX-V) today announced results for its second quarter fiscal 2017, which ended April 30, 2017. The Company produced a profit for the quarter of $17,608 compared to a loss for second quarter 2016 of $216,006. The adjusted profit, which excludes non-cash expenses for stock-based compensation and depreciation, was $38,684 compared to a loss in 2016 of $79,883.

"We remain committed to our plan of continuing operations as well as pursuing the matter with Citrix Systems Inc. ("Citrix") until its conclusion," said Andrew Cheung, President and CEO for 01 Communique. "With respect to the lawsuit with Citrix, we filed a Notice to Appeal of the district court`s decision with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 30, 2017 and are progressing with the appeal process. We remain confident in the merits of our appeal."

An Update on the Company's Operations follows:

In addition to moving forward with the appeal process in its patent lawsuit against Citrix the Company plans to continue and work with Hitachi Solutions Create Ltd. to maximize potential revenue from the Japanese market. The Company reduced operating expenses significantly last year while still maintaining sufficient resources to meet these objectives. To assist in achieving this expense reduction the Company's executive management and board of directors continue to not draw a salary.

Revenue for the second quarter 2017 was $129,462 (2016 - $37,509), an increase of $91,953. Operating expenses for the second quarter 2017 were $97,679 (2016 - $299,953). Excluding non cash expenses for stock based compensation and depreciation the cash operating expenses for second quarter 2017 were $76,603 (2016 - $103,831) a reduction of $27,228. In addition the Company paid $10,000 (2016 - $10,000) interest on its debenture.

A Co-development agreement has been signed with Hitachi Solutions Create Ltd. to enhance DoMobile which is a remote access offering built on the Company's I'm InTouch platform and marketed exclusively in Japan by Hitachi Solutions Create Ltd. under agreement with the Company.

The Company completed the period with $88,551 of cash and cash equivalents. Subsequent to the end of the quarter the Company collected its receivable of $101,000 providing additional funds for operations.

On June 7, 2017 stock options were granted to members of the Company's executive management and directors. There were 885,000 stock options granted in total expiring on June 7, 2021, with an exercise price of $0.05 and vesting on December 7, 2021.

Background on the Company's patent lawsuit against Citrix:

In February 2006, the Company commenced a lawsuit in the United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, against Citrix alleging infringement by their GoToMyPC product line of the '479 Patent. On January 11, 2016 a jury trial commenced in the lawsuit with the jury reaching and returning a unanimous verdict on January 19, 2016. The Court entered Judgment as follows:

1. Defendants Citrix have not infringed claims 24 or 45 of 01 Communique's patent (United States Patent No. 6,928,479);

2. Claims 24 and 45 of United States Patent No. 6,928,479 are not invalid;

3. Plaintiff 01 Communique takes no damages from Citrix;

4. Except as set forth above or adjudicated through Summary Judgment, all other claims and counterclaims in this matter were dismissed;

5. On March 7, 2016 the Company filed post-trial motions with the District Court that presided over the trial. These included motions for renewed judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial.

6. On March 21, 2017 the District Court issued its order denying the Company's motion for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial.

7. On March 30, 2017 the Company filed a Notice to Appeal the District Court's Order with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Company is working through this process and while the Company is confident in the merits of its appeal there can be no assurance that the Company will be successful in its appeal.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") 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 01 Communique

Established in 1992, 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (TSX-V:ONE) offers a suite of remote access services designed for small-medium sized business, mobile professionals and IT service providers. 01's software as a service offerings are deployed on-demand and include functionality enabling on-line meetings, remote computing and IT support. 01's suite of products includes its remote access offering I'm InTouch (www.imintouch.com), its online meeting offering (www.imintouchmeeting.com) and its remote support offering I'm OnCall (www.imoncall.com ) products are protected in the U.S.A. by its patents #6,928,479 / #6,938,076 / #8,234,701 and in Canada by its patents #2,309,398 / #2,524,039 and Japan by its patent #4,875,094. For more information, visit www.01com.com or call (905) 795-2888 or (800) 668-2185 (North America only).

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements.

Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "expect", "believe", "plan", "intend", "are confident" and other similar terminology. These statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Information Form filed on SEDAR. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

01 Communique Laboratory Inc. SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION Consolidated Statements of Financial Position (Unaudited)



30-Apr-17

31-Oct-16







Assets





Current assets







Cash and cash equivalents $ 88,551

$ 173,424

Accounts receivable 101,458

27,696

Prepaid expenses and other assets 19,325

6,975

209,334

208,095







Plant and equipment 2,299

3,965

$ 211,633

$ 212,060







Liabilities & Shareholders' Equity













Current liabilities







Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 520,072

$ 522,119

Deferred revenue 12,613

12,075

532,685

534,194







Liability portion of Debenture 382,713

374,476







Shareholders' equity







Share capital 40,832,777

40,832,777

Contributed surplus 5,384,155

5,311,155

Equity portion of Debenture 47,111

47,111

Deficit (46,967,808)

(46,887,653)

(703,765)

(696,610)









$ 211,633

$ 212,060

01 Communique Laboratory Inc. SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income For the 3 and 6 month periods ended April 30, 2017 and 2016 (Unaudited)



for the 3 months ending

for the 6 months ending

30-Apr-17 30-Apr-16

30-Apr-17 30-Apr-16











Revenue $ 129,462 $ 37,509

$ 137,093 $ 47,003 Cost of revenue - -

- -

129,462 37,509

137,093 47,003











Expenses (income):









Selling, general and administrative 76,493 189,328

162,527 453,089 Patent litigation and re-examination expenses - -

- - Research and development 21,186 50,625

26,511 239,078 Interest (19) (59)

(27) (763)

97,660 239,894

189,011 691,404 Loss before interest and accretion on liability









component of debenture $ 31,802 $ (202,385)

$ (51,918) $ (644,401)











Interest on debenture 10,000 10,000

20,000 20,000 Accretion on liability portion of debenture 4,194 3,620

8,237 7,110











Profit (Loss) for the period and comprehensive loss $ 17,608 $ (216,005)

$ (80,155) $ (671,511)











Profit (Loss) per common share









Basic $ 0.001 $ (0.003)

$ (0.001) $ (0.010) Diluted $ 0.001 $ (0.003)

$ (0.001) $ (0.010)











Weighted average number of common shares Basic 66,543,807 66,543,807

66,543,807 66,443,807 Diluted 66,543,807 66,543,807

66,543,807 66,443,807

01 Communique Laboratory Inc. SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows For the 3 and 6 month periods ended April 30, 2017 and 2016 (Unaudited)



three months ending

six months ending

30-Apr-17 30-Apr-16

30-Apr-17 30-Apr-16 Cash provided by (used in):





















Operating activities:











Loss for the period $ 17,608 $ (216,005)

$ (80,155) $ (671,511)

Adjustments to reconcile the profit (loss) for the period to net









cash flows from operating activities











Depreciation 576 1,322

1,665 2,877

Stock-based compensation 20,500 134,800

73,000 277,690

Accretion on liability portion of debenture 4,194 3,620

8,237 7,110

Interest paid on debenture 10,000 10,000

20,000 20,000

Interest income (19) (59)

(27) (763) Change in non-cash working capital (70,804) (35,519)

(87,620) (22,713)

(17,945) (101,841)

(64,900) (387,310) Interest income received 19 59

27 763

(17,926) (101,782)

(64,873) (386,547)











Financing activities:











Issue of common shares - -

- 123,000

Interest paid on debenture (10,000) (10,000)

(20,000) (20,000) Investing activities:











Purchase of capital assets - -

- (655) Increase (decrease) in cash (27,926) (111,782)

(84,873) (284,202)











Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 116,477 378,785

173,424 551,205 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 88,551 $ 267,003

$ 88,551 $ 267,003

SOURCE 01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

For further information: Investor Contact: Brian Stringer, Chief Financial Officer, 01 Communique, (905) 795-2888 x204, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.01com.com


TORONTO, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - Friday, June 9, 2017 marks a milestone for Canada - India business relations with Canada 150 celebrations. The Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) in collaboration with the Canadian High Commission in India, the Consulate General of India in Toronto and the Indo-Canadian Business Chamber (ICBC) brings a day long Canada-India Business Symposium (CIBS) and a Business Expo at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto.

The High Commissioner for Canada to India, Mr. Nadir Patel, is leading a delegation of 150 Indian companies to mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation of Canada or Canada 150. Mayor John Tory and Minister of International Trade, Honourable Michael Chan will be joining the symposium along side more than 200 hundred Canadian businesses that are expected to participate in the symposium and the expo, enrolment for which has already commenced.

Canadian business leaders and participants include, among others, Mr. Suneet Singh Tuli, Co-founder and CEO of DataWind; Mr. Kerry Adler CEO of SkyPower Global; Mr. Iain Stewart, President, National Research Council; Ms. Isle Treurnicht, Chief Executive Officer of MaRS Discovery District. Prominent Indian corporate entities are part of the Indian delegation, which also includes important decision-makers such as Mr. Harsh Dhingra, Chief Country Representative, Bombardier Transportation; Mr. Ashish Chauhan, Managing Director and CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange.

Speaking about the visit, High Commissioner Nadir Patel said: "Canada's commercial relations with India are growing at a strong pace, yet there remain significant opportunities for further growth and collaboration between Canadian and Indian companies. This visit will provide Indian companies with first-hand knowledge about Canada's strengths in various sectors and an opportunity to develop personal contacts with some of Canada's top companies, while at the same time bring the India opportunity to Canada." Both Mr. Patel and Mr. Vikas Swarup, High Commissioner of India to Canada, will be addressing the symposium, as will other prominent Canadian and federal and provincial political leaders. Mr. Deepak Chopra, the CEO of Canada Post, will be delivering the keynote address.

"The Canada-India Business Symposium will give concrete directions to our efforts at increasing bilateral business," said Mr. Dinesh Bhatia, the Consul General of India in Toronto. The symposium is divided into three panel discussions on subjects relevant to both the Canadian and the Indian economies.

"Our aim is to look beyond the horizon and plan for a future that is likely to emerge soon after the bilateral negotiations on CEPA and FIPPA conclude into agreements," said Mr. Arun Srivastava, the President of Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC).

Representatives of the participating companies will spend three days in Toronto where they will engage in business meetings with Canadian firms. They will also receive briefings on investment, visit potential partners and manufacturers, and participate in networking events. For more information, please visit www.iccconline.org or www.facebook.com/ICCCONLINE/

About Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC)

Founded in 1977, the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. Its programs and policies foster individual initiative, and the ability of members to make a significant contribution to the economic, cultural and social fabric of Canada. The ICCC's mission is to be the premier, privately funded, Indo-Canadian business organization in Canada by Promoting the business, professional, and general well-being of Indo-Canadians. Creating positive awareness of the high degree of contribution of the Indo-Canadian business and professional community. Facilitating business and trade opportunities between Canada and India. ICCC Objectives are to provide members with a forum for networking, sharing ideas, information and experiences in order to promote mutual business success. Create learning opportunities through seminars, workshops and conferences. Foster international commerce between Canada, the Indian sub-continent and other countries around the world by creating relationships and links with global business organizations.

SOURCE Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce (ICCC)

For further information: For Media enquires contact, Ms. Sumit Ahuja, Media Works International, E: [email protected], P: + 1905.962.3304
The Government of Canada supports the 15th Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue

ROUYN-NORANDA, QC, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, along with the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development, announce that the Government of Canada has agreed to provide financial assistance to Collectif 08, to support its presentation of the 15th Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue (FMEAT), which will be held in Rouyn-Noranda from August 31 to September 3, 2017.

The amount of $50,000, granted by Canadian Heritage through the Canada Arts Presentation Fund, will allow the public to hear music from various emerging artists, who will use this forum to showcase their talent.

The financial assistance granted by CED totals $191,120 over three years (2015, 2016 and 2017) in the form of a non-repayable contribution, under the Quebec Economic Development Program. In 2017, an amount of $63,993 will, among other things, allow the Festival to promote itself in foreign markets and showcase it as one of the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region's tourism attractions. Promoting this cultural event will not only help diversify the region's economy through tourism revenue, but also help attract a number of visitors from around the world.

Quotes

"This year, as we mark Canada 150, we have a unique opportunity to celebrate the country's linguistic, cultural and regional diversity. The Government of Canada is pleased to support projects such as the Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue, which encourages Canadian artists to envision our country's future and help shape our cultural landscape."

 The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage

"The Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue offers a unique window into the Quebec arts scene and generates significant media buzz and tourism for the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region. We are pleased to support this important cultural event, which contributes to the region's international influence."

- The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions

"In 2017, the Festival de musique emergente will be celebrating its 15th anniversary. We are proud that, year after year, up-and-coming and independent music from Quebec and Canada has a chance to shine, along with the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region's culture. Come and join us for four days of music and festivities!"

- Olivier Leidgens, Executive Director of the Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue

Quick Facts

Collectif 08 is the organization that runs the Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue. Its mission is to foster music distribution, to promote up-and-coming musicians, to help keep the region vibrant, and to facilitate networking among artists and creators in the emerging music scene.

Over a four-day period, the Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue presents concerts that feature emerging musical talent.

Performances take place at 18 locations throughout Rouyn-Noranda, which accommodate audiences of between 125 to 6,000.

Associated Links

Festival de musique emergente en Abitibi-Temiscamingue fmeat.org

Canada Arts Presentation Fund canada.pch.gc.ca/eng/1452621893765/1452621979961

Quebec Economic Development Program dec-ced.gc.ca/eng/agency/programs/qedp/index.html

SOURCE Canadian Heritage

For further information: For more information (media only), please contact: Pierre-Olivier Herbert, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, 819-997-7788; Media Relations, Canadian Heritage, 819-994-9101, 1-866-569-6155, [email protected]; Media Relations, Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, 514-283-8818, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.pch.gc.ca


OTTAWA, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - On Monday, 12 June 2017, the Bank of Canada will hold an event to mark the entry into circulation of the Canada 150 commemorative bank note.

Time: 10:00 (Atlantic Time)



Place: Confederation Centre of the Arts 145 Richmond Street Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Confederation Chamber



Interview opportunities: Monique LeBlanc, Regional Director of the Bank of Canada will be available to answer questions about the theme and the various security features of the commemorative note.



Note: All media are invited to register with the Bank in advance to attend. To do so, please contact Monique LeBlanc by noon (AT) on Friday, 9 June at 902-420-4657 or [email protected].

SOURCE Bank of Canada

For further information: All media are invited to register with the Bank in advance to attend. To do so, please contact Monique LeBlanc by noon (AT) on Friday, 9 June at 902-420-4657 or [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.bank-banque-canada.ca


Panel of experts to advise governments on protecting at least 17% of Canada's land and freshwater by 2020

OTTAWA, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - Canada is committed to conserve at least 17 per cent of our country's land and freshwater through a network of parks, protected and conserved areas, and other effective area-based conservation measures by 2020. Building this network will be achieved only through a pan-Canadian collaboration and the collective action of many communities, partners and stakeholders.

Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, Catherine McKenna, along with the Honourable Shannon Phillips, Minister of Alberta Environment and Parks and Minister Responsible for the Climate Change Office, introduced the experts, appointed to a National Advisory Panel, who will advise governments on achieving Canada's international commitment to biodiversity conservation.

Selected from nearly 150 candidates, the National Advisory Panel consists of individuals representing a broad spectrum of perspectives, including Indigenous organizations, environmental non-governmental organizations, resource industries, academia, and youth. The Panel members are tasked with providing practical and innovative recommendations based on the best available science and traditional knowledge on how we can collectively achieve Canada's land and freshwater target by 2020. The Panel report will be publicly available to all Canadians in late 2017.

Canada's approach to biodiversity conservation reflects a renewed nation-to-nation relationship that is based on the recognition of rights, respect, cooperation and partnership and supports the involvement of Indigenous communities in every aspect of the initiative. An Indigenous Circle of Experts has been created to provide Indigenous expert advice throughout all elements of the initiative. In addition, special attention is being directed to developing criteria for Indigenous Protected and Conservation Areas, which could play a significant role in achieving the land and freshwater conservation target.

This is the first time in over 25 years federal and provincial governments have agreed to work together on expanding Canada's collection of protected and conserved areas. It is also the first effort to move from a collection to a connected network of protected and conserved areas. A connected network is the only way to conserve Canada's biological diversity for generations to come. A connected network will also play an important role in contributing to the recovery of species at risk and in managing the impacts of climate change by maintaining resilient ecosystems and by helping plants, animals, and their habitats adapt to changes. An expanded network of protected and conserved areas will provide additional opportunities for Canadians to connect with nature.

Quotes

"Our Government is committed to expanding our system of protected areas and protecting Canada's biodiversity. We are honoured to present the members of the National Advisory Panel to Canadians. We value the contribution of Indigenous Peoples in our collective efforts to achieve Canada's land and freshwater conservation target. We look forward to their recommendations on how we as a nation can meet our goal of building a connected network of protected and conserved areas to protect Canada's biodiversity. As Canada celebrates the 150th anniversary of Confederation, what better gift to offer the world than to create a natural legacy for future generations."

The Honourable Catherine McKenna

Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Minister Responsible for Parks Canada

"The steps we take today will help protect our rivers, forests and other wild spaces for future generations. This new National Advisory Panel reflects Canada's diversity, while bringing together voices needed to achieve our ambitious conservation targets."

The Honourable Shannon Phillips

Minister of Alberta Environment and Parks and the Minister Responsible for the Climate Change Office

Quick Facts

Parks Canada and Alberta Environment and Parks are co-leading the land and freshwater conservation initiative, which will develop best practices and indicators for measuring progress towards conserving at least 17 per cent of Canada's land areas and inland water by 2020 and building a coordinated and connected network of protected and conserved areas throughout the country.

and Alberta Environment and Parks are co-leading the land and freshwater conservation initiative, which will develop best practices and indicators for measuring progress towards conserving at least 17 per cent of land areas and inland water by 2020 and building a coordinated and connected network of protected and conserved areas throughout the country. In addition to the land and inland water target, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada, and partners are working jointly on the marine component of the commitment to conserve at least 10 per cent of marine and coastal areas by 2020.

In 2010, members of the international community identified 20 biodiversity targets, known as the Aichi Targets, to be achieved by 2020 in order to reverse the global decline of biodiversity. Canada's commitment to protect biodiversity is based on these international commitments.

commitment to protect biodiversity is based on these international commitments. Based on the most current data, 10.6 per cent of land and 1.18 per cent of marine areas of Canada are protected by the provinces, territories, the federal government, Indigenous groups, and non-profit and private sector organizations.

Related Links

Panel Members' Biographies

Conservation2020canada

Building Canada's Natural Legacy Commitment

Biodivcanada

Alberta Environment and Parks

Parks Canada

Backgrounder

Canada's Land and Freshwater Conservation Target

National Advisory Panel

A Strategic Plan for Biodiversity was adopted in 2010 at the Conference of the Parties for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Canada, the European Community, and another 195 member states are Parties to the CBD. The plan includes 20 biodiversity targets, known as the Aichi Targets, to be achieved by 2020 in order to reverse the global decline of biodiversity. Aichi Target 11 focusses on the conservation of biological diversity through protected areas and other measures:

By 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas and 10 per cent of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, and integrated into the wider landscape and seascape.

Parties were urged to develop their own national targets in support of the strategic plan using Aichi targets as a guide. In 2015, Canada adopted the "2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets for Canada", a set of 19 targets covering issues ranging from species at risk to sustainable forestry to connecting Canadians to nature. Canada's land and freshwater conservation target (also called Canada Target 1), which is aligned with the numeric component of Aichi Target 11, states:

By 2020, at least 17% of terrestrial areas and inland water, and 10% of coastal and marine areas of Canada , are conserved through networks of protected areas and other effective area-based measures.

On April 11, 2016, federal, provincial, and territorial deputy ministers responsible for parks agreed to establish a steering committee through the Canadian Parks Council that will outline a pathway to achieving Canada's land and freshwater target.

In February 2017, federal, provincial and territorial Ministers responsible for protected areas and biodiversity conservation committed to work together on expanding Canada's collection of protected and conserved areas under an initiative known as Pathway to Canada Target 1. For its part, Quebec, although it does not participate in the implementation of the Pathway initiative, will contribute to the pan-Canadian effort by achieving an identical target for the creation of protected areas on its terrestrial territory and its inland water by 2020.

It is well understood that many governments, Indigenous groups, communities, and organizations across Canada have a significant interest and/or stake in the outputs from the process and that the solutions associated with achieving Canada's land and freshwater conservation target will only be found through collaboration and collective action within and amongst those groups. Accordingly, Ministers who oversee parks, wildlife, conservation and biodiversity from the federal, provincial and territorial governments are seeking advice from a National Advisory Panel (NAP), with members who represent a broad spectrum of perspectives.

The NAP consists of individuals appointed by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Minister for Alberta Environment and Parks. Individuals were selected based on merit and drawn from a balanced and broad spectrum of perspectives, including Indigenous groups, conservation non-governmental organizations, industry, academia and youth. Members were selected from a field of nearly 150 Canadians who responded to the Ministers' December 23, 2016 call for expressions of interest.

Members of the NAP will serve as individuals bringing their expertise, knowledge, and perspectives, rather than acting solely as representatives of, or advocates for, their current affiliation. Members will balance the principle of transparency with confidentiality of discussions where appropriate.

The purpose of the National Advisory Panel is to provide practical and innovative recommendations reflecting a broad spectrum of perspectives and based on the best available science and traditional knowledge on how governments, non-governmental organizations and Canadians could collectively achieve Canada's land and freshwater target through a coordinated and connected network of protected and conservation areas throughout the country that could serve as the cornerstone for biodiversity conservation for generations to come.

The NAP will produce a report that will be publicly available and submitted to ministers responsible for parks, protected areas and biodiversity conservation. The report will provide recommendations on how Canada can achieve the quantitative and qualitative elements of the terrestrial and inland water components of Canada Target 1. The recommendations will focus on the following elements:

Canadian criteria for protected area categories and other effective area-based conservation measures that are credible, clear, and consistent with internationally recognized approaches so that we can account for progress toward achieving the target;

Representation of Canada's diverse ecology in protected areas and other effective conservation measures;

diverse ecology in protected areas and other effective conservation measures; Equitable management of protected areas from a local community perspective;

Management effectiveness of protected areas and other effective conservation measures;

Areas important for biodiversity and ecosystem services;

Connecting protected and conservation areas and integrating them into the wider landscape.

This work is being supported, in part, by an Indigenous Circle of Experts (ICE), which will provide recommendations on how Indigenous protected and conservation areas could be realized in Canada. The work of the ICE will be grounded in and reflect the principles of the overall initiative, including: reconciliation, respect, inclusiveness and collaboration, transparency, innovation and creativity, and evidence-based decision making grounded in science and traditional knowledge. Its recommendations regarding Indigenous conservation areas will be grounded in the following principles, to be defined through the work of the Circle, and incorporated in the final version of the ICE report: jurisdictional solutions, capacity development, financial support, and prioritizing matters of importance to Indigenous communities such as cultural sites and keystone species.

SOURCE Parks Canada

For further information: Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers, Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, 613-462-5473, [email protected]; Jeremy Van Loon, Alberta Environment and Parks, Press Secretary, 780-644-7680, [email protected]; Media Relations, Parks Canada Agency, 855-862-1812, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.pc.gc.ca/


TORONTO, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - Genworth MI Canada Inc. (TSX: MIC) ("Genworth Canada" or the "Company") announced at its annual general meeting held on June 8, 2017 the resolutions proposed in the Company's proxy circular were carried. The detailed results are as follows.

1. Election of each of the following nine nominees as directors of the Company:



Votes For

Votes Withheld

# %

# % Brian Hurley 75,636,555 97.23%

2,155,665 2.77% Sidney Horn 76,999,690 98.98%

792,530 1.02% Andrea Bolger 77,589,733 99.74%

202,487 0.26% Sharon Giffen 77,717,325 99.90%

74,895 0.10% Rohit Gupta 75,668,469 97.27%

2,123,751 2.73% Stuart Levings 76,450,064 98.27%

1,342,156 1.73% Neil Parkinson 77,701,968 99.88%

90,252 0.12% Leon Roday 74,612,601 95.91%

3,179,619 4.09% Jerome Upton 75,666,345 97.27%

2,125,875 2.73%

2. Appointment of KPMG LLP as auditors of the Company:



Votes For

Votes Withheld

# %

# %

77,839,888 99.95%

39,370 0.05%

About Genworth MI Canada Inc.

Genworth MI Canada Inc. (TSX: MIC) through its subsidiary, Genworth Financial Mortgage Insurance Company Canada (Genworth Canada), is the largest private residential mortgage insurer in Canada. The Company provides mortgage default insurance to Canadian residential mortgage lenders, making homeownership more accessible to first-time homebuyers. Genworth Canada differentiates itself through customer service excellence, innovative processing technology, and a robust risk management framework. For almost two decades, Genworth Canada has supported the housing market by providing thought leadership and a focus on the safety and soundness of the mortgage finance system. As at March 31, 2017, Genworth Canada, had $6.7 billion total assets and $3.8 billion shareholders' equity. Find out more at www.genworth.ca.

SOURCE Genworth MI Canada

For further information: Investors - Jonathan Pinto, 905-287-5482, [email protected]; Media - Susan Carter, 905-287-5520, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.genworth.com


"The Alliance is proud to be involved in this outstanding project. Travellers from here and abroad will discover and fall in love with Quebec through unique experiences proposed by the QuebecOriginal brand from the perspective of a praiseworthy ambassador of our tourist destination," Martin Soucy, President and CEO of the Alliance stated delightedly. The book to be published in the spring of 2018 will showcase Quebec through the lens of a passionate Quebecer, in words, but above all, in impressive pictures.

Mathieu Dupuis is the first photographer from Quebec to sign with the National Geographic. He started his travel adventure across Quebec several months ago. He is thrilled with the welcome received in each region and the enthusiasm that this project has generated: "Quebec has so much to offer," explained Mathieu Dupuis. "A book published under a renowned banner is a remarkable means to invite the world to discover the wealth and vibrant lifestyle of Quebec." The photographer shared the news of this unprecedented collaboration and the cover page of his upcoming book this morning while en route to the Charlevoix region.

"Through this partnership we're creating more than a spectacular book; It is a source of inspiration, it is a travel diary, a dream book that piques the interest through nuggets of information and insight shared by Mathieu," says Lisa Thomas, Publisher and Editorial Director, National Geographic Books. Delighted by the results to date, National Geographic will participate in the promotion of the book, notably in markets courted by Quebec.

Progress in the development of this project will be made public over the next few months. Until then, the photographic adventures that Mathieu Dupuis will experience during his journey across Quebec can be followed on social media, using the #QuebecOriginal #NationalGeographic hashtags.

About National Geographic Partners LLC

National Geographic Partners LLC, a joint venture between National Geographic Society and 21st Century Fox, combines National Geographic television channels with National Geographic's media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic Studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children's media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, catalog, licensing and e-commerce businesses. A portion of the proceeds from National Geographic Partners LLC will be used to fund science, exploration, conservation and education through significant ongoing contributions to the work of the National Geographic Society.

About Mathieu Dupuis

Mathieu Dupuis is an enthusiastic photographer. He has been involved for more than 18 years in many promotional campaigns, commercial projects and exhibits, mainly in Canada, the United States and Europe. Also an author, he has contributed to more than 30 books, including several best-sellers. Quebec remains the focus of his professional endeavours. His association with the National Geographic Society started in September 2010 for a photographic essay on 30 North American cities.

The Alliance

The Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Quebec is dedicated to making Quebec a world-class tourist destination. The organization manages the QuebecOriginal brand, which markets Quebec tourism experiences worldwide and in priority markets across Canada and countries such as the United States, Mexico, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and China.

SOURCE Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Quebec

For further information: For comments by an Alliance spokesperson or interviews with photographer Mathieu Dupuis: Julia Yaccarini, Manager Content Creation and Production, [email protected], 450 686-8358 poste 148

Related Links

http://alliancetouristique.com/


CASL compliance still a big hurdle for small business; resources available

TORONTO, June 7, 2017 /CNW/ - The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) commends Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains and the federal government for indefinitely suspending implementation of the private right of action provision of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). This provision would have had harmful consequences on small business.

The provision, which had been scheduled to come into force on July 1, 2017, would have allowed consumers or organizations to sue businesses they believed were not complying with anti-spam rules. In addition to suspending implementation, Minister Bains also referred the matter to the Industry Committee, where it could be struck down permanently.

"We asked, and government listened," said Dan Kelly, president of CFIB. "We are very grateful to Minister Bains for recognizing the impact this provision could have had on limiting innovation and customer relationships for small businesses across Canada, and for not putting Canadian businesses at a competitive disadvantage. This measure will help address some of the red tape headaches the legislation has presented to Canadian small firms."

CFIB sent a letter to Minister Bains last month urging the government to reconsider the private right of action clause. CASL came into force in 2014, imposing penalties on spammers, but also affecting tens of thousands of legitimate businesses that were using email and other electronic means to stay in touch with customers. The original law has led to a small handful of charges and fines, but also headaches and thousands of dollars in costs for businesses that have had to transform their business processes and systems.

CASL help for small businesses

CFIB is working to help small businesses understand and comply with anti-spam rules. For businesses that want to make sure that their electronic marketing campaigns comply with CASL, CFIB has partnered with Cyberimpact, a Canadian firm which specializes in e-marketing, to give them the resources they need, including:

Free CASL compliance webinars will be offered June 20 and 22, 2017.

will be offered and 22, 2017. A comprehensive guide to CASL compliance for small business is now available on the CFIB website, outlining specific steps that businesses can take.

to CASL compliance for small business is now available on the CFIB website, outlining specific steps that businesses can take. For those that need a little more help, Cyberimpact also offers email marketing solutions designed for non-marketers that are simple, low-risk, and exclusively priced for CFIB member businesses.

"Despite the suspension of the private right of action, small businesses still need to comply with CASL, and we hope this change will serve as a reminder," said Jean-Francis Lalonde, president of Cyberimpact. "Very few small businesses understand the law or what it means for them. They are still subject to huge fines for simply communicating with their customers. We are happy to partner with CFIB to help small businesses that want to better protect themselves."

Go to CFIB.ca to find out more about upcoming CASL webinars or to learn how Cyberimpact can help your firm deliver effective campaigns that comply with CASL.

CFIB is Canada's largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 109,000 members across every sector and region.

SOURCE Canadian Federation of Independent Business

For further information: To arrange an interview with Dan Kelly, please contact Kiara Morrissey at 416-222-8022, 647-464-2814 or [email protected]

Related Links

www.cfib.ca


The most comprehensive offer of South destinations, all-inclusive packages, all-in-one cruise packages and European holidays

MONTREAL, June 8, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - Transat, Canada's leader in holiday travel, is pleased to unveil its enriched winter 2017-18 Sun program. Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Transat can attest that it's now more than ever attuned to the needs of travellers with its many additions to its South collections, its popular all-in-one cruise packages and its seaside holidays in Europe.

Transat's Sun holidays feature all-inclusive packages to 36 destinations in Florida, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, as well as some 650 hotels, 45 of which are offered exclusively. Transat also stands out for its five collections that simplify the lives of travellers by offering them a selection of hotels suited to their needs: Luxury, Distinction, Solo, Family and Sun Savvy.

Transat also offers flexible vacation options  like home and apartment rentals, a la carte hotels, guided tours and Duo packages combining two regions in one trip  allowing travellers with a thirst for exploration and authenticity to take the type of holiday they want.

"Travelling is like dreaming wide awake: we want to be able to do everything we want, whether it's to relax or explore a new destination," says Annick Guerard, President and General Manager of Transat Tours Canada. "So whatever your dream Sun vacation may be, whether you're travelling alone or with family, envisioning yourself in a luxurious resort or an intimate hotel, Transat has you covered. In addition, due to the growing popularity of our all-in-one cruise packages launched last year, we are adding two new destinations, Tampa, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico."

The South with Air Transat

This winter, Air Transat offers direct flights to 36 South destinations from 22 Canadian cities, including two new destinations, Tampa and San Juan, from Montreal and Toronto. Therefore, Air Transat offers a total of 145 routes, nine of which are new, such as Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) from Montreal, and Punta Cana (Dominican Republic) from Ottawa and Kelowna. Moreover, more flights have been added to some of the most popular South destinations from several major Canadian cities: Punta Cana, Cancun (Mexico), Managua (Nicaragua), Roatan (Honduras) and Liberia (Costa Rica) from Toronto; Liberia and San Salvador (El Salvador) from Montreal; and Los Cabos, Puerto Vallarta and Cancun (Mexico) from Vancouver.

Transat's cruise packages: simplicity and peace of mind

According to a recent report from the Cruise Lines International Association, cruises, especially all-inclusive ones, are gaining popularity with all types of travellers, namely with newlyweds and couples, as well as multi-generational families. So it's not surprising that Transat's cruise packages continue to win over new devotees. Packages include roundtrip flights with Air Transat, transfers and the cruise, and can be booked quickly and easily at a travel agency or on Transat's website, just like any all-inclusive package. And thanks to Transat's Flight Protection, travellers are sure to get to their ship in case of a delay.

In addition, with Transat, travellers can make the fun last by adding a hotel stay to their adventure at sea. They can move up their departure date up to 14 days before their cruise or postpone their return to Canada up to 14 days after their journey at sea, at no extra cost. A wide selection of a la carte hotels is offered at various ports in Florida and the Caribbean.

Europe in winter: combining sun with exploration

Some equate travelling with exploration and discovering new cultures. That's why they can be tempted to go and soak up the sun and marvellous wonders of Costa del Sol in Spain or Lisbon and the Algarve in Portugal during a short or long stay.

Transat offers packages that are specially designed for cultural immersion and include the flights, a selection of hotels at reduced rates and featuring a kitchenette or offering a number of free meals, transfers between the airport and the hotel, excursions, and more. For greater flexibility, travellers can also customize their trips by combining flights, accommodations, rental cars and a la carte visits.

Direct flights to Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, are available all year long from Toronto. Transat offers direct flights between Montreal and Malaga, Spain, from January to November. Transat also provides one direct flight a week between Toronto and Faro, Portugal, from January to April, and two direct flights a week between Montreal and Malaga from January to November. These four routes are available to clients from Montreal and Toronto thanks to connecting flights between the two cities. Transat also flies to other cities in Europe year-round, namely Paris, London, Glasgow and Manchester.

Super Early Booking Promotion

It's Super Early Booking Promotion time again. Canadians who book their fall or winter Sun vacations by June 30, 2017, will benefit from a number of advantages: a reduced deposit of only $100, Transat's Price Drop Guarantee for all-inclusive packages, the option to change their travel dates up to three hours before departure, an upgrade to Option Plus for Luxury and Distinction Collection packages, and a $50 future travel voucher.

For more information on the complete winter 2017-18 program and Transat's Super Early Booking Promotion, visit transat.com.

About Transat Tours Canada

A specialist in holiday travel, Transat Tours Canada (TTC) develops and commercializes a vast array of products, including beach vacations, guided tours and cruise packages, under the Transat and Air Transat brands. In 2015 and 2016, TTC was voted Canada's Best Tour Operator at the Agent's Choice Awards presented by Baxter Travel Media, and earned top honours for Quebec in the same category at the Trophees Uni Vers awards organized by the Association des Agents de Voyages du Quebec. TTC is a business unit of Transat A.T. Inc., a leading integrated international tourism company active in air transportation, accommodation, travel packaging and distribution. Transat A.T. was awarded Travelife Partner status in 2016 in recognition of its commitment to sustainable development. The vacation travel companion par excellence, Transat celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2017.

SOURCE Transat A.T. Inc.

For further information: Marie-Annick Lalande, Public Relations and Marketing Advisor, Transat Tours Canada, 514-987-1616, ext. 4076

Related Links

http://www.transat.com


TORONTO, June 8, 2017 /CNW/ - True Patriot Love Foundation (TPL) announces the launch of the True Patriot Love Scotiabank Expedition: Best of Canada Series.

Building on the success of previous expeditions to the Himalayas (2012), the North Pole (2014), and Antarctica (2016), in honour of Canada 150, TPL is leading teams of ill and injured soldiers, along with Canadian business leaders, on a series of incredible expeditions across the country. Together they will conquer some of the most remote and challenging locations in Canada including an intensive sea kayak adventure off the coast of Newfoundland (June 9  17), a thrilling recreation of the last leg of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's first crossing of North America (July 9 -23), and a challenging white-water canoe expedition through the Northwest Territories (July 29  August 12).

Working as a team to complete the mission, participants will face physical, emotional, and mental roadblocks together. By doing so, these individuals will get outside of their comfort zone and become a team. In addition to reaching their physical goals, the expedition team will collectively raise critical funds and awareness for our brave Veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces and their families.

In addition to providing meaningful mentorship opportunities for soldier participants, previous expeditions have raised more than $5 million to support Veterans, and their families, as they transition to civilian life. Funds raised have allowed for enhanced job training and recruitment, provided 144 Veterans with rapid job placement, helped to fund more than 4,600 hours of peer-to-peer mental health counselling, and allowed for a $500,000 investment to create a virtual reality therapy program for Veterans living with PTSD which is now being used across the country.

The True Patriot Love Scotiabank Expedition: Best of Canada Series is extremely grateful to be supported by many generous sponsors and partners who are committed to supporting Canadian military families. The Presenting Sponsor for the expedition series is Scotiabank, the Platinum Sponsor for the Mackenzie leg of the expedition series is Mackenzie Investments and our Airline Partner is Air Canada.

Quotes:



"True Patriot Love is committed to providing much needed support to our military families and Veterans. The expeditions provide an opportunity for participating soldier team members to face personal roadblocks on their journey of transition into civilian life. Many soldier team members are dealing with visible and invisible injuries as a result of their service, and this experience will provide them the opportunity to share their stories, bond with other participants, and transition into a fulfilling civilian role following service."

- Bronwen Evans, CEO, True Patriot Love Foundation

"Expeditions are largely team pursuits and as was often heard on the TPL North Pole Expedition, no man should be left behind. This same ethos applies to our injured veterans. They have served Canada and now it is our turn to give back and help them navigate as they forge a new life outside of the military."

- Susan McArthur, North Pole Expedition civilian participant (2014) & Co-chair of the Mackenzie Expedition (2017)

"Every day is a challenge, but you have to accept that challenge and get over it. My war with the Taliban ended that day in March, but my war with my injuries just began and it's a war I continue to fight."

- Cpl. David MacDonald, Himalayas Expedition soldier participant (2012)

About True Patriot Love Foundation

True Patriot Love Foundation (TPL) is a national charity with the mission to inspire every Canadian to contribute to the resilience and well-being of our military and Veteran families. Since 2009, TPL has provided more than $18 million to support military families, including supporting more than 100 community-based programs across the country that address the unique challenges resulting from service including mental health, physical rehabilitation, transitioning to civilian life, and the special needs of children. In addition, TPL contributes to advancements in research and technology through our $5 million commitment to the Canadian Institute for Military and Veterans Health Research (Queen's University). For more information, visit www.truepatriotlove.com

SOURCE True Patriot Love Foundation

For further information: For media enquiries, please contact: Laura Hearn, Senior Director, Marketing and Communications, True Patriot Love Foundation, (647) 213-4631, [email protected]

Related Links

www.truepatriotlove.com


By Olivier Ferret 8 June 2017 - 09:28





Situated on the man-made Ile Notre Dame in the St Lawrence river, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a true high speed challenge with the cars averaging 130mph over the course of a lap. This race is a firm favourite on the calendar due to its unrivalled atmosphere. Montreal becomes a party town during the race weekend and the locals create a fantastic atmosphere from the grandstands. The team has secured seven wins in Canada to date, with the last coming in 2001 with Ralf Schumacher at the wheel of the FW23.

For Canada, Pirelli has made available the ultrasoft, supersoft and soft tyres.

Paddy Lowe

After spending last Friday celebrating the teams great heritage at Silverstone, we now look forward to getting back to the job in hand this weekend as we head to Canada. Montreal is a big favourite amongst the Formula One teams. The crowds are fantastic; Montreal turns into a party city for the weekend with a real feeling of excitement in the air. And the race itself rarely disappoints, delivering a large number of historic battles over the years including the longest ever F1 race in history in 2011.

The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is one of the most famous F1 circuits and has hosted Grands Prix since 1978, nearly 40 years ago. It has unique characteristics including long straights interspersed with various quite challenging slow corners and a few notoriously unforgiving walls. The long straights and slow corners generally drive us towards lower downforce levels on the cars, and make it one of the toughest circuits on the calendar for brakes. With the narrower temperature window of current generation tyres it is particularly hard to get them in the right condition, especially for qualifying.

This is Lances home race so it will be a very special weekend for him. We were encouraged by his performance in Monaco so he can build confidence from that and have a good race here. Of course Felipe has raced here many times before, and our car should go better at this type of circuit than we did in Monaco, so we will do our very best to secure positive results this weekend and to put on a great show for our North American fans.

Felipe Massa

Im really looking forward to going back to Montreal because its such an amazing place to be. Its a race where our car normally has good performance, so I really hope we can show that again this year and have another good race. I also love the city of Montreal. The fans there really are in love with Formula One. Its also Lances first home Grand Prix so it will be a very special weekend for him.

Lance Stroll

Montreal is going to be amazing for me, as this is not only my home race but it is also held in my home city, which is buzzing while the race is on. I grew up about 20 minutes away from the race track, so this will be something special and not many people will get to experience that feeling. As a kid I attended the race pretty much every year, then missed a few years while living in Europe, but was back there last year. For me it is a pure racing event. It is not the flashiest Grand Prix, as the paddock is small, but it is cool, unique and old school. The fans are really close to the track, the grandstands are huge and the run off areas are not massive, but I love that and hope it doesnt change.
#first lady First lady meets with family of additional victim of Itaewon tragedy First lady Kim Keon-hee on Thursday visited a hospital in Seoul to meet with the family of a soldier who was pronounced brain dead the previous day after being injured in the Itaew...

#football S. Korea coach not yet planning alternatives for Son Heung-min's potential World Cup absence As South Korea's captain Son Heung-min tries to work his way back from a facial surgery in time for the FIFA World Cup, his national team head coach Paulo Bento does not yet have a...
Happy New Month Nigeria! Welcome to the month of June. As the world searches for a respite from all its troubles since 2020 began, one can ...
"They took my brother."The visibly frightened woman speaks from inside the doorway of a multi-family house as she describes how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came at night, knocking on apartment doors, demanding to be let in."He's now at a detention center in York (nearby city)," she says in Spanish, giving her name only as Maria. After living in tiny York Springs, PA, for the past three years, the 38-year old woman is planning to return to Mexico with her three children.Shes not alone. Lately, the streets of the York Springs have been emptier and for rent signs have popped up in front of some buildings. A new layer of fear hangs over the rural Pennsylvania town and its large Hispanic population in the wake of recent sweeps by ICE agents.York Springs has developed differently from most other rural Pennsylvania towns. Located in farm country near the site of one of the most decisive battles in the American Civil War, York Springs began as a spa, attracting patrons from Washington and Philadelphia who came for the sulphur springs. Among them, records show, was America's first president, George Washington.In the mid-20th century, the population of York Springs began to change as successive waves of migrant workers came to pick fruits and vegetables in the orchards and farms surrounding the town. The demand for migrant workers grew as farmers could no longer count on hiring enough locals at harvest time, according to Cathay Snyder, president of Ye Olde Sulphur Spa Historical Society. Snyder says the first wave of migrants was African American. They came in the 1960s, but did not settle in the town. Two decades later, they were followed by Hispanics, mainly from Mexico. They, too, left after the harvest.That began to change, Snyder says, when migrants found year-around work in the orchards."More and more stay and make this their home," Snyder told VOA. "The husbands, the fathers, might be working out in the orchards, which were starting now to need more pruning and other year-around work, but you're also having wives finding jobs in some of the factories that are in the area."Now, York Springs, with a population of 800, is almost half Hispanic. The town is something of an anomaly in Adams County which is 95% white. The county voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump and his tough immigration policies in last falls election, 66% to Hillary Clintons 30%.The impact of the new residents on the town has been pronounced. Children born to immigrant families began attending the local school, and a Mexican store opened up on a corner building on Main Street that was once a Five & Dime."There were more people out on the streets, more kids," said Ben Leese, pastor of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church who has lived in York Springs for 10 years. "You'd hear Mexican music from a lot of the houses, from a lot of the cars."When the immigrants first came, Snyder says, there was what she called some "misunderstanding" between the native-born whites and the Hispanics. But that has changed."I would say that we see more of a type of accommodation," Snyder said. "I wouldn't say that we have a blended family, but I think there's respect on either side."An ICE statement provided to VOA says 15 people were arrested in York Springs from January through March of this year. The arrests have sent a wave of fear through the community."They're scared," said pastor Leese. "And the really scary thing to me and lots of folks here is kids go to school and come home and Mom or Dad, or both, may have been picked up."Teachers at the nearby Bermudian Springs school have sensed the fear among their Hispanic students. The school, with its elementary, middle school and high school all in one complex, has a 15 percent Hispanic student body. Bermudian school administrators and teachers are proud of this diversity, and say they have worked successfully to integrate their minority students.Yet elementary schoolteacher Brooke Shambach, who was born in York Springs, worries that the fear and uncertainty created by the ICE arrests are affecting students."Even the young kindergartners are coming in and theyre sad because they hear these things are taking place," Shambach tells VOA. "Its heartbreaking that thats what a kindergartner is thinking about, you know. And it's not just in the elementary school, it's in all the buildings.While ICE has said that convicted criminals remain the target of arrests, the agency acknowledges it will no longer exempt "...individuals from removal proceedings if they are found to be in the country illegally." This change from the final years of the Obama administration indicates that almost anyone without documents could be subject to deportation.Even some who voted for President Donald Trump and his stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws think the change is too harsh.David Reinecker, a 62-year-old farmer who lives on the town's outskirts, supports deporting immigrants who have committed crimes. "But if they're law abiding and are willing to become citizens and get the documentation even after they're here, I think they should be incorporated into our society," he said."The Hispanics coming into our country have filled a real need," he added, noting that the U.S. has always been a melting pot of societies and cultures.








Some youth groups in the Niger Delta region, particularly the Urhobo and Ijaw youths have condemned the three-month ultimatum given by a section of Northern youths to Igbo people in the North.President of Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, Eric Omare and national press secretary of youth wing of Urhobo Progress Union, UPU, Kelly Efemena Umukoro, warned the northern youths to trade with caution.They noted that their actions were capable of throwing Nigeria into unimaginable crisis.The groups also reminded the northern youths that evicting the Igbos from the region was the same as asking all South southerners living in the area to go.IYC Preaident described the demand by the northern youths as baseless and senseless.He added that there was nothing wrong for the Igbo people to demand or agitate for self-determination.He said, The right to self-determination is a universal right recognized even under the UN charter. Therefore, the Igbo agitation for Biafra cannot justify the demand to move Igbos out of northern Nigeria.We believe it is criminally minded people who want to hide under the umbrella of speaking for the north to loot properties belonging to Igbos in the north that are making this demand.We call on security agencies to as a matter of urgency move against the brains behind the ultimatum to Igbos in the north.The security agencies must be proactive and not allow the deed to be done before acting.It is the forces who do not want the factors mitigating against the development of Nigeria that are sponsoring those threats.Umukoro on his own said, It should be noted that despite the fact that some of them never experienced the civil war, they should learn from the history of the civil war of 1967 to 1970 in Nigeria, how the war devastated Nigeria and the economy of the nation.Asking the Igbos to leave is indirectly asking all the Niger Delta people to leave the north, including the Urhobo nation. The action could lead to disintegration of Nigeria.It is also important to note that the Urhobos are not part of Biafra. We want a united Nigeria, where fairness, equality and justice are given preeminence.The Northern elders forum, northern governors should quickly intervene in this matter and arrest every signatory to the statement made. This is to save Nigeria for the future generation.
within three months or be forced to leave. Governors of the 19 Northern States have disowned a coalition of Arewa Youths, who reportedly issued ultimatum to Igbos to vacate the northern part of Nigeria or be forced to leave.

Borno Governor and Chairman of the Northern States Governors' Forum, Kashim Shettima spoke on behalf of his colleagues in Maiduguri on Wednesday evening.

The Governors said they are in touch with heads of their security agencies and have taken measures that will guarantee the rights of all Nigerians to live in the 19 States in the thre geo-political zones within the north.

The Governors also called on security agencies to arrest the youths and probe the motive behind the call, saying the call by the youths was a suspicious act that falls in line with recent trend of arms catch, coup rumours which may not be coincident.
Remember the story of how a mother, Mrs Philomena Odama, had petitioned the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris, the Senate President...

Remember the story of how a mother, Mrs Philomena Odama, had petitioned the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara, over the alleged murder of her first daughter, Joy Odama. (Read HERE





Well, the Abuja-based Alhaji  Usman Adamu  who allegedly killed one Miss Joy Odama, a 200 Level Mass Communication undergraduate of Cross River State University, has been declared wanted by the Police Force Headquarters.

Aside declaring Alhaji Adamu wanted, the Force Headquarters also said the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Karmo, where the alleged murder took place (names withheld), has been queried, removed and transferred over what was described as professional misconduct over Joys death.

Confirming the issuance of arrest warrant on Alhaji Adamu, the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Jimoh Moshood, said: The said Alhaji Adamu is on the run, but we are looking for him because he has a case to answer.

All Police Commands across the country have been alerted that the Alhaji is a suspect in the death of Miss Joy Odama and should be arrested if seen anywhere.

On the transfer of Karmo DPO, Moshood confirmed his query and removal, saying it was for inefficiency.

It could be recalled that in a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris; the Senate President; Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; Yakubu Dogara, the mother of the deceased, Philomena Odama, said that the last day she saw her daughter was when she left for Alhajis place.

She also lamented that the Alhaji later offered the family N400,000 to drop the matter after it was reported to the Police
The video of the robbery attack on Wednesday, February 23, at Zenith Bank, Owerri, Imo state, that left 5 people dead and several injured, ...

The video of the robbery attack on Wednesday, February 23, at Zenith Bank, Owerri, Imo state, that left 5 people dead and several injured, has been released.







The robbers had trailed a customer who came in to deposit a huge sum of money to the Zenith bank branch located along Wetheral Road, opposite Dan Anyiam Stadium in the city.

The robbers had trailed a customer who came in to deposit a huge sum of money to the Zenith bank branch located along Wetheral Road, opposite Dan Anyiam Stadium in the city.

Out of the five people who lost their lives was one of the robbers, 3 bank security agents and the customer who was trailed to the bank, seven other people were injured in the crossfire. The kingpin Justice Ogbonna, aka, JJ, was later arrested during his father's burial, alongside the driver, Okechukwu Onwuamaegbu.





Watch video below:




The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC has reportedly traced a multi-billion naira property said to be owned by former First Lady, Patience Jonathan. The Nation reports the antigraft agency is currently investigating the property and may place it under Interim Asset Forfeiture.

The agency is said to also be investigating the relationship between Mrs. Jonathan and two companies being probed by detectives.Also, three accounts and three more properties have been put under surveillance by the anti-graft commission in connection with the ongoing investigation of the ex-First Lady. The three accounts belong to Aribawa Aruera Research Foundation; Finchley Top Homes Limited and AM-PM Network Limited. The accounts were uncovered in the course of investigating Mrs Jonathan and Aribawa Aruera Research Foundation.The anti-graft commission is suspecting a business relationship between Mrs. Jonathan and Finchley Top Homes Limited and AM-PM Network Limited. Preliminary investigation revealed that huge slush funds might have been laundered through the foundation and the two firms.A report indicated that Aruera Foundation is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) with RC No 22805. Huge funds were suspected to have been laundered into the accounts of the above mentioned companies and properties worth billions of naira were allegedly acquired by ex-First Lady Patience Jonathan through the aforementioned companies. Detectives were able to track transactions through open source information from interbank settlement.The ex-First Lady and five others are trustees of Aribawa Foundation. Intelligence from Abuja Geographical Information Service (AGIS) revealed that a multi-billion naira property, Plot No. 1758B06 in Mabushi Area, belongs to the foundation. The said property is not such that a state Permanent Secretary in person of Mrs. Patience Jonathan can afford.The property should be marked as under investigation and interim forfeiture order be secured. The ex-First Lady is being probed in connection with three other assets  Plot 96(DO5) in Karsana ; Plot 7109 (E18) in Wasa; and Plot 30 (DO3) in Idogwari. Besides, EFCC detectives have turned their searchlight on the ex-First Ladys relationship with Finchley Top Homes Limited and AM-PM Network Limited. Another source added: We have conducted searches at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on the two companies whose accounts were earlier frozen alongside that of the ex-First Lady over $5.8 million which was reasonably suspected to be proceeds of crime.They were among the five companies and one Esther Oba said to be having a total sum of N7.4 billion in six banks. But their counsel Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN) succeeded in unfreezing the account on April 6 at the Federal High Court presided over by Justice Mojisola Olatoregun. This is a new investigation. It is too early to return any verdict on the two companies because our detectives are looking into their books.The source cited Section 7 of the EFCC (Establishment) Act to justify the investigation. Section 7 of the EFCC Act says: The commission has power to (a) cause any investigations to be conducted as to whether any person, corporate body or organization has committed any offence under this Act or other law relating to economic and financial crimes. (b) Cause investigations to be conducted into the properties of any person if it appears to the commission that the persons lifestyle and extent of the properties are not justified by his source of income.The latest probe of Mrs. Jonathan has raised the number of properties linked to her to 17. According to the EFCC source, about 13 properties were initially associated with the ex-First Lady in Port Harcourt and Yenagoa.The assets in Port Harcourt are former Customs Service Officers Mess; two duplexes at 2/3 Bauchi Street; landed property with blocks at Ambowei Street; three luxury apartments of four-bedroom each at Ambowei Street; and Grand View Hotel on Airport Road.Other assets in Yenagoa include two marble duplexes at Otioko GRA by Isaac Boro Expressway; Glass House on Sani Abacha Expressway, which is housing the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board; Akemfa Etie Plaza by AP filling Station, Melford Okilo Road; and Aridolf Resort, Wellness and Spa on Sani Abacha Expressway.
Kogi State Governor, Alh. Yahaya Bello has assured Igbos in the state of the readiness of his administration to continue to protect their interests, saying Nigeria will continue to be a united entity.Speaking in Lokoja through his Director General on Media and Publicity, Kingsley Fanwo on the backdrop of events in Kaduna where some people are threatening the Igbo community, the Governor said he supports the stance of the Kaduna State Governor to protect the Igbos in the state.As a nation, our strength has always been embedded in our unity in diversity. Nigeria is home to all and we must continue to see ourselves as brothers and sisters in a united nation. Ethnic segregation is unacceptable to humanity and we must continue to wax stronger and unbroken as a nation. The God that created Nigeria is a God who believes in the strength of unity.The Kogi State Government under the leadership of Alh. Yahaya Bello wishes to assure all Igbos that they are not only safe in the state, but that the administration will continue to consider Igbos resident in the state as partners in the New Direction Agenda of the government. Igbos should go about the legitimate businesses in the state as they continue to contribute to our economy as a state and a people.With the appointment of Igbos into strategic positions in Kogi State, we are making a strong case for social integration in Nigeria. Let me once more salute the courage and nationalism of the Kaduna State Governor who has shown with his recent actions that Kaduna will remain the home of all nationalities.Bello tasked the Northern leaders to continue to defend the interests and safety of non-Northerners living in the North, insisting that unity is more of an action than word.As we strive to move out of the economic recession in Nigeria, bloodbaths would only compound the situation. We are the same before God and we should always play up the factors that unite us. We can only be strong when we are united.Governor Bello called on Nigerians to intensify prayers for the full recovery of Mr. President, saying the health of the President is quite reassuring and encouraging. He said the President is sacrificing a lot for the greatness, prosperity and unity of Nigeria.President Buhari has sacrificed a lot to ensure we remain a respected nation in the comity of nations. Nigerians should pray for his full recovery as he is determined to tame corruption and drive the nation toward prosperity, responsibility and respectability.
2 suspects, alleged to have murdered Mr. Omoruyi Okundolor, an Italian-based Nigerian in Benin, the Edo State capital, have been arrested b...

2 suspects, alleged to have murdered Mr. Omoruyi Okundolor, an Italian-based Nigerian in Benin, the Edo State capital, have been arrested by men of the state Police Command.









They alleged that the deceaseds former lover contracted them to kill Okundolor because the deceased jilted her.

The suspects, who were paraded by the Edo State Police Commissioner, Haliru Gwandu, confessed that four of them embarked on the mission to eliminate the deceased and named one Moses and Power as members of the gang.



The said female lover, identified as Mercy, and the two accomplices are now at large. The arrested suspects alleged that the plot to eliminate Okundolor was hatched at a drinking spot at Evbuotubu area of Benin.



An 18-year-old girl, who recognised one of the suspects, when they went for the mission, was equally killed. Gwandu, who described such killings as wicked and barbaric, vowed to bring to book the female lover and other suspects currently on the run.



He said: Even if one decides to jilt you, killing the person is not an option; that is wickedness. And such people are enemies of the society. No excuse can be acceptable for killing someone.



We must orientate ourselves and inform others because we have been witnessing such crimes these days and it is shocking. It is actually a devilish act which must be stopped.
The attack by members of the Boko Haram on Maiduguri was successfully repelled, the Army said on Wednesday evening. It can be recalled...

The attack by members of the Boko Haram on Maiduguri was successfully repelled, the Army said on Wednesday evening.It can be recalled that the attack on the Jiddari Polo area of the city, a few kilometres from the elite Government Residential Area, GRA.In its response, the army said it neutralized the attackers.In a merciless operation, Nigerian troops have neutralized Boko Haram gunmen who attempted to attack Jiddari Polo community in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, Army spokesperson Sani Usman said.The brigadier general added that there was an attempt by a few suspected Boko Haram to attack Jiddari Polo and all have been neutralized. Situation cool and calm.The Army confirmed that residents of the area had planned to flee their homes but were reassured with rapid response of Nigerian troops.Mr. Usman assured that there was heavy security presence in the area and the situation was now under control.The army did not, however, provide details of the casualty figure from Wednesdays attack.Wednesdays attack in the most daring by Boko Haram on Maiduguri in recent years since the military retook most of the territory once controlled by the terror group.The Boko Haram insurgency has caused about 100,000 deaths since 2009.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin has rubbished the belief that the United States would defeat Russia if the two engage in a war.

Russian President, Vladimir Putin has rubbished the belief that the United States would defeat Russia if the two engage in a war.









Nobody would survive the clash, Putin told US movie director, Oliver Stone for The Putin Interviews.





Putin also expressed concern of US military action and its NATO alliance.

NATO is a mere instrument of U.S. foreign policy, he said in a clip of the interview, aired by the Showtime channel on Wednesday

It has no allies, it has only vassals. Once a country becomes a NATO member, it is hard to resist the pressures of the United States.

In 2014, NATO kicked against Moscows annexation of Crimea and has since stationed its resources to defend allies near Russia.





In its response, Russia warned that the move is aggressive and has vowed to respond with its own deployments.

And recently, Poland and Romania say they will host elements of a US missile shield but Putin says this is just another example of US dictated policy.





In this case, we have to take countermeasures. We have to aim our missile systems at the facilities that are threatening us. The situation becomes more tense.
Less than 24 hours after the deadly attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, on Thursday, defied the presumed security threat, paying a one-day working visit to the troubled town.The acting president, who is in the state to flag-off the distribution of 30,000 metric tonnes of assorted grains for the Internally Displaced Persons, (IDPs) in the north-east, landed at the Maiduguri International Airport via a presidential jet at about 12:30 pm.The acting president was received by Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima, members of the state executive council, traditional rulers and politicians.It was observed that security was beefed up across the town, with heavily armed security personnel from the army, navy, airforce, police, DSS, immigration and other para-military agencies deployed at the major roads and streets.Similarly, several Armored Personnel Carriers, APC, armoured tanks were equally stationed in all the roads were the Acting President is expected to pass, with assault helicopters and military fighter jets providing aerial surveillance.The town was shut down as commercial and social activities were scuttled.Shortly after his arrival, Mr. Osinbajo headed to the palace of Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Garbai El-Kanemi, where he paid a homage.He told the monarch that the distribution of the grains was part of the Federal Government intervention to address the feeding problem of the IDPs.The acting president later moved to the store of the National Emergency Management Agency, (NEMA) to inspect the grains, even as he proceeded to the Bakassi IDP camp for the flag -off of the distribution programme.
Recall, Penuel Mnguni, the very controversial South African pastor who asked his congregation to swallow live snakes and who made rounds on...

Recall, Penuel Mnguni, the very controversial South African pastor who asked his congregation to swallow live snakes and who made rounds online 4 days ago after he came to Prophet T.B Joshua to deliver him, well he just got back in SA, and says hes happy to talk about his visit to the man of God.









Penuel Mnguni of End Times Disciples Ministries has made a U-turn since his appearance on Emmanuel TV on Sunday. Mnguni visited TB Joshuas Synagogue Church of all Nations in Nigeria on Sunday, and explained why he had fed his congregants live snakes. .



Mnguni, who described himself as an overseer of his church, said he had misinterpreted the Bible, and did what he thought, was scriptural at the time. It was after watching TB Joshua on TV that he realised what he was doing was wrong.



He said he went to Nigeria to seek deliverance from the prophet. Now he has come out saying he had to say all of that because he feared for his safety in Nigeria. He said he did not know he would be forced to speak in front of people.

I never knew that I was going to be forced to speak in front of people, he said.

He said they had pictures showing some of his past practices at church and he had to stand in front of them.

It was as if everything was planned before I even got there. If you listen to the video, I am not the one saying those words. There is a woman next to me who is forcefully telling me what to say, He said.



From watching and listening to the video, it seems the pastors claim is right, as a woman can be heard saying the exact same things he says.



But Kirsten Nematandani from TB Joshua Ministries rubbished Mngunis claims. He told the tabloid Mnguni only wanted to continue being controversial. He was never forced to do anything, he said.

He is an adult, and he cant be forced to do anything. The problem is he just likes to cause a scene, Nematandani said.





The Snake Pastor made headlines in the past after he was seen feeding snakes to members of his congregation as a demonstration of the power of God.





Other things that he did included feeding a member a live rat, locking a church member in a deep freeze for more than 30 minutes and driving a car over congregants.





His practices outraged human and animal rights organisations and he was arrested for his antics.





Watch his deliverance video:





Mnguni claimed he was invited to the church, and only went there for worship and not deliverance, but was shocked when on arrival, those people took his passport and ID and threatened not to give them back unless he did whatever they wanted.He said he felt as if his rights were being violated. But I stood there hopelessly because I feared a lot of things.
A man in Zimbabwe man was caught sitting for an OLevel exam on behalf of his girlfriend. For his mission, he disguised as a woman, full...

A man in Zimbabwe man was caught sitting for an OLevel exam on behalf of his girlfriend.

For his mission, he disguised as a woman, fully kitted in a wig, makeup, and a handbag but he was eventually caught by the eagle-eyed invigilating officer.









He has since been handed over to the authorities while his girlfriend has disappeared.








Press release

NOBELFORSAMLINGEN KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET

THE NOBEL ASSEMBLY AT THE KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE

9 October 1995

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1995 jointly to

Edward B. Lewis, Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric F. Wieschaus

for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development.

Summary

The 1995 laureates in physiology or medicine are developmental biologists who have discovered important genetic mechanisms which control early embryonic development. They have used the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster , as their experimental system. This organism is classical in genetics. The principles found in the fruit fly, apply also to higher organisms including man.

Using Drosophila Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were able to identify and classify a small number of genes that are of key importance in determining the body plan and the formation of body segments. Lewis investigated how genes could control the further development of individual body segments into specialized organs. He found that the genes were arranged in the same order on the chromosomes as the body segments they controlled. The first genes in a complex of developmental genes controlled the head region, genes in the middle controlled abdominal segments while the last genes controlled the posterior (tail) region. Together these three scientists have achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in man.

The fertilized egg is spherical. It divides rapidly to form 2, 4 , 8 cells and so on. Up until the 16-cell stage the early embryo is symmetrical and all cells are equal. Beyond this point, cells begin to specialize and the embryo becomes asymmetrical. Within a week it becomes clear what will form the head and tail regions and what will become the ventral and dorsal sides of the embryo. Somewhat later in development the body of the embryo forms segments and the position of the vertebral column is fixed. The individual segments undergo different development, depending on their position along the head-tail axis. Which genes control these events? How many are they? Do they cooperate or do they exert their controlling influence independently of each other?

This years laureates have answered several of these questions by identifying a series of important genes and how they function to control the formation of the body axis and body segments. They have also discovered genes that determine which organs that will form in individual segments. Although the fruit fly was used as an experimental system, the principles apply also to higher animals and man. Furthermore, genes analogous to those in the fruit fly have been found in man. An important conclusion is that basic genetic mechanisms controlling early development of multicellular organisms have been conserved during evolution for millions of years.

Brave decision by two young scientists

Christiane Nusslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus both finished their basic scientific training at the end of the seventies. They were offered their first independent research positions at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. They knew each other before they arrived in Heidelberg because of their common interest: they both wanted to find out how the newly fertilized Drosophila egg developed into a segmented embryo. The reason they chose the fruit fly is that embryonic development is very fast. Within 9 days from fertilization the egg develops into an embryo, then a larvae and then into a complete fly.

Fig. 1. Regions of activity in the embryo for the genes belonging to the gap, pair-rule, and segment-polarity groups. The gap genes start to act in the very early embryo (A) to specify an initial segmentation (B). The pair-rule genes specify the 14 final segments (C) of the embryo under the influence of the gap genes. These segments later acquire a head-to-tail polarity due to the segment polarity genes.

They decided to join forces to identify the genes which control the early phase of this process. It was a brave decision by two young scientists at the beginning of their scientific careers. Nobody before had done anything similar and the chances of success were very uncertain. For one, the number of genes involved might be very great. But they got started. Their experimental strategy was unique and well planned. They treated flies with mutagenic substances so as to damage (mutate) approximately half of the Drosophila genes at random (saturation mutagenesis). They then studied genes which, if mutated would cause disturbances in the formation of a body axis or in the segmentation pattern. Using a microscope where two persons could simultaneously examine the same embryo they analyzed and classified a large number of malformations caused by mutations in genes controlling early embryonic development. For more than a year the two scientists sat opposite each other examining Drosophila embryos resulting from genetic crosses of mutant Drosophila strains. They were able to identify 15 different genes which, if mutated, would cause defects in segmentation. The genes could be classified with respect to the order in which they were important during development and how mutations affected segmentation. Gap genes (Fig 1) control the body plan along the head-tail axis. Loss of gap gene function results in a reduced number of body segments. Pair rule genes affect every second body segment: loss of a gene known as  even-skipped  results in an embryo consisting only of odd numbered segments. A third class of genes called segment polarity genes affect the head-to-tail polarity of individual segments.

The results of Nusslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were first published in the English scientific journal Nature during the fall of 1980. They received a lot of attention among developmental biologists and for several reasons. The strategy used by the two young scientists was novel. It established that genes controlling development could be systematically identified. The number of genes involved was limited and they could be classified into specific functional groups. This encouraged a number of other scientists to look for developmental genes in other species. In a fairly short time it was possible to show that similar or identical genes existed also in higher organisms and in man. It has also been demonstrated that they perform similar functions during development.

The fly with the extra pair of wings

Already at the beginning of this century geneticists had noted occasional malformations in Drosophila . In one type of mutation the organ that controls balance (the halteres), was transformed into an extra pair of wings (Fig. 2). In this type of bizarre disturbance of the body plan, cells in one region behave as though they were located in another. The Greek word homeosis was used to describe this type of malformations and the mutations were referred to as homeotic mutations.

Fig. 2. Comparison of a normal and a four-winged fruit fly. The third thoractic segment has developed as a duplicate of the second due to a defectic homeotic gene. In the normal fly only the second segment develops wings.

The fly with the extra pair of wings interested Edward B. Lewis at the California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles. He had, since the beginning of the forties, been trying to analyze the genetic basis for homeotic transformations. Lewis found that the extra pair of wings was due to a duplication of an entire body segment. The mutated genes responsible for this phenomenon were found to be members of a gene family ( bithorax -complex) that controls segmentation along the anterior-posterior body axis (Fig. 3). Genes at the beginning of the complex controlled anterior body segments while genes further down the genetic map controlled more posterior body segments (the colinearity principle). Furthermore, he found that the regions controlled by the individual genes overlapped, and that several genes interacted in a complex manner to specify the development of individual body segments. The fly with the four wings was due to inactivity of the first gene of the bithorax complex in a segment that normally would have produced the halteres, the balancing organ of the fly (Fig 3). This caused other homeotic genes to respecify this particular segment into one that forms wings.

Edward Lewis worked on these problems for decades and was far ahead of his time. In 1978 he summarized his results in a review article and formulated theories about how homeotic genes interact, how the gene order corresponded to the segment order along the body axis, and how the individual genes were expressed. His pioneering work on homeotic genes induced other scientists to examine families of analogous genes in higher organisms. In mammalians, the gene clusters first found in Drosophila have been duplicated into four complexes known as the HOX genes. Human genes in these complexes are sufficiently similar to their Drosophila analogues they can restore some of the normal functions of mutant Drosophila genes.

Fig. 3. The principle of colinearity in Drosophila (A-C) and mouse (Mus musculus, D-F) embryos. The horizontal bars indicate in which areas the homeotic genes 1-9 are active along the body axis. Gene 1 is active in the head region (left in A and F, respectively); gene 9 is active in the tail region (right). Gene 7 of the bithorax complex was inactive in the fly with four wings. The bar showing its normal range of activity is indicated with an asterisk.

The individual genes within the four HOX gene families in vertebrates occur in the same order as they do in Drosophila , and they exert their influence along the body axis (Fig 3 D-F) in agreement with the colinearity principle first discovered by Lewis in Drosophila . More recent research has suggested that the segments where shoulders and the pelvis form is determined by homeotic genes.

Congenital malformations in man

Most of the genes studied by Nusslein-Volhard, Wieschaus and Lewis have important functions during the early development of the human embryo. The functions include the formation of the body axis, i.e. the polarity of the embryo, the segmentation of the body, and the specialization of individual segments into different organs. It is likely that mutations in such important genes are responsible for some of the early, spontaneous abortions that occur in man, and for some of the about 40% of the congenital malformations that develop due to unknown reasons. Environmental factors such as very high doses of vitamin A during early pregnancy are also known to disturb the regulation of HOX-genes, thus inducing severe congenital malformations.

In some cases have mutations been found in human genes related to those described here for Drosophila. A human gene related to the Drosophila gene paired will cause a condition known as Waardenburgs syndrome. It is a rare disease which involves deafness, defects in the facial skeleton and altered pigmentation of the iris. Another developmental gene mutation causes a complete loss of the iris, a condition known as aniridia.

Literature Lewis, E.B. (1978) A Gene Complex Controlling Segmentation in Drosophila. Nature 276, 565-570 Nusslein-Volhard, C., Wieschaus, E. (1980). Mutations Affecting Segment Number and Polarity in Drosophila. Nature 287, 795-801 McGinnis, W., Kuziora, M. (1994). The Molecular Architects of Body Design. Scientific American 270, 36-42 Lawrence, P. The Making of a Fly. Blackwell Scientific Publications. Oxford 1992. The Molecular Biology of the Cell. Eds Alberts, B. et al, 3rd edition pp 1077-1107. Garland Publishing, New York 1994.

To cite this section

MLA style: Press release. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Thu. 10 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1995/press-release/>
Eric F. Wieschaus Biographical

I was born in South Bend, Indiana on June 8, 1947, one of that large bumper crop of babies born in the United States after World War II. My family moved to Birmingham Alabama in 1953 when I was six. Although Birmingham was already a major industrial center in the South, the city still had the small town character of most Southern cities at the time. My brother, my three sisters and I could go exploring in the woods near our house, and collect frogs, turtles and crayfish from the local streams and lake. I went to Catholic grade schools and, when I was fourteen, took a 6:45 bus every morning across the city to make it to the only Catholic high school by 8:30. Though I did well in my science and math courses, I did not see myself in a career in science. I played piano and read books, but spent most of my time painting and drawing pictures. I dreamed of becoming an artist when I grew up.

In the summer between my junior and senior years, I went to Lawrence, Kansas, to a program funded by the National Science Foundation to encourage high school kids to become scientists. For the first time in my life I was with kids who were smarter than I, who cared about science, and who talked about books and art. I felt as though I had finally found a group to which I belonged; in these surroundings I was able to conquer the shyness and insecurity that plagued me in my own high school back in Birmingham. In the laboratory associated with the Zoology course, I dissected animals for the first time, from fish up the vertebrate ladder to fetal pigs. I was invited back the following summer to work in the neurobiology lab of Nancy and Dennis Dahl. My work involved more dissection, this time removing vagus nerves from large land tortoises, stripping off the outer sheaths and recording the electrical depolarization when they were stimulated. The Dahls generosity in opening their lab to a high school senior still amazes me. I cant believe I produced much useful data, but the experience was enough to convince me that I wanted to become a scientist. By the time I started college at Notre Dame, there was no doubt in my mind that I would major in biology.

In my sophomore year at Notre Dame, I needed money and found a job preparing fly food in a Drosophila laboratory run by Professor Harvey Bender. In Benders lab, I encountered my first fruit flies and learned basic genetics. Though I liked working in a lab, genetics did not excite me as much as the embryology courses I was then taking from Kenyon Tweedel. Tweedel seemed to have a continuous supply of living embryos from a variety of different species. I will never forget the thrill of seeing cleavage and gastrulation for the first time in living frog embryos. I immediately wanted to understand why cells in particular regions of the developing embryo behaved the way they did. What were the mechanisms that made them different from each other? What forces drove such dramatic rearrangements in the cytoplasm and the shape of cells?

In my last years at Notre Dame, I became increasingly active in the student effort against the war in Vietnam. I collected petitions, joined in protest demonstrations and applied for conscientious objector status to avoid being sent to Vietnam. It was, however, very unlikely that my local draft board would grant me such status, given that I had not been raised in one of the traditionally pacifist religions. In spite of my somewhat uncertain future, I decided to begin graduate school in biology and was accepted to Yale University. Bender was worried about my draft status and wrote to Donald Poulson, the only Drosophila geneticist he knew at Yale, telling him about my problems and asking him to look after me while I was in New Haven. When I arrived in New Haven, Poulson had a place set up for me in his lab. He was so very kind that I didnt have the courage to tell him that after three years of washing fly bottles at Notre Dame, I never wanted to see another fly, much less work on flies for my thesis.

In the 30s and early 40s, Poulson had described the basic embryology of Drosophila and had characterized one of the first mutants with an interesting interpretable phenotype during embryonic development (the neural defects associated with deletions of the Notch locus). Until that point, I had thought all developmental genetics of flies involved eye colors and bristles and other aspects of adult morphology. It had never occurred to me that flies had embryos, or that Drosophila embryogenesis was characterized by the same kinds of spectacular cell movements seen in the classically studied embryos of vertebrates. I learned all that from Poulson.

In my second year in graduate school, I switched to Walter Gehrings lab to learn in vivo techniques for culturing embryos. Gehring had just set up his lab in the medical school, so it was still very small, much smaller than what it was to become after his return to Basel two years later. Because I was his only student, working directly with him was a wonderful opportunity to learn how experimental science is done. For my first experiments in his lab, I set out to investigate whether cells at the blastoderm stage were already determined to form specific discs. My plan was to remove single cells from defined regions of the blastoderm and culture them in adult abdomens surrounded by genetically marked feeder cells. My last years in New Haven and almost all my time in Basel were spent dissociating embryos and trying different culturing procedures, but I was never able to get single isolated cells to survive. Fortunately, at some point along the way, I had decided I needed to know what normal cells did in embryos that werent homogenized or subjected to my in vivo culturing techniques. It was those experiments, initially planned as controls for my more ambitious cultures, that eventually constituted my thesis. I used X-ray induced mitotic recombination to mark clones derived from single cells. In contrast to the restricted clones produced by irradiation of larvae, such clones extended between the wing and leg of the adult fly, indicating that the blastoderm cell that gave rise to the clone could not yet have been determined with respect to either disc. On the other hand I could never find clones that overlapped adjacent legs. Because legs were derived from different segments, my results suggested that if blastoderm cells were determined for anything, they were determined for segments rather than discs.

In my last year in Basel I started a collaboration with Elisha Van Deusen and Larry Marsh using pole cell transplantation to make genetically mosaic ovaries. We wanted to use such mosaics to determine whether particular maternal effect mutants block gene activities in the germ cells themselves, or whether they identified genes that were active in the overlying follicle cells. Although most of the mutants we tested did not have interesting phenotypes, there was one, fs(1)k10, that caused an abnormal pattern in the egg shell. Since the shell is secreted by the follicle cells during oogenesis, we expected the defect to depend on the genotype of those cells. To our surprise, the mutant was germ line dependent. Those transplants provided the first evidence for an organizing principle that emanated from germ cells and controlled patterning of the overlying follicle cells. The embryos that developed in k10 eggs were also abnormal, but in a way that I did not understand at the time. It took Christiane Nusslein-Volhardss work on dorsal for me to re-interpret it in terms of dorsal ventral polarity.

I met Christiane (Janni) Nusslein-Volhard two months before I left Basel to begin my postdoctoral work with Rolf Nothiger in Zurich. Janni had come to Basel to learn Drosophila embryology and we thus had many interests in common. Even after I had left for my postdoctoral work in Zurich, I would come back to Basel, in part to finish experiments, but also always to have dinner with her. We would talk science and plan experiments we eventually wanted to do together.

In much of my work in Zurich, I continued to use the cell lineage techniques of my thesis work, but now to analyze the development of sexually dimorphic structures. Janos Szabad and I developed efficient procedures for making germ line mosaics using K10 and mitotic recombination. In collaboration with Trudi Schupbach, we also studied the cell lineage of the embryonic epidermis. Those studies paralleled a similar analysis that Janni Nusslein-Volhard had begun with Margit Lohs using laser ablation. Both studies suggested that segmental units might be established as three to four cell wide stripes at the blastoderm stage. By far, however the most important thing that happened to me at Zurich was my deepening relationship with Trudi Schupbach, who became my close friend and occasional scientific collaborator, but also an enormous emotional support throughout my life. We eventually married, in Princeton in 1983. Life with her, and with our three daughters Ingrid, Eleanor and Laura, has kept me busy and provided a needed balance to the demands of the lab.

In 1978, I moved on to my first independent job, at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. The lab had just been built and was intended as an international meeting ground for scientists from the various member nations. Although there were no permanent contracts at the time, the position as group leader gave me independence to pursue my interest in embryos, without major teaching obligations or being required to explain every step in my experimental plans to get the necessary funding. The job was as extraordinary opportunity, one that I regret is not given to more young scientists at the beginning of their careers. The most attractive feature of the move to Heidelberg, however, was that the EMBL had also offered a similar position to Janni. This gave us the chance to realize many of the experiments, and test many of the speculations developed over the long dinner conversations in Basel.

Although we tried to keep our own individual research projects going, most of our time at the EMBL was spent on the joint mutagenesis experiment. Because handling large numbers of flies was essential if we were going to saturate the fly genome for mutations affecting embryonic development, we first had to test genetic selections to kill off specific genotypes at particular generations, and establish techniques for making large numbers of microscope preparations. We also continued to discuss developmental issues, recent models for patterning in embryos and, as the mutagenesis screens got underway, the interpretation of the particular defects observed in the various mutant lines. Those years were probable the most exciting, intellectually stimulating ones of my entire scientific career. A special feature of those mutagenesis experiments was that almost every day we could expect to encounter a new phenotype, a phenotype that would force us to re-evaluate some long held assumption about embryonic development.

I moved from Heidelberg to Princeton in 1981. Since then I have taught genetics and development courses at the graduate and undergraduate level. The Heidelberg experiments continue to provide a rich source of inspiration for further research. After arriving in Princeton, Trudi Schupbach and I carried out similar large scale mutagenesis screens for maternal effect mutants. The loci identified in those screens, as well as in a comparable screen made by Jannis lab in Tubingen, allowed Drosophila oogenesis to come to rival embrogenesis as a ideal system for studying patterning. I have also continued to be interested in segmentation genes, as well as genes affecting segmental identity. Peter Gergen, Jym Mohler and Doug Coulter began their analyses of runt, hedgehog and oddskipped in my lab at Princeton and the extradenticle gene was analysed by Mark Peifer and Cordelia Rauskolb. Our work on the armadillo was started by Bob Riggleman and Paul Schedl, and was continued by Mark Peifer.

Much of my current work centers on genes controlling cell shape changes during gastrulation (with Sue Zusman, Suki Parks, Dari Sweeton, Mike Costa), and genes for the establishment of the early cytoskeleton (work with Lesilee Rose, Eyal Schejter, Marya Postner). The mutagenesis experiments in Heidelberg were less successful in identifying genes directly involved in such specific morphological changes. We have consequently designed alternate genetic procedures involving translocations to identity such genes and have initiated an analysis of their roles within the cell. Overall the Princeton years have seen an increasingly cell biological turn to my research. My work has always had a strong visual component (probably to assuage my suppressed teenage desires to be an artist or painter). What I did not realize until late in my development as a scientist is that morphology and cell biology are actually the same scientific areas, or at least that the latter provides the molecular explanation of the former.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1995, Editor Tore Frangsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1996

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/ Nobel Lectures/The Nobel Prizes. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.

Copyright  The Nobel Foundation 1995

To cite this section

MLA style: Eric F. Wieschaus  Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Thu. 10 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1995/wieschaus/biographical/>
At Orleans jail, monitor and judge see 'light at the end of the tunnel'
The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.
Once elected, members of the Public Service Commission typically have an easy time hanging onto their jobs. Voters dont know much about them or their work, and the only real money in the campaigns has traditionally come from utilities and others 
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Two people who were convicted of murder in Pottawattamie County Court had their convictions reaffirmed by the Iowa Court of Appeals on Wednesday.

Jodie Sherman was sentenced to 50 years in prison after her bench trial conviction of second-degree murder in July 2014 for the stabbing death of Douglas Richt in Council Bluffs.

Sherman, 47, must serve 70 percent of her sentence before being eligible for parole.

Sherman was found competent to stand trial after she was evaluated at the Medical Classification Center in Oakdale in October 2014.

Her denied motion for a new trial was appealed, but the appeals court affirmed the verdict, stating her insanity defense was insufficient due to the amount of evidence against her.

David Gonzales-Becerra was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 for the beating death of Oscar Flores. Gonzales-Becerra, 28, was one of three men convicted in the case and had his appeal denied by the Iowa Supreme Court.

In his appeal to district court, he was denied post conviction relief as the appeal was not filed within three years of his date of conviction.
This editorial appeared May 31 in The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.

Former Gov. Terry Branstad predicted his privatization of Iowas Medicaid system would save the state money. While hes right to date, he underestimated the initial reduction and growing concerns.

Branstad estimated in 2015 the first year of privatization would save $110 million in the $4.2 billion state-federal health partnership after he made the change without legislative input. During the second year, he envisioned saving $232 million in the program serving 568,000 low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities.

AmeriHealth, UnitedHealthcare and Amerigroup took over Medicaid management in April 2016.

Following a request by The Des Moines Register, the nonpartisan Legislation Services Agency estimated for fiscal year 2017, ending June 30, Iowa will spend $23 million less on Medicaid than in fiscal year 2015  with nearly 40,000 more recipients in the program. Had enrollment remained constant, it said the savings would have been $306 million.

The average annual cost per enrollee decreased from $8,289 to $7,689 (7 percent), according to the LSA. But the savings mask the MCOs self-described catastrophic experience. AmeriHealth lost nearly $300 million; Amerigroup Iowa, $133 million; and UnitedHealthcare, more than $100 million. According to a recent quarterly report from the Iowa Department of Human Services, AmeriHealth serves more than 212,000; Amerigroup Iowa, 186,000; and UnitedHealthcare, 168,000.

The MCOs want substantial rates increases, while reducing negotiated payments to health care providers. Meanwhile, complaints about a decline in available services and timely payments have spiked.

The initial per-patient payment rates negotiated with the state only lasted for 18 months. The MCOs claim Iowas program is drastically underfunded due to faulty state calculations. The same scenario has occurred after other states privatized Medicaid.

The MCOs also have taken advantage of a risk corridor where the state helps protect insurers from unexpectedly high losses if they spend more in medical care than revenues collected. Branstad agreed in late March to pay the MCOs $235 million to cover losses  $10 million from Iowa and $225 million (still your tax money) from the federal government.

Iowa is not alone in privatizing Medicaid. MCOs in 27 states serve at least three-quarters of all Medicaid recipients. Iowa (96 percent) is one of 11 with more than 90 percent.

Nationally, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid spending was $509 billion in fiscal year 2015  one of every six health care dollars  federal, 62 percent; states, 38 percent. Unlike in Iowa, Medicaid enrollment has declined since 2015 following the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) rollout and a lower unemployment rate.

In February, AmeriHealth opted out of negotiated and contracted rates with health care providers. It lowered reimbursement rates for some long-term services and support to the Medicaid rate floor  the lowest payment set by the Iowa DHS. That included payments to in-home caregivers who assist the elderly and disabled with daily household chores and taking medications. Without that help, many on Medicaid might need to move into more expensive care facilities.

We are taking action to achieve better alignment with the Medicaid rate structure, stated an AmeriHealth letter obtained by the Cedar Rapids Gazette. The state of Iowa set the Medicaid rate based on what providers were paid prior to the implementation of managed care. This change will not impact the care and services our members receive.

Thats not necessarily so. In fact, services are jeopardized for more than 220,000 recipients in the Mercy Health Network with hospitals in 13 cities (Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, Sartori Memorial Hospital in Cedar Falls and Mercy Hospital in Oelwein included) and 200 clinics.

In March, AmeriHealth warned Mercy its system would not be among its health care providers without a new deal by July 1. The MCOs already are under fire for delaying payments to health care providers.

Rep. Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant, chair of the House committee overseeing Medicaid and a privatization supporter, recently asked, Where is the hiccup here on this issue? All Im hearing is hiccups out there, bumps, angst and anxiety. Im getting to be kind of concerned.

Meanwhile, the state quarterly report in March on grievances and appeals against the MCOs showed a whopping increase from 343 (when the program began a year ago) to 1,268. Kelli Todd, a manager of the Iowa Long-Term Care Ombudsman, told the Iowa Medical Assistance Advisory Council that services allowing people to remain independent in their homes are a major concern.

The trend seems to be that services are being reduced and/or terminated, she said.

With federal proposals to substantially reduce Medicaid allocations to the states, the situation could get worse. Legislators should become proactive before Medicaid detonates a very large chunk of the state budget.
CROWN POINT  Unpaid medical bills. Long travel distances for care. Cancelled appointments.

These were some of the complaints from veterans at a town hall meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on Wednesday at the Adam Benjamin VA Outpatient Clinic.

VA officials tried to assuage the veterans' concerns by notifying them of upcoming improvements and providing one-on-one advice with promised follow-up. About 100 people attended the meeting.

Marc Magill, director of the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, said new VA Secretary David Shulkin has recently announced plans to make the agency more modern and efficient, such as updating its electronic health record system and allowing veterans to be seen at Department of Defense medical facilities  the nearest one to Northwest Indiana, however, is north of Chicago.

"The guy's moving fast," Magill said of Shulkin. "One of the problems the VA has had ... is this is a big battleship, and it has moved very slowly and in some cases has gone the wrong course."

He noted that the House and Senate recently passed a bill that would make it easier for the VA to terminate employees. "Firing is appropriate for any staff ... who violates VA values or ethics or laws," Magill said, adding that he has fired 22 employees since taking over as director in November.

Magill said problems with the veterans suicide crisis hotline have been fixed, as those calls are now being answered by a live person in an average of 20 seconds.

Some attendees Wednesday called for the construction of a VA hospital in the Region. The nearest one is Jesse Brown, on Chicago's West Side.

Magill said that's not happening, as there's not enough population growth to support it.

That's tough news for veterans like Thomas Bodnar, who travels from Rensselaer to either Crown Point or Chicago for medical treatment.

"Why should the VA have to pay for me to go to Chicago when I could go three blocks to my local hospital to see a local physician?" said Bodnar, who served in the Army.

The 2014 Veterans Choice Act was supposed to alleviate veterans' travel and wait times by allowing them to go to local hospitals if they couldn't get a VA appointment within 30 days or 40 miles. But that program has been beset by delays in appointment scheduling and reimbursements to providers.

Other veterans complained about getting bills that were supposed to be paid by the Choice program. Magill said the Choice program vendor contract goes through August. He expects improvements after that.

Disabled Navy veteran Ikaimi Krienke, of Portage, said she feels females get substandard care through the VA. She said the Crown Point clinic doesn't have enough services for women, so she has to go to Jesse Brown more often than she should. And that facility lacks beds for women.

"I'm am at the end of a bottom of the barrel to get anything done," she said. "I'm tired of the mistreatment and sitting on list after list after list."

Magill asked if she would like to serve on an advisory committee for making improvements to Jesse Brown. She agreed to do so.

"I can't fix the legislation and the policies that have gotten to this point," he said. "If it's something Jesse Brown has caused, I can fix that. If I don't fix it, hold me accountable through my boss."
LANSING  Officials in Lansing are considering opting out of the Cook County minimum wage increase and new paid sick time rules.

The Village Board discussed the idea at its Tuesday meeting.

Cook County businesses and specifically Lansing business owners are faced with higher costs, as it is, without these increases. Sales and property taxes are generally higher in Cook County and in Lansing than in some of our Indiana-based communities, Village Administrator Dan Podgorski said. These increases that the county has put in place, I feel, place an undue burden on employers within our village.

In October, the Cook County Board approved a gradual minimum wage increase to $13 per hour by 2020. Annual increases based on the consumer price index will follow. The county ordinance also requires an hour of paid sick time for every 40 hours worked, up to a total of 40 hours. Workers can carry over 20 unused hours into the next year.

Those rules go into effect on July 1, but the ordinance allows individual municipalities to opt out before that date. Many towns already voted not to adopt the changes and more will put it to a vote in the coming weeks. Lansing will vote on the ordinance at the next board meeting on June 20.

Trustee Maureen Grady-Perovich said the higher wage would push full-time workers over the threshold for public aid.

Its just literally $1,000 over that limit, Grady-Perovich said. That may cause these folks who think theyre earning more money to have to pay more for services or any other type of income tax.

Village President Patty Eidam said shes received letters from Lansing business owners urging the village government to opt out.

Trustee Brian Hardy is the owner of Chicagos Finest Ironworks.

I believe in taking care of your employees. The thing is, with us being right next to Indiana, it would definitely hurt a lot of our downtown businesses, Hardy said. I hope the residents and the people understand that. Its kind of a difficult situation that were facing.

The state-regulated minimum wage in Illinois is $8.25. That would be the lowest hourly rate for workers in Lansing if the village decides not to participate in the county wage bump. The minimum wage in Indiana is $7.25.

I feel its best to leave wage-determination, sick-leave policies and other employment-related decisions to the private marketplace, Podgorski said. If businesses need to increase their rates of pay and other benefits to attract the necessary labor force, the private sector will work those things out usually themselves.
Indiana has made progress on a number of fronts, such as expanding preschool for low-income children and improving math and reading test rankings, but still has a long way to go, according to the Indiana Chamber's Indiana Vision 2025 Report Card.

Employers have trouble finding qualified workers, and are even leaving some positions unfilled. Electricity costs are rising, entrepreneurship is down and too many people are obese and smoking.

President and CEO Kevin Brinegar and an Indiana Chamber delegation met with Northwest Indiana business leaders at the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond Wednesday to discuss the findings as part of a statewide tour.

Indiana was compared to the 50 states on metrics having to do with talent, culture, infrastructure and business climate. The state improved in 36 areas, as compared to 28 in 2015, and declined on 16 metrics.

There are a number of positive developments  both taking place every day and in our latest research  that are cause to celebrate, Brinegar said. But it is also evident that a lack of workers, unhealthy lifestyle choices and limited Indiana-based funding to grow promising companies is keeping the state from realizing its full potential.

The Indiana Chamber has been pushing its plan for the state's future, such as lobbying state lawmakers for policies it believes will grow the economy.

"We're grateful to have a partner working on these things statewide," said Heather Ennis, executive director of the Northwest Indiana Forum, which hosted the event. "We've got to figure out how to keep moving that needle. This is important to the whole state."

Indiana got high marks for lack of regulations, small business policy and placing 10th nationwide in exports. Indiana produces the third most science and technology graduates in the country, but they don't stick around  Indiana ranks 42nd in the number of residents with science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM degrees.

Twenty-nine percent of employers said finding skilled employees is their biggest challenge, and that 47 percent have left jobs unfilled because they couldn't find any qualified candidates.

Employers tell us, both through the survey and in their daily work experiences, that they simply cant fulfill growth possibilities due to the lack of skilled workers, Brinegar said. While many efforts are underway to prepare future employees and upgrade the abilities of those in the workforce today, those programs must be operated at the highest level of effectiveness and accelerated.

Electricity costs were once among the best in the country, but have now fallen to 29th nationally for industrial customers and 26th for commercial customers, said Mark Lawrance, vice president of Engagement and Innovation Policy with the Indiana Chamber.

Indiana also ranks 39th with a 20.6 percent smoking rate, a bad habit that costs the state an estimated $6 billion in absenteeism, lost productivity and increased health care costs. Only 18 percent of Region residents smoke, but Northwest Indiana's obesity rate of 33.5 percent is slightly higher than the state average of 31.3 percent.

The Region beats the rest of the state in high school graduates, 89.6 percent in NWI versus 87.1 percent statewide, but lags behind in higher education, the Indiana Chamber found. More than 36 percent of Indiana residents have at least an associate degree or postsecondary job training, compared to only 31.5 percent of Region residents.

Only 21.8 percent of Northwest Indiana residents have obtained at least a bachelor's degree, compared to 26.7 percent statewide.

Gov. Eric Holcomb issued a statement saying the report card showed Indiana was a good place to do business but needed to develop its workforce through education.

"There is no single solution for improvement. The only way well take our state to the next level is with a comprehensive strategy, and Indiana has the right road map," Holcomb said. "From improving roads and bridges to attacking the drug epidemic, from pre-kindergarten to adult career training, from more direct flights to enhanced regional development  all of these efforts combined will help build healthier, more vibrant communities that are magnets for jobs and growth."

Read the study online at www.indianachamber.com/2025.
CHESTERTON  Two people from the Chicago-area were found dead inside a parked van Wednesday afternoon.

There was no evidence of foul play, police said, but Porter County Coroner Chuck Harris said given "the circumstances of the deaths," he suspects they were the result of drug overdoses.

Chesterton Police Chief Dave Cincoski said police were called to the area at noon in reference to two people dead in a van parked at the White Castle restaurant and BP station at 525 Indian Boundary Road.

The identities are being withheld pending family notification. The driver, a Hispanic male, was in his upper 40s, police said, and the passenger, a white female, was in her upper 20s.

Cincoski said at the scene Wednesday afternoon he had not yet found evidence to support drug use.

Evidence found inside the cluttered van, which had Illinois license plates, showed the individuals had been in Chicago as of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said. Police believe they arrived at the Chesterton location at about 4 a.m.

The cause of death is under investigation. Harris said if the deaths turn out to be overdoses, it's a sign of what Porter County can expect in the future if current drug use trends continue.

There were 16 drug overdoses during the first quarter of the year in Porter County, officials have said, which is on track to exceed last year's number.

Of these deaths, 14 were opiate related, including nine involving heroin. The drug fentanyl  an synthetic opiate 50 times more powerful than heroin  was detected in four of the heroin deaths.

Fatal heroin overdoses hit a record high of 20 last year in the county, which was nearly double each of the two years prior.

Earlier this year, in light of a growing drug problem in Porter County, law enforcement and prosecutors made a radical shift in transitioning the county's undercover drug unit from the Porter County prosecutor's office to the county Sheriff's Department.

Police continue to investigate the March death of a 9-month-old Portage boy, whose toxicology reports revealed the boy had methadone in his system at the time of death.
The Dean of Purdue University Northwests College of Nursing has received the Distinguished Nurse Alumna Award from the University of Illinois at Chicagos College of Nursing.

Lisa Hopp, of Valparaiso, who earned doctoral and masters degrees from UIC, was recognized for her distinguished and accomplished career as a nursing professional and educator.

If I am distinguished, it is only because of the education and mentorship that I received at UICs College of Nursing, she said. I learned about what it means to be a scholar, how to become part of a research group and, most importantly, I developed a mature understanding and philosophy of my discipline of nursing and the science of nursing.

Of her many achievements, Hopp said she is most proud of her role in establishing the Indiana Center for Evidence Based Nursing Practice, a Joanna Briggs Institute International Center of Excellence, at the PNW Hammond Campus in 2005.

After her early career years as a staff nurse in the medical intensive care unit at Rush Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago, she moved into higher education, starting at PNW in 1992.

To read more, go to nwi.com/blogs.
The Dean of Purdue University Northwests College of Nursing has received the Distinguished Nurse Alumna Award from the University of Illinois at Chicagos College of Nursing.

Lisa Hopp, of Valparaiso, who earned doctoral and masters degrees from UIC, was recognized for her distinguished and accomplished career as a nursing professional and educator.

If I am distinguished, it is only because of the education and mentorship that I received at UICs College of Nursing, she said. I learned about what it means to be a scholar, how to become part of a research group and, most importantly, I developed a mature understanding and philosophy of my discipline of nursing and the science of nursing.

Of her many achievements, Hopp said she is most proud of her role in establishing the Indiana Center for Evidence Based Nursing Practice, a Joanna Briggs Institute International Center of Excellence, at the PNW Hammond Campus in 2005.

It has transformed our curricula, influenced policy and impacted patient outcomes by teaching practitioners and students to use evidence-based practice in making critical decisions, she said.

Hopp also has co-authored a book, received a PNW National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant and is a former recipient of the universitys Outstanding Teaching Award.

After her early career years as a staff nurse in the medical intensive care unit at Rush Presbyterian-St. Lukes Medical Center in Chicago, she moved into higher education, eventually being appointed the first Dean of Purdue Northwests College of Nursing in 2016.

Hopp, who has served at Purdue Northwest since 1992, is also respected for mentoring junior faculty and leading numerous initiatives in support of teaching and learning. Additionally, she was an early PNW adopter of technology in the classroom, through which she helped initiate the peer-mentoring program for a PNW Distance Learning Task Force.

She also holds baccalaureate degrees from Grinnell College in Iowa and Rush University in Chicago.
A man known as the city's taxi king is charged with ripping off millions of dollars from the state, money that's supposed to help the teetering transit system. NY1's Jose Martinez filed the following report.

Gene Friedman has long been a titan of the yellow cab industry, a big wheel who owns 800 taxi medallions, heaped campaign contributions on Mayor Bill de Blasio and once famously feuded with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"This defendant is the self-annointed 'taxi king of the city of New York,'" said assistant state attorney general John Healy.

But on Wednesday, prosecutors moved to bring the king down. He was arrested and hauled into court in handcuffs, accused of stiffing the state out of $5 million.

"The charges facing this defendant are exceedingly serious," Healy said. "He faces five Class B felonies, each of which carries a mandatory prison sentence up to eight-and-a-third to 25 years."

The allegations involve a 50-cent surcharge imposed on every yellow cab ride in the city to generate money for the transit system. Friedman's companies allegedly failed to report the surcharge for 10 million rides from 2012 to 2015.

The Taxi Workers Alliance said drivers who leased medallions from Friedman had been accused by the state of keeping the surcharges that Friedman allegedly pocketed.

"He has to be ethical and pay that money back to those hard-working drivers," said Javaid Tariq of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.

Friedman pleaded not guilty in Albany State Supreme Court to charges of tax fraud and grand larceny brought by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

"There are very significant legal defenses to the claims that are being made by the government. Our client intends to bring them to bear at trial," said defense attorney Patrick Egan.

It's the latest, and by far biggest, setback yet in a series of stumbles by the one-time political power player.

Like other yellow cab fleet owners, the value of Friedman's medallions has cratered because of competition from ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft.

Iin 2013, Friedman and his companies agreed to pay $1.2 million in fines and restitution for drivers who were overcharged. And last year, he agreed to pay more than $250,000 in fines, damages and restitution for breaching the 2013 settlement and violating the rights of drivers.

Friedman's bail was set at $500,000, a little more than double what a single medallion sold for in March.
Mark Corallo, who was called a street smart Republican spin doctor by the National Journal, is helping Donald Trumps legal team as it handles the James Comey crisis.

Mark Corallo

The one-time Justice Department press secretary and chief spokesperson for John Ashcroft during the George W. Bush presidency, distributed the statement from Trumps lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, following yesterday's release of Comeys opening statement for today's testimony.

The statement said Trump is pleased that the former FBI director confirmed that he is not under investigation in any Russian probe. The President feels completely and totally vindicated, said Kasowitz.

Corallo has worked for high-profile clients such as Blackwater Worldwide, Karl Rove and former American International Group chief Hank Greenberg.

Prior to working for Ashcroft, Corallo was press secretary for former Louisiana Republican Congressman Bob Livingston, who chaired the House Appropriations Committee.

Corallo Media Strategies is based in Alexandria, VA.
Germinder & Associates, pet industry PR specialist, is moving its New York office from midtown to 175 Varick Street in SoHo. Founded in Kansas City in 1998, Germinder moved its headquarters to the Big Apple in 1999.

Lee-Ann Germinder

The new space, in WeWork/SoHo West, will provide the company with a more collaborative space, according to founder Lee-Ann Germinder, APR, Fellow PRSA.

G&A, which runs Goodnewsforpets.com, is expanding via the launch of GNFP Digital to add reputation management and other capabilities to its online mix.

The new unit will be based in its new KC office at WeWork/Corrigan Station, part of the KC Crossroads Arts District. That outpost is scheduled to be up and running in time for the Animal Health Corridors Global Animal Health Week, which is in August.

G&A also announced that it will host a group of students at June 12s PRSA-NY 2017 Big Apple Awards as part of its PRSA-NY Big Apple $10,000 Diamond Sponsorship.

The firms clients include Ceva Animal Health, Assisi Animal Health and the Cat Writers Assocs.
N-Word Printed On The Cover Of Middle School Yearbooks In California Elijah C. Watson Elijah Watson serves as Okayplayer's News & Culture Editor. When

The N-word was printed on the cover of 1,000 yearbooks at a middle school in California.

In a report from CNN, the racial slur appeared on a historical map of San Diego County that was chosen by book editors and staff at Black Mountain Middle School. However, it was eighth-grade students receiving the yearbooks who first noticed the words inclusion on the cover and notified officials.

READ: Bill Maher Said The N-Word On The Latest Episode Of Real Time

In using a historical map from the 1800s of northern San Diego County, our staff and yearbook editors inadvertently used a background image for the cover of this years yearbook containing a highly offensive racial term, principal Charan Kirpalani wrote in a letter to parents. This was a reference to an area of San Diego County on Palomar Mountain which was once known as the home of a freed slave, and referred to with a very derogatory label.

Staff then went through approximately 1,000 yearbooks and scratched off the N-word from the cover so that the students would still get their yearbooks in time. Whether it was unintentional or not, parents voiced their displeasure with the mess up, with some hoping that the school would reprint the yearbooks. However, that will not be the case.

READ: New York Woman Running For Office Defends Use Of N-Word

No, the yearbooks are not being reprinted. The cost to reprint the books with Jostens would have been $36,000 and the students would not have been able to get their yearbooks in time by the end of the year, the district said in a statement. We realized how important it was to our students to get their yearbooks ASAP, so removing the word from the cover was the best solutionThe school will be reviewing procedures when it comes to editing the yearbook.

Source: CNN.com
The last step in one of the biggest changes in Omahas health care landscape is locked in for 7 a.m. Friday.

At that time, Creighton University Medical Center at 601 N. 30th St. will officially close its doors to all but a possible few remaining patients who may continue to receive hospital care for a day or two.

But the hospital, which will end a 40-year run, will take no new patients. Replacing it for emergency care  and opening at the same time the old North 30th Street facilities close  will be a new emergency room six blocks east at Creighton University Medical Center University Campus at 24th and Cuming Streets.

The old hospitals Level I trauma center and role as a teaching facility for Creightons medical school then will move just under six miles south and west to the renovated and expanded Creighton University Medical Center-Bergan Mercy at 7500 Mercy Road.

Dr. Devin Fox, chief medical officer at CUMC-Bergan Mercy, said during a briefing Wednesday that CHI Health, which operates the three facilities, has taken steps to make sure area residents know the 30th Street hospitals emergency and trauma services, among others, are relocating.

Theyve sent letters to residents and businesses within a five-mile radius, notified existing patients, posted signs inside the hospital, met with area leaders and gotten out word through the news media and social media.

Beginning Friday morning, signs at the front entrance of the 30th Street hospital will direct those seeking care to University Campus on North 24th Street and to Bergan Mercy. The developer planning to convert the building into a massive apartment complex soon is expected to install a fence around the perimeter of the property.

Its been a very coordinated effort to get operations shut down down here and open at our two campuses, Fox said.

The closure of CUMC, the former St. Joseph Hospital, wont leave northeast Omaha without medical services, he said. The outpatient clinics and retail pharmacy that opened this winter at the $36.5 million University Campus were among those identified as critical to the neighborhood. Health system and Creighton University officials met with residents, community leaders and others to identify needed services in the neighborhood after announcing plans to move the academic medical center in 2014.

One of our main priorities was to make sure our patients and their families in this area continue to receive care, said Fox, who has been at CUMC for 20 years.

Kevin Nokels, president of CUMC-Bergan Mercy, said the emergency room at University Campus on North 24th Street can handle any type of case that can be treated at a hospital emergency room. The difference is that the community health center wont hospitalize patients or handle trauma cases, which generally involve the most serious injuries and accidents and typically require surgery.

In addition to a long list of other requirements, trauma centers must have a trauma critical care surgeon available to be at a patients bedside within 15 minutes 24/7. The Nebraska Medical Center operates the citys other trauma center.

University Campus patients who require hospitalization will be stabilized and sent to the nearest appropriate hospital in the CHI system, unless the patient or family has another preference. Trauma patients who show up at the North 24th Street facility also will be stabilized and sent on to the nearest trauma center, using protocols already in place at other CHI Health hospitals that have emergency rooms but dont offer trauma services, including Midlands Hospital in Papillion and Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs. Laboring moms also will be stabilized and transported, if time allows. CHI Health has arranged for a private ambulance service to provide transportation.

Most emergency room patients, however, dont require hospitalization, Nokels said. Of the 36,000 who typically arrived in CUMCs emergency room in a given year, some 34,000 were never admitted.

Currently, trauma patients in the city of Omaha can choose which trauma center they prefer to go to, said Dr. P.J. Schenarts, medical director of the Nebraska Medical Centers trauma center. If theyre unable to decide, responders with the Omaha Fire Department generally take them to the Nebraska Medical Center on odd-numbered days and to CUMC on even-numbered days. But if circumstances dictate, first responders may decide to go to the nearest center. They can go either place thats safe, he said. Thats where the paramedics have some leeway.

Emergency medical directors in surrounding communities follow their own protocols, Schenarts said. The upshot is that one trauma center may be busier on its off day than on its on day. But whether the Nebraska Medical Center will see more trauma patients with CUMCs move to the Bergan Mercy campus, he said, is hard to predict.

Our best thought is we may very well see an uptick, given most of the trauma in Omaha occurs east of 72nd Street, Schenarts said. And its very likely we may see an uptick particularly in those patients who dont come by ambulance.

The Nebraska Medical Center, near 42nd and Emile Streets, recently has expanded its emergency department. The hospital, among other changes, added seven exam rooms, bringing the total to 48 and including four trauma bays.

CUMC-Bergan Mercy, meanwhile, will become the closest trauma center  by drive time  to 60 percent of the households in the greater Omaha region, according to CHI Health.

The hospitals new trauma center and remodeled emergency department is part of a larger $140 million project that also includes shifting inpatient beds and the academic medical center from North 30th Street to Mercy Road. The trauma center and emergency room include four trauma bays, two helipads, 24 treatment rooms, 20 observation and treatment rooms and a dedicated room for examination and treatment of sexual assault victims.

Total staffing at CUMC-Bergan now stands at 2,450 people. Nokels said CHI was able to place all but seven employees from CUMC at either University Campus or Bergan Mercy.

The good part is we found roles for almost 100 percent of employees, (which) is almost an amazing feat, he said.

Andrea Hunter, security manager for CHIs Bergan Mercy, CUMC and University Campus locations, said the health system has taken steps to increase security at Bergan Mercy in preparation for its new role as a trauma center. Similar precautions are being taken at the new emergency room at University Campus on North 24th Street. Trauma centers, which sometimes see shooting victims and people who have suffered other violent injuries, can be  and have been  places where volatile emotions erupt.

While she declined to give details, Hunter said both the Bergan Mercy and University Campus have been equipped with an abundance of technological enhancements when it comes to security. Security staffing also has been increased to an appropriate level and security staff training has been adjusted accordingly.

Many of the security staff from CUMC are relocating. They were given the option of following the trauma center to Bergan Mercy or staying with the neighborhood at University Campus.

So we also come with many years of history of what can happen and how to handle it, she said.

As part of that staffing increase, CHI also is continuing to employ off-duty police officers, as it has at CUMC. We have taken the models that have worked for us at Creighton and transferred them here, she said.

The emergency room and the new, adjacent trauma bay are on the east side of the building at Bergan. The new, three-story outpatient clinic building and remodeled academic spaces, which opened last month, are on the west side of the property. Once patients are inside the trauma bay, she said, they do not have to go into public spaces to get the services they need.

Other than the increased number of staff and students that come with Bergan Mercys new teaching role, however, patients and visitors shouldnt notice any differences because of the addition of the new services, she said.

Were excited, were prepared  were not unprepared for trauma  and were ready for it to begin, Hunter said.

As for patient access, Linda Barritt, a spokeswoman for Metro, the citys bus service, said residents of north Omaha and South Omaha will have the same level of bus service to Bergan Mercy and University Campus that they have had to CUMC.

Bergan Mercy is a transit center for Metro. One route runs every 15 minutes on weekdays until 7 p.m.  and then in longer intervals during other times  from the North Omaha Transit Center at 30th and Taylor Streets to Bergan Mercy. Another runs every 30 minutes on 24th Street from the north Omaha center to the South Omaha Transit Center at Metropolitan Community Colleges South Omaha Campus, providing service close to University Campus.

Amid all the moving, staff and patients have taken a moment to remember the many saves, births and deaths that occurred at the old hospital.

Ernestine Hill, a retired nurse who worked at CUMC for a time, stopped Wednesday to sign a memory wall inside the entrance. She also has been a patient there over the years. On Wednesday, she was with her daughter, one of the hospitals last patients.

Ive given my thanks to them, Hill said. Theyve been a nice family.
An argument among four men on Easter near 26th and Hamilton Streets resulted in the fatal shooting of Trent Stutheit, a prosecutor said Thursday in County Court.

Judge Lawrence Barrett ordered Antoine C. Johnson, 31, held without bail Thursday in connection with the shooting death. Johnson is charged with second-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony. He was returned from Denver on Tuesday.

A deputy prosecutor with the County Attorneys Office told the court that Johnson was in an argument with three men, including Stutheit, about 8 p.m. April 16. Two men walked away from the dispute before turning around to allegedly see Johnson pull a pistol from his pants.

The witnesses told police they saw Johnson cock the pistol and fire at Stutheit, striking him in the abdomen.

Officers called to investigate a shooting found Stutheit, 29, on the ground. He was taken to the Creighton University Medical Center, where he died.

An attorney with the Douglas County Public Defenders Office said Johnson surrendered to police in Denver after hearing of an arrest warrant against him. The warrant was issued a day after the shooting occurred.

Stutheit, the father of a 2-year-old girl, worked for a carpentry company, a former girlfriend has said. He had lived in Omaha for about 10 years and originally was from Falls City, Nebraska.
Travelers are used to seeing red, yellow and green on the traffic signals.

Now, theres a new color in the mix for some traffic lights in Papillion and Sarpy County.

A smaller blue light has been added to a handful of traffic signals at intersections along Highway 370, Highway 6 and Highway 50 in Sarpy County.

The light, located behind the regular traffic signals, will alert law enforcement officers that the light is red for traffic coming from the other direction. Once the light turns red for drivers, the blue light will illuminate to alert officers.

Tim Weander, District 2 engineer for the Nebraska Department of Roads, said 10 intersections in Sarpy County are either currently employing the blue light or will be in the near future. Intersections in Papillion include six spots along Highway 370 and two more along Highway 50.

Weander said the project, which is being funded entirely by the NDOR, has been on the horizon for some time.

Weve been working on it for a while, Weander said. We got a request from the State Patrol because it was hard for them to tell if people were turning against the red light.

Papillion Police Chief Scott Lyons has seen the blue lights in other states and was glad to see them brought into Nebraska.

Ive been researching it, and I remember seeing a news report several years ago about these lights in Johnson County, (Kansas), Lyons said. We wanted to put them out here and give them a try.

Lyons said the lights are a more efficient and safer way for officers to enforce drivers running red lights.

In the past, we would be in a position where we were behind the violator and they werent going to run the light in that instance, he said. Or wed be further away in an elevated position where if we did see someone go through a red light, we would then have to go through a red light ourselves to track them down and that could cause further accidents. It puts us in a position to make a safer stop.

Lyons said the Police Department is still in the testing stages with the lights. Most of them have only been in place for a couple of weeks.

Were still testing and evaluating, and we will start enforcing next week, he said. We want feedback from our officers on how effective they are and how we can improve or adjust them.

Lyons said the lights have been met with some puzzled results from drivers.

I think theres a lot of curiosity, he said. A lot of them think they are cameras, which the state is not authorized to use. And even if cameras were legal, Im not in favor of them because I dont think theyre a good enforcement tool.

The one issue both Lyons and Weander agree might need to be resolved is the visibility of the lights, especially in the daytime.

The light could be a little brighter, Weander said.

If all goes well, Weander expects to see more of these lights popping up throughout the metro area.

To my knowledge, Sarpy County is the first one to put them in, but youll probably see more, he said. Its a good tool.

An Omaha police spokesman said the department isnt aware of any plans to add the lights to Omaha traffic signals.

Lyons agrees that the new lights will be a valuable resource in continuing to make roads safer.

The No. 1 fault in crashes is either distracted drivers running a light or those who try to beat a red light, he said. This is just another tool for us to use to reduce crashes.

World-Herald staff writer Jay Withrow contributed to this report.
The 55th Wing is getting a new pilot.

Col. Michael Manion took over command of the Air Combat Commands largest air wing in a change-of-command ceremony Thursday attended by more than 700 airmen and civilian guests at Offutt Air Force Base. He takes the place of Col. George M. Moose Reynolds, who led the unit and served as base commander for the past two years.

Manion grew up on a dairy farm in rural West Plains, Missouri, the son of a Vietnam War veteran and grandson of World War II veterans. He was commissioned as an officer in 1995 after graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a degree in finance.

Manion became an aircraft navigator and electronic warfare officer, serving aboard EC-130H, MC-130H and RC-135V/W aircraft. He has racked up more than 2,400 flying hours, including 585 in combat. His call sign is Gravy.

After the January 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Manion led Joint Task Force Bravo, which provided helicopter airlift support for the military relief effort there. He served for the past year as vice commander of the 39th Air Base Wing in Incirlik, Turkey.

He certainly knows the subtleties of air warfare, said Maj. Gen. Mary OBrien, the commander of the Texas-based 25th Air Force who presided over the ceremony. I firmly believe Mike has the right breadth and depth to lead 55th Wing airmen.

Though he has spent his career involved in the kind of aerial surveillance and reconnaissance that is the 55th Wings signature mission, Manion said this will be his first tour at Offutt.

After 22 years of being on the outside looking in, its great to finally be able to call this fantastic base home, he said.

In bidding farewell to Reynolds, OBrien gave him the Legion of Merit award in recognition of his accomplishments at the command. She credited Reynolds with supporting 3,200 airborne missions  many of them in combat zones  as well as transforming the 55th Wings cyber policy. He created the Air Forces first Cyber Multi-Domain Integration Team, securing $15 million in funding for the project.

Under his command, the 55th Wing earned a Meritorious Unit Award in 2015 and an Outstanding Unit Award in 2016.

Reynolds thanked the community for supporting the base and the men and women who served with the wing since he assumed command in June 2015.

Two years ago, I looked out and saw warriors, airmen, distinguished guests, he said. Today, I see friends.

Reynolds will move with his family to New York to become a military liaison with the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank that studies international affairs.
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump on Friday broke his silence on Twitter following explosive testimony by fired FBI Director James Comey, declaring "total and complete vindication."

Trump, who had not posted on his Twitter account since Comey accused the administration of spreading "lies," struck back with an early morning tweet in which he said, "Wow, Comey is a leaker."

Trump's tweet comes ahead of a press conference planned Friday. Trump scheduled a joint press conference with visiting Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

In his first congressional appearance since being abruptly fired last month, Comey on Thursday described months of distrust of the president, bluntly asserting that Trump had fired him to interfere with the probe of Russia's ties to the Trump campaign.

Comey also revealed that he'd orchestrated the public release of information about his private conversations with the president in an effort to further the investigation.

Trump's tweet said: "Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication ... and WOW, Comey is a leaker."

Meanwhile, Trumps son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner is expected to meet with staff from the Senate Intelligence committee in coming days, according to a senator on the panel.

Kushner will likely be asked about his meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who is a member of the committee, said Kushner will have a face-to-face meeting with panel staff as early as next week. A spokeswoman for King on Friday confirmed the senators comments in an earlier interview on CNN.

Comey's testimony, at a hugely anticipated hearing that captured the country's attention, provided a gripping account of his interactions with Trump and underscored the discord that had soured their relationship.

He portrayed Trump as a chief executive dismissive of the FBI's independence and made clear that he interpreted Trump's request to end an investigation into his former national security adviser as an order coming from the president.

Though Republicans worked to discredit Comey and to blunt the impact of his testimony, the ex-director's statement deepened questions about the basis for his May 9 dismissal and about whether Trump's actions constituted obstruction of justice. The veteran lawman expressed confidence that could be a matter ripe for investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, though he declined to offer an opinion on whether it met such a threshold.

Trump's private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Comey's admission that he had told Trump on multiple occasions that he was not personally under investigation and maintained the testimony made clear that Trump "never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone."

Kasowitz also jumped on Comey's revelation that he had released details of his private conversations with the president, casting the former FBI director as one of the "leakers" set on undermining the Trump administration.

Still, there was no doubt the veteran lawman made for a challenging adversary.

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Comey said toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Senate intelligence committee. "I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted.

"That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me."

At one point he practically dared Trump to release any recordings of their conversations, a prospect the president once alluded to in a tweet.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over the president's.

Thursday's hearing brought Washington and other parts of the country to a standstill as Americans sat glued to their screens, harkening to the Watergate congressional hearings that held the nation rapt some four decades earlier.

Republicans mindful of the gravity of the moment worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing. They tried to undermine Comey's credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance where the FBI had to clean up the director's testimony to Congress.

In his opening statement, Comey somberly accused the Trump administration of spreading "lies, plain and simple" in the aftermath of his abrupt ouster, declaring that the administration "chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI" by claiming the bureau was in disorder.

He then dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau's Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony released a day earlier.

In that testimony, Comey said that Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not a target of the FBI probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

He said that when Trump told him he hoped he would terminate an investigation into Michael Flynn, the ousted national security adviser, he interpreted that as a directive.

"I mean, this is the president of the United States, with me alone, saying, `I hope' this," he said. "I took it as, this is what he wants me to do."

He said that while he found the February exchange in the Oval Office disturbing, "that's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work towards, to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that's an offense."

Comey said that after his firing he actually tried to spur the special counsel's appointment by giving a damning memo he had written about a meeting with Trump to a friend to release to the media.

"My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square," he said.

The February meeting was one of several one-on-one encounters that Comey said made him feel such intense discomfort that he felt compelled to document them in memos.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," he said. "I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI."

Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey's claims that he demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president's legal team who was not authorized to discuss legal strategy by name and demanded anonymity. Instead, Kasowitz pushed back and the president remained conspicuously silent on Twitter during the hearing despite expectations he might respond.

The disclosures that followed Comey's firing have raised questions about why Comey, known in government for an independent streak and a willingness to buck protocol, did not speak out publicly while on the job, or at least make his objections directly known to the president.

Discussing the meeting in which Comey says Trump asked him to back off Flynn, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California asked, "Why didn't you stop and say, `Mr. President, this is wrong,'?"

"It's a great question," Comey replied. "Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in."

Comey also made clear that political entanglement in law enforcement has cut across party lines.

During a discussion of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Comey disclosed that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, an Obama administration appointee, instructed him to refer to the issue as a "matter," not an "investigation."

"That concerned me because that language tracked how the campaign was talking about the FBI's work and that's concerning," he said. "We had an investigation open at the time so that gave me a queasy feeling."

Many Democrats still blame Comey for Clinton's loss, leading Trump to apparently believe they would applaud him for firing Comey. The opposite occurred, as the firing created a political firestorm that has stalled Trump's legislative agenda and taken over Washington.

Under questioning Thursday, Comey reaffirmed the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia meddled in the election.

"There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered," Comey stated firmly. "That happened. It's about as unfake as you can possibly get."

Trump has begrudgingly accepted that assessment. But he has also suggested he doesn't believe it, saying Russia is a "ruse" and calling the investigation into the matter a "witch hunt."

Comey further said about the Russian hacking: "They're coming after America. They will be back."

Copyright 2017 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Such josh in there says Piyush Goyal while citing Uri in Budget 2019

Army foils multiple infiltration bids in Kashmir, 7 militants killed

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

At least seven terrorists were killed in multiple attempts by Pakistan Army to infiltrate armed groups into Kashmir were foiled by Indian Army on Thursday in Nowgam, Kashmir. Also, one jawan was martyred in the gun battle against the militants.

Three AK rifles, ammunition, grenades, maps and matrix sheets seized from the encounter spot in Nowgam, Jammu and Kashmir.

On Wednesday, three heavily-armed militants were killed in a gunbattle in the Kupwara district as Army foiled a major infiltration bid along the LoC.

According to reports, this is the second successful anti-infiltration operation carried out by the security forces along the LoC in the last 24 hours, and the fourth in less than a fortnight.

The infiltration bid comes after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh last week said infiltration from Pakistan is down by 45 percent in six months after surgical strikes.

J&K: Two jawans injured in an encounter along LoC in Uri after 5-6 terrorists tried to infiltrate (visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/63DXHJaupG  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

On Tuesday a CRPF camp came under attack in Jammu and Kashmir in which militants intended to cause extensive damage. In retaliatory firing four militants were killed while attacking CRPF camp in Bandipora district. The CRPF personnel seized four automatic rifles and scores of ammunition carried by the terrorists.

On May 26, the Army killed two Pakistani Border Action Team members who tried to infiltrate into Uri sector in Baramulla district to carry out an attack on the soldiers.

It may be recalled that in a cross-border terror attack on an army base at Uri 18 Indian soldiers were martyred. Four terrorists attacked the camp close to the headquarter of the 12th Brigade at Uri in Baramulla District.

(With agency inputs)

OneIndia News
Employees will have to wait

A crucial Union Cabinet meeting was expected to be held on Wednesday. Now that the matter was not taken up, the Cabinet will discuss the issue soon after setting an agenda, the leader also informed.

E-CoS report with Cabinet

The report with by Empowered Committee of Secretaries is with the Cabinet. Senior officers including Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is going through the report. He would discuss the matter directly with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then place it before the Cabinet for a final decision on higher allowances and HRA.

Proposal for consideration by Cabinet

An increase in House Rent Allowance (HRA) and basic pay was among the major concerns raised at the meeting of Empowered Committee of Secretaries for Central government employees. Although some reports indicated that the a cap of

25 per cent and 27 per cent was put on HRA, the Cabinet is likely to reverse that as per the employees' demands.

What is demanded

The Central government employees have demanded that the HRA must be left unchanged at 30 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent depending on the city where they live. The 7th Pay Commission had recommended that the HRA must be reduced to 24 per cent, 16 per cent and 8 per cent of the basic pay.

Hike in allowances to be cleared

Good news is there for central government employees sources say. The proposal to hike their allowances as per the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission will be considered by the Cabinet.

The 178 per cent HRA hike

The Cabinet will first discuss the hike employees have been asking in the range of 157 to 178 per cent is the HRA rates as per the 6th Pay Commission. The existing rates of HRA for Class X, Y and Z cities and towns are 30 percent, 20 percent and 10 percent of Basic pay (pay in the pay band plus grade pay). If the Cabinet retains the existing HRA then the component for central government employees will increase in a range of 157 to 178 per cent.

Possibilities

A central government employee at the very bottom of the pay scale under 6th Pay Commission was till now entitled to an HRA of Rs 2,100 on basic pay of Rs 7,000 (basic pay that includes pay of pay band + grade pay) in a Class X city. It is to be noted that government, while implementing the 7th Pay Commission in June last year had made it clear that till the final outcome of allowances committee is being placed, the employees would be getting the allowances as per 6th Pay Commission.

New entry level

As per 7th Pay Commission, the new entry level pay at this level is Rs 18,000 per month against which the new HRA for a Class X city would be Rs 5,400 per month, that is around 157 percent more than the existing level.

At the highest level of the pay scale, the Cabinet Secretary and officers of the same rank have a basic pay of Rs 90,000, which means they are entitled to current HRA of Rs 27,000 in Class X towns. After the revised pay scale, the new basic pay is Rs 2.5 lakh, for which the HRA would be Rs 75,000, meaning a hike of around 178 percent.
Aadhaar mandatory for PAN cards: SC verdict tomorrow

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jun 8: The Supreme Court will pronounce its judgement tomorrow on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of a provision in the Income Tax Act making Aadhaar mandatory for filing income tax returns and allotment of PAN.

A bench comprising Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had on May 4 reserved the verdict on the pleas, challenging section 139AA of the Income Tax (I-T) Act, which was introduced through the latest budget and the Finance Act, 2017.

Section 139AA of the Income Tax Act provides for mandatory quoting of Aadhaar or enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of income tax returns and making application for allotment of PAN (Permanent Account Number) with effect from July 1 this year. While opposing the government's move, the petitioners, including CPI leader Binoy Viswam, have contended before the bench that the Centre cannot "belittle" the apex court's 2015 order holding the unique identification number as voluntary. They argued that government should not have enacted section 139AA in the Act to make Aadhaar mandatory for PAN as the apex court's five-judge bench order was clear that Aadhaar was voluntary and not mandatory.

However, the Centre had contended that Aadhaar was made mandatory for allotment of PAN to weed out fake cards which were used for terror financing and circulation of black money.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had told the bench that the programme of PAN had become suspect as it could be faked, while Aadhaar is a "secure and robust" system by which the identity of an individual could not be faked. Rohatgi had said that with the implementation of Aadhaar, the government had saved over Rs 50,000 crore on various schemes to benefit the poor as well as pension schemes.

The Centre had also told the court that fake PAN cards were being used to "divert funds" to shell companies. During the hearing, the Supreme Court had observed that it was yet to be "tested" whether Aadhaar violated protection of life and personal liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution, which was pending hearing for an authoritative pronouncement by a five-judge Constitution Bench.

PTI
Address farmer issues or face MP like situation, Yogi warned

India

pti-PTI

Lucknow, Jun 8: The Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government must address the basic problems of farmers at the earliest or prepare to face a Mandsaur-like situation in the state, a farmer leader said on Thursday.

Taking a dig at the crop loan waiver scheme announced by Yogi Adityanath at his first cabinet meeting, Shekhar Dixit, national president of the Rashtriya Kisaan Manch, said the basic issue is of minimum support price that most farmers are unable to get.

"If the Uttar Pradesh government is really serious about addressing the problems and plight of the farmers, then it must start resolving their problems lest a Mandsaur-like situation grip the state and unrest fans out," Dixit told

Farmers in two of the largest states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, which are presently ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, have resorted to agitation over a wide-range of issues concerning their livelihood.

In Madhya Pradesh protests turned violent as three farmers were killed by police in Mandsaur, the epicentre of the agitation which lies 325 kms from the Madhya Pradesh capital Bhopal.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 13:58 [IST]
Akhilesh Yadav slams Modi, Yogi Adityanath

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Lucknow, June 8: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, accusing them of lying to the people.

Addressing a gathering of supporters and party workers from the youth wing at the party office here, the Samajwadi Party (SP) chief said that all development work in Uttar Pradesh had come to a grinding halt under the watch of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and added that even under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the economy was in doldrums.

"The state government has ensured that the administrative system in the state has collapsed and graft is on the upswing," he added.

Accusing the BJP of turning its back on the youth, Yadav said the union government was snatching jobs while it promised to create two crore jobs in a year. He also accused the BJP of trying to divert the attention of the people from real issues by stoking communal and casteist fires.

"BJP talks of farmers and then it opens fire on farmers in MP, farmers are committing suicide and the Prime Minister is talking of doubling their income in the next five years," the 44-year-old leader said.

IANS
Army deploys 'Divyachakshu' radars in Kashmir

India

oi-PTI

Indian Army will use 'through the wall' radar imaging during counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir Valley to detect terrorists who might be hiding in wall cavities or false ceilings.

The radar enables forces to get the pinpointed location of terrorists hiding inside homes in congested areas and also avoid civilian casualties.

A few such radar systems have already been imported by the Army, official sources said, explaining that the technology would help in more precise - and effective -- anti-military operations.

Named Divyachakshu (divine eye), the radar is designed to scan 25-30 cm wall. The project was started after 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks when commandos of the elite NSG unit were injured while clearing the Taj Mahal hotel.

On more than one occasion, the Army and the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police have had to return without engaging with militants despite specific intelligence inputs. Local informers later conveyed that the terrorists were hiding in a specially created false ceiling or an underground cavity in the same house that had been raided, said a senior official involved in the anti-militancy drive.

This happened on July 8 last year as well when security forces gunned down Burhan Wani, poster-boy of the banned terror group Hizbul Mujahideen. The first time they tried to get him, they couldn't locate any terrorist in the house in a village in Kokernag in south Kashmir despite precise intelligence tip-offs.

The commanding officer and his men, it is learnt, entered the house twice but were unable to find any terrorists who were hiding in a false ceiling. During the third round of searches, the hiding militants gave themselves away when they fired at the Army men. It was only after that that three men, including Wani, were killed, leading to unrest in the entire Valley.

Often, troops face hostile crowds when they are unable to locate a terrorist at a house notified by human intelligence as well as technically generated intelligence. Given the many hits and misses, need was felt for 'through-the-wall' radars which would help troops function better during counter-insurgency operations especially in densely populated areas, sources said.

The radar is based on short electromagnetic waves generated by the 'signatures' of people hidden behind the wall or other concrete barriers. It is useful for detecting small changes in electromagnetic waves induced by humans; this includes even micro-movements caused by breathing, an official explained.

The images on the radar will give army an upper hand in determining the position of hiding terrorists and their movements on real-time basis, he said. Though the Army has imported only a few such radars, officials are hopeful that the number would go up once their utility was put to test. Interestingly, the Electronics and Radar Development Establishment (LRDE), a wing of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), has been making attempts to build the radar indigenously.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 18:05 [IST]
As agrarian crisis burnt Mandsaur, agriculture minister was busy with Yoga

India

oi-Anusha

As Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh remained tense with the agrarian crisis burning the district, the union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh was busy practising Yoga with Baba Ramdev. The minister's apathy towards the raging farmers' protest drew ire. Singh was in Motihari, attending a yoga camp led by Ramdev on Thursday as politics took centre stage in Mandsaur.

When questioned about the crisis in Madhya Pradesh by the media, the minister suggested that Yoga be practised. "Yoga kijiye (practice yoga)", the minister said not stopping to answer questions about the farmers or their concerns that had brought Mandsaur to a boil. After severe backlash for his lackadaisical attitude, the minister came out attacking the opposition.

"Those pretending to care about farmers' issues should give a thought about who is responsible for the state that farmers are in. The incident in Mandsaur is unfortunate but the union government has implemented many schemes for the benefit of farmers," Radha Mohan Singh told the media later on Thursday.

His statements came as too less and too late. Justifying his Yoga event, Radha Mohan Singh told the media that Yoga Guru Ramdev had invited him to Motihari for a three-day visit after a conversation on Mahatma Gandhi's Satyagraha at Champaran. He refused to comment about the farmers' crisis on Thursday afternoon.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 20:58 [IST]
As farmer agitation spread to 5 more MP districts, centre rushes 1,100 security personnel

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

At least 1,100 security personnel have been rushed to Madhya Pradesh as farmer protests spread to five more districts. Prohibitory orders had been enforced in the state a day after six farmers were killed at Mandsaur in police firing.

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi held discussions with senior ministers in Delhi to take stock of the situation. The Centre also sought a report from the Madhya Pradesh government on the violence. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also said that people must not instigate the farmers.

The farmers are on a 10 day agitation demanding debt relief, better crop prices and pension benefits. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan appealed for calm and assured to look into the issue. He also announced compensation of Rs 1 crore for the families of those killed on Tuesday.

On Wednesday there was more violence as protesters heckled Mandsaur district collector Swatantra Kumar Singh and superintendent of police O P Tripathy when they tried to pacify the crowd. Protesters also assaulted policemen, journalists and also burnt police vehicles, a petrol station and trucks. Violence was also reported from Ujjain, Dewas, Neemuch, Dhar and Ratlam districts. Curfew was in force in many parts of Mandsaur for the second day, while mobile phone and Internet services remained suspended in the district where hundreds of policemen in riot gear patrolled the streets.

Will scale up protests:

The farmers said that they would scale up their agitation. The Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh said the protests would continue until demands of the farmers were met. A Madhya Pradesh bandh called by the Congress affected some western parts of the state, but petrol stations, markets and other establishments remained open in Bhopal.

Meanwhile Home Ministry officials in Delhi said that the state administration did not have local intelligence. There was no intelligence on the mobilisation of the farmers and the local administration was not prepared to handle the agitation. The Home Ministry however added that it expected the situation to become normal in the next day or two.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 6:04 [IST]
Why Punjab farmers burn stubble at this scale when others do not

At a time when farmers are dying, BJP embark on ad blitz on agricultural growth

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, June 8: Call it bad timing or the Bharatiya Janata Party's attempt to douse the ongoing farmers' protests in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. But the newspaper advertisements related to the saffron party's commitment to work for the interests of the farmers and its achievements in the agricultural growth just a day after five farmers were allegedly shot dead by police in MP have not gone done well with many.

On Tuesday, came the horrible story of five farmers being allegedly killed in a police firing in Mandsaur, around 320-km from MP's capital city, Bhopal. Several others were also injured in the firing incident.

The farmers since June 1 have been protesting. They are demanding waiver of loans and better prices for their produce, to name a few.

The shocking incident opened the eyes of many outside the state, including our politicians and the mainstream media, stationed in the national capital. In order to take control of the situation, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his team decided to come up with advertisements in local dailies detailing how and why the government was with the farmers.

Such advertisements were not just restricted to the state dailies. On Wednesday, the residents of Delhi saw a huge advertisement on popular English daily--The Hindustan Times--citing the Narendra Modi government's relentless work in pushing India's agricultural growth.

Print and television advertisements of ruling governments--highlighting their own achievements in various fields-- are not a new thing. They have been a regular feature in the previous United Progressive Alliance government too.

But the advertisements of the MP and the Modi governments have been criticized for being unsympathetic towards the plight of farmers, who have been forced to hit the streets at a time when their hard work have yielded bumper crops.

In spite of a good harvest, the buyers are not paying farmers even their cost price which actually triggered the massive violent protests in MP.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 13:18 [IST]
Bengaluru: Raped by father, minor subjected to 'truth test' on a bed of nails by astrologer

India

oi-Anusha

A 14-year-old raped by her father was subjected to further humiliation and torture by an astrologer claiming to put her through a 'truth test'. The teenager who told her mother about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father was asked to take a truth test on a bed of nails.

Blinded by superstition, the child's mother took her to an astrologer instead of the police after learning of the teenager being repeatedly raped by her father. The survivor accused her father of sexually abusing her when her mother was away on work. The father is said to have threatened to murder the girl's mother if she told anyone about the abuse. Unable to bear the abuse, the teenager finally confided in her mother. The father, identified as Ramesh refuted the allegations and accused his daughter of lying. Torn between the husband and the daughter, the mother chose to seek the help of an astrologer who was none other than Ramesh's nephew.

In a bizarre truth test, the girl was asked to place her palms on a bed of nails and the astrologer, Suresh stamped on her hands. The astrologer claimed that if her hands started bleeding, is meant that the girl had lied and was a virgin. As he started stamping on her little hands, the child screamed in pain which made neighbours take notice. Horrified at the sight, neighbours came to the rescue of the little girl and handed over the accused to the police.

The father of the child, the cousin, as well as the mother, have been arrested for the abuse. Cases under POCSO have been registered against the accused and the girl has been sent for medical examination. The family is said to be residents of Magadi. The dual cruelty meted out to the girl comes at a time when the Congress government in Karnataka is dilly-dallying on the anti-superstition bill. As elections draw closer, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has once again raised the issue and has assured that the bill will be ready by the end of 2017.

OneIndia News
Why Punjab farmers burn stubble at this scale when others do not

30 per cent down: How Haryana aced the decrease in stubble burning

Congress instigating, politicising MP farmers' stir: Venkaiah Naidu

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, June 8: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday accused the Congress of instigating and politicising farmers' stir in Madhya Pradesh and termed Rahul Gandhi's planned visit to the violence-hit Mandsaur as "another photo opportunity".

Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Naidu also dismissed the Congress' demand that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan step down from his post in view of the deaths of five protesting farmers in police firing.

Targetting the opposition party, he recalled an incident in the state's Betul district on 12 January, 1998, where 24 farmers died allegedly in police firing ordered by then chief minister and Congress leader Digvijay Singh.

"The Congress is instigating and politicising the issue. It should stop doing that and behave as a responsible political party to help restore normalcy there," Naidu said.

He dubbed the party vice president's planned visit to Mandsaur, the hotbed of the ongoing farmers' agitation, as yet another photo opportunity.

On Chouhan's resignation, Naidu questioned whether Singh had resigned from the post of chief minister after the farmers, who were seeking compensation after a hailstorm, were killed.

"Did they seek resignation of Singh when the 24 farmers were killed? Did the Congress vice president visit the victim farmers then?" Naidu asked.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 15:00 [IST]
Decoding the plastic rice rumour

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

There have been rumours afloat since 10 years that plastic rice is being supplied by China. Several clarifications have been issued based on research not to believe these rumours, but they continue to spread like wild-fire.

Social media began spreading this news in India and the Kerala media broadcast a series of reports with demonstrations of cooking the rice to prove it was plastic by burning the layer formed on the cooked rice. Based on directions given by the Kerala government, some institutions did research that proved that the rice samples did not consist of plastic, polymer or polyvinyl.

Scientists have said that plastic is not biodegradable and the digestive system of humans does not tolerate it. While stating that there is no way it can be consumed, scientists also expressed doubts that it can be manufactured.

The Telangana civil supplies department tested samples of rice and announced that no plastic element had been found but the samples would be sent to the state food controlling unit for further chemical tests. The Nigerian government too released research reports on 'plastic rice' on December 24, 2016, which also held that the rice was not plastic.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 6:33 [IST]
Bharat Jodo Yatra will proceed to Srinagar, come what may, says Rahul Gandhi as march enters Maharashtra

Rahul meets kin of deceased farmers at MP-Rajasthan border

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Rahul Gandhi today met the families of farmers killed in police firing on Tuesday during agitation in Madhya Pradesh, and vowed to press for farm loan waiver across the country.

The kin of four of the five deceased farmers were brought to Rajathan's Chittorgarh district by Congress workers to meet Gandhi after he was released along with 250 supporters on border by Madhya Pradesh police. The Congress Vice President lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the police action during the stir for loan waiver, MSP rise among other demands.

"I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief....Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS?" he told reporters after consoling the bereaved families.

He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of "50 richest people" of the country. "The farmers in the county are desperately crying for help but the government is not ready to hear them," he said.

He supported the farmers' demand for loan waiver and said that they were not getting their due. Gandhi that the loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh had come as he had mounted pressure on the BJP government on the issue. "I will continue to press every government across the country to waive farmers' loans. I will keep raising the issue in Parliament," he said.

He accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of lying on the issue of farmers death in police firing. Action should be taken against the security personnel involved in the firing incident.

The farmers were not warned and were shot in the chest in violation of all standing operation procedures, he alleged "This is barbaric. Those who have died should get martyr status." He also slammed the BJP for saying that he had gone for a 'photo-op' there. "I only wanted meet the farmers. What was the need for controversy?" Gandhi said.

He added that government can waive loans of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 50 rich people in the country, then why the loans of those farmers who feed the nation cannot be waived.

Earlier, while Gandhi was detained by the police, he said, "The didn't give any reason, just said they are arresting me. The same was done in Uttar Pradesh also."

"Na kisaano ka karza maaf karte hain, na bonus dete; bas goliyaan dete hain (They neither waive farmer loans nor do they give bonus. They just tell lies)," he added.

#WATCH: Earlier visuals of Rahul Gandhi in Madhya Pradesh's Neemuch on his way to #Mandsaur. He was later detained by Police. pic.twitter.com/DaLeS5K83A  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Earlier, Rahul took to Twitter to vent his ire at the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan Police, saying that they were stopping him from meeting the farmers.

"Raj & MP Govts are doing their best to prevent me from entering MP & meeting the families of the #farmers killed in #Mandsaur...What law of the land says that it is illegal to stand in solidarity with farmers who were killed simply for demanding what is their right?," he said in series of tweets.

Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh lashed out at the Congress vice president for attempting to visit violence hit region.

"He has been detained. What was the emergency to go there now? He only wants to do politics," he told news agency ANI.

Despite curfew being in force and administration having denied permission for anyone to visit Mandsaur, Rahul Gandhi left for Madhya Pradesh's violence-hit area to meet the agitating farmers. He is being accompanied by Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath.

However, Superintendent of Police of Neemuch Manoj Kumar Singh said the Congress leader will not be allowed to enter the violence-hit district where the situation remains tense. If the Congress leader tries to enter the district, he will be detained, the SP said.

Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi leaves for Madhya Pradeshs #Mandsaur to meet family of those killed during farmers agitation. pic.twitter.com/mNbWgBC1Sl  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

Rahul's visit can be seen as an attempt to make foray into the BJP stronghold. The state has been continuously voting for the BJP since 2003.

A farmers' agitation demanding loan waivers and higher crop prices in Madhya Pradesh spread to large parts of the state on Wednesday with protesters torching vehicles, targeting police stations and attacking government officials.

According to reports, district collector Swatantra Kumar Singh had said that no outsider would be allowed to visit Mandsaur. Even last month, Rahul had tried to visit violence-hit Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, but was denied entry.

At least 1,100 security personnel have been rushed to Madhya Pradesh as farmer protests spread to five more districts. Prohibitory orders had been enforced in the state a day after six farmers were killed at Mandsaur in police firing.

The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi held discussions with senior ministers in Delhi to take stock of the situation. The Centre also sought a report from the Madhya Pradesh government on the violence. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also said that people must not instigate the farmers.

[As farmer agitation spread to 5 more MP districts, centre rushes 1,100 security personnel]

The farmers are on a 10 day agitation demanding debt relief, better crop prices and pension benefits. Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan appealed for calm and assured to look into the issue. He also announced compensation of Rs 1 crore for the families of those killed on Tuesday.

OneIndia News with PTI inputs
Sushma can help if you are stuck in mars!

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is as witty in her Twitter replies as she is steadfast in helping Indians abroad who are in distress.

Responding to a funny tweet asking for Swaraj's help in sending India's Mars orbitor Mangalyan to rescue him, the minister replied saying "Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you".

The Twitter user @ksainiamd said that food sent by Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, in 2013 had run out and wittly asked when second Mangalyan would be sent.

Even if you are stuck on the Mars, Indian Embassy there will help you. https://t.co/Smg1oXKZXD  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 8, 2017

Swaraj is very active on Twitter and usually responds within minutes of a tweet being posted on an Indian in distress or stranded abroad.

Not only Indians, Swaraj has come to the recue of a Pakistani man who had sought visa for his two and a half-month-old infant, who was suffering from a heart disease. The man had sought an Indian visa for the treatrment of his daughter.

Swaraj's assurance came after the child's father brought the matter to her notice on Twitter.

"The child will not suffer. Please contact Indian High Commission in Pakistan. We will give the medical visa," she said.

Last year, the family of an Indian man abducted in Sudan had sought Swaraj's help on the Twitter. The minister immediately got into action and the Indian embassy there sorted out the matter.

OneIndia News
Two of 8 cheetahs released in acclimatisation enclosure at MP's Kuno National Park: Official

Two cheetahs make their first kill at Kuno National Park

Farmers protest: CPI(M) attacks Centre, asks if bullets are bought from Krishi Kalyan

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi: The Communist Party of India Marxist on Thursday attacked the Centre over the violent stir by peasants in Madhya Pradesh. The Left party asked if people are paying Krishi Kalyan cess so that the government could buy bullets to be shot at farmers.

The Left party's criticism of the government comes after five protesting farmers were killed, allegedly in police firing, in Mandsaur district of the state.

The cess concerned is a tax imposed by the government since June 1, 2016 on all services at the rate of 0.5 per cent for financing betterment of agriculture sector and farmers' welfare.

Taking to Twitter, CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury also suggested the Centre was "shying away" from taking questions on the stir from media, sarcastically saying the "brave" government is not taking question on the issue.

Yechury also referred to certain reports claiming Union Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh cancelled his scheduled press briefing on his department's three-year achievements to drive his point.

The media conference post-weekly cabinet meeting too was cancelled for the same reason, Yechury sought to underline.

"Are we all paying the Krishi Kalyan Cess to the Central government so that it can buy more bullets to fire on farmers?" he tweeted.

In his another tweet, Yechury said, "Such a brave govt, takes no questions. Its agri minister cancels 3-year celebration press meet. No briefing after cabinet meeting either."

The farmers in Madhya Pradesh, particularly Mandsaur and Dewas districts, have been protesting for a week now demanding debt relief and better crop prices. The protest, however, has been marred by violence and killings of peasants allegedly in police firing.

PTI
Woman killed, 23 others injured as fuel tanker overturns and catches fire

11 dead as SUV hits an empty bus in MP's Betul; PM Modi announces ex-gratia

Two of 8 cheetahs released in acclimatisation enclosure at MP's Kuno National Park: Official

Two cheetahs make their first kill at Kuno National Park

Farmers' protest spreads to other parts of country

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

The agitation by farmers in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur spread to other parts of the country on Thursday with farmers of Maharashtra and Karnataka attempting similar protests.

The focus of the farmers' agitation, however, remained in Mandsaur where Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was stopped from entering the sensitive region and was subsequently arrested.

Meanwhile, contingents of Rapid Action Force (RAF) were deployed in Mandsaur district where the situation remained tense. Two companies of RAF, comprising around 100 men each, have moved into Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, the site of Tuesday's shooting of five farmers.

While two companies of RAF have been posted in Garoth area in the district, another two have been deployed along the Mwoh-Neemuch Highway to prevent any untoward incidents.

Maharashtra: Indian Youth Congress demonstrates Rail Roko protest at Mumbai's Ghatkopar railway station over farmer' protest in #Mandsaur pic.twitter.com/3D0Ko8vbRX  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017 Protests spread to Maharashtra Youth Congress workers tried to block railway track in Mumbai. Protest by Kisan cell of Karnataka Congress The farmer agitation that erupted in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra also reached Bengaluru.        ,      ,   -        #Mandsaur  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 8, 2017 Rahul tries to corner Modi govt over farmer issue Rahul had earlier decided to cross Rajasthan- Madhya Pradesh border and enter Mandsaur on a motorcycle. Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh lashed out at the Congress vice president for attempting to visit violence hit region. Agitators resort to setting vehicles ablaze Fresh violence broke out Mandsaur on Wednesday as agitating farmers drove away administrative officials, demanding that the Chief Minister visit the violence-hit district. At least 10 vehicles were set ablaze by protesters. Fresh reports state that vehicles parked at a police station in Devas's Hatpipalya were also set on fire. Always ready to resolve issues by talks & discussions. Anti social elements trying to bring instability will be strictly dealt with: MP CM pic.twitter.com/pviH9TqRiz  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017 CM Chouhan appeals for peace Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that 'anti-social elements were trying to disrupt the atmosphere.

AAP leaders Ashutosh and Bhagwant Mann are said to among those making a beeline for violence torn area in Madhya Pradesh. Reports say that the AAP team may visit the area on Friday.

Rahul's visit can be seen as an attempt to make foray into the BJP stronghold. The state has been continuously voting for the BJP since 2003.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 15:49 [IST]
Five Mandsaur farmers died in police firing admits MP Home Minister

India

oi-Anusha

After days of denial, the Madhya Pradesh government finally admitted that five farmers who lost their lives during agitation in Mandsaur died due to police firing. MP home Minister Bhupendra Singh, who had denied that police opened fire at farmers, on Thursday acknowledged that farmers were indeed killed in police firing.

"Death of five farmers was due to police firing. It has now been established in the probe," Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said. The same man on Tuesday had said that the government had neither given firing orders nor had the police opened fire at farmers. The probe also claimed that police resorted to opening fire after agitating farmers attempted to vandalise a police station and the situation got out of hand. Madhya Pradesh's home minister had vehemently defended the police forces and rejected claims of farmers that security forces had opened fire.

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government had ordered a judicial probe into the issue after an uproar. Two days after the probe was ordered, the government has acknowledged that five farmers were indeed killed in police firing. The state's top cop had, however, on Tuesday night claimed that the police was forced to open fire as protests went out of hand. The MP government has announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore for kin of farmers killed in police firing and Rs 1 lakh for those who sustained injuries.

OneIndia News
If you ate today, thank a farmer: Need of the hour is Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

If you ate today, then thank a farmer. It is such a meaningful sentence and when issues relating to farmers are burning, the government appears to be fiddling. Both the governments in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have not put up their best act in sorting out the problems.

There is no point in trying to change narratives and seeking out questions as to who instigated the farmers etc. That is not the point. The conspiracy theories can come out later, but what has to be borne in mind is that the basic protest is a legitimate one and there is never any fuel without fire.

Six farmers were killed in Madhya Pradesh earlier this week in police firing. The incident went horribly wrong and the government was caught on the back-foot. The farmers have been demanding better prices for their crops and a good compensation package. A compensation of Rs 1 crore has been announced by MP Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan for those killed in the firing. However he has just taken a baby step and has miles to go before the problem is sorted out.

It is in the interest of the government and the farmer that the issue needs to be addressed. There is a danger lurking ahead and a farmer movement should never be taken lightly.

Leaders of several states have expressed fear that this could well become a momentum. Farmers of every state are affected either by bad prices, drought or no minimum support. The Karnataka farmer too has been badly hit. The BJP in fact has asked the Congress government in Karnataka to waive off farmer loans.

The farmers in MP have said that they would continue with their agitation for another ten days. There were violent scenes on Wednesday too which forced the centre to rush 1,100 security personnel. The might of the gun may silence the farmer, but the hurt within will not die. Agriculture is the backbone of India and it is the farmer who drives it. Let us hope their problems are solved and until then, " Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 8:29 [IST]
India is doing everything to secure release of Kulbhushan Jadhav

India

pti-PTI

Lanba New Delhi, Jun 8: Everything is being done to secure the release of former naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav, who has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani military court, and he will be provided with all support, Navy chief Sunil Lanba said on Thursday.

Following his death sentence, India had approached the International Court of Justice at the Hague last month seeking provisional stay to execution of Jadhav which was granted.

Pakistan, which announced the death sentence to 46-year- old Jadhav on April 10, claims its security forces arrested him from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.

However, India maintains that he was kidnapped from Iran where he had business interests after retiring from the Navy. "We will provide all support to him and his family. The country is doing all that can be done to secure his release," Lanba said, on the sidelines of a flag-in ceremony of Indian Naval Mountaineering Team.

PTI
Explained: 8 things you should know about Lt. Gen. Pande, Indias next Army Chief

All about the nation: Next Army Chiefs son serves in the Air Force

Next Army Chief Lt. Gen. Pande is first engineer to hold the post

Pakistan govt likely to take decision on next Army chief's appointment by mid-September

India prepared for two-front war with Pakistan and China: Army Chief

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

New Delhi, June 8: Army Chief Bipin Rawat on Thursday warned Pakistan, China by saying that India is simultaneously fully ready for two-and-a-half front war China, Pakistan. The Army Chief's statement comes at a time when cross-border infiltration has increased from across the line of control and the armed forces are grappling with encounters on a daily basis.

In an interaction with ANI, Rawat accused Pakistan of using social media as a tool to create unrest in Kashmir."Pakistan generated social media propaganda is spreading disinformation among youth of Kashmir. This is further supported by some of the people in the valley who spread it and glamorize the young boys who have joined terrorist organisations."

Rawat also has expressed the hope that the condition in the Kashmir valley will soon return to normalcy. The situation remains volatile in Kashmir valley with Pakistan-backed protestors carrying out violent demonstrations against the armed forces.

Pakistan generated social media propaganda is spreading disinformation among youth of Kashmir: Army Chief General Rawat to ANI (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/YkjpJ71ddi  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

On upgrading equipment of the armed forces, Army chief said that, "we keep raising our modernization issues with government, and it is going well. We as the army maintain a balance, obsolete (30%), obsolescence (40%) and modern equipment (30%)."

Further, he said, "there are effective mechanisms available to defuse an adverse situation, adding that even PM has stated that for last forty years not even a single bullet has been fired on Indo-China border.

Government estimates a marked reduction in numbers as compared to previous years, however, terror groups like Jamaat-ud-Dawa have gone for a tactical shift vigorous use of social media.

Also on the government radar are social media networks like WhatsApp groups which aid in the spread of disinformation to stone-pelting protesters. JuD has taken out advertisements to join its workshops to wage a social media war in Kashmir.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 11:44 [IST]
Kerala assembly passes resolution against centre's cattle trade law

India

oi-Anusha

The Kerala assembly on Thursday passed a resolution against the Centre's new cattle trade rules that bans the sale of cattle for slaughter. The resolution that was moved by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was passed after getting the nod of the entire house except lone BJP MLA O Rajagopal. CM Vijayan took to Twitter to claim that 'a resolution against Centre's unconstitutional usurpation of State rights' had been passed.

The Special session of the #Kerala Legislative Assembly passed a resolution against Centres unconstitutional usurpation of State rights.1/8  CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) June 8, 2017

Members of the ruling Left Democratic Front and the Opposition United Democratic Front unanimously passed a motion. The lone BJP member of the house, however, maintained that it was nothing more than the misuse of the assembly. "The convening of the special session was a misuse of the Assembly to target the Centre. It marked the launch of a larger alliance of parties comprising both fronts against the BJP and the Centre," he said.

Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan who moved the resolution against the new rules earlier in the day called it unconstitutional. During the special session of Kerala Assembly called to discuss the new law that bans the sale of cattle for slaughter, Vijayan said that the centre was infringing upon the rights of people. "This is unconstitutional and an infringement on rights. Centre has introduced this bill to impose Sangh's agenda. Farmers are being affected," he told the house.

"To take care of a cow that has stopped giving milk, a farmer has to spend Rs 40,000. A huge majority of our society are non-vegetarians and this new law is in no way acceptable to us," the Chief Minister said.

A special session of the Kerala Assembly had been called to discuss the union government's new notification banning the sale of cattle for slaughter. The assembly session comes a day after the Kerala High Court refused to ban the operation of the controversial notification.

The BJP was cornered in the assembly with all other parties like CPI, Congress, IUML speaking against the imposition of the new rules. The IUML claimed that the issue needed to be looked as an economic matter and not with a religious colour. The party held that beef was a staple diet of people of Kerala and depriving them of the same was unacceptable.

Beef fry breakfast ahead of special session

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan drove home a point when he organised beef fry breakfast ahead of the day-long special session on cattle trade norms. Several Kerala legislators headed to the Assembly canteen to get a serving of beef fry prepared as part of the breakfast menu ahead of the session. While beef fry is common on the assembly canteen menu, it is generally served after 11 AM. on Thursday however, the dish was piping hot and ready for breakfast. Canteen manager stated that 10 kgs of beef was brought anticipating demand during the day-long session.

OneIndia News
Kerala violence: It's Right vs Left, and it's getting worse

India

oi-Prabhpreet

By Prabhpreet

As news about violence, related to politics from states considered the Left's bastion such as Kerala, Bengal among others from the North-East part of the country, keep getting reported, while sad and deplorable, they should hardly be treated as shocking.

The fight that seems to be playing out in these states, though may feel like just a tussle between political opponents, has a much bigger conflict at its roots. This is a struggle not just between different names of political entities such as the Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India, Trinamool Congress, the Congress, it is a fight between political ideologies. It is a fight between the Right and the Left.

Left, Right and Centre of Indian politics

And that is the reason that it won't stop at just accusation and counter accusations that those in power and the opposition throw at each other. It is going to be violent, and increasingly so, as it is taking place where the political parties on the Left have dominated in a way that the parties which have been political opponents so far exist on the same side of the political fence.

For example, in the state of Kerala, the two major groups that have dominated the political scene are led by the CPI and the other by the Congress, both deeply Left in their policies. This is similar to the other Left bastion, Bengal, where after over a three-decade rule of the communist parties, the TMC replaced them by what can be best described as having 'outlefted' the left.

The reason behind the violence

And now finally with the rise of the BJP, which has a strong desire to spread its roots throughout the country including the states dominated by the left parties, is the latest spark to have lighted up the fire of violence.

The main reason behind this has to be understood in the opposition that has seeped into the political climate of such states towards an alternate way of life and governance, and what is even worse, the hatred towards any opposition.

How else can the stand of the Congress party, which has had a balance of choosing policies which can only be described as a mixture of those from the Right or the Left, to clearly stay in line with the policies of the Communist parties in Kerala, and the alternate to the communists in Bengal being an even more Left party in the form of the TMC.

The constraints put on even the idea of a party such as the BJP, which has after six decades of independence brought the rise of the first Right party in the country, is nothing but a way to stop the evolution of politics. And it can hardly be argued that when evolution is stopped in its tracks, it usually finds a way of breaking through the ceiling with the tendencies of a revolution.

The violence is hardly surprising

Though under such conditions it would seem that the BJP and allied groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh may be the instigators behind such incidents, if reports of political violence are looked at, especially in Kerala, it is revealed that they have been the victims of such actions more times than not.

Such a fact should hardly be surprising. Political violence in states such as Bengal and Kerala is hardly new. A look at the history of these states, from the Naxalbari rising five decades ago, to violent struggles between parties on the same side of political ideologies, among others, would throw enough light on such incidents.

And when violence was a mode of suppressing an opposition, which exists only in the name of the party and not ideology, the fact it is inflicted on a party with a different set of principles, could hardly be treated with much shock.

It is thinking of such sort that is behind reports of increasing violence against opponents, from attacks on party members or their offices to the extremes of the dastardly act of a calf being slaughtered in broad daylight in front of cameras just to get the limelight.

To think that such actions are being committed without a moment's thought to the severe violence that they inflict show the normalisation of such acts in order to make political points.

This does not absolve the Right

With the rise of the BJP at the national stage, the pendulum in the political arena has clearly shifted to the Right. Never has there been such a support for a party that stands as far apart from the policies of the Congress, which dominated the political scene for more than five decades out of the nearly seven since independence.

From being a party which was hardly taken seriously, to a stage when it is in power in 17 states, 13 of which have governments of its own while others in coalition and the dominant victory it secured in the 2014 general elections, the BJP has come a long way.

Like any group which has momentum on its side, they have no plans of being content and stopping with what they have. This includes creating a space for itself in regions where it has none and to attempt at making its political ideology at least tolerable to the people of states which have been given no option to have the patience for alternatives, by using tools of not only political methods but literature, school education etc.

Such a scenario and sudden rise usually bring with them an aggression. And this what the Right is guilty of. The lack of patience stems from not only the violent opposition that they face but also the long time that an alternative political philosophy took to even become a part of the conversation.

This is the other side of the pendulum analogy. That is, when let loose from high up on one side, it will not stop in the middle, instead, climbing to almost a similar height on the other side, and coming to rest only after a period of time. This is exactly what is happening to the BJP and the Right in Kerala and Bengal, along with the rest of the country.

What now?

And the current struggle in these states is far from over. Even though elections for state assemblies far away in these states, but those for Lok Sabha to be held in 2019, and the BJP trying to create a standing in these states while the Left is trying to deny it, it is almost certain that the current reports of violence are just the beginning of many similar ones to follow.

The major issue with the current violence is that those in power in these states, instead of allowing the people to continuously make choices with their votes on what they believe is right for their society after they get to hear from the opposite sides, are trying to muzzle out any mode of communication that the real opposition might have, by not only putting fear in them but also those who might want to hear about the alternative.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 13:51 [IST]
Mandasaur farmer agitation brings back the ghost of Nandigram

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The farmer protest at Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh and the police firing in which 6 persons were killed brings back memories of the 2007 Nandigram protes. It was the year 2007 and the police fired on farmers who were protesting the take over of their land at Nandigram in East Midnapore district of West Bengal.

Nandigram became the symbol of the farmer protest. The stir continued until 2011 until the Left rule of 24 years in West Bengal came to an end. The intensity of the protest was so high and action by the police so high-handed that Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi said in a statement to the media that the news of the violence filled him with "cold horror".

Locals had assembled in Sonachura to resist the government. Yatras were organised and farmers read from religious books to keep their morale high. The police broke through the make-shift blockades violence began. Fourteen people were killed and over 70 injured. The allegation was that the CPI(M) cadres had helped the police carry this dreaded atrocity.

West Bengal was never the same again. The Calcutta High Court ordered a CBI probe and protests broke out on the streets. Intellectuals who sympathised with the Left too raised questions about the manner in which the protest was handled.

The protest began after then Chief Minister of WB Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, struck a deal with the Indonesian Salim Group to build a chemical factory. This was strongly resisted by the farmers as their lands were set to be acquired. Early signs of a protest brewing were there in Singur, but the government ignored it.

The CM however was desperate for investment and pushed ahead despite protests. On January 2, 2007, the Haldia Development Authority issued a preliminary notice that it wanted to acquire 14,500 acres over 27 mouzas. On January 3, more than 1,000 people gathered to protest. The government however was adamant. It went ahead with its plans.

OneIndia News
Mandsaur violence: SP DM sacked, CM appeals for peace in video message

India

oi-Anusha

The Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday transferred Swatantra Kumar Singh, the collector as well as Mandsaur superintendent of police. In a crackdown of sorts following the violence in the district, both district administration officials have been sacked. While the situation remained tense in Mandsaur on Thursday, incidents of violence were reported in 15 neighbouring districts of the region.

The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government also announced a Rs 6,000 crore crop loan settlement scheme. In a bid to pacify agitated farmers, the government proposed waiving of interests for those cultivators who have defaulted. This is short of the complete loan waiver that farmers have demanded. On Thursday afternoon he also released a video message appealing for peace and reiterated that his government was a pro-farmer government.

 , !               ,        pic.twitter.com/iICe0mNnmw  ShivrajSingh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) June 8, 2017

IAS officer Om Prakash Srivastava has been appointed as the new district collector and Manoj Kumar Singh as superintendent of police for the violence-hit region. Their appointments comes on the day Rahul Gandhi is to visit the region. The local administration has set up a police post outside Mandsaur, expect to intercept Rahul Gandhi when he reaches around noon.

On Thursday morning the police removed two dozen burnt trucks from the Mhow-Neemuch highway to opened the road. While internet ban continues to cripple the region, shops and establishments are opening in select areas. Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Pawar is also expected to visit Mandsaur on Thursday.

OneIndia News
Army deployed in Darjeeling after violence by GJM supporters

India

oi-Madhuri

Police had to resort to lathi-charge to disperse Gorkha Janmukti Morcha protesters in Darjeeling when protesters allegedly set fire to police vehicles on Thursday. GJM supporters tried to break the barricades put up by the police and hurled brickbats. They also damaged some police vehicles, police sources said, adding that some security personnel received injuries.

Meanwhile, the state government called in the Army to contain the situation. More than 10,000 stranded tourists are advised to return back to hotel.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and most of the cabinet ministers were present in the hill town apart from Chief Secretary, Home secretary and other high officials. The GJM supporters held a dharna and raised slogans against the chief minister.

GJM protesters, face covered with black cloth, blocked the road near Bhanubhakt Bhaban, Darjeeling Station and Batashia. They also burnt effigy of Mamata Banerjee. Also, unrest was also seen at Darjeeling in Siliguri and Kaljmpong. The GJM accused the TMC government of trying to disrupt peace in Darjeeling by its "divide and rule policy" and called a 12-hour shutdown in the hills tomorrow.

Asked about the GJM's agitation, Mamata Banerjee said, "They have the democratic right. Let them do it. They have no issue. Let there be competition for development," she said.

GJM protests started after it lost to TMC in the last civic polls and it was after three decades any party from plain area has formed board at Mirik.

Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee announced that a new state Secretariat will be set up in Darjeeling district and the new building named after Mount Everest summitteer Tenzing Norgay. Around 3,500 youths will be given professional training to enable them a chance to appear for campus interviews in various sectors. She also announced eight new state buses will be run from the picturesque hill town of Darjeeling to Mirik for the facility of tourists.

Claiming that the state government has undertaken several major "administrative reforms", Banerjee announced a new "West Bengal Higher Civil Service" that would enable West Bengal Civil Service officers to become promotee Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers within 8 to 10 years.

OneIndia News (with inputs from PTI)
Muslim man in Jkhand attacked by gau rakshaks for allegedly carrying beef to Iftar party

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Ranchi, June 8: We have seriously lost count of the numbers of attacks carried out by gau rakshaks (cow vigilantes) against people for allegedly smuggling cows or eating beef across the country in recent times.

These attacks have become so frequent that they no more make for "good" headlines. That is the fate of any tragedy, if it repeatedly occurs, it becomes "normal".

The latest case of assault on a man carried out by cow vigilantes has been reported from Dhanbad district of Jharkhand on Tuesday. The mob attacked the victim, identified as 35-year-old Ainul Ansar, a resident of Murahdih, for allegedly carrying beef to an Iftar party, as per a report by The Hindustan Times.

The attackers targeted Ainul while he was riding his scooter as he was on his way to the Barbadda village. A group of around 20 people questioned Ainul for hiding beef inside the storage compartment of his scooter.

Then the attackers beat him up mercilessly. The victim, who has sustained severe injuries, is said to be recovering at the Patliputra Medical College Hospital. What is more shocking is the role of the police in the case.

According to reports, the local police got a whiff of the incident while the attack was underway. However, the victim was not saved from getting beaten up by the mob.

Barbadda police station officer-in-charge Dinesh Kumar told The Hindustan Times, "The irate mob insisted that we search the victim's scooter. We did so, and recovered meat - probably beef - from its storage compartment."

Wife of the Muslim man has denied the allegations that he was carrying beef. She insisted that the meat found inside the scooter compartment was mutton.

The attack has come at a time when the Centre has recently announced several rules and regulations regarding cattle sale in animal markets across the country. The critics of the latest cattle regulations said that the measures have been taken by the ruling BJP government to ban beef across the country through the backdoor.

Moreover, as protests against the Centre's rule is gaining momentum across the country, there is a large-scale fear that cow vigilantes are further motivated to carry out their attacks by the beef ban across the country.

In April, cow vigilantes killed a dairy farmer Pehlu Khan on a national highway in Rajasthan for allegedly smuggling cow. Since then several attacks by cow vigilantes have been reported from across the country, including killing of three Muslim men in Assam, for allegedly smuggling cows.

In 2015, Mohammad Akhlaq was killed in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, by a mob on rumours of storing beef in his house.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 8:21 [IST]
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech during Arab-Islamic-American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia May 21, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump took sides in a deep rift in the Arab world on Tuesday, praising Middle East countries' actions against American ally Qatar over Islamist militants even though the tiny Gulf state hosts the largest US air base in the region.

Trump wrote on Twitter that his recent trip to the Middle East was "already paying off" and cast an anti-Islamist speech he made in Saudi Arabia as the inspiration for a decision by Arab powers to sever ties with Qatar in protest at what they say is the Gulf nation's support for terrorism.

"So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

Qatar vehemently denies the accusations.

Trump later spoke by phone with Saudi King Salman and stressed the need for Gulf unity, a senior White House official said.

"His (Trump's) message was that we need unity in the region to fight extremist ideology and terrorist financing. It's important that the Gulf be united for peace and security in the region," the senior official told Reuters.

US officials were blindsided by Saudi Arabia's decision to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar in a coordinated move with Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), current and former officials in Washington told Reuters. The United States was not informed of the decision until just before it was announced, the State Department said.

Even as Trump applauded the Arab countries' move, the Pentagon on Tuesday renewed praise of Qatar for hosting US forces and its "enduring commitment to regional security."

Some 8,000 US military personnel are stationed at al Udeid in Qatar, the largest US air base in the Middle East and a staging ground for US-led strikes on the Islamic State militant group that has seized parts of Syria and Iraq.
Mystery solved: When B'luru cops probed 3 murder cases as suicide for 17 years

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

For 16 years three cases of death were being investigated by the Bengaluru police as suicides. It has now turned out that the three cases starting from 2011 onwards were all murders planned and executed by a gang of seven.

The Bengaluru police arrested 7 persons and it was during their interrogation that it was found that the cases being probed as unnatural deaths in reality were murders.

The mystery began to unravel when the police were probing a death that took place in 2014. Shekar, Venkatesh, Kumar, Ganesha, Nagendra Kumar, Raju and Nagendra were arrested on Tuesday. After an initial round of interrogation, they confessed to the crimes committed since 2001.

In 2001, they killed one Yellappa. It was found that Venkatesh was in an illicit affair with Yellappa's wife. When he learnt about it, the gang decided to kill him. His body was found on a railway track. In 2001 after the probe, the police dismissed it as a suicide.

In 2002, the gang killed another person by the name Ramesh. This time around it was Venkatesh's wife who was having an affair with Ramesh. His body too was found on the railway track.

The final murder was in 2014. Ramesh's brother Suresh who wanted to seek out revenge tried to kill Venkatesh. He was however overpowered, strangled to death and his body was dumped on the railway track.

How the mystery unfolded?

Munirathna, Suresh's wife filed a complaint that her husband was missing. The police after an initial round of investigation found his body. They asked her to identify the body and once she confirmed that it was Suresh, a detailed probe began.

The police spoke with people who had Suresh had met before his death. This led the cops to the gang. The police say that it was difficult to conclude at first that these were cases of murder. The bodies were in a mangled state and this did not even give them an iota of suspicion.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 8:02 [IST]
Next President of India: Murmu, Swaraj or Gehlot, the BJP's list of candidates

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Will it be Draupadi Murmu, Sushma Swaraj, Thawar Chand Gehlot or Venkaiah Naidu as the next President of India? On Wednesday, the Election said the the Presidential polls would be held on July 17 and counting for the same would be conducted on June 20.

Next President of India to be elected on July 17

The BJP which is confident of electing a candidate of its choice would however look for a leader who is acceptable to all. BJP's national president Amit Shah had said that his party will discuss with others. He however did not specify if there would be a consensus candidate.

What you should know about Draupadi Murmu, the next President of India

However the BJP would like to win this election of putting in place a consensus candidate. A win in this poll would be a signal of strength ahead of the polls in both Gujarat and Karnataka.

Electoral College: Here is how the next President of India will be elected

For now the BJP has narrowed down the list to four. However there could always be a surprise as has been seen in the past by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Sources tell OneIndia that currently the four names are consideration are Draupadi Murmu, Sushma Swaraj, Thawar Chand Gehlot or Venkaiah Naidu.

Draupadi Murmu She is currently the Governor of Jharkhand. Her career in politics spans over 2 decades. She will be the first tribal to be the President of India if selected by the BJP. She is the daughter of late Biranchi Narayan Tudu. Hailing from Odisha, she was also a former minister in the government there. Thawar Chand Gehlot Thawar Chand Gehlot born on 18 May 1948 is the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment in the Union Government led by Narendra Modi. He is a member of the Rajya Sabha representing the state of Madhya Pradesh. He formerly represented Shajapur in the lower house of Indian Parliament, Lok Sabha from 1996 to 2009. Sushma Swaraj The kind samaritan who always solves problems of those who reach out to her on Twitter is the External Affairs Minister of India. If the BJP is looking for a consensus candidate, then she would be the ideal choice. Moreover there are rumours that she may not continue as the External Affairs Minister due to health conditions. Venkaiah Naidu There is no real clarity about Venkaiah Naidu. Several sources that we spoke with clearly indicate that he is being considered for the post of next Vice President of India. The BJP would want him to head the Rajya Sabha and hence the post of VP sounds more suitable for him. However he could well become the surprise pick for the post of next President of India.

Schedule for next President of India:

Date of notification: June 14 2017

Last date for nominations: June 28

Scrutiny of nominations: June 29

Last date for withdrawal of nominations: July 1

Election date: July 17 between 10 am and 5 pm

Counting of votes: July 20

OneIndia News
UK PM Liz Truss resigns after 45 days in office, successor to be elected next week

PM Modi arrives in Astana to attend SCO summit

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, June 8: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reached Kazakhstan where he will attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and meet some foreign leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At the summit in Astana, India and Pakistan will become the full members of the grouping, which at present comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will also be attending the summit but the Indian government has ruled out any bilateral meeting between him and Modi in view of the tensions between the two countries.

"I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter- terrorism cooperation, among other things," Modi said in his pre-departure statement on Wednesday.

At this meeting, on completion of the process, India will become a full member of the SCO upon which the SCO will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of the global GDP, the prime minister said.

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," he added.

On the evening of June 9, he will also attend the inauguration of the Astana Expo with the theme of Future Energy.

PTI
Recalling Digvijaya's firing squads of Mutlai: Uncanny similarities with Mandsaur

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Mandsaur incident is a heart rendering one. Politics is being played over it. Rahul Gandhi's visit to Mandsaur is aimed at politicising the issue, the BJP has said. However what needs to be said here is that there was a similar incident that took place in Madhya Pradesh, 19 years back in which 18 farmers were killed in police firing.

When the Multai incident took place, it was Digivijaya Singh who was the chief minister of MP. There were reports calling the police force as Digvijaya Singh firing squads. The similarities between Multai and Mandsaur are uncanny in nature. In both incidents, the protests took place over the issue of loan waiver. In 1998, the farmers had gathered under the banner of the Kisan Sangharsh Morcha, which was floated by Dr Sunilam (Sunil Mishra), a PhD from Delhi University and member of the Janata Dal national executive, to fight for their rights.

In Mandsaur, the farmers are demanding loan waiver and a higher price for their produce. In both the protests at Multai and Mandsaur, the event began on a peaceful note. It only turned violent later.

The Kisan Morcha had issued an ultimatum to Digvijay that if the demands were not met by January 11, they would resort to a road blockade and gherao Multai's tehsil office. On January 12, a 15,000-strong farmer contingent gathered outside the building and as tempers ran high, a few farmers started pelting stones at the policemen. The police who were enraged began shooting at random and in the incident 18 farmers lost their lives.

In Mandsaur too the protest began on a peaceful note. It was only after a couple of days that the farmers went berserk and damaged vehicles, railway tracks and also engaged in rioting.

In both Mandsaur and Multai, the protest spread across the state quickly. In Multai the police got orders to open fire. An MLA of the BJP Shailendra Pradhan had said that they were shooting to kill.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 11:58 [IST]
Saharanpur violence: 'Mastermind' Chandrasekhar of Bhim Sena arrested

India

oi-Anusha

The Uttar Pradesh police on Thursday arrested Bhim Sena chief Chandrasekhar in connection with Saharanpur caste clashes. The 30-year-old Dalit leader, better known as Chandrasekhar Azad Ravan, who had gone absconding was arrested from Himachal Pradesh's Dalhousie by a Special Task Force team of UP Police. The UP police claim that he was the mastermind behind the caste clashes in Saharanpur where lives were lost.

Chandrasekhar is accused of promoting caste clashes that rocked the district on May 9. Based on a tip-off, UP police arrived in Himachal Pradesh in civil clothes and traced Chandrasekhar down from where he was arrested. Chandrasekhar had been on the run ever since the police booked him for egging Dalits to clash with the police on May 9.

The UP police had declared a reward of Rs 12,000 for any information leading to Chandrashekhar and his aides' arrest. The Bhim Sena chief had offered to surrender in court if 37 Dalits who had been arrested were released when he emerged on stage at a massive rally in New Delhi's Jantar Mantar.

On May 5, members of Thakur and Dalit communities clashed in Sharanpur district's Shabirpur village. Clashes broke out after members of Bhim Army had objected to a procession of Rajput king Maharana Pratap to pass through Dalit-dominated areas. The Dalits had asked the percussionists to turn off music blaring out of loudspeakers as they passed by a Ravidas temple. After the Rajputs declinedclashes broke out. Violence once again broke out after some 20 Dalit houses were torched and many vehicles were torched. A man named Sumit Rajput was killed in the clashes and 16 people were injured.

On May 9, Chandrasekhar had called for a Dalit mahapanchayat but the police denied permission for the same. Despite permission being denied, Dalits started congregating at the venue which led to the arrest of several Dalit leaders. A police chowki was burnt down and over 20 vehicles were torched while several instances of stone pelting and clashes were reported. Chandrasekhar was booked for encouraging the clashes.

OneIndia News
Explained: Why did the ECI freeze the symbol of the Shiv Sena

Not just future of Sena but democracy at stake, says Uddhav

Shiv Sena once again pitches Bhagwat's name for President

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena, an NDA ally, on Thursday once gain pitched RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's name for President.

The party said it may take an 'independent' stand in the run-up to the presidential election on July 17. This is not the first time Sena has come up with Bhagwat's name for Rashtrapati Bhavan.

In March, Sena MP and 'Saamana' Executive Editor Sanjay Raut said the National Democratic Alliance and the BJP, in particular, should think of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief if it wanted to fulfill its dream of achieving a "Hindu Rashtra".

"This has been discussed in our party. Even Sena President Uddhav Thackeray is of the opinion that for making India a 'Hindu Rashtra', Bhagwat should be made the President," Raut had told media persons.

Bhagwat, however, rubbished such reports and said he would not accept it even his name is put forth.

A month later, Shiv Sena had proposed NCP chief Sharad Pawar's name for the next President. MP Sanjay Raut then described Pawar as a 'worthy leader' with the 'right credentials'.

The presidential election is due on July 17. The election notification will be issued on June 14 while the last date for the nomination is June 28.

(With agency inputs)

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 18:54 [IST]
SP leader Abu Azmi's nephew arrested for running international drug cartel

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The nephew of Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi was among the four to be arrested by the police for allegedly running an international drug racket, police said. During the operation conducted by the Delhi police, five kilograms of drugs worth Rs 40 crore was seized. The special cell of the Delhi police said that party drug MDMA also known as ICE was seized. Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA is a popular drug in Delhi, Mumbai and Goa. It is in huge demand for rave parties.

Explaining the modus operandi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said that the accused had planned on smuggling the drugs to the US and UK. They were planning to parcel the drugs in several packets and courier it across to the UK and US.

The police further said that Aslam, 43 was arrested from a hotel in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. An accomplice of Kailash Rajput, he ran the cartel from his hotel room, the police also said. Aslam was tasked with looking after the network in India, the police also added.

Aslam was in Dubai till 2008 where he worked as a cargo officer. He returned and worked in Goa till 2013. It is said that he allegedly came in contact with drug peddlers in Goa who were Rajput's men.

Rajput was arrested by the Mumbai police in 2014. During the trial stage, Aslam helped him a lot and the two became closer. Rajput however jumped bail and fled to Dubai and is believed to be running the racket from there.

Rajput would send the drugs to India and the same would be distributed by Aslam, investigations have shown. Aslam had contacts in UAE, Spain, USA, France, Germany and other West Asian countries through whom he would distribute the drugs.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 6:12 [IST]
'If I have nominated even one person using authority, I'll resign': Kerala governor on VC row

Thiruvananthapuram shuts down as BJP calls for Hartal, exams postponed

India

oi-Anusha

Shops and establishments remained shut as BJP's dawn to dusk hartal began on Thursday in Thiruvananthapuram. While public transport has not been affected greatly, examinations including the higher secondary exams have been postponed to June 14.

A 12-hour strike has also been called in Cherthala in protest of alleged CPM workers hurling petrol bomb at BJP office on Wednesday night. Bike-borne miscreants hurled petrol bombs at the BJP's district committee office in Thiruvananthapuram. The attack was said to be in retaliation to manhandling of CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury at the AKG Bhavan in Delhi earlier on Wednesday.

Clashes between workers of both parties were reported from various places. The CPM too has called for hartal at Olavanna panchayat in Kozhikode after their party office was attacked on late Wednesday night.

Shops and establishments remained shut as the hartal began on Thursday. The Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithy has called for a hartal in Kumily till Thursday noon after one of the merchants was attacked allegedly by CITU workers.

OneIndia News
This BJP leader wants momos banned, deems them worse than alcohol, drugs

India

oi-Anusha

A BJP legislator from Jammu and Kashmir and a lawyer, Ramesh Arora wants a ban on momos. The BJP leader claimed that the dumplings were addictive and worse than alcohol and psychotropic drugs. His core contention was that the dish contains monosodium glutamate or Ajinomoto, a carcinogenic that causes cancer and eventual death.

The BJP leader has called for a ban on momos and deemed it "the root cause of several life-threatening diseases, including cancer of the intestine." The legislator has started a campaign to ban the popular street food that's a favourite across the country. For the last five months, Ramesh Arora has been speaking in public functions pushing for a ban on momos.

Momos are not the only thing on this 'food campaigner's' mind. He also takes pride in calling himself a campaigner against 'cancer-causing Chinese cuisine laced with monosodium glutamate'. While his concerns over Ajinomoto, a chemical flavour enhancer made sense since the WHO declared it unsafe in 2004, seeking a blanket ban on food came as a shocker to many.

"Ajinomoto, a kind of salt, causes serious diseases, including cancer. It is responsible for converting a minor headache into a migraine. The salt induces the pancreas to excrete extra drops of insulin, causing an imbalance in the body and prompts people to overeat as it triggers hunger. Besides memory loss, regular consumption for two to three years causes cancer of the stomach. Researchers have found to be more harmful than alcohol and psychotropic drugs," he told the media.

So serious is this legislator in his fight against momos that he met health minister Bali Bhagat recently to persuade him to prohibit the sale of momos and Chinese street food. He claims that his campaign has brought down the sale of momos by 35 percent in Jammu.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 13:34 [IST]
Talented, driven and great potential: President Putin is all praise for India and Indians

Russia not reliable for energy or security, US warns India

The Western bias and why it cannot digest Indias success

26-year-old Indian student shot at in California

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

An Indian student from Telangana is critical after he was allegedly shot at by an unidentified person in a shop in California, US.

Mubeen Ahmed (26), who is pursuing MS from California University, was shot in a shop where he had taken up part-time work. The incident took place at 6 pm on June 4, reports Times of India.

The family was informed about the incident on June 5 by some relatives. He is said to be in critical condition.

Mubeen' parents sought help from Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao and other public representatives.

Majlis Bachao Tehreek leader Amjedullah Khan has written to Union External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and NRI affair minister K T Rama Rao to help Mubeen's family.

In February, Mamidala Vamshi Chander Reddy from Telangana's Warangal district was allegedly shot dead at Milpitas, California by a man suspected to be a carjacker. But, the culprit responsible for the killing was arrested. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had assured all assistance to the family of the deceased.

Attacks on Indian students still continue even after US administration assured that America is a safe place for students.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 12:03 [IST]
Xi Jinping tells Chinese army to prepare for war, fight and win it

China lashes out at Pentagon remarks, calls it 'irresponsible'

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Beijing, June 8: China has dismissed a Pentagon report about Beijing's military development, saying the country is justified in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the media reported on Thursday.

"The report, regardless of facts, made irresponsible remarks on China's national defence construction, as well as justifiable activities to maintain territorial sovereignty and security. China is resolutely opposed to it, "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday.

The US Department of Defence released its annual report to Congress regarding developments in the Chinese military in 2016, reports the People's Daily.

Hua said China firmly adheres to peaceful development while resolutely pursuing a defensive military policy, and is a staunch force in safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"China's national defence configuration aims to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the justifiable right of a sovereign country."

"We hope that the US will abandon its Cold War mentality and take an objective and rational look at China's military development," she said.

The 97-page report predicted that China is likely to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has long-standing friendly relationships, such as Pakistan, the People's Daily reported.

The spokeswoman refused to specifically comment on such speculation, but said China and Pakistan are traditionally friendly neighbours and have benefited from long-term cooperation in every sector.

IANS
Xi Jinping tells Chinese army to prepare for war, fight and win it

China slams Pentagon report, says remarks irresponsible

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Beijing, June 8: China has dismissed a Pentagon report about Beijing's military development, saying the country is justified in safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the media reported on Thursday.

"The report, regardless of facts, made irresponsible remarks on China's national defence construction, as well as justifiable activities to maintain territorial sovereignty and security. China is resolutely opposed to it, "Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday.

The US Department of Defence released its annual report to Congress regarding developments in the Chinese military in 2016, reports the People's Daily.

Hua said that China firmly adheres to peaceful development while resolutely pursuing a defensive military policy, and is a staunch force in safeguarding peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

"China's national defence configuration aims to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. It is the justifiable right of a sovereign country."

"We hope that the US will abandon its Cold War mentality and take an objective and rational look at China's military development," she said.

The 97-page report predicted that China is likely to establish additional military bases in countries with which it has long-standing friendly relationships, such as Pakistan, the People's Daily reported.

The spokeswoman refused to specifically comment on such speculation, but said China and Pakistan are traditionally friendly neighbours and have benefited from long-term cooperation in every sector.

IANS

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 12:16 [IST]
Donald Trump offers to help resolve Qatar crisis in call with Emir

International

pti-PTI

Doha, June 8: US President Donald Trump called Qatar's emir on Wednesday and offered US help as efforts grew to resolve a damaging feud between the emirate and its Gulf neighbours.

Trump's call to Qatari ruler Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, a key US ally, came as a senior Emirati official told AFP that Gulf Arab states were not seeking regime change in Doha.

"The president offered to help the parties resolve their differences, including through a meeting at the White House if necessary," Trump's office said after the call.

A Qatari official said that Trump in the call had "expressed readiness to find a solution to the diplomatic crisis in the Gulf, and stressed his keenness that the Gulf remains stable."

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and Bahrain announced on Monday they were cutting diplomatic ties and closing air, sea and land links with Qatar, giving Qataris within their borders two weeks to leave.

The four countries have suspended all flights to and from Qatar, pulled their ambassadors from Doha and ordered Qatari diplomats to leave.

Riyadh and its allies accuse Qatar of supporting extremist groups and of serving the interests of regional arch-rival Iran, claims Doha has strongly rejected.

The dispute has sparked the worst diplomatic crisis in the Arab world in years and raised fears it will cause further instability in an already-volatile region.

The United Arab Emirates' state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash on Wednesday accused Qatar of being "the main champion of extremism and terrorism in the region".

But he also said measures taken against Qatar this week by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab nations were not aimed at seeking new leadership in Doha.

"This is not about regime change- this is about change of policy, change of approach," Gargash told AFP in Dubai.

Kuwait is leading efforts to find a mediated solution

Its emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, on Wednesday arrived in Doha, where he was received by his Qatari counterpart, Kuwait's official KUNA news agency said.

Earlier on Wednesday, he met Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum and other senior UAE officials in Dubai, after talks the day before with King Salman in Saudi Arabia.

The Kuwaiti ruler played a pivotal role in mediating a compromise in a 2014 diplomatic dispute between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states.

The United States, France and Russia have called for dialogue while Turkey has defended Qatar and said it would further develop ties with Doha.

Turkey's parliament on Wednesday approved deploying troops to a Turkish base in Qatar under a previously agreed plan, in a move seen as a sign of support for Doha.

Trump waded into the dispute on Tuesday, but seemed to only muddy the waters. After first appearing to back the Saudi-led measures against Qatar on Twitter, he shifted gears and called for unity among Gulf Arab states.

Trump's Tuesday tweet- in which he said "all reference was pointing to Qatar" as a financer of extremism - was especially surprising given Qatar's role as host of the largest US airbase in the Middle East.

Al-Udeid, located in the Qatari desert, is home to some 10,000 US troops and is a crucial hub in the fight against Islamic State group extremists in Syria and Iraq.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel accused the US president of fanning conflict in the Middle East and risking a new spiral in arms sales with his remarks.

Such a 'Trumpification of relations in a region already susceptible to crises is particularly dangerous," Gabriel said.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf countries still saw Qatar as a brother state.

"But you have to be able to tell your friend or your brother when they are doing the right thing and when they are doing the wrong thing," Jubeir said in a joint press conference with Gabriel.

Qatar has said that it is open to talks to end the crisis but has also accused its neighbours of impinging on its sovereignty.

In a sign of the potential risks to Qatar's economy, S and P Global Ratings cut Qatar's credit rating by one notch to AA- and put it on watch for further downgrades.

"There are numerous uncertainties regarding Qatar's response, the extent to which these measures will be imposed, and their longevity," said the ratings agency.

Qatar has an independent streak that has often angered its neighbours, attracting criticism for hosting the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, and supporting Islamist rebels in Syria.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies may have felt emboldened to move against Qatar by Trump's visit last month to Riyadh, which saw the president clearly align US interests with the kingdom and lash out at Iran.

Riyadh has itself faced accusations of tolerating or even supporting extremists, in particular after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Of the 19 hijackers of planes used in the attacks, 15 came from Saudi Arabia, also the birthplace of Al-Qaeda founder and attack mastermind Osama bin Laden.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 8:58 [IST]
In Iran, men and women are 'equal' only in torture

Iran blames Saudi Arabia after 12 killed in Tehran terrorist attack

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Iran's Revolutionary Guards have blamed Saudi Arabia for the first terrorist attack claimed by Islamic State in which 12 people were killed and dozens more injured.

Gunmen and suicide bombers on Wednesday attacked the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of the revolutionary founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, publishing a brief video that purported to show the assailants inside the parliament, reported The Guardian.

According to reports, Reza Seifollhai, the deputy head of Iran's National Security Council, said on state television that the assailants were Iranian Isis recruits.

The United States also condemned the deadly attacks in Iran, saying the "depravity of terrorism" has no place in the world. Yet the assaults failed to slow the US Senate which voted to move ahead on imposing new sanctions on Iran, including on its elite Revolutionary Guards.

(With agency inputs)

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 10:11 [IST]
Xi Jinping meets Kazakh leader on first trip since pandemic

Want to watch NASA scientists aboard Soyuz rocket to Space Station? Here's how

Kazakhstan's balancing act between the EU and Russia

Kazakhstan is biggest supplier of Uranium to India: MEA

International

oi-Madhuri

India and Kazakhstan on Thursday discussed ways to expand their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana.

Kazakhstan keen to invite Indian investors in areas of manufacturing,textiles, renewable energy& IT, to which PM responded positively: MEA pic.twitter.com/ldR0F2hDU9  ANI (@ANI_news) June 8, 2017

While addressing a press conference, MEA spokesperson Gopal Baglay said,''There will be two daily flights connecting Astana and Delhi starting in the first week of July.''

He also said,''Kazakhstan is biggest supplier of Uranium to India and both PM Modi & Kazakhstan Pres Nazarbayev spoke to maintain partnership in this field.''

PM Modi also invited Kazakhstan to become a member of the International Solar Alliance, to which Pres Nazarbayev responded very positively.

''Connectivity through Iran is an important area of cooperation for strengthening of trade and commerce,'' he added.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 23:10 [IST]
Let Flynn probe go: The James Comey bombshell on Trump, Read the statement here

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Donald Trump asked me to let the Flynn investigation go said fired FBI Director James Comey. He said that Trump had demanded his loyalty to drop a probe into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn and repeatedly pressured him to publicly declare that he was not under probe.

The CNN referred to it as a blockbuster appearance on Capitol Hill. The document gives a detailed account of Comey's account and his meetings with the President.

Read his full testimony here:

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing:

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President- Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified.

Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI's counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect.

Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI's leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau's goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets.

The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked.

Sometimes it involves "turning" the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counter- intelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power.

When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will "open an investigation" on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally.

That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President- Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward.

This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) - once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months - three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner:

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and

invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten- year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others.

He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "That's what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me."

As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further. The term - honest loyalty - had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them.

He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn't happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren't, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting:

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counter- terrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk.

The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter- Terrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn." Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn't done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information - a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied only that "he is a good guy." (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would "let this go."

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December.

I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President's request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General's role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.

After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members - or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them - aware of the President's request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President's concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me.

I told the AG that what had just happened - him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind - was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI's potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call:

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as "a cloud" that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country.

He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to "lift the cloud." I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week - at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him

I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out." (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some "satellite" associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn't brought up "the McCabe thing" because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe's wife) campaign money. Although I didn't understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing "the cloud" that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia- related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call:

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that "the cloud" was getting in the way of his ability to do his job.

He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

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Story first published: Thursday, June 8, 2017, 9:35 [IST]
Modi, Nawaz Sharif exchange pleasantries in Astana

International

pti-PTI

Astana, Jun 8: Prime Minister Narendra Modi exchanged pleasantries with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at a reception here tonight amid escalating Indo-Pak tensions over a range of issues.

Official sources said Modi and Sharif exchanged greetings when they were in the leaders' lounge for the reception at the Astana Opera organised to welcome the leaders who are participating in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit.

Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's heart surgery, Modi enquired about his health, the sources said. Modi also enquired about Sharif's mother and family, they said.

Earlier, asked whether Modi and Sharif will have a bilateral meeting, External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "Our position has not changed. There is no proposal from their side. There is no proposal either from our side." India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

Both Modi and Sharif arrived here today to participate in the SCO Summit which will tomorrow induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying.

The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution. The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.

PTI
Tibet Airlines plane catches fire after it veers off runway at China's Chongqing airport: Watch video

Two Chinese nationals killed in Balochistan by ISIS

International

oi-Madhuri

Islamic State on Thursday claimed killing of two Chinese nationals, who were abducted in Mastung, Balochistan.

According to the US-based SITE monitoring service, the claim was made in a brief Arabic message carried by the group's Amaq news agency. There was no immediate confirmation from Chinese or Pakistan officials.

The two Chinese workers were abducted in Quetta where the pair had been studying Urdu at a language centre.

Hours earlier the Pakistan army issued a statement saying its forces conducted an operation against the IS group earlier this month, killing up to 15 militants from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi (LeJA) who were in communication with IS about establishing a base in Balochistan.

Following the incident, China had asked Pakistan to improve security, especially in Balochistan where it is building the strategic Gwadar port.

On May 13, ten labourers working on a linking road project of the Gwadar port were shot dead by motorcycle-borne gunmen.

During the incident last month, one Chinese woman had managed to escape when the abductors fired in the air to disperse onlookers but they managed to get hold of two others.

OneIndia News
UK votes as PM May looks to add muscle to Brexit talks

International

pti-PTI

London, Jun 8: People across Britain voted in large numbers on Thursday in the crucial general election, being held under the looming shadow of the two terror attacks, that is predicted to boost Prime Minister Theresa May's majority in Parliament and add muscle to her Brexit negotiations.

Conservative party leader May and Labour chief Corbyn were among the early voters as they cast their votes at the end of a frenetic 50-day campaign that suffered breaks due to terrorist strikes in Manchester and London. May was joined by husband Philip at her Maidenhead constituency in south-east England, while Labour party's Corbyn cast his ballot at Holloway in London -- the two main choices before the electorate to take over as the new Prime Minister after the snap poll announced on April 18. Voting was underway at more than 40,000 polling stations across the country.

A total of 650 MPs will be elected. About 46.9 million people, including an estimated 1.5 million Indian-origin voters are registered to vote. May is on course to increase her majority in the House of Commons with a final General Election 2017 poll giving the Tories a lead of eight points over Labour as the nation headed to the ballot box, British media reported.

The Conservatives had as much as a 24 point lead when the snap election was called by the Prime Minister. Ipsos MORI's final 2017 election survey for the Evening Standard, which was undertaken on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, put the Conservatives on 44 per cent and Labour on 36. Meanwhile, a YouGov poll that was published on Wednesday evening put the Tories on 42 per cent and Corbyn's Labour Party on 35, a lead of seven points.

To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats. May, 60, called the election three years earlier than scheduled ahead of what are expected to be tough negotiations with the European Union over Britain's exit from the 28- member-bloc -- Brexit.

Britain last voted in a general election in 2015, when then Prime Minister David Cameron won a majority with 331 MPs for the Conservative party. Since then the referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union (EU) in June 2016 has meant a very different political landscape. Brexit led to Cameron's resignation last year and May's selection by the Tories as their leader. The ongoing voting is the fourth major UK poll in three years, following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the 2015 general election, and the 2016 Brexit vote.

Police have increased security at polling stations, including patrols by armed officers in some areas, following the recent terror attacks. A spokesperson for the UK's National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters has said security around polling stations was being "constantly reviewed and updated by local police forces". "Every London borough will have a specific, dedicated policing operation. Across London there will be a specialist and highly flexible operation in place that can deploy and respond as needed," a Scotland Yard statement said.

There was visible police presence at many of the polling booths, with armed officers on guard in some areas, following the two major terrorist attacks during the election campaign - a suicide bombing in Manchester that claimed 22 lives and an attack by three terrorists who drove a van into pedestrians and then went on a stabbing spree, killing eight persons before being shot dead. Political parties had called a halt to campaigning both times but May had said that terrorism must not be allowed to derail the democratic process. May decided to overturn the UK's Fixed Term Parliament Act, which would have seen an election being held after a fixed five-year term in 2020 and called a snap general election back in April with the aim of winning a strong mandate for Brexit negotiations.

The first results in today's polls are expected to pour in before midnight local time with the final results declared by tomorrow afternoon. The shape the new government is likely to take is expected to emerge after midnight, with a steady trickle of results until about 2 AM (local time) when declarations should start to come in from across the UK. The main wave of results is expected to start at about 3 AM (local time) with the overall picture likely to be clear by about 5 AM (local time) tomorrow. The leader of the winning party traditionally waits for the leader of the losing party to concede defeat before claiming victory. It remains to be seen if May's decision to call a snap general election follows the forecast patterns of the latest opinion polls and betting odds or the Corbyn-led Labour party is able to make a dent into her slim majority in the House of Commons. Many of the votes have already been cast through postal voting, which accounted for 16.4 per cent of the total electorate at the 2015 general election.

Overall turnout in 2015 was 66.4 per cent, up from 2010. Counting will begin immediately after the polls close, with each vote counted and checked by hand. The pre-poll forecasts have also been echoed in the nearly 100 million pounds expected to be bet on the outcome of the polls. "Generally, on average, the polls tend to point toward a fairly small Tory majority, whereas the betting is more optimistic of the PM landing a majority of around 70 seats," said a betting expert at Ladbrokes, one of the UKs leading bookmakers. Betfair, another leading bookmaker, also views the Tories as the odds-on favourite to win the general election, with odds of 1/12.

However, there are some pundits who point out that the pre-poll patterns are following similar trends as for the Brexit referendum vote in June 2016, the outcome of which had taken most pollsters by surprise. The betting odds being offered for a hung Parliament have also narrowed after some recent opinion polls had indicated the possibility of such an outcome.

Officially, it takes 326 seats for an overall majority in the House of Commons. In the 2015 general election, then Prime Minister Cameron led the Conservatives to victory winning 331 seats, giving the Tories a small but significant majority, and the Labour party won 232 seats.

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Water Treatment Products Market by Global Industry Trends, Size, Growth, Shares and Forecast to 2022

Water Treatment Products

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Water Treatment ProductsReport Details:This report focused on global and regional market, major manufacturers, as well as the segment market details on different classifications and applications.Major Key PlayersGE Water&Process TechnologiesVeolia Water Solutions & TechnologiesKemiraDupontBASFDowEvonikBayerSolvay ChemicalAshlandAries ChemicalNalcoKroffProchemServyecoHubbard-HallClick 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 Water Treatment Products in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoAntifoamsDisinfectantsNeutralizing AgentsOtherOn 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 Water Treatment Products for each application, includingIndustrial Water TreatmentResidential Water TreatmentOtherSome Major Points from Table of content:Global Water Treatment Products Market Research Report 20171 Water Treatment Products Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Water Treatment Products1.2 Water Treatment Products Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Water Treatment Products Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Water Treatment Products Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Antifoams1.2.4 Disinfectants1.2.5 Neutralizing Agents1.2.6 Other1.3 Global Water Treatment Products Segment by Application1.3.1 Water Treatment Products Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Industrial Water Treatment1.3.3 Residential Water Treatment1.3.4 Other1.4 Global Water Treatment Products Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Water Treatment Products 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 Water Treatment Products (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Water Treatment Products Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Enquiry about Report @7 Global Water Treatment Products Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 GE Water&Process Technologies7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 GE Water&Process Technologies Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Kemira7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Kemira Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Dupont7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Dupont Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 BASF7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 BASF Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Dow7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Dow Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Evonik7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Evonik Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Bayer7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Bayer Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Solvay Chemical7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Solvay Chemical Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Ashland7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Water Treatment Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Ashland Water Treatment Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business Overview...ContinuedBuy now @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTPartner Relations & Marketing Managersales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1- 646-845-9349 (US)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 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
Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Market Professional Survey Report 2017 Raw Material, Suppliers, Capacity, Growth Rate Analysis and Commercial Production, Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Pipette & Pipette Tips

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Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Market Professional Survey Report 2017Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Pipette & Pipette Tips Market -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Try Sample Report @Covered In This Report:This report studies Pipette & Pipette Tips in Global market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2012 to 2016, and forecast to 2022.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringSorensenUSA ScientificSartoriusCorningBRANDHamiltonNichiryoCappLabconSocorex Isba S.AVISTALAB TECHNOLOGIETecan Group HomeSarstedt AGBiotixOhausGreinerScilogexPerkinElmerBioplasDragon LaboratoryBy types, the market can be split intoPipettePipette TipsBy Application, the market can be split intoColleges and UniversitiesHospitalResearch InstituteOthersBy Regions, this report covers (we can add the regions/countries as you want)North AmericaChinaEuropeSoutheast AsiaJapanIndiaIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Access Complete Report @Table of ContentsGlobal Pipette & Pipette Tips Market Professional Survey Report 20171 Industry Overview of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.1 Definition and Specifications of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.1.1 Definition of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.1.2 Specifications of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.2 Classification of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.2.1 Pipette1.2.2 Pipette Tips1.3 Applications of Pipette & Pipette Tips1.3.1 Colleges and Universities1.3.2 Hospital1.3.3 Research Institute1.3.4 Others1.4 Market Segment by Regions1.4.1 North America1.4.2 China1.4.3 Europe1.4.4 Southeast Asia1.4.5 Japan1.4.6 India2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Pipette & Pipette Tips2.1 Raw Material and Suppliers2.2 Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Pipette & Pipette Tips2.3 Manufacturing Process Analysis of Pipette & Pipette Tips2.4 Industry Chain Structure of Pipette & Pipette Tips3 Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Pipette & Pipette Tips3.1 Capacity and Commercial Production Date of Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Major Manufacturers in 20163.2 Manufacturing Plants Distribution of Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Major Manufacturers in 20163.3 R&D Status and Technology Source of Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Major Manufacturers in 20163.4 Raw Materials Sources Analysis of Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Major Manufacturers in 20164 Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Overall Market Overview4.1 2012-2017E Overall Market Analysis4.2 Capacity Analysis4.2.1 2012-2017E Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Capacity and Growth Rate Analysis4.2.2 2016 Pipette & Pipette Tips Capacity Analysis (Company Segment)4.3 Sales Analysis4.3.1 2012-2017E Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Sales and Growth Rate Analysis4.3.2 2016 Pipette & Pipette Tips Sales Analysis (Company Segment)4.4 Sales Price Analysis4.4.1 2012-2017E Global Pipette & Pipette Tips Sales Price4.4.2 2016 Pipette & Pipette Tips Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment)Continued.........................Buy Now @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.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India
Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns Market 2021: Business Development Analysis

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Business Process Management (BPM), Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts 2017 to 2021.Global market are poised to achieve significant growth. As people move to cloud computing and use their smart phones and tablets to access apps, exception management of business process becomes a significant aspect of doing business. Patterns are being used to control automated process better and interact with it in a more flexible manners.Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns Market Professional Survey Report 2017-2021 Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977.The report pays very special attention to the growth exhibited by the Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns Market in key geographic segments and talks about all the favorable conditions propelling the market growth.Download Sample Copy@These trends are geographical, socioeconomic, economic, consumer, political, cultural, and their overall effect on client or consumer preferences will have a major data in how this market will form itself in the following years to come.The Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns from the perspective of all its current trends that are influencing it is important to understand in order to obtain the most rounded solution for business strategies in it.For more inquire@Dynamics and the way they impact the Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns have been studied in absolute precise details in the report. The ultimate goal for the dissemination of this information is to create a detailed descriptive analysis of how these trends could potentially affect the future of the market within the reports forecast period.The report, like all reports added to the website, is an all-inclusive and descriptive view of the Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns. It elaborates on the market dynamics, scope of growth in various segments and regions, and other parameters that have been so far effective during its expansion in terms of gaining value and size.This research study is thus a quantitative as well as a qualitative study aimed at imparting clear vision of all possible situations and structure in the Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns, as well as the drivers.The Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns is also presented to the readers as a holistic snapshot of the competitive landscape within the given forecast period. It presents a comparative detailed analysis of the all regional and player segments, offering readers a better knowledge of where areas in which they can place their existing resources and gauging the priority of a particular region in order to boost their standing in the Global Business Process Management (BPM) Cloud, Mobile, and Patterns.Key Vendors:IBMAdobeMicrosoftFujitsuRed HatTibco SoftwareSAPNECOracleAgilePointBonitaSoftAbout Research N Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat Global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact:(Research N Reports)10916, Gold Point Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064,Sunny Denis(Sales Manager),+1-8886316977,sales@researchnreports.com ,
Cloud Monitoring as a Service Market - Key Players Focus on Evolving market Trends and Dynamics

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Cloud monitoring involves the process of reviewing, monitoring as well as managing the operational workflow processes present within a cloud-based IT infrastructure. The cloud monitoring falls under cloud security and management processes and is generally implemented using automated monitoring software providing central access and control over the whole cloud infrastructure. In addition to monitoring and providing solutions, the cloud monitoring data further helps in evaluation of performance for entire infrastructure on a modular level. These services are a powerful and proactive IT monitoring platform encompassing all the essential monitoring and management capabilities required for cloud services and modern data center. Cloud monitoring as a service is a type of IT service that provides both cloud monitoring and management tools for checking the cloud based platforms, servers, websites and IT Infrastructure etc. This provides a complete managed service especially helpful for cloud and virtualization environments in organizations. It is typically seen that all these services are delivered through a SaaS (software as a service) based cloud software for detecting performance issues across cloud infrastructure.Obtain Report Details @The global market for cloud monitoring as a service has been segmented on the basis of deployment model, applications and geography. Based on the deployment model, this market has been segmented into public, private and hybrid cloud. Enterprise resource planning (ERP), human resource management (HRM), supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) among others form the various applications areas for this market globally. Global cloud monitoring as a service market on the basis of geography has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.It is the overall power of monitoring the complete IT based infrastructure forms one of the major drivers for this market. In addition to this, the application of cloud based monitoring services further provides benefits such as keeping a check over the server uptime as well as the response rate that also helps the organization in evaluation of customer/user experience. This allows the company to keep a track over the exact demands of customers along with monitoring what the organization is able to provide to its customers through the database using well defined customized software. Post monitoring all the statistics, issues if found are reported to the cloud administrators within a central dashboard through different notifications in the form of sms, e-mails etc. This allows professionals working on it to unplug from constantly watching the dashboards knowing they will be informed about the situation accordingly. With all these drivers that have a positive impact over this market, it is the presence of certain restraints such as high costs associated with its application along with the technological expertise required for the proper functioning of these cloud based monitoring services that limits the growth of this market. Besides all these, it is the growing demand for Internet of things (IoT) technology that is expected to provide more opportunities for this market in the coming years.Geographically, it is North America followed by Europe that forms some of the major regions for this market. The rise in application of IoT technology along with growing complexities in monitoring organizational databases has been some of the major drivers to positively impact this market. Asia Pacific further contributed as another important region for this market along with being one of the fastest growing regions globally. China and India among others are some major countries pushing the growth of this market. Application of cloud based technology along with technological advancement has been a few major drivers for this market in Asia Pacific region.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Some of the key companies present in the global cloud monitoring as a service market include Amazon.com, Inc. (The U.S.), Cisco Systems (The U.S.), Google (The U.S.), IBM Corporation (The U.S.), Microsoft Corporation (The U.S.), Oracle Corporation (The U.S.), CA Technologies (The U.S.), SAP SE (Germany), YAHOO! Inc. (The U.S.), and Hewlett-Packard (The U.S.) among others.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Connected Logistics Market - Growth Catalysts, Market Trends And Key Players

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The installation of connected logistics systems helps to enhance the operational efficiency of different logistics applications such as warehouse management, fleet management, inventory management, tracking and monitoring and telematics connectivity. Internet of things (IoT) is the core technology which is used in connected logistics systems. The global connected logistics market is growing rapidly and is expected a significant growth during the forecast period. Owing to the rising need for the effective management of temperature-sensitive products is driving the growth of the connected logistics market globally. Connected logistics are used in a wide range of industry vertical including automotive, aerospace and defense, retail, oil and gas, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing among others.Obtain Report Details @The global connected logistics market is expected to grow during the period of 2017- 2025. The rising need for temperature sensitive products in food and beverage and pharmaceuticals industry is acting as a driver for this market. Additionally,various countries across the globe are revving up their defense infrastructure, which is in turn contributing to the growing demand for connected logistics. Moreover, increasing need for minimizing the wastage of drugs which occurred by lack of sufficient cold chain storage the market of connected logistics is growing significantly and is expected a stable growth during the forecast period. The food and beverages industry is suffering from huge amount of food wastage due to temperature issues. Therefore, the natural environment is damaging by disposing the food wastage using inappropriate technique. Hence, the organizations are spending on technologies such as connected logistics systems to avoid these issues, which help to booming the connected logistics market globally. However many organization are still reluctant to install the Internet of Things (IoT) mainly in logistics due to lack of awareness of this products and its benefits.The ongoing technological advancement in the connected logistics industry is acting as an opportunity for the market.For instance; the new smart connected logistics are basically used in various applications such as mobile technology, logistics transparency and others. The rising innovation in mobile technology is expectedto fuel the growth during the forecast period. Recently many organizations in the domestic and international markets are raising the usage of technologies to manage their distribution systems and supply chain management (SCM). One of the key factor that booming the demand for mobility trends in supply chain management systems such as wireless connectivity, application development, advancements in M2M communication systems and platform integration that offers a convenient and easy access to supply chain related data.The global connected logistics market is segmented in four categories: by transportation systems, by application, by platform and by end use. By transportation systems the market can be divided intorailways, roadways, airways and seaways. In terms of application, the market of connected logistics can be divided into remote asset management and monitoring systems, warehouse automation systems, security management systems and data and network management systems. In terms of platform, the market can be segregated into device management platform, application enablement platform, network management platform. In terms of end use the market of connected logistics can be divided into retail, manufacturing, oil and gas industry, aerospace and defense, automotive and food and beverages among others.By geography, the market of connected logistics is divided in five major regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Europe and North America are the early adopters of technology and thereforethese two regions are expected to occupy majority of the market share. However, Asia Pacific is anticipated to see fastest growth during the forecast period due to the presence of developing nations such as China and India. This growth is endorsed to the availability of skilled workforce required to connected logistics market.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @The key players participating in the connected logistics market are IBM Corporation (Armonk, New York), SAP SE (Walldorf, Germany), Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, California), A&T Inc.( Maryland, U.S.A.), Intel Corporation (Santa Clara, California), Cloud Logistics (Florida, U.S.A.), Infosys Limited (Bengaluru, India), HCL Technologies Limited (Noida, India), Orbcomm Inc.( New Jersey, U.S.A), Eurotech S.P.A (Province of Udine, Italy), and Freightgate Inc.( Fountain Valley City in California) among others.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Data Center Rack Server Market - Trends, Growth Propellers, Segmentation And Top Players

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The data center rack server is an electrical framework which is particularly designed for house servers, data center computing equipment networking devices and cables among other end uses. The data center rack server provides an orchestration and room for equipment within the data center facility. The data center rack server is an integration of mounting slots which are called bays. The bay stacks hardware units with secured bolted enclosures. The data center rack server is a more economical compared to more expensive tower server. The data center rack server is designed is a way so that it can accommodate multiple servers by stacking the servers one above the other. The data center rack server is designed to integrate multiple servers and also provide reduction in the required floor space. The data center rack server also provides simplification in the wiring between multiple network components.Obtain Report Details @Some of the factors driving the data center rack server include growing need for superior density servers, increase in need for data center which are scalable, reduction in Opex and Capex and easy up gradation to latest technology. Some of the factors which are expected to restrain the market over the next few years include emergence of new technologies and improved requirement to support infrastructure. Growth in cloud related technology and data center is a key opportunity for the data center rack server market growth over the new future. Further exponential growth in the data center traffic is another key opportunity for the market growth. A key challenged faced by the data center rack server manufacturer is the requirement of air conditioning systems, heating and ventilation for the smooth functioning of the server.The data center rack server market by data center type has been segmented into enterprise data centers, midsized data centers and large data centers. The data center rack server market by end use industry has been segmented into IT and telecommunication, banking, insurance and financial sector, healthcare, defense and surveillance, government sector, research and development, manufacturing sector, power sector and others. The IT and telecommunication sector led the data center rack server market in terms of revenue and is also expected to growth at the fastest rate over the next few years. There is huge requirement of servers to store and manage a mammoth amount of data for the IT and telecommunication sector and this is expected to drive the data center rack server market over the next few years.Geographically the data center rack server market has been broadly segmented into North America, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Europe. North America is expected to be the largest contributor for the data center rack server market in term of revenue. Asia Pacific is expected to growth at the fastest rate over the next few years owing to massive demand from the IT and telecommunication sector. The data center rack server market in North America is expected to continue dominating the market over the next few years due to advancement in technology and presence of large number of data center which finds application across a wide range of industries would further the drive the market in this region.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @The key players operating in the data center rack server market include Oracle Corporation (The U.S), HPE (The U.S.), Dell Inc., (The U.S.), Fujitsu Ltd., (Japan), Lenovo Group Ltd. (The U.S.), Cisco Systems, Inc., (The U.S.), NEC Corporation (China), Huawei Technology Co., (China), Iron Systems, Inc (The U.S.) and Quanta Computer, Inc. (Taiwan) among others. The key players operating in the data center rack server market involve in product innovation through research and development to gain competitive advance over its competitors.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Data Center Services Market - Pin Point Analysis For Changing Competitive Dynamics

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A data center can be termed as networked computers and data storage centers, which are setup by an organization for its own requirements or are leased to other organizations, for saving, processing, organizing, storing and disseminating large amounts of data. In general, organizations rely largely upon the applications, services and data contained within the data center. Thus data centers have become a business critical asset, for several organizations, globally. Data center services refer to all such services which are either provided by the data center or are needed for effective operation of the data center. The services offered by data centers often depend on the tier of the data center. Tier 1 data centers are mostly preferred by the smaller enterprises, as it generally has lesser data availability requirements. Tier 2 data centers are preferred by medium to large enterprises, whereas services of tier 3 data centers are mostly required by large enterprises. The services offered by or to tier 3 data centers are generally the most comprehensive in nature. The tier 3 data centers are generally capable of offering wide portfolio of services, large amounts of storage space, all time physical and network security, disaster management capabilities, superior power backup, high-end heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems among others.Obtain Report Details @The market for data center services is expanding at a very fast pace. The fast growth pace can primarily be attributed to the growing demand for cloud services across enterprises. Application of cloud technology, at both individual and enterprise levels, have been growing at a tremendous pace in recent years. Cloud service providers opt for data centers since in-house data centers requires large amounts of investments, coupled with high maintenance cost and also often lacks the facilities provided by these data centers. This in turn has been boosting the market for data center services. Additionally, the growing amount of data being generated and collected, coupled with the growing demand for big data analysis, have also been promoting the growth of data center services globally. Furthermore, the expansion in array of services offered by data centers has led to several organizations opting for such services. This has further buoyed the market for data center services globally. However, the higher cost of tier 2 and tier 3 data centers and relatively higher downtime in tier 1 data centers have been restraining the growth of the market to certain extent. The high growth rate of data generation, growing internet of things (IoT) connected devices usage, huge growth in automation across different industry verticals and higher demand for data security are some of the trends which are expected to offer unique growth opportunities for the data center services market.The global data center services market has been segmented on the basis of service type into service provided to data centers and services provided by data centers. Services provided to data centers have been segmented into consultation service, installation services, technical support and maintenance services among others. The services provided by data centers segment has been further segmented into collocation services, hosting services, storage services and others. On the basis of data center type, the global data center services market has been segmented into Tier I, Tier II and Tier III. By end use, the market for global data center services has been segmented into aerospace & defense, banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI), healthcare, education, retail and others.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @The major companies of the data center services market globally are NTT Communications Corporation (Japan), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (The U.S.), IBM Corporation (The U.S.), PTS Data Center Solutions, Inc. (The U.S.), Signature Technology Group (The U.S.) Cisco Systems, Inc. (The U.S.), Equinix, Inc. (The U.S.), Vertiv, Co. (The U.S.), Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan) and Huawei Technologies, Co. Ltd, (China) among various other companies.About Us :Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact Us :-Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Protein A Resins Market share valued $900mn by 2024

Global Market Insights, Inc.

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The global report Protein A Resins Market Size By Application (Immunoprecipitation, Antibody Purification), By Product (Natural protein A, Recombinant Protein A), By Matrix (Agarose, Glass/Silica Gel, Organic Polymer), By End Use (Biopharmaceutical, Clinical Research, Academic Research, CRO), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland, Japan, China, India, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt), Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024 by Global Market Insights, Inc. says Protein A Resin Market size is slated to surpass USD 900 million by 2024.Order This Report by calling Global Market Insights, Inc. at 1-888-689-0688 (Toll Free) or 1-302-846-7766.The differentiating factor of Protein A Resins market report by Global Market Insights, Inc. when compared with other, similar syndicated research studies includes a 360-degree synopsis of trends for a period of more than 10 years including historic information as well as future outlook. Business focussed multiple trends for Protein A Resins industry are discussed along with regional trends to offer an overall view of the market. The industry insights chapter of this research provides the most comprehensive analysis of Protein A Resins market covering segmentation, size, forecasts, ecosystem analysis and more. Industry impact forces (regional and global) that cover growth drivers and challenges, growth potential analysis, a strategy dashboard for competitive landscape of Protein A Resins market support this sector specific data and information points.Request for a sample of this research report -The increasing usage of monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes will multiply Protein A resins market revenue in the years ahead. Industry players are focusing on manufacturing copious quantities of biosimilars to reduce the escalating medicine costs, which depicts a positive growth for the industry. Beneficial government norms supporting production of biosimilars will also spur the global demand for the products. As per Global Market Insights, Inc., Protein A Resins Industry, which accumulated a revenue of USD 440 million in 2015, is slated to surpass USD 900 million by 2024.Protein A resins are extensively used in antibody purification and immunoprecipitation processes. Antibody purification application segment is forecast to hit USD 700 million by 2024 and will contribute notably towards protein A resins industry size. Enhanced use of antibodies for diagnosing and treating dreaded diseases will push the revenue.Immunoprecipitation, which contributed over 20% of protein A resins market share in 2015, is forecast to record a CAGR of 8% over the period of 2016 to 2024. Escalating usage of protein A resin products in purifying specified composites will help the industry to progress rapidly.Browse key industry insights spread across 127 pages with 123 market data tables & around 8 figures & charts from this 2017 report Protein A Resins Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Contract research organizations, biopharmaceutical firms, academic research institutions, and clinical research institutes are the prominent end-use industries that extensively use protein A resins. Protein A resins market size from contract research organizations (CRO) is forecast to surpass USD 130 million by 2024, growing at an annual rate of 8.1% over 2016-2024. Massive outsourcing of protein purification processes by pharmaceutical & biotechnology firms and academic institutes will complement the growth.Biopharmaceutical firms, which contributed more than 75% of protein A resins industry share in 2015, will hit a revenue margin of over USD 680 million by 2024. Global requirement for monoclonal antibodies for efficient diagnosis will augment the revenue.Based on the product trends, protein A resins industry is classified into natural protein A resins and recombinant protein A resins. Natural protein A resins market is forecast to grow at a rate of 8% over 2016-2024 and will hit revenue of over USD 580 million by 2024. Highly beneficial product characteristics such as enhanced antibody production, convenient operation, and antibody purification will augment the growth.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Taking into consideration the regional trends, APAC protein A resins market is expected to record a CAGR of 8.5% over the period of 2016-2024. Beneficial legislations, reasonably developed healthcare infrastructure, and the easy availability of experts has prompted many CROs and biopharmaceutical firms to set up their business in the region. Japan protein A resins industry, worth USD 37 million in 2015, is intended to reach USD 78 million by 2024.U.S. protein A resins industry, which accounted for over 85% of North America protein A resins market revenue in 2015, will witness a remarkable expansion over the coming years. A robust clinical infrastructure coupled with stringent government regulations regarding the usage of protein A resin products will play a vital role in shaping the business across the region.Mexico protein A resins market is forecast to grow at a rate of 8% over the period of 2016-2024 and will drive the LATAM industry size. Growing use of monoclonal antibodies in clinical research activities is expected to impel the revenue.Considering the matrix trends, protein A resins industry is segmented into organic polymer, agarose, and glass/silica gel. Agarose-based matrix, which contributed over 80% of protein A resins market size in 2015, is intended to record an annual growth of 8.3% over the period of 2016-2024, driven by ligand binding stability of this particular matrix. Silica gel based matrix is expected to register considerable gains of 8.4% over the coming seven years.Strategic collaborations and product innovations are a couple of important business strategies adopted by leading companies to increase their return on sales and expand their business. Key industry participants include Danaher Corporation, Purolite Life Sciences, Novasep Holding SAS Company, GE Healthcare, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Bio-Rad Laboratories Incorporation, Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, GenScript Biotech Corporation, Agarose Bead Technologies, Takara Bio Incorporation, Expedeon Limited, and Merck Millipore Corporation.Browse Related Reports:Clinical Nutrition Market Size By Product [Infant Nutrition (Milk, Soy, Organic), Parenteral Nutrition (Amino Acids, Fats, Carbohydrates), Enteral Nutrition (Standard Composition, Disease Specific Composition)], Regional Outlook (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Japan, China, India, Australia, Malaysia, Mexico Brazil, South Africa, UAE, Saudi Arabia), Application Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Medical Gas Equipment Market to grow at 7.7% CAGR from 2016 to 2024

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Medical Gas Equipment Market to see huge growth opportunities due to advancements in the pharmaceutical industry and rising geriatric population. The increasing occurrence of chronic respiratory diseases and rising demand for point of care and home healthcare products will accelerate the medical gas equipment industry growth. According to Global Market Insights, Inc. Medical gas equipment market is projected to witness a CAGR of 7.7% over the period of 2016-2024. Medical gas equipment has wide range of applications in biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, such as drug discovery and development, cell culture study, and pharmaceutical manufacturing, which in turn will drive the industry growth.Considering the global trends, North America medical gas equipment market, led by U.S. is witnessing rapid surge, owing to favorable industry initiatives, rising demand for minimal medical interventions, and improved access to healthcare infrastructure. The U.S. medical gas equipment market is anticipated to surpass USD 2.4 billion by 2024.Request for a sample of this research report -Europe being the second largest revenue generating region in 2015, is estimated to surpass USD 1.9 billion by 2024. Germany medical gas equipment industry is projected to exceed USD 533 million in coming seven years. Increasing assistance and support provided to the industry players from organizations such as European Industrial Gases Association and Medical Gas Association will promote the business expansion.Asia Pacific region is also poised to observe escalating gains from China medical gas equipment market which is projected to grow at an annual rate of 10% over the period of 2016-2024. Growing geriatric population, rising number medical casualties, and high prevalence of pulmonary diseases will propel medical gas equipment market growth.To access sample pages or view this report titled, Medical Gas Equipment Market Size By Product (Manifolds, Outlets, Hose Assemblies and Valves, Alarm Systems, Cylinders, Flowmeters, Regulators, Medical Air Compressors, Vacuum Systems, Masks), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, Japan, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024 in detail along with the table of contents, please click on the link below:Major products in the medical gas equipment industry include manifolds, outlets, vacuum systems, masks, medical air compressors, regulators, and cylinders. Growing vacuum systems penetration and high cost should profit the vacuum systems industry share. Vacuum systems having had accounted for 30% of the overall medical gas equipment market in 2015, is projected to exceed a revenue of USD 2.2 billion by 2024.Medical mask is another profitable product segment of the medical gas equipment industry growing at an annual rate of 9.2% over the period of 2016-2024. Due to its low manufacturing cost and high demand, the medical masks sector is likely to be the fastest growing segment of the industry. Moreover, other products including regulators, manifolds, and gas outlets are also poised to witness significant gains in the coming years.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Increasing healthcare spending capacities in the emerging economies such as India and China will hold high growth potential for the medical gas equipment industry. Moreover, implementation of favorable regulatory actions by U.S. FDA Safety and Innovation Act and another supportive organizations such as Compressed Gas Association (CGA) and Gases and Welding Distributors Association (GAWDA) will positively influence the growth of medical gas equipment industry. Global medical gas equipment market share is highly consolidated with key players such as Air Liquide and Linde Gas accounting for over 38% of industry revenue in 2015. Other key industry participants include Praxair, BeaconMedaes, Air Products and Chemicals, Matheson Tri-Gas, and Air Gas.Browse Related Reports:Medical Oxygen Concentrators Market Size By Product (Portable, Fixed), By Application (Home Care, Non-Home Care), By Technology (Pulse Dose, Continuous Flow), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, UK, Germany, Japan, China, South Africa, Brazil), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2023About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Industrial Emission Control Systems Market to Reach $21,133 Million, Globally, by 2022

Industrial Emission Control Systems Market- Allied Market research

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Industrial Emission Control Systems Market Report, published by Allied Market Research, forecasts that the global market is expected to garner $21,133 million by 2022. Electrostatic precipitators (ESP) are estimated to dominate the market from 2015-2022. Asia-Pacific led the market, accounting for around 40% of the global market in 2015.Emission control systems are devices that monitor and diminish the hazardous products, which are released into the atmosphere by combustion and other emission processes in the industrial environment. Emission sources such as power plants, cement, mining & metals, and chemical industries utilize this equipment to convert such air contaminants into water vapor and carbon dioxide, which can be safely released into the atmosphere. The global market for industrial emission control systems is driven by the stringent environmental regulation standards, rapid industrialization, growth in coal power industry in developing countries and cement industry, and adoption of stringent mercury emission regulations. However, the market growth is limited by the increase in use of alternate fuels for power generation and decrease in investment in coal power sector from developed countries such as the U.S. and other European countries.Do sample report request of Industrial Emission Control Systems Market for study:The global market based on equipment type is segmented into electrostatic precipitators (ESPs), fabric filters, scrubbers, cyclone separators, thermal oxidizers, catalytic reactors, and others. Among these, ESPs dominated of the market with around 34.3% share. High adoption rate of these equipment is due to their low operating costs, high efficiencies, and temperature flexibility. The market for ESPs is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% over the forecast period.Based on the emission source type, it is divided into power generation, chemical, cement, mining & metals, pulp & paper, manufacturing, and others. Power generation was estimated to be the most dominant emission source, and may retain its lead in the future. Coal-fired power plants have the highest pollutant emission rates among all the industrial sources. These plants release harmful air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), particulate matter, and others, which are being controlled by use of advance emission control technologies. The growth in the market for power generation segment is driven by installation of new power plants and retrofit activities in existing plants.The global market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. Asia-Pacific was the most dominant market in 2015, and is expected to continue to its this trend throughout the forecast period. In this region, major downstream industries such as power generation, building materials, chemicals, and pulp & paper have created high demand for extraction, desulphurization, and emission control equipment. The market in Asia-Pacific is dominated by China, which witnessed rapid development in the past few years due to the high level technology, booming downstream industries, and increasingly stringent regulations.Do online purchase inquiry of Industrial Emission Control Systems Market:Asia-Pacific is estimated to be the fastest growing regional market for industrial emission control systems, owing to growth in the Chinese and Indian markets. This is expected to be attributable to growth in power generation sector and government initiatives in infrastructure and urban development, which drive the cement industry.Key findings of the Industrial Emission Control Systems Market : In 2015, ESPs led the overall market revenue, and are projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period. The thermal oxidizers segment is expected to grow at a significant CAGR of 9.2% owing to their ability to destroy odors and toxic VOCs and operate at high efficiencies. Cement industry segment is projected to grow at a CAGR of 8.3%. China is the major shareholder, accounting for around three-fourths of the Asia-Pacific industrial emission control systems market.The key players in the industrial emission control systems focus on expanding their business operations in fast-growing emerging countries and adopt acquisition as their key growth strategy. The major players profiled in this report include General Electric Company, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd., Fujian Longking Co., Ltd, Johnson Matthey PLC, Ducon Technologies Inc., Babcock & Wilcox Co., AMEC Foster Wheeler PLC, CECO Environmental Corp, Hamon Corporation, Thermax Ltd, and BASF SE.About Us:Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free: +1-800-792-5285help@alliedmarketresearch.com
Online CRM Software Market Dynamics And Growth Rate 2017-2022

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This report studies the global Online CRM Software market, analyzes and researches the Online CRM Software development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, like, Salesforce, Microsoft, Zoho, ACT!, GoldMine, Nimble, Insightly, SugarCRM, Highrise, Sage CRM, NetSuite, Pipedrive, Yonyou, HubSpot, bpm'online, Oracle, Velocify, Hatchbuck, Bitrix24, BSI.Ask for sample copy@Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers, United States, EU, Japan, China, India, Southeast Asia. Market segment by Type, Online CRM Software can be split into, On-premise CRM, Cloud CRM, Other. Market segment by Application, Online CRM Software can be split into, Manufacture, Logistics Industry, Financial, Telecommunications, Others.Buy a copy of Global Online CRM Software Market for single user price of $ 3300@Key factors for this report:1 Industry Overview of Online CRM Software1.1 Online CRM Software Market Overview1.1.1 Online CRM Software Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Online CRM Software 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 Online CRM Software Market by Type1.3.1 On-premise CRM1.3.2 Cloud CRM1.3.3 Other2 Global Online CRM Software Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Online CRM Software 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 FutureView this report@About us:Research Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the clients specific requirement. Our database consists of a large collection of high-quality reports obtained using a customer-centric approach, thus providing valuable research insights.Contact Us:Address: Flat No.10, Wing C, S. No. 245/4/2+245/5/1, Baner, Pune-411045Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +91 7507349866Skype ID: researchtradesconWeb:
Connected Agriculture Market to Record Ascending Growth by 2025

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Many people are depending upon agriculture for their livelihood. There are many smallholder farmers are facing problems due to poverty, literacy and not able to access the information in the country. To avoid the poverty smallholder farmer has to enhance their skills and knowledge to improve the productivity of farming and raise the income. So Information Communication Technology (ICT) and Mobile telecommunications play an important role by providing the information of Connected Agriculture technology, this will provide knowledge to the farmers by their various tools methods, pesticides, seeds, fertilizer, fuel and machinery used in agriculture. Connected agriculture technology has also improved the financial solutions for farming. Due to this advanced technology, there is greater investment in agriculture and farmers are having access to real-time information and services in agriculture.To View Complete Report @ :The key driving growth in the market for connected agriculture is the source of mobile telecommunication which can connect the farmers to different markets such as finance, education, can check commodity price, weather forecast, different agriculture techniques, commodity exchanges, different traders, sellers and buyers for the agriculture products for farming. This will increase the production in farming and proper use water and greenhouse gas emission. By this, many telecommunication service providers are focusing on connected agriculture, as the demand is increasing.A sample of this report is available upon request @By mobile, the farmers use payment services, where they can trace their payment which is given to traders, or loans taken from the bank and many other things. Connected agriculture technology is enhancing farmers capability to have financial transaction easily, especially in rural areas.In contrast to this, many farmers dont know how to use this different technology and their functions on mobile or on the internet. Many farmers are still living in remote areas due to poverty where they dont have access to the internet or telecommunication services.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @The report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.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:
Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Production, Consumption, Size, Sales, Revenue, Market Share, Growth And Forecast 2017

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"The Report Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Report 2017 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Cervical Traction Devices MarketIn this report, the Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices 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 Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Cervical Traction Devices for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), includingGet Sample Copy of this report @ChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanIndiaSoutheast AsiaAustraliaAsia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Cervical Traction Devices sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingRS MedicalComforTracDJOMagister CorporationPettibon SystemCorePosture PumpPMTView Report @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 intoPortable TypeMechanical TypeInflatable TypeOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Cervical Traction Devices for each application, includinHospitalHome UseIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsAsia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Report 20171 Cervical Traction Devices Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Cervical Traction Devices1.2 Classification of Cervical Traction Devices by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Portable Type1.2.4 Mechanical Type1.2.5 Inflatable Type1.3 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospital1.3.3 Home Use1.4 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Cervical Traction Devices (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3 China Cervical Traction Devices (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 China Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 China Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 China Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 China Cervical Traction Devices Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 China Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.3 China Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 Japan Cervical Traction Devices (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.3 Japan Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.3 South Korea Cervical Traction Devices Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationMarketResearchReports.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.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Research report covers the Biobased Propylene Glycol Market share and Growth, 2014-2020

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Propylene glycol, also known as 1,2-propane-diol, is a multifunctional chemical used in several industrial fields, pharmaceuticals, food and cosmetics. Conventionally, it is obtained from petroleum based feedstock for industrial scale production. Recent developments have uncovered a new technique for obtaining propylene glycol from corn starch. The process involves production of carbohydrates from starch.Biobased products are adopted on the premise that they are environment friendly attributed to their renewable origin. However, environment friendliness of any product depends upon various factors some of which include emission of green house gases throughout various steps involved in a products lifecycle, i.e., from raw material production to degradation of after-use residues through production, distribution and end-use. Some biobased products might be environment friendly until they are converted to finished products but might breakdown into toxic residual materials. Biobased propylene glycol process was compared to the petroleum based route to find out the environment friendliness of both methods by Archer Daniels Midland Company. The results showed that there is a 61% reduction in green house gases emissions, proving that biobased propylene glycol performs better than petroleum based propylene glycol in terms of carbon footprints.Request For Report Sample@Propylene glycol is a multi functional material that can be utilized for several applications. It can serve as solvent, connect and stabilize insoluble fluids as an emulsifier, help in binding and transportation of other substances as an excipient. It can also be used to hold and dissolve active ingredients in a medium, attract, hold, water or moisture as an hygroscopic material, reduce freezing point, and increase boiling point.Regulatory pressure to reduce carbon footprint and a general shift towards environment friendly products to enhance sustainability of processes is expected to drive the market for biobased propylene glycol. Additionally, with increase in disposable income of the rapidly growing population the market of personal care products and food products is expanding due to the escalating demand. This, in turn, adds to the demand for biobased propylene glycol. However, competing uses of the biobased feedstock sources such as corn and soy as foods and biofuels might hamper the market growth by causing supply shortages. Furthermore, supply of raw materials also depends upon the yield of the crops and the number of farmers undertaking the production of corn and soy.Polypropylene glycol is primarily used as a chemical intermediate, especially for unsaturated-polyester resins utilized in surface coatings and fiberglass reinforcement for structures. Polypropylene glycol is also utilized for the production of industrial chemicals and personal care products, cosmetics and pharmaceutical preparations and solvent for colors and flavors in food, liquid detergents & household products, plasticizers, pet food, lacquers & varnishes and tobacco humectants.Request For TOC@North America and Europe are likely to be the leading markets supported by strict regulations regarding carbon footprint, green house gases emissions and sustainability initiatives. U.S. in North America and Brazil in South America are among the largest producers of corn and soy, which secures supply of the raw materials for biobased feedstock production in these regions. Asia Pacific and Rest of the World markets are expected to grow rapidly with initiatives being taken towards sustainability and reduced carbon footprint. China and Japan are leading in shift towards sustainable processes and reduction in carbon footprint of the industries in the region. This is anticipated to fuel growth of biobased propylene glycol in these regions.Some of the key players producing biobased propylene glycol include Archer Daniels Midland Company, Ashland Incorporation, Cargill and the Dow Chemical Company.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:
Regenerative Braking Systems Market To Make Great Impact In Near Future by 2020

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Increasing demand for fuel efficient vehicles, increasing efforts for mitigation of carbon emissions and rising cost of fuels, are pushing the Automakers to seek for development of energy efficient systems. This changing dynamics has significantly led to developments in regenerative braking systems market. Nowadays, energy recovery systems in vehicles are increasingly getting employed in passenger as well as commercial vehicles to improve fuel economy and reduce vehicular emissions.As a result for the need of better fuel-economy the regenerative braking systems market has evolved, which is gaining a significant growth in global automotive industry because of energy saving application.Nowadays, regenerative braking systems have become an important feature in hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. In these type of vehicles, regenerative braking systems are used to generate electricity by convertingmomentum loss during application of brakes. The amount of recoverable energy depends upon the vehicle speed and stopping pattern, 5% to 20% of transmitted energy can be saved by using regenerative braking systems. This energy is then transferred to on-board auxiliaries or comfort functions such as climate control. This energy can also be stored as electricity and then returned to the drive train during acceleration or whenever required. This energy can either be stored in batteries or banks of super capacitors. The energy saving features are one among the latent drivers of regenerative braking systems market.Request For Report Sample@The factors driving the growth of global regenerative braking systems market are growing concern for controlling vehicular emission, rising fuel cost and growing concern for advance technology. Although, factors such as increased overall cost of car and maintenance are the major challenges.The global regenerative braking systems market is geographically segmented intosevenkey regions which are, North America, South America,Eastern Europe, Western Europe,Asia Pacific, Japan andMiddle East & Africa. As of 2013, North America dominates the overall global regenerative braking systems market value, followed by Asia Pacific, Europe and others. Asia Pacific is projected to register a significant CAGR for the forecast period in global regenerative braking systems market. This growth is fuelled by increasing penetration rate of hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in regions like Japan, South Korea and China.Growing concern for controlling vehicular emission in Europe region is also expected to drive the growth of global regenerative braking systems market for forecast period.On the basis of passenger vehicle type, the regenerative braking systemsmarket is segmented into three sub-segments, which are, hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The hybrid vehicle sub-segment of global regenerative braking systems market is the predominant in terms of market value dueincreasing adoption of hybrid vehicles in regions like North America and Europe. The hybrid vehicle passenger sub-segment is forecast to have higher growth rate in regenerative braking systems market, followed by plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles.Request For TOC@Some of the key players in the global regenerative braking systems market include Continental AG, Delphi Automotive PLC, Denso Corporation, Robert Bosch GMBH and TRW automotive. Acquisitions and mergers are key strategies adopted by major companies to expand their geographical presence and market share in global regenerative braking systems market along with an enhanced customer base.In future, deployment of advanced regenerative braking systems with more efficiency and less prone to energy loss during transmission will provide a completive edge for automotive OEMs.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:
Energy Efficient Windows Market to grow at 10% CAGR from 2016 to 2024

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The research report Energy Efficient Windows Market Size By Glazing (Double Glazing, Triple low-E), By Adoption (Replacement, Insulation), By Window (Up to 6, >6 to 10, >10), By Application (Residential, Commercial), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, China, Japan, Australia), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2024; Energy Efficient Windows Market size looks poised to exceed USD 15 billion by 2024; impelled by rising energy conservation demand.Strong global drive for reducing energy consumption along with rising awareness to curb GHG emissions will influence energy efficient windows market growth over the years to come. For instance, energy efficient windows help in the energy conservation for heating and cooling activities across residential constructions.Commercial and residential constructions account for a major portion of carbon emissions, thereby favorably influencing the global industry trends over the next few years. In addition to this, the booming construction sector is expected to contribute substantially toward the energy efficient windows industry revenue in the near future.Request for a sample of this research report @Double glazing energy efficient windows industry is anticipated to continue its domination over the period of 2016-2024, driven by its growing need for maintaining room temperature across commercial and residential infrastructures. Triple low-e energy efficient windows industry is anticipated to grow at a rate of 11% over the coming period of 2016-2024, owing to heavy investments in R&D activities along with growing initiatives to increase energy efficiency.Energy efficient windows finds extensive application across commercial and residential sectors. Commercial application is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% over the coming timeframe, due to favorable government policies supporting erection of green structures plus high rate of commercialization across the APAC regions. Rise in the number of construction activities along with high consumer awareness regarding energy conservation is forecast to boost energy efficient windows market revenue in the residential sector.Below are the regional trends favorably impacting global energy efficient windows market over 2016-2024: Europe energy efficient windows industry size is expected to record substantial gains over the period of 2016-2024, driven by stringent legislations implemented by the EU to reduce overall power consumption. Increase in the number of construction activities across countries such as Japan, China, and India is projected to positively impact Asia Pacific energy efficient windows market over the coming period of 2016 to 2024. High investments in infrastructural projects will further drive the industry growth in the region over the next few years. Rapidly expanding commercial sector along with notable support from the government encouraging the use of energy efficient goods is expected to propel North America energy efficient windows industry. Furthermore, the growing efforts for reducing energy consumption as well as CO2 emissions from buildings is expected to boost the regional revenue. U.S. and Canada are expected to make major contributions towards the regional share. South & Central America energy efficient windows industry is anticipated to witness a noticeable growth over the coming period of 2016-2024, driven by high demand for reducing electricity bill costs.About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Automotive Refinish Coatings Market to register a healthy CAGR for the forecast period, 2015-2025

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Automotivevehicles require timely maintenance and repairing to enhance the appearance and durability of vehicle by protecting them from external factors such as extreme temperature and UV radiation. For the need of refinishing the automotive refinishing coatings are frequently used in automotive aftermarket by end-users like automotive body shops and automotive repair centers. For durability, speed and perfect matching color the service providers use advance technology such as spray gun to apply primer and color coats of paints. Refinishing coatings are also applied to components and body of vehicle to protect from deterioration caused by foreign particles such as stone and other debris.An increasing demand for refinishing of vehicles across the globe, has led to significant improvements in automotive refinish coatings market such asdevelopment of advance coating material which are eco-friendly and low-solvent content. These products also provide good blend of ease of use, speed, durability and color match.Some of the underlying growth factors in global automotive refinish coatings market is consistent increase in number of vehicles in operation worldwide. Increase in miles driven, road accidents, and demand for recreational vehicles are the major drivers responsible for the growth of global automotive refinish coatings market. However, volatility of raw material prices and enhanced road safety parameters are some of the major challenges inglobal automotive refinish coatings market.Request For Report Sample@The global automotive refinish coatings market is geographically segmented into seven key regions which are, North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Asia-pacific is leading automotive refinish coatings market in terms of revenue due to rising vehicles in operation and increasing sales of pre-owned cars. However the growth in North America, Eastern Europe and Western Europe is expected to remain stagnant for the forecast period. Growth in automotive refinish coatings market is relatively high in BRIC nations when compared with matured economies due to developing automotive aftermarket in these countries. This rapid growth in automotive refinish coatings market is fuelled by multiplemacro-economic factors such as rising number of cab-services, increasing car customization and rising capacity of collision repair& vehicle body shops. In addition, it is expected that in the next 30 years the total number of passenger cars in developing countries would reach around 3.5 to 4 billion.On the basis of product type the global automotive refinish coatings market is further segmented into two sub-segments which are Solvent-borne Coatings and water-borne Coatings. The solvent-borne coatings dominates the global automotive refinish coatings market, whilst for the forecast period the growth rate of water-borne coating type is estimated to be high. In Europe and North America automotive refinish coatings market adoption of water-borne coating material segment is increasing rapidly due to government regulationsto reduce volatile organic compounds (VOC) level, which is generally high in solvent-borne coatings.Request For TOC@Some of the examples of market participants in global automotive refinish coatings market are DuPont Performance Coating, BASF SE, Kansai Paint Co. Ltd, Akzo Nobel N.V, KCC Corp, Noroo Paint Coatings Co. Ltd., PPG Industries Inc., and Matrix System Automotive Finishes.In future, global automotive refinish market is expected to grow significantly in terms of volume and value. This growth will give rise to new product development with enhanced properties like quick drying, cost-efficient and high performance coatings.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (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:
Market Research on Military Vehicles and Aircraft Simulations Market 2015 and Analysis to 2025

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Military vehicles and aircraft simulation have now become critically important due to high safety and security reasons in every part of the world. Growing need to cut down the cost of pilot training, technological developments, and introduction of new generation aircrafts is escalating the growth in the global military vehicles and aircraft simulation. Additionally, increased environmental impacts, cost of fuel and real wear and tear on weapon system, is anticipated to be the major target market in near future. The simulation technology (imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time) allows both commercial and military trainees to learn faster and master to advance on and off road operations along with handling hazardous and dangerous situations without risk to machine and man. However, simulation of technology is used in many contexts such as safety engineering, education, training, testing, performance optimization, video games and others. It is also used in computer experiments to study simulation models.The military vehicles and aircraft simulation continues to gain importance in the aerospace, defence and military industry. With reduced financial resources, governments are taking initiatives to cut down on training budgets. Owing to this, currently militaries are focusing on attaining cheaper and more effective solutions for their training requirements. Owing to this, flight simulations has evolved to become an essential part of civil aviation operations and military capability. It is a device that artificially creates the environment for flight (where it flies) for pilot training and other purposes. Flight simulator may vary from one model to another and is widely used in commercial and military applications. As a result, training in a fight simulator is more operative than training in aircraft, also it has made a major contribution towards the aviation industry.Request For Report Sample@Military Vehicles and Aircraft Simulations Market: Drivers & RestraintsTo accommodate new generation aircrafts, mission rehearsal and simulation technologies are moving forward along with embed in a variety of military systems to carry out training in reality at reasonable cost. Commercialization of unmanned aerial vehicles is the emerging trend and will give new opportunities to this market. A fundamental growth driver to the market is growing awareness over the benefits of virtual pilot training. Additionally, demand for trained pilots and crew members, technological advancements, rising demand for air transportation which has further resulted in growing needs for safety and security concerns along with cost advantages are the drivers identified in the military vehicles and aircraft simulations market. Safety regulations and push from the government side is also helping in increasing the degree of awareness among the users. However, high implementation cost, lack of reliable communication and complexity in system are the major setback for military vehicles and aircraft simulations market.Military Vehicles and Aircraft SimulationsMarket: SegmentationOn the basis of types global military vehicles and aircraft simulations can be broadly into: Virtual, Live, and Constructive and others. On the basis of application global military vehicle and aircraft simulation market is segmented into: Platform, System and Maintenance. On the basis of system, global military vehicles and aircraft simulations can be further segmented into: Flight simulation and Non-Flight Simulation.Military Vehicles and Aircraft SimulationsMarket: Region-wise OutlookThe global military vehicles and aircraft simulation market is expected to register CAGR of 6.27 percent over the forecasted period 2015-2025. Depending on geographic regions, global military vehicles and aircraft simulation market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. In terms of regions, Europe accounts for the largest market share followed by North America. Asia Pacific market is projected to register a significant CAGR during the forecast period. Increasing demand for training of pilots and rising demand for air transportation along with technological updates is fuelling the growth of global military vehicles and aircraft simulations market in Asia Pacific. Eastern Europe and Latin America are also forecast to register a significant growth in the global military vehicles and aircraft simulations market, as growing awareness over the pilot training is expected to grow in these regions as well.Request For TOC@Military Vehicles and Aircraft SimulationMarket: Key PlayersSome of the players identified in the aircraft simulation are FLIGHTRiX (Command Sims Pvt. Ltd.), Presagis (formed through the acquisition of three industry leading companies includes Engenuity Technologies, MultiGen-Paradigm, and TERREX.), Rheinmetall Defence, Alsim, Atlantis System Corp., CAE Inc., Bae Systems PLC, FlightSafety International Inc., Moog Inc., Simteq B.V., Lockheed Martin Corporation, Thales Group, Rockwell Collins, PMDG, Israel Aerospace industries, ATC Flight Simulator, Mechtronix Inc., L-3 Communications Holdings Ltd., among many 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:
Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Production, Consumption, Size, Sales, Revenue, Market Share, Growth And Forecast 2017

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"The Report Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Report 2017 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Lubricant Additives MarketIn this report, the Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives 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 Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (K MT), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Lubricant Additives for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), includingGet Sample Copy of this report @ChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanIndiaSoutheast AsiaAustraliaAsia-Pacific Lubricant Additives market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Lubricant Additives sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingLubrizolInfineumChevron OroniteAftonChemturaBASFTianheAdekaAdditiv Chemie LuersAkzo NobelDow ChemicalIPACMiracema NuodexPCASSanyo Chemical IndustriesVanderbiltView Report @On 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 intoSingle ComponentAdditive PackageOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K MT), market share and growth rate of Lubricant Additives for each application, includinHeavy Duty Motor OilPassenger Car Motor OilMetal Working FluidsOthersIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsAsia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Report 20171 Lubricant Additives Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Lubricant Additives1.2 Classification of Lubricant Additives by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Single Component1.2.4 Additive Package1.3 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Heavy Duty Motor Oil1.3.3 Passenger Car Motor Oil1.3.4 Metal Working Fluids1.3.5 Others1.4 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Lubricant Additives (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Lubricant Additives Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3 China Lubricant Additives (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 China Lubricant Additives Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 China Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 China Lubricant Additives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 China Lubricant Additives Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 China Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.3 China Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 Japan Lubricant Additives (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 Japan Lubricant Additives Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Japan Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Japan Lubricant Additives Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 Japan Lubricant Additives Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 Japan Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.3 Japan Lubricant Additives Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationMarketResearchReports.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.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Production, Consumption, Size, Sales, Revenue, Market Share, Growth And Forecast 2017

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"The Report Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Report 2017 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Medical Imaging Equipment MarketIn this report, the Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment 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 Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Medical Imaging Equipment for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), includingGet Sample Copy of this report @ChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanIndiaSoutheast AsiaAustraliaAsia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Medical Imaging Equipment sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingPhilips HealthcareGE HealthcareSiemens HealthcareHologicShimadzuSamsung MedisonHitachi MedicalGenesis Medical ImagingCarestream HealthFujifilm HoldingsFonar CorporationToshiba America Medical SystemsView Report @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 intoX-Ray DevicesUltrasound SystemsComputed Tomography (CT) ScannersMagnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) EquipmentNuclear Imaging EquipmentOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Medical Imaging Equipment for each application, includinHospitalsClinicResearch InstituteIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsAsia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Report 20171 Medical Imaging Equipment Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Medical Imaging Equipment1.2 Classification of Medical Imaging Equipment by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 X-Ray Devices1.2.4 Ultrasound Systems1.2.5 Computed Tomography (CT) Scanners1.2.6 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Equipment1.2.7 Nuclear Imaging Equipment1.3 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Hospitals1.3.3 Clinic1.3.4 Research Institute1.4 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Medical Imaging Equipment (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3 China Medical Imaging Equipment (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 China Medical Imaging Equipment Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 China Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 China Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 China Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 China Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.3 China Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.3 Japan Medical Imaging Equipment Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationMarketResearchReports.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.Mr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA: Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market Growth with Worldwide Industry Analysis to 2025

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Global Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market: OverviewPolypropylene random copolymers are produced by modifying the fundamental structure of polypropylene by incorporating another monomer molecule. Ethylene being the most common monomer used. The ethylene molecules, in the polymer chain, are introduced randomly between the propylene molecules. The incorporation of ethylene causes change in the physical properties of polypropylene. Random copolymer polypropylene usually contains about 1 to 7 weight percent of ethylene molecules and around 93 to 99 weight percent of propylene molecules.As compared to polypropylene homopolymers, random copolymers shows better optical properties like increased clarity and decreased haze, increased flexibility, improved impact resistance, and a lowered melting point resulting in a reduced heat-sealing temperature. However, exhibiting more or less the same chemical resistance, organoleptic properties like low taste and odor contribution, and water vapor barrier properties as polypropylene homopolymers. Random copolymers are generally produced in the same process configuration as the homo polymers.Random copolymer polypropylenes finds use in blow molding, injection molding, and extrusion molding applications that require improved clarity and . They are used in medical packaging, food packaging, and consumer products.Request For Report Sample@Global Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market: SegmentationGlobal polypropylene random copolymers market is segmented on the basis of applications, end-use, and regions. The global polypropylene random copolymer market is segmented on the basis of application into blown film, blow molding, injection molding, and extrusion molding. On the basis of end-use, global polypropylene market is segmented into medical packaging, food packaging, and consumer products, etc. Region wise, the global polypropylene random copolymer market is divided into North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific (APEJ), Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Middle East and Africa (MEA).Global Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market: Region-wise OutlookThe global market share of Western European polypropylene random copolymers market is estimated to witness a drop from around 13.9% to about 11.4% in the forecast period. The fall is primarily due to a moderate increase in demand only in the largest national markets such as Germany, France, and Italy. Eastern Europe is expected to grow sharply, especially in the Russian packaging sector. The USA is reporting a recent increase in demand for polypropylene random copolymers. India and China continue to witness a huge increase of demand, owing to which Asia-Pacific is anticipated to account more than half of the total global demand by 2025.Global Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market: DriversThe introduction of newer application areas, development of bio-based polypropylene and substitution of various other materials continuously offers high potential for growth for the global polypropylene random copolymers market.Unconventional low feedstock prices are driving new capacity investment and thus rendering growth to the global polypropylene random copolymer market.Request For TOC@Global Polypropylene Random Copolymers Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players identified in the global polypropylene random copolymer market are LyondellBasell Industries, Braskem, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), Total S.A., Entec Polymers, ExxonMobil, Sasol, Chevron Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, Borealis, Formosa Plastics Group, Reliance Industries, and SABIC etc.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:
Good Growth Opportunities in Crop Sprayers Market Till 2026

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Sprayers are devices that used to apply pesticides, insecticides on plants to control pastes and diseases. Sprayers are also use to apply herbicides to control weeds and micronutrients to promote growth of plants. The sprayers breaks the chemical solution into fine droplets and distribute the insecticides uniformly over the plant. A good sprayer should produce steady stream of liquid in desired droplet size so that plants to be treat get covered uniformly. The sprayer should convey adequate pressure so that sprayer should reach all foliage over the plant. The sprayer are operated manually as well as by power.Crop Sprayers Market: Drivers & RestraintsFood drives the world. In addition to clean water, acquire sufficient food is major concern for majority of peoples in the world which makes the agriculture one of the biggest and important industry in the world. Agricultural productivity is not only the prime factor for countries economy but also for the health and security of its population. So importance of agricultural in countries economy is major driving factor for crop sprayer market.Population explosion, increasing incomes, declined natural sources and changing climate conditions affected food prices to rise and agricultural productivity once again become a major concern. Strategies to increase food productivity imparts the use of technology in agriculture. Such strategies will helps to drive crop sprayers market.Green revolution have changed the concept of traditional farming. Extensive efforts to modify farming methods assisted to increase the food production in Asia Pacific and Latin America. There are some regions in Middle East and Africa where many effort were taken to apply the green revolution approaches but failed. So there is need to help the farmers to use farming equipment in farming. Farmers in undeveloped countries does not have disposable income to use modern techniques in farming. So there is need of government initiatives to assist the farmers.Request For Sample@Crop Sprayers Market: Market SegmentationCrop sprayers market can be segmented on the basis of Capacity of SprayersUltra Low Volume Sprayers (less than 5liters/hectare)Low Volume Sprayers(5 to 400 liters/hectare)Manually OperatedKnapsack SprayersRocker SprayersPedal Operated SprayersStirrup SprayersPower Driven SprayersKnapsack Power SprayersHigh Volume Sprayers(More than 400 liters/ hectare)Self-Propelled SprayersMounted SprayersTrailed SprayersCrop Sprayers Market: Regional-OutlookThe global Crop Sprayers market has been divided into seven key geographical regions which includes, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific will be dominating market for Crop Sprayers. Countries like India, China, and Indonesia are major agricultural promoting countries in Asia Pacific. There will be demand for Low volume sprayers in India as there is farming in small plots. Farming land in India is bisected. China and Indonesia will demand High volume sprayers. Asia Pacific is followed by North America. North America is major producer of wheat, corn and soybean. Latin America is also the lucrative market for crop sprayers market. Green revolution have lead the Latin America as prime agriculture region. Brazil and Mexico will be important countries for Crop sprayers market. Western Europe also contributes for Crop sprayers market. Germany and Netherlands. Netherlands is one of the prominent producer of vegetables and flowers. Eastern Europe also important market for Crop Sprayers. Middle East and Africa is lags behind in Agriculture. But countries like Israel, South Africa, and Nigeria have proved the development in Agriculture. So there is opportunity to expand the crop sprayers market in this region.Request For TOC@Crop Sprayers Market: Key playersSome of the identified players in the global Crop Sprayers market are,Chafer Machinery GroupHousehamJohn Rhodes AS limitedBoston Crop SprayersCleveland crop sprayers limitedAvison SprayersS & K sprayersFoggers India Pvt ltd.ASPEE IndiaCrystal Crop Protection Pvt LtdTaizhou Sunny Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd.,Zhejiang Ousen Machinery Co., Ltd.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT: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:
The US Nurse Call System Market 2016-2020 - Enhanced Patient care solution through dedicated line of communication

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Latest Research Report titled " Nurse Call System Market in the US 2016-2020 " features Key Market Players, Market Trends, Market Challenges and Market Drivers.The NCS helps a caregiver and a patient to effectively communicate with each other and enhance patient care. In the US, individuals undergoing treatment in specialized healthcare facilities such as in SNFs, ALFs, and ACFs need constant attention and care. Hence, to provide 24/7 care to them, there is a need for a dedicated line of communication between patients and caregivers; NCS are used for this purpose.The nurse call system market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 14.18% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the nurse call system market in the US for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of NCS, including nurse call components such as pagers and smartphones.Browse Research PDF at:Technavio's report, Nurse Call System Market in the US 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- Ascom- Jeron Electronic Systems- Rauland-Borg- TekToneOther prominent vendors- Austco- Awarepoint- Azentro- Critical Alert Systems- Comm-Tronics- Cornell Communications- Elpas- Intercall Systems- Live Sentinel- Mircom- NiQ Health- Philips- Sonitor Technologies- Systems Technologies- Tyco SimplexGrinnell- WestCall- York Electronic SystemsMarket driver- Advances in technology- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- High cost of NCS installation and maintenance- For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About UsResearchMoz 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.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Production, Consumption, Size, Sales, Revenue, Market Share, Growth And Forecast 2017

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"The Report Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Report 2017 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"About Mica Paper MarketIn this report, the Asia-Pacific Mica Paper 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 Asia-Pacific into several key Regions, with sales (K MT), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Mica Paper for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), includingGet Sample Copy of this report @ChinaJapanSouth KoreaTaiwanIndiaSoutheast AsiaAustraliaAsia-Pacific Mica Paper market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Mica Paper sales volume, price, revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingISOVOLTA GroupPamicaJyotiSpbsludaMeifeng MicaAsheville MicaVPI MicaZhongtian MicaNippon RikaCorona FilmsSakti MicaRuby micaView Report @On 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 intoNatural Muscovite Mica PaperNatural Phlogopite Mica PaperSynthetic Mica PaperOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K MT), market share and growth rate of Mica Paper for each application, includinElectric MachineryMica Plate / Mica TapeElectric Power SystemHousehold Electric AppliancesIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsAsia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Report 20171 Mica Paper Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Mica Paper1.2 Classification of Mica Paper by Product Category1.2.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Types (2012-2022)1.2.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Natural Muscovite Mica Paper1.2.4 Natural Phlogopite Mica Paper1.2.5 Synthetic Mica Paper1.3 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications (2012-2022)1.3.2 Electric Machinery1.3.3 Mica Plate / Mica Tape1.3.4 Electric Power System1.3.5 Household Electric Appliances1.4 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market by Region1.4.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Taiwan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.8 Australia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Asia-Pacific Market Size (Value and Volume) of Mica Paper (2012-2022)1.5.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Sales Volume and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper (Volume) by Application2.4 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 Asia-Pacific Mica Paper Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3 China Mica Paper (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 China Mica Paper Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 China Mica Paper Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 China Mica Paper Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 China Mica Paper Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 China Mica Paper Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.3 China Mica Paper Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 Japan Mica Paper (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 Japan Mica Paper Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Japan Mica Paper Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Japan Mica Paper Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 Japan Mica Paper Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 Japan Mica Paper Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.3 Japan Mica Paper Sales Volume and Market Share by ApplicationMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. 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Global Motorcycle Lighting Market 2017-2021 - Owing to Adoption of new Technologies in Automotive Aftermarkets

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Latest Research Report titled " Global Motorcycle Lighting Market 2017-2021 " features Key Market Players, Market Trends, Market Challenges and Market Drivers.The adoption of technologies such as LED lights in the low-powered motorcycles is increasing in the aftermarket. The rising acceptance of the same will compel automotive OEMs to adopt the technology as standard fitment. The adoption of heavyweight motorcycles in the Americas and Europe is high. This segment is crucial for lighting market owing to the presence of innovators and early adopters.The global motorcycle lighting market to grow at a CAGR of 12.77% during the period 2017-2021. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global motorcycle lighting market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the five prominent vendors operating in the market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Americas- APAC- EMEABrowse Research PDF at:Technavio's report, Global Motorcycle Lighting 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- OSRAM- Philips- HELLA- KOITO- GE LightingOther prominent vendors- Varroc Group- ZKW GroupMarket driver- Success of lighting technology in automotive segment will drive demand in motorcycle segment.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- Reduction in production cost of upcoming technologies such as OLED.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend- Development of thermal imaging cameras to make night-time riding safe.- For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?About UsResearchMoz 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.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Albumin Market - Worldwide Industry Volume and Region Analysis - 2020

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Global Albumin Market: SnapshotAlbumin has found wide applications as a robust pharmaceutical excipient in the stabilization of protein therapeutics. It is used as a drug carrier for microparticles and nanoparticles for sustained-release of injectable drugs. Albumin is also widely used in cell culture media as a supplement to bring about growth and productivity of cells and promote overall cell health. The extraordinary properties of albumin helps facilitate stabilization of drugs by lowering oxidation, aggregation, and surface absorption. It also lessens denaturation of the active ingredient that can result from the preparation of a low-dilution solution of the active ingredient.Albumin has enjoyed considerable demand globally because of the higher stability of products having albumin as an excipient. Additionally, the improvement in molecular separation and protein purification technologies, coupled with rising popularity of recombinant albumin, is predicted to further fillip the global market for albumin in the near future. Countering the growth in the market is the stringent norms pertaining to the use of albumin and its high cost. Concerns over albumins effect on the human health is another factor deterring its uptake. Going forward, the increasing demand for customized, serum-free, and chemically defined media will also likely hamper the global albumin market.On account of considerable constraints, the global market for albumin is predicted to expand at a lackluster pace to attain a value of US$828.2 mn by 2020.Obtain Report Details @Concerns about Cruelty to Animals Helps Stimulate Demand for Human Serum AlbuminThe global market for albumin can be segmented on the basis of application, type, and regions. Depending upon type, the key segments of the market are human serum albumin, bovine serum albumin, and recombinant albumin markets. Among them, the human serum albumin leads the overall market by grossing maximum revenue. In the years ahead, the market segment is expected to hold on to its dominant position to become worth US$557 mn by 2020. Its popularity has stemmed from the growing ethical concerns surrounding bovine serums which are extracted from bovine fetuses rather cruelly and also on account of the fact that some amount of impurities is still retained in the albumin excipient. While the human serum albumin segment holds a leading market share, the recombinant albumin segment is slated to see maximum growth in the upcoming years.Robust Pharmaceutical Industry Makes North America Dominant MarketBased on geography, the global market for albumin can be segmented into Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. North America, among them, dominates the market, powered largely by the U.S. Reasons for North Americas market leading position is the presence of a robust pharmaceutical industry  one of the primary end users of albumin  in the continent.Europe and Asia Pacific, which trail North America also contribute considerably to the global albumin market. China is a major market for albumin in the Asia Pacific region. Technological progress in formulation and delivery of drugs and enhanced access to technologies for the use of albumin in culture media present an opportunity to investors in developing economies, particularly in Asia Pacific. A rising number of manufacturers attempting to tap into the developing markets, the growing trend of contract research manufacturing, and the awareness in end-users about albumin as an excipient is predicted to stimulate market growth in the developing economies of Asia Pacific.Overall, the global market for albumin is consolidated with a handful of manufacturers that are always on the lookout for a strategic acquisition or partnership to bolster their position.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:
Medical Implants Sterile Packaging Market Will Procure US$ 2,436.4 Mn by 2024

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The global medical implants sterile packaging market report is categorically split into four sections  based on product type, material type, application, and region. On the basis of product type the global medical implants sterile packaging market has been segmented into pouches & bags, blister, clamshell, tubes, vials, and others. On the basis of material, the global medical implants sterile packaging market has been segmented into plastic, foils, paper, and others. On the basis of application, the global medical implants sterile packaging market has been segmented into spinal implants, extremity braces & support, dental implants, cardiovascular implants, reconstructive joint implants, and other implants. On the basis of region, the global medical implants sterile packaging market has been segmented into the five key regions of North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa.Browse Complete Report @The pouches & bags product type is likely to emerge the dominant segment throughout the forecast period due to its wide application in multiple pharma industries. The pouches & bags product type segment is estimated to create a large market share of 53.1% in 2016 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2016 to 2024 in terms of value. The clamshell product type segment is anticipated to witness high Y-o-Y growth rates ranging from 5.8% to 7.2% over 20162024 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 7.6% in terms of value over the forecast period.The foils material type segment is expected to create a significant CAGR of 7.3% in terms of value over the forecast period. The paper material type segment is projected to grow at lower Y-o-Y rates ranging from 5.6% to 5.7% over 20162024.The dental implants application segment is estimated to account for 13.7% market share by 2016 end and is anticipated to remain stagnant at 13.8% during the forecast period. The cardiovascular implants segment is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7% in terms of value during 20162024.Among regions, Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the key region driving overall demand for medical implants sterile packaging owing to the increasing usage of packaging and growing consumer spending power in the region. Mature markets such as North America and Europe are expected to witness uneven growth while Latin America and MEA are expected to register sluggish growth throughout the forecast period. Europe is anticipated to witness higher Y-o-Y growth rates ranging from 5.9% to 6.2% over 20162024, and is estimated to record 7.3% CAGR in terms of value over the forecast period.According to a new report by Persistence Market Research titled Medical Implants Sterile Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis and Forecast, 20162024, the global medical implants sterile packaging market is anticipated to be valued at US$ 1,427.8 Mn by the end of 2016 and this is estimated to increase to US$ 2,436.4 Mn by the end of 2024, registering a CAGR of 6.5% in terms of value during the forecast period (2016  2024). Orthopedic implants (including spinal implants, reconstructive joint implants, and extremity braces & support) is expected to gain a significant market share owing to a large global baby boomer population prone to orthopedic ailments.Request to view table of content @A growing demand in medical packaging and increasing usage of hygiene packaging among multiple end users is anticipated to drive advances in the industry. Medical implants sterile packaging is one of the emerging packaging solutions, widely used for pharma packaging, and is driven by factors such as increasing implant surgeries, innovative medical equipment and implants, increasing chronic degenerative diseases, and changing lifestyle of people.A sample of this report is available upon request @The global medical implants sterile packaging market report studies business operations including short-term and long-term strategies, product offerings, and key developments of some of the top companies in the global medical implants sterile packaging market. Key market players featured in the report are Sealed Air Corporation, Orchid Orthopedic Solutions LLC, Selenium Medical, Bemis Healthcare, Janco Inc., Multivac Group, Oliver-Tolas Healthcare Packaging, and Steripack Contract Manufacturing.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:
Enterprise Server, Power and Cooling Solutions and Services Market to Garner Brimming Revenues by 2026

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Global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market is in its maturity stage. Globally, number of enterprise server or data centres are increasing to growing demand of data processing power and increasing information storage capability. Hence, there is a need of an efficient enterprise server, power & cooling technology as with the increased data storage capabilities, the energy consumption is also increases and server generates excessive heat.To View Complete Report @ :Global enterprise server, power and cooling solution and services market is matured. Now the market growth rate has recovered as compared to the poor performances in 2012 and 2013. Factors which are driving the growth of global enterprise server, power and cooling solution and services market are growing demand of data storage capability, faster speed and security, along with excessive growth in colocation and cloud services. Furthermore growing data center investment encourages the growth of power and cooling solution and services market. On the other hand factors which are restraining the growth of enterprise server, power and cooling solution and services market are high initial setup cost and high energy consumption. However, increasing demand of data storage capabilities and super computers is expected to create significant growth opportunity for the global enterprise server, power and cooling solution and services market over the forecast period.A sample of this report is available upon request @Global enterprise server, power and cooling solution and services market is segmented on the basis of solution, services, organization size, user type and verticals. On the basis of solution, global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and service market can be segmented into power solution and cooling solution. Power solution segment can be further sub segmented into power management solution, uninterruptible power systems (UPS) solution and others. Cooling solution segment can be further sub segmented into precision air conditioning (PAC), Precision Air Handling Unit (PAHU) and others.On the basis of services, the global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market can be segmented into integration & installation services, monitoring services and professional services.On the basis of organization size, the global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market can be segmented into large enterprises, medium enterprises and small enterprises.On the basis of vertical, the global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market can be segmented into banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), IT & telecommunication, energy, healthcare and othersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @On the basis of region, the global enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market can be segmented into seven regions which includes, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), Eastern Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa region. Further the market is sub-segmented as per the major countries of each region in order to provide better regional analysis of the enterprise server, power and cooling solutions and services market. North America region is expected to generate highest revenue for the market during the forecast period. However, developing economies such as Asia-Pacific and Japan are expected to grow rapidly over the forecast period. In Asia-Pacific region, Countries such as India, China and South Korea are expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:
Annuloplasty Rings Market Analysis- Size, Share, Growth, Industry Demand, Forecast, Application Analysis To 2022

Annuloplasty Rings Market

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Mitral valve annuloplasty is a surgical technique for the repair of leaking mitral valves. This report mainly covers Annuloplasty Rings Market.Get a Sample of Annuloplasty Rings Market research report from Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Annuloplasty Rings in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Medtronic, Edwards, Sorin, St. Jude MedicalMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Browse full Report with table of contents and data tables For Annuloplasty Rings Market Report @Market Segment by Type, covers:Type 1, Type 2Market Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Mitral valve annuloplasty, Tricuspid valve annuloplasty, Aortic valve annuloplasty, OthersThere are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global Annuloplasty Rings Market.Chapter 1, to describe Annuloplasty Rings Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Annuloplasty Rings, with sales, revenue, and price of Annuloplasty Rings, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Annuloplasty Rings, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Annuloplasty Rings market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Annuloplasty Rings sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for Discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Annuloplasty Rings Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Type 11.2.2 Type 21.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Mitral valve annuloplasty1.3.2 Tricuspid valve annuloplasty1.3.3 Aortic valve annuloplasty1.3.4 Others1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)ContinuedFor more help Speak to our Experts @No. of Report Pages: 118Price of Report (Single User Licence): $3480GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.comWeb-Blogs-
Automotive Seat Heater Market Segments, Geographical regions and Trends to 2026

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Increasing disposable income combined with consumer changing lifestyle is what drives development in the automotive industry. Currently, advancements in automotive industry is characterized by many factors namely speed, mileage, interior and exterior design elegance and others. Among them one of the most prominent factors that adds value to the customers is comfort. Thus in order to improve comfort for the rider while travelling long distance, automotive seat heater is one of the preferred device by major OEMs in four-wheel vehicles. Automotive seat heater is made from carbon fiber technology which easily fits at the bottom or back of the seat and can be easily integrated with cloth or leather covered seats.Global Automotive Seat Heater Market: DynamicsIncreasing demand for comfort and energy efficiency in passenger cars and commercial vehicles is primarily driving the growth of global automotive seat heater market. The customer base having high net worth usually prefers cars with high comfort features which makes premium car manufacturers to target such customers with advanced comfort features.Integration of seat heaters with conventional glued fabric seat are some of the major challenges being faced by the aftermarket providers. Moreover, rising no of fire incidents in the seat due to seat heater coil is primarily decreasing consumer confidence towards adoption of automotive seat heaters. However, development in seat heater power supply and product material is expected to mitigate such effects in the near future. Technological advancements such as seat heater with short duration warming time usually (16-20 seconds) are also increasing the demands for seat heater in premium model vehicles. Moreover, declining cost combined with low penetration of automotive heat heaters in majority of vehicles is expected to create significant opportunity for new entrants in the global automotive seat heater market.Request For Report Sample:Global Automotive Seat Heater Market: SegmentationThe global automotive seat heater market can be segmented on the basis of sales channel, vehicle type, and region.On the basis of sales channel, the global automotive seat heater market can be categorized asOEMAftermarketOn the basis of vehicle type, the market can be segmented asPassenger carsCompact and mid-sized carsExecutive carsPremium carsCommercial vehiclesHeavy trucks and busesThe aftermarket segment hold the largest market installation share primarily due to self-installation feature, declining cost and availability of product for different models.Global Automotive Seat Heater Market: Regional OutlookNorth America, Western Europe, and Japan are the prominent market for automotive seat heater market. Due to low temperate conditions in most parts of the western countries the demand for automotive seat heater systems is increasing. Changing lifestyle along with increasing urbanization and purchasing power is anticipated to drive the Asia Pacific automotive seat heater market during the forecast period.Request For TOC:Global Automotive Seat Heater Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified across the value chain in the global automotive seat heater market are: II-VI Marlow, Inc. , Gentherm , Panasonic Corporation, Changchun SET Electronics Co., Ltd., Kongsberg Automotive, Guangzhou Tachibana Electronic Co., Ltd., I.G. Bauerhin GmbH, Seat Comfort Systems, Activline, Champion Seat Systems (Automotive concepts), Langfang Golden Time Technology Development Co., Ltd. and Roadwire LLC.The companies are emphasizing on research and development and new product development in order to maintain the competitive advantage in global automotive seat heater market during the forecast period. In order to meet the increasing demand for automotive seat heater, companies all over the world are looking to expand the product portfolio and increase the sales strategies. The companies are also focusing on different strategies in order to maintain the market share in the global automotive seat heater market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT: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:
Pallet Conveyor Market Outlook 2017- ATS Automation, Intelligrated, Ssi Schaefer

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Pallet Conveyor is a type of conveyor that transport pallets from one point to another. It is also a mechanically-operated material handling equipment, which are used to transport material within premises.Get sample copy of report with TOC @Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversATS AutomationIntelligratedSsi SchaeferSwisslogDaifukuDematicTGW LogisticMecaluxHytrolBosch RexrothBeumerInterrollFFTSystem LogisticKronesWitronKnappFlexlinkOminiEtoninformJiangsu HuazhPro TechBrowse Complete Report with TOC @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Pallet Conveyor in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversDrag Chain TypeRoller TypeBelt TypeMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoRetail and LogisticIndustrialFood and BeverageOtherAbout US:TopMarketReports is a top provider and consulting services and leading market Intelligence Company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Contact US:TopMarketReports304, S. Jones Blvd, #3299,Las Vegas, NV  89107USA : +1 702-425-8599Email : Sales@topmarketreports.comWeb :
Overview Of Various Strategies Adopted By ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Market - Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Overview Of Various Strategies Adopted By ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Market - Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Market report provides analysis of the ASEAN smart education and learning market for the period 20142020, wherein the years from 2016 to 2020 is the forecast period and 2015 is considered as the base year. The report precisely covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the smart education and learning markets growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the market growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective on the markets growth in terms of revenue (in US$ Bn), across different smart education and learning delivery models and end-uses.The market overview section of the report showcases the markets dynamics and trends such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this market. Moreover, the report profiles the key players in the ASEAN smart education and learning market and provides the overview of various strategies adopted by them and analyzes their behavior in the prevailing market dynamics.ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Market: SegmentationBased on delivery model, the report segments the ASEAN smart education and learning market into classroom-based, desktop/mobile-based and simulation based. Majority of the countries in the ASEAN region have a high rate of smartphone penetration. This has led to the increased use of smartphones for learning purposes. Additionally, most of the ASEAN countries have access to high speed internet connections. This further facilitates the ease of using smartphones for education and learning purposes. As a result, the desktop/mobile-based segment is the largest segment in terms of delivery model. Application of virtual reality in classrooms and the use of smart tools for learning are contributing towards the growth of the simulation-based and classroom-based delivery models. However, high initial costs and maintenance costs are hindering the growth of these segments.On the basis of end-use, the ASEAN smart education and learning market has been segmented into higher education, transnational education, technical vocation & technical education (TVET), language training (English), early childcare & pre-school, continual professional development, and qualifications, assessment & standards. Owing to the wide scale popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for their diverse courses that are offered by various international universities, transnational education is one of the fastest growing segments in terms of end-use. Furthermore, there is a growing demand for English language learning courses to increase ones employability as English is the official language of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Market: Geographical DynamicsIn terms of country, the ASEAN smart education region has been divided into Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Rest of ASEAN countries (Cambodia, Laos, Burma & Brunei). Of these, Malaysia has a huge demand for English language learning courses and higher education courses. It is the largest segment as of 2015 in the ASEAN smart education and learning market. Malaysia is followed by Indonesia in terms of revenue share as a result of the developed state of ICT infrastructure in the country and availability of high speed internet. Additionally, high rate of smartphone penetration and the launch of AEC are also contributing factors towards the growth of the smart education and learning market in these countries.The report segments the ASEAN smart education and learning market on the basis of various delivery models such as classroom-based, desktop/ mobile-based and simulation-based. On the basis of end-use, the ASEAN smart education and learning market has been segmented into Higher Education, Transnational Education, TVET, Language Training (English), Early Childcare & Pre-School, Continual Professional Development, and Qualifications, Assessment & Standards.The ASEAN smart education and learning market has been segmented as below:The ASEAN Smart Education and Learning, By Delivery ModelClassroom- BasedDesktop/Mobile-BasedSimulation-BasedThe ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Analysis, By End-useHigher EducationTransnational EducationTVETLanguage TrainingEarly Childcare & Pre-SchoolContinual Professional DevelopmentQualifications, Assessment & StandardsThe ASEAN Smart Education and Learning Analysis, By CountryMalaysiaPhilippinesIndonesiaSingaporeThailandVietnamRest of ASEAN (Cambodia, Laos, Burma & Brunei)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 @
Current Nature And Future Status Of Specialty Printing Consumables Market In Europe (EU5) During The Period 2016 - 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Current Nature And Future Status Of Specialty Printing Consumables Market In Europe (EU5) During The Period 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.The Specialty Printing Consumables Market report provides analysis of Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables market for the period 20142024, wherein the years from 2016 to 2024 is the forecast period and 2015 is considered as the base year. The report precisely covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the specialty printing consumables markets growth over the forecast period. It also highlights the drivers, restraints, and opportunities expected to influence the market growth during this period. The study provides a holistic perspective on the markets growth in terms of revenue (in US$ Bn), across different printing processes, products and application segments.The market overview section of the report showcases the markets dynamics and trends such as the drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of this market. Moreover, the report provides the overview of various strategies of the key players in Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables market and analyzes their behavior in the prevailing market dynamics.Europe (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Market: SegmentationThe report segments Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables market on the basis of various printing process such as lithographic printing, flexographic printing, rotogravure printing and digital printing. By different product types, the market is classified into toner, ink, specialty substrate and chemicals. By application, Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables market is categorized into office and professional application, commercial printing and publishing application and other application. Thus, the report provides in-depth cross-segment analysis for the specialty printing consumables product market for different printing processes and applications mentioned above, thereby providing valuable insights on macro as well as micro level.Europe (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also provides the competitive landscape for the specialty printing consumables market, thereby positioning all the major players according to their presence in Europe (EU5), market attractiveness and recent key developments. This is identified as a crucial step for getting the full overview of the market through key market leaders and the strategies adopted by them. The complete Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables market estimates are the result of our in-depth secondary research, primary interviews, and in-house expert panel reviews. These market estimates have been analyzed by taking into account the impact of different political, social, economic, technological, and legal factors along with the current market dynamics affecting Europe (EU5) specialty printing consumables markets growth.Canon Inc., Siegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co. KGaA, Flint Group, Nazdar Ink Technologies (Thrall Enterprises Inc.), Marabu GmbH & Co KG, Sun Chemical Corporation, and Saati S.p.A. are the major players which have been profiled in this study. Details such as financials, business strategies, recent developments, and other such strategic information pertaining to these players has been provided as a part of company profiles.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Europe (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables market has been segmented as below:Europe (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Market, By Printing ProcessLithographic PrintingFlexographic PrintingRotogravure PrintingDigital PrintingEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Market Analysis, By ProductTonerInkSpecialty SubstrateChemicalsEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Market Analysis, By ApplicationOffice And Professional ApplicationCommercial Printing And Publishing ApplicationOther ApplicationEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Toner) Market, By Printing ProcessLithographic PrintingFlexographic PrintingRotogravure PrintingDigital PrintingEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Ink) Market, By Printing ProcessLithographic PrintingFlexographic PrintingRotogravure PrintingDigital PrintingEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Specialty Substrate) Market, By Printing ProcessLithographic PrintingFlexographic PrintingRotogravure PrintingDigital PrintingEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Chemicals) Market, By Printing ProcessLithographic PrintingFlexographic PrintingRotogravure PrintingDigital PrintingEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Toner) Market, By ApplicationOffice and Professional ApplicationCommercial Printing and Publishing ApplicationOther ApplicationEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Ink) Market, By ApplicationOffice and Professional ApplicationCommercial Printing and Publishing ApplicationOther ApplicationEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Specialty Substrate) Market, By ApplicationOffice and Professional ApplicationCommercial Printing and Publishing ApplicationOther ApplicationEurope (EU5) Specialty Printing Consumables Product (Chemicals) Market, By ApplicationOffice and Professional ApplicationCommercial Printing and Publishing ApplicationOther 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 @
New report available: Global Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017

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SummaryThe Global Intelligent Cash Counter Industry 2017 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Intelligent Cash Counter industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Intelligent Cash Counter 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, price, 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, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Intelligent Cash Counter 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.Ask a sample or any question, please email to:hebe@qyresearchglobal.com or hebe@qyresearch.comPlayers covering:GLORY GroupDe La RueGiesecke & DevrientLAURELRoyal SovereignSBMBillconCassidaSemaconCometXinda TechnologyKonyeeHenry-techWeirongZhejiang Chuan Wei Electronic TechnologyBaijiaRongheBST-CounterNuobeiLongrunJulongKey Topics Covered:Chapter One Industry Overview of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Two Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Three Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Four Capacity, Production and Revenue Analysis of Intelligent Cash Counter by Regions, Types and ManufacturersChapter Five Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Intelligent Cash Counter by Regions, Types and ManufacturersChapter Six Consumption Volume, Consumption Value and Sale Price Analysis of Intelligent Cash Counter by Regions, Types and ApplicationsChapter Seven Supply, Import, Export and Consumption Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Eight Major Manufacturers Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Nine Marketing Trader or Distributor Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Ten Industry Chain Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Eleven Development Trend of Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Twelve New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Intelligent Cash CounterChapter Thirteen Conclusion of the Global Intelligent Cash Counter Industry 2017 Market Research ReportRelated Reports:US Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017Europe Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017India Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017China Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017Korea Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017Japan Intelligent Cash Counter Industry Market Research Report 2017Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact me~O(_)O~Hebe | Sr. Manager  Global SalesProfessional Market Research Report PublisherQYResearch Co.LtdQYResearch focus on Market Survey and ResearchPhone: +86 20 2209 3278Email: hebe@qyresearchglobal.com or hebe@qyresearch.comWeb:About QYResearchQYResearch established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, database and seminarservices. the company owned a large basic database (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, IndustryAssociation Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc industries experts who ownmore than 10 years experiences on marketing or R&D), professional survey team (the team member with more than 3 years market surveyexperience and more than 2 years depth expert interview experience),Excellent data analysis team (SPSS statistics and PPT graphics process team);QYResearch has always pursuit product quality, adhere to the quality is the soul of business. Through the companys years of effort and a lot ofcustomer support, QYResearch consulting group creative design method of many high-quality markets investigation and research team with richexperience. Today, QYResearch brand has become the consulting industry with quality assurance consulting brand. The company has 2500 globalwell-known customers, covering energy automobile pharmaceutical chemical agriculture more than 30 industries, services from the data analysisand recommendations-Consulting landing one-stop solution, and research regions cover China,US,EU,Asia,Middle East and Africa,SouthAmerica,Australia,etc Global all regions,and also built research or marketing center in China USA UK France Hongkong etc regions. currently,QYResearch has become the first choice and worth trusted consulting brand in Global and China business consulting services.QYResearch CO.,LIMITEDQYResearch focus on Market Survey and ResearchAddress: Room 2311 VILI International Building No.167 Linhe West Road Tianhe District Guangzhou City Guangdong Province 510610 ChinaHebe Leung | Sr. Manager - Global SalesPhone: +86-20 2209 3278E*mail: hebe@qyresearchglobal.comWeb:(US) |(EU)
United States Education Apps Market Will Expand At A CAGR Of 28.15% During The Forecast Period 2016 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "United States Education Apps Market Will Expand At A CAGR Of 28.15% During The Forecast Period 2016 - 2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The extensive use of smartphones and tablets by students for study purposes is the primary factor driving the growth of the education apps market. However, to include educational apps as a part of the learning process, educational institutions must have a strong ICT infrastructure. For this, educational institutions need to invest heavily in installing software and enhancing server capabilities. Educational apps are extensively promoting collaborative learning and active learning. Consequently, K-12 and higher education segments across the globe are emphasizing on including such apps in their education digitization framework.Technavios analysts forecast the education apps market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 28.15% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the education apps market in the US for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from sales of education apps to educational institutions.Technavio's report, Education Apps Market in the US 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 vendorsEdmodoLumos LabsRosetta StoneWizIQTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Other prominent vendorsAge of LearningBenchPrepDubLabsIXL LearningMarket driverAugmented adoption of smartphones and tablets.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeRising competition from open-source mobile learning applications.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendIncreased focus on competency-based education (CBE).For 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 @
At A CAGR Of 5.23%, Global Superabsorbent Polymer Market Will Grow During The Period 2016 - 2020

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "At A CAGR Of 5.23%, Global Superabsorbent Polymer Market Will Grow During The Period 2016 - 2020" to its huge collection of research reports.SAPs are sodium polyacrylate cross-linked polymers. These polymers have the unique ability to absorb and retain large volumes of water. SAPs are produced by meticulous crosslinking of polyacrylate with suitable additives. The global SAP market relies largely on polyacrylate for the production of SAPs. When acrylic acid is polymerized with further crosslinking, super absorbent polyacrylates are produced. They are also known as hydrogels. SAPs have characteristic features of hydrophilicity, biocompatibility, high absorption capacities, swelling, and de-swelling.Technavios analysts forecast the global superabsorbent polymers market to grow at a CAGR of 5.23% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global superabsorbent polymers market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the key five vendors operating in the market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:APACEuropeNorth AmericaROWTechnavio's report, Global Superabsorbent Polymers 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 vendorsBASFEvonik IndustriesLG ChemNippon ShokubaiSanyo Chemical IndustriesTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Other prominent vendorsChemtexFormosaPlasticsSumitomo Seika ChemicalsKaoMultisorb TechnologiesSONGWONYixing Danson TechnologyZhejiang Satellite Petro ChemicalMarket driverHigh demand for diapers from infant population.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeDevelopment of bio-based SAP is still at nascent stage.For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendRise in demand for bio-based polymers.For 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 @
Automotive Starter And Alternator Market Segments and Key Trends 2017-2027

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Modern day automobiles widely use starters and alternators. These are generally used in diesel and gasoline engines. The rising investments on R&D by key players in the market coupled with acquisitions and mergers is expected to make the global automotive starter and alternator market flourish in near future. The manufacturers of automotive starters and alternators are expanding their businesses to emerging economies like China, India, Russia, etc. as these countries are focused on development of automotive sectors in order to serve the rising demand across the globe.Electric starters are expected to dominate the segment during the forecast period. The different types of electric starters used in automotive sector are gear reduction, inertia starter, folo-thru drive and moveable pole shoe. Based on alternator type, the claw pole alternators are projected to witness significant growth in near future.Automotive Starter and Alternator Market: DriversOne of the major factors driving the growth of the global automotive starter and alternator market is increase in production of vehicles across the globe. According to OICA, the total vehicle production increased by around 1% in 2015. Moreover, increasing adoption of electric vehicles due to environment concerns such as rising air pollution, is further expected to escalate the demand for automotive starter and alternator market during the forecast period. Additionally, increasing preference for light weight and fuel efficient vehicles is further projected to escalate the demand for automotive starters and alternators in near future.Request For Report Sample:Automotive Starter and Alternator Market: RestraintsThe increasing production of hybrid vehicles is anticipated to hamper the growth of the global automotive starter and alternator market. The hybrid vehicles use one or more motors which ignite with the help of internal combustion engine. Due to this reason, these vehicles have eliminated the use of automotive starters and alternators which, in turn, is expected to restrict their demand in near future.Automotive Starter and Alternator Market: SegmentationThe global automotive starter and alternator market can be segmented on the basis of starter type, alternator type and vehicle type. On the basis of starter type, the market can be segmented into electric, hydraulic and pneumatic. On the basis of alternators, the market can be further segmented into claw pole alternator and cylindrical alternator. On the basis of vehicles, the global starter and alternator market can be further segmented into light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles and passenger cars.Automotive Starter and Alternator Market: Region wise OutlookBased on regions, Asia Pacific is expected to dominate the automotive starter and alternator market over the forecast period. Asia Pacific, led by emerging economies like China and India, is projected to be the dominant region during the forecast period due to the presence of continuously increasing automobile manufacturing companies in this region. North America, led by U.S. is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period. The increasing demand for starters and alternators in North America, owing to rising production of vehicles, coupled with continuous investment in this market is expected to fuel the demand for automotive starters and alternators in near future. The automotive starter and alternator market in Middle East & Africa and Latin America is anticipated to witness steady growth due to sluggish demand in this region. However, increasing demand for vehicles is expected to create lucrative growth opportunities for automotive starters and alternators in near future.Request For TOC:Automotive Starter and Alternator Market: Market ParticipantsSome of the market participants identified in the global automotive starter and alternator market are mentioned below:Valeo SADenso CorporationRobert Bosch GmbHNingbo zhongwang auto fittings Co.,LTDHitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd.Mitsubishi Electric CorporationASIMCO Technologies LtdHella KGaA Hueck & Co.BBB IndustriesUnipoint Electric MFG Co., Ltd.Remy International, Inc.Lucas Electrical LimitedMitsuba CorporationBrowse Full Report: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:
Global Influenza Drugs Market - GlaxoSmithKline, Astrazeneca, Serum Institute of India, Emergent Biosolutions & CSL Limited

Influenza Drugs

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The Market Research Store report offers majority of the latest and newest industry data that covers the overall market situation along with future prospects for Influenza Drugs market around the globe. The research study includes significant data and also forecasts of the global market which makes the research report a helpful resource for marketing people, analysts, industry executives, consultants, sales and product managers, and other people who are in need of major industry data in a ready-to-access format along with clear presentation of graphs and tables.The report comprises the current size of the Influenza Drugs market. It also provides with different types of product segments of the global market. Furthermore, the Influenza Drugs market research report gives an in-depth information about the overall market and various product segments and their growth trends. The future market forecasts about the global Influenza Drugs market are also covered in the research report. In addition, the overall market potential is further described in the report along with different countries around the globe.Browse Complete Report with TOC @The latest and the newest trends of the Influenza Drugs industry are also included in this report. Moreover, overall global market size, the market size by product segment, growth rates of the global market along with and different product segments of the market, and various product segments with their value and volumes evaluation are also included in the research report.The Market Research Store report offers the global market potential rates of the Influenza Drugs market along with various product segments. The research report provides an overview of the current market situation, historic development, and future outlook of the Influenza Drugs market. It also tracks the industry developments trends and identifies the global market opportunities. The report helps to plan and develop precise marketing, market expansion, market-entry, and other business strategies through identifying the major market prospects and opportunities.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The data in the report is clearly presented which can be easily integrated into presentations and internal reports.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.Joel JohnSuite #8138, 3422 SW 15 Street,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442United StatesToll Free: +1-855-465-4651 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-386-310-3803
El Salvador will grow at a CAGR of 2.2% during 2016-2021: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported by 4G Rollouts and Expansion to Boost Telecom Growth

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"The Report El Salvador: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported by 4G Rollouts and Expansion to Boost Telecom Growth provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz""El Salvador: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported by 4G Rollouts and Expansion to Boost Telecom Growth", a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in El Salvador today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile and pay-TV sectors, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.In 2016, El Salvador generated total telecom service revenue of $1.2bn (or 4.4% of its nominal GDP), a decline of 1.3% over 2015, owing to a fall in fixed and mobile voice revenue. The mobile segment continues to be the largest contributor to overall telecom market revenue, driven by operators investments in 4G network rollout and expansion as well as a rise in adoption of mobile broadband services. Operators will focus on offering attractive double- and triple-play services to drive broadband adoption, which will in turn support growth in the fixed market. Pay TV revenue will witness an increasing trend aided by growing appetite for on-demand content as well as increasing DTH penetration.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in El Salvador compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in El Salvador.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony (including VoIP), broadband, mobile voice, mobile data and pay-TV markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed/pay-TV and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, mobile data and pay-TV services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets.View Report @Scope- The overall telecom service revenue in El Salvador will grow at a CAGR of 2.2% during 2016-2021.- Voice revenue's contribution will decline over the 2016-2021 forecast period owing to data substitution. Data revenue's share will increase driven by 4G network expansion and attractive data bundled packages offered by operators.- Fixed broadband growth will be driven by government initiatives, such as "Connectivity Component" and "Digital Agenda for Good Living and by operators' double- and triple-play services to improve broadband adoption.Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in El Salvadors mobile communications, fixed telephony/VoIP, broadband and pay-TV markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in El Salvador.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
Automotive Fasteners Market Analysis- Size, Share, overview, scope, Revenue, Gross Margin, Segment and Forecast 2022

Automotive Fasteners Market

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Automotive Fasteners are a collection of products that are used in automotive and vehicle assembly. They are usually designed for specific models of vehicles.Get a Sample of Automotive Fastener Market research report from Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Automotive Fastener in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:W`rth, ITW, Araymond, Shanghai PMC (Nedschroef), KAMAX, Fontana Gruppo, Aoyama Seisakusho, Meidoh, Agrati Group, LISI, STANLEY, Bulten, NORMA, Nifco, Precision Castparts, Meira, Chunyu, Topura, Boltun, GEM-YEAR, Sundram Fasteners, Samjin, SFS intec, RUIBIAO, Keller & Kalmbach,EJOT Group, Piolax, Sterling Tools, B`llhoff, Shenzhen AERO, Changshu Standard, Dongfeng Auto, Chongqing StandardMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Browse full Report with table of contents and data tables For Automotive Fastener Market Report @Market Segment by Type, covers:Threaded Fasteners, Non-Threaded FastenersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Automotive OEMs, AftermarketThere are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Automotive Fastener market.Chapter 1, to describe Automotive Fastener Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Automotive Fastener, with sales, revenue, and price of Automotive Fastener, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Automotive Fastener, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Automotive Fastener market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Automotive Fastener sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for Discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Automotive Fastener Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Threaded Fasteners1.2.2 Non-Threaded Fasteners1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Automotive OEMs1.3.2 Aftermarket1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)ContinuedFor more help Speak to our Experts @No. of Report Pages: 118Price of Report (Single User Licence): $3480GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.comWeb-Blogs-
Greenhouse Film Market will cross USD 5.0 Billion - Agriplast SRL, Agripolyane, Fvg Folien-Vertriebs and Plastika Kritis

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Greenhouse Film Market will Cross USD 5.0 Billion and is growing at a CAGR of Approximately 11%Market HighlightsOver the past few years, the global market has seen a significant growth due to increasing demand of greenhouse film. This results into a higher growth rate at the end of forecasted period. As per the market analysis, different factors have created boom in the global greenhouse film market are changing farmers preference over modern agricultural techniques, advanced & innovative technology, rising demand for greenhouse cultivated crops and other several factors.Request a Sample Report@Key Players Essen RKW SE Ginegar Plastic Eiffel Industria Materiale Plastiche Agriplast SRL Agripolyane Fvg Folien-Vertriebs Plastika KritisMarket AnalysisThe global greenhouse film market has projected an outstanding growth over the historic years and it has been predicted that the global market will keep on rising during the forecast period. The Greenhouse Film market is mainly driven by the changing preference over traditional methods, improving agriculture yields and growing demand of greenhouse film cultivated crops.SegmentationBy Material type - Polycarbonate, Polyethylene Plastic film, Acrylic, Vinyl and othersBy Thickness - 3M, 4M, 6M and othersBy Region  North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RowStudy Objectives of Greenhouse Film Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 6 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Greenhouse Film market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyze the Greenhouse Film 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-Pacific, and 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 segments by material types, thickness and regionsBrowse Full GF Market @Scope of the studyBy Material type Polycarbonate Polyethylene Plastic film Acrylic Vinyl OthersBy Thickness 3M 4M 6M OthersTable of Content1 Executive Summary2 Scope of the Report3 Market Research Methodologies4 Market Landscape5 Industry Overview of Global Greenhouse Film Market6 Market Trends7. Global Greenhouse Film Market by Region8. Global Greenhouse Film Market by Material type (Polycarbonate, Polyethylene Plastic film, Acrylic, Vinyl and others)9. Global Greenhouse Film Market by Thickness (3M, 4M, 6M and others)10. Company ProfilesTaste the market data and market information presented through more than 100 market data tables and figures spread in 144 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Greenhouse Film Market Information from 2014 to 2022"List of TablesTable 1 World Population by Major Regions (2015 To 2030) (Million)Table 2 Global Greenhouse Film Market: By Region, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 3 North America Greenhouse Film Market: By Country, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 4 Europe Greenhouse Film Market: By Country, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 5 Asia-Pacific Greenhouse Film Market: By Country, 2014-2022 (USD Million)Table 6 Row Global Greenhouse Film Market: By Country, 2014-2022 (USD Million)List of FiguresFIGURE 1 Global c segmentationFIGURE 2 Forecast MethodologyFIGURE 3 Five Forces Analysis of Global Greenhouse Film MarketFIGURE 4 Value Chain of Global Greenhouse Film MarketFIGURE 5 Share of Global Greenhouse Film Market in 2014, by country (in %)About 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
Recent research into the Global Logistics Robots Industry shared in new Report

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Global Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017SummaryThe Global Logistics Robots Industry 2017 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Logistics Robots industry.Firstly, the report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The Logistics Robots 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, price, 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, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. Whats more, the Logistics Robots 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.Ask a sample or any question, please email to:hebe@qyresearchglobal.com or hebe@qyresearch.comPlayers covering:FanucSchafferDematicKUKA (Swisslog)Amazon RoboticsVanderlandeCIM CorpVecnaGrenzebachHi-tech Robotic SystemzHitachiBastianAdept TechnologyFetch RoboticsGray OrangeABBPro MachBluePrint Automation BPAKey Topics Covered:Chapter One Industry Overview of Logistics RobotsChapter Two Manufacturing Cost Structure Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Three Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Four Capacity, Production and Revenue Analysis of Logistics Robots by Regions, Types and ManufacturersChapter Five Price, Cost, Gross and Gross Margin Analysis of Logistics Robots by Regions, Types and ManufacturersChapter Six Consumption Volume, Consumption Value and Sale Price Analysis of Logistics Robots by Regions, Types and ApplicationsChapter Seven Supply, Import, Export and Consumption Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Eight Major Manufacturers Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Nine Marketing Trader or Distributor Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Ten Industry Chain Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Eleven Development Trend of Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Twelve New Project Investment Feasibility Analysis of Logistics RobotsChapter Thirteen Conclusion of the Global Logistics Robots Industry 2017 Market Research ReportRelated Reports:US Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017Europe Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017India Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017China Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017Korea Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017Japan Logistics Robots Industry Market Research Report 2017Would like to place an order or any question, please feel free to contact me~O(_)O~Hebe | Sr. Manager  Global SalesProfessional Market Research Report PublisherQYResearch Co.LtdQYResearch focus on Market Survey and ResearchPhone: +86 20 2209 3278Email: hebe@qyresearchglobal.com or hebe@qyresearch.comWeb:About QYResearchQYResearch established in 2007, focus on custom research, management consulting, IPO consulting, industry chain research, database and seminarservices. the company owned a large basic database (such as National Bureau of statistics database, Customs import and export database, IndustryAssociation Database etc), experts resources (included energy automotive chemical medical ICT consumer goods etc industries experts who ownmore than 10 years experiences on marketing or R&D), professional survey team (the team member with more than 3 years market surveyexperience and more than 2 years depth expert interview experience),Excellent data analysis team (SPSS statistics and PPT graphics process team);QYResearch has always pursuit product quality, adhere to the quality is the soul of business. Through the companys years of effort and a lot ofcustomer support, QYResearch consulting group creative design method of many high-quality markets investigation and research team with richexperience. Today, QYResearch brand has become the consulting industry with quality assurance consulting brand. The company has 2500 globalwell-known customers, covering energy automobile pharmaceutical chemical agriculture more than 30 industries, services from the data analysisand recommendations-Consulting landing one-stop solution, and research regions cover China,US,EU,Asia,Middle East and Africa,SouthAmerica,Australia,etc Global all regions,and also built research or marketing center in China USA UK France Hongkong etc regions. currently,QYResearch has become the first choice and worth trusted consulting brand in Global and China business consulting services.QYResearch CO.,LIMITEDQYResearch focus on Market Survey and ResearchAddress: Room 2311 VILI International Building No.167 Linhe West Road Tianhe District Guangzhou City Guangdong Province 510610 ChinaHebe Leung | Sr. Manager - Global SalesPhone: +86-20 2209 3278E*mail: hebe@qyresearchglobal.comWeb:(US) |(EU)
Global Beverage Packaging Market expected to grow at 3.3% CAGR through 2025

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The global beverage packaging market is expected to be worth nearly US$ 200 billion in 2017, up from US$ 186 billion in 2015. Demand will be sustained by increasing consumption of packed food and beverages and increase in the number of one-person households in key markets. Advances in packaging technology will continue to shape up the global market, with intelligent packaging expected to gain traction.Plastics to Account for Over 50% Revenue ShareBeverage packaging manufacturers will continue to rely on plastic for bulk of production, with glass, metal, and paperboard among other key raw materials. Overall, plastics will account for over 50% revenue share by raw material type, with metal a distant second at approximately 24% market share. Benefits of plastic packaging, such as low production costs, easy transportation, and lower weight will continue to make it a preferred raw material for manufacturers. PET, polystyrene, and polypropylene will remain the highest-selling plastics in the beverage packaging marketcollectively, they are expected to account for US$ 52.64 billion in revenues in 2017.Ask For Report Sample@Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) Largest MarketAsia Pacific (excluding Japan) will continue to be the largest market for beverage packaging in 2017. Increasing demand for packed food products will continue to fuel market revenues in the region. The APEJ beverage packaging market is expected to surpass US$ 50 billion in revenues by 2017 and continue to be the largest market for beverage packaging globally.North America and Western Europe  the other leading markets for beverage packaging  will continue to post moderate gains. Adoption of advanced packaging technology will witness higher growth in these two regions vis-a-vis APEJ. Collectively, North America and Western Europe will account for nearly half of global beverage packaging market revenues in 2017.CSD/soda manufacturers will remain the largest application segments in the global beverage packaging market, followed by dairy and juice/soft drinks. Demand for beverage packaging from CSD/soda segment is anticipated to be worth US$ 58 billion in 2017, up from nearly US$ 55 billion in 2015. Plastics will remain the largest product type for CSD/soda, followed by cans and glass bottles.Vendor InsightsLeading players in the global packaging market are focusing on creating functional and sustainable packaging that caters to the swiftly changing needs of consumers. Increasing investment in R&D to develop next-generation packaging solutions and strengthening of distribution networks in emerging nations remain key strategic endeavours of beverage packaging brands. The key players profiled in the report include Ampac Holdings, LLC, Amcor Limited, Alcoa Inc., Ball Corporation, Crown Holdings, Inc., Owens-Illinois, Inc., Rexam PLC, Reynolds Group Holdings Limited, SIG Combibloc, Ardagh Group S.A., Tetra Laval International S.A. and Compagnie de Saint-Gobain.Ask For More Information@Long-term Outlook: During the forecast period, 2015-2025, the global beverage packaging market is expected to grow at 3.3% CAGR through 2025, totalling US$ 257.5 billion in revenues. Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) will remain the largest market for beverage packaging throughout the forecast period 2015-2025.Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.compress@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Body Lotion Market Analysis- Opportunities Sales, Revenue, Gross Margin, Outlook And Forecast To 2022

Body Lotion Market

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"Many Lotion products have Moisturizer functions, combined together, one common skin care product, Decontamination and water supplement.This report studies the Lotion & Moisturizer market, by type(Dry Skin, Oily Skin and Normal Skin, others), by applications(Men Using Women Using and Baby Using)."Get a Sample of Body Lotion Market research report from Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Body Lotion in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Unilever PLC, L'Or`al S.A., Procter & Gamble Co., Johnson & Johnson, Shiseido Company, Beiersdorf AG, Avon Products Inc., Clarins, Kao Corporation, Amore Pacific Group, The Estee Lauder Companies Inc., Cavinkare, Cetaphil, Hain Celestial GroupMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Browse full Report with table of contents and data tables For Body Lotion Market Report @Market Segment by Type, covers:Dry Skin Body Lotion, Oily Skin Body Lotion, Normal Skin Body Lotion, OthersMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Men Using, Women Using, Baby UsingThere are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Body Lotion market.Chapter 1, to describe Body Lotion Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Body Lotion, with sales, revenue, and price of Body Lotion, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Body Lotion, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Body Lotion market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Body Lotion sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for Discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Body Lotion Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Dry Skin Body Lotion1.2.2 Oily Skin Body Lotion1.2.3 Normal Skin Body Lotion1.2.4 Others1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Men Using1.3.2 Women Using1.3.3 Baby Using1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)ContinuedFor more help Speak to our Experts @No. of Report Pages: 115Price of Report (Single User Licence): $3480GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.comWeb-Blogs-
Offshore Supply Vessels Market Analysis, Business Trends, Opportunities, Forecast to 2022

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Synopsis of Offshore Supply Vessels Market:Market Overview:Market Research Future published a half cooked research report on Offshore Supply Vessels .The global market for Offshore Supply Vessels is majorly driven by factors such as advancement in drilling technology and logistic support and among others.The Global Offshore Supply Vessels Market around the world is growing rapidly. Increasing demand for automation in different energy verticals is the key factor which driving the market of offshore supply vessels. North America leads the global offshore supply vessels market. It offers benefits such as real time detection of faults in machineries, decrease the amount of defects in output as well as decrease production cost. Offshore supply vessels systems are being deployed in countries like India and China for smart grid techniques and to reduce power transmission and distribution losses. The existing supply and demand gap in the oil and gas sector has increased the need for efficient search and extraction of oil and gas. Offshore supply vessels systems are implemented to maximize oil and gas extraction. Additionally, the renewed interest in shale gas extraction has also driven the offshore supply vessels systems market.Target Audience: Organizations Manufacturer Research Institute / Education Institute Potential InvestorsRequest to Receive a Sample Report @Key Players in Market:The prominent players in the Offshore Supply Vessels Market include- Rem Maritime As Bass Marine Pvt. Ltd Harvey Gulf Bourbon SA Tidewater ExxonMobil Island Offshore Management Havila Shipping ASA Intermarine LLC.Access Report Details @Market Research Analysis:The demand for offshore supply vessels in the Asia Pacific region is expected to raise the demand for growing exploration activities in Southeast Asia. Moreover, Australia, Malaysia, and China are likely to emerge as leading consumers of offshore supply vessels. The market is also expected to gain from the rising investments in oil and gas activities. Asia pacific is leading the market of offshore supply vessels due to equipped with increased cargo capacity and enhanced crew amenities and automation system. Whereas, North America stood second in the offshore supply vessels. North America is one of the most explored and oldest regions for oil. The demand for oil and application of enhanced oil recovery techniques are the major drivers for the Offshore Support Vessels Market.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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
United States Earth-Moving Machinery Market Report 2017

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This report studies sales (consumption) of Earth-moving Machinery in United States market, focuses on the top players, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player, coveringAtlas Copco Bharat Earth Movers Bobcat Company Caterpillar CNH GlobalDoosan Hitachi Construction Machinery Hyundai Heavy Industries JCB John DeereKomatsu Liebherr Sany Heavy Industries Sumitomo Terex Corp Volvo Construction EquipmentTo Receive a Sample Copy United States Earth-Moving Machinery Market @Market Segment by States, coveringCalifornia Texas New York Florida IllinoisSplit by product types, with sales, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoLoaders Excavators OthersSplit by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Earth-moving Machinery in each application, can be divided intoConstruction Underground Mining Surface MiningBuy a Copy United States Earth-Moving Machinery Market for single user price of $ 3800 @Key Chapters1 Earth-moving Machinery Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Earth-moving Machinery1.2 Classification of Earth-moving Machinery1.2.1 Loaders1.2.2 Excavators1.2.3 Others2 United States Earth-moving Machinery Competition by Manufacturers2.1 United States Earth-moving Machinery Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2015 and 2016)2.2 United States Earth-moving Machinery Revenue and Share by Manufactures (2015 and 2016)2.3 United States Earth-moving Machinery Average Price by Manufactures (2015 and 2016)3 United States Earth-moving Machinery Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by States (2012-2017)3.1 United States Earth-moving Machinery Sales and Market Share by States (2012-2017)3.2 United States Earth-moving Machinery Revenue and Market Share by States (2012-2017)3.3 United States Earth-moving Machinery Price by States (2012-2017)To View Full Report @Who we areResearch Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the clients specific requirement. Our database consists of a large collection of high-quality reports obtained using a customer-centric approach, thus providing valuable research insights. The research encompasses information gathered and examined by subject-matter experts, laying down growth opportunities and developmental strategies for enterprises.Reach at us:Flat No.10, Wing C,S. No. 245/4/2+245/5/1,Baner, Pune-411045Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +91 7507349866Skype ID: researchtradesconWeb:
Global Proteinase K Market Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016-2026

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Proteinase K is a million dollars market accounting for a small portion in reagents and enzymes. The Global Proteinase K market is classified into two main segments  lyophilized powder form and liquid form. By application the market is segmented as purification of DNA & RNA, in situ hybridization, mitochondria isolation and enzyme removal. Proteinase K is mainly used in contract research organisations, biotechnology companies, academic institutes, and diagnostics laboratories. In terms of revenue, the global Proteinase K market is expected to reach US$ 18.5 Mn in 2016, witnessing a year-over-year growth of 6.1%.A plethora of factors are expected to impact the growth of the global Proteinase K market. A significant rise in research and development activities, lesser production costs, broader application of Proteinase K and good product stability and specificity of Proteinase K will give a massive push to the revenue growth of the global Proteinase K market by the end of the forecast period. A steady rise of chronic diseases and better government-backed investment channels to fund advanced research and development are expected to expedite the expansion of the global Proteinase K market over the period of assessment.Ask For Report Sample@A slew of research activities, soaring expenditure on personal healthcare and increasing adoption of gene therapy has been significantly high in the U.S. market in the recent years, making North America the most lucrative market globally. As per a report published by the Cancer Society of America, in 2016, the population of cancer patients is skyrocketing within the country. The use of Proteinase K is high in gene therapy for hereditary diseases such as cancer, diabetes and others. The North America Proteinase K market revenue was accounted to be US$ 6.5 Mn in 2015, with the U.S. contributing a majority of revenue share.Segmentation highlightsBy product form, lyophilized powder form segment accounted for higher revenue share in global Proteinase K as compared to liquid form segment. Lyophilized powder from segment is expected to reach a value of US$ 19.2 Mn by 2026, reflecting a CAGR of 6.3% over the forecast period. The growth in lyophilized powder form can be attributed to the increasing advantages of powder form over liquid form in case of storage and preservation of sampleBy application, purification of DNA & RNA segment accounted for highest revenue share in global Proteinase K market as compared to other applications of Proteinase K. Purification of DNA & RNA segment is expected to reach a value of US$ 19.2 Mn by 2026, reflecting a CAGR of 6.5% over the forecast period. This is expected to be followed by mitochondria isolation and enzyme removal applicationBy end-user, biotechnology companies account for higher demand for Proteinase K as compared to other end user segments such as academic institutes and diagnostics laboratories. The strong growth in biotechnology companies can be attributed to an increasing use of Proteinase K in research and development and new drug discovery. The cost effectiveness of Proteinase K over other reagents is the key factor responsible for its increasing use in biotechnology companies. Biotechnology companies segment is expected to register highest CAGR of 6.7% over the forecast periodRegional market projectionsDemand for research in academics and funding facilities provided by the US government to support gene therapy and other activities for drug development is anticipated to boost the North America Proteinase K market. Followed by North America, APEJ and Western Europe are the most lucrative regions of the global Proteinase K market and are anticipated to grow by 6.1% and 5.7% respectively over the forecast period. Increasing demand for drug development, rising hereditary diseases due to changing lifestyles and growing disposable income are some of the factors expected to contribute to the growth of the global Proteinase K market.Ask For More Information@Vendor insightsTop companies profiled in the global Proteinase K market report include Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Merck KGaA, Qiagen N.V., Worthington Biochemical Corporation, Sisco Research Laboratories Pvt. Ltd, Promega Corporation, Bioline and F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG among others. Leading market players are adopting different strategies such as product launches and acquisitions to maintain their market share. For instance, in November 2015, Merck KGaA acquired Sigma-Aldrich to strengthen and expand its consumable and reagent portfolio.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.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:
Voice Recognition Market Trends, Challenges and Growth Drivers Analysis 2024

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Voice Recognition Market size is anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast timeline, owing to the increase in adoption of biometric technologies such as remote authentication using voice verification and growing popularity of voice-activated devices such as thermostats, lights, and other voice-enabled appliances. Growing frequencies of frauds in various end-user industries such as retail & healthcare and increasing adoption of mobile banking by e-commerce retailers & banks are expected to drive the voice recognition market growth during forecast timeframe. Advancements in infrastructure activities and present-day concepts, such as smart homes are projecting growth opportunities, particularly in countries including U.K., U.S., and France. The technology shows tremendous growth potential in home automation systems, due to its low energy consumption and convenience. Growing demand for home security and home automation systems such as camera systems and door lock systems is expected to drive the voice recognition market growth over the future.The technology is used in array of applications, owing to growing adoption of mobile & cloud technology and continuous advancements in computing power. The healthcare sector is anticipated to witness a remarkable growth over the next eight years, due to the use of the technology to produce health data records, thus propelling the voice recognition market growth. This technology is expected to emerge as effective alternative to devices where typing is difficult due to small displays. Growing inclination towards development of AI based systems is expected to gain traction. Leveraging deep learning algorithm to improve search results is expected to be key growth factor in AI based voice recognition market.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @Voice recognition is the fundamental technology leveraged in autonomous and semi-autonomous automobiles. Integration of this technology with automobiles is increasingly gaining popularity, owing to growing stringency in regulations pertaining to mobile phones use while driving and implementation of hands free rules. Voice commands enhance driver and passenger safety by enabling them to concentrate on driving. Manual interfaces to enter data in navigation system involves risks. Therefore, voice recognition market growth is anticipated to surge, owing to the ability of speech destination entry to help drivers follow route correctly. Benefits of this technology such as better productivity, easy accessibility, and flexibility are expected to drive demand. The lack of ability to recognize speech in regional accent and high price of AI based systems is expected to challenge the voice recognition market demand.Based on applications, the voice recognition market is classified into artificial intelligence based and non-artificial intelligence based. Artificial-intelligence based solutions segment is expected to gain momentum, owing to the ability of this technology to recognize speech patterns accurately. AI transforms voice into well-structured algorithms in steps such as formulation, representation of speech units, demonstration of correct inputs, and development of recognition algorithms.Based on components, the voice recognition market is segmented into hardware, software, and enhanced devices. The software component is divided into speaker verification, automatic speech recognition (ASR), and audio mining. Enhanced devices segment is projected to account for the maximum market share during the forecast timeframe. The growth of this segment is attributed to swelling demand for voice integrated workstations and navigation systemsMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @The industry verticals included in the voice recognition market are BFSI, automobile, government, consumer, retail, home security & automation, and healthcare. The consumer segment is expected to hold significant revenue share, owing to growing penetration of the technology in smart devices such as laptops, smart phones, and tablets. Large corporations such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple are leveraging neural networks and large customer bases to understand, process, and take decisions based on real-time voice inputs.In light of growing demand of IoT technology is evolving with the voice recognition technology which is anticipated to be integrated with consumer durables such as ovens, refrigerators, microwaves, and thermostats. This growth is anticipated to be fueled by increasing efforts of OEMs to integrate this technology in their products. The BFSI sector is expected to witness fast adoption of this technology to enhance security to reduce the increasing number of fraudulent activities.North America is expected to dominate the voice recognition market, owing to the deployment of biometric systems on a large scale due to the increasing need of high level security. The industry in the region is driven by increasing government initiatives to deploy biometric systems, particularly in the U.S. The Asia Pacific voice recognition market is expected to grow at fast pace, due to increasing IoT applications and demand for voice technology. Growing requirement of this technology from self-service sectors such as banking and call centers is expected to drive voice recognition market growth in the region.Players in the voice recognition market include Nuance Communications, MMODAL Inc., Apple, Inc., Microsoft Inc., Sensory Inc., Agnitio SL, Advanced Voice Recognition Systems, Biotrust, ValidSoft UK Ltd., VoiceVault, M2SyS LLC, VoiceBox Technologies Corp., Raytheon BBN Technologies, and LumenVox LLC. The voice recognition market is led by innovation and is highly competitive. Major players are increasingly focusing on increasing the accuracy of voice recognition to outwit the competitors.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter
Crustacean Industry Share, Growth, Analysis, Statistics, Trends, Forecast Report, 2024

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Global Crustacean Market size is likely to expand at promising CAGR in the forecast period. Crustacean is huge family of arthropods which includes animals such as lobsters, prawns, crabs and other distinct species of sea animals. Most of the crustaceans are aquatic animals, while some are parasitic, sessile and terrestrial. Every year, almost 11 million tons of the product is cultured in aquatic farming or fisheries, across the globe, for human consumption.Crustacean market is one of the rapidly growing animal production industries across the globe. The prime factor responsible for crustacean market size growth in future is the growing demand for seafood globally. The rising product demand is due to the awareness created among consumers about the health benefits related to product consumption. For example, crabs contain omega-3 fatty acids and proteins, which have anti-inflammatory characteristics useful for treatment of arthritis.Request for an in-depth table of contents for this report @Moreover, amplified consumer spending is being observed in recent years on food products. This is due to the changing lifestyle patterns, that can be attributed to increased disposable income of consumers. This change in consumer behavior is expected to drive the seafood and frozen food industry growth considerably, which in turn, will be propelling the crustacean market size across the globe by 2024.Furthermore, e-commerce and online channels have boosted the seafood market considerably through both platforms, business-to-customer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) operations. For instance, big chain retailers such as Target and Walmart offer in-store pick up and home delivery of seafood after order placement by customer. The major challenge for crustacean market is to compete with other aqua farming and agro industries. The crustacean market is still lagging others in terms of advanced biotechnologies which can enhance production output and value.Based on product, the crustacean market can be divided into crabs, lobsters, shrimps and prawns. Other species in product family include woodlice, barnacles, crayfish and several diverse types of species. The product contains vital nutrients such as minerals, vitamins and proteins and can prevent numerous diseases.Make an inquiry for buying this report @Based on the culture area, the crustacean market can be segmented into inland waters and marine waters. The marine waters segment accounted for largest share in global crustacean market in 2016. The natural ocean conditions in marine areas are conducive for product growth. Countries including Australia and Thailand are home for shrimp and crab farming. However, periodic high currents affect product population in marine environment. Accordingly, aquaculture farms use drugs for preventing diseases and algae growth in the culture areas, which also affects the product population considerably. Thus, government agencies such as MAFW (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare) in India and FAF (Federal Agency for Fishery) in Russia are trying to promote sustainable farming practices in these areas.In 2016, Asia Pacific, led the global crustacean market in terms of production and consumption. China is likely to lead the regional crustacean market by 2024, as the product is one of the most valued species family preferred in Asia Pacific, for consumption. Countries such as India, South Korea, China, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka are biggest consumers of seafood in Asia Pacific, thus, anticipated to contribute in crustacean market growth. Asia Pacific is full of small scale product vendors, as they receive full support from government pertaining to aquaculture and fish farming. Due to drift in consumer preference for rich in quality seafood, domestic consumption is likely to witness a prominent growth over the forecast period.The prominent market share contributors functional in industry are Seaview Crab Company, The Crab Company, Asmak, RDM Aquaculture, Ichiboshi, International Fish Farming and Holding Company and Surapon Foods, Normad Foods, Norway Royal Salmon, AquaChile, Russian Aquaculture, Findus Group, Nireus Aquaculture, Beijing Princess Seafood and Mogster Group.The product vendors, both international and regional, are intensifying the competition, by competing on the basis of portfolio, pricing and product differentiation. For instance, Normad Foods acquired Iglo Foods in 2015, to solidify their position in frozen foods segment. Small crab farmers, medium level domestic crab farmers & fisheries are also trying to enter the crustacean market.Browse related reportsEdible Insects Market Size By Product (Beetles, Caterpillars, Grasshoppers, Bees, Wasps, Ants, Scale Insects & True Bugs), By Application (Flour, Protein Bars, Snacks), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Belgium, Netherlands, UK, France, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, Mexico), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2016  2023About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:
Global Branded Generics Market projected to reach US$ 413.8 Bn market value by 2026-End

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A recent research conducted by Future Market Insights predicts that the global market for branded generics will witness a steady growth in terms of revenues. Over a ten-year forecast period from 2016 to 2026, the size of global branded generics market has been estimated to expand at a steady CAGR of 7.3%. Brand-name prescriptions will continue to be ubiquitous among aged people in the world, and since geriatric demographics account for a large portion of global drug-consuming population, demand for branded generics will also rise substantially. In 2016, the global branded generics market has been valued at nearly US$ 200 billion, and is projected to reach US$ 413.8 Bn market value by the end of forecast period.Some of the leading manufacturers of branded generics are based in Asian countries, and are extending their production capacity to keep up with the surging global depend. In Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region, about US$ 150 billion revenues are expected to be procured by the end of 2026. During the forecast period, branded generics market in the APEJ region will attain fastest growth, registering a 10% CAGR, contributing over 35% of global branded generics revenues. North America, Eastern Europe and Latin America are also expected to be lucrative for growth of branded generics sales, while revenues in Western Europe, Japan and Middle East & Africa (MEA) are likely to incur a considerable dip by 2026-end.Ask For Report Sample@Competitive Timeline in Global Branded Generics MarketSince 2015, Abbott Laboratories, a leading drugmaker in the global pharmaceuticals industry, has aimed at capitalizing from branded generics businesses in developing regions.Teva Pharmaceuticals acquired Allergans branded generics vertical, while Pfizer Inc. bought Hospira Inc.  both acquisitions have been strategically carried out for repositioning market standings of Teva and Pfizer respectively.In December 2016, India-based Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. agreed to buy Swiss drugmaker Novartis AGs branded generics portfolio on cancer medications.Another leading branded generics manufacturer, Mylan N.V. recently launched anti-allergy devices which are expected to be half the price of its branded EpiPens.Other prominent companies partaking in the growth of global branded generics market include, Aspen Pharmacare Holding Ltd. and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.Research Highlights on Global Branded Generics MarketThe report includes a segmental analysis of the global branded generics market, fragmenting its growth on the type of drug formulation, major drug classes, therapeutic applications, and distribution channels. Based on such segmentation, some of the key findings compiled in the report are:Nearly three-fifth of the global branded generics revenues estimated in 2016 are expected to be accounted by oral-type formulations, with parenteral, topic and other formulation types collectively accounting for 8% market value share.Hospital pharmacies & retail pharmacies will remain as the largest distribution channels for branded generics throughout the globe.Ask For More Information@In 2016 and beyond, the demand for branded generics in therapeutic treatment of cardiovascular diseases will be significant, revenues from which are expected to increase at more than 8% CAGR over the forecast period.Global revenues of branded generics accounted by anti-hypertensive drug class are predicted to surpass US$ 25 billion by 2026-end.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.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:
Military Radar Systems Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 5% by 2021

Military Radar Systems Market

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Market Synopsis of Global Military Radar Systems Market:The Global Military Radar Systems Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 5% during 2016-2021. The factors driving the market are growing demand of radar for airborne and maritime surveillance, to counter drug trafficking and illegal trespassing, and modification & upgradation of conventional radar systems.As per the MRFR analysis, factors restraining the market growth are defense budget cuts in several countries, high investment, feasibility issues, and technical and operational challenges.The development of COTS components and Gallium Nitride (GaN) technology are the emerging trend in the market. Technological innovation is the key parameter where vendors are spending in technology to improving efficiency and reliability.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Military Radar Systems Market: General Dynamics Israel Aerospace Industries Saab AB Selex ES Thales ASELSAN Boeing Harris Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon TermaStudy Objectives of Global Military Radar Systems Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Military Radar Systems Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Military Radar Systems 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 platform, and band type To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Military Radar Systems Market.Regional and Country Analysis of Global Military Radar Systems Market:As per the MRFR analysis, the Americas region will continue its dominance in the forecast period. Whereas, APAC will have significant growth and is expected to grow at CAGR of around 5% during the forecast period.In Europe, several security and space programs have been initiated in partnership with major countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The European Space Agency and the German Aerospace center have invested in radar technology.Access Report Details @Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope Of The Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For The Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions and Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueAbout 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Masking Tapes Market Growth with Worldwide Industry Analysis to 2027

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Introduction:The Pressure Sensitive Adhesive (PSA) market is witnessing a healthy growth rate across different regions and the Masking Tapes Market is one of the largest contributing segments to PSA's growth. Masking tapes are generally made of a thin carrier coated with a soft adhesive layer. The highlight of masking tapes is that they can be removed easily without damaging the surface. Masking tapes do not also leave behind any residue on the surface on which it is applied. They only provide temporary concealment and are not used for finishing processes.The masking tapes market emerged in 1920's when there developed a need to replace butcher paper that was used to cover cars while painting as the butcher paper caused a lot of damage while being peeled off. The masking tapes market has evolved over the years and is still growing as new products are being developed by manufacturers for specific applications by adopting new technologies.Masking Tapes Market - Market Dynamics:The Masking tapes market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 5% over the forecast period and this growth will primarily be driven by the growth in the Automotive and Construction sector. The development of new applications like the decorating industry is expected to contribute to the growth in the masking tapes market. Furthermore, features such as convenience to use, low cost in comparison to other adhesives, and its non-sticky nature will also help the masking tapes market to grow during the forecast period. However, factors such as changing technology, better alternatives, and the temporary usage of masking tape can offset the growth of masking tapes market. In addition, masking tape is still not being used in some of the growing industries which include electronics and industrial bonding, etc. This can further hinder growth in the masking tapes market. Climate plays a huge role in determining the performance of the masking tape as the adhesive does not stick when the surface is either too hot, too cold, humid, moist or rainy. This is precisely why climatic conditions can also impact the demand for the masking tapes market.Request Report Sample@Masking Tapes Market- Market Segmentation:Based on type, the global Masking tapes market is segmented into following:Painter's TapePlating TapeAbrasive Blasting tapesHigh Temperature tapesThermal spray tapesBased on application, the global Masking tapes market is segmented into following:Automotive: Car repairTransports: Bus, ship, military industries,Building & ConstructionMedical: surgical instrumentsElectronicsOther (Decorating)Based on tape adhesive, the global Masking tapes market is segmented into following:AcrylicRubberSiliconeBased on carrier, the global Masking tapes market is segmented into following:CeramicFoamFoilGlassPolyimidePVCPaperPolyesterFluropolymerMasking Tapes Market - Regional Outlook:Geographically, the global disposable cups market is divided into five regions -- North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Middle East & Africa (MEA). It is expected that the Asia-Pacific region will be the largest market for masking tapes because of the increasing demand from the Automotive and Construction sectors in developing economies like India and China. MEA is also expected to witness a growth in demand in masking tapes market due to the growing construction and building industry in the region. North America and Europe, on the other hand, will witness moderate growth in masking tapes market due to primary shift in production from North America and Europe to Asia Pacific.Visit For TOC@Masking Tapes Market  Key Players:Some of the major players identified across the globe in the duct tape market are: 3M Company, Bostik SA, Intertape Polymer Group Inc, Shurtape Technologies, LLC, Shurtech Brands, LLC, Stokvis Tapes BV, Tesa Tape Inc. Scapa Group plc, PT Ekadharma International Tbk, and Luxking Group Holdings Limited.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:
Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 6% by 2021

Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1426

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/commercial-aircraft-lighting-market-1426

Market Synopsis of Commercial Aircraft Lighting MarketThe global Commercial Aircraft Lighting market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 6% during 2016-2021. This growth is driven due to increase in aircraft orders, growing passenger traffic, need for improved lighting systems for passenger experience.As per the MRFR analysis, the cost associated with modern lighting systems, issues related to its fittings, and growing aircraft backlogs are the factors limiting the market growth.With approximately 40% of all new airplanes being delivered to airlines based in the Asia Pacific region, it is expected to grow significantly.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market: Diehl Stiftung & Co. Kg. Zodiac Aerospace United Technologies Corporation B/E Aerospace, Inc. Luminator Aerospace Cobham PLC Honeywell International Inc, STG Aerospace Limited Astronics Diehl AerosystemsStudy Objectives of Global Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Commercial Aircraft Lighting 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 aircraft types, fit, light types, and technology. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Commercial Aircraft Lighting Market.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions and Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
OLG Hamburg on misleading advertising  No fees means no fees

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If something is promoted as being free, then it should in fact be free. Otherwise, this kind of advertising might be misleading and violate competition law, as demonstrated by a ruling of the Oberlandesgericht (OLG) Hamburg [Higher Regional Court of Hamburg].A bank had made an offer that sounded tempting, advertising that no cash withdrawal fees would be incurred when withdrawing money anywhere in the world with its credit card. The bank advertised in promotional letters that no withdrawal fees would be incurred for withdrawing money from any cash machine either at home or abroad, i.e. 0 cash withdrawal fees worldwide. However, the offer had a catch: there was a charge for using the card outside of the Eurozone, with this only being explained on the back of the promotional letter.The Bundesverband der Verbraucherzentralen, Federation of German Consumer Organisations, (VZBV) considered this kind of advertising misleading and requested an injunction. The Hanseatische Oberlandesgericht Hamburg [Hanseatic Higher Regional Court of Hamburg] ruled in favour of the consumer watchdog in its judgment of April 12, 2017 (Az.: 5 U 38/14). The OLG held that provisions pertaining to the incursion of fees and the extent of any charges for withdrawing cash at home and abroad were of central importance to consumers and thus an essential feature of the service. It went on to say that consumers would assume with this kind of promotional letter that no fee would be incurred at home or abroad when withdrawing with the credit card in question. Moreover, consumers would not typically make a distinction here between a cash withdrawal fee and a fee for using the card abroad. Instead, they would assume that no charges would be incurred when withdrawing cash anywhere in the world.The Court ruled that the explanation on the back of the promotional letter stating that a fee would be incurred for using the card abroad when withdrawing outside of the Eurozone did not suffice to clear up this misdirection. To this end, it was said that a clear notice ought to have been included on the front regarding charges for using the card abroad. The Court also noted that the misleading information was liable to induce consumers to take a transactional decision that they would not have taken otherwise.Violations of competition law may be met with severe penalties. GRP Rainer Rechtsanwalte notes that these can lead to injunction suits and damages claims. To avoid these outcomes, lawyers who are versed in the field of industrial property rights can advise on issues relating to competition law as well as assist in enforcing or fending off claims.GRP Rainer LLPis an international firm of lawyers and tax advisors who are specialists in commercial law. The firm counsels commercial and industrial companies and corporations, as well as associations, small- and mid-sized businesses, self-employed freelancers and private individuals worldwide from offices Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart and London UK.Contact Michael RainerLawyer, Managing PartnerGRP Rainer LLPGurzenich-QuartierAugustinerstrae 1050667 CologneGermanyPhone: +49 221-27 22 75-0info@grprainer.com
Psyllium Seed Market Value Chain and Forecast 2017-2027

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Psyllium is a form of fiber and comes under Plantaginaceae plant family. Psyllium is available in various forms such as psyllium seeds, psyllium husk, psyllium husk powder, psyllium industrial powder etc. Psyllium seeds can be consumed directly or in powdered form for medical purposes as it has various health benefits. Psyllium seed is a source of fiber, protein, and triglycerides. Psyllium seed also contains ascorbic acid, aucubin, beta-carotene, beta-sitosterol, potassium, riboflavin, selenium, sodium, chromium, cobalt, fiber, linoleic acid, magnesium etc. Psyllium seed can be marketed as whole seed or the husk or husk powder according to convenience of consumers. Psyllium seed is an intestinal cleanser and stool softener for both animals as well as humans therefore it is used as traditional medicinal herb in Asian countries.Market Segmentation:Psyllium seed market is segmented on the basis of application as therapeutics application, industrial application, animal feed etc. In therapeutics, Psyllium seed is used for constipation, diarrhea, high cholesterol, heart disease, blood pressure, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease. In industry, Psyllium seed is used to prevent soil erosion, prevent landscaping, preventing crumbling of solid ingredients as a result of moisture retention. In animal feed, psyllium seed husk is used to move sand from animals digestive system without any harmful effect.Psyllium seed market is segmented on the basis of industrial applications as food industry, pharmaceutical industry, and cosmetic industry. In food industry, psyllium seed can be powdered and used in health drinks, ice creams, breads, biscuits and other bakery products. Psyllium seed is also used in cereal breakfasts by many athletes. In pharmaceutical industry psyllium is used as thickening agent for capsule formation. In cosmetics industry, psyllium seeds can be used in forms like paste or power in anti-aging herbal products for skin care.Request Report Sample@Psyllium seed market is further segmented on the basis of regions as North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan, Japan, and Middle East and Africa.Market Regional Outlook:On the basis of regions, the Psyllium seed market has been segmented into North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Psyllium seed is originated from Iran and increased its travel from Asia to Europe. Production of psyllium seeds mainly comes from Arab world, Afghanistan, Egypt, North India, Sindh, Baluchistan etc. for medicinal purposes. Europe is emerging in psyllium seed market for consumption as well as production. Currently, India is the largest producer of psyllium seeds.Market Drivers and Trends:Psyllium seed have number of health benefits such as constipation, diarrhea, high cholesterol, heart disease, blood pressure, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease which is increasing demand for psyllium seeds in global market. Other applications of psyllium seed in various industries such as food industry, pharmaceutical industry, cosmetic industry is increasing which drives the market for psyllium seeds globally. Psyllium seed is used as an animal feed which is helping animals without any side effects, therefore the demand for psyllium seed as animal feed is gaining interest in global market which states that the psyllium seed market is expected to in forecast period.Visit For TOC@Psyllium seed Market Key Players:Some of the key players in the psyllium seed market include Keyur Industries, Atlas Industries, JYOT Overseas Pvt. Ltd., Abhyuday Indutries, Satnam Psyllium Industries, Rajganga Agro Product Pvt.Ltd., Shree Mahalaxmi psyllium Pvt. Ltd., Ispasen Remedies, Jyotindra International, Shubh Psyllium Industries are among these.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:
Benzyl Benzoate Market Sales, Revenue, Gross Margin and Market Share Forecast to 2022

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https://marketsizeforecasters.com/global-benzyl-benzoate-market

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Benzyl benzoate is a kind of ester compound by condensation of benzoate and benzyl alcohol, there are a lot of important applications. It can mainly be used in textile auxiliaries, flavors and Fragrance, pharmaceuticals and plasticizer.Request a sample copy of Benzyl Benzoate Market Research Report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Benzyl Benzoate in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers LANXESS, Emerald Kalama Chemical, Ernesto Ventos, VertellusMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.), Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers Pharmaceutical Grade, Industrial Grade, Flavors & Fragrance GradeMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Pharmaceuticals, Textile Auxiliaries, Flavors and Fragrance, Plasticizer, OtherRequest Discount for Global Benzyl Benzoate Market Research Report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Benzyl Benzoate market.Chapter 1, to describe Benzyl Benzoate Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Benzyl Benzoate, with sales, revenue, and price of Benzyl Benzoate, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Benzyl Benzoate, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Benzyl Benzoate market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Benzyl Benzoate sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceBrowse full table of contents and data tables For Global Benzyl Benzoate Market Report @Related Reports: -Global and Chinese Methanesulfonamide Industry, 2017 Market Research ReportGlobal and Chinese Methanesulfonamide Industry, 2012-2022 Market Research Report' is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the global Methanesulfonamide industry with a focus on the Chinese market. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Methanesulfonamide manufacturers and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the industry.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:News:
Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Packaging Market Analysis, Trends, Forecast, 2017-2027

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Packaging products made of eco-friendly material are gaining popularity as market players are adapting to sustainable packaging methods. Products and materials sold in the consumer markets, which have served their intended purpose or completed their life cycle are sent to material recovery facilities (MRFs). Packaging products made of plastic materials recovered from MRFs contribute to the category of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging. One of the prominent material which is being recycled is the PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic. PET plastic is the most widely used and accepted plastic, as it is quite easy to recycle and can be recycled more than once, thus promoting the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market. Recycled products have many environmental benefits and are being preferred by the manufacturers adopting sustainable principles. The increased demand for packaging products produced using recycled content has also propelled the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market.Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Packaging Market- Market Dynamics:A major factor supporting the growth of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market is the improved material sorting infrastructure across many significant regions like U.S., Canada and Western Europe. The global market for post-consumer recycled plastic packaging is witnessing the incorporation of new material processing technologies for manufacturing of post-consumer recycled products and materials. Light weight nature of recycled plastic is another factor fuelling the growth of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market. The growth of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market is propelled by certain properties of recycled plastic such as strength and crack-resistance. Another prominent factor promoting the growth of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market is the environmental friendly property of the plastic. However, the shortfall in supply has restricted the growth prospects for post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market. FDA regulations applicable to packaging of food products across geographic regions are a matter of concern for market players operating in the global post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market.Request Report Sample@Manufacturers are identifying new infrastructure for segregating and collecting mixed plastics at the recovery facilities in order to implement appropriate sorting mechanism. Effectiveness of the selection process plays a vital role in the amount of materials recovered in these facilities.Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Packaging Market- Market Segmentation:The post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market can be segmented on the basis of product type, material type, process type and end use. On the basis of product type, the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market can be segmented into bottles, cups, containers (jars and tubs), bags, clamshells and blister packs. Mostly all the recycled plastic packaging products are thermoformed and the FDA approved products are even safe for direct food contact. On the basis of material type, the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market can be segmented into PET (polyethylene terephthalate), HDPE (high density polyethylene) and PP (polypropylene). PET plastic is expected to be the major contributor due to its abundance availability and ease in processing technology. On the basis of process type, the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market can be segmented into mechanical (melting and refining) process and chemical process. On the basis of end use, the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market can be segmented into beverage (bottle and dairy products), electronics, home care, pharmaceuticals, and personal care.Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Packaging Market- Regional Outlook:Geographically, the post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America and Middle East and Africa (MEA). North America is the leading manufacturer of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market as U.S. and Canada have taken major steps to initiate material sorting infrastructures in the regions and is anticipated to witness a healthy growth. Asia-Pacific is expected to witness a significant growth over the forecast period driven by the developments in China and India.Visit For TOC@Post-Consumer Recycled Plastic Packaging Market- Key Players:Some of the key players of post-consumer recycled plastic packaging market are Placon Corporation Inc., Seventh Generation Inc., Amcor Rigid Plastics USA Inc., Genpak, LLC, Papier-Mettler, Inhaber Michael Mettler e.K., Tray-Pak Corporation, Alpha Packaging, Inc., and Eco-Products, Inc.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:
Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 6% by 2021

Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market

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https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/commercial-aircraft-landing-gear-market-1427

Market Synopsis of Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market:The Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 6% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are growing fleet size, aircraft orders, and demand for lightweight aircraft.As per the MRFR analysis, challenges associated with new technology, strict design constraints, long product development process are the key factors restraining the market growth.As per Boeing outlook 2016, around 8,330 aircraft will be delivered to Americas in the next 20 years. Whereas, APAC will register the deliveries of 15,130 aircraft. The demand for new aircraft, growing retirement and modernization of fleets will drive the aircraft landing gear market significantly in the forecast period.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market: Circor Aerospace Heroux-devtek, Liebherr Group messier-Bugatti-dowty UTC Aerospace Systems Honeywell Aerospace Megellan Aerospace Merrill Technologies Group SPP Canada Aircraft Triumph Group Whippany Actuation SystemStudy Objectives of Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear 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 aircraft type, aircraft model, landing gear type. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market.Regional and Country Analysis of Global Commercial Aircraft Landing Gear Market:As per the MRFR analysis, the APAC region will continue its dominance in the forecast period. Whereas, EMEA, and Americas will is expected to grow at CAGR of around 5.5% and 3% during the forecast period.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions and Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueAccess Report Details @Target Audience: Aircraft Landing Gear OEMs Component Suppliers Aftermarket suppliers /MROs Research Institute / Education Institute Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAbout 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 Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Aluminum Slugs Market to register a healthy CAGR for the forecast period, 2017-2027

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The global packaging market has introduced an extensive collection of single-serve packaging systems into the market, inferable of the growing request from the working population. Aluminum slugs play a crucial role in the packaging industry with easier, faster, safer, efficient and effective way of impact extrusion of the slug. Aluminum slugs are also eco-friendly and recyclable which gives an advantage over other types of metal slugs. They come in different sizes and can be converted to any shape for the convenience of customers. Aluminum slugs are also rust resistance and lighter which have extended the scope for aluminum slugs market. Aluminum slugs market is expected to get demand from several application segments including food & beverages industries, healthcare, paint industries, pharmaceutical, etc. where slugs are being used.Global Aluminum Slugs- Market Dynamics:The aluminum slugs market is expected to witness a healthy growth over the forecast period due to the rising demand for smaller and convenient slugs for extrusion. Aluminum slugs market is anticipated to be exceptionally concentrated into personal care and beauty products as their end products. Fantastic properties of aluminum slugs, for example, have an extended shelf life and a safe approach to administering a wide assortment of items. In addition, the increase in the per capita disposable income for developing economies and shift in the mindset towards convenient packaging. Rapid industrialization in the field of paint, food & beverages, etc. have seen the increment in spending to offer items by using aluminum slugs. Recyclability properties of aluminum are few of the components to be specified which can drive the development of aluminum slugs market. The increment in power rates which will expand the cost of manufacturing for aluminum directly impact the cost for slugs is the restraint hampering the market for aluminum slugs. Instability in the raw material prices of aluminum combined with stringent norms from local government is also few of the challenges faced by aluminum slugs market.Request Report Sample@Global Aluminum Slugs- Market Segmentation:The aluminum slugs can be segmented by shape, by application, and by end use industry.On the basis of shape, the global aluminum slugs are segmented into:FlatRoundRectangularOn the basis of application, the global aluminum slugs are segmented into:Aerosol cansAluminum collapsible tubesAutomotive cansTechnical partsOthersOn the basis of end use industry, the global aluminum slugs are segmented into:Food & BeveragePharmaceuticalCosmetic & personal careAutomotiveElectrical & electronicsGlobal Aluminum Slugs- Regional Overview:The global aluminum slugs can be segmented on the basis of region such as:North AmericaLatin AmericaEastern EuropeWestern EuropeAPEJMiddle East & AfricaJapanThe aluminum slugs market in North America region is to remain dominant for the highest revenue growth as compared to markets in other regions. Aluminum slugs market in China and India are expected to have substantial growth in terms of revenue due to relatively large aluminum ore industry and technological advancements in these emerging economies. Furthermore, the growth of aluminum slugs market in Asia Pacific is also expected to be driven from the increasing in the spending power among consumers in the countries of these regions. Aluminum slugs market in Western Europe is expected to witness above average growth, with Germany, France, and the U.K. In Latin America, Brazil and Mexico saw a good presence for aluminum slugs market and is expected to grow at a significant rate. The aluminum slugs market in the Middle East & Africa region is expected to witness an augmentation in the revenue contribution from sales in South Africa and GCC.Visit For TOC@Global Aluminum Slugs  Key players:Few of the key players in the aluminum slugs market are Ball Corp, Neuman Aluminium Austria GmbH, Impol, d.o.o., Aluminium-Werke Wutoschingen AG & Co.KG, Jindal Aluminium Limited, Haomei Aluminum Co., Ltd., Nansen Industry Co., Ltd., Alucon PCL, Rheinfelden Semis Gmbh & Co. Kg, Aluman Sa.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:
Military Vetronics Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 7% by 2021

Military Vetronics Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1429

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/military-vetronics-market-1429

Market Synopsis of Global Military Vetronics Market:The Global Military Vetronics Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 7% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are modernization of military ground vehicles, low cost per mile military ground vehicle to reduce ownership cost, reduction of weight, size, and power consumption (SWaP) of electronics in military vehicles to expand internal space for accommodation and ammunition reserves.As per the MRFR analysis, cooling technologies within military land vehicles, challenges with SBC computing capability, and limited on-vehicle network scope are the key factors restraining the market growth.C3 systems demand is highest in North America and Europe, owing to growth in demand for military land vehicles systems with next generation vetronics systems. Also in APAC, rise in demand of technologically advanced military land vehicles and rise in defense spending in India and China is one of the major factors driving the market.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Military Vetronics Market: Curtiss-Wright Corporation Oshkosh Corporation Ultra Electronics Ltd. TE Connectivity SAAB A.B. Kongsberg Gruppen ASA General Electric Company BAE Systems plc, Rheinmetall Defence Moog, Inc. Lockheed Martin Corporation Elbit Systems Ltd. Thales Group The Raytheon Company and General Dynamics Corporation.Study Objectives of Global Military Vetronics Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Military Vetronics Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Military Vetronics 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 are vehicle type and system. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Military Vetronics Market.Regional and Country Analysis of Global Military Vetronics Market:As per the MRFR analysis, the EMEA region will continue its dominance in the forecast period. Whereas, APAC, and Americas will is expected to grow at CAGR of around 11% and 5% during the forecast period.Brief TOC:1 Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2 Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3 Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4 Assumptions and Limitations5 Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueTarget Audience: Military Vetronics OEMs Systems Suppliers Component Suppliers Aftermarket suppliers /MROs Research Institute / Education Institute Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Open Belt Conveyors Market: 2017 Latest Trend & 2021 Global Industry Analysis Research Report

http://www.orbisresearch.com/contacts/request-sample/311542

http://www.orbisresearch.com/reports/index/global-open-belt-conveyors-market-research-report-and-forecast-to-2017-2021

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Global Open Belt Conveyors Market Research Report provides information on Products, Services, Trends, Top Companies, Verticals, Countries, Material, Application, and Geography globally. This report will help the viewer in Better Decision Making ,offers by OrbisResearch.comOpen Belt Conveyors Report by Material, Application, and Geography  Global Forecast to 2021 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).The report firstly introduced the Open Belt Conveyors basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.Request a sample of Global Open Belt Conveyors Market Research Report @The report includes six parts, dealing with: Basic information The Asia Open Belt Conveyors Market The North American Open Belt Conveyors Market The European Open Belt Conveyors Market Market entry and investment feasibility The report conclusionBrowse the full Global Open Belt Conveyors Industry Research Report @Some of the points from table of content:Part I Open Belt Conveyors Industry OverviewChapter One Open Belt Conveyors Industry Overview1.1 Open Belt Conveyors Definition1.2 Open Belt Conveyors Classification Analysis1.2.1 Open Belt Conveyors Main Classification Analysis1.2.2 Open Belt Conveyors Main Classification Share Analysis1.3 Open Belt Conveyors Application Analysis1.3.1 Open Belt Conveyors Main Application Analysis1.3.2 Open Belt Conveyors Main Application Share Analysis1.4 Open Belt Conveyors Industry Chain Structure Analysis1.5 Open Belt Conveyors Industry Development Overview1.5.1 Open Belt Conveyors Product History Development Overview1.5.1 Open Belt Conveyors Product Market Development Overview1.6 Open Belt Conveyors Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.1 Open Belt Conveyors Global Import Market Analysis1.6.2 Open Belt Conveyors Global Export Market Analysis1.6.3 Open Belt Conveyors Global Main Region Market Analysis1.6.4 Open Belt Conveyors Global Market Comparison Analysis1.6.5 Open Belt Conveyors Global Market Development Trend AnalysisChapter Two Open Belt Conveyors Up and Down Stream Industry Analysis2.1 Upstream Raw Materials Analysis2.1.1 Upstream Raw Materials Price Analysis2.1.2 Upstream Raw Materials Market Analysis2.1.3 Upstream Raw Materials Market Trend2.2 Down Stream Market Analysis2.1.1 Down Stream Market Analysis2.2.2 Down Stream Demand Analysis2.2.3 Down Stream Market Trend AnalysisPart II Asia Open Belt Conveyors Industry (The Report Company Including the Below Listed But Not All)Chapter Three Asia Open Belt Conveyors Market Analysis3.1 Asia Open Belt Conveyors Product Development History3.2 Asia Open Belt Conveyors Competitive Landscape Analysis3.3 Asia Open Belt Conveyors Market Development TrendChapter Four 2012-2017 Asia Open Belt Conveyors Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast4.1 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Capacity Production Overview4.2 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Production Market Share Analysis4.3 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Demand Overview4.4 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Supply Demand and Shortage4.5 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Import Export Consumption4.6 2012-2017 Open Belt Conveyors Cost Price Production Value Gross MarginThe Report Contains: 163 Pages.Make an enquire of this report @About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019
Aircraft Engine MRO Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 7% by 2021

Aircraft Engine MRO Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1556

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/aircraft-engine-mro-market-1556

Market Synopsis of Global Aircraft Engine MRO Market:The Global Aircraft Engine MRO Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 7% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are participation of engine OEMs in MRO industry, growing demand from emerging market, and growth in aircraft fleet and engines.As per the MRFR analysis, factors restraining the market are challenges associated with the MRO of new composite material, and high custom duties and taxes, and increased threat from OEMs.Emergence of additive manufacturing for MRO parts, introduction of mobile technology, and usage of radio-frequency identification (RFID) to improve efficiency are the ongoing trends which will impact the market during the forecast period.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Aircraft Engine MRO Market: Delta TechOps GE Aviation Honeywell Aerospace Pratt & Whitney Division Rolls Royce Ameco Eagle Services Asia Evergreen Technologies Hong Kong Aero Engine Services MTU Maintenance Singapore Aero Engine ServiceStudy Objectives of Global Aircraft Engine MRO Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Aircraft Engine MRO Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Aircraft Engine MRO 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 aircraft type and application. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Aircraft Engine MRO Market.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For The Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions and Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueAccess Report Details @Target Audience: Aircraft Engine MRO Vendors Component Suppliers Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAbout 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 Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Precision Medicine Market Will Procure US$ 172.95 Bn by 2024

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/precision-medicine-market.asp

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/12646

http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/precision-medicine-market/toc

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The global precision medicine market is bifurcated into multiple parent segments which are further sub-categorized. The primary division of the market is an assimilation of three, region, technology and application. The major technologies which will define the market character in the forthcoming years are bioinformatics, next-gen sequencing and drug discovery technology. The applications segment will showcase fruitful results and oncology will act as the showstopper. The market prediction shows that this segment will bloom and will touch an approximate value of US$ 69 Bn by the end of the assessment period. The approximate registered CAGR of this segment within the assessed period will be above 13.5%. The global population is struggling with some of the acute diseases such as arthritis. A large slice of the aged population is an easy prey of this crippling ailment. The immunology segment will reap maximum benefits from the population affected by arthritis. The immunology segment will gain revenue from the market and the market worth will cross US$ 34 Mn by the end of 2024.Browse Complete Report @The latest report published by Persistence Market Research titled Global Market Study on Precision Medicine: Drug Discovery Technology Segment Estimated to Witness 0.1% Decline in Market Share Between 2016 and 2024". projects some of the crucial aspects of the global precision medicine market after an in-depth research. The report assures that the market will grow manifold and it will register a 14.7% CAGR between 2016 and 2024.The global expansion of the medicine industry will expand the canvas of the global precision market. Larger investments, better infrastructure, simplified approval process of drugs along with companion diagnostics will impact the structure of the entire climate of the global precision medicine market. The affordable DNA profiling, the bloating cancer population of the globe will create a favorable condition of growth for the global precision medicine market. The proper storage of genome data plays a crucial part in this segment. The emergence of data backed medicare will also drive the global precision market ahead.But the market is combating acute data storage and data privacy issues and it also lacks in systematic approach towards funding and soaring prices of personalized drugs is also creating a blockade in the expansion of the global precision medicine market.A sample of this report is available upon request @The regional market arena has penetrated through different key regions of the globe. The global precision medicine market has extended its boundaries in the last few years. The product has a massive global presence and it is expanding steadily. Apart from North America, Europe, MEA, Latin America and Asia Pacific regions are other major pockets which are expected to show fruitful outcome in the forthcoming years. The global precision medicine market is expected to perform well in the North American region and it will occupy more than 35% of the market share within the period of prediction. The global precision market in North America will flourish and will probably touch the approximate market value of more than US$ 60 Mn by 2024 end. With a stupendous performance the US and Canada will conquer a lion share of the global precision medicine market of this region predicts the report. The Europe is a consistent market and will crawl up the revenue chart within the forecast period. The global precision market in Europe will ride an estimated CAGR of more than 13% to sew up an average worth of more than US$ 40 Mn by the end of 2024. In Europe the markets spread across Germany and France will shape the destiny of this market. Apart from this the countries such as Spain, UK and Italy will also follow the leading pack during the period of assessment. The APAC region is the rising star of the global precision medicine market. The region will project a CAGR of more than 14% during the period of projection. The market will witness a staggering hike and will touch approximately US$ 35 Mn by the end of 2024. In the APAC region Japan will spearhead the market, China and India will lock horns to accumulate maximum market share during the projected period. The region of Latin America will score considerable revenue during this period. MEA will be a sulking market as less of research activities will dampen the spirit of the precision medicine market.Request to view table of content @The market is evolving fast with the better and bigger market tie-ups. The bonhomie between IT and healthcare is also expediting the market and providing a bigger playground to the stakeholders. Novartis AG, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, Eli Lilly And Company, AstraZeneca are contributing massively in the overall development of the global precision medicine 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:
Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 6% by 2021

Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1579

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/commercial-aircraft-gas-turbine-engine-market-1579

Market Synopsis of Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine MarketThe Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 6% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are improved fuel efficient gas turbine engines, growth in aircraft fleet and new models, and growth in PMA.As per the MRFR analysis, factors restraining the market growth are custom duties and taxes, carbon emission, and issues related to spare part pricing.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market: CFM International General Electric Pratt & Whitney Division Rolls-Royce Avio Aero Engine Alliance International Aero Engines MTU Aero Engines NPO Saturn Power Jet Snecma Williams InternationalStudy Objectives of Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine 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 engine type. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions And Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueRegional and Country Analysis of Global Commercial Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine Market:As per the MRFR analysis, the APAC region will continue its dominance in the forecast period, to grow at a CAGR of 8%. Whereas, EMEA and Americas will grow at a CAGR of 5.5%, respectively during the forecast period.Target Audience: Commercial Aircraft Engine OEMs Aftermarket Suppliers Component Suppliers Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Commercial Airport Lighting Market is Expected to Grow at a CAGR of 8% by 2021

Commercial Airport Lighting Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1623

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/commercial-airport-lighting-market-1623

Market Synopsis of Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market:The Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 8% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are growing air passenger traffic, investments on airport modernization and upgradation, and increased demand for passenger and aircraft safety.As per the MRFR analysis, integration of airfield LED light fixtures, cost associated with lighting systems, and inconvenience caused due to improper visibility caused by LEDs installed at runways.Adoption of solar LED lights to power runway, taxiway, and terminal lights, and evolution of technologies to monitor airfield lighting systems are the emerging trends, which would impact the market in the forecast period.Key Players of Commercial Airport Lighting Market: Abacus Lighting atg airports limited Honeywell Siemens AG vosla Gmbh ADB Airfield Solutions Avlite Systems Carmanah Technologies Corp. Crouse-Hinds Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.Request a Sample Copy @Study Objectives of Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Commercial Airport Lighting 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 application. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope Of The Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions And Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric And Forecasting ModelContinueRegional and Country Analysis of Global Commercial Airport Lighting Market:As per the MRFR analysis, the EMEA region will continue its dominance in the forecast period, to grow at a CAGR of 8%. Whereas, APAC and Americas will significantly grow at a CAGR of 12%, respectively during the forecast period.Target Audience: Airport Lighting Contractors System / Equipment Suppliers Government Bodies Airports Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Flight Navigation System Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7% by 2021

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1633

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/flight-navigation-system-market-1633

Market Synopsis of Global Flight Navigation System Market:The Global Flight Navigation System Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 7% during 2016-2021. The key factors driving the growth are increasing aircraft fleet, demand for avionics system with gen-next aircraft, demand for accurate flight navigation, capability of handling more air traffic, collision avoidance systems, gyroscopes, and integration of early warning radar.As per the MRFR analysis, factors restraining the market growth are cyber-attack, high cost of autopilot system, and automation safety issue.Demand of non-directional beacon, next generation avionics, and demand for aircraft condition monitoring system (ACMS) are the ongoing trends which will impact the market during the forecast period.Request a Sample Copy @Key Players of Flight Navigation System Market: Honeywell Moog Inc. Northrop Grumman Raytheon Rockwell Collins Boeing Esterline Technologies GE Aviation Sagem NavtechStudy Objectives of Global Flight Navigation System Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Flight Navigation System Market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyse the Global Flight Navigation System 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 flight instrument, product, and application. To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market. To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Flight Navigation System Market.Brief TOC:1. Introduction1.1 Report Description1.2 Research Objective2. Executive Summary2.1 Key Findings / Highlights2.1.1 Investment Opportunities2.1.2 Market Startegies2.1.3 Latest Developments3. Scope of the Study3.1 Markets Covered3.2 Years Considered For the Study (2016-2021)3.2 Geographic Scope3.3 Key Stakeholders4. Assumptions and Limitations5. Research Methodology5.1 Primary Research5.2 Secondary Research5.3 Econometric and Forecasting ModelContinueTarget Audience: Radio and transmitter OEMs System/Component Suppliers Potential Investors Key executive (CEO and COO) and strategy growth managerAccess Report Details @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Technologies 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.Contact:Akash AnandMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Bone Glue Market Will Procure US$ 1,032.9 Million by 2024

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http://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/market-research/bone-glues-market/toc

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Persistence Market Researchs report titled Global Market Study on Bone Glue: Rising Adoption of Bone Glue for Orthopedic Surgeries Expected to Boost Demand for Bone Glue over the Forecast Period, has estimated that the global market for bone glue will register a CAGR of 7.0% during the assessment period of 2016-2024. Prevalence of bone related disorders continues to be on a rise, urging manufacturers to come up with advanced glues. Preference to bone glue remains higher for adhesion procedures in arthroplasty surgeries. By the end of 2024, the application of bone glue in arthroplasty surgeries is slated to surpass 40% share of global market value, rendering it as the most prominent application for bone glue adhesives.Browse Complete Report @The reluctance of orthopedic patients towards the use of conventional cementing materials for surgical adhesion procedures is influencing the development of organic alternatives. Globally, the consumption of bone glue in hospitals is on an upsurge, owing to their widespread acceptance by both healthcare professionals and patients. The global market for bone glue is currently valued at US$ 600.6 million, and is expected to reach US$ 1,032.9 million in revenues by the end of 2024.Key end-use segments of the market include hospitals, specialty clinics and ASCs. High costs of orthopedic surgeries and growing number of accidents have increased the influx of orthopedic patients in hospitals. Since treating such patients requires the inclusion of bone glue as surgical adhesives, manufacturers are likely to concentrate their supply more towards hospitals and similar medical organizations. Specialty clinics are expected to be the second-most prominent end-user in the global bone glue market. On the account of their individual value share, specialty clinics and ASCs are projected to attribute to 17.9% and 10.9% share of the global bone glue market by 2024 end.In terms of value share, North Americas bone glue market accounts for half of the global market value, primarily due to advanced pharmaceutical production and robust healthcare infrastructure in the US. The bone glue market in the Asia Pacific region is expected to surge at the highest CAGR of 7.6% during the projected period. Latin Americas bone glue revenues are likely to surpass US$ 50 million by 2024, while bone glue sales in Middle East & Africa (MEA) region will expand sluggishly. On the other hand, revenues generated from bone glue sales in Europe are expected to be worth over US$ 150 million by the end of the forecast period.Request to view table of content @The production of bone glue through synthesis of constituent adhesive elements becomes more cost-effective and practical for manufacturers. Over 80% of global revenues estimated in 2016 and beyond are projected to be accounted by synthetic bone glue over natural bone glue. Revenues from global sales of synthetic product called methacrylate will incur a rise of estimated US$ 23.8 million between 2016 and 2017, while global cyanoacrylate revenues are likely to surpass US$ 250 million by 2024 end.A sample of this report is available upon request @As a manufacturer and supplier of bone glue adhesives, Ethicon, Inc. (US) is estimated to hold 40% revenue share of the global market. Baxter International Inc. is the other leading player in the global bone glue market. Companies such as Cryolife are expected to expand their market presence through increasing distribution. C. R. Bard, Inc., Luna Innovations Incorporated, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Cohera Medical, Inc., Tissuemed Ltd., Chemence Medical, Inc., Integra LifeSceinces Corporation, and DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc., are also some of the prominent companies participating in the growth of the global bone glue 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:
Good Growth Opportunities in Global Aptamers Market 2017 - 2021

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Aptamers are oligonucleotides or peptide bioreceptors that can selectively bind to specific molecular targets with high affinity. Aptamers have proved to be an excellent alternative to monoclonal antibodies. Due to its properties, aptamers have found application in therapeutic drug development, diagnostics, and biotechnology research and development. Aptamers are non-immunogenic, non-toxic and also have fewer side effects as compared to monoclonal antibodies because of the absence of Fc region. Smaller size permits easy entry of aptamers into the target cells and increases efficiency at lower concentrations. Due to their thermal stability, aptamers remain viable during transport and storage. Moreover aptamers are manufactured through chemical synthesis process hence have lower cost of production. This also allows easy scale-up of manufacturing process that is very difficult with monoclonal antibodies. These factors have made aptamers as excellent candidates for therapeutic drug development.Various research institutes and pharma companies are conducting rigorous research for development of aptamers cancer treatment. Numerous companies have invested heavily in aptamers drug development. AptaTargets a Spanish biopharmaceutical company raised over US$ 3 million in funding in May 2017. The company plans to use these finds for conducting preclinical phase and advance into phase I and phase II clinical trials on its first drug candidate ApTOLL that is targeted for treatment of acute ischemic stroke. NOXXON and Anisoma are other key companies involved in therapeutic aptamers research. With increasing research and development activities and scientific publications advocating importance of aptamers in therapeutics, companies specializing in large scale aptamer manufacturing have emerged in the recent past. This has boosted the contract manufacturing organization (CMO) business. Currently systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) method is widely used for aptamer synthesis. Although various modified versions of the parent method have evolved, it is expected that more productive and cost effective alternatives would emerge in the future. This would fuel the global aptamers market.Request Free Report Sample@Discovery of biomarkers that play important role in disease progression has contributed immensely to development of target therapy. Diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, viral diseases, cardiac disorders and neurology disorders have been main attraction for development of aptamer targeted therapy. Aptamers are forecast to become an inevitable part of targeted therapy in the near future. Treatment of viral infections is an emerging application of aptamers; however majority of the research is focused on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Hepatitis C virus (HCV), and Hepatitis B virus (HBV).Key players in the aptamers market include NOXXON Pharma AG, Ophthotech Corp, Archemix (Baxter), NeXstar (Gilead), AptaMatrix, Aptus Biotech, Base Pair Biotechnologies and Vivonics among others.Request For TOC@NOTE: This report is currently under research and will be made available to clients on request.About UsSpearhead Acuity Business Research & Consulting Private Limited (SA-BRC) is a premium Life Science business intelligence and data analytics firm. SA-BRC team offers a wide range of business intelligence services to multiple stakeholders such as Medical Device Manufacturers, Service Providers (Hospitals, Payers, etc.), Suppliers, Group Purchase Organizations, Distributors and all other individuals in the entire value chain of healthcare industry. Our research and consulting capabilities extend across several sub-domains within the sphere of Life Sciences such as Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Medical Devices, Veterinary Sciences, Wellness Products and Pharmaceuticals.Contact UsJohn WhitmoreOffice No. 14,Hermes Kunj, Mangaldas Road,Pune, 411001IndiaPhone: +91-02041210872Email: sales@sa-brc.comWebsite:
Global Digital Pathology Market Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment

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Future Market Insights (FMI) offers a 10-year forecast of the global digital pathology market between 2015 and 2025. In terms of value, the market is expected to register a CAGR of 11.4% during the forecast period. This study provides insights regarding the market dynamics and trends in all seven regions that are expected to influence the current market environment and future status of the global digital pathology market over the forecast period.Request for Sample Report :Report DescriptionThis report examines the global digital pathology market for the period 20152025, with the primary objective being to offer key insights on developments in the global digital pathology market, that are significantly helping to provide more integrated and digitised platform for the healthcare service providers by making the process of sharing slides across the health care sector mush easier.The global digital pathology market report begins by defining digital pathology systems and the various components such as scanners, software and services that make up the whole package. It also lists the various end users opting for digital pathology systems, followed by an overview section, along with its parent market. Overview section includes FMIs analysis of key trends, drivers, restraints and opportunities estimated to influence growth of the global digital pathology market over the forecast period. Impact analysis of key growth drivers and restraints based on weighted average model has been analysed to better equip customers and readers with region-specific trends, drivers, restraints and market insights.Major factors driving growth of the global digital pathology market include increasing spending on cancer diagnostics and monitoring, increasing spending on healthcare IT and collaborative approach between pathologists and cloud service providers to facilitate faster decision making. Furthermore, increasing demand for image analysis software and personalised medicine has triggered growth of global digital pathology market. Research indicates that there is growing need for integrated modules of digital pathology, which enables better interoperability reliable outcome to pathologists. Secondly, there is growing need for automation in diagnostic procedures, starting from sample collection to final diagnosis, and this is estimated to further fuel demand for digital pathology systems for application in research laboratories and diagnostic laboratories. However, factors such as high capital cost for implementing digital pathology systems and stringent regulatory guidance for the use of digital pathology systems in primary diagnosis are factors hampering growth of the digital pathology market.The global digital pathology market is segmented based on the basis of product type into hardware (scanners), software and services. Scanners segment is further sub-segmented into fluorescent scanners and bright field scanners. Scanners segment is further sub-segment into fluorescent digital pathology scanners and bright field digital pathology scanners. The software segment is further sub-segmented into image analysis and digital pathology information systems. On the basis of deployment mode, the image analysis and digital pathology information systems sub-segments are categorized as on-premise delivery and cloud based delivery solutions. The services segment is further sub-segmented into installation & integration services, consulting services and maintenance services. On the basis of end user, the market is segmented into hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and research centres. A detailed analysis of all the categories of end users has been provided in terms of market size, Y-o-Y growth rate, absolute $ opportunity and BPS analysis.The report analyses the market based on digital pathology screening services such as haematology, chemical pathology, histopathology and medical microbiology. A thorough analysis, along with the market attractiveness index of each of these categories, has been provided in the report.In the above sections - by product, end user, pathology screening services and region - we evaluate the present scenario and future growth prospects of the global digital pathology market for the period 2015 - 2025. We have considered 2014 as the base year and provided data for the forecast period, i.e. 2015-2025.The next section of report highlights the digital pathology market by region. It provides the market outlook for 2015-2025 and sets the forecast within the context of the global digital pathology market. The study discusses key regional trends, drivers and restraints contributing to growth of digital pathology market, worldwide. Key regions assessed in this report include North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific Excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and the Middle East & Africa.To ascertain size of the global digital pathology (devices) market, we have considered the revenue generated from the sale of digital pathology software and scanners. The forecast presented here assesses total revenue generated across the digital pathology market, globally over the forecast period. In order to offer an accurate forecast, we started by sizing the current market, which forms the basis of how the digital pathology market is expected to develop in the future. Given the characteristics of the market, we have triangulated the outcome on the basis of supply-side and demand-side perspective, and downstream industry and economic envelope.It is imperative to note that in an ever-fluctuating global economy, we not only conduct forecasts in terms of CAGR, but also analyse based on key parameters, such as Year-On-Year (Y-o-Y) growth rates to understand the predictability of the market and to identify the right opportunities available in the market.The global digital pathology market has been segmented in terms of products, pathology screening services, end users and regions, are analysed on the basis of their respective Basis Point Share (BPS) to understand individual segments relative contribution to market growth. This detailed level of information is important for identification of various key trends in the global market.Another key feature of this report is the analysis of key segments in terms of absolute dollar opportunity. This is traditionally overlooked while forecasting the market. However, absolute dollar opportunity is critical for assessing level of opportunity that a provider can look to achieve, as well as to identify potential resources from a sales and delivery perspective of digital pathology market.To understand key growth segments in terms of growth, Future Market Insights developed the digital pathology market Attractiveness Index. The resulting index helps providers to identify real market opportunities and take informed decisions.Browse Full Report With TOC :In the final section of the report, we offer the Competitive Landscape section to provide report audiences with a dashboard view and to examine the key differentiators among competitor firms. Key categories of providers covered in the report are digital pathology scanners, software and service providers. This section is primarily designed to provide clients with an objective and detailed comparative assessment of key providers specific to a market segment in the digital pathology value chain. This section also includes market strategies and SWOT analysis of the key players in the market.Detailed profiles of digital pathology companies included are in the scope of the report to evaluate their long-term and short-term strategies. Key players in the market include:Perkin Elmer, Inc.,MedImmune, LLC (AstraZeneca),Sectra ABKoninklijke Philips N.VGE HealthcareInspirata Co.Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.Leica Biosystems3D-Histech Ltd.Hamamatsu Photonics, K.K.Digipath Co.ZEISSOlympus CorporationYokogawa Electronic Corporation.Key Segments CoveredBy ProductScannerBright Field ScannerFluorescence ScannerSoftwareImage Analysis PlatformOn-premises DeliveryCloud-based DeliveryDigital Pathology Information SystemsOn-premises DeliveryCloud-based DeliveryServicesInstallation and IntegrationMaintenance ServicesConsulting ServicesBy End UseHospital500+ Beds200499 BedsLess than 200 BedsDiagnostic LaboratoriesPrivate LaboratoriesPublic LaboratoriesResearch CentersBy Pathology Screening ServicesHematologyChemical PathologyHistopathologyMedical MicrobiologyMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StateTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comGoogle+:Linked in:Twitter:
Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) has recently added a new report to the ever-expanding online collection of market intelligence on the global industry verticals regarding the Global Market. This report is titled as Flexographic Printing Inks Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024. The report estimates and forecasts the flexographic printing inks market on the global, regional, and country levels.Request For a Sample Report:The study provides forecast between 2017 and 2025 based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2016 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the product segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. The study includes drivers and restraints for the flexographic printing inks market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period.The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the flexographic printing inks market on the global and regional level. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitutes of flexographic printing inks. It also provides the global average price trend analysis.The report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the flexographic printing inks market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein product, application and countries have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market.Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market: SegmentationThe study provides a comprehensive view of the flexographic printing inks market by dividing it into product type, application and geography. In terms of product type, the flexographic printing inks market is segmented into water-based, solvent-based and UV-cured. In terms of application, the flexographic printing inks market has been segmented into packaging, and others. The packaging segment has been further bifurcated into corrugated containers, tags and labels, flexible packaging, folding cartons, and others. Application segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends, and the market has been estimated in terms of volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) between 2017 and 2025.Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for flexographic printing inks in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Additionally, the report comprises country-level analysis in terms of volume and revenue for product and application segments. Key countries such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Japan, India, China, Mexico, South Africa, and Brazil have been included in the study. Market segmentation includes demand for individual product type and application in all the regions and countries.Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market: Competitive OutlookThe report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Flint Group, Siegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co. KGaA, Huber Group, Sun Chemical Corporation, Wikoff Color Corporation, Zeller+Gmelin GmbH & Co. KG., INX International Ink Co., Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co., Ltd., ALTANA AG, and T&K TOKA CO., LTD. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable).In-depth interviews and discussions with wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding.Browse Full Report With TOC:This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding. Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.The global flexographic printing inks market has been divided into the following segments:By ProductWater-based inksSolvent-based inksUV-cured inksBy ApplicationPackagingFlexible packagingCorrugated containersFolding cartonsTags and labelsOthers (including metal cans, etc.)Others (including printing of newspapers, etc.)By RegionNorth AmericaS.CanadaEuropeFranceK.SpainGermanyItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaASEANRest of Asia Pacific (APAC)Latin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin America (LATAM)Middle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & Africa (MEA)About UsMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.ContactState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United States Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Die Bonder Equipment Market Analysis- Size, Share, Overview, Scope, Revenue, Gross Margin, Segment And Forecast 2022

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This report studies the Die Bonder Equipment Market. Die bonding is the process of attaching a die/chip to a substrate or package. Die bonding is accomplished by using one of the following processes: 1. Eutectic; 2. Solder; 3. Adhesive; 4. Glass or Silver-GlassGet a Sample of Die Bonder Equipment Market research report from Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Die Bonder Equipment in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report covers:Besi, ASM Pacific Technology (ASMPT), Kulicke & Soffa, Palomar Technologies, Shinkawa, DIAS Automation, Toray Engineering, Panasonic, FASFORD TECHNOLOGY, West-Bond, HybondMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis covers:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Browse full Report with table of contents and data tables For Die Bonder Equipment Market Report @Market Segment by Type, covers:Fully Automatic, Semi-Automatic, ManualMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into:Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT)There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Die Bonder Equipment market.Chapter 1, to describe Die Bonder Equipment Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Die Bonder Equipment, with sales, revenue, and price of Die Bonder Equipment, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Die Bonder Equipment, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Die Bonder Equipment market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Die Bonder Equipment sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceCheck for Discount @Some points from TOC:-1 Market Overview1.1 Die Bonder Equipment Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Fully Automatic1.2.2 Semi-Automatic1.2.3 Manual1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs)1.3.2 Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT)1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022) ContinuedFor more help Speak to our Experts @No. of Report Pages: 124Price of Report (Single User Licence): $3480GIR Market Research is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. GIR Market Research is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the worlds most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.+1-888-376-9998 (US)Email- sales@globalinforeports.comWeb-Blogs-
Global Digital Pathology Market Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment

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Metabolomics is an omics sciences in systems biology and involves global valuation and validation of endogenous metabolites inside a biological system. With the technological advances in molecular biology, there has been significant development in the field of metabolomics. The developments analytical equipment and software have backed the development of metabolomics field. Similarly, increasing metabolomics research funding and government initiatives is a major driver for the growth of this market. Metabolomics science is used widely in biomarker discovery and drug assessment. Thus, the rapid development experienced by pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors is supporting the growth of the metabolomics market. However, the dearth of skilled professionals in metabolomics science is expected to hamper the growth of the metabolomics market. Moreover, low adoption of advanced metabolomics products is the other factor deterring the growth of the metabolomics market.Request Sample Report :Metabolomics is gaining importance as a tool in the life sciences since it is a relatively fast and precise technique that can be applied with either a particular focus or in an overall manner to gain new knowledge about biological systems. This research study analyzes the market for metabolomics in terms of revenue (US$ Mn). For the research, 2015 has been considered as the base year, while all forecasts have been provided from 2016 to 2024. The global metabolomics market is segmented into three segments as technique, applications, and geography. The market by technique is further divided as separation techniques and detection techniques. Separation techniques includes study of gas chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC). The HPLC accounted for the highest share of metabolomics market by technique. Detection technique includes nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), mass spectrometry (MS) and others. The market by application includes drug assessment, biomarker discovery, nutrigenomics, clinical toxicology and others. The market by geography is divided into five regions as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East and Africa.The market overview section of the report demonstrates major market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities that influence the current and future status of the industry. Porters five forces analysis provides information about the competitiveness of the industry. Moreover, the market attractiveness and competitive landscape provided in the market overview gives information about the lucrative markets for investment and major players in this market, respectively. The report concludes with the company profiles section, which includes key information about major players in the market such as financial overview, business strategies, and recent developments.Major players in this market are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), Agilent Technologies, Inc.(U.S.), Biocrates Life Sciences AG (Austria), Shimadzu Corporation (Japan), Waters Corporation (U.S.), Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc.(Japan), LECO Corporation (U.S.), Metabolon, Inc. (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.(U.S.), and Bruker Corporation (U.S.)Global Metabolomics market has been segmented as follows:Global Metabolomics Market, By TechniqueIntroductionSeparation TechniquesGas Chromatography (GC)Capillary Electrophoresis (CE)High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC)Detection TechniquesNuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR)Mass Spectrometry (MS)Global Metabolomics Market, By ApplicationIntroductionDrug AssessmentBiomarker DiscoveryNutrigenomicsClinical toxicologyOthersGlobal Metabolomics Market, by GeographyIntroductionNorth AmericaUnited StatesCanadaEuropeGermanyFranceRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East and AfricaSouth AfricaRest of Middle East and AfricaBrowse Full Report With TOC :Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comGoogle+:Linked in:Twitter:
Solar Power Products Market Share, Trend, Production, Demand and Key Manufacturers Analysis and Forecast to 2022

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ReportsWeb.com added Global Solar Power Products Market Research Report 2017 to its vast collection of research Database. The report is spread across 102 pages and supported by 10 company leaders.The Global Solar Power Products Market Research Report 2017 is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Solar Power Products Market. This report studies Solar Power Products in Global market, especially 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 covering top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering Tata Power Solar Systems, Vikram Solar, Fourth Partner Energy, Vorks Energy, Scorpius Trackers, Topsun Energy, Waaree Energies, Shakti Pumps (India), Elecomponics Technologies and Zenith Solar Systems.Request a Sample copy of this research @Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Solar Power Products in these regions, from 2017 to 2022 (forecast), like North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India. Firstly, Solar Power Products Market On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into Solar Rooftop PV, Solar Pumps, Solar Lantern and Other. 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 Solar Power Products for each application, including Residential, Commercial and Industrial.View more details about this report @Few points from Table of Contents1 Solar Power Products Market Overview2 Global Solar Power Products Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Solar Power Products Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region(2012-2017)4 Global Solar Power Products Supply (Production) , Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Solar Power Products Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.6 Southeast Asia Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.7 India Solar Power Products Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)5 Global Solar Power Products Production, Revenue (Value) , Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Solar Power Products Production and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.2 Global Solar Power Products Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)5.3 Global Solar Power Products Price by Type (2012-2017)5.4 Global Solar Power Products Production Growth by Type (2012-2017)6 Global Solar Power Products Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Solar Power Products Consumption and Market Share by Application (2012-2017)6.2 Global Solar Power Products Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2012-2017)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/Countries7 Global Solar Power Products Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Tata Power Solar Systems7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Solar Power Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Tata Power Solar Systems Solar Power Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Vikram Solar7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Solar Power Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Vikram Solar Solar Power Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Fourth Partner Energy7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Solar Power Products Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Fourth Partner Energy Solar Power Products Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview8 Solar Power Products Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Solar Power Products Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and ConclusionBuy a copy of complete 102 pages 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. 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
Global Landscaping Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 2022

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This report studies the global Landscaping Services market, analyzes and researches the Landscaping Services development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAsplundh Tree ExpertBrightView LandscapesThe Davey Tree Expert CompanyTruGreenActive Tree ServicesAdverseThe Brickman GroupThe Davey Tree Expert CompanyScottsValleyCrest CompaniesBrogan LandscapingChapel Valley LandscapeGothic LandscapeStantecThe Lawn DoctorsThe ServiceMaster CompanyUSMVila & Son Landscaping CorporationWeed ManYellowstone Landscape GroupRequest Sample At:Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Landscaping Services can be split intoMowingCutting and Edging Grassy AreasTrimming BushesLaying SodMaintaining Yards and GroundsOthersMarket segment by Application, Landscaping Services can be split intoCommercialResidentialEnquire About Report At:If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table Of Contents:Global Landscaping Services Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Landscaping Services1.1 Landscaping Services Market Overview1.1.1 Landscaping Services Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Landscaping Services Market Size and Analysis by Regions2 Global Landscaping Services Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Landscaping Services Market Size (Value) by Players (2016 and 2017)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Asplundh Tree Expert3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Landscaping Services Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 BrightView Landscapes4 Global Landscaping Services Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global Landscaping Services Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global Landscaping Services Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of Landscaping Services in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Landscaping Services5 United States Landscaping Services Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Landscaping Services Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States Landscaping Services Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)Research Beam features a wide array of research reports from publishers across the globe. We have a database of reports ranging over every market category and extensive collection of reports on sub-categories as well. We are dedicated to provide qualitative insights on your area of interest by gathering reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. Hundreds of organizations across the world are reaping great benefits from insights gained through reports sourced by Research Beam.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States+1 (800) 910-6452help@researchbeam.com
Automotive Sheet Metal Components Market Size, Share, Trends, Prediction 2025

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Global Automotive Sheet Metal Components Market: SnapshotThe transportation industry, one of the leading contributors of polluting agents to the environment due to the mounting numbers of vehicles across the globe, has been under the radar of environmentalists for a long while. To change the situation, the strict regulations imposed on vehicle-makers to bring to the market vehicles with higher rate of fuel efficiency are force-feeding the vehicle of development in the automotive industry. On the way to being more fuel efficient, engine downsizing and lighter vehicle parts are some of the most notable changes to have been observed in vehicles of late.In order to make vehicles and their engines lighter, automobile manufacturers are demanding suppliers to provide lightweight sheet metal components to support the performance of lighter vehicle engines. Aluminum and steel sheet metals are being designed in much more refined and thinner forms as compared to old times in order to make them applicable for lighter automobile applications. These factors are expected to be the key factors to drive the global market for automotive sheet metal components market over the next few years.Make an Enquiry @Transparency Market Research estimates that the global automotive sheet metal components market, which was valued at US$104.30 bn in 2016, will exhibit a CAGR of 3.7% from 2017 to 2025 to account for US$142.41 bn in 2025.High-strength Steel to Continue to Witness Strong DemandSteel sheet components are the most widely used material in the automotive sector. 60% of the total weight of a vehicles is made of steel components. Steel allows good corrosion resistance while maintaining weldability and formability. There are numerous grades of steel available in the market to best suit the specific requirements as per application.Stringent emission norms and automobile standards has been emphasizing automakers to develop lightweight vehicles. Therefore, downsizing of engine in order to ensure fuel efficient and environment-friendly attribute in vehicles has been propelling the demand for high strength steel, which are more durable and lighter than standard steel. The usage of steel as an automotive sheet metal component is expected to remain strong over the reports forecast period as well.Asia Pacific to Continue to Lead with Healthy Future Growth ProspectsAsia Pacific contributed the dominant share of around 33% to the revenue of the global automotive sheet metal components market in 2016. China is the leading automotive sheet metal components market in Asia Pacific. The country has huge resource and technological capabilities in the automotive sector. Moreover, increasing demand for passenger vehicles in China and India is propelling the growth of automotive sheet metal components market in the Asia Pacific region.Browse the Report :Europe contributed more than 25% to the global automotive sheet metal components market in the said year, with Germany being the dominant market. The rising applications of sheet metal components in new segment of vehicles such as electric and hybrid cars are expected to bolster the growth of the market in Europe at a healthy rate over the forecast period. The automotive sheet metal components market in North America is projected to expand significantly during the forecast period. In terms of revenue, North America generated around 20% of the total revenues in the global automotive sheet metal components market in 2016, with the market in the U.S. holding the dominant share.Some of the leading companies operating in the global automotive sheet metal components market profiled in the report are Novelis Inc., Aleris International Inc., Mayville Engineering Company, Inc., ONeal Manufacturing Services, General Stamping and Metal Works, Larsen Manufacturing, LLC, Amada Co. Ltd., Paul Craemer GmbH, Frank Dudley Ltd., and Omax Autos Ltd.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 Zinc Iron Coatings Market Forecast- Industry to Grow high by 2017-2022

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In this report, the global Zinc Iron Coatings 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.Request Sample At:Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Zinc Iron Coatings in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Zinc Iron Coatings market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingDeKalb Metal FinishingPioneer Metal Finishing (PMF)Micro Metal FinishingCadillac PlatingPlating TechnologyEnquire About Report At:On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into0.4% Iron0.6% Iron0.8% IronOtherOn 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 Zinc Iron Coatings for each application, includingAutomotiveElectronicsAerospace and DefenseOtherIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table Of Contents:Global Zinc Iron Coatings Market Research Report 20171 Zinc Iron Coatings Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Zinc Iron Coatings1.2 Zinc Iron Coatings Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)2 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)3 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.4 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)3.5 North America Zinc Iron Coatings Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)Request Discount At:4 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)4.1 Global Zinc Iron Coatings Consumption by Region (2012-2017)4.2 North America Zinc Iron Coatings Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.3 Europe Zinc Iron Coatings Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.4 China Zinc Iron Coatings Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)4.5 Japan Zinc Iron Coatings Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2012-2017)Research Beam features a wide array of research reports from publishers across the globe. We have a database of reports ranging over every market category and extensive collection of reports on sub-categories as well. We are dedicated to provide qualitative insights on your area of interest by gathering reports from various publishers at one place to save your time and money. Hundreds of organizations across the world are reaping great benefits from insights gained through reports sourced by Research Beam.5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United States+1 (800) 910-6452help@researchbeam.com
Global Tobacco Market Share, Size | Industry Report 2017

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The latest report by IMARC Group titled, Tobacco Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2017-2022, finds that the global tobacco market reached a volume of 7 Million Tons in 2016, growing at a CAGR of nearly 2% during 2009-2016. The market for tobacco is rising as a result of the introduction of different types of tobacco products such as cigarettes, kreteks, snuff, hookah, etc. Moreover, in order to tap in a wider consumer-base and increase their profits, the companies are focusing on increasing their investments in the area of research and development. This could help in manufacturing products with lower levels of toxicants by identifying the harmful toxic constituents of tobacco and understanding smoking behaviour. Apart from this, the absence of rigorous law and government regulations regarding the sale of these products also help in encouraging the growth of the market.Request sample of the report:Highlights of the global tobacco market:The market growth is stronger in the developing regions.China represents the largest market for tobacco, accounting for the majority of share.The market is expected to reach a volume of nearly 9 Million Tons by 2022.The socio-economic conditions also tend to influence the demand of tobacco in a region. Owing to higher levels of education and health consciousness, the demand for tobacco-based products in the developed regions has been declining significantly. On the other hand, the market exhibits a stable growth in the developing regions as a result of rising population, lack of awareness about the harmful effects of tobacco, unemployment, etc. Additionally, a trend of smoking expensive tobacco is seeping in the emerging markets, particularly among the elite classes, or the adolescents which are one of the biggest driving forces for the sales of tobacco in these regions. Further, the market is expected to reach a volume of around 9 Million Tons by 2022.Browse full report on tobacco market with table of contents:The market has been segmented on the basis of product type which includes cigarettes, roll-your-own, cigars, cigarillos, smokeless tobacco, etc. The market is also segmented on a regional basis. Some of the major markets for tobacco include China, India, Brazil, United States and European Union. Amongst these, China represents the largest producer as well as the biggest consumer of tobacco, accounting for the majority of share. An analysis of the competitive landscape provides the details of the key players operative in the market. Some of the major players are China National Tobacco Corporation, Phillip Morris International, British America Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Tobacco Group.The report has evaluated the global tobacco market on the basis of:Product Type:CigarettesRoll Your OwnCigarsCigarillosSmokeless TobaccoRegions:ChinaIndiaBrazilUnited StatesEuropean UnionKey Players:China National Tobacco CorporationPhillip Morris InternationalBritish America TobaccoJapan Tobacco InternationalImperial Tobacco GroupBrowse Related Reports:Cigarette Market:Pan Masala Market:IMARC Group is a leading market research company that offers management strategy and market research worldwide. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses.IMARCs information products include major market, scientific, economic and technological developments for business leaders in pharmaceutical, industrial, and high technology organizations. Market forecasts and industry analysis for biotechnology, advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, travel and tourism, nanotechnology and novel processing methods are at the top of the companys expertise.IMARC Group610 North Randolph StreetArlingtonVA 22203Tel no: +1-631-791-1145Email: sales@imarcgroup.comWebsite:Follow us on twitter: @imarcglobal
European Denture Center Provides Complete Denture Repair In Everett And Surrounding Areas

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Everett, WA; 06/08/17: European Denture Center, a reputable denture service clinic in Everett, WA, provides denture repair and reline on an emergency basis. The certified, licensed clinic has over 15 years of experience and expertise in catering to denture needs of various patients. From denture installation to repair and restoration, the professional denturists at European Denture Center offer complete services under one roof. They can fix or restore a wide range of dentures, including but not limited to, full dentures, partial dentures, flexible partial dentures and implant dentures.Dentures are used for several purposes. Some people wear denture to improve the appearance of their teeth, while others use them for chewing or speaking properly. Although dentures can be expensive, its really important to take care of them so that they last long, said Head Denturist, Ephraim Rollolazo. Denture users must invest in denture repair and relining. Since the structure of jaw bone, gums and mouth is constantly evolving, denture adjustments can help prevent dentures from deteriorating. Misaligned dentures can lead to irritation, pain, discomfort and tooth decay and weakening. If you feel your dentures are loose or too tight or feel any pain or irritation, get in touch with us immediately. We offer same-day repair and reline in a well-maintained clinic.Patients of all ages, including adults and children, can trust European Denture Center for denture repair or reline. They can schedule an appointment at the clinic online. Initial consultation is free for everyone. After they book consultation, clients can visit European Dentures trained, experienced denturists to get their dentures fixed same day.European Denture Center specializes in creating custom-made dentures at budget-friendly pricing. They are known for crafting natural looking, comfortable, quality dentures. All dentures come with a full money back guarantee. If a patient is not satisfied with their dentures, they receive a full refund or denture repair  free of charge.With the use of cutting edge dental equipment and advanced techniques, the clinic offers outstanding denture products to patients. They also own one of the largest denture dental laboratories in Northwest US.Furthermore, European Denture Center accepts various payment plans, including insurance plans and Medicaid to deliver unsurpassed patient care at the most reasonable cost.About the CompanyEuropean Denture Center is a trusted provider of superior quality, customized dentures and removable restorations in Everett, WA.Contact InformationPhone: +1 425-230-3010Address: 1111 Pacific Ave, Suite A, Everett, WashingtonWebsite:
Maintenance Management Software Market Size, Share, Analysis, Industry Demand and Forecasts Report to 2022

Maintenance Management Software Market

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The Global Maintenance Management Software Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Maintenance Management Software Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.For Requesting a Sample Copy of This Report, Please Visit:The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.The report on Global Maintenance Management Software Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Maintenance Management Software industry propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Maintenance Management Software Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment.The report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Maintenance Management Software Market.GP MaTe, Synchroteam, FCS e-Engineering, ServiceChannel, ManWinWin, Fixd, OneSoft Connect, NetDispatcher, Rosmiman IWMS, Trackplan, The Service Program, Blue Mountain RAM, Infor EAM, eSSETS, River Cities.To Browse the Entire Report, Visit:The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Maintenance Management Software industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations. The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Maintenance Management Software industry in the global markets.Market segment by Type, Maintenance Management Software can be split intoPC, Mobile TerminalMarket segment by Application, Maintenance Management Software can be split intoAndroid, iOS, Windows, OtherSo as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the global Maintenance Management Software Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.Check for Discount @Some points from TOC:-Global Maintenance Management Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of Maintenance Management Software1.1 Maintenance Management Software Market Overview1.1.1 Maintenance Management Software Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Maintenance Management Software 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 Maintenance Management Software Market by Type1.3.1 PC1.3.2 Mobile Terminal1.4 Maintenance Management Software Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Android1.4.2 iOS1.4.3 Windows1.4.4 Other2 Global Maintenance Management Software Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Maintenance Management Software 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 Future...Enquiry before Buying @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Email- sales@qyresearchgroups.comWeb-
North America Drilling Fluids Market Industry Analysis,Trends and Forecast

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Rising investments in offshore and onshore drilling activities is a key factor that is expected to stimulate the North America drilling fluids market in the near future. The market research report provides in-depth and high-level analysis of the regional market, focusing on the major product and application segments of drilling fluids. It provides sharp insights on the various forces that drive the market and those that restrict its growth.Request Sample Report :The major revenue generating segments with respect to product, application and geography, are accentuated, providing current, historic, and forecast statistics for the same. The report is designed to guide market players and help them make strategic business decisions based on the information provided.With the help of Porters five forces analysis, the report offers a comprehensive assessment of the competitive landscape, identifying key vendors and their strengths and weaknesses. Their individual industry share, progress over the years, financial overview, profitable areas of operation, and future plans are discussed in the research report.Overview of the North America drilling fluids marketOn the basis of application, the North American market for drilling fluids can be divided into offshore oil and gas, and onshore oil and gas. The main products analyzed in the report include synthetic-based fluids (SBFs), oil-based fluids (OBFs), and water-based fluids (WBFs). The three prime regions covered are the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.The North American drilling fluids industry was estimated to be worth $4,336.8 million in the year 2012, and is forecast to be worth $7,203.6 million in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 7.5% during that period. Owing to rising demand for drilling fluids, the U.S. accounted for 80% of the industry share in 2012, making it the largest regional segment in the overall North American market. Onshore applications gained precedence over offshore ones in 2012 and are expected to register a 7.9% CAGR in terms of revenue.There has been a growing demand for crude oil and natural gas in North America, and focus has shifted towards developing deep sea reserves and horizontal drilling. These factors have boosted the North America drilling fluids market. Moreover, increasing need to develop unconventional resources such as coal bed methane and shale gas has also bolstered the growth.Key challenges faced by the industry include growing concern regarding environmental protection and the disposal and contamination of drilling fluids.Companies mentioned in the research reportThe leading industry players in the North America drilling fluids market include Halliburton Company, Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Newpark Resources Inc., Baker Hughes Incorporated, Canadian Energy Services & Technology Corp., Weatherford International Ltd., Anchor Drilling Fluids USA Inc., China Oilfield Services Limited, and National Oilwell Varco.Browse Full Report With TOC :This report gives you access to decisive data such as:Market growth driversFactors limiting market growthCurrent market trendsMarket structureMarket projections for the coming yearsKey highlights of this reportOverview of key market forces propelling and restraining market growthUp-to-date analyses of market trends and technological improvements in the micro servers industryPin-point analyses of market competition dynamics to offer you a competitive edgeAn analysis of strategies of major competitorsAn array of graphics and SWOT analysis of major industry segmentsDetailed analyses of industry trendsA well-defined technological growth map with an impact-analysisOffers a clear understanding of the competitive landscape and key product segmentsMarket Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of market intelligence reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.State Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTelephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comGoogle+:Linked in:Twitter:
Global Intelligent Water-Meter Market 2017:Forecasts, Analysis and Growths

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Global Intelligent Water-Meter Market Research Report 2017Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977.The latest intelligence on the Intelligent Water-Meter market is available in the Global Intelligent Water-Meter Market Research report. This report is a culmination of the key events from last decade to present day, and helps to formulate the best strategy catered to both established market players and new entrants.A birds eye view of the Intelligent Water-Meter industry made available in the report helps readers to understand the key drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities that are shaping the global Intelligent Water-Meter market. Furthermore, the report evaluates challenges experienced from buyers and sellers side. The report offers advice from key industry experts on how these challenges can be overcome.For sample PDF pages click here at:A major chunk of the report talks about the technologies that are and will influence the growth of the Intelligent Water-Meter market. Forecasts for these technology sectors are presented in the report. Integration is the key to advancement in technology in the global Intelligent Water-Meter market. Companies that offers the latest integrated technologies at an affordable cost are expected to thrive in the Intelligent Water-Meter market. The dominating technologies in the Intelligent Water-Meter market along with the upcoming technologies that are expected to revolutionize the market are explained in the report.The report also elaborates on the opportunities the emerging markets of Asia Pacific and Latin America offer. Furthermore, the cost of raw materials in these nations is low, while the availability is high. This has turned the heads of several major international companies to the emerging countries of Asia Pacific.Get 30% Discount on This Report at:The key companies operating in the Intelligent Water-Meter market along with their revenues, market size, key business strategy, key technology strategy, and recent developments is mentioned in the report. In addition to this, valuable recommendations on the opportunities players in the market can tap on is presented in the report. This will help clients to gain a competitive edge in the Intelligent Water-Meter market.Complete report available at :About Research n Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact us:Mr. Sunny DenisContact No. +1-888-631-6977sales@researchnreports.com(ResearchnReports)
U.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016  2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Asthma and COPD Drugs Market - U.S. and China Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.Asthma is a disease characterized by recurrent attacks of coughing, chest-tightening, breathlessness, and wheezing as the airways narrow and swell that vary in severity and frequency. COPD is a disease of the lungs characterized by obstruction to airflow that interferes with normal breathing. According to the WHO, COPD accounted for over 3 million deaths in 2012, which is equal to 6% of all deaths globally in that year. Moreover, the WHO predicts that COPD will become the third most common cause of death globally by 2030. However, these statistics have already materialized in the U.S. and China, where COPD is currently said to be the third leading cause of mortality.According to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, asthma is the leading chronic disease in children in the U.S. It is also the most common reason for missed school days. Moreover, an estimated 10 people in the U.S. die from asthma each day, while 3,630 die each year. In China, the figures are worse. A large population of COPD patients goes underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed in China every year. A large proportion of these deaths are avoidable with proper treatment and care. Thus, the existence of an unmet medical need is clearly evident and is anticipated to augment the asthma and COPD drugs market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @U.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market: Scope and MethodologyThis report on the asthma and COPD drugs market in the U.S. and China analyzes the current and future prospects of the market. The report comprises an elaborate executive summary, including a market snapshot that provides overall information of various segments and sub-segments. The research is a combination of primary and secondary research. Detailed qualitative analysis of factors responsible for driving and restraining market growth and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Market revenue in terms of US$ Mn for the period between 2014 and 2024 along with the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) from 2016 to 2024 are provided for all the segments, considering 2015 as the base year. Market related factors such as technological developments, patent expiry, recent drug approvals, investment in clinical studies and acquisitions by leading players in the market, and historical year-on-year growth have been taken into consideration while estimating the market size.Growth rates for each segment within the U.S. and China asthma and COPD drugs market have been determined after a thorough analysis of past trends, demographics, future trends, technological developments, drug development life cycle, and regulatory requirements. These factors would help the market players to take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and expand their share in the asthma and COPD drugs market in the U.S and China.U.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market: SegmentationBased on drug class, the asthma and COPD drugs market in the U.S and China has been segmented into bronchodilators, anti-inflammatory drugs, monoclonal antibodies, and combination drugs. The bronchodilator class has been further segmented into short acting beta-2 agonists, long acting beta-2 agonists, and anti-cholinergic agents. The anti-inflammatory drug class has been further segmented into oral and inhaled corticosteroids, anti-leukotrienes, phosphodiesterase type 4 inhibitors, and others. The others segment includes mast cell stabilizers and other anti-inflammatory agents used in asthma and COPD control.Based on indication, the asthma and COPD drugs market in the U.S. and China has been segmented into asthma and COPD. According to the CDC, one in 12 people in the U.S. has asthma, and the number is rising each year. Pollution in China is among the worst in the world. This is likely to worsen asthma and COPD symptoms, consequently driving the asthma and COPD market in China during the forecast period.Geographically, the asthma and COPD market has been segmented into two countries: the U.S. and China. These countries have been further segmented by indication and drug class.U.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market: Competitive LandscapeThe competition matrix section included in the report is likely to assist the existing players to increase their market shares and new companies to establish their presence in the asthma and COPD drugs market in the U.S. and China. The report also profiles major players in the market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, SWOT analysis, key business strategies, product portfolio, and recent developments. Key companies profiled in the report include GlaxoSmithKline plc, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, AstraZeneca plc, Novartis AG, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Merck and Co., Inc.The U.S. and China asthma and COPD drugs market has been segmented as follows:U.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market, by Drug ClassBronchodilators- Short Acting Beta-2 Agonists- Long Acting Beta-2 Agonists- Anti-cholinergic AgentsAnti-inflammatory Drugs- Oral and Inhaled Corticosteroids- Anti-leukotrienes- Phosphodiesterase Type-4 Inhibitors- OthersMonoclonal AntibodiesCombination DrugsU.S. and China Asthma and COPD Drugs Market, by Indication- Asthma- COPDMake 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 Radiopharmaceutical Market Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Radiopharmaceutical Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.This report on the radiopharmaceutical market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Increase in incidence of various diseases, development of new sources for radioisotope production, and rise in demand for nuclear medicine are boosting the radiopharmaceutical market. Increase in incidence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, growth in awareness about effective use of radiopharmaceuticals, and rise in preference for SPECT and PET scans are some of the factors expected to drive the growth of the global radiopharmaceutical market during the forecast period.The radiopharmaceutical market report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the global market with respect to the segments based on radioisotopes, source, end-user, and geography. A detailed qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Additionally, the section comprises Porters Five Forces Analysis to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of geography and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global radiopharmaceutical market.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Radiopharmaceutical Market: SegmentationBased on radioisotope, the market has been segmented into Technetium-99, Lutetium-177, Rubidium-87, Iodine-123, Yttrium-90, and Gallium-62. Technetium-99 is the most widely used radioisotope across the globe; around 70% of radiopharmaceutical companies depend on Mo-99 to produce Technetium-99, as per the World Nuclear Association. The market segments have been analyzed based on available approved products, cost-effectiveness, and preference for technological systems by physicians and patients. The market size and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Based on source, the radiopharmaceutical market has been segmented into two major categories: nuclear reactors and cyclotrons. The market segments have been extensively analyzed based on increase in demand for radioisotopes for nuclear medicines, availability of radioisotopes and raw materials, radioisotopes short half-life and number of production units used for production of radioisotopes. Different types of end-user utilize radiopharmaceutical products to treat diseases either through imaging techniques or the therapeutics method.Under the end-user segment, hospitals plays a major role followed by ambulatory surgical centers, diagnostic centers, and others (such as universities, research laboratories, and pathology labs). The market size and forecast in terms of US$ Mn for each segment have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024. The report also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year. Application segment signifies the usage of radiopharmaceutical products through different disease indication such as oncology, cardiology, neurology, nephrology, gastroenterology, immunology and others. Oncology segment is the dominant sector which emphasizes the use of different radioisotopes for treating various cancers and overcome the side effects of therapeutics. Brachytherapy is a sub segment of oncology application which signifies the methods of treating cancer through implants, surgery or radiation technology. The segment is expected to have a significant growth during the forecast period.Geographically, the global radiopharmaceutical market has been categorized into five major regions and the key countries in the respective region: North America (the U.S. and Canada), Europe (the U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, Australia, and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Rest of Middle East & Africa). The market size and forecast for each of these regions and the mentioned countries have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Radiopharmaceutical Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also profiles major players in the global radiopharmaceutical market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA), Eckert & Ziegler, GE Healthcare, IBA Radiopharma Solutions, Lantheus Holdings, Inc., Mallinckrodt plc., Nordion, Inc., Siemens Healthineers, and Positron Corporation.The global radiopharmaceutical market has been segmented as follows:Global Radiopharmaceutical Market, by Radioisotope- Technetium-99- Gallium-67- Iodine-123- 18F- Rubidium-82- Yttrium-90- Lutetium-177Global Radiopharmaceutical Market, by Source- Nuclear Reactors- CyclotronsGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by End-user- Hospitals- Ambulatory Surgical Centers- Diagnostic Centers- OthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by Application- Cardiology- Gastroenterology- Oncology- Brachytherapy- Others- Nephrology- Neurology- Immunology- OthersGlobal Radiopharmaceutical Market, by Region- North America- U.S.- Canada- Europe- Germany- U.K.- France- Italy- Spain- Rest of Europe- Asia Pacific- India- China- Japan- Australia- Rest of Asia Pacific- Latin America- Brazil- Mexico- Rest of Latin America- Middle East & Africa- Saudi Arabia- South Africa- Rest of Middle East & AfricaMake 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 Biologics Market Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast Research Report 2016 - 2024

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Biologics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024" to its huge collection of research reports.This report provides forecast and analysis of the global biologics market on the global and regional levels. It provides historical data of 2015 along with forecast from 2016 to 2024 in terms of revenue (US$ Mn). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook for biologics revenue annually. It includes drivers and restraints of the global biologics market and their impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises the study of applications and opportunities for biologics manufacturers. It also includes a detailed analysis by product type and supply chain analysis with a list of suppliers and industry stakeholders at each node in the supply chain.In order to provide users of this report with a comprehensive view of the market, we have included detailed competitiveness analysis, key blockbuster products, clinical pipeline analysis and company players with unique propositions. The dashboard provides a comprehensive comparison of biologics manufacturers on parameters such as revenue sales, ranking of global players, strategic consolidations, i.e. mergers & acquisitions, licensing activities, as well as R&D activities. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, product type, application type, and region.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Biologics Market: SegmentationThe report includes the revenue generated from sales of biologics in all regions and important countries in these regions. By product, the global biologics market has been segmented into monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, recombinant hormones/vaccines, cell therapy, gene therapy and other products. By application type, the market is segmented into oncology, infectious diseases, immunology, auto-immune diseases, and other diseases. Furthermore, the global market is sub-segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa.Market numbers have been estimated based on the annual global and regional sales of key companies; annual production and the revenue of local players is derived from regional pricing trends. Market size and forecast for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The global biologics market has been analyzed based on expected demand. Prices considered for the calculation of revenue are regional average prices obtained through primary quotes from numerous regional biologics manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors. All key end users have been considered, and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents. Regional demand patterns have been taken into consideration while assessing the market for various products manufactured in different regions. Top-down approach has been used to estimate the biologics market by regions. Market numbers for global product type and application segments have been derived using the bottom-up approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. The company-level market share has been calculated on the basis of revenues reported by key manufacturers. The market has been forecast based on constant currency rates.Several primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study. Secondary sources include Factiva, World Bank, FDA, NCBI, Springer Journals, Google Books, Society Publications, Biotechnology Innovation Organization, Arthritis Foundation, British Society for Rheumatology and Hoovers, as well as company annual reports and publications.Global Biologics Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report provides detailed competitive and company profiles of key participants operating in the global market. Key players in the global biologics market include AbbVie Inc., Amgen Inc, AstraZeneca, Bayer AG, Eli Lilly and Company, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc., Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., Merck & Co., Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer Inc., and Sanofi.The market has been segmented as below:Global Biologics Market  By Product- Monoclonal Antibodies- Vaccines- Recombinant Hormones/Proteins- Cell Therapy- Gene Therapy- OthersGlobal Biologics Market  By Applications- Oncology- Infectious Diseases- Immunology- Autoimmune Diseases- OthersGlobal Biologics Market  By Region- North America- U.S.- Canada- Latin America- Brazil- Argentina- Rest of Latin America- Europe- Germany- UK- Italy- Spain- France- Rest of Europe- Asia Pacific (APAC)- China- India- Japan- Australia- New Zealand- Rest of Asia Pacific- Middle East and Africa (MEA)- Saudi Arabia- UAE- RSA- Rest of MEAMake 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 @
Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market -2017, Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth and Forecast Report-2022

Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market

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The Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Research Report 2017 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Industry on a Global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety industry propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.Request for sample of Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market research report @The potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market on a regional as well as Global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain. The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment.Furthermore, the report contains diverse profiles of primary market players of Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market.This report focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering:ABB,Alstom, GE Digital Energy, Schneider Electric, Cisco Systems, Honeywell International, BAE Systems, Siemens, Waterfall Security Solutions, HCL Technologies, Ekin Technology, Safeway Inc.Market segment by Type, Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety can be split into:Hardware, Software, Management Systems.Market segment by Application, Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety can be split into:Municipal Users, Refinery, Other.Detailed TOC and Charts & Tables of Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Research Report available @The report is generically segmented into six parts and every part aims on the overview of the Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety industry, present condition of the market, feasibleness of the investment along with several strategies and policies. Apart from the definition and classification, the report also discusses the analysis of import and export and describes a comparison of the market that is focused on the trends and development. Along with entire framework in addition to in-depth details, one can prepare and stay ahead of the competitors across the targeted locations.The fact that this market report renders details about the major market players along with their product development and current trends proves to be very beneficial for fresh entrants to comprehend and recognize the industry in an improved manner. The report also enlightens the productions, sales, supply, market condition, demand, growth, and forecast of the Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety industry in the Global markets.Every regions market has been studied thoroughly in this report which deals with the precise information pertaining to the Marketing Channels and novel project investments so that the new entrants as well as the established market players conduct intricate research of trends and analysis in these regional markets. Acknowledging the status of the environment and products up gradation, the market report foretells each and every detail.So as to fabricate this report, complete key details, strategies and variables are examined so that entire useful information is amalgamated together for the understanding and studying the key facts pertaining the Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Industry. The production value and market share in conjunction with the SWOT analysis everything is integrated in this report.Check for Discount @Some points from TOC:-11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2022)11.1 Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Size (Value) by Regions (2017-2022)11.1.1 United States Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.2 EU Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.3 Japan Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.4 China Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.5 India Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.1.6 Southeast Asia Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Revenue and Growth Rate (2017-2022)11.2 Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Size (Value) by Type (2017-2022)11.3 Global Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Size by Application (2017-2022)12 Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Dynamics12.1 Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Opportunities12.2 Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 Oil And Gas Pipeline Safety 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 FactorsEnquiry before Buying @QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on Global industries, companies, products, and trends.Jia Wang, Room B1510, ShijiKemao Building, No.66,Zhongguancun East Road,Haidian District, Beijing, 100190,China
Smart Gas Metering Market Key Manufacturers, Growth and Forecast Report 2017-2025 (Itron, Elster Aclara, Diehl Metering, Apator, Badger Meter)

The Insight Partners

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Latest market study on Smart Gas Metering Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type and Measurement Technology, 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 Gas Metering Market to 2025 @A smart gas meter is an electronic device that records consumption of gas in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily back to the utility for monitoring and billing. The smart gas meters can be installed for consumers connected to the utility's grid. Many homes are already switching to smart gas meters and now the big names in the business are offering them for commercial building as well.The report aims to provide an overview of global smart gas metering market with detailed market segmentation by type, measurement technology and geography. The global smart gas metering market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. Aging infrastructure, governments and utility companies increasing pressure to provide better water supply will be driving the smart gas metering market in coming year.Request Sample Copy @The objectives of Smart Gas Metering Market report are as follows: To provide overview of the global smart gas metering market To analyze and forecast the global smart gas metering market on the basis of type and measurement technology To provide market size and forecast till 2025 for overall smart gas metering 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 gas metering players influencing the market along with their SWOT analysis and market strategiesSome of the leading players in smart gas metering market are Itron, Inc., Elster Group (Honeywell), General Electric Corporation, Landis+GYR, Aclara Technologies LLC, KROHNE, Inc., Diehl Metering, Apator Group, Badger Meter, Inc. and ABB Ltd.Inquire about discount on this report @The report segments the global Smart Gas Metering Market as follows:Smart Gas Metering Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 - Type Automatic Meter Reading Market Advanced Metering Infrastructure MarketSmart Gas Metering Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 - Measurement Technology Domestic Diaphragm Market Domestic Static Market C&I Diaphragm Market C&I Static Market Rotary Market Turbine MarketSmart Gas Metering Market Revenue and Forecasts to 2025 - Geographical Analysis North America Europe Asia Pacific (APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA) South America (SAM)Procure Full Report @About Us: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.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Third-Party Logistics Market In Europe To Grow At A CAGR Of 3.06% During The Period 2017-2021

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Third Party Logistics Market in Europe 2017-2021" to its huge collection of research reports.Third-party logistics (3PL) service is a business process, through which companies outsource logistics and distribution functions to a specialized logistics service provider. It includes as transportation, warehousing, and freight and forwarding. A logistics service provider that provides these services is called a 3PL service provider.Technavios analysts forecast the third-party logistics market in Europe to grow at a CAGR of 3.06% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the third-party logistics market in Europe for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the outsourcing of various services such as transportation, warehousing and distribution, and others (inventory management, it services, management of call center and fulfilment operations, and supply chain network analysis and design).To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:FranceGermanyItalyROESpainUKTechnavio's report, Third Party Logistics Market in Europe 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 vendorsC.H RobinsonCEVA LogisticsDB Schenker LogisticsDeutsche Post DHLExpeditors International of WashingtonJ.B. Hunt TransportKuehne + Nagel InternationalSNCF LogisticsTNT ExpressUPSOther prominent vendorsACP Freight ServicesAgilityAlkomtransAPL LogisticsAWT GroupBaltic Logistics GroupBDP InternationalBLS AGBulk Logistics SolutionsCzech Logistics AllianceAzkar Dachser GroupDamcoDAN-CZECHDEIJ TransportDSVFedEx Supply ChainFM LogisticGondrand InternationalH.P. Therkelsenhansa-express logisticsHuktraIMPERIAL Logistics InternationalItal LogisticsJawimex LogisticsJohn G Russell TransportJordon FreightKLG EuropeLCL InternationalLKW WALTER InternationalLogServMainfreightMenlo Worldwide LogisticsMove IntermodalNeovia Logistics ServicesOGRIS LogisticsPanalpinaRhenusRJ International FreightRob Masters Specialist TransportationRyderSchneider LogisticsSTEFVECCHI ZIRONIVTG AGWarrant GroupWerner Enterprises Dedicated and LogisticsZiegler GroupMarket driverGrowing complexity of in-house logistics operationsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeLimited use of ITFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendEmergence of big dataFor 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 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 @
Industrial Packaging Market Size, Share, Trends | Industry Report 2017-2022

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Global Industrial Packaging Market: Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Trends, Application Analysis, Growth and Forecast, 2017-2022 provides a deep and thorough evaluation of the global Industrial Packaging market. Beginning with a global overview, the report explores the dynamics that have a strong influence on the Industrial Packaging market and can also impact its future growth. Taking 2017 as the base year, the report covers historical market scenario from 2009-2016 and provides forecasts till 2022. This includes the study of value and volume trends and pricing history. Growth inducing factors, market restraints and recent developments have also been analysed in the report in order to provide a deeper knowledge about the industry. On a regional basis, the report examines the Industrial Packaging market in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa. For each of these regions, the report studies the Industrial Packaging market in detail for latest trends, outlook and opportunities.Browse full report on Industrial Packaging Market with Table of Content:The report analyses the competitive structure of the Industrial Packaging industry and provides the profiles of major players operating in the market. The price margins for the products along with the various success and risk factors for manufacturers have also been covered in the report. Moreover, in order to determine market attractiveness, the report analyses the Industrial Packaging industry along the parameters of the Porters Five Forces model.Key Segments and Highlights of the Global Industrial Packaging MarketHistorical and current scenarioTrends and developmentsMarket forecastPrice analysis and forecastPorters five forces analysisSWOT analysisValue chain analysisMarket Breakup by TypeMarket Breakup by End-UseMarket Breakup by RegionNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificLatin AmericaMiddle East & AfricaKey playersBrowse more reports related to packaging industry:Syndicated Analytics is a market research firm that offers consulting services and provides comprehensive market intelligence in the form of research reports. Our team, consisting of experienced researchers and analysts from diverse industries, is deeply committed to the quality of the information and insights delivered to the clients which range from small and medium enterprises to Fortune 1000 companies. They are able to achieve this by studying the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the market as well as staying up-to- date with the current and the evolving trends of the industry. Our set of syndicated as well as customised market reports thus help the clients to gain a better view of their competitive landscape, overcome various industry-related challenges and formulate revenue generating business strategies.Syndicated Analytics405 Broadway3rd Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada: +1-213-316-7435Email: sales@syndicatedanalytics.comWeb:
Hand Hygiene Agents Market: Quantifying market opportunities through market sizing and market forecasting

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Hand hygiene means to keep ones hands clean by washing hands (with soap and water), or disinfecting them with an antiseptic agent, using antiseptic handwash, antiseptic hand rub or surgical hand antisepsis to remove dirt, soil, and microorganism. Antiseptics has been recognized for more than 150 years as the single cost-effective and most prominent means of preventing hospital-acquired infection, as well as for reducing the spread of potential and deadly germs and hence risk of infections from the germs in the society which may lead to hospitalization. It is admissible in all expanse such as workplace, home, and schools. However, the importance of hand hygiene is very high in hospitals or other healthcare related setups.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World health organization (WHO) and other leading healthcare organizations has given the specific guidelines and indications for hand hygiene in healthcare. The CDC has estimated that hand hygiene reduces the number around 31% of people getting sick with diarrhea, 58% with weakened immune systems and 16-18% of respiratory illness like cold in the general population. Increase widespread of hand hygiene products will prevent infections and promote the patient's safety. There are different types of hand hygiene methods which include routine hand wash, antiseptic hand wash, antiseptic hand rub and surgical antisepsis. Preventing sickness by maintaining hand hygiene will reduce the antibiotics overuse and can also prevent people from getting sick with the germs which are resistant to antibiotics which can be difficult to treat.Obtain Report Details:The healthcare-acquired infections (HCAI) prevention and control need is driving the hand hygiene market. While the outbreaks of several infectious diseases like a spread of diarrheal and respiratory illness in many countries offering positive growth for the market. Government initiatives are also contributing to the growth of this market by launching various awareness campaigns and programs such as SAR Hand Hygiene Campaign and SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands annual global campaign by WHO, which was focused on patient safety and reducing health care-associated infection.The Hand Hygiene Agent Market has been segmented on the basis of types of antiseptic agents used for washing hands in different expanses from household to heathcare sector and based on geographical regions. By types of antiseptic agents, the market has been divided into alcohols, chlorhexidine gluconate, iodine and iodophors, and quaternary ammonium compounds. An alcohol-based hand rub must contain at least 60% -95% alcohol for use in a healthcare settings for optimum results. The concentration of chlorhexidine in antiseptic hand wash should be at least 4%, while the maximum number of iodophor preparations in hand hygiene contain 7.5%10% povidone-iodine. The quaternary ammonium compounds have a slow speed of action and used only in combination with alcohols. Due to the efficiency and the ease of using the alcohol-based hand rubs it is expected to become most popular. The alcohol based antiseptics contributing for the major share in this market, followed by Chlorhexidine and iodine based antiseptics. The rate of healthcare-associated infections was lowered when adherence to recommended hand hygiene practices were improved and antiseptic hand washing was implemented.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:On the basis of geographies, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. Because of the high awareness towards hygiene, standard guideline, and proper training to the healthcare professional and general public, North America contributes for the highest share in this market. The Adoption of hand hygiene compliance monitoring (HHCM) devices in hospitals place Europe at the second position. Followed by Asia- Pacific and Rest of the world.The key players operating in the hand hygiene agents market are EcoHydra Technologies Ltd, GOJO Industries, Inc., Kutol Products Company, Inc., Deb Group, 3M Co., STERIS Corporation, Win-Medicare etc., are among other significant players worldwide. On the other hand, Kimberly-Clark Meritech are major companies in hygiene monitoring systems.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth insights, understanding market evolution by tracking historical developments, and analyzing the present scenario and future projections based on optimistic and likely scenarios. Each research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology developments, types, applications, and the competitive landscape.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:
Enterprise Asset Management Market Outlook and Worldwide Major Players Analysis to 2022

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Enterprise Asset Management Market, by Deployment (On Cloud, On Premises), by Organization Type (SMEs, Large Organization), by Application Vertical (Government, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Transportation, Oil & Gas, Aerospace & Defence) - Forecast 2016-2022Market Scenario:Enterprise Asset Management is term used for software which supports the personals to view and manage the company owned assets holistically. As the organizations start expanding, they need a system which keeps the record of their asset and helps to manage them. This is the main factor which is driving the market of Enterprise Asset Management Software and as the world economy is growing, it is expected that the global market of EAM will grow subsequently. Global Enterprise Asset Management Software has been valued at US ~$4 billion which is expected to grow at US ~$8 billion by the end of forecast period with CAGR of ~11%.Key Players SAP SE (Germany) Infor (U.S.) IBM (U.S.) Oracle Corporation (U.S.) Schneider Electric (France) AssetWorks LLC (U.S.) IFS AB (Sweden) ABB Group (Switzerland) Mintek Mobile Data Solutions (U.S.) Ramco Systems (India)Request a Sample Report @Segments:The Global EAM Market has been segmented on the basis of Deployment, Organization Type and Application Vertical. By Deployment, the market has been segmented as On Cloud and On Premises. By Organization Type the market has been segmented as SMEs and Large organization whereas the Applications Verticals of EAM has been identified as Government, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Transportation, Oil and Gas, Aerospace & Defence among others.Regional AnalysisNorth America is dominating the market of EAM due to the presence of global players in U.S. Growing Organization Sizes and increasing application areas of EAM is supporting the market of EAM in North America. Europe holds second position in the global market whereas Asia-Pacific has emerged as fastest growing market. Growing economy of Asian countries such as India and China and rich presence of manufacturing companies in Asian countries are some major factor which is driving the market.Study Objectives of Enterprise Asset Management Market:- To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Enterprise Asset Management Market- To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth- To analyze the Enterprise Asset Management market based on various factors- 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 Deployment, Organization Type Application Vertical 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 Enterprise Asset Management MarketBrowse Report @Intended AudienceEnterprise Asset Management Software ProvidersSMEs and Large Enterprise Asset Management OrganizationTraining and Education Service ProvidersEnterprise Asset Management VendorsConstruction CompaniesCloud Service ProvidersNetwork Service ProvidersSupport and Maintenance Service ProvidersAbout 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
Global Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) Sales Market 2017 - Dow Chemical Company, ExxonMobil Chemical, Braskem, ZEON

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The report on the Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) Sales market offers a broad overview of the dynamics at play on both the buy side and sell side. In order to deepen readers understanding of the Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) Sales market, the report provides brief historical highlights that have influenced developments herein. Furthermore, the report segments the Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) Sales market on the basis of fundamental yet critical parameters such as: applications, product/technology types, and geographical regions. Given that the value chain is an inextricable part of the Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) Sales market, the report analyzes the same in great detail.Download Free Sample Report @Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K MT), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) sales volume, Price (USD/MT), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player,Covering Top PlayersDow Chemical CompanyExxonMobil ChemicalChevron Phillips ChemicalBraskemJX Nippon Oil & Energy CorpZEONShell ChemicalsShandong YuhuangFushun YikesiSinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Limited (SPC)Cymetech CorporationLyondellBasellKolon IndustriesMaruzen PetrochemicalZibo Luhua Hongjin New MaterialWuhan Ruiji ChemicalHangzhou Yangyi PetrochemicalShandong Qilong ChemicalAccess Full Report @On 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 intoDCPD Resin GradeDCPD UPR GradeDCPD High PurityOn 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 Dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) (CAS 77-73-6) for each application, includingMedicinesPesticidesResinsHigh Energy FuelsFlavorsOthersIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About Fior MarketsFior Markets is a leading market intelligence company that sells reports of top publishers in the technology industry.Our extensive research reports cover detailed market assessments that include major technological improvements in the industry. Fior Markets also specializes in analyzing hi-tech systems and current processing systems in its expertise.Contact UsMark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
Chinese Natural Language Data Processing: China Patent Deployment, Business Opportunity, and Challenge Analysis

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Market Research Hub includes new market research report "Chinese Natural Language Data Processing: China Patent Deployment, Business Opportunity, and Challenge Analysis" to its huge collection of research reports.Request Free Sample Report -NLDP (Natural Language Data Processing) technology is a field of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and is widely used in smart technology applications such as smart customer service, smart retailing, chatbots, educational robots and domestic robots. By adopting NLDP technology, a computer is able to communicate and interact with humans more naturally and intuitively. More and more leading international vendors are rolling out various kinds of smart devices supporting English and Japanese NLDP technology. In contrast, there are relatively few Chinese NLDP-supported devices in the market. This report provides an overview of Chinese NLDP patent trends analysis by country and field; examines key technologies and major patent assignees. Also included are the insights about potential market opportunities and challenges of NLDP patent deployment for newcomers.Table of Contents1.Patent Mining1.1 Patent Search1.1.1 Selecting a Patent Database1.1.2 Identifying Search Keywords1.1.3 Data Selection1.1.4 Data Analysis2. Trends Analysis Using Data Mining2.1 Analysis of Trends by Country2.2 Analysis of Trends by Sector and Field2.3 Analysis of Trends by Key Technology SegmentBrowse Full Report with TOC -3.Conclusion3.1 Computer Technology Has the Highest Numbers of Patent Filings, Followed by Digital Communication3.2 Automatic Analysis Claims Largest Share of Key NLDP Patents in China, Followed by Processing or Translating3.3 NLDP Relevant Patents Concentrated Mostly on Electric Digital Data ProcessingAppendixList of TableTable 1 Chinese NLDP Patents' Matrix Analysis: Key Technology vs. Relevant TechnologyList of ChartFigure 1 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Country: International AssigneesFigure 2 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Field: International AssigneesFigure 3 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Field: Taiwanese AssigneesFigure 4 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Sector: International AssigneesFigure 5 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Sector: Taiwanese AssigneesFigure 6 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Relevant Technology Segment: International AssigneesFigure 7 Chinese NLDP Patent Distribution Share by Relevant Technology Segment: Taiwanese AssigneesMake an Enquiry -About Market Research HubMarket 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.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free : 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel : +1-518-621-2074Email : press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite :Read Industry News at -
Global Smart Refrigerator 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 Smart Refrigerator Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the global Smart Refrigerator 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 Smart Refrigerator for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaTo Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Global Smart Refrigerator market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Smart Refrigerator sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingSamsungHaierMediaHisenseLGSiemensTCLGE AppliancesWhirlpoolElectroluxOn 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 intoTop Freezer RefrigeratorsBottom Freezer FridgesSide-by-Side RefrigeratorsFrench DoorsOthersOn 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 Smart Refrigerator for each application, includingHome ApplianceCommercial ApplianceIndustry ApplianceIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsGlobal Smart Refrigerator Sales Market Report 20171 Smart Refrigerator Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Smart Refrigerator1.2 Classification of Smart Refrigerator by Product Category1.2.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Smart Refrigerator Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Top Freezer Refrigerators1.2.4 Bottom Freezer Fridges1.2.5 Side-by-Side Refrigerators1.2.6 French Doors1.2.7 Others1.3 Global Smart Refrigerator Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Home Appliance1.3.3 Commercial Appliance1.3.4 Industry Appliance1.4 Global Smart Refrigerator Market by Region1.4.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 China Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Europe Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Smart Refrigerator Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Smart Refrigerator (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 Global Smart Refrigerator Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Smart Refrigerator (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Smart Refrigerator (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Smart Refrigerator Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4 Global Smart Refrigerator (Volume) by Application3 United States Smart Refrigerator (Volume, Value and Sales Price)3.1 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 United States Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.3 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)3.2 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Players3.3 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Type3.4 United States Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Application4 China Smart Refrigerator (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4.1 China Smart Refrigerator Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 China Smart Refrigerator Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 China Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.3 China Smart Refrigerator Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)4.2 China Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Players4.3 China Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Type4.4 China Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Application5 Europe Smart Refrigerator (Volume, Value and Sales Price)5.1 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Europe Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.3 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)5.2 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Players5.3 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Type5.4 Europe Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Application6 Japan Smart Refrigerator (Volume, Value and Sales Price)6.1 Japan Smart Refrigerator Sales and Value (2012-2017)6.1.1 Japan Smart Refrigerator Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.2 Japan Smart Refrigerator Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6.1.3 Japan Smart Refrigerator Sales Price Trend (2012-2017)6.2 Japan Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Players6.3 Japan Smart Refrigerator Sales Volume and Market Share by Type6.4 Japan Smart Refrigerator 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 @
North America market for Cakes Frosting & Icing is expected to reach about 519.39 million USD by 2022 from 469.73 million USD in 2017, with CAGR Growth of 2.03%

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North America Cakes Frosting & Icing Market Research Report 2017 is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Cakes Frosting & Icing industry.Annual estimates and forecasts are provided for the period 2017 through 2022. Also, a six-year historic analysis is provided for these markets. The North America market for Cakes Frosting & Icing is expected to reach about 519.39 million USD by 2022 from 469.73 million USD in 2017, registering a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 2.03% during the analysis period, 2017-2022.The report provides a basic overview of the Cakes Frosting & Icing industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure.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 Cakes Frosting & Icing industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed.To Get a Free Sample Copy of this Report Visit @This report studies Cakes Frosting & Icing focuses on top manufacturers in North America market, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, coveringPinnacle FoodsBetty CrockerRich ProductCSM Bakery SolutionsWilton IndustriesDawn FoodLawrence FoodsDixies IcingMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), likeUnited StatesCanadaMexicoSplit by Product Types, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided intoPackaged Cakes Frosting & IcingUnpackaged Cakes Frosting & IcingSplit by applications, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Cakes Frosting & Icing in each application, can be divided intoBakeryRestaurantResidentialQYresearchreports.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.QYResearchReports1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Reach Stacker Market 2017 : Kalmar, Hyster, KONECRANES, Hangcha

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Global Reach Stacker Market 2016-2017A market study based on the " Reach Stacker Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Reach Stacker Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Reach Stacker industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Reach Stacker market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of Reach Stacker Market - Kalmar Hyster Terex CVS Ferrari KONECRANES Taylor Machine Works Liebherr Linde Material Handling SANY Dalian Forklift HeLi HangchaThe report studies the industry for Reach Stacker across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Reach Stacker market & dynamics of demand and supply of Reach Stacker into consideration. The ' Reach Stacker ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Reach Stacker market globally, which starts from the definition of the Reach Stacker industry and develops towards Reach Stacker market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Reach Stacker market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Reach Stacker market. The geographical segmentation of the Reach Stacker industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Reach Stacker is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Reach Stacker market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Reach Stacker market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Reach Stacker market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Reach Stacker production volume, data regarding demand and Reach Stacker supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Reach Stacker across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
Researchmoz | Aging Populations - Overcoming the challenges of a world with a depleted workforce and elderly populace

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Aging Populations - Overcoming the challenges of a world with a depleted workforce and elderly populace" to its huge collection of research reports.The worlds population is growing old and some of the worlds most powerful economies are due to experience catastrophic social change as a result. The need of older people is going to be one of the hot topics of the next few decades as many countries will have to adapt their healthcare systems, technology investment and pension schemes to cope with this new population of older people.Key Highlights- The global population is getting older, presenting significant challenges to governments to fund social care, pensions and healthcare. More and more of the economic output is now absorbed by the needs of the elderly population.- A greater degree of healthcare spending is now invested into old age care. Finding better ways to fund care, reducing drug expenditure and refocusing pharmaceutical research towards more effective treatment is now essential.- Technology developed to ensure elderly people can stay in their homes is now essential to future care and constitute potentially massive savings for the healthcare system. New business opportunities to take care of modern needs caused by an aging population are now opening up.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Scope- Examines the likely impact an aging population has and the need for reform.- Looks at the impact of an aging population on economic performance with regards to funding old age care.- Assessing the problems of an aging population relating to funding pensions and the economic impact- Looks at how technology is changing to cater for elderly care in the home.Reasons to buy- What is the effect of an aging population on social care, pensions and healthcare?- What is the economic impact of aging and illness as the population ages?- What are the problems of funding pension systems around the world?- How can technology work to allow elderly people to stay in their homes rather than entering the healthcare system?Table of ContentsExecutive summary 2Population crisis: The global population is getting older 2Aging and illness: The healthcare burden 2Pensions crises: Economic trouble, bad policy and lack of suitable solutions 2Technology: Changing how the elderly are cared for 2Population crisis: How to repopulate the planet with young people 7The populations of almost all western countries are getting older quickly 7Fertility rates are hampering repopulation in many countries 8Europe is one of the worst affected areas by this looming crisis 9Japan has a toxic range of problems that seems unsolvable 10Two speed worlds split between those that can grow and those that cant 11Current solutions are monetary incentives and automation 12Aging and illness: The healthcare burden 13The older the population, the more chronic illness it has 13Dementia has no cure and is absorbing social care budgets 14Old age consumes both public and private money equally 15Increasingly drastic methods of paying for elderly care sap a persons assets 15Pharmaceutical spending reveals that old age is the biggest driver 16Elderly people as a significant economic burden for a country 16The solutions are better use of money and treatment focus 17Pensions crises: Economic trouble, bad policy and lack of suitable solutions 19Political and economic considerations expand widespread pension problems 19Attempts by central banks to solve other economic problems have contributed to pensions crises 20Make 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 @
Opportunities For VR-Ready TFT-LCD Panels | Industry Key Trends, Size, Growth, Shares And Forecast Research Report

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Opportunities For VR-Ready TFT-LCD Panels" to its huge collection of research reports.VR (Virtual Reality) sickness has been a major factor affecting the wide-scale adoption of VR HMD (Head Mounted Display) among users. So far, there has been a lot of conjecture about the causes of VR sickness and verification has been made. Among various solutions, the adoption of VR-ready TFT-LCD (Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display) panels has been proven effective for resolving VR sickness. However, only some vendors are capable of providing such panels. The scarcity in supply has caught market attention. This report analyzes the latest development of VR-ready panels and examines their opportunities.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Table of Contents1.Faster Response Time and Higher Frame Rate can Effectively Solve VR Sickness 1.1 Issues Related to VR-ready Panels1.2 Requirements for VR-ready Panels2. Advantages of AMOLED Panels Lie in Reducing VR Sickeness3. Development of AMOLED Panels for VR Applications are More Aggressive than LCD panels3.1 SDI Focuses on Cooperation with Leading VR Vendors3.2 Chinese Panel Vendors Focus on VR-ready AMOLED Panels3.3 Japanese Vendors Taking Aggressive Stance towards VR-ready TFT-LCD Panels3.4 TFT-LCD Panel Vendors Seeking a Larger Share with Higher ResolutionMIC PerspectiveMake 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 @
Chinese Natural Language Data Processing: China Patent Deployment, Business Opportunity and Challenge Analysis | New Report

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Chinese Natural Language Data Processing: China Patent Deployment, Business Opportunity, and Challenge Analysis" to its huge collection of research reports.NLDP (Natural Language Data Processing) technology is a field of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and is widely used in smart technology applications such as smart customer service, smart retailing, chatbots, educational robots and domestic robots. By adopting NLDP technology, a computer is able to communicate and interact with humans more naturally and intuitively. More and more leading international vendors are rolling out various kinds of smart devices supporting English and Japanese NLDP technology. In contrast, there are relatively few Chinese NLDP-supported devices in the market. This report provides an overview of Chinese NLDP patent trends analysis by country and field; examines key technologies and major patent assignees. Also included are the insights about potential market opportunities and challenges of NLDP patent deployment for newcomers.Table of Contents1.Patent Mining 1.1 Patent Search1.1.1 Selecting a Patent Database1.1.2 Identifying Search Keywords1.1.3 Data Selection1.1.4 Data Analysis2. Trends Analysis Using Data Mining2.1 Analysis of Trends by Country2.2 Analysis of Trends by Sector and Field2.3 Analysis of Trends by Key Technology Segment3.Conclusion3.1 Computer Technology Has the Highest Numbers of Patent Filings, Followed by Digital Communication3.2 Automatic Analysis Claims Largest Share of Key NLDP Patents in China, Followed by Processing or Translating3.3 NLDP Relevant Patents Concentrated Mostly on Electric Digital Data ProcessingMake 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 Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment Market 2017 : Danfoss, Ingersoll Rand, Haier Inc, Dover Corporation

Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment

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Global Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment Market 2016-2017A market study based on the " Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment Market - Daikin Industries Whirpool Corporation Danfoss Dover Corporation Illinois Tool Works Inc Hussmann Corporation Ingersoll Rand Haier Inc. Metalfrio Solutions SA Beverage-Air CorporationThe report studies the industry for Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market & dynamics of demand and supply of Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment into consideration. The ' Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market globally, which starts from the definition of the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment industry and develops towards Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market. The geographical segmentation of the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment production volume, data regarding demand and Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Refrigeration Machinery & Equipment across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
Vision Disorders Market: An objective assessment of the trajectory of the market

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Although there are significant progress in preventing and curing visual impairment in many countries since last twenty years, according to World Health Organization (WHO) around 285 million (In the year 2013) people are still visually impaired across the world. It is a matter of great concern. The reasons may be varied. However, we cannot deny the fact that there is still a lot to be done to save the people from going blind.Any disturbance in the normal sense of vision can be termed as vision disorders. Myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, presbyopia, conjunctivitis, cataract, corneal abrasion, entropion and glaucoma are some of the vision disorders, affecting majority of the population across the world. Improper nutrition, various infections, traumatic eye injury, insertion of foreign objects and growing age are major causes for majority of the vision disorders.Vision disorders: Control and preventionAccording WHO, 80 percent of visually impaired people can be cured by using simple eye examinations like abnormality in a frequency of blinking, size of pupil and color of the eye. The disorders can be confirmed by suitable clinical and retinal tests such as corneal topography, keratometry, pachymetry, fluorescein angiography, Indocyanine Green study (ICG) dye test and other related tests. However, ignorance and negligence are leading severe eye complications or permanent vision loss.Obtain Report Details:The report published by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), revealed that approximately 14 million Americans above age of twelve are affected by various vision disorders in 2004. All these reports are alarming towards the need of immediate treatment for vision disorders across the world. This precisely a reason that the market for visual disorders may continue to grow in future.There are many companies which are involved in extensive research and development activities associated with these disorders such as United States based National Eye Institute working on clinical trials for nutritional supplements for age related cataract. Alcon Research is working on small incision cataract surgery. AqueSys, Inc. evaluating safety of AqueSys XEN 45 glaucoma implant in refractory glaucoma. Apart from this, University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with local NGOs is working on ancillary therapy of different eye infections.In case of region wise achievements in fighting against the visual disorders, Brazil has been providing eye care service through the national social security system since last decade. While, Morocco has launched a public effort to control glaucoma, China has invested over 100 million dollars in cataract surgeries since 2009. Oman has completely integrated eye care service provision in the primary health care framework over the last decade and India since 1995 has made available funds for eye care service provision for the poorest at district level.To reduce the burden of chronic eye diseases WHO is also coordinating a global research efforts to map services and policies for controlling diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, age related macular degeneration and refractive errors. To support comprehensive eye care systems, WHO continues to provide epidemiologic and public health technical support to its member states.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report:Vision Disorders Market SegmentationComing towards market point of view, the market for vision disorders can be segmented according to different perspectives such as regional geography and types of disorder. It can be segmented in four regions namely North American, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World. Out of all these segments North America region have highest contribution in terms of value because of large number of population within the reach of treatment, high awareness and better reimbursement policies.Followed by this Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World respectively are major segments of the market. The market can also be segmented among disorders such as cataract, glaucoma, eye infections and refractive errors. Along with this, the market for visual disorders can be categorized into drugs and devices available for the treatment.Currently various established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are catering the needs of visual disorders by providing drugs and lenses. Pfizer, Alcon, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. and GlaxoSmithKline are leading contributors in drug therapy, while Novartis and Bausch & Lomb are major players in lenses.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.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:
Optical Fibre Cable Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2015  2021

Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry

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The Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 market is the cornerstone of the global development aspects and prospects, as the development of specific concept requires various technologically supported ideas, theories, methodologies. The Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 market report explains the in-depth summary of current innovations, parameter, specifications, and creation. The Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 market also delivers a full abstract of the economic ups and downs in terms of demand rate and fulfillment ratios.Request For Download Sample Report:The Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 industry comprise of a large number of reputed organizations, firms, vendors, manufacturer and we deliver an in-detail summary of the overall key players who hold major count in terms of revenue, sales, demand, through their reliable services, products, and post-sale processes. The Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 market report provides a thorough analysis of the prominent driving factors that are identified based on the end user demands, variable market changes, restraining elements and regulatory compliance.Browse Full Report With Toc:The performance and characteristic of the Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 market are evaluated based on the quantitative and qualitative method to provide a clear picture of the current and future forecast trend. Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 Market report is well-crafted with graphs, diagrams, and realistic figures which indicate the status of the specific Global Optical Fibre Cable Industry, 2017 - 2022 industry on the global and regional platform.Request Inquiry for Buying:MRS Research Group [http://www.mrsresearchgroup.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. MRS Research Group is the comprehensive collection of market intelligence products and services available on air.3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,
Global Security Screening Equipments Market 2017 : Rapiscan Systems, Ketech Defence, Adani Systems

Security Screening Equipments

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Global Security Screening Equipments Market 2016-2017A market study based on the " Security Screening Equipments Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Security Screening Equipments Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Security Screening Equipments industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Security Screening Equipments market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of Security Screening Equipments Market - Ketech Defence Ltd. Point Security, Inc. Rapiscan Systems Analogic Corporation E.I.A. S.p.A. American Science and Engineering Inc. XP Metal Detectors Adani Systems Teledyne DALSA Inc PerkinElmer Inc.The report studies the industry for Security Screening Equipments across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Security Screening Equipments market & dynamics of demand and supply of Security Screening Equipments into consideration. The ' Security Screening Equipments ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Security Screening Equipments market globally, which starts from the definition of the Security Screening Equipments industry and develops towards Security Screening Equipments market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Security Screening Equipments market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Security Screening Equipments market. The geographical segmentation of the Security Screening Equipments industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Security Screening Equipments is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Security Screening Equipments market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Security Screening Equipments market worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Security Screening Equipments market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Security Screening Equipments production volume, data regarding demand and Security Screening Equipments supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Security Screening Equipments across the globe.About Us :Market and Research are a trusted brand in the research industry with capability of commissioning complex projects within a short span of time with high level of accuracy. At Market and Research, we believe in building long term relations with our clients. Our services cover a broad spectrum of industries including Energy, Chemicals and Materials, Automotive and Aerospace.Contact Us :Market and ResearchUnited States
Rice Milk Market Driven by Increasing Demand for Lactose-Free Food Products

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Rice milk is a type of grain milk which is made from various types of rice. Mostly rice milk is prepared from brown rice and is available in plain unsweetened form. The sweet taste obtained from a variety of rice milk drinks is due to the natural enzymatic process that breaks the carbohydrates into sugars which is almost similar to a Japanese milkshake. Rice milk contains high amount of essential ingredients such as carbohydrates, proteins, and calcium as compared to regular cow milk. Rice milks does not contain lactose, and is highly preferred by consumers which are lactose intolerant and individuals that avoid dairy products, including vegan consumers. Manufacturers are offering innovative rice milk-based products which are fortified with vitamins such as vitamin B12 and B3, minerals and iron for increasing their product quality. Rice milks are the most consumed milk alternative worldwide which are boosting the sales growth over the recent years. Rice milk is mostly consumed by individuals which are lactose intolerant, allergic to soy and soy-based products or milk products. Rice milks are rich in protein and is calcium fortified drinks.Obtain Report Details @Global Rice Milk: Market SegmentationThe global rice milk market is segmented on the basis of form, flavor, distribution channel, application and region. The rice milk market is segmented on the basis of form such as plain unsweetened form and plain sweetened form. The rice milk market is segmented on the basis of flavor such as chocolate and vanilla. The rice milk market is segmented on the basis of distribution channel such as online stores, supermarket/hypermarket, retail stores, and others. The global rice milk market is segmented on the basis of application in which rice milk is used in application in food products such as cheese, desserts, and snacks and beverages such as cold-pressed milks and others. Hence, the global rice milk market is expected to significantly increase the revenue contribution over the forecast period.Global Rice Milk Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the global rice milk industry can be divided by major regions which include North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Japan and Middle East & Africa. Globally, among all regions, Asia Pacific has developed as the dominant region in global rice milk market followed by Europe. Increasing demand for rice milk in lactose-intolerant consumers, has strengthened the growth of global rice milk market and hence is projected to significantly expand the revenue contribution of the market over the forecast period.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @Global Rice Milk Market: Growth DriversThe global rice milk market driving factors are increasing demand for lactose-free food products due to the ease of digest which is likely to contribute significantly to the global rice milk market till 2025. Growing levels of lactose intolerance is one of the major driving factor of the market. Rising consumer awareness regarding usage of lactose-free dairy products in day-to-day life which will help in maintaining the galactose level in the body, is one of the major driving factor for the market globally. Manufacturers are offering innovative dairy products to the consumers in order to remain in the competition in global rice milk market. Growing population of lactose intolerance consumers is also a major factor which is driving the global rice milk market. Hence, the global rice milk market is expected to observe robust growth over the forecast period.Global Rice Milk Market: Key PlayersSome of the key players identified across the value chain of the global rice milk market include Vitasoy Australia, Alpro, Provamel, DREAM, Pacific Foods of Oregon, Inc., Rude Health, Blue Diamond Growers, NATURA FOODS, HAPPYOLKS, thairicemilk are among others. The companies are expected to expand their business by enhancing their product portfolio in global rice milk market. The companies are projected to frame certain strategies in future in order to gain the competitive advantage in global rice milk market till 2025.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:
Database Encryption Market To Record An Impressive Growth By 2021

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This report studies sales (consumption) of Database Encryption 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, covering, International Business Machines, Symantec Corporation, Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, Netapp, Hewlett-Packard Company, Vormetric, Sophos, GemaltoAsk for sample copy@Market Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with sales (consumption), revenue, market share and growth rate of Database Encryption in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like, United States, China, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, IndiaSplit by product Types, with sales, revenue, price and gross margin, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into, Transparent Encryption, File-system Encryption, Application-level Encryption, Column-level Encryption, Hashing and Key Management. Split by applications, this report focuses on sales, market share and growth rate of Database Encryption in each application, can be divided into, Healthcare, Government, Retail, Defense, OthersBuy a copy of Global Database Encryption Sales Market for single user price of $ 4000@Key factors for this report:1 Database Encryption Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Database Encryption1.2 Classification of Database Encryption1.2.1 Transparent Encryption1.2.2 File-system Encryption1.2.3 Application-level Encryption1.2.4 Column-level Encryption1.2.5 Hashing and Key Management1.3 Application of Database Encryption1.3.1 Healthcare1.3.2 Government1.3.3 Retail1.3.4 Defense1.3.5 Others1.4 Database Encryption Market by Regions1.4.1 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.2 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2012-2022)2 Global Database Encryption Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global Database Encryption Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global Database Encryption Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Database Encryption Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Database Encryption (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Database Encryption Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global Database Encryption Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.3 Global Database Encryption (Volume and Value) by Regions2.3.1 Global Database Encryption Sales and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.3.2 Global Database Encryption Revenue and Market Share by Regions (2012-2017)2.4 Global Database Encryption (Volume) by ApplicationView this report@About us:Research Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the clients specific requirement. Our database consists of a large collection of high-quality reports obtained using a customer-centric approach, thus providing valuable research insights.Contact Us:Address: Flat No.10, Wing C, S. No. 245/4/2+245/5/1, Baner, Pune-411045Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +91 7507349866Skype ID: researchtradesconWeb:
Global Slimming Devices Market expected to Gain Popularity Worldwide

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Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Slimming Devices in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaGlobal Slimming Devices market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingVAKIND Marvogo WAWAWEI Foxnovo Blue Idea VelformTo Receive a Sample Copy of Global Slimming Devices Market Research @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoElectric Pulse Type Vibration Type Pneumatic Extrusion OthersOn 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 Slimming Devices for each application, includingHospital Home OthersBuy a Copy of Global Slimming Devices Market Research for single user price of $ 2900@Key Chapters1 Slimming Devices Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Slimming Devices1.2 Slimming Devices Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Slimming Devices Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Slimming Devices Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Electric Pulse Type1.2.4 Vibration Type1.2.5 Pneumatic Extrusion1.2.6 Others2 Global Slimming Devices Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Slimming Devices Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.1 Global Slimming Devices Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global Slimming Devices Production and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global Slimming Devices Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.3 Global Slimming Devices Average Price by Manufacturers (2012-2017)3 Global Slimming Devices Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)3.1 Global Slimming Devices Capacity and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.2 Global Slimming Devices Production and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)3.3 Global Slimming Devices Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)To View Full Report @Who we areResearch Trades has team of experts who works on providing exhaustive analysis pertaining to market research on a global basis. This comprehensive analysis is obtained by a thorough research and study of the ongoing trends and provides predictive data regarding the future estimations, which can be utilized by various organizations for growth purposes.We distribute customized reports that focus on meeting the clients specific requirement. Our database consists of a large collection of high-quality reports obtained using a customer-centric approach, thus providing valuable research insights. The research encompasses information gathered and examined by subject-matter experts, laying down growth opportunities and developmental strategies for enterprises.Reach at us:Flat No.10, Wing C,S. No. 245/4/2+245/5/1,Baner, Pune-411045Email: sales@researchtrades.comCall us: +91 7507349866Skype ID: researchtradesconWeb:
Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Market Projected To Grow At a Steady CAGR During Forecast Period

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Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Industry 2021 Market Research Report Purchase This Report by calling ResearchnReports.com at +1-888-631-6977.This research, highlighting the current situation of the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market, focuses on answering some of the important questions faced by stakeholders. By providing answers to all of these questions related to the key drivers and dominant companies, the reports authors also focus on different factors, which would create new growth opportunities in the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market. Prepared by an expert team, the report highlights recent developments, key trends, and new project developments in the market. As leading companies take efforts to maintain their dominance in the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market, the right way to do so is by adopting new technologies and strategies.N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Report by Material, Application, and Geography Global Forecast to 2021 is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific) and the main countries (United States, Germany, united Kingdom, Japan, South Korea and China).Get 30% Discount On This Premium Report Here:The report firstly introduced the N,N-Dimethylethanolamine basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.For a stronger and more stable business outlook, the report on the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market carries key projections that can be practically studied. The report highlights major technological developments and changing trends adopted by key companies over a period of time. To achieve this, the research segments and sub-segments the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market by using many criteria. The growth predictions for each of these segments are included in the report.The research on the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market will be useful to investors, regularity authorities, and policy makers, state the analysts. Independent research institutions, commercial entities, and non-profit organization in this sector can also benefit from the report. Key companies operating in the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market are profiled by considering factors such as capacity production, products/services, applications, cost, gross, and revenue.Finally, the research directs its focus towards the possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that can affect the growth of the Global N,N-Dimethylethanolamine market. The feasibility of new projects is also measured in the report by the analysts.Request Sample Copy of This Premium Report Here:The report includes six parts, dealing with:1.) Basic information;2.) The Asia N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Market;3.) The North American N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Market;4.) The European N,N-Dimethylethanolamine Market;5.) Market entry and investment feasibility;6.) The report conclusion.For More Info On This Report:About Research N Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact Us:Mr. Sunny DenisContact No. +1-888-631-6977sales@researchnreports.com(ResearchnReports)10916, Gold Point Dr
Global Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market 2017- Delphi, Denso, Aisin, Eaton, Hitachi Automotive Systems

Global Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market 2017

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The Global Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market 2017 examines the performance of the Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market 2017 report includes Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market 2017:1 Delphi2 Denso3 Aisin4 Eaton5 Hitachi Automotive SystemsVariable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market Analysis: By ProductMid-Power Output EnginesHigh-Power Output EnginesVariable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market Analysis: By ApplicationOEMs MarketAftermarketAt the beginning, the report covers the top Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems industry, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems market revenue worldwide.Finally, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) Systems market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Report 2017

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems 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 EMEA into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, With sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Standalone Fluid Management Systems for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast)Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux;Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran;Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Standalone Fluid Management Systems sales volume (K Units), price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingFresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA (Germany)Baxter International, Inc. (U.S.)B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany)Ecolab, Inc. (U.S.)Zimmer Biomet Holdings Inc. (U.S.)Cardinal Health, Inc. (U.S.)...Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @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 intoDialyzersInsufflatorsSuction/Evacuation and Irrigation SystemsFluid Waste Management SystemsFluid Warming SystemsOtherOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Standalone Fluid Management Systems for each application, includingUrologyGastroenterologyLaparoscopyGynecology/ObstetricsBronchoscopyArthroscopyOtherIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Browse Press Release of this Research Report:Table of Contents1 Standalone Fluid Management Systems Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Standalone Fluid Management Systems1.2 Classification of Standalone Fluid Management Systems1.2.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Dialyzers1.2.4 Insufflators1.2.5 Suction/Evacuation and Irrigation Systems1.2.6 Fluid Waste Management Systems1.2.7 Fluid Warming Systems1.2.8 Other1.3 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-20221.3.2 Urology1.3.3 Gastroenterology1.3.4 Laparoscopy1.3.5 Gynecology/Obstetrics1.3.6 Bronchoscopy1.3.7 Arthroscopy1.3.8 Other1.4 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market by Region1.4.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Middle East Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Africa Status and Prospect (2012-2022)2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Competition by Manufacturers/Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Market Competition by Players/Manufacturers2.1.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Market Share of Major Players (2012-2017)2.1.2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Share by Players (2012-2017)2.1.3 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sale Price by Players (2012-2017)2.2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume and Value) by Type/Product Category2.2.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.3 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sale Price by Type (2012-2017)2.3 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume) by Application2.4 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.3 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Price by Region (2012-2017)3 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price), by Players, Countries, Type and Application3.1 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.2 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Type3.3 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Application3.4 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries3.4.1 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)3.4.2 Europe Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)3.4.3 Germany Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.4 France Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.5 UK Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.6 Russia Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.7 Italy Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.8 Benelux Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price), by Region, Type and Application4.1 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.2 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Type4.3 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Application4.4 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries4.4.1 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)4.4.2 Middle East Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.4 Israel Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.5 UAE Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.6 Iran Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems (Volume, Value and Sales Price) by Players, Countries, Type and Application5.1 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.2 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Type5.3 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Market Share by Application5.4 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries5.4.1 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)5.4.2 Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)5.4.3 South Africa Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.4 Nigeria Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.5 Egypt Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.6 Algeria Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6 EMEA Standalone Fluid Management Systems Manufacturers/Players Profiles and Sales Data6.1 Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA (Germany)6.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.1.2 Standalone Fluid Management Systems Product Type, Application and Specification6.1.2.1 Product A6.1.2.2 Product B6.1.3 Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA (Germany) Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview6.2 Baxter International, Inc. (U.S.)6.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.2.2 Standalone Fluid Management Systems Product Type, Application and Specification6.2.2.1 Product A6.2.2.2 Product B6.2.3 Baxter International, Inc. (U.S.) Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview6.3 B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany)6.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.3.2 Standalone Fluid Management Systems Product Type, Application and Specification6.3.2.1 Product A6.3.2.2 Product B6.3.3 B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany) Standalone Fluid Management Systems Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.3.4 Main Business/Business OverviewQYReseachReports.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
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Remote Patient Monitoring Market Report 2017

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Remote Patient Monitoring Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.In this report, the EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring 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 EMEA into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, With sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Remote Patient Monitoring for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast)Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux;Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran;Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Remote Patient Monitoring sales volume (K Units), price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingBiotronikBoston Scientific CorporationCAS Medical SystemsCONTEC MEDICALDragerwerkGE HealthcareGuangdong Biolight MeditechMedtronicMindray MedicalNihon KohdenPhilips HealthcareSpacelabs HealthcareSt. Jude MedicalEnter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @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 intoExternal Remote Patient Monitoring DevicesImplantable Remote Patient Monitoring DevicesOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Remote Patient Monitoring for each application, includingHospitalClinicHomeIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Get more information from Research Report Press Release:Table of Contents1 Remote Patient Monitoring Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Remote Patient Monitoring1.2 Classification of Remote Patient Monitoring1.2.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 External Remote Patient Monitoring Devices1.2.4 Implantable Remote Patient Monitoring Devices1.3 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2012-20221.3.2 Hospital1.3.3 Clinic1.3.4 Home1.4 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market by Region1.4.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 Middle East Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 Africa Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 EMEA Market Size (Value and Volume) of Remote Patient Monitoring (2012-2022)1.5.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2022)1.5.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2022)2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Competition by Manufacturers/Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Market Competition by Players/Manufacturers2.1.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Market Share of Major Players (2012-2017)2.1.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Share by Players (2012-2017)2.1.3 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sale Price by Players (2012-2017)2.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume and Value) by Type/Product Category2.2.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.3 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sale Price by Type (2012-2017)2.3 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume) by Application2.4 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume and Value) by Region2.4.1 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.2 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Market Share by Region (2012-2017)2.4.3 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Price by Region (2012-2017)3 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume, Value and Sales Price), by Players, Countries, Type and Application3.1 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Value (2012-2017)3.1.1 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.1.2 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.2 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Type3.3 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Application3.4 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries3.4.1 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)3.4.2 Europe Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)3.4.3 Germany Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.4 France Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.5 UK Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.6 Russia Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.7 Italy Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)3.4.8 Benelux Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume, Value and Sales Price), by Region, Type and Application4.1 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Value (2012-2017)4.1.1 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.1.2 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.2 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Type4.3 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Application4.4 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries4.4.1 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)4.4.2 Middle East Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.4 Israel Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.5 UAE Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)4.4.6 Iran Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring (Volume, Value and Sales Price) by Players, Countries, Type and Application5.1 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Value (2012-2017)5.1.1 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.1.2 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.2 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Type5.3 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Market Share by Application5.4 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume and Value (Revenue) by Countries5.4.1 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales Volume by Countries (2012-2017)5.4.2 Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Revenue by Countries (2012-2017)5.4.3 South Africa Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.4 Nigeria Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.5 Egypt Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)5.4.6 Algeria Remote Patient Monitoring Sales and Growth Rate (2012-2017)6 EMEA Remote Patient Monitoring Manufacturers/Players Profiles and Sales Data6.1 Biotronik6.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.1.2 Remote Patient Monitoring Product Type, Application and Specification6.1.2.1 Product A6.1.2.2 Product B6.1.3 Biotronik Remote Patient Monitoring Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview6.2 Boston Scientific Corporation6.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.2.2 Remote Patient Monitoring Product Type, Application and Specification6.2.2.1 Product A6.2.2.2 Product B6.2.3 Boston Scientific Corporation Remote Patient Monitoring Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview6.3 CAS Medical Systems6.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors6.3.2 Remote Patient Monitoring Product Type, Application and Specification6.3.2.1 Product A6.3.2.2 Product B6.3.3 CAS Medical Systems Remote Patient Monitoring Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)6.3.4 Main Business/Business OverviewQYReseachReports.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
Global Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market 2017- Linear Technology, ROHM Semiconductor, VEX Robotics, AnTek Products Corp, IBM

Global Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market 2017

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The Global Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market 2017 examines the performance of the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market 2017 report includes Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market 2017:1 Linear Technology2 ROHM Semiconductor3 VEX Robotics4 AnTek Products Corp5 IBM6 Pololu Robotics and Electronics7 VicorVoltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market Analysis: By ProductIntegrated Voltage Regulator (IVR).OtherVoltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market Analysis: By ApplicationCPUsProcessorOthersAt the beginning, the report covers the top Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) industry, Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) market revenue worldwide.Finally, Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
Global Ceramic Simulating Coating Market Research Report Forecast 2017-2021

Ceramic Simulating Coating Market

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The report, titled Global Ceramic Simulating Coating Market 2017 is a methodical research study based on the Ceramic Simulating Coating market, analyzing the competitive framework of the industry in the world. Using efficient analytical tools such as SWOT analysis and Porters five forces analysis, the report provides a comprehensive assessment of the Ceramic Simulating Coating market.The report estimates the market size in terms of volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$) produced, whereas, the key segments and the geographical subdivision of the Ceramic Simulating Coating market are also analyzed in detail. The market drivers, limitations, and growth prospects of each segment are discussed in this report and, based on that, analysts have determined the future of the market for Ceramic Simulating Coating in the global arena.Get full report with TOC @The report covers each aspect of the market for Ceramic Simulating Coating in globally, starting from the basic information about the market and advancing to the various criteria on the basis of which the market is classified. The major applications of the Ceramic Simulating Coating market are also discussed in the report.The report studies the Ceramic Simulating Coating market by evaluating the market chain, prevalent policies, and regulations as well as the manufacturers, their manufacturing chain, cost structures, and contribution in the industry. The regional markets for the global Ceramic Simulating Coating market are examined by analyzing the pricing of products in the region compared to the profit generated. The production capacity, demand and supply, logistics, and the historical performance of the market in the given region is also evaluated in this market report.Get Free sample report @The report is arranged to provide an overview of the Ceramic Simulating Coating market by product, company and geography. Forecasts are broken down by geographic region or by country. The worldwide market is analyzed and data provided for each disease sub-segment.The report determines the leading players in the global market. The company profiles of the major participants operating in the global Ceramic Simulating Coating market have been reviewed in this study.Market Research Store 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 UsJoel John3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138,Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442,United StatesTel: +1-386-310-3803GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714USA/Canada Toll Free No. 1-855-465-4651Email: sales@marketresearchstore.com
Worldwide High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market by Type & Application 2015 - 2023

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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%.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.Obtain Report Details @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.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.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:
Hyperscale Data Center Market Detailed Analysis and Forecast by 2025

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Global Hyperscale Data Center Market: OverviewHyperscale data centers are created to provide a single, massively scalable compute architecture. The architecture is essentially comprised of small, separate servers, called nodes, which provide compute, storage, and networking. These nodes are then brought together and managed as a whole. Nodes are usually deployed from inexpensive, off the shelf servers.The primary objective of hyperscale architecture is to keep in the initial investment in check by starting on a small scale. Depending upon demand, new nodes can be added to the cluster resulting in an extension of the initial infrastructure. Hyperscale data centers, a part of the IT infrastructure domain, have been mostly leveraged by international internet giants, namely Google and Amazon. Going forward their market looks promising.Request a Brochure of the Report @A report by Transparency Market Research throws light on important facets of the global market for hyperscale data center. It furnishes a qualitative analysis of the growth drivers and restraints in the market and chronicles the prevalent trends in it. It also offers a detailed assessment of the competitive landscape and identifies key players contributing towards the growth of the global market for hyperscale data center. The report leverages market-leading analytical tools to gauge the opportunities and threats awaiting players in the market.Global Hyperscale Data Center Market: Trends and OpportunitiesEnergy efficiency, usefulness in a gamut of industries, open compute project, and lessened ownership cost are some of the unique perceived benefits of hyperscale data centers. Such advantages have driven their demand so far from consumers wanting to tackle the growing operational complexities that traditional data centers are unable to resolve. There are three types of hyperscale data centers  cloud providers, colocation providers, and enterprises.Request for TOC of the Report @Based on application, the global hyperscale data center market can be segmented into IT and telecom, healthcare, banking, financial services, and insurance, government utilities, energy, and manufacturing, among others. A booming IT services industry has substantially upped the demand for hyperscale data centers in the IT and telecom industry. Depending upon the component again, the market can be categorized into server, networking, etc. Among them, the server segment leads the market and going forward too is slated to hold onto its dominant share.Factors serving as bottleneck to the growth in the global market for hyperscale data centers are power failures and generation of a lot of heat.Global Hyperscale Data Center Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the key segments in the global market for hyperscale data center management are North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World. Among them, Asia-Pacific is slated to gain most market share in the near future on account of the growing demand for cloud service from small, medium, and large enterprises and swift take-up of hyperscale data center architecture and technologies by various industries in the region. The IT and telecommunications industry has been generating the most revenue so far and in the near future the banking, financial services, and insurance segment will gross maximum revenue in Asia Pacific. Countries such as India, China, and Japan are at the forefront of driving demand in the Asia Pacific market.Read Complete Report @Companies Mentioned in the ReportTo assess the competition prevailing in the global market for hyperscale data center, the report profiles companies such as Intel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Nlyte Software, Sandisk Corporation, Cisco Systems, INC., Ericsson, and International Business Machines Corporation.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Increasing popularity of Global Logistics Market - Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, Forecast and Opportunities 2016 - 2024

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Logistics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 " to it's Large Report database.Logistics Market: SnapshotLogistics is a part of supply chain management that is used to meet the customer demands through the implementation, control and planning of the storage and movement of the goods from origin to destination. The speedy growth in the internet retailing market is driving the growth of the logistics market. Increasing popularity of the online shopping globally is acting as one of the major driver of the logistics market globally. Increase in online shopping is due to increasing access to the internet and growing preference of customers for online shopping. In addition, ease of access, convenience related to the home delivery of objects and advantages such as customization and refinement of results from a variety of objects are supporting the market currently.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Logistics Market: SegmentationBased on the various transport infrastructures, the logistics market is segmented into road transport, waterways transport, rail transport and air transport. Road transport is further being sub segmented into semi-trailer, truck-trailer, refrigerated truck, flatbed truck, lorry tank and others. Waterways transport is further be classified into dry storage container, open top containers, refrigerated ISO containers, tunnel container, insulated and thermal container and others. Rail transport is further being sub divided into tank railcars, covered hopper railcars, pressure differential railcars, air-slide railcars and others. Air transport is further be classified into deck cargo, upper deck cargo and over size or odd size cargo. Based on the various transport infrastructures of logistics, the road transport segment constituted the biggest market share, followed by the rail transport segment, in 2015.Read All Transport & Logistics Market Research Reports @Table of ContentChapter 1 Preface1.1 Report Description1.2 Market Segmentation1.2.1 Logistics Market Segmentation, by Type and Geography1.3 Research Scope1.4 Research MethodologyChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Global Logistics Market Revenue, 2014 - 2021 (USD Million)2.2 Global Logistics Market SnapshotChapter 3 Logistics Market: Overview3.1 Introduction3.2 Key Trend Analysis3.3 Market Drivers3.3.1 Rapid Growth of the E-commerce Retail Logistics3.3.2 Cost Reduction Achieved by Utilizing 3PL Services3.3.3 Technological Advancement is helping catapult the growth of logistics market3.4 Market Restraints3.4.1 Lack of Infrastructure and Shortage of Skilled Manpower3.5 Market Opportunities3.5.1 Investment in Untapped MarketAbout 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:
Argentina Cards and Payments Industry Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020 | Researchmoz

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "The Cards and Payments Industry in Argentina: Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020" to its huge collection of research reports."The Cards and Payments Industry in Argentina: Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Argentine cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, cheques, cash, payment cards and direct debit 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, 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.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 Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Argentine cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Argentine cards and payments industry, including debit, credit and charge cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, cheques, cash, direct debit and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit and charge cards.Scope- To improve financial inclusion and increase competition between banks, in 2016 the central bank introduced guidelines for convenient account opening and switching between providers. As per the new guideline, wage accounts can be opened directly by individuals rather than upon request by their employer. Individuals can open and close their accounts and cancel their credit cards through online banking, without the need to visit a bank branch. To increase financial access for citizens, the central bank relaxed the regulatory requirements for opening new bank branches in 2016. In H1 2016, 97 new branches were provided with authorization, an increase of 44 over H2 2015.- The government move to abolish the tax on credit card payments made in foreign currency in December 2015 is anticipated to drive credit card transactions. In December 2013 the government had increased the tax on all credit card purchases made abroad from 20% to 35%. Consumers were also charged with a 50% tax on online purchases of more than $25 (ARS201.90) from foreign websites. The restrictions on online shopping and use of payment cards abroad was an attempt to control the drop in foreign currency reserves, which fell by 29% in 2013 to $30.9bn (ARS168.7bn), a seven-year low.- To promote inbound tourism in the country, in September 2016 the Argentine government abolished value added tax (VAT) on hotel charges for foreign travelers if they paid using a debit or credit card issued overseas. Hotels must now refund foreign tourists the VAT charged on hotel stays. This move is anticipated to push up tourist numbers by 120,000 and increase spending by $90m (ARS1.3bn), thereby driving the payment card transaction value and volume.Reasons to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Argentine cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Argentina.- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Argentine cards and payments industry.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 @
Carnauba Wax Market Professional Survey Report 2017

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The global carnauba wax market has witnessed tremendous growth over the past few years, due to its increasing application in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sector. Brazil is the leading producer as well as exporter of carnauba wax across the globe. The manufacturing of this wax involves low setup cost, however, the labor intensive nature of extraction and processing leads to a high labor cost, thereby boosting the overall manufacturing cost. Moreover, the widespread adoption of primitive tools for extraction leads to an increase in the overall extraction time. This wax commonly finds its application in food, pharmaceutical, automotive, and cosmetics.Request a Brochure of the Report @The report serves as a reliable business tool providing information regarding important parameters of the global carnauba wax market. It is intended to update stakeholders about the ongoing trends of the market. It provides an immaculate understanding of the market through definitions, classifications, applications, and chain structure. It gives a detailed description of the factor influencing the market and analyzes the extent to which they impact the growth. It offers qualitative and quantitative insights into the competitive landscape of the market. It profiles key players in the market and takes into account their business strategies, latest development, investment outlook, financial overview, and market shares. For a coherent understanding, the report segments the global carnauba wax market on the basis of various criteria including geography and applications.Global Carnauba Wax Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe burgeoning consumption of confectionary products such as jellies and chewing gums, particularly in developing countries, is anticipated to stimulate the demand for carnauba wax in the forthcoming years. In addition, the rising demand for food glazing agent in the food and beverage industry is bolstering the growth of the market. The growth of the market is also backed by conducive regulations enforced by regulatory authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Union. On the other hand, the rising attempts of market participants to increase their margins and revenues are resulting in an increase in price, which in turn is adversely affecting the growth of the market.Request for TOC of the Report @Global Carnauba Wax Market: Geographical SegmentationBased on geography, the key segments meticulously studied in the report are Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and Rest of the World. Europe and North America will account for a substantial cumulative share in the market throughout the forecast period. The growing demand for waxes for the production and maintenance of automobiles is bolstering the growth of these regions. The robust growth of the automotive care industry, due to rising automobile sales coupled with the increasing sales of pre-used cars, is translating into the greater uptake of carnauba wax.Asia Pacific will rise at a noteworthy pace during the same period, owing to the growing demand for food glazing agents in the food and beverage industry. The rapid industrialization, which is leading to the flourishing growth of various end-user industries, is also impacting the growth of the region positively. Moreover, the rising disposable income of consumers is propelling the growth of the region.Read Complete Report @Global Carnauba Wax Market: Competitive LandscapeProminent players in the global carnauba wax market are paying strong attention to improving their distribution network to cater to the global demand. The majority of players are focusing towards product customization to serve better to the requirements of end users and stay relevant in the market. The strong foothold of key players, due to their market knowledge and acumen, makes the market a highly competitive arena. Some of the key companies operating in the global metal carnauba wax market are Brasil Ceras, Tropical Ceras do Brasil Ltda, FONCEPI  Comercial Exportadora Ltda, Pontes Industria de Cera Ltda, and Carnauba do Brasil Ltda.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact :Rohit BhiseyHead - Internet MarketingTel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market 2017- SKF, Dalian Metallurgical Bearing, Timken, TMB, ZWZ , Liebherr

Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market 2017

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The Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market 2017 examines the performance of the Wind Turbine Bearings market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Wind Turbine Bearings market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Wind Turbine Bearings market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market 2017 report includes Wind Turbine Bearings industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Wind Turbine Bearings Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Wind Turbine Bearings Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Wind Turbine Bearings Market 2017:1 SKF2 Dalian Metallurgical Bearing3 Timken4 TMB5 ZWZ6 Liebherr7 NSK8 NTN Bearing9 Rollix10 Rothe Erde11 Schaeffler Group12 ZYS Luoyang LYC Bearing13 Zhejiang Tianma Bearing14 DYZV15 Xibei Bearing16 KaydonWind Turbine Bearings Market Analysis: By ProductSlewing Ring BearingsSpherical Roller BearingsWind Turbine Bearings Market Analysis: By ApplicationGearboxRotor ShaftGeneratorPitch and YawAt the beginning, the report covers the top Wind Turbine Bearings manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Wind Turbine Bearings report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Wind Turbine Bearings industry, Wind Turbine Bearings industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Wind Turbine Bearings Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Wind Turbine Bearings research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Wind Turbine Bearings market revenue worldwide.Finally, Wind Turbine Bearings market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
Global Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market 2017- Bosch, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, WiTricity, Fulton Innovation

Global Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market 2017

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The Global Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market 2017 examines the performance of the Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market 2017 report includes Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market 2017:1 Bosch2 Qualcomm3 Texas Instruments4 WiTricity5 Fulton InnovationWireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market Analysis: By ProductElectromagnetic InductionMagnetic ResonanceWireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market Analysis: By ApplicationPassenger VehiclesCommercial VehiclesAt the beginning, the report covers the top Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles industry, Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles market revenue worldwide.Finally, Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
Global Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market 2017- Qualcomm Technologies, EVATRAN GROUP, HEVO, Leviton Manufacturing

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The Global Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market 2017 examines the performance of the Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market 2017 report includes Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market 2017:1 Qualcomm Technologies2 EVATRAN GROUP3 HEVO4 Leviton Manufacturing5 WiTricity CorporationWireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market Analysis: By ProductStationary Wireless Electric Vehicle ChargingDynamic Wireless Electric Vehicle ChargingWireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market Analysis: By ApplicationEV?s (Electric Vehicles)PHEV?s (Plug-in Hybrid Electric VehiclesAt the beginning, the report covers the top Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging industry, Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging market revenue worldwide.Finally, Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
Global Wooden Floor Market 2017- Armstrong, Mannington, Mohawk, Pergo, Shaw Industries

Global Wooden Floor Market 2017

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https://market.biz/report/global-wooden-floor-market-2017/98040/

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The Global Wooden Floor Market 2017 examines the performance of the Wooden Floor market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Wooden Floor market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Wooden Floor market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Wooden Floor Market 2017 report includes Wooden Floor industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Wooden Floor Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Wooden Floor Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Wooden Floor Market 2017:1 Armstrong2 Mannington3 Mohawk4 Pergo5 Shaw Industries6 Anderson Hardwood Floors7 Mullican Flooring8 Giorio9 Beaulieu International Group10 Kahrs Group11 Kaindl Flooring12 Nature Home Holding Company Limited13 Bruce14 Greenply Industries15 Robina Flooring16 Timberwolf17 ARK Floors18 Barlinek19 BLC Hardwood Flooring20 China Flooring Holding CompanyWooden Floor Market Analysis: By ProductSolid Wooden FlooringEngineered Wooden FlooringWooden Floor Market Analysis: By ApplicationResidentialCommercialAt the beginning, the report covers the top Wooden Floor manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Wooden Floor report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Wooden Floor industry, Wooden Floor industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Wooden Floor Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Wooden Floor research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Wooden Floor market revenue worldwide.Finally, Wooden Floor market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
Global Woodworking Equipments Market 2017- Biesse, Durr , IMA-Schelling, SCM Group, Cantek America

Global Woodworking Equipments Market 2017

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The Global Woodworking Equipments Market 2017 examines the performance of the Woodworking Equipments market. It encloses an in-depth judgment of the Woodworking Equipments market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Woodworking Equipments market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Woodworking Equipments Market 2017 report includes Woodworking Equipments industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Woodworking Equipments Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Woodworking Equipments Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Woodworking Equipments Market 2017:1 Biesse2 Durr3 IMA-Schelling4 SCM Group5 Cantek America6 Cheng Kuang Machinery7 Gongyou Group8 HOLYTEK INDUSTRIAL CORP9 KTCC Woodworking Machinery10 WEINIG Group11 Oliver Machinery12 Stihl13 Craftsman14 Klein Tools15 Milwaukee16 Busch17 Rockwell18 Gearwrench19 Dewalt20 Hitachi21 DEWALT22 HiltiWoodworking Equipments Market Analysis: By ProductPower MachineryHand ToolWoodworking Equipments Market Analysis: By ApplicationFurnitureConstructionAt the beginning, the report covers the top Woodworking Equipments manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Woodworking Equipments report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Woodworking Equipments industry, Woodworking Equipments industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Woodworking Equipments Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Woodworking Equipments research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Woodworking Equipments market revenue worldwide.Finally, Woodworking Equipments market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:Market.Biz is designed to provide the best and most penetrating research required to all commercial, industrial and profit-making ventures in any sector of online business. We take pride in our ability to satisfy the market research needs of both domestic and international businesses.Contact Us:James JohnsonS no. 51/14 First Floor,Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade,Near Navale Lawns, PuneMaharashtra, India 411041Tel: +1(857)2390696Web:Email: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest News-
All Natural Food & Drinks Market Driven by Technological Advancements in the Field of Food & Drinks & Rising Prevalence of Chronic Diseases

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A new market intelligence report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) titled All Natural Food and Drinks Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013  2019, offers insights into various aspects of the market. It presents a comprehensive study of the factors impacting the growth of the global all natural food and drinks market. The geographical segmentation, product-wise segmentation, and competitive landscape are also discussed in detail in the report.Browse Market Research Report @The demand for all natural food and drinks is high in developed markets such as the U.K., Germany, and the U.S. and is anticipated to increase at a significant pace in the forthcoming years. The growing consumer preference for non-genetically modified foods is compelling the manufacturers and organizations to manufacture products free from genetically modified ingredients and redefine labeling of these products. Several countries in Europe have already imposed a ban on genetically modified products as they can be harmful to human health, animals, and the environment. Reduced production and bans of such products are benefitting the growth of the global all natural food and drinks market.Other factors such as technological advancements in the field of food and drinks and rising prevalence of chronic diseases are driving the market. On the flip side, the lower stability of natural food and drinks reduces the shelf life of products, which adversely affects the growth of the market. Moreover, the low availability of natural flavors is leading to higher price of these products, thereby limiting the demand for these products. However, the discovery of new sources of natural materials and the increasing practice for multifunctional flavors are likely to augur well for the growth of the global all natural food and drinks market.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @By product type, the market has been bifurcated into all natural food and drinks and all natural food and drinks ingredients. The latter can be further segmented into natural preservatives, natural sweeteners, natural colors, and natural flavors. The increasing consumer consciousness regarding health coupled with the growing demand for nutritional products is contributing to the growth of the natural food and drinks segment. Geographically, the market is segmented into Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Rest of the World (RoW). The North America market for all natural food and drinks is expected to flourish owing to the presence of health conscious population and a large patient pool suffering from chronic diseases. Emerging economies in Asia Pacific are likely to present immense untapped opportunities to manufacturers.Mergers and acquisitions and launches of new and innovative products are the key strategies used by leading players in the global all natural food and drinks market to increase their market shares. Some of the leading players in the market are Archer Daniels, Bunge, Con-Agra Foods, General Mills, Nestle and Tyson Foods.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 Printed Electronic Materials Market 2017- DuPont , Dow, PPG, Henkel, Xerox

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The Printed Electronic Materials Market 2017 examines the performance of the Printed Electronic Materials market, enclosing an in-depth judgment of the Printed Electronic Materials market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Printed Electronic Materials market in the present as well as the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Printed Electronic Materials Market 2017 report includes Printed Electronic Materials industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Printed Electronic Materials Growth aspects, a wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis, manufacturing capacity, Printed Electronic Materials Price during the Forecast period from 2017 to 2022.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Printed Electronic Materials Market 2017:1 DuPont2 Dow3 PPG4 Henkel5 Xerox6 PARC7 Panasonic8 IDTechEx9 Sun Chemical10 Rogers CorpPrinted Electronic Materials Market Analysis: By ProductPrinted Electronic Materials Market Analysis: By ApplicationAt the beginning, the report covers the top Printed Electronic Materials manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on topographical regions.Further, the Printed Electronic Materials report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Printed Electronic Materials industry, Printed Electronic Materials industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Printed Electronic Materials Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.To Buy Complete Report Click Here:The Printed Electronic Materials research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Printed Electronic Materials market revenue worldwide.Finally, Printed Electronic Materials market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.QY Research is the terminal where all industrial, commercial and profitmaking venture will get the best research reports of the market in all sectors like automotive, electronics, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, food and beverages etc. We provide you the important and necessary information to identify and analyze the need of market and the market size.QY Market Research is the terminal where all industrial, commercial and profitmaking venture will get the best research reports of the market in all sectors like automotive, electronics, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, food and beverages etc. We provide you the important and necessary information to identify and analyze the need of market and the market size.Read more-S no. 51/14 First Floor, Office Number 4, Vishwa Arcade, Near Navale Lawns, Pune, Maharashtra, India 411041Telephone Numbers:+1(857)2390696+91 9130855334Email ID: inquiry@market.bizBrowse Latest Market News-
Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size, Advances, Growth, Status And Forecast 2022

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This report studies the global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems market, analyzes and researches the M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAdidasBoston ScientificEurotechFitbitGarminGoogleJabraJawboneJohnson & JohnsonMedtronicMeta WatchMotorola SolutionsNikePebblePlantronicsPolar ElectroRecon InstrumentsSamsungSonyZephyr TechnologyAGT InternationalCarriotsCiscoDavra NetworksFluturaIBMILS TechnologyMaven SystemsNorthwest AnalyticsSAPMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems can be split intoWristwearHeadwear and EyewearNeckwearBodywearOtherGet The Sample Copy Of This Report @Market segment by Application, M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems can be split intoConsumer ElectronicsHealthcareEnterprise and Industrial ApplicationsOther ApplicationsIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsGlobal M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size, Status and Forecast 20221 Industry Overview of M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems1.1 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Overview1.1.1 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems 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 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market by Type1.3.1 Wristwear1.3.2 Headwear and Eyewear1.3.3 Neckwear1.3.4 Bodywear1.3.5 Other1.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Consumer Electronics1.4.2 Healthcare1.4.3 Enterprise and Industrial Applications1.4.4 Other Applications2 Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Competition Analysis by Players2.1 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems 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 FutureView More @3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Adidas3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Boston Scientific3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Eurotech3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Fitbit3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Garmin3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Google3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Jabra3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 Jawbone3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Johnson & Johnson3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 Medtronic3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Revenue (Value) (2012-2017)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 Meta Watch3.12 Motorola Solutions3.13 Nike3.14 Pebble3.15 Plantronics3.16 Polar Electro3.17 Recon Instruments3.18 Samsung3.19 Sony3.20 Zephyr Technology3.21 AGT International3.22 Carriots3.23 Cisco3.24 Davra Networks3.25 Flutura3.26 IBM3.27 ILS Technology3.28 Maven Systems3.29 Northwest Analytics3.30 SAP4 Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size by Type and Application (2012-2017)4.1 Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size by Type (2012-2017)4.2 Global M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size by Application (2012-2017)4.3 Potential Application of M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems5 United States M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size (2012-2017)5.2 United States M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)6 EU M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size (2012-2017)6.2 EU M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)7 Japan M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size (2012-2017)7.2 Japan M2M, IoT & Wearable Technology Ecosystems Market Size and Market Share by Players (2016 and 2017)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
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Elevator and Escalator Market Report 2017

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http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/emea-europe-middle-east-and-africa-elevator-and-escalator-market-report-2017.htm

In this report, the EMEA Elevator and Escalator 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 EMEA into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, With sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Elevator and Escalator for these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast)Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux;Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran;Africa: South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.Get Free Research Summary Of The Repot:EMEA Elevator and Escalator market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Elevator and Escalator sales volume (K Units), price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingHitachiKONEMitsubishi ElectricOtis ElevatorSchindler ElevatorThyssenKrupp ElevatorBeacon EngineeringCanny ElevatorChuo ElevatorDAIKODalian SigmaEscone ElevatorsEskay ElevatorsExpress ElevatorFujitecHangzhou Xo-Lift ElevatorLeo ElevatorsMoriya ElevatorNippon OTIS ElevatorOn 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 intoSteelAlloyOthersOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume (K Units), market share and growth rate of Elevator and Escalator for each application, includingBuildingMineOthersIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsEMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Elevator and Escalator Market Report 20171 Elevator and Escalator Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Elevator and Escalator1.2 Classification of Elevator and Escalator1.2.1 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2012-2022)1.2.2 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2016View Full Report @2 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Competition by Manufacturers/Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and Application2.1 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Market Competition by Players/Manufacturers2.1.1 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Sales Volume and Market Share of Major Players (2012-2017)2.1.2 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Revenue and Share by Players (2012-2017)2.1.3 EMEA Elevator and Escalator Sale Price by Players (2012-2017)2.2 EMEA Elevator and Escalator (Volume and Value) by Type/Product CategoryAbout Us :QYresearchreports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations.Contact US:Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-618-1030Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Global Medical Shoes Market 2017 - New Balance, Dr. Comfort, Mephisto, Apex, Propet, Vionic, Chaneco

Medical Shoes

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Global Medical Shoes Market Research ReportThe Medical Shoes Market 2017 Research Report investigates a thorough and complete study on Medical Shoes industry volume, market Share, market Trends, Medical Shoes Growth aspects, wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis, manufacturing capacity, Price durinf Forecast period from 2017 to 2022Browse Complete Report @The research report labeled Global Medical Shoes Market 2017 presents the penetrating study of Medical Shoes market globally, concentrating on complete analysis of the present and past historical details of Medical Shoes market. The competitive landscape view of the Medical Shoes industry is also covered in this research document.Competitive Study of Global Medical Shoes Market 2017 Based on Key Vendors:New BalanceDr. ComfortMephistoApexPropetVionicChanecoDunaOrthofeetPiedroDARCODo Inquiry For Sample Report:The report organizes the Medical Shoes market across the globe into distinct portion based on industry standards. It also distinguishes the market based on geographical regions. The report mainly throws light on dominant players in the regions of (United States, EU, China, and Japan). Other regions can be added accordingly.Discrete aspects of the Medical Shoes industry like value chain analysis, Medical Shoes industry rules and policies, the factors driving the growth of the market and the constraints hampering the growth are explained.In next section, the Medical Shoes report mentions the products that are currently available in the market along with their cost structures, manufacturing volume, requirement and supply analysis, import/export scenario and their overall contribution to the Medical Shoes market revenue globally.Further, the report analyzes the feasibility of investment, investment return analysis and shows a complete picture of market development scope and business strategies followed by leading Medical Shoes industry players along with their company profile, market share and contact information.Do Inquiry Before Purchasing Report:Lastly, the report enlists the vital conclusions that will assist all individuals who have a keen interest in Medical Shoes Market.About US:Big Market Research uniqueness lies in its highly ethical reports at economical rates because we value your relationship and growth more than money. Your growth is our aim. With the arsenal of different search reports, we help you here to look and buy research reports that will be helpful to you and your organization. Our research reports have the capability and authenticity to support your organization for growth and consistency.Contact US:5933 NE Win Sivers Drive,#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesDirect : +1-971-202-1575Toll Free : + 1-800-910-6452Email: help@bigmarketresearch.comWeb:
Global Hot Runner Market 2017: Industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed and Forecast till 2022

Hot Runner Market 2017

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A market study based on the "Hot Runner" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Hot Runner 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Adult Diaper industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Hot Runner on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research ReportThe report studies the industry for Adult Diaper across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Hot Runner & dynamics of demand and supply of Adult Diaper into consideration. The 'Adult Diaper' research study covers each and every aspect of the Hot Runner globally, which starts from the definition of the Adult Diaper industry and develops towards Hot Runner segmentations. Further, every segment of the Hot Runner is classified and analyzed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Hot Runner. The geographical segmentation of the Adult Diaper industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Adult Diaper is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Hot Runner's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Hot Runner worldwide.Enquire Here :The global Hot Runner 2017 is also analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Adult Diaper production volume, data regarding demand and Adult Diaper supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Adult Diaper across the globe.Abou Us: MRS Research Group provides a range of marketing and business research solutions designed for our clients specific needs based on our expert resources. The business scopes of Prof Research cover more than 30 industries including energy, new materials, transportation, daily consumer goods, chemicals, etc. We provide our clients with one-stop solution for all the research requirements.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
Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Market - Pipeline Review, H1 2017 provides Comprehensive Information on the Therapeutics under Development

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http://www.researchmoz.us/pharmaceutical-market-reports-38.html

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Pipeline Review, H1 2017 " to it's Large Report database.Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Pipeline Review, H1 2017SummaryGlobal Markets Direct's latest Pharmaceutical and Healthcare disease pipeline guide Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Pipeline Review, H1 2017, provides an overview of the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (Oncology) pipeline landscape.Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (also known as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, NHL, or sometimes just lymphoma) is a cancer that starts in cells called lymphocytes, which are part of the bodys immune system. Symptoms depend on what area of the body is affected by the cancer and how fast the cancer is growing.Symptoms may include night sweats (soaking the bed sheets and pajamas even though the room temperature is not too hot),fever and chills that come and go, itching, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, underarms, groin, or other areas, weight loss, coughing or shortness of breath if the cancer affects the thymus gland or lymph nodes in the chest, putting pressure on the windpipe (trachea) or other airway, abdominal pain or swelling, leading to loss of appetite, constipation, nausea, and vomiting and headache, concentration problems, personality changes, or seizures if the cancer affects the brain. Treatment includes surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Report HighlightsGlobal Markets Direct's Pharmaceutical and Healthcare latest pipeline guide Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Pipeline Review, H1 2017, provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (Oncology), complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The guide covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases.The Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (Oncology) pipeline guide also reviews of key players involved in therapeutic development for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and features dormant and discontinued projects. The guide covers therapeutics under Development by Companies /Universities /Institutes, the molecules developed by Companies in Pre-Registration, Filing rejected/Withdrawn, Phase III, Phase II, Phase I, IND/CTA Filed, Preclinical, Discovery and Unknown stages are 6, 2, 28, 137, 124, 5, 123, 18 and 3 respectively. Similarly, the Universities portfolio in Phase II, Phase I, Preclinical and Discovery stages comprises 15, 17, 16 and 4 molecules, respectively.Read All Pharmaceutical Market Research Reports @Table of ContentsTable of Contents 2Introduction 11Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Overview 12Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Therapeutics Development 13Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Therapeutics Assessment 85Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Companies Involved in Therapeutics Development 111Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Drug Profiles 233Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Dormant Projects 1656Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Discontinued Products 1676Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma - Product Development Milestones 1684Appendix 1692List of TablesNumber of Products under Development for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, H1 2017 60Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 62Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..1), H1 2017 63Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..2), H1 2017 64Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..3), H1 2017 65Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..4), H1 2017 66Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..5), H1 2017 67Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..6), H1 2017 68Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..7), H1 2017 69Number of Products under Development by Companies, H1 2017 (Contd..8), H1 2017 70About 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:
Pharmaceuticals Top 5 Emerging Markets Industry Guide 2017 provides Top-Line Qualitative and Quantitative Summary Information including: Market Share and Size

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " Pharmaceuticals Top 5 Emerging Markets Industry Guide 2017 " to it's Large Report database.Pharmaceuticals Top 5 Emerging Markets Industry Guide 2017SummaryThe Emerging 5 Pharmaceuticals industry profile provides top-line qualitative and quantitative summary information including: market share, market size (value 2012-16, and forecast to 2021). The profile also contains descriptions of the leading players including key financial metrics and analysis of competitive pressures within the market.SynopsisEssential resource for top-line data and analysis covering the emerging five pharmaceuticals market. Includes market size data, textual and graphical analysis of market growth trends and leading companies.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Key Highlights- These countries contributed $168.1 billion to the global pharmaceuticals industry in 2016, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8% between 2007 and 2011. The top 5 emerging countries are expected to reach a value of $267.5 billion in 2021, with a CAGR of 9.7% over the 2016-21 period.- Within the pharmaceuticals industry, China is the leading country among the top 5 emerging nations, with market revenues of $99.4 billion in 2016. This was followed by India and Mexico with a value of $29.4 and $19.9 billion, respectively.- China is expected to lead the pharmaceuticals industry in the top five emerging nations, with a value of $155.8 billion in 2021, followed by India and Mexico with expected values of $59.1 and $25.6 billion, respectively.Read All Pharmaceutical Market Research Reports @Table of ContentsIntroductionWhat is this report about?Who is the target reader?How to use this reportDefinitionsTop Emerging Countries PharmaceuticalsIndustry OutlookPharmaceuticals in South AfricaMarket OverviewMarket DataMarket SegmentationMarket outlookFive forces analysisMacroeconomic indicatorsPharmaceuticals in BrazilMarket OverviewMarket DataMarket SegmentationMarket outlookFive forces analysisMacroeconomic indicatorsPharmaceuticals in ChinaMarket OverviewAbout 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:
The Global Luxury Hotels Market To 2020 - Supported by growing Tourism and a rise in Affluent Leisure and Business Travelers

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ResearchMoz added Latest Research Report titled " The Global Luxury Hotels Market To 2020 " to it's Large Report database.SummaryThe global luxury hotel market continued to expand in 2015, supported by growing tourism and a rise in affluent leisure and business travelers. Rising disposable incomes in areas China and India, the presence of rich corporate culture, and a growth in the number of international events are expected to drive the growth in future. China is the largest market for luxury hotels with room supply of 337,212 in 2015, followed by the US and Mexico, while Saudi Arabia was the fastest growing market at a CAGR of 12.5%. With the exception of Turkey, no European countries made into top-10 list in 2015. In terms of occupancy rate, Asian countries led the race with Japan (93.6% in 2015) at the top, followed by Hong Kong and Singapore. Egypt (US$317 in 2015) topped the list in terms of RevPAR, followed by Hong Kong and France.Request for Sample PDF of Premium Research Report with TOC:Key Findings- In 2015, Thailand was the fastest-growing market in terms of number of guests received in luxury hotels in the Asia-Pacific. After registering a steep decline in international arrivals in 2014 following the political unrest in the country, Thailands inbound tourism posted strong growth in 2015, as there was stability in the political domain. Inbound trips grew by 20% in 2015. Thailand is also the second-largest market in terms of luxury room supply in Asia.- Considering the rise of the tourism in Asia-Pacific, hoteliers are planning to expand in the region. According to United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), overall, the region saw 277 million international arrivals in 2015 and 9% growth in the first four months of 2016. This growth has led the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Plc to plan expansions in the region by adding new luxury hotel chains, either by developing its own brand or by acquiring a competitor. IHG is considered the third largest hotel operator in Asia after Jin Jiang International Holdings Co. and Accor SA, in terms of the number of rooms, with a total capacity of almost 128,000 rooms.- Turkey, the only European market among the top-10 list is expected to record a huge fall in occupancy rates. Occupancy in luxury hotels decreased from 54.3% in 2015 to 47.5% in 2016 due to a decline in international arrivals as the country witnessed a series of terror attacks, rising security concerns after the Arab Spring, and the ongoing crisis in Syria.Read All Travel Services Market Research Reports @Table of Contents1 Global Luxury Hotel Market - Key Trends and Issues2 Global Luxury Hotels - Deals3 Global Luxury Hotels KPIs - the Americas3.1 The Americas - number of luxury hotel establishments (2011-2020)3.2 The Americas - number of rooms in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.3 The Americas - room occupancy rate in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.4 The Americas - number of rooms nights available in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.5 The Americas - number of rooms nights occupied in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.6 The Americas - average room revenue per available room in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.7 The Americas - average room revenue per occupied room in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.8 The Americas - average total revenue per available room in luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.9 The Americas - total room revenue of luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.1 The Americas - total non-room revenue of luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.11 The Americas - total revenue of luxury hotels (2011-2020)3.12 The Americas - number of guests in luxury hotels (2011-2020)4 Global Luxury Hotels KPIs - Asia-Pacific4.1 Asia-Pacific - number of luxury hotel establishments (2011-2020)4.2 Asia-Pacific - number of rooms in luxury hotels (2011-2020)4.3 Asia-Pacific - room occupancy rate in luxury hotels (2011-2020)4.4 Asia-Pacific - number of rooms nights available in luxury hotels (2011-2020)4.5 Asia-Pacific - number of rooms nights occupied in luxury hotels (2011-2020)About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the world's fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMoz's service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Contact Us:Mr. Nachiket Ghumare90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074 / Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:Follow me on Blogger at:
Fragrances in Canada Market Growth, Analysis and Trends in Upcoming Years

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SummaryOrbis Research delivers key insights on the Fragrances in Canada Market This report helps to analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developmentsDescriptionThe categorys current value growth of 1% in 2016 was slightly weaker than the 2% CAGR of the review period. While premium fragrances recorded a solid 3% current value CAGR over 2011-2016, mass fragrances suffered from strong competition, posting a 1% CAGR but seeing sales decline by 1% in 2016.Fragrances in Canada report offers a comprehensive guide to the size and shape of the market at a national level. It provides the latest retail sales data 2012-2016, allowing you to identify the sectors driving growth. Forecasts to 2021 illustrate how the market is set to change.Product coverage: Mass Fragrances, Premium Fragrances.Data coverage: market sizes (historic and forecasts), company shares, brand shares and distribution data.Download PDF Sample of Fragrances in Canada Market Research Report @Why buy this report?Get a detailed picture of the Fragrances market;Pinpoint growth sectors and identify factors driving change;Understand the competitive environment, the markets major players and leading brands;Use five-year forecasts to assess how the market is predicted to develop.Table of Content:LIST OF CONTENTS AND TABLESHeadlines Trends Competitive Landscape Prospects Category Data Table 1 Sales of Fragrances by Category: Value 2011-2016 Table 2 Sales of Fragrances by Category: % Value Growth 2011-2016 Table 3 NBO Company Shares of Fragrances: % Value 2012-2016 Table 4 LBN Brand Shares of Fragrances: % Value 2013-2016 Table 5 LBN Brand Shares of Premium Men's Fragrances: % Value 2013-2016 Table 6 LBN Brand Shares of Premium Women's Fragrances: % Value 2013-2016 Table 7 Forecast Sales of Fragrances by Category: Value 2016-2021 Table 8 Forecast Sales of Fragrances by Category: % Value Growth 2016-2021 L'Oreal Canada Inc in Beauty and Personal Care (canada) Strategic DirectionKey Facts Summary 1 L'Oreal Canada Inc: Key Facts Competitive Positioning Summary 2 L'Oreal Canada Inc: Competitive Position 2016 Executive Summary Beauty and Personal Care Remains Stable Despite An Uncertain Economic Climate Manufacturers Look To Differentiate Their Brands Through New Multi-functional Products International Companies Continue To Lead Beauty and Personal Care Demand for Natural Ingredients and Sustainable Business Practices Rises Further Beauty and Personal Care Expected To Record Steady Growth Over the Forecast PeriodKey Trends and Developments Social Media Marketing Enables Stronger Connections With Consumers Retailers Are Looking To Change the Way Canadians Buy Their Beauty Products Canadians Seek Out Health and Wellness Brands and Socially Responsible Companies Market Data Table 9 Sales of Beauty and Personal Care by Category: Value 2011-2016 Table 10 Sales of Beauty and Personal Care by Category: % Value Growth 2011-2016 Table 11 Sales of Premium Beauty and Personal Care by Category: Value 2011-2016 Table 12 Sales of Premium Beauty and Personal Care by Category: % Value Growth 2011-2016 Table 13 GBO Company Shares of Beauty and Personal Care: % Value 2012-2016 Table 14 NBO Company Shares of Beauty and Personal Care: % Value 2012-2016 Table 15 LBN Brand Shares of Beauty and Personal Care: % Value 2013-2016 Table 16 Penetration of Private Label in Beauty and Personal Care by Category: % Value 2011-2016 Table 17 Distribution of Beauty and Personal Care by Format: % Value 2011-2016 Table 18 Distribution of Beauty and Personal Care by Format and Category: % Value 2016 Table 19 Forecast Sales of Beauty and Personal Care by Category: Value 2016-2021 Table 20 Forecast Sales of Beauty and Personal Care by Category: % Value Growth 2016-2021 Table 21 Forecast Sales of Premium Beauty and Personal Care by Category: Value 2016-2021 Table 22 Forecast Sales of Premium Beauty and Personal Care by Category: % Value Growth 2016-2021 Sources Summary 3 Research SourcesPlace a Purchase ORder for this Report @:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering 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; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
Benzyl Benzoate Market by Global Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

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HTF Market Intelligence released a new research report of 119 pages on title 'Global Benzyl Benzoate Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022' with detailed analysis, forecast and strategies. The study covers key regions that includes North & South America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa and important players such as LANXESS, Emerald Kalama Chemical, Ernesto Ventos ..................SummaryBenzyl benzoate is a kind of ester compound by condensation of benzoate and benzyl alcohol, there are a lot of important applications. It can mainly be used in textile auxiliaries, flavors and Fragrance, pharmaceuticals and plasticizer.Request a sample report @Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the Benzyl Benzoate in Global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.Market Segment by Manufacturers, this report coversLANXESSEmerald Kalama ChemicalErnesto VentosVertellusHELMTennants Fine ChemicalsSabari ChemicalsHubei Greenhome Fine ChemicalWuhan BietWuhan Youji IndustriesDongda ChemicalZengrui ChemicalMarket Segment by Regions, regional analysis coversNorth America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, coversPharmaceutical GradeIndustrial GradeFlavors & Fragrance GradeMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided intoPharmaceuticalsTextile AuxiliariesFlavors and FragrancePlasticizerOtherBuy this report @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the global Benzyl Benzoate market.Chapter 1, to describe Benzyl Benzoate Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of Benzyl Benzoate, with sales, revenue, and price of Benzyl Benzoate, 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 global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of Benzyl Benzoate, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, Benzyl Benzoate market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Benzyl Benzoate sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceGet Customization in the Report, Enquire Now @Table of Contents1 Market Overview1.1 Benzyl Benzoate Introduction1.2 Market Analysis by Type1.2.1 Pharmaceutical Grade1.2.2 Industrial Grade1.2.3 Flavors & Fragrance Grade1.3 Market Analysis by Applications1.3.1 Pharmaceuticals1.3.2 Textile Auxiliaries1.3.3 Flavors and Fragrance1.3.4 Plasticizer1.3.5 Other1.4 Market Analysis by Regions1.4.1 North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)1.4.1.1 USA Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.2 Canada Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.1.3 Mexico Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2 Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy)1.4.2.1 Germany Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.2 France Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.3 UK Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.4 Russia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.2.5 Italy Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3 Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia)1.4.3.1 China Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.2 Japan Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.3 Korea Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.4 India Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.3.5 Southeast Asia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4 South America, Middle East and Africa1.4.4.1 Brazil Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.2 Egypt Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.3 Saudi Arabia Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.4 South Africa Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.4.4.5 Nigeria Market States and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Market Opportunities1.5.2 Market Risk1.5.3 Market Driving Force....ContinuedView Detailed Table of Content @Thanks for reading this article, you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact Us:HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA - 08837sales@htfmarketreport.comPh: +1 (206) 317 1218
Market Research on Orthopaedic Oncology Market 2016 and Analysis to 2026

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Orthopedic oncology accounts for a small proportion in orthopedics. Orthopedic oncology is a condition that arises due to the formation of benign and malignant tumors in bones and connective soft tissues. It also includes the diagnosis and treatment of patients with metastatic carcinomato the skeleton. Bone and soft tissue tumors are quite rare and sometimes require reconstructive surgery. Soft tissue sarcomas are more common than bone sarcomas. For 2016, the American Cancer Society estimates about 3,300 new cases for cancer of the bones and joints and 12,310 new cases for soft tissue sarcomas. There are three main types of bone cancers, osteosarcoma, which arises most often in the growing ends of long bones, chondrosarcoma, which develops in the metaphysis and Ewings sarcoma. Malignant bone tumors also referred to as chondrosarcoma are more prevalent in adults than other form of cancers and remains a challenging tumor to diagnose and treat. Treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy do not remain the preferred choice of treatment in treating such type of tumor as clinical studies demonstrate no substantial improvements in the survival rate of the patients. Therefore, adequate surgical resection is the mainstay of treatment in case of chondrosarcoma. As estimated by the American Cancer Society, chondrosarcomas is more prevalent with 40% of cases developing in adults whereas less than 5% of cases occur in patients younger than 20.Radiofrequency ablation has become the standard and most preferred choice of treatment in case of osteoid osteoma, a benign bone tumor that arises from osteoblasts. However studies demonstrates its expanded application in palliative treatment of patients with painful bone metastasis .The ability to perform less invasive procedures often allows more efficient, less painful, and more cost-effective patient care. In addition, minimally invasive techniques such as kyphoplasty, vertebroplasty, and acetabuloplasty may provide an alternative to major reconstructive surgery for patients with metastatic disease.Request Report Sample@Global Orthopaedic Oncology Market: Drivers & RestraintsFactors driving the global orthopedic oncology market includes rapidly ageing population with increasing risk of developing cancer. Patients who had prior high-dose external radiation therapy or treatment with anti-cancer drugs are at higher risk of developing osteosarcoma. However, a small number of bone cancers also develop due to heredity defects of bones and people with metal implants, which doctors sometimes use to repair fractures, are more likely to develop osteosarcoma. In case of soft tissue sarcoma adults with heredity disorders such as retinoblastoma, tuberous sclerosis, werner syndrome etc are at higher side of developing this type of cancer.High cost associated with the treatment for musculoskeletal oncology diseases and lack of awareness regarding the effective treatment therapies are some of the factors which restraint the market growth in the near futureGlobal Orthopaedic Oncology Market: SegmentationOrthopedic Oncology marketis segmented by treatment, by end user and geography:By TreatmentSurgeryAmputationLimb Salvage SurgeryReconstructive SurgeryChemotherapyRadiation TherapyTargeted TherapyBy End UserMultispecialty HospitalsCancer Research InstitutesGlobal Orthopaedic Oncology Market: OverviewRising prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders are expected to drive the demand for effective treatment therapies for treatment of various cancers associated with bones and soft tissues. The orthopaedic oncology market is expected to grow at a healthy pace attributed to rising prevalence of cancer over the forecasted period.Request For TOC@Global Orthopaedic Oncology Market: Region-wise OutlookOn the basis of region presence, thrombophilia treatment market is segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Asia pacific excluding japan, Japan, Middle East and Africa. Global market for Orthopediac oncology is expected to be on a higher side in North America and Europe owing to increasing prevalence of cancer and musculoskeletal related disorders. Asia pacific represents immense growth opportunity for orthopedic oncology market attributed to rapidly aging population and rising cancer incidence. In addition macroeconomic factors such as FDA approvals are also expected to increase the adoption rate of devices in the developed countries.Global Orthopaedic Oncology Market: Key PlayersSome of the key market players in the orthopedic oncology market are Stryker Corporation, Accentus Inc., Roche Diagnostics, Amgen Inc., Novartis AG, Biogen Idec, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi S.A., and Pfizer 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.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Saudi Arabia Education Forecast to 2020

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Saudi Arabia Education Forecast to 2020 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The Saudi Arabia education sector is expected to grow exponentially on the back of a rising population, increasing private sector participation and growing demand for skilled workforce. Over 50 public and private universities are providing academic and vocational training across the Kingdom. The country is also making concrete efforts towards developing its education sector at the primary, secondary, and higher education levels in order to satiate future knowledge demand.Our recent market research report, Saudi Arabia Education Forecast to 2020 provides in-depth study of Saudi Arabian education sector in terms of Kindergarten, General Education, etc. Our research is an outcome of extensive primary & secondary research, where industry trends are being identified. Additionally, we have identified some of the potential courses, which are not the preferred courses, but are anticipated to become popular mainly due to increasing demand of skilled labor and various other initiatives.For a Detailed description and table of contents of this report please click here:To provide the clear picture of the Saudi Arabian education, the report covers exhaustive analysis on the potential requirement of kindergarten, primary, intermediate, secondary, technical & vocational, and higher education segments. Thus, growth of number of school and student enrolled, number of academic and administrative staff, in each education format is forecasted till 2019-2020 in the report. The forecast is conducted on the basis of co-relation and judgmental analysis, which is carried out after carefully studying key factors including population growth, industrial growth, government initiatives, drivers and challenges.Moreover, our study also finds that there has been a significant increase of private participation in education sector and the E-learning industry, with many government and private universities opting for E-learning solutions. For complete understanding of the Saudi education industry, we have identified major e-learning service providers. Besides, the report also provides E-learning industry recent developments along with the market forecast till 2020.Thus, our report provides an in-depth research and rational analysis of the current and expected status of the education system in Saudi Arabia. It provides a complete understanding of the Saudi Arabias education model. It also discusses the regulations and major drivers of the industry. Overall, the report presents optimum information and balanced research outlook on the potentials of the Saudi Arabian education sector.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Global Dishwasher Market to grow at a CAGR of 6.83 % during the period 2017-2021

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SummaryOrbis Research delivers key insights on the Global Dishwasher Market 2017-2021 This report helps to analyze competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developmentsDescriptionA dishwasher is a machine that washes dishes automatically. There are two types of dishwashers, which are freestanding dishwashers and built-in dishwashers. Built-in dishwashers unlike freestanding dishwashers are connected to the flow of other kitchen accessories. Dishwashers save time and significantly. reduce the wastage of water and energy.The Global Dishwasher Market to grow at a CAGR of 6.83 % during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global dishwasher market for 2017-2021. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from retail sales of dishwasher products.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:AmericasAPACEMEADownload PDF Sample of Global Dishwasher Market Research Report @:Global Dishwasher 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 vendorsElectroluxGE AppliancesLG ElectronicsRobert BoschWhirlpoolOther prominent vendors AGA Rangemaster Asko Appliances Dacor Fagor America Hoover Candy Group Sears Brands Miele SAMSUNG SMEG VESTELMarket driverProduct innovation in terms of technology, performance, features, design, and capacity of loading For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeLow household penetration of dishwashers compared with other major appliances in both developed and developing marketsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendProduct localizationFor 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 vendors?Place Purchase Order for this Report @:Companies Mentioned:Electrolux, GE Appliances, LG Electronics, Robert Bosch, Whirlpool, AGA Rangemaster, Asko Appliances, Dacor, Fagor America, Hoover Candy Group, Sears Brands, Miele, SAMSUNG, SMEG, and VESTEL.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; +9164101019Follow Us on LinkedIn:
FMI Releases New Report on the Endoscopic Vessel Harvesting System Market 2016-2026

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With the increasing rate of cardiovascular disease constant innovation and advancement in technology has become paramount. In the field of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) introduction of endoscopic vessel harvesting system market has open up newer opportunities for companies. Coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) is a procedure for restoring the blood supply to the heart muscle due to blockage or narrowing of one or more coronary arteries. Traditionally, the technique involved in harvesting procedure was open vein harvesting (OVH) which involved a single continuous skin incision. With the recent advancement in technology, the process is less invasive by endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) this technique reduces leg wound morbidity because of small incisions compared to open vein harvesting. Endoscope is a medical instrument used for capturing a picture inside a hollow area, which is connected to a video camera and inserted through a small incision that is made in the leg. The saphenous vein inside the leg is viewed by the endoscope and helps the surgeon in identifying and to remove the vein with minimal pain to the leg.According to Center of Disease Control and Prevention, around 3,95,000 CABG surgeries were performed in the United States in 2013. The endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is mainly driven by the incidence and prevalence rate of coronary diseases. Moreover due to benefits such as less invasive modality, including a lower infection rate, fewer wound complications, improved cosmesis, and greater patient satisfaction physicians and patients are opting for this treatment. High pool of geriatric population and awareness programs among surgeons will drive the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market. However, endoscopic vessel harvesting system market has some restraints, lack of skilled professionals in the developing countries and unstable reimbursement regulations are hampering the growth of endoscopic vessel harvesting system in developing countries. Apart from this the presence of alternative therapies may hinder the growth of the endoscopic vessel harvesting systems market.Request Report Sample@The Global endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is segmented on the basis of product type and regional presence:Segmentation based on product typeDisposableReusableGeographically the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market is segmented into five key regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and MEA region.CABG is most common type of heart surgery performed in North America region as per University of Michigan. North America followed by Europe are currently leading in the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market as high incidence of coronary disease due to sedentary lifestyle pattern adopted in these region and availability of all the types of minimally invasive CABG surgeries. The endoscopic vessel harvesting system market in Asia Pacific is expected to deliver tremendous growth due to the growth in per capita income in Asian countries and increase in medical tourism industry. With the growing access of public with healthcare professional and expanding economy china is expected to be the fastest growing market for endoscopic vessel harvesting system.Request For TOC@Some major companies in the endoscopic vessel harvesting system market are Maquet Holding B.V. & Co. KG., OLYMPUS CORPORATION, Terumo Cardiovascular Systems Corporation., Med Europe S.r.l. (Elite Life Care), Sorin Group Inc., Saphena Medical, Inc and Terumo Cardiovascular Systems Corporation.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comPress: press@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:
Global Telemedicine Market Outlook 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Global Telemedicine Market Outlook 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.Telemedicine technology is a game changer for the healthcare industry, as it brings healthcare directly into patients doorstep. Telemedicine makes use of electronic technologies, such as email, smart phones, and video conferencing, for exchanging the medical information of the patient. This technology has helped the healthcare providers to extend their services to remote areas effectively. Furthermore, this technology is also extensively being used for elderly population as well as for people who are unable to reach healthcare provider due to inability to walk or chronic disease. Consultations through video calling, transferring medical images, and vital signs monitoring amongst others are the major applications of telemedicine.According to a new research report published by RNCOS, Global Telemedicine Market Outlook 2022, the market for telemedicine was valued at US$ 21 Billion in 2015, and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of approximately 19% during 2015-2022. The growth of the market is likely to be driven by increasing adoption of telemedicine, rising incidences of chronic diseases, growing geriatric population, government initiatives, and shortage of physicians amongst others.For a Detailed description and table of contents of this report please click here:The report provides insights about various factors that are affecting the growth of the markets. Furthermore, the report also includes the major trends and opportunities that will propel the industrys growth.Based on end users, the report broadly categorizes telemedicine market into Telehospitals/Teleclinics and Telehome. Telehospitals/Teleclinics emerged as the major revenue earners of the industry, holding the largest share. The telehospitals market is further sub-divided into teleradiology, telecardiology, telepsychiatry, and teledermatology amongst others, based on Specialty. Teleradiology accounted for the largest share of the telehospital market by Specialty. This large share of the market is attributed to wide usage of this technology for transferring patients medical reports.Based on component, the telemedicine market is further categorized into services, hardware, software, and telecom and networking. The telemedicine service market accounted for largest share in the total telemedicine market in 2015.The report also offers a geographic analysis of the global telemedicine market by segmenting into four major geographic regions - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America is the largest market for telemedicine. This high share is attributed to relative high adoption of technology in the market coupled with higher government support. The Asia Pacific market is poised to witness the highest growth owing to increasing focus of players in this region.Overall, the report provides an extensive information and rational analysis of the global telemedicine market. A separate section is devoted to the major mergers & acquisitions that have taken place in the past few years. The report concludes with detailed business profiles along with strength and weakness of some of the key players operating in the market. Some of the key players operating in the market are McKesson Corporation, Philips Healthcare, GE Healthcare Ltd., Cerner Corporation, IBM, Honeywell Life Care Solutions, AMD Global Telemedicine, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., and Medtronic plc. In addition, the report elucidates key developments of players related to telemedicine, which will enable clients to formulate market strategies and assess the opportunity areas in key geographies.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Edible Packaging Market was valued $697 million in 2016, and is projected to reach at $1,097 million by 2023

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According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, "Edible Packaging Market by Material type and Enduser: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023," the edible packaging market was valued at $697 millionin 2016, and is projected to reach at $1,097 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 6.81 % from 2017 to 2023. Europe isexpected to be the leading contributor to the global edible packaging market, followed by North America and Asia-Pacific.Do Enquiry for Sample @Increase in consumption of processed food & beverages, reduction in packaging wastage, rise in hygiene concerns amongpeople and increase in shelf life of products, growth in disposable income of consumers, and rise in standard of livingencourages the adoption of edible packaging products in the industry and thus drive the edible packaging market growth. Inaddition, this eco-friendly packaging technique helps preserve the environment as the products are renewable as well asedible and safe for human consumption thereby reducing plastic packaging waste and fueling the edible packaging marketgrowth. However, the higher cost of edible packaging materials in comparison with the synthetic materials and highregulatory requirements is expected to hamper the edible packaging market growth. Various advancements in technology suchas introduction of nanotechnology in packaging as well as the addition of healthy proteins in the edible food packaging isexpected to provide numerous opportunities in the edible packaging market.In 2016, the lipid-based edible packaging segment accounted for the maximum revenue share in the overall edible packagingindustry as they are excellent barrier of oxygen and water vapor and prevents the food from contamination. Protein-basedfilms are expected to grow at a fastest CAGR of 7.5% in the edible packaging industry owing to the value-added benefits ofproteins to the body such as high immunity and proper functioning of human body as well as improvement in energy levels inhumans. Protein films are made up of corn zein, gluten, and caseins, which are considered safe for human consumption.Do Enquiry for REQUEST CUSTOMIZATION @Moreover, the food & beverages segment held the highest market share in 2016 for of around 72% in the end user segment inthe global edible packaging market.Moreover, the composite films are expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period. The demand forpolysaccharides is expected to increase as they help preserve the quality of the food and improve the shelf life of theproducts; they are widely used in the pharmaceutical industry.Europe accounted for the major share of the global edible packaging market in 2016 owing to the growth of food & beveragessegment and stringent regulations regarding the same. North America is expected to generate the maximum revenue during theforecast period. Asia-Pacific is estimated to grow at the highest rate in the global edible packaging market due to rise inpreference of hygienic packaging and the growth of pharmaceutical industry in this region.Key Findings of the Edible Packaging Market:In 2016, the lipids segment accounted for the maximum revenue, and is projected to grow at a notable CAGR of 6.1% duringthe forecast period.The pharmaceuticals segment accounted for 27.56% in the global edible packaging market.The U.S. is the major shareholder in the North America edible packaging market, accounting for more than 42% share in 2016.The key players profiled in the edible packaging market includes WikiCell Designs Inc, MonoSol LLC, Tate & Lyle Plc, JRFTechnology LLC, Safetraces, Inc., BluWrap, Skipping Rocks Lab, Tipa Corp, Watson, Inc., and Devro plc. Market players haveadopted various strategies, such as product launch, collaboration & partnership and acquisition, to expand their footholdin the market.About Us:Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact:Rahul Thakur5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free : +1-800-792-5285UK : + 44-845-528-1300Hong Kong : + 852-301-84916India (Pune) : +91 20 66346060Fax : +1855550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWebsite:Blog:
Global Navigation Satellite Systems Market Outlook 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Global Navigation Satellite Systems Market Outlook 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) industry plays a vital role in the ability of the countries to determine the position, velocity and local time from satellites in space. Over the past few years, the rapid growth in GNSS commercial applications has been observed by the firms building navigation satellites and equipments.The advancement in technology and increasing interest in positioning techniques based on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) such as Global Positioning System (GPS), cellular network infrastructure or on the integration of the two technologies for applications such as Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL), tracking systems, navigation has led to development in the navigation system of various countries such as US, India, China etc. Backed by such developments and advancement, GNSS market is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of around 10% during 2016-2022.In their latest research study Global Navigation Satellite Systems Market Outlook 2022, RNCOS analysts have identified and deciphered the market dynamics in important segments, thus clearly highlighting the areas offering promising possibilities for companies to boost their growth. The report studies the market by its major application and location based services, transportation (further divided into road navigation, rail navigation, air navigation and marine navigation), surveying activities and agriculture.For a Detailed description and table of contents of this report please click here:Besides, the report also provides a complete overview of the GNSS market globally. All the current trends & drivers coupled with potential growth areas of the GNSS industry have been evaluated in the report. Furthermore, the report provides a profound knowledge of opportunities in the industry for different companies in the chapter named Opportunity Assessment.The report further delves into the present state and future outlook of the LBS and Telematics markets on the geographical front, highlighting 10 most significant GNSS markets around the world that are US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, South Korea and India. It also provides insights into their personal navigation systems, such as US GPS, China's BeiDou, Europe's Galileo, Russia's GLONASS, Japan's QZSS and India's IRNSS.Finally, our study focuses on global leading industry players, with information such as companys business overview, current and historical financials, product portfolio, recent developments, and strength & weakness analysis. All in all, the report provides all the prerequisites for intending clients looking out to venture into this industry, and facilitates them to analyze and understand the opportunities existing in this industry.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Global Genetic Testing Market Outlook 2022

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Global Genetic Testing Market Outlook 2022 to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The advent of genetic tests has revolutionized the molecular diagnostics and cytogenetic industry. It is one of the most rapidly growing segments in molecular diagnostics industry, which helps in delivering customized health services or personalized medicine. The share of genetic testing is incessantly increasing in the market. Growing awareness about genetic testing, technological advances in genetic sequencing, and rising incidences of genetic diseases especially cancer are some of the major factors propelling the genetic testing market.The report Global Genetic Testing Market Outlook 2022 provides a detailed analysis of the genetic testing market. The report also provides an insight regarding the current and future prospective of the market. This report covers the major trends and drivers, and their impact on the market. The report also discusses some of the restraints that can hinder the growth of the market, as well as rising opportunities which can provide new dimensions to the industry.For a Detailed description and table of contents of this report please click here:The segmentation of genetic testing markets has been done in the report on the basis of applications, diseases, and geographical regions.Based on application, the genetic testing market is divided into Diagnostic Testing, Newborn Screening, Prenatal Testing, Carrier Screening, and Others. Diagnostic testing and Newborn screening are the major application areas of genetic testing industry. The large shares of these applications can be attributed to presence of huge players in the segment, and to rising number of genetic tests performed for this purpose. The Carrier Testing market is expected to witness the highest growth during 2016-2022. This growth is likely to be driven by the huge population opting for carrier screening of cystic fibrosis, exhibiting unprecedented rise in the US. The report provides current and forecasted market for each of the application areas of Genetic Testing.The major disease profiles/conditions for which Genetic Testing is used include Alzheimers Disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Cancer, Down Syndrome, and Others. Cancer accounts for largest share amongst the diseases for which genetic testing is done. This large share can be attributed to the rising prevalence of cancer, which is expected to increase as the global population ages. Approximately 75-80% of all cancers are diagnosed in people aged 55 or older, and this pattern is expected to increase by 2020. The report provides current and forecasted market for each of the genetic conditions of Genetic Testing.Moreover, the report also contains markets for the major regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America contributes the largest share in the global genetic testing market, followed by Europe. Presence of major players, increased awareness and higher disposable income, are some of the prominent factors that have led to North America being the market leader. The Asia-Pacific market is expected to witness the highest growth during 2016-2022. The major reasons for the high growth are the increasing per capita income and gradual development of healthcare sector in countries, such as India and China . North America and Europe are expected to grow at modest rate due to launch of new and innovative products in these market.The company profiles segment in this report is entirely devoted to profiling leading companies of the genetic testing industry including some major players like Abbott Laboratories, Roche Diagnostics, Myriad Genetics, Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Hologic, Inc., Cepheid, Agilent Technologies and QIAGEN. This segment provides you access to the new launched products, recent developments, and strengths and weaknesses of these companies to deliver a clear understanding/view of the competitive landscape. Overall, the report will prove to be a complete source of knowledge and analysis for clients and potential investors.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
H1N1 Vaccination Market Opportunities and Forecast by 2023

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H1N1 influenza virus or swine H1N1 virus is a causative agent of infectious disease caused in human beings known as H1N1 or commonly referred as swine flu. The H1N1 virus mainly affects the respiratory system including nose, lungs and throat of the infected person. In addition to human, H1N1 virus affects various species such as birds, swine, horses etc. The H1N1 influenza virus caused a worldwide pandemic in the recent years. H1N1 virus can be classified on the basis of antigenicity of its surface glycoproteins neuraminidase and hemagglutinin. Hemagglutinin helps the virus to bind to host cell receptors. This simplifies viral entry into the host cell. Neuraminidase protein enzymatically splits terminal sialic acid residues from mucins, thereby letting the virus to reach underlying cells in the respiratory tract. The global H1N1 vaccination are administered to for active immunization against the H1N1 influenza virus. The global H1N1 vaccination market is anticipated to boost in the focus period due to the rising cases of swine flu. Additionally, the rising geriatric population increases the risk of respiratory tract diseases, and immune deficient diseases, thus increasing the risk factor for acquiring H1N1 influenza. Moreover, increased research in the field of vaccine technologies and significant government support are driving this market. However, lack of awareness and absence of experienced medical professionals are restraining the growth of H1N1 vaccines market. Furthermore, high capital requirement and stringent regulations are also hindering the growth of the global H1N1 vaccination market.Browse through H1N1 Vaccination Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:The global H1N1 vaccination market has been augmented based on brands. The drugs brands include Agripal (Panacea Biotec Ltd), Fiuarix (GSK Pharmaceuticals Ltd), Influgen (Lupin Laboratories Ltd.), Influvac (Solvay Pharma India Pvt Ltd), Nasovac (Serum Institute of India Ltd.), Vaxigrip (Sonofi Pasteur) and others.North America and Europe lead the global H1N1 vaccination market in terms of revenue. This is majorly due to the developed research infrastructure in these regions. The U.S. holds the largest market for H1N1 vaccination, followed by Canada, in North America. In Europe, Germany and France dominate H1N1 vaccination market. However, the Asian H1N1 vaccines market is expected to exhibit a high growth rate during the forecast period due rising cases in the region, particularly in India. Moreover, increasing awareness among the masses about the diseases coupled with growing government initiatives and programs to raise awareness among people about various infectious diseases in Asia. This has resulted in the significant rise in demand for H1N1 vaccines for the prevention of swine flu. Moreover, several companies are constructing their manufacturing and research facilities in developing regions given the low wages to be paid, availability of a large talent pool, and less stringent environment and health and safety regulations. Growing medical infrastructure and economies in developing countries such as India and China, the discovery of new vaccines with greater efficiency, and advancements in the field of biomedical science are expected to offer good opportunities to the players in the H1N1 vaccines market. Frequent strategic collaborations and mergers between manufacturing companies and government associations as well as product launches are the current trends in the global H1N1 vaccines market.Request a sample of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving H1N1 Vaccination Market by 2023:Some of the major players operating in the global H1N1 vaccination market are AstraZeneca plc, Medimmune, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Sanofi Pasteur. Baxter, Sinovac, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, Zydus Cadila and 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.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:
Agrochemicals Market in Brazil

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ReportsWorldwide has announced the addition of a new report title Brazil: Agrochemicals: Market Intelligence (2016-2021) to its growing collection of premium market research reports.The report Brazil: Agrochemicals: Market Intelligence (2016-2021) provides market intelligence on the different market segments, based on type, active ingredient, formulation, crop, and pest. Market size and forecast (2016-2021) has been provided in terms of both, value (000 USD) and volume (000 KG) in the report. A detailed qualitative analysis of the factors responsible for driving and restraining the growth of the agrochemical and future market opportunities have also been discussed.This report is a part of series of more than 900 agrochemicals market intelligence reports from Sprout Intelligence. This agrochemicals market intelligence report series, in total, covers more than 1,500 pests, 60 formulations, 150 crops, and 60 countries.Detailed description and table of contents of this report is available here:Key Findings from the Report:- Cyproconazole, Azoxystrobin, Pyraclostrobin, Trifloxystrobin, and Carbendazim are leading fungicide active ingredients in the Brazil agrochemicals market.- Glyphosate, Glyphosate-Trimesium, Fomesafen, Sulfentrazone, and Clomazone are leading herbicide active ingredients in the Brazil agrochemicals market.- Thiamethoxam, Imidacloprid, Lambda-Cyhalothrin, Methomyl, and Bacillus-Thuringiensis are leading insecticide active ingredients in the Brazil agrochemicals market.- Soybeans, Corn, Sugar Cane, Cotton, and Coffee are leading crops for agrochemicals in Brazil.- Phakopsora, Cross-Spectrum, Anticarsia & Plusia, Bemisia, and Nezara are leading pests for agrochemicals in Brazil.- Sprout Intelligence expert team estimated that the Brazil agrochemicals market in 2016 was worth more than 8 billion.To Get Sample Copy of Report please visit @About ReportsWorldwide.comReportsWorldwide.com is a leading provider of global market intelligence reports and services. With research reports from top publishers, consulting and advisory firms, ReportsWorldwide.com offers instant online access to a growing database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, geographies and trends.Press Contact:Abigail CrastoSenior Vice President101, Arch StreetBoston, MA 02110USPhone +1 (617) 398-4994Fax +1 (617) 398-4995abigail@reportsworldwide.com
Cancer Hormone Therapy Market Set to Witness an Uptick by 2023

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Hormones are natural substances made by our glands in our body and the network of glands that make hormones is termed as endocrine systems. These hormones are carried through bloodstream and act as a messenger between one part to another part of our body. Hormone therapy is one of the major modalities of medical treatment for cancers which involves manipulation of the endocrine systems through exogenous administration of steroid hormones or drugs inhibiting or interrupting activities of specific hormones. Surgical removal of certain endocrine organs for instance oophorectomy can also be employed as a part of hormone therapy. In hormone therapy physician generally start with hormone receptor test that let caregivers to measure amount of cancer proteins or hormone receptors within a cancer tissue. By estimating the amount of hormones such as estrogen or progesterone the test either can be positive or negative. A positive test indicates growth of cancer cells with the help of hormones. In such cases physician divert the hormone therapy by blocking the interaction of hormones with the hormone receptor. Alternatively, in case of negative hormone receptor test which signifies null effect of hormones in growth and development of cancer cells other effective treatments can be rendered to cure cancer.Browse through Cancer Hormone Therapy Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:A hormone therapy can be rendered either before or after a primary treatment. In case it is rendered before the primary treatment it is medically termed as neoadjuvant treatment which kills. Neoadjuvant treatments help to kill cancer cells and contribute to the effectiveness of the primary therapy. If hormone therapy is given after the primary cancer treatment, it is called adjuvant treatment. Adjuvant therapy is given to improve the chance of a cure. Now a day hormone therapy is widely used in treating breast and prostate cancer. In breast cancer the female hormone estrogen are primarily responsible for stimulating the growth and development of breast cancer cell in majority of cases. Recently in 2014, aromatase inhibitors such as Arimidex and Femara have been approved for treating breast cancers through hormone therapy. Apart from these FDA approved Zoladex Lupron can also be used in curing breast cancers through hormone therapy. In case of prostate cancer a variety of medications can be used as hormone therapy. Male hormones, such as testosterone, stimulate prostate cancer to grow. Hormone therapy is given to help stop hormone production and to block the activity of the male hormones. Some of the antiandrogens used as inhibitors of prostate cancer cell growth encompass flutamide, enzalutamide, bicalutamide, and nilutamide among others. some of the other cancers to which hormone therapy is gaining acceptance now a day include womb cancer, kidney cancer, ovarian cancer among others.Major drivers to global cancer hormone therapy include rising incidences of cancer across globe. Statistically according to WHO cancer accounts for 8.2 million deaths in 2012 and it is estimated that annual cancer cases is expected to rise from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million by 2022. Rising awareness among physician and patients towards alternative cancer therapy processes such as target therapy, immunotherapy or hormone therapy is likely to uplift the market in forthcoming years. Side-effects associated with hormone therapy are major restraints to growth and acceptance of therapy. Some of the common side-effects associated with hormone therapy for cancer include nausea, vaginal spotting, irregular menstrual periods, skin rashes, loss of appetite, vaginal dryness, impotence and male breast enlargement among others.Request a sample of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Cancer Hormone Therapy Market by 2023:Prominent companies operating the global cancer hormone therapy market include AstraZeneca plc, Novartis International AG, Merck & co., QuatRx Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer, 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.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:
El Salvador: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported By 4G Rollouts And Expansion To Boost Telecom Growth

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El Salvador: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported by 4G Rollouts and Expansion to Boost Telecom GrowthSummary"El Salvador: Increased Mobile Data Usage Supported by 4G Rollouts and Expansion to Boost Telecom Growth", a new Country Intelligence Report by GlobalData, provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in El Salvador today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2021. Published annually, the report provides detailed analysis of the near-term opportunities, competitive dynamics and evolution of demand by service type and technology/platform across the fixed telephony, broadband, mobile and pay-TV sectors, as well as a review of key regulatory trends.In 2016, El Salvador generated total telecom service revenue of $1.2bn (or 4.4% of its nominal GDP), a decline of 1.3% over 2015, owing to a fall in fixed and mobile voice revenue. The mobile segment continues to be the largest contributor to overall telecom market revenue, driven by operators investments in 4G network rollout and expansion as well as a rise in adoption of mobile broadband services. Operators will focus on offering attractive double- and triple-play services to drive broadband adoption, which will in turn support growth in the fixed market. Pay TV revenue will witness an increasing trend aided by growing appetite for on-demand content as well as increasing DTH penetration.Get The Sample Copy Of This Report @The Country Intelligence Report provides in-depth analysis of the following -- Regional context: telecom market size and trends in El Salvador compared with other countries in the region.- Economic, demographic and political context in El Salvador.- The regulatory environment and trends: a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.- A demand profile: analysis as well as historical figures and forecasts of service revenue from the fixed telephony (including VoIP), broadband, mobile voice, mobile data and pay-TV markets.- Service evolution: a look at changes in the breakdown of overall revenue between the fixed/pay-TV and mobile sectors and between voice, data and video from 2016 to 2021.- The competitive landscape: an examination of key trends in competition and in the performance, revenue market shares and expected moves of service providers over the next 18-24 months.- In-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony, broadband, mobile voice, mobile data and pay-TV services: a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by network technology and by operator, as well as of average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.- Main opportunities: this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets.Scope- The overall telecom service revenue in El Salvador will grow at a CAGR of 2.2% during 2016-2021.- Voice revenue's contribution will decline over the 2016-2021 forecast period owing to data substitution. Data revenue's share will increase driven by 4G network expansion and attractive data bundled packages offered by operators.- Fixed broadband growth will be driven by government initiatives, such as "Connectivity Component" and "Digital Agenda for Good Living and by operators' double- and triple-play services to improve broadband adoption.View More @Reasons to buy- This Country Intelligence Report offers a thorough, forward-looking analysis of El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets, service providers and key opportunities in a concise format to help executives build proactive and profitable growth strategies.- Accompanying GlobalDatas Forecast products, the report examines the assumptions and drivers behind ongoing and upcoming trends in El Salvadors mobile communications, fixed telephony/VoIP, broadband and pay-TV markets, including the evolution of service provider market shares.- With more than 20 charts and tables, the report is designed for an executive-level audience, boasting presentation quality.- The report provides an easily digestible market assessment for decision-makers built around in-depth information gathered from local market players, which enables executives to quickly get up to speed with the current and emerging trends in El Salvadors telecommunications and pay-TV markets.- The broad perspective of the report coupled with comprehensive, actionable detail will help operators, equipment vendors and other telecom industry players succeed in the challenging telecommunications market in El Salvador.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
Hypercholesterolemia Market to Reflect Impressive Growth Rate by 2023

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Increased level of total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol in the blood leads to hypercholesterolemia. The normal biological range of total blood cholesterol is 140-200 mg/dL. Hypercholesterolemia leads to cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, stroke etc. Human blood cholesterol mainly consists of High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, Very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) cholesterol. HDL cholesterol is termed as good cholesterol for the body. High level of HDL cholesterol reduces the risk for heart diseases and HDL naturally removes cholesterol from cells by reverse cholesterol transport to the liver. On the other, hand LDL adds to plaque, a hard and dense deposit that blocks the arteries and make the artery wallless flexible. This type of medical condition is termed as atherosclerosis. Clot forms and blocks the narrowed arteries leads to heart attack, stroke and peripheral artery diseases.Browse through Hypercholesterolemia Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:Hypercholesterolemia usually result from the grouping of genetic and environmental risk factors. Genetic disorder leads to heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. It happens due to the existence of the mutated copy of the LDLR gene (LDL receptor gene). Individuals with the homozygous gene, containing dual copies of the gene mostly suffer from severe cardiovascular diseases in their childhood and people with the heterozygous gene that is with a solitary copy of the gene suffer from cardiac ailment in their 30s or 40s.Hypercholesterolemia due to lifestyle selections includes unhealthy eating habits, lack of exercise, and intake of tobacco smoking strongly hampers the quantity of cholesterol in the blood. However, there are few secondary reasons as well such as diabetes mellitus (Type 2), alcohol intake, obesity, monoclonal gammopathy, dialysis and others.The hypercholesterolemia treatment market is increasing at a substantial rate due to technologically advanced diagnosis, government initiatives, improved reimbursement scenario lifestyle changes, rising awareness about different cardiovascular diseases. Treatment for hypercholesterolemia mainly includes intake of statins and opting for a better lifestyle. Factors such as high cost in the diagnosis, lack of awareness and lack of knowledgeable experts for proper diagnosis of the disease are restricting the global market for hypercholesterolemia treatment.North America rules the global market for hypercholesterolemia treatment reason beingincreased incidences of heart diseases and related disorders in the region. Asia, followed by Europe, predicted to witness a high growth rate in coming years in the hypercholesterolemia market. Developing countries like China and India are also growing fast in these markets by the presence of a large patient pool and growing government initiatives. Hypercholesterolemia Market can be segmented as drug class and geography. Drug class can categorize hypercholesterolemia market as statins, niacin, bile-acid resins, fibric acid derivatives, cholesterol absorption inhibitors.Request a sample of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Hypercholesterolemia Market by 2023:Some of the key players in this Hypercholesterolemia market AbbVie, Inc., AstraZeneca Plc., Amgen, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Merck & Co., Novartis AG and Pfizer, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals Corporation.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:
The Cards And Payments Industry In Argentina: Emerging Trends And Opportunities To 2020

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The Cards and Payments Industry in Argentina: Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020SummaryGlobalDatas "The Cards and Payments Industry in Argentina: Emerging trends and opportunities to 2020", report provides detailed analysis of market trends in the Argentine cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including credit transfers, cheques, cash, payment cards and direct debit 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, 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.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.Get The Sample Copy of This Report @The report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Argentine cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Argentine cards and payments industry, including debit, credit and charge cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including credit transfers, cheques, cash, direct debit and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit, credit and charge cards.Scope- To improve financial inclusion and increase competition between banks, in 2016 the central bank introduced guidelines for convenient account opening and switching between providers. As per the new guideline, wage accounts can be opened directly by individuals rather than upon request by their employer. Individuals can open and close their accounts and cancel their credit cards through online banking, without the need to visit a bank branch. To increase financial access for citizens, the central bank relaxed the regulatory requirements for opening new bank branches in 2016. In H1 2016, 97 new branches were provided with authorization, an increase of 44 over H2 2015.- The government move to abolish the tax on credit card payments made in foreign currency in December 2015 is anticipated to drive credit card transactions. In December 2013 the government had increased the tax on all credit card purchases made abroad from 20% to 35%. Consumers were also charged with a 50% tax on online purchases of more than $25 (ARS201.90) from foreign websites. The restrictions on online shopping and use of payment cards abroad was an attempt to control the drop in foreign currency reserves, which fell by 29% in 2013 to $30.9bn (ARS168.7bn), a seven-year low.- To promote inbound tourism in the country, in September 2016 the Argentine government abolished value added tax (VAT) on hotel charges for foreign travelers if they paid using a debit or credit card issued overseas. Hotels must now refund foreign tourists the VAT charged on hotel stays. This move is anticipated to push up tourist numbers by 120,000 and increase spending by $90m (ARS1.3bn), thereby driving the payment card transaction value and volume.View More Details @Reasons to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Argentine cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Argentine cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Argentina.- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Argentine cards and payments industry.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
Chlamydia Infection Diagnostic and Therapeutic Market to Receive Overwhelming Hike in Revenues by 2023

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Chlamydia is a common sexually transmitted infection caused by bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. Chlamydia is among the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease (STDs) and according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it comprises of largest proportion of all STDs reported in the United States since 1994. In 2012, a total of 1.4 million cases of Chlamydia infection were reported to CDC in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Overall the case rate among males in 2012 rose by 3.2% during 2011-2012 which is approximately half the case rate reported in females. Chlamydia infection among women is generally asymptomatic. However the disease if left untreated can develop into pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) which is a major cause of infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain. Similar to other STDs, chlamydia infection might facilitate the transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Moreover, pregnant women infected with chlamydia can pass the infection to their infants during delivery, potentially resulting in neonatal ophthalmia and pneumonia. In Europe there are more than 250,000 new cases are reported each year and women below 24 years in Europe have highest number of infection. In 2012, National Health Service, U.K., 206,912 people were tested positive for Chlamydia in England of which 64% were below 25 years of age.Browse through Chlamydia Infection Diagnostic and Therapeutic Marketreport to know what factors will shape the market by 2023:Among women, symptoms of chlamydia include abnormal vaginal discharge, painful periods and abdominal pain with fever. Additionally itching and burning around vagina and mild pain during urination. Whereas among men symptom such as cloudy discharge, painful urination, burning around genital area and swelling of testicles are commonly found. Commonly used drugs for treating chlamydia include Amoxil, Doryx, Doxycycline, Erythrocin, Floxin, Gantrisin, Trimox, Zithromax and others. Some of the emerging diagnostic techniques in global Chlamydia Infection Diagnostic and Therapeutic market comprise molecular diagnostic, immunoassays, monoclonal antibodies, flow cytometry and gel moicrodroplet based testing. Major drivers for the growth of the market include increasing collaboration agreement with distributors, manufacturers and universities pertaining to manufacturing and research activities have escalated the market in past few years. Pipelined drugs in the market include CEL-1000, Cyanovirin-N, GEN-001, acALY18 and others.Geographically the market for chlamydia is predominated by developed regions such as the United States and Europe. Major contributors to the growth of these markets include intense research funding and government interventions for developing cheap and affordable medications for sexually transmitted diseases under Affordable CARE Act. Availability of advanced diagnostic centers, clinics and hospitals has also contributed towards the growth and development of market in past one decade. Asia Pacific and Rest of the World market is potentially a lucrative market and has fastest growth rate as compared to other regions pertaining to increasing sexually transmitted diseases incidences and lack of appropriate diagnostic and care centers for sexually transmitted infection/ diseases especially in the under developed parts of Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World is restraining the growth of the market. Approximately 43 million new cases of chlamydia are reported in Southeast Asian region. Whereas according to the 1999 World Health Organization report prevalence rate of chlamydia in Western Pacific region ranges from 5.7% in Thailand up to 17% in India. The aforementioned data clearly depicts the latent growth potential for drug and diagnostic companies manufacturing chlamydia related products.Request a sample of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Chlamydia Infection Diagnostic and Therapeutic Market by 2023:Some of the key players operating in global chlamydia infection diagnostic and therapeutic market include: Abbott Laboratories, Danaher Corporation, bioMerieux, DiaSorin SpA, NANOGEN Biopharmaceutical, Siemens AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Novartis Diagnostics, Fujirebio Diagnostics, Inc. and 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.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:
Nanocapsules Market Poised to Expand at a Robust Pace Over 2024

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Nanopharmacology is a new branch of pharmacology which deals with the application of nanotechnology in the field of nanomedicine. This is a potential step towards curing and prevention of disease by using molecular knowledge about human body and molecular tools. Nanopharmacology studies the interaction between nanoscale drugs and proteins such as DNA, RNA and cells & tissues. It also studies the interaction between physiological systems and traditional drugs at nanoscale level.Browse through Nanocapsules Market report to know what factors will shape the market by 2024:Nanoparticles are solid colloidal particles that include both nanospheres and nanocapsules. Nanocapsule is any nanoparticles that consist of a shell and a space in which desired substances may be placed. It is made up of a nontoxic polymer. They are also known to be drug delivery agents in the size range of 10-1000 nm. These capsules are made up of molecules called as phospholipids such as liposomes. Now-a-days many other materials such as variety of polymers have been used to make nanocapsules by self assembly process. Polymeric capsules are studied extensively as particulate carriers in the medical and pharmaceutical fields as they act as good drug delivery systems as a result of their sustained and control release property and subcellular size.The ultrafine size of nanocapsules itself is one of the useful function as the finer drug are suitable to be absorbed easily through biological systems. The special features and functions of nanoparticles include slow release: the capsules releases drugs molecules slower over a long period of time, quick release: the capsule shell breaks and comes in contact with a surface, specific release: the shell is designed to break open when a molecule receptor binds to a specific chemical and moisture release: the shell breaks down and releases drug in the presence of water among other features. The state of the art nanocapsulation medications include drugs deliver to specific locations within the body, cuts down on the amount of drug per dose and reduces the risk of side effects. The only limitation is that it is designed to target pre-determined areas.Cancer, neutraceuticals, ethyl alcohol absorption, food usage and self healing materials are the major applications of nanocapsules. Water soluble polymer shells are manufactured to deliver a protein known as apoptin into cancer cells. Neutraceuticals are substances which are placed into food to enhance nutrition. The smaller the nanocarrier, the better the delivery particles and solubility of neutraceuticals. Nanocapsulation in foods includes the changing of texture, coloring, flavoring and stability in shelf life. Nanocapsules are known to reduce damage that is caused by high loads for components in microelectronics, polymeric coatings and adhesives.Growing pharmaceutical industry along with the rising demand for nanocapsules are expected to be the major factor driving the global nanocapsules industry. The growing demand from the end user industry is also expected to boost demand for nanocapsules in the near future.Asia Pacific is expected to be the largest consumer of nanocapsules due to growing pharmaceutical industries in the region. North America and Europe are also expected to boost demand for nanocapsules owing to the growing demand from the end-user industries for various applications.Request a sample of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Nanocapsules Market by 2024:Some of the major players profiled for global nanocapsules market include: Capsulation, Sanzyme Ltd, PlasmaChem GmbH, NoCamels, Indian Instruments Manufacturing Company, Encap, Sintef, and Carlina Technologies 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.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:
Collagen Drinks Market Driven by Upcoming Collagen Based Products having Application in Cosmetic Industry

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Global Anti-caking Agents Market: OverviewThough they do not add any nutritional value, anti-caking agents are frequently used as additives to prevent the formation of lumps or caking in packaged and stored powdered or granulated materials. Some anti-caking agents are soluble in water while some are soluble in alcohols or organic solvents. They work by absorbing moisture or by coating particles, which makes them water-repellent. Anti-caking agents also aid in transportation and consumption of these materials. There are several anti-caking agents available in the market such as tricalcium phosphate, sodium bicarbonate, sodium ferrocyanide, powdered cellulose, magnesium stearate, stearic acid, calcium ferrocyanide, potassium aluminium silicate, magnesium trisilicate, and polydimethylsiloxane.Browse Market Research Report @For example, sodium bicarbonate is an anti-caking agent used in table salts, dried milk, sugar products, egg mixes, and flours. In Europe, potassium ferrocyanide and sodium ferrocyanide are common anti-caking agents for table salts. Anti-caking agents are categorized into natural and man-made. Natural anti-caking agents such as calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate are exponentially expensive than man-made ones, and hence are sparingly used. Due to a thriving food and beverage industry and various other factors, the global market for anti-caking agents is expected to expand at a healthy CAGR during the forecast period of 2014 to 2020.By type, the global market for anti-caking agents can be segmented into calcium compounds, sodium compounds, magnesium compounds, microcrystalline cellulose, and others. By application, the market can be segmented into seasonings and condiments, bakery, dairy products, soups and sauces, and other applications. In 2014, calcium compounds accounted for the most prominent share in the market due to their varied functionality and high suitability in product formulations.Global Anti-caking Agents Market: Trends and OpportunitiesThe global market for anti-caking agents is primarily driven by the growing level of consumer inclination toward the benefits of packaged food and the desire to spend more for better quality food. The growth of the food and beverage industry is leading to the requirement of advanced food-coating ingredients such as coffee, cocoa, chocolate powders, baking powder, and instant soup powder. Anti-caking agents not only help in maintaining the free-flowing ability of packaged materials, they also enhance the texture and other organoleptic properties.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @The report also picks out some of the other factors that are positively influencing the global anti-caking agents market, such as changing consumer tastes, especially among the urban population and rising global population with disposable income. High demand for anti-caking agents in confectionery, cereals, coffee, fresh meat, and dried foods is expected to further expand the market during the forecast period. Conversely, various regulations pertaining to the use of anti-agents under the European Food Safety Authority is expected to hinder the growth rate.Global Anti-caking Agents Market: Region-wise OutlookIn 2014, Europe served the maximum demand for ant-caking agents and is expected to continue as the most prominent regional market during the forecast period. However, with a vast population base and increasing preference of westernized eating habits, consumers in Asia Pacific are quickly extending their demand and the report projects it as the most lucrative upcoming market until 2020. North America also contributes significantly to the demand in the global market for anti-caking agents due to the busy lifestyle of people in the region.Companies mentioned in the research reportSome of the prominent players in the global market for anti-caking agents are Evonik Industries AG, PPG Industries, Inc., Brenntag AG, Univar Inc., Solvay S.A., Agropur Ingredients, Huber Engineered Materials, International Media and Cultures, Inc., PQ Corporation, and Sweetener Supply Corp.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:
Virtual Power Plant Market Evolving Industry Trends 2025

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Virtual Power Plant (VPP) refers to a cluster of small-scale generators, such as combined heat and power (CHP) units, biogas plants, and backup generator sets, which collectively act akin to a single large power plant.A virtual power plant does not physically exist. It is the pool of distributed energy resources that acts as a single large facility using sophisticated software to operate them as a group. Every single generator that belongs to the VPP needs a gateway to communicate with the remote control software managing the whole network.Obtain Report Details @:In the VPP model, an energy aggregator gathers a portfolio of smaller generators, and operates them as a unified and flexible resource on the energy market or sells their power as system reserve. The objective of a virtual power plant is to let go the load on the grid by smartly distributing the power generated by the individual units during periods of peak load. Additionally, the combined power generation and power consumption of the networked units in the virtual power plant is traded on the energy exchange. The power traders within a virtual power plant are able to use real time data to enhance forecasting and trading of renewable energies. As a result, virtual power plants gradually take over the role of traditional power plants  selling their output on wholesale markets and assuming responsibility for a balanced grid.Currently, the global energy market is in the midst of a paradigm shift, from a model dominated by large centralized power plants owned by big utilities to a mixed bag of distributed energy generation facilities and smaller residential, commercial, and industrial power generation systems  many of which use renewable resources.The Increase in smaller power plant installations, are benefitting from new technological developments and business models are declining the economies of the scale. When all power is generated by renewable energy sources, thus would need to produce the electricity demand adapt to the wind and solar power supply. In virtual power plants, clients let their unused assets such as data center or base station reserve power to be used to balance the grid while they are not needed for business use.Fill the form for an exclusive sample of this report @:VPPs are designed to maximize owners profits, while also balancing the grid. The virtual power plant forms a reserve that can be sold to a local transmission system operator during the off-peak electricity demand when additional output is needed to ensure electricity system functionality.The VPP market can be further classified based on technology, which includes demand response, distributed generation, and mixed asset. Based on end-use, the market can be segregated into industrial, commercial, and residential. In terms of geography, the VPP market can be divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latina America and Middle East & Africa.The virtual power plant ecosystem comprises power and automation technology companies such as ABB Ltd., Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SE, and General Electric. Furthermore, major players operate as demand response aggregators such as EnerNOC, Inc., Comverge, Inc., Limejump, and Flexitricity.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. 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.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.90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207
IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Information and Market Trend - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024

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"IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024" The Report covers current Industries Trends, Worldwide Analysis, Global Forecast, Review, Share, Size, Growth, Effect.Description-Global IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Market: Scope of the ReportThis report provides forecast and analysis of the IT Spending on Clinical Analytics on the global and regional levels. It provides historical data of 2015 along with forecast from 2016 to 2024 in terms of revenue (US$ Bn). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook for clinical analytics revenue annually. It includes drivers and restraints of clinical analytics and their impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises the study of applications and opportunities for clinical analytics solutions and services vendors. It also includes detailed analysis by platform, deployment, solution, end users and the workflow process.Get Sample Report With TOC @In order to provide users of this report with a comprehensive view of the clinical analytics landscape, we have included a detailed competitiveness analysis and company players with unique propositions. The dashboard provides a detailed comparison of clinical analytics solution & services vendors on parameters such as revenue sales, ranking of global players, strategic consolidations, i.e. mergers & acquisitions, licensing activities, and R&D activities. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by platform, solution, deployment, end-user and region.The report includes the revenue generated from sales of clinical analytics solutions in all regions and important countries in these regions.IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Market: SegmentationBy platform, the IT spending on clinical analytics has been segmented into stand-alone and integrated platforms. By solution, the IT spending on clinical analytics is segmented into in-house and outsource, we have three sub-segments for in-house solutions which are hardware, software, and services. On the basis of deployment, the IT spending on clinical analytics is segmented into cloud-based and on-premise. While the end-user segment is segmented into payers and providers, the report lays its emphasis into insurance companies, government, and others for payers while it covers the hospitals and clinics sub-segments for providers. Furthermore, the regional segment is sub-segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa.IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Market: Research MethodologyMarket numbers have been estimated based on the annual global and regional sales of key companies and local players, and the revenue is derived from regional pricing trends. IT spending and forecasts for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The IT spending on clinical analytics has been analyzed based on expected demand. Prices considered for the calculation of revenue are regional average prices obtained through primary quotes from numerous regional clinical analytics solutions vendors, suppliers, and system integrators. All key end users have been considered, and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents. Regional demand patterns have been considered while estimating the spending on various solutions marketed in different regions. Top-down approach has been used to estimate the IT spending on clinical analytics by regions. Market numbers for platforms, deployment, solution, end-user and regional segments have been derived using the bottom-up approach, which is cumulative of each regions demand. The company-level market share has been derived on the basis of revenues reported by key vendors. The market has been forecast based on constant currency rates.A number of primary and secondary sources were consulted during the course of the study. Secondary sources include Factiva, World Bank, NCBI, Springer Journals, Google Books, society publications, HIMSS, and company annual reports and publications.IT Spending on Clinical Analytics Market: Competitive DynamicsThe report provides detailed competitive and company profiles of some of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players in clinical analytics include McKesson Corporation, Cerner Corporation, IBM Corporation, Optum, Inc., Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc., Oracle Financial Services Software Limited, CareCloud Corporation, Medical Information Technology, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Development LP and ArborMetrix, Inc.The market has been segmented as below:IT Spending on Clinical Analytics  By PlatformStand-AloneIntegratedIT Spending on Clinical Analytics  By End UserPayerInsurance CompaniesGovernmentOtherProviderHospitalsClinicsIT Spending on Clinical Analytics  By SolutionIn-HouseHardwareSoftwareServicesOutsourceIT Spending on Clinical Analytics  By DeploymentCloud-BasedOn-PremiseIT Spending on Clinical Analytics  By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaEuropeGermanyUKItalySpainFranceRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaIndiaJapanAustraliaNew ZealandRest of Asia PacificMiddle East and Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaUAERSARest of MEAResearchMoz 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
Global DC Distribution Networks Market 2017 : Mobisol, ZBB Energy, Siemens, Pareto Energy

DC Distribution Networks Market

https://goo.gl/cge3bK

https://goo.gl/8uNBD5

A market study based on the "DC Distribution Networks Market" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global DC Distribution Networks Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide DC Distribution Networks industry, and makes predictions on the future status of DC Distribution Networks market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research Report;ABB Ltd.Siemens AG.Johnson Controls, Inc.MobisolZBB EnergyEmerson Network PowerPhilips LightingPareto EnergyPika Energy, Inc.Nextek Power Systems, Inc.The report studies the industry for DC Distribution Networks across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in DC Distribution Networks market & dynamics of demand and supply of DC Distribution Networks into consideration. The 'DC Distribution Networks' research study covers each and every aspect of the DC Distribution Networks market globally, which starts from the definition of the DC Distribution Networks industry and develops towards DC Distribution Networks market segmentations. Further, every segment of the DC Distribution Networks market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the DC Distribution Networks market. The geographical segmentation of the DC Distribution Networks industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for DC Distribution Networks is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, DC Distribution Networks market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the DC Distribution Networks market worldwide.Enquire Here :Global DC Distribution Networks Sales Industry Report 2017 Covers:-1. DC Distribution Networks Overview2. Global DC Distribution Networks Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application3. United States, China, Europe, Japan, South-east Asia DC Distribution Networks (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4. Worldwide DC Distribution Networks Manufacturers Analysis5. DC Distribution Networks Manufacturing Cost Analysis6. Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers7. Industrial Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders8. Market Effect Factors Analysis9. Worldwide DC Distribution Networks Market Forecast (2017-2021)10. AppendixThe global DC Distribution Networks market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, DC Distribution Networks production volume, data regarding demand and DC Distribution Networks supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for DC Distribution Networks across the globe.About Us:Worldwide Business 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.Contact US:Worldwide Business, United States
Global Medical Vacuum Regulators Market 2017 : Air Liquid Healthcare, Ohio Medical, Amico, Integral

Medical Vacuum Regulators Market

https://goo.gl/2jJ8iH

https://goo.gl/DBu6c0

A market study based on the "Medical Vacuum Regulators Market" across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Medical Vacuum Regulators Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Medical Vacuum Regulators industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Medical Vacuum Regulators market on the basis of this analysis.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here :Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research Report;Precision MedicalOhio MedicalAllied Healthcare ProductsAir Liquid HealthcareAmicoIntegralTekoThe report studies the industry for Medical Vacuum Regulators across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Medical Vacuum Regulators market & dynamics of demand and supply of Medical Vacuum Regulators into consideration. The 'Medical Vacuum Regulators' research study covers each and every aspect of the Medical Vacuum Regulators market globally, which starts from the definition of the Medical Vacuum Regulators industry and develops towards Medical Vacuum Regulators market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Medical Vacuum Regulators market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Medical Vacuum Regulators market. The geographical segmentation of the Medical Vacuum Regulators industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Medical Vacuum Regulators is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Medical Vacuum Regulators market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Medical Vacuum Regulators market worldwide.Enquire Here :Global Medical Vacuum Regulators Sales Industry Report 2017 Covers:-1. Medical Vacuum Regulators Overview2. Global Medical Vacuum Regulators Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application3. United States, China, Europe, Japan, South-east Asia Medical Vacuum Regulators (Volume, Value and Sales Price)4. Worldwide Medical Vacuum Regulators Manufacturers Analysis5. Medical Vacuum Regulators Manufacturing Cost Analysis6. Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers7. Industrial Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders8. Market Effect Factors Analysis9. Worldwide Medical Vacuum Regulators Market Forecast (2017-2021)10. AppendixThe global Medical Vacuum Regulators market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Medical Vacuum Regulators production volume, data regarding demand and Medical Vacuum Regulators supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in the research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Medical Vacuum Regulators across the globe.About Us:Worldwide Business 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.Contact US:Worldwide Business, United States
Paradise Ridge Hydrocarbons, Inc., Real Estate Subsidiary Grupo Resilient International Properties, Inc. Locates Cannabis Agr DALLAS, Texas--Paradise Ridge Hydrocarbons, Inc. (OTC Pink: PRGE) today announced its real estate subsidiary, Grupo Resilient International Properties, Inc has contracted to purchase a 31,800 sq. ft. office/warehouse facility for its Cannabis Agri-Campus Headquarters in Dallas, Texas. The company plans to acquire and develop strategic real estate projects throughout Texas, as well as offering turnkey solutions and services to accommodate growers in the rapidly growing Cannabis industry, in anticipation of Texas ultimately legalizing cannabis.





Gordon Johnson stated, placing these real estate bets on the future prospects of legalization of Cannabis is not much different than wildcatting for oil, which has made many Texas gamblers super rich historically. The turnkey solutions the company plans to offer if and when Cannabis is legalized will include grow benches, lighting, air filtration/circulation systems, irrigation, de-humidification systems, computerized control systems and CO2 injection.





This model has been successfully implemented in Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Arizona and other states like Illinois, New York and Vermont are currently preparing as we are. We believe combining an extremely experienced management team in a market as Big as Texas with our First-Mover Advantage should give us a jump on all people entering the prospective Texas market if Cannabis is legalized.



Forward Looking Statements:



This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve numerous risks and uncertainties. Actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements as a result of certain factors, including those set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.



Paradise Ridge is an Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) company whose primary objective is the re-entry and re-working of existing oil and gas wells. We are not an "exploration company" in the sense that our business and our methods do not involve an attempt to explore for new oil deposits, but rather to exploit known oil and gas fields. Our objective is to existing wells, investing resources to yield increased production, thus mitigating the risks associated with drilling and attempting to bring new wells online.



Paradise Ridge Inc.

13785 Research Blvd.

Austin, Texas

78750

Contact: Gordon Johnson, President:

Email: gordonjohnson@paradiseridgeinc.com

corporate@paradiseridgeinc.com



This release was published on openPR.



Permanent link to this press release: Copy Please set a link in the press area of your homepage to this press release on openPR. openPR disclaims liability for any content contained in this release.
Global Potable Water Tank Market Forecast 2017 Industry Research Report

Potable Water Tank

http://bit.ly/2s48mwY

http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-potable-water-tank-sales-market-report-2017

Potable Water TankA market study based on the " Potable Water Tank Market " across the globe, recently added to the repository of Market Research, is titled Global Potable Water Tank Market 2017. The research report analyses the historical as well as present performance of the worldwide Potable Water Tank industry, and makes predictions on the future status of Potable Water Tank market on the basis of this analysis.Request For Sample Copy of Report :The report studies the industry for Potable Water Tank across the globe taking the existing industry chain, the import and export statistics in Potable Water Tank market & dynamics of demand and supply of Potable Water Tank into consideration. The ' Potable Water Tank ' research study covers each and every aspect of the Potable Water Tank market globally, which starts from the definition of the Potable Water Tank industry and develops towards Potable Water Tank market segmentations. Further, every segment of the Potable Water Tank market is classified and analysed on the basis of product types, application, and the end-use industries of the Potable Water Tank market. The geographical segmentation of the Potable Water Tank industry has also been covered at length in this report.The competitive landscape of the worldwide market for Potable Water Tank is determined by evaluating the various industry participants, production capacity, Potable Water Tank market's production chain, and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Potable Water Tank market worldwide.Browse Full Report :The global Potable Water Tank market 2017 is also analysed on the basis of product pricing, Potable Water Tank production volume, data regarding demand and Potable Water Tank supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. Various methodical tool of Potable Water Tank such as investment returns, feasibility, and market attractiveness analysis has been used in Potable Water Tank market research to present a comprehensive study of the industry for Potable Water Tank across the globe.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USA
Smart Coatings Market - Global Industry Insights, Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 20162024

https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/312

https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/ongoing-insight/toc/312

https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/ongoing-insight/smart-coatings-market-312

Smart coatings are specially designed films that have predefined characteristics, which enable them to sense and respond to various external and internal situations. Smart coatings are manufactured from programmable materials with various physical, chemical, mechanical and electrical properties. These materials have the ability to respond to variations in light, pressure, heat, and chemical factors. Smart coatings are also used in transportation industry as anti-biofouling agents, which results in prolonged asset life, reduced corrosion damage, and maintenance costs.Increasing demand for customization in sensing and repair abilities has led to the growth of smart coatings market in military and automotive industry. Smart coatings can improve a systems efficiency by reducing inspection times, equipment downtime and maintenance costs. The outcomes of using smart coating also include a reduced necessity for maintenance of corroded areas coupled with prolonging the life of components and assemblies prepared from corrosive materials.Request a sample copy of this report:Smart Coatings Market TaxonomyOn the basis of type of sensing, the global market is classified into:Ionic strengthpHTemperature pressureSurface tensionMagnetic fieldMechanical forcesOn the basis of product type, the global market is classified into:Self-heatingSelf-healingAnti-corrosionOn the basis of number of layers, the global market is classified into:Single layerMulti-layerOn the basis of end-use industry, the global market is segmented into:ConstructionMilitaryHealthcareAutomotiveAerospaceConsumer electronicsIn healthcare industry, smart coatings are used as microbial coatings for preventing diseases. Anti-corrosion coatings are used in sensing causes of corrosion and corrosion inhibition. This is achieved by enabling pH activated release of self-healing capability and triggering multifunctional microcapsules in smart coatings. Self-healing coatings are used in the aerospace and automotive industry to repair scratches and detect damages in engines. Smart coatings are also used in cellphones and computers for protection against scratches and improving the resistance against chemical effects and dirt. In healthcare industry smart coatings are used in drug delivery agents.Access Table of Content (TOC) of the report:Smart Coatings Market Outlook  Requisite for Robust Materials for Artificial Intelligence Expected to Boost DemandIncreasing demand for improved products in the automotive, military and aerospace industry is one of the major factors boosting growth of smart coatings market. Asia Pacific is one of the major contributors in the smart coatings market globally. This is mainly attributed to the booming automotive industry and increasing investments in defense activities in emerging economies such as India and China. The total defense budget of India was US$ 34.53 billion and government initiatives such as Make in India is expected to fuel growth of manufacturing units in the country. The defense manufacturing unit of Make in India has numerous foreign investors such as Airbus, Pilatus, BAE India Systems, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing India, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and Dassault Aviation SA.High price is one of the restraining factors for the smart coatings market globally. Developing a wide array of products to meet the current demand is one of the key strategies adopted by the major market players in the smart coatings industry. Research and development is carried on to manufacture smart coatings which will generate protectable intellectual property (IP) and this will increase the area of application of smart coating. Smart coatings are also being developed for application as oil-filtering materials, which will provide complete separation of oil and water in an oil rig. Some of the companies operating in the global smart coatings market are Balcony Systems Solutions Ltd, Nanoshell, Research Frontiers, Inc., New Energy technologies, Cima Nano tech., Ancatt Inc., and Debiotech SA.View this full report:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.com
Worldwide Aircraft Synthetic Vision System Market Survey, Latest Technology, Trend and Foreseen to 2021

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1352

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/aircraft-synthetic-vision-system-market

The global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System market is expected to grow at a CAGR of around 8% during 2016-2021. The growing demand for synthetic surveillance systems (SVS) in UAV and rotorcraft platform, improved safety standard, and growing retrofit market are the key drivers for the market growth.As per the MRFR analysis, the potential threat for the market is the integrity of database which would hamper the functioning of synthetic vision systems. Also, regulatory issues and challenges associated with airworthiness certification in the emerging markets are the factors limiting the market growth in the long term.Request a copy of Sample Report @Taste the market data and market information presented through more than 45 market data tables and figures spread over 103 numbers of pages of the project report. Avail the in-depth table of content TOC & market synopsis on Global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System Market Research Report- Forecast to 2021Major Key PlayersThe leading market players in the global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System market primarily include Cobham, Garmin. Honeywell Aerospace, Rockwell Collins, Universal Avionics Systems, Aspen Avionics, Avidyne, ENSCO Avionics, ForeFlight, Hilton Software, L-3 Avionics Systems, and SagetechStudy Objectives of Aircraft Synthetic Vision System Market To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast for the next 5 years of the various segments and sub-segments of the Global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System Market To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth To analyse the Global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System 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 application and type s To provide strategic profiling of key players in the market, comprehensively analysing their core competencies, and drawing a competitive landscape for the market To track and analyse competitive developments such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, new product developments, and research and developments in the Global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System MarketThe reports also cover country level analysis: Americas (North & Latin)o USo Canadao Brazilo Others Europeo Germanyo Franceo Italyo Spaino Ko Rest of Europe Asia  Pacifico Chinao Indiao Japano Australia/New Zealando Rest of Asia-Pacific Middle East & Africao UAE,o Kuwaito Israelo Rest of Middle East & AfricaBrowse Full Report Details @The market report for Aircraft Synthetic Vision System of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.ContinueWe are thankful for the support and assistance from Global Aircraft Synthetic Vision System Market Research Report- Forecast to 2021 chain related technical experts and marketing experts during Research Team survey and interviews.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.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Brazilian pulp and paper exports increase, French pulp production rises

http://www.cwgrp.com/ippweeknews/market-data

www.cwgrp.com

Greenwich (CT), USA, jUNE 8, 2017  While Brazilian domestic pulp consumption fell in March 2017, pulp exports surged almost 10 percent. Meanwhile, French pulp production output climbed 3 percent for the month, according to CW Researchs Paper and Pulp Country Market Data coverage available on IPPWeek.com.Brazilian pulp producers exported 3.3 million tons of pulp, principally driven by Chinese and North American demand. Domestically, the story was the opposite and saw weakness, according to Tea Vukicevic, Associate Analyst with CW Research.Although one of the fastest-growing tissue markets in the world, Brazils year-on-year pulp consumption decreased by 8.3% from 1.5 million tons in the first three months in 2016 to 1.4 million tons this year. However, Brazilian pulp mills output increased 9.9 percent on a yearly basis, buoyed by exports. Shipments to foreign markets jumped 9.6% year-on-year principally on account of stronger demand from Asian markets.In France, paper and cardboard production continued to slide through March. In the first three months of 2017, paper and carton production in France hit its peak in March, while last year's highest point for the same period was reached in January at 698,900 tons. Pulp producers saw an uptick in output during the first quarter of the year, up slightly year-on-year. Pulp production in France rose 3.1% month-on-month in March.****For more information, placing an order, or interview inquiries, please contact Liviu Dinu, Market Services & Marketing Consultant, CW Group, by phone at +40-744-67-44-11, or e-mail at ld@cwgrp.comAbout IPP Market DataCW Researchs Paper and Pulp Country Market Data extensively covers the industrys main trends across the globe. Particular emphasis is given to demand & supply volumes for the largest pulp producing markets around the world. Presented in an objective, easy-to-understand format, Paper and Pulp Country Market Data reporting is an indispensable tool part of the IPPWeek.com market intelligence platform for paper and pulp producers, suppliers, investors and end-users that must stay up-to-date with the latest industry information.Find out more about CW Researchs Paper and Pulp Country Market Data here:About CW GroupThe Greenwich (Conn.), USA headquartered CW Group is a leading advisory, research and business intelligence boutique with a global presence and a multi-industry orientation. CW Group is particularly recognized for its sector expertise in heavy-side building materials (cement), light-side building materials, traditional and renewable power & energy, petrochemicals, metals & mining, industrial minerals, industrial manufacturing, bulk cargo & shipping, among others. We have a strong functional capability, grounded in our methodical and quantitative philosophy, including due diligence, sourcing intelligence, feasibility studies and commodity forecasting.PO Box 5263, Greenwich, CT 06831, USALiviu DinuMarket Services & Marketing ConsultantM: +40-744-67-44-11E: ld@cwgrp.com
Flexographic Printing Inks Market Research Report and Forecast up to 2025

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/flexographic-printing-inks-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=3509

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market: OverviewThe report estimates and forecasts the flexographic printing inks market on the global, regional, and country levels. The study provides forecast between 2017 and 2025 based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2016 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the product segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. The study includes drivers and restraints for the flexographic printing inks market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period.The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the flexographic printing inks market on the global and regional level. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitutes of flexographic printing inks. It also provides the global average price trend analysis.The report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the flexographic printing inks market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein product, application and countries have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market.This 140 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Flexographic Printing Inks market Browse through 24 data tables and 49 figures to unlock the hidden opportunities in this market.Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market: SegmentationThe study provides a comprehensive view of the flexographic printing inks market by dividing it into product type, application and geography. In terms of product type, the flexographic printing inks market is segmented into water-based, solvent-based and UV-cured. In terms of application, the flexographic printing inks market has been segmented into packaging, and others. The packaging segment has been further bifurcated into corrugated containers, tags and labels, flexible packaging, folding cartons, and others. Application segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends, and the market has been estimated in terms of volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) between 2017 and 2025.Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for flexographic printing inks in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Additionally, the report comprises country-level analysis in terms of volume and revenue for product and application segments. Key countries such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Japan, India, China, Mexico, South Africa, and Brazil have been included in the study. Market segmentation includes demand for individual product type and application in all the regions and countries.Global Flexographic Printing Inks Market: Competitive OutlookThe report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Flint Group, Siegwerk Druckfarben AG & Co. KGaA, Huber Group, Sun Chemical Corporation, Wikoff Color Corporation, Zeller+Gmelin GmbH & Co. KG., INX International Ink Co., Toyo Ink SC Holdings Co., Ltd., ALTANA AG, and T&K TOKA CO., LTD. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable).In-depth interviews and discussions with wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding. Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Flexographic Printing Inks market.Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.The global flexographic printing inks market has been divided into the following segments:By ProductWater-based inksSolvent-based inksUV-cured inksBy ApplicationPackagingFlexible packagingCorrugated containersFolding cartonsTags and labelsOthers (including metal cans, etc.)Others (including printing of newspapers, etc.)By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeFranceU.K.SpainGermanyItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaASEANRest of Asia Pacific (APAC)Latin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin America (LATAM)Middle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & Africa (MEA)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:
Asia-Pacific to Contribute Over 40% to the Global Automotive Window and Sealing Systems Market by 2023

https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/automotive-window-and-sealing-systems-market

https://www.psmarketresearch.com/market-analysis/automotive-window-and-sealing-systems-market/report-sample

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The global automotive window and sealing systems market is projected to reach $29,515 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 8.2% during the forecast period (2017  2023).Global automotive window and sealing systems market worth $17,064.0 million in 2016As per the research, the global automotive window and sealing systems market high is likely to grow from $17,064.0 million in 2016 to $29,515.0 million by 2023. The rapidly growing automotive industry especially in emerging economies of Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America is generating significant demand for automotive sealing systems.The automotive window and sealing systems market include products such as glass run channel, door seals, front and real windshield seals, and others exterior seals. These products are mainly manufactured using ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) as the raw material; however, as the technology has developed, thermoplastic elastomers find their use as raw materials. The developing economies such as India and China use EPDM as raw materials. Whereas the technologically-advance markets such as U.S. and Germany, use Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPEs) as raw material for exterior sealing systems. The new technology is likely to be adopted in developed countries during the forecast period.Explore Report at:Asia-Pacific stands as the largest region in the global automotive window and sealing systems marketIn 2016, Asia-Pacific held the largest share in the global automotive window and sealing system market with over 40% share, in terms of value. The global automotive window and sealing systems market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.2%, during the forecast period, owing to increase in global GDP and rapid growth in developing countries such as India and China. Additionally, the European market for automotive window and sealing systems market is expected to witness significant growth during the forecast period, owing to increase in manufacturing of commercial vehicles in developed countries such as Germany and the U.K.Explore Report Sample at:The market is dominated by organized playersThe research states that the global automotive window and sealing systems market had a consolidated structure in 2015, where the market is dominated by organized players. Some of the key players in the global automotive window and sealing systems market include Cooper Standard Inc., Hutchinson Automotive, Magna International, Sumitomo Chemical Co. Ltd., Toyoda Gosei Co. Ltd., Minth Group, and Henniges Automotive Holdings Inc.Acquisition and strategic partnerships have been the major recent developments in the global automotive window and sealing systems. For instance, in September 2016, Hutchinson acquired the French company Composite Industrie based in Bondoufle, Paris. The company has a production unit in Casablanca, Morocco and is specialized in designing, qualifying and producing composite products serving the aerospace and defense markets. Additionally, In May 2016, Henniges Automotive Holdings, Inc., expanded its partnership with Burkool S.A., a sealing solutions manufacturer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to meet the growing demand of the automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in Brazil.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:KundanManager  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-Free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:
Packaging Robot Market Research Report and Forecast up to 2024

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/packaging-robot-market.html

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Manufacturing sector in recent years have largely emphasized on the development of the functions and adopting processes that are precise, efficient and safe. Use of robots have become an integral part, particularly in packaging operations at production facilities, on the backdrop of facility operators urge to boost production efficiency. Furthermore, robots ensure cost savings and achieve production targets and are certainly very important when the demand of products is increasing steadily. The use of robotics is now an integral part of strategy adopted by multinational as well as domestically operating companies. Among various operations performed by robots with respect to packaging, picking packing and palletizing are the most important.View Report @The growth in different manufacturing industries, along with the increasing concerns over safety and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is anticipated to catapult the growth of packaging robot industry worldwide. Packaging robot manufacturers on the other hand also introducing packaging robots with advanced technological features such as incased operational speed, high precision and efficiency. These manufacturers have started to design packaging robots as per industries specific requirements. One of the global leader in providing packaging robotic solution introduced dedicated picking and packing robots for pharmaceutical application, where robots can pick and place cartridges 2X faster than conventional packaging robots that are currently in use. Packaging robot manufacturers interest in launching robots with higher technology content is also adding to the increased demand for packaging robots and thus driving global packaging robots market.Since, different robots perform different application, the demand for application specific robot is also reported to be different. In terms of application, picking robots sales is expected to grow at higher CAGR than overall packaging robots sales between 2016 and 2024, worldwide. Packing robots likely to remain attractive market segment with demand projected to expand at a CAGR of over 14.5 % during the same period. Increasing demand for industrial robots for pick and place and packaging application is anticipated to augment the sale of packaging robot across the globe.Taking end-use industries in consideration, packaging robots market can be segmented into food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, consumer products, tracking and logistics and industrial packaging. Industrial packing segment can be sub-segmented in to chemicals, electronic devices and others. The industrial packaging segment is expected to remain the dominant throughout the forecast period. But this segment is anticipated to witness relatively slow growth till 2024 in comparison to other end use industries. Consumer products segment is identified as second most promising market for packaging robot suppliers only behind industrial end use segment. A detailed examination of packaging robot sales, adoption and penetration in industrial as well as consumer product reflects the market sentiment which indicates these two end use industries dominance for packaging robot demand during the forecast period. Another end use market for packaging robots, food and beverages segment is projected to register a healthy CAGR of over of 15.5% during the forecast period. Other end use markets such as pharmaceutical, tracking and logistics segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of less than 15% over the forecast period, however the growth is impressive as per the data received from packaging robot suppliers this is primarily because of reported increase in demand of packaging robots for industrial robots for loading and unloading application within tracking and logistics industry.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Packaging Robot market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.On the basis of geography, Asia Pacific (APAC) is the largest market with China reporting highest sales volume as well value for packaging robots in comparison to other countries. Almost every multinational company have substantial presence in high potential countries of Asia pacific and are facing competition from increasing penetration of Chinese suppliers. Asia Pacific is followed by Europe as the largest market and North America. Sales of packaging robots is likely to remain moderate with regular crest and trough in demand, whereas in developing countries it is likely to reflect vertical upward growth trend. This is primarily because of increasing degree of automation across end use industries. Among developing regions sales of packaging robot in Latin American and MEA countries is anticipated to grow relatively slower than Asia Pacific and European counterparts.Key players in the global packaging robot market include Fanuc Corporation, Kuka Roboter GmbH, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, ABB Limited, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Bosch Packaging Technology and Schneider Electric SE.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:
Neurological Disorder Drugs Market by Key Regions, Production, Consumption, Revenue, Share and Growth 2016-2024

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Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs Market: OverviewThis report on the neurological disorder drugs market studies the current as well as future prospects of the market in Europe. Health concern related to life threatening diseases are the major concerns in the developed and developing countries of Europe.This research report provides a detailed analysis of the neurological disorder drugs market and helps understand the various driving factors for the growth of the market. The market overview section analyzes market dynamics and trends such as drivers, restraints and opportunities that influence the current nature and future status of the market. Market dynamics factors such as market attractiveness analysis have also been explained in order to deliver a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario of the Europe neurological disorder drugs market.View Report @Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs Market: SegmentationThe neurological disorder drugs market has been segmented by disorder, by drug class, by distribution channel and by countries. The disorder segment has been sub-segmented into Epilepsy, Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebrovascular disease and others. The drug class has been segmented into Anticholinergic, Antiepileptic, Antipsychotic, Analgesics, Hypnotic & Sedative, Antihypertensive, Anticoagulants and others. The distribution channel segment has been sub-segments into retail pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and eCommerce.Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs Market: ScopeThe executive summary provides detailed insights about the report and the market in general. This elaborate executive summary provides a glimpse into the present scenario of the Europe neurological disorder drugs market, which includes a market snapshot that provides overall information of various segments and sub-segments. The executive summary also provides overall information and data analysis of the Europe neurological disorder drugs market with respect to market segments based on disorder, drug class, distribution channel as well as geographic regions.The market for neurological disorder drugs has been extensively analyzed based on their usefulness, effectiveness, sales revenue and geographic presence. The market size and forecast in terms of US$ Mn for each disorder, drug class, distribution channel as well as geographic regions has been provided for the period from 2016 to 2024. This report on the neurological disorder drugs market also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs Market: Regional OutlookGeographically, the neurological disorder drugs market has been segmented into 10 major regions: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, U.K., Russia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Poland and Rest of Europe. The market size and forecast for each of these regions have been provided for the period from 2016 to 2024, along with CAGR (%) for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024. The research study also incorporates the competitive scenario in these regions.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Neurological Disorder Drugs market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market.Key Players Mentioned in this Report are:A list of recommendations has been provided for new entrants as well as existing players to help establish a strong presence in the market and increase market share. The report also profiles major players in the neurological disorder drugs market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, product portfolio and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Merck & Co., Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Bayer AG, Astra Zeneca, F-Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Novartis AG, and GlaxoSmithKline plc.The Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs market is segmented as follows:Europe Neurological Disorder Drugs Market Revenue, by DisorderEpilepsyAlzheimers diseaseParkinsons diseaseMultiple SclerosisCerebrovascular diseaseOthersEurope Neurological Disorder Drugs Market Revenue, by Drug ClassAnticholinergicAntiepilepticAntipsychoticHypnotic & SedativeAnalgesicsAntihypertensiveAnticoagulantsOthersEurope Neurological Disorder Drugs Market Revenue, by Distribution ChannelRetail PharmacyHospital PharmacyeCommerceEurope Neurological Disorder Drugs Market Revenue, by GeographyGermanyFranceItalySpainUKRussiaSwitzerlandNetherlandsPolandRest of EuropeAbout 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:
Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Installation Systems - Global Industry Analysis 2024

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The presence of a large number of companies offering diverse products and services related to combined heat and power (CHP) installations is fueling competition in the global CHP installation market. A CHP system is manufactured using numerous components such as turbines, filters, generators, engines, valves, and compressors. Several companies are therefore present in the market, selling key components, providing after-sales services, and distributing equipment.BDR Thermea Group B.V. held the largest share in the global CHP installation market in 2014, as per TMR analysis. Some of the most prominent enterprises operating in the market include 2G Energy AG, Siemens AG, Edina Ltd., Wartsila Corporation, ENER-G Holdings Plc (ENER-G), Clarke Energy Ltd., and others. The top eight companies hold 53% of the global combined heat and power installation market.This 150 page report gives readers a comprehensive overview of the Combined Heat and Power market. Browse this market Research Report@The demand for CHP systems mainly arises for industrial applications, followed by commercial and residential applications. As the industrial segment accounts for the largest share in the market, it holds lesser scope for growth compared to the residential and commercial application segments. As per TMR, the U.S., Japan, and Germany are at the fore of adopting CHP systems for commercial and residential applications.Strong Existing CHP Networks Facilitate CHP Installations GloballyCHP systems sales worldwide are riding on the strong existing CHP network. Furthermore, the increasing awareness regarding the benefits of CHP systems will boost their installations across emerging economies of Asia Pacific. Since the last few years, these countries have been exhibiting high demand for energy-efficient technologies. Developing countries therefore offer attractive opportunities for the vendors operating in the market.TMR forecasts the value chain of the global CHP installation market to remain highly complicated during the forecast period from 2014 to 2024. The implementation of stringent emission control norms worldwide has compelled leading enterprises to adopt forward integration. Such strategies could have an adverse impact on the markets growth trajectory, said a TMR analyst. Combined with this, the high cost incurred on installing CHP systems is also inhibiting the large-scale proliferation of CHP installations, he added. Nevertheless, increasing scope in the residential and commercial sector is expected to boost the prospects for the market in the near future.Large-scale CHPs to Lose Market Share to Micro & Small CHPs in the Forecast PeriodBy type, large-scale CHPs hold a dominant share of 85.69% in the global CHP installation market, followed by micro- and small scale CHPs in 2014. However, they are expected to lose a significant part of their market share to the latter in the near future. The rising usage of micro- and small-scale CHPs across residential and commercial sector will enable the segment to report the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. However, the increasing CHP installation in India and China will keep the demand for large-scale CHPs high in the forthcoming years.Easy Availability of Natural Gas Boosts Prospects for CHP Installations in EuropeRegionally, Europe emerged as the largest market for CHP installations in 2014. The region accounted for a share of 67.96% in the overall market in 2014. The easy availability of natural gas in Russia, has significantly contributed to the increased demand for CHP installations in Europe. Other countries in Europe exhibiting increasing demand for CHP installations include Germany, Poland, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands.Get accurate market forecast and analysis on the Combined Heat and Power market. Request a sample to stay abreast on the key trends impacting this market@Leading companies operating in the market are also looking to explore untapped opportunities in the Asia Pacific market.Driven by the increased demand across emerging economies, the global combined heat and power installation market is poised to surge at 4.38% CAGR. TMR pegs the markets valuation at US$524.89 bn in 2014. By the end of 2024, the market is expected to reach US$812.80 bn.This review is based on the findings of a TMR report, titled Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Installation Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends, and Forecast 2016  2024.The report segments the global combined heat and power installation market at:CHP Installation Market: By CHP TypeLarge-scale CHPMicro & Small-scale CHPCHP Installation Market: By CHP ApplicationResidentialCommercialIndustrialCHP Installation Market: By CHP TechnologyCombined CycleSteam TurbineCombustion/Gas TurbineReciprocation EngineOthers (Microturbine, Fuel Cell, and Waste Heat Recovery)CHP Installation Market: By FuelNatural GasCoalBiomassOthers (Wood, Waste Heat, and Oil)About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Contact UsTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Visit Blog :
Home Automation Market is set to Boom in 2017/Coming Years

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According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, Home Automation Market by Application, Technology, and Type: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023, the global home automation market was valued at $39,607 million in 2016, and is projected to reach at $81,645 million by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 11.2 % from 2017 to 2023. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the home automation market, followed by Europe and Asia-pacific.Increase in awareness for efficient energy usage, rise in electricity prices, and technological advancements are expected to drive the market growth. Moreover, rise in safety & security concerns has fueled the adoption of home automation systems, thus boosting the market growth. However, lack of awareness about home automation products and high initial investments in home automation are expected to hamper the market growth. Increase in adoption of automated services is expected to provide lucrative opportunities for the global home automation market.Do Enquiry for Sample @Key Findings of the Home Automation Market:In 2016, the luxury segment accounted for the maximum revenue, and is projected to grow at a notable CAGR of 10.1% during the forecast period.The wireless segment generated the maximum revenue, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.6% during the forecast period.Germany is the major shareholder in the European home automation market, accounting for more than 36% share in 2016.The key players profiled in the home automation market include Crestron Electronics, Inc. AMX LLC. (Harman), Control4 Corporation, Honeywell International, Inc. Johnson Controls, Inc., Siemens AG, Zigbee alliance, Vantage Controls (Legrand), Savant Systems LLC., and ABB. These players have adopted various strategies, such as product launch, collaboration & partnership and acquisition to expand their foothold in the home automation market.Do Enquiry for Sample Report @About Us:Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions". AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.Contact:Rahul Thakur5933 NE Win Sivers Drive#205, Portland, OR 97220United StatesToll Free : +1-800-792-5285UK : + 44-845-528-1300Hong Kong : + 852-301-84916India (Pune) : +91 20 66346060Fax : +1855550-5975help@alliedmarketresearch.comWebsite:Blog:
IoT in Automobile Market OUtlook and Worldwide Forecast 2022

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Global IoT in Automobile Market by Offering (Hardware, Software, Services), by Communication Type (In-vehicle, Vehicle to Vehicle, Vehicle to Infrastructure) and Application (Infotainment, Navigation, Telematics) - Forecast 2022Market Scenario:Internet of Things rather IoT is known as a concept or a paradigm that considers pervasive presence in the environment of a variety of things or objects that through wireless and wired connections and unique addressing schemes are able to interact with each other and cooperate with other things or objects to create new applications. It is basically the wireless connectivity of physical devices to achieve efficiency, business growth and quality. Also, internet of things in the automotive industry is helping the industry to redefine and reinvent. The automotive IoT transition is evolving through four phases.The key drivers for the growth of IoT in automobile market are real-time traffic and incident alerts, growing number of telematics mandates by various governments, and the growing demand for assisted & automated driving. The government funding for next generation vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure cars and the high consumers demand for smartphone features in cars. However, the concerns over security and privacy are hindering the growth of the IoT in automobile market.Geographically, North-America accounted for the largest market share in the global IoT in the automobile market whereas Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at a fast pace over the forecast period 2016-2022. The global IoT in automobile market is expected to reach USD 83 billion by the end of 2022 with 27% CAGR during forecast period 2016-2022Get a sample report atKey Players Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.) Intel Corporation (U.S.) NXP Semiconductors N.V. (Netherlands) TOMTOM N.V. (Netherlands) IBM Corporation (U.S.) Cisco Systems Inc. (U.S.) Microsoft Corp. (U.S.) Thales SA (France) AT&T Inc. (U.S.) Vodafone Group (U.K.) Robert Bosch GmbH (Germany) Google Inc. (U.S.) Apple Inc. (U.S.) General Motors (U.S.) Audi AG (Germany) Ford Motor Company (U.S.)Study Objectives of Global IoT in the Automobile Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the global IoT in the Automobile market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the global IoT in the Automobile market based 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 offering, communication type, application and region. 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 IoT in the AutomobileMarket Segments:The Global IoT in automobile market has been segmented on the basis of offering, communication type, application and region. By offering, the market has been bifurcated into hardware, software, services.On the basis of communication type, the market can be segmented as in-vehicle, vehicle to vehicle, vehicle to infrastructure.On the basis of application the market can be segmented infotainment, navigation and telematics. Further, the market has been segmented into four regions which include- North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW.Out of these, infotainment accounted for the largest market share because of device integration, high-speed connectivity, intuitive and multi-modal user interfaces in the systems installed in vehicles.Browse complete report atRegional Analysis:Regionally, North-America accounted for the largest market share because of the boom in the ICT sector, the automotive sector, and the transportation sector which resulted in the emergence of the connected vehicle ecosystem.Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow over the forecast period, 2016-2022 especially in countries such as China and India countries because they are investing huge amount of money in the transportation sector.Intended Audience IoT in the Automobile Manufacturers Distributors Research firms Consultancy firms Software Developers Vendors Semiconductor Manufacturers Stakeholders End-user sectors Research organizationsGet a discount atTABLE OF CONTENTS1 MARKET INTRODUCTION1.1 INTRODUCTION1.2 SCOPE OF STUDY1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE1.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS1.2.3 LIMITATIONS1.3 MARKET STRUCTURE2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1 RESEARCH NETWORK SOLUTION2.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH2.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH2.4 FORECAST MODEL2.4.1 MARKET DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS & FORECAST2.4.2 MARKET SIZE ESTIMATION3 MARKET DYNAMICS3.1 INTRODUCTION3.2 MARKET DRIVERS3.3 MARKET CHALLENGES3.4 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES3.5 MARKET RESTRAINTS4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY5. MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS5.1 PORTERS FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS5.2 SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYSIS6 GLOBAL IOT IN AUTOMOBILE MARKET, BY SEGMENTS6.1 INTRODUCTION6.2 MARKET STATISTICS6.2.1 BY OFFERING6.2.1.1 HARDWARE6.2.1.2 SOFTWARE6.2.1.3 SERVICES6.2.2 BY COMMUNICATION OFFERING6.2.2.1 IN-VEHICLE6.2.2.2 VEHICLE TO VEHICLE6.2.2.3 VEHICLE TO INFRASTRUCTURE6.2.3 BY APPLICATION6.2.3.1 INFOTAINMNET6.2.3.2 NAVIGATION6.2.3.3 TELEMATICS6.2.4 BY GEOGRAPHY6.2.4.1 NORTH AMERICA6.2.4.2 EUROPE6.2.4.3 ASIA-PACIFIC6.2.4.4 REST OF THE WORLD7 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS7.1 MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS7.2 COMPANY PROFILES7.2.1 TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. (U.S.)7.2.2 INTEL CORPORATION (U.S.),7.2.3 NXP SEMICONDUCTORS N.V. (NETHERLANDS),7.2.4 TOMTOM N.V. (NETHERLANDS)7.2.5 IBM CORPORATION (U.S.),7.2.6 CISCO SYSTEMS INC. (U.S.),7.2.7 MICROSOFT CORP. (U.S.)7.2.8 THALES SA (FRANCE)7.2.9 AT&T INC. (U.S.)7.2.10 VODAFONE GROUP (U.K.)7.2.11 ROBERT BOSCH GMBH (GERMANY)7.2.12 GOOGLE INC. (U.S.)7.2.13 OTHERSAt 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 AnandP: +1 646 845 9312W:
Automated Passenger Counting System Industry Analysis and Global Forecast 2022

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Global Automated Passenger Counting System Market, By Technology (Infrared, Stereoscopic Vision, Time-of-Flight, IP cameras), By Application (Railways, Roadways, Airways), By End-users (Buses, Trains, Ferry Boats) - Forecast 2022Automated Passenger Counter is an electronic device available for installation on transit vehicles including buses and rail vehicles which accurately records boarding and alighting data. The technology helps to improve the accuracy and reliability for counting the number of passenger that board and leave at every stop over traditional methods of manually counting by drivers or by random estimation.The devices are becoming more common in the American region for operators to seek better accuracy and analyze transit use patterns by linking boarding and alighting data with stop or station location.The key drivers for the growth of the automated passenger counting system are cost-effective, increasing need to achieve fleet optimization, demand for smart telematics solutions, technological advancements passenger information systems and growing urbanization. Also, government regulations supporting automated supporting system installations in the North-American region. Even, the pricing of tickets and augmentation to existing real-time passenger information systems are the opportunities for the automated passenger counting system market.However, high initial cost in the price sensitive emerging economies and relatively quick return on investment are hindering the growth of the market.Geographically, North-America accounted for the largest market share in the global automated passenger counting system market whereas Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow at a fast pace over the forecast period 2016-2022.Get a sample report atStudy Objectives of Global Automated Passenger Counting System Market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the global automated passenger counting system market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the global automated passenger system market based 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 technology, application, end-users and region. 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 Automated Passenger Counting System market.The key players of global automated passenger counting system market report include Ris-GmbH (Germany) HELLA Aglaia Mobile Vision GmbH (Germany) Eurotech S.p.A. (Italy) DILAX Intelcom GmbH (Germany) Infodev Electronic Designers International Inc. (Canada) Cisco Systems, Inc. (U.S.) Siemens AG (Germany) Hitachi, Ltd. (Japan) Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. (China) Clever Devices Ltd. (U.S.) Retail Sensing Ltd. (U.K.) Syncromatics Corp. (U.S.) Trapeze Group (Canada)Browse complete report atSegments:The Global automated passenger counting system market has been segmented on the basis of technology, application, end-users and region. By technology, the market has been bifurcated into infrared, stereoscopic vision, time-of-flight, ip cameras. On the basis of application, the market can be segmented as railways, roadways, airways. On the basis of end-users the market can be segmented into buses, trains, ferry boats among others. Further, the market has been segmented into four regions which include- North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and RoW.On the basis of application, the market can be segmented into Railways, Roadways, Airways . Out of these, railways accounted for the largest market share because passenger information systems provide real-time information related to train timetables, train delays, current location, emergency announcements, advertisements and infotainment services.Regional Analysis:Regionally, North-America accounted for the largest market share especially in the countries such as U.S. because it was the early adopters of automated passenger counting system.Asia-Pacific region is expected to grow over the forecast period, 2016-2022 especially in countries such as China and India countries because they are investing huge amounts of money for developing the transportation sector.Intended Audience Automated passenger counting system Manufacturers Distributors Research firms Consultancy firms Software Developers Vendors Semiconductor Manufacturers Stakeholders End-user sectors Technology InvestorsGet a discount atTABLE OF CONTENTS1 MARKET INTRODUCTION1.1 INTRODUCTION1.2 SCOPE OF STUDY1.2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE1.2.2 ASSUMPTIONS1.2.3 LIMITATIONS1.3 MARKET STRUCTURE2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2.1 RESEARCH NETWORK SOLUTION2.2 PRIMARY RESEARCH2.3 SECONDARY RESEARCH2.4 FORECAST MODEL2.4.1 MARKET DATA COLLECTION, ANALYSIS & FORECAST2.4.2 MARKET SIZE ESTIMATION3 MARKET DYNAMICS3.1 INTRODUCTION3.2 MARKET DRIVERS3.3 MARKET CHALLENGES3.4 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES3.5 MARKET RESTRAINTS4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY5. MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS5.1 PORTERS FIVE FORCES ANALYSIS5.2 SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYSIS6 GLOBAL AUTOMATED PASSENGER COUNTING SYSTEM MARKET, BY SEGMENTS6.1 INTRODUCTION6.2 MARKET STATISTICS6.2.1 BY TECHNOLOGY6.2.1.1 INFRARED,6.2.1.2 STEREOSCOPIC VISION,6.2.1.3 TIME-OF-FLIGHT,6.2.1.3 IP CAMERAS6.2.2 BY APPLICATION6.2.2.1 RAILWAYS6.2.2.2 AIRWAYS6.2.2.3 ROADWAYS6.2.3 BY END-USERS6.2.3.1 BUSES6.2.3.2 TRAINS6.2.3.3 FERRY BOATS6.2.3.4 OTHERS6.2.4 BY GEOGRAPHY6.2.4.1 NORTH AMERICA6.2.4.2 EUROPE6.2.4.3 ASIA-PACIFIC6.2.4.4 REST OF THE WORLD7 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS7.1 MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS7.2 COMPANY PROFILES7.2.1 RIS-GMBH7.2.2 HELLA AGLAIA MOBILE VISION GMBH7.2.3 EUROTECH S.P.A7.2.4 DILAX INTELCOM GMBH7.2.5 INFODEV ELECTRONIC DESIGNERS INTERNATIONAL INC.7.2.6 CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.7.2.7 SIEMENS AG7.2.8 HITACHI, LTD7.2.9 HUAWEI TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.7.2.10 CLEVER DEVICES LTD.7.2.11 OTHERSAt 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 AnandP: +1 646 845 9312W:
Internet of Things (Iot) Insurance Market is Estimated to Grow By 33% of CAGR

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Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance Market, By Type (Health insurance, Property and causality Insurance, Agricultural insurance, Life Insurance), By End-User (Automotive & Transport, Travel, Healthcare, Home and Commercial Buildings, Agriculture, Consumer Electronics) - Forecast 2022Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance offers an opportunity for insurers to partner with policyholders with a full view of the policyholder, it minimizes risk in real time and lowers the claims payouts for the insurer and provides a deep level of satisfaction to the policyholders. The Internet of Things (IoT) market and the smart city market is showing rapid growth. Thus, demand IoT insurance is increasing rapidly. Using IoT insurance, the insurers can utilize the data derived from all types of devices as well as external sources, such as weather data and provide the best level of protection possible for their policyholders.The study indicates that internet of things insurance would help insurance companies to monetize risks and work with appliance, automobile, and other equipment manufacturers to reduce actual risk which would boost the internet of things insurance market. Adoption of internet of things insurance would create a movement towards usage-based insurance models and would likely decrease risk and reduce claim numbers.Get a sample report atInternet of things (IoT) systems give large amounts of real-time data which has requires strong infrastructure offered by IoT vendors. This creates a risk of data loss and malfunctioning of the systems due to network failure which in result creates a need to follow fixed communications standards for data transmission. Apart from it, the risks associated with connected devices create privacy concerns. Thus, all these factors cease the adoption of IoT by the insurers. Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance is market is segmented on the basis of type of insurance and end-users. The type of insurance is classified into different types as Health insurance, Property and causality Insurance, Agricultural insurance, Life Insurance and others.The global Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market is expected to grow at USD ~9 Billion by 2022, at ~33% of CAGR between 2016 and 2022.The prominent players in the Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market are- IBM Corporation (U.S.) Accenture (Ireland) Cognizant (U.S.) Oracle Corporation (U.S) Zonoff Inc. (U.S.) Capgemini (France) SAP SE (Germany) LexisNexis (U.S.) Lemonade Inc. (U.S.) Hippo Insurance (U,S.)Study Objectives of Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market: To provide detailed analysis of the market structure along with forecast of the various segments and sub-segments of the Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market. To provide insights about factors affecting the market growth. To analyze the Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market based 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 on the basis of type and end-user. 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 Internet of Things (IoT) InsuranceBrowse complete report atRegional analysis for Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market is studied in different geographic regions as Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of world. It has been observed that North America region would account for larger share in Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market. It has been observed that North America region has high adoption of internet of things and higher technology developments which has resulted in the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market. The study reveals that Asia-Pacific region is expected to have a significant growth in Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market by the forecast period. The growing internet of things penetration and increasing number of wearables, drones and other in Asia-Pacific region is expected to give a boost to Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market in this region. As per a recent news, South Korea a technologically advanced country in Asia-Pacific region reported that the internet of things (IoT) insurance has gained government backing. Thus, the government initiatives supporting internet of things (IoT) insurance boost the market in the Asia-Pacific region.Segments:Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market is segmented on the basis of type and end-user.Internet of Things (IoT) Insurance market by Type of Insurance: Health insurance Property and causality InsuranceMotor insurance Home insurance Commercial Insurance Agricultural insurance Life Insurance OthersInternet of Things (IoT) Insurance market by End-Users: Automotive &Transport Healthcare Home and Commercial Buildings Agriculture Consumer Electronics OthersGet a discount atIntended Audience Technology investors Key market innovators Hardware vendors Regulatory agencies IoT insurance providers IoT service providers Communication service providers Quality assurance providers IoT platform providers Third-party system integrators Application providers Research/Consultancy firmsTABLE OF CONTENTS1 MARKET INTRODUCTION2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY3 MARKET DYNAMICS4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY5. MARKET FACTOR ANALYSIS6 INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) INSURANCE MARKET, BY SEGMENTS7 COMPETITIVE ANALYSISAt 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 AnandP: +1 646 845 9312W:
Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market Research Report | Key Growth Factors | Forecast 2027

Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market

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Cerebral Somatic Oximeter is a device used to monitor or review the delivery of oxygen to the brain and spine in infants, children, and adults during cardiac and vascular surgeries or complex aortic procedures. Cerebral Somatic Oximeter uses Near Infrared Spectroscopy to calculate cerebral, and tissue oxygenation, as light wavelengths within the near-infrared light spectrum, are so strong that can penetrate through the skull bone and capture the presence of cerebral tissue oxygenation, this represents an important development in the detection of splanchnic and renal ischemia and cerebral ischemia. When oxygenation levels change, deoxygenated hemoglobin level, oxygenated hemoglobin level, and tissue oxygenation substances in the brain have the potential to change light absorption, and this light absorption by them can be calculated to display a percentage of cerebral oxygen present in that particular cerebral light source pathway. This real-time, non-invasive NIRS assessment of cerebral and somatic microcirculatory perfusion represents an important new therapeutic frontier. There is an increasing number of cerebral-somatic Oximeter for infants around the world and domestic prototypes for research use because of its ease of use and non-invasive nature. This is expected to reflect positive growth in the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market.Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe global market for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter is primarily driven by the increase in population in developed countries such as the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Increasing incidence of neurological disorders and continuous growth of cancers impact on Public Health are another factor responsible for the growth of Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market. Consequently, the global market for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter will witness an upsurge, expected to fuel the market revenue for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter over the forecast period. However, issues of accuracy and precision while calculating or validating Cerebral Somatic Oximeter are few of the factors that can restrain the growth of the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market during the forecast period.Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market: SegmentationThe global market for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter is segmented on the basis of modes, end user, and geography:based on the Modes, the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market is segmented into the following:Two-Channel Cerebral Somatic OximeterFour-Channel Cerebral Somatic Oximeterbased on the End User, the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market is segmented into the following:HospitalsClinicsAmbulatory Surgical CentersView Report-Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market: OverviewCerebral Somatic Oximeter market is expected to witness significant growth due to the technological improvements and medical advancements of Cerebral Somatic Oximeter. Increase cases of cardiac arrest and continuous growth of cancers impact on Public Health are the major factors that drive the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market. Ongoing efforts by Cerebral Somatic Oximeter manufacturers to provide solutions with better results is also supposed to create huge market revenue potential in the Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market.Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market: Region-wise OutlookA geographic condition regarding for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter market, it has been segmented into seven key regions: North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, and Middle East & Africa. North America is the most attractive market due to increase in the end use of devices, awareness among people and high prevalence of disease conditions such as Parkinsons disease, chronic pain, epilepsy, Followed by Europe. Increase in standards of health care services, increasing population and increase in mindfulness towards the medications in India and China is relied upon to support the market for Cerebral Somatic Oximeter in general Asia Pacific area.Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market: Key Market ParticipantsMajor players in the tissue processing system market include: CAS Medical Systems, Somanetics Corporation, Medtronic, Nonin Medical Inc., Casmed.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.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Cerebral Somatic Oximeter Market during 2017- 2027About 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:
Facial Rejuvenation Market Research Report | Key Growth Factors | Forecast 2026

Facial Rejuvenation Market

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Facial Rejuvenation Market: OverviewWorldwide, every year billions of dollars are spent on facial rejuvenation products and services. Facial rejuvenation refers to a combination of cosmetic procedures that are carried out to restore the youthful appearance of the human face. Facial rejuvenation techniques can be either surgical or non-surgical.The global facial rejuvenation market can be segmented on the basis of end-user, product type, and region. In terms of product type, the market can be classified into topical products, dermal fillers, microabrasion equipment, botulinum, chemical peels, and equipment-based treatments such as ultrasounds and laser resurfacing.In terms of end-user, the market can be divided into dermatology clinics and hospitals.The analysis presented in this report is based on data collated from primary and secondary research and extensive interviews carried out with industry experts. The analysis of the report serves as a valuable tool for market stakeholders, product manufacturers, and research organizations. Using a lucid chapter-wise layout interspersed with an array of graphical representations and tables, the report systematically analyzes the dynamics of the global facial rejuvenation market.The report analyzes the facial rejuvenation market in a ground-up manner with a detailed assessment of the various growth drivers, challenges, and trends that will influence the growth of this market during the forecast period. Besides this, the report presents an overview of the regulatory policies that govern cosmetic procedures for consumer grievances.The report provides an executive-level blueprint of the competitive landscape in this market. It provides a detailed competitive profile of the leading vendors for the purpose.View Report-Facial Rejuvenation Market: Drivers and RestraintsAcross the world, rising economic prosperity and rising disposable incomes are the major factors boosting the facial rejuvenation market. Changing lifestyle, which often leads to early onset of aging also demands the need for rejuvenation procedures to remain youthful for competitive reasons.The increasing baby boomer population is also fuelling the demand for facial rejuvenation products. The wealth of this demographic segment along with the desire to stay youthful are driving the demand for aesthetic procedures.Other factors driving the growth of this market include easy access to treatments, rising awareness about innovative and less painful techniques, rising affordability, and deeper penetration of cosmetic products in the local markets.However, factors such as lack of trained personnel and limited evidence of the clinical success of these procedures are restraining the markets growth. Nevertheless, the implementation of international regulatory mandates for the standardization of cosmetic procedures is set to define new paradigms for the growth of this market.Facial Rejuvenation Market: Regional OutlookThe global facial rejuvenation market has been divided into the regional segments of North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa. Amongst these, North America is the leading market for facial rejuvenation accounting for a significant share of the global market. Asia Pacific and Latin America are expected to be the fastest-growing regional markets for facial rejuvenation.Major Companies Mentioned in ReportSome of the leading companies that operate in the global facial rejuvenation market are Merz GmbH & Co. KGaA, Revance Therapeutics Inc., Specialty European Pharma, Anika Therapeutics Inc., Cynosure Inc., LUMENIS, Biopolymer GmbH & Co., Mentor Worldwide LLC, Contura International A/S, Gal derma S/A, and Fibrocell Inc. The high-level analysis of the report throws light on the growth strategies that leading companies are focused on. This includes market consolidation initiatives, product development, and strategic alliances that these companies are entering into.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.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Facial Rejuvenation Market during 2016- 2026About 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:
Clot Management Devices Market Research Report | Forecast up to 2024

Clot Management Devices Market

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Global Clot Management Devices Market: OverviewAccording to an article published in the Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis, the awareness about venous thromboembolism (VTE) remains alarmingly low. What makes this scenario more concerning is that nearly 10 million VTE cases are estimated to occur every year across the world making this condition among the leading causes of disability worldwide. The International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis, Inc. states that while the United States reports anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 deaths resulting from VTE every year, this number is as high as 544,000 in Europe. A blood clot is several times more dangerous when it breaks away from the blood vessel wall (where it may have formed) and travels to the heart or lungs, creating a fatal blockage.However, it is now widely believed that VTE-related hospital death is preventable, as the majority of VTE cases occur during or just after hospitalization. Medical experts are stressing on the use of the right clot management devices and therapeutics so that concerns about VTE as a public health problem can be alleviated. This realization has helped created appreciable demand for clot management devices across the world.As awareness about deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism rises, it is expected that more people will also become aware about VTE as a condition that could prove fatal if not addressed in time.Moreover, with approvals for self-monitoring devices coming in a faster rate than before, the global market for clot management devices will gain traction and stay firmly on the growth path in the coming years. In this report, this market is discussed at length and estimates are provided for the best-selling clot management devices. The overall revenue that clot management devices will generate worldwide by 2024 is also projected in the report.Global Clot Management Devices Market: Drivers and RestraintsNewer approaches to clot management are now receiving greater acceptance among the medical community. This is expected to create a favorable environment for the growth of the global clot management devices market. The demand for effective clot management devices is also increasing because patients are wary of the many risks and discomforts associated with open-heart surgery and other highly invasive procedures. The demand for clot management devices will also rise with many medical surgeons now recommending percutaneous devices as an alternative to open surgeries.Despite the conditions currently indicating a positive outlook for the global clot management devices market, a gap between the demand and supply of trained physicians in many parts of the world will act against the markets growth. Moreover, reimbursement policies are not well-defined in many developing countries, which could also hamper the growth of the global clot management devices market.View Report Global Clot Management Devices Market: Segmentation and Region-wise OutlookThe global market for clot management devices can be broadly segmented on the basis of end users and the type of device used. By device type, the market can be segmented into: Embelectomy balloon catheters, neurovascular embelectomy devices, catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) devices, percutaneous thrombectomy devices, and inferior vena cava filters (IVCF).The demand for percutaneous thrombectomy devices has been rising at a healthy rate over the last few years. It is expected that several new research initiatives exploring new types of percutaneous thrombectomy devices will be reported through the reports forecast period. By end use, the key segments of the clot management devices market are hospitals and diagnostic centers.From the geographical standpoint, the global clot management devices market can be split into: North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and Rest of the World. The United States is projected to remain at the forefront as far as innovation in clot management devices is concerned. Neurovascular embelectomy devices are expected to give the clot management devices market in the U.S. a further upward thrust.Among the top players in this market are: Straub Medical, Argon Medical Devices, Edwards Lifesciences, DePuy Synthes, and LeMaitre Vascular.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.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland, Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, North Africa)Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Clot Management Devices Market during 2016- 2024About 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:
Salmonella Testing Market Research Report | Value Chain Analysis | Forecast 2024

Salmonella Testing Market

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Salmonella Testing Market: OverviewSalmonella is a genus of gram negative bacteria, which are rod shaped in nature. These bacteria are non spore forming, flagellate and motile. There are two important species of bacteria found in salmonella genus called as S Bongori and S Enterica. Infection by enterica termed as Enteritidis and it is most common infection among all species. Salmonella bacteria found in warm blooded animals including humans and causes intestinal infection called salmonellosis. Animals such as cattle, sheep, chicken, cats, and dogs are major carrier for this species and therefore it gets transmitted in human beings very easily.Salmonella infection is widely spread disease across the world, according to CDC data, Salmonella causes infection to about 1.2 million people only in United States of America. Out of these over 23,000 people need to be hospitalized immediately. The disease accounts for approximately 450 deaths.Clinical features of salmonella infection include diarrhea which sometimes may be bloody, along with this fever, abdominal cramps are also common which generally lasts for 5-7 days. Salmonella infection generally affects the gastro intestinal tract of human however this infection can be life threatening if goes beyond intestine. It is transmitted through contaminated food such as infected meat, contaminated water and contact with infected animals and pets.Contaminated food is the major source for transmission of infection commonly from meat, eggs, egg products, unpasteurized milk and dairy products. People of all age group are susceptible to this infection nevertheless immune compromised people such as patients, children below five years and elderly people are on high risk of infection. Recently there was a major outbreak of salmonella in the US and many companies in the business of beef and other meat products had to recall their products from the market.View Report-Salmonella Testing Market: Diagnostic and Regulatory OverviewDiagnosis of salmonella infection is usually done by stool culture method where stool of infected animal or human being is cultured, the other method is real time PCR. Real time PCR is done by amplifying and detecting the DNA sequence of targeted pathogen. This is a quick and accurate method for detection of pathogens like salmonella.There are different guidelines given for the industry by concerned departments in various countries for salmonella detection in food, pets and human being. Recent changes have been done in Bacteriological Analytical Manual for detection of pathogens specifically salmonella by US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA).Salmonella Testing Market: SegmentationSalmonella diagnosis testing market is widely spread and can be segmented in different categories. Geographically salmonella testing market can be divided in four regions namely North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World. Out of all the above regions North America, because of its stringent FDA rules and medical awareness among people about salmonella infection is biggest market for testing followed by Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World respectively.The segmentation of salmonella infection diagnosis testing market can be categorized into type of customers; there are different industries where salmonella diagnosis is needed such as medical and healthcare, animal health, food processing industry and dairy industry. Among all these categories medical and healthcare industries account for the biggest share followed by animal health, food processing and dairy industry.Salmonella Testing Market: Key PlayersThere are several players in all over the world in salmonella diagnosis testing market out of which Life Technologies, Neogen Corporation, Romer Labs and Eiken Chemical Company Limited are specifically mentionable in real time PCR techniques whereas Hardy Diagnostics, DuPont Qualicon are major companies in culture detection methods.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.Request a brochure of this report to know what opportunities will emerge in the rapidly evolving Salmonella Testing Market during 2016- 2024About 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:
Wednesday 7 June 2017 12:38pm



Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith

School students who may have wondered where their teachers came from may not have to wonder much longer.

University of Otago biological anthropologist Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith and the Biology Educators Association, through the Allan Wilson at Otago research group, have devised a novel way of teaching secondary school students about the evolution and migration of modern humans, using DNA tests.

About 250 New Zealand science and social science teachers are being given the opportunity to send samples of their own DNA to the National Geographic Genographic Laboratory in the United States.

They can then use those results, along with video presentations by Professor Matisoo-Smith and written resources to teach the current understanding of human evolution.

The aim of the project is to inspire young high school students with the amazing story of our shared maternal ancestor in Africa, Professor Matisoo-Smith says, and how a small band of humans left Africa 60,000 years ago, spread across the entire world, and finally travelled here to Aotearoa New Zealand - the longest and most dangerous leg of the human journey.

The stories of our origins and different journeys are preserved in our DNA, she says.

As part of the teaching module - funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employments Unlocking Curious Minds programme - students will video each other recounting what they know about their family history.

Some of these videos will be uploaded to a public site. The message to students is that everyones story is interesting and important, Professor Matisoo-Smith says.

The DNA kits  which cost about US$200 each  are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a limit of one per school.

Professor Matisoo-Smith, Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon and former Governors General Sir Jerry Mateparae and Sir Anand Satyanand have made their own DNA results available for study by teachers who are unable to obtain a kit to generate their own results.

During the past three years, Professor Matisoo-Smith has sampled the DNA of more than 2,000 New Zealanders to determine their ancient origins.

Her group is working with the National Geographic Genographic Project to add the Pacific expansion to the global picture of human dispersal out of Africa.

The Pacific is such an incredibly exciting place to work. Weve got settlement representing some of the first human dispersals out of Africa, with the initial settlement of Australia and New Guinea some 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, and weve also got the last major human dispersal which was the settlement of Polynesia, extending all the way to South America.

So its a wonderful place to be studying humans and human adaptations.

For more information, please contact:

Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith

Department of Anatomy, University of Otago

Tel 03 479 6827

Email lisa.matisoo-smith@otago.ac.nz

OR

Glenda Lewis

Mob 027 210 0997

Email: glendajanelewis@gmail.com
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis honored Chemical Bank Assistant Vice President and Regional CRA Manager Patricia Franklin-Lindsey with its 2017 Community Spirit Award during the Building Michigan Communities Conference in Lansing.

In addition to the award, the bank will make a $1,000 donation in Franklin-Lindseys honor to the nonprofit organization or charity of her choice.

Franklin-Lindsey has helped more than 500 homeowners in Saginaw, Genesee, Midland and Shiawassee counties access the banks home improvement grants totaling more than $4.3 million over the last several years. In addition, she has been instrumental in teaching more than 35 nonprofits and municipalities how to apply for the grants.

Its nice to be acknowledged for the work that I do, and it gives me the opportunity to give back to my community, Franklin-Lindsey said. I love the work I do, and I love being able to help others. It means a lot to me.

Yvonne Powell, manager of Counseling and Education for Southwest Michigan Community Development Corp., nominated Franklin-Lindsey for the Community Spirit Award in recognition of the assistance and education she has provided to low- and moderate-income individuals and families in the community throughout her career.

No matter what challenge we present to her, Patricia is always helpful, informative, positive, and encouraging, Powell said. We feel like she adopted us, and we are so appreciative of all her work and dedication.

Bob Burgess, vice president and CRA Officer for Chemical Bank, said Franklin-Lindsey is a model for her colleagues.

Patricia is a dedicated and passionate professional who brings Chemical Bank into the limelight with her outstanding efforts for CRA and affordable housing needs, he said. Shes incredibly practical, pragmatic, and solution oriented and always takes accountability.

Franklin-Lindsey is an active volunteer in the communities of Midland, Saginaw and Flint, where she teaches financial literacy classes to children, adults, and church groups. She has educated more than 8,000 individuals in financial literacy over her career.
Greg Diebolt, a longtime City of Bay City construction department employee, has been hired at Fleis and VandenBrink in Midland as an engineering technician.

Diebolt was among four recent hires to the rapidly expanding East Michigan Services Group, which has offices in Midland, Grand Blanc and Farmington Hills.
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Patrons of a literary picnic will get two for the price of one when novelist Jeff Vande Zande and poet Skip Renker, Delta College colleagues, read from their new books.

The Two Friends, Two Books picnic takes place 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, June 25, in the backyard of the Theodore Roethke Home Museum, 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw  or inside in case of inclement weather.
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A $2.7 million project to restore the Tridge is coming along as scheduled, and the leg from the farmers market to Chippewassee Park will open for July 4 and RiverDays before the anticipated full reopening this fall.

People will get a sneak peek of it, Karen Murphy, the citys director of public services, told Parks & Recreation Commission members at a Tuesday meeting. Theyll be able to walk down that first leg to the center and that will be done, with the exception of the lighting, and then theyll walk over the other leg into (Chippewassee Park) and that one wont be done, so theyll get to see the contrast.

Crews from barges placed in the river have been blasting and staining 32-foot sections of the 541-foot bridge at a time, according to Murphy.

Its effective and its giving us a good product, its just a slow process, Murphy said.

Using water-based rather than oil-based stains for years has resulted in water damage, according to Oregon-based Western Wood Structures, which the city consulted to survey the Tridge. The Tridge was built in 1981, and the wood has weathered and aged.

By mid-October, crews plan to replace all the decking and re-stain it with an oil-based product. The project also involves replacing railing posts and overhead crossbeams. Arched wood does not need replacing but will need to be stained, Murphy said.

Wood grain on the new decking will run transversely rather than parallel as it had in the past, Murphy said. The hope is that the pattern will add traction for when dew collects or after a rain, and that it will also emit noise as bike riders cycle the Tridge, because the wheels will be going against the grain.

Because if youve ever been on the Tridge, you can get snuck up on pretty easily by bikes, Murphy said.

The Douglas fir treated wood wont need staining.

It will just weather and the treatment will preserve it, Murphy said.

Crews will also affix new LED lights.

We are still doing some research to get the best LED lighting system that we can, Murphy said. We have quite a bit of time to choose the lighting and we want to make sure we get the right product.

The city contracted J.R. Heineman & Sons Inc. of Saginaw, Precision Iceblast Corp. of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and Midland-based Pyramid Control for the project. Work started on April 18.

The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation donated $2.5 million, and $238,000 comes from an endowed maintenance fund at the Midland Area Community Foundation.

Were really keeping a close eye on this. This is a big community icon and we want to make sure we do it justice, Murphy said.
A Midlander already serving prison time has been sentenced in a case involving possession of heroin and fentanyl.

Michael Christopher Mercier, 30, of Midland, was charged with delivery of heroin and fentanyl in connection with a Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team investigation that occurred on May 24, 2016. In April, he pleaded guilty to a count of possession with the intent to deliver the controlled substances, as well as a habitual third offender notice.
To the editor:

Do you know what its like to not feel loved? Princesses are very loved by everyone. Being a princess has many perks. There is a ball where all eyes are on you, you are the center of attention. You wear a dress that makes a statement, your makeup has no flaws, your hair compliments you and you wear shoes that are the perfect fit. Wouldnt you want to be treated like a princess every day?

My name is Laura Alexander and I am a senior at Midland High School. I am doing my senior project on the Royal Family Kids Camp. I am writing this letter to you to make you aware that there are specific camps for children who have been abused, neglected or in foster care. My goal for writing you this letter is to spread the word about this awesome opportunity for kids and hope that soon there will be camps in every state. In order to make this happen, the Royal Family Kids Camp would need more volunteers, so that more children can go to camp; the ratio of adults to children at camp is one to two.

The Royal Family Kids Camp was founded in 1990 by Wayne Tesch and is located in 40 states and four countries. Its mission is to provide summer camps designed for kids in foster care. Its goal is to transform the foster care community to make the kids who have been abused, neglected or in foster care know that they are never alone. In the U.S. 3.2 million kids have been abused, 408,215 have been in foster care and 8,000 of those kids have come to the Royal Family Kids Camp. Some activities that the kids get to be a part of during camp are swimming, a rodeo, arts and crafts, a carnival, a princess party for the girls and an adventure day for the boys.

My church, Midland Evangelical Free Church, does a very good job at promoting the Royal Family Kids Camp searching for volunteers and camp members. One summer, my room and I signed up to help during the princess party at the camp. We both wore dresses so we could fit in. When we got there, the camp director had us decorate a trailer that would transport the girls from their cabin to where the party was with balloons and streamers to make it look like a carriage. After that, we went to the cabin where all the girls were getting ready at. I painted their nails, did their makeup, did their hair and helped them pick out a dress that made them feel like a princess. During the party, the girls got to enjoy food and danced the night away.

Being there made me realize how lucky I was to grow up with a family that made me fuel like a princess every day.

Please help me make people aware of the great things that the Royal Family Kids Camp does to make sure children who have been abused, neglected or in foster care feel like they are the most important person in the world for a whole week and focus all of their attention to those children and make them forget about their life at home.

LAURA E. ALEXANDER

Midland
NEW OPENINGS

It Comes at Night

97 min.; R (violence, disturbing images, language)

A family seeks refuge in the home of another family during a horrific world-wide plague.

Megan Leavey

116 min.; PG-13 (war violence, language, suggestive material, thematic elements)

A young Marine corporal and her military combat dog save lives during their deployment in Iraq.

The Mummy

107 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (violence, action, scary images, suggestive content, partial nudity)

An ancient princess is awakened from her crypt beneath the desert, and isn't happy about it.

ONGOING

Alien: Covenant

122 min.; R (sci-fi violence, bloody images, language, sexuality/nudity)

A colony ship lands on a planet inhabited by the sole survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Baywatch

116 min.; R (language throughout, crude sexual content, graphic nudity)

Lifeguard Mitch Buchanan and his brash new recruit uncover a Bay-threatening criminal plot.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

84 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG (mild rude humor throughout)

Two students hypnotize their principal into thinking he's a dimwitted superhero.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul

90 min.; PG (rude humor)

Greg's scheme to get to a video gaming convention throws a Heffley family road trip off course.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

136 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (sci-fi action violence, language, brief suggestive content)

The Guardians embark on a trans-cosmos odyssey to learn more about the true parentage of team leader Peter Quill.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

126 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (violence/action, suggestive content, brief strong language)

Robbed of his birthright, Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and is forced to acknowledge his legacy.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

129 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (adventure violence, suggestive content)

Captain Jack Sparrow squares off against his old nemesis Captain Salazar.

Snatched

91 min.; R (crude sexual content, nudity, language throughout)

Dumped by her boyfriend before their exotic vacation, a young woman persuades her mother to take his place.

Wonder Woman

141 min.; 2-D/3-D; PG-13 (violence/action, suggestive content)

An Amazon princess-warrior leaves home for London and becomes engaged in intrigue during WWI.

AT THE NORMAL THEATER

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea

75 min.; PG-13 (images of peril, sexual references, drug material)

An earthquake causes a high school to float into the sea, where it slowly sinks like a shipwreck. (7 p.m. June 8, 10 p.m. June 9-10)

After the Storm

117 min.; subtitled; unrated

After the death of his father, a private detective struggles to reconnect with his son and ex-wife. (7 p.m. June 9 and 11)

Romeo and Juliet

149 min.; PG (violence, brief nudity)

When two young members of feuding families meet, forbidden love ensues. (7 p.m. June 12)
Wonder Woman, the newest chapter in DCs story, moves the melancholy franchise back toward its pleasurable fundamentals, at least part of the way. While it lacks the tonal command of a Marvel film, its a needed improvement over the rest of the recent offerings.

The movie gives us an appealing main character in Diana, princess of the Amazons, a super novice who is sweet, pure of spirit and endearingly innocent. It stars Gal Gadot, a beauty queen with a knack for light drama and comic relief, a winning screen presence and the ability to do heroic stunts in a funny costume and not look ridiculous.

Its directed with a mostly cheerful light touch by Patty Jenkins, whose blood-chilling 2003 drama about a real life serial killer, Monster, earned Charlize Theron a best actress Oscar.

The story unfolds in a late stage of World War I. The war is big news to the Amazon society, which is based on the secluded island realm of Themyscira. Since Zeus threw thunderbolts, the all-female population has trained to battle invaders with swords and shields, arrows and physical combat.

Then the sputtering biplane of Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), an American spy with a German troop ship in pursuit, pierces the dome of invisibility that hides Dianas home.

The planes dying fall into the water makes Diana consider it a wounded bird, not an invading aircraft, and she dives mermaid-deep beneath the sea to rescue the pilot.

After that heroic meet, their getting-to-know-you scene occurs while heavily armed Huns storm the beach and Diana learns how to use her bracelets to deflect slo-mo bullets.

Charming, naive Diana follows Steve back to the front to swiftly halt the war, which she believes is caused by the belligerent god Ares. After one romantic night at sea in a rowboat, they arrive in London  it just happens  and Diana experiences more bloodthirsty 20th-century combat.

The pair hope to stop the supremely evil German Gen. Ludendorff (Danny Huston), who is about to unleash an extra-deadly form of poison gas on the front lines. It was created by his henchwoman, Dr. Poison (Elena Anaya), because that is the sort of name characters get in a movie like this.

Much of Wonder Woman inspires head-scratching bewilderment. Why does the third act introduce an odd trio of assistant good guys?

Chief, the American Indian (Eugene Brave Rock); Sameer, the generic Middle Easterner (Said Taghmaoui), and Charlie, the singing, boozing Scotsman (Ewen Bremner) show up with no explanation of who these uninteresting fellows are or why they hang together. It just happens.

Wonder Woman only succeeds here and there as a comic book action film. In trying to reach a cross-gender audience, it seems too romantic for one crowd, too combative for the other.

Worst of all, it lacks a compelling super-villain. When the miscast big bad boss appears minutes before the end, he is an uninspired tin woodsman who waves his hands to shoot standard bolts of magic.

Still, the movie has a campy charm. Jenkins knows how to play this essentially goofy legend quasi-seriously, making laughs flow naturally out of the material. There is a pleasant connection between Gadot, who approaches her role straight and simple, and Pine, who hams it up like theres no tomorrow.
BLOOMINGTON  Federal lawmakers who represent the Twin City area said they were pleased by Thursday's testimony from fired FBI Director James Comey, but emphasized the need for further investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

"Preventing any foreign entity from interfering with our nations sovereignty is our priority in Congress. I hope that ongoing investigations conducted by the special prosecutor and bipartisan intelligence committees in Congress will prevent any future interference by Russia, or anyone else, in our election process," U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, a Taylorville Republican, said in a statement.

Robert Mueller, Comey's predecessor as FBI director, is leading an investigation into Russian interference in the election, including allegations that President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with the Russian government.

Congressional investigations continue alongside that effort. Comey, who Trump fired May 9, testified Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Comey confirmed in his testimony today that President Trump was not personally under investigation" noted Davis, and "stressed throughout the hearing that while Russia did not change any votes, they did, and will again, attempt to interfere in our elections."

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a Dunlap Republican, also noted in a statement that Comey's testimony was "confirming that the president was not under investigation by the FBI."

"I continue to have faith that the investigations by the House and Senate, in addition to the work currently being conducted by Special Counsel Mueller, will produce answers to the questions that remain involving the allegations placed against the administration," said LaHood, a former federal prosecutor.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Channahon Republican, said in a statement, What the American people need are answers and the unabridged truth."

"The continued meddling by Russia is unacceptable and damaging to our democracy. Todays hearing is important in getting all correct information out there, and I look forward to learning more," he said.

U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats, were more critical of Trump in their statements.

"No person  not even the president  should try to influence or stop a criminal investigation. Special Counsel Mueller is investigating any criminal activity, and he is the right person for this historic assignment," said Durbin. "The question for the American people is: who do you trust? Director Comey kept extensive records of what the president asked of him and agreed to testify publicly under oath. That speaks volumes."

Duckworth said, "Mr. Comeys testimony about the presidents behavior should concern any American who respects the basic rule of law and our democratic institutions."

Lets be clear: the former FBI director has now testified under oath that he believes the president lied and may be under investigation for obstructing an active investigation into Russias interference in our democracy. These accusations are not normal, and they transcend petty partisanship," she said. "Mueller must now swiftly complete a transparent, impartial and independent investigation to ensure the American people learn the truth."
SPRINGFIELD  The Illinois Supreme Court has assigned former Logan County Judge Thomas M. Harris as an appellate judge on the 4th District Appellate Court.

Harris, who was temporarily assigned to the court in January 2013, will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice M. Carol Pope on Aug. 1. His term will run from Aug. 1 until a justice elected in the November 2018 is seated.

"In his four years on the appellate court, he has shown himself to be a thoughtful and deliberate jurist, who writes thorough and well-reasoned opinions," Justice Rita B. Garman said in a statement announcing the appointment.

Harris was first appointed as a judge in the 11th Judicial Circuit in 2007 and elected as resident circuit judge of Logan County in 2008. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Harris worked as a civil trial lawyer starting in 1988.

In the statement from the Supreme Court, Harris said, "I will continue to work hard as a judge in my current assignment and will work hard as a candidate to be elected to the court in 2018."

During his time on the bench in Logan County, Harris handled the initial phase of two murder cases against Chris and Jason Harris. The brothers were charged with murdering five members of the Raymond Gee family in Beason.

Chris Harris is serving life in prison for murder and Jason Harris is scheduled to be released in October 2019 after serving 10 of 20 years he received in his plea deal on charges of concealment of a homicide, drug possession and obstruction of justice.

McLean County Judge Scott Drazewski took over the cases from Justice Harris, who is not related to the suspects.

The new appellate justice earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois and law degree from the University of Colorado Law School.

The 4th Judicial District comprises 30 counties in Central Illinois, including DeWitt, Ford, Livingston, Logan, McLean and Woodford counties.
Resolute to Idle Coated Paper Machine at Catawba

The idling of PM 2 will remove about 193,000 metric tons per year of coated paper capacity from the Catawba's mill's paper production capacity.

June 8, 2017 - Resolute Forest Products on June 1 announced that it will idle a paper machine, PM 2, at its Catawba pulp and paper mill in South Carolina on June 30.

About 180 employees will be affected by the decision.

Resolute has experienced lower demand for all kinds of lightweight, coated paper products, including magazines, catalogs and flyer inserts, according to spokeswoman Debbie Johnston.

Production will be absorbed by Resolute's other paper machine, No. 3, also in Catawba. That machine is larger and faster, Johnston said.

Resolute employs 600 people in Catawba, where it has a production capacity of 720,000 metric tpy of paper products. About 193,000 metric tpy of coated paper capacity will be eliminated by idling PM 2.

"We recognize the impact this decision will have on our employees, their families and the local community," the company said in a statement. "As is customary, the company will work with affected employees and community representatives to mitigate the impact of the idling. We remain committed to customer service and to the delivery of high-quality products, and will work closely with customers to continue to meet their needs."

Johnston said there are no current plans to restart the machine.

SOURCE: Charlotte Observer and Charlotte Business Journal
Patna: Torrential rain on Wednesday brought much-needed relief to the Patna'ites as the temperature dipped from a sweltering 40 plus degree for the last several days to a moderate 27.4 degree Celsius though bringing with it the usual misery like water-logging in many areas for which Patna is known for.

According to the weather officials, Patna received 39.6 mm of rainfall on Wednesday, a record in recent years, while Gaya not being too far behind.

Bihar is expected to receive normal rainfall this year which is really a great news for the farmers who had been a victim of both drought and flooding for the past several years.

Meanwhile, several roads in Patna faced water-logging problems causing much inconvenience to the pedestrians and two-wheelers. In Rajendra Nagar, Dariapur, a number of roads in Kankarbagh, Station Road, and Pataliputra Colony witnessed ankle to knee-deep water as the administration scrambled to remove accumulated water from Patna streets.
Patna: With protest over massive bungling in the Inter exam results not showing any sign of subsiding, Jan Adhikar Party (JAP) leader and an MP from Madhepura Pappu Yadav joined the students protest in Patna on Wednesday to demand sacking of Education Minister and Congress leader Ashok Kumar Chowdhary.

Chanting anti-government slogans, Yadav said that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was putting blame on everyone but himself and the Education Minister who were ultimately responsible for the Inter result debacle and the collapse of education in the state.

Yadav said that students were the victims of a government that had ignored education in favor of other agendas like prohibition.

"How can the students learn when there are no teachers in schools? No wonder over 8 lakh students have failed. And instead of fixing education in Bihar, the government is resorting to lathi-charge on innocent students," he said.

Meanwhile, Chowdhary, speaking at a press conference at Sadaqat Ashram in Patna on Wednesday, blamed NDA for depicting Bihar in bad light by inciting students to rebel against the government.

"The state government has done a tremendous job in stopping cheating in test centers. There has been no irregularities in the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) but some people, driven by their political agenda, are hell bent on showing Bihar in bad light thus damaging the reputation of the state," Chowdhary said.
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Gigabyte is one of the biggest motherboard makers in the world, and we visited the companys factory in Taiwan to find out how theyre manufactured.

Gigabytes Nan Ping factory in Pingzhen City, about an hour west of Taipei, is the last remaining motherboard factory in Taiwan. It produces about 400,000 units per month, or about a quarter of Gigabytes total motherboard output.

Robots remove a lot of the most complex work from humans. However, a surprising amount of construction is still done by hand: the insertion of many larger components, for instance, and visual checks of the motherboards.

Martyn Williams/IDG Gigabytes factory in Pingzhen city, Taiwan.

Humans and machines often work together. Machines that attach teeny transistors have humans managing their supply. Small, wheeled robots deliver components to people on the assembly line. Human hands may pack the motherboards and accessories into boxes, but they scan each component against an electronic checklist to ensure the package has everything required.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has corrected National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentarians who are under the impression that global investment firm Franklin Templeton, is a person.



The correction came on the floor of parliament Wednesday, where he explained the raising of $2.5bn on the international market last April.



The Finance Minister said, contrary to accusations by some NDC MPs that "government is selling all our bonds to one person", Franklin Templeton is one of the world's largest asset management firms with over $850m in assets.



Some NDC MPs led by the Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu, claimed Franklin Templeton was a person.



But "for the avoidance of doubt, Franklin Templeton is not a person" the investment banker-turned politician said in parliament. He also explained that the 95% of the bonds bought by Franklin Templeton is not odd as claimed by the Minority.



This is because, in 2016 under the NDC government now a Minority in Parliament, Franklin Templeton bought heavily into Ghana's bonds. The Minority had also claimed there could be conflict of interest in the deal because Templeton Group has a position on the Board of Enterprise Group Limited, a company co-founded by the Finance Minister.



The Finance Minister was at pains to stress, the rules surrounding bond issuance make it highly unlikely for government officials to have any direct relationship with investors.



He said this is because the bonds are bought by individuals only through licensed financial institutions.



Rejecting claims after claims, the Finance minister said there was "no inherent insider dealing" in issuing the bond because it is only through transparency that foreign investors can express interest in the long-term financial instrument.



Ken Ofori-Atta also spent time to eventually dismiss claims raised by the Minority that the bond was denominated in dollars which weakens the cedi. The Minister said, the Minority may have had that impression because "the high participation of foreign investors created false impression that it was a US dollar denominated bond".



He stated "categorically that the bonds were denominated and issued in Ghana cedis...they were not dollar bonds" and expressed delight that using melting dollars to buy cedis will strengthen the local currency.



He explained the bond had low domestic investor participation because historically, they shun long-term investments such as this bond which matures in 15-years.



Ken Ofori-Atta said the world hailed the government for pulling off the "single biggest daily transaction in sub-Saharan Africa". But he came home to find the Minority making "big issues out of a non-issue". He indicated that the query from the Minority is much ado about nothing because, the process used by the previous administration to raise money on the international market is the same process adopted by the new government.



The only difference is that the results are better and investor confidence in Ghana is greater.



He tried to give the NDC MPs the benefit of the doubt saying it could be that their concerns were "genuinely borne out of a lack understanding of the actual process".



Nonetheless this view "may be deemed too charitable because the CVs of some of the persons involved are very, very strong".



Why government raised the bond



Laying down his facts, the Finance Minister said government is saddled with the payment of 10 billion cedis as its annual interest payment on past loans.



Breaking it down, government needs to cough up 1bn cedis on a weekly basis to service domestic debts. This amount is a 100% increase from what used to be the case in 2014. One billion cedis chews off one-third of the monthly tax revenue collected by the Ghana Revenue Authority.



Ghana once with a total debt of 36bn cedis in 2012, had a debt burden of 122bn cedis in 2016.



He said for the past NDC government, the plan to deal with this debt is to "borrow more, tax more" which had " the obvious consequence of worsening the debt burden". The depressing economic situation affected the purchasing power of Ghanaians, triggered job losses in an atmosphere of austerity and weakened the currency, he said.



This burden also leaves government with "very little cash" for essential social services. The new NPP government, he said, "had no choice" but to "think outside the box" by designing a financial instruments which he said, do not raise the debt burden in any way.



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The Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, yesterday defended the $2.25-billion bond issued by the government, saying the process had been transparent and that all the rules governing the issuance of government bonds were complied with.



He said just like previous bonds issued by the country, the two recent bonds were taken through a competitive and transparent bidding process and managed by joint book runners, namely, Barclays Bank, Stanbic Bank and SAS, who were appointed in 2015.



He denied the allegation of conflict of interest involving him and Franklin Templeton Investments in the bonds issue process.



Mr Ofori-Atta was responding to a half-hour motion moved by the Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, last week Wednesday for him to provide the full complement of documentation related to the issuance, the participants, the utilisation of the proceeds and the currency in which the bonds were settled.



The Finance Minister submitted some documents related to the bonds to Parliament.



Bonds in cedis



Mr Ofori-Atta said on April 3, 2017, the government issued two new bonds and reopened two others.



He said all the bonds were domestic Ghana cedi bonds in the aggregate amount of GH97 billion and they were as such settled in cedis, saying "they were not US dollar-denominated bonds".



He said the Ministry of Finance did not deviate from the rules in issuing the seven-year and the 15-year bonds and reopening the five-year and the 10-year bonds.



Franklin Templeton Investments



The Finance Minister said Franklin Templeton Investments, which bought the highest percentage, was not a person, as was being suggested, but the entity which owned the Templeton Global Bond Fund.



He said Franklin Templeton Investments was one of the world's largest asset management groups, with over $850 billion in assets under management on behalf of more than 25 million private, professional and institutional investors as of September 30, 2014.



"In all my Wall Street years, I never had the opportunity to meet the founder, Rupert Harris Johnson Snr, who retired in 1957 and died in March 1989, aged 89," he said.



The Finance Minister said as was the normal practice since the book bidding process began in 2015, the joint book runners announced the sale of the bonds as per the second quarter issuance calendar.



Subsequently, he said, primary dealers, who were mostly banks, mobilised interested foreign and local investors to participate in the sale.



"At no point during the book build process does the Ministry of Finance directly negotiate with any investor in any way. Let me assure you that it will, indeed, be quite difficult to manipulate the process when there are three financial institutions, of which two are international banks governed by strict Bank of Ghana rules and regulations," he said.



Domestic debt



Mr Ofori-Atta said the issuance of the bonds was part of the new debt management strategy of re-profiling the domestic debt by refinancing a greater proportion of shorter-dated debt instruments with longer-dated instruments.



Therefore, he said, the government expected commendation from Ghanaians for taking bold steps and not condemnation.



Minority wants more documents



But the Minority expressed dissatisfaction with the presentation, insisting that the Minister of Finance did not provide the full complement of documentation related to the bonds.



Leading the argument, Mr Iddrisu said the minister failed to provide documents on the date of issuance, the participants and utilisation of the proceeds.



He said due process was not followed in the issuance of the bonds, saying "there are more unanswered questions".



The Minority Leader said the Minister of Finance was supposed to provide the full facts on how the bonds were issued but he rather chose to make a general statement on how bonds were issued.



Majority defends



The Majority lauded the bonds as a best bet for Ghana, as they had earned the country the biggest amount to be secured in a day in sub-Saharan Africa.



The Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, said the market considered the brighter prospects of the bonds, hence the positive response that they attracted.



He said the strategy behind the bonds issue was crucial, as it would not add any debt to the country's debt portfolio.

Source: Daily Graphic









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A new superstitious belief has emerged in some remote area in Mozambique, that bald men have gold in their head. Authorities in Mozambique say five bald men have been killed in central Mozambique, two in May in Milange district, close to the border with Malawi, while three were killed this month in Morrumbala district in the country.

According to the police, two young people have so far been arrested over the killings.



BBC reports that after the killings, the heads are taken to a witch doctor who will use magical powers to extract the gold and make them rich.



Mozambique police spokesman Inacio Dina confirmed the killing of men with bald saying a team had been sent to the remote region to investigate the murders: 'Our preliminary conclusion indicates that the phenomenon is due to cultural beliefs. We are currently investigating the case to find out more and to understand the dimension of the problem.



'The phenomenon can lead bald people to be pursued and killed. This is a serious homicide crime. Our current interest is to catch and hold responsible all those involved, ' he said.

Source: BBC









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The late Captain Maxwell Adam Mahama whose tragic killing by a mob at Denkyira-Obuasi stunned the nation has also resurrected a frank discussion about lynching, mob justice, trust in the police and the menace of illegal mining also now as galamsey.



But who was Maxwell Adam Mahama?



According to his Facebook profile, he studied abroad at the University of Leicester where gained a Masters degree in Security and Risk Management. He also attended the University of Ghana where he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and History. Before that he had attended the St Johns School in Sekondi-Takoradi in the Western Region for his secondary education. He also attended Akosombo International School.



He was the only son of his mum and leaves behind a mother, father, Barbara, his wife and two young children. He married Barbara, his wife in August 2012.



Defence Minister, Dominic Nitiwul submits that Captain Maxwell Mahama, in his thirties, was a leader of a platoon detailed to a mining company at Denkyira-Obuasi and was posted to the area about three weeks ago to relieve the Commander of the military personnel guarding a local mining company so the Platoon Commander can sit for an examination in Accra.



Mahamas death tastes even more bitter when it emerged he was to be promoted to a Major after successfully passing the examination, few weeks ago.



It is clear he loved his wife, the beautiful Barbara dearly rendering on Facebook that his greatest accomplishment was having her.

Read below his post

Source: blakkpepper.com









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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.
Remember last year, when we all woke up one morning to learn that our former Prime Minister Julia Gillard was JUST CASUALLY HANGING OUT WITH RIHANNA LIKE IT WAS NBD?

We wont give up until every child is in school and learning. Welcome to the @GPforEducation team, @rihanna! https://t.co/kHnIBPpTc2 pic.twitter.com/Cy0QIdNDLT  Julia Gillard (@JuliaGillard) September 23, 2016

Well, were pleased to inform you that theyre absolutely up to their shit again.

RiRi is the Global Ambassador for the Global Partnership of Education, where Gillard just happens to chair the Board.

The GPE just released a video of Rihannas visit to Malawi to highlight issues with the education system (overcrowding, under-resourced, etc), and it contains this absolutely unreal clip of the pair of them teaching a class maths.

Alright, so its more Rihanna.

And okay, it might not have been *perfect* maths.

Not so sure about Rihanna and Julia Gillards maths lesson. pic.twitter.com/7zcEf0HVV2  Denham Sadler (@denhamsadler) June 8, 2017

But its still just a fundamentally bizarre concept. Rihanna, Julia, the mathematical improbability that three minus zero equals zero. Perfection!

You can watch the full vid released by GPE below.

Photo: Global Partnership for Education.
Bomb Squad officials are investigating a suspicious package found by a customer inside a Queensland K-Mart, which caused the store to be hastily evacuated.

Police have locked down the shopping centre in Caboolture (north of Brisbane) after the package was found in a change room at around 9:20am.

Streets surrounding the area have been blocked off and police have advised members of the public to avoid the area entirely.

A police spokesperson described the suspect package as being some sort of box or package that reportedly had wires sticking out of it. The Explosive Ordnance Response Team was subsequently called in to investigate the discovery.

Suspicious device found in Caboolture Square. Centre evacuated. The bomb squad is responding. @7NewsQueensland pic.twitter.com/AtbMjpc0tL  Mylee Hogan (@MyleeHogan) June 8, 2017

One shop owner in the centre reported a chaotic scene after being told to evacuate by a cleaner.

He came in saying, get out, get out. No seriously, you need to get out, and then it came on over the PA telling us to evacuate. Kmarts doors were already shut when we came out everyone had to leave their trolleys where they were. I dont know if it was anything, but I guess theyve got to do what theyve got to do just in case.

The area remains closed to the public as police continue their investigation.

Source: Courier Mail.

Photo: Mylee Hogan/Twitter.
Selena Gomez has discussed the mixed responses to 13 Reasons Why in a recent radio interview, and defended the Netflix series depiction of suicide.

Gomez told American radio host Elvis Duran that the series, on which she serves as executive producer, was right to depict the lead characters death in an honest way.

The content is complicated. Its dark and it has moments that are honestly very hard to swallow, and I understood that we were doing something that is difficult, Gomez says.

But these kids today are so exposed to things that I would never even comprehend when I was eight.

She described the experiences of a cousin who teaches young children, who told her theyre doing things, insane things, that I couldnt even fathom.



And I thought, if this is what were going to talk about, we might as well do it in a way that is going to be honest, is going to be real, and it stays true to the book.

She went on to describe how exactly the shows second outing will compose itself, calling each characters progress encouraging and empowering, and that were going to actually answer a lot of those questions, and a lot of resolutions for those characters are going to come.

Its not the first time Gomez has reacted to the shows mixed reception, either. Earlier this year, Gomez countered the wave of criticism which smashed the shows depiction of suicide by saying its going to come no matter what.



Its not an easy subject to talk about, but Im very fortunate with how its doing.

You can catch the most recent chat, in which she also discusses her relationship with social media, immediately below. Skip to the 9:29 mark to catch the 13 Reasons Why discussion.

Source: Elvis Duran Show / YouTube.

Photo: Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / Getty.
Chris Dawsons Daughter Has Pleaded With Him To Finally Share Where Her Mothers Body Is
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

The awakening of Bob Casey continues.

In a strongly worded op-Ed published by the left-leaning Huffington Post, the Pennsylvania Democrat, who's emerged as one of President Donald Trump's most vocal critics, gives a full-throated defense of the women's health organization Planned Parenthood.

Casey, a two-term incumbent, is running for re-election in what's shaping up to be one of 2018's more closely watched contests. At least a half-dozen Republican hopefuls are lining up to challenge him.

Frequently criticized for his relatively low-profile, Casey has been taking a series of increasingly public - and more progressive stands - as he attempts to connect with a Democratic base angry with the Trump White House.

Calling himself a "pro-life Democrat," Casey wrote that he "believe[s] we must do everything we can to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions in this country, including increasing access to contraception and helping pregnant women before and after birth."

By offering mostly low-income women access to contraception and other health services, Planned Parenthood "prevents unintended pregnancies and reduces abortions."

"That's a pro-life record to be proud of," he wrote.

Efforts to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood "could have the exact opposite effect," Casey wrote. "By increasing access to all forms of contraception and high-quality contraceptive counseling, Planned Parenthood enables women to choose the methods that work best for their bodies and lifestyles."

He adds that such is the case particularly in "my home state of Pennsylvania. We need more health care not less.

"In Pennsylvania, Planned Parenthood plays an indispensable role in serving family planning patients that rely on the safety net," he wrote. "Right now, over 90,000 Pennsylvanians depend on the 32 Planned Parenthood health centers state-wide for care, including cancer screenings, contraception, STD testing and treatment, and well woman exams. Fifteen Planned Parenthood health centers in Pennsylvania are located in medically underserved areas or healthcare provider shortage areas."

Casey took sharp aim at GOP efforts to defund the group (a bill is pending in Pennsylvania that would move Planned Parenthood to the back of the line for taxpayer support, effectively defunding it).

"The president and many Republicans in Congress have made it a top priority to "defund" Planned Parenthood and roll back women's access to family planning care and contraception. The real-life effects of these policies are devastating."

In a statement, Pennsylvania Republican Chairman Val DiGiorgio accused Casey of abandoning the legacy of his father, the late Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr., who was an icon of the pro-life movement.

"Bob Casey woke from his slumber to find that the Democrat party is now a far left party. In a desperate attempt to protect his left flank, Bob Casey has abandoned his father's pro-life legacy once again. He has traded his father's legacy of supporting life for the support of Planned Parenthood, Democrat party bosses, and D.C. special interests like the Center for American Progress," the statement reads.

"In an effort to keep his progressive base intact, Bob Casey is reinventing himself as an aggressive progressive and leader of 'the resistance,' DiGiorgio concluded.

The rest of the day's news starts now.

The Tribune-Review has the story of the Pittsburgh native who's been chosen as NASA's newest astronaut.

President Donald Trump name-checked Pittsburgh in yet another policy speech, The Post-Gazette reports.

A 16-year-old girl who was hit by a freight train in southwest Philadelphia is in critical condition, PhillyMag reports.

Pennsylvania lawmakers have signed off on the biggest expansion of gambling since 2004, our Capitol colleague Wallace McKelvey reports.

School districts have reached a 'tipping point' on delivering quality services, PennLive's Jan Murphy reports.

BillyPenn has 7 pivotal moments from the Cosby trial on Wednesday.

Here's your #Harrisburg Instagram of the Day (because everything is better with a little ukelele in in it.):

A mama gorilla at the Philly zoo got some human assistance in delivering her new baby. And the photos are adorbs (via NewsWorks/WHYY-FM).

A couple in Whitehall Twp. in Lehigh County have been found dead in their homes. Police, as you might expect, are investigating, The Morning Call reports.

The state's casino industry has launched a campaign against the latest gambling expansion push, PoliticsPa reports.

Here's Stateline.org on the push to build 'a sustainable highway of the future.'

Politico has 5 things to watch from today's Comey testimony on Capitol Hill.

So what's at stake in Jim Comey's testimony? Not much - just Donald Trump's presidency, Roll Call offers.

What Goes On.

The House comes into session at 9 a.m. to vote (we expect) on that Senate-approved pension reform bill.

WolfWatch

Gov. Tom Wolf heads west to lovely Friedens, Pa., this morning to attend the opening of Pennnsylvania's newest coal mine. Speaking of which, this piece by PennLive's John Luciew about the same is definitely worth your time today.

What Goes On (Nakedly Political Edition).

8 a.m.: Breakfast for Rep. Eric Nelson

5 p.m.: Reception for Rep. Kate Harper

5:30 p.m.: Reception for Sen. Tom Killion

Heavy Rotation.

Thursday's Gratuitous Baseball Link.

Baltimore seriously rebounded, closing a five-run deficit to pip Pittsburgh 9-6, sweeping their inter-league series with the Buccos.

And now you're up to date. See you all back here in a bit.
Hummelstown native Keith Ori is a celebrity in the world of extreme house flipping.

As one of four members of the FYI network show, "Zombie House Flipping," Ori, a real estate investor, can't go on vacation these days without being noticed.

Keith Ori of "Zombie House Flipping" on the FYI network.

Take a recent family vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Walking off the beach to the condo where he and his wife, their three children and Ori's parents were staying, he was approached by a man yelling, "Keith, Keith. You are the guy Keith from Zombie House Flipping."

"You have got to be kidding me," Ori said, laughing. "Literally, I think I am the least recognized person in the cast."

Now entering its second season, "Zombie House Flipping" pushes house flipping to the limit. The reality show, which premiered in early 2016, will air 10 p.m. Saturdays starting June 10. The A&E network will air the episodes on the following Saturday mornings.

The hour-long show brings together builder Ori, millennial house flipper Justin Stamper, builder and designer Peter Duke and realtor and designer Ashlee Casserly.

The foursome comb the downtown neighborhoods of Orlando in search of vacant, foreclosed homes in major disrepair. They are joined by Stamper's trusty companion, Marley.

Unlike other reality shows about dramatic house transformations, "Zombie House Flipping" targets diamonds in the rough. Zombie house is an industry term for a vacant, foreclosed house.

This season the team tackles 13 homes, including one that earned them recognition with an Orlando 2017 Historic Preservation Award.

The residence on East Copeland Avenue in the Lake Copeland Historic District dates back to 1925 and is a Prairie style home with an overhanging pyramidal roof, wide eaves and craftsman style windows.

"It was obviously a much more detailed, longer process. Inevitably, when you crack into a house that old you are going to find things unexpected," said Ori, who has lived in Orlando for about 20 years.

During renovations, they found a prescription dating from the early 20th century for opium from a local pharmacy.

"Just crazy, crazy stuff," said Ori, a a 1987 graduate of Lower Dauphin High School. "It's like Alice in Wonderland going down the rabbit hole."

Viewers this season should expect plenty of drama including Ori falling through a ceiling destroyed by termites, an invasion of ducks and a floating spa tub in a swimming pool. Stamper also broke his leg and was unable to assist with some of the projects.

Viewers should know the show is not scripted, Ori added.

"Everything on the show we do. The houses are in our name. We are not given any money from production to flip houses. If we lose money, it's our money to lose. It's up to us to get it right," he said.

Ori said he decided to do the show after being approached by Stamper. All of the cast members had worked with each other in and around the Orlando area in the past.

He arrived in Orlando in about 1997 after traveling around the nation working for SkyTel Company following his graduation from the University of Southern Mississippi. He still visits his parents, David and Carol Ori in South Hanover Township.

"As far doing the show, it's kind of the idea we are creating something. We take houses that are run down, beat up and and we turn them around and make them beautiful ... In reality, that's what we have always done. To be able to do that and put it on TV, that's fun," Ori said.
Tucked away in the southwestern Pennsylvania forest sits one of Frank Lloyd Wright's most notable buildings, which marked the start of the architect's remarkable second act.

Wright was born June 8, 1867, and he was long considered an innovative architect with buildings in Illinois, Wisconsin and several other states. But after reaching his late 50s, work slowed. The architect saw little work between 1922 and 1934. Scarce commissions during that period included block houses and the innovative but unbuilt National Life Insurance Building in Chicago.

"Before Fallingwater, he'd had only three projects in the previous 10 years," said Lynda Waggoner, director of Fallingwater and vice president of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. "He was really thought of in the world of architecture as an elder statesman and not a player anymore. Of course, with Wright's ego, that didn't sit very well."

He turned to writing during this dry period, penning an autobiography in which he wrote of a holistic way to view life instead of focusing on work and money. The text received critical acclaim and inspired the younger generation with ideas that struck a chord during the Depression.

Wright and his wife, Olgivanna, founded an architectural school around this same time. There they established the Taliesin fellowship, an immersive apprenticeship that included elements of architecture in addition to farming and art.

Inspired by Wright's writing, the young Edgar Kaufmann Jr. applied for the apprenticeship. He was the son of a Pittsburgh department store magnate, and Wright likely saw the potential in such a relationship.

"Edgar Jr. never planned to be an architect," Waggoner said. "Taliesen took all kinds of students, the primary criterion being that they had money. Wright was very much in debt at that point. He was almost in bankruptcy."

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, center, is surrounded by apprentices at Taliesin, his estate at Spring Green, Wis., Aug. 17, 1938.

"I'm sure when Edgar Kaufmann Jr. comes to study at Taliesen, Wright knew that there was a potential client in this relationship," Waggoner added. "He knew the money was there, and knew that Edgar Kaufmann Sr. loved buildings. So at any rate, he invites the parents out and one thing leads to another."

Edgar Kaufmann Sr., a department store magnate, had corresponded with Wright years prior about a potential project. Nothing came of that request at the time. But after Wright and the Kaufmann family established a stronger relationship and visited the property, the idea for Fallingwater blossomed.

The land on Bear Run was formerly owned by the department store and used for staff retreats. After Edgar Sr. acquired the property, he wanted to build a home with a view of the waterfall. The ambitious Wright, however, convinced the Kaufmanns to build directly above the falls.

He created a design that used the natural landscape, anchoring the cantilevers to one sandstone column in the center of the house. Windows and doorways throughout the house connect the inside to the outside, and the stream serves as natural air conditioning.

"It took a lot of nerve to build this house," Waggoner said. "The engineers in Pittsburgh make fun of it. They did a drawing of the house, like a cartoon, with life rafts hanging off the terrace. They said it would never stand."

A stairway from the living room leads to the top of the waterfall at Bear Run, where the Kauffman family would take a dip in the water.

Materials for the house were sourced locally, a common trait of Wright's work because he felt it helped connect a building to a place. Fallingwater's sandstone was quarried about 500 feet from the waterfall. Glass and steel came from Pittsburgh. The fourth material, concrete, was poured on-site.

Laborers were also local, and largely untrained. Because it was the Depression, work was highly sought after. About 70 men were hired to work on Fallingwater, each paid about 25 cents an hour.

"[Wright] liked the fact that a lot of the stonemasons had never laid stone before," Waggoner said. "A stonemason would look at this stone and say, 'This is not how stone is supposed to be laid.' It's very rustic."

The project was originally budgeted for $40,000 (about $713,939 today) but cost a total of $155,000 by the time the main house and guest house addition were completed.

A cantilevered walkway leads to the guest house at Fallingwater.

To his critics' dismay, Wright and the house were on the cover of Time magazine just a couple years later, ushering in a successful second act in the last two decades of his life. Wright completed more projects after Fallingwater than he did before.

After his father's death, Edgar Jr. entrusted the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1963. It was still considered a contemporary building, but he wanted to ensure it and the surrounding land would be preserved. Edgar Sr. had served on the conservancy's board, so the family was familiar with the organization's work.

"I think Edgar Kaufmann looked to the conservancy because what he had seen happening to Wright's buildings at that time was that some of them were being lost because the land was so valuable, or they were being built up around, or the collections were being sold off," Waggoner said.

Edgar Jr. was involved in the process of establishing Fallingwater as a museum. He wanted visitors to be able to fully experience the architecture instead of being forced through a building with roped-off rooms, and he wanted it to appear lived in with the family's own belongings. The conservancy listened to his recommendations and together established the museum as it is today.

He also involved his longtime partner, Paul Mayen, in transforming the home into a museum. Mayen, an industrial architect, built the visitors' center for Fallingwater.

The home was designated a national historic landmark in 1976. It has received more than 4.5 million visitors since opening its doors to the public.

"You don't have to be an architecture fan to appreciate Fallingwater," Waggoner said. "We all dream of living in a treehouse, and that's what it's like."

DETAILS: Tours available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 1491 Mill Run Road, Mill Run. Cost: $30 for adults, $18 for youth. Children under age 6 are not allowed to tour the building. 724-329-8501. www.fallingwater.org.
A Florida woman who claimed the mass school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax has been sentenced to five months in jail after being convicted of making threats to a father of one of the children.

57-year-old Lucy Richards admitted sending a message stating "LOOK BEHIND YOU IT IS DEATH."

The Post wrote that the threats were made to Lenny Pozner, whose 6-year-old son Noah was among 20 children and six adults shot dead by Adam Lanza at the school in Connecticut in 2012.

She was originally accused of leaving a series of threatening voice mails, although three of four charges were dismissed under her plea agreement, The Post reported.

The Post quoted the judge as telling Richards, "I'm sure he wishes this was false and he could embrace Noah, hear Noah's heartbeat and hear Noah say 'I love you, Dad' ... Your words were cruel and insensitive. This is reality and there is no fiction. There are no alternative facts."

Much of the information in the Post story was originally reported by the Associated Press. Attributing the information to the Associated Press, the Post reported that Richards has had mental health problems.

Her sentence also call for her to be confined to her home for five months following her jail term and to be under supervision for three years, during which she must keep a daily log of her computer activity.
A man accused of punching and kicking a man while an accomplice stabbed the victim in Franklin County Tuesday has turned himself in, state police say.

Anthony Tyler Naples, 21, turned himself in to state police in Chambersburg at 10 a.m., police said.

Still wanted is Anthony Grant, 29, of Maryland, who is accused of stabbing a man four times in the back during a drug deal around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday at a home along the 2500 block of Stillhouse Hollow Road in Southampton Township.

Anthony Grant

Naples is accused of punching and kicking the victim while Grant stabbed him, police said.

The victim was taken to the hospital for treatment of injuries including a punctured lung, police said.

Anyone with information about Grant is asked to contact police at 717-264-5161.
NORRISTOWN - Several key witnesses have already testified at Bill Cosby's trial, but what prosecutors hope will be the most damaging evidence against him is coming from an unlikely source.

Cosby's own admissions.

Before the jury was brought in for the fourth day of Cosby's trial in Montgomery County Court today, the defense tried, again, to keep Cosby's testimony under deposition from a 2005 lawsuit out of this trial, which Judge Steven T. O'Neill denied.

Cosby is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He was not charged then, but Constand did file a lawsuit in which Cosby gave statements under deposition. Part of that testimony is expected to be presented at trial soon with Cosby admitting to giving women Quaaludes before sex.

But first, Sgt. Richard Schaffer of the Cheltenham Township Police Department testified about his first interviews with Constand after she reported the incident to police in January 2005.

"She seemed anxious to me, a little bit nervous, and the overriding thing is she seemed like she wanted to get her story out," Schaffer said about his first call with Constand.

Schaffer also interviewed Cosby at his lawyer's office in New York City shortly afterwards.

In that interview, the transcript of which Schaffer read to the jury, Cosby said he and Constand were friends and he was a mentor to her, and their relationship turned romantic on several occasions.

Cosby admitted in the statement to having recent conversations with Constand and her mother on the phone and said the two had called because the mother wanted to know what medication Cosby had given her daughter that had left her incapacitated.

"I told her I think I gave her some pills," Cosby said in the statement.

He told Constand's mother he would write down the name of the medication and mail it to her. Constand's mother was being aggressive on the phone, Cosby said, adding he felt threatened and did not know where that conversation was going.

The pills, Cosby told police, were Benadryl, and he he gave them to Constand the night of the incident because she was "stressed." That night, they kissed and touched each other over their clothing, Cosby said, adding he also touched Constand's breasts and private parts under her clothes.

"Did she tell you to stop?" investigators asked.

"No," Cosby said.

"Did she tell you she was paralyzed?"

"No," Cosby said again.

Their encounters never went beyond kissing and touching, Cosby said, adding he "never intended to have intercourse, like naked bodies, with Andrea."

When asked if Cosby and Constand ever had sexual intercourse, Cosby replied, "Never asleep or awake."

And Constand, Cosby added, was a willing participant in these encounters.

As the officer read the statement, Cosby listened, looking sullen, hand on his chin.

On cross-examination, defense attorney Brian McMonagle renewed his argument that Constand made inconsistent statements between what she told the police and her testimony. This included her telling police she and Cosby had been alone together only once, but testifying they were alone numerous times.

He also added that before she ever contacted the police, Constand reached out to attorneys specializing in sexual assault.

And the first time Constand ever mentioned putting the pills under her tongue was during her testimony this week, McMonagle said, pointing out that it mirrors the testimony earlier in trial of another accuser, Kelly Johnson.

McMonagle was building the argument that these inconsistencies are, in part, what led then-District Attorney Bruce Castor choosing not to file charges against Cosby.

Constand soon filed her civil suit, in which Cosby testified under deposition in four different sessions in 2005 and 2006. Cosby was then charged a decade later on December 2015 by the current district attorney, Kevin Steele.
FILE - In this Saturday, April 30, 2016 file photo, an ivory statue, right, lies on top of pyres of ivory as they are set on fire in Nairobi National Park, Kenya. A decorated war veteran with two decadesAo experience in military intelligence, Lt. Col. Faye Cuevas spent half her career providing intelligence support to U.S. counter-insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Now she is using her expertise to fight a different kind of conflict: the war on wildlife poaching. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
GOP remains on top in Northern Michigan but Democrats made some inroads Tuesday

The election showed that while the Republican Party still dominates Northern Michigan, there were some results that should give Democrats some hope.
Crude oil's price biggest downfall since March explain visually



U.S. total crude and products supplies jump by most since 2008. WTI-Brent spread narrows, encouraging U.S. crude oil imports.

NEW YORK

Petroleumworld 06 08 2017

Oil's 5 percent tumble Wednesday, the biggest slide since March, followed government data that showed U.S. crude and fuel stockpiles unexpectedly soaring at a time of year when they normally decline. Here are three charts showing what made oil bulls run scared.

Stockpile Surge

Total U.S. inventories of crude oil and products such as gasoline and diesel fuel surged the most since 2008 last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. The 15.5 million-barrel jump took investors by surprise, sending the market off a cliff. What caused the increase? Higher imports of crude, as well as a sharp decline in exports. Add in a 505,000 barrel a day drop in gasoline demand and you end up with growing stockpiles.

It's about total stocks, crude and products, because that's what the world wants to see, that's what OPEC wants to see," Michael Wittner, head of commodities research at Societe Generale SA in New York, said by telephone. "A week ago, you could say three of the past four weeks, it has come down, you are starting to see a trend develop. And then today, boom, the whole thing falls apart.





Dynamics Shift

What's behind the import shift that helped cause the 3.3 million barrel build in nationwide crude supplies? The spread between the global crude benchmark Brent and its U.S. counterpart tightened during the second half of May, shrinking to a premium of $1.99 last week, the smallest since February. A narrower gap encourages imports and makes U.S. exports more expensive relative to oil from elsewhere. Imports rose by 356,000 barrels a day last week, while crude exports fell by 746,000 barrels a day, the biggest drop ever.

Iraqi Imports

Where did the flood of imports mostly come from? Imports from Iraq surged to 1.14 million barrels a day, the most since 2012, according to preliminary EIA data. That more than outweighed a drop in imports from Saudi Arabia, which sank 55 percent to the lowest level since January 2015.

Today's report was the straw that broke the camel's back. We thought there would be no chance of a build in the oil market, Phil Streible, senior market strategist at RJO Futures in Chicago, said by telephone. There's a lot of chatter about oil heading back to the $20s again, he said.




Venezuela turns violent when regime forces take on pacific protesters



Police officers fires tear gas canister towards demonstrators during a rally in Caracas, Venezuela

CARACAS

Petroleumworld 06 08 2017

A 17-year-old Venezuelan protester died in ferocious clashes between security forces and protesters in Caracas on Wednesday, taking the death toll from unrest since April to at least 66.

The government said Neomar Lander died when a homemade mortar exploded in his hands while hundreds of youths faced off with National Guard troops in the Venezuelan capital.

Opposition lawmakers, however, said he was killed by a tear gas cannister fired straight at him. The state prosecutor's office announced a probe, without giving details.

A Reuters photographer saw a young man, assumed to be Lander, lying bloodied and motionless on the street, receiving emergency first aid.

At least 66 people have died, with victims including government and opposition supporters, bystanders and members of the security forces, since demonstrations began against President Nicolas Maduro more than two months ago.

Each side blames the other for the violence.

Critics denounce Maduro as a repressive dictator, and are demanding general elections, foreign humanitarian aid, freedom for hundreds of jailed activists, and autonomy for the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

"We mustn't let fear intimidate us, let's stay in the streets to fight for all Venezuelans' future," said opposition lawmaker Miguel Pizarro, weeping at a news conference as he described seeing Lander's death.

"Soon we will able to say these were the last, dark days of the dicatorship."

Maduro, 54, calls his foes violent right-wing "fascist" conspirators seeking a coup similar to the short-lived 2002 toppling of his predecessor Hugo Chavez.

"This is criminal terrorism, and we must reject it," Maduro told supporters in a speech carried on state TV, comparing his foes to Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Augusto Pinochet.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

In the worst turmoil of Maduro's turbulent four-year rule, thousands of people have been injured and arrested in recent weeks. Protesters are also complaining about hunger and shortages during a brutal economic crisis in the OPEC nation.

In Caracas on Wednesday, security forces using armored vehicles, water cannons and tear gas blocked opposition supporters from marching to the national election board's headquarters, sparking clashes around the city.

Masked youths with homemade shields hurled stones and Molotov cocktails, and set up burning roadblocks, while businesses and schools closed, and residents ran for cover.

Among hundreds of injuries reported in Caracas and other cities, the government highlighted the case of two National Guard soldiers wounded by gunshots when they were clearing a barricade in the El Paraiso district of the capital.

Seeking to keep the pressure on Maduro, the opposition announced further upcoming activities including a planned censure vote against the interior minister in the National Assembly and a rally in honor of Lander on Thursday.

Maduro has sought to take the heat out of the situation by announcing the creation of a super-body called a constituent assembly with powers to rewrite the constitution, but foes say that is a sham purely designed to keep the socialists in power.

The national election board announced on Wednesday that votes for the new assembly would still go ahead on July 30, despite an opposition boycott, criticism from some within government, and a legal appeal by state prosecutor Luisa Ortega who said it threatened to "eliminate" democracy.

The pro-government Supreme Court rejected her petition in a ruling made public on Wednesday.






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.
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Taipei, June 8 (CNA) The chances of relocating Songshan Airport in Taipei are nil within the next two decades and the city and the airport need to learn to live with each other, the head of the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said Thursday.
The Deep Space Gateway is still in the planning phase, and did not receive explicit funding in NASAs latest budget request. But the updated March outline retailored the flight manifest of the Orion spacecraft and giant Space Launch System rocket, with a goal of assembling the first phase of the gateway in a shorter period of time than in previously proposed scenarios. As a result, it could be possible to send astronauts toward Mars on a shakedown cruise in the proposed Deep Space Transport in the early 2030s. (Some industry insiders suggested NASA accelerated its Mars plans thanks to positive signals from the Trump administration, despite the strategy itself having Obama-era origins.)

For example, under the new scenario, the first piece of the cis-lunar stationthe Power and Propulsion Bus, or PPBwould hitchhike to lunar space with the second Orion mission, Exploration Mission 2, as early as 2022. That would be a year earlier than previously plans, though this launch date will be very hard to meet.

Even more importantly, the completed cislunar station could now host the Deep Space Transport as early as 2027, a couple of years ahead of the old schedule. Before its venture to Mars, the transport would make oneor possibly twocrewed test lights in the lunar neighborhood.

However, the accelerated plan came with some behind-the-scenes controversy. First of all, the new architecture featured only one habitation module, to be launched during Orions Exploration Mission 3, instead of two similar modules requiring two SLS launches.

International experts expressed doubts that the volume and other life-support capabilities of a single habitat would be adequate for long-duration expeditions. Even with the two-habitat design, planners were already struggling how to store and dispose of the trash that would accumulate, sources said. The loss of the second habitat was especially upsetting for the Japanese delegation, which eyed the module as a test bed for JAXAs next-generation life support system. The second habitat module could still be revived as a contribution from NASAs partners.

To address the problem of limited space, engineers began looking at the possibility of making the single can-shaped habitat module longer, fatter or even both. The size of the module is constrained not only by lifting capabilities of SLS, but also by the available volume inside the rockets payload fairing.

In their endless quest to save every pound of payload mass, planners originally forgot to give the habitat any windows. Now, realizing the scientific, humanistic and sociological importance of that ancient architectural detail, engineers are scrambling to find the way to incorporate at least small portholes with only a minimum mass penalty. The most popular solution, adding a 360-degree portable watchtower resembling the ISS cupola, takes away one preciously needed docking port. As a result, the exact location and design of the window remains a matter of debatedespite recent Deep Space Gateway showing the glass cupola.

In another new development, engineers are drafting a potential 10-ton cargo and tanker spacecraft to deliver pieces of hardware for the stations exterior, while also carrying fuel to increase the outposts lifespan and maneuvering capabilities. Besides traditional hypergolic propellant similar to that delivered to the ISS today by Russian Progress cargo ships, the new tanker might carry liquefied xenon to feed the stations innovative ion thrusters. Taking a page from the ISS history, the development and operation of the cargo system could be outsourced to private contractors.

In the meantime, Europe is advancing its plans for a large, robotic Moon lander closely associated with the Deep Space Gateway. The lander is expected to collect lunar soil samples and shoot them back to the station, where they can be delivered back to Earth by astronauts. The lander might also include a rover that would embark on what might become a record-breaking journey across the lunar surface, toward Amundsen crater near the Moons south pole.

The European effort, known by some as HLEPP, the Human Lunar Exploration Precursor Program, would pave the way for a larger crewed lander that could be based at the Deep Space Gateway. At the international partner meeting, engineers confirmed the capability of the station to support human expeditions to the surface. However, the station apparently would not be able to descend to low-lunar orbit, which would be the most convenient option for staging lunar landings.

The challenge of accessing the lunar surface from the proposed station, along with other financial and political issues, has led to diminishing Russian participation in the project, with only one observer from the Korolyov-based TsNIIMash research institute present at the latest summit. However, Russian engineers still hold hope they would be able to provide an airlock for the outpost and send their next-generation crew vehicle on periodic visits in the second half of the 2020s, Russian space industry sources said.

For more historic and technical background on the cis-lunar station project, click here.

Anatoly Zak is the publisher of RussianSpaceWeb.com and the author of Russia in Space: the Past Explained, the Future Explored.
Dashonn Maggette is charged with charges of attempted murder of a police officer and aggravated battery. (Photo: Cook County Sheriff)

A 32-year-old man was ordered held without bail Tuesday on charges of attempted murder of a police officer and aggravated battery, and the police officer he reportedly shot in the hand will require multiple surgeries to repair "shattered bones," Cook County prosecutors said.

Dashonn Maggette, who was shot twice Saturday as he struggled with two police officers who had cornered him in the stairway of an apartment building, remains hospitalized and was not present at the hearing, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

If found guilty of the charges, Maggettes two prior violent felony convictions would mean he faces a sentence of life in prison, Assistant States Attorney Joe Carlson said.

Doctors at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn operated on the wounded officers hand on Sunday, and said he will likely require additional surgeries, Carlson said.
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Today, the House of Representatives voted unanimously in support of a resolution brought by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) to condemn the assault by Turkish security personnel on peaceful protesters. This was purely symbolic since the resolution does not have the force of law.

McClatchy reports: Royce of California, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, called the violence an act of suppression on American soil and an affront to the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. Yet the conduct of Erdogans armed bodyguards has gone largely unchallenged, said Royce, who sponsored the resolution.

Last month, on Tayyip Erdogans orders his guards injured nine people who were exercising their first Amendment right to protest Erdogans warm reception by Donald Trump. Incidentally, Trump had words of praise for Turkeys dictator.

Our presidents response to this affront to our constitution was shameful and hardly the strong leadership the alpha-male Donald often promised to be during the campaign.

Again, according to McClatchy:

Although the State Department continues to investigate the matter, the Trump administration released two members of Erdogans detail after holding them briefly following the clash. The guards returned to Turkey with Erdogan.

There is reason to applaud the fact that for a brief moment, Republicans in the House of Representatives took a symbolic step to defend the right to protest under the first amendment of our Constitution. They joined with Democrats to rightfully condemn the violence and the disrespect inherent in Erdogans order that his guards attack people protesting on American soil.

This comes on a day, when I was wondering if anyone in the Republican Party understood that the freedoms enshrined in our constitution are what makes America great. Those freedoms can be cause for discomfort if youre the President, or a member of Congress but we still defend them.

This is the same day the Republican Majority on the Senate Intelligence committee did all they could to manipulate events and words to avoid the big Russia elephant in the room. Senator Burr put his Archie Bunker mask on to silence Senator Kamala Harris for her effective questioning as Democrats worked to ascertain if Donald Trump asked todays witnesses, Dan Coates and Mike Rogers, to shut down the Russia investigation. I was wondering if Republicans thought our sovereignty just isnt worth defending.

As Sarah Jones reported, a few hours after the story about Eric Trump stealing from kids with cancer to enrich the Trump family broke, Eric Trump said Democrats arent people. That statement sent chills down my spine bringing back memories of similar sentiments expressed by people responsible for genocide in Rwanda and earlier in Hitlers Germany.

The combination of these events, along with Trumps public praise for brutal dictators and his attacks on our allies, have cast doubt on if were still in America. Trumps lack of leadership on this incident reaffirmed his love for dictators and his disrespect for the America envisioned by the Founding Fathers.

For a brief moment, House Republicans joined with House Democrats to unanimously condemn the brutal assault of peaceful protestors at the hands of Erdogans guards. It was standing up for our values, albeit symbolically. A baby step by Republicans who have placed more emphasis on loyalty to Donald Trump than to America. But it was still a step to stand up for our sovereignty.

In simple terms, if you come to America, you follow our rules and that means you dont get to order your thugs to brutalize people on American soil for any reason, let alone for exercising their right to protest under our constitution. Of course, notably absent was Donald Trumps well established ability to go alpha male against those he believes dont respect our values, who dont respect us as Americans.

For a brief moment, it felt almost like governance as we knew it. This vote proves that Republicans can stand up for America when they choose to even if its purely symbolic. This vote also confirms our worst suspicions about the Republican Party. The other simple truth is they arent even willing to take a symbolic step to condemn Russias disrespect for our values, our Constitution and our sovereignty.

Image:CNN
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While most of the nations attention is fixed on Thursdays highly anticipated testimony by former FBI Director James Comey, Rachel Maddow explained on Wednesday that todays hearings with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and NSA Head Mike Rogers represent a dark and troubling turn in this ongoing saga.

Maddow not only noted that todays non-answers from Coats and Rogers are unprecedented, but that Congress must quickly find a way to fight back if this is the new strategy from the administration.

Video:

Maddow slams administration officials for refusing to answer basic questions about Trumps obstruction: pic.twitter.com/9wG3plvm9n  Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) June 8, 2017

Maddow said:

What happened today  this is a really big turning point in the overall question of whether we as citizens are going to get to the bottom of what happened here. If administration officials just start saying, No, Im not going to answer. No, Congress has no authority to learn this stuff. No, the American people just dont get an answer to these questions.  Thats new for this administration, thats new for this investigation thus far. Its a big deal. Its the first sign of how the Trump administration is going to fight this now that the president has his new external legal counsel apparently coordinating this fight. But if the answer is, No, you dont get answers because we dont feel like answering your questions, Im not sure Congress knows yet how its going to fight back against that new strategy. I dont even know if Congress is going to fight back against it. That question is newly, newly important.

The refusal of these two key officials to answer the most basic questions about Trumps interference in the Russia investigation speaks volumes about what Trump said and did behind closed doors. If Trump hadnt acted at all inappropriately, it would have been easy for the two men to deny the allegations  but they couldnt.

As Democratic Sen. Heinrich said to Coats during todays hearing, I think your unwillingness to answer a very basic question speaks volumes.

Not only does it speak volumes, but it also represents a frightening and dark turning point in this investigation where we now have an administration that thinks it doesnt need to be held accountable for anything.

As Rachel Maddow said on Wednesday, if this is the new strategy from the White House  to just remain silent when the American people demand answers  then Congress better come up with a way to fight back, and fast.
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As James Comey prepares to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Donald Trumps approval rating is crashing to the ground.

According to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday, a disastrous 34 percent of the country  a record low for this president  approves of the job he has done so far. A strong majority, 57 percent, disapprove of his job performance.

The numbers:

More key findings from the poll:

68  29 percent that Trump is not level-headed

59  36 percent that he is not honest

58  39 percent that he does not have good leadership skills

58  40 percent that he does not care about average Americans

64  33 percent that he does not share their values

62  32 percent disapprove of Trumps decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement

Unsurprisingly, one of the top issues on the minds of voters is the ongoing investigation into Trumps ties to Russia and whether his campaign colluded with the Russians to swing the election in his favor.

According to the poll, a staggering 60 percent of respondents said that the presidents relationship with Moscow is either illegal or unethical.

The same applies to those who work for the president, Quinnipiac noted: President Trumps campaign advisors did something illegal in dealing with Russia, 40 percent of voters say, as 25 percent say they did something unethical but not illegal and 24 percent say they did nothing wrong.

The Russia scandal is, indeed, a cloud over the Trump administration, and Comeys testimony  if his opening statement was any indication  will only make that cloud bigger and darker once the former FBI director makes the damning claims under oath.

With or without tomorrows testimony, however, the American people may have already tuned this president out and are simply counting down the days until they can vote him out of office.
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House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said the one thing that should terrify Trump after Comeys testimony. Schiff said that Comeys testimony provided evidence that Trump intended to interfere with or obstruct the Russia investigation.

In a statement provided to PoliticusUSA, Schiff said:



Today, former FBI Director James Comey testified that the President of the United States demanded his loyalty, and directed him to drop a criminal investigation into his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Director Comey further testified that he believes President Trump ultimately fired him in order to alter the course of the FBIs Russia investigation. It is difficult to overstate the significance of this testimony.

These discussions and others took place in one-on-one telephone conversions and meetings initiated by the President, or after the President cleared the room of other people. Director Comey wrote memoranda about his conversations with President Trump because he was worried that the President and his Administration would misrepresent them.

In my view, this testimony constitutes evidence of an intention to interfere or potentially obstruct at least a portion of the Russia investigation, if not more. It will be important for Congress to obtain evidence to corroborate this testimony  the memoranda, certainly, as well as any tapes, if they exist. We should also interview those around Director Comey at the time of these contacts, to get their contemporaneous impressions of his conversations with the President and to supplement his testimony. Finally, we cannot accept the refusal of Directors Rogers and Coats to answer questions about whether they were asked to intervene with Comey on the Flynn case or any related matter. Similarly, we will need to ask Director Pompeo the same questions. These additional steps are vital to determining the ultimate significance of the Presidents actions.

When a former prosecutor who is also the ranking member on one of the Congressional committees says that Comey provided evidence of an intention to interfere with or obstruct the Russia investigation, that should scare Trump. The fact that the conversation has shifted from did Trump commit a crime to did Trump obstruct justice demonstrates exactly how bad today was for the White House.

No matter how Republicans want to spin it, the investigation took a big step forward, and if Adam Schiff is throwing around words like evidence and obstruction, Donald Trump has a world of problems.
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When President Trump asked the then FBI Director to drop the Flynn investigation, Flynn was in legal jeopardy and was under FBI criminal investigation.

During his testimony to the Senate Intel panel Thursday, former FBI Director James Comey said, General Flynn at that time was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves.

Watch here via MSNBC:

Comey: General Flynn at that time was in legal jeopardy and Trump asking me to back off the probe was disturbing pic.twitter.com/4oWVHAtWAr  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017

Sen. Burr (R-NC) asked, In your estimation at that time, was Gen Flynn at that time in serious legal jeopardy. And in addition to that do you sense the President was trying to obstruct justice or just seek for a way for Mike Flynn to save face given that he had already been fired.

Comey replied, General Flynn at that time was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves. That was my assessment at the time.

Comey refused to draw conclusions based on the facts (which is not his job) but related the facts that he was disturbed by it, I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct; I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but thats a conclusion Im sure the special counsel will work towards to try and work towards, to understand what the intention was there and whether thats an offense.

President Trump asked the then FBI Director to drop an investigation into Trumps by then fired National Security Adviser for criminal activity. Flynn was in legal jeopardy when Trump pressured Comey to let the investigation go.



Image: MSNBC
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While testifying before the Senate, former FBI Director James Comey called President Trump a liar while discussing the reasons the White House gave for his firing.

Video:

Comey: Those were lies, plain and simple. https://t.co/AGoO1pLTXa  Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) June 8, 2017

Comey said during his open remarks that he was confused when he saw Trumps reasons for firing him on television, and said, Although the law required no reason at all for the president to fire an FBI Director, the administration chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple.

James Comeys testimony is turning out to be everything that the White House and President Trump were worried about. Comey called all of Trumps reasons for firing him lies, which means that the real reason for the firing of James Comey was related to the Russia investigation.
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James Comey didnt want to opine of whether or not Trump obstructed justice, but he made it clear that special counsel is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.

Video:

Flag: Comey doesn't want to opine on Trump trying to obstruct, but says "That's a conclusion I'm sure the special counsel will work toward." pic.twitter.com/0WVe6dTN8t  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 8, 2017

While talking about Flynn, Comey said, General Flynn was in legal jeopardy. There was an open FBI investigation into his statements in connection with the Russian contacts, so that was my assessment at the time. I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the President was an effort to obstruct. I took it as a very concerning thing, very disturbing, but Im sure thats a conclusion that Im sure the special counsel will work toward.

In other words, Comey is a witness. It isnt his place to accuse Donald Trump of crimes. However, it is the role of the special counsel to investigate whether or not Trump obstructed justice. and judging from Comeys statements, the special prosecutor is investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.
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James Comey has been a credible witness, who has been fair and absolutely unshakable in his testimony. Senate Intelligence Committee Republicans have been unable to dent Comey, and his testimony about Trump has been damning.

The problem for Republicans has been throughout Comeys testimony that they have not been able to harm his account of his conversations with Trump. There have been so many bad moments for Trump during this hearing. Comey explained that he took notes on his conversations with Trump because he believed that Trump would lie about the conversations. Comey said that Trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice, and he said that he took Trumps words about letting go of the investigation of Mike Flynn as an order.

It is difficult to see how this hearing could go worse for Trump. The former FBI Director is telling the American people that the President Of The United States lied to them about why he was fired. The Republicans on the panel have been unable to paint Comey as a disgruntled former employee who should have done more to correct Trumps bad behavior.

Comeys testimony was the sort of moment in political history that ends presidencies. Comeys description of Trump paints a picture of a man who is obsessed with the Russia investigation, and completely out of control. Republicans will try to spin Comeys testimony, but it is impossible to understate how bad this morning is going for Trump.

If the Russia scandal becomes a matter of who the American people will believe, Donald Trump is going to lose that fight.

James Comey is using his credibility and delivering testimony that is another building block in the case against Trump.
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Son of President Trump and Trump organization trustee Donlad Trump Jr. took the place of his father and live-Tweeted throughout the entire Comey hearing. While the presidents staff did all they could to keep President away from his phone, Jr. did not hold back. Here are some of the highlights:

1/3 Flynn stuff is BS in context 2 guys talking about a guy they both know well. I hear "I hope nothing happens but you have to do your job"  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

2/3 very far from any kind of coercion or influence and certainly not obstruction!  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

3/3 Knowing my father for 39 years when he "orders or tells" you to do something there is no ambiguity, you will know exactly what he means  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

Hoping and telling are two very different things, you would think that a guy like Comey would know that. #givemeabreak  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

So if he was a "Stronger guy" he might have actually followed procedure & the law? You were the director of the FBI, who are you kidding?  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

Did I miss something or did Comey just say he asked a friend to leak information to the press? Is this a joke?  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017

Washington DC at its finest. This is what America rallied against, but the DC elite don't get it or know any other way. https://t.co/H5SszE4uL4  Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 8, 2017





Donald Trump Jr. is acting as his fathers surrogate and sending out very thoughtless and downright irrelevant tweets. Instead of any worthwhile substance, Trump Jr. is going after Comey himself, making a sad effort to destroy the credibility of the former FBI Director. If they really wanted to call Comeys ethics into question, why wouldnt Trump and his administration release the tapes of the conversation between Comey and the President?

Finally, these tweets are deeply concerning because it is the family of a sitting President undermining a former FBI director and the process the FBI goes through to solve criminal investigations. It shows a lack of respect for this organization in the White House, and could possibly convince people to not trust the investigative process that is integral to our government.
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Statement for the Record

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

James B. Comey

June 8, 2017

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then- President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President-Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBIs counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBIs leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureaus goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves turning the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counter-intelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will open an investigation on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBIs leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trumps reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone)  once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months  three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBIs traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not reliable in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybodys side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because problems come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, I need loyalty. I replied, You will always get honesty from me. He paused and then said, Thats what I want, honest loyalty. I paused, and then said, You will get that from me. As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently, but I decided it wouldnt be productive to push it further. The term  honest loyalty  had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

Comey: Trump said I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didnt happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we werent, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

Comey: Trump said I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counter-terrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, I want to talk about Mike Flynn. Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadnt done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information  a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, He is a good guy and has been through a lot. He repeated that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that he is a good guy. (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would let this go.

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynns departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the Presidents request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one -on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney Generals role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.

After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members  or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them  aware of the Presidents request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the Presidents concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened  him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind  was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBIs potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud. I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didnt find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week  at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, We need to get that fact out. (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadnt done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we werent investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadnt brought up the McCabe thing because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabes wife) campaign money. Although I didnt understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing the cloud that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasnt being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I get out that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that the cloud was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know. I did not reply or ask him what he meant by that thing. I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

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America is waiting to hear what Former FBI Director James Comey will say during in Congressional testimony.

Comeys testimony has the countrys attention, with all the networks planning to broadcast it live. CNN will suspend its usual subscription requirements to view its live-stream.

In DC, where I guarantee you, most residents are welcoming the day Trump leaves town in disgrace, at least 3 local bars will open at 9:00 to accommodate people who want to see the testimony of the year.

Few of us doubt that Comey will offer testimony about his encounters with Donald Trump, including the dinner conversation that Trump talked about during the Lester Holt interview. We may even hear some of the specifics that led to Comey asking Attorney-General Jeff Sessions not to leave Comey alone with Trump.

Comeys testimony is expected to help provide guidance on Trumps relationship with Vladimir Putin. Its likely he will be asked questions about the contents of his discussions with Donald Trump. Senators will ask Comey about Trumps claims that Comey told him he was not under investigation. They will ask if Trump tried to convince Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn.

Some will ask the one question Comey will not answer: Does Comey believe Trump obstructed justice?

Former FBI agent, Ronald Hoskey explained why Comey likely wont answer the question to Bloomberg: Youre going to have senators who probably challenge Comey to some extent because they dont like what hes done in the past  I would look for Comey to be circumspect and very deliberate in his descriptions of meetings so as to not to taint any future potential testimony.

If Comey answers that question, he would be drawing a legal conclusion and that would discredit any potential testimony he may have in the future. Its all but certain the Republicans will pounce on that. Theyd also claim this is merely the subjective conclusion of a disgruntled former employee.

Of course, Republicans will also try to claim that anything other than an affirmative answer means the Russia investigation is fake news, as are any suggestions that Trump obstructed justice.

Aside from Donald Trump, Republicans are hoping they can use Comeys testimony to discredit him and make the Russia investigation go away. The primary reason for that is protecting their hold on the White House, even if the person occupying it cant get a decent lawyer to represent him on the Russia investigation.

This is why Republicans have been busy trying to smear Comeys credibility when they arent trying to goad him into discrediting himself or divert completely with questions about leaks.

Lets face it, in our dreams Comey will say that Trump colluded with the Russians to rig the election in his favor. He will tell us that Trump definitely and without question obstructed justice. We want Trump out and we want him out now. The problem is, even if Comey believes that to be true; he is there to present what he has seen and heard, and leave the conclusions for others to draw. So he will talk about his encounters with Trump. He may comment on whether any attempts by Trump to kill the investigation were appropriate or inappropriate. But, assuming he was well advised, he will not offer legal conclusions as to whether Trump obstructed justice or colluded with the Russians.

As we know, articles of impeachment are waiting for Mr. Trump. So it isnt a question of if there is a basis to hold impeachment proceedings. But as Jason Easley rightly pointed out, that isnt going to happen in 2017 because Trumps willing little obstructionist control Congress.

The best we can hope for is getting out the vote in 2018 because the fact is, the future of our country and the worlds well-being depends on it.

Image: Yahoo
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Tropical storm conditions possible. Thunderstorms likely. Low 71F. Winds SE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Tropical storm conditions possible. Thunderstorms likely. Low 71F. Winds SE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%.
A large section of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger has been found buried in sand at the bottom of the Atlantic, more than three decades after the tragedy that killed a schoolteacher and six others. Read moreSection of destroyed shuttle Challenger found on ocean floor
I had the honor of serving my country for 15 years as a member of the Coast Guard. During that time, I was attached to an Army unit and deployed to Iraq in a train and advise capacity. My experiences at home and abroad have given me a perspective on war and transitioning out of the militar Read moreCommentary: SC can lead the way in honoring veterans and their service
Legislation outlawing near all abortions in South Carolina is officially dead after a stalemate between the House and Senate ended with GOP leaders in both chambers blaming each other. Read moreFinal Statehouse push to ban nearly all abortions in SC officially over for the year
RED WING  One of Red Wing's top employers  BIC Graphic  is being sold for $80 million.

There's no word yet on what the sale might mean for BIC's 456 local employees. The Red Wing facility makes more than 1,4000 different customized promotional items, like pens, cups and lighters, with businesses' names on them. BIC Graphic also has a plant in Sleepy Eye, Minn., with 620 employees.

BIC Group of France has signed an agreement to sell it's North American promotional products division and Asian sourcing division to a Miami, Fla.-based H.I.G. Capital, a private equity firm.

The deal, which includes $70 million in cash and $10 million in a six-year subordinated note, is expected to close by the end of June, according to the Wall Street Journal.

That price is about half of what BIC paid  $162.5 million  for Norwood Promotional Products in 2009. The company has struggled in recent years and BIC has been looking to sell it for a while.

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H.I.G. focuses on investing in companies with leadership positions in attractive markets. The 24-year-old conglomerate has $21 billion of equity capital under management and has invested in more than 200 companies worldwide.

"We are excited about partnering with H.I.G. for the next stage of our growth," said Emmanuel Bruno, BIC Graphic North America general manager, in the announcement of the deal. "We believe that they are the right partners to support our strategy and invest in our future."

H.I.G.'s Managing Director Camilo E. Horvilleur also commented in the announcement.

"We see tremendous opportunities in the business and are excited to support their growth as they continue to broaden and deepen their customer relationships," he said.
The Rev. Christopher Lenning, pastor of St. Pauls Lutheran Church-Hooper from 1997-2001, will be the guest preacher at St. Pauls Confirmation Jubilee scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Sunday.

Honored classes will be recognized during the worship service, and will be guests of honor at the lunch to follow in the church parlors.

Lenning currently serves First Lutheran Church and Shell Creek United Lutheran Church in Plaza, N.D., where he has been since 2005. From 2001-2004, he was interim pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church and campus pastor at Chadron State College in Chadron before moving to North Dakota. From 2004-2006, he served as director of the Western North Dakota Synods Camp of the Cross. He was ordained in 1998 at St. Pauls-Hooper.

Lennings family ties are in Iowa, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in communication from Wartburg College and then attended the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, receiving his Master of Divinity degree. He has been married to Jennifer Nodland-Lenning of Halliday, N.D., for the past 20 years; they have two teens, Aspen and Bradyn, who attend North Shore-Plaza High School.

All are invited to attend the confirmation jubilee. St. Paul's is located at 1843 County Road, E, Hooper.
Before we head out of town to Mankato on our day trip, we hit Rochesters Trader Joes for road trip snacks. The check-out clerk asks about our days plan and upon learning were headed to Kato Town, urges us to visit The Coffee Hag for, of all things, cookies. Duly noted.

Our family anthem CD  the Pitch Perfect soundtrack  locked and loaded to play, were off on Highway 14 West for our first destination: Vagabond Village, a vintage boutique where we have an appointment to shop at noon on this fine, sunny Memorial Day weekend Sunday. Owner Natalie Pierson greets us as we enter and my kids (14 and 13 years old), hit the aisles, while Pierson and I discuss her eclectic shop featuring everything from 1920s to 1980s merch.

"Ive bought what speaks to me for my whole life," Pierson says, recounting travels to Honduras, Spain, Costa Rica, Oregon, Minneapolis, and other places where shes picked up everything from folk art and music to artwork and typewriters. Jewelry, belt buckles, and clothes all have their place within Piersons 2,400-square-foot store in Mankatos Old Town district. "Im slowly fulfilling my dream. I have a lot of ideas, and now I have the space to execute them," says Pierson.

All of Piersons merchandise is $20 or under, though vendors can set their prices higher. "It doesnt have to be expensive to be vintage," she says. "I try to make it affordable and fun." As I pay for our purchases, the kids take turns tuning Piersons violin shes got in stock for a future project matching college students who want to teach music with kids who are looking to learn.

Our next stop is more of an adventure than a single stopping point: finding Mankato and neighboring North Mankatos newly-installed City Art Walking Sculpture Tour. Its all the rage among locals, and we spy people on bikes pulling off the sidewalk to view the sculptures dotting both burbs. We spot three sculptures at Main and Second streets, and the kids are off to photograph their faves while I assess eating options.

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I come up with three tempting possibilities: reliable diner food at The Wagon Wheel Cafe, the citys famous pizza at Paglias,or bar food at Midtown Tavern. The kids opt for the Tavern, and were off to whats being transformed into a hip eatery/brewery by new, young owners. The kids cue up some pool sticks after we order (a mushroom burger, breaded chicken sammy with cheese and bacon, and a skillet breakfast). The playlist here is awesome and before long were all  OK, maybe just me  jamming to "Five Hundred Miles" and scarfing down our food in an old-school, saggy-seated, window-side booth.

Fortified, were back to shopping, this time at a bowling alley-turned-auction house called Vintage Mall. Both kids find miniature safes, and my oldest nets a jewelry box and mug for her mug collection and talks me into a clay pot  something we dont need, but for $2.50, how can we pass it up?

Lastly, its, yes, The Coffee Hag, Mankatos independently-owned coffee shop featuring lattes, mochas, and everything else you expect from a coffee shop, plus those tantalizing cookies. As we converse, a local newspaper editor joins us with a cup of medium roast, comments that Mankato is "swimming in vintage" after hearing of our shopping exploits.

We head home to Rochester, full and happy with a trunk full of wares, pleased with our inaugural private shopping appointment at what is arguably Mankatos coolest, hippest store. Because come on, where else can you find a typewriter bar?
I'm not going to lie. I felt like I was in one of those zombie apocalypse movies. Or maybe one of those movies where everyone on earth except for like five people disappears, and you have to find the others in order to survive.

Which is to say it was a lonely walk to Gate B15 at MSP last week.

I kid you not: I went down an entire set of stairs, across a wide hallway, on one of those long, moving sidewalks, and down a long corridor to the gate  without seeing or hearing another single living being.

"Dude," I said to my boarding pass at one point. "Where are you taking me? The Twilight Zone?"

But the digital sign at B15 confirmed that I was in the right place. Flight 822 bound for Thief River Falls would be leaving in 37 minutes.

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I looked around, contemplating the silence. I knew there wouldn't be a full flight crew on my flight today  but now I was flying "home" for my little sister's wedding. It would be my first time on the 8-passenger plane that now makes daily, direct flights from Minneapolis to my hometown.

Normally, I drive the 400-mile trek to TRF. But Jay and the boys were going to be joining me a couple days later, and I was pretty jazzed about not having to drive two cars up.

At the same time, I was nervous about this flight. I'm not afraid of flying itself. I've logged many hours in the air, from Arizona to Alaska and from London to Greece. But this one-hour -fifteen-minute flight to northern Minnesota? This is the one I was nervous about.

I'd never been in a plane so small. I expected the slightest breeze would send it bumping along the sky, skidding back and forth across the clouds. I pictured a bouncy landing. Claustrophobia. Chickens in the cargo bay.

I don't know why the chickens. But this is what is going through my mind  chickens  when I'm finally joined by other humans. A man from Chatfield is going up overnight, he tells me.

Two women, who work for a government agency in the Twin Cities, are flying up for the day to check on a facility in Warren.

Mr. Chatfield has taken the flight before, he tells me. It's nice, he says. No chickens.

"OK," says the official-looking man who's just stepped behind the podium. "Everyone's here. We can go, if you're ready."

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There are 4 of us, and it's 10 minutes before we're scheduled to board. Score.

An elevator takes us to the tarmac, where a plane that's even smaller than I imagined sits in wait. We're cordially invited to board "and sit anywhere."

I stoop under the low ceiling while walking in behind the Warren women. The plane has a carpeted floor, leather seats and no door between the cockpit and cabin.

I choose the second seat on the right side, the Warren women behind me, Mr. Chatfield in front, to the left. Everyone has an aisle and a window seat. There are cupholders, and a little table that lifts out from below my window. Because the empty seat in front of me is situated so that the person sitting in it would face me, I have more legroom than I've had in an airplane, ever.

"It's like a real plane, only cooler," I think, before remembering this IS a real plane.

The first mate kneels at the entrance. He tells us to turn off our cell phones and buckle our seatbelts. He shows us the drawers near the cockpit that hold water, sodas, coffee and peanuts. "Help yourself," he says.

"We'll have headphones on," continues the first mate. "So if you need something during the flight, just tap us on the shoulder." I'm pretty sure I've never heard THAT from a pilot before.

My stomach does a nervous dance as we begin take-off. I brace for the jarring that is sure to come. But no. It's smooth and calm and comfortable. I look at Mr. Chatfield. "This is awesome," I say.

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"I know," he says.

I settle in, prop my feet on the seat ahead of me, and open my magazine. Mr. Chatfield leans back and grabs a Coke. "Want anything?" he asks. I take a water. "Peanuts?" he says, passing the box around.

We land in Thief River ahead of schedule. We hop out, and someone hands me my roller bag. I walk through the small airport and straight into my sister's car.

I'm at Dee's Kitchen, eating hash browns, within 20 minutes. And planning my next flight.
OWATONNA  A Rochester man accused of attempted murder will make his initial appearance Wednesday in Steele County District Court.

Ron Henry Lee Jaeger, 34, of 2027 S. Village Drive SE, remains in custody in lieu of a half-million dollar conditional bail. He's been charged with one count each of attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault, both felonies.

The charges stem from an incident Friday morning in a mobile home park in Owatonna.

The victim, a 36-year-old woman, was able to make it to a neighbor's residence, where she was found slumped next to its front door. She told the neighbor Ron Jaeger had stabbed her with a knife, the complaint says, then asked the neighbor to tell her kids she loved them; she thought she was going to die.

The victim was able to tell police that Jaeger left in her vehicle  and was likely on his way to Rochester. The woman was then airlifted from the scene to Mayo Clinic Hospital - Saint Marys Campus.

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Authorities found blood on the floor and other surfaces inside the victim's mobile home, the court document says, including a blood trail that led from a bedroom out the front door.

About 30 minutes after the initial 911 call, officers with the Minnesota State Patrol and Dodge County Sheriff's Office stopped the woman's car  with Jaeger behind the wheel  on U.S. Highway 14 just east of Dodge Center.

According to the criminal complaint, there was blood on the steering wheel, the inside and outside of the driver's door, on the left cuff of Jaeger's sweatshirt and on a folding knife collected from the floor of the front passenger side of the car.

Jaeger was arrested. He told authorities he was at the woman's house and they'd "struggled" and ended up in a bedroom, but denied she was cut or stabbed. He acknowledged that he'd had a utility knife on his belt at the time of the altercation, and also admitted he'd thrown a cell phone from the car as he drove toward Rochester. The phone was discovered where Jaeger said it would be.

The victim lost a significant amount of blood due to "penetrating injuries affecting her vital organs," a medical report says, including a serious injury to her abdomen, where she was stabbed twice.

She also sustained a stab wound to her right cheek and was stabbed five times in the back, the report says. Her condition Wednesday was unknown.

A review of Jaeger's criminal history indicates a conviction for domestic assault against the same woman in December 2016. He was sentenced in that case to 180 days in jail, with credit for 62 days already served.

He threatened to kill her, court records say.

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Jaeger was convicted in December 2014 of felony terroristic threats and sentenced to 22 months in prison.

In July 2006, he was convicted of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and terroristic threats, and sentenced to concurrent prison terms of 33 months and 21 months, respectively.

At least eight of his 26 criminal court cases involve assault or threats, the records show.

If convicted in the stabbing case, Jaeger could face up to 20 years in prison.
Authorities continue to search for Brent Douglas Espenson for his alleged involvement in a kidnapping and assault that occurred overnight Monday.

He also has an active arrest warrant for a third-degree controlled substance crime in Morrison County, issued May 11.

Espenson, 32, is 5 feet 6, approximately 120 lbs., with blonde hair and blue eyes.

He may be driving a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am, silver in color, with Minnesota license plate 175PDV.

If you know the whereabouts of Espenson, please contact your local law enforcement agency or the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office by calling 507-328-6800, calling CrimeStoppers of Rochester/Olmsted County at 800-222-TIPS (8477), sending a text to CRIMES (274637) or by visiting rochesterolmstedcrimestoppers.org.
The Rochester International Airportplans to welcome its first ever United Airlinesflight in style on Thursday.

The airport is hosting a celebration for when the first flight lands at 10:30 a.m. with water cannons shooting on the runway followed by a mayoral proclamation and ribbon cutting.

United's arrival on Thursday will mark the start of its three flights daily to United's hub at Chicago O'Hare Airport.

The new United flights combined with new flights from Delta is adding 100,000 more passenger seats to the small airport's annual offerings.

Things are looking up for the RST airport, which long has struggled to compete with the nearby Twin Cities airport. However, Rochester needs the local airport for domestic and international patients flying into Mayo Clinic, particularly to support the predicted growth driven by the Destination Medical Centerinitiative.

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Mayo Clinic founded Rochester's first airport in 1928. While the city of Rochester owns the current airport, Mayo Clinic is contracted to manage it via its Rochester Airport Co.firm.

Another positive move of the airport that is happening in tandem with the new flights is Mayo Clinic's recent change in policy on employee travel.

Most Mayo Clinic employees traveling for work now are required to fly out of the Rochester airport instead of traveling to the Twin Cities. The edict, which went into effect in May, also includes employees flying into Minnesota from Arizona and Florida.

However, it does not cover doctors and scientists. Instead of requiring them to use the Rochester airport, they are "strongly encouraged to utilize" it. In 2015, Mayo Clinic listed 2,289 staff physicians and scientists based in Rochester. It reported 1,899 residents and fellows and 30,374 allied clinic and hospital staff.

The hope is the additional airline, the new flights and Mayo Clinic's increased support will enable the airport to reverse the decline in passengers that it has seen in the past two years.

Passenger numbers spiked from 223,791 in 2013 to a peak of 237,341 in 2014, but that overall trend reversed in 2015, with the passenger numbers falling to 231,966 and then to 229,062 in 2016.
If you're watching Twin Cities Public Television and see a place that looks familiar, you're right  it is.

Rochester's popular restaurant Forager Brewery is featured in the series "Farm Fresh Road Trip," thanks to its advocacy for local farmers.

One goat farmer is the star of this particular episode: Katie Wiste Bonow, of Capra Nera Creamery in Altura.

"We try to bring in as many local products as we can while maintaining a good price point and quality ingredients," said Forager chef David Bredesen. "We work with local farmers because there's a big variety in our area and a surprising amount of small farmers."

TPT came to Forager on Wednesday to shoot footage. Bredesen is on camera in the episode, showing host Mary Lahammer how to make a salad that includes Capra Nera washed-rind cheese.

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They make a vinaigrette using dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, maple-ginger glaze, salt and canola oil, then mix it in with a salad of greens, toasted almonds, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper.

The salad is finished off with the cheese, red onions, turnips and asparagus.

"I met Katie at the (Rochester Downtown Farmers Market)," Bredesen said. "I found this goat cheese and fell in love with it. The hardened, aged goat cheese is amazing."

Bredesen said he's met a lot of producers at farmers markets that work with Forager now. He also consults MinnesotaGrown.org.

Wiste Bonow milks 35 goats herself and makes cheese every other day. Along with farming, she is president of the Houston County Farmers Union.

Currently, she is collaborating with Forager head brewer Austin Jevne on cheese that's washed in Twisted Zweig Blue Fruit beer. Twisted Zweig is made with berries from Blue Fruit Farm in Winona. Jevne said he was excited for the cheese to finish aging so he could try it out.

"Farm Fresh Road Trip" is a collaboration between TPT and the Minnesota Farmers Union.

Bruce Miller is the producing partner and arranges for farmers and restaurants to be featured to demonstrate that locally grown and produced food is a value added proposition for some area farmers. Forager is the first Rochester restaurant to be on the show.
For Mike Sedor, general manager of Andy's Liquor, Sunday sales have been a long time coming.

"I started in this business 29 years ago," Sedor said. "When I started, my boss told me, 'Kid, in five years you're going to be working on Sundays.'"

Now, Minnesotans are less than a month away from making their first Sunday liquor run.

July 2 will mark the first Sunday in state history that Minnesota liquor stores may remain open. As the date approaches, Rochester-area liquor stores are planning promotions and operational changes to account for the extra work day. But liquor store representatives are split on whether there will be a measurable economic impact, and say the business-hour extension could pose challenges to public safety.

Bradley Smith, public relations and member services manager at People's Food Co-op, said they've heard ongoing customer demand for Sunday sales and are excited to fulfill that need.

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Smith, Sedor and Apollo Liquor General Manager Ari Kolas said their stores will likely hold promotions to kick off the first Sunday.

Andy's Liquor may hold a grill-out in celebration, Sedor said.

People's Food Co-op will be running its first Sunday promotion July 9, Smith said, coinciding with the beginning of this year's Down by the Riverside concert series. The promotions will include product discounts and picnic item raffles, he said.

"We're really excited about being close to Down by the Riverside and having people come in and grab whatever they need, whether that's food or a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer," Smith said.

For now, the co-op is focused on adjusting its liquor shop's staffing and scheduling to account for selling seven days per week, Smith said, which current staff should be able to cover.

"As our sales increase in beer, wine and spirits, we've looked at maybe bringing in some more part-time help," he said.

Sedor said operational changes at his store may be more difficult.

Many employees rely on having Sundays off, he said, adding that he may hire eight to 10 more people to help cover the extra shifts.

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But the actual economic impact of Sunday sales, Sedor said, remains to be seen.

Andy's Liquor polled around 2,000 customers to estimate customer demand for Sunday sales. The responses varied, Sedor said, with many saying they'd shop around noon, if at all.

Sales will likely be high for the first several Sundays, he said, but may temper off once excitement fades.

"Obviously that enthusiasm will be curbed in September," Sedor said.

Kolas doesn't expect much of a spike in sales, expecting business to level out throughout the week.

Smith disagreed, and said he thinks sales will be more fruitful.

"People are going out to the river, or going (on) picnics, going on bike rides," Smith said.

The economic boost from Sunday sales also could roll over into the co-op's grocery sales, he said.

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"We believe it will be some good cross-promotion between our food sales and our beer, wine and spirit sales," Smith said.

But Kolas said increasing alcohol accessibility may pose public safety risks.

"Any time you expand accessibility to liquor, beer, wine, there's added dangers to society," Kolas said.

Still, customers like 23-year-old Derek Petricka will be happy to finally buy liquor on Sundays.

"I think it's dope," said Petricka, an Owatonna resident. "Most Sundays, it's more of like a kick back and chill kind of day, so you want to  have a couple beers or something."
There is a lot of chatter and rending of garments about the proposal made recently by former Obama Administration energy appointee Steven Koonin in the Wall Street Journal that there ought to be a full-scale, independent red team to produce a rival climate change assessment to the consensus produced by the IPCC, noting how this was done in the past on foreign intelligence matters to good effect:

The national-security community pioneered the Red Team methodology to test assumptions and analyses, identify risks, and reduceor at least understanduncertainties. The process is now considered a best practice in high-consequence situations such as intelligence assessments, spacecraft design and major industrial operations. It is very different and more rigorous than traditional peer review, which is usually confidential and always adjudicated, rather than public and moderated.

This sensible suggestion was recently embraced by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. Naturally this has the climatistas and their stenographers in the media in a snit. Take in the lede to the Washington Post news story about the idea:

Multiple scientific assessments have concluded that man-made climate change is real and poses risks to human health and the environment. Even so, Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, told Breitbart News on Monday that he would like to essentially re-litigate the science of climate change.

Nothing subtle about that lede. Now I want to add my endorsement of this idea by referring readers to something I wrote in 2005:

The time has come to question the IPCCs status as the near-monopoly source of information and advice for its member governments. It is probably futile to propose reform of the present IPCC process. Like most bureaucracies, it has too much momentum and its institutional interests are too strong for anyone realistically to suppose that it can assimilate more diverse points of view, even if more scientists and economists were keen to join up. The rectitude and credibility of the IPCC could be best improved not through reform, but through competition. The model for how climate science might be improved perhaps can be found in the field of intelligence in the 1970s. By the mid-1970s it became clear that the Central Intelligence Agencys annual assessments of the military activities of the Soviet Union had consistently underestimated their prodigious arms buildup. This produced great unhappiness among the policymakers, especially defense planners and arms control negotiators, who were using the CIAs assessments to make decisions. Rather than root out the problems at the CIA that led to this consistent bias, the Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board embraced a competitive solution: it set in motion Team B, a team of experts who were given access to the complete raw data as the CIAs regular assessment team (which became known as Team A for the exercise). The CIA naturally resisted this proposal, and it was rejected for a time. Only the accession of a new CIA directorwhose named happened to be George H. W. Bushmade the Team B process possible. Because the two teams were to exchange drafts of their assessments, a predictable thing happened: Team As official assessment became a lot more tough-minded, much closer to what Team B producedand much more accurate, as subsequent history proved. Right away it is possible to speculate that the formation of a competitive Team B for climate change will put the IPCC on its best behavior and likely improve the rectitude of its process.

I mention this not just to point out that I was ten years ahead of everybody, but also to update the story in one particular respect. When the second tranche of Climategate emails were released in 2011, there was a reference to me and this suggestion, with the climate community clearly alarmed at the prospect. (You can read more about Climategate II, The Sequel in this Weekly Standard article.) It was fun to see that I could so easily get under the thin skin of the climatistas. (Id also completely forgotten that I described the egregious Michael Mann as the Fredo Corleone of the climate science community in that article, a characterization that he has subsequently confirmed with his libel suit against National Review and Mark Steyn.)

Despite the impression of the Washington Post news article on the Team B idea that climate science is so buttoned up that any new assessment is frivolous, lets go back to one more paragraph from Koonins recent article:

The public is largely unaware of the intense debates within climate science. At a recent national laboratory meeting, I observed more than 100 active government and university researchers challenge one another as they strove to separate human impacts from the climates natural variability. At issue were not nuances but fundamental aspects of our understanding, such as the apparentand unexpectedslowing of global sea-level rise over the past two decades.

I can corroborate this from some first-hand conversations of my own with physicists and climate scientists who tell me that Koonins account is correct, that behind closed doors even the most convinced climate alarmist scientists are much more candid and forthcoming about the huge gaps and uncertainties in our knowledge of the climate system and the serious defects of the climate forecast models. Some day the enforced public conformity on the issues of climate science is going to be recognized as an intellectual scandal of the first order. Why the climate science community maintains a unified public face when they harbor so many private doubts is a question Im going to work on in a separate article in a few weeks.
CNN has been competing with MSNBC to see who can come up with the most over-the-top attacks on President Trump. And when an agenda is at stake, accuracy is secondary at best.

Tuesday evening, CNN tweeted that James Comey was expected to deny President Trumps claim that Comey had told Trump he was not being investigated:

Comey expected to refute Trump's assertion that Trump was told he was not under investigation https://t.co/tB574plQfN  Carol Costello (@CarolCNN) June 6, 2017

CNNs report was based on anonymous sources, as usual, and four CNN journalists, Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus, were credited with the story. Of course, when Comeys written testimony was published yesterday, it confirmed rather than refuted Trumps statement. Consistent with its war footing vis-a-vis the Trump administration, CNN issued a grudging semi-correction:

CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.

I have no idea what CNN means by does not directly dispute Trumps statement; Comey has forthrightly confirmed it.

Still hungry for anti-Trump headlines, CNN bungled its coverage of Comeys live testimony this morning. PJ Media reports:

It was actually Loretta Lynch, President Obamas attorney general, who asked [Comey] to lie about the probe into Hillary Clintons email scandals. According to him, Lynch asked him to not call it an investigation at all  instead, she wanted him to call it a matter. We dont need to create hypotheticals to figure out that, if Comey had said the same about President Trump or Attorney General Sessions, the media would have spread that info like wildfire. CNN must have thought he was saying Sessions had asked him to not call the Russia probe an investigation, because they put out as much in their apps alert system. They actually had to release a clarification once they realized their falsehood.

Curses, foiled again! Its been a couple of days for the most mocked name in news.
James Comey has a story to tell, and in his account, there is no doubt about who is the hero. Comey, by reputation, has a monumental ego. His prepared testimony for the Senate Intelligence Committee, which you can read here, is consistent with that image. It is also clear that Comey is a consummate creature of Washington.

Comeys narrative suggests that from the beginning, he viewed President Trump with suspicion as an interloper in Comeys D.C. world. He apparently never had a conversation with Trump without immediately documenting it in a memo and discussing it with his aides at the FBI. For some reason, Comey sees fit to contrast his relationships with Presidents Obama and Trump:

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone)  once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months  three in person and six on the phone.

So in the more than three years that Comey served as FBI Director under President Obama, he spoke with Obama one-on-one only once, apart from when the president said goodbye. And he never once talked with Obama on the telephone? That strikes me as Comeys most surprising revelation. It reflects, I suspect, Obamas lack of concern with traditional aspects of his office, like law enforcement.

Comey the memo-writer treated Trump like some sort of alien:

And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not reliable in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybodys side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President. A few moments later, the President said, I need loyalty, I expect loyalty. I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner. At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House.

Lets pause on that for a moment: does anyone believe for a moment that the Eric Holder/Loretta Lynch Department of Justice was independent of the White House? Of course not. Comey the novelist describes himself lecturing the President of the United States in a hypocritical, schoolmarmish manner.

More:

As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase honest loyalty differently, but I decided it wouldnt be productive to push it further.

Imagine having people working for you with whom you have dinner, and who immediately after the dinner create a memo. This is the snake pit in which President Trump lives.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

Am I wrong to think that the senior leadership team of the FBI was scheming against President Trump? The leaks that have come from that group certainly support that conclusion.

There is much more in the same vein, e.g.:

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership.

Of course he did! But what outrageous behavior on the part of President Trump did these hot-off-the-press memos document? None, in my opinion.

Trumps comments to Comey fall into two categories. First, he said that he hoped Comey could take it easy on General Mike Flynn. This has been reported before:

President began by saying, I want to talk about Mike Flynn. Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadnt done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify. The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information  a concern I shared and still share.  The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, He is a good guy and has been through a lot. He repeated that Flynn hadnt done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. I replied only that he is a good guy. (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would let this go.

The Democrats characterize this as an attempt to pressure Comey that may amount to obstruction of justice. I dont see it that way at all. I hope you can see your way clear to letting Flynn go is just thatan expression of hope that acknowledges that the decision rests with the FBI. I dont blame Trump for expressing this hope, and for putting in a plug for his short-lived national security adviser as a good guy. Trumps conduct strikes me as reasonable, honorable and humane. His fault was that he didnt realize that he was dealing with a snake whose first act would be to write a memo and chew it over with the FBIs senior leadership. Comeys account is typically self-aggrandizing:

Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency. The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the Presidents request, which we did not intend to abide.

James Comey thinks he is the hero of his story, but he comes across more like Sid Sawyer or Master Blifil.

Trumps second effort was to persuade Comey to help lift the cloud that had been created by endless yammering about Russia. The president explained that the Russia controversy was impeding his efforts on behalf of the American people:

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as a cloud that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to lift the cloud. I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didnt find anything, to our having done the work well.

Which was basically an unhelpful response.

He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

***

I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, We need to get that fact out.  The President went on to say that if there were some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadnt done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we werent investigating him.

***

He finished by stressing the cloud that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasnt being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do.

Again, I find no fault with President Trump. Comey had told the president repeatedly that he was not under investigation, and Trump thought it would be helpful to get that word out to lift the cloud that was impeding his ability to make deals for the country. Trump had a point, but Comey wasnt interested. His priorities lay elsewhere:

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance.

Despite the heroic tone of Comeys narrative, it is easy to see why President Trump lost patience with him. Comey relates another phone call in which the president asked what I had done about his request that I get out that he is not personally under investigation. The answer was, of course, nothing. A discussion of proper bureaucratic procedures followed.

Comey concludes his creative writing project dramatically:

I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended. That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

If I had been president, I would have replaced James Comey sooner.
A former chairman of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Assisi Asobie, on Wednesday criticised members of the National Assembly over what he described as their poor handling of the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB.

Mr. Asobie, currently a lecturer at the Nasarawa State University, accused the lawmakers of playing costly politics with a serious national issue like the passage of the PIB.

The PIB is the draft law containing proposed legal, fiscal and regulatory frameworks guiding operations of the countrys petroleum industry.

Despite the importance of the document to Nigerias oil industry, which accounts for more 80 per cent of the countrys foreign exchange earnings, its passage has been delayed for almost three successive dispensations.

The former NEITI boss, who is also the deputy chair, Natural Resource Charter, was contributing to discussions by members of the live audience during the maiden edition of The Core, a Channels TV interview programme anchored by ace journalist, Kadaria Ahmed.

Some bad politics is being played here, Mr. Asobie said in his contribution to discussions on why the Senate decided to pass the governance component of the PIB ahead of other key aspects, including the framework for host communities.

Look at the timing of the announcement of the passage of the Bill. Very close to May 29, to present a picture that the National Assembly has achieved its objectives, he said.

Mr. Asobie agreed with the Executive Director, Africa Network for Environment & Economic Justice, ANEEJ, David Ugolor, that the piece-meal passage of the PIB by the lawmakers was a grand conspiracy against the Niger Delta people often seen as victims of the countrys bad politics.

David was right. I think some people are playing very bad politics with a serious matter. The best thing to do is to ask the National Assembly to collaborate with the executive branch of government, to ensure that rather than private member bills, they can agree on a draft from the executive, to speed up the process.

It is not going to be that easy for them to expect the executive to accept and assent to what they (the lawmakers) have just passed, he warned.

The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio, who was also in the audience, congratulated the Senate for exercising leadership in the process and their counterparts in the House of Representatives for picking up speed on the issue.

Mr. Adio, who lamented the massive loss the country has suffered with the undue delay in the passage of the PIB, reminded the lawmakers to understand that the world was not waiting for Nigeria.

We need to realise that Nigeria is not the only oil producing jurisdiction in the world. There is a lot at stake. In as much as we have always talked about the PIB pending before the National Assembly for nine years, the process had actually been on for the past 17 years, since 2000. A lot have been lost by the long delay to pass the bill, he said.

The NEITI scribe recalled the efforts of the transparency agency, along with concerned Nigerians to demand the PIB be treated as a matter of national urgency, saying seeming politics between the two chambers of the National Assembly may have slowed the passage.

What we should do should be to realise that we have been unfair to ourselves as a country for too long, which has resulted in huge losses. We need to get our acts together and ensure better coordination, communication and cooperation, he said.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Gas), Bassey Akpan, was quick to reject insinuations about politics among the lawmakers, saying at the appropriate time there would be a confluence for both to reconcile and come up with one version that would eventually become law.

In the panel were Chairman of Senate Committee on Upstream Petroleum, Tayo Alasoadura, and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Joseph Akinlaja as well as the Special Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Gbite Adedeji.

They were joined by the Chief Executive officer of an oil servicing firm, AOS Orwell Limited, Femi Omotayo.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Alasoadura said the Senate decided to deal with the governance aspect of the bill first, because it was considered the most important, to create the enabling environment for prospective investors interested in doing business in Nigeria to do so.

From five different aspects of the PIB, the lawmaker said the provisions were consolidated into two, with the Senate choosing to handle the governance and institutional framework.

He said once the governance aspect of the bill, considered a one-stop shop for investors, has been passed, other aspects, including framework for host communities and memorandum on legal and regulatory framework for institutions and regulatory authorities, would be taken care of.

In his remarks, Mr. Omotayo said the passage of the PIB has given prospective investors interested in doing business in the country confidence to do so.

The new bill, which also has provisions on divestment of asset, would provide opportunity for Nigerians to be part of the ownership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC by acquiring shares from the Nigerian stock exchange, he said.

Besides, he said, the PIB will impact positively on ease of doing business, pointing out that with contracting cycle in the petroleum industry at the moment was two years, the PIB will make the industry more commercially focused.

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To better assess oil production in Nigeria, Publish-What-You-Pay Nigeria, PWYP, has asked the regulatory authorities to install meters at the countrys oil well heads.

For long, Nigeria has faced the challenge of knowing the volume of oil it produces daily, as a result of lack of consensus on where the operating companies should install metering infrastructure.

While some operators prefer the equipment at the well-heads in oil fields, the multi-national oil companies mostly want the meters at the oil tank farms and export terminals.

The oil companies argue that oil collected at the production fields were often mixed with water, sand and other residual matters that would make it difficult to determine the volume of oil there.

Besides, they hold that measuring at the oil terminals would save them huge losses from the high incidence of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region in recent times.

But, rising from a two-day national multi-stakeholders workshop in Abuja, the PWYP Nigeria said regulatory authorities should install the meters at the oil wellheads.

Participants said this arrangement, along with the introduction of other effective and well-organised operational mechanisms, would help the country determine the quantity of crude produced.

A communique signed by the National Coordinator of PWYP, Emeka Ononamadu, and the Representative of Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, Mina Ogbanga, said these would strengthen transparency and accountability in the extractive industry in the country.

The system and institutions in place for extractive sector exploration, production, control and monitoring purposes in Nigeria have proven to be inadequate, ineffective and porous, resulting in preventable leakages and revenue losses to the country, they said.

On the effort to establish a standard fiscal, legal and regulatory framework for the industry, the group acknowledged the progress by the National Assembly in recent times in passing the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill, PIGB, into law.

Although the Senate said last week it had passed the governance and institutional framework aspect of the Bill, the PWYP said it was concerned about when the bill would finally be signed into law.

On the participation of civil society organizations, CSOs, in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI process in Nigeria, the group described it as weak and not inclusive.

Consequently, participants resolved to set up a committee to liaise with others in the beneficial ownership (BO) process to achieve the set objectives and framework contained in Nigerias EITI Road Map and civil society stakeholders committee, CSSC Action plan for 2017 and 2018.

The group urged the government to cooperate with all stakeholders to achieve a workable and effective legal regime to expose corruption, regulate taxes and get rid of the flaws in the system.

Also, PWYP advised the government to give priority to anti-corruption in the extractive sector to reduce leakages in the forms of fraud, waste and abuse of public resources.

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The Norwegian Ambassador to Nigeria, Jens-Petter Kjemprud, on Thursday announced the readiness of the National Library of Norway to sign a letter of intent for the digitalisation of books for Nigerians in Norway.

Kjemprud said in a statement that the letter would be signed on Saturday, June 10, between

the National Librarians of the two countries, Lanre Aina and Aslak Myhre, in Abuja.

The National Libraries of Nigeria and Norway are to sign a letter of intent concerning the digitisation of Nigerian books by the National Library of Norway.

This is the first time that such an agreement has been entered into between two national libraries.

The agreement will be signed in Abuja on June 10 by the two respective national librarians, Prof. Lanre Aina and Prof. Aslak Myhre, he said.

Mr. Kjemprud also said that he and Norways Minister of Foreign Affairs, Borge Brende, would also be present at the letter of intent signing ceremony.

Norways Minister of Foreign Affairs, Brge Brende, and Ambassador Jens-Petter Kjemprud will both be present at the ceremony.

According to him, the National Library of Norway is one of the worlds leading digitisers, that preserves and makes available the totality of Norways cultural heritage.

The Ambassador said that by the end of this year, the National Library of Norway would have digitised all books published in Norway.

The Norwegians National Librarian, Prof. Aslak Myhre, said in the statement that the aim was to give access to digitised books in Nigerian indigenous languages for Nigerians living in Norway.

Our aim is to give access to digitised books in indigenous Nigerian languages to Nigerians living in Norway through our multilingual library.

We also hope that this project becomes a model for our cooperation with other countries, and the success of more African languages.

The agreement will cover literature written in the Nigerian languages of Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, once the books are digitised, he added.

(NAN)

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Fresh on the heels of the Nigerian art community celebrating the countrys first pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale in Italy, an exhibition of sophisticated modernist paintings has opened in Lagos, presenting 34 paintings by emerging female artist, Titi Omoighe.

The exhibition, Modern Interpretations, curated by SMO Contemporary Art at Temple Muse, offers a rare perspective on traditional African forms from a little known academic whose interpretation of traditional philosophy, literature, and cultural identity, shows a refreshing maturity and nuanced artistic breadth.

Omoighes works are divided into two broad categories: her recent works show her exploring abstract techniques using splashes and dribbles of colour, reminiscent of Jackson Pollocks style, and drawing on her fascination with water based pigments and the linear features on traditional textiles, pottery and wall paintings.

While her earlier, more impressionistic Hunter Series was inspired by D.O. Fagunwas Yoruba literary classic, Forest of a Thousand Daemons, which was eventually translated into English by Nigerias Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka.

Titis canvases illustrate the tale of a group of hunters as they journey through an enchanted forest on a quest to save humanity. She draws deeply from the fantastic world of Yoruba mythology and translates them into vibrant paintings with elongated human forms.

Titis canvases reflect both the physical action of characters in search of higher meaning while engulfed in other-worldly adventure, as well as deftly draws us into the emotional and spiritual landscapes of memory, longing and revelation, said Sandra Mbanefo Obiago, the exhibitions curator.

Modern Interpretations provides a fresh perspective on traditions in which the African essence and way of life is presented through nuanced indigenous symbols.

Titis fascination with Nigerias ancient Benin Kingdom in Edo State, shows an insightful analysis of complex philosophy and forms. We follow Titis lines and recognize a gesture or scene, the mysterious pose of a transcendental masquerade, the royal gaze of a king on his subjects, the repose of a hunter after the kill, or the complex rules and rites of traditional youth groups vis-a-vis the hierarchy of elders and indigenous social systems.

If Titilayo follows in the footsteps of the Abstract Expressionists, she takes their ideas in a new direction, imbuing them with a distinctly personal flavor and African subject matter, comments Dr. Jean Borgatti, Consulting Curator of the Fitchburg Art Museum in the United States, and Professor at the University of Benin, where Omoighe is currently pursuing her doctoral studies.

Titi Omoighe is an academic with the soul of a dreamer. After graduating in 1989 with an HND in Fine Art from the Yaba College of Technology, she worked for over 20 years as a set designer for the National Television Authority in Lagos and Abeokuta.

In 2013, she returned to her alma matter Yaba Tech, considered one of Nigerias leading art schools, to teach drawing and painting. Omoighe admits being influenced by the Colleges most famous faculty, renowned artist Professor Yusuf Grillo, a pioneer member of the legendary Zaria Art Society, and one of the most important influencers of Nigerian contemporary art.

Titi is a hunter and she is really catching what she aims at, commented Professor Yusuf Grillo on seeing her exhibition pieces. Her works are very deep, interesting, beautiful, thoughtful and very mature. 

Titis works are sophisticated and have a global appeal, said Avi Wadhwani, CEO of Temple Muse, an avant-garde design space and Lagos creative-hub.

We are delighted to present an emerging artist with strong historical sensibility, who is able to present Nigerias rich culture through a finely honed, fresh creative voice, which many have never heard before.

The exhibition is sponsored by luxury house, Moet Hennessey, and runs until August 30, 2017.

EDITORS NOTE: This Press Release was sent to PREMIUM TIMES by the curator of the exhibition  Sandra Mbanefo Obiago.

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Former External Affairs Minister, Bolaji Akinyemi, said on Thursday that the recent admission of Morocco into ECOWAS was meant to whittle down Nigerias influence in the sub-regional body, and by extension, the world.

Having failed to find any rational benefit to ECOWAS by expanding membership to Morocco, I can only conclude that the move is to whittle down Nigerias influence in ECOWAS.

And by extension, in the world, as Nigerias status as a regional power is facilitated by its role in ECOWAS.

Nigeria has only one option. Let the West African Heads of State and presidents drop this whole issue of expansion to the Mediterranean, Mr. Akinyemi said in a statement in Lagos.

Or Nigeria should serve notice that it would terminate, not suspend, but terminate her membership of ECOWAS, he said.

According to him, this issue is the biggest challenge to Nigerias Foreign Policy since the civil war.

Mr. Akinyemi noted that Moroccos admission into ECOWAS would now make her benefit from the Arab League quota, as well as from the West African quota.

The United Nations, the African Union and all international institutions now use the concept of regionalism in the distribution of both appointive and elective posts.

ECOWAS cannot unilaterally expand the boundary of West Africa to the Mediterranean, he stressed.

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, earlier in the week announced that it had in principle, approved Moroccos membership application despite the country being in North Africa.

But ECOWAS leaders who met in Liberia earlier in the week said the implications of its membership still needed to be considered before Morocco could formally join.

King Mohammed VI was not at the summit because Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been invited.

Moroccos application was filed after it rejoined the African Union in January.

The North African nation left the continental body in 1984 after it recognised the independence of Western Sahara.

Morocco regards Western Sahara as part of its historic territory and has spent much of the last three decades trying to strengthen ties with Europe, at the expense of relations with Africa.

Moroccos King Mohammed VI is now strengthening his countrys ties with the rest of Africa.

Ivory Coast President Alasanne Ouattara has confirmed that the decision had been agreed in principle but the details still had to be worked out.

Morocco, along with Tunisia which is seeking observer status with ECOWAS, and Mauritania, which wants to return to the body, will be invited to the next meeting of heads of state in Togo in December, a senior ECOWAS source said.

ECOWAS is made up of 15 West African nations, none of which shares a border with Morocco.

Members enjoy free trade and movement of people.

King Mohammed VI last week announced he would not be attending the summit in Liberia, because of the presence of Israels prime minister.

Morocco does not have diplomatic ties with Israel.

Mr Netanyahu addressed West African leaders on Sunday saying: Israel is coming back to Africa and Africa is coming back to Israel.

I believe in Africa. I believe in its potential, present and future. It is a continent on the rise.

While in Liberia for the summit, his bodyguards scuffled with those of Togos President Faure Gnassingbe, according to reports in the Israeli media.

This trip comes nearly a year after Mr. Netanyahu was in East Africa as part of his efforts to strengthen ties between the continent and Israel. (NAN)

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Qatar said on Thursday fellow Arab states move to isolate it in a row over alleged ties to terrorism is endangering stability in the oil-rich Gulf region.

Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Thani spoke as would-be mediators ranging from U.S. President Donald Trump to Kuwaits ruling emir struggled to ease a crisis that Qataris say has led to a blockade of their nation.

Al-Thani said that Qatar was not ready to change its foreign policy to settle the dispute and would never compromise.

We have been isolated because we are successful and progressive. We are a platform for peace not terrorism  This dispute is threatening the stability of the entire region, Al-Thani told reporters in Doha.

We are not ready to surrender, and will never be ready to surrender the independence of our foreign policy.

Al-Thani said Qatar had not yet been presented with a list of demands by countries that cut off diplomatic and transport links with it, but insisted the matter be solved peacefully.

There cannot ever be a military solution to this problem.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed relations with Doha on Monday, accusing it of supporting Islamist militants and their arch-adversary Iran, charges Qatar calls baseless.

Several other countries later followed suit.

Al-Thani said Iran had told Doha it was ready to help with securing food supplies in the emirate, an investment powerhouse and supplier of natural gas to world markets but tiny and reliant on imports.

Normally guarded about politics, Qataris expressed outrage.

It is a blockade! Like that of Berlin. A declaration of war. A political, economic and social aggression, a Qatari diplomat said.

We need the world to condemn the aggressors.

Saudi Arabias closure of Qatars only land border sparked fears of major price hikes and food shortages for its population of 2.7 million people, with long queues forming as some supermarkets began running out of stock.

With supply chains disrupted and anxiety mounting about deepening economic turbulence, banks and firms in Gulf Arab states were seeking to keep business links to Qatar open and avoid a costly firesale of assets.

Turkey has brought forward a planned troop deployment to Qatar and pledged to provide food and water supplies to its Arab ally, which hosts a Turkish military base.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said isolating Qatar would not resolve any problems.

The UAEs national postal service, Emirates Post Group, suspended all postal services to Qatar, state news agency WAM said, the latest in a series of measures degrading commercial and communications links with Doha.

The Abu Dhabi Petroleum Ports Authority also reimposed a ban on oil tankers linked to Qatar calling at ports in the UAE, reversing an earlier decision to ease restrictions and potentially creating a logjam of crude cargoes.

Trump initially took sides with the Saudi-led group before apparently being nudged into a more even-handed approach when U.S. defence officials renewed praise of Doha, mindful of the major U.S. military base hosted by Qatar that serves, in part, as a launchpad for strikes on Islamic State jihadists.

In his second intervention in the dispute in as many days, Trump urged action against terrorism in a call with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, a White House statement said, suggesting a meeting at the White House if necessary.

It said that Trump, in a later call with Abu Dhabis crown prince, Mohammed Al-Nahayan, called for unity among Gulf Arabs but never at the expense of eliminating funding for radical extremism or defeating terrorism.

Officials from Qatar and its Arab neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) were pursuing shuttle diplomacy, with the Qatari foreign minister due in Moscow and Brussels and Bahrains king visiting his ally Egypt for talks on the crisis.

The Qatari ambassador to Washington, Meshal Hamad al-Thani, wrote on Twitter that a key pillar of Dohas foreign policy was mediation. Open channels of communication means venues for conflict resolution, he said.

The foreign minister of Oman met Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Kuwaits ruler, for talks. The Kuwaiti emir also went to the UAE and Qatar on Wednesday for more consultations.

But a diplomat in Kuwait briefed by foreign ministry officials said the emirs diplomacy had been about damage control and had yet to produce tangible results, with personality clashes playing a big role in the impasse.

The feeling here is that it is going to take a while to fix. It is more about preventing things from getting worse  Kuwait is trying to get everyone around the table and stop things from escalating further, the diplomat told Reuters.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Gulf states could resolve the dispute among themselves without outside help.

We have not asked for mediation, we believe this issue can be dealt with among the states of the GCC, he told a news conference on Wednesday during a visit to Berlin, broadcast on Saudi state television.

In an interview with BBC radio, UAE Ambassador to Russia Omar Saif Ghobash said Qatar had to choose between supporting extremism or supporting its neighbors.

We have all kinds of recordings taking place where they (Qatar) are coordinating with al Qaeda in Syria, he said.

Qatar needs to decide: Do you want to be in the pocket of Turkey, Iran and Islamic extremists? They need to make a decision; they cant have it both ways.

The Saudi newspaper al Watan published what it called a list of eight extremist organizations seen as working to destabilize the region from Qatar, including Qatars al Jazeera news channel, that were targeted by Gulf Arab states.

State-funded al Jazeeras acting director-general, Mostefa Souag, dismissed accusations that its reportage is pro-Islamist and amounts to meddling in the affairs of other Arab states.

We dont interfere in anybodys business, we just report, he told Reuters in an interview at Al Jazeeras Doha headquarters.

If we bring in guests who are opposing certain governments, does that mean we are interfering in the countries business? No. Al Jazeeras editorial policy is going to continue the same regardless of what happens with this event.

Jubeir declined to confirm a list of 10 demands published by Al Jazeera, which included shutting down the widely watched, Doha-based satellite network. But he added that Qatar knew what it needed to do to restore normal relations.

Qatar has backed Islamist movements but vehemently denies supporting terrorism.

It provides a haven to anti-Western groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Palestinian Hamas and Algerias Islamic Salvation Front. Qatar says it does not accept its neighbors view that any group with an Islamist background is terrorist. Qatars emir has said such a view is a big mistake.

In an interview published by Saudi-owned Asharq al Awsat newspaper, Bahraini Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa laid out conditions for a resolution of the crisis.

Qatar has to redress its path and has to go back to all previous commitments, it has to stop media campaigns and has to distance itself from our number one enemy Iran, Sheikh Khalid said.

In a sign of the economic damage from the dispute, Standard & Poors downgraded Qatars debt on Wednesday as the countrys riyal currency fell to an 11-year low amid signs that portfolio investment funds were flowing out because of the rift.

Regional tensions have been aggravated by the worst dispute for years among Gulf Arabs and were ratcheted up further on Wednesday after militants attacked targets in Tehran, killing at least 12 people.

Shiite Muslim Iran blamed Sunni Muslim arch-rival Saudi Arabia for the attack, which was claimed by the Sunni Islamic State.

Riyadh denied any involvement.(Reuters/NAN)

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Police said 17 persons were killed and 24 people injured when Boko Haram insurgents staged a coordinated attack on Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, on Wednesday night.

The Commissioner of Police, Damian Chukwu, told journalists at a press briefing at the state police headquarters, Maiduguri, that three Boko Haram suicide bombers were shot dead as security personnel battled to repel an invasion late Wednesday.

He said one of the attackers, who was also armed with explosives wrapped around his body, was arrested alive.

He said the police recovered 14 bodies and 24 injured victims from the scene of multiple bomb attacks in mosques around the Chad Basin Development Authority headquarters. The injured were being treated, he said.

We had some incidents of act of terrorism by the BHT yesterday the 7th June 2016, which was a clearly indication that the terrorists who have suffered defeat and rendered incapable of carrying out their usual attacks had resorted to guerilla actions, said Mr. Chukwu.

Yesterday 17:55 hours some Boko Haram terrorist attacked at Alidawari village near Jiddari Polo area of Maiduguri, sporadically firing AA (anti-aircraft) rifles across Jiddari Polo and the Federal High Court. They set fire on some houses.

Reacting to distress call we deployed our counter terrorism unit to engage them. And shortly after, the military moved, mobilized maximally and repelled the attack, after engaging in a gun duel that lasted for about an hour, he said.

He said the fire service personnel were invited to put out the inferno on the torched house and fleeing residents were able to return to their homes after about two hours.

Mr. Chukwu said one of the attackers was captured alive and was in the custody of the Nigeria army, while three terrorists including a suicide bomber were killed in action.

He said several arms cache were recovered while some bombs were recovered and defused.

Earlier, one witness at the Teaching Hospital Maiduguri had informed PREMIUM TIMES that about 37 persons were taken to the hospital for treatment, while eight bodies were deposited at the mortuary.

Warning ignored

The attack on Jiddari Polo area started at about the time the majority Muslim residents were about to break their Ramadan fast.

Residents could not settle down for their meals as deafening sounds of shooting and bombs rented the air forcing dwellers of the suburbs at the outskirts of the town to flee into the city.

A witness, Yunusa Garba, told PREMIUM TIMES on phone that his home was close to the major fighting point between soldiers and the insurgents.

As I am talking to you, our neighborhood, which is not far away from the locations where the shooting was is filled with people that had to flee their communities as the Boko Haram arrived. They are all here, women aged men and children, all roaming the streets, he said.

He said some of the dislodged residents in the villages had earlier in the day alerted some security officials about a large assemblage of Boko Haram gunmen at a village named Alidawari, not more than 5km from Maiduguri.

A report was taken to the security about the Boko Haram gathering at about 3 p.m., but nothing was done to that effect, he said.

But it was about three hours later that we learnt that the gunmen had attacked some of the small villages and chased all residents away. Most of the displaced residents made it to Maiduguri on foot.

The Borno governor, Kashim Shettima, later visited the displaced persons on Wednesday night.

The attack on Alidawari, would be the first major assault by Boko Haram on Maiduguri in a long time.

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The Senate has passed a bill to protect whistleblowers and witnesses directly involved in the prosecution of certain criminal cases.

The bill, titled Witness Protection Programme (Establishment etc), SB 157, was passed on Thursday, following a report submitted by the committee on human rights, legal matters and judiciary chaired by David Umaru (APC-Niger).

It was sponsored by Isiaka Adeleke, the Osun West APC Senator who died in April.

When the bill scaled the second reading in October 2016, the Senate had resolved that it be merged with a similar proposal to protect persons making disclosures for public interest and other forms reappraisal, sponsored by Abiodun Olujimi, PDP-Ekiti.

In his lead debate when the bill was being considered for second reading last year, Mr. Adeleke had said a law protecting witnesses was usually required in the prosecution of organised crimes like terrorism.

In such trials, Mr. Adeleke said, the witnesses would be allowed to wear masks, bear pseudo names and receive protection from authorities.

On her part, Mrs. Olujimi said this is a cardinal bill in the fight against corruption. She said fighting corruption hung on effective protection of whistleblowers.

She mentioned three instances at the Ministry of Aviation, Women Development Centre and the Police Service Commission where whistleblowers were fired.

Abdulmumin Jibrin, a former chairman of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives, was just recently suspended for 181 legislative days on the ground that he breached members privilege.

In his remark after the bill was passed Wednesday, the deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided, thanked his colleagues for the bill, which he said, was in honour of the deceased Adeleke.

The bill must also be passed by the House of Representatives and signed by the president to be law.

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The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has ordered the Commissioner of Police (CP) in Kaduna State to investigate and arrest members of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum for issuing ultimatum to South Easterners to leave the north.

The group on June 6, at a news conference in Kaduna, gave a three-month ultimatum to Igbos living in the orth to leave.

It also advised northerners living in the South Eastern part of the country to return to the north.

The group attributed the ultimatum to the constant agitation by the Igbo ethnic group to have their own independent country.

Gov. Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State had earlier ordered the investigation, arrest and prosecution of the signatories to the communique issued at the end of the coalition of northern youth news conference.

The police I-G gave the order at a meeting with Commissioners of Police and other high ranking officers on Thursday in Abuja.

He warned that no individual or group of persons had the right to ask any individual to leave his or her place of residence in any part of the country.

He ordered other state commissioners of police in the North and Assistant Inspectors -General of Police in the various zonal commands to do same.

As Commissioners of Police and Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, we have the responsibility to stop this group of persons from carrying out their threats.

I want us to be at alert to ensure that such persons or group are stopped at all cost from carrying out their threats.

No individual has the authority to stop anybody from looking for his daily bread, he said.

He explained that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to live in any part of the country he or she chooses.

On abuse of siren and spy number plate by unauthourised persons, Mr. Idris said a task force would be constituted across the country to check the situation.

He said some individuals used them to commit crimes.

We are going to check the excesses of these individuals who use siren and spy number plate,he said.

The police boss urged the various commands to beef up security in their formations as security challenges were taking different dimensions.

He said the force had started the establishment of some operational units in the commands across the country to tackle emerging security challenges.

He added that we are facing new security challenges in the country and we have to respond to it.

We are trying to enhance our capacity with the establishment of these units, taking into consideration the new security challenges in the country, he said.

Mr. Idris urged state governors to support the force by establishing these units for effective response to security threats across the country.

On the kidnapped six students from the Igbonla Model College, Epe area of Lagos, Mr. Idris said that police marine would be trained to flood the creeks.

He expressed concern with the citing of schools close to the sea where miscreants always have easy access to such schools.

We are going to have a permanent solution to the Lagos problem by training our marine police, he said.

The Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Fatai Owoseni, said rescue mission was ongoing to save the children.

He explained that the police was concerned about the safety of the children in trying to rescue them. (NAN)

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A few days after he was recalled to his position on the bench, corruption charges have been filed against a Federal High Court judge.

Hydiazira Nganjiwa was recalled by the National Judicial Council, NJC, six months after he and seven other judges were suspended over allegations of corruption.

Six of the eight suspended judges were recalled with the other recalled judges being John Okoro of the Supreme Court, Uwani Aji of the Court of Appeal, Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Musa Kurya of the Federal High Court, and Agbadu James Fishim of National Industrial Court of Nigeria.

The judges were suspended in November 2016 after a raid on their homes by the State Security Service, but were asked to resume after the NJC meetings of May 31 and June 1.

They were asked to resume duties on June 7 after the NJC said anti-graft and security agencies had failed to establish cases of corruption against them.

On June 8, however, the EFCC filed a 14-count charge against Mr. Nganjiwa, accusing him of unlawful enrichment (13 counts) and making false information to an officer of the EFCC (one count).

The judge was accused of receiving $144,000, $102,000 and other such sums, monies the anti-graft agency said he could not reasonably explain.

On the same day charges were filed against Mr. Nganjiwa, the EFCC also filed charges against another judge, Mohammed Yunusa.

In the four-count charge, the anti-graft agency accused Mr. Yunusa of receiving money from two senior advocates, Rickey Tarfa and Joseph Nwobike.

He was also accused of attempting to pervert justice by engaging in constant private and confidential telephone communications with Mr. Tarfa.

Mr. Tarfa is being prosecuted separately for his alleged roles in giving money to the two judges.

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A rights group, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), has just issued the statement below in reaction to the granting of bail to a fraud suspect, Shamsudeen Bala.

Mr. Bala, son of former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed, is standing trial for an alleged N1.2billion fraud.

But the Federal High Court in Abuja suprised many Nigerians on Wednesday when it suddenly granted him bail to travel to Saudi Arabia for lesser hajj.

It was an unprecedented decision that MURIC has now described as miscarriage of justice and undue indulgence.

The trial judge has been misled, the group said. It is a miscarriage of justice and undue indulgence. Permission to travel abroad is usually given to accused persons on medical grounds. Religion is not strong enough as reason for granting an accused person leave to travel outside the country.

This is a flimsy excuse. The accused is not even going for hajj (pilgrimage) but for Umrah which is lesser hajj. It is rather unfortunate that Nigerians engage in reckless abuse of religion and hide behind it to commit atrocities.

The group asked the court to immediately revoke the bail in the interest of justice.

READ FULL STATEMENT BY MURIC BELOW:

REVOKE SHAMSUDEEN BALAS PERMISSION FOR HAJJ

A Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday granted the son of former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) minister, Shamsudeen Bala, permission to travel for Umrah (lesser hajj). Bala is standing trial on charges of money laundering to the tune of N1.2 billion.

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) denounces the permission granted the accused. The trial judge has been misled. It is a miscarriage of justice and undue indulgence. Permission to travel abroad is usually given to accused persons on medical grounds. Religion is not strong enough as reason for granting an accused person leave to travel outside the country.

This is a flimsy excuse. The accused is not even going for hajj (pilgrimage) but for Umrah which is lesser hajj. It is rather unfortunate that Nigerians engage in reckless abuse of religion and hide behind it to commit atrocities.

Whereas hajj is the last of the five pillars of Islam, Nigerian Muslims make it their first priority. Whereas hajj is compulsory only once in a life time, Nigerian Muslims compel themselves to go every year. Whereas the Quran makes it explicitly clear that hajj is only compulsory on those who have the wherewithal (Glorious Quran 3:97), even poverty-stricken Nigerian Muslims bend over backwards to look for money by all means to travel to Makkah. It is only hajj officials who should be permitted to go annually.

This is an aberration and it is an area the Nigerian authorities should focus on. Efforts should be geared towards proper education of Nigerians about their religions. Inadequate or improper knowledge about ones religion is what usually leads to wrong perception, religious extremism, violence and terrorism.

Whereas Umrah is not compulsory, thousands of Nigerian Muslims throng to Saudi Arabia to perform it every year. Many of them repeat the same exercise on an annual basis even though it costs no less than one million naira for each person. This constitutes serious drain on the nations foreign exchange while it boosts Saudi Arabias economy.

MURIC therefore finds no justification whatsoever for somebody who is on trial for money laundering to seek permission to go on Umrah and for that frivolous request to be granted. It is sheer misplacement of priorities. Although Shamsudeen Bala remains innocent until he is found guilty, it appears the accused is being unduely rewarded for having the temerity to steal Nigerias money.

That N1.2 billion which is in contention will go a long way in ameliorating the sufferings of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North East or pay the tuition fees of hundreds of indigent students in Nigerian universities. N1 billion is N1 million in one thousand places and we are talking of N1.2 billion, not just N1 billion. It is a fabulous amount of money in a country where the minimum wage is a paltry N18,000 and many Nigerians do not know what they will eat tomorrow.

The average Nigerian lives on less than $1 per day. Our per capita income is less than $300. Nigeria is the 26th hungriest country in the world. We are the 20th poorest nation yet the most fantastically corrupt.

Bala should thank Allah that he is not behind bars. He should stay at home and pray to Allah from here. Allah is everywhere. He is near, not far. He is alive, powerful, wonderful. He does not sleep. He hears the cries of His servants whenever they call Him (Quran 2:186, 255).

Before we round up, we assert that MURIC will not celebrate corrupt Muslims. They should clear themselves in the law courts first. We urge the learned judge to revoke the permission to travel granted Bala. We charge religious leaders to stop idolising people whose sources of income are uncertain, people of doubtful character and those facing corruption charges until they are discharged and acquitted. In the same vein, we should desist from pampering them with chieftaincy and religious titles, protecting them or seeking to extenuate their offences.

Professor Ishaq Akintola,

Director,

Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)

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The House of Representatives will on Friday hold a special session to commemorate its two years anniversary.

This was revealed in a press conference by the chairman, organising committee, Parly Irase, who is also the Deputy Chief Whip of the House.

He said the House will also use the occasion to assess its achievements in the last two years, including its passage of bills.

The session will feature a keynote address by Joash Amupitan and the Chairman, Thisday Editorial Board, Olusegun Adeniyi.

Invited dignitaries include President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the President of the Senate, the Chief Justice of the Federation, chairman, Nigerian Governors Forum, all former speakers, all former deputy speakers, all former majority leaders, all former minority leaders and all former chief whips.

The chairmen of the major parties represented in the House were also invited.

The session is expected to start by 10 a.m. on Friday as against the usual plenary time of 11 a.m.

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A Jos Upper Area Court sitting in Kasuwan Nama, Jos North LGA, on Thursday sentenced an 18-year-old carpenter, Aslam Awal, to two years imprisonment for raping a 9-year-old boy.

The presiding Judge, Yahaya Mohammed, handed down the sentence after the convict pleaded guilty to a one-count charge of unnatural offence and begged the court for leniency.

In his plea, the convict attributed his actions to the devil.

It was the devil that pushed me to do it; this is the first time and I will not repeat it again, have mercy on me, he pleaded.

Mr. Mohammed, who did not give the convict an option of fine, said the sentence was meant to serve as deterrent to others who might want to engage in similar acts.

Earlier, the police prosecutor, Hasiru Ibrahim, told the court that Zuleika Saheed, mother of the victim, reported the matter at a Divisional Police Headquarters on January 5.

Mr. Ibrahim said the complainant, who resides at Yan Doka Street, Jos, overheard her 9-year-old son, who was in bed sleeping with his younger sister, asking her to lick his manhood.

The prosecutor said the shocked mother asked her son where he learnt such a nefarious act.

He added that the son told his mother that Awal once had anal sex with him inside his shop in Yan Doka Street, an act which never left his mind.

Mr. Ibrahim said during police investigation, the convict confessed to have lured the victim into his shop and raped him through the anus.

The prosecutor added that the offence contravened section 284 of the Penal Code.

(NAN)

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The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has condemned the call by a coalition of youth groups in the north asking the Igbos residing in that part of the country to leave within three months.

Also, former vice president and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Atiku Abubakar, said the ultimatum given to the Igbos to quit the region and the counter response by a South-east group was not only provocative, reckless and thoughtless but also a grave threat to national security and peaceful coexistence.

A Coalition of Northern groups under the aegis of Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, AYCF, had on Tuesday issued a three months ultimatum for all Igbos in the 19 northern states to relocate from the region.

The groups, which issued the warning in response to the demand by some Igbo youth for actualisation of Biafra, threatened to forcefully evict the Igbos if they failed to leave the north by October 1.

With the effective date of this declaration, which is today, Tuesday, June 6, 2017, all Igbo currently residing in any part of northern Nigeria are, hereby, served notice to relocate within three months and all northerners residing in the South-East are advised likewise, the AYCF officials led by the groups National President, Yerima Shettima, said at a press conference in Kaduna.

All northern civil societies and pressure groups are, by this declaration, mandated to mobilize for sustained, coordinated campaigns at their respective state Government Houses, state Houses of Assembly, local government council secretariats and traditional palaces.

But in a statement by its spokesperson, Muhammad Biu, on Tuesday, the ACF disowned the coalition, saying Nigerias laws guaranteed her citizens free movement to any part of the country and to pursue legitimate means of livelihood devoid of any hindrance and molestation by any group or individuals.

It warned the youth against any act or making utterances that could threaten the corporate existence of the country.

ACF wishes to draw the attention of all concerned, to note, that our democratic system of government which is anchored on law guarantees free movement of all Nigerians to any part of the country and to also pursue their legitimate livelihood devoid of any hindrance or molestation by any group or individuals.

Furthermore, the system allows settlement of all grievances through our elected representatives in both the National and States Assemblies and the Law courts. Any act to the contrary, is therefore, a breach of law and order that are not helpful.

ACF appreciates the frustrations of the Northern Youth Groups with the activities of MASSOB and IPOB members, but would not encourage any act that is not in conformity with the law by any group or individuals which will do no one any good. ACF therefore, appeals for caution over unguarded utterances or statements that are capable of jeopardizing the unity, peace and corporate existence of Nigeria.

In its reaction, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, said it would not react to the position of the northern youth until the Igbo leaders speak up on the call by MASSOB and IPOB for the renewed actualisation of Biafra.

Its spokesperson, Ango Abdullahi, a professor, made the stance known in a phone interview with PREMIUM TIMES.

What is your own reaction (to the statement by the northern youth)? I dont care if you are Igbo or not. What are the Igbo leaders saying?

Until you find out what the Igbo leaders are saying about their sons call for Biafra then you can call me to get my reaction to what our sons are saying.

In his statement by his media office on Wednesday, Mr. Abubakar said he was alarmed by the latest dangerous outbursts, warning that it does not augur well for the North and the country at large.

According to the former vice president, for a country facing threats of disunity, such ultimatum and counter rhetoric at this time was most irresponsible and callous, because it was capable of setting off a chain of ugly events nobody could control.

The APC chieftain warned politicians of all hues to distance themselves from such divisive rhetoric because, according to him, the consequences of such association could ultimately consume them.

The Waziri Adamawa noted that all grievances must be peacefully discussed and resolved through negotiations, and not through threats to fellow citizens.

He called for restraint on all sides by the groups to pave the way for meaningful dialogue on how to restructure our country for the good of all.

Our country is too precious; our problems are too pressing to pander to divisive rhetoric, he said.

However, the former vice president appealed to the authorities to address the challenges of youth restiveness, as well as social and economic exclusion, which are the drivers of tensions.

He stressed that the country should not be afraid to confront the recurring clamour for restructuring, adding that burying problems under the carpet wouldnt make those problems go away.

On the contrary, he said, an ostrich attitude towards these challenges could produce future complications beyond our capacity to manage.

A group, the South East/South-South Network, SESSNet, in its reaction asked the security agencies to immediately swing to action and arrest leadership of northern groups over statement credited them that all Igbo residents in the north should vacate the region.

The group, in a statement on Wednesday, said that the threat was evidently as a result of the unity displayed by the Igbo in the South-east and the South-south to obey a sit at home order to mark 50 years anniversary of the Biafra civil war that caused the death of about 3 million people.

The group called for the arrest of the promoters of the northern coalition.

It added, We use this medium to ask our people across the 19 northern states to be more vigilant and proactive in being security conscious.

If the DSS could arrest Nnamdi Kanu for demanding for Igbo rights, I dont see the reason why the DSS will not arrest the leadership of the group for treason offences because they are inciting one section of the country against another, we will not take excuse from security agencies if anything happens to our people in the North.

Those youth should be treated like criminals by security agencies and we are watching to see what DSS will do on this matter and if any Igbo are killed in the North, the leadership of the groups should face the consequences.

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A coalition of civil society groups on Wednesday staged a rally in Abuja demanding an end to the planned introduction of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, into Nigerias foods and farming scheme.

They also petitioned the National Assembly seeking a repeal of the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) Act which was signed into law in April 2015 by former president, Goodluck Jonathan.

The petition dated June 7 and addressed to the Senate President and the House of Representatives Speaker stated that the Act rather than secure the biosafety of Nigerians had become a law for permitting the entry of Genetically Modified Organisms, GMOs, into the country.

Those who signed the petition include Nnimmo Bassey, Director, Home of Mother Earth Foundation; Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, Convener of Nigerians Against GMOs; Jackie Ikotuonye, Country Representative, Bio-integrity and Natural Food Awareness Initiative; and Marian Bassey-Orovwuje, Food Sovereignty Programme, Friends of the Earth Nigeria/Africa.

We say this because barely a year of the Act coming into existence, the National Biosafety Management Agency (NBMA) issued three GMO permits to Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Ltd, with two of those permits being obtained jointly by Monsanto and an agency of government that sits on the board of NBMA, the activists said.

That agency of government is the National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), an agency whose penchant appears to be nothing other than the blatant promotion of agricultural biotechnology.

We strongly object to NABDA sitting on the Board of NBMA, applying for a GMO permit jointly with a commercial concern and then presiding over the issuance of such a permit. This is a classic case of conflict of interest that cannot be permitted, especially considering the sensitive issue of biosafety and related biosecurity.

March Against Poison

Last year, the National Biosafety Management Agency issued two permits for the Commercial Release and Placing on Market of genetically modified cotton, and the confined field trial of maize, to Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited.

The two permits were: Permit for Commercial Release/Placing on Market of Cotton (MON15985) genetically modified for lepidopteran insect pest resistance with Permit No: NBMA/CM/IM/001 and Permit for Confined Field Trial (CFT) of maize (NK603 and MON89034 x NK603) genetically modified for insect resistance and herbicide tolerance with Permit No: NBMA/CFT/001

The permits were issued despite objections and concerns about safety raised by activists and environmentalists.

Monsanto had, however, insisted that its GMO crops are safe for consumption.

On Wednesday, the activists led dozens of others as they marched in Abuja bearing placards inscribed with March Against Poison; they arrived at the main entrance of the National Assembly to deliver their petition.

In their petition, the activists argued that such permits issued by the NBMA were possible due to to the enormous amounts of discretionary powers given the agency by the NBMA Act 2015.

In addition, the Act does not have any clarity about how this agency is subject to oversight by the parent ministry, the Federal Ministry of Environment.

We demand a nullification of the permits issued to Monsanto and NABDA on Sunday 1st May 2016 and call for an investigation of the process and circumstances leading to the granting of these permits by NBMA to Monsanto and NABDA in disregard to the complaints of millions of Nigerians.

Nigerians should not be used as pawns or as guinea pigs in a commercial gambit to open the country to toxic technologies in furtherance of blatant commercial interests.

We demand a close surveillance of our markets and farms to halt illegal entry of GMOs into Nigeria and into our food supply.

The activists also demanded a ban on all toxic agrochemicals  particularly those identified as probable carcinogens.

We demand a halt to the assault on our agriculture through genetic modification of our staple crops including cassava, maize and beans, among others.

We urge that Nigeria should be circumspect about technologies that aim to contaminate our environment, destroy our agriculture, culture and rupture our socio-economic fabric and assert unbridled controls over our agriculture and foods.

Mr. Bassey said farmers would not surrender their lands to GMO crops because they are already facing big challenges.

The farmers among us will tell you, many of the crops they plant dont do well and those that do well, some interest are going around the country uprooting crops before they mature and we see a grand strategy toplunge Nigeria into a food famine situation, to plungethis nation into a situation that will take us to a beggar nation in terms of food and we are saying that our natural agriculture is able to feed our people.

What our farmers need is good infrastructure so that food can come from the farm to the market. Our farmers need extension services, officials should go to the villages and talk to them and help them in the best techniques to grow crops, we dont need crops that are modified in foreign laboratories and forced unto Africans.

Responding to the protesters demands, Bukar Ibrahim, a senator and former governor of Yobe State, said the lawmakers are also concerned about the safety of GMOs.

I am going to virtually read this brief which is just two pages. But every sentence here is important, I am not a technical person on genetically modified organisms, said Mr. Ibrahim (APC, Yobe East), who was accompanied by another senator, Abu Ibrahim.

In fact, yesterday I was briefed on all the issues you have raised now and then when the brief was given to me in writing, I said no I was not going to use the writing I will speak, now I have discovered that every sentence in that brief is important and very relevant to what you have said and that everybody is listening here.

We are here as representatives of the president of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki to address you, to listen to you and to take all the documents you have given to us and take it back to him and then we expect him obviously to act on this issues very fast.

We are all Nigerians, we are all concerns and we all believe in what is best for Nigeria and this is just the beginning of things which are likely to happen in future.

We will all put our heads together, work together changing the law altogether or modifying the law altogether, we will be in contact with you as we move along, we will see what is necessary and whatever is necessary will certainly be done. So please take it easy there is no problem we are all on the same page.

Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, the convener of Nigerians against GMOs, said the group had outlined the scientific studies that prove consuming GMOs leads to endocrine destruction as well as affects the growth of cells that eventually lead to cancer.

The chemicals associated with these foods are linked to the effects listed there, there are several people that have made several studies that show that consuming GMOs affects the growth of cells that leads to cancer and endocrine destruction as well.

The government that pushes these things did not push it for the interest of Nigerians, they pushed it for the interest of a couple of pockets. we should ask the question why does France, six of the G8 countries ban the use of these foods in their country? We are talking about Russia, France, Italy even England the entire European Union have put a stop to it.

You have to understand that France, Germany are powerhouse technologies that have access to good regulation and powerful science and they are saying no to GMO. What kind of regulatory agencies or science infrastructure do we have in Nigeria that we can say yes?

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A former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has revealed how he almost became a victim of a mindless power politics in Nigeria during the administration of late President Umaru Yar Adua.

Mr. Chidoka was the Corps Marshall of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, during the administration.

He said he was to be sacked from office in 2008 on a mere suspicion that he was among the Obasanjo boys who were allegedly plotting to discredit Mr. Yar Adua in order to remove the president from office.

Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe, then Secretary to Government of the Federation called me and inquired about a meeting I had in London with then EFCC Chairman Nuhu Ribadu and Mallam Nasir El-Rufai to launch an international media campaign to discredit President Umaru YarAdua as part of plans by the Obasanjo boys to remove President YarAdua from office, Mr. Chidoka narrated to his audience at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, Ogun State, May 28.

The former minister was presenting a paper on the topic Towards a Guiding Political Philosophy for a Democratic Nigeria during a public lecture organised by the Youth Development Centre of the Obasanjo library.

Mr. Chidoka said he was alarmed by Mr. Kingibes telephone call.

Shortly after that discussion another senior friend of mine, Chief Mike Nwakalor, frantically called me and said I should thank Amb. Kingibe for standing up for me and insisting that the Osita he knows would not be part of a plan to discredit a government he is serving as a Chief Executive.

Chief Nwakalor had also told some of those peddling the story that unless Ojo Maduekwe was part of the plot he does not see how Osita would plan such.

The truth was that I had come out of Paris from a road safety conference with my wife and checked into the Hilton Metropole where incidentally Nuhu Ribadu, who arrived from a Thisday Event in New York, was also staying.

We met in the lobby and he told me he was waiting for Nasir to go and see Gani Fawehinmi who was very sick at the time in London, I quickly offered to go and see Chief with them as I hadnt seen him since he was hospitalised. After the visit I left with Nasir and Jimi Lawal to join the Awujale of Ijebu for Iftar dinner as it was Ramadan. The following day I left for Nigeria.

Mr. Chidoka said in the lecture that there was no such plan to discredit or remove President Yar Adua from office.

He said the story of the existence of a plot against Mr. Yar Adua was only symptomatic of a more fundamental problem of ideological differences between the so-called Obasanjo boys and the emerging YarAdua group.

This difference arose largely because the PDP at that time was not constructed along any guiding political philosophy hence the immediate effort to dismantle what some termed the Obasanjo hegemony.

Subsequently Nuhu Ribadu was removed as EFCC Chairman, Nasir El-Rufai went on exile.

In my case, a Presidential Panel was set up to investigate allegations that my appointment did not follow due process and other sundry allegations, same petition was also sent to ICPC and EFCC. Luckily for me Ambassador Kingibe and then Permanent Secretary General Services Office Hakeem Baba-Ahmed stood their ground and saved my nascent career from the forces I worked day and night with President Obasanjo to bring to power, said Mr. Chidoka.

Mr. Chidoka, from Anambra State, was later appointed a Minister of Aviation in 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded Mr. Yar Adua when the latter pass on while still in office.

The former minister told his audience that Nigeria, from the era of the independence struggle, through the civil war and to the present day democracy, lacked national philosophy which could guide the nation to its greatness.

He said Britain had the Magna Carta, France had a revolution which built the foundation for liberty, equality, and fraternity in their society, while the American nation was founded on liberty and equality of all men. Nigeria, he said, had nothing of such.

What is the philosophical idea that our nation (Nigeria) was conceived in and to what proposition are we dedicated to? Mr. Chidoka asked, adding that the nations leaders have lost it at several points.

The generation that fought the civil war did not and have not defined the reason it fought to keep Nigeria one.

We do not have the equivalent of our own Gettysburg speech that raised the reason for the war above the mundane. We have not honoured those who laid down their lives so that the Nigerian State will survive and exist.

Since the colonial government amalgamated Nigeria, have we defined the concept of Nigeria along values and ideas? We talk about unity and faith, unity for what? Faith in what? For what purpose?

Our ethnic, tribal and religious diversity ought to provide the inspiration and aspiration to build a nation out of our different tribes and tongues. Our founding fathers missed the opportunity to inspire and construct a nation of ideas and not a mere inheritor of a British convenience store. It is in trying to sustain and build on the British foundation and scaffolds that we have missed our way and continue to do so.

Mr. Chidoka said President Obasanjos attempt at defining the philosophical underpinning of Nigeria, his government, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was jettisoned by his successor, President Yar Adua.

He suggested that the nations past and present leaders should come together to draft a new charter for Nigeria.

The Charter shall contain the reason for our union, the purpose of the union and the guarantee of the basic rights, privileges and obligations of citizens, he said.

Do not let any political party or aspirant deceive you with promises of bridges where there is no river, insist that the existential questions confronting our nation must be answered by those who seek to lead us.

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The Nigerian Air Force has denied that it was involved in any coup plot to overthrow the government.

In a statement by its spokesperson, Olatokunbo Adesanya, the Air Force pledged its loyalty  to the President and Commander-in-Chief as well as to the Nigerian Constitution.

The statement by the Air Force comes about three weeks after the Nigerian Army warned politicians to stop luring soldiers into politics.

Nigerians, public officials and the international community have all warned soldiers to resist any coup attempt saying it will not be tolerated.

Read the statement by the Air Force below.

The attention of the Nigerian Air Force, NAF, has been drawn to a mischievous allegation by an online media organization of the NAFs involvement in the planning of a purported coup detat to take over the reins of government.

The NAF considers it most ridiculous that anyone in his/her right senses, especially in the Twenty First Century, could still be fixated on the possibility of effecting a change in government in Nigeria in any way other than through the ballot box.

It would be recalled that the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Baba Abubakar had on 18 May 2017, while commissioning new residential accommodation for personnel at NAF Base, Bill Clinton Drive Abuja, emphatically pledged the loyalty of the NAF to the President and Commander-in-Chief as well as to the Nigerian Constitution.

It is imperative to state that the earlier stance of the NAF on the unfortunate coup rumours has not changed.

The NAF is a highly professional and apolitical Service that is focused on ensuring the territorial integrity of Nigeria as well as facilitating a safe and secure environment for Nigerians to prosper while conducting their legal businesses. The strong belief of the NAF in democratic values was also demonstrated during the recent Gambian crisis.

The NAF was the first and only air force that ensured the will of Gambians was not subverted by promptly deploying its fighter aircraft, in addition to its transport aircraft to airlift needed troops and logistics, in readiness to preserve the countrys democracy, in line with the Federal Governments directives.

It is therefore inconceivable that the same NAF would be involved in any way in any attempt to dismantle the political structure in Nigeria.

It appears some individuals with unknown intentions are bent on further spreading the malicious misinformation and hence, the need for the NAF to react.

The Chief of the Air Staff would like to assure Nigerians as a whole of the unalloyed loyalty of all NAF personnel to the President and Commander-in-Chief as well as to the Government of Nigeria as democratically constituted.

We therefore appeal to those peddling these false stories to cease, as they are constituting a source of distraction to NAF personnel, who are sacrificing on a daily basis to ensure the security of Nigeria.

You are please requested to use your medium to disseminate this information for the awareness of the general public. While thanking you for your usual support and cooperation, please accept the assurance of my best regards.

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The Minister of Interior, Abdulrahman Dambazau, on Thursday, urged Nigerians to live in peace and avoid anything that would cause disharmony.

The minister made the call in a statement by his press secretary, Ehisienmen Osaigbovo, in Abuja, in reaction to a demand by the Arewa Youth Council for Nigerians of Igbo ethnic nationality to leave the North.

He condemned such call and described it as spurious and unwarranted act.

Mr. Dambazau said the Federal Government would bring the full weight of the law on any individual or group violating the rights of other citizens.

I call on all well-meaning Nigerians to go about their normal activities as government would bring to bear the full weight of the law on any individual or group violating the rights of citizens of the country, he said.

He lamented the spate of calls for separation and called on well-meaning Nigerians to go about their normal activities without any fear.

The minister said the Federal Government would ensure that citizens were free to go about their normal businesses without harassment or hindrance by any group or persons. 

He advised the various ethnic groups in the country to desist from inflaming the embers of hate, animosity, discord and disharmony.

He called on them to adhere strictly to the teachings of good values of religions and cultures that encouraged good neighbourliness, national unity, integration and love for one another.

Mr. Dambazau advised the youth to avoid being instrument of violence, animosity and disharmony in the country.

(NAN)

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There were 106 lawyers in the defense team of Senate President Bukola Saraki on Thursday, as the false asset declaration case against Mr. Saraki came up for hearing at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

The tribunal postponed its ruling on a no-case submission application made by Mr. Saraki.

The tribunal chairman, Danladi Umar, said he would communicate the date for the ruling on the application after considering the submissions of council in their written adresses.

Earlier counsel to Mr. Saraki, Kanu Agabi said the prosecution had failed in establishing a case against his client.

Mr. Agabi, a former Attorney General of the Federation, said the charges against his client were based on petitions written by faceless petitioners.

He added that the reports of the petitions were never made available to the tribunal for verification.

Mr. Agabi said the petitions alluded to by the investigators did not have anything to do with the defendant, adding that the petitioners were never called to testify in court.

Mr. Agabi further argued that the alleged failure to include some assets in the defendants declaration form should not be construed as false declaration of assets.

Prosecution counsel, Rotimi Jacobs, however argued that investigation conducted were based on intelligence information. He said the investigation team did not need the petitioners to be present at the trial.

Mr. Jacobs, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said the defendant had made another declaration after the case began which included the list of assets that were allegedly omitted.

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There were fervent prayers for President Muhammadu on Thursday at the State House in Abuja when Aisha, the wife of the President and other dignitaries gathered for a special Ramadan lecture.

The President is away in London for medical treatment and participants at the session prayed for his quick recovery and return to the country.

The event, convened by the Chief Imam of the State House Mosque, Abdulwaheed Abubakar Sulaiman, and held at the Banquet Hall of the State House, had Mrs Buhari as special guest of honour.

The event had the theme: The Holy Month of Ramadan: A Sober Reflection for All and Sundry.

Abdurrahman Ahmed, the Chief Missioner for Ansaruddeen Society of Nigeria, and keynote speaker, identified the problem of Nigeria as emanating from its ingratitude over the blessings it has enjoyed as one of the countries with the highest potential in the world.

He said with such ingratitude, the country lost favour with God and that is why we are witnessing a moral and economic downturn.

He called on Nigerians to be good citizens so that the blessings will return.

Since things didnt go wrong overnight, they should not be expected to go right overnight, Suleiman Haruna, the spokesperson to Mrs. Buhari quoted the cleric as saying.

Presentations, he said, were made by four eminent scholars who were united in discussing the virtues of Ramadan with regards to the problems of corruption, spousal relations, parenting and moral decadence among youths. The four scholars identified the need for Nigerians to retrace their steps during this fasting period and become better citizens, to ensure that Nigeria goes back to work and builds a bright future.

Some goodwill speakers at the event by Najaatu Mohammed and Farida Sada Yusuf, who called attention to the increasing spate of rape of babies among citizens and called on Muslim scholars to use the period of Ramadan tafsir to condemn and preach against such evil practice.

They also called for more robust prosecutions relating to the rape cases.

The function witnessed prayers for the nation and President, Muhammadu Buhari and was attended by the Deputy Governor of Jigawa State, Ibrahim Hassan; traditional rulers; wife of the Senate President, Toyin Saraki; and wives of the governors of Nasarawa, Kebbi and Ogun states; the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu; and a cross section of Muslim scholars from across the country.

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The Nigerian government says it will require about $1.12 billion to finance a comprehensive turnaround of the countrys refineries.

The Minister of state for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, disclosed this on Thursday during a media briefing in Abuja.

The minister said the government had determined what needs to be done to meet set target, while those with the right technical and financial capacities would be chosen to handle the jobs.

With the plan, the Minister said he was confident the deadline of ending importation of petroleum products by 2019 was achievable.

Everyone needs to know why this is very important. The press needs to sensitise the people that the 2019 deadline is possible, the minister said.

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Acting President Yemi Osinbajo today in Maiduguri unveiled a new and more effective distribution plan for delivering relief materials to Internally Displaced Persons in the North-East which departs from the practice of asking people to queue for food.

Under the new plan which Mr. Osinbajo inaugurated at the Bakassi Camp in the city, officials will now deliver food items to the IDPs at their doorsteps in exchange for a pre-issued voucher.

Unfolding this new strategy, the acting President disclosed that the plan was part of the vision of President Muhammadu Buhari to catering for IDPs in the North East region of the country

According to the Acting President, with the new plan, we are incorporating the voucher system which do not only make the process of relief distribution transparent, it will improve our own data collection and our national capacity to plan for what will be a quarterly exercise.

He continued: As we restore and maintain security in the region, we must not lose sight of the need to provide social service, food, education, healthcare, shelter as well as resettlement and livelihood support.

Today, the Federal Government flags off what will be a quarterly grain distribution programme for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and by this, we are saying to our brothers and sisters in the Northeast that our country does not take their burdens lightly and we are not blind to their difficulties.

I am particularly pleased to say that the grains that well be distributing, which comprise of Sorghum, Maize, Soya Beans, and Rice, are produced locally; they are produced here in Nigeria by our own farmers.

This has always been the vision of Mr. President for our country, to grow what we eat, and to eat what we grow and to use what we make. These grains have travelled from various locations across the country, from as far afield as Ibadan, and as close as Gombe; escorted and protected by the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Military and in some cases will be airlifted by the Nigeria Air Force.

He added that the Federal Government would work closely with states to provide other assistance including health services to the IDPs.

Mr. Osinbajo commended the partnership support from international partners such as the United Nations, World Food Programme, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Military, the Police, other security agencies and state governments in the region.

The Acting President, who on arrival paid a courtesy visit on the Shehu of Borno, Umar Abubakar Gabai Ibn El-Kanemi in his palace, told the traditional ruler and members of his Emirate Council that President Buhari sees the welfare of the IDPs as the responsibility of government.

In his remarks, the Shehu of Borno thanked President Buhari for his commitment to the restoration of peace in the state and the entire region.

He noted the laudable efforts of the Buhari Presidency at recovering the kidnapped Chibok girls and attending to the welfare of IDPs across the region.

Earlier upon arrival in Maiduguri, the Acting President inspected the consignment of about 30,000 metric tonnes of food to be delivered across the region by 1,032 trucks. The distribution is for affected persons in of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi and Gombe States.

Prof Osinbajo during the visit also inspected some facilities such as the NEMA warehouse, the Bakassi IDP camp office and the premises of School A located within the camp.

With the Acting President at the event were governors from the region, including Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State, and Governor Bindo Jubrilla of Adamawa State.

Yobe State Deputy Governor, Abubakar D. Ali, was also present alongside members of the National Assembly, and members of the Federal Executive Council.

Also present were the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; the National Security Adviser to the President, General Baba Munguno (Rtd); Chief of Defence Staff, General Gabriel Olonisakin; the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, amongst several dignitaries.

Today Acting President @ProfOsinbajo flagged off our Food Distribution Programme for displaced people and host communities in the Northeast. pic.twitter.com/94zsZ5fH0s  Govt of Nigeria (@AsoRock) June 8, 2017

Below is the full text of the Acting Presidents speech:

I am extremely pleased to be with you all here in Maiduguri today to commence a new chapter of our journey back to peace and prosperity in this very important region.

This journey has been long and hard, many who are here, especially those in this camp, have lost family members, property and livelihoods, but you did not lose faith, you continued to believe in peace, you remained focused, and most importantly you did not give up.

To this end, we must all salute the people of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi and Gombe states who have borne such difficulties and seen much hardship. Those people who opened their doors to friends and strangers alike, those who provided shelter and protection to displaced people, without prejudice to tribe or religion; your behavior and your journey inspires us.

On behalf of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Muhammadu Buhari and our entire government, I salute your steadfastness, your sacrifices and fortitude in the most challenging circumstances.

In the last two years, the courage of our Military men and women is evident for the whole world to see, their bravery and their can-do attitude has broken the back of this vicious insurgency, and by the grace of God in the near future we shall eliminate this menace once and for all.

As we restore and maintain security in the region, we must not lose sight of the need to provide social service, food, education, healthcare, shelter as well as resettlement and livelihood support.

Today, the Federal Government flags off what will be a quarterly grain distribution programme for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and by this, we are saying to our brothers and sisters in the Northeast that our country does not take their burdens lightly and we are not blind to their difficulties.

I am particularly pleased to say that the grains that well be distributing, which comprise of Sorghum, Maize, Soya Beans, and Rice, are produced locally; they are produced here in Nigeria by our own farmers.

This has always been the vision of Mr. President for our country, to grow what we eat, and to eat what we grow and to use what we make. These grains have travelled from various locations across the country, from as far afield as Ibadan, and as close as Gombe; escorted and protected by the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Military and in some cases will be airlifted by the Nigeria Air Force.

The food will be distributed by officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in partnership with State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) and our friends from the international humanitarian agencies.

We will depart from the undignified practice of forcing people to queue up for food but rather we will be distributing using a door-to-door method. We are also incorporating a voucher system which will not only make the process of relief distribution transparent, it will improve our own data collection and our national capacity to plan for what will now be a quarterly exercise.

While we are providing food assistance today, we will work with the state government to provide other forms of assistance, including health services, education, resettlement and livelihood support.

We know that the task ahead is great, but we are inspired by your courage and we will look around this camp and see the men and women and children who have to live away from their homes, who have to live away from their relations and are separated.

We can only say that they demonstrate the true spirit of our country, the true Nigerian spirit, a resilient spirit, a hardworking, deliberate and resourceful people, who are determined to conquer all sorts of challenges and who eventually will build this country up, to be the greatest country, not just in Africa but everywhere in the world.

We will get all the work that we need to do, done. In the coming weeks, we will announce a comprehensive livelihood and resettlement support program that will complement the military efforts in this region.

We are committed to moving our people forward, to helping them return to communities that have been made safe, and to return to their farms, so that they can participate in the next farming seasons.

Progress for us will be to see reduced numbers of people receiving direct assistance, and being in the position to earn a living, be self-sufficient and even enjoy prosperity; that is our goal. I must express our sincere appreciation to our international partners who have supported our agencies and indeed our people thus far.

While we hope to continue to count on their support in more technical areas, we very much look forward to taking a leading role in providing for our people, especially in these difficult circumstances.

I must also thank the state governments in the Northeast region for their untiring commitment to the upliftment of our people; in particular I commend the excellent and exemplary leadership of the Governor of the State, Gov. Kashim Shettima who has demonstrated that real leadership must show respect, love and compassion for the people.

I must also commend the service chiefs and the men and women of our Armed Forces who have worked tirelessly on this massive food distribution assignment. I must not forget the special presidential task force comprising the Armed Forces and ministers, the chief of staff and several volunteers, and of course our donors who are leading this effort.

I also thank our neigbours in Cameroon, Chad, Niger for their fraternal support in our joint fight against terrorism. While great progress has been made, there is still a great deal more to do. The reward for hard work as they say is more hard work and we have shown that as a people, we are up to the task.

I want to just commend all of us who are here, all of those who stand up every day to try and help their neighbours to survive and to do well in these very difficult circumstances.

God bless you for the work you are doing. God Bless Nigeria!

RELEASED BY:

Laolu Akande

Senior Special Assistant to the President ( Media & Publicity)

In the Office of the Vice President

08 June, 2017

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The United Nations has called on different ethnic tribes and groups in Nigeria to be more tolerant to ensure unity and peace in the country.

The UN Resident Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, said this in a statement Thursday.

Kallon noted with concern media reports of an ultimatum issued by northern youth groups calling for all Igbo people to leave Northern Nigeria by October 1.

He noted the ultimatum followed a sit-down-strike observed in the five states in South East Nigeria on May 30, purportedly meant to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Biafra.

We have to work together to resolve peacefully any concern that different groups in the country may have.

I am heartened by reactions of leaders from all over the country condemning this ultimatum.

UN calls for tolerance and a spirit of togetherness in transparency to address the concerns of all the citizens in a peaceful manner, Kallon said.

He said this should be done in such a way that no one was left behind in the quest for sustainable development.

The coordinator especially urged cultural and religious leaders to play their part in guiding the youth to settle differences peacefully.

Kallon also stressed the need to re-invigorate the National Peace Committee, as it could play a role in addressing the current concerns that impinge on the peace of the country.

He recalled that the committee worked tirelessly during the election period in 2015.

Nigeria is a great country with immense potential to build the welfare of its population and lead Africa in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals.

This can only be achieved in an atmosphere of the rule of law and peace where all citizens live happily irrespective of their ethnic or religious backgrounds.

I commend the Federal and State Governments, youth and civil society leaders, security agencies, cultural and religious leaders for their efforts to promote peace in the country.

The UN is ready to continue supporting Nigeria to build an enduring democracy in peace, prosperity and respect for diversity, Kallon said.

(NAN)

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The Speaker of the Taraba House of Assembly, Abel Diah, has said that an executive bill seeking to prohibit open grazing, would be beneficial to both herdsmen and farmers in the state.

Mr. Diah made the statement on Thursday in Jalingo at a press conference to mark the end of the second legislative year of the 8th Assembly.

While debunking claims that the bill was aimed at witch-hunting some people, the speaker said that it was meant to improve the lives of livestock and herders.

This is a revolution government is bringing to better the life of grazers, create jobs and harmonious co-existence between farmers and herders, he said. It is high time we stopped killings associated with open grazing.

When passed and signed into law, the bill will check the activities of criminals hiding under the guise of grazing to perpetrate all forms of crime.

Taraba is the third state after Ekiti and Benue to propose an anti-open grazing bill. The other two states passed the bill into law as part of measures to check recurring crises between herders and farmers.

The Taraba speaker explained that the bill would not stop grazers outside the state from coming into the state.

Those (grazers) coming outside the state will be given temporary permit for the purpose of identifying livestock owners, he said.

Mr. Diah said the law would also enable the government have information about grazers at its finger tips and know how to plan for their welfare.

I have cows on the Mambilla Plateau in a ranch and my cows are doing better than those roaming about, because they are not passing through stress, he said.

The speaker said the Assembly passed 19 bills and 11 resolutions in the last two years which had since been signed into law by Gov. Darius Ishaku.

He said the performance of the eighth Assembly was the best since 2003 when he first came to the house.

The speaker commended the Federal Government on its stand against corruption and called on Nigerians to support the government for the good of the society.

(NAN)

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The governors of the five south-east states have urged Igbos leaving in Northern Nigeria to remain where they are and go about their activities without fear of being attacked. They assured them of their security despite the three months ultimatum given to them to leave the region by a Northern coalition.

The Chairman of the forum and Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, gave the assurance on Thursday at a press briefing in Abakaliki.

He was reacting to a three months ultimatum issued by the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, ACYF, a coalition of socio-political groups in northern Nigeria, to all Igbos in the 19 northern states to vacate the region.

The federal government and the Kaduna State government have since condemned the call, assuring of maximum security while Governor Nasir El-Rufai called for the arrest of the sponsors of the Arewa forum.

The governors of the 19 northern states on Wednesday also disowned the coalition of Arewa groups and assured Igbos of their safety in the region.

Describing the ultimatum as provocative and mischievous, Governor Umahi called on northern leaders to take actions that will counteract the intended plot of the youth, in other to ensure that the grim history of the past is not repeated.

We must call on all serious minded patriots, particularly the religious leadership in Northern Nigeria; the leadership of other socio-cultural groups in Northern Nigeria; the Nigerian Governors Forum; and all the service branches to rise up with voices of peace and wisdom to counteract the mischievousness and exuberant excesses of the northern youth.

The ugly lessons of history are too grim to be stoked with carelessness. As leaders, we must exert the full measure of our powers and influence to forestall a repletion

We call on all Igbo sons and daughters resident in Northern Nigeria to go about their lawful daily activities without fear of intimidation, hindrance or molestation.

Mr. Umahi further reiterated the commitment of the south-east governors to the existence of a virile, united prosperous and progressive Federal Republic of Nigeria where Justice, fairness, equity, mutual respect and equality of opportunity to all citizens regardless of creed, ethnicity or gender will reign supreme under the inflexible rule of law.

He also denied media reports that the governors held a meeting Wednesday night and resolved to send buses to evacuate Igbos in the north.

The rumours being peddled on conventional and social media platforms that we, the governors of the south east have met and agreed to mobilise vehicles and cash for repatriation of Ndigbo resident in northern Nigeria must be disregarded, as they are nothing but tissues of lies.

No amount of provocation would lead us to such precipitate an irresponsible action at this time. Those exploiting such vacuous tittle-tattle as a basis for divisive rhetoric in public spaces are simply playing juvenile politics and we urge them to cease and desist.

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The Ondo State Government has said it did not sack 600 workers attached to traditional rulers across the state, but only changed their mode of payment.

The Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Segun Ajiboye, said in a statement on Wednesday that the removal of the workers names from the database did not in any way affect the payment of their salaries.

The said 600 workers were ad hoc staff integrated into local government service and made full members of staff, he said.

Therefore, the removal of the workers name from the remittal does not in any way affect the payment of their salaries, nor their status as workers on their respective places of assignment.

The governments decision was informed by the need to make the workers more dedicated to their duties and to be committed to traditional rulers they work for.

He further said that the present administration led by Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu was committed to make the welfare of workers its priority.

The government does not have any plan to sack workers in the state, he added.

PREMIUM TIMES reported the action of the government which virtually puts the payment of the staff at the discretion of the monarchs they work with. The government plans to henceforth transfer the salary of each such worker into accounts of the monarch they work with, for onward payment to the staff who merits it.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in the state had described the action of the government as illegal and unacceptable.

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The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has urged Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to wade into the crisis facing the Lagos State Polytechnic.

Akinrinlola Ibitoye, the schools ASUP Chairman, said during a protest in Lagos on Wednesday that the indefinite industrial action being embarked upon by the union was the result of the Rectors misadministration and insensitivity to the issues that affect the welfare of staff in the polytechnic.

We would like to place on record that the ongoing industrial action is avoidable, said Mr. Ibitoye.

It is as a result of the administration of the polytechnic reneging on the previous tripartite agreement reached on March 7, 2017, by the administration, Council, officials of Ministry of Education and the Staff Unions of the Polytechnic, to commence on the payment of CONTISS 15 migration arrears before the 25th convocation ceremony of the Polytechnic held on March 9, 2017.

Mr. Ibitoye said the union further reached an agreement with the Council on May 25, 2017, and a 21 days window for the payment of the CONTISS 15 Migration arrears and other issues which the polytechnic administration had reneged on.

The union had announced an indefinite strike, with immediate effect, on April 20 over the non-payment of the arrears.

Mr. Ibitoye said at a meeting held earlier the same day that the union had been told by the Deputy Rector (Academic), who represented the Rector, that the administration had generated N343 million as at April 2017 and are only awaiting the approval of the state government before commencing payment.

The union is, however, aware that the approval of the Council is enough for the payment of the arrears since it could be paid from the funds within the coffers of the Polytechnic, said Mr. Ibitoye.

He said his union is at a loss on why the officials of the ministry who were party to the tripartite agreement on March 7, 2017, are now singing a different tune.

The union is also disappointed that officers of the ministry which we hold in the high esteem and respect cannot keep to an agreement mutually agreed to by the three parties. The unilateral decision of the officials of the ministry to pay only six months of arrears is against the earlier agreement.

In addition to the non-implementation of their agreement, the ASUP chairman also accused the polytechnic management of sidelining the statutory established Governing Council and, instead, conniving with officials of the education ministry to run the institution.

Mr. Ibitoye said despite the militarisation of the institution with 50 armed soldiers and 20 members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) with charms and amulets, after the industrial unrest of October, 2016, life and properties are still unsafe.

For instance, he said, the electric armoured cable close to the third gate of the institution was stolen twice; the Konsult, Procurement, and Alumni offices burgled; while Office of the School of Part Time Studies Evening (SPTSE) was burgled with millions of Naira both in cash and properties carted away.

Smoking of Indian hemp beside the office of Chief Security Officer (CSO) is a common scene etc.

The above ugly incidence leaves one to wonder the essence of the engagement of these so-called security officers.

The union demanded the immediate payment of 16 months arrears based on the availability of the N343 million IGR of the school, while the outstanding 71 months be paid within a maximum period of two years.

They further decried the stoppage of workers pension since April 2016 and urged the schools Governing Council to begin to assert the authority and powers vested in it under the laws of the Polytechnic 2012.

The Polytechnic administration should make available practical consumables necessary for effective learning by the students, the union said.

These students are made to pay N10,000 each per session for practical and, for EED all students pay N3,000 each into an account they (administration) call third party account, compulsory payment of N5,000 by all students per session for ICT of which the requisite software are not deployed, only pirated software which is bad for the image of the Polytechnic.

We appeal to the governor to immediately step in and execute the laws of the Polytechnic to the letter; otherwise, a further deterioration of the situation may force the Union to demand for a change in the leadership of the Polytechnic.

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The Lagos State Government has prosecuted a paramilitary officer attached to the Lagos State Task Force for stealing a Phantom 6 Techno mobile phone belonging to one Pastor Kingsley of Christ Church, Fadeyi, Lagos.

The official has been sentenced to one-year imprisonment for the offence.

Magistrate Lateef Owolabi of the Lagos State Mobile Court at Oshodi sentenced the accused Moses Prince) to one year imprisonment without any option of fine after he pleaded guilty to a one-count charge levied against him for Stealing a Phantom 6 Techno Mobile Phone while in discharge of a lawful duty with the Lagos State Task Force contrary to Section 258 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State.

Magistrate Owolabi said the judgment was meant to deter other public officers from engaging in criminal activities for any reason at all.

SP Egbeyemi, the Chairman of the Lagos State Task Force disclosed that Moses Prince (34yrs) a paramilitary officer deployed from ManO War to the agency in October, 2016 stole a Phantom Six Techno mobile phone valued at N150,000 during an enforcement operation carried out at No 22, Ereko Street, Fadeyi, Lagos.

The chairman explained further that the enforcement operation was recently carried out in continuation of the arrest of notorious miscreants and hoodlums who engaged in a bloody fracas that engulfed Idi-Oro area of Mushin.

He noted that the accused voluntarily confessed to have stolen the said mobile phone (Phantom Six Techno) from a kitchen of the building where enforcement was carried out by the agency.

SP Egbeyemi said the agency had carried out series of seminars where officers of the Agency were lectured to shun criminal activities and be upright in the course of discharging their legitimate duties and assured that any acts of criminality from officers would not be tolerated by the government.

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There was a mild drama on Thursday at the Ekiti State House of Assembly as a member, Gboyega Aribisogan, suspended in October last year for 180 legislative days, stormed the house, saying his suspension was illegal.

The lawmaker said after consulting with his constituency, it was realised that the house flouted its own rules in the suspension, saying the rules provided that a member could only be suspended for 14 legislative days.

There are approximately 13 legislative days in a month and the lawmaker is expected to serve his suspension for about one year.

The house which had planned to hold plenary on Thursday, however failed to hold its session, apparently to avoid having Mr. Aribisogan present.

Mr. Aribisogan headed for the Office of the Clerk, Tola Esan, where he submitted a letter conveying the decision of his constituency that he should resume his legislative duties.

The legislator was suspended for 180 legislative days on October 6, 2016 by the house for allegedly holding meetings with the political opponents of Governor Ayo Fayose in Lagos.

Mr. Aribisogan had denied the allegation.

He told journalists in Ado-Ekiti that he had resumed his legislative duties according to the wishes of the people of his constituency whom he said have consulted the House Standing Rules and Constitution and discovered the illegality of his suspension.

I have resumed at the assembly and I want to say without any fear of contradiction that they have no right to suspend me for 180 days. The Standing Rules say they have no right to suspend me for more than 14 legislative days, he said.

Having consulted with my constituency, they went through the Standing Rules and the Constitution and they discovered that the House was wrong to have suspended me for 180 legislative days.

There is no way they can prevent me from coming to the chamber; I am loyal to my constituents and I am loyal to the Constitution.

Their failure to sit today cannot prevent me from performing my legislative functions.

I remain loyal to my constituency who voted for me and sent me to the House to represent them and not to an individual. For how long will they avoid me? I am back for good.

Efforts to get the house to speak on the development was unfruitful as officials would not comment.

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For the past eight years, the medical community at Beaumont Health has come together to celebrate the Islamic holy season of Ramadan.

The annual Iftar dinner gathered together about 500 doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals and their families June 2 at the Islamic Center of America.

Ramadan takes place over the course of a month and signifies a time of fasting, reflection and prayer for the Muslim community. Those who practice the faith abstain from food and drink during daylight hours and break their fast together after sundown.

Oakwood Healthcare affiliated physicians  now Beaumont Health  began the tradition eight years ago to share the blessings and background about Ramadan.

Dr. Zulfiqar Ahmed, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Beaumont Hospital-Dearborn, has organized the event for the past two years,and said its a wonderful way to build camaraderie and understanding within the local Muslim and Middle Eastern communities and beyond.

Its really about sharing this time with all our colleagues and giving us a chance to fellowship together, Ahmed said. There are so many rampant, unconfirmed rumors out there  the only thing we can do in the right way is bring people together and expose our true values to friends and colleagues.

The time of reflection and abstinence is integral to how Muslims think and what they do, he added, and bringing people together has always been at the forefront of good Muslim practices.

He said the dinner also demonstrates a commitment to faith, family and friends.

Theres nothing like breaking bread together and talking about our commonalities, he said. It was overall very positive. There was a lot of interaction and productive discussions between different people and faiths.

Susan Grant, Beaumonts executive vice president and chief nursing officer, talked to the group about the health systems patient- and family-centered care commitment.

In a room filled with colorful and familiar traditional Arabic cuisine, Grant shared her appreciation for the Muslim community.

I deeply respect how the observance of Ramadan through fasting focuses thought and prayer on those who are less fortunate, she said. I appreciate the challenges you face when Ramadan is in the summer when the days are long.

Events such as these show how we at Beaumont are privileged to serve a rich variety of cultures and people.

Dr. Farha Abbasi, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University, spoke about faith, family and mental fitness.

She talked about how faith-based approaches like meditation, fasting and family bonding can participate in the mental health and well-being of society, Ahmed said.

Plans are to grow the Iftar dinner steadily in the future. Hopefully its going to get bigger and better over the next few years, he said.
ATLANTIC CITY  The former Revel casino wont be opening this month.

Owner Glenn Straub said Thursday he wont meet his self-imposed June 15 deadline to open the 6-million-square-foot facility now known as TEN.

We are stubborn enough people, Straub said from Florida on Thursday. The casino is the hub of the wheel. There is no reason to open the property if its only half of a wheel.

Mayor Don Guardian said several groups of investors have expressed interest in the property over the past couple months.

State gaming officials have told Straub he is required to get some type of gaming license if there is going to be a casino on the property, but he maintains he shouldnt be required to apply for one since hes leasing the casino area to a third-party vendor. Straub previously talked about opening the facility as a resort without a casino.

Straub has appealed the Casino Control Commission ruling that required him to have some level of casino license for the property, and he said hes missing the opening date as he waits on the court decision for his petition.

Guardian was on the Boardwalk near TEN Thursday morning, hosting a ribbon-cutting for the new section of the Boardwalk that sits beyond the closed casino.

The mayor said the city hasnt heard or seen evidence  including a job fair  to lead him to expect the property would open next week.

The property remaining closed is very disappointing, Guardian said, calling it an architecturally significant building in the state. The building contains 13 restaurants, a 32,000-square-foot spa, 55,000 square feet of retail space and a parking garage with more than 7,000 spaces.

But there have been some interested groups of investors coming into the city to look at the property to determine whether the property was right for them, said Guardian, adding the city is willing to help Straub.

Former Revel tenants are moving on ATLANTIC CITY  When Revel Casino Hotel closed in September 2014, it left many  including c

Im here certainly if I can help him either open it or sell it, Guardian said.

Before purchasing the shuttered Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, Hard Rock International and its partners, the Jingoli and Morris families, explored the idea of purchasing the 6 million-square-foot Revel, now known as TEN.

Straub said selling is a possibility.

No question that all our properties are for sale for the right price, Straub said.

Gov. Chris Christie also has raised the idea of a change in ownership. Christie, on his monthly Ask the Governor radio show on New Jersey 101.5, said he hopes Straub sells the casino because he hasnt been able to deliver.

Since purchasing the property in August 2015, Straub said it would open on several occasions, including June 15, 2016  exactly a year prior to this years proposed date, despite lacking state and local permits. Straub bought the once $2.4 billion Revel for $82 million in bankruptcy court.

We have invested $20 million into the property, Straub said. Every month, we have to pay $1.5 million in taxes.
LONDON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Chubb Global Markets, the London-based wholesale insurance division of Chubb, today announced the promotion of Dominique Largeron to the role of Delegated Underwriting Authorities Manager, Chubb Global Markets. Dominique currently serves as Delegated Underwriting Authorities Assistant Manager.

Dominique will have responsibility for overseeing Chubb Global Markets' significant portfolio of third-party delegated underwriting arrangements internationally. She will further develop the strategy for this business, ensuring the continued delivery of well-managed, compliant and mutually beneficial arrangements that place brokers and their clients at the heart of the relationship. She will continue to report to Peter McAdams, Head of Delegated Underwriting Management, in her new role.

Dominique will continue to be based in London and the appointment is effective immediately.

Dominique brings to the role some 20 years of experience in the London insurance market, gained in both the Lloyd's and company markets. She began her career in insurance in 1996, as Insurance Technician at Whittington. In 2011, she took up her first delegated authority role at Hiscox and, since then, Dominique has held a variety of positions, principally in the areas of delegated authority and audit. She held senior audit roles at Munich Re, Sagicor (now Am Trust) and Reinsurance Group of America before returning to the area of delegated authorities in 2014 to work as Delegated Underwriting Authority Manager for Allied World. She joined Chubb Global Markets in June 2015 in her current role.

Matthew Shaw, Division President, Chubb Global Markets, said:

"This promotion underlines the importance of delegated authorities to our underwriting strategy and broker proposition at Chubb Global Markets. With her extensive market experience in both delegated authority management and audit, Dominique is perfectly placed to help us further strengthen and grow our portfolio and I wish her well in her new role."

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: chubb.com/uk

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/324916/Chubb_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.acegroup.com/eu-en



SOURCE Chubb
Turkish Airlines, the carrier that flies to more countries than any other airline in the world, has now extended its 'Stopover' service for its transfer passengers, departing from Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Australia, Russia and Belarus to arrive to the U.S., Europe, South American countries, U.K., Ireland, Far East, Middle East, North Africa and Asia.*

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20161202/445171LOGO )



(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/521043/Stopover.jpg )



Passengers from these countries who have over 20 hours of connection time in Istanbul can avail this service which was earlier offered to passengers travelling from Pakistan only. 'Stopover' services offer passengers a complimentary accommodation and a great opportunity to discover the unique beauties of Istanbul during their transit.

Travellers will receive an accommodation cheque from Turkish Airlines' authorised staff after completing the flight booking process for the passenger. This cheque will allow economy class passengers to stay for one night at a 4-star hotel; and for business class passengers to stay 2 nights at a 5-star hotel in Sultanahmet and Taksim, generally described as the central points of Istanbul.

Mr Ahmet Olmustur, Turkish Airlines' Chief Marketing Officer, said: "After receiving positive response from our passengers we are excited to extend our 'Stopover' programme to other countries. We want to provide our passengers an opportunity to experience Turkish hospitality and several other attractions that the beautiful city of Istanbul has to offer. We are confident that our passengers will benefit through this programme and will make the most out of it."

* The Stopover service is offered to-

Passengers travelling from Kazakhstan to: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Cuba, Europe (Schengen Countries), Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Bahrain) South Africa (Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town)

Passengers travelling from Australia to: Europe, Balkans Region and Turkey

Passengers travelling from Russia to: USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Cuba, Asia and Far East

Passengers travelling from Belarus to: Asia and Far East, Middle East & North Africa

Passengers travelling from Pakistan to: USA, Canada, Schengen Countries, U.K., Ireland, Saudi Arabia (Only valid for Hajj and Umrah Passengers)

Turkish Airlines, Inc.

Media Relations

About Turkish Airlines:

Established in 1933 with a fleet of five aircraft, Star Alliance member Turkish Airlines is a 4-star airline today with a fleet of 337 (passenger and cargo) aircraft flying to 299 destinations worldwide with 250 international and 49 domestic. According to the 2016 Skytrax survey, Turkish Airlines was chosen as "Europe's Best Airline" for the sixth and "Best Airline in Southern Europe" for the eighth consecutive time. Having won in 2010 the world's "Best Economy Catering Service", in 2013 and also in 2014 the world's "Best Business Catering Service", and "Best Business Class Lounge Dining", "Best Business Airline Lounge" awards in last year's survey, Turkish Airlines was awarded again the world's "Best Business Class Dining Lounge" and "Best Business Class On-Board Catering" prizes in this year's survey. More information about Turkish Airlines can be found on its official website http://www.turkishairlines.com or its social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

About Star Alliance:

The Star Alliance network was established in 1997 as the first truly global airline alliance to offer worldwide reach, recognition and seamless service to the international traveller. Its acceptance by the market has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Air Transport World Market Leadership Award and Best Airline Alliance by both Business Traveller Magazine and Skytrax. The member airlines are: Adria Airways, Aegean Airlines, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca, Avianca Brasil, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Croatia Airlines, EGYPTAIR, Ethiopian Airlines, EVA Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, SWISS, TAP Portugal, Turkish Airlines, THAI and United. Overall, the Star Alliance network currently offers more than 18,450 daily flights to 1,300 airports in 190 countries.

Turkish Airlines, Inc

General Administrative Building

34830 Yesilkoy-Istanbul

Tel: +90-(212)-463-63-63 - 13883/11106

Fax: +90-(212)-465-20-78

press@thy.com



SOURCE Turkish Airlines
CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

First Quarter Fiscal 2018 Overview:

Net sales increased 6.7% to $547.5 million compared to the prior year

compared to the prior year Same-store sales increased by 6.9% compared to the prior year

Gross margin, as a percentage of net sales, increased to 29.7%, up from 29.0% in the prior year

Net loss was $8.8 million compared to net loss of $25.2 million in the prior year

compared to net loss of in the prior year Adjusted EBITDA1 increased 22.3% to $16.3 million compared to the prior year

99 Cents Only Stores LLC (the "Company") announced its financial results for the first quarter ended April 28, 2017.

Geoffrey Covert, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "The ongoing execution of our turnaround plan that began to produce operating momentum last year has continued in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 and helped generate solid first quarter results."

Mr. Covert continued, "Net sales for the first quarter were $547.5 million, up 6.7% over the prior year period. On a same-store basis, sales increased 6.9%, resulting from a 2.5% increase in basket, along with a 4.2% increase in transaction count. This increase was primarily driven by our emphasis on improving the customer shopping experience through improvements to merchandising and in-stock levels, particularly in our fresh categories, general merchandise and seasonal merchandise. We also continue to benefit from our concerted effort to improve operational efficiencies. First quarter gross margin improved 70 basis points year-over-year, driven primarily by our success in reducing shrink and scrap and improved execution in our logistics network. In addition, inventory levels are more than 30% lower than they were when the current management team arrived and we have significantly reduced our warehouse footprint."

Mr. Covert concluded, "Our improved operational performance has also helped the Company to continue to improve its overall liquidity position. Cash borrowings under our ABL facility as of the end of the first quarter were $33.1 million, down $6.2 million from the prior quarter and down $6.9 million from a year ago. Importantly, adjusted EBITDA was $16.3 million for the first quarter, up 22.3% compared to the prior year. We are encouraged by this result and we continue to expect to achieve meaningful adjusted EBITDA growth during fiscal 2018."

First Quarter Financial Results

For the first quarter of fiscal 2018, the Company's net sales increased 6.7% to $547.5 million, compared to $512.9 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Same-store sales increased 6.9% compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2017, with higher customer traffic of 4.2% in addition to higher average ticket of 2.5%. The increase in same-store sales was primarily driven by higher sales from general and seasonal merchandise, in part due to better product assortment and improved store execution, as well as improved sales from fresh offerings driven by better product availability, improved in-stock levels and improved execution of the partnerships with the Company's third party produce distributors.

Gross margin, as a percentage of net sales, was 29.7% in the first quarter of fiscal 2018, an increase of 70 basis points from the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Gross margin increased primarily due to lower inventory shrinkage as well as lower distribution and transportation costs, partially offset by lower product margin. Selling, general and administrative expenses were $153.8 million, or 28.1%, as a percentage of net sales, representing a decrease of 260 basis points from the first quarter of fiscal 2017. The improvement was primarily driven by a realized gain on sale of a warehouse facility of $18.5 million and lower workers' compensation expenses, partially offset by increases in the California and Arizona minimum wages and higher performance-based compensation.

Net loss was $8.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 compared to net loss of $25.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Net loss as a percentage of net sales was (1.6)% for the first quarter of fiscal 2018, compared to net loss as a percentage of net sales of (4.9)% for the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Adjusted EBITDA was $16.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2018, compared to $13.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 3.0% compared to 2.6% in the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Sale-Leaseback Transactions

As previously disclosed, in July 2016, the Company sold and concurrently licensed through March 31, 2017 a warehouse facility in the City of Commerce, California. The Company exited the warehouse facility in March 2017 and recorded a realized gain on sale of $18.5 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2018.

During the first quarter of fiscal 2018, the Company sold and concurrently leased back a future store site and received net proceeds of $6.8 million, which will be applied towards the construction of the future store. Additionally, during the first quarter of fiscal 2018, the Company sold and concurrently leased back a store and received net proceeds from this transaction of $4.0 million.

In May 2017, the Company completed two additional sale-leaseback transactions on existing stores and received proceeds of $13.3 million, of which approximately $2.0 million was used to pay down the Company's first lien term loan facility in accordance with the terms thereof.

Store Openings

The Company relocated one store in California during the first quarter of fiscal 2018. As of the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2018, the Company operated 390 stores.

Fiscal 2018 Outlook

The Company is reiterating the following previously issued outlook for fiscal 2018:

Positive same-store sales growth

Year-over-year decrease in net loss and an increase in adjusted EBITDA over the same period

3 new store openings, all in the second half of the year

Capital expenditures of approximately $53-$58 million

CONFERENCE CALL DETAILS

The Company's conference call to discuss its fiscal 2018 first quarter and the other matters described in this release is scheduled for Thursday, June 8, 2017 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time (2:00 p.m. Eastern Time).

The live call can be accessed by dialing 1-877-407-3982 (domestic) or 1-201-493-6780 (international). Please phone in approximately 10 minutes before the call is scheduled to begin and hold for an operator to assist you. Please inform the operator that you are calling in for 99 Cents Only Stores' Fiscal 2018 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call, and be prepared to provide the operator with your name, company name and the conference ID: 13662237. The call will also be broadcast live over the Internet, accessible through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.99only.com/investor-relations.

A telephonic replay of the call will be available beginning Thursday, June 8, 2017, at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, through Thursday, June 22, 2017, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. To access the replay, dial 1-844-512-2921 (domestic) or 1-412-317-6671 (international) and enter the replay pin number: 13662237. A replay of the webcast will also be available for 60 days upon completion of the conference call, accessible through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.99only.com/investor-relations.

A copy of this earnings release and supplemental slides will be available prior to the call, accessible through the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.99only.com/investor-relations.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

The Company defines EBITDA as net income before interest expense (income) and other financial costs, income taxes, depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA for the relevant period as adjusted by various items set forth in the reconciliation tables below, including stock-based compensation, impairment of goodwill and other assets, expenses, charges and reserves related to strategic initiatives and executive recruitment and severance, amortization of gain on sale-leaseback transactions, and other non-cash or one-time or other items as permitted by the terms of the Company's debt instruments. Adjusted EBITDA margin is Adjusted EBITDA divided by total sales. Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin as presented herein, are supplemental measures of the Company's performance that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America ("GAAP"). The Company's management uses EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin to assess its core operating performance and that of its competitors. In addition, Adjusted EBITDA is used to determine the Company's compliance and ability to take certain actions under the covenants contained in the Company's debt instruments. EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin are not measures of the Company's financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered in isolation or as alternatives to net income, operating income or any other performance measures derived in accordance with GAAP, as measures of operating performance or operating cash flows or as measures of liquidity.

Merger and Conversion to LLC

On January 13, 2012, 99 Only Stores was acquired by affiliates of Ares Management LLC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Gold-Schiffer family. The acquisition is referred to as the "Merger." Effective October 18, 2013, 99 Only Stores converted from a California corporation to a California limited liability company, 99 Cents Only Stores LLC. The term the "Company" refers to 99 Only Stores and its consolidated subsidiaries prior to the conversion date and to 99 Cents Only Stores LLC and its consolidated subsidiaries on or after the conversion date.

About 99 Cents Only Stores

Founded in 1982, 99 Cents Only Stores LLC is the leading operator of extreme value stores in California and the Southwestern United States. The Company currently operates 390 stores located in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada. 99 Cents Only Stores LLC offers a broad assortment of name brand and other attractively priced merchandise and compelling seasonal product offerings. For more information, visit www.99only.com.

Investor Contact:

Addo Investor Relations

Lasse Glassen

(424) 238-6249

[email protected]

___________________ 1 EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA margin are financial measures that are considered "non-GAAP financial measures" under the Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. The definitions of, an explanation of how and why the Company uses, and a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measure of, these non-GAAP measures are included in this press release.

### Tables to Follow ###

The following tables reconcile EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA to net income for the periods indicated:



For the First Quarter Ended

April 28,

2017

April 29,

2016

(In thousands)

(Unaudited)







Net loss $ (8,753)

$ (25,194) Interest expense, net 17,340

16,524 Provision for income taxes 15

73 Depreciation and amortization 17,377

16,739 EBITDA $ 25,979

$ 8,142 Stock-based compensation (a) 136

164 Purchase accounting effect on leases (b) 743

707 Inventory adjustments (c) 

963 Employee related expenses (d) 3,247

1,432 Professional and consultant fees (e) 734

321 Gain on sales of assets (f) (18,043)

(143) Loss on extinguishment (g) 

335 Other (h) 3,478

1,387 Adjusted EBITDA $ 16,274

$ 13,308













(a) Represents stock-based compensation expense incurred in connection with various stock-based compensation plans in which certain Company employees have participated. (b) Represents purchase accounting effect on rent revenue and rent expense. (c) Represents charges related to excess and obsolescence reserve. (d) Represents expenses related primarily to severance, signing and retention bonuses. (e) Represents professional and consultant fees primarily related to profitability improvement and other strategic initiatives. (f) Represents amortization of gain related to sale-leaseback arrangements and net gain/loss on the sale/disposal of non-core assets. (g) Represents loss on extinguishment of debt from amendment of the asset based lending facility in the first quarter of fiscal 2017. (h) Represents non-cash or other charges and income for all periods: legal reserve adjustments, non-recurring professional fees, and other.

99 CENTS ONLY STORES LLC

CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS

(In thousands, except share data)



April 28,

2017

January 27,

2017

(Unaudited)



ASSETS





Current Assets:





Cash $ 2,420

$ 2,448 Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $73 and $122 at April 28, 2017 and January 27, 2017, respectively 3,353

3,510 Income taxes receivable 3,861

3,876 Inventories, net 184,663

175,892 Assets held for sale 4,903

4,903 Other 18,878

10,307 Total current assets 218,078

200,936 Property and equipment, net 485,854

507,620 Deferred financing costs, net 2,984

3,488 Intangible assets, net 445,622

447,027 Goodwill 380,643

380,643 Deposits and other assets 8,607

8,592 Total assets $ 1,541,788

$ 1,548,306







LIABILITIES AND MEMBER'S EQUITY





Current Liabilities:





Accounts payable $ 111,565

$ 86,588 Payroll and payroll-related 25,571

24,110 Sales tax 16,574

19,389 Other accrued expenses 55,513

46,082 Workers' compensation 69,408

69,169 Current portion of long-term debt 6,138

6,138 Current portion of capital and financing lease obligations 1,214

31,330 Total current liabilities 285,983

282,806 Long-term debt, net of current portion 858,850

865,375 Unfavorable lease commitments, net 3,674

3,988 Deferred rent 30,791

30,360 Deferred compensation liability 868

816 Capital and financing lease obligation, net of current portions 53,775

47,195 Deferred income taxes 161,450

161,450 Other liabilities 10,995

12,297 Total liabilities 1,406,386

1,404,287 Commitments and contingencies





Member's Equity:





Member units  100 units issued and outstanding at April 28, 2017 and January 27, 2017 551,054

550,918 Investment in Number Holdings, Inc. preferred stock (19,200)

(19,200) Accumulated deficit (396,452)

(387,699) Total equity 135,402

144,019 Total liabilities and equity $ 1,541,788

$ 1,548,306









99 CENTS ONLY STORES LLC

CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS

(In thousands)

(Unaudited)





For the First Quarter Ended

April 28,

2017

April 29,

2016







Net Sales:





99 Only Stores $ 537,992

$ 501,766 Bargain Wholesale 9,520

11,163 Total sales 547,512

512,929 Cost of sales 385,159

363,962 Gross profit 162,353

148,967 Selling, general and administrative expenses 153,751

157,229 Operating income (loss) 8,602

(8,262) Other (income) expense:





Interest income (2)

(2) Interest expense 17,342

16,526 Loss on extinguishment 

335 Total other expense, net 17,340

16,859 Loss before provision for income taxes (8,738)

(25,121) Provision for income taxes 15

73 Net loss $ (8,753)

$ (25,194)









99 CENTS ONLY STORES LLC CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS (In thousands) (Unaudited)



For the First Quarter Ended

April 28,

2017

April 29,

2016







Cash flows from operating activities:





Net loss $ (8,753)

$ (25,194) Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:





Depreciation 16,939

16,302 Amortization of deferred financing costs and accretion of OID 1,714

1,304 Amortization of intangible assets 438

437 Amortization of favorable/unfavorable leases, net 661

587 Loss on extinguishment of debt 

335 Gain on disposal of fixed assets (17,896)

(34) Loss on interest rate hedge 

409 Stock-based compensation 136

164 Changes in assets and liabilities associated with operating activities:





Accounts receivable 157

13 Inventories (8,771)

29,686 Deposits and other assets (8,508)

1,758 Accounts payable 22,298

(5,170) Accrued expenses 8,077

3,403 Accrued workers' compensation 239

117 Income taxes 15

1,443 Deferred rent 431

176 Other long-term liabilities (2,719)

(166) Net cash provided by operating activities 4,458

25,570







Cash flows from investing activities:





Purchases of property and equipment (7,367)

(13,373) Proceeds from sale of property and fixed assets 4,064

4 Net cash used in investing activities (3,303)

(13,369)







Cash flows from financing activities:





Payment of long-term debt (1,535)

(1,535) Proceeds under revolving credit facility 46,400

64,800 Payments under revolving credit facility (52,600)

(72,600) Payments of debt issuance costs 

(4,594) Proceeds from financing lease obligations 6,840

2,031 Payments of capital and financing lease obligations (288)

(239) Net cash used in financing activities (1,183)

(12,137) Net (decrease) increase in cash (28)

64 Cash - beginning of period 2,448

2,312 Cash - end of period $ 2,420

$ 2,376

















Safe Harbor Statement

The Company has included statements in this release that constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act, as amended, and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. As a general matter, forward-looking statements are those focused on future or anticipated events or trends, expectations and beliefs including, among other things, (a) trends affecting the financial condition or results of operations of the Company and (b) the business and growth strategies of the Company (including the Company's store opening growth rate) that are not historical in nature. Such statements are intended to be identified by using words such as "believe," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "will," "project," "plan" and similar expressions in connection with any discussion of future operating or financial performance. Any forward-looking statements are and will be based upon the Company's then-current expectations, estimates and assumptions regarding future events and are applicable only as of the dates of such statements. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from those projected in this release for the reasons, among others, discussed in the reports and other documents the Company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and "Risk Factors" sections contained in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended January 27, 2017. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE 99 Cents Only Stores

Related Links

http://www.99only.com


DETROIT, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Achates Power, Inc. today was named a Michigan Economic Bright Spot for 2017 by Corp! Magazine, a Michigan business publication. The Economic Bright Spot award is presented annually to Michigan companies who have exhibited economic growth and expansion throughout the year. Achates Power is a developer of radically improved internal combustion engines that increase fuel efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cost less than conventional engines.

Achates Power was recognized for its accelerated growth since opening the company's second office in 2015, located in Metro Detroit. The company has seen overall financial growth of 157 percent from 2015 to 2016, and has quickly filled their local office space faster than the anticipated three-year time frame.

"There are enormous growth opportunities in Michigan for Achates Power, the recognition from Corp! Magazine as a Michigan Economic Bright Spot is just the beginning," said David Johnson, CEO and president of Achates Power, Inc. "We anticipate our strong growth trend to continue as engine manufacturers continue to look at how to meet future emissions regulations."

Corp! Magazine has been celebrating Michigan companies that continue to progress in economic growth, expansion and talent attraction for the past 10 years. This year's Corp! award winners were honored at a luncheon today at the International Banquet Center in Detroit.

About Achates Power, Inc.

Achates Power, Inc. was founded in 2004 with the mission to build cleaner, more efficient engines. The San Diego-based company has an experienced staff of engineers and scientists focused on applying their proven technical know-how and expertise, coupled with the industry's leading-edge testing, simulation and analysis tools. It is backed by top private equity firms Sequoia Capital Partners, RockPort Capital Partners, Madrone Capital Partners, InterWest Partners and Triangle Peak Partners. For more information, visit www.achatespower.com.

SOURCE Achates Power, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.achatespower.com


"We are so impressed by Jennie's RVing experience and her enthusiasm for sharing her story with the public. This will be a tremendous opportunity to showcase the fun, affordability and accessibility of RVing," said Karen Redfern, Senior Director, Marketing Communications for Go RVing.

Garth is best known for her role as Kelly Taylor on the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise; as Valerie Tyler on the sitcom What I Like About You, and her own reality show Jennie Garth: A Little Bit Country on CMT. She showcased her design skills in her own docuseries The Jennie Garth Project on HGTV.

Garth grew up RV camping with her family and has passed on this passion to her three girls, taking them on mini-weekend RV trips to cross-country adventures.

"Working with Go RVing is such a perfect fit for me!" said Garth. "I've been RVing my whole life and love that I can share these trips with my family and friends. It leaves so much room for spontaneous adventure where we can take any fork in the road. Best of all, we're spending the kind of quality time together that we would never experience on any other vacation."

The strong appeal of the RV lifestyle is evident in the record numbers of RVers in America. More than 22 million travelers will go RVing in 2017, according to RVIA.

"RV manufacturers are responding to younger baby boomers and millennials with product offerings that reflect their aesthetics, needs and budgets," said Redfern. "We look forward to introducing the RV lifestyle to new audiences in the year ahead with Jennie's help."

RVIA is the national association representing approximately 400 manufacturers and component suppliers producing 98 percent of all RVs made in the United States.

Find More RV Facts - www.rvia.org/media

CONTACT:

Kevin Broom

Director of Media Relations

703-620-6003, ext. 304

[email protected]

SOURCE Go RVing

Related Links

http://www.rvia.org/media


"We are incredibly fortunate to have a theater professional of Jake Speck's caliber and character poised to step into this key role," said A. D. Players Board Chairman Susan Santangelo. "With our move into the new Jeannette and L.M. George Theater for our 50th season, we have celebrated the A. D. Players' rich history and Jeannette's long legacy. And with Jake's arrival we look confidently and expectantly toward the many opportunities before us to serve this great community through the medium of theater."

As Executive Director, Speck will oversee all business and community-related functions of the company. Like his A. D. Players predecessor, he is no stranger to the challenges of launching a theater company from the ground up. Speck joined Nashville's nationally renowned Studio Tenn in 2010 for the company's first full season, and has served as its President and Managing Director for the last six-and-a-half years. During that time Studio Tenn has become one of the leading regional theater companies in the Southeast. The company was recognized three times by the "Nashville Business Journal" as one of the top five highest-attended performing arts organizations in Middle Tennessee, and designated three years in a row by the "Nashville Scene" as Best Local Theatre Company in the region.

Speck's impressive performance career includes a two-year run the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical "Jersey Boys", and he has been a featured performer on the Emmy Awards, the Tony Awards, ABC's "Nashville" and the Netflix series "Master of None" opposite Aziz Ansari. He has performed regionally in professional productions of "Kiss Me Kate", "Thoroughly Modern Millie", "Forever Plaid" and "The Melville Boys", and performed a private concert at The White House for the President of the United States. In Nashville, Speck starred among Broadway veterans in Show Hope's "Cinderella" with the Nashville Symphony in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and in Studio Tenn productions of "Les Miserables", "Twelve Angry Men" and "Monty Python's Spamalot". Speck trained professionally at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York City.

"I couldn't be more excited to join A. D. Players as their new executive director," said Speck. "It is an honor to join an organization with such a rich and storied history, and to be part of the continuing legacy of Jeannette Clift George. I've rarely seen a company with more potential and opportunity, and I am thrilled to be the one leading this organization into its next phase of excellence. The arts community in Houston is so rich and diverse--and I very much look forward to being a part of that."

Speck expressed his gratitude to the Studio Tenn board, staff and donors for their astounding level of support.

"While it's difficult to walk away from something you helped build, I feel it is precisely the experience of building Studio Tenn that has prepared me for my new assignment," said Speck. "Studio Tenn will always be a part of me and for that I am eternally grateful."

A.D. Players' 2017-2018 Main Stage theater lineup includes productions of "Harvey", Mary Chase's 1944 Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy about an imaginary, 6'3" rabbit; Barbara Robinson's delightful "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" from the young adult novel by the same name; "Best of Enemies", a true story of the unlikely relationship forged between a Ku Klux Klan leader and a civil rights activist; "Lilies of the Field", the story of a traveling handyman convinced to build a chapel for a small band of immigrant nuns; and "God's Favorite", Neil Simon's hilarious, contemporary comedy reimagining the biblical man of woe, Job. Children's Theater productions for 2017-2018 include "Balloonacy", "Rock Nativity", "A Wrinkle in Time" and "David, the Best Slinger in the West".

About A.D. Players Theater

The A. D. Players is a professional theater ministry communicating through various mediums under the creative signature of God. Founded in 1967 by Jeannette Clift George, A.D. Players has pioneered a unique style of theater committed to producing plays and programs that uphold human value, celebrate creativity, and promote literacy and education. The company is one of Houston's largest resident theater companies, impacting more than nine million people over its lifetime. Annually, the company produces Mainstage and Children's Theater performances, fields a Regional Touring Unit, and maintains a year-round Theater Arts Academy. A. D. Players became an Actors' Equity Association (AEA) theater in 2017 and is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization.

For more information, visit www.adplayers.org or follow them on Facebook.

SOURCE A. D. Players

Related Links

http://www.adplayers.org


SAN DIEGO, June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The dream of creating an artificial intelligence is one that has been fluttering in and out of humanity's greatest minds for centuries. How would we create such a thing? What would it look like? What would it do?

San Diego-based tech startup TuSimple has brought those questions out of the realm of abstract dreams and into the real world, to solve one of modern society's most vexing problems: how do we stop killing ourselves in car crashes?

Though we have completely integrated automobiles into our societies, building our cities and public spaces and even homes around their existence, it turns out that we just aren't very good at driving them.

According to the Association for Safe International Road Travel, automobile accidents cause more than 1.3 million deaths around the world each year  an average of 3,287 deaths a day. That doesn't include the 20-50 million others who are injured in accidents each year.

In the United States alone, 40,200 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2016, with another 2.35 million injured. In addition to the human toll, ASIRT estimates the economic cost from crashes in the US to be $260.3 billion dollars.

But the most devastating statistic of all: 94% of all motor vehicle accidents are caused by human error.

TuSimple wants to change this. Fast.

Their mentality is simple: to remove the human error, remove the human. Focusing on trucks  a disproportionately deadly segment of crashes  TuSimple is developing an AI system to act as a safer driver.

Co-founder Xiaodi Hou has a PhD from Caltech in computation and neural networks. He has spent nearly every day of the past two years coding algorithms for a deep learning artificial intelligence system that will form the core of TuSimple's self-driving truck.

TuSimple rose to fame last fall when its scientists took home ten first-place titles in computer vision benchmark competitions released by KITTI and Cityscapes.

Now it's offering a challenge of its own.

TuSimple's data scientists have created a massive dataset of 1-second videos designed to simulate real-world continuous driving conditions for a self-driving car. They are challenging any teams who want to test their AI driving systems to use their dataset benchmarks and see how accurately they can recognize lanes or analyze the speed of adjacent cars.

To encourage computer vision teams to test their algorithms, TuSimple is offering cash prizes of $1,000 for first place in the competition, $500 for second place, and $250 for third place. The winning teams will also receive special mention at this summer's upcoming CVPR Conference in Honolulu, HI from July 21-26.

"Benchmark dataset competitions like KITTI, Cityscapes, and now ours foster innovation and creative solutions," Dr. Hou explains. "We believe that development in the field of AI is a collective process, not a zero-sum game, and any growth in knowledge or processes improves the entire field of study."

The dataset and all instructions can be found here: http://benchmark.tusimple.ai/#/

SOURCE TuSimple LLC
WASHINGTON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- API today urged members of the Ohio Senate Public Utilities Committee to follow the lead of their House colleagues and reject legislation that would bail out the nuclear power industry and raise rates on consumers.

"Customers benefit most when markets are allowed to work free of mandates," said API Chief Economist Erica Bowman in her testimony to the committee.

Senate Bill 128 would increase electricity prices for Ohio's consumers while driving down demand for natural gas and discouraging investment in new natural gas-fired power generation, according to API.

"API is strongly opposed to making Ohio less competitive and discouraging job creation," Bowman continued. "This bill would skew markets by propping up uncompetitive nuclear generation, increase costs for ratepayers and job-creating businesses, and discourage investment in natural gas production and gas-fired power plants."

Bowman's testimony comes after API Ohio released a new poll on Wednesday showing that the overwhelming majority of Ohio voters oppose legislation that would allow FirstEnergy to charge its customers with a special fee to increase funding to its nuclear power plants.

Results of the poll and Bowman's testimony are available on the API website.

API is the only national trade association representing all facets of the oil and natural gas industry, which supports 9.8 million U.S. jobs and 8 percent of the U.S. economy. API's more than 625 members include large integrated companies, as well as exploration and production, refining, marketing, pipeline, and marine businesses, and service and supply firms. They provide most of the nation's energy and are backed by a growing grassroots movement of more than 40 million Americans.

SOURCE American Petroleum Institute

Related Links

http://www.api.org/


SAN FRANCISCO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- App Annie, the most trusted mobile app data and insights company, today announced the winners of their inaugural awards program  The Annies  at the company's premiere industry event, Capptivate, in San Francisco. The winning apps spanned six award categories and included Spotify, The Weather Channel, Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie, Game of War, Netflix and YouTube.

The first industry recognition of its kind, The Annies awards highlight and celebrate mobile app visionaries who demonstrate exceptional growth, industry impact and mobile app success.

"At App Annie, I'm proud to say we work with the most innovative digital leaders," said Bertrand Schmitt, CEO and Co-Founder. "Apps have revolutionized the way we approach business  because apps have transformed consumers' lives. We're excited to recognize these mobile pioneers with The Annies, and we look forward to watching their continued success."

Spotify Named " Fan Favorite ": Music streaming leader Spotify was recognized as the top app by iOS and Google Play downloads during the 12 months ending April 2017 , with the highest rating in the United States . In April 2017 alone, Spotify earned 4.1 out of 5 stars and reached 3 million combined downloads. Other finalists in this category include WhatsApp, Pandora, Pinterest and Bitmoji.

Music streaming leader Spotify was recognized as the top app by iOS and Google Play downloads during the 12 months ending , with the highest rating in . In alone, Spotify earned 4.1 out of 5 stars and reached 3 million combined downloads. Other finalists in this category include WhatsApp, Pandora, Pinterest and Bitmoji. The Weather Channel Won For "Transformation Through Mobile": For this category, App Annie analyzed the top traditionally non digital-first companies that have transformed their businesses through developing mobile apps. The winner was determined by assessing average combined monthly active users (MAU) in the US in the 12 months ending April 2017 . The Weather Channel earned this title. The Weather Channel had over 40 million monthly active users on iPhone and Android phone combined in the US in April 2017 . Other finalists in this category include ESPN, Walmart and Chase Mobile.

For this category, analyzed the top traditionally non digital-first companies that have transformed their businesses through developing mobile apps. The winner was determined by assessing average combined monthly active users (MAU) in the US in the 12 months ending . The Weather Channel earned this title. The Weather Channel had over 40 million monthly active users on iPhone and Android phone combined in the US in . Other finalists in this category include ESPN, Walmart and Chase Mobile. Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie Won For "Breakout Growth": Video chat app Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie wins for Breakout Growth. It is currently the top rated app that has experienced the largest year-over-year growth, based on combined iPhone and Android MAU. The app's combined MAU in April 2017 for iPhone and Android phone was 17x its MAU in April 2016 in the United States . Other finalists in this category include Signal Private Messenger, UberEATS, HOOKED and Chick-fil-A One .

Video chat app Marco Polo Video Walkie Talkie wins for Breakout Growth. It is currently the top rated app that has experienced the largest year-over-year growth, based on combined iPhone and Android MAU. The app's combined MAU in for iPhone and Android phone was 17x its MAU in in . Other finalists in this category include Signal Private Messenger, UberEATS, HOOKED and Chick-fil-A One Netflix and Game of War Took Home "The Most App Store Revenue for Non-Gaming and Gaming Apps": This category highlights the top apps by combined iOS and Google Play revenue in the US in the 12 months ending April 2017  for both Gaming and apps excluding Games. Game of War, a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), broke into the top 10 by revenue for iOS and Google Play approximately a month after its launch, and has remained there three and a half years later. Netflix saw $11.5 million in combined iOS and Google Play revenue in the US in April 2017 . Other finalists in this category include Pokemon GO, Mobile Strike, HBO NOW and Pandora.

This category highlights the top apps by combined iOS and Google Play revenue in the US in the 12 months ending  for both Gaming and apps excluding Games. Game of War, a massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), broke into the top 10 by revenue for iOS and Google Play approximately a month after its launch, and has remained there three and a half years later. Netflix saw in combined iOS and Google Play revenue in the US in . Other finalists in this category include Pokemon GO, Mobile Strike, HBO NOW and Pandora. YouTube Earned "Most Capptivating App": The most "capptivating" app in the US in Q1 2017 was identified based on the new App Annie proprietary eMAU index, or "Engagement by Monthly Active User," which measures app engagement, sentiment and growth for apps outside of games and utilities. As of April 2017 , YouTube has over 70 million iPhone and Android phone combined MAU. Other finalists in this category include Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and Pandora.

Methodology

The award finalists and winners are determined by a quantitative analysis of App Annie estimates and rankings. The rankings are calculated using a combination of downloads, revenue and/or usage  overlaid with growth metrics including year-over-year changes and overall industry influence. Mobile apps available from the Apple App Store and Google Play in the U.S. market were considered for these awards.

About Capptivate

Capptivate, App Annie's premier industry event, gathered top mobile app professionals to discuss the transformative app market. Attendees will included mobile industry leaders, as well as companies looking to learn best practices and successful strategies that to help them elevate the impact of their mobile initiatives.

About App Annie

App Annie delivers the most trusted app data and insights for your business to succeed in the global app economy. Over 800,000 registered members rely on App Annie to better understand the app market, their businesses and the opportunities around them. The company is headquartered in San Francisco with 450 employees across 15 global offices. App Annie has received $157 million in financing, including from investors such as Sequoia Capital, Institutional Venture Partners, IDG Capital Partners, e.ventures, Greenspring Associates, and Greycroft Partners.

SOURCE App Annie

Related Links

http://www.appannie.com


WARREN, Mich., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A Flag Day salute to the red, white and blue! Art Van Furniture will invite Chicagoland families to turn in tattered or torn Old Glories on Wednesday, June 14 from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and receive new 3-by-5-foot American flags to display proudly and patriotically. The American-built company will ensure the old flags are respectfully disposed of in accordance with the U.S. Flag Code.

The Midwest's number one furniture and mattress retailer hopes to take in and distribute thousands of Stars and Stripes to commemorate Flag Day 2017, a time when citizens throughout the country will host flag raising ceremonies and fly the American flag at their homes.

"Home is where the heart is, and the American flag represents the heart of every American's shared home, our great country," said Kim Yost, CEO of Art Van Furniture. "Every day, Art Van Furniture helps Chicagoland families beautify their homes. On this Flag Day, we want America's enduring symbol of freedom to look bright and beautiful as it waves from front porches and backyards from Naperville to Merrillville, Bedford Park to Orland Park, and everywhere in between."

Art Van Furniture's 12 Chicagoland stores are in Algonquin, Batavia, Bedford Park, Chicago (Elston Avenue), Downers Grove, Glendale Heights, Merrillville, Naperville, Orland Park, Schaumburg, Woodridge and Portage, Ind.

For a complete review of the U.S. Flag Code, including the proper position and manner of display for the American flag, click here.

About Art Van Furniture

Art Van Furniture is the Midwest's largest furniture retailer and America's largest independent furniture retailer. The company operates more than 100 stores throughout Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, including freestanding Art Van PureSleep mattress stores, Art Van Flooring stores, and Art Van Furniture franchise locations, as well as a full-service e-commerce website. Founded in 1959, the company is headquartered in Warren, Mich. Visit artvan.com for more information.

SOURCE Art Van Furniture

Related Links

http://www.artvan.com


DRESHER, Pa., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascensus , a service and technology provider that helps more than 7 million Americans save for the future, is pleased to announce that it has launched Ugift for ABLE savings accounts. Ugift is a free, easy-to-use service that enables account owners to receive gift contributions via a simple and secure web experience. Originally created to help families saving for college, Ugift has surpassed $400 million in gift contributions to 529 college savings plans since its inception in 2007.

ABLE savings accounts allow people with a disability or blindness to save for the future without jeopardizing their federal disability benefits. Ascensus administers ABLE programs across 11 states, providing account administration, investment management, and marketing services. By launching Ugift for ABLE accounts, the firm aims to help account owners continue to grow their savings with gift contributions.

Family and friends can visit UgiftABLE.com at their convenience, enter the unique gifting code for the ABLE account, and complete their contribution in just a few minutes. Contributions can be made electronically from the gift givers' bank account or by check at any time.

"The ABLE program allows people living with disabilities and blindness to save for the specialized care and resources they need," states Jeff Howkins, president of Ascensus' college savings division. "Through Ugift, friends and family members can easily join these savings efforts to help account owners meet their goals."

For more information on the Ugift program for ABLE savings accounts, visit UgiftABLE.com.

Before investing in any ABLE program, you should consider whether your home state offers an ABLE program that provides its taxpayers with favorable state tax or other benefits that are only available through the home state's ABLE program. You also should consult your financial, tax, or other advisor to learn more about how state-based benefits (or any limitations) would apply to your specific circumstances. You also may wish to contact directly your home state's ABLE program, or any other ABLE program, to learn more about those plans' features, benefits, and limitations. Keep in mind that state-based benefits should be one of many appropriately weighted factors to be considered when making an investment decision.

Investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses, and other important information are included in an ABLE program's offering statement; read and consider it carefully before investing.

Investment returns are not guaranteed, and you could lose money by investing in an ABLE program. Account owners assume all investment risks as well as responsibility for any federal and state tax consequences.

An account in an ABLE plan is controlled by the account owner. Your gift contribution may have gift tax consequences or other tax implications. Please consult your tax advisor.

ACRS and its affiliates do not provide tax advice. Please note that (i) any discussion of U.S. tax matters contained in this communication cannot be used by you for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties; (ii) this communication was written to support the promotion or marketing of the matters addressed herein; and (iii) you should seek advice based on your particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.

Ugift is a registered service mark of Ascensus Broker Dealer Services, Inc.

* Not FDIC Insured (except for ABLE plans that offer an FDIC-insured portfolio) * No Bank, State, or Federal Guarantee * May Lose Value *

About Ascensus

Ascensus helps more than 7 million Americans save for the futureretirement, college, and healthcarethrough service and technology solutions. With more than 35 years of experience, the firm offers tailored solutions that meet the needs of banks, credit unions, states, governments, financial professionals, employers, and individuals. Ascensus supports over 50,000 retirement plans, more than 4 million 529 college savings accounts, and a growing number of ABLE savings accounts. It also administers more than 1.5 million IRAs and health savings accounts. For more information about Ascensus, visit www.ascensus.com.

View career opportunities at careers.ascensus.com or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ascensus. For the latest company news, follow @AscensusInc on Twitter.

SOURCE Ascensus

Related Links

https://www.ascensus.com


PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Atlantis, Paradise Island resort in The Bahamas completes a successful two day harvesting and out planting of corals to three coral reefs off New Providence that were destroyed last year by Hurricane Matthew. As part of Atlantis' established commitment to the flourishing Bahamian ecology, this effort continues to expand the sustainability of one of the nation's natural resources, the ocean. This ongoing project, an initiative of the nonprofit, 501(c)3 organization - Atlantis Blue Project Foundation (ABPF) - helps rehabilitate damaged coral reefs by growing small coral fragments to repopulate reefs that have been eliminated through disease, hurricanes, or bleaching. Since its inception more than 10 years ago, the Atlantis Blue Project Foundation has generated over $5 million through funding from Atlantis guests' participation in the resort's marine adventures and is dedicated to saving sea species and their extraordinary habitats throughout The Bahamas and surrounding Caribbean seas.

With the help of Atlantis Marine team members, The Bahamas National Trust, The Nature Conservancy, BREEF, Stuart Cove's and Dr. Craig Dahlgren, Director of the Perry Institute for Marine Science/coral reef scientist, the team harvested 150 pieces of finger coral from one of Atlantis' two on-property nurseries and 100 pieces of staghorn coral from nurseries established by The Nature Conservancy and managed by Stuart Cove's. The corals, as 2 inch fragments or cuttings from naturally occurring corals and placed on lines or tree structures at the nurseries, were monitored as they grew at rates faster than they normally do on reefs. Once the corals were deemed healthy and large enough, they were placed back on the coral reefs in the ocean through multiple dives to sites that have been degraded by storm damage and human impacts.

"The ongoing coral nursery project at Atlantis presents an opportunity to educate people about the importance of coral reefs in The Bahamas," said Debra Erickson, Executive Director of the Atlantis Blue Project Foundation. "We are very proud of our established nurseries and our on-going efforts to help repopulate areas that have lost their coral."

As an ocean resort, Atlantis has a meaningful connection with the #sea and is committed to protecting and restoring the surrounding ecology of the breathtaking Bahamas. In celebration of #WorldOceansDay, Atlantis employees are coming together for company-wide beach clean-ups and are supporting several guest activations to help bring awareness to the resort's year-around ocean conservation efforts including educational seminars and interactive experiences.

The Bahamas has more coral reef area than any other country in the region and one of the largest coral reefs in the world. Coral's sustainability is vital to the marine ecosystem as they provide food and shelter for other marine life, in addition to helping protect shorelines and preserve beaches. By funding scientific research, conservation programs and community outreach efforts, ABPF's mission is to protect the waters and its vast marine wildlife, ensuring that The #Bahamas will remain a haven for a myriad of unique, rare and endangered species for generations to come. To date, the foundation has assisted in several coral reef out plantings as well as expanding the Marine Protected Area on Andros Island in The Bahamas to add more than one million acres to the park, protecting the entire western side of the island.

Developed as educational tools that will be used to increase public awareness about coral reef ecosystems, The Nature Conservancy and Perry Institute of Marine Science are releasing a ten-minute documentary and a public service announcement (PSA) today. Made possible by support from the Atlantis Blue Project Foundation, the documentary highlights the importance of and threats to corals, reef fish and benthic habitats and the value of establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) to preserve diverse marine ecosystems. Vivid imagery of local coral reef ecosystems in conjunction with interviews of conservation and industry partners were used to communicate the interdependency between healthy functioning coral reefs and Bahamian livelihoods.

The Atlantis Blue Project Foundation continues to work with its partners to develop innovative ways to protect the Bahamian waters and wildlife.

For more information about the Atlantis Blue Project Foundation and to view the ten-minute documentary, visit www.blueprojectatlantis.org, www.atlantisbahamas.com, www.atlantisbahamas.com/ocean and www.cometolifeatlantis.com.

SOURCE Atlantis, Paradise Island

Related Links

http://www.atlantisbahamas.com


NAIROBI, Kenya, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Bechtel, a global leader in engineering, procurement, and construction, today announced the opening of a regional Africa office in Nairobi, Kenya. This regional office reflects the company's commitment to supporting Africa's economic growth.

"Our new office in Nairobi presents an opportunity to focus on building stronger relationships with our customers and their communities," said Andrew Patterson, Bechtel's region president for Africa. "We are excited about creating a permanent presence in Africa to support our customers in delivering large infrastructure, oil and gas and mining projects." Patterson will be based in Nairobi.

For more than 70 years, Bechtel has worked in Africa on hundreds of projects. This history and global experience positions the company well to continue to support Africa to deliver the next generation of major projects.

Bechtel is committed to supporting the continued development of the continent by helping to build transformative and resilient projects, as sustainability is central to Bechtel's approach.

"More than the physical assets we leave behind, Bechtel constructs the enabling environment that benefits society for the long term. This includes building the capacity of local workers, businesses, and communities and having a shared vision and plan to transition local-content programs toward economic development," Patterson said.

About Bechtel

Bechtel is one of the most respected global engineering, construction, and project management companies. Together with our customers, we deliver landmark projects that foster long-term progress and economic growth. Since 1898, we've completed more than 25,000 extraordinary projects across 160 countries on all seven continents. We operate through four global businesses: Infrastructure; Nuclear, Security & Environmental; Oil, Gas & Chemicals; and Mining & Metals. Our company and our culture are built on more than a century of leadership and a relentless adherence to our values, the core of which are safety, quality, ethics, and integrity. These values are what we believe, what we expect, what we deliver, and what we live. www.bechtel.com

Media contact:

Sonja Elmquist

T: +1 571 392-6716

[email protected]

SOURCE Bechtel

Related Links

http://www.bechtel.com


"We're thrilled at the excitement over our newest Club and for the warm welcome BJ's has received in Summerville," said Dawn Albright, general manager of BJ's Wholesale Club in Summerville, S.C. "We look forward to bringing our assortment of fresh food, unbeatable value and smart savings to South Carolina."

At the Summerville grand opening celebration on Saturday, June 10, Members and the public will have the opportunity sample food and beverages from top-quality, leading brands including BJ's exclusive Wellsley Farms brand.

The BJ's Wholesale Club is located at the intersection of Interstate 26 and North Main Street, Summerville's primary retail corridor. Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer surveys on household spending, the BJ's Wholesale Club in Summerville could save area shoppers more than $40 million a year. The Club also features a BJ's Gas station, offering Members even more savings.

Recently, BJ's announced that its continuing its expansion plans with a new Club in Hanover Township, New Jersey in Summer 2018. Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer surveys on household spending, the BJ's Wholesale Club in Hanover Township could save area shoppers nearly $40 million a year.

BJ's Wholesale Club brings a number of benefits to the community:

BJ's offers excellent value.

BJ's beats grocery store prices, saving families up to 25 percent on national brands every day.



The company is the only major wholesale club that accepts all manufacturers' coupons, offering families another great way to save.



Its exclusive brands, Berkley Jensen  and Wellsley Farms, let families save without sacrificing quality or fun.

and Wellsley Farms, let families save without sacrificing quality or fun. BJ's biggest advantage is fresh food  produce, dairy, meat and deli.

BJ's offers Members much more fresh food variety than other clubs.



BJ's is the only major wholesale club to offer a full-service deli with premium meats and cheeses.



Members can have fresh meats cut to their specifications. BJ's butchers will recut and repackage at no additional charge.

A BJ's Membership is filled with added convenience.

BJ's offers the most payment options of any major wholesale club.



Members can research, shop and install electronics with help from BJ's Tech Advisors.



BJ's Pick Up & Pay program allows shoppers to stock up by reserving items online and then picking up in-Club.



Members can save time and money by filling up their tanks at BJ's Gas. The company's gas prices are among the lowest around.



Members approved for a My BJ's Perks Mastercard earn up to 5 percent cash back1 at BJ's and beyond, plus save 10/gal. at BJ's Gas every day.

Additionally, through BJ's Feeding Communities Program, the Club will donate unsold produce, meat, poultry, seafood, dairy and bakery products on a daily basis to reduce food waste and provide wholesome, fresh food to neighbors in need.

Shoppers can learn more about BJ's Wholesale Club by going to www.bjs.com.

1Subject to credit approval. My BJ's Perks Program is provided by BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc. and its terms may change from time to time. Some exclusions apply. Visit BJs.com/perksterms for Program Terms. Cash back is in the form of electronic awards issued in $20 increments that are used in-Club at the register and expire 6 months from the date issued. Cash back can be requested in the form of a check prior to awards expiring by contacting Member Care at 800-BJs-CLUB.

My BJ's Perks Mastercard is issued by Comenity Capital Bank pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Mastercard and the Mastercard Brand Mark are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated.

About BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc.

Headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, BJ's is the leading operator of membership warehouse clubs in the Eastern United States. The company currently operates 215 clubs and 132 BJ's Gas locations in 16 states.

BJ's provides a one-stop shopping destination filled with top-quality, leading brands, including its exclusive Wellsley Farms and Berkley Jensen brands, along with USDA Choice meats, premium produce and delicious organics, many in supermarket sizes. BJ's is also the only major membership warehouse club to accept all manufacturers' coupons and, for greater convenience, offers the most payment options.

Visit www.BJs.com, and for exclusive content find us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

BJ's is wholly owned by affiliates of Leonard Green & Partners, CVC Capital Partners and its management team.

SOURCE BJ's Wholesale Club

Related Links

http://www.bjs.com


The year 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the world's first food bank. Initially, the concept was simple; individuals and organizations could "deposit" food, and those in need could "withdraw." However, the face of hunger has changed and simply providing food no longer addresses all the issues. To meet these new challenges, Fulfill also offers food stamps and health insurance guidance, a culinary training program and much more.

In addition to a brand rename, BrandTuitive also provided Fulfill with a new logo and modernized its brand look to better reflect their industry-changing work. A new tagline, Hunger Won't Win Here, communicates the results this extremely well-run organization delivers.

"When an organization such as Fulfill is making such big strides in its category, it deserves to have a brand messaging platform and look to match," said Todd Brenard, Chief Strategy Officer, BrandTuitive.

The brand was officially unveiled on May 23 at the Fulfill headquarters in Neptune, New Jersey, complete with attendance by local government officials and the press, a parade led by a marching band and a reveal of their newly wrapped fleet of trucks and mobile pantries.

Of their partnership with BrandTuitive, Carlos Rodriguez, Executive Director at Fulfill, said, "BrandTuitive explored in a very methodical way who we are through the voice of everyone we touch in our community. They revealed not something new that we want to be but something that we already are in the eyes of the folks we work and engage with."

About BrandTuitive

BrandTuitive is a full-service branding and marketing agency based in NYC. Since 2010, BrandTuitive has consistently delivered strategic insights and results-driven design to clients. From global powerhouse brands to quickly emerging startups, BrandTuitive's clients range across a variety of industries. Visit them at www.brandtuitive.com.

Contact:

Todd Brenard, BrandTuitive

646.790.5708

[email protected]

SOURCE BrandTuitive
LONDON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Call Centre Operations:

The call centre sector, which contributes about R53bn annually to GDP and employs approximately 220,000 people is supported by Business Process Enabling South Africa (BPeSA), an association founded in 2002 to promote and develop the local IT-enabled services industry. Incorporated in the sector is Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) which involves relocating business processes that a company usually performs in-house such as customer-related business and administrative functions, to a third-party service provider such as a call centre. Outsourcing becomes off-shoring when the third-party service provider is located overseas.





Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3343846/









Countrywide Growth:

South Africa continues to attract international brands and since 2012 the local off-shore Business Process Services (BPS) market has experienced compound average growth of 25% year-on-year. Currently 30,000 South Africans work for foreign companies who have based their call centre operations in South Africa, mainly in Cape Town. Johannesburg remains the city of choice for financial operations while Durban is increasingly being considered as a centre for technical support issues. The Eastern Cape holds about 20% of the retail segment, with 60% of Eastern Cape call centres focused on the public sector and Government.





Report Coverage:

Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3343846/



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers

http://www.reportbuyer.com



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +44 208 816 85 48

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com


VANCOUVER, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Callinex Mines Inc. (the "Company" or "Callinex") (TSX-V: CNX; OTCQX: CLLXF) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a financial advisory services agreement (the "Financial Advisory Agreement") with Clarion Consulting Sarl. Under the terms of the Financial Advisory Agreement, Callinex has agreed to pay a monthly consulting fee of USD $10,000 per month.

Clarion will assist Callinex in forming productive relationships with private investors, analysts, investment funds, brokers and other financial institutions and interested parties. Carlo Civelli, who controls Clarion, owns, directly and indirectly, 4,750,000 common shares of Callinex. Nico Civelli, a member of Callinex's board of directors, is the son of Carlo Civelli.

Max Porterfield, President and CEO, stated, "We are looking forward to working with Mr. Civelli in an increased capacity from his current role as Chairman of the Advisory Board. Mr. Civelli is a supportive long-term shareholder of Callinex with a strong network of European investors within the natural resource sector."

Clarion is based in Monaco and provides financial advisory and consulting services.

The Financial Advisory Agreement, which is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange, is for a period of 3 months. Callinex may terminate the Financial Advisory Agreement on providing 10 days written notice to the other party.

About Callinex Mines Inc.

Callinex Mines Inc. is focused on discovering and developing zinc and copper rich mines within prolific Canadian VMS mining jurisdictions. The Company is actively exploring its Pine Bay Project, located in the Flin Flon mining district of Manitoba, which hosts significant historic VMS deposits that are within close proximity to a processing facility. The larger project portfolio hosts three significant zinc rich mineral resources including the Point Leamington, Nash Creek and Superjack Projects located in Eastern Canada.

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.

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to future expenditures. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, among others, the ability to complete contemplated work programs and the timing and amount of expenditures. Callinex does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

SOURCE Callinex Mines Inc.

Related Links

www.callinex.ca


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Two scientists who spearheaded the research that brought a life-saving drug to patients around the world are being honored at the annual Cooley's Anemia Foundation Gala tonight in New York City. Drs. Michael Spino and Fernando Tricta will jointly receive the Humanitarian of the Year Award for their work on deferiprone (Ferriprox), the first oral medication used to treat iron overload caused by blood transfusions in people with certain hereditary red blood cell disorders (thalassemia syndromes).

Prior to the approval of Ferriprox, many patients died from cardiac failure and other complications from iron overload, as well as the inadequacy of the only existing treatment. Patients also suffered a significant burden on their quality of life due to the need of a treatment process that required lifelong, daily 8-12 hour injections to remove excess iron from the body.

In making this announcement, Anthony Viola, National President of the Cooley's Anemia Foundation Board of Directors, said, "Doctors Spino and Tricta are true heroes in the thalassemia community. Their efforts have led directly to prolonging the lives of our patients and enhancing the quality of their lives. We are so grateful that they have agreed to let us publically acknowledge them."

"It is humbling to have this honor bestowed on us, but the impact that this drug has had on so many lives would not have been possible without the unwavering support of Dr. Barry Sherman, the Founder of Apotex," said Dr. Spino. "To this day, we still receive personal, touching stories from patients living with thalassemia, telling us how this drug has positively changed their lives."

Co-recipient of the award is Dr. Fernando Tricta, a pediatric hematologist who was instrumental in the clinical studies for the assessment of the safety and efficacy of deferiprone in his pursuit of better treatment options for people with thalassemia. Almost 20 years after its first approval, he still reflects on his first experiences with the drug. "When I first started treating patients with this drug on a compassionate basis, I could not believe the improved quality of life it had versus the available treatment at the time. Now we have deferiprone being recognized by the American Heart Association for its effectiveness in removing excess iron from the heart, which was the main cause of death in transfused patients with thalassemia."

The Cooley's Anemia Foundation is also honoring Dino Philippou, recipient of the 2017 Young Leadership Award, an exceptional young man who has become not only a successful restaurateur but also an inspiring and untiring philanthropist and activist for the Foundation and other causes. Mr. Philippou also happens to be a thalassemia patient.

According to Mr. Viola, "Dino is a great benefactor and friend of Cooley's Anemia Foundation. The fact that he is also a patient is almost coincidental and we would honor him anyway because of his support for our cause. We are happy to acknowledge him with this award."

Dino Philippou says, "I am so happy to accept this recognition from Cooley's Anemia Foundation because they have been so instrumental in improving the lives of all of us with this disorder."

The 2017 Gala Chairman, Frank Fusaro, President, The Forum Group; Chairman, Columbus Citizens Foundation; and Member of the Board of Directors of Cooley's Anemia Foundation announced, "Your support of our efforts on behalf of our patients and their families is very appreciated. Please join us on June 8th to help us honor these deserving individuals and to meet some of the members of our thalassemia family and many of us who support them. I hope to see you there!"

For more information or to arrange an interview with Anthony Viola, Dr. Fernando Tricta or a patient with thalassemia, please contact:

Henry Ackermann

[email protected]

(212) 279-8090 Ext. 204

For further information about the 2017 Cooley's Anemia Foundation Gala and for information about tickets for the June 8th event visit the Cooley's Anemia Foundation website http://www.thalassemia.org or e-mail [email protected].

About Cooley's Anemia Foundation: Since 1954, the mission of Cooley's Anemia Foundation is to increase life expectancy and enhance the quality of life for those impacted by thalassemia, a class of genetic blood disorders, most of which require regular blood transfusions and aggressive management of chronic iron overload, the predominant cause of early death. We do so by funding medical research to advance treatment and curative approaches, by supporting and advising patients and their families and advocating on their behalf, and by educating medical professionals and the general public. Every day, we strive for longer and healthier lives for all patients with thalassemia until a universal cure is found.

About Ferriprox: The first oral iron chelator used to treat iron overload caused by blood transfusions in people with certain hereditary red blood cell disorders (thalassemia). Prior to the approval of Ferriprox, many patients died from cardiac failure and other complications from iron overload, as well as the inadequacy of the only existing treatment. Patients also suffered a significant burden on their quality of life due to the need for a treatment process that required lifelong, daily 8-12 hour treatments using an infusion pump to remove excess iron from the body. Ferriprox has been used to treat patients for almost 30 years and was first approved in Europe almost 20 years ago. It is now approved in more than 60 countries.

Endnotes: Quotes from thought leaders on the occasion of Drs. Spino and Tricta receiving this award.

"Due to many scientific and economic issues, deferiprone needed a strong commitment from an 'illuminated and high-spirited' developer, or it would have remained an inaccessible orphan drug. Michael threw his heart into the process, brushing aside all the obstacles, and responding to the patients' needs and the request of the medical and scientific community.

Determined to make this drug available to our patients, he not only took on its economic and research challenges but also accepted a great deal of Italian bureaucracy and regulatory burdens. Fernando strongly contributed to the clinical research on deferiprone. He solidified and strengthened collaborations with clinicians and researchers. Remarkably, he always acted as part of the patient community, completely involved in their needs, fears, and hopes!

Thanks to this, the Italian population was provided with a new drug which reduced the patients' morbidity and, overall, the cardiac mortality."

Prof. Adriana Ceci

Gianni Benzi Pharmacological Research Foundation- President

CVBF- TEDDY Scientific Director

"Congratulations to Michael and Fernando, who had the vision to recognize the potential of deferiprone and the need for properly conducted clinical trials so that it could be licensed. Despite enormous obstacles and the need for major financial investment, their vision and tenacity has resulted in Ferriprox now being available to patients worldwide, including in North America. With deferiprone proven to be the best chelating drug for extracting iron from the heart, its widespread availability has changed the lives of many."

Victor Hoffbrand

Professor A.V. Hoffbrand

Emeritus Professor of Haematology

University College, London

Contact: Henry Ackermann

[email protected]

(212) 279-8090 Ext. 204

SOURCE Cooley's Anemia Foundation
IRVING, Texas, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Caris Life Sciences, a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine, today highlighted an article published in Science containing data on microsatellite instability (MSI) status and mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient tumors on a wide range of tumor types using Caris Molecular Intelligence, the company's comprehensive genomic profiling plus (CGP+) molecular testing service. The primary objective of this study was to estimate the efficacy of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab in patients with MSI-High or MMR-deficient cancers regardless of tumor origin, an indication recently added to the drug's label by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The study, entitled "Mismatch repair deficiency predicts response of solid tumors to PD-1 blockade," was published on June 8, 2017 in Science First Release online (doi:10.1126/science.aan6733).

The thesis underlying immunotherapy for cancer is that the immune system maintains the capacity to initiate an immune response against tumor cells if the immune system is appropriately activated to attack them. This approach has been successfully demonstrated with therapeutics that block PD-L1 (ex: pembrolizumab and nivolumab), a PD-1 receptor ligand found on the surface of tumor cells which, when overexpressed, down-regulates or suppresses the immune system's response. Blocking the receptor enables the immune system to recognize tumor cells and kill them. Tumor cells emerge from genetic mutations and thus they manufacture proteins that can be recognized as neoantigens (antigens not found on normal cells) that can activate the immune system. Tumors with MSI-H or MMR deficient cancers produce a very large number of mutations, and thus neoantigens, and would be good therapeutic targets for checkpoint inhibitors.

"In the past, anti-neoplastic agents were developed based on the site of origin, such as breast, prostate or lung," said David Spetzler, M.S., Ph.D., M.B.A., President and Chief Scientific Officer of Caris Life Sciences and co-author on the paper. "With our increased knowledge, both of the genetic alterations that drive and sustain tumorigenesis, as well as the down-regulation of the immune system that enables tumors to escape an immune response, we are better positioned than ever to attack cancers based on their molecular profiles and to develop a treatment plan that is tailored to each patient, regardless of tumor origin. The results of this clinical trial demonstrate that this is truly the case. This now opens a new approach to therapy that is exemplified by the recent FDA approval of pembrolizumab for MSI-High or mismatch repair deficient solid tumors  the first cancer therapy approved for use based on a biomarker, regardless of tumor type, and the same population evaluated in this study."

The clinical trial evaluated the efficacy of pembrolizumab in advanced MSI-High or MMR-deficient patients. Eighty-six patients, with 12 different tumor types were enrolled. The objective response rate was 53% and the complete response rate was 21%, demonstrating durable responses with pembrolizumab regardless of tumor origin. The investigators concluded that patients with a large number of neoantigens in MMR-deficient cancers made them sensitive to checkpoint inhibition. Researchers also included Caris Molecular Intelligence prevalence data for MSI-High or MMR-deficient tumors. Using next-generation sequencing (NGS) across 24 tumor types, Caris Molecular Intelligence identified patients with MSI-High solid tumors by evaluating more than 7,000 microsatellite regions across approximately 2,200 cases. Patients were considered MSI-High if they had at least 43 altered microsatellite regions, which was determined by comparing NGS results to traditional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis. The Caris NGS platform performed at 95.8% sensitivity and 99.4% specificity.

"The results of this study, along with the FDA approval of pembrolizumab for MSI-High or mismatch repair deficient solid tumors, marks a turning point where precision medicine is now becoming standard of care for all solid tumor patients," said John Marshall, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Caris Life Sciences. Dr. Marshall is also the Associate Director for Clinical Care for the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. "The Caris CGP+ tumor profiling platform enables more patients to get MSI results because it does not require normal tissue like the PCR assay, therefore making it optimally positioned to assist clinicians in accurately identifying MSI-High patients so that they receive appropriate therapy. In addition, CGP+ assists innovative biopharmaceutical companies and other healthcare organizations develop the next personalized cancer treatments."

The study was a multi-institution clinical trial conducted by academic, medical, government and commercial organizations including Johns Hopkins, Stanford University, Providence Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh, National Cancer Institute, Ohio State University, West Virginia University Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Merck & Company, with funding in part by The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

About Caris Life Sciences 

Caris Life Sciences is a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine through quality and innovation. Caris Molecular Intelligence, the company's Comprehensive Genomic Profiling Plus (CGP+) molecular testing service and the world's leading immunotherapy diagnostic expert, assesses DNA, RNA and proteins, including microsatellite instability (MSI), total mutational load (TML) and PD-L1, to reveal a molecular blueprint to guide more precise and personalized treatment decisions. The ADAPT Biotargeting System, the company's revolutionary and unbiased profiling platform, is currently being utilized for drug target identification, therapeutic discovery and development, fixed tissue-based companion diagnostics, blood-based cancer screening and biomarker identification. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Caris Life Sciences offers services throughout the U.S., Europe and other international markets. To learn more, please visit www.CarisLifeSciences.com.

Media Inquiries:

The Ruth Group

Kirsten Thomas / Joanna Zimmerman

[email protected] / [email protected]

Tel: +1-508-280-6592 / +1-646-536-7006



Caris Life Sciences Media Relations & Corporate Affairs

[email protected]

214-294-5606

SOURCE Caris Life Sciences

Related Links

http://www.carislifesciences.com


The latest in a suite of productivity-boosting community tools for Microsoft System Center Service Manager and Configuration Manager, the community Portal puts key information at your teams' fingertips:

Quickly and easily know user details by viewing software and hardware information

View a detailed inventory summary of any selected computer in the Computers view

Understand deployment status for individual users and computers, along with other relevant organizational information with our dashboard engine

Ability to integrate the Cireson Analyst Portal for Service Manager with the Portal for Configuration Manager to better align the support experience

Alongside this new community release, Cireson also unveiled enhancements to the full Configuration Manager Portal, including new dashboards for quick access to summary information about your environment, as well as Commence integration, providing templates for easy computer provisioning.

Paul Sutton, Co-Founder, says, "This addition to our portfolio of community apps showcases our continued commitment and investment in the Microsoft System Center community and into the world's leading Systems Management platform, Configuration Manager."

The Cireson Portal for Configuration Manager complements the existing Cireson Portal for Service Manager, which includes the Cireson Analyst Portal and Cireson Self-Service Portal.

To learn more about increasing productivity and efficiency with the Cireson Portal for Configuration Manager, join one of the upcoming webinars this month.

About Cireson

Born in 2012, Cireson was founded on a simple, powerful idea: to be the forward thinkers on all things Microsoft Cloud and System Center. Today, our values from the beginning remain the same; keep it genuine, do the right thing, and listen to customers.

As a world leader in Microsoft Cloud and System Center, our mission is to make your working life ridiculously more productive by bringing service and asset management together - that's the Cireson Platform.

Taking pride in our expertise, we proudly boast some of the brightest and most fanatical IT professionals in the industry. From the Cireson Platform to Consulting Services and community engagements  everything we do is designed to push technical brilliance forward.

Our headquarters are located in sunny San Diego with offices throughout North America, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

SOURCE Cireson

Related Links

http://www.cireson.com


Based on a survey conducted by Collective Bias, nearly 60 percent of U.S. consumers take social and blog content into consideration while shopping. By integrating Curalate's technology with Collective Bias' Social Fabric platform, marketers now have a turnkey solution to seamlessly connect that content to a direct purchase by making images "shoppable." Brands using Curalate to power commerce have increased traffic to their site as much as 150 percent, with a 79 percent increase in time spent on site, and up to a 45 percent increase in revenue per visit.

"Our Social Fabric community of 9,000+ influencers reaches more than 120 million consumers  consumers who spend significant time engaging with their authentic and inspiring content. Our partnership with Curalate turns our content into a great tool for brands looking to close the gaps along the path to purchase," said Bill Sussman, President, Collective Bias and Senior Vice President at Inmar. "As influencer campaigns continue to grow into one of the most important marketing strategies for brands, a seamless integration of content and commerce will be what drives real results."

With Curalate's discovery-driven commerce solutions, visual content, such as the lifestyle imagery created by Collective Bias influencers, can be commerce-enabled, revealing the products featured in the image and giving consumers direct access to purchase. In addition to increasing revenue and traffic, brands unlock valuable consumer intent data around the types of experiences most likely to lead to sales for everyday consumer packaged goods (CPG) products.

Brands such as Post Cereals have already begun to use this new consumer experience to drive sales at specific retailers.

"We're making it easy to go from inspiration to transaction," said Curalate CEO and co-founder Apu Gupta. "With Curalate, a consumer simply taps on a picture to see all the products within it, making discovering new products intuitive and fun. This innovative partnership between Curalate and Collective Bias combines the ability of influencers to inspire with the ability for consumers to take action."

About Collective Bias and Inmar

At the forefront of influencer marketing and measurement, Collective Bias' proprietary data and technology enables influencer selection and management, resulting in campaigns that drive true engagement and impact sales for leading brands across multiple verticals. Collective Bias was named one of Forbes' "Most Promising Companies" three years in a row and listed in the "Inc. 5000." Social Fabric is Collective Bias' hand-selected community of over 9,000+ shopping-focused influencers with an aggregate multi-channel reach in excess of 80 million.

Collective Bias is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Inmar, Inc. Anyone who has redeemed a coupon, filled a prescription or returned a product, has touched Inmar. We apply technology and data science to improve outcomes for consumers and those who serve them. As a trusted intermediary for over 35 years, Inmar has unmatched access to billions of consumer and business transactions in real time. Our analytics, platforms and services enable engagement with shoppers and patients, and optimize results. Together Collective Bias and Inmar are set to measure influencer marketing's impact along the entire purchase funnel.

For more information, please visit Collectivebias.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter.

About Curalate

Curalate is a leading marketing technology company that enables brands to sell online more effectively. The Curalate Discovery-Driven Commerce Platform is currently in use by hundreds of the world's most loved brands including Urban Outfitters, Neiman Marcus, Sephora and J.Crew, and touches hundreds of millions of consumers, monthly. With Curalate, brands grow engagement and revenue, at scale, utilizing images and videos from a wide variety of sources, including user generated content (UGC).

SOURCE Collective Bias, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.collectivebias.com


CORONA, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Inspirational comedian Nazareth, author of "You're So Funny Daddy!" is available for interviews just in time for Father's Day. The book, available through Comedy Crusade Publishing, encourages fathers to incorporate humor into their daily interactions at home, making for a light-hearted atmosphere which will in turn foster better communication and strengthen family relationships long-term.

Comedian Nazareth, Author of "You're So Funny Daddy!", is Available For Interviews In Time For Father's Day

"You're So Funny Daddy!" exhorts readers to use humor to be more than just a father but a great dad as well. Nazareth explains, "A father who can tap into humor and share a real hearty laugh with his children is communicating with his children at a frequency level that tunes directly into the heart of what truly matters to [them]... If you're a father, or you plan to be a father, and you want to be the type of father that your children will think of as a dad, this book is for you."

The book provides practical tools for improving parental communication through humor, including ideas to make children laugh more frequently and ways to enhance one's own sense of humor.

"You're So Funny Daddy!" has already received rave endorsements from leaders such as Dr. Johnny M. Hunt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who comments, "It is an awesome read, one that will deeply touch you, challenge you, and equip you to be a dad." Chuck Booher, senior pastor of Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, Calif., who penned the book's forward writes, "If we follow the principles of this book we will be those who make memories that will always be cherished and never forgotten."

"You're So Funny Daddy!" is available at Amazon, and www.NazarethUSA.com. An eBook will also be available at Amazon on Kindle, Barnes and Noble on Nook and at iBooks.com.

About Nazareth:

Born in Israel, Nazareth moved to the US nearly 33 years ago, during which time he has honed his unique brand of inspirational comedy, reaching millions via live and televised performances. Nazareth has appeared on both network and cable television, including Comedy Central, ABC Family as well as "NBC Nightly News," while also logging more than 3500 live shows. He has toured with the likes of legendary artists B.B. King, The Righteous Brothers and The Temptations, to name a few, at renowned venues such as the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn., among others. As the New York Times aptly described one of his shows, he "had the audience convulsing."

Nazareth performs worldwide for our Armed Forces. He and his wife of twenty years reside with their three young children in Southern California. For more information on Nazareth and to schedule an interview, please call 1-877-266-3392 or e-mail at [email protected].

For Media Inquiries:

Comedian Nazareth

Comedy Crusade Publishing

949-689-8664

[email protected]

SOURCE Comedian Nazareth

Related Links

http://www.NazarethUSA.com


MONTREAL, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Automat, the leader in AI-driven Conversational Marketing, today announced a USD$8.3 million Series A funding round led by the Brandtech group You & Mr Jones. The funding round also included investments from new investors Comcast Ventures and Omidyar Technology Ventures along with follow-on investments from existing investors Relay Ventures, Real Ventures, and USAA. With this latest funding round, total investment to date in Automat is USD$11 million  making Automat the best funded company in the emerging AI-driven Conversational Marketing category.

Conversational Marketing using AI is enabling marketers to achieve their dream of having personalized one-on-one conversations with their customers, learn about them, and build ongoing bi-directional relationships. These breakthroughs are occurring due to two concurrent macro trends: the rise of both messaging and artificial intelligence. The majority of mobile usage is now occurring inside of popular messaging applications like Facebook Messenger and WeChat, giving companies the ability to directly reach the billions of people using these apps daily. At the same time, advances in AI are opening the door for companies to have conversations with their customers at scale and in doing so learn about their needs and preferences without monitoring their online behavior in intrusive ways. These conversations have the power to build customer relationships, increase loyalty, and drive sales, all while delivering unique consumer experiences.

"The caliber of investors in this latest funding round, along with our recent customer announcements with L'Oreal and National Bank of Canada, all point to the growing momentum of Conversational Marketing among leading brands," said Andy Mauro, CEO of Automat. "We see a real convergence around brandtech, media and e-commerce and, with You & Mr Jones, Comcast Ventures, and Omidyar Technology Ventures, we have very strategic partners to help us realize our vision of letting brands build personalized one-on-one conversational experiences for their customers, fans, and followers."

"We're building a technology group that can help brands deliver their marketing much more effectively and we're clearly not alone in believing that AI and Conversational Marketing are going to be game-changers in the world of business. But as ever, execution is what counts. That's the thing that's been very impressive about Andy and the Automat team since our initial seed investment. They are very tangibly delivering on the promise," said David Jones, Founder of You & Mr Jones and former Havas global CEO. "Automat has the team, vision, and technology needed to make Conversational Marketing a widespread reality and help brands get the greatest return on investment from it."

"We believe Conversational Marketing using real AI will be critical for brands in the future," said Amy Banse, Managing Director and Head of Funds for Comcast Ventures. "Automat has emerged as a leader in that important new category. We look forward to supporting this talented team and helping them grow and scale."

A large portion of the new funding will be used to support and expand the company's engineering, research, and product teams to accelerate the development of additional features delivering the most complete Conversational Marketing Cloud platform. Automat also plans to allocate funding towards further business development, sales, and marketing efforts.

About Automat

Automat is helping companies use AI to talk to their customers, fans, and followers, to understand and serve them better. We're the first Conversational Marketing platform powered by artificial intelligence and we believe in a world where every company can have a personalized one-on-one conversation with every customer. www.automat.ai

SOURCE Automat Technologies, Inc

Related Links

www.automat.ai


SAN RAMON, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Crescendo, the full-service advertising and neuromarketing agency, received a Fast 100 Asian American Business Excellence Award from the US Pan Asian Chamber of Commerce (USPACC). Winners were honored at an awards show in San Diego on May 31 during the 32nd CelebrAsian Procurement Conference -- the country's oldest and largest business-to-business event convened by Pan Asian Americans. The special reception showcased the outstanding achievements of the Fast 100 Asian American Businesses, whose collective revenue reached over $10 Billion, with companies achieving up to 261% growth rate despite the tepid global economic landscape.

"We like to say that teamwork makes the dreamwork -- and I am very proud of our team for their diligence, commitment to our clients and results oriented culture," said Parkash Ahuja, Crescendo's President and CEO. "All these factors have contributed to our accelerated growth and this distinguished honor."

"Crescendo is one of USPACC Fast 100 Asian American companies that has displayed resilience and excellent performance. Fast 100 companies like yours give us the reason to celebrate impressive achievements in our often quiet community," noted Susan Au Allen, National President and CEO of USPACC. She added, "The Pan Asian American community is proud of you and the country values your contributions to the economic vitality of American life."

The conference Co-Chairs were Ampcus, Nissan, PepsiCo, Prudential, Southern California Edison, Technology Integration Group (TIG), and Wells Fargo. The platinum sponsor was JPMorgan Chase.

About Crescendo :

Founded in 2003, a team of management consultants and advertising industry veterans joined forces to create an agency that could accurately measure marketing ROI. The firm integrates the art and science of advertising by incorporating neuroscience technology and advanced data science to interpret consumer emotions and behavior. Crescendo is headquartered in San Francisco Bay Area and has an office in Chicago. Additional information including client work, strategic approach and service offerings can be found at crescendoagency.com.

SOURCE Crescendo

Related Links

https://crescendoagency.com


Without a doubt, the relationship between teachers and students is a special one. In school, teachers are often faced with a large number of students in a class, and cannot always look after any one student. The truth of the matter is that teachers simply do not have enough time and energy to foster a close relationship with each student. However, thanks to the fixed one-on-one teaching model at DaDaABC, at any given time one instructor is in charge of only one student. As a result of this model, a lot of students have come to regard their instructors as a friend.

One student who participated in the "love collection" event wrote, "I'm Alice, and I had just started learning at DaDaABC. Although I only had a few classes, I already enjoy the time spent with my instructor, Michael. He is humorous and friendly, and we get along so well. I believe we can become good friends. Also, my adviser, King, my teaching assistant, Jacky, and many other instructors have all done a lot for me. This is a chance to express my love and appreciation, so I want to thank my instructors, and tell them I love them."

The special relationship that forms between instructors and students comes from DaDaABC's long-term effort in developing the most effective teaching model and approach. The unique fixed one-on-one teaching model allows students to learn in a consistent environment that ensures efficient knowledge retention and an increase in feedback time. Instructors also have the ability to adjust the curriculum based on the student's performance. On top of this, students are encouraged to interact as much as possible while in class. This two-way communication sparks fun and lively conversations that help instructors get to know their students better. In this sense, not only are the students benefitting from an engaging learning environment, but the instructors are better able to enjoy their work.

Maggie, a DaDaABC instructor from Orlando, said, "I don't feel like I'm working when I have classes with my students. It's more like spending time with a young friend. The children's world is so simple and creative, and I learn something from them, too. When I see the progress that my student makes from day to day, I feel a great satisfaction."

Joyce, the academic director at DaDaABC, said of the teacher-student relationship, "We're so glad to see that students can become friends with their instructors. We were touched to have seen so many great messages from our students during the "love collection" event. This allows us to provide a sense of family to our instructors no matter where they are located. As a result, we've been receiving a lot of positive feedbacks from our instructors, and DaDaABC is welcoming more to come join the family."

About DaDaABC

Founded in 2013, DaDaABC is the most innovative English training institution in China, and was established to provide what has become one of China's most successful intelligent English learning platforms for children. Winner of over 15 awards and recognitions in 2016, DaDaABC developed a leading English training system focused on one-on-one online tutoring and encourage youngsters to learn and practice while having fun with instructors, and announced a total capital raising of 500 million RMB in Series B and Series B+, which will be used in market expansion, curriculum development and learning experience improvement. DaDaABC has been helping students from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, France, Germany, and other non-English speaking countries. For more information, please visit: http://www.dadaabc.com/teacher/job

SOURCE DaDaABC

Related Links

http://www.dadaabc.com


Great Falls, an Auburn, Maine-based mono-line workers' compensation insurance company, writes business in Maine and New Hampshire. The acquisition of the rights to renew Great Falls' book of business will expand Eastern's operations into Maine and New Hampshire and ultimately other New England states, providing geographic diversification and the ability to expand our specialty workers' compensation products and services in this marketplace. In addition, Eastern will assume Great Falls' contracts with agency partners and all Great Falls employees led by President, Gary Hall, will join the Eastern organization at closing.

Great Falls will serve as the foundation for Eastern's New England Region, which will be the fifth operating region within Eastern. Gary Hall will lead the New England Region for Eastern, which will be based out of Maine.

"We believe Great Falls will be an excellent strategic and cultural fit for our organization given their talented employee base, loyal agency partners and established book in the small business market segment," said Michael Boguski, President of Eastern. Boguski continued, "Gary Hall and his team have built a strong and well respected service franchise with business strategies that are consistent with Eastern's dedication to individual account underwriting, developing and maintaining excellent agency relationships, and a short-tailed claim philosophy. Great Falls' agency partners and customer base will further benefit from Eastern's financial strength as evidenced by its "A" (Excellent) A.M. Best Company financial rating, broad workers' compensation product spectrum, medical cost management strategies, return-to-wellness programs, comprehensive risk management approach and excellent reinsurance programs. I am extremely pleased to welcome Gary Hall, his team, agency partners and customers to the Eastern family."

The President of Great Falls, Gary Hall, said, "All of us at Great Falls are extremely pleased and proud to join the Eastern and ProAssurance organization and to contribute to the profitable growth of the Eastern workers' compensation platform. This transaction provides us with the capital, financial rating, products and operating platform to continue the successful expansion of our business in the New England Region."

In 2016, this business represented approximately $13.3 million of direct written premium to Great Falls. Completion of the transaction is subject to various conditions, including receipt of required regulatory approvals and a favorable vote of the sellers' shareholders, and is expected to close early in the third quarter of 2017.

About Eastern Alliance Insurance Group

Eastern focuses on doing one thing and doing that one thing well: providing superior workers' compensation products and services to businesses and organizations. Since 1997, Eastern has built a strong reputation for being a "best in class" provider of workers' compensation products and services, achieving this position by creating supportive relationships and providing our employees and clients with the tools and resources they need to win with integrity. Eastern's collective goal is to increase the insured organization's productivity and reduce their workers' compensation costs. Eastern looks beyond the standard response to our clients' insurance needs and provides a fresh perspective to offer insureds Fresh outlooks and Better outcomes.

About Great Falls Insurance Company

Great Falls Insurance Company provides workers' compensation coverage in Maine and New Hampshire to well-run small and medium-sized businesses. Offering protection, a compassionate, commonsense approach, and dynamic resources for policyholders, Great Falls builds lasting relationships and infuses integrity into every relationship with its customers and agency partners. As a collaborative company, working with insurance agents, company management, employees, and the community, Great Falls is committed to helping lower premium costs and reducing the possibility of employee injury for policyholders.

About ProAssurance

ProAssurance Corporation is an industry-leading specialty insurer with extensive expertise in healthcare professional liability, products liability for medical technology and life sciences, legal professional liability, and workers' compensation insurance. The company is recognized as one of the top performing insurance companies in America by virtue of our inclusion in the Ward's 50 for the past ten years. ProAssurance Group is rated "A+" (Superior) by A.M. Best; ProAssurance and its operating subsidiaries are rated "A" (Strong) by Fitch Ratings.

Caution Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this news release that are not historical fact or that convey our view of future business, events or trends are specifically identified as forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based upon our estimates and anticipation of future events and highlight certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially from our expected results. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by words such as, but not limited to, "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "hope," "hopeful," "intend," "likely," "may," "optimistic," "possible," "potential," "preliminary," "project," "should," "will," and other analogous expressions. We expressly claim the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, for any forward-looking statements in this news release. Forward-looking statements represent our outlook only as of the date of this news release. There are a number of risk factors that may cause outcomes that differ from our expectations or projections. These are described in detail in various documents filed by ProAssurance Corporation with the Securities and Exchange Commission, such as current reports on Form 8-K, and regular reports on Forms 10-Q and 10-K, particularly in "Item 1A, Risk Factors." We caution readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which are based upon conditions existing only as of the date made, and advise readers that these factors could affect our financial performance and could cause actual results for future periods to differ materially from any opinions or statements expressed with respect to future periods in any current statements.

SOURCE Eastern Alliance Insurance Group
PORTLAND, Ore., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) is proud to recognize the 78 high school seniors from Oregon who this spring have completed the ECMC Scholars Program, qualifying each of them for up to $6,000 in scholarships for postsecondary education. These students attended eight high schools throughout Oregon and will be attending colleges across the state in the fall, including all seven public universities in Oregon, 11 of the 16 community colleges in the state as well as three out-of-state schools.

"College is a major financial investment for most families, which is why ECMC created the Scholars Programto help ensure students who make the investment in their higher education are successful in that effort," said Paula Craw, ECMC vice president of student success and outreach. "In recognition of their hard work and completion of the program, the aid they receive will help defray the cost of attendance for students at any accredited college, university or technical school they choose."

For the past two years, these students have participated in the ECMC Scholars Program, a rigorous two-year mentoring program that allows select students to access up to $4,000 in scholarships their first year of college and, pending completion of all requirements, qualify for an additional $2,000 for their second year. Western Oregon University (WOU) has also committed to match the $6,000 ECMC Scholars financial award with an equal WOU scholarship amount offered to those students from the ECMC Scholars Program who attend WOU.

Unlike a traditional academic scholarship, these students weren't selected solely for their academic merit or test scoresinstead, they were chosen for their potential. Working with an ECMC Scholars advisor, they've spent their junior and senior years building social and study skills and actively preparing for success in college.

"I have seen great strides from all of the ECMC Scholars I have worked with over the past two years," said ECMC Scholar Advisor Alexander Gonzalez. "They have demonstrated a commitment to preparing themselves for the next step in the educational careers, and I'm excited to see where that journey takes them."

Since 2008, ECMC has provided $4.74 million to 790 ECMC Scholars students in Oregon aloneon average, 80 students per year from eight high schools across the state. Over the past 13 years, ECMC has provided more than $15 million in financial aid to 5,080 students in Virginia, Oregon and Connecticut. ECMC has committed to supporting an additional 470 students with nearly $3 million in scholarships through 2019.

About ECMC

Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) is a nonprofit corporation with a mission to help students succeed. ECMC works to lower student loan default rates; sponsors college access and success initiatives, and financial literacy programs; and provides resources to support student loan borrowers to successfully repay their loans. Visit www.ecmc.org for more information.

SOURCE ECMC

Related Links

http://www.ecmc.org


KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- American Century Investments today announced that Edward Rosenberg has been named senior vice president and head of ETFs for the $165 billion* global asset management firm. Rosenberg joins American Century from Northern Trust's FlexShares business, where he has served as senior vice president and head of ETF capital markets and analytics. The hiring of Rosenberg is in advance of American Century's planned entry into the exchange traded funds (ETF) marketplace, which is slated to happen early next year.

"Ed brings nearly two decades of ETF experience to this newly created position at American Century Investments," said Jonathan Thomas, president and chief executive officer for the firm. "We'll leverage his expertise to develop an array of ETF solutions as we continue to invest in our capabilities that meet our clients' needs  in the ways they prefer  throughout their lifetimes."

As head of ETFs, Rosenberg will be responsible for creating American Century's new line of ETFs, an investment vehicle that has surged in popularity with investors in recent years. In 2016, net share issuance of U.S. ETFs reached a record $284 billion, with total assets exceeding $2.5 trillion, according to the Investment Company Institute1.

Rosenberg will leverage the expertise of the firm's experienced investment teams to develop a suite of ETFs  including active ETFs  for investors. Unlike passive ETFs, which are designed to track an index, active ETFs are actively managed on a daily basis by a portfolio manager or team of managers making investment decisions in pursuit of a specific investment objective. Rosenberg also will be responsible for building relationships with market makers, authorized participants and exchanges.

"Our clients know and already appreciate the active management capabilities we will harness as we develop new ETF strategies," said Peruvemba Satish, American Century senior vice president, portfolio manager and director of global analytics. "With the active ETF segment of the market still in the early stages of development, we're confident American Century can be a very relevant player by providing the solutions our clients need now and in the future."

Prior to joining FlexShares in 2012, Rosenberg was director and head of capital markets and analytics with Russell Investments, where he helped launch the majority of the firm's current ETFs. Earlier in his career, he served in a variety of leadership positions at Vanguard, including ETF product manager. Rosenberg graduated from Muhlenberg College with a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's degree in business administration from Pennsylvania State University.

American Century Investments is a leading global asset manager focused on delivering investment results and building long-term client relationships while supporting research that can improve human health and save lives. Founded in 1958, American Century Investments' 1,300 employees serve investment professionals, institutions, corporations and individual investors from offices in New York; London; Hong Kong; Mountain View, Calif.; and Kansas City, Mo. Jonathan S. Thomas is president and chief executive officer, and Victor Zhang and David MacEwen serve as co-chief investment officers. Delivering investment results to clients enables American Century Investments to distribute over 40 percent of its dividends to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a 500-person, non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute owns more than 40 percent of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments of nearly $1.3 billion since 2000. For more information about American Century Investments, visit www.americancentury.com.

Shares of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) represent interests in portfolios of securities, much like mutual funds. Unlike mutual funds, however, ETFs trade throughout the day on an exchange like an individual stock, with prices established by the market. An ETF generally tracks an underlying benchmark or index, such as the S&P Index.

*$165.3 billion in assets under management as of April 30, 2017

1 2017 Investment Company Fact Book, published April 2017

American Century Investment Services, Inc., Distributor

2017 American Century Proprietary Holdings, Inc.

Contact: Chris Doyle

(816) 340-4638

Media Line

(816) 340-7033

SOURCE American Century Investments

Related Links

http://www.americancentury.com


BOSTON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Exari, the leading provider of enterprise contract lifecycle management solutions today announced two key appointments as part of its continuing growth strategy. Laurie Davison, former CEO of Adsensa, has been named Chief Operating Officer, reporting to Bill Hewitt, Exari Group CEO. Melissa Mape, formerly in-house counsel for Adsensa, has been named General Counsel for Exari. Both appointments are effective immediately.

"Both Laurie and Melissa are talented executives who bring great credibility to our market," said Hewitt. "As Exari grows and expands, we need to continue to build our world-class management team with solid, experienced and smart executives. Laurie and Melissa fit the bill and will be great additions to our management team."

Davison was most recently CEO of Adsensa, and has spent over 18 years working in the technology and insurance sectors both as a provider of services and as a customer. Before Adsensa, she spent 5 years as COO for Faraday Re and Faraday Syndicate 435. Prior to Faraday, she spent 12 years with Xchanging working in a variety of implementation, customer success and executive leadership roles.

Mape joined Adsensa from Allen & Overy LLP where she worked in the corporate team specializing in employee benefits and litigation. Prior to that, she started her legal career at Osborne Clarke where she was a litigator in the corporate and commercial team.

"The acquisition of Adsensa by Exari makes great sense, and I'm delighted to continue on as part of the Exari management team," said Davison. "We have a tremendous opportunity to add enormous value to our customers and as COO, I expect to continue to grow the quality and quantity of our delivery capabilities. It's an exciting time to be joining Exari."

"Exari has proven their capabilities in the market and now we have an undisputed lead in the contract management space," noted Mape. "The Exari team complements the Adsensa team nicely, and I'm very pleased to have been appointed General Counsel."

About Exari

Exari delivers the most complete Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management platform, used every day by market-leading companies to understand all aspects of their contract ecosystem worldwide. With Exari, customers can reduce contract risk and improve operating efficiency with 100% Contract Certainty. www.exari.com.

Media Contact:

Jackie Thrasivoulos

[email protected]

+1 508-380-6408

SOURCE Exari

Related Links

http://www.exari.com


PHILADELPHIA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EY is pleased to announce the winners of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in Greater Philadelphia. This group of leading entrepreneurs were selected by an independent judging panel made up of previous award winners, leading CEOs, investors and other regional business leaders. The winners were unveiled at a special gala on June 7 at the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts.

"EY has been recognizing leading entrepreneurs for over three decades," said Debra von Storch, EY Americas Entrepreneur Of The Year Program Director. "The class of winners in 2017 represent new ways of thinking, disruptive business models and overall dynamism that make this country a great place to do business."

The winners for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 Greater Philadelphia Award include:

Chris Annas, Meridian Bank

Andy Aronow and Bruce Aronow, eLocal.com

Bryan Dori, Archer

Dr. Lawrence Goren, Onsite Innovations

Eileen McDonnell, The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company

Felicite Moorman, StratIS

Joseph Panebianco, AnnieMac Home Mortgage

Angelo Perryman, Perryman Building & Construction Services

Bob Platzer, P.J.W. Restaurant Group

Andrew Voudouris and Steven Voudouris, Turn5, Inc.

Jagath Wanninayake, Suvoda LLC

In addition to recognizing the regional award winners, David Jaindl, Owner and Operator of Jaindl Farms, was presented with the Entrepreneur Of The Year Lifetime Achievement award for his sustained business and philanthropic leadership. And, Nick Bayer, Founder and CEO of Saxbys was the recipient of the Social Entrepreneur award for his strong focus on community engagement and making a sustained social impact in the city of Philadelphia.



Since its founding in 1986, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in over 145 cities in more than 60 countries throughout the world.

Regional award winners are now eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur Of The Year National program. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur Of The Year Overall National Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California on November 18, 2017. The awards are the culminating event of the EY Strategic Growth Forum, the nation's most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies. The Entrepreneur Of The Year Overall Award winner then moves on to compete for the World Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in Monaco in June 2018.

Sponsors

Founded and produced by EY, the Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards are nationally sponsored in the US by SAP America, Merrill Corporation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

In Greater Philadelphia, sponsors also include Ballard Spahr LLP, Morgan Lewis, Murray, Devine & Company, Inc., Pepper Hamilton LLP, Pine Hill Group, LLC, Philadelphia Business Journal, Simkiss & Block and SolomonEdwardsGroup.

About Entrepreneur Of The Year

Entrepreneur Of The Year, founded by EY, is the world's most prestigious business awards program for entrepreneurs, chosen from an independent panel of judges including entrepreneurs and prominent leaders from business, finance, and the local community. The program makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global awards program of its kind, Entrepreneur Of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in over 145 cities in more than 60 countries. ey.com/eoy

About EY's Growth Markets Network

EY's worldwide Growth Markets Network is dedicated to serving the changing needs of high-growth companies. For more than 30 years, we've helped many of the world's most dynamic and ambitious companies grow into market leaders. Whether working with international mid-cap companies or early stage, venture-backed businesses, our professionals draw upon their extensive experience, insight and global resources to help your business succeed. For more information, please visit us at ey.com/sgm or follow news on Twitter @EY_Growth.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP, a member of the global EY organization that provides services to clients in the US.

For more information, please visit ey.com.

SOURCE EY

Related Links

http://www.ey.com


As CMO of Los Angeles based Farmers Insurance, he is responsible for all Farmers marketing, digital, branding, promotional, sponsorship and external and internal communications efforts. In addition, he oversees general coordination across the organization's brands, representing nearly $20 billion in insurance premium. Mike previously served as CMO of eBay and Best Buy.

More than 1,000 of Los Angeles' advertisers gathered on June 1 for the seventh annual ThinkLA IDEA Awards Gala to celebrate advertising's leading people, work and companies. The IDEA Awards seek to honor the best campaigns, agencies, clients, marketers, media partners, and individuals in the Southern California region. RPA had nominated Mike for the 2017 ThinkLA IDEA Award under the category of "Client of the Year."

"It's rare for a leader to impress with smarts and business acumen, but inspire with heart," said Tom Kirk, EVP, chief client officer for RPA. "Mike is one of those clients you don't come across very often in your career, so it was a no-brainer to nominate him."



About Farmers Insurance

"Farmers Insurance" and "Farmers" are trade names for a group of affiliated insurers providing insurance for automobiles, homes and small businesses and a wide range of other insurance and financial services and products. Farmers Insurance is proud to serve more than 10 million households with over 19 million individual policies, across all 50 states, through the efforts of more than 48,000 exclusive and independent agents and approximately 21,000 employees. Farmers Insurance Exchange, the largest of the three primary insurance insurers that make up Farmers Insurance, is recognized as one of the largest U.S. companies on the 2017 Fortune 500 list. For more information about Farmers Insurance, visit Farmers.com, Twitter and Instagram, @WeAreFarmers, or Facebook.com/FarmersInsurance.

About RPA

Rubin Postaer and Associates (RPA) is an integrated, full-service advertising agency based in sunny Santa Monica, California. Independently-led and -owned for over 30 years, the agency has been guided from its founding by a "People First" approach to our work, our culture, and our client partnerships. That means a mission to create ideas and experiences that resonate with people and recognize the fundamental humanity of a brand's audiences, and an internal culture that empowers individuals and teams to work quickly, collaboratively, and innovate outside the traditional boundaries of our respective disciplines. It's a unique culture that nurtures enduring partnerships, as well as attracting best-in-class talent in Creative, Strategic Planning, Media Planning and Buying, Digital and Social Strategy, Research, Analytics and Production, supported by one of the most highly respected Account Management teams in the industry.

Contacts: Media Relations

Farmers Insurance

818-965-0007

[email protected]

SOURCE Farmers Insurance

Related Links

http://www.farmersinsurance.com


FOND DU LAC, Wis., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mercury Marine continues to have a strong economic effect on the Fond du Lac community, this according to a new study commissioned by the Fond du Lac Economic Development Council and Impact DataSource. The study shows that Mercury continues to be one of the top employers in the state of Wisconsin, now employing 3,200 people at its global headquarters in Fond du Lac. Mercury's employment in June 2017 is more than double what it was during the recession of 2009.

According to the study, Mercury has a total job impact of almost 10,000 jobs in the Fond du Lac community, meaning that every job at Mercury creates more than two jobs in the area. Mercury's total economic impact in Fond du Lac, per the study, is close to four billion dollars. The new study also shows that Mercury's impact on retail activity in the region has also increased 37-percent since 2009, accounting for more than $186 million in retail sales in the community.

"We always knew how valuable Mercury is to our community, but seeing the numbers from this new study is just amazing," said Steve Jenkins, Fond du Lac Economic Development Council president. "One company has close to a four-billion-dollar economic impact on our community  that's incredible. In 2009, Mercury made a commitment to grow and I'd say they have more than lived up to their commitments."

Since 2009, Mercury has invested more than $800 million in R&D and expansion to its global headquarters; more than 80 percent of the work completed during that growth was done with Wisconsin based companies. In addition, Mercury has invested more than $600 million on supplies, services & materials from 2014-2016.

In January, Mercury Marine officially opened its new 49,000-square-foot electro-deposition paint (EDP) primer system expansion. Then in April, Mercury Marine officially announced the commissioning of the largest high-pressure die casting machine in North America.

"We are excited about the future of our company and the growth of the Fond du Lac community," said John Pfeifer, Mercury Marine president. "Our commitment to this community was not just to expand our manufacturing capacity, but to build for the future. The more we can impact growth in the communities in which we work, the higher quality of life our employees will have outside of work."

Impact DataSource prepared the above estimates based on information about Mercury Marine to provide an illustration of economic and fiscal impacts resulting from the manufacturer. Impact DataSource prepared this summary using various assumptions and the following sources:

(1) U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II)

(2) U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey 2014-15

About Mercury Marine

Headquartered in Fond du Lac, Wis., Mercury Marine is the world's leading manufacturer of recreational marine propulsion engines. A $2 billion division of Brunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC), Mercury provides engines, boats, services and parts for recreational, commercial and government marine applications, empowering boaters with products that are easy to use, extremely reliable and backed by the most dedicated customer support in the world. Mercury's industry-leading brand portfolio includes Mercury and Mariner outboard engines; Mercury MerCruiser sterndrive and inboard packages; MotorGuide trolling motors; Mercury propellers; Mercury inflatable boats; Mercury SmartCraft electronics; Attwood marine parts; Land 'N Sea marine parts distribution; and Mercury and Quicksilver parts and oils. More information is available at mercurymarine.com.

Mercury Press Contact:

Lee Gordon

Director of Global Public Relations

[email protected]

920-924-1808

SOURCE Mercury Marine

Related Links

http://mercurymarine.com


"A lot of people are intimidated by the big meats but, with a few easy steps and a little time and patience, everyone can make an incredible brisket," said Rocky Stubblefield, grandson of C.B. "Stubb" Stubblefield. "I grew up around my grandfather's barbecue in Lubbock, Texas, and the Fourth of July always meant tons of family  and tons of brisket. Not just hot dogs and hamburgers for us, it was sliced brisket and brisket sandwiches."

Try Rocky's brisket recipe and follow his tips for making the best brisket on the block, then serve sliced with sauce, or as tacos, sliders or even brisket nachos.

Rocky's Brisket Tips

Get a good crust: One of the most delicious parts of a brisket is the flavor crust. Make sure to rub the entire brisket generously with Stubb's Beef or Bar-B-Q Spice Rub 15-20 minutes before the meat goes on the grill or in the smoker.

One of the most delicious parts of a brisket is the flavor crust. Make sure to rub the entire brisket generously with Stubb's Beef or Bar-B-Q Spice minutes before the meat goes on the grill or in the smoker. Fat side up: Whether using a smoker or a charcoal grill, place the brisket fat-side up so that the fat drips down into the meat and keeps it moist.

Whether using a smoker or a charcoal grill, place the brisket fat-side up so that the fat drips down into the meat and keeps it moist. Slicing is important: Make sure to cut against or across the grain of the brisket for tender slices. Not sure where the grain is? It's easier to see on the raw meat before it's rubbed, so cut a notch when prepping to help guide once it's cooked.

Make sure to cut against or across the grain of the brisket for tender slices. Not sure where the grain is? It's easier to see on the raw meat before it's rubbed, so cut a notch when prepping to help guide once it's cooked. Add the sauce: As we say in Texas  it's not done 'til you add the sauce! Serve on the side for dipping or drizzle it over the top.

One Brisket Three Ways

Brisket Walking Nachos  Swap corn chips for waffle chips and let guests customize with sharp Cheddar cheese, refreshing pico de gallo and creamy guacamole. Drizzle with Stubb's Original Bar-B-Q Sauce.

Bar-B-Q Brisket Sliders  Upgrade from basic hamburgers. These sliders are loaded with flavor, from the tender brisket to the crispy onion straws and pickles.

Brisket Tacos with Roasted Corn Avocado Salsa  Brisket pairs perfectly with a tangy roasted corn and avocado salsa. Serve with flour or corn tortillas.

Just like when Stubb first sold his homemade sauce in whiskey bottles stopped with serrano peppers, Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q sauces, rubs and marinades get their flavor from ingredients like tomatoes, peppers, spices and molasses, and never high fructose corn syrup. It's the authentic sauce for a Fourth of July barbecue.

Note to media: for high-res brisket step-by-step and recipe images, click here.

About Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q

Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q, the country's No. 1 premium Bar-B-Q brand of sauces, marinades, smokes and spice rubs, started in Lubbock, Texas, in 1968 when C.B. "Stubb" Stubblefield opened his first restaurant. Today, Austin-based Stubb's continues to take inspiration from his original recipes and strict quality standards to create authentic, certified gluten-free sauces, rubs and marinades, and every bottle is still made with Stubb's secret ingredient, "Love and Happiness." Stubb's sauces have won top taste test honors from Cooking Light, Woman's Day, Redbook and more. For more information, go to www.stubbsbbq.com or connect with Stubb's on Facebook at www.facebook.com/stubbsbbqsauce or @stubbsbbqsauce on Twitter.

Stubb's is one of McCormick & Company's (MKC) portfolio brands. As a global leader in flavor, McCormick has built a portfolio of leading flavor brands that enhance people's enjoyment of food all around the world. Every day, no matter where or what you eat, you can enjoy food flavored by McCormick. McCormick Brings The Joy of Flavor to Life.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Mary Kate Jeffries or Curry Heard

817-329-3257

[email protected]

[email protected]

Laurie Harrsen

Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q

410-527-8753

[email protected]

SOURCE Stubb's Legendary Bar-B-Q

Related Links

http://www.stubbsbbq.com


AKRON, Ohio, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The first hot temperatures of the year are expected in the next few days, and FirstEnergy Corp.'s (NYSE: FE) utilities have some common-sense hot weather tips customers can follow to stay comfortable while using electricity wisely during this period of high demand:

Set thermostats as high as comfort will allow. Every degree a customer can increase the temperature in their home will result in using about 3 percent less energy during the hottest summer days.

During sunny weather, close drapes or blinds on windows facing the sun to prevent direct radiant heating from impacting interior temperatures.

Use fans  moving air cools skin faster, resulting in greater comfort on hot days.

Use a programmable thermostat to keep temperatures higher when no one is home, and to reduce the temperature before arrival back home.

Only operate window air conditioners when someone is in the room.

Keep refrigerators and freezers as full as possible. Frozen or cold items in the refrigerator help keep other items cool, reducing the amount of work the refrigerator has to do to maintain a lower temperature.

Close rooms that aren't used regularly during the summer, and close the air conditioning vents in those rooms, as well.

Avoid using heat-producing appliances during the hottest hours of the day. The less heat produced in the home, the less work the air conditioner will have to do.

Consider investing in ENERGY STAR appliances or heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. FirstEnergy's utilities may offer rebates on these purchases and tax deductions may apply, as well.

Check air conditioner and furnace fan filters. Clogged filters waste energy and money by forcing HVAC systems to work harder than necessary.

In addition, FirstEnergy utilities have completed inspections of their transmission and distribution systems to assure they are prepared to help meet the anticipated increase in demand for electricity as temperatures rise.

FirstEnergy utilities include: Ohio Edison, The Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison in Ohio; Jersey Central Power & Light in New Jersey; Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), Pennsylvania Electric Company (Penelec), Pennsylvania Power (Penn Power), and West Penn Power in Pennsylvania; Mon Power in West Virginia; and Potomac Edison in Maryland.

For updated company information, including hot weather tips, customers are urged to visit the 24/7 Power Center at www.firstenergycorp.com/outages. The utility companies also will provide updates via Twitter:

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland, and New York. Visit FirstEnergy on the web at www.firstenergycorp.com, and on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com


ATLANTA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Floyd's 99 Barbershop is a rock n' roll-themed barbershop for men and women with more than one-hundred shops across the United States. Established in 1999 by brothers Paul, Bill and Rob O'Brien, the privately-owned company was created with a vision of providing old-school barbershop client service with a new-school vibe and on-trend cuts.

The brothers opened the doors to their first shop in Denver, Colorado, in 2001 with a focus on providing exemplary service in a welcoming environment. The O'Brien brothers' passion for service and experience has shaped Floyd's 99 and its staff, producing the magnetic atmosphere that draws its loyal clientele who return time and time again.

Floyd's has been a valued partner of Naranga's for the past year, using their onboarding and central operations software. Floyd's has now turned to Naranga for brand standards and field audit capabilities. Using Naranga's "nsight" software, Floyd's will be able to communicate directly with field auditors from inside the solution, track location performance, configure quality assurance reviews, set follow ups to cure outstanding issues and more.

Joe Zemla, Director of Franchise Operations said, "Naranga has been a great partner from the initial presentation to the onboarding of our central operations solution. Because of that success, we are comfortable in moving forward with their brand standards  field audit solution for our 107 locations."

"Floyd's is the definition of a true partner, and they make us better," said George Duffield, VP of Sales and Marketing for Naranga. "We are tightly aligned and consistently huddle on how to improve our products for all franchisors. We appreciate them expanding our relationship this year and look forward to assisting them with protecting their brand standards across all 107 locations. This is a fun and unique concept and an impressive group of franchise professionals."

About Naranga

Naranga, a franchise technology provider, delivers software solutions that help businesses scale, at any size. Naranga has over 150 clients representing over 250 brands. Their software enhances overall operations, lead management, brand standards/field auditing and employee training. Clients turn to Naranga when support, scalability, visibility and brand consistency are their top priorities. For more information, visit the website at www.naranga.com.

SOURCE Naranga

Related Links

http://www.naranga.com


CHICAGO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FourKites, the leader in multimodal supply chain visibility solutions for Fortune 500 companies, today launched the industry's first real-time temperature and location tracking solution for shippers. The offering will allow FourKites' customers to monitor shipment temperatures and ensure compliance across their supply chains.

FourKites' real-time temperature tracking makes it easier for enterprise shippers to comply with the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which requires shippers and carriers to take steps to ensure that temperature-sensitive foods remain within specified safe temperature ranges during transit. Using FourKites, shippers can reduce spoilage, operational costs and one-time spot buys. They can also increase customer satisfaction by identifying potentially non-compliant loads earlier in the shipping process, before those loads make it all the way to their destinations or have to be diverted to quality centers.

"As a partner to the largest food and beverage companies in the U.S., helping our customers achieve FSMA compliance is a natural evolution of our product," said Mathew Elenjickal, founder and CEO of FourKites. "Our real-time temperature tracking solution will enable customers across a wide range of industries to ensure the safety and freshness of their products."

One such customer using FourKites Temperature Tracking is Smithfield Foods, the world's largest producer of pork products with leading consumer packaged meat brands across categories.

"As the world's largest pork producer, we are committed to delivering the market's freshest and highest quality product," said Dennis Organ, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Smithfield Foods. "The Temperature Tracking solution from FourKites will help us consistently ensure that our product meets stringent temperature requirements across our operations, using the same innovative FourKites technology that we use to track our shipments around the country."

Transporting temperature-sensitive goods like produce and pharmaceuticals cross-country has historically created challenges, even for vehicles equipped with the latest refrigeration and telematics systems, because of the lack of real-time connectivity between carriers and shippers.

FourKites' solution solves that challenge by relaying load temperatures in tandem with location data every 15 minutes from leading telematics and trailer temperature tracking manufacturers. Customizable notifications alert users as soon as temperatures fall outside a specified range. Visualization and analysis tools enable shippers to review individual and aggregated load temperatures over time to spot trends and to compare against industry benchmarks to improve operationally.

For more information, click here.

About FourKites

FourKites is re-shaping the logistics industry for real-time transparency and efficiency. FourKites provides comprehensive real-time tracking and supply chain visibility solutions across transportation modes and digital platforms. Using FourKites, blue-chip shippers and 3PLs can share the same, real-time shipping location and status information - from more than 50 onboard GPS/ELD systems used by fleets to individual owner-operator smartphones and flip phones. FourKites saves time and money across the transportation spectrum. Learn how FourKites real-time load tracking can help your business by requesting a demo.

Media contact:

Lauren Jaeger

312-878-4575 x 246

SOURCE FourKites

Related Links

https://www.fourkites.com


NEW YORK and ANAHEIM, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- G FarmaLabs, a producer/processor of cannabis flower, cannabis oil and cannabis infused edible products and Tech Holdings, the developer of the innovative technology for Quigley's and other products in the cannabis edibles and beverage industry, today announced an exclusive licensing partnership between the two organizations.

The partnership will enable both companies to work closely together and expand G FarmaLabs' catalogue of cannabis infused products and delivery methods through Tech Holdings' signature patent pending fast-acting technology.

Tech Holdings has gained momentum in cannabis industry circles for its innovative, first-of-its-kind technology that has been used in Quigley's, a liquid THC fast-acting cannabis shot. As part of the partnership, a variety of Quigley's branded products will be launched starting in Q3 2017 and added to the G FarmaLabs portfolio and product line.

The partnership provides immediate distribution into the more than 1,100 dispensaries throughout California where G FarmaLabs products are found. Additionally, the partnership will enable further expansion into Washington State and other legal markets in the near future.

G FarmaLabs will support the manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution of the Quigley's line of products, while Tech Holdings will provide the proprietary fast acting cannabis technology to infuse select G FarmaLabs' products.

"We are thrilled to announce this exclusive licensing partnership between G FarmaLabs and Tech Holdings," said Ata Gonzalez, Founder of G Farma Labs. "With our brand recognition, distribution reach and presence throughout the State of California, and Tech Holdings' state-of-the-art technology and fast-acting formula, it truly is a match made in heaven. We are committed to providing our customers with constant innovation and a top of the line experience with their favorite cannabis infused products."

G FarmaLabs has solidified itself as a leading cannabis infused products manufacturer and distributor in the United States. Based in California, G FarmaLabs' products are distributed in more than 1,100 dispensaries across the state. G FarmaLabs' portfolio includes a suite of nearly one hundred cannabis infused edibles and beverage product SKU's, such as G Drinks, G Stiks, G Nugs, Chocolate Bars, Chocolate Truffles, Liquid Gold Vape Oil, 100% Raw Honey, and others.

"The reaction to Quigley's and other products that are infused with Tech Holdings' signature patent pending fast-acting technology has been overwhelmingly positive," said Tony Alfiere, Founder of Tech Holdings. "We wanted to provide this at scale to the millions of consumers throughout the State of California and other legal markets in the United States, and we couldn't think of a better partner with whom to activate this than G FarmaLabs."

For more information on G FarmaLabs, please visit www.GFarmaLabs.com OR www.GFarmaBrands.com

ABOUT G FarmaLabs:

We aren't just passionate purveyors of cannabis, but of everything that comes with a full and rewarding life. We offer a selection of premium extracts, fine cultural accessories, and other emerging bi-products to help with your everyday lifestyle. The packaging you see is chosen for its artistry and appeal. It's not unusual for people to chat about G FarmaLabs products. We are becoming a staple for quality of life throughout the medical community as well as a lifestyle in your neighborhoods and gathering places; this is part of the daily routine in the recreational markets of California and Washington and we couldn't be happier about it. Get to know us and you'll see: we are so much more than the "Leaders of the American Cannabis Revolution."

ABOUT TECH HOLDINGS:

Tech Holdings has gained momentum in cannabis industry circles for its innovative, first-of-its-kind technology that has been used in Quigley's, a liquid THC fast-acting cannabis shot. As part of the partnership, a variety of Quigley's branded products will be launched starting in Q3 2017 and added to the G FarmaLabs portfolio and product line.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Tech Holdings:

North 6th Agency, Inc. (For Tech Holdings)

212.334.9753

[email protected]

G FarmaLabs:

[email protected]

Media Contact:

Matt Rizzetta

N6A (For Tech Holdings)

[email protected]

SOURCE Tech Holdings
DENVER, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Galvanize and Change Catalyst are excited to announce they have partnered to bring Tech Inclusion to Seattle, a two-day event that aims to build local solutions to an inclusive tech ecosystem.

"The Change Catalyst team and Galvanize's vision to provide opportunity for anyone with the smarts, drive and grit - specifically in underrepresented communities - has been aligned from the origin of both organizations," noted Galvanize CEO Jim Deters. "We believe this conference will inspire more people and companies to support initiatives that promote inclusion employment practices like removing unnecessary credential requirements and investing in re-skilling existing employees."

"As a native Seattleite, growing up in south Seattle, I am particularly passionate about this event," Change Catalyst CEO Melinda Epler says. "Seattle has incredibly rich diversity that is largely untapped in the tech industry. We are missing out on the wealth of experience from Black, Latinx, Native American, southeast asian, immigrant, LGBTQIA, people with disabilities, service veterans and women. It's time to get down to actionable solutions."

With a growing number of companies, organizations and individuals focused on diversity and inclusion, Change Catalyst has designed a safe, collaborative space to share best practices. We are excited to bring together the amazing people in the city who care about diversity and inclusion, so we can learn from and support one another."

Amazon is the presenting sponsor of the Tech Inclusion Seattle Conference, which is being held June 14- 15 at the Galvanize Seattle Campus. The two day event includes a conference and startup showcase on day one, and a career fair, connecting underrepresented groups with potential employees, on day two. Find out more and/or register here.

Galvanize has also worked with companies like Atlassian, Google and Adobe to bring underrepresented groups into tech. The company's Galvanize Foundation is a 501c3 scholarship fund which is focused on tech inclusion and distributes finances to tech immersive programs.

Galvanize and Change Catalyst are partners through the Google For Entrepreneurs network whose events bring thought-leaders for inclusion across engineers, entrepreneurs, tech investment/funding, hiring practices and more.

The Change Catalyst HQ team is located inside the Galvanize San Francisco campus, making it easy for them to provide inclusion trainings and workshops to the Galvanize startup and student community. The two organizations partner on Tech Inclusion events in San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, and New York -- opening up their networks to drive valuable content, promotion, and event execution.

About Galvanize

Galvanize is a 21st Century school for engineers, entrepreneurs and data scientists. On eight campuses across the U.S., the energy, intellect and ambition of Galvanize students, members and alumni are at the heart of a learning community that promotes belonging, and that celebrates courage and growth. Our faculty and flexible blended-learning platform, combining part-time online education and in-person training, provide the most relevant and in-demand technical skills to anyone with the smarts, drive and grit to re-skill, up-skill and define success on their terms. Our members include first-time entrepreneurs, growing startups, and Fortune 1000 companies all looking to level-up. Become a member or enroll in an immersive course by visiting the Galvanize website. Follow us: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

About Change Catalyst

Change Catalyst empowers diverse, inclusive and sustainable tech innovation  through education, mentorship and funding. Our Tech Inclusion programs explore and develop innovative solutions to tech diversity and inclusion. We partner with the tech community to solve diversity and inclusion together through conferences, career fairs, strategic consulting and training. Our work spans the full tech ecosystem, including: Education, Workplace, Entrepreneurship and Policy.

SOURCE Galvanize

Related Links

http://www.galvanize.com


CLEVELAND, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Global industrial fastener demand will grow 3% in 2017, according to Ken Long, manager of capital goods research at the Freedonia Group. Long spoke at the inaugural Fastener Industry Summit, held June 7th in Rosemont, Illinois. His presentation provided an analysis of current fastener market conditions and forecasts from two recent Freedonia studies, Global Industrial Fastener Market and US Industrial Fastener Market.

"Growth in world fastener demand in 2017 will be bolstered by a rebound in US sales and advances in areas where demand in dollar terms has been adversely affected by a rise in the value of the US dollar," Long said. The fastest market gains will be posted in China, India, and other developing parts of Asia, fueled by increases in durable goods production. US fastener demand, which declined in 2016, is projected to climb 2.3% in 2017.

The Fastener Industry Summit was sponsored by the Fastener Industry Coalition, an organization composed of 13 national and regional fastener associations.

The Freedonia Group's industrial fastener studies can be accessed here:

https://www.freedoniagroup.com/industry-study/global-industrial-fasteners-by-product-and-market-9th-edition-3482.htm

https://www.freedoniagroup.com/industry-study/industrial-fasteners-3413.htm

About The Freedonia Group  The Freedonia Group, a division of MarketResearch.com, is a leading international industrial research company publishing more than 100 studies annually. Since 1985 we have provided research to customers ranging in size from global conglomerates to one-person consulting firms. More than 90% of the industrial companies in the Fortune 500 use Freedonia Group research to help with their strategic planning. Each study includes product and market analyses and forecasts, in-depth discussions of important industry trends, market share information and profiles of the leading industry players. Reports can be purchased at www.freedoniagroup.com and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com.

Press Contact:

Corinne Gangloff

+1 440.684.9600

[email protected]

SOURCE The Freedonia Group
An entire pavilion of the medical center is being renovated and repurposed expressly to meet the needs of orthopaedic patients and their guests. Once fully complete later this year, the Institute will be 14,500 square feet, including 11 operating rooms. It will feature newly redesigned and upgraded space with today's best technology.

The Institute was designed with patients' diverse needs in mind, offering 21 all-private rooms and valet parking. Patients will notice modern LED fixtures and unsurpassed amenities. While it might feel more like a hotel than a hospital, the design is deliberate. Every detail, including the modern color selection, the room design and the motivational artwork was carefully selected to achieve a calming and healing environment that encourages patients to begin moving and get back to the activities they love.

Hartford HealthCare and MidState Medical Center are collaborating with Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists, the largest orthopaedics practice in the state, with board-certified physicians in all subspecialties of orthopaedics, and Comprehensive Orthopaedics and Musculoskeletal Care, a group of board-certified surgeons who have served Central Connecticut with a full spectrum of orthopaedic treatments for more than 20 years, to develop the Institute. Patients at the Institute will experience complete care in this special "hospital within a hospital."

Already the Connecticut Orthopaedic Institute offers patients exclusive access to the latest technology that brings more precision to orthopaedic care.

MidState Medical Center maintains The Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval for its Knee and Hip Replacement Program, having attained The Joint Commission's highest national standards. It is also designated as a Blue Distinction Center+ for knee and hip replacement from Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

"Our new Institute at MidState Medical Center brings together the expertise of highly skilled surgeons and a remarkable patient experience," said Jeffrey Flaks, President and Chief Operating Officer of HHC. "We are setting a new standard  a new model  for orthopaedic care. This Institute will become a destination for those seeking the very best care in Central Connecticut and New Haven County."

Lucille Janatka, Hartford HealthCare senior vice president and president of the Hartford HealthCare Central Region, praised the teamwork that made the Institute possible.

"This is a tremendous milestone for MidState Medical Center, for Meriden, but most importantly, for our patients," Janatka said. "Every aspect of this project has been undertaken with patients at the forefront. We are delighted to offer this exceptional level of orthopaedic care  combining the best surgeons in a specially created setting."

About Hartford HealthCare

Hartford HealthCare is Connecticut's most comprehensive healthcare network. Our fully integrated health system includes Hartford Hospital, a tertiary-care teaching hospital; The Hospital of Central Connecticut, an acute-care community teaching hospital; Backus Hospital, an acute-care hospital and trauma center; LIFE STAR helicopters; MidState Medical Center and Windham Hospital, community hospitals; the state's most extensive behavioral health network; Hartford HealthCare Medical Group, a large multispecialty physician group; Hartford HealthCare at Home, a regional home care system; an array of senior care services; a large physical therapy and rehabilitation network and an accountable care organization. The Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute provides coordinated care across five cancer centers, and is the charter member of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Alliance. Visit Hartford HealthCare at www.hartfordhealthcare.org.

About MidState Medical Center

MidState Medical Center consistently rates among the top hospitals in Connecticut and the nation. Conveniently located just minutes off Rte. 691 in Meriden, Conn., MidState offers free and safe parking, as well as private inpatient rooms. Services include orthopaedics, general and robotic surgery, emergency medicine, MediQuick for urgent care needs, and state-of-the-art care dedicated to weight management, cancer care, wound and hyperbarics, family birthing, maternal fetal medicine, sleep care, digestive health, pain management, neurosciences, cardiac care and more. MidState is a member of Hartford HealthCare, an integrated health system that includes hospitals, behavioral health centers, and laboratory, rehabilitation and homecare services throughout Connecticut. For more information, please visit www.midstatemedical.org; for a physician referral, call 1.855.HHC.HERE.

SOURCE Hartford HealthCare

Related Links

https://hartfordhealthcare.org


GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Helix TCS, Inc. (OTC:HLIX) ("Helix TCS" or the "Company"), a leading provider of integrated operating solutions for the legal cannabis industry, is pleased to announce its acquisition of Security Grade Protective Services, Ltd ("Security Grade"), a Denver-based security firm providing a range of custom, full-service security solutions to cannabis business clients. Security Grade will operate as wholly-owned subsidiary of Helix TCS.

The purchase of Security Grade, a leading cannabis security service provider with a strong emphasis on surveillance technology, will allow Helix TCS to continue to expand its suite of operating solutions with services including: IT security, building fortification, private investigations, and advanced video surveillance programs and software.

Zachary L. Venegas, CEO of Helix TCS explains: "What we believe is our formula for success - both for our clients and ourselves - involves integrating the very best in security, compliance and technology to provide cutting-edge, full-service solutions for the legal cannabis industry. With existing product lines that are well aligned with this ongoing strategy, the purchase of Security Grade will boost our capacity to scale our offerings as we continue to expand into new markets, and benefit our existing client base by increasing the breadth of the integrated capabilities we're able to offer."

Derek Porter, CEO of Security Grade Protective Services, said of the acquisition: "I am very proud to close this deal. We've rapidly grown over the last few years, however, we have found our niche in technology, specifically state-of-the-art remote surveillance which has allowed us to gain market share in the legal cannabis market with surveillance and provide a service that we believe so few security companies have the know-how to provide. In addition, we believe we are well positioned to truly provide the very best services at the most cost effective rates in the legal cannabis industry."

By consolidating resources to accelerate the pipeline of new technologies, partnerships, and business lines, the former market rivals will benefit from a sharpened competitive edge and new operational efficiencies to better drive shareholder value.

About Helix TCS

Helix TCS, Inc. (OTC: HLIX) ("Helix TCS" or the "Company") is a premier provider of integrated operating environments for the legal cannabis industry. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Helix TCS's compliance & logistical services include armed and unarmed security, remote monitoring, transportation, compliance auditing, and custom security and cash solutions. Helix TCS is trusted by top growers, dispensary owners, investors, and ancillary firms in the industry to protect and preserve their most valuable assets. For more information please visit http://www.helixtcs.com.

About Security Grade Protective Services, Ltd

Security Grade Protective Services, Ltd ("Security Grade") a leading cannabis security service provider with a strong emphasis on surveillance technology. From security consulting, to installing Alarms/ CCTV/ Access Control and implementing monitoring, Security Grade offers cutting edge, competitive, and comprehensive services. Everything under the security umbrella is provided through one vendor, to include protective services, such as security guards and executive protection specialists, investigations and background checks, and Security Grade also has a full service IT division serving all IT demands including but not limited to information security. For more information please visit http://www.securitygrade.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve certain risks and uncertainties. The actual results or outcomes of Helix TCS, Inc. may differ materially from those anticipated. Although Helix TCS, Inc. believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements contained herein are reasonable, any such assumptions could prove to be inaccurate. Therefore, Helix TCS, Inc. can provide no assurance that any of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release will prove to be accurate.

SOURCE Helix TCS, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.helixtcs.com


Higginbotham is ranked by revenue as the largest independent insurance broker based in Texas. It operates 27 offices in Texas and Oklahoma that provide a broad range of insurance, risk management and benefit plan administration services to employers and individuals.

Managing Director Ben Smith said, "Customers can come to Higginbotham not just for insurance coverage, but also for support in loss prevention and human resources without additional costs. Bringing in John for employee benefits and Jordan for commercial insurance gives us more opportunities to offer our complete service lineup though our local office. Their added talent will help us keep growing in McAllen."

Garcia was most recently an agent at New York Life managing life insurance and annuities accounts. He graduated from the University of TexasPan American/University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Lewis came to Higginbotham from United Airlines where he was the general manager for operations and airport terminal services. He attended Texas Tech University and the University of TexasPan American/University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

About Higginbotham

Higginbotham is a single source for insurance and financial services that brokers business insurance, employee benefits, retirement plans, executive benefits, life insurance and home/auto insurance from more than 250 regional and national carriers. It supplements coverage with in-house risk management and benefit plan administration services. The firm was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, with 26 additional offices statewide serving domestic and international customers. Higginbotham ranks by revenue as the nation's 31st largest independent insurance brokerage firm, making it the largest Texas-based broker (Business Insurance, July 2016). Visit www.higginbotham.net for more information.

SOURCE Higginbotham

Related Links

http://higginbotham.net


TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Government of Honduras applauded the International Monetary Fund for expressing optimism about the country's economy in a new statement of preliminary findings following an 11-day visit to Honduras by Fund representatives.

An official statement from Roberto Garcia-Saltos, chief of the IMF delegation, said that he and his team were "encouraged by the continuing strengthening of the Honduran economy, including advances in the security situation."

President Juan Orlando Hernandez responded by reiterating his commitment to build a better Honduras for all Hondurans.

"Honduras has come a long way under our administration. Today, we are beginning to see the tangible results of our efforts, as the international community recognizes that Honduras is an attractive country for domestic and foreign investment," Hernandez said.

"We are working hard to become one of the safest countries in the Americas," said Hernandez. "Our achievements are supported by facts and statistics as measured by independent observers like the IMF. That engenders trust among the Honduran people in their country, and among foreign individuals who visit and invest here."

The IMF delegation found that the Honduran economy grew 3.6 percent in 2016 and projected real GDP growth of 4 percent to 4.5 percent in the first quarter of 2017.

The IMF's findings are timely, as Honduran government officials will meet in Miami June 15-16 with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and other high-ranking U.S. and Mexican officials at the Conference on Prosperity and Security in Central America. Investors from the Americas, Europe and Asia, and the Inter-American Development Bank will also be in attendance to discuss investment opportunities in Honduras and neighboring countries in the Northern Triangle.

"The IMF's recent visit reaffirms that we are on the right path," Hernandez said. "There is much left to do, but evaluations like the IMF's confirm that the policies that our administration has outlined are working."

To read the International Monetary Fund's official recap of its recent mission to Honduras, please visit: http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2017/06/01/pr17203-imf-staff-concludes-visit-to-honduras.

For more information or to schedule an interview with Honduran officials, please contact Yael Wollstein at [email protected] or +1-202-471-4228 ext. 118.

SOURCE Republic of Honduras
RICKREALL, Ore., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Firesteed founder Howard Rossbach has reached an agreement to sell the Oregon-based brand and winery in a multi-part deal with Vintage Wine Estates and Pacific Rim & Company. In a related transaction, Mickey and Jeanne Flynn have agreed to sell the historic 30 acre Flynn Vineyard adjacent to the Firesteed Winery to Pacific Rim & Company. Rossbach will retain the Citation brand and Erratic Oaks Vineyard.

"We feel fortunate to have found such a good steward to carry the Firesteed line of wines into the future," commented Rossbach. "After more than 40 years in the wine business, I'll now be able to refocus on my passion for our ultra premium offerings under the Citation label, while continuing to manage our exquisite Erratic Oaks vineyard, producing some of the finest wine grapes in region."

The transaction gives Vintage Wine Estates its first fine wine brand from Oregon state, as well as several key long-term grape sources in particular grapes from the 90-acre Firesteed Estate Vineyard in the Willamette Valley and 202-acre Erratic Oaks Vineyard in nearby Dallas, Oregon.

Through a separate purchase by Pacific Rim & Company of the physical winery and 30 acres of surrounding vineyards, its Rainstorm brand has a new home in the Willamette Valley. Production of Rainstorm Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Silver Linings Rose at the Rickreall, OR location will start with the 2017 harvest.

Exvere, Inc. served as the exclusive financial advisor to Firesteed and to Flynn Vineyard.

About Citation and Howard Rossbach

Howard founded Firesteed Cellars in 1992, originally coining the term "virtual winery" to describe the brand's commitment to consistent quality without the overhead of a vineyard or production facility. In the ensuing years, the winery (2002) and vineyard land (2006) were purchased and the ultra-premium line of Citation wines was added. Rossbach has been active in leadership of the Oregon Wine industry, having served as Vice President of the Oregon Wine Growers Association and President of Oregon Pinot Camp. He is currently President of the Northwest Wine Coalition.

About Vintage Wine Estates

Vintage Wine Estates is a privately held wine company owned by a group of vintner families with deep roots in the wine business. The families own a collection of winery estates and brands including Clos Pegase Winery, Cosentino Winery, Girard Winery, B.R. Cohn Winery, Swanson Vineyards, Viansa Sonoma, Windsor Vineyards, Cartlidge & Browne, Sonoma Coast Vineyards, Middle Sister, Tall Dark Stranger, Pro-mis-Q-ous, Monogamy, Girl & Dragon, Purple Cowboy and a number of exclusive wine brands. Vintage Wine Estates is a majority partner in Splinter Group Spirits, producing craft Kentucky whiskey (Straight Edge) and American whiskey (Slaughter House) and markets Clayhouse and Buried Cane wines. An industry leader across all sales channels and dedicated to providing wine consumers with a range of wines from $10 to $100 dollars, Vintage Wine Estates produces outstanding wines from Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and other premium California winegrowing regions and respects the way people buy their wineat wineries, at retail, on the telephone, on television, on the Internet and by mail. www.vintagewineestates.com

About Pacific Rim & Company

Pacific Rim and Company, wholly owned by the Mariani family (proprietors of leading US wine importer Banfi Vintners) since 2010, was founded in 1992 as a Riesling specialist and has since grown into a leading innovator and producer of Northwest wines, including Pacific Rim, Rainstorm, Eufloria, Unparalleled, Sweet Bliss, and Silver Totem. General Manager and Chief Winemaker Nicolas Quille is also Vice President of the International Riesling Foundation, a board member of Winewise (the Washington winery sustainability group), and a member of the Washington State export committee. Contact Joe Janish at [email protected] or 516-686-2569 for more information.

About Exvere

Exvere advises Pacific Northwest businesses on capital transactions including mergers, acquisitions, and recapitalizations. Exvere offers concentrated experience and expertise in the Pacific Northwest wine and adult beverage industry. For more information about Exvere please visit www.exvere.com.

For more information contact:

Howard M. Rossbach [email protected]

(206) 233-0683

SOURCE Vintage Wine Estates

Related Links

http://www.vintagewineestates.com


WILMINGTON, Del. and ASHDOD, Israel, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrity Applications, Inc. (OTCQB: IGAP), maker of GlucoTrack, a non-invasive device for measuring glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, today announced the appointment of David Podwalski as Chief Commercial Officer.

Mr. Podwalski is a seasoned pharmaceutical and life sciences executive with more than 20 years of experience in global commercial leadership, most notably with insulin-based therapies. Most recently, he served at Ernst & Young as Senior Consultant and Subject Matter Expert, Life Sciences, where he assisted major pharmaceutical, animal health, diagnostic, and medical device companies in developing innovative go-to-market commercial strategies, sales and marketing excellence programs, product launch roadmaps, commercial operations and analytics support, and enhanced patient and physician support services.

Previously, Mr. Podwalski was Senior Director of Global Commercial Effectiveness at Aventis Pharmaceuticals, where he designed and established leading practices in sales and marketing capabilities in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America. While at Aventis, Mr. Podwalski provided global commercial leadership in the development of the global insulin business and improved pen delivery systems. Mr. Podwalski successfully launched Lantus and the Insulin Pen Delivery system in the United States, Germany, Japan and multiple other countries. This innovative basal insulin achieved peak sales of more than $9 billion, and has cumulative sales of more than $65 billion. Earlier in his career, Mr. Podwalski served in various capacities at Hoechst Marion Roussel Inc., including senior commercial leadership positions in both pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare products, most notably in diabetes.

John Graham, CEO and Chairman of Integrity Applications, remarked, "We are excited to have David join the Integrity Applications' team. His extensive commercial and marketing background in diabetes, including driving sales and marketing for numerous new and relaunched products in the medical device industry, will be advantageous as we prepare to expand GlucoTrack commercial initiatives and implement strategies to capture a substantial portion of the market for non-invasive glucose monitoring in prediabetes and type 2 diabetes."

Mr. Podwalski commented, "I am pleased to be joining Integrity Applications at such an exciting time in the company's growth. We are seeing the convergence of glucose monitoring technology and digital health for diabetes, and I am enthusiastic about the commercial opportunities for GlucoTrack. There is an urgent need to transform diabetes management and to slow the progression of the diabetes epidemic. We believe that GlucoTrack, a non-invasive and patient-friendly approach to glucose monitoring, has significant potential in these large and clinically important markets."

About GlucoTrack

GlucoTrack is a truly non-invasive monitoring device that rapidly measures and displays an individual's glucose level in about a minute without finger pricking or any pain.

GlucoTrack features a small sensor that clips to the earlobe and measures the user's glucose level using innovative and patented sensor technology. The measured signals are analyzed using a proprietary algorithm and then a calculated glucose level is displayed on a small handheld device the size of a small mobile phone. The glucose results are stored in the device and used for a projected HbA1c level using a proprietary algorithm. The device also displays the glucose values graphically allowing the user to monitor glucose over a period of time.

GlucoTrack has received CE Mark and KFDA approvals for type 2 diabetes and prediabetics, and is currently in the early stages of commercialization in Europe, South Korea and other geographies.

GlucoTrack is expected to begin clinical trials for United States FDA approval in late 2017. The product is currently experimental in the United States and is limited to investigational use only.

About Integrity Applications, Inc.

Integrity Applications was founded in 2001 and is focused on the design, development and commercialization of non-invasive glucose monitoring technologies for patients with diabetes and prediabetes. The company has developed GlucoTrack, a proprietary non-invasive glucose monitoring device designed to obtain glucose level measurements in about a minute without the pain, incremental cost, difficulty or discomfort of conventional invasive finger stick devices. Integrity Applications Inc. is a Delaware corporation, with headquarters in the United States and an R&D site in Ashdod, Israel. For more information, please visit www.integrity-app.com and www.glucotrack.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "expect", "plan" and "will" are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that certain important factors may affect Integrity Applications' actual results and could cause such results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements that may be made in this news release. Factors that may affect Integrity Applications' results include, but are not limited to, the ability of Integrity Applications to raise additional capital to finance its operations (whether through public or private equity offerings, debt financings, strategic collaborations or otherwise); risks relating to the receipt (and timing) of regulatory approvals (including FDA approval); risks relating to enrollment of patients in, and the conduct of, clinical trials; risks relating to its current and future distribution agreements; risks relating to its ability to hire and retain qualified personnel, including sales and distribution personnel; and the additional risk factors described in Integrity Applications' filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 as filed with the SEC on March 30, 2017.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Erich Sandoval / Amy Wheeler

Lazar Partners Ltd.

[email protected] / [email protected]

+1 (917) 497-2867 / +1 (646) 871-8486

INVESTOR CONTACTS

Matthew Ventimiglia

Lazar Partners Ltd.

[email protected]

+1 (212) 599-1265

Sami Sassoun, CFO Integrity Applications

[email protected]

+972 (8) 675-7878 Ext. 400

SOURCE Integrity Applications, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.integrity-app.com


HELSINKI, Finland, June, 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Janssen Research & Development, LLC, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, and Johnson & Johnson Innovation, in collaboration with Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, Tekes  the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, announced today the launch of the Next-Gen Baby Box QuickFire Challenge focused on creating "the Baby Box of the future" to promote child health, detect childhood disease earlier and facilitate healthy parenting. Select finalists will receive up to $350,000 in funding and be provided structured mentorship to help develop and pitch their ideas. Through this collaborative initiative, Sitra, an independent public fund which under the supervision of the Finnish Parliament promotes the welfare of Finnish society, Tekes, a publicly-funded expert organization financing research, development and innovation in Finland, and VTT, the leading research and technology company in the Nordic countries, together with Janssen and Johnson & Johnson Innovation, are focused on creating a better ecosystem for child health.

"The Baby Box is a Finnish innovation that has been distributed to new mothers for 80 years with successful results, as infant and maternity mortality rates are among the lowest worldwide," said Pekka Ihalmo, Public Affairs Manager, Janssen-Cilag Oy. "We are greatly inspired by these effects that the Baby Box has had on Finnish babies' and their parents' wellbeing. With this challenge, we and our Finnish partners are calling for ideas and innovations to create a concept of what the Baby Box of the next generation might look like."

The QuickFire Challenges, initially launched by Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABSthe no strings attached incubators of Johnson & Johnson Innovationseek to empower and enable ground-breaking science and health solutions, encouraging various stakeholders  students, entrepreneurs, researchers, start-up companies, etc.  to apply. This challenge, in particular, will focus on the following innovation areas:

1. Promoting child health:

"Ease and extend" breast-feeding.

Healthy sleep habits.

2. Detecting childhood illness and disease earlier:

Home-based detection of high blood sugar associated with onset of type 1 diabetes.

Home-based assessment of severity and progression of respiratory diseases in infants and toddlers.

3. Facilitating healthy parenting:

Emotional and physical well-being of parents and coping skills.

Parenting or bonding with newborns and infants.

The competition is part of Janssen's strategic focus to create a world without disease, shifting the paradigm from treating disease to maintaining health through prevention, interception and cure.

"We're deepening our understanding of how both genetic and environmental triggers in early life can impact long-term health, so that we may intervene earlier and maintain wellness, including at birth," said Ben Wiegand, Global Head, World Without Disease Accelerator, Janssen Research & Development, LLC. "We believe that great science can happen anywhere and look forward to seeing the proposed innovations from the scientific community as we collaborate with our Finnish partners to work toward creating a world free from disease."

The QuickFire Challenge will unfold in three phases:

Following submissions, select finalist(s) may receive up to $250,000 in funding and be provided structured mentorship. Finalists will pitch their ideas at Slush, Europe's leading start-up and technology event, on November 30, 2017 in Helsinki, Finland . Winner(s) may be offered a contractual collaboration to develop their science/technology with the goal of piloting in Finland over the next 1-2 years. Winner(s) with the most impact through the pilot studies may receive additional funding up to $100,000 to support commercialization with a goal of proof of concept by 2020.

The deadline to submit is August 18, 2017. For more information about the QuickFire Challenge (including the terms and conditions of entry), please visit: www.jlabs.jnjinnovation.com/quickfire-challenges

About the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies

At the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, we are working to create a world without disease. Transforming lives by finding new and better ways to prevent, intercept, treat and cure disease inspires us. We bring together the best minds and pursue the most promising science. We are Janssen. We collaborate with the world for the health of everyone in it. Learn more at www.janssen.com. Follow us at Twitter.com/JanssenGlobal.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation

Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC focuses on accelerating all stages of innovation worldwide and forming collaborations between entrepreneurs and Johnson & Johnson's global healthcare businesses. Johnson & Johnson Innovation provides scientists, entrepreneurs and emerging companies with one-stop access to science and technology experts who can facilitate collaborations across the pharmaceutical, medical device and consumer companies of Johnson & Johnson. Under the Johnson & Johnson Innovation umbrella of businesses, we connect with innovators through our regional Innovation Centers, JLABS, Johnson & Johnson Innovation - JJDC, Inc. and our Business Development teams to create customized deals and novel collaborations that speed development of innovations to solve unmet needs in patients. For more information please visit www.jnjinnovation.com.

About Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS

Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS (JLABS) is a global network of open innovation ecosystems, enabling and empowering innovators to create and accelerate the delivery of life-saving, life-enhancing health and wellness solutions to patients around the world. JLABS achieves this by providing the optimal environment for emerging companies to catalyze growth and optimize their research and development by opening them to vital industry connections, delivering entrepreneurial programs and providing a capital-efficient, flexible platform where they can transform the scientific discoveries of today into the breakthrough healthcare solutions of tomorrow. At JLABS we value great ideas and are passionate about removing obstacles to success to help innovators unleash the potential of their early scientific discoveries. JLABS is a no-strings-attached model, which means entrepreneurs are free to develop their science while holding on to their intellectual property. JLABS is open to entrepreneurs across a broad healthcare spectrum including pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer and digital health sectors.

JLABS currently has eight locations in innovation hot spots across North America and produces entrepreneurial programs and campaigns to seek out the best science, like the QuickFire Challenges around the globe. The JLABS flagship opened in 2012 in San Diego at Janssen's West Coast Research Center, and since then, has established two locations in San Francisco - one through a collaboration with the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) and a second standalone facility in South San Francisco. JLABS is also located in Boston through a collaboration with LabCentral, in Lowell, Massachusetts through a collaboration with UMass, in Houston through a collaboration with the Texas Medical Center (TMC), in Toronto through a collaboration with the Ontario Government and the University of Toronto and a new JLABS @ NYC (in collaboration with the New York Genome Center) opening in 2018.

SOURCE Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies

Related Links

http://www.janssen.com


COLUMBUS, Ga., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Paul S. Amos II, whose vision and leadership helped make Aflac Inc. one of the most iconic and successful insurance companies in the world, is joining Jordan Blanchard Capital LLC as a Director. With his arrival, the company will rename itself JBA Capital, in acknowledgement of the contributions Mr. Amos is expected to make.

Paul S. Amos II

"We're thrilled that Paul is joining Jordan Blanchard Capital as a partner in our efforts going forward,'' Said Gunby J. Garrard, president of Jordan Blanchard Capital. "His experience and relationships are key to our plans to grow and build great businesses."

Mr. Amos, 41, joined Aflac in 1991 at the age of 15, answering phones in the company's investor relations office. In 2013, he became president of the company, charged with directing the company's global strategy and directly overseeing Aflac Japan. Aflac Japan is the company's largest earnings contributor, providing 75% of its worldwide revenue.

The American Family Life Insurance Company was co-founded by Mr. Amos's grandfather in Columbus in 1955. Aflac, as it is now known, is the largest supplier of supplemental health insurance in the US.

Aflac has a market capitalization of about $30 billion, annual revenue of about $22 billion and over 9,000 employees worldwide. But despite its size, Aflac has always retained the flavor of a family enterprise, still headquartered in Columbus and managed over its six decades of existence by members of the Amos family.

"It's tough leaving the business my grandfather built and my father runs and I will forever bleed Aflac blue," Mr. Amos said. "But entrepreneurship runs in my genes and that's really at the heart of my decision to leave. I want to be part of an enterprise I can help scale up and build out. "

JBA Capital is a private investment firm that focuses on the long-term acquisition of quality businesses in the Southeastern US. Paul Amos was one of JBA Capital's first investors. Among the Directors at JBA Capital are William R. Blanchard, the former President and CEO of Columbus Bank & Trust, who joined the firm earlier in the year.

"I will be forever grateful for the opportunities afforded to me at Aflac, which came about largely through the unflagging efforts of my family,'' Paul Amos said. "But I'm looking forward to feeling the sort of satisfaction that one only gets by building a great company from the ground up.

"Aflac has never been on stronger financial footing or in more capable hands,'' Mr. Amos said. "The time is right to head out on my own.''

Mr. Amos will assume his duties at JBA Capital on September 1.

JordanBlanchard.com

For further information please contact:

Christopher Cooper

The Potomac Square Group

202 384 8925

[email protected]

SOURCE JB Capital LLC

Related Links

http://www.jordanblanchard.com


Love Bruce, who joined Bridgepoint in 2009, worked to develop and implement the organization's first corporate social responsibility program. Under her direction, Bridgepoint has produced outstanding results in helping support the company's key focus areas of education, youth, and the military. Love Bruce has spearheaded Bridgepoint programs that have supported youth literacy, provided military counseling sessions and summer camps, and delivered backpacks and school supplies to students in need. In 2016, Bridgepoint employee volunteers donated more than 20,000 hours of time in events that resulted in more than 12,000 pounds of produce and 800 bags of food sorted with Feeding America. In addition, more than 2,000 meals have been donated toward food drives, and more than 1,000 pounds of trash and debris collected during community clean-up events.

"As an organization, we are fully committed to enriching lives and improving the communities in which we live and serve," said Bridgepoint CEO Andrew Clark. "At Bridgepoint and its academic institutions, Ashford University and University of the Rockies, we strive to foster a culture that is devoted to giving back and community service, and under Jennifer's direction, we have been able to support social good. I congratulate Jennifer on this well-deserved promotion."

Love Bruce holds a professional certification in corporate citizenship practice from Boston College and has a bachelor of arts degree in communications from California State University, Fullerton. Her awards include the Helibron Award: Outstanding Service to the Community  First Place Large Company, the 2015 and 2016 President's Volunteer Service Award, Living the Mission Award, and Future Leader Award. Love Bruce is also an active wish granter for Make-A-Wish San Diego.

About Bridgepoint Education

Bridgepoint Education, Inc. (NYSE:BPI) harnesses the latest technology to reimagine the modern student experience. Bridgepoint owns two academic institutions  Ashford University and University of the Rockies. Together, these programs, technologies, and resources represent a unique model for advancing education in the 21st century. Bridgepoint stands for greater access, social learning, and exposure to leading minds. For more information, visit www.bridgepointeducation.com, www.facebook.com/BridgepointEducation, or call Marianne Perez, Media Relations Manager, at 858.668.2586 x11636, or email [email protected].

SOURCE Bridgepoint Education

Related Links

http://www.bridgepointeducation.com


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Greenhill & Co., Inc. (NYSE: GHL), a leading independent investment bank, announced today that John D. Liu has been appointed to the Firm's Board of Directors, effective immediately. He will also serve on the Board's Audit, Compensation and Nominating & Governance Committees.

Mr. Liu has been the chief executive officer of Essex Equity Management, a financial services company, and managing partner of Richmond Hill Investments, an investment management firm, since March of 2008. Prior to that time, he was employed for 12 years by Greenhill in positions of increasing responsibility including both chief financial officer and the co-head of U.S. Mergers and Acquisitions. Earlier in his career, Mr. Liu worked at Wolfensohn & Co. and was an analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Liu also serves on the board of the Whirlpool Corporation.

Liu holds a master's degree in business administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree from Harvard University. He also served as a Rotary Foundation Scholar, based at the University of Hong Kong.

Scott L. Bok, Chief Executive Officer of Greenhill, said, "We are pleased to welcome John back to our Firm as an independent director. He is ideally suited to play this role given his experience as an investment banker, as a long serving senior employee of our Firm in the first decade of its existence, as an investor in public and private markets, and as a board member of another leading major public company. His counsel will be very useful as we look to continue to develop our Firm and create shareholder value in the years to come."

Greenhill & Co., Inc. is a leading independent investment bank entirely focused on providing financial advice on significant mergers, acquisitions, restructurings, financings and capital raising to corporations, partnerships, institutions and governments globally. It acts for clients located throughout the world from its offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Melbourne, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.

Contact:

David M. Trone

Director of Investor Relations

Greenhill & Co., Inc.

(212) 389-1800

SOURCE Greenhill & Co., Inc.
"Kiley is a significant addition to the capabilities and depth of our growing state and local government affairs practice at Stateside," said Michael Behm, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Stateside. "Partnering with Kiley brings to our firm the rare combination of very successful political experience  developed while growing the RLCC and its majority of Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country  and a keen understanding of the advocacy needs of state government affairs professionals."

Kiley will work closely with Stateside's Issue Management team, planning and supporting state advocacy efforts on behalf of Stateside's clients, helping its clients navigate the policy- and political-oriented state and local officials Groups, and leading business development efforts. In addition, she will continue developing her political consulting practice which she began shortly after leaving the RLCC.

RLCC Chairman and Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai said, "Kiley is wonderful to work with. I found her to be extremely effective and strategic at fundraising and member relations. I am excited she will be able to continue to work with state legislators and legislative groups in her new position with Stateside."

"Kiley is always friendly, determined, and on top of her game. She served her corporate members well by understanding the issues impacting their company and industry and through the relationships she built with legislative leaders from all 50 states. Stateside will be well served with her on their team," added Washington Senate Majority Leader Mark Schoesler.

During her four years at the RLCC, Kiley helped her team flip 10 legislative chambers to Republican control, raising and spending a record $40 million in the 2014 cycle. And while leading the organization, she and her team worked to protect an all-time high number of Republican legislative majorities, retaining 69 of 99 state legislative chambers during the 2016 cycle.

Kiley has also held professional positions with the Republican National Committee (RNC), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Governors Association (RGA).

A Washington State native, Kiley grew up in the small town of Gig Harbor and is a graduate of Washington State University. After working on the 2008 Dino Rossi for Governor campaign in her home state, she moved to Washington, D.C. where she currently resides. Kiley can be reached at [email protected].

Stateside Associates is the leader in state and local government affairs. Since 1988, Stateside has offered its clients a broad range of state and local advocacy support, personalized legislative, regulatory and local government monitoring and research services and access to a wealth of public and private sector relationships and lobbyist support across the 50 states, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Contact: Michael J. Behm

Co-CEO & Principal

Phone: 703-525-7466

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Stateside Associates

Related Links

http://www.stateside.com


INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Koinonia Homes, a leading provider of residential services, day programs and employment services for adults with developmental disabilities, was selected by 23 families to provide disabilities services in four group homes in Summit County that were previously managed by Evant Inc., as well as one additional home formerly managed by Arbor Home Health Care.

Two of the homes are in Akron, two are in Hudson, Ohio, and one is in Stow, Ohio.

This spring, two group-home operators for people with disabilities, Evant Inc. and Arbor Home Health Care, separately announced they would cease all operations. Soon after the announcements, Koinonia began working with the Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board to provide services in five of the effected homes and retain nearly all the 23 original staff members associated with those homes. The move marks Koinonia's first residential expansion into Summit County.

"Sudden adjustments in life can be challenging for anyone," said Patti Matzinger, director of Waiver Services for Koinonia. "But for people with disabilities, who typically manage four or five critical health issues, change is overwhelming and can put their well-being at risk."

"The people with Summit County DD were amazing to work with," Matzinger said. "The residents were put first and foremost in all their transition plans."

To maintain seamless continuity of care, Koinonia offered existing employees retention incentives, honored their current pay rates and provided personal time off.

"Retaining as many of the current staff as possible was critical to us," said Diane Beastrom, Koinonia president and CEO. "The support staff has decades of valuable experience in these homes, and we knew that keeping them in place was essential for the residents. They know these individuals, their medical histories, and they have been trained on health-care coordination by qualified nurses."

"The fact that Koinonia stepped in to help with these homes in such a short period of time was very reassuring to the residents and their families," said Drew Williams, director of Community Supports and Development for Summit County Developmental Disabilities Board. "Having Koinonia expand into Summit County creates more options for individuals and their families."

In addition to its recent expansion into Summit County, Koinonia also provides services in Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina counties.

About Koinonia Homes

Koinonia (coin-o-NEE-yah) is a leading 501(c)(3) organization in Northeast Ohio that provides residential services, day programs and employment services to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Its service portfolio includes 21 licensed group homes and more than 50 supported living arrangements, transportation services and shared living options in safe and healthy settings. For more information, visit https://koinoniahomes.org

News Media Contact:

Joe Mosbrook

(216) 375-2141

[email protected]

SOURCE Koinonia Homes

Related Links

https://koinoniahomes.org


CINCINNATI, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) announced today it will webcast the annual meeting of shareholders beginning at 11 a.m. (ET) on Thursday, June 22, 2017.

The meeting will be broadcast online at ir.kroger.com. Click on "Events, Presentations & Webcasts" to access the event. An on-demand replay of the webcast will be available at approximately 1 p.m. (ET) Thursday, June 22.

Every day, the Kroger Family of Companies makes a difference in the lives of eight and a half million customers and 443,000 associates who shop or serve in 2,796 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Kroger and its subsidiaries operate an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized, order online, pick up at the store service  in addition to our 2,255 pharmacies, 784 convenience stores, 319 fine jewelry stores, 220 retail health clinics, 1,445 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Kroger is recognized as one of America's most generous companies for its support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. A leader in supplier diversity, Kroger is a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com


RANDOLPH, N.J., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Landice, one of the top-rated treadmill, elliptical and bike manufacturers in the world, announced today a significant change to its current management structure.

Greg Savettiere, whose engineering leadership helped establish Landice's foremost quality brand and grew the company over the past 20 years, will step down as the President. Dave Rainis will assume the position of President and CEO. He will serve to further enhance Landice's legacy as a manufacturer of the finest fitness equipment on the market. He was previously Vice President of Landice and has been with the company since 1999.

"I am extremely proud to continue the tradition of running Landice as a family business based in New Jersey," said Dave Rainis. "I am excited to extend my role in the company and people I truly believe in. Landice has had a successful run under Greg Savettiere's tenure. I look forward to building upon that heritage and overseeing the company's continued progress and accomplishments for the next 50 years."

Landice is currently celebrating its 50th year in business. According to Rainis, Landice has received interest from various suitors over the years to potentially purchase the company. It was important to Rainis to maintain the family legacy, and, as such, he put together an entity to ensure continued ownership and majority stake in the company.

"This is a personal commitment I am making for the future of this business," Rainis said. "In addition to a financial deal, we have committed to expansion and improvement of our line of products. Along with our mainstay treadmill and ellipticals, we recently added a collection of upright and recumbent bikes. For our treadmills, we upgraded our technology and just rolled out our new 90 series for the L7/L8/L9 machines. Additionally, we have just introduced the L10, a new treadmill for the commercial market with a 5-horsepower AC drive."

In addition to the change of ownership, Landice has also promoted two key personnel. Carissa Saalfelder will become Vice President of Sales and Customer Service, and Charles Alchermes will become Vice President of Technical Service and Operations.

Landice is a Randolph, NJ-based manufacturer of high-end, specialty fitness equipment for residential and light commercial use. A family run business since 1967, Landice products have been consistently rated #1 by the "World's Leading Consumer Magazine" for over 15 consecutive years.

CONTACT: Michael Klausner, 888-346-4161, [email protected]

SOURCE Landice
RESTON, Va., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leidos (NYSE: LDOS), a global science and technology company, announced today that Jerald S. Howe, Jr. will join the company as Executive Vice President and General Counsel.

Howe brings more than 30 years of leadership experience at global organizations in the aerospace, defense, and intelligence industries. Most recently, he served as Partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP (Fried Frank), where he advised and represented clients in government contracts litigation, investigations and bid protests, as well as mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and private equity transactions in the aerospace & defense industry. Prior to Fried Frank, Howe served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel at TASC, where he oversaw the company's legal affairs, corporate development and M&A, ethics and compliance programs, government relations and security. Previously, he was owner and principal of consulting firm InSequitur LLC, Executive Vice President of the Olive Group, and Senior Vice President & General Counsel of Veridian Corporation. Howe began his career as an associate and partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP and served as Judicial Clerk to Judge George E. MacKinnon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Howe attended Princeton, Oxford and Harvard Law School.

"Jerry is an accomplished legal mind and a proven leader who brings substantial expertise in the aerospace, defense and intelligence sectors," said Leidos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Roger Krone. "His broad skillset and keen understanding of the federal contracting arena will be an ideal addition to our talented leadership team."

Effective July 15, Vincent A. Maffeo will retire as Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Leidos. Maffeo was instrumental in providing guidance and legal expertise through the company's evolution, most notably the separation of then-Science Applications International Corporation and the recent merger with Lockheed Martin's Information Systems & Global Solutions business in 2016. He will continue to support the company as a consultant.

"Vince provided the strong leadership that Leidos needed through several key transitions that enabled the company to grow to the global science and technology leader it is today," added Krone. "We thank him for his outstanding service and dedication to Leidos, and wish him well in his retirement."

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.

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 December 30, 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


Inaugurated at DFS, the worlds leading luxury travel retailer, at Singapore Changi Airport in 2016, this years Whiskey Festival is kicked off in Singapore on May 27 and will travel worldwide to eight DFS locations across Asia, the Middle East and North America. Bringing together over 300 whiskies, the Whiskey Festival allows customers to discover and taste some of the worlds best whiskies, including rare, limited edition bottles exclusive to DFS.

Over 300 whiskies and countless DFS exclusives will be categorized based on the individual flavor profiles, with up to 100 whiskies available for tasting in store, depending on location. Highlights of the Whiskey Festival include Suntory Chita Single Grain, Johnnie Walker Blenders Batch 2: Bourbon Cask & Rye Finish, Royal Salute Polo Collection, Bowmore 10 Years Old, and Woodford Reserve Personal Selection.

The Whiskey Festival at DFS, Singapore Changi Airport will take place over six weekends from May 27 until July 1. On each of these weekends, The Whiskey House at DFS Terminal 2 Duplex and Long Bar by Raffles at DFS Terminal 3 Duplex will host different brands and their ambassadors. Guests will be invited to enjoy complimentary whiskey tastings, take part in food pairings and gain unique insights from the knowledgeable ambassadors on hand.

At DFS we constantly strive to provide travelers with creative and engaging in-store experiences that are truly unique, said Wilcy Wong, DFS Group Managing Director, Singapore and Indonesia. We are excited to partner with some of the worlds best brands at this years Festival and look forward to offering visitors the opportunity to expand their whiskey knowledge, taste worlds best whiskies and learn from leading brand ambassadors.

Acclaimed whiskey writer and critic Charles MacLean is the official ambassador for the Whiskey Festival at DFS, Singapore Changi Airport. Charles has been researching and writing books about whiskey for over 35 years and was named by The Times (UK) as Scotlands leading whiskey expert. His extensive knowledge and passion for whiskey drives him to present numerous masterclasses around the world, as well as act as a consultant for leading companies and brands.

DISCOVER THE WHISKEY FESTIVAL THIS SUMMER AT A DFS LOCATION NEAR YOU:

May 27  July 1: DFS, Singapore Changi Airport

June 1  30: DFS, Hong Kong International Airport; DFS, Los Angeles International Airport; DFS, San Francisco International Airport; DFS, John F Kennedy International Airport; T Galleria by DFS, Angkor

July 1  31: DFS, Hawaii Honolulu International Airport

August 1  31: DFS, Abu Dhabi International Airport

Customers will receive a free coaster set with every S$150 purchase of whiskey products and a Glencairn whiskey glass when spending over S$250. Customers can also shop wines and spirits products online at www.ishopchangi.com/TWF (English site) or zh.ishopchangi.com/TWF (Chinese site) to enjoy 10% using promo code HAPPY10 from 29 May until 31 August.
LINCOLNSHIRE, Ill., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Electronics USA Business Solutions has added premium 4K UHD and In-Plane Switching (IPS) commercial monitors to its already-broad portfolio of cutting-edge desktop monitors. Led by the brand new 43-inch 4K UHD monitor, which will be demonstrated at InfoComm 2017, the new displays provide users the high-end picture quality and flexibility needed to maximize productivity and ease of use.

LG Electronics USA Business Solutions has added premium 4K UHD and In-Plane Switching (IPS) commercial monitors to its already-broad portfolio of cutting-edge desktop monitors. Led by the brand new 43-inch 4K UHD monitor, which will be demonstrated at InfoComm 2017, the new displays provide users the high-end picture quality and flexibility needed to maximize productivity and ease of use.

"As content formats rapidly evolve, LG's portfolio of state-of-the-art commercial monitors has been expanded with 4K and HDR (high dynamic range) technologies," said Stephen Hu, head of monitors at LG Electronics USA Business Solutions. "With a three-year warranty, advanced imaging technology, unmatched interoperability and industry-proven calibration methods, LG's new commercial desktop monitors are designed to meet evolving customer needs across different verticals."

4K UHD Monitors

As one of the world's leading manufacturers of 4K UHD displays, LG is introducing new commercial desktop monitors to address the proliferation of 4K content across a variety of industries. LG's new family of 4K UHD monitors  43-, 32- and 27-inch class units (models 43MU79, 32MU99 and 27MU58P, respectively)  feature 3840 x 2160 resolution to deliver four times more detail than 1920 x 1080 Full HD displays.

The new 43MU79 monitor is one of the largest desktop monitors on the market. Featuring a 350-nit IPS panel that delivers expansive, high quality images, the 4K UHD 43-inch monitor offers the screen real estate to replace a complicated four-monitor rig, making it perfect for financial institutions and high-end graphic designers employing CAD. Its non-glare panel reduces sun and light reflection on the display, making it ideally suited to a variety of workspaces. The monitor's built-in speakers use LG's Rich Bass technology and a 10Wx2 Sound amplifier to offer users a full-bodied audio experience, complementing the UHD video.

Available this month, the 43MU79 comes equipped with a tilt-adjustable stand and LG OnScreen Control Software including Screen Split with for added convenience and flexibility, remote-controlled two or four Picture in Picture displays and My Display customizable presets to accommodate the wide spectrum of needs required by professionals. The device also comes with USB Type-C DP Alt Mode, and Display Port 1.2x1. With support for 4K 60Hz connectivity ([email protected]), the 43MU79 is equipped with 4 HDMI ports, two of which support HDMI 2.0 for enhanced connectivity.

Joining the 43MU79 in LG's expanded 4K monitor portfolio is the 32MU99, a 32-inch display that delivers high dynamic range (HDR) for PCs with enhanced brightness levels, more shadow details and richer colors for more true-to-life image rendering. The monitor's compatibility with the HDR10 standard increases the display's peak brightness, enabling users to edit movies and photographs much more comfortably at up to 550 nits of brightness. The 32MU99's IPS panel displays 95 percent of the DCI-P3 color space, making it ideal for media content creators. Creative professionals also will enjoy the H/W Calibration Feature Supported with True Color Pro Software and Color Modes, which deliver unparalleled color reproduction accuracy.

Featuring a sleek design with ultra-thin 1.3mm bezels, the 32MU99's four-side borderless edges and "Slim Arc" height- and pivot-adjustable stand offer a captivating experience with a refined image. Even more, the display's USB Type-C interface transfers 4K UHD screen, audio, data and even power through a single cableeliminating the clutter of a laptop power adaptor cable, HDMI or DisplayPort cable and USB data cables. The 32MU99 will be available later in 2017.

LG also will debut the 27-inch 27MU58P IPS monitor later this year. It features a matte black finish that reduces light reflection and glare on the screen, making it an excellent monitor for highly-lit environments. The monitor's built-in power increases function and capabilities and features DisplayPort for enhanced video connectivity and includes an integrated power speaker for high-end audio outputs.

With a pivot- and height-adjustable stand, the 27MU58P can be positioned to fit the precise needs and viewing angles of the user, all while maximizing space which is ideally suited to various work environments. The 27MU58P is TAA compliant, important for many government and business installations.

Enhanced IPS Monitors

At InfoComm 2017, LG also will showcase 27- and 24-inch IPS monitors in both the BK75 and BK55 series. The borderless BK75 series monitors (models 27BK750Y and 24BK750Y) feature an elegant CINEMA Screen that only has one thin bezel on the bottom of the panel. The 250-nit BK75 monitors can be daisy chained together to synergistically pivot and stack Full HD (1920x1080) content from up to four monitors onto one single display for efficient resource-sharing. BK75 series monitors offer near-zero standby power  0.005 Watts in DC off mode  increasing energy savings and lowering electricity costs.

The BK55 series' bracket-ready design eliminates the need for additional brackets, making mounting a mini PC to the monitor fast and simple. The 27BK55 and 24BK55 models sport 250-nit Full HD (1920x1080) resolution displays, and like the BK75, the BK55 series features built-in power, an ergonomic one click stand connection and a wall mount to for easy installation and a flexible design. The BK75 and BK55 series models are available now.

Visitors to LG's booth at InfoComm 2017 in Orlando (June 14-16, Orange County Convention Center, West Building #1626) will be able to experience the 43MU79 first hand. For more information, please visit http://www.lgsolutions.com.

About LG Electronics USA Business Solutions

LG Electronics USA Business Solutions serves commercial display customers in the U.S. digital signage, lodging and hospitality, systems integration, healthcare, education, government and industrial markets. Based in Lincolnshire, Ill., with its dedicated engineering and customer support team, LG Electronics USA Business Solutions delivers business-to-business technology solutions tailored to the particular needs of business environments. LG Electronics USA Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics Inc., a $48 billion global force in consumer electronics, mobile communications, home appliances and air solutions. For more information, please visit www.LGSolutions.com .

SOURCE LG Electronics USA Business Solutions

Related Links

http://www.lgsolutions.com


INDIANAPOLIS, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) will conduct a webcast on Monday, June 19, 2017, to discuss the company's pain management portfolio, including data from three Phase 3 studies of galcanezumab, an investigational treatment for the prevention of episodic and chronic migraine, and data from one Phase 3 study of lasmiditan, an investigational treatment for the acute treatment of migraine. The webcast will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern time. The Phase 3 data will also be presented at the 59th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society.

Investors, media and the general public can access a live webcast of the conference call through a link that will be posted on Lilly's website at https://investor.lilly.com/events.cfm. A replay will also be available on the website following the conference call.

About Eli Lilly and Company

Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com and http://newsroom.lilly.com/social-channels. F-LLY

Refer to: Lauren Zierke; [email protected]; (317) 277-6524 (Media)

Philip Johnson; [email protected]; (317) 655-6874 (Investors)

SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company

Related Links

http://www.lilly.com


Nearly 50 toy companies participated in the event, through either a toy donation, sponsorship, or volunteer effort  including Bandai, Educational Insights, JAKKS Pacific, Mattel, Nickelodeon, and Spin Master. Industry-wide volunteers sorted toys and wrote comforting letters of support at "inspiration stations." These toys and letters were placed in special care packages that are being shipped to 50 National CASA chapters. In total, more than 60,000 toys were donated in order to make this event possible, thanks to TIF's Toy Bank donors, comprised of generous manufacturers, retailers, and distributors.

About 100 LA-area foster children were present at the event to receive action figures, arts and crafts, board games, dolls, puzzles, and more. They also enjoyed fun-filled, company-sponsored activities and games led by the volunteers. The special day included a live DJ that kept volunteers hard at work and a sponsored lunch. CASA volunteers were also on-site to answer questions about the foster care system. The event location was generously donated by Beverly Hills Transfer and Storage and SmartBox, which also provided considerable resources.

"Children in foster care have to face very grown-up problems at such a young age, robbing them of a carefree childhood," says Jean Butler, executive director of the Toy Industry Foundation. "It is our hope that the toys provided through this event bring comfort and happiness to these deserving children as they await placement in loving, permanent homes."

Says Dan Cote, an employee at Spin Master and event volunteer: "Play Your Part is more rewarding every year. It is a refreshing burst of activity that reminds us why we are in this business."

According to the Administration for Children and Families, 2016 marked the third consecutive year that the number of children in foster care increased by an average of 3.4 percent, with more than 650,000 children entering the U.S. system. Studies show that youth in foster care are more likely to be incarcerated, encounter substance abuse, struggle academically, and have developmental, mental, and physical challenges.

Since partnering with National CASA in 2013, the Toy Industry Foundation has provided $3.5 million in toys to benefit 350,000 foster children served by National CASA programs. Additionally, the Foundation has provided $1 million in grant funding to National CASA, enabling them to recruit and train needed CASA volunteers to stand up for the needs and rights of abused and neglected children.

"So much of what we do involves the serious and daunting tasks of advocating for the most vulnerable children in America," says Tara Perry, CEO of the National CASA Association. "It is such an important partnership, and amazing experience, to work with the Toy Industry Foundation to bring some joy into these children's lives."

The Toy Industry Foundation works year-round with partners and international charities to bring new toys and games to children who are impoverished, at-risk, in hospitals, in military families, and otherwise in need. To date, the Foundation has provided more than $200 million in toys to 23 million children in need.

The event's specialty sponsors included Nickelodeon, JAKKS Pacific, Mattel, and Munchkin. "Big heart" and activity station sponsors included Bandai Foundation, Funrise, NBCUniversal, Educational Insights, and Insect Lore. "Open heart" sponsors were OOLY, Uncle Milton, Women in Toys, Thames & Kosmos, Cloud b, Silverlit, and TOMY.

About Toy Industry Foundation www.toyindustryfoundation.org

The Toy Industry Foundation (TIF) is a 501c3 children's charity whose mission is to provide joy and comfort to children in need through the experience of toys and play. TIF serves children who are undergoing complicated medical procedures, enduring temporary home placements in the foster care system, suffering from abuse or neglect, experiencing separation from a deployed military parent, or have had their lives disrupted by a devastating natural disaster. To date, TIF's signature program, The Toy Bank, has provided $200 million in toys to 23 million children in need around the globe, thanks to its generous toy donors.

About National CASA Association for Children www.casaforchildren.org

The National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association (National CASA), together with its state and local member programs, supports and promotes court-appointed volunteer advocacy so every abused or neglected child in the United States can be safe, have a permanent home and the opportunity to thrive. Today, 77,000 court appointed special advocate and guardian ad litem volunteers serve more than 251,000 children, but more than 400,000 children are without a volunteer advocate. National CASA is working in partnership with its state and local programs in 49 states and D.C. to close that gap.

SOURCE Toy Industry Foundation
SAN FRANCISCO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lookout, the global leader in securing mobility, has added two key executives to its leadership team: Vijaya Kaza as chief development officer and Wim van Campen (AGE) as vice president of the European enterprise sales team and the inside sales team. These hires come at an exciting growth period at Lookout, with both Kaza and Van Campen bringing extensive enterprise experience to help further develop the enterprise offering and support the company's growing market share.

Controlling mobile access to corporate data is now a top priority and proactive CISOs are selecting Lookout to accelerate secure mobility in the workplace. This increase in customer orders drove Lookout to more than triple billings year over year in 2016 compared to 2015 for Mobile Endpoint Security. To date, more than 150 enterprises, including top financial services institutions, technology leaders, healthcare providers, professional services firms, and large government agencies, are using Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security.

At Lookout, Kaza will have responsibility for all aspects of product development and cloud operations. Kaza brings nearly 20 years of domain experience in security technologies along with a demonstrated track record of building high performance organizations. Kaza joins Lookout from FireEye where she was senior vice president of Cloud Engineering. She was responsible for building FireEye's Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings while transitioning the company's traditional on-premise technologies to the cloud. Prior to FireEye, Kaza served for 17 years in multiple executive and leadership roles at Cisco, where she led product development for a broad portfolio of security products that generated more than $1B in annual revenue.

"Vijaya's experience and perspective will be invaluable to our entire organization as we continue to expand our portfolio of products to deliver the best security solution to our customers," said Jim Dolce, Lookout chief executive officer. "I am delighted to have Vijaya on board and remain committed to continually attracting the top talent to help translate our product vision into predictable, high quality execution."

This announcement comes on the heels of the release of the Mobile Risk Matrix as well as a series of new features and business solutions to increase customer security coverage across these mobile risks. As companies across the globe continue to adopt mobile to increase productivity, Lookout is constantly innovating to provide customers with the most comprehensive security solution available.

"As mobile devices become the primary productivity device in all our lives, threats, vulnerabilities, and risks will continue proliferating. Leveraging threat intelligence data at scale is the key to solving the mobile security problem," said Vijaya Kaza, chief development officer at Lookout. "I'm very excited to join Lookout to help shape the mobile security industry and work side-by-side with the world class team here."

In his new role as VP of Sales, Van Campen will be focused on expanding Lookout market share in Europe as the mobile security landscape continues to evolve. Van Campen brings over 20 years of experience from the security and networking sector, recently having worked as the vice president of Northern and Eastern European sales at McAfee.

"Given the increasing maturity of the mobile security market, and Lookout's commitment to product innovation, I am confident Lookout will continue to lead the mobile security market for years to come," said Wim van Campen, vice president European sales at Lookout. "I am looking forward to building on that momentum and playing a decisive part in further changing the mobile security game."

"The European market is a strategic growth area for Lookout, with many regional companies already taking steps to prioritize mobile security," said Gert-Jan Schenk, vice president international sales at Lookout. "In order to be able to respond to all opportunities rapidly in this time of quick growth, we needed someone to engage in opportunities and steer our European activities in the right direction. Wim van Campen is the right man for that job."

Lookout has continued its European growth, expanding its channel partner program in Europe over the past six months with new additions such as CWSI (UK), Digital Dimension (FR), and Jevotrust (CH). Lookout has also seen noteworthy customer wins in the region over the past year including the City of Stockholm, the Dutch healthcare organization Buurtzorg, and Boels Zanders Advocaten, a top law firm in the Netherlands.

"You can't operate without mobile security any more. Once we became aware of the spectrum of mobile risks, we knew we had to be proactive with securing our mobile endpoints," said Jos Meuwissen, IT manager, Boels Zanders Advocaten. "Lookout secures everything on our devices and gives us complete visibility into the threats and risks our attorneys encounter. The other solutions I evaluated offered 80% security coverage at best."

To learn more about Lookout, visit www.lookout.com.

About Lookout

Lookout is a cybersecurity company that makes it possible for tens of millions of individuals, enterprises and government agencies to be both mobile and secure. Powered by a dataset of virtually all the mobile code in the world -- 40 million apps and counting -- the Lookout Security Cloud can identify connections that would otherwise go unseen and predict and stop mobile attacks before they do harm. The world's leading mobile network operators, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, EE, KDDI, Orange, Sprint, T-Mobile and Telstra, have selected Lookout as its preferred mobile security solution. Lookout is also partnered with such enterprise leaders as AirWatch, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, and MobileIron. Headquartered in San Francisco, Lookout has offices in Amsterdam, Boston, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C. To learn more, visit www.lookout.com, subscribe to the Lookout blog, and follow Lookout on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Lookout
SAO PAULO, June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Companhia de Saneamento Basico do Estado de Sao Paulo  Sabesp ("Company" or "Sabesp"), pursuant to the provisions of Article 157, Paragraph 4 of Law 6404/76 and to the provisions of CVM Instruction No. 358/02, hereby announces to its shareholders and to the market in general that on this date it has notified the City of Guaruja of its intention to discontinue the provision of the public services of water supply and sewage system in this City.

The Company has been working with the City, with the consent of the State of Sao Paulo, to regularize the service provision and sign a contract, pursuant to the law regulating the sanitation sector, specifically Federal Law 11.455/07, being prohibited, in the meantime, of carrying out major new investments in the City of Guaruja, given the contractual uncertainty.

Sabesp is also facing difficulties to advance the negotiations with the City of Guaruja due to the municipal sanctioning public policy of the City Department of Environment - SEMAM (Secretaria Municipal de Meio Ambiente). The Company has been charged sometimes by this city for alleged infractions, which are being administratively and judicially challenged, with no final rulings to date, which have resulted in fines of unreasonable amounts that, according to Sabesp, were misapplied in the course of operating activities, directly and indirectly hindering the provision of the services.

Sabesp is entitled to request an indemnification from the City of Guaruja for investments not amortized, without impairing the other amounts established in the process of administrative termination of the services provision. The assets shared with other cities will not be part of the lawsuit.

The transfer of the provision of public services of water supply and sewage system will be carried out within a schedule to be established together with the City of Guaruja, in order to maintain the provision of services, safeguarding the collection of tariffs in favor of Sabesp until the effective reversal date.

The Company also announces that water production and treatment will continue to be provided to the Metropolitan Region of the Baixada Santista, due to being integrated services, and will not be part of the reversal. The supply of drinking water will be provided through wholesale service using the future price of the cubic meter determined by the Regulatory Agency of the State of Sao Paulo - ARSESP.

The City of Guaruja will have 30 days to state if it intends to maintain the contract and the continuity of the provision of the respective services, and if it states itself in favor of it, it will be necessary to sign an agreement in the form of a convenio between the State of Sao Paulo and the City of Guaruja to regulate the contractual relationship between the parties.

The Company will keep the market informed of further developments regarding this material fact.

SOURCE Sabesp

Related Links

http://www.sabesp.com.br


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- McCann New York was honored at the 2017 AICP Next Awards with the "Most Next Award," or the Best In Show, for Lockheed Martin's "The Field Trip To Mars" virtual reality experience. Framestore, McCann's production partner on the project, shared the honors with McCann.

McCann New York and Framestore also took home top honors for "The Field Trip To Mars" in both the creative award show's Experiential and Innovation categories. The campaign follows children on a school bus as they experience a trip to Mars via virtual reality.

"As I have said before, we have to thank our brave, open-minded clients for their willingness to take chances that resulted in our great successes over the past year," said Eric Silver, McCann's North American Chief Creative Officer. "The AICP Next Awards honor creative work that is always first about solving a client's business problems. This is how our agency approached the innovative use of virtual reality for Lockheed Martin just as with all of our campaigns."

The winner of the Most Next honor directs a $5,000 grant from the AICP Foundation to an educational institution of their choosing. This year's grant was directed to the Washington, D.C. chapter of Girls Inc. The honored AICP Next Awards work becomes a part of the archives of the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art.

The results of the AICP Next Awards are the latest of many top global creative honors won by McCann this year. At the 2017 Effie Awards, McCann New York was honored as the most effective agency office in North America and McCann Worldgroup was named the No. 2 most effective regional network. McCann New York was named "Agency of the Year" at The One Club's The One Show. McCann was honored across the board with Digital Agency of the Year, Agency of the Year, and Network of the Year distinctions at the ADC 96th Annual Awards. Also this year, the agency won both Network of the Year and Agency of the Year at the International ANDY Awards, in addition to taking the Best in Show GRANDY award. In 2016, McCann was ranked by The Gunn Report as the world's second most creatively awarded network overall in advertising and specifically in digital as well.

About McCann Worldgroup: McCann Worldgroup, part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), is a leading global marketing services company with 24,000 employees in more than 100 countries, comprising McCann (advertising), MRM//McCann (digital marketing/relationship management), Momentum Worldwide (total brand experience), McCann Health (professional/dtc communications), CRAFT (global adaptation and production), UM (media management), Weber Shandwick (public relations), FutureBrand (consulting/design), ChaseDesign (shopper marketing) and PMK-BNC.

SOURCE McCann Worldgroup

Related Links

https://mccannworldgroup.com


KALAMAZOO, Mich., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Medizone International, Inc. (OTCQB: MZEI) announces the completion of a study that demonstrates the efficacy of AsepticSure in killing microorganisms found in preparation rooms within funeral homes. This recent scientific evidence in support of AsepticSure opens up the death care industry as a viable commercial segment in the United States and other key markets in the world.

In this most recent study, conducted by Medizone researchers in Canada, AsepticSure was demonstrated to be an effective means of eliminating microorganisms in the critical need area of preparation rooms within funeral homes. This study confirms the findings from initial studies supporting the use of AsepticSure as a general environmental disinfectant. AsepticSure's proprietary technology that combines oxidative compounds (O3 and H202) to produce a unique mixture of free radicals (H2O3 known as trioxidane) with much higher oxidative potential than ozone or hydrogen peroxide alone is safe and effective in support of general disinfection of preparation rooms.

"This recent study supports another key advancement in the development of AsepticSure," commented Michael Shannon, M.A., M.Sc., M.D., President and Director of Medical Affairs for Medizone International. "Our research team continues to be active in discovering new areas of unmet need to demonstrate the positive impact of AsepticSure. We look forward to transferring our current research initiatives into immediate commercial opportunities for AsepticSure."

The death care industry is a $16 billion industry in the U.S. alone with over 20,000 funeral homes and 100,000 employees. The utilization of AsepticSure to support general disinfection of preparation rooms represents an immediate market opportunity for Medizone International. The company is actively pursuing a wide range of business development initiatives with the major publicly traded companies that are leading innovation in the death care industry in the United States.

"We are thankful to Dr. Shannon and our team of talented researchers for continuing to identify new areas of use for AsepticSure," said David A. Esposito, Chairman of the Board and interim CEO of Medizone International. "The death care industry is ready for innovative tools like AsepticSure to improve cleaning techniques in dealing with healthcare waste in challenging areas like preparation rooms. We see significant business potential for Medizone in this fast growing market."

About Medizone International, Inc.

Founded initially in 1986 to develop treatments for lipid-enveloped viruses, Medizone International, Inc. shifted focus in 2007 to develop a superior disinfectant technology. The company developed the AsepticSure system to combine oxidative compounds (O3 and H202) to produce a unique mixture of free radicals (H2O3 known as trioxidane) with much higher oxidative potential than ozone or hydrogen peroxide alone. After securing broad IP protection for the use of trioxidane for both healthcare facility disinfecting systems and bioterrorism applications, the company released its AsepticSure system for use in Canada, and several other global markets.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act. Our actual results could differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the risk that government and international agencies and organizations may not adopt our system, global economic conditions generally, government regulation, manufacturing and marketing risks, adverse publicity risks, risks associated with our entry into the U.S. and other markets, expansion and operations. The contents of this release should be considered in conjunction with the risk factors, warnings, and cautionary statements that are contained in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For press information on Medizone International, please contact:

John Pentony, Investor and Media Relations

Medizone International, Inc.

T: 01 269-202-5020

E: [email protected]

For more information, visit:

http://www.medizoneint.com

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Medizone International, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.medizoneint.com


FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services for manufacturing industries. Specialist in material physics, ESI has developed a unique proficiency in helping industrial manufacturers replace physical prototypes by virtual prototypes, allowing them to virtually manufacture, assemble, test and pre-certify their future products.

From June 26 to 30, 2017, ESI will attend the 62nd Turbomachinery Technical Conference & Exposition in Charlotte, North Carolina. Organized by the International Gas Turbine Institute of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the event, more commonly referred to as "ASME Turbo Expo", is recognized as the must-attend event for turbomachinery professionals working in the turbine industry. The technical conference has a well-earned reputation for bringing together the best and brightest experts from around the world to share the latest in turbine technology, research, development, and application in the following topic areas: gas turbines, steam turbines, wind turbines, fans & blowers, Rankine cycle, and supercritical CO 2 .

At ASME Turbo Expo, ESI engineer Dr. Swati Saxena will present her work on "Numerical Approach for Real Gas Simulations  Flow Simulation for Supercritical CO 2 Centrifugal Compressor", based on the work performed by the author when she was working at General Electric.

This presentation will deliver some technical insights in the emerging context of using carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in closed loop power cycles. As these power cycles capitalize on the non-ideal gas behavior of CO 2 , their analysis both at the system level and at the detailed component level requires an advanced equation of state. This paper will present numerical simulations of a low flow coefficient supercritical CO 2 centrifugal compressor developed for a closed loop power cycle and explain how the 3D flow analysis for the flow near the critical point provides useful information for the designers to modify the current compressor design for higher efficiency.

For more info, please visit: www.esi-group.com/company/events/2017/turbomachinery-technical-conference-exposition

For additional information, please contact:

Leah Charters

+1 248 381 8231

About ESI Group

ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services. Specialist in material physics, ESI has developed a unique proficiency in helping industrial manufacturers replace physical prototypes by virtual prototypes, allowing them to virtually manufacture, assemble, test and pre-certify their future products. Coupled with the latest technologies, Virtual Prototyping is now anchored in the wider concept of the Product Performance Lifecycle, which addresses the operational performance of a product during its entire lifecycle, from launch to disposal. The creation of Hybrid Virtual Twins, leveraging simulation, physics and data analytics, enables manufacturers to deliver smarter and connected products, to predict product performance and to anticipate maintenance needs.

ESI is a French company listed in compartment B of NYSE Euronext Paris. Present in more than 40 countries, and addressing every major industrial sector, ESI Group employs about 1200 high-level specialists around the world and reported annual sales of 141 million in 2016. For more information, please visit www.esi-group.com.

SOURCE ESI Group

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MEMPHIS, Tenn., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The City of Memphis announced today the rollout of the Student Loan Reduction Program, a new benefit to help employees who are burdened by student loans. Dedicated to building and retaining an engaged workforce, Memphis is the first city in the nation to offer this innovative benefit.

Beginning July 1, eligible Memphis city workers will receive monthly contributions of $50. The contributions will go toward principal repayment, helping employees retire their debt faster. The program is being administered by Tuition.io, the leading platform for employee student loan contributions.

"We are proud to be the first municipality in the country to offer this kind of student debt assistance to our workforce. We view this as an important investment in our employees," said Alex Smith, City of Memphis Chief Human Resources Officer.

Student loan debt is a widespread issue among today's workforce. Total student debt outstanding exceeds $1.4 trillion. Student loan debt in Memphis grew by nearly five percent in 2016, compared with slightly more than three percent growth nationally.

"As the first major American city to embrace student loan assistance, Memphis is proving itself to be a leader in understanding and catering to the needs of today's workers," said Scott Thompson, CEO of Tuition.io. "Their initiation of this program should be a clarion call for other municipalities to follow suit. The burden of student loan debt is not a problem limited to private sector employees, and cities both large and small have significant numbers of workers who can benefit from debt reduction programs."

To qualify for the program, an employee must be an active, full-time employee for at least 12 months.

The city is utilizing Tuition.io's technology to coordinate payments directly to the employees' student loan service providers.

###

Media Contacts:

Arlenia Cole

Media Affairs Manager, City of Memphis

[email protected] / 901.576.6922

Debra Benson

Illume PR for Tuition.io

[email protected] / 310.595.0646

SOURCE Tuition.io

Related Links

http://www.tuition.io/


Michael J. Chapman holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has more than 20 years' experience providing economic, financial and strategic consulting services to both public and private companies, as well as law firms and governments. He has served as an economic expert, conducting analysis in a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, semiconductors, computer software, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, steel, agricultural products and consumer goods.

Before joining Ankura, Dr. Chapman was a vice president for Analysis Group, Inc. where he addressed economic issues in a variety of litigation contexts, including intellectual property, antitrust and commercial damages.

Prior to his fifteen-year tenure at Analysis Group, Inc., he was a strategy specialist for McKinsey & Company and an international trade attorney for Shearman & Sterling. While a practicing attorney, he represented companies and governments in antidumping and countervailing duties proceedings before the U.S. International Trade Commission, the US Department of Commerce, the US Court of International Trade and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Ankura Senior Managing Director Thomas Vasquez stated, "Throughout his distinguished career, Michael has applied his economic expertise and leadership skills toward benefiting those he was serving. From his microeconomics teaching roles at some of the leading business schools in the country, including MIT, University of Michigan and Georgetown, to his cross-industry strategic consulting, Michael's multifaceted approach to his professional field is a fit for Ankura's culture and business philosophy, where experts collaborate to provide the most comprehensive outcomes for clients."

Dr. Chapman said, "I am looking forward to applying my training and experience to the wide range of business and litigation issues addressed by Ankura's teams, particularly in the mass tort arena, a space in which Ankura is known to be the best in the business. My background as an economist, an attorney, and a teacher reflects my commitment to approaching problems with an open mind and as broad a tool kit as possible to achieve the best possible outcome for my clients. I am pleased to become a part of Ankura, an organization made up of like-minded individuals that is committed to the application of a nontraditional approach to traditional business advisory methods to deliver the quality of service our clients demand and deserve."

About Ankura Consulting

Ankura Consulting, an independent business advisory and expert services firm, is defined by a culture of collaboration and focused on delivering unrivaled depths of knowledge to clients addressing important opportunities and critical choices every day. Our Investigations & Accounting Advisory, Litigation & Disputes, Regulatory & Contractual Compliance, Risk, Resilience & Geopolitical, and Turnaround & Restructuring professionals are proven cross-disciplinary and cross-industry experts who create the diverse and dynamic solutions required to navigate today's complicated world. At Ankura, we know that collaboration drives results.

SOURCE Ankura Consulting

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TOKYO and ARMONK, N.Y., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM Japan (NYSE: IBM) today announced the launch of API (*1) banking for Mizuho Bank, designed to enhance the customer experience by providing them tailored services and solutions. The bank will run IBM Japan's FinTech API solution (*2), as well as IBM API Connect on the IBM Cloud and IBM DataPower Gateway.

The shift to API banking at Mizuho Bank is the result of a digital transformation initiative among Japanese financial institutions to embrace APIs for the enterprise. The technology will enable banking customers to utilize Personal Financial Management services provided by Mizuho's business partners the APIs will enable Mizuho Bank and their partners to offer IoT Payment services tailored to customers' needs and tastes. Through these, Mizuho Bank is aiming to enhance the digital customer experience.

"API banking becomes a crucial step that helps drive open innovations by new technologies for customers, business partners, and Mizuho Bank," said Masahiko Kato, Senior Technical officer, Mizuho Bank. "Instead of competition, Mizuho continues to collaborate with business partners to create and provide innovative, secured services for customers."

"Mizuho Bank continues to transform digital customer experience with new solutions that integrate their existing assets with the security rich IBM Cloud," said Masao Sanbe, Managing Director, Industry Sales, IBM Japan. "IBM is delighted to provide IBM's cloud and cognitive technologies with our expertise to help Mizuho provide quality services to the customers."

Based on Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), IBM Japan's FinTech API solution provides financial institutions with necessary items such as balance inquires in domestic banking operations. Mizuho Bank will also leverage IBM API Connect, which offers capabilities to create, run, and manage APIs and microservices. It enables organizations to efficiently deploy and simplify the administration of APIs for both on-premise and cloud environments. These tasks will be completed on the IBM Cloud.

IBM Japan will collaborate directly with Mizuho Bank to offer advanced IoT Payment services to its customers all within the IBM Cloud.

(*1): Short for Application Programming Interface. It means programs and interfaces to coordinate systems such as external services.

(*2): Application Programming Interfaces that IBM offers including interfaces such as balance inquiry, transaction and account information by connecting existing Internet banking with FinTech services via applications.

Media Contact: Christina Trejo, [email protected], 848-702-4607

SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://www.ibm.com


IRVINE, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Americans were besieged by 2.6 billion robocalls in May, a 4.9% increase over April and the third straight month that the national robocall volume has increased, marking the second highest monthly volume of robocalls in the past 12 months.

The monthly U.S. calling total for May equals an estimated 84.6 million robocalls received each day during the month, or roughly 980 robocalls placed every second of the month.

These estimates come from YouMail, a free service that helps consumers block robocallers, and that has stopped over 500 million robocalls in the past year. YouMail compiles the scope and location of the worst robocalling hotspots across the country by area code in the YouMail Robocall Index. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has cited statistics from the YouMail Robocall Index as a definitive source for national data trends, just as more consumers are downloading the YouMail app to safeguard their mobile phones.

"Despite growing public awareness about this problem, the robocallers continue to bombard the American people with all kinds of unwanted calls," said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail. "It's important for consumers to take matters into their own hands to protect themselves from frustrating robocalls which continue to invade our family lives and drain our workforce productivity."

Inbound Robocalling "Lowlights" from May

Atlanta continued to dominate the list of the 50 Most Robocalled Cities in May for the 18th straight month, notching an estimated 116.4 million calls received, or a 6% increase over the city's total for April. Other big cities in the Top 5 included Dallas (98.2 million), Chicago (96.3 million), New York (95.1 million) and Houston (93.3 million).

For the first time since the launch of the Robocall Index, six area codes in Texas made the list of the 20 Most Robocalled Area Codes, including area codes 832, 214, 817, 713, 210 and 281. In addition, three Houston area codes and three Atlanta area codes each made the Top 20 List.

Texas experienced a 7% statewide monthly increase in robocalls with 307.4 million calls received, marking the first time that any state has received more than 300 million robocalls in a single month since YouMail launched the Robocall Index in 2015.

San Antonio, Texas recorded a 16% increase in monthly calling volumes, ranking 23rd nationwide based on 23.0 million robocalls received.

Other states posting sizable monthly calling gains in May included Alaska (up 28.5%), Maine (19.2%), South Dakota (19.0%), New Mexico (18.9%) and Hawaii (9.4%).

Outbound Robocalling "Lowlights" from May

Los Angeles reclaimed its top spot as the city generating the most robocalls in May, increasing outbound calls by 28.1% over April to 81.6 million calls placed. Other major cities posting big increases in outbound robocalls included Phoenix, which rose 37.1% to rank #4 with 58.3 million calls made; and San Diego, which rose 19.0% to rank #16 with 26.1 million calls made.

Many other smaller cities recorded huge gains in outbound robocall volumes during May. They included Southfield, Michigan (up 413.3%); Beaman, Iowa (367.6%); Deerton, Michigan (291.9%); Columbia, Missouri (224.5%); and Laredo, Texas (180.6%).

As part of an ongoing pattern, the large majority of robocallers were focused on debt collections, with 17 of the Top 20 robocallers seeking to collect debts for credit cards, banks, cable companies and retailers. One national credit card company has held onto the most active robocalling number in the nation for 21 consecutive months. That credit card debt collector more than doubled the second most prolific number by placing more than 30.8 million calls in May.

For more information about the YouMail Robocall Index or to view the latest report, please visit: http://robocallindex.com. To join the YouMail Robocall Index mailing list, please write to: [email protected].

About YouMail, Inc.

YouMail, Inc. is the leading provider of intelligent, cloud-based telecommunication services. The company's flagship service provides an automated virtual receptionist that replaces the subscriber's voicemail on iPhone, Android, and Windows phones. This service stops robocalls, provides free conference calls, and delights callers by instantly greeting, routing, and responding to callers, personally and memorably. YouMail also provides data on problematic phone number behavior, through a reverse phone lookup service that allows anyone to identify and comment on suspicious numbers, an application program interface (API) that any telecom service provider or third-party developer can use to determine whether a number is problematic, and the YouMail Robocall Index, which since its launch in in September 2015 has emerged as the nation's definitive source on robocalling data for telecom carriers, smartphone and app companies, and public policymakers. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., YouMail, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is privately funded.

Contact:

Matt Russell for YouMail

Lumina Communications

[email protected]

646-741-8359

SOURCE YouMail, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.youmail.com/


ATLANTA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Morehouse College Board of Trustees is mourning the loss of Interim President William J. "Bill" Taggart. Interim President Taggart passed away unexpectedly Thursday at his home in Atlanta.

"We are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Bill Taggart, a beloved colleague, father and friend whom I've known for many years," said Willie Woods, '85, Chairman of the Morehouse College Board of Trustees. "For the past two years, Bill devoted himself wholeheartedly to Morehouse College and we were pleased when he assumed the role of Interim President. We are eternally grateful for his loyal support, counsel and the leadership he provided to students, faculty and alumni."

Woods continued, "Bill was a good friend and a beloved member of the Morehouse community. He was a strong leader who had a positive impact on Morehouse College, the greater Atlanta business community, and all those who knew him. Bill leaves behind a long legacy of commitment to others and unwavering integrity. On behalf of the Board of Trustees, and the entire Morehouse Community, we extend our sincerest condolences to his family, friends and loved ones he leaves behind during this difficult time."

An Atlanta native, Interim President Taggart was appointed to lead Morehouse College on April 7, 2017. He brought more than 30 years of professional experience to the role. Prior to that, Interim President Taggart served as the College's Chief Operating Officer, beginning in 2015.

Interim President Taggart worked closely with the Board of Trustees, students, faculty, staff and alumni to lead and transform the institutional development, technology, campus operations and human resources functions of the College. During this time, he also served as the external relations liaison to the Atlanta business and civic community, as well as with corporate America and various global philanthropic organizations.

Outside of Morehouse College, Interim President Taggart was actively involved in various business and civic organizations. He served as CEO of Atlanta Life Financial Group and was a key member of 100 Black Men of America, as well as the Rotary Club of Atlanta. He also served as chairman of the Atlanta Business League, and was a board member of The Carter Center, Woodruff Arts Center, Westside Future Fund, Carver Bank and Children Healthcare of Atlanta. He was recently named to the 2018 Class of Leadership Atlanta. Interim President Taggart's contributions within and outside of Morehouse College are a reflection of his immense dedication and commitment to his community.

The Board of Trustees will be working internally to determine its next steps and the future direction of the College. Provost Michael Hodge will serve as Acting President until a new Interim President is named by the Board of Trustees.

Ranked America's fifth "Most Entrepreneurial College" by Forbes Magazine in 2015, Morehouse College is the nation's largest liberal arts college for men. Founded in 1867, the College enrolls approximately 2,100 students and historically has conferred more bachelor's degrees on black men than any other institution in the world. Morehouse College is one of the two top producers of Rhodes Scholars among HBCUs. Prominent alumni include Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. Surgeon General; Shelton "Spike" Lee, American filmmaker; Maynard H. Jackson, the first African American mayor of Atlanta, Ga.; and Jeh Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security.







Media Contacts: Aileen Dodd, Morehouse College Michele Mendelson

Communications & Media Relations Manager Kwittken

470-639-0734 (direct) 646-747-7163 (direct)

404-735-6736 (cell) [email protected]

[email protected]



SOURCE Morehouse College
NAMRC is the premier international forum for applied research and industrial applications in manufacturing and design. NAMRI/SME brings together researchers from leading companies, government laboratories, academic institutions and industrial think tanks located around the world for the purpose of advancing the scientific foundation of discrete-parts manufacturing.

"Manufacturing is an industry of exceptional opportunities, driven by research that pushes the boundaries of what is possible," said NAMRI/SME president, Dean Bartles, PhD, FSME. "Those recognized today are driving that research and our industry forward in ways that will make a difference for decades."

2017 NAMRI/SME award winners:

"Adaptive Learning Control for Thermal Error Compensation of 5-Axis Machine Tools"

Authors: Philip Blaser, Florentina Pavlicek, Kotaro Mori, Josef Mayr, Sascha Weikert and Konrad Wegener, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

"A Virtual Sensing Based Augmented Particle Filter for Tool Condition Prognosis"

Authors: Jinjiang Wang, Yinghao Zheng, Peng Wang and Robert X. Gao, China University of Petroleum, Beijing Shi, China, and Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland

"Highly Removable Water Support for Stereolithography"

Authors: Jie Jin and Yong Chen, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

David Dornfeld Manufacturing Vision Award

Tony Schmitz , PhD, FSME, University of North Carolina at Charlotte , Charlotte, North Carolina

Presentation: "Biomemetic Manufacturing"

Don Lucca, PhD, FSME, CMfgE, regents professor and Herrington chair in advanced materials at Oklahoma State University, presented the NAMRI/SME Founders Lecture. The lecture was established in 1994 to honor individuals who served on the NAMRC Scientific Committee from 1973 to 1981 and those members who founded NAMRI/SME when it was officially established, as well as other distinguished contributors to manufacturing who have been actively involved with NAMRC.

In addition to the NAMRI/SME awards, five winners of the 2017 SME Yoram Koren Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award were recognized and presented with their awards at NAMRC. The award recognizes manufacturing engineers, age 35 or younger, who have made exceptional contributions and accomplishments in the manufacturing industry throughout the early stages of their careers.

Individuals who received their award on Wednesday included:

NAMRC 46 will be held June 18-22, 2018, at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.

About SME

SME connects all those who are passionate about making things that improve our world. As a nonprofit organization, SME has served practitioners, companies, educators, government and communities across the manufacturing spectrum for more than 80 years. Through its strategic areas of events, media, membership, training and development, and the SME Education Foundation, SME is uniquely dedicated to the advancement of manufacturing by addressing both knowledge and skills needed for the industry. Follow @SME_MFG on Twitter or facebook.com/SMEmfg.

NAMRC  North American Manufacturing Research Conference of NAMRI/SME

NAMRC is recognized as North America's preeminent and longest running international forum for applied research and industrial applications in manufacturing and design with its presentations and publication of original, basic and applied research in advanced manufacturing.

An annual event since 1973, NAMRC advances the scientific foundation of discrete-parts manufacturing leading to next-generation applications of emerging and innovative technology in material removal, forming and additive manufacturing processes and machines, and cyber-physical systems. The conference attracts global academicians, government and industry researchers, engineers, students, and leaders in manufacturing to interact with each other and advance the field. NAMRC features peer-reviewed papers, keynotes, special opportunities for networking and collaboration, and recognition of research implementation, service and achievements. Details available at: sme.org/NAMRC.

SOURCE SME

Related Links

http://www.sme.org


BATON ROUGE, La., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Appointments are now available at the new Aspen Dental office scheduled to open in Baton Rouge on Thurs., June 15. Located in Suite 1 at 13730 Millerville Greens Blvd., the practice provides dental services ranging from dentures and preventative care to general dentistry and restoration.

The new dental office is led by local resident Dr. Robert Hastings, who was born and raised in Baton Rouge. After graduating high school, he attended Louisiana State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science. He moved to New Orleans, where he attended LSU School of Dentistry and graduated with a Doctor of Dental Surge (DDS) in 2014.

"Our area struggles with a shortage of local dental professionals and I hope to be part of the solution in providing the Baton Rouge community with greater access to affordable oral care and education," said Dr. Hastings.

The Baton Rouge office, located in East Baton Rouge Parish, is the second Aspen Dental practice in Louisiana, a state where 58 of 66 parishes, including East Baton Rouge, have dental health professional shortage areas as designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

According to a study conducted by Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management, each new Aspen Dental practice supports local community growth by contributing more than $1.3 million in positive economic impact through job creation and capital investment.

Aspen Dental offices offer patient-friendly programs and services that make it easier for thousands of people every day to get the dental care they need, including:

Personalized treatment and friendly service. Each patient receives a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan designed by the dentist with long-term oral and overall health in mind. Available services include hygiene, treatment of periodontal (gum) disease, extractions, fillings, oral surgery, whitening, and crown and bridge work.

Each patient receives a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment plan designed by the dentist with long-term oral and overall health in mind. Available services include hygiene, treatment of periodontal (gum) disease, extractions, fillings, oral surgery, whitening, and crown and bridge work. Affordable dental care. Aspen Dental practices are committed to keeping prices low so that patients can get the care they need. The practice works with all insurance providers and handles the paperwork, saving patients time and hassle, and offers free new-patient exams and X-rays for patients without dental insurance. And since no one likes an unexpected bill, the practice offers a clear, detailed estimate on the cost of treatment to give patients peace of mind.

Aspen Dental practices are committed to keeping prices low so that patients can get the care they need. The practice works with all insurance providers and handles the paperwork, saving patients time and hassle, and offers free new-patient exams and X-rays for patients without dental insurance. And since no one likes an unexpected bill, the practice offers a clear, detailed estimate on the cost of treatment to give patients peace of mind. On-site denture labs and Denture Money Back Guarantee - Every Aspen Dental practice is equipped with an on-site denture laboratory, which helps facilitate quick turnaround for denture repairs, relines or adjustments. Patients choose Aspen Dental for the seven styles of full and partial dentures and have the comfort of knowing that the supportive dentists and staff will go above and beyond to ensure proper fit and comfort of their custom-crafted dentures. Getting used to dentures takes some time, but if patients are dissatisfied with their dentures for any reason  the practice will refund the cost of the dentures when patients return them within 90 days.

Every Aspen Dental practice is equipped with an on-site denture laboratory, which helps facilitate quick turnaround for denture repairs, relines or adjustments. Patients choose Aspen Dental for the seven styles of full and partial dentures and have the comfort of knowing that the supportive dentists and staff will go above and beyond to ensure proper fit and comfort of their custom-crafted dentures. Getting used to dentures takes some time, but if patients are dissatisfied with their dentures for any reason  the practice will refund the cost of the dentures when patients return them within 90 days. Convenient hours and location. The office will be open extended hours, including evenings and select Saturdays, so that patients can see the dentist at a time that works best for their schedule. Walk-in and emergency patients are welcome.

To make an appointment, patients can call (225) 234-0713 or 800-ASPEN DENTAL (800-277-3633), or visit www.aspendental.com.

About Aspen Dental Offices

Dentists and staff at Aspen Dental practices are all about making sure patients have easy access to quality, affordable oral health care. With more than 600 offices in 36 states, Aspen Dental-branded practices offer patients a safe, welcoming and judgment-free environment to get the full range of dental care they need along with the convenience and speed of onsite denture labs. That's why the Aspen Dental network of independent dental care providers is one of the largest and fastest growing in the U.S. and saw more than 1.5 million patients in 2016. To find out more about how Aspen Dental practices make it simply easier for each of their patients to get the healthy mouth they deserve, go to AspenDental.com.

About Aspen Dental Management Inc.

Aspen Dental Management Inc. (ADMI) is a dental support organization that provides non-clinical business support services to independently owned and operated dental practices in 36 states. This can include services and recommendations related to finding the right location, leasing, equipment, accounting and marketing. This model leaves independent, licensed practitioners free to concentrate on patient care.

To learn more about Aspen Dental practices and services, preview the Aspen Dental patient experience, get answers to general treatment questions, find a location, and schedule appointments, visit www.aspendental.com. To learn more about careers at ADMI and Aspen Dental practices, visit http://aspendentaljobs.com.

SOURCE Aspen Dental

Related Links

http://www.aspendental.com


ATLANTA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The core mission of the Lewy Body Dementia Association is to provide support and education to those affected by Lewy body dementia and to advance research to better diagnose, treat and ultimately cure and prevent the disorder. There are two forms of Lewy body dementia: dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia, both of which affect thinking, movement, behavior and sleep.

For many DLB families, the first major hurdle is getting an early and accurate diagnosis. Despite multiple doctors' appointments and visits with specialists, diagnosis is often delayed because the symptoms look like another disorder such as Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, not all symptoms may be present at the first few doctor's appointments, especially if the disease is very early on in its development. Getting an early diagnosis allows a comprehensive treatment and management plan to be developed, and creates the best opportunity to avoid medications that can worsen DLB symptoms or even cause permanent harm.

Research advances have revealed that certain test results are highly linked to both the clinical symptoms of DLB and the presence of Lewy bodies in the brain. For the first time, physicians can rely on both symptoms and 'biomarkers' (tests that pick up biological signs of disease) to help make the diagnosis. This means healthcare professionals can now diagnose DLB with greater confidence, even when fewer symptoms are present.

"There is now a consensus amongst experts on DLB that certain symptoms, specifically REM sleep behavior disorder, and tests results, formal sleep study and brain and cardiac imaging, are highly predictive for the presence of Lewy bodies in the brain at autopsy. For this reason, the consensus criteria have been updated to include these findings and now provide important guidance to clinicians trying to diagnose DLB. It is hoped that these new criteria will allow clinicians to diagnose DLB earlier in the disease and thus improve treatment and management for this devastating disease," states Jim Leverenz, Scientific Advisory Council Chair, Lewy Body Dementia Association

The new diagnosis criteria were established when researchers gathered for the 2015 International Dementia with Lewy Bodies Conference. Their goal was to update the criteria last revised in 2005. Leading the effort was Prof. Ian McKeith of Newcastle University and member of the Lewy Body Dementia Association's Scientific Advisory Council (SAC).

There are now several ways the DLB diagnosis can be made.

1) The presence of DLB symptoms alone.

2) The presence of fewer DLB symptoms, plus a positive biomarker test result suggesting the presence of Lewy bodies in the brain.

The most common symptoms include dementia, visual hallucinations, changes in movement resembling Parkinson's disease, and REM sleep behavior disorder in which a person physically acts out their dreams while asleep. The cognitive symptoms of DLB are considerably different from Alzheimer's disease in the early stage, as memory may be relatively intact. Other deficits appear instead, affecting attention, the ability to do complex mental tasks like problem solving or following a sequence of steps, and understanding how things relate in three-dimensional space.

A full list of DLB symptoms and details on the new diagnostic criteria can be found on the Lewy Body Dementia Association's website at https://www.lbda.org/newdlbcriteria.

About the Lewy Body Dementia Association:



The Lewy Body Dementia Association (LBDA) is the nation's leading authority on Lewy body dementias (LBD) and is dedicated to continuous outreach, education, research, and support for those affected with LBD and their families. LBD is a progressive brain disease that affects thinking, movement, behavior, and impacts 1.4 million people in the United States.

SOURCE Lewy Body Dementia Association

Related Links

http://www.lbda.org


"The LegalShield Law Index is generated from actual consumer and business demand for various legal services provided by our closed panel of dedicated law firms covering all 50 states," said James Rosseau, LegalShield's Chief Commercial Officer. "Each index is a leading economic indicator and is released in a more timely manner than traditional economic indices. Our index predicts economic activity that represent more than 70 percent of the Gross Domestic Product of the United States. The LegalShield Law Index provides actionable intelligence about the direction of the U.S. economy in the mid- to near-term," continued Rosseau.

The key predictive takeaways from the first public release of data, through May 2017, are as follows:

Consumer confidence may continue to ease in the months ahead, but will likely remain strong by historical standards.

Housing starts, which have risen at a stubbornly slow pace since 2012 and remain well below pre-recession levels, should continue to improve slowly in the months ahead.

Bankruptcy filings should remain subdued in the near term. However, elevated levels of household debt are worth keeping an eye on, as they could lead to upward pressure on bankruptcy filings in the future.

Foreclosures should remain subdued in the short term, but may begin to rise in the second half of the year.

Existing home sales should continue to improve slowly in the months ahead.

The LegalShield Law Index is made up of five indices that are generated from LegalShield's proprietary data, which tracks the demand for different types of legal services for the various areas of law over the past 15-plus years. Each time a LegalShield partner law firm receives a request from a LegalShield member, the request is logged as an "intake" within one of roughly 70 unique areas of law (e.g., real estate, criminal, bankruptcy), depending on the nature of the legal need.

"We are excited to share our forward-looking data about the U.S. economy, based on the actual legal needs of our members and the work of our provider law firmsdata that covers more than one-and-a-half decades of activity. When our members contact their LegalShield provider law firm, we record the area of law," explained Rosseau. "In aggregate, our index foreshadows economic activity based on actual legal events in the lives of individuals, families and small businesses."

The flagship LegalShield Consumer Financial Stress Index tends to lead the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index by one to three months. LegalShield's May data suggest that the recent run-up in consumer confidence may have overshot economic realities, and that consumer confidence levels may consequently pull back in the months ahead.

"While there are reasons to be optimistic about the U.S. economy, since December there has been a divergence of 'soft data' based on consumer and business confidence surveys, and 'hard data' based on actual market events, such as demand for legal services," Jeff Bell, LegalShield CEO, said. "Historically, when the LegalShield Consumer Financial Stress Index drifts away from the Consumer Confidence Index, it is typically consumer confidence that falls back into line with our index, not the other way around. We saw this in 2006 and 2007, when our index provided an early warning signal of the drop-off in confidence at the outset of the Great Recession."

LegalShield will be releasing the Index monthly, on the sixth business day of each month. Today the company is releasing May data, along with an assessment of what the data suggest about the health and direction of the U.S. economy. For access to the economic assessment, please visit https://www.multivu.com/players/English/8115751-legalshield-law-indices-predictive-economic-trends/.

The five separate measures that comprise the LegalShield Law Index together provide a leading indicator of the economic and financial status of American households and small businesses. The indices closely track a handful of key economic indicators, such as the Consumer Confidence Index (developed by the Conference Board), Housing Starts (reported by the U.S. Census Bureau), and Foreclosure Starts (reported by the Mortgage Bankers Association). Each LegalShield index has undergone a battery of statistical tests overseen by a PhD economist to validate its relationship to an existing economic indicator that sheds light on the health and direction of the U.S. economy.

LegalShield's suite of law indices provides actionable intelligence about the direction of the U.S. economy in the near term. Each index is based on data collected through LegalShield's provider law firms across all 50 states, thereby offering insights that are not accessible to the general public.

The Index is based on data collected on a near real-time basis, and will be refreshed and released monthly along with forecast statements on each index. The Index is based on intakes among more than 1.6 million memberships (including individuals and small businesses), providing a window into the legal needs of families and businesses across the country at any given point in time.

About LegalShield

LegalShield is one of the North America's leading providers of legal safeguards for individuals, families and small businesses. The company also offers one of the industry's most affordable and comprehensive identity theft plans, IDShield. LegalShield plans provide protection to more than 4.2 million individuals, and IDShield provides identity monitoring and restoration services to more than one million individuals across North America. In addition, LegalShield and IDShield serve more than 141,000 businesses.

For as little as $20 per month, LegalShield members get access to attorneys with an average of 19 years of experience in areas such as family matters, estate planning, financial and business issues, consumer protection, tax, real estate, benefits disputes and auto/driving issues. Unlike other legal plans or do-it-yourself websites, LegalShield has dedicated law firms in 50 states and four provinces in Canada that members can call for help without having to worry about high hourly rates. For more information, visit http://www.LegalShield.com or http://www.IDShield.com

SOURCE LegalShield

Related Links

http://www.LegalShield.com


No one who enters a hospital for care expects to be harmed or sickened accidentally. Unfortunately, preventable errors and mishaps are all too common, occurring during one in six hospital admissions and killing at least 500 people a day in the U.S. The Leapfrog Group , the national nonprofit watchdog run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits, tracks many of these problems and publicly reports them by hospital.

Castlight Health's analysis of Leapfrog's data finds some good news: the incidence of serious pressure ulcers (often known as "bedsores") and injuries has declined over the past four years. The bad news: only about a third of reporting hospitals in the U.S. (35 percent) met Leapfrog's standard on preventing both.

Highlights of the report include:

Rates of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers and injuries have been steadily decreasing over the past four years. The average rate of pressure ulcers across reporting hospitals was .102 hospital-acquired pressure ulcers per 1,000 inpatient discharges in 2016 compared to .122 in 2013, a 16 percent improvement. For hospital-acquired injuries, the average was .419 injuries per 1,000 inpatient discharges amongst reporting hospitals in 2016 compared to .521 in 2013, an improvement of nearly 20 percent.

The average rate of pressure ulcers across reporting hospitals was .102 hospital-acquired pressure ulcers per 1,000 inpatient discharges in 2016 compared to .122 in 2013, a 16 percent improvement. For hospital-acquired injuries, the average was .419 injuries per 1,000 inpatient discharges amongst reporting hospitals in 2016 compared to .521 in 2013, an improvement of nearly 20 percent. Gains, but progress is too slow. Using Leapfrog's certified Lives and Dollars Lost Calculator, these improvements resulted in an estimated savings of 49 lives and more than $33 million . However, if all hospitals had reduced their rates of pressure ulcers and hospital-acquired injuries to zeroas some hospitals have done--an estimated 263 lives and $175 million could have been saved.

Using Leapfrog's certified Lives and Dollars Lost Calculator, these improvements resulted in an estimated savings of 49 lives and more than . However, if all hospitals had reduced their rates of pressure ulcers and hospital-acquired injuries to zeroas some hospitals have done--an estimated 263 lives and could have been saved. Hospitals vary dramatically on their ability to protect patients from hospital-acquired conditions, even within the same city. For example, the rate of hospital-acquired injuries in Chicago ranged from zero at one hospital to as much as 1.712 per 1,000 inpatient discharges at another just three miles away. Additionally, the rate of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers in the New York metro ranged from zero at one hospital to 4.631 per 1,000 inpatient discharges at another institution less than four miles away.

"We are encouraged by the steady decline in hospital-acquired conditions over the last four years," said Leah Binder, president and CEO of Leapfrog. "We are also encouraged by growing hospital transparency. All the hospitals in this report volunteered this information on their performance, and that gives us great confidence. The hospitals to worry about are those that declined to report on these problems. Patients deserve to know."

"This information allows for informed health care decisions at all levels by patients seeking hospital care and employers looking to ensure their employees are using the facilities least likely to harm them," said Maeve O'Meara, senior vice president of product at Castlight Health. "It's incredibly important to Castlight that we're able to work with Leapfrog to provide this."

The complete Hospital-Acquired Conditions report is available online. Additional resources and tools for patients, employers and purchasers may be found here.

About The Leapfrog Group

Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey collects and transparently reports hospital performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog's other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.

About Castlight Health

Castlight's mission is to empower people to make the best choices for their health and to help companies make the most of their health benefits. We offer a health benefits platform that engages employees to make better healthcare decisions and guide them to the right program, care, and provider. The platform also enables benefit leaders to communicate and measure their programs while driving employee engagement with targeted, relevant communications. Castlight has partnered with enterprise customers, spanning millions of lives, to improve healthcare outcomes, lower costs, and increase benefits satisfaction.

For more information, visit www.castlighthealth.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn and like us on Facebook.

SOURCE Castlight Health, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.castlighthealth.com


MONTCLAIR, N.J., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Founded by renowned anti-aging medicine pioneer Dr. Vincent Giampapa, the Global Foundation for Human Aging Research (http://globalhumanaging.org/) is looking to change the future of human health. The nonprofit organization funds research addressing the fundamental, cellular-level causes of aging and age-related conditions.

Dr. Vincent C. Giampapa MD, FACS

"We need to transform our health care system into a 'prevention and wellness system' instead of a 'disease mitigation system,'" says Dr. Giampapa. "Today, our medical system attempts to merely suppress symptoms using prescription drugs. These drugs then cause additional problems that lead to more symptoms  and the patient is trapped in a downward spiral of more and more maintenance drugs. As the global population gets older and sicker while healthcare costs skyrocket, this flawed system creates an economic and potentially humanitarian time bomb."

According to the United States Census Bureau, the number of people aged 65 and older will reach 83.7 million by 2050. And by the end of the next decade, more than 20 percent of U.S. residents will be seniors  up from just 13 percent in 2010. If medical solutions to age-related illness and infirmities do not substantially improve, the health care system will be stretched to the breaking point. The problem is by no means isolated to the U.S.; the entire developed world is on the same trajectory, and the developing world is likely not far behind.

Government health care policy changes alone are inadequate to tackle the consequences of this demographic shift, says Giampapa and his colleagues. What's needed is a complete re-orientation to how we treat and provide healthcare to aging adults, and it will require entrepreneurialism and private capital. The Global Foundation for Human Aging Research believes epigenetics, cellular technologies, and stem cell therapies are an excellent starting point for this necessary revolution in our healthcare system.

In addition, continuing research into stem cells will provide fuel for further breakthroughs in anti-aging medicine. Dr. Giampapa is personally invested in this field, and he was a keynote speaker at the Second International Adults Stem Cell Conference at the Vatican in Rome. He was also a stem cell expert featured on Discovery Science Channel's stem cell special narrated by Stephen Hawking.

Another focus of the foundation is on the development of a BioBanking system for young, healthy cells that can be used later in life to maintain healthy function and dramatically enhance quality of life relative to today's expectations of the aging process. Indeed, the collection and storage of cellular material may become the foundation of health care in the future.

Recent beneficiaries of the foundation include Whitehead Institute, Wellomics, Inc. and the Harvard Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging. As a 501(c)(3) organization, donations to the foundation from the community are tax deductible.

About the Global Foundation for Human Aging Research

The Global Foundation for Human Aging Research is a nonprofit organization working to support the front lines of medical research and development related to the biology of human aging with the goal of improving healthspan for aging populations worldwide. It contributes funds to other non-profit institutions, universities, and companies that are working in line with its mission. It was founded by renowned anti-aging medicine pioneer Dr. Vincent Giampapa, M.D., F.A.C.S.

Contact:

Laura Martinez

862-333-4180

[email protected]

SOURCE Global Foundation for Human Aging Research

Related Links

http://www.globalhumanaging.org


W Aspen and The Sky Residences at W Aspen , which is slated to open for the 2018-19 winter ski season, will be the first alpine escape in North America from W Hotels Worldwide.

W Aspen is being designed by the award-winning firms of Rowland+Broughton Architecture of Aspen and Nemaworkshop of New York City, in partnership with W's in-house design team. Locally inspired, this modern-day mountain chalet will celebrate the spirit of Aspen, offering 88 guestrooms, including six suites, and 11 W-branded fractional residences. An oversized split-level Living Room, the brand's alternative to the staid hotel lobby, reimagines the traditional hotel dining scene with a modern approach to dynamic cocktails and cuisine. To complete the experience of this incomparable location, the hotel will feature a 1,600 square foot outdoor patio and a 12,000 square foot rooftop bar and pool, overlooking Aspen Mountain and creating the ultimate experience for apres-ski and warm-weather events.

A full-service ski shop will provide guests with equipment rentals and storage capabilities, while an 1,100 square foot FIT, the W brand's modern gym concept, will aid travellers in staying in shape on and off the slopes. With more than 1,600 square feet of event and meeting space, W Aspen is sure to become an attraction for spectacular events and high energy meetings at the base of Aspen Mountain.

The Sky Residences at W Aspen will also provide a unique opportunity to call both W and Aspen home. The Sky Residences at W Aspen will offer the marketplace the newest ski-in residential inventory, boasting the first slope side address in downtown Aspen since the opening of the Residences at The Little Nell.

The Sky Residences at W Aspen will be a unique offering of only 11 fractional residences. Each Residence is located on the third or fourth floors of W Aspen, with commanding views of Aspen Mountain and the Aspen area. Owners will enjoy all the services and amenities of the W Aspen and will also have their own private rooftop deck with a pool and gathering areas.

About Northridge Capital, LLC

Northridge Capital, LLC, is an independent real estate asset private equity firm that has invested since its founding in 1997 in nearly 50 assets on behalf of its investors, with a combined acquisition value of approximately $1 billion. Based in Washington, D.C., the company focuses on generating superior risk-adjusted returns for international high net-worth individuals and institutions. It acquires, manages, and sells real estate assets across a wide variety of property types and geographic areas. For more information, visit www.northridgecapital.com.

About Fortress Investment Group

Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE: FIG) is a leading, highly diversified global investment firm with $70.2 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2017. Founded in 1998, Fortress manages assets on behalf of over 1,800 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and traditional asset management strategies. For more information, visit www.fortress.com.

SOURCE Northridge Capital, LLC

Related Links

http://www.northridgecapital.com


CAPELLEN, Luxembourg, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Open Assessment Technologies S. A. (OAT), the leading full-service provider of open source assessment solutions for education and career advancement, today announced that its TAO platform has been chosen as an assessment solution in the SURF pilot to establish a Dutch Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE) for higher education.

SURF is the collaborative Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) organization for Dutch education and research. It offers students, lecturers, and scientists in the Netherlands access to the best possible internet and ICT facilities. This is why SURF facilitates the technical frameworks that educational institutions need in order to build digital learning environments of the future: modular, flexible, and personalized. These environments require tools and applications that are easy to integrate and that work well with each other, giving educational institutions the maximum freedom to select components that best suit their needs.

OAT, joined by Cito, is one of nine EdTech companies that SURF chose to participate in the pilot, starting this month. During the pilot, these companies will link their products in the SURF demo environment, verify standards and data exchange between applications, and create a modular digital learning environment.

In September, SURF will host Challenge Day: Building on the Digital Learning Environment, where these companies will present the results of the pilot to educational institutions, demonstrate how their products contribute to flexible digital learning, and how these modular components all work together within the SURF environment.

"We are excited about the opportunity to participate in the SURF pilot," said Mark Molenaar, Chief Technology Officer of OAT. "Our Open Source assessment platform, TAO, is a natural fit for Digital Learning Environments of the future, which will require tools and applications to work well together and minimize or even remove proprietary constraints. Open learning environments don't just enable flexible and personalized learning  they foster innovation and collaboration. The SURF pilot program will no doubt spark lots of discussions and exchange of ideas to help advance the digital learning industry. We are honored to be part of it."

About OAT

Redefining Digital Assessment: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Possibilities. Open Assessment Technologies (OAT) is the publisher of TAO, the only full-service open source assessment platform for Education and Career Advancement, offering platform components, tools, and technical assistance to support the entire assessment life cycle from test creation through online delivery and results reporting. For more information, visit taotesting.com.

TAO, the TAO logo, and the OAT logo are registered trademarks of OAT in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

PR Contact:

Kristen Shue

[email protected]

+1.415.295.2950

SOURCE Open Assessment Technologies, S.A.
In July, a small crew of solo kayakers led by Oru Kayak will set out from Havana, Cuba with compasses set on Key West. The 103-mile ocean passage is infamous for strong currents, sharks, unpredictable weather, and as a hazardous journey often made by Cuban refugees seeking political asylum in the US. Due to recently renewed diplomatic relations between Cuba and the USA, the ocean passage has been the subject of much interest. In recent years the passage between the neighbor countries has been swam, paddle boarded, and completed by a tandem kayak team, however, a solo kayak passage (e.g. a kayak powered by just one-person) has yet to be completed.

While completing a solo kayak passage remains a significant test of human strength, endurance, and perseverance  and will likely require 30-40 hours of non-stop kayaking  the ability to make a safe and legal journey from Cuba to the USA is arguably the most remarkable feat of all. Andy Cochrane, Oru's Director of Marketing who is organizing and leading the expedition, commented, "Kayaking from Cuba to the USA is a dream opportunity for any kayaker. But more important than our success, is the fact that we can do this safely and with the blessing of both the US and Cuban government  and what that means for people in both countries."

Oru Kayak will use a fleet of the company's newly updated COAST XT expedition kayaks to complete the 103-mile journey. The expedition touring model was updated in 2017 to increase the durability of the boat in high surf and wind. More information about the COAST XT and live streaming video from the attempt can be found at www.orukayak.com.

About Oru Kayak

Founded in 2012, Oru Kayak is a leading innovator in the kayaking industry and the first to bring a foldable kayak to market utilizing the principles of origami. Beyond the functionality of its engineering, the Oru Kayak stands apart from the competition for its superb on the water performance, durability, easy assembly, and stylish design. Based in San Francisco and manufactured in the USA, Oru Kayak is sold in dozens of countries across five continents including Europe, Australia, Asia and the Americas.

Press Contact

Chris Dickey

Purple Orange Brand Communications

[email protected]

307.413.8667

SOURCE Oru Kayak

Related Links

https://www.orukayak.com


COLUMBUS, Ga., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aflac, the leading provider of voluntary insurance at the work site in the United States, today announced that Paul S. Amos, II has resigned from his position as President of Aflac and from the Board of Directors of Aflac Incorporated to join a private equity firm, effective July 1. Dan Amos, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, is assuming the title of President of Aflac and associated responsibilities. Additional responsibilities will be shared by select members of the executive management team in Japan and the U.S.

Upon his resignation, Paul Amos said, "I have been fortunate to be involved with this company my entire life. I've enjoyed it and have decided it's time for me to look forward to the next phase."

Aflac Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dan Amos remarked, "As a CEO, it has been a privilege to work with Paul and see firsthand all of the contributions he has made to our continuing success in the Japanese market. As a father, I wish him the very best as he enters this new chapter."

Dan Amos added, "Over the past year and during his two years prior to that living and working in Japan, Paul has been instrumental in preparing the leadership team at Aflac Japan to transition under Masatoshi Koide, who is a strong leader with a solid track record of results. I fully expect a very smooth transition on July 1 and continued success of our Japan operations under Masatoshi's leadership and with Charles Lake continuing to serve as Chairman of Aflac Japan as well as Hiroshi Yamauchi serving as Vice Chairman of Aflac Japan."

About Aflac

When a policyholder gets sick or hurt, Aflac pays cash benefits fast. For six decades, Aflac insurance policies have given policyholders the opportunity to focus on recovery, not financial stress. In the United States, Aflac is the leader in voluntary insurance sales at the worksite. Through its trailblazing One Day PaySM initiative, Aflac U.S. can receive, process, approve and disburse payment for eligible claims in one business day. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance and insures 1 in 4 households. Aflac insurance products help provide protection to more than 50 million people worldwide. For 11 consecutive years, Aflac has been recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies. In 2017, Fortune magazine recognized Aflac as one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for the 19th consecutive year and in 2017 included Aflac on its list of Most Admired Companies for the 16th time. In 2015, Aflac's contact centers were recognized by J.D. Power by providing "An Outstanding Customer Service Experience" for the Live Phone Channel. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac and One Day PaySM, visit aflac.com or espanol.aflac.com.

Aflac herein means American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus and American Family Life Assurance Company of New York.

Media contact  Catherine Blades, 706.596.3014 or [email protected]

Investor Relations contact  David Young, 706.596.3264 or [email protected]

SOURCE Aflac

Related Links

http://www.aflac.com


PHILADELPHIA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Four years following the 2013 launch of Year Up Philadelphia at Peirce College, its first alumni are set to receive their bachelor's degrees on June 8.

Four Philadelphia residents and Year Up graduates, Tah Adin (Information Technology), Andre Brown (Business Administration), Shakira Gregg (Business Administration) and Bene't Morando (Information Technology), will be among the 300 members of the Peirce Class of 2017.

Offered at no cost to urban young adults, Year Up provides six months of workforce training and a paid six-month internship at a Fortune 500 company, all while students are enrolled in Peirce classes.

Together, Year Up and Peirce provided the right support and structure for these students to succeed in their academic endeavors.

Brown had started his academic career at another institution, but after three semesters, realized he wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for a traditional college setting. But just months after dropping out, he learned of Year Up and Peirce and thought it would provide the right structure for him to succeed.

He was correct. Brown has thrived under the responsibility of working during the day and taking classes at night.

He interned at JPMorgan Chase and continued to work there throughout his college career as a project manager for software development. Upon completing his bachelor's degree, Chase offered Brown a two-year contract as a business analyst in its Technology Analyst Program.

"If you would have told me where I'd be today when I first dropped out of school, it would have blown my mind," Brown said.

Year Up is just one example of the support that Peirce College provides to working adult students of all ages. But its students also rely heavily on the support of their families, inspiring their children, or even their parents, to follow in their footsteps.

And, sometimes, they take the journey together.

Morando, another Year Up alum, will be graduating with her father, Anthony Young, who has earned a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice Studies.

Student speaker Renee Martin and her daughters, Brenda Eldridge and Ramona Watson, will also graduate as a family from Peirce this year, as will the husband-and-wife team of Melissa and Brian Phillips.

Morando said it was the combined support of her father; her mother, Emma Morando-Young, who graduated from Peirce last year; Year Up; and Peirce that helped her complete her degree and earn a full-time position in March at JPMorgan Chase, where she interned during Year Up, as a Tech Ops Analyst. Together, her support system helped her battle her procrastination and instilled time management skills. She is currently applying to Peirce's graduate program.

"The families who earn their degrees together serve as great examples of the dedication and community support needed for working adults to reach this milestone," said Peirce College President & CEO James J. Mergiotti.

"All of the working adults who will cross the stage this year have each faced their own set of unique challenges," Mergiotti continued. "They have worked hard to balance their work, home and community responsibilities to earn a degree that will help them make a better life for themselves and their families and allow them to be a role model for the next generation."

Approximately 70 percent of the graduates are over the age of 30. They come from 13 states as far away as California. Six are international students, all of whom currently reside in Pennsylvania. Nearly 70 percent of the class is female and 61 percent identify as Black or African-American.

In total, Peirce will award 17 master's degrees, 180 bachelor's degrees, 95 associate degrees and 10 certificates.

Monica Malpass, co-anchor of 6abc Action News at 5 p.m., will deliver the commencement speech at the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts on Broad Street in Center City Philadelphia.

About Peirce College

Founded in 1865, Peirce College has been providing working adults with affordable education, flexible classes, and personalized support for more than 150 years. Peirce offers bachelor and associate degree programs in the areas of Business, Healthcare, Information Technology, and Legal Studies, and Master of Science degrees in Healthcare Administration and Organizational Leadership & Management. Located in the heart of Philadelphia, Peirce is a non-profit institution that specializes in serving the unique needs of working adults through both online and on campus education. In 2015, Peirce took life-friendly learning and degree attainment to the next level with the creation of Peirce Fit, a revolutionary learning format that allows students to choose each week whether to attend class in person or online. Through competency based education in Peirce's IT program, students may also choose a faster, more affordable path to a degree. Peirce College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, 3624 Market St. Philadelphia, PA 19104 (267-284-5000). Additionally, select programs are accredited by The Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs, the American Bar Association and the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education.

For more information about Peirce College, call 888.467.3472, or visit www.Peirce.edu. Visit Peirce's blog, Peirce Connections, at http://blog.Peirce.edu. Become a fan of Peirce College on Facebook. Follow @PeirceCollege on Twitter. View the Peirce College YouTube Channel.

SOURCE Peirce College
BOSTON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Platelet BioGenesis, a biotech startup developing a process to produce life-saving human platelets from stem cells for therapeutic applications, announced it has successfully raised $10 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Qiming U.S. Healthcare Fund and included Vivo Capital, VI Ventures, Adena Partners, eCoast Angels, and others.

Platelets are the "band-aids" of the blood and a critical first-line treatment for cancer and surgery. Platelets are currently sourced entirely from human volunteer donors and are a growing $20+B global industry. Platelet BioGenesis is based in Boston and was spun out of the academic labs of Drs. Italiano and Thon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard.

Dr. Jonathan Thon, Co-Founder and incoming CEO of Platelet BioGenesis, stated, "It is difficult to overstate the significance of this investment, and what it means for the future of regenerative medicine. It will allow us to repeat investigational new drug-enabling studies and establish a scalable industrial process to manufacture clinical grade platelets."

According to Sven Karlsson, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, "The use of platelets is severely limited by a lack of donors, their limited viable shelf-life of two days, and potential bacterial/viral contamination. Replacing the need for a human platelet donor will allow us to provide life-saving platelet transfusions to patients around the world that are safer and more cost effective. We are thrilled to partner with knowledgeable investors and the foremost experts in this field who can bring the full suite of resources to accelerate our growth and make possible this future."

Mark McDade, Managing Partner at Qiming Ventures, stated, "We are excited to partner with Platelet BioGenesis to realize a shared vision of a platelet supply independent from human donors. The word disruptive is thrown around too often these days, but this technology truly has the potential to reshape the blood industry and positively impact millions of patients."

Dr. Ed Engleman, Managing Partner at Vivo Capital, added, "Maintaining a sufficient supply of platelets has been a chronic problem for blood bankers ever since we started fractionating blood. Platelet BioGenesis has the potential to finally address this pain point."

About Platelet BioGenesis (www.plateletbiogenesis.com; twitter @plateletbiogen)

Platelet BioGenesis is a pre-clinical stage biotech company that was spun out the academic labs of Drs. Italiano and Thon at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard. In its quest to produce donor-independent human platelets from pluripotent stem cells, Platelet BioGenesis has developed and patented a microfluidic bioreactor and shown that functional platelets can be generated from human stem cell cultures at scale. The company was selected to participate in MassCONNECT (run by MassBio), was a 2014 MassChallenge Finalist, and has received support from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and the National Institutes of Health.

Contact:

Whitney Berry | (720) 509.9448 [email protected]

About Qiming U.S. Healthcare Fund

The Qiming U.S. Healthcare Fund, LP is a new U.S. healthcare venture fund headquartered in Seattle, WA with offices in Palo Alto, CA and Cambridge, MA. As part of a broader family of Qiming venture funds, this new fund seeks to invest in U.S.-based human healthcare companies with potential market opportunities in China. Focused areas of interest are bio-therapeutics, medtech and digital health technologies, with equity investments ranging from $5 to $12 million.

Contact: [email protected]

About Vivo Capital

Vivo Capital is a global healthcare focused investment firm formed in 1996 with over $1.8 billion under management. Vivo Capital has offices in Palo Alto, California, Beijing, Shanghai and Taipei. Vivo's current portfolio includes more than 80 private and public biotechnology companies in the areas of biopharmaceuticals, specialty pharmaceuticals, and medical devices.

More information can be found at www.vivocapital.com.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Platelet BioGenesis
HARTFORD, Conn., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Propark, Inc. (www.propark.com) announces that it has purchased Express Park in Los Angeles, California. Express Park's portfolio of parking operations includes locations in Hollywood, Studio City, Santa Monica and Huntington Park.

Propark's Chief Investment Officer David Schmid, "We are very excited to be growing our footprint in the Los Angeles parking services marketplace. This acquisition is part of Propark's growth strategy to purchase small to medium sized parking companies in a variety of markets across the country. As part of this particular acquisition, we look forward to working with the clients, employees and customers and will bring Propark's elevated service and innovation to the properties."

About Propark America

Propark America is one of the country's largest privately-owned parking companies, providing full-service parking solutions for all business types, in over 60 cities across the United States. For more information, please visit www.propark.com

Media Contact:

Dennis Safford

[email protected]

(860) 856-4104

SOURCE Propark America

Related Links

http://www.propark.com


SAN BRUNO, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Provident Funding Associates, L.P. (the "Company") and PFG Finance Corp. (the "Co-Issuer" and, together with the Company, the "Issuers") announced today the early settlement of their tender offer to purchase for cash (the "Tender Offer") any and all of the $452,391,000 aggregate principal amount outstanding of their 6.75% Senior Notes due 2021 (the "Notes") and solicitation of consents (the "Consent Solicitation") for proposed amendments to the related indenture. The Tender Offer and the Consent Solicitation are being made pursuant to an Offer to Purchase and Consent Solicitation Statement dated as of May 24, 2017 (the "Offer to Purchase and Consent Solicitation Statement"), and related consent and letter of transmittal. The Tender Offer will expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on June 21, 2017.

As of the consent payment deadline of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 7, 2017, approximately $337,160,000 aggregate principal amount of the outstanding Notes had been validly tendered and not validly withdrawn.

Holders that validly tendered prior to the consent payment deadline and whose Notes were accepted will receive total consideration of $1,037.50 per $1,000 principal amount of purchased Notes, which includes a consent payment of $30.00 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes, plus accrued and unpaid interest up to, but not including, the initial settlement date of June 8, 2017.

Holders that validly tender after the consent payment deadline, but prior to the expiration of the tender offer, and whose Notes are accepted will receive the tender offer consideration of $1,007.50 per $1,000 principal amount of Notes, plus accrued and unpaid interest up to, but not including, the final settlement date, which is expected to be June 22, 2017. Holders of the Notes that tender after the consent payment deadline will not receive a consent payment. As the withdrawal time of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 7, 2017 has passed, any tendered Notes may not be withdrawn except as required by law.

This news release is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell any notes. The tender offer is being made only pursuant to the Offer to Purchase and Consent Solicitation Statement and the related consent and letter of transmittal, copies of which have been delivered to all holders of the Notes. Persons with questions regarding the tender offer should contact the dealer manager, Merrill Lynch Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, at (888) 292-0070 (toll free) or (980) 387-5602 (collect), or the information agent, D.F. King & Co., Inc., at (212) 269-5550 (banks and brokers) or (800) 628-8532 (toll-free).

The Company is a leading private, independent mortgage company that originates and services residential mortgage loans. For the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company was the fourth largest wholesale mortgage originator and the twenty-third largest direct mortgage originator in the United States, with $11.3 billion in mortgage loan origination volume funded directly to borrowers. For the year ended December 31, 2016, the Company's originations totaled $12.0 billion, including loans originated through its correspondent channel.

The Co-Issuer is a wholly-owned special purpose finance subsidiary of the Company that conducts no business activities other than serving as an issuer of the Notes and other comparable financing activities.

Some of the statements in this release may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on our current expectations and could be affected by numerous factors and are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Do not rely on any forward-looking statement, as we cannot predict or control many of the factors that ultimately may affect our ability to achieve the results estimated. We make no promise to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of changes in underlying factors, new information, future events or otherwise.

Contact:

Provident Funding Associates, L.P.

851 Traeger Avenue

San Bruno, California 94066

(650) 652 1300

Investors:

Tim Maimone, (650) 652-1300

[email protected]

SOURCE Provident Funding Associates, L.P.

Related Links

https://www.provident.com


HUNTSVILLE, Ala., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) has been awarded a contract valued up to $600 million for software support and sustainment to modernize missile defense and other strategic systems. The work will be conducted at the Software Engineering Directorate, U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal.

"Raytheon brings our software engineering expertise in automation, analytics and cyber to support the U.S. Army's global systems and the complex, multi-domain missions they support," said Dave Wajsgras, president of Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services. "Raytheon will support the AMRDEC SED to design, test and deploy software updates for critical systems used by U.S. combatant commands and defense agencies that range from missiles and launchers to cyber resiliency. This key partnership will ensure the technology that our Soldiers use on the battlefield will be ready and relevant for the fight."

Rapid prototyping, hardware development, testing and validation will support Raytheon's software engineering. Systems include:

Strategic missiles and launchers

Radars

Data mining and visualization tools

Condition-based maintenance

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

Virtual operations centers

Cyber resiliency of fielded systems

"Raytheon's decades of experience in software sustainment and modernization will help the Army put the best systems in the hands of our soldiers around the globe," said Todd Probert, vice president of Mission Support and Modernization at Raytheon IIS. "The Army can leverage our best practices in Agile and DevOps to harness software that will give them an edge in the rapidly evolving digital battlespace."

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter.

Media Contact

Raytheon

Rachael Duffy

571-250-1517

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Company

Related Links

http://www.raytheon.com


As part of Hear Me Now StoryCorps provides Providence staff and volunteers with tools and training to record StoryCorps-style conversations among patients, their families, and care providers. Recording a StoryCorps interview is easy: Invite a loved one, or anyone else you choose, for an uninterrupted 40-minute conversation, guided by a trained facilitator. At the end of the session, you walk away with a copy of the interview, and a digital file goes to the Library of Congress, where it's preserved for generations.

Hear Me Now represents an expression of whole person care  care that offers state-of-the-art medical treatment, with an emphasis on the emotional, physical, social, and spiritual experience and personal priorities of people Providence St. Joseph Health serves.

The Hear Me Now website has a trove of poignant audio clips, edited in the signature StoryCorps style. Currently operating in Southern California, Alaska and Montana, Hear Me Now in partnership with StoryCorps will expand to other regions Providence St. Joseph Health serves, including Oregon and Washington.

"We're so pleased to work with the Providence Institute for Human Caring to showcase the transformative power of storytelling, offering a potential for catharsis, not only for patients and their families, but also for the medical professionals who tend to them," said Dave Isay, StoryCorps founder and president.

Isay is among the keynote speakers at the 2017 Catholic Health Assembly, June 11, in New Orleans, where he will discuss StoryCorps and its partnership with Providence and other healthcare providers.

Research has documented:

"Hear Me Now creates a sacred space for people to connect with each other in meaningful and deeply satisfying ways," said Ira Byock, M.D., founder and chief medical officer of the Institute for Human Caring. "Within the context of a modern health system, we're attempting to foster a culture of whole person caring that allows us to honor and celebrate the fullness of human life  its joys, its triumphs, but also the hard times of illness, dying, and grieving."

For more information about how to participate in Hear Me Now, contact Lindsay Flacks, 310-543-7263; [email protected]

@Human_Caring #HearMeNow



About the Providence Institute for Human Caring:

The Providence Institute for Human Caring seeks to transform health care and strengthen ties to the communities Providence Saint Joseph Health serves. We are clinicians, educators, and health systems experts who believe everyone deserves the best care possible for physical health as well as for emotional, social and spiritual well-being. The Institute's goal: change health care culture to make caring for whole persons and their families the new normal. Serious illness not only affects people physically, it frequently robs them of their sense of security. People living with life-threatening medical conditions often say they feel lonely, frightened, confused and depressed. Whole person care melds state-of-the-art diagnostics and treatment with expertise and services to address their emotional, social and spiritual needs.

About StoryCorps:

Founded in 2003 by Dave Isay, StoryCorps has given more than 400,000 peopleAmericans of all backgrounds and beliefs, in towns and cities in all 50 statesthe chance to record interviews about their lives. The organization preserves the recordings in its archive at the Library of Congress, the largest single collection of human voices ever gathered, and shares select stories with the public through StoryCorps' weekly podcast, NPR broadcasts, animated shorts, digital platforms, and best-selling books. These powerful human stories reflect the vast range of American experiences, wisdom and values; engender empathy and connection; and remind us how much more we have in common than divides us. Learn more at storycorps.org

SOURCE Providence Institute for Human Caring

Related Links

http://www.providence.org/institute-for-human-caring


Customized 2018 Kenworth T680 will be sold at Ritchie Bros.' auction in Phoenix, AZ on June 20

PHOENIX, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Ritchie Bros. is hitching its trailer to a very important cause this month. At its Phoenix, AZ auction on June 20, the company will be selling a customized 2018 Kenworth T680 truck tractordonated by Inland Kenworth, one of the largest Kenworth truck dealers in North America, and a group of truck industry sponsorsand donating all proceeds to advocacy group Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT), to help prevent human trafficking.

"When Inland Kenworth came to us with the idea, we jumped at the chance to do our part," said Chris Holmberg, Sales Director, Ritchie Bros. "We believe that with our global network of buyers we can get the best return for the Kenworth T680 and in turn help Truckers Against Trafficking. Ritchie Bros. is proud to support the prevention of human trafficking."

Inland Kenworth has dubbed the special T680 the "Everyday Heroes" edition. The truck has a retail value of US$157,000 and features a 76-inch sleeper, 485 horsepower Paccar MX-13 engine and Eaton Fuller Advantage 10-speed automated transmission.

"I first became involved with Truckers Against Trafficking after hearing a presentation they made at an Arizona Trucking Association conference," said Don Blake, Sales Manager at Inland Kenworth in Phoenix. "They opened my eyes to the evils of human trafficking. So many of the victims are innocent children. My heart hurt after being informed, but it made me want to help."

Don continued, "We chose Ritchie Bros. to sell the truck because they are the best auctioneers in the trucking industry. I knew they would be willing to help. When I asked Chris Holmberg to auction the truck to benefit Truckers Against Trafficking, I couldn't even get the question out before he said yes. Not only has Ritchie Bros. offered to auction the truck for free, but they have worked very hard to market both the cause and the truck."

For more information about Truckers Against Trafficking, please visit truckersagainsttrafficking.org.

950+ items to be sold in Phoenix on June 20; all items sold with no minimum bids or reserve prices

On top of the special Kenworth T680 being sold for charity, Ritchie Bros. will also sell hundreds of other items during its unreserved public auction. Equipment highlights include 80+ truck tractors, 90+ trailers, as well as excavators, loaders, dozers, excavators, aerial work platforms and more. The auction also features a selection of trucks and trailers being sold for Graebel Van Lines. For more details, visit rbauction.com/Phoenix.

About Ritchie Bros.:

Established in 1958, Ritchie Bros. (NYSE and TSX: RBA) is a global asset management and disposition company, offering customers end-to-end solutions for buying and selling used heavy equipment, trucks and other assets. Operating in a multitude of sectors, including construction, transportation, agriculture, energy, oil and gas, mining, and forestry, the company's selling channels include: Ritchie Bros.Auctioneers, the world's largest industrial auctioneer offers live auction events with online bidding; IronPlanet, an online marketplace with featured weekly auctions and providing its exclusive IronClad Assurance equipment condition certification; EquipmentOne, an online auction marketplace; Mascus, a leading European online equipment listing service; and Ritchie Bros. Private Treaty, offering privately negotiated sales. The company also offers sector-specific solutions including GovPlanet, TruckPlanet, and Kruse Energy Auctioneers, plus equipment financing and leasing through Ritchie Bros. Financial Services. For more information about the unprecedented choice provided by Ritchie Bros., visit RitchieBros.com.

Photos and video for embedding in media stories are available at rbauction.com/media.

For more information, please contact:

Ian Malinski

Corporate Communications Lead

+1.778.331.5432

[email protected]

SOURCE Ritchie Bros.
TEL AVIV, Israel, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

ICL (NYSE: ICL; TASE: ICL), hereby reports that an agreement was signed today for the sale of ICL's share (50%) in IDE, as detailed below. This is pursuant to Item 5.B. 'Liquidity and Capital Sources - Significant Investments and Divestments' of the Company's annual statement (20F) for 2016, and to Note 6 of the financial reports for the first quarter of 2017, with respect to the examination of the possibility to divest ICL's share in IDE Technologies Ltd. ('IDE'), a company held in equal parts by ICL and Delek Infrastructures Ltd.

According to the agreement, ICL shall sell all of its shares in IDE to a limited partnership, wherein the general partner is a company controlled by Mr. Avshalom Felber, IDE's CEO, and limited partners therein are institutional bodies from the Clal insurance company ltd and the Israeli teachers' union educational funds' group. Total consideration is $177.7 million, to be paid in cash upon closing of the transaction, after deduction of transaction costs and subject to price adjustments which may apply due to certain material events, in case such events occur prior to the closing date of the transaction.

The closing of the transaction is expected to take place during 2017, subject to the fulfillment of several conditions precedent specified in the agreement, including receipt of approvals by the competent authorities.

There is no assurance that the closing will occur and/or that it will occur according to the dates and terms set forth above.

Name of the authorized signatory on the report and name of authorized electronic reporter: Lisa Haimovitz

Position: SVP, Global General Counsel and Company Secretary

Signature Date: June 7, 2017

Investor Relations Contact:

Dudi Musler

Investor Relations Manager, ICL

+972-3-684-4471

[email protected]

Press Contact:

Gadi Ohana

Debby Communications

+972-3-5683000

[email protected]ebby.co.il



SOURCE ICL
NANJING, China, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Sasol Limited (JSE: SOL; NYSE: SSL), a leading integrated chemicals and energy company, formally began construction of its new alkoxylation plant in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. Ushered in by a ground-breaking ceremony on June 8th at the Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park (NCIP), the new plant is expected to be fully operational in early 2019.

The ceremony was presided by Fleetwood Grobler, Executive Vice President of Chemicals Business, Sasol, and attended by Miao Ruilin, the Mayor of Nanjing; Dolana Msimang, the South African Ambassador to China; representatives from South African diplomatic missions in China and NCIP officials.

The new production unit will modernise and expand Sasol's current alkoxylation capacity, research and development facility and technical support capability in Nanjing. Through this strategic investment, Sasol will strengthen its position in China and better meet the growing demand for specialty chemicals in this important growth market.

This project entails the construction of an alkoxylation plant with a capacity of approximately 150 kilo tons per annum (ktpa), with the option of using either branched or linear alcohols to meet differentiated customer requirements in applications, such as detergent, personal care, textiles and leather, metal working and lubrication, paper inks and coatings and the oil and gas recovery markets.

"With China's economy forecast to represent 40% of the world chemical demand by 2020 and its on-going shift towards high value and differentiated segments, China is an important market for Sasol," said Fleetwood Grobler, Executive Vice President of Chemicals Business, Sasol. "The new production unit will more than double Sasol's alkoxylation production capacity and Sasol's state-of-the-art technology offers our business partners significant benefits in terms of safety, reliability and flexibility."

The new site, to be located in NCIP, occupies about 35 acres representing a significant expansion of the existing footprint. Through this project, Sasol will be able to offer a range of diversified products to optimally serve this growing market by combining a unique portfolio of building blocks and extensive global experience. Sasol will continue to comply with the highest standards of environment, health and safety and is committed to a sustainable development in China.

About Sasol:

Sasol is an international integrated chemicals and energy company that leverages technologies and the expertise of our 30,300 people working in 33 countries. We develop and commercialise technologies, and build and operate world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product streams, including liquid fuels, chemicals and low-carbon electricity.

Forward-looking statements: Sasol may, in this document, make certain statements that are not historical facts and relate to analyses and other information which are based on forecasts of future results and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. These statements may also relate to our future prospects, developments and business strategies. Examples of such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding exchange rate fluctuations, volume growth, increases in market share, total shareholder return and cost reductions. Words such as "believe", "anticipate", "expect", "intend", "seek", "will", "plan", "could", "may", "endeavour" and "project" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. By their very nature, forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, and there are risks that the predictions, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not be achieved. If one or more of these risks materialise, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. You should understand that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the plans, objectives, expectations, estimates and intentions expressed in such forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed more fully in our most recent annual report under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 on Form 20-F filed on 27 September 2016 and in other filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The list of factors discussed therein is not exhaustive; when relying on forward-looking statements to make investment decisions, you should carefully consider both these factors and other uncertainties and events. Forward-looking statements apply only as of the date on which they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update or revise any of them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Sasol Limited
NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP ("Scott+Scott"), a national shareholder and consumer rights litigation firm, informs investors that July 5, 2017 is the deadline to petition the court for lead plaintiff status in the securities class action lawsuit against Signet Jewelers, Ltd. ("Signet" or the "Company") (NYSE: SIG). The Court extended this deadline from May 30th. If you purchased Signet common stock between August 29, 2013 and February 27, 2017, you are encouraged to contact Scott+Scott for more information.

Signet Jewelers Limited is a retailer of diamond jewelry and includes the Sterling Jewelers division (including Kay Jewelers and Jared), the Zale division (which consists of Zale Jewelry and Piercing Pagoda), and others.

The lawsuit alleges that Signet failed to disclose adverse information regarding the Company's business and prospects, including that alleged sexual harassment by employees of the Sterling division 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.

On February 26, 2017, the public gained access to approximately 249 declarations signed under penalty of perjury that painted a picture of a Company in which sexual harassment, including sexual assault, was not just tolerated but modeled by top executives. On February 27, 2017, after the markets closed, The Washington Post published a report about the declarations that implicated Sterling's senior managers and executives including Chief Executive Officer, Mark S. Light.

As a result of this news, the price of Signet common stock plummeted $9.29 per share to close at $63.59 on February 28, 2017, a one-day decline of nearly 13%.

What You Can Do

If you purchased or acquired shares of Signet common stock between August 29, 2013 and February 27, 2017 and you wish to discuss this lawsuit, or have questions about this notice or your legal rights, please contact attorney Rhiana Swartz toll free at (844) 818-6980 or at [email protected]. Shareholders have until July 5, 2017 to petition the court for lead plaintiff status.

About Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP

Scott+Scott has significant experience in prosecuting major securities, antitrust, and employee retirement plan actions throughout the United States. The firm represents pension funds, foundations, individuals, and other entities worldwide with offices in New York, London, Connecticut, California, and Ohio.

CONTACT:

Rhiana Swartz

Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP

(844) 818-6980

[email protected]

SOURCE Scott+Scott, Attorneys at Law, LLP

Related Links

http://scott-scott.com


"Events like the Forbes Women's Summit help showcase the inspiring contributions made by women across all industries," said Sharon French. "I'm proud to be part of a firm that seeks to create innovative and inclusive environments for all employees to achieve their full potential, including creating Business Resource Groups, like its Women's network, to foster collaboration and mentoring."

In recognition of the Forbes Women's Summit, the Financial Women's Association of New York (FWA) will provide free admission, sponsored by OppenheimerFunds, to all visitors at the Museum of American Finance on Saturdays, June 10 and June 17, 2017. The FWA will also partner with the Museum to celebrate the FWA's Pacesetters participants with special programming to include a private session and a tour of the Museum. Pacesetters will be announced at the FWA Annual Summit on June 15.

Visitors can enjoy an Entrepreneurs exhibit featuring a profile of the late Muriel ("Mickey") Siebert, the first woman to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Ms. Siebert, a trailblazer on Wall Street in many ways, was an FWA member and supporter, and the 1994 FWA Woman of the Year.

"The Museum of American Finance offers visitors a unique experience to better understand the financial industry and the people who have helped shape it," said Katrin Dambrot, FWA President. "We are proud to continue our partnership with the Museum and help inspire the next generation of diverse leaders to take on leadership roles in finance."

The FWA's high school and college mentoring programs have reached more than 6,000 young professionals and students over the years.

About OppenheimerFunds

OppenheimerFunds, Inc., a leader in global asset management, is dedicated to providing solutions for its partners and end investors. OppenheimerFunds, including its subsidiaries, manages more than $239 billion in assets for over 13 million shareholder accounts, including sub-accounts, as of May 31, 2017. Founded in 1959, OppenheimerFunds is an asset manager with a history of providing innovative strategies to its investors. The firm's 15 investment management teams specialize in equity, fixed income, alternative, multi-asset, and revenue-weighted-ETF strategies, including ESG. OppenheimerFunds and its subsidiaries offer a broad array of products and services to clients, who range from endowments and sovereigns to financial advisors and individual investors. OppenheimerFunds and certain of its subsidiaries provide advisory services to the Oppenheimer family of funds, and OFI Global Asset Management offers solutions to institutions. The firm is also active through its Philanthropy & Community initiative: 10,000 Kids by 2020, reaching children with introductions to math literacy programs. For more information on the firm, visit oppenheimerfunds.com.

Shares of Oppenheimer funds are not deposits or obligations of any bank, are not guaranteed by any bank, are not insured by the FDIC or any other agency, and involve investment risks, including the possible loss of the principal amount invested.

Before investing in any of the Oppenheimer funds, investors should carefully consider a fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Fund prospectuses and summary prospectuses contain this and other information about the funds, and may be obtained by asking your financial advisor, visiting oppenheimerfunds.com or calling 1.800.CALL OPP (225.5677). Read prospectuses and summary prospectuses carefully before investing.

Oppenheimer funds are distributed by OppenheimerFunds Distributor, Inc.

225 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10281-1008

 2017 OppenheimerFunds Distributor, Inc. All rights reserved.

SOURCE OppenheimerFunds

Related Links

http://www.oppenheimerfunds.com


In honor of World Oceans Day, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (SBNMS) released a report card summary on shipping company speed compliance during the past two years dubbed the Right Whale Corporate Responsibility Project.

"More and more shipping companies and mariners are taking speed restrictions seriously; that is good news for endangered right whales. Our goal is 100% A+ and we congratulate COSCO and MSC for leading by example," said Patrick Ramage IFAW Director of Marine Conservation.

Two companies, China COSCO Shipping Corporation and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) led the industry with the strongest results. More than 2,000 total transits were evaluated involving 220 vessels and 149 companies in 2015 and 211 vessels and 145 companies in 2016. Analysis led by SBNMS research coordinator Dr. David Wiley and spatial ecologist Michael Thompson showed significant improvements in compliance during the two year period. In 2015, 72% of vessels achieved A or A+ ratings, with 83% of vessels achieving such ratings in 2016. On the down side, fifteen percent of companies are still at or below C-level with 79 percent compliance or less.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency in charge of protecting right whales, promulgated the Right Whale Ship Strike Reduction Rule in 2008 to reduce the risk of serious injury and lethal collisions between ships and whales by requiring ships to reduce their speed to 10 knots or less in specially delineated Seasonal Management Areas (SMAs). Two of those areas (Cape Cod Bay SMA and Off Race Point SMA) are off the coast of Massachusetts and overlap the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (NMS).

"This project is a great example of a public/private sector collaboration that protects right whales and recognizes deserving companies for their positive conservation actions," said Sanctuary Superintendent Ben Haskell.

Trips were tracked and ships and their corresponding companies were notified and provided with a grade depending on how closely they adhered to the provisions of NOAA's ship strike rule. Companies and ships that earned grades of A+ or A with 90 to 100 percent compliance were awarded Corporate Responsibility Certificates to acknowledge their whale protection efforts.

"As a company committed to safety and corporate responsibility worldwide, MSC is pleased to be recognized for our performance in helping protect endangered right whales and marine habitat," said Claudio Bozzo, Chief Operating Officer, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.

"COSCO SHIPPING is committed to doing our part to protect whales and the marine environment. We are gratified by this recognition of our vessels, mariners and crews in delivering on that commitment," said Howard Finkel Vice President, COSCO SHIPPING North America.

To increase mariner awareness and improve the ability of some vessels to comply with whale protection measures, IFAW, NOAA and the app development company Conserve IO have teamed to produce Whale Alert, a free smartphone app. Whale Alert displays right whale management measures for vessel operators on easy to read nautical charts and warns mariners when they enter a management area. Whale Alert also acts as a citizen science tool. Using Whale Alert mariners, recreational boaters and others on shore can report sighting of any whales directly to a database used by scientists.

About IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Founded in 1969, IFAW rescues and protects animals around the world. With projects in more than 40 countries, IFAW rescues individual animals, works to prevent cruelty to animals, and advocates for the protection of wildlife and habitats. For more information, visit www.ifaw.org. Follow us on social @action4ifaw and Facebook/IFAW.

SOURCE International Fund for Animal Welfare

Related Links

http://www.ifaw.org


NEWBURY PARK, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheero USA announced the Sleepion 2, an innovative sleep aid system that uses aromatherapy, soothing light and ambient sounds clinically proven to promote deeper sleep. Years of sleep research paved the way for development of this sleek three-in-one sleeping device that calms the mind, body and spirit.

Sleepion 2 by Cheero USA Take Your Sleepion to Work

There are two types of sleep, REM sleep and non-REM sleep. Deep non-REM sleep is essential for brain maintenance, physical health and emotional well-being. The Sleepion 2 was created to rest the brain enough, at a quicker rate, to reach a deeper level of non-REM sleep.

"We created the Sleepion 2 to help people sleep better at night, and to improve their calm and focus during the day," said Ryo Higashi, CEO of Cheero. "We collaborated with renown sleep researcher Dr. Kagiya to design the Sleepion 2 for both daytime and nighttime use cases."

One of Japan's leading sleep researchers, Dr. Shimizu Kagiya, has been studying improvements to sleep disorders for over 30 years. His deep insights into sensitizations that promote and prevent sleep were instrumental in the creation of Sleepion 2. According to Dr. Kagiya, three key influencers of sleep cycles are aroma, light and sound. The Sleepion 2 specifically addresses all three.

Aroma

Aromatherapy is an essential function of the Sleepion 2 because it calms our senses and promotes an optimal sleep environment.

"We collaborated with fragrance professionals to develop our unique aroma rings exclusively for the Sleepion 2," said Higashi. "They are all made of 100% natural ingredients."

Available in a variety of natural scents, the aroma rings are placed on top of the device and activated by the vibration of the speaker. This is an improvement over the original Sleepion model because it allows for convenient portability so you can take your Sleepion to work and back home.

Light

Characteristics of light include color temperature and luminance. According to Dr. Kagiya, optimal levels for sleep are 2700k in color temperature and 35% in luminance. The Sleepion 2 has a 2,500 kelvin watt lightbulb that simulates the pulsing of a candle and the light of the moon, regulating biological rhythms and inducing a state of deep sleep once an individual falls asleep.

Sound

"Sounds heard while sleeping play a significant role in inducing sleep and its healing effects," said Kagiya. "Studies have shown that sounds closest to what naturally occur in nature have particularly strong healing effects for the brain and body."

The Sleepion 2 is present with 32 different healing sound loops, all original compositions of Kenichi Toki, a leading guru of sleep music. The sounds initiate the fluctuations present in nature, and are specifically designed to promote deep sleep or to calm and focus the awake brain.

The Sleepion 2 is clinically proven to help people who have difficulty sleeping. It promotes a healthier sleep cycle so people can rest deeply, for a full eight hours.

One of the best investments anyone can make is an investment into their own Sleeopion 2, because it is an investment in themselves.

Pre-orders for the Sleepion 2 are available now at a limited time discounted rate. Check out the amazing Sleepion 2, exclusively on Kickstarter to learn more.

Media Contacts:

Andrew Matson David Meacham Media Relations Public Relations Director Cheero USA Ignite Agency [email protected] [email protected]

949-235-8862

SOURCE Cheero USA
NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - SmartCard Marketing Systems, Inc. (OTC: SMKG) is pleased to announce the closing of the 3rd tranche of investment totaling $1m USD from Primeline HK Ltd and owner Chris James Payne. The company is strengthening its focus on being the largest Fintech Accelerator offering to ISV partners globally, creating a portfolio of seamlessly integrated and PCI compliant ready payment solution technologies. The company also recently announced it has been named to the Top 10 Best Retail Mobility Solution Providers by Retail CIO Magazine for 2017.

Massimo Barone CEO stated "We have a great plan and strategic partnership with the Primeline team & Chris. The synergy between companies is creating a fantastic client base and support infrastructure to service customers globally. Our combined effort continues to generate strong interest in the Banking, Telecom & Transit industries seeking EMV-MPOS, EPOS & ISV technology solutions for their merchant portfolios."

About Christopher James Payne Director  Primeline HK Ltd.

Chris is the Director of Primeline HK Ltd where he serves as a Project and Operations Manager holds a B.S. in Marketing from Bentley University and is passionate about his undertakings. Collectively, he and his partners possess years of expertise in banking, payment processing, sales and distribution throughout Asia. Through Primeline HK, Chris aims to deliver a robust mobile payment platform that can be delivered globally to empower its client's merchants with a flexible solution supplemented with abundant value added services.

Alongside Chris's involvement in payment, Chris is also the President of Primeline Products Philippines. Primeline Philippines currently operates through the largest department store and mall chains in the Philippines and is home to 9 brands from various industries. Chris's involvement in Primeline Philippines has provided him experience in sales, brand management, business development, product sourcing, freight forwarding and logistics. Chris is constantly active looking for opportunities to cultivate new relationships to bring added value to projects.

About SmartCard Marketing Systems, Inc. (OTC:SMKG)

SmartCard Marketing Systems Inc. (SMKG:OTC) is a Fintech payment accelerator Co & solutions provider to the payments industry, with cloud-based EMV host Acquiring, Issuing & Processing solutions to Banks, Telecoms and Enterprise. The company offers advisory services & offers proprietary software solutions including Genorocity.com, a coupon and incentive platform for the Retail & Events industry, Check21SAAS.com a Remote Deposit Check solution for X9 clearing, EmphasisPay a gateway for ISV's and VelocityMWallet.com, a transaction payment ecosystem for alternative payment solutions & processing. For more information, go to www.smartcardmarketingsystems.com

We seek safe harbor

SOURCE SmartCard Marketing Systems Inc (SMKG)

Related Links

www.smartcardmarketingsystems.com


BELLEVUE, Wash., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Smartsheet, the world's leading SaaS application for managing and automating collaborative work, today announced the appointment of Gene Farrell as senior vice president of product. Farrell joins Smartsheet from Amazon Web Services (AWS), where he was vice president of enterprise applications. In his new position at Smartsheet, he will provide leadership and technology vision over the product management, product marketing and partner marketing teams for the fast-growing collaborative work management application.

"Gene is a proven business leader with a track record of being on the cutting edge of meaningful technology innovation," said Mark Mader, CEO of Smartsheet. "As we continue to unlock the potential of collaborative work management for the enterprise, Gene will play an important role in planning and executing Smartsheet's long-term product vision."

Farrell's distinguished career includes over two decades of experience creating and leading transformational lines of business within industry leading companies. As SVP of product at Smartsheet, he will bring this experience to the product vision and go-to-market strategy for product releases and enhancements to the company's offerings.

Farrell, a Northwest native, spent 24 years at The Coca Cola Company, where his last role was vice president and general manager of the Coca-Cola Freestyle Business Unit. In that position he founded and led the internal start-up team that created Coca-Cola Freestyle, an award-winning retail technology and one of the largest innovation projects in the history of the company. After moving back to the Seattle-area in 2012, he joined Amazon where he helped fuel the historic growth of AWS, founding and leading teams that built a collection of cloud services.

"Smartsheet is creating what I believe will be the next wave of enterprise productivity tools and I am excited to be part of this mission at such an important time in the growth of the company," Farrell said. "I look forward to leading the team that will continuously innovate to solve customer problems and broaden Smartsheet's impact on the future of work."

Farrell's hire follows a $52.1 million Series F funding round and a period of rapid growth in which Smartsheet's revenue increased by more than 60 percent year-over-year for the past five years.

About Smartsheet

Smartsheet is the world's leading SaaS application for managing and automating collaborative work. Our award-winning solutions deliver value for more than 69,000 brands and millions of information workers across more than 190 countries. Recently named to the Forbes Cloud 100 list of the world's best cloud companies, customers like Netflix, Salesforce, the GSA, Google, and over half of the Fortune 500 use Smartsheet internally, with clients, and partners. Smartsheet is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and, as of June 2017, has more than 560 employees in its Bellevue and Boston offices. To learn more, visit www.Smartsheet.com.

SOURCE Smartsheet

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MIAMI, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Restoring freshwater flow to the Florida Everglades could help snook, one of the state's prized gaming fish, survive extreme climate events.

Researchers have spent the past seven years examining the long-term effects of two unique cold spells that struck South Florida in 2010, including different species' abilities to recover in the Everglades. In the case of the common snook, known to be sensitive to temperature changes, the researchers found location was a key factor in the fish's ability to survive the cold when temperatures dipped into the 30s.

"Our findings were very surprising. If we look at the average temperatures throughout the entire ecosystem during the cold spell, no snook should've survived," said Ross Boucek, a biologist with Bonefish & Tarpon Trust who conducted the study as a Ph.D. student in biological sciences at FIU. "But if you zoom in on temperatures in different habitats, you see certain features allowed a couple of habitats to stay warm enough for a few fish to make it out alive."

While further research is needed, these findings show freshwater flow could help push snook to warmer habitats in the short time they have before water turns lethal when a cold spell strikes. According to Boucek, water temperatures remain constant in deeper habitats. Yet, when freshwater flow is lacking, snook are often concentrated in locations far from these deep water habitats.



Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events. According to Jennifer Rehage, FIU ecologist and scientist with the Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE LTER) Program, if researchers understand what keeps water temperatures warmer, and how and why snook seek refuge in those habitats, managers can understand their vulnerability and manage accordingly.



Snook exposure to cold anomalies and possible lethal effects is governed not only by fish behavior, but by cold water and hot water mixing due to winds, river flow, tides and water depth, according to Tom Torgersen, program director of the NSF's Water Sustainability and Climate Program, which supported the research.



"The effect on snook of any single extreme event should be viewed in terms of the physical conditions in which it happened, as well as the biological processes that affect snook distribution."



FCE LTER Program monitoring networks provided the scientists with long-term data on environmental conditions. The scientists outfitted more than 100 snook with acoustic transmitters, following their movements throughout the Everglades. Housed at FIU, the FCE LTER Program is part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF's) LTER Network.



"Sudden changes in water temperature due to cold snaps may have lethal effects on many economically important species of fish and other marine creatures," said John Schade, program director in the NSF's LTER Network. "The risks to these species are especially high when they are unable to move to more hospitable environments. In a world where extreme climate events are becoming more common, studies like this are critical to our ability to manage fisheries we need to feed growing human populations."



The study was published in Global Change Biology. It was funded by the National Science Foundation with support from the Everglades Foundation.

Media Contact:

Evelyn S. Gonzalez

305-348-4493

[email protected]

news.fiu.edu

@FIUNews

SOURCE Florida International University

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Share your Father's Day greeting on social media with the hashtag #BetterwithJosh. The brand plans to stream these messages on its billboard now through June 25 . Facebook users only need to post to the brand's page @JoshCellars. Instagram and Twitter users will need to make sure their setting is public to submit their tribute. For an even grander statement, you can create a personalized wine bottle label with dad's name and photo, which you can also opt to share on the billboard in Times Square. Visit www.joshcellars.com and click on the Custom Labels tab in the menu, where you can upload a dedicated 90 character note and a photo. You will then receive a free label via mail to affix to any bottle of Josh Cellars. Once your tribute runs in Times Square, Josh Cellars will email you a photo of your message running live, on the big screen. To receive your label by Father's Day , sign up by June 8 for free shipping or June 13 with expedited shipping.

"We think this is a great way for people to recognize dad," said Renato Reyes, Chief Marketing Officer for Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits' Josh Cellars. "There's nothing quite like having your name up in lights in one of the largest and most exciting venues in New York City. We created this platform so that people can publicly show their appreciation for dad."

For Josh Cellars, Father's Day is especially poignant. The brand was created by Joseph Carr in honor of his late father, Josh, a volunteer firefighter who also served in the United States Army. This year, Josh Cellars wants to provide an opportunity for consumers to publicly share a meaningful gift with dad and celebrate what makes their relationship so special.

"The relationship I had with my father is one that I've treasured my entire life," said Josh Cellars founder, Joseph Carr. "I've had the honor of paying tribute to his legacy through the success of Josh Cellars. I'm proud to share this gift with America."

About Josh Cellars

Josh Cellars offers bold, complex and approachable wines for drinking with family and friends. Sourced from vineyards across California, Josh Cellars offers seven varietals: Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Rose and a red blend, "Legacy." Josh Cellars wines are available at retailers nationwide. www.joshcellars.com

About Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits

Initially called W.J. Deutsch & Sons, Ltd., the company was founded in 1981 by Chairman Bill Deutsch to market quality wines produced by prestigious families from major wine regions of the world. In 2009, it announced the expansion of the award-winning company to include a Spirits Portfolio. Today the company is renowned for its brand-building prowess and its ability to meet the needs of the modern consumer. Bill's son Peter Deutsch is CEO; thus two generations of the Deutsch family work side by side in their continuous quest to build strong brands and relationships throughout the wine and spirits industry.

The portfolio includes award-winning wines from Australia: [ yellow tail ], [ yellow tail ] Bubbles; California: Eppa SupraFruta Sangria, Girard, Joseph Carr, Josh Cellars, Josh Cellars Reserve, Kunde Family Estate, The Calling; France: Andre Lurton, Cave de Lugny, Fleurs de Prairie, Hob Nob, Sauvion; Italy: Barone Fini, Villa Pozzi; New Zealand: The Crossings; Portugal: Quinta Do Vale Meao; Spain: Mar De Frades, Cruz de Alba, Ramon Bilbao Vinos Y Vinedo; Argentina: Ruta 22; and award-winning spirits from LUKSUSOWA Vodka (Poland), VILLA MASSA Limoncello (Italy), LICOR 43 (Spain) and REDEMPTION Whiskey (U.S.A.). www.deutschfamily.com

CONTACT:

Alyssa Ciambriello

Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits/Lippe Taylor

212.473.7236

[email protected]

SOURCE Josh Cellars

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HOUSTON, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE:SWN) today announced that R. Craig Owen, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, has elected to leave Southwestern Energy to accept a new career opportunity with an energy company that does not compete with Southwestern Energy. Mr. Owen will remain in his position and continue to support the Company through late June to assist with a smooth transition. Southwestern Energy is engaging in a search to identify a permanent Chief Financial Officer.

Jennifer Stewart, the Company's Senior Vice President, Tax and Treasury, will fulfill the duties of Chief Financial Officer on an interim basis. Ms. Stewart has been with Southwestern Energy since 2010, and previously served as Vice President, Tax. In her current role, she is responsible for all strategies, operations and policies related to cash management, banking relationships and liability and risk management, along with financial planning and analysis. She also manages all aspects of taxation and tax planning for the Company. She is an attorney licensed with the State Bar of Texas and has been admitted to the Bar of the U.S. Tax Court. Prior to joining Southwestern Energy, Ms. Stewart practiced law at Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP and Shell Oil Company, and spent 10 years in Ernst & Young's national tax practice.

Bill Way, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are pleased that Jennifer has agreed to serve as CFO on an interim basis to ensure continuity and a seamless transition. Jennifer is a seasoned executive who knows our company well, and I am confident that she will assume these responsibilities with the same commitment, capability and expertise she has demonstrated in her seven years at Southwestern Energy. It is a testament to the strength of our organization to have someone of her caliber step into this role. I look forward to working with her and the rest of our Executive Leadership Team as we continue to build on our momentum and leverage our improving financial strength to deliver additional value to our shareholders."

"On behalf of the Southwestern Energy Board of Directors and Executive Leadership Team, I want to thank Craig for his significant contributions to the Company," Mr. Way continued. "In his nearly nine years with Southwestern Energy in which he served as Controller, Chief Accounting Officer and then as CFO since 2012, Craig worked closely with Jennifer, playing a leading role in our liability management efforts, capital market transactions and other key transactions that helped strengthen our balance sheet and drive growth. We are in a much stronger financial position, which has enabled us to soundly manage through the challenging commodity environment and positioned us to capitalize on future opportunities."

"It has been a true privilege working alongside all of my colleagues at Southwestern Energy, which has an energizing, innovation-driven culture," said Mr. Owen. "I firmly believe Jennifer is the right person to step in as CFO on an interim basis, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with her over the coming weeks. While I'm moving on to the next chapter of my career to pursue a unique opportunity, I remain a shareholder and am confident about the value that is being created from the Company's assets when combined with the leadership team and the highly-talented staff."

About Southwestern Energy

Southwestern Energy Company is an independent energy company whose wholly owned subsidiaries are engaged in natural gas and oil exploration, development and production, natural gas gathering and marketing. Additional information on the company can be found on the Internet at http://www.swn.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements relate to future events and anticipated results of operations, business strategies, and other aspects of our operations or operating results. In many cases you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "project," "estimate," "continue," "potential," "should," "could," "may," "will," "objective," "guidance," "outlook," "effort," "expect," "believe," "predict," "budget," "projection," "goal," "forecast," "target" or similar words. Statements may be forward looking even in the absence of these particular words. Where, in any forward-looking statement, the Company expresses an expectation or belief as to future results, such expectation or belief is expressed in good faith and believed to have a reasonable basis. However, there can be no assurance that such expectation or belief will result or be achieved. The actual results of operations can and will be affected by a variety of risks and other matters including, but not limited to, changes in commodity prices; changes in expected levels of natural gas and oil reserves or production; operating hazards, drilling risks, unsuccessful exploratory activities; limited access to capital or significantly higher cost of capital related to illiquidity or uncertainty in the domestic or international financial markets; international monetary conditions; unexpected cost increases; potential liability for remedial actions under existing or future environmental regulations; potential liability resulting from pending or future litigation; and general domestic and international economic and political conditions; as well as changes in tax, environmental and other laws applicable to our business. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include other economic, business, competitive and/or regulatory factors affecting our business generally as set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Unless legally required, Southwestern Energy Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Southwestern Energy Company

Related Links

http://www.swn.com


URBANDALE, Iowa, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) today announced that former Chief Executive Officer Cristopher Grunewald has agreed to return 1,618,627 shares of common stock to the Company treasury. The shares being returned are in addition to the prior return by Mr. Grunewald of 1,000,000 shares of common stock to the Company treasury in the first quarter of 2017. Concurrent with the May 2017 stock surrender agreement, Mr. Grunewald entered into a consulting agreement which provided for Mr. Grunewald to be engaged as a consultant to the Company for two years and to receive a warrant to purchase up to 500,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $1.25 per share for a term of three years.

"Mr. Grunewald continues to show his strong support for the Company. His share returns reduce the number of outstanding shares of the Company which increases the percentage of ownership for all shareholders, and his acceptance of the warrant with an exercise price above the current market price is a clear illustration of his belief in the positive long-term prospects of the Company," said John Krohn, Spotlight Innovation's President and Chief Executive Officer.

Said Mr. Grunewald, "I believe these share returns are in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders, and I have every confidence in the Company's corporate leadership and life science professionals."

About Spotlight Innovation Inc.

Spotlight Innovation Inc. (OTCQB: STLT) identifies and acquires rights to innovative, proprietary technologies designed to address unmet medical needs, with an emphasis on rare, emerging and neglected diseases. To find and evaluate unique opportunities, we leverage our extensive relationships with leading scientists, academic institutions and other sources. We provide value-added development capability to accelerate development progress. When scientifically significant benchmarks have been achieved, we will endeavor to partner with proven market leaders via sale, out-license or strategic alliance. For more information, visit www.spotlightinnovation.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/spotlightinno.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include statements regarding Spotlight Innovation's efforts to develop and commercialize its various technologies, and to achieve its stated benchmarks. Actual outcomes and actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include risks and uncertainties, such as: the inability to finance the planned development of the technologies; the inability to hire appropriate staff to develop the technologies; unforeseen technical difficulties in developing the technologies; the inability to obtain regulatory approval for human use; competitors' therapies proving to be more effective, cheaper or otherwise more preferable; or, the inability to market a product. All of which could, among other things, delay or prevent product release, as well as other factors expressed from time to time in Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, this press release should be read in conjunction with Spotlight Innovation's periodic filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained herein are made only as of the date of this press release and Spotlight Innovation undertakes no obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

SOURCE Spotlight Innovation Inc.

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NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In pursuit of its mission to pave the way for more women to lead at all levels of marketing and media, She Runs It routinely celebrates women and men who serve as role models for the industry, including an annual salute to one leader who best embodies the fearless spirit of the organization: Woman of the Year. Marisa Thalberg, CMO of Taco Bell, is the 2017 recipient of the award.

According to Lynn Branigan, President and CEO of She Runs It, Thalberg stood out as an inventive leader of a brand that thrives on its own unique expression.

"Marisa is described as an 'intrapreneur' and agent of change who is driven by a fascination with culture, media and psychology," said Branigan. "She doesn't shy away from the irreverence of Taco Bell's personality. Instead, she amplifies it by inspiring her team and agencies to think about an established brand in unexpected ways, creating cultural topspin moments. She is also a tireless mentor and champion of women who founded Executive Moms in 2002 as a source of networking, content and community for women who want to excel as professionals and mothers."

Thalberg has presided over Taco Bell marketing experiences that include Snapchat lenses, emojis and animated Twitter responses. Her team made Taco Bell a destination wedding venue in Vegas and fueled the invention of the Quesalupa  the wildly successful quesadilla/chalupa mash, infusing new spice into a cult-status QSR.

"I am humbled and inspired by this award from She Runs It," said Thalberg. "When you are recognized by an organization that exists to 'pave the way for more women to lead,' it is as much a responsibility as it is an honor. Only 23 percent of the nation's top CMOs are women, and if I can help pave the way for that number to get closer to 50 percent, I would be supremely gratified by that."

Thalberg started her career as an account executive at Saatchi & Saatchi, moved to J. Walter Thompson before taking leadership roles at Revlon, Unilever Cosmetics International and Sure Fit before joining The Estee Lauder Companies in 2007. There, she became the first senior digital marketer at The Estee Lauder Companies, establishing a global digital and social marketing capability across its nearly 30 brands to modernize consumer engagement. She joined Taco Bell in 2015 as its first Chief Engagement Officer, and was elevated to CMO eight months later.

About She Runs It

Founded in 1912 as Advertising Women of New York (formerly AWNY), She Runs It exists to pave the way for women to lead at every level of marketing and media. With chapters in New York and Chicago, membership stands at over 2,300 women, men and corporate alliance partners. To learn more about She Runs It, visit Sherunsit.org.

For more information:

Cheri Carpenter

312.446.9276

[email protected]

SOURCE She Runs It

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DALLAS, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TeamSupport, a top B2B help desk and customer support software solutions company, today announced the launch of a new feature that makes it easy to post TeamSupport messages on Slack. With about five million daily users, Slack is the most popular team communication tool in the technology sector. TeamSupport's integration with Slack makes it simple for Slack users who rely on TeamSupport to keep track of all their work communication on a single platform.

Slack helps users organize work conversation groups into team channels and integrates productivity apps like Google Drive, making Slack a popular workplace collaboration tool. And that's why it makes sense for TeamSupport, a customer support solution that prioritizes collaboration, to integrate with Slack.

"We're always looking for ways to improve our customers' efficiency and workflow," said Robert C. Johnson, CEO of TeamSupport. "Slack is a natural integration for us because it's the #1 team communication tool in the technology space today, and TeamSupport of course has always been a collaborative support system. By integrating TeamSupport and Slack, support teams can share pertinent information faster and more efficiently."

With the new Slack integration feature, TeamSupport customers who use Slack can easily set up and configure an automated TeamSupport feed to any Slack channel, ensuring that their TeamSupport activities are stored on Slack. A "Post to Slack" option appears in the Ticket Automation function in TeamSupport to facilitate seamless data transfer. That way, Slack users can be notified in real-time when specified criteria are met, without having to leave the platform. This is very useful for example when an urgent ticket comes in, to alert the team if a ticket has gone stale, or even when a positive or negative agent rating is received.

"Now support agents can use the top communication tool together with the industry's best help desk and customer support software," Johnson observed. "With TeamSupport's Slack integration, the workflow between the two solutions is simple and intuitive, making teamwork a breeze."

Designed by B2B support professionals especially for organizations that provide external customer support, TeamSupport offers an array of tools that make it easy for teams to work together, share information, and access their collective knowledge to solve customer challenges. TeamSupport's solution makes it simpler for support agents to resolve individual tickets while managing the overall customer relationship. Find out more at www.teamsupport.com.

About TeamSupport

TeamSupport, based in Dallas, Texas, is an online help desk and customer support application built specifically for business to business support. Built by a team of veteran software company executives, TeamSupport has won many industry awards, including recently being ranked to CRM Magazine's elite list of 2014 Rising Stars recognizing the industry's most innovative and growing CRM-related software solutions. Learn more about why TeamSupport is one of the best help desk software solutions today and the trusted customer support software provider to prominent business clients worldwide by visiting www.TeamSupport.com.

SOURCE TeamSupport

Related Links

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NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile telephone networks are in transition. Network architecture must manage high data-traffic growth rates, and support new 4G services and the increased demand for broadband and Internet access. In the developed countries a high level of coverage has been achieved but capacity is inadequate as data traffic escalates beyond all expectations. In the developing countries both coverage and capacity are wanting. Macro base stations with towers cover large cells and long distances but they fail to reach effectively inside buildings, where 70-80% of mobile broadband traffic is generated. A new network concept has been launched - the HetNet, which combines large and small cell sites and different radio technologies like cellular and Wi-Fi. The first commercial HetNets are being rolled out. HetNets are the networks of the future with macro-micro coordination to improve Quality of Service. This report quantifies the macro infrastructure of today, of base stations, ground based and rooftop towers and poles, forecasts growth and $ value to 2020 in every country, with analysis of ownership and market shares of tower vendors. The report outlines tomorrow's new infrastructure, the HetNet, the macro-micro network.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04938580/Telecom-Network-Report-Ed4.html



It outlines the technologies of macro and of micro cells and base stations, estimates current penetration and projects demand. We are in the first stage of a new wave of technology for mobile telephones - the HetNet. Network technology is evolving rapidly to meet exponential new demands. The focus is shifting from coverage to capacity, driven by the rise in data traffic. The answer is the HetNet/Heterogeneous network. Past networks were based almost entirely on macro cellular base stations mounted on towers, rooftops and poles. They were designed for volumes of voice mail which were small by today's standards. Data traffic has grown exponentially and is set to escalate by leaps and bounds, driven by the Internet, videos, and a plethora of 3G and 4G mobile devices. The HetNet is providing the solution; a network which combines all types of base station, each designed for a different purpose; macros on towers and rooftops, micro, metro, pico, DAS and Wi-Fi both inside buildings and outside. These issues are discussed and analysed in this report. To cope with the exponential growth in data traffic the networks must develop more granular delivery by densifying. The costs are enormous and virtualisation has become the latest technology i network software. We have constructed a database of macro base stations for every country, starting from the launch of mobile services in the 1980s. In an electricity network replacement happens when equipment is past its design life and risks failure, and the replacement may also be an up-grade.



In a mobile network this is not the case. From 1G to 2G, 3G and 4G and LTE the technology of the networks must be up-dated to new generations of technology at more frequent intervals. A regional analysis of GBTs (ground based towers) and RTTs (rooftop towers) is provided. The total market is surveyed, macro and micro. Forecasts of base station capex, analysed by macro site additions, macro site upgrades and replacements, and new small cell sites with annual expenditure from 2015 to 2020. Total mobile traffic is analysed by cell site types: macro cell, in-building small cell, outdoor small cell, Wi-Fi hotspots, residential femtocell, DAS/RRH. The populations of GBTs and RTTs are analysed by region. The market for construction of new macro base stations (BTS), ground-based, rooftop and street poles, upgrades and replacement of aged assets is estimated and forecast in nominal $ from 2015 to 2020, for the world, for regions and is analysed by 213 countries. Market commentary is provide by regions and major countries. The steady growth of the macro cellular infrastructure does not fully reflect the real rate of expansion of the networks. With mobile data traffic expected to double annually, small cell base stations are set to play an important role in expanding the capacity of wireless networks. Small cells provide flexibility and increased QoS capabilities. Past development of small cells is analysed to help predict the future path. Shipments are analysed in units by cell type. The cost components of a small cell installation are analysed.



Global expenditure on installing small cells with related costs and backhaul is estimated for 2015 and projected annually to 2020 for regions and 33 countries. Capex is analysed by residential/non-residential and by cell type. Tower sharing allows operators to cut down on capital expenditure. Infrastructure cost for operators is estimated to decline by 16% to 20%. Running and maintenance of tower infrastructure, form a significant portion of operator Opex. Divesting responsibility for infrastructure unlocks value. Site and/or tower sharing is the most common form of network sharing, but full network sharing is gaining traction. The various forms of infrastructure sharing are outlined and the towerco market is analysed by country. A breakdown of tower construction cost by component is given. Infrastructure and network sharing, either between operators or via independent tower owners, is growing rapidly but has a distinct regional pattern. MNOs share assets with jointly-owned infracos in Europe, Japan and many other regions. Independent towercos started in the United States and are also prevalent in India, in China since 2015, in Southeast Asia and are making headway rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa. The incidence of sharing is given by regions and major countries with total numbers of macro towers and the numbers owned by towercos. Detailed market profiles are given for regions and leading countries. Energy accounts for 30% of the network operating costs of an MNO. 90% of sites have diesel base generators where towers are off-grid or as standby to grid supply when grid-connected. For cost and environmental reasons there is a growing trend towards renewables systems, mainly solar PV or hybrid systems of solar PV and wind power. To cope with the exponential growth in data traffic the networks must develop more granular delivery by densifying. The costs are enormous and to cope with this virtualisation has become the latest technology in network software. Tis si discussed and analysed in detail.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04938580/Telecom-Network-Report-Ed4.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com



__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

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DETROIT, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Word Network, the leading and most popular African American religious network in the world, told the FCC that Comcast violated its obligations codified in the FCC's Order approving the merger between Comcast-NBC Universal when it unilaterally removed The Word Network from nearly 7 million homes in January.

The FCC's Order prohibits Comcast from discriminating against networks such as The Word Network based on affiliation or non-affiliation with Comcast. At the same time as Comcast decreased distribution for The Word Network  the leading network in its category  it has given networks Comcast owns better distribution and financial terms even for Comcast's poorly performing networks. This is not the first time Comcast has flaunted its commitments in the Comcast-NBC Universal merger.

In addition, denying millions of African Americans access to religious programming on which they rely belies Comcast's public commitments to diversity, which it very publicly promoted at the time it was seeking approval of the merger with NBC Universal.

The Word Network is confident that the Commission will see through Comcast's transparent actions to promote the NBC Universal networks they now own, while making harmful and discriminatory actions against minority networks such as The Word Network.

In the complaint to the FCC, The Word Network tells the Commission: "Comcast's treatment of [the independent, unaffiliated Word Network] is precisely the behavior about which the Commission was concerned during its review of the Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal."

MEDIA CONTACT, MORT MEISNER ASSOCIATES,

MORT MEISNER, 248-545-2222

SOURCE The Word Network
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vectra Networks, the leader in automating the hunt for in-progress cyber attacks, today announced the company will be participating in two sessions at the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit 2017 on using artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically detect cyberattacks. Vectra will also be exhibiting at booth #809 at the Summit, taking place June 12-17 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

Beau Canada, vice president of information security of Ticketmaster, will present during the Vectra Solution Provider Session, "Ticketmaster Uses AI to Automate Threat Hunting," on June 14 at 10:45 a.m., Eastern Time in the Potomac C room. Attendees will hear Ticketmaster's experiences with the Vectra cybersecurity platform and see a demonstration showing how it automates the hunt for in-progress cyberattacks. They will also learn how AI helps secure transactions with more than 400 million fans and protects the brand identity of performers in more than 20 countries.

Chris Morales, head of security analytics at Vectra Networks, will deliver a session titled, "Use AI to Detect Cyberattacks in Hybrid Cloud Environments" taking place Tuesday, June 13, 2017 at 1:55 p.m., Eastern Time in the Showcase Theater A, Prince George's Hall D. Attendees will learn how artificial intelligence can detect hidden attacker behaviors in hybrid and public clouds. They will also see how AI performs non-stop automated threat hunting, triage and correlation of traffic between workloads to accelerate incident response.

"Vectra enables enterprises to reduce attacker dwell time and shorten incident response from hours to minutes," said Morales. "Our AI solution performs non-stop automated threat hunting and puts the most relevant context of an attack at the fingertips of security analysts so they can take quick action. Being among the premier security conferences, the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit is a perfect venue to demonstrate the deep capabilities."

Attendees can see a demonstration of the Vectra cybersecurity platform at booth #809. For more information, to speak with Vectra executives onsite or to make an appointment for a demonstration, please contact [email protected].

About the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit

The premier gathering of security, risk management, and business continuity management leaders, the Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit delivers the insight organizations need to secure a digital business future. The comprehensive agenda addresses the latest threats, flexible new security architectures, governance strategies, the chief information security officer role, and more. The summit offers a unique opportunity to reinvent security and risk for the digital age, based on Gartner's trusted independent research and practical recommendations.

About Vectra Networks

Vectra Networks is the leader in real-time detection of in-progress cyber attacks. The company's advanced threat-detection solution continuously monitors internal network traffic to pinpoint cyber attacks as they happen. It then automatically correlates threats against hosts that are under attack and provides unique context about what attackers are doing so organizations can quickly prevent or mitigate loss. Vectra prioritizes attacks that pose the greatest business risk, enabling organizations to make rapid decisions on where to focus time and resources. In 2015, Gartner named Vectra a Cool Vendor in Security Intelligence for addressing the challenges of post-breach threat detection. Vectra's investors include Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, IA Ventures and AME Cloud Ventures. The company's headquarters are in San Jose, Calif. More information can be found at www.vectranetworks.com.

Media Contact:

LEWIS Global Communications

781-418-2400

[email protected]

SOURCE Vectra Networks

Related Links

http://www.vectranetworks.com


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Reuters, the world's largest international multimedia news provider, today announced the findings of the Tomorrow's News 2017 survey, which show that  in the year the media became the headline  while fake news can be damaging for both news brands and advertisers, brands which advertise on trusted news sites can benefit.

Tomorrow's News 2017, a global survey conducted in April and May 2017 among 1,711 Reuters.com users, found that advertising on trusted news sites can help build awareness, influence perception and ultimately create a positive response to advertising.

This is the second year that Reuters has conducted the Tomorrow's News survey and the findings show that news consumers are becoming increasingly savvy and more wary of sensationalism, and they are more likely to fact check their news with other providers.

The survey findings include:

83% tend to trust well-known news brands and always check the accuracy of shared news from other sources (up 6% on 2016).

Trustworthy content is the number one factor that makes online news brands appealing (57% agreed).

87% agree that it is damaging for a brand to advertise on a news site associated with a fake news story.

54% believe they are more likely to notice an advertiser if it appears on a trusted news site.

57% agree that they have a more favourable opinion of a brand if it advertises on a trusted news site (rising to 60% among those in director level positions).

54% believe they are more likely to respond to an advert if it appears on a trusted news site.

74% strongly agree they often turn to news brands they trust to verify the source of a breaking story (up 8% on 2016).

The findings will be debated at panel discussions in New York and London on June 8th and 14th, where industry experts will discuss the changing news landscape portrayed by the survey findings and what the future holds for the media industry. Panellists at the events are set out below:

New York, June 8th (Moderated by Axel Threlfall, Reuters Editor-at-Large)

Edward Roussel  Chief Innovation Officer, The Wall Street Journal & Dow Jones

 Chief Innovation Officer, The Wall Street Journal & Dow Jones Brian Braiker  Editor of Advertising Age

 Editor of Advertising Age Cory Haik  Publisher of Mic

 Publisher of Mic Christopher Graves  President of Ogilvy Center for Behavioral Science.

London, June 14th (Moderated by John Pullman, Reuters Global Head of Video and Pictures)

Ben de Pear  Editor of Channel 4 News

 Editor of Channel 4 News Madhav Chinnappa  Director of Strategic Relations for News and Publishers at Google

 Director of Strategic Relations for News and Publishers at Google Maisie McCabe  Deputy Editor of Campaign

 Deputy Editor of Campaign Nic Newman  Research Associate at Reuters Institute.

During the event, Reuters will also be unveiling Reuters Plus, it's award-winning full-service custom content studio that builds on 165 years of Reuters expertise and news infrastructure to deliver world-class content to brands and agencies.

Both events will start at 6.30pm, with the panel discussion at 7pm and a drinks reception from 8pm.

Follow the event on Twitter using the hashag #tomorrowsnews

Reuters

Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters, is the world's largest international multimedia news provider reaching more than one billion people every day. Reuters provides trusted business, financial, national and international news to professionals via Thomson Reuters desktops, the world's media organizations and directly to consumers at Reuters.com and via Reuters TV. Follow news about Reuters at @ReutersPR.

CONTACT

Heather Carpenter

PR Manager, Head of Special Projects

Reuters

[email protected]

646-223-8551

SOURCE Reuters
"We are thrilled to welcome TradeGecko to the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program," commented Jamie Sutton, Head of Technology Partnerships, Shopify Plus. "This program recognizes the best-in-class solutions that, together with Shopify Plus, further enables the rapid growth and innovation possibilities of today's modern merchant."

With TradeGecko, Shopify Plus merchants will be able to manage products, orders, and customers across multiple sales channels, locations, and currencies in one place. TradeGecko also integrates seamlessly with other best-in-class software like Xero and QuickBooks Online for accounting, and ShipStation for fulfillment.

"My TradeGecko to Shopify integration has been game changing to my business. It allows me to manage inventory levels at all my stores from one dashboard." Shaper Studios

Shopify Plus merchants can access detailed business intelligence and customer insights to track business performance on TradeGecko. These range from sales order reports that enable merchants to track their products and customers by revenue and profit, to inventory reports that show all products below the reorder point.

For Shopify Plus merchants who sell wholesale, TradeGecko also offers every B2B business the perfect platform to start wholesaling online through the fully customizable B2B eCommerce Store. Merchants can create unique catalogs and pricelists for every customer and send invoices through TradeGecko Payments that come with a "Pay Invoice" function to facilitate a faster payment experience. The TradeGecko Mobile app provides business owners with an overall view of business data, while enabling them to manage orders, monitor inventory, and contact customers on the go.

"We're excited to be recognized as global leaders in the inventory management space by Shopify Plus," said Cameron Vernest, Director of Strategic Partnerships at TradeGecko. "We look forward to empowering Shopify Plus merchants to build the business of their dreams by bringing simplicity, efficiency, and control to the complex world of inventory."

About TradeGecko

TradeGecko is a cloud-based inventory management platform and B2B eCommerce store for small and medium sized wholesale, distributor and eCommerce businesses. TradeGecko was founded in 2012 by three entrepreneurs from New Zealand, brothers Cameron and Bradley Priest along with Carl Thompson. The founders saw an opportunity in Southeast Asia so moved to Singapore to be incubated by the premier technology accelerator, JFDI. TradeGecko's adoption grew rapidly amongst online retailers and wholesalers which is now serving a global customer base in over 100 countries from their offices in Singapore, Toronto and the Philippines. For more information, please visit:

www.tradegecko.com

www.tradegecko.com/shopify-plus



www.tradegecko.com/landing-page/tradegecko-partners-shopify



Media Contact:

Cameron Vernest

Director, Strategic Partnerships

TradeGecko Pte. Ltd.

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +1 519 502 9034

https://www.tradegecko.com/press-kit

SOURCE TradeGecko

Related Links

http://www.tradegecko.com


ATLANTA, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Triad Advisors, Inc., the hybrid advisor-focused independent broker-dealer, today announced that respected industry executive Bernie Breton has joined the company as Chief Compliance Officer. Mr. Breton's extensive knowledge and experience in the compliance space are expected to further strengthen Triad's ability to guide its advisors through the current environment of regulatory uncertainty, positioning them to thrive as clients' and regulators' expectations for transparency and alignment between advisors' and clients' interests continue to grow. Mr. Breton joined the company effective May 1, reporting directly to President and CEO Jeff Rosenthal.

Mr. Breton has amassed a strong track record of leadership and compliance expertise during his nearly 30-year career in the financial services industry, and brings a wealth of knowledge to his new role. Prior to joining Triad, he served as Chief Compliance Officer at Cetera Advisors, where he was responsible for overseeing the broker-dealer compliance program. Prior to his time at Cetera, he was Chief Compliance Officer for Carillon Investments for six years. Over the course of his career, he has also held executive positions with the NASD, AXA / The Equitable-Equico Securities and MetLife.

Jeff Rosenthal, President and CEO of Triad Advisors, said, "We are pleased to announce Bernie Breton has joined the Triad Advisors team as our new Chief Compliance Officer. As we move into the new fiduciary era, it is more important than ever to provide our advisors with the leadership and expert guidance they need to achieve full compliance with laws and regulations while continuing to grow their businesses and serve clients to the best of their abilities. Bernie understands the strategic importance of the compliance function at Triad Advisors, and brings an unmatched level of expertise, judgment and experience to our leadership team. We look forward to all we will accomplish with Bernie on our team."

Mr. Breton holds an MBA with a Concentration in Finance from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he also received his BS in Economics. He is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) and holds his Series 7, 24, 63 and 65 securities registrations. The move to Atlanta from Denver, CO enables Mr. Breton and his wife to be closer to family, including his daughter and granddaughter.

Bernie Breton said, "I am excited to join Triad Advisors as Chief Compliance Officer. Triad has established itself as a leader in supporting hybrid advisors, and I am very pleased to be part of their dynamic growth trajectory going forward. As clients and regulators continue to expand their focus on transparent guidance that truly serves investors' best interests, strong compliance capabilities will become more mission-critical than ever before for firms throughout the independent financial advice industry. I look forward to working with the Triad team to ensure Triad's advisors have the compliance support they need to continue to build their businesses with confidence."

About Triad Advisors

Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, Triad Advisors, Inc. is a national, independent broker-dealer and multi-custodial SEC-Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) that is an early pioneer and continued leader in the Hybrid RIA marketplace. The company provides a comprehensive platform of products, trading and technology systems, as well as customized wealth management solutions. Recognized as one of the most successful and fastest-growing independent broker-dealers in the industry (including being named the leading broker-dealer for Hybrid RIAs seven years in a row by Investment Advisor Magazine), Triad Advisors is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc. (NYSE MKT: LTS). For more information, please visit www.triad-advisors.com.

Media Contact:

Chris Clemens / Matthew Griffes

Haven Tower Group LLC

424 652 6520 ext. 102 / 424 652 6520 ext. 103

[email protected] or [email protected]

SOURCE Triad Advisors, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.triad-advisors.com


Geekologie has shut down.

Thank you to everybody.

Now go be happy.
NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- United States Telecom outlook report is a comprehensive analytical research on the United States's cellular, fixed telephone and fixed broadband segments.



Through detailed analysis of the current market conditions and industry trends, the report analyzes the United States telecommunications sector.



Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04890597/United-States-Telecommunications-Strategic-Analysis-and-Outlook-to-Analysis-of-United-States-Mobile-Fixed-Telephone-and-Broadband-Markets.html



In addition to emerging industry trends, consumption patterns, geographic coverage, demographic analysis and tariffs of key players are provided to understand the key strategies and analysis of revenues, investments and infrastructure. Further, industry dynamics, SWOT Analysis of the market and changing business scenario of United States telecommunications industry is included.



Forecasts of users in mobile segment, landline segment and broadband segment are provided from 2005 to 2025. Further, demographic and economic factors including GDP, population (by age, by gender and by location) and disposable income are forecasted to 2025.



United States mobile, landline and broadband industry is benchmarked with peer countries to evaluate its position in regional front. Further, recent United States telecom industry trends along with drivers and challenges confronting United States telecom markets are analyzed.



On the competitive landscape, key players in each of the segment are detailed. Further, company profiles of three leading players along with their SWOT analyses are included. In addition, foreign and domestic participation in the industry is also included. Further, latest developments and their impact on players in the United States telecommunications industry are also provided.

Read the full report: http://www.reportlinker.com/p04890597/United-States-Telecommunications-Strategic-Analysis-and-Outlook-to-Analysis-of-United-States-Mobile-Fixed-Telephone-and-Broadband-Markets.html



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



http://www.reportlinker.com

__________________________

Contact Clare: [email protected]

US: (339)-368-6001

Intl: +1 339-368-6001

SOURCE Reportlinker

Related Links

http://www.reportlinker.com


CHICAGO, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Impact Forecasting, Aon Benfield's catastrophe model development team, today launches the latest edition of its monthly Global Catastrophe Recap report, which evaluates the impact of the natural disaster events that occurred worldwide during May 2017. Aon Benfield is the global reinsurance intermediary and capital advisor of Aon plc (NYSE:AON).

The report reveals that several major outbreaks of severe weather swept across central and eastern sections of the United States during the month, causing extensive damage through large hail, straight-line winds, tornadoes and isolated flash flooding.

The most prolific event occurred in the greater Denver, Colorado metro region, where damage from up to softball-sized hail led to insurance payouts of more than USD1.4 billion in the state alone. Significant damage from severe storms was also cited in parts of the Plains, Midwest, Southeast, and the Mid-Atlantic.

Total aggregated economic losses from US severe weather in May was set to exceed USD4.0 billion, while public and private insurers faced a combined payout approaching USD3.0 billion. These totals were subject to change as further assessments were conducted.

Meanwhile, the combination of the arrival of the southwest monsoon and a developing tropical cyclone led to significant rainfall across Sri Lanka, killing at least 213 people, with another 77 people listed as missing and presumed dead. Nearly 150 others were injured.

Flooding and landslides affected 15 of the country's 25 districts and left more than 22,200 homes damaged or destroyed. Thousands of other structures (including hospitals, schools and religious facilities) were inundated. Total economic losses were preliminarily estimated at USD197 million.

Claire Darbinyan, Impact Forecasting Associate Director and Meteorologist said: "With the onset of the annual monsoon season for many Asian nations, the events seen in the month of May provided a potential precursor to some of the impacts typically experienced in the region during the months of June, July, and August. The early monsoon rains were enhanced over Sri Lanka causing significant property damage and loss of life. As catastrophe models become more prevalent in Asia, the re/insurance industry is better able to provide a clearer understanding of the risks that the flood peril increasingly poses in the region. The opportunity exists for the industry to engage with governments, communities and businesses to share their expertise to help mitigate the effects of such natural disasters."

Other natural hazard events to have occurred elsewhere during May include:

Cyclone Mora made landfall in Bangladesh , prompting widespread flood and wind damage. Affects were later felt in Myanmar . At least nine people were killed and a combined 50,000 homes and other structures were damaged. Overall aggregated losses were expected to exceed USD100 million .

, prompting widespread flood and wind damage. Affects were later felt in . At least nine people were killed and a combined 50,000 homes and other structures were damaged. Overall aggregated losses were expected to exceed . Powerful thunderstorms led to widespread hail and wind damage in parts of Canada , Russia , China , and Bangladesh . Total combined economic losses were well beyond USD100 million .

, , , and . Total combined economic losses were well beyond . In Canada , separate bouts of excessive rainfall led to major flooding events in Ontario , Quebec , the Canadian Maritimes and British Columbia , killing at least four people and damaging more than 5,200 homes.

, separate bouts of excessive rainfall led to major flooding events in , , the Canadian Maritimes and , killing at least four people and damaging more than 5,200 homes. Major flood events affected Brazil , Kenya , Tanzania , and Indonesia .

, , , and . Multiple regions of the globe dealt with worsening drought conditions. In China , the northern provincial areas of Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Liaoning cited agricultural losses of at least USD122 million . The ongoing drought in South Africa saw costs likely to exceed USD100 million .

, the northern provincial areas of Inner Mongolia, and cited agricultural losses of at least . The ongoing drought in saw costs likely to exceed . Cyclone Donna became the strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere during the month of May. The storm tracked through the South Pacific Islands and caused extensive damage in parts of the Vanuatu island chain, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands .

island chain, and the . Separate moderate earthquake events struck Iran (magnitude-5.8) and China (magnitude-5.4), killing 11 people and injuring hundreds more. Thousands of homes collapsed.

To view the full Impact Forecasting May 2017 Global Catastrophe Recap report, please follow the link:

http://aon.io/2sh7Co4

Along with the report, users can access current and historical natural catastrophe data and event analysis on Impact Forecasting's Catastrophe Insight website, which is updated bi-monthly as new data become available:

www.aonbenfield.com/catastropheinsight

Sign up for Impact Forecasting Revealed in Zurich and London to explore the latest developments in catastrophe management.

Further information

For further information please contact the Aon Benfield PR team: Andrew Wragg (+44 207 522 8183 / 07595 217168) David Bogg or Alexandra Lewis

Follow Aon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aon_plc

For information on Aon plc. and to sign-up for news alerts: http://aon.mediaroom.com

SOURCE Aon plc

Related Links

http://www.aon.com


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- A record number of hiring managers in the U.S. anticipate more hiring in the next six months, according to the semi-annual hiring survey from DHI Group, Inc. (NYSE: DHX), a leading online career resource and talent acquisition platform for technology professionals and other select professional communities. The expected rise in hiring comes at a time when unemployment is low and demand for skilled professionals is high, driving competition in the recruitment market amongst employers.

Today, 65 percent of hiring managers expect more hiring, three percentage points above June last year. The uptick in expectations for this year comes after a dip just six months ago when 56 percent of hiring managers who recruit for a variety of professionals anticipated adding more employees to their organizations.

"The survey last year hit during a tumultuous political season in America and prior to the election of Donald Trump as president. It would seem that whatever concern was paralyzing employers' hiring earlier in the year has since abated," said Michael Durney, President and CEO of DHI Group, Inc. "Now, it's a hurry-up-and-wait situation; hiring managers are combating lengthy fill times as professionals ponder choosing the ideal employer. Recruiters are needing to employ creative tactics to attract skilled candidates."

Almost half (46%) of hiring managers note the time to fill open positions has lengthened relative to last year, primarily driven by the inability to find qualified candidates (47%) and becoming more discernable while waiting for the perfect match (28%).

DHI Group's proprietary labor market report, DHI Hiring Indicators, echoes this sentiment among employers. In April 2017 (latest data available), the DHI-DFH Measure of National Vacancy Duration found the average job in the U.S. took 30.5 days to fill, a record high and nearly a full day above the previous high in April 2016.

"The time to fill open positions is at peak levels and the pressure is on for America's employers. Offering competitive pay, excellent benefits and employee perks is essential for any company who wants to attract skilled tech talent," said Mr. Durney.

Recruiting budgets are expected to be more robust than last year, according to 35 percent of respondents. Companies are receiving the message on recruiting tactics, but not necessarily regarding pay. More than half (55%) of hiring managers anticipate salaries for new hires to trend upwards relative to last year; however, that's dipped from the past two surveys (November and June 2016) when 58 percent of respondents expected higher salaries.

On the other hand, certain recruiting strategies are being leveraged more frequently as employers are eager to get talent in the door. The most common is more firms paying for relocation (53% in May 2017, compared to 50% in November 2016) and there's a rise in companies offering employee perks like free lunches, snacks, gym memberships and unlimited vacations (45% in today versus 44% in November 2016) as a competitive advantagealthough today perks are the norm and any firm not offering them are in the minority.

Sourcing and building a bench of talent continues to be a priority for many companies, as 76 percent of hiring managers say it's more important than a year ago. Many hiring managers broaden their search (51%) beyond local talent when a position is difficult to fill. Recruiters are managing expectations, tooonly 26 percent say they keep positions open until the perfect match is found, a tick down compared to the 32 percent who said this six months ago.

"In order for companies to get ahead, recruitment has to be regarded as a continual process and they need to have an ongoing conversation with prospects. Recruiters today know the best way to be efficient is by understanding the talent they want to attract and creating highly targeted messaging, like through Lengo, to promote the employer brand," said Mr. Durney. "Employers who do this will build value in their brand and assemble a solid pipeline of star talent."

About the Survey

From May 22 through May 26, 2017, DHI Group, Inc. surveyed U.S. companies, government entities and recruiting firms from every region of the country who hire or recruit a variety of professionals. Overall, 407 hiring professionals responded with 55 percent identifying themselves as working for companies that recruit for their own needs in sectors such as healthcare, technology, energy, manufacturing, defense, education and financial services. A third (32%) worked at companies with more than 500 employees.

About DHI Group, Inc.

DHI Group, Inc. (NYSE: DHX) is a leading provider of data, insights and connections through our specialized services for professional communities including technology and security clearance, financial services, energy, healthcare and hospitality. Our mission is to empower professionals and organizations to compete and win through expert insights and relevant employment connections. Employers and recruiters use our websites and services to source and hire the most qualified professionals in select and highly-skilled occupations, while professionals use our websites and services to find the best employment opportunities in and the most timely news and information about their respective areas of expertise. For more than 25 years, we have built our company on providing employers and recruiters with efficient access to high-quality, unique professional communities, and offering the professionals in those communities access to highly-relevant career opportunities, news, tools and information. Today, we serve multiple markets located throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.

Media Contact:

Rachel Ceccarelli

Director, Corporate Communications

212-448-8288

[email protected]

SOURCE DHI Group, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.diceholdingsinc.com


ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP) has embarked upon a groundbreaking journey into Florida's Spanish Colonial past, launching a bold initiative that will put the state's rich history and early development into unparalleled perspective on the national and world stage.

La Florida: The Interactive Digital Archive of the Americas  created by J. Michael Francis, Ph.D., the Hough Family Endowed Chair of Florida Studies at USFSP  provides an interactive, multidisciplinary and comprehensive vision of Florida that brings a previously hazy picture of Spanish exploration of the state into sharp focus. Like a cold-case detective, Francis has spent years painstakingly combing through thousands of documents, notes and images, chronicling distant lives and events that gradually formed Florida's unique and vibrant tapestry. The elements he and his team have unearthed represent an enormous contribution to the existing body of historical knowledge, spanning the state's highly formative period from the early 1500s to the start of the 1800s. The La Florida website will be unveiled in the fall.

As a gauge of the work's academic value, the USFSP project has already attracted substantial interest and support from academic and cultural institutions in Spain. Spanish partners include the University of Malaga, which, with the support of the Instituto Nauta, the Cabildo Catedral de Cordoba, and the Fundacion MAGTEL, has created a newly-endowed Chair of Global Mestizaje. The site's innovative technology will be developed under the careful guidance of EDRIEL INTELLIGENCE, located in Madrid. Other tech companies, such as Microsoft, will participate through EDRIEL, under the direction of its Chief Innovation Officer, Francisco S. Guitard.

In addition, the Center is poised to receive donor support from the Hough Family Foundation of St. Petersburg and Frank E. Duckwall Foundation of Tampa.

"The collaborative nature of this project will bring together historical content and technical innovation in ways we couldn't have imagined a decade ago," said USFSP Regional Chancellor Sophia Wisniewska, Ph.D. "It will transform the way students, teachers, scholars and researchers in the U.S. and abroad view Florida history. And, it's another fine example of the excellence being produced by our faculty."



For collegians and scholars around the globe, as well as the general public, the project will serve as a one-of-a-kind database of information and pictures of the men and women who shaped Florida's colonial past. For teachers from kindergarten through high school, it will function as an innovative resource. And for all visitors, it will provide an accessible, adaptable and bilingual academic window into the formation of Florida like no other.

Through an exhaustive yet enlightening process, Francis and his team have recreated lost history by traveling from St. Augustine, Florida, to Spain to obtain and study parish records, certificates of baptism, confirmation, marriage and death, and ancient ship logs. "We've already identified, for instance, nearly two thousand individuals who traveled to Florida in 1566. This expedition, led by a Basque general named Sancho de Archiniega, was the single largest Spanish expedition to Florida, yet it remains relatively unknown," Francis says.

To date, the USFSP team has identified more than 13,000 of Florida's earliest colonial settlers, representing men and women from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. In addition, the research team has conducted an intensive study of an eighteenth-century map of St. Augustine, doing a complete inventory of all the residences in the city circa 1764 as well as the land owners. The results were surprising: an incredibly rich diversity of cultures inhabited St. Augustine at the time, including runaway slaves from the Carolinas and as far north as New York and Philadelphia, some of whom owned property.

"Just think of some of the implications our databases and discoveries will make possible," Francis says. "Some people of African descent will be able to trace their ancestry directly to this early St. Augustine enclave. And those of Spanish descent will be able to connect to descendants who landed in America more than seven decades before the Mayflower. More than anything, our site will provide the details, visuals and stories to present Florida's unknown history in a compelling and entertaining way that is unprecedented."

About USF St. Petersburg



The University of South Florida St. Petersburg is a separately accredited, research-active institution within the USF System. USFSP offers more than 40 undergraduate and graduate programs in three colleges: Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education. USFSP is recognized for its significant commitment to community involvement and civic engagement by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.usfsp.edu.

CONTACTS:

Jessica Blais

Director of Communications

[email protected]

727-873-4456

J. Michael Francis

Hough Family Endowed Chair of Florida Studies

[email protected]

SOURCE University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Related Links

http://www.usfsp.edu


NEW YORK, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EXIT Realty Corp. International and VA Loan Captain (www.valoancaptain.com), the #1 VA Loan Marketplace, have announced a partnership to help educate veterans on their VA Home Loan benefit. As part of the partnership, EXIT Realty will offer veterans unbiased educational content in the form of an eBook, The Ultimate Guide to VA Loans, a VA Loan Learning Center on www.exitrealty.com, and a VA Loan Marketplace powered by VA Loan Captain to increase awareness of the 0% down home loan benefit available to all those who have served in the United States Military.

"We at EXIT Realty are grateful for the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families and are proud to be able to offer the opportunity for them to find out more about the VA Loan benefit," said Tami Bonnell, CEO, EXIT Realty Corp. International.

"We are proud to partner with EXIT Realty and are excited to share in their commitment to empower their agents to serve the unique real estate needs of the military and veteran community," said Grant Moon, Founder and CEO of VA Loan Captain.

In addition to educating veteran home buyers, beginning on July 4th, 2017, EXIT Realty will also offer VA Loan Captain's VA Loan Certification (VALC) to all of its agents. The VALC Certification provides real estate agents and lenders comprehensive knowledge of the VA Home Loan benefit to establish themselves as a local expert for the largely untapped military real estate market while simultaneously helping those who served the country.

The VALC Certification is the most comprehensive educational course for real estate professionals to learn about the home loan programs offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA), also known as the VA loan. The VA loan benefit, and the members of the military and veteran community who use it, are unique. It is important for real estate professionals to have a good knowledge of both to help ensure their clients receive the maximum benefit possible, and that they do not miss out on this important way to grow their business.

"The VA Home Loan benefit can provide the best chance for many military service members and veterans to own a home. This certification will allow EXIT Realty agents to give our brave servicemen and women the knowledge, information, and support they deserve to help them participate in the American Dream," said Moon.

Tyler Thompson, a member of the National Association of REALTORS' REach Team, said, "We are excited to continue to see our portfolio companies such as VA Loan Captain provide innovative solutions that empower real estate professionals to best serve our military and veteran community."

"Through our partnership with VA Loan Captain, we can empower our associates to knowledgeably serve those who served," said Bonnell.

About EXIT Realty: EXIT is a proven real estate business model that has to-date, paid out more than a third of a billion dollars in single-level residual income to its associates across the U.S. and Canada. With several brokerage locations near military bases, EXIT Realty's unique Formula provides ideal career opportunities and unlimited earnings potential for both transitioning and transferring military personnel and their spouses. For more information, please visit www.exitrealty.com.

About VA Loan Captain

VA Loan Captain is the leading national education platform and marketplace for veterans to find the best education and rates for their VA loans. As a member of the National Association of REALTORS' (NAR) REach Class of 2016, VA Loan Captain is the exclusive partner of NAR to help REALTORS attract and work with military and veteran home-buyers. VA Loan Captain also powers VA loan education and marketplaces for some of the leading military and veteran publications.

Founded in 2011, VA Loan Captain was created out of the experiences of its founder and CEO, Grant Moon. Grant served in the US Army from 1998, and is a proud veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and other operations in support of the Global War on Terror. Upon returning from Iraq in 2008, Grant was looking to buy a home, and heard about the VA Home Loan benefit. At the time, there was no VA Loan Captain to compare rates and fees across multiple VA lenders or work with a real estate agent familiar with the VA loan. As a result, Grant went through a painful process which cost him more than he hoped. Looking back, Grant wanted to help his fellow veterans by providing them with a simple and unbiased way to educate themselves on the VA Home Loan. Find us anytime at www.valoancaptain.com.

Media Contact: Grant Moon, [email protected]

SOURCE VA Loan Captain

Related Links

http://www.valoancaptain.com


MCLEAN, Va., June 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Valiant Integrated Services ("Valiant") today announced that it has completed the closing of a purchase agreement with ABM Government Services LLC ("ABMGS"), accelerating the Company's entry into the growing market for Mission Support and Linguistic Services, Critical Infrastructure Services, Healthcare Facility Services and Healthcare Construction Management to the U.S. Government.

The transaction naturally extends Valiant's core capabilities and is projected to significantly increase the size of both the Company's operations and annual revenue. ABMGS will do business as Valiant Government Services with a formal name change to follow.

"The ABM Government Services business has a long and distinguished track record of providing critical support to U.S. military installations across the globe," said Valiant Chief Executive Officer James Jaska. "The business is a natural complement to Valiant's current expeditionary logistics services offerings and cements our ability to be one of a limited number of U.S. owned companies that can provide a full and complete range of services and mission-critical support to the U.S. military."

ABMGS has three distinct business lines:

Providing mission-critical, in-theater linguistic, translation, and interpretation services.

Providing the backbone of its customers' operations, specifically supporting the most mission-critical components, including data centers, power generators, fire suppression systems, irrigation systems, and other vital areas to customers who rely on the Company for uninterrupted service.

Providing Healthcare Facility Services to military hospitals and government medical facilities across the U.S including construction management services for healthcare facilities.

"We are pleased to support Valiant management in an acquisition that should enhance the competitive positioning of both companies  as well as produce certain synergies across the combination," said Mac LaFollette, the Founder of The GC Companies, and Chairman of the Valiant Board of Directors. "We expect the combined company to thrive and couldn't be more pleased with this opportunity."

ABMGS has numerous active contracts and task orders across the globe, including agreements with the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, and the Internal Revenue Service. Hopkinsville, Kentucky-based ABMGS has two major facilities and more than 50 operational locations in the U.S. as well as locations in Italy, Iraq, and Kuwait. The business has approximately 1,000 full-time employees.

"We are excited to be joining the Valiant team and believe this transaction will allow our business to become the premier provider of Mission Support, Critical Infrastructure Services, Healthcare Facility Services, and Healthcare Construction Management to the U.S. Government and provide the resources and experience to allow us to capitalize on new opportunities," said Rick Phillips, ABMGS's Chief Operating Officer.

About Valiant Integrated Services LLC

At Valiant, our core mission is to provide vital resources and mission-critical support to enable peacekeepers, relief workers, and emergency response teams to effectively do their jobs. We not only provide food, water, fuel and other resources to remote outposts across the globe; we provide a fully integrated delivery system to ensure timely and safe delivery. We do our job so our customers can do theirs.

SOURCE Valiant Integrated Services LLC
SANTA ROSA, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vintage Wine Estates announced today the purchase of its first fine wine brand from OregonFiresteed Cellars of the Willamette Valley. Firesteed, a 50,000 case brand, is noted for award-winning Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, Oregon's signature varietal wines. The purchase comes on the heels of a robust and diverse acquisition streak over the past 24 months including: Napa Valley's Delectus Winery, Splinter Group Spirits, and most recently, Cameron Hughes Wine. VWE also acquired the distribution rights to Clayhouse Wines from Paso Robles, Washington State's Buried Cane and from Argentina, Gouguenheim Winery.

"I'm a long-time fan of Oregon wines and have been looking for an opportunity in the region for some time," explained Pat Roney, President and CEO of Vintage Wine Estates. "I see the interest in wines from the Northwest continue to trend strongly and am thrilled to add Firesteed to our portfolio."

Vintage Wine Estate's growth strategy consists of creating and bringing original new brands to market, adding respected, established wines to the portfolio through acquisition, and organic growth fueled by the company's existing portfolio which includes signature brands such as B.R. Cohn Winery, Clos Pegase, Swanson, Delectus, Windsor Vineyards and Middle Sister Wines.

"This formula seems to be working well for us," explained Roney. "We have particular expertise in brand creation and taking new brands to market at a rapid pace. We also understand the importance of proven wine brands with a track record of excellence and awareness among both trade and consumers."

Firesteed will continue to source fruit under long-term lease agreements at the 90-acre Firesteed Estate Vineyard and the 202-acre Erratic Oaks Vineyard in nearby Dallas, Oregon, both certified sustainably farmed.

Firesteed Founder Howard Rossbach will retain the Citation brand and the Erratic Oaks Vineyard.

Exvere, Inc. served as the exclusive financial advisor to Firesteed Cellars.

About Vintage Wine Estates

Vintage Wine Estates is a privately held wine company owned by a group of vintner families with deep roots in the wine business. The families own a collection of winery estates and brands including Clos Pegase Winery, Cosentino Winery, Girard Winery, B.R. Cohn Winery, Swanson Vineyards, Viansa Sonoma, Windsor Vineyards, Cartlidge & Browne, Sonoma Coast Vineyards, Middle Sister, Tall Dark Stranger, Pro-mis-Q-ous, Monogamy, Girl & Dragon, Purple Cowboy and a number of exclusive wine brands. Vintage Wine Estates is a majority partner in Splinter Group Spirits, producing craft Kentucky whiskey (Straight Edge) and American whiskey (Slaughter House) and markets Clayhouse and Buried Cane wines. An industry leader across all sales channels and dedicated to providing wine consumers with a range of wines from $10 to $100 dollars, Vintage Wine Estates produces outstanding wines from Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and other premium California winegrowing regions and respects the way people buy their wineat wineries, at retail, on the telephone, on television, on the Internet and by mail.

www.vintagewineestates.com

About Citation and Howard Rossbach

Howard founded Firesteed Cellars in 1992, originally coining the term "virtual winery" to describe the brand's commitment to consistent quality without the overhead of a vineyard or production facility. In the ensuing years, the winery (2002) and vineyard land (2006) were purchased and the ultra-premium line of Citation wines was added. Rossbach has been active in leadership of the Oregon Wine industry, having served as Vice President of the Oregon Wine Growers Association and President of Oregon Pinot Camp. He is currently President of the Northwest Wine Coalition.

About Exvere

Exvere advises Pacific Northwest businesses on capital transactions including mergers, acquisitions, and recapitalizations. Exvere offers concentrated experience and expertise in the Pacific Northwest wine and adult beverage industry. For more information about Exvere please visit www.exvere.com.

For more information contact:

Mary Ann Vangrin

[email protected]

707-738-0338

SOURCE Vintage Wine Estates

Related Links

http://www.vintagewineestates.com


DONGGUAN, China, June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- WeePallet, a global leader in manufacturing and supplying plastic pallets today begun supplying custom injection molded plastic pallets. This comes at a time when the demand for plastic pallets as increased due to the strict regulations on wood pallets.

By incorporating injection molding, WeePallet aims to expand its plastic pallet manufacturing capability and capacity. WeePallet has currently adopted thermoforming and blow molding technics in plastic manufacturing.

Weepallet Weepallet plastic pallet

"WeePallet uses high-grade 100% virgin HDPE or PP material with sophisticated technology to ensure accuracy, consistency and reliability of all injection molded plastic pallets," said Blue Chen, the WeePallet Product Manager. "So far, we have acquired 30 sets of injection molding machines with over 212 different molds, with customized options available. We believe this will make WeePallet a one-stop shop for all plastic pallets sourcing solution."

Features of Injection Molded Plastic Pallets

4 different designs available: Depending on the specific requirements of clients; WeePallet molds: Double side, nine legs, picture frame and three runner plastic pallets. They are available in different options such as heavy duty, storage, shipping, light duty and euro pallets; depending on the specific applications.

Ideal for cold supply chain management: WeePallet has designed plastic pallets for refrigerated vans, cold rooms, cold storages, etc. They can withstand extremely low temperature without compromising on strength, durability and functionality.

Dimensional stability: WeePallet injection molded plastic pallets have passed all quality tests and they have proved to be impact resistant, with the ability to resist forklift abuse. They have an exceptional dimensional stability even after long use.

Forklift entry: A forklift can access the injection molded plastic pallets either through the 4-way or 2-way entry points. This is for easy and convenient handling of plastic pallets.

By supplying custom injection molded plastic pallets, WeePallet aims to empower all its clients with the ability to market and brand their business. The WeePallet technical team helps with the entire design process.

About WeePallet

WeePallet is an internationally recognized manufacturing force for plastic pallets in China. The company uses a high-tech molding process and testing equipment.

It uses high quality and virgin HDPE and PP materials. Currently, it has a production capacity of 15,000 per day. WeePallet is now one of the best plastic pallet manufacturers in China.

Media contact:

Blue Chen

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 86-137-1715-1153

Website: http://www.weepallet.com/

SOURCE WeePallet

Related Links

http://www.weepallet.com


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
Beijing, June 4 : The BRICS Media Forum, to be held in Beijing from June 7 to 8, will be attended by the leaders of 25 media groups from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The attendees will discuss topics including multimedia innovation for media development, as well as media outlets' duty and social responsibility, Xinhua reported.

The forum next week aims to improve the high-end dialogue platform for the mainstream media of BRICS countries, as well as advance innovation and promote fairness and justice of international public opinion.

During the forum, there will be a BRICS Media Joint Photo Exhibition to show the development and cooperation achievements of BRICS.

The forum is jointly organised by the mainstream media groups of BRICS countries.

China, which took over the BRICS presidency this year, will host the Ninth BRICS Summit in September in Xiamen, Fujian Province.
Panaji, June 5 : Every country in the world will participate in the International Yoga Day event, scheduled to be held on June 21, Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik said on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in Panaji, Naik said there is no compulsion on schools and other institutions to hold Yoga Day events and that no holiday has been declared as the event is an early morning activity.

"The situation is that 100 per cent countries in the world this year will do Yoga," Naik told reporters.

"The programme was held in 199 countries last year. This year, more countries will be added to the list and programmes will be held through our embassies and missions," the North Goa Lok Sabha member said.

The Minister also said the main International Yoga Day event would be held in Lucknow and attended by over 51,000 yoga enthusiasts, along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

"Over 51,000 people will be participating. As there is paucity of space, screens will be put up in eight to nine parks nearby and simultaneously Yoga will be conducted," Naik said.

"We have requested to the state governments to organise a big programme. NGOs, schools and colleges also have been asked to hold their own events," he said, adding that central ministers would be attending the major Yoga-related programmes in every state.

"There is no compulsion (to hold Yoga Day in schools). We are encouraging yoga for the betterment of one and all," he said in response to a question.

Naik ruled out the possibility of a state holiday to celebrate International Yoga Day.

"We have not declared a holiday as yoga is a morning activity. From 6 a.m. to 7.30 a.m., after the activity is finished, they can go to work. You can opt to take leave on your own account. No special holiday has been announced," Naik said.
Accra (Ghana), June 6 : India is providing a $71.40 million line of credit (LoC) to Cote d'Ivoire to finance the upgrading of four military hospitals in Abidjan, Korhogo, Bouake and Daloa regions.

Under the LoC, the Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) will reimburse 100 per cent of contract value to Indian exporters, upfront upon shipment of goods. The LoC will be used for sourcing of goods and services from India.

An agreement was signed by Exim Bank's Managing Director David Rasquinha and Ivorian Minister of Planning and Development Niale Kaba.

Exim Bank said with the signing of the agreement, it has so far extended six LoCs worth $207.70 million to Cote d'Ivoire.

This has helped finance the export of agricultural machinery and equipment, agricultural processing plants, buses and spare parts, and services for projects in areas such as rural electrification and transmission lines.

Others areas covered include construction of power sub-stations, fisheries development and the setting up of a Biotechnology and an Information Technology Park in the country.

India imports from Cote d'Ivoire cashew, manganese ore, cotton, wood, scrap metals and rubber. Cote d'Ivoire is the second largest exporter of cashew in the world.

India's main exports are cereals (rice), pharmaceutical products, machinery, articles of iron, chemicals, plastics, rubber products and vehicles.
Geneva, June 6 : The UN migration agency IOM on Tuesday said it plans to provide 3,700 shelter repair kits, 5,000 non-food relief item kits and 250 temporary shelters to assist the worst flood-affected areas in Sri Lanka.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said it would seek funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, and the intervention would help an estimated 74,750 people, Xinhua news agency reported.

Heavy flooding, landslides and flash floods have affected some 684,000 people in south and central Sri Lanka.

The flooding, which is believed to be the worst in over a decade, has left at least 212 people dead and 79 missing.

The IOM's initial rapid assessments conducted last week in some district of Sri Lanka showed that homes and villages were swept away by the flood waters and mud slides.

The IOM cited Sri Lanka's Disaster Management Centre figure of over 2,500 houses which were destroyed and nearly 15,900 houses damaged.

"These numbers could rise as data from damage assessments is compiled in the coming weeks," the IOM said in a statement issued Tuesday.

According to the UN agency, nearly 22,000 people were still sheltering in some 200 over-crowded "safe sites" including schools, temples and churches.

People currently staying in evacuation centres or with relatives and friends were unlikely to be able to return to their homes in the short term, the IOM said.

"People will need shelter and other non-food relief items (when they leave the sites) and we will need to ensure that aid is distributed at the location most useful and appropriate for each affected family," said IOM Sri Lanka Chief of Mission Giuseppe Crocetti.

Earlier on June 2, the UN Humanitarian Country Team launched an Emergency Response Plan seeking $22.7 million to address the critical life-saving and protection needs of 374,000 people in seven districts, targeting four priority sectors, including shelter, food, health and water and sanitation.

The IOM said it is already supporting the Sri Lankan government and humanitarian agencies with displacement tracking maps generated from its monitoring system updates.
Geneva, June 6 : Libyan coastguard picked up 110 African migrants, including 40 women and three children, the United Nations migration agency said on Tuesday.

The migrants were plucked from the sea off the coastal city of Zliten in northeast Libya, the International Organisation for Migration said.

Following the rescue mission, the migrants were taken to Al Khums detention centre, IOM said.

A total of 8,293 migrants have been rescued off Libya's coast this year as of June 4, and 236 corpses have been recovered, IOM said.

The great majority (85 per cent) of the 71,418 migrants who reached Europe this year till June 4 arrived in Italy, amid a surge in crossings via the perilous Central Mediterranean route from Libya, according to IOM.

Although migrants deaths in the Mediterranean this year till June 4 stood at 1,650 - 862 fewer than in 2016 - the proportion of people who perished almost doubled from last year, when 2,512 died and 206,790 reached Europe.

The Libyan coastguard, which has received offshore training from European nations including Britain, has been accused of shooting and beating refugees and causing hundreds to drown, and of attacking international rescue ships.

Rights groups have also highlighted the plight of migrants held in detention centres in chaos-wracked Libya, which lacks an asylum system, where the rule of law is absent and allegations of torture, rape and killings are rife.

The European Union has pledged tens of millions of euros for authorities in Libya in a push to stop the Mediterranean crossings, a policy that could fuel horrific abuse of migrants, US-based Refugees International warned last week in a report.
New Delhi, June 7 : Union Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday said the attempts to forge a Grand Alliance by the opposition parties against the BJP will fail as there is no consensus among them over the issue of leadership.

"The casteist and communal are afraid of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi and that's why they have started a misinformation campaign against him," the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister told reporters here.

He said the attempts of the opposition parties to "mislead" people against the central government will "fail and boomerang".

Taking a dig at the opposition parties for their attempts to forge a Grand Alliance at the national level to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party, Naidu said, "All these attempts of forging Grand Alliance or alliance will fail. Nothing is going to happen."

Citing previous attempts of forming an a national front against the BJP, Naidu said, "We have seen it in past too. There is no principle, no common programme, no consensus on leadership. Rather being a national front, it became a notional front, united front became a divided front, third front became a distant third front."

"....so that being the case I don't think this effort of Grand Alliance will succeed," the BJP leader said.

Naidu also wished the opposition parties luck to come together and give BJP the space in Bengal and Kerala.

"I hope the Congress, the Communists and the Trinamool come together so that the BJP can occupy the remaining space in Kolkata and that in Kerala the Communists and the Congress come together so that the space is left for the BJP," he said.

"You cannot have operation in Delhi, operation in Kolkata and separation in Kerala," Naidu added.
Kolkata, June 7 : BJP's West Bengal unit chief Dilip Ghosh on Wednesday met a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) delegation here amid massive protest by the hill party against the alleged imposition of Bengali in Darjeeling schools by the Mamata Banerjee government.

The Trinamool Congress government led by Banerjee has denied the charge.

Ghosh met the delegation led by GJM's General Secretary Roshan Giri.

"Meeting the representatives of GJM,... discussing about changing political scenario of West Bengal," Ghosh said in a tweet.

On Tuesday, hundreds of GJM supporters led by party chief Bimal Gurung waved black flags and burnt Banerjee's effigies in Darjeeling district.

They demanded the state government should issue a circular that Bengali would not be made compulsory in the hills.

On Monday, Banerjee had accused the GJM-run Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) -- the development authority in the north Bengal hills -- of "spreading falsehood" about "imposition" of Bengali language.

She said at a meeting in Mirik that "Bengali would not be compulsory at schools in the Darjeeling hills and in certain areas of the Dooars and the Terai".

Banerjee has also announced a special audit to check how the GTA has utilised the government aids and warned of punitive measures if any discrepancies were found.

In the just concluded civic polls in the hills, the GJM managed to retain its top spot, but the Trinamool also made substantial gains by winning the Mirik Notified area, and picking up seats in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong.
Paris, June 7 : A third French citizen has died following last week's terror attack on London Bridge, President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday, taking the overall death toll to eight.

The French national's body was found in the Thames river, London Metropolitan Police said.

"We have, this morning, the confirmation of a new toll. There are three deaths and eight wounded on the French side," Macron was quoted by Fox News as saying.

"It is a heavy toll that we pay in these attacks," he added.

Police had been searching for Xavier Thomas, a French man who had been missing since three assailants ploughed a rented car into crowds on London Bridge and attacked people in Borough Hall with knives on Saturday.

The French national was walking with his girlfriend over the bridge when the attack began. Witness accounts suggested Thomas might have been thrown into the river, police said.

Thomas's girlfriend was struck and seriously injured in the attack.

Le Parisien newspaper named the second Frenchman slain in the attack as 36-year-old Sebastien Belanger, while the other French victim was 27-year-old Alexandre Pigeard.

Police identified the three London Bridge killers as Youssef Zaghba, Khuram Shazad Butt and Rachid Redouane. All three men were shot dead by officers responding to the scene.

At least two of the men were known to British intelligence and law-enforcement officials, raising questions about whether anything could have been done to prevent the assault.
New Delhi, June 7 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday leave for Astana, in Kazakhstan, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit where India is expected to be granted full membership of the Eurasian political, economic and military bloc.

India, which has been an observer to the SCO since 2005, was informed in the 2015 Summit in Ufa, Russia, that it would be granted full membership and the process for this started from the 2016 Summit in Tashkent.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

G.V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said in a media briefing here that India has signed 38 documents of accession to become a member of the bloc.

Asked what India would gain by becoming a full member of the SCO, he said the countries of the group are from a resource-rich region that has been historically linked to India.

"There are broadly two legs of collaboration which are being pursued in the SCO platform," Srinivas said.

"One is trade, economy, connectivity, energy, transport, banking, that set of issues," he said. "The second thing is, of course, the fight against terrorism."

He said that while the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing, there is a sub-body called Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that has its office in Tashkent.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay stated that SCO will also be an institutional forum through which India can engage with Afghanistan's neighbours.

Baglay also said that Modi will hold bilateral meetings with visiting leaders on the sidelines of the Summit but these will be finalised only after the Prime Minister reaches Astana.

Asked specifically if there will be a bilateral meeting between Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif, the spokesperson said there has been no such request from either side.

While in Astana, the Prime Minister will also attend inauguration of the World Exposition which Kazakhstan is hosting this year.

After attending the SCO Summit on Friday, Modi will be back in India early on Saturday morning.
Kolkata, June 7 : The BJP West Bengal unit on Wednesday accused the state government of running an administration parallel to the GTA in north Bengal hills, adding that the renewed demand for Gorkhaland indicated its failure to address the issues in that region.

"The state government has not kept any of its promises. It is trying to run a parallel administration in the hills. That is why Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) is taking to the streets for a separate state. It is a big failure of the state government, which is deeply regretful," Bharatiya Janata Party state unit President Dilip Ghosh said after meeting some senior GJM leaders at his residence here.

Earlier in the day, he met a delegation led by GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri.

Terming the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) -- the developmental body set up in the north Bengal hills -- a "toy", Ghosh said the Morcha leaders plan to part ways with the GTA as it hasn't resolved any of the existing issues in the hills.

"The Trinamool government has provided the hill people with a toy called GTA, but it has not resolved any of their existing problems. The Morcha leaders are worried. They are not willing to be a part of the GTA anymore," the BJP leader said.

Asked about the GJM demand for a separate Gorkhaland, Ghosh said it was for the central government to decide.

"We cannot say anything on this; nor is it in our hands. The central government will take a call on the matter," he said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday viciously attacked the GJM, claiming it is spreading lies about the TMC government's new three-language policy.

She vowed to take action against the GTA Board members if a special audit ordered by her government revealed misuse of public money.

On Tuesday, GJM supporters led by party chief Bimal Gurung waved black flags at and burnt effigies of Banerjee in Darjeeling district.

Stating that the hill people are with the party, Gurung claimed the party members will resign from the semi-autonomous administrative body and fight for Gorkhaland.
Ankara, June 8 : Turkey's Grand National Assembly on Wednesday approved draft bill allowing the deployment of troop to a Turkish military base in Qatar.

According to Xinhua, the bill includes two pieces of legislation: allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar and approving an accord between the two countries on military officer training cooperation.

The parliamentary approval comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday expressed disapproval of the sanctions imposed on Qatar by several Arab countries.

"I hope that all sanctions against Qatar will be lifted as soon as possible," Erdogan said.

The bill, drafted before the rift, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AKP Party and nationalist opposition MHP.

The new move appears to support Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

On Monday, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and the Maldives cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, claiming it of "terrorism support."
Seoul, June 8 : North Korea test-fired multiple projectiles believed to be ground-to-ship cruise missiles Thursday morning into its eastern waters, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The short-range surface-to-ship cruise missiles were launched from the city of Wonsan on Pyongyang's east coast in the morning, the JCS said in a statement.

The missiles flew about 200 km into North Korea's eastern waters. South Korea and the US were jointly analyzing details on the test-launches.

The South Korean militaryhas strengthened surveillance and vigilance in preparation for additional Pyongyang provocation, while maintaining full defense preparedness, the JCS said.

North Korea projectiles were not ballistic missiles. Under UN Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang is banned from testing any ballistic missile technology.

The test-firing by pyongyang came as the US military dispatched nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

The test-launches were immediately reported to South Korean President Moon Jae-in right after being detected, according to local media reports.

Pyongyang has conducted missile test-launches five times since Moon took office on May 10.
Mumbai, June 8 : Veteran actor Anupam Kher says he is overwhelmed with all the response he has got for the first look of his upcoming movie "The Accidental Prime Minister".

"Thank you all for your love, warmth and support for the first look of 'The Accidental Prime Minister'. Your response has been overwhelming," he tweeted.

The film is an adaptation of Sanjay Baru's controversial book "The Accidental Prime Minister: The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh" and Anupam, who plays the lead role, resembled every bit of former Indian Prime Minister in the first look of a film that was released on Wednesday.

The black and white poster showed the side profile of Anupam, dressed as Manmohan Singh -- complete with a white beard and turban. The focus of the poster is, however, more on the silhouette of a woman -- presumably Congress President Sonia Gandhi -- standing in the corridor of Parliament House.

Directed by debutant Vijay Ratnakar Gutte, the memoir by Baru is expected to hit the screens in December 2018, just ahead of the next general election in 2019.
Beijing, June 8 : Leaders of 27 media organisations from the Brics countries on Thursday promised to deepen cooperation and contribute to the association's framework at the ongoing Media Forum here.

The forum, with the theme "Deepening media cooperation among Brics countries, promoting equity and justice in international media", was proposed by Xinhua News Agency and jointly initiated with Brazil's CMA Group, Russia's Sputnik News Agency and Radio, the Hindu Group of India and South Africa's Independent Media.

Liu Qibao, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the committee's Publicity Department, urged Brics media to promote win-win cooperation and push the international order in a fairer and more reasonable direction while addressing the forum.

"Sharing a common destiny, Brics countries form not only an interconnected community of interests, but also a community of joint actions," said Liu.

Liu called for pragmatic cooperation among Brics media, including conducting joint interviews on major topics, promoting cooperation in information services, professional training, human resources and think tank exchanges, as well as sharing experiences in meeting the challenges of the internet and promoting integrated media development.

Delivering a keynote speech at the opening ceremony, Cai Mingzhao, President of Xinhua News Agency and executive chair of the forum, urged efforts to enhance solidarity and practical cooperation among Brics media.

Cai said Xinhua will provide $1 million to establish the Brics Media Fund for the implementation of the Action Plan to Strengthen Cooperation Among Brics Media and carrying out pragmatic cooperation, including exchanges of visits, professional training and joint interviews.

The plan was passed at a presidium meeting of the forum on Wednesday.

According to Cai, participating media organisations agree to explore cooperation in areas such as integrative development, video, new media and social media.

Zenariah Barends, co-chair of the forum and chief of staff of Independent Media from South Africa, called for more efforts in developing solutions to the current narrative which focuses on the negative side of Brics countries.
New Delhi, June 8 : Whether it's a film documenting Arvind Kejriwal's journey from "aam aadmi" to controversial politician or a movie on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh -- the Indian film censor body now wants NOCs from top politicians for clearing movies based on real life figures, much to the dismay of filmmakers.

The young and spirited filmmakers behind "An Insignificant Man" -- a movie that documents Kejriwal's journey -- have realised the futility of making a political film in India, thanks to the "outrageous diktats" of the censor board.

It was in late 2012 that Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla began following Kejriwal on his election campaign. Little did they know that to put the film out for an Indian audience, they would be asked by Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani to get a no-objection certificate (NOC) from Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit and Kejriwal himself.

"It's a ridiculous demand. Our film is a journalistic documentary," Shukla told IANS of his much-travelled movie, which has been to the BFI London Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival, among others.

Ranka added: "A documentary by definition is a documentation of reality... No wonder people don't make political films in India. You're always punished for it, and it sets a very bad precedent."

Their plight reminds Ranka of the obstacles faced by "Udta Punjab", makers of which compared the censorship body's functioning to dictatorial North Korea, after they were asked to remove all references to Punjab.

Even in Sonakshi Sinha's "Noor", the censors asked the makers to do away with Dutt in a reference to Barkha Dutt because "referring to real-life characters without their consent is not allowed".

There was also "Modi Ka Gaon", based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda, makers of which were faced with a demand for an NOC from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Election Commission.

Now, after the announcement of "The Accidental Prime Minister" -- a movie based on journalist Sanjaya Baru's book where actor Anupam Kher will play Manmohan Singh -- Nihalani has said the makers will need an NOC from the former Prime Minister, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and other real life characters depicted in the film.

Baru, who was media adviser to Manmohan Singh from May 2004 to August 2008, had, in the 2014 book, controversially depicted his former boss as not being in full control of his own cabinet, and being subservient to Sonia Gandhi.

"By disallowing taking of names, the CBFC is saying you can't refer to reality itself. Even in the case of 'Udta Punjab', they wanted names of places to be removed. They want to erase the idea of reality and realism from films and relegate it to candyfloss, meaningless timepass," added Ranka, expressing dissent at the judgment on her film.

It has become a trend of sorts. Films are submitted to the Examining Committee, which suggests beeps and cuts where they deem fit. If they don't green-light a project, it can be taken to a Revising Committee. And if this does not work too, filmmakers can knock at the doors of the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT).

Of late, films like "Haraamkhor", "Udta Punjab" and "Lipstick Under My Burkha", have taken that route and won their battles against CBFC. In the case of "Udta Punjab", the Bombay High Court had intervened and told CBFC that it is not empowered to censor films.

Over the years, such cases have brought to light the CBFC's toothless nature, and the importance and urgency for quick implementation of recommendations for a revamp of the censor body -- as suggested by a panel led by veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal.

The panel was constituted in the backdrop of the increasingly controversial decisions by Nihalani, whose role in censoring films has been widely criticised.

In his defense, Nihalani has often said that CBFC has the onus not just to issue certificates to films, but also to preserve the country's culture and tradition.

It angers debutante director Alankrita Shrivastava, whose "Lipstick Under My Burkha" was tagged too "lady oriented" and denied a certificate by the CBFC -- until FCAT opened the doors for its release.

"In cinema and on television, we continue to self-censor, even before the film actually goes up for certification. If you have sat around writers and directors, you will know that common refrain, 'Arre, the censors won't pass it. Forget about that idea. This is India'."

"So often, even before we can think of a story, we kill it."

This is exactly the fear even Shukla talks about.

"What is the kind of cinema culture we are growing here? There are lots of aspiring filmmakers who are watching what's happening with us, and are being discouraged from making political films or even making anything meaningful.

"Ultimately, what we are saying is that filmmakers can make whatever film they want to, because it will come to the censor board which will act in whatever way it wants to. And then the filmmakers are left circling courts and figuring out solutions," Shukla said, stressing how "An Insignificant Man" has "effectively been banned".

"How does one even get permission from Narendra Modi," asked the hapless filmmaker, who is now mulling his next step even as the movie continues to make an impact on the international circuits.

(Radhika Bhirani can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)
New Delhi, June 8 : Undeterred by criticism from politicians and commentators, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat says use of human shield by the India Army is not a norm but individual officers are entitled to decide the tactic depending on circumstances.

He also dismisses criticism that the Army is trigger-happy, but says the level of violence in Jammu and Kashmir needs to be brought down for any meaningful dialogue with stakeholders. "Dialogue and violence cannot go together," General Rawat told IANS in an interaction here at his office.

The Army Chief maintains that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is not as bad as it is portrayed in the media and dismisses a perception that people of the state are against the Army.

"It (human shield) is not a general norm. As a practice it is not supported. But situations would dictate. Under the circumstances he (Major Leetul Gogoi) took a decision independently. He can't look back at that stage and wait for orders," General Rawat said.

"If somebody has any other ideas as to how to tackle such a situation, then he can pass it on to us. We will take a look at it," he said.

General Rawat was asked to comment on a string of criticisms about his earlier remarks defending Major Gogoi's action of tying a civilian to the bonnet of an Army jeep when facing a crowd of stone pelters in the valley.

He was then criticised for justifying the Major's action that was described as unprofessional and damaging to the reputation of the Indian Army and being violative of the Geneva Convention that lays down rules of warfare.

Replying to a question on the comments by CPI-M leader Prakash Karat over his reported remarks that stone pelters should rather use guns as amounting to instigating them to take to guns, General Rawat maintained that he was misquoted on the issue.

"In a proxy war situation like this the enemy cannot be identified. He is not wearing a band or a uniform that can identify him as a terrorist. Only when he fires then you know what to do in such a situation. The Army cannot throw stones, that is not my pattern. I can't throw stones."

Asked about the absence of any dialogue with stakeholders in Jammu and Kashmir and whether there can be a military solution that can be lasting, General Rawat said it should be an "integrated" solution.

"Military has to bring the violence level down. We have to bring peace for the people of Jammu and Kashmir. After all, it is the poor people like daily wagers, pony walas, shikaras, and others who depend on tourism like hotels. Students are also affected as schools and colleges are shut.

"They have already seen one bad (tourism) season, another bad year will affect them worse. Why are we doing, what we are doing? We are doing it to bring peace in the valley," he said.

He rejected reports of local people in the Kashmir valley being "angry" with the Army, saying it is not as bad as projected in the media. At the same time he asserted that there was nothing wrong with the killing of militants like Burhan Wani.

"I don't think there is that kind of resentment. Of course people are angry about issues like unemployment. That is an issue even in the rest of the country, but for that you do not take to guns. Look at the way the youth are coming to join Army in large numbers," he said.

The General said Kashmir with its rich resources could be a leader in so many fields, but economic development was not taking place because of violence.

"Violence had come down after 2011-12. What have the Army or security forces done (to evoke anger)? Army cannot be faulted for the killing of Burhan Wani. Something is happening behind the scene, someone is instigating people," he said.

Asked about absence of dialogue at present in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the violence level has to come down.

"You say I am not going to indulge in violence, then we will talk. If people want to have a dialogue, then dialogue and violence cannot go together. You can't say Army and civilians will be involved in a gun battle and say let's have talks. A semblance of peace and tranquility is essential, then we can talk."

Asked about the criticism that the Army Chief's view was reflecting the government's views, General Rawat said in a democracy the Army has to work under a democratically elected government.

"We take directions from the governmentA Are we supposed to work away from the government? Directions are always given by the government," he said.

He said the government gave the Army a free hand in executing its directions. Similarly the Army gave freedom to units to execute its directions.

(Anjali Ojha can be reached at anjali.o@ians.in and V.S. Chandrasekar at chandru.v@ians.in)
Doha, June 8 : Indians in Qatar have been advised by the Indian Embassy here to stay alert and contact their travel agents for modifications in travel plans. The advisory came in the wake of several Gulf nations cutting off diplomatic ties with Qatar earlier this week.

In its advisory issued on Wednesday, the embassy said that airlines concerned have reportedly offered refunds for cancelled flights following disruptions in air operations.

"Indian travellers are, therefore, requested to contact their travel providers for advice on modifications to their travel arrangements and also remain alert to further developments," the advisory stated.

"The Embassy of India is monitoring the situation closely and is in touch with Qatari authorities to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals in Qatar," it said.

"There is nothing happening in the region that suggests threats to the physical safety and security of residents in Qatar," it stated.

"Please update yourself of the latest news and do not believe in rumours without cross-checking facts."

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt said on Monday they cut their diplomatic relations with Qatar after a week of tit-for-tat and accusations on "terrorism support".

The announcement by the Saudi-led coalition to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar marks the culmination of a year-long dispute between some Gulf Arab states and Qatar.

The Maldives, Yemen, Mauritius, Mauritania and Jordan also took similar steps.

According to the Indian Embassy advisory, the Qatari authorities have conveyed that they would take all necessary steps to ensure that normal life, including supplies of food items, would not be affected.

There are around 630,000 expatriate Indians in Qatar, which is also the largest supplier of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to India.
Islamabad, June 8 : Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Thursday left for Kazakhstan to attend the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, with a chance meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi not ruled out, a media report said.

Pakistan and India are to become full members of the SCO at the 7th SCO summit being held in the Kazakh capital Astana.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir and Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz are accompanying Sharif, Pakistan Today reported.

During his stay, Sharif will be holding bilateral meetings with the presidents of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on Thursday, and the Mongolian and Russian presidents on Friday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also attending the conference, as India too will be granted full membership of the SCO.

According to sources, there may be a chance meeting between Sharif and Modi on the sidelines of the summit.

With the inclusion of Pakistan and India, the SCO will have a total of eight states as permanent members - after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The group will then represent nearly half of the world's population after the inclusion of the subcontinental neighbours.

Pakistan and India both currently hold observer status at SCO.

Sharif will also be attending the inaugural ceremony of the International Expo 2017, in which more than 100 countries, including Pakistan, are participating.
Astana, June 8 : Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Afghan counterpart, Mohammad Ashraf Ghani, on Thursday pledged to boost bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative.

The two heads of state made the remarks during their meeting in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the 17th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, Xinhua news agency reported.

Hailing the good momentum of bilateral ties, Xi said that high-level interaction should play an important role in guiding China-Afghanistan relations and that exchanges on all levels should be intensified.

The Chinese President also called for closer cooperation on security and anti-terrorism, saying that China supports Afghanistan's efforts to maintain domestic security and will continue helping the Afghan side to improve relevant capabilities.

For his part, Ghani said Afghanistan cherishes the friendship with China, and is grateful for China's help in its peaceful reconstruction and reconciliation process.

Afghanistan is highly appreciative of the B&R Initiative and looks forward to aligning its own development with the B&R construction, Ghani said, adding that his country will actively participate in cooperation on transport connectivity.
Islamabad, June 8 : There is no evidence that the Indian intelligence is to blame for the reported abduction of a retired Pakistani Colonel in Nepal, a minister has said.

Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch informed the Senate on Wednesday that the purported kidnapping of retired Lt Colonel Mohammad Habib could not be taken to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the UN on the basis of assumptions.

It was yet to be established that Col Habib had been picked up by the Indian intelligence agencies, he said.

"No final report suggesting that the Indian intelligence agency or the Indian government was involved is available with the Foreign Office or the government," the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying.

Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani asked if the statement meant that the Foreign Office was exonerating India from the alleged kidnapping.

Baloch added: "We are hundred per cent sure that Indian intelligence agency RAW is behind the kidnapping but the evidence to this effect is not final."

But he said the Habib issue appeared to be linked with the conviction of alleged Indian spy Kulbushan Jadhav in Pakistan. "But material was required to legally prove" this.

He said the Foreign Office was trying to obtain "solid evidence" and Nepal had been asked to get in touch with three Indian nationals who had received Habib at the airport when he flew into Kathmandu.

He said it was unclear if the three were Indian government employees or civilians or working for a private firm. The matter had also been taken up with the Indian government.

The minister said the incident took place two months ago, but expressed his "helplessness" about what he alleged was non-cooperation from Nepal.

Opposition leader Aitzaz Ahsan alleged that Nepal, unlike in the past, was not cooperating on the issue of Habib.

Senator Rehman Malik of the Pakistan Peoples Party urged the government to take the issue to the ICJ and the UN.

Habib's disappearance from Nepal has been widely linked in the Pakistani media to the death sentence given by a Pakistani military court to Jadhav.
Washington, June 8 : An Indian-origin lawyer died after he was hit by a train at a crossing in a northern California town.

Kirtee Kapoor, the head of Davis Polk & Wardwell's India group and and a partner at the firm in Menlo Park, California, died in the accident on Monday near Atherton, the Mercury News reported.

A statement on the Davis Polk website said Kapoor was born in Bengaluru and did his L.L.B. from the University of Delhi Faculty of Law, a B.C.L. from Balliol College, University of Oxford, and L.L.M. from New York University School of Law.

"Kirtee joined Davis Polk's New York office as an associate in 1999," said the statement.

"...Over the next 18 years he spent time in several of our offices advising clients on significant M&A matters and in investments and other transactions around the world."

He was elected to the partnership in 2007 and moved to Hong Kong later that year. In 2015, he joined the firm's northern California office.

"Kirtee was a truly wonderful man. His optimism, warmth, honesty and wisdom were inspiring. He will be remembered as a great partner of the firm, a beloved colleague and adviser, and a steadfast friend to so many," the Davis Polk website said.

Kapoor is survived by his wife and daughter, who live in Menlo Park.
London, June 8 : Voting was underway across the UK in a snap general election on Thursday as the nation is set to elect a new Prime Minister ahead of negotiations over Britain's exit from the European Union slated to begin on June 19.

The election will have a big impact on how the country negotiates its exit from the European Union.

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and they will close at 10 p.m. with the first result -- likely to be Houghton and Sunderland South which has been quickest at the last five elections -- expected to declare just one hour later at 11 p.m., The Telegraph reported.

Prime Minister Theresa May, along with her husband Philip, cast her vote at a polling station in the town of Sonning, in her parliamentary constituency Maidenhead, which she has represented since 1997, Efe news reported.

May made no comment to the media after exercising her franchise.

Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn greeted reporters as he arrived at Pakeman primary school in Holloway, north London, to cast his vote, the Guardian reported.

He told the the media: "Thank you very much, all of you, for coming here today. It's a day of our democracy. I've just voted. I'm very proud of our campaign. Thank you very much."

A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 46.9 million people registered to vote. Some votes have already been cast, through postal voting.

Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon cast her vote in Glasgow.

May called the snap general election in April, when the ruling Conservative Party held a working majority in the British House of Commons of just 17 seats and had a lead of over 10 percentage points suggested by some surveys.

But the Conservatives' lead over the opposition Labour Party narrowed to a single digit after weeks of campaign, which has made the battle for 10 Downing Street unpredictable.

To form a majority in the House of Commons, one party must win 326 seats.
Astana, June 8 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday arrived in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital, where he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit that is expected to grant India full membership.

Modi is scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev later on Thursday.

Ahead of his departure, Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the Astana Summit, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the SCO after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

After participating in the Summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Jeddah, June 8 : A man who allegedly stole jewellery from different stores in the city over a period of three years was arrested at King Abdulaziz International Airport while entering the Kingdom on a Haj visa.

The man from a north African country had robbed jewellery worth 3.38 million Saudi riyal ($901,213) after coming to the city in the guise of a pilgrim, the Saudi Gazette reported.

He used to come in the month of Ramadan and burgle jewellery stores during the day when the streets were generally empty.

The police received reports from store owners at Al-Yamamah Souq in Al-Kandrah district that jewellery worth SR1.8 million ($479,936) was stolen from their stores.

Two years after his first crime, another jewellery theft was reported to the police in Al-Murjan Souq in Al-Safa district. He stole ornaments worth SR2 million ($533,262)from the souq.

After his second theft, the police were able to get his features as a surveillance footage showed him talking to a partner in crime who was not involved in the first theft.

The police recorded the thief's information in the database but he was able to elude arrest and escape.

On the man's third visit to the Saudi Kingdom, the police matched his data with their list of wanted criminals and he was arrested.

The police were still searching for the man's accomplice and investigating whether the thief was involved in more crimes.
Pune, June 8 : With 'Make in India' initiative now becoming a global agenda, there is an incredible opportunity for the Indian manufacturing companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across key verticals to take a giant digital leap, a top executive from Dassault SystAmes has said.

With a renewed focus on smart cities and industrial corridors, manufacturing in India too is at the threshold of major reforms.

According to reports, India's manufacturing activities in product design, R&D and assembling has the potential to reach $1 trillion by 2025.

"Indian manufacturing companies are now catching up with digitisation. But the rate of digitisation is still not very fast. Adopting the solutions provided by Dassault Systemes can help Indian companies scale up digitisation," Samson Khaou, Dassault SystAmes' India Managing Director, told IANS.

Global 3D design software major Dassault Systemes organised its first "Manufacturing in the Age of Experience" event here, offering detailed perspective on steps that businesses can take to digitally transform manufacturing operations and outsmart competitors.

"'Manufacturing in the Age of Experience' offers a unique opportunity to explore how industries can digitally transform with the '3DEXPERIENCE platform'," Guillaume Vendroux, CEO, DELMIA, Dassault Systemes, told reporters here.

DELMIA, powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, helps businesses design and test in a simulated production environment so that they can efficiently plan, produce and manage resources.

Known as the 3DEXPERIENCE company, Dassault Systemes provides business and people with virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations and helps manufacturers provide differentiating consumer experience with the help of 3D design and analysis at every level of product lifecycle.

"Complete synchronisation and integration of operations, modularity and predictive analytics have enabled manufacturers to provide consumers with a personalised experience," added Vendroux at the event attended by over 100 executives and business leaders from across verticals.

A third of Dassault Systemes' R&D capacity is supported by its facilities in India. The company earned revenue of 3 billion euros in last year.

"The first step that Indian manufacturing companies need to take to compete with their global counterparts in an 'experience' economy is to disrupt their traditional manufacturing operations with more agile, flexible, scalable manufacturing processes," Khaou told IANS.

"In this context, they need to address four areas of the manufacturing equation: digital manufacturing, manufacturing operations management, supply chain planning and operations, and additive manufacturing," he added.

With "3DEXPERIENCE Playground", a technology showcase featuring interactive stations, the event also provided a preview of the future of smart manufacturing.

Among the products showcased at the event was "The 3DEXPERIENCE Factory", a smart factory solution to design and simulate the behaviour of the full production line combining the HTC Vive virtual reality system and Dassault SystAmes' 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

"With 'Manufacturing in the Age of Experience', we touch upon how technology is breaking down barriers between the virtual world and reality. It is inspiring new generations of makers, engineers, scientists, brand evangelists and CEOs to develop the disruptive experiences that are creating industries of the future," Khaou said.

(Gokul Bhagabati attended the event in Pune at the invitation of Dassault Systemes. He can be contacted at gokul.b@ians.in)
Islamabad, June 8 : Pakistan will recommend three names to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday for appointment as ad-hoc judges to hear the case filed by India for stay of the death sentence awarded to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, a media report said.

A delegation led by Attorney General of Pakistan, Ashtar Ausaf will present the names to the court.

A meeting of "agents" from India and Pakistan is to be held with the ICJ's President Ronny Abraham on Thursday to discuss future proceedings in the case.

Former chief justices of Pakistan (CJP) Nasirul Mulk and Tassaduq Hussain Jillani and former Attorney General Makhdoom Ali have been recommended to as ad-hoc appointees at the UN court, Dunya News reported.

The Pakistani team that will meet the ICJ President includes the Attorney General and Director General (DG) of South Asia Affairs, Dr Faisal.

Pakistan's counsel, Barrister Khawar Qureshi along with two senior lawyers is also part of the Pakistani delegation at the ICJ, the daily said.

India approached the UN court last month seeking stay on the execution of Jadhav, which the court granted.

Counsel for Pakistan Khawar Qureshi maintained that responsibility to punish terrorists lies with all the countries. Qureshi had told the court that the issue revolved around national stability of Pakistan and the ICJ does not have the jurisdiction to rule over such case.

Pakistan will not be deterred in the fight against terrorism and those sponsoring terror can not shake its resolve, the counsel said.

Qureshi said that India has acknowledged Jadhav as its national.

Jadhav was tried by a military court in Pakistan in April and awarded death sentence on charges of spying and posing a threat to national security.

Pakistan has said that Jadhav will not be executed till he "exhausts all his mercy appeals", which includes one with the President of Pakistan.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on May 8. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.
New Delhi, June 8 : Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday accused the Congress of conspiring to instigate violence in Mandsaur, where five farmers were allegedly killed in police firing, and dubbed its Vice President Rahul Gandhi's decision to visit the state as part of his "irresponsible behaviour".

"Those forces are conspiring which don't want to see Madhya Pradesh moving ahead. Those forces are conspiring which don't want to see farmers being prosperous. This was proved today when we saw Rahul Gandhi trying to visit Mandsaur. Under such circumstances, he is behaving irresponsibly. This can't be described as right conduct," Tomar told NDTV news channel.

"It can never be imagined that Congress will instigate violence by involving itself directly," the minister responded when he was asked about the events at Mandsaur.

Tomar, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, also accused the Congress party of demeaning the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.

"At least 30 farmers were killed in police firing in Betul when the Congress was in power. Neither Congress President Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi or any other leader visited the state. Today, they are going there only to disturb and demean the state government. The Congress is going to suffer huge losses in the future," he said.

The minister said the farmers were earlier convinced by the state administration to refrain from protest and they had agreed.

"But a conspiracy was hatched on June 5-6 and in the name of farmers the state was thrown into a cycle of violence," Tomar said.
New Delhi : Port-of-Spain (IANS) The Indian High Commission in Trinidad and Tobago has announced 12-days of activities to mark International Yoga Day on June 21.

Addressing the media, High Commissioner Bishwadip Dey said yoga is over 6,000 years old and an invaluable part of Indian ancient tradition.

The activities will begin on June 15, which coincides with Corpus Christi, a public holiday. On June 15, Yoga Meditation Society will organise "108 Surya Namashkar" at the National Council of Indian Culture's (NCIC) Divali Nagar.

From June 17 to 26, schools will organise a yoga awareness campaign. On June 18, yoga exercise will be held at the Board Walk Chaguaramas and on June 25, a yoga fest will be organised at Divali Nagar from 9.30 a.m.

Dey said that this year's programme is organised by the High Commission of India with the United Nations, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the International Day of Yoga Committee.

Dey recalled that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his address to the 69th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2014, had urged the world community to adopt an International Yoga Day saying "yoga is an invaluable gift of ancient Indian tradition".

On December 11, 2004, 193 members of the United Nations passed a resolution declaring June 21 as International Day of Yoga.

"In essence, yoga is a process of creating a body and mind that are stepping stones, not hurdles to an exuberant and fulfilling life," Dey said.

He added that yoga is essentially a path to liberation from all bondage. "Medical research in recent years has uncovered many physical and mental benefits that yoga offers, corroborating the experiences of millions of practitioners."
Mandsaur, June 8 : Senior Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh and Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav were on Thursday stopped from meeting the families of five farmers killed in agitation in Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur district The opposition leaders, who reached Neemuch, near Mandsaur, said "the farmers' protest was an infighting among RSS workers".

Kamal Nath said the state government did not allow them to meet the relatives of the farmers who were killed in the police firing on Tuesday.

"You can see that we are not in huge numbers as only three of us are here. Even the party workers are not here, so they (government authorities) should not explain to us the meaning of Section 144 (of CrPC). It doesn't apply to three people. Under which law are they stopping us," Nath said.

JD-U leader Sharad Yadav said: "We have come here here just to meet the families of the deceased farmers and the farmers who were injured in the police firing."

"But they didn't allow us to go and meet them and said that Section 144 was imposed in the area. We even requested them to take us in their vehicles but they refused to do so," Yadav added.

"This government is acting foolishly. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan must resign," said former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digivijaya ingh.

He also said that the Congress and JD-U leaders didn't go to Mandsaur to ignite tension. "We have come here to ease the tension and not to ignite it. We have come to talk to the farmers and make them understand," Singh said.

He also alleged that the farmers protests in the state were due to infighting among the Sangh workers.

"The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh are both wings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It is clearly an infighting of the Sangh and not a fight of the farmers. We (Congress) have fought for the rights of the farmers," Singh said.

Hitting out at Chouhan, Singh said, "Shivraj had promised farmers 1.5 times return on the yield of crops. He should implement that. Why hasn't he implemented his own promise?"
Hyderabad, June 8 : A youth from Telangana was critically injured when unidentified assailants fired at him in the United States, his family said here on Thursday.

Mubeen Ahmed (26), a native of Sangareddy district, was on June 4 shot twice in the stomach at a California store where he works, though the family came to know about it only on Thursday.

He family said that some men went to the store posing as customers and got into an argument with Mubeen before firing at him.

An injured Mubeen was rushed to a California hospital, where he underwent surgery. His relatives from Chicago were attending on him at the hospital.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj called for a report from the Indian Embassy in the US.

The Telangana government is arranging for passports for Mubeen's family members to enable them to fly to the US.

A son of Indian Air Force employee Mujeeb Ahmed, Mubeen went to the US in February 2015 and completed his academic course. He had started working in a private store on the outskirts of California.
New Delhi, June 8 : India and Kazakhstan on Thursday discussed ways to expand their ties as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a bilateral meeting with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev here.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Modi arrived here earlier in the day to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit on Friday, during which India is expected to be granted full membership of the group. India has an observer status at present.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

With Pakistan also expected to be granted full membership at the SCO Summit here, the two South Asian neighbours are going to be the seventh and eighth members of the organisation after China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.

However, according to External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay, there has been no request from either side for a bilateral meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who is also here for the summit.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Islamabad, June 8 : The Inter Services Public Relations, the Pakistan militarys media wing, on Thursday released details of an operation in Balochistan's Mastung area in which security forces killed 12 "hardcore terrorists".

Special commandos participated in the three-day operation to destroy a several-kilometre-long cave complex used by banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi (LeJA) group to plan attacks across Pakistan, Dawn reported.

The military said on Thursday that the successful operation by security forces in Mastung denied establishment of any direct or indirect Islamic State-organised infrastructure in Pakistan.

The statement issued by ISPR said that security forces conducted an operation in Mastung based on reports that 10-15 terrorists of banned LeJA were hiding in caves near Isplingi, 36 km southeast of Mastung.

The said organisation was reportedly making efforts to communicate with IS militants and intended to facilitate establishment of IS's foothold in Balochistan.

The suicide bomber who targeted Senate Chairman Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri on May 12 was also sent by LeJA group from the same hideout. Five security forces personnel, including two officers were injured in the offensive.

Operation for clearance of the target area, spread over 10 km, started on June 1 with landing of a heliborne force.

Terrorists hiding in caves offered stiff resistance and a 250-metre-long gorge with steep heights and multiple caves made the clearance operation difficult and challenging.

Intelligence and security forces personnel cleared the hideout by June 3. During an exchange of fire, 12 terrorists, including two suicide bombers, were killed.

Security Forces destroyed an IED-making facility inside the cave and recovered cache of arms and ammunition which included 50 kg of explosives, three suicide bomber jackets, 18 grenades, six rocket launchers, four light machine guns and huge ammunition of various types.
Astana, June 8 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived here on Thursday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit and held his first bilateral meeting with Kazakhistan President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

On Friday, India and Pakistan are expected to be granted full membership of the SCO which also includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India has been a observer to the SCO since 2005.

Soon after his arrival here, Modi called on Nazarbayev and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties.

"Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan met PM @narendramodi and discussed ways to expand bilateral ties," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

On Friday, Modi is also expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Summit.

However, there is no word yet on any such meeting between Modi and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is also here to attend the Summit.

Modi on Wednesday said full membership of the SCO would help India in terms of connectivity and economic and counter-terror cooperation with the Eurasian bloc.

Stating that once India becomes a full member of the SCO, the bloc "will represent over 40 per cent of humanity and nearly 20 per cent of global GD", Modi said in a pre-departure statement: " I look forward to deepening India's association with the SCO which will help us in economic, connectivity and counter-terrorism cooperation, among other things."

He said India launched the process of full membership of the SCO in the Tashkent meeting last year.

Modi said that India has long-standing relations with SCO members and he looked forward to "progressing them further through the SCO for mutual betterment and growth of our countries and our peopl".

"Together, we will harvest new opportunities for beneficial engagement and redouble efforts to address common challenges that may come in the way of realising our full potential," the Prime Minister said.

According to G.V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary (Eurasia) in the Ministry of External Affairs, India has signed 38 documents of accession to become a member of the bloc.

"There are broadly two legs of collaboration which are being pursued in the SCO platform," Srinivas said.

"One is trade, economy, connectivity, energy, transport, banking, that set of issues," he said. "The second thing is, of course, the fight against terrorism."

Srinivas said that while the SCO Secretariat is in Beijing, there is a sub-body called Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) that has its office in Tashkent.

After participating in the summit on Friday, Modi will also attend the World Exposition, which Kazakhstan is hosting this year, before returning to India.
Aizawl, June 8 : Home Minister Rajnath Singh will meet the Chief Ministers of four northeastern states bordering Myanmar here on Monday to review the security situation and will also visit the border areas by chopper, an official said.

The Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh (Pema Khandu), Nagaland (Shurhozelie Liezietsu), Manipur (N. Biren Singh) and Mizoram (Lal Thanhawla) will be attending the review meeting to discuss the status of infrastructure along the India-Myanmar border, a Home Ministry official said.

Issues like implementation of Border Area Development Programme (BADP) projects, streamlining the Free Movement Regime (FMR) for better facilitation of movement of people across the border, works relating to boundary survey and other co-ordination issues between the states and the border guarding force, Assam Rifles, would also be discussed.

Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, Chief Secretaries, Directors General of Police (DGPs) of the respective states and Director General of Assam Rifles Lt General Shokin Chauhan, including senior officials from the concerned central ministries, will also be present in the meeting.

"The Union Home Minister would be visiting Myanmar border areas by helicopter on Tuesday. The Minister would also interact with senior Assam Rifles officers on the prevailing situation along the India-Myanmar frontier," the official added.

Last month, around 280 people from Myanmar's Ralie village in Arakan took shelter at Lungpuk and Khalkhy mountainous villages in Saiha district of southern Mizoram.

Assam Rifles troopers posted along the Myanmar border areas and the Saiha district administration provided necessary aid and support, including food, to the refugees who were subsequently repatriated.

"The India-Myanmar unfenced borders along Mizoram are being frequently used by smugglers to smuggle drugs, arms and contraband from Myanmar," the official said.

Mizoram shares an unfenced 510-km border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh, providing infiltrators, terrorists and smugglers an opportunity to illegally move across the border.

There is a 16-km-wide free zone (8 km on either side of the frontier) along the 1,643-km unfenced India-Myanmar border.

Four northeastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Mizoram (510 km) -- share the 1,643-km mountainous border with Myanmar.
Bengaluru, June 8 : A Gram Panchayat Development Officer (PDO) has been suspended for allegedly directing two conservancy workers to get into a manhole to clean it in a village under Mysuru district in south-western Karnataka.

"A case has been registered against Gram Panchayat President Geetha Narayana Nayak and Gram Panchayat Development Officer Anand at Krishnaraja police station. We have suspended Anand from service," Karnataka Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj H.K. Patil informed Karnataka legislative assembly on Thursday.

Mysuru is 150 km from Bengaluru. The incident took place at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court had on March 24, 2014, directed all the states to abolish manual scavenging and take steps for rehabilitation of such workers.

According to a complaint lodged on Wednesday night by Assistant Director of Taluk Social Welfare Department D.G. Gurushanthappa, the conservancy workers -- Ganesh R., 30, and Cheluva, 50 - were directed by Nayak and Anand to clean the manhole in Tavarakatte village.

"The conservancy workers complained to me against Nayak and Anand for making them enter into a manhole to clean it. Anand has complained of nausea and dizziness. We admitted him to K.R. Hospital in Mysuru for treatment," Gurushanthappa said.

A case has been registered against the accused under various sections of the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act, 1993, and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, and under Section 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

"We have received complaint from the taluk's Social Welfare Department. Based on the complaint, we have registered an FIR against the accused. We are yet to receive complaint from the victims," Mysuru Assistant Commissioner of Police - KR Division C. Mallik said.

According to Mallik, the manhole is located beside the gram panchayat President's house.

"It is alleged that Nayak compelled the conservancy workers to clean the manhole when they were collecting waste from door to door. They refused to enter the manhole but she insisted them to clean it. She informed the PDO about conservancy workers refusing to clean the manhole. The PDO threatened to terminate their services if they failed to clean the manhole," Mallik said.

On March 6, 2017, three labourers died in a manhole in an east Bengaluru suburb Kaggadasaura after they stepped into it. The labourers were engaged by a contractor to clean manholes there.
Kolkata, June 8 : Educationalist Sunanda Sanyal, once known for his close affiliation with West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress, on Thursday strongly criticised the lack of democratic environment under the present government, but ruled out joining hands with the BJP.

Talking to IANS ahead of his scheduled meeting with West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh, Sanyal said he and the other civil society members, who backed the Trinamool during the Left Front regime, never visualised the state would slip to such a situation.

"We hit the streets to drive away the Left regime and bring about a political change in Bengal but we never wanted this change. There is no democracy in Bengal now," Sanyal claimed.

"Our movement was against the wrong policies of the erstwhile Left Front government and the arrogance of certain Left leaders. However, the Left Front regime was far better than the current one," he alleged.

Sanyal, who opposed the Left Front for years ever since it stopped teaching of English till Class 5, was a prominent face in the Singur land movement (2006-08) that eventually turned the Trinamool's political fortunes and helped it emerge victorious in the 2011 assembly elections.

However, he opposed the various "wrongdoings" of the Trinamool government and was manhandled by cops during a protest demonstration against the Saradha chit-fund scam in 2013.

Sanyal during the meeting later offered Ghosh his blessings and good wishes but rebuffed any possibility of "actively joining the BJP".

"They might want me to join the party but I will not actively join the BJP. The Indian economy is suffering due to their wrong moves," he said.

Ghosh, however, parried queries about asking Sanyal to join the BJP and termed the meeting a courtesy visit.

"I have come to meet him as he is very ill. I know him for a long time. He is not like a lot of other intellectuals in the state who are always looking for their own benefit," Ghosh said.

"He did not join the Singur movement for any economic or political gains. That's why we all love him," he added.
Mumbai, June 8 : Konkona Sen Sharma's "A Death In The Gunj" is about secrets and whispers that hover over our lives and lies that are dormant in the family history. And one family secret that Konkona and her distinguished mother filmmaker Aparna Sen share is that the latter has made a quiet non-visible guest appearance in her daughter's directorial debut.

Aparna Sen is in Konkona's much-lauded "A Death In The Gunj". Though we can't see her in the film, only hear her.

Aparna plays the film's protagonist Shutu's (Vikrant Massey) mother. We never see the lady. We only hear her on the phone on a distressed long-distance call with her son and we also hear her voice when Tanuja (playing Vikrant's aunt) reads out a worried and anxious letter from Shutu's mother.

Aparna laughs when caught out being a part of her daughter's film.

"Of course that's my voice for Shutu's mother. But there is so much more to the film. I myself loved the film, and not because it's made by my daughter."

Uncannily, Aparna was heard but not seen in her own directorial debut. She had dubbed for Debashree Roy in "36 Chowringhee Lane". And now Aparna is just a voice in her daughter's directorial debut.

Though Konkona claims her main source of inspiration is Peter Weir's 1975 Australian film "Picnic At Hanging Rock" for the eerie and intangible feeling of dread in "A Death In The Gunj", Konkona's mother's influence on her first film is quite prominent.

Not many have noticed the uncanny resemblance in mood between Konkona's movie and her mother's "36 Chowringhee Lane". In both the films, the protagonists are lonely, persecuted, desolate and exploited individuals. If Konkona's Shutu lived to become old, he would probably lead a reclusive lonely life like Violet Stoneheim (Jennifer Kapoor) of "36 Chowringhee Lane".

Aparna says, "Both Konkona's protagonist and mine in '36 Chowringhee Lane' are lonely individuals. However, Violet in my film has more-or-less accepted her state of loneliness. Shutu is much more vulnerable."

In "36 Chowringhee Lane" and in Konkona's "A Death In The Gunj", the protagonist's loneliness ends in tragedy.

Aparna said: "Violet accepts her exploitation with much more grace whereas Shutu reacts violently to his condition of desolation. Their destinies are different because Konkona and I are very dissimilar as directors."
New Delhi, June 8 : Around 4,000 Indian students appeared for interviews on Thursday to secure the American visa to pursue higher education in the US, brushing aside fears of hate crimes in that country.

The interviews were conducted at the US Embassy here and the Consulates in Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

Arunima Sharma, who is looking for a MS in Management Science programme in Columbia University, says she is not apprehensive of hate crimes despite reading about them in the media.

"I have been to the US earlier for a fellowship programme. That time, I was a little sceptical but things turned out to be great and I felt very safe," Sharma told IANS.

"I never became a victim of racial discrimination and there was support from fellow students and others in and around the campus," she said.

Changam Meenakshi Rajagopal is entering a Ph.D programme in Astrophysics at Clemson, South Carolina. Going by what she has heard from her friends, who have studied in the US, she feels assured about her safety and security.

"I have had many friends pursuing various courses in the US. They have never complained about the safety situation," she said.

In an interview to IANS, a former Stanford don had said that the violent attacks against Indians -- and other ethnic groups -- in the US were not indicative of the whole country and students should not take them into account while deciding to apply to US universities.

"There is no denying there has been sporadic and random violence against Indians in the US. These incidents were tragic and disturbing, but they are not indicative of the country as a whole," Martin Walsh had said.

For Karan Raina, who will be studying for an MS in Quantitative Finance at Rutgers University, the steps the US institutes take to ensure the safety of the students are satisfactory.

"They place the same kind of value on international students that they place on US students in the educational programme. They take proper security measures for the foreign students," Raina told IANS.

As per US official data, there are some 166,000 Indian students in that country, second to China. Two years ago, this number was roughly about 100,000.

"Today, every sixth international student in the US is from India and they are contributing enormously to every aspect of life at the university and in the surrounding communities," US Ambassador Charge d'Affaires MaryKay L. Carlson told the media.

"We are celebrating Indian students who are not only taking an exciting step in their higher education but are also furthering the strong people-to-people ties between the two countries," she said.
Mumbai, June 8 : Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said on Thursday that the central and state governments were "sensitive" to farmers' issues and was trying to address them with due seriousness.

He said the welfare of the farming community and agriculture topped the list of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Centre was willing to extend whatever help was required by the states.

"I am from a village and the son of a farmer. I have also been the agriculture minister. Let me assure you that the Centre and state governments are trying to do everything possible," Rajnath Singh told the media here.

The Minister's comments came a day after police shot dead five farmers at Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

Rajnath Singh acknowledged that the farmers were "a big pillar of our society and are the biggest producers and consumers".

He said both Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were seized of the issue and were working towards providing succor to the agitating farmers.

Regarding the violence in Madhya Pradesh, he guardedly said: "I have received some information that some powers have attempted to instigate and the CM has assured a probe into it."

Singh is in Mumbai to address a meeting of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and workers as part of the three-year celebrations of the Modi government.
New Delhi, June 8 : The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said a party delegation would visit Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh on Friday where five farmers died in police firing during an agitation and hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his silence on the issue.

AAP spokesperson Sanjay Singh Singh, announcing the decision to go to Mandsaur, said the reason for the farmers' agitation in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh was due to the "apathy" of the central and state governments.

Attacking the Prime Minister, he said: "If anything small happens in Europe, Afghanistan or Pakistan the first person in the world to tweet on it would be our Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

"But he (Modi) hasn't uttered one word on the death of six farmers."

The senior party leader said that on one hand farmers are shot down and on the other the country's agricultural Minister is giving advice: "Do yoga, everything will be fine".

"Even Prime Minister is asking people to do yoga," he added.

The AAP leader said that BJP is trying to divert attention from everything happening in the country with yoga.

Singh said that the reason for farmers' agitation in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh is the "apathy" of central and state governments.

"As far as I know the debt of farmers in Maharashtra is Rs 30,500 crore. When you can waive Rs 1,14,000 crore of loans taken by corporates, why can't you waive farmers' loans?" Singh asked.

The leader said that on June 10, AAP district leaders will meet districts officials with the problems of farmers of each district.
Manama, June 8 : Bahrain's Information Affairs Ministry on Thursday warned media outlets not to publish or circulate anything that contradicts the Kingdom's stance towards Qatari policies.

The ministry said the decision was taken so that it does not affect "Bahrain's highest interest intended by the measures and the political decisions taken by Bahrain and Gulf, Arab and other countries in relation to Qatar."

The ministry warned of legal action against anyone for violating the law by publishing statements that question the decision.

"Legal action will be taken against anyone who contributes to publishing such material and will be held responsible before the law," the ministry added.
New Delhi, June 8 : Former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's son Karti has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government of political vendetta, saying people know why some individuals are being targeted.

Karti, who has been booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in a case of allegedly using influence to get the FDI proposal cleared in a media company when his father was the Finance Minister, told NewsX that he was not the only one facing cases.

He described the case against him as "political vendetta" and said he had the backing of the Congress party.

"I think people by and large and neutral observers know what's happening to people. Why certain people are being put under this kind of scrutiny. It is obvious. My father has given a very detailed statement. He has clearly said that he will continue to speak and write against the government. He is a vocal critic on issues that concern the party and the nation," Karti said.

Referring to the cases he is facing, Karti said: "It is not something happening uniquely to me." It was happening to senior party leaders as also regional parties elsewhere, he added.

"There is style, colour of toxic vitriolic politics in India. If you are in politics, you need to accept this new normal and move on... I do not think people judge you or not take you seriously in politics because this kind of thing is happening to somebody," he said.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had last month registered a case against Karti Chidambaram under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of a corruption case filed by the CBI earlier.

In the FIR, Karti is alleged to have got Rs 3.5 crore from INX media, now 9X media, for helping it in the clearance of a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) proposal during his father's tenure as the Finance Minister.

Chidambaram had termed as "false and baseless" the CBI case against Karti relating to the clearance of an FIPB proposal of INX Ltd.

On its part, the government had rejected allegations that the raids and cases filed against Karti and RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his children were done out of political vendetta, saying investigative agencies worked on a rational basis and on the basis of evidence.
Patna, June 8 : Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday came under widespread criticism for taking part in a yoga camp amid the killing of five farmers in police firing in Madhya Pradesh.

The Minister attended a yoga camp of Baba Ramdev at Motihari, his hometown in Bihar.

When journalists sought his reaction over the killing of the farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Radha Mohan Singh advised them not to bother but to practise yoga.

Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress leaders attacked the Minister.

"He has exposed the BJP's real agenda for farmers. Look at him enjoying the yoga session instead of meeting the protesting farmers and doing something for them," JD-U spokesperson Neeraj Kumar said.

RJD spokesperson Pragati Mehta added: "What kind of an agriculture minister do we have?"

Radha Mohan Singh could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts by IANS.
New Delhi, June 8 : The Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Jammu and Kashmir Police to file within 10 days a status report on its investigation into the case of Constable Sameer Bhatt, allegedly killed by his colleague though the body has not been recovered.

The court also sought the Centre's response on a plea for the transfer of the case investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

A vacation bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Deepak Gupta was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by M.K. Pandita, an advocate and leader of migrant Kashmiri pundits in Delhi, petitioner's lawyer M.C. Dhingra said.

The court will hear the matter on June 19, he said.

Bhatt had gone to Pahalgam on May 14 along with a Constable colleague Eijaz Ahmed in the latter's car to visit Bhatt's uncle Dileep Bhatt, serving in the police at Pahalgam but transferred to Kupwara.

After dropping Bhatt at Kupwara, Eijaz returned to Srinagar on May 14 but Bhatt did not return home thereafter.

Upon inquiries from Bhatt's family, Eijaz allegedly gave different and contradictory versions about the missing man's whereabouts.

The state police constituted a Special Investigation Team attached to the Shergarhi police station in Srinagar. During investigation, Eijaz allegedly confessed that he killed Bhatt after the latter sexually assaulted him.

The police then registered a fresh case and the investigation was transferred to Handwara police station in Kupwara district, a move Pandita alleged was to derail the SIT investigation.

Pandita contended that "due to varying versions given by Eijaz Ahmed it is not certain that Sameer Bhatt has been murdered. So long as his body is not recovered or substantiating evidence is not collected that he is dead he is presumed to be alive, but in captivity".

The transfer of the case from Shergarhi police station in Srinagar to Handwara police station in Kupwara district is aimed at hampering the SIT investigation in an attempt to save Eijaz Ahmed in the case of the disappearance of Sameer Bhatt, the petitioner contended.
Mogadishu, June 8 : At least 61 people were killed in militant Islamist group Al-Shabab's attack on a military base in Somalias semi-autonomous state of Puntland on Thursday.

The attack took place on the base near the remote Galgala Mountains, about 70 km from the port city of Bosaso.

The group said it killed 61 government troops and seized 16 vehicles in the dawn raid, BBC reported.

However, a Puntland government minister denied the toll, but did not give separate casualty figures.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group had carried out several big attacks on military bases in Somalia.

Confirming the attack, Puntland Security Minister Abdiaziz Hirsi said that an investigation was under way and details would be given later.
New Delhi/Islamabad, June 8 : The Pakistan High Commission here has issued visas to 96 Sikh pilgrims to visit Pakistan to participate in events to mark the 411th death anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, a statement said on Thursday.

The Sikh pilgrims are visiting Pakistan on the occasion of Martyrdom Day (Shahidi Purab) of Guru Arjan Dev Ji from June 8 to 17, a Pakistan High Commission statement said.

According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, Indian Sikh pilgrims were visiting Pakistan via the Wagha Railway Station on Thursday to take part in the events to mark the 411th death anniversary of Guru Arjan Dev Ji, the fifth of the 11 Sikh gurus.

The Evacuee Trust Property Board (BTPB) Chairman Muhammad Siddiqul Farooq, board officials and Sikh leaders were to receive the pilgrims at Wahga Railway Station.

After arrival, the Sikh pilgrims would leave for Gurdwara Punja Sahib, Hassanabad, and stay there for two days and perform their religious rituals.

They would go to Gurdwara Janum Asthan Nankana Sahib on June 9 where they will stay for three days.

Then they will leave for Sucha Sauda, Farooqabad, on June 12.

On the same day, the pilgrims will return to Nankana Sahib. They will go to Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore on June 13 by special train.

The main function will be held at Lahore at Gurdwara Dera Sahib on June 16.

They will return to India on June 17.
Darjeeling, June 8 : The army was called in on Thursday after thousands of angry Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists demanding a separate Gorkhaland indulged in arson and pelted stones at police, injuring 15, as 12,000 tourists were stranded in the hill station due to the violence.

In Kolkata, a Defence Ministry spokesman said two army columns based in Darjeeling were being requisitioned.

The GJM has called a 72-hour shutdown in the north Bengal hills on Friday in protest against "indiscriminate police action on the peaceful demonstration" by its workers.

"Requisition from state government received. Two army columns based in Darjeeling moving out," said Wing Commander S.S. Birdi, Chief Public Relations Officer of Defence, at Kolkata.

One column comprises around 80 men.

Demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland, the GJM workers engaged in a pitched battle with the police, as panicked tourists tried to rush out. The GJM supporters broke through police barricades, damaging and torching five police vehicles, set fire to a traffic outpost, and indulged in massive stone pelting at the police.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held her first state Cabinet meeting in Darjeeling in 45 years on Thursday.

The police, who initially beat a hasty retreat, made a repeated baton charge and lobbed tear gas shells at the mob to quell the violence that erupted near Bhanu Bhawan on the tourist hub Mall Road, that was virtually taken over by the GJM workers.

At least 15 police officers, including Jalpaiguri range Deputy Inspector General of Police Rajesh Kumar Yadav, sustained severe injuries.

The Morcha supporters also forced the markets in the neighbouring Kalimpong district to shut down.

Banerjee, after her Cabinet meeting, claimed the Morcha's agitation was based on a "non-issue".

"Every political party has a right to protest. So have they. But what is the issue on which this agitation is based? There are no issues at all. The Morcha is trying to gain political relevance by holding these protests," Banerjee observed at the end of her Cabinet meeting.

"We have no enmity with anyone. We want the hills and the entire state to be well," she added.

The GJM claimed that 45 of its supporters were injured in the police action.

"Our party has called for a 12-hour shutdown in the North Bengal hills, including Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and the Mirik subdivision, in protest against the indiscriminate police action on our peaceful demonstration," GJM General Secretary Roshan Giri told IANS.

"We condemn the police action on our supporters today in Darjeeling. At least 45 GJM supporters including women got injured in the police beating," he said.

The political temperature soared in North Bengal hills after the GJM -- the dominant party in the region for close to a decade -- seized on Banerjee's earlier announcement that Bengali would be a compulsory subject in schools across the state.

The GJM, looking for a confrontation with the ruling Trinamool Congress which has in recent elections emerged as its main rival in the region, immediately hit the streets, dubbing the move as a bid to "impose Bengali in the hills" and revived the demand for Gorkhaland.

Banerjee on Monday tried to cool passions by announcing that Bengali would not be compulsory in schools in the Darjeeling hills and in certain areas of the Dooars and the Terai.

The demand for Gorkhaland -- to be carved out of the northern Bengal hills -- was first raised by the Gorkha National Liberation Front in the 1980s. The GJM took centre stage from around 2008, by nudging out the GNLF. The movement has left many dead over the past three decades, besides affecting the region's economy which is based on tea, timber and tourism.
New Delhi, June 8 : BJP workers on Thursday staged a protest at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence against power and water cuts in the city and alleged that the government has cheated people as it did not prepare any summer action plan.

Hundreds of Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers demonstrated outside Kejriwal's residence and raised slogans against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the city.

Police had to use water canons to disperse the protestors as they tried to break the police cordon.

The Delhi BJP leaders under the leadership of its city unit chief Manoj Tiwari also courted arrest demanding that Kejriwal meet them and accept responsibility for power and water supply breakdown in the national capital.

"Kejriwal government's callousness is responsible for the power and water shortage in the city today (Thursday)," Tiwari told reporters.

He also accused the government of failing the people of Delhi, as it did not prepare any action plan for distribution of power and water during the summer.

Tiwari, who also represents the Northeast Delhi constituency in the Lok Sabha, said that the AAP government also did not appoint a chairperson in the DERC (Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission).

Hitting out at the AAP government, Tiwari said: "The government has failed the citizens of Delhi by its non-performance and non-planning in the Jal Board."

"It is sad that at a time when people need the Kejriwal government to perform administratively in Delhi to solve power and water problems, we find it busy defending its corrupt deeds whose new sagas keep opening every day."

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Vijender Gupta alleged that the Kejriwal government was in connivance with private operators and allowed them to short-purchase power.

"The Chief Minister's talk of scheduled and unscheduled power cuts by itself says that he knows that there is a massive power crisis in the city which the government's negligence has allowed to precipitate," Gupta said.
Shillong, June 8 : Major David Manlun, who died in a gunfight with militants in Nagaland, was laid to rest with military honours on Thursday at the Assam Regimental Centre in Meghalaya.

Major Manlun, 32, led an Army operation on Tuesday in which three militants of the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent and an autorickshaw driver allegedly ferrying the militants were killed in Nagaland's Mon district bordering Myanmar.

Three Army commandos were injured in the battle at Lapa Lempong hilltop in Oting village.

Commissioned into the 1st Battalion the Naga Regiment in March 2010, Major Manlun joined the battalion Naugam in Jammu and Kashmir and served there for two years and took part in a number of operations.

After a stint in Himachal Pradesh, Major Manlun was posted in Nagaland.

Hundreds of people, including Meghalaya Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Meghalaya Police chief Swaraj Bir Singh, as well as Army and Meghalaya Police officials paid their last respect to the Major at his residence.

Barring a Hill State People's Democratic Party legislator, no Meghalaya minister was present at the residence or at the Assam Regimental Centre.

The final journey from his house till the Assam Regimental Centre was witnessed by thousands of civilians who thronged the streets to bid adieu to the officer.

Major Manlun was awarded with the Chief of Army Staff Commendation Card for a number of successful operations and in recognition of his exemplary service on August 15 last year.
New Delhi, June 8 : A 32-year-old gangster wanted in a triple murder in west Delhi's Mainwali and carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh has been arrested, the Delhi Police said on Thursday.

Police said the arrested, Naveen Khatri, is a close associate of Sonu Daryapur, the main conspirator in the triple murder in Mainwali on April 30 in which Monu Dariyapur, his PSO and Assistant Sub-Inspector Vijay Kumar, and his friend Arun Shastri were killed and two persons were injured in a shootout.

Khatri, a sharp shooter, was arrested on a tip off by Special Cell on Wednesday evening when he came to meet his associates near Rithala Metro Station.

He was carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, which was declared by Delhi Police Commissioner.

"On interrogation, Khatri confessed to have been involved in many criminal activities and gang wars in west Delhi, including the triple murder in Maniwali. He said that he is an active member of the Samunder Khatri Gang," Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said.

Born in Narela Village in west Delhi, Khatri fell in bad company during his school days and later started doing crimes in 2004. He joined the Samundar Khatri gang, Yadav said.

He along with Samundar Khatri on January 17, 2015, gunned down Jitender Khatri, a Delhi Police constable in Narela area. On July 2, 2016 he along with Sonu Dariyapur fired at the office of a cable operator in Multani Mohalla in Rani Bagh area, Yadav said.

On April 30, 2017, he along with Sonu Dariyapur and other gang members indiscriminately fired on Arun Shastri, Yogesh, Monu Dariyapur and his two Private Security Guards (PSO) - ASI Vijay Kumar and Constable Kuldeep, while they were having snacks in a car at Shokeen Chowk in Peeragarhi. Thirty-five empty cartridges were recovered from the spot," Yadav added.

Monu was previously a gang member of Sonu Dariyapur. They turned foes after Monu's cousin sister married Sonu Dariyapur. Sonu decided to eliminate him in 2006, Yadav said.

They had attempted to kill Monu Dariyapur in 2006 too, police said.
Kolkata, June 8 : Holding the Mamata Banerjee government responsible for the latest flare-up in northern West Bengal hills, opposition Left Front on Thursday urged the Chief Minister to take immediate steps to restore peace in the region.

"The state government should take immediate steps to restore peace in the hills. Normalising the situation in Drajeeling should be their priority," Left Front Chairman Biman Bose said.

He was referring to a clash between Gorkha Janmukti Morcha supporters and police in Darjeeling district earlier in the day.

"The vengeful tactics of the Trinamool Congress government are responsible for the adverse situation in the hills," he said.

Bose asked the government to ensure security of locals and thousands of tourists left stranded in the hills.

Comparing Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's policy vis-a-vis the Bengal hills with that of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Kashmir, Communist Party of India-Marxist state Secretary Surjya Kanta Misra said the government should look for scope for discussions and not provocation in the hills.

"The situation in the hills is a matter of grave concern. The Chief Minister's policy on the north Bengal hills is similar to the Prime Minister's policy on Kashmir. There should be discussions on peace, not provocation," he asserted.

A big clash erupted between police and GJM supporters in Darjeeling, turning the famous hill town into a war zone.

Several police vehicles and a police outpost were torched by the mob and many police personnel were injured in stone-pelting. According to the GJM leadership, at least 45 of its activists were injured in police action.
Mandsaur/Neemuch, June 8 : Two days after five of them were killed by police, enraged peasants in Madhya Pradesh continued to indulge in violence on Thursday even as Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was arrested when he entered the state to meet farmers.

Farmers set fire to a truck and four motorcycles and stoned police personnel in Shajapur district, District Magistrate Alka Srivastava told IANS. Authorities immediately passed orders banning the assembly of five or more people.

A Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Rajesh Yadav, was attacked by some protesters. He was admitted to hospital with a leg fracture.

Another mob of farmers burnt a truck in Dewas district. Mandsaur, where police shot dead the five farmers on Tuesday, was however calm but tense.

"The situation is improving in the district and no incident of violence was reported," new District Magistrate O.P. Srivastava told IANS.

Amid the simmering tension, the government transferred the District Magistrates of Mandsaur, Ratlam and Neemuch. The Mandsaur Police Superintendent was also shunted out. All three places had witnessed violence by farmers.

Gandhi's attempt to meet the families of the farmers killed on Tuesday raised political temperature in Madhya Pradesh and beyond.

Gandhi was not allowed to visit Mandsaur and was arrested with 29 other leaders including Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav when they entered Madhya Pradesh. All of them were released on personal bonds.

Gandhi then met some farmers and expressed solidarity with them. Thursday was the eighth day of the farmers' agitation in Madhya Pradesh. They want their loans to be written off and their produce to be bought at a fair price.

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rajkumar Yadav said farmers also staged protests in Harda and Raisen districts while Aam Kisan Union's Kedar Sirohi threatened to unleash road blockades in the state.

Gandhi lashed out at the Modi government.

"Modi waived off loans worth Rs 150,000 crore for the richest people in India," he said. "But they can't pay the right price to farmers for their produce, they can't give compensation. They can give only bullets."

Asked who was responsible for the killing of the five farmers, Gandhi said: "(Prime Minister) Narendra Modi and (Madhya Pradesh) Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan)".

Gandhi entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan and switched over to a bike in a bid to reach Mandsaur after seeing police deployment. But he could not go too far.

Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh as well as Sharad Yadav were also stopped from meeting the families of the dead farmers.

A former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Digvijaya Singh said: "This government is acting foolishly. Shivraj Singh Chouhan must resign."

He said Chouhan had promised farmers 1.5 times return on the yield of crops. "Why hasn't he implemented his own promise?"

The BJP accused the Congress of instigating the farmers' violence and said Gandhi's conduct was irresponsible.

"There is information that some people were involved in instigating violence," Home Minister Rajnath Singh said.

Chief Minister Chouhan urged the farmers to maintain peace and promised to resolve the crisis through talks.
New Delhi, June 8 : Delhi Police on Thursday arrested two youths for raping a 19-year-old woman a day earlier in Delhi.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Kumar identified the two accused as Mohammad Kasif (20) and Mujeebul Rahman (19) from Hapur of Uttar Pradesh.

The accused were working with the victim as labourers at a construction site for staff quarters in the Army Cantonment area here.

On Wednesday around 2 p.m, the accused raped the 19-year-old near the construction site, police said.

The victim did not complain to police immediately, but as she started to bleed intensely, she confided in her parents.

She was taken to a hospital and at around 9 p.m, a police complaint was filed.

"The victim was later moved to Lady Hardinge Hospital where she underwent a surgery. She is currently out of danger," Kumar told IANS.

Police said that the two accused were arrested from the construction site on Thursday evening.
Neemuch (Madhya Pradesh), June 8 : Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday sought a comprehensive inquiry into the killing of five farmers here in police firing and sought "martyr" status for them.

Gandhi, who was arrested by Madhya Pradesh Police here while on way to Mandsaur and subsequently released, said the party would aggressively raise the issues concerning farmers in parliament and seek loan waiver for them.

He used different routes as well as modes of transport and changed his strategies in an effort to reach Mandsaur -- the epicentre of farmers' agitation in Madhya Pradesh -- as the state government denied him permission fearing further worsening of situation.

He flew from Delhi to Udaipur and entered Madhya Pradesh by car from Rajasthan in a cavalcade of Congress leaders and activists.

As he entered Neemuch, he saw a group of policemen near a toll plaza deployed to stop him. He immediately switched over to a motorcycle and gave them -- as well as his own NSG personnel -- the slip. A party activist drove the bike.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot also took a motorcycle and followed Gandhi. They took a narrow lane through Chinta Khera village to reach Mandsaur.

Interacting with farmers, who had come to the border with Rajasthan to meet him, Gandhi said police violated all norms in firing on farmers. He said there was no use of teargas or water cannons. "There should be an inquiry. The farmers should be given the status of martyr," he said.

Gandhi said he had come only to meet farmers and members of the deceased's families. "Can't I go to Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh? I am not a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) man, does this mean I cannot go to these states," Gandhi said.

Gandhi dismissed the criticism of his visit by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which dubbed it as a "photo-opportunity. "Had they allowed me to go, I would have met them and come back."

"The farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and other states are crying today. We will put pressure on the central government and get the loans of farmers across the country waived off," he said, adding that farm loans were waived off in Uttar Pradesh due to pressure exerted by the party.

Farmers told Gandhi that some of the injured in police firing were serious.

"They are not allowing me to go there. They stopped me from entering Madhya Pradesh. They stopped me on the border. Actually, I didn't want to call you (the farmers) here. I wanted to go there, but they arrested me."

Gandhi said farmers did not get actual price of their crop and he would do all he can for them.

"When soldiers die on the border, they are given a lot of respect. But when a farmer dies, he is not given due respect. That's why today I am standing with you," he said.

Before being detained, Gandhi charged the Narendra Modi government with writing off the loans of rich industrialists to the tune of Rs 1,50,000 crore but not waiving the loans of poor farmers.

"He (Modi) can't waive farmers' loans, he can't give them (proper) rates. He can't give them bonus. He can't give them water. Kisan ko sirf goli de sakte hai (He can give only bullets to farmers)," Gandhi said.

Asked who was responsible for the farmers' plight, Gandhi said: "Both...Narendra Modi and Chief Minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan)."

Farmers in Madhya Pradesh have been on strike since June 1, demanding that their loans be scrapped and their produce be bought at a fair price.

Congress leaders slammed Madhya Pradesh government for arresting Gandhi. Party General Secretary K.C. Venugopal said that arrest of Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders revealed "political cowardliness of the Modi government".

"It reveals the inability of the ruling dispensation to face tough questions on farmers' distress," he said.

Party leader A.K. Antony said the Madhya Pradesh government not allowing Gandhi to visit Mandsaur was "anti-democratic, barbaric and against the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution."
Islamabad, June 8 : Pakistan on Thursday informed the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of its intent to appoint an ad-hoc judge who will sit on the bench for all proceedings in case relating to alleged Indian spy Kulbhushan Jadhav, including the substantive hearing.

According to a press release issued by office of Attorney General of Pakistan, a meeting took place on Thursday between International Court of Justice President Ronny Abraham and delegations of India and Pakistan to discuss the timelines in the Jadhav case.

The Registrar of the court and other court officials were present in the meeting.

The release said it was not a hearing and no discussion on the substance or merits of the case took place.

"The purpose of the meeting was only to discuss procedural matters, including the time-lines for submission of written memorials and to enable a hearing to be listed," it said.

The delegation of Pakistan was led by Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf Ali. Its members included Mohammad Faisal, Director General for South Asia in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ahmad Irfan Aslam, Head of International Disputes Unit in the Office of the Attorney General, and Khawar Qureshi QC, Counsel for Pakistan.

The release said ICJ President sought the views of the parties as to time required for the submission of their written pleadings and supporting evidence called memorials.

The Pakistan Attorney General urged the court to adopt an expedited timetable for an early substantive hearing. The court will announce the timetable shortly.

"The Attorney General informed the International Court of Justice of Pakistan's intent to appoint the ad-hoc judge who will sit on the bench of the court for all proceedings in this case, including the substantive hearing," the release said.

It said Indian application seeks "at least release or acquittal" of Jadhav. "As was made clear by Pakistan's Counsel Khawar Qureshi QC on May 15, India can never obtain this from the ICJ," the release said.

It said the court on May 18 made a procedural order to enable a full hearing to take place and it did not make any finding on jurisdiction or merits.

"Pakistan's arguments on jurisdiction and merits will be considered by the court at the full hearing. As can be seen from paragraph 60 of the order of May 18, the court stated that it 'in no way prejudged jurisdiction, admissibility or merits'."

"Pakistan is fully confident that India can never succeed in its application," it said, adding that India "can never obtain acquittal or release" of Jadhav on the basis of its application to the International Court.

India approached the UN court last month seeking stay on the execution of Jadhav, which the court granted.

Jadhav was tried by a military court in Pakistan in April and awarded death sentence on charges of spying and posing a threat to national security.

Pakistan has said that Jadhav will not be executed till he "exhausts all his mercy appeals", which includes one with the President of Pakistan.

India moved the ICJ against the death penalty on May 8. The next day, the international court gave Jadhav, 46, a lease of life and stayed the death sentence as a provisional measure.

Pakistan claims its security forces arrested Jadhav from its restive Balochistan province on March 3 last year after he reportedly entered from Iran.
Beijing, June 9 : China on Friday expressed grave concern over the reported killing of two Chinese nationals kidnapped in Pakistan late last month.

"We have taken note of relevant reports and we express our grave concern. We have been trying to rescue the two kidnapped hostages over the past days," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in response to the reports, Xinhua reported.

"The Chinese side is working to learn about and verify relevant information through various channels, including working with Pakistani authorities," she said.

"The Chinese side is firmly opposed to the acts of kidnapping civilians in any form, as well as terrorism and extreme violence in any form," she said.
Frenchman's Creek We are finding significant growth in customers contacting us for an Arcadia louvered roof in order to reduce sun exposure. -Scott Selzer

Lifestyle choices including shade structures, protective clothing and application of sunscreen all play a role in skin cancer prevention. We are finding significant growth in customers contacting us for an Arcadia louvered roof in order to reduce sun exposure, explained Scott Selzer, CEO and President of Arcadia, 38th on Inc. 5000's fastest growing manufacturer list. Our shade system is fully adjustable and can be closed with the touch of a smart phone app. We grew almost 60% in 2016 and we attribute this to interest in outdoor living that is also healthy and shade-centric, explained Selzer. Made of thick gauge extruded aluminum, the Arcadia roof provides protection from the strong overhead sun when the louvers are fully closed.

The American Academy of Dermatology recommends American's Seek Shade especially during peak rays from 10 am  2 pm. Experts reinforce that a combination of sunscreen, protective clothing, hats and shade structures is the best way to limit harmful sun exposure. The angle of the sun is another factor to keep in mind when outdoors.

According to the Skin Cancer Foundation's President, Deborah S. Sarnoff, MD, Skin cancer is mainly a behavioral disease and it is strongly linked to sun exposureabout 90 percent of non-melanoma skin cancers are associated with ultraviolet rays from the sun.

Arcadia Louvered Roofs is proud to join the Skin Cancer Foundation, the American Association of Dermatologists and the American Cancer Society in promoting skin cancer prevention and sun safety awareness during May which is Skin Cancer Awareness Month. Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer and when it comes to healthy lifestyle choices, many people fail to take proper precautions to avoid the harmful effects of sun. Arcadia is committed to sharing skin cancer prevention content with it's customers and social media initiatives.

You cant avoid the sun completely but knowing the risks and protecting yourself when in the sun is critical. Following are a few ideas for sun protection:



Avoid direct exposure to the sun between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Thats when UV rays are the most intense.

Choose shade: Incorporate shade-structures like Arcadia louvered roofs and covered pergolas into your environment.

Block UV rays with wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses.

Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen (protects against UVA and UVB radiation) that has a sun protection factor (SPF) of 30 or higher to protect exposed skin.

Do not use tanning beds or sun lamps.

Being safe in the sun is important for both adults and children, and its never too late to reduce your chances of developing skin cancer.

The American Academy of Dermatology's #SpotSkinCancer social media campaign encourages individuals to download a statistic sign and share it with others for awareness. For example 9,500 a day = the number of people diagnosed with skin cancer each day.

More information:



About Arcadia:

Arcadia Louvered Roofs, Inc. was founded in 2011 by CEO and Chief Product Architect, Scott Selzer. As a former middle school teacher with a part-time remodeling company, Scott specialized in building decks, pergolas, basements and other home improvements projects. Inspired by his students to follow his dream to become a full-time entrepreneur, Scott started Adjustable Patio Covers, a company specializing in outdoor spaces.

With a large demand for patio covers that would allow shelter from inclement weather while receiving maximum airflow, Scott began distributing louvered roofs, an adjustable cover originating from Australia. As one of the first companies to bring this product to the east coast, popularity grew around the louvered roofs and Scott quickly found ways to re-design, innovate and patent a higher quality version of the product to provide to his local customer base.

The Arcadia Pivot System is engineered and designed to withstand all types of weather conditions from heavy snow to high winds. This one-of-a-kind luxury louvered roof has been one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. With manufacturing facilities in Georgia and California with future expansions for new locations throughout the US and Canada, Arcadia's goal is to better serve their continuously growing network and provide the highest quality in products and customer service. In addition to being a smart louvered roof manufacturer, Arcadia also specializes in technology and design with a focus on architectural innovation. 'Smart roofs' continue to evolve and provide an adjustable atmosphere for outdoor living needs.

ARCADIA BRINGS THE INDOORS OUT, CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE OUTDOORS.

ARCADIA - INNOVATORS SUN, SHADE, SHELTER
Thats All is a one-of-a-kind brand, and we are excited to share her keen wit with our customers across the United States.

Michel & Company customers will now have exclusive access to the Thats All  greeting cards, a brand dedicated to finding the humor in all of lifes situations. Retail stores across the country will be able to place orders at http://www.michelandcompany.com or over the telephone at 1-800-256-7245.

Thats All was founded in Michigan in 2009, after founder Karen Rosenzweigs sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The Kogan sisters believed that lifes most difficult obstacles seem less arduous when approached with humor--often noting to one another, It's cancer, thats all. Their tongue-in-cheek refrain began making its way across the hospital, and Thats All was born.

After several years cultivating a loyal client base on her own, Ms. Rosenzweig has decided to team up with Michel & Co., a Phoenix based stationery company, to grow the business and allow easy access to Thats All products for retailers nationwide. Michel & Co.s team will also identify new ideas for the Thats All line, working in close coordination with Rosenzweig to bring a refreshing take on her original vision for the company.

Speaking about the partnership, Ms. Rosenzweig said, I could not have hand-picked a more creative, innovative and forward group than Michel & Co. They're several steps ahead of their competitors and bring thoughtful insight to where the trends are heading.

Karen Rosenzweig added, We have an uncanny synergy. I am looking forward to working with Michel & Co.s talented team.

Michel & Co, a division of Creative Brands, was founded in Southern California over 40 years ago. Since then, the company has executed their mission bringing the California sunshine to their creative paper goods. Michel & Co. will be displaying Thats All products at trade shows this summer, and will feature the cards in their catalog beginning this fall. Santa Barbara Design Studio (a Creative Brands company) distributes Thats All gift product in an assortment of categories that will compliment the Thats All greeting cards from Michel & Co.

Creative Brands president, Paul DiGiovanni added, Karen has done an excellent job bringing high quality, creative products to the market. Thats All is a one-of-a-kind brand, and we are excited to share her keen wit with our customers across the United States.

Creative Brands is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona with manufacturing facilities, a call center and a distribution center in Lewisburg; TN. http://www.cb-gift.com
I couldnt stop thinking about Justines story, and I knew that we could use Creative Brands to help solve this problem, all while delivering a high quality product to market. Our customers can know that they are helping make a difference for so many.

Beginning in the summer of 2017, Phoenix based gift company Creative Brands will launch Sips, a new brand of drinkware, in six market cities. Products include glassware, ceramics, water bottles, dish towels and many more accessories to ensure that Sips is a one-stop shop for all drinkware needs. Additionally, a portion of every sale will be donated to charities that promote access to clean drinking water to villages in rural Uganda.

Sips products are created using high quality materials--such as stainless steel and bone china-- and feature creative designs that appeal to a wide base of consumers. Accessories such as stir sticks, snack dishes and bottle openers are adorned with cheeky phrases to help guide customers from their morning coffee through their evening glass of beer. Sips brings high-end essentials to market at an affordable price point for consumers.

Creative Brands CEO Paul DiGiovanni noted, Weve had a lot of fun designing these products. I am really proud of the creativity our team has shown, and I cant wait to watch this brand thrive. I know that people are going to love it.

Sips was created in 2017 after a Creative Brands employee shared her story of growing up without reliable access to water in Uganda. DiGiovanni knew that he could use the company to help address this crisis. He decided that proceeds from Sips will be donated to help fund the drilling of wells in Uganda.

DiGiovanni added, I couldnt stop thinking about Justines story, and I knew that we could use Creative Brands to help solve this problem, all while delivering a high quality product to market. Our customers can know that they are helping make a difference for so many.

Creative Brands is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona with manufacturing facilities, a call center and a distribution center in Lewisburg Tennessee and a buying office in Hong Kong. For more information on Sips, visit http://www.sipsdrinkware.com.
With their resources... we firmly believe Stephan Baby will continue to grow profitably and offer our customers the highest quality products and superior customer service that our industry has come to expect

Creative Brands of Phoenix, AZ has acquired the Stephan Baby Company of Pierceton, IN.

Stephan Baby was founded by Jan Campbell in 1987 and is a family owned and operated company focused on providing exceptional baby products and accessories to both the gift and baby apparel markets.

For the last thirty years Stephan Baby has solidified its position as the market leader in baby apparel, blankets, plush and toy sets that differentiate the firm in the marketplace. Core products include Boo Bunnies, Swaddle Blankets, Plush Chairs and Chewbies. In addition Stephan Baby has had great success with lovable licenses like The Rainbow Fish and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

We are very pleased to have a new strategic partner who will share our vision for Stephan Baby and help us grow our business in the future. This team is well versed with the needs of our industry and can help strengthen our marketing position in baby markets across all channels of distribution, said Ms. Campbell, President of Stephan Baby. With their resources, and the help of their field sales force, telemarketing staff and sophisticated web presence, we firmly believe Stephan Baby will continue to grow profitably and offer our customers the highest quality products and superior customer service that our industry has come to expect.

Creative Brands, founded in 1948, is a distribution, importing and manufacturing firm with six distinct catalogs selling to an assortment of retailers across the country.

Recent acquisitions include Heartfelt, Santa Barbara Design Studio and Michel & Co. in the gift industry in addition to their Faithworks brand that distributes inspirational products to the Christian retail channel.

Paul DiGiovanni, President of Creative Brands, said, We are thrilled to be a part of this wonderful Stephan Baby brand. The Campbell family has combined vision and hard work to build this unique baby gift brand and we look forward to offering this unique grouping of quality products to our customer base while getting to know all the new customers of Stephan Baby.

Creative Brands is headquartered in Phoenix Arizona with manufacturing facilities, a call center and a distribution center in Lewisburg; TN. http://www.cb-gift.com
Just Miles is now By Miles Our new name doesnt just describe the way were structuring our insurance policies, its very much a statement of intent.

Ahead of its launch later this year, UK-based pay-per-mile car insurer Just Miles announced that the company is changing its name to By Miles after a trademark dispute, coinciding this with a website rebrand.

The companys name change comes partway through a private beta of its revolutionary new pay-per-mile insurance product and driving app, with 100 UK drivers from their waiting list currently trying out simulated policies. Participants have driven over 35,000 miles in the first month of the trial.

Members of the beta trial were asked for their help in deciding on the new name, with By Miles emerging as a clear favourite due to its clarity, simplicity and its emphasis on creating a superior experience for lower mileage drivers.

James Blackham, co-founder and CEO at By Miles, said:

Our new name doesnt just describe the way were structuring our insurance policies, its very much a statement of intent. We want to offer customers significantly better value thanks to smarter, fairer pricing, with a higher level of service than theyve come to expect from existing car insurers.

The company believes that traditional insurance models are unfair because they dont properly account for the miles people drive. As a result, car owners driving fewer miles than the national average are effectively subsidising the insurance costs of higher mileage drivers. With half of the UK population driving under the By Miles low mileage threshold of 7,000, the company believes a lot of people are currently overpaying for their insurance.

Callum Rimmer, co-founder and CTO at By Miles, explained:

Its an expensive time to be a driver in the UK. With insurance premium tax increasing this month, people are likely to get a nasty shock the next time they renew their car insurance. Were building our pay-per-mile product to help car owners take back control of their outgoings with flexible policies that fit the way they live in real-time.

Aside from a monthly subscription fee, By Miles will only charge customers for the miles they drive, as they drive them. Car owners can use the miles calculator on the companys website to check exactly how many miles they drive according to DVLA records and decide if a By Miles policy could work for them.

The company is in the process of applying for regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Follow By Miles on Twitter
Bluesuits LLC, a luxury brand of womens business-wear, is partnering with MindLeaps to raise funds to rescue street children in Rwanda. From June 5, 2017 to December 31, 2017, Bluesuits LLC will contribute 5% of all sales to MindLeaps. Jamak Kharza, fashion designer and founder of Bluesuits LLC, dresses professional women and high-net-worth women CEOs. Now, she is giving new meaning to high fashion by helping some of the poorest kids in the world.

The arts have always held a special place for Kharza, who holds a Masters degree in Piano Performance from University of Illinois and an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. Her work in fashion started when she was just 15 years old in Tehran, Iran. In 1985, she started Bluesuits in New York City to address the wardrobe needs of professional women. While at Columbia Business School, Khazra was a finalist in the Greenhouse Lang Fund. She chose to work on Wall Street with UBS Warburg in equity research while keeping Bluesuits operational. It was her clients that made Khazra leave Wall Street and pursue her passion in helping women build a sustainable, professional wardrobe.

MindLeaps founder Rebecca Davis met Kharza in New York City. Davis had been running MindLeaps in Rwanda, Guinea and Bosnia-Herzegovina since 2011. Leveraging her own business degree and passion for the arts, Davis worked with educators to develop a dance-based methodology to help street children develop the cognitive skills they need to go to school.

I believe that we can change the world though arts and music, and I am honored to have the opportunity to help raise funds for MindLeaps, remarked Khazra. Rebecca, through MindLeaps, is literally lifting children out of sewers and transitioning them into school through dance. MindLeaps is a grassroots non-profit. They dont have easy access to large foundation funding or government support. They work with local staff on a shoestring budget.

Davis was thrilled to hear that Bluesuits will be donating 5% of all sales to MindLeaps school fund. Today, more than ever, MindLeaps is looking for individuals and businesses who can find it in their hearts to support street children. Proceeds from Bluesuits sales will help us enroll youth in school, which leads to employment and a way off the streets.

Please join Bluesuits to change the lives of vulnerable children.

Visit: http://www.bluesuitsonline.com.

5% percent of all purchases will go directly to MindLeaps school fund.

Or: Make an Appointment online to visit Bluesuits or call 212-787-0278 for an appointment.

About Bluesuits

Bluesuits Collection is a collection of ready-made as well as custom-tailored sportswear co-ordinates designed for professional women. Bluesuits Collection is designed and produced in New York City.

About MindLeaps:

MindLeaps is a 501(c)3 organization based in the United States and working in post-conflict countries to permanently decrease the number of out-of-school children. MindLeaps combines a dance program to improve cognitive development with vocational training to prepare youth for a stable life in school or in the workplace. http://www.mindleaps.org

For More Information:

Jamak Kharza (Bluesuits)  212-787-0278 or sales(at)bluesuitsonline(dot)com

Eleanor Milburn (MindLeaps)  646 902 1295 or eleanor(at)mindleaps(dot)org

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Volunteers serve as role models to other Muslims as peace builders and increase awareness of the peace-building role of Muslim youth.

Startup angel investor Tey Por Yee (Larry) together with Gomif Partners, sponsored the project which mobilizes young Muslims to be a volunteer for peace, enabling them, especially women, to participate in the peace process and decision making, and encouraging them to become future leaders as part of the Gomif Partners Socialpreneurship corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.

Larry demonstrated in the Accelerator17 2.0 Cyber Workshop how to participate in the program over the Internet.

The program focuses on the underdeveloped southern Philippines, which suffers from the 500-year-old conflict between Christians and Muslims. According to the local report, the Government of the Philippines has been fighting protracted wars with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Abu Sayyaf in parts of Mindanao. These conditions are a breeding ground for ethnoreligious radicalism and conflict. Volunteers serve as role models to other Muslims as peace builders and increase awareness of the peace-building role of Muslim youth.

The project will train 30 volunteers breaking the stereotype of Muslims who are only seen as recipients and giving them the chance to work in multi-cultural societies. Through their placements, they will help with delivering services to 150,000 people.

Gomif Partners, co-lead by venture capitalist Tey Por Yee (Larry), shows the tech-savvy startups on German Cyber Workshop, how easy to contribute to society by using the Internet, besides making a profit from the business. Gomif will pick up an equity stake in qualified startups as part of the program. Interested candidates can visit http://www.gomif.com and submit business plans online. The program is preparing for the launch of Accelerator17 2.0 some time in July.

About Gomif Partners

Gomif Partners (GP) is an early stage investment advisory network joint lead by socialpreneur Larry Tey Por Yee and several private venture partners. GPs investors invest in and work with information technology companies at any stage but they are primarily focused on seed and early stage investments. GP is interested in socially responsible business models, especially renewable, retail, manufacturing, software, and services surrounding this concept. Visit http://www.gomif.com
It is with great honor and pride that we participate in this project in conjunction with our partners to educate and train Chiles youth on the proper practices and technological advancements in the fields of brazing and welding.

Richard Apodaca, Director-International proclaimed, It is with great honor and pride that we participate in this project in conjunction with our partners to educate and train Chiles youth on the proper practices and technological advancements in the fields of brazing and welding.

Matias Valenzuela, Commercial Manager at Lucsol Spa, Uniwelds authorized distributor in Chile, undertook this project in conjunction with INACAPs Alexis Bravo, Mechanical Career Director. INACAP is an Integrated System of Higher Education, which is made up by The Technological University of Chile INACAP, The Professional Institute INACAP and the Center For Training INACAP, which together, share the same values and institutional missions. They are represented in their 26 branches throughout 15 regions in Chile. INACAP is a private non profit organization. The Board of Directors is elected by the Confederation of Production and Commerce (CPC), the Private National Corporation for Social Development (CNPDS) and Technical Service Cooperation (Sercotec). The overall mission of INACAP is to train people with values and skills which will allow them to develop as responsible citizens and with autonomy be productive members of society. INACAP has over 120,000 students and more than 270,000 alumni (2016 data) which are developing Chile today, and well in to its future.

Present from U.S.A. manufacturing companies at the inauguration were Richard Apodaca, Director-International at Uniweld and Chuck Fuerstenau, V.P. at Lucas-Milhaupt. Also joining the American delegation was Miguel Harris, President of LAMCO. INACAP had various distinguished members present, among them, Monica Ferreira, Vice Rector South Santiago; Elena Rui-Wamba, Academic Director; Marcelo Diaz, Administration & Finance Director; Alexis Bravo, Mechanical Career Director; and Sergio Vargas, Workshop Director. Present from Lucsol were their Directors, Ramon Carrasco Pinto; Felipe Carrasco Catalan; Rodrigo Mariambo Catalan and Lucsols Commercial Manager, Matias Valenzuela Vilaza.

Uniweld is present at INACAP with 10 oxy/acetylene training stations set up with Uniwelds RUHL series regulators, welding handles and brazing and welding tips. Lucas-Milhaupts 75 years of global brazing solutions provide another key and valued component to INACAPs welding laboratory. It was the vision of Miguel Harris, President of LAMCO, whose passion and focus in bringing together such prestigious companies to educate and train, that created the synergy which resulted in the welding laboratory.

Both Uniweld and Lucas-Milhaupt are committed to providing ongoing training at the welding laboratory. Lucsol will work closely with key personnel at INACAP to schedule the training sessions at the welding laboratory with Uniweld and Lucas-Milhaupt. The future is bright for aspiring brazers and welders as well as for the experienced technicians that wish to improve their trade. The INACAP welding laboratoryit is just getting started!

Uniweld Products, Inc. has manufactured quality welding and cutting equipment at its factory located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida U.S.A. since 1949. Refrigeration manifolds & hoses, vacuum pumps, tubing tools, nitrogen kits, cutting torches, welding handles, cutting attachments, pressure regulators, pressure gauges, cutting tips and welding tips are among the products manufactured at Uniweld's factory in Fort Lauderdale. Uniweld....."Quality tools that go to work with you."
Summer is just around the corner and The Bernards Inn is eager for the sunshine as well as its upcoming wine and dining events. This month, the celebrated and historical Inn featured in downtown Bernardsville invites families along with all jazz and wine lovers to its dining rooms and exclusive Wine Pantry for the following events:

FATHERS DAY BRUNCH

Brunch Buffet

Sunday, June 18

27 Mine Brook Road, Bernardsville, NJ

10 am  2:30 pm

$39 per adult, $20 per child 3 years to 12 years, no charge per child under 2 years

Reservations: 908-766-0002

Spend Fathers Day in a place that has as much character as Dad does while treating him and the whole family to a magnificent Brunch Buffet at The Bernards Inn on Sunday, June 18. The sumptuous buffet will feature a variety of breakfast and lunch selections including pancakes, French toast, salads, fruits, cheeses, and omelets. Seafood, pasta, and hot entrees will also be included and every item is always prepared fresh from the kitchen. Reservations are $39 per adult; $20 children 3  12; children 2 and under enjoy a complimentary breakfast. To make a required reservation, call 908-766-0002.

The restaurant at The Bernards Inn will be open for dinner on the evening of Father's Day featuring the regular spring a la carte Dinner menu.

THE JAZZ SUPPER CLUB SERIES

Featuring The James Zeller Trio

Thursday, June 22

27 Mine Brook Road, Bernardsville, NJ

6:30 pm  9 pm

$15 per person | 2 item minimum per person

Reservations: 908-766-0002 or http://www.bernardsinn.com

Experience a lively evening of wonderful jazz at this months Jazz Supper Club series featuring New York City's The James Zeller Trio. Enjoy fantastic music, delicious food and spirited cocktails as The Bernards Inn Great Room transforms into a jazz club for the night. Executive Chef Corey Heyer has created a unique, delicious menu specifically for the Jazz Supper Club Series with a range of offerings for all palates and appetites. A prix-fixe dinner option will also be available. Doors open at 6:30 pm and the show starts at 7 pm. Tickets are $15 per person in addition to a 2 item minimum per person. Space is limited so to make a required reservation call 908-766-0002 or go to http://www.bernardsinn.com.

VINEYARD TO GLASS

A Local Winery & Fromagerie Experience

Friday, June 30

27 Mine Brook Road, Bernardsville, NJ

7 pm  9 pm

$95 per person

Reservations: 908-766-0002 or http://www.bernardsinn.com

Join The Bernards Inn for a lively night of locally produced wines, fine regional cheeses, live music and great food at the summer wine tasting event Vineyard to Glass: A Local Winery & Fromagerie Experience. Try some of today's most intriguing regional vintages from a fantastic line-up of local wine makers and purveyors while slipping into The Bernards Inn exclusive Silver Vault and Wine Pantry to enjoy premium locally made cheeses, delicious hors d'oeuvres, and live music. Reservations are $95 per person, taxes included. To make a required reservation call 908-766-0002 or go to http://www.bernardsinn.com.

Turn the tasting into a VIP package which includes an early arrival time of 6 p.m., upgraded exclusive wine offerings for the one-hour preview tasting period, as well as upgraded hors d'oeuvres during early arrival. VIP reservations are $125 per person, taxes included.

ABOUT THE BERNARDS INN

Established in 1907, The Bernards Inn is an award-winning restaurant and boutique hotel located in the heart of downtown Bernardsville, New Jersey. A Somerset Hills landmark, the Inn welcomes guests with the style and elegance of a small European luxury hotel while preserving the charm of a historic American country inn. Under the ownership of Hampshire Destination Properties, The Bernards Inn marked its 100-year anniversary with a multi-million dollar renovation and redesign. The Inn offers fine dining, wedding and banquet services, conference rooms, as well as 20 well-appointed guestrooms. For more information about The Bernards Inn, call 908-766-0002 or visit http://www.bernardsinn.com.
Improved Scheduling with Daylite's Shared Calendar Since using the new scheduling option in the Daylite shared calendar, I don't need to compare everyone's calendar. This saves me a lot of time because it's easy to spot when everyone is available.

Marketcircle has released a new version of Daylite, the Mac CRM & Project Management app, with improved calendar functionality, making it more efficient for co-workers to schedule meetings and book resources. SMBs on the Mac use Daylite across the globe. Daylite is especially popular in the real estate, legal, sales, and consulting industries for managing client communication, tracking leads, and completing projects on time.

The new scheduling feature in Daylite's shared calendar helps teams in small businesses to cut down on the time it takes to schedule meetings, so they have more time to convert leads and complete projects.

"Finding a time that works for everyone can be really tough, especially when your teams are busy. Since using the new scheduling option in the Daylite shared calendar, I don't need to compare everyone's calendar. This saves me a lot of time because it's easy to spot when everyone is available."

 James Spencer, Customer Success Team at Marketcircle Inc

The improved shared calendar view allows managers, executive assistants, and business owners to view multiple people's schedules and resource availability all in one view. The new shared calendar feature also makes it easier to invite people to meetings in fewer clicks.

Marketcircle Inc. is a Toronto-based software company and has been developing small business apps exclusively for Apple products for over a decade. In the past year, Marketcircle has added integration with Zapier, support for Multitasking on iPad, Team View, and now has improved shared calendars, making Daylite even better at helping small businesses work more efficiently.
Were thrilled to have Step By Steps eight fantastic schools as part of our Endeavor family.

Endeavor Schools recently added Step By Step Montessori Schools in Minneapolis, Minnesota to its existing impressive network of Montessori schools across the country. Step By Step Montessori is a private school with eight locations throughout the western suburbs of Minneapolis, and has been offering exemplary programs for children aged 6 weeks to 8 years old throughout the greater Minneapolis area since 1991.

Endeavor Schools is looking forward to continuing the longstanding and fruitful tradition of excellence at Step by Step Montessori. Were thrilled to have Step By Steps eight fantastic schools as part of our Endeavor family, said Ricardo Campo, President of Endeavor Schools. For over 25 years, this Montessori school family has been serving the youth of Minneapolis with a remarkable education program.

Endeavor Schools partners with esteemed educational establishments like Step By Step to encourage and empower educators to operate the best possible schools in the country. By providing them with tools, leadership, guidance and support, Endeavor Schools creates a positive experience for each of their schools, in order to make a lasting impact on communities.

The integration of Step By Step Montessori into Endeavor's growing family has been a seamless process. Throughout the transition, I knew that Step by Step could partner well with Endeavor Schools," said Mike Minor, Executive Vice President of the Midwest Region. "I gladly took the opportunity to stay on board, and have really come to enjoy my partnership with Endeavor. Working with everyone on the Endeavor team has been a true pleasure, and Im looking forward to many years of serving the Minneapolis community as part of the Endeavor family.

Home to infant, toddler and primary classrooms, Step By Step Montessori Schools offer a variety of programs, both full-time and part-time, including before and after school care. The carefully planned environment in each classroom includes the use of Montessori materials that allow children to explore practical life, sensory perception, reading and writing abilities, mathematical skills, geographical areas, and elements of botany and zoology. In order to provide a well-rounded curriculum and develop the whole child, Step by Step offers enrichment programs in music, foreign language, swimming, technology and dance.

Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and with Montessori certified teachers on staff, Step By Step offers a challenging Montessori curriculum meant to stimulate a childs growth and progress. Unlike traditional school methods which focus on teaching a standard curriculum to all children in a teacher-led environment, Step By Steps Montessori Method encourages creative thinking and problem solving while building high self-confidence and self-esteem. This unique curriculum and learning philosophy aligns perfectly with Endeavor's vision to transform the lives of those they serve.

"I look forward to continuing the great work started at Step By Step, growing our presence in the Twin Cities market and beyond, and continuing to run the highest possible quality Montessori programs available," said Minor, who started his journey in Montessori at the age of three when his mother, Rose Minor, took a job at one of the schools to be able to afford the tuition for her son. Mrs. Rose Minor acquired Step by Step in 1991 when it was only a cluster of four schools and over the years added four more locations. Mrs. Minor remains busy at work to this day but will soon be retiring after wholeheartedly serving the Montessori community for 45 years.

"I look forward to continuing to work with our great group of teaching professionals as well as developing that next generation of teachers, Mike said. And finally continuing to come to work every day and see those smiling happy faces of the children in our centers. They are truly the most rewarding part of what we do."

About Endeavor Schools

Endeavor Schools is a leading education management company with a family of unique, well-established private schools that serve as pillars to their respective communities in a growing number of markets across the US. Each school subscribes to proven, research-based curricula that is delivered by seasoned educators, and is encouraged to embrace their own uniqueness and tradition. Endeavor Schools supports each schools academic excellence by providing the necessary tools and resources required.

Founded in 2012, Endeavor Schools is headquartered in Miami, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.endeavorschools.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.
We are excited to partner with Castle Hall Alternatives. We believe that their award winning and independent due diligence, global reach, and cutting edge technology will enhance the value that PPB provides wealth managers, B. Lake, PPB Capital Partners

A New Alliance Forms

PPB Capital Partners, a leading innovator in the alternative asset management industry for wealth managers, today announced its new strategic alliance with Castle Hall Alternatives, a leading provider of independent, expert due diligence. Castle Hall Alternatives will provide both operational and investment risk due diligence to PPBs suite of institutional managers. The fund managers on PPBs platform provide wealth managers and their clients with uncorrelated exposure to asset classes such as private equity, venture capital, real estate, direct lending, socially responsible investing, hedge funds and more.

PPB, explained

PPB Capital Partners designs and builds institutional-quality fund infrastructures and manages the daily fund operations for wealth managers and fund managers. For wealth managers, PPB serves as a comprehensive back office to ensure operational expertise, reduce compliance risks and control costs. For fund managers, PPB provides an efficient process to introduce new high net worth investors to your fund by outsourcing the typical operational challenges that smaller investments can cause.

PPB Capital Partners has surpassed $800M of total capital invested since its inception. PPB has a network of over 400 wealth management groups and has served over 60 RIAs, family offices, trust companies and bank wealth groups nationwide.

Were Excited

We are excited to partner with Castle Hall Alternatives. We believe that their award winning and independent due diligence, global reach, and cutting edge technology will enhance the value that PPB provides wealth managers, said Brendan Lake, Founder and CEO of PPB Capital Partners. PPB shares the same fiduciary principles of the wealth managers we serve. We feel that the combination of PPBs customization, operational expertise, cost efficiency, and now an institutional due diligence partner provides wealth managers and their clients the most comprehensive alternative investment solution.

Theyre Excited

We are delighted to support the exciting growth of PPBs investment platform, said Chris Addy, CEO of Castle Hall. In particular, wealth managers and their high net worth clients evaluating PPB funds will appreciate the greater independence, objectivity and transparency provided by Castle Halls DueDiligenceProfessional solution. In house due diligence can create an evident conflict of interest: PPB recognizes that wealth managers and advisors increasingly differentiate products in the marketplace based on the quality and independence of the due diligence process.

Due Diligence

Castle Hall Alternatives, a member of AIMA, helps global institutional investors, fund of funds, advisors, family offices and endowments identify and manage the business, operational, cyber and investment risks of asset managers. With a team of nearly 50 professionals dedicated exclusively to operational due diligence, Castle Hall deploys one of the industrys largest and most experienced due diligence teams. Castle Halls core competitive advantage is DueDiligenceProfessional, the firms proprietary online diligence platform, which has helped clients review diligence across more than 5,000 fund entities. Castle Hall operates from offices in Canada, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.
Author Hugh Hammond, a retired college professor who has taught English as a Second Language in Estonia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates, has completed his new book The Sinking of the Estonia: The CIA Knew: a work of fictionalized recent history that sheds light on the insidious infiltration of the Estonian government by the Russian mob.

Hugh was teaching at a university in Estonia when the car ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea with a loss of life of over nine hundred souls. The author noted that two students missed class on September 28, 1994. A day later, the dean quietly told him the two students were going to Stockholm to visit one of their aunts but perished in the sinking of the ship. That was when Hugh felt compelled to write this story from his heart due to the loss of the students and to the subsequent ineffective and lackluster investigation of this tragedy.

Hammond shares, Authorities in Estonia, Finland, and Sweden all participated in the investigation. They suggested a number of illogical explanations for the sinking, including excessive speed of the ship prior to sinking.

The Russian mafia infiltrated the government and the police from top to bottom. Former Soviet-owned assets, such as hotels, factories, and a brewery, were being auctioned off. The mafia gained control of the bidding process. They made money from extortion, drugs, prostitution, and smuggling. In addition, they were beginning to acquire legitimate businesses. In the weeks prior to the sinking, there were bombings of restaurants and kiosks attributed to the mafia. The mafias widespread control of Estonia and much of Eastern Europe was shocking.

Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Hugh Hammonds gripping story provides a first-hand perspective of the pervasive control Russian agents continued to exert in many countries following the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

Readers who wish to experience this potent work can purchaseThe Sinking of the Estonia: The CIA Knew at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not bogged down with complicated business issues like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes and the like. Its roster of authors can leave behind these tedious, complex and time-consuming issues, and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
Sunrise Hiteks Rugged Defender Case offers durable protection with a slim profile. Its double layer construction offers impact protection and shock absorption. The Rugged Defender Cases dual-layer design features an inner hard shell for impact protection, and a soft silicone outer layer for maximum shock absorption. This case was specifically designed to endure the daily use and abuse by students, and salespeople, and fits in Bretford PowerSync and other charging carts. The defender is now shipping models for the iPad Pro, iPad Mini 4, and Kindle 7 HD.

Highlights of this case include super rugged protection with a hybrid construction which protects the device from shock and impact. Its grippy rubber skin prevents device from slipping out of hand, preventing breakage even further. Precision cutouts allows full access to all ports while always keeping the device inside the case.

The Rugged Defender Case is a great solution for schools because of its extreme durability and and impact protection. This case also features a built-in stand for presentation and typing as well as a built-in clear screen protector. An added bonus for school use is that the Rugged Defender Case fits in all popular charging carts.

As with all of Sunrises tech gear, this case is customizable. Printing is done at Sunrise with high-definition printing in vibrant full-color. This high quality full color printing projects a premium brand image. Wholesale pricing is available for businesses and resellers. Standard production time for custom orders is 5-7 days

About Sunrise Hitek

Sunrise Hiteks Hitek store, is a leading maker of protective gear for Apples iPad. The brand changed to uuber when the company starting developing cases for other devices, such as the MacBook, Chromebook, and Samsung devices. Sunrise Hitek Group, LLC, owner of the uuber brand, also operates Sunrise Hitek, a leading digital printing company based in Chicago. As a G7 Qualified Master Printer, Sunrise is uniquely qualified among protective gear makers to offer a wide array of customization options, ensuring the most consistent and accurate color reproduction. Sunrise is an Inc. 5000 company established in 1988 and employs the most advanced equipment and technology, such as G7-certified HP Indigo and UV flatbed presses, and digital die-cutting, to create best-in-class products. A privately-owned enterprise, the company is based in Chicago and sells products worldwide.
I am elated to welcome my former colleague at PHMSA to the G2 team." John Jacobi, VP at G2-IS

Wallace B. (Wally) McGaughey has joined G2 Integrated Solutions (G2-IS) as a Senior Consultant. McGaughey is a Regulatory Subject Matter Expert, bringing a long and distinguished career to enhance G2-ISs compliance oversight, training and research capabilities, as well as engineering, and operations. This key hire further strengthens the expertise and capabilities of G2-ISs industry leading regulatory team.

McGaughey is a native of Pennsylvania but has lived most of his life in Louisiana where, early in his career, he served in operations and maintenance for petrochemical, refining, pipeline, power generation (both fossil and nuclear facilities), and high purity piping systems.

McGaughey served as the Senior Instructor at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) Inspector Training and Qualifications (T&Q) Division in Oklahoma City for almost 10 years. During his tenure at PHMSA, he educated the Federal and State Pipeline Safety Inspectors. There is no substitute for his years of experience in dealing with pipeline regulatory issues. As part of his responsibilities, McGaughey was a major participant of the State Pipeline Safety Seminars throughout the US.

He also served as Team Lead of the PHMSA Operator Qualification (OQ) Team and served on the Implementation Team for the regulation of Natural Gas Underground Storage. He was instrumental in developing the Inspector training and inspection materials for PHMSA.

I am excited about joining the talented team at G2-IS. I believe it provides the opportunity to use my in-depth regulatory knowledge and life experiences which I have been privileged to obtain throughout my career. I look forward to my contributions to the team, which complement the services available through G2 Integrated Solutions to help operators meet the nations energy needs in a safe, efficient, and compliant manner.

John Jacobi, Vice President at G2-IS commented, I am elated to welcome my former colleague at PHMSA to the G2 team. His knowledge and work in all aspects of regulatory evaluation, including OQ, Control Room Management and Underground Storage are especially welcome and important assets for the industry.

About G2 Integrated Solutions

G2 Integrated Solutions (G2-IS) delivers expertise to pipeline operators, utility companies and other energy stakeholders in seven specialized service disciplines  Asset Integrity, Engineering, Geospatial Systems and Services, Regulatory, Field Services, Technology Services, and Strategic Consulting. We provide end-to-end solutions that help manage risk, assure compliance and optimize performance.

Our commitment is to implement innovative, cost-effective solutions that align specifically with our customers needs. In order to accomplish this, we have built an organization that is robust in talent and experience. G2-IS has offices located throughout the US. For more details on the spectrum of services G2-IS offers, please visit our website at http://www.G2-IS.com.
The fifteen-person team volunteered to sort a total of 15,643 pounds of food donated to Feeding South Florida.

Neptune Society is always looking for new ways to help the communities that they serve, and recently they worked with local food bank Feeding South Florida to help provide meals for families in South Florida. The Operations team at Neptune Society volunteered to help ensure that no one in their community has to go hungry.

The fifteen-person team volunteered on March 29th to sort a total of 15,643 pounds of food donated to Feeding South Florida. Then the team packaged 13,011 meals for South Florida families. Each of these meals go toward making sure that children, single parents, working poor, veterans, and homeless in South Florida have access to healthy food.

Feeding South Florida is a food bank that services families in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties. Their food goes to homeless shelters, day care centers, soup kitchens, food pantries, and other nonprofit partner agencies that are able to provide over 25% of Florida's food insecure population with meals. Feeding South Florida is also a branch of Feeding America which services families across the country. Volunteers at Feeding South Florida, including the Neptune Society Operations team, have the opportunity to provide food security to thousands of families by sorting through the 44 million pounds of food that Feeding South Florida collects every year.

Neptune Society also serves their community by providing families across the country with affordable cremation services and information about the funeral industry. Information about rising funeral trends, including cremation can help families plan ahead for a memorial that best captures the spirit of their unique lives. Plus, planning these kinds of services in advance gives people a way to create cremation plans without letting emotions and time pressure their decisions, allowing them to make better informed decisions.

By talking to a cremation specialist and learning more about the options available for cremation services, families can get a better sense of which cremation services are best for them. With affordable options available in South Florida and across the country, Neptune Society has helped thousands of families choose services that suit both their budget and their wishes. There are also specific veterans services provided to make sure that America's greatest heroes receive the honors they deserve along with affordable cremation services.

Devoting their time to assisting families in need is a familiar task, and Neptune Society hopes to find new ways to guide families through trying times. And, sometimes, that help can come from just helping a family put food on their table.
CAL Insurance & Associates Inc. welcomes John M. Ryan as Director, Employee Benefits Advisory. John has extensive experience working with middle-market businesses to design and implement their employee benefits program offerings. John is a true advisor in every sense of the word, putting his clients needs first and foremost to find the right solutions for their individual situations.

We are excited to have such a talented person join our employee benefits team, says Joe DeLucchi, CAL president & CEO. John is the epitome of a CAL broker, working tirelessly to exceed clients needs and expectations. Johns expertise in group medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance is a great asset to our team.

I am truly excited to be with CAL, where the team culture is exceptional, John says. They have been such a presence in the Bay Area for the past 90 years, and I look to build on that legacy starting today!

CAL Insurance is an independent insurance agency with deep roots in San Francisco  and one of the highest client-retention rates in the Bay Area. CALs experts access a full spectrum of services and insurance products, including commercial, employee benefits and personal coverage.

More about CAL Insurance may be found at http://www.cal-insure.com.

Johns new contact info is jryan(at)cal-insure(dot)com, 415-310-9001
Sentien Biotechnologies, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel approaches to cell therapy, announced that it has opened enrollment in its Phase 1/2 trial of SBI-101 for adult patients with acute kidney injury (AKI). This trial is Sentiens first clinical program.

SBI-101 is a combination product that combines mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) within a blood-filtration device, allowing for controlled, dynamic interaction of MSCs with a patients bloodstream. SBI-101 offers two major advantages over traditional, intravenous cell therapy: (1) The duration of cell therapeutic bioactivity is significantly extended by maintaining the MSCs outside the body, in an extracorporeal device; and (2) the MSC cell dose can be increased beyond intravenous limits because the cells are immobilized in the device.

To treat AKI, SBI-101 integrates seamlessly into a continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) circuit, thereby providing patients with both standard-of-care and MSC-mediated blood conditioning in a single session.

Moving our lead product into the clinic marks a major milestone for our company, said Sentien CEO, Brian Miller. We look forward to working with our clinical sites to advance development of SBI-101 for this significant unmet medical need.

The multi-center trial is a randomized, controlled Phase 1/2 study in patients with AKI receiving CRRT. The primary objective of the trial is to evaluate the safety and tolerability of SBI-101 in patients with AKI. Endpoints for efficacy and pharmacodynamic responses to SBI-101 therapy will also be evaluated. Patient recruitment is expected to continue into 2018, with an estimated enrollment of 24 patients.

Please visit http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT03015623 for more information about the study.

About Acute Kidney Injury:

Acute kidney injury is a sudden loss of kidney function, caused by conditions such as sepsis, heart surgery, or trauma. Patients diagnosed with severe AKI are placed on dialysis, require extensive stays in the ICU, and are at higher risk of progressing to chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal disease, or death.

About Sentien Biotechnologies:

Sentien Biotechnologies, Inc. is a privately-owned, clinical-stage company pioneering new approaches to cell therapy. Sentiens technology harnesses the power of cell therapy with innovative drug delivery systems to treat a wide range of systemic inflammatory diseases. Sentiens lead product, SBI-101, is designed to allow for controlled, sustained delivery of mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) secreted factors. This approach immobilizes the MSCs in an extracorporeal device, allowing for doses of therapeutic factors that are unattainable by direct injection.

SBI-101 is the first product application of Sentiens platform blood-conditioning technology that has the potential to restore balance to the immune system after acute vital organ injury, such as acute kidney injury.

For more information, please visit http://www.sentienbiotech.com.
Blue Vase Marketing and Great Falls Marketing, both leading providers of direct response sales and customer retention services in New England, announced today that Great Falls will absorb Blue Vases call center capabilities. Consistent client growth has provided Great Falls the opportunity to expand and open multiple call centers throughout the state of Maine in recent years. The acquisition of the Blue Vase call center operation will extend Great Falls into Massachusetts for the first time. The Great Falls executive team welcomes these high performing Blue Vase sales and customer service professionals who will provide clients with strong front and back end call center services. Services that will not only achieve, but exceed, client revenue and customer service goals.

Mike Frautten, Co-Owner of Great Falls Marketing said, Blue Vase has been a trusted partner and friend of Great Falls Marketing for many years; they are an amazing company that we are proud to work with, we are very excited to acquire their call center, retain their high quality agents, and continue to grow our partnership with their company.

Blue Vase will be focused on growing the success of its core Direct Response Marketing operations which have already generated hundreds of millions of dollars of nutritional product sales through television and digital media. This includes bringing its professionals decades of experience in marketing natural health and wellness products to its exclusive partnership with CloiXonne, LLC as it enters the network marketing industry. Blue Vase is pleased to offer its capabilities to Great Falls as we consolidate our contact centers, said Michael Alden, Blue Vase CEO. One of our long running goals has always been to provide employment for the residents of Massachusetts and this combination provides increased scale and generates opportunities to accelerate economic growth on the North Shore.

Great Falls will look to fill the seats of its newly acquired call center as soon as possible and is looking to add up to 100 additional call center positions at its new Beverly, Mass location. The owners of Great Falls Marketing, Scott MacCheyne and Mike Frautten both feel strongly that this acquisition will not only assist with immediate capacity needs, but will continue its reputation of converting more customers and then delighting them with professional outsourced customer service. Excitement is what Great Falls Marketing is feeling after completing this deal. We cant wait to begin a new chapter of our companys history in an historic city like Beverly, Massachusetts, stated Scott MacCheyne, Co-Owner of Great Falls Marketing.

About Great Falls Marketing

Great Falls Marketing provides in-bound sales and customer service to select direct response marketers. Sales agents answer inbound calls 24 hours a day generated from advertising channels including television, print, direct mail, radio and digital media. After clients acquire new customers, many rely on Great Falls Marketing to provide back end customer service via phone, email, white mail, and web chat support. Great Falls Marketing provides outsourced call center support from four brick and mortar locations in Maine and Massachusetts. For more information or to inquire about employment opportunities please visit http://www.greatfallsmarketing.com

About Blue Vase Marketing, LLC

Blue Vase Marketing is a comprehensive Direct Response Marketing Agency offering marketing, media production, warehousing/fulfilment and analytics. It has been recognized by Inc. Magazine for three years in a row on its exclusive ranking of the nations fastest-growing private companies and by the Greater Beverly Chamber of Commerce as the Large Business of the Year. Recently, it has exclusively partnered with premier direct selling company CloiXonne. CloiXonne is powered by its cutting-edge Try It for Free Its On Me campaign which is revolutionizing the direct selling industry. For more information please visit http://www.bluevasemarketing.com and http://www.cloixonne.com.
The parcel at 850 Lightpost Way and at the center of this controversy When voters sign a petition for referendum, it should mean something.

Two thousand five hundred registered voters signed a petition for referendum on a zoning ordinance that would provide a $2 million windfall to an out-of-town hotel developer. The petition stated that the City must either repeal the ordinance or place it on the ballot for voter approval. The City did neither. The California Sixth District Court of Appeal declared that the City's actions violated the Constitutional right of voters to exercise the power of referendum in City of Morgan Hill v. Shannon Bushey, Registrar of Voters, et al., H043426.

According to court documents, on November 19, 2014, the City of Morgan Hill had amended the general plan for a three acre parcel at 850 Lightpost Way from industrial to commercial without changing the zoning because of a request by an out-of-town developer.

City Council records show that when the City considered changing the zoning to "general commercial" from "ML-light industrial," the Hotel Coalition opposed it because it would provide an unfair competitive advantage, would increase the supply of hotel rooms by 60% in two years, and would fail to bring jobs to the city. Industrial land is half of the price of commercial land in Morgan Hill, and commercial land is readily available, whereas industrial land is scarce. The Coalition argued that most people in Morgan Hill commute north for their job.

Nevertheless, River Park Hospitality bought industrial land with plans of building a hotel according to an application submitted to the City. Morgan Hill's City Council records show the Council took the position that re-zoning the parcel "general commercial" would bring it into conformity with the general plan, remedying the inconsistency created by the City. However, the Hotel Coalition argued that another commercial zoning district such as "office administrative" should be chosen because it would bring career opportunities without adding another hotel in a crowded market.

Court records show that on April 1, 2015, a divided City Council voted 3 to 2 in favor of the zoning ordinance, Ordinance No. 2131, changing the parcel from "ML-light industrial" to "general commercial." However, a petition for referendum was filed within thirty days preventing the ordinance from becoming effective.

On July 15, 2015, the City terminated the petition and River Park Hospitality shortly afterwards listed the property for sale for twice as much it paid a year earlier as it believed it was now commercial land according to court records.

On January 13, 2016, the Hotel Coalition sued Morgan Hill to place the measure on the ballot in San K. Panwala and the Morgan Hill Hotel Coalition v. City of Morgan Hill, CV-290057 in Santa Clara County Superior Court according to court documents.

The City then acquiesced and placed the measure on the ballot, but sued Shannon Bushey, the Registrar of Voters, to remove it in City of Morgan Hill v. Shannon Bushey, Registrar of Voters et al., CV-292595 in Santa Clara County Superior Court. On March 29, 2016, the trial court granted the City's petition, and ordered the city clerk to remove the ballot measure and certify Ordinance No. 2131 according to court records.

With the deadline to be included on the ballot looming, Asit Panwala, attorney for the Morgan Hill Hotel Coalition, filed a petition for a stay, writ of supersedeas, with California's Sixth District Court of Appeal. He wrote the brief in one night after he was returning home from the hospital because of the birth of his daughter. It was filed the following day.

On April 19, 2016, the Court of Appeal granted a temporary stay preventing the ordinance from becoming effective. The stay became permanent pending appeal. The parties briefed the case in the fall of 2016, and oral arguments were heard on May 23, 2017, in San Jose, California.

The Hotel Coaltion argued that a rule preventing voters from rejecting one of many choices would render the right to referendum meaningless. They pointed out that there were eleven other zoning districts that would conform with the general plan according to their briefs.

The City argued that the voters could not maintain inconsistent zoning by rejecting their choice of zoning. They relied heavily on Debottari vs. City of Norco (1985) 171 Cal.App.3d 1204. They argued that maintaining "light industrial" zoning was the same as enacting invalid zoning according to court records.

On May 31, 2017, the Court concluded that Debottari's reasoning was flawed and the referendum does not "enact" zoning unless the voters approve of the city's choice of zoning. They found that the voters have a Constitutional right to vote on the measure and that the City must have their approval before the ordinance may become effective.

The appellant, real party in interest, the Morgan Hill Hotel Coalition, is represented by Asit Panwala, Law Office of Asit Panwala, and Randy Toch, Law Office of Randall Toch.

Asit Panwala and Randy Toch are ecstatic that the voters will finally have the right to vote on the measure. Asit Panwala further added that "When voters sign a petition for referendum, it should mean something."
AIM solder, a leading global manufacturer of solder assembly materials for the electronics industry, is pleased to announce the addition of Quality Associates as a new representative for its complete line of solder products, including solder paste, liquid flux, bar, wire, as well as other solder assembly materials. Quality Associates will support AIM customers in the Michigan area.

Based in Michigan, Quality Associates has over 27 years of experience serving the electronics industry. The Quality Associates Sales Team is known for taking a technical and solution driven approach to sales and for providing superior customer support.

Were pleased to welcome Quality Associates to our team of representatives, said Andy Dolan, AIMs Vice President of Sales. Were confident that Quality Associates will provide unsurpassed support to AIM customers in the area.

For more information about Quality Associates, please contact Brad Kendall via email at brad(at)quality-associates(dot)net or Steven Neumaier at steven(at)quality-associates(dot)net.

About AIM

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, AIM Solder is a leading global manufacturer of assembly materials for the electronics industry with manufacturing, distribution and support facilities located throughout the world. AIM produces advanced solder products such as solder paste, liquid flux, cored wire, bar solder, epoxies, lead-free and halogen-free solder products, preforms, and specialty alloys such as indium and gold for a broad range of industries. A recipient of many prestigious SMT industry awards, AIM is strongly committed to innovative research and development of product and process improvement as well as providing customers with superior technical support, service and training.

Upcoming Events:

June 22, 2017  SMTA Upper Midwest  Minnetonka, MN

July 13, 2017  SMTA Ohio Independence, OH
MINNEAPOLIS | Heather Axtman was a senior in college in 2006 when she landed an internship at Thomson Reuters. By the time she graduated from the University of Minnesota, the company had offered her a full-time job. Shes since been promoted several times. Now 33, she manages a team in the marketing department.

Ive worked my butt off to prove myself, but my timing was pure luck, she said.

Things were different for Kendall Bird, who graduated from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul in 2010.

I was naive about how hard it was going to be coming out of the gate, said Bird, now 29. The landscape was so crowded and competitive.

Despite sending out countless resumes, combing job boards and networking to build contacts, she ended up taking an internship instead of a job, being a nanny (for minimum wage) and moving home. It took her more than two years to get a job in her field.

While theyre only a few years apart, the experiences of these two millennials couldnt be more different. What changed between Axtmans graduation and Birds? The Great Recession.

Although the economy has largely recovered, the younger cohort of millennials may not have. New research indicates that the recession has acted as a great divide for this group of 72 million, born between 1980 and 1995.

Bridgeworks, a Wayzata, Minn., consulting company that advises businesses on generational dynamics, commissioned a study of millennials and found distinct differences between younger and older millennials.

Millennials are a complex generation, and were seeing that their experiences are very different from oldest to youngest, said Hannah Ubl, research director at Bridgeworks.

The early millennials, born from 1980 to 1987, remember dial-up internet, using AOL screen names for instant messaging, watching movies on VHS tapes and attending Y2K parties.

They were raised to be optimistic and were told they could be whatever they wanted to be, Ubl said. They graduated into a strong economy and got a good foothold into adulthood.

But almost overnight, that upbeat outlook turned gloomy for their younger brothers and sisters, whom some call the recessionists.

Born between 1988 and 1995, they used technology at an earlier age, with Wi-Fi-enabled devices and the iPhone arriving in their adolescence. They downloaded music, watched movies on DVDs that arrived in the mail from Netflix and rode to school on their Razor scooters.

Those younger millennials, however, were in the unenviable position of trying to launch careers after the housing market crash, when unemployment jumped and hiring stalled.

In the worst economic downturn in 80 years, the recessionists had to compete with laid-off adults for service jobs. They worried that the college loans theyd taken as a bet on a post-graduation middle-class life would prove to be poor investments.

I say that finding a job during the recession was like working out with training weights, said Jeff Lane, 29, who graduated from college in 2009 and worked in a coffee shop instead of starting a business career.

When I couldnt even get an interview, it docked my confidence, he said.

Today, an economic recovery is on track and, in Minnesota, a low employment rate has many businesses and nonprofits struggling to find enough qualified workers to fill their jobs.

But employers and hiring managers who want to recruit  and retain  a millennial workforce should appreciate the different attitudes and expectations of the two groups.

Early millennials care more about autonomy. Theyre more likely to want freedom in choosing where and how they work, who they work with and what their schedule is, Ubl said.

Meanwhile, the recessionists tend to be motivated by money.

Paychecks are always important, but for the later millennials, workplace satisfaction is much more tied to their ability to earn a salary and pay their bills, so they will have enough to live where they want to live, Ubl said. The early millennials believe everything will work out. The recessionists are less trusting about that.

And those younger millennials may have good reason to be mindful about their paychecks.

History would suggest that the fallout of the economic downturn will continue to haunt the recessionists, who began working when entry-level salaries were suppressed.

Weve seen that those who happened to be unlucky enough to have entered the labor market in a recession may never really recover from it, said Wendy Rahn, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota.

Economists at the Federal Reserve have found that lifetime earnings tend to hinge on an individuals first decade in the workforce, with those who earn less as they begin their careers never catching up.

The Economic Policy Institute tracked lifetime pay for employees who started work in previous recessions and found that as a group, they experienced lower wages and fewer opportunities.

And real estate company Zillows research concludes that graduating into the recession has an immediate and lasting effect on young adults homeownership rate.

Stalled attempts to fire up their careers may also create ongoing financial worry in the younger cohort. Ubl suggested that their early difficulties could turn them into modern-day versions of their grandparents, the generation that survived the Great Depression and took thriftiness to extremes, always pinching pennies and saving plastic bags.

Their brains were still developing during this time. I think this will color and shape their impressions for a lifetime, Ubl said.

It marked them in a profound way, and it will always be part of them.
We believe inequality does not result in inequity. We created a standardized underwriting system for efficiently and effectively aiding our clients.

Therium Inc. has announced the acquisition of New York-based New Chapter Capital, Inc. lead by prominent divorce specialist Nicole Noonan, Esq. (formerly Novitas US, Inc.,) a specialist matrimonial litigation finance provider.

New Chapter Capital, Inc., is the leader in matrimonial funding in the United States. Chief Executive Officer Nicole Noonan said: New Chapter Capital will provide innovative and cost-effective solutions for individuals engaged in divorce proceedings in the United States. New Chapter Capital, Inc. empowers individuals to hire highly qualified attorneys and pays for expert fees, as well as personal living expenses. Both companies anticipate strong growth in the legal funding sector where strains during a divorce are becoming an increasing impediment to accessing legal services during marital dissolutions.

We believe inequality does not result in inequity. We created a standardized underwriting system for efficiently and effectively aiding our clients, added Ms. Noonan, CEO of New Chapter Capital.

We are delighted to be the largest divorce litigation finance firm in North America. Ms. Noonan is a highly regarded matrimonial lawyer and finance specialist who has pioneered divorce funding in the United States. We are very pleased that New Chapter Capital, Inc. has joined the Therium team. John Byrne, Co-Founder and CEO of Therium, said.

Prior to being named CEO of New Chapter, Inc., Noonan was the CEO of Novitas US. Ms. Noonan is recognized divorce issues expert and has been featured on Bloomberg, ABC's Good Morning America, CBS's The Couch, The New York Times, Forbes, The New York Post and The Daily Mail. Ms. Noonan boasts an impressive background as a matrimonial attorney. She previously worked for Judge Douglas M. Fasciale of the Appellate Division of the State of New Jersey, Budd Larner and Cutler, Simeone, Townsend, Tomaio and Newmark. I look forward to growing a North American footprint for New Chapter Capital, said Ms. Noonan.

About New Chapter Capital:

NCC provides financial solutions that allow clients to move forward with their divorce process. The company was created to meet a growing demand for people struggling to fund their legal disputes and thus unable to secure the legal support they needed. The needed cash flow enables individuals to reach a just settlement rather than accepting less than what they are entitled. The NCC business model is customized for each unique monetary situation divorcees face.

About Therium

Founded in London and Isle of Jersey, UK Therium is one of the most established global litigation financing firms, with a market-leading track record of generating superior returns for its investors. In April 2015, Therium secured $300 million to invest in commercial litigation financing, the largest ever single investment in the litigation-funding sector, globally. In April 2016, Therium became the first European litigation finance company to launch a full service business in North America, Therium Inc., which is headquartered in New York. In June 2016, Therium was the first company to launch a litigation funding business in Scandinavia with the establishment of Therium Nordic AS in Oslo.
Brady (NYSE:BRC), a global leader in industrial and safety printing systems and solutions, announced today that Brady SPC is hosting a webinar on One Step Ahead: Protecting Your Employees & Environments from Spills, along with Safety+Health Magazine. The webinar will cover the impact of leaks, drips and spills in the workplace, and the steps that can be taken to prevent slips, trips, falls, and support safety.



Topic: Impact of leaks, drips and spills and steps to take to prevent slips, trips and falls

Presenter: Joe Mazelin, Regional Sales Manager for Brady SPC

Date: Wednesday, June 14, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. ET / 12:00 p.m. CT

(Can't attend? Register anyway and receive the recording after the live webinar)



For More Information

For Bradys complete product offering, visit BradyID.com.

About Brady Corporation:

Brady Corporation is an international manufacturer and marketer of complete solutions that identify and protect people, products and places. Bradys products help customers increase safety, security, productivity and performance and include high-performance labels, signs, safety devices, printing systems and software. Founded in 1914, the Company has a diverse customer base in electronics, telecommunications, manufacturing, electrical, construction, medical, aerospace and a variety of other industries. Brady is headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and as of July 31, 2016, employed approximately 6,400 people in its worldwide businesses. Bradys fiscal 2016 sales were approximately $1.12 billion. Brady stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol BRC. More information is available on the Internet at bradycorp.com.
The Beryl Institute invites practitioners, researchers and patient and family advisors focused on improving the patient experience to submit proposals for presentations or poster sessions at next years Patient Experience Conference.

The Beryl Institute invites practitioners, researchers and patient and family advisors focused on improving the patient experience to submit proposals for presentations or poster sessions at next years Patient Experience Conference to be held April 16-18, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Chicago, Illinois.

Submissions are due by July 21, 2017 and should emphasize case studies and proven practices related to patient experience initiatives and successes. For guidelines and to submit a proposal, visit http://www.theberylinstitute.org/?page=CONF2018SUBMISSIONS.

The Institutes annual patient experience conference is designed for healthcare executives, leaders, staff and patient and family advisors responsible for improving and sharing the experiences of patients, families and caregivers. In addition to enjoying inspiring keynotes and networking with other patient experience leaders, participants have the opportunity to customize their learning experience by selecting from breakout sessions focused on different areas of patient experience improvement. The 2017 event held this past March in Denver received excellent reviews from attendees:



I cannot say enough wonderful remarks about The Beryl Institute conferences. I am energized and ready to promote the most positive patient experience for our guests at our hospital! said Dawn (Dede) DeVeny, Box Butte General Hospital.

Thank you for a wonderful first-time attendee experience. Everyone was so kind and helpful. I learned so much that I can bring back to my peers and my institution to enhance our Patient and Family Experience. said Mary Mazur, Connecticut Childrens Medical Center.

Great Experience. Easy to meet people. Breakout sessions - relevant and valuable, said Walter Rojenko, St Joe's Health Centre, Toronto.

Everything about the conference was truly amazing. The keynote speakers were great. The breakout sessions were excellent. The love of patients was palpable throughout the entire conference, said Shirley Hamill, Baystate Medical Center.

The conference gave me a broader view of the patient experience and how we can be all IN to improve that experience. The Beryl Institute strives to give the members and participants of the conference a great experience, said Virgie Townsend, UAB Patient and Family Advisory Council.

I really enjoyed the patient stories. I think hearing scenarios from the patient and understanding things from their perspective was incredibly helpful, said Kyle Mackey, Heritage Biologics.

Registration is now open for Patient Experience Conference 2018. To learn more, visit http://www.theberylinstitute.org/?page=CONF2018_OVERVIEW.

###

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.
Navy SEAL Foundation The Navy SEAL Foundation  exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in (your) area of work. -- Charity Navigator, June 1, 2017

The leading charity evaluator in America has again recognized the Navy SEAL Foundation by awarding the nonprofit their highest possible rating. Charity Navigator announced last week it had presented the Navy SEAL Foundation with its coveted Four-Star rating for the sixth consecutive year.

This is our highest possible rating and indicates that your organization adheres to sector best practices and executes its mission in a financially efficient way, said Michael Thatcher, president and CEO of Charity Navigator. This exceptional designation from Charity Navigator sets Navy SEAL Foundation apart from its peers and demonstrates to the public its trustworthiness. In meeting its mission to support the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community and its families, Thatcher said the Navy SEAL Foundation  exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in (your) area of work. He noted that the Foundation scored a perfect 100 out of 100 in its evaluation process for a second consecutive year; only 58 charities of the more than 8,300 evaluated by Charity Navigator received this score.

So many wonderful people recognize the service and sacrifices that the men and women of NSW make in defense of our freedom and they want to help. The Navy SEAL Foundation is honored to do the work that we do, and we are so grateful for the generous support of our donors because, without them, our programs would not be possible, said Robin King, CEO of the Navy SEAL Foundation. We take the trust that our donors put in our organization very seriously, and we are so happy to be recognized by Charity Navigator again this year for our stewardship and transparency.

As an example of this generosity and trust, King pointed to the Foundations most recent signature event, the 2017 Los Angeles Evening of Tribute, held June 1, which raised $4.5 million dollars in a single evening.

Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer for Netflix, who attended that event, said, I feel deeply indebted to the work of Navy SEALs and the military. If there is any way that we can show our appreciation and gratitude by helping those families, this is a way to do it  super efficiently and super effectively. Its one of the most exciting organizations filling a need that Ive ever come across.

Nearly 8,300 charities in the U.S. have been profiled by Charity Navigator, ten times more charities than the next comparable rating agency. The nations most trusted national nonprofit watchdogs unique method of applying data-driven analysis to the charitable sector has been profiled by publications such as Forbes, Business Week, and Kiplingers Financial Magazine, among others. The Navy SEAL Foundation joins an elite group of nonprofit organizations as just five (5) percent of all charities evaluated by Charity Navigator have earned its top rating for at least six (6) consecutive years.

About Navy SEAL Foundation

The Navy SEAL Foundation's mission is to provide immediate and ongoing support and assistance to the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community and its families. Established in 2000, the Navy SEAL Foundation is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt, national, nonprofit organization which provides worldwide support to U.S. Navy SEALs, Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen (SWCC), NSW support personnel, post-9/11 SEAL and SWCC veterans, and their families.

U.S. Navy SEALs have been in sustained combat for over 16 years, performing hazardous work in unforgiving environments at an unrelenting pace. SEALs are currently deployed in over 30 countries across the globe and spend up to 270 days each year in harm's way. The Navy SEAL Foundation stands behind these warriors and their families by providing a comprehensive set of programs specifically designed to improve health and welfare, build and enhance resiliency, empower and educate families and provide critical support during times of illness, injury or loss.

Like the community it serves, the Navy SEAL Foundation is a solid, high-performing organization committed to excellence. 93 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to current or future programs. The Navy SEAL Foundation is a 501c3 national nonprofit charitable organization. TAX-ID 31-1728910. The Navy SEAL Foundation is a non-federal entity. It is not a part of the Department of Defense or any of its components, and it has no governmental status. Please visit http://www.navySEALfoundation.org to learn more.
Students at the Meredith-Dunn School in Louisville, Kentucky use The Marvel Focus Desk, a movement-friendly classroom desk for grades K-8 that enables children to sit or stand at will. Standing up helps all children access working memory, improving concentration and engagement. -- Jonathan D. Carroll, M.A.

In classrooms across the country, teachers are exploring whether children learn better when they are allowed to stand and move. Angela Conway, a teacher at the Meredith-Dunn School in Louisville, has no doubt about it. As a second-grade teacher at a school that specializes in educating children with learning differences, Conway works with children who innately need to sometimes stand in order to concentrate and participate in class. She now has the ability to support the needs of these children with an innovative classroom product, the sit/stand Marvel Focus Desk.

In Conways class, many of her students struggle to remain seated while learning, and Conway had to improvise ways to accommodate them when they needed to stand up. Students around the room were using bookshelves and other surfaces as "desks" when they needed to stand, notes Conway.

Conways class found a better solution with the arrival of three Focus Desks in December 2016. Designed and tested in classrooms like Conways, The Focus Desk is a stand-optional desk with a silent lift mechanism that even young children can operate themselves. The Focus Desk promotes self-regulation and independence, allowing students to stand when they wish without interrupting the teacher or disrupting other children. The desk also includes a variety of integrated features to help students organize materials, work collaboratively, and stay on task.

The Focus Desk provides versatility in the classroom, allowing students to take ownership of how they learn best throughout different times of the day, explains Conway. Students that need the ability to move while they learn can change their learning position quickly and quietly without distracting others. Student motivation has increased when they are able to take ownership of their most beneficial learning position.

The dramatic improvements seen by Conways students achieve multiple goals that apply to all children.



Studies show that standing improves mental processing and learning.

Sit/stand desks also help fight childhood obesity, according to university research in the US and in Great Britain. Children who stand at desks burn calories in class and are less likely to be sedentary outside school.

The Focus Desks height adjustability allows children of any size to stand comfortably and with better posture compared to fixed-height standing desks.

A spacious storage compartment in The Focus Desk keeps devices, notebooks, and other items organized. Other classroom-inspired features include an expandable desk surface, integrated hanging folders, built-in privacy walls, and even a backpack hook to keep aisles clear.

Were finally starting to understand the importance of movement for students to stay engaged and remain focused in the learning environment, says Jonathan D. Carroll, M.A., who specializes in advocacy and educational consulting for children with ADD, ADHD, and executive functioning challenges. Standing up helps all children access working memory, improving concentration and engagement. By allowing children to self-regulate when they choose to stand, adjustable desks promote independence and responsibility.

Even without understanding the research behind it, Conways students clearly recognize a good thing when they see it. All the students request to be at a Focus Desk, she notes.

The original Marvel Focus Desk is designed for grades K-8. Marvel also offers the new Focus Desk XT, scaled for taller students in high school and college. To learn more, visit http://marvelfocusdesk.com.

About The Marvel Group

The Marvel Group is a 70 year old Chicago-based manufacturer of a wide range of high-quality furnishings to large, small, and home office markets as well as the education market. Product lines range from office chairs and file cabinets to executive office furniture and open office work-stations. Marvel products are manufactured to ISO 9001 certified guidelines and backed by a lifetime warranty. The Marvel Group offers superior customer service to assure a problem-free and timely project completion. For more information, visit http://www.marvelgroup.com.
Sage Dental of Johns Creek Opening June 19, 2017

Appointments are now available for Sage Dental of Johns Creek and Sage Dental of Cumming. Call 404-800-7576 or visit https://www.mysagedental.com/office/johns-creek/ and https://www.mysagedental.com/office/cumming/

Sage Dental continues to rapidly expand in Georgia by opening two new dental offices.The first office, opening June 19th 2017, will be located in Johns Creek, GA. The second office will be located in Cumming, GA and it is scheduled to open on July 17, 2017. The goal of these new offices is to provide local residents with the exceptional dental care Sage Dental is known for.

These two brand new, state-of-the-art offices will be conveniently located at 11160 Medlock Bridge Rd Suite 120, Johns Creek, GA 30097 and 875 Buford Road, Cumming, Georgia 30041.

Both Sage Dental of Johns Creek and Sage Dental of Cumming will be offering general & cosmetic dentistry. Orthodontics will be added later on.

The new dental offices will include modern patient care rooms, a private consultation rooms and the latest dental technology. In addition, Sage Dental of Johns Creek and Sage Dental of Cumming will be accepting most dental insurance plans and offering a VIP Discount Program to uninsured patients.

About Sage Dental

Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, Sage Dental has 50 convenient locations throughout South Florida, the Treasure Coast, Central Florida and now Georgia. Sage Dental is equipped to serve all of your dental needs. Whether you are looking for a General Dentist or a Specialist such as an Orthodontist, Oral Surgeon, Endodontist, Periodontist or a Pediatric Dentist, Sage Dental does it all.

With over 50 facilities in Florida and now rapidly expanding in Georgia, Sage Dental has been treating patients with excellent dental care since 1997 and has treated over 600,000 patients. Sage Dental provides a range of services from preventative, general, reconstructive, cosmetic and all specialty dentistry.
AirHeart Pet Hospital, the first-ever full-service airport veterinary hospital, resides inside The ARK providing primary and urgent medical care to pets traveling through and living around JFK Airport With more than two million pets and other live animals being transported annually in the U.S., veterinary medical care is critically needed.

Travel and life at JFK Airport just got a little healthier for Fido and his furry friends. Today, Compassion-First Pet Hospitals announced the opening of AirHeart Pet Hospital, the first-ever full-service airport veterinary hospital, at JFK. AirHeart Pet Hospital is located at 78A N. Boundary Road, Jamaica, New York, and lives inside The ARK, the worlds first privately owned, 24-hour animal terminal and airport quarantine center at JFK. The new hospital will provide critical medical care to pets traveling through and living around the airport. AirHeart will provide primary and urgent care and eventually will add 24-hour emergency services to pet owners.

Inspired by aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, AirHeart Pet Hospital will serve the veterinary medical needs in an airport setting for travelers, military personnel, the employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, JFK Airport employees and area residents.

With more than two million pets and other live animals being transported annually in the U.S., veterinary medical care is critically needed, says Lauren Jordon, DVM at AirHeart Pet Hospital. Because of our location, we will face some of the most interesting medical challenges, so we have ensured our state-of-the-art facility and the professional staff are fully equipped to meet any issue that comes our way.

AirHeart Pet Hospital is staffed with five veterinarians, 13 licensed veterinary technicians and 13 veterinary assistants. The hospital features six exam rooms, two isolation wards, three patient wards, a radiology suite, a dental/special procedures suite, two operating rooms, an instrument and surgery prep area, a treatment room, pharmacy and a lab area.

The hospital will be open initially Monday through Saturday 8am6pm and will extend hours beginning July 31 to Monday through Saturday from 8am to 12am and on Sundays from 8am to 6pm.

For more information visit http://airheartpets.com.

ABOUT AIRHEART PET HOSPITAL AT JFK

AirHeart Pet Hospital is the first-ever full-service airport veterinary hospital, at JFK Airport at 78A N. Boundary Road in Jamaica, New York. AirHeart Pet Hospital resides inside The ARK and provides primary and urgent medical care to pets traveling through and living around JFK Airport. Established in 2017, AirHeart Pet Hospital is owned and operated by Compassion-First Pet Hospitals. For more information visit http://airheartpets.com.

ABOUT COMPASSION-FIRST PET HOSPITALS

Compassion-First Pet Hospitals is a family of well-known and respected emergency, specialty, and general practice veterinary hospitals across the United States. Founded in 2014 by John Payne, Compassion-First Pet Hospitals is comprised of hospitals working together through collaboration to advance veterinary medicine and increase access to multidisciplinary expertise. Compassion-First Pet Hospitals focuses on placing pet owners and their pets at the center of care. For a list of Compassion-First Pet Hospitals, visit http://www.compassionfirstpets.com

THE ARK AT JFK

As the worlds first privately-owned, 24-hour animal terminal and airport quarantine center, The ARK at JFK is located at Cargo Building 78A at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) on 14.4 acres. The ARK Pet Oasis and Equine Export Center opened January 2, 2017 as Phase 1 and have welcomed horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, turtles, mice, goats and many others  not to mention, animal owners and shippers. The Equine Import Quarantine and The ARK Aviary will open in June 2017 (both pending USDA approval), as well as a full service 24/7 veterinary clinic, while Phase 3 services, operated by sub-tenants, will open in Fall 2017 and will include a long-term pet-boarding facility. Approved by the Board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), The ARK was constructed by ARK Development, LLC and is a 178,000 square-foot, $65 million state-of-the-art animal reception terminal. For more information, visit http://www.arkjfk.com.
Bill Graham, 1971. Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution features a wealth of performance images, videos, costumes, and artifacts. Credit: John Olson, the LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. There is no doubt that Bill Graham changed the way popular music was presented, and in doing so he gave true artists a stage that they might not otherwise have had. -- Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center will bring a pivotal era of rock music history to life with its new exhibition, "Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution," opening July 16, 2017. This exhibition explores the extraordinary life of renowned music promoter Bill Graham (1931-1991) who helped launch and promote the careers of countless artists including the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones. It also traces the indomitable spirit of a man brought to the U.S. as an eleven-year-old Jewish refugee fleeing the Nazis, fueling a lifelong passion and advocacy for social justice.

Grahams celebrated Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco was the epicenter of rocks evolution in the 1960s. Graham went on to promote social change as a driving force behind milestone benefit concerts such as Live Aid (1985) and Human Rights Now! (1988). "Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution" transports visitors to that era with an abundance of memorabilia, archival concert footage, historical and new video interviews, and psychedelic art, demonstrating the lasting influence of Grahams vision on the immersive, multidimensional, and highly lucrative phenomenon of rock theater that persists today.

The exhibition was organized by Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles.Highlights of the exhibition include:



Memorabilia from the Fillmore Auditorium, including the original apple barrel that greeted fans with fresh apples at the entrance.

Two of the Grateful Dead New Years Eve concert costumes worn by Bill Graham.

Iconic photographs from rocks most famous photographers.

Costumes, musical instruments, and artifacts from the careers of Janis Joplin, Keith Richards, Pete Townshend, and other groundbreaking artists.

An installation of The Joshua Light Showthe liquid light show conceived in 1967 by multimedia artist Joshua White -- customized specifically for the exhibition.

Preparatory drawings and the original artwork of several iconic Fillmore concert posters, revealing the signature visual styles and creative process of psychedelic poster artists Bonnie MacLean, Wes Wilson, David Singer, Greg Irons, and David Byrd.

"Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution" also illuminates how Grahams childhood experiences as a young refugee from Nazi Germany fueled his drive and ingenuity as a cultural innovator and advocate for social justice. Born in Berlin, Graham arrived in New York at the age of eleven as part of a Red Cross effort to help Jewish children fleeing the Nazis. The exhibition follows his path from a foster family in the Bronx, to military service in the Korean War, to his arrival in San Francisco just as the hippie movement was gathering steam. Throughout his career, Grahams mastery at promoting, marketing, and managing artists propelled him to become one of the music industrys most important figures.

'There is no doubt that Bill Graham changed the way popular music was presented, and in doing so he gave true artists a stage that they might not otherwise have had, says Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan, a resident of the Chicago area. And so it is my pleasure to lend support for this exhibit, for so much of what Mr. Graham did paved the way for so many.

We are thrilled to bring the story of Bill Grahams life and legacy to the Chicago area for this special exhibition, notes Susan Abrams, Museum CEO. In the height of music festival season, it offers a truly immersive experience that is a feast for the senses with its costumes, light show, concert footage, and psychedelic posters. At the same time, the exhibition honors the accomplishments of one individual who overcame the trauma of fleeing the Holocaust and used his life to shape popular culture and help humanitarian causes.

"Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution" runs from July 16 to November 12, 2017 at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center, 9603 Woods Drive in Skokie. For more information about the exhibition and related programs, visit http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org.

Contributing Sponsor: DUANE MORRIS LLP

Additional Funders: Nicor Gas; Windy City YPO; Susan and David Kalt; First Bank of Highland Park; Zoberman Family; Nicole and Dan Drexler; The Golder Family Foundation is lead sponsor of Illinois Holocaust Museum special exhibitions.

Media Sponsors: Chicago Magazine; WXRT

Public Relations Partner: Creative Marketing Associates, Inc.

"Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution" is organized and circulated by the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, in association with the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, and made possible by the support of Alex Graham, David Graham, and Danny Scher.

About Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center

Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center honors the victims of the Holocaust and transforms history into current, relevant, and universal lessons in humanity. Through world-class exhibitions and programs, the Museum inspires individuals and organizations and provides a universal wake-up call to action. Construction of the Take a Stand Center, a uniquely immersive and empowering exhibition suite, is being funded by a $30 million capital campaign that is in its final phase. Learn more at https://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/commit-to-the-future/.
Jamal Othman, Assistant Commissioner for Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship of the NYC Department of Veterans Services and Dr. George Santiago Jr., President & CEO of TCI College of Technology Our countrys veterans possess valuable personal attributes that make them extraordinarily valuable potential members of our workforce. We felt it was very important to have a space dedicated to our veterans who are enrolled or considering enrollment.

TCI College of Technology has dedicated a new veterans lounge to serve the needs of military and student veterans (current, prospective and alumni). The ceremonial ribbon cutting was attended by public and College officials, student veterans and members of the community. More than 50 guests attended this event including Jamal Othman, Assistant Commissioner for Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship of the NYC Department of Veterans Services; Aldrin R. Bonilla, Deputy Manhattan Borough President; Dr. George Santiago Jr., President & CEO of TCI College of Technology; Philip Getter, Chairman of the Board of Directors of TCI College of Technology; Angela Coyle, Community Relations representative for the United War Veterans Council (UWVC); and student veterans and members of the broader Manhattan community.

The Veterans Lounge is located on the first floor of TCI College of Technology campus at 320 West 31st Street (between 8th and 9th Avenue) and will be staffed by student veterans participating in the VA work-study program. They will provide support to student veterans for a seamless transition from military to civilian life. The lounge will also be equipped with computers and provide additional resources to create a welcoming, inviting and familiar environment for student veterans.

We felt it was very important to have a space dedicated to our veterans who are enrolled or considering enrollment, said Dr. George Santiago Jr., President & CEO of TCI College of Technology. Our countrys veterans possess valuable personal attributes  including self-discipline and a keen understanding of personal achievement and leadership  that make them extraordinarily valuable members of our workforce. We wanted to make sure we had the ability to serve their unique needs to help them succeed.

By establishing this veterans resource center, TCI is leading by example on what a veteran-friendly school can do to make the transition for student veterans more successful, said Jamal Othman, Assistant Commissioner for Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship of the NYC Department of Veterans Services. As the first municipal agency of its kind in the country, our Department of Veterans Services is proud to support TCI in leading the way to provide a supportive environment for veterans where they can begin the next chapter of their lives.

This is just one of the many reasons why I believe in TCI College of Technology, said Russell Burch, a retired Navy veteran now enrolled in the Paralegal Studies program. Heading into my third semester, I know this veterans lounge will be a place that can and will help me and other student veterans by connecting us with critical resources for veterans here in New York City.

TCI College of Technology is striving to promote a cohesive campus community that allows all students to benefit from the educational opportunities provided to them, said Russell Gerry, Director of Military and Veteran Services for TCI College of Technology. Our VA student workers will be a point of contact for all student veterans on which they can rely for support, advocacy and referrals. The lounge will also allow us to build quality camaraderie and give the chance to all our students to explore the educational and career development opportunities they need.

About the College of Technology

TCI offers 13 associate degree and certificate programs that blend theoretical knowledge with hands-on learning. With students from more than 80 countries, TCI is regulated by the New York State Board of Regents and nationally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. TCI has been committed to providing career-focused, quality education since its founding in 1909 by Nobel Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi. The benefits of a TCI education include accelerated programs and flexible schedules to allow students to earn a degree on a schedule that fits in with the obligations of everyday life; hands-on learning in classrooms that include state-of-the-art equipment that is used in the real world; financial aid and scholarship opportunities; and lifetime career advisement and job placement assistance.
To further its vision of providing meaningful learning, credentials and work for every adult, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) has launched a powerful new way for colleges and universities to measure and improve their support of its adult students: Adult Learner 360.

Adult Learner 360 is a tool that compares colleges and universities effectiveness against adult students perceptions. The tool, informed by CAELs decades of experience assisting colleges and universities in meeting the needs of adult learners, is based upon two surveys: one that captures the importance and effectiveness of the institutions activities, policies and practices, and one that measures satisfaction of adult students. Upon analysis of the survey results, the college or university will receive a report that highlights their strengths, areas for improvement and changes that can lead to better support for adult students. The report also compares results with other two- and four-year institutions. In addition, a CAEL expert discusses recommended changes with the institution, incorporating the institutions external drivers and current strategic initiatives.

Research shows that the population of adult learners in our country is growing, and that population needs support, unique to that offered to younger students, to reach academic and career goals, said CAEL President and CEO Pamela Tate. Adult Learner 360 builds upon our long-held belief that colleges and universities can benefit tremendously when they have the right insight into its adult student population.

According to the Department of Educations National Center for Education Statistics, only 29 percent of todays 18 million undergraduates are traditional learners  those who attend college full-time right out of high school. In addition, between 2000 and 2011, the percentage of students age 25 and older enrolled in college rose more than 41 percent; today, more than one-third of college students are over the age of 25.

Results from an Adult Learner 360 survey are measured against CAELs Ten Principles for Effectively Serving Adult Learners, which include Life and Career Planning, Outreach, Assessment of Learning Outcomes, Strategic Partnerships and Adaptivity, the Principle that measures how effectively an institution adapts to shifting external market forces and to changing expectations of internal stakeholders, students and employers. These Principles are born from CAELs extensive experience as a leading advocate for adult learners, said Tate.

Since its founding in 1974, CAEL has strived to develop solutions for adult learners that are backed by both rigorous research and an appreciation for the barriers they often must overcome, said Tate. Adult Learner 360 acts as a catalyst for success and gives us the opportunity to share that wealth of knowledge with the very colleges and universities that serve them.

To learn more about Adult Learner 360, including details on pricing and timing for implementation, visit http://www.cael.org/adult-learner-360.

About the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)

The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization based in Chicago that assists adults with their educational endeavors, finding practical ways to help them earn college credit for learning acquired through life and work experiences toward the completion of a postsecondary degree. CAEL works with the public sector, private sector industries and higher education institutions to ensure that adult students receive the most efficient training and education to occupy a meaningful professional place in a 21st century economy. For more information, visit http://www.cael.org.
With the U.S. Senate expected to vote on legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act by the end of June, executives of Iowas hospitals continue to express worry over the future of Medicaid  the states safety net for the poor and disabled.

Leaders of the states hospitals gathered in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday for the Iowa Hospital Associations Summer Leadership Forum, with a handful speaking to reporters about their concerns during a news conference.

The American Health Care Act  the Republican-backed legislation that passed the House in May and now is being reworked by the Senate  effectively would end the Medicaid expansion, restructure the Medicaid program through a per capita cap, and replace the ACAs tax credit and cost-sharing protections with age-based tax credits.

The Senate is expected to vote on legislation by the end of June, and hospital leaders said that senators from 12 states  including Iowa  will be crucial votes.

We want to make it clear that the hospital community is very opposed to the American Health Care Act. We dont want to see a movement to per capita limits on Medicaid, and we think that expansion  which has expanded coverage to 150,000 Iowans  has worked very successfully, said Kirk Norris, chief executive officer of the Iowa Hospital Association.

The association represents the states 118 hospitals.

Iowa is one of 31 states to expand Medicaid to low-income adults, through the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan in 2014. The expansion, along with subsidy-eligible plans purchased through the Iowa exchange  helped push down the uninsured rate in Iowa from 10.8 percent before the ACA to 5.9 percent.

This gives Iowa the sixth-lowest uninsured rate in the country, which in turn has led charity-care levels at hospitals to fall severely, hospital leaders said. In addition, the state has brought in an extra $750 million in 2015 in federal funding to help cover those costs.

It really helped rein in and rationalize the delivery of care by offering coverage and the opportunity to get the right care at the right time, said Cindy Mann, the keynote speaker of the conference and a partner at Los Angeles-based Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, a nationwide consulting firm. Mann previously was the deputy administrator and director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services within the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Mann said that, should federal dollars for the expansion population be done away with in 2020 as the proposed legislation calls for, more than 117,000 Iowans would lose coverage within two years  with that number growing to 148,000 by 2025.

Virtually all of the people who gained coverage would lose their coverage, she said.

All four of the hospital chief executives discussing the potential effects of the AHCA said the increase in coverage has helped patients afford care and better manage chronic diseases.

People fear the health care system in this country  they fear they wont have access and that they wont be able to afford it. They shouldnt have to fear it, said Ted Townsend, president and CEO of UnityPoint Health-St. Lukes Hospital.

Townsend said the hospital has a patient receiving kidney dialysis three days a week. Before the ACA, the patient  who has diabetes  was not able to receive the proper care and experienced total kidney failure.

If he loses his insurance, he doesnt know how he will pay for it, Townsend said. The reason he is in this situation today was that he had to make a choice between food and medicine.

The bill also would convert the Medicaid program to a per capita cap  in which the federal government would pay a certain dollar figure for each Medicaid member and states would be responsible for costs in excess of the per capita cap.

The federal government and state currently share the costs of Medicaid  with Washington paying about 58 percent of cost in Iowa.

According to an analysis by Manns consulting group, that per capita cap would cost Iowa somewhere between $450 million and $786 million in federal funding five years into AHCA implementation.

Tim Charles, president and CEO of Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids, brought up a special clinic the hospital operates that works with very low income and complex patients, not only connecting them with primary care but also a social worker, pharmacist, mental health and legal services to find housing and other needs.

These individuals require so much more than what you and I in this room experience as health care because their lives are so riddled, he said. Medicaid has enabled us step into that space and provide vital, necessary services. ... The (ACA) is not perfect. There are structural issues, but the way to address those issues is not to diminish the access those individuals have gained.
Twenty-eight students from Sunrise of Philadelphia will play with their food and experiment with their senses as FirstHands Taste Test returns on July 10th. Using culinary tools, the students will dive into the complex world of molecular gastronomy to create bubbles out of grape juice and turn fruit into spaghetti. After visiting labs at the University City Science Center where real-world scientists study taste, perception and smell, and meeting with mentors from Monell Chemical Senses Center, theyll have the chance to design their own culinary innovations and present them to the Science Center community.

Project Inquiry is also back for the summer. From June 12th through June 16th, students from School of the Future will participate in an intensive, week-long version of the program for high school students that FirstHand piloted last year. Up to eight students who participated in Project Inquirys inaugural program during the school year will return to the FirstHand Lab to work on independent projects of their own design. Originally designed as an eight-month program for high school sophomores exploring concepts in engineering, design, technology, and entrepreneurship, Project Inquiry was so popular that the student participants asked to return to the lab. This weeklong program will offer these students an opportunity to hone skills they learned during the original program.

Serving Philadelphia youth from under-resourced schools and the teachers, professionals and families from their communities, FirstHand aims to spark an interest in the STEAM disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math that students can explore and cultivate throughout their lives. By giving students the opportunity to ask more questions, create new solutions, and explore science and technology, FirstHand is opening the doors for the minds of tomorrow.

FirstHand is supported by generous donations from individuals and the following organizations, AstraZeneca, Chubb Limited, Cognizant, The Lenfest Foundation, The Christian and Mary Lindback Foundation, The McLean Contributionship, William Penn Foundation.

About the Science Center

Located in the heart of uCity Square, the University City Science Center is a dynamic hub for innovation, and entrepreneurship and technology development in the Greater Philadelphia region. Founded in 1963 as the nations first urban research park, it provides business incubation, programming, lab and office facilities, and support services for entrepreneurs, start-ups, and growing and established companies. Graduate firms and current residents of the Science Centers business incubator support one out of every 100 jobs in Greater Philadelphia and drive $12.9 billion in economic activity in the region annually. For more information about the Science Center, go to http://www.sciencecenter.org
Positron and Technicolor Experience Center announce partnership Were excited to partner with the Technicolor Experience Center to bring Voyagers hardware and software platforms to Hollywoods leading cinematic VR creators, said Jeffrey Travis, CEO, Positron.

VR technology studio Positron, creators of the world's first full-motion cinematic VR chair, Voyager, today announced a partnership with the Technicolor Experience Center (TEC) designed to help drive the further development of cinematic VR and the immersive media ecosystem. Voyager chair platforms will be installed at the TEC showroom where filmmakers, creators, studio executives, artists and technologists from across the industry come together to realize the full potential of immersive media.

Positron is focused on providing technology and products for premium cinematic VR that both audiences and creators love. Were thrilled to make Voyager technology available to the Technicolor Experience Center and to contribute to this community of thought leaders focused on the creative and economic growth of VR, said Jennifer Rundell, COO, of Positron.

Were excited to partner with the Technicolor Experience Center to bring Voyagers hardware and software platforms to Hollywoods leading cinematic VR creators, said Jeffrey Travis, CEO, Positron. The Voyager platform is designed to set a new standard for cinematic VR and location-based experiences. Our mission is to empower storytellers with better ways of sharing immersive stories.

Motion and multisensory integration will play a critical role in the effectiveness and adoption of virtual reality and other immersive experiences in the months and years to come,  said Marcie Jastrow, SVP Immersive Media and Head of the Technicolor Experience Center. The partnership between the Technicolor Experience Center and Positron will provide visionaries in the immersive media community with an opportunity to utilize outstanding multisensory touch points such as motion, scent and haptics into their storytelling experiences.

About Positron and Voyager

Positron is a VR technology studio based in Los Angeles that is focused on cinematic VR. The team includes mechatronics engineers, designers, software developers and artists who collaborate together to create premium VR experiences and products. Voyager is the first full-motion chair platform designed for cinematic VR. Integrating beautiful design and high-end engineering, it reflects a passion for VR storytelling. Voyager delivers a completely new level of immersion in VR by providing a comfortable, fully integrated personal VR theater that incorporates gentle motorized yaw and pitch motion, audio-driven haptic feedback and specialized seating. Its unique software and hardware technology integration enables nuanced motion and haptic tracks to be encoded along the featured content's visual and spatial audio tracks. The chair precisely guides the viewers' attention to points of interest in the experience, while also allowing a viewer-controlled motion mode. Voyager units are available now for select theaters, hotels, concerts, and events that desire to provide a premium VR experience. For Voyager images please visit Positron Media.

About Technicolor Experience Center

The mission of the Technicolor Experience Center is to enable partnerships and collaboration to create the future of immersive experiences. The Technicolor Experience Center is where artists and scientists from across the industry come together to realize the full potential of immersive media. By uniting talent from Technicolor and its award-winning creative brands (MPC, The Mill, Mr. X and Mikros Image) with partners from fields as diverse as gaming, animation, traditional media and technology, we enable the ideation, exploration and creation that pushes the boundaries of what immersive experiences can be.
Execute to Win Using ETW, Maricopa Health Foundation experienced a 300% increase in operating profit.

Maricopa Health Foundation (MHF) was looking for a way to better align its entire organization to strategy and most important outcomes. Execute to Win (ETW) would not only provide them with a system to achieve this, but would also help increase visibility and transparency as a way to build organizational trust.

MHF CEO, Nate Lowrie, gives his take on how MHF leveraged ETW to turn results around, The biggest thing I saw that needed to happen at all levels was develop trust. Once we had that trust, we would be able to drive engagement and start focusing on our most important outcomes. It was clear that transparency would be the way to establish trust, and ETW gave us the tools necessary to achieve that.

Once trust was established, the organization was then able to move on to focus on leadership and its people plan. Using ETW to build out these plans and tie them to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and most important outcomes, MHF would:



Restore financial health300% increase in operating profit

Outperformed the national average for revenue earned in 2016 per the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) Survey of members

Maricopa Health Foundation has seen extraordinary results with ETW, stated ETW CEO Lee Benson. Results like theirs are why we created ETW in the first placeto help organizations achieve success by focusing on strategy, engagement and most important outcomes to drive positive results.

Read the full case study here.

About ETW

ETW provides a platform to track, evaluate and measure employee performance against the major objectives of the organization. Easily execute and translate long-term strategy into clear, actionable goals. With ETW you can effectively communicate the companys roadmap to success and engage everyone throughout the organization with that roadmap. Using ETW your organization can connect employees to strategy and culture to drive sustainable winning results.

About Maricopa Health Foundation

Maricopa Health Foundation is a nonprofit organization supporting Maricopa Integrated Health System, Arizonas only public health care system. The Foundation raises private funds to improve accessibility, quality of health care, and patient comfort for all those who live in Maricopa County and beyond.
RallyPoint, the premier social network for the military community, announced today that Diane Hessan, Founder and Chairman of C Space, has joined its advisory board.

Dianes addition to RallyPoints advisory board brings a wealth of entrepreneurial and community-building expertise to an accomplished team. As founder and CEO of C Space (formerly Communispace), she grew the company to more than 500 employees before its nine-figure acquisition by Omnicom in 2011.

Were honored to have Diane join an incredible team of advisors at RallyPoint, said RallyPoint CEO Dave Gowel. Dianes experience in leading and growing companies while focusing on the dual success of both her corporate customers and ultimate consumers makes her a natural fit for RallyPoint. It is serious business for us to deliver a first-class experience at no cost to our military community while driving results for the corporate customers who seek to reach our military members. Diane knows this type of business and has succeeded here multiple times.

Diane also led the Startup Institute as its CEO, and served as EVP of The Forum Corporation through its acquisition by Pearson.

From the second I heard about Rally Point, I knew it was responding to a huge need, said Hessan. C Space has built communities of customers to help inspire brands, and doing this in the military market takes the kind of special expertise that is inherent in the RallyPoint team. I fully expect hundreds of companies to leverage RallyPoint when they want to connect with service members and veterans.

As a result of RallyPoints expansion throughout the military community, Diane joins a robust advisory board that includes former iRobot President Greg White, Rocket Fuel CEO Randy Wootton and retired senior military officers General George Casey, General Norty Schwartz, Admiral John Harvey, Lieutenant General Ben Freakley, Major General Bruce Scott and General Craig Nixon.

ABOUT RALLYPOINT:

RallyPoint is the online platform where the troops talk. With nearly 1.2 million members, RallyPoint is the premier social network for military service members and veterans to come together and discuss military life through both professional and personal perspectives. Visit http://www.RallyPoint.com to learn more. Follow RallyPoint on Facebook and Twitter @RallyPoint.
Foreign Policy Research Institute Every teacherand every student of every teacherbenefits from gaining mastery over subject matter. Thats what FPRI provides." -Alan Luxenberg, President, FPRI

The Foreign Policy Research Institute will hold a unique professional development conference, co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, for high school and secondary school educators on October 21  October 22, 2017, in Philadelphia, PA. Interested individuals may apply by sending a resume, a one-paragraph statement describing relevant teaching or other professional experience, and a brief statement of how students or school district will benefit from participation to history(at)fpri(dot)org before July 15.

The weekend conference focuses on What is Eurasia? and will connect 40 educators with leading scholars in the field of international relations. Accepted teachers will be provided with lodging, meals, partial travel reimbursement and the opportunity to earn credit from Carthage College of Kenosha, WI, a co-sponsor of the conference.

Nine experts will present on topics including the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Revolution, Post-Soviet democratization, the Baltic States and more. A full list of topics and speakers can be found here.

Part of a 20 year old series of the Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institutes put on by FPRI, these conferences enable educators to apply these complex subjects to a high school level curriculum. After the conference, educators are encouraged, with the offer of a stipend, to create lesson plans meeting national standards to be shared on the FPRI website and among a network of teachers across the U.S.

Every teacherand every student of every teacherbenefits from gaining mastery over subject matter. Thats what FPRI provides, said Alan Luxenberg, President of FPRI.

This conference comes at an opportune time to reexamine the history of Eurasia. December 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the fall of the U.S.S.R., while November 2017 will mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of Soviet Russia. Educators will be able to closely explore Eurasiaa vast and diverse regionits critical history and future.

Established in 1990, the Marvin Wachman Center for Civic and International Literacy of FPRI seeks to foster civic and international literacy in the community and in the classroom. The Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute is the centerpiece of the Wachman Center, sponsoring programs designed to bring high school teachers from around the country together with the nations top scholars in history, political science and more. Over the past 20 years, History Institutes have garnered a national reputation for excellence, attracting over 1,000 teachers from over 800 different schools in 47 states.

FPRI is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank located in Center City Philadelphia. Its mission is to bring the insights of scholarship to bear on the foreign policy and national security challenges facing the United States. It seeks to educate the public, teach teachers, train students, and offer ideas to advance U.S. national interest based on a nonpartisan, geopolitical perspective that illuminates contemporary international affairs through the lens of history, geography and culture.

For more information about the conference or about FPRI, please contact Payton Windell at pwindell(at)fpri(dot)org or at 215-732-3774 ext. 122.
SeaWeb Seafood Summit Barcelona, a seaport proudly and publicly committed to its own sustainability, will be the first European host city the Summit returns to for an encore...

The 2018 SeaWeb Seafood Summit, the worlds premier seafood sustainability conference, will take place June 18-20, 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. The annual Summit, produced jointly by SeaWeb and Diversified Communications, brings together global representatives from the seafood industry, the conservation community, academia, government, and the media. It travels to a new location each year, with prior editions held in Seattle, Malta, and New Orleans. Barcelona, a seaport proudly and publicly committed to its own sustainability, will be the first European host city the Summit returns to for an encore (the 2008 event was held there as well).

Since 2002, SeaWeb Seafood Summit has connected global stakeholders of sustainable seafood and given them a forum for productive in-person dialogue, partnerships, and solutions. The 2017 event, held in Seattle, brought in more than 560 attendees representing 36 countries. While conversations sparked there, they will no doubt continue throughout the year, and the 2018 edition of the Summit will reopen them in person, in a new time and place, with stakeholders freed from day-to-day distractions and focused on finding collaborative solutions.

This will all happen in the context of an information-rich educational program on the latest seafood policies, practices, and trends. The program will offer a mix of keynote, daily plenary presentations, and interactive breakout discussions on topics ranging from traceability and transparency to business and management, aquaculture, and IUU/FIPS. Sessions are buffered by networking and refreshment breaks, allowing attendees to connect with each other.

SeaWeb Seafood Summit is also home to The Seafood Champion Awards, a program that recognizes individuals and companies on the front lines of a more sustainable seafood industry. Each year, an honoree is chosen in each of four categories: Leadership, Innovation, Vision, and Advocacy.

Online registration for the 2018 SeaWeb Seafood Summit in Barcelona, Spain will open in the fall of 2017 at seafoodsummit.org. Attendees can sign up for the SeaWeb email list here to get a pre-registration reminder and access special early bird discounts.

About SeaWeb: SeaWeb accelerates the uptake of sustainable practices and products in the global seafood industry through communications, convening, and facilitation. SeaWeb is a project of The Ocean Foundation. SeaWeb produces the Seafood Summit in partnership with Diversified Communications.

About Diversified Communications: Diversified Communications is a leading international media company providing market access, education and information through global, national and regional face-to-face events, digital products, and publications. Diversified serves a number of industries including: seafood, food service, natural and organic, healthcare, commercial marine, technology and business management. The company's global seafood portfolio of expositions and media includes Seafood Expo North America/Seafood Processing North America, Seafood Expo Global/Seafood Processing Global, Seafood Expo Asia and SeafoodSource.com. Diversified Communications, in partnership with SeaWeb, also produces SeaWeb Seafood Summit, the worlds premier seafood conference on sustainability. Based in Portland, Maine, USA, Diversified has divisions in the Eastern United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit: http://www.divcom.com.

###

Media Contacts:

Diversified Communications

Jonathan Bass, Senior Marketing Coordinator

jbass(at)divcom(dot)com

+1 207-842-5563

SeaWeb

Marida Hines, Senior Manager

mhines(at)seaweb(dot)org

+1 301-580-1026
NASFAA policy staff will lead a Policy Town Hall to give up-to-date information on whats buzzing on Capitol Hill, at the Department of Education, and the White House.

Later this month, nearly 3,000 financial aid professionals from across the United States will gather in sunny San Diego to teach, learn, network, and share best practices for the most pressing student aid issues for students and schools.

The conference will kick off Monday with an opening address from ABC News veteran and host of "What Would You Do?" John Quinones. Quinones moving presentations focus on his odds-defying journey, celebrate the life-changing power of education, champion the Latino-American dream, and provide thought-provoking insights into human nature and ethical behavior.

In addition to the many great training, advocacy and professional development sessions offered, on Tuesday, June 27 at 3:15pm NASFAA will host a Fight for Financial Aid Kick-Off Event. Deep cuts proposed to vital student aid programs close the door for countless students nationwide who rely on financial aid to pay for college. This event will give attendees the chance to raise their voices in support of NASFAAs ongoing #Fight4FinAid campaign developed to shine a light on potentially devastating cuts to financial aid.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to hear from 2016-17 NASFAA National Chair Lisa Blazer, NASFAA President Justin Draeger, and representatives from the U.S. Department of Education (ED). In a Federal Update session Wednesday morning, ED staff will present information about current issues for the Title IV student aid programs and provide updates about the Department's activities and initiatives. Also on Wednesday, NASFAA policy staff will lead a Policy Town Hall to give up-to-date information on whats buzzing on Capitol Hill, at ED, and the White House. Later in the day, Blazer and Draeger will discuss recommendations put forth in NASFAAs recent task force report on improving oversight and transparency at EDs Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and strengthening the partnership between FSA and postsecondary institutions.

Other sessions that may be of interest to the media include:



Cost of Attendance: Is More Standardization Needed?

Dual Enrollment Pell Grant Experimental Sites Initiative

Re-examining Paradigms of Campus-based Aid Listening Session

Helping "First in Family" Students Develop a College Roadmap

What is "Affordable" for 21st Century Students? Examining Net Price Through a Student Lens

Student Debt: Rhetoric and Realities

Emergency Resources for Students

Using Federal Law, Research, and Practice to Improve Diversity Efforts in Scholarship Awards

Dont miss out on all the action! View the full conference schedule, and join us in San Diego, CA, June 26-29.

Please visit NASFAAs conference Media Center for more information. To request an interview with a NASFAA spokesperson during the conference, or seek a complimentary media registration, please email powerse(at)nasfaa(dot)org.

About NASFAA

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents more than 20,000 financial aid professionals at nearly 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every ten undergraduates in the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators. For more information, visit http://www.nasfaa.org.
Over the past decade, a series of publicized, tragic shootings has highlighted the reality that Black, Latinx, and Native American youth are more likely to be killed or injured as a result of routine interactions with police. At the same time, the harmful effects of zero-tolerance discipline policies in schools have been documented in research and in journalistic accounts.

A new report released today by the National Education Policy Center explores how these and other injustices inflict violence on students of color. It describes how violence within the system of public education is inextricably bound up with violence in the larger society within which schools are embedded. The authors then outline local and state policy alternatives that work to restore dignity and wellbeing.

The report, titled Law and Order in School and Society: How Discipline and Policing Policies Harm Students of Color, and What We Can Do About It, was authored by Janelle Scott, Michele Moses, Kara Finnigan, Tina Trujillo and Darrell Jackson.

The violence and trauma inflicted upon students of color is sometimes overt and direct, said Janelle Scott, associate professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley. Thats what we experience with police shootings of young, unarmed people of color, which are immediate, shocking and brutal, as are disproportional police stops and arrests of people of color. But she stressed that ongoing, sustained traumas experienced by children in our schools are also brutal.

Kara Finnigan, associate professor at the University of Rochesters Warner School of Education added, in urban contexts, students experience schools that are segregated and are continuously undergoing disruptive reforms such as turnaround and closure. Added to this instability and separation are policies that invite school police to actively ticket and arrest, plus harsh discipline policies focused on suspension and expulsion.

The report highlights how attempts to achieve law and order unfairly target students of color with a systemic form of violence that harms their abilities to secure equitable and just schooling.

This violence is preventable, explained Michele Moses, professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Policymakers at all levels of educational and social systems have an opportunity to design a robust system of supports that address the many opportunity gaps children of color and low-income families face inside and outside of school, she said.

The report stresses that change must occur at multiple levels and in multiple institutions. For schools specifically, it offers eight recommendations, split between the local and state levels, as alternatives to current ineffective and counter-productive education policies.

Local Approaches



Coordinate communication and planning so that municipalities and school districts work together on policing, housing, transportation, and racial disparities.

Redirect funds currently spent on school resource officers to expenditures shown to improve student engagement and social connectivity, including increasing the number of guidance counselors, advanced-level and enrichment courses, socio-emotional learning curricula, and high-quality extra-curricular activities.

Invest in the creation or support of racially and socioeconomically integrated schools.

Integrate community-based policing programs with school restorative and transformative justice initiatives to shift the emphasis from discipline and punishment toward capacity building, relationship building, and positive behavioral interventions and supports.

State Policies

Require teachers, school leaders, and all security staff to receive intensive preparation, trauma-informed professional development, and ongoing training on the causes of, and remedies for, racial inequality within and outside of school.

Require reporting of in-school and out-of-school suspensions and expulsions for traditional public schools and charter schools, disaggregated by race and gender. Develop interventions for schools with racially identifiable, disproportionate rates of these disciplinary actions.

Develop multiple measures of schools effectiveness in place of narrowly focused test-based measures. Use these data to develop more positive, supportive interventions aimed at decreasing suspension, expulsion, and referral rates.

Create teacher-police collaborative networks and invest in grow your own teacher preparation programs that help to develop, support, and retain teachers of color and teachers committed to equitable educational practices.

Find Law and Order in School and Society: How Discipline and Policing Policies Harm Students of Color, and What We Can Do About It, by Janelle Scott, Michele Moses, Kara Finnigan, Tina Trujillo and Darrell Jackson, at:

http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/law-and-order

Find Documents:

Press Release: http://nepc.info/node/8699

NEPC Publication: http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/law-and-order

This policy brief was made possible in part by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice (greatlakescenter.org).

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: http://nepc.colorado.edu
The results are in! Memorial Healthcare System achieved excellent rankings in a recent Physician Engagement Survey in which both community and employed doctors gave the six-hospital system high marks for being a progressive organization that implements strategies aimed at improving experiences for physicians, employees and patients.

Professional Research Consultants, Inc. (PRC), the agency that conducted the independent survey, recognized Memorial as a pioneering institution worthy of the agencys most singular recognition  the 2017 Presidents Award for Excellence in Healthcare. The awards ceremony was held on June 1 in Austin, Texas.

Thanks to our physicians and the entire Memorial community, we have achieved elevated engagement at every level of healthcare delivery, resulting in enhanced patient safety and high-quality care, said Aurelio M. Fernandez, III, FACHE, President and CEO, Memorial Healthcare System. We are proud to say that the Presidents Award demonstrates our dedication to our core mission: providing Deeper Caring and Smarter Healthcare.

The PRC Excellence in Healthcare Awards are presented annually to organizations and individuals in the field who have achieved excellence. For the 2017 awards, Memorial topped over 2,200 eligible hospitals and health systems from PRCs client base for the agencys most significant recognition  the Presidents Award. Among the most noteworthy factors in awarding the Presidents Award, PRC cites Overall Quality of Care, Nursing Care, Performance of Administration (including communication and relationships with clinicians) and Overall Perceptions of Patient Safety and Workplace Satisfaction.

Memorial Healthcare System also exhibited excellence in other multiple Physician Engagement Categories:

o Award of Distinction for Quality of Care

o Top Performer Award for Electronic Medical Record Systems

o Eight top rankings (ninetieth percentile or greater) achieved on PRC Physician Engagement Surveys

o Level of Quality Engagement (94)

o Overall Quality of Care (94.7)

o Place to Practice (95.1)

o Electronic Medical Record Systems (99.9)

o Patient Safety (95.2)

o Laboratory Services (94.5)

o Nursing Care (93.2)

o Administration (92.9)

The survey results show the collective perception that physicians have regarding the place where they practice medicine, said Dr. Stanley Marks, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Memorial Healthcare System. Physicians are engaged and dedicated to treating and healing patients. If they can do it in an environment that is committed to putting the patient first and also provides a better place to practice medicine, then that becomes the perfect setting for our community and practitioners, and that is what Memorial Healthcare System has accomplished.

About PRC

Professional Research Consultants, Inc. (PRC) is a national healthcare market research company. For more than 35 years, PRC has facilitated millions of interviews, delivered insightful reports and provided customized research solutions to hospitals and healthcare organizations. Services measure community perceptions, brand positions, patient experience, physician alignment and engagement, and employee engagement. PRC is also a certified vendor for government-mandated CAHPS surveys and has partnered with more than 400 communities across the U.S. to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments.

Memorial Healthcare System (MHS) is one of the largest public healthcare systems in the country and a national leader in quality care and patient satisfaction. Its facilities include Memorial Regional Hospital, Memorial Regional Hospital South, Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital, Memorial Hospital West, Memorial Hospital Miramar, Memorial Hospital Pembroke and Memorial Manor nursing home. MHS has been recognized as one of Modern Healthcare magazines Best Places to Work in Healthcare, Florida Trends Floridas Best Companies to Work For, and Beckers Hospital Reviews 150 Great Places to Work in Healthcare.
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP had 12 attorneys from the Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia offices recognized in the 2017 Chambers USA Guide. Firmwide, more than 175 attorneys were acknowledged. Additionally, the guide ranked the firms Immigration Practice in the Washington, D.C. area.

According to its website, Chambers and Partners, publisher of annual guides in several global markets, selects attorneys and practice areas for inclusion based on thousands of interviews with practicing lawyers and clients around the world.

In the USA Guide, attorneys and practice areas are ranked by placement in bands, with Band 1 being the highest placement. Attorneys can also be designated as a Star Individual, Eminent Practitioner, Senior Statesman, Up and Coming, Star Associate, or Associate to Watch by market and practice.

This year, the guide ranked Martha Schoonover, Business Immigration & Compliance Practice co-chair and shareholder in the Northern Virginia office, in Band 1. Robert S. Brams, Government Contracts & Projects Practice co-chair and shareholder in the Washington, D.C. office, ranked as an Eminent Practitioner. Jason T. Simon, Corporate & Securities shareholder in the Northern Virginia office, was listed as a Recognised Practitioner.

Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia area Greenberg Traurig attorneys recognized in the 2017 Chambers USA Guide on either a regional or a nationwide level (some in both) are as follows:



Trevor J. Chaplick, District of Columbia, Corporate/M&A & Private Equity

Alice L. Connaughton, Nationwide, REITs

Mark G. Davis, Nationwide, International Trade: Intellectual Property (Section 337); District of Columbia, Intellectual Property: Litigation

Gregory K. Lawrence, Nationwide, Energy: Electricity (Regulatory & Litigation)

Nelson F. Migdal, Nationwide, Leisure & Hospitality; District of Columbia, Real Estate

Kenneth M. Minesinger, Nationwide, Energy: Oil & Gas (Regulatory & Litigation)

Howard L. Nelson, Nationwide, Energy: Oil & Gas (Regulatory & Litigation)

Laura Foote Reiff, Nationwide, Immigration; District of Columbia, Immigration

Martha J. Schoonover, Nationwide, Immigration (Band 1); District of Columbia, Immigration (Band 1)

Scott Meza, Northern Virginia, Corporate/M&A

Robert S. Brams, District of Columbia, Construction (Eminent Practitioner)

For a complete listing of rankings, client and peer commentary, and editorial summaries by Chambers researches and editors, please click here.

About Greenberg Traurigs Washington, D.C. Office

Greenberg Traurigs Washington, D.C. office is home to a multidisciplinary team of lawyers and governmental affairs professionals with strategic experience helping companies of all sizes to navigate the federal government. The offices work encompasses governmental affairs, federal procurement, global trade and investment, health and FDA business, litigation, government contracts, antitrust, insurance recovery and advisory, energy, telecommunications, real estate, intellectual property, representation of foreign governments, and national defense and homeland security. Greenberg Traurigs clients range from the federal defense sector to energy, telecommunications, and health care companies, which the firm represents before government agencies, regulatory bodies, Congress and the courts. The firms Washington, D.C. attorneys are also involved in handling a wide range of corporate and finance work for clients in these industries.

About Greenberg Traurigs Northern Virginia Office

The firms Northern Virginia office is also multifaceted, serving as a broad-based legal services provider and a regional hub of the firm. Greenberg Traurigs experienced, pragmatic attorneys advise clients on a broad array of legal matters, encompassing corporate and securities, real estate, wealth management, tax, business immigration, labor and employment, litigation, and government contracts.

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 largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
Dr. Marc B. Hahn, DO cuts the ribbon at KCU-Joplin "This is the dawning of a new era for educating osteopathic physicians to serve the primary care and rural health needs of Southwest Missouri and Beyond."

Leaders from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences (KCU) joined partners and friends from the Joplin regional community to celebrate the realization of a long-awaited dream with a ribbon cutting ceremony for the KCU Farber-McIntire campus, and the opening of the first new medical school in Missouri in nearly half a century, on Tuesday, June 6, 2017.

This is indeed an amazing day, said Marc B. Hahn, DO, president and CEO of KCU. Together, we have established an innovative and collaborative approach to medical education that will serve as a model for our country.

In July of 2017 KCU-Joplin will welcome its first class of more than 162 medical students. Many of these students grew up in the surrounding area and have expressed plans to remain in the region in order to help improve access to high-quality primary medical care.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the primary care physician shortage in the United States is projected to exceed 50,000 by 2025, greater than in any other specialties. The total physician shortage across all specialties is projected to reach more than 100,000.

This is the dawning of a new era for educating osteopathic physicians locally to serve the primary care and rural health needs of Southwest Missouri and beyond, Hahn said.

KCU-Joplin has been made possible through collaboration among KCU, Mercy Hospital Joplin, Freeman Health System, the City of Joplin and philanthropic leadership from the surrounding community.

The KCU-Joplin campus is located on the site of Mercys former hospital, which was constructed in 2012 to serve as a temporary facility following the destruction of St. Johns Hospital during the devastating Joplin tornado in 2011. Our university is extremely proud to be part of the story that is the continuing rebirth of Joplin, noted Hahn. "We are honored to be opening this medical school on the hallowed grounds of the former St. Johns Hospital. It is indeed, like the 'Phoenix rising from the ashes.'

KCU-Joplin will feature cutting-edge technology, anatomy and physical diagnosis laboratories, advanced robotics for patient simulation and other unique features.

The Joplin region and the entire nation want and deserve well-trained physicians who treat patients as people, not as a set of symptoms or a disease. KCU-Joplin will lead the way in educating future generations of doctors dedicated to a whole-person approach to medical care, and to improving the lives of the communities they serve.

About Kansas City University

The Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences (KCU), founded in 1916, is a fully accredited, private not-for-profit university with a College of Biosciences and a College of Osteopathic Medicine. The College of Osteopathic Medicine is the oldest medical school in Kansas City, Mo., and the largest in the state. KCU is the second-leading producer of physicians for both the states of Missouri and Kansas.

KCU will open a second medical school in Joplin, Mo., in 2017 to help address the growing need for primary care physicians in the regions rural communities.
Ayuda Media Systems (Ayuda), an out-of-home ad tech company, announced today at the 2017 annual FEPE congress that Adshel, one of Australias largest out-of-home advertising companies, has selected Ayudas software to power all media workflows including sales, operations, finance, digital scheduling, data-driven digital ad serving and customer-facing enablement tools. Adshels network of more than 22,000 advertising touchpoints, reaching 92% of Australians 68 times a fortnight, will be fueled by the complete Ayuda Platform. Adshel has already transitioned all of its 3500+ digital touchpoints to Ayudas CMS and player.

Chris Hunt, Adshels Chief Operating Officer, commented: The partnership with Ayuda underscores our commitment to providing the most innovative technology-driven offerings to our customers. We chose Ayuda for the ability to effectively manage all our classic and digital formats on a single consolidated platform. This will provide our sales, operations, and back-office staff real-time and transparent access to business-critical data and workflows.

Only a few months since the partnership officially began, Adshels 3500+ digital touchpoints are already being powered by Ayudas digital CMS and player. Adshels Adsmart customer-facing content management system is being migrated to be powered by Ayudas client-enablement technology, which will allow advertisers to schedule their own creative and respond to a variety of external triggers.

Over the coming months, Adshel will continue to consolidate many internal and customer-facing technology tools onto Ayudas holistic data-driven platform. Adshel will be using Ayudas enterprise resource planning platform for ad serving, sales proposal generation, real-time availability media planning, inventory management, billing and lease automation. This consolidation is a core component of Adshels business transformation project which will deliver market leading innovation to the Australian and New Zealand advertising community and revolutionise how out-of-home is planned and traded.

Daniel Fleischer, Ayuda Global VP of Business Development shared: Im thrilled and honored at Adshels decision to select Ayuda as the single consolidated software platform that will run the core of their advertising operations. Adshel is the perfect partner for Ayudas rapidly growing APAC business, in that both companies engender not only a deep culture of innovation, but a shared vision for the future of OOH advertising. This partnership with one of Australias largest, forward thinking, and technologically envelope-pushing advertising companies will deliver pioneering offerings to the Australian out-of-home community.

Chris Hunt concludes: Ayuda is recognised as a market leader and innovator in out-of-home business management software, and is therefore the partner of choice to help us propel our business as we grow for years to come. We welcome Ayudas experience and vision as a world-class, global ad tech company.

About Ayuda Media Systems

Ayuda is an ad tech company specializing in OOH. The Ayuda Platform is used globally by some of the worlds largest OOH companies to manage day-to-day operations. It includes an ERP specially built for OOH, a digital signage platform, and a seamless integration with the Ayuda[x] programmatic set of offerings that enable OOH media companies to tap into new digital revenue streams and modernize their trading models. Ayuda is a proud member of the DPAA, OAAA and FEPE. For more information about Ayuda, visit http://www.ayudasystems.com

About Adshel

As a leading out-of-home media company, Adshel allows advertisers to connect, engage and influence commuters where they work, live, shop and play across Australia and New Zealand. Adshel is wholly owned by HT&E and is now one of the most recognised names in street furniture and a key player in the out-of-home media market reaching 92% of Australia 68 times a fortnight.

Looking ahead, Adshel will continue to lead the market in innovation and insights with an ongoing digital expansion across Australia and New Zealand coupled with data and geo-targeting solutions, offering advertisers new ways to reach, engage and impact their audience.

For more information, visit http://www.adshel.com.au
A stop-gap is like a BandAid for a wound three times the size of the bandage.

The National Association of Social Workers, Illinois Chapter today calls on the Illinois General Assembly to end discussions about yet another stop-gap budget and instead focus on passing a balanced budget, one that will fully fund our states human services needs before our social safety net completely collapses.

We are entering into our third year without a state budget, an unprecedented collapse of leadership that is driving human service agencies and practitioners away and closing doors for good. The clients our members serve cannot wait until the 2018 election to get the life-saving assistance they need. The time for action is now.

For two years, the human service agencies and private practitioners have carried the fiscal burden of a state that lacks the will or ability to perform its most basic reasonability: passing a balanced budget. Illinois businesses are now teetering on collapse after rounds of cuts and years of borrowing to stay open. These are not multi-billion dollar corporations like Exelon; these are domestic violence clinics, violence prevention programs, senior and special needs servicing organizations, and so many more like them that make up the backbone of the Illinois safety net. They are being used as a pawn in a disastrous and inexcusable game of budget chicken where the losers are the poorest and weakest among us. We call on the Illinois General Assembly to put people before politics and pass a balanced budget.

A stop-gap is like a BandAid for a wound three times the size of the bandage. Every day we go without funding, Illinois residents go without the care they need and a very real work force development problem grows larger. As agencies critical to our state layoff employees or close operations, mental health professionals are leaving the profession altogether. While larger municipalities may recover with new talent, large areas of our state--particularly in Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) located in mostly rural areas---will suffer irreparable damage.

The Illinois Constitution does not allow one man to hold a budget in limbo unless the Illinois General Assembly allows him to. We need rank and file legislators from both parties to step up and pass a balanced budget and refuse to support yet another stop-gap budget or lifeline. While we understand the need to open schools on time, help gaming, save nuclear plant jobs, or help whichever special interest group has the attention and lobbyist support for their agenda, we are asking that legislators refuse to relive pressure for a budget or go along with any plan that pushes a lifesaving solution out to 2019.

We recognize the difficulties of passing anything in an environment where 2018 contenders are already up in the media, and we understand that legislators might be hesitant to go against deep-pocketed leaders. However, we would be remiss if we didnt remind elected officials that they were not sent to Springfield to create gotcha roll calls or catchy mailers---they are sent there to create solutions. We are asking you now to create a solution to a problem you have made worse.

While difficult it is possible, as we saw when Illinois legislators came together to pass a last-minute bailout for ComEd. The NASW-Illinois Chapter is now calling for the same cooperation to save the very human service organizations and businesses who save so many people in our state.
The CTO Forum, a premier organization for senior technology and business leaders, today announced its featured keynote speakers for the eighth annual RETHINK STRATEGY executive education program, which will be held at the Harvard Business School in Boston from July 30 to August 3, 2017. Event registration is available at http://www.ctoforum.org.

RETHINK STRATEGY is an elite program offered through partnership of the CTO Forum and Harvard Business School. The mission of this groundbreaking program is to help senior leaders identify, examine, and overcome the industry challenges they face in developing and leading the organization and in sustaining a competitive edge. HBS faculty and nine Fortune 500 CEOs will deliver a series of interactive sessions that fundamentally provide the blueprints, frameworks and war chest for thriving in the digital age. The program provides an excellent opportunity for senior executives to learn how to embrace challenges, see opportunities and frame the big picture. Harvard's world-class faculty members and the participation of distinguished top-tier executives who will share their vision on the challenges at the intersection of technology, business and society, makes this program a must-attend event.

This year's featured keynote speakers include an exceptional group of distinguished leaders:

Daniel Amos, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - AFLAC Corporation

Dan Amos is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aflac Incorporated, a Fortune 500 company that insures more than 50 million people in the United States and Japan, where Aflac insures one out of every four households. Mr. Amos is the second longest tenured CEO in the Fortune 200 behind only Warren Buffet. During his 26-years as CEO of Aflac, revenues have grown from $2.7 billion to $22.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2016.

Bruce Broussard, President and Chief Executive Officer - Humana Inc.

Bruce Broussard, President and CEO, joined Humana in 2011. Under his leadership, Humana has created an integrated care delivery model centered on improving health outcomes, driving lower costs, enhancing quality, and providing a simple and personalized member experience. With its holistic approach, Humana is dedicated to improving the health of the communities it serves by making it easy for people to achieve their best health.

John Ferriola, Chairman, President and CEO - Nucor Corporation

John Ferriola began serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors in January 2014 and as Chief Executive Officer in January 2013. Previously he served as President and Chief Operating Officer of Nucor from 2011 to 2013; Chief Operating Officer of Steel Making Operations of Nucor from 2007 to 2011; Executive Vice President of Nucor from 2002 to 2007; Vice President of Nucor from 1996 to 2001; Vice President and General Manager of Nucor Steel Indiana from 1998 to 2001; General Manager of Nucor Steel Nebraska from 1995 to 1998; General Manager of Vulcraft Texas in 1995; and Manager of Maintenance and Engineering at Nucor Steel Texas from 1992 to 1995.

Benjamin Fowke, III, Chairman, President and CEO - Xcel Energy Inc.

Ben Fowke is Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Xcel Energy. He previously served as president and Chief Operating Officer with responsibility for overall corporate operations as well as Xcel Energy's four operating companies, which do business in eight states. Prior to being named president and COO in 2009, Mr. Fowke held a variety of executive positions at the company, including Vice President and Chief Financial Officer and Vice President and CFO of Energy Markets, where he was responsible for the financial operations of the company's commodities trading and marketing business unit.

Seifi Ghasemi, Chairman, President and CEO - Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Seifi Ghasemi became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Air Products in July 2014. In this role, he is focused on setting the strategy and policies of the company, developing leadership, and meeting shareholder commitments. Mr. Ghasemi also serves as Chairman of Versum Materials, Inc., the former Electronic Materials business of Air Products that was spun-off from the company on October 1, 2016.

Richard Johnson, Chairman, President and CEO  Foot Locker Inc.

Dick Johnson was elected President and Chief Executive Officer of Foot Locker, Inc. effective December 1, 2014. He was subsequently appointed to the additional position of Chairman of the Board, effective May 18, 2016. Prior to his current role, Mr. Johnson served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Foot Locker, Inc. and was responsible for the Companys domestic and International stores, as well as business development.

Ed McLaughlin, President, Operations and Technology - Mastercard

Ed McLaughlin is President of Operations and Technology for Mastercard and member of the companys Management Committee. In this role, he oversees all of Mastercards technology functions, including the global network, processing platforms, global technology hubs, information security and technology operations. Prior to this role, he served as Chief Information Officer, directing the development efforts for products and services, implementing the IT digital roadmap, and managing the development of Mastercards global tech hubs.

William Ruh, CEO - GE Digital

William Ruh is the Chief Executive Officer for GE Digital as well as the Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer for GE. GE Digital, a $6B business of General Electric, provides premier digital software solutions and services for the industrial world. GE Digital supports customers globally with a broad range of Industrial Internet applications, from asset performance management, operations optimization and brilliant manufacturing to platform-as-a-service, cloud and cyber security. As the CDO, Mr. Ruh is responsible for global IT as well as creating GEs Digital Thread a next generation system for streamlining design, manufacturing and support processes.

Stephan Schenk, President and CEO - TD Bank US Holdings LLC

Stephan Schenk is the President and CEO of TD Group US Holdings and member of the TD GUS Board of Directors. Mr. Schenk is responsible for management of the risks of the combined U.S. operations, which include TD's U.S. retail and wholesale businesses. Previously, Mr. Schenk severed as the Chief Auditor, TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank. In this role, he oversaw the independent assessment of the Banks key processes and controls and managed the talented group of individuals who conduct internal audits for the Bank.

The RETHINK STRATEGY program is reserved for CIOs and CTOs of Fortune-ranked firms. In addition to the registration request form, the program agenda along with a complete list of faculty and speakers can be found at http://www.ctoforum.org.
HS-UK Slit Lamp Imaging Course I look forward to welcoming delegates onto the new HS-UK Slit Lamp Imaging Courses. The programme will offer a fantastic opportunity for delegates to gain hands-on experience examining live subjects, using state-of-the-art imaging devices.

Haag-Streit UK (HS-UK), the leading manufacturer and distributor of gold-standard optometry and ophthalmic equipment, is delighted to announce dates for two new Slit Lamp Imaging Courses. These courses will take place on 15th August at the Radisson Hotel, Bristol and 17th August at the Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Manchester.

The aim of the Slit Lamp Imaging Courses is to provide attendees with a detailed overview of this highly-skilled ophthalmic imaging discipline. The day will include lectures and demonstrations delivered by a faculty of highly-skilled slit lamp imaging specialists.

HS-UK has finalised an exciting programme for the two courses, which includes lectures on topics such as; The general eye examination, The clinical importance of slit lamp imaging and Imaging of the retina.

The HS-UK Slit Lamp Imaging Course will feature expert advice from guest speakers on how to get the most from your imaging module and will offer insights into the clinical importance of high-quality slit lamp images.

Each course will include practical, hands-on workshops, which will support a range of subjects, including; diffuse, focal & indirect illumination and retinal imaging using retro illumination. Attendees will be able to claim CPD points for both courses.

Grant Duncan, HS-UK Clinical Training Manager, said, I look forward to welcoming delegates onto the new HS-UK Slit Lamp Imaging Courses. The programme will offer a fantastic opportunity for delegates to gain hands-on experience examining live subjects, using state-of-the-art imaging devices.

The price for each course is just 100, which will include lunch at the venue. There will be limited spaces on each course, so delegates are advised to book early to avoid disappointment.

For further information, or to book a place on either course, visit http://www.haagstreituk.com/slitlampimaging
Vistatec will be participating in the LocWorld34 conference which will take place in Barcelona on June 14-16 and is expected to attract over 600 global business executives from 45 countries.

Vistatec is a regular participant of LocWorld. Last year in Montreal Vistatec hosted the session Outside the Comfort Zone: The Role of Localization in Social Media Marketing. LocWorld34 Barcelona will be focusing on the theme of Continuous Delivery and Vistatec is delighted to be back.

LocWorld is the worlds leading Localization conference and it brings together professionals from the fields of international business, localization and globalization. The event was created in 2003 by Ulrich Henes (founder of The Localization Institute) and Donna Parrish (publisher of MultiLingual magazine). Were excited about returning to Barcelona, says Donna Parrish. Weve held LocWorld here on two other occasions and Barcelona has proved to be a marvellous host city. Registrations are very strong and it promises to be an outstanding event.

Marketing Content at the Speed of Agile

Vistatecs Esther Curiel will be moderating the panel discussion Marketing Content at the Speed of Agile  Game Changing Times for Global Brands, which echoes the growing importance of agile marketing and delves into the little-discussed subject of how it can be applied to global markets.

The session brings together perspectives from the content marketing, localization and globalization worlds, and it will offer insights into the way in which different brands, from the start-up to the long-established, are applying agile principles to help them deliver more targeted content to global markets at the rapid pace required by todays customers.

Attendees will hear about the differences between agile development and agile marketing, the benefits and challenges that agile methodologies bring with them, how the four organizations represented at the panel are dealing with those challenges, and the lessons theyve learnt along the way.

Amongst the panellists are:

Yuka Nakasone, Globalization and Localization Director at Beabloo, a Barcelona-based start-up that develops omnichannel digital marketing solutions and Big Data analytics for online and offline, providing comprehensive solutions to communicate with customers through digital signage and to understand their needs by using analytics. Beabloos products enable companies to learn about customer behaviour, and improve the customer experience in both worlds, online and offline.

Julia Cames, Content Marketing Team Lead at GetYourGuide, a Berlin-based online booking platform for travel, tours and activities.

Lahcene Guerrouj, Global Content Marketing and Localization Manager at Salesforce, the innovative company behind the worlds #1 CRM solution with cloud-based software thats bringing artificial intelligence to everyone.

As Lahcene Guerrouj says, a great piece of content that doesnt reach its target audience is just poor content.

We at Vistatec invite everyone to come and join us on June 14th to learn how to make sure your content delivers.

About Vistatec

Vistatec has been supporting some of the worlds most iconic brands to optimize their global commercial potential since 1997. Vistatec is one of the worlds leading localization solutions providers headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with offices in Mountain View, California, USA.

Media Contact

Simon Hodgkins, Chief Marketing Officer

info(at)vistatec.com http://www.vistatec.com
The Chief Marketer Academy Lobby Creating a centralized Chief Marketer Academy hub across four brands allows our four communities to access highly specialized content online within their specific industry verticals.

Leading b-to-b media, event and information company Access Intelligence and virtual event provider 6Connex have announced a new Chief Marketer Academy digital education and training environment to debut this month.

The initiative represents the largest digital resource initiative of its kind. Beginning June 20, the state-of-the-art Chief Marketer Academy virtual training platform will begin rolling out digital conferences and seminars to more than one million marketers and retailers across four industry-leading Access Intelligence brands: Chief Marketer (serving the worlds top brand marketers and CMOs), Event Marketer (serving Fortune 1000 event and experiential marketers), MultiChannel Merchant (serving omnichannel retailers) and LeadsCon (serving performance marketers).

Nothing of this size and scope has ever been attempted, says Cory Smith, group business director of the MultiChannel Merchant and Leadscon brands at Access Intelligence. Creating a centralized Chief Marketer Academy hub across four brands allows our four communities to access highly specialized content online within their specific industry verticals.

To execute such a large initiative, Access Intelligence turned to 6Connex, the industry leader in virtual events and environments. The 6Connex virtual environment platform offers innovative features and complete flexibility, says Jeff Fortmann, business director of the Chief Marketer and Event Marketer brands at Access Intelligence. Our partnership with 6Connex gives us confidence in the long-term success and value of the Chief Marketer Academy."

The environment was designed as a centralized digital campus, with individual educational areas for each of the four Access Intelligence brands. Each brands virtual area has an auditorium for sessions, a networking lounge for real-time conversations, sponsor rooms for partners, and a resource center packed with articles and case studies. Marketers can attend and participate in live event days with scheduled webcast sessions or they can browse content at their leisure, all from the comfort of their office or home, from any device.

The Chief Marketer Academy will start rolling out online seminars and conferences this month, beginning June 20 with Marketing to Millennials 2017, a digital conference for marketers and retailers featuring brand marketers, Millennial gurus and industry experts as speakers; learn more or register here.

We love when clients think big, and the Chief Marketer Academy is an extra-large initiative that leverages the deep capabilities of the 6Connex product and team, says Lisa Farrell, Chief Revenue Office at 6Connex. As both a marketer and an Access Intelligence business partner, I could not be more excited about this project.

To learn more about the 6Connex Virtual Destinations platform, please visit http://www.6connex.com/.

ABOUT ACCESS INTELLIGENCE

Access Intelligence, a portfolio company of Veronis Suhler Stevenson, is a b-to-b media, event and information company serving the media, PR, cable, healthcare management, defense, chemical engineering, satellite and aviation markets. Leading brands include PR News, AdMonsters, Cynopsis, Cablefax, Folio:, Event Marketer, LeadsCon, Chief Marketer, MultiChannel Merchant, Media Industry Newsletter, Defense Daily Network, Aviation Today, Studio Daily, Power, Via Satellite and Exchange Monitor. Market-leading events include LeadsCon, AdMonsters Operations and Publisher Summits, Folio: Show, Experiential Marketing Summit, EventTech, SATELLITE 2018, OR Manager, LDC Gas Forums, Clean Gulf, ELECTRIC POWER and Western Power Summit. Learn more at accessintel.com.

ABOUT 6CONNEX

6Connex powers virtual events and environments for career fairs, employee onboarding, user conferences, corporate universities and other applications. The 100-percent SaaS virtual destination platform is backed by a team of passionate virtual event experts, dedicated to both market innovation and customer success. More than 100 organizations rely on 6Connex, including Intuit, GE, Economist, Salesforce, Hootsuite, Ericsson, CDC, the Association of American Medical Schools, and the University of Alberta. 6Connex is based in Pleasanton, CA, with offices in London and Shanghai.
Thirty-One Gifts offers products for women's busy lifestyles, many of which can be personalized.

Thirty-One Gifts today announced it has been named by the Direct Selling Association (DSA) to the 2017 DSA Top 20, a prestigious honor bestowed annually on the largest direct-selling companies in the United States by domestic net sales.

Thirty-One Gifts truly is a leader in our industry, and I applaud you both for the opportunities you offer thousands of Americans and for the significant contributions you make to the economy, said DSA President Joseph N. Mariano. Sales dont just happen, they are earned through the devotion companies like Thirty-One show day in and day out to their customers and salespeople by virtue of their membership in DSA. You have set an example our entire business model should be proud to follow.

The DSA Top 20 award was presented to Thirty-One Gifts Founder, President and CEO Cindy Monroe at a reception June 6 in Orlando, Florida. The award is for DSA members only and is based on the previous years sales.

Thirty-One Gifts was named the 23rd-largest direct-selling company in the U.S. and 38th-largest in the world by Direct Selling News in 2016. They are headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and are the largest woman-owned business in central Ohio.

The company offers purses and wallets, totes, home organization solutions and decor, thermal bags, jewelry and more, sold by more than 72,000 independent sales consultants throughout the U.S. and Canada at home parties and online.

The DSA says the success of the top 20 is testament to the vitality of the direct-selling business model. DSA also released topline figures from its 2017 Growth & Outlook report prior to naming the 2017 DSA Top 20 member companies. A record 20.5 million people were involved in direct selling in the United States in 2016, a 1.5% increase from the previous year. Estimated direct retail sales of $35.54 billion in 2016 is the second highest in direct-selling history. More information in an infographic can be found here.

About the Direct Selling Association

The Direct Selling Association (DSA) is the national trade association for companies that offer entrepreneurial opportunities to independent sellers to market and sell products and services, typically outside of a fixed retail establishment. For more information, visit http://www.dsa.org.

About Thirty-One Gifts

Thirty-One Gifts is a family of individuals who share a passion for empowering women, and who are committed to celebrating, encouraging and rewarding others for who they are. The name Thirty-One Gifts comes from Proverbs 31, of the Bible, which describes the attributes and the importance of a virtuous woman. With a mission to help women by giving them the opportunity to own their own businesses, Thirty-One provides all the tools and support necessary to find success and possibly build a new career. Cindy Monroe started Thirty-One in her basement in 2003. Giving back also is fundamental to Thirty-One. Through their philanthropic initiative, Thirty-One Gives, the company partners with nonprofit organizations that serve and support girls, women and families, and they donate about 5 percent of net sales to those organizations. To-date, Thirty-One has donated more than $100 million in product and cash to nonprofit organizations.

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Today was a special opportunity for supporters of food and wine culture throughout Chicago to come together in support of such an important cause  improving the lives of those impacted by lymphoma, said Serafin Alvarado, Master Sommelier.

The Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF)  the nations largest non-profit organization devoted exclusively to funding innovative lymphoma research and serving the lymphoma community through a comprehensive series of education programs, outreach initiatives and patient services  hosted its second Swirl: A Wine Tasting Event in Chicago on Thursday, June 1, 2017. The second annual event, hosted in partnership with Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits at the Lakeview home of LRF Board Member Joseph Ferraro, drew over 200 attendees and raised $105,440 in support of LRFs mission to eradicate lymphoma and serve those impacted by this blood cancer.

Serafin Alvarado, Master Sommelier and Director of Wine Education at Southern Wine and Spirits of

Illinois, who presented a special selection of Napa Valley wines, was joined by award-winning restaurant RPM Italian, who also served as the evenings in-kind catering partner.

Today was a special opportunity for supporters of food and wine culture throughout Chicago to come together in support of such an important cause  improving the lives of those impacted by lymphoma, said Alvarado. For the second year in a row, Swirl: Chicago was a tremendous success and one that we at Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits are proud to support.

Each year, more than 1,700 people in the state of Illinois alone are diagnosed with lymphoma  the

most common form of blood cancer. Last years Swirl: Chicago raised more than $105,000 in support of the Lymphoma Research Foundation. The second annual Swirl: Chicago event was held the eve of the American Society of Clinical Oncologys (ASCOs) Annual Meeting, held each year at McCormick Place.

Given the incredible success of last years Swirl: Chicago, we were thrilled to see the citys philanthropic community return in such tremendous numbers in support of our mission and commitment to a cure, said Meghan Gutierrez, LRF Chief Executive Officer. It is clear to see that Swirl: Chicago is truly becoming a cant miss event for enthusiasts of the wine and food culture in Chicago; we are incredibly thankful to Southern Glazers Wine and Spirits for making it possible for LRF to expand this successful fundraising event nationally and raise critical funds to advance our mission.

Sheyla Conforte & Joseph Ferraro and Laura & Michael Werner served as this years presenting sponsors, in addition to serving on the evenings Host Committee. The Host Committee also included Eric Cohen, LRF Board of Directors, and Leo I. Gordon, MD, FACP, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chair of the LRF Scientific Advisory Board, Thomas M. Habermann, MD, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Chair-elect of the LRF Scientific Advisory Board, John P. Leonard, MD, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medicine, Immediate Past-Chair of the LRF Scientific Advisory Board, and Sonali M. Smith, MD, the University of Chicago Medicine, Member of the LRF Scientific Advisory Board.

About the Lymphoma Research Foundation

The Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF) is the nations largest non-profit organization devoted to funding innovative research and serving the lymphoma community through a comprehensive series of education programs, outreach initiatives and patient services. To date, LRF has awarded nearly $60 million in lymphoma-specific research.

For additional information on LRFs research, education and services, visit lymphoma.org.

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The 2017 Owler Top Rated CEO Awards are a true market view of the most esteemed CEOs.

Dom & Tom is excited to announce its CEO, Dominic Tancredi was awarded as a 2017 Owler Top Rated CEO in New York.



For the first time, Owler is honoring the top rated CEOs on their platform. CEOs are rated by members of the Owler community, who have collectively contributed more than a quarter-million ratings this year. Owler analyzed those ratings, ultimately distributing 1,000 awards to the highest rated CEOs from over 167,000 CEOs on Owler. Winners span from 50 cities and 25 industries worldwide. Dominic Tancredi was in good company, making the list alongside leaders of Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Netflix.

2017 Owler Top Rated CEO Awards provide a complete market view of a CEOs rating, which includes ratings from employees, competitors, followers, and general Owler users. Dominic Tancredi was rated #24 of 352 on the list of Top New York CEOs and #87 of 238 on the list of Top CEOs in Early Stage Companies.

Dominic Tancredi has fourteen-plus years of development experience including web, database, and interactive projects for both startup and enterprise projects, including seven-plus years of mobile development experience on Android and iOS platforms. Dom is a craftsman at heart and is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of quality. He has personally mentored almost every developer at Dom & Tom and prides himself on the growth and achievements of each one of them. His personal motto Do Good. Be Good. has become the company motto. Dom holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from Loyola University Chicago. Dom has given countless presentations on digital development innovations as a prominent thought-leader in the industry at multiple events including Pace University, AOL Ventures, Oculus Rift demonstrations with Downtown Alliance in Lower Manhattan, and more.



The 2017 Owler Top Rated CEO Awards are a true market view of the most esteemed CEOs, said Jim Fowler, CEO at Owler. These winners are truly the best of breed: they beat out the other 99.4 percent of leaders on our platform to win a coveted 2017 Owler Top Rated CEO Award.

About Dom & Tom

Dom & Tom is an end-to-end digital product development agency focused on emerging technologies. From startups to enterprise solutions the apps they produce for their clients support their strategic initiatives first and foremost through open collaboration, forward-thinking user experience, engaging design, and cross-platform development for both web and mobile. Dom & Tom has launched 400+ web projects and 120 native mobile applications with teams located in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. For more information, visit http://www.domandtom.com.

About Owler

Owler is the worlds largest community-based business insights platform that business professionals use to outsmart their competition, gain competitive insights, and uncover the latest industry news and alerts. Owler is powered by an active community of 1 million business professionals who contribute unique business insights such as competitors, private company revenue, and CEO ratings. From startups, all the way to large enterprises (including 96% of the Fortune 500), CEOs, salespeople, marketers, product managers, and all types of business professionals use Owler daily.

Launched in 2014, and funded by Norwest Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures, Owler is headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in Spokane, WA, and Coimbatore, India.
CLEARWATER, Fla., June 07, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On June 3rd, Christopher King, humanitarian and grandson of the Blues Legend B.B. King, hosted the Gentlemens Ball charity benefit at the Historic Fort Harrison, the Church of Scientologys international religious retreat. The events beneficiary was anti-human trafficking organization Selah Freedom.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/684c0aa9-9bee-493e-b0a6-37f2f7d297e8

Mr. Dylan Pires, Community Affairs Director for the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, opened the event, welcoming the guests to the Fort Harrison. After a brief recount of the buildings history, he mentioned that the Church of Scientology is continuing the tradition by welcoming thousands into the Fort Harrison for community events.

Mr. Christopher King was the MC and spoke of the horrors of human trafficking, including the fact that Florida ranks third in the US, per humantraffickinghotline.org. Mr. King presented the Youth for Human Rights program whose purpose is to educate youth on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mr. King explained that he ties human rights education in with his own youth program: The Gentlemens Course.

It is of the utmost importance that everyone knows their Human Rights, said Mr. King. If you dont know your rights, you dont know when they are being violated. This stands firm with every one of them, and especially Human Right number four: No Slavery.

Ms. Lisa Rowe, Vice President of the beneficiary, Selah Freedom, spoke about their safe housing, teen prevention and outreach programs. Selah is a Hebrew word which means to pause, rest, and reflect. The young women in the program have an opportunity to dream again and to start anew.

The event rounded off with a concert performance by the Fort Harrison band and guest artist Ms. Joann Andrews.

For more information about future events or to hold an event in the Fort Harrison for your non-profit organization, please contact Dylan at dylanpires@churchofscientology.net or (727) 467-6860.

About the Fort Harrison:

Since its construction in 1927, the Fort Harrison has been the home for many community events and charitable organizations. The Fort Harrison's current owner, the Church of Scientology, has hosted over 500 community events there since a top-to-bottom restoration in 2009. The Scientology religion was founded by humanitarian and philosopher, L. Ron Hubbard, and incorporated in 1954. To learn more, visit www.scientology.org.




Nine out of ten startups will fail. This is the hard and bleak truth. "Advising the Start-Up 2017" is a Financial Poise webinar series intended to place startups in the 10% that survive  and hopefully thrive. Learn from entrepreneurs who started businesses that both failed and succeeded. Learn from professionals who advised startups from idea to business formation to success!

The 2nd episode of the "Advising the Start-Up" series is available now! "Raising Capital - Negotiating with Potential Investors" (Register Here) features Moderator Todd Zoha of MorrisAnderson. Todd is joined by Brian Judkins of Dinsmore & Shohl, David Willbrand of Thompson Hine and Nick Petit of Financial Poise.

All businesses require capital (cash) to fund their activities. However, not all capital is created equal.



Should a startup raise equity or debt?

Who are the providers of equity and debt?

What are the pros and cons of raising equity from friends/family, an angel group or venture capital firm?

What are the pros/cons of taking a loan from a traditional bank or private capital provider?

How does a startup prepare and position itself to raise capital?

This Financial Poise webinar focuses on understanding different types of startup capital. Expert panelists also focus on the providers who fund that capital. Practical tips are given to negotiate and secure the best terms from those capital providers.

Each episode is delivered in Plain English understandable to business owners and executives without a background in these areas. Yet, it is proven to be valuable to seasoned professionals. Each episode in the series brings you into engaging, sometimes humorous, conversations.

Every Financial Poise webinar is designed to entertain as it teaches. Moreover, every Financial Poise episode in a series is designed to be viewed independently of the other episodes. Participants will enhance their knowledge of this area whether they attend one, some or every episode.

ABOUT FINANCIAL POISE:

Financial Poise (http://www.financialpoise.com) provides unbiased news, continuing education and intelligence to private business owners, executives and investors. For more information contact Jennifer Storch at jstorch(at)financialpoise(dot)com or 312-469-0135.
Jaret L. Davis Receives GMCC Bill Colson Leadership Award

Jaret L. Davis, co-managing shareholder for the Miami office of international law firm Greenberg Traurig, P.A., received The Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Bill Colson Leadership Award. The award was presented during the Chambers annual Salute to Miamis Leaders Awards program.

The Chambers Bill Colson Leadership Award is named in honor of the late Bill Colson, a prominent Miami attorney and community activist, who founded the Leadership Miami program more than three decades ago. This award is presented to an outstanding Leadership Miami alumnus who has exemplified consistent leadership in creating community understanding and enhancing the quality of life for a broad cross-section of the entire community.

I am honored to receive this prestigious Bill Colson Leadership Award that is named after one of our important community leaders, Davis said. I look forward to continuing to work with many of our local leaders and our team at Greenberg Traurig to help make Miami and South Florida a better place to live and work for all.

At Greenberg Traurig, Davis oversees approximately 170 attorneys and 200 business staff who are based in the firm's founding office in Miami. A shareholder in the firm's Corporate and Securities Practice, focusing on both domestic and international transactions within the mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and credit markets arenas, Davis represents numerous companies with an industry focus on the technology, health care and biotech sectors.

He currently serves as Chair of the Miami-Dade Beacon Council, Miami-Dade Countys official economic development partnership. In 2016, the Beacon Council, under his leadership, launched the Connect & Grow initiative designed to accelerate the growth of existing companies and incubate disruptive ideas to build out a business model.

Davis is actively involved in the community, impacting economic development in areas such as entrepreneurship, technology, education reform and digital health care. He is General Counsel to eMerge Americas, the annual global technology conference based in Miami, Florida; Past President of the University of Miami Law Alumni Association; and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Nicklaus Childrens Hospital.

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 largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and among the Top 20 on the 2016 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
Legal Pomegranate Were a West Coast-based business, and are proud to support local farms. Our lemons, pomegranates and ginger are sourced from farmers in Californias Central Valley.

Mirth Provisions, best known for Legal, a leading cannabis beverage throughout Oregon and Washington, today announced a major manufacturing and distribution partnership with INDUS Holding Company, one of Californias top purveyors of quality cannabis products. Starting July, California retailers can place orders for Mirths full line of natural sparkling tonics and fast-acting sublingual sprays to bring the anticipated and enjoyable legal experience to the Golden State.

Mirth products are sold in more than 90% of legal marijuana retail outlets across the Pacific Northwest  and with nearly 3,000 retail dispensaries in California, we anticipate Californians will share our excitement as theyre introduced to our all-natural drinkables and fast-acting sprays, said Adam Stites, Founder, Mirth Provisions. Were a West Coast-based business, and are proud to support local farms. Our lemons, pomegranates and ginger are sourced from farmers in Californias Central Valley  so patients and consumers can feel good knowing the high-quality, natural products theyre ingesting were grown in their backyard.

Mirth Provisions partners with marijuana producers and distributors to license the production of its line of build your own experience cannabis-infused sprays and beverages in states where marijuana is recreationally and medically legal. Made from the best local ingredients and highest-quality cannabis, Legal Sparkling Tonics and Drift Sublingual Sprays offer consumers an extraordinary experience blended with refreshing flavors including Rainier Cherry, Lemon Ginger, Pomegranate and Cranberry  each providing uniquely tailored effects and control based on the specific cannabis strains used to produce them.

According to BDS Analytics market research, California cannabis retailers experienced $1.8 billion in sales last year with an expected $5.8 billion in sales by 2021. As the first state to legalize medical cannabis, California is known for its high standards of quality. Both Mirth Provisions and INDUS are squarely aligned to deliver premium products, unsurpassed customer service, and great opportunities along the West Coast.

Representing some of the highest quality brands on the market, INDUS is one of the largest manufacturers and distributors of cannabis products in California. We are thrilled to introduce this well-crafted brand and believe it will quickly resonate with the health-conscious California consumer, said Robert Weakley, President and CEO of INDUS Holding Company. INDUS is dedicated to curating a collection of the most trusted brands that our dispensary partners can come to rely upon and enjoy working alongside  and Mirth is a perfect fit.

ABOUT INDUS HOLDING COMPANY

INDUS Holding Company is committed to creative products that emphasize consumer safety while advancing the changing perceptions of cannabis use. Politically astute, socially conscious and dedicated to change, we are building more than a brand, we are building a new American industry.

To learn more about INDUS, please visit: indusholdingco.com. Like INDUS Holding Company on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

ABOUT MIRTH PROVISIONS

Mirth Provisions wants to bring you joy with our specialty cannabis-infused edibles and drinkables, crafted with the best local ingredients and the highest quality cannabis. Mirth Provisions is executing a national brand expansion, closes 90% of the retail store accounts it calls on, and is operating in Arizona, California (coming soon), Oregon, and Washington State where the company has a 70% market share in the cannabis carbonated beverage category. Mirth has gained national recognition for its unique products and has been featured in CNN, Time, The New York Times, and Bloomberg Business to name a few. The company licenses to partners in each state to handle manufacturing, sales, and distribution. For more information, please visit http://www.mirthprovisions.com.
myGeoTracking Advanced Lone Worker Safety Monitoring Platform myGeoTracking comprehensive monitoring greatly allays the safety concerns of our field employees.

Abaqus, Inc., today announced it has launched a new solution for companies trying to improve the safety of their remote mobile workers. The solution combines powerful IFTTT rules with real-time GPS location and status information to detect when an employee may be in danger and initiate an emergency response. Now companies can enhance Lone Worker safety while better complying with OSHA safety regulations and reducing liability risks.

Our employees visit clients homes to support community outreach for insurance firms and provider networks in order to enhance population health management strategies and compliance in States such as Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina et al. During these visits, the safety of our lone workers is of prime importance to us, said Kyle Larner Program Manager at Arrow Strategies. In addition to providing us a mobile solution for collecting data in the field, myGeoTracking implemented a custom safety protocol that detects when an employee arrives at a members home and initiates an Are You OK safety check phone call or text message to check on their status."

"The myGeoTracking mobile app also provides discrete actions that the field staff can take from their phone to alert us on any threats," continued Larner. "These Alerts are sent to our back-office operations centers via text, voice or email and tagged with user location, nearest emergency response number (such as PSAP 911) and other details. This comprehensive monitoring greatly allays the safety concerns of our field employees.

Our Customers in the home healthcare sector, in oil & gas and the utility industries, are concerned about their employees safety while facing increasing liability and compliance challenges, said Shailendra Jain, CEO of Abaqus, Inc. Our solution utilizes a phone as a safety-monitoring device and can be customized for automated safety-check workflow & escalation based on events in the field. This feature complements our existing field data collection tools to greatly enhance & automate our customers field operations monitoring and management.

Theres an estimated 53 million lone workers requiring safety solutions in the US, Canada, and Europe  some 15% of the overall mobile work force, and growing.

The myGeoTracking Lone Worker safety solution includes:



Mobile app for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows devices

Supports flip phones and other devices via text and voice

Customized Emergency SOS Workflow

 Safety Monitoring (Are you OK?)

 Threat Detection and Validation

 Location Sharing, Context awareness (e.g. PSAP details) and Enterprise Messaging



Command and Control Dashboard with Real-time Status updates and Context information

Integrate with Back Office Operations including Call Centers

Safety Audit and Compliance Reporting



Visit myGeoTracking.com for more information and to sign up for a free trial.



About Abaqus Inc

Abaqus, Inc., an Owler Hot in the Silicon Valley 2016 award recipient, is a provider of cloud-hosted, carrier grade field service management and transportation logistics platform called myGeoTracking. The myGeoTracking platform enables solutions that helps SMB and Enterprise businesses better manage their mobile employees and assets, improving productivity and accountability, while reducing payroll and operations costs. These solutions work across a wide range of industries, from mobile field service companies, healthcare providers, facility management companies and trade services companies to 3PL, transportation, and freight brokering companies. The myGeoTracking platform is highly customizable and can rapidly provision & deploy workforce automation solutions tailored to match your companys needs.



Visit myGeoTracking.com for more information.



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Abaqus Contact

John Cunningham 1.415.496.9436

jcunningham(at)abaq.us
Monterey Harley-Davidson in Salinas, California He was able to help me acquire my second Harley-Davidson dealership. - Rich Gargano

Performance Brokerage Services, a new car and Harley-Davidson dealership broker is pleased to announce the sale of Monterey Harley-Davidson in Salinas, California and its Alternate Retail Outlet on Cannery Row from Cardinale Automotive Group to Rich Gargano. Cardinale Autmotive Group is now comprised of 16 new car dealerships offering brands such as Acura, Audi, BMW, Genesis, GMC, Hyundai, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen as well as a used car dealership. Joe Cardinale decided to divest of his interest in the Harley-Davidson franchise and focus his attention on the automotive franchises. Joe Cardinale commented, George Chaconas of Performance Brokerage Services approached me on behalf of a client to consider selling my Harley-Davidson dealerships. After careful consideration, I was open to discussions. I highly recommend George Chaconas to help you sell your dealership, as he was persistent, professional and exhibited exceptional follow-up.

Rich Gargano purchased House of Thunder Harley-Davidson in Morgan Hill, California in 2015 through George and Performance Brokerage Services. Rich again hired George to take a run at purchasing Richs competing Harley-Davidson dealership, Monterey Harley-Davidson. Located just 35 miles from House of Thunder Harley-Davidson and Richs home base, Monterey Harley-Davidson was a perfect strategic acquisition for him. The Alternate Retail Outlet also allows Rich the right to sell Harley-Davidson merchandise, apparel and gifts on the historic Cannery Row in Monterey. Following the purchase, Rich Gargano shared, I reached out to George Chaconas of Performance Brokerage Services to see if he could help me purchase a contiguous Harley-Davidson dealership in order to grow my business. With his help and tenacity, including his relationships in the industry, he was able to help me acquire my second Harley-Davidson dealership.

Monterey Harley-Davidson will operate under its new name West Coast Harley-Davidson and will remain at its current location at 333 North Main Street in Salinas, California 93901.

George C. Chaconas, the exclusive agent for this transaction and the head of the National Harley-Davidson and Powersports Division for Performance Brokerage Services commented, It was a pleasure working with such gentlemen in this transaction. I am honored to be a part of Richs growth and wish him continued success.

About Performance Brokerage Services

Performance Brokerage Services, an auto dealership broker, specializes in professional intermediary services to buyers and sellers of automotive, Harley-Davidson and Powersports dealerships.

The company offers a different approach to the automotive, Harley-Davidson and Powersports industries by providing complimentary dealership assessments, no upfront fees, no reimbursement of costs and is paid a success fee only. Performance Brokerage Services gets paid only after the client gets paid.

With over 25 years of experience, the company utilizes an extensive network of industry related accountants, attorneys, hundreds of registered buyers and enjoys longstanding relationships with most of the auto manufacturers and the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. The intermediaries at Performance Brokerage Services have been involved in well over 600 transactions. Pledging loyal and unwavering representation, confidentiality is vigilantly protected during the selling process and after the transaction closes.

With corporate offices in Irvine, California, four regional offices in Utah, Florida, Texas and New Jersey, and a dedicated Harley-Davidson and Powersports Division, Performance Brokerage Services provides its clients national exposure with local representation. For more information about the services offered by Performance Brokerage Services, visit https://performancebrokerageservices.com.
Norman Dong will join FD Stonewater and assume a leading role within the firms Federal Government real estate third-party advisory and principal development platforms We are confident that Norman will be integral in solidifying our firms status as the preeminent expert for Federal Government leasing, development, and advisory services.

FD Stonewater announced today that effective July 17, 2017, Norman Dong, the former Commissioner for the United States General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service, will be joining the firm as Managing Director. Mr. Dong will assume a leading role within the firms Federal Government real estate third-party advisory and principal development platforms. Mr. Dong has a distinguished history working in both the private sector and as a Government executive. During his tenure as Commissioner for the GSAs Public Buildings Service, Mr. Dong led the asset management, design, construction, leasing, building management, and disposal of nearly 374 million square feet of government-owned and leased space across all 50 states, six U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Im delighted to join FD Stonewater, as this is a unique opportunity to leverage my experiences to achieve positive outcomes for Federal Government real estate from a different perspective, said Dong. I am impressed with the caliber of FD Stonewaters team and the national resume of work that this firm carries. Its rare to see a firm with their depth and breadth of experience, and they have maintained a nimble and entrepreneurial business model that undoubtedly serves both their private-sector clients and the public sector well. I hope to build on this success as the firm continues to grow.

A graduate of Yale University and Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government, Mr. Dong has spent the last decade of his 30-year career serving the Federal Government in executive, management, and advisory capacities; including previously held positions as Deputy Controller of OMB, CFO of DHS/FEMA and Deputy Mayor for Washington, DC. Mr. Dongs notable accomplishments as Commissioner for the GSAs Public Building Service include reducing the Federal real estate footprint, which resulted in annual savings of more than $100 million, as well as overseeing a multi-billion-dollar capital program to support new construction and major renovation of various GSA properties. In addition, Mr. Dong developed the portfolio strategy to identify productive use for underutilized GSA properties, which will yield more than $1 billion in value to the Federal Government while supporting local urban development objectives.

FD Stonewater Principal Richard Mann said, Norm is a tremendous addition to the team and we expect him to make an immediate impact on the business; particularly with our clients who own Federal Government leased real estate across the country. His notable background, insight, and expertise in Federal Government real estate matters are well-suited for the firms strengths and enhances our strategic advisory practice and development platforms in this arena. Principal Joseph Delogu further commented, We are pleased to welcome Norm to the firm and we are confident he will bring a fresh and very current perspective to our business. His experience and wealth of knowledge is extremely valuable, particularly in todays highly competitive marketplace when crafting sound strategy is more important that ever. We are confident that Norman will be integral in solidifying our firms status as the preeminent expert for Federal Government leasing, development, and advisory services.

About FD Stonewater

FD Stonewater is a boutique real estate investment, development, brokerage and advisory firm headquartered in Washington, DC. Collectively, the firms leadership has a track record of more than $10 billion in investment and acquisitions, over 45 million square feet of lease transactions, and 18 build-to-suit projects completed with $240 million of federal development currently under construction.

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Looking for a birds eye view of a complex area of law? Interested in a much-needed refresher on an issue that has rapidly evolved in recent years? Short on time? This Financial Poise webinar series explores the essential building blocks of important legal concepts facing business people.

The 2nd episode of the "One Hour Law School 1.0 - Tell Me What I Need to Know" series is available now! "Intellectual Property in an Hour" (Register Here) features Moderator Michael Brandess of Sugar Felsenthal Grais & Hammer. Michael is joined by Kal Shah of Benesch, Jessica Johnson Fishfeld of Sidley Austin LLP, and Michele Berdinis of Beeline Legal Services.

Intellectual property (IP) rights are at the center of 21st century business. Copyrights protect the books we read and the movies we watch. Patent protection is what enables drug companies to spend billions of dollars every year in search of cures to our worst diseases. And without trademarks, we might not have the iconic brands we have come to enjoy and trust across a spectrum of industries.

But, what is a trademark? You cannot touch, taste or smell it.

And what are copyrights, trade secrets and patents?

When does a business need one? How can a business avoid violating the intellectual property rights of a third party? How do traditional IP rights relate to internet domain names? Expert panelists in this webinar teach the basic legal concepts of intellectual property.

Each episode is delivered in Plain English understandable to business owners and executives without a background in these areas. Yet, it is proven to be valuable to seasoned professionals. Each episode in the series brings you into engaging, sometimes humorous, conversations.

Every Financial Poise webinar is designed to entertain as it teaches. Moreover, every Financial Poise episode in a series is designed to be viewed independently of the other episodes. Participants will enhance their knowledge of this area whether they attend one, some or every episode.

ABOUT FINANCIAL POISE:

Financial Poise (http://www.financialpoise.com) provides unbiased news, continuing education and intelligence to private business owners, executives and investors. For more information contact Jennifer Storch at jstorch(at)financialpoise(dot)com or 312-469-0135.
ROUSH CleanTech has developed the first propane autogas engine available in class 4-7 vehicles and Blue Bird Type C buses certified to the optional low nitrogen oxide (NOx) level .05 g/bhp-hr. Developing the lowest NOx propane engine sends a message that this fuel is comparable to other alternative fuels from a standpoint of emissions.

ROUSH CleanTech has developed the first propane autogas engine available in class 4-7 vehicles and Blue Bird Type C buses certified to the optional low nitrogen oxide (NOx) level .05 g/bhp-hr. These new Environmental Protection Agency- and California Air Resources Board-certified propane engines are 75 percent cleaner than the current emissions standard.

ROUSH CleanTechs low NOx engine is a great step forward for the propane industry, said Tucker Perkins, president of the Propane Education & Research Council. Propane autogas is well established as an economical, clean-burning and domestically produced alternative fuel ideal for fleets. Now propane gets the biggest return on NOx reductions, too.

Nitrogen oxides are a group of gases known as a primary contributor to acid rain, smog and other air quality issues. The EPA states that exposure to NOx can trigger health problems such as asthma and other respiratory issues. CARB has encouraged heavy-duty engine manufacturers to reduce levels below the current mandatory EPA standard of .2 grams per brake horsepower per hour (known as g/bhp-hr).

Equipping the Blue Bird Vision with the lowest NOx propane engine makes the best-selling school bus in the industry even better, said Phil Horlock, president and CEO of Blue Bird. Thats great news for the environment, our customers and our children. Blue Birds propane school bus is the industry leader for lowest total cost of ownership and hassle-free maintenance, while creating a cleaner and safer environment for us all.

The certification covers ROUSH CleanTech 6.8L V10 3V propane engines for school bus and commercial truck engines with no additional upfront cost. ROUSH CleanTech has begun installing the new low NOx engines in its Ford commercial vehicles and Blue Bird Vision propane school buses with 2017MY engines.

Developing the lowest NOx propane engine sends a message that this fuel is comparable to other alternative fuels from a standpoint of emissions, said Todd Mouw, vice president of sales and marketing for ROUSH CleanTech. With our nations ample supply of propane and the fuels favorable total cost of ownership, our propane autogas engine is the perfect mix of environmental and economic sustainability.

Over the past year, NOx awareness has increased due to the Volkswagen emissions compliance issue. The Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust was created to fund actions with cleaner technology that reduce excess emissions of NOx. Our .05g NOx engine certification will help our school bus and public transit customers target funds from the upcoming VW Environmental Mitigation Trust program, said Mouw. This is especially beneficial for school districts looking for extra funds to replace aging diesel models.

About Blue Bird Corporation: Blue Bird is the leading independent designer and manufacturer of school buses, with more than 550,000 buses sold since its formation in 1927 and approximately 180,000 buses in operation today. Blue Birds longevity and reputation in the school bus industry have made it an iconic American brand. Blue Bird distinguishes itself from its principal competitors by its singular focus on the design, engineering, manufacture and sale of school buses and related parts. As the only manufacturer of chassis and body production specifically designed for school bus applications, Blue Bird is recognized as an industry leader for school bus innovation, safety, product quality/reliability/durability, operating costs and drivability. In addition, Blue Bird is the market leader in alternative fuel applications with its propane-powered and compressed natural gas-powered school buses. Blue Bird manufactures school buses at two facilities in Fort Valley, Georgia. Its Micro Bird joint venture operates a manufacturing facility in Drummondville, Quebec, Canada. Service and after-market parts are distributed from Blue Birds parts distribution center located in Delaware, Ohio.

About ROUSH CleanTech: ROUSH CleanTech, an industry leader of alternative fuel vehicle technology, is a division of ROUSH Enterprises based in Livonia, Michigan. ROUSH CleanTech designs, engineers, manufactures and installs propane autogas fuel system technology for medium-duty Ford commercial vehicles, and Type A and Type C Blue Bird school buses, and compressed natural gas fuel systems for Type C Blue Bird school buses. As a Ford QVM-certified alternative fuel vehicle manufacturer, ROUSH CleanTech delivers economical, clean and domestically produced fueling options for fleets across North America. Learn more at ROUSHcleantech.com or by calling 800.59.ROUSH.
Were always striving to create strong ties with our peers, and joining ASCII gives us a great opportunity to connect with other businesses in our industry.

Stratosphere Networks, an IT managed service provider, has joined The ASCII Group, a community of MSPs, value-added resellers (VARs), and solution providers in North America. The group gives its members access to numerous resources including training, education, business service discounts, knowledge sharing among peers, and more.

Were excited to be a part of this community of IT solution providers, said Kevin Rubin, president and COO of Stratosphere Networks. Were always striving to create strong ties with our peers, and joining ASCII gives us a great opportunity to connect with other businesses in our industry.

ASCII was founded in1984 and is the oldest and largest group of independent VARS, IT solution providers, and integrators worldwide.

We are delighted to have Stratosphere Networks as part of the ASCII community, said Alan Weinberger, chairman and CEO of The ASCII Group. Stratospheres many accolades are evidence of the premier IT services they offer their customers, and their ASCII membership will further enhance their ability to effectively serve their clients.

ASCII membership comes with the following key benefits:

Savings programs: ASCII has volume purchase agreements with top distributors, so members get access to special pricing levels. Additionally, ASCII members can lower their cost of doing business with other programs involving credit card processing rates, business insurance, office supplies, UPS shipping, and more.

Marketing assistance: ASCII members can also enhance their marketing capabilities with programs concerning social media, e-newsletters, and PR.

Advocacy: ASCII can contact vendors and distributors on behalf of its members to quickly and efficiently resolve any issues.

Industry knowledge and professional development: The ASCII-Link list serv  a resource exclusively for members  allows for discussion about vendors, technical and business issues, and other topics.

Professional networking: The ASCII member network allows hundreds of businesses across the country to connect and share knowledge.

Stratosphere Networks, based in Chicago, delivers comprehensive technology services to businesses of all sizes and across all industries. The companys fully staffed Network Operations Center provides full maintenance services and support including business continuity, remote and on-site support, desktop support, ongoing maintenance services, and proactive network monitoring.

For more information about ASCII, visit the communitys website.

About Stratosphere Networks

Stratosphere Networks is a Chicago-based multifaceted IT managed service provider focused on delivering comprehensive technology services and solutions to meet and exceed the always-changing, diverse business needs. Since 2003, Stratosphere Networks has grown exponentially and continues to provide the best-in-class and cost-effective solutions to businesses in all industries. Visit http://www.stratospherenetworks.com for more information.

For more information contact:

Lori Leonardo

847-440-8608

LoriL(at)stratospherenetworks(dot)com
Choosing a glass repair company is a big deal for many residential customers

Wellington Sliding Glass Door Repair Leader, Express Glass & Board Up, is proud to announce a new 'review us' feature for Wellington customers. Customers can visit the local informational page and click on the button to go directly to the popular Angie's list service to review the company.

Choosing a glass repair company is a big deal for many residential customers, commented Yaniet Santos, General Manager of Express Glass. With Angie's list one of the more popular service, and with its move to being cost-free to consumers, we're realizing that more and more of our customers want to review us on that popular site. Our new button makes this just one click away.

To view the new review button for Wellington Florida glass repair customers, visit http://www.expressglassfl.com/expressglass-wellington-fl/. Once on that page, just scroll down and the button is easy to find. By clicking the interested person can then go to the Angie's list page. New customers can learn more about available glass repair services at http://www.expressglassfl.com/glass-repair/ or just call the company for a no cost estimate.

A Local Wellington Business with Local Customer Reviews

As one of the smaller communities in South Florida, Wellington is known for its local pride. Wellington residents are fiercely proud of their community and are known to prefer locally owned restaurants over chains, and local repair businesses over national chains. Even more interesting, it's a hotbed of internet activity, with many local Wellington residents posting reviews on popular sites such as Google, Yelp, and Angie's list. Newcomers, however, many not understand how to enter the fray. It may be mystifying to them, for example, how to logon to a site like Angie's list, find the appropriate vendor, and write their review. By adding a simple 'review' button to the Wellington glass repair page, Express Glass has simplified this process and allowed its customers an easy way to write short, honest review about their experience with the company.

About Express Glass Repair and Board Up

Express Glass and Board Up Service Inc. is a family owned and operated glass repair business with more than 20 years of experience. Professional technicians and the large variety of inventory make Express Glass the top glass repair service. If customers are looking for West Palm Beach glass repair or Ft. Lauderdale glass repair as well as glass repair in Delray Beach, please reach out to the company for a free estimate. If customers need a 24/7 Sliding Glass Door repair service in West Palm Beach or Boca Raton or Miramar, technicians are standing by. The company specializes in sliding glass door repair and window glass repair; Express Glass will handle any glass replacement situation efficiently. Home or business glass repair is the company's main priority.

Express Glass Repair and Board up

http://www.expressglassfl.com/
8 June 2017

In a ruling dated 31 May 2017, notified on 7 June 2017, the Court of Milan has ordered the conservative seizure (pursuant to article 316 of the Italian Criminal Procedure Code), in favour of EAM Solar ASA and EAM Solar Italy Holding S.r.l., on all assets connected to Marco Giorgi and Igor Akhmerov, up to the total amount of Euro 33.062.632,62.

The Court's decision was made in order to secure a possible compensation of part of the cash outlay made by of EAM companies in July 2014 in conjunction with the P31 fraud.

The amount identified by the court in this conservative seizure ruling is not to be interpreted as a limitation to the final damages claims that may be awarded EAM Solar ASA in the criminal proceedings in Milan.

The Court's decision was founded on the argument that with respect to the accused Giorgi and Akhmerov, there is good reason to believe that the guarantees for the payment of the civil obligations deriving from the crime of contractual fraud is lacking or will be dispersed.

Although requested by EAM, the Court did not grant conservative seizure against the parties with civil liabilities Aveleos SA, Avelar Energy Ltd and Enovos Luxembourg SA. The Court's argument for not granting the conservative seizure of assets was founded on the fact that;

"there is no doubt that such companies are entities of relevant economic capability. [.] Thus, it is not proven, with respect to these companies, that the guarantees for payment compensation claim to EAM companies' would be lacking" (Ruling from the Court of Milan dated 31 May 2017, page 6).

The ruling can be appealed, pursuant to articles 318 and 324 of the Italian Criminal Procedure Code, within ten days from the date of the seizure's execution.

EAM will initiate the necessary measures to secure assets in accordance with the Court's ruling.

For information, please contact:

Viktor E Jakobsen, CEO, phone +47 9161 1009, viktor@eam.no

About EAM Solar: EAM Solar is a utility company that acquires and operates solar power plants. The Company currently owns solar PV power plants in Italy. The plants are operating under long-term sales contracts.
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NEWS RELEASE / REGULATED INFORMATION / INSIDE INFORMATION / FOR EX-US ONLY



IRVINE, CA, and HERSTAL, BELGIUM - 07:00 CEST, June 08, 2017 - MDxHealth SA (Euronext: MDXH.BR) today announced the launch in Europe and other markets* of the SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer in vitro diagnostic (IVD) PCR kit with CE-marked components and CE-marked UrNCollect(TM) device.

The IVD PCR kit will enable diagnostic laboratories with manual and automated RNA extraction and PCR platforms to perform the SelectMDx liquid biopsy test in their own facility. The CE-marked UrNCollect device is a unique, user-friendly and compact collection tool that complements the IVD kit by enabling easy and efficient sample collection.

Robustness, reproducibility and interlaboratory performance of SelectMDx was recently published in a technical validation study in Translational Medicine Communications. Urine samples from men scheduled for prostate biopsies due to elevated PSA levels and/or an abnormal digital rectal exam (DRE) or family history of prostate cancer, were tested with SelectMDx. There was less than a two percent difference between the sites' test results for finding high-grade prostate cancer upon biopsy and samples could be successfully evaluated even after being stored for a year.

Prior studies have validated that SelectMDx predicts the presence of high-grade prostate cancer and helps stratify patients to receive MRI scans or biopsies.

"Many of our current customers are eager to start using the IVD PCR kit so they can run the SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer test in their own labs," said Dr. Jan Groen, CEO of MDxHealth. "It's well-timed that our UrNCollect device is launching as a complement to the SelectMDx IVD PCR kit because pilot studies demonstrated that patients and physicians found the device easier to use than traditional urine collection tubes."

SelectMDx service testing remains available through distribution partners and laboratories that are not equipped to use the IVD PCR kit. Samples are processed at MDxHealth's state-of-the-art ISO-certified diagnostic facilities in Nijmegen, the Netherlands and Irvine, California, US.

About SelectMDx for Prostate Cancer

Of the more than 2 million prostate biopsies performed each year in the US and Europe, less than a third find cancer. Most of these men could have avoided a painful and invasive prostate biopsy procedure, with its associated complications and costs. SelectMDx* for Prostate Cancer is a proprietary urine-based, molecular diagnostic test that offers a non-invasive 'liquid biopsy' method to assess a man's risk for prostate cancer. SelectMDx helps identify men at increased risk of harboring aggressive, potentially lethal, prostate cancer who may benefit most from a prostate biopsy and earlier detection. The test delivers a negative predictive value (NPV) of 98% for clinically significant disease, helping to reduce unnecessary MRI procedures and invasive prostate biopsies by approximately 50%, thereby reducing healthcare costs.

About MDxHealth

MDxHealth is a multinational healthcare company that provides actionable molecular diagnostic information to personalize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The company's tests are based on proprietary genetic, epigenetic (methylation) and other molecular technologies and assist physicians with the diagnosis of urologic cancers, prognosis of recurrence risk, and prediction of response to a specific therapy. The Company's European headquarters are in Herstal, Belgium, with laboratory operations in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and US headquarters and laboratory operations based in Irvine, California. For more information, visit mdxhealth.com and follow us on Twitter at: twitter.com/mdxhealth.

For more information:

Media:

Shalon Roth, EVP Corporate Communications

MDxHealth

+44 (0)7393 906278

@ShalonRoth

shalon.roth@mdxhealth.com

Sales:

Ricardo ten Velden, Director Sales & Marketing EMEA

MDxHealth

+31 (0) 24 327 94 94

ricardo.tenvelden@mdxhealth.com

*The SelectMDx IVD PCR kit is not available in all geographies and/or may not be approved for all uses discussed in this press release. It is currently not available for use in the United States.

This press release contains forward-looking statements and estimates with respect to the anticipated future performance of MDxHealth and the market in which it operates. Such statements and estimates are based on assumptions and assessments of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which were deemed reasonable but may not prove to be correct. Actual events are difficult to predict, may depend upon factors that are beyond the company's control, and may turn out to be materially different. MDxHealth expressly disclaims any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements in this release to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based unless required by law or regulation. This press release does not constitute an offer or invitation for the sale or purchase of securities or assets of MDxHealth in any jurisdiction. No securities of MDxHealth may be offered or sold within the United States without registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or in compliance with an exemption therefrom, and in accordance with any applicable U.S. securities laws.

NOTE: The MDxHealth logo, MDxHealth, ConfirmMDx, SelectMDx, AssureMDx, PredictMDx and UrNCollect are trademarks or registered trademarks of MDxHealth SA. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners.
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A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.Website use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google") to help analyse the use of this website. For this purpose, Google Analytics uses"cookies", which are text files placed on your computer.The information generated by the cookies about your use of this website - standard internet log information (including your IP address) and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form - will be transmitted to and stored by Google including on servers in the United States. Google will anonymize the information sent by removing the last octet of your IP address prior to its storage.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website and compiling reports on website activity.We not use, and not allow any third party to use the statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to this site. Google may transfer the information collected by Google Analytics to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google`s behalf.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.You may refuse the use of Google Analytics cookies by downloading and installing Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.Cookies are also used to record if you have agreed (or not) to our use of cookies on this site, so that you are not asked the question every time you visit the site.You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services.
News

From Bulgaria

TSO Forecast Says Bulgaria Will Suffer an Energy Surplus of 9 TWh/Y in Ten Years

The country's TSO did not take into consideration possible new nuclear generations when it forged it 10-year development plan

AUTHOR: publics.bg



 eso.bg



Bulgaria will likely have an energy surplus of up to 8  9 TWh per year in 2026, a prognosis of the countrys power transmission system operator ESO showed. The data was unveiled on Thursday during the Bulatom forum in Varna, on the Black Sea, as part of the 10-year development plan of Bulgarias power transmission system for the 2017  2026-period.

Plamen Gerdzhikov of the ESO Central Dispatching Unit, said that the surplus will be very serious.

For this surplus scenario however, ESO has not taken into consideration neither the possible rekindling and completion of Belene NPP, nor a planned new nuclear unit at the site of Bulgarias sole operational nuclear power plant at Kozloduy, currently equipped with two 1,000-megatwatt VVER reactors. Furthermore, the ESO forecast also did not consider the tighter SO, NOx and mercury emissions restrictions to be imposed on large combustion plants as of 2021.

The conservative estimate of ESO stipulates that the gross domestic power consumption would be 38.130 TWh in 2026, while the liberal estimate puts maximum consumption for the year at 40.410 TWh. ESO expects the absolute maximum system load to be 8,050 MW, while the average work day load is estimated at 7520 MW.

Up until 2026, ESO said the required power transmission grid investments should amount to BGN 1.2 bn (about EUR 600 m), or an average of BGN 120 m per year.
Comey's prepared remarks were posted to the Senate's website on Wednesday, and experts say their implications are significant.

Comey's prepared testimony is "the most shocking single document compiled about the official conduct of the public duties of any President since the release of the Watergate tapes," wrote Benjamin Wittes, a close friend of Comey who is the editor-in-chief of Lawfare. Wittes added that it was difficult to express "just how inappropriate" Trump's interactions with Comey were, "particularly when they involve an investigation in which the President has such deep and multifaceted personal stakes."

Preet Bharara, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York who was fired by Trump, tweeted that it's "NEVER ok for a POTUS privately to ask an FBI Director to drop a criminal investigation." He added: "Extraordinary, wrong & dumb."

Bharara was referring to a section of Comey's remarks in which he detailed a February Oval Office meeting during which Trump said of Flynn: "He is a good guy and has been through a lot. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy."

The meeting took place a day after Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser when it emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the US during the transition period.

Such remarks would "confirm that" Trump obstructed justice in the case, said Jens David Ohlin, an associate dean at Cornell Law School who is an expert on criminal law.

It was "corrupt for Trump to have attempted such a brazen and direct interference with the Flynn investigation," Ohlin added.

Comeys statement establishes obstruction of justice

Jeffrey Toobin, a senior CNN legal analyst, tweeted: "Comey's statement establishes obstruction of justice by Trump. Period."

Comey's prepared remarks "absolutely bolster the case for obstruction of justice," said Claire Finkelstein, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

The former FBI director's testimony suggests Trump was implicitly attempting to allow Comey to keep his job on the condition that Comey provided loyalty to him, Finkelstein said.

"Requesting on multiple occasions that Comey do things like drop the Flynn probe and publicly announce Trump is not under investigation is one thing," Finkelstein added," but "implicitly suggesting he may not keep his job and then firing him when he doesn't absolve you personally in a dispassionate and objective investigation  that looks a lot like obstruction of justice."

Obstruction of justice is broadly defined: It involves any conduct in which a person willfully interferes with the administration of justice. But to charge Trump with obstructing justice based on Comey's testimony would not be an easy case, said Robert Deitz, a former senior counselor to the CIA director and former general counsel at the National Security Agency.

That is primarily because it is unclear whether Trump was ordering Comey to end the FBI's investigation into Flynn or asking Comey whether he would consider dropping the case because Flynn was "a good guy."

Ohlin said Comey did not seem to interpret the request to end the Flynn investigation as a request to shut down the entire Russia investigation. "That's a very generous interpretation on Comey's part  and Trump should be counting his lucky stars for that," he said.

But Trump's conversation with Comey was part of a broader pattern that could more easily open him up to charges of obstruction of justice, experts say, beginning with Trump's request for Comey to pledge his loyalty and assurance that he wasn't under FBI investigation and ending when he fired Comey.

"Historically, obstruction-of-justice articles of impeachment do elaborate a pattern of conduct," the legal experts at Lawfare wrote. "The first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon, for instance, included making false statements to investigators, withholding evidence, counseling witnesses to lie or give misleading testimony, and 'interfering or endeavoring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'"

Bob Bauer, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, also questioned whether Trump's "demands for reassurance, by their very repetitiveness," implied that Trump "was bringing pressure on the person in charge of a criminal investigation to limit it." In doing so, Bauer wrote recently, Trump was obstructing justice.

Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota who was President George W. Bush's chief ethics lawyer from 2005 to 2007, told Business Insider last month that "obstruction of justice would be occurring if there were an express or implied threat to fire" Comey if he didn't drop the Russia investigation.

"That's obstruction of justice. The president fired the FBI director," Painter said. "It's all evidence of a major scandal and abuse of power."

Another devastating blow

The written testimony may be somewhat of a relief for the president's allies, because Comey indicated he did convey to Trump that the president was not personally under investigation and that he did not feel the FBI's investigation was being directly obstructed, said Keith Whittington, a professor of politics and expert on presidential impeachment at Princeton University.

But on the other hand, "Trump clearly engaged in grossly inappropriate behavior, which can probably only partly be attributed to his inexperience in government," Whittington said.

He added that Comey's remarks appear to highlight Trump's lack of understanding of the gravity of his responsibilities.

"It is another devastating blow to the president's stature and credibility," he said.

When it comes to examining whether Trump sought to obstruct the FBI's investigation into Russia's election interference and the Trump campaign's role in it, the president's pattern of behavior and past statements about the probe could likely come back to haunt him. (Trump's comments about barring Muslims from the US were similarly considered when federal courts were debating the intent behind his two controversial executive orders on immigration.)
Comey's remarks, released Wednesday in advance of Thursday's Senate hearing, confirmed previous statements by Trump that Comey had told him three times that he was not personally being investigated amid the FBI's wide-ranging inquiry into Russian meddling in the election and the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia.

"The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe," Kasowitz said in a statement. "The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."

Comey's seven-page testimony released Wednesday, however, also portrayed Trump as having pressured Comey to ease the FBI's Russia investigation. It described a dinner in which, Comey said, Trump asked for his loyalty and another meeting in which Trump asked him to drop the FBI's investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump officially retained Marc Kasowitz as his outside counsel in May to represent him during the FBI's investigation into his campaign staff's possible ties to Russia. Former presidents have also hired outside counsel when their personal actions became the subject of an investigation, according to The Hill.
The Minister said this when she paid a working visit to inspect the land which is at Ataabadze, a community in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA).

She appealed to the encroachers to stop their illegal acts. She said that we are now giving them a human face to appeal to them to stop as technical men will soon come to inspect the land.

The Minister said the Traditional Council, the Regional Minister together with the KEEA Municipal Assembly and other stakeholders must ensure that there is an open space to develop the aviation industry in the region.

The Minister said the construction of an airstrip in Central Region will reduce the stress many tourists go through when they visit Ghana and want to visit the sites in the region.

We dont want people to sit in the plane for eight hours and come and drive through Budumburam to visit Kakum National Park or Elmina Castle.

READ ALSO: New national airline to be independent of government interference

She added that the project will start with an airstrip, and later on, when we get a lot of funding, we can develop it into a tarmac which will take bigger aircraft.
The event is free and open to the public, running both days from 10 am  6 pm.

In a country where the process of finding property has historically been more a pain than pleasure, the birth of meQasa.com just under four years ago was a welcome relief. Now the number one online real estate marketplace with the highest number of quality property listings in Ghana and the most housing website visitors, it is befitting that the company continues to assist house hunters with such an event. The Ministry of Works and Housing is endorsing the meQasa Dream Homes Expo, and Honourable Freda Opare Prempeh  Deputy Minister in charge of Housing - will be delivering the inaugural address at the 10th June morning launch.

Hosting a housing fair is a natural progression for meQasa. We are committed to our mission of creating an efficient housing search experience and to be the go-to source for reliable information on housing in Africa, explains meQasa CEO Kelvin Nyame. This is another great avenue to foster business for our clients who offer stellar residential and commercial real estate options for people looking, Co-Founder Rashad Seini adds. The 2-day exhibition event will feature the nations top property developers, high-end estate agencies and premium vendors of home and office products and services like mortgage lenders, electronics, and home decor companies. Sponsored by Ashfoam and Hisense and supported by web media including Ghana Web and Pulse Ghana, the Dream Homes Expo will also offer attendees superb networking opportunities and the chance to learn from knowledgeable speakers on topics like Solar and Energy Efficiency and Wealth Creation through Smart Property Investment during mini seminars. There will also be an exclusive Business Lounge to assist trade talks between investors.

The Dream Homes Expo, slated to happen annually, is the perfect housing fair for people actively and passively looking to buy a new house or land; seeking to rent an apartment or office space; investors seeking stellar real estate projects to back; individuals and families looking for deals on home improvement; property professionals and enthusiasts. meQasa hosts lively industry events every year like 2016s Dreams to Reality Mortgages panel event and has put on well-attended estate agents training as well.

meQasa.com is Ghanas easiest way to rent, buy and sell a property, offering a user-friendly online marketplace mutually beneficial to homeowners/landlords, home seekers, real estate agents and developers alike.

Learn more about this event and register online at meQasa.com/expo. Online registrants stand the chance to win prizes including a LED TV and plush mattress set.
Swedish English

Uppsala, 2017-06-08 08:45 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

Fourth QUARTER February 1  April 30, 2017

Consolidated net sales amounted to TSEK 44 compared to TSEK 59 in the fourth quarter previous year.

Operating loss was TSEK 37,411 compared to a loss of TSEK 30,619 in the fourth quarter previous year.

Net loss after tax amounted to TSEK 42,082 compared to a loss of TSEK 32,982 in the fourth quarter previous year.

Loss per share was SEK 0.35 compared to a loss of SEK 0.31 in the fourth quarter previous year.

Comprehensive loss was TSEK 42,082 compared to a loss of TSEK 32,996 in the fourth quarter previous year.

THE PERIOD May 1, 2016  30 April 2017

Consolidated net sales amounted to TSEK 172 compared to TSEK 6,373 in the previous financial year.

Operating loss was TSEK 140,481 compared to a loss of TSEK 132,691 in the previous financial year.

Net loss after tax amounted to TSEK 160,243 compared to a loss of TSEK 141,539 in the previous financial year.

Loss per share was SEK 1.42 compared to a loss of SEK 1.39 in the previous financial year.

Comprehensive loss was TSEK 160,230 compared to a loss of TSEK 141,557 in the previous financial year.

Oasmia has carried out a private placement of convertible debt instruments to the tune of MSEK 42. These have been fully converted to new shares.

The company has carried out a private placement of convertible debt instruments with offset rights totalling MSEK 26 to replace previous outstanding convertible debt instruments.

The Board does not intend to propose any dividends for the financial year May 1, 2016  April 30, 2017.

Anders Lonner has resigned from the companys Board of Directors.

EVENTS AFTER CLOSING DAY

The companys Board has decided to transfer the companys veterinary assets to its American subsidiary and has appointed a New York-based investment bank to assist in the evaluation of financial and strategic alternatives for these assets.

Oasmia held an Extraordinary General Meeting on June 2, 2017. A resolution was adopted to authorize the Board to decide on the issue of shares, warrants and/or convertibles of a maximum of 40,000,000 shares. Furthermore, new warrant programs were adopted as compensation for previously adopted warrant programs which, due to a formal error, proved to be invalid and therefore were cancelled.

COMMENTS FROM THE CEO:

Dear Shareholders,

Oasmias Board of Directors has made the exciting but at the same time challenging decision to transfer the companys veterinary assets to our American subsidiary. The American market is the largest at the same time as unlike in Europe a shortcut to the market can be obtained by being granted so-called MUMS (Minor Use Minor Species) status by the authorities, which means that after a confirmatory phase II study conditional approval may be obtained. If conditional approval is obtained, a company then has five years to perform a pivotal phase III study but has the right to sell the product during this period.

One of the large global audit firms has independently valued the assets of our product candidates Paccal Vet and Doxophos Vet to be in the range of USD 75 to 80 million. This valuation supports Oasmias positive view of the potential for our veterinary drugs. In order to evaluate the various financial and strategic alternatives for the veterinary division, the company has appointed an investment bank and other advisors. The transaction is being carried out with a view to giving the company a stable financial foundation with external financing, which enables further development and commercialization on the American market with the help of external players. The decision to make the transfer was made after the end of the quarter and naturally has high priority.

During the period the application processes for marketing authorization from EMA for Apealea have continued. We have received follow-up questions from EMA which we will address no later than August 15th. Regarding Doxophos we are also in the final stages of the registration process with the Russian pharmaceutical authority.

In May, the company was inspected by the authorities of Kazakhstan without remark.

The company sees results from the previously announced efficiency program. The companys running costs for the business are decreasing and we see further effects of this in the future. For example, our other external expenses have decreased considerably compared to previous year.

During the quarter Oasmia has offset the majority of the convertible debt instruments that matured during the period and has also strengthened its finances by issuing new convertible debt instruments to the tune of MSEK 42. These have already been converted to new shares.

We have faced challenges regarding sales and revenues for Paclical in Russia. Oasmia is currently evaluating strategic measures and changes so that Paclical will be more widely used. We will shortly make a decision regarding the plan to advance our positions but we still have confidence in the Russian market.

Oasmia continues to focus on supporting hospitals doctors and treatment teams as well as patients suffering from cancer.

Kind regards,

Mikael Asp

CEO
This is following the murder of five men in Milange District located in Zambezia Province of the East African country.

A police commander, Afonso Dias, who spoke to the BBC explained that the targeting of bald men is based on a superstition that their heads contain gold.

Findings made by BBC reporter, Jose Tembe, however revealed that the notion is most likely an act of trickery employed by witch doctors to motivate their clients to bring them bald heads.

Speaking at a press conference in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, Dias said, "Their motive comes from superstition and culture - the local community thinks bald individuals are rich."

ALSO READ: Herbalist defrauds driver of N4M looking for favour charm

The AFP News in a related report disclosed that two men around the age of 20 have been arrested in connection to the killings.
According to her, the AGs office should not have taken the money in the midst of the prosecution of some Chinese nationals involved in illegal mining [galamsey] in the country.

The Chinese Embassy has donated items including desktop computers, printers, UPS and a cheque for GH10,000 to the office of the Attorney General.

The donation is aimed at supporting the Attorney Generals Office towards organising a stake-holder's consultative workshop, on the Office of the Special Prosecutor Bill, 2017.

Madam Sun Baohang, the Chinese ambassador outlined her countrys readiness to assist the Government of Ghana in fighting corruption.

The donation has received negative feedback from some Ghanaians and many social media users.

The Executive Director, Linda Ofori-Kwafo speaking on the donation said "The point is that we are currently at the moment dealing with matters that concern Chinese engaging in illegal mining."
The military final funeral ceremony will see among others, over 200 soldiers lining up along the streets at the State House and the military cemetery.

READ ALSO: How Captain Mahama is likely to be buried

Fourteen military persons constituting an honour guard team will fire three volleys from their rifles to pay their last respects to the deceased.The national flag, regarded as the soul and spirit of the country, will be used to cover the casket and later folded and presented to the wife as an honour for keeps and remembrance that her husband passed on while serving the colours, as military tradition demands.

His sword and cap will be placed on his coffin to signify his position as a commissioned officer.

He will be buried in a special coffin produced by the Ghana Armed Forces.

Details of the burial service of Major Maxwell Adam Mahama were released by the planning committee on behalf of the government.

The Chairman of the Committee, Enoch Osei-Mensah indicated on Wednesday that a vigil service will be held by the military at the Arakan Officers Mess on Thursday June 8 at 1900 hrs.

According to him the body of the deceased would be moved from 37 Military Hospital to the forecourt of the State House on Friday June 9 at 0600 hrs for filing past. His burial will subsequently begin at 0910hrs.

There will later be a procession to the Osu Military Cemetery for interment.

Final funeral rites will be held at the Forecourt of the State House immediately after burial.

The thanksgiving service will be held at the Lighthouse Chapel International, North Kaneshie, on Sunday June 11 at 1030hrs.
He believes the ban is unfair, and thus has appealed to the Court of Appeals to challenge the reasons given by the GLC that led to his ban.

According to the notice of appeal, he is dissatisfied with the decision of the GLC in respect of a charge over estimation of legal fees and believes the GLC erred in their decision.

In a suit filed at the Court of Appeal on Wednesday June 7, he expressed his displeasure with accusations by the council that he overcharged legal fees.

Lawyer Sosu is also dissatisfied with the decision by the GLC in respect of touting and personal advertisement and thus see it as a miscarriage of Justice.

The decision to suspend Mr. Sosu was reached last Thursday, June 1, after the Council found him guilty of professional misconduct contrary to the code regulating legal practice in the country.

He was accused of personal advertisement while acting as Council for Torgbui Afede XIV, in a matter between Torgbui Afede and the Chief of Defense Staff, minister of interior, Attorney General.

According to the disciplinary briefing sighted by Pulse.com.gh, he took to Facebook with pictures of the parties and comments on the case to the public with his firms name, address and telephone numbers attached, with the primary motive of personal advertisement and touting.

However, a statement announcing his suspension from the General Legal Council said the lawyer was investigated and found guilty of professional misconduct under Rule 2(4) of the legal profession (professional conduct and etiquette).

"The disciplinary committee of the General Legal Council formally charged Lawyer Sosu under Rule 2(4) of the legal profession (professional conduct and etiquette) Rules, 1969 L.I. 613 and that he; while acting as Council for Torgbui Afede XIV, in a matter between Torgbui Afede and the Chief of Defense Staff, minister of interior, Attorney General and another took to Facebook with pictures of the parties and comments on the case to the public with his firms name, address and telephone numbers attached, with the primary motive of personal advertisement and touting."

But Francis Sosu in his suit said the GLC was "discriminatory contrary to Article 17 of the 1992 Constitution".

He added that "that in inquiring into and convicting the Appellant of touting and personal advertisement, the General Legal Council erred in law by constituting itself into complainant, prosecutor and judge in the matter before it, thereby violating the rules of natural justice and the Right to Fair Trial of the Appellant as guaranteed by Article 19 of the 1992 Constitution".

The suit further stated that the sentence of three imposed on the Appellant "is harsh and excessive" with the additional sentence of mentorship by a senior lawyer for a period of one year imposed by the GLC being alien to the provisions of the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32) and the Legal Profession (Professional Conduct and Etiquette) Rules, 1969 (L.I. 613).
In an interview with Kumasi-based Ultimate FM, the MP said the town has been deserted by the active age groups that can farm and bring food for the vulnerable.

He added that the aged and few young ones in the community are unable to go to the farm because they fear they will be arrested.

READ ALSO: This Jon Benjamin tweet about Africa World Airline will make your day

It looks as if the people of Denkyira-Obuasi are being paid in their own price, but its unfortunate, not all of them were involved in the atrocities, but I can tell you for sure that Denkyira-Obousi is a ghost town now, nobody is living there, with the exception of the aged and the children. And for that matter, I can tell you that those there are living in fear and they are dying of hunger. In fact, those who fled are willing to return but are being arrested arbitrarily. So anybody heard to be natives of Denkyira-Obuasi but staying in other towns are arrested, and for that matter, the aged and children are left to their own fate, he said.

He added that those who fled when the lynching occurred are scared to return because they fear they will be arrested.

READ ALSO: How Captain Mahama is likely to be buried

On how the pupils writing the 2017 Basic Education Certificate Examination are being transported to their centres, the MP said he has personally been transporting them to their various centres.

He pleaded with the government, NGOs, and other benevolent individuals to come to the aid of the residents so the town does not become desolate.

Major Maxwell Mahama was lynched by residents of Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central region on Monday, May 29, and he will be laid to rest this Friday, June 9, 2017.
According to him, Mr Sosu had set out to dupe him off the GHS200,000 compensation granted by a court as well as the reliefs he got after his release from a 14-year unlawful detention.

He said that the General Legal Council (GLC) should not be blamed for what has transpired because what is happening now is an act of God. It is God who is punishing this guy [Sosu].

Sosu was suspended following a disciplinary action opened against him by the professional body. He was banned for three years after pleading guilty to charges brought against him.

One of the charges, on the basis of which he suffered a one-year ban, was out of a complaint brought by Mr. Agyare accusing the lawyer of attempting to swindle him.

According to the disciplinary briefing seen by Pulse.com.gh, he took to Facebook with pictures of the parties and comments on a case to the public with his firms name, address and telephone numbers attached, with the primary motive of personal advertisement and touting.

Francis-Xavier Sosu is challenging the three-year ban imposed on him by the General Legal Council in court, describing it as unfair.

Many Ghanaians have also hit hard at Agyare for reporting and causing the ban of the lawyer whom they claimed helped him to get his release from prison.

But speaking on Accra-based Joy FM, Agyare said that Mr. Sosu had absolutely nothing to do with his being released from jail, adding that he came into contact with the lawyer when he was already out of jail.

He explained that the lawyers role was only to fight for compensation after his wrongful incarceration.

He said that after signing every agreement reached with the lawyer, he was promised adequate medical care and shelter but those were not met.

He asked me how much I spend a day and I said GHS5 and he promised to give me GHS150 a month, so I signed for 10 percent of the money to be used for that.

He also promised to rent me a place after I told him I did not have a place to stay and I signed that 10 percent of the money is used for that.

He added that He [Sosu] has been tossing me everywhere and whatever he made me sign, he did not do anything about it. So I forgot about him.

He further indicated that a GHS1,900 in donation from some lawyers in Cape Coast after getting to know of his fate with Mr Sosu was not given to him.

He explained that when he asked Sosu about the money so he could rent a place to live, he told him that the money was for him [Sosu].

He told me that he requested for that money and that if it was not for him the money would not have been contributed and so the money was his. He gave me only GHS100 from it, he said.

Mr Agyare said he realised from his response that the lawyer was out to dupe him.

Touching on the GHS200,000 compensation, Agyare said he would have been alright if Mr Sosu had split the money into two and given him half because he had never held even 5,000 cedis in his life.

He, however, indicated that Sosus was telling him stories after he made him sign all the papers.

The 49-year-old said that after some time, Sosu refused to see him and many calls he made to him were left unanswered.

If I go to his office, theyll tell me he is not there. If I call on him I will not get him. So one day I called him and he answered but he told me not to make any budget with the money.

Agyare said all he needed was a place to sleep and some money to start his farming business, but all that proved futile.

He said that he subsequently decided to go to the Ministry of Finance to chase and cause the release of the compensation himself.

He, however, realised when he arrived there that instead of a bank account being opened in his name for the money to be deposited in, Mr Sosu had opened an account at the Ghana Commercial Bank in his own name.

He said workers at the Finance Ministry advised him to immediately open an account.

The finance people asked me to open an account but I told them I didnt have money, so they gave me money and I went to Fidelity to open the account.

He said that the bank account was opened on Friday, by Monday GHS204,000 was paid into the account.

He said in order to keep his side of the bargain, he decided to pay the agreed GHS50,000 his lawyer charged into Mr. Sosu' account.

He had before then reported the case to the GLC, thus, he decided to go there to withdraw the case since his money had been released.

But when he got to the GLC, he was told that Sosu had responded to the allegations, denying many of them and had pleaded not guilty after making counter-claims.

He told them that he had been feeding me, paying my medical bills and rented a place for me to stay, Mr Agyare said.

He said he was therefore forced to give testimony against the lawyer.
According to him, Mrs Wood should rather commend the NDC for working with her when they had the power to ask her to leave.

She said she had been sailing on stormy waters over the last decade, and it took close associates and God to keep her afloat.

Speaking during a Thanksgiving Service at the Ringway Assemblies of God church to celebrate her 70th birthday, the former Chief Justice indicated that elements in the former Atta Mills government put pressure on her to resign but she managed to succeed in office due to prayer and supplication from relatives and colleagues.

But in a response on Accra-based Asempa FM, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo said he was shocked about the comments from Mrs Wood, adding that She [Mrs Wood] should thank God we tolerated her and allowed her to work till her retirement.
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Innovative online account provides users with an out-of-the-box banking experience

Gemaltos Digital PIN delivers codes instantly via mobile app or website for immediate use

Gemalto, the world leader in digital security, is supplying Market Pay, a payment institution wholly-owned by Carrefour Group, with payment cards and a Digital PIN solution for C-zam.

This new boxed account is available on the shelves of over 3,000 Carrefour French retail stores since 18 April. Once the account has been opened, the cards PIN code is delivered safely and swiftly via mobile app or website Compteczam.fr and the banking card can be used immediately. This process is fully protected by Gemaltos robust encryption and authentication mechanisms.

C-zam offers Carrefour customers the opportunity to buy in store a bank account and a banking card that can be activated on line, said Frederic Mazurier, CEO of Market Pay. With the support of Gemalto, we are innovating to evolve the French banking market by offering a new service in terms of accessibility, availability and usability.

Carrefours C-zam is a clear example of how digital banking transformation is revolutionizing the end-user experience, said Bertrand Knopf, executive vice president Banking and Payment at Gemalto. Solutions such as Digital PIN lay the foundations for a new generation of off-the-shelf banking services.

Download high resolution image

About C-zam

C-zam is the first current account available in store and can be activated online, accessible to all and without income conditions. This current account, without any possible overdraft, associated with a Mastercard international payment card, is marketed in 3,000 Carrefour outlets in all formats - hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores - as well as on rueducommerce.com. C-zam is a current account connected thanks to its dedicated application, easy to use and very intuitive

About Market Pay



Market Pay, payment institution, wholly-owned subsidiary of Carrefour Group, combine all of Carrefours electronic payment systems, such as Carrefour cards, POS terminals and online payment solutions, and to centralize payment acceptance and acquisition services for all of the retail channels. Among other things, Market Pay will improve the security of payment data collected from customers of Carrefour banners and develop new payment solutions for the Group.



About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO) is the global leader in digital security, with 2016 annual revenues of 3.1 billion and customers in over 180 countries. We bring trust to an increasingly connected world.

Our technologies and services enable businesses and governments to authenticate identities and protect data so they stay safe and enable services in personal devices, connected objects, the cloud and in between.

Gemaltos solutions are at the heart of modern life, from payment to enterprise security and the internet of things. We authenticate people, transactions and objects, encrypt data and create value for software  enabling our clients to deliver secure digital services for billions of individuals and things.

Our 15,000+ employees operate out of 112 offices, 43 personalization and data centers, and 30 research and software development centers located in 48 countries.

For more information visit www.gemalto.com, or follow @gemalto on Twitter.

Gemalto media contacts:

Philippe Benitez

Americas

+1 512 257 3869

philippe.benitez@gemalto.com Kristel Teyras

Europe Middle East & Africa

+33 1 55 01 57 89

kristel.teyras@gemalto.com Shintaro Suzuki

Asia Pacific

+65 6317 8266

shintaro.suzuki@gemalto.com

Market Pay media contact:

Mariana Caillaud

External Relations and Communication

contact@marketpay.eu

Press release (PDF): http://hugin.info/159293/R/2110855/802463.pdf

C-zam carte: http://hugin.info/159293/R/2110855/802466.png
Republican Governor Sam Brownback  who slashed the Kansas business tax rate down to 0% in 2013 as part of the state's largest-ever tax cuts  quickly vetoed the bill.

But both chambers of the state's Republican-controlled legislature overrode the Governor's veto on Tuesday, effectively putting an end to the 2013 tax cuts.

The state legislature's tax hike will raise $1.2 billion over the next two years through an increase in the individual income tax rate and a repeal of the o% tax rate for pass-through business.

President Trump's most recent tax proposal similarly aims to reduce the tax burden for businesses by dropping the business tax rate from 35% to 15%. The aim with these types of cuts is to spur economic growth. After all, if businesses have more money in hand, they can, theoretically, hire more people and invest in making new products.

But ask some Kansans and you'll learn how that kind of tax cut could have serious unintended consequences.

Instead of spurring business investment and job creation, researchers from a number of institutions say it turned more into a "tax avoidance" program. A lot of white-collar workers like law partners, accountants, and doctors stopped taking salaries and instead started claiming the profits of the business. For them, state income tax essentially went from a maximum of 4.6% to nothing. This has led to the ongoing budget crisis.

Kansas has been an unmitigated budgetary disaster, Dr Lori McMillan, a tax-law professor at Washburn University, told Business Insider. It was a very messy, blunt club when a scalpel was needed.

The economic growth from the tax cuts never materialized. Kansas was saddled with an almost instantaneous budget hole, leaving schools and pensions drastically underfunded. Infrastructure repairs were put on hold. And to deal with a $700 million drop in revenue  almost twice what was predicted  Kansas raised its sales tax, hurting all residents, but especially lower income Kansans.

Kansas has some peculiarities, but the lessons still apply nationally. In the state, a 0% tax rate applied only to "pass-through" businesses, which send their profits directly to the companies' owners. Before this law, those owners would just pay Kansas' individual tax rate. The 2012 law effectively created a new category just for them, where they pay nothing.

Nationally, 90% of US companies are pass-throughs, according to the Tax Foundation, so it's possible Trump's tax cut would have similar effects. It could also encourage some higher-income workers to become independent contractors rather than remain companies' employees.

It wasnt supposed to be this way

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback pushed hard for the 2013 tax break. He bet it would help the state's economy. But the bigger-than-expected budget shortfall has had drastic ripple effects.

It has exacerbated a school-funding crisis. The state's supreme court in March even called the low level of funding unconstitutional.

Despite widespread criticism, including from within his own party in the legislature, Brownback mostly resisted reversing the tax cuts. The state's budget director, Shawn Sullivan, who's appointed by the governor, said that might be changing.

The goal is to be pro-growth," Sullivan told Business Insider prior to this week's legislative actions. "The governor believes the current plan is best, but as the legislature deals with the current situation, he is willing to compromise."

Sullivan also refutes the validity of some of the economic studies of Kansas completed by the Tax Foundation and academics, saying, "They've extrapolated conclusions not borne of the data."

But the state is still facing massive budget deficits  as much as $1.1 billion through the middle of 2019. Past action by Kansas lawmakers has raised the state's sales taxes in lieu of changing the tax cuts on business and personal income. Though some take issue with the burden that puts on ordinary Kansans.

When you pick winners and losers in your tax policy, you only shift the burden of funding the government to others who may be less able to pay," says McMillan.

Kansas now has one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation at 6.5%, the cigarette tax was recently raised by 79 cents to $1.29, and a new tax was put on vapor products as well, according to the Tax Foundation.

Bernie Koch of the Kansas Economic Progress Council isnt sure how long that level of sales tax can last.

The sales tax wasnt meant to handle that load, says Koch. Its become the largest slice of the pie for Kansas. More than the income tax. I dont think the legislators ever thought can the sales tax handle this?

In February, the state legislature approved a bill that would have

Governor Brownback vetoed it.

I am vetoing it because the legislature failed to fulfill my request that they find savings and efficiencies before asking the people of Kansas for more taxes, the governor said. I am vetoing it because Kansas families deserve to keep more of their hard-earned cash.

Following the veto, the credit-rating agency Moody's issued a negative outlook for the state.

A Trump plan

Trump's team says its plan might work differently.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the administration "will make sure that there are rules in place so that wealthy people can't create pass-throughs and use that as a mechanism to avoid paying the tax rate that they should be on the personal side."

But the big question is, how does he do that? What legal rules can the administration come up with so that tax lawyers and accountants can't find legal loopholes?

"Kansas is a teaser for how hard it is to budget this kind of tax cut," McMillan said.

Details of the Trump plan are currently being negotiated with Congress.

Meanwhile, some were wondering if Kansas' schools would open in the fall. After the state supreme court's ruling, legislators had to pass some form of tax reform to properly fund the schools.
"I've seen the tweet about tapes," Comey said, referring to Trump's May 12 tweet apparently threatening to release tapes of ostensibly private conversations between himself and Comey.

"Lordy, I hope there are tapes," Comey said.

Comey's comment came in response to questioning from Sen. Dianne Feinstein about Trump's conversation with Comey in the Oval Office concerning the FBI's investigation into the president's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Comey testified that Trump asked him to end the bureau's investigation into Flynn, who was fired by Trump after he misrepresented conversations he had with Russian officials to Vice President Mike Pence. Comey said he was "stunned" by Trump's request, which he interpreted as a "direction," and which the president made directly to Comey after asking all of his top advisers to leave the room.

"Why didn't you stop and say, 'Mr. President, this is wrong, I cannot discuss this with you?'" Feinstein asked.

Comey responded that he was unprepared to respond to the president's question and might have refused Trump's request if he had had more "presence of mind" in the moment.

"It's a great question. Maybe if I was stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in," Comey told Feinstein, adding that he was trying to remember every word Trump was saying in order to memorialize the conversation after the meeting.

"I hope I'll never have another opportunity, but maybe if I did it again, I'd do it differently," Comey added.
SENATOR RICHARD BURR:Let me go back, if I can very briefly, to the decision to publicly go out with your results on the email. Was your decision influenced by the attorney general's tarmac meeting with the former President Bill Clinton?

JAMES COMEY:Yes. In a ultimately conclusive way, that was the thing that capped it for me to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.

BURR: Were there other things that contributed to that that you can describe in an open session?

COMEY: There were other things that contributed to that. One significant item, I can't, I know the committee's been briefed on. There's been some public accounts of it which are nonsense, but I understand the committee's been briefed on the classified facts.

Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in an open setting is, at one point, the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me.
They were killed on Saturday evening, when three assailants used a hire van to drive into pedestrians on London Bridge before launching a stabbing spree in a busy Borough Market.

Another 48 were injured, 10 of whom are in a critical condition.

Xavier Thomas

Thomas' girlfriend Christine Delcros was reportedly among those seriously injured. She underwent a two-hour operation on Tuesday to reset her pelvis, according to the Telegraph.

Ignacio Echeverria, 39

HSBC executive Ignacio Echeverria was confirmed dead by his sister, according to Sky News.

Friends and family had been appealing for information on Facebook. They said Echeverria defended a woman from an attacker with his skateboard.

The Spanish government released a statement on his death. It said:

"With great sadness and dismay, the government has received confirmation from the British authorities that Ignacio Echeverria is among the victims of the cruel terrorist attacks that took place in London last Saturday.

"Ignacio Echeverrias behaviour during the attacks was exemplary and offers us all a model of solidarity. His bravery in defending a defenceless person reminds us of the need to remain united against the scourge of terrorism, against those whose only language is violence and terror."

Sebastien Belanger, 36

Sebastien Belanger was a 36-year-old French national.

The chef, who has worked in bars and restaurants across London, was reportedly in Borough Market watching the Champions League final in the Barrow Boy and Banker pub. His friends and family confirmed his death.

Madlen Langmeyer wrote on Facebook: "There are no words to describe the sadness I feel. Such an amazing, decent and kind human."

Sara Zelenak, 21

Friends and family of Australian, Sara Zelenak, were told she was dead on Tuesday, according to The Guardian.

Her mother later confirmed the news in a Facebook post. She said: "Sara Zelenak is confirmed dead, they found her body and has DNA tests confirmed. Thank you for all the overwhelming love and support from everyone."

The 21-year-old from Brisbane was separated from her friends during the attack and has not been contactable since. She was the second Australian killed after news of Kirsty Boden's death was confirmed (see below).

Alexandre Pigeard, 27

Boro Bistro's manager Vincent Le Berre told Le Telegramme: "He immediately attacked a client who was killed. I managed to escape, but my friend Alexandre did not have a chance. He was stabbed in the neck with a knife."

Pigeard, who was from Colleville-Montgomery, reportedly took part in an anti-terror training course just two days before the attack and ushered 40 people to safety.

His family said: "One of the killers fatally stabbed him whilst he was working on the terrace of the restaurant where he had been an employee for nine months.

"Alexandre was a marvellous son, a perfect older brother and a radiant young man much loved by all who had the good fortune to meet him. All his friends praised his kindness, his good humour, and his generosity."

Kirsty Boden, 28

28-year-old Australian Kirsty Boden was the third victim named. The nurse was described as "the most outgoing, kind and generous person who loved to help people."

A statement issued on behalf of her family said: "As she ran towards danger, in an effort to help people on the bridge, Kirsty sadly lost her life."

"We are so proud of Kirstys brave actions which demonstrate how selfless, caring and heroic she was, not only on that night, but throughout all of her life. Kirsty  we love you and we will miss you dearly."

Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust in London confirmed that Boden worked at its hospitals, The Guardian said. It hailed her as "one in a million."

James McMullan, 32

Londoner James McMullan was named as the second victim of the attack by his sister Melissa McMullan. She read out a statement on Sky News, saying the 32-year-old's bank card was found on a body from Saturday night.

McMullan said her brother, who was drinking in the Barrowboy and Banker pub on the night of the attack, was an "inspiration" and "words will never be able to match his essence." She called the terrorists "deranged and deluded."

Chrissy Archibald, 30

Chrissy Archibald, a Canadian bride-to-be who volunteered at a homeless shelter, was the first victim named.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first confirmed that a Canadian national had been killed in the attack on Sunday and Archibald was later named by local press.
But maybe not at Uber.

In advance of a 2013 company party in Miami, CEO Travis Kalanick felt it necessary to spell it out for employees, along with a whole host of other do's and don'ts.

On Thursday, Recode made public an internal email Kalanick sent to his hundreds of employees ahead of the 2013 bash. Reading a lot like what a college fraternity president might send out to his brothers, the email spelled out in sophomoric terms rules not only about drinking and what not to do with kegs but also about sex.

Sex with Uber colleagues was definitely in the don't category, Kalanick wrote, unless "you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic 'YES! I will have sex with you'" and "the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command."

Seemingly commiserating with employees about the rule's implications, Kalanick added, "Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip. #CEOLife #FML."

FML is short for f**k my life.

He also helpfully noted that puking on the premise would incur a $200 fine.

Uber representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the leaked email.
The popular musician had through his foundation - 2Face Foundation - donated the sum of N3.5 million to the UNHCR on Monday, February 27, 2017, in Lagos.

2Face described as heart wrenching the situation of IDPs in Nigeria and the world in general.

It is very heartbreaking to be stranded in your own home or someone elses country. It is a terrible thing to happen to any human being, 2Face said.

Many people hear about these things but because it has not hit them directly, they tend to downplay it mentally. But if you get a first-hand experience of what these people are facing, it is one of the most miserable positions to find yourself in life. The situation is crazy and heart wrenching," he noted.

ALSO READ: 2Face explains reason for N3.5m donation for welfare of IDPs

According to 2Face, the song which would be released on June 20 -- the World Refugee Day  would be available for downloads and caller back tunes.

I have decided to dedicate my time, resources and my voice to supporting the UNHCR in this massive endeavour that they have taken upon themselves.

On the 20 of June which is the World Refugee Day, I will be releasing a song which will be monetized for the world to download. It can be used as ringtones, caller tunes and 60percent of the proceeds from this song will be donated to the UNHCR to further this humanitarian effort that they have begun. If they dont do it, nobody would. The cost of downloading this song wont be more than N50  N100.

We have to keep talking and no amount of talk is enough to create awareness for people to understand this issue and do something about it, 2Face added.

He commended the UNHCR for the massive task of catering for the needs of IDPs all over the world.
With 350 plus tools available from cordless screw drivers, drill machines, impact wrenches, rotary hammers, surveying equipment, and range finders suitable for the construction industry with the added benefit that Bosch power tools are environmentally friendly running on lithium ion technology.

With the construction industry facing the challenge of meeting the demand of implementing world-class infrastructure in accommodate the economic development of Nigeria with the added constraint of provision of housing to a growing population.

Bosch in Nigeria have focused on strengthening the relationship with the construction industry where we have a fully functional warehouse with sufficient stock of power tools for the professional on hand, in addition, we have an established aftersales service team to support the construction industry.

Mr. Ghislain Noumbessy, the Managing Director Bosch Nigeria confirmed, Bosch Nigeria has geared a portfolio of products such as measuring, drilling, cutting, grinding, etc. for construction, woodworking and metalworking industry, delivering high performance supporting to the industry to fulfil the demands of the developing economy.

Noumbessy added, The major significance of the VIP event, is to underline the commitment of Bosch in Nigeria at building sustainable business relationship with customers, increase awareness in our solutions and products as well as to build confidence of the brand in the market.

Bosch has deployed three team members known as Key User Managers, two in Lagos and one in Abuja with the primary focus of identifying end user needs, supporting in day-to-day challenges of our users with a focus on aftersales service. We also frequently organise PT demonstration days for tradesmen and construction users Diermann adds.

In commenting on the strategic outlook for Bosch Power Tools, the Regional Sales Director for West & Central Africa, Mr. Benjy Ofori said, by embarking on this African journey our USERS can access good quality tools much more easily, enjoy good knowledge transfer through trainings and provide quality after sales service within Nigeria and the sub-region.

Bosch in Nigeria has enjoyed some 20 plus years of presence through a distributor network, however, in 2015 Bosch officially launched the office in Lagos, Nigeria with the vision of providing local service and support to our customers.
The video clip showed the group, supposedly robbers pull into the driveway of the financial institution, while an unsuspecting guard on duty opened the gate naively for them.

The men immediately pulled out their ammunition as they stepped out of their vehicle, but met hostile reaction from the bank security personnel who fired from a blind spot not captured by the camera.

One of the robbers was shot dead while sweeping the security post for the shooters which led to a retaliation from the assaulters.

The guard responsible for the killing of the armed robber was likely shot dead in response but that could not be confirmed from the visuals.

Upon this last assault, the group of thieves who dressed like regular customers pulled away in their car after achieving their goal.
Madu, a businessman at Gwarimpa in Abuja is standing trial on a two-count charge of criminal breach of trust and cheating.

Earlier, the Prosecutor, Mr Gambo Haruna, said that one Lawal Konduga of Wuse Zone 6 had reported the matter at the Wuse Police Station on May 22.

The prosecutor said the defendant collected N1.2 million from the complainant, promising that he would facilitate the release of the complainants two cars impounded by the Nigeria Customs Service.

Haruna said the accused had since been avoiding the complainant, while the impounded cars were still not released.

According to him, the offences contravene Sections 312 and 322 of the Penal Code.

The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Magistrate, Mr Teribo Jim, granted Madu bail in the sum of N500, 000 with a surety in like sum.
Ocean View, Delaware, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --





Metamaterial Technologies Market share is set to reach USD 2.5 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc. Growing need to improve the efficiency of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells is expected to drive the metamaterial technologies market in the forecast timeframe as the product has the ability to enhance the absorption capacity of solar cells. Rising demand for clean energy sources such as solar, wind, hydro, and tidal have led to a mounting necessity to increase the efficiency of solar cells. Many companies and research institutes have developed metamaterial products that can collect and absorb light from all angles and useful spectrums.

The price of solar electricity is almost five times higher than that of coal generated electricity. Most of this cost can be attributed to the silicon layers in the solar cells. Adding a metamaterial thin film coating can reduce the price significantly and will make solar cells more affordable. Global solar PV cell revenue was more than USD 110 billion and is projected to increase at a healthy rate driving the overall metamaterial technologies market in the forecast timeframe.

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The products ability to control the path of light and achieve negative refractive index has been used by the University of Central Florida (UCF) to create the first successful large-area invisibility cloak in 2014. Military and aerospace industries are on a look out for these types of cloaks and this may provide an incredible opportunity for metamaterial technologies market in future.

Technical challenges pertaining to development of practical metamaterial products is a major challenge for manufacturers. A product based on these materials can only be successful if it is smaller and more closely packed than the target radiation wavelength. This requires manufactures to invest on technologies that can dynamically change the properties of such materials. Hence, it may take a few years before prototype products based on these materials are fully commercialized for large scale applications and this may hinder the metamaterial technologies market growth slightly in the forecast timeframe.

Browse key industry insights spread across 85 pages with 92 market data tables & 13 figures & charts from the report, Metamaterial Technologies Market Forecast, 2017  2024 in detail along with the table of contents:

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Metamaterial technologies market product segmentation has five categories including radio & microwave, photonic, terahertz, acoustic, and others. Terahertz segment will likely generate revenue above USD 500 million by 2024. This segment will grow at a healthy rate in the forecast years owing to the product usage in security applications and medical imaging. Acoustic segment is anticipated to gain by a CAGR above 20% till 2024. Product demand for applications in audio systems, soundproofing coatings, thermal insulators, heat exchangers, vibration dampers, sonar technologies, etc. will drive the growth of this segment in the forecast timeframe.

Acoustic devices, imaging, communication & radar, and solar are the four major applications in the metamaterial technologies market. Acoustic devices application segment is anticipated to gain by a CAGR above 20% in the forecast years. The segments growth will be augmented by their use in sonar avoidance, architectural acoustics, stealth technology, acoustic hyper lenses, etc. Imaging application segment market share is anticipated to cross one fifth of the total market and it will likely grow by CAGR above 21%. The segments growth will be driven due to its advantages over other materials in medical and industrial imaging.

Europe metamaterial technologies market size will likely exceed USD 600 million by the end of 2024. The regional market will be augmented by increased funding by the European Commission on development and research on metamaterial technologies, mostly in solar and optics applications. Latin America metamaterials market will experience gains due to growing information & technology and telecommunications sector. The region will likely generate revenue above USD 30 million by the end of 2024.

Metamaterial technologies market is dominated by American companies like Echodyne, Metamagnetics Inc., Kymeta Corporation, and Evolv Technologies. Other key manufacturers include Alight Technologies, Applied EM Inc., Colossal Storage Corporation, Fractal Antenna Systems, Fianium, Inframat Corporation, Medical Wireless Sensing Ltd., Luminus Devices Inc, Nanosteel Company, Sandvik Materials Technology, and Opalux.

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Now, Edwin is in a dilemma whether to forgive her or to send her packing after the disgrace she brought to him and the entire family.

Read his story here:

"My name is Edwin, a 39-year-old married man with three children. I have been married for 11 years now but my marriage is on the verge of a crash following my wife's flirtatious way of life.

You won't believe that my wife Juliet who is a nurse, was caught red-handed having sex with a sick patient while on night duty and the scandal has been threatening to tear our marriage apart because it is now public knowledge.

I first got stories of her infidelity when some friends who work in the same hospital with her informed me that she was dating a doctor in the hospital and when I confronted her, she claimed those who told reported her to me were only jealous of her closeness to the doctor.

But I noticed that whenever she was on night duty, she would not pick my calls and when I question her, she would flare up telling me that I am monitoring her.

As the stories kept flying, I told her to quit the job and was even ready to open a chemist for her or any other business but she would not even think of it.

Instead, she accused me of being insecure and not trusting her. We even had to bring some family members to mediate when the issue led to a quarrel but she insisted that she was not cheating on me.

But like they say, everyday is for the thief but just one day belongs to the owner of the property.

The doctor I was told she had affairs with was transferred to the hospital following some petitions were written against him and a new medical director was installed.

It was the new medical director I was told, who put measures in place to check the excesses of personnel by installing secret CCTVs in the private rooms in the hospital.

And as God would have it, my wife was caught in the night sneaking into a patient's room to have sex with him. When she was summoned the next day, she denied the allegation but when the recording was played to her, she had to confess.

I was invited by the medical doctor who also showed me the tape and proceeded to summarily dismiss Juliet from the services of the hospital.

Since the incident came to the fore, she has been begging me to forgive her and even our pastor has been begging on her behalf but how can I ever forgive and live with such an adulterous woman?

Edwin."

The teaser for the day was:

How Nigeria voted:

Yes, I will forgive him/her if he/she promises not to cheat again - 25%

No, that will be the end of the marriage - 36%

I will forgive him/her but I will not forget the hurt - 22%

He/she will have to leave the job - 17%
The ex-militant said all Igbos have the right to defend themselves if attacked.

Dokubo said My brothers and Sisters, fellow Biafrans, our struggle is for independence. Let me say this to Biafran People, our struggle is not to take from any other people. We have not travelled to the North, Lagos, Ibadan to take from any other people.

They are the ones who have been taken from us. In our entire struggle for the actualization of the Independent State of Biafra, we have not invaded other peoples land. We have always reacted strength to strength.

We have the right to defend our lives; we have the rights to defend our properties and we have the right to defend motherland. In the defense of the motherland, we have made some great sacrifices.

For me the Biafra struggle is not limited to one of the nationalities in Biafran land. It is the struggle of the Ibibios, the Ogonis, Oron, the Ijaws, and all the Biafran people. It is our collective struggle and collective destiny. Our resources are being wasted.

It is not even used to develop any part of this so-called Nigerian state. Where is Nigeria developed? Can you compare any part of Nigeria to Johannesburg, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, or Pitoria? Or Cairo or Alexandra? The only way we can get control our resources is the independent of the Biafra state.

Some notable Nigerians have however condemned the ultimatum issued by the group.
This is in response to a 90-day ultimatum issued to Igbos by the Coalition of Northern Youths (CNY) to leave the region.

Fani-Kayode also said that the action of the group might lead to a civil war.

According to Punch, the former minister also called on the Northern elite to caution their youths.

Fani-Kayode said if any Igbo is killed, there will be mass retaliation in the South.

He said Any pogrom or slaughter of Igbo in the North will lead to a swift, immediate and devastating retaliation throughout the South.

The Northern youths must be warned and told in very clear terms. This is not 1966.

Those that gave the Igbo quit notice in the North are playing with fire and that fire will consume them.

They are plunging us into darkness and we shall enter that darkness together. Nigeria belongs to us all.

I urge the core Muslim Northern elders and leaders to caution their youths before they spark off a series of events and crisis that may not only lead to a second civil war but will also lead to the end of Nigeria.

This time around the Igbo are not alone. An attack on them is an attack on every Southerner and every Middle-Belter. And such an attack will have grave and unfathomable consequences.
Nwodo gave the commendation on Thursday in Enugu during a symposium organised by the Enugu State chapter of the Trade Union Congress (TUC).

The president-general also commended Gov. Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State for his decision to fish out and prosecute the people behind such hate speeches.

He said We thank the Federal Government for taking a position against the ill speeches against our people.

We are particularly appreciative of all ethnic socio-cultural orgainsations such as Afenifere, Middle Belt Forum and our brothers in the South South for their solidarity.

Nwodo said that such utterances were capable of truncating the unity of the country.

ALSO READ:Northern group declares war on Igbos

Their speech was provocative and inciting but our response was mature, he said.

Nwodo urged all Igbos to maintain peace and harmony in their neighbourhoods.
The theme of the conference was Fostering Domestic Harmony and Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century.

The governor said that when losses to gender-based violence increase, growth is afffected.

When women are economically empowered, not only are they fulfilled, our economies grow.

Increase in female labour force results in faster economic growth.

This is why, in the last two years, this administration has remained steadfast in implementing policies aimed at addressing women issues such as domestic violence, sexual abuse and economic empowerment.

We owe it as a duty to continue to educate the public on the negative impacts of gender-based violence to the home, the community and the country at large, Ambode said.

In her address, the wife of the governor, Mrs Bolanle Ambode, urged the public to break the culture of silence by speaking out toward eliminating domestic violence and gender-based discrimination in the society.

She also called for collaborative efforts to support vulnerable women and children to make them self reliant.

Sen. Oluremi Tinubu, wife of All Progressives Congress chieftain, Sen. Bola Tinubu, decried the high rate of domestic violence against vulnerable women and children.

She said that enforcement of laws against the menace should be intensified to curb the scourge.

Tinubu urged parents to ensure proper upbringing of their children, especially the male, so they would not grow up to perpetrate violence and abuse.

Also speaking, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Olufunmilayo Atilade, promised that the judiciary would continue to ensure prompt dispensation of justice in issues of violence against women and children.

In her remarks, Mrs Lola Akande, Commissioner, WAPA, said the ministry organised the programme because it recognised that knowledge was key to everyday human endeavours.

ALSO READ: Governor Ambode orders VIOs out of Lagos roads

This conference brought together experts and experienced women to share their experiences about issues of gender inequality in our society.

They will provide strategies for protecting and safeguarding women who are victims of domestic violence and how best to help such women through economic empowerment, she said.
The land, measuring about 450 hectares, was allegedly acquired for the governor's close friend Bashorun Rotimi Obeisun to 'cultivate rice'.

Speaking at the protest, Chief Elizabeth Adeniyi said, "We refused Obeisun the purchase offer for two reasons. One, the land is our farmland where over a thousand people are making their living and secondly, we have ancestral attachment to the land. We have cocoa, kola-nuts, palm trees and many other things on our land.

Suddenly, we discovered the presence of the state officials and some of the family members of Obeisun on the land. At a point, we were all chased out of our land by gunmen and on May 17, it was published in a national newspaper that our land had been acquired by the state government."

Also at the protest was Prince J.A Adewunmi who claimed lots of farm crops were destroyed when the forceful acquisition of the land was going on. He said this had impacted the source of income of the people working the land and demanded justice.

Some of the communities involved in the land trouble include, Ijiku, Osogun, Baajimo, Okunye, Walaye, Arowobusoye and Fanawopo, with the disputed land situated along Ijagbere/Ijebu-Jesa road shared by Obokun and Oriade local governments.

The protesters marched on the court carrying placards that read, "Aregbesola, this is oppression", "Aregbesola, free our land", "You take our land unlawfully for your friend", and a host of others.

The affected communities, with the help of a human right lawyer, Barrister Kanmi Ajibola, have slammed a N50 billion lawsuit against the governor, asking for restitution of the damage caused.
In a video that appeared online late on Wednesday, Comrade Yerima Shettima, President, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, and Isaac Balami of the Arewa Consultative Forum Congress, appealed for calm over the statement that has dominated headlines for the past couple of days.

In the video, Chief Balami advised Nigerians not to panic over the statement that was "being discussed globally", while stressing the group's history of peace, and preaching for unity.

"I think it is high time for us to come together and work on achieving one Nigeria.

"I think we have come a long way, this is not time for us to discuss separation. We need to work together as a nation and we must make this country work.

"I want to tell Nigerians living at home and in diaspora that there is hope.

"There is no cause for alarm, this is one Nigeria," he said.

In the Tuesday declaration, the group expressed its displeasure with the Igbos' constant agitation for its own independent nation, citing it as one of the key reasons for the declaration.

"From today, June 6, 2017, when this proclamation is signed, the North, a critical player in the Nigerian project, hereby declares that it will no longer be disposed to coexisting with the Igbos and shall take definite steps to end the partnership by pulling out of the current federal arrangement.

This conclusion is necessitated by the realization that it since ceased to be comfortable or safe to continue sharing the same country with the ungrateful, uncultured Igbos who have exhibited reckless disrespect for the other federating units and stained the integrity of the entire nation with their insatiable criminal obsessions."

The declaration met with widespread criticism from the country's leaders including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and current Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed who said, It is not the first time that different groups will issue such threats.

It is not new, but what I want to assure you is that the security agencies are on top of the situation.

This was after the Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-rufai ordered the arrest of all the parties involved in the statement on Wednesday.

ALSO READ: Kaduna Governor orders arrest of youths who threatened Igbos

The press release read, "The Kaduna state government took exception to the fact that the northern youths did their irresponsible press conference in Kaduna.

"This government has been consistent in taking action to punish hate speech and incitement. People who may feel unhappy about irresponsible comments or actions that have taken place in other states must know that two wrongs cannot make a right and they cannot use our state to do or say things that threaten the peace.
Wednesday night's attacks took place on the eve of a visit by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, deputising for unwell President Boko Haram, to launch a major humanitarian aid programme.

The raid came barely a month after a senior Boko Haram commander threatened to attack the city after he was released from government custody in exchange for 82 kidnapped schoolgirls.

Outlying districts of Maiduguri, including the university campus and camps for people displaced by the eight-year insurgency, have been hit repeatedly by Boko Haram suicide bombers.

But armed fighters have not managed to get through the tight security for more than a year.

The raid will likely raise fresh fears about the extent of government and military claims that the Islamic State group affiliate is all but defeated.

Chukwu and the military both confirmed that troops responded to an attempt by the suspected insurgents to attack a village outside the city.

Fighters thought to be loyal to the group's embattled factional leader Abubakar Shekau stormed the Aridawari settlement, firing heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft guns, and burning down homes.

Residents said they then drove towards a military base through the Jiddari Polo area, firing guns and forcing locals to flee, before they headed towards the Giwa military barracks.

Chukwu said police and troops from the Nigerian Army 7th Division stationed in Maiduguri were deployed and "repelled the attack in a gun battle that lasted about an hour".

"A civilian whose identity is yet to be ascertained was killed in a stampede while a soldier was reported wounded. Normalcy has been restored," he said in a statement.

The police commissioner said the first of the three suicide bomb attacks happened in the Goni-Kachallari area of Maiduguri and targeted worshippers leaving a mosque.

"The suicide bomber and six others died, while 18 others were injured," he said.

"The second suicide bomber detonated within the premises of the Chad Basin Development Authority in Maiduguri at about 2120 hours (2020 GMT)," he added.

"The suicide bomber and three others died. The third suicide bomber detonated across the road outside the CBDA premises, killing himself and one other person."

Twenty-four people were injured in all three bombings, he said.

Hit-and-run raids were once a regular feature of Boko Haram's Islamist insurgency, which since 2009 has left at least 20,000 people dead and made more than 2.6 million others homeless.

On December 27, 2015, just days after Buhari said the group was "technically defeated", a raid and suicide bomb attack killed 22 in Jiddari Polo.
While addressing world leaders at the 106th session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland, the former governor of Anambra state said the over 1000 casualties recorded during the latest outbreak of the ailment can be blamed on the adverse effects of climate change.

He said, "The adverse effects can be found everywhere in our ecosystem which have manifested in the difficulties associated with the generation of sustainable income, employment opportunities, eradication of poverty and the promotion of better livelihood for the citizenry.

"A manifestation of the adverse climatic condition in my country was the recent outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis which resulted in the death of over 1000 people predisposed by the extreme heat waves which assisted an uncontrollable meningitides bacteria multiplication.

"We therefore cannot but agree with the Director-General, that mitigation of climate change is the most paramount element in shaping the present state and future condition of work."

Stressing on the importance of tackling the problem, the minister pledged the countrys commitment to the Paris Agreement of 2015 that US President Donald Trump controversially pulled out of last week.

"Nigeria is a signatory to the Paris Agreement since the 71st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA71) and shall continue to contribute to the implementation of the initiative.

"Indeed combating climate change is one of the cardinal objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari led administration in Nigeria.

"The administrations commitment to fighting climate change is crystallised in the increasing and substantial budgetary allocations to this sector over the last two years."
Consequently, the house urged security agencies to be on the alert to forestall any breakdown of law and order that may arise as a result of the threat.

The resolution was sequel to the adoption of a motion under matter of urgent public importance by Rep. Oghene Egoh (Lagos-PDP).

Moving the motion, Egoh condemned the relocation threat issued by the 16 Northern youth groups and the stand of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on the matter.

The lawmaker stressed the need for the Federal Government to urgently intervene in order to avert a national crisis.

As part of the campaign by the IPOB for the actualisation of Biafra Republic, Biafra agitators shut down major towns in the South-East on May 30, 2017.

It is disturbing that 16 Northern youth groups on June 6, 2017 gave Igbos residing in their states up to Oct. 1, 2017 to vacate the region.

In its reaction, the Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said it received with gladness the quit notice and urged the Igbos to return home immediately.

The two calls created alarming twist which is ominous and dangerous for the good health of Nigerians.

This motion is not interested in the merit or demerit of Biafra nor is it interested in apportioning blame on those who made the two unpatriotic calls.

Rather, this is only concern for the nations leaders to immediately intervene to stop these agitations from resulting in violence that may consume the entire nation, Egoh said.

He also urged the National Assembly and the Presidency to initiate dialogue with the two groups to avoid damage to the nation.

ALSO READ:Reps move to address ocean surge threat to Delta communities

While people have the right to their views and decisions about lives, the National Assembly must rise to the occasion we find ourselves and put an end to the confusion that is brewing.

This must be done by appealing to both parties to withdraw their demands to avoid loss of lives, especially that of innocent children, women and others who are not part of the problem, Egoh warned.

Without debate on the motion, the House urged the Arewa youths and their Biafra counterpart to rescind their decisions.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Independence Gold Corp. (TSX.V:IGO) ("Independence" or "the Company") is pleased to announce that it has staked 4,385 hectares (ha) named the Stinger property, 66 kilometres (km) to the west of Dawson City, Yukon within the Sixtymile Area of the White Gold District. The Company is also pleased to announce that it has expanded the Boulevard Project to the west by approximately 1,460 ha. The Boulevard Project now consists of 958 mineral claims and 19,960 ha.



Stinger Property

This 4,385 ha property is located in the headwaters of the Sixtymile Placer Gold district which has produced in excess of 500,000 ounces of placer gold. The property benefits from direct road access using a logging and prospecting road network that connects with the Top of the World Highway and Dawson City, Yukon. The claims were acquired using a proprietary stream sediment dataset that outlines an area anomalous in gold, silver, lead, zinc, arsenic and antimony. The claims are located on the east side of the northeast-trending Sixtymile-Pika fault system, southwest of the Tintina Fault. Two generations of Cretaceous-aged intrusions occur within the Yukon-Tanana host rocks, and have been linked to numerous vein-style and intrusion-related mineral occurrences in the Yukon and Alaska. The Company will conduct a phase 1 ridge and spur soil sampling and prospecting program to outline anomalies that will be further tested by trenching.

Boulevard Project

Using the same stream sediment database, the Boulevard Project has been expanded to 19,960 ha. The additional claims cover an anomalous catchment basin that is underlain by Yukon-Tanana rocks and occurs along trend to the northwest from the 2.4 km long Sunrise-Sunset mineralized zone. The Company will include this new area in its extensive geochemical soil sampling program that is anticipated to commence mid-June.

Drill testing on the Boulevard Project has outlined two areas proven to host continuous zones of gold-arsenic-antimony mineralization. The Denali Zone is identified as a 1.2 kilometre (km) long multi-element geochemical anomaly that has been confirmed in multiple drill holes including YCS15-03 which intersected 4.25 grams per tonne (g/t) gold across 6.10 m within the centre of this robust soil anomaly. The Denali Zone is believed to be controlled by an extension of the Coffee Creek Fault System. A similar structure, oriented subparallel with the Coffee Creek Fault, is interpreted to control the 2.4 km long Sunrise-Sunset Zone. The Sunrise-Sunset anomaly has also been confirmed by drilling, including BV16-54 which intersected 1.58 g/t gold across 39.6 m including 7.73 g/t across 6.1 m and drill hole BV15-31 which returned 7.23 g/t Au across 12.2 m. For a map showing the location of these two target areas and their proximity to the Coffee Deposit please visit the Companys website www.ingold.ca.

Independence Gold Corp. (TSX.V:IGO) is a well-financed mineral exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. With a portfolio of projects in the Yukon and the 3Ts Project located in British Columbia, the Companys holdings range from early stage grassroots exploration to advanced-stage resource expansion. For additional information please visit the Company's website www.ingold.ca.

David Gale, P.Geo., the Companys Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 for the White Gold Area projects, has reviewed the technical information in this news release.

INDEPENDENCE GOLD CORP.

Randy Turner

Randy Turner, President & CEO

For further information please contact Investor Relations at 604-687-3959 or info@ingold.ca

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Independence within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including statements with respect to the Companys planned drilling and exploration activities. The Company provides forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those identified and reported in Independences public filings under Independence Gold Corp.s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Although Independence has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Independence disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise unless required by law.
The Coalition of Northern Youths on June 6, at a news conference in Kaduna, gave a three-month ultimatum to South Easterners living in the North to leave.

It had also ordered Northerners living in the South Eastern part of the country to return to the North.

The group attributed the ultimatum to the constant agitation by the Igbo ethnic group to have their own independent country.

Also, Gov. Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State had ordered the investigation, arrest and prosecution of the signatories to the communique issued at the end of the coalition of northern youth news conference.

The I-G gave the order at a meeting with Commissioners of Police and other high ranking officers on Thursday in Abuja.

He warned that no individual or group of persons had the right to ask any individual to leave his or her place of residence in any part of the country.

He ordered other state commissioners of police in the North and Assistant Inspectors -General of Police in the various zonal commands to do same.

He said as Commissioners of Police and Assistant Inspectors-General of Police, we have the responsibility to stop this group of persons from carrying out their threats.

I want us to be at alert to ensure that such persons or group were stopped at all cost from carrying out their threats.

No individual has the authority to stop anybody from looking for his daily bread."

He explained that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to live in any part of the country he or she chooses.

On abuse of siren and spy number plate by unauthourised persons, Idris said that a task force would be constituted across the country to check the ugly situation.

He noted that some individuals used them to commit crimes in the society, adding that synergy between the force and other security agencies was critical to its operations.

We are going to check the excesses of these individuals who use siren and spy number plate,he said.

The police boss urged the various commands to beef up security in their formations as security challenges were taking different dimensions.

He said the force had started the establishment of some operational units in the commands across the country to tackle emerging security challenges.

He added that we are facing new security challenges in the country and we have to respond to it.

We are trying to enhance our capacity with the establishment of these units, taking into consideration the new security challenges in the country.

He explained that every commissioner of police was in charge of units in his or her command, weather they were from the Force headquarters.

Idris urged state governors to support the force by establishing these units for to effective response to security threats across the country.

On the kidnapped six students from the Igbonla Model College, Epe area of Lagos, Idris said that police marine would be trained to flood the creeks.

He expressed concern over the location of schools close to the sea where miscreants always had easy access to such schools.

He said we are going to have a permanent solution to the Lagos problem by training our marine police.

The Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Mr Fatai Owoseni, said rescue mission was ongoing to save the children.
Mr. Chinedu Iwuozo, Force Marine Officer, Force Headquarters, Abuja, said this on Thursday in Yenagoa during an interaction with members of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN), Bayelsa Chapter.

Iwuozo, who was on a tour of Marine Police formations in the state, told the maritime stakeholders that the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, was eager to reposition the marine section of the Force, to achieve more efficiency.

He said that the Force was prepared to provide better service delivery across states of the federation undertaking maritime activities.

He added that more gunboats would be acquired to enhance patrol on the waterways.

Iwuozo, a Superintendent of Police, said that the Force was currently mobilising officers from other departments to address manpower gaps in the marine section, adding that such officers would undergo special training for the tasks ahead of them.

According to him, the marine officers are also being sensitised to be more proactive and more pre-emptive, due to security threats in recent times

He thanked the members of MWUN for their support to the Marine Police department and solicited furthercollaboration in the areas of information sharing for effective security of the Bayelsa waterways.

Earlier, Lloyd Sese, the state Chairman of MWUN, decried the high rate of insecurity daily on the states waterways.

ALSO READ:Niger Delta militants threaten to resume bombing of pipelines

He said The rivers and creeks of the state have become very unsafe for any meaningful business activity in the marine sector to thrive because of incessant attacks from sea pirates on members of the union and innocent travellers.
Mr Johnathan Vatsa, the states Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, made this known at a news conference in Minna.

He said the government and people of Niger dissociate themselves from the recent statement by some Northern youths that Igbos in the North should return to the South East.

The security of lives and property of all residents of Niger is a priority to Gov.Abubakar Bello.

We, therefore, want to make it categorically clear that all Igbos living in Niger are safe and should go about their normal businesses without fear.

God has made us one people in Nigeria and we will continue to remain as one.

Vatsa pointed out that the youths were not speaking for Northern Nigeria.

He noted that Suleja area of the state was home to many Igbos more than other states in the North because of its proximity to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The commissioner said that the current administration in the state did not discriminate against any tribe and religion; hence some political appointments to non indigenes.

He noted that security agencies in the state had been placed on red alert to deal with any person or groups that may want to foment trouble.

Vatsa appealed to the public to report any suspicious movement or objects to the nearest security agency.
Okubama, who was arraigned alongside Peter Popnen, before Justice Salihu Saidu was accused for a five-count charge bordering on gratification and money laundering to the tune of N185,842,000 (One Hundred and Eighty Five Million, Eight Hundred and Forty Two Thousand Naira only).

Okubama and Popnen are among the over 100 INEC officials that allegedly collected part of the $115million (N23bn), disbursed by a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, during the countdown to the 2015 presidential election.

Count one of the charge read: That you Gesila Khan Okubama, Peter Popnen, Diezani Alison Madueke (Still at large) and others now at large on or about the 27th day March, 2015 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did conspire among yourselves to directly take possession of the sum of N 185,842,000.00 (One Hundred and Eighty Five Million, Eight Hundred and Forty Two Thousand Naira only) cash which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful act to wit: gratification and money laundering and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 18 (a) of the Money laundering (Prohibition) Act 2012 as amended and punishable under Section 15 (3) of the same Act.

Count two of the charge read: That you Gesila Khan Okubama on or about the 13thApril, 2016 at Economic and Financial Crime Commission, 6A Olumeni Street, Off Forces Avenue, Old GRA, Port Harcourt within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court knowingly failed to make full disclosure of your assets and\or interest in: two blocks of two story buildings of an office complex\shopping plaza situate at Utome-Bosh, Okutukutu\Etegwe community, Yenegoa Bayelsa State in the Asset Declaration Form you filled at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on 13 April, 2016 and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 27 (1) (3)(a) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Establishment Act 2004 and punishable under Section 27 (3) of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Establishment Act 2004.

ALSO READ: How Diezani shared taxpayer money to INEC officials

Okubama and Popnen pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were read to them.

In his ruling, Justice Saidu turned down Okubamas application for bail and ordered that she should be remanded in EFCCs custody pending the determination of her bail application.

However, Justice Saidu granted the Popnen bail in the sum of N100, 000.000, 00k (One Hundred Million Naira only) and two sureties in like sum.
The group, in its Kaduna Declaration urged Igbo dwellers in the north to leave the region before October 1, 2017, or face repercussions.

Despite the widespread condemnations from several quarters and an arrest order from Kaduna state Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, the coalition has released a joint statement, saying it won't back down from its position that has been intentionally twisted with inaccurate interpretations.

In a statement released through the group's spokesman Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, the group said, "We are today compelled to make this further statement to clarify our stands after our meeting to review the fallout of the Tuesdays declaration.

"Our groups have arrived that some elements have for reasons best known to them, mischievously distorted the intent of our original script by alluding such words as 'violence,' 'threat', 'war' and 'mass action' to it.

"We find this mischievous because as cultured Thoroughbred Northerners, we have never anywhere and at anytime, under whatever circumstances, called anybody to violence as a means of conflict resolution.

"In strict observance of that tradition, we never employed violence as a means of pursuing our interest and at every opportunity, we opt for peaceful engagements and implore people to eschew violence in all its ramifications.

"This informs why, a majority of discerning Nigerians, not necessarily northerners alone, understood and identified with our express call for the Biafrans to be allowed to actualize their long-held secessionist aspiration.

"We wholeheartedly endorse the moves made variously by our leaders to allay those fears and urge people to be peaceful and law-abiding while at the same time resolutely insisting on having the right thing done by allowing the Igbos to have and move to their dream country in accordance with the universal fundamental right to self-determination.

"We restate our determination and commitment to ensuring that the North will never partake in any contrived arrangement that would still have the Biafran Igbo as a component.

"We reiterate our call on Nigerian authorities and recognized international bodies such as the ECOWAS, AU and UN to hasten the initiation of the process for the final actualization of the Biafran nation out of the present federation."

"We make bold to say that the cheerful responses to our position which flowed through the internet and by way of personal telephone and conversations nationally and universally has resonated that peace-loving Nigerians who have been tormented and menaced by the irredentist proclivities of the Igbos are overwhelmingly desirous to put an end to it.

"As we acknowledge this outpouring of patriotic support across the nation, we implore people, particularly our cultured northerners to remain restraint in the face of any provocation from any quarter and to debate intelligently.

"We assure them that we shall be firm and resolute in honestly and painstakingly pursuing what we all know is a noble and just cause without hurting anyone."

In reaction to the arrest order from Governor El-Rufai, the group accused him, and Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima of trying to manipulate the situation to fuel their own presidential ambitions.

"We have taken time to analyze the reactions that trailed our Declaration, and were nauseated by the comments of some disgruntled northern political power mongers.

"We are particularly disappointed by the treacherous positions assumed by Nasir Ahmed El-rufai and Kashim Shettima who in pursuit of their blind ambition for the vice presidency, chose to side with the secessionist Igbos against the interest of peace-loving Nigerians.

"El-rufai and Shettima are openly known to be waiting in the wings for Mr. President Muhammadu Buhari to die so they can further their plots to seek the presidency.

"It appears that characters like El-Rufai have no limit on how low they can fall in their inordinate desire to achieve their long held dream of power grab at the expense of the peace, well being and stability of our country.

"We would like to assure El-Rufai and his ilks that we shall continue to expose their recalcitrant treachery and opportunistic proclivities.

"We also assure them that the drive for a peaceful and prosperous Nigeria in which the Igbos are not partners, will continue unabated.

"Similarly, we are irked by the hordes of lies and misleading innuendos issued by Kashim Shettima, ostensibly on behalf of 19 Northern governors in which he referred to us as faceless and violent.
Ngige made this known while addressing delegates at the ongoing 106th International Labour Conference (ILC) of the International Labour Organisation(ILO), in Geneva, Switzerland with the theme, Work in a Changing Climate: The Green Initiative.

The minister said this in a statement signed by Mr Essah Etim, Labour Attache, Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the UN Office in Geneve.

He expressed Nigerias commitment to the Green Initiative as climate change poses the greatest threat to the world especially Africa.

Ngige noted that the adverse effects could be found everywhere in the ecosystem, which have manifested in the difficulties associated with the generation of sustainable income.

He said others adverse effects are employment opportunities, eradication of poverty and the promotion of better livelihood for the citizenry.

According to him, a manifestation of the adverse climatic condition in my country was the recent outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis, which resulted in the death of over 1000 people.

They were predisposed by the extreme heat waves which assisted an uncontrollable meningitis bacteria multiplication.

We therefore cannot but agree with the Director-General, Mr Guy Ryder that the mitigation of climate change is the most paramount element in shaping the present state and future condition of work,  he said.

The minister, however, said that Nigeria was a signatory to the Paris Agreement since the 71st United Nations General Assembly (UNGA71) and would continue to contribute to the implementation of the initiative.

He said the administrations commitment to fighting climate change was crystallised in the increasing and substantial budgetary allocations to the sector over the last two years.

It is also noteworthy that even before the Paris Agreement of 2015, Nigeria has put in place various measures to tackle the challenges of climate change.

A roadmap was also developed to exit gas flaring in the country by year 2020 and accelerated actions have been taken to reduce desertification through the National Agency for Great Green Wall (NAGGW).

Machineries have also been put in place to tackle flooding and cleaning up of oil pollution in the Niger Delta region in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, he added.

He added that this was in the development of infrastructures targeting Solar, Wind and Hydro, Sovereign National Green Bond (SNGB),y (solar), as well as afforestation projects, among others.

ALSO READ:Chris Ngige blames climate change for recent Meningitis outbreak

We also support the five year cycle of recurrent discussion with focus on the decent work objectives, beginning with social dialogue at the 107th (2018) session of the ILC.

We are in favour of an ILO development cooperation in terms of 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, and particularly the arrangement to align the 2018  2019 programme on budget in this direction.

Finally, the Government and people of Nigeria call for the upgrading of the ILO Office in Nigeria to a full Country Office as earlier requested.

This will effectively serve the interest of the English speaking West African Countries. This will indeed be a Centenary gift to Nigeria.

We remain committed to the pursuit of an African continent built on security, inclusive growth and sustainable development through Africas Agenda 2063.

Our challenge is how to attract the required resources to finance a recurring deficit national budget occasioned by the volatilities in the global oil market and insurgency especially in the North East of Nigeria.

In this light, the assistance of the international community will be very critical,  he said.
Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr Waziri Adio, made the call at the ongoing investigative hearing on 17 billion dollars undeclared crude oil proceeds by an ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives.

He said that the money was received by NLNG but not found in the Federation Account.

Adio said the missing fund was in addition to another 21 billion dollars confirmed crude oil sale but was not remitted to the Federation Account by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between 2011 and 2014.

As a result of non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), the country is losing 600 million dollars annually due to leakages, he also disclosed.

He said that there were many loopholes in the process of crude oil lifting for export in the country that must be urgently addressed.

Adio equally said that reported loss of crude to theft and vandalism by three international companies operating in the country amounted to 15.8 billion dollars between 2011 and 2014.

According to him, the committee needs to be more clinical as the 15.8 billion dollars lost to theft and vandalism is likely to be part of the 17 billion dollars being investigated by it.

He said that the losses might have been incurred with active connivance of Nigerian officials at the oil lifting platforms.

The NEITI boss presented oil-lifting breakdown which revealed loss of 385 million barrels in 2011, 402 million barrels in 2012, 363 million barrels in 2013 and 342 million barrels in 2014.

He regretted that Nigeria had no comprehensive mechanism at for monitoring and evaluating actual oil lifted at the loading platforms.

According to him, rather than three, Nigeria has two that were not properly placed, and as a result, officials have to rely on third part reports which may not reflect the true amount of crude lifted.

Nigeria is losing revenue to oil theft on industrial scale and at a time, it is easy to see physical stealing of oil from a low flying helicopter.

There are several things that must be looked into with a view of taking necessary action.

For instance, the NLNG got 15.9 billion dollars as Nigerias returns for its 49 per cent equity in NLNG Ltd.

Meanwhile, this dividend was collected by the NLNG but was not found in the Federation Account.
Osinbajo told the visiting leader that Nigeria will support you in every way and we are very happy with your election.

I know that President Muhammadu Buhari will give every measure of support required because he will want you to succeed very much.

The acting President added that the Buhari administration was pleased that President Gnassingbe visited Nigeria almost immediately after his election to lead the regional body.

He gave the assurance that Nigeria would continue to play an active role inECOWAS.

Osinbajo, who congratulated Gnassingbe on his election as ECOWAS chairman,assured him that Nigeria was concerned about regional issues and would continue to explore resolutions in partnership with other member-states.

The acting President also welcomed the continued consultations on the issue of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between ECOWAS and the European Union (EU) while observing also that each country had peculiar challenges.

He expressed the hope that the spirit of ECOWAS  brotherhood, would be helpful in addressing some of the issues confronting the regional body.

Earlier, the new ECOWAS leader had told the acting President that he was at the villafor consultation because Nigeria was an important player in issues of the regional body.

During the visit, Gnassingbe highlighted a number of ECOWAS issues and challenges, including the European Partnership Agreement being discussed by the regional body.

He said as the ECOWAS chairman, he would be involved in frequent exchanges and consultations with Nigeria, considering Nigerias role in the region.

The Togolese President also said he wanted the relationship between his country and Nigeria to remain very close.

In a related development, Acting President Osinbajo also received Mr Foumakoye Gado, Special Envoy of President Issoufou Mohamadou of Niger.
Mohammed, in a statement obtained by the UN Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria, recalled her fond memory of Nigerias former Minister of Health.

The UN deputy chief and former Nigerias Minister of Environment, expressed sympathy to Osotimehins family, the UN and the Nigerian Government.

Osotimehin died on Sunday night at his home in New York at the age of 68 years.

Mohammed said: I received with great shock the news of the passing of my brother and friend, Prof. Babatunde Osotimehin at midnight of June 4, 2017.

I want to express my most sincere sympathies to his family, the Nigerian nation and to UN family especially the Nigerian UN family during this difficult time.

When I joined in the UN system in 2012, as a member of the Nigerian UN Family, Prof. Osotimehin was there to welcome me and he provided me with great support during my first UN journey.

He was a very remarkable man. Knowing him personally as I did for many years, I am well aware of the huge difference he made in the lives of many people around the world and in his private life.

He was a highly valuable and respected member of our UN team here and his fellow employees and young mentees around the world are already feeling the effects of his passing away.

As a champion for the well-being of women and youth, his passing is a big loss to the world and his passionate work for humanity especially women and youth is his legacy.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time, the UN deputy scribe said.
Finnish English

Stock Exchange Release 8 June 2017, at 3 p.m.

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, HONG KONG, SOUTH AFRICA, SINGAPORE OR JAPAN OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.

The Board of Directors of Silmaasema Oyj ("Silmaasema" or "the Company") have today decided together with Intera Fund II Ky ("Intera"), acting on behalf of the sellers (as defined below), on the completion of the initial public offering of Silmaasema. The final subscription price of the shares (the "Final Subscription Price") in the offering (as defined below) is EUR 6.90 per offer share (as defined below), corresponding to a market capitalization of approximately EUR 98 million immediately following the offering (as defined below). Demand in the offering (as defined below) was strong and the offering was oversubscribed multiple times. Trading in the Company's shares (as defined below) is expected to start on the Helsinki Stock Exchange pre-list on or about 9 June 2017.

Silmaasema will issue 5,099,057 new shares in the Company (the "New Shares") (the "Share Issue"), corresponding to approximately 35.8 per cent of the total number of the Company's shares outstanding after the offering. In addition, Intera Fund II Ky and certain other shareholders of the Company (together with Intera, the "Sellers") will sell 3,100,000 existing shares in the Company (the "Sale Shares", and together with the New Shares, the "Offer Shares") (the "Share Sale", and together with the Share Issue, the "Offering" or the "IPO").

1,000,000 New Shares will be issued to private individuals and entities in Finland (the "Public Offering") and 8,162,980 shares will be allocated to institutional investors in Finland and internationally (the "Institutional Offering"), assuming full exercise of the over-allotment option (as defined below). The Institutional Offering drew significant interest from high quality Finnish and international investors, and was oversubscribed multiple times. The Public Offering attracted strong interest and was six times oversubscribed. The commitments given in the Public Offering will be accepted in full for up to 100 New Shares and approximately 10.8 per cent of the subscription commitments exceeding this amount.

In addition, Silmaasema will issue 265,935 New Shares to the members of the Board of Directors of Silmaasema and employees of Silmaasema in a direct employment until the end of the subscription period 6 June 2017 as well as independent ophthalmologists, entrepreneur opticians and franchisees (the "Personnel Offering"). The subscription price per share in the Personnel Offering is 10 per cent lower than the Final Subscription Price, i.e., EUR 6.21 per Offer Share. However, the discount on the Final Subscription Price of the New Shares for the independent ophthalmologists, entrepreneur opticians and franchisees taking part in the employee share issue is not tax-exempt in any aspect under the employee share issue provision (Chapter 4, Section 66 of the Finnish Income Tax Act). As a result of oversubscription, the Board of Directors of the Company have decided to increase the number of the New Shares to be offered in the Personnel Offering from the preliminary maximum of 50,000 to 265,935 New Shares mentioned above. The commitments given in the Personnel Offering will be accepted in full.

The Company will receive gross proceeds of approximately EUR 35 million from the Offering and the Sellers will receive gross proceeds of approximately EUR 30 million assuming full exercise of the over-allotment option (as defined below). The total number of the Company's outstanding shares will increase to 14,248,805 shares after the New Shares offered in the Offering are registered in the Trade Register on or about 8 June 2017. The number of shareholders after the Offering will increase to more than 5,500 shareholders.

The shares subscribed for in the Public Offering and the Personnel Offering are expected to be recorded in the book-entry accounts of investors who made approved commitments on or about the first banking day after the pricing, i.e., on or about 9 June 2017. The Shares subscribed for in the Institutional Offering are expected to be ready to be delivered against payment through Euroclear Finland Ltd on or about 13 June 2017.

A confirmation letter regarding the approval of the commitments will be sent on or about 13 June 2017 to all investors who have submitted their commitments in the Public Offering and the Personnel Offering. Any excess payments made in connection with the commitments will be refunded to investors' bank accounts approximately on the fifth banking day after the pricing, i.e., on or about 15 June 2017. If the investor's bank account is in a different financial institution to the subscription place, the refund will be paid into a Finnish bank account in accordance with the payment schedule of the financial institutions, approximately no later than two banking days thereafter.

The trading of Silmaasema's shares is expected to commence on the pre-list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange on or about 9 June 2017 and on the official list of the Helsinki Stock Exchange on or about 13 June 2017. The ISIN code of the shares is FI4000243399 and the share trading code is "SILMA".

Intera and Nordea Bank AB (publ), Finnish branch ("Nordea" or the "Global Coordinator"), in its capacity as Global Coordinator, may agree that Intera shall give the Global Coordinator an over-allotment option exercisable within 30 days from the commencement of trading of the shares on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (which is estimated to occur between 9 June 2017 and 8 July 2017), to purchase or to procure purchasers for a maximum of 1,229,858 shares solely to cover over-allotments (the "Over-Allotment Option"). The shares included in the Over-Allotment Option represent approximately 15.0 per cent of the Offer shares and votes.

Nordea as stabilisation manager (the "Stabilisation Manager"), may, to the extent permitted by applicable law may, within 30 days from commencement of trading in the Shares on the Helsinki Stock Exchange (which is estimated to occur between 9 June 2017 and 8 July 2017), engage in measures that stabilize, maintain or otherwise affect the price of the shares. Any stabilisation measures will be conducted in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council on market abuse ("Market Abuse Regulation") and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052 supplementing Market Abuse Regulation with regard to regulatory technical standards for the conditions applicable to buy-back programmes and stabilisation measures. The Stabilisation Manager may sign a share lending agreement with Intera related to stabilisation.

Nordea Bank AB (publ), Finnish branch acts as the Global Coordinator and Bookrunner in the IPO and OP Corporate Bank plc acts as the Bookrunner in the IPO. Roschier, Attorneys Ltd. acts as the legal advisor to the Company. Borenius Attorneys Ltd acts as the legal advisor to the Joint Bookrunners.

CEO Pasi Kohmo

"We at Silmaasema are extremely happy and satisfied of the great investor interest towards Silmaasema's IPO. I would like to thank all of the new shareholders who participated in our offering. The over 40-years old Silmaasema has grown profitably during the past years, and the IPO gives us even better possibilities to continue to successfully carry out our growth strategy also in the future. Our goal is to be the market leader in optical retail and in eye clinic operations related to eye healthcare, including cataract and refractive surgeries. From this day forward, we continue our persistent and determined work towards achieving our goals."

Chairman of the Board Juha Saarinen

"In the initial public offering, Silmaasema raised in total EUR 35 million of new capital. The raised proceeds are intended to be used to strengthen the company's capital structure and support the company's growth strategy, in the center of which is developing the store and clinic network, strengthening the like-for-like growth and improving profitability. As a result of the IPO, Silmaasema has over 5,500 new shareholders and I wish to welcome all of these shareholders in joining the unique growth story of Silmaasema."

Member of the Board of Silmaasema and Chairman of the Board of Intera Tuomas Lang:

"Silmaasema is exactly the type of growing and developing healthcare services company that Finland needs. Thus it is great to be able to be part of listing Silmaasema to the Stock Exchange. We, at Intera, remain as a significant shareholder of the company also after the listing and have confidence in the future."

Additional information

Pasi Kohmo, CEO, Silmaasema, +358 50 331 7015, pasi.kohmo@silmaasema.fi

Kati Raiha, Director, Marketing and Communications, Silmaasema, +358 50 416 6764, kati.raiha@silmaasema.fi

Juha Saarinen, Chairman of the Board, Silmaasema, +358 40 513 9573, juha.saarinen@silmaasema.fi

Silmaasema in brief

Silmaasema is a Finnish company, which offers all products and services for optical retail and eye healthcare nationwide. Silmaasema's management views it to be the largest private eye clinic provider offering eye surgeries and the second largest optical retail chain, according to the Finnish Association of vision and eyecare NAE ry, with 25.3 per cent market share. Silmaasema's target is to the market leader in optical retail and eye healthcare related clinic operations, including cataract and refractive surgeries.

The Silmaasema chain has in total 148 optical retail stores in Finland; of which 125 are own stores and 23 entrepreneur driven stores, as well as 13 eye clinics. In addition, Silmaasema has eight optical retail stores in Estonia. The Silmaasema chain employs close to 1,000 eye healthcare professionals. In 2016, the Silmaasema chain conducted around 210,000 optician's eye examinations, 190,000 ophthalmologists appointments and over 15,000 cataract and refractive surgeries. Silmaasema's Group net sales were 101.3 million euros in 2016 and adjusted EBITDA was 12.0 million euros.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained herein is not for publication or distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Singapore or Japan.

These written materials do not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States, nor may the securities be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration as provided in the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and the rules and regulations thereunder. Silmaasema Oyj (the "Company") does not intend to register any portion of the offering in the United States or to conduct a public offering of securities in the United States.

The issue, exercise and/or sale of securities in the initial public offering are subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. Neither the Company, Nordea Bank AB (publ), Finnish Branch ("Nordea") nor OP Corporate Bank plc ("OP") assume any responsibility in the event there is a violation by any person of such restrictions.

Nordea and OP are acting exclusively for the Company and for no-one else in connection with any transaction mentioned in this announcement and will not regard any other person (whether or not a recipient of this announcement) as a client in relation to any such transaction and will not be responsible to any other person for providing the protections afforded to its clients, or for advising any such person on the contents of this announcement or in connection with any transaction referred to in this announcement. The contents of this announcement have not been verified by Nordea or OP and neither Nordea nor OP accept liability for this information included in this announcement.

The information contained herein shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of the securities referred to herein in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. Investors must neither accept any offer for, nor acquire, any securities to which this document refers, unless they do so on the basis of the information contained in the applicable prospectus published or offering circular distributed by the Company.

The Company has not authorized any offer to the public of securities in any Member State of the European Economic Area other than Finland. With respect to each Member State of the European Economic Area other than Finland and which has implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a "Relevant Member State"), no action has been undertaken or will be undertaken to make an offer to the public of securities requiring publication of a prospectus in any Relevant Member State. As a result, the securities may only be offered in Relevant Member States (a) to any legal entity which is a qualified investor as defined in the Prospectus Directive; or (b) in any other circumstances falling within Article 3(2) of the Prospectus Directive. For the purposes of this paragraph, the expression an "offer of securities to the public" means the communication in any form and by any means of sufficient information on the terms of the offer and the securities to be offered so as to enable an investor to decide to exercise, purchase or subscribe the securities, as the same may be varied by any measure implementing the Prospectus Directive in that Relevant Member State and the expression "Prospectus Directive" means Directive 2003/71/EC (and amendments thereto, including the 2010 PD Amending Directive, to the extent implemented in the Relevant Member State), and includes any relevant implementing measure in the Relevant Member State and the expression "2010 PD Amending Directive" means Directive 2010/73/EU.

These written materials do not constitute an offer of the securities referred to herein to the public in the United Kingdom. No prospectus has been or will be approved in the United Kingdom in respect of the securities referred to herein. This communication is directed only at (i) persons who are outside the United Kingdom or (ii) persons who have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (the "Order") and (iii) high net worth entities, and other persons to whom it may lawfully be communicated, falling within Article 49(2) of the Order (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). Any investment activity to which this communication relates will only be available to and will only be engaged with, relevant persons. Any person who is not a relevant person should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents.
From Oviyon 'V' Hunyinbo to Senami, we have created a poll for you to chose your favourite character on the show.

1. Senami George - Played by A'rese Emokpae

Senami George is a 28-year-old Doctor, who returns to Nigeria for her NYSC, despite discouragement from her father.

Against his decision, she returns to her hometown Aji, and is determined to get to the root of a family mystery.

She wants to know why her family never visits their home town anymore and why her father seems to want her to keep her away from Nigeria ever since her mother died during childbirth in Aji.

2. Akweyon - Played by Teniola A. Aladese

17-year-old Akweyon is taken under Mausis (priestess) wing as a young girl after a childhood incident that changed her life.

3. Seyiveh - Played by Wendy Lawal

Older sister to Akweyon, 19-year-old Seyevi struggles with the guilt of not speaking the truth when Akweyon accused an uncle of molesting her.

Seyevi was called to bear witness, but too scared to tell the truth, she failed her sister. Seyevi moved to Aji to be close to her sister and somehow make amends for not speaking the truth.

4. Oviyon 'V' Hunyinbo - Played by Ayoola Ayolola

A 30-year-old who leaves his job in the city after an accident which he feels guilty about.

An introvert, Oviyon is slow to speak or act, but when he does, his reactions could be drastic.

Oviyon works as a foreman for hire on farms in and around Aji, while he takes care of his mother.

5. Tafe Fonton - Played by Tony Akposheri

Fonton is an entitled 56-year-old who blames everyone but himself for every wrong in his life.

He resented his brother, Oviyons father, for being a more successful farmer than him and tries, upon his brothers death, to seize the lands left behind. This results in tension between him and his nephew Oviyon.

A father of four, Fonton is superstitious, diabolical and greedy.

6. Chief Adomeh - Played by Akin Lewis

Chief Adomeh is the head Chief of the village, who feels imprisoned by his position.

He is forced to believe and depend on Mausi, after his son goes missing and his wife passes away not long after.

.

7. Folake Adeoti - Played by Omowumi Dada

Folake Adeoti is a 23-year-old, who grew up in Ogun State.

She is the daughter of a new age Pastor, and has mastered the act of being a 'good girl.' She loves gossip and often gets into trouble for it.

8. Neza - Played by Bucci Franklin

Nebuchadnezzar grew up with Oviyon and Miyise, and was also one of the last people to see the chiefs son alive.

His parents died a couple of years ago and he has been spending his inheritance on stuffs like weed.

9. Obi Nwaemike - Tope Tedela

26-year-old Obi is easy going and always in search of a peaceful solution to any conflict.

He enjoys the anonymity, the lack of pressure, the new identities he takes on, being the hero of the community for a year, and most of all, the fact that he can walk away from all the connections he has made at the end of the year and start anew.
You know the feeling when you recollect the general plot and maybe few characters from a movie, but you just can't figure out everything about it?

You kick off a Google search, but come up with nothing because there's no accurate online database of Nigerian movies.

Despite our 'frustrating' experience with "Yet Another Day," we are still throwing it back to the classic movie which starred Kate Henshaw, Norbert Young and Rachel Oniga.

The child abuse themed movie which arrived in the 90s follows the story of a girl who was sexually abused by her uncle as a teenager.

What starts off as rape grows into a consensual sex between an uncle and niece.

We recall seeing Nobert Young as the pedophile, 'Uncle Jonah, while Oniga played Jonah's sister, whose daughter was abused.

It's difficult not to recall the scene where Oniga caught his brother having sex with her daughter. She angrily stormed out of the house, wondering how she missed their relationship for years.

At the end of the day, Henshaw's character contracted HIV.
The weather system which struck on Tuesday has damaged buildings, felled trees, left 46,000 homes without electricity and caused travel chaos as flights and rail services were hit by gale-force winds and flooding.

Three people were killed in the Eden District municipality, an area popular with tourists east of Cape Town, while four others died in a fire sparked by lightning, said James Brent-Styan, spokesman for the Western Cape regional government.

One other person was killed when a building collapsed.

The South African Weather Service warned that strong gale force winds were expected over the Western Cape and western parts of the Northern Cape region until Thursday. Waves of up to 12 metres high are expected to lash the Cape peninsula until Friday.

"Heavy rain and flash flooding are expected (across) the western parts of the Western Cape... on Wednesday into Thursday morning," the weather service added.

The severe weather, dubbed "the cape storm" and thought to be one of the worst for 30 years, has left dozens of people in shantytowns around Cape Town homeless -- as well as forcing schools and universities to close.

The Khayelitsha township, a vast encampment of tightly-packed shacks just outside Cape Town, was reported to be totally deserted except for a handful of children and suffered severe flooding. Elsewhere in the region high winds fanned forest fires, causing damage to homes and property.
Frank in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja while reacting to a call by Northern youths to Igbos to leave the region, said such call could build tensions across the country.

He, therefore, called on the Federal Government to take necessary steps to douse tension that may have been generated as a result of the threat.

I call on Nigerian youths from the South or North to drop whatever differences planted or being nurtured against each other and come together to build a more united and developed nation, he said.

He maintained that every section of the country was important, adding that youths across the regions were expected to play important roles in its development.

He urged youths to preach peace and not to give in to sentiments, stressing that they were expected to right the wrongs of the past.

This, Frank said, they could do by coming up with innovations that would ensure the country`s development in the interest of all, rather than fanning the embers of disunity.

He, however, called on security agencies to ensure the protection of Northerners in the South and the Southerners in the North, and pleaded with Northern youths to give peace a chance.

The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum and Northern Emancipation Network, recently at a news conference, gave Igbos in the North an ultimatum to leave the region.
Several witnesses say that the attacks started when a white van drove into pedestrians.

According to a BBC eyewitness, some Muslim men shouted 'this is is for Allah', as they stabbed people indiscriminately.

He said, "I saw these three Muslim guys run up and started stabbing this girl. They stabbed this girl maybe ten, 15 times. She was saying 'help me, help me'.

"They attacked her and stabbed another guy. They started running up the road, stabbed the bouncer at the Tavern.

"I was throwing bottles at them, pint glasses, stools, chairs, but I was defenceless.

"They were running up saying 'this is for Allah'."

The incident, which has been claimed by ISIS, left at least six dead people and over 40 injured.

ALSO READ: What we know about the London Bridge attack

After the attack, the Internet has been flooded with images and stories of displays of inter-religious unity.

Ilmfeed, an Islamic website, reports that a message of love was left outside a London mosque the morning after the attack. It was reportedly left by a non-Muslim.

Days later, another Mosque got a beautiful letter from an anonymous non-Muslim woman.

Nafeesa Bhayat of the Masjid Al Falah in Coventry, England said: She asked if I could give this note to the mosque leaders and said I just feel like hugging you all- can I hug you? and then she gave me a hug and told me she stands with us and not to worry about anything.

The letter read: "Dear All People of the Prayer Centre,

I am a resident of Sommerset Road and just wanted you to know that not all of us white non muslim folks are bigotted and small minded.

I know what a beautiful and peaceful religion yours is. I feel compelled to write to you to offer you my love, peace, and solidarity.

In these testing times please stay strong in your beliefs and know that anyone with even a small amount of intelligence does not equate your peaceful religion with terrorism.

I notice the current air of tension in the UK and people are always looking for a scapegoat, however a lot of us see through the blame game and refuse to be at war with you, our brothers."

The same show of solidarity was seen when over 200 imams stood side by side with Christian and Jewish leaders at the scene of the bridge attack.

At the scene, Anglican Bishop of Southwark, Christopher Chessun said, "We welcome to London our Muslim brothers and sisters from all parts of the UK in your holy month of Ramadan so we can stand together..A strong sense of common purpose has built up within our communities over months and years.

This has happened as a result of a decision to bring as many imams as possible together in Southwark...Our common response as fellow citizens of different faiths is to find ways to build on existing friendships, existing goodwill, to build resilience across communities and counter the wicked actions of terrorists.'"

Catholic Bishop John Sherrington told Christian Today: 'I'm deeply moved by being present as we are remembering the victims. This courageous statement against extremism and violence is something that touches my heart. As Jews, Christians and Muslims together, as people of faith, we have the resources to overcome."

We saw the same thing after the Manchester bombing on 22nd of May when 22 people were killed and 116 injured.

ALSO READ: How Nigerians can learn from the British after the Manchester bombing

This show of inter-religious unity is all good, but how come we only see them when something terrible happens?

Why do we always have to wait for a tragedy to unite people of different faiths?
This campaign promotes the essence of Ramadan and what it represents to the Muslim population as it focuses on driving everyone to ThinkLessDoMore by taking concrete selfless actions & expecting nothing in return.

Speaking about the rationale behind the campaign during one of the mosque activations, Adetayo Adesokan, Brand Manager Lipton, Unilever Nigeria PLC explained that the Ramadan period is an important one for Muslims and Lipton consumers across Nigeria.

It is not only a time of reflection and prayers but also a time to reach out to someone in need. He added that It is a common reality to all that we all have good intentions and thoughts however we often times dont take the next step of turning these thoughts into action, as our busy lives get in the way of turning our good thoughts into actions

"As part of activities lined up to get more people to do good, we are embarking on a 'Do More Cities Tour' to celebrate and reward individuals who have positively impacted their communities by engaging in selfless acts throughout the country," he added.

The Lipton Ramadan Mobile Lounge has so far visited mosques in Kano, Abuja and Lagos, driving the message of going beyond just thinking, but doing good this holy season.

The 'Dont Just Think; Do' campaign continues with Liptons Ramadan Mobile Lounge visiting more states including Kano, Sokoto, Niger, Oyo, Osun, Bauchi, Katsina, Ogun amongst others to share the message of doing good with Muslims across Nigeria.
Etisalat is currently in talks with a consortium of banks it owes a $1.2 billion loan which it has defaulted on. Nairametrics reports that the banks have just rejected a 5% stake offered by Etisalat as part of the debt servicing arrangement.

While the rumors are still unconfirmed, it is not hard to see why an Etisalat acquisition by Glo will make sense for both telcos. For one, an acquisition of this nature provides the right conditions for Glo, which has 37.3 million subscribers, to get closer in terms of market share to market leader MTN Nigeria, which has 60+ million subs.

Etisalat currently has the least number of subscribers amongst the telcos (18 million subs) and a Glo acquisition means both companies can compete on a stronger foot.

That aside, revenue from Voice and SMS across the industry has been on the decline, so telcos will get to spend less money per customer (which is the point of it all) if they share infrastructure.

This is important because Glo currently has the cheapest data charges in the industry because it has its own infrastructure and can leverage on that to remain competitive in the industry.

Etisalat on the other hand has the highest data charges so a consolidation of both parties could result in cheaper data across the board with customers getting better value.

It also means the telcos will make more money (or at least spend less money) per customer.

Obviously, this kind of deal which has far reaching implications for the industry as a whole will not go through without without some resistance. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Smile, Spectranet and the rest of them (who do not own data infrastructure) are already under a lot of pressure just to stay afloat so its not hard to imagine them doing all they can to block this kind of deal.

As I mentioned earlier, it is easy for Glo to offer its customers cheaper data tariffs because it has its own fibre-optic cable infrastructure.

Acquiring Etisalat puts the Mike Adenuga-owned company at an even stronger advantage in terms of market share and competitive advantage.
"We see Qatar as a brother state, as a partner," he told a joint press conference with German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel, according to the German simultaneous translation.

"But you have to be able to tell your friend or your brother when they are doing the right thing and when they are doing the wrong thing."

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain are among seven states that have cut diplomatic ties and many major transport links with Qatar, a gas-rich emirate on the Saudi border.

The Arab states accuse Qatar of supporting extremism, a charge Doha firmly denies.

Jubeir said that "for many years Qatar has taken steps to support certain organisations".

"This has been condemned in the past, but unfortunately we have not received appropriate cooperation on this and that's why these measures have now been taken."

He added that "we have taken these steps in the interest of Qatar... and in the interest of security and stability in the region".

"And we hope that our brother Qatar will now take the right steps in order to end this crisis."

Qatar has forged regional alliances independently of its fellow GCC states, drawing accusations from Saudi Arabia and its allies of serving Iranian interests.

Gabriel said Germany "worried about the possible consequences and a growing escalation" after the "very tough" measures taken against Qatar.
Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to play down the dispute, saying she "views this issue as a very localised one".

With the decision now made to move troops out of Turkey, Berlin can now "concentrate on other points" in its negotiations with Ankara, she added.

Germany has more than 250 troops stationed in Incirlik, flying surveillance missions over Syria and refuelling flights for partner nations battling the IS jihadists.

But the deployment has become a bone of contention after Ankara repeatedly refused to allow German lawmakers to visit the base.

Ankara had first denied German parliamentarians the right to travel to the site for several months last year, angered by a Bundestag vote to recognise the Ottoman Empire's World War I-era massacre of Armenians as a genocide.

A fresh row over lawmakers' visits to the air base erupted last month.

This time, Ankara was protesting the fact that Berlin offered political asylum to Turkish nationals accused of complicity in the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel travelled to Turkey on Monday to hold last-ditch talks with his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, but failed to sway Ankara.

After the talks, Cavusoglu repeated that "we would not like to see members of FETO take shelter in friendly country Germany", referring to a movement led by US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the failed coup.

Berlin has argued that it cannot deploy its soldiers in places which lawmakers are unable to visit, given that all military missions are mandated by parliament.

Von der Leyen said that Azraq in Jordan would be a new base for Germany's troops.

The transfer will disrupt its air refuelling missions for two or three weeks, while Tornado surveillance flights will cease for two to three months, she said.

"I will therefore immediately speak with the Americans (who lead) the international coalition against terror, on how the gaps can be filled so that there is no negative impact," she said, adding that "following that, we will draw up our time schedule".

The transfer will not require a new mandate from the German parliament, as the current one specifies the deployment site as the airspace over Syria and its neighbouring countries, but does not specify the base, von der Leyen said.

Ties between the NATO allies have been strained since the failed coup in Turkey, and tensions have worsened over multiple issues including a referendum campaign to expand Erdogan's powers.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FIREWEED ZINC LTD. (Fireweed or the Company) (TSXV:FWZ) is pleased to announce the appointment of George Gorzynski as Executive Vice President of the Company and the formation of several committees of the Board of Directors.



Appointment of Executive Vice President

George Gorzynski, a Director and Co-Founder of Fireweed, has been appointed as Executive Vice President of the Company. Mr. Gorzynski is a geological engineer with 35 years experience in exploration and mining company management, with strong technical, management and leadership skills. He has been instrumental in the formation and management of Fireweed from the very beginning, including negotiation of the option agreement for the Tom and Jason property with Hudbay Minerals Inc. and the completion of the Companys recent initial public offering and listing on the TSX Venture Exchange. Mr. Gorzynski has geological engineering degrees from the University of Toronto (Honours) and the University of British Columbia, and has worked on a number of zinc projects in British Columbia and Yukon.

Appointment of Committees

Fireweed has elected to form several committees of the Board of Directors to better access and benefit from the exceptional experience and skillset of its directors, and for the better governance of the Company. The newly constituted committees are comprised of the following members:

Compensation Committee

Chair: Dan Rogness

Members: Adrian Rothwell, Richard Hajdukiewicz, John Robins

Governance Committee

Chair: Adrian Rothwell

Members: Dan Rogness, Brandon Macdonald

Health, Safety and Environment Committee

Chair: Brandon Macdonald

Members: John Robins, George Gorzynski

Risk Management Committee

Chair: Richard Hajdukiewicz

Members: Adrian Rothwell, John Robins, Dan Rogness, Brandon Macdonald, George Gorzynski

About Fireweed Zinc Ltd.: Fireweed Zinc is a new public mineral exploration company focused on zinc and managed by a veteran team of mining industry professionals. This summer the Company will be advancing its Macmillan Pass Project where it has an option to acquire 100% of the Tom and Jason property in Yukon, Canada which is host to a large, advanced zinc project.

Additional information about Fireweed and its Macmillan Pass Project can be found on the Companys website at www.FireweedZinc.com and under the Companys profile on www.sedar.com.

ON BEHALF OF FIREWEED ZINC LTD.

Brandon Macdonald

CEO & 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 news release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to the Company and the Macmillan Pass Project that are based on the beliefs of Company management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Company management. Such statements reflect the current risks, uncertainties and assumptions related to certain factors including but not limited to, without limitations, exploration and development risks, expenditure and financing requirements, general economic conditions, changes in financial markets, the ability to properly and efficiently staff the Companys operations, the sufficiency of working capital and funding for continued operations, title matters, First Nations relations, operating hazards, political and economic factors, competitive factors, metal prices, relationships with vendors and strategic partners, governmental regulations and supervision, permitting, seasonality and weather, technological change, industry practices, and one-time events. Additional risks are set out in the Companys prospectus dated May 9, 2017 and filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Should any one or more risks or uncertainties materialize or change, or should any underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results and forward-looking statements may vary materially from those described herein. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forwardlooking information, except as required by law.
"He is staying in Paris and he is taking advantage of his stay to do a health check," Aurelien Agbenonci told AFP.

Talon's absence has been a hot topic in the tiny West African nation for several days. On Tuesday, Agbenonci denied that 59-year-old Talon was ill.

"The president of the republic did not leave Cotonou hastily, he is not ill and is well," Agbenonci said.

Talon did not appear at the latest Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit held in Liberia on June 4 or at a cabinet meeting of his senior ministers on May 31.
Cuba once got most of its oil cheap from its socialist ally Venezuela, largely paid for by exporting medical staff and supplies -- but economic crisis in Venezuela has stemmed the flow of crude.

That has caused "instability" of supplies on the communist island, says Roberto Suarez, joint director of the state oil monopoly Cuba Petroleo (CUPET).

"We are making every effort to explore and identify zones that might produce oil."

The island is being forced to look for alternatives at home as analysts warn that, without Venezuela, there are few available abroad.

Urgent search

Cut-price oil from Venezuela helped rescue Cuba from the downturn it suffered in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, its most powerful patron.

But Venezuela's oil exports have plunged by 40 percent since 2014, according to independent analysts.

Cuban authorities have been regularly resorting to energy rationing since last year.

Cuba consumes 130,000 barrels of oil a day but only produces 50,000 itself, estimates Jorge Pinon, a former oil executive and now an analyst at the University of Texas at Austin.

Venezuela for years supplied more than 100,000 barrels of crude a day to Cuba, which refined and exported the excess.

But that industry has declined too. UN statistics body Uncomtrade says output at the key Cienfuegos refinery plunged from $500 million in 2013 to $15.4 million last year.

A total halt to Venezuelan oil imports would cost Cuba $1.5 billion a year, Pinon estimates -- a further blow to its already grim finances after it entered recession last year.

Billions of barrels

Dressed in orange overalls, engineer Geisel Escalona supervises the work of the 58-meter (190-foot) drill, rented from the Chinese company Great Wall.

CUPET hopes to drill a well dubbed "Varadero 1,008" to tap part of a reserve which it estimates to hold 11 billion barrels of oil.

In the best case scenario for Havana, that would turn Cuba into a well-funded small power overnight -- able to project the Americas' only Communist regime years into the future.

But for now, there is no breakthrough.

The company's on-shore oil platforms have run dry and attempts to drill in the Gulf of Mexico have been fruitless.

Now, it is using a technique known as "horizontal drilling" in this village east of Havana, probing for possible off-shore oilfields with a drill that slants underground from an on-shore location.

"We have reached down to 1,350 meters... and we hope to get down to 8,200 meters," Escalona said.

CUPET already has nine other wells drilled in the broader Varadero zone. Between them they account for more than 98 percent of Cuba's home oil production, Suarez said.

Lifeline from Russia?

Cuba also appears to be reaching out beyond its shores -- it received 249,000 barrels of crude from Russian state oil firm Rosneft in May.

That was part of a deal for 1.8 million barrels signed in March with a Cuban state metal company. Full terms of the deal were not made public.

Pinon interpreted it as "a test for a lifeline while they wait for Venezuela's political and economic collapse."

However he judged that under the current political conditions, it was unlikely Moscow would return to supporting Cuba to the extent it did during the Cold War.

Other traditional allies such as Algeria and Iran, he said, also appear economically unable to do much to help Cuba at the moment.

"I know of no other country that has the financial strength, the level of oil production and the political alignment with Cuba which could replace Venezuela without it having an impact on the Cuban economy," said Pinon.
"America is perceived as being, on this, on the wrong side of history," Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters.

Trump announced the US exit from the 190-plus nation pact last week, drawing strong criticism from allies in Europe who vowed to turn to China and other countries as partners to implement the 2015 deal.

French President Emmanuel Macron has made a strong pledge to stand by the accord and similar reactions from India and China confirm that the Paris deal is "our common roadmap" to a low-carbon world, Delattre said.

The United States, the world's biggest carbon emitter after China, signed the agreement last year under the previous administration, but Trump has argued that the deal would harm the US economy.

Delattre said Trump's decision "goes beyond climate change policy" and is a "factor in the erosion of the moral and political leadership of the United States."

The decision could be perceived as "the birth certificate of the multipolar world" in which the United States is no longer "the most reliable guarantor of the world order," he added.

Trump's decision to scrap the Paris deal has left him isolated on the world stage and prompted a backlash at home, with several state governors, city mayors and powerful companies already drawing up plans to meet the pact's emission targets -- without Washington's backing.

Despite the setback on climate, Delattre expressed hope that the United States will nevertheless remain engaged in global affairs.
German police said a ferry docked in Rodby was searched by Danish police and another one at sea was escorted by a coast guard boat.

Ferry operator Scandlines had said on its website earlier that services had been halted because of "a threat", without giving further details.

"We received a threat by telephone and we didn't have any more information than that so we suspended all traffic," Scandlines spokeswoman Anette Ustrup Svendsen told AFP.

"They cried 'bomb alert' over the speakers, then we didn't know anything more," said passenger Jan Gustavsson, according to local daily Sydsvenskan.

A spate of attacks in Britain and France has heightened fears of terrorism across Europe.
The warning by General Vladimir Padrino Lopez, who is also Maduro's defense minister, came after more than two months of violent clashes between protesters and security forces.

The opposition and a press rights group say security forces have attacked, robbed and run over protesters and journalists.

Fresh clashes erupted Wednesday as thousands of protesters tried to march to the offices of the electoral authority from various points of the capital.

A 17-year-old boy was killed during a march in the Chacao district in eastern Caracas, taking the overall death toll since the beginning of April to 66, according to prosecutors.

The circumstances of the boy's death was being investigated, the public ministry said. Opposition leaders said security forces were to blame.

On Monday, videos published on social media had appeared to show security forces attacking and robbing people of their belongings.

"I do not want to see any more guards committing atrocities in the street," Padrino said in a public address on Tuesday.

"Whoever departs from state policy, which gives pre-eminence to respect for human rights, and who acts unprofessionally, will have to answer for it."

Opposition congressional speaker Julio Borges said ahead of Wednesday's protest: "We call on Padrino Lopez to make good on his word and let the march go ahead peacefully."

But as previously, riot police dispersed the demos with tear gas, water cannons and plastic bullets. Some demonstrators hurled petrol bombs and rocks.

The opposition-controlled legislature has accused Interior Minister Nestor Reverol of being responsible for the "repression" of protesters.

Reverol has been hit by US sanctions for alleged involvement in drug-trafficking.

Maduro's opponents are protesting to demand early elections to remove him from power. They blame him for a desperate economic crisis.

"We have to stay in the street until Maduro negotiates his departure or the military withdraws its support for him," senior opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said on Wednesday.
Under the two-year EU programme in force since September 2015, the country of 10.6 million people has only accepted 12 refugees from Greece, against its quota of 2,600 out of a total of 160,000 refugees to be relocated.

"It saddens me that the Czech Republic has only relocated 12 people last year and none since," Juncker said in a speech at Charles University in Prague.

Despite steering largely clear of the Czech Republic, the recent migrant wave has become a hot political topic in the country facing parliamentary elections in October and presidential elections early next year.

In a February poll by the Czech Academy of Sciences, some 61 percent of respondents said the Czech Republic should not accept any refugees, while only three percent said it should accept them and let them settle down.

Thirty-two percent said they would temporarily accept refugees but would want them to return once things calmed down in their countries of origin.

Juncker said he was "trying to understand the national sensitivities", but he urged the Czechs to show more solidarity.
At issue are allegations that the 2014 re-election of president Dilma Rousseff and her then-vice president Temer was fundamentally flawed because corrupt campaign funds were used.

If the court votes to scrap the election result, Temer -- who took over only last year when Rousseff was impeached -- could lose his job, forcing Brazil's congress to pick an interim president.

The upheaval comes just as Brazil has shown the first glimmers of exiting its worst recession in history.

The first judge scheduled to cast a vote was the coordinator of the case, Herman Benjamin. He is widely expected to rule against Temer.

However, the president of the TSE, Gilmar Mendes, has indicated he will vote for tossing out the charges.

Warning against "exaggerations," he said the court should not undermine the role of elections, or the "value of the popular will, whether it was right or wrong."

The court has been holding sometimes heated deliberations on the upcoming verdict since Tuesday, with sessions scheduled throughout Thursday and if necessary through Friday and Saturday.

Double trouble

If found guilty at the TSE, Temer would be able to appeal. But analysts say that the initial reading of the court's deliberations makes acquittal more likely.

jpegMpeg4-1280x720"There are growing signs President Michel Temer could well enjoy a majority on the court," Eurasia Group consultancy said.

Whatever the result of the TSE verdict, Temer faces an equally serious threat from a probe into alleged obstruction of justice.

Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot accuses Temer of having agreed to pay hush money to former lower house of Congress speaker Eduardo Cunha, who is in prison for corruption. Temer says the central piece of evidence -- a secretly made audio recording of a conversation he had with a meatpacking industry tycoon -- was doctored.

Analysts say that if the TSE absolves Temer, Janot could accelerate his own legal assault and present formal charges.

In that case, the lower house of Congress would have to approve the charges by a two thirds majority, likely forcing Temer's ouster. However, the process could be lengthy and Temer is working daily to maintain enough support among legislators to defeat the charges.
The feisty leader who is now the premier of the Western Cape province sparked a firestorm when she made the offending comment in March.

She wrote: "For those claiming legacy of colonialism was ONLY negative, think of our independent judiciary, transport infrastructure, piped water."

The party said the suspension was "decided by an overwhelming majority" and that sanction would remain until a disciplinary hearing was finalised.

"The suspension is effective immediately," said a statement.

The DA'S top executive said Zille's action had damaged the party.

"There is no question that Ms Zille's original tweets and subsequent justifications have damaged our standing in the public mind."

The party went on to say that Zille had "refused to take the appropriate action necessary to resolve this unfortunate and damaging matter."

On Saturday, DA leader Mmusi Maimane announced Zille's suspension, before backtracking to say a final decision would be made after she was given the chance to defend herself.

A date for the hearing has been set for June 9.

Zille who has a large twitter following is no stranger to controversial tweets.

Zille, 66, is credited with growing support for the DA among black people, whose votes helped it take control of key cities, including the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg, from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) after the local government elections last year.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdues Cradle of Astronauts added another name to its list with NASAs announcement of the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class.

Loral OHara of Sugar Land, Texas, and a 2009 Purdue graduate, was one of 12 people announced during ceremonies Wednesday (June 7) afternoon at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

OHara earned her masters degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Purdues College of Engineering. She currently serves as a research engineer at Woods Hole (Massachusetts) Oceanographic Institute, where she designs, builds, tests and operates underwater vehicles focused on scientific research and exploration.

OHara is one of five women in the 2017 astronaut class and the third Purdue alumna to earn the honor, following Janice E. Voss and Mary Ellen Weber.

Twenty-four Purdue alumni have been chosen as astronauts by NASA.

As a student at Purdue, OHara said she loved spaceflight for as long as she could remember. She enjoyed working with, among others, William Anderson, a professor in aeronautics and astronautics at that time, who taught her how to be a good researcher.

She also was part of the first all-female team in the rocket propulsion facilities at Purdues Maurice Zucrow Laboratory.

OHara will report for duty in August and undergo training for the next two years. Following training, she will be assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office while she awaits a flight assignment.

Purdue alum and current NASA astronaut Scott Tingle was among those to welcome the 2017 class in a taped presentation during the NASA ceremonies.

Travel safe. Well see you soon, Tingle said.

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu
NEW YORK, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bain & Company, the global business consulting firm, announces the appointment of Deborah Lee James as a special advisor in the firms Washington, DC office. Ms. James, former secretary of the U.S. Air Force, has more than 30 years of experience in national security and defense in both the federal government and the private sector. Her appointment was effective June 1, 2017.



Deborah brings to our team deep technical expertise in defense and government services, as well as extensive leadership experience, both of which will be critical in helping our clients address some of their toughest business challenges, said Phil Kleweno, who leads Bains DC office. We look forward to working with her as we guide these organizations through transformations that will measurably improve their performance.

In her role at Bain, Ms. James will advise aerospace, defense and government services clients. She will also work closely with Bains local leadership to cultivate relationships with high-potential individuals and companies in these and other industries in the region.

I look forward to working with some of the worlds most trusted business advisors at Bain to help leading organizations manage and win through these turbulent times, said Ms. James.

Prior to her Air Force service, Ms. James was president of the technical and engineering sector at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where she was responsible for 8,700 employees and more than $2 billion in revenue. For nearly a decade, she held a variety of other positions within SAIC, including senior vice president and director of homeland security.

From 2000 to 2001, she was executive vice president and COO at Business Executives for National Security. She also served as vice president of international operations and marketing at United Technologies.

During the Clinton Administration, Ms. James served in the Pentagon as the assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs. She has also worked as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, where she was a senior advisor to the Military Personnel and Compensation Subcommittee, the NATO Burden Sharing Panel, and the Chairmans Member Services team.

Ms. James sits on the board of the Atlantic Council and is a member of the advisory board of MIT Lincoln Laboratory. She also serves as a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic International Studies. Effective July 1, she will join the board of directors of Textron.

Ms. James earned her masters degree in international affairs from the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She graduated with her B.A. in comparative area studies from Duke University.



Editors Note: To arrange an interview with Ms. James, please contact Dan Pinkney at dan.pinkney@bain.com or +1 646 562 8102.

About Bain & Company

Bain & Company is the management consulting firm that the world's business leaders come to when they want results. Bain advises clients on strategy, operations, information technology, organization, private equity, digital transformation and strategy, and mergers and acquisition, developing practical insights that clients act on and transferring skills that make change stick. The firm aligns its incentives with clients by linking its fees to their results. Bain clients have outperformed the stock market 4 to 1. Founded in 1973, Bain has 55 offices in 36 countries, and its deep expertise and client roster cross every industry and economic sector. For more information visit: www.bain.com. Follow us on Twitter @BainAlerts.
RALEIGH, N.C., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Outcomes of the SANA Gerresheim series demonstrated that effective donor-site flap closure with TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive is a viable alternative to post-surgical drains. Dr. Sonia Fertsch presented the series, which included 41 DIEP flap breast reconstructions, at the EURAPS Research Council Meeting in Pisa last month. The annual event allows young surgeons to present top research initiatives to an audience of plastic surgeons and researchers from around the world.



During a DIEP flap reconstruction, blood vessels, skin and fat of the lower abdomen are removed and utilized to reconstruct a breast following mastectomy. The technique is widely recognized as the top option for autologous tissue breast reconstruction, but typically requires the use of several surgical drains at the donor site during recovery. Drains may cause discomfort, anxiety and limited mobility during recovery and are often a deterrent for patients when considering treatment options.

The Department of Plastic Surgery at the SANA Clinic in Gerresheim, Germany, headed up by Prof. Christoph Andree, is a top center for reconstruction and performs approximately 200 DIEP procedures per year. The group, dedicated to improving recovery and acceptance of DIEP flap reconstructions, began evaluating TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive in 2015 with hopes it would enable drain-free donor site recovery.

The choice of using a patients own tissue for breast reconstruction has clear benefits with respect to implant based reconstruction, and patients who are candidates for DIEP flap-based reconstruction appreciate the reduction in abdominal skin and fatty tissue, says Prof. Christoph Andree. Being able to offer this procedure without the use of donor site drains improves the patient experience in the early recovery period and leads to earlier mobilization  one of the key milestones in postoperative recovery.

Dr. Fertsch, who led the observational series, said: Many of our patients have had experience with post-surgical drains in the past and they are very enthusiastic about the possibility that they may be able to avoid having them as part of the DIEP flap breast reconstruction procedure. It is not for all patients, but it is a welcome option for those who meet the criteria we have developed based on our clinical outcomes data.

Mart Pearson, VP Europe for Cohera Medical, Inc. added: We were very pleased that this series report on drain-free donor site closure with TissuGlu was selected for presentation at such a high-level meeting. Prof. Andree and his team at the SANA Clinic in Gerresheim have been very attentive to the patient perspective with regards to the post-surgical recovery period and it is exciting to have their experience discussed at this venue.

About Cohera Medical



Cohera Medical, Inc. is a growing medical device company that is developing and commercializing a line of surgical adhesives and sealants. Cohera Medicals products are based on a unique chemical design that is resorbable, non-toxic, and easy-to-use. The Companys lead product, TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive, is indicated for use in the U.S. for the approximation of tissue planes in abdominoplasty procedures. Refer to the complete Directions for Use information available at TissuGlu.com for a full description of use information including the contraindications, warnings, precautions, benefits, and risks of use of TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive. TissuGlu is currently approved for sale in the EU for the approximation of tissue layers where subcutaneous dead space exists between the tissue planes in large flap surgical procedures such as abdominoplasty and is being utilized in Europe to eliminate drains or reduce complications in patients undergoing large flap surgical procedures such as abdominoplasty, mastectomy, ventral hernia repair, decubitus and latissimus dorsi flap procedures. The Companys second product under development, Sylys Surgical Sealant, the first synthetic sealant designed specifically to help reduce anastomotic leaks, has received CE Mark approval in Europe as an adjunct to standard closure in ileostomy reversal procedures. TissuGlu and Sylys are the first products in a pipeline of technology that includes adhesives for surgical mesh fixation, meniscal repair and other orthopedic indications. Sylys and the other Cohera Medical products are currently available for investigational use only and have not yet been approved for sale by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S.

Certain statements made throughout this press release that are not historical facts contain forward-looking statements regarding the Companys future plans, objectives and expected performance. Any such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that the Company believes are reasonable, but are subject to a wide range of risks and uncertainties and, therefore, there can be no assurance that actual results may not differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

 2017 Cohera Medical, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Cohera Medical, Inc., TissuGlu and Sylys are registered trademarks of Cohera Medical, Inc.

TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive is covered by one or more of the following U.S. Patents 7,264,823; 8,182,647; 8,652,293; 8,950,629. Other Patents Pending.
DAVENPORT  Police say a man whose body was found early Wednesday morning was the victim of a homicide.

Around 2:32 a.m. Wednesday, Davenport Police were called for a report of a gunshot victim at a residence in the 1000 block of West 8th Street, according to a police department news release.

When officers arrived, they found the body of Cainnan Gates, 34, of Davenport, he was pronounced dead at the residence.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact Davenport Police at 563-326-6125 or Crime Stoppers at 309-762-9500. People also can provide information anonymously through the city's mobile apps CityConnect Davenport, IA orCrimeReports by Motorola.
SILVIS  Council members on Tuesday unanimously approved recent emergency HVAC repairs and the installation of new security cameras.

Emergency repairs had to be made to the HVAC system last week when the blower broke down, but the council still has to get approval for them, said Silvis City Clerk Jim Nelson.

Also on Tuesday, the council advanced an ordinance authorizing Mayor Matt Carter to sign an intergovernmental agreement for the QComm911 emergency dispatch center. The consolidation is being mandated by the state.

"We had to decide if we were going to partner with the City of East Moline, the City of Moline and the Village of Milan, or we had to go to Rock Island," said Mr. Nelson. "Those were our two options, so we went with East Moline, Moline and Milan."

Council members also approved refinancing a bond issued in 2008 because Silvis has received a better rating. Mr. Nelson said the city will be assisted by Ice Miller LLP and Bernardi Securities.

The next council meeting is at 6:30 p.m. June 20 in the Silvis City Hall, 121 11th St.
Nokia IP/MPLS technology strengthens the performance of Skyguide's air traffic management and aeronautical information services throughout the country

New network to enable Skyguide to expand service offerings and deliver enhanced quality while maintaining its exceptional safety standards

June 8, 2017

Espoo, Finland - Nokia and Skyguide today announced the first stage of a successful modernization of the mission-critical communications network that is at the heart of Switzerland's air traffic control system. The new network from Nokia, which will continue to be rolled out over the course of 2017, is enabling skyguide to enhance the management of both civil and military air traffic throughout the country, and is also supporting services such as its aeronautical information service which ensures the flow of information necessary for the safety and efficiency of international air travel.

For this project Nokia supplied its Internet Protocol/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) technology, which provides the high-performance, reliability, resiliency, security and efficiency needed to support extremely demanding, latency-sensitive services. The IP/MPLS network delivers more capacity and replaces earlier generation, legacy equipment which is reaching end-of-life.

The IP/MPLS network features Nokia's 7705 Service Aggregation Router (SAR) portfolio. The network provides scalable virtual private network (VPN) services, enabling Skyguide to support existing as well as new high-bandwidth applications. The network is managed by Nokia's Network Services Platform for efficient provisioning, maintenance and monitoring. The company also provided professional services including architecture and design, installation, integration, commissioning and training.

This agreement builds on Nokia's strong track-record providing mission-critical networks to the transportation market worldwide. It also highlights the progress of Nokia's strategy of expanding its customer base outside of the traditional telecommunications sphere, a key focus of the company.

Dr. Klaus Meier, Technical Director & CIO, Skyguide, said: "Ensuring the safety of the flying public is our most important job, and one to which we are absolutely committed. We turned to Nokia because of their many years of experience developing and deploying mission-critical networks. The IP/MPLS network provided by Nokia will help us bolster the safety, reliability and efficiency of Switzerland's air traffic control system today and in the future."

Patrick Langelaan, Head of Global Enterprise & Public Sector Europe South for Nokia, said: "Nokia has put a great deal of focus on ensuring that our mission-critical networks can address the most stringent requirements for reliability, security and efficiency. Clearly, air traffic control demands the highest possible performance, which we were able to demonstrate for skyguide over an intense testing period."

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About Skyguide

Skyguide provides air navigation services for Switzerland and certain adjacent parts of neighbouring countries. With its 1,500 employees at 14 locations in Switzerland, the company guides some 1.2 million civil and military flights a year safely and efficiently through Europe's busiest airspace. Skyguide is well integrated into the international air navigation services community and, with its innovative and customer-minded solutions, helps enhance Switzerland's appeal as a place to live, work and do business. The company is majority-owned by the Swiss Confederation, and is headquartered in Geneva.

Media Enquiries:

Nokia Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.com

Skyguide:

Vladi Barrosa

Media Officer

Media Relations: +41 22 417 40 08

presse@skyguide.ch
Id like to address the elephant in the room. That elephant being the Republican Party and their refusal to represent the majority of their constituents. Lets begin with stricter gun control (something that would help lessen the fears parents have when sending their children off to school), 53% of Americans favor this (Pew Research) yet the elephant in the room refuses to consider any such thing. Over 70% of Americans want stricter background checks yet again; the elephant in the room refuses to represent them. 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Again, the elephant in the room pushes laws that do the opposite. 74% of Americans do not want social security reduced in any way. But the elephant in the room pushes to do just the opposite, cut social security. 63% of Americans now prefer Medicare for all, but the elephant in the room fights it with all its might. 67% of Americans feel more needs to be done to reduce climate change, but not the elephant in the room. The elephant sides with the fossil fuel industry claiming its not a big concern. Given these few statistics (there are more like them) its obvious that the Republican Party is the party of minority rule, quite the opposite of what our founding fathers envisioned. The Republican Party has become a power cult, not a party that represents the majority of Americans. Remember this while you mark your ballot in this midterm election. Save Democracy! Vote Democratic!
Celebrating Our Service Members

Friday, November 11 is Veterans Day, when we honor and show gratitude to all members of our Armed Forces  those currently serving, those who...

Transit Equity Starts With QueensLink

For decades Queens has seen a disinvestment in the necessary transit infrastructure the borough needs to promote equity and sustainability. Most of the time, transformative...
THIS years British 10K is fast approaching  and six runners are ready to go the distance in aid of QPR in the Community Trust.

A 10K with more than its fair share of scenery, the Vitality British 10K London Run  taking place on Sunday 9th July  passes over 30 of Londons iconic sights including Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, the London Eye and more.

All abilities are represented  the British 10K London is popular with both seasoned runners and those who are running a 10K race for the first time.

Amongst the 25,000+ runners this year are Colin Clarke, Clare Sharp, James Casling, Conor McBrearty and Lynn and Martin Wilson, all of whom are running in aid of the Rs charitable arm.

You can sponsor each of them ahead of the big day below.

Click HERE to sponsor Colin Clarke

Click HERE to sponsor Clare Sharp

Click HERE to sponsor James Casling

Click HERE to sponsor Conor McBrearty

Click HERE to sponsor Lynn and Martin Wilson
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!
Latvian English

1. Reports of Board, Supervisory Council and statement of Sworn auditor

To take notice of the reports of the Board, the Supervisory Council and the statement of the sworn auditor of joint stock company Grindeks.

Voting results: decision is taken with required majority of votes.



2. Approval of Annual report for the year 2016

To approve the following Annual Reports for the year 2016 prepared by the Board of joint stock company Grindeks and revised by the Supervisory Council of joint stock company Grindeks:

1) Annual Report for the year 2016 of joint stock company Grindeks prepared in accordance with the legislative acts of the Republic of Latvia;

2) Consolidated annual Report for the year 2016 of joint stock company Grindeks prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS);

Voting results: decision is taken with required majority of votes.



3. Distribution of the profit for the year 2016

The net profit of joint stock company Grindeks for the year 2016 in amount of EUR 8 639 818 distribute as follows:

1) to pay EUR 1 437 750 or EUR 0.15 (fifteen cents) per one share to shareholders in dividends, setting August 1, 2017 as the date of calculation of dividends and August 8, 2017 as the date of payment of dividends;

2) to leave EUR 7 202 068 undistributed and use it for the development of joint stock company Grindeks to increase the competitiveness of joint stock company Grindeks.

Voting results: decision is taken with required majority of votes.



4. Election of the auditor and determination of the remuneration for the auditor

1) To elect Deloitte Audits Latvia Ltd. (certificate number 43) as auditor of the Annual Reports of joint stock company Grindeks for the year 2017.

2) To determine the remuneration for the auditor of the Annual Reports of joint stock company Grindeks for the year 2017 in the amount of EUR 47 500, not including taxes provided by the legislative acts.

3) To assign the Board of joint stock company Grindeks to sign the contract with the elected auditor for audit of the Annual Reports of joint stock company Grindeks for the year 2017.

Voting results: decision is taken with required majority of votes.



5. Election of the Audit Committee and determination of the remuneration for the Audit Committee

1) To elect for the office of the member of joint stock company Grindeks Audit Committee for the term three years:

1. Janis Naglis;

2. Uldis Osis;

3. Valdis Garoza.

Voting results: decision is taken by dividing votes.

2) To determine EUR 3000 monthly remuneration for all Audit Committee members together.

Voting results: decision is taken with required majority of votes.

On behalf of the Board of joint stock company Grindeks,

Chairman of the Board J.Bundulis
GE Transportation will provide Pakistan Railways with 20 FDL C20EMP locomotives, a follow-on order to 55 Evolution Series units ordered in 2015, of which 32 are in service.

These lighter-weight, 2,000-hp locomotives will be operated in freight and passenger service, and will primarily be used in Pakistans mountainous northern territory between Karachi and Lahore, with Peshawar and Quetta added later on. Freight service will consist mostly of oil and coal, supporting the business community in Faisalabad and Multan.

We continue to make great strides towards reaching the transportation goal as part of the countrys Vision 2025 plan, said Khawaja Saad Rafique, Federal Minister, Pakistan Railways. Modernizing rail transportation and improving regional connectivity are critical components of the governments plan, and were confident that our relationship with GE will help achieve these goals.

GEs long-standing relationship with Pakistan Railways is a testament to our reliability and innovation within the rail space, said Sarim Sheikh, President & CEO, GE Pakistan. We look forward to delivering strong locomotives that help the country reach its goals in improving rail infrastructure across the country, improving the quality of services to citizens and supporting the nations economy. Pakistan Railways agreement to purchase FDL locomotives further supports the Government of Pakistans desire to increase the share of rail in transportation from 4% to 20% within the next 10 years.
Wabtec Corp. has signed a contract worth approximately $22 million to design, install, test and commission Positive Train Control (PTC) for the Belt Railway Company of Chicago (BRC).

Wabtec will provide its Interoperable Electronic Train Management System (I-ETMS) equipment for five locomotives, a back-office server, office hosting, wayside and communications design, a track database, construction, training, and system integration. The contract is expected to be completed in 2018.

BRC owns and operates about 292 miles of track, with about 27 miles of main line track encompassed in two subdivisions: Kenton and 59th Street. The railroads PTC interoperability requirements are complex, Wabtec notes. BRCs PTC system will be fully interoperable with the PTC system being implemented by all its Class I owners as well as Metra, Amtrak and five short-line railroads.

The scope of our work on this project demonstrates the wide-ranging roles that Wabtec can play in the implementation of PTC for our customers, said Wabtec President and CEO Raymond T. Betler. We are continuing to invest worldwide in this important segment of our business.
HNTB Corp., which is providing Positive Train Control (PTC) engineering and consulting services for numerous projects, has expanded its PTC capabilities by adding two experienced practitioners to assist transit and rail clients in moving toward compliance and help them address growing infrastructure needs and the approaching legislative deadline of year-end 2018.

Michael Bogonovich is a senior systems project engineer with more than three decades of experience delivering transportation projects. He specializes in the design, integration, manufacture, commissioning, operations and maintenance of rail transit vehicles, control and security systems and electrical systems for facilities. Prior to joining HNTB, Bogonovich worked with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) as program manager and the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) as senior rail systems engineer. He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, with a minor in electrical engineering and metallurgy, from the University of Pittsburgh.

Michael Haverstick is a PTC systems project engineer with more than 26 years of experience in transit and rail communication systems. His experience includes communication system design, specification development, project management, communication system installations, and maintenance management of large scale integrated communications systems. Prior to joining HNTB, he worked with the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver as communication system project and technical lead for Denver Eagle P3, and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) as manager of communication systems on the Orange and Blue Line Design-Build Light Rail Expansion Projects. He holds an Associates degree in electronic engineering technology from Pennco Technical Institute.

Bogonovich and Haverstick are based in Denver, and support the firms rail systems and PTC projects across the nation.

HNTB is providing a range of planning, design, implementation and support activities on PTC projects in an advisory capacity nationally and for transit agencies around the country. Great progress has been made in PTC compliance, but there is much work to be done to meet the looming 2018 federal deadline, said IHNTB National Rail and Transit Business Development Director and Senior Vice President Ian Choudri. Both Michael Bogonovich and Michael Haverstick provide our clients with technical counsel and expertise as PTC roll out moves through installation and testing.

Among HNTBs PTC projects are RTD (Denver); North County Transit District (San Diego); Brightline express passenger rail service between Miami and Orlando; Central Florida Rail Corridor/SunRail; New Jersey Transit; and Sound Transit (Seattle). Work being performed includes signal engineering, communication engineering, safety engineering, quality assurance and project management. HNTB is currently involved with many of the nations most high-profile transit programs, including the Los Angeles Metro Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor, Charlotte Area Transit Systems LYNX Blue Line Extension in North Carolina, Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, and the Bay Area Rapid Transit Warm Springs Extension in San Francisco.
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President Trump's proposed fiscal year 2018 budget ( PDF ) would eliminate a Department of Homeland Security laboratory dedicated to countering bioterrorism and providing the science behind response and recovery efforts should an attack occur.

The proposal to eliminate this lab without creating replacement capabilities elsewhere could place the U.S. at risk at a time when biotechnology proliferation is increasing access to the knowledge and capabilities for developing bioterror weapons. To further emphasize this point, consider that Bill Gateswho has given billions of dollars to global public health causesrecently said a bioterror attack could wipe out 30 million people, and such an attack is becoming more likely.

The president's proposed budget, if it were to be adopted by Congress, would zero out funding for the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC) at Fort Detrick, halting all science as of March 2018 and closing the facility by September 2018. NBACC was created in the aftermath of the anthrax attacks of October and November 2001 which sickened 22 people, five of whom died, and caused some 30,000 people exposed to the highly pathogenic anthrax to begin a regimen of high-strength antibiotics. It also required the decontamination of several office buildings and postal handling facilities at a cost of approximately $320 million.

Following the anthrax attacks, shortfalls in the nation's bioterrorism preparedness and response capabilities became clearer. The U.S. lacked the facilities, procedures, and people to examine threats at the intersection of terrorism and biotechnology and to conduct forensics in the event of a biological attack.

This threat characterization capability allows operators, law enforcement, public health, and decisionmakers to understand the risk of a bioterror attack and the preparedness and response capabilities that should be developed. It also provides a scientific rationale for determining what equipment and medical countermeasures are stored in the strategic national stockpile maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The NBACC's scientists also are capable of conducting experiments to determine what level of concern is warranted if a potential threat is identified. The NBACC also has bioforensics analysis capabilities. This provides the ability to understand how and potentially where a pathogen was prepared, its virulence and physical characteristics, and even what medical countermeasures and decontamination techniques might be the most effective. Much of the forensics work is done on behalf of the FBI, with the NBACC's experts prepared to maintain chain of custody for samples and testify in court against bioterror suspects.

NBACC remains a one-of-a-kind facility that provides the U.S. an insurance policy. Its work can help determine how a variety of actors, from lone wolf terrorists to well-financed terror cells, could develop and deploy biological weapons against American targets. It allows experts to work in the highest containment laboratories with the most dangerous pathogens to protect the nation from a strategic threat, one that some have called the poor man's atomic bomb.

The proliferation of biotechnology coupled with the increasing use of technology by terrorists suggests a growing likelihood of a bioterrorist attack. Al Qaeda, in a previous version of its Inspire magazine, had called for like-minded scientistsbiologists and chemiststo conduct attacks. More recently, ISIS has called for attacks using available means. The degree to which the U.S. will be prepared to respond could be directly related to the preparations made now at NBACC.

Closing NBACC would leave the nation without these critical capabilities. No other such facility exists anywhere in the United States. It was established based on what the government determined to be a critical operational need. It is maintained at significant cost, and like most insurance policies, these costs may not be universally perceived as good investments until, God forbid, they might be needed in a crisis. In the event of a bioterror attack, NBACC would be on the front lines, providing essential information that would inform decisionmakers and save lives.

The initial proposal to zero out the capabilities currently invested in NBACC would seem at the very least worth a second look by policymakers. They should assess whether NBACC's capabilities, as an insurance policy, is a price worth paying when weighed against the potential cost in human terms of even a limited bioterror attack.

Daniel M. Gerstein works at the RAND Corporation and is an adjunct professor at American University. He was the undersecretary (acting) and deputy undersecretary in the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security from 2011-2014. Gerstein oversaw the NBACC during his time at DHS.

This commentary originally appeared on The Hill on June 6, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Sixty-four years ago the Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953 and killed more than 36,000 American soldiers, was suspended with a cease-fire agreement. A peace treaty, however, was never signed. The war never came to a formal end.

North Korean leaders have long attached importance to formally ending the war. Over the years they have repeatedly raised the prospect of a peace treaty to resolve the many issues that the 1953 armistice left unaddressed, most notably agreement on the permanent division of the Korean Peninsula.

At various times the North Koreans have proposed negotiating a treaty with the United States, at other times with South Korea. In recent years, China has also urged the opening of such negotiations.

The North Koreans want a definitive declaration of peace, not just a truce, as reassurance that they won't be attacked and as recognition by the United States, South Korea and the rest of the world that their country is a sovereign state and legitimate power.

Successive American presidents have insisted on a number of preconditions before any serious peace negotiations could start, including a commitment to denuclearization and the halting of further missile tests. But North Korea's supreme leader, Kim Jong-un, is unlikely to agree to give up his country's nuclear and missile programs without receiving convincing assurances that he will not suffer the fate of Saddam Hussein of Iraq or Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.

Kim Jong-un is unlikely to give up his nuclear and missile programs without convincing assurances.

Formally ending the Korean War, including American recognition of the government in Pyongyang and an opening of diplomatic relations, is an essential component of such assurance. How can we persuade the North Korean leadership that they have nothing to fear if we won't agree to definitively end the old conflict?

Back in the Cold War, the United States and its West German ally faced some similar challenges.

In 1974 the United States recognized the German Democratic Republic and opened an embassy in East Berlin, while continuing to regard the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) as the sole legitimate successor government of the historical German state and of a future reunified Germany, which actually occurred 16 years later. One can imagine using similarly creative ideas in a peace treaty to bridge some of the differences between the two Koreas.

The Trump administration is giving one more try to longstanding efforts to compel Pyongyang's denuclearization by employing intensified sanctions, cooperation with China and the threatened use of military force. Yet the new president in Seoul, Moon Jae-in, has promised a much softer stance toward North Korea and is likely to be open to direct talks with Pyongyang. President Trump himself has indicated a willingness to talk to Kim Jong-un.

One way or another, a peace agreement ending the Korean War is most likely a necessary element to any resolution of the North Korean nuclear challenge. American officials should be considering what would make an agreement work: What governments would participate? How would an agreement be verified and enforced?

Negotiations should not be pursued naively. The United States must not halt military exercises or take actions that would otherwise jeopardize its longstanding alliance with Seoul and give cause for other allies to question American commitment to regional security. At every step negotiators need to keep in mind that North Korea may not live up to its promises, as has been the case numerous times in the past.

The complete dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs should remain Washington's ultimate objective. Standing ready to formally end the old war may be the key to getting there without starting a new one.

James Dobbins, a former United States diplomat, is a senior fellow at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Jeffrey Hornung is a political scientist at RAND.

This commentary originally appeared on New York Times on June 8, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Given the Trump administration's embrace of Riyadh as a counterterrorism partner, we are likely to hear calls in Washington to align with Saudi Arabia and against Qatar in the current Gulf Arab dispute. Indeed, the Saudis and other key Arab states targeting Qatar (namely the United Arab Emirates and Egypt) appear to be courting U.S. support as evidenced by their tailor made for Washington framing of the crisis: that it is driven by Doha providing sanctuary and support to extremist groups. But the administration should resist the temptation to take sides. From the perspective of U.S. strategic interests, the desired outcome is eventual reconciliation among these regional partners, and the Saudi-led collective has sufficient leverage to achieve that without the U.S. further isolating Qatar and embroiling itself in a thorny regional dispute.

Staying above the fray appeared to be Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's initial impulse. At the onset of the crisis he noted, We certainly would encourage the parties to sit down together and address these differences.if there's any role that we can play in terms of helping them address those, we think it is important that the GCC remain unified. However, President Trump took a different tack a few days later, noting that Qatar was singled out at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh as a source of extremist funding, and appearing to suggest that his engagement at this forum had pushed the Saudi-led bloc to act against Qatar.

As the leading power in the Middle East, the U.S. relies on a web of basing access that enables its power projection. Qatar, which hosts the main command and control center for the U.S. Air Force in the region, is a pivotal hub in that network. The backstory of how the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) was established in Qatar is instructive. From the mid-1990s until the early 2000s, the U.S. relied on Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia to play the role of command center for its forward air operations. But in 2003, Saudi domestic resentment of U.S. presencemade much more visible by the Iraq warforced the CAOC's relocation to Qatar. Current administration officials who see shifting U.S. Air Force assets from Qatar as a show of solidarity with the Saudis would do well to keep in mind how the U.S. ended up there in the first place.

Not only has Qatar been pivotal to U.S. military operations in the region, there is also no upside to taking sides in the current crisis.

Not only has Qatar been pivotal to U.S. military operations in the region, there is also no upside to taking sides in the current crisis. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, the internationally recognized government in Yemen and the leadership in Eastern Libya have all suspended diplomatic and commercial links to Qatar, including air travel. Saudi Arabia has completely shut Qatar's only land border in a country that imports 90 percent of its food, much of it through its border with the Saudis. The Qatari stock market is plunging. The Saudi bloc within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has a stronger hand than Qatar, and has used its leverage in the past to wrest concessions from Doha. Given the mounting and unprecedented pressure on Qatar this time around, it's likely Qatar will make concessions again without any additional pressure from the U.S. Indeed, there are already reports of leading Hamas figures departing Doha.

There are also some significant downsides to playing favorites. Should the U.S. join the Saudis, Emiratis, and Bahrainis in isolating Qatar, the intended effect may be counterproductive. Two allegations against Qatar are that Doha has played loose and fast with supporting opposition groups in Syria that have jihadist sympathies and that Qatar has been too accommodating of Iran. While geography dictates a less confrontational Qatari position on Iran (the two countries share the largest natural gas field in the world), Iran is already capitalizing on the crisis by offering to export food and goods into Qatar through its ports given the Saudi blockade. Qatar flights are already flying over Iranian airspace to reach destinations in Europe. And it's hard to imagine that this turmoil among regional partners is not distracting from the already difficult task of forging a regional anti-ISIS coalition....

The remainder of this commentary is available on nationalinterest.org.

Dalia Dassa Kaye is the director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy and a senior political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. Jeff Martini is a senior Middle East researcher at the RAND Corporation.

This commentary originally appeared on The National Interest on June 7, 2017. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
Atlanta, GA, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ScottMadden, Inc., one of North Americas leading energy consulting firms, recently released its Spring Energy Industry Update. Themed Its the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), this report focuses on the strategic drivers propelling our industry, including energy regulatory changes under the new Trump administration. What are the potential energy policy changes reversals, shifts, and debatesand what do they mean for energy?

The first months of the Trump administration have seen some proposed changes in energy and environmental policy and spending. While rapid action had been expected early on, some actions are proving to take more time than initially thought. Initiatives like infrastructure spending are dependent upon Congressional actions and, therefore, must be balanced with other legislative priorities like tax reform and health care. And, potential federal policy changes to support nuclear and fossil generation will continue to tangle with economic realities like continued low natural gas prices and state-level policy activity. Finally, staffing of political appointees and policymaking positions (such as FERC commissioners) is proving to be yet another barrier to the rapid action initially anticipated by some industry observers.

Its still to be seen what the complete picture of Trump administration energy policy initiatives might be, said Rick Starkweather, partner and regulatory practice leader at ScottMadden. As we look for that picture to more fully emerge, we expect that states will be incubators of regulatory and policy change, now and in the coming months and years. And, once the FERC has a quorum, we may see changes in wholesale markets and a changing federal-state dynamic begin to take shape.

Potential policy changes vary by sector, as do their potential impacts. This report dives into the implications for environmental policy, fossil generation, nuclear power, natural gas, tax reform, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and grid transformation.

If you were unable to join our Energy Industry Update webcast, the complimentary recording is now available. Hear what our industry experts have to say about solar curtailment, Australias response to distributed generation, and the trends toward smart cities in this new session.

About ScottMaddens Energy Practice

We know energy from the ground up. Since 1983, we have been energy consultants. We have served more than 400 clients, including 20 of the top 20 energy utilities. We have performed more than 3,000 projects across every energy utility business unit and every function. We have helped our clients develop strategies, improve operations, reorganize companies, and implement initiatives. Our broad and deep energy utility expertise is not theoreticalit is experience based.

About ScottMadden, Inc.

ScottMadden is the management consulting firm that does what it takes to get it done right. Our practice areas include Energy, Clean Tech & Sustainability, Corporate & Shared Services, and Grid Transformation. We deliver a broad array of consulting services ranging from strategic planning through implementation across many industries, business units, and functions. To learn more, visit www.scottmadden.com | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

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By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 06/07/2017



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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.

Former contestant Danny Dias has sadly died at the young age of 34.The former MTV star was found dead in his Brooklyn, NY, apartment on Saturday, June 3, according to Us Weekly.A New York Police Public Information Officer revealed to Us that authorities responded to a 911 call at approximately 5PM that day. Once police arrived at 896 Flushing Avenue, they "discovered a 34-year-old male unconscious and unresponsive.""The EMS responded and pronounced the male deceased at the scene," the PIO continued. "No criminality suspected at this time. The Medical Examiner is going to determine the cause of death. There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing."Dias was found with two vertical lacerations on his forearm, TMZ reported, and so police are now treating the case as a possible suicide.Law enforcement sources told TMZ that Dias was home in his apartment on Saturday with a friend, who allegedly saw the former reality TV star take what he believed were hallucinogenic drugs -- LSD and mushrooms.The friend reportedly said Dias "freaked out" and ran into his room after allegedly taking the drugs, which was the last time he saw Dias alive.According to TMZ, the friend left Dias' apartment but called him over the next two days, receiving no response, which was alarming. The friend therefore reportedly called 911 to request that someone check on Dias.First responders allegedly had to force their way into Dias' bedroom, where the former MTV star was found unconscious.Dias was from Linden, NJ, and competed on Season 13 of in 2004 alongside cast members including Derrick Kosinski, Patrick Maloney, and Jodi Weatherton.Dias later appeared on The Challenge in 2005, but he lasted only four episodes. The Challenge was originally known as : All Stars before it was also dubbed Real World/ Challenge.After his two reality TV stints, Dias worked in finance, studied acting and co-founded an AIDS research charity called Generation Cure.
Harrisburg, PA, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) are pleased to honor Patty Wetterling with the 2017 Gail-Burns Smith Award. Wetterling, who is the co-founder of the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center and Team H.O.P.E., will receive the award during the 2017 National Sexual Assault Conference held in Dallas, Texas June 7-9.

Presented jointly by ATSA and NSVRC, the award is named in honor of Gail Burns-Smith, one of the first advocates to recognize and speak publicly about the importance of collaboration between victim advocates and those working in the area of sex offender management to effectively prevent child sexual abuse.

Wetterling has worked tirelessly to educate professionals and the public, advocate for children and prevention, support parents in their darkest hours, and ultimately make the world safer. Along with her husband Jerry, she founded the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center shortly after their 11-year-old son Jacob was abducted in 1989. The Jacob Wetterling Resource Center provides services to families of missing children and support for prevention programming throughout the state of Minnesota.

In addition, Wetterling co-founded Team H.O.P.E., a volunteer group that provides support and resources for families with missing or exploited children. She has also served in leadership roles with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and served as the Director of Sexual Violence Prevention for the Minnesota Department of Health until she retired in 2015.

Karen Baker, NSVRC Director, notes I have been inspired by the professional accomplishments of each of our honorees since the award began in 2010, but Patty is unique. Her commitment to the work comes from unimaginable personal heartbreak and yet she finds the strength and courage to continually uplift the positive. She chose to commit her personal and professional life to prevention  to making our world safe for all children, even though it was not for her own.

ATSAs Executive Director, Maia Christopher, adds It is such an honor and a joy to know Patty. Her courage, warmth, compassion, and determination make a deep impression on everyone she meets. She is an inspiration to all the friends, colleagues, and parents who know her  and most of all, she has been a great gift to children. I am honored to be able to present her with this well-deserved award in recognition of her many contributions.

ABOUT ATSA

The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) is an international, multidisciplinary organization dedicated to preventing sexual abuse. ATSA has member chapters throughout the world; and informs evidence-based public policy and prevention initiatives. Visit www.atsa.com for more information on the treatment and management of individuals who have sexually abused or are at risk to abuse.

ABOUT NSVRC

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is the leading nonprofit in providing information and tools to prevent and respond to sexual violence. NSVRC translates research and trends into best practices that help individuals, communities and service providers achieve real and lasting change. The center also works with the media to promote informed reporting and sponsors a Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) prevention campaign each April. Visit NSVRC online at www.nsvrc.org.
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IRVING, Texas, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- According to a new market report published by Lucintel, the future of the BOPA film market looks attractive with opportunities in the packaging, automotive, construction, and electrical & electronic industries. The global BOPA film market is expected to reach an estimated $3.4 billion by 2022 and is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2017 to 2022. The major growth drivers for this market are increasing demand for flexible packaging due to the growth in food & pharmaceutical market and superior mechanical strength, higher transparency, chemical resistance, and excellent gas barrier properties as compared to biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) and biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate (BOPET) film.



This report has 128 figures/charts and 122 tables spread through 194 pages. For more detail please click http://www.lucintel.com/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx

In this market, sequential, simultaneous, and blown process are used to produce BOPA films. Lucintel forecasts that the sequential process is expected to remain the largest segment due to low-cost, flexibility in the process while stretching, and high production rate. Simultaneous process is expected to witness the highest growth in the forecast period supported by the increasing demand for high value BOPA films for advanced applications, such as retortable pouches.

Free customization on reports @ http://www.lucintel.com/fc/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx

Within the BOPA film market, food packaging is expected to remain the largest end use industry; it is also expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period, supported by the growth in demand for processed meat, red meat, and cheese packaging. Lucintel predicts that the demand for BOPA films in barrier functions is expected to remain the largest segment; it is also expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period supported by superior protection properties, such as loss from aroma, permeation of water, increases shelf-life, maintain taste.

Download Free PDF Report Brochure here http://www.lucintel.com/rb/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx

Asia Pacific is expected to remain the largest market by value and volume and is also expected to witness the highest growth over the forecast period because of growth in the demand for food and pharmaceutical packaging, automobile, and construction sectors due to economic expansions in India and China.

Pre-Purchase Query @ http://www.lucintel.com/pq/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx

Emerging trends, which have a direct impact on the dynamics of the industry, include growing use of linear simultaneous stretching line (LISIM) technique and growing demand for balanced film with better dimensional stability and less shrinkage. Unitika Ltd., Green Seal Holding, Domo Chemicals, Toray, and A.J. Plast are among the major suppliers of BOPA film.

The study includes a forecast for the global BOPA film market by process, function, end use industry, and region as follows:

By Process [Volume (Kilotons) and $M shipment analysis for 2011  2022]:

Sequential

Simultaneous

Blown

By function [Volume (Kilotons) and $M shipment analysis for 2011  2022]:

Barrier

Safety

Microporous

Others

By End Use Industry [Volume (Kilotons) and $M shipment analysis for 2011  2022]:

Food Packaging

 Processed Meat

 Red Meat

 Cheese

 Dry Food

Pharmaceutical Packaging

Other Packaging

Balloon

Others

By Region [Volume (Kilotons) and $M shipment analysis for 2011  2022]:

North America

 US

 Canada

 Mexico

Europe

 Germany

 Italy

 France

Asia Pacific

 China

 Japan

 South Korea

 Indonesia

 Thailand

Rest of the World

Download free sample here http://www.lucintel.com/ds/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx

This 194-page research report will enable you to make confident business decisions in this globally competitive marketplace. For a detailed table of contents, contact Lucintel at +1-972-636-5056 or click on this link http://www.lucintel.com/toc/bopa_film_market_2017_2022.aspx or helpdesk@lucintel.com

About Lucintel

Lucintel, the premier global management consulting and market research firm, creates winning strategies for growth. It offers market assessments, competitive analysis, opportunity analysis, growth consulting, M&A, and due diligence services to executives and key decision-makers in a variety of industries. For further information, visit www.lucintel.com

Follow us on LinkedIn and twitter here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lucintel?trk=top_nav_home

Visit Lucintel Blog Here: http://www.lucintel.com/blog/

This report answers following 11 key questions:

Q.1 What are some of the most promising potential, high-growth opportunities for the global BOPA film market by process (sequential, simultaneous, blown), function type (barrier, safety, microporous, and others), end use industry (food packaging, pharmaceutical packaging, other packaging, balloon, and others), and region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World)?

Q. 2 Which segments will grow at a faster pace and why?

Q.3 Which regions will grow at a faster pace and why?

Q.4 What are the key factors affecting market dynamics? What are the drivers and challenges of the market?

Q.5 What are the business risks and threats to the market?

Q.6 What are emerging trends in this market and the reasons behind them?

Q.7 What are some changing demands of customers in the market?

Q.8 What are the new developments in the market? Which companies are leading these developments?

Q.9 Who are the major players in this market? What strategic initiatives are being implemented by key players for business growth?

Q.10 What are some of the competitive products and processes in this area and how big of a threat do they pose for loss of market share via material or product substitution?

Q.11 What M & A activities have taken place in the last 5 years in this market?
In India 24-carat gold is used mostly in coins and bars

In a move that could help control the round-tripping of gold and misuse of bank funds meant for exports, the government is considering banning the export of 24-carat jewellery.

In India 24-carat gold is used mostly in coins and bars. Globally too, except China, 24-carat jewellery is not in use.

But certain export houses in India export 24-carat jewellery, in which hardly any value addition is done except refining and casting gold in jewellery form. It is then sent to Gulf countries and re-imported in the form of gold.

These export houses, though they are handful in number, use this route to show high exports, thus keeping their export house status intact, and use low-cost bank credit meant for them.

The finance ministry is, however, concerned at this.

Such round tripping had once been estimated at more than 100 tonnes, and jewellery exports as a proportion of gems and jewellery exports are not much.

But being pure in gold jewellery without the use of precious stones, this has a sizable stake.

A gold survey by GFMS Thomson Reuters says: In 2016 the import of duty-free gold, which was destined for manufacturing jewellery and medallions for exporting, declined by 15 per cent to 167.3 tonnes from 196.2 tonnes in 2015. Of this we estimate 125 tonnes were used for round tripping and 38 tonnes for exports during 2016.

An industry source said that genuine exporters would not be impacted if the government banned the export.

Even the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council had drawn the attention of the finance ministry to this, asking it to find out how much value addition was happening in such exports. The council thinks exports appear inflated.

Photograph: Sailesh Andrade/Reuters
Santa Ana, California, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Graystone Company (OTC:GYST) announced today that the company has seen a positive impact on sales and name recognition as a result of expansion of the companys online footprint.

CEO M.T. Soeparmo stated, From day one, we began with a presence on Weedmaps.com at http://Weedmaps.com/deliveries/the-commons/. In a very short timeframe, we have had close to 1,000 hits on this platform, have received 21 positive reviews and rank as a five star performer by our customers. Our menu of products at Weedmaps.com is detailed and we have taken special care to ensure the images representing our products are attractive to visitors of our site.

Mr. Soeparmo went on to say, We have also added a website for The Commons at http://CommonsCa.com. The website is responsive and mobile friendly and we have had a tremendous response to the launch of this particular website.

Mr Soeparmo finished up with, Our social media footprint has really taken off on both Facebook and Twitter as well and we will expand well beyond these two social media sites soon. As it turns out, cannabis delivery is an industry that benefits greatly from an effective online marketing strategy and our revenue results are reflected in our online presence to date. Our next step is to put together a platform for our investors. We will have a corporate website up and running soon and will share that information with existing and potential shareholders by the end of this month. We are excited about the overall direction of our company and we want to thank everyone for their ongoing support.

About The Graystone Company, Inc.: Graystone is building out a scalable business operation in the Cannabis Industry that includes multiple cannabis delivery services and dispensaries.

The initial delivery service began operations in March 2017 and has rapidly expanded into multiple target markets with plans for aggressive expansion for the remainder of 2017. The company also has mining operations in Suriname and is actively scouting additional locations for future projects.

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements in this press release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual and interim reports.
It is ramping up capacity in the second facility in Andhra Pradesh, run by Foxconn

Chinese electronics major Xiaomi on Wednesday said it was open to expanding manufacturing facilities for mobiles and other devices in India.

We are open to setting up production facilities, not only for phones, but also for other devices, said Manu Jain, vice-president, Xiaomi, and managing director, Xiaomi India.

At present, the companys devices are produced in India at two manufacturing facilities of contract manufacturer Foxconn in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. While one is a dedicated unit, the other manufactures phones of other brands as well.

About 95 per cent of the phones Xiaomi sells in India are manufactured in the country. It is ramping up manufacturing to deal with supply shortage.

Once we meet a certain volume threshold, we would be open to setting up more plants, said Jain, adding that at present products such as power banks and Mi Bands, a fitness bands the company makes, are imported from China. He claimed his companys products were already leading the market.

We have significantly ramped up our supply. Three years back we were selling 10,000 phones a week. Now, it is 300,000 units a week, he said.

On growth, he said the company has been doubling its efforts in the recent past.

Last year, Xiaomi had 225 service centres; by July this year, it would have 500. The number of it call centres had increased from one to two this year. Last year, it had two large warehouses and 26 smaller ones. This year, it had four large warehouses.

The number of its employees had also doubled from 150 to 300 this year, said Jain.

The company is also in the process of setting up 100 Mi Homes, its offline retail stores over the next few years. It currently has presence in about 10,000 retail outlets across the country, including tie-ups with various mobile retail chains.

It would be looking at launching other smart products it sells in China here. The Chinese firm has several smart products such as water purifiers, fans, cycles, and weighing scales.

During the first three months of 2017, it posted a 41 per cent market share in online smart phone sales, making it second in the mobile phone market. Xiaomi crossed $1-billion revenue mark in India in 2016 and holds 14.2 per cent market share in the offline space.

Right now, it (market share) is 10 per cent off-line and 90 per cent online. By end of this year, we expect it to be 25 per cent from off-line, Jain told reporters.

Additional inputs from PTI

Photograph: Bobby Yip/Reuters
'The bottom line is that at least now we should take an honest look at this business of NSG membership (or Masood Azhar for that matter.),' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj seldom if ever would say a bloomer. Therefore, her remark on June 6 seems odd, where she reportedly said that India will take Russia's help 'to convince China' of the merits of its case for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.

To my mind, chances of Russia making India's NSG membership a major 'talking point' with China are remote, and even if it does, the prospects of the latter kowtowing to a Russian demarche are virtually nil.

The South Block mandarins ought to have briefed Swaraj on how the Russia-China quasi-alliance works in practice.

The robustness (and durability) of Russia-China ties, which the two sides regard to be at their highest point in history at present, lies, paradoxically, in their mutual willingness to accord to each other enough space to pursue each side's core concerns and vital interests.

They coordinate on the foreign policy front, but each side also separately pursues its national interests.

Thus, Russia pursues strategic partnership with Vietnam with which China has a problematic relationship, while China regards Germany as a strategic partner, although Berlin is the flag carrier of Western sanctions against Russia.

Besides, won't Russia know that it is two years too late for it to play a mediatory role between Delhi and Beijing?

So much water has flowed under the bridge, which phenomenally degraded the India-China relationship.

Just see the Chinese reaction to Swaraj's remarks in Delhi on India's NSG membership, articulated during the foreign office spokesperson's regular press conference in Beijing on June 6:

QUESTION: 'Indian External Affairs Minister Swaraj also talked with the press about China having reservations about India's application for the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership.'

'She called on friends of China, including Russia, to impress upon China India's candidature. What is China's comment on that?'

ANSWER: 'On your first question, non-NPT countries joining into the NSG is a multilateral issue which should be decided by all NSG members through consultation.'

'The Chinese side is in close communication with other NSG members including Russia on this issue.'

'All parties agree that a decision should be made in strict accordance with the NSG rules and mandate through consultation.'

'The Chinese side has stated repeatedly its stance on India's joining the NSG.'

'Our position remains unchanged. We support the group in handling the issue with a 'two-step' approach through open and transparent inter-governmental procedures, following the principle of reaching an agreement through consultation.'

'What is imperative is to work out a non-discriminative solution applicable to all non-NPT States, and on that basis, discuss applications filed by specific non-NPT States.'

'The NSG plenary will be held this month in Bern, during which the Chinese side would like to continue with its constructive discussion with all the other parties on the relevant issue in accordance with the mandate of last year's Seoul plenary.'

The Russian foreign ministry will be unprofessional if it overlooks the above Chinese stance, articulated unequivocally, and still proceeds to push the NSG envelope on India's n behalf.

Russia had no role in the series of events through the past two or three years that have, according to Beijing, 'damaged' the Chinese-Indian relationship.

How can the Modi government now expect the Russians to carry our can of worms?

Wasn't it when new Cold War tensions were building up and there was open talk about an American nuclear attack on Russia within the realms of possibility that the Modi government went ahead to sign the Logistics Agreement giving access to Indian military facilities for US forces?

Friendship is a two-way street, isn't it?

To be sure, Russia probably understands as well that with Barack Obama becoming history, Indian policies are reinventing the wheel.

The bottom line is that at least now we should take an honest look at this business of NSG membership (or Masood Azhar for that matter.)

Does NSG membership really bring dividends to India in tangible terms?

To my mind, that's far from the case. In reality, it was one of those irritants that gave verve to our 'muscular diplomacy' vis-a-vis China.

Evidently, with 'America First' being the prevailing doctrine under a new sheriff in town and the India-US nuclear deal itself having become a bit of an embarrassment, it is about time we discard this NSG bit also in the dustbin.

On the contrary, if NSG membership is indeed of earth-shaking importance for India's development, South Block should chase the vision realistically -- namely, applying our diplomatic ingenuity to find a compromise formula based on the principles guiding the grouping's functioning, which can somehow accommodate non-NTP nuclear weapon States as well as members.

For that to happen, the US, which in the first instance had dictated the NSG's norms of membership (with a view to ostracise India specifically) should help us now to unscramble the omelette.

Swaraj should know that the road runs through Washington -- not Moscow or Beijing. PM Modi should raise this with Donald Trump whenever the latter grants a meeting.
'I am a vegetarian and nobody can force me to eat meat.'

'It is my personal right to decide what I eat.'

'Similarly, telling a person who eats non-vegetarian food not to eat beef is a human rights violation.'

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

When the Centre introduced a new notification banning the sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets, S Selvagomathy, a vegetarian, decided to challenge it in court.

The Madurai-based lawyer-activist and managing trustee of the Justice Shivaraj V Patil Foundation for Social Legal Education and Development, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why the new rule violates human rights.

You are the first person to file a petition in the Madras hHigh court against the rule framed by the Centre banning the sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets.

The court has ordered an interim stay.

Why do you feel the new rule violates human rights?

It is my personal right to eat what I want, and I feel this rule infringes upon my right to eat.

The State entering the kitchen and the dining table itself is a human rights violation, according to me.

The very fact that an issue that should have been decided and talked about inside the kitchen is being discussed and debated out in the open, is a human rights violation.

I am a vegetarian and nobody can force me to eat meat; it is my personal right to decide what I eat.

Similarly, telling a person who eats non-vegetarian food not to eat beef or something else is a human rights violation.

Nobody, not even the State, has the right to interfere in the personal rights of a person.

According to the animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi, based on whose petition this rule was formed by the Centre, the rule does not curb people's eating habits, it only bans cattle being sold in the markets.

My question is: Why is cattle sold in the marketplace? Why do people buy cattle at the market?

We all know that they are not bought to rear in the farms.

Is it not to slaughter them?

Why are they slaughtered? For people to eat.

Does that not mean, by banning the sales of cattle in the market, they are violating human rights, the rights of human beings to eat what they want?

Already in the northern part of India, many meat stalls are forcibly closed which would have affected all those involved in the business and those who eat meat.

Do you feel the BJP is trying to impose its ideology which suited the northern belt in the other parts of India too?

Let me say that food depicts the culture of a community; it shows its history.

Some communities eat a particular kind of food which other communities may not eat.

It is not for the government to decide what a community should eat and what it should not.

Ours is a secular country where people belonging to many religions and castes live.

Like we speak different languages, we also eat different types of food.

The Constitution guarantees each one of us the right to speak our language and the right to eat our food; it is part of our right to live.

Is it not the duty of the government to see that each Indian gets the right the Constitution promises?

Animal activists say that all over the world, cattle are bought by slaughter houses directly from the farmers and not at market places.

Also, they say that animals are tortured when they are transported from one place to another?

If you go to a village, you will see that animals are treated as part of the family by all farmers.

They name the animals Lakshmi, Mahalakshmi, etc, because they are not just animals to the farming community, they are more like their own children.

You should understand that they sell these animals only because they cannot feed them.

When they cannot feed their own children, it is a burden on their part to feed the animals too.

If they could afford it, no farming family will sell their animals.

After they sell these animals, they don't even eat for a week.

You would be punishing the farmers by imposing restrictions on the sales of cattle.

Do you know why there are so many middlemen involved in the sales of cattle?

Only if you have documents showing permission from the authorities can you sell them.

Many farmers find it hard to obtain the documents as most of them are illiterate.

That is the reason middlemen do this job and buy cattle from the farmers.

Just imagine the situation 100 or 50 or even 10 years ago.

If you tell your grandparents that eating beef is a big issue now and selling our cattle is a big problem, they would not believe you.

Everything was so simple and issues like this did not exist 50 years ago.

Were the farmers not rearing cows and other animals, and selling them later?

Were we not eating meat then?

While the Madras high court put the order on hold, the Kerala high court was of the opinion that the order did not ban cow slaughter.

What do you have to say about these two different points of view?

The Kerala high court may be of the opinion that the order did not ban cow slaughter, but to our understanding, this order violates human rights, the right to eat.

In fact, we feel this (government) order violates the right to eat, the right to profession, the right to live, the right to worship and the right to livelihood.

That was why we went to court. While we got an interim order staying the rule, the Kerala high court did not feel that way. We do not know how the lawyers fought the case there.

Do you feel the country has been polarised between vegetarian and non-vegetarian, beef eaters and non-beef eaters?

Why should there be a conflict between one versus the other when the Constitution guarantees the right to live to all citizens?

There shouldn't be a conflict like this in a country like ours because both vegetarians and non-vegetarians are Indian citizens.

We are fighting the case so that such conflicts do not occur in future.

It is not my fight alone; so many of us have come together to fight it, and we will fight it legally till the government withdraws the order.
Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, is in the batch of 2017.

IMAGE: Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, front row, far right, is part of NASAs brand new batch of 2017 astronauts. The 12 freshly-minted astronauts are seen here with US Vice President Mike Pence. Photograph: Courtesy Bill Ingalls/NASA.

NASA has chosen 12 new astronauts, including an Indian-American, from a record 18,000 applicants

They will be trained for missions into earth orbit and to deep space.

The seven men and five women comprise the 22nd class of American spaceflight trainees since 1959. This is the largest group NASA has selected in almost two decades. They were was selected from 18,300 applicants -- more than NASA has ever had during an open astronaut call.

To get picked, the candidates had to meet certain physical requirements as well as various education and experience criteria -- like having a bachelor's degree in a STEM field or accumulating up to 1,000 hours of piloting jets.

It's clear that this new class greatly surpasses all the minimum skills that NASA requires.

After completing two years of training, the new astronaut candidates could be assigned to missions performing research on the International Space Station, or be launched from American soil on spacecraft built by commercial companies, and to fly on deep space missions on NASA's new Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

US Vice President Mike Pence joined NASA leaders, including acting administrator Robert Lightfoot and director of flight operations Brian Kelly, in Houston, Texas to announce the new astronaut candidates, or "ascans".

The event unfolded inside the Johnson Space Center's Space Vehicle Mockup Facility in front of a full-scale engineering model of NASA's Orion spacecraft, which the new astronauts might fly in the coming years on missions beyond low earth orbit.

Pence said that President Donald Trump is "firmly committed" to NASA's mission in space and that "America will lead the way in space once again." He said that NASA would continue to have the resources it needs to "make history" -- even though the president's budget cuts funding and cancels certain programs at the agency.

He also mentioned that NASA would continue to collaborate with the commercial space industry in the future.

IMAGE: US Vice President Mike Pence delivers his remarks before NASA's 12 new astronaut candidates at NASAs Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas June 7. The NASA astronaut candidates are: Front row, left to right, Warren Hoburg, Bob Hines, Matthew Dominick, Raja Chari, Zena Cardman, Kayla Barron; Back row, left to right, Jessica Watkins, Frank Rubio, Loral O' Hara, Jasmin Moghbeli, Robb Kulin and Jonny Kim. Photograph: Courtesy Bill Ingalls/NASA.

While delivering the speech, Pence touted the merits of the new astronaut class. "The courage of these men and women, and all the astronauts who have gone before, inspires me to this very day," he said.

The 12 new candidates include six military officers, three scientists, two medical doctors, a lead engineer at SpaceX and a NASA research pilot:

Lt Col Raja "Grinder" Chari, 39, is a commander of the 461st Flight Test Squadron and the director of the F-35 Integrated Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Hailing from Waterloo, Iowa, Chari earned a master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT and graduated

from the US Naval Test Pilot School. His father is from India.

Lt Kayla "Sax" Barron, 29, is a US Navy submarine officer from Richland, Washington. A member of the US Navy's first class of women commissioned into the submarine community, Barron comes to NASA from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has been serving as the Flag Aide to the Superintendent.

Zena Cardman, a 29-year-old is a geo-biologist who had done research at Penn State University in Pennsylvania. Her research was focused on microorganisms in subsurface environments, ranging from caves to deep sea sediments.

Lt Commander Matthew Dominick, the 35-year-old is the head for the US Navy's Strike Fighter Squadron 115. Born and raised in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, Dominick was at sea on the USS Ronald Reagan when he got the call on May 25 saying he had been selected as an astronaut candidate.

Bob Hines, a 42-year-old NASA research pilot, is based at Johnson Space Center since 2012. Hines hails from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. He attended the Air Force Test Pilot School for his master's degree in flight test engineering. He has served in the US Air Force and Air Force Reserves for 18 years.

Warren "Woody" Hoburg, a 31-year-old assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, has earned a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkley.

Jonny Kim, a 33-year-old navy lieutenant and SEAL, who has has been on active duty reserve while completing his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robb Kulin, the 33-year-old lead of the Launch Chief Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. He has previous experience as an ice driller in Antarctica on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Taylor Glaciers and as a commercial fisherman in Chignik, Alaska.

Major Jasmin Moghbeli, 33, is a quality assurance and avionics officer for the Marine Corps' Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 in Yuma, Arizona.

Loral O'Hara, a 34-year-old research engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, who calls Sugar Land, Texas, home.

Francisco Rubio, is a 41-year-old major, serving as a surgeon for the 3rd Battalion of the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. He earned a Doctorate of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Jessica Watkins, a 28-year-old postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she collaborates on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory for the Curiosity rover. She has worked at NASA's Ames Research Center in northern California.
Fired Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey has created a political storm over his allegations against President Donald Trump who reportedly asked him to drop a probe against his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and sought loyalty from him.

The statement which was meant as an opening statement of Comey during his Congressional hearing on Friday was released a day ahead by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Comey said that President Donald Trump asked him for a pledge of loyalty and told him to drop an inquiry into Flynn.

Trump feels 'totally vindicated' by Comey's statement President Trump feels completely and totally vindicated by the testimony of Comey, according to his private lawyer. The President feels completely and totally vindicated, Marc Kasowitz, an attorney representing Trump in the special counsel probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, said in a statement. He is eager to move forward with his agenda, he said.

The President began by saying Flynn hadnt done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify, Comey said in remarks posted on the website of the Senate intelligence committee.

Comey, 56, is scheduled to give his testimony before the committee on Thursday. His testimony was publicly released intentionally on Wednesday by the Senate intelligence committee at Comeys request, a Senate intelligence committee source said.

Comey, who was fired by Trump last month, dropped the bombshell by his statement which many experts say could be seen as obstruction to justice.

According to Comey, Trump also made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information.

Comey recounted a January 27 private dinner in the White House Green Room with the President.

I need loyalty, I expect loyalty, Comey quoted Trump as saying.

Comey continued: I didnt move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.

Comey states that Trump asked him on several occasions to publicly state that he was not under investigation.

But Comey also confirmed in his statement that he told Trump he was not under investigation, as Trump asserted in his letter to Comey explaining his firing.

Comey said that he considered Trumps request on Flynn very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency but decided to keep it very closely held.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the Presidents request, which we did not intend to abide, Comey wrote.

We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account.

The seven-page written testimony that gives details the interaction that Comey had with Trump.

Political pundits in the US said this could be the most watched Congressional testimony in recent decades.

It could even be the most tweeted Congressional hearing as several US news channels are planning to carry the hearing live from the US Capitol.

Comeys statement describes behaviour by Trump that was at best inappropriate, and at worst illegal said Democratic Senator Ed Markey.

Trump, on numerous occasions, sought fealty from the FBI director, attempted to interfere with an historic federal investigation, and then fired Comey after both requests were spurned, he said.

By repeatedly and improperly asking Comey to lift the cloud that was darkening his administration, asking him to let it go in reference to the investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and then summarily firing the FBI Director, Donald Trump appears to have obstructed justice. Comeys testimony details a pattern of disturbing behaviour and a disdain for the rule of law by Trump, Markey said.

House Minority Whip Steny H Hoyer demanded that the Congress should launch an independent, bipartisan commission to get to the bottom of Russias attempts to undermine our democracy and to what extent they had contact with the Trump campaign as they did so.

Congresswoman Jacky Rosen said the prepared remarks offered by the former FBI Director are deeply worrying.

I am especially concerned by the Presidents attempts to interfere in the FBI's work by asking about dropping investigations into Michael Flynn and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. It disturbs me to know that the President would ask our chief law enforcement officer for his loyalty in exchange for job security, and then fire him in the middle of an ongoing investigation, he said.

According to The Hill, while the testimony mostly confirms what has been reported since Comeys firing in May, it nonetheless paints an extraordinary picture of the president's interactions with one of the nations top law enforcement officials.

The Washington Post said to date, Democrats are split on the question of impeachment proceedings, with some readily suggesting the possibility but House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi impatiently dismissing that as premature.

Legal analysts said the testimony adds detail that would beef up an obstruction of justice case, the daily reported.

The New York Times said the White House is on defensive after Comeys testimony was released.

The impression painted by Comey is one of the president seeking to exert control over him and his agency, and a vexed FBI director pushing back -- a narrative the White House rejects, wrote The Wall Street Journal.

Top intelligence officials deny receiving pressure from Trump

Top American officials on Wednesday denied reports that the intelligence community received any pressure from President Trump to help ease an FBI probe into an aides Russia ties.

In the three-plus years that I have been the director of the National Security Agency, to the best of my recollection, I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate, National Security Agency director Admiral Michael Rogers told members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during a Congressional hearing.

To the best of my recollection, during that same period of service, I do not recall ever feeling pressured to do so, Rogers said.

Im not going to discuss the specifics of conversations with the President of the United States, but I stand by the comment I just made to you, sir, Rogers said in response to a question from Senator Mark Warner, Ranking Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Rogers in fact had heated exchange of words with Warner during the Congressional hearing.

I stand by my previous statement, that we are in a public session here and I do not feel that it is appropriate for me to address confidential information, said Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence.

Most of the information Ive shared with the President, obviously, is directed toward intelligence matters during our oval briefings every morning at the White House, or most mornings when both the president and I'm in town, Coats said.

But for intelligence-related matters, or any other matters that have been discussed, it is my belief that its inappropriate for me to share that with the public, he added.
Kerala's bitter political rivals -- the ruling Left Democratic Front and the United Democratic Front -- on Thursday closed ranks in the state assembly to oppose the cattle slaughter ban, calling it a 'fascist' move that also saw the House adopt a resolution asking the Centre to withdraw its notification.

During the one-day session, convened exclusively to discuss the controversial cattle ban notification, members of the ruling Communist Party of India Marxist-led Left Democratic Front and the opposition Congress-headed United Democratic Front condemned it as not only an "intrusion" into the rights of states but also an "infringement" on the rights of people on the choice of their food habits.

The lone Bharatiya Janata Party MLA O Rajagopal opposed the resolution.

Members of both the fronts said the ban on sale of cattle for slaughter in animal markets was not only communal, but also essentially anti-working class and anti-farmer.

It thus has to be withdrawn, they said.

The members also alleged that the move was an attempt at corporatisation of the meat-trading sector, which was now an additional source of income for small and medium farmers.

Moving the resolution, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan slammed the Centre, saying the ban was to implement the political agenda of the Sangh Parivar.

"The NDA government, that has failed to fulfil any of its promises, was raking up issues such as cattle slaughter to divide the people through communal polarisation for political gains," he said.

Vijayan also brought to the notice of the assembly the serious 'adverse' consequences the ban would have on various sectors including agriculture, dairy, leather industry and meat export trade.

"The notification is impractical in Kerala where 95 per cent of the population is non-vegetarian. It is clearly an intrusion into the citizens' choice of food," he said.

As the notification came under attack in the assembly, 'beef fry' was in demand at the assembly canteen with many MLAs partaking this dish.

Beef fry was served at the two units of the Indian Coffee House eatery on the assembly premises and in the staff canteen, assembly sources said.

On the impact on state's meat trade, Vijayan said 2.5 lakh tonnes of meat worth Rs 6,552 crore was sold in Kerala annually.

Vijayan also mentioned about the farmers unrest in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and said the community was already in crisis and the new rules would further add to their woes.

The chief minister said the state government would implead in the connected case pending in the Supreme Court.

Describing the notification as another "surgical strike" by the Modi government "like the note ban", opposition leader in assembly Ramesh Chennithala said this was "a sign of arrival of fascism" in the country.

"Modi has transformed himself into 'abhinava Hitler' (neo Hitler)," he alleged.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan said there seems to be an "indirect interest" behind the notification.

CPI-M veteran and former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan, KC-M leader K M Mani were among those who spoke on the occasion.

Rajagopal said the coming together of the LDF and the UDF in the assembly was a sign of a "grand alliance" forming at the national level to take on the BJP.

He said the House has been "misused" for political purposes as the Centre has already made it clear that it was ready to make changes in the notification after getting suggestions from states.

The ministry of environment and forests notified the stringent Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 on May 25, banning the sale and purchase of cattle from animal markets for slaughter.

The Kerala government was the first to protest against the Centre's notification. It has also decided to convene a meeting of all chief ministers to discuss the issue.

Vijayan has also written to his counterparts in other states asking them to "stand together" and "oppose" the ban and urged the Prime Minister to withdraw the new regulations.

He has written to Modi opposing the ban and urging him to withdraw the new regulations.

Beef fests were held in various parts of the state last month to protest against the ban with some youth Congress activists in Kannur publicly slaughtering a calf to register their protest.

The attack on CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury at party headquarters A K G Centre in New Delhi on Wednesday also had its echo in the assembly with the party members alleging that the Sangh Parivar was trying to "silence" political rivals through "muscle power".
Authorities struggled to restore normalcy in violence-hit western Madhya Pradesh even as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday made an attempt to reach the epicentre of the farmers' agitation, Mandsaur, which was scuttled as he was detained before entering the district.

IMAGE: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi rides pillion on a bike on his way to Madhya Pradesh's Mandsaur, the epicenter of violent farmer protests. All photographs: PTI Photo

Gandhi travelled by air, car, motorcyle and later by foot from Delhi to Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh via Rajasthan before he was detained and arrested in Naya Gaon, about 70 kms from Mandsaur.

He slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the problems being faced by the farmers, evoking a sharp response from the Bharatiya Janata Party which termed his visit to Mandsaur as a "photo opportunity".

Amid the increasing political slugfest, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, which is facing a major crisis, shunted out the collector and superintendent of police of Mandsaur district, two days after five farmers were killed in police firing during a violent protest.

A police inspector, who had allegedly fired at the protestors on Tuesday, was also removed from field duty and sent to police lines.

Besides Mandsaur, violence had also hit Dewas, Neemuch, Ujjain districts and some other parts of western MP.

On Wednesday morning, Rapid Action Force, the anti-riot paramilitary force rushed by the Centre, was deployed in Mandsaur, the epicentre of the eight-day-old farmers' agitation for debt relief and better crop price.

The Centre had rushed 1,100 personnel of the RAF to the violence-hit state.

While two companies of the RAF, each comprising 100 personnel, were deployed in Pipliamandi in Mandsaur, where the five farmers were killed, another two were posted in Garoth.

Two RAF companies were deployed along the highway.

Contingents of the CRPF have also been deployed.

Curfew, imposed on Wednesday after escalating violence, was relaxed for two hours from 4 pm, as officials said the situation appeared to be improving.

The police, however, said some areas were still tense.

Divisional Commissioner M B Ojha said, "For the last two to three days, farmers were stopping vehicles and setting them on fire."

Burnt vehicles were removed from the Mhow-Neemuch highway today, and traffic had resumed, police said.

IMAGE: Tight security arrangements at a toll during Rahul Gandhi's arrival in Neemuch on his way to Mandsaur to meet the family members of the farmers killed in the recent police firing

Police said seven cases were lodged and 62 people detained in connection with the violence.

They said investigations have found that "stone throwers and some anti-social elements" had also joined the protest.

The state's Home Minister Bhupendra Singh said that the five farmers had been killed in police firing, a remark that assumes significance as the authorities had earlier claimed the police did not fire during the protests.

He said Pipliamandi Town Inspector Anil Singh Thakur, who had allegedly fired at the farmers causing casualties, had been removed from field duty and sent to the Mandsaur police lines.

To bring back normalcy, the chief minister made a fresh attempt to reach out to the agitating farmers, saying the state government was open for a dialogue to iron out the differences and once again appealed them to maintain peace.

Appealing to the farmers to maintain calm, he said, "Only talks can end the differences."

He said, "The state government is of farmers and public. I will continue to work for them."

His fresh attempt to reach out to the farmers came on a day Rahul Gandhi, accompanied by few senior leaders of the state and Janata Dal-United's Sharad Yadav, tried to make their way to Mandsaur through the Rajasthan border.

There was high drama as the police tried to stop what had turned into a rally of sorts with Gandhi leading from the front. When police tried to push him back, he ran into a field nearby from where he was detained.

Gandhi was released after over four hours of detention in the guest house of a cement company.

"Rahul Gandhi, along with around 250 Congress leaders, were under preventive arrest under under Section 151 of CrPC. We had informed them that there is curfew in four police station areas and they should not go there. Despite this, they tried to move towards the area," SP (Neemuch) Manoj Kumar Singh said.

They were later released on the border, he said.

Just before his detention, the Congress vice president said Prime Minister Narendra Modi "can't give the right rates for farmers' agriculture produce, can't give them bonus, can't give them compensation... He can only give them bullets."

Later in the evening, Gandhi met the kin of four of the five deceased farmers who were brought to Rajathan's Chittorgarh district by Congress workers.

IMAGE: Gandhi in an argument with a policeman on his way to Mandsaur.

He lashed out at the BJP governments in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for stopping him from visiting Mandsaur and demanded martyr status for the farmers who were killed in the "barbaric" police action.

Talking to reporters, he said, "I wanted to meet the families for two minutes to say that we are with them, but I was not allowed. I only wanted to share their grief....Am I not a citizen of this country? Am I not allowed to visit Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and other (BJP ruled) states just because I do not belong to the RSS?"

He attacked the Modi government, saying it has forgotten the farmers and was only interested in waiving the debt of "50 richest people" of the country.

"The farmers in the county are desperately crying for help but the government is not ready to hear them," he said.

He supported the farmers' demand for loan waiver and said that they were not getting their due.

Gandhi said that the loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh had come as he had mounted pressure on the BJP government on the issue.

"I will continue to press every government across the country to waive farmers' loans. I will keep raising the issue in Parliament," he said.

He accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of lying on the issue of farmers death in police firing.

Action should be taken against the security personnel involved in the firing incident. The farmers were not warned and were shot in the chest in violation of all standing operation procedures, he alleged.

He also slammed the BJP for saying that he had gone for a 'photo-op' there, arguing, "I only wanted meet the farmers. What was the need for controversy?"

He added that government can waive loans of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of 50 rich people in the country, then why the loans of those farmers who feed the nation cannot be waived.

Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh government today conveyed to the Centre that five farmers were killed in Mandsaur in police firing, ending the confusion on who had fired at the protesters.

In a report submitted to the home ministry, the state government said the protesting farmers, demanding loan waiver, had allegedly set ablaze 25 trucks and two police vans along the Mhow-Neemuch highway on Tuesday.
In a big fillip to an already robust bilateral relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to land in Israel on July 4 on a three-day visit, the first by an Indian prime minister to the Jewish state.

Informed sources in Tel Aviv told PTI that Modi would be arriving in Israel on July 4 and is likely to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu the same day in the evening.

Modi's visit is aimed at commemorating 25 years of establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

He would be addressing the Indian community in Israel the following day in Tel Aviv with preparations for the event in full swing amid massive enthusiasm with people expected to attend the event from all over the country.

The Indian community has launched a website in preparation of the much awaited visit of Modi.

About 80,000 Indian Jews belonging to four different communities -- Bene Israel, Cochinis, Baghdadis and Bnei Menashe - live in Israel. The Indian Jewish community in Israel still maintain some of the cultural practices from India and take a lot of pride in their origin, often mentioning that India is the only nation in the world where there was no trace of anti-semitism.

Modi's ascendance to power in New Delhi generated a lot of euphoria in Israel as he was popular here for maintaining close ties with Tel Aviv during his tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He had also visited Israel in October 2006.

One of the things that have been particularly discussed widely in the Israeli media is the 'close chemistry' between Modi and Netanyahu.

Netanyahu often calls Modi 'my friend' and in a recent tweet said that people of his country were eagerly waiting for his 'historic' visit.

The two leaders have already met twice on foreign soil on the sidelines of UN related events and are said to be constantly in touch with each other over the phone.

"I am happy that often we can talk easily on telephone, we can discuss everything. It has very rarely happened. In your case it has happened," Modi told Netanyahu during their meeting on the sidelines of Paris Climate summit in November 2015.

The Israeli premier had then promptly responded saying, 'in your case too'.

India's abstention at a UNHRC vote in 2015 on a UN report critical of Israel's offensive in the 2014 Gaza war was described by many here as a sign of a 'qualitative leap' in ties which had transformed into a 'completely normal relations without any hangups' with many crediting the closeness between the two prime ministers for the 'change in heart'.

New Delhi, however, later clarified that the vote was a 'principled' stand in connection to the International Criminal Court that had reference in the resolution and does not mark 'any shift in policy'.

Modi's visit being limited to Israel in the region, skipping Palestine, has been pointed by some analysts as a 'major statement', but the Palestinian Authority (PA) clearly stated that India has the right to build relations with Israel but it should not come at the 'expense' of New Delhi's firm support for the Palestinian cause.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited India in May. It was his fifth visit to New Delhi in the last 12 years and the third state visit underlining the importance of relations.

"India has the right to make relations with Israel and any other country but what we care about is that it should not be at the expense of its relations with Palestine," Dr Majdi Khaldi, senior diplomatic Advisor to Abbas, had said.

The defence ties between India and Israel have often drawn worldwide attention and acquired strategic dimensions. It is being believed that Modi's visit would further solidify security ties as Israeli defence industries have shown greater inclination towards participating in joint ventures to give a boost to NDA government's 'Make in India' campaign.

Israel's state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries last month announced that it has inked yet another major deal worth $630 million with India, giving a boost to the 'Make in India' campaign in a project to be jointly executed with Bharat Electronics Limited.

The contract is related to the supply of LRSAM (Long Range Surface to Air Missiles) systems for four ships of the Indian navy. The project will be carried out, for the first time, with Indian government owned BEL, which will serve as the main contractor in the project.

In April, Israel closed a $2 billion defence deal with India with IAI taking the lion's share of it with contracts worth $1.6 billion. It is the largest single deal in the history of the Jewish state.

LRSAM is an advanced air and missile defence system, a unique joint development by IAI and India's Defense Research and Development Organisation in collaboration with IAI subsidiary ELTA, RAFAEL, various Indian companies including BEL, L&T, BDL and other private Indian companies.

Prime Minister Modi's visit has been preceded by several other high-profile visits, including the trip of National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, several senior secretaries and Minister of State for Agriculture SS Ahluwalia-led 11 member multi-party parliamentary delegation. Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba would be on a five-day visit to Israel starting June 11.

All these visits have laid the ground work for several MoUs that are likely to be signed during Modi's visit. Netanyahu's government has taken several steps to boost Israel's exports to India emphasising that 'sky is the limit' as far as cooperation between the two countries goes across several sectors.

Starting with humble figures of $200 million in annual trade in 1992 the two countries have registered bilateral trade of about $4.5 billion last year. Cooperation in the field of Agriculture and water management has also drawn a lot of attention with Israel setting up dozens of Centres of Excellence in India to boost India's farming sector.
South Koreas defence ministry has said that the north supposedly launched a series of surface-to-ship missiles on Thursday morning, following which Seoul has stepped up surveillance against possible threats.

North Korea fired multiple unidentified projectiles, assumed to be surface-to-ship missiles, this morning from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, the ministry said.

This is the latest in a string of tests by North Korea in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

This would be the fourth missile test by the Kim Jong-un regime in less than five weeks, as Pyongyang continues to defy UN warnings and United States threats of possible military action.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions.

However, North Korea on Sunday slammed the latest UN sanctions as mean and vowed to press ahead with its missile and nuclear weapons programmes.

Early last month, the North test-fired what appeared to be its longest-range ballistic missile to date, in a bid to bring the US mainland within reach.

IMAGE: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looks on during a ballistic rocket test-fire through a precision control guidance system in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency. Photograph: Reuters
Prime Minister Narendra Modi exchanged pleasantries with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif at a reception Astana on Thursday amid escalating Indo-Pak tensions over a range of issues.

Official sources said Modi and Sharif exchanged greetings when they were in the leaders' lounge for the reception at the Astana Opera organised to welcome the leaders who are participating in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit.

Since it was the first occasion when the two leaders came across each other after Sharif's heart surgery, Modi enquired about his health, the sources said.

Modi also enquired about Sharif's mother and family, they said.

Earlier, asked whether Modi and Sharif will have a bilateral meeting, External Affairs spokesperson Gopal Baglay said, "Our position has not changed. There is no proposal from their side. There is no proposal either from our side."

India has been maintaining that there was neither any request from the Pakistani side nor any such proposal from the Indian side for a Modi-Sharif meeting.

Both Modi and Sharif arrived in Astana on Thursday to participate in the SCO Summit which will on Friday induct both India and Pakistan as its full members.

Ties between India and Pakistan have nosedived over a range of issues including beheading of two soldiers by the Pakistan military along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir and the death sentence handed down to former Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav by a military court in Pakistan on charges of spying. The International Court of Justice has stayed Jadhav's execution.

The Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir has also been witnessing rising tensions.
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CALGARY, Alberta, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new report from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) shows that nurses paid and unpaid overtime has continued to take a toll on the health and well-being of the countrys nurses and on patient care. The total cost of nurses overtime and nursing absenteeism rose to close to $2 billion in 2016.



The report, released today at the CFNU Biennial Convention, is an urgent call for an effective health human resources plan that supports safe nurse staffing levels.

Nurses and policy-makers know that excessive overtime is eroding the safe, quality care of our patients, said CFNU President Linda Silas. Our patients deserve the best nursing care, and to provide that care, nurses cannot be stretched to unhealthy limits.

The CFNU-commissioned report, prepared by Jacobson Consulting Inc., calls for safe nurse staffing levels across the country. It found that in 2016 aggregated paid and unpaid overtime of public sector health care RNs and nurse supervisors totaled 20.1 million hours; Silas notes that this is the equivalent of 11,100 full-time nursing positions.

The research found that in 2016, on average, 24,600 of Canadas 282,300 public sector health care RNs and nurse supervisors  or 8.7%  were absent each week due to illness or disability, said Silas. In 2014, the rate was 7.9%. The 9% absentee rate for full-time public sector health care nurses was substantially higher than the average of all other occupations, which was 5.7%.

Public health care employers paid $989 million in 2016 in illness- or disability-related absenteeism costs; the total cost of unpaid and paid nursing overtime was an additional $968 million, notes Silas. Safe nurse staffing levels would reduce the systems reliance on both paid and unpaid overtime for nurses, and would help to reduce absenteeism. At a time when we are all striving for an efficient, cost-effective and sustainable health care system, we know that ensuring safe nurse staffing levels would go a long way towards achieving that goal.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is Canadas largest nurses organization representing nearly 200,000 nurses and student nurses. The CFNU has been advocating for national discussions on key health priorities, such as a national prescription drug plan, a comprehensive approach to long-term and continuing care, greater attention to health human resources, and federal government engagement on the future of public health care.
The main accused in the Saharanpur violence and Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar was on Thursday arrested from Himachal Pradesh.

Chandrasekhar, who had been evading arrest since inter-caste clashes broke out in Saharanpur last month, was carrying a reward of Rs 12,000 on his head.

As the Bhim Army got active on the social media after the arrest, all Internet facilities in Saharanpur were blocked for two days to prevent mischief mongering.

The 30-year-old activist was nabbed from Dalhousie area of Himachal Pradesh, Additional DG (Meerut Zone) Anand Kumar said.

He will be brought to Saharanpur on a transit remand.

IG (Crime) Hariram Sharma told mediapersons in Lucknow that Internet facilities have been blocked for two days by the district magistrate of Saharanpur.

He said that a total of 46 FIRs have been registered since inter-caste violence broke out in Saharanpur last month.

As many as 206 arrests have been made so far, including that of Chandrasekhar, who has been booked under three FIRs, he said.

Earlier, two members of the Bhim Army were arrested in Saharanpur for their alleged involvement in the Ramnagar caste violence on May 9 after one person was killed and several others were injured in a clash between Dalits and Thakurs at Shabbirpur village on May 5.

About a dozen police vehicles were set ablaze and 12 policemen were injured in subsequent violence on May 9.

The Uttar Pradesh Police had recently constituted a Special Investigation Team comprising 10 inspectors to probe 40 cases, registered between May 5 to May 23, in Saharanpur district which has seen bouts of inter-caste clashes last month.

Chandrasekhar had shot to limelight after holding a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against violence on Dalits in Saharanpur.

He had earlier said that he would surrender if 37 "innocent" Dalits were released on bail.

"I feel that the UP government has failed to address the issues of the Dalits. The chief minister has lost control over the police and the administration. There have been more cases of atrocities against the Dalits in the past two-and-a-half months as compared to last one year," he had said.

The cycle of violence in Saharanpur began on May 5, when a man was killed, several injured and around 25 homes set ablaze in inter-caste clashes in Shabbirpur village.

The district has remained tense ever since and violence has erupted repeatedly.

On May 23, another person was shot dead and two others were wounded, following which the government had suspended the senior superintendent of police and district magistrate and transferred the divisional commissioner and the deputy inspector general of police.

The opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh have been attacking the ruling BJP over the violence in Saharanpur.

Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati visited Shabbirpur to counter the growing influence of Bhim Army by mobilising her party cadre in the region.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi had met the victims of Saharanpur caste clashes and their family members at the district's border after authorities denied him permission to visit the violence-hit area.

The Centre has since sent 400 anti-riot police personnel to Saharanpur to help the district administration restore peace in the region.

Chandrashekhar Azad 'Ravan', a young Saharanpur lawyer, and Vinay Ratna Singh had founded the Bhim Army in July 2015 to serve the interests of Dalits in the Sahranpur region where Rajputs and Dalits are involved in a long drawn tussle for dominance and fight against oppression.

Chandrashekhar belongs to Chhutmalpur village adjoining Shabbirpur, the epicentre of recent troubles.

Though the mission of the Bhim Army was to educate the community's children free of cost with their first school coming up two years ago at Saharanpur's Bhado village, it came into limelight in April when an Ambedkar Jayanti procession was stopped by upper caste Rajputs.

Chandrashekhar's strength became visible when thousands of Dalits staged a protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against police action and atrocities by the upper castes and emerged as the new champion of Dalit cause.

The sudden rise of the Bhim Army under the leadership of Chandrashekhar has unnerved BSP supremo Mayawati, making her all the more worried after he succeeded in mobilising Dalits in western UP.
Farmers said a big reason for the anger was the sudden stopping of wheat procurement by the state government in some places, which had caused the prices to dip below the minimum support price.

Image: A scene after violent clashes between farmers and the police at Pipliya in Mandsaur district on Tuesday. At least five farmers were killed and four others injured in firing by police on farmers, who have been protesting for a week demanding loan waiver and fair price for their produce. Photograph: PTI Photo.

An eerie silence prevailed on Wednesday on the mostly deserted fields in Madhya Pradeshs soybean- and wheat-growing belt of Malwa even as violence continued in the state, where five people were killed in police firing on Tuesday.

In Mandsaur, where the firing had taken place, violence broke out at several places as agitators torched a warehouse and a few vehicles despite curfew. Protestors also slapped the district magistrate. All four-wheelers, including those belonging to senior Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress leaders, were barred from entering Mandsaur via the neighbouring districts of Neemuch and Ratlam.

As a precautionary measure, internet services have been stopped in Neemuch, Mandsaur, Ratlam, and Ujjain for the last two days.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister's Office has sought a report on the matter from the Madhya Pradesh government. Also the State Human Rights Commission has sought information from the Mandsaur district collector on the farmers' protest and subsequent violence.

The ongoing farmers agitation has kept the state administration on tenterhooks across the state. Shops and establishments in the districts of Neemuch, Mandsaur, Ratlam, Ujjain, and parts of Indore were shut in response to the daylong bandh called by the Congress and other opposition parties against the police firing.

Bhopal, the state capital, too remained highly tense with police pickets at several spots and the district administration instructing police stations to enhance security after agitators threatened to storm them in some parts of the state.

A bus was torched on the Indore-Bhopal highway in the evening while violence was reported from Dewas and Sonkach the entire day.

April-June is the lean agriculture period in the Malwa-Nimad belt, where the wheat crop has been harvested and the soybean crop is yet to be sown. The belt, known for its highly fertile alluvial black soil, is considered to be the richest part of Madhya Pradesh. Villages are dotted with farm machine repair shops, big educational institutions, wide roads, and modern procurement centres.

We dont want to speak about Tuesdays incident as the situation is tense and we dont even know who are the people behind this, said Ram Avatar, 50, sitting with his friends at a roadside tea joint.

Some farmers said a big reason for the anger was the sudden stopping of wheat procurement by the state government in some places, which had caused the prices to dip below the minimum support price.

Madhya Pradesh had targeted procuring more than eight million tonnes of wheat but might end up doing not more than six-seven million tonnes because fewer farmers have registered for the online procurement system.

The state government, meanwhile, decided to come up with the farmer debt solution scheme. The scheme would be similar to a loan waiver scheme, Archana Chitnis, minister in charge of Mandsaur, said in Bhopal.

The state government has decided to buy moong directly from farmers from June 10 and also urad at the minimum support price. It has also decided to set up a price stabilisation fund of Rs 1,000 crore.

The political blame game continued between the Congress and BJP, with the ruling party publicising videos and messages of Congress leaders allegedly instigating agitators to burn down police stations and a railway property. The Congress blamed the state administration for being indifferent to the farmers plight.

In some wholesale markets like Harda and Hoshangabad, the situation was returning to normal. Farmers said they would sell vegetables directly to consumers instead of routing them through middlemen.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in a presentation to the Prime Minister at a Niti Aayog meeting last month, had claimed that farmers income in his state had risen over 32 per cent in the financial year 2016-17 as compared to 2015-16.
For all the controversy, the concept of prominent First Children is not novel in democracies.

So why is Donald Trump's daughter different and discomfiting?

Kanika Datta has the answers.

IMAGE: Ivanka Trump's tweet of her with a seat at the table in the Oval Office during Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to the US raised eyebrows.

Photograph: Kind courtesy @IvankaTrump/Twitter

The elevation of Ivanka Trump to the nebulous position of 'Assistant to the President', with a West Wing office and security clearance, raised a storm among Western commentators but attracted little comment in Asia, where politics is pretty much, sometimes literally, a family business.

But something about this trendy First Daughter is discomfiting.

For all the controversy, the concept of prominent First Children is not novel in Western democracies, but most had responsibilities without power.

None have held Ivanka's unique 'unofficially-official' position of power without responsibility.

IMAGE: Then US President Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea are welcomed to Rashtrapati Bhavan by then Indian President K R Narayanan, left, March 21, 2000.

Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters When Bill and Chelsea Clinton came to India

Chelsea Clinton, for instance, accompanied her father on his trip to India -- the first United States president to visit the country in 22 years -- in 2000.

She had no official status, but everyone knew she was filling in for her mother in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The Bill and Chelsea Platter on the Bukhara menu at Delhi's Maurya Sheraton where they stayed is a lasting reminder of a visit during which Bill wowed everyone.

IMAGE: When then US president Franklin D Roosevelt, back right, and then British prime minister Winston Churchill, front right, met aboard the USS Quincy before the Yalta Conference in February 1945, they were accompanied by their daughters Anna, back left, and Sarah, front left, respectively.

Photograph: Kind courtesy FDR Presidential Library & Museum

More than half a century earlier, another First Daughter filled in for her parents' shaky marriage.

This was Anna Roosevelt, Franklin D Roosevelt's only daughter, who frequently played White House hostess.

Her parents' estrangement -- due in part to her handsome father's serial womanising -- kept her accomplished, activist mother Eleanor on tour as often as possible (the couple remained extremely proud of each other, however; their marriage bore no resemblance to the Donald-Melania union).

Anna's role attracted little comment. But the presence of the two of Roosevelt's sons, Army Air Officer Elliott Roosevelt and naval officer FDR junior, at the famous Anglo-American conference at Placentia Bay in 1941 created an uproar.

This was the famous meet at which the Atlantic Charter was signed and from which the press was excluded. FDR had arranged the reunion with his sons, but claimed it was coincidence.

At any rate, Elliott's presence wasn't redundant. He literally provided the muscle that helped his polio-crippled, 6'2" father stand when he greeted Winston Churchill, practising weightlifting to build his strength.

IMAGE: Churchill with his youngest daughter Mary outside 10 Downing Street, July 1942.

Photograph: Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Churchill, too, often blurred the lines between the filial and the official.

Mary Churchill, then a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Army, accompanied her father as his aide-de-camp on several war tours, including to the White House and the Potsdam Conference with Harry Truman and Josef Stalin.

The bubbly Mary was the second of the Churchill daughters to meet the Russian dictator. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, he had met her stunning older sister Sarah who had accompanied her father as an aide.

A photo of him gallantly jumping up to greet Sarah while the Allied brass looks on indulgently marks a (very) rare display of Stalin's charm.

IMAGE: After her mother's death, Indira Gandhi often played hostess for her father, then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru -- including when US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy visited India in March 1962.

Photograph: Kind courtesy US Embassy New Delhi/Flickr

In Asia, several First Daughters have openly leveraged their fathers' legacies to rise to power -- Benazir Bhutto, Sheikh Hasina, Aung San Suu Kyi and Indira Gandhi being prominent examples.

Jawaharlal Nehru's widower-hood had catapulted Indira into the role of hostess and enabled her to imbibe the intricacies of prime ministership first hand.

One American First Lady -- Jackie Kennedy -- left a memorable portrait of those days. Indira, she said, was a 'bitter, pushy prune.'

Photos of her visit in 1962 confirm the poor vibes between the two (Indira's father's blatant admiration for Jackie must have had something to do with that).

IMAGE: Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner accompanied US President Donald Trump on his visit to Pope Francis.

Both Ivanka and Jared have disconcertingly broad-based roles in the White House.

Photograph: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Ivanka is another issue altogether.

Her White House office is one aspect; the distinctly creepy nature of the father-daughter relationship is the other.

Her father once told two TV anchors that if Ivanka weren't his daughter he would date her, smirk, smirk.

'Eew,' responded the anchors in open disgust, as the daughter concerned simpered at his side.

The contrast with the wholesome relationship between Chelsea and Bill, the Bush twins and George or the Obama girls and Barack was stark.

And then, there's this awesomely broad-based role assigned to Ivanka's husband and realtor of questionable talents: From West Asian peace (we saw how that played out this week) to restructuring the government (good luck with that one).

This would be familiar in India, where we once had a First Adopted Son-in-Law (daamaad), Ranjan Bhattacharya, in the Vajpayee PMO who may not have been allotted such weighty responsibilities but certainly enjoyed untrammelled influence via his access to power.

Finally, there's the running joke about the First Daughter's fabled moderating influence on her wayward father.

She's a proclaimed feminist; her father is passing policies that cruelly constrain women's rights.

She's a climate change believer, even having Al Gore meet her father; only to have Dad lift restrictions on fossil fuels.

She had Zeke Emanuel, an architect of Obamacare, meet her father; and there's a Bill in Congress that will deprive millions of their medical insurance.

Two inane books, a worldview unassailably anchored in entitlement, few hints of intellectual depth and serious conflicts of business interests.

All this bears an uncanny resemblance to an inheritor in Indian politics.

The only difference is that her father is in power; his mother isn't.
Solvay is a multi-specialty chemical company, committed to developing chemistry that addresses key societal challenges. Solvay innovates and partners with customers in diverse global end markets. Its products and solutions are used in planes, cars, smart and medical devices, batteries, in mineral and oil extraction, among many other applications promoting sustainability. Its lightweighting materials enhance cleaner mobility, its formulations optimize the use of resources and its performance chemicals improve air and water quality. Solvay is headquartered in Brussels with around 27,000 employees in 58 countries. Net sales were  10.9 billion in 2016, with 90% from activities where Solvay ranks among the world's top 3 leaders. Solvay SA (SOLB.BE) is listed on Euronext Brussels and Paris (Bloomberg: SOLB.BB - Reuters: SOLB.BR) and in the United States its shares (SOLVY) are traded through a level-1 ADR program.
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JCDecaux renews Hong Kong Tramways exclusive Tram Body Advertising Concession

Paris, 8 June 2017 - JCDecaux SA (Euronext Paris: DEC), the number one outdoor advertising company worldwide, announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, JCDecaux Cityscape, the number one street furniture advertising company in Hong Kong, has been awarded a five-year contract for 'Full Body and Interior Tram' advertising by Hong Kong Tramways Limited. Effective since 1st May 2017, JCDecaux Cityscape is the exclusive advertising agent for the entire fleet of 160 Tramcars in Hong Kong (population: 7.3 million).

Emmanuel Vivant, Managing Director of Hong Kong Tramways, said: "We are excited to expand our decade long partnership with JCDecaux. Given their continuous hard work and dedication, we are confident that they will continue growing the Tram Body Advertising business while providing creative and innovative ideas."

Jean-Charles Decaux, Co-CEO of JCDecaux, said: "We are extremely honoured and grateful to pursue our partnership with Hong Kong Tramways for another five years. We have been passionate since the inception of this unique medium and extremely dedicated to raise it to an iconic positioning in the local OOH landscape. For us, it is not only another advertising solution, but also a piece of Hong Kong history and legacy which has been part of the streetscape for over a century. With the support and trust of our partners, the creativity of the brands and the passion of our team, we will continue to innovate and amaze both the Hong Kongers and the tourists to embrace the future with charisma."

Key figures for JCDecaux

2016 revenue: 3,393m

JCDecaux is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext Paris and is part of the Euronext 100 and Euronext Family Business indexes

JCDecaux is part of the FTSE4Good and Dow Jones Sustainability Europe indexes

N1 worldwide in street furniture (559,070 advertising panels)

N1 worldwide in transport advertising with more than 220 airports and 260 contracts in metros, buses, trains and tramways (354,680 advertising panels)

N1 in Europe for billboards (169,860 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Europe (721,130 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Asia-Pacific (219,310 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Latin America (70,680 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in Africa (29,820 advertising panels)

N1 in outdoor advertising in the Middle-East (16,230 advertising panels)

N1 worldwide for self-service bike rental scheme: pioneer in eco-friendly mobility

1,117,890 advertising panels in more than 75 countries

Present in 4,280 cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants

Daily audience: more than 410 million people

13,030 employees

Communications Department: Agathe Albertini

+33 (0)1 30 79 34 99 - agathe.albertini@jcdecaux.com

Investor Relations: Arnaud Courtial

+33 (0)1 30 79 79 93 - arnaud.courtial@jcdecaux.com
Syrian refugees trapped in desert on Moroccan border with Algeria in dire need of assistance

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Syrian refugees trapped in desert on Moroccan border with Algeria in dire need of assistance, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5939343a4.html [accessed 10 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.

Moroccan authorities are flouting their international obligations to give protection to refugees by entrapping a group of 25 Syrian refugees in a desert area on the border between Morocco and Algeria and denying them access to asylum and urgent humanitarian assistance said Amnesty International.

The group of Syrians, including 10 children, have been stuck for the past two months in a buffer zone within Moroccan territory, 1km from the oasis of Figuig in Morocco and 5km away from Beni Ounif in Algeria. They had been surviving on informal assistance and supplies from locals in Figuig facilitated by the Moroccan border police, but according to the refugees this stopped on Friday morning. The Moroccan border police has thus far not given Moroccan human rights groups and humanitarian organizations, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), access to the area.

"By denying the Syrian refugees access to UNHCR, the Moroccan authorities are flouting their international obligations. These are refugees who have fled bloodshed and bombing in Syria to seek safety abroad, and the Moroccan authorities must grant them their right to apply for asylum," said Heba Morayef, North Africa Research Director at Amnesty International.

In a 30 May statement, UNHCR expressed its concern about the "rapidly deteriorating conditions for this group of vulnerable Syrian refugees" calling on both the Moroccan and Algerian government to grant safe passage to the refugees.

The Moroccan government has thus far denied that the refugees are on their territory. Amnesty International has reviewed publicly available maps data and satellite imagery and has confirmed through GPS coordinates that the refugees are located in Moroccan territory.

UNHCR is not operational in that border area and only has authorization to directly register asylum seekers at one office in the Moroccan capital Rabat. Refugees in Morocco can also register with a limited number of local partners in other regions but none of these partners operate in this border zone.

Two of the stranded Syrians suffer from hypertension and one has kidney disease but the Moroccan authorities have not provided them with any medical care or granted access to doctors accompanying the Moroccan human rights organizations who attempted to reach the area. The refugees are sleeping in makeshift shelters leaving them exposed to sunstroke in temperatures of up to 45 degrees and the threat of snake attacks.

The group had initially travelled from Lebanon to Sudan then through Libya and Algeria to reach the border area. They made a first attempt to reach the closest Moroccan town Figuig on 17 April but were pushed back to the buffer zone by Moroccan security forces.

On 22 April, Moroccan authorities publicly accused Algeria of forcing a group of Syrian refugees to cross the border into Morocco. The day after, the Algerian authorities denounced Morocco for the expulsion of the same group to Algerian territory.

Ten members of the group who were able to reach the centre of Figuig in an attempt to seek asylum were caught by the Moroccan local authorities and border police and forcibly returned to the border area on 5 June.

"Instead of forcing the Syrian refugees back into a barren desert buffer zone to face deteriorating conditions the Moroccan authorities must urgently provide humanitarian assistance and allow aid agencies access to the area to assess their needs. There can be no justification for denying the refugees access to food and water," said Heba Morayef.

On 2 June the Algerian authorities announced that they would welcome the Syrian refugees on humanitarian grounds, allow UNHCR to provide them with assistance and facilitate family reunion for those who have relatives legally residing in European countries. However, the refugees are nervous to go to Algeria and are seeking registration with UNHCR in Morocco because four of them have relatives there and want to settle in the country. The other 21 are hoping to ultimately seek family reunion in Sweden, Belgium and Germany, where they have close family members.

On 5 June, an Algerian delegation including representatives from the Algerian Red Crescent, UNHCR Algeria and Algerian local authorities (Wilaya de Bechar) reached the border zone near Beni Ounif to attempt to provide humanitarian assistance. They remained on the Algerian side of the border and called to the refugees to walk over to the Algerian side telling them they could be registered in Algeria. However the group chose to remain on the Moroccan side of the border.

The Moroccan authorities must not endanger the refugees' lives by leaving them trapped at the border in harsh conditions and without humanitarian assistance. They must immediately grant them access to the territory and allow them to exercise their right to seek asylum at the competent UNHCR office in Morocco.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Iran: Attack at mausoleum and parliament a horrific assault on human life

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Iran: Attack at mausoleum and parliament a horrific assault on human life, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593934af4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The group calling itself Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for today's suicide bombing and gun attack at parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini, the first Leader of Islamic Republic, which killed a number of people and injured dozens in Tehran. In response, Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said:

"The coordinated attack today at parliament and Ayatollah Khomeini's mausoleum was a brutal and deliberate assault on civilians carried out in cold blood. There can never be a justification for targeting civilians. The group calling itself Islamic State has again displayed its utter contempt for human life and fundamental principles of humanity.

"The Iranian authorities must promptly carry out an impartial and independent investigation into this attack and bring those responsible to justice in fair trials, without violating the absolute prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment and without recourse to the death penalty as punishment."

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Malaysia: Health Ministry Propagates Harmful Anti-LGBT Myths

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Malaysia: Health Ministry Propagates Harmful Anti-LGBT Myths, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5939357d4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Malaysian Ministry of Health, in its call for submissions to a National Creative Video Competition on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health, has endorsed an erroneous and harmful theory that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities can be "prevented" or "controlled," Human Rights Watch said today.

In a letter to Health Minister Dr. Subramaniam Sathasivam, Human Rights Watch raised concerns that the competition - which proposes that young people submit original videos on topics including "gender dysphoria," and that video submissions should address how to "prevent, control and seek help" for people who are "lesbian, gay, transgender (mak nyah), transvestite, [and] tomboy/pengkid" - promotes stigma and discrimination.

"By suggesting that LGBT people are second-class citizens whose very existence is viewed as a problem to be solved rather than an aspect of human diversity to be respected and nurtured, the Health Ministry undermines LGBT people's rights to the highest attainable standard of health, and to equality and nondiscrimination," said Neela Ghoshal, senior researcher on LGBT rights at Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch pointed out in its letter that the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from its International Classification of Diseases (ICD) in 1990, and is now undertaking steps to remove gender dysphoria from a forthcoming revision of its list of mental disorders. Other United Nations agencies have denounced so-called conversion therapies focused on changing sexual orientation and gender identify as both unethical and harmful. According to the World Psychiatric Association, "There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed. Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful. The provision of any intervention purporting to 'treat' something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical."

The competition's guidelines also seem to suggest that "preventing" or "controlling" same-sex attraction or transgender identities would reduce the incidence of HIV infection. This flies in the face of guidance from global health agencies that homophobia and transphobia impair effective HIV responses, and that rights-based, evidence-informed HIV prevention strategies are needed to tackle the pandemic.

"The Health Ministry also seems to suggest that LGBT people are responsible for the spread of HIV - when in fact it is stigma and discrimination that lead to increased prevalence," Ghoshal said.

In its letter, Human Rights Watch highlighted the Pan American Health Organization's exhortation to health professionals to do no harm: "While every expression of homophobia is regrettable, harms caused by health professionals as a result of ignorance, prejudice, or intolerance are absolutely unacceptable and must be avoided by all means. Not only is it fundamentally important that every person who uses health services be treated with dignity and respect; it is also critical to prevent the application of theories and models that view homosexuality as a 'deviation' or a choice that can be modified through 'will power' or supposed 'therapeutic support.'"

Human Rights Watch also raised concerns that the video competition targets young people aged 13 to 24.

"By targeting young people in the proposed video competition, the Ministry of Health risks fostering self-hate and self-stigma among vulnerable LGBT youth," Ghoshal said. "It also risks reinforcing biases that may be held by heterosexual and cisgender youth, potentially leading to increased homophobic and transphobic bullying and exclusion, affecting LGBT young people's performance in school and even leading to drop-outs."

Human Rights Watch calls upon the Ministry of Health to immediately issue a statement rescinding the "gender dysphoria" category from this video competition. The ministry should also clarify to the Malaysian public that sexual and gender diversity cannot be "prevented" or "controlled" and apologize to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people in Malaysia for the harm already done by circulating the call for submissions in its current form.



Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Armenia: Death Threats Against Rights Defender

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Armenia: Death Threats Against Rights Defender, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593935c04.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

A prominent human rights defender in Armenia has received death threats, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately investigate the threats, made on the rights defender's Facebook page, and ensure that he gets the protection he needs.

Artur Sakunts, the director of Helsinki Citizens' Assembly Vanadzor Office (HCA-Vanadzor), reported that on June 2, 2017, a Facebook user threatened to kill Sakunts in a comment on his Facebook page. The threat appeared to be in response to Sakunts' Facebook post the same day criticizing the Armenian government. The death threat was followed by a threat from another Facebook user. HCA-Vanadzor is a leading human rights organization in Armenia.

"The Armenian authorities should waste no time in meeting their obligations to investigate the death threat against Artur Sakunts and provide him with the protection he needs," said Jane Buchanan, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "No one should fear death for publicly criticizing the government."

The June 2 Facebook post from a user named Ashot Avanesyan said, "Sakunts, I'll kill you [traitors] like you must have their heads [cut] off. Wait for me any moment. I am not one who shoots from the back; I'll shoot from the front, two to three meters, with a 9mm caliber bullet. Wait for me, Sakunts." Following Avanesyan's post, a second Facebook user named Artur Ghazaryan also threatened Sakunts saying that, "The country should be cleaned of him."

On June 5, Sakunts reported the death threat to the general prosecutor's office, which is examining it to determine if there are grounds to initiate a criminal investigation.

Sakunts told Human Rights Watch that he has received threats in the past, but the June 2 threat alarmed him because it was very specific in terms of method, even to the caliber of the bullet.

Armenia's human rights ombudsman also raised concerns about the threats and called for an investigation.

HCA-Vanadzor, operating since 1998, is based in Vanadzor, Armenia's third largest city. The organization provides legal aid to victims of human rights abuses, makes policy recommendations to the government, monitors elections, and carries out peace-building activities.

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Iraq/US-Led Coalition: Weapons Choice Endangers Mosul Civilians

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 8 June 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Iraq/US-Led Coalition: Weapons Choice Endangers Mosul Civilians, 8 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5939361f4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The expected battle involving Iraqi and US-led coalition forces against the Islamic State (ISIS) in west Mosul's Old City poses a considerable threat to civilians and civilian objects, international humanitarian and human rights organizations said today. All warring parties should cease using explosive weapons with wide area effects and inherently indiscriminate weapons in densely populated west Mosul. ISIS's unlawful use of civilians as "human shields" and the difficulty of identifying civilians in buildings increases the risk of civilian casualties.

The United Nations has estimated that 200,000 civilians remain in the two-square-kilometer area in west Mosul's Old City, which Iraqi and US-led coalition forces are encircling in preparation for the battle there.

"Thousands of families are trapped by ISIS in west Mosul, with its fighters preventing civilians from fleeing to safety," said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Iraqi and coalition forces should recognize that in the crowded Old City, using explosive weapons with wide area effects puts civilians at excessive risk."

The groups expressing concern are Airwars, Amnesty International, Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW), and War Child.

On May 25, 2017, anti-ISIS forces dropped leaflets urging civilians to immediately leave areas under ISIS control. Anti-ISIS forces should take all feasible precautions to minimize harm when carrying out attacks and ensure that civilians can safely evacuate the Old City and get humanitarian assistance both inside and outside the besieged area. With the offensive to take west Mosul entering its 109th day, the situation for civilians trapped there is growing increasingly perilous. Those fleeing Mosul have told humanitarian and human rights organizations that markets are being emptied of food, with civilians subsisting on little more than wheat and rainwater.

In mid-February, the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) supported by the US-led coalition, known as the Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), began the offensive to retake west Mosul, a densely populated set of urban neighborhoods.

Rising civilian casualties from aerial operations have heightened concerns regarding coalition and Iraqi forces' use of airstrikes. The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects such as air-dropped bombs of 500lbs and above, which have been used in the context of the operation, in densely populated civilian areas of western Mosul may be resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects that is excessive to the anticipated military objectives of the strikes. Such disproportionate military attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Iraqi forces have also been launching locally fabricated rockets, commonly known as improvised rocket-assisted munitions (IRAMs), into west Mosul. Images published by media outlets and the US military also depict US forces and Iraqi forces firing mortars and unguided artillery rockets into western Mosul. Both of these weapons are inaccurate and can be unlawfully indiscriminate if used in heavily populated areas.

The difficulty of detecting civilians in the packed city, even with advanced targeting systems and continuous observation, make it difficult to determine accurately the number of civilians occupying a target area prior to approving strikes. The dangers are increased by ISIS's use of civilians as "human shields," which is a war crime.

Dozens of newly displaced people from west Mosul, including the Old City, have told humanitarian and human rights organizations that ISIS fighters forced them and their families to move with them up to three times, packing large numbers of families into small neighborhoods still under their control. They witnessed fighters summarily killing dozens of men as punishment as they and their families tried to flee ISIS control. They also saw ISIS fighters fire on groups of civilians as they fled; and some saw fleeing civilians shot and killed.

As the fighting intensifies and ISIS increases its use of civilians as shields, anti-ISIS forces should use all available means to verify the presence and location of civilians in the immediate vicinity of any fighters or military objectives targeted. In December 2016, US forces made procedural changes in its targeting that may increase the likelihood of civilian casualties.

All parties to the conflict are prohibited under the laws of war from conducting deliberate attacks against civilians or civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks. Indiscriminate attacks are attacks that strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. An attack is disproportionate if it may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from the attack.

Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war with criminal intent - that is, deliberately or recklessly - are responsible for war crimes. Individuals also may be held criminally liable for attempting to commit a war crime, as well as assisting in, facilitating, aiding, or abetting a war crime.

The laws of war require that the parties to a conflict take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian population and to "take all feasible precautions" to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects. When used in populated areas, munitions with large payloads of high explosives can have a wide-area destructive effect, and it is not possible when using them to distinguish adequately between civilians and combatants, almost inevitably resulting in civilian casualties.

Weapons such as mortars and multi-barrel rocket launchers when firing unguided munitions and IRAMs are fundamentally inaccurate. This can make discriminating between civilians and combatants during an attack on a densely populated area virtually impossible. Human rights and humanitarian organizations and journalists have documented the use by Iraqi forces of IRAMs that lack the ability to be aimed beyond a basic orientation toward the target and are inherently indiscriminate.

Mortars and multi-barrel rocket launchers firing unguided munitions used by anti-ISIS forces can be aimed and adjusted by an observer, but are area-fire weapons and, when used in densely populated areas, are prone to unlawful indiscriminate use. Iraqi and US-led coalition forces should avoid all use of these weapons in the densely populated Old City of west Mosul.

Signatories:

Airwars

Amnesty International

Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC)

Human Rights Watch

International Network on Explosive Weapons (INEW)

War Child

Human Rights Watch's Investigation on Weapons Being Used and their Dangers to Civilians

Mitigation of Civilian Harm

When operating in densely populated areas where civilians and combatants are comingled, commanders should take all feasible steps to minimize the harm to civilians and civilian buildings. Where feasible, commanders should require those that maintain the ability to approve the release of weapons (terminal attack controllers) to maintain the highest level of direct control over each strike, including both seeing the target and attacking aircraft. Commanders should also limit the use of indirect-fire weapons (mortars, artillery, and rockets) using unguided munitions - meaning that the firing unit does not see the target, but relies on spotters to provide targeting information. In all cases, commanders and targeting officers should select weapons and specific munitions to minimize civilian casualties to the maximum extent possible.

Use of Airstrikes

On June 2, CJTF-OIR published its monthly civilian casualty report. The report found that: "To date, based on information available, CJTF-OIR assesses that, it is more likely than not, at least 484 civilians have been unintentionally killed by Coalition strikes since the start of Operation Inherent Resolve." During the same period, Airwars, a UK-based nongovernmental organization that monitors airstrikes, estimated that the minimum number of civilian casualties from US-led coalition strikes was more than 3,800, approximately eight times the number reported by the coalition. Following an investigation into a March 17 strike, the US has admitted that its forces killed at least 105 civilians in just one strike when targeting two ISIS fighters. US military officials have said that non-US coalition members are responsible for at least 80 of the 484 fatalities, but none of the coalition members have publicly admitted responsibility.

Frontline medical workers have said they are seeing a higher number of traumatic injuries among civilians, including crush injuries on civilians stuck under rubble after attacks in west Mosul, than they saw in east Mosul and during previous operations in Iraq. One doctor estimated that, since the beginning of the Mosul operation in October, medical facilities have seen at least 12,000 wounded civilians, with more than 50 percent coming from west Mosul. An aid worker keeping a tally of bodies coming out of west Mosul said that, since mid-March, 650 bodies had been pulled out of the rubble of destroyed buildings in the aftermath of attacks by both sides.

Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery of western Mosul identified more than 380 distinct impact sites in the Tanak neighborhood, west of the Old City, consistent with the detonation of large, airdropped munitions occurring between March 8 and April 26, 2017.

A review of damaged locations showed a majority of these airstrikes most likely targeted mixed residential and commercial buildings, with a substantial minority of strikes targeting main roads and road intersections across the neighborhood. Human Rights Watch has no information as to whether there were any military targets in or near the buildings and roads.

Although this apparently accurate targeting pattern of the road network is consistent with the use of guided munitions, Human Rights Watch found that the majority of impact craters in Tanak measured 10 or more meters in diameter, consistent with the use of conventional airdropped bombs weighing between 500 and 1,000 lbs.

Airstrikes on roads consistently resulted in impact craters impeding vehicle traffic as well as secondary damage to hundreds of residential and commercial buildings within the blast zone.

The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects such as air-dropped bombs of this size on probable military targets in densely populated civilian areas of western Mosul may be resulting in civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects that is excessive to the anticipated military objectives of the strikes. Such disproportionate military attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Use of Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions

Two international observers told Human Rights Watch they had witnessed the presence of IRAM launchers as well as IRAMs being fired on numerous occasions from May 5 to 14. They saw Federal Police-marked and Emergency Division-marked launchers mounted on wheeled vehicles in areas northwest of west Mosul, and in a western and southern neighborhood of west Mosul. In the village of Badoush, 10 kilometers northwest of the city, one observed IRAMs and IRAM launchers at an Emergency Response Division military workshop.

Three other observers and at least one media outlet confirmed that the munitions were being fired. One observer said the Emergency Response Division fired multiple munitions from Haramat neighborhood west of the Old City in the direction of the Old City in early May, while another said he saw the Federal Police fire at least 13 IRAMs from a neighborhood just south of the Old City into the Old City over two days in mid-April. They said that the armed forces would not allow any photos of the munitions being fired. The third said that in mid-May he saw the Emergency Response Division fire at least six into the Old City from Badoush.

Two observers who were able to examine the munitions closely said they saw a small metal barrel containing an unknown type of propelling charge, attached to the sawn-off nose of a 105mm artillery projectile, equipped with a fuze. The warhead was welded to a shaft, which included a rocket. Small homemade fins were bolted and welded to the shaft near its base. The launching pods were elevated using a hydraulic system from the rear deck of the wheeled vehicles. One observed that the rockets did not fit snuggly into the launcher tubes, which could lead to an uneven distribution of the rocket motor's blast when initiated, leading to an unstable launch and subsequent deviation of the trajectory. The observers said that there was no visible sighting or laying system on the vehicles or launching pods, which would allow the position of the weapon to be shifted to hit a specific target, making even attempting to aim the rockets with any accuracy impossible.

Use of Mortars

Recent photos and a video posted by the US military and Reuters depicting the firing of mortars outside Mosul raise concerns about the firing of unguided and inaccurate weapons into the densely populated Old City. The photos, posted to a US military web account, are dated March 18 and 19. They depict the use of three different mortar systems: the M224, which fires a 60-milimeter projectile; the M252, which fires an 81-milimeter projectile; and the M120, which fires a 120-milimeter projectile. In the photos, the projectiles used appear to be standard high-explosive rounds.

In the video posted by the US Military on May 19, both the M252 and M120 mortars are observed. In the photos and video available, the projectiles used appear to be standard high-explosive rounds. Photos posted by Reuters on May 27 show Iraqi Emergency Response Division forces loading and firing an Al-Jaleel 82mm mortar system on the outskirts of Mosul. A larger system, the Al-Jaleel 120mm mortar, appears off to the side. None of the projectiles for the mortars depicted in either the photos or video were guidance munitions.

Mortar systems using unguided projectiles are fundamentally inaccurate weapons and can only hit the area near an identified target. As such, the location each round strikes cannot be determined with a high degree of accuracy before its use. Rounds are fired by mortar teams and a "spotter" is used to observe each impact and recommend adjustments in aim to the crew to adjust the fire and eventually achieve desired effects on the intended target, be it suppression, incapacitation, or destruction. The first round fired after a mortar tube and baseplate are set-up is called a registering round, which allows the weapon to settle and for the spotter to see how accurate the initial calculation was.

If the initial round does not strike the target, additional rounds will be fired and their impacts observed until the right calculation is made. Common methods for ensuring the round strikes the intended target include "walking" the round onto the target or "bracketing." The former method involves firing one round and then making incremental lateral or vertical adjustments to the weapon until the round strikes the target. The latter method involves making broader lateral or vertical adjustments so that the round strikes either side of the target until an accurate calculation can be made and the target is hit.

Use of Multi-Barrel Rocket Launchers

Recent photos published by Reuters depict Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, also known as Hashd al-Sha'abi, utilizing a variant of the BM-21 Grad multi-barrel rocket launcher on the outskirts of Mosul. Use of this weapon compounds concerns about the use of area-fire explosive weapons in the densely populated Old City. Grad systems fire 122-milimeter artillery rockets launched from up to 40 launch tubes. Most Grad rockets have a range of 1.5 to 20 kilometers. The rockets vary in length from 1.9 to 3.3 meters and weigh 45 to 75 kilograms. Most types of Grad rockets are unguided and can only be targeted on an area, and are often fired in salvos by their launchers to rapidly saturate an area.

Grad rockets can be equipped with various types of warheads. The most common is a high explosive/fragmentation type, which contains approximately 6.4 kilograms of high explosive and is designed to produce 3,150 fragments, which can kill or injure within a radius of 28 meters from its impact point. At its maximum range of some 20 kilometers, the most common rocket (9M22U) with the basic high explosive/fragmentation (M-21-OF) warhead is only accurate within a rectangle of 336 meters by 160 meters. In other words, from its aim point, the rocket could land anywhere within a rectangle of approximately 54,000 square meters.

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Colombia: Armed Groups Oppress Riverside Communities

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Colombia: Armed Groups Oppress Riverside Communities, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5939368a4.html [accessed 10 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.

Two armed groups competing for control over stretches of Colombia's San Juan river are committing serious abuses against Afro-Colombian and indigenous Wounaan riverside communities, Human Rights Watch said today. The National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas and the paramilitary successor group Gaitanist Self-defenses of Colombia (AGC) have been engaged in conflict with one another in the Choco province for years.

Human Rights Watch has documented evidence of responsibility by both groups for a range of abuses against scores of victims in the Litoral de San Juan municipality and in rural areas of the Buenaventura district. The abuses include killings, child recruitment, planting landmines, and threats, and have resulted in the displacement of thousands of people in recent years. Armed groups have also limited families' ability to work on the river and in the neighboring hills. Human Rights Watch research suggests that such abuses in Litoral de San Juan are illustrative of abuses in other municipalities in the province. The Colombian government is obliged to provide adequate shelter to those who flee, but its efforts to do so have fallen short.

"As they dispute control over the San Juan river, these two armed groups have displaced hundreds of families and forced many others to confine themselves to their immediate villages," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "Unless the authorities protect them, the promise of peace in Colombia will continue to be only an abstract idea for these vulnerable communities in Choco."

The official estimate of almost 3,000 people displaced in 2016 from Litoral de San Juan, with a population of 15,000, makes it the municipality with the second highest number of displaced people after the big port city of Buenaventura, which has for years had high rates of forced displacement. In the first two months of 2017, over 1,300 people were forced to leave their homes in Litoral de San Juan,

Even as the ELN, a leftist armed group, conducts peace talks with the Colombian government in Quito, Ecuador, its fighters are injuring and abusing community members. Abuses have occurred both during fighting against the government and the AGC and through the group's efforts to impose social control on riverside communities. The peace talks started in February, after two years of exploratory negotiations. The parties are discussing an agenda item called "humanitarian actions and dynamics" which, according to an agreement reached in April, is meant to protect civilians from the armed conflict in conformity with international humanitarian law (the laws of the war).

"The negotiating parties in Quito should address the abuses inflicted on people in Choco as part of their discussions," Vivanco said. "If the ELN is serious about peace, it should at least respect the most basic laws of war."

The AGC, which emerged after a flawed paramilitary demobilization more than a decade ago, has also been implicated in many abuses. On April 16, two boat drivers were abducted from the Afro-Colombian community of Pichima Playa and killed. Local officials who had looked into the case told Human Rights Watch that they believe that the AGC were responsible. In August 2016, two members of the AGC allegedly attacked a woman on a hill, injuring her to force her to provide information about community leaders. Human Rights Watch also received credible allegations that both the ELN and the AGC recruit children by force to join their ranks or work as informants and that AGC members have pressed girls as young as 12 to become their sexual partners.

The hills flanking the villages provide cover for the armed groups, and the river is a vital, contested transit corridor to the Pacific Ocean. Both groups are seeking to control the area, so the villagers' daily activities - fishing, tending crops, woodcutting, and foraging for materials for craftworks - expose them to threats and violence. Sometimes villagers are trapped by fear of crossfire or of landmines, and at other times, the armed groups impose restrictions on villagers' movements, impeding their livelihoods.

In 8 of the 16 communities Human Rights Watch visited in March, residents said that one or both groups had inhibited their ability to engage in such daily economic activities as fishing, chopping wood, and growing crops. They said it was often difficult to get food and drinkable water. In one instance, on February 19, a Wounaan community reported that the ELN had "forbidden" residents from going out to fish, hunt, or harvest.

Many residents said they fear retaliation for reporting abuses in part because they believe that authorities or others may leak information to armed groups. "I am afraid" of reporting, one Afro-Colombian villager said. "Nobody knows who is who and what might get you killed."

Human Rights Watch also documented that government assistance to displaced families is lacking. Under Colombian law, authorities must guarantee victims of displacement decent shelter and food. Yet scores of displaced people from Litoral de San Juan live in deplorable conditions. In one example, when a community of more than 450 people was displaced to the town of Docordo in May 2016, most of them had to sleep for more than eight months on the floor of a community center with no interior dividing walls. Some contracted preventable illnesses such as diarrhea. Many community members said that inadequate sustenance in host communities was forcing them to return to their villages even though they did not feel safe there.

"Residents of the San Juan riverside communities are often left to their own devices," Vivanco said. "Many displaced families are forced to decide between overcrowded and unhealthy conditions in the cities and the very real threat of abuses by armed groups in their villages."

Abuse from Both Sides

Human Rights Watch visited Litoral de San Juan and also communities farther south along the San Juan river in the Valle del Cauca province and along the nearby Calima river.

Human Rights Watch interviewed residents from 20 Afro-Colombian and Wounaan communities, as well as local officials and workers with aid organizations operating in the area. Most of the interviews were conducted in Litoral de San Juan in March. Some people were interviewed in Quibdo, the provincial capital, and some were interviewed by telephone. Many people interviewed said that they feared reprisals and spoke on condition that their names and other identifying information would be withheld, including the names of their communities. The research also drew on government data and official reports.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed officials, aid workers, and community leaders about the situation in other areas of Choco, including the municipalities of Lloro, Alto Baudo, and Rio Sucio, farther north. The research suggests that the abuses documented in Litoral de San Juan are illustrative of abuses in other municipalities in the province.

Killings and Other Physical Violence

The research suggests that both the AGC and the ELN terrorize villagers to keep them from cooperating with government authorities, as well as to extract information on the activities of community leaders. Such abuses contribute to villagers' flight from the area or to curtailing their ability to fish and grow crops. Cases of killings and other violent abuses, drawn from interviews and media reports, include:

On April 19, Navy officers found two men dead from bullet wounds, a Navy commander told the media. Days before, Colombia's ombudsman's office had reported that the men had been kidnapped from the Afro-Colombian community of Pichima Playa on the San Juan river, allegedly by the AGC. Two government officials and a leader of the General Community Council of the San Juan River (ACADESAN, Consejo Comunitario General del Rio San Juan) - a representative body that includes members of 72 Afro-Colombian communities by the San Juan river - told Human Rights Watch that the men worked as boat drivers and that armed men the government officials believed to be AGC members abducted the men when they were on their way to pick up worshipers going to an Easter celebration. Initial investigations suggest that the men were killed shortly afterward, an official from the ombudsman's office told Human Rights Watch on April 25. In a public statement released on April 26, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said that the victims were siblings of an imprisoned FARC guerrilla.

On March 25, five people were killed in the riverside community of Carra. The Attorney General's Office reported that seven ELN members apparently killed the men and left an ELN flag in the community. The ELN first denied the claims, but one of their peace negotiators later said the group was not sure what had happened and would "acknowledge the mistake" if they were indeed involved. A justice official who took testimony from Carra community members told Human Rights Watch that there was no clash between armed groups on the day of the deaths but that men wearing the ELN emblem had appeared in town and fired indiscriminately. An ACADESAN leader gave a similar account. She declined to say which group they were from.

On February 4, four members of an armed group allegedly detained, beat, and interrogated a man from a Wounaan community on the Calima river. The man was working on a hillside near the village when armed men stopped him at around 11 a.m., Colombia's ombudsman's office reported. They released him nine hours later, covered with bruises. A leader from a neighboring village told Human Rights Watch that, as the assailants beat the man, they asked whether he knew a certain person. Wounaan groups said in a public statement that the attackers were "paramilitaries," a term community members normally use for the AGC. After the incident, community members stopped leaving the village for fear of such crimes, and later the entire community left for Buenaventura.

On August 15, 2016, two AGC members attacked a woman who was with her husband on a hill overlooking the San Juan river. A community leader and a Choco official who took testimony from the victim said the attackers slashed four of her fingers with a knife and hit her chest and back, demanding information about various community leaders. Human Rights Watch researchers saw photos of the victim's cut fingers. Days later, all the families in the village and a neighboring village fled as a result of this incident and fearing new abuses, community leaders told Human Rights Watch. When Human Rights Watch interviewed them in March in the town to which they had fled, they said most had yet to feel safe enough to return.

Recruitment and Use of Children, and Interference with Education

Both the ELN and AGC have in recent years recruited children in communities of the Litoral de San Juan and have attempted to recruit many others. Several justice officials and representatives of aid organizations said that recruitment of children is common but that victims' relatives typically do not report it for fear of reprisals. An ACADESAN leader said that since early 2015, 30 children have been forcefully recruited by armed groups in communities ACADESAN represents by the San Juan river. Examples include the following:

In February, armed men forcefully recruited a 15-year-old girl from the Wounaan community of Chagpien Tordo on the San Juan river, an aid group working in the area reported. After that, 106 community members fled to Buenaventura. Families who stayed in the village fear that four remaining young girls will be forcefully recruited, the organization reported. From Buenaventura, a leader of the community told the media that the ELN had taken three children from the community recently and that the guerrilla supposedly had a list of more children there it planned to recruit.

In June 2016, three armed ELN guerrillas accosted a Wounaan village on the San Juan river, brandishing a list of five boys they wanted to join their ranks, a community leader told Human Rights Watch. The children's families fled to Buenaventura, he said, but had to return shortly thereafter because they could not get humanitarian assistance in the city. Several teachers at the community's school said that since that recruitment attempt, many parents have kept their children out of school. Children must take a boat at dawn to attend school, and parents fear they will be forcibly recruited during the journey, teachers said.

Human Rights Watch received credible allegations that groups use children as informants about their communities. In one Wounaan community on the San Juan river, for example, a teacher said that the ELN uses many children ages 16 to 18 to tell them what is going on in the village.

Because parents are often reluctant to report recruitment, some cases are revealed only when children are killed in combat or arrested. A Choco justice official told Human Rights Watch that a girl in the ELN ranks was killed during a bombing by the Colombian armed forces in 2016. Members of an indigenous community by the San Juan river later recognized her as a relative, the official said. In April, the Navy arrested 12 alleged members of the AGC, including three children, the Attorney General's Office reported.

AGC members asked a 17-year-old boy from an Afro-Colombian community on the San Juan river to join their ranks in December 2015, a neighbor told Human Rights Watch. The boy refused and fled with his family, who feared the group would take him by force. A member of the AGC had also threatened to kill the boy's sister, the neighbor said.

Human Rights Watch also received credible allegations that AGC members coerced girls as young as 12 to be their sexual partners. In one Afro-Colombian community, two residents said that at least five girls under 18 have become pregnant by AGC members in recent years. A 12-year-old girl gave birth to the child of an AGC member in March 2016, and fled with her newborn daughter for fear of the group, a relative said. A 15-year-old girl became pregnant with the child of an AGC member in 2012. "My parents didn't do anything because they are afraid," her sister said.

A Choco justice official and an official with the ombudsman's office said in separate interviews that child pregnancies by AGC members are common in other nearby communities as well. The official from the ombudsman's office said that, in some cases, such pregnancies resulted from rapes, but that families generally refrain from reporting rapes for fear of reprisals.

In addition to depressing school attendance through the threat of recruitment, armed groups disrupt education through firefights and by seizing schools for use by fighters. In several communities, leaders and teachers said that classes had been interrupted in 2016 and 2017, sometimes for weeks, because children and teachers feared abuses or getting caught in confrontations, which have at times taken place near schools. On February 19, for example, the Colombian navy engaged in a shootout with the AGC for 45 minutes behind the school that serves the Afro-Colombian community of Carra, residents told Human Rights Watch.

Armed groups apparently have at times used local schools as military bases or taken up positions in schools during hostilities. Around August 2016, ELN guerrillas temporarily occupied a Wounaan village school and threatened the teacher, an aid group that works in the area told Human Rights Watch. The teacher was forced to flee to a neighboring city, Wounaan leaders said in a public statement, after ELN members phoned and threatened to "disappear" him if he did not either leave the school or pay them five million Colombian pesos (around US$1,720). The ELN denied the allegations in an online public statement.

A teacher in an Afro-Colombian community said that AGC members, during a firefight with the Colombian army around September 2016, took cover in another school while classes were in session. A justice official said that the AGC often uses that particular school for military purposes.

Use of Antipersonnel Landmines

The 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, to which Colombia is a party, bans antipersonnel landmines. Their use is a violation of international law. Yet Human Rights Watch received credible reports of ELN and AGC use or possession of antipersonnel landmines in riverside communities. As noted above, fear of incidents with landmines or other explosive devices have curtailed villagers' movement and their ability to carry out their economic activities. Credible reports on the use or possession of antipersonnel landmines include the following:

In January 2017, three antipersonnel landmines exploded near the water main used by an Afro-Colombian community on the San Juan river. The explosions injured a Marine, officials reported. The ELN later acknowledged in a public statement that it had used the landmines and said that "three state agents were mutilated and others [had] other types of wounds." When Human Rights Watch visited in March, community members said that fear of landmines had kept them from cleaning the water main since December 2016, and that access to drinkable water was dwindling.

On February 19, 2017, Marines arrested two AGC members who possessed three antipersonnel landmines near an Afro-Colombian village on the San Juan river, the Attorney General's Office reported. Human Rights Watch saw photos of the landmines and interviewed a Navy officer who participated in the operation and confirmed the detention of AGC members and the seizure of landmines.

Threats, Social Control, and Restricted Movement

Whether deliberately or as a result of the violent insecurity they create, armed groups have limited the ability of many riverside communities to work and feed their families. Harvesting crops, logging, fishing, and foraging for materials for crafts are core economic activities of Wounaan and Afro-Colombian riverside communities - and all require leaving the confines of the immediate village. "We are often hungry because the armed groups are in the hills where we work," a Wounaan woman said. "We can't chop trees, do craftworks, or harvest." In February, Colombia's ombudsman's office estimated that most communities in Litoral de San Juan faced restrictions on movement. The Constitutional Court, in a ruling that month about the government's compliance with a 2004 decision on the rights of displaced people, described the restrictions on movement as "widespread."

In some cases, armed groups have told communities that they cannot use the river at certain hours or during certain periods. The biggest displacement resulting from such restrictions that Human Rights Watch documented involved 94 Wounaan families - an entire village - that fled to Docordo in April 2016. They fled in part because of what the village teacher called "rules and conditions" from an armed group. "We couldn't go down the river," he said. "We couldn't harvest our crops. And if we don't obey, they'll hurt us."

Similarly, in January 2017, members of an armed group told people from another Wounaan community that residents could not leave the village after 6 p.m., a teacher told Human Rights Watch. The teacher did not identify the group for fear of reprisals, but an aid group working in the area said it was the ELN.

On February 19, after an armed confrontation between ELN guerrillas and government security forces on communal land held by a Wounaan village on the San Juan river, community leaders issued a statement saying that the ELN had "forbidden" residents from going out to fish, hunt, or harvest.

In May 2016, Colombia's ombudsman's office reported that armed groups were using threats to "restrict the civilian population from using the river between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m." Such threats prevent fishing and hunting at night, traditional practices in many Wounaan and Afro-Colombian communities. A Choco justice official told Human Rights Watch in April that the ELN imposes such restrictions in virtually all the communities in the area under the pretext that it is unsafe for people to move at night. Similarly, an ACADESAN leader said that all of the 72 Afro-Colombian communities they represent by the San Juan river had suffered such restrictions in recent years.

Even when not verbally threatened, many communities have curtailed their movements for fear of abuses, of being caught in cross-fire, or of stepping on landmines. In one Afro-Colombian community, many people said that they had stopped growing crops after three landmines exploded nearby. They also feared abuse if caught in the hills. "If they find us in the hills, they'll think we are going to inform [the authorities], and they'll kill us," one villager said.

The groups seek to dominate and govern the riverside communities, including by punishing those who do not obey their "rules." More than 160 Litoral de San Juan inhabitants reported threats by armed groups in 2015 and 2016, and Colombia's Constitutional Court said in its February 2017 ruling that it had received reports of "systematic" threats against community leaders and teachers. Threats documented by Human Rights Watch include:

During the first months of 2016, armed AGC members visited one Afro-Colombian village four times, residents said, ordering mandatory meetings in the streets for all adults. During the meetings, AGC members reminded people "how we silence an informant" and threatened those who, they believed, had informed authorities about their activities. During 2016, at least three families who had been threatened in this way left the community at dawn, a resident said, taking the belongings they could carry in their hands.

ELN guerrillas visited another Afro-Colombian village frequently, a community leader said, under the pretext of "protecting the community." In November, the ELN ordered everyone in the village to attend a meeting in which guerrillas suggested that those who informed authorities about the group's actions would have "problems." At this and other meetings, guerrillas forbade teenagers to smoke or consume drugs, and set punishments for defiance. In February 2016, the group forced two young adults to perform community service as punishment for brawling, a village leader said. The ELN imposes such sanctions in many San Juan river communities, a Choco justice official said, and reprimands boys who wear earrings or long hair.

In mid-January, armed men whom a local leader described as "the owners of the river," reprimanded members of a San Juan river Wounaan community, accusing them of requesting Navy protection. The leaders denied requesting Navy protection but promised that the community would punish those the armed men identified as responsible. "We don't want [them] to do what they've done in other communities," one leader said, presumably referring to punishments the group has imposed for infractions of its rules. While locals refrained from identifying the group, a humanitarian organization working in the area told Human Rights Watch it was the ELN. The community had itself already suffered ELN intimidation - and family displacement. In December 2015, ELN guerrillas told various leaders and teachers that they would be "held responsible" for a killing. Days later, 26 families fled to Buenaventura, a teacher who had fled and returned said.

In 2015, armed men threatened to kill eight leaders and rape the women in a Wounaan village if leaders continued to claim land in a neighboring community, two of those threatened told Human Rights Watch. In December 2016, an unknown man came and showed pictures of the leaders who had been threatened, they said, asking where he could find them. The men remained unharmed when Human Rights Watch visited in March 2017.

The director of Litoral de San Juan's Personeria - a municipal human rights agency - said that armed groups have threatened her repeatedly. On October 20, a Wounaan man came to her house to inform her of a plan to kidnap her, and she has since refrained from visiting many communities that she would normally cover as part of her mandate.

Forced Displacement

Forced displacement is widespread in the riverside communities that Human Rights Watch researched. The abuses and fighting have driven thousands of residents from their homes. In Litoral de San Juan, the number of people displaced in 2016 was the second highest in the country in absolute terms and the highest on a per capita basis: the number of people displaced represents 20 percent of the population.

Newly displaced Litoral de San Juan residents National Rank 2016 2,995 2 2015 2,374 6 2014 2,403 12 Source: Victims' Unit. Cut-off date: April 1, 2017

Forced displacement is chronic for many San Juan river families. Members of one Afro-Colombian community Human Rights Watch visited fled in July 2015, and again in March 2017. The first time, 18 families fled to Docordo after ELN guerrillas came asking for people who they said had cooperated with the AGC. The families returned after three days. In March, 52 people fled after armed men killed five residents.

Similarly, members of a Wounaan community fled in April and again in May of 2016. In April, 466 people fled to Docordo, returning 15 days later due to lack of access to decent housing and food. Threats from an armed group sent them fleeing again on May 4, and they returned in December because of poor living conditions in Docordo. When Human Rights Watch visited in March 2017, teachers said families feared renewed abuses and might soon be forced to flee again.

Limited Assistance to Displaced and 'Confined' People

Under Colombia's Victims Law, municipal governments must provide victims with humanitarian assistance, including decent shelter and food, as soon as they ask to be registered as victims. The law provides that if a municipal government is unable to offer such aid, a provincial government or national agency must assist. Yet Human Rights Watch found consistent shortcomings in government assistance to displaced and confined people.

The municipality of Litoral de San Juan does not have a shelter for displaced people, despite its high levels of displacement. Almost 4,000 people were displaced to or within Litoral de San Juan in 2015 and 2016, according to Colombia's Victims' Unit. Scores of internally displaced people in Litoral de San Juan have lived in substandard conditions. In one community, all the displaced families were living in houses with plastic roofs, which they said made the heat unbearable and contributed to unhealthy living conditions.

Several people who had fled in fear of abuse said that they returned to their communities even though they felt unsafe because the assistance they received in Docordo, the municipality's capital, or Buenaventura was inadequate. A teacher from a community of more than 450 people, many of whom were displaced to Docordo in April and May of 2016 for fear, at least in part, of ELN abuses, said that the people went home in December because they "felt abandoned."

Most had been placed in a community center with no interior dividing walls where, for eight months, they slept on the floor. Others had been required to pay rent, which the mayor's office had promised to repay but never did, a teacher said. The Constitutional Court concluded that the reception of these families was "characterized by overcrowding, insalubrious conditions, and limited food." In March 2017, when Human Rights Watch visited the community to which they had returned, residents said abuses by armed groups were once again forcing them to consider fleeing to Docordo.

Displaced people and representatives of aid organizations said that conditions for families who flee to Buenaventura are also troubling. In early 2017, 10 displaced families from a Wounaan community by the San Juan river slept for over a month on the patio of a public building. The patio does not have walls, so families were exposed to the elements, an official from an aid organization said. A leader of another community that was recently displaced to Buenaventura told the media in April 2017 that several community members were sick and that they were drinking rain water.

In 2013 and again in 2014, Human Rights Watch recommended that, given the very high number of displaced families, the City of Buenaventura should build a shelter. It has yet to do so, although more than 15,000 people were displaced to or within Buenaventura in 2015 and 2016, according to Colombia's Victims' Unit.

Socioeconomic Exclusion

Many interviewees said that poverty, a lack of economic opportunities, and limited access to basic services in Litoral de San Juan have created an environment in which armed groups thrive by easily recruiting members, including children.

According to the latest government figures, from 2011, almost 80 percent of the population in Choco has unsatisfied basic needs - like housing, public services, and access to education - and over 30 percent live in extreme poverty. Figures from 2011 also show that almost 40 percent of Litoral de San Juan residents live in extreme poverty - almost four times the national average.

Residents said that health services were especially limited in Litoral de San Juan. For example, many residents cited difficulties in getting malaria medicine. Colombia's Health Ministry reports that 208 people suffered malaria in Litoral de San Juan in 2016. A nurse, working without pay, told Human Rights Watch that she had diagnosed dozens of cases in her community in 2016, and that it was hard to get medicines to treat the patients.

Fear of Reporting

Many residents said they fear retaliation for reporting abuses - in part because they believe that authorities or others may leak information to armed groups. During Human Rights Watch interviews, many people changed the subject or interrupted the conversation when others approached them. Later, they would explain that it was hard to know who might be an informant for the armed groups. "Nobody knows who is who and what might get you killed," one Afro-Colombian villager said.

Human Rights Watch witnessed a conversation between a Navy captain and several villagers in which the captain identified communities that were helping him identify members of the ELN and the AGC. Residents and a justice official later said that the captain's statements placed the communities identified at risk. Human Rights Watch received credible allegations of similar statements from public security officials.

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Turkey expels Syrians working for Danish NGO

Publisher IRIN Author Ben Parker Publication Date 2 June 2017 Cite as IRIN, Turkey expels Syrians working for Danish NGO, 2 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593938954.html [accessed 10 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.

Turkey has expelled four Syrians working for a Danish aid agency, a new move in a crackdown on international NGOs, IRIN can now report. Their destination: Khartoum, Sudan, 3,000 kilometres away. No aid agency has previously confirmed deportations of Syrian staff from Turkey. The destination of Sudan was chosen to avoid a dangerous return to Syria, the NGO told IRIN.

In a statement, DanChurchAid (DCA) said the staffers' lives "would have been in imminent danger" had they been deported to Syria. The staff, one woman and three men, had been detained for two months. The DCA operation was shut down by Turkish authorities after failing to get formal registration. It's one of several NGOs using Turkey as a base for operations in Syria that have also been closed and their staff laid off.

The Danish NGO reported that "the four Syrians were released on the condition that they leave Turkey". Another five DCA non-Syrian staff had already been expelled to their home countries, while another Syrian was able to travel to Germany on an existing visa.

Lisa Henry, humanitarian director of DCA, told IRIN the Sudan option was not Turkey's decision. It emerged from a limited range of choices, she said, but added: "anything is better than detention or being sent back to Syria."

Henry said DCA was fulfilling its duty of care as an employer with the provision of legal representation on behalf of the staff, payment of salaries until the end of June, and offers of counselling if requested. The NGO would be open to re-employing the staff in other countries, Henry said. However, DanChurchAid does not have an office in Sudan.

Safe haven?

Sudan may seem an unlikely safe haven. Its own internal conflicts have created some four million displaced people, and the regime is accused of widespread human rights violations and led by President Omar al-Bashir, a man wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Nevertheless, according to the Khartoum authorities, by October 2016 at least 100,000 Syrians were living in Sudan. Key to its popularity: Sudan is almost unique in not requiring a visa for Syrian nationals. As previously reported by IRIN, most Syrians in Sudan are not treated as refugees and can generally study and work legally.

Turkey hosts up to three million Syrian refugees, more than any other country. For much of the war, it kept its borders open to Syrians fleeing the conflict. It has provided protection to Syrians, and spent billions of dollars on their support. But it has also expelled some Syrians - according to Amnesty International, at a rate of 100 per day. However, until now, no expulsions of Syrian aid workers had been publicly reported and was rare. An official with US-based Mercy Corps, for example, one of the largest NGOs to be shut down, told IRIN none of its staff had been expelled.

The deportation of these four Syrian aid workers sets a "dangerous precedent" for other Syrians, according to a humanitarian analyst familiar with the issues. Turkey has expelled non-Syrian aid workers before, but as they could return safely to their home countries, while unfortunate, it wasn't "such a big deal", the analyst said.

Following the rules

While DCA had made efforts to comply with Turkey's regulatory regime, the organisation, like others, effectively operated in a "grey space", the analyst said. Several international NGOs have been caught up in this year's crackdown, and hundreds of Syrian staff have been laid off.

Berk Baran, deputy permanent representative at the Turkish mission to the UN in Geneva, had earlier blamed the expulsions on NGOs not following the proper procedures. "If the channels are open and you are being told what you have to do, then it is very simple," Baran said. "A government expects you to abide by its regulations."

DanChurchAid

DanChurchAid's programmes in Syria include supporting livestock owners

DCA's Henry said it had been "extremely frustrating" trying to get legally registered in Turkey - "we want to follow the rules" - and then to deal with the arrest of staff, the sealing of its office in Gaziantep, and the subsequent legal tussle.

The $5 million DCA humanitarian operation in Syria, which includes education programmes about the risk of landmines and other unexploded weaponry as well as cash distributions to address immediate needs, will continue, Henry said, but managed from elsewhere.
UN flight ban reduces Yemen access at critical time

Publisher IRIN Author Samuel Oakford Publication Date 2 June 2017 Cite as IRIN, UN flight ban reduces Yemen access at critical time, 2 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593938f04.html [accessed 10 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.

Overshadowed by Syria and Iraq, the war in Yemen has long struggled to compete for media attention. But it is also bedevilled by a lack of reliable information both for news organisations trying to cover the humanitarian crises and for aid agencies trying to access and help those most in need. And now, just as a cholera epidemic threatens to spiral out of control, IRIN has learnt that the nominal government of Yemen and its Saudi Arabian-led backers have moved to prevent journalists and human rights workers from travelling on UN chartered flights to the capital, further reducing coverage and access at a critical moment.

More than 17 million people are food insecure, and 6.8 million teeter "one step from famine" in Yemen, UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien told the Security Council this week. Access for commercial and humanitarian cargo is limited, delayed, and impeded by the Saudi-led coalition. Medical supplies have been blocked by their opponents, the Houthi rebels.

After more than two years of war, Yemen's depleted medical system is proving no match for a resurgent cholera epidemic. Abetted by malnutrition that weakens patients, the disease threatens to kill far more than the 470 already reported by the World Health Organization.

"The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease, and death as the world watches," said O'Brien. But that's just the point: Are we able to watch?

Press access is severely curtailed across Yemen by numerous parties. Local journalists are at particular risk. Abuses have been extensively documented by courageous local groups like the Mwatana Organization for Human Rights. The Houthis and their allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have been accused of arbitrarily arresting or disappearing journalists, blocking access to dozens of news sites, and raiding numerous outlets.

Against that backdrop, the Saudi-led coalition's latest interference with UN flights to Sana'a essentially prohibits foreign journalists from reaching many of the areas hardest hit by malnutrition and airstrikes, or even from reporting on Houthi violations.

The door slams shut

UN officials and diplomats confirmed the obstruction campaign to IRIN, and journalists and human rights researchers said months-long attempts to get into Sana'a have been stymied, in some cases at the last minute.

"Two weeks ago I was trying to go on an UNHAS flight to cover the cholera and so I contact the UN, who actually organise who gets on the flights," said one reporter based in Europe. "I was told they had been given blanket orders to not allow any journalists, researchers, or anyone who is not a humanitarian."

UNHAS charters are primarily meant to facilitate the movement of aid workers. But commercial flights into Sanaa have been grounded for nearly a year by the Saudi-led coalition.

I have not heard a single convincing reason why #Sanaa airport has been closed for commercial flights for almost ten months. Anyone? - Andreas Kindl (@AmbSanaa) May 29, 2017

Sick or injured Yemenis in and around Sanaa are unable to leave the country for treatment without risking an arduous and uncertain trip south. For journalists and investigators, the commercial ban has meant the UN is effectively their only path into the most populated parts of Yemen.

It's not the first time UN flights have been curbed. Restrictions were imposed on UNHAS flights into Sana'a shortly after the Saudi-led intervention began in March 2015 and lasted right through until August 2016. Many journalists either had to give up on covering the conflict, or risk often dangerous alternative routes - as some still do.

But from August through December last year, 22 journalists flew in and out of Sana'a on UNHAS flights, according to the UN's emergency aid coordination body, OCHA. UN officials said the increased coverage was palpable - and made a difference. Suddenly, Yemen's plight was in the news a bit more.

During this time, a BBC camera crew was able to land in Sana'a and investigate one of the war's deadliest incidents: a Saudi airstrike on a funeral hall that killed 140 people and wounded more than 500. Such a trip for a foreign journalist is now off the table.

The ban, said Iona Craig, a British journalist who has travelled in and out of Yemen for years, "all but rules out coverage in Houthi/Saleh territory by international media - so that's cholera, civilian casualties in airstrikes, and hunger".

Conspiracy of silence?

One French TV crew provided IRIN with a detailed summary of its attempts to enter the country, beginning last November. In December, the Yemeni government imposed new visa requirements on journalists. Visas proved difficult to obtain - a task made more complicated by duelling governments in Sana'a and Aden. Once it finally obtained authorisation, the team planned to explore stories on malnutrition, the sputtering medical system, and the cholera outbreak.

But by mid-May, journalists were again prohibited, regardless of their visa status. Shortly afterwards (around the time of the publication of an International Crisis Group report written by a staff member who had flown to Sana'a in April with the UN), researchers at Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch received notification from the UN that they could no longer travel to Sana'a with UNHAS.

"We have been recently notified by the [Government of Yemen] that only authorised UN personnel and aid workers are allowed to enter Yemen using UNHAS flights, which are, as you know, primarily meant for this use," Ahmed Ben Lassoued, spokesman for OCHA in Yemen, told IRIN by email. "We continue advocating to allow the journalists' access to all parts of Yemen, but in the meantime we have no choice but to abide by this decision, which is beyond our control."

That notification to NGOs came just days before US President Donald Trump arrived in Riyadh, where he signed a weapons deal reportedly worth some $110 billion. Though thin on details, the package included $350 million worth of guided munition kits used by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Shortly before leaving office, President Barack Obama had blocked the sale, reportedly out of concern for the number of civilians killed by Saudi-led forces.

According to the UN's human rights office, the Saudi-led coalition is responsible for more than 3,000 civilian deaths since it began bombing Yemen in March 2015, attempting to dislodge Houthi rebels and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"I just think [the Saudis] are trying to minimise coverage of what's happening in northern Yemen, and they are trying to silence advocacy," said one UN official based in Yemen who spoke to IRIN about the flight ban on condition of anonymity. "Journalists coming in means there will be more scrutiny of the impacts and consequences of the war, and giving a voice to the people of Yemen."

Terrible timing

The cholera outbreak is the latest crisis that reporters have struggled to cover, even before the most recent restrictions. Compounded by malnutrition and a breakdown in sanitation services, reported cases have ballooned to more than 53,000; nearly 500 people have died, and the World Health Organization projects 300,000 more cases in the coming months. Hardest hit is Sana'a, where doctors say hospitals are receiving multiple cases every minute.

"Cholera is relatively affordable and easy to prevent, but is not getting enough attention or support," said Arvind Kumar, Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in Yemen.

"We absolutely need more press coverage," urged Kumar. "I'm not sure if any Western journalists have visited the hardest hit areas."

Salah Daraghmeh, Yemen country director at Mercy Corps, said it can be difficult for aid groups to predict the course of the disease's spread given the state of Yemen's healthcare and sanitation system. "We have no clue honestly how the situation will be in the coming few weeks," he said.

The media blackout comes amid rumors of an impending coalition assault on Hodeida, Yemen's largest port. American military brass are debating if they will support such an operation, and whether to escalate assistance beyond refuelling and logistical backing. "We are hopeful that there will be a ceasefire during Ramadan but so far there is nothing," said Daraghmeh.

Hodeida's port, which has been bombed by the coalition previously, handles roughly 80 percent of the food that arrives to Sana'a - sustenance that residents increasingly can only hope to purchase.

"What food there is, is largely unaffordable to the vast majority of the population, especially the most vulnerable such as the two million people who remain internally displaced," O'Brien told the Security Council on Tuesday, warning against any military action to take the port.

Journalists at risk

Since the outbreak of war, Yemen has been one of the deadliest countries for members of the press. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 11 reporters were killed during 2015 and 2016. In January 2016, well-regarded Yemeni reporter Almigdad Mojalli was killed in a coalition airstrike while on assignment for Voice of America south of Sana'a. Mojalli had worked extensively for IRIN since February 2015, writing passionately about how the war affected his homeland.

Last week, two journalists - Takieddin al-Hudhaifi and Wael al-Absi - were killed in Taiz, reportedly victims of Houthi shelling.

Shuaib Almosawa, a Sana'a-based journalist, told IRIN that authorities can impede reporting by simply denying necessary permits to travel to certain areas. At times they reference past reporting that was disliked.

"While this can be reasonable, it's sometimes aimed at preventing access to things authorities don't want journalists to report on," said Almosawa. "Houthis can be too suspicious of journalists they don't have total command and control over."

Rene Slama, Gulf and Yemen bureau chief at Agence France-Presse told IRIN that since March 2015 his staffing inside Yemen has dwindled to just one reporter. Other AFP journalists have fled the country due to death threats and serious injuries suffered while in the field.

"It is frustrating to cover the humanitarian situation - we are not covering it as we would like to," said Slama. "We would like to ourselves be able to visit towns where there is hunger, where there is risk of famine, and describe the situation."

With limited resources and access, Slama concedes his reporters may miss stories.

"Sometimes we report about fighting, or an incident, while the same day you have 200 kilometres east or north of this place something much more serious that we are not aware of," said Slama. "The access to information is limited."

Blindspots

Taiz, besieged by Houthi-Saleh forces and the site of ferocious fighting that claimed the lives of al-Hudhaifi and al-Absi, often goes without substantial coverage in the international media. There, the Houthis and their allies have been documented by the UN delaying shipments of medical supplies, part of a wider phenomenon among Houthi- and Saleh-aligned forces, according to Human Rights Watch. Similar interference in Syria garnered international attention, but less so in Yemen.

Access in Taiz - both for humanitarians and the press - is limited. One mechanism for obtaining more information about violations committed during the conflict, including the obstruction of humanitarian aid, would be an independent, international human rights investigation. That, however, has been blocked repeatedly by Gulf states and their allies at the Human Rights Council.

Also speaking before the Security Council this week was Radhya Almutawakel, chair of Mwatana. The group, which investigates violations committed by parties to the conflict, has likewise seen attempts to stifle it from a variety of sources.

Its most recent report highlighted landmines indiscriminately planted by Houthi and pro-Saleh forces that have reportedly killed 57 civilians, including 24 children and four women. Yet along with Mwatana Director Abdulrasheed Alfaqih, Almutawakel is currently marooned in the United States after a Saudi and Yemeni government campaign to depict the group as pro-Houthi. Informed by sources that they would be arrested if they landed in government areas - and told the same about returning to Houthi-held Sana'a - they remain stuck in New York.

"There is a real man-made problem regarding the information in and about Yemen," Almutawakel told IRIN before her appearance at the Council. "Only parties to the conflict have the tools to raise their voices."
Afghan refugees in Greek camp: "If you kept animals in this situation, they would die"

Publisher IRIN Author Daniel Trilling Publication Date 2 June 2017 Cite as IRIN, Afghan refugees in Greek camp: "If you kept animals in this situation, they would die", 2 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5939395a4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

At its peak in the summer of 2016, the former Athens airport terminal at Elliniko was home to more than 3,000 refugees. A makeshift camp set up during Europe's refugee "crisis" the summer before, it is now home to fewer than 700 people, nearly all of them from Afghanistan.

Over the last few weeks, the Greek government has been trying to persuade them to leave by removing vital services. On 20 May, the NGOs providing medical care, clothing, legal advice, translation, and cleaning were withdrawn. In the days that followed, WiFi, electricity, and water services were cut off and residents were told to accept transfers elsewhere or lose support.

Most people agree Elliniko is unfit for human habitation, including Masood Qahar, a 40-year-old refugee from Kabul who has been living there since early 2016. Journalists are no longer allowed inside the camp, but Qahar showed IRIN photographs of people sleeping in the airport terminal corridors in tents or under sheets strung from the ceiling. When it rains, Qahar said, the water comes through the ceiling. He played a video of residents trying to sweep water away from their tents.

Men, women, and children live together at Elliniko with little privacy. Human rights organisations including Amnesty International have repeatedly warned that women are at risk of sexual assault. "It's not safe," Qahar said. "I've been attacked three times with knives. Once, someone brought a gun into the camp."

So why stay?

Despite this, Qahar and many of the remaining refugees are reluctant to leave on the uncertain terms they have been offered. When officials announced the closure earlier this month, they told the refugees they would be sent to a new, purpose-built camp at Thiva (Thebes), in central Greece. But the ministry of migration has not issued a formal plan for the transfer, and Qahar, for one, is suspicious. "It's a small jail," he said, showing photographs he had taken during a visit to Thiva. They show rows of shipping containers surrounded by a security fence on an industrial estate outside the town. The camp is to be managed by the International Organization for Migration, but the government has not yet specified what services will be provided.

Kyriakos Giaglis, country director for the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in Greece, which had been providing support services at Elliniko until it was asked to leave, told IRIN that his organisation is concerned about the apparent lack of consultation with the refugees. "Movement has to be well-informed, principled, and voluntary. This plan has not been properly communicated by the Greek authorities, despite our continuous requests."

Giaglis said it was unclear whether the camp at Thiva would be able to accommodate all the remaining residents at Elliniko or if adequate legal services would be provided to help refugees with their asylum claims in Greece or family reunion elsewhere in Europe. The DRC is asking that vulnerable people be moved to some of the 20,000 apartments in Athens provided by the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR. But demand is high and there aren't enough apartments to accommodate all the Elliniko refugees. According to UNHCR, around 100 people have been moved to apartments in recent weeks.

Filling the information gap are rumours. Some refugees fear forced transfer to Thiva at short notice; others are concerned by the presence of IOM at the new camp because of the agency's well-known voluntary return programmes for migrants. "They are trying to pressure people to go home," said Qahar. There is no evidence to confirm such suspicions, and in a recent statement the Greek migration ministry blamed the rumours on "constant disinformation by non-institutional actors". But a wider European trend gives Elliniko's mainly Afghan residents cause for concern.

One rule for Syrians

Broadly, Europe's response to the refugee crisis has been to prioritise asylum for Syrians while granting protection to a dwindling proportion of Afghan asylum seekers and even deporting hundreds of them back to Kabul over the past year, despite the country's worsening security situation.

The EU-Turkey deal and the closing of the Macedonian border in early 2016 trapped up to 62,000 refugees in Greece, with Afghans the second-largest group by nationality. Unlike Syrians, they have not been eligible for relocation to other EU member states under the emergency agreement drawn up in September 2015. Similarly, while Syrians in Greece are eligible for a "fast-track" asylum application process, which can take as little as one month, Afghans and others have to wait many months. According to Yonous Muhammadi, a prominent Afghan community activist who works for the Greek Forum for Refugees, non-Syrians applying for asylum today are being given interview dates in February or March 2018, and won't receive a decision for another six to 12 months after that.

Muhammadi estimates that between 10,000 and 15,000 Afghans are still living in the camps hastily established by the Greek government in 2015 and 2016 (although the Greek asylum service says it has only received about 8,000 applications from Afghans since the start of 2015). He told IRIN that the camps where Afghans have been placed tend to be worse than those housing Syrians, with fewer amenities and services. Aside from Elliniko, he cited "horrific" conditions at sites in Malakasa and Oinofyta. The latter, for example, only received heating in December, and experienced a scabies outbreak earlier this year. Although Syrians also experience poor conditions in camps, particularly in the north of the country, many have been able to leave, while those people with less chance of receiving asylum - including Afghans, Iranians, and Pakistanis - have tended to be placed in more rudimentary camps. "All the focus is on the Syrians," Muhammadi said. "The politics follows the media. And even international NGOs follow it."

Suicides and alcohol

In the absence of reliable state or NGO support, many Afghan refugees living in or near Athens have come to rely on help from long-term members of the city's Afghan community. Muhammadi estimates there are around 2,000 settled Afghans living in Greece, most of them in Athens. There are also two community associations and a cultural centre through which "people can speak about their problems and be informed of their rights and responsibilities".

Mohammad Mirzay is a 25-year-old Greek citizen who arrived in the country as a child refugee over a decade ago. In 2015, he was employed to work as a translator for NGOs based on the Greek islands. Today, he is a community activist in Athens where he uses his language skills and knowledge of the local bureaucracy to help the newer arrivals. "We old refugees are trying to cover the gap," he told IRIN.

With limited medical care and legal services available at Elliniko, Mirzay puts residents in touch with a network of volunteer doctors and lawyers based in Athens. On other occasions, he has helped arrange burials of people who have died at the camp. Having dealt with three suicides in the past year, he points out that psychological problems and alcohol abuse have risen the longer people are stuck there.

Yet many of Elliniko's residents would rather put up with the poor conditions, and retain the support they have found through the Afghan community and volunteer networks in Athens than be moved elsewhere in Greece.

Faced with the prospect of forced removal, Qahar said some Elliniko residents have moved into the city and put up tents in parks. He predicted that others would try to leave for elsewhere in Europe via clandestine routes.

According to activists, around 70 men and unaccompanied children have already left Elliniko for the port of Patras, where they are living rough and trying to sneak onto ferries to Italy.

"We don't see a future in this country," said Qahar. "If you kept animals in this situation, they would die."
Washington, D.C., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WASHINGTON, D.C.  Ambassador John Bolton announced today his endorsement of Representative Martha McSally in her bid for Congress in Arizonas 2nd Congressional District. In addition, the John Bolton PAC will contribute a total of $10,000 to her 2018 campaign. This announcement comes as part of a larger contribution of $100,000, which will be distributed among ten Congressional candidates whom the Ambassador has identified as champions of a strong national security and foreign policy.

In Congress, Martha McSally has proven her commitment to protecting our nation by securing our borders. She has worked to bring attention to visa overstays as a national security problem. She also understands the necessity of holding Iran and our adversaries accountable for dangerous behavior via sanctions. This is why I am endorsing her re-election to Congress.

Martha McSally issued the following statement in response to Ambassador Boltons contribution to her campaign:

I am committed to standing for a strong national defense, foreign policy, and a thriving economy. I am thankful for Ambassador Bolton's endorsement and his confidence in my ability and proven track record of fighting for these principles, tackling complex problems, and getting things done in Congress," said Congresswoman Martha McSally.

In the 2016 election cycle, the John Bolton PAC contributed a total of $680,000 and endorsed 94 candidates, making it the most active leadership PAC in the country, and earning the PAC numerous industry awards. This is the earliest the John Bolton PAC has involved itself in an election cycle, signaling Ambassador Boltons plans to significantly increase contributions for the 2018 elections.



In addition to his leadership PAC, Ambassador Bolton heads the John Bolton SuperPAC, which spent nearly $5M on independent expenditures for three U.S. Senate races in 2016.



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About the John Bolton PAC (www.boltonpac.com): The John Bolton PAC was founded by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton to raise the importance of American national security in federal elections. The PAC will support and contribute to candidates who are committed to restoring strong American economic and national security policies that secure America's interests in a challenging world.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/faf39c35-2ba9-45ba-978f-06c79ced7ba3
Desire for secure and peaceful future remains strong in Libya, Security Council told

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Desire for secure and peaceful future remains strong in Libya, Security Council told, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393b144.html [accessed 10 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.

Noting positive changes in the situation on the ground in Libya as a result of the Libyan Political Agreement, the United Nations envoy for the country highlighted that despite challenges, the desire for peace, security and a better future remain strong among the people and urged sustained international support for national efforts.

We must move forward in supporting Libyan-led effort to find a durable solution, Martin Kobler, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya, told the Security Council today.

Without progress in politics, the symptoms of conflict will only worsen, he warned.

He also underscored the need to ensure respect for human rights and humanitarian principles, particularly given the precarious situation of migrants as well as attacks on civilians.

We cannot compromise the basic principles that unite us, that make us human, nor can we afford to abandon our hopes and our desire for a better, more united Libya, he underscored.

In his briefing, Mr. Kobler, who is also the head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) also updated the 15-member Security Council on the priority issues in the country, including the Political Agreement, efforts towards national reconciliation, the larger economic situation as well as the security situation.

In particular he underscored the urgent need to unify the country's security apparatus and that the fact that united Libyan security apparatus is vital for peace and prosperity was well understood by the stakeholders.

He also informed the meeting of efforts by Libya's neighbours as well as the African Union to help find a solution there. Speaking of the importance of cooperation, he said: [The] collaborative approach where all initiatives work in a complementary manner to advance the UN-facilitated political process is very much needed.

Also at today's meeting, in his capacity as the Chair of the Committee established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1976 (2011), Ambassador Olof Skoog, the Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations, briefed the Council on the work of the Committee from 20 April to 7 June.

In particular, he spoke of the information it received from the Panel of Experts on its final report under Council resolution 2278 (2016) on issues including the arms embargo, assets freeze, travel ban and illicit trade in petroleum products, imposed upon certain actors in Libya.

The Committee is in the process of concluding its consideration of the recommendations, the Ambassador added.
UN chief, Security Council strongly condemn deadly terrorist attacks in Tehran

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 7 June 2017 Cite as UN News Service, UN chief, Security Council strongly condemn deadly terrorist attacks in Tehran, 7 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393ba64.html [accessed 10 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.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the United Nations Security Council today separately offered their condolences to the Iranian Government and families of the people killed in the attacks in the country's capital, Tehran.

In a statement this morning, his spokesperson said that the Secretary-General strongly condemns the terrorist attacks.

At least 50 people were killed or injured in the attacks on the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Parliament (Majlis) building.

Mr. Guterres called for those responsible for this unjustifiable violence to be brought to justice.

All countries must work together in fighting terrorism while upholding the universal rights and values that bind the global community, the spokesperson said.

In a separate statement, the UN Security Council, which called the attacks barbaric and cowardly, stressed the need to take measures to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, terrorist organizations and individual terrorists.
Angolans deprived of two critical TV channels

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 8 June 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Angolans deprived of two critical TV channels, 8 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393d004.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) regrets that the public in Angola are now denied all possibility of viewing two TV channels owned by Portugal's SIC media group - SIC Noticias and SIC Internacional - which have been outspoken in their coverage of Angola.

The two Portuguese channels ceased to be accessible in Angola shortly before midnight on 4 June, when local satellite TV provider DSTV Multichoice dropped them from the range of channels available to its subscribers.





Angola's biggest satellite TV provider, ZAP, the only other one offering the two channels, already dropped them three months ago. At the time, ZAP (which is owned by Isabel dos Santos, the president's daughter) described their removal as just a routine adjustment.





The reason that DSTV Multichoice gave for dropping SIC Noticias and SIC Internacional was "too few viewers."





RSF condemns the disappearance of these two channels from Angolan TV screens, regarding it as an act of censorship after SIC broadcast an investigative report in March about a financial scandal implicating President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.





SIC previous angered the government last November by broadcasting a report entitled, "Angola, a country rich with 20 million poor people" which questioned the record of Dos Santos' 37 years as president.





Certain subjects such as corruption are rarely broached by the Angolan media, which are largely controlled by the president's family or his allies. Aside from a few opposition media outlets, freely reported news and information can only be found on a few websites and social networks.





Angola is ranked 125th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2017 World Press Freedom Index.
Rwanda: National Election Commission to censor candidates' online campaign messages

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 5 June 2017 Cite as Article 19, Rwanda: National Election Commission to censor candidates' online campaign messages, 5 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393e2e4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ARTICLE 19 is concerned by a new regulation by Rwanda's National Electoral Commission (NEC) requiring all candidates in August's presidential elections to seek approval for campaign messages they plan to post online. The regulation allows the NEC to censor any campaign message it disagrees with, or which is critical of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) party, and is hugely restrictive of political speech during the election period.

Under the new rule, candidates have to submit their online campaign messages to a team set up by the Commission 24 hours before they plan to publish the post, and the commission has 24 hours to either permit or deny the request.

The Executive Secretary of the NEC Charles Munyaneza said that the move was meant to ensure that messages posted on social media are not "poisoning the minds" of Rwandans.

"Freedom of expression, including online expression, is essential ahead of democratic elections to ensure the public are informed of their options and are able to engage in political debate. This regulation constitutes a very worrying form of censorship ahead of the elections, and is an extension of the already hugely repressed freedom of expression situation in the country. Restrictions like this on online expression and debate risk further entrenching the environment of self-censorship that has already gripped the country at a crucial time" said Henry Maina, Article 19 Eastern Africa Regional Director.

Messages that have to be scrutinized under the new rules include photographs and videos on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Whatsapp, and Instagram. The NEC says that candidates' websites and social media accounts could be blocked if they fail to abide by their decisions.

In June 2016, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations passed a resolution on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet, a significant policy directive affirming states' obligation to promote, protect, and support citizens' enjoyment of human rights on the internet. This move by the NEC therefore contravenes Rwanda's commitments under this resolution as it disrupts free expression and dissemination of information online.

Article 38 of the Constitution of Rwanda 2003 guarantees the freedom of expression and freedom of access to information where it does not prejudice public order, good morals, the protection of the youth and children, the right of every citizen to honour and dignity and protection of personal and family privacy.

International standards on limitation of speech are however clear that any restrictions on freedom of expression on the basis of protecting issues like public order or morals have to be provided by law, pursue a legitimate aim, and be necessary in a democratic society.

"Under this new ruling, it is likely that only posts that are not critical of the ruling political establishment will be permitted. This prevents essential political debate ahead of the elections, and places serious doubt on the ability of the NEC to oversee free and fair elections. ," added Maina.

The regulation is also particularly concerning in the broader context of internet censorship ahead of elections, as internet shutdowns have been used in several other East African countries around elections to restrict freedom of expression and access to information online. The regulation could be a precursor to more perverse restrictions of speech as the elections draw closer.

ARTICLE 19 urges the NEC to retract this regulation without delay and to make it clear to candidates and other social media users that they are free to publish political messages online. We also urge the Rwandan government to make a concerted effort to protect free expression ahead of the election, particularly by preventing and ending impunity for attacks on and harassment of journalists reporting on political issues.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Malaysia: Cease investigations of The Star newspaper and its journalists

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 5 June 2017 Cite as Article 19, Malaysia: Cease investigations of The Star newspaper and its journalists, 5 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393e9f4.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ARTICLE 19 condemns the investigation of five editors and a photographer from The Star newspaper under the Sedition Act and the Penal Code for sedition and religious hate. The Star is being investigated by police for their front page of 27 May, which featured a photograph of Muslims performing their Tarawih prayer (a prayer performed during Ramadan) underneath a summary of a story which was, headlined "Malaysian Terrorist Leader". The newspaper immediately issued a formal apology on 28 May citing an "error of judgement".

The Home Ministry issued The Star a show-cause letter on 29 May calling for the newspaper to explain why its publication should not be suspended under the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. This Act seriously limits independence of the media and free expression, giving broad power to the Home Minister to revoke or suspend a permit for any period he considers desirable. Criminal investigations were then opened on 30 May despite an earlier apology published by The Star and the suspension of Editor-in-Chief, Datuk Leanne Goh Lee Yen and Executive Editor, Dorairaj Nadason.

Editors Rozaid Abdul Rahman, Brian Martin, Dorairaj Nadason, M. Shanmugam and Errol Oh and photographer Mohd Sahar Misni were called for questioning on 31 May at Bukit Aman police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur and investigated under Section 4 of the Sedition Act and Section 298(a) of the Penal Code. Section 298(a) of the Penal Code criminalises offences related to religion "causing, etc., disharmony, disunity, or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill will, or prejudicing, etc., the maintenance of harmony or unity, on grounds of religion".

"The use of the Sedition Act and the Penal Code, which are not in accordance with international human rights standards, against The Star, who has issued a formal apology and suspended two of their editors since publication, is an unnecessary and worrying restriction on press freedom in Malaysia. The hundreds of individuals, including media workers, who have been investigated, charged, and often convicted under the Sedition Act in recent years underlines the urgent need for its repeal, and this latest case is another example of its repressive use" said David Diaz-Jogeix, Director of Programmes at ARTICLE 19.

ARTICLE 19 echoes the concerns of national civil society coalition Gerakan Hapus Akta Hasutan (Abolish the Sedition Act Movement) who have condemned the investigation of The Star and are calling for the repeal of the Act. The investigation further calls into question Najib Razak's recent statement that freedom of speech is 'thriving' in Malaysia. Just two weeks ago, ARTICLE 19 criticised charges brought against independent media portal Malaysiakini, its CEO and Editor-in-Chief under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Malaysian Government to immediately drop all investigations against journalists of The Star and to repeal repressive legislation, including the Sedition Act, which limits the right to freedom of expression. The Malaysian government must also take steps to ensure the conformity of existing laws regulating expression with Article 10(a) of the Federal Constitution and international human rights law.

Please contact Nalini Elumalai, ARTICLE 19 Malaysia Program Officer at +601136535927 for any further queries.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Ethiopia: Third Internet shutdown follows imprisonment of two human rights activists

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 6 June 2017 Cite as Article 19, Ethiopia: Third Internet shutdown follows imprisonment of two human rights activists, 6 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393f214.html [accessed 10 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

ARTICLE 19 condemns the ongoing internet shutdown in Ethiopia that has paralyzed access to information and communication across the country since 30 May. This latest shutdown is broader than previous ones as it prevents both private and government actors from accessing essential information on the internet. The Ethiopian government has announced that the shutdown will continue until 8 June.

The shutdown followed the imprisonment of two prominent human rights activists for online expression. On 25 May, Yonatan Tesfaye was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for inciting anti-government protests in nine Facebook posts. The day before his colleague Getachew Shiferaw had been sentenced to one year and six months in prison for inciting violence through a private message he sent to colleagues using the Facebook messenger app.

There have been numerous recent cases of people being jailed for posting messages that speak out against the state's violent handling of protests calling for protection of land rights and other basic freedoms. The internet shutdown is a further move by the state to stifle discussion on continued violations of human rights under the ongoing State of Emergency, which has been in place since October 2016.

This is the third time that the internet has been shut down in Ethiopia since November 2015. In July and August 2016, the government shut down the internet in selected regions after university entrance exams were posted online. Activists had leaked the papers as a way of calling for the postponement of the exams due to a school shutdown in the regional state of Oromia. State officials have stated that the recent shutdown was required to prevent students from cheating in the upcoming exams.

However, this shutdown must be understood within the context of the ongoing use of violence and mass arrests by the state against protesters in the Oromia region that is close to Addis Ababa. A significant number of those arrested have been jailed without any charges being brought against them.

"A blanket internet shutdown has grave implications on freedom of expression in the country and should be especially discouraged in the context of the ongoing state of emergency. In a situation where it is almost impossible to exercise freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly on the ground, the internet gives citizens an alternative space to organize and express themselves around discussions on national issues. Given the worrying context of repression and the current state of emergency, blocking access to the internet nationally is a clearly disproportionate response to potential exam cheating," said Henry Maina, ARTICLE 19 Eastern Africa Regional Director.

In June 2016, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet, a significant policy directive affirming states' obligation to promote, protect, and support citizens' enjoyment of human rights on the internet. This move by the Ethiopian government contravenes Ethiopia's commitments under this resolution by disrupting free expression and dissemination of information online.

It is also in contravention of Article 29 (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, which protects the right to freedom of expression and to seek, receive and impart information, "through any media".

"These incidents show how the entrenchment of a state of emergency can lead to significant human rights violations in both online and offline spaces. The internet is a key enabler of expression and access to information and should only be regulated as per established international standards." added Mr. Maina.

ARTICLE 19 urges the Ethiopian government to immediately cease the shutdown and enable all forms of communication and access to information over the internet. We also urge the government to end the state of emergency and initiate a dialogue process that will bring an end to human rights violations against protesters in the Oromia region.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Turkey: Release Taner Kilic, chair of Amnesty International in Turkey

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 8 June 2017 Cite as Article 19, Turkey: Release Taner Kilic, chair of Amnesty International in Turkey, 8 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59393fc04.html [accessed 10 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.

Yesterday morning, Taner Kilic, the Chair of Amnesty International Turkey, was arrested in his hometown of Izmir in Turkey alongside 22 other lawyers on suspicion of having links with the Fethullah Gulen movement. ARTICLE 19 calls for their immediate release and for the dropping of all charges in the absence of evidence of involvement in an internationally recognised crime.

"The arrest of 23 lawyers, including the Chair of Amnesty International in Turkey, sends an alarming signal of the further closure of civil society space in Turkey," said Katie Morris, Head of Europe and Central Asia at ARTICLE 19. "While it is not yet clear what evidence is held against these individuals, we've seen worrying legal cases in Turkey where the charges are incoherent and inconsistent, with little or no supporting evidence apart from the content of the individual's expression or tenuous evidence linking them to the Gulen movement. Turkey should take immediate steps to restore the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. A good first step would be to release all those detained without evidence of involvement in a crime," she added.

At 06:30 am this morning, Kilic was detained at his home before being placed in police custody in the Yesilyurt district of Izmir. The detention order refers to an investigation into suspected members of the "Fethullah Gulen Terrorist Organisation". Amnesty's report on the arrest states that it is currently unclear why Kilic is suspected of having these links, however his detention does not seem to be connected to his involvement with Amnesty International or the organisation's work more broadly.

According to the report, Kilic "has served on the board of Amnesty International Turkey for various periods since 2002 and has been Chair since 2014. During his decades of work for human rights organisations in Turkey he has consistently demonstrated an unswerving commitment to human rights."

Background

Following the violent coup attempt on 15 July 2016, the Turkish government has pursued an unprecedented crackdown on human rights, including on the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and the right to a fair trial. According to latest figures from Turkish press freedom organisation, P24, approximately 167 journalists and media workers are in jail in Turkey, the vast majority of whom were arrested after Turkey declared a state of emergency following the coup attempt.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Turkish government to release Taner Kilic and the 22 lawyers detained with him immediately and drop all charges against them in the absence of individualised evidence of involvement in an internationally recognised crime. We also reiterate our call to immediately and unconditionally release all other human rights defenders, journalists and media workers arrested without any individualised evidence of involvement in a crime.

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Bahrain: Press Freedom Groups Call for Lifting of Al Wasat Suspension, As Newspaper's Ban Continues to 4th Day

Publisher Article 19 Publication Date 8 June 2017 Cite as Article 19, Bahrain: Press Freedom Groups Call for Lifting of Al Wasat Suspension, As Newspaper's Ban Continues to 4th Day, 8 June 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593940034.html [accessed 10 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.

Top press freedom organisations and local Bahraini groups are among fifteen campaigners who today raised alarm over the suspension of Bahrain's only independent newspaper, Al Wasat, which has been barred from publishing for four days now. The 15 rights groups which today wrote letters addressed to ten countries including the UK, state Bahrain is "effectively silencing the media in Bahrain and violating the right to freedom of expression."

The letters, signed by Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists, ARTICLE 19, Index on Censorship, Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and ten others wrote to states urging them to "publicly call on the Government of Bahrain to allow Al Wasat to resume publication immediately." (note: a full list of signatories is included in the letter, attached below).

The letter is addressed to the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy and France - who all have embassies in Bahrain - as well as Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the European Union.

The Ministry of Information Affairs suspended Al Wasat, the only independent newspaper in Bahrain, on 4 June 2017, effectively silencing the media in Bahrain and violating the right to freedom of expression. Al Wasat's suspension is the latest in a recent spate of reprisals against independent media and civil society actors, including journalists, writers, and human rights defenders. The state-run Bahrain News Agency claims that the paper is "spreading what would stir divisions within the community and undermine the Kingdom of Bahrain's relations with other countries." Al Wasat was suspended due to the publication of an opinion article regarding widespread protests in Morocco, a source in the newspaper told BIRD.

Politics in the region has developed quickly since the suspension of the newspaper. On Monday, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates closed diplomatic relations with neighbour Qatar and barred all air, sea and land travel. Yesterday, two Bahrainis were sentenced to death, bring the total up to 15 on death row.

Prior to the suspension of Al Wasat, Bahrain was already counted among the 20 most restrictive countries for press globally, with Reporters Without Borders ranking Bahrain as 164 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index.

This is the latest in an escalated crackdown on independent civil society. On 23 May, Bahraini security forces raided the village of Duraz, killing five protesters and arrested 286. It is the deadliest incident since protests began in 2011. On 31 May, the last major opposition society, Wa'ad, was dissolved and their assets confiscated. Wa'ad is appealing the decision. The letter continues, "In this context, journalists in Bahrain have expressed to NGOs serious concerns that the newspaper will not be allowed to resume publication."

Al Wasat, established 2002, is the only independent newspaper in Bahrain. Its editor Mansoor Al-Jamri is winner of the CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2011 and winner of the Peace Through Media Award 2012. It has been suspended in previous years, in April 2011 and August 2015. In January 2017, the newspaper's website and social media were suspended for two days. it In 2011, Abdulkarim Al-Fakhrawi, one of the paper's founders, was tortured to death in police custody.

Comments

Saloua Ghazouni, Director of ARTICLE 19's Middle East and North Africa regional office: "Bahrain is experiencing a severe crackdown on freedom of expression. Now is the time for the international community to speak up to defend fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom of expression, which is crucial for promoting stable, pluralistic democratic societies."

Cat Lucas, Writers at Risk Programme Manager, English PEN: "By silencing the only independent newspaper in the country, the Bahraini authorities are sending a clear message that dissenting voices will not be tolerated. Our governments must send an equally clear message that the suspension of Al Wasat is unacceptable and that a plurality of voices in the media is an essential part of any democracy."

Melody Patry, Head of Advocacy, Index on Censorship: "The silencing of Al Wasat - the only independent voice in Bahrain's media - underscores the dismal state of human rights in the country. The Bahraini government must allow free and unfettered access to information."

Copyright notice: Copyright ARTICLE 19
Cite as

UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health on his visit to Algeria, 20 April 2017, A/HRC/35/21/Add.1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/593948a74.html [accessed 10 November 2022]
Cite as

UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health on his visit to Croatia, 28 April 2017, A/HRC/35/21/Add.2, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/59394ab94.html [accessed 10 November 2022]
Washington, D.C., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WASHINGTON, D.C.  Ambassador John Bolton announced today his endorsement of Representative Mike Coffman in his bid for Congress in Colorados 6th Congressional District. In addition, the John Bolton PAC will contribute a total of $10,000 to his 2018 campaign. This announcement comes as part of a larger contribution of $100,000, which will be distributed among ten Congressional candidates whom the Ambassador has identified as champions of a strong national security and foreign policy.

Mike Coffman understands the importance of a strong national defense and he also fundamentally understands that Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, said Ambassador John Bolton. I support his re-election for Congress because I believe he will continue to advocate for a strong military to deter those wishing to do harm to America and our allies.

Mike Coffman issued the following statement in response to Ambassador Boltons contribution to his campaign:

"Our national security depends on having a strong and robust national security defense policy. I want to thank Amb. Bolton for his contributions in pushing the conversation forward. John's unique perspective is always welcomed and appreciated."

In the 2016 election cycle, the John Bolton PAC contributed a total of $680,000 and endorsed 94 candidates, making it the most active leadership PAC in the country, and earning the PAC numerous industry awards. This is the earliest the John Bolton PAC has involved itself in an election cycle, signaling Ambassador Boltons plans to significantly increase contributions for the 2018 elections.



In addition to his leadership PAC, Ambassador Bolton heads the John Bolton SuperPAC, which spent nearly $5M on independent expenditures for three U.S. Senate races in 2016.



###



About the John Bolton PAC (www.boltonpac.com): The John Bolton PAC was founded by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton to raise the importance of American national security in federal elections. The PAC will support and contribute to candidates who are committed to restoring strong American economic and national security policies that secure America's interests in a challenging world.



Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4da12c61-2630-46aa-a684-19ace8d50f78
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.
CLEARWATER, Fla., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In celebration of Juneteenth, an event honoring the emancipation of slaves in America, the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization is hosting a Gospel Concert at its iconic Fort Harrison in downtown Clearwater on June 24th. The African American duo, AuNiece will perform backed by the Flag Band (the Church of Scientology Flag Service Organizations band). The members of AuNiece are the daughter and granddaughter of famous living legend and classical pianist Lillette Jenkins Wisner also known as The Queen of the Keys.



Pat Harney, the MC for the event and Public Relations Director for the Church said, The Church of Scientology recognizes Juneteenth as we recognize the efforts of all those who fight for human rights and freedom from slavery. Ms. Harney pointed to the words of Scientology Founder, L. Ron Hubbard, as her inspiration in the fight for freedom from slavery. She said, L. Ron Hubbard said, Amongst the many things man has done in his worries about the mind and his state of being, in his effort to control others, is the adoption of slave philosophies. Each person who invents or uses such a philosophy more or less tends to be, himself, exempt from the slavery thus imposed and to hold, by the invention, the force of others. This is a trick of very limited workability for it leads eventually into the entrapment of the user himself.

The June 24th concert at the Fort Harrison is free and open to the public. Seating is limited so please RSVP to 727-467-6860.

About the Church of Scientology

The Scientology religion was founded by author and philosopher L. Ron Hubbard. The first Church of Scientology was formed in the United States in 1954, and has today expanded to more than 10,000 churches, missions and affiliated groups, with millions of members in 184 countries. Scientologists are optimistic about life and believe there is hope for a saner world and better civilization, and actively do all they can to achieve this. The Church was among the original supporters of the Freedom of Information Act, and supports the protection of public interest laws. To learn more, visit http://www.scientology.org.

Juneteenth:

Juneteenth (June + nineteenth) was started in Texas to memorialize the emancipation of the slaves in Texas in 1865, notwithstanding the fact that federally, the slaves had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation 2 and a half years before. June 19th was established as a holiday in Texas the following year (1866) and has now spread to 41 other states and the District of Columbia.
From 2-7 to sectional champs, Monrovia has one question: 'Why not us?'
Doylestown, Pa, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alamo Pharma Services, Inc. (Alamo) and BexR Logistix, LLC (BexR) continue to grow with the addition of Thomas M. (Tom) Sottile as Executive Director, Sales and Business Development. Tom will contribute to the sales operations and business development efforts for two of the Mission Family of Companies. Having been in the industry for more than 25 years, Sottile has experienced career growth on both the manufacturing and services sides of the pharmaceutical industry. Sottile brings strong leadership and business development skills and experience to aid in the growth of both organizations.

Sottile began his career at Reid Rowell Laboratories, which later became Solvay Pharmaceuticals and ultimately AbbVie. On the pharmaceutical manufacturers side of the industry, Sottile held roles of increasing responsibility in sales, sales training and development, along with brand management before pursuing opportunities on the pharmaceutical services side. His services experience includes companies such as Boron LePore and Associates; Curry, Martin and Schiavelli; inVentiv Health; Ashfield Commercial and Medical; and HealthSTAR Clinical Education Solutions. Within these organizations, Sottile served as National Business Director, Executive Director of Sales Operations, Vice President of Sales Teams, and Executive Vice President of Business Development. He delivered outsourced contract sales and clinical team operational excellence along with business growth.

Alamo and BexR welcome Sottile as he brings experience and perspective to providing quality services and tailored solutions to both existing and future clients.

The industry is evolving as Sottile joins Peter Marchesini, Alamo Chief Operating Officer, and the companys Executive Director, Strategic Alliances, Krista Pinto. Together the team will focus on bringing Alamos personal approach and flexible outsourced sales solutions to the ever evolving pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

I am pleased to work again with Tom, notes Marchesini. He will be a great addition in support of our existing clients while also representing our unique organization to pharmaceutical and biotech companies who may not know they are going to be our partners yet! Adding Tom to the wealth of talent and experience we already have with Krista Pinto, positions Alamo Pharma Services to meet the needs of more companies, as they explore their commercialization options.

Supporting BexR, Sottile joins Dan Harmon, the companys General Manager and Vice President of Business Development. Through positioning BexRs telesales customer contact center and third-party logistics (3PL) capabilities, Sottile will help customers maximize results by leveraging impactful and efficient telesales and 3PL solutions respectively.

The addition of Tom to our BexR team by way of Alamo comes at the perfect time, says Harmon. BexR continues to invest in infrastructure, software solutions, and talent. Tom clearly fits our talent profile with his experience, industry relationships, and professionalism. He is a welcome addition to our team and will definitely help us accelerate our growth in the market. Were happy to have him on board.

About Alamo Pharma Services

Founded in 2011, Alamo Pharma Services offers pharmaceutical and biotech companies vital solutions to bring their products to market efficiently and successfully. Based out of its offices in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Alamo offers companies vast commercialization experience, customized recruiting of sales teams, superior training, and committed support services. For more information regarding Alamo, visit AlamoPharmaServices.com, or email newbusiness@AlamoPharmaServices.com.

About BexR Logistix, LLC

BexR Logistix, LLC is a full-service, independent, U.S.-based third-party logistics provider (3PL) and telesales organization supplying a complete spectrum of premier, secure logistical support and management services to a broad range of industries from pharmaceuticals and biotech to foods and more. BexR has commercial offices in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a distribution center in Boerne, Texas, and its telesales operation in Broomfield, Colorado. BexR subsidiary, EPIC Fulfillment, Inc., has achieved a Verified-Accredited Wholesale Distributors (VAWD) accreditation, and provides BexR with warehousing and distribution support. For more information regarding BexR, visit BexR.com or call 215.489.9500.

Alamo and BexR are a part of the Mission Family of Companies, a collection of wholly-owned subsidiaries created to diversify offerings and build forward-thinking partnerships with other pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Other Mission companies include BioComp Pharma, Inc., a generic drug marketer; ProSolus, Inc., a transdermal drug developer and manufacturer; and Espada Dermatology, Inc., a prescription and esthetic dermatology company. To learn more, please visit missionfamilyofcompanies.com.

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Cambodia National Rescue Party President Kem Sokha spoke with reporter Vuthy Huot of Radio Free Asias Khmer Service on Wednesday on the results of elections on June 4 for rural commune and urban sangkat councils and council chiefs. The elections, seen as a bellwether for national elections in 2018, saw the CNRP, a party formed by the merger in 2012 of the Sam Rainsy Party and the Human Rights Party, get nearly 12 times the number of commune chief posts than the two component parties had held prior to the vote.

RFA: What did the party do right during its campaign and on election day?

Kem Sokha: As our compatriots already know, the CNRP has overcome political heat over the past period which raised concerns and fears among our supporters. Not only has it been able to hold its position, but it was also able to move forward another step. What we have done right is, first, we properly set our goals which are based on the will of the people, meaning that our goals are not based on any delirious feeling of any individual or leader. As a leader, we dont follow our feelings, but act based on the will of the people. The will of the people is that initially they had wanted us to unite together democrats and nationalists. And we did unite in 2012. This was a positive point as a stepping stone for reinvigorating our peoples hope after these hopes had been lost for quite a long period of time. In 1993, our citizens went to vote for change one time already. But they couldnt sustain their hopes as they had been ruined. It was not until the recent time that after there was a merger between the Human Rights Party and the Sam Rainsy Party that we have gathered our forces among democrats. This served as a crucial point when we made the right decision by uniting our forces.

Second, is due to our political maturity. We know how to be patient at some points. We didnt use our feelings to react to situations, but instead worked strategically. Whatever they did against us, we were patient  and when we didnt involve ourselves in playing their games, we were able to focus on preparing our structure, candidates and political platform.

Third, we tried to conduct regular meetings with people in their localities. As per reports from various organizations, the CNRP lawmakers have been actively visiting their constituencies more often than [the ruling party]. Likewise, the CNRP activists also carried out more activities than the other side. These are the points that we have been doing right and we will continue to pursue them further.

RFA: What are the things that the CNRP should improve internally for the upcoming 2018 election?

Kem Sokha: We know that politically, we are correct. But as for some technical issues, we have not been thorough. For instance, we have yet to approach each commune or village level with proper statistics. During the campaign, we also did not visit peoples homes as often as the ruling party had done. We also have not taught the people how to mark their ballots properly. Another point, is related to our observers. Although we recruited them in large numbers, our training of them, both spiritually and materially, fell short due to time constraints. These are things we need to improve. Improvement means that for 2018, we still have time. We wont wait until that day comes to recruit more observers. We have to do it from now. Following the election on June 4, I summoned all our partys provincial leaders and lawmakers to an urgent meeting. We have already laid out our plan. Our immediate task is to urgently meet with our commune/sangkat chiefs so that they further understand their roles and our political stance and they can lead the nearly 500 communes/sangkat that we won right away. Moreover, we also have to train our elected commune/sangkat councilors so that they know better how to manage, and to lead well. I dont think this is a difficult task. The most important thing is whether they already have their hearts ready for loving the nation and the people. Since we already have our hearts ready, we can just teach them the technical parts. We will request national and international organizations to join with us in providing training to our elected commune/sangkat councilors and chiefs. Another important issue is our observers. We need to train them to strengthen their spirit so that they will not be bought or be scared of threats, and will be technically ready. We will provide them with further training. We cant just teach them one time and expect that theyll understand everything. We have to teach them repeatedly.

RFA: What are the things that your party demands be improved from the outset, including on the government or National Election Commission side?

Kem Sokha: There are a lot of things that we demand be improved. Although no violence occurred in this election, there were other various issues of concern. We noticed that there were a lot of threats prior to the election. The courts or the NEC appeared not to undertake any concrete measures against such threats even though they prompted an outcry and appeals from the international community. Another thing is that on election day, the issue of shutting doors during the ballot counting process, whereby our citizens were not allowed to monitor or observe the process from outside. The NEC said such acts are illegal, yet they occurred. The election law appears to be too strict toward civil society organizations carrying out their activities. In this cycle, civil society organizations were very concerned and worked cautiously. When they were too cautious, it was hard for them to carry out their work effectively. Another point that needs to be improved concerns our people living overseas. We must ensure that our people living and working abroad such as in Thailand, Korea or other countries are provided the opportunity to register to vote. We continue to demand that our overseas workers be able to vote through arrangements such as via our embassies or at set locations.

Lastly, we know that more than one million people who registered to vote failed to go to vote due to various obstacles. These included restrictions for garment workers as they were not given enough time to travel to vote, and were faced with having their wages cut. We need to change all of this. We have to think about the fact that more than 1 million people did not go to vote. If those people were able to vote, the CNRP would have increased its votes and we would be able to gain further victory. We see the preliminary results showed that the CNRP votes are 500,000 less than the CPP. Most of these workers vote for the CNRP. Also, almost 2 million people were not able to register to vote. Had these people been able to register and go to vote, the number of democrats would be much higher. We dont expect that all of these things can be changed at once. But if we all have the will (to change), this would be not just for the sake of the CNRP, but also for the sake of other parties that lost elections.

RFA: You said that in this election, there were a lot of restrictions on civil society organizations, causing them to be very cautious, and as a result their work was not carried out effectively. Can you give a specific example?

Kem Sokha: I noticed that during past elections, when there were any problems, they would take prompt actions and intervene immediately at voting stations, offices or nearby spots. Such intervention included lodging complaints and other efforts to seek justice. But now they appear to be very quiet and didnt dare to do much. Also, in issuing their statements, they appear to be very cautious. Another example of unfairness is that while some civil society organizations faced are concerns and fears and faced restrictions, other groups that considered themselves civil society  could go visit any polling stations at will. But independent groups, if they dared to do so, they would face litigation.

RFA: What will the new blood in the CNRP do to distinguish itself from the CPP? What will your partys commune chiefs do to make themselves better than the old commune chiefs? What are their strong points, since they are inexperienced?

Kem Sokha: For the CNRP, we know clearly, and we already have our plan. Right after the conclusion of the June 4s election, on June 5 I called for a meeting among all CNRP provincial presidents and lawmakers so that we can devise plans to help our elected commune chiefs and councilors. We discussed what we have to do to implement our political platform set forth during the campaign, so that they will honor the partys promises. There are a lot of things that we can do different from the ruling party. For instance, our commune chiefs will issue papers without any political discrimination; we wont let them charge service fees over what is determined by law and they must make sure that they act on a timely manner. We are not merely talking. We have our lawmakers to help guide them from behind the scenes by giving advice, and providing further training and arrangements for them to practice. Also, we have our monitoring group. If they notice our commune chiefs do not work properly, we will dare to change or have them removed. Another thing, we will educate our commune chiefs and councilors to work properly and cooperate with other parties without any political discrimination. We want them to cooperate and treat one another as the same Cambodians. Even if we win, we have to cooperate so as to ensure the effectiveness of our work for the sake of the citizens. They can only discuss the partys affairs during their time off from commune work, not during their working time when they are serving the citizens in their localities.

RFA: Will the CNRPs commune chiefs charge commission fees, a major complaint of citizens?

Kem Sokha: As I already said, absolutely we wont allow this to happen. Our commune chiefs and candidates have already made commitments to never letting that happen. If such issue occurs, they agreed to be removed from their posts. We wont just let them tell us or let us know about the irregularities. We will form a senior commission at each commune/sangkat, led by respected people, to monitor and evaluate, and give scores to our commune chiefs performance. If their score is low or dropping from year to year, we wont let them continue. We have to change them. I also want to reiterate that we cannot just change everything in one day. We have a plan to educate, train, improve, and strengthen the capacity of our commune chiefs and councilors.

Translated by Sovannarith Keo.


Cambodia repatriated 16 Montagnard asylum seekers to Vietnam on Thursday after they failed to meet requirements for gaining refugee status in Cambodia, Cambodian authorities said.



The 16, who agreed to return to Vietnam afte exhausting their appeals, were accompanied by officials from Cambodia and the U.N High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) until they were handed over to Vietnamese authorities, a Cambodian immigration spokesman said.



Cambodia did not deport them. The UNHCR arranged their return as these [Montagnards] were not granted refugee status," Tan Sovichea, spokesman and director of the Immigration Departments Refugee Office of the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, told RFA's Khmer Service.



"When they filed their appeals, perhaps they gave up hope as they didnt have additional supporting evidence. That is why they voluntarily agreed to return while the UN was making arrangements for them, he added.



Tan Sovichea added that the UNHCR had been working with Vietnamese authorities to ensure that the Montagnards would be safely returned and protected from persecution for their attempt to flee the country.



Cambodian authorities were scheduled to return to the capital Phnom Penh upon reaching the Cambodia-Vietnam border, , while the UNHCR officials would continue the trip with Montagnards and Vietnamese authorities until they reach the location where the would-be asylum seekers would be settled down.



The UNHCR in Cambodia was not immediately available for comment.



Since 2001, at least three thousand Vietnamese Montagnards have crossed the border into Cambodia via Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri provinces to seek refugee status, including a large wave that came in 2014.



Vietnams 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.



More than 50 Montagnard asylum seekers, many of whom are Christian, fled Cambodia to Thailand in early 2017 amid fears of forced repatriation to Vietnam, where they complain of discrimination and persecution at the hands of local authorities, according to U.S.-based rights group Montagnards Assistance Project. It said some 250 Montagnards had gathered in Thailand as of April.



Reported by Sothearin Yeang for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
Twenty years after Hong Kong was handed back to China under a Sino-British treaty, less than 40 percent of the city's residents are satisfied with the ruling Chinese Communist Party's implementation of its promises, a new opinion poll has found.



Some 38 percent said they were "satisfied" that Beijing had stuck to the "one country, two systems" model promised ahead of the 1997 handover, according to a survey carried out by pollsters at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).



But 30 percent said they were "dissatisfied," while a further 30 percent said they were "so-so," the telephone poll of more than 1,000 residents found.



Asked about the state of Hong Kong society since the handover, 62.9 percent of respondents thought things had gotten "a lot" or "slightly" worse than before, while 19.2 percent said they were about the same.



Just over 37 percent gave a neutral, "so-so" response when asked about their optimism about the city's future, while 33.4 percent said they were pessimistic. Less than 30 percent said they were optimistic, the university's public opinion unit said in a statement on its website.



CUHK communications professor Clement So said the poll reflects the current somber political mood in Hong Kong.



"This poll reflects how people have been feeling recently, or the political atmosphere as a whole," So said. "We have seen a number of times that wherever there are some negative developments, the figures in these polls tend to drop."



His colleague Francis Lee said the survey had also revealed that levels of trust in both the Hong Kong authorities and the central government in Beijing were below the mid-point on the index.



Hong Kong Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai said the results indicate people's concerns over growing Chinese interference in the running of Hong Kong and the sidelining of the city as an economic powerhouse.



"During the past 20 years, all our hopes for 'one country, two systems,' 'Hong Kong people running Hong Kong' and 'a high degree of autonomy' have been dashed under various kinds of interference from the central government," Wu told RFA.



"Secondly, there is also the economic climate ... and our economy has been marginalized in favor of the mainland Chinese economy," he said. "Gradually, we are turning into an economic monoculture, with less and less diverse sources of economic growth."



"So of course we feel like we're on the decline."



However, trade-unionist and pro-establishment lawmaker Alice Mak said support for Hong Kong independence appears to be dropping.



"We need to take note that there were a number of events that touched on questions of separatism or independence, including the oaths row, which pushed people back towards the 'one country' side of the equation," Mak said.



"Without those events, I think that pro-independence sentiment would have continued to develop in Hong Kong," she said, adding that the independence debate would cause 'endless' political conflict.



Talk of independence



A top Chinese official hit out this week at the rise of "localist and separatist ideas" among young people in Hong Kong, saying that some young people are being led astray by such ideas.



Growing talk of independence has coincided with the erosion of Hong Kong's traditional freedoms of speech, publication, and judicial independence in recent years and a stalled timetable for full democracy.



Some 40 percent of young people support the idea, compared with around 70 percent who oppose it across all age groups, according to recent opinion polls.



Wu said that moderate democratic politicians have no truck with the idea, and accused China of manufacturing the problem deliberately.



"Mainstream Hong Kong society and mainstream democrats all think that independence isn't a solution for Hong Kong, when you look at it from a realist perspective," he said.



"It is a straw man created by the Chinese Communist Party for their own ends, as a pretext for stepping up their control over Hong Kong," he said.



Reported by Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Wang Siwei for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
English French

CALGARY, Alberta, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Three prominent nursing union leaders were named today as recipients of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) prestigious Bread and Roses Award for their outstanding contributions to policy and decision-making, raising public awareness, lobbying governments, and educating members and the public.

Tracy Zambory, President of Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN), Jane Sustrik, First Vice-President of the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA), and David Harrigan, Director of Labour Relations for UNA, are the recipients of the 2016-2017 awards.

The remarkable careers of these nurse advocates are an inspiration to us all, said CFNU President Linda Silas. We will continue to rely on them for their leadership and insights as we confront the serious challenges facing Canadas health care system.

Zambory is well known for her energetic advocacy for SUN members, patient safety and broader social justice causes. A long-term care nurse, Zambory began her union involvement at her local in Stoughton, SK. In 1999, she moved to the provincial level of union organizing and has served on the executive of SUN since 2010, becoming President in 2013.

Sustriks union involvement began in 1984 early in her nursing career. In the years since, Sustrik has held many union positions with a record of success in advancing the rights of her coworkers and working people everywhere. Since 1999, she has served on the executive of UNA, becoming First Vice-President in 2013.

As a Registered Psychiatric Nurse, Harrigan began his union involvement at the local level and, since 1989, has served as UNAs Director of Labour Relations. For decades, Harrigans effective advocacy and negotiation skills have yielded meaningful results for UNA members. Throughout his career, Harrigan has been a tireless advocate for the rights of all working people.

The Bread and Roses Award is given each year to a nurse member of the CFNU for an outstanding contribution to policy and decision-making, and raising public awareness for nursing issues and patient advocacy.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is Canadas largest nurses organization representing nearly 200,000 nurses and student nurses. The CFNU has been advocating for national discussions on key health priorities, such as a national prescription drug plan, a comprehensive approach to long-term and continuing care, greater attention to health human resources, and federal government engagement on the future of public health care.
A Myanmar court rejected bail Thursday for an independent newspaper editor and a satire columnist who were detained last week over an article that allegedly insulted the armed forces under a controversial telecommunications law, sparking a protest campaign from fellow journalists who say it curbs free speech.



Kyaw Min Swe, editor-in-chief of The Voice Daily, and the newspapers satire columnist who writes under the pseudonym "British Ko Ko Maung," were detained on June 2 under Section 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law, which prohibits the use of the telecom network to defame people. Violators are subject to a jail sentence of up to three years and a fine.



"According to the Criminal Code, Section 497/1, they can be let out on bail, but their bail requests were rejected. The judge asked us for more documents and we produced more documents, but then he said he cant wait to receive more documents to support bail because they have to be sentenced as soon as possible," Myo Thein, lawyer for Kyaw Min Swe and British Ko Ko Maung, told RFA's Myanmar Service.



A second lawyer and advisor to the pair of journalists said denying bail to the editor and satirist for charges that can carry a maximum of three years was unlawful, when bail is granted for people facing much stiffer terms of 5-10 years.



"We dont know and cant say whether there is an organization or a group that influences the judicial sector, but what we can say is that people in the judicial sector are working in ways that go against current laws. We will submit what we see to higher-level organizations to deal with this misuse [of law]," said lawyer Khin Maung Myint.



The next court hearing for the two men will be on June 16, and their lawyers will again seek release on bail.



British Ko Ko Maung had written a piece entitled Oath of the Nation of Bullets that mocked Union Oath, a military propaganda film that aired on the military-owned Myawaddy TV channel to coincide with Armed Forces Day on March 27.



Lieutenant Colonel Tun Tun Oo of the Yangon regional command initially filed a complaint with the Myanmar Press Council charging that the piece offended the dignity of the armed forces, according to a report by the online news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). The council mediates disputes involving the press.



The Voice Daily issued an apology on May 14, but the military filed charges on May 17 at Bahan Township Police Station in the commercial capital Yangon.



In response to the case, more than 100 Myanmar journalists gathered on Tuesday in Yangon to call on the government to drop lawsuits filed against reporters under Section 66(d) and formed a 21-member Committee for the Protection of Journalists to demand that the government, parliament, and the military abolish the law.



On Thursday, they launched a 10-day white armband campaign called Freedom of the Press to agitate for the repeal of the statute, and the drive quickly spread to other Myanmar cities, including Mandalay, where reporters fanned out and distributed pamphlets in plazas and markets.



"We write news articles on print media which are properly registered, but when we post these articles online, we are arrested and charged under 66(d). We are joining this campaign as we are media people and to show our stand for media people," said Min Din from the Mandalay Era Journal.



"I am joining this campaign to show my will to amend Section 66(d) and to reform the Myanmar Media Council as we dont think it stands up for reporters," said San Yu Kyaw, an official at the Mandalay Journalism School.



The Irrawaddy online news service reported that journalists and supporters from Sagaing region in north-central Myanmar also joined the white armband campaign and called on the government to review the Telecommunications Law.



Rights groups argue that the defamation provision of Myanmars Telecommunications Law has been used to silence criticism of the government, military, and Buddhist leaders, and should be dropped.



The Voice Daily case brings the number of people who have been charged under Section(d) to 56 under the National League for Democracy (NLD) government. So far, seven of them have been sentenced to jail.



Reported by Aung Theinkha, Thant Zin Oo, Set Paing Toe and Waiyan Moe Myint for RFA's Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Paul Eckert.
Four hundred people fled from gold and amber mines in a resource-rich area of northern Myanmars Kachin state following a warning by the army that soldiers were preparing to clear the area following a new round of fighting with an ethnic militia, local residents said Wednesday.

A mine worker named Worlay who left the mining region said he is one of a group of 78 people staying at a church in Tanaing town.

We are from Namkhan village and we work as miners, but most people work on their farms, he said. We have fled because the military dropped letters [from a helicopter] saying it will clear the mine areas where our village is.

We dont know how long we have to stay here, he said. We want to return home because we left behind our farms and animals.

The warning letters dropped by the army on Monday also said the mines in Tanaing township in the Myitkyina district of Kachin have destroyed the environment, sources said.

The letters said the Kachin Independence Army (KIA)an ethnic armed group that is involved in clashes with the Myanmar armyhas been taking money from mining businesses that should otherwise go to the state.

The fliers warned that if residents failed to leave the area by June 15, the military would consider them to have connections to the KIA, sources said.

Most of those who fled the area are staying in Buddhist monasteries and Christian churches, they said.

Caught up in hostilities

Dwe Bu, a Kachin lawyer and former parliamentarian who is helping internally displaced persons who have fled battles in the area, said the roughly 400 people from NGa Ga and Nam Byu villages arrived in Tanaing town during the night, fleeing new bouts of fighting between the government army and KIA.

Authorities tried to prevent residents from fleeing their homes after hostilities broke out on June 3, the online journal The Irrawaddy reported, citing civil society groups as the source.

KIA spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Naw Bu told the news outlet that the Myanmar army attacked KIA Battalion 14s Maisa outpost near Nam Byu village for three days.

Separate clashes near NGa Ga continued until Tuesday, but no casualties were reported, he said.

A women and her two daughters, however, were injured when four artillery shells fell on their home in Kawng Ra Village, The Irrawaddy reported, citing local residents.

Most of the people trying to flee the villages are women and children, and they have asked social and religious organizations to help them escape, Dwe Bu said.

When the organizations informed the township administrator, authorities sent trucks to evacuate them, she said.

Authorities and leaders from the Kachin Baptist Convention are discussing whether they should enter the area and evacuate others, Dwe Bu said.

About 500 displaced people from the mining areas are still waiting to cross the river and enter Tanaing town to escape the fighting, she said.

Some of them are ethnic Bamar and Shan migrant workers who work in the amber and gold mines, though most have already returned to their homes, she said.

The KIA and Myanmar army had a bilateral cease-fire in place for 17 years, but it collapsed in 2011.

Reported by Kyaw Myo Min and Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
CHARLOTTE, N.C., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Barings, one of the worlds leading asset management firms, announced today that it served as lead agent and provided senior credit facilities to support TA Associates investment in Biocomposites, a manufacturer and marketer of calcium compound biologics.



Biocomposites is singularly focused on the development of innovative calcium compounds for surgical use. Their bone graft matrices can be used in the presence of infection for regenerating bone and managing dead space in a range of orthopedic procedures. Biocomposites sells directly to hospitals and through independent distributors, with the United States representing its largest market. Research, manufacturing and distribution is handled in-house at the companys headquarters in Keele, UK. Sales representative offices are also maintained in Wilmington, North Carolina and Shanghai, China.

About TA Associates

TA Associates is one of the largest and most experienced global growth private equity firms. The firm has invested in more than 450 companies around the world and has raised $24 billion in capital. With offices in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Mumbai and Hong Kong, TA Associates leads buyouts and minority recapitalizations of profitable growth companies in the technology, financial services, business services, healthcare and consumer industries. More information about TA Associates can be found at www.ta.com.

About Barings LLC

Barings is a $280 billion* global asset management firm dedicated to meeting the evolving investment and capital needs of our clients. We build lasting partnerships that leverage our distinctive expertise across traditional and alternative asset classes to deliver innovative solutions and exceptional service. A member of the MassMutual Financial Group, Barings maintains a strong global presence with over 1,700 employees and 600 investment professionals across 41 offices in 17 countries. Learn more at www.barings.com.

*As of March 31, 2017

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A company hoping to store waste in a rock quarry in Chesterfield County hit another setback Wednesday.

The Chesterfield Board of Zoning Appeals sided with the county, rather than Shoosmith Bros. Inc., by a 4-1 vote, as board members agreed with Planning Director Kirk Turners determination that Shoosmith needed approval from the Board of Supervisors before proceeding.

Shoosmith, which is seeking to fill the quarry on a 264-acre site off Iron Bridge Road with waste, could appeal the boards ruling to the Chesterfield Circuit Court.

The companys attorney, Andrea Wortzel, said after the vote that a decision on whether the company will appeal hasnt been made.

Wednesdays vote was the most recent development in a yearslong effort by Shoosmith to use the quarry for waste disposal.

After facing significant public opposition two decades ago, the company agreed to certain conditions and was granted a conditional use permit by the Board of Supervisors to expand landfill operations into the quarry. One of those conditions involved needing the local approvals.

Two years ago, the company submitted plans to use the quarry. But after facing more public opposition, the company pulled the application before the Board of Supervisors could vote on the topic.

Shoosmith then turned to the courts, filing a lawsuit in Circuit Court last year against the county.

The company relied on being granted a permit by the state Department of Environmental Quality and argued that it didnt need supervisors approval. The county disagreed, and Judge William Shelton dismissed the companys lawsuit in December.

Shoosmith then turned to the countys Board of Zoning Appeals.

On Wednesday, two Board of Zoning Appeals members acknowledged that the language in the agreement isnt clear. But some of them also said they believed it was clear overall from the previous agreements that the county wanted to have the final say.

The board members vote was applauded.

Nearly 10 residents spoke on the issue, the majority of whom supported the countys position. Some bemoaned living near a landfill and said they were concerned about its expansion.
Since the 1980s, the name Highland Park has been closely followed by the words poverty and crime.

When people talk about Highland Park, all they talk about is crime, crime and crime, said Jo White. Theres so much more here besides crime.

White is the longtime director and co-founder of Saving Our Youth, a nonprofit offering high school, college and job assistance programs for youth.

Its time for people to see the real Highland Park and the real people here, she said.

The new Six Points Innovation Center, or 6PIC, opened in the heart of the community on Tuesday evening and will look to transform the regions reputation, placing its youth at the forefront.

Ryan Rinn, executive director for Storefront for Community Design, led the centers development. Rinn said the project had been part of the strategic plan for improving Highland Parks quality of life that he helped develop for the city starting in 2011 as a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Four nonprofits will share the space and offer programming, focusing on providing the neighborhood youth with educational opportunities to attend college and find careers in the region to set Highland Park up for long-term success.

Rinns Storefront for Community Design and Whites Saving Our Youth will have a place in the center, as will Art 180 and Groundwork RVA.

Art 180 focuses on art-related programs for youth, encouraging self-expression and community change. Groundwork RVA equips young people with skills in landscape and urban development through service and green-collar job training.

White said, We knew that not one organization could have done it. We knew that we had to come together. So we came together, joined forces and got the grant.

Free Egunfemi, founder of Untold RVA, will be a co-director of Storefront for Community Designs high-tech addition to the space, Storefront Studios.

Storefront Studios will teach youth how storytelling techniques and journalism work together to record history.

Highland Park is another area in Richmond prime for gentrification, Egunfemi said.

The people that are living here now, chances are theyre going to lose their homes, she said. If theres a way that we can help stop that by making sure these youth are making the money they need to hang on to these houses, renovate these houses and be happy here, our job is done; we did everything we were supposed to do.

Egunfemi and Storefront Studios co-director Kelley Libby said they received a $20,000 Ovation Foundation grant to purchase reporting kits and iMacs.

History is such an asset here and, as the city grows, so is journalism, said Libby, founder of Unmonumental RVA. So we have to give young people opportunities to enter the field.

Storefront Studios $20,000 grant was just one of the five received by the entire collaboration to bring 6PIC to fruition. Overall, the groups received $290,000 in grant money toward the center.

Virginia Local Initiatives Support Corporation assisted Rinn and the other partners with securing their largest grant from the Robins Foundation, totaling $125,000 in 2015 to renovate the building.

Virginia LISC Partnership Manager Ebony Walden said, This project is not only changing the lives of the youth in this neighborhood, but changing the course of the entire neighborhood.

Rinn believed children will have the best ability to address their communitys needs.

Therefore, 6PICs opening coincided with the start of a program called Changemakers. Teenagers will be elected to a council, provided a budget and charged with generating programs.

They see it every day; they live here, Rinn said. I feel like putting them in processes as youth that they will experience as adults and letting them navigate it now just makes them better prepared.

For 16-year-old Highland Park native Samiya Jackson, the new center should fill other teens free time.

Looking at my surroundings, a lot of kids dont have much to do with ourselves, Jackson said. It will invite kids here instead of being on the streets or doing nothing all day or getting in trouble.

The center will offer programs in several fields, including archaeology, urban ecology, art, architecture, design, public media, public history, communication, public policy and city planning.

Prior to the renovation, 6PICs location was one of the many empty spaces along the corridor. As the center has developed, other businesses have also looked to the area for locations, potentially leading to revitalization of the strip.

Once one thing starts happening, everything starts happening, White said.
Three boys younger than 12 have been charged in last months shooting of a Richmond Public Schools employee at the Norrell Annex building, authorities said Wednesday.

The boys were arrested in a separate incident about 7:30 p.m. Tuesday after police responded to a burglar alarm at Overby-Sheppard Elementary School at 2300 First Ave., less than a mile away from Norrell Annex in the citys North Side. Officers detained two 11-year-olds and a 10-year-old.

Police said they later determined that the boys had been involved in the May 1 burglary at the Norrell Annex in which a schools employee was shot in the arm. They are suspected of being involved in another burglary at the same location the weekend before the shooting, according to police.

The boys have been charged with use of a firearm in a felony and two counts each of burglary, grand larceny and robbery. Police said they expect additional charges will be filed.

Virginia statutes prevent the release of identifying information in cases that involve minors. No additional information was immediately available Wednesday.

Richmond Public Schools released a statement Wednesday that identified the boys as students, saying the swift action of the Richmond Police Department was appreciated.

The crime and violence in our communities remains a deep concern as we continue to explore options of working collaboratively with our families and community partners to find immediate solutions to these ongoing issues, Superintendent Dana Bedden said in the statement.

In the May 1 incident, police responded to initial reports of random gunfire and a second call of a person shot in the Norrell Annex building at 201 W. Graham Road.

Three other school employees were in the building at the time of the shooting. The annex serves as an administrative office for the school districts food and nutrition services division. No one else was injured.

Witnesses told police that three boys forced their way into the building and that one of the juveniles was wearing a red bandana across his face. They were initially thought to be teenagers, according to earlier reports.

In a statement Wednesday, 4th Precinct Capt. Jody Blackwell said that the shooting had a huge effect on the Barton Heights neighborhood.
Washington, D.C., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WASHINGTON, D.C.  Ambassador John Bolton announced today his endorsement of Representative Brian Mast in his bid for Congress in Floridas 18th Congressional District. In addition, the John Bolton PAC will contribute a total of $10,000 to his 2018 campaign. This announcement comes as part of a larger contribution of $100,000, which will be distributed among ten Congressional candidates whom the Ambassador has identified as champions of a strong national security and foreign policy.

Having served in combat operations in Afghanistan as a member of the Army, Brian Mast has firsthand experience with threats posed to our country and our allies, said Ambassador John Bolton. He has been outspoken on the necessity of U.S. leadership in the international community and is committed to ensuring the safety and security of the U.S. through the development of comprehensive national security strategies. That is why I am endorsing Brian for re-election to Congress.

Brian Mast issued the following statement in response to Ambassador Boltons contribution to his campaign:

"As a former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton has been at the forefront of American national security decisions. During my 12 years in the Army, I experienced firsthand why its so important for the United States to take a global leadership role. I appreciate the Ambassador's continued support as we work together to defend our country from terror."

In the 2016 election cycle, the John Bolton PAC contributed a total of $680,000 and endorsed 94 candidates, making it the most active leadership PAC in the country, and earning the PAC numerous industry awards. This is the earliest the John Bolton PAC has involved itself in an election cycle, signaling Ambassador Boltons plans to significantly increase contributions for the 2018 elections.

In addition to his leadership PAC, Ambassador Bolton heads the John Bolton SuperPAC, which spent nearly $5M on independent expenditures for three U.S. Senate races in 2016.



###



About the John Bolton PAC (www.boltonpac.com): The John Bolton PAC was founded by former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John R. Bolton to raise the importance of American national security in federal elections. The PAC will support and contribute to candidates who are committed to restoring strong American economic and national security policies that secure America's interests in a challenging world.



Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/02742ee7-e2f8-4f35-b685-74846957ce8c
ALEXANDRIA  A Northern Virginia man who joined the Islamic State extremist group in Syria and Iraq for three months, all the while evading the scrutiny of U.S. intelligence officials, was convicted Wednesday on terrorism charges despite his protestations that he was only there to check things out.

The jury in U.S. District Court took only four hours to deliberation before convicting Mohamad Khweis, 27, of Alexandria on all charges. He could potentially face 20 years or more in prison when he is sentenced in October.

Earlier Wednesday, the jury heard closing arguments in which Khweis lawyers acknowledged that Khweis left his home in December 2015 to join the Islamic State. He even got an official membership card. But they argued those facts dont automatically make him a terrorist.

Khweis took the unusual step of testifying on his own behalf at the trial, telling jurors he just wanted to see for himself what the militant group was like. After a few months, he realized it was not for him.

He wanted to find out how they could justify some of this stuff, like suicide bombings, said defense attorney John Zwerling, who asserted that theres no evidence his client ever expressed a desire to harm America. Its not a crime to explore, to try to see some of this information for yourself, he said.

Prosecutors ridiculed the notion that Khweis had himself smuggled across the Syrian border on some sort of curiosity tour. They noted that Khweis expressed a willingness to be a suicide bomber on an official Islamic State intake form.

After the verdict, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana Boente, said in a statement, Khweis is not a naive kid who didnt know what he was doing. He ... knew exactly who ISIS was, and was well aware of their thirst for extreme violence. Nonetheless, this did not deter him.

Instead, Khweis voluntarily chose to join the ranks of a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that is a federal crime, even if you get scared and decide to leave.

Khweis is one of more than 100 people charged in the U.S. in recent years with helping or trying to help the Islamic State. But most cases involve sting operations. His is among a handful that involves individuals who actually evaded the U.S. intelligence apparatus and reached Islamic State territory.

Khweis lived there from December 2015 through March 2016. According to trial testimony, he became intrigued with the Islamic State group in 2015. He told FBI agents who questioned him after his arrest that he was interested in the establishment of a caliphate and wanted to tell his grandchildren he had been a part of it.

He quit his job as a bus driver in the Washington region and booked a one-way flight to Istanbul, via London and Amsterdam. Once in Turkey, he established social media accounts using the moniker GreenBird, which is associated with martyrdom by the Islamic State group.

Khweis used social media accounts to reach out to people he thought could help smuggle him across the border to Syria.

Finally, in late December, he got the call: He should leave his hotel room and enter a waiting taxi if he wanted to join. He did, and was smuggled across the border.

He was processed by the Islamic State during a short stay in Raqqa, Syria. The processing was formal, with blood tests, intake forms and issuance of an ID card.

On these intake forms, he expressed his willingness to serve as a suicide bomber.

During the next three months, he bounced among several safehouses in Syria and Iraq.

Khweis testified that he came to believe he was destined for military service, but he never seemed to gain the trust of Islamic State officials, who suspected he was a spy.
(This is the opening statement of U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, at today's open hearing with former FBI Director James Comey. The text is as prepared for delivery.)

"Thank you, Mr. chairman. And thank you Mr. Comey for agreeing to come testify before our committee as a part of our Russia investigation.

"I realize that while Washington has been focused on this, many Americans tuning in today may not have focused on every twist and turn in the investigation. So I'd like to briefly describe what we already know, and what we are still investigating. To be clear, this investigation is not about re-litigating an election. This is not about who won or who lost. And it is certainly not about Democrats versus Republicans.

"We are here because a foreign adversary attacked us right here at home. Plain and simple. Not by guns or missiles, but by foreign operatives seeking to hijack our most important democratic process  our presidential election. Russian spies engaged in a series of online cyber raids and a broad campaign of disinformation  all ultimately aimed at sowing chaos to undermine public faith in our process, in our leadership and in ourselves.

"That is not one senators opinion  it is the unanimous determination of the entire U.S. intelligence community.

"So we must find-out the full story - what Russia did, and why they were successful.

"And more importantly, we must determine the necessary steps we must take to protect our democracy and ensure that they cant do it again.

"Simply put, we cannot let anything or anyone prevent us from getting to the bottom of this.

"Now, Mr. Comey, let me say at the outset that we havent always agreed on every issue  in fact Ive occasionally questioned actions youve taken  but Ive never had any reason to question your integrity, expertise or intelligence.

"You have been a straight shooter with this committee and have been willing to speak truth to power  even at the risk of your career. Which makes the way in which you were fired by the President utterly shocking.

"Recall, we began this entire process with the president and his staff first denying that the Russians were ever involved and then falsely claiming that no one from his team was ever in touch with any Russians. We now know that is just not the truth.

"Numerous Trump associates had undisclosed contacts with Russians before and after the election, including the presidents attorney general, his former National Security Adviser, and his current senior adviser, Mr. Kushner. That doesnt even count the host of additional campaign associates and advisers who have also been caught up in the web.

"We saw the Trump campaign manager, Mr. Manafort, forced to step down over ties to Russian-backed entities.

"The National Security Adviser, General Flynn, had to resign over his lies about engagements with the Russians. And we saw the candidate himself express an odd and unexplained affection for a Russian dictator while calling for the hacking of his opponent.

"That is a lot to investigate. Enough, in fact, that then-Director Comey publicly acknowledged that he was leading an investigation into those links between Mr. Trumps campaign and the Russian government. As the Director of the FBI, Mr. Comey was ultimately responsible for conducting that investigation which might explain why he is appearing before us today as a private citizen.

"What we didnt know is that at the same time that investigation was proceeding, the president himself appears to have been engaged in an effort to influence or co-opt the director of the FBI.

"The testimony that Mr. Comey has submitted for todays hearing is disturbing. For example, on January 27th, after summoning Director Comey to dinner, the president appears to have threatened Director Comeys job, while telling him I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

"At a later meeting on February 14, the president asked the attorney general to leave the Oval Office so that he could privately ask Director Comey to see [his] way clear to letting Flynn go.

"That is a statement Director Comey interpreted as a request that he drop the investigation connected to General Flynns false statements.

"Think about it: the president of the United States asking the FBI director to drop an ongoing investigation.

"And after that, the president then called the FBI director on two additional occasions  March 30 and April 11 - and asked him to 'lift the cloud' of the Russia investigation.

"Director Comey denied each of these improper requests. The loyalty pledge, the admonition to drop the Flynn investigation, and the request to 'lift the cloud' of the Russia investigation. After his refusals, Director Comey was fired.

"The initial explanation for the firing didn't pass any smell test: the idea that Director Comey was fired for his treatment of Hillary Clinton. Of course, the president himself then made very clear that he was thinking about Russia when he decided to get rid of Director Comey.

"Shockingly, reports suggest that President Trump admitted as much in an Oval Office meeting with the Russians the day after Director Comey was fired.

"Disparaging our countrys top law enforcement official as a (quote, unquote) nutjob, the president allegedly suggested his firing released the great pressure he was feeling about Russia.

"This is not happening in isolation. At the same time the president was engaged in these efforts with Director Comey, he was also allegedly asking senior leaders of the intelligence community to downplay the Russia investigation or intervene with Director Comey.

"DNI Coats and NSA Director Admiral Rogers had plenty of opportunities to flatly deny these reports yesterday.

"They did not.

"That is not how a president of the United States should behave.

"Regardless of the outcome of our investigation into those Russia links, Director Comeys firing and his testimony raise separate and troubling questions that we must get to the bottom of.

"I have seen firsthand how seriously every member of this committee is taking this work. I am proud of our committees efforts so far.

"Let me be clear: this is not a witch hunt. This is not fake news. It is an effort to protect our country from a new threat that will not go away any time soon.
Law enforcement agencies in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield did not send 321 physical evidence recovery kits - or PERKs - to state agencies for testing from 2014 to 2016, according to a report from Attorney General Mark Herring's office.

In total, 1,247 of the kits, most commonly used to collect evidence in rape cases, went untested in the entire state during that time. The agencies never sent the kits to the appropriate agencies for either testing or storage.

Richmond City Police had 99 untested kits from 2014 to 2016, Henrico County Police Division had 86, and Chesterfield County Police Department had 136 kits, according to the report.

Herring's office conducted a survey to determine how many kits went untested in the two-year time frame after a similar survey in 2015 determined that around 2,000 kits in the state had gone untested between 1985 and 2014.

In total, about 3,200 PERKs were not tested from 1985 to 2016.

"I hope survivors see that we are turning the page from an old approach that failed to meet our public safety goals or our obligations to survivors, to one that makes communities safer and helps survivors on a path to healing and justice," Herring said in a news release.

Typically, PERKs were not sent to the Virginia Department of Forensic Science for testing or the Department of Consolidated Laboratory Services for storage because they were not part of a criminal investigation.

In the 2015 report compiled by the Department of Forensic Services on the initially discovered tests, law enforcement agencies cited a variety of reasons for not sending the kits to the proper state agency, ranging from survivors declining prosecution to false reporting.

A similar list of reasons for not sending the kits was not available for the 2014-16 PERKs.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Chesterfield County Police Department said kits were not sent for testing for several reasons, from the survivor being uncooperative to incidents remaining under investigation at the time the survey was sent.

When asked why the Henrico County Police Division did not send 86 kits out to be tested, a spokesman said state law did not require agencies to do so.

Law enforcement agencies now operate according to a 2016 state law that requires them to send kits to the appropriate state agency within 60 days.

Richmond City Police did not respond to a request for comment.

With funds secured by two grants totaling $3.4 million, all 3,200 tests are in the process of being tested.
Everyone wins

but the citizens

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

When it comes to elections, every political party wants to win. Democrats and Republicans want to win. Both are quick to declare a victory and slap colleagues on the back for winning.

But when it comes to elections, who is really supposed to win? I thought government was supposed to work for the people and be of the people  not for a specific ideology, not a specific party agenda and not a special-interest group. I thought that the winners were supposed to come together, talk through issues and provide solutions as to what is best for all the citizens of the United States.

Lately, what have we won except bickering, bad-mouthing and immature behaviors? I have seen the Democrats win, I have seen the Republicans win, but unfortunately I have not seen the citizens who live in this great country winning in more than a decade.

Pam Gontkovic.

Mechanicsville.

This country always

helped the poor

Editor, Times-Dispatch:In his letter, Democrats need to grow up, William Hollins writes: For the past eight years Democrats were in control of this country and we have gone downhill. I dont know what country Hollins has been living in, but based upon his comments, it surely wasnt the U.S. And as for how the Republican Congress treated President Obama, it is the opposite of what he remembers.Almost seven of the eight years Obama was in office, Republicans controlled Congress. They were very vocal about their desire to ensure that Obama failed. When he was re-elected for a second term I dont think there were a half-dozen times that the Republican Congress supported him.

Hollins belief that if members of Congress will not support the president, they need to be replaced, has merit. Unfortunately, most of the Republican congressional members were not replaced and remain in office.

The only hope the U.S. has to return to what the nation was founded upon is that Republicans do not support Trump. We began as a country of immigrants. When neighbors were in need, they were given help. When they needed medical attention, doctors took care of them whether they could pay or not. Now Trump wants to gut programs that help the poor with plans to cut food stamps and Medicaid.

I would highly recommend that Hollins do some thorough research about the past seven years in Washington and what our country was like when it was founded.

Deanna Nicosia.

Bumpass.

Griffin is responsible

for her actions

Editor, Times-Dispatch:I would have liked to be amazed at some of the things Kathy Griffin said during her recent press conference, but sadly it is all too common today for people to blame others for their own actions.She said, Trump broke me. By doing what exactly? Shes the one who posted the grossly offensive video.

It is not Trumps fault that she totally failed to understand the impact her actions would have. We are all responsible for our actions and their consequences. She is no exception.

Ellen Lockard.

Mechanicsville.

Sampson for

House of Delegates

Editor, Times-Dispatch:The people of Henrico in the 72nd District have a choice to make on June 13. They have the opportunity to make a choice in the Republican primary as to who will represent them in the Virginia House of Delegates.The most important trait for leadership is honor and integrity in all aspects of life. In a time when honorable men are in short supply, Ernesto Sampson is a shining example of a service leader. Honor requires more of us than following the crowd.

Henrico needs a representative who has the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the status quo and fight for his constituents.

Sampson is qualified to do just this. He is a business owner and an expert financial adviser who will help clean up the budgetary mess that state government has created over the past five years.

We have the opportunity to send to the House of Delegates a man of humble background who can bring the Republican message to new and diverse communities.

Sampson is a 1998 graduate of Virginia Military Institute. VMI instills in its graduates a respect for the sense of history and tradition, while calling them to acknowledge with open eyes the challenges of the present and the better future history demands us to build.

What a lesson for our commonwealth today. What a voice Sampson would be for us in Richmond.

As a veteran, I know that one honors our veterans by building the country that future generations deserve  one of freedom and opportunity regardless of race, gender, background, or belief.

Sampson doesnt just proclaim our principles, he embodies them. Join me in supporting Sampson for the House of Delegates on June 13.

Paul E. Galanti.
DENVER, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bang Holdings Corp. (OTCQB:BXNG), a digital advertising company that provides content and its influencer-based marketing network to the legal cannabis industry, today announced its Chief Executive Officer, Steve Berke, will present Bang Holdings corporate overview and growth strategy to investors at the 2017 Marcum MicroCap Conference on Thursday, June 15, at 10:30 a.m. EDT at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.



Bang Holdings Corp., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Bang Digital Media, is a dynamic leader in the legal cannabis industry marketing business. Last month, it announced one of the most successful media and public relations campaigns stemming from its successful launch of the International Church of Cannabis in Denver, Colorado. For additional information, please view a video clip of the grand opening of the Church by visiting the following link: Bang Digital's Video of Grand Opening of Church.

To request a one-on-one investor meeting with Mr. Berke or to be added to Bang Holdings investor lists, please email Bill Miller at Investor Relations Partners at bmiller@irpartnersinc.com.

About the Marcum Investment Conference

The Marcum MicroCap Conference is an annual highlight on the investment community calendar. Since its launch in 2012, this event has become a nationally recognized forum for publicly traded companies with less than $500 million in market capitalization to network with fund managers and high net worth investors who focus on small cap equities. More than 2,000 participants from all segments of the microcap market participate each year, including senior management, finance and legal executives, venture and lower middle-market private equity investors, institutional investors, directors, investment bankers, buy- and sell-side analysts, and service providers to the microcap marketplace.

The agenda will feature presentations by CEOs and CFOs in seven principal industry sectors, expert panels moderated by industry leaders, and the opportunity for investors to meet with management of presenting companies on a one-on-one basis.

About Bang Holdings Corporation

Bang Holdings Corporation (OTCQB:BXNG), through its subsidiary Bang Digital Media, provides brand management, cannabis related digital content and influencer-based marketing. While major media providers restrict online marijuana advertising, Bang Holdings marketing networks allow companies to directly reach cannabis enthusiasts. For more information, please visit our website.

Since launching its digital channel 4TwentyToday across multiple digital platforms in 2014, Bang Digital Medias network has grown to reach more than 1.6 million engaged enthusiasts and has generated over 650 million content views. Bangs expanded network of marijuana-friendly social influencers reaches an additional 20 million potential customers. For more information, please visit www.bangholdings.com.

Forward-looking Statements

Certain matters discussed in this press release may contain statements, estimates and projections that involve risks and uncertainties in Bang Holdings Corporations business that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the statements made herein. Such statements, estimates and projections constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Bang Holdings Corporation undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The recipient of this information is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. No representations or warranties are made as to the accuracy of such forward-looking statements or whether any of the projections included herein will be realized.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
ATLANTA, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (the Bank) announced today that it has awarded $20,361,018 million to assist in the funding of 54 affordable housing projects in 16 states and the District of Columbia as part of its 2017 Affordable Housing Program (AHP). The projects represent $466,988,450 in total housing development. For every $1 dollar in AHP funding, another $22 dollars of financing was leveraged under the FHLBank Atlanta 2017 AHP.



Local for-profit and nonprofit developers, in partnership with FHLBank Atlanta member financial institutions, will use $14.7 million of AHP funds to assist in the acquisition, new construction, rehabilitation, or preservation of 2,215 affordable rental and homeownership units in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Developers with projects in states outside of the Banks district, including, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, will receive AHP funds totaling nearly $5.7 million to develop 893 housing units. For the complete list of winners, click here.

The Affordable Housing Program helps pave the way for our members to work with developers and community groups to foster greater housing opportunities and economic development in the communities they serve, said Robert Dozier, FHLBank Atlanta Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer. We are proud of the impact these funds have in helping low- and moderate-income families find affordable housing, and in building stronger local economies.

FHLBank Atlanta awards AHP funds annually through a competitive application process. Since 1990, FHLBank Atlanta has awarded more than $914 million in AHP grants and provided more than 142,000 housing opportunities for moderate, low-, and very low-income households. Applications for the 2018 AHP funding round will be accepted beginning June 2018. Potential applicants must work with an FHLBank Atlanta member financial institution to complete the AHP Competitive program application. A list of member financial institutions is available on the FHLBank Atlanta website at www.fhlbatl.com.

FHLBank Atlantas AHP awards range from $80,000 to $500,000 per project and will be made in the following states:

State Rental Units Owner Units AHP Funds Total Development Alabama 160 -- $1,185,000 $21,888,219 District of Columbia 64 -- $331,857 $44,610,032 Florida 237 40 $1,912,251 $21,599,506 Georgia 256 8 $2,080,000 $45,346,737 Maryland 53 -- $500,000 $10,595,088 North Carolina 703 -- $3,784,595 $46,833,554 South Carolina 193 10 $650,000 $28,101,856 Virginia 464 27 $4,264,149 $99,013,557 Out of District 889 4 $5,653,166 $148,999,901



About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta

FHLBank Atlanta offers competitively-priced financing, community development grants, and other banking services to help member financial institutions make affordable home mortgages and provide economic development credit to neighborhoods and communities. The Bank's membersits shareholders and customersare commercial banks, credit unions, savings institutions, community development financial institutions, and insurance companies headquartered in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. FHLBank Atlanta is one of 11 district banks in the Federal Home Loan Bank System. Since 1990, the FHLBanks have awarded approximately $5 billion in Affordable Housing Program funds, assisting more than 791,000 households.

For more information, visit our website at www.fhlbatl.com.
Belkoom, a family-run Lebanese restaurant in Blacksburg, announced this week that it will shut down at the end of June.

The restaurant opened in 2015 as a partnership between Michael Salamoun, the head cook, and his son, Nasri Salamoun.

It offered traditional family recipes for the past two years, but the business never grew to the point it could sustain a full staff. Instead, Nasris wife, Jennie Salamoun, said relatives pitched in to do most of the work themselves, from manual labor required to renovate the space to marketing the new business.

We are really proud of the quality of food and friendly service weve been able to provide, but approaching the end of the three years, the physical demand is still too high on the family, Jennie Salamoun wrote in an email.

She added that the family is exploring the possibility of continuing to sell some of Belkooms most popular menu elsewhere, including hummus and a dairy-free, vegan garlic sauce known as toum.

Belkoom, which is a Lebanese term for a large mouthful of food, is located in the Blacksburg Square Shopping Center on South Main Street. Jennie Salamoun said the restaurant plans to close after the familys lease runs out June 30.
About 9:20 a.m., Carolyn Reilly heard from across Teel Creek the cracking sound of a branch snapping. Seconds later, the sound repeated.

Here they come, she said.

On Thursday, Reilly and her family worked together to anticipate, encounter and peacefully repel from their Franklin County farm a crew of surveyors working for Mountain Valley Pipeline.

The roughly three-hour drama that unfolded that morning has played out many times and in many places in recent years. The cast for these dramas has featured a subset of regional landowners along the proposed course of the 42-inch diameter, high-pressure natural gas pipeline. They have fought to resist efforts by survey crews to study their propertys potential for a hosting a portion of the route of the 303-mile buried pipeline.

Especially fierce resistance has reigned in portions of Roanoke and Franklin counties. On occasion, this opposition has created quandaries for law enforcement departments whose officers have felt torn about how to respond when residents theyre obliged to serve and protect seek their intervention.

As proposed, the $3.5 billion project would transport natural gas extracted via fracking in the Appalachian Basin and move the gas from Wetzel County, West Virginia, to another pipeline in Pittsylvania County.

A controversial state law allows a natural gas company to survey private property without an owners consent as long as the company has provided landowners adequate notice of its intentions and plans.

A certified letter to Carolyn Reilly, her husband, Ian Reilly, and Carolyns parents, Dave and Betty Werner, had alerted them that surveyors intended to inspect their property on June 1 and June 2. The Reillys and the Werners co-own and operate Four Corners Farm, whose 58 acres include property along the banks where Teel and Little creeks join en route to the Blackwater River.

The family had successfully rebuffed surveyors on four other occasions, dating back to May 2016. On Thursday morning, they hoped to do so again and mapped out a strategy.

First, Ian Reilly drove to Boones Mill to see whether survey crews were staging, as they often did when working in Franklin County, at the Shell service station and convenience store. They were.

Carolyn Reilly had walked through the farms bottomland pasture to reach a wooded spot along Teel and Little creeks where the family expected that the crew would venture off a neighboring property to access Four Corners Farm. Mountain Valley has its eye on the pasture, envisioning burying the companys pipeline across the field where existing lines feed water to troughs meant to keep the farms cows out of the creeks.

On Thursday, the Reillys and Werners attempted once again to thwart those plans.

About 9:23 a.m., the first of what turned out to be a crew of 18 surveyors became visible through the foliage. Carolyn Reilly greeted one from her spot across Little Creek.

Its probably just better to turn around and go back, she said. We dont want you on our property, anyways.

The surveyor glanced over but did not reply. A companion said the crew intended to survey the property.

Other crew members appeared out of the brush and lined up parallel to Little Creek. When it became clear to Reilly that they intended to cross the creek and venture onto the farm, she instructed her mother to summon help from the sheriffs office.

Several surveyors crossed Little Creek, climbed the bank and headed single file toward the pasture. Ian Reilly placed himself between them and the pasture. The surveyors stopped. The man directly facing Reilly said he was with the crews safety team. He said the surveyors would not venture farther until law enforcement arrived.

He told the Reillys that Robin Wall, an employee of Coates Field Service who helps supervise survey crews for Mountain Valley, planned to meet with the sheriffs deputy at the entrance to the drive that leads off Old Mill Creek Lane to Four Corners Farm.

Carolyn Reilly and her father left the pasture and drove to the rendezvous, where they found Wall and a man with her talking to Sgt. Lewis Wimmer of the sheriffs office. Lt. Erik Mollin arrived in a separate cruiser.

Ultimately, Wall agreed to remove the surveyors from the farm. Mollin told Reilly and her father that Mountain Valley would likely seek a court injunction sanctioning entry on the property.

Afterward, Reilly expressed gratitude for the sheriff departments willingness to intervene.

This week, Maj. Mike Bowman said the office has no written policy about responding to survey disputes.

We are here to keep the peace, whether its with the pipeline or the landowners, Bowman said. Were really neutral because the law is a little confusing. They want deputies to be lawyers, and were not lawyers.

He said the departments current approach is to direct surveyors to leave properties when landowners object to their presence.

If they want to get on the property, then they need to get an injunction, and if a judge grants the injunction the department will enforce it, Bowman said.

He said surveyor supervisors have been very cordial and cooperative when asked to leave properties.

If a crew refused to leave, Bowman said, landowners could seek from the magistrates office warrants charging surveyors with criminal trespass. If such warrants were issued, deputies would enforce them, he said.

Policies change

Law enforcement departments in other counties along the proposed pipeline route have struggled to define their role in survey conflicts. The states surveying law seems to grant crews working for Mountain Valley Pipeline  and the separate but similar Atlantic Coast Pipeline  the right to enter private property without fear of prosecution for criminal trespass.

To date, efforts by landowners and their attorneys to challenge the constitutionality of the law have not found footing in either state or federal courts. The Virginia Supreme Court heard two appeals in April related to the law but have not yet ruled.

Initially, Mountain Valley officials told Roanoke County police that surveyors would not enter or would leave private properties for which they had not obtained permission for entry as long as the landowner was present and opposing the work. The company said it would then seek a court order affirming its right to study the property and prohibiting interference with that work.

But as the weeks passed and Mountain Valley failed to gain access to several properties in the Bent Mountain community, the company changed its policy. Mountain Valley said surveyors would no longer leave properties to which the company felt it had legal access. And the county police department announced that it would not ask the crews to leave.

Pipeline foes then turned to the Virginia State Police, seeking intervention.

On May 8, a state trooper directed a survey crew on Bent Mountain to leave land owned by the Terry family. The crew complied. A few days later, however, the state police clarified that its officers would no longer ask crews to leave properties if the surveyors appeared to have authority under the law to study the site.

Meanwhile, Mountain Valley obtained a court injunction prohibiting the Terrys from interfering with future surveying. The company argued that the work was required to submit a complete application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which will decide whether construction of the pipeline offers sufficient public benefit to justify environmental damage and other impacts associated with the project. An attorney for the Terrys cited FERC regulations that suggested the surveying wasnt necessary, but a judge disagreed.

In light of the various court rulings permitting MVP surveys, its unfortunate that landowners and others continue to interfere with the important and necessary survey work that is required as part of the regulatory process, Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for the pipeline company, said last week about the surveyors unsuccessful attempt to gain entry to Four Corners Farm.

She declined to comment about specifics tied to the conflict at the farm. Cox said the project team remains confident that we have the legal authority under Virginia statute to access property for survey activity and expects to continue this important survey work in accordance with the strict requirements of Virginia law.

In Montgomery County, the sheriffs office told landowners that it will respond when summoned about survey conflicts, said Chief Deputy Brad Sinclair.

We want to be there to make sure no one is threatened, no one is harmed, he said.

Deputies obtain identification from surveyors and write a report that landowners can use if they decide to seek trespass warrants, he said.

Sinclair said he is not aware of any warrants being issued and recalled one case in which a magistrate declined a landowners request to issue a warrant.

That case involved Cletus and Beverly Bohon, who have property in the Elliston area.

Cletus Bohon said he drove to Christiansburg to seek a warrant but said the magistrate rejected his request.

It was very disappointing, he said. I thought for sure that I had a good case.

A deep struggle

Authorities along the routes of both pipelines have voiced concerns repeatedly that the often emotional encounters between landowners and surveyors could yield a tragic confrontation. Officers have continued to respond when summoned by landowners or survey crews to try to keep the peace.

Roberta Bondurant, a resident of Bent Mountain who has helped organize survey opposition there, expressed support for the response in Franklin County.

We applaud Franklins Sheriff [Bill] Overton for appreciating the potential for tragedy in allowing survey land agents and crews to run untended through our communities, and for his wisdom in reining in the survey mayhem until the [Virginia] Supreme Court considers the plethora of questions before it, she said.

Like many landowners in the proposed path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, the Reillys and Werners first learned about the project in 2014.

In February, Carolyn Reilly was hired by Bold Alliance as a pipeline fighter and tasked with organizing opposition to both the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast projects through the newly organized Bold Appalachia. Bold Alliance spun off from Bold Nebraska, which fought the Keystone XL pipeline.

She said last week that the work for Bold Appalachia and her previous efforts to fight the projects have taken a toll, stealing time from farming and from raising her four children, who range in age from 7 to 17, with her husband Ian .

On one hand, its been a deep struggle of keeping my head up and not feeling defeated, as a family and landowner, she said. The only reason I can continue and keep going with this is that I do have a faith ... that calls for taking care of the land and being a steward.

She finds strength also, she said, from a source beyond her, a source she said she calls God.

FERC has said it plans on June 23 to release a final environmental impact statement for the Mountain Valley joint venture, whose partners include an EQT Corp. subsidiary and a subsidiary of RGC Resources, the parent company of Roanoke Gas. With FERC approval, Mountain Valley would have access to federal eminent domain to acquire easements across private properties.

Roanoke Gas has said it intends to install two taps on the pipeline. One would be in Franklin County at a business park near Four Corners Farm. The tap would provide the county access to natural gas, a reality that has boosted support for the pipeline in some quarters of the county.

The countys board of supervisors has not taken a position on the pipeline. Boards of supervisors in Roanoke, Montgomery, Craig and Giles counties have expressed opposition to it.

Carolyn Reilly said her family will continue to fight the pipeline.

My heart is with landowners in the struggle to protect our land and water, she said.

Reporter Casey Fabris contributed to this report.
CHRISTIANSBURG  Blacksburg police are investigating an apparent fatal heroin overdose, according to search warrants filed Thursday.

The warrants come a day after town police issued a news release saying they were investigating the death of a 24-year-old man at a residence on Givens Lane. The news release did not identify the man or give other information beyond saying that authorities were called about a person who was possibly deceased, and that this person was pronounced dead at the scene.

Search warrants filed Thursday in Montgomery County Circuit Court give a more detailed account of a death at an address in the Blacksburg Estates mobile home park on Givens Lane. The warrants describe police and rescue workers interactions this week with Luke Nolan Thompson, who died from an apparent overdose Wednesday.

Lt. John Goad of the Blacksburg Police Department wrote in an email Thursday that police are not releasing the name of the person whose death they are investigating, pending notification of relatives.

According to the warrants:

A police officer was called to Thompsons residence on Tuesday to help rescue workers with a man who had overdosed on heroin. The man was identified as Thompson. He was unresponsive but was revived with Narcan, taken to a hospital for treatment and released.

The officer observed smoking devices, syringes, pills and a clear crystal substance in Thompsons residence.

Later Tuesday, officers were sent back to Thompsons home after a friend said hed spoken to Thompson and it sounded like he was intoxicated.

Officers said Thompson did appear to be under the influence of something but did not seem to need police or rescue help.

On Wednesday, officers and rescue workers again were called to Thompsons address about a possible overdose.

They found Thompson on the floor, unresponsive. A rescue worker pronounced him dead.

Two friends of Thompsons talked to police, according to the warrants. One said that the two friends and Thompson had injected heroin at Thompsons home in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The other said that they had removed drug paraphernalia from Thompsons home Wednesday morning and called others to discuss how to notify police about Thompsons body.
CHRISTIANSBURG  Aldi, a discount German grocery chain, has confirmed plans to open a new store beside the former Kmart building on North Franklin Street.

The company previously said it was pursuing a store in that area, but Aldi division vice president Chris Daniels said the project is now officially moving forward in a statement emailed to The Roanoke Times on Thursday.

The company is still in the planning phase, but Daniels said the goal is to have the grocery store open in the first half of 2018.

According to building plans submitted to the town, Aldi will occupy a 19,000-square-foot facility that butts up against the former Kmart building, which is now set to become a Hobby Lobby.

Aldis neighbor on the other side will be Lidl, another discount German grocery chain. The two stores will sit virtually side-by-side with similar shopping experiences. Both offer a European flair, occupy comparatively small spaces and specialize in discount products.

The companies are household names internationally, but only recently began pushing into the U.S. around the time Aldi opened a Roanoke location in 2015. Lidl also has purchased land for three stores across the Roanoke Valley in addition to the Christiansburg site, where construction work has already begun.

The two German grocers will be flanked by a plethora of competitors, from Walmart across the street, Food Lion a mile down the road, a newly expanded Kroger 2 miles away and Wades Foods within 4 miles.

In the email statement, Daniels said the Christiansburg Aldi will focus on fresh groceries, including produce, dairy and bakery sections. It will also have room for organics, meats, gluten-free foods and premium baby items.
Fort Wayne, Indiana , June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Northern Indiana Health Care System, released a presolicitation notice on June 8 in which it outlined plans to secure ambulance services for the Wyoming Health Care System in Wyoming, Michigan.

The VA intends to release an official RFQ on or around June 26, and anticipates issuing a contract by October 1. The contract will cover a one-year period, and include four one-year option periods.

The contractor who receives the award must provide all necessary vehicles, personnel, management, supplies, transportation, equipment, materials, and reports to furnish BLS and ALS ambulance services in accordance with Joint Commission Standards and GSA Federal Standard KKK-A-1822F.

The relevant NAICS code for this requirement is 621910.

According to the presolicitation, the VA encourages interested and capable contractors with questions to e-mail Contracting Officer Nikki Horther at Nikki.Horther@va.gov.

The contractor who receives this contract also must be registered with the System for Award Management (SAM) database and have as part of the Registration all current Representations and Certifications.

US Federal Contractor Registration, the worlds largest third-party government registration firm, completes the required Registrations on behalf of its clients. It also makes available information about opportunities like this, as well as training on how to locate, research, and respond to opportunities.

We also make available for our clients and for contracting officers our proprietary Advanced Federal Procurement Data Search (AFPDS). Our Advanced Federal Procurement Data Search (AFPDS) gives you in one place instant bid notifications, bid proposal prospecting, and information about government procurement officers. We make this search tool available to clients, as part of our commitment to helping each and every USFCR client succeed and thrive as a government contractor.

For contracting officers, the AFPDS gives them in one place access to a database of available contractors and also a place to post information about opportunities. Contracting officers get free access to AFPDS. We also provide interested contracting officers a list of contractors who may be able to provide a service and/or product that they need.



For more information, to get started with a SAM registration, to learn more about how US Federal Contractor Registration can help your business succeed, to find out how we can help you complete the processes necessary to become certified as one or more types of small business(es), and/or to speak with our federal training specialists about how to craft a memorable proposal, call 877-252-2700, ext. 1.
LOS ANGELES, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The United Cannabis Business Association, a leading cannabis industry advocacy group operating in Los Angeles and Sacramento, applauds the City of Los Angeles for taking the next step in the process to foster and regulate the expanding cannabis industry. The City of Los Angeles provided the first in a series of draft ordinances that would formalize the regulatory, operational and financial components of a Citywide cannabis licensing system.



Jerred Kiloh, President of the UCBA noted that as longstanding members of Los Angeles legal cannabis industry, we are thrilled that our hard work, dedication and transparency has helped shape cannabis industry regulations in LA. Since MCRSA passed in Sacramento, the UCBA has been pushing City leaders to align our regulations with legislative and voter-approved cannabis laws that affect everyone in Los Angeles.

The proposed City ordinance could implement a wide range of operational, administrative, financial and enforcement mechanisms that will align the City with state laws passed by the legislature and approved by voters in Prop 64. The draft City regulations adopted language and concepts proposed by the UCBA throughout the course of a nearly year-and-a-half working relationship between UCBAs legal dispensaries and a host of City departments.

We are pleased that the City listened and considered the wealth of experience that long-standing legal operators bring to the table. We cannot underscore the need to have the full spectrum of UCBAs diverse backgrounds and experience represented as the City moves forward to transitioning a once illegal industry towards sensible regulations, noted Javier Montes, Vice-President of UCBA.

Kiloh concluded that over the next few days, we will review the draft regulations and zoning requirements that have been put forth by the City Council after months of thoughtful discussion with the industry and community. We will continue to work with the Council, Mayor and City Attorney to reaffirm the wishes of voters in Los Angeles who overwhelmingly supported Proposition M.

For more information, visit our website, www.ucbatradeassn.com.
WASHINGTON, DC, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and IndusInd Bank today executed a finance agreement for a $225 million loan supporting the expansion of the Banks micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) lending programs across India. At least 25 percent of the proposed facility will support women entrepreneurs and reach previously unbanked populations. This eight-year loan is part of the agencys commitment to supporting $1 billion in loans to underserved small and medium enterprises in India.

Fostering access to finance opportunities for women entrepreneurs and MSMEs is important for increasing higher economic output throughout India, said Acting OPIC President and Chief Executive Officer Dev Jagadesan. OPIC recognizes the positive impact supporting women entrepreneurs can have in a community. We are proud to partner with IndusInd Bank to expand access to critical financial services.

Speaking in the occasion, Romesh Sobti, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IndusInd Bank, stated, This agreement with OPIC will help IndusInd Bank to further enhance our MSME lending franchise, thus providing the impetus to some of the major growth drivers of our economy. This also marks a significant milestone for the Bank as it helps us reach out to a new class of global investors to drive our growth.

IndusInd Bank, a private bank headquartered in Mumbai, India, reaches MSMEs across broad and diverse industries. MSMEs are an important segment of the Indian economy, but are often constrained by a lack of access to capital. This OPIC loan will support IndusInd Bank in increasing its MSME lending.

Wells Fargo Bank also signed a $20 million finance agreement at the event supporting IndusInd Banks MSME lending, which will include at least 25 percent dedicated to women entrepreneurs.

###

About OPIC

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) is a self-sustaining U.S. Government agency that helps American businesses invest in emerging markets. Established in 1971, OPIC provides businesses with the tools to manage the risks associated with foreign direct investment, fosters economic development in emerging market countries, and advances U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities. OPIC helps American businesses gain footholds in new markets, catalyzes new revenues and contributes to jobs and growth opportunities both at home and abroad. OPIC fulfills its mission by providing businesses with financing, political risk insurance, advocacy and by partnering with private equity investment fund managers.

OPIC services are available to new and expanding businesses planning to invest in more than 160 countries worldwide. Because OPIC charges market-based fees for its products, it operates on a self-sustaining basis at no net cost to taxpayers. All OPIC projects must adhere to best international practices and cannot cause job loss in the United States.

About IndusInd Bank

IndusInd Bank, which commenced operations in 1994, caters to the needs of both consumer and corporate customers. Its technology platform supports multi-channel delivery capabilities. As on March 31, 2017, IndusInd Bank has 1200 branches, and 2036 ATMs spread across 683 geographical locations of the country. The Bank also has representative offices in London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The Bank believes in driving its business through technology. It enjoys clearing bank status for both major stock exchanges - BSE and NSE - and major commodity exchanges in the country, including MCX, NCDEX, and NMCE. IndusInd Bank on April 1, 2013 was included in the NIFTY 50 benchmark index. Recently, IndusInd Bank ranked 13th amongst the Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands 2015 as per the BrandZ Top 50 rankings powered by WPP and Millward Brown.

Ratings:

CRISIL AA + for Infra Bonds program CRISIL AA for Additional Tier I Bonds program CRISIL A1+ for certificate of deposit program IND AA+ for Senior bonds program by India Ratings and Research IND AA for Additional Tier I Bonds program by India Ratings and Research IND A1+ for Short Term Debt Instruments by India Ratings and Research

Visit us at www.indusind.com

Twitter- @MyIndusIndBank

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/OfficialIndusIndBankPage/

About Wells Fargo Bank

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 268,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 27 on Fortunes 2016 rankings of Americas largest corporations. Wells Fargos vision is to satisfy our customers financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4baa4aab-8b9b-4094-aa2d-34ae290fac91

Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/43434882-5dab-4a0b-ab2d-28779852bdc7
MONACO, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Navios Maritime Containers Inc. (Navios Containers), a growth vehicle dedicated to the container sector, announced today that it has closed the previously announced private placement and the acquisition of five container vessels and rights to the remaining fleet (the Fleet) of Rickmers Maritime Trust Pte. (Rickmers Trust).



Private Placement

Navios Containers issued approximately 10 million shares for $50.3 million of gross proceeds at a subscription price of $5.00 per share. Navios Maritime Partners L.P. (Navios Partners) invested $30.0 million and received about 60% of the equity, and Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. (Navios Holdings) invested $5.0 million and received about 10% of the equity of Navios Containers. Each of Navios Partners and Navios Holdings also received warrants, with a five-year term, for 6.8% and 1.7% of the equity, respectively.

Fearnley Securities acted as the sole lead manager for the private placement and S. Goldman Advisors LLC acted as structuring advisor.

Registration on the Norwegian OTC Market

Navios Containers has registered for trading on the Norwegian Over-The-Counter Market (N-OTC) and expects to begin trading on or about June 12, 2017 under the ticker NMCI.

Rickmers Trust Fleet

Navios Containers used the proceeds from the private placement to acquire five 4,250 TEU vessels from Navios Partners for a total purchase price of $64.0 million. These vessels, recently acquired by Navios Partners from Rickmers Trust, are employed on charters with a net daily charter rate of $26,850. The charters expire in 2018 and early 2019 and are expected to generate approximately $45.0 million of EBITDA, assuming expenses approximating current operating costs and 360 revenue days per year.

The purchase price was partially funded through $40.0 million in proceeds raised through the private placement and the balance in the form of a $24.0 million credit by Navios Partners for a period of 90 days at L+375 bps. Navios Containers is in advanced discussions for an up to $40.0 million loan from a commercial lending bank.

In addition, Navios Containers acquired all the rights under the acquisition agreements entered into between Navios Partners and Rickmers Trust to purchase the remaining nine vessels in the original 14-vessel container Fleet. The acquisition of the nine additional vessels is subject to a number of conditions, and no assurance can be provided that the acquisition will close at all or in part.

About Navios Maritime Containers Inc.

Navios Maritime Containers Inc. is a growth vehicle dedicated to the container sector of the maritime industry. For more information, please visit our website at www.navios-containers.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning future events including the financing of the acquisition of the Fleet, the acquisition of the remaining Fleet, the transfer of the Fleet and the benefits of the acquisition of the Fleet; including expected vessel acquisitions and entering into further time charters, as well as expected financial performance of the Fleet. Words such as may, expects, intends, plans, believes, anticipates, hopes, estimates, and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on the information available to, and the expectations and assumptions deemed reasonable by Navios Containers at the time these statements were made. Although Navios Containers believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. These statements involve known and unknown risks and are based upon a number of assumptions and estimates which are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond the control of Navios Containers. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, risks relating to the completion of the remaining Fleets acquisition on the anticipated timing or at all, the quality of the Fleet and the market for the Fleet vessels, and changes in the availability and costs of funding due to conditions in the bank market, capital markets and other factors, as well as general domestic and international political conditions. Navios Containers expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in Navios Containers expectations with respect thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any statement is based. Navios Containers makes no prediction or statement about the performance of its common units.
TAGS presents around $23mn South African production to over 120 companies in Nov 2022 The reopening of factories in India post-Diwali was generally delayed by 2 weeks in response to sluggish market conditions. The challenges that faced the market in the lead-up to the Diwali holiday remain unchanged. Global economies are still facing...

Zim boosts gold output Zimbabwes gold output rose 34,1% in the first 10 months of the year to 29,5 tonnes as operations normalise following two years of COVID-19 restrictions. Newsday reports, citing figures from Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR), that the...

The 1st stage of the auction of natural diamonds for small and medium-sized enterprises held in Yakutsk The display of jewelry diamonds weighing from 2 to 10 carats as part of an auction for Russian small and medium-sized enterprises ended on November 8 in Yakutsk. The second stage is the show in Moscow, then the winner of the auction will be determined...

2022 US holiday sales estimated to grow amid concerns about inflation The US National Retail Federation (NRF) says it expects holiday retail sales will grow 6%8% over last years record holiday season, but the organization also says that consumers will spend cautiously amid a high-inflation and high...
South Africa and Venezuela have reportedly signed an agreement on the setting up of joint ventures in mining, particularly diamonds, in Orinoco Mining, south Venezuela.

The work area was said to cover 10,000 hectares and it holds about 40 million carats of diamonds.

Diamond Loupe, citing El Universal, reports that South African deputy minister of mineral resources, Godfrey Oliphant, and his Venezuelan counterpart, Victor Cano, signed the agreement, with a focus on environmentally friendly technology.

Meanwhile, Venezuela's Minister for ecological mining development, Jorge Arreaza thanked South Africa for helping the South American country end its eight-year absence from the Kimberley Process.

"South Africa has also been very supportive of Venezuela's reincorporation into the Kimberley Process, he was quoted as saying.

Thanks to them, we are here today to develop joint diamond projects, projects where the Venezuelan state maintains a sovereign majority of the shares of joint ventures or strategic alliances."

Venezuela rejoined the Kimberley Process last November after it stopped issuing export certificates in 2005 and unilaterally removed itself three years later as an active participant in the diamond watchdog.

It exported 23,472 carats of rough worth $882,130 in 2005, according to KP data.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Anglo American has appointed Stuart Chambers (61) as its chairperson taking over from Sir John Parker who last February indicated his intention to step down during the course of the year, after serving eight years in that capacity.

Parker was set to step down from the board on October 31, while Chambers would join the group as a non-executive director on September 1 and chairperson on November 1.

I am really looking forward to working with the board and the executive team led by Mark Cutifani to ensure that Anglo American continues to go from strength to strength," said Chambers.

Anglo chief executive Mark Cutifani also said the incoming chairperson had led and chaired major global businesses with many parallels to the group, in areas such as manufacturing process and technology led innovation.

We have materially restored Anglo American's balance sheet and transformed the business performance over the last three years, and our task now is to unlock the very considerable value that we can see from our world-class asset base, he said.

Sir John Parker has chaired Anglo American through challenging times with his trademark even hand and focus on the critical business issues. I have valued his guidance enormously.

Parker said Chambers had previously chaired two FTSE100 companies and served on the board of several other international companies across the industrial, logistics and consumer sectors over the last 15 years.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Rio Tinto and The Perth Mint have showcased a A$1.8 mn one-of-a-kind coin collection featuring three coloured diamonds from the Argyle Diamond Mine, says a press note from Rio Tinto Diamonds.

Known as The Australian Trilogy, the beautiful collectable comprises three precious metal coins each hand crafted with a pink, purple pink and violet diamond unearthed from Rio Tintos Argyle Diamond Mine in the east Kimberley region of Western Australia, the note adds.

Unveiled by the Premier of Western Australia, the Honourable Mark McGowan MLA, The Australian Trilogy is issued as legal tender under the Australian Currency Act 1965. The Perth Mint will only release one of The Australian Trilogy 2017 Collection.

A managing director with Rio Tintos copper and diamonds business, Andrew Kite said We are delighted to collaborate with our Select Atelier, The Perth Mint and our Authorised Partner, John Glajz, on the exclusive release of this distinctive investment piece. It is a beautiful symbol of the unique treasures of Western Australia and the extraordinary provenance of Australian diamonds and precious metals.

Rio Tintos Argyle Diamond Mine produces virtually the worlds entire supply of rare pink diamonds, and yet less than 0.1 per cent of the diamonds produced by the Argyle mine are pink.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




Valley Metro

Valley Metro began construction on the 50th St/Washington Station June 8. The station is the Valley Metro infill station and the first capital project under Transportation 2050 (T2050), approved by Phoenix voters in 2015.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton hosted a community celebration on the rooftop of Ability360 on June 7 to mark the commencement of construction.

When the station opens in 2019, it will serve not only the many users of Ability360, but also neighboring businesses like Stockyards Restaurant, USPS and many others, said Mayor Stanton. It serves a unique community and as such, was part of the PHX Innovation Games to create concepts that would best serve the users of this station.

Station designer, Gannett Fleming, worked with the Innovation Games winner Dig Studio, station artist Barbara Grygutis and the construction contractor Stacy and Witbeck, to make the station a model of accessibility. Features include a wider platform to accommodate mobility devices, as well as enhanced shading and lighting.

The station means added convenience, said Ability360 employee Jennifer Longdon. Instead of driving my large van to accommodate my wheelchair, Ill take the train to work daily and be able to more easily meet my friends downtown without the hassle of having to park.
U.K. shares were marginally lower in choppy trade on Thursday as polls opened in the general election after a campaign of three phases marred by terror attacks.

Traders also awaited directional cues from the ECB policy meeting and former FBI Director James Comey's much-anticipated testimony before the Senate intelligence committee.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 4 points or 0.06 percent at 7,474 in late opening deals after declining 0.6 percent the previous day.

Miners Anglo American, Antofagasta and Glencore rose between half a percent and 1 percent after Chinese exports and imports data beat forecasts.

Berendsen shares soared 9 percent after the company finally agreed to a takeover offer from French laundry services group Elis.

Petrofac jumped 4 percent after it signed a long-term framework agreement with Petroleum Development Oman.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Tesla joins other 19 companies to be in Fortune magazine's annual list of America's top 500 companies for the first time. Of these 20 new companies, six were the result of recent splits or spinoffs, while three were founded more than 100 years ago. Two others were created just last year.

Elon Musk's electric car startup finally made to the list with a rank of 383 after growing sales by 73% last year. Tesla is worth more than both General Motors and Ford in stock market value, but it still makes far less in sales than the traditional automakers.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the data center and cloud services split from Hewlett-Packard, was ranked at 59, while Alcoa, which produces aluminum since 1888, reached at 300. Alcoa's core smelting and aluminum refining business was spun off last year from the parent company, now called Arconic.

Synchrony Financial, spun off from General Electric in 2015, lands on the list at No. 185. Nvidia, which makes graphics chips used in everything from Apple computers to Tesla's self-driving car , is at 387.

Walmart tops the Fortune 500 list, which has been a measure of the country's most valuable businesses since it first came out in 1955. The retail behemoth has been holding the spot for five years in a row. Berkshire Hathaway comes in the second spot, and Apple is in third.

Meanwhile, 15 companies fell from the Fortune 500 this year, while some others including Baxalta and Time Warner Cable were acquired by other companies. This year's bar was of at least $5.1 billion in annual revenue.

This year, the combined total revenue of all 500 companies in the list reaches $12.1 trillion, 65 percent of the U.S. GDP.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
VALENCIA, Calif., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wesco Aircraft Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:WAIR), the worlds leading provider of comprehensive supply chain management services to the global aerospace industry, today announced that Richard J. Weller, executive vice president and chief financial officer, has informed the company of his intention to retire.



Mr. Weller is expected to continue to serve as the companys chief financial officer and remain an officer of the company until a successor is found to ensure an orderly transition. Wesco Aircraft has retained a leading executive search firm to assist with the appointment of a new chief financial officer.

Todd Renehan, chief executive officer, said, On behalf of the board, I would like to thank Rick for his service to Wesco. He instilled greater discipline in our financial processes, helped complete the integration of Haas Group International and led financing activities that included the October 2016 refinancing of the companys senior secured term loan A and revolving credit facilities. We wish Rick well as he transitions into retirement.

Mr. Weller has served as executive vice president and chief financial officer since joining Wesco Aircraft in May 2015. Prior to his position at Wesco, Mr. Weller was vice president and corporate controller at Ingersoll-Rand plc. His career also includes leadership roles at Textron Inc., Litton Data Systems/Northrop Grumman Corporation and Aviall, Inc.

About Wesco Aircraft

Wesco Aircraft is the worlds leading distributor and provider of comprehensive supply chain management services to the global aerospace industry, based on annual sales. The companys services range from traditional distribution to the management of supplier relationships, quality assurance, kitting, just-in-time delivery and point-of-use inventory management. The company believes it offers one of the worlds broadest portfolios of aerospace products, including C-class hardware, chemical and electrical and comprised of more than 565,000 active SKUs.

To learn more about Wesco Aircraft, visit our website at www.wescoair.com. Follow Wesco Aircraft on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/wesco-aircraft-corp.

Forward-Looking Statements

This document contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which relate to future, not past, events and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements, which address the company's expected business and financial performance and financial condition, among other matters, contain words such as: continue, expect, intention, remain or similar words, phrases or expressions. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are outside the companys control. Therefore, the reader should not place undue reliance on such statements.

Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain, such as statements about expected business outcomes and growth. Although the company believes the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that the expectations will be attained or that any deviation will not be material. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date on which they are made.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the following: general economic and industry conditions; conditions in the credit markets; changes in military spending; risks unique to suppliers of equipment and services to the U.S. government; risks associated with the companys long-term, fixed-price agreements that have no guarantee of future sales volumes; risks associated with the loss of significant customers, a material reduction in purchase orders by significant customers or the delay, scaling back or elimination of significant programs on which the company relies; the companys ability to effectively compete in its industry; the companys ability to effectively manage its inventory; the companys suppliers ability to provide it with the products the company sells in a timely manner, in adequate quantities and/or at a reasonable cost; the companys ability to maintain effective information technology systems; the companys ability to retain key personnel; risks associated with the companys international operations, including exposure to foreign currency movements; risks associated with assumptions the company makes in connection with its critical accounting estimates (including goodwill) and legal proceedings; the companys dependence on third-party package delivery companies; fuel price risks; fluctuations in the companys financial results from period-to-period; environmental risks; risks related to the handling, transportation and storage of chemical products; risks related to the aerospace industry and the regulation thereof; risks related to the companys indebtedness; and other risks and uncertainties.

The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The reader should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties that affect the companys business, including those described in Wesco Aircrafts Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K and other documents filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These or other uncertainties may cause the companys actual future results to be materially different than those expressed in any forward-looking statements. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.
(Agencia CMA Latam) - Brazil's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) trial on alleged irregularities committed by Dilma Rousseff and Michel Temer during the 2014 presidential campaign can bring a formal conclusion to the political crisis that engulfs Temer government, according to experts heard by Agencia CMA.

Rousseff and Temer won the presidential election in Brazil in 2014, and the losing coalition - spearheaded by Aecio Neves, a senator and presidential candidate from PSDB party - sued both of them at the start of 2015, arguing that they had funded their campaign with illegal money.

In 2016, Rousseff stepped down from office after an impeachment trial and Temer became Brazil's president, backed by PSDB, which joined his coalition government. However, accusations against him and Rousseff were still under analysis at the electoral court, which decided to move forward with the case if there was illegal financing in the 2014 presidential election campaign.

The trial in TSE was resumed yesterday, at an appalling time for Michel Temer, which last month went under suspicion of endorsing and receiving bribery payments. As a result, support from current coalition parties became more fragile, and for weeks street protesters have been calling for his resignation.

Three scenarios can unfold from the TSE trial. The first one, which is the most probable, envisions a temporary suspension if any of the seven judges ask for more time to analyze the case. That would give more time to Temer's government since allied parties would have a harder time leaving the coalition without a court decision against the president.

PSDB, for example, has already signaled that it will break the current alliance if Temer is convicted. Without PSDB votes, the possibility of reforms approval, as well as other pivotal bills, reduces substantially.

In a second scenario, an eventual cancellation of Temer's mandate by the TSE and an almost certain defense's appeal would postpone the final decision but would reduce governability. The third - and less likely - scenario, would be a TSE ruling holding Dilma Rousseff as the only responsible party for any wrongdoings.

Political scientist Rafael Cortez says that the trial by TSE is the most defining event for Brazil's political crisis. "It is not only an event that can generate a formal decision interrupting Temer's mandate through a candidacy cancellation but also substantially alters political incentives for the support of the government's agenda in Congress."

Cortez also says there is a high chance that one of the judges will ask for more time to analyze the case unless that most of them have already decided to hold only Rousseff accountable for irregular campaigning.

Angela Baeta, a lawyer, specialized in Brazilian electoral law, says that it would be normal if one of the judges asks for more time to analyze the case, which is complex. "There are volumes and more volumes" of data, she said, adding that the judge who halts the trial would not take too long resume it, probably later in June.

On the possibility of blaming only Rousseff for campaign wrongdoings, she notes that there is no way to speculate, but explains: "What I can say is that until now that has never happened in the TSE."

Baeta also said that corruption allegations against Temer and a potential trial against him in the Federal Supreme Court (STF) should not influence the TSE. "The political question should not intervene in a legal process," she said.

The electoral law expert explains that if the TSE decides to extinguish Temer's mandate, the defendants may file an appeal in the TSE itself, leading to a new trial. After that, defendants could try an extraordinary appeal to the STF. If they file those petitions, a decision would be postponed "for months," according to the expert.

Cortez says that prolonging the trial would likely lead the Congress to halt the economic reform agenda until there is a verdict. "It does not seem to me that the legal route will be enough to guarantee Temer's mandate until 2018.

Even if he appeals from the decision, the verdict itself will represent a significant blow that would make the mandate unfeasible," he says.

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Former FBI Director James Comey made his highly anticipated appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, addressing numerous issues related to his private conversations with President Donald Trump.

The questioning of Comey came after his statement released by the committee on Wednesday appeared to confirm some recent reports about his interactions with Trump.

The statement included details of a conversation during which Trump seemed to ask Comey to drop an investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's contact with Russian officials.

"I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go," Trump said, according to Comey.

Comey told the committee he took the comment from Trump as a directive but said the determination of whether the request amounted to obstruction of justice would be up to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

"I don't think it's for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct," Comey said. "

He added, "I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that's something I'm sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there and whether that's an offense."

The former FBI Director suggested he did not previously reveal the conversation about Flynn to higher level officials amid concerns about interference in the investigation.

Comey also discussed his firing during his testimony, saying he was confused by the White House's explanations for his dismissal.

While the White House initially cited Comey's actions during the election, Trump later suggested in an interview that the decision was related to the Russia investigation.

"The administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI, by saying the organization was poorly led," Comey said. "Those were lies, plain and simple."

Comey said he believes he was fired because something about the way he was conducting the Russia investigation created pressure on Trump that the president wanted to relieve.

The ex-FBI chief was also asked about a tweet from Trump suggesting that there are recordings of their conversations.

In an apparent expression of confidence in his version of events, Comey said, "Lordy, I hope there are tapes" and indicated he would consent to their release.

Comey noted that he decided to write memos regarding the conversations amid expectations that his view could be challenged.

"I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function," Comey said.

Many Republicans on the committee focused on why Comey did not disclose the conversation regarding Flynn and frequently turned the conversation to the investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Responding to Comey's testimony, Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz rejected many of the former FBI Director's claims.

Kasowitz claimed Trump never demanded loyalty from Comey and denied the allegation that the president called for an end of the investigation of Flynn.

In a brief statement to reporters, Kasowitz also highlighted Comey's acknowledgment that he asked a friend to leak his memos to the press.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Data from the comprehensive clinical program show AMG 334 (erenumab) is safe and effective at preventing migraine in patients with 4 or more migraine days per month



AMG 334 (erenumab) significantly reduced monthly migraine days in patients with the highest need, suffering from chronic migraine with acute medication overuse



Migraine patients urgently need new treatment options, as currently available preventive therapies are often discontinued due to side effects or lack of effectiveness

The digital press release with multimedia content can be accessed here:

Basel, June 08, 2017 - Novartis today announced that it will present 19 scientific abstracts at the 59th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society (June 8-11, 2017, Boston, USA). This includes a new analysis from a pivotal study highlighting the efficacy of AMG 334 (erenumab) in patients with 15 or more headache days a month (chronic migraine) and a recent history of acute migraine medication overuse.1 Also being presented at AHS are detailed results of STRIVE and ARISE, two Phase III studies of erenumab in people with 4 to 14 migraine days per month.2,3 Erenumab is the first fully human monoclonal antibody therapy specifically designed to target and block the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) receptor, believed to play a critical role in mediating the incapacitating pain of migraine. CGRP levels rise during a migraine attack and normalize when the attack goes away.4

"Migraine is one of the most debilitating neurological diseases, yet it is often misunderstood or ignored, despite devastating effects on patients' personal and professional life," said Vasant Narasimhan, Global Head Drug Development and Chief Medical Officer for Novartis. "We are confident that with erenumab we are a step closer to offering a preventive therapy that is both efficacious and well-tolerated, ultimately helping patients to claim their lives back."

Excessive use of acute pain-relief medication is common among people who suffer from migraine. Many patients experience low treatment satisfaction and enter a vicious cycle as they continue to take more and more acute migraine medications, while desperately trying to control their symptoms. Forty-one percent (274) of patients in the erenumab chronic migraine trial had recent history of medication overuse. Even in these difficult to treat patients, erenumab showed significant benefits. Both doses of erenumab (70mg and 140mg) significantly reduced monthly migraine days by an average of -6.6 days from baseline. These reductions were also statistically significant (p<0.001 in both doses) versus placebo (-3.5 days). Furthermore, days requiring acute pain-relief drugs were also reduced in both dosage arms (by 5.4 days for 70mg; 4.9 for 140mg; 2.1 for placebo, p <0.001).1

Detailed results from the positive 6 month STRIVE study of erenumab 70mg and 140mg, and the positive 3 month ARISE study of erenumab 70mg will also be presented at the meeting. These data include both primary and secondary endpoints, evaluating the reduction in monthly migraine days and the percentage of patients who responded to erenumab. Results from STRIVE have been submitted for peer-reviewed publication.

Erenumab is currently being investigated for migraine prevention and these data support the first regulatory filing packages submitted in the United States and European Union for a CGRP inhibitor in migraine prevention. Across the four placebo-controlled Phase II and Phase III clinical studies, more than 2,600 people have been exposed to erenumab. In addition, an ongoing extension trial is underway, evaluating erenumab in people with migraine for up to 5 years.

Novartis and Amgen will co-commercialize AMG 334 (erenumab) in the US. Amgen has exclusive commercialization rights to the drug in Japan and Novartis has exclusive rights to commercialize in rest of world.5

About the AMG 334 (erenumab) Clinical Trials Program

Erenumab has been extensively studied in several large global, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials to assess its safety and efficacy in migraine prevention in more than 2,600 people, and a 5-year extension trial is currently underway. Following the initial Phase II dose finding study, the efficacy of erenumab in migraine prevention has been shown in a Phase II trial and two Phase III trials. The safety profile of erenumab in these studies was comparable to placebo.6,7,8

About the AMG 334 (erenumab) pivotal Phase II chronic migraine study being presented at AHS

This pivotal Phase II study is a global, randomized, 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the efficacy and safety of erenumab in chronic migraine (characterized as at least 15 headache days per month, of which eight or more are migraines, for more than three months) prevention.9 In the study, 667 patients were randomized to receive once-monthly subcutaneous placebo or erenumab 70mg or 140mg in a 3:2:2 ratio respectively.9 Patients experienced a mean of approximately 18 migraine days per month at baseline. The primary outcome measure was the change in monthly migraine days from baseline to the last four weeks of the 12-week treatment phase in patients with chronic migraine (the number of migraine days between weeks 9 and 12).9

A bout AMG 334 (erenumab) Phase III episodic migraine studies

STRIVE (NCT02456740) is a global Phase III, multicenter, randomized 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the safety and efficacy of erenumab in episodic migraine (characterized as up to 14 migraine days a month) prevention. In the study, 955 patients were randomized to receive once-monthly subcutaneous placebo, or erenumab (70mg or 140mg) in a 1:1:1 ratio.10,11 Patients experienced between four and 14 migraine days each month, with an average of 8.3 migraine days per month at baseline.11 The primary endpoint was change in mean monthly migraine days from baseline over the last three months of the double-blind treatment phase of the study (months 4, 5 and 6).10,11

The ARISE study (NCT02483585) is a global Phase III, multicenter, randomized 12-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating the safety and efficacy of erenumab in episodic migraine prevention.12 In the study, 577 patients were randomized to receive once-monthly subcutaneous placebo or erenumab (70mg) in a 1:1 ratio.11,12 Patients enrolled in ARISE were experiencing between four and 14 migraine days each month.12 The primary endpoint was change in monthly migraine days from baseline to the last four weeks of the 12-week treatment phase in patients with episodic migraine (the number of migraine days between weeks 9 and 12).12



About AMG 334 (erenumab)

Erenumab is a human monoclonal antibody specifically designed to target and block the Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) receptor, believed to play a critical role in mediating the incapacitating pain of migraine.13

About Migraine

Migraine is a distinct neurological disease.14 It involves recurrent attacks of moderate to severe head pain that is typically pulsating, often unilateral and associated with nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light, sound and odors.15 Migraine is associated with personal pain, disability and reduced quality of life, and financial cost to society.16 It has a profound and limiting impact on an individual's abilities to carry out everyday tasks, and was declared by the World Health Organization to be one of the top 10 causes of years lived with disability for men and women.17 It remains under-recognized and under-treated.16,18 Existing preventive therapies have been repurposed from other indications and are often associated with poor tolerability and lack of efficacy, which lead to increasing discontinuation rates and dissatisfaction among patients.19

The cause and triggers of migraine are not fully understood as no two migraines are the same. However, Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) has long been thought to play a role in the underlying pathophysiology of migraine.20 CGRP is a molecule that binds to the CGRP receptor complex, and is thought to be responsible for transmitting the pain signals associated with migraine.21 Levels of CGRP have been found to increase at the onset of migraine symptoms, and to return to normal when the migraine pain diminishes.22 CGRP is also involved in vasodilation and sensory transmission which takes place during a migraine.13

About Amgen and Novartis Neuroscience Collaboration

In August 2015, Amgen entered into a global collaboration with Novartis to jointly develop and commercialize pioneering treatments in the field of migraine and Alzheimer's disease (AD). The collaboration focuses on investigational Amgen drugs in the migraine field, including erenumab (Biologics License Application submitted to U.S. FDA and EU EMA in May 2017) and AMG 301 (currently in Phase I development). In April 2017, the collaboration was expanded to include co-commercialization of erenumab in the U.S. For the migraine program, Amgen retains sole commercialization rights in Japan, and Novartis has commercialization rights in Europe, Canada and rest of world. Also, the companies are partnering in the development and commercialization of a beta-secretase 1 (BACE) inhibitor program in AD. The oral therapy CNP520 (currently in Phase II/III for AD) is the lead molecule and further compounds from both companies' pre-clinical BACE inhibitor programs may be considered as follow-on molecules.

Novartis in Neuroscience

Novartis has a strong ongoing commitment to neuroscience (NS) and to bringing innovative treatments to patients suffering from neurological conditions where there is a high unmet need. We are committed to supporting patients and physicians in multiple disease areas, including Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Epilepsy and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and have a promising pipeline in MS, Alzheimer's disease, migraine and specialty neurology (e.g. neuropathic pain).

Disclaimer

The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by words such as "believed to," "confident," "step closer," "will," "being investigated," "submitted," "ongoing," "underway," "pioneering," "investigational," "may," "commitment," "committed," "pipeline," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals for AMG 334, CNP520, AMG 301, other BACE inhibitors of Novartis and Amgen, and other investigational compounds of Novartis and Amgen subject to the collaboration, potential new indications or labeling for products in the Novartis Neuroscience portfolio, or regarding potential future revenues from such investigational compounds and products, and potential future revenues from the collaboration with Amgen. 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 AMG 334, CNP520, AMG 301, other BACE inhibitors of Novartis and Amgen, or other investigational compounds of Novartis and Amgen subject to the collaboration will be submitted or approved for sale in any market, or at any particular time. Neither can there be any guarantee that the collaboration with Amgen will achieve any or all of its intended goals and objectives, or be commercially successful. Nor can there be any guarantee that any product in the Novartis Neuroscience portfolio will be submitted or approved for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Neither can there be any guarantee that AMG 334, CNP520, AMG 301, any of the other investigational compounds subject to the collaboration with Amgen, or any product in the Novartis Neuroscience portfolio will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding such investigational compounds and products, and the collaboration with Amgen, could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the company's ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; general economic and industry conditions; global trends toward health care cost containment, including ongoing pricing and reimbursement pressures; 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 Novartis

Novartis provides innovative healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Novartis offers a diversified portfolio to best meet these needs: innovative medicines, cost-saving generic and biosimilar pharmaceuticals and eye care. Novartis has leading positions globally in each of these areas. In 2016, the Group achieved net sales of USD 48.5 billion, while R&D throughout the Group amounted to approximately USD 9.0 billion. Novartis Group companies employ approximately 118,000 full-time-equivalent associates. Novartis products are sold in approximately 155 countries around the world. For more information, please visit http://www.novartis.com.

Novartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis at http://twitter.com/novartis

For Novartis multimedia content, please visit www.novartis.com/news/media-library

For questions about the site or required registration, please contact media.relations@novartis.com

References

Efficacy of Erenumab for the Treatment of Patients with Chronic Migraine in Presence of Medication Overuse. Poster #PS32, AHS, Boston, June 2017. Phase 3, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Erenumab (AMG 334) in Migraine Prevention: Primary Results of the STRIVE Trial. Platform presentation #IOR04, AHS, Boston, June 2017. A Phase 3, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Erenumab in Migraine Prevention: Primary Results of the ARISE Trial. Poster #PS21, AHS, Boston, June 2017. Cernuda-Morollon E, Larrosa D, Ramon C, Vega J, Martinez-Camblor P, Pascual J. Interictal increase of CGRP levels in peripheral blood as a biomarker for chronic migraine. Neurology. 2013 Oct 1;81(14):1191-6. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182a6cb72. Novartis expands global collaboration with Amgen to commercialize first-in-class AMG 334 (erenumab) program in migraine prevention in the US and Canada. Accessed May 2017. Novartis presents new positive data at EHMTIC showing AMG 334 significantly reduces monthly migraine days in chronic migraine. https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-presents-new-positive-data-ehmtic-showing-amg-334-significantly-reduces. Accessed May 2017 Novartis announces Phase III study shows AMG 334 significantly reduces monthly migraine data in people with episodic migraine. https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-announces-phase-iii-study-shows-amg-334-significantly-reduces-monthly. Accessed May 2017. Novartis announces AMG 334 significantly reduces monthly migraine days in second pivotal Phase III episodic migraine study. https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-announces-amg-334-significantly-reduces-monthly-migraine-days-second. Accessed May 2017 ClinicalTrials.gov A study to evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of AMG 334 in Chronic Migraine Prevention. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02066415?term=20120295&rank=1 Accessed May 2017. ClinicalTrials.gov. Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of AMG 334 in Migraine Prevention (STRIVE). https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02456740 (link is external). Accessed May 2017. Novartis Data on File. ClinicalTrials.gov. Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of AMG 334 Compared to Placebo in Migraine Prevention (ARISE). https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02483585?term=ARISE+amg+334&rank=1 (link is external). Accessed May 2017. Bigal ME et al. Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) and Migraine Current Understanding and State of Development. Headache. 2013;53(8):1230-1244. Migraine Research Foundation. Migraine Fact Sheet. 2015. http://www.migraineresearchfoundation.org/fact-sheet.html. Accessed May 2017. National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke. https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/All-Disorders/Migraine-Information-Page (link is external). Accessed May 2017. World Health Organization. Headache disorders. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs277/en/ (link is external). Accessed May 2017 World Health Organization. Estimates for 2000-2012. Disease Burden. 2012. Diamond S et al. Patterns of Diagnosis and Acute and Preventive Treatment for Migraine in the United States: Results from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study. Headache. 2007;47(3):355-63. Hepp Z, et al. Adherence to oral migraine-preventive medications among patients with chronic migraine. Cephalalgia. 2015; 35(6):478-88. Russo AF. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP): a new target for migraine. Annu Rev Pharmacol Toxicol. 2015;55:533-552. Hansen JM et al. Calcitonin gene-related peptide triggers migraine-like attacks in patients with migraine with aura. Cephalalgia. 2010; 30(10):1179-86. Lassen et al. CGRP may play a causative role in migraine. Cephalalgia. 2002 Feb;22(1):54-61. Available http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11993614. Accessed May 2017.

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Dallas, TX, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The changes to community association laws enacted in the 2017 Florida legislative session were unprecedented. The changes will have a profound impact on the operation and management of community associations across the state. Associa, to assist its clients in understanding these changes, is hosting a webinar to update participants on the key community association-related legislation. The webinar is scheduled for June 16th at 11AM EST.



Register for free at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1951562054067705859.



The session will focus on bills the Florida legislature passed to provide increased access to information via the web for condo residents, new penalties for condo board members that ignore their responsibilities or break the law, and a fee cap on disclosure information for prospective buyers in community associations.



"We are excited to have such an expert panel speak about the updates the Florida legislature made during this last year, stated Mitchell Krauss, regional sales director at Associa. There have been many changes to the laws that govern the community association industry, and it is important that our board members, management teams and residents understand the possible effects on their lives and communities.



The speakers include:



John Krueger

Vice President, Government Affairs  Associa



Mr. Kruegers responsible for strengthening relationships with state and national legislators and ensuring that Associa and its clients are represented during legislative debate to ensure a legal and regulatory framework that cultivates vibrant community associations and a thriving management industry.



Mr. Krueger previously served as the senior vice president of public policy for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and as a corporate lobbyist as well as a professional staff member for state and federal legislators.



He has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.



Mark Blackburn

President, Marquis Management - Associa Company



Mr. Blackburn is the co-founder of CSI Management Services (now Marquis Management) and has been the president since 2004. Since then the firm has grown to become recognized as the leader in luxury condominium property management in South Florida. He is also the co-founder and co-publisher of South Florida Opulence Magazine, the award-winning luxury condominium lifestyle publication.



Blackburn attended Rhode Island College to study political science and marketing. He has been a guest lecturer at the Lynn University School of Marketing in Boca Raton, Florida.



Joshua Tomey

Vice President, Marquis Management - Associa Company



Mr. Tomey started at CSI Management Services (now Marquis Management) in 2007 as a property manager and has since held the positions of senior property manager, director of operations, executive director and most recently vice president. He currently oversees the branchs operations in Miami and provides oversight and support for training, corporate finance, business development and public relations.



Ryan D. Poliakoff

Partner - Backer Aboud Poliakoff and Foelster, LLP



Mr. Poliakoff serves as general corporate counsel to condominium associations, homeowners associations, master associations and country clubs. He has extensive experience drafting documents and covenants, reviewing and drafting contracts, preparing indemnification agreements and settlement agreements, coordinating developer turnovers, and pursuing covenant enforcement actions as well as running elections and corporate meetings.



Mr. Poliakoff earned his B.S. in Communications from Cornell University and J.D from Cornell Law School.



Moderated by:



Mitchell Krauss

Regional Sales Director  Associa



Mr. Krauss is the regional sales director for Associas southeastern United States region. He is responsible for the development and performance of all sales activities for ten Associa branches throughout Florida, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina. He was previously the director of management services at Association Services of Florida, an Associa company, where he began in March 2015. Mr. Krauss has served the association management industry for more than 11 years in various functions including sales, marketing, operations, procurement and human resource management.



Mr. Krauss earned his Master of Business Administration from Nova Southeastern University and his Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Political Science from Florida State University.



Delivering unsurpassed association management services to communities since 1979, Associa leads the industry operating more than 180 branch offices across North America and employing 10,000 team members dedicated to serving nearly five million residents who are part of the Associa family. With unrivaled industry expertise, safeguarded finances and trailblazing innovation, Associa provides solutions designed to help communities achieve their vision. To learn more go to www.associaonline.com.



Stay Connected:

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Attachments:

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/76632580-7032-40fb-be5f-3f21aed8b1e0
NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kretschmar Premium Deli Meats & Cheeses has partnered with Make-A-Wish to help grant a young Pennsylvania boys wish. Michael, an 11-year-old fighting cerebral palsy, is a country music fan with the ultimate wish of attending the CMA Music Festival in Nashville.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/c72f1795-6dc0-4be4-a3f4-cd1ba6eba2b4

Make-A-Wish and Kretschmar granted Michaels wish by providing him with the country music trip of his dreams. He and his family enjoyed four days of VIP treatment in Music City, including an all-star concert at Nissan Stadium and a private Kretschmar Country concert at The Bell Tower featuring Kretschmar brand ambassadors Ruthie Collins, Kelleigh Bannen, and Natalie Stovall and special guest appearance by Kretschmar brand ambassador and Country Music star Easton Corbin.

Kretschmar is committed to supporting the important efforts of Make-A-Wish, and helping to make wishes come true for children like Michael, said Michael Baughman, director of marketing for Smithfield Foods. We are privileged to partner with Make-A-Wish to help make this unforgettable experience possible for him.

Living with cerebral palsy is an ongoing challenge, but Michael maintains a positive outlook. When he is not listening to his favorite country music stars on the radio, he enjoys reading, camping, and spending time with his family.

Kretschmar went above and beyond to ensure Michael had a truly unforgettable wish experience, said Kathy Forshey, Make-A-Wish America vice president of corporate alliances. It is because of donors and sponsors like Kretschmar that we are able to continue granting more, and better wishes for Wish Kids nationwide.

Since 2012, Kretschmar has contributed more than $650,000 to Make-A-Wish nationally, and sponsored more than 12 wishes with local chapters through the brands Legendary Wishes campaign.

With the help of retail partners, Kretschmar has raised more than $85,000 through sales of Make-A-Wish paper stars sold at stores' registers for $1 donations, employee donations, and sandwich fundraisers. The brand gives these funds to local Make-A-Wish chapters to grant more wishes.

For more information about Kretschmar Deli and the brands involvement with Make-A-Wish visit www.KretschmarDeli.com or www.Facebook.com/KretschmarDeli.

Kretschmar is a brand of Smithfield Foods.

About Kretschmar

Kretschmar Premium Deli Meats & Cheeses has meant quality since 1883. Our hams are made with a unique hardwood smoking process. Kretschmar poultry and beef are hand-trimmed using the finest cuts. Our full line of Off-The-Bone deli meats are delicately sliced from the leanest, most tender cuts. And our premium Wisconsin cheeses repeatedly win in competitions world-wide. Try the Legendary Taste of Kretschmar today. For great recipes and more, like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/kretschmardeli or visit our website at www.kretschmardeli.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $15 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathans Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cooks, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curlys, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Make-A-Wish

Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. According to a 2011 U.S. study of wish impact, most health professionals surveyed believe a wish-come-true has positive impacts on the health of children. Kids say wishes give them renewed strength to fight their illness, and their parents say these experiences help strengthen the entire family. Headquartered in Phoenix, Make-A-Wish is one of the world's leading children's charities, serving children in every community in the United States and its territories. With the help of generous donors and more than 28,000 volunteers, Make-A-Wish grants a wish somewhere in the country every 21 minutes. It has granted more than 270,000 wishes since its inception in 1980; more than 14,800 in 2015 alone. Visit Make-A-Wish at www.wish.org to learn more.
State Board recommends Kansas districts retire native mascots, imagery

The Kansas State Board of Education voted to make a "strong recommendation" that school districts in Kansas retire the use of American Indian mascots.
French English

CALGARY, Alberta, June 08, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Members of the media and the public are invited to attend a presentation by Sir Robert Francis, QC, at the Biennial Convention of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU).



Sir Robert Francis will speak at the TELUS Convention Centre on Friday June 9 from 9:30 to 10:30 am. The British barrister and medical specialist has played a prominent role in several regional and national inquiries into the quality of health care delivered by the UKs National Health Service.

As Canadas health care system grapples with population growth, health human resources shortages and a push to provide more care at home and in the community, the lessons of the UK are useful for us, notes CFNU President Linda Silas. Sir Robert Francis has the experience and knowledge that can help us avoid some of the pitfalls experienced by the UKs National Health Service.

Also on the agenda for Friday: a rally by the almost 1,200 nurses from across Canada through the streets of Calgary.

As patient advocates, CFNU members will be rallying for quality health care in Canadian communities. Canadas nurses support public health care and will celebrate their 150 years of patient advocacy in Canada, says Silas. The nurses will begin their march at 11:30 am at the TELUS Convention Centre and wind their way through the streets of the city to Municipal Plaza.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) is Canadas largest nurses organization representing nearly 200,000 nurses and student nurses. The CFNU has been advocating for national discussions on key health priorities, such as a national prescription drug plan, a comprehensive approach to long-term and continuing care, greater attention to health human resources, and federal government engagement on the future of public health care.
Dear Editor,

Re: Talk means nothing when there is no action

Government investing money in setting up businesses just has trouble written all over it. Taxpayers money will be going down the drain.

Anyway, the government does help in non-monetary ways. Remember that successful farmer (featured in the samoa observer last year) who had to meet growth targets to get more land? He met those targets and the government gave him more land.

This is because he had motivation and hard work ethic but I suspect it is because it was his own money on the line by way of a loan from the Development Bank.

When it is your own money on the line, you work harder.

I think a better strategy is to inject more money into the Development Bank and more liquidity into the financial system as well as making it easier to obtain credit from the banks on the basis of being able to put up leases and business assets for security.

It involves getting a market for leases going though. 80% of Samoa is customary land and is off limits for credit. The latest incentive from the government in last weeks budget is a good one too - 50% tax credit on all profits derived from exports.

I also favour foreign investors going into partnership with locals to set up companies.

At least then it is their own money on the line and there is more incentive for them to produce quality products and grow.

PS Jeffrey
The village of Lalovi Mulifanua celebrated the opening of their new Womens Committee Centre yesterday.

The project took five weeks to complete at the overall cost of $37,659.35

Village Mayor, Seulu Iloa Togia, thanked the government of Australia for their support.

The project was funded by the Direct Aid Programme through the Australian High Commissions office in Apia at the cost of $29,257.45 with contributions by the village of $8,401.90, Seulu said.

On behalf of the people and the village of Lalovi Mulifanua we express our sincere thanks and appreciation to the High Commissioner of Australia, Sue Langford.

We humbly accept your kind support and consider this good project as a first stepping stone to the village and its development to the future.

He reminded that what is good in town is also good for the villages.

Perhaps we only have one request, please expect these same faces and people in the year 2018, we will again knock on your door as we still need your lending hand on a different development for the village.

Amanda Jewell of the Australian High Commission in Samoa handed over the project to the Womens Committee of Lalovi, Mulifanua.

I would like to congratulate the committee and those involved in this project for a job well done. No doubt that it hasnt been easy but their dedication has enabled them to reach their goal.

The Direct Aid Program (DAP) is a small grants program funded from Australias aid budget.

It has the flexibility to work with local communities in developing countries on projects that reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development consistent with Australias national interest.

Alaisa Ah Leong-Mulipola cut the ribbon.
Saturday was a day of celebration for students of the Manukau Institute of Technology.

It was their graduation ceremony held at the Vodafone Events Centre Auckland New Zealand.

Among the row of graduates was Prince-Auckland Tuiala, 24, who has completed a 3-year Degree in Informations Communication Technology.

Prince has always had a fascination with technology and how rapidly it is growing in todays world.

His main source of inspiration derived from a few aspects, which lead him to take on the challenge, from playing videos games and talking shop with his older brother Joe, whom also graduated with a Degree in Informations Communication Technology.

Most importantly it was a change of career path from what his Pacific Island peers were studying 

Sport & Recreation, Logistics, Customer Service, etc.

I wanted to succeed in an industry where you dont often see our people working in, he said. We have such a strong stigma attached to our people where we are known for hard and physical labour (which is not a bad thing) but we are capable of so much more.

Prince, like every other student faced many obstacles in his journey, such as lack of the IT terminology, a certain level of understanding, whereupon he took it upon himself to go out of country to gain some international experience in Hawaii where he is now incorporating that knowledge into his new career path today as an IT Solutions Specialist with Sharp NZ.

One piece of advice Prince hopes will be an inspiration to his Pacific Island peers that are currently studying  is to be persistent and to not be afraid to fail.

Embrace a vision/goal in your mind and strive towards it. Prince believes wholeheartedly that failure is the secret ingredient to success. Because this only motivates you want to try harder next time.

He goes on to say anyone can graduate with hard work and determination where they will receive a piece of paper confirming this  it is how you use that piece of paper to open the doors of opportunity.

Prince owes his achievement to his family for the support and encouragement throughout the years and looks forward to what the future holds for him.
It is your will, not the skill.

Speaking to the Village Voice, Filo Misa from Salelesi said he wants to be employed as a driver.

The 61-year-old believes he may be old but he still has the energy and will to work.

Ive been applying to be a driver to a lot of companies from the beginning of this year, he said.

But so far I still havent got any callbacks after several interviews.

The simple answer they gave me was we will give you a call, at the end of every interview but no calls of anyone accepting me yet.

So thats why you caught me here by the sea, I was about to go fishing for some fish for dinner.

Age is only a number for Filo.

Eventhough Im old, Im not the type of person thats used to a lazy life because Im someone who holds a very strong work ethic.

Misa has been dreaming to be a driver for a company one day.

I really want to be a driver and Im really good at it.

Im someone whos always on time and I promise not to miss any working day.

I have a private license so its only a call that Im waiting for.

When asked why he wants to work at his age, he answered because I feel young and I still have the will to work.

Not only that but also I want to work to help with some of the things in my family; like our water.

We have water but the flow is not really that strong and it gets worse when the weather is too hot.

See, these are the little things that matter to people and I want to work for it.

I want to do it for myself and I want to do it for my family.

If Im given a chance to work as a driver for any business, I will be honest in doing my work and to my employer as well.

You dont have to worry about how I will perform; Im honest and I dont steal.

Im a Christian and I value my obligations to my church.

Being a Christian also contributes to the qualities I hold.

If you want to help out Filo Misa, please contact him on 7731280.
The worlds oceans will continue to deteriorate if members of the United Nations continue to let territorial and resource interests to block conservation measures.

Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres also urged delegates to put aside short-term national gains to prevent long-term global catastrophe.

The Swedes were sailing around the Baltic Sea and as far as present-day Istanbul some 1,300 years ago, he said.

Fijians were sailing canoes at record speeds and for record distances around the Pacific, well before that.

A Japanese creation myth tells of how the archipelago was formed from sea water. An Inuit creation myth is centred on Sedna, the Goddess of the Sea.

The sea indeed, belongs to all of us. Improving the health of our oceans is a test for multilateralism, and we cannot afford to fail.

S.G. Guterres said planet Earth could have been renamed Planet Water since the oceans and seas cover two-thirds of our home. But he said since we created problems that now threaten our oceans, it befalls on us to solve them with decisive and coordinated global action.

To this end, SG Guterres said Sustainable Development Goal (S.D.G.) 14 must be our roadmap.

The conservation and sustainable use of marine resources are two sides of the same coin. Second, we need to promote strong political leadership and new partnerships, based on the existing legal framework. I commend all the signatories of the Call for Action that will be formally adopted this week.

Now we need concrete steps, from expanding marine protected areas, to the management of fisheries; from reducing pollution, to cleaning up plastic waste.

I call for a step change, from local and national initiatives to an urgent, coordinated international effort.

The ongoing work with a view to a legal framework on conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction is particularly important to the future of the oceans and their biodiversity.

Third, we must translate the political will of the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda into funding commitments.

Fourth, we must deepen our knowledge base, with better data, information and analysis. We cant improve what we dont measure. Finally, we must share best practices and experiences. Most solutions are local, but many have broader relevance.
Human induced problems have human devised solutions.

Thats what the president of the current session of the United Nations General Assembly and Fijis Ambassador to the UN, Peter Thomson said in his opening address at the start of the first ever UN conference on Oceans in New York this morning.

From here we will push on to the maturation of our SDG14 targets of 2020, 2025 and 2030. We will follow-up with diligence on the commitments made here at The Ocean Conference; all along, holding ourselves responsible to bequeath a conserved and sustainably managed Ocean to the stewards of the future, said President Thomson.

From our deliberations in plenary, from the partnership dialogues and from the multitude of interactions of this conference, we will draw up the solutions to the woes we have imposed on the Ocean.

We will make this great conference the time to which those good stewards of the future will look back on as the turning point, the moment when we began the reversal of that cycle of decline of the Ocean.

This weeks UN conference on oceans has attracted leaders whose countries are members of the world body, and according to Ambassador Thomson, the meeting provides the only opportunity to reverse the cycle of decline in our oceans.

The veracity of that proposition rests on the fact that SDG14, the Oceans goal, is humanitys only universally agreed measure to conserve and sustainably manage the resources of the Ocean.

The time has come for us to correct our wrongful ways. It is inexcusable that humanity tips the equivalent of a large garbage truck of plastic into the Ocean every minute of every day.

We have unleashed a plague of plastic upon the Ocean that is defiling nature in so many tragic ways. Illegal and destructive fishing practices, along with harmful fisheries subsidies, are driving our fish-stocks to tipping points of collapse.

All the while, the greenhouse gases of accumulated carbon- combusting human activity are not only driving climate change, they are causing rising sea levels through Ocean warming, while threatening life in the Ocean through acidification and deoxygenation.
Discarded or abandoned fishing gear, also known as ghost gear, is responsible for at least one-tenth of all marine debris.

It is four times more deadly to marine animal life than all other forms of marine debris combined, according to Pacific island leaders.

At the U.N. Ocean Conference in New York, the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, an alliance of partners committed to tackling this challenge, was showcased with a special event led by the Kingdoms of Tonga and Belgium, in association with the World Animal Protection Society.

The Global Ghost Gear Initiative was founded in 2015 as the first initiative dedicated solely to driving solutions to the problem of ghost gear on a global scale.

Unless addressed, ghost gear is likely to remain in the marine environment for hundreds of years and therefore does not just impact the marine ecosystem today, but in the future as well, said Semisi Fakahau, the Minister of Agriculture, Food, Forestry and Fisheries of Tonga.

We must do whatever we reasonably can to maintain and improve the health of our marine ecosystems, to protect marine animals and birds, to safeguard human health and to protect livelihoods.

According to Minister Fakahau, historically the greatest concern in the Pacific region was the use of large-scale driftnets.

In the late 1980s this was addressed by Pacific countries, who led the negotiation of the Wellington Convention to ban the use of such gear in our region.

The success of that Convention was a direct driving force for the U.N. Resolution for a global moratorium on the use of such fishing gear.

Tonga is supportive of the work being done to raise the profile of ghost gear and to taking steps to mitigate the frequency and effects of ghost fishing, and I think this is a good example of how it can work.

Marine pollution is also a great concern for the Pacific islands. The President of Palau, Tommy Remegesau Jnr, said today that he believes that of all the bottles, cans and fishing gear that wash up on the shorelines of Palau, 99.9% originate from somewhere else. Despite this, it is the communities on Palau that must live with their impacts.

Palaus economy is our environment and our environment is the economy.

However we cannot fix this problem alone, we all share the same Ocean and therefore the impacts experienced in one corner of the globe can carry to all others, said President Remengesau.

Both he and the President of the U.N. General Assembly, Ambassador Peter Thomson, are adamant about the need for collaboration to find solutions.

Its unacceptable, said Ambassador Thomson. Human induced problems have human derived solutions.

The U.N. Ocean Conference is calling for the development of partnerships, to work together to help implement Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water, and the Global Ghost Gear Initiative is an example of this.

The G.G.G.I. alliance consists of national and international institutions, the fishing industry, private sector, civil society organisations and government agencies.

Its efforts have been focused on building evidence, defining best practice and policy; and catalyzing and replications solutions when tacking the ghost gear problem.

The side event titled Implementing Agenda 2030 Initiating Global Action on Ghost Gear was held on 5 June at the E.C.O.S.O.C. Chamber at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Also presenting at the side event were the Prime Minister of Samoa Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi; the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, Didier Reynders; Minister of Rural Affairs of the Kingdom of Sweden, Sven-Erik Bucht; Mr Glen Joseph, Head of Fisheries of the Marshall Islands; and Kosi Latu, Director General of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (S.P.R.E.P.).
Two Police Constables involved in a crash at Eva last Sunday while driving a Police vehicle were under the influence of alcohol.

This was confirmed by Police Spokesperson, Sua Tiumalu to the Samoa Observer yesterday.

Both men have been suspended and charged.

The driver of the police car will appear before Court on the 20th of this month, said Sua. I can confirm that the pair were under the influence of alcohol.

Sua did not rule out further charges.

What I can say is that the investigation is continuing and other charges are possible. They were tested for the amount of alcohol (in the system) and they were over the limit.

Sua added that such behaviour is unacceptable and the Police take this issue very seriously.

Speed and alcohol were factors in the crash. The left front tyre of the vehicle flew off when it crashed into the concrete safety blocks of the ford.

An eyewitness who had asked to be kept anonymous said the Police should lead by example.

He told the Samoa Observer the incident could have been deadly.

He said the smell of alcohol was extremely strong in the vehicle and driver looked like he was not all there.

He seemed confused, walking up and down the street, as onlookers took photos and videos on their cellphones.

In a short video clip, the Police officer can be seen standing next to the vehicle with his uniform unbuttoned. He lit a smoke, walked up and down the road looking dazed and confused.

Villagers who arrived at the scene immediately could be seen sniffing a water bottle and shaking their heads in disbelief at the smell of alcohol.

Double tragedy at Savaii

In another matter also involving drunk driving, a 42-year-old man from the villages of Iva and Neiafu Savaii will appear before Court in relation to a fatal crash at Iva last week.

Sinei Aunei is facing charges of negligent driving causing death while under the influence of alcohol. Sinei will appear in Court, Monday next week.

A mother and her four-year-old son died at the scene at Iva Savaii when a flat deck truck collided with a van.

Man electrocuted.

In another matter, Police are still investigating the death of a 15-year-old-male from the village of Aleisa on Monday. It is believed the young man died after being electrocuted from an electric pole near their house at Aleisa.

He was found dead with bleeding nose and few injuries on his body.

Drinking session ends in tragedy

A 31-year-old man was killed last month when a drinking session with other males turned ugly at one of the villages in Aana.

Sua confirmed that four men have been charged with attempted murder and are scheduled to appear in Court on Monday next week.
The lack of trust in each other among partners of Local Partners and Associates led to the failure of the nonu juice project under the now defunct company known as Pure Pacifika.

This is according to one of the partners, Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt, who is now the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Laauli was giving evidence in the hearing of a civil lawsuit filed by former business partner and the Associate Minister of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Peseta Vaifou Tevaga.

Laauli, who was the Speaker of Parliament at the time, and his business associates, Apulu Lance Polu and Martin Jonathan Schwalger, are being sued for more than $3million by Peseta over the nonu business deal.

Supreme Court Justice Tafaoimalo Leilani Tuala-Warren is presiding.

The plaintiff is represented by Leuluaialii Olinda Woodroffe and Lealiifano Dr. Iopu Tanielu. The defendants are represented by Semi Leung Wai.

Laauli had strongly denied he acted illegally and that he breached his legal duties under the Companys Act 2001, as Peseta claims.

He also rejected a claim that he misappropriated funds belonging to Local Partners and Associates and that he changed the companys records using deception and illegal methodology.

According to Laauli, Peseta did not trust Apulu with handling money.

This distrust has led to many problems in a company that was already broken and they were trying to salvage, Laauli told the Court.

I told him (Peseta) that I trust Apulu with my life and that we have been trying to establish this lucrative Nonu Juice Project business to benefit everyone, the whole of Samoa, not just a few.

The Minister said Apulu was the main signatory, however, due to Pesetas complaints, they fixed that by making Peseta the main signatory.

That caused more problems. Peseta was dragging his feet when he was asked to come to sign cheques.

While this was happening, Laauli and Apulu continued to look overseas for more nonu projects. Part of this included two trips to New Zealand and couple to Australia as well as Hong Kong.

However there was the issue of the L.P.A as it did not coincide with the nonu product that we are tirelessly trying to sell to the overseas markets. We then moved to have a trading name for the company to Samoa Nonu Delights.

He said efforts to try to salvage the relationship with Peseta were not successful.

Even the Prime Minister tried to persuade him [Peseta] to work things out but he didn't trust Apulu. Yet we have bigger issues like trying to pay back the $1.8million loan from the N.P.F [National Providence Fund].

With my whole heart, I said, I want to meet with him [Peseta] and sort it out, but that did not happen.

He said one of Pesetas concerns was that it was his land that had been used as security for the loan.

I told him take your land. We will find another land for collateral.

According to Laauli, there was a suggestion made to Peseta to split the company in three.

The biggest implication was our farmers who are waiting when the contract was stuck, everything was stuck.

I wanted to save our friendship and our relationship. Weve known each other for a very long time. I apologised more than once, repeatedly I even spoke to his wife. But the problem was, he wanted to run everything.

He wanted to oversee the money and he wanted all the assets. What about me? What about me?

During cross-examination, Leuluaialii put it to Laauli that he used Pesetas land as collateral for the loan at N.P.F.

No, thats not true. It was not only that land that was used for collateral. There were already assets of the company worth $5million but because the company was broke, thats why N.P.F didnt trust us.

We met and Peseta mentioned his land however. He said that he has an overdraft with the bank and we helped him with that.

Leuluaialii asked Laauli if the Chinese businessman he was referring to was Jack Chen, who is now in jail in Hong Kong.

Yes thats him, and his matai is Tupailelei, said Laauli.

Tupai Jack Chen also known as Chen Keen, a former executive director of a Hong Kong-listed dairy company was jailed for seven years and nine months for conspiring in an evil bid to defraud his company and the stock exchange in January 2016.

Another issue discussed in Court was several cheques issued in the name of Laaulis wife. Leuluaialii asked Laauli to explain this.

Laauli said the cheques were not for her, they were payments.

Leuluaialii however was not convinced. She demanded proof and records.

In response, the Minister said the records were given to the accountant who used it to prepare a financial statement.

The accountant cannot just pull records from thin air, he has all the receipts.

The hearing continues
A bill which seeks to amend the Stamp Duty Ordinance has been passed by Parliament.

The amendments will allow the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to require proof of payment of capital gains tax before stamp duty is issued.

Stamp Duty is charged for written notices on transfers and leases of land and security documents.

The Bill was introduced as an urgent matter and was immediately passed.

In Parliament last week, the Minister of Finance, Sili Epa Tuioti, explained objectives of the bill.

He told Parliament the bill will allow the Ministry for Revenue and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to require proof of payment of capital gains tax before stamp duty may be issued.

There were concerns raised by Member for Alataua West, Aliimalemanu Alofa Tuuau. She said the Bill should have been introduced with all of its complementary Bills.

How will the law operate in a case where the owner of a tax-free asset proceeds to sell the vehicle and is later required to pay a stamp duty charge? she asked.

Sulumanaia Fetaiai Tuivasa supported the measure noting it will bring forth capital gains as tax will be paid where applicable.

However he pointed out there are possible delays for land buyers who may not be able to register their land due to the seller failing to pay capital gains tax.

He suggested that the time frame be increased to 10 years if one has owned land for more than 10 years he or she is exempt from paying capital gains tax.

Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi also supported the measure but was concerned about the price of land continuing to fluctuate.

He suggested for the Ministry to look into the existing processes for the transfer and disposal of land where many people gift land to others in order to avoid paying capital gains tax.

Former Cabinet Minister Faumuina Tiatia Liuga inquired about capital gains tax for land that are gifted to family and children.

But Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said people would try to avoid paying capital tax gains by gifting their land to their children.

He said the governments major concern is to record the land sale transaction because landowners would eventually sell their land.

He said the bill would secure a mechanism for the government to monitor all land sales.

He spoke about the the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion and noted that in the governments experience, there is not much difficulty with tax avoidance cases as such land gifting.

Member of Parliament, Lauofo Fonotoe Pierre, expressed his concern regarding cases where a land sale has taken place but the seller does not pay the capital gains tax.

This causes a delay because the buyer is not able to register the land.
The launch of M.V. Samoanas maiden voyage on Wednesday at Matautu wharf is only the beginning of improved shipping services in the Pacific region.

Thats the ultimate goal according to Acting Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, who spoke on behalf of the government to acknowledge Matson Company for the initiative.

The service promises to provide the fastest transit time from Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast to the two Samoas.

I am very pleased on behalf of our government to see a company that is primarily based in Hawaii provide a link between the Pacific countries in keeping our neighbourhood, keeping our region connected which is important, Fiame said.

We make our trading with larger countries and larger economies but we should also be growing together as a region. So once again, congratulations Tuilaepa, the Matson Company for your work and we wish you all the best.

Tuilaepa in question is the Senior Vice President of Matson in the Pacific, Tuilaepa Vic Angoc.

He said the new product is part of Matsons efforts to improve their services in the region.

We are looking forward to drawing in businesses but also in improving shipping service here into the Samoas, Tuilaepa said.

We also want to work with Samoa to build that industry of exporting those goods from the islands, so today its about celebration.

All we are doing here is leveraging that service that we have in Hawaii, and having our customers here in the South Pacific also benefit from our service in connecting with Samoas.

The Samoana is meant to improve services here to Samoa but also improve our service to our neighbours here as well into Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue using Apia as transit here in the South Pacific.

The Companys fleet of 22 owned vessels includes containerships, combination container and roll-on/roll-off ships and custom-designed barges.

We started four years ago with the New Zealand Service, a year ago this month in June we launched the South Pacific Express, and in August in 2016 we run the Vessel Islander into the Samoas, Tonga, Fiji and then back into Honolulu once every twenty eight days.

We run that successfully for eleven voyages, but our customers asked for more then we want to do more business and we need more service.

So ladies and gentlemen we are here celebrating the fact that we are increasing the service into both Samoas! This is your ship, this is your Samoana!

Matson Logistics, established in 1987, extends the geographic reach of Matsons transportation network throughout the continental U.S. Its integrated, asset-light logistics services include rail intermodal, highway brokerage, warehousing, and less-than-container load freight consolidation and forwarding to Alaska.
San Diegos current building boom is producing dozens of new buildings and landscapes  some noteworthy, some cringe worthy.

And the San Diego Architectural Foundation wants locals to speak out.

Nominations opened Wednesday for the groups annual Orchids & Onions contest, a unique competition nationally to name the best and worst in local architecture, landscape architecture, interior design and miscellaneous categories.

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The deadline to submit is July 31 and the results will be announced Oct. 26 at the U.S. Grant Hotel.

Weve had up to a couple hundred nominations in some years and in others theyve dropped down to 80 or 90, said foundation president Paul de Bartolo, a downtown architectural designer and native of Australia. In my opinion Im far more concerned with the quality of nominations than the quantity.

A jury of seven to nine design professionals will be named later and that group will sort through the nominations, tour about 20 and then vote on the winners and losers.

Each year tends to produce a theme for the jury to press forward and De Bartolo said this year may revolve around neighborhoods, their main streets, infill projects, mixed use, walkability and livability.

I think were going to get a lot out of South County because I think there have been a lot of new additions coming out of Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and San Ysidro, De Bartolo said.

Anyone may nominate any project that has been completed in the last three years. Residential projects with four or more units are eligible and former Orchids or Onions may be renominated in a different category; an Onion can be nominated for an Orchid if its owner has corrected mistakes highlighted previously.

Nominators are asked to provide as much information as they can and upload several images.

Volunteers fact-check nominations and reach out to property owners before nominations are posted at the contest website, orchidsandonions.org. More information by phone, (619) 619-232-1385.

The public can comment on the nominations and that feedback goes into deciding what projects should be eligible for the Peoples Choice Orchid and Onion. The public then gets to vote on its favorites.

Orchids & Onions began in 1976 as a project of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects after a one-year trial run and the foundation took it over in 2006. It is the only known contest of its kind in the U.S., according the national AIA.

Besides De Bartolo, the O&O committee includes designer Craig Howard from De Bartolos design studio, and Laura Warner, CEO and principal architect at CityWorks.

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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowley
Jen and Farzan Dehmoubed are now accustomed to shoppers following them through the supermarket. In fact, the Carlsbad couple enjoys the interest.

The Dehmoubeds are drawing lots of appreciative looks and gaining some customers, thanks to their new product, the Lotus Trolley Bag.

It consists of four heavy-duty reusable grocery sacks that hang like accordion files in a shopping cart. Before and after use, they can be folded up in a 2-pound over-the-shoulder carrier that resembles a yoga mat bag. Similar trolley bag systems have been popular for years, especially in other countries, but the Dehmoubeds believe their design is so unique theyve applied for a patent.

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Since they introduced the Lotus Trolley Bag at Fiesta Del Sol in Solana Beach two weeks ago, the couple has sold several hundred bags and theyre now in talks with buyers at two local supermarkets that could begin selling the $30 products as early as next month.

Its been pretty funny and great, Farzan said. Every time we go shopping with this, at least five people will stop us. Its very exciting.

The ecology-minded couple, both 37, were using reusable sacks long before California voters banned single-use plastic bags last November. Over the years, they grew frustrated with the flimsy quality of the reusables and the difficulty they had cleaning them, storing them and even remembering to bring them into the market when they shopped. So, when the bag ban took effect last fall, the Dehmoubeds decided to come up with a better solution, both for themselves and other California shoppers.

Jen runs a private tutoring business and is the main grocery shopper in the household. Farzan is a businessman with a background in marketing and innovation. Combining her shopping experience and his entrepreneurial skills, they spent five months researching, testing and refining the concept for their product. Jen, a yoga enthusiast, came up with the name, because the bags unfold like a lotus blossom.

The pastel-colored trolley bag is made from 120-gram non-woven polypropylene (most reusable bags are 60-gram) with reinforced handles and cloth mesh bottoms, for easy cleanup in case of a spill. One of the bags has an insulated lining for frozen items and another has vertical sleeves to securely hold wine bottles and egg containers. Sturdy rods that hold the bags in place across the shopping cart rim can be removed from the bags before washing.

For their initial launch, the Dehmoubeds were going to commission 1,000 trolley bags, but when they saw the reception the bags were getting from friends and shoppers this spring, they decided to take a gamble and start with 5,000. The risk seems to be paying off.

On the first day at Fiesta Del Sol, they sold out all 100 in the booth, then the next day they brought 130 and sold out again. The bags are now for sale via Amazon, where all of the buyers so far have left 5-star reviews. The Dehmoubeds are now talking with buyers at Jimbos and Ralphs supermarkets, which are considering putting the product on store shelves for a test market in July.

Farzan said its been thrilling to see their idea come to fruition and receive such a positive response. But its also been gratifying to know that the product theyre making promotes their own healthy, ocean- and Earth-friendly lifestyle.

This is something that were both really passionate about, he said. Im a surfer and I hope that with this product we can make a dent in the number of plastics we use.

A portion of all sales will benefit three of the couples favorite charities: 1% For the Planet, Surfrider Foundation and the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

To learn more about the Lotus Trolley Bag and see a video demonstration, visit lotustrolleybag.com.

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
Beers with Bobo

It probably took me five years of begging the monks to put their beer on draft, said Luc Bobo Van Mechelen, Chimays brand ambassador. I had to explain to them that when you walk into a bar in the United States, you look at the draft list before the bottle list.

Van Mechelens pleading paid off, as he could see during a recent visit to San Diegos Neighborhood. The restaurant had two Chimay beers on tap  the tripel, Cinq Cents, and the Grande Reserve.

The brewerys name should be familiar, as its bottled beers have been sold in the U.S. for decades. Chimays history goes back to 1862, when it was founded at Notre-Dame de Scourmont, an abbey in the Ardennes. Today, this is one of the worlds 11 Trappist breweries.

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A veteran of the beer trade, Van Mechelen found that working for monks is different. Thanks to the clergys vows of poverty, for instance, Chimays profits must be donated to charity.

Belgian brewers embrace tradition almost as fervently as the Catholic Church. After World War II, though, this Belgian brewery run by Catholic monks stopped using their traditional European hops.

For a long time, Van Mechelen said, they bought hops from the Cascade mountains. They wanted to thank the Americans for liberating us.

Kings of Beer

Teddy Roosevelt would have enjoyed Telegraphs Reserve Wheat Ale (5 percent). This Berliner weisse from the Santa Barbara brewery speaks softly and makes a big impression.

Is it the molecules of lactobaccilus and brettanomyces that do the trick, adding a tart funkiness to this beer? The lemon verbena, reminiscent of lemonade spiked with herbs? The wheat body, supplying a soft yet firm foundation?

Whatever the case, Reserve Wheat is this weeks King. It overthrows Scaldis Peche Mel (8.5 percent), a Belgian amber that shouts its peach flavors. Reserve Wheat whispers, surprising you with the gradual realization that it is speaking directly to you.

Best of the week, local

Someone must have told Council Brewing that the traditional gift for a third anniversary is extravagance.

Saturdays third anniversary party has 50-plus beers on tap; the official debut of a farmhouse honey ale, Biere de Miel; a raffle; and many of the brewerys bottled sour ales available for purchase.

Tickets are $35 for the VIP session, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., or $20, noon to 5 p.m.

Councils tasting room is at 7705 Convoy Court, San Diego.

Slackin

At The San Diego Union-Tribune, we use the messaging app Slack for internal chats. Last week, data reporter Daniel Wheaton kicked off a 15-minute Slackfest by citing a Nielsen survey showing wine sales gaining on beer:

Rowe [3:42 PM]: Sure, but beer still outsells wine. And spirits.

[3:44]: This makes me wonder, for the umpteenth time, about craft brewers proud insistence that they dont/wont advertise. Fine. But when the crazy growth slows down and wine and spirits gain on beer, maybe relying on word of mouth isnt so smart.

Wheaton [3:44 PM]: The hard part of advertising is your reach.

[3:45]: Why would anyone outside of the 5-6 eldest SD brewers bother?

Rowe [3:46 PM]: But the eldest brewers are the ones that are most at risk, caught between the megabreweries and the hip little boutique operations.

Wheaton [3:47 PM]: Thats true. I feel brands like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, etc., could do more from the educational front

[3:47]: Getting people to know what varieties of beer there are.

Rowe [3:47 PM]: Btw, Nielsen shows boatloads of money being spend on beer advertising  but that has to be from the multinational conglomerates and a handful of large craft breweries (Sam Adams, New Belgium).

Wheaton [3:47 PM]: Yes.

Rowe [3:53 PM]: To your point about the educational component  not seeing that in the Sam Adams ads. Its all about taste, they tell us, but dont tell us much about the varied tastes or what distinguishes their hefewiezen from their chocolate bock.

Wheaton [3:53 PM]: New Belgium . . . *kind* of does it? But maybe thats because I grew up in the shadow of Colorado.

[3:54]: But the Facebook and Twitter algorithms know Im a snob so I dont see macro beer ads.

Rowe [3:54 PM]: I havent seen enough of their ads, just the occasional page in a magazine.

[3:55]: Well, yes, we are missing out on the BudMillerCoors campaigns!

Wheaton [3:55 PM]: Indeed, as I am a cord-never.

Rowe [3:56 PM]: Is that a Gen Y (Gen Z?) thing? Are the hip kids bypassing cable altogether?

Wheaton [3:56 PM]: We dont have money after we pay our loans so...

Rowe [3:57 PM]: Generation Broke.

Words to drink by

Hoping to drink beer without gaining weight is like winning the lottery and expecting that no sketchy relatives will ask for a boat.  anonymous.

Did you know

In 2009, North Korean TV aired its first beer ad. Taedonggang beer represents the new look of Pyongyang, an announcer said as women in traditional Korean dress served men in suits. It will be a familiar part of our lives.
A new musical about Princess Diana  directed (in a workshop version) by La Jolla Playhouse artistic chief Christopher Ashley  is one of a string of stage projects in the news this week.

Of biggest local note among those shows is Diana, which will receive a reading this summer as part of Vassar & New York Stage and Films 2017 Powerhouse Theater season, held at Vassar College in upstate New York.

The newly added show is from writer-lyricist Joe DiPietro and composer-lyricist (and Bon Jovi keyboardist) David Bryan, the same team behind the Playhouse-launched, Ashley-directed musical Memphis  a Tony Award-winner as best musical in 2010.

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Ashley is up for his third directorial Tony this Sunday, for the current Playhouse-bred Broadway hit Come From Away.

Composer-lyricist David Bryan (left), keyboardist for the band Bon Jovi, and La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley, photographed in 2014. The two are teaming with writer-lyricist Joe DiPietro on a musical project about Princess Diana. (K.C. Alfred / Union-Tribune file photo)

Diana is at a very early stage (and at this point nothing about a Playhouse incarnation has been announced), but the Vassar festival has a good reputation for fostering shows that go on to significant further lives.

Thats far from the only musical project getting attention of late, though. A look at what else is getting talked up:

The SpongeBob Musical: Yes, the pants-wearing little cartoon scrubber is headed to Broadway. This previously announced show now has an official New York opening date and venue: Dec. 4 at the Palace Theatre (previews begin in November). SpongeBob, based on the animated Nickelodeon hit, is directed by Tina Landau with a book by Kyle Jarrow, who teamed with composer Duncan Sheik on the Old Globe world premiere of Whisper House in 2010. The show will include songs by (among others) David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Sara Bareilles and the Flaming Lips  whose own musical, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2012.

Yes, the pants-wearing little cartoon scrubber is headed to Broadway. This previously announced show now has an official New York opening date and venue: Dec. 4 at the Palace Theatre (previews begin in November). SpongeBob, based on the animated Nickelodeon hit, is directed by Tina Landau with a book by Kyle Jarrow, who teamed with composer Duncan Sheik on the Old Globe world premiere of Whisper House in 2010. The show will include songs by (among others) David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, Sara Bareilles and the Flaming Lips  whose own musical, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2012. Working Girl: Speaking of Lauper: Shes writing the music and lyrics for this Broadway-targeted adaptation of the 1988 movie (which starred Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford) about a young working-class woman who outsmarts the suits in the corporate world. Lauper, the onetime 80s pop star, is becoming an experienced Broadway hand: She won a Tony in 2013 for writing the score to the musical Kinky Boots. No production dates have yet been announced for Working Girl.

Speaking of Lauper: Shes writing the music and lyrics for this Broadway-targeted adaptation of the 1988 movie (which starred Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford) about a young working-class woman who outsmarts the suits in the corporate world. Lauper, the onetime 80s pop star, is becoming an experienced Broadway hand: She won a Tony in 2013 for writing the score to the musical Kinky Boots. No production dates have yet been announced for Working Girl. Jagged Little Pill: The mega-selling 1995 Alanis Morissette album is now on the verge of hitting the stage: The musical version of the record, which spawned such songs as Hand in My Pocket and Ironic, will soon receive a high-profile reading in advance of its first full staging next year at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. ART artistic chief and frequent Broadway presence Diane Paulus (Hair, Pippin) will direct that production. Tony-winner and former Wicked star Idina Menzel  the voice behind Let It Go from Frozen  is reported to be performing the lead role in the reading, but is not expected to star in the 2018 premiere.

Twitter: @jimhebert

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com
Oysterfest returns Friday and Saturday with a whole lot of shucking. Attendees will find a pearl in the form of the two-day music festival, featuring a solid lineup of performers. Friday leans alt-rock with bands Ghostland Observatory, Rocket From the Crypt, the Verigolds and more. On Saturday, a reggae and modern funk vibe rules with Matisyahu, Dam-Funk, Vokab Kompany and more. Whether or not oysters are your aphrodisiac, plenty of other nosh options will be on hand, with Sierra Nevada brews, craft cocktails and wines to wash it down.

San Diego Oysterfest Music Festival: Friday and Saturday. Embarcadero Marina Park North, 400 Kettner Blvd, downtown San Diego. General admission (starting at $35) does not include food or drinks, but the backstage upgrade ($200 per person) does. oysterfest.me

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cynthia.zanone@sduniontribune.com
A U.S. House bill has already passed and a Senate bill was introduced Wednesday that would make it a specific crime under the military code to commit revenge porn.

This legislative push that started only last month is in response to the Marines United scandal in March, in which active-duty and former Marines and other service members were discovered sharing compromising photos of female troops along with derogatory commentary.

The Marine Corps has already punished two Camp Pendleton troops for making contemptuous comments about someone in their chain of command.

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At one point, more than 30 Marines were face punishments ranging from administrative action to courts-martial, and Navy investigators were looking at others for felony-level crimes.

At least one Marine has been charged by civilian authorities in North Carolina for sharing nude and nearly nude photos of a former girlfriend.

Welcome to The Intel, a blog examining the hot military news of the day

The Neanderthals who committed these acts are not emblematic of the vast majority of decent and honorable service members who serve our nation, said Rep. Martha McSally, R-Arizona, a retired Air Force fighter pilot, from the House floor on May 23.

However, the notion that any service member would think it is acceptable to upload, view, or comment on nude photos of their fellow service members is a serious problem that must be fixed.

The House bill, which passed uninanimously, is the Protecting the Rights of Individuals Against Technological Exploitation Act or the PRIVATE Act.

It would add an item under Article 117 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to prohibit wrongful broadcast or distribution of intimate visual images.

As it stands, the military justice system already contains two generalized codes under which this type of behavior can be addressed.

This new provision will give commanders an additional specific tool and send a clear message to service members that this behavior is unacceptable and is, in fact, a crime, McSally said.

Military attorney Gary Barthel of Carlsbad agrees.

It does close loopholes. It would bring more uniformity to the prosecution of these types of offenses, said Barthel, a retired Marine Corps lawyer who now practices civilian law.

When you have an actual Uniform Code of Military Justice section that specifies the particular offense, theres no question what conduct is prohibited  and what the punishment for violating that statute could be, he added.

If troops are left to be prosecuted by the civilian legal system, the punishment can vary widely, Barthel said.

He noted that not every state has a revenge porn statute, and among those that do, some call it a misdemeanor while others rate it as a felony.

jen.steele@sduniontribune.com

Facebook: U-T Military

Twitter: @jensteeley

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jen.steele@sduniontribune.com

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In what could be the final push to save the critically endangered vaquita porpoise, Mexicos president on Wednesday announced an alliance with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and American actor Leonardo DiCaprio to protect the marine mammals habitat in the upper Gulf of California.

Following a meeting in Mexico City with the two men, President Enrique Pena Nieto announced a permanent ban on the use of gillnets in the turbid waters off the Baja California peninsula, where fewer than 30 vaquita are believed to still be alive.

Mexico understands its responsibility as one of the countries with greatest biodiversity, Pena Nieto said in announcing the memorandum of understanding with Slim and DiCaprio.

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The agreement states that within 30 days, Mexico will increase its enforcement and gillnet ban and prosecution of its violators. It also calls for prohibition of nighttime fishing in the region and the establishment of monitored entry and exit points for fishing vessels.

The main value of this memorandum is to offer encouragement. Its saying we cannot give up, we have to move forward, said Gustavo Danemann, executive director of Pronatura Noroeste, an office of Mexicos oldest and largest environmental organization thats one of several groups supporting the new partnership.

Critics have said an unprecedented, two-year conservation initiative by Mexico, starting in 2015, has done little to discourage illegal fishing and protect the vaquita.

Those measures, which are set to expire at the end of this month, have included a compensation program for local fishermen, a temporary gillnet ban and stepped-up enforcement by Mexicos navy.

The illegal fishing has remained, and the vaquitas population has continued to drop.

Scientists said the main danger to the vaquita has been the rampant poaching in the region of another critically endangered species, the totoaba, a large fish endemic to the Gulf of California whose swim bladders command high prices in China, where consumers believe in their medicinal value.

The vaquita, the worlds smallest cetacean, becomes ensnared in the totoaba nets and drowns.

To make a permanent ban is great, but its only as good as the enforcement, said Frances Gulland, a veterinarian and member of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission. And while the vaquita is the species at greatest danger at the moment, the overall effort is important for saving other marine species in the area, such sharks, turtles and sea lions, she said.

Critical to any plan will be winning support from thousands of fishermen in the region and coming up with vaquita-safe fishing methods that allow them to earn a livelihood.

We are waiting for them to come up with fishing gear that are sustainable, that allows us to earn a living, said Luis Albanez, a third-generation fisherman in the Baja California town of San Felipe.

While Albanez is willing to make the switch, others have been eager to return to gillnet fishing and have been quick to deny the existence of the vaquita.

The Gordian knot to untangle, is how do you get the community to buy in? said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., who studies illegal economies and wildlife trafficking.

Corruption and lax enforcement have compounded the problems, she said: There are credible reasons to believe that enforcement is lacking in its execution, said Felbab-Brown, who has analyzed the vaquita issue while writing her upcoming book on wildlife trafficking.

One issue that has hampered recent efforts in the region to crack down on illegal fishing has been the lack of collaboration among different federal agencies. The new agreement is signed not only by the Mexican president, but by the secretaries of environment, agriculture and the navy.

The connection between Pena Nieto and DiCaprio started last month with a tweet, when the actor and environmentalist urged his followers to back a World Wildlife Fund campaign petitioning Mexicos president to take strong action now to save the vaquita.

The Mexican president answered, I welcome @LeoDiCaprio and @World_Wildlifes concern regarding the Vaquita Marina.

Slim and DiCaprio are participating through their respective foundations. The agreement signed Wednesday does not state a specific financial contribution, but commits them to participating with the Pena Nieto administration in a working group that within the next month will prepare a draft strategy for achieving the memorandums objectives, including ways to finance them.

As Mexico moves forward on this pact, it plans to evaluate whether to go ahead with a desperate preservation effort that would involve capturing the elusive porpoises and holding them in pens in the upper gulf until they can be safely returned to open waters.

The operation, being planned for October, is both unprecedented and high risk. The new agreement said the parties will make a determination  regarding the feasibility of such a program.

The announcement from Pena Nieto comes as the international environmental community has been increasing its pressure on Mexico to save the species.

On Wednesday, people who have long championed the vaquita cause, from scientists to conservationists, said the memorandum with Slim and DiCaprio is encouraging, bringing much greater visibility and hopefully more resources to the preservation campaign.

This is something where there is going to be great attention and great accountability expected, said Jan Vertefeuille, senior director of advocacy for the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C.

At the same time, she cautioned: We also think that there are additional steps that are needed, and we will be engaging in the process to support this.

sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
The U.S. attorneys office in San Diego this week arraigned a Taiwanese citizen on charges of smuggling more than 250 pounds of black abalone and Fuscus sea cucumbers into the country from Mexico.

Wei Wei Wang, 37, was brought into federal court on Wednesday as part of an investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hes accused of helping to illegally import 83 pounds of frozen abalone and 172 pounds of sea cucumbers in February 2016.

Another man charged in the case, 49-year-old Alan Ren of Northport, N.Y., remains a fugitive.

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If found guilty, each would face up to 20 years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines.

Authorities havent disclosed whether the men tried to disguise their products and whether those goods actually entered the U.S. or were confiscated at a port of entry.

This case demonstrates the federal law enforcement communitys ongoing vigilance in uncovering illegal wildlife smuggling and prosecuting perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law, acting U.S. Atty. Alana Robinson said in a statement. Traffickers beware: We will take all necessary action to stop these financially motivated threats to our endangered species.

Abalone and sea cucumber can fetch several hundred dollars per pound in the retail market, depending on a wide variety of factors.

The population of black abalone, which live in the intertidal waters off California and Mexico, has declined more than 80% in the past three decades as a result of withering syndrome and habitat destruction. The sea creatures  which are seen as a delicacy, especially among many Asian cultures  have been listed as federally endangered since 2009 and are illegal to harvest in California.

Meanwhile, the Fuscus sea cucumber is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Under the convention, an export permit and certificate from the country of origin is required to bring that species into the U.S.

Fuscus sea cucumbers were listed as endangered in Mexico from 1994 to 2001; harvesting was allowed again starting in 2002. An adaptive management plan was put in place, establishing quotas and population monitoring. Recent surveys show the species population density is decreasing.

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement is committed to eliminating the smuggling of protected species into the United States, Will Ellis, assistant director with the agencys law enforcement division, said in a statement. Abalone and sea cucumbers have been identified by NOAA Fisheries as species that are vulnerable to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices and will be included in the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, which is scheduled for implementation on Jan. 1, 2018.

Last month, a major federal investigation led to the indictment of a father-son duo who were charged with smuggling into San Diego more than $17 million of illegally harvested sea cucumbers.

Smuggling of sea cucumbers is one of the most high-profile wildlife crimes in Southern California, next to the illegal trade of totoaba fish bladders, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials. The dried fish bladders are sold to Asian markets, sometimes for as much as $30,000 apiece, according to a recent report from the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Elephant Action League.

Smith writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com
A woman pleaded not guilty Thursday to the murder of her 18-month-old granddaughter and the attempted murder of her daughter and another granddaughter in a stabbing attack.

Nicole Yanick Darrington, 43, entered the pleas in a San Bernardino court and was ordered held on $3.2-million bail, according to court records.

Lawyer Loyst P. Fletcher declined to discuss details of his clients case, but said Darringtons mental competency likely would be discussed when she returns to court June 16.

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Obviously this is someone who snapped and has some very serious problems, he said by phone after the hearing.

Prosecutors declined to comment on the case, a district attorney spokesman said.

According to authorities, Darrington stabbed to death her 18-month-old granddaughter Damani Trouter and wounded another granddaughter and her daughter Monday during a visit to their home in Colton, then fled the scene.

She was arrested the next day after she was spotted by police in San Bernardino.

Darrington spent nearly a decade in a state psychiatric hospital and outpatient treatment program after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 2005 attempted murder of her own children.

She was deemed sane by a jury in 2015. That decision meant she no longer required court-mandated psychiatric care.

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Woman accused in stabbing death of Costa Mesa man pleads not guilty to murder

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A man accused of killing a 92-year-old woman during a home invasion in National City last year pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree murder and residential burglary charges.

Peter Thao, 27, of Mira Mesa was arrested in November about three weeks after the death of Maria Consuelo Rivera.

As a result of his plea, the District Attorneys Office agreed to dismiss a special-circumstance allegation of murder during a burglary, which had exposed Thao to the possibility of the death penalty or life in prison without parole if he had been convicted in a trial.

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He agreed to a maximum sentence of 31 years to life in prison.

Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Ana Espana scheduled a sentencing hearing for Aug. 16.

Thao did not speak much in the courtroom Thursday except to answer a few questions related to his plea agreement.

When the judge asked whether he had killed the victim as described briefly on the court forms he had filled out, he paused for a moment before responding: Yes, your honor.

Rivera was found dead when her daughter returned home from work on Oct. 22 about 6 a.m. The two shared an apartment on D Street near East Plaza Boulevard.

National City police have said Rivera died of blunt-force trauma but have not provided any further details about the killing publicly. Its not clear whether a weapon was used or what items, if any, were taken from the home.

Police and prosecutors have not said how they linked Thao to the crime.

Rivera raised her five children in the Philippines city of Baguio, where she launched several businesses including a beauty parlor and a laundering service.

She came to the United States about 40 years ago and moved into her National City apartment shortly after arriving.

Several members of Riveras family were in court Thursday morning, but they declined to make any statements to reporters. They said they wanted to wait to make their comments at Thaos sentencing hearing.

At the time of Riveras killing, her daughter called her a very sweet old lady, who did not deserve to die violently.

My mother was very beautiful, inside and out. She was kind. She never had a quarrel with anyone. She always had a smile for everyone, Cecilia Rivera Aguilar said.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield

ALSO:

Unthinkable death of woman, 92, in home robbery

Man arrested in death of elderly robbery victim

Murders increase third year in a row, confounding police
The U.S. Attorneys Office in San Diego this week arraigned a Taiwanese citizen for allegedly smuggling more than 250 pounds of black abalone and Fuscus sea cucumbers into the country from Mexico.

Wei Wei Wang, 37, was brought into federal court on Wednesday as the result of an investigation by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hes accused of helping to illegally import 83 pounds of frozen abalone and 172 pounds of sea cucumbers in February 2016.

Another man charged in the case, 49-year-old Alan Ren of Northport, New York, remains a fugitive.

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If found guilty, each man would face up to 20 years in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines.

Authorities havent disclosed whether the suspects tried to disguise their products and whether those goods actually entered the U.S. or were confiscated at a port of entry.

This case demonstrates the federal law-enforcement communitys ongoing vigilance in uncovering illegal wildlife smuggling and prosecuting perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law, Acting U.S. Attorney Alana Robinson said in a statement. Traffickers beware: We will take all necessary action to stop these financially motivated threats to our endangered species.

Abalone and sea cucumber can fetch several hundred dollars per pound in the retail market, depending on a wide variety of factors.

The population of black abalone, which live in the inter-tidal waters off California and Mexico, has been decimated by more than 80 percent in the past three decades as a result of Withering Syndrome and habitat destruction. The sea creatures  which are seen as a delicacy, especially among many Asian cultures  have been listed as federally endangered since 2009 and are illegal to harvest in California.

Meanwhile, the Fuscus sea cucumber is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Under the convention, an export permit and certificate from the country of origin is required to bring that species into the U.S.

Fuscus sea cucumbers were listed as endangered in Mexico from 1994 to 2001; harvesting was allowed again starting in 2002. An adaptive management plan was put in place, establishing quotas and population monitoring. Recent surveys show the species population density is decreasing.

NOAAs Office of Law Enforcement is committed to eliminating the smuggling of protected species into the United States, Will Ellis, assistant director with the agencys law enforcement division, said in a statement. Abalone and sea cucumbers have been identified by NOAA Fisheries as species that are vulnerable to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices and will be included in the Seafood Import Monitoring Program, which is scheduled for implementation on Jan. 1, 2018.

Last month, a major federal investigation led to the indictment of a father-son duo who allegedly smuggled into San Diego more than $17 million of illegally harvested sea cucumbers.

Smuggling of sea cucumbers is one of the most high-profile wildlife crimes in Southern California, next to the illegal trade of totoaba fish bladders, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials. The dried fish bladders are sold to Asian markets, sometimes for as much as $30,000 apiece, according to a recent report from the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Elephant Action League.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com
About 100 people rallied outside City Hall in National City on Tuesday evening to support a family whose parents are currently in immigration detention.

Both mother and father of the Duarte family were picked up by Border Patrol agents outside their National City home early in the morning May 23. The father, Francisco Duarte-Tineo, 51, was returning from buying a newspaper at a store up the street when agents approached him. The mother, Rosenda Perez-Pelcastre, 48, was arrested when she walked out to see why he hadnt returned. The Border Patrol said the agency targeted the parents because it suspected they were involved in a stash house. The family has denounced that accusation, and no criminal charges have been filed against the parents.

Since the parents arrests, neighbors have come forward to help the Duarte children, who are all U.S. citizens and full-time students. The four children, whose ages range from 12 to 19, launched a GoFundMe campaign which has raised more than $70,000 toward their living expenses and their parents legal fees.

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On Tuesday night, Aracely Duarte spoke to National City council members and the mayor, asking for support on SB54. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

All of the Duarte children thanked their community repeatedly as they addressed the group of protesters.

After feeling the most alone and afraid Ive ever felt in my whole life, my community came to me and supported with all their heart. For that, I couldnt be more thankful, said Francisco Duarte, who, at 19, has become a guardian of his three siblings.

Duarte met with Vice Mayor Albert Mendivil before joining the protest to discuss possible policy changes to keep other immigrant families in National City from experiencing what his family has.

I was raised on the idea that we are all one race, Duarte said. We are humanity. My parents are incarcerated for that one reason, trying to find a better life, opportunities for their offspring, for crossing a man-made border. For that and only that they were arrested in front of their own home.

Jamie Gates, neighbor of the Duartes, said hes known the family for 13 years.

Something stood out from the very first moment we met them, and it was the level of respect that these children have shown for everyone around them, Gates said, addressing the crowd. We see this reflected in all of the children. It says something about parenting. It says something about how profoundly, deeply respectful their parents are to them and to us as a community.

They have been a model family and a model neighbor to us.

The Duarte parents are being held at Otay Mesa Detention Facility and are scheduled to have a bond hearing June 16.

The Border Patrol confirmed their agents involvement in the parents arrest in a statement. Duarte-Tineo and Perez-Pelcastre were both subjects of a Border Patrol investigation regarding their suspected involvement as stash house operators for a transnational human smuggling organization, the emailed statement said. Duarte-Tineo and Perez-Pelcastre have both been charged with immigration violations and were processed for removal proceedings.

Mark Lane, a National City resident who has been spearheading the community organizing around the family and member of the parents legal team, took issue with Border Patrols characterization of the scenario, calling the accusations irresponsible.

The Duarte family walked from the park to the civic center to attend Tuesdays city council meeting in National City with a large group of supporters. L-R, Luis, Aracely, Francisco and Yarely Duarte. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

He said the children, who are all high achievers in school, were shocked by the suggestion that their parents were involved in smuggling.

Its something we always run into when a family tries to go public, Lane said. The Border Patrol tries to smear the family.

Border Patrol confirmed that no criminal charges have been filed against the parents.

At the rally, Lane praised the childrens achievements, noting that the 17-year-old brother, Luis, is second in his class and vying for the spot of valedictorian. Lane also congratulated 12-year-old twins Aracely and Yarely for winning a prestigious academic award at their middle school.

This is the kind of family we want in America, he said.

After the protest, a drummer and man playing a Native American flute led the crowd two-by-two into the City Council chambers until the room was full. The remaining supporters packed the hallway and lobby of City Hall, rehearsing their three-minute speeches and waiting to address council members.

During the public comment period, the family and National City residents pushed for resolutions to make the city a welcoming city and to support S.B. 54, which would limit police cooperation with federal immigration officials across California. More than 50 people spoke.

The City Council agreed to discuss the welcoming city resolution at a meeting later this month.

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A new poll shows San Diego voters are far more likely to approve a hotel tax hike directed exclusively at solving homelessness than Mayor Kevin Faulconers proposal to split the money between homelessness, street repair and a convention center expansion.

The poll comes in advance of the City Councils scheduled Monday vote on whether Faulconers proposed hotel tax hike will be presented to city voters in a November special election.

The poll, conducted by a company that handled polling for Los Angeles Countys successful homelessness sales tax hike in March, shows Faulconers proposal would fall well short this November of the two-thirds approval required.

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His proposal, which would devote significantly more money to expanding the convention center than homelessness programs or street repair, is leading 54 percent to 38 percent in the poll, which was conducted May 31 through June 4.

If the vote was delayed until the 2018 general election as the City Councils Democratic majority has advocated, Faulconers measure leads 60 percent to 29 percent  still well short of two-thirds approval.

But a hotel tax hike would easily surpass two-thirds approval this November or in November 2018 if all of the money was devoted to homelessness, the poll shows.

In November 2017, such a ballot measure leads 70 percent to 26 percent. And in November 2018, it leads 75 percent to 19 percent.

Councilman Chris Ward, vice chairman of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, said the poll confirms the tepid support for Faulconers proposal hes been hearing from the public for months. He said that makes it even more unwise to spend $5 million on a special election this November for the proposal.

It would be a fools errand which will only delay real solutions for the convention center expansion and homelessness, Ward said. We need plans which have a chance to actually make a difference, and Im focused on building proposals for the 2018 ballot that are well designed and supported by a coalition strong enough to succeed.

The language and methodology of the poll was questioned by a spokesman for the tourism coalition spearheading the effort to bring the mayors plan before voters this November.

The spokesman, Tony Manolatos, said the language used in the poll could have skewed the results and that voters, especially Republicans, show much stronger support for the mayors proposal when told the tourism industry supports it.

Manolatos also expressed skepticism about the poll showing voters would support a hotel tax increase to pay exclusively for homeless services, contending the tourism industry would strongly oppose such a measure and likely defeat it.

The poll was commissioned by local homelessness advocate Michael McConnell, who said this week that he spent $30,000 on the survey to gauge the publics position on the mayors proposal and alternate approaches.

Im not out to bash the mayor or bash the convention center  thats not my purpose in this, said McConnell, an East Village resident who previously served as vice chairman of the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. My single purpose is working to get more people off the streets.

McConnell said he wanted to see how San Diego voters would support a tax increase devoted entirely to homelessness, which several counties and cities in California.have approved recently.

That includes the city of Los Angeles in last Novembers election and Los Angeles County in March. City voters approved a property tax increase to fund housing solutions and county voters approved a sales tax increase to approve social service programs, and both surpassed the two-thirds support required for approval.

For his poll, McConnell hired the firm that handled polling and strategy for the county measure: Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates.

John Fairbank said he was careful not to use leading or biased language in his poll of 300 likely voters in a November 2017 special election and 400 likely voters in a November 2018 general election.

We put together a 75-word blurb thats a pretty positive outline of the mayors proposal, Fairbank said.

Manolatos said the wording mentioned affordable housing in addition to homelessness, which he said could have cost the measure support from some Republican voters who have negative feelings toward low-income housing.

The question on a hotel tax hike exclusively for homeless services was worded pretty simply. It proposed a hotel tax hike of 2 percent across the board, instead of the mayors proposal to raise hotel taxes between 1 percent and 3 percent based on proximity to the convention center.

Such a measure would increase annual funding for homelessness from $10 million under the mayors proposal to about $60 million, McConnell said.

The mayors plan would divide up the hotel tax hike 64 percent for the convention center expansion and 18 percent each for street repair and homelessness.

Those surveyed in the poll werent told of the sharp differences in funding or presented with the two approaches as two potential ways to address homelessness.

Fairbank said voters prefer exclusively funding homelessness with a tax increase because it has become an extremely popular, high-priority and bipartisan issue.

He said thats partly based on altruism, people wanting to clean up the streets and people feeling unsafe in some city parks.

In addition, homelessness affects families, children and military veterans  people who many voters sympathize with.

Voters feel it is a moral responsibility to address this issue and help these people, he said.

Manolatos said the tourism industry would oppose a hotel tax not including anything that would return any of the money to the industry, such as a convention center expansion.

McConnell said the poll was strictly for comparison purposes and that the city could choose in November 2018 to propose instead an increase in sales or property taxes to fund homelessness programs and possibly get similar support.

Manolatos noted that the mayors proposal got stronger support in a poll conducted this winter by John Nienstedt of Competitive Edge Research and Communication.

The mayors proposal led 66 percent to 27 percent in that poll, with 7 percent undecided. The poll surveyed 392 likely city voters between Feb. 27 and March 4.

That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent. The new polls margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percent.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrick
BB guns, pellets and cellphones were seized from the homes of three San Diego teens suspected of shooting out the windows of up to 70 vehicles in San Diego and Imperial Beach, authorities said.

The teenagers were not arrested, but cases alleging they caused thousands of dollars in damage will be forwarded to prosecutors, said sheriffs Sgt. Mark Andersen.

They are suspected of driving around a shooting out windows of from 30 to 70 vehicles, mostly in San Diego, from mid-April to the end of May. Most of the incidents occurred late at night, with victims discovering the costly damage the next morning. However, Andersen said in one case the teens were seen in a late afternoon.

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He said sheriffs detectives from the Imperial Beach station served search warrants at two of the homes, and San Diego police served the third one on Wednesday.

They seized three BB guns as well as BBs, pellets, Co2 cartridges, magazines and cellphones from two homes, and a cellphone was confiscated from the third juvenile.

San Diego police issued a news release in May saying that they were investigating at least 30 cases of vehicle window being shot out around the southern end of town, near Egger Highlands, Nestor and Otay Mesa.

Andersen declined to say whether the vandalism suspects are boys or girls.

The cases will be submitted to the San Diego City Attorneys Office and the county District Attorneys Office for review, Andersen said. He added that no additional juveniles appear to have been involved.
Jim Stewart, a courageous Scripps Institution of Oceanography diver-educator who helped open the worlds oceans to scientists in the 1950s and 60s by training them to use some of the first scuba equipment, has died. He was 89.

Stewart died from natural causes on Wednesday in Irvine, according to Scripps.

During a career that lasted five decades, he helped to design and carry out some of the most rigorous training ever done for scuba gear, which revolutionized science and military diving after it debuted in the United States in the late 1940s.

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Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan created the so-called aqualung underwater breathing device to enable divers to roam the deep without being tethered to air hoses attached to boats. The device was a godsend to Stewart, who had spent much of his childhood free-diving and spearfishing in the marine wonderland that is La Jolla Cove.

He would later spend 30 years as dive officer at Scripps, where he trained thousands of divers and did pioneering underwater exploration in the Channel Islands and the submarine canyon off the Scripps Pier. He also descended 600 feet in a saturation bell  100 feet more than the height of the tallest skyscraper in San Diego.

In 1962, Stewart helped to rescue famed Swiss deep diver Hannes Keller, who got into trouble after descending 1,000 feet in a diving bell off Santa Catalina Island.

Historians also note that Stewart explored an underwater crater in the Pacific only days after it was hit by a hydrogen bomb, and he helped to standardize the protocol for safe dives in the Antarctic.

Among scientific and technical divers, Jim Stewart enjoys the status that Chuck Yeager has among professional pilots, San Diego dive historian Eric Hanauer wrote in a 1999 book about diving pioneers.  he organized it, standardized it and spread that knowledge around the country and around the world. In the process, he made a lot of history and had a lot of fun.

Hanauer repeated that sentiment on Thursday, adding: Jim was a divers diver.

Stewart also was praised on Thursday by Paul Dayton, a veteran Scripps researcher who knew him well. Dayton said instead of projecting a macho attitude, Stewart respected scientists and the fact that young student scientists were not the reincarnation of Navy divers, but very smart students who may have just been OK in the water. Jims goal was NOT to make scientists out of macho divers but to make SAFE divers of good scientists.

Cary Humphries, a dive-boat captain in San Diego, said Jim was always willing to lend a hand, no matter the situation. On research trips, hed be the senior diver. But he didnt want to be waited on. Hed go into the galley and wash dishes. He always wanted to help.

James Ronald Stewart was born on Sept. 5, 1927 in National City, the son of Pearl Harriet Alexander and Andrew Charles Stewart.

He fell in love with the ocean early, as he told interviewer Ron Rainger during a discussion in 2000. Stewart keenly remembered fishing with his father from the Scripps Pier.

When hed catch a fish, I would take a look at it and run up to the old Scripps aquarium and see what that fish was, Stewart recalled. Little did I think I would spend 50 years of my life here.

A turning point occurred on Memorial Day in 1941, when he took a date to La Jolla Cove. They ran into one of Stewarts junior high school friends, who claimed to have a face mask for looking into the sea.

Stewart told Rainger: I put his mask on, and I could see under water. Well, the next week I had me a face mask, and thats how it all started.

He became an accomplished spear fisherman, and he was later invited to join the elite San Diego Bottom Scratchers free-diving club, which deepened his passion for the ocean.

Stewart learned the fundamentals of scuba diving in 1951 and became a volunteer at Scripps the following year, where he worked with pioneering divers Connie Limbaugh and Andy Rechnitzer.

He was soon helping with diver training and expanded his involvement into research, exploring kelp beds off the California coast.

In the mid-1950s, Stewart helped to explore and evaluate Pacific atolls that had been the sites of hydrogen bomb tests. He joined Scripps full time in 1957, and was with Limbaugh and researcher Wheeler North in 1959 when the trio discovered underwater sandfalls off Cabo San Lucas. The finding was the subject of the award-winning documentary Rivers of Sand.

Tragedy struck a year later, in 1960, when Limbaugh died during a cave diving accident. Stewart succeeded him as Scripps dive officer.

A second tragedy nearly occurred in 1961. Stewart was attacked by a shark off Wake Island. A colleague got him to shore and flagged down a dump truck, which took Stewart to a hospital. The attack was an odd counterpoint to the work Stewart had done in testing shark repellents.

Stewart experienced his share of good fortune, notably in 1967, when he was at Truk Lagoon in the Pacific.

We went in there because we had the tail end of a typhoon and we needed a place to hide, Stewart told Rainger. So we ran in there, and just happened to anchor in the old Japanese harbor, masts sticking out. We went out and looked at that, and there were all kinds of artifacts on the bottom. That was fun.

Two years later, he was making his first dives beneath the ice in Antarctica, an experience he compared to floating above the Grand Canyon during a 1991 interview with the San Diego Tribune.

Its almost like youre going to fall; the water is very, very clear. You dont really have a concept of being in water, he said. You shine a beam of light and theres nothing to back-scatter. You dont see the beam of light; you are what it hits. Its amazing.

Stewart continued to dive for decades, experiencing adventure after adventure.

Sit down with him over a beer and you will be treated to diving history, told vividly by someone who made it and lived it, Hanauer said of Stewart in his book, Diving Pioneers.

But his greatest legacy is his students, and the students of those he has trained. No one else has influenced more diving leaders, directly and indirectly, both in the world of scientific and sport diving.

Stewart is survived by wife of 64 years, Joan; his son Craig; his daughter Meredith; and four grandchildren.

ICYMI

NASA choses 3 San Diego engineers, fliers for astronaut training

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gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
Renowned UC San Diego anthropologist Theodore Schwartz has donated his personal papers to the universitys library, including materials that date to when he studied primitive cultures in the South Pacific with another famous anthropologist  Margaret Mead.

The donation is becoming part of UC San Diegos Mandeville Special Collection, which already features the archives of Nobel laureates Harold Urey, Francis Crick and Maria Goeppert Mayer, as well as Jonas Salk, who developed the first successful vaccine against polio.

Lynda Classen, director of the Mandeville holdings, said the Schwartz collection contains field notes and diaries from his work in Melanesia (which included New Guinea Island) and Mexico, manuscripts of books and articles, course materials from his teaching days at UCSD and extensive tapes of interviews with native peoples in the Admiralty Islands.

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Weve just begun the arrangement and description process, something that will take several months, she added.

Schwartz lives in Del Mar and is an emeritus professor at UC San Diego.

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

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gary.robbins@sduniontribune.com
Southern California Edison undermined its claim to billions of dollars in damages from manufacturers of the replacement steam generators that caused the San Onofre nuclear plant failure by delaying proposed repairs and then deciding to close the facility, according to an arbitration ruling.

Judges at the International Chamber of Commerce, the nongovernmental organization that arbitrates business disputes across the globe, also said Edison never proved fraud allegations against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the conglomerate hired more than a decade ago to design and build the giant new generators.

Claimants, by their actions, frustrated the fulfillment of the various contractual remedies available to them, following discovery of the causes of the incident, the ruling states. When the claimants decided to shut down the plant without pursuing the proposed Type 1 repair or a replacement option, they must be deemed to have elected, on their own, to forego the consideration for which they had bargained.

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The plant north of Oceanside closed amid a radiation leak in January 2012, and unusual tube wear from vibrations in the steam generators was found as the cause.

Edison, which owns almost 80 percent of the plant, sought almost $9 billion in damages from the Japanese manufacturer, according to the ruling. Among other claims, it alleged gross negligence, fraud, willful misconduct or other illegal or unlawful acts.

The arbitration panel did not agree. Its findings were announced in March but the voluminous record was not released publicly until late Wednesday.

The panel majority found that the failure of the steam generators was the result of an unprecedented phenomenon in the industry and that Mitsubishi followed industry design practice, Edison spokeswoman Maureen Brown said. The dissenting arbitrator found that Mitsubishi was at fault for the design errors based on information that was unbeknownst to Edison at the time.

After a confidential proceeding that lasted more than three years, the international arbitration panel awarded Edison $125 million in damages and ordered the utility to pay $58 million in legal fees racked up by Mitsubishi.

Edison argued in its arbitration filings that Mitsubishis offer to repair the steam generators was not feasible because it would take too long to fix. As such, utility lawyers asserted, the contractor should be held liable for all related damages.

An outage spanning at least seven years does not constitute a repair or replacement with dispatch, Edison argued in arbitration. No dispute exists on this point.

The final award from the International Chamber of Commerce was released under a special order from the California Public Utilities Commission, which has been investigating the San Onofre failure for almost five years.

Edison complied with the order Wednesday, filing a notice with the commission that it posted a redacted version of the document on its website. The award stretches over 1,100 pages.

It is not clear when or whether the unredacted document may be released publicly. Lawyers who have seen it say the redactions are not material to the judges findings; rather, they are specific computer codes, formulas and other data pertaining to the manufacturing process.

Many of the 1,100-plus pages contain extremely technical language from Edison and Mitsubishi and their paid consultants, aimed at boosting their respective cases before the panel.

They also include key information that sheds new light on basic aspects of the plant failure and its ongoing costs to ratepayers, who are being charged more than $3.3 billion in extra utility bills due to the plant failure.

For example, Edison disclosed that it spent $84 million on the arbitration claim, almost 45 percent more than the $58 million Mitsubishi expended. In addition to $44.5 million in attorney fees, the company hired 11 experts for $29.7 million, including $9.4 million for business and litigation consultant Keinrich Group. Those charges are passed on directly to utility customers.

In comparison, Mitsubishi spent $12.9 million on 20 experts to offer testimony in the case.

It appears that the only beneficiaries of the costly arbitration process were outside law firms and expert witnesses hired by Edison and Mitsubishi, said Mindy Spatt of The Utility Reform Network or TURN, a San Francisco consumer group that is a party to the commissions San Onofre investigation. Nothing in the arbitration decision changes our view that Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are fully responsible for the defective design of the steam generators.

SDG&E owns 20 percent of the broken power plant.

The arbitration record also shows Edison claimed $8.9 billion in damages as a result of the failure, a remarkable sum for a project originally estimated to cost a total of $680 million and a contract with Mitsubishi that specifically limited claims to $138 million.

Edison apparently sought $6.6 billion in damages, two-thirds of which was projected to be incurred between 2022 and 2042, when it was expected to be seeking a relicensing from federal regulators. That claim included a 40 percent markup for presumed taxes, the award states. The utility also requested $2.3 billion in decommissioning damages, over and above the $4 billion contributed by ratepayers into a special fund to pay for dismantling the plant once it was closed, the ruling noted.

Edison took unreasonable positions with Mitsubishi when it was discussing an outcome for failed power plant, the judges said. Specifically, the utility demanded that the manufacturer pick up all repair costs in full, according to the ruling. Edisons actions also prove it was not seriously interested in pursuing a repair plan that would have brought the nuclear plant back online.

Lastly, it was Edisons decision to shutter the plant for good, not the contractor, judges noted.

Once the plant was closed by Edison, Mitsubishi was precluded from installing any such replacement option, the arbitration panel wrote.

Edison claimed in the proceeding that Mitsubishi failed to pay its invoices in a timely manner and did not allow the utility access to all of the records it requested, the ruling shows.

According to Brown, the Edison spokeswoman, the panel majority also found that it would have taken an extended period to engineer the repair, obtain necessary regulatory approvals and implement the proposed repair, and that SCE acted reasonably in deciding to shut down the plant rather than continue to pursue the proposed repair.

Mitsubishi said its client deliberately put off making decisions that would have allowed repairs to proceed. It submitted a valid repair plan as early as July 2012, within six months of the breakdown, the ruling states.

A spokesman for the Japanese manufacturer declined to comment on the ruling or its allegations.

Others involved in the proceed pending before the state utilities commission said the judges findings did not bode well for Edison.

This decision represents an 1,115-page, point-by-point repudiation of SCEs blame-the-vendor excuses, said attorney John Geesman of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, which is a party to the commissions San Onofre case. When adjudicators find utility conduct unreasonable after such exhaustive review, it carries very serious consequences.

The steam generators were installed in 2010 and 2011 after a years-long planning and design process that included a spate of detailed meetings between Edison and Mitsubishi engineers. The project was supposed to add 40 years to the lifespan of the 2,200-megawatt plant.

Previously

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Americas Finest City is a hotbed for biomedical progress. So its no surprise that the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) will host its International Convention once again in San Diego on June 19.

Around 16,000 CEOs, scientists, venture capitalists and dealmakers of all stripes will descend on Southern California. BIO 2017 will provide a unique platform for life scientists to make connections and advance important, innovative ideas. As a regional host, the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) proudly welcomes the life sciences community to San Diego.

This is the second time BIO has come to San Diego in four years  and with good reason. Academic researchers at UC San Diego, Scripps, Salk and other institutions make important discoveries almost daily. Hundreds of small, entrepreneurial companies translate those insights into new medicines, devices and diagnostics. Sequencing giant Illumina has helped make San Diego the Genomics Capital of the World.

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This enterprise is both an intellectual and economic engine. According to the 2017 California Life Sciences Industry Report, in 2015, San Diegos life sciences companies employed nearly 40,000 people with average annual wages approaching $140,000. In 2016, the cluster attracted $1.1 billion in venture capital. On top of that, UC San Diego received $400 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), while The Scripps Research Institute received $211 million.

San Diegos success is being replicated throughout the state. California has more than 3,000 life sciences companies, which employ more than 287,000 people and generate $147.7 billion in annual revenue. California companies have more than 1,200 new drugs in the pipeline.

Whether from California, England or China, life sciences professionals attending BIO 2017 share a common goal: leveraging discovery to solve some of the worlds most difficult problems. They are developing disease- and drought-resistant crops to feed a hungry world and finding new ways to treat cancer, heart disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions, such as Alzheimers.

CLSA is working with companies, scientists, patient advocates and other organizations to hold our policymakers feet to the fire and protect this chain of discovery. Many links  all important  contribute to the success of life sciences in California, starting with education. California has one of the finest university systems in the world, producing more than 1,300 Ph.D.s in 2014.

The nation also needs to fund basic research. This requires patience  it might take 20 years for a discovery to reach the pharmacy  but it is incredibly necessary. There is not a single drug on the market that did not start in a basic scientists laboratory.

From there, we need to ensure a strong business environment that encourages entrepreneurs to take chances. Around 90 percent of therapies fail in clinical trials. We have to help our innovators take those risks.

The Food & Drug Administration performs a crucial task, ensuring therapies and diagnostics are safe and effective, but they cannot do the job without the necessary resources and support.

Finally, we must champion policies that ensure all patients have coverage and access to care. No one should ever have to choose between filling their prescription and paying the mortgage.

Policymakers, industry groups, patient advocates and many others must work together to preserve every link in this chain, and its our job to make sure they do. A strong research enterprise is incredibly important to Americans. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 87 percent of voters think cutting NIH research funding is a bad idea. I would wager that number is even higher in California.

San Diego will be a tremendous host for BIO 2017, as it was in 2014 and 2008. The convention will be a great reminder that the city, and California as a whole, has excelled at biomedical innovation. But we must also remember that these hard-won gains can be reversed. Its our job to preserve and grow the life sciences ecosystem  millions of lives depend on it.

Radcliffe is president & CEO of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), a California-based nonprofit public policy and business solutions organization representing Californias leading life sciences organizations dedicated to advancing public policies that foster and promote medical innovation. CLSA has offices in San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
With the surge of populism around the world, it is fair to ask: How will populism influence Mexicos 2018 elections?

Mexico is currently ruled by the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). The PRI has governed Mexico throughout most of its modern history, except for a 12-year period from 2000 to 2012 when the National Action Party (PAN) was in office.

Considering the depreciation of the Mexican peso this past year along with the corruption scandals both at the federal and state levels, Mexico may be fertile soil for a populist and demagogic candidate in its 2018 presidential elections.

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Additionally, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nietos approval ratings have sunk as low as 17 percent in recent months. This is attributed to several factors during his mandate including corruption scandals and the implementation of several structural reforms, such as tax changes which increased the income tax and imposed a 5 percent increase on value-added tax in the border states. It is fair to say that tax increases always generate a negative reaction with part of the population. However, this is worsened when economic benefits are not seen and corruption scandals leave people wondering where their taxes are going.

Moreover, Mexicans are greatly displeased with how President Pena has dealt with President Trump, which has added to his disapproval ratings. Last year during the U.S. presidential elections, President Pena extended an invitation to both candidates to visit Mexico. Mr. Trump accepted the invitation and was given an international platform during his candidacy in the very country he had been bullying during his entire campaign. After the visit that left many Mexicans with a sour taste, both President Pena and Mr. Trump took to Twitter to argue about who will pay for Trumps infamous wall. Many Mexicans remain concerned that President Pena has not taken a stronger stance against Mr. Trumps negative rhetoric against Mexico.

President Penas low approval ratings and corruption weariness were witnessed during the first months of 2017. A large number of marches were coordinated at a national level to protest an increase in gasoline prices, one of the consequences of energy reform. The increase in gasoline prices was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Several of these marches became routine and turned into an anti-corruption protest, with signs saying Fuera Pena (Leave Pena).

Mexico is no stranger to populist candidates, such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has been running for federal office since 2006. He proclaimed himself as Mexicos legitimate president after stating that the 2006 and 2012 elections were both rigged and the opposing parties were conspiring against him. Lopez Obrador has built his political movement by harshly criticizing the opposition, and at times resorting to demagogy.

Some may consider Lopez Obrador to be the main populist candidate in 2018, but that does not necessarily mean he will be the only one. In 2014, Mexico adopted a political reform measure that opens the door to independent candidates.

Prior to 2014, any person interested in running for office needed to run with a political party; however, this is now a thing of the past. This could pave the way for candidates who ride on populist discontent by challenging or taking over existing political establishments as was the case in the U.S. presidential elections that resulted in the election of Donald Trump, who criticized the ruling administration with demagogic tactics, similar to those that Lopez Obrador has resorted to in the past.

Considering President Pena Nietos current ratings and the global populist wave, it is likely Lopez Obrador will try to take advantage and surf the populist wave under an anti-corruption stance which may be appealing to the Mexican population. But with more than a year to go until the July 2018 elections in Mexico, will this wave still be peaking in Mexico? Or will the Mexican population be able to see the demagogy behind the candidate? The recent elections in the U.S. and France offer contrasting conclusions.

Escobedo, a native of Tijuana, is a masters student at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. She is an attorney and a member of the National Action Party (PAN). Tschirgi, a native of Turkey, is professor of practice, human security and peacebuilding at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies.
Before the Senate hearing with former FBI Director James Comey , there was speculation President Donald Trump might tweet thoughts about the testimony in real time. He isnt, but his son, Donald Trump Jr. is.

Comey was questioned before the the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence over the FBIs Russia investigation and his interactions with the president-elect in 2016 and the president in 2017. Trump  who fired Comey in May  has previously tweeted remarks about the former FBI director, including that he better hope there are no tapes of the conversations in question.

Many wondered whether the president would follow up during the hearing. But it was Trump Jr. who wound up live-tweeting the hearing, choosing to make some of his points about Comeys statements and retweet points from others who were defending the president throughout the testimony.

To start, Trump Jr. took issue with Comeys characterization of his much-discussed exchange with the president during which Trump allegedly told Comey about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn , I hope you can let this go.

He also made several remarks about Comeys testimony including making fun of him for saying if he were stronger he might have told the president it was inappropriate for him to talk about Flynn.

Trump Jr. then zeroed in on the ongoing frustration among many in Congress and the White House that information keeps being leaked to the press. He retweeted this tweet, adding, I wonder why that is???

Much of what he shared on Twitter keyed in on the statement that the president has not committed any crimes. Trump Jr. retweeted this point made by well-known attorney Alan Dershowitz, for example.

When Comey revealed that he coordinated with a good friend, a professor at Columbia Law School, to share the content of the memo with a reporter, Trump. Jr pounced.

He also generally live-tweeted the hearing, picking out questions from senators he felt were significant.

Many following along on Twitter rooted him on.

Others questioned his words and motive.

Check out Donald Trump Jr.s full timeline of tweets by clicking here: @donaldjtrumpjr.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin
Looking to straighten your teeth? Need some more intensive work done on your smile? Check out Sun Orthodontics at 16766 Bernardo Center Drive, Suite 216.

The Rancho Bernardo practice celebrated its 20th anniversary in May and hopes to continue helping people smile for another 20, said owner and founder Dr. Melanie Duong.

Duong said that Sun Orthodontics offers quality care for patients of all ages and extraordinary services in a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Were passionate about our patients, she said. We spend a lot of one-on-one time with our patients and their families to get to know them.

Duong said her practice treats all spectrums of orthodontic problems, from minor teeth crowding to more serious issues, and she collaborates with dentists from other fields in order to treat more complex cases.

Her practice offers traditional braces, Invisalign and an accelerated orthodontics treatment using new technologies to speed up teeth straightening.

Duong also credited her staff, many of whom have been with the practice for years, for its success. My staff has over 20 years combined clinical experience, she said. I hand-pick each staff member. Theyre experienced, warm and caring.

Making clients comfortable is important to Duong and her staff, and that includes helping her patients get reimbursed by insurance, filling out paperwork and anything else they can do to help make the process smoother.

Were flexible to get you in and out, she said. We stagger our hours so we can be open earlier or later on some days and we are open one Saturday a month. We go all out to make things easier for our patients.

Duong said that having been open 20 years, its not uncommon to have patients she treated as children come in now as adults with their own children. The fun part of the job is getting to know my clients over a long period of time, she said.

Duong immigrated to the United States in 1975 and was a research chemist dealing with radiation fallout in her first career. It was fun and exciting, but too dangerous dealing with radiation every day, she said. Instead, she decided to pursue a new career in dentistry and earned her Doctor of Dental Medicine degree at the University of Alabama.

She joined the Air Force and practiced dentistry for eight years, including being stationed in Germany.

Duong said she decided to specialize in orthodontics because she loves working with people, working with her hands, and science and technology. Orthodontics allows me to combine these, she said.

Sun Orthodontics is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays. It is closed Fridays and opens one Saturday a month by appointment only.

To make an appointment or find out more, call 858-675-9740 or visit sunorthodontics.com.

Email: news@pomeradonews.com
If San Diego Gas & Electric needs to build a new high-pressure gas line, it should not run down Pomerado Road, members of the City Council unanimously agreed late Tuesday night.

Upon the suggestion of Mayor Steve Vaus, the city will prepare and send to the California Public Utilities Commission a letter expressing the councils opposition to a proposed route that would bring the 36-inch line down from Rainbow, along Pomerado Road through Rancho Bernardo and Poway, and eventually to MCAS Miramar. According to the utility, the line would replace a smaller line, built nearly 70 years ago. A portion of that pipeline, called Line 1600, is buried in Rancho Bernardo and is about one mile away from Poway.

The CPUC is seeking public comments on what should be included in an environmental study for what is being called the Pipeline Safety and Reliability Project. The comment period deadline is Monday. Project details and a method to submit comments can be found at sandiegopipeline-psrp.com.

The Poway letter to the CPUC will support the need for safe natural gas pipelines and will urge that the pipeline-decision process be expedited, but will state the citys desire that it be built elsewhere, perhaps somewhere along Interstate 15.

Reading from a list prepared by city staff, Vaus on Tuesday night noted the six-mile portion of the Pomerado Road route in Poway would pass within 500 feet of 2,144 residences, 346 businesses, 14 schools, 10 churches, four parks and one fire station.

In a memo to the council placing the item on the agenda, Vaus said, While I dont question the need for a new pipeline to allow natural gas to be safely and reliably delivered, I do question the wisdom of the proposed pipelines route through Poway.

Resident Mary Vedborg, who waited over four hours to speak on the last item on the agenda, questioned the need for the pipeline and suggested that if its built along Pomerado Road, the city should plan for emergency evacuations.

Pomerado Road is the escape route, Councilman Barry Leonard noted.

Representing SDG&E at the meeting, Estela de Llanos stressed that safety is the primary concern of the utility, adding that nearly 100 of the utilitys employees live in Poway. She said an alternative to building a new line would be to pressure test the one built in 1949 and reduce its capacity. However, she said the alternative would be expensive.

In related developments, both the Rancho Bernardo Planning Board and Rancho Bernardo Community Council last week submitted long lists of concerns about the Pomerado Road route. The story can be found elsewhere on this website.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com
No love for Sacramento

I read Dick Lyles June 1 column and am very upset.

Everyone knows that our legislators in Sacramento are self-sacrificing, hard-working folks, skipping lunch and dinner, giving 25 hours a day to their constituents. How could you not be satisfied with the small tax increase that will repave all the streets and freeways  it is also rumored that there will be enough funds left over to build a bridge to Catalina.

And high-speed rail, just think of it. San Diego to San Francisco in less than two hours as the bullet train whips around curves and barrels through the tunnel that has been blasted right through the San Andreas Fault. OK, so the planners had to forgo the scenic route over mountain tops but hey, everyone has to give a little.

And dont forget free tuition to the states community colleges.

Now on the horizon, totally free health, dental and vision care that wont cost anybody a dime. Isnt that wonderful? Folks from all over the U.S. can come here as well as from anywhere in the world.

I think that Lyles should revisit his thinking and learn to appreciate what state lawmakers like Kevin de Leon, Josh Newman, Toni Atkins and Richard Lara are giving us citizens.

They sure have my vote and should have yours too.

Vic Asselin

Rancho Bernardo

A history lesson

I was truly amazed at the latest screed from columnist Dick Lyles. He said: Dont humans ever learn from history? I mused. Silly question I realized, because we dont teach history anymore. Its hard to learn from it if you dont teach it.

I am sure this statement is news to the hundreds of dedicated teachers in San Diego County who teach history every day.

If Lyles had taken just one moment to look at the California state standards, he would have seen that students take a California history class in elementary school. They take a class in ancient civilizations in the sixth grade, medieval world history and geography in the seventh grade, United States history and geography in the eighth grade.

In high school, students are required to take a course in European civilization in the 10th grade, 20th century United States history in the 11th grade and either American civics or an Advanced Placement government course as seniors.

So, once again, Lyles is demonstrating his ignorance and giving voice to his prejudices - not the real facts.

And one more thing. If we spent as much money per pupil each year as we do per prison inmate, chances are there would be a lot fewer inmates!

Silvio Pucci

Poway

California in trouble

California is living in its future. We pile up indebtedness like a drunk at a martini bar.

Your columnists, Dick Lyles and Harvey Levine, (June 1) have made a strong argument. Any state whose voters continue to elect Jerry Brown cant be grounded in reality.

Dave Wainwright

Rancho Bernardo

Letters must be signed and should be limited to 250 words. They can be composed online or can be emailed.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.com
The Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians pledged $300,000 to help build out the Emergency Department at Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, the hospital announced Thursday.

Funding for the Palomar Health Foundation will pay for new patient treatment rooms that include state-of-the-art medical beds, monitors, technology and lifesaving equipment, along with additional clinical support space, hospital officials said. The project will fill in a shell that was built for the new space during construction of the hospital roughly five years ago.

When considering how to make our donations meaningful to the North County, we wanted to make an investment that benefits as many people as possible, said Bo Mazzetti, Rincon chairman. A contribution to meet increased emergency capacity at Palomar Medical Center Escondido was an obvious solution because at some time almost everyone is likely to need emergency care either for themselves or for family.

Rincon members receive care at the hospital, he said.

According to Dr. Jaime Rivas, emergency services medical director at Palomar Health, the emergency department sees an average of about 300 patients per day, a number he expects to climb in the future. The emergency department has 52 beds, which will climb by 14 when the work is completed by the end of this year.

One of the many benefits from the increased capacity will be to allow the entire treatment team to better experience the joy of medicine, Rivas said. Happier doctors will translate to better care and overall satisfaction for patients.

The expansion will also reduce wait times, he said. When the department opened five years ago, hospital officials expected to serve about 60,000 patients annually. The actual number has been over 100,000.

As North Countys only trauma center, Palomar Medical Center treats victims of car accidents, heart attacks, strokes, snake bites, head injuries, and the like.

The Rincon contribution will be made over three years, with installments of $100,000 contributed annually, reported Palomar Health.
Having a teenager taking engineering and science classes at Ramona High School, with a goal of getting into a college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) program, has been incredibly exciting for our family. There is so much potential in the creation of new technologies that will provide jobs and make our world a better place for future generations.

Well, that was how we felt before the president pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. Now, the United States has joined countries like Syria and Nicaragua  who felt the accord didnt go far enough  as the rest of the world moves toward creating new industries and acts responsibly.

While China moves forward with new, renewable, clean technology development, the U.S. will focus on the dwindling coal mine industry. Renewable energy industries, such as solar and wind, are creating jobs nearly 12 times faster than the rest of the economy. In a study published by the Environmental Defense Funds Climate Corps, these programs have grown at rates of about 20% annually in recent years. Findings represent upwards toward 4.5 million jobs in the U.S., up from 3.4 million in 2011.

Jobs aside, does anyone remember what it was like to drive to L.A. in the late 1960s? Regulations and efforts towards a clean environment should be basic. Bad air was one thing, but climate change is not so easily fixed, especially when you hit a point of impact that is not undoable. When 97% of scientists agree that climate change is real, but the president called it a hoax, Im concerned. I wish I could trust the president when he speaks about this issue, but the facts dont support him.

Fortunately, I have faith in the younger generation. The 600 students who attend the Tesla STEM High School in Redmond, Wash., are part of a project to enforce the agreement. They call their group Schools Under 2C, a reference to the Paris Accords goal of capping global warming at 2 degrees Celsius. As stated by the groups president, Anne Lee, a 16-year old junior, We want to show that kids care about climate change.

Cities and states across the nation will continue to reduce carbon emissions and invest in renewable energy, regardless of the presidents decision. I only hope our District 50 representative, Duncan Hunter, and State Senator Joel Anderson can get to work expanding growth and jobs in renewable, clean energy technologies so that my children can be part of an exciting, growing industry.

Just take a drive around Ramona and see all those solar panels. The effects of being modern, forward thinking people has made this country great. We have a lot of potential right here in our hometown. Its up to us to protect the planet for future generations and accept that science might know a thing or two.

Susan Conrad, a Ramona resident, chairs Indivisible Ramona.
Two Rancho Bernardo groups concerned about a San Diego Gas & Electric pipeline proposed for the community are voicing what want included in the projects environmental impact report.

At a Rancho Bernardo Planning Board special meeting on May 31 and the regular June 1 Rancho Bernardo Community Council meeting, both groups approved nearly identical letters to the California Public Utilities Commission in response to a notice that the projects draft EIR is to be prepared.

Both detail the same concerns regarding safety, traffic, noise, vibration and environmental impacts for the proposed new line and test of an existing gas line.

Public comments are due by June 12 at sandiegopipeline-psrp.com. The website has details on the proposed project.

SDG&E wants to construct a 36-inch-diameter high pressure natural gas transmission line, dubbed Line 3602, from the Rainbow Metering Station in Rainbow, California, to a tie-in within MCAS Miramar. The proposed route includes portions of Rancho Bernardo and Poway, mostly along Pomerado Road.

The utility company also wants to de-rate, or lower the pressure, within Line 1600, which in 1949 was installed in Rancho Bernardo, before the community was built. Line 1600s route includes residential and commercial portions of RB.

Other impacted areas include trails in the Lake Hodges area and the Palomar Medical Center Poway (former Pomerado Hospital) vicinity.

According to the letters, the proposed projects description is lacking, per California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines, especially the projects underlying purpose.

Per the letters, It is unclear from the information presented in the NOP (Notice of Preparation) what the ultimate intensions of SDG&E and SoCalGas are with respect to the proposed pipeline. The first objective is to implement pipeline safety requirements for Line 1600. That can and should be accomplished whether the remainder of the project is implemented or not. The second objective addresses minimizing dependence on a single pipeline, yet the two pipelines would serve different purposes, one a high-pressure natural gas transmission line and the other a low-pressure distribution line. ... The third objective is to enhance operational flexibility by increasing system capacity.

The groups wrote that since a Sempra Energy official recently stated that, due to technology, the countys use of natural gas is projected to decline, they question the need for a new pipeline unless the utility companies have other objectives not yet revealed.

Regarding Line 3602, they want a more detailed project description, including project phases, length and duration of impacted roadways and trails, construction hours, equipment staging locations, road closures and assurances the construction areas will be returned to a condition equal to or better than their current status.

As for Line 1600, they want to know when in the process safety testing is to be conducted and if it will happen before the new proposed line crosses it in the vicinity of Pomerado Road and Bernardo Trails Drive. They also want to know about potential pipeline repairs, especially in neighborhoods.

Regarding other concerns they want included in the draft EIR:

 Traffic impact, especially when the four-lane Pomerado Road is temporarily reduced to two lanes due to the work. They want an analysis of resulting traffic congestion on adjacent surface streets and Interstate 15 at the Pomerado and Highland Valley roads interchange. Other concerns include mitigation since there will be impacts  especially during commute hours  on access to schools, the hospital, other medical facilities, community centers, religious facilities and commercial centers. The groups specifically requested measures to ensure safe access out of all neighborhoods and clear routes for emergency vehicles exiting Rancho Bernardo for Pomerado Hospital.

 Traffic congestion during emergency evacuation since Pomerado Road is the only way for residents of several communities east of Pomerado Road to leave their subdivision (in) case of an emergency order to evacuate (as happened during the 2007 wildfires).

 Increases in noise and vibration during construction.

 Potential impacts to existing underground utilities, especially Green Valley Creek since a disruption could result in temporary interruptions of flow within this storm drain. They want to know how nearby properties will be protected during its closure.

 Ways to maintain aesthetics around above ground components, like mainline valves and regulator stations.

 Recreation impact, including closure of the Mule Hill Trail and protection of existing interpretive areas along the affected trail segment.

 Impacts to sensitive habitats in the Lake Hodges watershed and protection of yet-undiscovered cultural and/or paleontological resources.

 Greenhouse gas emissions over the short- and long-term for both lines.

 Public safety regarding Line 1600 since it is in serious need of testing and is immediately adjacent to residential units ... throughout Rancho Bernardo. Also the plan for initial and future testing and maintenance of Line 3602 since it will be a high-pressure natural gas line within an existing roadway.

The groups also want alternatives evaluated, including no project, upgrading Line 1600 and not constructing Line 3602, and decommissioning Line 1600 instead of de-rating it.

Email: rbnews@pomeradonews.com
In a story May 8 about the use of sex slaves during World War II, The Associated Press reported erroneously that then-Prime Minister Yohei Kono issued a 1993 statement expressing remorse for suffering caused to sexual slaves of Japanese troops. Kono was Chief Cabinet Secretary at the time, not prime minister.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Japan pulls back on denials of WWII sex slavery

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Japan acknowledges past denial of proof of forced sex slavery was based on limited study

By MARI YAMAGUCHI

Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) - Japan has acknowledged that it conducted only a limited investigation before claiming there was no official evidence that its imperial troops coerced Asian women into sexual slavery before and during World War II.

A parliamentary statement signed Tuesday by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe acknowledged the government had a set of documents produced by a postwar international military tribunal containing testimony by Japanese soldiers about abducting Chinese women as military sex slaves. That evidence apparently was not included in Japans only investigation of the issue, in 1991-1993.

Tuesdays parliamentary statement also said documents showing forcible sex slavery may still exist. The statement did not say whether the government plans to consider the documents as evidence showing that troops had coerced women into sexual slavery.

Over the past two days, top officials of Abes conservative government have appeared to soften their stance on Japans past apologies to neighboring countries for wartime atrocities committed by the Imperial Army, saying Japan does not plan to revise them.

The backtracking appears intended to allay criticisms of Abes earlier vows to revise the apologies, including an acknowledgment of sexual slavery during the war, and calm tensions with neighbors South Korea and China. The U.S. government also has raised concerns about Abes nationalist agenda.

Abe has acknowledged so-called comfort women existed but denied they were coerced into prostitution, citing a lack of official evidence. He also has repeatedly vowed to reassess apologies by past Japanese administrations.

The parliamentary statement, released Tuesday and seen by the Associated Press on Wednesday, was in response to an official inquiry last month to the upper house of Parliament by opposition lawmaker Tomoko Kami, who said the governments investigation into sex slavery was insufficient and documents it claimed to have collected were incomplete.

Kami, of the Japan Communist Party, also asked whether the government had ever updated its archives to reflect more recent findings than the earlier investigation. The answer was no.

The statement acknowledged documents produced by the 1946-1948 International Military Tribunal for the Far East, held in Tokyo, but said they were not in the Cabinet Secretariats archives. It did not say when the documents were found or whether they are reflected in any official statements about sexual slavery.

Abe also has criticized the tribunals decisions as condemnation by the allied victors judgment, but has said hes in no position to object to the rulings Japan had already accepted.

The parliamentary statement described the 1993 findings as the result of an all-out and sincere investigation that brought closure. But it said the government is open to updates if new findings are valid.

Due to the nature of the issue, there is a possibility that previously unavailable documents may be discovered. In such a case, we are asking related ministries and offices to report to the Cabinet, it said.

The documents quote testimony from Japanese soldiers saying they recruited women by posting advertisements for factory workers and threatened them and used them as prostitutes for the bestial lust of the troops.

One army lieutenant testified that he helped set up a brothel for soldiers including himself, forcing five women in the city of Guilin in southern China to work as prostitutes for eight months.

Meanwhile, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday that Japan recognizes the harm it caused during its invasion and occupation of much of Asia, and that it has repeatedly and clearly stated that position.

The Abe government has expressed sincere condolences to all victims of the war, in and out of the country, and there is no change in that, Suga said in response to a question about a comment by South Korean President Park Geun-hye, published in The Washington Post this week, asserting that Japan should correct its view of its wartime history.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida echoed Sugas remarks.

The Japanese government has accepted the facts of history in a spirit of humility, expressed once again our feelings of deep remorse and our heartfelt apology, and expressed our feelings of profound mourning for all victims, both at home and abroad, he told reporters. And Prime Minister Abe shares the same view.

China and South Korea have reacted harshly to recent nationalistic events and remarks, including visits by several Japanese government ministers and nearly 170 lawmakers to Tokyos Yasukuni Shrine, which memorializes 2.3 million war dead, including 14 wartime leaders convicted of war crimes. Rancor over territorial disputes has further strained relations between Japan and its neighbors.

Only in the past two decades has Japan acknowledged some of its past brutalities, including medical atrocities and use of poison gas, as well as sexual slavery - a legacy that still haunts Tokyos relations with its neighbors.

Before he took office in December, Abe had advocated revising a 1993 statement by then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono expressing remorse for the suffering caused to the sexual slaves of Japanese troops.

---

Associated Press writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed to this report.
The openly gay police chief of a small South Carolina town has been suspended from her job for five days, but the town administrator said it has nothing to do with her sexual orientation.

Latta Town Administrator Jarett Taylor said he cant give the exact reason for Moores suspension because its a personnel matter.

But I can tell you, we dont care what sexuality you are. If you can work, well let you work, Taylor said.

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Taylor said Moore is welcome to release the reason for her suspension. Moore declined to talk about it with a reporter Tuesday and her lawyer did not return a phone message.

The towns investigation into Moore is finished and she is welcome back to the force next Tuesday unless some other information emerges, Taylor said.

Moore was fired two years ago, after nearly two decades working in Latta, because of her sexuality. Taylor, who also sits on the Town Council, was instrumental in helping get her job back. Taylor recorded Lattas mayor after he fired Moore saying he would rather have a drunk watch his grandchildren than a gay person.

The town of 1,400 people about 25 miles northeast of Florence rallied around Moore, stripping the mayor of his power. The Town Council then hired her back and passed an anti-discrimination ordinance.

Moore announced earlier this year that she was going to run for Dillon County sheriff as a petition candidate and has started to campaign during her off hours. The Associated Press ran a story about her decision Sunday.

Taylor said the media attention on Moore also had nothing to do with her suspension.
Valley Cottage, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/08/2017 -- Achiote powder is extracted from the seeds of ever green shrub Bixa Orellana, commonly known as annatto. Achiote is traditionally being used as spices, food color, and medicinal purpose and as commercial dye. Achiote is originated from Mexico and being used for decoration, rituals and in paintings since 16th century. It is traditionally being used as coloring and flavoring agent in Latin America.



In central and South America seeds were originally used to make red body painted and lipstick, and hence achiote is sometimes called as lipstick tree. Oil can also be extracted from achiote and used in different dishes for giving them nice color. Apart from seeds plant leaves have medicinal properties and also used in skin diseases treatment.



As looking at achiotes properties and important uses achiote powder global market demand is high.



Achiote PowderMarket Segmentation



Achiote powder market is segmented on the basis of its applications in different industries. In condiments or spices, as a dye in textile industries, as food colorant in bakery and other food products, in cosmetics and in Pharmaceutical industries. Achiote powder is traditionally being used and sold as spice in the South American market. As containing color pigments it is being used in textile industry as natural dying agent .Uses of achiote powder in cosmetic industry is quite popular as traditionally being used in lipsticks as well as in skin infections. It has been popular as medicine recently due to its therapeutic properties like antifungal, antimalarial laxative, antibiotic and many more, and its medicinal properties have derived its market demand.



Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1997



Achiote powder market is further segmented on the basis of its forms. Achiote powder is available in market in different forms as water soluble extracts, mainly used in the water based food items and water based products. Another form is oil soluble extract for oil soluble products and cosmetics. And dry spray form is also available in market.



Archiote powder market is later segmented on the basis of region asLatin America, North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Asia pacific excluding Japan and Japan. Where Peru from America and Kenya from Africa are the major exporter of achiote. Japan possess major import market for achiote powder as all synthetic coloring is banned in japan.



Achiote Powder Global Market Trends



Achiote powder possess significant demand in all the regions due to its therapeutic, food ingredient applications. Increasing emphasis on Ayurveda medicines, natural dyes, and natural food colorants is a major trending factor for achiote powder market.



Also banning of certain synthetic pigments/colorants by major players like Japan. And research and development in plant medicines sector is another market trend setter for achiote powder market due to its therapeutic properties.



Achiote Powder Market Drivers



Achiote powder is in high demand due to its applications in several industries. Principle factor driving market demand are continuous rising demand for natural colorants products due to rising regulations on uses of synthetic color agents in food and other materials by various governments. Also growing health consciousness in consumers and hence rising market demand for natural products based cosmetics and pharmaceutical products becoming another market driver for achiote powder.



In countries like Peru achiote powder uses and production is high as traditionally known for its medicinal properties. In Japan, Europe and North America markets achiote powder is highly sought due to high regulated uses of synthetic colorants. In Japan market the uses of synthetic colorants are banned and hence recent year's Japanese market has grown as another major exporter of achiote powder. In Europe Netherlands and UK are the major users of achiote powder as a colorant for hard cheese and uses in margarine. In North America U.S. market is the major exporter of achiote powder from Peru.



Visit For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1997



Achiote PowderMarket Key Players:



Achiote tree has been traditionally grown and marketed in Latin American countries, however Peru and Kenya are the major exporters of the achiote powder.Small volume producers and exporters market includes the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Colombia, Angola in Africa, and India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines in Asia.



Key players operating in achiote powder market include Brownana Gh Ltd.,MG Natura Peru SAC, Mama Sita's, Marven bio chem, Amerilure, Kolorjet Chemicals Pvt.Ltd., Denton Spice Company, SENSIENT Pharmaceuticals etc.
True change will come if we stop treating data as a techie bolt-on and reach marginalised groups, says Ana Brandusescu.

In the Philippines, ustadz  Islamic teachers  were struggling without enough resources to deliver quality education

Although funds were available from local governments, who were required to publish their budgets, they made little effort to share this data with citizens or explain how to use it.

When E-NET , a local NGO, began educating the ustadz on how to use this data, they discovered a Special Education Fund for public schools  a fund no one had told them about  that could cover school uniforms and teacher salaries.

On the heels of that success the teachers expanded their use of open data , creating a coalition, the North Cotabato Federation of Madrasa Community Ustadz, which now uses open data to make recommendations not only on budgets, but also on policy priorities for community education.

We often think about open data as being technical or part of a countrys digital transformation. But really, open data is about people, their problems, and giving them the power to solve them.

Unfortunately, this example of Filipino teachers unlocking government budgets using data is still very rare.



Why arent we seeing open data used to address inequality more often? Why isnt it resulting in greater participation from a wider spectrum of citizens?

Data is political



Data is power, and that makes it political.



We must move beyond data about and for citizens, and actively promote data with and by citizens, if we are to realise open datas potential to tackle rising inequality. Ana Brandusescu

When data is opened up to the public, citizens have the chance to reclaim their decision-making role. But this new power isnt being dispersed equally throughout society.



In the latest edition of the Open Data Barometer , which analyses trends on the global impact of open data, my organisation, the Web Foundation, found that governments have tended to prioritise unlocking datasets for economic growth and innovation  objectives that are politically easier than empowering marginalised groups.

This year, Barometer findings reveal that less data is available and open in areas relevant to social policies  that can help reduce inequality  than for innovation.

On average, Barometer findings show the availability of data on key public services is declining. This includes a significant change for the worse in health and education : out of the 115 countries surveyed, only seven per cent of datasets are open for health, and eight per cent for education.

No internet means no data access

The result is that governments miss an opportunity to improve inclusion and equality. Instead, they reinforce existing divides by ignoring the needs of groups with lower income and less political power. This means that these groups are yet again excluded from the consultation and decision-making processes that open data creates.

It also adds to existing disadvantage. These groups frequently lack internet connectivity and the skills to access open data. They may also be less visible in the data itself.

As the digital revolution steams ahead, we need to avoid widening the gap that already exists by further marginalising the already marginalised and empowering the already empowered.

Open data could play a key role here  that is, if we open up data in consultation with the groups that are not usually consulted, instead of defaulting immediately to entrepreneurs and government departments. We must stop treating open data as a techie bolt-on when it should really be a transformation in decision-making and citizen participation.

Consult the poor

For open data to improve social outcomes and equality, governments need to invest in four areas.

The first area is better data collection and design so there is greater disaggregation by sex, income level and age, as well as new indicators that account for diversity in society. For this to be done sensitively, marginalised groups should be consulted when deciding which data to collect  and for what purposes.

Second is access to data, including low-cost internet access so that low-income and other marginalised groups arent locked out at the front door. A good example is the City of Chicago's technology plan for developing open data, civic innovation and high-speed broadband for under-served neighbourhoods.

And finally, governments need to invest in responsible data policy . This is about practices that protect personal privacy and avoid unintended side effects, with governments becoming accountable for the impact of what data they collect and how.

Collection of more data about marginalised groups alone will not give these groups the power to act and increase their participation in policy making. We must move beyond data about and for citizens, and actively promote data with and by citizens, if we are to realise open datas potential to tackle rising inequality.
Moderate drinkers could experience cognitive decline compared to people who drink no alcohol at all, according to a new study. This study indicates that moderate drinking just like heavy drinking could have harmful effects on the overall well-being of an individual.

The study was printed in The BMJ. It was led by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University College London, according to CBC News.

The 1985 study was participated by 550 healthy British men and women on the average age of 43. The scientists have examined and analyzed their weekly alcohol intake for more than 30 years. None of them were alcohol dependent. They were also given brain function tests at regular intervals. They also underwent an MRI brain scan during the last three years of the study.

The scientists discovered that participants who drank more than 30 units a week on average had a greater risk, and those moderate drinkers were far more likely than abstainers to have a hippocampal atrophy, which is a form of brain damage that affects the memory and spatial navigation. They added that they also found no support for a protective effect of light consumption on brain structure.

The moderate drinkers drank between 14 and 21 units a week. A unit is about 10 milliliters (mL) of pure alcohol. The U.S. guidelines recommended 24.5 units of alcohol a week as safe for men. On the other hand, with this new study taking just 14 to 21 units a week could have an effect on the brain structure of an individual.

Killian Welch, a neuropsychiatrist from Royal Edinburgh Hospital, said that this new study underlined the argument that drinking habits many regard as normal have a harmful effect on health. He further said that they all use rationalizations to justify persistence with behaviors not in their long-term interest. He added that with these results, justification of moderate drinking regarding brain health becomes a little harder, as CBS News noted.
Currently, scientists are hunting for cool dwarf stars wherein exoplanets exist in habitable zones. The finding of these exoplanets like the TRAPPIST-1 and LHS 1140 systems shows that Earth-like alien worlds might surround billions of red dwarf stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Like the Earth's Sun, countless of these stars eject strong flares. However, are red dwarfs truly as friendly to life as they seem to be? Or, do red dwarfs' flares cause the uppermost layer of orbiting planets un-inhabitable?

To know more about the answers to these questions, NASA's GALEX (Galaxy Evolution Explorer) spacecraft observes the rapid increases in the brightness of stars because of flares. As it is, flares produce radiation across broad wavelengths with notable fraction of their total energy released in the UV (ultraviolet) bands where the spacecraft observed. Meanwhile, the red dwarfs from where flares come from are proportionately dim in UV.

According to Clarksville Online, the disparity allows a team of scientists to calculate events with less total energy than many other flares detected previously. It is of great significance because smaller flares could be much more often and add up over time to develop an un-inhabitable environment.

Scott Fleming of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore queried, "What if planets are constantly bathed by these smaller, but still significant, flares? There could be a cumulative effect."

Meanwhile, the first author of the study, Chase Million of Million Concepts in State College in Pennsylvania, noted that, "We have found dwarf star flares in the whole range that we expected GALEX to be sensitive to, from itty bitty baby flares that last a few seconds, to monster flares that make a star hundreds of times brighter for a few minutes."

The team has discovered dozens of flares while they search for several hundreds of red dwarf stars in the galaxy. The flares that the GALEX spacecraft uncovered are the same in strength to flares that the Earth's Sun produces.

NASA's GALEX is a space telescope that observes galaxies in UV light. It is launched on April 28, 2003, by a Pegasus rocket.
If you're the parent of a NYC public school student, you were probably frantic yesterday, trying to figure out what your kid would do today, because it's Anniversary Day (again). If you're not, then you probably enjoyed how the subway this morning was marginally less crowded.

Anniversary Day is a tradition dating back to the 19th century, when it was actually just "Brooklyn-Queens Day." The Queens Public Library explains: "Brooklyn-Queens Day originated as a Protestant holiday celebrated in the City of Brooklyn in 1829. Back then it was known, and fondly remembered by some, as Anniversary Day. Anniversary Day is celebrated annually on the first Thursday in June, commemorating the founding of the First Sunday School on Long Island. The first parade was held in Brooklyn June 1829. The New York State Legislature enacted, in 1959 at the request of the Queens Federation of Churches, the bill permitting the schools in both Kings and Queens Counties to be closed on this day. It was signed by Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller."



Children at the 1944 Brooklyn-Queens Day Parade (Library of Congress)

From 1959 through 2005, only schoolchildren in Brooklyn and Queens got the day off. The United Federation of Teachers negotiated to bring the holiday to all boroughs during their 2005 contract negotiations, making 2006 the first citywide Anniversary Day. That year, a teacher reminisced to the NY Times:

A few years back, a friend of mine, a roller coaster enthusiast, carefully planned a trip to Great Adventure. To avoid long lines and unchaperoned teenagers, he chose to visit the park while the schools were still in session in early June. He thought he had picked the perfect day, but upon arrival he saw long lines of unruly, popcorn-throwing schoolchildren. "You should have called me," I told him. "It was Brooklyn-Queens Day." "Brooklyn-Queens Day! What is that?" I spent my first teaching year in Brooklyn. When the great day came, I celebrated unquestioningly, even smugly. "Why are you off school?" I was asked. I just shrugged and said, "Brooklyn-Queens Day, of course. "

Staff is still working at schools today, as it's considered a "Development Day."

On Monday, June 12th, there is a "clerical day" for elementary and middle schools, meaning those students have the day off. June 23rd is Regents rating day, which means high school students have the day off. Then, on June 26th, all public school students have the day off for Eid al-Fitr.

June 28th is the last day of school. Brace for impact.
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NORTH Lincolnshire quiz queen Isabelle Heward is returning to Channel 4s Fifteen to One show tomorrow (Friday, June 9).

It comes after the Alkborough resident fought off stiff competition to be crowned the 2017 Mastermind champion earlier this year.

Isabelle, who has also appeared on quiz shows including The Chase, The Weakest Link and Brain Of Britain, will be returning to Fifteen to One after last appearing on it during 2014.

Fifteen contestants go head-to-head in the quiz, hosted by Sandi Toksvig, competing to be crowned the champion and take home 40,000.

Speaking ahead of the show, she said: I have already filmed for it. It was done back in February up in Glasgow.

They (the people at Fifteen to One) contacted me and asked if I wanted to go back on.

Isabelle said she also appeared on the show back in the 1980s.

She said in 2014, she was knocked out in the first two heats but made it through to the final in the third heat, where she was beaten by a fellow quiz enthusiast.

Isabelle said she was surprised to be asked back on the show.

It was quite good to have the experience. My main request was to have a chair this time!, she said.

Isabelle said she found the filming really enjoyable.

She said: You meet a big group of people. That is nice.

But there was a lot of hanging around on the day.

Isabelle recently made it through to the semi-finals of Radio 4s Brain of Britain.

A civic reception was held for her in Scunthorpe earlier this year after she won Mastermind.

The quiz queen said she will be taking part in Radio 4 music quiz Counterpoint in July and is then hoping to take a break for the rest of the year.

Isabelle will be watching Fridays show peeping behind the settee.

The show will be broadcast at 3pm.
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Scunthorpe residents have taken to the polling booths today (Thursday, June 8) to cast their votes in the General Election.

The Scunthorpe Telegraph went down to one of the town's polling stations to ask what the biggest concerns are for voters and what they would like to see changed in Scunthorpe.

Mandy Robinson said: "I want Brexit to go through and I am concerned about terrorism. I think the party I am voting for will come through on that."

Robert Salmon said: "I usually vote, it's wasted if you don't. I think Brexit is the deciding factor for me, I want it to go through.

"The steel industry is very important for the town."

Kevin Martin, of Kingsway, Scunthorpe, said that he is moving away from the town because he doesn't think the education system is good enough and that his main concern for the country is Islamic extremism.

"I have so many concerns," he said. "Immigration is a big issue. "You wake up on Sunday morning to read about the Muslim extremists and it's not going to get better.

"And from my point of view I think we should leave Europe. We have a successful economy and we don't need to be part of Brussels, which is leaching our money away.

"The European Union is an absolute joke. I have seen where the money goes and it is nowhere.

"I am moving away. I have had enough of Scunthorpe. I wish Scunthorpe the best but I am moving near Gainsborough.

"Schooling is the biggest issue. I have kids and I want to move to a better catchment area. There's not grammar schools here because it's a labour stronghold. The schools aren't that bad but they could achieve more.

"I spend time in Italy because my wife is from Italy. This place is nuts - there are too many people here. We are overpopulated and things are getting scary.

"I just want to move to a place that is safe for my wife and my children. A lot of people I speak to are thinking the same thing."

Anthony Besser and Claire Hodgkinson said that following the election they hoped improvements would be made to Scunthorpe town centre.

They said: "We need more shops in the town centre. It's rubbish. It's all coffee shops and pound shops and pawn brokers."

Mr Besser that his main concern overall is Brexit.

"I don't like the idea of having a second referendum," he said. "You can't throw your toys out the pram when it's the wrong vote."

An anonymous voter said that she was concerned about policing levels - especially following the recent London and Manchester terror attacks - and that the NHS needed to improve.

She said: "My elderly patients needed the NHS badly and they struggled to get appointments."
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Can you help police find these men?

Officers from Humberside Police have issued details of six men who are wanted in the North Lincolnshire area  and have appealed for your help in catching them.

The Scunthorpe Telegraph has again teamed up with the force to continue the Most Wanted series.

The people pictured today are wanted on suspicion of offences including theft, burglary and failing to appear at court.

Detective Chief Inspector Nicki Miller said: Today we are appealing for the publics help in locating six men who are wanted in the Scunthorpe area.

We hope that by releasing the names and images of these men we can identify them and bring them to justice.

I would also like to appeal directly to these men to hand themselves in.

This will give you the opportunity to speak to us about the offences that you are wanted for and avoid facing arrest in front of friends and family.

The men who police want to locate and speak to are:

Ricardas Statkevicius, 24, whose last known address is Dale Street, Scunthorpe and is wanted on suspicion of theft. He also failed to appear at court. Crime reference 2202534.

James Finlay, 34, whose last known address is Northholme Crescent, Scunthorpe and is wanted for failing to appear at court. Crime reference 2265090.

Sean Singh, 33, whose last known address is Overton Court, Barton upon Humber and is wanted for breach of bail.

Brett Casey, 26, whose last known address is Caistor Road, Barton upon Humber and is wanted for failing to attend at a drug intervention appointment.

Kyle Ferguson, 23, whose last known address is Salisbury Close, Scunthorpe and is wanted on suspicion of burglary. Crime reference 2266242.

Abdiwahid Aden, 31, whose last known address is unknown and is wanted for a breach of court order.

DCI Miller said: Id encourage the community to get behind us again and support us by calling in and reporting the whereabouts of these men.

The wanted people, or anyone who knows their whereabouts, are asked to call Humberside Police on 101 or alternatively report any information to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.
These include an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract for wellhead platforms, associated pipelines, and tie-ins for a project offshore Myanmar.

Sapura Offshore has been awarded a subcontract by main contractor Gunanusa Utama Fabricators for a job for PTTEP International on the Zawtika Development Project Phase IC.

The scope of work consists of EPCI of associated pipelines, transportation and installation of new offshore wellhead platforms, brownfield modifications of existing platforms and installation of telecommunications and control systems integrated to existing facilities to be executed in the Zawtika Field Development for Lot 1 and Lot 2 located in the Gulf of Moattama, approximately 290 km off the Myanmar Coast at an average water depth of approximately 120-160 meters. The subcontract works are expected to be completed in March 2018.

Sapura Offshore has also been awarded a contract to undertake the works for the upgrade and replacement of the Seria Crude Oil Terminal (SCOT) Oil Export System Offshore Single Point Mooring (SPM) by Brunei Shell Petroleum.

The contract scope of work consists of project management, engineering, procurement, fabrication, transportation and installation and hook-up/pre-commissioning of one of BSPs new Single Point Mooring-1 and the Pipe Line End Manifold-1 complete system as well as decommissioning of certain parts of existing infrastructure for the project. The duration of the overall works will be approximately 21 months with the offshore works planned to commence in April 2018.

Meanwhile in India, Sapura Offshore has been awarded a contract by Oil and Natural Gas Corp for transportation and installation (T&I) balance subsea works.

The contract scope of work comprises T&I balance subsea works for C26 Cluster Pipeline Project at C-24PI to TCPP segment and various relocation and removal works at several platforms. The offshore works are expected to be completed by the second quarter.

Finally, in Australia, Sapura's unit Normand Sapura has been awarded an inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM) services contract by PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier).

The contract is for the provision of IRM services including saturation diving and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) intervention works in Montara field. The work is expected to be completed by July.
Iran has been mooted as a possible alternative for Qatar vessels unable to call neighbouring countries and operating in trades such as containers.

Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran (PMO)s deputy managing director for port affairs Jalil Eslami said that Iranian ports are ready to receive Qatari vessels if they wish to go through Iran, the Tehran Times reported.

Iran welcomes the idea, if presented, because it is in line with the countrys economic interests, especially in ports and maritime industries, Eslami was quoted as saying.

As yet the Qataris were reported to have not made any request.
For the better part of a century, the Strand has gifted book-loving New Yorkers with a haven of sorts, boasting stacks upon stacks of used, rare, and new literary finds. This year, the Strand turns 90, as does its owner, Fred Bass, whose father opened the shop all the way back in 1927. To celebrate this beloved NYC institution's important milestone, we dug into some of its history.

Back around the turn of the century, as many as 48 used bookstores used to line then-Fourth Avenue between 9th and 14th Streets, earning the area the name "Book Row." Benjamin Bass, a Lithuanian immigrant raised in Hartford, came to New York when he was a teenager and, in his quest for self-education through literature, fell in love with Book Row. After working a number of odd jobs, like subway construction worker and messenger, at age 25 Bass combined about $300 of his own money with a loan from a friend and opened The Strand, then on Fourth Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets.



Book Row in the early 1900s (Courtesy Strand Bookstore)

"He loved used books. That's how this started," Leigh Altshuler, the Strand's director of marketing and communications, told Gothamist. Bass named his bookstore after a road in Central London, where literary legends like Charles Dickens, George Eliot and William-Makepeace Thackeray lived.



The Strand in 1938 (Courtesy Strand Bookstore)

The Strand became popular with the Greenwich Village literary crowd rather quickly, thanks in no small part to its rapid expansion, and eventually the elder Bass managed to build a network of contacts that helped him acquire rare and cheap books from private libraries and estates. The Strand also had a little help getting through tough financial timesBass's son, Fred Bass, began working in the shop at age 13, and he told the Times that during the Great Depression, the Fourth Avenue building's landlord, an heir of Peter Stuyvesant's, let the store stay rent free for a few years until Bass could repay the debt when the economy improved.

Later, the Stuyvesants helped cripple Book Row by doubling rents in the area, but because of their solid business relationship with Bass, they let his rent remain the same. Eventually, the Strand ended up being the lone remnant of the now-dissipated Book Row.

In 1957, Fred Bass spearheaded the store's move to its current space on the corner of 12th Street and Broadway, and over time the Strand expanded to the building's basement, 2nd and 3rd floors. Benjamin Bass died in 1978, and Fred's daughter Nancy has since joined the family business, operating alongside her father as the store's part owner.

Now the shop boasts an advertised "18 miles" of new, used and rare books, many of which Fred Bass himself has procured through private estates and overseas sales. "Part of my job is going out to look at estates  its a treasure hunt," Bass told NY Mag in 2014, describing New York as "an incredible source  a highly educated group of people in a concentrated area, with universities and Wall Street wealth. The libraries are here."



Fred and Nancy Bass outside The Strand in the 2000s (Courtesy Strand Bookstore)

Fred Bass still works behind the buying desk four days a week. Nancy (who is married to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden) has prompted some of the store's more modern initiatives, including the Strand's famed tote bag and lit-related tchotke collection, helping the store survive in an Amazon-drenched 21st century by luring tourists in with Michelle Obama tote bags and stuffed Sherlock Holmes dolls. And the Strand's hefty supply of new books is helpfully bolstered by recommendations from employees, plus it turns out those yellow tags advertising cheaper prices are the staff's way of promoting lesser-known titles that deserve more attention.

And of course, there's the Strand's rare book collection. The most expensive book purchased from the Rare Book Room (which, FYI, is a great and very quiet place to post up and read) was a second folio of Shakespeare's works, which went for $100,000. The rarest book is a first edition copy of Ulysses, which is autographed by James Joyce and illustrated by Henri Matisse that goes for $40,000, if you've got some spare cash.

Other extraordinary offerings include an 8-volume set of F. Scott Fitzgerald works and a Kurt Vonnegut-inscribed copy of Breakfast of Champions, to name a few. "People will bring us stuff they don't know how rare," Altshuler told us. And some of the fun comes from surprises found inside the books themselves. "We'll find notes, love notes. It's interesting to see where the books come from. It's really special to see not just the story you're reading in the book, but also [the story of] the book itself."



Courtesy Strand Bookstore

Beyond the book collection, the Strand is also known for bringing authors and readers together through readings, Q&As, and other programming. It's got an outpost in Club Monaco on Fifth Avenue and a kiosk in Bryant Park. Movies and television shows (including a recent episode of Master of None) have been shot here, and they've even got an entire "Books by the Foot" program where they rent out books to television and film productions.

And it's such a cultural institution at this point that it's even served as a breeding grounds of sorts for young writers. Author Mary Gaitskill worked as a clerk at the Strand back in the day, and Patti Smith, who worked in the basement there in the 1970s, famously claimed in an interview that she didn't like it because "it wasn't very friendly," though she did enjoy being able to read books on the job.

Speaking of Strand employees, it's noteworthy that the store's staff has been unionized with UAW since the 1970s, and that has caused some conflict with management over the years. A Hyperallergic article from 2014 called the Strand "New York's beloved, independent, union-busting bookstore" and documented one Strand worker's recollection of contract negotiations in 2012. The employee, Greg Farrell, accused Fred and Nancy Bass of trying to propose "long-term disadvantages to the workers" like decreased personal days and benefits and a two-tiered employee system that would ultimately weaken the union.

Eventually, after threat of a strike, both parties came to a compromise and workers eventually voted on a contract, though Farrell claimed the store pushed out "older, more highly paid, unionized workers" and replaced them with younger and cheaper labor in the process. Fred Bass addressed some of the union issues in the aforementioned interview with NY Mag. "The union demands something up here and were down here  Theres always going to be conflict," he said.



Books by the Foot (Courtesy Strand Bookstore)

As for the Strand's longevity, the Basses had the foresight to purchase the store's building back in 1996, so, at the very least, there's no bloodsucking landlord threatening to price out the whole operation to make room for a four-story Duane Reade. The real danger, though, is what happens if the Basses decide they're done with the bookselling business, as was the case with Cobble Hill's dearly-departed BookCourt, which shuttered last year after 35 years in operation.

For now, though, the Strand still stands, and its fame has spread far and wide. Just recently, Altshuler says she saw a photo on social media of someone carrying a Strand bag in Egypt. "It was so incredible," she said. "We see things all the time across social. We see things everywhere. it's really nice to see people care so much."


Hundreds of people walked along Nine Mile Road and Allen Street last Saturday afternoon in downtown Ferndale, with bursts of rainbow colors popping weaving through the crowd in the form of shirts, flags, necklaces, and other accessories.

Organized in 2011, Ferndale Pride kicks off the month of June, which also happens to be Pride Month, with its annual festival. According to the event website, more than 15,000 people attend yearly for the street fair and events leading up to the festival. In addition to the street fair, other activities include a 5k Rainbow Run, a DJ dance stage, an arts and crafts bazaar, and a tobacco cessation area for those who want to quit smoking.

Several businesses and organizations have tables set up along the fair route, one of them being the Michigan chapter of Pride at Work. The national nonprofit protects workers rights for the LGBTQ community, as well as promote equality and inclusion in the workplace. Will Daniels, an organizer for Pride at Work, said he wanted to be a part of the festival to inform attendees about the organization. He has been working for Pride at Work for almost two years and was one of the people to help bring the organization out of hiatus in 2015. The chapter meets on the third Thursday of every month at the Affirmations community center in Ferndale.

Theres a lot of folks who work service worker jobs who have never worked with the union before, Daniels says. We want to make sure people are being treated fairly at work and that they dont face discrimination, and we also want to outreach to folks who may have never heard of us before, and those who want to get involved with labor activism.

A few tables down sits Andrea Davis, an instructor at Bikram Yoga in Ferndale. The fitness studio chain offers hot yoga, a 90-minute class where members do a series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises in a room heated to 105 degrees. This is the first time Bikram Yoga is participating in the event, as the Ferndale location opened in March. Davis says the studio wanted to show its support because we love being a part of the Ferndale community.

Nine Mile is the busiest area of Ferndale Pride, as the small stretch of road is filled with people, vendors, food trucks, a stage and dance area, and additional tables. Alone at a table filled with booklets and two rainbow flags hanging in the back is Hayley Witzke, a board member of the Detroit chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The organization provides support groups for LGBTQ families. Witzke has been working with PFLAG for two years, often making appearances at Pride events to inform attendees. She describes Ferndale Pride as a safe place for our community; it's a day of love, openness.

Also making an appearance at the festival was Beaumont Health. Covering the table was a tablecloth in the companys trademark blue and white colors, as well as pamphlets and a bowl of granola bars. The organization has participated in Ferndale Pride for the past five years, said Cheryl Webster, the director of hospitality at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. This year, the company wanted to inform others on advance health care directives, a document that specifies healthcare actions a person wishes to take when they can no longer do so themselves.

Its important to be a part of our community, said Webster. Beaumont is a very diverse organization, and were very proud of all the different people that are a part of our team. And we want to reach out to our community when it comes to health care services.

Attendees were also enjoying the day, as Allen Yaldo walked down Nine Mile with his two friends. The Chicago resident made a trip to Michigan for a wedding, and his friends persuaded him to stay an extra day to visit the festival. Yaldo said he likes that Ferndale Pride isnt as crowded as the festivals in Chicago, and that the police department is a major participant in the event.

I come from a city where we have a big problem with the police, said Yaldo. And in Chicago, the situation between the civilian and the police; there isnt that connection. And just seeing the police here participating and making a connection with the community is beautiful.

Yaldo said being at Ferndale Pride is a way where he can express himself freely and be comfortable. The 27-year-old is gay, and has been out of the closet for seven years. Coming from an Iraqi family, he was scared that his parents would have a negative reaction to his coming out. Surprising Yaldo, his parents fully supported him.
For three decades, people have lined Kalamazoos streets for the annual New Years Fest , a performing arts festival that this past year drew thousands of people downtown to usher in another turn around the sun with dozens of artists, hours of live music, food trucks, fireworks, and, of course, the ball drop.Its one of the most well-known New Years celebrations in the state, with the event pulling people from throughout the region and even inspiring Michiganders from the east side of the Mitten to make the trek to Kalamazoo for the end-of-the-year festivities.Such an occasion isnt cheap, however, and New Years Fest, which itself is a nonprofit , routinely loses money, in part because the organizers want to keep it affordable (tickets are $5 per person) and aim to have the festival be more about placemaking and community-building than about earning dough. Deborah Droppers, who organizes the event, has even shelled out thousands of dollars of her own money to keep the festival running.None of this information, however, makes its way into Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuettes recent report on professional fundraisers. Instead, it notes in one line of the report that the group soliciting money for New Years Fest lost thousands of dollars. In April, Schuette released his fifth annual Professional Fundraising Charitable Solicitation Report, which aims to identify the total amount of money raised by professional fundraisers working to land financial contributions on behalf of charities in Michigan. In the reports one-page introduction , Schuettes office explains that the report is designed not only to help donors make wise decisions with their money but also to encourage charities to enter appropriate fundraising contracts.However, the attorney generals publication has drawn ire from some nonprofit leaders and fundraising professionals in Southwest Michigan, as well as throughout the state, who are calling it a confusing, incomplete and misguided document that unnecessarily casts a shadow over nonprofit fundraising.And the way the document presents Kalamazoos New Years Fest is emblematic of a number of problems individuals see in the report.In the publication, Schuettes office says that Kalamazoo Experiential Learning Center , a nonprofit for which Droppers serves as the executive director, raised $98,955 for New Years Fest but had $112,754 in expenses, which means a loss of $13,799. These are figures that Droppers understands dont look good on paper but explains exist in order for a community to continue to have the end-of-the-year festival.New Years Fest has never made money, Droppers says. But heres the choice: Do we not do New Years Fest? Its an amazing event thats affordable. Its my pledge and my promise that New Years Fest goes on. Somebody has to pay for that, and that somebody is me.But, this information about the festival is not presented in the attorney generals document. Instead, the event exists solely as negative numbers in a report which is led with an introduction that says in 2016, 61 percent of funds raised by professional fundraisers reporting in Michigan went to fundraisers. For context, the Better Business Bureaus fundraising standard says that fundraising spending should not exceed 35 percent.When assessing the report with no outside context, the fact that the Kalamazoo Experiential Learning Center lost money for New Years Fest could seem worrisome. Except the event is not a fundraiser. And the nonprofit overseeing the festival isnt losing money because a professional fundraiser is pocketing too much. Instead, that individualDroppersis spending thousands of dollars of her own money to keep it going.Plus, Droppers wonders, why is the attorney general including an event thats not meant to be a fundraiser in a report about fundraising at all? Thats certainly not the only question she and others have. Droppers and other leaders from such area organizations as the Kalamazoo Community Foundation, Grand Valley State University, the Association of Fundraising Professionals West Michigan chapter, and ONEplace say if Schuettes office intends to continue to publish annual reports like this, will he change the way he accesses and presents the data in order to give a more complete picture of fundraising efforts? If Schuette wants to include all funds raised by individuals his office identifies as professional fundraisers, would he, for example, allow someone like Droppers to specify that New Years Fest is not intended to be a fundraising event?Schuettes office did not respond to requests for comment for this article.There are unethical fundraising efforts -- we call them scams, Droppers says. They trick people into donating and then they misappropriate funds and get rich off the donations. These organizations are not nonprofits and they certainly give those of us working in the trenches a really bad reputation. They need to be stopped and monitored. All fundraising needs to be monitored.But, for those of us losing money and working long hours, its simply unfair to categorize us as fundraisers who take money, and leave the charity at a loss, continues Droppers. In my business and for my clients, unfortunately, I am the one who is at a loss. I lost $10,000 when I hosted Taste of Portage. I made sure that the nonprofit lost less than I did on the event, and I took the hit. Theres no box on the report for that donation back to the nonprofit. This is why there is a flaw in the reporting.Professional fundraisers, who, like Droppers, are often involved in nonprofits themselves, are working so hard to change our communities, to create vibrancy and economic investment, she says. Were doing all of this because we believe in the community we work and live in.In his report, the attorney general notes that, under Michigan law, a professional fundraiser is defined as a person or organization that solicits contributions on behalf of a charity in exchange for compensation. If a charity hires its own telemarketers or has other fundraising staff in-house, they are not considered fundraisers. The report goes on to issue some pretty scathing words about professional fundraisers.While hiring professional fundraisers and fundraising counsel may benefit certain charities, some professional fundraisers leave little of the donations for the intended charity, with some telemarketers pocketing 85 to 90 percent of the donated funds.It is these kinds of statements that nonprofit and fundraising leaders have called downright offensive and misleadingas well as vague.In some ways, the report is unclear, says Catherine Rogg, the incoming president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals West Michigan chapter , which represents 245 members, ranging from college students to seasoned professionals, across the western half of the Lower Peninsula. The definition of a professional fundraiser by the state of Michigan requires an intimate understanding of nonprofit management and is still left to interpretation.For example, Rogg explains that she is a professional fundraiser, but because she works as a development director for a nonprofit, she is not considered a professional fundraiser for the purposes of the attorney generals report.When asked what I do, I start with, I am a professional fundraiser who serves as Development Director for Paws With A Cause , she says, referring to the Wayland, Michigan-based nonprofit. I am a staff member of PAWS, so I am not a professional fundraiser as referenced in this report; however, this report implies by its definition that all fundraising professionals fall into this category, which sheds a poor light on nonprofits in our region and throughout the state.Echoing Droppers sentiments, Rogg notes that if the attorney general aims to inform the public about professional fundraisers, it needs to include the nuances, circumstances, and roles that professional fundraisers have servedas well as better explain how professional fundraisers are paid.It implies that all professional fundraisers are paid with a percentage of funds raised, Rogg says. The (Association of Fundraising Professionals) Code of Ethical Principles does not allow for fundraisers to be compensated as a percentage of funds raised. There are times when other revenue streams at nonprofits pay for fundraising expertise and services, and 100 percent of funds raised go to the program or project for which they were raised.There are 1,325 nonprofits in the city of Kalamazoo and 326 in the city of Portage, according to Guidestar, a national organization that reports on nonprofits. These organizations do everything from help provide food and shelter for those who are homeless to run major community events like food truck rallies and holiday parades. In order to do what they do, its inevitable that they must fundraisewhich means its crucial, organization leaders say, for the public to have faith that fundraisers working on behalf of nonprofits arent pocketing a good chunk of the money they land, as the attorney generals report insinuates.Unfortunately, theres a gap between what our economy can sustain and what our government can provide and what the real needs are, says Joanna Dales, the vice president of donor relations at the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. We have seen a decline in mental health services, and while were in a better position now than five years ago there are still people who are underemployed. Theres a lot of people who are working, but they cant support a family on the salary they have. A nonprofit community provides a really important piece for those families who are working and trying to do right by their families but cant make ends meet.To help them make these ends meet, nonprofits turn to southwest Michigans large and active community of donors and philanthropists. In 2012, the most recent year for which information is available through the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, donors gave $383.4 million in Kalamazoo County -- the bulk of which, 69.6 percent, came from individuals.To reach these donors, nonprofits lead multi-layered approaches to fundraising: telephone calls, gala events, special tours, annual appeals, and a whole lot more. Many nonprofits will use in-house staff and volunteers to do much of their fundraising, using outside firms or individuals to conduct a small portion of their fundraising efforts -- such as soliciting new donors over the telephone. And therein lies another major issue with a report that nonprofit and fundraising executives say has the possibility to deter donors from supporting nonprofits.If (a nonprofit) chooses to use a telemarketing or direct mail firm, thats not their whole fundraising picture, Dales says. Just like in business, the cost to acquire a new client, or, in this case, a new donor, is more expensive than maintaining a current donor base.In other words: professional fundraisers are often financially courting the individuals who take the most amount of time to become potential donors, which translates to, at immediate glance, an expensive campaign with little financial gain. However, as individuals like Dales and Thom Andrews, the director of ONEplace@kpl , an organization that offers resources and services to nonprofit staff, boards, and volunteers in Kalamazoo County, explain, once that first-time donor is landed, they often become a recurring supporter of the organization, allowing an organization to spend fewer resources soliciting funds from them in the future.Still, in a report like the attorney generals, all of this translates to information that sheds a dark light on professional fundraisers, who end up looking like theyre squirreling away massive amounts of money that should be going to the nonprofit. Instead, Andrews explains that fundraisers arent being greedy; rather, they are conducting the fundraising efforts that typically results in a low amount of funds, at first. Barbara Hohman, the outgoing president of the Association of Fundraising Professionals West Michigan chapter, also notes that fundraisers, if they are following the AFPs code of ethics, would never work for a percentage of what they raised.To take a job for a percentage of the money they raised, thats completely unethical, Hohman says. ... Sometimes, an inexperienced individual might accidentally get talked into doing something like that. As an organization of fundraising professionals, were here to say, Thats not the way to fundraise.Like others, Hohman says the attorney generals report was insulting.Our donors are good people who are trying to make a difference in this world, she says. It was almost like the attorney general was saying 60 percent of people approaching you are doing something wrong, and I do not believe that.The donors in the community in West Michigan have made this community a wonderful place to be, she continues. Theyre truly good-hearted people, and the world of fundraising values their good hearts. I believe ethical fundraisers are doing their very best for donors in our community.Michelle Wooddell, an assistant professor at Grand Valley State University and program coordinator for masters of philanthropy and nonprofit leadership at GVSU, stresses that the information in Schuettes report is incomplete.Its looking at one slice of an organizations fundraising effort, and we know that successful organizations use multiple levels of fundraising to reach their donors, Wooddell says. This is one piece of the puzzle, but you need to find the other pieces of the puzzle before you make an indictment of a nonprofit or a decision to give.The professor goes on to note that, nationally, the nonprofit sector is the sixth largest sector of the economy.You dont realize how many nonprofits you come into contact with on a daily basis -- most hospitals are nonprofits, universities are nonprofits, she says. What that means is we should want our nonprofits to be as strong as they can be, and they have to have the revenue to do their jobs and their mission.There are numerous ways nonprofits use professional fundraisers throughout southwest Michigan, and Dales points to the important role a professional fundraiser played in a 2009 Lifeline Campaign launched by the Kalamazoo Community Foundation and United Way.At that time, the economy was still reeling from the worst financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression. There was a huge increase in the demand for basic needs in southwest Michigan: unemployment was rising and the number of people turning to homeless shelters and food pantries skyrocketed. Nonprofits too were facing barriers to providing for the jump in people who needed their services, in part because donors were having to tighten their purse strings. In light of this, the Kalamazoo Community Foundation and United Way used an outside fundraiser, for which they paid $35,000 and raised more than $4 million.That was money really well spent, Dales says. It was a small investment that translated into four million more dollars in the community.In turn, that money helped the two organizations agency partners meet an increased demand in services, from being able to better support food pantries to connecting those who were unemployed to healthcare. For example, the campaign led to the Kalamazoo Drop-In Child Care Center receiving support to fund child care so parents could go to job interviews and medical visits.While nonprofit leaders and professional fundraisers have plenty of criticism regarding the attorney generals report, they also stress its crucial that nonprofits be able to access information about, and trust, an individual theyd looking to hire as a professional fundraiser. While Schuettes document isnt the place to go for that, they say, there are other resources.One of the first ways to assess if a professional fundraiser is ethical is to see if they are members of (the Association of Fundraising Professionals), Rogg says. This will ensure that they have signed, and abide by, the Code of Ethical Principles established by  members of the Association of Fundraising Professionals.Additionally, Rogg notes that its important for nonprofits to speak to references of the professional fundraisers to ensure that they were ethical and followed best practices in their work, as well as were successful in achieving the goals that the organization laid out for them.As for individuals who may be concerned after reading the attorney generals report? Look at organizations like Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureaus give.org , which will give a more complete picture of how the charity youre interested in donating to is faring, Hohman and Andrews say.If someones going to make a donation, research the organization and make sure that its an organization that aligns with their thoughts, both in its mission and the way its run, Hohman says.
Press Release

June 8, 2017 Defense Sec. Lorenzana: Rumors linking Sen. Bam to Marawi incident 'too absurd to be believed' Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana described rumors linking Sen. Bam Aquino to the Marawi incident as "too absurd to be believed". In his exchange of text messages with the senator, Lorenzana assured Sen. Bam that he "never gave credence to rumors about the lawmaker's presence in Marawi" days before the skirmish between the government troops and members of the Maute group, as they were "too absurd to be believed". Lorenzana also thanked the senator for his support for the Defense Department and their efforts to maintain peace and order in the country. In a radio interview, Sen. Bam said Lorenzana also absolved him and other members of the opposition regarding the Marawi incident during a closed-door briefing on Martial Law. "During the briefing, tinanong ko si Sec. Lorenzana tungkol sa mga fake news na kumakalat pero natawa lang siya at nagsabing walang katotohanan ang mga ito," said Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam sought Lorenzana's clarification following Justice Sec. Vitaliano Aguirre's accusation that he and other lawmakers met with prominent families in Marawi City on May 2, three weeks before the incident. On that date, Sen. Bam was the commencement speaker of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) at the PICC in Pasay City. In the afternoon, he attended the Senate session. It was on May 19 that Sen. Bam attended the inauguration of the first Negosyo Center in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in Marawi City together with Vice Gov. Bombit Adiong, B/Gen. Rolando Joselito Bautista and Gen. Nixon Fortes. "Trade Sec. Mon Lopez has already publicly clarified and confirmed that I was in Marawi City for the Negosyo Center launch. These are easily verifiable for anyone who cares to find the truth," said Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam maintained that it would be prudent for Aguirre, as Justice Secretary, to clarify dates, seek evidence and request for official statements from legitimate government agencies before he makes yet another false accusation. "This tragedy could have been an opportunity to unite the Philippines against a common enemy. Instead, it's being used to further political interests and further divide our country," he said.
Press Release

June 8, 2017 Gatchalian Calls for All-Out Relief Ops for Marawi Evacuees Senator Win Gatchalian on Thursday called on the national government to intensify relief operations at evacuation centers near Marawi City as more than 200,000 Filipinos have been displaced by the ongoing battle between government forces and the Maute terrorist group. Gatchalian, who traveled within just three kilometers of the Marawi City limits last Monday to distribute relief assistance and to dialogue with local leaders, stressed that the protracted conflict could result in a serious humanitarian crisis without strong intervention from the national government. "It was heartbreaking to see how much innocent civilians are suffering because of the conflict. At this point, hygiene and sanitation have already become major problems in the evacuation centers. The government must move quickly to deliver comfort and aid to our countrymen, who have been forced from their homes and stripped of their livelihood because of the ongoing conflict," said Gatchalian. According to Gatchalian, local government units in the area have taken the lead so far in mobilizing relief operations for internally displaced persons (IDPs). However, these are small LGUs with limited resources that may run out soon. "I am calling on the Department of Social Welfare and Development to take the lead in mobilizing as many resources as we can to conduct an all-out humanitarian relief campaign. The people of Marawi have already lost so much from this terrible conflict. They deserve our complete and unwavering support at this crucial moment," Gatchalian said. Gatchalian, who served Valenzuela City for fifteen years as mayor and congressman of its first district, joined city officials in distributing PHP 3 million worth of relief assistance donated to Marawi evacuees by the Valenzuela City Government. The relief goods were distributed at evacuation centers in the towns of Balo-I and Saguiaran, the latter a mere five-minute drive away from Marawi City. The senator also visited the Iligan Command Center, Marawi Operation Center and Taraka Operation Center in Iligan City to discuss the situation on the ground with police and local government officials, including Mayor Majul Gandamra of Marawi City and Mayor Celso Regencia of Iligan City.
Press Release

June 8, 2017 Villanueva to DOLE over Qatar rift: Prepare for the worst case scenario Senator Joel Villanuva has urged the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to prepare for the "worst case scenario" in line with the recent diplomatic crisis in the Arab Gulf. Recently, four Arab countries namely Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates severed their diplomatic ties with Qatar over allegations that it supports extremist groups. The DOLE consequently ordered the suspension of deployment of workers to Qatar amid crisis in the said Middle East country. "We urge the DOLE to prepare its contingency plan for our workers who will be affected by the deployment ban. In the same way, we advise the Labor Department to be ready as well for the worst case scenario should there be a need to repatriate our OFWs from Qatar," Villanueva said. Qatar is the fourth top destination of OFWs. Currently, it is populated by more than 200,000 Filipino migrant workers. "We also urge the DFA, POEA, and OWWA to ensure that the safety of the Filipinos abroad will be their utmost priority as diplomatic crisis persists in the Arab Gulf," the senator said. Villanueva added that it would be best for our embassy in Qatar to maintain an open line of communication with our overseas workers and their employers to address their concerns in the area. "In light of the recent events, we advise our OFWs in Qatar and other affected countries not to panic and be vigilant in the face of the ongoing acts of terrorism in several parts of the world. Nothing is more powerful than our collective prayer to bring forth renewed peace and order and finally put an end to these senseless acts of violence," Villanueva said.
Federal investigators said Wednesday that theyre seeking a suspect in last months fire that gutted a big residential and business complex under construction in Emeryville, the second suspicious blaze to hit the site in less than a year.

The May 13 fire all but burned down the $35 million development known as the Intersection near Interstate 580 and the Oakland border. Since then, agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been inspecting the twisted remains of metal on the 3800 block of San Pablo Avenue in an effort to determine the cause.

The projects developer has said the inferno must have been the work of an arsonist. The ATF has not elaborated on its findings, but the agencys statement that it is looking for a suspect suggests it does not believe the fire was an accident.

A news conference is planned for Thursday afternoon with representatives from the ATF, the Alameda County Fire Department and the Emeryville Police Department, said Alexandria Corneiro, an ATF spokeswoman. She said a reward would be announced, along with additional details on the suspect, but would not say whether arson had been established.

The developer has begun to clean up the construction site surrounding the unfinished five-story building, which was initially damaged in a July 2016 fire that spread to nearby homes. The developer, Rick Holliday of Holliday Development, told The Chronicle after the May blaze that he didnt believe two major fires within 10 months of each other were a coincidence.

This is obviously arson, he said. This is an attack on housing.

As with the first blaze, the second started in the middle of the night  it was reported at 4:58 a.m. on a Saturday morning  and it tore through much of the building before firefighters arrived.

Investigators have not officially established a cause of the 2016 fire, and they said it would be difficult to pinpoint one because of the damage to the building. On Wednesday, Holliday said he hadnt received details on the status of the investigation, a wait that was driving me crazy.

He said his company was still in the process of filing and processing lengthy insurance claims for the millions of dollars in damages at the site  for the second time. Construction crews, he said, were working to clean up the site and then demolish the skeleton of the building before starting again from the foundation.

The fire will set back construction of the mixed-use project, which will include 105 residential units and 21,000 square feet of retail space, at least nine months, Holliday said.

Its pretty unnerving having that happen twice, he said.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
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Firefighters, medics and FBI agents swarmed a normally quiet stretch of the Alameda waterfront next to the USS Hornet Museum on Wednesday morning, maneuvering around people lying on the ground as an ominous orange smoke filled the air and brightly colored emergency vehicles crowded the road.

The alarming scene was part of a two-day exercise called Operation Seasick  six months in the making and organized by the FBI  to practice how local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies and emergency responders would work together in the event of a complex terror attack involving weapons of mass destruction in an area like the Port of Oakland.

The simulation scenario was this: A terrorist deployed a chemical weapon using a dispersal device, shot several people from atop one of the ships at port, then barricaded himself inside the ship.

Shooting victims painted with red makeup to imitate blood and gore demanded attention from paramedics, but responders needed to deal with the chemical weapon before getting to them. A SWAT team contained the shooter to one area of the ship where he had barricaded himself.

The second day of the simulation will be held Friday and focus on the investigation stage of the incident, including recovering evidence from the water, FBI officials said.

Maritime environments like ports can add challenging variables for law-enforcement agents responding to a crisis, according to the FBI.

The reason the bay is difficult is its a fast-moving, ever-changing environment, said Katherine Zackel, an FBI spokeswoman.

Everything is moving. Its more difficult to recover evidence in water, difficult to work underwater or on top of water, she continued. Police are used to going in and clearing buildings, not ships. Theres more wind. If chemicals get in the water, thats obviously a problem. The environment affects the scene significantly.

More than 15 agencies and organizations took part in the exercise, including the Oakland Police Department, U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Law-enforcement officers knew that the simulation involved weapons of mass destruction, but did not know the specifics going into the exercise.

These types of emergency-response simulations often involve surprises called injects, according to Coast Guard Lt. Steven Dross, who added that he did not think the scenario being simulated was a totally unlikely one.

It could happen, said Dross. When you think about todays world, there are a lot of active-shooter cases, there are chemical weapons being used.

Responding to a complex terror attack requires cooperation from agencies that rarely work together on a daily basis, so practice is important, according to John Bennett, special agent in charge of the FBIs San Francisco bureau.

We do a lot of work with police departments, but in a chemical release, we start bringing in elements that we dont normally have relationships with  the health department, say, said Bennett.

All these elements and challenges start getting into play  like, how do you get a tactical team into a hot zone that hasnt been cleared yet? he added.

An attack on a shipping hub like the Port of Oakland could be economically disruptive in addition to the obvious threat to public safety, counterterrorism experts at the Rand Corp. and other think tanks have speculated.

Just as the effects of an attack wouldnt be limited to the immediate area, the exercise wasnt happening solely on the Alameda waterfront, either, according to Zackel.

Six miles away, at Highland Hospital in Oakland, paramedics and hospital staff were simulating how they would treat victims who had been exposed to the chemical-weapons attack, she said. Emergency operations were also set up at the FBIs Oakland outpost, and a command post was established at the Port of Oakland.

We want to demonstrate if something of this magnitude were going to happen, we could come together as one team, said Bennett. One team, one fight.

Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
Town hall: Hosted by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Foothill Community Colleges Smithwick Theatre, 12345 El Monte Road in Los Altos. For information: http://eshoo.house.gov.

Syria documentary: The Syrian American Council, the International Rescue Committee and National Geographic premiere Hell on Earth: The Fall of Syria and the Rise of ISIS at 3 p.m. at the AMC Metreon 16, 135 Fourth St. in San Francisco. The film will be followed by a discussion with the director. RSVP by Friday: http://bit.ly/2snzF2q.

Candidate fundraiser: The Sister District Project holds a fundraiser with drinks and music to support Cheryl Turpin, Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates in the 85th District (Virginia Beach). The Sister District Project consists of volunteers who support Democratic state and congressional campaigns in historically red states. The event is from 6 to 9 p.m. at Spats Berkeley, 1974 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: http://bit.ly/2ssaHOC.

Health care film: A showing of the 30-minute film Now Is the Time: Healthcare for Everybody, with speaker Sue Bergman, a nurse and supporter of the Healthy California Act, the proposal before the Legislature to create a single-payer health care system. The free event is at 7 p.m. at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 6250 Village Parkway in Dublin. For information: (925) 462-3459 or flickknight@gmail.com.

Sunday

Sierra Club recruitment: The Sierra Club is seeking volunteers to recruit new members and educate people on environmental issues at Sunday Streets, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Golden Gate Park. The Sierra Club booth will be located in Golden Gate Park on John F. Kennedy Drive, near Spreckels Lake (36th Avenue). For information, contact Katherine Howard at sfoceanedge@earthlink.net.

Equality march: Marchers to mobilize and call for the protection of rights for those targeted due to immigration status, ethnicity, religion, skin color, gender and disability. The event begins at 11 a.m. at San Jose City Hall, 200 E. Santa Clara St. A rally will begin at 1 p.m. at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park, 1 Paseo De San Antonio in San Jose. For information:http://equalitymarchsj.domoreproject.org.

June 17

Nuclear weapons march: Womens March to Ban the Bomb, in support of U.N. negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. Demonstrators will meet at 11:30 a.m. at the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road in Palo Alto. For information: wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com. In San Francisco, marchers are planning to meet at noon at UN Plaza. For information: bln.sf.ca@gmail.com.

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.

Nuclear weapons film: A screening and discussion of The Nuclear Requiem, on the challenges of controlling nuclear weapons. The free, two-hour event starts at 3:30 p.m. at the Los Altos Public Librarys Orchard Room, 13 South San Antonio Road. For information: wilpf.peninsula.paloalto@gmail.com.

June 21

Electoral system presentation: Californians for Electoral Reform and FairVote California will present an overview of local election systems and discuss possible reforms. The event is free and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Richmond Progressive Alliance, 2540 Macdonald Ave. in Richmond. For information: (510) 412-2260.

June 22

Coal film: A free screening of From the Ashes, a National Geographic documentary about coal, followed by a discussion on the environment and climate. The film begins at 7 p.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: www.nocoalinoakland.info.
Rent control, one of the most divisive and emotional issues sweeping the Bay Area, lost a round in Santa Rosa Tuesday.

In a special election, 52.5 percent of voters rejected Measure C, which would have implemented a rent- and eviction-control ordinance that Santa Rosas City Council passed 4-2 in August. The California Apartment Association and its allies collected enough signatures to force the City Council to rescind the ordinance or put it to voters. The council put it on the ballot.

The Sonoma County seat is the latest in a growing list of Bay Area cities considering rent control in response to the gaping imbalance between housing supply and demand.

Whats unusual about Santa Rosa is that its not considered a major tech hub, where high-paying jobs are often blamed for skyrocketing rents and evictions.

In November, voters approved rent control in Mountain View (home to Google and Intuit), but turned it down in San Mateo and Burlingame. Pacifica voters will decide in November whether to make permanent a temporary rent-control ordinance that its council passed 3-2.

Richmond voters also approved rent control in November. Although it too is a ways from the South Bay, it has been affected by the tech boom because people who got priced out of San Francisco moved to Oakland, which raised rents there and pushed some tenants to Richmond, the end of the BART line.

Santa Rosa, the Bay Areas fifth-largest city, has been less affected by tech hiring. Its about an hours drive north of San Francisco (without traffic). Completion of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit line could bring more commuters from San Francisco. But for now, the main growth industries are tourism, wine, beer and cannabis, said City Councilman Tom Schwedhelm, who voted against the rent control ordinance.

According to Zillow, the median rent in Santa Rosa is $2,500 a month, up 2.8 percent over the last year, and 49.2 percent over the last six years. About 48 percent of the citys households are renters.

Annie Dobbs-Kramer of the North Bay Organizing Project, who campaigned for Measure C, said, There are many investors from from all over the country who have created real estate as part of an investment portfolio. Because the price of land is so high here, we have become a target place for them to purchase apartment complexes. They may paint and fix them up cosmetically, then rent them for double the amount.

Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle

Joshua Howard, a senior vice president with the apartment association, said Santa Rosa has fallen much shorter than other Bay Area cities in permitting and getting built the housing units needed to sustain its growing population.

Schwedhelm said housing creation has been hampered because we have green space separators where construction is prohibited and a California tiger salamander population that makes it very expensive to build in the southwestern part of the city.

The apartment association, which represents landlords, raised almost $890,000 to defeat Measure C. It would have rolled back rents on covered apartments to January 2016 levels and capped rent increases at 3 percent per year. In some cases, landlords could have requested a higher increase and tenants could have asked for lower rents.

Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle

It also would have prohibited landlords from evicting tenants except for certain just causes, such as failure to pay rent, or lease violations, or in certain no-fault circumstances such as the owner moving into the unit or withdrawing it from the rental market. In no-fault evictions, the landlord would have to pay the tenant three months rent for a comparable unit plus $1,500. It would have exempted single-family homes and duplexes, triplexes if owners lived in one unit, and apartment buildings built after 1995.

Those terms are similar to other Bay Area rent control measures, except that most others tie rent increases to the Bay Area consumer price index (up 3.8 percent in April from 2016) and establish appointed or elected rent control boards to administer the ordinance. In Santa Rosa, all rent control decisions would have been made by one or possibly two city employees, at an estimated cost of $1.25 million per year.

Dobbs-Kramer says the measure failed because the opposition spent more money than has ever been spent in the history of Santa Rosa elections. They ran a campaign of deception, misdirection and confusion.

Brian L. Frank/Special to the Chronicle

As in other cities, advocates said rent control was needed to prevent landlords from evicting longtime tenants so they could attract higher-paying customers.

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Thanks to tourism and a booming service industry, we have something like 12,500 back-of-house restaurant workers. Even though they are among the highest paid restaurant workers in the nation, they still arent making enough to afford median rents, said Councilwoman Julie Combs, who voted for rent control.

I believe the people who live here now, who made this a great place to live, have a right to stay where they are living now, she added.

Opponents pointed out that rent control benefits a minority of households  those lucky enough to be living in the type of apartment covered by rent control when it takes effect. It protects them regardless of their income, reduces vacancy rates by given them incentives to stay, is expensive to administer and does nothing to create housing.

Moreover, it puts the burden of housing affordability on landlords, rather than on employers, builders or city officials. Rather than (or in addition to) limiting rents, why not force employers to subsidize housing or pay higher wages?

Sebastopol, Santa Rosas smaller, more rural neighbor, has been feeling the same pressures. Though its surrounded mostly by vineyards, the average rent there has nearly doubled, to almost $2,000 a month, in the past five years, said Larry McLaughlin, the city manager and city attorney.

We have people with a considerable amount of money buying up second homes, he said. That is driving up not just housing prices but also rents, because our largest group of tenants are in single-family homes.

On Nov. 1, the City Council imposed a temporary 3 percent cap on rent increases on certain apartments to prevent landlords from jacking up rates while the town is considering rent control. That limit expires June 16 and does not look like it will be extended, McLaughlin said.

Meanwhile, a City Council committee has been conducting meetings to consider myriad housing issues in addition to rent control. Sebastopol residents have been watching the Santa Rosa rent control campaign carefully. McLaughlin said he doesnt know whether the rent control movement will be demoralized by the outcome or gain new momentum.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
Bashing California is a Texas politician's birthright. The states' respective approaches to economic development are perfect foils for one another; deep-red Texas prides itself on allowing corporations free rein, while blue California is happy to tax and regulate them to the sky.

That's why California is a convenient punch line for Governor Greg Abbott in speeches like the one he made announcing the new special session yesterday, in which he promised to crack down on liberal cities that want local rules on things like ride-hailing and home rentals.

"As your governor, I will not allow Austin, Texas, to California-ize the Lone Star State," Abbott said.

Put aside, for a moment, the irony of a governor who championed states' rights turning around and opposing the desire of local communities to self-govern. Would it really be so bad for Texas to become a little more like California?

For a few years, while California was dogged by a real estate crisis and state budget deficit and Texas' oil boom was just starting to take off, Texas had reason to brag. It backed up its low unemployment rate with Texas-sized business incentives in a baldfaced effort to lure businesses from the Golden State.

But recently, those trends have reversed. The New Yorker traced California's return to economic health back in 2015, after Gov. Jerry Brown balanced the budget and a new tech boom took off. That was before Texas' oil bust, which took much of the wind out of the state's economy, even though it narrowly escaped recession.

And now? Average wages in California, which are already a few dollars an hour higher than in Texas, grew faster than they did in the Lone Star state for most of the past year.

Texas' unemployment rate bumped above California's this past March.

And California's economy grew faster than Texas' in 2016, 2.9 percent to 0.4 percent.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The former editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News  no communist rag  recently sung the praises of California as a destination for investment despite its decision to raise gas taxes, boost the minimum wage, protect undocumented immigrants and discourage fossil fuel use, among many other measures that would never make it to Abbott's desk.

Just this week, the personal finance site Wallethub ranked California as the second best economy in the country, behind only Washington state, which shares many of California's characteristics. Texas comes in at number 20.

This isn't to say that California is perfect. For example, its high housing costs have propelled its real poverty rate  which takes into account cost of living  to the highest level in the country.

But when it comes to economic performance, California matches or exceeds Texas on many important metrics. All things considered, both of them are powerhouses for the American economy. They just had different ways of getting there.
As a man held a up a gas station attendant in San Leandro at gunpoint, he opened fire without warning, police said Wednesday.

The employee, who was alone at the Chevron gas station at 15201 Washington Avenue just before 8 p.m. Sunday, told police he had been cooperating with the armed man, opening up the cash register as the man demanded.
He pulls, he pushes, he holds on too long. The deconstruction of the awkward Donald Trump handshake continues. The commander in chief, an admitted germophobe, often seems to have trouble executing this basic gesture of polite greeting in a manner that looks natural.

Perhaps help is in order. Dan Fost sent along a press release from Denise Dudley, author of Work It! Get In, Get Noticed, Get Promoted, which provides rules for the proper business handshake. In brief:

Introduce yourself; extend right hand to shakees right hand; slide your hand finger-first until your palm touches the shakees palm, and wrap your hand around his; grasp and squeeze gently once; pump once or twice to show sincerity; hold for two or three seconds; look person straight in eye; smile; continue with pleasantries.

Subject for Chapter 2 in the education of the newly elected leader: What is a pleasantry?

Perhaps a pleasantry is an exchange of money. Marc Troy received a note from Melania Trump noting that her hubby will turn 71 on Wednesday, June 14, and that its always an occasion the Donald shares with family and close friends  and that, of course, they consider him a close friend. I hope you will consider commemorating his birthday with a gift our entire Party can share, the note reads. Please return your signed card to Donald along with your special donation of $71 or whatever amount you can afford to the RNC today. Enclosed is a birthday-card-like form and handy envelope.

Or perhaps it is something more profound, something about communicating.

I always tell the people in my band to communicate, wrote the late Dan Hicks in his newly published memoir, I Scare Myself. Thats what you want to do, thats the idea. If youre not communicating with the listener, then you may be playing too busy, or playing too many notes. And whether youre playing or listening ... you want to get inside of it. Thats part of the thing. You get inside it and youre in there, and youre listening to everything and youre feeling it and its affecting you. Thats what youre always shooting for.

Therell be a signing/celebration of the books publication, including a musical tribute, at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, on June 24 at 1:30 p.m.

Its true, movie stars Danny Glover and Delroy Lindo were at the opening festivities for Revelations: Art From the African American South at the de Young Museum on Saturday, June 3. But its also true that at this particular event  no offense to them  they werent the stars.

The star was Lonnie Holley, who has four works in the show and was born in Alabama, in the days when I was a Negro. In a panel discussion led by curator Timothy Burgard, Holley talked about his roots as an artist: His grandmother was throwing away a piece of trash, had balled it up and put it in a barrel. I took it and made it into a butterfly and gave it to her. It made her cry. And I told her I was an artist. ... I was always taught to rummage through the trash. African Americans had spent 150 years working, Holley said. In the morning, we got up. We got used to working. ... struggling, pulling, toting.

Holley and the other artists in the show put their daily struggle into something, he added, and they left it there, and moved on. Art allows you to move on.

There are art lovers at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and there are life lovers. Chris Goedewaagen was at the museum when he overheard an older woman: Every day I dress in costume because thats what lifes all about.

On a Palo Alto yard sign spotted by John MacMorris: When they go low, we go covfefe.

Allen Matthews overheard a man insisting to a woman that he hadnt butt-dialed her, and her insisting to him that he had. Ill turn the other cheek, he said.

And on that note, Amelia Marshall was shopping at Archery Only in Fremont when she noticed a sign touting Hip Quivers. She wondered if thats the same as twerking.

If the Republicans get their way on health care, says Fred Reiss, the only way Ill be able to get a doctor is on StubHub.

Strange de Jim responds to the Facebook post in which Tom Daly noted that Anderson Cooper was born on the day Sgt. Pepper came out. Sgt. Pepper came out? asks Strange.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

She has a triangular face. She could pull off anything.
Director Roger Michell finds a particular register for My Cousin Rachel, something different from his previous work (Notting Hill, Changing Lanes). He embraces the gothic aspect of this Daphne du Maurier tale, giving us slow-motion shots of things like pearls tumbling down a staircase, while basking in the glorious excesses of Rael Jones soundtrack  with its abrupt swells and sudden silences.

Michell pumps the atmosphere surrounding this story with as much life and energy as he can, without ever crossing the line into self-consciousness or parody. In doing so, he gives this film the bigness of emotion that it deserves, so that this can never be mistaken for some dry, starched British import, something that might show on Masterpiece Theater.

The opening minutes keep us guessing. At first it seems as it might indeed be one of those restrained stories of English manners, of interest only to the most ardent Anglophiles. Moments later, it seems to open up as a tale of intrigue, involving two people with a conflicting claim to a vast estate. But soon it settles into something different and far more fascinating, a movie that eludes easy classification.

Sam Claflin is Philip, a young man who thinks he has good reason to hate his cousin Rachel (Rachel Weisz), the widow of his late guardian. When he was alive, the guardian had written Philip some desperate and paranoid letters from Italy, saying that his British-Italian wife was holding him captive and slowly poisoning him. Philip cant be sure if the guardian was deluded, the victim of a severe illness, or if he was indeed describing a genuine, concerted effort to put him 6 feet under.

In any case, Philip is willing to believe the worst  he wants to believe it, hating Rachel with a young mans gusto. And then he meets her, when she finally comes to see him and the estate that shes heard so much about. Thats when things become complicated for the young fellow. The movie could have been called My Cousin Rachel Weisz. Hating her is an unsustainable position.

Much of My Cousin Rachel deals with the nature of Rachel and Philips contact, with the films mystery located within the soul of the title character. What is she thinking? Who is she? The movie stays within Philips perspective. We see her when he sees her, and we draw our own conclusions, but we cant ever be 100 percent sure that our perceptions are correct or if Philips are closer to the truth.

By forcing us to stay within Philips vantage point, the movie makes a subtle but clear point. Sam is 24, about to turn 25. He has no conception of what is going on inside the head of a beautiful woman in her early 40s. The moral polarities that he imagines and tries to decide between dont even apply. This woman is so complex, and so much the product of a variety of experiences and influences, that if he were to know even half of whats inside her, his head would explode.

This dynamic between youth and young middle age is at the heart of My Cousin Rachel and the source of its mystery. If we watch the movie only wondering whether Rachel is good or evil, we are getting stuck inside Philips perspective. Whats actually going on, there for anyone to see, is bigger. The magnificence of Weiszs performance  yes, its another magnificent performance from Rachel Weisz  is that she is never hiding anything, beyond what a 19th century woman might conceal out of polite reserve. In her every moment on screen, she is an open book. Were just not seeing all her pages.

Rachel remains fixed, while Claflins Philip ricochets all around her, exhausting his spirit and stretching his brain to wrap around a universe beyond his comprehension. Its a smart portrait of male desperation that manages to hit all the stages from smug confidence to panic, in a film thats not really about vice or virtue, after all. To appreciate fully My Cousin Rachel, that much must be understood going in: This is not a morality tale but an illustration of the consequences of incomprehension.

Mick LaSalle is The San Francisco Chronicles movie critic. Email: mlasalle@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MickLaSalle

My Cousin Rachel

Drama. Starring Rachel Weisz and Sam Claflin. Directed by Roger Michell. (PG-13. 106 minutes.)
Fired FBI Director James Comeys prepared statement for Thursdays Senate committee hearing contains some eyebrow-raising allegations about President Trump: That he repeatedly demanded a pledge of loyalty, continually asked Comey to lift the cloud from his head by declaring he was not under investigation, and asked the FBI director to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

But its not clear  at least not yet  whether Comey has implicated the president in criminal conduct, such as obstruction of justice. Legal analysts offered diverse views.

I dont think were quite there yet for obstruction, said Robert Weisberg, Stanford law professor and co-director of the schools Criminal Justice Center. The reason, he said, is that the FBI investigation Trump tried to block, according to Comey, involved only Flynns lies to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, events that did not involve Trump.

Dale Carpenter, a law professor and constitutional law chairman at Southern Methodist University, countered that any probe of a Trump aides Russian contacts is linked to the overall examination of Russian involvement in last years presidential election, an investigation that potentially could reach the president.

Having a president tell the director of the FBI, who is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation of the presidents closest associates, to stop doing so is potentially obstruction of justice, Carpenter said.

One of the nations most prominent constitutional scholars, Laurence Tribe of Harvard, reached a similar conclusion after reading Comeys opening statement, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee at the former directors request a day before he was to deliver it.

Comeys entirely credible prepared statement strengthens my belief that the president sought to influence and even end an ongoing investigation into serious wrongdoing by Flynn and others close to the president, Tribe said by email. That constitutes obstruction of justice.

The Justice Department defines obstruction of justice as corruptly attempting to interfere with an active investigation or judicial proceeding. The FBIs Russian investigation was active when Trump fired Comey on May 9, two days before telling an interviewer that he had been thinking of the Russia thing at the time of the dismissal.

Comeys statement avoided legal conclusions, generally providing the most benign ... interpretation of Trumps words, as UC Hastings Law Professor Hadar Aviram observed. But it was filled with details of their one-on-one conversations over four months, taken from notes Comey said he prepared immediately afterward.

In their first post-inauguration meeting on Jan. 27, he said, Trump asked him if he wanted to stay at his job  an assurance Comey said he had given Trump as president-elect  and later told him, I need loyalty. I expect loyalty.

Comey said he kept silent, then when Trump later repeated his need for loyalty, told him, You will always get honesty from me. The president paused, then said, Thats what I want, honest loyalty.

Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

In that exchange, said Carpenter of SMU, I think Trump is implicitly threatening his job if he doesnt provide loyalty.

On Feb. 14, Comey attended a scheduled briefing at the White House on counterterrorism. As the meeting concluded, Comey said, Trump told Pence, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and everyone else in the room to leave so he could speak to Comey alone, and then brought up Flynn, who had resigned under pressure the previous day.

Comey said Trump told him Flynn was a good guy who had lost his job only because he had misled Pence, and that I hope you can let this go. By this, Comey said, he understood Trump to be referring only to an FBI investigation of Flynns statements to Pence. He said he gave Trump no assurances that he would back off.

I did not understand the president to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign, Comey said. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynns departure.

If so, said Stanfords Weisberg, Trumps words may have been ominous but probably werent criminal.

Although Trump could be viewed as threatening Comeys job with his repeated requests for pledges of loyalty, Weisberg said, the president wouldnt have been the subject of an FBI investigation that focused on Flynns conversations with Pence  so his attempt to shut down that investigation wouldnt have been corrupt.

He wasnt thwarting an investigation he was implicated in, Weisberg said.

Susan Hennessey of the Brookings Institution, a research organization, agreed in an article she posted on the Internet that Comeys description of Trumps statement stops short of accusing him of obstructing justice.

But Carpenter said the context of Trumps directive, after making it clear that Comeys job was on the line, made his words potentially incriminating. Joe Tuman, a professor of political and legal communications at San Francisco State, saw other suspicious factors.

The fact that Trump asked those people to leave the room suggests that he knew what he was doing was probably wrong, Tuman said.

The former FBI director may provide some clarity when questioned Thursday by committee members. But the question is ultimately one for the Republican-controlled Congress, which has the power to decide whether Trump, in firing Comey, committed a high crime or misdemeanor that is constitutional grounds for impeachment.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @egelko
Few noticed the first sign of fire amid the hubbub of cocktail shakers, live music and conversation in the packed Cocoanut Grove club in Boston on Nov. 28, 1942. But the swinging night for nearly 1,000 people was about to come to a shocking end.

Wisping smoke from a fake palm tree exploded into an inferno that killed 492 people, many of whom were trapped by sealed fire exits or the pile of bodies stuffed into the revolving front door. Investigators determined the blaze was likely an accident, but it wasnt without blame.

The clubs owner was convicted of reckless homicide, akin to manslaughter. And in the years since, prosecutors  and juries  have time and again grappled with what to do about such incidents. The question is rarely whether a person intentionally ignited a fire, but whether they were reckless about the risks to the victims.

Thats the case with Oaklands Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which engulfed an unsanctioned music event and killed 36 people Dec. 2. After months of investigation, prosecutors concluded that the head of the artist collective that illegally occupied the warehouse, as well as his sidekick, committed crimes by providing the backdrop for the blaze  a party on the second floor of a building that was powered by a tangle of electrical cords and had only one exit stairwell.

Master tenant Derick Almena, 47, and creative director Max Harris, 27, were arrested Monday and charged by the Alameda County district attorneys office with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter, charges that werent a surprise to some legal observers.

I think those were the charges that fit the best, said Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Involuntary manslaughter is all about careless, reckless behavior with no intent to harm.

Lawyers for Almena, who is to make his first court appearance Thursday in Oakland, said in a statement that the charges represent no less than a miscarriage of justice and we are confident that this attempt to make a scapegoat out of our client will fail. They have not elaborated, but some people close to Almena and Harris have voiced objections to them being charged with a crime for reportedly building a collective and hosting art events.

In the Cocoanut Grove case, the clubs owner, Barney Welansky, was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison after a jury found him guilty. He was pardoned by the governor after four years, and died weeks later of cancer.

Elise Amendola/Associated Press

More recently, a fire that killed 100 people at the Station nightclub in Rhode Island during a 2003 show by the band Great White triggered similar charges. The bands tour manager, who set off fireworks that sparked the blaze, along with the clubs owners, were convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Two of the defendants were sentenced to four years each.

The Ghost Ship charges, though, are no slam dunk, legal experts said. Without an identified cause of the blaze, prosecutors might face challenges in proving their case. While the fires origin was traced to the rear ground floor of the building  where a mess of extension cords met at a single power source from a neighboring auto shop  investigators said they may never be certain about how it started.

Also unknown was the cause of a 1976 blast that killed six workers and injured more than 40 others at a Long Island, N.Y., chewing gum factory. Warner-Lambert Co. and four of its executives were charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, but without a cause, the allegations were dropped.

An absent cause, though, doesnt always doom a case. Authorities were unable to determine how the Cocoanut Grove fire started, but still got a conviction based on evidence of blocked exits and of the nightclub dangerously exceeding its capacity.

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.

If there are multiple possible causes, and they all lead back to the defendants negligence, prosecutors will still be able to prove causation, Levenson said. The people who are most aware and intricately involved in the operation of the facility are the ones who are most likely to be charged.

In bringing charges, the Alameda County district attorneys office said Almena substantially increased the risk to those living, working or visiting the building by storing enormous amounts of flammable material inside the warehouse. Harris, meanwhile, is accused of luring guests to the music event, where he worked the door.

When setting up for the show, Harris blocked off an area of the second floor that included a second stairwell, which effectively reduced the upstairs guests to a single point of escape, district attorneys office Inspector Cristina Harbison wrote in a statement supporting the charges.

Family members of the fire victims have praised District Attorney Nancy OMalleys decision to file charges, but least one former Ghost Ship resident is troubled with the prosecution.

The DA is accusing Max Harris of locking the back stairs, which I doubt, but those stairs would have led directly to the fire and nowhere near an exit, said the resident, Carmen Brito, in an online response to a question about the case. OMalley also charged Almena and Harris equally, but anyone who lived there would tell you their relationship was far from equal.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky
North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned President Donald Trump for pulling the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change, dubbing it a "shortsighted and silly decision."

In a statement published Tuesday on Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and attributed to a foreign ministry spokesman who wasn't named, the isolated country warned that "global warming is one of the gravest challenges humankind is facing today" and praised the Paris accord for its attempt to stop it.

Noting that the Trump administration had announced on June 1 that the U.S. would leave the landmark agreement, the unnamed official said that this was because of the president's "America First" policies and an ignorance "of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests."

"This is the height of egotism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being at the cost of the entire planet," the statement said.

The Paris agreement was reached in 2015 and was a signature diplomatic achievement for Trump's predecessor, President Barack Obama. More than 190 nations came together in the French capital to agree to voluntary pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Only two nations didn't sign the agreement: Nicaragua, who argued that the agreement didn't go far enough, and Syria, which was in the midst of a devastating civil war.

Despite its international isolation, North Korea signed the agreement. In December 2015, then-foreign minister Ri Su Yong told delegates in Paris that the North Korea's Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un had "declared war on deforestation" and that the country aimed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by "37.4 percent compared with the levels of the 1990s."

Experts have warned that North Korea is at significant risk of climate change-related problems. In particular, the country's chronic food shortages could be made worse by droughts or flooding. In a report released on Wednesday by the North Korea-watching website NK News, academics David Von Hippel and Peter Hayes wrote that North Korea's estimates for its greenhouse gas reductions were roughly accurate and climate change represented a good opportunity for engagement with the international community.

The United States has long been criticized by Pyongyang's frequently bellicose official media outlets. However, during the campaign, Trump was largely spared criticism from North Korea - in one instance, a state media outlet praised him as "wise." Since entering office, Trump has been on the receiving end of a number of insults from outlets like KCNA.

Tuesday's foreign ministry statement linked Trump's "selfish" positions on climate change with the U.S. administration's stern opposition to North Korea's nuclear program. Warning of a "dangerous ideological trend" that had emerged in the U.S. with Trump's election, North Korea warned other nations not to follow suit.

"Whoever chooses to blindly follow the Trump administration overpowered by its bravado should be fully aware that the judgment of history shall take them all as one," the statement said.
Former FBI Director James Comeys account of President Trumps attempt to undermine the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election was devastating and convincing.

In his much-anticipated Senate testimony, Comey would not offer an opinion on whether the presidents actions amounted to a criminal case of obstruction of justice. But the former director, fired by Trump last month, made plain that he took Trumps words about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn  I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go  as a directive.

Everything Trump did before and after that exchange at a one-on-one White House dinner would seem to validate Comeys takeaway.

Comey came across as a calm, credible witness whose contemporaneous notes of his encounters with Trump, before and after inauguration, added to the authority of his words. He said he kept those detailed memos because of his uneasiness with the setting and the subject of those conversations, and his concern that Trump might lie about them.

Trump has emphatically denied the most serious allegations: that he asked Comey for a loyalty pledge, and that he tried to chill the investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russians who were attempting to interfere in the Nov. 8 election.

Several of the Republican senators tried to dismiss Trumps plea on behalf of Flynn as a wistful wish, rather than an order, and thus not an effort to obstruct justice.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., cut to the chase in one of the hearings memorable lines:

When a robber held a gun to somebody's head and said, I hope you will give me your wallet, the word hope was not the most operative word at the moment, Harris said.

Heres another analogy most employees would appreciate: When a boss says he or she hopes you will do something, workers who want to keep their jobs take it as an order.

Comey noted that Trump had raised the issue of the FBI directors continued employment earlier in that same conversation. Comey did not call off the Flynn investigation  and was fired.

The day before Flynn was fired, Trump tweeted, The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end? The day after the meeting, in a meeting with Russian diplomats in the Oval Office, Trump told his guests that Comey was crazy, a real nut job and I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.

Comey referred to that context in concluding that he was convinced he was fired because of the Russian investigation.

Trumps defenders came away with two main talking points from the hearing. One, that Comey verified the presidents long-held contention that he was thrice assured that he was not a target of the investigation. However, his potential obstruction almost certainly will now be a focus of the special prosecutor. Two, they expressed outrage at Comeys admission that he leaked memos recounting his conversation with the president. However, Comey emphasized that the memos were written to ensure they would remain unclassified.

For Trump, the most favorable interpretation of Comeys testimony is that the president, whether through hubris or ignorance  or both  breached the bounds of propriety by taking aside the director of an independent law-enforcement agency to express his views on an investigation involving his allies.

So Americans are left to decide: Who is more trustworthy, James Comey or Donald Trump? One was testifying under oath, and the other has a penchant for speaking and tweeting falsehoods. One is not telling the truth.
Last fall, California voters overwhelmingly approved a modest government transparency measure requiring legislation to be public for at least three days before passage. Last week, the state Assembly responded with what could be interpreted as an obscene gesture in the electorates direction.

Facing a legislative deadline as well as the alarming prospect of working on a Friday, the lower house passed more than 90 bills that had changed within the past 72 hours, flagrantly violating the constitutional amendment passed by voters as Proposition 54.

The initiative took aim at legislative leaders habit of rewriting and then rushing bills into law, preventing not only the public but also rank-and-file lawmakers from reviewing them. The rule says no legislation may be passed or ultimately become a statute unless the bill, with any amendments, has been printed, distributed to the members, and published on the Internet, in its final form, for at least 72 hours before the vote.

The strained interpretation of Democratic legislative leaders is that this applies only to bills on their way from the Legislature to the governors desk, not those going from one house of the Legislature to the other. Unlike the Assembly, however, the Senate has so far observed the 72-hour rule even for bills yet to be passed by the other house.

Sam Blakeslee, a sponsor of Prop. 54 and former legislator, said the Assembly bills will be vulnerable to challenge if they become law. If the Assembly continues on its current course, there likely will be bills passed that violate the Constitution, he said. There may be quite a lot of litigation.

The dispute, Blakeslee added, comes down to a fundamental question of whether power ultimately belongs to the Legislature or to the Constitution and therefore the people. The Assemblys answer to that question is as clear as it is wrong.
A cant-miss congressional hearing began a day early Wednesday when fired FBI director James Comey said in prepared testimony that President Trump had asked him to drop an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The Feb. 14 Oval Office discussion, which came after Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top-level officials to leave the room, was very concerning, given the FBIs role as an independent investigative agency, Comeys said in his prepared opening statement.

The seven-page document, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee at Comeys request, details meetings and phone calls the former FBI director had with Trump before the president fired him May 9. Its guaranteed to pump up the already intense interest in Thursday mornings hearing, which is expected to be broadcast live on cable and broadcast television networks beginning at 7 a.m.

Its absolutely going to make a huge difference with everyone watching, said Joe Tuman, a professor of political and legal communications at San Francisco State University. And its not going to be so much about the questions (the senators on the intelligence committee) are going to ask, but about what Comey is going to say.

Comeys statement, a meticulous recounting of his encounters with the president, pointed to the direction hes likely to take Thursday. A former U.S. attorney and top Justice Department official for President George W. Bush, Comey paints himself as an all we want are the facts witness, one who will say exactly what he heard and saw, but willing  and likely eager  to let others argue the politics of the hearing.

PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Hes also unlikely to comment on the ongoing Russia probe, arguing that he doesnt want to get in the way of special counsel Robert Muellers investigation.

Comey is a veteran of congressional hearings and probably is not going to say anything he doesnt want to say, said Jack Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College.

But the eight Republicans and seven Democrats on the committee will be more than willing to make any judgments Comey wont.

The Democrats want to link Trump to obstruction of justice, Pitney said. But they have to decide who to play for, whether its their progressive base or the larger national audience.

The committee includes Democrats like Californias Dianne Feinstein, West Virginias Joe Manchin and committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia as well as Maine independent Angus King, none known as hard-core liberal bomb throwers.

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The most liberal member of the committee is likely Californias Kamala Harris, but her long-held reputation as a cautious politician and status as a rookie senator with only five months on the job could keep her off the attack.

The last thing Democrats want, though, is for their questioning to be seen as a witch hunt against Trump, especially with Comey expected to describe incidents likely to play well with Democrats, like the presidents virtual demand for a loyalty oath.

If Comey is saying what the Democrats want, they should just stand aside, Pitney said.

Its a more dangerous path for Republicans, who will be doing the political equivalent of juggling live hand grenades on national television.

While they will want to deflect the discussion from Trump and what the president may or may not have said, they need to be wary of an all-out attack on a sympathetic Comey, especially after an ABC News poll released Wednesday found that 61 percent of Americans believe Trump fired Comey to protect himself.

Republicans want to deflect what Comey says, Pitney said. For them, its better not to talk about the Russians at all but, rather, talk about leaks.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Questions about the leaks that have plagued the White House for months could be a winning topic for the GOP. In one of their meetings, according to Comeys statement, Trump made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information  a concern I shared and still share.

With leaks, Republicans can claim the high ground and say that their main concern is protecting national security, Pitney said.

While there are plenty of conservative Trump supporters on the Republican side of the committee, none dispute the need for the hearing.

Trump is better served by getting all this information out, Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt said in a Fox News interview. Lets find out what happened and bring this to a conclusion.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC News that its important that people get to hear directly from Comey. We have seen these reports that are attributed to Comey, and the questions are going to be about if thats how it happened, he said. Thats what the whole hearing is going to be about.

Not everyone on the GOP side is going to stay on that high ground, however. A pro-Trump television ad slated to air Thursday on CNN and Fox News slams Comey as a showboat who put politics over protecting America.

The 30-second spot is paid for by the Great America Alliance, which was formed after the election to back the president and his issues. It closes with the announcer intoning: James Comey: just another D.C. insider only in it for himself.

The ad, though, is another example of why Republicans are concerned about Comeys testimony. Although Comey made his career in GOP administrations, Trump and his backers have given him no reason to play the good soldier.

Comey first learned he was fired when he saw the news on television as he met with FBI agents in Los Angeles. Then, after administration officials said he had been canned because Department of Justice leaders believed hed mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clintons handling of emails as secretary of state, Trump brushed aside the explanation in an interview with NBCs Lester Holt, calling Comey a showboat and a grandstander who had ruined the FBI.

I was going to fire Comey  my decision, regardless of what the Justice Department recommended, the president said.

Hes infuriated at a deep-gut, personal level that the elite media has tolerated (the Russia story) and praised Comey, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a longtime Trump ally, told the Washington Post. Hes not going to let some guy like that smear him without punching him as hard as he can.

There have been reports that Trump plans to live tweet his response to Comeys appearance, despite pleas from his attorneys and others to put down his cell phone.

Each Democrat probably has a staffer glued to social media, hoping Trump decides to live tweet so they can instantly ask Comey for his reaction, Pitney said.

For much of America, the hearing is going to be must-see TV, not a phrase people normally associate with run-of-the-mill congressional hearings.

Ive cleared my day to watch it, Pitney said.

John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
Political opponents and fact-checkers were calling out Donald Trump for his mendacity long before he was president. But hearing fired FBI Director James Comey label Trump a liar Thursday at a Senate hearing into Russian meddling in the 2016 election could damage the presidents credibility with an audience that so far has been unshakeable: his core supporters.

It will continue to weaken his support among those who strongly approve of him, if for no other reason than the controversy around him continues and hes not doing the things he said he was going to do, said G. Terry Madonna, who directs the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College in the swing state of Pennsylvania and runs the schools poll.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that those were lies, plain and simple, when the White House said he was fired because he was doing a poor job leading the FBI. He also told senators he began rigorously documenting his conversations with Trump because, I was honestly concerned that he would lie about the nature of our meetings.

Social media buzzed with Comeys response when senators brought up Trumps tweeted hint that their conversations were secretly recorded: Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday that she didnt know if tapes exist, and then uttered a Nixon-era response that no presidential spokeswoman wants to be forced to give: I can definitively say the president is not a liar. She added that its frankly insulting the question would be asked.

It didnt seem that insulting to Trumps fellow Republicans on the panel Thursday. None pushed back at Comey for calling out the presidents alleged lies.

Some political analysts said Comeys words were likely to carry more weight than even a nonpartisan fact-checking operation such as PolitiFact. The Pulitzer Prize-winning site has found that 71 percent of the Trump statements it has examined have been mostly false, false, or pants on fire.

But hearing the former head of the FBI say it during an internationally watched hearing codifies that image of Trump into the publics mind  and some of that may leach into the minds of his most devout supporters.

Its not a member of the mainstream media (saying it). Its not another politician. Its the (former) head of the FBI, said John Trasvina, who was general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution in the 1990s and now is dean of the University of San Francisco Law School.

Its harder to dismiss law enforcement, Trasvina said. There are people in other parts of the country who are totally inclined to believe law enforcement  they are still respected institutions.

And thats even considering Comeys checkered reputation among partisans  particularly some Democrats who thought he bungled announcements, just days before the November election, around the investigation involving Hillary Clintons use of a private email server.

Comeys no angel, hes not perfect, Trasvina said. But if you have two people in the room  him and Trump  people will choose Comey.

While Comeys testimony didnt really produce a bombshell, said Madonna, the Pennsylvania pollster, it could erode his credibility with his core supporters in that swing state. Even though he narrowly won the state, by 44,292 votes out of 6 million cast, Trump took 56 of 67 Pennsylvania counties. In 23 of those, many in the states historic coal regions, Trump won at least 70 percent of the vote.

For most voters, the effect of Comeys testimony isnt just what he said, but how it could lead to further paralysis of Trumps legislative agenda.

A Franklin and Marshall survey of registered Pennsylvania voters last month found that 37 percent  and only 18 percent of independent voters  approved of the job Trump was doing as president. Yet 67 percent of Republicans approved of Trumps job so far.

What was said in a Senate hearing isnt going to eliminate that hard-core support, but it may continue to chip away at it.

You have to remind yourself that the everyday voter is not doing what were doing  sitting down and spending an entire morning watching a Senate hearing, Madonna said.

Still, Saulo Londono, Republican Party chairman in Butte County, conceded that its never a good thing when an FBI director  former or current  calls the president a liar. Im not going to defend that.

But Londono predicted that Trumps GOP base will be buoyed, since Thursdays hearing didnt uncover a smoking gun linking the president to obstruction of justice. Many Trump supporters will focus on how Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, pressed Comey to explain why he didnt ask Trump what he meant by I hope when Trump said he hoped Comey would drop the collusion investigation involving fired national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Londono liked when Risch asked Comey: Do you know of any case where a person has been charged for obstruction of justice, or for that matter any other criminal offense, where they said or thought they hoped for an outcome?

Londono said, That establishes in the mind of Republicans that there isnt anything there in the obstruction of justice charge.

And while the specter of the White House being forced to say that the president isnt a liar may have echoed former President Richard Nixons statement, I am not a crook, during the Watergate scandal four decades ago, its a long way from Watergate, said Evan Thomas, a longtime journalist and author of the best-selling Being Nixon: A Man Divided.

It all feels Watergatey  with the high-profile hearing  but that doesnt mean it is, Thomas said. Trump is a liar. But being a compulsive liar is a long way from obstruction of justice. They still have to build a case for that.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
As the news began to circulate last fall that the longtime Mission District dive bar Docs Clock would close and relocate, most locals had the same first question:

What about the sign?

The Docs Clock sign is an unforgettable marquee, a Mission Street landmark. Fire-hydrant red, it flashes DOCS CLOCK COCKTAIL TIME in fluorescent lights, the lettering framed by neon-blue, cherry-garnished coupes. Its trimmed by a twinkling gold arc, whose bases form arrows, directing you toward the door.

The sign is an anachronism  not only aesthetically but legally. The city of San Francisco doesnt allow signs like this anymore. Though the rules vary by neighborhood, in general, new signs must be shallower, shorter and a lot less illuminated than the 56-year-old Docs Clock sign, which, like many other flashing neon facades around the city, was grandfathered into the regulations.

On Saturday, after almost a year of nostalgic outpourings, Docs Clock served its last drink in the bars original 2575 Mission St. location, near 22nd Street. It is expected to reopen on the next block, at 2417 Mission St., by July 1. After a long, bitter dispute over the sign between landlord and tenant, the fate of the sign finally became clear: It would not be coming with Docs.

Its still sad, said bar owner Carey Suckow. We didnt want to go, and we didnt want to give up the sign. But were staying positive.

Ironically, however, the sign likely wont be able to stay at its current location either. It falls into a regulatory limbo: Its the property of the building owner, yet the building owner cant keep it up if the corresponding business moves elsewhere.

The plight of the Docs sign introduces a new and absurd dimension to the now-familiar narrative of small businesses displaced by a changing city. Whereas the real estate value of the Docs building is obvious, the signs value comes from attributes that money cant buy: its regulatory loophole, its status as a beloved Mission Street beacon. If Docs cant keep the sign, and the building cant keep the sign, does anybody win?

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Like many bar proprietors, Suckow, who has owned Docs Clock since 2005, does not own the bars building. Two years ago, she got a new landlord: Leticia Luna, owner of SoMas Calle 11 and a number of restaurant properties in the city. The previous landlord, who had owned the building for decades, had died; Luna bought it through an estate.

The building at 2575 Mission St. was built in 1907, and in its early years housed an ice cream parlor, a candy shop, then a bakery. It began serving drinks in 1951: the Clock Bar. Ten years later, dentist Ralph Mancuso bought the business, renamed it Docs Clock  a reference to himself  and installed the now-famous marquee. Local lore has it that the doc saw patients in the units above the bar, though Suckow believes his practice could have been across the street.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Mancuso sold the business in 1968. A succession of owners followed; not all kept careful records. The artist behind the mural inside the bar, painted in the 70s or 80s, remains a mystery. Documentation picks up again in 1997, when Elizabeth Zoria and Susan Hertzfeldt, two bartenders at the Latin American Club, bought the business.

Zoria and Hertzfeldt sold the bar to Suckow in 2005, despite higher offers from other interested buyers. Suckow had recently abandoned a teaching career for bartending, and longed to create an old-man bar, in her words. Not a bar with a theme. The kind of place where you see the whole community: the old guy sitting next to the 21-year-old, sitting next to the middle-aged couple, and its not weird.

Under Suckows stewardship, Docs Clock has remained blissfully impervious to the cocktail trends surrounding it. It has preserved a grunge that feels reassuring. It draws patrons not for rare amaro but for shuffleboard tournaments, not for $15 craft concoctions but for drink specials like the Trailer Park Punch (vodka, Malibu rum, Sunny D, cranberry juice; $5). Raggedy dolls, the sort that might have given you a nightmare once, hang from the ceiling: the result of Docs annual Barbie mutilation charity event on Halloween.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Unfortunately for Suckow, her lease was slated to end in the summer of 2017, and there wasnt an option to extend. (Residential units upstairs from the bar, Luna said, have ongoing leases, and tenants have not been evicted.) As the new landlord, Luna said she tried to work with Suckow to figure out a solution  including offering to move Docs Clock into the smaller adjacent space, which Luna also bought, currently housing Lipstick Salon Beauty Supply. But by both womens accounts, the negotiations turned ugly.

Everyones worried, Suckow said at the time, as support for Docs flooded Twitter and Facebook. The citys lost too much, and people are worried theyre going to lose even more. Luna, meanwhile, countered that Suckows mind is not open to the reality of whats going on  the true cost of doing business today in the Mission.

When Suckow threw in the towel and told Luna shed found a new space to move into, Luna said she told her, Carey, you made my life easier.

Suckow subsequently applied for legacy business status for Docs Clock  an initiative meant to incentivize landlords to keep long-term tenants. With the move already in the works, the approval may have seemed like too little, too late. Still, the legacy business process helped Docs Clock get its new lease, Suckow said, and at a better price.

She secured a 10-year lease with a 10-year option to extend. At that point, Suckow said, my daughters will have it.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Docs, then, is getting a second life. So how much does a sign really matter, anyway?

Our culture is at stake, said Nick Bovis, owner of Gold Dust Lounge and Lefty ODouls, two bars forced out of their longtime Union Square building by a landlord. (Gold Dust relocated to Fishermans Wharf in 2013; Leftys is still looking for a new home.)

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

Its a bigger picture than what we think, he said. One by one, you knock out these culturally significant things. Before you blink your eye, its all gone.

The original Gold Dust Lounge is now an Express clothing store. But with or without its sign, it would be a stretch to imagine that Docs Clock will go that way under the ownership of Luna, who leases buildings to many locally owned, independent bars, like Hi Tops, Rumors, Roccapulco and Brewcade.

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

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Luna, for her part, grew up mere blocks from Docs, at 20th and Mission.Im a native, Luna said. I remember that sign. She (Suckow) has been there a decade. The sign means more to me.

In the Planning Departments eyes, the sign means more to the city. It was approved as a vintage sign, which means that it could have been moved to the business new location, despite not complying with todays signage standards.

But that would have required the permission of the landlord, who technically owns the sign as part of the property. And Luna wouldnt release it to Suckow.

Luna has some regulatory hangups ahead, however. Gina Simi, communications manager for the Planning Department, confirmed that if Luna keeps it up, the sign would be considered general advertising, because it will bear the name of a business located elsewhere  and therefore, it would be subject to current zoning requirements.

Nor could Luna alter the sign to reflect the name of a potential new business. As it exists now, it was grandfathered in, Simi said. Any alterations to the sign would remove its status as a vintage sign, and it would have to be removed as it is currently not code compliant.

So why not let Suckow take the sign to the new bar?

That sign is worth quite a bit of money, Luna said. She may be right, though its hard to measure the market for antique bar facades.

At this point, go for it, Suckow said. Im tired.

As Suckow and her team relocate over the next month, they hope to bring as much of the physical bar with them as they can  with the goal of keeping everything the same. Well be a little cleaner at first, Suckow said, but well do our best to rough it up a bit.

Most important, theyre keeping their entire staff. Lisa Francis, a bartender at Docs for 8 years, said that despite the upheaval, she never considered leaving her job. This is the best place I ever worked in my life, Francis said. Were family here.

When considering a sign at the new Docs, Suckow doesnt want to merely create a smaller, code-compliant version of the old flashy marquee. Well probably do something different, she said, though she doesnt yet know what.

Luna has not yet secured new tenants for the bar and hair-salon spaces. At one point, she spoke about combining them into a single unit, but shes rethinking that.

I might just keep it the way it is, Luna said.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
Steven G. de Polo / Getty Image

A 29-year-old man was critically injured early Thursday after an assailant stabbed him in the back in the Mission District of San Francisco, officials said.

The stabbing occurred about 3:15 a.m. near the intersection of 25th and Mission streets, police said.
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The roads are wet and slick, the windshield wipers are on, and the umbrellas opening up.

Yes, it's actually raining in June.

Downtown San Francisco is expected to receive one-hundredth of an inch to fifteen one-hundredths of an inch. The city will likely see the average rainfall for June, which is sixteen one-hundredths of an inch, in one day.

Urban areas in the North Bay will get up to a quarter of an inch and higher elevations a half-inch.

"The rainy days in June are very limited," said Scott Rowe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Monterey. "When you do get precipitation in June, it's usually only one or two days."

Rowe warns that because it hasn't rained in the Bay Area since April 19, oil will be built up on roads and motorists could encounter slippery spots during the morning commute. "Traffic could be slow this morning," he said.

What's more, the rainy weather is interfering with many school's end-of-the-year activities such as picnics, beach days, outdoor graduations and special field trips to amusement parks.

In the mountains, snow was falling above 10,000 feet Thursday morning and the snow level will likely rise above 8,000 feet in the afternoon.

"The Sierra Nevada could get some good precipitation, up to an inch," Rowe said. "You have the mountains that lift up the moisture and squeeze it out of the storm front."

The precipitation is the result of a low-pressure system that's coming from the Pacific Northwest and anchored off the coast of British Columbia. The worst of the weather will arrive this afternoon when a trailing cold front drapes over Northern California.

As the storm moves through the region, precipitation is forecast to decrease rapidly into the night. Friday through Sunday will be dry and cool with inland highs in the mid-60s to mid-70s (up to 10 degrees below normal) and coastal highs in the 50s to 60s (two to three degrees below normal).

Things should begin to warm up Monday and through next week, with temperatures reaching as high as the 90s inland by Thursday.
An African American project manager at a Pleasanton construction company filed a racial-discrimination and harassment lawsuit Thursday against her former bosses, alleging they gave her photos of themselves dressed in President Trump-related costumes and posing with Confederate flags.

Tishay Wright filed the suit in Alameda County Superior Court, charging that the offensive behavior of the owners of Southland Construction was part of a pattern of harassment against women and minorities.

I kept being told by my family to not be afraid to speak up, Wright said of the decision to bring the lawsuit. I come from Berkeley, Calif.  Ive never encountered anything like this.

Wright was hired at the company in June 2015; she alleged that the two years she worked there were punctuated by incidents that created a hostile work environment. In one, she said, her employers gave her photos of themselves posing at her desk with Confederate flags emblazoned with the words the Southland shall rise again.

She said she Googled the Confederate flag in disbelief, just to make sure that really was what the images showed.

I couldnt believe what I had received from my bosses, Wright said tearfully. It takes me back to slavery days. I am not a slave.

Wright alleged that Southland co-owners Anita and Kenneth Hayden became hostile to her after she complained about Kenneth Hayden allegedly telling her and another female employee, Yall are my bitches and youre going to take notes for the smaller projects coming up.

Then, at a white elephant gift exchange at a company Christmas party, the lawsuit alleges, Kenneth Hayden did not allow Wright to pick her present, instead giving her a separate, wrapped gift.

When she got back to her car, Wright claims, she discovered the bag contained a Confederate flag purse with photos of her bosses dressed as President Trump and a Trump supporter posing with Confederate flags.

Wright also alleges her employers would make racially insensitive comments like, Well just let the Mexicans do it, and joked that Mexican workers could be paid in beer.

She is seeking undisclosed punitive and compensatory damages.

Southland Construction did not immediately respond for a request for comment on the allegations.

Wrights lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said the case has symbolic importance and shows whats going wrong with this country.

Ive dealt with discrimination cases, race-based cases, Dolan said. Ive never dealt with something so offensive, so proud to inflict an injurious message on another person.

Filipa Ioannou is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: fioannou@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi
California officials, determined to fight climate change, have ordered deep cuts in the states emission of greenhouse gases.

But new figures illustrate just how difficult that process can be.

The states emissions in 2015 dropped just 0.3 percent from the prior year, according to data released Wednesday by the California Air Resources Board. The boards detailed annual greenhouse gas inventories are issued more than a year after the fact.

While emissions from electrical plants fell in 2015, driven down partly by the rapid growth of large solar facilities, the amount of greenhouse gases spewed by cars and planes rose. That may be due to low fuel prices and an improving economy, both of which typically entice people to drive more. Transportation accounted for 39 percent of the states emissions in 2015, making it Californias largest source of greenhouse gases.

As far as the small emissions reduction goes, if its due to a growing economy, well take it, said Dave Clegern, spokesman for the board, which oversees most of Californias climate-change efforts.

Since peaking in 2004 at more than 489 million metric tons, Californias emissions have fallen about 10 percent, to 440 million metric tons.

California law calls for emissions to return to their 1990 level of 431 million metric tons by 2020, then drop another 40 percent by 2030. While most analysts consider the 2020 goal well within reach, they arent as certain about 2030.

California has emerged as a focal point of resistance to President Trumps plans to gut federal climate efforts and pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Trump believes climate action is expensive and endangers energy jobs.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a frequent and fierce Trump critic, has formed coalitions with other states, countries and provinces to fight global warming. On Thursday, he wrapped up five days of climate talks in China after meeting with President Xi Jinping, the mayor of Beijing and the countrys special envoy on climate change. On Friday, he plans to meet in San Francisco with Germanys minister for the environment.

Its not a time for inertia, Brown said Thursday in a speech at Tsinghua University, describing humanitys response to warming as inadequate. Its a time for radical change in how we power the modern economy.

California law requires utilities to get one third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and half by 2030. Last year, California's three large electric utilities collectively got 32.3 percent of their electricity from renewables. A bill under discussion in the Legislature would raise that requirement to 100 percent renewable power by 2045.

The state also uses a cap-and-trade system to rein in emissions from industry and other big businesses. And it forces oil companies to gradually lower the carbon intensity of the fuels they sell in the state.

Yet year-by-year progress on cutting emissions has been inconsistent. Emissions even rose in 2012, due to two unforeseen events. The drought cut the output of hydroelectric dams. And the sudden closure of the San Onofre nuclear plant forced Southern California utilities to buy more electricity from power plants burning natural gas.

Last winters heavy snows in the Sierra should lead to strong hydropower production this year. And the state is adding renewable power at a rapid clip. One sunny afternoon last month, renewables (not including large hydropower plants) briefly supplied a record 67.2 percent of power to the California grid.

David R. Baker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dbaker@sfchronicle.com
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Commuter-shuttle service Chariot is adding routes at home while setting its sights on an ambitious national and international expansion.

The San Francisco company will begin providing rides from Potrero Hill on Monday, with plans to expand into the Sunset District in July and elsewhere in the Bay Area by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, job listings indicate the company has plans to serve Seattle; Chariot is now hiring drivers there. It is adding sales, marketing, management and operations staff in New York and Los Angeles. It is also seeking to place general managers in London and Toronto.

While the company said in January that it planned to expand to more cities, including one international location, this year, it has not previously disclosed expansion plans. A spokeswoman said Chariot is exploring several markets in the longer term. It also operates in Lake Tahoe and Austin, Texas.

The Potrero Hill addition is the first service expansion in the city since Chariot added a route in the Mission District in February 2016  not long before it was acquired by Ford Motor Co.

CEO Ali Vahabzadeh said Chariot is looking to double the number of routes it serves in the Bay Area this year. The company has long solicited route ideas from prospective riders and allowed them to sign up for proposed routes. It has now introduced a refined version of that route-proposal tool on its app and website.

Vahabzadeh said Chariot is considering routes in Fremont, San Jose and the North Bay. (It is seeking approval from regulators to take commuters between counties, which it currently cannot do.) Once requests hit a certain number in an area, vans will start serving it.

Users who start successful campaigns to bring Chariot into their neighborhoods will get free rides for a month.

Because we are under Ford now, we can scale up the supply much more reliably to fulfill our goal to meet demand for first- and last-mile commutes, Vahabzadeh said.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is seeking new guidelines to regulate Chariot and future services like it.

At its Citizens Advisory Council meeting in March, the agency said it is considering requiring a private transit vehicle permit for Chariot, which would include a review of its routes, stops, fees and administrative penalties. The agency may also require private bus services to have safety training for drivers, provide ridership and location data and offer equal access to people with disabilities.

Chariot provides training for drivers and allows people with disabilities to request a wheelchair ramp.

We will continue to monitor their services to better understand how their operations impact San Franciscos transportation system, said spokesman Paul Rose.

Analysts said that while the service meets a need among commuters, it also risks creating a two-tiered transportation system divided by income.

Susan Shaheen, co-director of UC Berkeleys Transportation Sustainability Research Center, said that while companies like Chariot can in theory complement existing public transit by reducing crowds at peak periods, its not clear whether thats happening to any significant extent.

Is it is possibly competing with public transit so much that it hurts the ability of public transit to play a role? she said.

Vahabzadeh believes Chariot helps feed people into public transit. One in 5 Chariot riders uses the service to go to BART, Caltrain, a bus or a ferry to get the rest of the way home, he said.

We are providing them a way to access these transit stations where otherwise they would continue driving to Palo Alto or the East Bay in cars, he said.

Chariot costs on average $1.50 more per ride than Muni, and requires a smartphone and credit card.

The technology is potentially leaving demographic groups behind, Shaheen said.

Still, Chariot has clearly tapped into a source of demand. Software engineer Ajay Prakash, 28, who lives and works in Potrero Hill, has a bus stop in front of his office building and often takes public transit to get to the Mission and Financial districts.

There are a lot of shady people on the bus, he said. So if there was a better alternative, I would definitely use that.

Nicholas Cheng is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ncheng@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nichocheng
San Francisco International Airport said it is investigating airline food contractor LSG Sky Chefs after a labor union submitted claims that 136 employees in airport kitchens have been victims of wage theft.

Unite Here, a union representing hotel, food and gaming workers, published a report on Thursday alleging that LSG Sky Chefs may owe as much as $22,500 in back wages to its staff at SFO as of May 20. Wage theft is a term that covers payment below the minimum wage, denial of meal or rest breaks, nonpayment of overtime and other cases of insufficient pay by employers.

SFOs Quality Standards Program requires certain airport contractors to pay a minimum wage, which increased by 30 cents to $14.14 an hour this year. The airport may impose a fine of $1,000 per employee or violation per day.

The union said that SFO began an audit on LSG Sky Chefs in April. The audit is not yet complete, airport spokesman Doug Yakel said.

LSG Sky Chefs said employee salaries are set under a contract it negotiated with its international union in 2016.

It is the companys position that the applicable (collective bargaining agreements) take precedence over local minimum wage ordinances and that the proper way to address these issues is through the collective bargaining process that is already in place, LSG Sky Chefs said in an email. San Franciscos minimum compensation ordinance includes provisions for waivers under collective bargaining agreements.

Its hard enough to make ends meet for workers making just $14.14 (an hour) in San Francisco, said Anand Singh, president of the unions Local 2, which represents workers in San Francisco and San Mateo County. The airlines are making record profits. Airline food workers deserve to earn a fair wage just like other women and men who work at SFO.

I deserve to make the airports minimum wage, said Miguel Sobalvarro, who cooks for LSG Sky Chefs at SFO. He said he is being paid $14 an hour  14 cents lower than the minimum wage his employer is supposed to pay.

LSG Sky Chefs serves Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, JetBlue Airways and several international carriers, according to the unions report. It said the company also committed wage theft at airports in Denver, San Diego, Seattle and Miami.

Alaska and JetBlue did not respond to requests for comment. An American Airlines spokeswoman said the company was not aware of the reports allegations against its contractor.

In Miami, the union alleged that 785 employees made less than the $12.62 countys minimum wage. Employees there are owed a total of $12.5 million in wages since 2014, the report claimed.

These workers are often taken advantage of because of their immigrant status, and the fact they are not fully aware of their basic rights makes them vulnerable, said Gordon Mar, executive director of Jobs With Justice San Francisco, which fights for workers rights, wages and work-life balance.

Mar said San Francisco airport workers are owed less than those in other cities, which may reflect higher awareness by workers of their rights. But still thats a large amount of money that they have been cheated out of and deserve.

Nicholas Cheng is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ncheng@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @nichocheng
President Trump may be the nations tweeter-in-chief, but some Twitter users say hes violating the First Amendment by blocking people from his feed after they posted scornful comments.

Lawyers for two Twitter users sent the White House a letter Tuesday demanding they be unblocked from the Republican presidents @realDonaldTrump account.

The viewpoint-based blocking of our clients is unconstitutional, wrote attorneys at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York.

The White House didnt immediately respond to a request for comment.

The tweeters  one a liberal activist, the other a cyclist who says hes a registered Republican  have posted and retweeted plenty of complaints and jokes about Trump.

They say they found themselves blocked after replying to a couple of his recent tweets. The activist, Holly OReilly, posted a video of Pope Francis casting a sidelong look at Trump and suggested this was how the whole world sees you. The cyclist, Joe Papp, responded to the presidents weekly address by asking why he hadnt attended a rally by supporters and adding, with a hashtag, fakeleader.

Blocking people on Twitter means they cant easily see or reply to the blockers tweets.

Although Trump started @realDonaldTrump as a private citizen and Twitter isnt government-run, the Knight institute lawyers argue that hes made it a government-designated public forum by using it to discuss policies and engage with citizens. Indeed, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday that Trumps tweets are considered official statements by the president.

The institutes executive director, Jameel Jaffer, compares Trumps Twitter account to a politician renting a privately owned hall and inviting the public to a meeting.

The crucial question is whether a government official has opened up some space, whether public or private, for expressive activity, and theres no question that Trump has done that here, Jaffer said. The consequence of that is that he cant exclude people based solely on his disagreement with them.

The users werent told why they were blocked. Their lawyers maintain that the connection between their criticisms and the cutoff was plain.

Still, theres scant law on free speech and social media blocking, legal scholars note.

This is an emerging issue, says Helen Norton, a University of Colorado Law School professor who specializes in First Amendment law.

Morgan Weiland, an affiliate scholar with Stanford Law Schools Center for Internet and Society, says the blocked tweeters complaint could air key questions if it ends up in court. Does the public forum concept apply in privately run social media? Does it matter if an account is a politicians personal account, not an official one?

San Franciscos Twitter declined to comment. The tweeters arent raising complaints about the company.

Jennifer Peltz is an Associated Press writer.
Yahoo shareholders voted at a brief meeting Thursday to sell the companys Internet properties for $4.48 billion, closing a chapter on one of Silicon Valleys pioneering tech companies.

After the deal closes  which is expected on Tuesday  Yahoos Web services will combine with Verizons AOL division. As a result, 2,100 people, 15 percent of the roughly 14,000 employees at the companies, will be laid off, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked for anonymity because affected workers have not been notified.

AOL spokeswoman Caroline Campbell said that the combined companies, which will be known as Oath, will have access to more than 1 billion people.

Owners of Yahoo stock will become shareholders of Altaba Inc., a new holding company that will oversee Yahoos investments in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and tech firm Yahoo Japan, as well as a portfolio of patents.

Theres been so many changes here, said shareholder Jean Stables, who has owned Yahoo stock for two decades, since it was a popular portal to the Internet. Its more important that they keep the properties going than whatever they are called, she added.

For several shareholders at the Santa Clara Marriott session Thursday, selling Yahoos Internet properties, which include Yahoo Mail, News and Sports, seemed inevitable. The company has tried to reinvent itself over the years but had trouble competing with Google on search and struggled amid the rise of mobile advertising leaders like Facebook.

This is about as good as its going to get, said Charles King, president of IT analysis firm Pund-IT.

Some investors had pressured the company to extract the value of its highly successful investment in Alibaba, which now has a market capitalization of about $355 billion. So Yahoo came up with a plan to spin off its small-business division with the Alibaba shares to create a tax-free entity, but some investors worried that the spin-off could still be taxed.

So Yahoo suspended that plan and focused on other options, including a potential sale. Starboard Value, a hedge fund that had sought management changes, gained seats on Yahoos board as part of a settlement, making a sale virtually certain. In July, Yahoo announced the plan to sell its Internet properties to Verizon for $4.83 billion.

But months later, Yahoo disclosed that it had experienced two major data breaches  among the largest in the nations history. Verizon was not aware of the breaches when the original deal was discussed. In February, Verizon said Yahoo reduced the price by $350 million.

On Thursday, Shareholders also approved executive compensation associated with closing the deal. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer will make an estimated $23 million through a golden parachute, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is unclear whether Mayer will join Verizon, but many analysts do not expect her to do so.

King expects that the layoffs will affect areas of Yahoos business that duplicate those of AOL, including Yahoos sales and marketing teams.

Not all shareholders favored the sale to Verizon. One Yahoo tech employee, who declined to be named, attended the meeting to vote against the sale.

I think (Yahoo is) capable of making it on their own, he said.

Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thewendylee
MILWAUKEE  Manager Bruce Bochy finally admitted what the faithful already knew. He called left field a black hole for the Giants this season.

The 11th and 12th occupants, Austin Slater and Orlando Calixte, both are hitting .167, and Calixte is playing bad defense. In Wednesday nights 6-3 loss he overran a single in left field for an error and took a bad route on a Hernan Perez double.

Like Christian Arroyo, Slater and Calixte posted great numbers at Triple-A but look overmatched in the majors.

Weve got to get these guys to relax, Bochy said. Trust me. Theyre good players. I dont know why these players are pressing a little bit. Weve got to get these guys settled down. Weve got to get somebody to step up and take that job.

Big inning: The Giants had a three-run third against Jimmy Nelson, who was coming off eight shutout innings against the Dodgers. Eduardo Nunez singled, temporarily raising his average to .300, stole second and scored on a Brandon Belt double.

Buster Posey then slammed a ball off the batters eye beyond the center-field wall for his first homer with a man aboard this season and his first such homer against a right-handed pitcher in more than a year. The last one was so long ago, on June 2, 2016, Matt Duffy was the baserunner.

But that was the only inning in which the Giants scored. They wasted doubles by Denard Span and Joe Panik in the two prior innings and had two hits after the third inning.

Bumgarners mind-set: Thursday marks seven weeks since Madison Bumgarners dirt-bike accident, and he still has weeks to go before he can even throw off a mound.

Some players go nuts on the 10-day disabled list because they cannot play. Bumgarner said he has kept an even keel because he told himself he had to after he separated his shoulder and injured some ribs.

You know that going in, he said. You also know its not going to do you any good with your rehab. Ive tried the best I can to combat that, get better and not really have any expectations. Ive tried to do what I need to do to get better. I feel Ive handled it pretty well.

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

On deck

Thursday

at Brewers

11:10 a.m. NBCSBA

Cueto (5-5)

vs. Espino (0-0)

Friday

vs. Twins

7:15 p.m. Channel: 11

Santana (7-3)

vs. Moore (2-6)

Saturday

vs. Twins

1:05 p.m. NBCSBA

Berrios (4-1) vs. Samardzija (2-7)

Leading off

Riches to rags: The Giants, Cubs, Cardinals, Royals and Red Sox, who have won every World Series since 2010, are a combined 137-150 this year.

 Henry Schulman
This spring, Jai Yun, which has long nourished a reputation as one of the best restaurants in Chinatown -- if you knew it was open and made a reservation in advance -- left its location on Clay Street after 10 years.

Chef Chia Ji Nei moved from Nanjing to San Francisco in the 1990s, and first began serving multi-course dinners out of a cramped 30-seat space in Chinatown in 1999. He moved to Clay Street in 2007, taking over a much larger space that his family had originally intended to be a casual restaurant. As the years passed, Chef Nei preferred to open only when he had a reservations, for prix-fixe meals only, and for diners who paid cash.

Chef Nei has always eschewed menus, and has largely prepared and cooked all the food by himself, sometimes serving as well. According to a profile that ran several years ago in Lucky Peach magazine, Jai Yun's meals, delicate and multifaceted, were interpretations of poems. The gate across the door was often pulled shut, and most passers-by didn't know that they could get Chef Nei to open it simply by making a reservation on Open Table.

Given the irregular hours, it took several months for word of the permanent closure to appear on restaurant discussion board Hungry Onion. According to Eugene Lau, who is now assisting Chef Nei, the chef abandoned Clay Street in March simply because his lease was up.

Now he's embarking on a pop-up of sorts while he looks for another location. "He's still cooking the same food, still a happy man who wants to cook," Lau says.

Starting June 14, Lau says, Jai Yun will operate out of New Sun Hong Kong on Broadway and Grant, serving dinners either in the main dining room or in a private room, depending on the size. Dinners will continue to be a multi-course meal that costs $98 or $168 a person. To have Chef Nei prepare a meal for you, call the restaurant to make a reservation a few days or weeks ahead; the minimum party size is 2.

Lau says the chef hopes to find a new space much like the last one, which could accommodate 160, not that it frequently did. "We're pretty much keeping it the same and keeping it lively but with same type of format," Lau says.

Jai Yun at New Sun Hong Kong: 606 Broadway, at Columbus, San Francisco. (415) 981-7438
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Changes are happening in quick succession in the East Bay food scene.

As first reported by the San Francisco Business Times, Pican (2295 Broadway), Oakland's 6,000-square-foot California-Southern restaurant owned by Michael Leblanc, will close on Sunday. The shop is a stone's throw from the 8,000-square-foot former Ozumo (2251 Broadway) space that's been vacant since last year.

"It's really about right-sizing. We still have a super loyal following. I feel like we have Pican disciples. But that discipleship is better served in a a 3,500-square-foot space," Leblanc said.

The total Broadway space, which is over 13,000 square feet, is being divided into smaller spaces for new restaurant tenants, one of which is Tanya Holland's Brown Sugar Kitchen (2534 Mandela Parkway). Holland has not responded to Chronicle inquiries.

More Information ' See More Collapse

The other, according to reports, will be Bocanova (55 Webster St.), the pan-Latin spot in Jack London Square that will be closing its current location.

Rick Hackett, owner of Bocanova, said while Jack London Square is a nice area, he's looking forward to the move to the Uptown Oakland neighborhood. The rent at his new space, he told Scoop, will be about 25 percent of what he's paying now.

"I've also noticed the foot traffic at lunch there is four or five times what we would get in the square, which is great," he said. "So I'll maintain, if not increase my sales volume while also decreasing my rent."

No final service date has been set for Bocanova.

Michael Leblanc told Scoop that while he most likely won't be back on Broadway, Pican may pop up somewhere else in Oakland -- maybe in the downtown area -- late next year or in early 2019.

Pican's nearly decade-long run in the Uptown food scene helped shape the neighborhood into the burgeoning business hub it is today. The refined Southern fare was unique in the city when it launched in 2009 and it didn't take long for the place to become a preferred dinner and drinks depot for everyone from Bay Area athletes to big-name politicians.

The news reiterates how it hasn't been easy for restaurants with the large footprints to survive in the Bay Area food scene as of late. When Ozumo closed, owner Jeremy Umland told the Scoop a perfect storm of increased occupancy costs and labor issues made it hard for the location to remain profitable. Similar issues spurred Leblanc's decision to shutter Pican.

Couple the normal operating pitfalls for a Bay Area restaurateur with the increased attention being paid to Uptown Oakland these days, and Leblanc was succumbing to a growth in popularity restaurants like his helped forge. In some ways, the situation mirrors what is happening in parts of West Oakland.

For now, Leblanc is focusing his sights on Playt, his new Southern-inspired project in Hayward. The restaurant will open sometime next week, replacing Bijou Restaurant and Bar on B Street. He said people should think about it as a "Southern P.F. Chang's."

And his new space in Hayward? It's about 4,000 square-feet. Leblanc is looking for a similar size for Pican's next home.

"What I've discovered is that with the change in market dynamics in Oakland, 6,000 square feet and even Ozumo's 8,000 square feet, it's just too big," he said. "But we'll be back. For Oakland, I really want to keep that refined dining that Pican offers here. I think Oakland deserves it."

Justin Phillips is staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Twitter" @JustMrPhillips
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, ignited a Thursday morning storm on Twitter with a bizarre series of questions that visibly confused fired FBI Director James Comey, along with a reference to "President Comey."

The former presidential candidate constantly mixed up the FBI's long-concluded investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server with the agency's very-much-underway probe into Russia's interference with the 2016 presidential election.

RELATED: Twitter explodes over Comey's testimony on Trump, Russia and the election

"Whatever you think of the questions from every other Senator on the committee, they all made sense: McCain's remarks were a departure from that," tweeted MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.

"What, exactly, was John McCain asking James Comey?," asked Chris Cillizza of CNN. "The Fix" column in the Washington Post headlined: "Sen. John McCain's bizarre questioning of James Comey."

McCain, 80, quickly put out an "I'm not bizarre" statement. He said:

"I get the sense from Twitter that my line of questioning today went over people's heads. Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games."

"What I was trying to get at was whether Mr. Comey believes that any of his interactions with the President rise to the level of obstruction of justice. In the case of Secretary Clinton's emails, Mr. Comey was willing to step beyond his role as an investigator and state his belief about what 'no reasonable prosecutor' would conclude about the evidence."

The Arizona Diamondbacks responded to McCain's explanation on Twitter:

Still, with his performance Thursday, McCain seemed to inherit the role played by New Mexico Sen. Joseph Montoya in the 1973 Senate Watergate Committee hearings. Montoya was so hard to understand, the jokes went, that he provided an opportunity for TV viewers to duck out to the bathroom.

RELATED: Donald Trump Jr. attacks Comey on Twitter

The questioning by McCain seemed, at times, to go over Comey's head.

Put yourself in Comey's shoes and try to follow this line of inquiry from McCain:

"Well, at least in the minds of this member, there's a whole lot of questions remaining about what went on, particularly considering the fact that as you mentioned, it's a, quote, big deal as to what went on during the campaign, so I'm glad you concluded that part of the investigation.

"But I think that the American people have a whole lot of questions out there, particularly since you just emphasized the role that Russia played. And obviously she was a candidate for president at the time. So she was clearly involved in this whole situation where fake news, as you just described it, is a big deal took place. You're going to have to help me out here. In order words we're complete, the investigation of anything former Secretary Clinton had to do with the campaign is over and we don't have to worry about it anymore?"

To which Comey replied: "With respect to -- I'm a little confused."

The Clinton investigation wound up last July with a decision not to prosecute, but with Comey taking the ex-Secretary of State to task for being "extremely careless" in her handling of classified material.

RELATED: Trump says he's under 'siege'

McCain has excoriated Trump over Russian connections. On Thursday, however, he seemed to make the argument that Comey let Clinton off the hook, but continued with an investigation of Trump.

Comey responded that he discussed the Clinton investigation only after the FBI had completed its work.

McCain soldiered on. "That investigation was going on, this investigation was going on. You reached separate conclusions," the senator argued.

"No, that one was done," replied Comey, left to explain for the third time that the probe into Clinton concerned an email server and was done 10 months ago.

"You're going to have to help me out here," McCain responded. Comey then said that he was confused.

RELATED: Comey says White House statements about him were 'lies'

"I think it's hard to reconcile, in one case you reach a complete conclusion, and on the other you have not," McCain argued. "I think that's a double standard there, to tell you the truth."

McCain turned to the Trump administration, asking about Comey "reaching a conclusion" about current White House aides. "Are you aware of anything that would lead you to believe that information exists that could coerce members of the administration or blackmail the administration?" he asked.

"That's not question I can answer, senator," Comey replied.

McCain is not a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has ex-officio status, however, and as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee can ask questions. And ramble on -- and on.

McCain is promising he will henceforth ask his questions in writing, the key question being whether in Comey's interactions with Trump "the President's conduct constitutes obstruction of justice."

"While I missed an opportunity in today's hearing, I still believe this question is important, and I intend to submit it in writing to Mr. Comey for the record," said McCain, who has been in the Senate since 1987.
To summit Mount Rainier is no small endeavor.

In fact, based on the details of Hazard Stevens' account of the first successful summit of the 14,410-foot peak, it can be a terrifying experience.

Stevens and Philomon Beecher Van Trump made the successful ascent on August 17, 1870. It was a Wednesday morning, about 6 a.m., when they started out from their camp along the Skyline Trail above Sluiskin Falls to head for the summit.

Based on their scouting from the previous day, Stevens (son of first Washington territorial governor Isaac Stevens) and Van Trump assumed they could make the summit and return to their camp that day. With that in mind, they carried ice axes, a long rope, a large canteen, flags, alpine staffs, and some lunch, but left behind coats and blankets.

The route, known today as the Gibraltar Ledges route, took the duo (their Yakima Indian guide, Sluiskin, refused to go farther out of fear of demons) along a ledge with heavy exposure to falling rock from above, and exposure to a massive drop below. Stevens described it in an account he wrote for The Atlantic Monthly:

"The wind was blowing violently. We were now crawling along the face of the precipice almost in mid-air. On the right the rock towered far above us perpendicularly. On the left it fell sheer off, two thousand feet, into a vast abyss. A great glacier filled its bed and stretched away for several miles, all seamed or wrinkled across with countless crevasses. We crept up and along a ledge, not of solid, sure rock, but one obstructed with the loose stones and debris which were continually falling from above, and we trod on the upper edge of a steep slope of this rubbish, sending the stones at every step rolling and bounding into the depth below. Several times during our progress showers of rocks fell from the precipice above across our path, and rolled into the abyss, but fortunately none struck us."

By about 5 p.m., they reached what they thought was the summit (Point Success) only to realize that the higher peak, Columbia Crest, was farther on.

On their way to the higher peak, they discovered a sulfur steam vent in an ice cave and opted to pass the night there, trying to catch the heat from "one of Pluto's fires" with a quickly built stone wall on one side.

After a miserable night, they awoke and, spotting a sun break, quickly made for Columbia Crest, where they dropped a brass plate inscribed with their names before making a hasty descent.

Today, the route they took is known as the winter route to the summit, as the danger from falling rock and exposed loose rock ledges is still very high in warmer weather.

In the slideshow above, we gathered images of climbers on Mount Rainier dating back to the early 20th century. Take a look through to see how little gear early climbers carried as they made the tricky ascent.
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Daveed Diggs, "Hamilton" cast standout and "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" actor, is returning to his native Oakland to shoot an as-of-yet untitled film around the East Bay city.

Diggs and the Bay Area's Rafael Casal of Def Poetry Jam are together working on what the casting call describes as "a buddy movie that uses style and humor to discuss issues of race, gentrification and class."

The production's casting company, Beau Bonneau Casting, is looking for extras to fill a number of (paid) roles in scenes shooting between June 13-28, including a few to play police officers, diner patrons, young tech professionals, and "hip pedestrians."

From the online post:

Wednesday 6/7: Bar Patrons (night shoot)

Tuesday 6/13: Hair Stylists; African American Females in their late 20's to late 40's, Hair Salon Customers 20's to early 30's with interesting, fun, and unique hair styles and colors,

Sign Spinners, Street Pedestrians

Wednesday 6/21: Pedestrians

Friday 6/23: Drivers w/car, Cops ages 35-45 Must be under 6ft tall with a 15.5 -16.5 shirt and a 32-34 inch waist

Saturday 6/24: Street Pedestrians

Monday 6/26: Tech Professionals in there mid 20's and late 30's

Tuesday 6/27: Diner Patrons, Diner Employees

Wednesday 6/28: Hip Pedestrians, Cops

In 2016, Diggs hinted at his ambitions for future projects, telling the Mercury News that he left "Hamilton" because he was ready to try new things, like appearing on what was at the time his most recent project, the television sitcom "Black-ish."

"I've never done anything like it before and that's really the decision-making process for me right now," he said. "I had this great experience, and I'm not going to try to copy that. So what are things I've never done before? What are the kinds of things that I would love to get an opportunity to try, and is there a world in which I can do that?"

Those who are interested should refer to the official casting call.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.


WASHINGTON  The first words out of fired FBI Director James Comeys mouth Thursday were an accusation aimed directly at President Trump: The White House had defamed him and had lied, plain and simple, when it said he had left his agency in disarray.

By the time he concluded his public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in Novembers election, Comey had said he compiled memos of his dealings with Trump because he feared that the president would lie; that he had leaked those memos after his firing last month to hasten the appointment of a special counsel in the Russia investigation; and that he hoped Trump had indeed taped their conversations.

Comeys testimony lived up to its billing as a historic moment in American politics  never before has a former director of the FBI publicly portrayed a president as someone who couldnt be relied upon to tell the truth.

Trump remained silent on Comey during and after the testimony. But his personal attorney struck back, issuing a statement saying Comey had admitted he was among those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, asked afterward to defend Trumps honesty, responded, I can definitively say the president is not a liar.

Comey stopped short  but only barely  of accusing Trump of committing a crime by what he described as a lobbying effort to go light on former national security adviser Michael Flynn in the FBIs Russia investigation. Flynn was forced out of his job in February for lying to Vice President Mike Pence and others about his contacts with Russian officials during the presidential transition.

I dont think its for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct, Comey said of one exchange. I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning.

Its up to special counsel Robert Mueller, his former close colleague who is leading a parallel Justice Department investigation into Russia, to decide whether Trump or others in the administration obstructed the probe, Comey said. He said he believed Trump had fired him as a way to close down the Russia investigation, and called that a very big deal.

Under questioning by California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a former chair of the Intelligence Committee, Comey said the FBIs senior leadership team was as shocked and troubled by it as I was after Trump asked him to back off the Flynn investigation. Despite that, Comey admitted, he didnt take his concerns to the Justice Department  Attorney General Jeff Sessions was on the verge of recusing himself from the probe for his own contacts with Russian officials, and no other senior officials had won Senate confirmation, Comey said.

Feinstein asked why Comey, a big and strong man, would be so intimidated by Trump that he would not stop the president and tell him, This is wrong.

Comey replied, Its a great question. Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took (it) in.

Referring to a May 12 tweet by Trump  James Comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!  Comey said, Look, Ive seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., sought to poke a hole in GOP arguments that Trump only hoped Comey would back off the Flynn investigation, rather than ordered him to. Comey has said Trumps exact words to him were, I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.

In my experience of prosecuting cases, when a robber held a gun to somebodys head and said, I hope you will give me your wallet, the word hope was not the operative word at that moment, said Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney.

Dealing with Trump was unlike working under two other presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Comey said. He never felt the need to document his meetings with them, he said, but reached a different conclusion with Trump after the first of their nine conversations, during the transition.

I was honestly concerned he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it important to document, Comey said. I knew there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBI and our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function. Thats what made this so difficult. ... It was a combination of circumstances, subject matter and the particular person.

Those conversations included one in which the president had asked for his loyalty and a meeting at the White House where Trump ordered everyone out of the room before asking Comey to go light on Flynn, the former director said.

Comey said he deliberately left the memo of that meeting unclassified, so it could be more readily accessible to government officials. After his firing, when Trump issued his tapes tweet, Comey said he woke up at midnight and realized there could be evidence of that talk.

He said his side of the story had to get out, so he asked a friend of his, a professor at Columbia Law School, to share his notes with the press, in the hope it would prompt the appointment of a special counsel.

Trumps private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on that when he issued his statement rebutting Comeys testimony. He accused Comey of being one of these leakers of classified information inside the government and  while denying that Trump had demanded Comeys loyalty  said that the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in an administration.

Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor and U.S. attorney now at the law firm Dorsey and Whitney, said Kasowitzs assertion that Comey had leaked potentially privileged information was total nonsense.

There was no executive privilege for these conversations, Akerman said. A conversation in furtherance of a criminal scheme to obstruct justice is not covered by executive privilege. End of story.

Kasowitz also said Comey had conceded that there was no evidence that a single vote changed (in the November election) as result of Russian interference. Comey said there was no evidence of direct ballot tampering. But he confirmed a massive effort to target government and nongovernmental, near-governmental agencies to affect the election.

There should be no fuzz on this, Comey said. The Russians interfered. That happened. Its about as unfake as you can possibly get, a reference to Trumps repeated assertions that the Russian investigation is fake news.

Rep. Adam Schiff of Burbank, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting a separate Russia investigation, called Comeys testimony pretty breathtaking, and said the next steps for his committee are to corroborate Comeys testimony with other witnesses.

Schiff said getting to the bottom of what Russia did last year ultimately is the point of the investigations.

We know the Russians are going to interfere again, he said. We need to be able to prepare ourselves, defend ourselves, and really inoculate ourselves against that kind of intervention.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
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WASHINGTON  The rapid-fire revelations about the Trump campaign and its Russia connections that are heating up this city are having a chilling effect in plenty of other ways.

There are bills that have been pushed to the back burner. Diplomatic initiatives that arent fully initiating. Interest groups that cant stir up much interest. Appointees that havent been appointed.

It reminds me very much of the Monica Lewinsky days, when things just slowed to a crawl, says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist who worked for then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich when President Bill Clinton was under investigation for his affair with an intern in the late 1990s. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are consumed by it, and there seems to be little appetite for getting into the nitty gritty of other things.

Public relations executive Jamie Horwitz, who leads the team that schedules National Press Club events, emails that nothing, NOTHING of any importance is happening at the press club this week. By contrast, the organizations schedule for June 2016, when reporters were out covering campaigns and then-President Barack Obama was almost out the door, still featured plenty of press conferences, breakfasts, luncheons and newsmaker events.

Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, would like to see the nation more focused on voter suppression laws she says are being adopted around the country, but attention spans for these critical issues are short with so much interest focused on the Russia matter.

It does feel like the Comey controversy is sucking up a lot of the air, Clarke said, referring to James Comey, the fired FBI chief.

To be sure, the city has not ground to a halt.

Trump himself made a point of agreeing to address religious conservatives at the same time that Comey will be testifying before Congress on Thursday. And the White House is gamely attempting to keep the focus this week on proposed infrastructure improvements.

On Capitol Hill, senators are writing their version of legislation to replace the Obama administrations health care law. And the full Senate and House are scheduled to be tackling Iran sanctions and financial regulations when Comey is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Nancy Benac is an Associated Press writer.
1 Texas boycott: The nations premier immigration attorney conference is boycotting Texas because of the states tough, new law against sanctuary cities. The American Immigration Lawyers Association of attorneys who represent immigrants, announced the cancellation Wednesday of its 3,000-member conference in Grapevine, scheduled for 2018. The organizations president, William Stock, said members expressed their desire not to spend money in the state. Stock said that the annual conference contributes up to $3 million to the host site. Texas law allows police to inquire about individuals immigration status and requires them to turn immigrants over to federal immigration officials upon request.

2 Inmates freed: Dozens of inmates who couldnt afford bail were released from a Houston jail Wednesday after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that the countys bail system unfairly discriminates against the poor. Harris County officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday for an emergency order blocking the original ruling, which the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld earlier in the day. But Justice Clarence Thomas rejected the countys request on Wednesday. The county could still ask the Supreme Court to consider the case. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled in April that the bail system violated equal protection rights against wealth-based discrimination and due process protections.
WASHINGTON  President Trump sought comfort in the figurative embrace of his evangelical supporters Thursday as the FBI director he recently fired told Congress about their conversations. The president told a religious gathering that were under siege but will emerge bigger and better and stronger than ever.

Trump made no reference to James Comey in his remarks to the Faith and Freedom Coalitions annual gathering. But hours before the presidents first public comments of the day, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Trump tried to get him to pledge loyalty and drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump abruptly fired Comey last month. Trumps attorney said the president never asked Comey to stop investigating anyone.

In his remarks to the conference, Trump pledged to always support the right of evangelicals to follow their faith, which some conservatives believe is under attack by government.

We will always support our evangelical community and defend your right and the right of all Americans to follow and to live by the teachings of their faith, the president told more than 1,000 activists meeting at a hotel across town from Capitol Hill, the scene of Comeys nationally televised testimony.

And as you know, were under siege, you understand that. But we will come out bigger and better and stronger than ever. You watch, Trump said. You fought hard for me, and now Im fighting hard for all of you.

Trump spoke about his actions to safeguard religious freedom and continued, for the second straight day, to label congressional Democrats as obstructionists who are blocking his agenda. Yet it is differences of opinion among Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, that are standing in the way of what Trump wants to do on health care and other issues.

Trump mentioned his nomination of federal Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, which pleased Christian conservatives. He also has directed the Internal Revenue Service to ease up on using a rarely enforced rule barring partisan political activity by churches and tax-exempt organizations.

As long as Im president, no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith or preaching what is in your heart, he said.

Trump won an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote in the November election. A recent Pew Research Center survey found three-fourths of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president. Thirty-nine percent of the general public held the same view.

Darlene Superville is an Associated Press writer.
Vic Gold, a high-powered and sometimes high-strung Republican political strategist who served as the press secretary for Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and who wrote books with a president and the wife of a vice president, died June 5 at a hospital in Alexandria, Va. He was 88.

The cause was complications from an infection, said a daughter, Paige Gold.

Mr. Gold, who began his career as a lawyer, began advising Democratic candidates in Alabama before moving to Washington and undergoing a political conversion that led him to the Republican Party in the early 1960s. Short, intense and often irritable, he was once dubbed the Mount Vesuvius of press secretaries for his outbursts, but he had a redeeming sense of humor and an appreciation of the theatricality of politics.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, as the indefatigable deputy press secretary for Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., Mr. Gold had the unenviable task of presenting the candidates then-novel conservative agenda to a skeptical press corps.

In The Making of the President 1964, journalist Theodore H. White said Mr. Gold was practically a valet to traveling reporters. He carried their bags, got them to the trains on time, outshouted policemen on their behalf, bedded them down and woke them up, and before they knew it, the correspondents, about 95 percent anti-Goldwater by conviction, had been won to a friendship with the diminutive intellectual which spilled over onto his hero.

From 1970 to 1973, as the administration of President Richard Nixon was becoming mired in the Watergate political scandal, Mr. Gold was press secretary to Nixons vice president, Agnew.

Every reporter who traveled with Agnew had at least a dozen Vic Gold stories, Timothy Crouse wrote in The Boys on the Bus, a classic account of coverage of the 1972 election. Vic screaming horrible threats at cars in the path of the press bus. Vic terrorizing press-bus drivers who fell behind the motorcade. Vic becoming so deranged he distractedly pounded the assistant press secretary over the head with a rolled-up newspaper.

After the campaign, the reporters presented Mr. Gold with a straitjacket as an ironic gift.

Mr. Gold considered Agnew an unappreciated intellectual, but he felt betrayed when the vice president resigned in disgrace in 1973 and pleaded no contest to charges of tax evasion stemming from his earlier years as Maryland governor.

During the 1970s, Mr. Gold embarked on a second career as a writer and commentator, which included a 25-year association with Washingtonian magazine.

He returned to the political battlefield in 1979 as a speechwriter for the presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush and continued as an occasional adviser after Bush became vice president under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Gold helped Bush write a 1987 autobiography, Looking Forward, which appeared one year before Bush won the presidency.

In 1988, Mr. Gold collaborated on a book with another GOP luminary, Lynne Cheney, with whom he once shared an office at Washingtonian. Their book, The Body Politic, was a political thriller in which a Republican vice president dies of a heart attack while, as Mr. Gold put it, in the carnal embrace of a curvaceous television news reporter.

The book was reprinted in 2000, the year Cheneys husband, Richard, was elected vice president as George W. Bushs running mate.

Victor Gold was born Sept. 25, 1928, in East St. Louis, Ill. During the Depression, his family moved to New Orleans, where his father worked as a longshoreman and factory worker, among other jobs.

Mr. Gold attended Tulane University in New Orleans before entering law school at the University of Alabama, from which he graduated in 1951.

He served in the Army during the Korean War, then opened a law practice in Birmingham, Ala. He became an adviser to several Democratic political campaigns before moving to Washington in 1958.

He said he became disillusioned with the Democratic Party largely over foreign policy interventions and was an early supporter of the 1964 candidacy of Goldwater, who lost badly to President Lyndon B. Johnson but whose conservative ideas later became part of the GOP mainstream.

From 1964 to 1970, Mr. Gold headed a Washington consulting firm and worked on many congressional campaigns before being tapped as Agnews press secretary.

Mr. Gold wrote two books in the 1970s about the humor and hypocrisy of the Washington public relations world. He recalled a self-dealing Louisiana governor who once said, When I took the oath of office, I didnt take any vows of poverty.

On another occasion, he noted, a senator read a news release about a speech in the mistaken belief that it was the speech itself.

For immediate release, he began. Senator Joseph Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, last night told the National Legislative Conference ... 

In later years, however, Mr. Gold grew dismayed by his fellow Republicans and in 2007 published Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.

I really came to the conclusion that there was a threat to our system, to our way of life, and it was coming from those I thought were my people, Mr. Gold wrote.

He alienated old friends, including President George W. Bush, whom he called the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times. Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots.

Mr. Gold said his principles hadnt changed over the years  it was the party that shifted around him.

You remember the old play Waiting for Lefty? he said in a 2007 television interview on Bill Moyers Journal. Well, Im waiting for righty. And for a rebirth of Goldwater. I dont see him around.

Survivors include his wife of 65 years, the former Dale Solomon of Alexandria; three children, Paige Gold and Jamie Gold, both of Alexandria, and Stephen Gold of McLean, Va.; two grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Matt Schudel is a Washington Post writer.
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Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are detaining illegal immigrants this week on the Central Coast.

ICE agents went to homes in King City Monday, Soledad Wednesday, Santa Cruz Wednesday night, and Watsonville Thursday morning. They were also detentions in Salinas.

At least nine King City residents were taken into federal custody. The number of undocumented immigrants detained in Soledad, Santa Cruz, and Watsonville is unknown, police chiefs and sheriff's commanders told KSBW.

RELATED VIDEO: ICE Raids Targeting Undocumented Immigrants Reported Across The Country

Local police forces and the Monterey County Sheriff's Office are not cooperating with federal authorities or participating in the detentions.

ICE agents said they will continue detaining more residents around Watsonville over the next two days, Watsonville police Sgt. Brian Ridgeway said.

King City Police Chief Robert Masterson described the ICE action in his city as "criminal non-resident alien raids."

ICE spokesman James Schwab said the agency's goal is to remove dangerous criminals who are a threat to public safety.

Soledad Police Chief Eric Sills said ICE agents had a very specific list of names and addresses of criminals they were looking for.

"There are no knock-and-talks. They don't just go, 'knock knock are you legal?' They were looking for specific people," Sills told KSBW.

Soledad was the first city in Monterey County to declare itself as a "sanctuary city," and Monterey County declared itself a "sanctuary county."

However, Sills said he fully supports arresting criminals.

"If these are criminals, have at it. It's the right thing to do," Sills said.

Ridgeway said a woman showed up in the Watsonville police station's lobby Thursday morning hoping to find out what happened to a family member who was taken away.

Ridgeway echoed what other law enforcers across the Central Coast told KSBW about this week's raids: ICE is not providing police departments or the sheriff's office with any information, other than to say, federal agents are here and working in the area.

"They don't tell us, and we don't ask," Ridgeway said.

"We didn't know anything about it. We were told after the fact," Monterey County Sheriff's Cmdr. John Thornburg said.

A father of two who was arrested at 5 a.m. Thursday in his Watsonville home had been previously deported from the U.S. in 2010, witnesses said. Another person was taken away from their workplace in Santa Cruz Wednesday night.

Schwab declined to say how many illegal immigrants were detained on the Central Coast this week.

"ICE deportation officers conduct enforcement actions every day around the country and here in Northern California as part of the agencys ongoing efforts to uphold national security, public safety and border security. The agencys operations are targeted and lead driven, prioritizing individuals who pose a risk to our communities. For operational security reasons, however, we dont discuss ongoing or future operations publicly," Schwab said.

Anyone seeking to find out what happened to a detained family member or friend should call ICE.

No one at the Salinas Police Department returned phone calls from KSBW seeking comment.

This breaking news story will be updated.
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LOS ANGELES  Jimmy Gomez is going to have a hard time keeping some of his promises.

The liberal California Democrat who easily captured a vacant U.S. House seat in Southern California on Tuesday goes to a Republican-controlled Congress with little interest in his campaign trail talk of debt-free college, fighting climate change and enacting universal health coverage.

He acknowledged the obvious in the era of President Trump when he said we are the resistance.

With his victory over fellow Democrat Robert Lee Ahn in the 34th Congressional District, Gomez replaces another Latino Democrat who held the seat for years, Xavier Becerra, who stepped down after being appointed state attorney general.

Hell go to Washington with a similar, left-leaning agenda that clashes with much of what the White House is trying to do.

Asked about Trump at a May forum, Gomez said the Republican president ran on a platform of division, hatred and bigotry. As a congressman, he said, he would take a hard stand against the administration.

Gomez wants to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, while Trump is trying to energize a faded coal industry and plans to withdraw from a global climate change agreement.

The White House insists that plans for the presidents border wall are on track despite resistance from Congress; Gomez wants to stop funding for the project.

Michael R. Blood is an Associated Press writer.
GREAT FALLS  A Montana man has pleaded not guilty to deliberate homicide in the death of a 25-year-old woman whose body was found in the bathtub of a motel in Great Falls.

50-year-old Stanley Lebeau entered his plea Thursday for the mid-May death of Tasha Roberts.

Court records say Lebeau was arrested on a probation violation late on May 16 and told officers he had been hearing voices after using methamphetamine and spice and killed a woman because she wouldn't shut up.

Investigators found Roberts' body. They believed she had died several days earlier from a blow to the head.

Prosecutors said Lebeau told officers his arrest saved lives because he was planning on going on a killing spree.
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(Editor note: This story is originally from 2008, and was recently shared on Reddit.)

Two victims of a lethal Christmas Day tiger attack were harassing the big cats at the San Francisco Zoo shortly before a 350-pound feline escaped its enclosure and mauled them, a woman told The Chronicle on Wednesday.

The revelation comes as the zoo reopens Wednesday, nine days after a visitor was killed and two of his friends were injured by the Siberian tiger, later shot dead by police.

Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children that ill-fated Christmas afternoon, said she saw four young men at the big-cat grottos - and three of them were teasing the lions a short time before the tiger's bloody rampage that killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr.

"The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He was taunting them," the San Francisco woman said. "They were trying to get that lion's attention. ... The lion was bristling, so I just said, 'Come on, let's get out of here' because my kids were disturbed by it."

She said Sousa - whom she later recognized from his photo in the newspaper - was not heckling. The Chronicle contacted Miller after learning that she and her family had seen the young men at the zoo Christmas Day.

Miller, who said she visits the zoo with her relatives every Christmas, said the young men stood out because she has seen mostly families there. Although authorities have said Sousa was accompanied only by San Jose brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, Miller said four young men were together when she came across them.

Mark Geragos, an attorney speaking on behalf of the Dhaliwals, angrily denied that his clients teased the animals. He also accused the zoo administration and their newly hired crisis spokesman of "peddling unfounded rumors."

"It's unconscionable," he said. "They're doing nothing but a calculated attack on these victims ... when in actuality the zoo security didn't do what they should have been doing after the attack."

Geragos maintains that the brothers ran to the Terrace Cafe after Tatiana escaped and tried for more than 30 minutes to solicit help from zoo employees. He dismissed reports of the victims throwing rocks at the tiger as "just not true."

Miller called the behavior she witnessed by the victims "disturbing."

Her family was looking at the lions when the young men stopped beside them at the big-cat grottos - five outdoor exhibits attached to the Lion House. The young men started roaring at the lions and acting "boisterous" to get their attention, said Miller, who added that she watched the four for five minutes or so a little after 4 p.m.

"It was why we left," she said. "Their behavior was disturbing. They kept doing it."

Sousa refrained from such tactics, Miller said.

"He wasn't roaring. He wasn't taunting them," she recalled. "He kept looking at me apologetically like, 'I'm sorry, I know we are being stupid.' "

When a friend told Miller about the attacks - first reported to 911 dispatchers at 5:07 p.m. - she called police the day after Christmas to tell them what she had seen. She called back Wednesday because she was wondering why news accounts mentioned only three young men.

San Francisco police Inspector Valerie Matthews said investigators had talked to Miller on Wednesday but haven't been able to substantiate yet her account of a fourth person with the victims at the zoo. Authorities have been unable to corroborate reports that the victims taunted the tigers, she said.

"I don't know if what they did was any more than what kindergartners do at the zoo every day," Matthews said.

She said taunting an animal at the zoo is a misdemeanor.

Zoo officials declined Wednesday to specifically say that they suspected taunting in the escape of the tiger.

"Something prompted our tiger to leap over the exhibit," said Manuel Mollinedo, executive director of the zoo, in response to questions during a 13-minute press conference attended by at least 40 media representatives on Wednesday.

Mollinedo said new "Protect the Animals" signs would ask patrons to leave the animals alone, and portable loudspeakers would remind visitors to leave promptly at the 5 p.m. closing time. A hard-wired notification system is also in the offing to alert visitors to any escapes by the creatures that live there.

"Help make the zoo a safe environment," the signs state. "The magnificent animals in the zoo are wild and possess all their natural instincts. You are a guest in their home. Please remember they are sensitive and have feelings. PLEASE don't tap on glass, throw anything into exhibits, make excessive noise, tease or call out to them."

At the news conference, Zoological Society Chairman Nick Podell lavishly praised the beleaguered Mollinedo, who took over at the zoo in February 2004 and was earning $314,038 a year plus $15,702 in benefits and a $9,548 expense account, according to zoo tax documents filed in November. The society operates the zoo, although the land and animals are owned by the city.

Zoo officials said that over the next 30 days they will build a reinforced-glass barrier atop the tiger grotto's dry moat wall. On Tuesday the zoo said the glass wall would be 4 to 5 feet high, bringing the wall height to at least 16.5 feet tall, roughly what is suggested by national standards. However, on Wednesday the zoo said the wall would be at least 19 feet tall and feature viewing holes.

In the days after the fatal mauling, zoo officials gave five different estimates of the moat wall's height before finally conceding the wall was only 12.5 feet tall - 4 feet shorter than national recommendations.

"It will put us in the top end of the spectrum for containment facilities," Mollinedo said.

He remained vague on several other issues. Although he said 20 patrons were at the zoo when the attack occurred, he didn't know how many staff people or security officers were present. He said there will be more employees on duty in the future, although he wasn't sure when that staffing increase would happen. And he didn't know how much the proposed improvements would cost or where the money would come from.

"I'll have to get back to you on that," Mollinedo said more than once.

Mollinedo said his staff acted heroically after the attacks, although he couldn't describe any specific instances. However, zoo employees have told The Chronicle that they were among the first on the scene and led paramedics to Sousa's body while the tiger was still roaming the grounds.

When the zoo reopens, the big cats will be inside the Lion House, which will be closed to the public. Screened fences and barriers will surround the outdoor grotto and Terrace Cafe, sites of the attacks.

Patrons will be able to leave mementos and tributes at the main entrance to both Sousa and the 4-year-old Tatiana, who had mangled her keeper's arm a year earlier.

Also Wednesday, San Francisco police Sgt. Steve Mannina said investigators found an empty vodka bottle in the car that was used by the victims to go to the zoo on Christmas Day. Inspectors haven't concluded the significance of the find, he added.

Mannina also said results of toxicological tests performed on Sousa, who was killed by the tiger, have not been returned yet.

Watch a video on the zoo's plans to upgrade security at the big cat enclosures at sfgate.com.
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OAKLAND (BCN)

Norwegian Air Shuttle today launched new nonstop service from the Oakland International Airport to Barcelona using Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes.

Port of Oakland officials said Barcelona has been one of the largest and most requested destinations from the Bay Area to Europe.

GET OUT OF TOWN: 3-day sale for late summer, fall trips

Port officials said Norwegian Air's new service to Barcelona is an addition to its existing service from Oakland to London's Gatwick Airport and to Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen in Scandinavia.

Port officials said Oakland is now the third-largest California gateway to Europe and Norwegian Air, by offering nonstop service to more destinations than any other airline, becomes the Bay Area's top choice to Europe.

"Norwegian has been an excellent partner and we're proud to serve as its Bay Area gateway," Port of Oakland aviation director Bryant Francis said in a statement.

He said, "It offers our residents more nonstop European destinations than any other airline, serving as a key contributor to the ongoing growth the airport is experiencing."
Justin Ailport, development director for the Montana Democratic Party, is joining the race for a seat on Helenas city commission.

The field of candidates for the two non-partisan seats up for election on the commission also includes current Commissioner Andres Haladay, along with Gary Spaeth, Heather O'Laughlin and Sean Logan.

Ailport, 24, has held his position with the Democratic party for slightly more than two years, the entire time he has been in Helena, he noted.

He moved to Helena in the spring of 2015 after graduating from Montana State University.

Since moving here, I have fallen in love with Helena and hope to build my life here," he wrote.

Being a part of this community brings the responsibility to step up and make our city an even better place than it already it is. Not only would I consider it an honor to represent the citizens of Helena, but I believe the city commission is where I can do the most good giving back to the community that has given me so much.

His top priority if elected would be to focus on essential services, and maintaining roads and other infrastructure.

We have millions of dollars in needs, including updating and improving our water systems, and we need to find fiscally sound solutions to keep our infrastructure up to date.

My family instilled three important values in me: everyone gets invited to the party, pay attention to what you are doing and show up for people no matter what.

They taught me about the importance of community and how to treat people right. If elected, I will work tirelessly to ensure that everyone is heard, that responsible decisions are made, and that Helenas city government shows up for all its citizens, Ailport concluded.

Haladay, 34, who is an assistant attorney general with the state of Montana, is seeking a second four-year term. Logan, 52, retired from the Helena Fire Department after 20 years as both a firefighter and the departments chief. Spaeth, 71, is retired, a former state legislator and chairman of the Helena Citizens Council. OLoughlin, 36, is co-director of the Montana Budget and Policy Center, a non-profit organization focused on advancing policies to improve the lives of Montana families with low and moderate incomes.

Commissioner Dan Ellison, who is completing his second term, has said he has no plans to run again.

The office of mayor is also up for election and Jim Smith, 68, a retired lobbyist who is completing his fourth term as mayor, filed for re-election to this non-partisan office.

Joining him in the race is Wilmot Collins, 53, a child protection specialist with the state Department of Health and Human Services. He is also an adjunct instructor at Helena College, where he teaches psychology.

The filing period for city offices opened April 20 and closes June 19, said Audrey McCue, Lewis and Clark County elections supervisor.

There is an $85 fee to file for the office of mayor in Helena, which pays $8,500 annually and up to $150 per month for expenses. The fee to file for city commission is $68 and the office pays $6,800 a year with $100 per month available for expenses, according to information provided by McCue.
U.S. Congressman-elect Greg Gianforte agreed to a civil settlement Wednesday to head off a potential lawsuit by the reporter he attacked last month, issuing a written apology in which he backtracks his original account of events and promises to make a $50,000 donation to a nonprofit that works to protect journalists from violence worldwide.

The agreement was reached between the Montana politician and their reporter Ben Jacobs, the Guardian first reported. The Britain-based newspaper has a large presence and online following in the United States.

I have taken full responsibility for my actions and both publicly and personally apologized to Mr. Ben Jacobs," Gianforte said in a statement issued Wednesday by spokesman Shane Scanlon. "Ben has accepted my apology and we are both ready to move on."

In the letter, Gianforte wrote: My physical response to your legitimate question was unprofessional, unacceptable, and unlawful. As both a candidate for office and a public official, I should be held to a high standard in my interactions with the press and the public. My treatment of you did not meet that standard.

The donation will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit based in New York formed in 1981 to promote press freedom and defend the rights of journalists.

Gianforte also said in the letter that Jacobs "did not initiate any physical contact with me." That contradicts a statement issued by his campaign spokesman in the hours after the May 24 attack on the night before Election Day. He did not take direct ownership of the false statement or explain why his campaign issued the lie, instead referencing it vaguely in the letter as "anyone's statements to the contrary."

Jacobs said in an emailed statement that he hopes the settlement agreement allows everyone, including the nation, to move forward.

I have accepted Mr. Gianforte's apology and his willingness to take responsibility for his actions and statements," he wrote. "I hope the constructive resolution of this incident reinforces for all the importance of respecting the freedom of the press and the First Amendment and encourages more civil and thoughtful discourse in our country."

Jacobs will not receive any money as part of the agreement.

Scanlon acknowledged a request to talk and asked for questions by email, but did not answer them Wednesday evening. Gianforte did not return a call for comment.

Gianforte also faces a criminal misdemeanor assault citation for the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, a Bozeman judge granted an extension requested by attorneys for Gianforte to appear in court.

The judge did not set a date for Gianforte's appearance, meaning the Republican congressman could appear in court any Monday, Wednesday or Friday between now and June 20. Those are the days Justice Court is in session.

Gallatin County Justice Court Judge Rick West signed the order Tuesday, the same day attorneys for Gianforte filed the motion for an extension.

The motion also said "the parties are currently exploring a settlement'' of the case and that the extension was not opposed by the state. County Attorney Marty Lambert clarified Wednesday that means Gianforte and the state are negotiating a plea agreement related to the criminal citation.

The civil agreement with Jacobs included a requirement that the journalist email Lambert about the criminal case. In that message to the county attorney, Jacobs said he does not object to Gianforte entering a "no contest" plea in the pending civil case rather than a guilty plea, according to a copy provided by Scanlon.

Gianforte, who became wealthy starting a customer-service platform in Bozeman that he eventually sold to Oracle for $1.8 billion, was cited for misdemeanor assault, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, for an attack on Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs at a campaign event on May 24, about 24 hours before Gianforte was elected to the U.S. House.

An audio recording from the altercation details Jacobs trying to ask Gianforte a question about a health care bill, then a scuffle, followed by Jacobs saying Gianforte body-slammed him and broke his glasses. Gianforte can be heard yelling Get the hell out.

Jacobs description of what happened was confirmed by accounts of others in the room, including a reporter for Fox News who saw the altercation.

But just after it happened, the Gianforte campaign sent out a press release saying Jacobs grabbed Gianfortes wrist and pushed both men to the ground, and made a point of calling Jacobs a liberal journalist with aggressive behavior.

Gianforte refused repeatedly in an interview with MTN Friday to say why his campaign released what appears to be a false statement about the altercation. His letter to Jacobs Wednesday likewise does not address the issue.

He did say in his letter that he was sorry for the "unwanted notoriety" his assault created for Jacobs and acknowledged that the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of the press. He said journalists play "a critical role" in society and said those rights are "fundamental to who we are as a nation and the way government is accountable to the people."

"I also know that civility in our public discourse is central to a productive dialogue on issues. I had no right to respond the way I did to your legitimate question about health care policy. You were doing your job," he wrote to Jacobs.

Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist last month in the race to fill Montanas lone U.S. House seat, vacated when Ryan Zinke became Secretary of the Interior.

Gianforte's attorneys are William Mercer, with Holland and Hart law firm in Billings, and Todd Whipple, with Whipple Law Offices in Bozeman. Mercer was the U.S. Attorney for Montana from 2001-2009 and also served briefly as acting associate attorney general.

Gianforte's attorneys last week received a set of documents containing confidential criminal justice information that Lambert said cannot be made public.

That set of documents includes the citation, a 17-page case summary report, 16 pages of reports from three detectives, three pages of medical records, a sketch of the place where the altercation occurred, the arrest report, copies of media coverage, 14 more pages of handwritten notes from various sources, three pages of names and addresses of witnesses, the violent crime victim notice of rights forms, five pages of teletype history records and a release form and 40 pages of records from Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.

Gianforte also on Friday filed to run for re-election in 2018, according to Federal Election Commission records.
State environmental regulators are asking the developers of a proposed underground copper mine in central Montana for more information before they begin working on an environmental impact statement.

The Department of Environmental Quality on Thursday asked Tintina Montana Inc. how it plans to plug mine shafts after they're closed to prevent water from being released.

The DEQ also asked Tintina to complete its air quality, public water supply and surface water discharge permit applications and to clarify a few more pieces of information.

Tintina initially applied for a mining permit near White Sulphur Springs in December 2015. This is the third time the DEQ has requested more information.

When the application is complete, DEQ will prepare an environmental impact statement and gather public comment.

Environmental groups worry the mine could damage water quality in the area.
DECATUR  At lunchtime Thursday at the Downtown Cafe, the TV was tuned to Fox News, and the talking heads were just starting to dissect the testimony of former FBI Director James Comey.

The sense of drama was high in Washington, and lunchgoers here felt it, too.

John Northland Jr., a Maroa construction worker and Trump voter, said he was anxious to find out later the details of Thursday's Senate hearing. "I just assumed it was more attacks on Trump," he said.

Northland said he thinks Trump's political enemies will keep attacking until something sticks, but he's curious about what that will be.

"I'm suspicious as to what went on exactly ... I'm trying to trust the president. I'm trying to hope for better than what we've had (with past presidents). We'll see," he said.

Elsewhere in the country, political fanatics took the day off and headed to bars to watch, treating the hearings like a bonus Super Bowl in June.

Shaw's Tavern in Washington opened early and offered a special menu for the occasion, with "FBI sandwiches" and Russian vodka. In Brooklyn, it was standing room only at the coffeehouse Building on Bond, where the crowd inside the bar applauded as the hearing ending.

For the diners at the Downtown Cafe in Decatur, their political allegiances colored their views of whose word to trust in the investigations surrounding Russia's meddling in last fall's election.

Bruce Campbell, owner of Lyle Campbell & Son Realtors, said he's a Trump supporter but he doesn't really trust anyone surrounding the Russia investigations.

"I would hope the investigations just get done and over with, and the people in Washington can get on with the job they were sent to do. It does no good for this country to be tied up with all that stuff. We're wallowing in my opinion," he said.

One of Campbell's dining partners, Wayne Dunning, a minister at Faith Fellowship Christian Church, has kept close tabs on the issue but said he's not worried about what happens next.

"My mother used to say, 'It'll all come out in the wash. What's done in the dirt will come out in the light,' " he said.

Dunning said he did not vote for Trump, though Macon County overwhelmingly did in 2016.

An early supporter of Trump's campaign in Macon County was Dan Caulkins, a former Decatur city councilman. He said he understands if Comey feels slighted by Trump's decision to fire him as FBI director.

"But if the president decides not to retain someone, he can do that," Caulkins said.

The reaction from elected officials was varied as well.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, issued this statement: "Comey confirmed in his testimony today that President Trump was not personally under investigation. I hope that ongoing investigations conducted by the special prosecutor and bipartisan intelligence committees in Congress will prevent any future interference by Russia, or anyone else, in our election process.

But Illinois' two Democratic U.S. Senators pounced on Comey's harsh words for Trump.

"The question for the American people is: Who do you trust? Director Comey kept extensive records of what the president asked of him and agreed to testify publicly under oath. That speaks volumes," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, in an emailed statement.

U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth issued this statement: "These accusations are not normal and they transcend petty partisanship. Special Counsel (Robert) Mueller must now swiftly complete a transparent, impartial and independent investigation to ensure the American people learn the truth.
DECATUR  Macon County gained a new Fair Queen on Thursday in Kaitlin Henrichs, a 20-year-old Millikin University student.

Outgoing queen Aryn Dobrinick relinquished her crown to Henrichs during the the Macon County Fair Pageant, but she kept the fond memories she'd made over the course of the past year.

I couldn't have asked for a better year, said the 20-year-old college student. I gained so many networking opportunities in the community.

Henrichs will be a junior at Millikin in the fall and is studying music business. She is the daughter of Eric and Gina Henrichs, and was sponsored by Henrichs Family Farms. She competed with four other women: Bailey Barrows, Mykayla Plowman, Brooklyn Bollinger and Mia Brandenburg.

The pageant kicked off Macon County Fair grandstand events, which will continue this weekend. The evening competition included swimsuits, a one-minute speech dressed in business attire and evening gowns. The young women, ages 16 through 21, took part in personal interviews earlier in the day.

Henrichs will reign until next year's fair. She will begin with local public appearances, including community events and parades, and participate in the Miss Illinois County Fair pageant in January.

Four contestants competed for this year's Junior Miss category for girls ages 11 through 15. The winner of the competition, Lula Belle Sassano, will travel with the queen during the year representing Macon County. Other contestants included Riley Houser, Abby Park and Emilie Stogner.

Organizers created a Parade of Princesses for this year's county fair for girls ages 4 to 10. Taking the stage for this portion of the pageant was Lexie Waddell, Lillien Smith, Myliyah Goforth, Sha'Kia Moss and Laura Rodriguez. All of the princesses received a sash and gifts.

Lacey Jo Solomon, Julie Kinert and Erynn Hendricks judged the competition. All three women have experience with pageants, either as former queens or directors.

Visiting queens from other county fairs were on hand to wish the new queen good luck as well as to say goodbye to Dobrinick. Women came from as far away as Champaign, Edgar, Fulton and Effingham counties. Also in attendance was Miss Illinois County Fair Claudia VanOpdorp.

Co-director Kristie Krigbaum said the pageant was a success this year. She said these competitions help girls develop interview and public speaking skills, which they can carry on beyond the crown.

Hopefully, they will get more confidence in themselves, she said. It is a good self-esteem booster.

The directors began reaching out to local girls and young women months ago.

Once they hear the word 'pageant,' they think it's all glitz and glamour, Krigbaum said. That's not what it's all about.

Bollinger decided to compete because she knew it would allow her opportunities to meet new people.

I want to get more community involvement, to have fun and to get more people to come to the fair, she said. I want people to see the good that Decatur and Macon County has.

Dobrinick visited the Eisenhower High School's Elite Energy Show Choir during practice one day, catching the attention of Plowman. Dobrinick explained the positive experience she had during her reign.

Plowman, 17, felt confident before her first pageant and believed she could handle the most nerve racking portion of the pageant: the stage performance.

I am pretty used to it with show choir, the hair, makeup, the three-quarter turns, she said.

Houser, 15, was a contestant in the Junior Miss competition. She has competed in pageants previously.

I'm not stressed about the competition, she said. The less stressed you are, the more fun you have.
DECATUR  When Steve Finn moved into his Decatur home, the creek running through his property was bone dry. Three years later, Finn can walk down from his back yard to fish for bluegill.

My kids love that, my dogs love it. It just turned into a more beautiful piece of property.

Finn said wildlife has returned: large fish, frogs, even a beaver.

The stark change came after Finn reached out to the Macon County Soil and Water Conservation District. The agency assessed the area and engineered a $15,000 project of riprap placed across the stream. Now, the flow of water is slower, and soil stays put  all at no cost to the landowner.

Its just one instance of the many projects the conservation district carries out each year.

But these small county districts that work with agricultural groups, cities and individuals such as Finn have seen their state funding steadily decline over the last 15 years.

At this time, we really cant go any lower. We dont want to lose any more ground, said Megan Baskerville, Macon Countys watershed specialist.

Baskerville said that in 2002 conservation districts together received about $20 million. In this years stopgap budget, thats fallen to $5 million.

Much of the work done by Baskervilles department deals with mitigating erosion from the areas waterways, as well as soil runoff from farmland. The projects were detailed in a tour for local and state elected officials Wednesday.

In the case of the creek project with Finn, the district estimated the work prevents some 50 tons of sediment a year from collecting into Lake Decatur. Currently, the largest capital project in the history of Decatur is dredging collected sediment from the lake at a cost of $91 million.

Anytime we can reduce the amount of sediment entering the lake, we will be able to preserve our water storage capacity, and enjoy the lake from a recreational standpoint as well, said Keith Alexander, Decaturs water production manager.

Agricultural groups, city government and private industry all seem to see the value of conservation work, from creeks on local properties to drainage systems on farmland. Though Finn worked with the district as a property owner, hes also an employee of Archer Daniels-Midland Co.

The more of this we can do I think it helps everyone  the industry, the residents, Finn said. ADM is the principal user of water from Lake Decatur.

The Macon County Soil and Water Conservation District is a small department with two full-time employees and one part-time technician.

This current budget year, Baskerville estimated it received about $50,000 from state funds and $140,000 from the city of Decatur. But she added the agencys staff spends much of its time applying for federal grants.

For every dollar the state spends on conservation districts, we bring back $29, she said.

Its unclear what will happen given the political crisis in Springfield. The state is poised to enter a third year with no budget plan, and with no signs of a solution coming soon, conservation districts are yet another group anxious about their future.

State Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, said Senate Democrats have worked to protect the funding.

If you go back to the governors first introduced budget, he eliminated funding for all soil and water conservation districts, and since that time districts around the state have become very active to show what theyre doing, he said.

Gov. Bruce Rauners most recent budget proposal calls for the stopgap funding levels to continue. His office did not respond to a request for comment.

Manar was among the lawmakers who toured the district's work Wednesday, along with city Councilman Pat McDaniel, state Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, and state Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur.

Halbrook called the projects vitally important, and said the district does a job of working alongside farmers and landowners without over-the-top regulations.

I know (their) money has been slashed over the years. Its going to come with a cost, but not as much as a $91 million dredging project, Halbrook said.
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This morning, the cover of the new Us Weekly hit stands and it's already making wave. President Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, is on the cover along with the headline, "Ivanka Takes A Stand: Why I Disagree With My Dad."

Online, a teaser of the story is posted under the headline, "How Ivanka Trump Influences Her Father Donald Trump." It highlights some of Ivanka's more liberal stances on issues like LGBTQ rights, climate change, NAFTA, and other topics where she disagrees with her father and the Trump administration.

"Sometimes [Ivanka] and Jared are a big influence on Donald and sometimes he takes other opinions into account and does something they disagree with," a source close to Ivanka told the publication. "They win some and they lose some."

EYES ON IVANKA: One weird thing you never noticed

(Story continues below.)

One such loss is the president's recent decision to abandon the Paris Agreement, which attempted to address climate change. Ivanka, the story explains, "was disappointed by his decision, but she's learned to take such defeats in stride."

Last month, Ivanka explained to The New York Times, "I'll go to the mat on certain issues and I may still lose those." But, she added, "Maybe along the way I've modified a position just slightly. And that's just great."

Notably, Us Weekly was sold to the Trump-friendly National Enquirer earlier this year, which some people pointed out on Twitter. But folks on Twitter were criticizing a lot more than the possible conflict of interest.

Almost instantly, people made memes using "Why I Disagree With My Dad" as the caption.

Others, noting that Ivanka really hasn't done all that much to denounce her father, photoshopped the cover headline to read, "Why I Silently Disagree With My Dad" with Ivanka holding a finger over her mouth. Another changed the headline to "Why I *Publicly Pretend To* Disagree With My Dad."

Check out some of the best reactions in the slideshow above. Fortunately, no "covfefe" was involved.
The following press release was issued by the office of California State Senator Anthony J Portantino.

Sacramento, CA  The Senate Select Committee on California, Armenia and Artsakh Mutual Trade, Art and Cultural Exchange, chaired by Senator Anthony J. Portantino, submitted a letter to Los Angeles World Airports, encouraging the Airport leadership to continue its dialogue with the Armenian community to establish a direct LAX to Yerevan flight schedule.

California has the largest population of Armenian Americans in the country. This undertaking will create tremendous opportunities to facilitate the growing tourism between the two countries and compliment the thriving business environment. With this letter, we want to highlight the California State Senates support for this important discussion. We are confident that it will open new opportunities for the expansion of bilateral business relations between California and Armenia,while saving travelers time and inconvenience, commented Portantino.

The Senate Select Committee on California, Armenia and Artsakh Mutual Trade, Art and Cultural Exchange was formed in March 2017 with a mission to expand business opportunities through trade, economic development, cultural awareness and education between California, Armenia and Artsakh.

The letter was signed by all members of the Select Committee, including Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, SenatorsScott Wilk, Tony Mendoza, and Josh Newman.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) joined 22 international rights organizations in calling on Georgia's Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili to ensure that the case of Afgan Mukhtarli, an Azerbaijani journalist living in exile in Tbilisi who is now in custody in the country's capital, Baku, is fully investigated. CPJ documented last month how Mukhtarli was abducted by unidentified assailants on May 29 and taken across the border to his home country of Azerbaijan.

The letter, citing Elchin Sadygov, a lawyer who has visited the journalist in custody, says Mukhtarli's body bears the signs of a heavy beating and that 10,000 ($11,200) was planted on him. A Baku court ordered Mukhtarli, who is seeking political asylum in Georgia, to be held in pre-trial detention for three months on charges of smuggling cash, crossing the border illegally, and violence against the police.

Mukhtarli's case "sets a worrying precedent, threatening the security of dozens of other Azerbaijanis living in exile in Georgia," the joint letter said. It calls on the prime minister to investigate Mukhtarli's case, including whether any Georgian officials played a role in his abduction.

Read the letter to Kvirikashvili here.

By Nina Ognianova / CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator
TEHRAN  The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Wednesday for a pair of stunning attacks on Irans parliament and the tomb of its revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40.

Tehran Police Chief Gen. Hossein Sajedinia said late Wednesday night that five suspects had been detained for interrogation, according to a report in the semi-official ISNA news agency. Sajedinia did not offer further details.

Reza Seifollahi, an official in the countrys Supreme National Security Council, was quoted by the independent Shargh daily as saying that the perpetrators of the attacks were Iranian nationals. He did not elaborate.

The bloodshed shocked the country and came as emboldened Sunni Arab states  backed by President Trump  are hardening their stance against Shiite-ruled Iran.

The White House released a statement from Trump condemning the terrorist attacks in Tehran and offering condolences, but also implying that Iran is itself a sponsor of terrorism.

We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times, the statement said.

We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote.

In recent years, Tehran has been heavily involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State, but had remained untouched by the militants violence around the world. Iran has also battled Saudi-backed Sunni groups in both countries.

Irans powerful Revolutionary Guard indirectly blamed Saudi Arabia for the attacks. A statement issued Wednesday evening stopped short of alleging direct Saudi involvement but called it meaningful that the attacks followed Trumps visit to Saudi Arabia, where he strongly asserted Washingtons support for Riyadh.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the countrys supreme leader, used the attacks to defend Tehrans involvement in wars abroad. He told a group of students that if Iran had not resisted, it would have faced even more troubles.

The violence began in midmorning, when assailants with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives stormed the parliament complex where a legislative session had been in progress. The siege lasted for hours, and one of the attackers blew himself up inside, according to Irans state TV.

As the parliament attack unfolded, gunmen and suicide bombers also struck outside Khomeinis mausoleum on Tehrans southern outskirts. Khomeini led the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Western-backed shah to become Irans first supreme leader until his death in 1989.

The Interior Ministry said six assailants were killed  four at the parliament and two at the tomb. A senior Interior Ministry official told Irans state TV the male attackers wore womens attire.

Amir Vahdat and Aya Batrawy are Associated Press writers.
1 Air strike probe: A U.S. military investigation has found that a March air strike in Syria that rights groups had said killed dozens of civilians and partially destroyed a mosque was legal and caused only one civilian casualty. U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Paul Bontrager told reporters Wednesday that the investigation found no evidence of negligence by the Special Operations Task Force that ordered the March 16 strike in al-Jinah village in Syrias Aleppo province. We are confident this was a meeting of al Qaeda members and leaders; this was not a meeting of civilians. Bontrager said that the investigation into the attack did not involve any interviews with people on the ground and added that no U.S. personnel visited the site. Bontrager said that dozens of al Qaeda fighters were killed while a Human Rights Watch report says that 38 civilians were killed. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain said at least 49 people were killed in the strike.

2 Prison uprising: An hours-long rolling gunbattle at a northern Mexico prison left seven dead and 13 injured before control was re-established Wednesday morning, authorities said. Continuous automatic gunfire was heard late Tuesday at the prison in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of the border state of Tamaulipas. The gunfire continued into the morning at the prison, which has been one of Mexicos most troubled. Authorities reported the facility was back under control in late morning. The state security spokesmans office said three police officers and four inmates died in the shootouts, while six police and seven prisoners were wounded. Inmates at the state prison somehow managed to obtain guns. The National Human Rights Commission said it audited the prison in 2016 and found a long list of problems, including overcrowding, insufficient supervision and personnel, inadequate health services and conditions of self-government by inmates.
Just days after a flotilla of U.S. and Japanese warships left the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula, where they had been deployed in a show of force toward Pyongyang, North Korea tested missiles designed to hit such ships.

The launches Thursday morning of what appeared to be surface-to-ship cruise missiles were meant to demonstrate that the North could repel forces staging a strike on the Korean Peninsula, analysts said.

South Koreas newly elected president, Moon Jae-in, convened his first national security meeting in Seoul on Thursday to discuss the latest missile tests, which were the fifth the North had conducted since he was elected last month, and the 10th this year.

North Korea will only face further isolation from the international community and economic difficulties with its missile launches, Moon said at the meeting, according to a statement released by the presidential Blue House.

The launches came less than a week after the U.N. Security Council expanded its sanctions against Pyongyang over previous missile tests.

They also came less than 24 hours after Moons administration said it had suspended the deployment of a U.S. antimissile defense system  called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD  that is meant to detect North Korean missiles and prevent them from hitting their targets.

Critics had suggested that the suspension  which appeared to be a concession to China, whose leaders strongly objected to the THAAD system, and a break with the United States on policy toward North Korea  signaled that Moon was taking a much softer stance toward the North than his predecessors had.

Moon sought to dispel any such perception Thursday. In his strongest language on the North since his inauguration, Moon told the National Security Council that his government will not step back even one step or make compromises on national security or on the safety of our people.

Motoko Rich and Jeyup S. Kwaak are New York Times writers.
NAIROBI, Kenya  A decorated U.S. war veteran with two decades experience in military intelligence, Lt. Col. Faye Cuevas spent half her career providing intelligence support to U.S. counterinsurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. Now she is using her expertise to fight a different kind of conflict: the war on wildlife poaching.

Calling herself the accidental conservationist, Cuevas, an Air Force officer and a trained lawyer originally from Le Center, Minn., is not your typical wildlife enthusiast. She is determined to use her skills, honed in conflicts all over the world, to help save the planets remaining wild elephants.

If you start to really untangle how poaching happens  how poachers are armed, how theyre connected into larger networks and how those networks can move ivory and horn on a global scale, who protects them? Who provides logistics?  it resembles a war in anything but name, Cuevas said.

In the Air Force, Cuevas worked on Americas drone program, collecting intelligence on individuals and organizations identified as threats. Getting left of boom was the term used to predict and prevent the next bomb attack.

Cuevas can pinpoint the moment she realized that she wanted to fight poaching.

The first time that I saw an elephant in the wild was in Amboseli National Park here in Kenya two years ago, she said. It was life-changing.

At the current rate of elephant decline, my 6-year-old daughter wont have an opportunity to see an elephant in the wild before shes old enough to vote, she said. Which just is unacceptable to me, because if that is the case then we have nothing to blame that on but human apathy and greed.

She realized that she could use the left of boom concept to help wildlife rangers get left of kill.

Enter tenBoma  or 10 homesteads  which uses technology to pull together diverse sources of information, from rangers to conservation groups. She analyzes the data to create value in information in ways that it rises to the level of intelligence.

Together with the U.S.-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, Cuevas introduced a smartphone-based software app that allows rangers and field investigators to enter and share information immediately, rather than write it up in reports at the end of a days patrolling.

The Kenya Wildlife Service and many other conservation groups are doing fantastic conservation work, Cuevas said. However, the reality is that there are other challenges  from a cyber perspective, from a global criminal network perspective  that really necessitate security approaches integrated into conservation strategies.

Khaled Kazziha is an Associated Press writer.
The New Zealand dollar got a slight lift against the Australian dollar after weak trade data across the Tasman but was largely treading water ahead of the European Central Bank meeting, testimony from former Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey and the UK election.

The kiwi rose to 95.36 Australian cents as at 5pm in Wellington from 95.08 cents late yesterday, and gained to 71.96 US cents from 71.69 cents.

Australia posted a seasonally adjusted trade surplus of A$555 million in April, compared with a surplus of A$3.17 billion in March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday. The figure was lower than analysts expectations for a surplus of A$2 billion. The kiwi has been faring better against the Aussie as the local economic outlook is rosier than across the Tasman.

"The trade numbers had a little bit of an impact  but, we are in a holding pattern right here and right now as there are some big events coming up in the 24 hours. Markets are just sitting on their hands, waiting to see how that all plays out," said Phil Borkin, an economist at ANZ Bank New Zealand.

The ECB will hold its policy meeting in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, with the policy announcement due at 1145 GMT, followed by President Mario Draghi's news conference at 1230 GMT, according to Reuters. Given that no policy change is expected market players will be focused on whether it signals a more hawkish outlook. The kiwi continued to hover near a six-week high ahead of the meeting, trading at 63.98 euro cents versus 63.65 cents late yesterday.

While testimony from the former FBI director has been published, ANZ's Borkin said Comey's Senate appearance later in the day will garner interest as it will depend on the questioning. Investors will be watching for any hints US President Donald Trump may have been engaged in obstructing justice, which could trigger an impeachment investigation.

Borkin said, however, the main event will be the UK election. The kiwi traded at 55.55 British pence from 55.59 pence yesterday ahead of the overnight vote. While Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to retain power, her lead over the Labour Party has been narrowing through the campaign and any negative surprise will weigh on the pound.

"If we were to see a hung Parliament or the Conservatives don't win the pound would face a few more challenges than its got already and that would cause a few ruffles through market," said Borkin.

The kiwi rose to 78.95 yen from 78.57 yen and increased to 4.8912 yuan from 4.8699 yuan. The trade-weighted index rose to 77.32 from 77.03.

New Zealand's two-year swap rate rose 1 basis point to 2.19 percent while the 10-year swap rate rose 2 basis points to 3.15 percent.

(BusinessDesk)

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New Zealand shares dropped, led lower by Sanford and Infratil, as investors waited to see the outcome of tonight's events.

The S&P/NZX50 Index fell 9.24 points, or 0.1 percent, to 7,458.66. Within the index, 22 stocks rose, 20 fell and eight were unchanged. Turnover was $132 million.

Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners, said it had been a lacklustre week for the local market but people were looking forward to three events overnight  the European Central Bank meeting, former FBI director James Comey's Senate testimony, and the UK election, with voting for the latter closing at 9am local time.

"There's a lot happening tomorrow and our market will be one of the first to react, the currency markets will very quickly tell us what people think," Lister said. "It all might come to nothing, but this week you've had people sitting on the sidelines, there's a bit of nervousness looking ahead and no-one wants to take any big positions ahead of that. Tomorrow will probably be a more active day on the markets."

Sanford was the worst performer on the index, down 2.3 percent to $6.95, while Infratil dropped 2 percent to $2.91.

Xero declined 1.9 percent to $25.75.

"It's had a bit of a run  the May result was really good and that saw it take off and surprise a few people," Lister said. "A lot of investors have become a lot more comfortable with Xero over the last month or so, today's weakness is probably just a bit of profit taking after a very strong run. Anyone who's bought Xero at any point this year has done very well."

Auckland International Airport dipped 1.4 percent to $7.20. It today announced plans to invest $1.8 billion in aeronautical infrastructure by 2022. According to the company, its new prices for the 2018-2022 financial years will target a return on investment of 6.99 percent. It is expecting total passenger numbers to rise from 19.8 million in the current financial year to 22.6 million in 2022.

"It's broadly in line with where the market was expecting, no showstoppers," Lister said. "It's off a bit but you've got to remember it had a couple of good days so it's really just back to where it was at the beginning of the week. The positive is the market's got some certainty about where the price path is sitting."

Mercury New Zealand dipped 0.6 percent to $3.29. The electricity generator-retailer, formerly known as MightyRiverPower, raised its 2017 earnings guidance for a third time based on increased hydro generation in the Waikato catchment.

"They've got some good rain in the Waikato region and that's been good for the plants so they've bumped up their guidance. It's been pretty flat, people weren't particularly surprised  it's been obvious the weather has gone their way, but still a piece of positive news flow," Lister said.

Sky Network Television was the best performer, up 2.7 percent to $3.45. The stock reached a nine-year low yesterday, and has dropped 26 percent this year.

"They've been battling against a range of challenges, most recently it's just been operational challenges about changing consumer trends, subscriber churn and the impact that's going to have on margins," Lister said. "The market really doesn't know where that ends, it's going through such significant change that people are reluctant to be heavily invested. I would think the rebound you've seen today is a bit of a bounce from several days of significant weakness."

(BusinessDesk)

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The government is looking at a range of options for the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, including discontinuing funding, Economic Development Minister Simon Bridges told a parliamentary committee.

"At a high level, I do see a role for the government in a country like New Zealand" in venture capital funding, Bridges told Parliament's commerce select committee. However, having put capital in now over 15 or 16 years I don't think we necessarily want to do more of that, he said.

Established in 2002, NZVIF was set up to invest with venture capital funds and alongside angel investors to support New Zealand technology companies with start-up and growth capital. It has $245 million of funds under management invested through two vehicles: the $195 million venture capital fund of funds and the $50 million seed co-investment fund, according to its website.

When asked if the government could stop funding Bridges said: "It's something that's under consideration. There's a range of scenarios from the one you refer to through some sort of VIF two if you like."

He said there were a range of views on the fund's future and "we have a somewhat open stance, albeit we have got to be very respectful of taxpayer money in this area and it's under consideration."

Bridges also said that the government is currently reviewing the screen production grant, which gives international film and television producers a 20 percent rebate if they come to New Zealand to film. Projects are also eligible for an additional 5 per cent uplift if they can demonstrate significant economic benefits to New Zealand.

The grants received a $303.9 million allocation over five years in this year's budget to ensure there was funding for the pipeline of movies likely to draw on the scheme, including James Cameron's Avatar movies.

Bridges said while the grant is an area of some controversy, producers simply wouldn't be here in the volume they are, or perhaps at all, if the government didn't support the sector. He said New Zealand's scheme is in the middle of the pack internationally and while the country originally had to play off its scenery, the locally available film technology is becoming increasingly attractive to producers.

However, we have to look closely at the grant. We are evaluating it at the moment and that review will be completed later this year, he said.

(BusinessDesk)

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Related News:

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The compass made by Northern Star Fire is fire-resistant features a sophisticated accelerometer and magnetometer to give precise, speedy information.
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Kate Mara stars in "Megan Leavey," a drama based on the true story of a U.S. Marine corporal assigned to the K-9 unit in Iraq.
With many around the country having declared war on disposable coffee cups, Canberra cafes are doing their bit to help reduce waste, with one even banning them altogether.

Gungahlin cafe Frankies at Forde will no longer serve disposable cups from July 1.

Coffee Lab store manager Steph Urosevic says that for some time now, they have offered a 50 cent discount for customers who bring in their own cup. Credit:Sitthixay Ditthavong

"We did the numbers on it, we use about 45,000 of those disposable cups a year and we sort of think that people can either spare themselves the five minutes to have a coffee here or we'll sell them a reusable Keep Cup, just to stop all that stuff going to landfill," said owner Mark Ramsay said.

"We're just a little cafe out in the suburbs and the sheer volume of takeaway cups we do is mind boggling."
The number of high-range speeders caught by Canberra cops has dropped significantly in the past eight years, police data shows.

But speeding remains the most common cause of deaths and injuries on the city's roads.

Speeding remains the most common cause of deaths and injuries on Canberra roads. Credit:Quentin Jones

ACT Policing categorises travelling at more than 45 kilometres an hour over the speed limit as high-range. It caught one third fewer drivers speeding in this range in 2015-16 than in 2013-14, with the number falling from 140 to 94.

In 2010-11, ACT police issued 202 infringement tickets for high-range speeding, about 40 fewer than from 2007-08.
They have been a super-popular breakfast team on commercial radio in Canberra, but Kristen and Rod from MIX 106.3 are no more.

The station announced on Thursday that one-half of the team, Rod Cuddihy, was hanging up his headphones.

Kristen Henry and Rod Cuddihy of MiIX 106.3 have been a big part of many Canberrans' day.

But he will remain with the station, in a critical behind-the-scenes role, recently appointed as content director of both Hit 104.7 and MIX 106.3.

He will remain on air until the end of June, the month all-important for the radio station which runs its Give Me 5 For Kids campaign then.
Brisbane youngster Josh Schache has shocked the footy world by re-signing with the Lions for a further two seasons.

The former No.2 draft pick was due to come out of contract at the end of this season and was widely expected to return to his native Victoria after just two season with the struggling Queensland outfit.

Josh Schache was chased by several Victorian clubs, including Richmond. Credit:Getty Images

But after a two-week escape in his hometown of Seymour, Schache returned to the Lions on Monday and told them he wanted to stay at the Gabba, committing to Brisbane until the end of 2019

It's understood that the news came as a surprise to some at the club, and so too for many in the football world, who had believed that the key forward's failure to sign already meant he would depart the club where his late father Laurence played after just two years.
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The campaign to ban plastic in Beecroft (C8, Tuesday) has admirers and detractors. Annandale's Sandie takes offence at the suggested slogans "No Bags in Beecroft" and "Bag Free Beecroft", calling for a more sensitive and politically correct effort. "What about 'Plastic Free Beecroft'? Then again, might this also be politically incorrect for those who have undergone a certain type of surgery." Col Nicholson, Hawks Nest, supported Andrew Mowat's suggestion "Bags Out Of Beecroft Shops". "I quite liked the catchy acronym implied," he says. Helen Jordan says a group of "sustainable citizens" in Lane Cove stock bins outside local supermarkets with re-usable bags every morning. "It is a virtuous cycle," she says.

Turramurra's Edith Crowne has belatedly noticed that the pattern of squares for the Herald's cryptic and quick crosswords are nearly always identical. "Who decides this?" she wonders. "Also, what comes first, the pattern or the question?"

The debate over national capitals (C8, the capital of Iceland is I) moved into the financial sphere with Warners Bay's Trevor Swann discovering the location of the capital of Zimbabwe "in a Swiss bank". Saratoga's George Palagyi thought the debate pointless as everyone knew "the capital of North (and South) Korea is the Won, for El Salvador it's the US Dollar and for the Czech Republic it's the Koruna". Joy Cooksey, Harrington, wants to take capitals down a notch. "Being capitalistic and capitalising on the capital question of capital dominance, it is probably about time to bring in capital punishment by beheading, in order to lower the case of those first-rate, dominant letters," she says.

Sue Threlfall found seven crumpets in a packet of six. "Is this like finding a lucky four-leaved clover?" she wonders.

Philip Cooney, of Wentworth Falls, writes: "The announcement on ABC radio that the NSW police would be issued with long arms made me wonder if these would not be better directed to those with the deepest pockets, who so often appear to have the shortest arms."
London, Melbourne, now Tehran. There is something undeniably true about British Prime Minister Theresa May's declaration this week that "enough is enough". Whereas terrorism once seemed isolated, each attack hitting us like a massive thud, now it is a drum beat: steady, regular, some whacks heavier than others, combining to form a relentless sound track to our time. The exasperation is thorough, real and pervasive. That's why you probably said those words to yourself well before you heard May say them.

But they're also misleading. "Enough is enough" implies a level of control. Like the thing aggrieving you is something that exists only because of your indulgence. It's what you say to a misbehaving child just as you decide it's finally time to impose a punishment. It's what you say when you decide to quit the job you hate. But terrorism is nothing like that. It does not exist merely because we haven't yet decided to extinguish it. It does not end simply because we decide it's time.

Illustration Andrew Dyson

To see this, consider that we've been saying this kind of thing more or less since the September 11 attacks. That, you will recall, was meant to be the moment that changed the world, that ushered in a new war unlike anything we've seen. "There was before 9/11 and after 9/11", explained a former CIA director of counterterrorism. "After 9/11 the gloves come off." So we rushed off to two interminable wars. The US government opened black sites around the world and tortured people on the flimsiest evidence. And we've been taking gloves off ever since, introducing new counterterrorism legislation to a drum beat of our own, steadily expanding the power of the state, and its ability to gather intelligence. Still the attacks come. Indeed, they increase.

So, I guess it's no surprise that we've finally reached the point that commentators are now openly mooting the possibility of internment. "We do need internment camps," declared British columnist Katie Hopkins on Fox News, a mere fortnight after she called for a "final solution" of some sort in response to the Manchester atrocity. Australian counterparts haven't quite got to the point of adopting Nazi terminology, but we're flirting with the internment idea. Here it takes the form of proposing special courts for terror suspects in which they can be held indefinitely precisely because we lack the evidence to convict, as both Tony Abbott and retired army general Jim Molan did this week. To be fair, Molan refused internment as a description of this, accepting the "appalling back story" that word implies. But we are talking about incarcerating people on suspicion and without trial. With respect, I'm not sure what else to call that.
This week popular Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale resigned citing ill health, the same day as the announcement of Crime and Corruption Commission raids on his office and home.

His political career has featured numerous investigations and allegations of inappropriately receiving and failing to disclosure political donations.

With politicians constantly coming under scrutiny for receiving gifts, benefits or money due to their position, it is worth considering what their obligations are on such matters under the law.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is responsible for monitoring political funding and the disclosure of donations.
Those who have been wondering what it would take to prompt the old boys club that runs St Paul's College at Sydney University to acknowledge the college's misogyny problem, let alone do something about it, now have their answer. It takes the unprecedented double whammy of a very public expression of disgust from the university vice-chancellor and a threat from the education minister about redrawing the anachronistic legislation by which the colleges are governed.

The warden and chairman of St Paul's have retired after the latest scandal. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer

The sooner governance of university residential colleges is reformed to be appropriately accountable to the wider communities in which they operate, the better. It's not just a college problem. A series of scathing reports have revealed high numbers of sexual assaults against Australian university students and an active cover-up culture on the part of the institutions. One report showed almost 500 official complaints of sexual assault and harassment have been made to universities in the past five years, including 145 reports specifically of rape, but there have been only six expulsions. The figures no doubt represent a small fraction of the true number of assaults. Decades late, the universities are taking steps towards improvement, including by committing to release data on sexual assaults on their campuses.

The most recent incident in a history of disgusting behaviour at St Paul's College involved a student's Facebook post in March comparing women to "harpooned whales" and signed off with "Happy slaying". The university's vice-chancellor Michael Spence properly called out the weak response of college warden Ivan Head warning that such posts could affect students' career prospects, saying it "fails to address the deep cultural problems evident in the life of his college", namely, a "deep contempt for women". The education minister Rob Stokes said he was "shocked" and would look at options for changing or repealing the various Acts under which university colleges operate.
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts was waiting but Alan Finkel was ready.

The chief scientist, who has a PhD in electrical engineering and worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in neuroscience, could see what Parliament's most persistent climate change sceptic was doing.

Did Dr Finkel believe it was important for a scientist to keep an open mind, Senator Roberts wanted to know.

Dr Finkel spotted the trap and said he was happy to own up to a "healthy degree of scepticism".
Australia's race discrimination commissioner, Tim Soutphommasane, has condemned proposals from a handful of political figures for the mass internment of all Muslim citizens suspected of terror offences.

Dr Soutphommasane said calls from One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and others to detain all suspects, seemingly without charge or trial, "show an astounding ignorance of history" and would represent capitulation to terrorism.

"Having internment would involve a violation of liberty and the rule of law. It would entrench division in our society and play into the hands of extremists," he told Fairfax Media.

The calls have emerged as federal and state governments consider toughened and nationally consistent parole and bail laws that make it harder for people with violent and extremist backgrounds to be released.
Antifa takes its inspiration from the German Antifaschistische Aktion network that arose prior to World War II. Dr Whitford described the Australian version as a loosely-assembled "reactionary group" that seeks to combat the alternative-right, with a particular focus on defending multiculturalism, anti-racism and feminism. Andrew Bolt fights back against assailants on the streets of Carlton in Melbourne. "They're basically taking on that very militant approach to fostering left-wing, progressive views," he said. "If you don't subscribe to them, they kick you in the head. Anti-fascism is what they go under but they're actually practising fascist techniques." Unlike a political party, Antifa does not have formal members or an organised hierarchy, though it may occasionally have leaders or spokespeople. Activities are usually arranged by social media. "That's increasingly the way that a lot of younger people are campaigning," Dr Whitford said.

Antifa is "overwhelmingly" concentrated in Melbourne and Sydney, he said, with pockets in Brisbane and other places. As with extreme right groups, attendees of anti-fascist protests may wear boots, balaclavas and other face-coverings, and many try to preserve anonymity when interacting online. In recent years, the two sides have clashed violently at many events, including a Halal food festival in Ascot Vale, protests over mosques in Melton and Bendigo and several anti-racism rallies at Federation Square. "Neither side necessarily is peaceful," Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Leane said last year. "There's violent protest and violent confrontation every time that they come together." Andy Fleming, a blogger broadly connected to the Antifa movement, said he did not advocate the assault of Andrew Bolt, though he believed that was not the protesters' original intention. He agreed with Bolt on the principle of free speech but said it was reasonable for demonstrators to heckle and disrupt public meetings and events - particularly as fringe right-wing ideas encroached further on mainstream politics.

"Which doesn't necessarily mean glitter-bombing Andrew Bolt," Mr Fleming said. But conservatives feel they are under unjust siege. Chris Berg, research fellow at the libertarian Institute of Public Affairs and now attached to RMIT, echoed Bolt's concerns about anti-fascists increasingly using violence against mainstream conservatives. "It is definitely true, people are thinking about it more and more. And there are more and more concerns about risks that might be involved in events," he said. "It's remarkable how rapidly it has changed. Just a couple of years ago you wouldn't have really given this another thought. Is it safe to hold controversial events in Victoria? I think it's very distressing." Terry Barnes, a former health adviser to Tony Abbott, was more cautious. "Melbourne's basically a tolerant place but there are eruptions," he said. "The bottom line is: attacking anyone for holding a view that's different to yours is abhorrent."

Victoria Police on Thursday confirmed it was investigating Tuesday's incident and was on the hunt for two assailants and a third man who was wielding a camera. The substance sprayed was a mixture of shaving cream and glitter, police said. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Melbourne Antifa said "some of our family in solidarity were attacked by Andrew Bolt while they were protesting today" and said Bolt should be jailed for his "violent, horrendous language". Bolt, a long-time critic of Antifa on his News Corp blog, is auctioning his ruined suit for charity as "a souvenir of the Lygon Street Battle for Free Speech". The highest bid of $5500 on Thursday afternoon came from Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger. Speaking to Fairfax Media on Thursday, Bolt said he was "not a brawler" but would fight back when antagonised. "I'm sick of the threats on my life and my reputation. I'm sick of being sued and bullied and I'm not going to take it," he said.
Alarming new footage shows commentator Andrew Bolt being assaulted on the streets of Melbourne in what he says is an example of how dangerous the city has become for conservatives.

The video, posted on social media on Thursday morning, shows a hooded man approaching Bolt from behind and throwing a substance at his head, initiating a brawl in broad daylight on busy Lygon Street.

The ensuing scuffle sees Bolt pushed into a pole and then falling over chairs and tables outside a restaurant. He fights back fiercely, kicking and punching his two assailants in the face and groin before they give up and start to walk away.

An unknown man shouts "what are you doing?" and "go away" as the brawl concludes.
Expect your favourite Australian brands at 50 per cent off at The Undone It's often hard to find a cult denim specialist that wears its ethical and sustainable heart on its sleeve, but that is the exact aim of Nobody Denim's vision. The Melbourne-born label will be holding a 10-day warehouse sale in Paddington, with up to 70 per cent off men's and women's jeans, tees, shirts, jackets, skirts and dresses. Bring cash unless you plan to spend big ($150 minimum for cards). 17 Oxford Street, Paddington. Friday 9- Sunday 18, 10am-5pm Daily. The Melbourne brand is bringing their signature styles to the pop-up sale. Based on simplicity, function and vibrancy, Australian brand Dead Studios is having a curated example sale with one-off samples and 70 per cent off past season men's and women's denim, tights, tees and sweaters. All featuring the label's distinct aesthetic, expect edgy streetwear, activewear and basic staples to add to your wardrobe.

263 Crown St, Surry Hills. Thursday 8 10am-7pm, Friday 9 9am-6pm, Saturday 10 9am-6pm. The Dead Studios sample sale features both men's and women's wear. Next week, Sabatini is holding their winter sale, which happens to be the biggest of the year. With the turn of the weather now would be a good time to update your wardrobe with a selection of their quality knitwear, cashmere, leather and basics. The brand sticks to a "Made in New Zealand" philosophy, with each design hand-made using sustainable eco-friendly fabrics. Mention "Sale Whisperer" to receive an extra 15 per cent off. Suite 305, Level 3, 61 Marlborough Street, Surry Hills. Thursday 10am-6pm, Friday 10am-2pm; Saturday 10am-4pm. This is Sabatini's biggest sale of the year. Credit:Sam Grant

Combining structured tailoring with unique luxurious fabrications, Rebecca Vallance sales are always one to mark in your sales calendar. And it's been a big year already for the designer, who created Sylvia Jeffrey's wedding dress and released a capsule collection with US site Net-a-Porter. The sale next weekend will feature up to 80 per cent off autumn/winter 17, spring/summer 16 and one-off samples. In a similar fashion to other major design sales, plan for large queues vying to add the brand's signature edgy silhouettes to their wardrobe. 37 Doody Street, Alexandria. Thursday 15 9am-6pm, Friday 16 9am-6pm, Saturday 17 9am-5pm. Rebecca Vallance is a sale not to miss next week. Australian heartland brand R.M Williams has up to 50 per cent off over three days at their Paddington Town Hall warehouse sale. Expect to find their signature clothing, footwear and accessories. Paddington Town Hall 249 Oxford Street Paddington. Friday 9 8am-6pm, Saturday 10 8am-6pm, Sunday 11 9am-6pm.

Iconic and boldly spirited Australian brand Sass and Bide is having an outlet sale that you don't want to miss. The brand has nothing over $150 at their Homebush outlet store, so expect to find their signature ready-to-wear, denim, leather and accoutrement pieces. If you can't make it out to the shops, don't fret! Online the brand is offering savings for you to stock up on street and party styles. Instore and Online. Thursday 9- Monday 12. Sass and Bide will be offering all their signature colour and prints at their sale. Accredited by Ethical Clothing Australia, designer Anthea Crawford has an extra 30 per cent off selected styles including occasion and work wear at their QVB flagship store as well as David Jones and Myer stores across NSW. Many of the designs feature bold colours, embellishments and floral prints that would make a statement at a wedding or event. Instore and Online. Till June 30.

Anthea Crawford has savings on their signature styles. Heavily influenced by youth culture and street-style, Glue is holding an end of season apparel sale with up to 50 per cent off until stocks last. Whether you are going on an adventure and looking for a party outfit, the sale includes favourites from Stussy, adidas, Deus, Barney Cools, G Star, Cheap Monday and Lee to jazz up your wardrobe. Online and Instore. Till stocks last. Almost every store is having an online mid-season sale, so just visit your favourite sites from Forever New to The Iconic to shop them. Just Launched

In celebration of LGBT month, Converse has given its most iconic Chuck Taylor All Star a 1970s-inspired makeover complete with rainbow hues and statement patches. According to the brand, the second Pride Collection is about spreading the "Yes to All" message, meaning that everyone can freely express who they are regardless of gender, identity and sexual orientation. The vision for the shoe designs is inspired by the first 1970 Pride Parade held in New York City. A portion of proceeds from the collection will be given to Minus 18, an organisation that supports through initiatives and programs and inspires positive outcomes in the lives of youth within the LGBT community. The collection is available from Converse stores and online, as well as at selected General Pants stores across Australia. The Pride Collection. Known for the pizza boxes in which it packages its sweaters, local brand GOOD CMPNY has launched its latest range, dubbed "Neapolitan". Just like the ice-cream grandma used to serve, the latest range of sweats are in hues of white, pink, black and grey, and are unisex.
Centrelink's controversial robo-debt program has been blamed for a huge surge in legal challenges by people facing the welfare agency's demands for money.

Centrelink debt cases at the federal appeals tribunal have soared by more than 50 per cent since mid-2016 and The Greens have laid the blame for the surge, which might take years to work its way through the system, squarely at the feet of robo-debt.

Centrelink is under fire for letters using the AFP logo. Credit:Erin Jonasson

But the giant Department of Human Services, which runs Centrelink says that there is nothing out of the ordinary going on and its "Online Compliance" system is attracting appeals at a lower rate than the usual manual process.

Centrelink has been embroiled in controversy for more than six month over its online debt-raising system which automatically compares information clients supply to the welfare agency with data supplied to the Tax Office and raises debts based on an any perceived discrepancies.
Police say an incident at Darling Harbour this week where a man approached a child was a misunderstanding, which arose when a man who didn't speak English tried to help a toddler who was "unsteady on his feet".

The man was walking past Tumbalong Park at Darling Harbour at about 12.45pm on Tuesday, where a father was watching his 19-month-old son play.

The misunderstanding happened at Tumbalong Park in Darling Harbour. Credit:Domino Postiglione

As the father watched, the man approached his son and "appeared to try to pick him up".

The father intervened and tried to speak to the man, who he did not know, but when he walked off the father called police.
A 15-year-old girl who was allegedly gang raped at the first proper party she had attended pleaded for her attackers to stop but they laughed in her face, a court has heard.

Four men are on trial accused of participating in the sustained group sexual assault of the teen at a house party in Hazelbrook, in the Blue Mountains, in October 2012.

One of the men arrested in December, 2015. Credit:NSW Police

Aaron Jensen, 23, Christian Dickens, 22, JR and SK, both 21, have pleaded not guilty to multiple offences and their trial started in Sydney's Downing Centre District Court on Thursday.

In her opening address, Crown prosecutorBelinda Baker told the jury that the girl consumed large amounts of wine at the party and was noticed stumbling and slurring her words.
Instead, the 35-year-old allegedly continued south, turning off onto Thomas Street and accelerating away before smashing 22 parked cars and pulling up on nearby Rawlins street.

A man has been arrested after allegedly damaging 22 cars while fleeing police in Kangaroo Point.? Credit:Jorge Branco

Police spotted the Kelvin Grove man driving his white Mitsubishi Lancer along the Story Bridge about 12.30am and tried to pull him over.

A Brisbane driver has been charged after allegedly crashing into 22 parked cars while fleeing police.

A police spokesman could not say exactly what attracted the attention of the Tactical Crime Squad officers in the first place.

The driver was charged with dangerous operation of a vehicle, obstructing police, failing to give his name, take a breath test and two counts of failing to stop.

There was little sign of the damage on Friday morning, except for the white Lancer, which had come to a stop at the end of a dead end street with the driver side window smashed.

He is due in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on July 7.
After years of objection a $1.2 million revitalisation project at a historic Brisbane landmark is complete.

On Thursday, the heritage-listed Engine Room at Teneriffe re-opened its doors for the first time as a cafe.

The formerly disused Teneriffe Engine Room has been converted into a cafe. Credit:Lisa Maree Williams

Brisbane City Council's 2014 proposal to repurpose the then-disused riverfront building, built between 1917 and 1927, to become a cafe was immediately met with objection from residents.

The council had proposed a $1.2 million renovation of the heritage building on Macquarie Street to transform the vacant former engine room into a cafe and a public toilet facility.
Brisbane resident Sarah Deery made a donation of clothes to her local charity, only to be "punished" months later with a fine for almost $250.

Ms Deery said she was left shocked and wanting answers after the Brisbane City Council issued her a $243 fine in June alleging she left "waste" outside the Salvos Store, Lutwyche, in February.

Donations are made out of hours and left outside of the Salvos Store at Lutwyche. Credit:Ruth McCosker

She is one of 761 people slapped with fines for placing items outside a charity store in Brisbane in the past financial year.

"It's not like I'm dropping off crappy, soiled mattresses or anything like that, it's actual stuff people can use," Ms Deery said.
A Sunshine Coast pet treat business has broken into Japan's multibillion-dollar pet industry market after receiving a state government grant in April.

Huds and Toke, a family business named after the imaginary pet dragons of co-founder Russell and Emma Gibbons' children, kicked off four years ago with the intention of selling high-quality dog, horse and cat treats in Queensland.

A number of dogs are the willing taste testers for the pet treats. Credit:Instagram/Huds and Toke

"We set up a factory two years ago because prior to that it was the branding that took time, then it was the product development and testing that took time and still takes a lot of time," Mr Gibbons said.

"We are active to try and ensure what we are producing not just looks great but also is great and the animals we are producing it for are enjoying it as well."
Apartment towers could soar above the Eastern Freeway one day, with easy access to Melbourne's first high-capacity "busway" below.

French-based transport company Transdev wants to build and operate Melbourne's first rapid transit bus system, between Doncaster and the CBD, and has proposed selling property developers the "air rights" to build above the freeway to help pay for it.

The Gate Tower building in Osaka, Japan.

Two sites  the freeway interchange at Chandler Highway in Kew, and the park and ride facility in Doncaster  have been identified by Transdev as opportunities for future "transit-oriented development" if the busway goes ahead.

This would involve building directly above 10 lanes of traffic on the Eastern Freeway in Kew.
Police have arrested a man over alleged bomb threats to Melbourne's busiest court.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said that a 22-year-old man was arrested in Williamstown on Thursday, in relation to bomb threats to the Melbourne Magistrates Court in the CBD.

People were blocked from entering the court building. Credit:Penny Stephens

Fairfax Media understands that all court proceedings in the building were temporarily adjourned on Thursday morning, with lawyers and their clients asked to leave courtrooms while police searched the building for potential bombs.

The spokeswoman confirmed that police conducted safety checks at the building just after 11am.



"The building was deemed safe after midday and no evacuations were required," she said.
Brighton gunman Yacqub Khayre was involved in a state-run deradicalisation program for the six months leading up to Monday's deadly siege.

Police confirmed Khayre was referred to the program designed to counter Islamic extremism after his release from jail in December last year  seven years after he travelled to Somalia to train with terrorist organisation al-Shabaab.

Khayre's participation raises serious questions about the efficacy of the anti-terror program, adding to criticisms of Victoria's parole system and the lack of information-sharing between state and federal law enforcement agencies.

It comes as Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton revealed the program had an "uncertain future".
A former Melbourne imam has been found guilty of marrying a 14-year-old girl to a man 20 years older, after a magistrate found the evidence against the cleric was "compelling".

Ibrahim Omerdic, 62, was on Thursday found to have married the girl to the man, 34, at a Bosnian mosque in Noble Park on September 29 last year.

Imam Ibrahim Omerdic, (right) has been found guilty of marrying the girl to the much older man. Credit:Jason South

The charge of taking part in a forced marriage carries a maximum jail term of seven years.

Omerdic fought the charge in a contested hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court last month.
Police carrying out anti-terror raids out in Melbourne, connected to Brighton siege

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The man arrested during a police hunt for gun dealers in Melbourne's north on Friday has been released without charge.

About 5am more than 150 heavily armed state and federal police officers raided three properties in Gladstone Park, Ascot Vale and Glenroy, hunting for the people who may have supplied Brighton killer Yacqub Khayre with the weapons used in Monday's deadly terror siege.

Another two search warrants were executed in West Meadows and Reservoir on Friday afternoon.

A 32-year-old man was arrested in Glenroy and two others were questioned in Gladstone Park - a 51-year-old father and his 31-year-old son - where an imitation gun was found.
WA Police have confirmed an armed offender has held up Coles supermarket in Maylands on Thursday afternoon.

Police were called to the corner of Caledonian Avenue and Rowlands Street on Guildford Road at 2.53pm.

Coles Maylands. Credit:Google Maps

It has been reported customers were inside the supermarket when the suspect entered the premises.
Iran has denounced Donald Trump's response to the Tehran attack as "repugnant", after the US president implied that the country brought the attack on itself by supporting other terrorist groups. Hours after gunmen and suicide bombers from Islamic State (IS) struck in the Iranian capital on Wednesday, the White House issued a statement mixing sympathy with a rebuke.

"We grieve and pray for the innocent victims of the terrorist attacks in Iran, and for the Iranian people, who are going through such challenging times. We underscore that states that sponsor terrorism risk falling victim to the evil they promote," Mr Trump said.

Police officers control the scene, around of shrine of late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, after an assault by several attackers in Tehran. Credit:AP

The statement drew an angry response on Twitter from Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, who also criticised efforts by the US Senate to impose new sanctions on Iran. "Repugnant [White House] statement and Senate sanctions as Iranians counter terror backed by US clients. Iranian people reject such US claims of friendship," Mr Zarif said.

Mr Trump's statement contrasted with a more straightforward message of condolence that had been released earlier by the US State Department.
All eyes will turn to Washington on Thursday to hear sacked FBI director James Comey's testimony. Credit:AP But at the West Wing anxiety reigns. White House counsel Donald McGahn has unnerved staff by ordering them to hold onto all emails, documents and phone records that might be sought by investigators. At the same time, they're facing challenges in building Trump's defences. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is examining Trump's conduct. Credit:AP Plans for a "war room" to counter what Trump calls "this Russia thing" have fallen in a heap as top-flight legal brains have refused to join the fight to protect the President.

Also, a roster of Trump surrogates who will fan out on the airwaves after Comey's testimony is said to be devoid of any real political star power and the Trump loyalists who might join them are complaining they have been given no talking points. As Trump girds to fight, the extent to which he's being boxed in by events was evident in his reported response to Jeff Sessions threatening to resign late last month. Trump would like to see the back of his attorney-general. But if he allowed the former Alabama senator to walk, Trump would have difficulties winning Senate confirmation for his replacement; and that would leave him with Rod Rosenstein, Sessions' deputy, as acting attorney-general  and Rosenstein is not flavour of the month at the White House because it was he who acted unilaterally to appoint a special counsel to investigate the whole Russia business. On Wednesday, there was further evidence of the challenge Trump faces in pushing back in the face of a wave of damaging leaks. Just as Comey confirms much of what has been reported, a parade of still serving national security officials came before Congress and went without firmly knocking down the leak-based reports.

When Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, was asked about a report that Trump had urged him to get Comey to drop the Flynn investigation; and when Michael Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, was quizzed on a report that Trump wanted him to deny the existence of any evidence of collusion with Russia, both men demurred, refusing to discuss the details of their interactions with Trump. Stepping away from specifics, Rogers spoke in terms that might be described as a general denial. "I have never been directed to do anything I believe to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate," he said. Coats too spoke in similar terms. Both men revealed the art of answers that are not answers. Or maybe they were  because in dodging the questions two of Trump's most senior national security officials left the reports, by The Washington Post, unchallenged at the same time as Washington was absorbing yet another Post report, elaborating on its earlier scoops with a more detailed account of conversations in which Coats is said to have revealed to associates that indeed Trump had put him under pressure. Senators clearly were frustrated. Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, snapped at Coats: "You swore that oath to tell us the truth." And when King demanded the "legal basis" for Coats' refusal to answer questions, the national intelligence director replied: "I'm not sure I have a legal basis."

In a dramatic curtain raiser to his testimony before Congress on Thursday, Comey wrote a detailed account of Trump's insistent demand over dinner in January  "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." "I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed," Comey says in the statement that was released by the Senate Intelligence Committee. "We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner." From the get-go, Comey was troubled. When Trump had called earlier in the day he had mentioned he was thinking of asking Comey's family, but had decided they might visit the White House another time.

Still, as Comey headed to the White House for the 6.30pm dinner on January 27, he figured others would be dining with them. On finding himself alone with Trump in the Green Room, Comey writes: "My instincts told me  the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch." Comey's concise, seven-page statement, tightly written but with a flair for drama, reveals a national security leader so wary of pressure from his President that he adopted a new practice of immediately recording every such encounter. Comey's statement confirms the accuracy of much that has been leaked. Comey briefed the President on allegations of salacious conduct by Trump during a 2013 visit to Moscow  and the President denied he had been "involved with hookers in Russia". It also confirmed Trump's request that the FBI drop its investigation into disgraced former National Security adviser Michael Flynn.

Additionally, it detailed Comey's plea to Sessions to block Trump's orchestration of one-on-one meetings with Comey. Crucially, it contains Trump's demands that Comey act to "lift the cloud" of the Russia investigations. But he also confirms a Trump claim that has been questioned  as FBI director, he had advised Trump that he, personally, was not under investigation. Comey does not use the term "obstructing justice," an explosive accusation against Trump that is expected to dominate questions from the Senate Intelligence Committee, when Comey makes his much awaited appearance on Thursday  his first in public since Trump sacked him on May 9. But publication of the Comey statement has some pundits joining the dots to make an obstruction charge - (1) Trump demanded loyalty; (2) he told or directed Comey to wrap up the Flynn investigation; (3) he sacked Comey when Comey refused to close the Russia investigation; and (4), Trump admitting on national television that the reason he fired Comey was because of the Russia investigation. With Comey's opening statement as prologue, all eyes turn towards Washington.

So TV addict that he is, Trump will surely be tuning in to Comey, too. "He believes in the long run there is an enormous premium on being the person who stands there fighting," said Gingrich, who is soon to publish his book, Understanding Trump. "People respond to that and wonder if he's fighting this hard, maybe he's right and the other guys are wrong. It's the core of how he operates." Loading It's all a witch hunt, Trump insists.
London: The families of those killed in the London terror attack have endured agonising waits before having their worst fears confirmed, but could they have been informed sooner?

Police took four days to name all eight people killed in the attack, with Spain's foreign minister criticising UK authorities for not quickly identifying a Spanish victim.

But London's Metropolitan Police have defended their procedures, saying painstaking investigation is needed to ensure accurate, not mistaken, identification of a dead person.

The deaths of two young Australian women in Saturday night's attack have left their families heartbroken.
The Wisconsin Assembly tentatively plans to vote next week on a resolutions requesting an "Article V" convention, named for the U.S. Constitution article that authorizes it.
Beijing: North Korea has fired a volley of cruise missiles off its eastern coast, the South Korean military said on Thursday morning.

The multiple short range surface-to-ship cruise missiles flew 200 kilometres from the city of Wonsan, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement.

The missile launches come a day after the South Korean government said it would halt any further installation of the United States THAAD anti-missile radar until an investigation of its environmental impact was carried out.

The delay could take until the end of the year, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Just in from 10 Downing - Theresa May's statement declaring she will reform government, after the hung parliament result.

Theresa May outside number 10 Downing Street in London. Credit:Bloomberg

I have just been to see Her Majesty the Queen, and I will now form a government  a government that can provide certainty and lead Britain forward at this critical time for our country.



This Government will guide the country through the crucial Brexit talks that begin in just 10 days and deliver on the will of the British people by taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union.



It will work to keep our nation safe and secure by delivering the change that I set out following the appalling attacks in Manchester and London  cracking down on the ideology of Islamist extremism and all those who support it. And giving the police and the authorities the powers they need to keep our country safe.

Prime Minister Theresa May with her husband Philip arrives at Buckingham Palace to seek the Queen's permission to form a UK government. Credit:WPA Pool

The Government I lead will put fairness and opportunity at the heart of everything we do, so that we fulfil the promise of Brexit together and - over the next five years - build a country in which no one and no community is left behind.



A country in which prosperity and opportunity are shared right across this United Kingdom.



What the country needs more than ever is certainty, and having secured the largest number of votes and the greatest number of seats in the General Election, it is clear that only the Conservative & Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons.



As we do, we will continue to work with our friends and allies in the Democratic Unionist Party in particular. Our two parties have enjoyed a strong relationship over many years, and this gives me the confidence to believe that we will be able to work together in the interests of the whole United Kingdom.



This will allow us to come together as a country and channel our energies towards a successful Brexit deal that works for everyone in this country  securing a new partnership with the EU which guarantees our long term prosperity



That's what people voted for last June.



That's what we will deliver.



Now let's get to work.
London: If this UK election exit poll is anywhere near right, Prime Minister Theresa May is finished.

If Labour's night continues to improve, she won't have even lasted a year in office. If the exit polls are right, she would stumble back into Downing Street with the echoing sound of knives being sharpened around her.

She rolled the dice, and she lost.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Chief Executive Officer of AC Wathey Cruise and CargoFacilities Mark Mingo was taken by detectives while waiting to board a flight to Washington DC. According to well-placed information, SMN News received is that Mingo was asked by the detectives to accompany them to the offices for questioning. The source said Mingo was on his way to attend a business trip when police escorted him out of PJIAE.

At the moment there is no one from the Prosecutors Office available to the media on St. Maarten, therefore, SMN News could not confirm the detention of Mingo with the Prosecutors, however, a member of the Mingo family confirmed that Mark Bingo was detained on Wednesday while on his way to attend a business trip.

M.M. arrested on St. Maarten

Wednesday afternoon June 7th the 46-year-old M.M. was arrested at the airport of Sint Maarten. His arrest is in connection with the "Emerald" investigation.

The suspect is in the interest of the investigation in constraints. Therefore, no further information can be given in this case for the time being.

Meanwhile, the investigative team, TBO, and RST, under the leadership of the judge commissioned searched the house of the suspect.

The Emerald-investigation started in April 2016. The investigation started when the owner of a security company on Sint Maarten was suspected of falsity in writing, money laundering, and tax evasion. In November 2016 O.A. has arrested already in this case and property of him was seized.

The investigation is part of a larger investigation into fraud and corruption, also called undermining. This is a serious threat to the security and economy of the countries of the Dutch Carribean. TBO, RST, the national detectives of Curacao and Sint Maarten and the Public Prosecutors Office are all partners in the combating of undermining.

Prosecutor's Office Press Release

The attorney for Mingo says his client is confident and offers to speak with the investigators, but his arrest on Wednesday was just for publicity.

This afternoon, Wednesday, June 7, Mark Mingo, Chief Executive Officer of St Maarten Harbour Group of Companies, was arrested by the TBO / RST. He denies having committed whatever criminal offense. He is of the opinion that the arrest only took place for publicity reasons, given the fact that his attorney told the TBO that he was willing to report himself freely in case one would wish to interrogate him. He faces the future with complete confidence.

Hans de Jong, Attorney
PHILIPSBURG:--- Strengthened Health Care Cooperation between ARU-CUR-SXM Minister Lee recently returned from the Health Care Conference in Aruba (HCCA) where the theme was about integrated healthcare. Integrated health care according to Harvard Education website is defined as a network of organizations that provides or arranges to provide a coordinated continuum of service to a defined population and is willing to be held clinically and fiscally accountable for the outcome and health status of the population served. If we want to ensure that we are delivering a high quality of care to our people we need to make sure that our system works well together, in other words, everyone has a role  financiers, SZV, family doctors, specialist, hospitals, everybody has role to play in terms of making sure we deliver the best quality care at an affordable price to our people, stated Minister Lee.

The conference was attended by policy makers, surgeons, health professionals, consultants, and focused primarily on how do we overall improve the quality of care. In this conference, specific actionable steps included the signing of two (2) agreements. One cooperation agreement signed between the Inspectors of St. Maarten and Aruba, and the second agreement is a letter of intent that was signed between the Ministers from Aruba Curacao and St. Maarten, based on previous agreements.

As we look at how to integrate health care in order to ensure that we deliver the best quality of care for our people, there is a lot of things in the individual countries that are repetitive and being duplicated. For example, all countries are spending money on developing detailed protocols for hospitals. These are things all hospitals have to have, and instead of all our hospitals individually spending money to develop these things, it makes sense to coordinate so that we can economize with our money and get more bang for our dollar.

Within the letter of intent which is still to be ratified by the Council of Ministers, one of the focus areas include preventive care. Namely, how do we make sure that we are focused on non-communicable diseases in particular cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, cancer  as it pertains to sharing best practices, for example how we are educating our population and how we are executing preventative care protocols to make sure our population is healthy.

Another key area of interest is structured cooperation between the hospitals. All the hospital are all interestingly working towards JCI accreditation, which gives great synergy that we all are working in the same direction. We have agreed to work on developing benchmarks so that we can better understand how are the individual hospitals performing. By calculating the information and benchmarking it against each other it gives us a good comparison to see how is the hospital actually performing.

The agreement also mentions structured cooperation between public health insurance companies. Each of our islands has a health insurance company - SVB, SZV, AZV. Discussions focused on the possibility of bulking the purchasing of software together instead of all of us purchasing different software that doesn't speak together. In addition, sharing best practices and worst practices among the health insurance companies.

Minister Lee expressed his vision to one day in the near future see a dashboard developed for hospitals and health insurance companies that give an overview of how they are performing so that we can compare against each other.

Additionally, it was identified that all countries have the same legislative concerns. Some areas include the BIG legislation and the development of a sin tax. On St. Maarten this discussion is currently being held with the Ministry of Finance and we are looking at the possibility of a tax on alcohol, tobacco, as well as sugar drinks, as are all of the other islands.

One of big cost drivers in most health care systems are pharmaceutical drug costs. Aruba and Curacao have taken different strategies to address the pharmaceutical costs, while St. Maarten is presently in the process of tackling its drug costs. This provides a great opportunity for St. Maarten to learn from our neighbors in terms of what have they done and what has been effective, and hopefully St. Maarten can benefit from their experiences, stated Minister Lee.

Additionally, addressing waste and efficiency within out health care organizations is essential. At the conference, the Ministers agreed to explore working towards on joint purchasing, pooling our purchasing power. There were discussions about can all countries refer patients to the same hospitals, so it gives more leverage for negotiating prices but more importantly negotiating a streamlined operation of services.

Aruba, in particular, is very interested in having their entire health care system audited by a professional entity. If that entity is hired discussion have been held on whether this entity could be hired to compare all three island for the benchmarking and comparison purposes.

Furthermore, the agreement mentions reaching out to PAHO for an analysis of environmental risk factors. This relays mostly to the dump on all islands and in Aruba and Curacao, the refineries. Namely, how do we as Ministries of Health lay down the parameters in terms of the emissions and from a health perspective how these entities should be managed.

The follow-up meeting has already been established to be held in the last week of July and all countries are working diligently to have some tangible progress to discuss in that meeting as well as continuing the discussion about how do we move further ahead.
PHILIPSBURG:---- Minister Lee congratulates Inspector-General Earl Best who was highly instrumental in ensuring that an agreement for cooperation was signed between the Inspectors of St. Maarten and Aruba during the Health Care Conference (HCCA). The objective of the agreement is to establish a closer cooperation amongst the parties and to facilitate mutual support through amongst other things the exchange of manpower, knowledge, experience, and information related to supervisory tasks of the Inspectorate in areas for parties of mutual interest. Some of the areas they will focus on, in particular, are cooperation in the development of inspection tools and inspection standards, cooperation in the field of drug registration, cooperation in order to facilitate exchange of expertise and/or joint training, as well as cooperation in the context of expected expansion of inspection tasks, such as food safety, drinking water, and the environment.
ST. JOHNS, ANTIGUA:--- The Management of LIAT held discussions with representatives of Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA), earlier today, at its Antigua headquarters to find a resolution to the current industrial impasse. During the meeting, a proposal was tabled by the Management which would see the pilots receiving salary increases with respect to the ATR 72 coming into effect from July 19, 2017. The payment of the retroactive ATR pay adjustment for July 2013 to 2017 would be paid in three installments by October 2017. The settlement of other retroactive pay would be paid in six installments commencing the pilots pay period in December 2017. This more than reasonable offer submitted by the company took into consideration the companys obligations to other employee groups as well as suppliers. Regrettably, this proposal to LIALPA has been rejected. LIAT recognizes air transportation to be essential to the economies of the Caribbean and the activities of its people. The Management, in an effort to ens the re continuance of this service to the region, is again calling for LIAT to be designated as an Essential Service in Antigua and Barbuda. LIAT continues and strives to maintain the critical connections throughout the Caribbean and sincerely apologises to its valued customers for these disruptions caused the by ongoing industrial action. We will continue to keep you informed of developments over the next few days.
PHILIPSBURG:--- In addition to boycotting the establishing of the Integrity Chamber, Parliament appears to also be boycotting the formalization of a code of conduct. Last week, the Chairlady of Parliament had to cancel the meeting of the Central Committee because there was no quorum when the second agenda point, namely a parliamentary code of conduct, was to be discussed. Isnt it odd that there was a quorum for the first agenda point i.e. the Anti-Poverty Platform, but after a short break, only seven members of parliament remained for the continuation of this meeting! Despite the Chairladys request for at least one member to come back inside the meeting hall and despite the official thirty minutes wait to see if any of the MPs outside of the meeting hall would adhere to her request, the meeting had to be called off, due to a lack of quorum. This is not the first time that committee meetings concerning the code of conduct had to be canceled due to no quorum.

It is the intention that the topic of the code of conduct for parliamentarians is first handled by the Ad Hoc Committee for Integrity which is comprised of all four faction leaders. At the first such meeting for this year, that was called on February 22nd, only two faction leaders were present, namely the faction leaders of the NA and the DP. The UPP faction leader sent a notice of absence but the USP faction leader was absent without notice. Nevertheless, the meeting proceeded. The second and third meetings called on April 6th and June 1st respectively had to be canceled due to a lack of quorum. It seems to me that the Chairlady of the Ad Hoc Integrity Committee, MP Sarah Wescot-Williams, who is also the Chairlady of Parliament, deliberately and strategically sandwiched the topic of the code of conduct between the three agenda points of the Central Committee in the hope that members of parliament would be present during this entire Central Committee meeting. But unfortunately, even this strategy didnt work because when the time came to discuss the code of conduct one MP disappeared resulting in the lack of a quorum which then caused the Chairlady to have to cancel the meeting.

The non-cooperation and non-participation, when it comes to integrity matters and particularly to the code of conduct, have been very obvious even since the genesis of the Ad Hoc Integrity Committee which was established on February 15th, 2015. This very first meeting, according to a report in the Today Newspaper, got off to what felt like a reluctant start. Requests for committee members to take the floor were followed by awkward moments of silence before one of them finally jumped in. One member even proposed to hold future meetings behind closed doors. A letter to the editor, dated November 5th, 2015, submitted by the first chairman of the committee, Dr. Cornelius de Weever, stated that each meeting that he convened was road blocked by members of parliament. More than two years after its establishment, this committee has absolutely nothing to show for itself, other than attending some meetings and boycotting others. I am reminded here, of the press statement made by MP Sarah Wescot-Williams to Soualiga News, on October 20th, 2016, when she said that every idle hour of an MP costs the taxpayers approximately Fls. 900,-- per MP. Can you imagine how much money these two unproductive years of the Ad Hoc Integrity Committee have cost us the tax payers?

The question remains, why would our parliamentarians seemingly reject the implementation of a code of conduct which is a very common law among parliaments in the region and around the world? Besides, the integrity reports were written about government and parliament strongly recommend that parliament implements a code of conduct. Do our parliamentarians not see the need and the importance of implementing a code of conduct? Only parliament can pass such a law which would help Parliament to police itself but would also give the people a standard by which to hold parliament accountable.

Why a code of conduct? A code of conduct would regulate among other things the financial disclosure by members of parliament before accepting their seat in parliament and at the end of their parliamentary tenure. MPs would also be required to disclose all of their side jobs and their business interests, including their shareholder-ships. The code would stipulate whether the monthly salary that our MPs currently enjoy is commensurate with a part-time or a full-time position. Right now parliamentarians behave as if they are part-timers. The code of conduct would also regulate the acceptance of gifts or favors received by members of parliament. It would also define conflicts of interest that parliamentarians can encounter such as situations where MPs must choose between the duties and demands of their professional role and their own private interests. A code of conduct would certainly help to boost accountability and professionalize politics in parliament.

Nowadays, parliament does not have to invent the wheel because the United Nations, as well as the European Council, have developed models or frameworks that parliaments can use when drafting their own codes of conduct. Furthermore, according to the Chairlady, parliament has already received a draft code of conduct which now needs to be discussed and finalized so that it can be sent to a public meeting of parliament for approval. For the life of me, I fail to comprehend why fifteen intelligent MPs, in the span of two years, are incapable of agreeing on a code of conduct. The only reason that comes to mind is that they are unwilling because it does not serve their interests and they do not want to be held accountable for their action.

Wycliffe Smith

Leader of the Sint Maarten Christian Party
Public welcome to see Finale with Fashion Designers from Cayman Islands, Anguilla, BVI, and SXM!

Great Bay:--- On June 8, Dominate The Runway kicked off on June 5, 2017, at Simpsonbay Beach Resort. This project was specifically created to build the capacity of Caribbean designers in the Overseas Countries and Territories by providing training by business experts covering topics such as Concept to Runway, Marketing, Media, Networking, Negotiations, and Business Modelling. Supported by the European Commission through the COSME, Dominate The Runway will be hosting its finally at the Philipsburg Cultural Center at 7:00 PM.

Over a period of three (3) days these designers were challenged by such experts as Norma Ebanks from Cayman Islands who has a successful brand Creative Fashion, which caters primarily to the luxury market. Mrs. Ebanks spoke to her personal experience from taking her concept to the runways of New York Fashion Week.

Experts such as Mai Ling Chun, a serial entrepreneur, hotelier, and manager of Commodore Suites, Kenty Lichtnberg, St. Maartens official blogger and marketer, and Ife Badejo, Caribbeans #1 Business Connector and founder of Foundation INFOBIZZ shared their expertise on negotiating, branding, and business modeling respectively.

The finale of Dominate The Runway is a fashion showcase on June 8, 2017, at the Philipsburg Cultural Center. There are five (5) designers showcasing their designs from the various Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories such as Anguilla, BVI, Cayman Island, and St. Maarten.

The highlight of the finale is twelve years old, Rochelle Ebanks who is the creator of Body Language, a clothing line for girls. Rochelle took part in all the training and should a level of commitment that rivaled the other participating designers. Known as the youngest designer in the Cayman Islands, this will be her third fashion show in less than a year, which includes the Cayman Fashion Week.

Rochelle has a full line of 14 pieces that she brought with year and range from summer wear to evening pieces.

Other designers in the show include Amanda Wilson of Absolutely Unique, a Caribbean swimsuit line that is ready to wear art; Alexis Ryan from Anguilla, with African inspired with a Caribbean essence line of resort and street wear; Cornelia McClearly a master seamstress and designer with a unique summer collection; Kaishah Peters known for her amazing knitwear and bold jewelry; and Mrs. Norma Ebanks of Creative Designs and Fashion who caters to the luxury market in Cayman Islands with bold colors and resort wear. To find out more about the program and the designers, visit www.facebook.com/dominatetherunway

Dominate The Runway Finale takes place on June 8, 2017, at Philipsburg Cultural Center at 7:00 pm. Doors open at 6:30 pm and tickets are $20 (also at the door). For more details contact Cristal Le Grand at +1-721-586-5855 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Claim: Account of a 10-year-old boy's death explains dry drowning and its symptoms. Rating: About this rating Mixture

Advertisment:

The following item was the text of an article titled "Boys death highlights a hidden danger: Dry drowning" that was posted to the TodayShow.com site on 5 June 2008 and circulated widely online:

The tragic death of a South Carolina 10-year-old more than an hour after he had gone swimming has focused a spotlight on the little-known phenomenon called "dry drowning" - and warning signs that every parent should be aware of. "I've never known a child could walk around, talk, speak and their lungs be filled with water," Cassandra Jackson told NBC News in a story broadcast Thursday on TODAY. On Sunday, Jackson had taken her son, Johnny, to a pool near their home in Goose Creek, S.C. It was the first time he'd ever gone swimming  and, tragically, it would be his last. [Rest of article here.]

Although the account is essentially true, the article contains some confusing elements that could send parents scuttling to protect their children from one danger when they should be trying to guard them against a quite different one.

A 10-year-old boy named Johnny ("Jon Jon") Jackson died as described above on 1 June 2008 in Goose Creek, South Carolina, subsequent to swimming in the pool at the apartment complex where he lived. Although Johnny, a child who lived with autism and attention deficit disorder, was wearing flotation devices on his arms and was being monitored by his mother during his time in the pool, he did inhale some water while swimming; his mother described him as "taking a little bit of water in and coughing and then calming down." He afterwards appeared fine, but less than two hours after leaving the pool he twice defecated in his pants and complained of being tired. After being bathed and dressing himself back at the apartment, the boy walked to his bed unaided, leaving his mother to believe he was simply worn out. Yet when his mother checked on Johnny a few minutes later, she discovered that white foam was issuing from his mouth, his lips were blue, and his tongue was sticking out. The family called 911, but the Johnny suffered cardiac arrest during transport to the hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival at Trident Medical Center. According to the coroner, water was found in Johnny's lungs, and the cause of his death was listed as asphyxiation by drowning.

While the article about Johnny's death is factual, it contains one key element of confusion: Jon Jon Jackson was not technically a "dry drowning" victim, but rather a victim of "delayed drowning," also termed "secondary drowning." That distinction is important because numerous news articles that mentioned Johnny's death and attributed it to dry drowning also supplied the information that dry drowning is responsible for ten to fifteen percent of all drowning deaths, thereby making it seem as though the tragic circumstances that swept away this one particular child loom as a huge risk to other children. This is not the case: The incidence of delayed drowning (which is what killed Johnny) is relatively uncommon; the incidence of true dry drowning is much greater. The latter is therefore what adult swimmers and the parents of juvenile swimmers need be more concerned about, but that form of drowning was not truly described in the article about Johnny's death.

Many news stories, by the way, indicate they drew the "ten to fifteen percent" figure from the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC denies this, distancing itself from that particular factoid with this statement:

UPDATE: Recent media reports have incorrectly attributed to CDC data about incidents of "dry drowning." CDC supports international consensus defining drowning as "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid" and does not distinguish between "wet" and "dry" drowning.

The primary difference between dry drowning and secondary (or delayed) drowning is the presence or absence of water in the victim's lungs. In Jon Jon Jackson's case, he died with water in his lungs, so his death was more typical of "ordinary" drowning victims (i.e., water in the lungs prevented those organs from transporting oxygen into the bloodstream) even though he lived for a couple of hours after leaving the pool. By contrast, true dry drowning deaths do not involve the presence of liquid in the lungs.

There are two primary theories as to what causes dry drowning, and it may well be that both are correct and that this form of death can be brought on in two different ways. The first theory is that a sudden rush of water into the throat causes the airway to snap shut, a condition known as a laryngospasm. During this event, although no water enters the lungs, no air enters either, so the victim dies of asphyxiation. The second explanation posits that the shock of a swimmer's suddenly entering extremely cold water causes the heart to stop.

Dry drowning accounts for ten to fifteen percent of all drowning deaths. Considering that approximately 4,000 people drown in the U.S. each year, that means dry drowning kills about 400 to 600 U.S. victims annually. It therefore poses a significant enough mortality risk that those who swim (or who supervise swimmers) should know what can be done to decrease the chance of its happening to them or their loved ones.

To help prevent dry drowning, keep your mouth closed when jumping or diving into water, thereby protecting the larynx from a sudden inrush of water that could cause it to spasm and cut off the airway. Also, do not dive or jump into extremely cold water; instead enter cold water gradually. Those who have a history of heart problems should avoid entering very cold water at all, even if they plan to go slowly.

Drowning is the second most common cause of death in children in the United States. In addition to following the more usual cautions (e.g., watch them like hawks all the time), caregivers of young swimmers should try to head off dry drowning by training their charges to keep their mouths closed when jumping into water and to enter very cold water slowly. Caregivers should also guard against delayed drowning by monitoring very closely any child who has come out of the water coughing and sputtering (signs of water having been breathed in), especially keeping an eye out for any further difficulties in breathing, extreme tiredness, or marked changes in behavior, all of which are signs that a swimmer may have inhaled a dangerous amount of fluid. Should such difficulties be noted in a swimmer, that person should be taken promptly to an emergency room for medical observation and, if necessary, intervention.

One additional caution should be noted regarding drowning: It is a fallacy that those who lose their lives in such fashion will flail about wildly even as they are slipping beneath the water's surface. Drowning generally occurs silently and smoothly, the victim quietly passing away wholly unnoticed as friends or family chatter nearby. Therefore, never mistake a lack of commotion for a sign that everything is all right; instead, keep your eyes on those you are supposed to be watching rather than trust that they will do or shout something to alert you if anything goes awry. Forget about trusting that old saw about drowners' going down three times: they go down once, and they stay down.
DEA acting administer Chuck Rosenberg, right, speaks about the dangers of fentanyl, at DEA Headquarters in Arlington Va., June 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
AerServ Launches DataServ

IRVINE, CA  (Marketwired)  06/08/17  , the leading ad management technology and SSP for mobile publishers and advertisers, today announced the launch of , a new data as a service product that will connect CRM and offline data to mobile data and offer an additional revenue stream for mobile publishers. DataServ will give mobile publishers the ability to generate revenue beyond the ad impressions on their mobile sites and applications by safely and anonymously delivering data that advertising, research, behavioral, analytics and marketing companies can use to identify new and existing audiences across devices.

According to eMarketer, by some measures mobile is more common than TV with mobile devices in the hands of 95 percent of the U.S. population. As publishers and marketers continue to hone their mobile advertising and marketing strategies, the biggest challenge is understanding the connection between offline and online, in particular mobile, and DataServ solves this in a privacy friendly way. AerServs launch of DataServ is the next logical step in delivering targeted ads to audiences across devices, and empowering marketers to identify and reach their intended audiences in app environments.

Mobile publishers are now in a unique position. Beyond creating great mobile content, theyre building valuable mobile audiences which marketers and even companies outside of advertising are eager to reach, said Josh Speyer, CEO AerServ. Today, most publishers are only being compensated for the actual ad placement, not the valuable user data. Weve worked hard to develop DataServ to enable that additional revenue stream for publishers with data that already exists in many cases.

In many cases, first-party data that is invaluable for marketers and advertisers targeting is already being passed in ad requests. Utilizing DataServ, publishers will work with AerServ to upload and deliver additional audience data (email addresses, Device Ids, etc.) beyond ad impressions.

The upload and matching of records will be custom for each publisher and will tie a digital user to an email address or some other non-mobile identifiable user data point so that advertisers can direct media spend towards those users on specific devices. For new apps that have no desire to show advertising, this product allows them to take advantage of the deep data infrastructure and platform AerServ has built to begin to connect their audiences to create their own value or on behalf of companies willing to pay for that insight.

With DataServ, publishers can upload data through a simple and secure system, and then receive an additional revenue stream beyond delivering ad impressions when a user is no longer on their actual mobile site or app.

AerServ is the leading ad management technology for mobile publishers and advertisers, specializing in mobile video technology, with proprietary yield optimization tools that increase revenue across all formats and ad units. AerServ works in alignment with thousands of apps, from premium publishers to independent developers, to optimize their existing ad network revenue through mediation, and tap into aerMarkets demand inventory to supercharge their earnings. AerServs entire platform and infrastructure were built with a publisher-first mentality. Technical integration is super simple, and publishers can serve multiple ad formats through one integration, reducing time even further. Publishers get best-in-class support with hands-on care from integration specialists, account managers and software engineers. Whether you are looking for a simple way to monetize your mobile inventory or an advanced way to increase revenue, AerServ can get you there easily and efficiently. The company was founded in 2013 and has offices in Irvine, California and New York, New York. Visit AerServ at or follow us on Twitter at .

Nikki Reyes

WIT Strategy for AerServ

(408) 499-0033
Canbiola, Inc. (CANB) Begins National Advertising Initiative

HICKSVILLE, NY  (Marketwired)  06/08/17  Canbiola, Inc. (OTC PINK: CANB) announced today the company has initiated its national advertising initiative, the company has signed an agreement with OMG National  , a full service advertising agency. This is the first of many engagements to create the Canbiola Brand and introduce consumers to our premium line of CBD based products.

The company is working hard to execute our Sales and Marketing strategy and have begun with OMG National to begin our advertising initiatives, as well SEO, Marketing and Branding needs. The initial focus will be on Digital Marketing which is a core competency of OMG National Marco Alfonsi, Canbiola CEO.

OMG Nationals CEO, Jesse Lubar expressed his enthusiasm towards tackling the CANBIOLA project, saying We are committed to helping them achieve their goals for marketing and further branding of their quality products. Navigating the challenges which are inherent to the online marketing of cannabis-involved companies is a specialty of our agency. We have the experience required and are ready to help the CANBIOLA team push things to the next level!

Additionally the company is pleased to announce they will be exhibiting at the Green Festival Expo this weekend in New York City, at the Jacob Javits Center, .

OMG National takes a holistic approach towards their clients marketing needs. Using a blend of traditional and digital methods, OMG is a true single source provider for your marketing needs.

Whether through paid search, organic search marketing, online reviews, marketing videos, or a combination of services, OMG has the prescription for your marketing ailment.

OMG sales, account management, creative, and support team are well-versed in the most up to date trends in marketing. With a thorough, yet efficient interview and intake process, our team will recommend the right service, or package to meet your needs, your time frame, and your budget.

. is a public company trading under symbol

is a US Company embarking in the sale of a variety of Cannabidiol (CBD) based products. Canbiola is in the process of developing its own line of proprietary products as well as seeking synergistic value through acquisitions in the CBD and the medical cannabis industry. Cannabis is currently federally illegal and has legalized for medical purposes in some form in a limited number of states. The company has already launched several products found at .

The company also owns two technological solutions, Wrapmail (US Patent 8,572,275), which turns traditional email into a powerful marketing and branding tool, as well Prosperity Systems and the Bullseye platform of document management and compliance targeted at broker dealers, public companies, and governmental agencies providing a flawless all-in-one solution for document management, retention and compliance.

Forward looking statements and risks and uncertainties

Matters discussed in this press release contain forward-looking statements. The words anticipate, believe, estimate, may, intend, expect, and similar expressions identify such forward-looking statements. Expected, actual results, performance, or achievements could differ materially from those contemplated, expressed, or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to, risks and uncertainties associated with, among other things, the impact of economic, competitive, and other factors affecting our operations, markets, products, and performance. The matters discussed herein should not be construed in any way, shape or manner of our future financial condition or stock price.

For more complete information regarding our business at .

CONTACT INFORMATION

Canbiola Investor Relations

Phone (516) 595-9544
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What does a 'Strengthen Our Schools' win mean for Penn-Harris-Madison?

One of three candidates backed by a conservative-leaning group has flipped a seat on the Penn-Harris-Madison school board. Here's what we know.
JUNEAU  An 18-year-old man faces charges in Dodge County after allegedly sexually assaulted two young boys last summer and taking suggestive photos of them before returning to his Illinois home.

Seth D. Oltmanns, Mount Morris, Illinois, is charged with three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and seven counts of possession of child pornography. He could be sentenced up to 355 years and a $700,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, Oltmanns was staying at a relatives house in the town of Lomira in July and August 2016. Oltmanns watched two small boys in the home, 8 and 10. The two mothers of the boys contacted police with separate phone calls Aug. 22 and each reported that her son had been sexually assaulted by Oltmanns.

The 8-year-old boy attended a forensic interview Aug. 25 where he told of the alleged abuse to which the boys were exposed. The boy said that Oltmanns sexually assaulted him several times including insisting that the boys take a bath with him on one occasion. The victim also recalled several terms that Oltmanns used during the attacks.

The 10-year-old boy underwent a forensic interview on the same day and told a detective a similar story. He said Oltmanns would punch him in a private area of his body.

According to the complaint, the boy told police that Oltmanns had taken several suggestive photos of the boys and saved them in a secret file on his phone.

Dodge County Sheriffs Office attempted to reach Oltmanns beginning Sept. 20. They eventually were assisted with getting a hold of Oltmanns at his grandmothers house in Mount Morris Oct. 18. Oltmanns originally denied any contact with the boys and said the boys were inappropriate toward him, but he always left the area at those times. According to the complaint, he admitted knowing the terms the boys told the police and eventually admitted some of the activities.

Oltmanns allowed police access to his phone but denied having the photos on the phone or anywhere else. According to the complaint, he eventually admitted to having the photos and said he attempted to delete them but was unable to do so. He also admitted to having a secret file where he hid the photos. After the photos were found he allegedly admitted to touching one of the boys inappropriately.

On the phone, there were 37 images of young men being exposed. In addition police found that Oltmanns had done searches for little boys in underwear, gay boys ages 10 to 14 and picture hiding calculator apps.

Oltmanns will appear in court June 19 for his initial appearance.
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Thunderstorms. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. Potential for heavy rainfall. Low 68F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
A 2013 map of the background radiation left over from the Big Bang, taken by the ESA's Planck spacecraft, captured the oldest light in the universe. This information helps astronomers determine the age of the universe.

Age may only be a number, but when it comes to the age of the universe, it's a pretty important one. According to research, the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old. How did scientists determine how many candles to put on the universe's birthday cake? They can determine the age of the universe using two different methods: by studying the oldest objects within the universe and measuring how fast it is expanding.

Related: What Is Big Bang Theory?

Age limits

The universe cannot be younger than the objects contained inside of it. By determining the ages of the oldest stars, scientists are able to put a limit on the age.

The life cycle of a star is based on its mass. More massive stars burn faster than their lower-mass siblings. A star 10 times as massive as the sun will burn through its fuel supply in 20 million years, while a star with half the sun's mass will last more than 20 billion years. The mass also affects the brightness, or luminosity, of a star; more massive stars are brighter. [Related: The Brightest Stars: Luminosity & Magnitude]

Known as Population III stars, the first stars were massive and short-lived. They contained only hydrogen and helium, but through fusion began to create the elements that would help to build the next generation of stars. Scientists have been hunting for traces of the first stars for decades.

"Those stars were the ones that formed the first heavy atoms that ultimately allowed us to be here," David Sobral, an astronomer from the University of Lisbon in Portugal, said in a statement. Sobral was part of a team that identified a bright galaxy with evidence of Population III stars.

"The detection of dust in the early universe provides new information on when the first supernovae exploded and hence the time when the first hot stars bathed the universe in light," ESO officials said in a statement. "Determining the timing of this 'cosmic dawn' is one of the holy grails of modern astronomy, and it can be indirectly probed through the study of early interstellar dust."

Early stars aren't the only way to place limits on the age of the universe. Dense collections of stars known as globular clusters have similar characteristics. The oldest known globular clusters have stars with ages that appear to be between 11 and 14 billion years old. The wide range comes from problems in pinpointing the distances to the clusters, which affects estimates of brightness and thus mass. If the cluster is farther away than scientists have measured, the stars would be brighter, thus more massive, thus younger than calculated.

"Just like archaeologists use fossils to reconstruct the history of the Earth, astronomers use globular clusters to reconstruct the history of the galaxy," Andrea Kunder told Space.com. "There are only about 150 globular clusters known in the Milky Way Galaxy, so each of these globular clusters is an important tracer of the galactic halo and the formation of the Milky Way Galaxy."

The uncertainty still creates a limit to the age of the universe; it must be at least 11 billion years old. It can be older, but not younger.

Expansion of the universe

The universe we live in is not flat and unchanging, but constantly expanding. If the expansion rate is known, scientists can work backwards to determine the universe's age, much like police officers can unravel the initial conditions that resulted in a traffic accident. Thus, finding the expansion rate of the universe  a number known as the Hubble constant  is key.

A number of factors determine the value of this constant. The first is the type of matter that dominates the universe. Scientists must determine the proportion of regular and dark matter to dark energy. Density also plays a role. A universe with a low density of matter is older than a matter-dominated one.

To determine the density and composition of the universe, scientists rely on missions such as NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and The European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft. By measuring the thermal radiation left over from the Big Bang, missions such as these are able to determine the density, composition and expansion rate of the universe. The leftover radiation is known as the cosmic microwave background, and both WMAP and Planck have mapped it. [INFOGRAPHIC: Cosmic Microwave Background: Big Bang Relic Explained]

In 2012, WMAP estimated the age of the universe to be 13.772 billion years, with an uncertainty of 59 million years. In 2013, Planck measured the age of the universe at 13.82 billion years. Both of these fall within the lower limit of 11 billion years independently derived from the globular clusters, and both have smaller uncertainties than that number.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has also contributed to narrowing down the age of the universe by reducing the uncertainty of the Hubble constant. Combined with the WMAP measurements, scientists were able to make independent calculations of the pull of dark energy.

"Just over a decade ago, using the words 'precision' and 'cosmology' in the same sentence was not possible, and the size and age of the universe was not known to better than a factor of two," Wendy Freedman of the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. Freedman lead the study that used Spitzer to refine the Hubble constant. "Now we are talking about accuracies of a few percent. It is quite extraordinary."

Editor's Note: This article was updated on Jan. 8, 2019 to reflect a correction. The original article stated that the oldest stars have been estimated to be up to 18 billion years old.
Combining images of the same region of the sky allows observers to spot moving objects. The newfound brown dwarf lies inside the red circle. (Image credit: NASA)

Citizen scientists have spotted a failed star, known as a brown dwarf, just 100 light-years from the sun.

That makes the cold world  somewhere in between star and planet  relatively close to our solar system, at least in the astronomical sense.

The volunteers identified the brown dwarf just days after science organizations released a new tool to help engage the public in the hunt for new worlds at the edges of our solar system. Because the tool relies on hunting for dim moving objects, it was able to reveal the brown dwarf beyond the solar system.

In February, several institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), launched the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 website to help in the search for the object dubbed "Planet 9." Although this hypothetical world has not been confirmed, the way the solar system objects move suggests that an additional object  possibly the putative Planet 9  is exerting a gravitational influence in the solar system. [Brown Dwarfs: Strange Failed Stars of the Universe Explained (Infographic)]

"I was so proud of our volunteers as I saw the data on this new cold world coming in," Jackie Faherty, a senior scientist at the AMNH, said in a statement. "It was a feel-good moment for science."

Using the website, anyone can flip through images captured by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Objects near Earth will appear to "jump" and change position when volunteers compare multiple images taken a few years apart. Since February, volunteers have classified more than 4 million so-called flip-books of images. A similar, though less digital, approach was used to discover Pluto.

Only days after the website debuted, Bob Fletcher, a science teacher in Tasmania, flagged a very faint object moving across the WISE images. Three other participants  from Russia, Serbia and the United States  also marked it as an interesting object.

After the research team examined the object, which they originally called "Bob's dwarf," Faherty used NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii to confirm it as a previously unseen brown dwarf that lies about 110 light-years from the solar system. Of the thousands of stars within 100 light-years, most are dim red dwarfs too cool to be spotted with the eye alone.

Often called failed stars, brown dwarfs fall between the definitions of star and planet. Although they aren't massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion at their core  a requirement for stars  they glow in the infrared, whereas planets don't emit their own light except immediately after their birth. Understanding their characteristics can help researchers learn more about gas giants beyond the solar system.

"Brown dwarfs are strikingly similar to Jupiter, so we study their atmospheres in order to look at what weather on other worlds might look like," Jonathan Gagne, a Backyard Worlds team member from the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in the same statement.

The research, which listed all four citizen scientists as co-authors, was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in May.

In the meantime, the Backyard Worlds research team will continue to hunt for the unseen Planet 9.

"It's possible that there is a cold world closer than what we believe to be the closest star to the sun," Faherty said. "Given enough time, I think our volunteers are going to help complete the map of our solar neighborhood."

Join the hunt for Planet 9 at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd at @NolaTRedd, Facebook, or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
CHIPPEWA FALLS  Local health officials are working with the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to determine the source of a norovirus infection that sickened dozens of people at an event that was being held at the Northern Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in Chippewa Falls.

At least 60 adults and children became sick with gastroenteritis after attending the Special Kids Day event in May. The event was not one that was put on by the fairgrounds.

Nine local health departments are working on the investigation, including ones in Chippewa and Eau Claire counties.

Event organizer Tom Leuck says about 1,000 people from 26 school districts attended the two-day festival. He says people who attended both days have reported getting sick.

Leuck is not sure of the source of the sickness but says hugging and physical contact may have contributed to the spread of the illness.

Special Kids Day is an annual event for children with disabilities that features games, food and music.

According to the state Bureau of Communicable Diseases:

A norovirus can cause diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal cramping, and is the cause of 20 million illnesses in the U.S. every year. Usually symptoms start 12 to 48 hours after a person becomes infected.

The virus is found in the stool or vomit of someone infected with norovirus from the time symptoms start until at least 48 hours after symptoms end, and probably longer. ... It can be spread by eating food or drink that has been contaminated with norovirus as well as touching objects with norovirus on them and then touching your mouth.

The agency adds: People with diarrhea or who are vomiting should not handle food, work in or attend day care centers of schools, or take care of patients in a health care facility until 48 hours after their symptoms are gone.

Norovirus can cause inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Most people recover in a few days, but it can be dangerous for young children or elderly people.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE: You mean China?

Gabriel: For example. That's why there are good reasons for the U.S. not to move in the direction of national strength and isolationism, because in the medium-term that will hurt it.

SPIEGEL: You were recently in St. Petersburg, where you spoke with President Vladimir Putin. Did you get the impression that Putin has been disillusioned by the current zigzag course of U.S. policies?

Gabriel: It is clear to the Russian state leadership that, ultimately, there is only one true partner capable of modernizing their economy -- and that is Europe. Based on my impression from the conversation, this view is growing.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is the state of the relationship between Moscow and Washington?

Gabriel: We have a large interest in there being sensible relations between Russia and the U.S. Just take the conflicts in Ukraine, in Syria, but also the most recent developments on the Arab Peninsula. We need both -- because the Europeans will not be able to resolve these conflicts alone.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States have broken off diplomatic relations with Qatar, accusing the country of supporting terrorism. Does this represent a new trouble spot in global politics?

Gabriel: I am already alarmed about the escalation of the situation and possible consequences for the entire region. A conflict among neighbors on the Arab Peninsula, carried out with all available means, is the last thing we need given the many crises and conflicts in the Near and Middle East.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In Saudi Arabia, Donald Trump signed one of the largest weapons deals in his nation's history and simultaneously sharply criticized Iran. Now Iran -- which has just been the target of a terror attack -- is on the side of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, who is also backed by Russia.

Gabriel: In the long term, it cannot be in Russia's interest to bind itself to Iran. And it cannot be in Moscow's interest, at all, that Assad will one day become so strong with Iran's help that he no longer needs Moscow.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have the impression that the Trump administration will continue to uphold the nuclear deal with Iran?

Gabriel: Luckily, the U.S. administration has not terminated the agreement. Thus far, Washington has adhered to the agreements, including those elements pertaining to the relaxation of sanctions on Tehran. But this can only happen if Iran completely abides by the agreement. The Americans will not tolerate a violation of the nuclear agreement by Tehran. And that is clearly in the interest of Germany as well.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Let's move on to the subject of Turkey. The decision has been made to withdraw German military forces from Incirlik, Turkey , with the surveillance aircraft stationed there to be moved to Jordan. Is this a new low point in the German-Turkish relationship?

Gabriel: No. The low-point was when we were insulted as Nazis. I hope the megaphone diplomacy has come to an end. That cannot be repeated. Beyond Incirlik, it is clear to me that we cannot station German soldiers in places where German parliamentarians do not have the right to visit them.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you see any progress in the case of journalist Deniz Yucel, the German-Turkish journalist who has been in solitary confinement for 100 days in Turkey on charges of espionage?

Gabriel: Not so far, unfortunately. We are relying on the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to make a rapid decision on the Yucel case, as it said it would. And that the Turkish side will also accept and implement this verdict.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why should President Erdogan, whom you also met in Ankara, do that?

Gabriel: Because thus far, Ankara has cooperated well with the court. Turkey and Europe need one another, President Erdogan knows that too. We can only hope that this realization will soon be translated into concrete policy once again. The Yucel case would be a good place to start.
Paris, June 07, 2017 (SPS) - The representative of the Frente POLISARIO in France, Ubbi Buchraya, affirmed on Tuesday, in statements to Radio Montecarlo and France International, "that the POLISARIO has a serious will and true intentions to facilitate the work of the new special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations ".

The Saharawi diplomat said that the experience and reputation of Mr. Horst Kohler would put him in a comfortable position to unlock the negotiations between the parties, which have been blocked since 2012.

In the same direction, the Saharawi representative clarified that the POLISARIO gave the green light to the assignment of the new Envoy from the outset, while Morocco delayed giving it, which is a clear sign of the obstructions in Morocco.

Ubbi Buchraya, recalled that the latest Security Council resolution 2351 called for the resumption of negotiations with a new dynamic and a new spirit in order to guarantee the right of the Saharawi people to self-determination and seek mechanisms for the protection of their rights Human and natural resources. SPS

125/090/TRA
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STAMFORD  Although Beverly Reyes was getting good grades in elementary and middle school, she faced a lot of frustrations outside the classroom.

First, she failed at flute lessons when she was in fourth grade.

I was just so bad that I didnt enjoy it, she said.

Her mentor insisted she should audition for the Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic when she was in sixth grade. But that was really bad, she said.

Her mentor then suggested joining the Young Mariners to learn how to sail, even though Reyes couldnt swim and was very shy.

I felt so uncomfortable, she said. I did not want to wear a bathing suit. I did not want to go in the water.

The mentor, Maria Millan, was by her side, helping Reyes overcome each of those struggles. And it paid off.

The 18-year-old, now an award-winning student musician, became a woodwind captain for the Stamford High School band and taught other kids to sail at Young Mariners, now known as SoundWaters.

Reyes is making history in Stamford this month as one of the first three students to graduate Starfish Connection, an initiative launched in 2008 by the late Judy Martin, a reading teacher at Northeast Elementary School and the wife of Mayor David Martin.

Judy Martin, who lost a battle with cancer in November, didnt get to see her dream come true  the inaugural class of Starfish mentees graduate from high school  but the students largely credit her for their success.

Reyes and AITE seniors Mischael Anilus and Jonathan Carias were each paired with the same mentor for the past decade  Millan, Carol Lilienthal and Kate Herman, respectively.

The small and selective program mentors well-performing and underserved Stamford students from third grade until they graduate high school. The growing initiative, now led by retired Stamford teacher and administrator Janet Schneider, will start next school year with 55 mentors and 55 students.

Over the 10-year period, students periodically meet with their mentors, participate in extra-curricular activities, volunteer in the community, are required to read books in the summer, take college preparatory and AP classes and eventually apply for college. Other requirements include maintaining good grades and taking music lessons.

David Martin, who co-founded the all-volunteer organization, said his wife identified the need for a new mentoring program soon after she began teaching at Northeast in the early 2000s. The couple often talked about how many bright students seem fall behind once they reach middle school, or even sooner.

They realized none of the existing mentoring programs tracked a childs performance over multiple years. Teachers stayed with students for a year or two and guidance counselors for a little longer, but only parents dealt with a child over many years. But parents, he said, sometimes dont spot every hurdle their child experiences.

Most of these students will get over most of those obstacles, but theyre going to get tripped up some place, the mayor said.

It was Lilienthal, for instance, who noticed Anilus needed glasses. As a child, he seemed to enjoy playing musical instruments, but he was having trouble reading.

Despite that and other struggles, Anilus took guitar and piano lessons, taught himself how to play the bass and now plays in the school band.

I feel like Starfish helped me amplify my strengths, like music, said Anilus, whos going to Tufts University to study engineering.

Its become a big part of my life.

Millan, an outreach coordinator for the city, said Reyes is another great example of the work the Martins set out to do.

She was very, very shy, but Starfish gave her the tools to come out of her shell, exposing her to things that she may have otherwise never be able to experience, Millan said. She went from being a very shy child to being a confident and outgoing woman.

Reyes, who used to think she couldnt play instruments, said music is now part of who she is.

I really, really fell in love with it, she said. If it was not a requirement, I wouldnt have done it.

Millan, who moved here from Spain, said the program also changed her life, especially because she was able to help another immigrant family. Reyes family is from Guatemala.

I relate to them, Millan said. I know the struggles that they are going through. And to be able to ease their struggles is very rewarding to me.

Reyes was accepted to Tufts two weeks after Judy Martin died. The then-first lady, who was Starfishs executive director, had been contacting the colleges admissions office and was trying to secure financial aid for Reyes.

When Millan rushed to the mayors office to tell him the news about Reyes, it was a bittersweet moment for him.

It was one of my most joyful moments, but also a difficult moment, he said.

Martin said he and his wife shared the inspiration for the program, but she made it happen.

Judy orchestrated this thing, he said.

Judy Martin also helped Carias get an internship last summer at First County Bank.

I would probably never have that experience if it wasnt for her, he said. It made me think of business in a broader sense to the point where I want it to be a major in college.

Carias, whos heading to the University of Connecticut this fall, is the first in his family to attend college

Starfish gave me a lot of experiences that I probably would never have, Carias said. It gave me something to do. It kept me off the streets.

Herman, a Rippowam Middle School teacher who has been Carias mentor, said the decade-long program went by fast and benefited her as much as her mentee.

Its been a wonderful, wonderful thing. Im going to miss him, he said. The 10-year commitment is what we signed up for, but theyre going to college... theyre not going out of our lives.

To volunteer as a mentor, visit starfishconnection.org.

noliveira@stamfordadvocate.com, 203-964-2265, @olivnelson
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STAMFORD  No woman has ever been mayor, but there is one who should have occupied the citys top office.

Dahlia Pobie Johnston ran for the seat three times in days when it was unusual for women to do so. Though she did not win, she was executive aide to one mayor and a confidant to several.

She joined in back-room politics when few, if any, powerbrokers were women. Smart and strong, she was known for speaking up for the people, and defending the principles of democracy.

Friends now are remembering Johnston, a World War II veteran who died Sunday at 95, for what she did for her city and her nation.

Johnston excelled at a job all Americans share  citizen.

She kept a copy of the city Charter on her bookshelf, and she knew what was in it, said Johnstons friend of 50 years, Christel Truglia, who represented Stamford in the state House of Representatives from 1988 to 2009. She belonged to all kinds of groups that improved life in Stamford. And she believed so strongly in the U.S. Constitution  she kept a miniature copy of it in her purse and carried extras to give to anyone who cared to accept it.

Johnston has said she was raised to love America.

She was born in the nations birthplace, Philadelphia, to immigrant parents who took her and her two brothers on weekly visits to the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and other historic landmarks.

When the country was catapulted into World War II by the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Johnstons two brothers answered the call to battle. One was killed.

Johnston worked seven days a week in a war plant and, when she turned 21, the minimum required age, she joined the Womens Auxiliary Army Corps.

Soon she was on a train to Florida for training. She was among the first women to serve during war, and the Army had no uniforms or shoes for them. So they marched in the sand in the high heels they had on when they boarded the train.

In the WAACs, Johnston picked up a nickname, Pobie, short for her maiden name, Paubionsky. She had jobs at Army bases nationwide - cook, service records manager, issuer of discharge papers.

After the war, she married, and she and her husband, Rodney, moved to Stamford in 1957. She was an observer of government, believing it to be a vehicle for good, and soon was active in the citys Democratic Party.

She worked on the campaign to re-elect Mayor J. Walter Kennedy in 1961. She worked on agencies that directed the citys urban redevelopment. She worked on the Citizens Action Council. She was vice president of urban affairs for the Southwest Area Commerce and Industry Association. In 1973, she became executive aide to Mayor Fred Lenz.

Three times - most recently in 1988 - Johnston ran for mayor. She was good for government, but maybe not for politics.

She would not make a promise if she couldnt keep it. She was very honest, and she tried to keep other people honest, Truglia said. It could be that some people in politics didnt like that.

So Johnston remained behind the scenes, a voice of reason for elected and appointed officials who trusted her judgment and knowledge of city government.

She donated her time to housing groups, childrens causes, the Stamford Historical Society. Four times, she served on commissions that work to improve the city Charter, a kind of Constitution for Stamford.

My mother loved Stamford, said Johnstons daughter, Linda Benware. She was a huge part of the city for many years.

Truglia treasured her character.

Pobie was a friend to anyone who needed help, Truglia said. No matter the question, she would find the answer. If you called, she would help.

Johnston often was asked to speak to school and civic groups on Veterans Day, Flag Day and other patriotic occasions.

The things she told them are more important today - when politics is polarizing and truth is subject to opinion  than ever.

We are the descendants of immigrants from all over the world, living together under one flag, Johnston would say.

When Americans recite the Pledge of Allegiance, its a solemn oath to the republic. Its not to a dictator or an emperor or a king or a family who claims a divine right to rule. Its to the republic, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We have elections to make things better, to see that we still are carrying out what a republic does, Johnston has said. Its a responsibility. If we each take responsibility and work toward a common goal, it succeeds.

She lived by her words.

Because of her service in the WAACs, Johnston qualifies for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Benware said she is deciding whether to do that.

Wherever her headstone, Johnston will lie in peace with a copy of the Constitution, Truglia said.

We will bury it with her, Truglia said. She would love that.

acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296; stamfordadvocate.com/angelacarella
STAMFORD  A group of city lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are seeking to slow the pace of building development by requiring that larger projects outside the realm of current zoning laws submit to more scrutiny.

The proposal  submitted on Thursday to the Land Use Committee of the Board of Representatives by Rep. Virgil de la Cruz, D-2, and co-sponsored by 11 other legislators  states that residential developments containing 10 or more units and requiring a significant change to zoning rules be reviewed by an independent third party. The same standard would also apply for commercial, industrial and mixed-use projects.

The proposed resolution, in which the Zoning Board would rely on feedback from these neutral consultants, would help avoid inherent conflicts of interest during project reviews.

De la Cruz said he hopes the practice would aid the Zoning Board, rather than place controls on their decisions.

The public has expressed concerns about the impartiality of the reports and studies and so on that our hard working Zoning Board and staff has to sloth through  always with the suspicion that its not balanced based on the fact that these consultants work for the applicant, he said.

A list of independent consultants  to be chosen and vetted by the board  would be made public, according to de la Cruzs draft resolution. An expert on each of the matters considered by the Zoning Board most frequently - including traffic, parking, engineering, surveying, architecture and the environment - would be represented on the list of consultants.

The board would rely upon these field experts to assess a projects potential impact on emergency services, overcrowding in schools, traffic congestion, parking and infrastructure. While the Zoning Board would have the authority to appoint these consultants, the applicants who employ their expertise would cover the cost.

Its a great idea, said Carl Franzetti, R-14, who is one of the resolutions co-sponsors. Its adding another level of oversight on the application process.

The bipartisan resolution comes after several city lawmakers voiced heightened concerns about the speed and density of development at a Board of Representatives Land Use Committee meeting last week  punctuated by Franzettis call for a moratorium on building permits for multifamily and mixed-use developments.

City attorney Kathryn Emmett, who redirected Franzettis permit-moratorium proposal to the Zoning Board last week, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest resolution on Thursday.

Residents and city representatives alike are rallying behind the call to put the brakes on housing development in the city. Simmering for at least five years, the fight was newly invigorated by Building and Land Technologys proposal to construct a mixed-use campus with 800 units of housing on a mostly-empty 77-acre swath of land along Long Ridge Road.

A recent Planning Board review of the large residential project garnered a crowd of more than 50 opposing residents from all over the city.

nnaughton@stamfordadvocate.com;@noranaughton
I f you're heading to Glastonbury festival, you've no doubt been eyeing up the forecast and despairing at the prospect of limp, frizzy hair and tricky makeup maintenance.

Responding to your cries, Benefit Cosmetics have come up with a solution to keep Glastonbury-goers both entertained during the dreaded traffic jams and on fleek throughout the festival.

Announcing the launch of GlastonBrow, the beauty brand have revealed more details about the initiative.

The UK's first brows and beauty drive-thru, GlastonBrow will be situated outside the festival for today and tomorrow and will be giving away Benefit freebies and brow waxes.

Keeping attendees entertained with DJ's while they wait in Glastonbury's infamous queues, Benefit will also be giving away other festival necessities.

At the drive-thru's first window guests will be offered a menu of brow-inspired gift options, before they drive to the collection window where a 'Benebabe' will be on hand to deliver the freebies.

Festival-goers who post a picture of themselves with their drive-thru gift at the festival with the hashtag #BenefitBrows will automatically be entered into competition to win a year's supply of cult Benefit products.

Benefit Brow Launch products - in pictures 1 /12 Benefit Brow Launch products - in pictures 'Goof Proof Pencil Before and After 'Ka-Brow!' Before and After 'Gimme Brow' Before and After 'Brow Zings' Before and After 'BrowVo! Conditioning Primer Before and After 'Ready, Set, Brow!' Before and After 'Precisely, My Brow Pencil' Before and After 'High Brow Glow' Before and After '3D BrowTones' Before and After

Lisa Potter-Dixon, Benefit's head makeup artist and brow expert, said: "Brows have the power to give you an instant eye lift and can totally transform your look."

"Were taking our signature technique and beloved brow experts to Somerset for all festival-goers to rock a statement brow to match their feathers and glitter  itll be sure to get them into the festival spirit!"

The Details

Wednesday June 21 and Thursday 22

GlastonBrow, A37 Fosse Way, Lydford On Fosse, Somerset TA11 7BX.
A good or bad review on TripAdvisor can make or break a hotel. Uber owes much of its success to the elaborate feedback it has built into its system  passengers rating drivers, drivers rating passengers.

It is hard to go to a showroom, a bank or anywhere the staff have had more than the most cursory engagement with the customer without being asked before leaving to respond to any follow-up customer-service email by giving them a high rating, because their bonus depends on it. Technology allows people to say what they think  or say without thinking  and businesses and their employees have to live with the consequences. Customer feedback is become the major driver of quality control.

This may seem a long way from the discussion launched by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) on what should be the future direction of corporate governance, but it need not be. The existing code has had its successes and its failures but what is obvious from things like the churlish and grudging reaction of Lloyds Bank when it was obliged to compensate victims of the HBOS fraud at its Reading branch is that, when it comes to the crunch, no one at the top of a company takes any notice.

Enron, whose spectacular crash defined the Noughties, attracted ridicule for formally setting aside its ethical guidelines every time its board wanted to do something bad, and then formally reinstating the code after the decision was taken. But in principle that is what happens over and over again.

No amount of fine words about behaviour and ethics in a code have made Lloyds feel obliged to do the decent thing to people destroyed by its crooked employees. The yawning gap remains between what boards and senior management sign up to in good times, and what they actually do when they think it will cost them money. This being the case, you have to wonder if a revised code from the FRC will please anyone but itself. No doubt it will make progress on small issues but will it be effective on the big problems, the ones that really cause public concern, and where achieving a change in behaviour would actually mean something?

However, this is not as defeatist as it sounds. Technology may shortly come to the rescue. An investment expert at UBS, and therefore one of the best in the business, recently waxed eloquently about how the analysis of big data will soon transform the way fund managers invest. His view was that it will soon be possible to mine data not only to prove that companies with diversified boards do better than those without but also to demonstrate by how much and over what time horizon.

Similarly, it will soon be possible to measure the effect on performance of other measures  carbon footprint, customer satisfaction, recruitment, retention, employee morale and all the other things within the remit of good governance and enlightened management. This information will not come from internal company-controlled sources but from monitoring and mining all the data created by the companys formal and informal contacts with the outside world: shareholders, customers, suppliers, government  the lot.

This in effect will be like a high-octane TripAdvisor and ram it home to companies that what they do is noticed and will have consequences. It might bring them to heel and prompt them to make genuine changes to their culture far more effectively than the current process.

It is interesting in this regard that when British Airways had its computer failure over the bank holiday weekend, it brought to prominence the customer rating and employee satisfaction scores on websites like Skytrax and Glassdoor. These provide an outlet for employees to say what they think and discuss their own experience of living the companies values. They show that employee and customer satisfaction with the airline is among the lowest in the industry.

The management will no doubt ignore this, as it has done for some years. But the shareholders  if not now, then at some time in the near future  will be alerted to this kind of news by an algorithm that analyses the tone and content of these posts and translates them into a clear Sell signal.

It is by no means just an issue for airlines. There are a growing number of social media sites where employees past and present discuss what it is like to work for a company. In a world of big data, this can be used to provide measures of changes in employee morale and culture, which in turn can be linked to whether or not a business is under stress.

In a few years time, this kind of analysis and monitoring will be commonplace and will govern the allocation of capital. The links between genuine good governance and performance will become explicit and the underperformance that follows from a failure to follow best practice will be obvious and penalised by the market.

One can imagine much the same happening in the world of audit. Technology is already sufficiently advanced to do an audit in real time, in the same way that pension-fund solvency can be measured by the minute, but they choose not to do so. Imagine how much better the audit would be if, instead of simply measuring the veracity of internally generated data, it also tested whether that data was compatible with what people were saying on the outside.

It makes it possible to foresee a world in which externally generated regulatory codes are redundant. If companies do not behave, social media, the market and big data will find them out. Then shareholders and customers will take their business elsewhere. Given the candidates on offer today, it is pity we cant do that with politics.
B urberrys plans to shift staff away from London stepped up earlier, as it emerged the luxury fashion giant is preparing to offload office space to slash costs.

The FTSE 100 British designer, famed for its trademark trenchcoats, last month said it planned to open a new office in Leeds in October, with around 300 of its more than 2000 London staff moving there as part of cost-saving measures.

The Evening Standard can reveal it has now appointed property agent Cushman & Wakefield to conduct a review of its offices in the capital.

These include its flagship 160,000 square feet Horseferry House headquarters in Westminster, and a further 127,000 square feet at nearby 1 Page Street.

Property sources said the review is at an early stage because a consultation on job relocations is still being conducted.

But it is understood options include retaining Horseferry House, where its executives are based, and sub-letting parts of the other office, or exiting it entirely.

All parties declined to comment.

It comes as Christopher Bailey prepares to relinquish the chief executive role to Marco Gobbetti next month. It emerged this week that Bailey will receive 10.5 million in shares.

He will remain as chief creative officer and president.
T he former boss of controversial Indonesian coal miner Bumi has made a return to the London market, three years after the ill-fated venture with financier Nat Rothschild unravelled.

Nick von Schirnding, who ran Bumi for two years, was today unveiled as an independent non-executive director of Jangada Mines.

It claims to own the largest platinum group metals resource in South America and is gearing up for an Alternative Investment Market float this month.

Von Schirnding was also confirmed as the new chairman of Ortac Resources, another miner already on the junior market, this week as part of its restructuring.

The mining executive was caught in the middle of a high-profile spat at Bumi between Rothschild and the influential Bakrie family in Indonesia before it was offloaded for a knockdown $500 million (387 million).

The company, which became Asia Resource Minerals, was subsequently fined by the FCA for failing to notify shareholders about related party transactions.

The Bumi saga raised concerns about overseas companies with foreign owners listing in London.
A fter a dire general election campaign belatedly brought to life by Conservative incompetence, the big day is finally here. And for the third time in as many years, the City is gearing up for an all-nighter ready to trade on the outcome of Theresa Mays surprise dash for a mandate.

As the results roll in tonight, the shape and strength of the next government is likely to have an immediate impact on shares, stocks and bonds as the PMs gambit reveals itself as a masterstroke  or a costly gamble. But how will financial markets react tonight and tomorrow?

300 or fewer Con seats: Labour win/SNP coalition

Tin hats on. A massive shock, and as the old saw goes, markets hate uncertainty. A Labour win or minority propped up by the SNP and Liberal Democrats puts the prospect of a second EU referendum and another Scottish referendum on the table (when the Nats think they can win it).

Prospects of a Labour spending spree trigger a gilt sell-off, as the Bank of England eventually hikes rates more quickly to counter much looser fiscal policy. Shares plunge as business braces for a 49 billion tax hit and a Tobin tax on financial transaction looms.

Several corporates accelerate plans to scarper the UK (before they get nationalised). Energy shares and banks are a no-no  particularly RBS, which Labour has pledged to break up.

300-325 Con seats: hung parliament

Another near-seismic result which puts Theresa May in minority government territory, propped up by Unionists but under huge pressure to resign. Sterling slumps below $1.20 and gilts come under pressure again.

The pounds weakness gives an initial fillip to the FTSE 100  boosting the value of its international earnings  but the domestically-focused FTSE 250 sells off. Longer term, the prospect of horse trading and probably another general election this year has investors running for safe havens like gold.

A badly hung parliament will spell weeks of uncertainty in financial markets. German bunds and Treasuries jump, along with the Swiss franc.

326-350 Con seats: slim majority (one to 50)

A win at least for May but far from a ringing endorsement which will still prompt calls for her to quit and a possible challenge. Economically, the status quo still leaves her in the thrall of the hard Brexiteers on her own backbenches.

The greater likelihood of a no deal scenario is probably bad news for sterling, as Bank of England rate rises look further off. The pound falls back to around $1.24  effectively giving up the gains made during the campaign on hopes of a big majority.

FTSE 100 gets a short-term lift on the sterling effect but the money-men are worried and park more cash in gilts. Defensive tobacco and drug stocks do well.

351-375 Con seats: solid majority (50 to 100)

The bottom end of this range is still a bit disappointing for May, but a majority of around 50 soothes market nerves a little and at least its an outcome close to the consensus, which means the Square Mile should take it in their stride.

The FTSE 100 ticks higher, partly as the City blows its cheeks in relief at dodging the Corbyn bullet. The pound is steady.

375-plus Con seats: landslide (100-plus)

Less an election than a coronation. Anything close to a Tory majority of 100  especially since the polls have narrowed so much  is risk-on time. In the short term a relief rally looks likely, although how long it lasts before the realities of looming Brexit talks remains to be seen.

A confident May reshuffles her cabinet, removing Chancellor Philip Hammond and breezes into the negotiations. Her increased number of MPs curbs the influence of the extremists, and gives the PM a little more room for manoeuvre over a final deal.

Under this scenario, Oxford Economics forecasts sterling could reach $1.34 by the end of the year.

Now all the PM has to do is get to grips with a slowing economy, squeezed consumers and face down the negotiators at the Brexit table. The election was the easy part.
 Vote for the liar, not the groper. The ironic election placard of a reluctant Hillary Clinton campaigner during the US elections keeps coming to mind when trying to guess where voters will put their crosses on Thursday.

Will they vote for the robot or the Marxist?

It all seemed so different when the Prime Minister called the election on April 18. With Labour in tatters, a massive jump in the Tory majority was inevitable. The pound leaped: hurrah for strong and stable Tory leadership through the Brexit negotiations.

Seven weeks of brittle, uncharismatic Theresa May soundbites later, the markets arent so sure.

While she tended to poll well on Brexit, the great British public seems (surprise surprise) equally worried about other stuff the City had forgotten: policing, the NHS, the elderly.

So, while sterling has gained moderately over the weeks, it has made only jerky progress, with as many lurches down as up.

Today, the cost of hedging against sterling volatility is at its highest since the Brexit referendum.

The worlds experts are more confused than they have been since the most shocking UK vote in a generation.

So as the results come in overnight, the pound and FTSE markets will be gyrating like lunatics. It will be a busy night for the doughty souls on the graveyard shift in the City and Canary Wharf.

If the pundits are right and the Tories get a 60-to-75-seats majority, expect a decent gain in the pound.

Panmure Gordon reckons it could go as high as $1.32. The FTSE 100, whose companies rely so much on overseas dollar earnings, will slide half a percent or so.

But all this fuss, all these sharp moves, will be only temporary.

Longer term, thanks to Brexit, investors remain utterly cautious on the British economy.

So, even if the robot prevails, sterling will eventually weaken again. Best not hang around to buy your summer holiday money.

Lets swerve Aramco

Saudi Aramcos boss said nothing on the Beeb earlier to dampen concerns about his $2 trillion oil privatisation coming to London.

The main worry  that he wants us to bend the rules to allow a 5% stake in a company get a gold-standard UK listing  was left completely untouched, and his reassurances on transparency were absurdly vague.

There remains no independently audited figure of how much oil Aramco actually has under Saudis sands, and no outright pledge to give us one.

Aramco isnt worth the risk, either for Londons reputation or your investment portfolio.
B eleaguered shareholders of Petrofac were finally given reason to cheer today as the troubled oilfield services group secured a crucial contract in Oman.

Shares in the FTSE 250 company collapsed last month after it emerged it was being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office as part of its probe into Monaco-based Unaoil.

Today, it revealed a 10-year deal with the Petroleum Development Oman to work on projects in the Arab country.

Craig Muir, Petrofacs managing director of engineering and production services, called it a landmark agreement. It is already working on two projects for PDO worth more than $2 billion.

Last month, Petrofac suspended its chief operating officer and removed the chief executive from involvement in the investigation in an bid to clean up the mess.

Todays deal helped the shares claw back some of the lost ground as they rose 15.64p, or 4.5%, to 364.64p.

On the wider market, traders took their feet off the buying pedal on the day of the election, waiting on the outcome before placing any big bets. The tepid trading was underlined by the FTSE 100, which edged up just 3.54 points to 7482.16.

Vodafone was the only major blue-chip mover. The mobiles giant fell 8.5p, or 3.7%, to 220.5p as its shares traded without the right to their latest dividend.

On the mid-cap index, Berendsen surged 93p, or 8.4%, to 1200p after agreeing in principle to be bought by Frances Elis in a cash-and-shares deal worth 2.2 billion.

The industrial laundry firm had told investors there was no basis for any further discussions.

Shares in online fashion store boohoo.com jumped 18.25p, or 8%, to an all-time high of 239p, valuing the AIM company at 2.7 billion.

The rise comes after first-quarter sales growth more than doubled. It also raised 50 million in a placing at 220p per share.

Roman Abramovichs fuel cell firm AFC Energy was nudged 0.19p higher to 11.19p after a board shake-up which saw ex-Tory MP Tim Yeo step down as chairman.

Abramovichs business partner Eugene Shvidler was also replaced as a director by another member of the Chelsea owners Ervington investment vehicle.
S o much for the Brexit election. When Theresa May decided seven weeks ago that voters hadnt trudged to the polls enough recently  just for 2014s Scottish independence referendum, 2015s general election, 2016s London mayoral election, the EU referendum and last months regional mayoral and local elections  she cast todays vote as a run-off between the two candidates who could lead us into the Brexit negotiations. The terms of the deal, she later said, are the defining issue we should consider. And yet, weve stumbled here still with no idea about her withdrawal plans. Weve had slogans, but wheres the scrutiny?

It hasnt helped that Jeremy Corbyn has also shied away from mentioning the big B much. That was predictable. The pair, both nominally in the Remain camp, were largely MIA on the referendum campaign, unable to stir up EU enthusiasm internally, let alone in others. But as the Conservatives and Labour have set out their policies this election  on the NHS, on housing, on social care  theyve conveniently overlooked an obstacle: none of these pledges can be kept without securing a good deal from the EU, and we have no clue what compromises they would make to get one.

May has added to her banal, tautologous catchphrase  Brexit means Brexit  and the untruth no deal is better than a bad deal (not when most of our exports are services which arent fully covered by WTO rules) with a 12-point plan. But as The Guardians Rafael Behr noted, out of this dozen, nine are best achieved by staying in the EU, and the 12th is delivering a smooth exit from the EU. But whats staggering is that  on the biggest issue, the one that will cast a shadow over the next decade at least  Mays opposition counterpart largely agrees with her, even if many Labour MPs dont. From May to Jez and Jez to May on Brexit, is it possible to say which is which? Both seem willing to sacrifice membership of the single market to stop freedom of movement and neither is offering to put the final deal back to us. How can it be that after a referendum which reduced a Daedalian economic and political debate to a binary question (almost bisecting the population with the result), the two main parties approaches to that issue seem so similar?

Stranger still, voters largely accept it. If the polls are accurate, the death of two-party politics was declared too soon. Labour and the Tories combined are expected to get around 80 per cent of the vote today. Why, when Remainers could have found a new home among the Lib-Dems? The cliche goes that voters dont like being asked the same question twice. Id say Brexit fatigue has set in. Apart from die-hard Remainers, people want to talk about other issues.

Heres the rub. Brexit will suck energy and attention away from other problems. Therell be no quick deal. Needing 27 signatories for anything puts a brake on proceedings, and nothing will be agreed with the EU until everything is. Were also chasing a trade deal when other issues  the rights of EU citizens, the Irish border and the exit bill  are the EU negotiators top priorities.

Experts say the UK is already on the back foot. While weve been faffing with an election, the EU has got organised. The triple-whammy of Trump, Brexit and populism has also (temporarily) united this usually fractious group. And although the EU will want a good deal with the UK, a higher purpose could trump that: holding the remains of the Union together. Theres a fear that the populist, eurosceptic wind on the continent has only died down temporarily. It cant look like an attractive option to leave.

If Brits feel tired of Brexit talk now, imagine how theyll feel in 21 months when perhaps theres still only a skeleton agreement on the table. When I interviewed Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a partner at Dechert and an expert in international trade law, she set out the scale of the challenge: When [politicians] say, Brexit means Brexit that implies its a straightforward negotiation. But we are rethinking the whole country, no?

General Election 2017: The key moments

Viola could help forge the femocracy

After watching The Handmaids Tale on Sunday night, my boyfriend said: So all the best TV at the moment is TV with almost no male characters? He was including Orange is the New Black, the fifth season of which arrives on Friday. My only hiatus from Litchfield Penitentiary this weekend will be a third trip to Gilead.

Yet producers searching for scripts that could end up in Netflixs programmes with strong female characters category face what I (studying drama GCSE in an all girls school) termed The House of Bernarda Alba problem: such a dearth of plays and novels with a range of complex female parts that you end up doing the same ones on repeat.

Now, though, this list has a new addition. Last night, Naomi Aldermans The Power, which had already provoked a bidding frenzy from TV companies, won the Baileys Womens Prize for Fiction. The novel explores what might happen if the power between the sexes flipped in womens favour.

But who to cast? Id love to see Viola Davis as the senator who feigns weakness to help build a femocracy, and Amandla Stenberg as Roxy, who exploits womens new gift for criminality.
E ight hundred years ago the world was, like today, going through a period of transition. Western interventions in the Middle East had backfired, with early gains lost to Islamic forces. European economies were buckling under heavy taxation and struggling to keep up with over-optimistic expenditure. Division and dislocation in the heart of Asia threatened to change trading patterns that had provided stability and prosperity while, further east, China was finely balanced between the prospect of boom or bust.

In the midst of this one man rose to the forefront. Some saw him as volatile, unpredictable and dangerous. Others hoped his record of spotting opportunities meant he could deliver change and restore order. Few expected he would become one of the most powerful men in the world. Nevertheless, many trembled at the mere mention of his name: Genghis Khan.

The similarities between the 45th President of the United States and the great Mongol leader do not end with the circumstances behind their rise to power. Both men built a platform from which to dominate those who had previously concentrated power into their own hands.

In the case of Genghis Khan, success rested on creating an inner circle of confidants. Being able to rely on those whose interests were aligned with his was crucial in enabling the leader to concentrate on setting goals and pursuing them. The senior officials around Donald Trump play much the same role  he is surrounded by men who look, think and talk like him: white, rich, male and socially conservative.

The Mongols are famous for the violence they used, but aggression was used selectively. The annihilation of cities like Merv (in modern Turkmenistan) and Nisahpur, in modern Iran, where every man, woman and child was slaughtered, was done to show the consequences of standing in the way of a well-oiled military machine. The Mongols cultivated an image that cast fear into those who stood in the way of their ambitions of being the dominant superpower in Europe and Asia.

Trump has done the same, using Tomahawk missiles against Syria and deploying the USS Carl Vinson carrier group off Korea and threatening commercial rivals  most recently the Germans, whom he described as bad, very bad. See the millions of cars they are selling in the US. Terrible. We will stop this.

The message? Those who oppose the US should be very, very afraid. Those who play ball, though, are cut in on the rewards. This means Saudi Arabia, the beneficiary not only of a visit from Trump, but also of a much-heralded arms deal and full backing in the decision to isolate Qatar. So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the king and 50 countries already paying off, he tweeted on Tuesday, adding that when it came to the funding of extremism all reference was pointing to Qatar.

This sent some specialists into panic, not least since Qatar is home to 10,000 US servicemen stationed at the Udeid Airbase outside Doha, perhaps the single most important location in the fight against Islamic State. With the final assault against Raqqa set to take place, the timing of Trumps remarks seems reckless  as does the volte-face from his meeting with the emir of Qatar just two weeks ago, to whom he spoke about the purchase of lots of beautiful [military] equipment because no one makes it like the United States.

As Genghis Khan knew, you gain most from backing one horse rather than keeping options open. Trump backing Saudi Arabia is all about putting pressure on Iran. Whether attention should be on Saudi support for terrorism is another matter. But Qatar is being sacrificed in the gamble to win big.

That is what is happening in the US too, where business has aligned behind an administration that proposes sweeping tax cuts. There are similarities with the Mongols  although many think of them as bloodthirsty and chaotic, it is more useful to ask how they were able to build the largest land empire in history.

While violence and the threat of it were important, they let those they conquered maintain their religious beliefs. They also understood that high taxes stifled trade and therefore kept barriers low.

The Mongols never cared for public opinion. Similarly, the US President and those around him show a disdain bordering on hatred for the so-called mainstream media. And one reason why the Mongols have such a catastrophic reputation is because they did not patronise historians to write positively about their achievements. As it happens, there was much they did that might have been celebrated: the Mongols ruled with a surprisingly soft touch, building an empire that was not only huge but tolerant and sophisticated.

And heres the rub. The Mongols were successful. They built an empire that spanned continents. They united regions and peoples. Although most famous for bringing death and destruction, they also ushered in a new age of prosperity. Their success lay partly in the decision-making structure that let one man rule supreme. If you wanted something done, you had to trek to Karakorum and wait for a ruling. Trump reigns in the same way.

As business leaders will usually affirm, successful leadership lies in setting the agenda and getting things done. Some commentators find it hard to remember, as they look back at the previous President through rose-tinted spectacles, that Barack Obamas weakness lay in his professorial demeanour, his attempt to seek consensus and the detached way he went about business.

We are still trying to assess what impact Trumps leadership will have. Separating rhetoric from reality is crucial, for while all eyes are on the President and his Twitter account, his generals  like those of Genghis Khan  are out in the field, taking care of business. Eight hundred years ago the stakes were high  just as they are today.

Peter Frankopans The Silk Roads: A New History of the World is published by Bloomsbury
Shin pad sleeve coats, trousers made of plastic bags and ball gowns with built in iPads - it can only be Graduate Fashion Week.

At a blockbuster showcase, which provided a spectacular finale to the four-day extravaganza at East London's Truman Brewery, designs spanned the ridiculous to the sublime during an event which saw some 1,500 students from 68 universities vie for the attention of the industry.

Of the 25 selected students who unveiled their collections on the catwalk last night Halina North came out on top, scooping the coveted Christopher Bailey Gold Award for collection of the year with her innovative line of dresses and coats which were moulded from cardboard.

The Edinburgh College of Art student, who also took home the Trailblazer Award, was praised by a panel of judges which included designers Sadie Frost and Holly Fulton for her ability to "look beyond the normal confines of how we define fashion".

Graduate Fashion Week 2017 Gala - the winners 1 /26 Graduate Fashion Week 2017 Gala - the winners Christopher Bailey Gold Award Halina North from Edinburgh College of Art Christopher Bailey Gold Award Halina North from Edinburgh College of Art Christopher Bailey Gold Award Halina North from Edinburgh College of Art M&S Womenswear Award Irene D'Antonio from Edinburgh College of Art Little Black Dress Award Yang Ting Kwok from Norwich University of Arts Hilary Alexander Trailblazer Award Halina North from Edinburgh College of Art ASOS Design Award Hattie Crowther from Sheffield Hallam Catwalk Textiles Award Maddie Williams from Edinburgh College of Art TU Scholarship Womenswear Laura Gillings from Bath Spa University Clark's Footwear Award Megan Davies from University of South Wales Boohoo Social Media Award Nathalie Clarkson from Ravensbourne Mothercare Childrenswear Award Catherine Watts from University of Salford Bonmarche Fashion For All Award Caroline Bowden from University of Central Lancashire Asos Communication Award Charnice Blaze from Birmingham City University Debenhams Menswear Award Daniel Rynne from Arts University Bournemouth George - Catwalk to Store Award Laura Capello from Bath Spa University Visonary Knitwear Award Ruth Williams from Edinburgh College of Art International Award Po Chien Chiw from Shin Chien University International Award Po Chien Chiw from Shin Chien University TU Scholarship Menswear Award Amy Vanderwel from Nottingham Trent University

Fellow Edinburgh College of Art graduate Maddie Williams claimed the Catwalk Textiles Award for her show-stopping collection which was handwoven entirely from plastic bags.

Her designs included super-wide leg trousers trimmed with shredded strips and high-shine puffer jackets stuffed with the material.

Among the winners were Irene D'Antonio, who bagged the M&S Womenswear Award for her colourful collection of ornate floral-print kimono jackets and wrap trousers, and Debenhams Menswear Award winner Daniel Rynne from the Arts University Bournemouth, who delivered an artist-inspired line of paint splattered denim shirts and apron bibs stuffed with brushes.

Sarah Louise Frances from the University Of Salford incorporates an in-built iPad

Other star pupils were Visionary Knitwear Award winner Ruth Williams for her lattice leather and crochet creations and Bath Spa University Graduate Laura Capello, whose wearable take on monochrome body-con dresses and cropped evening jackets saw her claim the George Catwalk to Store Award.

Kasubika Chola from Kingston University also won praise from the audience for their innovative use of denim cast offs, creating coats and jackets from disused dungarees, which were presented alongside bags made from old rice sacks.

@miss_mccarthy
I cant explain exactly why I snogged Paul. Perhaps the heat had gone to my head: on the top floor of the east London tower block where our lips met, the sun was streaming in from all directions. We were drenched in it. The Thames, eight floors below, glittered in all its snake-like glory. And there was a glint in his eye, too: a challenge and an invitation. I wonder, I thought as I leant in, what my wife will think of this.

It might seem like an odd time, aged 27 and very happily married to an incredibly beautiful woman, to start playing around with my sexuality. It probably helped that we both happened to be at Togetherness, a festival of love, sexuality and openness held last month in Docklands and featuring a series of workshops, talks and events exploring human relationships. And that Paul, a lawyer in his early 30s with sandy hair and pale blue eyes, was classically good looking in a quiet English sort of way. Still, until last month, Id never had a proper kiss with another man  and until recently I always assumed that I was entirely straight.

But last spring something happened which made me question that assumption and set me on a journey that would take me to that sunny skyscraper kiss. I was in Paris, writing about the fashion world and spending a lot of time with male models. One in particular caught my attention. His name was Omar. He looked like hed walked straight out of a Caravaggio painting. He had dark ringlets, rude lips and eyes like charcoal. He was in his early 20s, half Moroccan, half French.

I realised I had it bad when I was woken up in the middle of the night by a frightened squeal. I was staying in a very cheap auberge, and had been made to share a double bed in a dorm. Id been having a dream about Omar and had clasped the poor lad I was top-and-tailing with in an affectionate (and undoubtedly terrifying) bear hug. The intensity of my feelings shocked me. This was something Id never experienced before: a proper man crush. Maybe boys dont count? I wondered, guiltily, when I thought of my wife, Janina. I did my best to push my feelings away, but more crushes followed. There was Roman, a tousle-haired, sharp-cheekboned Adonis with piercing blue eyes (another model); Jacob, an unnaturally pretty PhD student with a taste for silk Gucci shirts who I knew of old; and others, too. It didnt make me doubt my love for my wife, and I didnt act on any of them, but it did make me realise there were hidden depths to my sexuality.

I didnt immediately fess up to Janina  perhaps I reasoned that it was just a phase. But one evening, when we were chatting about loves gone by, I was relieved when she asked if Id ever had any dalliances with men. She is a fantastically open-minded and compassionate person, and wasnt shocked or even especially surprised when I told her about what happened in Paris. She was curious to see the Instagram accounts of the men I had crushes on, and admitted that they were all exceptionally attractive. If I had feelings, she said, I was free to explore them.

Still, the whole experience  from Paris to the kiss with Paul  has left me asking questions. Why, after so many years of perfectly happy heterosexuality, has all of this struck now? And how many other straight men harbour similar secret desires? According to Professor Ritch Savin-Williams, sexologist at Cornell University and author of the upcoming Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity Among Men (Harvard University Press, published October 2017), more and more men  especially among the millennial generation  are coming to the same realisation as me. While carrying out interviews with hundreds of young men, Savin-Williams discovered what he believes should be a distinct sexual orientation: mostly straight. Two to four per cent of men will say theyre mostly straight if you give them that option, he says. But I think thats only the tip of the iceberg.

There are, believes Savin-Williams, many more who arent so forthcoming. The hetero-patriarchal society in which we live tends to tip the odds in our favour most of the time, but it very occasionally oppresses us too. Heterosexuality is the gold standard to which we are all expected to try to conform. Expressing  or even acknowledging  other desires is made prohibitively hard. In England and Wales, there are 20 homophobic hate crimes every day. Women, as Katy Perrys famous song suggests, seem freer to experiment. In one US survey, 17 per cent of women reported having had a same-sex encounter, compared with 6 per cent of men. Human sexualities may move on a spectrum, but most men make do with monochrome.

Things, however, are changing. Call us what you want  heteroflexible, fomosexual, mostly straight, partly gay or bi-curious were everywhere. More young men identify or describe themselves as mostly straight than identify as either bisexual or gay combined, Savin-Williams tells me. Indeed, according to a poll carried out by YouGov in 2015, 49 per cent of British 18-24-year-olds described themselves as not entirely heterosexual, of which only 6 per cent say they are completely homosexual.

Why now? Its really the cultural zeitgeist, says Savin-Williams. Mostly straight guys have always existed. But I think our culture now has allowed the recognition and the awareness that these young guys have that this is okay. Celebrities such as The Hunger Games heart-throb Josh Hutcherson (who has said I think defining yourself as 100 per cent anything is kind of near-sighted and close-minded) and Ezra Miller (quoted as saying Im open to love wherever it can be found) epitomise this new attitude.

Perhaps I just missed out on this new age of openness. As a kid, I dont remember same-sex desire being anything other than something to be feared. At school in Sussex, the word gay was only ever used as an insult  and not a single pupil was out. Indeed, according to Stonewall, 99 per cent of LGTB pupils hear gay used pejoratively. The process was more insidious than simple bullying. A hetero-normative ethos pervaded everything from school rules about when and where members of the opposite sex could interact to games of spin the bottle. No wonder so many men  myself included  have been occluding their desires for so long.

After Paris, my crushes didnt fade away. I still carry tiny candles for Omar and Roman and Jacob. I enjoyed kissing Paul. My wife thinks its sweet. We married a year ago and she knows that my heart is hers  so if it brings me joy to occasionally flirt with and kiss men, then why not? My familys reaction was telling: the older generation were shocked that casual kissing outside of a marriage could be a conflict-free thing; my teenage sister gave an indifferent shrug.

Im still not exactly sure what being mostly straight or heteroflexible or, to put it starkly, being occasionally attracted to men, means for me. The first step was simply coming to terms with the fact that those feelings exist. Now I have to work out what to do with them. I keep on thinking about that spinning bottle. It whirrs away and then slowly comes to a stop, pointing to someone at random. You briefly entwine and then off it goes, stringing you along behind it. I think desire works that way, too. Its unpredictable, irrational and often irresistible. It doesnt always respect the rules. It spins and it spins.
S tew normally conjures up thoughts of cold, dark evenings  but not this one. Its a comforting, happy bowl for the warmer months, inspired by many trips to Spain and Mallorca.

Well stroll through the markets, filling our baskets with different homemade cured meats, such as chorizo and sobrasada. Like a softer chorizo, sobrasada is a cured sausage from the Balearic Islands, made from pork, salt, paprika and other spices. Some kinds are mild, other are super-spicy. Its delicious spread on bruschetta as a nibble with drinks, or you can add it to the base of a dish, as weve done here. If you cant get your hands on sobrasada, use extra chorizo sausage instead. Make sure you get the good-quality, all-natural stuff that doesnt contain preservatives or any other nasties.

This is one of those wonderful, quick and easy one-pot dishes that can be made well in advance and will last a good few days in the fridge. Its great for feeding large numbers as you can easily multiply the ingredients. We often serve it when catering for fashion shoots on location. When a crew has been up since the crack of dawn, this vibrant, robust stew does the trick for satisfying hungry tummies. Another fun way of serving this, especially for kids, is to serve it Mexican style alongside bowls of sour cream, guacamole, grated cheese, rice, coriander and tortilla chips. This is how we once served it on a shoot for One Direction. Were happy to say it was a hit!

Ingredients (serves 4)

200g almonds

400g fresh chorizo

200g sobrasada (or extra chorizo)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, diced

2 celery sticks, chopped

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

3 sprigs of thyme

2 red peppers, deseeded and chopped into small chunks

4 big plum tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

200ml white wine

400ml vegetable stock

A large handful of kale, woody stalks removed and roughly chopped

A bunch of parsley

A handful of basil leaves

Sour cream, to serve

Method

Heat the oven to 200C. Place the almonds on a tray and toast for 5-10 minutes. Leave to cool. Cut the chorizo into rounds, or squeeze the meat out of its skin. Spoon the sobrasada out of its skin. Heat the oil in a saucepan over a medium-high heat. Add the chorizo and sobrasada and cook for 2 minutes until browned. Turn down the heat and add the onion, celery, garlic and thyme. Stir to coat in the oil and saute for 3 minutes. Add the peppers, tomatoes and paprika. Pour in the wine and stock then simmer for 20 minutes. Blitz the almonds in a food processor until finely chopped. Stir into the stew with the kale and simmer for 3 minutes. Taste and season if necessary, then serve in bowls, sprinkled with parsley and basil, a dollop of sour cream and a chunk of toasted sourdough on the side for dipping. Tip: to make this heartier, add in pre-cooked shredded chicken or a can of chickpeas along with the kale
O n Sunday afternoon, Christine Archibald was named as the first victim of Saturday nights terror attack.

A Canadian national visiting London for the weekend, she died in the arms of her fiance after being struck on London Bridge. Her family told of how they were torn apart and how her fiance, Tyler Ferguson, was broken into a million pieces.

But one part of their message was especially heartwarming. In a statement, the Archibalds asked people to honour their sister and daughter by making their community a better place. Volunteer your time and labour or donate to a homeless shelter, they asked, revealing the 30-year-old had worked in a shelter herself before moving to Europe to be with her fiance. Tell them Chrissy sent you.

Those five words exemplify peoples extraordinary ability to turn tragedy into strength  not just in London, but all around the world. Since Saturdays attack, numerous Londoners have rallied in support of the homeless, all in the name of a Canadian woman they never met.

Just hours after the Archibalds message, Londons busiest homeless charity The Connection At St Martins received a donation with the message Chrissy sent me. Pam Orchard, their chief executive, said she was incredibly moved. Its amazing how people can create something positive out of such a terrible situation, she said. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends.

Shera Chok, a GP and Director of Primary Care at Barts Health NHS Trust, was so moved by the Archibalds message she decided to raise money for national homeless charity Crisis in Chrissys name. On Saturday she will embark on a 116km pilgrimage trek through Spain known as the Camino de Santiago.

Heroes of London Bridge attack - in pictures 1 /9 Heroes of London Bridge attack - in pictures Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff, clinical director and consultant in emergency medicine at Kings Malcolm Tunnicliff featured in TV programme 24 Hours in A&E Ex-police officer Darren Jaundrill Matt Writtle Joe Palermo, a bouncer from Italy Joe Palermo helped people to shelter in Bill's Matt Writtle Baker Florin Morariu Journalist Geoff Ho was stabbed in the neck while trying to help others Twitter

Dr Chok, who lives in Tower Hamlets, said she was not planning to fundraise, but was struck by the Archibald familys beautiful tribute after the appalling attack. I did my GP training at Guys hospital and live a few miles from London Bridge, so know and love the area, she explained. Like everyone, I was appalled to hear about the attacks. I wanted to help honour the victims of London and Manchester.

The clinical advisor at NHS England, who is originally from Leeds, said she will use the Camino to remember Chrissy and the others who lost their lives in the recent attacks. That last sentence, tell them Chrissy sent you, just gets me every time, said Dr Chok. Ive been a GP in the East End since 1997 with spells in Darfur, Laos and Indonesia. This reminds me of what a Greek doctor told me: Ive always wanted to work with an NGO and refugees, I just didnt expect to do it in my own city. I think sadly were seeing a similar shift here in London. I have no idea if I can carry a rucksack up and down hills for 116km, but will give it a go.

To donate to Dr Choks appeal, please visit justgiving.com/fundraising/Shera-Chok1
A teenager who brazenly sexually assaulted women and girls as they travelled alone on London buses has been jailed for 16 months.

Muhammad Mohsan, 18, struck first on March 4, 2015, targeting a 55-year-old woman travelling to work on the 316 bus in Brent.

He rubbed his leg against her before sexually assaulting her, then pursued her through the streets until she turned to confront him.

The teenager, from Hounslow, attacked again on December 14, 2015, trying to kiss a 16-year-old girl he had met on the 332 bus in Westminster.

Mohsan then took the girl to a secluded alley to sexually assault her, and continued the attack on another bus before she managed to escape.

Predator: The teen first struck in 2015 when he targeted a woman, 55, as she commuted to work. / Met Police

A month later, Mohsan targeted his third victim on the 31 bus in White City, putting his hand on her leg before offering 10 if she came to a park with him.

He was caught using CCTV and his Oyster card but freed on bail, Isleworth crown court heard.

Mohsan struck twice more in March this year, sexually assaulting a 20-year-old woman in Richmond and the following day targeting a 15-year-old schoolgirl in Twickenham, dragging her behind a bush to carry out an attack.

He admitted nine charges of sexual assault and was jailed on Tuesday for 16 months.

DC Simon Osborne, the investigating officer, said: Mohsan is a predatory offender who has brazenly targeted lone women in public, counting on their isolation and vulnerability to avoid being detected.

He has shown little remorse for his actions or empathy for those he has assaulted. The lives of several of the women he attacked have been significantly impacted by his actions.
T his is the moment a hapless thief was left empty handed after smashing into an ATM with a digger.

The bungling would-be looter manoeuvres the claw of the vehicle to pry off the front of the Bank of America cash machine in George's County, Maryland.

But the attempted robber was left frustrated after the machine proved too difficult to crack.

The raid reportedly caused $10,000 of damage, and police are now appealing for help to catch the culprit.

'Shocking': The claw of the digger prying off the front of the ATM / George's County Police

The video is pretty shocking, said Lt. Dave Coleman of Prince Georges County police, as quoted by the Washington Post.

If hes willing to go to these great lengths, its important to get him off the street as quickly as we can.

The thief is thought to have been behind another cash machine raid in the area last year.

He stole an ATM the first time and now hes upgraded to a backhoe, said Lt. Coleman.

We have a progression. Please help us get him off the street before he upgrades to a helicopter.
D etectives investigating the terror attack on London Bridge have made three more arrests following a swoop by armed officers.

Counter-terror police arrested two men during an operation involving armed police on a street in Ilford at 10pm, Scotland Yard said.

One of the men, aged 27, was held on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, while a 33-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possession with intent to supply controlled drugs.

A third man, aged 29, was arrested on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts at a property in Ilford during the operations late on Wednesday night.

Police activity outside a house in Ilford, east London, on Thursday after overnight raids. / PA

All three men have been taken into custody for questioning at a south London police station while detectives search the residential address and a business premises in Ilford.

The arrests follow the detention on a 30-year-old man as detectives raided an address in Ilford in the early hours of Wednesday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Detectives investigating the London Bridge terror attack have made three more arrests and carried out two more search warrants in east London late on Wednesday, June 7.

"From around 10pm, officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, supported by firearms officers, arrested two men on a street in Ilford, a third was arrested after a warrant was carried out at a residential address in Ilford."

Eight people were killed in Saturday nights atrocity, with another 48 left injured when three extremists ran people down in a van and then went on a stabbing spree in Borough Market.
A man who said "no" to two people asking for money outside an East Side store was mugged by the same couple when he got inside the store, but he fought back by spraying one of the attackers with insect killer.

The mugging happened at about 4:10 p.m. Wednesday at La Hispana Taqueria, 4512 E. Washington Ave., Madison police said.

Marteze Marshall, 28, no permanent address,and Daion Griffis, 24, of Madison, were tentatively charged with battery.

Police said a 33-year-old Madison man was entering the store when the suspects asked him for money, which he declined.

"As he was making a purchase, the man and woman entered the store," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain. "The male suspect had taken off his belt and began whipping the victim."

Both suspects allegedly started hitting the victim, so he retaliated by grabbing a spray can of Raid and started spraying the male suspect, and also hit him with a bottle.

"An employee called police and the assault was captured on surveillance video," DeSpain said. "The suspects were located and arrested."
A former HSBC executive has been arrested in London on suspicion of involvement in a currency exchange fraud.

Stuart Scott, the bank's ex-head of cash trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, was detained following an extradition request by the US Department of Justice.

He was charged with rigging markets in July last year along with Mark Johnson, a Briton who was HSBC's global head of foreign exchange cash trading.

But while Mr Johnson was arrested in New York, Mr Scott, 44, remained free at home in London and prosecutors have been attempting to bring him to the US to face charges.

He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, according to a papers filed by acting US attorney Bridget Rohde.

Anne Davies, a lawyer at Gunnercooke who is representing Scott, said: "Our client strongly denies the allegations. Given there are ongoing proceedings it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

HSBC said Scott left the bank in 2014.

"We are unable to comment further on personnel issues or matters which are the subject of ongoing legal proceedings," a spokeswoman added.

Scott and Johnson are believed to be the first people to face US criminal charges arising from an investigation into foreign-exchange rigging at banks.

The inquiry led to four banks pleading guilty to conspiring to manipulate currency prices in the United States. HSBC was not among those banks, but in 2014 agreed to pay $618 million (478 million) to resolve related probes by US and British regulators.

Johnson pleaded not guilty to a charge of wire fraud and conspiracy last August.

Prosecutors allege Johnson and Scott in 2011 misused information provided by a client that hired HSBC to convert $3.5 billion to British pounds in connection with a planned sale of the client's foreign subsidiaries.

They then used their insider knowledge to trade ahead of the transaction, causing a spike in the price of the currency that hurt HSBC's client, Cairn Energy Plc, it is claimed.

---

In the print edition of the Evening Standard we stated "HSBC paid a fine of $4.3 billion (3.3 billion) three years ago for weak controls and systems that allowed forex rigging to occur." This was in fact an industry-wide figure. We are happy to clarify this.
A pensioner has been told to pay more than 40,000 for renting out her squalid garage as a home.

Jumila Hussain, 70, crammed migrant workers into the illegally converted outhouse at her property in Northfield Road, Stamford Hill, and failed to declare the illicit earnings to HMRC. She tried to funnel the money through the bank account of one of her sons, and ignored council demands to convert the garage back to its proper use.

Hussain, originally from Pakistan, was convicted at a trial last month at Wood Green crown court of breaching an enforcement notice.

At court this week, Judge Noel Lucas QC fined Hussain 3,000 and told her she will be jailed for three months if she fails to pay the money. He also issued a 27,250 confiscation order and said Hussain should pay 13,900 in court costs.

The court heard she converted the garage without planning permission and recently tried to transfer about 30,000 to her sons bank account.
A man who reportedly shouted Allah, Allah while threatening to kill people in north-east London has been detained by police.

Officers descended on the scene of the incident in Leaside Road, Stamford Hill, shortly after 10am on Thursday.

Neighbourhood watch group Shomrim, who were following the man, said he was shouting in Arabic and saying Im going to kill you all".

Michael Scher, from Stamford Hill Shomrim, told the Standard: "The man was shouting threats, with members of the public rushing away from him, fearing for their immediate safety.

Thankfully police were able to detain him, and prevent further incident."

A spokesman for the Met Police said: Officers attended and subsequently located and stopped the man in Lealand Road.

He was detained by officers under the Mental Heath Act.

No one was injured. This is not being treated as terror-related.

The man was stopped by police and subsequently sectioned under the mental health act.
A couple in a legal battle over taking their sick baby son to the US for treatment have begun the first round of a fight in the Supreme Court.

Chris Gard and Connie Yates want their 10-month-old son Charlie Gard, who suffers from a rare genetic condition and has brain damage, to undergo a therapy trial.

But specialists at Great Ormond Street Hospital, where he is being cared for, say therapy proposed by a doctor in the US is experimental and will not help.

They say the life support treatment for Charlie should be stopped.

Charlie Gard and his parents / PA

A High Court judge in April ruled against a journey to the US and in favour of Great Ormond Street doctors.

Mr Justice Francis concluded that life support treatment should end and said Charlie should be allowed to die with dignity. Three Court of Appeal judges upheld that ruling in May.

A panel of three Supreme Court justices have begun analysing the couple's claims at a hearing.

Justices are considering preliminary arguments before deciding whether to give the go-ahead for a full appeal hearing.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street are continuing to provide treatment pending decisions by Supreme Court justices.

Mr Justice Francis had made a ruling on April 11 after a trial in the Family Division of the High Court in London.

Chris Gard and Connie Yates, the parents of eight-month-old Charlie Gard, arrive at The Royal Courts of Justice in London / PA

He heard that Charlie, who was born on August 4 last year, had a form of mitochondrial disease, a condition which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.

Specialists in the US have offered a therapy called nucleoside.

Charlie's parents, both in their 30s and come from Bedfont, west London, have appealed for money on a GoFundMe page to cover doctors' bills in the US. They reached a 1.2 million target before the High Court trial.

People are continuing to donate and the fund has now topped 1.3 million.

Mr Justice Francis said Great Ormond Street doctors had considered the experimental treatment, but decided it would not help Charlie. He said the case had never been "about money".

Lawyers representing Charlie's parents say parents should be free to make decisions about their children's treatment unless any proposed treatment poses a risk of significant harm.

Richard Gordon QC, who leads the couple's legal team, said the case had implications for others.

"[Charlie's] parents have made a decision, it's not a wish, it's a decision, to try to keep all options open and retain life for their child," he said.

"We say Charlie is being deprived of his liberty at Great Ormond Street Hospital."

He said the couple were "model parents".

"They would not wish to do anything that would cause Charlie harm," he added.

"The state is not entitled to cause a child's life to be extinguished."

Charlie's parents have indicated that they will ask the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to consider the case if Supreme Court justices rule against them.

Justices were told that without treatment Charlie's life expectancy was measured in months.

Mr Gordon said the case was "so important" yet there was "so little time".
T he family of a French waiter stabbed to death in the London Bridge terror attack have paid tribute to "a radiant young man loved by all".

Alexandre Pigeard, 26, was working in a Borough Market restaurant when three killers launched into a murderous rampage on Saturday night.

He was slashed in the throat after one of the attackers emerged onto the terrace of Boro Bistro, where he been employed for nine months.

In a statement released on Thursday, his family said: "Alexandre was a marvellous son, a perfect older brother and a radiant young man much loved by all who had the good fortune to meet him.

"All his friends praised his kindness, his good humour and his generosity."

Alexandre Pigeard had been working at a restaurant in Borough Market / Jeremy Selwyn

They said Mr Pigeard was "passionate about electronic music" and was part of Club 808, a group of DJs based in Caen, Normandy, where he lived before moving to London.

He also produced techno under the name Pigeard.

His family asked the media to "respect their time to grieve" after "this tragically cruel and unjust loss".

Vincent Le Berre, a manager at Boro Bistro, told Brittany newspaper Le Telegramme he saw colleague knifed to death.

He said: "The bar was full. A terrorist arrived on the roof of the bar and jumped on the parasol on the terrace, wounding one of my colleagues.

The terrorist attacked immediately. A client was killed. I found myself facing the terrorist two metres away.

I saw the hatred in his eyes. I managed to escape from him, but my friend, Alexandre did not have that chance. He was hit in the neck with a knife.

Mr Pigeard, born in Paris, was one of three French victims among the eight people killed in London Bridge.

Vigil for London Bridge terror attack 1 /16 Vigil for London Bridge terror attack Hundreds gather during a vigil in Potters Fields for the victims of the June 3rd terror attacks Getty Images People attend a vigil for victims of Saturday's attack in London Bridge, at Potter's Field Park AP Hundreds gather during a vigil in Potters Fields for the victims of the June 3rd terror attacks Getty Images Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Amber Rudd take part in a vigil for the victims of the London Bridge terror attacks Getty Images Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott with members of the public observing a minute's silence PA People gather in Potters Field Park during an event for the victims of the terror attack REUTERS People at a vigil in Potters Fields Park, central London in honour of the London Bridge terror attack victims PA People take part in a vigil for victims of the London Bridge terror attacks by the City Hall EPA Floral tributes were set down during a vigil outside City Hall EPA ople attend a vigil to remember the victims of the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market REUTERS Pupils from Eden Girls' School in Waltham Forest take part in a vigil in memory of those killed in the recent terror attacks in London Getty Images People lay flowers after a vigil for victims of Saturday's attack in London Bridge, AP

Chef Sebastien Belanger, 36, was also stabbed to death after leaving a pub.

The body of Xavier Thomas, 45, was recovered by police from the Thames on Tuesday night. He is thought to have been thrown into the river as the terrorists ploughed a van into pedestrians.

Australian nurse Kirsty Boden, 28, James McMullan, 32, from Hackney, Canadian volunteer worker Christine Archibald, 30, and Australian nanny Sara Zelenak, 21, were also among the dead.

Spanish authorities have said Ignacio Echeverria, a 39-year-old banking analyst who fought off terrorists with his skateboard, was also murdered.
S taff at the hospital closest to the Westminster Bridge attack were shocked and depressed by the copycat atrocity on London Bridge, a senior medic said today.

Doctors and nurses ran out of St Thomas hospital to treat victims run over by a car driven by Khalid Masood in March.

The hospital was back on the front line on Saturday night, receiving nine victims injured on London Bridge and at Borough Market  the first brought in by police.

Dr Katherine Henderson, clinical lead for the emergency department at Guys and St Thomas NHS Trust, said: I think everyone was shocked and deeply depressed that it was happening again.

The Westminster event was not that long ago. Borough Market is very near. Its at the heart of our patient population. Its at the heart of where we go out and socialise.

Heroes of London Bridge attack - in pictures 1 /9 Heroes of London Bridge attack - in pictures Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff, clinical director and consultant in emergency medicine at Kings Malcolm Tunnicliff featured in TV programme 24 Hours in A&E Ex-police officer Darren Jaundrill Matt Writtle Joe Palermo, a bouncer from Italy Joe Palermo helped people to shelter in Bill's Matt Writtle Baker Florin Morariu Journalist Geoff Ho was stabbed in the neck while trying to help others Twitter

One of the eight people killed was Kirsty Boden, 28, a staff nurse at Guys, who was stabbed after going to help victims. Doctors, alerted by Whats App message groups, rushed back to work.

Dr Henderson cycled in from her home near the Globe theatre. She said: Somebody has randomly decided to injure total strangers.

This is someone who has made a choice, who has made a decision to injure people they know nothing about.

That is why terrorism is so shocking. Its shocking to have to treat people that have been injured like that.
T housands of people will march to celebrate diversity and solidarity after the London Bridge terror attack.

Unity Day was first set up last year in the wake of a surge in hate crime following the Brexit vote. More than 10,000 people took part in a march and festival in west London.

The event is back this year to again celebrate the diversity and to take a stand against racism. But the organisers say that the event on Sunday will take on a greater significance following the recent terrorist atrocities in London Bridge, Westminster and Manchester.

The leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council, Stephen Cowan, who is leading the march, said as a result he hoped even more people would take part in defiance of terror attacks trying to turn people against each other.

March Against Racism 18.03.17

He said: We want it to be a showing of the unity of not just our borough but all of London, and the event will take on an added poignancy because of its proximity to the London Bridge attack.

We want to give people the opportunity to show as a society we are united in all our diversity. We can beat the terrorists by showing solidarity.

Last year focussed on beating the right wing bigots trying to divide us and this year we will be united against deluded individuals bringing terror to our city.

Vigil for London Bridge terror attack 1 /16 Vigil for London Bridge terror attack Hundreds gather during a vigil in Potters Fields for the victims of the June 3rd terror attacks Getty Images People attend a vigil for victims of Saturday's attack in London Bridge, at Potter's Field Park AP Hundreds gather during a vigil in Potters Fields for the victims of the June 3rd terror attacks Getty Images Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Amber Rudd take part in a vigil for the victims of the London Bridge terror attacks Getty Images Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott with members of the public observing a minute's silence PA People gather in Potters Field Park during an event for the victims of the terror attack REUTERS People at a vigil in Potters Fields Park, central London in honour of the London Bridge terror attack victims PA People take part in a vigil for victims of the London Bridge terror attacks by the City Hall EPA Floral tributes were set down during a vigil outside City Hall EPA ople attend a vigil to remember the victims of the attack on London Bridge and Borough Market REUTERS Pupils from Eden Girls' School in Waltham Forest take part in a vigil in memory of those killed in the recent terror attacks in London Getty Images People lay flowers after a vigil for victims of Saturday's attack in London Bridge, AP

Jabbar Hasan, the director of national charity, the Iraqi Association, which is based in White City, is also taking part in the event and called for people of all races and faiths to turn out to show defiance.

He said: We want to show we are all united, regardless of culture, religion and ethnicity against these acts of terror against humanity which are abhorred by everyone.

We are all part of London and a community which is so strong which cannot be beaten, Beyond our religions and our beliefs we are all citizens of our planet.

Minute's silence on London Bridge for attack victims

Marchers will gather in Shepherds Bush Green on Sunday at 11am before progressing down Goldhawk Road, through Hammersmith and into Ravenscourt Park where entertainers from around the world will perform for the crowds until 4.30pm. There will also be speeches from community groups.

Among those speaking will be Lord Dubs, who campaigned for unaccompanied child refugees to be allowed into the UK from Europe. There will also be the chance for people to pay their respects to those who lost their lives in the London Bridge attack. There are plans for a minutes silence.

The event is the finale of the boroughs annual HF ArtsFest. More than 200 events will have taken place from Friday 2 June until Sunday 11 June.

The festival organiser Petrea Owens said: We want this final event to be a chance for people to celebrate their cultures and also have fun together, with a message we are united in the face of terror. A strong community is the basis of everything.
T his is the four-year-old London boy who starved to death at home after being unable to raise the alarm when his mother died suddenly.

Chadrack Mulo was discovered clinging to Esther Eketi-Mulos decomposed body more than a fortnight after she died from an epileptic fit.

Chadrack, who had autism spectrum disorder and was said to be mute, died of dehydration and malnutrition, a post-mortem examination found.

The tragedy came to light after a coroner called on the Government to consider a nationwide schools alert system when young children are absent unexpectedly. Attempts by Chadracks school to discover the reason for his absence had failed.

Ms Eketi-Mulo, 24, is believed to have died at her flat in Hackney over the weekend in October last year after suffering sudden death in epilepsy.

Coroner Mary Hassell said in a report: Chadrack had learning difficulties and, when his mother died unexpectedly at home he did not know how to call for help or feed himself properly.

The likelihood is that Chadrack lived alone in the family home for over a fortnight after his mothers death. He was found a couple of days after his own death, with his arms around her body. She was by then very decomposed.

Staff at Morningside Primary School in Hackney were concerned by Chadracks absence and attempted to contact his mother several times. After three to five days, they visited the flat twice but were unable to gain entry. Police were alerted after neighbours complained of the smell.

Justin King, who lived next door, said: It is so sad. It makes me so upset when I think I could have been his saviour, but I just didnt think anything was wrong.

Sudden death: Esther Eketi-Mulo died from epilepsy

Mr King, a Marie Curie nurse, had been on holiday visiting family in Africa with his wife and baby daughter. Esther seemed a lovely, kind woman and her son was very sweet, he said. But they were withdrawn as a family and to not hear from them didnt seem strange. We hardly interacted with them and it was normal for us to sometimes not see or hear them.

I wish I had thought more of not seeing them and been able to save his life. I did not hear the cries of the child and he could not raise the alarm. Morningside Primary School now has contact numbers for three adults for every pupil and sends a staff member to an absent childs home if telephone contact cannot be made. Police are called if there is no answer.

Ms Hassell sent a prevention of future deaths report to the Department for Education, calling for the protocol to be considered nationwide.

Janet Taylor, headteacher at Morningside, said: Chadracks tragic death has devastated all those who knew him at our school. We will remember him as a happy little boy. We followed our procedure for checking on children missing from school and since his death we have worked closely with the authorities to consider what more schools can do in situations like this.

Sudden death in epilepsy is believed to kill 600 people a year in England and Wales and Professor Martin Elliott, of Great Ormond Street hospital, said a monitor should be developed to detect when people are having fits. In this case, that would have been enormously helpful and would have saved a childs life.

A DfE spokeswoman said: This is a heart-breaking and tragic case. The department is in receipt of the coroners report and takes the issues it raises very seriously. We will be responding in due course.

Ms Eketi-Mulo was from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and moved to Britain to live with family. However, a friend said she had become estranged from them and was not close to the boys father.

She had been in the council flat for two years and was studying at a local college to improve her English.

The friend said Chadrack was a lovely, little boy but never spoke, was very shy.

She said: There should have been more of a safety net for her and her son. Esther was a lovely, caring person, but very quiet. She was so happy to have Chadrack and loved him dearly. I will remember her beautiful smile for ever.
D iane Abbott was seen in public for the first time since it was revealed she was suffering from an illness as she turned out to vote in the General Election.

Ms Abbott, who is defending her seat in the Hackney North and Stoke Newington constituency, turned out on Thursday morning in pillarbox red to cast her ballot.

The Labour Party was thrown into disarray on Wednesday when Ms Abbott was replaced "for the period of her ill health" by West Ham parliamentary candidate Lyn Brown after a series of car-crash interviews.

Jeremy Corbyn told BBC Breakfast that Ms Abbott had been unwell for "a couple of days" and was taking time out from the campaign.

Diane Abbott in pillarbox red as she turns out to vote in Hackney / Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex

Mr Corbyn said: Of course Diane is somebody that works extremely hard and represents her community very well and I have to say has received totally unfair levels of attack and abuse not just recently - over many years.

Diane Abbott votes in Hackney / Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex

On Wednesday afternoon, Ms Abbott sought to reassure supporters, tweeting: Touched by all the messages of support. Still standing! Will rejoin the fray soon. Vote Labour!

Diane Abbott takes part in another cringeworthy interview

Ms Abbott was forced to step aside after a disastrous few days for the Labour politician.

She pulled out of a BBC Womans Hour debate on Tuesday with only minutes to go, replaced by Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary.

Ms Thornberry also stood in for Ms Abbott at the Evening Standard hustings in London that evening.

The no-shows followed several TV performances by Ms Abbott that drew criticism as Tory opponents said she was the weak link in Mr Corbyn's team.

Criticism began mounting against Ms Abbott on the campaign trail after she floundered live on LBC radio when asked the details of Labour's plan to introduce an extra 10,000 police onto the country's streets.

Lyn Brown, 57, was first appointed to Labour's shadow home affairs team when Mr Corbyn named his first frontbench team in 2015.

She resigned a year later after a vote of no confidence in his leadership. She later joined the front bench as shadow minister for policing.
V oters have gone to the polls in Edmonton to cast their ballots in the General Election.

Theresa May called the snap poll in April, with the Prime Minister insisting an election was necessary to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations.

The PM's announcement was backed overwhelmingly in the House of Commons by MPs who had to vote for it in order for the election to go ahead.

Edmonton

Labour hold

LAB Kate Osamor 31221

CON Gonul Daniels 10106

LD David Schmitz 858

GRN Benjamin Gill 633

UKIP Peter Harris 3246

Majority: 21,115

Edmonton candidates (2015 result: Labour)

Gonul Daniels  Conservative

Kate Osamor  Labour and the Co-operative Party

David Schmitz  Liberal Democrats

Benjamin Gill  Green Party

Nigel Sussman  Ukip

For a party to be able to form a Government and its leader to become Prime Minister, it needs to win more than half the seats in the House of Commons  326. The party that wins the second largest number of seats becomes the main opposition party and its leader the leader of the opposition.

You can read the Evening Standards list of candidates for all the London constituencies here.
Cherokee Middle School yearbooks will be reprinted to remove racial slurs and other offensive material, district officials confirmed Thursday.

In addition, the schools one-person approach to putting out the book will change when future editions are produced, officials said.

We had a process that worked for us and then we came upon a situation this year that was really unfortunate, school Principal Sarah Chaja-Clardy said in an interview. We are definitely making changes for the future. Our yearbook is a reflection of our school and it absolutely has to reflect the values of the school.

Delivered to students on Wednesday, the books included a photograph of a series of comments made by students on social media. The comments included hitler did nothing wrong and racial slurs against Mexican people.

Another problem was that the yearbook omitted the names of certain students, Chaja-Clardy said.

It has come to my attention that there are significant concerns with our 2016-17 school yearbook, she said in a statement emailed to parents and issued Wednesday. Errors, including the omission of student names and inappropriate and offensive comments, are present in the publication and do not represent the values, beliefs or ethics of our school staff or our school community.

Shannon Kunstman, president of the schools parent-teacher organization, said parents stand with the school administration in condemning the inappropriate comments and trust that Chaja-Clardy will develop a more rigorous proofing system for the yearbook.

Beyond that, the content of the inappropriate comments needs to be addressed in the school and in the community at large, where instances of intolerance and hatred have become way too commonplace, Kunstman said.

Teenagers and kids try on language, she said. They try on behaviors based on what they see out in the public.

This is why it needs to be a larger community conversation on how to move forward to create a different community for our children, Kunstman added, one that values compassion and tolerance and empathy.

The new yearbooks are to be reprinted and distributed to students at no additional cost. They cost $15 each, a fee that covers the cost of producing them, said Chaja-Clardy, who is finishing her first year as principal at the school.

Families are asked during fall registration if they want a yearbook, Chaja-Clardy said, and the school then orders enough yearbooks to meet the demand. There are currently 485 students in the school, but not all of them would have ordered a yearbook, she said.

Officials also will do a thorough review of the yearbook development process at Cherokee to ensure problems like this dont re-occur, Chaja-Clardy said.

In the future, the schools assistant principal, Mat Thompson, and Chaja-Clardy will be directly supervising the development and proofing of the yearbook, she said.

The statement to families did not directly address how the offensive material made it into the yearbook.

Again, I am deeply disturbed and apologetic for both the student omissions and unacceptable words that were included in this publication, Chaja-Clardy said in the statement, urging anyone with concerns to call her.

In the interview, Chaja-Clardy said that for this year and in the past, there was one staff member in charge of putting together the yearbook as an added, volunteer duty, based on submissions periodically sent in by other staff members. Photos of events at the school, taken by the yearbook coordinator, also are included in the yearbook.

No students have been involved in putting the yearbook together, Chaja-Clardy said, but that could change, as the production process is reviewed.

We are going to explore the idea of turning it into a club operation, she said. Students should be involved.

The page with the racial slurs and remark about Hitler appeared to be a screen grab from social media, with comments written by students at the school.

Chaja-Chardy said that image or screen grab was a photograph taken by the yearbook coordinator directly.

The district declined to name the staff member.

Im definitely following up with the staff member to try to determine where exactly the breakdown was, to find out what went wrong, Chaja-Clardy said.

The school also is still negotiating with the publisher to determine how much the reprint will cost.

Cherokee Middle School, at 4301 Cherokee Drive, is in the West High School attendance area.
A grinning Jeremy Corbyn made his way out to greet voters as the race for Number 10 grew ever-closer tonight.

The Labour leader refused to be drawn on the outcome of the election as he arrived for the declaration in Islington North.

Mr Corbyn was mobbed by the media on his way into the Sobell Leisure Centre, where he was eventually greeted by Islington South and Finsbury candidate, and shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry.

His party ousted Tory minister Jane Ellison in a shock result in Battersea, making her the first Tory minister to lost her seat on a night that looks set to be full of surprises.

Election night: Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn with fans at a count / Reuters

Labour sources told the Standard that cheers erupted from Labour leader's Jeremy Corbyn's office in north London when the exit poll was announced shortly after 10pm.

Election night: Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip arrive at the Magnet Leisure Centre in Maidenhead / PA

Meanwhile Theresa May arrived smiling at her count in Maidenhead as senior Tories insisted that polls have been "wrong in the past" and that it was still early in the night.

Votes are counted for Hampstead and Kilburn and Holborn and St Pancras / Nigel Howard

The poll predicted the Tories will win 314 seats which would not be enough to form a majority government and is a far cry from Mrs Mays hoped-for landslide.

Battersea Election Reactions

Following the announcement, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said Mrs May should "consider her position" as she will have "manifestly failed" if the exit poll turns out to be correct.

Election: Counting underway at Methodist Central Hall / Pete Maclaine

And Evening Standard editor, George Osborne, described the night as potentially "catastrophic" for Mrs May.

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Mr Osborne said, if right, the figures would put Mrs May's future as Conservative leader in doubt, saying on ITV: "Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader."

Mrs Thornberry told Sky News that it was still early in the evening but said: [The exit polls] have been right for the last 20 years or so, 30 years, so I think we're on the verge of a great result.

"Just think only seven weeks ago the hubris of the Prime Minister who was 20 points ahead, who wanted to have a blank cheque, she wanted to do whatever she wanted with the country with Brexit, with the economy, with our National Health Service and we said no and we meant it.

"And we put forward a popular manifesto with a leader of the party who has withstood the most extraordinary personal attacks, and has actually shown if anybody was strong and stable it was him.

Emily Thornberry: The shadow foreign secretary said Mrs May should 'reconsider her position' / Bloomberg via Getty Images

"And this is a great result, if it's true."

Speaking on what Labour would do, she added: "We will see what happens next but if the Labour Party is called on to provide the next government, we will do so and do it in a unified way under a popular manifesto... with a leader who is strong."

The count at Croydon Central / Chris Gorman

Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said of the exit poll: "I'm not a number cruncher but I have seen a real uptick, possibly a surge in the Labour vote.

Count rivals: The poll was released after voting ended / Getty Images

"The Conservatives were treating it [this election] like something close to a coronation but it's now going to be a much more closely fought contest."

He added: "Tim Farron has been very clear [there will be no coalition]. The approach of hard brexit taken by Theresa May means there is no meeting point between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats."

"There is absolutely no way the Lib Dems will dignify that headlong rush."

Meanwhile speaking at the Sobell Leisure Centre in Holloway, Council leader Richard Watts spoke of a "huge cheer" from Corbyn's office following the results.

It felt like the best mood on the ground in an election Ive ever experienced," he said. The support that Jeremys had on the doorstep and the activism levels have been enormous."

Other Conservative and Labour figures reacted cautiously the poll, with Tory Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon saying: "This is a projection, it's not a result. These exit polls have been wrong in the past."

Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell also warned against reading too much into the prediction, saying: "We have to have some scepticism about all polls at the moment."

General Election Exit Poll reaction

And Sir Craig Oliver, former director of communications at Downing Street for David Cameron, told Sky News: "If this is true, if this is accurate in CCHQ there will be deep and lasting shock.

"It was the biggest gamble a politician has taken for a long time and if that exit poll is right, it's failed."

The poll, which surveyed thousands of people at polling stations across the UK, suggest the Conservative party will win 314 seats in Parliament.

What is a hung parliament?

This is short of the 326 needed for a Commons majority and suggests Mrs May will need to enter into a coalition in order to lead.

The results indicate Labour will win 266 seats.

Liberal Democrats are predicted to win 14 seats. The SNP are set to see a huge drop in the number of seats they hold, falling from 54 to 34.

Ukip are not predicted to win any seats.

Poll: Mrs May is facing criticism over her future as leader / PA

In 2015 the exit poll correctly predicted the majority win for David Camerons Conservative party and the poll is usually a correct measure of the final result in an election.

The only example of genuine exit polls being wrong came in 1992, when all three broadcasters put the Conservatives and Labour on about 300 seats each, well short of an overall majority.

If the predictions are correct, a hung parliament could cast serious doubt over Brexit negotiations, due to being in earnest in just 10 days.

General Election Polling Day 2017 - In pictures 1 /37 General Election Polling Day 2017 - In pictures Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave after casting their votes in the General Election at a polling station in the village of Sonning, Berkshire Jonathan Brady/PA Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn gestures as he arrives to vote in the general election at a polling station in London Frank Augstein/AP Diane Abbott casts her vote Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex Policer officers arrive to enter a polling station in London ahead of the arrival of Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn who will vote in the general election Frank Augstein/AP Lolly the dog at Sonning today Jeremy Selwyn First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives to cast her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow Andrew Milligan/PA The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Paul Nuttall leaves after voting at a polling station in Congleton, Britain Paul Childs/Reuters Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron arrives to cast his vote in the General Election at a polling station at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal, Cumbria Danny Lawson/PA A polling station is seen in London Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Nuns from Tyburn Convent leave a polling station at St John's Parish Hall, central London Isabel Infantes/PA Theresa May voting today in Sonning today Jeremy Selwyn Police and a man dressed as Elmo outside a polling station in the village of Sonning, Berkshire, where Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip are expected to cast their votes later. Stefan Rousseau/PA Sophie Allison on Splash leaves the stables at the private residence Three Oaks in Bramshill, Hampshire, which is being used a polling station Andrew Matthews/PA A caravan which is being used as a polling station on Grange Farm in Garthorpe, Leicestershire Joe Giddens/PA Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson poses with her partner Jen Wilson and their dog Mister Wilson, at a cafe set up as a Polling Station, in Edinburg Lesley Martin/AFP/Getty Images Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale outside the polling station at Wilson Memorial Church in Edinburgh Jane Barlow/PA Police on patrol whilst a voter leaves a polling station in Sonning, Britain Toby Melville/Reuters Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in her wedding dress after marrying Dale Shirlow earlier in the day PA Workers prepare signs outside their polling station on general election day in London Neil Hall/Reuters A presiding officer and poll clerk wait for early morning voters at a Polling Station set up in a launderette and nail bar in Headington outside Oxford Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images A voter arrives at a polling station in London Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill arrives at a polling station at St Patrick's primary school in Annaghmore, Clonoe to cast her vote in the General Election Liam McBurney/PA Tory candidate for Croydon Central Gavin Barwell in Addington Village Alex Lentati First Minister Nicola Sturgeon casts her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow Andrew Milligan/PA A general view of a polling station at the White Horse Inn in Priors Dean, Hampshire, also known as the 'Pub with no name' Andrew Matthews/PA Chelsea pensioners leave a polling station after voting Markus Schreiber/AP Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip, arrive at a Polling Station to cast their ballot paper and vote in Sonning, west of London Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Diane Abbott casts her vote Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex

Possible negotiations over the formation of a new government could set back formal talks, squeezing the limited time available to forge a complex withdrawal agreement and a separate deal on future trade arrangements.

Theresa May repeatedly urged voters to hand her a large majority so that she could go into talks in Brussels with the firm backing of the country and the House of Commons behind her.

She warned that if she lost just six seats, she would no longer be Prime Minister, and an unprepared Jeremy Corbyn would go "naked and alone" to the negotiating table.
O pinion polls continued to point to a wide range of possible results as millions of Britons headed out to cast their votes.

The Conservatives lead ranged from a single point to a double-digit cushion after a campaign in which Jeremy Corbyns Labour slashed Theresa Mays lead.

YouGov, whose polls had shown some of the tightest gaps in the campaign, had even predicted a hung parliament in some of its models.

But its final poll for The Times showed the Tories with a seven-point lead over Labour, which would give Theresa Mays party a majority of almost 50 seats, up from 17. It showed a late drop in Labours support, with the Conservatives on 42 per cent and Labour down three points on 35 per cent. The Lib Dems were on 10 per cent and Ukip was on five per cent.

But the mixed selection, which means the vote will likely be decided by turnout, was shown by a Survation poll which had the two parties almost neck and neck as voters prepared to cast their ballots.

TODO: define component type apester

Survation's final pre-election survey put the Tories on 41.3 per cent with Labour on 40.4 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 7.8 per cent, SNP on 3.6 per cent, Ukip on 2.4 per cent and the Greens on 2.3 per cent.

Election battle: Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn

Here is the latest graph showing the poll of polls from Britain Elects  providing a clear picture of how the parties stand as voters head to the polls.

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Latest election odds from Betfair Exchange:

General Election 2017: What you need to know

Overall Majority - 14m matched

Conservative Majority 1.23 (2/9 or an 81% chance)

No Overall Majority 6.2 (5/1 or a 16% chance)

Labour Majority 30 (29/1)

Any Other Majority 1000 (999/1)

Most Seats - 17.9m matched

Conservative 1.09 (1/11 or a 91% chance)

Labour 11.5 (10/1 or a 8% chance)

Lib Dems 1000 (999/1)

UKIP 1000 (999/1)

Any Other 1000 (999/1)
J eremy Corbyn was snubbed today when a former minister in Gordon Browns Government of All the Talents said he could not work for the Left-winger.

Digby Jones, who was trade minister in the last Labour government, told the Evening Standard he could not work for a man who doesnt understand business and hates capitalism.

Lord Jones, 61, a crossbencher in the Lords, also said that shadow chancellor John McDonnell did not seem to grasp how government bonds worked, while shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey doesnt understand you have to make money before you can pay for schools and hospitals.

A second member of Mr Browns Goats  experts from outside party politics or Whitehall who were appointed ministers  also snubbed Mr Corbyn.

Lord West, the former security minister, doubted that he could serve in a Corbyn government because he would be surprised if they could agree on how to protect Britain. I would have to think very hard, said the former head of the Navy and Falklands war hero. I would have to have a very long talk with Mr Corbyn.

General Election 2017: The key moments

Lord West, 69, who sits in the Lords as a Labour peer, said: I would be surprised if his ideas of what is required for the security and defence of the nation tallied with what I believe is necessary.

The strong reservations of the pair came after dozens of Labour MPs declined posts in Mr Corbyns front bench team because they felt his views were too extreme.

Lord Jones, a former head of the Confederation of British Industry, and Lord West were senior ministers during Mr Browns attempt to create a government formed from the very best in their field of expertise.

Lord Jones said: If I was asked to do something with Mr Corbyn as prime minister I would refuse. I would refuse because he wouldnt make judgments on business grounds. He hates capitalism.

Of Mr McDonnell, he said: He said to Andrew Marr, Were going to nationalise water companies  but were not going to borrow, we are going to issue bonds. This man wants to run the fifth biggest economy on Earth and yet he doesnt understand that a government bond has to be repaid one day.

Of Ms Long-Bailey, he said: I heard her on Question Time and I thought, This woman doesnt get it. 
V oters have gone to the polls in Kingston and Surbiton to cast their ballots in the General Election.

Theresa May called the snap poll in April, with the Prime Minister insisting an election was necessary to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations.

The PM's announcement was backed overwhelmingly in the House of Commons by MPs who had to vote for it in order for the election to go ahead.

Kingston and Surbiton candidates (2015 result: Conservative)

Michael Basman  Independent

James Berry  Conservative

Chinners  Monster Raving Loony Party

Ed Davey  Liberal Democrats

Graham Matthews  Ukip

Laurie South  Labour

Chris Walker  Green Party

Nationally, the election is expected to help Theresa May increase the Conservatives' majority. Although Jeremy Corbyn's Labour narrowed the gap at points, the Tories have consistently enjoyed a lead in opinion polls.

For a party to be able to form a Government and its leader to become Prime Minister, it needs to win more than half the seats in the House of Commons  326. The party that wins the second largest number of seats becomes the main opposition party and its leader the leader of the opposition.

You can read the Evening Standards list of candidates for all the London constituencies here.

Kingston & Surbiton

Liberal Democrats gain from Conservatives

LAB Laurie South 9203

CON James Berry 23686

LD Ed Davey 27810

GRN Chris Walker 536

UKIP Graham Matthews 675

LOONY Chinners 168

IND Michael Basman 100

Majority
V oters have gone to the polls in Richmond Park to cast their ballots in the General Election.

Theresa May called the snap poll in April, with the Prime Minister insisting an election was necessary to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations.

The PM's announcement was backed overwhelmingly in the House of Commons by MPs who had to vote for it in order for the election to go ahead.

Richmond Park 2017 election results:

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative: 28,588

Peter Jewell  Ukip: 426

Sarah Olney  Liberal Democrats: 28,543

Cate Tuitt - Labour: 5,773

Nationally, the election is expected to help Theresa May increase the Conservatives' majority. Although Jeremy Corbyn's Labour narrowed the gap at points, the Tories have consistently enjoyed a lead in opinion polls.

For a party to be able to form a Government and its leader to become Prime Minister, it needs to win more than half the seats in the House of Commons  326. The party that wins the second largest number of seats becomes the main opposition party and its leader the leader of the opposition.

You can read the Evening Standards list of candidates for all the London constituencies here.

This page will be updated with results as soon as they are available.
T heresa May is heading for a clear general election victory, the very final poll of the campaign reveals today.

Ipsos MORI research exclusively for the Evening Standard finds the Conservatives on 44 per cent, eight points ahead of Labour who are on 36 per cent.

The figures point to a Conservative majority of around 40, which would be just enough for Mrs May to claim a mandate for Brexit negotiations but short of the three-figure landslide that senior Tories hoped for when she called the snap election three years ahead of schedule.

The Prime Minister greeted photographers with a cheery hello today as she arrived with husband Philip to vote at Sonning girl guide and scout hut on the outskirts of her Maidenhead constituency.

For Jeremy Corbyn, the findings point to a vote share higher than the 30.4 per cent Ed Miliband achieved in 2015 but probably a net loss of seats.

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It means Labours bitter civil war is bound to continue, with Mr Corbyn able to claim enough popular success to stay on as leader, while critics will accuse him of dragging the party further from actual power.

Mr Corbyn smiled, waved and spoke to voters before casting his ballot at Pakeman Primary School in Holloway, north London.

Casting his vote: Jeremy Corbyn / Leon Neal/Getty Images

Thank you very much, all of you, for coming here today, he said to reporters. Its a day of our democracy. Ive just voted. Im very proud of our campaign. Thank you very much.

The Liberal Democrats end their campaign on a meagre seven per cent, down from their 2015 election result, which will raise questions over Tim Farrons future as leader.

Ukip is crushed to just four per cent, while the Greens are reduced to just two per cent in a move away from the multi-party politics of recent years.

Researchers found evidence that the Tory campaign steadied in the final days of campaigning after a notable wobble, raising questions about whether the London terror attack played a part in the final stages.

General Election Polling Day 2017 - In pictures 1 /37 General Election Polling Day 2017 - In pictures Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip leave after casting their votes in the General Election at a polling station in the village of Sonning, Berkshire Jonathan Brady/PA Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn gestures as he arrives to vote in the general election at a polling station in London Frank Augstein/AP Diane Abbott casts her vote Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex Policer officers arrive to enter a polling station in London ahead of the arrival of Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn who will vote in the general election Frank Augstein/AP Lolly the dog at Sonning today Jeremy Selwyn First Minister Nicola Sturgeon arrives to cast her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow Andrew Milligan/PA The leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) Paul Nuttall leaves after voting at a polling station in Congleton, Britain Paul Childs/Reuters Liberal Democrats leader Tim Farron arrives to cast his vote in the General Election at a polling station at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal, Cumbria Danny Lawson/PA A polling station is seen in London Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Nuns from Tyburn Convent leave a polling station at St John's Parish Hall, central London Isabel Infantes/PA Theresa May voting today in Sonning today Jeremy Selwyn Police and a man dressed as Elmo outside a polling station in the village of Sonning, Berkshire, where Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip are expected to cast their votes later. Stefan Rousseau/PA Sophie Allison on Splash leaves the stables at the private residence Three Oaks in Bramshill, Hampshire, which is being used a polling station Andrew Matthews/PA A caravan which is being used as a polling station on Grange Farm in Garthorpe, Leicestershire Joe Giddens/PA Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson poses with her partner Jen Wilson and their dog Mister Wilson, at a cafe set up as a Polling Station, in Edinburg Lesley Martin/AFP/Getty Images Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale outside the polling station at Wilson Memorial Church in Edinburgh Jane Barlow/PA Police on patrol whilst a voter leaves a polling station in Sonning, Britain Toby Melville/Reuters Alliance candidate for West Belfast Sorcha Eastwood casts her vote in her wedding dress after marrying Dale Shirlow earlier in the day PA Workers prepare signs outside their polling station on general election day in London Neil Hall/Reuters A presiding officer and poll clerk wait for early morning voters at a Polling Station set up in a launderette and nail bar in Headington outside Oxford Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images A voter arrives at a polling station in London Stefan Wermuth/Reuters Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland Michelle O'Neill arrives at a polling station at St Patrick's primary school in Annaghmore, Clonoe to cast her vote in the General Election Liam McBurney/PA Tory candidate for Croydon Central Gavin Barwell in Addington Village Alex Lentati First Minister Nicola Sturgeon casts her vote in the General Election at a polling station at Broomhouse Community Hall in Glasgow Andrew Milligan/PA A general view of a polling station at the White Horse Inn in Priors Dean, Hampshire, also known as the 'Pub with no name' Andrew Matthews/PA Chelsea pensioners leave a polling station after voting Markus Schreiber/AP Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip, arrive at a Polling Station to cast their ballot paper and vote in Sonning, west of London Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images Diane Abbott casts her vote Alex Huckle/SilverHub/Rex

And Mrs Mays leadership ratings fell during a campaign that was temporarily derailed by a major U-turn on the so-called dementia tax, the polling confirmed.

In April, 61 per cent saw her as the most capable Prime Minister compared with Mr Corbyn, but that has fallen to 47 per cent.

However, she is comfortably ahead of Mr Corbyn, who came under relentless attacks for his past record on terrorism, who is preferred by 36 per cent.

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Gideon Skinner, head of political research at Ipsos MORI, said: The Conservatives had a wobble last week, but have regained a clear lead in the last few days. Theresa Mays advantage over Jeremy Corbyn is also lower than it was at the start of the campaign, but she and her party have kept their support among key voting groups such as older people.

Having said that, one in five voters say they might still change their mind, so there are still votes to fight for.

Prime Minister Theresa May casts her vote

Britain ends the election deeply divided by age groups. Younger voters of 18-34 prefer Labour over the Conservatives by 49 per cent to 28, while the over-65s are solidly behind the Conservatives by 60 per cent to 23.

A fifth of voters say they still might change their mind. The Tory vote seemed most firm, with only 13 per cent uncertain, compared with 19 per cent of Labour voters thinning they might switch. The Liberal Democrats had the softest vote, with a third thinking they might change sides.

General Election 2017: The key moments

Some 46.9 million people are entitled to vote in 650 Westminster constituencies. Polling stations opened at 7am and will close at 10pm tonight. A few results are expected before midnight, with the bulk flooding in overnight to give a clear outcome by the time people wake up tomorrow.

In their final campaign stops last night, Mrs May appealed to non-Tory supporters to lend her their votes for the Brexit talks, while Mr Corbyn told a rally in Islington his campaign had changed the face of British politics and Labour was preparing for government.

Turnouts will be key to translating the support shown in the polls to seats won and lost, with Labours hopes pinned on a hoped-for surge of young voters. The weather looked unlikely to prove too much of a deterrent to voters, although rain is forecast to move north through the UK during the course of the day.

Election expert professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said unless there was a major storm which disrupted transport links, turnout was unlikely to be affected: We live in a country where a bit of drizzle is commonplace.

Professor Philip Cowley, of Queen Mary Univesrsity of London, said it was difficult to assess what effect the terror attacks in London and Manchester made.

My suspicion is that they made almost no difference, apart from breaking the campaign up and reminding us that there are more important things in life than elections, he said.
B ritain is facing a hung Parliament in a shock General Election twist which has left the Conservatives reeling.

Many in Westminster were confident Prime Minister Theresa May would lead the Tory party to victory when she called the snap election in April.

But neither Labour nor the Tories have won an overall majority of Commons seats.

Here is what happens next.

No party has won the election  what happens now?

To win a General Election outright and be able to form a majority government, a political party must win at least 326 seats in the House of Commons - more than half of all the constituencies in the UK.

As the results came in overnight, it is clear neither the Tories or Labour will reach the 326-seat threshold.

Hung parliament: No party has an overall Commons majority. / AFP/Getty Images

The Tories are set to win 318 seats while Labour are predicted to get 262.

If every party falls short  which has happened - it is known as a hung parliament.

What does the hung parliament mean for the UK now?

Now there is a hung parliament, the previous government  Theresa May and the Tories - may remain in power during a period of negotiation as they look to form a coalition with smaller parties.

Because they won the most seats, the Tories have the chance to try and form a government.

Theresa May needs to make up 326 seats to form a government. A coalition could mean a partnership with just one other party or a rainbow coalition made up with several.

What is a hung parliament?

General Election Night 2017 - In pictures 1 /41 General Election Night 2017 - In pictures Theresa May waiting in Maidenhead for the result to be announced Alastair Grant/AP Labour leaders Jeremy Corbyn at the Election count in Islington Jeremy Selwyn Leader of the Liberal democrats Tim Farron celebrates beating Conservative party candidate James Airey, Independent candidate Mr Fishfinger and Labour candidate Eli Aldridge following the announcement of the results at the Westmoorland and Lonsdale constituency count at Kendal Leisure Centre Dave Thompson/Getty Images Armed police outside the home of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in north London Yui Mok/PA Vince Cable pictured with his wife Rachel, is elected once again in Twickenham after losing his seat in 2015 Alex Lentati Nick Clegg loses his Sheffield Hallam seat and is no longer an MP Sky News Scottish National Party (SNP) leader Nicola Sturgeon reacts as her party loses their seat at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, Robert Parry/EPA Britain's Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, right, tries to high-five with Labour's Emily Thornberry after arriving for the declaration at his constituency in London Frank Augstein/AP Ballot boxes are run in during the count at the Silksworth Community Pool, Tennis and Wellness Centre as the general election count begins Ian Forsyth/Getty Images Boris Johnson at the Brunel Indoor Athletic Centre for the declaration of his Uxbridge and South Ruislip Constituency which he retained Rex Features Zac Goldsmith with his mother Lady Annabel Goldsmith Alex Lentati Close call for Zac Goldsmith as a recount is called for Richmond Park Alex Lentati Labour supporters react as Paul Sweeney (not pictured) is announced as the new MP for Glasgow North East for the British Parliamentary Elections at the Emirates Arena EPA UKIP leader Paul Nuttall at the Peter Paine Performance Centre in Boston during the counting Joe Giddens/PA Labour's Rupa Huq celebrates with her sister, TV presenter Konnie Huq, after increasing her majority from 274 to 13,807 in Ealing Central and Acton Matt Writtle Displays show the current rate of the British pound against the Japanese yen and a news program reporting on the British general election at a foreign money brokerage in Tokyo Roru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images Theresa May leaving CCHQ this morning Jeremy Selwyn Police watch as counting staff sort through ballots at a counting centre in Islington, London Niklas Halle'n/AFP/Getty Images Britain's Home Secretary Amber Rudd's speaks after retaining her seat in Hastings Kevin Coombs/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May's chief of staff Nick Timothy and Joint-chief of staff Fiona Hill leave Conservative Party HQ in Westminster Rick Findler/PA Patrons watch the results for Britain's election in London. Alex Salmond loses his seat Peter Nicholls/Reuters Chuka Umunna kisses with his wife, Alice Sullivan at the London Borough of Lambeth UK Parliamentary Elections Lucy Young Prime Minister Theresa May waits with other candidates for the results to be declared at the count centre in Maidenhead Geoff Cadick/AFP/Getty Images Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson at Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh Jane Barlow/PA Vote counters wait for Ballot boxes to arrive at the Peter Paine Performance Centre where the vote count for the constituency of Boston and Skegness Getty Images Kate Hoey who retained her Vauxhall seat at the London Borough of Lambeth Lucy Young Conservative's Gavin Barwell loses his seat to Labour at Croydon Central Chris Gorman Labour's Sarah Jones takes the Conservative seat of Croydon Chris Gorman DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy leader Nigel Dodds cheer as Emma Little Pengelly is elected to the South Belfast constituency at the Titanic exhibition centre in Belfast Niall Carson/PA Exit poll results from Britain's general election are projected on to the BBC's Broadcasting House, London Jeff Overs/BBC The front door of 10 Downing Street in Westminster, London, as votes are being counted in the 2017 General Election Rick Findler/PA

Theresa May could potentially negotiate with the Democrat Unionist Party  the largest political party in Northern Irelands Assembly.

Forcing the PM to negotiate a hung parliament comes after an election campaign where the Prime Minister repeatedly warned that voting for Labour would risk a coalition of chaos.

Do the other parties want to form a coalition with the Conservatives?

The Liberal Democrats have consistently ruled out partnering up.

Menzies Campbell, the former Lib Dem leader, told the BBC on Thursday night: Tim Farron made it very clear: he said no pact, no deal, no coalition. Weve had our fingers burned by coalition, I dont need to tell you that."

Theresa May calls for 'period of stability'

The DUP is the most likely party to partner with the Tories. DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson told the BBC the party will be serious players if there is a hung parliament and they will talk to whoever is the largest party.

The SNP has suggested they might be open to a coalition, but they could use another Scottish independence referendum as a bargaining chip.

What if the Tories cannot form a coalition with any party?

If the Tories are unable to win enough support to form a coalition government, because they won the most seats they could still try and govern as a minority government.

The Tories could also resign from government and pave the way for Jeremy Corbyn  as leader of the largest opposition party  to try and form a government.

When was the last hung parliament?

The last time no party won enough seats to form a majority government was 2010, when David Cameron's Conservatives won 307 seats - 49 more than second-placed Labour, but too few to control the Commons.

After six days of negotiations the Tories formed a coalition with the Lib Dems, whose leader Nick Clegg  who tonight lost his seat as MP - became deputy prime minister.

The Lib Dems' 57 seats meant the parties had enough between them to command a Parliamentary majority.

Was todays hung parliament expected?

The final polls before voters cast their ballots suggested Theresa May was heading for a clear victory.

Some last-gasp polls out on Wednesday indicated a Tory victory, although there was wide variation in the size of their predicted majority.

But polls are often wrong and have today proved to be so. In 2015 the reverse happened; many people predicted a hung parliament in the 2015 General Election, only for the Tories to emerge with a majority.
A diamond ring which was purchased at a car boot sale for 10 under the assumption it was fake has fetched more than 650,000 at auction.

The cushion-shaped jewel was expected to be sold for 350,000 when it went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London, but in the end was snapped up for close to twice that amount at 656,750.

Named the 'Tenner' diamond, the ring was originally purchased in the 1980s from a car boot sale.

The 26.27 carat diamond is thought to have been cut in the 19th Century but its history and how it arrived at the sale is unknown.

Stunning: The 26.27 karat diamond ring was expected to fetch 350,000 at auction / PA

The owner assumed it was a decorative costume jewel and had no idea of its value.

It was recently confirmed by the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) as a genuine diamond.

Another highlight of the Sotheby's sale was a Cartier diamond brooch worn by Margaret Thatcher on a number of high-profile public occasions, including the day she offered her resignation as Prime Minister to the Queen.

With its geometric chevron design, the brooch piqued the interest of buyers to achieve 81,250.

Proceeds from that sale will be donated to the Endeavour Fund - a charity that supports the recovery of wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women.


O ne of Britains top surgeons convicted of groping two women has been spared jail because he is too good at his job to be sent to prison.

Mohamed Amrani, 54, is credited with saving hundreds of lives around the world and hit the headlines in 2007 when he performed the UKs first double heart valve replacement using keyhole surgery.

However, his illustrious career came to a shuddering halt in 2015 when he was accused of sex attacks on a string of women.

Amrani, who was based at Harefield Hospital, was in April convicted of attacks on two women, at the end of an Old Bailey trial.

Surgeon: Amrani worked at the Harefield Hospital / Google Maps

Judge Anne Molyneux on Thursday sentenced Amrani to six months in prison suspended for a year after hearing that an immediate prison sentence would inevitably end his career.

The public interest may well be in favour of you operating again, she told him.

You are an outstandingly good heart surgeon, the court heard from an extraordinarily high number of people, men and women, from many different backgrounds including complainants themselves who gave evidence of your skill as a surgeon, colleague, teacher, a friend, parent and husband.

You have saved lives, enhanced lives, doing work others were not willing to do. You have shown commitment to the NHS, and gave your time to work for charitable organisations pro bono on trips to Egypt and other countries.

During his trial, the court heard women did not dare to complain about Amranis behaviour because of his international reputation as a pioneering surgeon.

He attacked the first victim twice in 2003 and 2004, grabbing her breasts, which the judge said were fleeting, unplanned, spontaneous outbursts.

He spanked the second victim on the bottom while at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington in June 2014.

The court heard both women have suffered psychologically since the attacks.

Stephen Vullo QC, defending, pleaded with the judge to suspend the prison sentence as it means Amrani will not be automatically struck off when he faces a General Medical Council disciplinary hearing.

He said Amrani falls into the category of having extraordinary if not unique skills which permit a suspended sentence being passed.

People died during the period of Mr Amranis suspension, people with complex heart conditions who other surgeons will not or could not operate on, he said.

The effect on the local and general community, certainly those with heart conditions, would be very well served to have Mr Amrani back and operating if thats at all a possibility.

Amrani, who lives in Harrow with his wife Clare, was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and one charge of sexual assault. He was cleared by a jury of sexual assault by penetration, four counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault. Jurors could not decide on a charge of rape which was then dropped.

The judge ordered him to complete 25 days of rehab as part of his punishment and pay 8,000 towards the cost of the prosecution.
F ormer FBI chief James Comey is to tell Congress President Donald Trump wanted a patronage relationship and that he asked for his loyalty.

According to his testimonys opening statement, Mr Comey will say the president asked him to drop and inquiry into a fired National Security advisor Mike Flynn.

He will say Mr Trump called the Russian probe a cloud over him.

The Presidents firing of Comey renewed attention to allegations by the US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election to Trumps benefit.

It also raised questions about the motivations behind Comey's dismissal.

James Comey, left, is testifying against Trump in Washington / AP

In his dramatic written testimony, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go."

The testimony from Comey puts more pressure on the Republican whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year's election.

Trump fired Flynn in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States.

The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election / REUTERS

Comey's statement, posted on the Senate Intelligence Committee's website, said Trump also called him on March 30 to say he had nothing to do with Russia.

It added that he asked what "we could do to lift the cloud" of the FBI's Russia investigation.

During that phone call, Comey said he told Trump the FBI was not investigating the president personally.

"He repeatedly told me: 'We need to get that fact out,' Comey said.

Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president.

Several congressional committees, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a special counsel, are looking into reports that Russia tried to tilt last November's election in Trump's favour.

Asked if Trump had reviewed Comey's statement, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: "I'm not aware if he's had a chance to review any of the specific details of that testimony.

"I do find the timing of the release a little bit interesting - directly after the testimony from the other hearing earlier today," she added.

Earlier on Wednesday, top intelligence officials refused at a Senate hearing to discuss whether Trump had pressured them to intervene in the FBI probe into alleged Russian interference.


For some, the old Brass Works building looked like a dilapidated has-been.

But for the Goodman Community Center, it symbolized potential. And for Erika Monroe-Kane and Ellen Carlson, it brought to mind art.

Monroe-Kane and Carlson are the volunteer curators and organizers of the art exhibition Forge, opening Saturday evening in the century-old Madison Brass Works building at 214 Waubesa St.

Located along the Capitol City Bike Trail on Madisons East Side, the building was purchased for $450,000 in 2015 by the Goodman Community Center, located just across the street. The community center plans to renovate the old structure and add a two-story addition by fall 2018. The Goodman Brassworks Building will house more middle and high school programming, and offer its large historic room as community and event space. The exterior brick and signage will be restored.

Before construction begins, however, the buildings dark, raw industrial space will host the week-long Forge, featuring creative installations by more than a dozen well-known Madison-area artists. Admission to the show is free.

We really liked the concept of transformation  forging something, some of those raw elements of metal, of fire, using those in the development of something else, Monroe-Kane explained.

We also wanted to harken back to the role that the workers and craftspeople had in developing that neighborhood, from an industrial place to a very vibrant neighborhood.

Forge will be ephemeral  like the wildly successful, one-day pop-ups Bookless and Municipal. In those exhibitions, Madison artists took over Central Library and the Madison Municipal Building to creatively fill the space before those structures were closed for retooling.

Close friends who previously collaborated on the 2014 public art project titled Where Are You Going?, Monroe-Kane and Carlson both live near the Goodman Community Center and have been very connected to it for some time, Monroe-Kane said. Our children have been in programs there. Weve supported their efforts  and just love the work theyre doing for the community.

Neighborhood residents already know the Brass Works exterior well.

You bike by it, pass by it, she said. I think a lot of people are curious about it. Goodman Community Center has told us that having this exhibition is wonderful because theres so much interest and curiosity about the building, and people wanting to get in the building.

We were very intentional with the artists about wanting to enhance the experience of being in the building, and not obscure it, she said. This is not a transformation of this beautiful, raw industrial space. This is an enhancement. Its partnering with the space in a way, not competing with it or wanting to overshadow it.

Home to the citys only brass foundry, Madison Brass Works created the plaque mounted on UW-Madisons Bascom Hall that proclaims: the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the Truth can be found.

Artist Jeremy Wineberg is using that quote as the basis of his video art installation in Forge  to tie his work to the buildings past, to Wisconsin history and to the concepts of Truth and academic freedom that are poignant right now.

I thought it was an interesting object to focus on as a product of this place, Wineberg said of the famed Brass Works plaque.

I like working with existing spaces, he said. Place is really important to me in making artwork.
D emocratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Mr Comey the key question: "Do you believe this arises to obstruction of justice?"

"I don't know. That's Bob Mueller's job to sort that out," Mr Comey responded, referring to the newly appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department's Russia investigation.

In a startling disclosure, Mr Comey revealed that after his firing he had actually tried to spur the special counsel's appointment by giving one of his memos about President Trump to a friend of his to leak to the press.

"My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square," Mr Comey said.

Former FBI director James Comey told Congress that US President Donald Trump "defamed" him after he was fired from his role over a probe into Russian inference in the election campaign.

Mr claimed that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

Highly anticipated: The public lines up outside the room where former FBI Director James Comeywill deliver his testimony / EPA

"It's my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation," Mr Comey told the Senate intelligence committee in explosive testimony that threatened to undermine Mr Trump's presidency.

"I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavour was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted," Mr Comey testified under oath.

"That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me."

Mr Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading "lies, plain and simple" about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month, declaring that the administration "defamed him and more importantly the FBI" by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership.

Former FBI Director James Comey arrives to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russian interference in the 2016 US election / Reuters

And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman, Mr Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.

"I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document," Mr Comey said.

"I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI."

Former FBI Director James Comey arrives to testify on Capitol Hill. / AFP/Getty Images

The revelations came as Mr Comey delivered his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with President Trump.

In that testimony he had already disclosed that President Trump demanded his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

Mr Comey said that he declined to do so in large part because of the "duty to correct" that would be created if that situation changed.

Former FBI director James Comey testifies before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on Capitol Hill / AP

Mr Comey also said in his written testimony that President Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Democratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Mr Comey the key question: "Do you believe this arises to obstruction of justice?"

"I don't know. That's Bob Mueller's job to sort that out," Mr Comey responded, referring to the newly appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department's Russia investigation

In a startling disclosure, Mr Comey revealed that after his firing he had actually tried to spur the special counsel's appointment by giving one of his memos about President Trump to a friend of his to leak to the press.

Ousted FBI director James Comey is sworn in during a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence / AFP

"My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square," Mr Comey said.

Republicans and Mr Trump's own lawyer seized on Mr Comey's confirmation, in his written testimony, of President Trump's claim that Mr Comey had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation.

President Trump himself is expected to dispute Mr Comey's claims that the president demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn.

The president has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Mr Comey's accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Mr Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes"' of the conversations.
N orth Korea today fired what appeared to be several land-to-ship missiles off its east coast in defiance of global pressure to rein in its weapons programme.

The latest in a flurry of missile tests carried out by Pyongyang days after the United Nations security council passed fresh sanctions on the reclusive state.

It also came after South Korea postponed full deployment of a controversial US anti-missile system designed to deter a North Korean attack.

Seoul said it would hold off on installing remaining components of the US Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system that has angered North Korea's main ally, China, amid early signs of easing tensions between the two countries.

The North Korean missiles were launched Thursday morning from the North Korean coastal city of Wonsan and flew about 24 miles, South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Under third-generation leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been conducting missile tests at an unprecedented pace in an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the mainland United States.

The isolated country has conducted dozens of missile tests and tested two nuclear bombs since the beginning of 2016 in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. It claims the programme is necessary to counter US aggression.

People watch a television broadcast reporting the North Korean missile launch at the Seoul railway station / Getty Images

Compared to the different types of ballistic missiles Pyongyang has recently tested, the missiles launched on Thursday were considered to be more defensive in nature, designed to defend against threats such as enemy warships.

North Korea unveiled a number of new weapons at a massive military parade on April 15 to mark the birth anniversary of the state's founding leader and has since tested some of them.

"What appeared to be a new type of land-to-ship missile equipped with four launching canisters was unveiled at the parade," said Kim Dong-yub, a military expert at Kyungnam Universitys Far Eastern Studies in Seoul. "I think this might be what was used today."

Thursday's launch is the fourth missile test by North Korea since South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office on May 10 pledging to engage in dialogue with Pyongyang. Moon said sanctions and pressure alone have failed to resolve the growing threat from the North's advancing nuclear and missile programme.

Moon had also promised to review the deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea, a decision that was made by the government of his conservative predecessor, Park Geun-hye. On Wednesday, Moon's office said installation of four additional launchers would be halted until an assessment of the system's impact on the environment was completed.

The introduction of the THAAD system has sparked protests in South Korea and a backlash in China against South Korean business interests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has conducted missile tests at an unprecedented pace / REUTERS

Asked about the latest missile test, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying called for all parties to exercise restraint.

"The UN Security Council resolution has clear rules on [North Korea's] use of ballistic missiles technologies," she said. "All sides should work together to de-escalate tensions and take active steps to stabilise the region."

US President Donald Trump has been pressing China aggressively to rein in North Korea, warning that all options, including a pre-emptive military strike, are on the table if Pyongyang persists with its nuclear and missile development.

Seoul, Tokyo and Washington were analysing the launches for further information, officials said.

Japan's navy and air force conducted military drills with two US aircraft carriers in the Sea of Japan last week, following similar joint US-South Korea exercises.

"North Korea likely wanted to show off its ability to precisely target a large warship, in relation to the joint military drills involving US aircraft carriers," Roh Jae-cheon, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman, told a media briefing.

"By testing different types of missiles, North Korea also appears to be aiming to secure the upper hand in relations with South Korea and the United States."
F ormer FBI director James Comey today began his testimony before Congress on the probe into Russian meddling during the US Presidential election.

With US TV networks setting aside normal programming on Thursday, the coverage will be hard to miss for most Americans.

CNN has kept a "countdown clock" to the start of Mr Comey's appearance before the Senate intelligence committee on its screen for days  and the anticipated moment finally arrived on Thursday at 10am Eastern Time.

The event has drawn comparisons to past congressional appearances that gripped the country, from Watergate to Anita Hill's testimony at Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court confirmation hearing.

Mr Comey made his first public comments since being fired by President Donald Trump and, according to his prepared remarks, was set to speak about the president's efforts to see the investigation halted.

Donald Trump said he felt 'totally vindicated' as former FBI director James Comey was set to testify. / AP

Who is James Comey?

James Comey, seventh director of the FBI, served nearly four years in the post until his removal on May 9 this year.

Born in Yonkers, New York, and with Irish roots, Mr Comey's family moved to New Jersey in the 1970s. His father was a real estate man, while his mother was a computer consultant.

He studied at the University of Chicago Law School, graduating in 1985, before working as a law clerk in the office of a Manhattan judge.

He joined the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York in 1987, helping to prosecute members of the notorious and powerful Gambino family.

After a series of appointments, he was made Deputy Attorney General under George W Bush in December 2003, a post he held before returning to the private sector in 2005.

What does Donald Trump say about him?

Mr Trump has called Mr Comey a "showboat." While that's not a label with which Mr Comey's supporters would agree, the ex-FBI chief has shown a flair for drama during other testimony.

Mr Comey, a skilled raconteur, has featured in previous sensational congressional hearings, including one 10 years ago in which he revealed a dramatic clash with Bush administration officials.

Describing the moment, which took place in 2004 the hospital room of the ailing attorney general, John Ashcroft, he said: "This was a very memorable period in my life, probably the most difficult time in my entire professional life."

The confrontation was over the renewal of a domestic surveillance program, which the White House backed but whose legality Mr Comey had strenuously questioned.

His narrative of having faced down senior White House officials while threatening to resign helped cement a reputation for political independence and moral certitude that President Barack Obama cited in 2013 when he nominated Mr Comey for the FBI director job.

Hillary Clinton lost in the presidential election to Donald Trump after battling an emails scandal. / AFP/Getty Images

What is his role in the Hillary Clinton probe?

In his capacity as FBI chief, Mr Comey was in charge of overseeing the agencys probe into the Hillary Clinton emails affair.

Days after announcing in unusually public fashion the FBI's decision not to recommend charges in the Hillary Clinton email investigation in July last year, he faced more than four hours of often-contentious questioning about how he had reached his conclusion.

Last month, less than a week before his firing, Mr Comey strenuously defended his actions in the Clinton email case, including his decision to alert Congress just 11 days before the presidential election that the investigation was being revived because of newly discovered emails.

Mr Comey told lawmakers that though it made him "mildly nauseous" to think his moves could have influenced the election, he would have made the same choices again.

To share information with Congress was "really bad." To withhold it from them would have been "catastrophic," he reasoned.

Donald Trump shaking hands with James Comey when they met at a White House function in January

Why was he fired?

Mr Comey could not have known then that the appearance before Congress would be his last as FBI director.

But it didn't stop him from reflecting wistfully on his job in his opening statement, calling it the "honour of my life."

"I know you look at me like I'm crazy for saying this about this job. I love this work. I love this job."

By the time he was fired, Mr Comey had been overseeing the probe into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign for months.

The White House's stated reasons for firing Mr Comey were contradicted by the president himself, raising questions about whether Mr Trump had fired Mr Comey to derail the Russia investigation.

What will he say?

Comey's detailed and vivid recollections of his one-on-one conversations with Trump were revealed in seven pages of prepared testimony released Wednesday.

He'll testify under oath that Mr Trump repeatedly pressed him for his "loyalty" and directly pushed him to "lift the cloud" of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the probe into his campaign's Russia ties.

But the ex-FBI director also will validate Trump's assertion that he was not personally a target of the federal counterintelligence investigation into possible campaign collusion with Russia. Mr Comey says he did offer the president that "assurance," but resisted Mr Trump's appeals to make that information public amid concerns that the fact could change and would need to be corrected.

Mr Trump's personal lawyer said the president was cheered by the testimony.

"The president is pleased that Mr Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe," attorney Mark Kasowitz said in a statement.

"The president feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda."

Several US TV channels offer live coverage of today's hearing. Facebook is offering live streams from several media outlets, including Buzzfeed, Townhall Media, Politico, The New York Times and Washington Post.

Additional reporting by Associated Press
B rad Pitt turned weatherman to take a swipe at Donald Trumps stance on climate change in a new comedy skit.

The Hollywood actor predicted that the forecast would be grim following the Presidents decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement in the first episode of Jim Jefferies new show.

In a surprise appearance on Wednesday night, Pitt appeared in a retro brown 1970s-inspired suit, introduced as the Comedy Central weatherman.

The world is still grappling with Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris Climate accord, and to address it one more time, here's our weatherman, said Jefferies.

Thank you Jim. So, things are going to be getting warmer in this area here and this area here, said Pitt as he pointed to areas of the map.

When asked by Jefferies what the future held, Pitt responded: There is no future.

The Fight Club star is a vocal environmentalist, as is fellow A-lister Leonardo DiCaprio, who recently slammed Trump for pulling out of the Paris Agreement.

GQ Style May 2017: Brad Pitt 1 /6 GQ Style May 2017: Brad Pitt Ryan McGinley Ryan McGinley Ryan McGinley Ryan McGinley Ryan McGinley

"Today, the future livability of our planet was threatened by President Trump's careless decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. Our future on this planet is now more at risk than ever before, he wrote on Facebook.

For Americans and those in the world community looking for strong leadership on climate issues, this action is deeply discouraging.

The Oscar-winner added: Now, more than ever, we must be determined to solve climate change, and to challenge those leaders who do not believe in scientific facts or empirical truths.

It is time for all of us to stand up, organize, fight back, and channel our energy into grassroots political action.


G eorge Clooneys father said his son will be a wonderful father as he praised Amal for already being a magnificent mother.

Nick Clooney shared his excitement at becoming a grandparent to George and Amal's twins, Ella and Alexander.

Speaking to Good Morning Britain he said: George will be an absolutely wonderful father, Amal will be  and already is  a magnificent mother. Im constantly amazed by her. She is an incredible woman. George certainly married up!

Nick joked that his son wont be avoiding nappy changing duties, adding: [George] will be hands on entirely and he will do it with humour and with joy.

Proud: Nick Clooney with his son George Clooney / Stephen Lovekin/Getty

George and Amal welcomed twins Ella and Alexander on Tuesday morning.

Their spokesperson confirmed the news in a statement which poked fun at the A-list actor: This morning Amal and George welcomed Ella and Alexander Clooney into their lives. Ella, Alexander and Amal are all healthy, happy and doing fine.

George is sedated and should recover in a few days.

'Wonderful': George Clooney and his wife Amal have welcomed a son and daughter

Nick said he is head-over-heels in love with his perfect grandchildren who he described as absolutely beautiful.

He said: Im supposed to be a reporter, therefore observant, but I really dont know how to describe one beautiful baby from another beautiful baby  these are two beautiful babies.

Twitter reacts: George and Amal Clooney expecting twins

My wife would be the one youd have to talk to as to whose nose looks like grandpas nose or grandmas nose. They are perfect.

He also thanked fans for their support throughout the pregnancy, adding: They have sent good wishes, they have kept attentive watch on this event as it unfolded and we have been aware of that and we have really been very, very grateful, thank you.

George and Amal, who have been married since 2014, confirmed that they were expecting their first children back in February after months of speculation.

The high profile couple are currently residing in Sonning, Oxfordshire, where they plan to bring up their children.
P oldark heartthrob Aidan Turner has split from his girlfriend, according to reports.

The actor is said to have parted ways with artist Nettie Wakefield after they struggled to balance their busy schedules.

The pair reportedly drifted, but ended their six month relationship amicably.

A source told The Sun: Things were great for a time and they were getting serious - but it just wasnt to be and busy schedules drove them apart.

Theyve drifted and things have cooled off but there are no hard feelings. Aidans incredibly busy with his career and Netties art is really taking off so they had a lot on their plates.

Its all very amicable.

Turner and Wakefield were first pictured together in London last October as they put on a public display of affection while enjoying a drink.

Romantic: Aidan Turner with his onscreen wife Eleanor Tomlinson in Poldark / BBC

They were last seen together in December at Scotts restaurant in Mayfair.

Standard Online has contacted a representative for Turner for comment.

Turner previously dated Ripper Street actress Charlene McKenna and Penny Dreadful star Sarah Greene  but admitted that he finds dating actresses quite dull and taxing.

Eleanor Tomlinson on new series of Poldark

Speaking to TV Week last year he said: If youre in my business and you find somebody who does exactly what you do and youre living with them, then youre in the business all the time.

You go home, talk about casting directors, you talk about the press, you talk about the next job youre doing  it can become quite dull and taxing.

Theres nothing like going out with somebody who doesnt even care what youre doing, let alone have anything to say about it.

Because then it boils down to what the real things are, you know?

Turner will return to screens this weekend when the third season of Poldark kicks off on Sunday night.


T he wait is nearly over for one of TVs most emotional cliffhangers.

After a year of anticipation Orange is the New Black fans are about to find out if prison inmate Daya shoots sociopathic corrections officer Thomas Humphrey.

Litchfield Penitentiary is in the grip of a full-scale riot with inmates protesting and guards being held hostage.

With only hours to go, heres everything you need to know about the next instalment.

Chaos: The inmates are rising up / Jojo Whilden/Netflix

When does it start?

Litchfield will open its doors to fans when all 13 new episodes drop on Netflix on June 9. The streaming service usually releases shows around midnight Pacific Time so UK viewers will be able to kick start their OITNB binge around 8am.

Who is in it?

With many inmates in for murder or drug trafficking, the majority of the main cast have returned including Taylor Schilling (Piper), Laura Prepon (Alex),Uzo Aduba (Crazy Eyes), Kate Mulgrew (Red), Laverne Cox (Sophia), Dascha Polanco (Daya), Danielle Brooks (Taystee), Selenis Leyva (Gloria), Taryn Manning (Tiffany), Lea DeLaria (Big Boo), Yael Stone (Lorna), Jackie Cruz (Flaca), Adrienne C. Moore (Cindy) and Elizabeth Rodriguez (Aleida).

There are rumours that conspiracy theory enthusiast Lolly, played by Lori Petty, could return after being banished to Psych.

Orange is the New Black - Season 4, Netflix 1 /24 Orange is the New Black - Season 4, Netflix Piper Netflix Jane Netflix Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren Netflix Taystee Netflix Lorna Netflix New inmates Netflix Lolly Netflix Marisol Netflix Tiffany Netflix Soso Netflix Poussey Netflix Warden Caputo Netflix Red Netflix Big Boo Netflix Maria Netflix Gloria Netflix Cindy Netflix Sam Netflix

What will happen?

The inmates are still revolting after book-loving Poussey was killed by prison guards when they accidentally crushed her to death during a protest. Season four ended with bullying guard Humphrey  who made Maritza swallow a live baby mouse  being held at gunpoint on his knees by Daya.

Although show bosses have remained tight-lipped about Humphreys fate, actress Dascha Polanco  who plays Daya  said she believes her character is more than capable of pulling the trigger.

I think Daya's definitely experiencing some postpartum depression, she told Hollywood Reporter. She might pull back and think about being a mother and not wanting to miss the opportunity of being with her child. But a woman going through postpartum  at that point, theyre very fragile and very sensitive.

When is it set?

The inmates and prison guards will be tracked over a three day period as Litchfield deals with the fallout from Pousseys death.
The state of Wisconsin and Airbnb on Thursday announced a tax agreement that would allow the home sharing company to collect sales taxes for the state and counties, Airbnb said.

The agreement, which follows a recent deal with Madison to collect the citys room tax, will pertain to the state sales tax and county sales and use taxes, as well as the Miller Park tax in the Milwaukee area and a tourism-related tax in the Wisconsin Dells area, among others.

Had the deal been in place for 2016, the state would have collected about $700,000, the state Department of Revenue estimated. The agreement will take effect on July 1.

Its a big deal for our hosts who want to pay their fair share, and a bigger deal for the state because its going to unlock a lot of new revenue, said Ben Breit, Midwest spokesman for Airbnb.

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is an online platform that allows people to share their homes with visitors in their area.

A different audience

We feel strongly that home sharing appeals to a different audience, Breit said. Were talking about guests who are looking for a different type of experience  whether they want to stay in specific neighborhoods without hotels, or they need a more affordable option.

Airbnb currently has tax agreements with more than 275 governments, including 21 U.S. states. In the Midwest, that includes the cities of Chicago and Cleveland, and the states of Illinois and Kansas.

Madisons Airbnb agreement went into effect May 1, and the city wont receive its first payment from the company until the end of July, said David Schmiedicke, the citys finance director. Airbnb told city officials that revenue would be approximately $150,000 per year.

In 2016, Wisconsin Airbnb hosts shared their homes with approximately 105,000 guests, and earned $13 million in supplemental income, Breit said. There are currently 3,300 active hosts in the state, in 410 different cities, villages or towns.
Up until high school, Kristen Massie hadnt really thought about entering a career in law enforcement.

But after taking Randy Plummers Intro to Law class at Gering High School, Massie knew thats the field that she wanted to go into.

Thats where it all started, said Massie, who is approaching her one-year anniversary of working as a patrol officer with the Gering Police Department. It was really interesting hearing Mr. Plummer talk about the importance of understanding people and their background. He would always tell stories, and I really liked his stories  about how a person was raised, the parents role, and the environment they were involved with. It made me interested in figuring out why people do what they do.

After graduating from Gering High School in 2008, Massie began working part-time at the Scotts Bluff County Detention Center, first as a corrections officer and later as a transport officer. She worked there off and on while she attended Nebraska Wesleyan University. She graduated from there in 2012 with a bachelors degree in psychology, and she received her masters degree from NWU in 2013.

Massie got married in 2014, and she and her husband, Royce, lived in Colorado for a while before moving back to Gering in 2015. Still desiring to work in law enforcement, Massie landed a job with the Gering Police Department in July. She attended and graduated from the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center in Grand Island a few weeks ago, and now shes back working full-time at the GPD.

I love what I do, she said. The thing that really drives me is wanting to help others and prevent them from seeing the jail side of things. I want to try to prevent people from getting records and doing hard time. I want to help people avoid developing a bad lifestyle thats tough for them to get out of.

Massie said her experience of working at the detention center reinforced her desire to be involved in law enforcement. She was only 19 years old when she began working at the detention center. She didnt possess a gun there, but she did carry handcuffs, and she was trained how to protect herself, and she was trained in other areas, too, such as suicide prevention, CPR, and first aid.

I got to be involved in a lot of things there, she said. I did a lot of direct supervision, and I did a lot of the daily routines of handing people food, getting laundry, and supervising the floor. When we would do intakes, I would be part of the pat search and booking them in. I would also do security checks, and sometimes I worked in the control tower, too. It was all very interesting to me.

Massie said the pay was good at the detention center, especially for her being a recent high school graduate.

But I didnt do it for the money, she said. For me, it was about the experience. I knew there would be a lot of different types of personalities and mental illnesses that I could look at and kind of observe before I really got into the serious classes at school and have an understanding of it going into college. It was very helpful.

Massie said she has mostly good memories from her time working at the detention center.

I loved it, and theres times that I miss it because I had the ability to sit down and talk with detainees and hear their stories and hear about their kids and family. I liked that part of it, she said. It goes back to me wanting to get to know and understand a person and what motivated them to do what they did to get there. I miss that part of it.

At the same time, however, Massie is quite happy with her position at the Gering Police Department. It makes her feel good, she said, knowing that shes helping to make a difference in the Gering community.

Its been awesome, she said. Its been very rewarding.

Although Massie has learned a lot since she started working at the GPD in July, she said she still has much more to learn.

I need to become more familiar with state statutes, all the requirements for certain things, and what the city ordinances are versus state statutes, she said. Theres a lot you have to know.

Has it been overwhelming at times?

Theres times, definitely, she said. But during those times I just take a step back, and it helps me to pray.

Massie describes herself as a deeply religious person, attending church regularly, participating in youth adult groups, and spending a lot of her free time on personal devotions.

I give a lot of the credit back to how my parents raised me, she said. Thats how I received my strength to get through things in life, no matter what happens.

Her religion, she said, helps her in her line of work.

It helps me cope with some of the stuff I deal with, she said. It keeps me grounded and gives me hope. When I go home, even if its been a stressful day, Im at peace.

Massie believes it takes a special person to be a police officer.

You have to have patience and be willing to take the time to listen to people, she said. This is a job where you need to help other people. So, if youre wanting a job where youre the center of it, this isnt for you.

Massie said her transition into the Gering Police Department has gone smoothly thanks to the support she receives from her fellow officers.

Im constantly relying on them, she said. Im bouncing questions off of them all the time, and theyre always very willing to help me out. Its a good group to work with.

When Massie is working her shift, she said shes been trained to hope for the best but plan for the worst. The reason, she said, is so she can be as prepared as she can be to handle any situation.

When I get a call, I immediately start thinking, OK, this is what Im going to do, this is how Im going to do it, and this is what I could face, she said. Its just a constant, What if.

The calls that Massie dreads the most are the ones where theres little to no information available.

If we get a 911 hangup call and Im going over there, I have no idea what Im getting myself into, and those can be very nerve-wracking because you dont know if its a possible domestic case, if its a possible suicide situation, or if someone has a weapon, she said.

Regardless of the call, however, Massie handles every situation shes involved in with confidence.

I would say I developed that at the jail, she said. You had to walk into the pods with a sense of confidence so that way people knew that you couldnt be pushed around. I just applied that to the streets because if you show up to a scene and a victim needs your support and you dont have that for them, you can lose their support and their confidence in you.

When Massie isnt working or participating in church-related activities, she enjoys working out, and she also enjoys painting and doing other home improvement projects.

Its kind of a mental relaxation thing for me, she said. I just get involved in something, and I dont have to think about anything else.

Massie said she has no plans to leave the GPD anytime soon. She and her husband enjoy living in the Gering/Scottsbluff area.

We really enjoy it here, she said. Its a great community.
Bringing creativity and technique to the forefront, the West Nebraska Arts Center (WNAC) gives local children the opportunity to learn from trained instructors at their summer Art Camps.

Instructors Traci Wilkes and Charla Herbert will be teaching full classes at two separate art camps over the next two weeks.

The first camp runs June 6-9 and features students ages 10-15. Themes for the first camp will be Summer Swag Swap and Throwing Some Shade.

During the Summer Swag Swap, students will create twelve tags to hang and distribute them to the other children. Throwing Some Shade teaches children how to use light and shadows within their painting.

The second camp, June 13-15, will run with the theme Fun with the Zoo. The Riverside Discovery Center will bring in animals for the children, ages 6-9, to interact with. The children will then use the animals  including a bearded dragon, a tortoise, a box turtle and a macaw  as inspiration for their paintings and drawings.

While the children are encouraged to have fun, these art classes are meant to teach the students to become better artists.

We have trained instructors coming in. Students will be learning the basic elements of art. We want to kids to have fun, but these are art classes and most of the students will leave here with a finished product. said Lena Soto, WNACs program manager.

At the end of each camp, a reception will be held for family and friends to see a gallery of the artwork the kids create.

WNAC began as a performing arts center, and then began to feature the visual arts. Childrens art camps have been a part of WNACs repertoire for at least the past 25 years.
GERING  With road paving projects at two of Gerings rail crossings completed, the bulk of the work for this seasons round of infrastructure upgrades is getting underway.

Gering City Engineer Paul Snarr said a number of the citys departments are involved, including parks, streets and public works.

An item on the June 12 city council agenda will ask for a bid award to replace Lyman Drive. The north-south road runs parallel with 10th Street just east of the fast food restaurants.

We want to replace Lyman Drive with concrete, Snarr said. Its in pretty rough shape right now. Asphalt streets need a good three-quarter inch gravel base for the road to be stable. Thats hard to find here so concrete is a better choice because it required less base.

Two more projects in the works but not yet bid include Virginia Avenue in the Northfield area, and 19th Street from A to D streets.

Those are budgeted for the current year, Snarr said. They might have to wait until next year because we have so many projects going its hard to keep up.

Some new water lines will need to be installed this season as construction continues for Gerings new downtown Cobblestone Hotel. Developers hope to have that project completed by the end of the year.

The big project for Gering this year is through the Parks Department to get the new Oregon Trail Park ball field ready for play next spring when the college level Expedition League comes to Gering for its inaugural season.

Were rushing that project as much as possible so our team can play next year, Snarr said. Were designing concrete parking lots, dugouts, stadium seating and bleachers with a roof over part of the stadium seating.

Also ready for construction at the ball field is a two-story building for the concession area and restrooms. The second floor would be for the announcers booth and press box.

Another project to be awarded at the June 12 council meeting is the Gering Civic Plaza, which officially broke ground on May 22. However, work wont begin until after Oregon Trail Days in July so more parking is available.

The plaza will be located between N and O streets, just west of 10th Street behind existing businesses. The plaza will be connected to the existing walkway between Western States Bank and Plummer Insurance along 10th Street.

Phase one work to be completed in 2017 includes parking on both ends of the plaza, a farmers market shade canopy on the north end, the lawn area in the center of the plaza and alley improvements. Connections for utility improvements will also be made, along with curb and gutter work.

Also in the works for the future is an extension of the Gering Pathway from Five Rocks Road to Scotts Bluff National Monument, to pass by Legacy of the Plains Museum.

Snarr said the environmental assessment on the bike and hiking path has been completed for the federal government, so the design phase can begin.

The biggest hurdle on that project is getting the pathway across the canyon by the museum, Snarr said.
Put the phone down, Mr. President. Stop with the tweeting. Youre hurting the country. Youre weakening us globally. Youre diminishing the presidency. Youre embarrassing.

Just this week, youve assailed your own Justice Department for its defense of your travel ban. Youve attacked the mayor of a city thats reeling from a terrorist attack. Now, your former FBI director, James Comey, has testified before Congress. We know what that means. Dont do it.

Pick up that phone, Mr. President. We love it when you tweet. Its an extraordinary window for Americans into their president and what he thinks. And yeah, its great for the media, too. Instead of slogging through the bureaucracy of communications for nuggets of whats really happening in your presidency, we get unfiltered authenticity delivered to us each day  140 characters at a time. Its like Christmas morning every morning.

Put the phone down, Mr. President. Your tweets are straining our relationship with allies. Theyre destabilizing decades worth of diplomacy. The fight you picked with the mayor of London this week was just the latest Twitter slap at a friend of America, the latest outburst that sent diplomats scurrying to undo the damage.

Worse, perhaps, are the more fragile and complicated relationships you unsettle so casually, as you did Tuesday when you appeared to take credit for Gulf nations cutting ties with Qatar over terrorism concerns.

Qatar, of course, is host to a military base thats critical to our fight against the Islamic State. Its a partnership the State Department and Pentagon have delicately navigated. Guess who had to clean things up once you hit send?

Pick up that phone, Mr. President. Your tweets reveal the truths behind your policies  and the falsehoods your administration too frequently offers. That includes the travel ban that officials insisted wasnt a travel ban, until you undercut them with tweets this week. That also includes how you revealed classified information to Russians in the Oval Office, which officials denied last month until you tweeted otherwise.

Your tweets unspin the spin, for which we in the media are grateful. They weaken the legal case for that travel ban that targets Muslims, and they strengthen the case that you are interfering in investigations involving Russia. They are a public record of what you really think, what you really want, and what youre really trying to do. Keep it up.

Put down that phone, Mr. President. Youre diminishing the office you occupy. The tantrums you type are not the words of a leader, but an angry 70-year-old in his living room chair. They also injure other institutions  Congress, the courts and, yes, the media. By tearing them down a tweet at a time, you weaken America from within.

Pick up that phone, Mr. President, because really, Twitter isnt the problem. It wasnt just tweeting that caused European leaders to declare they could no longer rely on the United States as a global partner. You didnt just need 140 characters for Americans to worry about your dangerous disregard for separation of powers.

If you deleted the Twitter app for good right now, you would still be Donald Trump.

Twitter may accelerate the damage you do, but in the end, its just a window. Keep typing, Mr. President. Its how we know what were getting.
HARRISON  As a continuation of the popular Niobrara Meanderings talk series there will be Wildflower Talks and Walks on June 4 and June 11 at 2 p.m. beginning in the theater then continuing on the one mile round trip Daemonelix trail. Ranger Lil Mansfield will present Wildflowers 101 talking about the areas wildflowers, where and how they grow and many uses of the plants. On June 2 at 7 p.m. Mansfield will present Wildflowers 101 at Fort Robinson State Park, meet at the covered picnic shelter near Soldier Creek Campground.

Nebraska Wildflower Week, June 1 through June 11 this year, is celebrated later than National Wildflower Week to highlight the prairie wildflowers that bloom at this time of year. Spring snowstorm moisture and recent rains have given the wildflowers a head start for Nebraska Wildflower Week and on through the summer.

The Yellow Flag (Iris pseudacorus) will be blooming during Wildflower Week this year. Harold Cooks father-in-law, E. H. Barbour loved iris and brought bulbs to the Agate Springs Ranch around 1906. He planted them near a pond behind the ranch house and they have since migrated all the way through the park, a distance of eleven river miles or three road miles. Many local visitors make a yearly excursion to view the spring bloom, while others who happen by are pleasantly surprised by the scene.

According to the Flora of Nebraska (2006), A few deliberately introduced plants are threats to the native flora. Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) and yellow water iris (Iris pseudacorus) are European ornamentals now widespread and increasingly troublesome along Nebraskas waterways. Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is working with local, state, and regional partners to evaluate the aggressive spread of the plant, and is involved in research, education and control of this invasive non-native iris.

Before there were National Parks, many groups of scientific explorers discovered the varied plant life in the west. They named the plants and sent examples of the plants to eastern museums and universities. American Indian tribes knew the many uses of the plants. Now during Nebraska Wildflower Week, visitors have a chance to see and learn about those same plants growing in mixed grass prairie at Agate Fossil Beds National Monument.

During Wildflower Week and throughout the summer visitors are encouraged to walk the trails on their own using plant signs identifying plants on the trails and the herbarium in the visitor center to aid their identification of the blooming wildflowers. Several wildflower books are available in the Oregon Trail Museum Association bookstore located in the visitor center.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument is located just 22 miles south of Harrison, or 34 miles north of Mitchell, Nebraska, on State Highway 29, then east on River Road for three miles to the visitor center. Admission is free. The visitor center is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. The parks two trails are open from dawn to dusk. For more information, go to www.nps.gov/agfo or visit Agate Fossil Beds on Facebook and Twitter.
WASHINGTON D.C.  Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE) opened nominations Monday, June 5 for the 2017 Angels in Adoption Award for Nebraskas Third District.

Angels in Adoption, a project of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, provides Members of Congress the opportunity to honor an individual or entity from their districts for extraordinary contributions on behalf of children in need of homes.

Many individuals, families, and organizations in the Third District deserve recognition for all they do to ensure children have safe, loving homes, Smith said. I look forward to receiving nominations for the 2017 Angels in Adoption Award to honor those who positively impact young lives through adoption and foster care.

To make a nomination, please visit AdrianSmith.house.gov/AngelsinAdoption. Nominations must be received by Friday, June 30.

For more information on Angels in Adoption, please contact Smiths Grand Island office at 308-384-3900.
First there were chalkboards, then overhead projectors, 35mm slides, Powerpoints and SMART Boards. Now the University of Nebraska Medical Center is moving into much more sophisticated technology for education and research, including the Interactive Digital iWall, 3D technology and augmented and virtual reality.

When the Dr. Edwin Davis & Dorothy Balbach Davis Global Center for Advanced Interprofessional Learning opens in Omaha next year, the latest technology will engage learners with hands-on simulated experiences designed to make learning highly realistic to improve human performance and effectiveness in health care.

Yesterday, a demonstration of the iWall with new MT Canvus software showed the possibilities of collaborating across distances with multiple participants. It enables new ways of thinking and allows users to present content in real time, transforming collaboration and communication. The iWall is a 2D-curved interactive wall.

Representatives from MultiTaction and AVI-SPL stationed representatives in the Sorrell Center Visualization Hub in Omaha and in Scottsbluff at the college for a first-of-its-kind demo. Pete Malcolm, CEO of MultiTaction based in London, demonstrated whats possible using the iWall, including using and sharing graphics, photos, video and other resources like websites.

In Scottsbluff at the UNMC College of Nursing West Nebraska Division and Western Nebraska Community College, a three-panel demonstration interactive digital iWall was connected to the 12-panel iWall in the iEXCEL Visualization Hub at UNMC in Omaha. The 12-panel iWall stands 8 feet high, 28 feet wide and 4  feet deep.

Participating were the UNMC iEXCEL team, UNMC and Nebraska Medicine faculty, staff, and students in Omaha and Scottsbluff. In each location, participants could see each other as well as view, manipulate and share information live via the iWalls. Students also contributed information and manipulated images on the iWall through personal computers.

The number of participants who can use the iWall is only limited by the size of a network and literally hundreds of participants can interact with the walls at the same time, said Malcolm.

The UNMC colleges of nursing, dentistry and allied health professions are considering investing in the interactive walls that show much promise of developing new ways of teaching and learning.

Were grateful for the opportunity to see how this works and are excited about it, said Sue Wilhelm, assistant dean of the UNMC College of Nursing West Nebraska Division. It worked perfectly. Im so impressed. I will be interested to see how its integrated into curriculum.

It was a spectacular demo, said UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold. It will help us build the iEXCEL model as we begin our journey into visualization and virtual reality. To me, its simply a tool driven by what students need.

Dele Davies,, vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of graduate studies, said the demo of the MultiTaction wall in Scottsbluff is a significant step forward in enabling multisite interactive learning.

Multiple participants from sites no matter how remote can view, annotate and make changes to the same presentation while learning from one another instantaneously, Davies said. This degree of engagement will significantly increase cross-campus collaborative learning, and is a critical step toward our goal of linking our learners everywhere via the hub and spoke connectedness of iEXCEL.
LINCOLN  Authorities are investigating the death of an inmate at the Tecumseh State Prison who had meth and ecstasy in his system at a time when the prison has seen a substantial spike in drugs and alcohol within its walls.

Department of Correctional Services Director Scott Frakes offered no explanation Wednesday as to how the 22-year-old inmate may have obtained methamphetamine and ecstasy found in his bloodstream. But Frakes said the department is diligent in its efforts to keep contraband from entering prison buildings.

More than 80 percent of our population has some level of substance abuse issues, which creates an environment of demand, Frakes said in a press release. The work we do watching, searching, and working our intelligence network reduces the problem, but it doesnt eliminate it.

Despite those efforts, more drugs and alcohol are turning up at Tecumseh, a maximum-security prison about 50 miles south of Omaha thats been beleaguered by deadly rioting and staff shortages in recent years.

Two state senators who serve on a special committee related to prisons said a recent review of Tecumseh found a significant increase in the number of drug and alcohol violations over the past year.

Sens. Laura Ebke of Crete and Bob Krist of Omaha said they were concerned by the finding.

Weve got to figure how this stuff is getting in, Ebke said. We have to figure out how to stop it. If its coming in through employees or visitors, we need to look at ways of making sure thats not happening.

Dawn-Renee Smith, a spokeswoman for corrections, did not respond to a request for a copy of the report.

Authorities have said the discovery of a large stash of alcohol made from fermented fruit factored into the March 2 melee, during which about 60 inmates took over a housing unit for more than three hours. They covered their faces with bandannas, set mattresses on fire and began assaulting other inmates.

In the latest incident, Daelan LaMere, 22, of Omaha, was found May 27 in his cell unresponsive and with labored breathing. He was taken to the hospital in Tecumseh before being transferred to the west campus of Bryan Medical Center in Lincoln. He remained at the hospital until his death Tuesday evening.

The official cause of death has not been determined, but LaMere had methamphetamine and MDMA, the clinical acronym for ecstasy, in his system, Smith said.

The Nebraska State Patrol has opened an investigation into the death. In addition, because LaMere was in the states custody, a grand jury investigation must be conducted.

LaMere was sentenced to six to 11 years in Douglas County after pleading no contest to four counts of robbery at a convenience store and one count of use of a firearm to commit a felony. His sentence began in 2013 and he was tentatively scheduled for release in 2020.

LaMere was a ward of the state who had an extensive history of juvenile offenses. Douglas County District Judge Duane Dougherty refused LaMeres request to have the robbery case transferred to juvenile court. He was 17 when he committed the hold-up.

LaMere is the fourth inmate from the Tecumseh prison to die this year. Two were killed during a March 2 inmate takeover of a housing unit; charges have not yet been filed in that case. In April, a third inmate, who was close to being released, was found slain in his cell; his cellmate, who was serving a life term for first-degree murder, has been charged in that death.
Jody Smyre was recently named the emergency management coordinator for Iredell Country, replacing Paul Webster who is retiring at the end of the month after holding the position for 30 years.

Smyre has been employed with Iredell County since 1998 and currently serves as a shift supervisor for Iredell County EMS. He is certified through the NC Emergency Management Association as an associate emergency manager and has served as Iredell Countys radiological officer since 2010.

Smyre is a 1997 graduate of Catawba Valley Community College and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Emergency Management from Western Carolina University in 2006. He lives in Statesville with his wife Kristy and their nine children.

Maggie Shoobridge goes to St. Louis for training

Maggie Shoobridge, a financial adviser with Edward Jones in Statesville, recently attended an invitation-only training opportunity at the firm's headquarters in St. Louis.

The three-day Advanced Practice Management Forum is offered to branch teams throughout the country who rank among the top third most successful in the firm in helping clients work toward their long-term financial goals.

Mooresville native graduates from James Madison

Tori Lynne Jackson of Mooresville recently graduated magna cum laude with a degree in studio art from James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
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President Klaus Iohannis met in Washington D.C. with members of the Romanian community in the U.S. and thanked them for their involvement in developing the strategic partnership between Romania and the United States.

"You are respected members of your community, well integrated, bringing a substantial contribution to the American economy. Through everything you achieve every day, at a personal level, you strengthen the ties between Romania and the United States and you contribute, directly or indirectly, to our partnership," stated the President.

The Head of State also highlighted the importance of the Romanian community in the U.S. in Romania's development.

"By living in the United States, you have succeeded in an extremely competitive society, which - just as I wish for Romania - has developed a success culture based on performance, hard work, talent, honesty and, most importantly, integrity. (...) You, the Romanians of the Diaspora, our elite, you can be a catalyst for Romania's development. At the same time, it is only natural for Romania to protect you and promote your rights and interests. I have said before but I repeat it every time I get the chance: the best way the state can acknowledge the contributions of the Romanians abroad is to place itself at their service," affirmed the Head of State.

Iohannis also pointed out the necessity of a long-term integrative view occasioned by the Great Union's centenary, encouraging, at the same time, the members of the Romanian community in the U.S. not to lose their identity and their language.

"The celebration of 100 years from the Great Union represents a good opportunity to acknowledge that today, more than ever, we, Romanians at home or here, we need a long-term integrative view, not a limited one, not for momentary political interests (...) I encourage you to make all the possible efforts to preserve the Romanian language, the main symbol of our identity - which, at least in the diaspora, can easily be lost. Consequently, it is important to identify the most efficient learning methods of the Romanian language for children born abroad of Romanian parents," stressed the President.

President Klaus Iohannis participated on Wednesday at a meeting with members of the Romanian community in Washington D.C., organised by the Romanian Embassy in the U.S. capital city.

Earlier that day, the Head of State participated in Washington, D.C at the debate entitled "20 Years After - The Relevance of the Romanian - U.S. Strategic Partnership in the Current International and Security Context", dedicated to the two-decade anniversary from the conclusion of the bilateral strategic partnership, hosted by the Heritage Foundation.

At the meeting with the Romanian community members also participated the Romanian President's wife, Carmen Iohannis, USA Ambassador in Bucharest Hans G. Klemm, former U.S. Ambassador in Bucharest Mark Gitenstein, presidential advisors Dan-Andrei Muraru and Bogdan Aurescu as well as the Head of the Romanian Intelligence Services, Eduard Hellvig.

agerpres.
Romania's President Klaus Iohannis will be meeting on Friday in Washington DC his American counterpart Donald Trump and the United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as part of a visit to the US . According to the schedule, President Iohannis will meet on Friday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department, and afterwards he will be welcomed at the White House by his American counterpart Donald Trump, with whom he will have one-on-one and official talks.

Afterwards, the head of state will make a press statement at the headquarters of the Embassy of Romania in Washington DC. Iohannis said on Wednesday that the meeting with US President Donald Trump will have a major positive impact on the public in Romania, and also on the Romanian community residing in the US. "I am happy that I can share our successful story with President Trump on Friday, when we will have talks at the White House. Our meeting will be important, not only on a political level but it will have a major positive impact over the Romanian public back home, over the Romanian community in the US, over the business communities of our countries and over all those who put on efforts [...] in order to make our relationship more solid," Iohannis told a debate called "20 Years After - The Relevance of the Romanian - U.S. Strategic Partnership in the Current International and Security Context," organised by the Heritage Foundation.

The Presidential Administration said in a press statement released last week, that the meeting of the two high officials will be an excellent opportunity to discuss prospects for deepening and expanding the Strategic Partnership between Romania and the US on all relevant levels, including the partnership's 20th anniversary this year. "President Klaus Iohannis will discuss all the action priorities under the bilateral relation and will reconfirm our country's firm support to remain a predictable, stable and reliable ally of the US," the Romanian Presidential Administration mentioned.

Agerpres...
Romanian Premier Sorin Grindeanu said on Thursday that he wants the government's activity to improve, but also emphasized that the Prime Minister's authority is not dented in any way by an alleged tension buildup inside the ruling coalition.

"There is no denting whatsoever of the Prime Minister's authority," Grindeanu said when asked if the pressure that is allegedly building up within the ruling coalition over the government's activity affects him.

Grindeanu however said that he wants the government's activity to improve.

"Assessments are perfectly normal. (...) Is there a perfect government? No. There is always room for improvement," Sorin Grindeanu said at the end of a working visit to Paris.

agerpres.
Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) cant hold down a job, so shes stuck living with her insensitive mom (Edie Falco) and dreaming of getting away from the New York suburbs. That opportunity comes when she takes action that only emphasizes her need to change her life: Megan joins the Marines.

Its a bold step and one that she soon comes to regret. Life as a slacker may have been boring, but life on a military base is hard  and it only gets worse when Megan is assigned the dirty job of cleaning the kennels of bomb-sniffing dogs.

One of them is a particularly problematic German shepherd. His name is Rex, and his nonstop snarling is enough to motivate Megan to keep her distance. Yet she admires the dog handlers, and eventually she gets the chance to join their ranks.

Unfortunately, the canine to whom shes assigned is Rex. And its not long before Megan, who has her hands full getting on his good side, learns that both she and her four-legged colleague are headed for Iraq.

In hostile territory, Megan and Rex must rely on each other to survive. One false move will be enough to set off a homemade bomb.

Megan Leavey is a fact-based drama that stays far afield of commenting on the war, opting instead to concentrate on the bond between animal and human being. Working from a screenplay by Pamela Gray (A Walk on the Moon), Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids) and Tim Lovestedt, director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (the documentary Blackfish) delivers a film that targets the heart and scores a bulls-eye.

Mara, perhaps best known for her stint on the Netflix series House of Cards, isnt entirely persuasive as a Marine. But shes appealing as a young woman who takes control of her life with a little help from an unlikely companion.

If you have a soft spot for dogs, this is a love story youll find irresistible.
UPDATED at 6 a.m. Friday with charges

LAS VEGAS  Jason Quate says it was an accident.

His 6-year-old daughter, whose body was found Tuesday morning in a Centreville garage, choked to death about four years ago when their family lived in Belleville, Quate told a reporter in a jailhouse interview in Las Vegas.

He and his wife hid her body because they were afraid authorities would take their two older girls, who are now 13 and 11, he said.

Quate, 34, was arrested Tuesday by Las Vegas police after his wife took refuge at a womens shelter and accused her husband of murdering their youngest daughter, Alysha. Authorities in St. Clair County found the decomposed body at the address she provided. The wife also said he was forcing her to work as a prostitute.

Quate is charged in Clark County, Nevada, with sex trafficking of an adult and accepting earnings of a prostitute. Both charges are felonies. He is due in court at 8 a.m. Friday for his first court appearance there.

In a rambling 90-minute interview on Thursday, Quate said the girls death had been an accident and that his wife  not he  hid the body in the garage before the family moved to Nevada.

Im not the monster shes making me out to be, he said.

There are no criminal charges in Illinois in his daughters death. An autopsy for Alysha is scheduled for Friday.

The wife, 35, was also being held in Las Vegas on Thursday as a fugitive from a probation violation in a 2014 forgery case in St. Clair County. The Post-Dispatch is not publishing her name because authorities believe she is a victim of sex trafficking. She declined to comment.

Quate told a Post-Dispatch reporter that when the family lived in Belleville, his three daughters had a habit of keeping food in their mouths well past mealtime.

One day, when the youngest daughter was 6  which would have been between October 2012 and October 2013  she was playing with an older sister, fell off a bed and lightly hit her head, he said. Quate said he spanked her, unaware she had Salisbury steak in her mouth, and she choked to death.

He said he stayed in disbelief with her body for three nights on the dining room floor of their home in Belleville. He said he and his wife were afraid to call police because they feared their children would be taken from them.

He repeatedly referred to the event as the horrible.

Quate said his wife put Alyshas body in a tote with some lime, and kept it in the kitchen for a long time. In January 2016, he said, someone at his older daughters school called with concerns about how he was kissing them goodbye at dropoff time.

He said investigators from the Illinois Division of Children and Family Services came to their house, and he and his wife panicked. They said the girls werent home. The investigators said they would be back the next day, and the family fled to a hotel in Caseyville for more than a week.

Representatives of the state agency did not respond to questions about contacts with Quates family.

Quate said it was his wifes idea to come to Las Vegas to work as a prostitute. It was she who found the garage in Centreville and left the girls body there, he said.

She was looking for a good place to hide the body, he said. And thats the house she found.

The wifes parents, who live in Greenville, Ill., about 45 miles east of St. Louis, told KSDK-TV (Channel 5) on Wednesday that they made repeated efforts to get help for the family, although they werent specific about the problems. (They declined to meet with Post-Dispatch journalists who visited on Thursday.)

I even talked to the school where they went to school, and they even tried to help us, but we couldnt get it done, said the wifes father.

Representatives of Belleville schools did not respond to a request for information about the Quate girls time in the district.

A woman who lived next door to the Quates in Belleville said she used to drive Quates wife to work at various fast-food restaurants because she had crashed cars her parents had given her and had no transportation.

The neighbor, who declined to be identified, said the wife had a temper like a wildcat. She said she would not allow authorities to enter and check the childrens well-being.

She told them, Im home schooling them, and theres nothing you can do about it.

Another neighbor, Diane Denison, 73, has lived in her house in the neighborhood for 43 years and is close to Jeremy Quate, Jasons twin brother. Up until about five years ago, Jasons in-laws would pick the girls up every Friday and the girls would spend the weekend with their grandparents. Then that stopped, and Denison stopped seeing the girls.

Other neighbors talked about seeing the family in the backyard, where there was a pool and trampoline, in the middle of the night, she said.

The last time Denison talked to the girls mother was a few years ago. The mother was in the alley and came up to Denison and told her to stay  out of their business.

Denison said she feels guilty, like there was something she should have done. But she doesnt know what that would have been.

It was not immediately clear how long the family stayed in the St. Louis area after Alyshas death. The wife was charged in March 2015 in St. Clair County with a retail theft case that was later dismissed.

The family lived in a multi-unit apartment building in Las Vegas about five miles northeast of the center of the Las Vegas Strip. Their apartment overlooked a swimming pool.

John Mendiola, 35, said his sisters apartment is next to the Quates and the frequent screaming and what sounded like someone being thrown against walls coming from the Quates unit had her living in fear. He said he often stayed with her for her safety.

Mendiola said he and his sister had never seen the Quates daughters although they sometimes heard childrens voice next door in the middle of the night.

Las Vegas police said they received one call in February 2017 to check the welfare of occupants at the Quates address. No one answered the door, and the officer heard nothing suspicious. No more calls came in.

After the wife came forward, police went to the apartment and found a very disturbing scene, said Lt. Raymond Spencer. The girls had not been allowed to leave the house or enroll in school for the last 18 months to two years. There were so many gnats that officers had to wear masks.

The two daughters had a significant amount of scars and bruises on their bodies, Spencer said in an interview Thursday. One of the girls hair was falling out in clumps. Both were pale, thin and small. They needed support from police to get into the car that took them away and into protective custody, he said.

I can tell you, there was no home schooling going on in that house, Spencer said.

Quate said he always knew the day would come that he would be arrested. He said he just wanted to spend time with his older daughters before he was taken away.

While he pretended on social media to be a co-pilot for Delta Air Lines, he was actually a stay at home father.

He also addressed a statement he made to the Las Vegas TV station on Wednesday  that his wife had told him in 2013 that she had found a family to adopt their daughter.

He said it was his wife who came up with the lie about the adoption. And thats why I told the reporter yesterday, and I initially told the police, that she had been adopted off. Because thats the version she wanted me to say.

He said he was shocked that his wife had gone to a shelter and turned him in. The last he knew, she was leaving for a few days to meet a client for sex. He insisted he never forced her into prostitution.

Quate said his wife was not a good mother and never told her daughters she loved them.

He said they had broken up as a couple long ago but were staying together for the kids and I think she was just fed up with supporting financially a man and children who did not love her.

Spencer said he didnt know what the catalyst was for the wife coming forward, but she clearly felt that her children were in danger.

Jeremy Kohler, Ashley Jost, Kristen Taketa and Denise Hollinshed, all of the Post-Dispatch, contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON  If there was a bad cop during former FBI Director James Comeys historic and riveting testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, it was Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who pressed Comey on why he didnt push back after Comey began seeing red flags in meetings with President Donald Trump.

Comeys answer to Blunt and other senators was twofold: He was stunned and in retrospect may not have been as courageous as he could have been; and he wanted to protect the integrity of the FBIs investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 elections by shielding investigators from his belief Trump was pressuring him to back off the investigation of Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Comeys seven-minute exchange with Blunt was a microcosm of the legal and political thicket of this city, and the Missouri senators questions touched on some claims that Trump supporters use to defend the president.

Comey told Blunt hed still be at the FBI had Trump not fired him, a tacit admission that the pressure Comey said he felt from Trump was not serious enough for him to blow a whistle and resign.

So you took as a direction from the president something that you thought was serious and troublesome, but continued to show up for work the next day? Blunt asked.

Yes, sir, Comey responded.

And six weeks later were telling the president that he was not personally the target of any investigation?

Comey answered yes.

Despite serious concerns, Blunt said, Comey had taken no action, hadnt even reported it up the chain of command.

Do you have a sense of that, looking back, that that was a mistake? Blunt asked.

No, in fact I think no action was the most important thing I could do to make sure there was no interference with the investigation, Comey responded.

Comey told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that he did not want to share the memos or specifics of the conversations with Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, because either they were short-timers in the job or, in Sessions case, would likely recuse themselves from any involvement with the Russian investigation.

In one of the days many shocks, Comey said he was the source, through a Columbia University law professor, of a media leak about the existence and substance of his memo of his Feb. 14 meeting with Trump.

Blunt homed in on that point.

So you didnt consider your memo or your sense of that conversation to be a government document, you considered it to be somehow your own personal document that you can share with the media as you wanted to through a friend? Blunt asked.

I understood this to be my recollection recorded of my conversation with the president. As a private citizen I felt free to share that. I felt it very important to get it out, Comey said.

Why didnt you give those to somebody by yourself rather than give them through a third party? Blunt asked.

Comey blamed the media camping at the end of my driveway at that point and I was actually going out of town with my wife to hide. And I worried it would be like feeding seagulls at the beach if it was I who gave it to the media, so I asked my friend to make sure this gets out.

Blunt responded with a dig at Comeys leak.

It does seem to me what you do there is you create a source close to the former director of the FBI (media attribution) as opposed to just taking responsibility yourself.

Trumps lawyer Marc Kasowitz continued that line hours later, reading a statement accusing Comey of leaking privileged information.

From before this president took office to this day it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has admitted that he is one of these leakers, Kasowitz said.
Pakistan swiftly moved to clear the air in the wake of the diplomatic crisis that has engulfed Arab countries, saying that its commercial deal of importing LNG from a Qatari company remains unaffected.

Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Pakistan will continue to import the fuel from Qatargas to meet its energy requirement, as it seeks to end load-shedding in the country.

The statement comes at the heels of the development that saw a number of Arab countries including Saudi Arabia and Egypt severing diplomatic ties with Qatar, accusing it of destabilising the region.

The sudden move prompted speculators to link the cut-off to Pakistan, which enjoys good ties with Saudi Arabia.

Abbasi, however, said that the agreement stands and Pakistan will continue to import LNG.

It is a commercial contract. Pakistan would continue to import LNG from Qatar, Abbasi told The Express Tribune.

The agreement, signed in February 2016, will enable Pakistan to import at least 35 million tons of LNG in 15 years at the rate of 13.35% of Brent crude oil.

The fuel is a lifeline for Pakistan, as it is partially meeting the power deficit worsened by almost stagnant gas production over the years.

The imported gas is being utilised mainly for power production, in the fertiliser sector, and conversion to CNG for use in vehicles.

There are no sanctions on Qatar as far as we know  there is no possibility of cancellation or delay in the import of LNG from Qatar to Pakistan.

Responding to a question, Abbasi said the government would consider options if and when Qatar faces any sort of international economic sanctions from the United Nations or the US.

At present, Pakistan is importing around 600 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) LNG from Qatargas. Imports are set to double in the next five to six months when the second LNG import terminal becomes operational in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Abbasi said there is a four-to-six week delay in making the second LNG import terminal operational at Port Qasim, Karachi. The Pakistan LNG Terminal Limited was to become operational by June 2017.

The delay is on part of the government. We are ready to pay the terminal charges that may be caused due to a delay in imports, he told.

Domestic demand for gas has shot up to 7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) against local production of 4bcfd. Local production has remained stagnant for the last 15 years. The country would do away with the deficit gas production by importing 3bcfd by December 2018.
Heavily armed Al-Shabaab militants have stormed a military base in Somalia's semi-autonomous state of Puntland, killing close to 70 people and wounding dozens more, officials said Thursday.

Residents said civilians, including women, were beheaded during the rampage.

Officials called it the region's deadliest attack in years, highlighting the twin challenges facing security forces from the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab and the growing presence of fighters linked to the militant Islamic State group.

The attack began with a blast at the remote Af-Urur camp, roughly 100 kilometres west of the commercial hub of Bossaso, before the extremists overran the base and killed soldiers at close range, said Ahmed Mohamed, a senior military official.

Close to 70 people were killed, though an exact death toll was not yet available, Mohamed said. Abdi Hersi Ali, Puntland's interior minister, said troops suffered causalities but he declined to give further details.

Residents in the area reported chaotic scenes, with fighters beheading several civilians they encountered.

One witness, Abdibasit Hassan, said women were among those beheaded. The situation is grim over there. This attack was an unexpected one, Mohamed said. The extremists, including suicide bombers, reportedly attacked the base from three directions, forcing soldiers to retreat.

Col Hashi Ahmed, a senior military official, told The Associated Press that reinforcement troops reached the area and drove the extremists out of the camp. He estimated that at least 100 fighters were involved in the attack.

Al Shabaab claimed killing at least 61 soldiers in the attack. The Search for International Terrorist Entities (SITE) Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups, said the extremist group issued the claim via its Shahada News Agency. Al Shabaab also said it seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition and more than a dozen military vehicles.

Puntland in northern Somalia also faces a growing threat from IS-linked fighters who have split from Al-Shabaab.

Liban Mohamed, a nurse at the hospital in nearby Armo town, said at least 40 wounded soldiers had been brought there after Thursday's attack.
UPDATED 9.46AM: A car has been used to smash through the front door of a Tauranga communications store.

Police were called to the ram-raid at the Spark on Devonport Road at 4.15am.

A police spokesperson confirmed to SunLive that a vehicle was used to drive through the front door to gain access to the Spark Digital building.

A forensic examination will be completed at the scene today.

Police inquiries into the matter are ongoing.

People with information about the ram-raid are asked to contact Tauranga Police on 07 577 4300.

Alternatively, information can be left anonymously via the Crimestoppers 0800 555 111 line.

EARLIER:

Glass has been strewn across the floor of the Spark store in the Tauranga CBD this morning.

Police are at the scene of a break in at the telecommunications store on Devonport Road.

A SunLive reader emailed a photo of the store, showing people cleaning up glass.

Another reader confirmed police are at the scene.

SunLive is working on getting more detail from police and will update the story as soon as we have more information.

At the scene?

Call 0800 SUNLIVE or email photos to newsroom@thesun.co.nz
Today, New Zealand is celebrating 30 year nuclear-free. A high of 15 and an overnight low of 5 degrees is expected, so make sure you are wearing warm clothing. Its a three-clothing and one-windproof layer today. Enjoy the day!
Devices stolen in this mornings ram-raid of Spark in Tauranga have been blacklisted.

A vehicle was used to smash the front doors of the store on Devonport Road at 4.15am.

Blacklisting the stolen devices means that they wont work on any New Zealand mobile network and are essentially worthless.

This is standard policy for any device in New Zealand, and makes stealing phones a futile exercise, says Grant McBeath, General Manager of Customer Channels for Spark Home, Mobile and Business.

Were really disappointed by this attack. The individuals responsible have caused damage to the property.

Its also a really pointless theft. As all the devices have now been black listed, they might as well have stolen some paper weights, as thats all theyre good for now. To be honest, they wont even make good paper weights as our devices are so light these days.

It seems such a shame to put yourself at risk, driving at high speed through glass windows, for such a pointless exercise.

Wed advise people to be careful when buying a second hand phone. You can always check whether a phone has been blacklisted following a theft by checking its unique IMEI number on the Telecommunications Forums website. If you do find a stolen phone, please hand it to the police.

Spark is reviewing the CCTV footage from cameras within store and is cooperating with the police in their investigation.
Simon and Natalie Bridges are thrilled to learn they are expecting their third baby, due in time for Christmas.

Taurangas MP already has two sons with his wife Natalie  Emlyn, 5, and Harry, 3.

Were both really excited and our little boys are excited. Because weve told them its coming before Christmas, they think its like a Christmas present.

Weve had the idea wed like to have three children, and were lucky enough to have that chance now.

The babys due date is three months after the NZ General Election on September 23, and a week before Christmas.

Well have that traditional Christmas break where everything shuts down a wee bit. Its coincided with that, so thats great and were really looking forward to spending that time as a family.

Emlyn will still be five, and Harry three when the baby arrives.

Emlyn and Harry were both born at Tauranga Hospital, where the couple expect their third child to also be born.

Before entering Parliament in 2008, Simon was a Senior Crown Prosecutor in the District and High Courts, and also practised as a litigation lawyer.

He and Natalie met when he moved to England to study for a Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford University.

She was doing her Masters in English Literature and they met within the first few weeks of his arrival.

On their return to New Zealand, Natalie worked as a journalist, newsreader and editor before launching a business Blink Public Relations and Marketing in 2012.

Shortly after Emlyn was born, Simons political career took off when he was appointed to cabinet. He is now Minister for Economic Development, Minister of Transport, Minister for Communications, Associate Minister of Finance, and Leader of the House.

My parents are probably scheduled to come out from England to New Zealand during February, says Natalie.

This will be great because the Christmas break will be well and truly over. It will be nice to have some extra support there. My sister and her husband hopefully will be able to come not long after that to see their new nephew or niece.

Whether the couple have a daughter or another son is something theyre not too concerned about.

You can find out at twenty weeks. So well probably find out. But were more focused on that were having another child, and that its healthy and happy. Were really thrilled, its just awesome.
Political parties have been urged to adopt a "freshwater rescue plan" advocacy groups say can solve the countrys freshwater quality issues.

Leaders from tourism, science, health, recreation and environmental conservation came together on Thursday to launch a plan for solving the countrys freshwater crisis.

Together they presented seven steps that can be taken immediately to protect fresh water.

It would involve stopping public funding of irrigation schemes, a reduction in cow numbers, stricter enforcement of environmental breaches, and forcing polluters to pay for their environmental damage.

This plan is backed by leaders from major tourism, public health, conservation, environmental and recreation organisations, and experts in ecology, public health, and Maori, Pacific and Indigenous studies, says a statement released following yesterdays forum.

The organiaations who put this together hope that all parties can commit to the Freshwater Rescue Plan so that the elected Government in September can take immediate action to restore New Zealands rivers and lakes.

They described the seven steps as follows:

1. Protect the health of people and their waterways by setting strict and enforceable water quality standards, based on human and Ecosystem health limits.

2. Withdraw all public subsidies of irrigation schemes as they increase pressure on waterways

3. Invest in an agricultural transition fund, to support the countrys shift away from environmentally-damaging farming methods by redirecting $480 million of public money earmarked for irrigation.

4. Implement strategies to decrease cow numbers immediately

5. Reduce freshwater contamination by instigating polluter pays systems nationally

6. Address the performance of regional councils on improving water quality through quarterly reports from the ministry for the environment on enforcement, breaches and monitoring.

7. Adopt OECD recommendation to establish a whole-of-government multi-stakeholder process to develop a long-term vision for the transition of New Zealand to a low-carbon, greener economy".

-Additonal reporting from Stuff.co.nz
Its been 30 years since New Zealand forged its own path and proclaimed itself nuclear-free.

In 1987 Labour passed the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act, enshrining our nuclear-free status in law.

However, it also riled the United States, which downgraded our status from ally to merely friend.

Tauranga women Mary Rose and Joy Rising are self-proclaimed elderly peaceniks who will be marking the occasion this Sunday with placards. They hope to get out and about and remind people to be committed to peace.

Mary says in 1987, she didnt realise how important the nuclear-free legislation was.

I was living on a farm in Opotiki at the time. I wasnt yet politically aware.

In 1995 she joined the Quakers, however, and embraced their ideas around promoting peace.

I found they were a faith community that worked on a cooperative basis, says Mary. Each person has ministry and responsibility. Theres no dogma or creed  each person has their own experience of God.

Since then she has actively promoted peace, including going up to Auckland to protest the recent arms conference, as well as an oil conference in New Plymouth. She considers both nuclear weapons and climate change to be equally dangerous threats to human survival.

And both of them are influenced by big business.

Its almost terrifying when you realise the influence these industries have on governments, too.

She and Joy have come up with the idea to get out and be a presence in places such as parks or intersections this Sunday, to let people know both what we have achieved, but also how much further we have to go.

Anyone interested in helping out or taking part can contact Mary via mgrose39@gmail.com.
At midday on Wednesday the news finally came officially confirming what the family of Ignacio Echeverria were expecting. The 39-year-old Spanish banker, who lived in London, was among the victims of last Saturdays terror attack at London Bridge.

It brought to an end ninety hours of anxious waiting for his family who had received no news from him since the night of the attack and whose friends had already confirmed that he had been caught up in the atrocity.

Ignacios parents and siblings were supported by the Spanish embassy in London, where they had travelled to on news of his disappearance, in trying to get the British authorities to confirm his death to them and allow them to view his body.

Related news Spaniards caught in terror tell of ordeal and how they helped

We want to see and be with Ignacios body. We want the British government to let us be with him, said the victims sister, Isabel, as they waited earlier this week.

Increasing calls for the identification process to be sped up caused a small diplomatic crisis between the two countries. There was disbelief as to why it was taking so long, a view which was echoed across Spanish media.

Spanish foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, said, We dont think that any [identification] protocol can justify treatment that is now really bordering on inhuman. Reports said that British investigators had fingerprint proof but were waiting for DNA tests.

The skateboard hero

Accounts of how Ignacio died say he was killed as he was returning by bike with two friends, also Spanish residents in London, from skateboarding alongside the Tate Modern art gallery. They cycled into the middle of the attack in nearby Borough Market. Ignacio, at the front of the group, began hitting the terrorists with his skateboard, heroically helping a woman being attacked, but suffered fatal knife wounds.

After receiving reassurances from officials in London on Thursday that all was being done to allow them to take Galician-born Ignacios body home, the family said they expected to be able to see the body but repatriatation might not take place until Tuesday, after the autopsy.
James Comey

Former FBI director James Comey speaks during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington.

(Andrew Harnik | AP)

WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer says former FBI Director James Comey's testimony to Congress on Thursday about President Donald Trump means "the cloud hanging over this administration has just gotten a whole lot darker."

Schumer, D-N.Y., said Comey's testimony under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee raised serious questions about the Trump administration.

"Few committee hearings in the history of the Senate have produced the kind of eye-opening testimony that we heard today," Schumer said in remarks Thursday afternoon on the Senate floor.

Schumer said it's now clear that Trump fired Comey over his investigation of Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

The Senate Democratic leader said if Trump wants to refute Comey's account of their meetings, the president should release any tapes of his conversations with Comey. Trump mentioned the possible existence of such tapes in a Twitter message after firing Comey last month.

"It's awfully curious that no one from the president's team will either confirm or deny the existence of those tapes, when the tapes are the only way to prove that Mr. Comey's testimony, which came under oath, was false or misleading," Schumer said.

Schumer added, "President Trump: if you disagree with anything the director said today, play the tapes for all of America to hear. Or admit that there are no tapes."

Trump has not publicly denied Comey's accounts of their conversations, but has challenged the former FBI director's credibility. Trump tweeted last month Comey "better hope there are no 'tapes'" of the conversations.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Apple CEO Tim Cook spent less than two minutes talking about Apple TV during the companys WWDC keynote this week, but that was enough time for two revelations: First, Apples TV guide app now pulls in movies and shows from more than 50 streaming video sources. Second, Amazon Prime will become one of those sources when Amazon launches an Apple TV app later this year.

Apples TV app, which arrived last fall, is supposed to solve streaming videos what to watch problem. Instead of making people bounce between apps, it provides a central hub where users can catch up on their favorite shows and get recommendations on more things to watch. The TV app worked with 37 content sources at launch, and the list has grown by about 15 apps since.

All of which makes the absence of Netflix ever more conspicuous. Although Netflix offers an Apple TV app, it doesnt support Apples TV app. (I wish Apples app had a more distinct name, like Guide or Watchlist, but thats another story.) Without the most popular subscription streaming service, Apples ambitious plan for a unified TV guide doesnt feel complete.

Why isnt Netflix on board? I have some theories.

Too much, and not enough

Netflix is notoriously protective of how and where its content shows up outside of its own app.

In general, the company has embraced the concept of system-wide search, allowing Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV to index the Netflix catalog and list search results alongside other apps. System-wide browsing is a different story.

Netflix currently offers a row of recommendations on the home screen of Amazons Fire TV devices, and a similar row will be available on Android TV devicessuch as the Nvidia Shield TVwith the Android O update coming this fall. Netflix offers a recommendations row in the Sling TV app on the AirTV Player, too, which appears alongside streaming cable and over-the-air-channels.

Google Netflix recommendations are coming to the home screen on Android TV devices.

On the other hand, Netflix doesnt support Roku Feed, a universal watchlist that alerts users to new episodes of favorite shows, new content from favorite actors, and price drops on movies. Nor does Netflix support Apples TV app, which rolls a watchlist, recommendations, and genre-based browsing into a single menu system.

I suspect the reason for the distinction comes down to control and branding, with Apple taking too much of the former, and not offering enough of the latter.
Samsung is expected to continue a trend it started a few years back - launching its second-half flagship smartphone towards the end of summer rather than at the beginning of fall - in order to beat Apple's new iPhone to market.

The Korea Herald points to rumors suggesting Samsung will launch the Galaxy Note 8 in late August, likely a few weeks to a month before Apple's next iPhone goes on sale (if precedent holds on Apple's part which isn't a guarantee).

The Galaxy Note 5 first broke cover on August 13, 2015 and went on sale on August 21. With last year's Note 7, Samsung moved the dates up even earlier, unveiling the ill-fated phone on August 2 ahead of an August 19 launch.

LG is also expected to announce its new V30 smartphone in the coming months, perhaps at the annual IFA trade show in Berlin at the beginning of September.

The latest Note 8 rumors point to a device with a 6.3-inch bezel-less display (similar in design to what's found on the Galaxy S8 and S8+). The handset may also carry a dual-camera setup with a 12-megapixel wide-angle shooter alongside a 13-megapixel telephoto lens and it's entirely possible that Samsung could integrate its fingerprint sensor under the phone's glass.

Like the Galaxy S8 series, the Note 8 will also likely adhere to Samsung's new eight-point battery validation procedure.

Mockup via Muhsin M. Belaal Auckburaully
GOG's annual summer sale is in full effect with more than 1,500 deals on offer. To sweeten the pot, the popular digital distribution platform has a free game waiting in the wings following your first purchase.

Where to start with the summer sale will largely depend upon what type of games you are into although several fan-favorites are highlighted on the front page. As of writing, these include Saints Row IV: Game of the Century Edition for $4.99 (75 percent off), half off The Witcher III: Wild Hunt with all DLC and additional content (yours for $24.99) and Pillars of Eternity: Hero Edition priced at $17.99 (a 60 percent discount).

If you're looking for some seriously deep discounts, check out Resonance for $1.99 (80 percent off), Deponia for $0.99 (95 percent off), The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - Enhanced Edition for $2.99 (85 percent off), Syberia for $0.99 (90 percent off), Myst Masterpiece Edition (a personal favorite) for $1.49 (75 percent off) and Darksiders Warmastered Edition for $3.99 (80 percent off).

Anyone that makes at least one purchase during the summer sale will also receive a copy of Rebel Galaxy from Double Damage Games. The space-based title, regularly priced at $19.99, is free with your first purchase through June 20. As with all games from GOG, it's DRM-free.

What will you be picking up in the summer sale? Feel free to share your haul in the comments section below.
This year's meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) brought life-saving news for prostate cancer patients.

The 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, held in Chicago over the past weekend, featured the presentation of two ground-breaking clinical trials on the drug abiraterone.

The studies, both published in The New England Journal of Medicine, offer clear evidence that this drug, typically used to treat prostate cancer once it has spread, can save lives and help patients live longer if it is administered earlier in the treatment course.

One of the studies, titled STAMPEDE, showed that adding abiraterone to the standard androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) slows advanced prostate cancer and reduces the patients' risk of death by 37 percent.

The other study, titled LATITUDE, proved that combining abiraterone with ADT delays tumor growth by 18 months, even when it has metastasized, thereby extending prostate cancer survival.

These remarkable findings have the potential to revolutionize prostate cancer treatment, researchers agree.

"These results could transform the treatment of prostate cancer. Abiraterone can clearly help many more prostate cancer patients than was first thought," Sir Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said in a statement.

What Is Abiraterone?

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer among men, second only to skin cancer. The disease is more prevalent among older men, typically arising after the age of 40.

Every year, around 161,360 new cases of prostate cancer are reported in the United States.

Early prostate cancer detection increases the likelihood of the tumor being treated. Even so, prostate cancer still remains the third leading cause of cancer death among American men, after lung cancer and colorectal cancer.

The disease is fuelled by the male hormone testosterone, which feeds the prostate cancer cells and sustains their growth.

To inhibit the testicles' production of testosterone and other similar hormones, called androgens, patients follow a standard treatment of ADT, which slows tumor growth.

However, even with ADT, other organs in the body, the prostate gland included, still produce small amounts of testosterone and androgens.

This is where abiraterone comes in. This drug, also known as Zytiga, is a hormone therapy designed to halter testosterone production throughout the body.

As opposed to chemotherapy and radiation, which work by killing cancer cells, abiraterone prevents testosterone from reaching the prostate gland.

In the absence of the hormone, tumor growth is thereby hindered and the disease's progression is significantly slowed down. This happens even in patients whose cancer has already begun to metastasize, shows the LATITUDE study.

The STAMPEDE Trial And Increased Cancer Survival Rates

Conducted by British researchers at University College London, the STAMPEDE clinical trial looked at abiraterone as an additional treatment for patients with advanced prostate cancer who were about to start long-term hormone therapy.

The study involved nearly 2,000 patients, half of which were treated abiraterone plus ADT, while the other half received ADT alone.

The results showed that adding the drug to the standard hormone therapy lowers the relative risk of death by 37 percent. The drug increased the three-year survival rate from 76 percent (for ADT only) to 83 percent.

"This is one of the biggest reductions in death I've seen in any clinical trial for adult cancers," said study leader Prof. Nicholas James, from the University of Birmingham.

James deemed this discovery "a once-in-a-career feeling", stating these findings "are the most powerful results" he has ever encountered in a prostate cancer trial.

"Abiraterone not only prolonged life, but also lowered the chance of relapse by 70 percent and reduced the chance of serious bone complications by 50 percent," he explained in an ASCO news release.

In view of these results, and the tremendous benefits this drug can offer to cancer patients, James believes the upfront care for men recently diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer can be significantly improved.

The LATITUDE Trial And Slowed Cancer Progression

The second trial assessing the benefits of abiraterone in addition to standard hormonal therapy involved nearly 1,200 men with newly diagnosed metastatic cancer.

The study was conducted at 235 sites in 34 countries in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and Canada.

The results showed a treatment with abiraterone plus ADT for this type of patients reduces the chance of death by 38 percent.

Moreover, the addition of abiraterone more than doubled the median time until the cancer worsened, increasing the period before tumor progression from 14.8 months (for ADT alone) to 33 months.

"We had been treating metastatic prostate cancer the same way for 70 years until docetaxel chemotherapy was shown to improve survival in 2015, and now in 2017 we show abiraterone is also helping patients live longer," lead study author Dr. Karim Fizazi, from the University Paris-Sud in Villejuif, France, said in an ASCO news release.

The results were so remarkable that the trial was stopped early so even the patients given the placebo could also receive abiraterone.

According to Dr. Fizazi, who is head of the Department of Cancer Medicine at Gustave Roussy, after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, patients have less than five years on average to live.

"The next step is to see if adding abiraterone on top of docetaxel offers further benefit," he added. Such a study is currently ongoing in Europe.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Uber hasn't had the best months lately. It's been locked in a legal battle with Waymo after being sued by the autonomous car company over confidential information that may have been shared with Uber.

Uber was also subject to a probe by two different legal firms over stories of misconduct and sexual assault. The probe had resulted in the firing of 20 employees in an effort to salvage some of the company's image. However, things took another bad turn for Uber with another high-profile firing taking place.

Legal Misconduct

Eric Alexander, Uber's president of business in Asia Pacific, has been let go following revelations about his handling of a 2014 rape case in India. Alexander had obtained medical records pertaining to the case and brought them to multiple executives in the company.

What originally happened was, in 2014, a 26-year-old woman in New Delhi had been out and called for an Uber to take her home at the end of the night. The driver that picked her up assaulted, raped, and threatened to kill her if she said anything before dropping her near her home. After the driver's arrest, it was discovered that he was awaiting trial on four other charges and that his information hadn't been properly verified before becoming an Uber driver. He would be sentenced to life in prison in late 2015. During the course of the case, Uber was banned from operating in Delhi from December 2014 to June 2015.

Alexander fits into this because he was among a handful of execs that questioned the authenticity of the story. He went to India to look into the case, though it's unknown if this was his own decision or if he was asked. It's also not clear if he legally acquired the medical files but he showed them to CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael.

"Travis never should have looked at the report and he should have fired him immediately," one Uber exec told Recode about Alexander.

After seeing the report, the three began to question the victim's story. In fact, they began to think that it had been set up by Uber's primary competition in India, Ola, to sabotage the company.

The file would remain in Alexander's possession for a year after the incident before other execs got their hands on it and destroyed Alexander's copy.

Blow After Blow

This is just the latest blow to a company that has been plagued with legal and image issues over the last few years. As mentioned, a recent legal probe exposed a work culture that is filled with problems such as sexual harassment and discrimination that resulted in the firing of 20 employees.

There was also a Buzzfeed investigation last year that brought up Uber's poor handling of complaints due to customer services being outsourced to third-party companies in places like Manila. Both customers and drivers were stuck dealing with subpar customer service representatives due to issues like automated systems, volume of complaints, and language barriers.

Uber has spent the last few weeks doing whatever it could to salvage its image however it could. This included firing Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the heart of Waymo's lawsuit, and the hiring of two new execs, one of whom is being brought on to train Uber's inexperienced execs. However, this newest firing is likely to send it back to square one.

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Uber has suffered two key losses in its high-stakes trade-theft battle with Waymo, Google's self-driving car unit.

First, Uber lost its battle to prevent Waymo from seeing an internal report. This, Waymo bets, will show that its former engineer, Anthony Levandowski, conspired with Uber to steal Waymo's autonomous driving technology.

Due Diligence

Uber must hand over the due diligence report related to its $680 million acquisition of Otto, a company Levandowski started after leaving Google's self-driving unit. Uber has so far maintained to keep that report invisible, claiming attorney-client privilege.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley's ruling in a San Francisco court is an arguably pivotal inflection point between Uber and Waymo's trade-secrets case headed to trial that could influence the direction of driverless technology and that industry going forward.

Arbitration Request Still Shot Down

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup also shot down Uber's motion to put the litigation on hold while the company appeals his decision prohibiting the case from moving into arbitration. Alsup told Uber's lawyers that Waymo has a right to get to trial on Oct. 2 and that the ride-hailing service is "doing everything you can to throw roadblocks in their way," according to reports.

Alsup also put a new limit on discovery requests and urged both Uber and Waymo to settle their differences in that front, seeing as the scheduled proceedings are to occur in less than four months.

Finally, Alsup also defended his earlier order for Uber to push Levandowski to comply with discovery requests and to return confidential material he may have stolen from Waymo before leaving the company.

Following a court order, Uber had threatened to fire Levandowski if he didn't comply with the investigation and return allegedly stolen materials to his former employer. When he failed to comply, Uber duly broke up with its star engineer late last month.

Levandowski's counsel argued that such orders were akin to forcing a private citizen to choose between his Fifth Amendment rights and his job. But Alsup said that Uber found its own reasons to fire Levandowski.

Alsup also noted the impact of people using their Fifth Amendment rights when involved in an internal investigation and still remaining employed in a private company party to that investigation.

As a result, Alsup has maintained that his previous order still stands.

"I'm not taking back a single word," he said.

Waymo vs Uber: A Refresher

Waymo sued Uber back in February, claiming Levandowski stole more than 14,000 files from Google during his stint at the company's self-driving unit.

Because Levandowski left Google, founded Otto, and then sold his company to Uber, Waymo alleges that Uber is using said stolen files to develop its own autonomous driving technology. Uber has so far denied all claims, stating that extensive searches of its internal systems haven't turned up any of the alleged files.

Waymo has been pushing to see Uber's diligence report on the Otto purchase. In large part, that report might show what Uber knew and when at the time of acquiring Levandowski's autonomous technology startup.

Alsup asked Uber's lawyers if they intend to appeal the decision on the due diligence report. One of them stated that Uber might decide on that matter on June 8, according to Reuters.

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A report claims that Samsung is working on a smart speaker powered by its own digital assistant Bixby, a move that will further tighten the race in the growing industry.

Apple recently announced the HomePod, a challenger to the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers. If the report is true, Samsung will soon make it a four-horse race.

Samsung Bixby Speaker Coming Soon?

According to a report by the Korean Herald, there are rumors that Samsung is working on a "home audio device" that will likely be powered by Bixby, its new voice assistant that was partially rolled out alongside the Galaxy S8.

Samsung is said to have acquired design patents for a new standalone audio device just as the company was looking to expand the applications of Bixby. This increases the likelihood that we will soon see a Bixby-powered smart speaker from Samsung.

The report coincides with a report from last month on two patents that were granted to Samsung. While the first patent was for a Note smartphone, the second one was simply for an audio device.

The Bixby-powered smart speaker could possibly be named the Samsung Hello, which is a trademark that was acquired by Samsung back in February. At the time, it was believed that Samsung Hello was the real name of Bixby or one of the digital assistant's features. The trademark has not yet surfaced in any Samsung product, which makes it a possible option for the upcoming smart speaker's name.

Microsoft Cortana Speaker Also On Its Way?

Samsung will not be working alone on its planned Bixby speaker though. Harman Kardon, a subsidiary of Samsung, is said to be working with Microsoft on another smart speaker powered by Cortana. As with other smart speakers, the Cortana speaker named Invoke will allow users to issue voice commands for a variety of tasks.

Invoke is expected to be released in the third quarter of the year, which means that the Bixby speaker will not likely roll out until much later, perhaps even next year.

Will The Samsung Bixby Speaker Succeed?

If Samsung will not roll out the Bixby Speaker until next year, its competitors in the space may already have had a significant lead by then. The Amazon Echo has already released several variants, the Google Home is evolving, and the Apple HomePod is set to be released later this year.

Before Samsung should get around to building Bixby into a smart speaker, however, the company should first iron out all the issues surrounding the digital assistant. Last week, a report claimed that in internal testing, Bixby was having trouble with understanding the grammar and syntax of the English language.

Its troubles with learning English caused the delay of the full rollout of the digital assistant. The voice component of Bixby was initially expected to be launched in May, but it was pushed back to June. Bixby, however, could be further delayed.

Whether the idea of bringing Bixby into a smart speaker is a bad one will not be known for sure until, or if, Samsung releases the device. By then, the Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod, and Microsoft Invoke will be ready for a new challenger.

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Elon Musk-owned SpaceX bagged the contract to launch the mysterious unmanned X-37B space plane  also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle or OTV  which the U.S. Air Force owns.

Until now, the United Launch Alliance monopolized any U.S. military launches. For the unfamiliar, ULA is Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp's joint venture.

This would be the first time a company not associated with the ULA will be conducting the OTV's launch. The Boeing-built X-37B space plane has made four trips into the orbit and launched atop ULA's Atlas V rocket each time.

SpaceX To Launch X-37B Space Plane

On Tuesday, June 6, U.S. Air Force secretary Heather Wilson announced the deal with SpaceX.

"SpaceX will be sending the next Air Force payload up into space in August," Wilson shared before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.

It was only later that Wilson revealed that the payload comprised one of the X-37B space planes. The U.S. Air Force did not share when it awarded the contract to SpaceX.

SpaceX will launch the X-37B space plane in two months from now. The X-37B finished its latest mission and returned to Earth a month ago after spending almost two years in the space.

The deal's financial terms were not revealed as the X-37B space plane program is the U.S. military's confidential venture. SpaceX declined to comment on the details as well. However, getting the deal was not an easy task as SpaceX had to strive to break ULA's monopoly and get the profitable military contract.

The struggle started in 2014 when the Musk-owned company sued government and alleged that the U.S. Air Force was not giving SpaceX a fair chance while handing out contracts.

Once the lawsuit was settled, SpaceX completed its first mission with the U.S. Air Force in 2015. The company also signed a $82.7 million deal with the U.S. Air Force to lift off two of its GPS satellites into the Earth's orbit in 2018.

U.S. Air Force's X-37B: The Reusable Space Plane

The X-37B built by Boeing is a reusable space plane, which resembles a mini space shuttle. The mysterious X-37B is unmanned and launches atop a rocket and returns to Earth by landing horizontally on the runway. Till date, the unmanned X-37B has completed four covert space missions carrying payload into the Earth's orbit.

"The primary objectives of the X-37B are twofold: reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space and operating experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth," the X-37B fact sheet explains.

Not much is known about the X-37B and the missions it undertakes. The space plane can autonomously re-enter the atmosphere after getting ground commands. The OTV has a 270-day orbit time and is the first-ever vehicle after the Shuttle Orbiter, which has the capability to bring back experiments that can be delved into further.

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Ahead of schedule, the OnePlus 5's price in Finland and other parts in Europe may have already been confirmed by way of a contest.

If the speculations are correct, then it could be set at 550, and in turn, that could mean the flagship killer will hold U.S. customers back by $550.

OnePlus 5 Price And The Music Festival

Provinssi 2017 is a music festival in Finland, and the organizers behind the event is holding a contest where the grand prize is two three-day VIP tickets and  drumroll, please  a OnePlus 5.

According to the rules (PDF/translated), the total value of the prize is 948. Meanwhile, a user on the OnePlus forums says the price of each VIP pass is 199.

To do the math real quick, 948 minus 199 and another 199 equals to 550. In other words, the OnePlus 5's price could be set at 550, which should translate to more than $500 in the U.S. market. However, take note that's not taking into account any accessories in the mix.

OnePlus 5 To Cost $550?

The OnePlus 3T retails for $439, and the Finnish website lists down the device at 439 as well. To put two and two together, the 550 OnePlus 5 could cost $550 too.

If this turns out to be the case, then it's $100 more expensive than initially expected, and it essentially debunks an earlier leak that the flagship killer will have a $450 price tag.

OnePlus 5 Release Date And Other Confirmed Details

As a quick refresher, the OnePlus 5 is scheduled to be officially revealed on June 20. It has also been announced to pack a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 under the hood, an excellent camera that's designed in collaboration with DxO, and come in four colors, one of which is referred to as "unicorn."

More than that, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau said it's going to be the slimmest flagship yet, though he didn't clear up whether it's going to simply be the thinnest OnePlus to date or the thinnest among the competition, such as the Samsung Galaxy S8, iPhone 7, and others.

Interestingly enough, a lot of rumors and leaks point to dual cameras, but that's not set in stone. They continue to say it'll have 6 GB or 8 GB of RAM, a 3,600 mAh or 4,000 mAh battery, and a 5.5-inch QHD display (1,440 x 2,560).

The Bottom Line

To boil things down, the OnePlus 5 could cost 550 in Europe  or in Finland, at least  and $550 in the United States, but to be clear, that's just mere speculation at this point. However, if the manufacturer does go with that price, then it strays a bit from what it's known for: low-cost smartphones with flagship-level components.

At any rate, the flagship killer's official launch is only a couple of days away, and everyone will finally find out the price, specs, and all the rest of the juicy details.

With all said and done, will you be grabbing the OnePlus 5 if it does come with a $550 price tag? Feel free to hit us up in the comments section below and let us know.

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NASA has big hopes for its upcoming major space observatory  the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST)  which will take on the bold task of finding answers to some of the biggest questions in astronomy.

WFIRST has been in the cards for nearly a decade and is designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics.

And, according to its design plans, WFIRST will be packing some mean tech "muscle" to do the job.

Cool Features Of The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope

NASA plans to equip its next big space observatory with a gigantic camera featuring 18 detectors. Each detector will be able to capture a 16-megapixel shot, giving WFIRST a field of view 100 times bigger than that of the Hubble Telescope.

Along with this Wide-Field instrument, the agency will also be installing on the new infrared telescope a 2.4-meter mirror  provided by the National Reconnaissance Office in 2012  as well as a coronagraph instrument, which will allow researchers to study exoplanets in the inner Milky Way.

The coronagraph, which falls under the responsibility of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, is designed to block the glare of individual stars and reveal the faint light of planets orbiting around them.

NASA is also considering the possibility of a "starshade" flying, alongside WFIRST in a separate spacecraft, to block enough starlight for the telescope to perform direct imaging of Earth-sized planets.

"The Wide-Field Instrument will give the telescope the ability to capture a single image with the depth and quality of Hubble, but covering 100 times the area. The coronagraph will provide revolutionary science, capturing the faint, but direct images of distant gaseous worlds and super-Earths," announced Paul Hertz, head of NASA's astrophysics division, in a 2016 news release introducing the infrared telescope.

All this will allow WFIRST to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, and explore the evolution of the cosmos. NASA also envisions the infrared telescope will aid in the discovery of new worlds outside our solar system and advance the search for planets that could be suitable for life.

But it all depends on the external review currently conducted by a panel of independent aero-space experts. NASA commissioned the report in late April to make sure the project stays within budget and is expecting a result in the following few months.

WFIRST Project Budget Concerns

Such a big-scale project requires an equally big-scale investment, and NASA is already concerned WFIRST may exceed the allocated funds.

The project received top priority in the latest astrophysics decadal survey released in 2010. But a 2016 study by the National Academies recommended NASA's dark energy mission  still in the early stages of development  for external review on account of financial worries.

This will be the agency's next major astrophysics mission after the James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch next year, and has a "nominal" launch date of September 2025.

However, the cost of development for the new infrared telescope is increasing at a rapid rate and has long exceeded the $1.6 billion budget estimated in 2010.

The most recent financial projections state WFIRST may end up costing $3.2 billion ($2.4 billion in 2010 dollars).

To keep the project from doubling in cost, NASA may need to rethink the infrared telescope's design and possibly even cut back on some of its features.

WFIRST's most expensive feature is the coronagraph, which a different panel estimated at about $350 million. Other changes to the mission design add another $550 million.

To remain within budget, the agency may need to reduce the coronagraph's capabilities or even remove it from the design plan altogether.

A second possibility is to cut down on the number of camera detectors from the Wide-Field instrument, or limit the time dedicated to survey dark energy.

Another option would be to push back the launch date, but that would hinder WFIRST's chance to overlap with the James Webb telescope and find rare celestial objects that the latter could afterwards study in detail.

"This is a good time to take a look at the scale and scope of the mission," said Jon Morse, former head of NASA's astrophysics division and now chief executive of the BoldlyGo Institute.

The biggest financial concern is that the WFIRST project will follow in the footsteps of the James Webb telescope, whose cost swelled from $1 billion in the early 2000s to $8.8 billion, almost depleting NASA's astrophysics budget.

"We have to make sure that we're learning from our experiences in the past and do not upset that balance," showed Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, in a presentation to the National Academies' Space Studies Board last month.

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President-elect Lula da Silva and Sonia Gujajara are expected to meet at the 2022 UN Climate Change next week. | Read More
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The 32-year-old Baton Rouge man who was arrested in the death of a 12-year-old boy after a police chase said Thursday afternoon that he did not hit the child with his pickup truck, according to his attorney.

Joshual Hilton, who was arrested on manslaughter in the incident, maintained he was innocent in what his attorney Ron Haley called a "tragic and avoidable accident that took the life of Sammy," in a statement regarding the death of Samuel "Sammy" Lee III.

Haley said that he filed a motion Thursday in the 19th Judicial District Court asking to inspect the pickup truck Hilton was driving as well as the law enforcement vehicles involved in the May 31 police chase.

+3 New details in what prompted BR police chase that ended with 12-year-old's death Baton Rouge police narcotics detectives had been tailing the man who fatally struck a child 

"The defendant has maintained and will continue to maintain that he did not hit the minor victim," the motion states.

Haley also requested any available ballistic evidence.

State Police spokesman Trooper 1st Class Bryan Lee declined to respond directly to the statements from Hilton's lawyer. He said their agency stands by their arrests.

The statement and motion from Hilton's attorney came within 24-hours of Hilton's re-booking by Baton Rouge police on counts of obstruction of justice, aggravated flight from an officer and possession with intent to distribute Schedule II drugs.

The arrest report detailing the new counts included more information about the events leading up to the chase that police allege ended when the pickup truck driven by Hilton struck and killed the boy.

Baton Rouge narcotics detectives on May 31 were monitoring a house at 5123 Berryville Court because "reliable information was developed indicating the residence was being utilized to received shipments of (drugs)," according to an arrest report filed Wednesday.

Around 5 p.m. detectives observed Hilton enter the residence. A few minutes later, he came out and drove away in his Ford F-150, the report says.

His actions were consistent with what detectives had seen in other narcotics pickups, according to the report, so police tailed Hilton until he stopped at a red light in the 2300 block of O'Neal Lane, more than two miles from the house.

While at the light, detectives turned on their lights and pulled their cars around Hilton's vehicle in an attempt to block him, the report says. Detectives, wearing vests with the word "POLICE" emblazoned across them, got out of their vehicles and approached Hilton on foot, the report says.

Hilton began to drive his truck toward one of the detectives while other officers gave him "audible and visual signals to stop," but instead Hilton accelerated toward the detective, the report says.

"As it became obvious (Hilton) was going to intentionally run over the detective, a second BRPD narcotics detective shot (him)," the report says.

Hilton was injured by a gunshot, but after hitting the detective with his pickup truck, he fled the scene toward Old Hammond Highway with the police chasing him, the report says. The officer was not injured, police have said.

As he raced down the road, Hilton threw large quantities of suspected crystal methamphetamine out the driver's side window of the truck, the report says. As he approached Gloria Drive, Sammy was crossing Old Hammond Highway. Police said this is when Hilton allegedly struck and killed the boy. Hilton stopped in the 15200 block of Old Hammond Highway shortly after running over the boy, according to the report. Hilton was then taken into custody.

When detectives examined his truck, they reported seeing a large amount of suspected crystal meth inside the vehicle.

Detectives recovered about 34 grams of crystal meth from O'Neal Lane and about 112 grams of suspected crystal meth from the interior of the pickup, the report says.

In the attorney's statement, Haley questioned Hilton's latest booking.

"We question the timing of these charges and why it has taken over a week to charge him with these crimes," Haley said.

Baton Rouge Police spokesman Sgt. Don Coppola said their re-booking of Hilton was not immediate because officers had to wait for State Police evidence technicians to finish processing the vehicle.

State Police originally arrested Hilton on manslaughter, reckless operation and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle after the incident, and then added a count of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer a day later.

"In this difficult time we ask for patience until the truth comes out," Haley said. "We seek the truth and we believe when the truth comes to light, the truth will show that Josh is not the responsible party for the death of Sammy."

Haley and his law firm, Haley & Associates, are representing Hilton in the manslaughter case. Hilton is also represented by attorney Chris Alexander, who declined to comment Thursday.

Police arrested a second man the day after the fatal police chase when they returned to the residence on Berryville Court with a search warrant, according to an arrest report.

Tony Bickham, 38, was found inside the residence at 5123 Berryville Court, which is where he lives, on June 1 with 468 grams of heroin, 1,649 grams of meth, 228 grams of marijuana, 34 grams of synthetic marijuana, one ecstasy pill, more than $3,000 in cash and two guns, the report says.

Bickham tried to run from police, but was soon arrested, the report says.

Bickham and his vehicle were identified in Hilton's arrest report, as both Hilton's and Bickham's vehicles were being surveilled May 31 before Hilton left the house.

Bickman was booked on three counts of possession with intent to distribute Schedule I drugs, one count of possession with intent to distribute Schedule II drugs, possession of a firearm with a controlled dangerous substance and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

The narcotics detective who fired the shots at Hilton has been placed on paid administrative leave since the incident, which is protocol for an officer involved in a shooting, Coppola said. Police are not releasing his identity because of the "sensitivity" of his job, Coppola said.
New residential buildings on an 11-block stretch of St. Bernard Avenue will be allowed to include more units than normally permitted if they i
Westpac customers have been targeted by criminals in a malicious email campaign this week that attempts to collect their personal and banking information.

Australian cybersecurity firm MailGuard on Wednesday detected the suspect emails, which are pretending to be from Westpac and designed to alarm customers with the subject "Your account is locked".

Westpac has advised customers that may have entered information into the phishing page to contact it immediately. Credit:Louise Kennerley

"It says the person's account has been temporarily locked 'as a result of technical issues detected'," said MailGuard founder and chief Craig McDonald. "Recipients are told to click a link to unlock their internet banking access."

Upon clicking the link, the user is taken to a fake Westpac login page hosted under the internet domain of a Tanzanian guesthouse, which MailGuard suspects is a victim of hacking itself.
In the sleepy weeks after my daughter was born, I read Eula Biss' excellent On Immunity with her sleeping on my chest (little did I know then how I should have savoured that book: it would turn out to be the last book I'd read until she turned nine months). As I read, feeling the lightness of her being rise and fall with my breath, I imagined her tiny body wracked by the powerful whooping cough I had experienced some years earlier when my mother, a former primary school principal who takes immunosuppressants, brought it home from school and it did the rounds of our family.

My daughter's arrival rendered deeply personal a debate  if it can truly be called that  that had previously been theoretical to me. I was determined to protect her as best I could, but short of never leaving the house I could not prevent her from being exposed to disease. The maternal health nurse assured me we lived in an area where virtually all children were fully vaccinated  unlike my friend who lives in an inner city suburb, and had to exclude her baby son from certain activities because her suburb is a notorious hotspot for anti-vaxxers.

Bayside suburbs have the lowest vaccination rates. Credit:Craig Butt

Periodically  but, unfortunately, with increasing frequency  the vaccination "debate" enters the public consciousness, with airtime given to the baseless views of "skeptics" (who would in truth be better termed "non-thinkers"). While it is true that in the long-term more work needs to be done to understand why parents might refuse to vaccinate and to build trust and improve engagement between skeptics and medical practitioners, in light of evidence published in The Age this week that immunisation rates are not improving in wealthy inner-city suburbs, in the short-term our policymakers must protect the rest of us as best they can.

As the mother of an infant, in my mind that means going beyond the positive reforms already introduced in Victoria  of requiring not only evidence of vaccination status to be shown before government payments can be received, but also before enrolment at childcare or kindergarten is possible  and making enrolment at any school that receives any public funding conditional upon demonstration that a child is fully vaccinated (unless, of course, they are unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons). Linking vaccination status to enrolment rather than financial sanctions (like those introduced by the Italian legislature in May, following a record number of measles cases) would avoid favouring wealthy parents who might care little about a fine. Furthermore, as part of vaccination operating on an "opt-out" system, parents who refuse to vaccinate should be required to sign a form agreeing to bear all financial cost if their child contracts a preventable disease and requires publicly-funded treatment. Measures such as these have unfortunately been necessitated by the need to deter those who persevere with their irrational and deeply anti-social anti-vaccine nonsense.
Remember the Juicy Couture velour tracksuit, the uniform of noughties celebrities and many a gangland wife through much of the early 2000s?

Turns out it had an other young fan in model Karlie Kloss, who has revealed in a YouTube video that a moss green Juicy jacket was one of her most prized possessions before she hit the big time.

'It probably smells so bad.' Karlie Kloss with her beloved Juicy Couture tracksuit top. Credit:YouTube/Klossy

"I feel like it probably smells so bad because I was afraid to wash it!" she says while sniffing the garment.

The tracksuit was first designed for Madonna in 2001 before Jennifer Lopez, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears propelled it to cult fashion item.
NAPLAN's chief administrator says the future of the literacy and numeracy test could be on-demand, with students choosing when and how much of the exam they sit at once.

Stanley Rabinowitz, general manager of assessment and reporting at the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), said giving students more control over when they sit the exams could take some of the pressure off.

"There's nothing magical about a test window," Dr Rabinowitz said. "Who says that May 12 is the point in time? You close down your schools for three days, that's not good.

"You raise the stress levels and everybody doesn't learn at the same pace, everyone isn't ready to take the test at the same time."